CAP 18 CAP 18 - Part 9 - Non-Attacking Moves Discussion

[FireArrow]

The moment you start opening up BP options, you are actively encouraging the use of this CAP outside of this core, and that is an issue. I don't care if come playtest people don't want to use this CAP within the core we set out for it to work with, but as a movepool leader, I sure as hell don't intend to encourage moves that support its use outside the core, nor do I intend to make it easier for people to ignore the core we set out to create this CAP for. If we give this CAP a bunch of moves that support BP teams, so much so that it becomes a BP staple, then I would consider this CAP a failure as per our concept.

I'm sorry, but this is not going to happen. Why would anyone in their own right run a SR weak Pokemon on a baton pass team to pass flame charges.

Additionally, saying we can pass the boost to another sweeper is also a moot point. If we did our job correctly in previous stages, CAP18 should have more synergy with Lucario than with other sweepers, so while other sweepers may enjoy the boost, lucario would be CAP18 favorite recipient. If flame charge raises usage of other sweepers, we have already failed.

If you think flame charge will make cap 18 into a sweeper, when was the last time you've seen Charizard Y run it, who has even more wall breaking power than us (and probably coverage considering how much we restricted that.)

While I do agree on avoiding throwing too much support moves around, flame charge isn't OP at all and probably won't see much usage. And if it does, guess what? We'd of learned that it's viable on whole lot of other Pokemon who haven't used it before.

On other moves:

Disallow Yawn. We switch in on Aegislash, they switch out to Goodra who gets hit by yawn. Proceed to either destroy the non-counter switch in or cripple your counter, not good.

Allow Perish Song, Whirlwind, and Roar. They phase, but they can't do what I stated above, so I don't have any qualms with them.

On a side note, we shouldn't disallow moves because they're unnecessary to our concept. Let the movepool submitters deal with things like that, becuase right now, they're all gonna end up the same besides flavor and a couple of coverage options.

 

[FMD]

If you think flame charge will make cap 18 into a sweeper, when was the last time you've seen Charizard Y run it, who has even more wall breaking power than us (and probably coverage considering how much we restricted that.)

Megazard Y has great speed, much less bulk, much more coverage it should carry and it is also running on a time limit before its sun runs out and its damage drops considerably. It also has Tailwind which synergizes with its role MUCH better than Flame Charge does. Comparing 18 to Megazard Y is as accurate as comparing Kecleon to Greninja.

 

[FireArrow]

The point being, no special attacker uses up a move slot for +1 speed (by itself, obviously quiver dance is different) in the history of ever. Charizard was just the closest to our current wall breaking power.

As for the validity of the comparison, Charizard Y has about equal special bulk, 5 more base speed, with substantially stronger wall breaking (4 turns is enough to sweep late game.) Tbh, I actually didn't know Charizard had tailwind. This, however, helps my argument. If Tailwind Charizard Y isn't game breaking OP, how the hell is flame charge CAP18 gonna sky rocket it's usage away from our core?

252+ SpA Choice Specs Exploud Boomburst vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Charizard Y: 262-309 (87.9 - 103.6%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Exploud Boomburst vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD CAP18: 295-348 (86.2 - 101.7%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO

252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew in Sun: 226-267 (55.9 - 66%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Analytic CAP18 Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 174-205 (43 - 50.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

The only area that we're noticeably better (regarding the sweeping role) is tanking prioty, which is irrelevant to our speed.

 

[ginganinja]

The point being, no special attacker uses up a move slot for +1 speed (by itself, obviously quiver dance is different) in the history of ever.

You obviously never heard of Flame Charge Heatran in BW. Mew also could use Flame Charge in conjunction with Baton Pass, although most ran Rock Polish, and heck, there is a DD Latios set in BW as well. I won't mention XY because I believe its too early to make judgments (especially when WC is coming up which usually sees some new sets becoming popular). I should also point out most of the special sweepers don't actually GET a speed boosting move (outside of Quiver Dance which you are prepared to overlook) which hardly proves your point. Its very easy to make a statement like the above when access to these moves doesn't exist.

 

[Korski]

Although I am largely impressed by ginganinja's decisions thus far in allowing or disallowing moves, I do disagree with the disallowing of Swagger, Rain Dance, and Sunny Day.

