CAP 30 - Part 5 - Primary Ability Discussion 30b

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I want to weigh in on corrosion specifically. Yes it's easy to spam, especially into the primary switch in...but there's nothing saying it will be bulky enough to do it constantly. This typing has so many common weaknesses that it could be made where it's easy to pick off. Then it's no different from any other pokemon clicking toxic. Weakness to rocks either forces heavy duty boots, denying recovery, or limits how many times it can even attempt it's trick. It's also pretty similar to just setting toxic spikes vs teams who struggle to clear them. I'm fairy certain people are making a mountain out of what is a pretty cool mole hill
 
First of all, just want to echo all the points on Corrosion that Dex made; I agree with them wholeheartedly. Just thought I'd respond to the pro-Corrosion side a bit more as well as argue a bit more on the problems with Corrosion.

1. Corrosion's Counterplay is Too Limited

I'm going to focus mostly on the comments on Part IV here, because the idea that Toxic is somehow totally uncounterable (as opposed to merely quite strong) seems to be where the majority of contention ultimately spawns from. It kind of feels like I'm mostly reiterating points I've already made, but, whatever, it never hurts to clarify.


This'd be true... were Fini the only counter. I've noticed a pattern in Corrosion discussion that goes something like:
ALICE: Corrosion Toxic has no counterplay.​
BOB: [Lists a counter]​
ALICE: It's unhealthy if there's only one counter.​
BOB: [Lists another counter]​
ALICE: It's unhealthy if there's only one counter.​
[Repeat]​
Like, sure, 1 is a small number, but add enough 1s together, along with some 0.5s, and you start to approach considerably larger numbers.

Also, "forcing" is a misleading word. It implies that there'd be absolutely no reason to run eg :tapu fini: or Heal Bell outside of 30b, and that those options provide no utility to the team outside the 30b matchup. This is pretty much never the case. Everything I brought up in those examples can contribute a lot more to the team than just a 30b check, even the more obscure options.


Related to the previous point: having a large number of relatively uncommon checks adds up to checks in general being somewhat common. Sure, the chance you'll run into :naviathan: is low, as is the chance you'll run into :reuniclus:, but the chance you'll run into ONE OF [:naviathan: OR :reuniclus: OR :tapu fini: OR Aromatherapy OR etc] is quite high.

I also don't like the implication that a mon is balanced if and only if it matches up unambiguously poorly into one of the tiny handful of current >A-rank threats, with anything else rounding down to irrelevant. That's an extremely myopic and one-dimensional view of how the game works.

I'd even argue, having a lot of somewhat obscure counters is kind of a good thing. It means you now have slightly more reason to run these mons in general, and can work to make the metagame as a whole more varied and interesting.


This is incredibly pedantic, and probably not worth including in this post, but: :clefable: is not particularly strict with what moves you run on it. It's a versatile mon, that can make do with whatever you need it to do. It's not going to be immediately dumpstered if you decide to ditch Stealth Rock or Knock Off or Protect or whatever.
The distribution of cleric moves is wide enough that this point likely generalizes.


I guess your games just last longer than mine do? Idk. This is kind of true in long, drawn-out games, but IME, even (or especially) when playing with or against stall, aggressive play is the best way to maneuver around slow, passive strategies.

Again, never claimed these mons are 100% totally immune to poison; just that there are many cases where there's a significant opportunity cost to clicking Toxic over doing something else. You can get value out of a play, and still have it be a bad play.
This post describes and lists out the available counterplay to Corrosion, but contrary to what this post claims, the summation of this counterplay is still limited and only occurs on a minority of teams. Let's just take a look at the usage stats for CAPPL VII to see the truth:

For reference, there were 69(nice) games of SS CAP played during CAPPL, meaning 138 teams were brought.
Guts users: Naviathan was brought twice, seen on 1.45% of teams. Colossoil was brought 20 times but was never run with either Facade or Sucker Punch, indicating that Flame Orb Colossoil was not used at all.
Magic Guard users(except Clefable): Krilowatt was brought 4 times, seen on 2.90% of teams. Reuniclus was brought once, seen on 0.72% of teams.
Heal Bell/Aromatherapy: Clefable was brought 32 times, of those 32 times, it was seen once with Heal Bell and once with Aromatherapy. This accounts for 6.25% of all Clefables and 1.45% usage overall. Outside of Clefable, Aromatherapy wasn't used at all and Heal Bell was used once on Astrolotl and once on Cyclohm. Both these moves combined were seen 4 times, making up 2.90% of teams.
Natural Cure: Blissey was used once; Kerfluffle wasn't used at all, so this appears on .72% of teams.
Pajantom: Used 4 times, thus occurring on 2.90% of teams.
Snaelstrom: No one brought Snaelstrom lmao
Hyper Offense: Although the exact usage rate isn't clear, Cawmodore usage rates give us a pretty good estimate on this number. Cawmodore was used 10 times, with a 7.24% usage rate.

Putting everything together, only 26/138, or 18.84%, of teams brought to CAPPL had reliable counterplay to Poison/Flying Corrosion. This means that 81.16% of teams brought to CAPPL do not have a reliable Corrosion 30b answer. Plus, roughly 87.5% of non-HO teams do not have a Corrosion 30b answer. This statistic assumes the best-case scenario where there is no overlap between usages(ie Krilowatt and Aromatherapy Clef were used on the same team). I'm not including Tapu FIni as a reliable answer because it a) cannot switch into 30b; b) Misty Terrain can't reliably be kept up, especially considering the existence of other Tapus and Rillaboom; and c) Misty Terrain doesn't prevent mons like Corviknight, Skarmory, or Equilibra from getting poisoned. Even if we do add Tapu Fini to this statistic, this boosts the number of teams(assuming 0 overlap) with Corrosion answers to 52, or just 37.68% of teams.

Admittedly it is possible to fit counterplay to Corrosion 30b, but the fact that Corrosion is able to make stupid levels of progress against a sizable majority of teams is blatantly absurd. Despite the several answers listed by this post, the current meta isn't suited to reliably answer Corrosion 30b. Allowing Corrosion 30b to have any semblance of viability greatly constricts the teambuilding process and severely warps the metagame to an undesirable degree.

2. Corrosion Restricts the Process

After thinking about it some, I think Corrosion CAP30b is a valid route to take, but it will narrow CAP30b's focus.



Astrolotl and Equilibra had options to bypass Steel-types with their STAB options, not because of Toxic. In the case of Corrosion CAP30b, Toxic is the way CAP30 pushes through Steel-types. Thus, based on this analysis, if we want to balance Corrosion on CAP30, we might not be able to give CAP30 strong coverage moves that hit Steel-types. Luckily, because CAP30i has Tinted Lens, it might not need much coverage itself because Tinted Lens Flying-type STAB has excellent coverage on its own.

In response to the Salazzle comparison, I think Estronic points out very well that it's not enough to say that "Salazzle isn't overwhelming; therefore Corrosion CAP30b wouldn't be overwhelming." Others, however, have pointed out that a very bulky CAP30b could potentially spread Toxic too well. Thus, one option we could take on a similar stat build to Salazzle as a starting point and adjust from there.

What I want to say is that we can build with Corrosion CAP30b, and I think it's perhaps one of the strongest (if not the strongest) option we could give CAP30b. However, it's important to acknowledge that Corrosion would narrow down CAP30's focus pretty considerably to a unique but potent niche. In quziel's words, Corrosion would take up a lot of CAP30b's power budget. We would just have to consider that carefully moving forward.
While theoretically possible to create a Corrosion mon that isn't broken, the constraints placed on the process will ultimately lead to an arduous and unfulfilling process. In this example, selecting Corrosion already seems to determine the stat spread of CAP30b, as well as restrict our coverage options. I also don't find the comparison to Salazzle to be a particularly compelling argument. For starters, Salazzle's superior offensive typing and access to Nasty Plot make it overall better offensively than 30b will ever hope to be (Tinted Lens will likely block a lot of boosting moves), so a similarly offensive stat spread won't necessarily cut if for 30b. Plus, it's widely agreed that Salazzle utilizes Corrosion suboptimally; as such Corrosion seemingly mandating that we follow Salazzle's footsteps is pretty unappealing. And that's just the beginning. Corrosion severely limits the utility moves that are usable, which severely limits 30i's freedom as a utility breaker. For instance, 30i would quite like to have Knock Off but Knock Off's ability to cripple Corrosion checks like Krilowatt and Pajantom make it difficult to justify. Because of how limited we are, we will find ourselves trying to walk a fine line between making an unviable mon like Salazzle and making a mon that is broken and unhealthy.

