Policy Review Ability Banlist

nyttyn

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Ban Normalize, because it's a waste of time, both flavor wise and competitive wise. I mean think about it it's the signature ability of the skitty line anyway. Let them keep it.

Ban Multitype for obvious reasons (12 in 1 CAP, arcues already does it sufficently that anything else would be copying it, OP as shit ability)

Ban Drizzle/Drought/Snow Warning/Sand Stream just see the entirety of CAP 3 weather discussion for my feelings on THAT.

Ban Color Change once again, signature ability without competitive merit. I t's a wonderful troll ability at times but the key problem that kills it is that your opponent gets to dictate what type you change to.

Unban Arena Trap see Deck_Knight's post for why i think it should be unbanned.
 

Birkal

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Alright, I've done some updating on the OP of what we've reached a community consensus on. Check it out:

Color Change - Ban
Wonder Guard - Ban
Moody - Ban
Multitype - Ban
Imposter - Ban
Huge Power - Ban
Pure Power - Ban
Bad Dreams - Ban
Teravolt - Ban
Turboblaze - Ban
Victory Star - Ban
Shadow Tag - Ban

Normalize - Ban


A lot of these were pretty obvious. Some received a little objection, but mostly the call was for these to be banned. That leaves us with the following final list to discuss:

Competitive Ability Ban:

Drizzle
Drought
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Arena Trap
Serene Grace
Speed Boost
Sand Veil, Snow Cloak, Tangled Feet
Super Luck, Sniper
Cute Charm
Stench

Flavor Ability Ban:

Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Run Away
Telepathy

I'd like as much feedback as possible on each of these from each PRC member. Also, this is the final leg of this thread, so if you have any objections to abilities on the "discussed" list, bring them up NOW. Also, in terms of the community consensus, all weather-summoning abilities are close to being banned. If you feel strongly compelled that they should stay, bring up those reasons now. However, please don't let them derail this thread either; we need to talk about the rest of these abilities too! Arena Trap was also very controversial as well.

In my personal opinion, I'm great with the Flavor Banlist DougJustDoug proposed (the one listed above. Therefore, I'd agree with a ban on Big Pecks, Friend Guard, Healer, Honey Gather, Illuminate, Pickup, Run Away, and Telepathy. I will also be playing a more active role in the discussion in the final decisions of these controversial competitive abilities. I look forward to your thoughts.
 

Texas Cloverleaf

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Agree with all the flavour bans currently listed.

Disagree with all the competitive bans currently listed bar Drizzle and Serene Grace. The other abilities I see as either negligibly competitive or potentially good abilities to discuss as part of the Pokemon's creation. The weather abilities I feel are not particularly negative in terms of optics with the exception of Drizzle and possibly Drought, due to the strength of Drought, but I err on the side of leniency for Drought.

Speed Boost and Arena Trap are the other potentially controversial abilities and I have no problem with either.
 

Birkal

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Posting this log hot off of #cap because I agree with it entirely.

15:58 DougJustDoug <DarkSlay> It's not like the weather abilities. I don't think that Serene Grace would be the only ability discussed.
15:58 DougJustDoug This wasn't the reasoning for the ban
15:58 DougJustDoug Read the original PR thread
15:58 *** DTC quit (Quit: http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client)
15:58 PureQuestion Basically we don't want hax based choices?
15:58 PureQuestion Also people basing the movepool around it
15:59 DougJustDoug Because Smogon policy is anti-hax as a battle strategy
15:59 DougJustDoug And CAP shouldn't be making pokemon that encourage luck-based strategies.

15:59 PureQuestion mhm
15:59 DougJustDoug Not my personal opinion, btw
15:59 DougJustDoug But it is the Smogon tiering policy​

I completely agree with what Doug's saying here. We should attempt to be consistent with Smogon tiering policy and philosophy when it comes to creating our Pokemon. That's why I believe we should ban Sand Veil, Snow Cloak, Tangled Feet, Super Luck, Sniper, Cute Charm, and Stench from ability discussions.
 

Bughouse

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That's why I believe we should ban Sand Veil, Snow Cloak, Tangled Feet, Super Luck, Sniper, Cute Charm, and Stench from ability discussions.
That's just mildly ridiculous. You have to recognize that these are hardly the sort of competitive abilities we'd be going for (apart from Super Luck or Sniper perhaps.)

Snow Cloak and Sand Veil first of all are banned abilities, so they can only be flavor anyway and I see no reason not to let them be voted for as a flavor option, as such. Tangled Feet, Cute Charm, and Stench can absolutely be flavor too.

For example, Cute Charm is essentially a Static equivalent for infatuation. Static is hardly considered anti-competitive by CAP. Heck, paralysis lasts even after switching out. And affects all foes, not just opposite-gendered ones.

Let's not go overboard here.
 

Bull of Heaven

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Except there's a critical difference between the effects of Cute Charm and Static. Infatuation is entirely luck-based, while the appeal of paralysis is mainly in the guaranteed reduction to the opponent's Speed. It's a debatable line to draw, since both abilities require luck to be activated, but the point is that their effects are, rightly, perceived differently. Static should generate discussion of how a Pokemon can benefit from paralysis, while Cute Charm is only likely to lead to complaints about hax.

It's occurred to me that I'm not sure why we're even talking about banning pure flavour abilities after it was decided in the previous thread that flavour abilities will be made part of the process. Surely we don't want to ban them from designated flavour discussions, and I see no need to ban them from competitive discussions since none of are very likely to pick up any momentum anyway. I reread Doug's original comments on these abilities, and he was clearly proposing at the time that we do away with flavour abilities entirely, which we have already decided not to do. Since the reason to ban them no longer exists, all flavour abilities should be unbanned.

I think I've covered everything else already. Weather abilities and Arena Trap have enough potential competitive value not to be banned, while "anti-competitive" abilities play on mechanics that are universally unpopular (no, the same is not true of weather), and are not worth keeping on the table.

EDIT: Since Birkal clarified what flavour abilities are doing here, I guess we might as well ban them. It seems unnecessary, but I don't see any possible harm in it.
 

Birkal

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It's occurred to me that I'm not sure why we're even talking about banning pure flavour abilities after it was decided in the previous thread that flavour abilities will be made part of the process. Surely we don't want to ban them from designated flavour discussions, and I see no need to ban them from competitive discussions since none of are very likely to pick up any momentum anyway. I reread Doug's original comments on these abilities, and he was clearly proposing at the time that we do away with flavour abilities entirely, which we have already decided not to do. Since the reason to ban them no longer exists, all flavour abilities should be unbanned.
As a point of clarification, we're suggesting flavor abilities to ban from competitive discussions. That's why there is a list specifically dedicated to Flavor Ability Bans. Those are abilities that are banned from competitive discussions because they serve no competitive purpose. Therefore, they should not be discussed in competitive threads.
 

jas61292

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As I'm sure you all know by now, I disagree with any banning of so called "hax abilities" for many reasons, but I feel the crux of the disagreement on this issue is on this:
15:59 DougJustDoug Because Smogon policy is anti-hax as a battle strategy
While I respect Doug's opinion (or in this case, analysis, as he stated it is not his personal opinion), I think this is blatantly untrue. Name one case where something has been banned for luck reasons. Evasion? Oh wait, ubers just unbanned this. Ubers is part of Smogon, so saying smogon is anti-evasion is obviously untrue. OHKO clause? Maybe, but once again, look at ubers, while there were plenty of people complaining about the "uncompetitiveness" of it, a large portion of the decision to keep it banned was on things like how it effected certain playstyles such as stall. And, I mean seriously, what else is there? Moody? Passive free stat boosts is pretty ridiculous no matter how you look at it. That has less to do with luck and more to do with just being an insane ability.

