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I am in all agreement with Magic Guard, but I just want to give additional reasons why:
1. One of CAP28’s drawbacks is its weakness to hazards. Most importantly, it is easily worn down by Stealth Rock. With Magic Guard, CAP28 is all the more able to switch in and disrupt pivoting strategies.
2. With Magic Guard, we are able to handle the Slowtwins even better, since they can spam Scald in order to wear CAP28 down. With Magic Guard, we are able to also absorb status from other viable Pokémon, such as Blissey and Hippowdon, which are both in our situational switch-ins.
For Primary Ability, my top pick is Neutralizing Gas.
Helps us with:
- Regenerator and Natural Cure, abilities that emphasize pivoting to heal and are otherwise hard to counter.
- Effect Spore Amoonguss/Static Cyclohm/Flame Body Volcarona/Intimidate Tomohawk if we go physical.
- Interesting options for coverage by removing Volt Absorb from Cawmodore and Levitate from Equilibra/Rotom.
- Syclant's pressure becomes even more dangerous since it loses Mountaineer and eats a 4x Stealth Rocks.
- Weather switch ins like Drought Jumbao and Sand Stream Hippowdon lose steam. There are numerous other reasons.
Among other reasons.
It's not only an overall powerful ability that helps us with a lot our matchups, it directly counters our primary target with this concept in a way no other ability can hope: Regenerating Teleporters.
So, as I indicated in my first post, I personally think the best rout for us to go would be to try and mitigate burns from Scald. And while there are a ton of different ways for us to do that, I personally prefer Shield Dust above the other possible options. Simply put, it prevents Scald burns, which is the primary goal and something that can only be accomplished with an ability. It also has some other neat benefits, such as preventing Defense drops from Fire Lash, SpD drops from Earth Power and many others, paralysis from discharge and more. This makes our match-ups against a lot of things on our pressure list somewhat less risky, without completely changing the list itself. And perhaps most importantly, it does something we want from ability without being very strong in terms of our overall power budget. I do think we will want to pack a lot of power into this mon, and so by having a nice, targeted ability like Shield Dust, we can likely push ourselves a bit further when it comes to stats, and I think that is a good thing here.
I do think other abilities that can help prevent or mitigate Scald burns are also worthwhile, including, but not limited to, Water Absorb, Natural Cure, Guts and Water Veil. However, I think every other option besides Shield Dust either provides additional unneeded benefits (such as power boosts or type immunities) or is does not do its job quite as well.
First, I'll say that I fully endorse Neutralizing Gas, which has some crazy interactions we should all understand.
Regenerator fails to activate. We scare out and by STAB alone, and NGas means they gain nothing on the retreat. Others are in a similar boat, if in less immediate danger of being KO'd. Suddenly, the opponent's rotation of multiple Regenerators starts to look shaky. It puts heat on our main targets exactly as desired.
Natural Cure fails to activate. We can put status on . Is this huge? Not necessarily, but in the late game there may be fewer opportunities to switch safely and remove Toxic status without sacrificing something important. It adds risk to everyone's favorite status sponge.
Magic Guard fails to activate. Here is where NGas emerges as something really unique. The most notable pivot nowadays with Magic Guard is , who is always found holding Life Orb because it ordinarily doesn't give a hoot or holler about hazards and status. NGas turns its whole world upside down. It becomes susceptible to hazards, status, and Life Orb recoil.
Mountaineer. Unless I am mistaken, the offensive pivot is in a similar boat. It especially hates Stealth Rock.
Poison Heal. Ever wanted to nuke a solely with passive damage? Let it sit on its Toxic Orb for a few turns and then deploy CAP28. Watch its HP bar go wooosh. While this is an extreme example dealing with a non-pivot set, there is not a single set that enjoys this interaction.
Anything with Guts is also usually hosed. That includes , whom we undo with Bug STAB.
Levitate goes kaput. Some folks have been leery about ., so it's something in 28's favor.
Literally any ability-oriented Pokémon is up a creek. This includes ones well outside of our target range, including , but I think we'd much rather throw our Dragon STAB at that one then bother trying to heap on a status effect.
LucarioOfLegends called it a juggernaut, and he's perfectly on the mark. NGas would make CAP28 a force to be reckoned with.
Secondly, I would like to bring up Comatose one more time.
Unlike any other ability under discussion, even Magic Guard, Comatose gives CAP28 immunity to Spore. This turns our pressure , a leading Regenerator, into a safe switch-in. This is an interaction that hits one of our targets hard while insulating CAP28 against...
All of those damaging status effects. Comatose means immunity to non-volatile status, so it also means and cannot touch CAP28 outside of Seismic Toss and Knock Off respectively. Our longevity skyrockets, and we no longer have to dance around 30% burns with a physical spread. becomes safer than ever too. and also go from situational switch-ins to bait for all they're worth. Our typing lets CAP28 eat an Earthquake.
Whereas Magic Guard still permits CAP28's Atk. to be halved by a burn, Comatose prevents even that from sticking.
It takes care of all our defensive problems except for hazards, to my knowledge, and numerous folks seem married to HDB already. I think both of these abilities would serve our slate well.
While Magic Guard has already been formally submitted, I want to go ahead and expand on the previous discussion of this ability because I believe it is an incredibly strong contender;
Magic Guard is a highly desirable ability for two reasons: the first and most important reason being that Magic Guard offers a negation of passive damage and chip damage that is unrivaled by nearly all other abilities in the game. CAP28's abysmal safe switchin list is perhaps our biggest struggle currently, and this struggle is largely defined by our weaknesses to various forms of passive damage. As of now, CAP28 has two whole safe switchins (Slowbro and Slowking) with a significant portion of our situational switchins and pressure matchups only being unsafe due to those Pokemon's ability to cripple us via spreading status or using Knock Off. With Magic Guard, CAP28 would no longer fear the dreaded Stealth Rock damage should it come in on a Knock Off, allowing it to comfortably check Pokemon such as Rillaboom and Zeraora with the door being opened further to the possibility of even checking Pokemon like Ferrothorn, Colossoil, Astrolotl, and Mandibuzz. Additionally, Magic Guard's protection against Toxic would allow it to become a possible answer to status-reliant defensive threats like Hippowdon, Blissey, and even Toxapex, provided we are also capable of outputting a significant amount of damage. It is also here that the second desirable trait that Magic Guard provides us begins to make itself relevant.
Should CAP28 end up with Magic Guard as its ability, we would without a shadow of a doubt be running Life Orb in our item slot. Receiving a Life Orb boost without any of the recoil is truly phenomenal and would go a long way in easing matchups against any defensive Pokemon that appears on our threatlist. This would also take pressure off of the movepool stage and especially the stats stage, as a significant power boost would effectively be rolled into our ability already. Other offensively-boosting abilities provide similar benefits, yet Magic Guard goes further yet with its negation of passive damage techniques that are nearly ubiquitous among the pivots we intend to answer. Of course, no ability is not without its drawbacks, and Magic Guard is no exception; while it is true that Knock Off would no longer pose a threat in making us extremely susceptible to entry hazards, losing our Life Orb is no small thing either. Ultimately, a Pokemon designed to use a certain item will still be heavily neutered if that item should be removed, whether that item is HDB, Life Orb, Leftovers, or any other. The stats of a theoretical Magic Guard CAP28 that are made with the Life Orb boost in mind would suddenly become very underwhelming if our Life Orb is gone, in a similar fashion to how Krilowatt becomes essentially useless if it ever loses its item. Continuing to threaten a frail offensive pivot such as Zeraora would most likely still be within our reach, however our matchup against something such as Blissey would be extremely questionable without our Life Orb. Furthermore, Magic Guard does a poor job at guarding against burns, and as such CAP28 would likely be pigeonholed into a special attacker if Magic Guard is chosen, although this is going to be the case with any other ability that does not outright prevent Scald from burning.
