CAP 24 CAP 24 - Part 4 - Primary and Secondary Ability Discussion

[CharSiuEmboar]

On a Sand Team, nobody has trouble with Blacephalon, that's why it's not on the watchlist. Buzzwole gets cut down by Char-Y on a Sand Team, and provides the Fire Support to deal with the Steel Types, or Landorus-T for the Flying.

What's not provided for is Ice Coverage; which can hit SE vs more than 50% of the type.

And let's just leave it until the Stats stage to declare "let's stop pretending it's going to be special". Sun Team lack any physical ability, Heatran gets hit equally, Blacephalon's Phys is paper thin, Crawdaunt is a joke of a suggestion, Latios-M is weaker physically, as is Pajantom. Meanwhile, Zyg gets hit 4x by Ice Coverage, Refrigerate or no, and often runs sets which boost it's SpD to make it's Phys and Spec Defense equal half the time.

Landorus-T gets hit hard by decent Ice Coverage, and as we're countering, we don't get -1'd (or if it took Defiant it would be even better off without being at +2 Ridiculousness) Bulu Frequently runs Assault Vest, and invests in SpD, and Tomohawk is also not going to be able to Defog with Defiant without it then having to Haze, and give us free Damage, regardless of it's phys bulk.

 

[YellowAdminSilver]

Beast Boost can only be traced if it comes in against Celesteela; a mon that 4x Resists Grass, 2x Resists Fairy, and gets hit Super Effectively by its Heavy Slam. So we switch into Celesteela to "pressurize", and hope that our Fire Coverage kills it before Heavy Slam and Chip damage kills us. Good plan.

You can also predict and double switch, assuming Celesteela is weakened or that, y'know, it's Buzzwole/Kartana on a predicted Leaf Blade/Blacephalon on a predicted Shadow Ball who's on the other team. Not completely useless.

and as to the other Volt Absorb users, they do not appear on our threat list; other than Plasmanta who is rocking a Poison-type in any case, and resists both of our STABs, and we're not running Ground or Psychic because of that.

Let's also remember Plasmanta has Storm Drain, not Volt Absorb. fwiw.

On a Sand Team, nobody has trouble with Blacephalon, that's why it's not on the watchlist. Buzzwole gets cut down by Char-Y on a Sand Team, and provides the Fire Support to deal with the Steel Types, or Landorus-T for the Flying.

The idea is not to counter Blacephalon or Buzzwole, it's to take advantage of them being on the opposing team to potentially snowball.

Landorus-T gets hit hard by decent Ice Coverage, and as we're countering, we don't get -1'd (or if it took Defiant it would be even better off without being at +2 Ridiculousness) Bulu Frequently runs Assault Vest, and invests in SpD, and Tomohawk is also not going to be able to Defog with Defiant without it then having to Haze, and give us free Damage, regardless of it's phys bulk.

No Tomohawk in history has ever run Defog. Also, if the idea is to punish Intimidate users (AKA just Landorus but w/e) Competitive does it much better, as Reviloja said the way to beat Tomo (and to an extent Lando) is not to hit them on the physical side.

tl;dr not advocating for Trace (even though I think it's one of the better options, along with Flash Fire) but I think the arguments against Trace and in favor of other abilities are flawed.

 

[david0895]

Better matchup with Crucibelle

Fun fact:
252 SpA Whimsicott Earth Power vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Crucibelle-Mega: 228-272 (64.4 - 76.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Sand Force Whimsicott Earth Power vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Crucibelle-Mega in Sand: 200-236 (56.4 - 66.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

As a short tangent, can we all stop pretending CAP24 isn’t going to be special?

While this is pratically true, I fear that this polljumping, so we have to generalize its attacks

 

[CharSiuEmboar]

If we're double switching, then Tracing beast boost is not relevant. "Hope that Celesteela is weakened" doesn't feel like good way to be fulfilling the ability to pressurize. Beast Boost is not a pressurizing ability until after you've already started. It doesn't help us against the mon bringing it in.

