CAP 20 CAP 20 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

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Different Boosts is the only feasible choice from that list IMO. Swords Dance vs Nasty Plot doesn't exactly fit the concept of unpredictability since both will KO a lot of similar Pokémon, and Power/Speed boosting are again quite similar, especially with Swords Dance and Dragon Dance. We will essentially just be creating Haxorus 2.0.

If this CAP is to have the unpredictabiliy pushed in the concept, it needs to function on both sides of the attacking spectrum. That's really a given. Different Boosts is a good direction to take this in (radically different) but I feel like the example given of Nasty Plot and Dragon Dance doesn't work so well. Once agan, many of the same theats will be beaten by the set no matter which of the moves you choose, since many Pokémon have similar physical and special bulk. If we were to want unpredictability, I think that Calm Mind and Dragon Dance is the way to go. They are radically different, and both actually beat different things, one being more defensively oriented and the other more offensive, as well as being on opposite sides of the physical/special spectrum. I think this makes sense, but I'm still learning the ropes here :x
 
Different Boosts gives us the most flexibility to invite different checks and counters for each set. I like the idea of Nasty Plot coupled with either Dragon Dance or Coil(/Bulk Up). Reason being that DD and Coil both deter potential revenge killers, DD by moving up a speed tier and Coil by protecting a bit against OU's exclusively physical priority abusers. The NP set would be susceptible to these revengers, but could also muscle through stuff that DD couldn't - OU's physically-biased defenders, like Megabro, Lando-T, and unboosted Calm Mind Sables and Clefables. It seems like the easiest way to keep the checks for each set separate, being more-or-less a synthesis of the other two options (Mixed and Power/Speed).

I'm not a fan of Power/Speed Boosting. Take BW Terrakion for example - it was a beast iirc, and could effectively use both Swords Dance and Rock Polish (when it wasn't Choiced, that is). But checks were similar for both sets, and it would often just run both anyway. I'm not saying we would inevitably make Terrakion, but he demonstrates two problems with this approach: how do we differentiate counters for the two sets effectively, and if we achieve this, what's to stop it from running Double Dance to undo the difference?
 
Mixed Boosting is too obvious, as seen with a notable example in Mega Lucario, as it has access to both Swords Dance and Nasty Plot. We already know what happened with him. As such, I prefer the idea of Different Boosts, such as Dragon Dance / Calm Mind, as one move boosts power and speed, while the other boosts power and bulk. That way, opponents wouldn't know what boosting move the CAP had until it boosted. However, that could cause a problem, as players might become over-prepared for the one set, whilst under-prepared for the other set.
 
I think the best way to go would be a Pokemon that can use two opposite boosts. Since swords dance/ nasty plot seems to be too powerful, coil or bulk up/ calm mind would probably be good. This would make cap 20 into a bulky boosting sweeper, which is rather rare at the moment, and the only one I can think of at the moment that is ou is clefable, which only hits on the special side. I can't think of any ou bulk up users.
 
different boosts is ridiculous, it sounds "fun" but trying to make a pokemon that uses two completely oblique boosting moves effectively while still being forced to use one or the other and also not being bad is impossible

im ok with either of the other options. i think power/speed is better because it's more interesting than mix because power/speed changes how the pokemon actually like, interacts with the team and the game whereas physical/special just changes what its counter list is.
 
I disagree that different boosts cannot be accomplished. Take a look at something like Mega Altaria: it commonly runs DD even though 110/80 offenses on the physical side isn't really that much, simply because DD is a great boosting move. Yet it also runs special sets with Draco/Hyper Voice, even though it has no means to boost its SpA. If Altaria got NP, wouldn't people run both DD and NP sets just to abuse its great movepool? Same thing for something like Mega Mence: you can easily find Hyper Voice/Draco MegaMence, even tho its DD set is monster. If Mence got NP, that wouldn't keep people from running DD or viceversa. Hell, if you checked the thread where NU banned Feraligatr, it seems like some people were running special Gatr to abuse Sheer Force + Focus Blast and surprise some of its counters, even tho its SpA is 79 and it gets both DD and SD. If people can forgo SD to run Focus Blast on a mon with 79 SpA, I think we can get away with a mon with more balanced offenses having two different boosting sets.
 