Magic Guard is not the ability delivered from heaven that will solve all of our problems (nor is any ability) but it provides real and meaningful benefits that would swing many negative or neutral matchups and give CAP28 the longevity it needs to continually check pivots throughout the game. Pros:
Allows us to significantly broaden our switchin list through our ability to ignore passive damage
Can challenge pivots that wield Toxic
Can challenge pivots that wield Knock Off without worrying about Rocks damage (there are other concerns though)
Becomes an excellent status absorber in general
Allows us to more repeatedly check pivots throughout the game due to increased longevity
Pivots by definition enter and leave the game often - checking these pivots is not sustainable unless we can do the same
Gives us a huge offensive boost by allowing us to freely run Life Orb as item of choice
Takes pressure off of later stages that may be otherwise forced to go overboard in compensation for our typing and ability
Cons:
Main drawback is that while we are no longer Rocks weak, we are still somewhat Knock Off weak
To repeat - if we are designed to use a specific item, it is unavoidable that we will be at a serious loss without that item
Does a poor job at preventing Scald burns (not a huge deal though)
This is also the case with the vast majority of abilities submitted here and isn't a death sentence or anything close to it
The exception is if we have already been statused - physical sets may not be completely off the table because of this but going physical would still be risky
Does not fix our STAB problem
This is not a problem with Magic Guard directly, but there is still an opportunity cost of choosing Magic Guard over something like Punk Rock that would give us a boosted Boomburst to supplement our STABs or Tinted Lens that makes our STABs more spammable
One of the main concerns was a physical CAP28 getting burned by Slowbro/Slowking's Scald. Guts turns burns from a major weakness to increasing CAP28's power. Since CAP28 resists Scald, it would be pretty same to switch into them. Even if they switch or Teleport out, a Flame Orb can still activate the burn as well for some benefits. Flare Boost could also work as well, but I think Guts is better because firstly, Guts is physical, so we can deal with Blissey better, and secondly, it doesn't have to be a burn to activate, even with Toxic it can work. The obvious downside is that it's being worn down even more, along with SR and Spikes.
Also Submitting Poison Heal
This is an alternative to Comatose mentioned earlier; for sacrificing its item slot, CAP28 gets 1/8 of its max HP per turn and being immune to status moves as well. Like Comatose, this would make Amoonguss, Blissey, and Toxapex safe switch-ins (if Toxapex doesn't Knock Off the Toxic Orb when it switches in) l and prevents Scald from burning us, while we heal a substantial amount of HP per turn. This could mitigate the damage from hazards and Hippowdon's sandstorm. Again, we can ignore burns and be physical, pressuring Blissey. The downside compared to Comatose is lacking an offensive item, but coming into a pivot means we can use a set-up move or Substitute against the new Pokemon coming in.
I've been musing for a while on how to approach ability - and honestly this CAP in general, given that I don't think the typing makes us move in the sort of direction we were heading in.
When it comes to PivotSpam, which is the core of what we want to beat, the key method when it comes to defeating it seems to be to break the chain. I don't think we need to beat up the pivots themselves per se - if CAP28 is able to come in against Blissey/Slowtwin and KO something, then even if the pivoters are still alive they've lost an option to go to and became much less effective. This is perhaps the best way to 'discourage Pivoting', especially from our current typing.
As such, two particular options really stand out to me?
Stakeout is actually my standing favourite here. By virtue of our typing alone, we should be capable of threatening Slowtwins to the point where they can't realistically stay in - this would encourage them to do the last thing that they can do, which is make a hard switch out, something that is relatively tricky to punish. So, naturally, Stakeout says "you do that and we break something else". This means that CAP28's mere presence on a team is capable of punishing Pivots for even trying, which I think is 100% pro concept.
I know it's easy to worry about power levels with Stakeout, but even if we were to add on a way of hitting Blissey SE (so that'd be Fighting Coverage of some form I suspect?) there's enough ways to wall us even then. Stakeout lends itself very well to creating a specialised counter to pivoting that I believe would be immensely valuable.
On a similar token to Stakeout I'm also fond of Analytic which performs the same punish, as well as Tinted Lens which again has a similar effect of "you want to switch in a resistance? lol."
Moving away from punishment strictly by "doing damage", Simple also stands out to me, as it makes the compelling case that one of the best ways to punish Blissey/Slowtwin is to abuse how passive they are - especially when they pivot - with some ridiculous form of boosting. Sure, we don't need Simple to do this alone, but I think there's a valid case to be made for picking something that'll increase our power levels in boosting - file under "lord knows we need it".
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I also more generally think that Burns are being over-rated: Special Attacks do remain in existence! And I'm fairly sure we can buff things out in the movepool stage if we're aiming Physical for Blissey (Focus Punch and Secret Sword are both options there that look appealing, as well as as punishes once you're in against that particular blob such as Substitute) - I don't believe we need to be Burnproof in how we beat Blissey, so long as we aren't hampered by burn when it comes to the Slowtwin matchup.
This might be a little weird to submit, but I'd like to talk about Corrosion.
CAP28's typing does pretty well within the concept with a couple exceptions: Fairy and Steel types. Corrosion seeks to ease the matchup into those Steel types, while improving some otherwise annoying matchups into common pivots. Bug/Dragon is full resisted by Steel, and while coverage moves can help, bulkier pivot mons like and can often shrug off weaker coverage. Corrosion would allow for CAP28 to pressure these steel types with a crippling Toxic, something they'd not normally have to worry about. Forcing a switch on is especially nice. Additionally, it massively helps the matchups into and , two bulky Regenerator mons where Toxic can be incredibly useful. This helps with in particular, as Corrosion severely limits Toxapex's ability to stall and Scald burn. Corrosion is a pretty unique choice for the ability, and it would be fun to build around it.
Some others I think would be good: Magic Guard: This eases CAP28's issues with entry hazards, and would help negate any Toxic damage from or . Also, LO shenanigans. Water Absorb: Though Shield Dust definitely has its benefits and is a cool ability to work with, Water Absorb just does the job better. Scald is really the only way CAP28 should be getting burned, and this helps negates scald spam from and Tinted Lens: Tinted Lens massively helps in the struggles this typing has with Fairy and Steel types. It might end up being a little too strong, but it makes its STAB attacks very hard to come in on from common pivot mons without a 4x resist. Skill Link: This would be so fun to work, as we haven't had a true good Skill Link user in the tier since Mega Heracross. It is a noticeable jump in power and might be limiting in the moveset stage, but would make CAP28 a fun Pokemon to play around with. Adaptability: Wanna punish switch-ins but don't want the potentially broken power of Tinted Lens? I give you Adaptability. Beefing up our STAB still allows for reasonable counterplay from resists, and makes CAP28 more threatening as a whole to the mons it's supposed to counter. Defiant: Defiant would help massively in the matchups against and , and having a mon to help keep hazards up is always helpful when facing a pivot team. Triage: Dummy powerful priority would make CAP28 much more threatening to any fast pivots that try to come in on it from a Teleport. This helps a lot with common scarfers, , and . Compound Eyes: Being able to freely use Megahorn and Dragon Rush could really help the pressure CAP28 applies. Additionally, it opens up some cool avenues for punishing moves like Sleep Powder and Stun Spore to become more viable, diversifying the kinds of sets CAP28 can run.
Some that have been mentioned that I don't support: Punk Rock: This pretty much forces us to be a special attacker, which is not optimal when we're trying to deal with . and resisting Bug Buzz doesn't help the cause much either. Rattled: It's just too specific, plus the bonus from Justified makes it a much better option than Rattled. There are better things for CAP28 to do than to try to bait Knock Off. Volt Absorb/Motor Drive/Lightning Rod: We chose the Dragon typing in part for it's Electric resist. CAP28 shouldn't need that much more help in facing off against Volt Switch users. Magic Bounce: While I was initially a fan of this ability here, I see it as somewhat anti-concept now. A strong Magic Bounce user could very well end up being a pivot on its own.
