CAP 29 - Part 3 - Concept Assessment 2

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I agree with NitioWO on this one.

A bulky sweeper is not a bad route in itself but I am not sure how it distinguishes us from others that don't have Color Change to work with. Color Change is incredible at creating one free turn each time we have a positive interaction (Rillaboom being a prime example). Either our opponent use this turn to pivot us into a bad type or a switch-out into something that threatens, I am not sure this turn is enough for a sweep until late game. And at this stage, CAP29 will feel more like a late-game sweeper with a trick rather than a Pokemon working with Color Change. I understand that the goal is to improve our bulk through CM / BU so we can withstand the next SE hit (which will be the only SE hit thanks to Color Change) and that makes a lot of sense, but until we are in a situation we can set-up multiple times successfully (otherwise we will too weak without STABs) I am not sure why I would bring out CAP29 which in my mind is a waste of the chaos and pressure it can provides. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this.

Personally I am leaning towards an offensive / utility pivot or even some sort of utility / revenge killer (not unlike Scarf Jirachi or Crobat in other meta for example). In any case, speed is going to be the name of the game: that is what allows us to maintain some control over Color Change and truly threatens Pokemon like Kartana or Latios. We switch-in and either use our primary typing for immediate power or our Color Changed typing for immediate bulk and make progress with our turn (Knock-off, hazards, status, Taunt etc.). I agree that going full pivot with U-Turn / Volt Switch is meh as once again, I feel we are not really using Color Change.
We can also start to do fun stuff with Reflect Type but that is probably a bit too much!
 
I may just not be having it click, but I just don’t see how we can be a setup sweeper or tank. As others mention, there are already setup sweepers with STAB and status immunities and solid defensive typings. How can we compete with that? Color change alone isn’t going to buy much more time than they get from being put into similar circumstances (drop in on a resist/immune, enemy switches to something that can hit them next turn or drops status).

Without the massive advantage of spammable STAB, we’d be operating at 2/3s power relative to them, while vulnerable to status they are immune to. Coverage can help with this, but then we’d be down a ton of move slots just to stay on their level.

Also, it seems people aren’t getting why I chose to look at CC as 3.6 resistances (maybe I did my math wrong but that’s what I got for average number of monotype resists/immunes): That’s not for the first or second hit. That’s for the pokemon that switches in after. Sure, you force out a ‘mon with your typing, but after that you are mono type and vulnerable. If you are a setup sweeper with 4 resistances, you will get punished hard by most ‘mons that switch in, likely forcing you out. The longer color change is in effect, the more negative its effects are. The best benefit is against the first ‘mon you switch into; after that ‘mon leaves it is almost strictly negative in a big way.

In that oft quoted matchup, Wailord isn’t gonna stick around and hopelessly wail (heh) on Kecleon. It’s gonna switch, and whatever comes it will hit Kecleon hard, forcing Kecleon out. If Kecleon stays in, it suffer the same fate as Wailord; facing a matchup it is weak to and likely weak against (if for no other reason than a lack of STAB).

If we stay in, we’ll get ruined before we finish setup. I suggested pivoting for this very reason. It gains momentum on turns you switch rather than losing it.

As for whether pivoting negates the concept, not at all. I highly doubt the optimal play would be to just pivot out turn 1. We drop in, set up some annoying stuff (status, future sight/DD, whatever) and then as they’ve swapped in their answer, we jump ship with a parting U-turn or whatnot.

Color change still matters, as it allows us switches into things that we couldn’t. We would counter some types with our starting type but a much larger list if you factor in that first hit. We basically get to add 9 typings to our “good switch in” list on top of the ones we’d already have. A pivot would still want to utilize such things; it just doesn’t stick around long enough to see the big negatives of color change start to rear it’s head; it sees the best part of the ability and doubles down on it.
 
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I think it goes without saying that 29 should not have a secondary ability. As many have mentioned, it would be difficult to give the concept an ability that is just as detrimental as Color Change, without leaning towards one over another. Since the concept works heavily on a "defective" ability, keeping it as a single ability is much better than a struggle to keep things balanced with multiple abilities.
 

Sputnik

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I think that gearing this Pokemon in the direction of a pivot is the correct play. Quziel put it very well, but essentially this thing would be a pretty terrible option as a pure wall for obvious reasons. But a bulky pivot...well, that's more interesting for a lot of reasons. The list that Birkal posted is a good example as to why this should make sense. There are several very good Pokemon that we will naturally be able to pivot into and go from there. I think the set up sweeper and a few others do have potential, but for the most part I think a pivot is the way to go.

I think people are getting way too caught up in the "work with CC not in spite of CC" idea.
I disagree with this assessment. Yes, we know Color Change is a bad ability. That's why we chose it. It is, however, very possible to make a Pokemon that is capable of using its strengths. Hell, a theoretical bulky pivot set that has already been discussed is very capable of working with the ability and making good use of it assuming it is given the proper tools elsewhere. Working in spite of the ability, and focusing on that, would be a mistake and almost be a failure of the project in my opinion. We need to make a Pokemon that is capable of working with the ability because it does have positives that can be worked with.
 