Yes, we do have a lot of vocal individuals who hate luck, but the fact is, Smogon policy is not anti luck. Even those that hate luck need to use real competitive reasoning beyond "its luck based" if they want to get something banned. To call it Smogon's policy is utterly ridiculous, and honestly fairly insulting to people who are not part of that vocal minority that try and get luck banned.

More importantly though, when it comes to this ban list, the list should be about things that derail projects. The fact is, regardless of your opinion on Smogon policy, none of these abilities fall into the category of project dreailing abilities, and as such really shouldn't even be up for discussion, in my opinion.
 

forestflamerunner

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I am in favor of banning the "hax abilities, arena trap, drizzle, and sandstream and I agree with all of the flavor bans.

Hax abilities: Although nothing has ever been banned just because of hax, there is no doubt that a large number of OU players are not in favor of a haxxy metagame. Therefore, Hax abilities will never be more than pure optical nightmares. The second we put Serene Grace or Cute Charm on a Pokemon many competitive players will shake their heads in frustration as we add more luck into the metagamme. This seems to go against our whole goal of recruiting new members. I'm pretty sure the CAP community would stand more to gain from new blood than the inclusion of a few flavor gimmicks, so lets just ban hax abilities and take the net win.

Arena Trap: lets not pretend that Arena Trap is that much worse than Shadow Tag. Arena Trap still affects about 80% of OU pokemon according to the most recent usage statistics. It is without a doubt one of the most powerful abilities in the game, and any CAP with Arena Trap would immediately revolve around Arena Trap. Deck brought up some interesting gimmicks involving Arena Trap, but at the end of the day, thats all they are: gimmicks. No one pokemon can ever take down a well built team, so i don't really see anybody investing a shitload of effort into trapping Latios when there are five other pokemon arena teap handlea much more efficiently. I don't really see us ever learning a great deal from arena trap and it can derail a discussion almost as easily as Shadow Tag so I say ban it.

Weather Abilities: i'm going to talk about all of the weather abilities at once here. I think it goes without saying that Weather abilities can derail ability discussions pretty quickly, case and point being CAP 3. These abilities are tricky to manage and can quickly polarize a CAP process.

However, based on the genVI wishlists, smogonites have been compiling, it is quite obvious that the majority of users are sick of sand and rain and want more balance in the weather wars department. If we manage to create a pokemon that is able to accomplish this feat, at least to some extent, within the near future, we would create a ton of good publicity as players flood in during the playtest to try out the "dream metagame". It is very possible that we can convert some of these playtesters into contributors which is really good for our community. Unfortunately, this would probably require us to give our CAPmon either Snow Warning or Drought, so even though they are heavy abilities, i feel like we should keep them unbanned for their possible high upside. On a related note, Sand Stream and Drizzle have no such upside and therefore should be banned.

Speed Boost:Although Speed Boost was clearly broken on Blaziken, it probably would be extremely underwhelming on a Pokemon without set up moves like swords dance or nasty plot. Speed Boost by itself can only ever give you one extra move against your opponent. Without the ability to nuke the shit out of everything in one hit, Speed Boost becomes a lot less threatening. Yanmega and Sharpedo are perfect examples of this principle; despite respectable offensive stats, neither one of these pokemon are broken because they lack setup moves and can't reach unreal levels of power. I believe that with effective management speed boost can be a useful ability for certain CAP concepts.
 
I am against banning hax abilities just because they are hax. An ability that doesn't derail discussion should be only banned for being overpowered, pure flavor or being a signature ability. Do you really think people will care if a pokemon has Tangled feet or Cute Charm if there is another ability? They are terrible abilities because they are not exploitable.
 
I'll handle these abilities in the order posted, some in groups.

Ban Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream, but maaaaybe leave Snow Warning unbanned. - I prefer to err on the side of leaving these banned until the next review period and pursuing other concepts/themes instead. Snow Warning I'm tentatively fine with because what forestflamerunner suggests about inviting new players sounds reasonable to me. Because Abomasnow's faults keep him out of OU, there has never been a period of Hail dominance for us to see what it's like, and I feel that's at least more interesting than "see if Rain/Sun/Sand can sweep us any harder than they already do"... although, admittedly, Hail has its own problems with a lack of its own Speed-doubling ability.

Ban Arena Trap - Despite the interesting interactions Deck listed, I am more concerned of the likelihood of a scenario where Arena Trap works as intended, leaving the enemy Pokemon at our CAP's mercy. An Arena Trap CAP would function as either an excellent Choiced revenger or an uncounterable Setup Sweeper, it doesn't take an entire CAP project to gauge the effect that ability has... if it were neither - if it were some kind of defensive trapper - but we already have Wobby as a take on that too. Therefore I support banning it.

Ban Sand Veil, Snow Cloak, Tangled Feet, Super Luck, Sniper, Cute Charm, Stench - I generally agree with Doug's response that these shouldn't be allowed in our competitive discussions precisely because Smogon does not endorse hax as a battle strategy. Jas listed reasons to show Smogon is deviating from this stance, and true, Ubers got Evasion unbanned... and for now that's it. It's a recent change and we don't know if it lasts. I don't believe embracing these abilities based on a recent trend would be good for us overall. On the other hand, some of them (Cute Charm in particular) I wouldn't mind seeing allowed during flavor discussions, where they can be nothing except filler/inferior gimmicks.

Unban Serene Grace - The one way this ability differs from the others is that I see potential in how it reduces hax instead of increasing it. Imagine a wall with nonexistent offenses with Serene Grace using offensive moves for their secondary effects: their effect rate then becomes basically move accuracy (and they bypass Taunt). I'm not arguing that this is a viable CAP OU concept, however, I do mean to show that Serene Grace has potential for good discussion among our competitive abilities, discussion that reduces hax instead of emphasizing it. Therefore, it should stay unbanned.

Ban Speed Boost - I've said what I think about this ability earlier already, basically Gamefreak already did our project for us by giving it to Sharpedo and Blaziken. And we know our results - on Blaziken OU can't handle Speed Boost. I guess you could argue that a very slow Pokemon with it could teach us something new, but barring a bulky Speed Boost Substituting Baton Passer, I do not see the appeal of giving a CAP a speed-enhancing ability and crippling its Speed stat for the mere sake of 'it's never been done before'.