And now some that are definitely too powerful: Contrary: Contrary Draco Meteor sounds absolutely terrifying. While it is a great way to fight , this could end up with CAP28 being just a much better . Simple: Simple would give us one of two things: busted Dragon Dance or busted Quiver Dance. Punishing the switches that CAP28 will force on and others through boosting is fine, but this could get out of hand really quickly.
Neutralizing Gas is, without a doubt, the single most concept-relevant ability in a vacuum. This ability has already been discussed to death, but for thoroughness' sake, here are the main arguments for it.
Defeats all Regenerator cheese simply by switching in.
Allows Natural Cure users to be threatened by status.
Threatens Magic Guard and Levitate users with Spikes damage.
Threatens with Rocks.
Allows 28 to face from behind a Substitute.
Prevents all weather/terrain setting abilities from setting up their weather/terrain as long as 28 is on the field.
Allows 28 to run Physical sets more safely, as it no longer fears Intimidate, Flame Body, Iron Barbs, etc.
Allows 28 to throw attacks into an ambiguous switch without fear of Justified, Volt Absorb, Dry Skin, etc.
A very splashable ability that'd do its job regardless of what kind of sets 28 would run. This could be either a pro or a con.
For the sake of variety, here are two other abilities I think are seriously worth considering.
Stakeout
Punishes pivoting about as directly as any ability theoretically could. Very pro-concept.
Laser-focused on the core concept, with no unintended effects. Remember, it does nothing at all if the opponent doesn't switch.
That Stakeout has very obvious counterplay (don't carelessly switch out) means this ability is ripe for potential mindgames, in a way that other damage-boosting abilities (like Tinted Lens or, to a lesser extent, Analytic) simply aren't.
Depending on our speed tier, certain pivots (like, say, the Rotoms) may deliberately EV/IV to underspeed us, to be able to VoltTurn without fear of Stakeout.
Faster threats that might normally force us out, such as Play Rough , would have to think twice about using the "forced" switch to VoltTurn out, lest their replacement take a Stakeout-boosted hit. This could actually be used to help us switch into these threats more easily.
Though Stakeout does nothing to combat Teleport on its own, when combined with typing and movepool, it helps apply pressure to them.
is weak to Bug STAB, and would have to choose between taking a super-effective hit on the Teleport, or hard-switching and subjecting its ally to a Stakeout-boosted attack.
Theoretically, we could also apply similar pressure to with Close Combat, Focus Punch, or some other Fighting coverage.
STAB Dragon Tail backed by Stakeout would defeat any pivot button the opponent could click, assuming we are faster than the Teleporters and the opponent has no fairies.
On paper, a really dangerous ability; in practice, probably made reasonable by our terrible offensive typing.
252+ Atk Stakeout Heracross Megahorn vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 111-132 (36.6 - 43.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO. Remember, every subsequent hit will deal half as much damage.
Being particular about what coverage moves we get access to should go a long way towards reigning in this ability's power level.
Triage
Priority in general is very useful for 28, as it allows us to hit fast, frail threats that take advantage of the free switch-in given by a bulky Teleporter. Triage gives us priority Leech Life, which is more reliable and versatile than First Impression.
Leech Life, in addition to priority Roost/Recover, would massively reduce our vulnerability to chip damage, and allow us to comfortably run items other than Heavy Duty Boots and switch into threats that'd otherwise 2HKO us after hazards.
252 Atk Choice Band Urshifu Close Combat vs. 0 HP / 24 Def Heracross-Mega: 127-150 (42.1 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO, but a 90.2% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock. Triage would turn this losing switch-in into a possible counter.
Unfortunately, does nothing to help our matchup against defensive pivots themselves. Also steals 's gimmick.
And, to conclude,
Magic Guard:
I think the Stealth Rock weakness is overblown.
28 does not need to be a pivot itself to achieve its goal of pressuring pivots.
Even if it did, Heavy Duty Boots exist.
Even if they didn't, CAP OU has absolutely no shortage of hazard control.
Does not actually allow us to freely switch into Scalds, because the danger of Burn is the halved Attack stat, not the negligible chip damage.
Poison, the only status Magic Guard protects against, is arguably the least threatening status to 28.
Forces us to account for Life Orb's boost in the stats stage and all damage calculations. This is needlessly restrictive and one-dimensional.
Reliance on Life Orb would arguably make 28 more threatened by Knock Off than it would if it was holding Boots.
Overall, extraordinarily unfocused. Does one or two of the things we'd want our ability to do, and about a hundred other completely unrelated things.
Punk Rock:
Forces 28 to be specially offensive, despite all of its most interesting STAB moves being physical (eg Leech Life, Megahorn, First Impression, or even Lunge, Skitter Smack, Dragon Tail, or Fell Stinger).
Boomburst and Overdrive offer nothing but damage and don't help our matchup against any relevant Steel-type.
Directly inferior to almost every other potential damage-boosting ability.
Sap Sipper: This is purely to help dissuade Sleep Powder and Spore from and , though those are matchups CAP28 doesn't necessarily struggle in. It would be nice to punish those moves.
... Comatose: Sap Sipper is pretty much better in every way, and gives CAP28 even more pressure on the plentiful Grass pivots of the tier.
I... What? We already take quartered damage from Grass attacks. I don't see how investing our valuable ability slot in bullying Grass even harder accomplishes anything. Who is this even meant to punish? chafes at our STAB already, and can fall back on a good secondary typing. I suppose Sap Sipper can improve our matchup with the latter if we soak up Spore on the switch, but I don't see what more Sap Sipper can actually do for us. Ignore Leech Seed? I guess there's that, but what you're saying isn't even close.
Meanwhile, Comatose manages to block Spore and Sleep Powder just the same. And that's only the start of its utility. It turns at least three of our situational switch-ins (, , ) into free real estate for CAP28. Furthermore, it prevents public enemies number one and two (, ) from ever clipping our wings with Scald. Immunity to getting our Atk slashed by a burn vastly outweighs the situational Atk boost provided by Sap Sipper.
This is a strong argument against Magic Guard. I wholeheartedly agree that it does the bare minimum to prevent chip damage and recoil when this concept demands so much more, e.g. insurance that we aren't crippled by burn and Knock Off both at once. I'd much rather marry our item slot to chip negation than to our actual capacity to muscle through our targets.
I agree Magic Guard is going a bit overboard. I described it earlier as forcing us to take a bunch of extra steps to make sure we fulfil the concept, and don't just become Krillowatt 2.0+Draco Meteor.
Neutralizing Gas is 100% the standout Ability for fulfilling the concept. It does little to shore us up in terms of switch-ins or weaknesses, but those can be remedied by stats and movepool respectively.
If we want to increase switch-ins for later, Comatose is a decent option, but I'd like to discuss the alternative, Natural Cure. Both of these two Abilities are somewhat familiar to CAP, and can both massively ease the job of absorbing status. My main concern with Comatose is it comes with a bunch of unneeded baggage that's not concept relevant, like Sleep Talk Dragon Tail (there's a reason Pajantom doesn't learn Dragon Tail) and other similar fringe interactions. Natural Cure has the notable downside of having to switch out to work, which naturally makes it fit a pivot much better. So out of these two, I support Comatose.