Absolutely agree with the bulky pivot sentiment. I imagine our best scenario as CAP 29 is:

1. CAP 29 comes in and takes a SE or neutral attack from the opponent
2. CAP 29 now resists the attacking move in question
3. CAP 29 has the tools to force a switch, use a utility move, or switch out

I see the arguments for set-up, but I don't think there is going to be enough offensive pressure without reliable STABs to allow a CC mon to sweep. There would just be better options for this role on a team.
 

snake

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15) Which role(s) could we assign CAP29 that could lead to increased viability? Which potential role(s) for CAP29 will help us work with Color Change and its advantages? Which role(s) for CAP29 could potentially give us an even better match-up against our previously-assessed neutral ( / ) and positive ( + ) match-ups?
A setup sweeper - whether it's bulk-boosting (something like Calm Mind or Bulk Up) or speed boosting (like Dragon Dance) or both (Quiver Dance) - is an excellent role for CAP29 to take on as its primary role. It's a really cool way to take advantage of how Color Change. Just as your opponent can try to chain super effective hits, you can force your opponent into the scenario where CAP29 now resists the moves of their current Pokemon. This means you now have free turns with which to set up, and it offsets the damage difference lost by potentially losing STAB. Even having one free turn of setup can change the tide of battle when it comes to a setup sweeper, and I think this is a really cool way to work with Color Change, rather than in spite of it.

If I'm reading them right, the bulky pivot arguments I've seen in this thread are basically the same argument as mine - use CAP29 new resistance palette to generate free turns. The same bulky pivot arguments aren't wrong (or else my setup-sweeping argument would be wrong), so I'm not saying that.

To be clear, the following are my personal thoughts as a long-time CAP poster and not my thoughts as CAP Co-Leader: I think making a bulky pivot is well within CAP's comfort zone, so I think challenging ourselves to make this setup sweeper would be much more rewarding. I would really love to see CAP continue to really push its boundaries - not just making a Pokemon with a detrimental ability but also one that's a setup sweeper. We've done a really great job at making a lot of bulky pivots (think Tomohawk, Equilibra, Astrolotl - top Pokemon in the metagame right now) so I think we can keep pushing at our boundaries of our comfort zone of making a bulky pivot. Instead, we can focus on making a setup sweeper, which provides a more coherent direction and opportunity to explore this concept. We can have both setup and pivoting on the same Pokemon, so it's not an either-or scenario, but I think we should pursue this setup sweeping set as a primary role, and a pivoting set as a secondary role.
 
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Rabia

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In that oft quoted matchup, Wailord isn’t gonna stick around and hopelessly wail (heh) on Kecleon. It’s gonna switch, and whatever comes it will hit Kecleon hard, forcing Kecleon out. If Kecleon stays in, it suffer the same fate as Wailord; facing a matchup it is weak to and likely weak against (if for no other reason than a lack of STAB).
right so I'm not trying to be a dick here, but you very clearly do not play the metagame this matchup is common in and therefore really should not be commenting on it

there is a huge advantage to forcing wallbreakers into situations where they cannot rely on their most powerful tool to break through teams with. it gives you a much easier time 1) taking them on and 2) forcing them out, allowing you free turns to do literally whatever. free pressure is an extreme benefit that you are willingly understating in an attempt to minimize the benefits Color Change offers as an ability on a defensive Pokemon. you can harp all you want on whether or not a Pokemon will stay in against CAP 29 if they can no longer successfully beat it down because of the typing swap; that isn't relevant at all to the point at hand people are making when they cite the above matchup. instead, what's useful here is the free momentum you generate by denying the foe an easy time wallbreaking and forcing them out.
 
15) Which role(s) could we assign CAP29 that could lead to increased viability? Which potential role(s) for CAP29 will help us work with Color Change and its advantages? Which role(s) for CAP29 could potentially give us an even better match-up against our previously-assessed neutral ( / ) and positive ( + ) match-ups?
looks at watch Oh boy, it's Hot Take O'Clock!

I think that having CAP 29 be a setup sweeper is a bad idea. In fact, I believe that having CAP 29 take on an offensive role in general is a bad idea. The thing about offensive Pokemon is that STAB is a big part of their gameplan. There's a reason abilities like Protean and Libero are so good; they afford a free damage boost on all of the Pokemon's moves. Color Change, on the other hand, causes us to lose STAB, making our moves effectively weaker. We could set up to +6 and still miss out on a kill because of the power lost from the lack of STAB.

This is why I believe that CAP 29 should have a defensive role. Specifically, I think CAP 29 should either be a full-on wall or a defensive/utility pivot. Color Change means that CAP 29 can change its resistances on the fly, allowing it to counter multiple Pokemon at once. Going defensively will allow us to work with Color Change while also creating a very different and unique kind of wall.
 

quziel

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I will point out that we will actually have STAB a fair bit of the time. Teleport is an absurdly common part of the game, and means that both being brought in on teleport, and being brought in against teleport lead to you keeping your base typing. This also means that if we ever get brought in on a Recover, a double, a Spikes, we keep our base typing. Saying that we will not have access to our STAB is simply false because it is ignoring that we will absolutely have our base typing for the first 1-3 turns we're in very often, moreso if we force switches.

