CAP 28 - Part 7 - Secondary Ability Discussion

[HallowedHarlequin]

Out of the four immunity abilities proposed, I think Motor Drive would best fulfill the concept, simply because of the potential for CAP28 to switch in and gain a speed boost. Volt Switch has gone mostly neglected in our attempts to prevent pivoting except for our typing. Yet, that resistance does nothing to discourage the use of Volt Switch, which will still enable the opponent to pivot to a check that forces CAP28 out, failing the concept.

Motor Drive, or even the threat of Motor Drive before CAP28's ability has been revealed, will be able to prevent Volt Switch from being used in the first place, which is much more satisfactory to the concept than switching into a Volt Switch and getting pivoted on, resistance or no. I believe Motor Drive does this better than the other immunity abilities because the consequences are much worse for the Volt Switch user. Many of the mons listed under Pressure relationships are mutual OHKOs depending on who moves first, so giving CAP28 a Speed boost is a situation everyone who doesn't have a hard counter will try to avoid.

Thus, I think Motor Drive complements Neutralizing Gas well in fulfilling the concept, by enabling even NGas sets to exert a psychological pressure against using Volt Switch until the set is revealed, and enabling actual Motor Drive sets to make Volt Switch an extremely risky move for the entire game.

 

[Jewvia]

> One of Volt Absorb / Motor Drive / Water Absorb / Storm Drain

I would say the go-to pick here is Motor Drive. We have a 1/2 resist to both types already, meaning that we are more using this ability to shift momentum on certain switch ins, give us a little boost, and block key abilities. The Water Immunities serve to help us more with Scald than anything, but we already have an incredible matchup against the slows that doesn't need this kind of support. Meanwhile, we do have a bit of a conflicting matchup against some Electric types, and an immunity would help us immensely in switching in and delivering pressure.

And then at the end of all that, the electric immunities convert the opponent's momentum from trying to use a pivot move into our own momentum moreso than any of the water immunities for one big reason. Volt Switch is common in CAP with users like Krilowatt, Zeraora, Rotoms, etc. On the other side, Flip Turn more or less doesn't exist.

> One of Punk Rock or Sheer Force

I see the main difference between Punk Rock and Sheer Force as "This is for special sets" vs "This is for more universally offensive sets." Our high base attack is going to encourage people to want to run physical over special (with a sufficiently powerful movepool) while Punk Rock directly encourages us to run a special set with moves such as Overdrive, Clanging Scales and of course Bug Buzz. Meanwhile, Sheer Force is a more universal ability choice. While it also enabled Bug Buzz and Electric coverage through Thunderbolt, it also enables a great variety of other moves such as Crunch, Iron Head, Dragon Rush, Waterfall, etc. While we obviously wouldn't have most of these moves, it does cause us to be a little more restrictive towards what kinds of physical moves can throw onto 28. I'd rather see the more targeted Punk Rock that seeks to enable specially offensive sets more to make up for the gap between the stats.

> Compound Eyes / No Guard

For Compound Eyes, we would be guaranteeing Megahorn who goes from 85% to 100% accuracy, as well as other moves I have seen discussed that would be interesting (Toxic, Dragon Tail, Draco Meteor). The big differences between the 2 are:

1 - Do we want to be taking 100% accurate moves like Toxic/Thunder/Will-O-Wisp?

2 - Do we want to give out 100% accurate moves with ~70% accuracy moves like Blizzard/Thunder/Hurricane?

To compare to Punk Rock, Overdrive would be 104 BP with 100% accuracy. Compound Eyes Thunder would be 110 BP with 91% accuracy. No Guard Thunder would be 110 BP with 100% accuracy. Not to get polljumpy, but the only reason we would take No Guard is if we wanted guaranteed moves that Compound Eyes can still miss. If we are not taking Blizzard, or Sleep Powder, or Focus Blast, what's the point in having an objectively worse Compound Eyes when we are trying to make competition against Neutralizing Gas?

There is no way to pick between these two without poll jumping. In a world where we discuss potential Fighting coverage, do we want a 100% accurate Focus Blast? Or are we content with just Compound Eyes Cross Chop or a move that's already 100% accurate? In a world of Electric coverage, do we want that 110 BP Thunder? Or are we okay with Thunderbolt or Thunder Punch? Personally, I would prefer Compound Eyes. It leaves more room for the movepool stage without forcing us to take or ban a lot of inaccurate moves. It would be easier on the movepool stage, taking No Guard now means we are deciding early that we want at least 1 move with 70% or less accuracy to become guaranteed.