As to Plasmanta, I know. I wasn't the person who brought it up. It was Reviloja who suggested that would bring in CAP24 into Cawm, get Volt Absorb, and then miraculously, the Poison/Electric user would switch in, and elect to use their electric attack against a Sand-Team/Volt Absorb tracer. Flawless argument, as you can see.

If you can please tell me where the concept called for Snowballing from two mon who don't threaten a Sand Team, and aren't mentioned in the OP, I'd appreciate it.

Please excuse the Defog comment. It doesn't have it, it has Rapid Spin, it's Lando-T who has Defog. It doesn't matter whether we're at +2 or +1. Even at zero either, Lando-T goes down with ease (unless anyone's advocating that HP Ice is our coverage). It's also not about Punishing Intimidate users, it's about using that to benefit; especially when there are two mon in the Counter List only that are Specially weak.

Also, it's easier to balance +1 than it is on a variable +2. And Beast Boost is just going to be all over the place when it comes to that. No thanks.

 

[Project_Mars]

To Weigh in on Trace vs Flash Fire as something to deal with Heatran, Trace means we can switch into Heatran, but Heatran could potentially switch into us. Flash Fire just deals with it entirely.

And for those nervous about Flash Fire, what about Thick Fat or Heatproof? Both stops ‘Tran from OHKOing CAP24 without outright stopping Fire attacks from damaging it.

 

[reachzero]

Regarding Sand Rush. I'm really nervous about maintaining sufficient counterplay--this CAP is going to need really good coverage to address its threat list, and that's going up mean balancing a whole lot on stats--Sand is already very close to competitively viable, and Sand Rush would be a real balancing act. Finding counters would be a pretty tough challenge at +2 speed with even reasonably good offensive stats--Fairy STAB is that good. To illustrate what I mean, Kerfluffle has good-not-great SpA (115) and ok defensive stats, but I would absolutely not want to face a Sand Rush Kerfluffle. I'd rather stick with a less difficult ability.

 

[EpicUmbreon29]

To Weigh in on Trace vs Flash Fire as something to deal with Heatran, Trace means we can switch into Heatran, but Heatran could potentially switch into us. Flash Fire just deals with it entirely.

And for those nervous about Flash Fire, what about Thick Fat or Heatproof? Both stops ‘Tran from OHKOing CAP24 without outright stopping Fire attacks from damaging it.

Part of the reason Trace is appealing is that it allows us to come in on Heatran without hugely messing with the list of Pokemon that should be able to check us, as would occur with any of the latter three abilities you have mentioned.

I believe snake_rattler covered this earlier, but I do believe that Sand Force will upset the balance of the Pokemon we want to be checked and countered by. Primarily, I am concerned by the Poison and Steel types we have on our list that we want to check us. Keep in mind we're saying that we want to beat Blacephalon, Mega Latios, and Pajantom while threatening Kartana and Ash Greninja, among others. These are all relatively fast Pokemon, and so are Plasmanta, Crucibelle, Kitsunoh, and Cawmodore. My concern is that we will likely have to outspeed these Pokemon to pressure them properly, seeing as Blacephalon, Pajantom, and Ash Greninja have massive offensive stats and super-effective moves. This, however, means we likely cannot outspeed the aforementioned Steel and Poison Pokemon if we have Sand Force, as the Ground moves that we would have boosted (even Hidden Power Ground, against some of them) would immediately reduce their viability as checks. Similarly, Mollux, Fidgit, and Magearna would become much less viable as checks.

This puts us in a near-impossible situation with our Speed tier, unless we were to resign ourselves to being Choice-locked or something of the sort, and it would really mess with the calculations required for our attacking stats.

It is for this reason that I maintain that Sand Rush and Trace are the two most viable options we have right now. Personally, I do prefer Trace because it helps us deal with the threatlist that we are aiming for, which consists largely of Pokemon that Sand teams currently struggle to go up against (Heatran and Landorus-T, especially, along with Kartana and Celesteela), although I can also understand the argument to be had for Sand Rush, in that it gives CAP24 a strong reason to be run on Sand teams and not on non-weather teams.

EDIT: reachzero made his post above while I was writing, so I didn't have a chance to consider it, but seeing his words does sway me to believe that Sand Rush may end up being a problem given CAP24's STAB and the coverage it is likely to receive based on the conclusion to the Threats Discussion.

