This is one of the problems with CAP. We voted for an ability that does exactly what we want this CAP to do in Volt Absorb. However, the majority of people in this thread don't want to leave it at that. I find suggestions of any competitive ability ridiculous since this CAP doesn't need them. Look at Arghonaut. It has Unaware, an excellent ability that does exactly what it needs to do. It doesn't have nor need a secondary ability. However, look at Krillowatt. We gave it Trace to be a utility counter. Then what did we do? We gave it Magic Guard, one of the best abilities in the game period. What did it do? It turned Krillowatt into a Life Orb sweeper with zero drawbacks, instead of its intended utility counter. However, Arghonaut is still the same defensive tank we wanted it to be.
To sum it up: if we give this Pokemon a second competitive ability, we automatically risk it doing something other than its original intention. Thus, I believe we should go with either No Secondary Ability, or a complete flavor ability like Lightning Rod or Steadfast.
I really don't understand why any competitive ability that could actually suit the concept be automatically redicilous. I totally understand the fear that having a second ability might more easily shift CAP 11 towards being broken if the wrong abilities end up being discussed, like it did with Krillowatt.
But to say that because CAP11 doesn't need anything outside of Volt Absorb so any competitive suggestion is redicilous feels rather counter-productive to the very purpose of any discussion thread. I'm fine with people saying that NSA is the right choice because of reasoning X and Y, and I actually think NSA is a decent choice.
However, I feel there are options outside of NSA that could be discussed that I feel could benefit the concept of being a good partner to Togekiss.
I feel that any suggestions should at least be properly considered to be worthwile to the concept, and not be branded rediculous by default.
If NSA proves to better suit the concept after further discussion, that is fine. That's the whole point of a discussion thread.
Anyway, the first and foremost rather peculiar ability I would like to adress is
Normalize. It's very much a one-trick pony ability and in almost all ways inferior to Volt Absorb. However, concept wise, if you really want Togekiss to be the leading sweeper, and you want an accurate way of Paralyzing threads that can't be paralyzed with Electric type TW, Normalize might actually be of some use on very rare occasions. Jolteon, Electivire and all Ground types are the most important targets for this ability.
And yes, I do realize that it's really a terrible ability for just about anything else, but even if Normalize only would be used 1% of the time, it would've still been better than NSA. I feel Normalize could aid the concept of being able to spread normal type paralysis to just about anything, with the except of ghosts.
I would also like to throw my support behind
Synchronize, again for the exact same reason of Normalize. If you prefer to paralyse the opponents team to help Togekiss be the sweeper, Synchronizing is one way of getting opponents paralyzed.
Static is also one of these abilities that would somewhat help spreading paralysis around. I feel that both are too unreliable to actually have much merit, but I wanted to mention them anyhow, as spreading paralysis is still one of the major aspects on how to get this concept to work.
Another concept related aspect that gets thrown around a lot is that CAP 11 is going to be a receiver of Nasty Plots through Baton Pass. If my team doesn't care much about Electric type pokemon's, I would take
Suction Cups or at least
Soundproof as a second abilty over Volt Absorb, to hinder phazing of the precious NP boosts.
For the same reason of keeping any boosts,
Clear Body could also be a viable choice, not to stop phazing, but at least the gained boosts would not be negated by opponent inflicted stat dropping attempts, however rare they are.
Last, I would like to propose either
No Guard or
Compoundeyes, if only for the sake of failblast. As we don't know anything about a future movepool yet, any mention of specific moves would be poll jumping. However, there are quite a few lower accuracy moves, like Stun Spore or Zap Cannon that aid the concept through paralyses and their only flaws are their accuracy. I could mention more moves which would also benefit both options, but that could be talked about later, when one of these two options get chosen or not.
Personally, I favor
Normalize. It's very much so an very uncommon ability and it has never been seen before on a pokemon with decent stats. It would teach us quite some bit about this almost never mentioned ability as well as aid the concept with almost non resisted Thunder Waves.
I'd also be fine with
No Guard or
No secondary ability.
Abilities just for flavor would be new, but I don't really see the point of that, and for simplication sake, I would vote for NSA anyway if any of the above more competitive options don't make it to the poll.