 

[dex]

Hey there CAPers. Since we want to be a little quicker with the process while still leaving time for our artists, this will be you 24 HOUR NOTICE! Given that we're nearing the end of the second ability stage, I figured I'd give a tentative slating list in order to express where I think the community is at for this stage. Please also note thata, again, this is not the final slate and I would absolutely be open to altering it from a last minute push for or against.

Tentative Slate:

• No Competitive Ability
  • I don't think this is surprising anyone? Neutralizing Gas has been seen as a very potent ability and there's been support for exclusively focusing on this ability. Furthermore, Neutralizing Gas already accomplishes plenty on its own, so there are some who might feel that adding a second competitive ability might move us into "overkill" ranges on usefulness.
• One of Volt Absorb / Motor Drive / Water Absorb / Storm Drain
  • As seen in the previous round, there is a direct way to discourage common moves used by pivots that would give an immediate negative effect to he opponent if activated. Motor Drive and Volt Absorb obviously punishes Volt Switch while Storm Drain and Water Absorb lets us come in far more easily on Scalds. the reason I say one of these is only because there's been a lot of disuccusion of the two together and ideally I'd like to see this narrowed down to choosing one. That said, if there are more valid points for a second from this being slated, I'm not opposed to doing so.
• Thick Fat
  • This ability recently got a lot of traction as it helps with Krilowatt, Rotom-H and Astrolotl matchups quite well. I also think it would be very useful in expanding our list of checks, while not totally overshadowing the utility of Neutralizing Gas.
• One of Punk Rock or Sheer Force
  • This again boils down to seeing general support for this type of ability, though in this case I have some issues differentiating the two. In my parsing I found that a lot of the time, the reasons that Sheer Force was offered up over Punk Rock were based on flavor. Are there any competitively oriented reasons why one should be slated over the other?
• Compound Eyes / No Guard
  • As MX just posted, there's a lot of merit to these abilities, and I think that they would allow for strong additional coverage to be used, while not overshadowing NGas. Furthermore, there's been support for these as well, though I would encourage any final posts to rea`lly choose one or the other here.

That's the slate I have working right now. Fringe abilities that I'm still wary on (based on user support), but still considering given a strong recommendation are: Skill Link, Analytic, Rattled, and Competitive. These four abilities all have seen their share of support and concern and I wouldn't mind getting one last "room test" on them just o in case there's some last minute vocal support for one of these four to be on the slate over others.

That said, I welcome any additional posts and hope to see some interesting and thoughtful last minute posts!

Just my thoughts on this:

No Competitive Ability: Definitely a valid option. It was determined in the primary ability discussion that Neutralizing Gas is probably the most concept-relevant ability. I agree that it would be fine if no ability was chosen.

Immunities: I don't think any of these are quite necessary. Though I do somewhat like Storm Drain for how it impacts Scald spam, there is always the worry that immunities trump everything else.

Thick Fat: I heavily support this ability here. It provides a good surprise factor and gives CAP28 a new niche in fighting pivots.

Punk Rock/Sheer Force: I honestly don't like either of these abilities for CAP28. If I had to pick one, I would choose Punk Rock for it's expanded coverage options, but honestly there are less dangerous/more useful damage boosting abilities.

Compound Eyes/No Guard: I really prefer Compound Eyes over No Guard to lessen the impact of Hurricane. Compound Eyes brings a new way to punish pivots with Hypnosis and allows access to Dragon Rush and Thunder (which is actually quite helpful in the Tomo matchup). I don't know if it would be used over Neutralizing Gas that much, but it would be an interesting option nonetheless. Compound Eyes also doesn't restrict CAP28 from boosting moves (if anything, I'd like strong boosting moves even more with sleep).

Skill Link: I think the main detractor that has been brought up about Skill Link is the potential access to Scale Shot. I don't think Scale Shot should be allowed on CAP28 if Skill Link were to be chosen. Access to Rock Blast makes this Skill Link a very fun option in terms of being able to surprise a potential counter. Additionally, the power increase from Megahorn to Pin Missile is pretty negligible, making this the safest of the damage-boosting abilities in my opinion.

Analytic: I just don't think Analytic is a good option now given CAP28's high offensive potential. It is true that runs analytic with similarly high power, but Zone is much more punishable, having a 4x weakness to Ground.

Rattled: There's no reason Rattled should even be considered. Physical Damage is something that needs to be avoided at all costs on CAP28, and losing HDB can be devastating.