3. Corrosion is Uncompetitive

Even if we manage to make a Corrosion mon that is somehow well-balanced, at the end of the day Corrosion is an ability that is inherently uncompetitive. In many situations, Corrosion puts the 30b user in a situation where they can click Toxic without having to consider in the slightest what the opponent may do in a given turn. Enabling these situations where players can just click buttons in the early game doesn't really inspire exciting, skillful, or competitive play.
 

dex

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  • Corrosion
    • In what ways might attempting to balance Corrosion negatively impact our other form?
      • There are a number of ways in which Corrosion would negatively impact our other form. However, I think the biggest impact Corrosion has on CAP30i is in the shared movepool. There are a number of moves (Knock Off, for instance) that would help CAP30i but be gangbusters broken on CAP30b. Recovery is another example of something that would be quite nice to have on CAP30i given its Rocks weakness and inability to hold HDB, but would be absolutely busted on CAP30b.
    • To what degree does the ability to spam Toxic or the poisoned status warp the metagame? Can this be mitigated to the point that introducing Corrosion CAP 30b will still be both healthy for the metagame and effective in fulfilling its concept?
      • Spamming Corrosion Toxic is uncompetitive. It rewards unskillful play. If CAP30b with Corrosion is able to effectively utilize its ability, it is unhealthy for the metagame. There is no in between here.
  • Water Bubble
    • What new routes for 30b does having Water as a secondary STAB open up? In what situations would this be the most beneficial? How does this run the risk of being too potent of an ability, and can that risk be reduced in any way?
      • I think the main attraction of the secondary STAB is the matchup into Heatran. Given recovery, this mon becomes an actual viable Heatran switch-in, one that is immune to both Earth Power and Toxic. This runs the risk of being too strong if Water Bubble is overshadowing our defensive role, but a happy medium is definitely achievable.
    • What strategies are bolstered by a resistance to Fire typing and an immunity to burn? Can this ability be used in a purely defensive manner while still being “optimized”?
      • I definitely think that the ability is more defensively leaning on CAP30b. It opens up some very neat options, particularly as a strong Status-absorber since it will be immune to both Toxic and Wisp.
  • Stamina
    • In what ways might Stamina affect our stats stage? How can this be taken advantage of?
      • Stamina would definitely affect the stats stage, but not in a wholly unhealthy way. I think giving CAP30b an initial defensive weakness, similar to Chromera, would be a flexible way of going about the stat stage.
    • How can this be optimized without defaulting to giving CAP 30b Body Press?
      • I'm... not totally sure. I think Body Press is a very obvious way to go about this, especially since it benefits CAP30b's matchup into Steel-types. There are probably routes to take it where CAP30b uses some combination of Recovery and Stamina to situationally wall physical attackers.
  • No Guard
    • Which attacks would synergize best with this ability? Are there any moves that aren’t immediately obvious given our typing that might provide an interesting path to take?
      • There have been a few moves talked about for No Guard, namely the 50% accurate moves, that synergize well with the ability. However, I think those moves, specifically Zap Cannon, could get out of hand quite quickly with No Guard. I'd rather see No Guard used with moves 70% accurate moves like Hurricane, Thunder, and Blizzard, if anything.
    • To what degree should we be worried about granting our opponent full accuracy on their moves?
      • In all honesty, not too much. Not being weak to Flying helps this massively, and we would probably want to swap on moves like Triple Axel and Magma Storm anyways.
  • Gale Wings
    • How do we ensure that CAP 30b can reliably be at full health in order for this ability to come into effect?
      • Boots works wonders for this. I also think a strong offensive presence can help in this regard, as it can force more switches to allow for more Recovery opportunities.
    • What options are available for us if we choose an offensive route with this mon? What about a defensive route?
      • Offensive options are pretty clear: super strong priority. Strong priority will always have a place in the metagame. Defensively, however, I don't really see us getting too much out of Gale Wings.
    • How can this be explored beyond the roles that were previously fulfilled by Talonflame?
      • In all honesty, Talonflame was a very, very good user of Gale Wings back in the day. I think giving CAP30b a stronger offensive presence would take us beyond that role and bring the ability back into the realm of viability.
  • Thick Fat
    • How can improved defensive matchups against two typings be optimized?
      • I think coverage and stats are going to play a large role in picking what we want to target with Thick Fat. I think the most realistic outcome of the ability is that we use it to check Fire-types like Heatran and Astrolotl.
    • Given the attacking power of many popular Ice types in the CAP Metagame, how much of an impact would this ability truly make without completely overloading our stats stage?
      • In all honesty, I think the Ice-type matchup is a wash. I think living one +2 Weavile Triple Axel would be the absolute most we would want to aim for, but even that requires a lot of investment.
  • Filter
    • In what situations is the general defensive boost against super-effective hits most impactful with regards to our typing? Are there any particular interactions with highly viable mons that are noteworthy?
      • In all honesty, I've soured on Filter. The types that hit Poison / Flying super effectively pack quite a punch from their common users, so I don't think Filter is too great of an option anymore.
 
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Brambane

protect the wetlands
is a Contributor Alumnus
Making a quick little post to make sure Sticky Hold hasn't been swept aside with all our discussion about Corrosion, Water Bubble, adding resistances, etc. This ability is still amazing for us since unknockable HDB is just great situational (albeit a common situation for sure) damage mitigation. I don't think its ever going to generate as much discussion as the other abilities since its so straightforward. Imo Sticky Hold is solid all-around and 100% slateworthy despite it being a basic bitch.
 

shnowshner

You've Gotta Try
is a Pre-Contributor
Corrosion
  • In what ways might attempting to balance Corrosion negatively impact our other form?
  • To what degree does the ability to spam Toxic or the poisoned status warp the metagame? Can this be mitigated to the point that introducing Corrosion CAP 30b will still be both healthy for the metagame and effective in fulfilling its concept?
Corrosion's ability to make Toxic an extremely free move means we have limited counterplay to making progress, moreso when two of the best Pokemon that could absorb our Toxic in Clefable and Tapu Fini are threatened by our Poison STAB. This would mean we either need to chunk our offensive stats to below Pex levels or leave out strong Poison STAB: two requirements that would have severe repercussions on 30i's outcome due to shared movepool and BST.

I believe this issue stems from how good Corrosion is on a defensive mon and how good Tinted Lens is on an offensive mon. Optimizing one in a balanced way compromises the balance of the other. I think that's the biggest pitfall surrounding Corrosion for 30b: while the ability has sufficient counterplay or drawbacks in a vacuum, our typing makes our best Corrosion answers deficient at being answers, and any mitigations we could do as damage control directly influences our other form, almost certainly in a negative way. As cool as Corrosion would be as a part of the metagame, this is not the ideal time or place for it.

Water Bubble
  • What new routes for 30b does having Water as a secondary STAB open up? In what situations would this be the most beneficial? How does this run the risk of being too potent of an ability, and can that risk be reduced in any way?
  • What strategies are bolstered by a resistance to Fire typing and an immunity to burn? Can this ability be used in a purely defensive manner while still being “optimized”?
I've touched on Water Bubble having the capacity to outclass Tinted Lens 30i in the offensive role due to how good our Triple STAB combo is, as even Water/Flying on its own is able to hit most of the Metagame neutral and has a good amount of SE matchups against relevant Pokemon like Landorus, Heatran, Arghonaut, and Jumbao. This is strong enough that Poison coverage would be largely superfluous outside of the few Pokemon that resist Water/Flying (:krilowatt::naviathan::rotom-wash::cyclohm::plasmanta: are the only Pokemon you'd see in OU that resist this combo) or for targeting Fairy-types we want to hit as hard as possible.

Optimizing this ability defensively is a possibity as gaining a Fire resist and Burn immunity makes us resistant to status and improves our matchup into anything which runs Fire coverage. Even if we're not a powerhouse having extra damage on some Water moves helps in pressuring key matchups. If anything leaning into Water Bubble's defensive niche would help differentiate it from something like Huge Power that can perform similarly if not better.

