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Under what circumstances would having Multiscale encourage CAP 27 to switch in more often while still using team-focused options, and under what circumstances would Multiscale encourage CAP 27 to switch in less (perhaps becoming a less team-oriented Pokemon as a result)?
Why would CAP 27 switch in more often: If CAP 27 ends up getting a few status moves or perhaps a move that allows it to act as a phaser it can easily come in and stop or cripple a setup sweeper, boosted or unboosted depending on the mon. This is a game-changer as a support Pokemon because it allows it to do things that were once risky. The main concern that everyone has with Multiscale is that the pokemon will be forced to heal up all the time which is simply not true.
If we travel back to BW once again and look at support Dragonite we can see that, yes, Stealth Rock was a huge issue for it. However, Rapid Spin support from the likes of Starmie, Donphan, and Forretress allowed Dragonite to more easily excel at its position. Dragonite rarely needed to click Roost due to it having a decent defensive typing with plenty of resists which CAP 27 also has might I add. Dragonite wasn't constantly coming in either. It came in on pokemon that threatened its team such as Slowbro and Gliscor. This helped open up holes for physical sweepers on Dragonites team.
With that being said, statements like these simply weren't true about Dragonite...
CAP 27 could be inclined to spam recovery. This would force CAP 27's to just heal-spam. Even though Multiscale allows CAP 27 to usually get one utility or attack off, it would force CAP 27 to keep recovering due to keeping at full HP,
Under what circumstances would Multiscale encourage CAP 27 to switch in less: Weather damage from Sand and Hail which can be mitigated with Leftovers. Stealth Rocks, T-Spikes, Spikes which can be removed via the absurd amount of removers we have in this tier. Choice Scarfed Wall Breakers which is kinda funny because nobody runs Choice scarf right now thanks to the meta being ungodly slow.
It's on concept, but many users don't seem too hot on it primarily because they perceive an oversaturation of status absorbers in the CAP metagame. This is the problem that is shared with Immunity and Poison Heal. Given this, here's a direct question: Is status absorption a viable niche for CAP 27?
Everyone parrots "oversaturation" but this simply isn't the case when we look at what CAP27 is trying to accomplish for us. Lets look at other status sponges and see if they are at all comparable to CAP27:
--> Its the best mon in the game right now. Its on every team and its super annoying. This is all because of Magic Guard. However, Clefable is not an offensive support mon its a wall and a Wish Passer. It in no way relates to CAP 27's concept of offensive support.
--> Guts AV Colo only really likes to stay in for a limited amount of time before it gets too chipped because of Toxic or Wisp. This ends up hampering its offensive pivoting ability even because its granted with the boost. This isn't to say that Colossoil is a bad CAP though. Its one of the best imo and I'd say its one of the most viable ones we have right now behind Equilibra.
--> Again, as with Clefable, Conkeldurr is not offensive support and is instead a wallbreaker which comes in maybe once or twice a game.
--> Mollux is a more so relevant one that's comparable to CAP27. However, Mollux tends to be much more bulkier and the pokemon that it threatens tend to run T-Wave or not run status at all.
CAP 27's is an entirely new entity and giving it Natural Cure will do so much more than just lump it into a category of status absorbers.
Is status absorption a viable niche for CAP 27?: Oh my god absolutely. CAP 27 has some of the absolute best Offensive STAB in the game. Being able to come in on Status moves meant to cripple another pokemon and firing off a powerful STAB move or a status move when you forced that switch is super helpful. This would allow CAP 27 to fit on both defensive, balanced, offensive teams exceptionally well. This is what I believe to be the pinnacle of offensive support. A pokemon that can not only blow holes in the opposing team but also cripple opposing pokemon that may threaten the users team. With Natural Cure, CAP 27 can more easily accomplish this goal.
Much like Serene Grace, this ability looks to add utility on top of our attacks in order to mix offense with support, reducing 4 slot moveset constraints. This ability started out very strong in the thread but completely dropped off of discussion in the past two pages, likely due to controversies surrounding some of the flashier abilities that crept up. If people have things to add to this ability or simply want to reiterate support, feel free. I've also seen some concerns about inflicting poison versus other status chances, primarily burn--as a question to promote discussion for this ability, how valid are these concerns?
I think the question poison vs burn comes down to what kind of Pokémon our team/27 needs crippled.
Burn helps reducing damage of physical attackers and wears them down slowly. Poison doesn’t reduce damage but is faster in wearing down the opposing Pokémon.
If you take a look at our threatlist poison targets mainly the more defensive switch ins and most notably some of our counters.
This could be cool because, while we’re not able to threaten these switch ins directly with our stab, poison would help soften these mons for our team, which is definitely pro concept.
Also most of these mons like Tomo, Primarina, Hippowdon and Arghonaut are either passive or specially oriented, which means they wouldn’t mind a burn as much.
Of course we might want to inflict toxic rather than regular poison on them but even poison damage racks up quite fast, making those mons click recovery much faster than they’d like and inflicting steady chip.
Burn on the other hand helps us better handle our pressure matchups as many of the mons in the list are physically oriented.
Pokémon like syclant, Tyranitar, Terrakion and Mamoswine will all suffer heavily from burn.
This will help us stay in longer against these mons maybe even threatening to outrun their supereffective coverage or at least softening their blows for our team.
Thus Inflicting poison on these mons is not as good as hitting them with a burn, but it still will help wear them down fast as none of these mons has recovery options, opening paths for revenge kills.
If you consider, that many of the physical attacking options, that fire and dragon offer, have other added effects than status, adding a poison chance on a physical mon will be of great value, helping compress status into attacking moves, reducing the need to run WOW or toxic and freeing a moveslot for other utility.
Poison Heal is a strictly better Immunity, but it incentivizes running a Toxic Orb. Given that many people answered "both" either directly or in roundabout ways to the question about accentuating defensive utility and item synergy, it's worthwhile to ask the question: is this a direction we want to take CAP 27? Is it possible to encourage a Poison Heal user to not run a Toxic Orb if it's not, or would Immunity be a better choice for giving our CAP a poison immunity when considering Concept Fulfillment? Additionally, there's a concern with this path that flows into the next ability:
As Poison Heal discussion died down a bit, discussion on this ability picked up. It's on concept, but many users don't seem too hot on it primarily because they perceive an oversaturation of status absorbers in the CAP metagame. This is the problem that is shared with Immunity and Poison Heal. Given this, here's a direct question: Is status absorption a viable niche for CAP 27?
This ability synergizes well with our concept that has gotten a lot of support recently. Concerns against it have been worries about CAP 27 losing its role as a support Pokemon if it gets boosting or recovery, and losing its desire to switch in if it does not. Let's focus on the section that is less concerned with getting moves: Under what circumstances would having Multiscale encourage CAP 27 to switch in more often while still using team-focused options, and under what circumstances would Multiscale encourage CAP 27 to switch in less (perhaps becoming a less team-oriented Pokemon as a result)?
Much like Serene Grace, this ability looks to add utility on top of our attacks in order to mix offense with support, reducing 4 slot moveset constraints. This ability started out very strong in the thread but completely dropped off of discussion in the past two pages, likely due to controversies surrounding some of the flashier abilities that crept up. If people have things to add to this ability or simply want to reiterate support, feel free. I've also seen some concerns about inflicting poison versus other status chances, primarily burn--as a question to promote discussion for this ability, how valid are these concerns?
