CAP 30 - Part 5 - Primary Ability Discussion 30b

[psykokitty]

Just would also like to say that some users seem to have this mentality that because things like Corrosion and Water Bubble received so much discussion that we are beholden to slate them, despite the numerous concerns presented against them, which is frankly just bollocks.

This seems like it was directed towards my previous post, and I'd like to respond to a few key points:

Ideally we want as tight of a slate of viable and well-liked options....

Agreed on the viable part - In the specific context of this thread, I think both Corrosion and Water Bubble have been demonstrated to be so by their proponents. I also agree with the well-liked bit - both of these abilities have had numerous users voice their support, with reactions showing additional people agreeing with them. In my opinion, that makes them well-liked. These abilities wouldn't have received the amount of support or discussion they have otherwise. They are also disliked (hence the controversy), but well-liked nonetheless. But that's just my personal opinion/interpretation of the term you used. How do we as a community measure how well-liked something is? Must we have universal consensus before something hits the slate?

Having your desired option not be universally well-received and possibly be denied is not a new concept here at CAP, users should be prepared to see things they like not make the cut if the community pushback is strong enough.

True. Nothing should be universally accepted without scrutiny. The opposite of what you said should also be true; users should be prepared to see something they pushed back on make the slate, if community support is strong enough. In my opinion, Corrosion and Water Bubble have met this qualification.

It might sound harsh but that's just how things are, if we included every heavily talked about controversial option in previous projects we wouldn't be where we are now.

I wanted to explore this final point a little more - this might be getting a bit into PRC territory, but let's take stock of where we are now. CAP is at a place where determining a slate hinges on how many posts people make in favor/against a certain ability/typing/etc in a small window of time. This is essentially exactly what voting is, just without the explanations. It really feels like we're at a point where we're voting twice - once by making a post to voice an opinion on what we should vote on, and then again with the actual vote. What this does is cut out people who wish to reduce redundancy in the thread - at my latest haphazard count, there were 9 users who used reactions to show they agreed with my stance that both Water Bubble and Corrosion should be slated, and yet have made 0 other posts anywhere in this thread. I don't want to speak on behalf of them, but if their thought process is anything like mine usually is, those 9 people haven't made separate posts because they feel like I said it well enough, so why clog up the thread? "Well, if they want to see the options on the slate, these users should be making posts to express their opinions!" - We're going to get short posts listing which options people like, and which ones they dislike - in essence, their voting ballots. And so, basically we'd just be voting twice. But I digress...

Controversial =/= overwhelmingly unpopular: it means split popularity. I think slating controversial options is the only way to truly gauge where the community lands on them. I don't think including one or two additional options to slates in previous projects would have derailed CAP on its progress to where it is now, nor do I think they would result in a sharp increase in Aurumoth-level broken final products. With enough reservation, the controversial options will lose in the polls anyway; not slating them runs the risk of missing out on learning of the 'silent support' an idea may have.

... I hope that was mostly coherent. I'm running on very little sleep and probably got a bit rambly there at the end, but I stand behind the sentiment of all I've included here.

 

[Tadasuke]

Alright everybody, it's time for the preliminary slate! After what's been a considerable wealth of discussion, I've narrowed things down to the following six options. Though some may be fairly controversial picks, there's been a notable lack of community consensus on a few of these abilities. Due to the divide in the community's outlook on them, I've decided to slate both, with the option to remove one or both of them if the community can take a clear and unified position on them. Without further ado, slate is below.

• Corrosion: The first of the highly controversial picks, Corrosion allots us an incredibly high power ceiling and lets us opt in for a fairly challenging and intriguing process. Although it may prove difficult to balance, I believe that the community and CAP leadership are more than capable of making a mon that uses this ability effectively without necessarily breaking the meta. I don't believe the margin for success with Corrosion is as razor thin as some have made it out to be, and the uniqueness of this ability's functionality can help it carve out an interesting and effective niche in the meta.
• Fluffy: Of all the abilities that provide a direct reduction damage, this one seemed to garner the most support. Although it's a bit more situational that the broad boosts to defenses provided by options like Fur Coat or Filter, the general consensus seems to support this for the added dynamics it gives to specific matchups. It seems to offer more interesting design spaces than straight defensive boosts.
• No Guard: Despite the overlap this ability may seem to have with 30i's role as a wallbreaker, No Guard's capability to give perfect accuracy to otherwise unreliable status moves or inaccurate attacks with strong secondary effects provides us with ample space to help differentiate 30b from its item carrying form. There's a lot of room to work with when dealing with this ability, and if chosen I think we'd be in for a very entertaining movepool stage.
• Stamina: The direct boost to physical defense that this ability gives us leaves a lot of options open that can work within the scope of the project. While it's generally good to receive a +1 boost to a mon's physical defense, the potential Stamina has to snowball into becoming a gargantuan physical wall seems to make this a widely supported option for the slate. Boosting the strength of Body Press is just one of many great strategies bolstered by this ability in order to carve out a separate niche from CAP 30i, and the broad-ranging number of strategies that would otherwise benefit from the additional bulk only gives us a wider berth of options down the line.
• Thick Fat: Though other defensive abilities on this slate offer us protection from a wide variety of popular threats in the CAP Metagame, Thick Fat's specificity with regards to buttressing 30b's matchups against prominent Ice and Fire types such as Weavile, Heatran, and Kyurem gives the project an immediate purpose and target around which a potent defensively functioning mon can be built.
• Water Bubble: The second of the two highly controversial options to appear on this slate, Water Bubble's overall strength and incredible defensive utility sets it apart from other abilities as one of the most powerful options here. Though the power ceiling for this ability is incredibly high, I believe it can be optimized in a manner that doesn't overstep the boundaries we set when making a new CAP. Adding tertiary STAB options to our movepool only serves to widen the scope of how this mon can function offensively, and can be navigated in such a way that it won't necessarily be overbearing. Providing a defensive boost against Fire types and and immunity to burn just gives us more room to work with when figuring out exactly how to fulfill the concept with this ability while still creating a mon that's unique from its other form.

Now, to briefly address some of the more heavily discussed abilities that didn't quite make the preliminary slate.

• Wandering Spirit: Community consensus seems to dictate that this ability a bit too niche and ineffective to be properly optimized by this process. The limit it poses in terms of how often it can make a serious difference in any given battle seems quite lackluster, as it's a fairly simple task for an experienced player to navigate around this ability while not losing much momentum in their gameplay.
• Gale Wings: This ability has lost a lot of relevance since its heyday in XY and ORAS, and it's clear to see why. Guaranteeing that the mon can stay at full health long enough for it to come in and use its ability effectively is a very difficult task, especially given the current relevance of Hail, Sand, Knock Off, and Burn. Even if it can come it at full, its options are limited and the mon can quickly drop out of the 100% HP range if the opponent isn't immediately threatened out or OHKO'd.
• Sticky Hold: The general discussion surrounding this ability indicates that it's fairly one-dimensional, and seems to be more of a reaction to our typing than a genuine effort to optimize the ability. The overlap this would have with 30i's role of being guaranteed to keep its item is also a bit disconcerting, as we do in fact want to differentiate the forms from one another. The fact that this ability would add nothing to our functionality other than that makes it seem like a lukewarm option at best.
• Filter: Given our typing, Filter would be incredibly difficult to properly optimize for this process. Though it provides a slight boost to some of our defensive matchups, oftentimes it would most likely not be enough to make a serious impact on how we play the mon. While it may boost our efficacy as a setup sweeper in some way, it seems like this process is generally moving away from setup moves as a whole in order to not overpower 30i's use of Tinted Lens.
• Fur Coat / Ice Scales: While a straight boost to our defenses could prove to be useful, the lack of interesting options given by these abilities have soured a bulk of the community's opinions on them. There's not much we can do dynamically with them outside of just being a bulkier mon, while other abilities such as Thick Fat, Fluffy, and Stamina all have specific and intriguing interactions that provide us with a bit more direction.
• Trace: As has been thoroughly discussed, this ability currently has a highly effective user in Jumbao, and I'm not certain we'd be treading on much new ground by pursuing it.

I'll leave this up for discussion for at least 24 hours, following that a finalized slate will be posted and we'll move on to polling.

 

[dex]

I'm satisfied with the slate besides the inclusion of Corrosion. While I think there is some merit to Gale Wings, I do understand the arguments against its inclusion and so I am totally fine with it being left off. Corrosion, on the other hand, should not be slated. Obviously these points have been stated a great number of times by many well-written posts, but they need to be said again.

Corrosion negatively impacts CAP30i:
Corrosion is a supremely powerful ability. While I do think, and I have thought this all along, that Corrosion is balanceable, it puts a massively unhealthy strain on CAP30i. People have played this off saying that Tinted Lens is a strong ability in its own right and will not mind the limitations of Corrosion. This is false. Tinted Lens surely is a powerful ability, but is not so strong that it can overcome the debilitating restrictions Corrosion would put on its movepool stage. There are a number of moves that are simply broken when combined with CAP30's typing and Corrosion that would be very much appreciated by CAP30i. Knock Off, Taunt, Roost, and a multitude of coverage options that would aid in CAP30i's production are simply taken away from it by Corrosion. This is unacceptable for this process. In my experience with CAP, design space and power-budgeting have been two key qualities we look for in options for slates. Corrosion completely breaks that process.

Salazzle isn't viable, why would Corrosion CAP30b be unhealthy?:
I want to first point to the beginning of the Sword and Shield OU metagame where Salazzle, despite its awful stats, typing, and movepool, was actually used simply because of Corrosion. That is how strong Corrosion is. It takes what is a completely unviable mon and makes it actually usable because it simply breaks some matchups. Salazzle is held back by the aforementioned qualities. Herein lies a really big problem with Corrosion: Corrosion has an incredibly small, if not nonexistent, balanceable target product. Corrosion either completely breaks an opposing team composition or it does nothing because the opponent decided to bring one of the few checks to it that exist. There is no in between. Not only would a viable Corrosion user unhealthily effect the metagame, but it would completely warp the metagame around itself. You either lose to the Corrosion mon, or you don't. While that might seem like not a big deal to some, in reality it is. Let's take a look at a dominant Pokemon in the tier: Landorus-T. Landorus-T is surely meta-defining in its wide range of uses and superb utility. However, there is meaningful counterplay to be had by multiple team archetypes to the mon. It is not game breaking in any way. Corrosion is. Let's take another look at a mon that did break the metagame on its release: Equilibra. Equilibra instantly became the best mon in the tier, with counterplay to it being extremely limited. A fun example from CAP history is the creation of Smokozone, a Magnezone set designed explicitly to beat libra while doing quite literally nothing else. While this seems nice in that CAP innovated to create a counter, it really is not. CAP had to go to such extreme lengths that it would run an otherwise completely unviable set, which was deadweight in every other matchup, just to counter one mon. That is unhealthily warping the metagame. Corrosion does this.