These defensive properties make our Heatran matchup skewed in our favor as it's Fire STAB hurts a lot less and it can't burn us. We'd have an easier time coming in on Scald and would sit quite comfortably on Toxapex outside of Knock Off. Wisp is a bit rare and its best user right now is Dragapult, who doesn't always use it. Volcarona lacking Psychic would struggle versus us and Astrolotl's best attack isn't nearly as painful. We'd also be able to come in on some Glowking variants as they typically run Future Sight as Psychic STAB and aren't always equipped with Ice Beam. Our typing + Water Bubble conveniently stuffs Venusaur as well if you wanted a check to Sun.

Stamina
  • In what ways might Stamina affect our stats stage? How can this be taken advantage of?
Stamina's influence on stats can go a lot of ways actually. Maybe our Defense is low but gets compensated for by acquiring boosts. Or we have poor Special bulk so that we're still vulnerable to the other half of the attacking Spectrum. Full-on wall is also on the table with our weakness being passivity.

Stamina's biggest interactions are with weaker utility moves and multi-hits. Getting a free Defense boost from a U-Turn (which we quad-resist) can limit what threatens us in return, for example. Physical Multi-hits become significantly weaker as they attack us as well. Weavile's Triple Axel goes from 120 BP on all hits to effectively 80 BP (20/40/60 to 20/30/30 due to Defense boosts).

  • How can this be optimized without defaulting to giving 30b Body Press?
Body Press is undeniably the #1 move that makes Stamina such a cool option. It allows us to get increasingly more powerful as the opponent attacks us while dealing with our biggest problem type in Steel.

Without Body Press we still have a lot of use to squeeze out of Stamina. Recovery goes a long way in making our boosts practical versus an arbitrarily high Defense stat. Any means we have that enables Stamina boosts to punish the opponent for hitting us means we are optimizing our Ability. This can be as simple as coming in on U-Turn and using our enhanced bulk to Defog in front of the opponent, or coming in on a resisted move and inviting in Special Attackers that seek to ignore our raised Defense, a prediction we could capitalize on with the right move or a double switch.

No Guard
  • Which attacks would synergize best with this ability? Are there any moves that aren’t immediately obvious given our typing that might provide an interesting path to take?
  • To what degree should we be worried about granting our opponent full accuracy on their moves?
Coverage-wise Dynamic Punch and Focus Blast both gain a lot from No Guard. D. Punch is a tad cheesey so you could also include High Jump Kick as a more powerful move that doesn't have to fear random half-health misses anymore. Fire-type moves also fit well and have plenty of options which appreciate not missing at all.

Status moves are another avenue and, ignoring Sleep moves which would be straight-up awful to add to the metagame, would gain a lot from being more consistent. Missing moves like Thunder Wave can be a huge pain which No Guard resolves. More niche options like Screech become a lot more compelling when you don't have to worry about such an unorthodox pick just failing to activate. Never missing attacks doesn't mean we get the most out of having moves with the lowest accuracy: having a good move with even as little as a 5% chance to miss can be the difference between a win or a loss, and removing that factor from play makes 30b stronger overall.

Full accuracy on opponent's moves has an effect but in a more practice-versus-theory way. Moves that might scare us like Triple Axel or Magma Storm are threatening us out irregardless of their chances to miss. No Guard simply means we can't make risky plays or potentially get a free out in a losing situation. The effect it has on our matchups is quite negliable as a result: it just makes them much more predictable as accuracy is no longer a factor. Perhaps the most you can say is that a Heatran can click Magma Storm into us without much risk as you either switch out anyhow or always get hit, when otherwise it might play into the miss with a less profitable but safer move. Making our losing match-up worse is a fair trade-off for improving winning ones IMO so I don't really see it as a huge detriment.

Gale Wings
  • How do we ensure that CAP 30b can reliably be at full health in order for this ability to come into effect?
You won't believe this, but I have discovered the most incredible never-before-seen solution to our crippling Rocks weakness:
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Heavy-Duty Boots alone won't keep us healthy however. Passive damage is all over the place, from Heltmet/Barbs, Sandstorm/Hail, and our own recoil depending on what moves we have. We also can't come in on much as taking direct damage or Status means we lose Gale Wings (or get Paralyzed which isn't good either). Losing our item would also leave us at the mercy of any Stealth Rocks in play.

The easiest solution is some form of Recovery to mitigate any damage we'll probably receive throughout the match. This allows us to be more aggressive as we're not completely screwed out of an Ability should we take damage. Finding opportunity to recover HP would partially require forcing the opponent out beyond Gale Wings; this shouldn't be too hard to accomplish given our typing's defensive qualities and any offensive strength we might have. Being slower than an opponent also lets us get back to full at the end of a turn, though we would have to live that long.

  • What options are available for us if we choose an offensive route with this mon? What about a defensive route?
  • How can this be explored beyond the roles that were previously fulfilled by Talonflame?
Strong Priority attacks are amazing in general: you essentially serve as the ideal Revenge Killer, one that can revenge any mon while being a pain to revenge kill in return. Condensing your Priority attack and main damage-dealing move also opens so much room in your moveset. The only downside to this is Lele's Psychic Terrain denying you your best move, which can really blow when the priority aspect is irrelevant and you just want to use your strongest STAB. Defensive properties are essentially non-existent as any Priority Roost shenanigans from before are impossible now. The sole option we gain is a Priority Feather Dance, which, although pretty neat, isn't enough to base a whole Pokemon around. Our defensive gains should be supplementary to our offensive ones.

Differentiating ourselves from Talonflame should primarily come from using different Flying moves and being more defense-oriented as a result of our typing, which is a far cry from the offensive might of Fire/Flying. There's also our stats: Talon was pretty much all Speed and mediocre everything else.


I don't have anything to add about the last two but do think Sticky Hold is worth being slated. Not very interesting but it's a good option regardless and can definitely be explored beyond digging our feet into our boots. Would mean 30 as a whole is unable to be affected by item manipulation which is cool, even if it sorta defeats the purpose of 30i's unique traits.

I know there's concerns of Knock Off always being powered-up but I think the damage we'd take from Rocks heavily outweighs what we'd take from common users like Clefable and Toxapex. We'd also get to be a great Trick answer and probably be one of Fini's safer switch-ins.
 
Want to talk a bit about Water Bubble.

I have mixed feelings on it. It's definitely a top contender, with a lot of useful properties, both from a competitive and CAP-process perspective. I'm also not worried about Water Bubble being over- or under-powered; that's an implementation detail.

However, Water Bubble heavily overlaps with Tinted Lens’ design space. I'm worried that it'll result in 30i and 30b directly competing for a team slot - and eventually, one coming out on top as the definitive best.

This is because, on paper, Water Bubble is almost a direct upgrade over Tinted Lens.

Poison/Flying/Water has near-perfect neutral coverage - like TL Flying, but with the added benefit of Water's super-effective coverage.
While Tinted Lens may “ease prediction”, in that you don't have to worry as much about predicting wrong and attacking into a resist, I don't consider this a meaningful advantage. It'd be really disappointing if the difference between 30i and 30b amounted to “30i is the one you pick if you want to turn your brain off”.

Combine that with Water Bubble's added Fire resistance and burn immunity - with no additional drawbacks - and you get many cases where Water Bubble outperforms Tinted Lens, but next to none where Tinted Lens outperforms Water Bubble.

Of course, all of this is only looking at ability and type. Maybe there's more room to differentiate the two via stats and movepool than I'm giving credit for.
 
  • Corrosion
    • In what ways might attempting to balance Corrosion negatively impact our other form?
    • To what degree does the ability to spam Toxic or the poisoned status warp the metagame? Can this be mitigated to the point that introducing Corrosion CAP 30b will still be both healthy for the metagame and effective in fulfilling its concept?
1. BST limitations (likely with a focus on bulk) would probably naturally limit 30b, but in retrospect, we're also dealing with plausible BST limitations alone from the potentness of TL and STAB-boosting item. A more limited movepool to allow for more direct checks and counters could also negatively impact the other form as well.
2. We've seen from both Equilibra and Astrolotl how Toxic can be metagame warping in tangent with other potent pressuring tools. For instance, Equilibra was able to use toxic to its advantage in tangent with Doom Desire pressure (and who to switch into to take said Dom Desire). Astrolotl was able to make progress with ultility/hazards by pressuing with Toxic, all the while having Fire Lash to eventually widdle down would-be checks to have to switch out. With Corrosion, we'd have to be mindful of the ways in which we pressure would-be checks, in my opinion especially when it comes to the movepool stage. Corrosion can give 30b a way to make progress through defensive or tank-type roles without being entirely hardwalled by anything with Steel typing, especially considering Toxic is a relatively "slow-burning" way to make progress, generally speaking when talking about just Toxic alone not in tandem with other tools. I think Corrosion can 100% be mitigated enough to be healthy (because we've seen it before, but more on that below).