This ability does look to support the team directly, but there have been questions raised about how impactful it would actually be for your team versus your opponent's. Additionally, one thing I didn't see mention of is how this ability could trend CAP 27 towards being more defensive rather than offensive. This is likely because of the memory of how offensive Tapu Bulu was in previous generations, but if this CAP ends up solely seeking to gain healing from the nerfed terrain, would it end up being more passive and utilizing "selfish" options like Protect which don't do that much to support the team and sap up recovery turns for itself? I feel this is one of the least likely abilities to be slated, especially given its mixed reception in the thread, but I did want to at least put this thought forward for more discussion and agree with the idea that this is a "high-risk / low-reward" ability.
Of all the abilities left open for further discussion, I only support Multiscale. While I think that there is something to the concern that the ability may incentivise spamming Recover to maintain full health on a first glance, I ultimately think that this is being somewhat overstated. I think the comparison to BW's Tanky Dragonite spread is relevant, as that is arguably the set closest to what we would be aiming to replicate with CAP 27 should it run Multiscale, namely Fire Move, Dragon Move, Status, Recovery. While there may have been many situations where Dragonite would click Roost, the main thing that it aimed to do upon switching in was to use Thunder Wave, giving it more opportunities to Roost up later in the game. I ultimately think that CAP 27 will function in the same way, especially considering its main switchin opportunities will likely be on pretty weak attacks anyway and against Pokemon it will force out. Rather than Recovering or Roosting up from 20% to absorb another hit later, I believe it will be the case that CAP 27 will want to capitalise on forcing out its switchin through strong STAB or status, and will only Roost/Recover at a later point in the match when it is no longer threatened by impending switchins because it has Wisped or Thunder Waved them. Multiscale in this regard is beneficial because it reduces increments of chip damage on certain weak switchins, allowing it to come in more, as well as acting as somewhat of an emergency button to come in on a strong wallbreaker once or twice in a game and shutting them down with status or by revenge killing them. There's a lot of flexibility with this ability I believe, and it certainly strikes me as pro-concept.
Now, for arguments against the other abilities. I am going to be lumping Immunity, Poison Heal and Natural Cure together for the reason that I think status, and particularly Poison, will not be a major concern for CAP 27, especially if it ends up with one of the other slated abilities such as Regenerator or Magic Bounce, which I believe provide more utility and are subsequently less one dimensional. Of the listed switchins for Cap 27, the only one that really carries any form of status is Rotom Heat, so for a start, I think that it is unlikely that CAP 27 will be hit with status on a switchin. Additionally, CAP 27 doesn't strike me, as far as my understanding of the concept assessment, as a Pokemon that will be staying in and 1v1ing switchin to it, instead preferring to hit them with its own utility moves and swapping out for team members to take advantage of them. With this in mind, I personally think it quite unlikely that CAP 27 will have many opportunities to be taken advantage of by status, either because it won't be staying in to get it in the first place, or that if it does somehow get Poisoned, it won't be hitting some of those later turns and subsequently big damage points. With this in mind, I think giving it an ability centred around mitigating status, and particularly Poison, doesn't actually improve that many of its matchups, or provide it with much greater utility. There are better status absorbers that have better matchups against the common status spreaders.
Poison Touch, although quite interesting, I believe does not do enough for CAP 27. As has been discussed pretty consistently throughout the thread, an ability that provides CAP 27 with more defensive utility is preferable because that is one of the largest gaps afforded by our typing. With this in mind, an ability with little defensive potential would need to do a lot for CAP 27 to justify foregoing another, such as Serene Grace which as has been discussed previously provides some much needed move-compression and has strong synergy with our stab moves. Poison Touch on the other hand I don't think synergises with CAP 27's physical moveset in the same way, as it competes with Burns that we may be wanting to proc, or because we are running Will-O-Wisp.
Finally, Grassy Surge. Although this was one I did mention earlier (to be fair I was quite unsure about it at the time anyway and mainly raised it for discussion purposes), I think that the discussion against it has been convincing. I think the fact that it provides passive healing to opponents makes it ultimately quite contrary to our intended aims as an offensive support Pokemon. Additionally its strengthening of Grass-type moves is something that presumably CAP 27 won't be taking advantage of, which ultimately makes it feel like a wasted opportunity. As others have mentioned, swapping Earthquake for High Horsepower could also cancel out the reduction there. Whether or not this ends up being common, I'm unsure, but in either case, it does all add up to show that Grassy Surge is not a good fit for CAP 27 as its benefits are marginal at best.
I'm actually going to start with thoughts on Serene Grace: Why has this 'enabler' ability been the one that we've been focussed on, against a backdrop of some far more interesting and effective enablers? Indeed, there's not been a massive amount of discussion on this one, I'm surprised it's close to sneaking through.
Don't get me wrong, it's a solid ability - and there are some non-STAB options I'd love to see with it that'd be completely on point conceptually. But... the options I'd *like* to see are way too polljumpy since they're off STAB, so I'm going to stick to the STAB options Lava Plume* and Dragon Breath - both of which are reasonable assumptions in my mind (see also: Poison Touch + Contact Options, Technician + Breaking Swipe).
I have severe doubts that a 60 BP 60% Para move would see usage to be honest, especially because it'd be inevitably competing against burn spam. And, whilst Lava Plume would be strong... I don't see the reason to not go the whole hog and instead take No Guard - which enables the exact same thing for us, except stronger and more reliably, as well as enhancing a wide range of support moves for us. Especially because an ability such as No Guard or Serene Grace means that we can't use the same healing as Regenerator, say, without wasting actions (not something an offensive support mon can really be affording) I think we should be tending towards more powerful abilities, rather than weaker ones.
As someone who previously argued in favour of Grassy Surge, I've turned off it a bit - though it certainly gives us a niche (Hawlucha says 'hello'), the fact that the passive healing is on both sides is concerning, the reduction on Earthquake is not exactly massive enough to be groundbreaking. The more I look back wanting to be overwhelmed by how good the ability is... I'm barely being whelmed any more.
(I may post some more thoughts later on, depending on how much time I have :x)
Regarding Immunity, Poison Heal, and Natural Cure, I think the correct option here is Immunity. The main reason any of these abilities were brought up in the first place was to make CAP not be weak to toxic, and Immunity does just that, nothing more, nothing less, and it doesn't come with the baggage that Poison Heal or Natural Cure would bring either.
Regarding Serene Grace and No Guard. They're very similar in what they do in terms of moveslot compression. One does it reliably, the other offers more versatility. I don't really have a preference between the two since I like what they both do for us in terms of moveslot compression (I don't think it can be emphasized enough how good this is for us, especially when we're looking at ways to support our teammates), and while No Guard's reliability is a huge plus, the versatility that comes with serene grace is also very enticing to me. I think either one would be a good and interesting way to move forward with this concept.
I'm supprised to not see any discussion on Mold Breaker. Ignoring abilities is a capability that works for offense and defensive sides which excelently goes with the offensive support role. Offensively it allows bypassing or Unaware and immunity abilities, while on the defensive side, it can do things like throw out free utilities against Magic Bounce or similar.
Multiscale and Poison Touch are fine for me, for the reasons other users have posted.
I'm supprised to not see any discussion on Mold Breaker. Ignoring abilities is a capability that works for offense and defensive sides which excelently goes with the offensive support role. Offensively it allows bypassing or Unaware and immunity abilities, while on the defensive side, it can do things like throw out free utilities against Magic Bounce or similar.