Triage feels somewhat tangential. It doesn't really improve our switch-ins beyond the obvious priority healing access. It doesn't help us deal with status or the pivots themselves, and only really helps our SR weakness if we spend a turn healing, which we could do anyway. Simple sounds very yikes on a Bug/Dragon type that will possibly have access to a couple of infamous boosting moves. I get boosting up in front of the pivot is pro-concept, but if we wanted to do that, we would need a better defensive typing. And then what's to stop us just turning into Volcarona/Dragapult 2.0 and just becoming an outright wincon? The only way to prevent this is to massively restrict boosting options, which somewhat goes against the point of Simple in the first place. Just give ourselves better boosting options if this is what we want. We certainly have access to them. Stakeout is another yikes, though not quite as big. If you want explanation, check out the following calcs:
252+ Atk Adaptability Heracross Megahorn vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Regigigas: 258-304 (71.4 - 84.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Stakeout Heracross Megahorn vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Regigigas: 385-454 (106.6 - 125.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk TintedLens Heracross Megahorn vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Registeel: 146-174 (48.5 - 57.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252+ Atk Stakeout Heracross Megahorn vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Registeel: 147-173 (48.8 - 57.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Punk Rock Yanmega Bug Buzz vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Regigigas: 164-192 (45.4 - 53.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
252 SpA Stakeout Yanmega Bug Buzz vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Regigigas: 250-295 (69.2 - 81.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
It would take a massive balancing act to not just turn into the greatest wallbreaker in CAP. A Pokemon that does upwards of 2/3 to Ferrothorn on the switch with only 116 SpA and neutral nature is pretty nutty. If we put any actual force behind that... Yeah. Especially with Astrolotl throwing Spikes around for us like no-one's business.
TL;DR: I formally submit Neutralizing Gas, and anything but Poison Heal please.
Since I cannot think of any ability, that I like for this CAP that hasn’t been named yet, I decided to comb through all submissions and try to sort them into useful, useful but maybe better for secondary and not useful abilities.
Since there have been a host of submissions I will be very short in my summary of most submissions and will only expand on the abilities that I think are useful at this stage leaving the rest with a few comments.
I can Support the following Abilities.
Tinted lens
Tinted Lens can be a great asset in tackling Pivoting, since it makes choosing a move a no brainer.
It makes taking advantage of hard switches and fast pivoting Much easier and frees up move slots for more essential coverage, set up or other utility.
Given that we are able to pressure out some of the slow pivots (teleport/slow uturn), this means, that we can considerably expand our pressure List, since Dragon as well as Bug have powerful Nukes, that will be hard to stomach, without resisting it, essentially putting our opponent in a no win scenario.
Having few reliable switch ins is probably also the biggest problem of Tinted lens going forward. We will have to be very careful about coverage options and raw stats.
It also does nothing to alleviate our weakness to Passive damage and burn drops, except of freeing moveslots we could dedicate to recovery or boosting options, that can mitigate these problems.
Pros:
Makes it hard to pivot around
incentivizes STAB
leaves us with the one of the best qualities of our STAB, which are high power moves
frees moveslots
Cons:
having no good switch in might be harder to balance
does nothing about Passive damage or burns
Overall:
gives more neutral MUs overall, including Tomohawk and Pex,
Magic Guard
Magic Guard will enable us to come in on our intended Switchins much more reliably, even throughout a stretched out game. Immunity to passive Damage is one of the best assets a Pokémon can have, especially in the battles of attrition that Pivoting wars have become.
Magic Guard solidifie our MU with Blissey, and opens up several other MU, eg against Zera, Rilla, Toxapex, Rotoms, Hippo and Amoonguss.
Immunity to entry hazards means we can actually choose our item, which is a big deal for an offensive Pokémon.
Recoil free Life Orb and Recoil Moves is just another bonus, that stack on top of the defensive traits of Magic Guard.
The biggest downside to Magic Guard considering our intendend MU is, still suffering from halved BP physical Moves, while burned.
Another issue could be that the combination of good bulk, recovery magic guard and mixed boosting can get out of hand very quickly, although I doubt it is as much of an issue with this typing.
Lastly, I feel like Magic Guard practically mandates considering Life Orb in our stats, which in turn will likely result in a similar issue of being knock off weak as with heavy duty boots. Since loosing our boostingbitem might mean that we’re unable to break the mons we set out to break.
Pros:
Immunity to passive damage
thus kills reliance on HDB and generates more clear switch ins.
Frees Recoil moves
Essentially built in Life Orb
Cons:
Does nothing about burn drops
can get out of hand on bulky mons with set up
Instead of HDB syndrome well have to deal with Life Orb syndrome
Overall:
Boost to several MU, without having any real drawback outside of burn drops
Neutralizing Gas
Neutralizing Gas has been brought up consistently on discord as a very interesting option to tackle Pivoting.
Almost all Pivots rely on their Abilities (to varying degrees) to do their job.
This is especially true for Regenarator mons without access to pivoting moves and Pokémon relying on an immunity ability, to safely switch in.
This ability will affect almost every Match up we will have in the tier barring Mons like Mandibuzz that rarely make use of their ability.
It will Help is Forcing Damage on Teleporters and other Regen Pivots, strip Libra of its immunities, help physical sets against Tomo, let us sub up without fearing Pult, enable us to use Protect to scout against Shifu, spam electric moves somewhat more safely against zera, sometimes deny Jumbao setting sun, making the most common Rotoms weak to ground coverage, make us not fear being cripple if using contact moves against Rona and Ferrothorn, Making Zam Take LO or potentially breaking its sash, potentially denying Surge Rilla and this its Prio, Syclant will be 4x SR weak against us, Azumarill will be dead weight against us without belly drum, Cawmodore can be killed by lightning, we force Passive Damage on Krill, and Venu is suddenly more manageable even in Sun Etc. As you can see Neutralizing Gas gives as a host of ways to cut some strength out of almost every mon in the Meta.
But it doesn’t really give us better Switch in opportunities and it is not guaranteed that we can actually force damage on pivots, since that also requires Knocking their Boots of and getting in before they get out.
Pros:
This gives us a host of boosts to different MU with varying impact.
Opens op Ground as one of our best coverage options.
Cons:
Might affect MUs we don’t really want to (see Azu),
doesn’t give us better Switch ins
burn weakness and passive damage weakness
Overall:
Technically this gives us ways to punish pivoting that no other ability can give us. It does a whole lot more too.
It’s also not really targeted and might not achieve the effects we intend.
Shield Dust
Shield Dust is the „weakest„ of all abilities that I consider useful.
It does mostly one thing for us. Making us immune to Scald burns. This patches up our Matchups against our most important targets, because it enables us to go physical, without fear of burns.
Outside of the Slows and Blissey it gives us better Matchups against The Pex, Astro, Amoonguss and Heatom. Anything else is mostly a cherry on top.
The reason I bring it up here, isn’t that it does so much for us. The reason that this should be a primary ability if at all, is that it’s benefits are mostly tied to us being physically inclined at least, which we cannot guarantee if we where to choose an abilit, that doesn’t block scald burns.
It still leaves us with all other Weaknesses our typing brings with it.
Passive damage can still cripple us and we are not even immune to burn.
it doesn’t really improve any other Matchup than the Slows and Blissey.
Pros
Saves us from Scaldburns
Blocks other secondary effects, like Sludge bomb poison or fire lash drops
Improves our most important MU against the slows
opens physical sets for Blissey
better Astro MU
Cons
Still weak to all Passive Damage
doesn’t boost any notable MU outside of our main targets
Overall:
Lets us go physical, has some other minor bonuses
doesn’t do anything else
Water Absorb
The reasoning behind Water Absorb is the Same as with Shield Dust. It lets us go physical, even though the most common move on our priority one target is Scald.
Since The Slows are our main target, we also appreciate the passive healing that it provides us with, especially since it can even shore up our hazard Weakness situationally.
Denying our targets their main attacking move, while letting us be physically inclined is a big deal, but we still have a staggering weakness to passive damage and it doesn’t really enhance any MU outside the slows, Pex and Washtom.
Pros
No scald burns
passive healing
water immunity
Occasionally increased longevity
Improves MUs with the slows rotom w and pex.
Cons
Still weak to passive damage
Not many improved Matchups
Overall
Greatly improved matchup against The Slows, Pex, Washtom and by extension Blissey
but doesn’t benefit us outside of that other than with occasional passive healing
Storm Drain
Does all the same things as Water Absorb but trades increased longevity for more ooomph on the Special Side. This could be interesting for specially biased mixed sets where we abuse our relation with the slows, to boost through other stuff, while keeping our capacity to deal with Blissey, without fear of burns.
