I would like to clear up an error the argument that people arguing against no secondary ability the error is they think that just because Heatran out classes it that know one would use CAP 3. Let me lead you to http://www.smogon.com/bw/pokemon/pinsir/uu where the entire purpose of using Pinser in UU is that it allows you to basically get around species clause and have two Heracrosses. Also, quite frankly, Heracross outclasses Pinser much more than Heatran outclasses CAP 3. Also if someone switches in a poke that wants to use a fighting type attack on Heatran then you can just switch in CAP 3. The main way I see this being used competitively is balloon Heatran and scarf CAP 3 or vice versa and wallah to Heatrans on you sun team which would bee very anti-metagame during the CAP 3 play test because rain teams would run rampant in attempt to use dry skin to its fullest. In spit od the fact that it looks that I'm arguing for NSA I actually feel that we should have some form of SA.
-
The moderators of this forum can be found in the CAP forum staff directory.
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
-
Congrats to the winners of the 2023 Smog Awards!
CAP 14 CAP 3 - Part 7 - Flavor Ability Discussion
- Thread starter Deck Knight
- Start date
- Status
This would be a much more compelling argument if Pinsir were not NU - no one uses Pinsir in UU precisely because Heracross exists. This is not to discount a possible double-dragon strategy CAP could run with Heatran, but note that they will massively increase typing redundancy (Ninetales, Heatran, CAP...)
Honestly, if I were to run CAP on a sun team, I would do so with dry skin anyway - losing health each turn sucks, but being immune to water and being able to take advantage of rain (which sun normally has trouble with) is great.
I'd rather not add more potential to this CAP, and, let's face it, nothing is going to be used over Dry Skin outside of sun; the water immunity is just too good. Let's skip to the flavor aspect and give it Illuminate. It's a freaking lava lamp!
Alternatively (and I do support Capefeather's proposition), we could use a hindering ability to limit its use in sun. Normalize is an option not previously stated that would reduce CAP3's sun potential to zero.
Alternatively (and I do support Capefeather's proposition), we could use a hindering ability to limit its use in sun. Normalize is an option not previously stated that would reduce CAP3's sun potential to zero.
Okay can someone explain to me why giving a pokemon a tiny additional niche that has no threat of overshadowing the original niche other than possibly surprising the opponent a little is such a bad thing? I thought mind games were an important part of pokemon and I seriously can't see someone normally putting, say, flame body on a not-very-physically-bulky fire type who's supposed to be good for countering specially oriented water types.
So what your argument basically boils down to is that it's "not fair" for some abilities to be (probably) never considered. I'm sorry, but I just don't consider that compelling. Like it or not, there are abilities that have some competitive value but ultimately have the holder pining for something else. That is just the reality. That the CAP process might exclude such abilities from consideration is not a reason to back down on making this stage more than just giving an ability for the sake of canon or whatever else. Similar phenomena occur in Smogon's tiering system with BL/BL2/Jynx.
I'd like to throw in my lot with Magma Armor. Given that CAP3's shell is a housing for lava, and all.
Flame Body is a no brainer, and I really like the idea of Suction Cups. Illuminate is kinda clever, but I don't think I'd be able to sleep at night if I were to seriously suggest that for anything.
Has Shell Armor been mentioned at all? I'd say that and Illuminate would be my primary choices.
It's funny, I thought this was the flavor ability discussion, I didn't realize it was the secondary competitive ability poll. All sarcasm aside, I just feel like the secondary ability doesn't necessarily need to be a competitive ability. This guy already has a good ability in Dry Skin, so I feel like the second ability should be something that would make sense with the biology of the critter more so than be competitively viable. Flavor over usefulness, IOW.
On the basis of flavor, I also support the following abilities:
- Liquid Ooze
- Aftermath
- Sniper
- Poison Touch
- Sticky Hold
On the basis of flavor, I don't think the following abilities are as fitting:
- Download
- Suction Cups (debatable, but my opinion)
- Tangled Feet
- Cute Charm
- Magma Armor
- Oblivious (not bad, but not as good flavor-wise compared to Illuminate or the others)
- Flame Body
- none?