I think it's mostly because it's a straight downgrade from Neutralizing Gas in singles. Neutralizing Gas has gotten a fair bit of discussion for many of the same reasons that one would use Mold Breaker, and it works on more Abilities (all of them, as opposed to only ones that would impede CAP27's attacks directly); Mold Breaker only has any potentially positive differentiation in doubles, where you might want to avoid negating an ally's Ability (or I guess in edge cases when you're fighting something with a hindering Ability, but none of those are really relevant anyway).
Going to give some final thoughts on some of the abilities gmars mentioned in his post.
Immunity/Poison Heal/Natural Cure all share the same basic niche of status absorption, though they obviously go about it in different ways, and each has their own strengths and limitations. Immunity is pretty one dimensional and arguably not worth it considering the trade off of having a more generally useful ability. It’s in sort of the same boat as Sticky Hold, in that it does one thing and it does it very well but that one thing can be limited in scope. Poison Heal has been proven to be good in the past, but locks 27 into holding toxic orb. The question was posed as to whether Poison Heal can be run without the orb, but I feel like that’s a solid no for any kind of consistency’s sake, as we’re venturing into gimmick territory. For example, if we’re looking to switch into status from Rotom or Clef we have no guarantee that they’re packing toxic and not twave. Poison Heal additionally makes things like heal bell much less desirable when we get to the movepool stage, and though that’s a little polljumpy I still believe it should be considered as the anti-synergy is immense. Natural Cure is the simplest and maybe strongest of the three, and while not particularly exciting, it gets the job done quite well. Though the question remains if we want 27 to be a status absorber, and further if we want that role to be assigned through primary ability considering all the other more exciting and arguably more useful abilities we have on the table. If I were to pick one of these three it would definitely be natural cure, as I feel it accomplishes the goal at hand much more readily due to the prevalence of multiple types of status in the metagame.
Grassy Surge is probably one of the more interesting suggestions in the thread, with few abilities bringing more direct utility. However, I feel like this ability is a trap for several reasons. The first is that grassy terrain’s offensive bonus will likely be lost on 27 itself by nature of typing and concept. Yes, we can set up grass for our teammates but this seems very underwhelming as the bonus isn’t as much as a weather and grass really isn’t a good offensive type to begin with. It does encourage some cool cores with existing grass-types but this is likely to happen anyways. The second reason I argue against this ability is arguably the biggest: the recovery works for enemies, too. Healing the opponent feels like the exact opposite of what we want as an offensive support, and is pretty anti-concept and almost sure to backfire on us. Lastly, while the damage reduction to earthquake is a good thing for us, I’m a firm believer that we should be vulnerable to ground. It’s not as egregious as levitate but it does alleviate our eq weakness to the point where things that should kill us might not, especially against bulkier users. This is obviously an opinion but I personally see this as a bad thing for 27. All in all I don’t think we should be looking at this ability.
Multiscale is a very solid option that helps us in many different situations, many of which have already been mentioned above. All I have to say here is that there are three things that we need to avoid combining if we choose this ability: setup, coverage, and recovery. Setup is the obvious no-no, as that is the biggest thing that will quickly turn 27 into a Multiscale-abusing sweeper. Recovery and Multiscale is fine together, but throwing coverage into that mix has the risk of turning us into a 3attacks+recovery mon which is definitely not where we want to be. People keep referencing the BW support Dragonite set (and for good reason), and could very easily be where we end up while satisfying the concept. We just need to take care as to not derail the concept with poor choices down the line if we do indeed pick Multiscale. It’s not walking the razors edge like Magic Guard but it’s definitely pushing a bit into dangerous territory.
Lastly, Poison Touch. While it’s a unique take, I question the usefulness of regular poison to us. Yes, it’s free, but poison is miles away from toxic when it comes to taking down bulkier targets, there’s undoubtedly going to be situations where we land the poison instead of the burn and their Terrakion or whatever sweeps us because its attack wasn’t halved. It does enable the status-through-attacks approach quite well, though I mainly question the ability when compared to Serene Grace. Serene Grace takes on a similar role and arguably does it better with the ability to spread multiple types of status and not just standard poison.
I had two thoughts on No Guard. While I can't really abide by the more troubling aspects of extremely powerful coverage it might unlock, or want it solely for one particular move (and I guess always hitting your Draco Meteor and Dragon Rush, which actually would give us legitimate powerful drawback-free Physical Dragon STAB.), there is an element of it worth exploring that hasn't quite been brought up yet in all the status discussion: 100% Accurate Sleep. Now, I know Sleep hasn't been brought up much since it has few viable users in the original SwSh Dex, but since we've been talking burn, poison, and paralysis so much the fourth horseman of reliably inflictable status deserves its due. I also know technically we could give 100% sleep without No Guard... but uh, that's going to be a real hard sell without the drawbacks No Guard offers in exchange.
Reliable sleep of course always makes any one check or counter particularly queasy, ask Breloom about that, and might be too much given the neutral efficacies of our STABs, but it's a take on No Guard that isn't just winking past Inferno to enable some other shenanigans.
Initially I was a big defender of them. But now, later reading the thoughts of other people and thinking for some time I'm opposing to them. Poison immunity is something that I really don't like in this moment, because Toxapex. Also, not much defensive utility here.
It has a similar concept to the above ones, but unlike them it doesn't make CAP27 immune to the residual damage of poison status. Natural Cure allows us to deal with all the forms of status condition. Nevertheless 27 is already immune to burn, and freeze and sleep aren't a big problem for real (although they're a thing still). Paralysis and poison are the real business here. Paralysis is annoying and that's it. Poison can be problematic but is a necessary bad for us. What I really like about here is the incentive to "stay in, then go out" but Regen can do this better. Lastly, I think that Natural Cure can still be a choice but unfortunately not the best.
I'm still a little incredulous about it but it's definitely one of the best ones that we have here. But what keeps me away isn't the CAP27's role turning possibility (I think we can and will circumvent this if it is choosen) but keeping Multiscale up. The biggest problem with "full health" abilities is to keep the health full and that can cripple 27. If we go with Boots so we are vulnerable to any chip damage (either opposing attacking moves or weathers or status conditions); if we go with Lefties so hazards are the problem. It can look like a overconcern but it's something that got me and I wanted to leave it here.
I like the idea of offensive utility of Poison Touch combined with CAP27's STAB moves (poisonous Fire Lash is a really scary thing). The only problem here is that regular poison is far below of burn and badly poison. 12% fixed damage is okay but it really sucks when you would rather to have a opposing pokemon burned, paralyzed or badly poisoned.
I like the idea of offensive utility of Poison Touch combined with CAP27's STAB moves (poisonous Fire Lash is a really scary thing). The only problem here is that regular poison is far below of burn and badly poison. 12% fixed damage is okay but it really sucks when you would rather to have a opposing pokemon burned, paralyzed or badly poisoned.
I'm gonna have to stop you right there, 12% fixed damage is really great for wearing down mons, and it's even better when it's free. Also being badly poisoned actually only does more damage than regular poison if the pokemon is staying in for more than 3 turns of it, so I think a lot of people have been undervaluing regular poison. (TBH when I use toxic spikes I often only lay down one layer of it). And if you're looking to burn/paralyze/toxic something that's switching in to CAP27, there's nothing stopping you from clicking WoW/TWave/Toxic, Poison Touch doesn't keep you from doing that. I don't really think it has the best synergy with status moves, but theyre not mutually exclusive and it does add another threatening element to your attacking moves. Adding status on your attacking moves helps with compression as well, allowing for other support moves if status moves aren't your style, which is definitely good for our concept. If nothing else, the potential to help wear down opposing mons for your teammates is really good support to provide imo.