Agree on all the Flavor Ability Bans... plus Hyper Cutter and Keen Eye. In an earlier post, Bull of Heaven argued that those two have sufficient utility to be considered competitive. However, having thought about it longer, I still come to the same conclusion: they are outclassed by Clear Body/White Smoke if we were to use their specialized stat protecting effect, and in terms of countering Intimidate, Hyper Cutter is outclassed by Defiant, which gets a boost out of that exchange and has additional utility in the form of powering up upon other random stat downs. Therefore, I recommend adding both Hyper Cutter and Keen Eye to the flavor list.
 
I think that we need to be very careful about banning powerful abilities. Yes, certain abilities have a bad odour around them as far as optics go, and they probably should be banned for that reason. However, I think that by banning abilities merely for being too powerful, we could actually rob ourselves of a powerful tool in balancing a CAP Pokemon. I am of the opinion that CAP 2's concept scared people straight in a way, and a powerful ability can be the same way. By having such a powerful trait, CAP 2 actually gained a lot of focus because balance became such a big factor in its construction.

On the other hand, yes, powerful abilities have potential to take over discussions. One thing I've been wondering about is exactly how undesirable it would be to have one option take over a discussion. Is our goal simply to avoid bad discussions, or is it also undesirable for one option to steal the show, regardless of how fruitful the ensuing discussion is? Should we consider the takeover of one option over others in discussion bad a priori?

If the goal is simply to reduce bad discussion, I basically agree with Texas Cloverleaf on this one. In particular, I don't see why Sand Stream should be banned. Sand was never considered a "problem" field condition until Excadrill came along, and Excadrill is banned. Nearly all of the hatred toward weather is focused on Drizzle. I don't think that it actually has enough large-scale effects to take over a discussion inappropriately.
 

DougJustDoug

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... To call it Smogon's policy is utterly ridiculous, and honestly fairly insulting to people who are not part of that vocal minority that try and get luck banned.

More importantly though, when it comes to this ban list, the list should be about things that derail projects. The fact is, regardless of your opinion on Smogon policy, none of these abilities fall into the category of project dreailing abilities, and as such really shouldn't even be up for discussion, in my opinion.
If it is insulting, then I am insulting myself too. Because I have been very openly against evasion bans, OHKO bans, and all the other anti-hax sentiment within Smogon. I personally think people whine too much about it, and I hate that Smogon has removed HUGE sections of pokemon mechanics from our standard metagames, on the premise that they are anti-competitive. But this is not about my personal feelings on the subject.

Any reference to Ubers as justification for anything competitive is silly, because that metagame is not balanced, was never intended to be balanced, and never will be balanced. It's the place where we put all the broken shit from OU. It just so happens that there are people that enjoy playing an unbalanced metagame, and that's why "Ubers" exists at all. If the players of that metagame have banned or unbanned anything, it is outside the realm of normal Smogon competitive policy.

If you want to argue with me about Ubers and how balanced it plays, don't bother -- because I have personally been arguing for years that the existence of a vibrant Ubers metagame populated with avid players, battle strategies, etc is PROOF that ubers is not nearly as "unbalanced" (read: uncompetitive) as many people seem to think. But that doesn't change the fact that current Smogon tiering policy is that Ubers is unbalanced.

And even if you completely disagree with everything I said above -- it STILL doesn't change the fact that the idea of evasion, OHKO's, and all the other supposedly "hax" mechanics is WITHOUT A DOUBT one of the most divisive and constantly-argued topics in all of Smogon competitive policy. And THAT is the main reason I listed those abilities to be banned from CAP. Not because of my personal feelings on the matter, but simply because I KNOW that Smogon in general has proven that the mechanics represented by those abilities are deeply controversial, and present almost no productive gain for CAP, if we allow them to be included in our competitive discussions.

I do not want to argue in CAP about whether it is good or bad to intentionally attempt to abuse critical hits by making a CAP pokemon with Sniper. I don't want to even go down the road of dealing with an inane discussion about gender selection during team-building as a result of CAP making a Cute Charm pokemon and discussing the viability of an Attract-abuse gimmick set. Are either of these abilities honestly worth the time of day on our pokemon? No. Are either of those discussions something you would consider remotely valuable from a competitiveness or optics standpoint? No. So why the fuck should we allow them to be proposed by some random noob in our ability discussions?

If we allow an ability to be proposed, that means we are willing to entertain the discussion that could result from the suggestion. In this case -- no, I really don't think any of us want to have those discussions, and none of us can claim it would yield any valuable competitive learning. It would just derail the discussion into the typical Smogon "Is hax good or bad" drama debate that has been going on for a bazillion years here. Honestly, do we really want CAP to have those discussions too? No. So let's ban the abilities and remove the possibility entirely.

That's why we are making a ban list in the first place. This is not about determining what is overpowered or not. We are removing abilities that will derail discussions if they come up or abilities that simply don't work with the CAP process.
 

jas61292

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And even if you completely disagree with everything I said above -- it STILL doesn't change the fact that the idea of evasion, OHKO's, and all the other supposedly "hax" mechanics is WITHOUT A DOUBT one of the most divisive and constantly-argued topics in all of Smogon competitive policy. And THAT is the main reason I listed those abilities to be banned from CAP. Not because of my personal feelings on the matter, but simply because I KNOW that Smogon in general has proven that the mechanics represented by those abilities are deeply controversial, and present almost no productive gain for CAP, if we allow them to be included in our competitive discussions.
OK, yes, I agree with most of this. There is no doubt at all that hax realted things are controversial. However, I would disagree that they present no productive gain for CAP. The reason why I love CAP so much is because of the intelligent discussion it allows me to have. Outside of CAP however, it is in discussions about things like evasion where I have had the best discussions. Now, I have no doubt that threads such as these are also home to some of the worst posts in existance, but to say the lack the ability to provide productive gain to competitive discussion is false. To say the the overall quality was lacking is fine, but there is plenty in there that is worthwhile.

I do not want to argue in CAP about whether it is good or bad to intentionally attempt to abuse critical hits by making a CAP pokemon with Sniper. I don't want to even go down the road of dealing with an inane discussion about gender selection during team-building as a result of CAP making a Cute Charm pokemon and discussing the viability of an Attract-abuse gimmick set. Are either of these abilities honestly worth the time of day on our pokemon? No. Are either of those discussions something you would consider remotely valuable from a competitiveness or optics standpoint? No. So why the fuck should we allow them to be proposed by some random noob in our ability discussions?
The main problem I have with the whole hax thing overall though, outside my personal views of Smogon philosophy, is what this quote above is essentially saying. Every CAP there will be abilities that are bad and make no sense. These abilities are no different. They are not discussion centralizing, nor are they competitively useless. Cute Charm, for example, is essentially a lesser version of Static. Both are hax abilitites (which, as an aside, is an important point. Plenty of competitive abilities are hax reliant. We just like to arbitrarily say some are fine and others are not), and both have the effect of causing the Pokemon not to move when it works. However, Static works on more Pokemon in exchange for activating less once the Pokemon is effected. It also is harded to get rid of and has additional effects on speed. Yes, gender mechanics are wierd, and might not be worth having a long discussion on, but the discussion would not be project derailing, and it doesn't even need to be about gender at all. Do we want to give it a way to disrupt guys who try to attack it physically? Boom. Cute Charm. Its not about gender, its about having a annoying effect on those who chose to attack.

