CAP 20 CAP 20 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

[FireArrow]

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.

Using a weaker boost =/= a weaker pokemon. Weaker boosts simply allow us to budget power elsewhere.

 

[Cretacerus]

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 would just like to add a short thought on this, as it seems to me that such a Pokemon would basically require good speed (for SD/NP sets) and great attack stats/effective STABs (for the Agility set) to be effective in its roles, to the point where it might forgo the boosts entirely and become an all-out-attacker. For this reason I feel that giving our CAP stronger boosting options would allow us to keep its initial power low and therefore provide more incentive and reliance on the boosts.
The recent posts actually convinced me that Agility can indeed be balanced with another boost with similarly narrow usefulness such as Nasty Plot, but in the end I would prefer more powerful boosting alternatives for the reason mentioned above.

 

[loco1234]

Interesting idea. With regard to the concept, I think more than anything it's important to focus on moves that give the same number of boosts. By this I mean that while we could allow both Quiver Dance and Swords Dance, Quiver Dance effectively gives 3 boosts, while Swords Dance only gives two. Instead, for example, we could do Quiver Dance/Shift Gear (both 3) or Swords Dance/Dragon Dance (both 2).

Nothing saying we have to only use 2 moves either. SD/DD/NP'd work too, all three are only 2 boosts each.

 

[Celever]

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.

Adding to what Cretacerus said, a SD/NP + Agility set, to me, would likely end up as a double dance set, and there's no real way for us to prevent this besides giving the Pokémon almost no coverage, which is obviously an awful idea. The two boosts don't work as a system.

And Dragon Dance > Agility like 85% of the time. I don't see many times where Agility would actually be used more, since it would only function well against Hyper Offense, where our CAP requires that one turn of boosting over two, and doesn't need the additional power. Against most teams, it would want the power AND speed boost more, and after two turns has essentially double dances with one moveslot used up instead of two, which is another reason why Dragon Dance in general is better than SD/NP + Agility.

Dragon Dance + Calm Mind doesn't have any of these problems and is the best combo given the original concept. Dragon Dance + Nasty Plot could also work well, but just not as well as the former set because they are both very offensive. Going on this post's theme of double dancing and outclassing, Dragon Dance and Calm Mind are perfect in that they don't. It will make this Pokémon versatile enough to fit on several different team archetypes, Dragon Dance on offensive teams and Calm mind on stallier ones, and Double Dancing with it is simply unfeasible. You would boost your attack, speed, special attack and special defense in one turn. Of course, it is also pretty unfeasible with Dragon Dance + Nasty Plot, but there just isn't as much variation with the CAP's checks and counters.

 

[Billy the Uncle]

I'm going to bandwagon and throw in my support to Dragon Dance + Nasty Plot as well. As I (and many others) said, these moves give CAP 20 two completely different roles, on two different sides of the spectrum. And no player with a brain worth of this name would run both on a set, since they give completely different boosts. Let's face it, DD+NP+one special move+one physical move sound bad, no matter how you look at it.

That said, I like Celever's idea of DD+CM, as it follows a similar concept but with a different take on the special side of things.http://www.smogon.com/forums/members/celever.160100/

 

[Stratos]

Using a weaker boost =/= a weaker pokemon. Weaker boosts simply allow us to budget power elsewhere.

but the weaker the boost, the less likely the cap's sets are to actually run it

Adding to what Cretacerus said, a SD/NP + Agility set, to me, would likely end up as a double dance set, and there's no real way for us to prevent this besides giving the Pokémon almost no coverage, which is obviously an awful idea. The two boosts don't work as a system.

only if its two move coverage is good enough to pass. If we make the CAP rely on 3 move coverage, problem solved.

 

[mphallor]

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.

I really like how this post highlights the positives of defensive sweeping options such as Bulk up and Calm Mind. Bulk Up/Coil in particular could be extremely effective since its the only reliable way to make our CAP beat priority. With other options that have been mentioned such as DD+NP the CAP has absolutely no guaranteed protection against priority revenge killers. Sure, we might hypothetically pick a typing that does well against common priority moves, but there are going to be a lot of other issues on our mind during typing discussion such as offensive coverage (on BOTH sides of the spectrum if our CAP has mixed boosts) as well as a defensive typing that can give it opportunities to set up. As such, Bulk Up is probably the best way to set our CAP up to sweep against teams that rely on priority for revenge killing.