Competitive: I really like Competitive for what it does to the and matchups. Competitive makes CAP28 pretty dang good on Hazard stacking teams, which I think are a valid way of slowing down pivots with enough Knock Off teammates.

also please consider Water Compaction thankyouverymuch

 

[Darek]

On Sheer Force vs Punk Rock:

Both Sheer Force and Punk Rock would be used on special sets, taking advantage of our boosted Bug Buzz as well as boosted coverage options, namely in Thunderbolt and Overdrive respectively. While Sheer Force does overall give us more coverage options than Punk Rock which can be a concern, I find it hard to imagine a position in the movepool stage where we'll disallow a 117 bp move but still allow a 90 bp one; I really don't think that Sheer Force opens up any coverage options that wouldn't still be useful without the ability. Furthermore, on physical sets, I feel like it's hard to justify using Sheer Force when we are able to disable Tomohawk's Intimidate, which turns us from being walled out by it into cleanly 2hkoing with Outrage. Plus, the main physical coverage options being discussed on the Discord are Earthquake and Close Combat, neither of which are boosted by Sheer Force, and our main physical STABs in Megahorn and Dragon Claw/Hammer/Outrage don't get boosted either. Since for the most part NGas will most likely be relegated to physical sets and Sheer Force will be for special sets, there shouldn't be too much trouble in movepool as physical moves would be calced with NGas and special moves would be calced with Sheer Force. Because of this, I don't think the extra coverage Sheer Force gives us over Punk Rock is that much of a concern. To me, for all practical purposes, Sheer Force and Punk Rock are effectively the same. That's where the flavor argument comes in: If both abilities are roughly equal in what they contribute, then we should opt to slate the ability that's easier for our artists, Sheer Force.

 

[jas61292]

While I am not a fan of boosting abilities in general, if we are going to have one of Punk Rock and Sheer Force on the slate, I think Sheer Force is the clear winner here. In terms of moves we are absolutely going to have, the only one boosted by either one of these abilities is Bug Buzz, and the boost is the same. Meanwhile, the number of useful moves that Sheer Force could boost is much larger. With Punk Rock, the only coverage options opened up are Electric and Water, the former of which would still be weaker than just giving Thunder. Unless powerful special water coverage is that important to us, Sheer Force is simply a more useful ability as it opens of options in far more types, without actually messing with anything we would feel obligate to give.

In fact, speaking of not messing with things we are definitely going to have, Sheer Force is preferable to me because it also opens up the option of being used for physical sets. While I really don't want an ability that gives a big power boost to our core moves, none of the near universal physical dragon or bug STABs is boosted. This would allow us to provide targeted physical coverage if we so desire by granting it weaker physical moves, like a Thunder Fang or Rock Slide, trading utility in its ability for coverage. But, again, if we don't desire that, nothing we absolutely need (and very few of the best physical coverage moves in general) are boosted by it.

Because Sheer Force is just Punk Rock but more customizable in the moves stage, I can't really think of any reason why it should not be the preferred choice here.

 

[CharSiuEmboar]

I'm curious as to what coverage on a NG set would be considered a requisite, but would be broken on a Scale Shot based Skill Link set? The +1 Speed worries people, sure, but on an 85/60 mon at -1 Def, and one which is dependent on not having a fairy switch in and a; ruin the set up, and b; threaten CAP28.

Given that there are a number of other posts suggesting Sheer Force, Punk Rock etc, such as jas61292's advising that they want specific and targeted coverage on a secondary ability set - would this then not provide that benefit? Our Counters largely remain our Counters, pressures largely remain

 

[Zetalz]

Immunity Abilities: Out of the 4 presented choices I believe Motor Drive has the most merit to be included on the slate. Jewvia hit most of my thoughts on it already so I'd just like to agree that by expanding our ability to deal with offensive threats like Kril and Zera is a good but not overbearing niche over NGas.

Punk Rock vs. Sheer Force: Though Sheer Force does provide a wider and more general approach with regards to power boosting, I think the fact that it's less targeted is precisely why Punk Rock should be chosen over it. Sheer Force is a strong ability that will limit our power budget more during moves and could subsequently hurt the NGas set, which is something I'm not a fan of. Punk Rock on the other hand offers a more targeted boost to our Bug STAB as well as potentially to Electric coverage.

Compound Eyes vs. No Guard: I don't have a strong opinion either way for these choices but I think that going into moves Compound Eyes will be the easier of the two to worth with. I don't think we explicitly need high-powered low accuracy attacks (or sleep moves, those are honestly quite scary) but if this is the route we choose to go I'd rather have the option that boosts consistency without the drawback of losing on potential dodges.