Instead its worth noting that practically we lose a bit of power (depending on how much we need our STAB) on being hit, and gain a bit of bulk. I also think its worth noting that without some sort of offensive presence we will be utterly at the opponent's mercy, without the ability to stop the opponent from exacting 2-3 turn combos, we will trivially be taken advantage of. I do not think we can afford to be a pure wall, but I do agree that we do need significant defensive merit; think more of a Hippowdon or Ferrothorn than a Toxapex or Blissey.
 
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I dont rly have much that is interesting or new to say but just wanted to say that I think Setup Sweeper is the way to go. Its something that is immediately pressuring opponents so they cant manipulate typing at will without some kind of repercussion, and most importantly it takes advantage of one of the few things that I consider to be Color Change's redeeming qualities, the inability for the majority of the tier to hit it super effectively twice in a row. This gives free turns to take advantage of weaker hits which can eventually be outhealed, shrugged off, taken advantage of etc.

One of the only types of pokemon that take advantage of entirely non-stab moves is defensive setup sweepers. Look at Magearna, Mega Latias (last gen), Aurumoth (last gen), Buzzwole (zyg metas), and theres probably other ones Im missing. But the idea is that these wincons can grab multiple boosts (fits the qualities of Color Change that i posted above) and are more reliant on being able to hit many things neutrally than maxing out on stab power. All of these Pokemon that use non-stab are using boosting moves that boost a defense, and this gives them the chance to reliably get more boosts as well as create situations where they can close out the game vs a team that non longer has something that can easily break through after a setup. This to me is where Color Change is lightly pointing.
https://www.smogon.com/dex/xy/pokemon/latias/ (Defensive +CM)
https://www.smogon.com/dex/ss/pokemon/magearna/ (SG + CM, others)

The other area is something like Mega Latias which was a 2 non-stab atks mon that just used its incredibly useful all-rounder stats to get stuff done and blanket check stuff, which was really useful in that metagame. Sorry I dont have a more indepth analysis there, but this is where I see the "pivot" route going, which isnt bad, but it needs to make sure it really shores up its unpredictable typing with reliable qualities that excel in many other areas.
https://www.smogon.com/dex/sm/pokemon/latias/

Last thing Id say is when I thought "what mons could replace their existing abil with CC and be fine" I thought of Latias, Volcarona, and Necrozma. They all fit the mold of being a fairly bulky mon that boosts offenses, defenses, and either has an initially high speed or boosts speed as well. These mons are all very famous for grabbing multiple boosts and Color Change would play nicely with them.

If I had to draw a through-line through all of the above, Itd be that 90% of the examples have all-rounder qualities to them. Defensively, some of them act as walls and sweep if the matchup allows, some rely on big stats to take initial hits and boost, some do both. And on the offensive side, they almost all have a big attack stat and high speed or the ability to boost speed- and this either helps them when they do launch non-stab moves, or it helps them feel useful in the matchups and situations where they cant boost yet.
 
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Zetalz

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Throwing my hat in with others on going for Setup Sweeper, either bulky or just in general. Also I fully agree with snake's sentiment that CAP really tends to favor going for the bulky pivot approach and could use some more experience taking other less traveled roads. Having said that I also wouldn't mind taking quziels approach to a Tank style build, as it's been a role of mon that's been slowly fading over the years, and I think it fits fairly well into playing to Color Change's strengths.

Unsure of my feelings on going for pivoting moves, but probably leaning to no. Even if we decided to go the bulky pivot route as CAP does I feel like they'd just be turning 29 into a uturnbot to avoid having to actually deal with color change's effect on the match 90% of time.
 

snake

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Color Change, on the other hand, causes us to lose STAB, making our moves effectively weaker. We could set up to +6 and still miss out on a kill because of the power lost from the lack of STAB.
While I see where you're coming from with this, one could argue that STAB is important on any mon, not just offensive ones, as the chip damage from a defensive Pokemon actually matters a lot. Basically, losing STAB is an issue for any Color Change mon, again not just offensive ones, and this is an issue that we'll have to actively work with throughout this entire project, regardless of the outcome of this discussion. That said, there are a lot of ways that CAP29 can switch in and not lose its STAB immediately, such as slow U-turn/Volt Switch; Teleport; switching into a Pokemon using Future Sight, Stealth Rock, Spikes; switching into a move that shares a typing with CAP29's base typing, etc. so I think the "losing STAB" point is a bit overblown. Yes, CAP29 will inevitably lose its STAB in a match, but CAP29 will be able to use its base STAB attacks some of the time because it's not alway going to switch into an attacking move. With that said,