Unfortunately, there just aren't any boosting options that complement Bulk Up. The ideal would be a special version of Dragon Dance/Shift Gear, since this would make our fast sweeper beat frailer non-priority mons, while the tanky sweeper beat priority mons and walls. Quiver Dance, while close to fulfilling this goal, just out classes Bulk Up by too much. The CAP could potentially come in on a special attacker that outspeeds and 2HKOs it (a solid check), take the first hit as it boosts once, outspeed to get the second boost and take a pittance from the second special attack, and then sweep with +2SPa/+2SPd/+2Spe. Because of how good Quiver Dance is, Bulk Up would probably be a rare sight. As to combining Bulk Up with DD or Shift Gear, the fact that both boosts give the same offensive buff will make it extremely hard to differentiate the sets. While they would still be revenge killed by different things, the Pokemon that each set was walled by or could OHKO would be virtually identical.

As to Calm Mind which a lot of people have been advocating for, it doesn't have the same niche Bulk Up has in beating priority. It's not even that great at tanking hits just because ORAS is so disproportionately physical, and fast revenge killers will be a dime a dozen. The fact is that CAP most likely won't be given the tools to go for a +6/+6 sweep. As such, it will probably operate like Keldeo where it only grabs one Calm Mind Boost (two if the opponent misplays) and then starts attacking. With only one or two boosts under its belt though, CAP would probably prefer Nasty Plot since the extra firepower against slow threats will typically be worth more than extra bulk against fast special threats that can't hit on the physical side, which Lati@s, Diancie, and Keldeo notably can do with one of their common moves. The fact that ORAS is mainly physical combined with the fact that so many special attackers can bypass Calm Mind will make CM typically inferior to NP.

For these reasons, I don't think the "Tank+Fighter Jet" build is feasible, and it would probably be better to stick with one of the Power+Speed approaches.

 

[ganj4lF]

I have a hard time seeing how we can build CAP around Agility / RP + something else. An Agility set would require good attacking power (obviously), but also better than average bulk, at least physically (since the tier is littered with priority), and still cannot afford to have awful Speed (otherwise you risk not outspeeding stuff even at +2, which is kinda ridiculous for something based around it). It seems those requirements directly conflict with the "power-speed-bulk triangle" guideline we agreed upon a couple of months ago. I think we should stick to the proposals that don't include Agility / RP, which are equally interesting (and hard to accomplish IMHO) but allow us a bit more leeway in the construction of CAP's stats.
I keep misreading RP as Reverse Polarity, damnit.

 

[nyttyn]

Ok so I'm making another post because my first post was made hastily and as such was, rightfully so, mistaken to mean that Bulk Up, Coil, and Calm Mind were totally off the table. They are not, my intent was to dismiss the idea of having both Bulk Up/Coil and Calm Mind as a boosting combo, and to dismiss the idea of using Calm Mind or Bulk Up just because they're weaker. My apologies for the confusion, and again, a more indepth post will be coming later tonight.

 

[Gerard]

A good way to abuse Agility is to use it on a Physically / Specially bulky pokemon that has decent coverage in 2 moves but that NEEDS the third move in order to beat some common pokemon AND that in order tom avoid double dancing sets make the third boosting option one that is slow or outright impossible to pull alongside (like curse). Other strong possibility is to use coverage moves that don't work well alongside one of the boosts but which negative trait is ignorable when used by the other (ex. Agility Hammer Arm vs Coil Hammer Arm, one negates the boost while the other increases it's accuracy and doesn't mind the speed drop if the pokemon isn't invested in speed in the first place).

I like the option of Slow Boosting vs Agility. Cosmic Power or Calm Mind or Coil / Recovery / STAB moves that can mover power even resists given enough boosts vs Agility / 3 moves with great coverage and or power. Coverage moves can easily be "locked out" of one boost or the other by being negative to it's type of boosting. Slow Boosting won't like having Close Combat as coverage but Agility sets won't mind while Drain Punch or Giga Drain are too weak to be good on Agility but work wonders in Slow Boosting sets.

 

[capefeather]

I'm a big fan of the idea of an offensive booster and a defensive booster. I'm kind of afraid of specifying moves because it's just so easy to pick apart individual moves like Agility while not addressing the underlying goal that such moves are trying to accomplish. That said, I'd like to point out that there are at least six Pokemon in S and A ranks alone that have viable Calm Mind sets. Sure, some of them have crazy stats and/or abilities, but we at least know that such a set is doable in OU.

use the boost to break through

 

[nyttyn]

Alright, so we've had a lot of good discussion these past few days, and now it's about time to get ready to wrap things up. 24ish hour warning

Agility + anything
As has been brought up in the past, attempting to utilize Agility is problematic, as the pokemon in question requires already good base stats in order to properly use it. Therein lies the issue - if the pokemon's base stats are good enough to use agility, it may just decide to forsake the use of setup altogether, in favor of an all-out attack set, or the usage of a Choice Scarf, Band, or Specs. With this extremely high risk of concept derailment, as well as the possibility of having stats that are flat out too good, Agility is no longer on the table.

