CAP 24 CAP 24 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

[escarlata]

Glad that we are talking about weather in CAP again (I think the last time it came up was on Crucibelle during its ability poll?)

1.) Rain is the best weather in our metagame currently, what makes it so strong in comparison to the other weathers?
Most of the stuff about the strength of rain has already been covered, so just gonna leave that out. We talk about how rain has a large distribution of abusers but imo it's less of rain having more abusers and more of rain making their abusers stronger than the other abusers. Rain is the only weather condition that effectively gives a 3-stage stat boost on their abusers, akin to Shift Gear which is one of the boosting moves out there. So the abusers themselves don't even need much power to become good, whereas for Sun/Sand/Hail, you actually need good offensive stats (Kingdra has been destroying stuff with 95 SpA for reference). The other other thing that can compare is a Fire Chlorophyll user which obviously doesn't exist.

Also, the "supplementary" boosts that Rain provides to Hurricane/Thunder is way more relevant than what Sun provides. Hurricane/Thunder at worst misses. Solar Beam on the other hand, loses half its power, and prevents the user from switching out. This makes it way less spammable and way easier to punish.

2.) Can you think of any examples of abstract abuse of weathers?
Not sure how you would define abstract but 2 of the most successful rare users of weather I've used back in BW OU were Moltres in Rain and Liligant in Sun. Moltres was a really interesting case because it can spam stupidly strong Specs Hurricane in the Rain (strongest unboosted even now), while being able to matchup well against Sun due to 4x Grass resist and Sun-boosted Specs Fire Blasts. Liligant was also interesting for having Leaf Storm, Sleep Powder and Healing Wish for some quick nuke, cripple and sack,

 

[TKGriffiths]

BW Moltres in Rain was actually a very unique pokemon I'm glad you brought that up. The fact that STAB Fire Blast was still extremely important to pressure the ubiquitous Ferrothorn even though you fully expected to have rain up the whole time was especially interesting.

Only highlights the kind of cool interactions rain produces that other weathers can't though.

Also I'm sure it's already been mentioned, but honorable shout out to Shore Up as a relatively unknown way to utilize sand. Some kind of defensive staller like the current holder is of course what you think of first. But Sand Rush + Shore Up is a particularly interesting combination in a few different ways. Think of some parallels with Sableye's prankster recover for one example.

 

[Professor Mesquite]

1.) Rain is the best weather in our metagame currently, what makes it so strong in comparison to the other weathers?
The sheer power of Water type Pokémon. I’ve been told I use weather wrong, but I think Rain+Water Bubble Araquanid+Liquidation is one of the best combos. I also enjoy using Rain support + Scarf-Tornadus-T to send out a lot of terrifying hurricanes and use regenerator in case something becomes too dangerous for it.

2.) Can you think of any examples of abstract abuse of weathers?
Outside of Araquanid Rain, there aren’t too many abstract uses I have seen. It may be just my love of ice types talking, but I find Hail+Blizzard to be the most synergistic weather attack- with Vanilluxe (Woot gen 5 forever) you get Snow Warning and then Blizzard, and if you forsake setting up Automotize, you are ready to Special Sweep. Sun + Solar Beam is another example where weather seamlessly blends into combat.

3.) Competitively, what do you think is the best and worst weather, outside of Rain, and why?
It’s definitely my own bias, but I’ll explain. Hail is best, Sand is worst. This comes from two facts- Special Attack isn’t affected by Intimidate or any equivalent ability, and Ice is wonderful for attacking. When playing a Special Attacking Sweeper Set, Sand boosts things like Sand Rush and makes you tanky, but makes your enemies stronger as well. Particular with things like Crucibelle, you want to avoid your enemies surviving. Hail is great because it does so little outside of what you want it to. Hail does damage. Hail boosts Slush Rush. Hail boosts Blizzard accuracy. Slush Rush is so rarely used by teams that don’t run hail, so you rarely have to worry about enemies abusing your own weather. Now Blizzard. Blizzard is a 110 base power move that hits Dragons hard, is super effective against 4 types, and synergizes well with near any other attacking type because it’s so strong. This is in no means a declaration that CAP 24 must include Blizzard, but it is a review of the eligibility of a rarely used weather for powerful results. Now, Sand. Good for Ground, Rock, Steel- 3 good types. That increases the likelihood that by chance, the opponent gets benefitted by my weather. Why setup if your enemy benefits?! Sand also provides no benefits to attacking outside of Sand Force, where Sun boosts fire and Solar Beam, Hail boosts Blizzard, and Rain boosts water, Thunder, and Hurricane. Sand would be good if it were restricted to a lot more Pokémon, perhaps only sparing Rock, because then the odds of an opponent killing you or exploiting your team would be greatly reduced.

4.) Are there any underutilised weather mechanics worth noting in this process? Do you think they're exploitable?
The combination of Harvest with a NON-healing berry. Everyone uses sitrus and while very good for stall, a harvest mon that uses protect under the sun with a stat berry can layer on Stat-Changes like no tomorrow. Could be interesting to explore. Leaf Guard could be interesting to explore as well.

 

[Okamu]

1. We've beaten this to death. I defer to Deck's earlier analysis.

3. Again, I feel this has been sufficiently ground to a pulp. Each weather has significant drawbacks compared to the benefits when contrasted with Rain, but none are by any means unviable.