With regards to Capefeather's point, I can see the competitive reasons for having no further abilities, though flavor-wise, it'd be nice to have something else in there, especially something as useless as Illuminate.
If I'm to put aside flavor for a second, though... With regards to that argument, is getting STAB in the sun really worth having an utterly useless ability on a Pokemon like this? I could argue that, if you're not using lavalamp conesnail buddy for its unique twist of Fire-type and Dry Skin, you might as well use a different fire-type to sweep in the sun, like Heatran. No, I think that cape has a good argument, but I would argue that having a worthless ability would be as good as having no secondary abilities at all.
Alternatively, if you really, REALLY want to discourage using anything but Dry Skin, Truant is another alternative to nothing or Slow Start.
It's funny, I thought this was the flavor ability discussion, I didn't realize it was the secondary competitive ability poll. All sarcasm aside, I just feel like the secondary ability doesn't necessarily need to be a competitive ability. This guy already has a good ability in Dry Skin, so I feel like the second ability should be something that would make sense with the biology of the critter more so than be competitively viable. Flavor over usefulness, IOW.
On the basis of flavor, I also support the following abilities:
- Liquid Ooze
- Aftermath
- Sniper
- Poison Touch
- Sticky Hold
On the basis of flavor, I don't think the following abilities are as fitting:
- Download
- Suction Cups (debatable, but my opinion)
- Tangled Feet
- Cute Charm
- Magma Armor
- Oblivious (not bad, but not as good flavor-wise compared to Illuminate or the others)
- Flame Body
- none?
With regards to Capefeather's point, I can see the competitive reasons for having no further abilities, though flavor-wise, it'd be nice to have something else in there, especially something as useless as Illuminate.
If I'm to put aside flavor for a second, though... With regards to that argument, is getting STAB in the sun really worth having an utterly useless ability on a Pokemon like this? I could argue that, if you're not using lavalamp conesnail buddy for its unique twist of Fire-type and Dry Skin, you might as well use a different fire-type to sweep in the sun, like Heatran. No, I think that cape has a good argument, but I would argue that having a worthless ability would be as good as having no secondary abilities at all.
Alternatively, if you really, REALLY want to discourage using anything but Dry Skin, Truant is another alternative to nothing or Slow Start.
I think Suction Cups is the best ability here, or Illuminate. Both capture this Pokemon very well.
There was actually a point in the initial secondary ability discussion when DK said that NCA didn't mean the ability had to be useless - just largely overshadowed by Dry Skin. Just because his most recent post seems to be in agreement with your suggestion that the abilities should be useless doesn't mean that everyone is wrong to try and sell quasi-useful flavor abilities. The "suffocating moderation" part comes in when those who disagree are treated like they are violating CAP law or something (specifically this bothers me in cases where no such law exists) rather than just disagreeing in a discussion.capefeather said:
Considering that one of the purposes of these threads is to influence the TL's slate, can we let people talk about things not on the "temporary slate" without accusing them of messing up the discussion?
If simply being cute was qualification enough for Cute Charm, then there would be about 20 bajillion other Pokemon that 'should' also have it. The bottom line is that there are other abilities that suit CAP3 better on the basis of flavor, not the Cute Charm is necessarily not fitting.
not necessarily. But it IS fitting. so Cute Charm is, with a basis on flavor, reasonable.
Well, if it sounded like I was trying to force my opinions on people, I apologize. Honestly, I'm just trying to defend my overall reasoning for preferring no secondary ability, and my reply to Sonic's post was part of that.
Cute Charm is usually applied to Pokemon to emphasize their cuteness. We don't really need/want to do that with this CAP, right? Everyone can see it's cute. I prefer more flavourful options that draw out specific features of its design - Illuminate, Tangled Feet, etc.
Guys, I hope people realize that Slow Start is the most snail-tastic ability every.
not so much that as much as the argument against their inclusion is really really weak.
they are "too weak/non-competitive" to be seriously included in the discussion for a secondary ability/moveslot discussion, and, yet, when it comes to "flavor discussion" they can't be talked about either because they are "too strong/competitive."