Swagger and SwagPlay will be allowed in the playtest (so get your Infiltrator CAP18s ready) due to the move being banned after we started this project, so there is, in fact, decent justification for worrying about its effects on the playtest because of the threat of SwagPlay. However, the move Swagger was only ever "good" because of the Swagger / Thunder Wave / Substitute / Foul Play @ Prankster sets. Without that full set, there is no way to use Swagger in OU. CAP can't learn Thunder Wave, it can't learn Foul Play, it doesn't have Prankster or even a particularly high Speed stat, and the thing may not even have Substitute. This CAP cannot in any way run the only set that ever made Swagger even remotely relevant in OU. Competitively, there is no reason to disallow this move, as it would be exactly as competitive on this CAP as it would be on every other Pokemon in the game (i.e. not remotely useful). It doesn't help the concept; it doesn't hurt the concept. The point that every Pokemon that learns TMs also learns Swagger is fair from a flavor perspective, so it should just be a small point in favor of allowing the move.

Sunny Day is not a Restricted Move, and it's only ever been seen with non-marginal use on Ninetales and Heatran during the great Gen. V weather wars. Manual Sunlight is not a current playstyle, particularly due to the Gen. VI weather nerf, so I can't see it fitting any real criteria for disallowing, despite the theoretical damage output it could achieve. Rain Dance is in a similar boat, albeit slightly more useful due to the emergence of HO Rain. DetroitLolcat made a great point earlier in this thread that I'd like to bring up again in favor of allowing both Sunny Day and Rain Dance (emphasis mine):

We cannot afford to let CAP18 boost the power of its moves any more that it already can. If you want to use CAP18 in Sun pair it with Mega Charizard Y. If you want to use CAP18 in Rain pair it with Politoed. If you want to boost CAP18's power use Baton Pass. But we cannot let CAP18 boost its own moves when we already teeter on defeating its counters.

I disagree with DLC's conclusion that Sunny Day and Rain Dance should be disallowed, mainly because Charizard-Y and Politoed (and Rain Dance Deoxys-S/Kingdra/Thundurus-I for the HO Rain strategy) are simply the best ways to introduce weather into the battle. The Drought/Drizzle Pokes don't have to waste a turn or a moveslot due to their ability and can immediately abuse weather on turn 1, while Kingdra is instantly benefitted by both Speed and Power when it uses Rain Dance (both of which it absolutely needs), making the setup turn worth it (even though Kingdra prefers Drizzle/Deo-S/Thundy-I support so it doesn't have to waste a turn). The one thing CAP doesn't need is more power, so its entire moveslot and turn of setting up weather is time wasted not nuking or burning things, and the bonus it gets from said weather (over simply abusing Analytic + item) is not enough to justify its use in the moveset. Analytic and Specs/Life Orb already reach outrageous power levels, and the CAP's second STAB would be totally nerfed depending on which weather is being used. Disallowing these weather moves sounds like an overreaction to me when the cons of actually running the move clearly outweigh the pros. The flavor arguments that Water types learn Rain Dance and Fire types learn Sunny Day are again just small points in favor of allowing these otherwise not-worth-it moves for actual competitive movesets.

 

[EternalSnowman]

You obviously never heard of Flame Charge Heatran in BW. Mew also could use Flame Charge in conjunction with Baton Pass, although most ran Rock Polish, and heck, there is a DD Latios set in BW as well. I won't mention XY because I believe its too early to make judgments (especially when WC is coming up which usually sees some new sets becoming popular). I should also point out most of the special sweepers don't actually GET a speed boosting move (outside of Quiver Dance which you are prepared to overlook) which hardly proves your point. Its very easy to make a statement like the above when access to these moves doesn't exist.

This is true, but also Houndoom, which the FlameCharge Set+3 Attacks was semi-popular in BW2 as well as the beginning of XY.

 

[Salt]

I'm not 100% certain about what should be done about the rest of these moves. Most of them are fairly redundant now and don't do anything for the concept positively or negatively. Most of the views I express here could easily be swayed.

The one thing I'm fairly sure of is that we should Disallow Yawn. Volkraken (yay to no longer calling this CAP 18) will already force switches with it's offensive presence, and Yawn has the potential to force the wrong things to switch out or, worse, go to sleep. Yes, it does have great synergy with Analytic, but I think it's too good with it. Clear Smog and Haze are sufficient to prevent setup if we need to.

I feel like Perish Song is extremely similar to Yawn, only encompassing three turns instead of one. It may have more synergy with the core because the consequences of staying in are much more severe, which may allow Lucario to come in more easily, but I still have reservations about this move. I'm leaning towards Disallowing Perish Song for similar reasons to Yawn but I could be persuaded otherwise.