However, if you want to go the other way, Static is an ability that relies on luck to use. Do we want a Pokemon that relies on luck to paralyze? Does that provide valuable discussion? Nope. Not at all. No more or less than cute charm. We like to pretend it does because Paralysis is such an ingrained part of our metagame, but in reality, discussion of Static is no more valuable than discussion of Cute Charm. Same goes for Flame Body or Poison Point.

If we allow an ability to be proposed, that means we are willing to entertain the discussion that could result from the suggestion. In this case -- no, I really don't think any of us want to have those discussions, and none of us can claim it would yield any valuable competitive learning. It would just derail the discussion into the typical Smogon "Is hax good or bad" drama debate that has been going on for a bazillion years here. Honestly, do we really want CAP to have those discussions too? No. So let's ban the abilities and remove the possibility entirely.
While I agree with the above in theory, the fact is that the anti-hax mindset has poisoned our view on this. This ill-defined group of "hax abilities" is no more or less project derailing than a wide number of other abilities that exist in the game of Pokemon. Someone bringing up Tangled Feet and getting ignored is no more disruptive than someone bringing up Intimidate and getting ignored. Just because the latter is a better ability does not mean it inherently fosters good discussion. As was brought up in the previous thread, Intimidate is suggested every single CAP regardless of whether or not it fits the concept, and when it doesn't fit the concept, these discussions are just as bad if not worse. It is bad discussions we want to eliminate, and Tangled Feet and the like are no more likely to cause these discussions than any other ability.

Basically, the approach I think we should take with this is a simmilar approach to what we take when it comes to banning things in our metagames. In OU, we ban things that are broken. We don't ban things that annoy people (Jirachi). We don't ban things with high use (Scizor). And at the same time, low use will not detract us from banning something if it is broken (UU Wobbuffet). The same thing should be applied here. We should ban things that derail discussion. How often it is brought up should not be a factor. People's personal opinion on the ability should not be a factor. How much a problem for the project they are should be the only factor.

Multitype is a problem for the project. Wonder Guard is a problem for the project. Shadow Tag is a problem for a project. Cute Charm is NOT a problem for the project. It is an annoying little ability that will almost never be useful for the project, but it is also not a problem. The same applies to all the other hax abilities. And yes, I put emphasis on "almost." None of them are so useless that it is inconcieveable for them ever to be useful. The only exceptions are Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, which are outright banned in OU, making any decision on them irrelivant.

What is all comes down to though is this:
This is not about determining what is overpowered or not. We are removing abilities that will derail discussions if they come up or abilities that simply don't work with the CAP process.
We all agree on this. I just cannot see how using this definition how one can believe that this arbitrary group of "hax abilities" are any worse than anything else.
 
I see no reason that Drought and Snow Warning should get banned. As stated earlier a lot of times, Rain and Sand dominate the metagame, and one factor is their strong weather starter(s). Snow Warning and Drought would only be mentioned if trying to make a Pokèmon that balances the weather metagame, so I see no risk of them detailing the thread.

God, I hate the luck-based ablilities. But I see no problem with Cute Charm, Stench, or Serene Grace. As stated earlier, Cute Charm's infutation is simply an alternate Static. And Jirachi and Togekiss prove the case for Serene Grace alone, proving it is possible to base a Pokèmon off luck. Stench, I dunno. We've never had a strong Pokèmon with Stench, so we don't really know what it can do. I hate the evasion abilities, Sniper, and Super Luck, though. We need to knock those out, since they really are based off pure luck.

Honey Gather is a fine flavour ability, looking at Teddiursa. Pickup actually serves a function in Double Battles, so we need to keep that. In fact, besides Illuminate, all of those abilities serve some purpose in some situation. So I propose ONLY banning Illuminate. Maybe someday we'll design a CAP for Doubles (again: maybe), and some of those abilities could come in handy. Big Pecks, though, is great for bird Pokèmon, and won't derail a thread by any means.
 

Korski

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Not to drag this thread out any longer, but I think there's a way to use the process structure to our advantage to make Ability threads better. I initiated a short conversation on #cap just now, which I'll put right here to prep you all for my idea:
Korski: can we ban abilities from particular ability stages
Zt: TL used to have that power.
Korski: like can drought be banned for secondary ability but allowed for primary
Korski: since we've changed the process now
Zt: That's convoluted, Korski...
Korski: it doesn't have to be
Korski: could you imagine a scenario where a weather-changing ability wouldn't be a primary ability
Zt: But then who decides what abilities can be primary/secondary?
Zt: DW Toed.
jas61292: I don't think that is what he means
Korski: the process
Korski: is perfectly suited for such a proposal
Korski: we now emphasize primary ability as the prioritized direction of the CAP's build
Zt: Yeah, but if we were to classify this, then just about everything's gonna come in on the bandwagon.
Zt: Even if we've pruned the abilities' list by banning quite a few Flavor and Unique abilities.
Korski: naw i just don't want us to thoeryban anything we'll regret
DHR: And Zt, we will never ever do someting like GF did
Korski: and make secondary ability threads cleaner
DHR: because like, we don't have any pokemon that will get third abilities after we make them
DHR: If that makes sense
Korski: *theoryban
Korski: like if we have a "primary ability only" list, the big stuff that loses can't be brought up the next time around
Korski: and we didn't autoban anything potentially educational
Korski: "primary ability only " there defined as the powerful abilities that define a poke's function
Korski: weather, arena trap, speed boost, etc
CiteAndPrune: Primary ability only for anything polarizing like weather starting abilities in particular?
CiteAndPrune: Righto. Also hi
Korski: the primary ability doesn't have to be from that list
Korski: but at least they're allowed
Pwnemon: hi citeandprune :D
Korski: and then disallowed from further discussion when not chosen
DHR: That sounds like a nice compromise
CiteAndPrune: Yeah - anything otherwise allowed can go. Just that primary-ability only won't matter in the secondary discussions - I can totally support this idea.
CiteAndPrune: Hi Pwnemon. Thanks again for the link. =)
Pwnemon: no problem
Korski: okay i don't have the time exactly to post but would anyone be willing to just like put this log up in the thread before it gets closed
Korski: i can try to work something up in the next few days but a general response to the idea would be awesome
Pwnemon: thumbs +

So, we've decided on separating Primary and Secondary Abilities not only by Process steps but also by significance. The Primary Ability is now officially "the best choice" and "the main direction" or "the focus" or whatever, and the Secondary Ability is, well, secondary.

