CAP 11 CAP 11 - Part 12a - Non-Attacking Moves Discussion

[Chameleon]

I'll probably edit my first post later to include theses updates.

Bulk Up: BugManiacBob really covered it well. It's a secondary option that relates more to Voodoom's overall viability and unpredictability than to Togekiss. The less we stray from Togekiss the better! The only problem is, I won't argue with the Type-Move requirements.

Pain Split: It's allowed already, but I admit that after reading some of the above posts and doing calcs of Focus Punch vs. Suicune and Vaporeon I am fine with it now (2HKOes with LO, but once the sub is broken Voodoom is in trouble).

Now on to the new moves.

Fake Out: Disallow
I am not very comfortable with Voodoom being a lead, because if there's one point that comes up when using an offensive lead, it's that it will often die in the process. Of course, you can't risk Voodoom dying because then there will be no Togekiss synergy, so either you will need to switch out conservatively or stray from the concept. Fake Out is mainly to beat frail focus sash leads anyway, and who uses a sash but lacks inner focus or steadfast...

Assuming a + Speed Nature, focus sash, and using the most effective moves possible after Fake Out. Reverse priority we already have in Vaccuum Wave, etc.

Aerodactyl: Fake Out + another move will not KO. Reverse priority will almost always do so.
Infernape: Fake Out + another move will not KO, and it OHKOes you back. Reverse priority will sometimes get the KO.
Roserade: Unless we run max Atk and Sp.A together, Fake Out + Ice Beam has a 0% chance of KOing.
Azelf: Reverse priority does the same thing against the standard Azelf, it gets SR up either way.
Smeargle: Fake out only helps if we forego Taunt or it U-turns out.
Mamoswine, Gliscor: Reverse priority or Fake Out, we win, only Fake Out stops them from doing anthing first (note: we need Ice Beam for Gliscor). So those are wins for Fake Out.

LO changes these calcs... but with LO recoil racked up, a moveslot used in Fake Out, and no SR on the field to weaken Zapdos, Togekiss cannot rely on Voodoom as much. And don't forget 4MSS, because Fake Out + Ice Beam + Aura Sphere + Dark Pulse makes you miss out on Taunt for bulkier lead opponents.

So, when given Fake Out, Voodoom beats some leads but loses to others, and possibly dies in the process. We can't let Togekiss' friend die early, so don't encourage a lead position with Fake Out.

Destiny Bond:
I'll assume Taunt because it's a type-move requirement, but besides Taunt being diabolical with Destiny Bond in general, it shuts down Vaporeon and Suicune. They can't stat boost or wish, if they KO Voodoom they are eliminated, and if they switch the incoming pokemon is destiny bonded too. We also have the Desiny Bond + Focus Punch combo. While Taunt + Destiny bond would beat Bulky Waters, it sacrifices Voodoom in the process, so it might not be too broken. Just some thoughts.

 

[KingEmpoleon]

Allow:
Baton Pass*
Taunt
Glare

*Maybe not with Mean Look. Although a decent Trap-Passer not named Umbreon would be swell, it would stray away from the concept. It isn't "The Pokemon Who Killed Stall" people. If those two moves are illegal together, that'd be great. But by some weird chance that both are allowed, sh*t's gonna get crazy.

 

[HeavyOctillery]

Edit inb4 other posters.

After looking over both sides of the situation, I've gone back to saying 'allow' for Fake Tears / Metal Sound. Bulky Waters would still smack 'Doom in the face with STAB attacks (possibly OHKO'ing it), so it's still risky. I would like to seriously see some more arguments both for and against it, though.

Psycho Shift: Allow. Quite an interesting way to discourage status effects towards the core.

 

[bubbly]

Baton Pass for allow.

Togekiss is one of the only viable NPlot Baton Passers in the game, and since it can take down most of what Togekiss can't get through, Voodoom makes a great receiver. With Baton Pass in hand it allows the pair to conserve boosts, since in many situations they won't actually have to switch to a third pokemon (and if this is forced, better that this third pokemon receives a NP!)

As some one up there said, Mean Look AND Baton Pass on something like this CAP would be ridiculous, and should be illegal together.

 

[LightningLord2]

I vote Psycho Shift for allowed, because Status (especially paralysis) is a major problem for Togekiss, as it can't get rid of it himself, nor can it benefit from being statused (except maybe for being burned, which blocks Toxic poison and paralysis).

 

[X-Act]

Since Mean Look seems to be going to be allowed (though it's not listed in the OP), Perish Song would ruin the concept of this Pokemon, making it a Perish-trapper with similar SpD to Mismagius, better Def, and better Spe. So I'd push Perish Song to disallowed.

