CAP 27 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

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snake

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Congratulations to -Voltage- for winning the concept poll with his concept, Offensive Team Support! It is copied here:

Name: Offensive Team Support (the concept formerly known as "Trickster Cleric")

Description: A Pokemon that is able to fit the role of team support through more offensive and/or utility based means, whether these are through moves, abilities, typings or other factors unique to CAP27.

Justification: This is absolutely an Archetype based concept, if that weren't inherently clear by its name. This more or less comes from the class of a similar name from the fifth edition of dungeons and dragons (not necessarily being a Pokemon that uses Aromatherapy or Heal Bell), and it's meant to fill a role that we haven't explored in CAP since as far back as generation four with Fidgit. Furthermore, of all the offensively-oriented Pokemon that exist in the metagame, very few can also act as support for their team.

Questions to be answered:
  • How can a Pokemon that might be more offensively-focused or utility-focused fare as a healer/cleric/support mon in the current metagame?
  • What are aspects of specific support Pokemon that make them effective in their roles in the current meta?
  • To what extent can CAP27 use the new mechanics of utility based moves be used in a way to benefit players using them?
  • Without getting into overly cheesy strategies, how can CAP27 bring about creative ways to assist the rest of the team it finds itself on?
  • How does CAP27 bring about situations in which the opponent has to debate whether or not CAP27 will be healing or attacking, and how can they effectively beat that 50/50?
  • To what extent does CAP27 have to choose between acting more as a cleric versus acting more as an attacker? Can it do both without sacrificing anything relevant to its viability?
  • Are there any forms of playstyle that CAP27 might be able to benefit just by existing?
  • How can CAP27's offensive or utility presence open opportunities for healing its allies later in the game (if CAP27 gets healing methods) ?
  • To what extent does an offense-oriented support Pokemon need to use healing (via HP recovery or status healing) to support teams it finds itself on?
Guidelines:
1) Pay close attention to the Topic Leader during this discussion. Their job is to keep us focused and to bring insight.​
2) Do not poll jump. Poll jumping is a serious offense in these threads, and you can get infracted for it. Poll jumping is when you discuss something that should be discussed in the future, like specifying a CAP's stats or typing. You're allowed to hint at such things to conclude a point or to provide an example, but do not centralize your post on a poll jump. Poll jumping hurts the focus of early threads and can cause us to go off on a tangent. If you're not sure if you're poll jumping or not, err on the side of caution and don't post it.​

CAP27's TL Jho will open the thread with his thoughts. Please make sure to read his initial post, as well as his subsequent posts, carefully and follow it for discussion! Keep posts civil and on topic, or else they will be deleted.
 
What an interesting concept we have chosen for CAP27! In Concept Assessment our aim is to analyse how we can create a CAP which fulfils the concept "Offensive Team Support". Be sure to read through the concept, posted again in the OP, before posting here!

With that being said, I have some initial questions about the concept to get the discussion rolling.

  • What constitutes a "Support" Pokemon?
  • Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
  • Pokemon such as Jumbao and Clefable have run support moves such as Thunder Wave, Trick, and Healing Wish on offensive sets before - what makes Pokemon like these effective at doing so?
  • How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other?
haha dnd joke in the end there throwback to the original name

With that, let's get this started! A small reminder to absolutely avoid poll jumping in this stage. I look forward to reading your posts!
 
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  • Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
First of all, I'm so exited to be part of CAP this time around! I hope to be involved and have fun with you guys!

One answer I could think of for this question is that there are plenty of ways that a Pokemon could both be offensive AND support its teammates at the same time. One example given in one of the following questions is Thunder Wave, which made me consider that moves that inflict status could both be offensive and supporting, because they could cripple a teammate's best counter or make it easier for the CAP itself to wear down a bulky opponent. Damaging moves that inflict status do this best, though they either have low chances to inflict that status or have other drawbacks that make them less offensive (ex. Nuzzle's trash BP, Zap Cannon / Inferno / Dynamic Punch's horrendous accuracy) that would make them hard to justify using as an option that could effectively work as the role we're looking for here.

Please tell me if I polljumped. I tried to avoid it, but it's harder than I expected it to be.
 

quziel

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I'd like to contrast two ORAS NU sets that fulfill the concept pretty well imo.

Offensive Pivot Audino
Audino @ Audinite
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Modest Nature
- Healing Wish
- Dazzling Gleam
- Fire Blast
- Thunder Wave

Analysis
This set is a super weird one, and really is hyper specialized to Audino; being specifically run as a lure set for pokemon such as Vileplume and Ferroseed, but there are still lessons we can learn from it. Its bulk and regenerator are a fair part of why it really helps support offensive pokemon, and fits explicitely on offensive teams, while also letting it come in a huge amount of times per game. It has super compact coverage between Dazzling Gleam and Fire Blast, which means that while it could run another attack, it doesn't need to, freeing up space for utility moves. Healing Wish really makes this set what it is, and the ability to give a sweeper a second chance, especially a sweeper that naturally weakens its own checks, is potentially game winning. Finally, it supports its preferred sweepers in a third way by paralyzing pokemon for them. This set combines luring shared checks, giving a second chance, the bulk to take on threats to sweepers, and giving them paralysis support.

Offensive Pivot Liepard
Liepard @ Black Glasses
Ability: Prankster
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Encore
- Thunder Wave
- U-turn

Analysis
Again, we have a heavy focus on pivoting, this time not necessarily through raw bulk and regenerator, but instead through a more Tapu Koko-esque style of pivot; a mon with the typing to come in on a very specific set of attacks, and then thanks to speed and workable power, to force out a threat. This is augmented with prankster encore, which lets Liepard, with correct prediction, completely remove the threat of a sweeper setting up on your team, and Thunder Wave to still cripple that threat if you get the prediction wrong. Finally U-turn is always great team support.

Encore is a key to this set, and really helps us contrast with the above Audino set, as its a far more proactive way to support the team, and when paired with U-turn lets Liepard buy a nearly 100% free turn for a teammate to be brought in, which helps incredibly with getting a wincon set up. Knock Off is another key to the set, being a super spammable stab attack, and really helps to bring the offense into the set; without it this would just be a disruptor, and not really an offensive mon. Thunder Wave shows up again, and really helps drive home the point that you want ways to permanently affect the field, even after you're gone.