4. I think Weather Ball, as mentioned before, provides an interesting use, as well as some of the more niche abilities related to weather; see for example Flower Gift, or Ice Body + Aurora Veil on a Hail user (Though god the amount of set up turns for that is horrendous if it's one mon).

____________

Now, with those doodads out of the way, let's get into Question 2: Abstract Abuse. As reach already eloquently noted, abuse is something we need to define and probably increment, so for now I'd like to look beyond just the immediate benefits of one weather to look at synergy. Remember, the concept has us focusing on combining multiple weathers in one CAP while maintaining a distinct identity/role/whatever for each weather. With this noted, here's the combinations of weather we have to work with:

Rain/Sun, Rain/Hail, Rain/Sand, Sun/Sand, Sun/Hail, and Sand/Hail

As previously noted, rain is already the most prevalent and 'abuse-able' weather available right now, so unless CAP has some deranged metagame-suicide wish, I would imagine the rain combos won't be as favored, leaving us with three mixes to consider. So let's.

Sun/Sand - Sun tends to directly benefit Grass and Fire types, while Sand leans towards Ground, Rock, and Steel types. Two of the latter benefit from the weakening of Water-type moves in the Sun while the third (Steel) is harmed by the boost to fire moves. The healing moves associated with sun, Moonlight, Synthesis, Morning Sun, etc. are weakened in the presence of sand, but this is made up for by the introduction of Shore Up in Gen 7, which provides the potential for healing in both weathers. On the same, defensive side, the sand buff to Rock types' Special Defense can be considered. On the attacking side, both Chlorophyll and Sand Rush provide similar speed boosts, while Growth in the Sun, as previously mentioned, is potentially scary. Sand Force also provides a bit more oomph behind potential STAB or coverage ground/rock/steel moves should that route be considered. Of course, there's also Flower Gift to consider for team-support potential and the many other abilities previously mentioned. Overall, it seems a fairly varied combination with many aspects to consider.

Sun/Hail - As previously mentioned, Sun => Grass and Fire types, while Hail is quite limited to Ice types. There's some weird interplay that I'll just throw out here, in that Hail helps an Ice type beat a Grass Type by buffing Blizzard and such, while Sun boosts Fire's power to make Ice easier to beat. At which point, I'll call to mind the earlier points from others that should a Hail-mon be made, it doesn't necessarily have to be Ice typed, as that would only further exacerbate Hail's problems. On the defensive route there's an interesting split, where in Hail Aurora Veil can be used to focus on directly buffing defenses and in Sun the aforementioned healing moves provide pure HP-regen. Again, we also have Flower Veil for potential support. The speed ability split is here as well, though slightly nerfed due to Slush Rush's non-immunity to Hail. In terms of attack buffing, there simply isn't as much to offer here, as Hail only provides help for Blizzard while Sun boosts Fire and speeds the charge on Solar Beam/Blade. Overall, I'd personally say this looks more defensive (aligning with what previous poster's have noticed is Hail's main drawing point being Veil), but of course this isn't a clear-cut prescription.

Sand/Hail - And lastly this pairing; the direct type benefits can be inferred from the previous two, but just in case, here you go: Ground/Rock/Steel - Ice. Really quick though, I'd like to make it clear that these types are just what I'm throwing in as the stereotype beneficiaries. For the purpose of this project, it's quite feasible that we decide to go another direction to diversify weather teams, which is also a brilliant way to approach one of the weathers. But I digress. In terms of main beneficiary pairing, Ground helps to patch up Ice's struggles with Fire, while Ice hits Flying types that Ground struggles with. Meanwhile, Rock provides a similar offensive pressure on Fire, while putting additional pressure on Flying types. Defensively we once again have the SpD boost for Rock types in Sandstorm and Aurora Veil to consider, but only Shore Up for healing. Neither weather weakens or buffs an attacking type, making passive defenses a net nothing. Offensively we have the speed boot abilities pair, and also Sand Force again. Notably though, this is the only pair which will always cause chip damage no matter which weather is up, which could play an interesting role in both weakening the opponent to keep up offensive pressure or promoting stall. Overall, I'd say this weather pairing is the least centered on the benefits of the weathers themselves, focusing more on how the types that often use these weathers pair their attacks and cover for weaknesses.

With a very cursory glance at that done, you may be wondering, "Why did this person do this? How is this an abstract abuse?" Well I'm getting there. You see, in the current meta, it's not necessarily hard to find a Pokémon that can work on multiple weather-based teams. However, it is almost impossible to find a Pokémon that effectively abuses both weathers (At least I think, am I forgetting something?). Making CAP 24 abuse two weathers well would be in and of itself an abstract use of weather, singlehandedly making "Weather Wars" less threatening is you can work greatly in two weathers at the same time. Now, that's not to say that's the path this project should take, but I would pose it as a thought to consider. Should CAP 24 have individual sets that excel at taking advantage of one weather in particular while becoming only OK outside of it? Or, should we aim for a middle ground set that aims to resist changes in weather by taking good, but not stellar advantage of both? Seeing as the very introduction of this CAP will potentially cause a spike in weather usage, it becomes an interesting question to answer, as the more weather-specific you make it, the more "Weather Wars"-y we may risk making the metagame.