A similar argument can be made for Destiny Bond. Taunt + Destiny Bond on a Pokemon with 110 Speed and good defenses from both approaches is too much, not to mention that it would veer from the original concept of helping Togekiss. Hence I'd also say no to Destiny Bond, and would put it to disallowed.

 

[Scoopapa]

Allowed: Iron Defense / Barrier

I don't think Iron Defense / Barrier would break the concept at all, especially when we consider that we are going to have Bulk Up to pass anyway. For instance, if I want to help Gyarados, Dragonite, Swampert, Snorlax, and Tyranitar, I'm going to pass them Bulk Up, even if I have the option of passing Barrier instead. If I want do a Baton Pass duo with Togekiss, however, I'd rather run Barrier. The only way to make Bulk Up worth it over Barrier is to run a physical set, in which case you can't make use of passed Nasty Plots from Togekiss. Togekiss is still probably the best thing to pass Barrier to, as Voodoom and Togekiss already make a good duo for many other reasons, which include the aforementioned ability to pass back useful boosts. Besides, you don't want to run Baton Pass with only one viable partner, so it's okay if you also want to pass Barrier to something else, preferably something that also likes Nasty Plot. Suicune and Jirachi come to mind.

Physical Mixape Close Combat vs. +2 Baton Pass Togekiss: 30.7% - 36.4%
Physical Mixape Stone Edge vs. +2 Baton Pass Togekiss: 34.2% - 40.6%

You'll survive both after Stealth Rock and Leftovers, and you can easily Roost back up to health and set up Nasty Plot.

Disallowed: Destiny Bond

As much as this is awesome for the flavor, I think it would be overpowered and extremely annoying on this CAP. Destiny Bond is not overwhelming on Gengar because it is so frail, but CAP11 has enough bulk to trade around hits before having to use Destiny Bond. Taunt + Destiny Bond would give him a great way to screw over the bulky waters that we want to be his counters, and could also turn him into an anti-lead. I really don't think CAP11's counters should have to worry about being fainted if they attack it directly. I don't see how suicide bombing with Destiny Bond is going to help Togekiss' sweep, either, because CAP11 already has the tools he needs to deal with Togekiss' counters the American way! : P.

Besides, game freak sets plenty of precedent for leaving out obvious stuff like Destiny Bond on a voodoo doll.

 

[Azule]

Iron Defense/Barrier:Allowed
Togekiss is a bulky Pokemon, by some definition. And it'll be switching in on Pokemon weak to Air Slash, AKA Fighting Types. Fighting Types are mostly physical, so cushioning the blow for Togekiss to switch in is a good idea in terms of synergy
Agility:Disallowed
Togekiss doesn't need speed. By the nature of the Pokemon, to out-speed something, it paralysis it. By allowing Togekiss to out speed Pokemon without needing to paralyse them isn't what Togekiss is traditionally used for, and since the concept isn't to reinvent Togekiss, i'm pushing for disallowed.
Fake Out: Allowed
Why not? It fits Voodoom pretty well, and allows it to work as a lead to keep rocks from going up. Togekiss likes it without it any rocks.
Perish Song: Disallowed
For reasons already stated, this thing has Mean Look, being able to perish trap a Pokemon isn't what Voodoom was made for.
Destiny Bond: Disallowed
Voodoom's speed basicly means that this move is a free kill on anything slower than it when which can KO Voodoom.
Pysco Shift: Allowed
Togekiss hates status. Switch Voodoom in on the status, and shift it to the opposing Pokemon.

 

[Jibaku]

To be very honest I am not sure why people are even freaking out about Mean Look + Perish Song. Sure, he's bulkier than Mismagius. Sure, he's a bit faster, but have we forgotten the pace of Pokemon battles in this generation? Everything is essentially OHKOed, 2HKOed, or 3HKOed. Not to mention, you'll probably be mean looking a Voodoom check on the switch anyways, and chances are you're going to die. As a matter of fact, by opting to use Mean Look + Perish Song, Voodoom would lose to ~80% (yeah made up number but you get the idea) of the Pokemon in the game. If you do successfully pull it off, great. Voodoom will only stay alive at very little health and can't do anything else, and you certainly can't pull off this tactic on the next game. ML + PS is really nothing more than a gimmick and in no way does it break the concept

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Can someone tell me why Aromatherapy/Heal Bell is disallowed? I mean, since Doom and Kiss hate status so much, why shouldn't Doom be able to cure the status?

I don't see why he shouldn't, so HEAL BELL for ALLOWED?