Corrosion loses to Substitute, Misty Surge, Magic Guard, and Taunt! How could it be so strong then?
This points to a larger issue: Corrosion has extremely limited counterplay. Let's go through each one. Substitute is an incredibly rare move. At this point, I would say that the only true users of Substitute are Kyurem and Arctozolt, both of which already beat CAP30 based off of typing and both of which are irretrievably crippled by Toxic. Misty Surge is limited to one mon and one mon only: Tapu Fini. While Tapu Fini is quite strong at the moment in the metagame, what exactly is it doing back to CAP30b? There have been arguments that clicking Toxic on a Tapu Fini switch is a momentum loss, but it is simply not. The opponent loses just as much momentum for switching in a mon that cannot beat Corrosion CAP30b unless we absolutely hamstring its other two stages, at which point we have made another unviable Corrosion user and failed to succeed in the project and concept. Magic Guard is on two mons: Clefable and Krilowatt. Clefable is another example of a mon that really does not punish CAP30b for clicking Toxic because Clefable does not meaningfully threaten it back whatsoever. Forcing Clefable to run coverage for Poison / Flying is straight up the definition of meta-warping. Furthermore, forcing the Cleric role to be run on every team is the definition of meta-warping, since people use Heal Bell and Aromatherapy as potential Corrosion work-arounds when they really are not. Krilowatt is an interesting case where it does in fact pressure CAP30b, unless of course CAP30b has Knock Off in which case it has already won. A knocked Krilowatt is a dead Krilowatt. And now we've already limited CAP30i. Taunt is our last example, and it behaves similarly to Substitute. Taunt is commonly used by Tornadus-T and Heatran. Astrolotl can run it, but would much prefer to run literally any other status move. Here, however, I ask the question of how exactly are these mons taunting CAP30b? They sure as hell aren't switching in, all three of them loathe getting Toxiced. There are a number of other examples that have been brought up as potential checks to Corrosion that do not hold up for the same reasons the above examples do not. The summary of this argument is thus: Corrosion either has extremely limited counterplay or the Corrosion user is not viable.

Please remove Corrosion from the slate. I understand that some people believe it should be left up to the voters to decide if it is the right path, but the end result could, and most likely will, be disastrous. Keeping Corrosion is not some calculated risk. It isn't some adventurous prospect for us to explore. It breaks the process and forces us to either make a mon that will break the metagame or have no niche to speak of. Personally, I don't want this to happen.

 

[earthflax]

Corrosion is not worthy of this slate, and the fact that we've spent nearly the entire thread discussing it is frightening.

Let's get this out of the way first: A good CAP process is not analogous with a fun CAP process. While we strive to make it as such, this doesn't mean that we should do whatever just to increase contributor happiness or enthusiasm. (we solemnly apologize, CAP artists. we love you. we promise.) This means that the justification for Corrosion should not by any means be that it's interesting or fun. A lot of things are interesting and fun, that does not mean they are conducive to a healthy metagame. Now, I'm not going to go into all the crucial matchups that are turned on their heads by Corrosion. Please see any of the 4 or 5 posts specifically authored for that purpose. Instead I'm going to be going into 2 things: counterplay and 30i.

Counterplay for Corrosion 30b is incredibly limited and difficult to slot. I'll first bring up the ever-present example of Salazzle: even by being a garbage mon in OU, with stats and typing that lets it break the most common Toxic absorbers bar Heatran, it still saw/sees a C-rank niche, simply because of the ability to poison Poison-immunes. By virtue of 30b's typing, common status absorbers like Clefable and Tapu Fini are unable to comfortably absorb Corrosion-backed Toxics. We could list off the 20 downright unviable ways to counter Corrosion Toxic: Naviathan and Paj (admittedly better/good in low-Hawk meta), Heal Bell, Reuniclus. Very few of these are close to relevancy. Even fewer are actually relevant. I understand the line of thought behind letting the meta adapt to the mon, but counterplay should be readily available at a semi-viable level at the very least. I don't want to draw that comparison, but it frankly reminds me of Seismatoad in Vish meta. Its counterplay might look almost kinda good while also having a good MU against the thing you're slotting it for, but in reality it gets BTFO'd by everything, ever.

Now, here's where some might say, "Can't we just limit its movepool or stats?". And we really can't, because of the existence of 30i. I'm not going to get very far into it because I don't want to poll-jump, but going down the "optimized Corrosion" route means we have to be wary about giving the entirety of 30 moves that 30i may benefit from, in fear of 30b using and abusing them. Especially considering that as a utility wallbreaker, 30i would appreciate a lot of moves that may be deemed broken on a Corrosion mon, picking this ability feels incredibly counterproductive when exploring that route as well.

So why is Corrosion a good choice for this CAP? We're intentionally limiting ourselves on an unhealthy level to accommodate this ability. We're limiting our stats, our movepool. We're limiting 30i. At best, this is not the right process for this ability, but realistically this ability is utter hell to balance, if possible at all. As such, I support Corrosion's removal from the slate.

 

[Brambane]

Hi slate looks nice except Corrosion. I supported the ability early on but believe now isn't the time for it, and while I trust the community and leadership to make a balanced Corrosion mon, I don't belive it is in the best interest of our framework. I could write more, but click here here here here. And above.

words

RE: Paragraph 1
I don't think this is entirely the case. Almost every ability mentioned in this thread does ultimately fulfill the concept. There is certainly degree for interpretation in how far back in time you look at abilities getting used, or even the word "optimized" despite us hashing that our like 5 threads ago. Most people still want to engage with the concept. Our direction for 30b to approach a more defensive role and wanting to avoid overlapping with 30i as a wallbreaker has certainly pushed out a lot of our ability options and left us with a lot of very "plain or boring" (my own words for sure) abilities. As for trust in the process, I don't think that is as much the issue at hand as the established direction and perhaps personal expectations we already have for the project.

RE: Paragraph 2
I don't disagree with this take. Imo the CAP meta should adapt primarily to, well, CAPs. After substantial playtest, if the community reaches consesus, or at least a majority of the competitive playerbase do, that the CAP is too strong, it can be nerfed. This is not the consensus, however. There are definitely players which do not agree with the mentality, and I admit their is validity to the argument of not making CAPs that challenge/subvert the metagame. Metagame stability is desirable for a lot of players and while building for CAP can feel restrictive, the meta is generally enjoyable. The concerns about an ability that ultimate alters a key gameplay mechanic (that being, Poison- and Steel-types can absorb Toxic) are not unfounded. But I believe the community can take this bull by the horns and produce an awesome Corrosion Pokemon for sure! However...

RE: Paragraph 3
Imo this is where the problem lies. As for the implied polljumping and rarely-explained guesses, a lot of it is coming from potential options available for the direction of 30i, how Corrosion may interact with these options, and thus the restrictions that could result for 30i and/or 30b. Design space is a concept that has been brought up throughout this process and ones before it, and the fears about how Corrosion may affect 30b/i is directly tied to it. We can probably argue where the line for polljumping needs to be drawn in the sand, but since we established a direction for 30i as a Utility Wallbreaker, I would like to maintain that idea and keep as many utility options on the table for maximum design space. Corrosion is the only ability that is suggesting that some of the utility options available may be concerning if 30b has access to them. I would not personally consider this polljumping when we defined utility moves as a key component for 30i. As for picking a dope ability for the concept, I would rather pick an ability that offers greater design space for both forms. If an ability is already raising concerns of how it could limit the process, why not pick any of the other suitable, pro-concept abilities in the thread that offer their own interesting design space and unique metagame implications?

RE: Paragraph 4/5
Don't have much about paragraph 4 since I have little concerns about the stat stage for 30i/30b, regardless of what ability we choose unless someone last minute pitches Wonder Guard or something. I don't see why you couldn't submit a Corrosion-based concept? Since the ability challenges a key game mechanic, it is a perfect example of a concept where having an ultra specific and defined component would be appropriate. Even if you don't agree with such brazenness, it is a 100% submittable idea if you tip-toe around the wording to avoid tripping on some of rules tied to the concept process. Probably sounds like I am endorsing to bend the rules to fit a specific direction, but hey if the community and leadership respond well to the idea then fine by me. I also don't think "we might never get Corrosion as an option for a while" is a proper justification for doing it now. I have stated earlier in the thread I would love for CAP to visit Corrosion, but when we are dealing with an ability or mechanic that ultimately subverts conventional aspects of the game, we should have them be a focus much earlier on. Tinted Lens was very similar in such regard (subverting the mechanic of "resists") and it played HEAVILY into the typing stage. We have already denied Corrosion that stage, and with the above mentioned/linked concerns, I don't think it engages with the future stages particularly well either.

 

[MrDollSteak]

I'm just going to make another quick anti-Water Bubble post. While I do agree that it is less contentious than Corrosion, I still firmly believe that the offensive boost to Water-type moves in conjunction with its defensive benefits will be too overbearing on our project and provide too much competition with 30i. In attempting to avoid such a scenario by balancing the boosts to Water-type moves either by picking low BP water moves or to choose a less offensive attacking stat spread, I believe that the actual offensive benefits of the ability will become less relevant to the point that we may end up with something like Chromera that can't deal enough damage to targets to be useful. This is because Water Bubble boosts Water attacks do so much damage to many of our key STAB resists in Heatran and Equilibra and even neutrally at Corv off of relatively low numbers that we then risk not being able to pressure anything else with our flying or Poison STABs. It really feels like a Catch-22 in my opinion purely because of the presence of 30i. While 30i will be able deal more netural damage to more targets as a result of Lens and its item, the fact that it will often do much less to key Steel-types, and that it is also missing out on the defensive utility of Water Bubble and will be more easily worn down by Rocks, it will likely feel like much more of a gamble to use. Furthermore, I think that having both Thick Fat and Water Bubble on the slate when they achieve such similar things defensively feels like a mistake due to the vast power difference offensively.

