CAP 24 CAP 24 - Part 1 - Concept Poll 1

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Deck Knight

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
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We begin this process by voting as a community on which concept we'd like to pursue for CAP 24. Make sure to read through each concept thoroughly; it is imperative that you understand what you're voting for here. Our slate of five concepts was chosen by our Topic Leader, Drapionswing, from the Concept Submissions thread.

This will be a Preferential Block Vote (PBV) (a form of Instant Runoff Voting which re-runs the counting, each time removing the previously top-ranked candidate in order to determine the 2nd most preferred, 3rd most preferred, etc.), the details of which are outlined here and here. This is a ranked vote: order does matter! You can upvote your favourites and downvote your least favourites. You may choose to rank as many or as few options as you like, but we encourage you to rank as many candidates as possible to ensure your preferences are taken into account.

Bold your votes and nothing else! A typical vote might look like the following:

Most Preferred
Second Most Preferred
Third Most Preferred
Fourth Most Preferred
Fifth Most Preferred

Any comments that the voter has would go below the votes in non-bold text. Bold text is used to determine what the user's votes are, so none of the supplementary text should be in bold.
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Composing a proper ballot is easy. Enter BBCode Edit Mode (the wrench in the upper right corner). Copy/paste the options directly from the OP to your ballot as plain unbolded text. Delete and/or rearrange the options to suit your preference and the poll type. Bold your vote text using bold tags or re-enter rich text mode, highlight your vote and click B. Spelling or formatting errors may spoil your ballot, so be careful!
Please post only your votes in this thread. Do not respond to other posts, or your posts will be moderated and you may be warned. You are allowed to say whatever you like in relation to your vote at the bottom of your post, but please do not look to begin a discussion. Keep those comments to #cap on IRC or the CAP Project room on PS!

Asking for votes for your submission or for the submissions of others is not allowed. Anyone found to have done so risks punishment at the moderation team's discretion. If you find that someone has broken this rule, please contact the CAP moderation team with your evidence and no one else. Mini-moderation of this rule is also considered a serious offense and can be punished.

IMPORTANT: When voting, use only the name of the author! The list of possible votes include:

S. Court
2MN
Zephias
Snorlax in the way
Drew

This poll will be open for 24 hours. The concept submissions are quoted below in order of submission.

Focus in the DPS
S. Court said:
Name - Focus in the DPS
Description - A Pokemon is able to pressure and dismantle most common offensive cores in CAP metagame.
Justification - This concept is Target-based and Archetype-based.
  • Archetype: This concept in theory would create an archetype, but I think it’d be more precise to say this project would help us to observe what kind of actual roles would help to fulfill this concept. In my opinion, this metagame needs something puts pressure to the offensive presence of this metagame due to a) how said offensive presence has constrained the viability of some Pokemon due to not being able to keep this metagame pace, which could potentially create more diversity in this metagame and b) potentially create more diversity in different playstyles, due to the presence of those offensive cores shifting this metagame to a faster pace which arguably creates a lack of balance in playstyles' viability.
  • Target: The target (or targets) of this concept are the offensive cores (as mentioned) and also the Pokemon who has seen its viablity affected by the presence of those cores. As mentioned before, this could potentially balance the actual power standard and increase the viability of certain Pokemon and archetypes.
Questions To Be Answered
  • What common characteristics share offensive cores?
  • What of those features can be exploited by certain Pokemon to break offensive cores?
  • Do we have actual examples of Pokemon can take advantage of those characteristics to break offensive cores?
  • Which is the most efficient way to pressure those offensive cores?
  • Realistically talking, how many offensive cores can be targeted by a Pokemon without creating overcentralization or invalidating offensive archetypes by itself?
  • Should this Pokemon have another role different from being a dedicated answer to offensive cores?
  • What kind of archetypes or playstyels can benefit from a Pokemon fulfills with this concept?
  • What makes an archetype relevant enough to have dedicated answers to them (like stallbreakers or wallbreakers)?
Explanation – We have seen in this metagame we have Pokemon which main role is act as a dedicated answer to break certain teams (like stallbreakers or wallbreakers) but we don't hear about Pokemon have a role as a dedicated answer to break more offensive based cores. Does that mean this metagame doesn't need an answer to those cores? At least in my opinion, not exactly. This generation's has created a new power standard level which has made certain Pokemon that were useful in previous generation not so useful right now, and that's specially true when we talk about defensive based Pokemon. To give an example we have Slowbro which was a great defensive answer in ORAS metagame but now it's a NU Pokemon thanks to this generation's offensive threats (Tapu Koko being the main trouble in this aspect)

And what would we learn about the metagame with this concept? In my opinion we'd learn two things: 1)This concept would be useful to learn about what makes a playstyle relevant enough to have Pokemon to act as dedicated answers to certain archetypes. 2) We could learn about how the metagame would change if we have under control the power standards in this generation, would that help to make certain Pokemon are now in oblivion to be more useful? Would that increase the viability of certain playstyles?
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These Shackles Make Me Mortal
2MN said:
Name - These Shackles Make Me Mortal

Description - A Pokemon whose god-like strengths are intentionally held down through well-placed, overwhelming weaknesses.