Other Stuff: I'd just like to echo support for Skill Link and Competitive from the listed miscellaneous options. I understand the worry of Skill Link Scale Shot but I don't think it's quite as scary as some think. Scale Shot can miss and is ofc completely stopped by Fairy types. Way I see it Skill Link is a way to bolster our offensive presence against certain teams at the the dramatic cost of losing NGas, though I do concede we'd have to be careful with potential multi-hit coverage we may choose. Competitive is also a cool niche option to more actively punish Tomo and to mess with the few defoggers that are in the tier atm. Out of every option presented I think Comp is the absolute safest pick if we have to pick a secondary with regards to not overshadowing or hurting the NGas set during moves.


EDIT: Completely forgot to mention No Competitive Ability since it's an auto-include on the slate but it's a 100% valid pick and honestly my personal go to atm. Being able to just focus down on what we have right now without limiting our power budget more going into moves is where I'm at right now. Lots of people like to always vote for at least something over nothing but it is totally fine for us to consolidate with just NGas.

 

[snake]

Tentative Slate:

• No Competitive Ability
  • I don't think this is surprising anyone? Neutralizing Gas has been seen as a very potent ability and there's been support for exclusively focusing on this ability. Furthermore, Neutralizing Gas already accomplishes plenty on its own, so there are some who might feel that adding a second competitive ability might move us into "overkill" ranges on usefulness.
• One of Volt Absorb / Motor Drive / Water Absorb / Storm Drain
  • As seen in the previous round, there is a direct way to discourage common moves used by pivots that would give an immediate negative effect to he opponent if activated. Motor Drive and Volt Absorb obviously punishes Volt Switch while Storm Drain and Water Absorb lets us come in far more easily on Scalds. the reason I say one of these is only because there's been a lot of disuccusion of the two together and ideally I'd like to see this narrowed down to choosing one. That said, if there are more valid points for a second from this being slated, I'm not opposed to doing so.
• Thick Fat
  • This ability recently got a lot of traction as it helps with Krilowatt, Rotom-H and Astrolotl matchups quite well. I also think it would be very useful in expanding our list of checks, while not totally overshadowing the utility of Neutralizing Gas.
• One of Punk Rock or Sheer Force
  • This again boils down to seeing general support for this type of ability, though in this case I have some issues differentiating the two. In my parsing I found that a lot of the time, the reasons that Sheer Force was offered up over Punk Rock were based on flavor. Are there any competitively oriented reasons why one should be slated over the other?
• Compound Eyes / No Guard
  • As MX just posted, there's a lot of merit to these abilities, and I think that they would allow for strong additional coverage to be used, while not overshadowing NGas. Furthermore, there's been support for these as well, though I would encourage any final posts to rea`lly choose one or the other here.

If we're going to go with an immunity ability on secondary ability, Motor Drive is probably the most-on target one here. Absorbing Volt Switch from Zeraora, stopping it from switching out entirely, and then outspeeding it is a neat interaction and fits concept well.

No objection to Thick Fat - that's a neat option. I'm not sure how useful it'll be, but it definitely seems like a good secondary ability.

As for Sheer Force vs. Punk Rock, I'm worried about the breadth of boosting to Sheer Force. My worry is that mixed Neutralizing Gas sets may not have access to crucial special coverage just because Life Orb + Sheer Force is constraining options. I know Heavy-Duty Boots exist and are likely the best option for CAP28, but Sheer Force + Life Orb is a specific option that can't be ignored. Punk Rock has those more predictable, targetted boosts that should be expected of a secondary ability - we know which moves can be boosted, and we can avoid giving options that are boosted by Punk Rock if needed. Because so many moves have secondary effects, we might not be able to do this for Sheer Force. Sheer Force just feels way too broad for this point in the process, and I don't want to make movepool stage too dicey. tl;dr choose Punk Rock for specificity

With respect to Compound Eyes / No Guard, I think it's worth considering these abilities only for boosting moves that are around 70-75% accurate - anything more and I'm not sure if it's worth giving up Neutralizing Gas. Between these two, though, I think Compound Eyes fits better as a secondary ability - the boost is targetted, you can boost moves that Neutralizing Gas would probably not use.

Finally, I did see Sturdy in this thread! Given our physical frailty, it might force the opponent to pivot a little more awkwardly once they realize, "oh, I can't just OHKO CAP28...huh that complicates my gameplan a little bit because I assumed Neutralizing Gas..." I think it's worth considering.