 

[Shnoogle]

To be very honest I am not sure why people are even freaking out about Mean Look + Perish Song. Sure, he's bulkier than Mismagius. Sure, he's a bit faster, but have we forgotten the pace of Pokemon battles in this generation? Everything is essentially OHKOed, 2HKOed, or 3HKOed. Not to mention, you'll probably be mean looking a Voodoom check on the switch anyways, and chances are you're going to die. As a matter of fact, by opting to use Mean Look + Perish Song, Voodoom would lose to ~80% (yeah made up number but you get the idea) of the Pokemon in the game. If you do successfully pull it off, great. Voodoom will only stay alive at very little health and can't do anything else, and you certainly can't pull off this tactic on the next game. ML + PS is really nothing more than a gimmick and in no way does it break the concept

Well, after Mean Looking and Perish Songing whatever Pokémon, Voodoom can always use Pain Split to get back it's health. Considering you said it would take ~80% damage by then (I know it's a made up # but that seems pretty accurate), it can Pain Split and heal to at least 50%, thus meaning the next attack which did 40% the previous turn would not KO, then you can use Protect and Pain Split again while it goes down.

I do see your point, though... It really isn't the most reliable way to take a Pokémon down and I don't see much problem with the combo myself. I just wanted to point out that a set like that could actually work. Then, after Voodoom is close to dead, he can Pain Split something else with his High Speed, possibly survive the next attack and use Perish Song. You are now dead, but you have killed 1 Pokémon, forced another Pokémon to switch out in a few turns, and dealt about 35 or so % damage to it.

 

[Aerodactyl Legend]

To be very honest I am not sure why people are even freaking out about Mean Look + Perish Song. Sure, he's bulkier than Mismagius. Sure, he's a bit faster, but have we forgotten the pace of Pokemon battles in this generation? Everything is essentially OHKOed, 2HKOed, or 3HKOed. Not to mention, you'll probably be mean looking a Voodoom check on the switch anyways, and chances are you're going to die. As a matter of fact, by opting to use Mean Look + Perish Song, Voodoom would lose to ~80% (yeah made up number but you get the idea) of the Pokemon in the game. If you do successfully pull it off, great. Voodoom will only stay alive at very little health and can't do anything else, and you certainly can't pull off this tactic on the next game. ML + PS is really nothing more than a gimmick and in no way does it break the concept

He does have Thunder Wave and a couple other moves to help. I've been able to use the tactic twice with Mismagius or Gengar (by using Hypnosis on the latter) before in several matches, though it's hard to do. I wouldn't say it's gimmicky, but it's surely not as successfully as one would like. You lose the element of suprise after the first time. An opponent would be damned if you did it again. Definitely not something to break the concept.

 

[Deck Knight]

I'm probably going to wrap this up by tomorrow morning, so I want feedback on one more move:

Counter

Voodoom doesn't have many physical weaknesses, but of the two it has Fighting and Flying, it would be able to turn some of the weaker attacks against their users or Focus Sash/Counter for a one-time OHKO.

Heal Bell and Aromatherapy are disallowed because they offer too much generic support to the team, not to Togekiss specifically. Striking a balance between the two is vital for the concept to work.

 

[smallvizier]

First off, Counter is neither broken nor unbalanced. It's a common move already on 11 OU pokemon, and while it's good enough to see use, it doesn't tend to make their primary sets. I see no reason to believe that Voodoom would be any different.

So the question becomes, would Counter help Voodoom to complement Togekiss? I believe the answer is yes.

Togekiss fares very well against special attackers, able to take even one or two super-effective attacks and stay flying. On the other hand, it tends to fold under even neutral physical attacks. Giving counter to Voodoom would give it another weapon against the physical attackers which threaten Togekiss, while being useless against the special attackers which 'Kiss can already deal with.

So: allow Counter because (i) it won't unbalance Voodoom and (ii) it helps it defeat a class of pokemon which threatens Togekiss.

 

[Deck Knight]

I'll leave this thread open for a few more hours for people to mill over my final comments:

New Disallowed Moves:

Destiny Bond:

Destiny Bond is a flavor move but I've been convinced it moves Voodoom too far away from its partnering purpose. In the first instance it will be helping Togekiss with paralysis support so its chance to catch something with DBond surprise will be foiled 25% of the time. It's also more conducive to Anti-leading and if it's a lead its only real role is suicide, having no hazards or support outside Taunt.

Will-O-Wisp and Sleep Moves:

Togekiss likes Paralysis support and everything has Toxic. Burn capability gives Voodoom too much synergy with Pokemon other than Togekiss. Sleep moves in general are powerful but don't help Kiss as much as others. In short these statuses are too generically useful to help Togekiss ascend above the crowd.

Reflect/Light Screen:

These fall under the same class of generic support as WoW and Sleep Moves, except as defensive rather than offensive support.

Combination of Block/Mean Look and Perish Song:

This isn't because it's broken (it isn't), but because its very existence leads Voodoom to a set that drags it away from being supporting to Togekiss and rather being a speciallized Perish Trapping Pokemon. With this in place Block/Mean look are more the flavor moves they're supposed to be than a viable strategy.