I thought the Drought debate in CAP3 was great. We learned a ton from the Primary Ability discussion and had a really healthy debate over Dry Skin vs. Drought. I don't consider Drought to have derailed CAP3 at all; I think that's an assumption people make because the only point at which Drought became a real problem for the Process was when RD stubbornly fought for it in every single thread (including stats AND movepool) after Water Absorb won the Primary Ability Poll.

Consider CAP4's Ability discussions: what went wrong? Weak Armor beat No Guard and Illusion in the poll, and then No Guard and Illusion topped the remaining polls because they were still popular and being discussed. They overwhelmed the other options in the polls because the arguments for them had been hashed and rehashed over two or three entire discussion threads. Now we have perfect hindsight and all feel foolish for giving Aurumoth three competitive Abilities and two extremely powerful Abilities.

The main problem with Ability threads that causes problems for our creations basically all happen after the Primary Ability threads, which are usually awesome, imo. Now that we have a more common-sense Process order, we should use it to clean those Secondary Ability threads up a bit.

I propose that instead of a straight banlist on Abilities we instead use a "Primary Ability Only" list (or something to that effect), defined as the powerful Abilities that define or strongly correlate to a Poke's function or viability, such as weather-changing Abilities, Arena Trap, Speed Boost, No Guard, Illusion, etc. These Abilities, if not chosen for the CAP's Primary Ability, are banned from discussion in any future threads.

I think we can all agree that giving a Poke even two of these kinds of Abilities is bad PR. We should also agree that one of them won't derail an entire Project if they are the focus of an early Process stage. This proposal does not have to step on the toes of flavor-banned or anti-competitive Ability banlists, but it is a compromise in that it doesn't outright ban any Abilities that could prove worthy or educational down the road.

I won't make this post too long, so I'll wait for a general reaction before posting again. I think I was probably more eloquent in the chatlog than in the body of this post, so just refer to that if you are confused.

EDIT: This could also be called a "secondary ability banlist," which would clear up the issue of having multiple banlists at once. The "primary ability banlist" would just be stuff like multitype and wonder guard and would be smaller in comparison.
 
I am all for this idea instead of a banlist.

I presume it'll be working in reverse with the completely uncompetitive abilities as well?
 

paintseagull

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PEOPLE

All of the discussions about "hax" or "Ability X is okay because it decreases hax" or "anti-hax" policy are going to go NOWHERE because you are talking about a completely undefined thing. I bet if every single one of you wrote down your definition of "hax" they would all be different.

As far as I interpret it, the smogon policy of being "anti-hax" is actually a statement that increasing the probability of your move hitting (or critical hitting) or decreasing the probability of your opponent is an uninteresting/frustrating/anti-competitive/stupid strategy and as such they have rules in place to minimize it. (We can argue over whether this is fair or if it goes far enough or if it should be abolished but this is not the place for that).

So the assumption we should be working with then is that any strategy that involves CHANGING PROBABILITIES is anti-competitive and therefore it should not enter our competitive discussions when creating pokemon in CAP.

Moves that have less than 100% probabilities of hitting have nothing to do with such a policy. It is ALTERING this probability that counts. It's important to remember that, outside of this alteration, if you are the better player , you will win more times than your opponent in the long run regardless of having "bad luck" (WHICH ISN'T REAL BY THE WAY) sometimes.

Ok pet peeve rant over

Edit: In case you are wondering why this is relevant, it blows a giant hole in the "serene grace shouldn't be banned because it reduces hax" argument (as an example)
 

jas61292

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I was talking with paintseagull about her post above, and overall we both kinda felt like people might not necessarily understand the point she was trying to get at with that post. So, I thought it would be a good idea to post the log of the conversation here for people to see:
#cap said:
<jas61292> paintseagull, while in general I agree with your post (well, not that it is smogon's policy to be anti-hax, or that they should be banned, but on the definition of hax), the problem I see is that it in no way includes 3 of the so called "hax abilities" on the list: Cute Charm, Stench and Sniper. The first 2 adding chances rather than modifying them, and the latter one having to do with damage not probibility.
<paintseagull> Sniper is the same thing - you're increasing your chance to do extra damage
<jas61292> Not really. You are increasing your damage, but not your chance to do so.
<paintseagull> Cute Charm and Stench are also covered by that, you end up reducing your opponent's probability
<paintseagull> oh, right, okay
<jas61292> The problem there is under that definition, Static, as well as the entire Paralysis and Confusion statuses would be hax that should be banned.
<paintseagull> I don't really have a stance on whether or not we should include them, I just find it frustrating to see people arguing on based on something undefined
<jas61292> Oh, I totally agree
<paintseagull> jas, I know, but we're not talking about whether Smogon's policy is fair or not
<jas61292> The thing is, the way I see it, when people talk about hax, probability alteration is just a small subset of it.
<paintseagull> I'm just taking Doug's statement that Smogon is anti-hax as a given and going from there. my personal opinion I'm not sure about
<paintseagull> jas, I agree, but in terms of what you base your strategy around, it's the altering of probabilities that people have a specific issue with
<paintseagull> hence evasion clause. Why paralysis isn't counted in this is beyond me, but that's a separate issue
<jas61292> Well, honestly, I never see anyone with problems with such alteration besides with evasion
<paintseagull> that's because they don't understand what they're talking about
<paintseagull> using the word "hax" just increases this problem of people talking about shit they don't understand
<jas61292> people get annoyed by paralasis or Serene Grace flinches, but no one (or at least very very few people) actually want anthing "hax" related other than evasion banned.
<jas61292> Which is why the whole "smogon is anti hax" idea just baffels me
<paintseagull> right, but the question then becomes is it okay to base our competitive discussions around increasing your probability
<paintseagull> which I think is a totally legit discussion to have
<paintseagull> that's the discussion we SHOULD be having
<paintseagull> but we're not. we're saying shit like "it's okay to decrease hax but not decrease it" ARG
<paintseagull> sorry decrease but not increase I mean
<jas61292> Oh definitely
<jas61292> we should really be discussing the specifics of what we are fine with rather than say "hax" is a group of stuff, lets ban/not ban it.
That last line is really the important part. People on both sides of the "hax" debate have really been guilty of arguing for one side or the other without ever considering what their side is or what our policy should be on the specific things they include in their generalizations. I know full well that I personally have been one of the bigger offenders when it comes to this, but really most posts regarding these abilities so far have fallen into this trap.

The problem is, we have been talking about "hax" as if it is some defined thing on which smogon has a policy or on which we here in CAP should have a policy. However, the fact is, no two people really can agree on what "hax" even is. In fact, I think the closest we will get to a definition of "hax" was what Mos-Quitoxe said in the very next line after the conversation above: "'hax' is whatever caused you to lose the last match you had."

What we should be doing here, rather than discussing whether or not it is good policy to ban "hax abilities" is to look at each ability (or ability type in the case of very similar abilities) and decide what our policy is on the individual issue. While even if we can look at Smogon policies and se that it is clear that we do not like Evasion, not all of these abilities fall into that category. As I said in the above conversation, clearly, even if Smogon policy is against some forms of "hax", it is not "anti-hax" across the board, or else things like paralysis and confusion would have gotten the axe. So, rather than discussing what our stance on "hax" is, we should be looking at these individual things.