Alright, let's go over some abilities. Our choice of ability needs to fulfill the concept of offensive support while also being able to be a contender in the current, relatively bulky metagame. I've included 3 tl;drs if you're not interested in snake_publications_inc :)
I've already gone over Regenerator's long benefits in my previous post. Basically, when Knock Off, poison damage, and relatively weak attacks are being thrown around everywhere, Regenerator is an incredible option to enables CAP27 to tank those, retain momentum, not waste a moveslot with recovery.
Serene Grace is one that has a lot of potential. With this ability, CAP27 can run STAB moves with high chances to status the opponent, meaning that we compress extremely reliable utility into its offensive moves. This is important because it makes a 3 attacks + recovery set a feasible option, unlike with many other abilities, as at least 1 of those 3 attacks can have some utility attached to it. 2 attacks + utility + recovery still works also. Even though it doesn't help with survivability and switch-in opportunities, this ability really leans into the offensive support that this concept is literally being built upon, so Serene Grace is a good option to me.
Poison Touch is very similar to Serene Grace. By compressing a poison chance into CAP27's STAB attacks, we bring in additional utility to CAP27's attacks without consuming moveslots.
As for regular poison, I think it's an underrated status. Sure, it's not Toxic, but a 12.5% flat damage rate every turn isn't anything to sneeze at. It will deal more damage than Toxic would before 3 consecutive turns of Toxic damage. It means Pokemon like Mandibuzz, Hippowdon, Tomohawk, and Arghonaut suddenly have to spam recovery for an attack that does about 40% rather than about 50%, which is significant. Guts users like Colossoil, Conkeldurr, and Obstagoon will be wary to switch in due to Poison Touch activating; while that will activate Guts, it's chipping away a lot faster than it would with burn. Dragapult and Seismitoad, which have no recovery, are that much more annoyed to switch into CAP27's Fire-type STAB.
It also means that CAP27 can spam one STAB attack to see how the opponent will respond to it; if it's a resisted hit, Poison Touch could activate as a consolation and the CAP27 user can gain valuable information about how the opponent will react or simply punish their switch in. Finally, the Steel-types that would want to switch in and absorb Poison Touch simply don't want to because of Fire-type STAB.
Also, just because CAP27 has Poison Touch doesn't mean it can't inflict other status. If the CAP27 user predicts a physical attacker switching in, it could use a burn-inducing attack instead. Many Pokemon in the past have run dual status sets, and this Pokemon would play no differently from them. Bottom-line, this ability may not be the most powerful, but it definitely breaks into the offensive support and is underrated. The offensive side is easing prediction with a sizable chance to deal passive damage and punish counters while the support side is softening up the opposing team for CAP27's teammates. And while it may impact counters a little bit, it's not outright beating them with Poison Touch, just inflicting a status.
Regenerator
Mitigates Knock Off, passive damage, and damage from weak attacks we want to switch into
Enables CAP27 to retain momentum
Allows CAP27 to not run a recovery move, opening up a valuable moveslot and lowering the chance of 3 non-utility attacks + recover set
Serene Grace
Increases the reliability of damaging utility moves
Enables CAP27 to run 3 attacks + recovery sets that have utility compressed into them (doesn't preclude 2 attacks + utility + recovery)
Allows CAP27 to soften the opposing team with status in a more offensive way
Poison Touch
Allows CAP27 to annoy anything that wants to switch into it, without outright beating any of its checks and counters
Synergizes very well with Fire typing due to Steel-types not wanting to switch in
Doesn't mean CAP27 can't inflict other status like burns or paralysis
Team support is wearing down the opposing team quickly
Magic Bounce is a weird one for me. Although it's powerful...I'm not sure how well CAP27 can take advantage of it. Looking at our threatlist, it does bounce Toxic back at Rotom-H, which is very useful. However...I'm worried about how well it can use it past that one matchup. Kommo-O and Ferrothorn's hazards are reflected, but CAP27 still has to worry about Knock Off and Earthquake from them. Other hazard setters like Seismitoad, Hippowdon, and Arghonaut don't particularly fear CAP27 that much and can threaten it with Earth Power, Earthquake, or Knock Off. So, it could bounce back hazards, but it's not going to be the most reliable at keeping them off the field unless it's good enough to force out these hazard setters. For status users, it's really risky. Hippowdon and Seismitoad will hate having their Toxic reflected at them, and Hydreigon and Dragapult will hate having Thunder Wave thrown at them, but they all threaten CAP27 with their STAB attacks. For me, obviously Magic Bounce is useful because it's Magic Bounce - a really strong ability - but I'm not sure if CAP27 is the best user for it, and I think the above 3 abilities are much better for it.
I'm pretty iffy on Multiscale. I'm concerned that CAP27 will have to be at full health a lot of the time to really make use of this ability. CAP27 really want to switch into a lot of weaker attacks. Why do we want to soften blows from really weak attacks? Admittedly, it's useful that CAP27 could potentially tank Dragapult and Hydreigon's Draco Meteor, Terrakion's Stone Edge, etc. but that will require CAP27 to keep multiscale up, and that means it can't switch into those weaker attacks without dedicating its free turns to use recovery. We also start falling into the 3 non-utility attacks + recovery moveset territory, and I really want to avoid that. Plus, it's hard for CAP27 to hold Leftovers to refresh Multiscale easily, and we don't have access to any STAB HP-draining attacks. I can see the benefits, but I'm not terribly sold on it. It's offensive support in that it can potentially remove a powerful, faster threat if played well, but I'm still not completely sold right now. In Gen 7 I'd be much more supportive of this ability, as that metagame had many more strong attacks flung around, but I don't think it's as applicable here.
Magic Bounce
Limited usefulness against hazard setters and status users: Rotom-H is a solid matchup, Ferrothorn and Kommo-O are more reliable, but other Pokemon like Hippodown, Seismitoad, Hydreigon, and Dragapult are really difficult to switch into to reflect their moves
Obviously strong because it's Magic Bounce, but could be more useful on a CAP with a better typing
Multiscale
Good to tank a strong hit from a powerful foe, but I'm not convinced that the metagame is offensive enough / has enough powerful moves thrown around to warrant this type of support
Most of the time Multiscale will be broken by weak attacks, and we don't have HP-draining attacks and likely won't be holding Leftovers to refresh Multiscale easily. Recovery will be likely required on movesets - increases chance of 3 non-utility attacks + recovery sets
Will have to spam recover most of the time to refresh Multiscale - could mean we don't use our utility as much?
Abilities that I think are inferior/not useful enough:
Alrighty, let's dig into this ability some more. I don't think I've ratted out enough how useless this ability is. Let's take a look at the post GMars linked...
Permanent immunity to hazards in conjunction with the Boots. This is the obvious upside of Sticky Hold. Just ask Clefable what immunity to hazards can do for you, and in CAP 27's case, immunity to hazards is very, very useful to negate Stealth Rock. An ability which pairs so strongly with our most natural item should not be underestimated.