Lessons Learned

Both of the above pokemon have very efficient stab attacks, and efficient coverage which let them pose significant offensive threats despite only dedicating one or two slots to attacks. Both of them have ways to buy time for a friendly pokemon; Audino means that a sweeper such as Samurott has a second chance to sweep, while Liepard can buy a 100% free turn to bring in a wincon using Encore + U-turn. Both of these really help out offensive teammates, and the space bought by these moves is utilized best by offensive teams; a stall team would like a second life for its wall but wouldn't be willing to sacrifice a teammate for it, nor does it threaten to win a game off of a single encore. Finally, both sets show the ability to permanently affect the field, in this case through Thunder Wave. An Offensive Support needs the tools to specifically support offensive pokemon, to give a sweeper or a wallbreaker a free turn, to help them accomplish their job.
 
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LucarioOfLegends

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Wew concept assessment

Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
I think the trick is to give CAP incentives to actually utilize offensive pressure. I think Sylveon is a neat example, although probably not the best. While the full definition of a cleric with WishTect, it is still able to offer solid offensive pressure with Pixilate Hyper Voice, which is further incentivized by a good coverage move in Mystical Fire and a solid enough 110 Special Attack. Do I think it is an true offensive mon? Not really, but it isn't exactly passive and I believe it has actual reasons to use good offensive moves.

Honestly a misclick and at work so I'll answer more later.
 
First off, congrats to Voltage for winning the concept poll. While all of the concepts were really interesting and well written, the Trickster Cleric really stood out to me. This is my first CAP that Im actually on forums posting stuff, and I hope my posts add something to the discussion. I guess I should try to address the questions laid out by Jho as a place to start.

What constitutes a "Support" Pokemon?
This is kind of hard to answer because its quite a broad definition. According to twash and McGrr's D/P Team Support article, team support "coordinates the strategies of six individual Pokémon into a cohesive unit. Support is used to benefit a team as a whole" (source: https://www.smogon.com/dp/articles/team_support). But this can be achieved in a ton of different ways. A Pokemon can support its team by setting or removing stuff like hazards, weather, and terrain. There are the clerical style support moves like Wish, Healing Wish, and Heal Bell. Trapping is also considered a forum of team support so :Dugtrio: is a support Pokemon. So for now, my definition of a support Pokemon is a Pokemon that uses moves to either help its allies or limit the effectiveness of opposing Pokemon. A broad question is getting a broad answer.

Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
The first idea I have as a work around to this issue is giving CAP 27 a lot of offensive moves that have secondary effects. While Sivanandi pointed out that some of these moves have horrible power (ex: Nuzzle) or accuracy (ex: Inferno), there are a select number of moves that are actually quite good though a bit up to luck. For example, Scald and Lava Plume have a 30% chance to burn, Sludge Bomb has 30% chance to poison, and Discharge has a 30% chance of paralysis. For more consistent secondary effect moves, Mystical fire and Spirit Break have a 100% chance to -1 SpA, Knock Off removes items, U-turn/volt switch allow you to pivot, etc. Moves like these provide solid offensive pressure while supporting allies with secondary effects.

Or, there are offensive Pokemon that can fit dedicated support moves easily because they only need 2-3 slots for attacking moves. For example, in gen 7 OU, SD Garchomp would run SR. Or, some Chomps ran a Mixed SR set. In todays meta, some examples that come to my mind are Kerfluffle and Sylveon. Kerfluffle has an excellent offensive typing in fairy/fighting, a good SpA stat, and supports its team with Parting Shot, and potentially Wish or Taunt. Slyveon has a decent punch with 110 SpA, STAB Pixilate Hyper Voice, and Mystical Fire for coverage while supporting teammates with Wish and SpA control thanks to Mystical Fire.

Please tell me if I polljumped. I tried to avoid it, but it's harder than I expected it to be.
This is me right now. Trying my best to avoid poll jumping, buts its harder than I thought it would be and I unintentionally poll jump, sorry in advance.
 
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What constitutes a "Support" Pokemon?
So while this question is a bit confusing to me, I would like to showcase a Pokemon who I feel is a great example of what to do for this concept: Cryogonal. More specifically, its ORAS NU and PU sets.
Cryogonal @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Freeze-Dry
- Rapid Spin
- Recover
- Hidden Power Fighting

Cryogonal @ Never-Melt Ice
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Ice Beam / Frost Breath
- Freeze-Dry
- Recover
These sets are very similar, but I will come back to the two sets and their differences later. What I want to examine is how the second set, the one for ORAS NU, is the best example of Offensive Support. You see, Aurorus was a common and powerful wallbreaker in that metagame, with a combination of Ice and Ground-type attacks paired with Choice Specs. However, Cryogonal acted as one of its main checks, resisting Ice and having Levitate. Cryogonal in this situation could easily Rapid Spin any hazards away if need-be, or even use an Ice-type move to do damage to anything that was coming in, as Aurorus is completely walled by Cryogonal and has to switch. Additionally, Cryogonal's 70/135 special bulk (Cryo gained 10 HP in Alola), even uninvested, let it come in on plenty of Special Attackers to either Rapid Spin, or threaten them out with Ice Beam or Freeze-Dry. If it were running Frost Breath instead, it could overcome setup sweepers such as Calm Mind Audino if it got the chance. Freeze-Dry also allowed it to overcome bulky Water-types. It was no offensive slouch in stats either, packing a 95 Special Attack stat combined with a good offensive STAB in Ice. Combined with Never-Melting Ice, it was able to deal some good damage to its foes. Cryogonal also has base 105 speed, which was enough to let it Rapid Spin against Choice Band Primeape to support members weak to rocks like Scyther for the late game, although if Primeape wasn't locked into Earthquake it would be game over for the snowflake. Recover also allows Cryogonal to maintain itself and be able to be used as a spinner multiple times throughout a game, especially if it forces a switch in situations mentioned prior. This also allows Cryogonal to act as a reliable special tank throughout the game. The reason I mentioned the PU set with Hidden Power Fighting is that it highlights that STABs are not all there is to it. In PU, HP Fighting allowed Cryogonal to put even more offensive pressure on the opponent, specificially by OHKOing the prominent Pawniard. While Hidden Power is obviously no longer with us (rest in peace), it still is worth noting coverage is needed.

In terms of what we gain from these sets, there are a few key elements that I see.
1. Repeatable Utility
This one seems somewhat obvious, but I feel like mentioning it because some utility moves, such as Healing Wish, can only work once before the user is dead. Healing Wish would not neccesarily be a bad direction, but I personally feel that it limits our choices as to what to do with the concept. Also, I feel Jumbao uses Healing Wish fine as is.