TL;DR - We should consider synergy between weathers as in and of itself an abstract use. We must face the trade off of specialty sets vs. general weather usability. (Does that last sentence even make sense? I'm tired. xD)

 

[Askeia]

With this noted, here's the combinations of weather we have to work with:

Rain/Sun, Rain/Hail, Rain/Sand, Sun/Sand, Sun/Hail, and Sand/Hail

As previously noted, rain is already the most prevalent and 'abuse-able' weather available right now, so unless CAP has some deranged metagame-suicide wish, I would imagine the rain combos won't be as favored, leaving us with three mixes to consider. So let's.

On the contrary, I think it's possible that CAP24 could and should abuse rain just so that rain, being dominant as it is, does not completely dump on CAP24-based teams. I think that CAP24 perhaps should be strong against rain teams in rain, but stronger against non-rain teams in another weather like Sun or Hail. Something like how Volcarona can sometimes run Hurricane just so that it still has a strong spammable move even against Rain teams. Going by this train of thoughts, probably a sun or hail or sand abuser with access to hurricane/thunder could be a possible thing to consider.

 

[Sereg]

On the contrary, I think it's possible that CAP24 could and should abuse rain just so that rain, being dominant as it is, does not completely dump on CAP24-based teams. I think that CAP24 perhaps should be strong against rain teams in rain, but stronger against non-rain teams in another weather like Sun or Hail. Something like how Volcarona can sometimes run Hurricane just so that it still has a strong spammable move even against Rain teams. Going by this train of thoughts, probably a sun or hail or sand abuser with access to hurricane/thunder could be a possible thing to consider.

I have to disagree with this.

We're trying to make something that encourages other weathers to be used more in comparison to rain. We don't want something that rain teams can use. I think this thing should hate rain, and therefore probably water, which makes liking Sun's water-nerfing make sense.

In addition, as we want to abuse the two weathers in different ways, with only one at most being for sweeping, I think Sand is a good choice as its the weather that's easiest to do use for bulk instead of sweeping. even Aurora Veil is mostly used to help sweep.

 

[Magic Mayhem Maiden]

1.) Rain is the best weather in our metagame currently, what makes it so strong in comparison to the other weathers?
1. Weather Effects: Rain is a great weather because it has so much utility. For starters, it boosts damage of water type moves by x1.5, which is great for a rain team. It also weakens fire types, which means that Pokemons normally weak to fire, such as steel or grass types, are more useful. Thunder and Hurricane will always hit, which means that using grass types against the rain team are somewhat dangerous, and they are good coverage moves overall. I haven't even talked about the abilities; Swift Swim is easily the best ability in the rain, letting slower but bulkier Pokemons be a big threat to the opposing team. That's why Mega Swampert is run on every rain team, along with others.
2. Good Typing: Water only has 2 weakness, grass and electric. In a rain team, both of those types are neutralized by either the setter or the abuser, and they can in turn use super effective stabs against them. Pelipper is a flying type, and can spam(?) Hurricane against grass types, along with U-Turn. Mega Swampert is immune to electric and can spam EQ against them, and the high base speed of electric types are rendered useless of Swift Swim, easily getting KO's against the not bulky electrics. Not to mention that Pokemon with other types can be used, such as Ferrothorn, which with fire Pokemons (and to an extent fighting) being a nonexistent threat anymore, is pretty dang good, considering it can counter grass and electric types very well and can support the rain team.
3. Little Counterplay: What can you do against a rain team? Offensive teams die to the Swift Swimmers, Balance team also die to Swift Swimmers, and stall teams die to Ferrothorn or something I guess not, but everyone hates stall so its kinda a stretch. The best option is to strip the weather, but currently every other weather sucks. Sun is weak to water and grass sweepers have a really bad type, Sand teams are also weak to water, along with steel types having basically no offensive presence, and ice is downright terrible. I guess there are counters, but either they are specialized to defeat rain teams, or teams that can face up to rain teams, but not always beat them.
3.) Competitively, what do you think is the best and worst weather, outside of Rain, and why?
Sun has the most utility of the weather, but the setters and abusers are terrible in typings (fire and grass are pretty bad defensive typings) and stats (the chlorophyll abusers grass types are either not strong enough or not bulky, and are too fast). Sand has less utility as a weather, but the setters are nice and Excadrill is pretty damn good as a Sand Rusher. Snow has bad setters (aside from Ninetales, which is only good for Aurora Veil)and low utility, and the abusers are non-existent.

I would say that the best weather is sand, because the Pokemons have decent stats to actual be a threat. The Worst weather is probably Ice because of the abysmal typing, and the abusers are basically non-existent.
4.) Are there any underutilised weather mechanics worth noting in this process? Do you think they're exploitable?
NO.
I guess the weather healing abilities or hydration.