Pros:
Scald burn immunity
Water Immunity
Better Match up vs The Slows, Pex and Washtom
Possible boost improving our Pressure Matchups with several mons
Cons:
Still Weak to passive damage
Comatose
Comatose is another Ability that lets us avoid burn altogether and thus frees us to go physical.
Status immunity against all other status greatly increases our matchups vs. The Slows, Blissey, Pex, Amoonguss and other defensive mons.
It also opens up the ability to use coma phazing sets, which while mostly gimmicky, are pretty concept relevant.
Sadly It doesn’t improve our offensive traits which might make those sets infeasible.
We are also still hazard weak.
Pros:
Status immunity
Comaphazing
Cons:
still hazard weak
Overall:
Greatly improves our matchups against many passive mons. Doesn’t improve our hazard weakness and it would fall into a similar niche to Paj
Adaptability
Adaptability greatly increases the power of our STAB moves.
With it we can threaten the slows more easily, while at the same time increasing the Pressure on possible switch ins.
It is also likely to have to be kept in check during our Stats Stage, which in turn could mean we don’t get as much power and thus ending up not really beneficial or even detrimental because that might affect our coverage options.
It also does nothing to shore up our defensive shortcomings.
Pros:
STAB boost
more threatening to slows
opens up miveslots
maybe more pressure MU
Cons:
Likely to have to be kept in check during stats
Possibly detrimental to coverage options
passive damage weakness
weak to burns
Overall:
Increases the power of our STABs and might help us to increase the amount of pressure we can put on the opponent.
At the same time it could constrict us in the Stats Stage and does nothing to alleviate or defensive weaknesses.
Punk Rock
Punk Rock is another option that increases our offensive capabilities. We have Moves for both our STABs that profit from its boost.
It also gives us a power boost on other non STAB option, creating essentially other STABs, which help expand our pressure List.
Pros:
Increased Power of several STAB moves
Third STAB
Creates more pressure MU
Cons:
Basically needs special attack, which does nothing for our blissey matchup
still passive damage
Still burn weakness
Overall:
Good Option to increase our power output and find more mons we can Pressure.
But Basically forfeits our Blissey matchup.
Trace
Copying abilities can be very powerful especially when dealing with mons that rely on their ability. Regen, Natural cure, Volt absorb etc are all good abilities in the match ups we will find ourselves in.
Only situationally adresses passive damage. Doesn’t deal with burn drop.
Is hard to control (see huge power)
Can boost our matchups but isn’t clearly defined
Skill Link
Power boost to stab and coverage
Doesn’t do anything else, only physical, does nothing about burns we already have 120/130 BP moves that we can use, doesn’t give more good MUs
Technician
Technically Power boost to STAB (best case 180 BP moves/worst case 75)
Boosts interesting techs especially dragon tail, doesn’t boost our MU reliably, mostly interesting physically, leaves weakness to burns and passive damage
Filter
Dragon less weak to Dragon is good, better tomo MU, better Syclant MU doesn’t enhance our most significant MUs, Still passive damage, burn weakness
Boosts several MUs but not necessarily our most important
Defiant
Situational boost, Boosts tomo and Astro MU, deter defog, kinda frees moveslots
Requires trigger, intimidate means only +1
Triage
Leech life go brrrrr, enhances MU against fast and frail mons. Helps with passive damage in a way.
Needs physical but still weak to burns. Still weak to passive damage
Compound eyes
More reliable STAB, sleep moves
Weak to passive damage and burns, no notably better MU
Rattled
Speed boost on knock, uturn and intimidate, might deter their usage, increases pressure MU against fast and frail mons
Not targeted at our main targets.
Situational activation, passive damage and burn weakness
Magic Bounce
No toxic blissey, better Amoonguss MU, anti hazards,
Incentive for pivoting, still passive damage and burn weak
Contrary
Draco kill everyone (except fairies)
More pressure MU, frees moveslots, boooy can that go wrong, very blunt tool, still weak to passive damage (although speeding up the game helps)
Stake Out
Pros
Increased power on hard switches
more pressure MU. Cons
Likely to be calced into our stats
Doesn’t activate in Teleport or slow uturn which is our main objective
Volt Absorb
Pros
You shall not pass Zera (oh and rotoms too), makes them hard switch
passive healing
immunity
technically better MU vs electric Cons
makes them click knock or toxic instead,
passive damage and burn weakness,
not targeting our main MUs
Motor Drive
Same as with VA
increases pressure on fast and frail mons
Lightning Rod
Same as VA
Increases Pressure on hard switch ins
Guts
Pros
Status absorption
Attack boost
Kinda improves some MUs Cons
requires save turn for activation
Reliance on Flame Orb, likely to be included in calcs
No HDB+Burn chip makes us severely hazard and knock weak
Poison Heal
Pros
Status Absorption
more longevity Cons
requires save turn for activation
still hazard and knock weak (not as severely once toxic activated)
Stake Out
Pros
Increased power on hard switches
more pressure MU. Cons
Likely to be calced into our stats
Doesn’t activate in Teleport or slow uturn which is our main objective
Simple
Pros
Boosts set up option
More pressure MU
kinda alleviates our burn weakness Cons
Requires extreme caution during moves and stats
could get out of hand still
doesn’t do much about passive damage (except maybe speeding up games)
Corrosion
Pros
Improves some MU Cons
We’re unlikely to reap the benefits, because Toxic is still slow damage against Regen pivot spam or immensely powerful breakers
Blissey laughs at us
Still weakness to passive damage and burn.
Sap Sipper
Pros
#nospore
dunks on Rilla
occasional boost Cons
we already 4xresist
still weak to passive damage
burn weakness
very limited range
I'm also boarding the trains for Analytic and Stakeout. Both have a great way of fulfilling the concept in targeting whatever the pivot switches into, which could lead into really interesting gameplay - if a targeted mon is facing CAP28, should it try to tank a hit or switch out and risk bigger damage? The only downsides are that choosing Stakeout makes CAP28 a cop and neither make switching in easier, which might promote pivots with CAP28.
My next favorite choices would be Neutralizing Gas, Guts and Shield Dust. An Ability that makes sure we can hit Equilibra reliably, make Slow friends switch the old-fashioned way, and force damage on other Regen users is going to be massive, and it has a few bonus benefits like ignoring Intimidate. Neutralizing Gas is going to be really fun to build with. The latter two, on the other hand, lets us switch into the big pink losers and the Rotom appliances reliably. The former is a great punish for Scald and Toxic spam that these pivots love to throw out, while the latter can help against Equilibra and Astrolotl.
As for the others, I think Magic Guard is a little misguided. Sure, we're going to be immune to Tox and Rocks, but I think we can make this concept work without such a generically powerful Ability that will restrict us in the later stages and arguably make us weaker to Knock Off as a result. It's pro-concept in a vanilla way, but I think the other five will be the most effective against the matchups we intended to beat.
It has been said several times already, but Neutralizing Gas quite literally solves almost every issue you could come up with versus the vast majority of pivots in our metagame. With no Natural Cure, Toxic + a disruption move (Encore, Disable, Taunt) is an immediate shut down for Blissey users, it allows us to harshly cut into Toxapex's longevity, making it much easier for teammates to take it out even if CAP28 fail to beat it 1v1 itself. NGas allows us to be more relaxed when it comes to coverage as well, as Bug + Dragon + Ground hits almost every Pokémon in the tier for at least neutral damage once NGas is active (only Pokemon on the VR who resist all three are Togekiss, Skarmory and Corviknight). Negging Regenerator, even if we get burnt (which I think is definitely an overblown fear) also cripples Slowbro and Slowking, and if we can force them to lose hdb, we can finally rack up several necessary chip damage. Even Krilowatt, another offensive pivot, despises losing MG, making Toxic, hazards, and LO recoil all fair game versus this Pokémon.
I genuinely thimk that Neutralizing Gas is THE choice for CAP 28, and very little if any option comes close.