Calm Mind/Bulk Up(or Coil)
Right, to touch back on these two moves: their usage is upon defensive pokemon, to enable said pokemon to both gain more bulk, as well as potentially gain more boosts. However, said pokemon need the ability to set up repeatedly, which requires access to recovery, as well as good defensive stats, and the ability to at least operate off of only two (or in some cases, only one) attacking moves. A good example of a pokemon with access to both Bulk Up and Swords Dance would be Talonflame, whom utilizes bulk up as a wallbreaker set, using Gale Wings for both priority recovery, as well as priority STAB brave bird and immunity to burns to become a stallbreaker, as well as Swords Dance to simply sweep. I'd like some more discussion on these two, namely if either the Bulk Up + Swords Dance or Calm Mind + Nasty Plot sets would be desirable at all for our CAP, and if so, if we can properly make such a set without one option vastly overshadowing the other (As is the case for Mega Sableye, for whom Calm Mind entirely outclasses Nasty Plot). A hypothetical Swords Dance / Calm Mind set was also brought up earlier - I would like to see both it and its sister combo, Nasty Plot / Bulk Up, be discussed.

Dragon Dance + Nasty Plot
This option has been getting a lot of support, so I suppose I don't have much to add here that hasn't already been said.

Defensive / Offensive Boosting
Something that hasn't been brought up too much, but either Cotton Guard or Cosmic Guard plus some sort of offensive booster, such as Dragon Dance, may also be a possible direction to take. Instead of focusing purely on two kinds of offense, it would also have a defensive setup option - though, obviously the issue here is that it might to choose to simply run both, such as the case of Cotton Guard Dragon Dance Altaria. I haven't seen much discussion at all on this one, so comments and thoughts on this particular set up would be good.

 

[tehy]

Interestingly, I was actually thinking about the use of Calm Mind + Coil. To start off, there is a mild problem; if we want to give it priority, we'd probably have to give both sets priority, which almost mandates a Fighting-type + Vacuum Wave in order to keep up. However, Coil / Calm Mind is the simplest way to ensure that very little can switch in without caring about the set and always defeat the CAP, and there's a lot to be said for that (Well, QD would also be a way but has its own problems; I did partly like QD for this property). Then again, some 'mons might be strong enough to just take out the CAP regardless, and we probably won't be prioritying them down as I explained above; not only that, but you can always sacrifice your incorrect check, still do a ton of damage (If you expected to OHKO, a boost would mean you expect to do at least 66%), and then revenge the CAP or at least force it out and prevent a sweep. Still, it's the simplest way to create 2 very different sets that mandate different counters, and we might be able to work around the problem of priority (or give it a high Speed, but then it has a lot of high stats.)

Dragon Dance + Nasty Plot is pretty good, I endorse it fully. This also means we can just focus on offensive stats, preventing this CAP's stats from getting out of hand. (For example, Coil + NP needs good defenses on both sides alongside a good HP, good attack, special attack, and speed to various extents, so where do you skimp? I guess we could make it a base 100 mon, but eh.)

Defensive / Offensive boosting sounds theoretically interesting and that's all I got for now. Maybe someone can throw up some actual concepts of this? my personal vision of what that would be is, i guess, a mon with great Spa + SpD, who can either choose to weaponize that with an NP or Iron Defense to be fairly unbreakable. (CM fits that overall concept better but runs the risk of CM / Iron Def / Rest / attack sets being dominant.)

 

[Deck Knight]

My thoughts on some of the combos:

Bulk Up/Coil + Nasty Plot:
Pros:
Most priority is physical, making Bulk Up set superior for using and absorbing a priority hit. This aids tankiness.
The Nasty Plot Set could, with a defensive typing that discourages the passive damage the slower tanking set attracts shape counters quite drastically.

Cons:
In order to utilize either set properly, the Pokemon will need to have a decent amount of HP/SpD so as to make Bulk Up viable.
If special priority is to be used, the Pokemon will need either Technician, Fighting type, or both to make the set worthwhile to use Vacuum Wave. If you'll recall from discussion of the Swords Dance users, every single one that uses it to sweep carries a priority move, so CAP should probably follow that precedent.

This seems quite workable to me from a balancing perspective because of the physical orientation of most sweepers and of priority. NP has the advantage of netting KOs after one boost, Bulk Up/Coil the advantage of tanking opposing priority until opposing users can be removed and the sweep unhindered.