2. Multiple Switch-In Opportunities
Part of what makes Cryogonal work is that it has multiple chances to come in during a match. While in Cryogonal's case it comes primarily from stats for most, type and ability play a factor as well, especially in the case of Aurorus. Regardless of how it's accomplished, having multiple opportunities to come in during a match makes the utility that much more reliable, and thus helpful, to the team.

3. Longevity
While Cryogonal struggles with this on the physical side do to a pathetic 30 Defense stat, Cryogonal can generally shrug off neutral special attacks with Recover, which helps it not be worn down throughout a match, allowing it to come in whenever it finds an opportunity, which is not has hard thanks to the previous point. There are also other ways to maintain longevity in a Pokemon match, such as draining moves, that we can also consider.

4. Offensive Pressure
Cryogonal is not passive, either. It packs both an alright Special Attack stat for its tier and Never-Melting Ice to provide for decently strong offensive pressure, especially to Pokemon weak to Ice. The PU set has even more pressure to it with the inclusion of Hidden Power Fighting. Cryogonal is also pretty fast, letting it potentially sacrifice itself if it absolutely must to in order to support the team, such as with the Primeape example from earlier. Offensive pressure also prevents the Pokemon from being completely passive set-up bait for the entire metagame.

Before moving on, I would like to emphasize the importance of type and stats for my second and fourth points. What makes Cryogonal work in terms of its type is more offensive than defensive, as Ice is terrible defensively but amazing as an offensive STAB. Having a good STAB type is key in providing offensive pressure, as coverage alone is just not enough, especially when the utility itself already takes a moveslot up, not to mention any healing method we may decide to add if we so choose. Stats also play a key role, as you could have the best offensive type in the world, but if you can't do damage fast or hit hard enough, your offensive pressure vanishes in an instant.

My final point that I would like to make is a Pokemon that does not fufill this concept: Excadrill. While it does run Rapid Spin on its sets and certainly has offensive pressure, fufilling the first and fourth points, it fails miserably on the second and third metrics. It is noticably frailer than the snowflake, having 110/60/65 bulk. This provides it with relatively few switch-in opportunities on neutral hits, as most strong neutral attacks will take about half of its health away, forcing Excadrill to rely on its team for healing, as opposed to the rest of the team relying on Excadrill for hazard control. Moreover, Excadrill lacks any recovery, meaning that it can get constantly get worn down throughout a match. However, perhaps the biggest mark against the mole is the fact that the two sets that Excadrill runs, both with Rapid Spin, either skew too much towards offense or are so utility-focused that it in my opinion goes against the spirit of what the concept seeks. The former is a pure Sand Sweeper set, where Excadrill merely runs Rapid Spin for its newly acquired Speed Boost. The latter set is a suicide lead set, which while offensive and utility, does not at least to me seem to be what the concept seeks to create. I feel what the concept wants to create is a Pokemon that is offensive yet can support its team throughout the match, not just at the start of the game. To that end, Cryogonal works very well in terms of support, not just for hazard control, but as a Special tank. That is to say that even outside of the utility move and pure offensive pressure, I feel that this Pokemon should contribute something to the team composition as a whole beyond its utility move alone. While the way Cryogonal uses Rapid Spin just so happens to contribute to the team, other ideas proposed here may not work the same way in terms of simultaneously providing to the team with utility and something outside of the move itself, so I felt that is worth mentioning.

Before I go, I would like to mention the Rapid Spin buff this gen. If anything, I feel the Rapid Spin buff just adds to offensive pressure for a utility mon if done right, as further increasing your speed allows you to do more with your utility, or create more sacrifice opportunities like with Primeape and Scyther. However, as seen in Excadrill, Rapid Spin as a speed booster can easily be turned into a pseudo Double Dance set if not done properly, so that should be kept in mind should we decide to go for Rapid Spin. However, Rapid Spin is not the only move that Cryogonal's strategy can be applied to. It could be applied to lots of other utility moves, such as status spreading moves, hazard setting moves, or even pure cleric moves like Wish or Heal Bell.

TL;DR: The keys to a good offensive utility mon are multiple chances to use the utility throughout a match, offensive pressure, and having longevity throughout a match. Excadrill does not fufill offensive utility, but Cryogonal in ORAS does.

EDIT: I was informed that Specially Defensive Excadrill is a set that existed mainly in ORAS, which I was unaware of when I originally made this post. Specially Defensive Excadrill is a much better example of offensive utility than the sets we see often this generation, and would be completely suitable in discussion of this concept imo. I also do not wish to imply recovery is absolutely mandatory to make this type of idea work. I merely feel that a Pokemon like this needs to be able to sustain itself. If it is able to pair well with Wish support, or even just function perfectly fine, that's absoltuely lovely.
 
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  • Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
  • How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other?
Allow CAP27 to do so at the same time. One of the most broken things on a conceptual level in Let's Go that thankfully never made it to the main games were the Eevee moves. Eevee could set up screens, remove status, remove stat buffs, apply leech seed, etc. They were very effective support moves that were high powered at the same time. We're not at the ability discussion yet, but several can make some moves viable in such a way (Serene Grace can make some moves have 100% to apply secondary effects, No Guard + Zap Cannon/Inferno/Dynamic Punch, etc). That said I don't know if we should go down that route as that potentially makes the Pokemon an offensive threat that HAPPENS to apply helpful effects.
 
I'd actually like to bring attention to a mom I think fills this concept rather well from a past gen that contrasts heavily from the examples given thus far:

Tornadus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Hurricane
- Knock Off
- U-turn
- Defog

So in Sun and Moon format, this offensive support option was actually a pretty good set for Torn-T if the Z-Move set was off the table.

In most of the other examples in this thread, the set usually follow a formula of two dedicated attack moves and two dedicated support moves. Torn, in contrast, used one dedicated offense move (Hurricane), one dedicated support move (Defog), and two moves that could pull double duty as offensive support moves (U-Turn and Knock Off).

Using the Torn formula actually gives us a few notable perks. Firstly, with three supporting moves, we get to support the team in a greater variety of ways. Obviously not by much, but it's still worth considering.

Secondly, most good defensive typings aren't actually very good offensive typings. We've already identified that CAP wants to be able to take hits over and over again consistently, and it needs to apply offensive pressure on the opponent. If we use a two-offensive set and use a defensive typings, that causes our ability to apply offensive pressure to suffer and encourages us to bloat our offensive stats to compensate. Likewise, pushing our offensive pressure with offensive typing leaves us in a worse position to take hits. This encourages us to bloat our defensive stats to compensate. With Torn's set-up, however, keeping offensive pressure with three offensive moves is far less demanding on our typing and stats, giving us greater ability with less egregious stat-lines.