Roar and Whirlwind seem kind of redundant and counterproductive to Volkraken's actual role. Why phaze something out if you could just nuke it with a 110 BP STAB attack or clear the potential boosts with Clear Smog? Disallow Roar/Whirlwind because of redundancies similar to Topsy Turvy.

I feel like the core is actually pretty vulnerable to status, and the only way to clear it is from using Healing Wish with Latias or Volkraken. A way to act as a supporter without having to sacrifice yourself (and opening the suicide move for Memento) would not be bad, imo. Allow Aromatherapy/Heal Bell. I don't really care about Refresh because it's garbage.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Allow Whirlwind but Disallow Roar. The reason for this is that Roar is a TM, while Whirlwind is not. I personally believe that Stealth Rock should not be able to be on the same set as a phasing move, because it will encourage Volkraken to be used out of the core and used as a phaser, which I dont see to be healthy, Whirlwind itself is fine though.

 

[Bughouse]

I have spoken with Korski on irc about all 3 moves he raised and am in full agreement with him on all 3. There is nothing anti-concept about Volkraken getting Sunny Day (which isn't even a Restricted Move) or Rain Dance. Manual Rain Dance is a thing, sure, but only on Rain Offense teams, which use Deoxys-S or a Prankster user to set it. Simply put Volkraken getting Rain Dance would lead to Rain Dance actually being used well 0.00001% percent of the time. Manual sun is even worse. There is no actual competitive reason to disallow either move.

With regards to Swagger, I think we need only point to every other CAP in the past. None of them ever used or ever will use Swagger. Not even Tomohawk, with its access to Prankster Swagger. Why? They don't have Swagger + T-Wave or Foul Play. Neither does Volkraken and as such there is no threat to Swagger subverting the process. If anything, you could argue it's pro-concept because it can help cause switches against overcautious players, which trigger Analytic, or it can lead to Lucario having a chance at free set up if Volkraken gets taken down in the process of using Swagger.

Without the high speed of Deoxys-S or Prankster and without access to the combination of Swagger with Foul Play or T-Wave, none of these moves are remotely good for Volkraken and as such there is no reason they need to be disallowed.

 

[nyttyn]

Aromatherapy, Heal Bell, Refresh

I see this as being an alternate way to punish swaps and support the team. I mean sure, Latias can also kind of do this, but we've agreed we're running the defog set, and defog latias doesn't have the room. Allow.

Yawn
I'd lean on the conservative side and disallow this, as it gives CAP18 a way to fuck with its checks and counters it otherwise would not have. I mean it's not even an amazing home run move, and CAP 18 would likely not always go for it, but the threat's still there, so might as well nip it in the bud here.

Perish Song
Disallow. See: Yawn. In the same boat of "kind of weak but has risk of screwing with the C&C so disallow."

Roar / Whirlwind
Allow, I guess? CAP 18 can't actually do too much with this, what with lacking reliable recovery and all. I mean I'm struggling to think of any real reason to ban this.

 

[Yoshuriken]

Substitute
Since we allowed Pain Split, Substitute should be disallowed. SubSplit won't be able to do hardly anything on a 'mon with 100 base HP, except it will mess with Chansey and Blissey pretty badly. Therefore SubSplit should be disallowed. Personally I would have preferred Substitute as the allowed move.

Aromatherapy/Heal Bell/Refresh
Refresh is garbage. Aromatherapy and Heal Bell, on the other hand, do essentially two things. One this that Volkraken can stall the blobs longer. The other is that we can heal the core of status. Since the Luke is susceptible to Burns, Latias to Toxic, and both to Paralysis, I feel this move has more benefits than drawbacks. With SR and a status healing move, Volkraken may become a decent cleric; however, it would be worse than other clerics because of a lack of healing. Volkraken then becomes a subpar cleric who happens to beat all the stuff Luke and Latias needs it to. Hmm, that sounds like it would fit the core alright, don't you think? Also, if we use a cleric move, we don't nuke, so there is a considerable trade-off.

Roar/Whirlwind
What does phazing do for our core? Honestly, not much. We can already Clear Smog set-up sweepers. Since these moves don't help the core, but are good otherwise, they could encourage usage outside of said core. So they should go.