As I said in my previous post, Static is just as much a "hax" ability as any other, but we are not against that. Likewise, even if we have problems with some of these so-called "hax abilities" that does not mean we have to group them all together and ban them. "Hax" is just a made up word that doesn't actually mean anything. So let's get rid of that term from here and actually discuss these abilities like any other, and judge them based on what they do and how it affects the project.

Looking at it in this light, my personal opinions stay mostly unchanged. However, since it is clear to me that evasion, unlike most other things, is a strategy looked down upon in genral by Smogon, I think it is fine to ban Tangled Feet (along with the OU banned Sand Veil and Snow Cloak). Otherwise, I feel that since our policy here at CAP, and throughout Smogon as a whole, is neither for nor against any one of the specific strategies presented by these abilities, there is no reason to ban them unless someone can prove that they derail discussion more than any other ability.
 
I support Korski's proposal - whatever name we give that banlist, selecting abilities that can only be primary and not brought up during secondary ability discussion is an elegant compromise. Weather-starting abilities should get that status.... and I'm not sure what else. For now, I'll think of this some more though.


I also agree with paintseagull and jas on the need to address 'hax' not as one uniform thing but as the separate things that constitute it. We should really be looking at these abilities individually, not blanket-grouping them with the others.

I'll start myself to set an example, at least if I'm wrong you can tell me what about. So.... what is hax?

'Hax' is something outside either player's control. Period.

Under this broad definition, a lot of stuff commonly accepted as part of the game gets called 'hax'. There are moves missing due to accuracy (or evasion), there are abilities with a % chance to activate. There are critical hits (and even just high/low damage rolls) due to the variable factor in the damage formula. There are also Speed ties decided by RNG - and that one Speed tie can actually decide the entire match.

This allows for a marked difference between 'hax' and 'luck' factors. For example, a player cannot control what Pokemon his team will face, but that is something under the opponent's control, so, a matter of luck but not hax.

There are also mixed cases: a player can't control the 30% effect chance of Volcarona's Flame Body burning Scizor upon a predicted U-Turn, but what the player CAN control is adding Volcarona to the team in the first place - and selecting Flame Body over Swarm and its marked boost to Bug Buzz.

What I feel is important to stress is that not all hax is bad. I feel that our goal in studying the competitive Pokemon metagame includes analyzing its hax pieces, and learning to tell the good and the bad hax apart. In the following spoilers I'll evaluate a handful of abilites (or entire game mechanics) that have a relation to hax and whether or not I feel they're the 'bad sort of hax'.

Evasion
Sand Veil, Snow Cloak, Tangled Feet, and MOODY

In designing the Pokemon game in the first place, and the first gen in particular, Game Freak went with a lot of decisions about what made the game 'cool' and not about what would make it 'competitive' - that desire arose from the playerbase. Evasion as a mechanic in and of itself is not a mechanic conductive towards a competitive metagame.

It's not about whether I like or dislike Evasion personally. I am saying that objectively you can point out the effects Evasion has on metagames and the disruption it causes, as a mechanic - and as all moves and abilities that work off of that mechanic. It should be banned in any competitive gaming community, like Smogon. It's justified - and these are ther reasons.

To start off, if Evasion wasn't banned, it would be the key to winning your games. Evasion makes defensive stats irrelevant to tanking, outclassing stall as we know it; and also, Evasion trumps over offense because all their power is worthless if attacks don't land, while vs traditional stall, offense can employ wallbreakers, mixed and choiced attackers to eventually overcome the match up. The time of Evasion+Rest+Boosting move+Offensive move emerged already in Gen 1 as the superior strategy whenever it wasn't banned (even moreso back then when OHKOs and 2HKOs were that much harder to achieve with that time's offensive stats). The competitive scene couldn't handle it - why?

A competitive scene should stay varied to be healthy. Whenever one dominant strategy emerges, it either gets nerfed (which in Pokemon we can't do) or banned, to allow other strategies room to grow. Evasion is just the kind of mechanic that, through its mere existence in the game, outclasses and devaluates strategies centered around other mechanics harder than Scizor kicks Weavile out of OU.

There is another problem inherent in Evasion, however. It is not conductive to counterplay, or, the opponent can't answer it (unless they pack a No Guard Pokemon or one of the never-miss moves, which outside of Aura Sphere and Technician boosts are inferior choices as general-purpose offense). In a metagame with Evasion allowed, you're playing dice against the RNG instead of your actual human opponent. Now imagine two Evasion teams racing for their max boosts and then proceeding to miss on following hits (although never-miss moves would get popular in such a metagame).

If Whirlwind/Roar were never-miss moves (though there's also Haze/Perish Song), then this wouldn't be so bad and teams could counter Evasion stacking just like they currently counter meaty Bulk Up/Calm Mind sweepers. Accuracy drops aren't nearly as bad as Evasion increases either, because switching counters them - the enemy player has a guaranteed counterplay option available to them. That's healthy for competitive play, that promotes interaction between teams.

So, the long and short of it is, Evasion is a mechanic disruptive to competitive play, and in our CAP metagame we should be promoting what is conductive to competitive play, so Evasion must go.

Sand Veil and Snow Cloak deserve to be banned as they are now, since they introduce Evasion at no cost (well, maintaing the weather advantage, which doesn't even take up a turn's move with the available weather starters).

Tangled Feet, if not for the risk of hitting oneself in confusion, would be a godly ability and make Teeter Dance a decent move - purely for its value in granting access to Evasion. I've seen suggestions thrown around that 'this ability would be good if only it removed confusion's chance to hit yourself' - why yes, it'd be basically Own Tempo plus free Evasion if that were so. It deserves to be banned like the rest of them.

Now Moody is already banned, I know, but I want to bring it up in this discussion because it's a relevant example showing why Evasion is so overpowered. Moody slipped under the radar for a long time before Gen V appeared because, on the face of it, it's a very bad ability - just like Accupressure is a bad move for selecting a random boost. It's just not reliable enough to base a set around it, aiming to accumulate enough boosts to sweep teams. Moody's best-case abuse set relies on stalling for life with Substitute and Protect and hoping the Gods of RNG bless you with Evasion boosts (and Speed). Then you start wrecking faces. What does this mean?

Moody is broken solely because Evasion is broken. Moody allowed Evasion a backdoor-entry into OU; if it worked like it does now EXCEPT it couldn't raise the user's Evasion stat, then a Sub+Protect Moody staller could just get Phazed/Hazed/PerishTrapped to death/TAUNTED, or plain crushed by pure offense because the other important boosts (defenses and Speed) cannot be reliably obtained most times. People would dismiss it as trash - but Evasion is good and people caught on.

I'm hoping I didn't bore you too much with this section, but it captures the reasons why Evasion is our main culprit in terms of 'hax' talk. It is the worst kind of hax (alongside unlimited Sleep/Freeze) and perhaps the single most appropriate example where hax complaints are justified and the Evasion ban Smogon enforces works for the metagame's own good.