Swords Dance + Calm Mind:
Pros:
The Swords Dance set would have a large pool of priority to pick from for offensive sweeping.
The Calm Mind set would work best with a strong focus on both SpA and SpD, because Swords Dance has a lot of very appealing moves.

Cons:
Unless the Pokemon is neutral or better to Psychic and Fighting, it will lose Calm Mind wars to Psyshock and Secret Sword.
Balance is a much bigger issue here because Swords Dance is compatible with so many more priority moves.

This seems much less workable for the reasons I pointed out above, which is that raising SpD isn't as relevant as raising Defense for a sweeper when priority is overwhelmingly physical. Trying to balance SD and CM sets is a lot harder than trying to balance NP and BU sets.

- - -
My fear with both Swords Dance + Bulk Up and Nasty Plot + Calm Mind is that the offensive booster will almost always be strictly better. Any sweeper that is not boosting Speed will in all likelihood have a high speed tier, and +2 Offense is likely to preclude taking any damage while +1 requires taking damage (even on a boosted defense), which is a strictly inferior outcome. We also already have an OU example of SD + Bulk Up in Talonflame, and SD wins that dispute by a mile.

 

[Trox]

Alright, so we've had a lot of good discussion these past few days, and now it's about time to get ready to wrap things up. 24ish hour warning

Agility + anything
As has been brought up in the past, attempting to utilize Agility is problematic, as the pokemon in question requires already good base stats in order to properly use it. Therein lies the issue - if the pokemon's base stats are good enough to use agility, it may just decide to forsake the use of setup altogether, in favor of an all-out attack set, or the usage of a Choice Scarf, Band, or Specs. With this extremely high risk of concept derailment, as well as the possibility of having stats that are flat out too good, Agility is no longer on the table.

Calm Mind/Bulk Up(or Coil)
Right, to touch back on these two moves: their usage is upon defensive pokemon, to enable said pokemon to both gain more bulk, as well as potentially gain more boosts. However, said pokemon need the ability to set up repeatedly, which requires access to recovery, as well as good defensive stats, and the ability to at least operate off of only two (or in some cases, only one) attacking moves. A good example of a pokemon with access to both Bulk Up and Swords Dance would be Talonflame, whom utilizes bulk up as a wallbreaker set, using Gale Wings for both priority recovery, as well as priority STAB brave bird and immunity to burns to become a stallbreaker, as well as Swords Dance to simply sweep. I'd like some more discussion on these two, namely if either the Bulk Up + Swords Dance or Calm Mind + Nasty Plot sets would be desirable at all for our CAP, and if so, if we can properly make such a set without one option vastly overshadowing the other (As is the case for Mega Sableye, for whom Calm Mind entirely outclasses Nasty Plot). A hypothetical Swords Dance / Calm Mind set was also brought up earlier - I would like to see both it and its sister combo, Nasty Plot / Bulk Up, be discussed.

Dragon Dance + Nasty Plot
This option has been getting a lot of support, so I suppose I don't have much to add here that hasn't already been said.

Defensive / Offensive Boosting
Something that hasn't been brought up too much, but either Cotton Guard or Cosmic Guard plus some sort of offensive booster, such as Dragon Dance, may also be a possible direction to take. Instead of focusing purely on two kinds of offense, it would also have a defensive setup option - though, obviously the issue here is that it might to choose to simply run both, such as the case of Cotton Guard Dragon Dance Altaria. I haven't seen much discussion at all on this one, so comments and thoughts on this particular set up would be good.

My favourite option at this point is Nasty Plot + Coil. The Nasty Plot set would just be something special (get it? :D) in the rather physical orientated Metagame of ORAS OU. The Coil set on the other hand would just jump on the train and buff our physical bulk to tank hits and sweep after a few boosts, with enought attack power to break opposing physical walls.
This way, we can create two sets that can be viable in the Metagame.
I would prefer Coil over Bulk Up just because of the additional boost in accuracy, which makes moves with < 100% Accuracy simply more viable. If we have that chance, why not use it?
Swords Dance + Calm Mind on the other hand leaves both sets vulnerable to faster physical attacks / priority. At this stage of CAP, this is clearly a problem, because of which I feel these moves won't make our CAP viable enough. Other than that, I agree with the problems Deck Knight pointed out.

I really dislike the thought of having both setup moves boost the same offensive stat. This just costs us versality and makes our counters too similar. Boosting different offenses with each sets helps us to create different counters to CAP20, thus limiting the chance of one Pokemon simply wall us to death.