This is very true, and I see why this ability is appealing. However, if we take the time to look at the Knock Off users in the metagame, it becomes apparent that CAP27 doesn't want to be switching into most Knock Off users anyway. I'm going to repeat what I said in my previous post because I already said this:
"Sticky Hold protects CAP27's Heavy-Duty Boots, which is great. But what uses Knock Off in the metagame? CAP27's switch-ins are Ferrothorn and Zeraora. It's good that we're better switch-ins to them. But...that's about it. Ferrothorn legitimately becomes a perfect switch-in, but Zeraora will more than likely be faster than CAP27 (not a guarantee of course, but 143 Speed is pretty high). CAP27 won't necessarily like switching into other passive Knock Off users like Clefable, Arghonaut, Mandibuzz, and Toxapex given their access to status - unless they're weakened I don't see CAP27 realistically staying in. I also really doubt we'll have the titanic bulk required to tank multiple Knock Off from the Guts wallbreakers that run it: Conkeldurr, Colossoil, and Obstagoon, especially because Knock Off will always be at full power and we take neutral damage. Bisharp doesn't have Guts, but Knock Off + Sucker Punch will still leave a mark. Basically, I think Sticky Hold tries to address a legitimate concern that CAP27 faces, but I don't think we have the typing to act as an effective Knock Off absorber. I think Regenerator covers what Sticky Hold is trying to address but actually accomplishes what it needs to."
Also, Caribolt barely ever runs Knock Off. Basically, we don't really want to be a Knock Off absorber.
However, it has seen use in LC on mons such as Shellos and (in the past) Trubbish. The Eviolite VS Knock Off metagame in LC makes Sticky Hold invaluable for these two.
This is true, but LC has many more weaker Knock Off users that they'd want to switch into. Shellos is a slow, bulky, and rather passive wall that can tank Knock Off hits, while Trubbish is able to force out the Fighting-types that use Knock Off. CAP27 doesn't want to be a passive wall, nor does it force out a large list of Knock Off users.
Rotom forms: CAP 27 would love to switch in on Rotom-H and Rotom-M without worrying about being Tricked a Choice Scarf.
Clefable: Not losing our item to Clef, and especially being immune to receiving a Sticky Barb, would ensure CAP 27 can switch-in on any defensive Clefable.
Celebi and Jirachi: Two more switch-ins that might give us a nasty present.
Since the Home metagame, Choice Scarf Rotom-H has declined massively, as well as Rotom-M in general. Clefable's Trick sets have died in favor of Wish + Teleport, Calm Mind, and Thunder Wave / Knock Off / other utility Clefable. Celebi isn't even ranked on the VR. Jirachi is the only relevant Choice Scarf user you pointed out.
Unless we become a super sturdy wall, which is antithetical to "offensive support," Sticky Hold realistically helps 2 matchups: Ferrothorn and Jirachi. It sorts of helps against Bisharp and Zeraora. Overall, I think rather than focusing on keeping our Heavy-Duty Boots throughout the battle, it's much better to embrace the fact that item manipulation is a staple of Gen 8, that Regenerator actually addresses Knock Off concerns much better, and being immune to Jirachi's Trick isn't good enough for the primary ability.
Basically, I think Regenerator outclasses this ability. Toxic is definitely a good move in this metagame, but the only relevant Toxic user that we threaten ourselves is Rotom-H. Being immune to Mollux's Sludge Bomb poison is good too, but I'm a lot more concerned by the actual damage from Sludge Bomb rather than the chip damage at this point. Mandibuzz, Seismitoad, Toxapex, and Arghonaut all have other ways to damage us - be it Knock Off or Earthquake - so even if we switch into Toxic, we're facing down something that forces us out. For this reason, I don't think Immunity is actually that helpful. It helps in two matchups, and CAP27 can benefit more from Regenerator, which covers these matchups and more.
Poison Heal suffers from the same issues as Immunity, except now it forces us to want Toxic Orb. Which, as we've seen from Snaelstrom, isn't good on a Stealth Rock-weak Pokemon. Also, as we've also seen from Snaelstrom, holding boots and hoping for the opponent to use Toxic against a Poison Heal user isn't a reliable strategy either. I'd rather pass on this ability in favor of Regenerator too.
The same problems as Immunity apply to this one too, except now we get to deal with paralysis users too. Jirachi has better moves to be running than Thunder Wave and Body Slam right now, and Rotom-H has been running less Discharge after the Home meta. Dragapult and Choice Scarf Hydreigon aren't exactly easy to switch into due to Draco Meteor, so absorbing their Thunder Wave isn't the best idea. It'll be harder to force Clefable out, especially if we're paralyzed. I could be missing a few paralysis inducers, but...yeah I'm not particularly enthused by this ability. Yes, we can absorb and cure status, but to what end? We barely force out anything that induces status - in fact most of the time they still force us out, so CAP27 is still on the back foot.
In such a bulky metagame, I think this ability is more of a detriment to CAP27 and its team rather than a benefit. Yes, I realize the importance of passive recovery; I ran Trick Room in Gen 7 with Tapu Bulu and its Grassy Surge was what held those teams together. However, giving double Leftovers to opposing Toxapex, Clefable, and Seismitoad and Leftovers recovery to opposing Mollux seems really hard to overcome when we've lost a lot of breakers in the generational shift. Rather than preventing CAP27's wallbreaking teammates from being worn down too much, I fear that the opposing team will just bulk out all its teammates' hits. Plus, weakening Earthquake means nothing when almost every Earthquake user a) can switch to High Horsepower (think Hippowdon, Excadrill, and Colossoil, b) uses Earth Power anyway (think Seismitoad and Gastrodon) or c) just use a different move (think Syclant, Tyranitar, or Knock Off Arghonaut). Anyone hoping to have Grass-type coverage on CAP27 itself should take one look at the threatlist and realize that we completely stuff almost every check and counter with near-STAB Grass-type coverage in the mix, which makes the chance of having Grass-type coverage incredibly small. I don't think this is the right metagame or Pokemon for Grassy Surge
Sticky Hold
Knock Off and Trick immunity is cool on a Pokemon likely to carry Heavy-Duty Boots, but if you actually look at the Knock Off and Trick users, CAP27 really threatens two - Jirachi and Ferrothorn - and sorta takes on two others - Zeraora and Bisharp
The rest either carry status (Mandibuzz, Toxapex, Arghonaut) or are Guts wallbreakers (Colossoil, Conkeldurr, Obstagoon).
It's also not likely we'll really force out Mandibuzz, Toxapex, or Arghonaut
Knock Off damage isn't reduced and we don't resist it, so we'll have to be super bulky to take on these stronger ones.
Trick has really died since Home was introduced - Jirachi is the only relevant user right now.
This ability is really good on paper, but underwhelming when you actually look at the context of the current metagame
If you want to actually address how CAP27 may lose its Heavy-Duty Boots, pick Regenerator.