Thirdly, most offensive mons like to have the ability to clean up in the late game, which usually involves chipping away the opponent's health. This means that in an ideal situation, our support mon doesn't want to take a break from dealing damage while it's supporting the team. If our support attacks are also generating good chip, that's doubly good for our ability to clean in the end game.

Fourthly, unlike all these weird NU-PU examples, Torn was actually used in the CAP metagame. Torn's template is already proven in our format of choice, unlike the other examples which need massive upscaling to be viable in CAP this gen. Granted, Torn had many things going for it, but it's probably going to be easier to work with a good base than a mediocre base.

In summary, I think Tornadus-T might be a good template to look to for CAP, with multiple moves that are good at both support and offense, as well as moves that excel in one or the other aspect.
 
I'd like to bring up a specific example that I think could be helpful in teasing out what exactly incentivizes a pokemon to run support moves on an offensive set; namely, Mega Diancie.

Diancie @ Diancite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 8 Atk / 248 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Moonblast
- Diamond Storm
- Hidden Power Fire
- Protect
Diancie @ Diancite
Ability: Clear Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Hasty Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Moonblast
- Diamond Storm
- Earth Power

First point: I'm not sure whether MDiancie ought to count for this, even the latter set? It has a support ability in magic bounce, yeah, and the SM set runs stealth rock (which isn't surprising, seeing how it's arguably the best support move in the game.) But something qualitative about it doesn't... Feel like an offensive cleric. In some know-it-when-you-see-it way, my gut can't accept this as support. Maybe it's because it doesn't ever run any of its other support options because the three move coverage is so important to it? Maybe it's that it's so frail it can rarely afford to take a turn off? Those could both be worth keeping in mind; avoiding making coverage options too mandatory or maybe avoiding them altogether so 27 has room for its support/utility moves, and avoiding making it such a glass canon that it doesn't ever find a safe opportunity to stop wrecking shop.

Second point: In SM, MDiancie pretty much always ran stealth rock, dropping protect for easy mega-ing entirely. Why is that? Did people just realize that the new tech was better, or did something change? I don't know enough about the difference between XY and SM to say for sure, but I suspect that there are major meta reasons that such an offensive pokemon was incentivized to run a support move here. I think we can look for that sort of thing in the current meta and exploit it; like, make a really big important and common pokemon something that it's completely useless against, unless it's running a support move of our choosing. Maybe it could even even have multiple options for silver bullets like this!
 

MrPanda

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Pokemon such as Jumbao and Clefable have run support moves such as Thunder Wave, Trick, and Healing Wish on offensive sets before - what makes Pokemon like these effective at doing so?
First, I would like to address here a pokémon that for me is the pure definition of "offensive support": Tsareena.

Although it was overshadowed by other Pokémon that had a better matchup against the top tier of gen8 RU / UU, Tsareena presents a great example of utility and offensive power combined in a harmonic way, functioning as both support and wallbreaker. Having a base attack of 120 and contacting extremely powerful moves like Power Whip and High Jump Kick, made switching in front of Tsareena a difficult task if you didn't have immunity or well-established resistance. Added to this are the various utility moves it used, such as U-turn, Knock Off and Rapid Spin. Also, Tsareena still had an incredible ability in Queenly Majesty and a reliable form of recovery in Synthesis into its deck.

Now with all the cards on the table, what I conclude is: All three Pokémon have enough offensive power to function as wallbreakers, but they do not play a very clear role as sweepers. Also, they have decent and well-established coverage within their patterns, in order to provide moveslots for the use of utility moves. All have amazing offensive and defensive abilities. And still have enough bulk to take some hits, important utility moves to help their teammates and realiable forms of life recovery, which allows them to maintain longevity and give support to mates throughout the game.
 

earl

(EVIOLITE COMPATIBLE)
is a Community Contributor
Second point: In SM, MDiancie pretty much always ran stealth rock, dropping protect for easy mega-ing entirely. Why is that? Did people just realize that the new tech was better, or did something change? I don't know enough about the difference between XY and SM to say for sure, but I suspect that there are major meta reasons that such an offensive pokemon was incentivized to run a support move here. I think we can look for that sort of thing in the current meta and exploit it; like, make a really big important and common pokemon something that it's completely useless against, unless it's running a support move of our choosing. Maybe it could even even have multiple options for silver bullets like this!
Diancie dropped protect (not completely, mind you, it was still a viable option) in SM due to the change in mega speed mechanics. In XY the turn you mega’d would use your base form speed, but this changed in SM to use the mega form speed on the turn of evolving.

Just to toss in my two cents, I think a balance needs to be found between enough offensive presence (hopefully covered by only 1 to 2 slots to incentivize support options) and a bulk/speed balance that makes a purely defensive or offensive approach suboptimal. Obviously abilities/moves would influence this heavily (see how quziel’s Liepard gets away with 0 bulk due to prankster and how the Mega Audino lacks a one turn recovery move to function as more of a traditional wall, even if this was more of a fringe set compared to the wishtect variants). While I don’t have any specific examples myself, I believe the factors listed above are going to be the most important aspects to consider going forward.
 
What constitutes a "Support" Pokemon?
A support Pokemon, in my eyes is a Pokemon that can fill various roles that warrant it a slot on a team. Simple examples would be entry hazard removers like Mandibuzz, Corviknight, and Excadrill, or Wish passers such as Clefable or offensive Jumbao last generation.

Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
Tornadus-T is a great example; it could keep consistent pressure up thanks to its high Speed, an excellent STAB move, the ability to dissuade checks with Knock Off, and keep up momentum with U-turn, all while being able to act as a Defogger and providing a lot of defensive utility.

With that said, I would like to say that I think following a "template" like Tornadus-T is a silly idea. Pokemon really don't work like templates; sometimes Tornadus-T prefered Heat Wave to Knock Off, or Focus Blast, the one strong move and three support moves template isn't always applicable. If we were to use it here too, I think we would end up with making a very one-dimensional and predictable Pokemon. Instead of following Tornadus-T's "template" with one strong move and three support moves, we should take an example from it in a more general sense; it could easily keep pressure up, and provide teams with various forms of utility through Defog, U-turn, its typing, decent bulk, and great Speed tier, while being sustainable without wasting turns thanks to Regenerator.