  • Water Bubble
    • What new routes for 30b does having Water as a secondary STAB open up? In what situations would this be the most beneficial? How does this run the risk of being too potent of an ability, and can that risk be reduced in any way?
    • What strategies are bolstered by a resistance to Fire typing and an immunity to burn? Can this ability be used in a purely defensive manner while still being “optimized”?
1. Obviously, the ability to reliable hit certain Steels neutrally that would typically wall us would be a major benefit. With that said though, it would also preserve checks such as Ferrothorn for starters. I don't think it runs a risk of being too potent of an ability personally, especially unlike Araquanid we're not including Water STAB on top of the 2x boosts. It may even carve out unique niches like having a newly defined and never before seen role on rain teams. In terms of balancing though, I would look more importantly towards stats, but even with a strong Water movepool (at least with possible stat restrictions being considered), I don't see it as much of an issue.
2. Firstly, it would give us a secondary means to avoid chip damage (the first being through Toxic and now adding on an immunity to burns). From a defensive standpoint, it would limit chip to things such as trapping moves, Leech Seed, hazards, and certain weather conditions. From that standpoint alone, alongside the handy ability to now be able to switch into Fire-type attacks, this ability can absolutely be optimized in a purely defensive manner, alongside giving 30b the ability to spam Scald more readily.

First of all, just want to echo all the points on Corrosion that Dex made; I agree with them wholeheartedly. Just thought I'd respond to the pro-Corrosion side a bit more as well as argue a bit more on the problems with Corrosion.

1. Corrosion's Counterplay is Too Limited



This post describes and lists out the available counterplay to Corrosion, but contrary to what this post claims, the summation of this counterplay is still limited and only occurs on a minority of teams. Let's just take a look at the usage stats for CAPPL VII to see the truth:

For reference, there were 69(nice) games of SS CAP played during CAPPL, meaning 138 teams were brought.
Guts users: Naviathan was brought twice, seen on 1.45% of teams. Colossoil was brought 20 times but was never run with either Facade or Sucker Punch, indicating that Flame Orb Colossoil was not used at all.
Magic Guard users(except Clefable): Krilowatt was brought 4 times, seen on 2.90% of teams. Reuniclus was brought once, seen on 0.72% of teams.
Heal Bell/Aromatherapy: Clefable was brought 32 times, of those 32 times, it was seen once with Heal Bell and once with Aromatherapy. This accounts for 6.25% of all Clefables and 1.45% usage overall. Outside of Clefable, Aromatherapy wasn't used at all and Heal Bell was used once on Astrolotl and once on Cyclohm. Both these moves combined were seen 4 times, making up 2.90% of teams.
Natural Cure: Blissey was used once; Kerfluffle wasn't used at all, so this appears on .72% of teams.
Pajantom: Used 4 times, thus occurring on 2.90% of teams.
Snaelstrom: No one brought Snaelstrom lmao
Hyper Offense: Although the exact usage rate isn't clear, Cawmodore usage rates give us a pretty good estimate on this number. Cawmodore was used 10 times, with a 7.24% usage rate.

Putting everything together, only 26/138, or 18.84%, of teams brought to CAPPL had reliable counterplay to Poison/Flying Corrosion. This means that 81.16% of teams brought to CAPPL do not have a reliable Corrosion 30b answer. Plus, roughly 87.5% of non-HO teams do not have a Corrosion 30b answer. This statistic assumes the best-case scenario where there is no overlap between usages(ie Krilowatt and Aromatherapy Clef were used on the same team). I'm not including Tapu FIni as a reliable answer because it a) cannot switch into 30b; b) Misty Terrain can't reliably be kept up, especially considering the existence of other Tapus and Rillaboom; and c) Misty Terrain doesn't prevent mons like Corviknight, Skarmory, or Equilibra from getting poisoned. Even if we do add Tapu Fini to this statistic, this boosts the number of teams(assuming 0 overlap) with Corrosion answers to 52, or just 37.68% of teams.

Admittedly it is possible to fit counterplay to Corrosion 30b, but the fact that Corrosion is able to make stupid levels of progress against a sizable majority of teams is blatantly absurd. Despite the several answers listed by this post, the current meta isn't suited to reliably answer Corrosion 30b. Allowing Corrosion 30b to have any semblance of viability greatly constricts the teambuilding process and severely warps the metagame to an undesirable degree.

2. Corrosion Restricts the Process



While theoretically possible to create a Corrosion mon that isn't broken, the constraints placed on the process will ultimately lead to an arduous and unfulfilling process. In this example, selecting Corrosion already seems to determine the stat spread of CAP30b, as well as restrict our coverage options. I also don't find the comparison to Salazzle to be a particularly compelling argument. For starters, Salazzle's superior offensive typing and access to Nasty Plot make it overall better offensively than 30b will ever hope to be (Tinted Lens will likely block a lot of boosting moves), so a similarly offensive stat spread won't necessarily cut if for 30b. Plus, it's widely agreed that Salazzle utilizes Corrosion suboptimally; as such Corrosion seemingly mandating that we follow Salazzle's footsteps is pretty unappealing. And that's just the beginning. Corrosion severely limits the utility moves that are usable, which severely limits 30i's freedom as a utility breaker. For instance, 30i would quite like to have Knock Off but Knock Off's ability to cripple Corrosion checks like Krilowatt and Pajantom make it difficult to justify. Because of how limited we are, we will find ourselves trying to walk a fine line between making an unviable mon like Salazzle and making a mon that is broken and unhealthy.

3. Corrosion is Uncompetitive

Even if we manage to make a Corrosion mon that is somehow well-balanced, at the end of the day Corrosion is an ability that is inherently uncompetitive. In many situations, Corrosion puts the 30b user in a situation where they can click Toxic without having to consider in the slightest what the opponent may do in a given turn. Enabling these situations where players can just click buttons in the early game doesn't really inspire exciting, skillful, or competitive play.
Alright, if all of what you said about Corrosion is true and Toxic alone is that broken, why isn't Salazzle seeing astronomical usage, if not a suspect by the panic you're putting on it? It has Corrosion too, and can spread toxic to all of the following mons you went off to list. It can also threaten its would-be checks like Fini and Clefable, no? Because Salazzle has poor defensive typing, it's still got its checks because of its lackluster STAB and coverage options, it has to rely on Substitute to really stay in to take advantage of spreading Toxic...I can go on if you'd really like, but that isn't my over-arching point. My point is, yes we'd have to make some* form of concessions to not over-optimize Corrosion (and I put an * there because I don't think its as heavy of restrictions as we're thinking), but in the grand scheme of things, when in CAP have we not put self-imposed restraints for the sake of viability? As I said in one of my previous replies, we've gone to pretty extreme lengths to limit mons from being overly metagame-warping (and when we haven't, those mons have been revisited in nerfing processes). None of that is out of the realm of being extraneous, I think if anything it makes to be an interesting challenge that CAP really hasn't delved into before. I don't want to entirely rehash the arguments Korski was making again, but I don't want a boring process where 30b could become overshadowed by 30i. I much rather want to explore something entirely new (as our concept we voted on asks of us) all while carving out a differentiated enough niche for 30b to actually compete with 30i.


EDIT:
Tl;Dr the dangers of Corrosion are, in my opinion, being grossly mischaracterized, especially since if Corrosion was the sole issue at hand, we would've seen stronger usage and a stronger reaction to a mon already available to us. Other factors are being left out of context in which why toxic has become metagame-warping in the past.
 