Personally, I think the best approach to take for this concept is the mixed boosts of something like Dragon Dance / Nasty Plot or Swords Dance / Calm Mind. The key to me is in the framing of the concept itself. What we want here is not simply a Pokemon who can boost two ways, but rather a Pokemon that is especially viable because of the radically different counter that its two boosting sets will have, despite neither set being dominant by themselves. If we want this to be the case, I think that, what we ideally want is one set that can break walls, with another set that is more about longer term sweeping. However, even then, if we really want radically different counters, we would need to go mixed, as I am not sure it is really possible to have a Pokemon that can mostly clear all counters it has with two different sets hitting from the same side without at least one of those sets being "dominant" by themselves.

Now, I personally think the mixed offenses part is the most important part with regard to overcoming counters of the opposite set, but I specifically think that something like DD/NP is more ideal than SD/NP, if only because of the lack of offensive move parity. We have seen SD/NP before, and while it certainly can work, more often than not one set becomes the "standard" while the other is niche, since the available moves, and different base powers of physical and special moves almost always will favor one side over the other. By making the two sides function differently (ie sweeper vs wallbreaker), you give more reason to use the side that has the "inferior" moves.
 
I feel like different boosts would be the best route for us to take. Nasty Plot / Dragon Dance will produce very different sets... like basically everybody before me has already said. What hasn't really been touched on is that this prevents the sets from being easily used together, as Swords Dance and Agility could be, which I feel goes against what this concept is about.
 
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Dragonblaze052 said:
I feel like different boosts would be the best route for us to take. Nasty Plot / Dragon Dance will produce very different sets... like basically everybody before me has already said. What hasn't really been touched on is how this prevents the sets from being easily used together, as Swords Dance and Agility could be, which I feel goes against what this concept is about.
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I'd say running both on the same set, which give entirely different boosts, wouldn't be quite ideal. Even if you do manage to pull it off, Boostmon is gonna suffer a pretty bad case of 4MSS, since it'd would only have spots left for its STABs/STAB + Coverage, with one needing to be physical and the other special.

I'm just really worried that going mixed will leave the project unfocused, there might be arguments for either physical or special bias in moves, stats, etc, and then it just gets everything. I'm probably just paranoid however.

Now, the concern of using the Speed Booster and Damage Booster on the same set, I actually forgot all about BW Terrakion. I'm thinking a way we can stop it would be to make one boost smaller than the other so there'll be a good chance to kill it whilst setting up both at the same time/phase it out. But I'm actually gonna need some time to think here.
 
I'm seeing boosting a la Celever's suggestion is both the most unpredictable (two entirely different playstyles) and the most interesting as it has never been done effectively nor has any Pokemon really come close to doing it. I've been experimenting on Pastebin to see if this method of boosting could be viable from a Theorymon perspective and from my my experience I believe that given this boosting path is possible (no poll-jumping just a cursory proof of concept if anything). For this way of boosting DD (or SG) / CM is probably the best option as I feel that Physical is the better sweeping option and trying to outbulk Physical Attackers with moves like BU or Coil is much harder considering that SD is much more common than NP.

I like this option over Power boosting and Mixed boosting bc these types of boosts follow the same principle between sets the same way that Charizard is treated before its Mega is revealed (Although they have different counters, both have troubles with the same playstyle for the most part and unless Charizard X has boosted, they are revenged / dealt with by the same Pokemon). With the proposed type of different boosting, both the counters AND the checks will need to be reworked which will hopefully lead to a much more effective Pokemon. I can see a potential for trouble with a lack of power for one or both of the sets considering CAP will be on guard to making it overpowered but this is a risk that is worth making to see how counters and checks must be reworked in order to deal with unpredictability.
 
Yeah, after mostly lurking around for the past two CAPs, I now want to start and participate in CAP myself!

To the point: From the three options nyttyn gave us, I think Different Boosting ist the way to go, either with the example given, DD+NP, or Coil+NP.
With DD+NP, we have both sides of offense covered and got an option to also boost CAPmons speed, possilbly making it less susceptible to Scarfed Revenge Killers...
Coil+NP, on the other side, gives us an option for a bulker approach on the physical side, plus the kinda gimmicky +1 accuracy, making normally risky moves (e.g. SE) more viable.
Mixed Boosting could also be great, but needs more caution in later stages to prevent CAP20 from being too OP or being too easy to revenge kill.