I don't think we risk any similar level of competition from any of the other abilities on the slate at this stage, even Corrosion, although I do concede that attempting to balance Corrosion will likely result in much more serious power budget constraints on 30i. That being said the most important thing for me at this stage is for both formes to play differently and provide teams with different options, and as such I will be suggesting that Water Bubble be removed from the slate because Cap30b will in my mind almost always be the better option to use because it will be more reliable and can hit most of the same targets that Tinted Lens does, considering they are mutually exclusive.

 

[shnowshner]

Starting responding to this before the preliminary slate went up:

I don't think that after all the posts in this thread it ought to be necessary to protect us from ourselves by not slating the two most pro-concept abilities up for debate. We have barely touched the build of this CAP so far and some arguments in this thread make it sound like our Concept is already fulfilled and our power budget is already spent. I figure they don't take it to mean we spent it on the Poison / Flying typing and Tinted Lens, so where exactly is this pushback coming from? I posted a Framework- and Concept-focused pitch for Corrosion, and from what I can tell no one has tried to argue that pitch was off-base. But there have been detractors to Corrosion who seem to instead simply not trust the CAP process to execute an idea like a dual-Forme Poison/Flying-type @Tinted Lens or Corrosion, which is not a historically unfair concern! Instead of rehashing my own post to try and save Corrosion from being disinvited to the poll, I will try and engage these non-Concept-related concerns and hope my previous post and all the other pro-Corrosion posts in this thread can be convincing enough to make it an option going forward.

From what I've read here on the forum, most anti-Corrosion arguments seem to be solely considerate of the current makeup of the CAP metagame, with not a single comment debating its superior relevance to the Concept compared to the other options. The rule is that the metagame adapts to the CAPs, not the other way around, so if Clefable and Steel-types become less useful in one way out of the dozens of ways in which they are still useful, and if Magnezone, Crucibelle, Pajantom, Krilowatt, Naviathan, Volt Switch, Substitute, Taunt, Heal Bell, and Misty Terrain (which blocks Toxic damage even if grounded opponent is already Poisoned) or whatever else become more valuable as a result of this Project, that is a *good thing*, at least compared to a result where the metagame can simply absorb this Forme with no consequences because we made sure it would be able to, with little to analyze and less to learn. It is not relevant, for example, that 81% of the most recent CAP Tournament teams were underprepared to face a Poison / Flying-type Pokemon with Corrosion, because no such thing existed or needed to be prepared for during that tournament. We have complete control over the build of this CAP, and while I totally get the power creep that defines the tier, this Concept is "Optimized Ability," and we do not owe it to the CAP to beef its stats and coverage at the expense of the explicit Project goals just because we've done it before.

If not to protect the metagame, many of the arguments against Corrosion rely on implied polljumping to make inappropriately-asserted and rarely-explained guesses that 30b would be overpowered generally, either by way of movepool or by stats, neither of which has even gotten a discussion in the process yet. For the movepool, Salazzle already has the [PSN STAB] / Knock Off / Toxic / Taunt @ HDB set that's come up a couple times here in the thread (although it is not even a listed set in its RU analysis), so we have at least a good idea of where to start in terms of how to underpower this strategy. From there, a between-the-lines reading of these arguments must be that 50% recovery moves and whatever stats these users have saved for that discussion are the real balance concerns, which I would argue again is not relevant here when we have yet to take real advantage of either our Framework or Concept and will not really have much of a chance to after this poll. It's great to have an idea in your head about how the CAP will play when all is said and done, but making unsupportable assurances at this stage that an ability should not be selected because Knock Off and Roost would be broken is not supportive of the CAP process and is essentially leaning over the polljumping line just enough to keep your balance. Maybe Corrosion w/ [PSN STAB] / Knock Off / Toxic / Roost @ HDB is too strong, and there will be time to debate that later on, but even if it would be broken, which we couldn't possibly know with any amount of certainty until we have stats, I would rather have Corrosion over Roost any day of the week so that I could have a dignified response to the question "which abilities did you choose for your choose-some-dope-abilities-stuck-on-unviable-Pokemon-and-actually-build-a-viable-Pokemon-around-those-abilities Concept?". Everyone seems to agree Trace should not be slated because it fails this test. Thick Fat and No Guard have also received pushback on this point, fairly, and along the same vein I'd argue Gale Wings cannot be optimized past Gen. 6 Talonflame. Sticky Hold and Ice Scales / Fur Coat also fail this test imo for being overwhelmingly directionless and incapable of carrying a whole Project. Water Bubble is totally out of left field and I would never have thought of it going into this thread and probably still won't vote for it, but at least it is trying to engage the Concept and take advantage of the Framework by providing a distinguishable build and a duality with Tinted Lens, even if it is not as cohesive as Corrosion. And Stamina is probably only the third pro-Concept ability available here, although I don't really see much value in praying for no crits while 30b is parked on the field chipping away at stuff slowly or otherwise hard-walled by pretty common stuff.

When it comes to stats, the beautiful thing about the Framework here is that, due to the practical effect of 30i's held item, we can actually achieve significant savings in attacking stats and overall BST thanks to the automatic damage boost (100 Atk @ Orb = 130 Atk @ HDB or whatever), so the fears surrounding forcing the same stat figures onto an alternatively powerful 30b should actually be less of an issue as it only increases our window of flexibility when it comes to balancing stats between the two Formes. Either way, having juicy, world-eating stats is not the goal here and is not the priority. The worst thing we could do here would be to prioritize imaginary future stats over the Concept, staring us right in the face, here in this thread, and I would have hoped to see less doomsaying as though it is a presumed fact that all CAPs are power creeps so this one must be too.

Others love Corrosion and think it's great, so long as we design an entire Project around it, to which I am a little confused. Are we not talking about doing exactly that, right now? You can't submit a specific Corrosion-based Concept like you can with certain move-based ones, so it'll be kind of a long wait, I guess, for the stars to align like this again to give us a chance to explore Corrosion through the CAP Project. I feel like the way we used to do things here was to to identify the areas where we could fulfill each Concept, prioritize those aspects of the build, and then use the other stages to balance out the end result. We are still in the executing the Concept phase of CAP30, so my argument I guess is that we should do things the normal way?

Sorry I write long posts

I'm in agreement with a large portion of what you say but would like to share a bit of my own perspective (and perhaps of others) on this matter.

Corrosion in of itself is a strong ability but not one which can be immediately overbearing for a variety of factors: some Pokemon are naturally resistant to Toxic by virtue of Ability or movepool, and others are still vulnerable but aren't immediately dead in the water should they be afflicted by Toxic. These aspects of Corrosion could be easily built around to make a Pokemon that has a clear role and gets use out of its ability, but still has some form of meaningful counterplay to it.

What's happened in regards to 30b is that discussion on this happened later than it would have ideally happened otherwise. Instead of choosing our Ability first for our ability-centric project, we had already locked into a typing—one which happens to compromise two of Corrosion's best checks in Clefable and Tapu Fini. Naturally, this led to concerns that our Corrosion user has few viable switch-ins. The compounding issue is that attempts to balance out 30b's strengths with Corrosion will inevitably affect our other form, 30i. Toning down our stats and restricting our movepool so that 30b is "safe" for the metagame and won't cause too much chaos upon release has a severe impact on 30i.

So while we are doing a project that is ability-centric, we're also doing it within a framework which has two forms, which share the same typing, movepool, and base stat total. Competition is thus inherent, and while it's entirely possible (and probably quite easy) to minimize this competition, it'd still exist, and is worsened by the fact that using one forms automatically bans the other. Developing a balanced Corrosion user out of 30b might be so detrimental to 30i that it completely falls out of the metagame, and at that point we may as well have never done our Framework at all. This is largely speculation and (dare I say) fearmongering from the anti-Corrosion camp, but I can't say it is completely unjustified. It'd be a lot harder to rebalance a Corrosion mon that is intrinsically tied to a Tinted Lens item-locked mon, than it was to remove Bulletproof and Toxic from Equilibra.

In short, while you're not explicitly wrong on anything you say about metagames adjusting to CAPs or the leadership being strong enough to keep things under control, we still come back to the problem where the timing and nature of CAP30 is what sets Corrosion over the edge for others and myself. Our Framework creates and has already created enough hurdles to the point where keeping the whole thing stable sounds like a nightmare to achieve, if at all achievable in the first place. It's a shame, as Corrosion fits our Optimized Ability concept like few others would, but I can't in good faith support it as a direction to take things in. Playing it safe is the best option moving forward to ensure that the process can be successful.

With that all said and done, my opinions for the slate are that Corrosion should be removed. The rest of it is fine with me: Water Bubble definitely has a lot of contention around it and if you need an answer I wouldn't mind Water Bubble being removed from the slate as well, but in a more ambivalent sort of way. I don't think it would be as much of a headache to build around and should keep both forms pretty distinct, but it would probably be a tad awkward and ham-fisted in execution if we wanted to make sure 30i stays relevant, which IMO falls short of being "optimized."

 

[Rabia]

Questions about Corrosion's power level are justified but presented in really poor ways so far. The immediate thing I'd like to note is Salazzle was not viable in OU earlier this generation solely because of Corrosion; there are several confounding variables not being addressed in dex's post, including lower power level at the time and the metagame simply being different overall. Keep in mind too that Salazzle wasn't using sets designed to even maximize Corrosion; it just slotted Toxic on last because it was a generally good move to cripple answers like Toxapex.

This talk too about Corrosion being too great a limiter is really weird to me. Tinted Lens is legitimately insane power level-wise; I don't think that's being fairly represented in this thread. There SHOULD already be some limiters being placed in future stages because of it alone. I believe the wallbreaking power this ability provides by itself is already more than sufficient enough to justify stats being lessened to compensate, which by default also helps balance out a potential Corrosion win.

I don't think we risk any similar level of competition from any of the other abilities on the slate at this stage, even Corrosion, although I do concede that attempting to balance Corrosion will likely result in much more serious power budget constraints on 30i. That being said the most important thing for me at this stage is for both formes to play differently and provide teams with different options, and as such I will be suggesting that Water Bubble be removed from the slate because it will in my mind almost always be the better option, considering they are mutually exclusive.

I don't really understand how you came to this conclusion. Tinted Lens is a far more mindless ability that enables wallbreakers in a much different way than Water Bubble. It removes the need for prediction and lets you repeatedly use your STAB attacks to wear down your defensive stops much more effectively. Sure, Water Bubble enables coverage moves and has other useful benefits, but the way these two abilities help from an offensive standpoint are really quite different.