I will also throw my hat into the ring for Stakeout, as deending on coverage, this is perhaps the most direct way to punish pivots in our metagame. It turns the Slowtwins into lose lose situations, similarly to that of Pursuit of Generations gone by - forcing them to either a) stay in and die, or b) hard switchout and watch your switch in lose a bunch of health, making sure the match is always in CAP 28's favor. This is a very powerful ability, and while it takes a big bite out of our power budget, it still leaves us with enough options to work out a viable and balanced Pokémon.
Keep subbing and repping for active abilities, because I believe that is definitely the path that CAP 28 should be taking. (Its much less awkward going from Active Prim to Passive secondary than the inverse)
There's one more ability I wanna talk about that's been mentioned which would be super cool if we tried it out: Download. Given that we seem to have a mixed bag of defensive pokemon that CAP28 should pressure, Download could be a great tool in being able to apply pressure on both the physical and special sides. often runs more physical defense than special, so CAP28 would get a nice boost to Bug Buzz from Download, and if the enemy is using , CAP28 gets a boost to its physical attack to help punch through that wall even if it doesn't have the greatest physical attack stat.
Also I wanna talk about why Adaptability might be a better option than Tinted Lens in terms of dealing consistent damage. Tinted Lens's ability to help in the matchup against Steel types is being way overstated. Backed by a 110 SpA, Tinted Lens Bug Buzz only 3HKOs and has a 3.2% chance to 4HKO . CAP28 is going to struggle with these mons no matter its ability. Those matchups will be alleviated during the moveset stage. Adaptability, on the other hand, accentuates the strengths that CAP28 should have: forcing switches on pivot mons. While Stakeout has been getting a lot of attention, as it should considering it is the ultimate hard-switch punish, I think Adaptability might be an equally viable option purely for being more consistent. CAP28's STAB is incredibly good into the majority of the common pivots of the tier (it's definitely part of the reason we chose the typing to begin with), so giving it all to that strength would help a lot in pressuring the pivots CAP28 doesn't have super-effective STAB into.
I wanna note that I'm not saying Tinted Lens or Stakeout would be bad by any means (heck, I'm as excited as the next guy about a good Stakeout user), just that there are other options to look at as well. Also, I fixed my Comatose mistake in my earlier post, that's on me for writing an analysis at 4 AM.
This ability is one I've been mentioning in the discord fairly frequently, and for good reason. I believe one of our major issues when in an "advantageous" situation, that is, when we've successfully gotten in vs Slowking, is going to be the lack of a safe move to use. Whether we use Bug or Dragon it is gonna be pretty easy to switch into a mon that takes minimal damage from both, thus letting the Slowking user arguably win that interaction despite CAP 28 being designed to take it on. A secondary factor that supports this ability is well, we chose Bug/Dragon, and I think that if we end up dropping our Bug STAB then this choice was a bit of a failure.
Punk Rock gives us access to a bevy of high powered Sound Moves including but not limited to Sparkling Aria, Overdrive, and Boomburst/Hyper Voice, all of which have far better type synergy with Bug; Bug/Water is pretty damn solid offensively with the main resists being Plasmanta, Mollux, and some other stuff, Bug/Electric is similarly nice, and Bug/Normal means that we just need to find a way around steels. The power boost to Bug Buzz, bringing it up to an effective 117 base power means that we can easily reach the 66% damage threshold on Slowking (enough to ensure that you 2hko it through Regenerator) without needing insane spA (116 vs 166 spA needed), enabling far more interesting choices to be made about our coverage options.
This ability is definitely suited to a specially biased stat spread, which is a potential drawback given the presence of Blissey on our threat list, but if Hydreigon can run physical Fighting coverage to hit Blissey, so can we.
Fixing the issue of "how do we take advantage of being in vs Slowking / Blissey / Toxapex" by having a far more safe move to use than our native Bug/Dragon STABs, and thus making us a far more potent offensive threat, more able to discourage the use of pivoting strategies is something I view to be quite pro-concept.
Simple
I support this for one fairly simple reason; existing mixed boosting moves are very weak and Simple doubles their effect. This is definitely a poll-jumpy argument, and I recognize that, but Work Up has that big distribution, so I am unsure how polljumpy it is. Our desired "beat these mons" list includes Slowking, Blissey, Slowbro, and Hippowdon, which like, imply that we're both a physical (beat Blissey) and special (beat Hippowdon, avoid Scald) attacker. Simple + Mixed Boosting moves are, to put it simply (hah) super concept relevant (punishes getting us in successfully vs those mons), let us beat our desired matchups, and are just super unique/cool.
Rattled
This one assumes that we already beat Slowking/Blissey/Etc effectively enough with only our attacks (reasonable), and expands us to deal with U-turn users and Knock Off users more effectively. This is a minor one, but definitely helps us to expand our list of mons we do well vs. Also notable for forcing a hard switch from Zera any time we come in vs it, which is nice (aka if it clicks Plasma it goes out, if it clicks Knock, we lose our HDB and it def goes out). One of the weaker options here, but still relevant.
+1 in support of Neutralizing Gas, others have already articulated its benefits v nicely and it's probably my favorite contender rn
i think Analytic is our second-best option, offering the same type of lose-lose situation for teleporters as Stakeout does but trading some of that increased power against switch-ins for greater flexibility in stat spreads and a way to improve the matchup with fast pivots like Zeraora and Dragapult. a couple people have raised concerns about the absurd amount of damage CAP 28 would deal even against resists on a hard switch or the big chunk of our power budget eaten up by Stakeout, and i like the idea of a less extreme but still threatening way to punish switches. (calcs are a pain in the ass on mobile but i'll be back to edit in a few against relevant targets.)
Analytic doesn't make it any easier to switch into Zeraora, but once we're in the matchup is very solid. staying in to smack a slower CAP (which we probably will be without an absurdly skewed stat spread) with Knock Off means taking a huge chunk from our STAB and Volt Switch risks extra damage on the switch-in. scarf pivots are also a little easier to punish for using volt-turn (or Trick in the case of Rotom forms). the Dragapult matchup is still shaky, but Analytic disincentivizes U-turn (which eases prediction), and if our stat spread lets us take Dragon Darts/Draco Meteor then it's that much easier to smash it with dragon STAB of our own.
Analytic also makes it easier to tune our stats to what we wanna beat later, shoring up some of the disadvantages of slower spreads and letting us invest a little more in bulk if we wanna go that route
other abilities i wouldn't mind seeing include Corrosion, Water Absorb, Volt Absorb, and Shield Dust. Magic Guard is also pro-concept but is definitely on the strong side and a kinda generic/boring way to achieve the goal here
When I think about Ability for this concept, I see it as our opportunity to disrupt the momentum that pivots and pivoting teams develop.
With that guiding principle in mind, I want to throw my support behind Stakeout, for what it's worth. Others have expounded upon its merits above, and I don't have much to add other than it truly feels like the best way to deal with the Slows, which was the priority we identified in the Concept Assessment. By threatening them with offensive pressure, we force the decision of either taking a huge SE hit or something else getting absolutely nuked (which I think is pro-concept). Yes, the slows could take the hit and use teleport after, but my interpretation of the Concept Assessment is that the stats and movepool stage should prevent this from happening more than once, even with Regenerator.
Trace is another option that I think could disrupt the momentum of pivot teams, though it seems to be mainly targeting Zeraora. There are some other cool interactions, but I fail to see how this helps us put pressure on the slows or Blissey. I'd put Triage in a similar boat; useful, but not really targeting what we identified as our main focus.
Neutralizing Gas messes with a lot of Pokemon, but I see it more as a 'generically good' ability rather than one that is going to help us realize the concept. Many people are pointing out the numerous benefits of this Ability, but only about 20-25% of those are directly related to the concept. While this would probably be my second or third choice of ability, I fear that choosing this would result in either a) having to nerf CAP28 immediately after launch, or b) holding back on the power we give CAP28 to prevent scenario a), which would prevent us from providing the offensive pressure we identified in the Concept Assessment as being necessary to pressure the slows. I have similar reservations about Magic Guard; it's a generically good ability that CAP28 definitely would benefit from, but it's not a direct way to support the concept. It certainly won't disrupt momentum from the opposing pivots.