Both options still could have some problems with priority tho, but thats a problem that cannot be solved at this stage.

Just another thing nobody mentioned yet: Work Up. I think it is quite an interesting move, that enables good mixed offense options without instantly becoming a nuke (of course this still relies in stats).
The problem with this move possibly is the other setup-move we give to CAP, without opening the doors to a dual-setup-set on CAP (e.g. Agility/RP/Autonomize).
Again, I think something like Coil / CM as an bulkier option for setup is a good alternative.
I'd be glad if I get some Feedback for my idea with WU + Coil/CM, possibly this could also be a good option for CAP20. :)
 
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I don't think we should discount Rock Polish / Agility on this CAP. The difference between a +1 boost and a +2 boost is pretty massive, especially if the Pokemon in question is around the 80 Speed range, because that means it won't be revenge killed by scarfers which almost all offensive teams carry. Furthermore, Agility users, unlike DD can easily afford to run bulk because they outspeed the entire metagame at +2 without even needing max speed investement, enabling them to find more setup opportunities and preventing them from being revenge killed as easily. They are also able to run +offense natures more freely which gives them more firepower As long as we give the Pokemon a good resistance to priority, an Agility set could be very effective against offensive teams and avoid being completely eclipsed by a DD set.

I think we can even combine RP/Agility and SD/NP without fearing both being used on the same set. Examples like dual dance Landorus-T and Terrakion have been brought up as to how this can easily backfire, however both of these have access to near-perfect coverage. If we avoid giving our CAP such good coverage with only 2 moves, we can be pretty certain that people will not use both boosting moves on the same set, and even if they do, they will be much more easily walled than either set on its own. For example, Diancie has access to both RP and CM and uses these decently, however it almost never uses both on the same set because it will lack necessary coverage otherwise.

Going back to Agility+DD, we can also play around with coverage moves to "force" (or rather, heavily suggest) agility sets to hit from a different side than the DD set. For example, Altaria has a pretty solid DD set. However, Agility Altaria has the appeal of not only outspeeding scarfers like Landorus-T and Icy Wind Keldeo which can revenge kill it, but also being able to run Fire Blast, which in OU gives it better coverage than EQ, which is why you'll never find Physical Agility Altaria. We can quite easily give worse coverage to the physical side, so that Special Agility can have some appeal over it. Of course, we need the different stages of the CAP to work together (lol), but I think it's still possible to pull off mono-speed booting with this CAP.
 
Qwilphish said:
I'm seeing boosting a la Celever's suggestion is both the most unpredictable (two entirely different playstyles) and the most interesting as it has never been done effectively nor has any Pokemon really come close to doing it. I've been experimenting on Pastebin to see if this method of boosting could be viable from a Theorymon perspective and from my my experience I believe that given this boosting path is possible (no poll-jumping just a cursory proof of concept if anything). For this way of boosting DD (or SG) / CM is probably the best option as I feel that Physical is the better sweeping option and trying to outbulk Physical Attackers with moves like BU or Coil is much harder considering that SD is much more common than NP.

I like this option over Power boosting and Mixed boosting bc these types of boosts follow the same principle between sets the same way that Charizard is treated before its Mega is revealed (Although they have different counters, both have troubles with the same playstyle for the most part and unless Charizard X has boosted, they are revenged / dealt with by the same Pokemon). With the proposed type of different boosting, both the counters AND the checks will need to be reworked which will hopefully lead to a much more effective Pokemon. I can see a potential for trouble with a lack of power for one or both of the sets considering CAP will be on guard to making it overpowered but this is a risk that is worth making to see how counters and checks must be reworked in order to deal with unpredictability.
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there are two types of CM users in ou: those that are hella bulky and use it to clean at +6/+6 and those who use it cuz they dont get nasty plot. The former wouldn't work with any other type of boosting move and the latter would rather just have nasty plot. So I'm not sure that CM is the best move even if we do do different boosting.
 