My suggestions of this CAP:
-A bulky user or Chlorophyll that's not grass and not super fast in the sun (like basically 200 base speed in the sun)
-A sand abuser (because that's the only possible rival to rain currently, and we can't make multiple mons)
-A CAP that would just reduce the viability of rain (but then, its kinda against the point of the concept)

 

[Drapionswing]

I'm really impressed by the comments made in this thread already! Firstly, we've learned that Rain is a superior weather to other rain teams due to a vast number of reasons. Having a sitter with U-turn is amazing for rain, there are also both physical and special abusers, which can gain a boost on their stab under the rain. Water isn't a bad defensive typing, having two weaknesses allows for an easy time patching up weaknesses in teams via other abusers such as frozen. Being able to set better versus other weathers is also very powerful, as slow Pelippesr can set rain after Ninetales-A, offensive TTar variants, and Charizard Y.

As well as learning more about the already established rain, we had very detailed lists of traits each weather has from boxofkangaroos and Drew, thanks to this we can see some of the weaknesses and strengths of other weathers outlined. This, along with your answers from question 3, have led me to get a better understanding of people's opinions of weather and how well it works.

With Slush Rush not granting Hail immunity and Ice-Type being a poor defensive typing, people have deemed it to be less effective and its only strong point to be Aurora Veil, although Aurora Veil can be used with a wide variety of Pokemon unlike other weathers. Whereas something like sand, which was commonly said to be the best weather, has applicability on both weather and non-weather teams. Sun also gained some love due to the ability for it to be abused very effectively outside of weather oriented teams due to boosting fire-type moves in the weather. However, a lack of viable setters and effective abusers brought it down for some people.

So that has lead me to these questions:


5.) Do we want to limit Cap24 to weather teams or let it have a use outside of them, similar to Tyranitar/Mega Charizard Y?.

6.) Excluding rain, what do you think is the worst weather to explore for this concept and why?

Please take into account that your answer to question 6.) will be used to assess what weathers we will be choosing to explore.

 

[david0895]

5.) Do we want to limit Cap24 to weather teams or let it have a use outside of them, similar to Tyranitar/Mega Charizard Y?.

Worring about a potential use outside the weather teams, could limit the building process, so I prefer to limit to them

6.) Excluding rain, what do you think is the worst weather to explore for this concept and why?

Hail is the worst weather for this concept.
The only good ability for it is Slush Rush and if CAP24 will not an Ice-type, it will take hail damage, limiting its sweeping potential into choice items. If Ice type will be added, we are forced to give it a type that will reduce the Stealth Rock damage, in order to give it a decent number of switch-in

 

[Mx]

5) I think we should prioritize making CAP 24 work under weather, without worrying too much about whether is viable or not without weather support. While there's nothing wrong with CAP being used outside of dedicated weather teams, that should not be the focus of this process. The viability of a weather-less CAP 24 should be just a side-effect of the project, something that could happen, but not something we should worry about too much, as it should naturally be less dangerous there than in the playstyles we designed it for.

6) I strongly believe that we should focus on Sand and Hail, while leaving Sun out of the equation. The reason for this is that Sun is an inherently more powerful weather, because of how dangerous the Fire-Type boost is. It certainly has not been able to abuse its power to the fullest, because of mediocre abusers, that don't possess good Fire-types. With a proper abuser, Sun would be just as dominating as Rain, while Sand and Hail are not so immediately threatening, and make for a much more interesting project. Sure, Aurora Veil is incredibly powerful, but A-Tales is a pretty mediocre setter, and unlike Sun, where it requires the setter to simply switch in, the AV setter needs a turn to set up. And while Sand has the overall two best setters in Hippowdon and Tyranitar, it really struggles to break past common CAP walls such as Tomohawk and Arghonaut, making it a very ineffectual archetype in today's metagame.

 

[Sereg]

5.) Do we want to limit Cap24 to weather teams or let it have a use outside of them, similar to Tyranitar/Mega Charizard Y?

I think that we should make sure that it works well in weather, but should at least function outside weather. If it can at least function out of weather, it survives having it's weather removed or needing to set up its weather. It also allows better counterplay against those whom your weather is less effective against and means that you can bring it in on a non weather team and then decide if you wan to use weather as an added benefit. However, I think that this mon should at least be seen more commonly on weather teams.

6.) Excluding rain, what do you think is the worst weather to explore for this concept and why?

Hail. Here's why:

Assuming we avoid evasion abilities, which we will want to, we either need to be Ice typed or have Ice Body, or our own weather is going to hurt us. Adding in to how fragile Ice teams are in general, that makes it harder to help the weather while simultaneously helping another.

Ice Body is a stalling ability, which could be combined with Aurora Veil could create a stalling strategy. However, the lack of permaweather makes stalling on weather teams a double edged sword as you are using up your own weather turns. In addition, Hail teams are fragile and therefore do not synergise well with Stall.

A combination of Slush Rush and Aurora Veil would create Veil Offense. But we already know what that does. It became a very popular archetype and is the entire reason Alolan-Ninetails ended up in OU for a while. In addition, this is a sweeping strategy, and, while having one of the weathers be used for sweeping should be fine, the concept suggests trying to explore alternative methods of weather abuse instead of using a speed-boosting ability to sweep, and the nature of weather means it will already be difficult to pull off without having one of the weathers basically restricted to that strategy already.