Immunity
Realistically only helps against Rotom-H and Mollux
Other Toxic users like Mandibuzz, Seismitoad, Toxapex, and Arghonaut can cripple CAP27 in other ways - Knock Off or Earthquake
Even if CAP27 can successfully switch in, it can't force out those Toxic users based on typing alone
Choose Regenerator if you want to mitigate Poison damage
Poison Heal
Suffers the same problems as Immunity
Snaelstrom has really demonstrated the problem of a Stealth Rock-weak Poison Heal Pokemon - can't hold Toxic Orb and HDB at the same time
Choose Regenerator if you want to mitigate Poison damage
Natural Cure
Suffers the same problems as Immunity AND two of the most Thunder Wave users are fast Dragon-types
Jirachi hasn't been running Body Slam or Thunder Wave that much this generation, and Discharge Rotom-H has declined
Choose Regenerator if you want to mitigate Poison damage, and most Paralysis-inducing users threaten us anyway, so there's not much of a point in trying to absorb paralysis - just avoid it altogether
Grassy Surge
In the bulky metagame, passively healing CAP27's wallbreaking teammates isn't worth giving double Leftovers or Leftovers + HDB to the opposing balance teams
EQ reduction is deceptively easy to work around
Grass-type coverage is really unlikely given the entirety of CAP27's threatlist
EDIT: GMars didn't mention Neutralizing Gas on his post so I forgot it >:(
Neutralizing Gas is just ok. The relevant abilities that it turns off are Tomohawk's Intimidate (if we're physical), Toxapex's Regenerator, Hippowdon's Sand Stream, and Guts from Conkeldurr, Obstagoon, and Colossoil. However, CAP27 will have to rely on a teammate switching out of Toxapex for Neutralizing Gas to really take effect because Toxapex very likely won't fear CAP27 at all. All those Guts users carry Knock Off, which still removes our Heavy-Duty Boots. Other than that, there aren't any immunities that we'd want to abuse (Flash Fire Chandelure is the closest we'll get). Making Ditto's Imposter fail is funny but not that useful. Syclant could switch in and take 50% from Stealth Rock, but 99% of the time it's not going to want to switch into CAP27 because we're a Fire-type. In fact, Neutralizing Gas potentially makes us worse against Arghonaut if we're special because Draco Meteor's drops are no longer ignored. Basically, it's a really cool and powerful ability, and it has a few cool uses, but it's not doing anything really notable for CAP27. Would put it in the middle category (abilities that sorta work) I think.
EDIT 2: As this thread draws to a close, I think I like Poison Touch, then Regenerator, then Serene Grace the best for primary ability. Poison Touch and Regenerator have been swapping places a lot though.
Immunity and Poison Heal:
I think Poison Heal and Immunity sound incorrect for this concept, I dont want to see Protect give us a dead slot and there are more active abilities with recovery, Regenerator. I think it would go Toxic Orb over HDB because it wont be getting toxiced by a lot, and we have seen on Snael before that Toxic Orb doesnt really help shore up a SR weakness. I think Immunity on its own is a very small ability with not a lot of mons wanting to Toxic us anyway so Id say no here.
Natural Cure:
I think status absorber is an interesting route, but not in the ability slot. Whereas something like Regenerator frees us from a dead moveslot for our concept (recovery), Natural Cure doesnt work the same way. It doesnt free us up from using cleric moves because Nat Cure only works for the mon itself, and I would much prefer to see a cleric move fill up a moveslot on a Regenerator set than a recovery move fill up a moveslot on a Natural Cure set for instance.
Multiscale
I dont like the way it affects our offensive checklist when at full hp, the way it interacts with dead moves like recovery in our moveslots and encourages us to use them, the way it has a lingering threat that you need to scout for when paired with another good ability (think Equilibra with levi and bproof), the way it can encourage this mon to not come in on small hits throughout the match, and the way it locks us into HDB, and its main sell being a seemingly outdated panic button in a meta where the majority of setup sweepers are slow and bulky special attackers. Im not afraid of it not being doable, but it has many more negatives than other options.
Poison Touch
I like this ability, I think what ppl should note for this one is it has a vast range of moves in stab and out of stab that pair well with it, and it adds pressure to otherwise tempo-losing hazard removal moves and additional pressure to pivoting moves. Dont underestimate the power of normal poison either, it really helps teammates get the 2hko. If you like Serene Grace, I think this should be considered as well. This one is a yes.
Grassy Surge
I like this ability too, but not sure if it is an interesting route like the above choice. Like GMars said, it ultimately will allow a defensive team to do more (having used a grassy terrain defensive team as my main team last gen), which is cool for the meta, but for the process not sure if interesting to explore in later stages. That being said I think just because it pairs with more defensive mons, doesnt mean it cant be offensive or that it wont mesh.
Had a good conversation on the discord earlier about Poison Touch, and its merits overall. I'd like to make a few points in its favor, and show why I think it specifically interacts with our counters in such a way that supports our team. I will be making the following assumptions here.
Assumptions:
We are not able to break past our counters even assuming a 1st turn Poison Touch Proc.
Stealth Rocks are up.
No other hazards are up.
So, lets look at our counters piece by piece and explore how they interact firstly with Poison, as a status, and a few breakers we may be paired with; Terrakion and Excadrill (both share bulky grounds as answers with us).
Hippowdon: This mon is a very good example of how Poison Touch heavily benefits us, because notably, when Poisoned, it is put into 2HKO range of Terrakion's Close Combat, which suddenly turns one of the most reliable answers to Terrak into an easy KO. This is insane, and means that we are suddenly a great mon to support Terrak with just on the basis of our ability, and nothing else. Also, it really helps to wear it down into range of Excadrill, as like, going from an effective 30% damage hit in EQ to a 42.5% hit is gonna force it to recover far more often.
Seismitoad:This is a pretty similar story to Hippo, except this time it is put into 2hko range for Excadrill instead of Terrak. Terrakion meanwhile gets to 3HKO this mon using Stone Edge, and the Poison damage means that its guaranteed to die to CC+SE even considering lefties. Again, this is pretty insane for us, because we're putting another wall into KO range for a few breakers.
Tomohawk: This is a very similar story to Hippo, with the Poison damage basically guaranteeing a 2hko from Stone Edge from CB Terrakion instead of making it a roll in Tomo's favor (45.7% chance with lefties vs max hp 0 def intim). Excadrill isn't necessarily getting a KO here but notably thanks to Poison + Rocks your iron head is doing 50% total forcing a roost instead of allowing it to do what it wants.
I've used these 3 examples as I think they're the most impacted by PT, but as you can see the damage from just doing our normal job, that is clicking attacking moves and getting a Poison proc means that the wallbreakers on our team are supported by us, and can use our presence to guarantee 2hkos that they otherwise could not. This is in addition to cool Hex shenanigans you could achieve by running 27 + Pult.
I'd also like to note that PT only requires us to be using physical moves, and thanks to our coverage we only really need 2 slots, so we could definitely run a ton of support options in the other two slots.
Why would CAP 27 switch in more often: If CAP 27 ends up getting a few status moves or perhaps a move that allows it to act as a phaser it can easily come in and stop or cripple a setup sweeper, boosted or unboosted depending on the mon. This is a game-changer as a support Pokemon because it allows it to do things that were once risky. The main concern that everyone has with Multiscale is that the pokemon will be forced to heal up all the time which is simply not true.
If we travel back to BW once again and look at support Dragonite we can see that, yes, Stealth Rock was a huge issue for it. However, Rapid Spin support from the likes of Starmie, Donphan, and Forretress allowed Dragonite to more easily excel at its position. Dragonite rarely needed to click Roost due to it having a decent defensive typing with plenty of resists which CAP 27 also has might I add. Dragonite wasn't constantly coming in either. It came in on pokemon that threatened its team such as Slowbro and Gliscor. This helped open up holes for physical sweepers on Dragonites team.
With that being said, statements like these simply weren't true about Dragonite...
Under what circumstances would Multiscale encourage CAP 27 to switch in less: Weather damage from Sand and Hail which can be mitigated with Leftovers. Stealth Rocks, T-Spikes, Spikes which can be removed via the absurd amount of removers we have in this tier. Choice Scarfed Wall Breakers which is kinda funny because nobody runs Choice scarf right now thanks to the meta being ungodly slow.