Critical Hits
Super Luck and Sniper

These two are the abilities pertaining to critical hits; the first raises crit ratio of all offensive moves by 1 stage, the latter makes crits deal triple damage instead of double.

Why is crit a common complaint when 'hax' is brought up? Because of the sheer number of times that 'I should've won but then he crit and turned it around'. It's frustrating to lose games due to a RNG roll like that, something which neither player has control over (.... usually).

However, unlike Evasion, I strongly believe that the existence of Crits (and the way the damage formula itself works in Pokemon) is healthy for the metagame. Crits are just an exaggerated expansion of the effects the randomized damage roll has on gameplay; if Crits didn't exist, the actual variation of damage would often fall into regions that aren't impactful enough. Crits are the balancing factor keeping stall from dominating the metagame (or they were before our hyper-offensive behemoths entered in Gen V).

Imagine for a second that Crits were gone and the random variable was taken away from the damage formula. You could calculate the exact damage inflicted to your poke every single time - you wouldn't have to guess but could precisely know whether or not you can survive another turn. Heck you could gauge the enemy's EVs for offense and defense after one turn of trading damage. This would reward micromanagement mathcrafting players and lead to DEF/HP/SDF creep during EVing just like there is currently Speed EV creeps among the slowest tanks.

I uphold that critical hits are a part of the game just as much as other mechanics, and conductive to competitive play. It's a mechanic centered around RNG - but only up to a point. Here in CAP we COULD in theory make an Ice/Fighting CAP with Sniper relying on Frost Breath and Storm Throw for its mixed offense, and adjust its ATK and SAT stats so the perma-crit wouldn't be overpowered for the metagame. We'd just effectively have 'Ice/Fighting mixed attacker with two 120 power STAB moves (one with 90 accuracy the other a type one can be immune to) that ignores negative stat modifiers'. Oh and it'd get nicely walled by Jellicent, bar sufficient coverage.

I'm not sure of Super Luck (although at 50:50 crit chance you can argue that's not really up to 'luck' or RNG anymore, but akin to +6 ATK from Belly Drum - something you ought to be unable to survive) but I'm confident that Sniper isn't the bad kind of hax, not with the Gen 5 tools we were given. However, given Korski's proposal, I'd put them as Primary-only abilities so stats could be tailored to account for them and the entire premise of a Pokemon centered around them. If they don't derail secondary discussions once a CAP has another focus, then leaving them a chance to get chosen as primary wouldn't be too bad.


Contact Hit Punishers
Cute Charm and Cursed Body... surprised?
Although if I wanted to be exhaustive, I'd list Static/Flame Body/Poison Point/Effect Spore here as well. All of them rely on RNG to apply their effect, but also depend on the enemy's using a contact move... although Cursed Body is an exception from the norm here.

I don't see why Cute Charm brings so much hate. Its 30% effect rate is not different from Flame Body/Static's chance, Infatuation depends on the genders of both players so it's not really hax (they have control over it, just - it's not something that normally matters), you also rely on the trigger of a contact move AND you can switch out to end it, same as with confusion. Cursed Body's disable is strictly superior, as most cases there's only one move that matters - or against Choiced opponents, even more so.

Above all else, the effect of that ability, how many abilities outclass it and even its name should be screaming 'flavor' - so why not delegate Cute Charm to the group of Flavor abilities? It'd be banned from competitive discussions all the same, and it'd be brought up based on Art considerations - which I feel is much more appropriate than any incentive for gimmick sets. Let the Cute ones value Cuteness for its own sake.


On hit bonus
Stench and Poison Hand

Uhh, after the above paragraph on Cute Charm, do I really have to repeat myself? Their effect, while relatively minor, can be situationally useful - it's not different from Serene Grace boosting secondary effects except the scope is more narrow - there's nothing inherently 'wrong' with these abilities except that the activation chance is dependent on RNG... but is that wholly hax? It's part hax, while the rest of it is relying on the player selecting flinching/poison moves and actually making contact with the opponent. Above all else, supposing that variants of these existed that enabled "20% Burn/Paralysis on landing a contact move" I assure you they'd be getting chosen, and seen as strictly superior to Flame Body/Static for leaving it up to the player to decide to attack and count on their activation.

I think Stench is fine and should be unbanned (or at most flavor-banned).


Well, that was a lot to read I'm sure. Here's a TL;DR version for my less patient readers:

-There are good and bad kinds of hax.
-Evasion is the worst kind of hax and should be banned because nobody likes getting swept by a +6 Evasion poke.
-Crits are the good kind of hax that allows us to have a balanced metagame instead of a stall-dominated metagame. However, I'd support putting them as primary-only like weather-starting abilities for how central they are to a CAP that has them.
-Cute Charm is flavor-tier hax and belongs on the list of flavor abilities.
 
capefeather said:
Of course, Huge Power / Pure Power only really makes sense before stats, where it can be discussed in the abstract, so I'd definitely go for banning it from secondary ability discussions.
Suffice to say I agree with Korski's proposal.
 

nyttyn

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PEOPLE

All of the discussions about "hax" or "Ability X is okay because it decreases hax" or "anti-hax" policy are going to go NOWHERE because you are talking about a completely undefined thing. I bet if every single one of you wrote down your definition of "hax" they would all be different.

As far as I interpret it, the smogon policy of being "anti-hax" is actually a statement that increasing the probability of your move hitting (or critical hitting) or decreasing the probability of your opponent is an uninteresting/frustrating/anti-competitive/stupid strategy and as such they have rules in place to minimize it. (We can argue over whether this is fair or if it goes far enough or if it should be abolished but this is not the place for that).

So the assumption we should be working with then is that any strategy that involves CHANGING PROBABILITIES is anti-competitive and therefore it should not enter our competitive discussions when creating pokemon in CAP.

Moves that have less than 100% probabilities of hitting have nothing to do with such a policy. It is ALTERING this probability that counts. It's important to remember that, outside of this alteration, if you are the better player , you will win more times than your opponent in the long run regardless of having "bad luck" (WHICH ISN'T REAL BY THE WAY) sometimes.

Ok pet peeve rant over

Edit: In case you are wondering why this is relevant, it blows a giant hole in the "serene grace shouldn't be banned because it reduces hax" argument (as an example)

I'ma go ahead and stop you right there Paintseagull. If that was the policy, then Wide Lens and Zoom Lens would've been banned a long time ago. Time after time again, what we've banned have always been effects and abilities that reduce the chance of something happening - not once have we, with the exception of Moody's accuracy boost (the ability was banned for evasion hax anyways), banned something that increases the chance of something occurring. Super Luck, Wide Lens, Zoom Lens, Focus Energy, all these things would've been on the table to be removed - but they're not. They haven't been ever removed, because the "Anti-Hax" policy focuses on evasion and missing, not hitmoar and critmoar things.