Pokemon such as Jumbao and Clefable have run support moves such as Thunder Wave, Trick, and Healing Wish on offensive sets before - what makes Pokemon like these effective at doing so?
Clefable has never run any of those moves on offensive sets, but Jumbao was effective at doing so thanks to its respectable natural bulk and abilities alongside its sustainability through recovery moves. However, even though some Jumbao sets were offensive, they were typically still run for their defensive presence. If we are looking for an offensive support Pokemon, I don't think these are good examples to follow.

How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other?
Being sustainable without wasting turns, like Tornadus-T, is definitely a great way to incentivize an offensive support Pokemon. Beyond that, we need to make sure CAP27 can get many turns to switch into play and apply pressure, and grab momentum for its team in some way; be it through pivoting, using Wish or Healing Wish to sustain its teammates, or maybe just crippling its own checks with Thunder Wave or Knock Off.
 

Prankstertrollo

Banned deucer.
First: On my phone atm, so please forgive me that I won't write a lot atm. Will edit later.

Hi, it's so cool to finally participate in CAP. I always loved this section, but just created an account.

I think one mon that already fits this role insanely good is a rlly new one: Hatterene.

What can I tell you. Like M-Diancie before it can abuse Magic Bounce, an ability that is one of the best supportive abilities in my opinion. Not only that you can secure your side of the field from hazards, you can also punish your opponent for trying to set them up and send them back. Also Hatterene got access to trick room. It might be THE Best mon ever created to support TR-teams. Thanks to Magic Bounce and decent bulk it can set up the trick room with ease (without fearing a taunt), but on the other hand it can also easily sweep through the whole opponent team when in trick room, thanks to its insane sp.atk and low speed! This is already outstanding. But it can also cripple its switch-ins with Nuzzle! It really doesn't have the biggest move pool, but it really utilizes what it has.

One other new mom that forfills a supportive and offensive role is the Hex + wow Dragapult. While crippling the opponents mon it is also weakening its atk and its own stab move gets insanely strong! And like mentioned before, encore is a great move to stop your opponent or force a switch.

I can see a ghost type mon like dragapult with hex + wow + encore easily switch in on a fighting type attack and stopping the other mon with encore. Especially, when the mon has magic bounce. So it might even send back a wow, toxic or twave and instandly punishing the status attack with hex ;)
 
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How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other?
To better understand my point, I believe Roserade could help me better explain it.
Roserade, despite the solid 125 base special attack, sticks more towards support options because of entry hazards as well as sleep powder being in their arsenal, however almost all sets across the generations feature either leaf storm, giga drain or sludge bomb, even sometimes running two offensive moves with a combination of the aforementioned support moves, combined with synthesis for recovery, making it not be as passive as other hazard setters in the RU tier like Uxie, who despite having the moves to fulfill the same role, has significantly weaker offensive stats, forcing it in a defensive role in order to be best used. This is a good example of how stats and moves can play a huge part in creating a pokemon that fits with the concept, however going overboard on moves or stats could significantly change the process, and potentially adopt a role like Metagross, who despite the access to stealth rock, has incredible attack and coverage, allowing it to assume the role of a choice band or agility attacker if chosen, and still be used effectively in said roles, causing Metagross to simply ignore the team support it could provide. One thing I will mention is that despite some sets still running stealth rock, at that point it would already not fit the concept because of the existence of the other sets and how good they are, making offensive support be overshadowed as the primary role.

Went a bit off-track, but let's get back to what I was originally talking about.

While Roserade does have some solid coverage, as well as the ability to utilize its naturally high special attack, something which would allow it to go on the offensive, the support moves it has are just too valuable, leaving offense to be somewhat pushed back, but still carrying a few powerful moves to deter certain defensive pokemon, as well as the ability to rack up spikes damage by not letting Roserade be set-up fodder, causing the opponent to have to play around Roserade, but at the same time having hazards on their side of the field, which will slowly weaken them, as well as the chip damage from Roserade's moves.
This ability to force switches because of these powerful moves gives me the impression that the best way to work around the concept would be to limit the overall coverage it has, and giving it a few very powerful/useful offensive moves, and the remainder would go to help support. The problem for this is the 4 slot move syndrome, preventing us from forcing more than one or two moves to push for offense, or giving it one or two very powerful status moves, such as entry hazards, defog, sticky web etc. And filling in the blanks along the way, mainly during the checks/counters stage, where it becomes important to work with the moves chosen to better have an understanding of what would truly check it, as taunt alone would not work well enough despite being a support pokemon, and some defensive pokemon just being used to click whatever status moves we so choose to give. Another thing is that the amount of status moves given should also be somewhat limited, as too wide could go back and making it pure support, while too few would just make it be status move + 3 attacks, so it's a balance that would have to be considered of what is too little and what is too much.
 
This ability to force switches because of these powerful moves gives me the impression that the best way to work around the concept would be to limit the overall coverage it has, and giving it a few very powerful/useful offensive moves, and the remainder would go to help support.
Hi, related to this, I don't know what i'm talking about but I think one way to ensure it uses both it's support side and it's offensive side is to give it good offence but a lot of very strong checks so it can try to be offensive and when it gets shut down it can fall back on its support moves to have an impact.
 

Voltage

OTTN5
is a Pre-Contributor
First of all, Thank you to all who voted for my concept to win! I 'm confident that we can generate a fascinating CAP27 for this idea and I thank all who voted for me (and those who voted for quziel, snake_rattler, lyd, sunMYSER and Quanyails because all of them also had amazing concept ideas)

In any case, let's address some of the discussion topics.

  • What constitutes a "Support" Pokemon?
A support mon, to me, is a Pokemon that is not necessarily the main wincondition for a team when brought to a battle. They should be able to consistently provide opportunities to sway the momentum of a battle back to the user's side without being an outright pivot. Like Jordy and NumberCruncher both said, it certainly helps if they're able to fill multiple roles at the same time (hazard clearing + Knock Off coverage for example), while never being the outright sweeper on the team.

A lot of really good examples have been listed here, but as someone in discord pointed out, most of the sets sans the Tornadus-Therian one are all from smaller old gen metas (ORAS NU comes to mind). This really says to me that we don't necessarily have a skeleton for basing things here and that makes me really excited, but also leads into the next point really well.

  • Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
I think the best way to incentivize the idea of having offensive pressure is to find a way to make things work in tandem in terms of momentum. Going back to the Torn-T example, Torn had one really powerful attacking move (Hurricane), a move that supported its ability nicely (U-turn) and then utility options (Knock Off and Defog). Again, I think leaning into trying to have a skeleton is a bad idea since we want to have this be our own concept, but I do think there are a couple things we can glean from Tornadus-Therian. Torn has a nearly perfect movepool for what it wants to do. It has that one really strong attacking option (shoutouts to snake, imma try to psuedo do your concept here bby) that really forces the opponent to consider whether or not they want to be hit hard. It also has an ability that functions even better as a result of its movepool, compressing a lot of actions into a small amount of turns. All of this is to say that there needs to be a reason that CAP27 needs to have a way to put offensive pressure on an opposing team. If CAP27 lacks the ability to outright threaten teams with some sort of direct attacking option, I think the concept has inherently failed.

There is also the discussion of Sylveon that I actually would like to return to briefly. Currently, people seem to be enthralled with Hyper Voice as the power attack option, but I had something different in mind. ONe of the things I had in mind when pitching tihs concept was Sylveon's ability to pass a Wish to a teammate after lowering the Special Attack of an opponent with Mystical Fire. Let me post a core from one of my favorite pre-HOME teams as an example:

Sylveon @ Leftovers
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 252 HP / 240 Def / 16 SpD
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Hyper Voice
- Wish
- Protect
- Mystical Fire

Gengar @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Cursed Body
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Trick
- Sludge Wave
- Focus Blast
- Hex


The point is to say that Sylveon was able to tank a lot of hits and lower certain Pokemon's special attack so that they could eventually wish pass and guarantee a safe switch. I don't have a replay since I hid my OST matches, but essentially I mystical fired mons like Clefable or Rotom-H so that Gengar could safely switch into a Wish while still getting hit by a predicted Moonblast or Volt Switch etc. (Not to get into specifics of the game, but Clef wasn't running T-Wave so I was not being a complete idiot lol). Then from there Gengar was back at full health and was free to Trick a Choice Scarf or attack as needed. I envision CAP27 would be able to also maybe do something along these lines too, being able to force situations where the opponent is unable to sufficiently do damage to a team while CAP27 is able to then proceed to heal the team or something along those lines.

  • Pokemon such as Jumbao and Clefable have run support moves such as Thunder Wave, Trick, and Healing Wish on offensive sets before - what makes Pokemon like these effective at doing so?
The thing about Clef and Jumbao is that that they have great stats and typings in addition to their movepools. Clef has been good ever since it became and Fairy and got an immunity to Dragon types, and Jumbao has that on top of also having really freaking powerful STAB options. Going back to Clef though, thanks to its days as Normal type, Clef has insane coverage that it can run for outright attacking, but somehow also has so many utility options (Rocks, Knock, TWave, Wish, HWish) it's absurd. Clef also has very solid stats such that it can either switch in on a resistance or immunity and then immediately put pressure on its opponent just by the sheer number of options it has.

Jumbao is a similar case, though for different reasons. The bulk that it has along with the typing allows for it to really operate well against a lot of current metagame threats. It also really helps that at least with last gen, Leaf Storm, Moonblast, Focus Blast, Hidden Power Ground/Fire t was able to consistently pressure a variety of playstyles as they appeared. Furthermore, given the nature of its concept, it was able to function well in other weathers with Shore Up being arguably its best healing, but not also forgetting Wish and Healing Wish. Honestly though, the movepools with appropriate stats really allow Jumbao to flourish more than anything

Essentially what it boils down to is that both Clef and Jumbao work well since they have ridiculously good movepools for providing offensive coverage and pressure, while also having the means to really assist in team safety and support through their stats.

  • How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other?
haha dnd joke in the end there throwback to the original name
To avoid the big minmax on CAP27, we have to really make sure that the offensive coverage options don't overshadow the ability to provide support options. At risk of polljumping, I think it's absolutely essential to make sure this Pokemon can't boost its stats through conventional means so that the way that it pressures opposing teams resides purely on its coverage and stats. Furthermore, I'll echo what others have said in this thread in saying that CAP27 needs to be efficient with the way it operates. The "actions" it does throughout the battle need to be able to operate where it's not wasting turns on the field and that it's doing exactly what it needs to be doing: supporting its team. I'm always really partial to the idea of being able to force the 50/50, but I think that might be a topic for the future, so I'll hold on to that for now.

tl;dr, CAP27 needs to be able to do stuff. Read my post you hack.

 

Wulfanator

Clefable's wish came true!
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Top CAP Contributor Alumnus
  • What constitutes a "Support" Pokemon?
Smogon previously defined a supporter as a mon who uses non-offensive moves which benefit the team. Moves like Thunder Wave, Toxic, Screens, and Healing Wish all fall under the umbrella of supporter tools. However, this is a limited outlook on what can contribute to a supporting role. There are many offensive moves that provide similar functionality, if not the same, to the moves listed above.

Orig Stall Guy mentioned the D/P Team Support article which is a great resource to establish a preliminary foundation for our concept. It covers many base support options not explicitly mentioned in the definition such as hazard setting, hazard removal, item removal, weather/terrains/rooms, phazing, pivoting, etc. This article also begins to mention abilities that offer team support. This leads me to believe we will potentially spend some time readdressing things we learned during CAP25 with the Astounding Ability Actualization concept. (link: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/cap-25-part-2-concept-submissions.3638503/post-7829016)

I believe Reviloja did a great job identifying the key elements of successful supports, so I won’t spend too much time on this topic. Repeatable utility, multiple switch-in opportunities, and longevity all feed off one another. You can’t repeat your utility if you do not have the opportunity to come into the battle or you can not live long enough to fulfill your designated role. I believe this trinity will ultimately make or break the support side of the concept and needs to be adhered to every step of the project.
  • Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
A supporting role must often sacrifice move slots to effectively support the team. By doing so, this leaves very limited room for any form of offensive presence. This leads to the necessity of compact coverage options that can work with potentially 2 move slots. We could also consider taking inspiration from snake_rattler’s One-Hit Wonder Concept by providing one outstanding offensive option and leaving the remaining 3 move slots available to fulfill its role as a support. However, I do believe Jordy said it best by recommending following a more generic template of providing offensive pressure while not sacrificing on various forms of utility. I believe this would most likely involve some level of move compression where we are looking for offensive options that have the same functionality as traditional, non-damaging support moves. Lastly, to address Revi’s Cryogonal example, Cryogonal has access to Freeze-Dry which allows it to further compress its coverage options as it no longer has to worry about the water-types. This compression can free up additional move slots to fulfill other roles for the team. We should identify similar ways to compress coverage to create this flexibility.
 