Secondly, and I cannot stress this enough...
Natural Cure
Everyone parrots "oversaturation" but this simply isn't the case when we look at what CAP27 is trying to accomplish for us. Lets look at other status sponges and see if they are at all comparable to CAP27:
--> Its the best mon in the game right now. Its on every team and its super annoying. This is all because of Magic Guard. However, Clefable is not an offensive support mon its a wall and a Wish Passer. It in no way relates to CAP 27's concept of offensive support.
--> Guts AV Colo only really likes to stay in for a limited amount of time before it gets too chipped because of Toxic or Wisp. This ends up hampering its offensive pivoting ability even because its granted with the boost. This isn't to say that Colossoil is a bad CAP though. Its one of the best imo and I'd say its one of the most viable ones we have right now behind Equilibra.
--> Again, as with Clefable, Conkeldurr is not offensive support and is instead a wallbreaker which comes in maybe once or twice a game.
--> Mollux is a more so relevant one that's comparable to CAP27. However, Mollux tends to be much more bulkier and the pokemon that it threatens tend to run T-Wave or not run status at all.
CAP 27's is an entirely new entity and giving it Natural Cure will do so much more than just lump it into a category of status absorbers.
Is status absorption a viable niche for CAP 27?: Oh my god absolutely. CAP 27 has some of the absolute best Offensive STAB in the game. Being able to come in on Status moves meant to cripple another pokemon and firing off a powerful STAB move or a status move when you forced that switch is super helpful. This would allow CAP 27 to fit on both defensive, balanced, offensive teams exceptionally well. This is what I believe to be the pinnacle of offensive support. A pokemon that can not only blow holes in the opposing team but also cripple opposing pokemon that may threaten the users team. With Natural Cure, CAP 27 can more easily accomplish this goal.
As an avid SS Ubers player I wanted to chime in on the multiscale discussion. In my opinion it's not a pro-concept ability at all. Currently Lunala (with the multiscale clone shadow shield) is one of the strongest Pokémon in Ubers. With the combination of shadow shield and Heavy-duty boots it servers as a blanket check to any slower attacker that doesn't carry 4x effective moves. It also spreads status and defogs but it rarely ever attacks as keeping shadow shield intact is incredibly valuable and it's thus forced to spam recovery a lot.
I think some advocates of multiscale are forgetting about some key differences between BW Dragonite and CAP27.
1. Weather: Sandstorm and especially Hail aren't as common in SS.
2. Typing: All previous multiscale users had poor defensive typing (Lugia, Lunala) and/or a 4x weakness (Dragonite, Lunala). CAP27's defensive typing is a lot better and it doesn't have 4x weaknesses
3. Heavy-duty boots: This item is an absolute boon for multiscale users as it skyrockets reliability and allows to easily use it again (in conjunction with recovery.
In conclusion, multiscale with recovery would boost CAP27's prowess too much and it would become a wall.
But what if it didn't get recovery?
The only roles I could see for CAP27 are sweeping or being a revenge killer/emergency stop (perhaps scarfed) that can take one strong attack per game. In this case multiscale would discourage CAP27 from switching into weak/resisted attacks or potential status moves.
I think overall multiscale is an anti-concept ability as it tends to force the Pokémon into a wall or all-out offensive role.
In my opinion it's not a pro-concept ability at all. Currently Lunala (with the multiscale clone shadow shield) is one of the strongest Pokémon in Ubers. With the combination of shadow shield and Heavy-duty boots it servers as a blanket check to any slower attacker that doesn't carry 4x effective moves. It also spreads status and defogs but it rarely ever attacks as keeping shadow shield intact is incredibly valuable and it's thus forced to spam recovery a lot.
First off, UBERS and CAP are 2 completely different Metas. Secondly, Lunala suffers from a 4x weakness which means can more easily be pressure by a lot more pokemon this means it almost has to spam recovery. Thirdly, Comparing Lunala to CAP 27 just because of the possibility of having the same ability makes little to no sense. Its like saying that if we gave CAP 27 Regenerator it would turn into just another Slowbro. Lastly, you're forgetting that we are building this pokemon from the ground up, Stats movepool and all, and the basis is Offensive Support. We can easily avoid these things in other stages by looking at the concept and our threat-list. I've already covered why Multiscale is a Pro concept ability so I'm not going to parrot my post again.
I disagree with your post entirely because Lunala and CAP 27 simply aren't comparable whatsoever.
First off, UBERS and CAP are 2 completely different Metas. Secondly, Lunala suffers from a 4x weakness which means can more easily be pressure by a lot more pokemon this means it almost has to spam recovery. Thirdly, Comparing Lunala to CAP 27 just because of the possibility of having the same ability makes little to no sense. Its like saying that if we gave CAP 27 Regenerator it would turn into just another Slowbro. Lastly, you're forgetting that we are building this pokemon from the ground up, Stats movepool and all, and the basis is Offensive Support. We can easily avoid these things in other stages by looking at the concept and our threat-list. I've already covered why Multiscale is a Pro concept ability so I'm not going to parrot my post again.
1. Ubers and CAP are completely different Metas: BW OU and CAP are also different...
I'm new to CAP but a lot of posters seem to underestimate the impact of multiscale combined with HDB and recovery.
2. CAP27 doesn't have a 4x weakness: That makes it worse. There's a reason gamefreak distributed multiscale so sparingly and gave multiscale Mons poor defensive typing (and two of them were Ubers). It's a strong ability.
3. Lunala and CAP27 are different Pokémon: I compared it to Lunala because the role it would fill is more like SS Lunala and less like BW Dragonite, due to the reasons I listed. Also comparing CAP27 to pre-existing multiscale users is valid because it's only been distributed three times (and two of those were Ubers).
4: CAP builds Pokémon from the ground up: While I understand "building a pokemon from ground up" gives a lot of freedom and multiscale could be worked around, I don't see a reason to go for that when abilities that are a lot more pro-concept and easier to work with have been suggested (regenerator, serene grace).
Alright, as promised, here's my opinion on some of the most notable status-bases abilities:
Serene Grace/No Guard: I'm grouping these two together as they serve the same primary purpose, spreading burns. Burn is a very good status to spread, as it can both soften the attacks of our foes while simultaneously wearing them down, something that both CAP 27 and its teammates can take advantage of. In theory,Serene Grace also offers a lot of versatility, as it can complement many other moves. However, I think that most of these options are bound to end up as mediocre in practice. For this reason, I prefer No Guard, as it can spread burns much more reliably. While it might not have the versatility that Serene Grace offers, I really don't see a way in which that ability ends up being the better one in practice. Its downside is also inconsequential, as you should never be trying to bank on a Stone Edge miss unless you're already in a lost position. What I do not like about both of these abilities is that I think that they cripple most our checks a bit too easily for our own good. Even with the less reliable Serene Grace, we'd be more or less assuming that whatever switches in is going to get burned, which is going to severely limit a our options if we want to balance it out.
Poison Touch: Unlike others, I don't think that this ability is too weak. Regular Poison might not be as strong as Toxic, but it can still hamper the staying power of most walls susceptible to it, as 12.5% damage per turn is no joke. For reference, wall already dislike Knock Off because it makes them lose Leftovers recovery (6.25% per turn), so for mons vulnerable to it, regular poison is much crippling than Knock Off, a move that has been considered pro-concept since assessment. That being said, I dislike that Poison Touch only has offensive uses, as it doesn't has any real defensive use, something that we have established is very important. On top of that, having to rely on a 30% chance to cripple switch ins might make CAP 27 unreliable in practice, especially considering that during stats, we'll have to include the extra damage from poison in calcs against our check to make sure we can't overwhelm them (at least by ourselves) and it also has poor synergy with regular status moves like Will-O-Wisp.