These arguments are contradictory and are mutually exclusive to each other. If an ability or move lies within the continuum of "acceptable," it should be able to be considered. End of story. Now, deciding whether the item of discussion should be part of the "flavor" or "competitive" discussion is a hair that should be split by the discussion leader, but allowing it to get lost in some arbitrary void is foolish.
I remember back in the "competitive ability" section, there was a decent amount of support for Limber and/or Vital Spirit/Insomnia due to the unique niche of making it immune to 3 status effects . . . however, as nifty as that seems, it was, and rightfully so, deemed to be virtually never an competitive alternative to "Dry Skin" because the ability to switch in to a water attack in addition to a toxic or burning attack AND remove a weakness was considered far better making the other moves non-competitive. However, the way the discussion is going here, those moves couldn't ever be accepted because they have a compettive use, even if it pales in comparison to "dry skin".
The point is, you can't refuse to slate them because they are "not competitive enough" and then in the "non-competitie discussion" turn around and say they are "TOO competitive" to be slated. If they are non-competitive for the purposes of secondary ability discussion, then they are "non competitive" for his CAP and should instantly be allowed for "non-competitive" discussion.... I honestly can't believe that people are finding "non-competitive" to be such a narrow meaning that the ability actually should be normalize or slow start which have ZERO flavour just so that our CAP can never have any use on a sun team, and are actually calling "illuminate" competitive for this reason . . . it would be funny . . . if it weren't so messed up.
I agree That Slow Start is a good bet for CAP3 It's a snail. It's slow. However this does imply that that it speeds up at some point which really, a snail doesn't. I like Slow Start because I'm on Capefeather's side. We made CAP3 so he can't function well in Sun. By Picking a NCA, we are actually being competitive because we are giving CAP3 the option of playing in sun.
For Flavour, though I again concur with CF that it's absurd to be deciding something that is potentially competitive in a flavour poll, I believe that Illuminate is comfortably the best choice. What do Lava Lamps do for goodness' sake. However because of the usefullness that Illuminate has, (by having no negative use) I think Slow Start is a good choice for flavour while balancing the potential use of CAP3 in sun
For Flavour, though I again concur with CF that it's absurd to be deciding something that is potentially competitive in a flavour poll, I believe that Illuminate is comfortably the best choice. What do Lava Lamps do for goodness' sake. However because of the usefullness that Illuminate has, (by having no negative use) I think Slow Start is a good choice for flavour while balancing the potential use of CAP3 in sun
I basically can't come up with a point that's better than this for why I think capefeather's wrong, but basically one of the fun things about pokemon is that pokemon can do more than one thing, even if sometimes the second or third things are infinitely less useful.
That's why I think that Flame Body is a decent ability. Nobody's going to be using this thing to sponge physical hits for the most part, but having a good chance to burn and therefore cripple the "Turn" parts of volt-turn teams is a really cool niche and it's dumb to say "no no no it's not good enough an ability" and then when we're picking shitty abilities that nobody will really use but hey, who knows, maybe some intelligent player will come up with a cool strategy that we didn't originally think of (remember voodoom?).
Admittedly Illuminate is probably the most flavourful ability since it's a lamp, but...
Disagreeing with me is one thing. Telling me I'm wrong is another. See, what Sonic has done is fail to distinguish between the best abilities for the project and abilities that are "competitive" but are not the best abilities for the project. The former is dependent on the project and the latter largely isn't (though obviously there is occasionally some dependence on other aspects, e.g. Flame Body interacting with a 4x resisted U-turn). I don't even really care that much about insisting on NSA (though I still will vote it), and I recognize that there are different opinions and preferences on this. But to claim that my argument is weak and then answer with a weaker one is another matter entirely.
Besides, isn't "who knows, maybe some intelligent player will come up with a cool strategy that we didn't originally think of" a damning argument against the abilities you support, because then the ability isn't just flavour anymore?
Besides, isn't "who knows, maybe some intelligent player will come up with a cool strategy that we didn't originally think of" a damning argument against the abilities you support, because then the ability isn't just flavour anymore?
You have no chance to survive, make your time. I axed Cute Charm because I think a slate of seven will be more than sufficient, and yeah, there's a ton of cutemons. "Tangled Feet" has cuteness covered.
- Status