Both Sun and Sand have hidden potential with multiple interactions that have yet to be used together due to distribution that we can fix by putting them on a single mon, allowing them to tap that potential and become as good as they can be. Sun has most of its best abilities stuck on Grass, which doesn't need the water weakening and actively dislikes the fire strengthening. There are opposing interactions there we can fix. Sand is the weather easiest to stall, or to supply a bulky strategy in general with (bar Aroura Veil, which I've discussed), as it actively boosts defenses and has a healing move that is boosted by it, and unlike other healig moves boosted by weather, it is never nerfed. It comes with chip damage too. However, the former two interactions are on separate pokemon, despite being very synergistic. Again, we can fix that.

EDIT: mxmts : V Sorry. I overstated. I've been saying in the Discord all along that if we do Hail, it will be worth taking the damage in order to not be Ice type. Yes, there are possibilities. I'm just saying that they are harder to pull off, especially as we're trying to optimise for another weather with another playstyle simultaneously. Meaning our choices are encouraged to follow a specific path and going against that, while possible, is hard, which we probably don't need. We've got enough of a challenge already.

 

[Escavalier Royale]

5) I'd say we should mainly focus on the mon's role in weather teams during building. But I'm pretty sure some people will use it outside of weather teams too, be it as a counter to those teams. Building will likely be a little easier when we don't have to focus on the mon's role outside of weather.
6) Hail is probably the worst to build a mon around. If we're going to utilize Hail, we'll be very limited in our choices during building. Slush Rush is barely worth it and to make effective use of Aurora Veil we'll have to do very specific things to make it not a largely worse Alolatakes. Stick with Sun and Sand (and Rain if we want to).

 

[Mx]

6.) Excluding rain, what do you think is the worst weather to explore for this concept and why?

Hail. Here's why:

Assuming we avoid evasion abilities, which we will want to, we either need to be Ice typed or have Ice Body, or our own weather is going to hurt us. Adding in to how fragile Ice teams are in general, that makes it harder to help the weather while simultaneously helping another.

Ice Body is a stalling ability, which could be combined with Aurora Veil could create a stalling strategy. However, the lack of permaweather makes stalling on weather teams a double edged sword as you are using up your own weather turns. In addition, Hail teams are fragile and therefore do not synergise well with Stall.

A combination of Slush Rush and Aurora Veil would create Veil Offense. But we already know what that does. It became a very popular archetype and is the entire reason Alolan-Ninetails ended up in OU for a while. In addition, this is a sweeping strategy, and, while having one of the weathers be used for sweeping should be fine, the concept suggests trying to explore alternative methods of weather abuse instead of using a speed-boosting ability to sweep, and the nature of weather means it will already be difficult to pull off without having one of the weathers basically restricted to that strategy already.

Both Sun and Sand have hidden potential with multiple interactions that have yet to be used together due to distribution that we can fix by putting them on a single mon, allowing them to tap that potential and become as good as they can be. Sun has most of its best abilities stuck on Grass, which doesn't need the water weakening and actively dislikes the fire strengthening. There are opposing interactions there we can fix. Sand is the weather easiest to stall, or to supply a bulky strategy in general with (bar Aroura Veil, which I've discussed), as it actively boosts defenses and has a healing move that is boosted by it, and unlike other healig moves boosted by weather, it is never nerfed. It comes with chip damage too. However, the former two interactions are on separate pokemon, despite being very synergistic. Again, we can fix that.

I really disagree with this. There's nothing that really suggest we'll need to use Ice Body or an Ice typing if we choose Hail. While taking residual damage from hail is annoying, it's still something that a good abuser would be able to accept. In an AV team, most mons are vulnerable to Hail, yet they still are able to abuse it just fine, and they are not even utilizing any other advantages of Hail at all, like 100% Blizzards, Slush Rush or Weather Ball. And while it's true that would favor a more offensive approach under Hail, there would still be another weather where we could try to focus more on Walling/Support.

 

[Project_Mars]

5.) Do we want to limit Cap24 to weather teams or let it have a use outside of them, similar to Tyranitar/Mega Charizard Y?.
Limiting CAP24 to weather teams seems like the easiest way to fulfill the concept without distractions causing it to go off the rails and miss the mark. On the other hand, there are multiple generically good abilities that can help out by allowing CAP24 to fill gaps or roles on a team dedicated to a specific type of weather and would allow it reason to fit on other teams.

6.) Excluding rain, what do you think is the worst weather to explore for this concept and why?
Honestly? I am inclined to thing that none seem to be overly worse than the other in terms of what to explore with this concept. Yes even Hail which has multiple issues (namely Typing and the fact that Slush Rush doesn't prevent Hail damage) but still has as much potential as the others. Sun has been looked at in at least one previous CAP while Sand is arguably the second best weather despite there being just 3 or 4 Pokémon that generally take advantage of it... and only one of them doesn't have Sand Stream as an ability. People seem to be thinking more along the lines of speed boosting or various defensive stuff related to a particular weather rather than being a weather setter or being a perfect pivot for a particular weather and whatnot. The former seems a lot more limiting, especially in regards to Hail, but the latter seems to have a lot more potential.

 

[Reviloja753]

I think we should focus on making CAP24 viable in weather, but also make sure it is not absolute garbage outside of weather. Even if it isn’t extremely powerful outside of weather (which probably is for the best), if it can do something when its weather is gone, I think we’ll be fine.