Overall, I'm pretty fine with the slate. I really like Stamina and think it has some epic potential if you look at Mudsdale's shortcomings and how you'd go about fixing those. No Guard feels pretty filler to me, but it's ultimately fine enough I think.

 

[viol and bass]

Gonna make a quick pro-Water Bubble post cuz I'm staying out of the Corrosion debate.

In attempting to avoid such a scenario by balancing the boosts to Water-type moves either by picking low BP water moves or to choose a less offensive attacking stat spread, I believe that the actual offensive benefits of the ability will become less relevant to the point that we may end up with something like Chromera that can't deal enough damage to targets to be useful.

This seems a lil bit contrived to me. We don't need to limit ourselves to, like, Water Pulse. If we have a Defining Moves stage, we can determine what's appropriate, and in my opinion 80ish base power moves are fine. There's no realistic scenario I can see where we end up not being able to damage targets.

While 30i will be able deal more netural damage to more targets as a result of Lens and its item, the fact that it will often do much less to key Steel-types, and that it is also missing out on the defensive utility of Water Bubble and will be more easily worn down by Rocks, it will likely feel like much more of a gamble to use.

Water Bubble 30b's weakness is exactly what you alluded to in your post– hitting water resists hard. Obviously making 30b a breaker would compete heavily with 30i, so not breaking things isn't a problem because that's not its role. But that's the difference: 30i hits everything hard. It breaks things. And it doesn't have to predict. That's it's niche. 30b just now has the means to deal consistent damage to some things it otherwise wouldn't be able to touch. I don't see these mons as competing except in the sense that you can't have them both on the same team. Their niches are quite different. I also feel like you're heavily underestimating Tinted Lens. It's an absurdly good ability, and in all likelihood we could afford it a much higher (special) attack stat given its role.

 

[kjnjkmjk1]

I'm OK with the slate at the moment. I'm most neutral about Corrosion and Water Bubble, and wouldn't be completely beat up about them being removed, but otherwise I don't have many comments about the slate itself.

I do want to make a statement regarding No Guard. I think it is an interesting ability, and I'm happy that it made slate, but there has been some hesitation about exploring routes with this beyond inaccurate powerful coverage moves like Focus Blast and the like, a route that Aurumoth has already taken and utilized very well for multiple generations. I really want to at least broach the topic of niche interactions in moves like Inferno or even sleep moves, anything that isn't the same powerful coverage moves; this is a big part of No Guard's appeal to me. This doesn't mean I'm completely against the possibilities of those coverage moves or even just the STABs in Gunk Shot or Hurricane; I just want to be able to tread ground that hasn't already been treaded by Aurumoth.

 

[Dece1t]

There's a lot to unpack here, so I guess I'll just get straight to the points.

Corrosion negatively impacts CAP30i:
Corrosion is a supremely powerful ability. While I do think, and I have thought this all along, that Corrosion is balanceable, it puts a massively unhealthy strain on CAP30i. People have played this off saying that Tinted Lens is a strong ability in its own right and will not mind the limitations of Corrosion. This is false. Tinted Lens surely is a powerful ability, but is not so strong that it can overcome the debilitating restrictions Corrosion would put on its movepool stage. There are a number of moves that are simply broken when combined with CAP30's typing and Corrosion that would be very much appreciated by CAP30i. Knock Off, Taunt, Roost, and a multitude of coverage options that would aid in CAP30i's production are simply taken away from it by Corrosion. This is unacceptable for this process. In my experience with CAP, design space and power-budgeting have been two key qualities we look for in options for slates. Corrosion completely breaks that process.

How does it put an unhealthy strain? Better yet, how does it put anymore strain on the process than Tinted Lens? Nothing is taken away from Corrosion, especially when we're largely in agreement that stats are going to have some limits in the name of balance. Even if say Roost was removed from consideration, I don't see it heavily impacting the offensive-heavy nature of 30i, even with the lack of ability to hold HDB. Defog is still a thing, as with most other forms of hazard removal. This part comes off as a very weak argument.

Salazzle isn't viable, why would Corrosion CAP30b be unhealthy?:
I want to first point to the beginning of the Sword and Shield OU metagame where Salazzle, despite its awful stats, typing, and movepool, was actually used simply because of Corrosion. That is how strong Corrosion is. It takes what is a completely unviable mon and makes it actually usable because it simply breaks some matchups. Salazzle is held back by the aforementioned qualities. Herein lies a really big problem with Corrosion: Corrosion has an incredibly small, if not nonexistent, balanceable target product. Corrosion either completely breaks an opposing team composition or it does nothing because the opponent decided to bring one of the few checks to it that exist. There is no in between. Not only would a viable Corrosion user unhealthily effect the metagame, but it would completely warp the metagame around itself. You either lose to the Corrosion mon, or you don't. While that might seem like not a big deal to some, in reality it is. Let's take a look at a dominant Pokemon in the tier: Landorus-T. Landorus-T is surely meta-defining in its wide range of uses and superb utility. However, there is meaningful counterplay to be had by multiple team archetypes to the mon. It is not game breaking in any way. Corrosion is. Let's take another look at a mon that did break the metagame on its release: Equilibra. Equilibra instantly became the best mon in the tier, with counterplay to it being extremely limited. A fun example from CAP history is the creation of Smokozone, a Magnezone set designed explicitly to beat libra while doing quite literally nothing else. While this seems nice in that CAP innovated to create a counter, it really is not. CAP had to go to such extreme lengths that it would run an otherwise completely unviable set, which was deadweight in every other matchup, just to counter one mon. That is unhealthily warping the metagame. Corrosion does this.

The reason why Salazzle has been brought up is because its to show Corrosion is not the game-breaking element. Salazzle is shit, everyone agrees with that. As you mentioned it was briefly in the C ranks in viability, so its laughable to me how that equates as Corrosion being broken. I would think it would translate to the opposite. That is case to point with what many of us on the pro-Corrosion side have been making. We can take the good from what's been seen already and mitigate the bad all without making it over-optimized to the point of brokenness. That's the beauty of having a stats stage, a movepool stage, and the post lookback playbook (which has balanced out prior broken metagame elements like Equilibra as you conveniently ignored to mention) still to go. To say that Corrosion lacks counterplay ignores precedent, first off, but most importantly, its pseudo poll-jumping and straight theorymonning to a non-existent final product. We have ways to balance it out and plenty of fail safes, and even there, as the TL and TLT pointed out, many of these fears are greatly exaggerated.

Corrosion loses to Substitute, Misty Surge, Magic Guard, and Taunt! How could it be so strong then?
This points to a larger issue: Corrosion has extremely limited counterplay. Let's go through each one. Substitute is an incredibly rare move. At this point, I would say that the only true users of Substitute are Kyurem and Arctozolt, both of which already beat CAP30 based off of typing and both of which are irretrievably crippled by Toxic. Misty Surge is limited to one mon and one mon only: Tapu Fini. While Tapu Fini is quite strong at the moment in the metagame, what exactly is it doing back to CAP30b? There have been arguments that clicking Toxic on a Tapu Fini switch is a momentum loss, but it is simply not. The opponent loses just as much momentum for switching in a mon that cannot beat Corrosion CAP30b unless we absolutely hamstring its other two stages, at which point we have made another unviable Corrosion user and failed to succeed in the project and concept. Magic Guard is on two mons: Clefable and Krilowatt. Clefable is another example of a mon that really does not punish CAP30b for clicking Toxic because Clefable does not meaningfully threaten it back whatsoever. Forcing Clefable to run coverage for Poison / Flying is straight up the definition of meta-warping. Furthermore, forcing the Cleric role to be run on every team is the definition of meta-warping, since people use Heal Bell and Aromatherapy as potential Corrosion work-arounds when they really are not. Krilowatt is an interesting case where it does in fact pressure CAP30b, unless of course CAP30b has Knock Off in which case it has already won. A knocked Krilowatt is a dead Krilowatt. And now we've already limited CAP30i. Taunt is our last example, and it behaves similarly to Substitute. Taunt is commonly used by Tornadus-T and Heatran. Astrolotl can run it, but would much prefer to run literally any other status move. Here, however, I ask the question of how exactly are these mons taunting CAP30b? They sure as hell aren't switching in, all three of them loathe getting Toxiced. There are a number of other examples that have been brought up as potential checks to Corrosion that do not hold up for the same reasons the above examples do not. The summary of this argument is thus: Corrosion either has extremely limited counterplay or the Corrosion user is not viable.

There are other clerics which you're failing to mention. What about Blissey? What about likely offensive checks to 30b like Tapu Koko (and I can name plenty others if need be)? These examples you're giving are only really working in a vacuum, and you yourself brought up the fact that Kyurem and Arctozolt can likely beat 30b as it is. It feels like your defeating your own point bringing those two up. What about if we accounted for a relatively limited bulk to allow for the presence of more checks? These are all fair considerations that I feel as though you're ignoring.

Corrosion is not worthy of this slate, and the fact that we've spent nearly the entire thread discussing it is frightening.

Let's get this out of the way first: A good CAP process is not analogous with a fun CAP process. While we strive to make it as such, this doesn't mean that we should do whatever just to increase contributor happiness or enthusiasm. (we solemnly apologize, CAP artists. we love you. we promise.) This means that the justification for Corrosion should not by any means be that it's interesting or fun. A lot of things are interesting and fun, that does not mean they are conducive to a healthy metagame. Now, I'm not going to go into all the crucial matchups that are turned on their heads by Corrosion. Please see any of the 4 or 5 posts specifically authored for that purpose. Instead I'm going to be going into 2 things: counterplay and 30i.

Counterplay for Corrosion 30b is incredibly limited and difficult to slot. I'll first bring up the ever-present example of Salazzle: even by being a garbage mon in OU, with stats and typing that lets it break the most common Toxic absorbers bar Heatran, it still saw/sees a C-rank niche, simply because of the ability to poison Poison-immunes. By virtue of 30b's typing, common status absorbers like Clefable and Tapu Fini are unable to comfortably absorb Corrosion-backed Toxics. We could list off the 20 downright unviable ways to counter Corrosion Toxic: Naviathan and Paj (admittedly better/good in low-Hawk meta), Heal Bell, Reuniclus. Very few of these are close to relevancy. Even fewer are actually relevant. I understand the line of thought behind letting the meta adapt to the mon, but counterplay should be readily available at a semi-viable level at the very least. I don't want to draw that comparison, but it frankly reminds me of Seismatoad in Vish meta. Its counterplay might look almost kinda good while also having a good MU against the thing you're slotting it for, but in reality it gets BTFO'd by everything, ever.