 

[Reviloja753]

I'm inclined to agree with reachzero On Sand Rush. While I agree that it has merit, it seems to be a very difficult balancing act in order to make sure that we don't hit everything for neutral without losing what we want to beat, without minimizing power to preserve counters while still having enough power to break through walls. As you can tell by my circuitous sentence there, Sand Rush seems like a stats hell. I'm currently completely on board for Trace.

 

[Mx]

I think that people are heavily underestimating how powerful Drought is, and how it could easily eclipse almost any secondary ability we might choose. Even if our only Fire-type move ends up being Hidden Power, the amount of support that a half-decent Drought user would provide is huge. Fire is a incredibly common attacking, and any mon that uses these move (Tapu Lele, Krilowatt, Tapu Koko, Volkraken, Volcarona, M-Charizard-X, just to name a few). If we were to chose a weak ability such as Trace (switching into Heatran is nice, but its way too situational, and Heatran can be taken out by Tyranitar on a Sand team) or Sand Force (The only relevant coverage it boosts on Sand would be Ground by 30%, while Drought always boosts Fire moves by a higher 50%), it will end up completely outclassed by our first ability. Even if we were paired with Tyranitar and Excadrill on a team, I would find hard to justify giving up Drought in favor of one of those abilities. Now for the abilities that I do like:

Sand Rush: This is the only weather-related ability that I believe stands a chance against Drought, and doubling our speed would be a great incentive to run CAP 24 on a Sand team. While I think reachzero makes a very good point about our power, I believe that due to our first ability, we should already be careful about our stats/moves, so having another powerful ability would not hurt us that much.

Flash Fire/Heatproof: These are the other option I'd consider for our second ability slot, because they can differentiate themselves from Drought thanks to the reduced Fire-type damage. Flash Fire in particular completely outclasses Trace, as it accomplishes the same goal of switching into Heatran, while still being useful enough to actually compete against our primary ability. Heatproof might not be as powerful, but it still reduces our Fire weakness, accomplishing the same goal of standing a chance against Drought. However, as they don't have any direct connection with Sand, they risk being picked for other uses, instead of helping on Sand teams like this ability is supposed to do.

 

[Drew]

Flash Fire/Heatproof will not be slated due to it messing with our threatlist so much, and Trace is a better option for more easily beating Heatran. Now here is the slate for the sand/secondary ability:

Sand Rush: Likely our best ability for directly abusing sand, Sand Rush gives us a great reason to use CAP 24 in sand, especially with Drought being so powerful. The speed boost it provides can help us boost through our threatlist, and overall this ability could really help CAP 24, especially in sand.

Competitive: Competitive allows us to essentially counter likely sand's biggest threat, and one of the Pokemon we aim to counter: Landorus-T, as we can completely keep it out or predict it switching in and get a free +2 to Special Attack, which could help us sweep. Additionally, we can get a similar boost off of Defog and Sticky Web, making it easier for us to keep hazards up and beat Sticky Web teams as a whole.

Trace: Trace is incredibly unique in that it allows us to fulfill our threatlist remarkably well while still using a generally good and adaptable ability, as it can counter Flash Fire Heatran, puts a lot of pressure on Tomohawk and Landorus-T, and has many different cool interactions to hep us power through our threatlist. Overall this ability can really help us tear down our threatlist.

Berserk: Another ability unique in how it relates to our concept, Berserk can utilize sand's chip damage (although not directly) to give CAP 24 a Special Attack boost, and it actually has potential to use sand in a completely new way: harness the chip damage!

Poison Heal: Somewhat the reverse of Berserk, this ability covers up our sand weakness instead of exploiting it, as well as promoting staying in, something that weather abusers very much like to do. The pseudo status immunity it provides, although not being a very big selling point, can also help CAP 24 be a nuisance in weather or out of it.

 

[Drapionswing]

While evaluating peoples concerns with some abilities on this slate, I must say that the challenges we may face are not something I fear we can't overcome relatively easily. This slate encapsulates the discussion I've seen both on Discord, PS! and this thread without going against our earlier stages so I will not be using my +1/-1.