Perish Song
I can't imagine that this is a very good move. That being said, it absolutely can't help Volkraken beat what it needs to beat, since, well, it already beats them. This move is pretty gimmicky, but since it affects counters and non-counters alike, and does naught to help the core, it should go.

Yawn
Yawn lets us force switches, which would benefit Volkraken greatly. However, it has potential to cripple out counters. Also, a Volkraken lacking Yawn punishes switches but can't keep forcing them itself. If we disallow Yawn, Volkraken will have to rely upon other teammates and switching, aka a core, to force the switches it abuses. And that is how it should be.


tl;dr: Allow Aromatherapy/Heal Bell, disallow Phazing, Perish Song, and Yawn.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Disallow Aromatherapy/Heal Bell/Refresh. The blobs rely on Toxic to do damage, (They do have Sesmic Toss but we can heal that off since for some reason we have Pain Split), and letting us cure it is not going to be a good thing.

Disallow Perish Song and Yawn, these moves are to dangerous, we cannot be forcing out our threats like that.

 

[sparktrain]

Allow Aromatherapy, Heal Bell, Refresh
Using these moves comes at the cost of not running another attacking move, and they help out the core considerably (especially if we are considering Defog Latias). Allow.

Disallow Yawn / Perish Song
While they might not see a ton of usage, it introduces a level of uncertainty for Volkraken's counters, since both of these moves have the potential to mess with them. We already have Clear Smog to handle boosters, so all these moves do is screw over our switch-ins/counters, which isn't needed. Disallow.

Roar / Whirlwind
Roar and Whirlwind don't seem like they're doing a whole much for our core either way; Clear Smog is already handling the setup sweepers. I don't see much of a reason to allow/disallow the moves at this point, but it was mentioned earlier that the moves could encourage the use of Volkraken as a phazer outside the core. If that's agreed to be an issue, disallowing the moves is fine.

 

[EternalSnowman]

As posted in my previous post, I want to reiterate that if we allow HealBell/Aromatherapy, we should allow Aromatherapy since its lower PP allows us to be stalled out by Toxic. Toxic has 16 PP vs Aromatherapy's 8 PP, so we still lose to the blobs. HealBell however has 16 PP and that means we in theory can stall out the blobs.

EDIT: It seems I have been mistaken as I thought that HealBell had 16 PP for some reason. Ignore what I said about that part.

 

[CerberusSONE]

Aromatherapy and Heal Bell allow Volkraken to work well with any core in general. It may not get onto a set, but it leans towards pro-concept and should not work against our expectations.
Refresh, on the other hand, is solely self-serving.
Allow Aromatherapy and Heal Bell. Disallow Refresh.

 

[Hoping4megasceptile]

I just checked EternalSnowman, and it says heal bell and aromatherapy have the same pp.

Anyway, onto the discussion

Heal Bell/Aromatherapy
I think that this can be helpful to the core. As people have said, both core members are crippled by status with both by paralysis, Luke with burn, and Latias with toxic. However I can see it as being just as helpful for other cores. While it may discourage it's use with guts sweeper I can be swayed either way. As of now, I say allow.

Phazing
For these I think it depends on which one. I say allow perish song and whirlwind/roar. These each have the effect of causing switches with a downside. Perish song forces volkraken to switch, possibly a free one for lucario, while whirlwind and roar have negative priority, forcing it to take a hit. It also works well with analytic, as it forces it to move last and get the boost. However, I'm, again, open for change, as this can prove to be too powerful. I also don't want it to be used just for those moves, so I think they should be illegal with stealth rock. Despite this, I think yawn should be straight up disallowed. As it has no true drawback, and some might complain about volkraken having status if they are noobs.

Refresh
While it is a garbage move, I don't want to take the chance of allowing it. It may be bad, but it takes away the main reason of a allowing heal bell and aromatherapy, team support. This move encourages volkraken to stay in and sweep until death with status healing as a standalone pokèmon. I think it should be disallowed.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Aromatherapy and Heal Bell are fine; they're certainly not anti-concept. Although Lucario isn't likely to be affected by status (most Pokemon that can Burn Lucario can also KO it, and Lucario can out-priority Prankster Thunder Waves), Latias hates dealing with Toxic and even Burn or Paralysis. Since Latias wants to run Life Orb over Leftovers, it's especially susceptible to status because a Burned or Poisoned Latias is going to be throwing away over 20% of its health per turn. There's no need to outsource status healing to Chansey or Sylveon when we can let CAP18 do the job. I have the same opinion towards Heal Bell that I have towards Stealth Rock: someone on CAP18's team is probably going to want to have Heal Bell, why not CAP18? Allow Aromatherapy and/or Heal Bell.