So, now that the major support for enormous powerhouses like Magic Guard, Neutralizing Gas, Tinted Lens and Stakeout (true tier one abilities) has come out, I feel the need to endorse some more concept-specific abilities, the sort that can get lost in the clash of giants.
Rattled is clear punishment for U-turn and Knock Off, punishment that would go a long way towards exerting real offensive pressure without risking balance issues (more on that below). Immunity to Intimidate makes this especially attractive for physical attacking. There are not many ways to really disincentive Knocking Off a Pokemon weak to Stealth Rock, but this is an excellent way. Assuming we built around it, I think this is significantly better than, say, Sticky Hold.
Contrary is attractive because it encourages specific counters to break pivot chains, it has clear counters that we can delineate clearly and neatly in the movepool stage, and it can go physical, special or mixed with reasonable ease. It is a significantly powerful offensive ability, yet it allows far, far more counterplay than Stakeout or Tinted Lens (more on that below).
On the other hand, I would like to warn against Tinted Lens and Stakeout, in that order, as being much more dangerous than we should be discussing.
Tinted Lens has the deeply unfortunate effect of eliminating faster Pokemon almost completely as switch-ins against CAP28--yes, Tinted Lens helps if you want to use Specs Bug Buzz against Equilibra, but it also completely eliminates every faster Pokemon that resists Bug as a potential switch-in. This means that in the end, the best possible switch-ins will be walls, Pokemon that can tank neutral hits from Choice sets well enough to not guarantee CAP28 a kill every time in comes in--Pokemon like Blissey and Mandibuzz, exactly the Pokemon we would prefer *not* to counter us!
Stakeout is a little less scary than Tinted Lens because only affecting switches means that some things with recovery can come in and recover off the damage, but it puts tremendous pressure on us to make sure we get stats right: if CAP28 has too high an attacking stat, it puts the opponent in a "checkmate" position where every choice is a bad choice if CAP28 is threatening to the Pokemon already in. Similarly to Tinted Lens, Stakeout works best with Choice sets, and Choice sets are by nature very volatile. I would rather not walk the tightrope of this ability.
For the most part, I see three schools of thought. Stakeout/Analytic, which aim to discourage switching by punishing the pivot's replacement directly, Neutralizing Gas, which aims to discourage switching by hindering the functionality of the pivot itself (no regen, no natural cure, etc.), and Tinted Lens/Adaptability/Punk Rock/Sticky Hold/Shield Dust/Comatose/Natural Cure (plus more), which take the more passive approach of strengthening CAP 28 or eliminating/limiting it's shortcomings rather than actively targeting the opponent for pivoting.
Stakeout is arguably the most pro-concept ability you can imagine. It definitely helps CAP 28 perform it's it's intended role and it does so in a way that doesn't leave it "too strong." Recently we've had some very strong, metagame defining CAPs that ended up being able to perform very well outside of what they were intended for. I feel like the fact that Stakeout has such a niche use (a use that lines up perfectly with CAP 28) makes it a "safe" choice as far as CAP 28's overall impact on the metagame goes. Analytic mostly fills the same role as Stakeout, but in a more general way. The fact that it can be utilized in non-pivot related scenarios could give it the ability to outperform its role if we're not careful in later stages of the process. (It should be noted that an element of this exists to a lesser extent in Stakeout as well).
I see Neutralizing Gas as a very high contender. It is an ability that would help CAP 28 in matchups against nearly every pivot. That said, I have the same concern here that I had above. This ability seems perfect for our project; it does exactly what we need it to in almost every single one of our matchups. However, when you think about the unintended effects that this could have in other matchups, the possibilities are scary. A couple people have called giving CAP 28 such a commanding ability as the ones I've mentioned above a tightrope, which is a term that I think is fitting. This leads into my point below.
Overall we have been discussing giving CAP 28 some very powerful abilities and there is nothing wrong with that but it just means that we have to be careful in later stages. Throughout this discussion I can't help but think back to the "Over-Tuning of CAPs" from early last month. in that post Birkal brought up DougJustDoug's Build Triangle and I think a similar concept applies here between the ability, stat, and move pool processes. Trying to optimize (even though optimization is the goal of CAP) each step of the way will lead to an unbalanced CAP so we have to decide whether we want to make CAP 28's ability the focus, which will cause us to hold back in later stages or whether we want to choose an ability that takes a more passive role and gives us more flexibility later. If we end up saying that this CAP's ability is crucial to it's ability to function, I think that giving it a powerful ability and using the move pool and stat stages as support to help it accomplish it's goal is fine.
Sorry if that got a little off topic or distracted from the current discussion but as we choose an ability it's important to think of how the strength of that ability affects the process as a whole.
For the most part, I see three schools of thought. Stakeout/Analytic, which aim to discourage switching by punishing the pivot's replacement directly, Neutralizing Gas, which aims to discourage switching by hindering the functionality of the pivot itself (no regen, no natural cure, etc.), and Tinted Lens/Adaptability/Punk Rock/Sticky Hold/Shield Dust/Comatose/Natural Cure (plus more), which take the more passive approach of strengthening CAP 28 or eliminating/limiting it's shortcomings rather than actively targeting the opponent for pivoting.
Stakeout is arguably the most pro-concept ability you can imagine. It definitely helps CAP 28 perform it's it's intended role and it does so in a way that doesn't leave it "too strong." Recently we've had some very strong, metagame defining CAPs that ended up being able to perform very well outside of what they were intended for. I feel like the fact that Stakeout has such a niche use (a use that lines up perfectly with CAP 28) makes it a "safe" choice as far as CAP 28's overall impact on the metagame goes. Analytic mostly fills the same role as Stakeout, but in a more general way. The fact that it can be utilized in non-pivot related scenarios could give it the ability to outperform its role if we're not careful in later stages of the process. (It should be noted that an element of this exists to a lesser extent in Stakeout as well).
I see Neutralizing Gas as a very high contender. It is an ability that would help CAP 28 in matchups against nearly every pivot. That said, I have the same concern here that I had above. This ability seems perfect for our project; it does exactly what we need it to in almost every single one of our matchups. However, when you think about the unintended effects that this could have in other matchups, the possibilities are scary. A couple people have called giving CAP 28 such a commanding ability as the ones I've mentioned above a tightrope, which is a term that I think is fitting. This leads into my point below.
Overall we have been discussing giving CAP 28 some very powerful abilities and there is nothing wrong with that but it just means that we have to be careful in later stages. Throughout this discussion I can't help but think back to the "Over-Tuning of CAPs" from early last month. in that post Birkal brought up DougJustDoug's Build Triangle and I think a similar concept applies here between the ability, stat, and move pool processes. Trying to optimize (even though optimization is the goal of CAP) each step of the way will lead to an unbalanced CAP so we have to decide whether we want to make CAP 28's ability the focus, which will cause us to hold back in later stages or whether we want to choose an ability that takes a more passive role and gives us more flexibility later. If we end up saying that this CAP's ability is crucial to it's ability to function, I think that giving it a powerful ability and using the move pool and stat stages as support to help it accomplish it's goal is fine.
Sorry if that got a little off topic or distracted from the current discussion but as we choose an ability it's important to think of how the strength of that ability affects the process as a whole.
In regards to the triangle- I think we’ve already established a clear weakness for this CAP- its typing. Unlike prior CAPs, Bug/Dragon is a very, very weak typing in current gen OU. Barring a ludicrous movepool stage, I think we should be fine with a strong ability.