Now, here's where some might say, "Can't we just limit its movepool or stats?". And we really can't, because of the existence of 30i. I'm not going to get very far into it because I don't want to poll-jump, but going down the "optimized Corrosion" route means we have to be wary about giving the entirety of 30 moves that 30i may benefit from, in fear of 30b using and abusing them. Especially considering that as a utility wallbreaker, 30i would appreciate a lot of moves that may be deemed broken on a Corrosion mon, picking this ability feels incredibly counterproductive when exploring that route as well.

So why is Corrosion a good choice for this CAP? We're intentionally limiting ourselves on an unhealthy level to accommodate this ability. We're limiting our stats, our movepool. We're limiting 30i. At best, this is not the right process for this ability, but realistically this ability is utter hell to balance, if possible at all. As such, I support Corrosion's removal from the slate.

To your first paragraph, I feel as though your cherry-picking the argument we're really making. Corrosion is an under-optimized (and clearly an under-explored) ability, and what most of us on the pro-Corrosion side are saying is this concept asks of us to optimize an ability. To say we're supporting it over solely fun is a pretty superficial reading of the arguments. To move on and say that Corrosion is comparable to a Vish/Seismitoad meta is not even a close comparison, in power level and in the nature of play (hyper offensive as opposed to defensive). I'd also love to know what moves you're referring to that would make 30b with Corrosion broken (aside from Taunt, Roost, and Knock Off). Any others? I can see the argument for taunt, but there are plenty of other utility moves that I don't see as limiting that can be included (other status besides toxic, hazard removal, tailwind, hazards, wish, teleport, again I can go on). I wouldn't kid ourselves that (even if they were broken, Taunt especially though I could see the exception) we're pigeon-holing to the extreme extent you're making out. We're not, and including Corrosion can still allow the two forms to work independently of each other, especially in that if Corrosion is chosen, they would likely hold very different team roles.

Finally, as a general catch-all response, I fear that many on the anti-Corrosion side are forgetting the type we're working with. It's great for Tinted Lens, and it has niche defensive capabilities. It's not exactly the prime choice. As mentioned previously, it is easily walled by Steel (which is omnipresent in the metagame), its weak to SR, and its weak to electric, psychic, and ice to name a few, all of which are also pretty common in the current metagame. I once again urge that we do not cut ourselves short from being viable at all. Truth to point, we've had a habit of limiting ourselves preemptively and this mentality translating to lackluster final products (CAP 25 in entirety, but especially Smokomodo, Chromera who is losing steam, and Miasmaw). Again, I want to stress that we have 2 other very important stages that will determine the direction in the rest of this product and the post lookback playbook to make any other necessary final changes. Many in the community clearly support it and want to make this work (which leadership even thinks it is entirely doable). Let it go to the vote--if you don't like it, don't vote for it.

 

[Darek]

Alright fellas, let's talk slate here:

I'm not gonna talk about Corrosion because I and others have already talked about it to death, but for the record, I think it should be removed from the slate. Don't have much to add other than I'd rather eat my own shoe than play against Corrosion 30b.

Thick Fat: I don't like this ability at all here. I already talked about it, but I'll reiterate what I said before- Thick Fat doesn't really do much for us. It doesn't really enable us to beat any of the relevant Ice types: Weavile knocks our boots and requires tremendous bulk to switch into a +2 Triple Axel; Kyurem similarly requires insane bulk to avoid a 2hko from Specs Ice Beam; Arctozolt destroys us with Bolt Beak. Fire types are a similar story. Astrolotl is an evil mon that will click buttons on us unless we can actively force it out. Blacephalon's Specs Shadow Ball obliterates us without absurd bulk and is its main move of choice anyway. It really only holds relevance into Heatran, which while nice, isn't remotely comparable to Tinted Lens in terms of power and is hardly a basis to build a CAP process around. At best Thick Fat is an ability that's nice to have, but it doesn't inspire anything new or unique in terms of playstyle and as such doesn't carry much depth for an "optimized ability" concept. This should be removed from the slate.

Gale Wings: I really need to talk about Gale Wings here because I still think it is a fantastic option here. There are concerns about the lack of consistency with the ability, which while a fair argument, doesn't invalidate Gale Wings by any means. Contrary to popular belief, we're still useful when not at full health - we still threaten strong Flying STAB - and as such are still able to come in on U-turn and the like. Nor do I believe that operating when not at full renders the optimization process useless. Gale Wings is an ability where when built correctly, can function effectively when not at full and heavily rewards the user when at full, notably avoiding a revenge kill from faster threats, and leveraging priority to revenge kill opposing threats. Gale Wings gives us versatility; we're a somewhat threatening mon that can come in and consistently check a multitude of threats by virtue of our typing and recovery, similar to Tornadus-T. Simultaneously, we have the ability to be played as a pinch revenge killer against faster threats as well as a potentially terrifying late-game cleaner. By forcing players to consider whether they want 30b to take a hit or preserve health to leverage priority, Gale Wings offers a lot of depth to play and process alike.

So yeah remove Corrosion and Thick Fat and add Gale Wings please thanks

 

[Jewvia]

I am very satisfied with this slate, there is only one option that I dislike among the options there. Gonna write support posts for those on the slate I like so they don't get removed (RIP Fire/Fight)

Corrosion absolutely deserves to be on the slate. It is very on concept, compliments Tinted Lens rather than conflict with it like some like to argue, and develops a really unique and potent niche that we are 100% able to balance around. Salazzle being unviable is proof enough that it is possible to make a Corrosion mon with a solid move pool that is not overpowered. We have two entire stages to balance around Corrosion where the problems we face and restrictions this puts on 30i are minimal (Tinted Lens and the guaranteed STAB boost item also likes low BSTs, Recovery is the primarily notable limitation this puts on it for movepool that we lose here, but is up for debate still with 30i.) It is a very relevant and very useful ability that still has a lot of design space to work with.

Fluffy and Thick Fat are both interesting defensive abilities with their own ways at working around the type chart. Fluffy adds a new weakness to us in Fire, which is a bummer but one we can work around with the increased defenses and potential to hard wall a lot of contact moves. Interestingly, this also trades a number of SE moves like Plasma Fists and Triple Axel into neutral hits, and a number of neutral moves like Surging Strikes or Knock Off into resists, making it a very interesting trade off. Likewise, Thick Fat is more specific with its answers and trades, turning all Ice moves into neutral hits and all Fire moves into resists, which gives a very nice level of consistency. Both are fantastic additions to the list that gives us lots of room to explore a more defensive role.

Stamina is a really cool ability that has some parallels to Fluffy. The downside is that we need to take a hit or two first, but with the right stat spread, we can exploit that well. Poison/Flying is already a better typing for this than Mudsdale, and there are tons of unique ways where we can further enhance the value of a Stamina threat. For instance, bringing Electric Seed with a Tapu Koko partner makes for a very valuable combo, as Poison and Ground both get walled by our typing, and being able to switch in after a fast Volt Switch with that early 1.5x boost gets us to Fluffy levels of defenses with a Knock Off immunity without any downside. Maybe that's a bit poll jumpy, but I feel that literally any stat spread or movepool would enable that kind of behaviour. With the right optimization, we may even be able to warp our checks, with or without that strat.

Water Bubble is the controversial hill that I won't die on. It is a very stacked ability that does fit the concept to the T. There is all sorts of room to optimize it, and thanks to the nature of 30i, we are not causing any limitations on the process. 30i has universal neutral Flying STAB with a boost, discouraging the need to run the average coverage move. Meanwhile, Water Bubble inflates water moves beyond STAB levels, bringing value to all sorts of moves that 30i wouldn't even consider. And this is before looking at the value that a burn immunity and new fire resistance provide. It does a lot, but I feel that Thick Fat or Stamina can do a lot of what we want better/differently.

I am not too big of a fan of No Guard. I am not sold on this ability's potential. Unless we give it some low accuracy status moves like Hypnosis (which Miasmaw's process showed we don't want to) we are probably just going to end up using it for Hurricane and Focus Blast. I don't see it as being particularly interesting, and it has too much overlap with the role that 30i provides as a Utility Wallbreaker.

Meanwhile, I think that Gale Wings deserves its slate. While Talonflame did soar high in the meta with this ability way back in gen 6, it was functionally a different ability. Gen 6 Gale Wings and Gen 8 Gale Wings are 2 totally different abilities, leaving a lot of interesting design space with how we can structure this mon (especially as Boots and Slow pivots are King.) This can make for a unique priority user as a revenge killer, or as a Pokemon with a low speed tier that can abuse the priority for some interesting plays (Roost second on turn 2, be at full health for a priority flying move on turn 3) It is not the best or most interesting route, but it is at least a unique path we can explore, and one that is much more interesting than what No Guard provides.

TLDR: Corrosion/Thick Fat/Fluffy/Stamina deserve the slate. Water Bubble is okay, but if something needs to go I don't mind if its that. No Guard is not worth the slate. Gale Wings should be slated instead.

I have to emphasize this again, because of all the anti-Corrosion posts. Keep Corrosion. It is a very strong, very relevant ability that we can balance. Or rather, we will balance. Conceding that it can't be done is making me remember all of the controversy around Bug/Dragon winning Miasmaw's typing poll, and that ended up being a very successful concept for its pre-DLC target.

 

[Amamama]

Imo the slate looks fine as is.
Im positively surprised about the inclusion of corrosion.

It is daring to offer the community such a divisive and strong option, but I have the same faith as the SL, that we will be able to handle it properly.
We already have an incredibly powerful ability locked in for 30i and I definitely think it will be a lot easier on our power budget to restrain two strong abilities, that require similar care, than to try to elevate one weaker ability to the level of the other, without overshooting Tinted Lens.
Again I want to mention, that without additional coverage 30b lacks the tools to deal with the best and most widely used typing in the game. Corrosion would be this tool. Yes it will soften steels as checks to teammates but a) so would coverage moves a la EQ Flare Blitz Close Combat and b) that’s how the game works. The team works together to beat the opponent.
I am not concerned that clicking Toxic will be mindless, even if you now can land it on anything. Imo it is a lot less mindless, than using tinted lens brave bird, as even without immunities you can lose a turn achieving nothing, if the opponent makes the right play, which will basically never happen with tinted lens.
The most valid concern brought up is, that Corrosion 30b might limit the options for 30i, but even there, with careful building, I think we can give out (almost) anything that 30i might want.