This is why I believe that CAP 29 should have a defensive role. Specifically, I think CAP 29 should either be a full-on wall or a defensive/utility pivot. Color Change means that CAP 29 can change its resistances on the fly, allowing it to counter multiple Pokemon at once.
Basically, I think you've drawn the wrong conclusion. Setup actively tries to offset the power lost from STAB, and potential Defense, Special Defense, or Speed boosts can help CAP29 play around Color Change's type effect by being able to absorb a now-neutral or even now-super effective hit or simply by outspeeding whatever is trying to switch in to hit CAP29 with its now-neutral/now-super effective move. This is why I mentioned moves like Bulk Up, Calm Mind, and Dragon Dance in my last post, rather than strict offense-boosting moves like Swords Dance and Nasty Plot. If CAP29 can't punish an opponent's reactive play, it's going to get forced out just because the opponent has the space to switch into Pokemon that have super effective moves against it. And in my opinion, the best way to take advantage of an opponent's reactive play is to focus on having setup, leveraging the free turns that CAP29 gets by changing its typing against a Pokemon that spams Fire-type moves, Water-type moves, etc. Sure, CAP29 will likely need bulk for this to work, but I don't think a full-on wall, especially one that's passive, will work for Color Change.
 

spoo

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I’m in agreement with quziel, snake, pip, and others about setting our focus on bulky setup options. Initially I was skeptical and somewhat timid about this idea; making any setup sweeper is inherently a balancing act, and we have very little information about color change to work with, meaning it will be difficult to make educated decisions that lead to a balanced and effective end product. This is only compounded by CAP’s hit-or-miss track record with setup Pokemon, and given that choosing this concept was risky to begin with, I wasn’t too keen on taking another sizable risk so early in the process. However, I’ve since wandered out of this mindset—I very much agree with snake’s notion that we should continue to push CAP’s boundaries, but most of all, I think the wealth of potential for a setup path is too hard to pass up. The more I thought about it, the more interesting this path became to me, and playing a few custom games against quziel helped solidify this feeling even further.

Bulky setup has no shortage of issues as our primary focus, and it’s important to acknowledge these issues, but I don’t think that any of them are unresolvable. Being weak to toxic is devastating in many respects, but it’s also a built-in weakness that can be compensated for in our power budget through other options—I think of Volcarona here, a mon with a crippling weakness to status that was still a devastating bulky setup sweeper in IOA when the meta was more favorable to it. Having inconsistent STABs is problematic too, but I think this issue is being slightly overblown by some; I don’t want to rehash quziel’s points entirely but he elaborates on this really well in his most recent post. Setup is a fundamentally challenging route, but I really don’t think we should shy away from the potential for some great conversations and an end product that literally won’t function like anything else in the game. It’s not every day that CAP gets to make something so totally unique as what we’re facing now, and I think that’s a super exciting prospect.

To elaborate on other routes some more, I don’t love the idea of being a pure wall, because (mostly reiterating others here) we don’t have the offensive pressure to deny opponents from exploiting us, and I don’t think we should be a pure pivot as this doesn’t heavily engage with the ability. I also don’t love the idea of a pure pivot because of our incentive to take SE attacks and resist the next hit; I’m imagining scenarios where we come in on a SE hit and take ~60%, we’re forced to recover, and our opponent switches out to something that can threaten us. What did CAP29 actually accomplish here? Despite the fact that we generated a free turn, we were forced to waste it recovering. I think snake and others have the right idea that defensive boosting is a great way to circumvent this issue and take advantage of our free turns instead of wasting them. I also say pure pivot because pivoting, in some way or another, will be inevitable. I expect Birkal to contextualize this idea more in the future, so I won’t get too into it myself, but there was a great conversation in #cap earlier today about how even a bulky setup mon will still probably spend a lot of its time pivoting around.
 

Birkal

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No new questions today, just wanted to comment on a trend I'm seeing in the conversation: CAP29 and its relation to natural bulk. Obviously we're going to have a lot of discussion during stats with Stats Leader 2spoopy4u in a few weeks, and we will have a lot of important questions to answer (especially about speed), but I think it's worth me pointing out how often the concept of CAP29 having some immediate bulk has come up in the past 24 hours. There's a prevailing idea of CAP29 wanting to be able to come in on a SE hit and abuse the fact that it can't be KO'd by that same move on the next turn due to Color Change (spoo talked about that directly above this post). This is a fantastic utilization of the good aspects of Color Change, and this is a viable direction for us to pursue as a result. If we're going to be soaking up a SE hit followed by a neutral/not very effective hit, there's a natural amount of bulk that we're going to need.

If people would like to comment on CAP29's relationship with bulk, I'd love to read more posts about it. As it stands currently, I feel the community consensus is leaning in that starting direction of good bulk in terms of what our role will look like. Now, which direction we'll continue to lean (pivot vs wallbreaker vs setup vs others) is something I'd continue to discuss and ponder.