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snake

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Water Bubble
  • What new routes for 30b does having Water as a secondary STAB open up? In what situations would this be the most beneficial? How does this run the risk of being too potent of an ability, and can that risk be reduced in any way?
  • What strategies are bolstered by a resistance to Fire typing and an immunity to burn? Can this ability be used in a purely defensive manner while still being “optimized”?
I want to ask a question that Tada didn't cover: why do we need Water Bubble in the first place? I get that the combination of strong Water-type coverage, burn immunity, and halved Fire-type damage is appealing, but...that's going to be appealing on basically any Pokemon. Water Bubble is just a strong ability - of course it's going to seem appealing on CAP30. So, I think I've finally figured out my stance on Water Bubble: if you're going to start to convince me that Water Bubble is the way CAP30 needs to go, I need to see why those effects are necessary. I just don't see why we need an ability that does all those things when there are other abilities we can choose that cover some of those effects individually, or...we could just give CAP30 strong Water-type coverage.

Thick Fat
  • How can improved defensive matchups against two typings be optimized?
  • Given the attacking power of many popular Ice types in the CAP Metagame, how much of an impact would this ability truly make without completely overloading our stats stage?
Given CAP30's natural Toxic immunity and Ground-type immunity, Thick Fat actually gives CAP30b some interesting defensive qualities. With this, CAP30 can have an improved matchup Heatran, which has been dominant in OU for 5 gens straight. If we make CAP30b into a Heatran answer that's not super passive, that's a niche that will likely stand the test of time, unless future gens aren't similar to Some other fringe benefits: not immediately falling over to Weavile's Ice-type moves is interesting for a Flying-type, CAP30 will resist Astrolotl's most common offensive moves, and we resist Galarian Slowking's moves pretty well, aside from Scald. I think the enormity of having a really good Heatran switch-in, plus having a good handful of relevant benefits from Thick Fat, make it a good candidate for the slate.

Stamina
  • In what ways might Stamina affect our stats stage? How can this be taken advantage of?
  • How can this be optimized without defaulting to giving CAP 30b Body Press?
Stamina is another one of the few abilities in this thread that I feel confident in. However, I do think that Body Press is just a natural fit with Stamina, as it gives CAP30 not only defensive presence but also some offensive presence, especially in combination with Poison- and Flying-type STAB attacks. Not sure if there's much else to add on here that hasn't been said in the thread already.

Gale Wings
  • How do we ensure that CAP 30b can reliably be at full health in order for this ability to come into effect?
  • What options are available for us if we choose an offensive route with this mon? What about a defensive route?
  • How can this be explored beyond the roles that were previously fulfilled by Talonflame?
The combination of Heavy-Duty Boots, toxic immunity, and reliable recovery should allow CAP30 to stay at full health and therefore utilize Gale Wings pretty effectively. If we choose to be an offensive Pokemon, I think it'd be the time to pick up that late-game cleaner role / revenge killer role that got second for the Tinted Lens poll. If we choose a defensive role, it could be similar to Talonflame's Bulk Up set from Gen 6, where it's a bulky wincon but also plays a defensive role on the team.

At this point in the thread, I'm most enthusiastic about Stamina, Gale Wings, and Thick Fat. These provide nice tangible benefits that make sure that our design space is very wide open while also working with CAP30i. No Guard and Filter are acceptable options to me, but I don't feel strongly either way on them.

While I think the concerns over Corrosion are a smidge overblown, I can see why it's a really volatile option, especially when we have to balance Tinted Lens for CAP30i. As for Water Bubble, I'm just not sold on it until I see why we need to resort to such a powerful ability when options like Thick Fat, making CAP30 a special attacker (or just make it deal with burns like other physical attackers), and just giving CAP30 strong Water-type coverage are options moving forward with CAP30.
 
My problem with Gale Wings is that so many things render it functionally useless. To state the obvious, Hail (which is currently really common) and Sand (which you see sometimes) render it completely useless the entire time the weather is active (I guess you'll have priority for one turn if you bring it in after a sack... this is not particularly useful). This alone is not a death sentence, but it's not great. For another thing, we'd really like to be able to use our fantastic defensive typing to tank hits, but a lot of the things we wall have U-turn, and switching into a single U-turn and being forced out by whatever comes in means we no longer have priority. So you can't really reliably use it to check a sweeper or faster mon if you're using it as a defensive check to those mons. Even if we're assuming a bulky Roost build and that you're coming in on non-pivoting mons, suddenly that means you absolutely have to Roost every single time you take a hit or your priority is gone. This allows your opponent relatively free switches. It means the mon is incredibly unreliable as an offensive check to things, and if you're just using it defensively, then... why use Gale Wings at all? The priority is strong, but it's unreliable at best, which is not a good trait in a priority user. Priority is often used primarily to stop a threat from spiraling out of control, and if your priority user doesn't actually have priority a lot of the time, you need secondary checks to every sweeper it would target. Gale Wings is just not a good ability in my opinion. It is situationally beneficial, but inherently unreliable, and it's particularly unreliable with the typing we've chosen which wants to come in on so many things.
 
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  • Corrosion
    • In what ways might attempting to balance Corrosion negatively impact our other form?
    • To what degree does the ability to spam Toxic or the poisoned status warp the metagame? Can this be mitigated to the point that introducing Corrosion CAP 30b will still be both healthy for the metagame and effective in fulfilling its concept?
The most important thing, I think we all agree, is to ensure 30b can't just spam Toxic for free with zero consequence.

The solution, as far as I can tell, can be broken down into two parts:
1) Give 30b other things to do, besides just spread Toxic.
2) Make sure 30b is punished for not doing those things correctly.


So, how might we go about this? Starting with 1), Corrosion Toxic is very splashable (though we can debate over exactly how splashable); what could 30b possibly want to click instead?

For starters, even with only moderately strong STAB attacks, there'd be many cases where 30b would prefer to deal immediate damage over more passive plays.
A simple example is vs a foe with :clefable: or :tapu fini:; those two are immune to Toxic, but weak to Poison STAB, which is easily resisted by other mons. A more general case would be, 30b facing off a foe it can outspeed and KO (be it via inherent power, or the foe being chipped), but who can KO 30b in return if it doesn't attack, or switch to a resist (who may be vulnerable to Toxic) if it does.
As long as 30b is actually punished for choosing wrong, these kinds of 50/50 scenarios are a great way to make 30b more manageable, without having to gut its general power level, as they tie the mon's performance to the skill of its user.

Additionally, if 30b has other utility roles it's expected to perform for the team - eg hazard support / removal, tailwind, cleric moves, wishpass, etc - a sufficiently-pressured 30b would have to choose between actually performing these roles, and spreading poison or attacking. Access to recovery (which isn't required by any means) would only exacerbate this, as then 30b'd have to find time to tend to its own HP on top of everything else.


Of course, all of this is dependent on 30b actually being vulnerable to pressure; otherwise, there's no risk to clicking any one button over another.
I sort of touched on it here, but I think this was the core of what made Libra/Lotl so overbearing; the risk/reward balance was almost always in their favor, such that they hardly faced consequences for choosing wrong. Their great defensive typings, Libra's sheer bulk, and Lotl's Regenerator made it hard to seriously hurt them; Libra's power and offensive coverage, and Lotl's Fire Lash and support movepool, allowed them to make progress even against those who played correctly against them.
So, how would we make 30b vulnerable to pressure?

Defensively, Poison/Flying is a good place to start. Though it has many useful resistances, it also has common weaknesses in Electric, Psychic, Ice, and Stealth Rock (and, by extension, the omnipresent Knock Off).

Looking into the future, the most straightforward thing we could do is to limit bulk. Not necessarily frail, but enough for 30b to be consistently threatened by super-effective and strong neutral hits. This makes Toxic, and by extension almost any status move, inherently risky to use.
(Alternatively, denying access to instant recovery, thus forcing 30b to be deliberate with how it spends HP, would have the same effect).

Speed is another thing we ought to pay close attention to. Obviously, speed has a massive influence on who can pressure who. I don't think this means we have to be slow, though; at higher speed tiers, turn order becomes more uncertain, as mons start actually investing EVs in Speed, or running Choice Scarves. This uncertainty can actually create a lot more pressure on than you might face if you know out the gate you're slower than everything.

For movepool, I think we only need to stay away from "never-lose" options, like pretty sure giving examples would be polljumping lmao. Most status moves, given limited-enough bulk, should be fine, as mentioned above, and the question of coverage probably isn't too important, since 30i doesn't need it either.