Now for the other contentious ability, I think Water Bubble is an even easier pick for the slate. I don’t see any element of it being overbearing on the process. Yes it is a very strong ability, but so is tinted lens.
Yes it has the potential to tread similar ground as we’re intending for 30i, but it is
a) very possible to move 30bs niche away from a Wallbreaker, while still giving it tools to deal with (some) steel and ground types (Going from 8% damage to 30% damage vs a Heatran is not suddenly going to make this mon an incredible breaker, especially if it needs to rely on prediction to actually hit these mons for good damage)
and b) even if we decided to make 30b a Wallbreaker as well, it would effectively play entirely different, as it’s need to predict would change the style of counterplay, and it’s Set of different targets (thanks to third STAB) would probably allow it to play its role on different teams.
I also don’t like the idea, that we need to use low BP water moves to not break it. The fact that STAB brave bird and Gunk shot are still stronger (180 BP) than water bubble boosted Liquidation (170BP) and hurricane is still as strong (165BP) as Scald, should speak for itself. Yes we are giving this mon a third STAB and maybe this means it might not run one of its original STABs, but I don’t view that as a failing at all.
The fact, that both flying and poison are naturally complimented incredibly well by water type coverage is imo a reason for why water bubble is so particularly relevant here in the first place.

The rest of the slate is fine as well, although I’m not too invested in any of these abilities.

I do think, that No Guard seems a bit off, unless we dare to touch the big inaccurate moves like Inferno, Zap Cannon or Hypnosis, bc merely boosting hurricane, Focus Blast or Gunk Shot seems comparably weak to me.

I have similar feelings about Gale Wings, which has been endorsed as a substitute for different abilities on the slate, as it seems very situational. I do think it’s workable (especially with air slash, which has great synergy with going first) but I still believe, that again it’s power level is way below tinted lens and balancing such lopsided power levels seems unnecessarily hard to me.

 

[Brian Geniouse]

korski is the best damn poster on this web site, and I hope one day I can make a post as beautiful as theirs.

Anyway, please enjoy my final corrosionpost for this thread. TLDR it’s good.

Herein lies a really big problem with Corrosion: Corrosion has an incredibly small, if not nonexistent, balanceable target product. Corrosion either completely breaks an opposing team composition or it does nothing because the opponent decided to bring one of the few checks to it that exist. There is no in between.

There exists zero evidence whatsoever to support this claim.
I don't even know where it comes from? Before Gen 8, every mon in the game had Toxic, no matter how good their matchup into Steels, and none were made broken or unhealthy because of it. And in the vast, chaotic space that is the myriad Other Metagames, there isn't a single one where Corrosion, its users, or even any Toxic-based strategies beyond just having the move, are even viable, let alone banned.
This suggests that Toxic is, like, not that strong by itself, the game is robust enough to handle it in the context of virtually any meta, and it takes an extremely exceptional and specific set of circumstances (as seen with Libra / Lotl) to change that.

While I think having some discussion about "compromising" movepools so both forms come up somewhat satisfied is unique and plays into the framework, I am not going to pretend I didn't vote for Utility Wallbreaker and Poison/Flying with moves like Roost, Taunt, and Knock Off out of mind. [...] I do not think we should limit CAP30i's options by choosing an ability that really, since it was brought up, has had limiting it from certain utility moves as a primary point of discussion.

Salazzle has Knock Off, Taunt, and would likely barely change with Roost. It also never uses any of these moves. This alone proves that utility moves by themselves are not enough to break Corrosion, or are even that powerful in combination with it.
The thing holding Salazzle back is its frailty. So, would it shoot into Ubers with +20 in each defensive stat? +30? I have trouble believing so. Not for Toxic spam, anyway; the Nasty Plot sets are what would get out of hand first.

There are no utility options that Corrosion inherently takes off the table.
I suspect the belief otherwise comes from , who infamously used Toxic alongside Spikes and Knock Off to wear down anything that hoped to check it. But Lotl has Regenerator, incredible speed, and Fire Lash, which make it both harder to punish and more punishing than 30b could ever hope to be.

The only utility move that comes close to being restrictive is instant recovery, which:
1) 30i doesn't need recovery anyway? It's a utility breaker, not a wall. , , ; none of those use or even have instant recovery.
2) Corrosion doesn't even take recovery off the table. It just adds a trivial constraint, in literally-less-than-stellar bulk (like in the base 90s or less). As I discussed here, recovery could even make Corrosion more manageable, by causing 30b to have to waste turns healing throughout a match.

What's happened in regards to 30b is that discussion on this happened later than it would have ideally happened otherwise. Instead of choosing our Ability first for our ability-centric project, we had already locked into a typing—one which happens to compromise two of Corrosion's best checks in Clefable and Tapu Fini. Naturally, this led to concerns that our Corrosion user has few viable switch-ins.

A few points to make here:

1): Personally, I think this property makes 30b more interesting, by giving it buttons to click besides Toxic and creating 50-50 scenarios it could actually lose. Like, you Poison Jab trying to read a switchin, because it could bring in for free with Misty up, but switched in instead and gets to Tbolt or Draco for free. Stuff like that.

2): Banking on the handful of post-Corrosion Toxic immunites isn't the "best" way to balance it, any more than Normal-types are the "best" counter to 's Shadow Ball. Offensive checks are just as important as defensive checks, and Corrosion isn't going to stop coming in after a KO or slowturn. And this isn't even mentioning how difficulty getting into position to use Toxic, or the passivity of Toxic itself, can be used for balancing.

3): It's worth noting that being Poison/Flying type does not necessarily mean you get either Poison or Flying STAB. infamously has Bounce as its best Flying STAB, and itself has Cross Poison as its best Poison STAB. So if we as felt it was really important to us that we're walled by or or whatever, we could simply not give 30b both STABs. Physical/Special split means this need not interfere with 30i.

Mons Missing STABs

Poison-types with neither Poison Jab nor Gunk Shot:
, , , , ,

Every Poison-type except gets Sludge Bomb lol. No reason we couldn't buck that trend, though.

Flying-types without Brave Bird or Drill Peck
, , , , , ,

Flying-types without Hurricane or Air Slash
, ,

Either way, the suggestion that it's somehow too late in the process to work with Corrosion is absurd. The process just started!


Ultimately, IMO the question of “is Corrosion OP” is fairly easily resolved: how many OU mons would trade their current ability for it? I struggle to think of many. Virtually everything with an actual ability would prefer to keep what they have. There are some that would take that trade, like and . But eg loses a lot of defensive presence without Regenerator; could poison Tran but would miss the free chip from Barbs; etc.


After all that, we’re just left with Corrosion’s positives, which so far have pretty much gone uncontested; it can compete with Tinted Lens without overlapping with it, and has seen virtually no use in any serious metagame. There’s potential to make something really unique here. Easy slate and easy vote imo.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All that out of the way, even ignoring Corrosion, I'm quite happy with the slate. Honestly, I spent a lot of the process feeling like there were hardly any interesting options, but I think all of the slated options are solid, and I’ve seen convincing arguments in favor of all of them. Ranking them will be difficult.

I would be more on board with Gale Wings if it stayed active at literally any threshold below full HP. Unfortunately, keeping the ability active is too difficult, and Flying moves too inconsistent, for Gale Wings to realistically come into play more than once or maybe twice in the average game. :pain:

 

[Brambane]

Salazzle has Knock Off, Taunt, and would likely barely change with Roost. It also never uses any of these moves. This alone proves that utility moves by themselves are not enough to break Corrosion, or are even that powerful in combination with it.
The thing holding Salazzle back is its frailty. So, would it shoot into Ubers with +20 in each defensive stat? +30? I have trouble believing so. Not for Toxic spam, anyway; the Nasty Plot sets are what would get out of hand first.

There are no utility options that Corrosion inherently takes off the table.
I suspect the belief otherwise comes from , who infamously used Toxic alongside Spikes and Knock Off to wear down anything that hoped to check it. But Lotl has Regenerator, incredible speed, and Fire Lash, which make it both harder to punish and more punishing than 30b could ever hope to be.

The only utility move that comes close to being restrictive is instant recovery, which:
1) 30i doesn't need recovery anyway? It's a utility breaker, not a wall. , , ; none of those use or even have instant recovery.
2) Corrosion doesn't even take recovery off the table. It just adds a trivial constraint, in literally-less-than-stellar bulk (like in the base 90s or less). As I discussed here, recovery could even make Corrosion more manageable, by causing 30b to have to waste turns healing throughout a match.

The Salazzle comparison is insufficient, as already discussed here and here. I won't rehash it. The Astrolotl bit seems irrelevant; scapegoating Astro as the source of our Toxic fears is emotion-based strawman at best and implies that since we made a mon too strong with Toxic once, we can never give a Pokemon Toxic again.

As for the points:
1) The recovery argument isn't about necessity, its about availability and design space. The "doesn't need recovery" argument already accepts that Corrosion would limit 30i's design space, but that 30i would be fine. This is insufficient in the face of other ability options that don't hamstring 30i's movepool options anymore than we already let 30i affect 30b (which is very little ftr.) Also the examples you listed are hogshit since 2 (sometimes all 3!) of them use Leftovers, aren't weak to SR, and use a completely different set of STAB options, all of which already differ vastly from 30i. Apples to oranges.

2) The "forcing us to recover" argument is horrendous, since it assumes that healing is wasting a turn. It usually isn't, especially when you are using Toxic, which by design affords you more turns to heal since it can do the damage and apply offensive pressure for you. As for just reducing 30b's bulk to balance Corrosion, I find that notion odd considering its generally considered that the strength of Poison/Flying is its defensive properties, which is largely why the only other purely offensive ability on this slate is No Guard, which has discussed Hypnosis and Inferno as key options anyways! Perhaps we could strike a happy median with the defensive stats, but again I don't see why we need to make the process harder on 30b AND 30i when the rest of the abilities on the slate engage with the concept/framework just as well without all the hand-wringing of Corrosion.