 

[Rabia]

Sturdy definitely deserves more attention than it is currently receiving because of how neat of an option it is. I think back to Sawk in previous generations of NU and how the combination of Mold Breaker + Sturdy really made it impactful as a wallbreaker because of how it complicated play against it. If you had Mold Breaker, defensive counterplay suffered because of Earthquake beating up Levitate Pokemon, whereas Sturdy dissuaded offensive counterplay from trying to revenge kill you from full. I think Sturdy would also be generally beneficial to this Pokemon in theme because the stat spread already lends CAP 28 to being a really darn strong wallbreaker; the main thing hampering it at the moment is a fairly average Speed stat, which Sturdy helps mitigate to some extent.

 

[Voltage]

And with that, let's wrap things up! thanks again everyone for a great secondary ability stage. Here's your slate!

No Competitive Ability
Competitive
Compound Eyes
Motor Drive
Punk Rock
Thick Fat

• No Competitive Ability
  • Pretty straightforward. Neutralizing Gas is already a fantastic ability for CAP28, and without a secondary ability, we can truly explore as many avenues as possible without needing to account for any extraneous abilities. That's not to say that a secondary ability would outright be bad for the process, but having No Competitive Ability is certainly not detrimental to CAP28.
• Competitive
  • Of the "wild card" abilities I put below, I do think there was a solid amount of support for Competitive as a whole. With a lot of strong posts explaining how Competitive would be beneficial in threatening Defoggers and Tomohawk in particular. I believe there's general support for Competitive here and it would be a good fit on CAP28.
• Compound Eyes
  • There was some debate between it and No Guard, but ultimately I saw more support for Compound Eyes. Compound Eyes is a great ability for providing coverage moves to CAP28. It also allows for CAP28 to run some common physical attacking moves that may have lower accuracy much more safely. Furthermore Compound Eyes allows us to to safely run mixed sets with minimal risk. This ability might be almost as good as Neutralizing Gas, but I think it still allows us to expand the list of mons we threaten.
• Motor Drive
  • Per that small pseudo-poll I posted with my thoughts on an immunity ability, there was overwhelming support for Motor Drive. Motor Drive discourages Volt Switch pivots from acting as it would effectively give CAP28 a much wanted +1 boost to speed, which would effectively make it a much more dangerous mon to face on the field. Very pro-concept, but absolutely more situational than Neutralizing Gas.
• Punk Rock
  • When asked between Sheer Force and Punk Rock, many people expressed that Sheer Fore is a lot more dangerous when compared to Punk Rock. Punk Rock does limit our boosting moves, but that's not awful in means of checking CAP28's power in the grand scheme of things. Punk Rock does a nice job at boosting specific special moves that allow for CAP28 to increase its efficiency at dealing high amounts of damage some specific STAB and coverage moves. Furthermore, Punk Rock will absolutely not overshadow Neutralizing Gas either, so I feel comfortable slating this ability.
• Thick Fat
  • Thick Fat had near universal support in this thread for vastly improving out matchups against Rotom-H, Astrolotl, and Krilowott, effectively giving CAP28 more abilities to come in and prevent pivoting from these common pivots. Thick Fat also helps account for our weakness to Ice types in general, and removes the Fire weakness that the Bug type brings.

A couple comments on abilities that didn't make the slate:

• Sheer Force
  • If you really want to know how much scrutiny I took before choosing Punk Rock over Sheer Force, I literally went through every post in this thread and counted the "pro-Sheer force" + "anti-Punk Rock" posts vs "Pro-Punk Rock" + "Anti Sheer Force" and all the neutral counts. Ultimately Punk rock Barely edged out Sheer Force.
• Skill Link
  • While there was support for Skill Link, a lot of general posts I saw involving Skill Link were generally concerned with how Scale Shot would work on it. The justification to incclude this on the slate was difficult when there was a very major divide on opinion here.
• Stakeout and Analytic
  • Like with ability 1, there were a lot of both pro and anti Stakeout/Analytic posts. However, this time around there seemed to be a lot more hesitation with these abilities as a whole given that we now known how hard that they would both hit using our new stats. I wanted to do better about taking community feedback into a account, but there was a lot more "anti" posts this time around.
• Sturdy
  • In the last few posts Sturdy got some momentum, and as a player I too would've been really interested to see what it could do. However, compared to the other abilities on the slate, Sturdy was missing the overall support that all the others had, so I have a hard time justifying slating it without significant personal bias.

 

[Mx]

I'm very happy with this slate so this has my approval without any need for alterations.