I realize typing this that it disagrees with some of the reasoning above from ppl smarter than me, so feel free to come at me.
  • Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
  • How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other?
Ok, so I find the crux of the CAP to be in these two questions, so I'll focus on them. How do you make a support mon that keeps offensive pressure, and an offensive mon that supports its team more than itself, or more than the support it demands?

My initial view is there are two main archetypes that can fulfill these goals. Looking at the first question I highlighted, this makes me think of a mon with a support role that ensures it can fulfill this role and avoid passivity with the threat of either setup or gaining momentum. The examples I have in mind are stuff like SR+SD/Mixed Garchomp in past gens or Rhyperior in lower tiers, whose take on supporting their teams is making sure hazards go up with the threat of blowing past the opponent's hazard control. Both of these mons have great attacking stats, sure, and they aren't passive, but they don't get slotted onto your teams as breakers or sweepers really. They provide support in the sense that they ensure chip damage for the rest of your team (via SR and Rough Skin+potential Helmet for the former), and provide situational switch-ins for specific attacks such as blocking Volt Switch and providing a Rock- and Flying-resistance (in the latter's case). A similar example of avoiding passivity via "setup" is SpD Centiskorch, whose main role is to switch into Fairy- and Fire-type attacks but manages to avoid being a momentum sink via Fire Lash drops. From these examples, plus some mentioned above like Cryogonal and Liepard, another takeaway would be the importance of switch-in opportunities, including potential immunities afforded by typing or abilities. Furthermore, while these examples have access to setup, they usually aren't wincons by themselves.

A second road that comes to mind is sort of the opposite: a mon that can function as a breaker and takes advantage of the momentum it generates to set up not for itself but for its teammates. In this scenario I'm thinking of offensive pokémon like Specs Gardevoir in current UU, Scarf Latias and Latios in past gens, and Cottonnee in past gen LC, whose main selling points over their competition as breakers or scarfers (or whatever Cottonee's competition is?) is their access to Trick, Healing Wish/Memento, or even both. (This is where I'd place Jumbao and Kerf, too). From these examples we can also see the importance of having support moves that don't directly benefit the user. Tricking a Choice item onto a special wall will make the user's job easier, sure, but does not constitute a wincon in itself. Leftovers Garde isn't sweeping, is what I mean.

This leads into my main point: we need to limit CAP's offensive capabilities in a way that its support capabilities are not used only to support itself. This is kind of a weird statement, but basically, I believe we should avoid an Ash-Gren scenario, where the win condition is to set up its own sweep via a "support" move in Spikes. A more clear example of both archetypes clashing would be Choice+NP+Trick Gengar in UU Beta, where having access to both setup and support moves overrides the "support" bit and just makes for an offensive mon that can cripple its own checks. In a sliding scale, Specs Garde is much more support oriented than Specs Gengar, is what I mean, even if both fall squarely in the category of "offensive" mons.

Also.
Trapping surely constitutes offensive support, but it also surely deserves its own discussion. Someone should talk about that imo.
 
What constitutes a "Support" Pokemon?
Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?

Having read a lot of the comments and my own thoughts I think the key to making the offenses not take centrepoint is by slightly hamstringing otherwise powerful potential offenses: limited or overlapping coverage meaning that there is limited ability for the attack to take precedence.

A bulky Offense pokemon, with a specific speed, bulk, mitigation and recovery options allow it absorb faster threats, which when combined with moves with strong role compression with strong and high chance secondary effects, or persistent effects are all key components.

The limited offense and coverage means that is has the strength to beat specific threats, but it can't run all out attacking, or 3 Attack and Pivot moves.

Gen 7 was honestly excellent for this role compression as Z Moves provided what was essentially a 1pp Nuke: there was no additional coverage, but the much high base power accounted for a lot of that, which combined with its inability to be removed, allowed much more comfortable switching into spammed Knock Off and the like, even without being a Dark Resist.
 

snake

is a Community Leaderis a Top CAP Contributoris a Contributor to Smogon
CAP Co-Leader
What constitutes a "Support" Pokemon?
A support Pokemon is one that facilitates its team to succeed, rather than winning games on its own. Certainly, the Pokemon /can/ win games if the opposing team is particularly weak to it, but player wouldn't be adding it to their main offensive core to break down opposing teams. Specially, an offensive support Pokemon would help that offensive core succeed without losing too much momentum. If the support Pokemon loses too much momentum, it's more of a hinderance to an offensive core most of the time.

Support Pokemon typically give up offensive pressure in order to provide support to their teammates, which is not conducive to making an effective offensive Pokemon. How can we work around this?
There are a few ways to prevent the Pokemon from losing too much momentum. I'm really interested in the following:
  • The Support Pokemon has decent offensive presence.
  • The Support Pokemon's ability has effects that linger after it switches out.
  • The Support Pokemon uses moves that directly affect its team.
Let's break these down:
  • The Support Pokemon has decent offensive presence.
If the support Pokemon can deal reliable damage, it'll have an easier time losing momentum because it can force the opponent to make certain plays. However, the support Pokemon optimally shouldn't be using all of its moveslots on attacking moves, else its support is purely limited to its ability, which would not fulfill the concept as well as it could. So, the Pokemon should have at most 3 attacks + a support move. In my opinion, though, if the support Pokemon is able to get by with two offensive move coverage, then it has more opportunities to run utility moves. Granted, what counts as its two move coverage and its utility becomes more of a gray area when considering moves that have good BP and can be used for damage but also have strong, secondary, supportive effects. Regardless, giving the support Pokemon some amount of offensive presence, without making it too strong of course, will be vital to this project.
  • The Support Pokemon's ability has effects that linger after it switches out.
These abilities will be critical to analyze because the support isn't necessarily conditional on the support Pokemon staying in AND they are passive, meaning that the support Pokemon can provide support without a) wasting a moveslot and b) using the move in battle. The best examples are the terrain surge abilities and weather-setting abilities because those change the field condition. Some other ones can lower the opponent's stats or change their abilities. There aren't a whole lot of these, but we should consider them heavily.
  • The Support Pokemon uses moves that directly affect its team.
This breaks down into...a lot of moves. But let's break some of these down.
  • Moves that soften the opponent's damage output
    • Moves that inflict burn or lower the opponents stats can help the support Pokemon act like a pivot without actually using a pivot move. I'd like to avoid making a Hyper Offense screen setter, though, because there are much more interesting ways to support a team that doesn't relegate the CAP to one specific playstyle.
  • Moves that cripple the opponent in another way
    • These may overlap with the above category a little bit, but they're still helpful. Moves that affect the opponent's item, that inflict paralysis, or lower defensive stats or Speed are potential avenues to go down with this category.
  • Moves that heal teammates
    • Moves that heal teammates are an obvious route to go down, but some moves really make a Pokemon passive. We should do our best to avoid moves that make the Pokemon suck up momentum because that would not fulfill the concept the best.
  • Moves that affect entry hazards
    • Changing the hazard landscape is mandatory on teams, but I think there are more interesting ways to provide offensive support than making another hazard setter / remover.
The takeaway? In my opinion, making a Pokemon that...
  • has good offensive presence
  • provides direct support with its ability
  • uses moves that
    • cripple the opponent in such a way that makes frailer teammates easier to get in and/or
    • provides non-passive healing
...is a really great way to circumvent how most support Pokemon give up offensive pressure to provide support! This would be a unique build that doesn't necessarily focus on team roles that are necessarily mandatory (like hazard control) or fit on one specific playstyle (like screens hyper offense).