Justification - Archetype: There are many well-used Pokemon in the CAP metagame that end up having notable, unique weaknesses to justify what would be their massive strengths, between Ash-Greninja as an intensely powerful sweeper capable of tearing teams apart (if it can get a kill while being a boring old non-protean Greninja), Landorus-T as a nigh-unwallable role compressor capable of a dozen different sets (all of which drops dead to any offensive ice move), and Kyurem-Black, a literal double-god that can smash through walls with a massive 170 base attack (except there's no real physical move for one of its two STABs to do that with). These are all Pokemon that should be so powerful that they'd never be allowed in a truly competitive metagame, but thanks to major flaws in their gameplan, they end up creating interesting enough counterplay for them to be more than welcome.

On the flipside, however, there's a lot of Pokemon with such a design philosophy that, thanks to the weaknesses being far worse than anticipated, just end up being really, really bad. Pokemon like Vespiquen and Avalugg were supposed to use notoriously bad defensive types to justify massive walling potential, but they just ended up being really bad at walling. Archeops and Wishiwashi were supposed to be offense with a twist, able to potentially take more than one hit at the cost of attacking presence, but it ended up being so easy to force them weaker that they were just bad at offense. It's not that these weaknesses couldn't be offset, it's that their strengths don't come even close to matching it... so what would happen if they did?

This concept aims to carefully merge the god-tier potential strengths with the lowest of the low--a Pokemon with problems so obvious it would make the Slakings of the world feel pity, but perfectly augmented in tandem with power so strong that Arceus would be shaking in its boots, to create a potent Pokemon with completely unique ways of dealing with it.

Questions to be Answered -

- How do massive strengths with key weaknesses interact with each other? How well can one lead into the other to create a Pokemon with unique downsides to its great potential?

- How far could we go with such massive power before it becomes unhealthy? Would it be better for the Pokemon to do one thing incredibly well, or could it be given a wealth of different strengths all at once?

- Subsequently, what massive weaknesses could be attached to those strengths to make key flaws in their playstyle? Could these weaknesses be so well-integrated that we could even justify throwing in the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel?

- Could entirely new playstyles to the CAP metagame come about through this concept? Can the Uber-tier levels of strength required to potentially create those playstyles be healthily balanced out by these weaknesses?

Explanation - this is just a re-write of what i threw out last time there was submissions, just way more comprehensible.

i view this concept as a fundamentally evolved version of the kind of submissions new posters make that end up just being something like "[pokemon with bad weakness], But Good This Time"; all of those submissions could have something interesting going for them, but because they decided on having a specific weakness before anything else, it's severely limited in scope. the intent behind this concept, then, is to weave any extreme strength and weakness together with far more nuance, allowing for a lot of potential unique designs.
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Berserker
Zephias said:
Name: Berserker

Description: A pokemon that trades its HP to become stronger and/or gains power the less HP it has.

Justification: This concept falls into the categories of Archetype and Actualization. Archetype in the sense that the archetype focuses strongly on abilities/moves that trigger or strengthen on low HP, and/or attacks that reduce it. The latter of these were previously seen in the metagame through the role of "recoil attackers" but have since fallen out of favor. It also fits into Actualization since many of the abilities or other options that would strengthen upon losing HP are not present in the metagame due to the lack of effective users.

In more general terms, such a concept would allow us to better understand the role and comparative value of HP in contrast to other boosts in power, within the metagame.

Questions to be Answered:
- Is it worth trading away HP, and thus forfeiting defensive pressure, to obtain offensive pressure?
- Can a Pokemon be considered more threatening when injured? Can a Pokemon have counters that force it out at full HP yet fall flat at lower HP?
- In what kinds of situations is it a better idea to conserve HP even though it reduces overall power?
- What weaknesses caused similar archetypes to slow down and fall out of favor? Can they be mitigated?
- Can such a blatantly self-flagellating CAP have any value in slower, more defensive teams?
- What are the best partners for a such a Pokemon?
- Are abilities or moves that rely on HP thresholds simply too weak or inconsistent for competitive use?
- Metagame-wise, can a pokemon with such open drawbacks compete for a slot with offensive pokemon like Volkraken?
- What pokemon or items in the metagame caused the slow decline of recoil/life orb? Can Berserker address such problems to remain a viable metagame participant?
- Would the presence of such a Pokemon increase the importance of revenge-killing and priority?
- Since most of the abilities that work on HP thresholds give stat boosts, would a Pokemon utilizing them be able to survive a metagame where Haze Tomohawk and many phazers exist?
- Due to the high-octane offense of many threats in the CAP metagame, is it more viable to attempt a slower, more defensive Berserker?