I think its worth considering this: we are competing with the most dragons for viability that I think have ever been highly viable in the gen8 meta at once. Several of these dragons fulfil our concept of being an antipivot: can taunt, burn and knock off making life harder for HDB users, as well as is difficult to switch around with spikes. is a substitute abuser that takes advantage of passive teleports, as well as a specs nuker that matches up well vs many of our targets. does what we do when it comes to switchin opportunities on things like Slowking + Rotom, and can generically threaten a lot of mons with powerful attacks, as well as stopping offensive pivot users from u-turning with Static. cant be affected by intimidate, making it a little harder to scout around- as well as threatening with physical and special attacks traps the opponent when attacking, making it near-impossible to scout for a banded move. many similar switchins to us like Slowking + Rotom.
and guess what- every single one of these dragons has a better typing than us. we need to think very carefully about what we can do to keep this mon from stepping in the lanes that are already fully occupied and successful. moving on to abilities, there are only a few here that I think genuinely keep us unique and fulfil the concept at the same time.
Neutralising Gas: this does something none of the other abilities can do- it lets you reactively neutralise some of the effects of teleport on the switch-in as they switch out. there are concerns that it will be too.... "generically good".... but you dont need to give it tools for example to exploit the many immunity abilities that it shuts off. it also has smaller benefits like not being able to be intimidated and making scouting for powerful hits harder with regenerator.
Competitive/Defiant: this one makes life harder for tomo trying to check it, and also threatens defog users, keeping hazards up to some extent which is a unique pro-concept role.
Contrary: ramps up damage without needing to boost, making it impossible to scout around with regen mons or intimdate it. also an anti-defog tech, and anti-fire lash.
Magic Guard: comes in on teleports out endlessly, and cant be stopped by toxic + pivoting around sponging hits.
Triage: it could set up on the switch, and still beat offensive mons that have been safely brought in to check it. Unfortunately this also falls flat since the only STAB healing move is resisted by fast dragons in the tier and it also sucks in general as an attack. But at least it tries to fit a different niche
Generic offensive boosting or Slight improvements to defensive switchin abilities: id probably rather use one of the above listed mons that already is good offensively and defensively at the same time.
tldr: to make a viable mon we need a good and unique ability because our typing is subpar both in a vacuum and compared to other options in the tier that do the same thing. id say its important to tackle this now, as there arent a lot of moves that the above mons dont also offer (hazard setting/removal, status, multiple boosting routes, band, specs, pivoting, etc. ). this is also important to do a concept that is worth exploring.
A lot of great abilities have already been mentioned, so instead of subbing my own I want to voice support for Download and Magic Guard.
As outlined in the concept assessment, general offensive pressure is one way to prevent pivot spam, and Download helps us achieve this by allowing CAP28 to potentially break through both physical and special walls alike. Especially since our Bug STAB leans physical with First Impression and Leech Life, and our Dragon STAB leans special with Draco Meteor, Download will let CAP28 effectively attack on both sides. A +1 boost is very powerful and essentially allows our coverage moves to act as a third STAB, something many people seem to be seeking from our ability. It also grants CAP28 significant power without using Life Orb or a choice item, meaning it can still run HDB and still exert significant pressure.
As for Magic Guard, I understand there are concerns with the ability being a little too overbearing and generically good. When it comes to the overtuning of CAPs though, one of the reasons Bug-Dragon was slated and selected was because it is a targeted typing that isn't overly optimized. Because of this, I do believe that we can afford to use a strong ability for this CAP. That being said, Magic Guard checks nearly every box that we're looking for in an ability, allowing us to ignore hazard and toxic damage, as well as letting us run Life Orb over HDB to establish mixed offensive pressure. Although it doesn't answer Scald burn, I think that overall Magic Guard covers most of the challenges that CAP28 is currently facing.
I also want to add that although the ability certainly has its merits, I personally don't think that Neutralizing Gas is as effective as people make it out to be. While on paper, stopping Regenerator and Natural Cure seems perfect, in practice I don't believe that CAP28 will be able to put Neutralizing Gas to full effect. For instance, CAP28 can come in and nullify Toxapex's Regenerator, but then Toxapex can simply sit on CAP28 instead of switching out. Likewise, although CAP28 can stop Blissey from curing Toxic in theory, in practice this would require CAP28 to be able to consistently switch in on Blissey over the course of the game. Since Neutralizing Gas does nothing to benefit CAP28's longevity nor immediate offensive pressure this isn't really feasible. Realistically Neutralizing Gas only helps us do even better against the pivots we can reliably come in on, aka just the Slowtwins, meaning that in order to effectively utilize Neutralizing Gas, CAP28 would also need a very strong set of stats and movepool, which could easily lead to an overtuned CAP.
So no one's talked about it that much it so far in the thread, but here's my writeup of Stamina:
CAP28's typing does a lot already to help it matchup into the bulkier pivot mons, but it could still leave CAP28 open to being weak to the various offensive pivots of the tier. With concern to physical pivots, Stamina absolutely breaks those matchups, making it noticeably easier to come in on and , which would be huge in stopping a number of deadly offensive pivot core in the tier. Unluckily, it does nothing to beat . In addition, Stamina provides another way for CAP28 to use it's targeted resistances to its advantage. Coming in on a Volt Switch from a or a weak U-Turn from could lead to CAP28 really punishing those who spam damaging pivot moves. I see this ability leading to one of two niches for CAP28: either using it's new-earned bulk to set-up (somewhat similar to DD under Sandstorm in previous generations) or becoming an absolute tank of a mon that needs to be hit supereffectively specially just to be taken out (similar to the other Stamina user, ).
and 
by STAB alone, and NGas means they gain nothing on the retreat. Others are in a similar boat, if in less immediate danger of being KO'd. Suddenly, the opponent's rotation of multiple Regenerators starts to look shaky. It puts heat on our main targets exactly as desired.
. Is this huge? Not necessarily, but in the late game there may be fewer opportunities to switch safely and remove Toxic status without sacrificing something important. It adds risk to everyone's favorite status sponge.
, who is always found holding Life Orb because it ordinarily doesn't give a hoot or holler about hazards and status. NGas turns its whole world upside down. It becomes susceptible to hazards, status, and Life Orb recoil.
is in a similar boat. It especially hates Stealth Rock.
solely with passive damage? Let it sit on its Toxic Orb for a few turns and then deploy CAP28. Watch its HP bar go wooosh. While this is an extreme example dealing with a non-pivot set, there is not a single set that enjoys this interaction.
, whom we undo with Bug STAB.
., so it's something in 28's favor.
, but I think we'd much rather throw our Dragon STAB at that one then bother trying to heap on a status effect.
, a leading Regenerator, into a safe switch-in. This is an interaction that hits one of our targets hard while insulating CAP28 against...
cannot touch CAP28 outside of Seismic Toss and Knock Off respectively. Our longevity skyrockets, and we no longer have to dance around 30% burns with a physical spread. 
and 
also go from situational switch-ins to bait for all they're worth. Our typing lets CAP28 eat an Earthquake.
can often shrug off weaker coverage. Corrosion would allow for CAP28 to pressure these steel types with a crippling Toxic, something they'd not normally have to worry about. Forcing a switch on 
and 
, and having a mon to help keep hazards up is always helpful when facing a pivot team.
, and 
.
and 
.
from behind a Substitute.
's gimmick.
, 
can taunt, burn and knock off making life harder for HDB users, as well as is difficult to switch around with spikes.
is a substitute abuser that takes advantage of passive teleports, as well as a specs nuker that matches up well vs many of our targets.
does what we do when it comes to switchin opportunities on things like Slowking + Rotom, and can generically threaten a lot of mons with powerful attacks, as well as stopping offensive pivot users from u-turning with Static.
. In addition, Stamina provides another way for CAP28 to use it's targeted resistances to its advantage. Coming in on a Volt Switch from a 
or a weak U-Turn from 
under Sandstorm in previous generations) or becoming an absolute tank of a mon that needs to be hit supereffectively specially just to be taken out (similar to the other Stamina user, 
).