Of course, this approach isn't the only way to fulfill the concept, but when trying to narrow down the extremely broad scope of "Offensive Team Support," I found this build to be very interesting.

Pokemon such as Jumbao and Clefable have run support moves such as Thunder Wave, Trick, and Healing Wish on offensive sets before - what makes Pokemon like these effective at doing so?
These moves follow the above criterion in my summary post. They either cripple the opponent (paralysis or item trickery) or healing the opponent in a non-passive way (Healing Wish). These Pokemon also have excellent coverage between either 2 or 3 moves, and why this is important is covered in my response to the first question.

How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other?
Coordination between stats and movepool will be key here (even though CAP is sadly not that great at this). If the Pokemon has high offenses and access to at least four strong coverage types, we risk it specializing as a primary attacker. It will take some balance of movepool limitation and stat restraint not to fall too far on the offensive side of "Offensive Support."

However, if we restrain stats and movepool too much, we could create a Pokemon that does provide support, but it's not necessarily "offensive" support. If it hits too weakly, it might give up too much momentum just by not forcing the opponent to play around it.

Of the two, I think it's much better to lean more heavily on the "support" side than offensive side. If we just make an offensive breaker that deals out damage, then we've really messed up. But if we make a Pokemon that's supportive but a little less offensive than we envisioned, then at least it counts as somewhat offensive support.
 

Gross Sweep

Plan Ahead
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Pokemon such as Jumbao and Clefable have run support moves such as Thunder Wave, Trick, and Healing Wish on offensive sets before - what makes Pokemon like these effective at doing so?
In a similar vein the Lati twins were what initially came to my mind when thinking about this concept. Between Latios tricking Specs or Scarf, Scarf Latias running Healing Wish for team support, along with the rarer scarf Latios packing Twave as some emergency speed control (along with several other niche support options) they more or less fit the mold of what I imagine we are trying to accomplish. One of the reasons I see this as feasible is due to typing, and having a particular strong stab combination of Draco Meteor in Psychic/Psyshock, which can be seen again in the 2 examples from Jho being Fairy types where Moonblast is a very strong offensive option and an easy throw off move. Since even with a lot of coverage options these mons continuously make do with sets that only run their stabs and maybe one coverage move. Obviously there are some exceptions to this with sets like LO Clef. Just roughly thinking about it I imagine our typing discussion will be pretty important since I foresee we'll end up needing a solid offensive typing stab wise to make this mon an offensive force that can also provide good utility.

How do we incentivize CAP27 to be an Offensive Support Pokemon, instead of speccing into one or the other?
This is going to take some serious effort in terms of balancing. Firstly we will need to give this mon the tools to actually have an offensive presence, which I don't think will be to hard since there are many ways to achieve this and we have a very creative group. That said, secondly, I feel we will have to watch ourselves in terms of crazy coverage. If were building an offensive mon my only worry is that we give it enough high power coverage options offensively that Specs/Band sets with 4 attacks, and sometimes Trick, starts to outclass everything else. Just at a glance I believe having a solid stab/s and just a handful of good coverage options on top of our support options will lead to the successful creation of CAP 27.
 
Orig Stall Guy mentioned the D/P Team Support article which is a great resource to establish a preliminary foundation for our concept. It covers many base support options not explicitly mentioned in the definition such as hazard setting, hazard removal, item removal, weather/terrains/rooms, phazing, pivoting, etc. This article also begins to mention abilities that offer team support.
Thank you so much for the shoutout!

Coordination between stats and movepool will be key here (even though CAP is sadly not that great at this). If the Pokemon has high offenses and access to at least four strong coverage types, we risk it specializing as a primary attacker. It will take some balance of movepool limitation and stat restraint not to fall too far on the offensive side of "Offensive Support."
I feel like Im jumping the gun here, but I think this will inevitably happen and its something Im perfectly fine with. There are Pokemon that can play pure offense, pure support, or do a mix of both. I think SM Chomp is an example of this. It has the Mega SD set for pure offense, Tank Set for Support, or Mixed and Offensive SR set for the mixture of offense and support. The point of CAP 27 is to incentivize the mix being the best option, but making it versatile to run pure offense or pure support isn't something we should go out of our way to prevent. But I do see the concern of making either the offense or support side to strong because that defeats the purpose of the concept.

Reading through some of the new posts, I totally forgot about Tornadus-Therian as an example of offensive team support. It has decent power with STAB Hurricane and a high speed while having support options like taunt, u-turn, knock off, defog, and Rocky Helmet. But it can focus more on offense at the expense of support with the Offensive Z-Move set. Also did not mention the Eevee-starter moves even though they provide the mixture of offensive power and support this concept is would really like for 2 reasons. First, those moves don't exist in SwSh so I assume they are illegal. Second, they are broken.
 
I feel like Mr. Rime, who currently resides in RU, is trying really hard to fill the role presented. He’s got an amazing utility movepool as well as ridiculous special coverage, but his stats and typing suck and he cannot run all the items and moves he wants. Which is a lot. CAP27 shouldn’t fall into this trap, which thankfully should be easily prevented because we’re designing it for competitive.

(A-Persian does something similar too... why are there so many low tier examples of this?)
 

MrPanda

not a bear
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As the thread seems to be heading towards a consensus on which template the CAP27 will follow, I would like to open a question that came to me some time ago, while I read some of the posts above:

  • With so many possible forms of utility and support, how are we going to follow with these elements within the concept of CAP27? Will we give it as much as we can or will we follow a specific path?
 
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