 

[psykokitty]

Keep the slate the way it is. Corrosion is clearly pro-concept, as illustrated by Korski. It has retained support in the face of pushback, unlike options like Filter and Gale Wings (though it seems like Gale Wings is making a comeback at this late hour). The same can be said for Water Bubble. The reasoning for including Fluffy and Stamina is solid. Thick Fat and No Guard have seen near-optimized users in the past, but convincing arguments have been made in their favor. So, I think the slate Tadasuke came up with looks great.

People should remember, merely slating an option does not mean that it will win the vote.

 

[Pipotchi]

Some abils I dont really like and I dont think should be slated:

Fluffy: Where is this going to go as far as the concept? How are we going to optimize fluffy in a meaningful way or a way thats integral to its playstyle? Its a 0 effort ability that automatically becomes central to the mon as a near-interationless ability- in fact the only part of this ability that has a relationship with anything is a weakness, and I dont really see the optimization or negation of a weakness to tie in here: I would actually feel less happy about my clefable switchin being flamethrower weak than anything. I dont see it being particularly unique with our typing and it would flatten an already really barebones concept into absolutely no direction whatsoever.
When it comes to the regular damage of non-contact moves, the fact that it dodges earthquake is great, but i really dont think it has any special interaction with the non contact physical moves out of which the only real relevant ones are scale shot, eq, and stone edge. i dont really see anything flourishing from that list that can guide us for the rest of the concept. Compare to thick fat which gives some specific mons to target with defenses and coverage moves.

No Guard: I think Aurumoth has used this in the current gen and last gen enough for this to be invalid, but aside from that I really dont see any value in pulling from the <70% accuracy moves (which seems like the whole purpose of the ability) like sleep, zap cannon, dynamic punch, really the only one that is bearable is Inferno and its polljumping to assume that one single move will happen- the 70/80% accuracy stabs are still usable with or without no guard. Aurumoth has already shown a wide range of No Guard moves in use: megahorn, zen headbutt, focus blast, thunder, blizzard, hydro pump, overheat. We can pick something else that fits the criteria of being a good ability that has never been allowed to shine in higher tiers that also brings something new.

Water Bubble: everything that has already been said

edit: I also gotta say, while ppl have somewhat convinced me that Corrosion as a whole is not the end of the world for an ability choice, im having a very hard time seeing these two goliath abilities competing for movepools (and to a lesser extent stats) that keeps both balanced. Im not a big fan of how its looking. Corrosion could be saved for a future CAP where it can fully work by itself, while smaller abilities in thick fat/stamina can find use with any movepool.

 

[CharSiuEmboar]

- Recent Tournament doesn't bring countermeasures to pokemon that doesn't exist
- Corrosion is only okay in a meta that has like 2 pokemon affected by it

I'm not that fussed whether Corrosion makes it into slate or not, I think I'm backing Stamina at the moment, but the arguments held up against Corrosion essentially boil down to the two points above.

 

[Lectrys]

I wasn't previously thinking of posting here, especially this late in the Ability 2 discussion, but this statement is outright wrong:

And in the vast, chaotic space that is the myriad Other Metagames, there isn't a single one where Corrosion, its users, or even any Toxic-based strategies beyond just having the move, are even viable, let alone banned.

Corrosion is indeed used and is indeed viable in Balanced Hackmons of all metas. One of the sample BH teams, recently updated for the post-Rusted Sword ban meta, has Corrosion Eternatus (you can see the sample teams in https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/balanced-hackmons.3656408/#post-8286447). Note that one of the other sample teams there, "Water Gun" Stall, was edited by BH leadership to remove Water Gun from its movesets, so it's not like BH leadership is afraid of editing out unviable material from its finalized sample teams.

The sample team's creator, Nihilslave, says this about how to use Corrosion Eternatus to the best of its ability (pun welcomed with open arms) and how important Corrosion Eternatus is to that team:

Team Name: Corrosion Offense
Description: An offense which weakens opposing Special / Steel-Type walls in various ways.
Pokepaste: https://pokepast.es/22103bc4d301ef17
How to use: Eternatus + Celesteela and Regigigas + Xerneas are the two wheels this team runs on.
- Corrosion Eternatus lures special walls and prankster users in and then uses Toxic on them which will never miss. This helps Celesteela (actually the whole team) a lot in terms of dealing with special walls and Steel-Type mons. And since common Poison Heal mons are all afraid of Eternatus' STABs, this strategy will easily work.

Yes, even in the much higher-power meta of Balanced Hackmons, and even with Poison Heal and Comatose completely blocking Corrosion and thus providing easy counter-play, Corrosion is still viable there. Granted, this Corrosion Eternatus gets to play with Core Enforcer to remove Poison Heal...if it somehow out-slows its targets such as Giratina and Tapu Fini. But Toxicing formidable walls like Ice Scales Zamazenta-Crowned and Prankster Registeel is very much worth not using a powerful ability like Dragon's Maw or Simple.

For the matter, I support Corrosion getting slated: unblockable Toxic itself, while looking like a great way to make progress, still looks reasonably easy to take advantage of (at least in the short term) due to its lack of immediate damage (bring in offensive pivot, bring in already statused mon, dent CAP 30b for like 40% damage or so if it has no recovery, threaten the 2HKO if it does have recovery, Knock Off its Heavy-Duty Boots so two can play at the chip damage game, other counter-play has already been previously stated). (I was personally thinking that a mon whose only answer to Steels is Corrosion Toxic is well on its way to becoming balanced, although that's not the only way to balance Corrosion.) I must note that a utility wallbreaker likely does appreciate reliable recovery regardless of its bulk, though (e.g. Tapu Koko's use of Roost despite its frailty, Alakazam-Mega's use of Recover despite its frailty), and therefore, the concern that Corrosion can restrict the shared movepool for 30i does have some merit (we all know how effective Toxic + recovery can be, so of course a way to balance Corrosion 30b is to remove one of those from the shared movepool).

While I'm neutral about Water Bubble getting slated right now (I used to be more against it until reading the later arguments in this thread), I do get the feeling that we're primarily going to use Water Bubble as a glorified Heatproof and we'll even be afraid of giving Water Bubble 30b Scald or Waterfall, let alone Surf or Liquidation. At this point, part of me wonders why we're not slating Heatproof instead. I guess complete immunity to Burn really is that important? I suppose Water Bubble technically provides a unique set of defensive bonuses among all abilities, and that's what we'll be optimizing.

Stamina looks like a complete home run, though. Ability only seen on a RU mon or below? Check. Powerful enough that mons in Almost Any Ability want to run it? Check. Poison/Flying is a good enough defensive typing to abuse it? Check. If we're looking for a non-controversial yet powerful ability, I think Stamina is it.

 

[NitioWO]

I like the slate right now except for the inclusion of No Guard. I don't think there is a whole lot of room to explore with that ability. The fact that Aurumoth used it pretty well means it's also probably anti-concept. Thick Fat is still in the same boat for me, but it fits the typing better and has more room to explore, so I don't mind it as much.

I personally don't like Water Bubble or Corrosion (though my stance on Corrosion has softened somewhat), but don't see why they shouldn't be slated.

Fluffy and Stamina fit the concept and are good.

I don't personally like Gale Wings, but I would rather see that on the slate than Thick Fat or No Guard. The only other ability that interests me from the "almost made it" pile is Wandering Spirit. The others are all uninspiring or anti-concept.

 

[snake]

I want to challenge a couple points made by this post.

3): It's worth noting that being Poison/Flying type does not necessarily mean you get either Poison or Flying STAB. infamously has Bounce as its best Flying STAB, and itself has Cross Poison as its best Poison STAB.

You are correct that Gyarados doesn’t get a reliable Flying-type STAB, and that being a Flying-type doesn’t necessarily mean we get a STAB move. However, to maximize its ability Tinted Lens, I would argue that CAP30i needs to have access to a strong Flying-type STAB to be best product. The insane strength of Tinted Lens Flying-type moves is a huge draw, and Tinted Lens Poison-type moves just doesn’t come near that. This is especially true with our secondary typing, Poison, as it doesn’t offer nearly as much with Tinted Lens due to Steel types being immune to it. Without Tinted Lens Flying-type moves, I’m not sure what strengths are left that CAP30i can actually use effectively.

The only utility move that comes close to being restrictive is instant recovery, which:
1) 30i doesn't need recovery anyway? It's a utility breaker, not a wall. , , ; none of those use or even have instant recovery.

You are also correct that these Pokemon don’t get recovery and do their job just fine. However, none of these Pokemon have a Stealth Rock weakness, which makes recovery less necessary on them. Moreover, CAP30i is item-locked by definition, meaning it cannot run Heavy-Duty Boots to alleviate its Stealth Rock weakness. Already, CAP30 yearns for recovery. However, most importantly to me, the most reliable Flying-type STAB, Brave Bird (for its 100% accuracy and high power), incurs recoil damage. While we don’t have to use this move, locking out recovery from CAP30i makes much harder to pick arguably the best move we could possible give CAP30i, Brave Bird. And in the last section of the post, I already explained why Flying-type STAB is important to our concept.

In my last post, I said that Corrosion is a path CAP30b can take, but it will cost our design space. However, if Corrosion is going to reduce our design space to lock CAP30i out of recovery (and by extension, potential effective use of the best Flying-type move Brave Bird), then I’m not sure if I can get on board with it. Losing these potential tools on CAP30i is not a sacrifice I’m willing to support.

 

[Astra]

While Corrosion and Water Bubble are the two abilities up on the preliminary slate that I'm the least fond of, I believe that they should be allowed there for the fact that the arguments for and against them both bring up very good points. I'm not going to mention them here (half of the posts in this thread are literally just about either of these abilities, so go read those if you haven't already, for some reason), but considering how divisive the discussion is currently, seeing how they both actually fare in voting seems to be at least reasonable. Again, I definitely won't consider myself a supporter of either at all, but we're already so far into this abyss. That's just my opinion, though.

Fluffy:
...
When it comes to the regular damage of non-contact moves, the fact that it dodges earthquake is great, but i really dont think it has any special interaction with the non contact physical moves out of which the only real relevant ones are scale shot, eq, and stone edge.

Just to quickly add on to this in defense of Fluffy, Icicle Crash and Ice Shard are both physical attacks that don't make contact as well, and while they only see use in the metagame because of Weavile, the fact that it's an incredible presence and influence on the metagame should at least make it a mention here as an entire Pokemon itself, rather than just solely Icicle Crash and Ice Shard.