As for the worst weather, my money is on Hail, but not by as big a margin as other people have said. The reason for Hail having even a slight merit would be an Ice Body + Veil combo, but even then, it isn’t amazing and pigeonholes us. However, that is an option to take if we REALLY want to go there. I’m not going to explain why Hail is the worst, other than the fact that the only remotely viable thing about it is Veil, but Hail teams do not fall under it right now, so not really. Sun with a proper abuser would probably be our best chance to topple Rain from its isolated tower, given a good abuser. Also, Flower Gift is a neat way to go down that I would personally be happy with. Sand also has fun interactions, with the chance to basically make a better Lileep, or even a Pokémon that is fast and physically tanky, but weak in Special Defense, until in Sand. It could let us finally have a Pokémon that is fast and bulky! I am a little wary about having a Sand Rush Pokemon though, unless it’s a defensive one, only because it’d be redundant.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

5.) Do we want to limit Cap24 to weather teams or let it have a use outside of them, similar to Tyranitar/Mega Charizard Y?

I am not interested in spending even one second worrying about this Pokemon on non-weather teams. This is not an easy concept to execute,; integrating this Pokemon into two separate team archetypes is going to be a difficult task. We should be designing this Pokemon for two weather conditions, and if it also happens to be viable on other teams (a third weather or none at all), then so be it. We should not be "limiting" CAP24 to weather teams, but we shouldn't be going out of our way to make CAP24 viable on non-weather teams either.

6.) Excluding rain, what do you think is the worst weather to explore for this concept and why?

I've gone back and forth on this. I think the answer to this question is Sun, to be honest. Sun's issues are too great to overcome with just one Pokemon, IMO. Mega Charizard Y can't use Heat Rock and its quadruple weakness to Stealth Rock makes it not keen to switch out to other sweepers. Drought Malaconda is an afterthought in the CAP metagame. No Chlorophyll or Solar Power Pokemon are particularly good in CAP, and Growth is significantly weakened with Pokemon like Haze Tomohawk running around. Maybe we could introduce a Sun sweeper strong enough to pair with Malaconda and make Sun a viable team archetype, but I think it's the least likely of the four weathers to benefit significantly from this concept. There's just too much of a gap between what Sun Offense is and what Sun Offense needs to be to be viable.

I do not think Sun is a bad weather to explore with this concept, just that the other three are better.

As an aside, I do not believe Rain is a bad weather to explore for this concept.

 

[Deck Knight]

5.) Do we want to limit Cap24 to weather teams or let it have a use outside of them, similar to Tyranitar/Mega Charizard Y?.

We need a good working definition of "Weather Teams." Currently the only viable ones that really exist are Rain Teams, since Sun lost its biggest chokepoint agent with the Arena Trap ban.

The way I see CAP 24 going - and this will inform all my thoughts from here on out - is that our CAP will ideally *set* one weather and *abuse* another. This will inherently make it part of a "weather team," but it's more accurate to say it will form 2 or 3 Pokemon Weather *Cores*, like the Pelliper / Kingdra / Mega Swampert core or the Tyranitar / Excadrill core or the Zard-Y / Venusaur core. To the extent it expands out from there, the question is whether the weather we choose needs an additional setter or an additional abuser.

I think by nature of the USUM CAP meta, "Weather Teams" are not as useful concept to keep in mind as specific cores with specific setters. Does our CAP work effectively with Zard-Y, Alolan-Ninetales, Tyranitar, Hippowdon, Mega Aboma, and Malaconda in cores? If not all of them, which ones? As a setter, which Pokemon could it form a core with? Syclant, Excadrill, Volcarona, Venusaur, or even something like A-Slash?

The question to me is "cores," not weather teams. And to be explicitly clear I'm not saying we should turn this into yet another core concept CAP, I'm saying that specific setters and specific abusers already exist, and CAP's ability to work with them should inform our decisions.

6.) Excluding rain, what do you think is the worst weather to explore for this concept and why?

This is a trick question in one sense. Hail is the most unworkable weather to explore as a concept because the only major advantage of being a Hail setter is instant Aurora Veil, and the only major advantage of being a Hail recipient is being able to either use Slush Rush, try to use limited Hail turns defensively with Ice Body, or to set up Aurora Veil after the fact.

In that sense, a CAP that is merely a useful pivot paired with Alolan-Ninetales and Mega Abomasnow (the two most viable Hail setters) with access to Aurora Veil is synergistic with hail. This is true even if the CAP takes Hail damage because a set-up Aurora Veil on a switch will reduce damage from all incoming attacks for 5 or 8 turns (w/Light Clay).

The difference really comes down to immediate defense vs setup defense. Given the right typing, Sun and Sand both present immediate defensive advantages. A neutrality to a Water attack becomes a resistance under sun. Under Sand, all Special Attacks are blunted immediately for any Rock type. Hail's defensive advantage comes in altering a boosting weather to avoid additional damage, but Hail itself can only pay real defensive dividends once CAP uses a move.