Also, in my last post, I linked to the OU Role Compendium, totally oblivious to the fact that there is a CAP Role Compendium by SM CAP champ and overall goodboy Lasen. My bad! Make sure to use that thread for future discussion about CAP29's role(s). As a final note, I just wanted to leave a brief comment on this:

To be clear, the following are my personal thoughts as a long-time CAP poster and not my thoughts as CAP Co-Leader: I think making a bulky pivot is well within CAP's comfort zone, so I think challenging ourselves to make this setup sweeper would be much more rewarding. I would really love to see CAP continue to really push its boundaries - not just making a Pokemon with a detrimental ability but also one that's a setup sweeper. We've done a really great job at making a lot of bulky pivots (think Tomohawk, Equilibra, Astrolotl - top Pokemon in the metagame right now) so I think we can keep pushing at our boundaries of our comfort zone of making a bulky pivot.
Every CAP that we create is made both in total isolation from one another, and with complete consideration for each other. I know that snake is aware of this, but I'm explaining this for newer contributors to the project who might misconstrue this post. We wouldn't avoid making CAP29 a Dragon-type just because CAP28 (Miasmaw) and CAP27 (Astrolotl) have that typing as our most recent CAPs, for example. "Repeats" are totally accepted in CAP; it should be noted that we don't need to avoid making a bulky pivot just because several of the top CAPs in the metagame are also bulky pivots. Conversely, the health of the CAP metagame is something we care deeply about, which is why we nixed Entrainment as a community in Concept Assessment 1. There's two sides to making each CAP coin, so to speak, and we need both sides.

We're here to suit this concept in the best way possible, and if we end up deciding that's through a bulky pivot (which, in my opinion has some downsides that I'll get into tomorrow), there's nothing wrong with that in our CAP29 process. We are already extremely out of our comfort zone by making a Pokemon with a bad ability, as almost every CAP has a good-to-fantastic ability, and the conversations thus far have been fascinating. I'm sure this is going to be a really unique end product for the metagame thanks to the phenomenal choice of Color Change as our defective ability. Again, I'm not saying that bulky pivot is the optimal route here, but implying that making a bulky pivot Color Change CAP29 is "less rewarding" than other avenues doesn't sit well with me personally. CAP29 has already been an extremely rewarding process, and I have full faith that the TLT will continue to lead this process into more rewarding conversations in the near future.
 
At this point I'm pretty adamantly against the pivoting route. Admittedly, we learned in the previous CAP that every Pokemon pivots to some extent, so the route's not entirely unavoidable, but nonetheless, I'm not a fan of drawing CAP29's main focus toward pivoting. Frankly, I find the option to be uninteresting. The metagame is full of defensive Pokemon that are able to soak up a hit, provide some sort of utility, and then switch out, whether it be Tomohawk, Equilibra, Slowking, Toxapex, Astrolotl, and more. The concept of a bulky pivot is far from unexplored in the current meta, and I don't find that Color Change adds anything new to the archetype- while it may give an interesting list of mons we check, that's about it. From here, answering what the mon does to accomplish its goal of pivoting seems quite linear, and I fear that this mon will struggle to distinguish itself in a metagame where bulky pivots are so abundant. A Color Change mon can pretty viably use pivoting, but it just isn't the route I want to take.

That being said, I'd like to throw in my support for the bulky setup route. Sure, we inherently lack some notable attributes of bulky setup mons, notably a Toxic immunity and a spammable STAB, but nevertheless, I think that Color Change is really interesting towards this archetype because of the unique strength it provides in exchange: It makes it quite for the opponent to chain two supereffective hits in a row, which is often necessary to force out these bulky threats. For instance, Clefable typically takes around 80% from a Cinderace Gunk Shot and is forced out as a result, but a Color Change Clefable could Softboiled on the turn Cinderace uses Gunk Shot, and then proceed to beat it thanks to its new Poison typing. The existence of these distinct strengths and weaknesses I believe will make for some great discussions and will let us create a truly unique final product.
 

MrDollSteak

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I don't have much to add except to reiterate and support the arguments that various users have made in favour of a bulky set-up sweeping route. As others have said, it is one of the most common roles that can forego natural stab in favour of better coverage, and is well suited to the very few marginal benefits of Colour Change, while simultaneously patching up some of the ability's crippling weaknesses. I think the key to balancing this will be along the lines of bulk and speed tiers primarily, but otherwise doesn't strike me as too restricting whatsoever, and will lead to a lot more depth of discussion. While a bulky utility pivot isn't an inherently bad role, I do wonder if it wouldn't be too challenging to find the right balance of moves to capitalise on Colour Change's benefits and that don't simultaneously require STAB to be viable, and may also not provide enough guidance to the stats process. Set-up on the other hand I think provides a far more concrete power ceiling and may allow for stat spreads to be more coherent. Either way, I don't think we should necessarily discount including the typical sorts of utility moves that a bulky pivot would typically run, more that focusing exclusively on that role itself might restrict discussion.
 
Looking at the compendium, I still think an offensive pivot is the most valuable use of Color Change because it creates an immediate swing in momentum and can create a lot of chaos midfight. But I see the appeal of a bulky set-up sweeper and I don't see why we shouldn't try to combine these two roles, not unlike what Latias, Scizor, Tornadus-T or heck, even Garchomp can do (in previous or current gen). They are decently bulky Pokemon which are able to come and go frequently but can also set-up for themselves when it's needed.