Using Agility on one of our CAPs movesets could possibly evolve in a more extreme version of Power / Speed Boosting, where we actually completely drop the power boost for a +2 in Speed instead of +1. this makes revenge killing (without the use of priority) even harder, but we would have to make up for the loss in power at another stage, e.g. Stats...
 
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Alright, so discussion's starting to get a bit off track. I know that there's a lot of novelty appeal in the idea of a sweeper who has access to only one kind of boosting on both sides of the spectrum, but please keep in mind that, just because it sounds novel, doesn't necessarily mean it will be successful in the end. If we choose that setup, we will have the very real potential problems of being left with a pokemon who only utilizes one set, as the other is clearly outclassed, or being left with a pokemon who is simply too good.

That being said, it seems that the consensus is that the direction we should take this CAP in is having the different boosting options change how it operates with the rest of the team, instead of merely being a change in the checks/counters list. As a result, based on the current discussion I foresee the following combos being viable:

Nasty Plot + Dragon Dance - Unfortunately, this equation doesn't work the other way around. Quiver Dance is just flat out better than Swords Dance, whereas Nasty Plot has different merits in comparison to Dragon Dance - namely, one is better at sweeping, and the better at wall breaking. Workable, if not my first choice. Obviously comes with the risk that one set might outclass the other, but considering the two roles are completely different, it wouldn't be impossible to distinguish them enough so that both have merit (Especially if we pull some shenanigans to give the Nasty Plot and Dragon Dance set different optimal abilities).

(Nasty Plot OR Swords Dance) + Agility Obviously, this frees us up to choose between physical or special sweeper, allowing one to choose between a sweeper that outspeeds scarfers or a wallbreaker. The issue here is the risk of dual dance catching on, but that can be remedied with forcing 3 moves worth of coverage by avoiding 100% ideal STAB combos, ex: Terrakion has rock/fighting enabling him the luxury of runing both Swords Dance and Rock Polish, something we'd want to avoid. Since different sweepers on different sides of the spectrum use different abilities, we'll have to decide if we're going to be using Swords Dance and have a higher Special Attack stat, or Nasty Plot and have a higher Attack stat now rather than later. Right now I'm leaning towards this option, though it obviously will bias us towards being either a physical or special only mon, whom is distinguished by being able to be either a wallbreaker or a sweeper.

Dragon Dance + Agility An idea that's been brought up inspired by Mega Altaria, I'm not super fond of this one, but it CAN work. Obviously a little unorthodox, but the idea here would be to have a special set that has more coverage, while a physical attacking set would hit harder at the expense of speed. The issue here is that it's very likely a +1/+1 set will outclass a +2 set, or possibly the other way around, if there's even a single deficiency in the movepool or stats for either side. While this can work, it raises the chance of failure by a considerable chance.

Please refocus discussion on these three boosting combos, unless you have a particularly good idea that has exceptional reasoning (from this post forward, purely subjective reasoning is not permitted outside of these three options, strong objective reasoning of the merits of other options will be required).
 
I'm a bit concerned about combinations with Agility, since I have a hard time seeing it become a standard set unless we make CAP incredibly specialized. The only benefit of the move is moving first in the priority bracket, which (while potentially allowing you to clean up late game) just doesn't seem to be consistently useful enough, especially compared to other boosting options. We have to keep in mind that the relevant users of Agility already have very good stats to begin with and aren't too dependent on the stat boost to succeed, and even then Agility is more like a niche option to them. Something like this would be very undesirable for our concept.
This being said, I think that the Nasty Plot + Dragon Dance combination looks quite promising, as it ensures a good variation of counters between the sets. Also, each has their own advantageous mach-ups to set it apart from the other and prevent it from being fully eclipsed, so balancing them out against each other definitely seems possible. A nice benefit over the alternative (SD and Quiver Dance), besides being more balanced, is the lack of special priority meaning that Dragon Dance is the only option for realistically attempting a sweep, hence giving it a solid niche.