Defensive / Offensive Boosting
What is the main point in bossting stats? Right, we want our Pokemon to sweep and wreck our foes team. What I want to point out is that simply boosing defense alone probably won't archive that, except our Mons offensive stats are good to begin with. But then we have the risk that CAP just gets a Choice item equipped as an instant nuke or the offensive boosting set simply outclasses the defensive one.
If we don't give CAP good natural offenses, the issue is, just as nyttyn said, that a set with both setup moves might be more appealing, which is not something we want CAP to have.
That said, I think that making one of our sets just boost its defences is not a good way for our CAP.

P.S.: Just to make sure: I guess Work Up is out of Discussion as well, since I didn't get any other opinions in it?

 

[Cretacerus]

Defensive / Offensive Boosting:
The only purely defensive boosts I see as viable would be Cotton Guard and arguably Cosmic Power, and as mentioned by Nyttyn, both are used mostly as an supplement to an offensive boosting move. They can't really work on their own, as solely defensive boosters will eventually become a sitting duck before the opponents strategie and cause massive momentum loss due to their inability to switch. The only exception to this would be a set utilizing Stored Power to increase its offensive capacity, so if we choose to go the route of a purely defensive booster we are pretty much forced into this move.

The other option would be to treat the defensive boost as an optional complementary move on CAP's offensive sets, as seen with Mega Altaria or priorly Swirlix. Not sure whether Nyttyn ment this approach when saying:

Instead of focusing purely on two kinds of offense, it would also have a defensive setup option

In any case this is a viable option to increase the unpredictability and flexibility of this CAP. However, at this point we should focus discussion on the primary boosting options and leave contemplating about supplementing them with a defensive boost for later.

Bulk Up / Calm Mind
When finding synergizing boosting combinations, it might be tempting to combine these moves with their offensive counterparts (such as BU + SD) to allow more specialized stat spreads. This, however, is exactly what we want to avoid with this CAP, as specialization leads to predictability and common counters to the sets, whereas we want CAP to be as flexible as possible.

Therefore, we have to assume CAP getting an offensive stat spread very unlike that of the examples Sableye and Clefable, in order to allow the other booating option to be viable as well (opposed to NP Sableye). There might be little precedence in OU for offensive inclined Pokemon voluntarily running CM/BU over their fully offensive counterparts, but examples can be found in the Ubers tier, which shows us that speed (Stalltwo, MMX) and typing (BU Dialga) can indeed make up for the lack of outstanding bulk. Both could work just as well with other boosting moves with their offensive build, proving that CM/BU can indeed synergize with offensive boosting moves.

Overall, BU seems to be preferable to Calm Mind, with the defense boost being more vital in the metagame. In this case Coil seems like a good upgrade due to providing an additional niche by raising accuracy, to which I see no downside.

 

[Bughouse]

The point with defensive/offensive boosting is that the offensive booster would be more of a wallbreaker while the defensive booster could be a stallbreaker. I posited on IRC (with 5 min theorymon) something like Dark/Poison with Cotton Guard and reliable recovery. As Ground attacks are overwhelmingly Physical, except for Landorus-I, it could start to sponge almost all hits very fast, and as it's immune to Poison, it could maybe be a viable defensive booster and stallbreaker with the right 2 other moves. I could even see something like Cotton Guard + Rest (as opposed to standard reliable recovery) with Suction Cups working. There are probably numerous other ways to do this. Aside from Cotton Guard which could be tricky, the most obvious way to be a defensive boosting stallbreaker is CM Stored Power, though that path might be too obvious (and already known to be viable) to be interesting. It also might (as Imanalt pointed out on IRC) necessitate Magic Guard, which is really undesirable, as at that point, we'd basically just be making a better(?) Clefable.

This defensive booster could then be paired with Dragon Dance/Swords Dance/Nasty Plot Wallbreaker as a viable offensive set. Balancing the viability of the two types of sets might be difficult, but it's the only way I can see the concept being fulfilled in the sense of the two sets having distinct checks and counters. You can go for a bulkier CM booster and a NP sweeper or Coil/SD, but just look at CM vs Tail Glow on Manaphy. At the end of the day, the two sets still have similar checks and counters. There may be a way to diversify the sets' checks and counters, but it doesn't seem super obvious to me.

The other 2x offensive theory that's been put forward is something SD (or DD)/NP a la Infernape or Lucario, I'm not sure how doable that is. There's no easy way to make a mon that boosts on both sides, has stats that make both physical and special boosts threatening, has speed to avoid standard revenge killing, bulk and typing to resist priority revenging, etc etc, without just giving it 600+ BST and/or a really good ability. And at that point, it's just making Lucario++, which is imo not exciting and is also liable to be broken. And if we don't go that far, I'm not even sure a mixed booster is the most viable path. As wallbreaking goes, OU doesn't tend to be heavily focused on physical and special walling. Most bulky mons have mixed bulk these days. It's not as though teams are running SkarmBliss anymore. This isn't DPP.