So, to answer Tad's initial questions:
  • I don't think balancing Corrosion should affect 30i much at all. The stat limitations are fairly loose (and Tinted Lens isn't stat-hungry anyway), and and AFAICT the movepool concerns are pretty similar to 30i's.
  • Others have explained the potential risks Corrosion poses fairly well. I think those issues can be easily resolved with thoughtful design, and can result in a mon that is both a unique presence in the metagame, and really fun to play.
 
I'd like to discuss Filter, an ability that I think is more valuable than people are giving it credit for, particularly if we go a defensive route for 30b.
  • In what situations is the general defensive boost against super-effective hits most impactful with regards to our typing? Are there any particular interactions with highly viable mons that are noteworthy?
Filter is a very generally useful defensive boost that is helpful in a wide variety of situations. Specifically, it can turn super-effective OHKOs into 2HKOs, and 2HKOs into 3HKOs. The former is most useful in letting 30b beat an oponent 1v1 that is would otherwise lose to, either due to being slower, or being faster but needing to get two hits in. The latter example can potentially allow 30b wall pokemon that we otherwise couldn't.

Despite 30b having a great defensive typing, it also has some pretty exploitable weaknesses. In S to A- in the viability rankings, Weavile, Zeraroa, Kyurem, Tapu Koko, Slowking, Tapu Lele, and Zapdos can all threaten 30 with super-effective STAB attacks (slowtwins as well if we're counting Future Sight). Additionally, Dragapult, Lando-T, Clefable, Garchomp, Buzzwole, and Melmetal can all potentially carry super-effective coverage moves too (I'm sure there's more I've missed). Some noteworthy interactions with some of these mon are presented below (using 100/95/85 defenses and 252/252+/4 investment):

252 Atk Zeraora Plasma Fists vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Filter Crobat: 159-189 (39.3 - 46.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Life Orb Clefable Thunder vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Filter Crobat: 148-175 (36.6 - 43.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Tapu Lele Psyshock vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Filter Crobat in Psychic Terrain: 312-369 (77.2 - 91.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Tapu Lele Psychic vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Filter Crobat in Psychic Terrain: 328-387 (81.1 - 95.7%) -- guaranteed 2HK
252 SpA Tapu Koko Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Filter Crobat in Electric Terrain: 265-312 (65.5 - 77.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Being able to avoid the 2HKO from pivot Zeraora is fantastic for a flying type, and not having to worry about the Clef set we're up against is great for a poison type. The interctions with Lele and especially Koko are particularly nice when paired with a strong poison STAB. For example we only need 94 attack to OHKO both with Gunk Shot. While we can't switch into these mon, they can't switch into 30b either, Koko and scarf Lele (the most common set in both CAP and OU right now) lose 1v1 against 30b, and specs Lele is forced to click Psychic or risk a Gunk Shot OHKO in return.

I also think there's a nice symmetry between Tinted Lens and Filter, the former improves offensive consistency by raising the floor of damage dealt, while the latter improves defensive consistency by lowering the ceiling of damage taken.
 
I sleepily wrote Rain Dance, and meant to type Drizzle. Apologies, i've remade the post, but if this is outbof whack, sorry!

No Guard's benefit is perfect accuracy, with Gunk Shot and Hurricane touted as the beneficiaries. However one is special, the other phys, so they do not gel with proscribing the stat array to a mixed/switch capable, which given the general approach to the rest being bulky, night leave us either a bit sparse or with a much higher than necessary BSR.

Drizzle is a decent alternative: it removes other weather, acts as team support, can take Damp Rock. It resists Fire, good for Heatran switchins, and Jumbao is risking getting 4* if it switches in, or coin toss Hurricaned. Against Aveil teams, we can force Ninetales with Poison STAB, to either attack or switch out.
 
I’m not gonna lie, I was iffy about Water Bubble at first compared to more overtly defensive options like Filter/Ice Scales/Fur Coat/etc. (and I do love these abilities too), but the more I think about it the more I love the idea of a defensive Water Bubble user. Araquanid is obviously the only case study of WB that we have, and its role is almost entirely limited to a Webs Setter/suicide lead. While Araquanid does have a form of longevity between Leech Life and boots, it doesn’t really have the tools to be a viable user of its great ability in CAP. I would love to see us explore what exactly a defensive Water Bubble user could look like.
  • What new routes for 30b does having Water as a secondary STAB open up? In what situations would this be the most beneficial? How does this run the risk of being too potent of an ability, and can that risk be reduced in any way?
This one is a pretty simple solution, as other people have pointed out. To minimize the risk of an unbalanced third STAB, we could just put a healthy cap (heh) on the power ceiling we could achieve with it. The simplest way to do this is to give 30b lower-power Water moves, or moves that are lower in power but have highly specialized functions (i.e., Flip Turn). There’s also the option of having Scald, but that could toe line of being too strong, so take that one with a grain of salt.​
  • What strategies are bolstered by a resistance to Fire typing and an immunity to burn? Can this ability be used in a purely defensive manner while still being “optimized”?

    Like dex mentioned earlier in the thread, 30b’s combination of typing and ability creates a very unique niche of having complete immunity to both of the most common forms of passive damage: burn and toxic. This means it can be a remarkably potent status absorber, which contributes heavily to its defensive capability. I think this niche alone is really promising, but WB’s resistance to fire moves also makes it a potent check to prevalent fires like Heatran, Astro, Volc, etc. The typing of Poison/Flying is already very defensively strong, and I think WB works very well with it to provide a strong niche and other handy tools that not only differentiate us from 30i but could help make 30b become a well-realized CAP.

Idk mate, I really like Water Bubble for 30b. Wasn’t too sure about it at first, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. I don’t think we’d put ourselves through hell trying to make a balanced product vs. something that, in my opinion, is egregiously bonkers (Corrosion), lackluster (Thick Fat - idk that having an effective neutrality to Ice will save us from breakers like Specs Kyu, Weav, etc.), or just kinda boring (Sticky Hold). Water Bubble just genuinely seems like it would be a really fun process and a really cool end-product.
 
One thing I feel like nobody has brought up is the possibility of balancing water bubble by just giving us a shitty special stat with mostly special water moves while giving good physical poison/flying coverage. Like for an absurdly extreme example, Surf and Hydro Pump are completely irrelevant if your base special is 30. Picking a less absurd number that’s still on the weak side could enable use to keep “normal” water moves like surf while not getting too much value out of it.
 
Corrosion
  • In what ways might attempting to balance Corrosion negatively impact our other form?
I don't think this is a huge issue by itself but certain options like recovery moves could easily become too much to handle and end up hurting 30i in return.
  • To what degree does the ability to spam Toxic or the poisoned status warp the metagame? Can this be mitigated to the point that introducing Corrosion CAP 30b will still be both healthy for the metagame and effective in fulfilling its concept?
It's a bit hard to say exactly how strong an OU Corrosion mon would be, as there's little to no precedent. That said, there have been many mons capable of reliably spreading Toxic. Pre-nerf Equilibra and Astrolotl used Toxic to punish their scarce checks and even if they would still lose 1v1, it was very easy for any competent team to take advantage of the weakness they created. Zygarde is another notorious mon that abused Toxic to wear down its checks, although in this case it was just one of a myriad of options it had available. Salazzle is the only mon that actually has Corrosion and only saw some niche competitive usage Pre DLC. It was dangerous at times but it was always extremely prediction reliant due to its frailty and in today's metagame it's just completely outclassed. Finally, there's Heatran, which might be the most successful Toxic user of all time. It's presence has always been somewhat controversial and many people have advocated for a ban but nowadays it's mostly agreed to be balanced.

From all these example we can see that an unblockable Toxic is an extremely powerful weapon and it could be argued to be downright uncompetitive but it's not necessarily always broken. That said, while in theory it might be possible to create something balanced like Heatran, I think it's just not feasible to properly balance this with our process, as the difference between completely unviable and horribly broken is razor thin and we're already trying to balance a very volatile ability like Tinted Lens, so trying to add another challenge like this is almost guaranteed to be too much for us.

General thoughts: Picking something as volatile as Corrosion would be risky if this was a normal process but considering that we're also trying to balance a second form too, I think choosing this ability is just guaranteed to come back to bite us very badly one way or the other.