Phazing seems a bit pointless on this Pokemon. Roar and Whirlwind don't really advance our concept, and forcing Chansey to keep switching into Stealth Rock doesn't sound very pro-concept. Phazing does let us get more Analytic boosted hits off, but CAP18 can switch into plenty of moves and Pokemon already and should have little trouble getting Analytic boosts when it needs them. Roar and Whirlwind aren't particularly pro- or anti-concept IMO, but they're likely to do more harm than good. The same goes for Perish Song and Yawn, especially the latter since Sleep moves are just too powerful for CAP18.

 

[FireArrow]

Refresh
While it is a garbage move, I don't want to take the chance of allowing it. It may be bad, but it takes away the main reason of a allowing heal bell and aromatherapy, team support. This move encourages volkraken to stay in and sweep until death with status healing as a standalone pokèmon. I think it should be disallowed.

Um, if heal beall/aromatherapy is allowed, why disallow refresh? There is absolutely no reason to run refresh over either of those 2 moves. Generally, people won't be adding just refresh into movepools anyways (because it's more of black and white yes or no.)

 

[Salt]

Um, if heal beall/aromatherapy is allowed, why disallow refresh? There is absolutely no reason to run refresh over either of those 2 moves. Generally, people won't be adding just refresh into movepools anyways (because it's more of black and white yes or no.)

Refresh has more PP than Toxic, while Aromatherapy and Heal Bell have less. Refresh will let us outstall Chansey, while Aromatherapy and Heal Bell don't. Disallow Refresh because of this, even though it's realistically a garbage move and nobody will use it anyway, but we shouldn't take chances.

 

[ginganinja]

Consider the NAM movepool thread closed.

Now, after weighing up the arguments on both sides, I have decided to put Substitute into the controversial section, forcing it into a poll. The community will decide the fate of Substitute. Having said that, I want to iron out a few things. Firstly, I do not, and will not accept any argument that supports Substitute because "every other pokemon gets substitute. Obviously, I have no power to enforce this, so I would be trusting the community just how we trust the suspect voters on smogon - that you make your decisions on solid logic. The reason, Substitute has not been flat out disallowed is because of the Baton Pass + Substitute which does allow Lucario to switch in safely, and get free set up opportunities. It also aids us in prediction coin flips, as we can Substitute up on an Aegislash in order to select the best move possible for whatever it is your opponent brings in. This is pretty much the only suitable argument for allowing Substitute, and I really do hope people don't vote yes just because of the "why not" reasoning that was thrown around through this thread. So please, when you make your decision, make sure its for the right reasons.

Having said that, IF Substitute does get allowed, DLC and I will be looking very hard at any movepool submissions that include both Substitute and Pain Split. Both DLC and I are of the opinion such a combination is anti concept, and it is not something we thing is a particularly good idea. That is not to say movepools with both Substitute and Pain Split won't get through (because its not my call), but expect to have to outline some very strong logic as to why you think both those moves together should be on that movepool, obviously "because Substitute is on every pokemon", will not be an acceptable answer.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Please do not post in this thread. This thread is essentially closed; I am reviewing ginganinja's slate of moves and once a decision is made this thread will be locked by a CAP moderator. Thank you all for participating.

I am going to make one modification to the lists ginganinja posted, and that is to move Roar and Whirlwind to Controversial. Reading this thread, especially the last two pages, there were many conflicting opinions about Roar and Whirlwind. There are pro-concept and anti-concept elements to Roar and Whirlwind. Roar and Whirlwind can force out Substitute boosters whether or not Volkraken is using Infiltrator, but it can also stack up hazard damage against Volkraken's counters. If Volkraken is forcing switches, it should be punishing them with Analytic-powered attacks (including U-Turn) rather than phazing. Remember, Volkraken already has U-Turn for grabbing momentum from its counters.

Yawn and Perish Song, two less traditional phazing moves, are disallowed. I do not believe Roar and Whirlwind are substantially different than those moves, and I believe the community should decide whether or not CAP18 should have any access to phazing at all.

I would also like to reiterate what ginganinja said about Substitute and Pain Split. Together, those moves allow Volkraken to do significantly better against its counters than it should, and I would need a lot of evidence of how Lucario and Latias would benefit from a partner with SubSplit to allow such a movepool into the polls.