 

[Imanalt]

The point with defensive/offensive boosting is that the offensive booster would be more of a wallbreaker while the defensive booster could be a stallbreaker. I posited on IRC (with 5 min theorymon) something like Dark/Poison with Cotton Guard and reliable recovery. As Ground attacks are overwhelmingly Physical, except for Landorus-I, it could start to sponge almost all hits very fast, and as it's immune to Poison, it could maybe be a viable defensive booster and stallbreaker with the right 2 other moves. I could even see something like Cotton Guard + Rest (as opposed to standard reliable recovery) with Suction Cups working. There are probably numerous other ways to do this. Aside from Cotton Guard which could be tricky, the most obvious way to be a defensive boosting stallbreaker is CM Stored Power, though that path might be too obvious (and already known to be viable) to be interesting. It also might (as Imanalt pointed out on IRC) necessitate Magic Guard, which is really undesirable, as at that point, we'd basically just be making a better(?) Clefable.

I think the core idea here is really good, trying to build two sets that fulfill very different roles, but i think wallbreaker/stallbreaker are too similar. Ideally each set is a threat to one kind of team, but not another. So I'd propose we go with one as a defensive boosting stallbreaker (a la clefable and sableye) and one being more of a threat to offensive teams, probably by boosting speed (dd seems the obvious answer here, which can be very dangerous to offense when paired with a typing offering solid priority resists).

The next big question is then of course, is it possible to build a mon that can be a good stallbreaking bulky set up sweeper, and can be a dangerous dd sweeper without making it broken. There are two main parts of this. A lot of it comes down to whether we can build a mon that threatens stall without using a "broken" ability like magic bounce or magic guard, which can end up being surprisingly useful to offensive sets, especially when combined with at least decent bulk. On bulk, the question becomes whether its possible to build a mon with enough bulk to be able to sweep defensively, AND enough power and speed to threaten offense, without breaking from our build triangle ideals (and thus really risking being broken).

There are examples of plenty of mons that can mostly pull off any one of these. Crocune earlier this gen and in gen 4 could threaten defensive teams without a broken ability, but because of its reliance on restalk to avoid status, it needed very high bulk. To me the heart of this question comes down to whether we can avoid status via some combination of nonbroken ability and typing (fire type with immunity, steel or poison type with water veil, etc), and leverage that, combined with reliable recovery, into a good stallbreaking sweeper with closer to clefable's defensive stats than suicune's, so that we can not be particularly bulky without investment (i.e on offensive sets).

With the correct coverage and typing, i think its very possible to make our dd set very viable without really high speed or attack. Something with average attack and 75ish speed with good coverage and priority resists can definitely threaten offense, although plenty of defensive mons can wall it. This seems not too hard, although the potential for a bulky dd set that can both stallbreak and beat offense is something we have to be very wary of.

 

[HeaLnDeaL]

I'd like to throw my support behind both Defensive / Offensive boosting and Dragon Dance / Nasty Plot, as I believe so far these are the most feasible combinations.

Dragon Dance/Nasty Plot offers a clear enough difference in options that 1) the moves can't be used on the same moveset with good results and 2) the boosts from these moves allow the CAPmon to take out different threats -- I think both of these requirements are very necessary and needed for the fulfillment of this concept. In comparison, something like Agility + whatever doesn't necessarily guarantee a mixed dance won't will surface (I'm reminded of Rock Polish/Swords Dance Rhydon in lower tiers). In terms of other offensive/offensive boosting combos, I think they all tend to fall short with their lack of variation. Dragon Dance obviously provides some physical power and some speed, while Nasty Plot provides a lot special offense. These moves are more differentiated than just Swords Dance and Nasty Plot, and so I think they can in turn have a greater difference of checks/counters (which is what we want). Of course, there are some concerns of having a massive BST in order to cater to both physical and special offensive boosting, and such a high BST might allow for just a mixed sweeper set that doesn't boost at all. However, I think DD/NP is still plausible as long as things are carefully balanced...