Honestly it feels even better: having that extra layer of unpredictability: if I face CAP29, will I try to chain moves to SE ones, which may take some time against a sweeper but will be enough against a pivot or do I go straight for a defensive answer, which will stop a sweeper but lose momentum against a pivot? I feel the ability to weave in and out of fights and immediately pose some kind of a threat is important if we want to fully use Color Change.

To answer the question of bulk is also to try to define our speed. Being able to switch in, stomach a SE hit and heal ourselves as we now resist this move is much easier if we are faster than the opponent. All in all, I think we need "good enough" bulk. Latias and Garchomp are good examples of that, even if we are probably looking at higher spreads than what we are looking. We want to be able to take coverage SE hits or SE STABs coming for non-offensive Pokemon (if we are weak to Fire for example, Defensive Heatran is ok, Mystical Fire from Latios is ok but Cinderace is not ok) and still have ~20% HP to work with. Without poll-jumping that seems quite a lot though, like Jirachi-tier bulk.
 
I don’t have to add much to what has been said about pursuing a bulky set up route.
It inherently plays with the detriments and benefits that Color Change offers and thus looks very pro concept to me.
I also wouldn’t disregard bulky pivoting though, since a lot of previously successfull bulky set up mons have filled both these niches. Pokémon like Latias, Mega Scizor, Clefable and Tapu Fini come to mind, that function as Walls, utility Pivots or stall breakers early game, but can take advantage of the free turns they force with their defensive role to set up late game to sweep.

I would caution against only going into a bulky pivot or utility role only, because I fear, that with how Color Change works, we’d be forced to recover a lot more often then other mons with in this role have to, essentially turning the momentum we could have generated on its head.
Mons like Pex or Ferro can sit in front of other Pokémon, because they have stellar typings, absurd bulk, amazing or at least great abilities and means of recovery, that allow them to pressure the opponent more often, then one would think looking at their stats.
Ferro and Pex can click knock, scald or Spikes more often, because they don’t need extra turns to recover, a luxury we might not have.
We need the ability and opportunity to pressure our opponent the moment we are in, which for me means a way to cripple and/or damage them really hard, or set up rather than just being a recover bot, which imo points more in the direction of a tankt build.
 
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jas61292

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To expand beyond this short point: I believe that a pokemon centered around slow pivoting moves (the most likely interpretation of "Pivot" so far) would be ignoring the potential of Color Change to offer very engaging defensive gameplay, and as such I think a pure pivot role is probably not the best choice for us. Any Pokemon that takes one-two hits and then immediately slow pivots out is basically ignoring Color Change and only using the merits of its base typing. I think being at least partially a pivot is well, inherent in any pokemon that isn't a pure setup sweeper, so we should absolutely keep pivot-based gameplay in mind, just that we shouldn't structure the rest of this CAP around a traditional slow-pivot move user.
With regard to our role, I think this paragraph here summarizes my thoughts perfectly. Making ourselves a pivot seems to very much be an attempt to ignore our ability as much as possible. We would come in on our natural resists, ideally against something that uses moves whose types resist themselves, and then switch out once they switch. We would rarely actually be interacting with our own ability, in a positive or negative way. And while I will not say this is necessarily against the concept, I do think it is the least interesting role we could choose. Sure, we might succeed with our ability, but we would do so mainly by ignoring it. And it was for similar reasons to that that we have decided to avoid certain other things so far (such as ability changing and certain abilities that are easier to play around).

Now, as for what role we should actually take, I would probably also be in the set-up sweeper camp, as I think that is the best way to both overcome a potential lack of STAB, and also enforce that we actually strive to interact with our ability. Changing to types that resist opponents movepools provides the perfect opportunity to set up, and with set up, the actual power behind our moves can often end up mattering less than the coverage they provide, with can help mitigate any STAB issues.

That being said I will say that I am not as concerned about the STAB issue as some people are, as we could certainly give ourselves a movepool with moves of the types we are most likely to switch into and thus become. STABs will certainly not be as reliable as on most mons, but really, the bigger thing is that getting a STAB boost could easily rely more on our choices in the movepool stage than the type stage. But I don't think that limits our direction in any way. I believe that we can easily do either an offensive or defensive role, if we so choose. But I personally see the set up offensive route as the most attractive.
 
I'm leaning towards the offensive pivot option. Color Change is an ability that can be easily played around defensively, but I feel like giving it an offensive twist to punish the foe's attack attempts sounds like the best use we can make out of the ability to me. Of course, it would need a certain bulk to be able to use its ability efficiently.
 
Again, I'm not saying that bulky pivot is the optimal route here, but implying that making a bulky pivot Color Change CAP29 is "less rewarding" than other avenues doesn't sit well with me personally. CAP29 has already been an extremely rewarding process, and I have full faith that the TLT will continue to lead this process into more rewarding conversations in the near future.
Agree with this. I've been fighting in the pivot corner for a while now, mostly because I'm of the opinion that as a role, its interaction with CC isn't low enough to warrant that being a reason to discount it.