All in all, while status- based abilities are very interesting, I think crippling virtually everything before even getting to stats is going to limit us a lot later. I like the idea of CAP 27 being able to cripple most of the meta in some way or the other, but I'd much rather do it on
As for the abilities I do like, Magic Bounce is still my favorite because of the mix of defensive properties (immunity to pure status moves is great) and ability to support its team by bouncing back hazards. As for the idea that CAP 27 doesn't have have a good enough matchup against common setters, we don't need to beat all the common hazard setters in order to have a big impact in the game. By simply pressuring mons like Arghonaut, Seismitoad, and Tomohawk, on top of our good matchup against others like Kommo-o and Ferrothorn, we can force the opponent to play mind games if they want to get hazards on the field, making them miss a lot of opportunities to set them up, many times without even needing to switch CAP 27 in. This ability to alter the game and support its team even when not on the field makes Magic Bounce incredibly attractive for a concept that is about supporting our team while maintaining offensive power. Other setters like Hippowdon might prove to be much more problematic, but I think that having some hard counters is actually a good thing and will prevents us from overcentralizing the hazard game like we did with Equilibra.
Regenerator is also another very solid, if a bit generic, option, as regaining health without sacrificing momentum is always a huge plus, and I think that compensating it with lower defenses during stats is much more preferable than sacrificing offense with one of the status-based abilities, as it plays to the strengths of our selected typing.
I have to agree with the general consensus that Grassy Surge is not as good as initially thought. I have to admit I still like it for the utility it provides, and I still believe it could work out in our favor, but there are better, less restricting abilities to pick from.
Ballfire, Hi welcome to CAP!
I disagree with your post entirely because Lunala and CAP 27 simply aren't comparable whatsoever.
First off, UBERS and CAP are 2 completely different Metas. Secondly, Lunala suffers from a 4x weakness which means can more easily be pressure by a lot more pokemon this means it almost has to spam recovery. Thirdly, Comparing Lunala to CAP 27 just because of the possibility of having the same ability makes little to no sense. Its like saying that if we gave CAP 27 Regenerator it would turn into just another Slowbro. Lastly, you're forgetting that we are building this pokemon from the ground up, Stats movepool and all, and the basis is Offensive Support. We can easily avoid these things in other stages by looking at the concept and our threat-list. I've already covered why Multiscale is a Pro concept ability so I'm not going to parrot my post again.
Sorry Sir, but I will take Ballfire 's defense here.
The comparison with Lunala isn't even the main point of his post. I said it a while ago, but I'll do it again. The whole problem of Multiscale is that it's either broken or bad.
1) If we have recovery. CAP27 will most likely be somewhat fast, as it's supposed to be an offensive Pokemon. This means that we will have a fast Multiscale user that can switch into almost any attack and at the same time create a strong threat and heal up back to full. I don't think this can possibly be mitigated in the stats and movepool stages in an other way than giving it very low defenses, forcing it to spam recovery even more.
2) If we don't have recovery, then Multiscale will activate only once, most likely on a weak move from some bulky mon. That can't be pro-concept, as we want to be able to switch-in multiple times, not once more.
Alright, thanks everyone! After reading through all the posts here and focusing on those since my last update, here's our slate:
Regenerator Serene Grace Sticky Hold
Poison Touch
Multiscale
Magic Bounce
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Reasonings:
Regenerator
This ability would let CAP 27 come in easily against its passive switch-in list, letting it feel safe taking chip damage and encouraging it to use supportive moves rather than self-healing ones, importantly letting it keep a focus on momentum.
Serene Grace
Serene Grace looks to improve the utility that exists on certain attacks, compressing moveslots and giving CAP 27 more room to blend offense with support.
Sticky Hold
This is a more restrained ability that seeks to solidify CAP 27's matchup against its switch-in list, preventing item shenanigans primarily to keep CAP 27 free from hazard damage and possibly giving CAP 27 a niche as Gen 8's only real solid and consistent switch-in to Trick.
Poison Touch
In the same vein as Serene Grace, Poison Touch looks to stack utility on top of attacks in order to compress movesets and make finding a balance between offense and utility a less constrained process. While Poison Touch is less varied in its applications than Serene Grace, it in general allows for stronger offensive attacks and more of an offensive presence overall.
Multiscale
While this ability could lead to CAP 27 not wanting to come in as often on passive Pokemon that could break Multiscale, it has history in enabling support sets and opens up additional avenues for CAP 27 to support its team through revenge killing and scaring away frailer attackers in 1v1 scenarios. For the options on the slate, it's perhaps the most likely to lead to role issues down the road, but it's certainly a path that we'd be able to take and succeed at with the right level of care and concern in the remainder of the process.
Magic Bounce
Magic Bounce allows CAP 27 to exert utility just by existing on a team, dissuading opponents from clicking hazard or status moves that they could be punished for, and it can enable CAP 27 to more easily take advantage of passive switch-ins to use its own utility options.
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With that, it's up to Jho to review the slate. See you all in the next ability thread!
Multiscale 
Natural Cure 
--> Its the best mon in the game right now. Its on every team and its super annoying. This is all because of Magic Guard. However, Clefable is not an offensive support mon its a wall and a Wish Passer. It in no way relates to CAP 27's concept of offensive support.
--> Guts AV Colo only really likes to stay in for a limited amount of time before it gets too chipped because of Toxic or Wisp. This ends up hampering its offensive pivoting ability even because its granted with the boost. This isn't to say that Colossoil is a bad CAP though. Its one of the best imo and I'd say its one of the most viable ones we have right now behind Equilibra.
--> Again, as with Clefable, Conkeldurr is not offensive support and is instead a wallbreaker which comes in maybe once or twice a game.
--> Mollux is a more so relevant one that's comparable to CAP27. However, Mollux tends to be much more bulkier and the pokemon that it threatens tend to run T-Wave or not run status at all.
Hippowdon: This mon is a very good example of how Poison Touch heavily benefits us, because notably, when Poisoned, it is put into 2HKO range of Terrakion's Close Combat, which suddenly turns one of the most reliable answers to Terrak into an easy KO. This is insane, and means that we are suddenly a great mon to support Terrak with just on the basis of our ability, and nothing else. Also, it really helps to wear it down into range of Excadrill, as like, going from an effective 30% damage hit in EQ to a 42.5% hit is gonna force it to recover far more often.
Seismitoad:This is a pretty similar story to Hippo, except this time it is put into 2hko range for Excadrill instead of Terrak. Terrakion meanwhile gets to 3HKO this mon using Stone Edge, and the Poison damage means that its guaranteed to die to CC+SE even considering lefties. Again, this is pretty insane for us, because we're putting another wall into KO range for a few breakers.
Tomohawk: This is a very similar story to Hippo, with the Poison damage basically guaranteeing a 2hko from Stone Edge from CB Terrakion instead of making it a roll in Tomo's favor (45.7% chance with lefties vs max hp 0 def intim). Excadrill isn't necessarily getting a KO here but notably thanks to Poison + Rocks your iron head is doing 50% total forcing a roost instead of allowing it to do what it wants. 