Defensive/Offensive boosting is less clear cut, in part because no single combination of moves has had a clear and obvious following so far. That said, srk's example that utilized Cotton Guard vs Dragon Dance Altaria is something that really appeals to me. As Ignus brought up earlier, effective boosts can either allow us to outmuscle or outstall the opponent, and the defensive/offensive boosts seems to try to capitalize on this. In terms of pure defensive boosting, there's no move that can outshine Cotton Guard due to it's impressive +3 boost, and things like Amnesia and Iron Defense seem to fail in comparison. However, what I think Imanalt was getting at is that split defensive/offensive moves like Calm Mind or Coil still can fulfill a fairly defensive role while being able to break through a number of threats. Essentially what I'm seeing in the defensive/offensive category is a split between Cotton Guard/Dragon Dance and Calm Mind/Dragon Dance(or maybe Coil/Dragon Dance? Though the shared physical boosting with DD might be less than ideal, and Zygarde has both of these moves already)... I think both combinations have some sort of merit and could work in different ways, depending on how stats, abilities, etc are implemented. The good news is at least we can respond accordingly in these future steps if we at least determine which combination to go with by the end of this thread. Overall, I do think that Defensive/Offensive boosting would allow for a more traditional/less-inflated BST than Dragon Dance / Nasty Plot, and so I favor this option a bit more.

 

[CerberusSONE]

Been lurking for a while, and as of now, I would support the Calm Mind+Coil/Nasty Plot+Coil option.

What both of these provide is Physical bulk and special offense that allows the CAP to tank a good amout of priority, and/or deliver boosted special attacks.

I have to discuss the latter option a bit more because I'm sure that with Coil+NP (given they are on the same set) CAP20 will abuse stronger attackers with boosted Acc (Focus Blast, Thunder, Blizzard, etc.), while tanking physical hits a bit better.
Even if the two boosts aren't on the same set, we'll have to consider the two moves and perhaps scrutinize its Speed stat to figure out what we want CAP20 to be outsped by.

I like Coil+CM a bit better because of the general versatility it provides. In a battle against a CAP with this combo, regardless of its stat bias, I'd have to consider which boost CAP20 would use (I'm either going to have trouble with its special orientation after CM, or its new physical build and attacks w/boosted acc. after Coil).

 

[Bughouse]

talked a ton on IRC and I'm coming around to the idea of Coil/DD as well. It's similar to my preference for defense/offense though the defense becomes a lot less passive. Cotton Guard is tricky to make work and Cosmic Power might be undesirable.

I think that Coil/DD be done a handful of ways that aren't broken and would have diverse checks/counters. Imanalt hinted at this sort of strategy in his last post, and fleshed it out very well in conversation on IRC.

long-ass log: http://pastebin.com/V3zNYgzK

 

[Albacore]

After thinking about it and discussing it on IRC, I would like to throw in my support for Offensive+Defensive setup (so SD/DD/NP+CM/BU/Coil, any combination of these can potentially work). I think this is actually the best solution because we choose to do this, we don't really need to worry about the kind of coverage our Pokemon will run as much. If we choose double offensive boosting, we need to worry that our offensive typing isn't good enough to only need 1 coverage move to get past stuff, we also need to worry that both sides have access to different coverage so that one set can beat what the other can't, and we have to worry that one side isn't just better than the other.

Defensive boosting+offensive boosting won't have this problem though, since the defensive booster will not be able to afford to use this coverage. A defensive booster will need recovery and, if it lacks the typing or ability to dodge status, either Substitute or Taunt, and will therefore end up with either 1 or 2 coverage moves, making it unable to break past a bunch of Pokemon no matter what coverage it gets. However, it will also have the bulk investment to wall certain Pokemon the offensive set cannot handle. For example, a SubCoil set on, say, a Steel/Electric type will set up all over Ferrothorn, while an offensive set will not be able to do this if it lacks the coverage to do so. This isn't a perfect example since you can still run recovery on a DD set letting you stall out Ferrothorn, but we can, for example, play around with the EVs to avoid KOs from certain defensive Pokemon to ensure that defensive sets can beat them when offensive sets cannot. But on the other hand a defensive set can easily be stopped by certain Pokemon which the offensive set will be able to beat. Taking the Steel/Electric example, we can give it Water coverage for Gliscor and Excadrill, which the SubCoil set would completely lose to since it would never run Water coverage and would stick to its STABs. Generally a defensive set can beat defensive Pokemon and an offensive set can beat offensive Pokemon, but that isn't necessarily the case, for example, Magnezone can beat the offensive set if it lacks the coverage to get past it, but loses to SubCoil becuase it has enough special bulk to avoid being 2HKOed by HP Fire. Meanwhile, Defensive Landorus-T easily stomp defensive sets, however hates a boosted Water move from offensive sets. So there's a variety of different checks and counters we can have for each set.