An additional combination I would like see more discussion on would be a single turn set-up move (Dragon Dance, Sword Dance, Nasty Plot) coupled with a defensive boosting option (Calm Mind, Bulk Up/Coil). What sets this combination apart the three options above is that they each utilize completely different set up opportunities to acquire the boosts. The defensive boost actually allows CAP to stay in on a variety of weaker opponents and continue gathering boosts, something not represented by the other options, and something that will allow us to further expend the versatility of this CAP. With both boosting moves working under very different conditions, each set can carve out its own niche, which makes it easier for us to create two sets that are equally viable in their own way.
 
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I don't like the use of Agility at all. NP/SD and Agility will likely just end up with a bunch of Double Dance sets, defeating the point of the CAP and its unpredictability entirely, and Dragon Dance + Agility seems to be a bit redundant. I'm sure that it could work, but the two moves are so similar that, like nyttyn said, it feels like one will just be dominant over the other unless both sets are EXACTLY the same, since they function in similar ways. I still personally think that Calm Mind + Dragon Dance is the best route to go as they really are different and unpredictable, fitting on different team archetypes etc. but Nasty Plot + Dragon Dance also fulfils a similar role.

The reason why Dragon Dance is such a good fit for this CAP is because it doesn't centralise on the physical side or the speed side fully, but rather gives a better rounded boost to both stats. Calm Mind is the perfect antithesis to this, boosting special attack, and bulk as opposed to speed, fulfilling a different purpose to Dragon Dance. Nasty Plot is a riskier option with Dragon Dance, because this CAP will realistically be able to sweep with one turn of set up, whereas it would oftentimes need two Dragon Dances to reach the same power levels (at this early stage in the CAP) whereas Calm Mind is a better antithesis to Dragon Dance as it will also require those two turns to set up to get to the appropriate power levels. I would argue that Calm Mind is objectively the safer route for this CAP because it just fits the concept well with unpredictability, but doesn't become too difficult to work with gradually gaining boosts, whereas Nasty Plot has that "one turn to set up and go" vibe which Dragon Dance lacks. It also has to be said that it will on paper be easy to guess at what move your opponent is running by how they use the CAP with Nasty Plot + Dragon Dance, but with Calm Mind + Dragon Dance they will be used fairly similarly throughout the rest of the fight, lending more to unpredictability.
 
Well, since I already gave my two cents about NP+DD, I'll try to talk about something else without making a fool of myself. The problem I see with doing a two-stage power boost+agility is that to make sure that we don't get a double dance set 99% of the time we'd have to force those three coverage moves+boosting move, as nyttyn said, but the issue is that to force CAP to always run a third coverage move we'd have to give it a truly shitty offensive typing like, say, Poison/Steel or some shit. However, if neither STAB has great coverage on its own, we just run the risk of people ditching the secondary STAB in favor of the second boosting move and just running STAB move+coverage move+double dance.
 
I think the best route to take is an offensive/defensive one, not a mixed offensive one.

I'm thinking something along the lines of Cotton Guard DD Mega Altaria, though obviously the point for this mon would be that it would either boost defense or boost offense, not both at the same time. This is easy to achieve by giving it STAB less amazing than Fairy and nothing as ridiculous as a Pixillate boost, whereupon it needs coverage and can't just run boosts and mono-coverage.

This could potentially make a mon whose sets are either good against offense or more stallish teams, not both, whereas something that boosts offense on different sides of the spectrum is likely just doubly good against one style and doubly bad against the other.
 
It seems like it's time to talk about differentiation in the types of checks and counters, and how our boosting moves will effect this.
So let's start by asking ourselves what's arguably the most important question of the concept: How is our opponent going to stop us?

The most common way to stop a sweeper is obvious. You kill it.
You are faster than the sweeper and it dies.
You take a hit from the sweeper and survive, and it dies.
In other words, in order to stop a sweeper, you have to beat it in either speed or bulk, and then have the power to finish the job.

Similarly, In order to beat the opponent as a sweeper, you have to beat the opponent in either speed or bulk. If a sweeper loses in either of those categories, it dies. That's just how sweepers work. To simplify the idea further, you can put any sweeper in to two categories:
  1. A Pokemon that out speeds and kills multiple opponents
  2. A Pokemon that out tanks and kills multiple opponents
The idea behind this separation is that it allows us to turn the CAP in to almost two separate Pokemon depending on the set - close to the difference between a tank and a fighter jet. If we play our stats correctly, it makes it extremely easy to pick and choose our counters.