 

[Gothic Togekiss]

Nevermind my comment, I was reading the attacks within the disallowed pool wrong. Anyway most of the disallowed moves mentioned above should stay disallowed. We don't want Voodoom to be too helpful towards other Pokemon not named Togekiss. If Counter going to be allowed, what about Mirror Coat? Surely Mirror Coat couldn't be more broken on Voodoom than Counter....can it?

BTW I just noticed that a lot of CAP pokemon rarely have any set-up moves short of Syclant and Arghonaut.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

I am going to bring up a few moves that need to be addressed and that I have feelings for one way or the other. (Oo la la)

Gravity: ALLOW

Voodoom will always have 4MSS, but Gravity actually lets it try to use Focus Blast to some use. I see no reason why this would be broken and it would make for a fun gimmick set. This doesn't really support Togekiss (and actually hurts it...), so I can see the argument against it. Either way, though, Gravity won't be "so amazing" that it overshadows Voodoom's normal Togekiss-helping sets, so I think it should be allowed for posterity.
​

Trick Room: ALLOW

It is much the same as Gravity, except that Voodoom can't even use this one very effectively. Maybe a slow Togekiss would like TR, but doubtful. Honestly, this move would never be used on Voodoom, so I see no reason to disallow it.
​

Iron Defense / Barrier / Acid Armor: ALLOW

I know that there was some argument against this by Deck, but I actually think that it would be very intriguing in baton passing to Togekiss. Togekiss already has excellent SpD, and many of the things that Voodoom lures are physical, meaning that Iron Defense passing to Togekiss would work wonders for beating up on Heracross and Scizor. This could even give Togekiss a serious chance to set up a Nasty Plot pass right back to Voodoom! I think that Iron Defense should be allowed so that we could toy with such applications of the core.
​

 

[Deck Knight]

NAM Conclusion:

As a final note I appreciate everyone who contributed to the discussion. I think this one went pretty well compared to other CAPs because a lot of people made the effort to read the rules and adjusted appropriately after some urging.

There are no remaining moves in controversial, and so there will be no Non-Attacking Moves Poll. While I am hesistant to make this decision, I feel the moves have been suficiently discussed and the focus of our NAM has been clearly defined and honed. The Complete Movepool Submissions thread will be up shortly.

Omnibus from topic and irc:

Allowed:

Gravity: Gravity helps Voodoom with its inaccurate special attacks in Focus Blast and Blizzard. Neither of the two is weak to Ground and Togekiss can handle most of them even without an immunity. Furthermore Gravity helps lol HustleKiss by removing its accuracy issue (it also gives Air Slash >100% acc for 3 turns). The other beneficiaries of Gravity are few and far-between and it specifically makes Zapdos, Rotom-A, Skarmory, and Gyarados less viable since they care much, much more about Grounded hazards and Earthquake vulnerability than Togekiss does. In short it helps address some counters and doesn't do much damage to Togekiss.

Disallowed:

U-turn:

This is essentially inferior to Baton Pass for Voodoom's purposes. Baton Pass still occurs after an opponent switches, giving the same effect while being more synergistic. However, it is sufficiently attractive in and of itself to be used on a gimmick set, and gimmicks tend to be self-contained rather than combination-based.

+2 Defense Moves:

I don't think these are broken or necessarily too deviating. But after mulling it over for a while I decided at the end of the day they moved too far away from the focus of the Voodoom + Togekiss core. Bulk Up will almost always be superior to pass to most recipients, and Togekiss can benefit from +1 Defense better than many other Pokemon. +2 Defense is preferable for other defensive Pokemon, especially Special Defensive Zapdos. In the final analysis it may not be a much larger list of beneficiaries than Bulk Up (as Zappy still does benefit), but Togekiss gets more crowded out in that field and we want to raise it up as much as possible.

In any event Accupressure lets us test something like this, so if people want to try their hand, I say go for it :)

Trick Room:

Trick Room has several liabilities from competitive concerns down to flavor. In the first case Togekiss enjoys paralysis support, and despite full paralysis, any paralyzed Pokemon is going to get the drop on the duo. Trick Room doesn't help Voodoom at all and Togekiss is still a bit too middling to benefit just with its Base Speed.

Encore:

I should have posted this earlier but basically it's with alternate statuses and screens as too generically supportive.

Mirror Coat:

Unlike Counter, Mirror Coat doesn't have anything to stand on flavor-wise, and even competitively the sheer power of Special Attacks and Voodoom
s lack of resistance to any of them makes it a poor candidate. Additionally, Voodoom would be immune to its own Mirror Coat so even in the mirror match it's worthless. So between a lack of useful competitiveness and poor flavor, this one is out.