When thought about that way, a CAP that focuses on Sun and Sand but can also be used it a Core with A-Tales or Abomasnow and set Veil would be able to effectively utilize every weather except for Rain. In the case of a weather setting set it wouldn't be able to use Aurora Veil, however such a set would capitalize on that weather specifically, or would use the fact A-Tales can set the Veil and multiply the advantages [Sidenote: Why does Aboma not get A-Veil? Why doesn't AURORUS when Aurora is in its name ffs. That distribution is crazy awful.]. A-Tales setting up a Veil followed by a SpD boost from Rock-typed Sandstorm? Menacing - and something you can already do with A-Tales and Tyranitar.

So even though in Discord I've said I liked Sun and Hail, I think from the perspective of which would work best in forming competent cores, Hail should be something we can use optionally, but not the central focus of setting or abuse.

 

[K. Roolest Shark]

5.) Use it outside.
6.) Hail. Only use in Aurorua Veil and Slush Rush and that's pretty much it. There's also Blizzard spam and dwindling down but you have Sand and also Ice Beam for those.

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

5) Charizard Y I think doesn't really count as a true setter due to how Drought is used as a Mega Ability and only benefits it as a special nuke. This use of it does not benefit Sun mons in most cases, so I don't think it should be discussed as something to be used on weather teams.

Tyranitar is the interesting one. It can certainly run a Smooth Rock and be used as a setter, and it even benefits from the Rock buff. So...why don't we see it run this more often? Because it simply has more tools it can use in its place. It can pursuit trap, hit stuff hard, and Mega Evolve, and all of these are far more appealing to it than being a niche setter. If we specifically decide to add new things to it alongside the weather focus, the Mon could just end up doing the other thing all the time instead, ruining the concept. But I also agree with DLC in allowing them if they accidentally appear when building it as a weather Mon. So limit.

6) While it pains me to say, I think it is fairly safe to conclude that Hail would be the worst option in this concept. It restricts types based on its weather significantly, and could be an annoyance to the rest if we don't choose said type. I think it also has a lot less interesting directions it can go because of its only tools being Aurora Veil, Blizzard, Slush Rush, and Ice Body. This is very little compared to the truck load of possibilities of other weathers.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

I've really enjoyed some of these reads as a whole, thanks everyone

5.) Do we want to limit Cap24 to weather teams or let it have a use outside of them, similar to Tyranitar/Mega Charizard Y?.

It depends on how solid it is at its role and how flexible it is within it's weather setting. If we want to make a single Mon that's able to patch up sun, hail, or sand and it to ultimately be viable, we'll be hard pressed not to make it to much of a set up sweeper that's indifferent to the weather and could just say hey I rather have bulky pivots, hazard control and checks to coverage holes, because sun probally won't see the the raw fire spam to smash through bulky cores with smart switching with their fairly limited rock/fire weak picks

I think rather it's best to make a ultity Mon that encourages build around like a sun setter that enjoys 1/2 water can eat standard ice 2nd coverage and the hp ele/grass like a fire bug or maybe steel ground(but I guess You get that fire weakness :/ even if it helps with rock)

Or a hail setter that isn't veil based but chips someone to death with toxic(spikes) and acts as a really bulky pivot that never directly spans ice but softens them

Same with sand too

 

[2MN]

5.) Do we want to limit Cap24 to weather teams or let it have a use outside of them, similar to Tyranitar/Mega Charizard Y?.

i've touched on this before, but while i believe that its sets should always require reliance on at least one type of weather (whether that be manually setting rain like gen 6 rest manaphy sets, or in combination with a setter, similar to semi-rain offensive cores like specs pelipper + ash-greninja), i also believe that CAP24 needs to fit in well with other non-weather cores--so long as it's never emphasized beyond a nice minor strength, at least.

the fact of the matter is, this is not a pelipper situation, where we just need one more good pokemon to fit the weather and everything else just handles itself. all these other weather types have severe flaws in teambuilding, and i don't feel like a single pokemon can just fix that without having enough synergy for other pokemon to fit in. the best way to get that synergy is to have a pokemon that can fit in well with a lot of cores, and allowing it to still work outside of weather teams will give us far more breathing room in accomplish that.

6.) Excluding rain, what do you think is the worst weather to explore for this concept and why?

if this was a pokemon designed to work solely under one form of weather, i'd say sand, because it's a rather limited weather where every nearly every potential strength has already been covered over the generations--but we aren't building around one weather, we're building around two.

sand is a nice weather for balance, whereas sun and hail is somewhat required to operate under more offensive teams, so whereas sun/hail forces us to just make a full-on offensive pokemon, sand/sun or sand/hail allows for a pokemon that can go between bulky offense and balance far more fluidly.

as for the other two, then, i'd say sun has the better chance of working over hail, if only because there's far more viable options in a sun user, whereas what a hail abuser can do is somewhat limited by comparison, but IMO, so long as sand is in the mix, i think there's a lot of viable ways to make either work.

(also, there's really no reason hail immunity should be required at all? a hail team will be an AV team, and AV teams are going to be highly offensive in nature. when you're a pokemon taking half damage regularly throughout the match, taking some chip damage isn't going to mean too much)

 

[reachzero]

5.) Do we want to limit Cap24 to weather teams or let it have a use outside of them, similar to Tyranitar/Mega Charizard Y?