Besides that, though, Fluffy is very similar to Fur Coat in that it's basically a straight boost to CAP30b's Defense with the exception of a couple of moves, some of which are either unviable or don't even do anything to it (Earthquake, for example). While the weakness to Fire does add some sort of spice to it, I can't really see a vision where our process going forward if we choose Fluffy would deviate heavily from a process where Fur Coat is used instead. I still think it should be slated for it being at least somewhat unique for an ability with an explicit stat boost, but it's definitely the least interesting option that's deserving of that spot.

The other abilities listed on the preliminary slate I'm mostly fine with. Thick Fat and Stamina are very interesting options are personally my top two choice for this stage. No Guard I guess I would be fine with as well, but I would choose to replace it with another ability if we'd have to, even over Fluffy. I don't know what I would replace it with, though; none of the other abilities that were mentioned recently here were ones I were necessarily fond of, so it's whatever at this point.

Also, just a little critique from me, but I feel like we should've at least established a concrete line between what abilities would be eligible for this concept because a lot of this stuff is incredibly blurry to me. Like Amamama mentioned before, Thick Fat technically should be very close to being anti-concept due to Mega Venusaur's usage in past generations. Additionally, I do recall long ago that people were discussing that an ability's eligibility should be determined based on its usage in certain metagames, not just OU, which I would think makes some of these abilities anti-concept by technicality, but again, the limit at which an ability has shown to be viable just in general seems to have never been established. I guess it's too late to actually correct this now, but I just wanted to point it out.

 

[D2TheW]

It'll be balanced guys, trust the process

Quick post just to say I generally support the slate. I did just want to add my two cents on some stuff though.

Water Bubble: I think this more than deserves to be on the slate. It fulfills the concept and has good synergy with the typing. More importantly it gives 30b a unique defensive and offensive profile and allows it to prey on metagame staples in tran and lando. Concerns about having to limit its offensive potential are fair but that's not an unreasonable limitation to work with.

Corrosion: Not a fan of this one tbh, but I understand why it's on the slate. I don't think it's as bad as some parties have made out but conversely I feel like a fair few people are severely underestimating it's potential. One thing I've noted is that few of the mons listed as solid corrosion checks, such as kril, paj and fini don't have reliable recovery beyond lefties (which kril can't even afford) so in the long term they're going to become a lot shakier as checks.

I also just want to respond to some other people's points.

From what I've read here on the forum, most anti-Corrosion arguments seem to be solely considerate of the current makeup of the CAP metagame, with not a single comment debating its superior relevance to the Concept compared to the other options. The rule is that the metagame adapts to the CAPs, not the other way around, so if Clefable and Steel-types become less useful in one way out of the dozens of ways in which they are still useful, and if Magnezone, Crucibelle, Pajantom, Krilowatt, Naviathan, Volt Switch, Substitute, Taunt, Heal Bell, and Misty Terrain (which blocks Toxic damage even if grounded opponent is already Poisoned) or whatever else become more valuable as a result of this Project, that is a *good thing*, at least compared to a result where the metagame can simply absorb this Forme with no consequences because we made sure it would be able to, with little to analyze and less to learn. It is not relevant, for example, that 81% of the most recent CAP Tournament teams were underprepared to face a Poison / Flying-type Pokemon with Corrosion, because no such thing existed or needed to be prepared for during that tournament. We have complete control over the build of this CAP, and while I totally get the power creep that defines the tier, this Concept is "Optimized Ability," and we do not owe it to the CAP to beef its stats and coverage at the expense of the explicit Project goals just because we've done it before.

So I wanted to touch on this real quick because I think it misrepresents the issues people have with corrosion. In particular this line "The rule is that the metagame adapts to the CAPs, not the other way around". The issue here is not forcing the metagame to adapt, rather the justifiable concern that corrosion could restrict the meta. The addition of any viable pokemon to the meta will cause some level of adaptation in that meta. The cap meta and playerbase is more than used to this by now. However, adding restrictive elements to a meta is an entirely different kettle of fish. Restrictive pokemon force you to use one of a limited pool of answers, or you'll be putting yourself at an immense disadvantage. Spectrier is a very obvious example, necessitating a dark type or Blissey on every team, but not every example is as clear cut. The classic cap example is Libra, which immediately strangled the meta upon it's release.

Now whether or not corrosion is actually going to be restrictive is a fair debate, I'm currently leaning towards the side of yes but there's definitely a reasonable case to be made that this can be avoided. But that's not really my point here, my point, again, is that the concern here isn't that the meta will have to adapt but that the meta will be restricted. Hence, talking about how it's perfectly reasonable to expect the meta to adapt is missing the point somewhat.

And in the vast, chaotic space that is the myriad Other Metagames, there isn't a single one where Corrosion, its users, or even any Toxic-based strategies beyond just having the move, are even viable, let alone banned.

Stop using oms as examples. They're not remotely like the metagame we're building for and frankly, they're simply not relevant to the process. Just for the record though, any om with free access to corrosion on any pokemon is also giving significantly greater access to all the abilities that both give it issues and outclass it, magic guard, magic bounce and regenerator being particularly obvious. Corrosion might be an 8/10 ability in a vacuum, but in a meta where everything can have 10/10 abilities it's still not gonna stand out. These kind of intricacies are why it's pointless to look at oms for examples.

As I discussed here, recovery could even make Corrosion more manageable, by causing 30b to have to waste turns healing throughout a match.

I'm gonna be honest, this is just baffling. If 30b has no recovery it's naturally going to have far less opportunities to click toxic. Even if 30b would have to click it's recovery move now and again, I think it's pretty obvious that the longer it stays alive, the more opportunities it's gonna get to click toxic. If the plan here is that 30b will be frail enough that it will have to click it's recovery at every possible opportunity, then it's just gonna be a bad mon, so what's the point. This is a terrible approach to balancing this ability.

It's worth noting that being Poison/Flying type does not necessarily mean you get either Poison or Flying STAB. infamously has Bounce as its best Flying STAB, and itself has Cross Poison as its best Poison STAB. So if we as felt it was really important to us that we're walled by or or whatever, we could simply not give 30b both STABs. Physical/Special split means this need not interfere with 30i.

Reminder that 30b will be sharing it's movepool with 30i. What you're suggesting here is, in fact, putting restrictions on the movepool of 30i, to try and preserve some of the few answers that corrosion could have. I feel like it should go without saying that this is far from ideal.
Snake sniped me on the recovery point as I was writing this, but I agree with him on that.

Ultimately, IMO the question of “is Corrosion OP” is fairly easily resolved: how many OU mons would trade their current ability for it? I struggle to think of many

Several defensive staples are defensive staples in no small part due to their abilities. Clef and Pex are obvious examples but stuff like Corv and Zapdos still use their abilities as key parts of their niche. These pokemon also aren't designed around the use of corrosion the way 30b would be. Some have typings that already don't care about steels, some are so strapped for moveslots that they don't really need or want toxic. This question is not the be all and end all of this discussion as you make it out to be.

Also, gale wings sucks lmao, get owned Darek

 

[earthflax]

Salazzle has Knock Off, Taunt, and would likely barely change with Roost. It also never uses any of these moves.

I don't know how you can keep saying this shit like it's proof that Corrosion on a mon that can actually use it won't be busted. Offensive Salazzle in Gen 7 didn't run Corrosion. Current-gen Salazzle gets very limited mileage out of Corrosion, in NU largely being forced to run it for bulky waters. Oh, and by the way, it does run Knock Off, and very much enjoys crippling switchins with it, so please don't use that blatantly wrong example. Moreover, Salazzle is a terrible example because it breaks the most common Toxic absorbers with its other STAB. We do not. Corrosion 30b gets far, far more use out of Corrosion and lets it bypass potential checks and counters like Heatran and Corviknight. It also gets a lot more use out of utility because its offensive typing means it doesn't necessarily have to justify running both STABs.

Being Poison/Flying type does not necessarily mean you get either Poison or Flying STAB. infamously has Bounce as its best Flying STAB, and itself has Cross Poison as its best Poison STAB. So if we as felt it was really important to us that we're walled by or or whatever, we could simply not give 30b both STABs. Physical/Special split means this need not interfere with 30i.

This is an awful bandaid solution just to justify an ability on a framework it does not fit. Never in the history of CAP have we made a conscious decision to take a potentially broken mechanic mid-process and force ourselves to balance around it to that degree, and for good reason. There's nothing more to say here.

To your first paragraph, I feel as though your cherry-picking the argument we're really making. Corrosion is an under-optimized (and clearly an under-explored) ability, and what most of us on the pro-Corrosion side are saying is this concept asks of us to optimize an ability. To say we're supporting it over solely fun is a pretty superficial reading of the arguments. To move on and say that Corrosion is comparable to a Vish/Seismitoad meta is not even a close comparison, in power level and in the nature of play (hyper offensive as opposed to defensive). I'd also love to know what moves you're referring to that would make 30b with Corrosion broken (aside from Taunt, Roost, and Knock Off). Any others? I can see the argument for taunt, but there are plenty of other utility moves that I don't see as limiting that can be included (other status besides toxic, hazard removal, tailwind, hazards, wish, teleport, again I can go on). I wouldn't kid ourselves that (even if they were broken, Taunt especially though I could see the exception) we're pigeon-holing to the extreme extent you're making out. We're not, and including Corrosion can still allow the two forms to work independently of each other, especially in that if Corrosion is chosen, they would likely hold very different team roles.

Yes, this concept asks for us to optimize an underused ability. Yes, Corrosion is thus pro-concept. No, that does not mean Corrosion is even close to good for this concept. I am not saying that "fun" is everyone's argument, but those who are making it don't realize how much of a detriment this is to the process. The Vish comparison is valid. Just because it doesn't OHKO things right from the getgo doesn't mean that its counterplay isn't extremely limited with very few close to viable options. Acting like "just" those big 3 will break it is incredibly disingenuous, because guess what? 30i really appreciates those! And that's not even mentioning stuff that you listed like hazards which are incredibly volatile on it (being a Poison-type hazard setter that beats Corviknight is incredibly stupid). Yes, we are pigeonholing ourselves, and to a great extent, on both 30b and 30i, just to justify an easily breakable ability.

This framework is not the one for Corrosion. It's stupidly restrictive, and for very little gain.