Water Bubble
  • What new routes for 30b does having Water as a secondary STAB open up? In what situations would this be the most beneficial? How does this run the risk of being too potent of an ability, and can that risk be reduced in any way?
Well, considering that offensively Poison/Flying is just average, having a supercharged 3rd STAB is obviously going to help, especially given that Water-type coverage would help against many key matchups like Corviknight and Heatran. As for ways to reduce risks, I think being conservative with what moves we give away should help with that a lot.
  • What strategies are bolstered by a resistance to Fire typing and an immunity to burn? Can this ability be used in a purely defensive manner while still being “optimized”?
While there aren't that many relevant Fire-types right now, this resistance could let us outright counter Heatran, which would be huge, although honestly I'd much rather use the more targeted Thick Fat if we really wanted to pursue this role. Going physical would be the optimal way to capitalize on the burn immunity although even with a specially biased spread, it would be a decent advantage to avoid the residual damage. As for using this ability defensively, I think that can work but we need to keep in mind that this is an ability that desperately wants to be offensive, as its damage output can quickly get out of control so we'd need to pay close attention to calculations with Choice Band/Specs even if those might not be the sets we want.

General thoughts: Water Bubble could work but I find it really hard to justify over more restrained options like Thick Fat, which can accomplish the part I'd consider most attractive (checking Heatran) without opening the double water power can of worms.

Stamina
  • In what ways might Stamina affect our stats stage? How can this be taken advantage of?
I think being able to hit important benchmarks that allow us to tank most relevant physical attackers would be the most important thing to accomplish, with a minor focus on maintaining a decent offensive presence and having a decent Special Defense to take advantage of our Fairy resistance.
  • How can this be optimized without defaulting to giving CAP 30b Body Press?
Simply trying to be a wall seems like a workable option, as our typing already has a lot of important resistances, although unfortunately the fact that Urshifu-R's Surging Strikes ignores any Stamina boost is a huge flaw against one of the most common physical attacker. Apart from being a dedicated wall, using set up moves like Sword Dance or Nasty Plot could be a good way to take advantage of the turns bought by Stamina.

General thoughts: I think Stamina is still a very solid option which could lead to a very interesting product, even I'm not completely sure how we should approach it.

No Guard
  • Which attacks would synergize best with this ability? Are there any moves that aren’t immediately obvious given our typing that might provide an interesting path to take?
Hurricane is the most obvious choice, as being able to safely spam a powerful Flying STAB move would be huge and of course making moves like Focus Blast reliable would be great. However, I think that where No Guard really shines is on its support options. Being able to use moves like Sing for reliable Sleep or Inferno for spreading burns gives us various interesting options we could use to apply status in ways that no previous users of this ability have even managed to accomplish.
  • To what degree should we be worried about granting our opponent full accuracy on their moves?
I think this is practically a non issue, as you're never going to be banking on a miss unless your back is against the wall and you have no other choice and even in that case you were still going to be losing most of the time.

General opinion: Thinking of it as an utility ability, No guard is one of my favourite choices, as it can accomplish many things like making Hurricane reliable, spreading status, and improving coverage, which should be enough to give CAP 30b a good niche on its own.

Gale Wings
  • How do we ensure that CAP 30b can reliably be at full health in order for this ability to come into effect
Heavy-Duty Boots should be enough to make Gale Wings consistent and recovery can give you a chance to go back to full HP even if you took some chip damage. Using moves other than Brave Bird should also help, as we'd get a chance to maintain our HP at 100% if we're threatening to KO our foe. That said, even taking all these precautions, it would still be pretty challenging to keep this ability active through the game, as even the weakest of attacks would force us to use recovery if we want to make it live again, which might be too much of a momentum drain most of the time.
  • What options are available for us if we choose an offensive route with this mon? What about a defensive route?
There are various different roles we could take. We could be a dedicated pivot, as our typing should give us many opportunities to come in and Gale Wings can force the opponent's hand forcing predictable switches than any pivoting move could easily capitalize. We could also be a dedicated set up sweeper, as it should be pretty challenging for the opponent to find an answer to us if we manage to boost with Gale Wings intact. Another option could be to take a dedicated Revenge Killer/Cleaner route, simply taking advantage of free switch ins early in the game to exert some pressure and once all our checks have been removed just use our priority to pick off the rest of our foes. Finally a more dedicated wall could be possible but I think ultimately suboptimal, as that wouldn't be able to fully take advantage of the ability.
  • How can this be explored beyond the roles that were previously fulfilled by Talonflame?
Trying to abuse a priority Roost more could have been an interesting, more defensive route back in Gen 6, but after its nerf, I don't really feel like we could have a different role than Talonflame did back then. The main difference of course would be that we're going to need to be much more careful if we want to use our priority multiple times in a game.

General thoughts: Overall, Gale Wings seems like an powerful but clunky option; it can be hard to activate but when we do the payoff could be worth it. I would prefer a safer option but this is still not a bad route to take.

Thick Fat
  • How can improved defensive matchups against two typings be optimized?
CAP 30b would be in a very unique and interesting position if it got Thick Fat, regarding Heatran in particular. We're already immune to Toxic and Earth Power, if we were to also resist Magma Storm and had a decent coverage move, we could actually become one of the best counters against it, something that could easily give it an important niche in the metagame, as any other of its checks can be crippled with Toxic or hates Magma Storm+Taunt. I think that using this ability to neuter a mon that has been notorious for being difficult to check for many generations now would be a fantastic way to optimize this ability. Apart from Heatran, we'd also have a good matchup against Astrolotl, non-Psychic Volcarona, and non-Thunder Punch Blaziken. It should be relatively easy to win these matchups, although Astrolotl should still be able to cripple us with Will-O-Wisp or Thunder Wave.
  • Given the attacking power of many popular Ice types in the CAP Metagame, how much of an impact would this ability truly make without completely overloading our stats stage?
While it could be feasible to check Ice-types like Weavile and Kyurem if we had enough defenses, I don't think we should focus too much on the this Ice resistance. We might end up checking one of them if one of our defenses is high enough but trying to target them directly wouldn't be very productive, as we'd need to invest a ton on both defenses to the point were we'd likely have to sacrifice a lot of our offensive presence. That said, not being immediately forced out by these common Ice-types should be an invaluable asset by itself and we'll almost certainly make good use of it so I don't think this really makes our use of Thick Fat any less optimized.

General thoughts: In my opinion Thick Fat is one of the best options available, as it helps against a few key metagame threads and gives CAP 30b a very distinct defensive niche that no other Pokemon can replicate.

Filter
  • In what situations is the general defensive boost against super-effective hits most impactful with regards to our typing? Are there any particular interactions with highly viable mons that are noteworthy?
In our situation, Filter feels a bit underwhelming, as even with it most of the time super effective attacks will deal too much damage for us to easily sponge (Just for example: 252 SpA Life Orb Krilowatt Thunderbolt vs. 248 HP / 144 SpD Filter Mandibuzz: 193-228 (45.6 - 53.9%) -- 41% chance to 2HKO). That said, Filter could really shine if we use it alongside Calm Mind/Bulk Up, as with enough base stats, we could make CAP 30b practically unkillable on the side we're boosting. Unfortunately, this would require some very generous defenses to even be feasible and our typing is not really good for a bulky sweeper like this, as we're very easily walled by common threats like Toxapex and Corviknight.

General thoughts: I think Filter would have been a really cool choice for our first ability but with our current typing there are much better options right now.


TL, DR: No Guard and Thick Fat are my favourite options, I also support Stamina and Gale Wings, and I dislike Corrosion, Water Bubble, and Filter.
 

Da Pizza Man

Pizza Time
is a Pre-Contributor
Water Bubble:

This is probably my second least favorite of the abilities proposed so far, with only Corrosion being a worse option in my eyes (That one has already been discussed to death and I don't think I really have much to add to that discussion, so I'm probably not going to talk about it here).

From an offensive side, this ability is too much. Water/Poison/Flying is coverage that is unresisted apart from :Plasmanta: and :Naviathan:, the former of which isn't even ranked and the later of which isn't super relevant either and also wears itself down quite a lot. Hell, even just Water/Flying is really good. There is also the issue of having our Water moves get boosted to high levels can get out of hand very fast. Surf for instance becomes a 180 BP move (Which is more than STAB Hurricane and and the same as STAB Brave Bird), and even weaker moves like Water Pulse end up becoming more powerful than Hydro Pump. There is also the issue of how Water Bubble overshadows Tinted Lens. With Water Bubble, we have similarly nearly unresisted STAB, but on top of that, you also get to enjoy the benefits of
  1. Super-Effective STAB against :Heatran: and prominent Ground-Types like :Landorus-Therian:
  2. A resistance to Fire
  3. Immunity to Burns
  4. Freedom to hold any item you please
Granted, Tinted Lens is less prediction reliant than Water Bubble, so it's not objectively inferior, but it's still largely overshadowed by the many benefits that Water Bubble gives us for trying to do a similar role.