Mega Lucario was the first category in both of its boosting sets. It just happened to clear the second requirement (killing the opponent) on different Pokemon for each set it ran. Regardless of what we choose for boosting moves, the concept requires that we have two different sets that defeat different Pokemon. Therefore, in order to differentiate between the two sets as easily as possible, and to make sure we beat many non-overlapping Pokemon as possible, the two boosting sets should do the following:
  • Have different physical/special properties for attacking moves
  • Only one boosting move should have a speed boost
  • Only one should have a defensive boost
  • Defensive and speed boosts must be on different boosts
As long as it follows those rules, it'll make it extremely easy to pick and choose our checks and counters for each set specifically. While the first two rules are technically optional, being able to hit walls and pivots in different places is arguably the easiest way to differentiate our two sets. Because of this, it's probably much better to have each boost be on either a physical or special orientation.

So, following the rules above (with the first being optional), the following combos will probably do best for the project, ranked in order of quality:

Dragon Dance/Shift Gear + Calm Mind
Dragon Dance/Shift Gear + Bulk Up/Coil
Agility/Rock Polish + Bulk Up/Coil/Calm Mind
Anything that boosts speed + Stored Power(w/ Comic Power)

If I made anything unclear, feel free to shout and scream.
 
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Out of those three options, I only like Nasty Plot+Dragon Dance. As has been said by users such as Cretacerus and Celever, Agility just isn't that good. Only two Pokemon use Rock Polish frequently: Mega Diancie and Landorus-I (and none use Agility). They both have an incredible amount of power, far more than we would ever be comfortable letting a CAP wield, which allows them to forgo more attacking power in favor of an incredible amount of speed. Without nearly that much power, it would be very difficult to make CAP20 not heavily favor Dragon Dance/Swords Dance/Nasty Plot over Agility.

Another concern is avoiding using both boosting moves at once. While forcing it to have coverage would stop double dance sets, a much better way to do so is to make the two boosting moves work horribly with each other the way Nasty Plot and Dragon Dance do. Nobody in their right mind would use a special attacking boost and a separate physical attacking boost on the same set, as BigWigs explained much better than I can.
 
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Mowtom said:
Out of those three options, I only like Nasty Plot+Dragon Dance. As has been said by users such as Cretacerus and Celever, Agility just isn't that good. Only two Pokemon use Rock Polish frequently: Mega Diancie and Landorus-I (and none use Agility). They both have an incredible amount of power, far more than we would ever be comfortable letting a CAP wield, which allows them to forgo more attacking power in favor of an incredible amount of speed. Without nearly that much power, it would be very difficult to make CAP20 not heavily favor Dragon Dance/Swords Dance/Nasty Plot over Agility.

Another concern is avoiding using both boosting moves at once. While forcing it to have coverage would stop double dance sets, a much better way to do so is to make the two boosting moves incompatible with each other the way Nasty Plot and Dragon Dance are. Nobody in their right mind would use a special attacking boost and a separate physical attacking boost on the same set, as BigWigs explained much better than I can.
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Problem is that it is impossible to create a pokemon with move incompatibilities this generation
 
The Pizza Man said:
Problem is that it is impossible to create a pokemon with move incompatibilities this generation
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Oops. I mean that they would never be used together by a sane player. For reference, here is the explanation I referred to:
I'd say running both on the same set, which give entirely different boosts, wouldn't be quite ideal. Even if you do manage to pull it off, Boostmon is gonna suffer a pretty bad case of 4MSS, since it'd would only have spots left for its STABs/STAB + Coverage, with one needing to be physical and the other special.
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I've edited my post to make my meaning more clear.
 
I personally stand opposed to using weak boosts such as Bulk Up. We've had too many CAPs in the recent past with too much focus on making them balanced and unthreatening to the point that we've seen them almost completely unused in the playtests, thus nothing learned. We need to toy with power to have a good result.
 
I'd like to post on favor of Agility. Agility would allow the mon to outspeed fast mons and scarfers that might normally check a SD/NP set, thus altering the things that can check the mon.

I'd also like to post in favor of DD+NP, but I feel as though that'd unnecessary because it has already been covered, multiple times in this thread.
 
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