Explanation: I came up with this concept when I was browsing the Ability page in Bulbapedia and noticed there's a lot of abilities that require either a HP threshold or a HP tradeoff to function. HP is one of the major components of defensive pressure, since due to the sheer power of most offensive 'mon seeing 1HKO's and 2HKOs is not unusual. Furthermore, due to the advent of Z-Moves the presence of Life Orb has been reduced significantly and recoil attackers are extremely rare in the current meta (Ignoring those that do not suffer from recoil, such as Crucibelle-Mega).

As such, I believe there is much to learn from attempting to make a Pokemon that relies on its HP to fuel its power be it through recoil or benchmarks that strengthen it, that also manages to maintain enough pressure while injured to survive and even thrive in the current CAP meta.
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A Coat of Many Colors
Snorlax in the way said:
Name - A Coat of Many Colors
Description - A Pokemon that takes advantage of multiple resist berries.
Justification - This concept falls under the category of Actualization. The concept hearkens back to older metagames such as DPP and BW where a Pokemon utilizing these berries to accomplish its goal was much more common. This Pokemon would be able to viably use several of the available resist berries to fill its role on any given team. Multiple resist berries would allow CAP to explore an idea synonymous with older generations and see how well it applies to Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.

Questions To Be Answered:
  • Does one resist berry typically receive more usage?
  • Compared to older generations, do the resist berries help this Pokemon perform its role as well or better than it would have otherwise?
  • Does the option of other viable resist berries change up the move types that are used to attack this Pokemon?
  • Has the role a Pokemon with this item performs changed due to generational shifts?
  • When focused on, how does the viability of this item compare to other generations?
  • How does the purposeful implementation of the multiple resist berries compare in usage to other viable items used for the Pokemon's role?
Explanation -
I first got the idea when I saw Heaven Jay toying around with Coba Berry Tomohawk. At first I thought this a huge waste, but then I saw how well it was performing, and how it ended up becoming a viable item .The berries are low in usage and generally have not seen play in the later generations due to things such as power creep, or other viable sets coming to fruition. However, I do feel as if they are an avenue that is worth exploring. This Coba Berry set reminded me of other sets from older generations such as Rindo Berry Swampert, Occa Berry Bronzong, or Chople Berry Heatran. This really got me thinking, what if a Pokemon could viably use 3 or 4 resistance berries, such as Occa Berry, Yache Berry, or Passho Berry? How would these sets compare to the sets of old? Of course those are just examples, but I feel like this concept gives us an interesting idea to play around with while also not being too constricting on what can and cannot happen at any given stage. I feel like the main thing to watch out for with this concept is not letting the berry resistances take center stage. While I know that may sound a bit farfetched, I personally feel the best way to let this concept shine is to look at how the resistances and extra longevity given by these berries can help CAP 24 perform certain roles in the meta. Basically, make it less on what the berries literally do and more on how those berries can help bolster the viability of the CAP in any given role to new heights.
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Snow or Shine (or Sand)
Drew said:
  • Name - Snow or Shine (or Sand)
  • Description - A Pokemon that abuses 2 weather conditions for different effects
  • Justification - Currently in CAP, there is only one form of weather that is really worth using: rain, and only one really type of weather abuser: offensive sweeper. This concept means to address both of these issues by creating a new niche for two weather conditions. This concept would fill the archetype of a weather abuser, but I feel it also fits into the Actualization category as it would also aim to create a new role for a weather abuser for 1 or more different weather conditions.
  • Questions To Be Answered
    • Why are hail, sun, and sand underrepresented in the current metagame?
    • What makes rain the best weather condition currently?
    • How can this CAP encourage the use of other weather conditions? What do hail, sun, and/or sand need? Sweepers? Setters? Walls?
    • What weather effects are underutilized? How can we successfully use these effects?
    • How can one Pokemon utilize different weather conditions for different effects and sets?
    • Should this Pokemon be able to function outside of weather-based teams? If so, what niche would it need to fulfill? If it sets it's own weather, is it enough to abuse the weather condition on its own?
  • Explanation - For those who don't fully see how a not-sweeper weather abuser could work, take Lileep in LC for example. Lileep, mainly back in BW and XY as sand is quite uncommon in SM, is on most sand teams, as it can abuse its Rock-typing to boost Special Defense, the passive damage from sand, and its access to Recover and Toxic to become a weather abusing wall. Another possible interaction would be running Ferrothorn on rain teams to semi-nullify its Fire weakness. Not only typings are underexplored though! There are many moves, items, and of course abilities that can be used to abuse different weather conditions in a way that no Pokemon really does currently.
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CAP 24 so far:

Topic Leader: Drapionswing

Topic Leadership Team:
SHSP: Typing Leader
Drew: Ability Leader
reachzero: Stats Leader
mxmts: Movepool Leader
 
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