Any talk of "limiting" CAP 24 to Weather teams makes this project even more of a boom-or-bust deal than it already is--if CAP 24 is never seen outside of Sun/Sand/Hail, we stake everything on our ability to "save" these team types, to make them top-tier competitive options. That begs the question of whether any of Sand/Sun/Hail are one Pokemon away from being a top-tier competitive option, and I'll admit I have some doubts about that. I'm not saying the concept is impossible, but I am saying that we shouldn't box this Pokemon in artificially to avoid non-Weather uses. To make a rather contrived example, imagine that CAP 24 is being built for Hail and needs a special Ice attack. If we are limiting the Pokemon to Hail in a strict way, we may end up Disallowing Ice Beam or even Blizzard in favor of Weather Ball to prevent it from being used outside of Weather. Doing so would be foolish, in my opinion. Optimally, CAP 24 ends up emulating Excadrill, which shines on Sand teams but retains a definite and unique niche outside of Weather. This may sound like a call to make CAP 24 more powerful, but it is actually the opposite: if we restrict CAP 24 completely to its Weathers, we will have to make it really, really powerful (probably better than Mega Swampert in Rain) to ever see the light of day.


6.) Excluding rain, what do you think is the worst weather to explore for this concept and why?

I feel that Hail would be the worst Weather to build for, for two reasons. The first is that Aurora Veil is a huge complication: having to do separate calcs for Aurora Veil Hail uses and for the non-Hail Weather uses would make the Stats stage a huge juggling act and increase the risk of being either extremely overwhelming or underwhelming. Secondly, Hail abuser could be defined loosely as meaning any bulky set-up sweeper or more strictly as meaning something with a clear role on a full "Hail team", complete with blizzspam and Slush Rush support. The latter interpretation would paint us into a corner pretty hard, since blizzspam already has Kyurem-B to be a breaker and Syclant to be a sweeper, meaning we would be pushed pretty hard into Slush Rush. By comparison, we would have way more creative freedom working with Sand and Sun.

 

[CharSiuEmboar]

Is it worth tabling for discussion the potential of creating a CAPmon with a mega, that can take advantage of either one bit of weather in multiple ways?

When you look at the strengths of Rain over the others, it's clear that one of the strongest is just that there are many more options. And that if the mon is to perform well in its own niche as operating well within weather, I think it needs to come at the expense of being able to punish a Rain abuser.

For that matter, I think that has to make it a mon which can punish the major abusers of Rain: the only move which can reliably do that is Freeze Dry, which 4x's Pelipper/MegaSwampert/Kingdra, and hits Tomohawk SE. This then suggests an obvious synergy with Hail, and to benefit from Aurora Veil.

Hail by benefit of not providing many buffs to the typing on its own, means that the mon has the least to lose should it not have Hail up.

I think that it's almost required to have the mon able to operate outside of their favoured weather, and directly punish other Weather Makers and those who otherwise benefit, to make it less viable for them to come in: Hail is almost universally the type that is able to do that. It provides the least amount of benefits. However, as we are attempting to use the weather as part of the discussion, it should also benefit the mon. This increases its viability by having it work alongaide another weather setter within the team, such as Ninetales if we go Hail, or Hipowdon/TTar if we go Sand.

In regards to worst: I feel Sun is the worst.

At it's worst, this mon will become nigh unuseable if it gets opposed by a Rain Team as the inevitable counter to a mon abusing another weather. TTar is already reasonably prevalent such as that a Sunsetter is still going to be hit neutrally by it, unless it too has Solar Beam: and, well, lets be honest, if that was enough CharizardY would already be there as a premier SpA sun sweeper with stab fire and grass

Also, question. Is it worthwhile looking rat attemtping to build with regards to abusing multiple weathers in order to facilitate a broader approach, to rather being able to abuse just a single weather's presence, it can abuse multiple?

And is it worth building in a defined weakness to another, specifically non Rain team, in order to try and encourage further

 

[TKGriffiths]

Second the mega evo idea. The type change would be particularly relevant.

I didn't want to start discussing it yet though in case of poll jumping.

 

[Drew]

I agree with reach on this, making a CAP solely survivable in full weather is a very bad idea, as it would leave it either broken or garbage. in most metas, full weather teams are matchup reliant, meaning if the metagame has has shifted away from traditional weather checks, weather is seen as broken, and vise versa. Just take Malaconda: in BW Malaconda is perfectly nice and good, but due to a shift in weather, it is now a shell of its former self. Conversely let's take Tyranitar: Tyranitar has always been good in OU, and in an odd turn of events, it has never existed apart from its weather, and by that I mean that Sand Stream has always been a central part in how it plays in any given meta, and I honestly see it remaining as so until the end of days. So what do these 2 comparisons mean? Well I firmly believe that letting CAP24 exist outside of full weather but NOT apart from it will create the best possible outcome not only for its assurance in the future, but also for the future of weather in CAP as a whole.

As a bit of an aside I'd also like to say that I feel the best course of action we can take would be to choose one of our 2 weathers as a self sustaining one (probably hail or sun) and the other as a weather fully there to add to an existing weather (could be sun or sand but almost definitely not hail). I think that taking this course of action would let CAP24 stay relevant through tier shifts, while also allowing it to fully abuse another weather condition, and be able to rise in power if the weather of choice is boosted in popularity by any particular meta.