You could make an argument for Shaymin-S, but Shaymin-S was banned for more then just the 60% flinch chance that Serene Grace gave it (As our friend Togekiss can attest to, enjoying that same 60% flinch chance).

Increasing the probability of your own shit happening is not, has not, and I'm pretty sure never will be frowned upon - it has always been lowering the chance of your opponent's shit hitting/happening that's gotten the banstick / frownyface by Smogon.

At the end of the day though what's important is not minimalising hax, it's minimalising hax that goes above and beyond the normal level of luck that makes competitive play interesting. If we totally banned any ability that remotely has a chance modifier, then...well, we might as well ban Scald and friends.


As for CAP's post I agree mostly with what he has to say. Poison Touch however should be unbanned because it completely sucks dick since it's only regular poison as opposed to Toxic's deadly poison. This is actually a bad thing in many instances because it means you can't nail them with a more useful status infliction. I also agree Cursed Body is an exception from the norm - I find it similar to Scald, in that regard.
 

DougJustDoug

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We can take all the so-called "Hax abilities" off the ban list. I have posted a lot about them, but I honestly don't think any of the abilities mentioned are legitimate abilities that CAP will really consider. The only one that has a prayer of being considered competitively for CAP is Serene Grace.

My entire point on this is to remove stuff that we don't think has any reasonable chance of generating good competitive discussions if they are proposed on future CAP projects.

I have been mentioning Cute Charm a lot, but I don't have any particular agenda against that ability specifically. I just used it as an example and it stuck. Not because I think Cute Charm is a good ability, it's just an example of a shitty ability that has a very minor impact on competitive play, and the minor impact it has is not at all interesting competitively. And when I say it is "not interesting", I don't mean "it is so low-powered it is not interesting to me". I mean, "the mechanics of using near-random Attraction as a competitive tactic is, at best, an annoying gimmick, and, at worst, is the hallmark of a very shitty player, therefore anyone interested in high-level competitive discussions will not be interested in discussing this". That's what I mean when I say that Cute Charm could "derail discussions". The same applies to abilities that depend on crits, flinch, etc.

Do I think we'll ever be faced with a concept that realistically requires Cute Charm to be legitimately considered? No. Never. Whether we ban it or not, I honestly don't think Cute Charm is some big lurking evil that will be a constant pain for CAP. Cute Charm ain't Drought, that's for damn sure. But if Cute Charm is ever uttered in CAP discussions, it BETTER only be mentioned because we have artwork that looks cute, and that's all. If anyone wants to even BREATHE a competitive consideration for using the attraction mechanics on CAP as a "competitive learning experiment", then they are barking up the wrong tree. I just don't think anything productive comes from that, in terms of showing Smogon what a great competitive learning project we have here. The same applies to all those other shitty abilities that have no valuable competitive impact because their effects are in the realm of what is commonly considered "hax".

By the same token, I agree with Korski's assertion (I think it was Korski, I'm not sure) that if we ban a shitty ability like Cute Charm, we likely face public relations blowback. I wouldn't be surprised if it elicited comments like:
"LOL, can you believe what those CAP nerds consider to be a broken ability? Cute Charm. Fucking Cute Charm, can you believe it! Those CAP guys are even more retarded than I thought. They give their pokemon abilities like No Guard and Illusion together, but then they go and ban stupid shit like Cute Charm! LOLLLLLL!!!"

At this point, I can't disagree with that, and I REALLY regret ever introducing the word "ban" in association with this list of abilities. Because as I have said repeatedly in past posts, this isn't about what is good or overpowered, it's about what is a distraction. But sadly, there isn't really a way to make a list of things that are "excluded" in pokemon, WITHOUT it being called "a banlist", colloquially or otherwise. And in Pokemon, "Ban = Overpowered". From an optics standpoint, we have to just accept that as a given.

So with all that in mind, I suggest we remove all the so-called "hax abilities" from the ban list and move on.
 

Korski

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Okay I'm going to modify my original proposal and make it all official-like.

The Proposal:

For all competitive Ability Discussions, we will post in the OP of those threads one of two banlists: a Primary Ability Banlist, or a Secondary Ability Banlist, to be applied to their respective threads. The contents of these banlists are banned from all discussion in their respective threads:


Air Lock
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Defeatist
Forecast
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Sand Veil
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Snow Cloak
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

----------

Big Pecks
Flower Gift
Friend Guard
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Run Away
Telepathy

Air Lock
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Defeatist
Forecast
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Sand Veil
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Snow Cloak
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

----------

Big Pecks
Flower Gift
Friend Guard
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Run Away
Telepathy

----------

Arena Trap
Drizzle
Drought
Huge Power
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Prankster
Pure Power
Sand Stream
Serene Grace
Snow Warning
Speed Boost


--------------------

Okay so instead of putting everything up for discussion I've just shown what the banlists could end up looking like once we've settled on everything. We can still debate over which Abilities should go where or which should be banned or unbanned, but my proposal does not deal with individual Abilities. The proposal is aimed at keeping the Secondary Ability from defining the Pokemon's function, as that is what the Primary Ability is for, or from radically shifting the CAP's direction. Simultaneously, this proposal leaves the Primary Ability discussion open to more powerful Abilities that don't deserve to be banned on their own merit. The proposal also aims to more clearly emphasize the Primary Ability as "the more powerful Ability" by explicitly only allowing discussion of the most powerful Abilities in the Primary Ability thread. For those who thought the original proposal was too convoluted, I hope this modification addresses your concerns.

EDIT: If we wanted, we could add a bunch more stuff to the Secondary Ability Banlist, like Simple or Magic Bounce or Multiscale or any of those other "exceptional abilities." This is just a preliminary list; we can decide how not-powerful we want our Secondary Abilities to be.
EDIT2: I'm going to add Magic Bounce. How about Prankster and Multiscale?
EDIT3: nyttyn pointed out a crucial error that I have fixed and incorporated into the proposal.
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
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I think for the sake of optics, we shouldn't call it a banlist, but instead call it the "Flavor Ability Only" list. In addition, there's no need to call it the "Primary Ability Banlist" if it's banned from all tiers - it should just be called the "Ability Banlist" or "Forbidden Abilities." We should also go out of our way to emphasize that the unbanned abilities are all in their own separate "Tiers," for the sake of having an actual, competitive discussion, rather then us trying to be tryhards who are banning everything.

Prankster should be on the Secondary Ability Banlist, while Multiscale I'm not so sure about - since as a whole it is very meh without recovery. Still, should be banned from Secondary just to be safe.

Edit: My Proposal, in visual terms


LEGENDARY SIGNATURE, DISTRACTING, AND OTHER PROJECT/OPTICS KILLING SHITTY ABILITIES GO HERE

These abilities are just flat out forbidden from CAP period.
Forbidden Abilities + shit too powerful/defining for a secondary ability

These abilities are not allowed to be discussed or used for the secondary ability.
shitty abilities that serve as flavor only and do not exist with serious, competitive merit

These abilities cannot be discussed outside of the flavor ability, and are the only ones allowed to be discussed during the flavor ability.
 

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