However, after some great conversations with other users and thinking about this for a while, I've also come to support the bulky set-up role. As multiple other people have stated, some pivoting is going to be unavoidable. I hope I'm not polljumping here, but I think it's likely 29 is gonna have some bulk.

Pivoting and set-up aren't mutually exclusive. It's been useful for me personally to imagine this mon as a pivot with set-up options, or as a set-up mon with the ability to pivot (not specifically pivoting moves, but pivoting by virtue of its typing, CC and stats). I was concerned this would split our attention between building a good pivot and building a good set-up mon, but I no longer think that will be the case. If we go with the set-up role, I don't think we're condemning 29 to run the set-up move on 100% of its sets. That's not to say it can't be viable with only one set, but I don't think it should be our GOAL to create a mon that can only run one set.

That said, I still wouldn't kick a pure pivot out of bed. I just think a set-up mon is going to pivoting a little bit anyway, so I can have my cake and eat it too.
 

Birkal

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I think the community consensus is close-to-unanimous when it comes to which role should be our primary focus for CAP29's role: a bulky set-up sweeper. There were some other routes provided in this thread that could be compelling, but nothing captured our community's imagination quite like having some decent (or better) bulk paired with a set-up move. I personally find this to be the most convincing route to go, but I'll let those who have already posted in this thread serve as my voice for why I find myself so enamored with the pairing of bulky set-up sweeper with our defective ability concept:

quziel - "Color Change denies us STAB, which is practically a power decrease after being hit, and gives us the ability to avoid being hit SE twice in a row in most situations. The former quality is one that can be mitigated by setup increasing the power of our attacks, and the latter is best utilized on a bulky mon."
flying moose - "I think we will have the highest chance of success if we are able to comfortably choose between pivoting and setup roles."
dex18 - "Because the opponent has the ability to control our typing, being able to defensively boost and then recover through supereffective coverage moves from mons like Zapdos is a super-viable way to ensure CAP 29 a niche in the metagame. I don't think we have the room for frailty in the concept."
shnowshner - "Notably, this route [setup sweeper] looks to better our matchup with a lot of the defensive Pokemon that hover around the neutral ( / ) zone, those being the likes of Blissey, Slowbro, Hippo, Clefable, and non-Haze Toxapex, among others."
NitioWO - "A set-up mon is in a unique position to make even chained SE hits less threatening by boosting defenses. But it would still be suspect to the usual pitfalls of defensive set-up: revenge-killing, phazing, and toxic."
snake_rattler - "Even having one free turn of setup can change the tide of battle when it comes to a setup sweeper, and I think this is a really cool way to work with Color Change, rather than in spite of it."
Pipotchi - "[Bulky setup sweeping] is something that is immediately pressuring opponents so they cant manipulate typing at will without some kind of repercussion, and most importantly it takes advantage of one of the few things that I consider to be Color Change's redeeming qualities, the inability for the majority of the tier to hit it super effectively twice in a row."
Darek851 - "[Bulky setup sweeping] makes it quite [difficult] for the opponent to chain two supereffective hits in a row, which is often necessary to force out these bulky threats"
MrDollSteak - "[Bulky setup sweeping] is one of the most common roles that can forego natural stab in favour of better coverage, and is well suited to the very few marginal benefits of Colour Change, while simultaneously patching up some of the ability's crippling weaknesses"
Amamama - "[Bulky setup sweeping] inherently plays with the detriments and benefits that Color Change offers and thus looks very pro concept to me."
jas61292 - "Changing to types that resist opponents movepools provides the perfect opportunity to set up, and with set up, the actual power behind our moves can often end up mattering less than the coverage they provide, with can help mitigate any STAB issues."
All of these reasons (and more) make a pretty convincing case for why being built as a setup sweeper in mind is ideal for CAP29 with Color Change. It leverages the advantages of Color Change and will provide pressure when we're able to successfully manufacture a free turn thanks to our ability. Bulk is a natural pairing with our ability as well, since it allows us to take a super-effective hit, but still take an advantage of the next turn where we can't be KO'd by the same super-effective move.

Moving forward, we'll consider bulky set-up sweeper to be our primary role for CAP29. A few notes on what precisely means: how CAP29 defines its own bulk could be covered through our stats and/or movepool stages; our set-up move(s) could boost offenses, defenses, or both simultaneously; CAP29 is not limited to having set-up sweeping being its only role.