I don't think there's a problem with stats either. Somewhere around 100/80/80 bulk affords the Pokemon enough bulk to wall things if running a defensive set, and enough bulk to live a hit and then sweep for offensive sets. 80 Speed gives it enough speed to outspeed most attackers after a speed boost on an offensive set, and also enough speed to outpace and set up on defensive Pokemon on a defensive set. Around 120 in offensive stats also seems perfectly reasonable. Wahat really matters the most for defneisve/offensive to function is the typing and abilities, not the stats.

 

[tehy]

In that specific example (which, i guess reflects on your idea as a whole to an extent, but this is just a bit of a knock on that example), why wouldn't I use Elec + Water coverage? I suppose Mega Altaria and Grass-types, as well as some Dragon-types, but you can really SubCoil on a lot of those anyhow (obviously Dragon-types like Dragonite deny that, but they're hit fairly hard by Wild Charge and not harder by Steel STAB for the most part; I mean, say, Latios). So mostly you've got the occasional EQ-wielding Lati@s and Mega Altaria, but Waterfall does help you beat Excadrill quite a bit, as well as just hit Ground-types in general, factoring in especially that M-alt doesn't want to switch in initially and that'd probably be the better set. (And from your example, it helps you get past Magnezone)

I guess the larger point I'm making is, better make sure that the STAB combination is actually used, or else...yea.

 

[Pata Hikari]

I'm surprised that nobody's brought up Nasty Plot + Bulk Up/Coil.

First, consider Bulk Up. There's a lot more physical sweepers/revenge killers out there, thanks primarily to the bulk of priority being Physical. Defense boosting would allow the CAP to better shield themselves against these threats. This is superior to more dedicated defense boosting because it allow allows an offensive threat. Plus it could, theoretically, save a move-slot for recovery through the use of Horn Leech/Drain Punch.

Nasty Plot, on the other hand, allows for a lot more immediate power at the cost of less defense of course.

The main thing with this combination, of course, is the lack of a speed boost. I'm actually OK with that. Not having to worry about a speed boost allows a better placement of its speed tier. Ideally it's just fast enough for the special set to be able to handle the things its supposed to handle. Bulk Up, of course, won't care much about speed since it's meant to tank hits.

 

[mphallor]

I'm surprised that nobody's brought up Nasty Plot + Bulk Up/Coil.

First, consider Bulk Up. There's a lot more physical sweepers/revenge killers out there, thanks primarily to the bulk of priority being Physical. Defense boosting would allow the CAP to better shield themselves against these threats. This is superior to more dedicated defense boosting because it allow allows an offensive threat. Plus it could, theoretically, save a move-slot for recovery through the use of Horn Leech/Drain Punch.

Nasty Plot, on the other hand, allows for a lot more immediate power at the cost of less defense of course.

The main thing with this combination, of course, is the lack of a speed boost. I'm actually OK with that. Not having to worry about a speed boost allows a better placement of its speed tier. Ideally it's just fast enough for the special set to be able to handle the things its supposed to handle. Bulk Up, of course, won't care much about speed since it's meant to tank hits.

Not only has this been brought up, Deck Knight even put it in big bold letters about ten posts above yours.

Speaking of Deck Knight, a point he has brought up several times is that if we go the Nasty Plot+Bulk Up route our CAP will most likely need to have access to a powerful Vacuum Wave. Unfortunately, Fighting isn't the best coverage for Pokemon up in the 110+ speed range (Gengar, Lati@s, Thundurus, Talonflame, Scarf Lando-T). As such, I'm not sure how workable Nasty Plot is as our "fast sweeper" option. With the DD+NP combination, the Nasty Plot set is supposed to get outsped and revenge killed by the things the DD set isn't, so we probably wouldn't want Vacuum Wave in the first place. But if we go a route where Nasty Plot is the fast sweeper, then CAP is either going to need a STRONG Vacuum Wave (Fighting type is almost necessitated if we go this route, as well as an ability like Technician or Adaptability) or it will need a very high speed stat. While I'm not horribly opposed to either option, I think it's something that should be kept in mind: If our fast sweeper is using a boosting move that doesn't affect it's speed, it will either need powerful priority or enough speed to run with the premier threats of ORAS (most of which reside in the 110 tier).

This reason is why I think we should stick to one of the options that get us a speed boost. Nasty Plot+DD/SG and Bulk Up+DD are the only two that have really been getting a lot of support, but both of them give us the ability to effectively change CAP's speed tier based on what set it's running. This flexibility is highly desirable in my mind, since we can take a Pokemon that OHKO's us and actually pick one of our sets beat it by outrunning and killing it first. While no CAP ever does perfectly with it's prescribed checks and counters list, this flexibility will probably make our CAP much easier to build every step of the way.