That last point is the one I'd like to elaborate on here. There was also a significant discussion on whether or not CAP29 should be a pivot, and I found that debate to be enthralling. Ultimately, I agree with 2spoopy4u that pivoting, in some form or another, is inevitable for CAP29. We're going to be switching in, hoping to fish for a match-up against another mon with a moveset that we can manufacture a free turn against. But if that goes south, CAP29 is going to be switching out a fair bit too. Furthermore, our natural bulk (that we're adding to compliment Color Change, remember) makes CAP29 a natural fit to switch in, take a hit, and start spinning up momentum thanks to its new typing. Our focus moving forward will be on making a set-up sweeper, yes, but if CAP29 ends up being a pivot in some capacity, I wouldn't consider that a failure. We'll get into the discussion on whether or not CAP29 should have a pivoting move during Moveset Discussion with SHSP in a couple of weeks, but we don't know enough about CAP29 at this time to say definitively that it won't be a pivot in some form. CM Clefable, BU Corviknight, NP Slowking, NP Slowking-G, CM Tapu Fini, and CM Suicune are all examples of set-up sweepers that are also considered defensive pivot mons. Pivoting and set-up sweeping aren't mutually exclusive for a single mon, so if CAP29 ends up doing some pivoting in some form, I wouldn't consider that to be a failure of this concept. It was inevitable that we would be pivoting in some capacity in the metagame, but what we can do is choose to focus on set-up sweeping as our primary role for CAP29, which is what we've done in this thread.

With that all being said, I do think there is further ground to explore for what secondary roles might be beneficial for our concept. Let me pose my last question here:

16) With CAP29's creation process being focused on a bulky set-up sweeper, what other roles do you think CAP29 could potentially fulfill in tandem with its ability of Color Change? Remember to use the CAP Role Compendium to search for other roles. This could include thoughts on how Color Change naturally pairs CAP29 up with the following potential secondary roles: utility (hazards setting, hazard control, cleric, and item manipulation), wallbreaker, offensive pivot, choiced user, priority user, wall, defensive pivot, boost remover, and potential advantages serving on teams with weather or Trick Room.​

Go ahead and respond to this question, or any of the other ones in this thread. I don't think any of the responses to Question #16 here will be included officially in the summation post at the end of this thread, but I do think it's important to do a preliminary search into what other secondary roles might suit us. Otherwise, double check the Generalizations about CAP29 that I posted earlier in this thread and respond to any of these points that you may disagree with. I'll be closing this thread in 24 hours, so get your final thoughts in before we move to Typing Discussion with quziel !
 
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With regard to our role, I think this paragraph here summarizes my thoughts perfectly. Making ourselves a pivot seems to very much be an attempt to ignore our ability as much as possible. We would come in on our natural resists, ideally against something that uses moves whose types resist themselves, and then switch out once they switch. We would rarely actually be interacting with our own ability, in a positive or negative way. And while I will not say this is necessarily against the concept, I do think it is the least interesting role we could choose. Sure, we might succeed with our ability, but we would do so mainly by ignoring it. And it was for similar reasons to that that we have decided to avoid certain other things so far (such as ability changing and certain abilities that are easier to play around).

Now, as for what role we should actually take, I would probably also be in the set-up sweeper camp, as I think that is the best way to both overcome a potential lack of STAB, and also enforce that we actually strive to interact with our ability. Changing to types that resist opponents movepools provides the perfect opportunity to set up, and with set up, the actual power behind our moves can often end up mattering less than the coverage they provide, with can help mitigate any STAB issues.

That being said I will say that I am not as concerned about the STAB issue as some people are, as we could certainly give ourselves a movepool with moves of the types we are most likely to switch into and thus become. STABs will certainly not be as reliable as on most mons, but really, the bigger thing is that getting a STAB boost could easily rely more on our choices in the movepool stage than the type stage. But I don't think that limits our direction in any way. I believe that we can easily do either an offensive or defensive role, if we so choose. But I personally see the set up offensive route as the most attractive.
I completely disagree. I think going the pivot route uses 29’s color Change-same type resist advantage to the max. I think to say it’s an avoidance of color Change isn’t a fair statement.
 
Great thing about a set up sweeper that is designed to generate easy free turns is that our other roles are only really limited by how many moves we needs to be a viable offensive threat. Assume we use 1-2 attacking moves, and counting our boosting move of choice, we can easily have 2-1 free move slots. Anything from U-Turn to strength sap to Defog to hazards or even a double dance set are all viable.

Personally I think pivot and Cleric are the two best “sub roles” to pair with a set up sweeper.

pivots been discussed a lot so I don’t feel the need to go over it.
But the Cleric options seem just as important as the pivot options, 29 will constantly be risking it self switching into attacks having a viable way to maximize longevity with your free turns will be critical to having staying power in a battle
 
I feel like it’s probably good to just shelve the secondary role discussion till movepool. Give it cleric moves and it becomes a cleric. Pivoting moves, pivot. So on. There’s not much point holding this discussion now, given almost every secondary role will be decided by the movepool.

That said there are a few roles I think it unlikely we’ll get: Wallbreaker is nearly incompatible with us due to a lack of STAB; we can’t devote enough to offenses to make up for that without an absurd statline, given the necessary bulk for our primary role. Choice is also off the board for similar reason but worse; we need coverage to make up for STAB so we can’t risk committing to a single non-STAB move.

The last role we won’t get is weather of any type. We will assumably be pretty fast given how nice it is to get off a hit before we change type. So trick room is most likely off the table. The other weather types all depend on typing or abilities, which we have neither. So it seems unlikely we’d have any reason to want to be one of those roles.

Any other role is on the table to some degree, and will likely be decided by the movepool we give this CAP.
 
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