Now if we decide that the ability is too much from an offensive side and decide to go from a purely defensive route, it ends up begging the question of why we are really choosing this ability in the first place. Giving ourselves a resistance to Fire is obviously very nice, and I would argue would be the main reason why we would want the ability from a defensive standpoint (We basically counter :Heatran:, and not taking much damage from other Fire-Types like :Astrolotl: is a nice bonus), but how is that really any different from what Thick Fat or Heatproof offers to us? Obviously you have the burn immunity, but that sort of just feels like an added bonus instead of the core appeal of this ability in the first place. Granted it's a bit more appealing than the Ice-Neutrality granted to use from Thick Fat (While we can take advantage of that, we need to do a good amount of investment into our defenses, since most of the relevant Ice-Type attacks right now are pretty powerful) and objectively better than Heatproof halving burn damage. However, giving ourselves a small benefit over these abilities when they do the same main job really doesn't answer the question of why we need Water Bubble specifically to get the job done.


Sticky Hold:

Honestly, this ability's downside is so bad that I would argue that it might have been a valid contender for Chromera's process. Okay maybe that's a bit of an over-exaggeration (It is one, but I needed some way to grab your attention), but I still think the negatives of this ability sort of outweigh its positives. While being able to keep Heavy-Duty Boots is obviously very nice, Knock Off becoming a consistent base 97.5 power move (Before STAB mind you) definitely isn't. Our type straight up goes from walling :Colossoil: to it being a serious threat because of that for instance, and it makes our matchup against :Weavile: even worse than it already was. I also don't really think it would make a super interesting process, especially when we already have our other form which can potentially also fufill the role of a Knock Off absorber just from the immunity to Knock off and not having the move get a power boost when it is used against us.
 

Brambane

protect the wetlands
is a Contributor Alumnus
Sticky Hold:

Honestly, this ability's downside is so bad that I would argue that it might have been a valid contender for Chromera's process. Okay maybe that's a bit of an over-exaggeration (It is one, but I needed some way to grab your attention), but I still think the negatives of this ability sort of outweigh its positives. While being able to keep Heavy-Duty Boots is obviously very nice, Knock Off becoming a consistent base 97.5 power move (Before STAB mind you) definitely isn't. Our type straight up goes from walling :Colossoil: to it being a serious threat because of that for instance, and it makes our matchup against :Weavile: even worse than it already was. I also don't really think it would make a super interesting process, especially when we already have our other form which can potentially also fufill the role of a Knock Off absorber just from the immunity to Knock off and not having the move get a power boost when it is used against us.
These are all pretty minor match-ups for us imo. Colossoil is still around, but they rarely run Attack investment and the (very, very few) ones that do click are usually Guts Facade clickers anyways, which does about as much as STAB boosted Knock. You don't need that much physical bulk to eat boosted Knock from uninvested Colossoil, so that would theoretically be a low-hanging benchmark for us during the stats stage. Our Weavile MU is shit anyways with Sticky Hold and typing alone, so eating full-damage Knocks is whatever. Bisharp would be annoying I guess, but even then giving a fairly uncommon threat like Bisharp a slightly better MU against 30b is fine in the grand scheme of things.

As for process, Sticky Hold doesn't really add anything super flashy. It does pose something of the same question as CAP30i during the earlier stages of the process about taking advantage of being immune to item removal. While CAP30i eventually got its STAB item, the idea of how strong unKnockable HDB would be was tossed around on Discord. Sticky Hold would explore that space. In terms of process, Sticky Hold doesn't have a tremendous amount of complexity like the other abilities, but I don't think it needs to either. Its fine to pick a more simple and basic ability to optimize, especially when we have the juggernaut that is Tinted Lens in the other room. I see Thick Fat, Fur Coat, and Ice Scales as very similar in that regard.
 

Dogfish44

You can call me Jiggly
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I'm getting kind of tired of seeing a repeated comment on Corrosion (something which I think would be an incredibly interesting direction for CAP30b), namely that BST specifically might be a problem in that it could lower our BST for CAP30i's optimisation of Tinted Lens.

Yeah, no, it's well known that BST is really easy to fudge - but perhaps it's not as well known as I'd expect. Put short, we have a lot of flexibility here - bulk is easy to manipulate.

Uh, this might be easiest to understand with an example. Imagine a bulk line of, let's say, 40/150/150. This is fairly strong (I'm not even looking at Shuckle level numbers!), and uses a combined BST of 340.

40/150/150 is also much weaker than 100/100/100 statlines in BSR terms - PT of 103 vs 112, and ST of 105 vs 114. So even though one statline would have 40 more BST, it's generally weaker - excepting a slight improvement in ability to heal from allied Wishes. And, likewise, if we wish to lower the BST needs of CAP30i, then we can do the reverse - increase HP and lower Def/SpD, thus lowering BSR without negatively impacting bulk. As I said, this is something danged flexible that we have here!

Now, this isn't to say there might not be some restriction from 30b to 30i - I can see fairly interesting debates on the specific matter of healing arising - but BST concerns specifically are being overblown (in that "any concerns" on them would be overblown).
 
My biggest issue with Corrosion is that it functionally makes CAP30b a better utility wallbreaker than CAP30i. As it stands, 30i's wallbreaking capabilities are almost certainly going to be reliant on Taunt and recovery to accomplish its role, as it lacks access to boosting moves. It is going to rely on beating walls by outweathering them. I do not think Corrosion is uncompetitive or broken, but I do think that it would completely outclass 30i, especially since both Pokemon have the same learnset. If the point of 30i is to break Steel walls and provide utility, why are we making another anti-Steel utility wallbreaker?
 
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MrDollSteak

CAP 1v1 me IRL
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  • Corrosion
    • In what ways might attempting to balance Corrosion negatively impact our other form?

      I think this question is a little bit too subjective, as I believe that attempting to balance Corrosion doesn't have to negatively impact the other form too substantially. That being said, I think the most specific ways in which this should happen would be in regards to BST and limiting movepools. While there is room to really negatively impact CAP30i, it isn't a guaranteed. Indeed Tinted Lens is a really powerful ability that can actually function realistically pretty well with a somewhat low BST in order to balance Corrosion so long as it has a decent enough primary attacking stat and speed. Additionally, while CAP30b could be incredibly obnoxious with both Taunt and Toxic, CAP30i doesn't neeed Taunt to be a functional utility wallbreaker. Now if we decide that CAP30b shouldn't have access to Recovery, then that is a very different story and would likely negatively impact CAP30i far too much to be worth it.

    • To what degree does the ability to spam Toxic or the poisoned status warp the metagame? Can this be mitigated to the point that introducing Corrosion CAP 30b will still be both healthy for the metagame and effective in fulfilling its concept?

      I can understand a lot of the fears about spammable Toxics, but a lot of the fears do revolve around the effect of Astrolotl, Equilibra and Heatran to a lesser extent who are all incredibly potent attackers that are able to pressure a significant number of mons with their high damage potential, and then cripple their checks. In the case of CAP30b I think the most effective way to ensure that Toxic isn't obnoxious is to ensure that we have low attacking stats and are therefore very passive and generate low or poor momentum. In this sense, our Toxics are still incredibly potent, but we can't just power through every single team. I think a low speed stat could also be ideal here to ensure that we are easily and consistently forced out by a range of offensive threats that we can't risk staying in on to Toxic.

      Overall thoughts: While Corrosion isn't my first preference by any means, I do think it is something that we can work around, and I think the role and ability are sufficiently different from Tinted Lens to allow for both formes to co exist nicely.
  • Water Bubble
    • What new routes for 30b does having Water as a secondary STAB open up? In what situations would this be the most beneficial? How does this run the risk of being too potent of an ability, and can that risk be reduced in any way?

      I think the only part of the question that is worth responding to here is the final question. The 2x boost to water is so fundamentally powerful, that it would honestly be more balanced to just give both formes access to Hydro Pump as coverage. Even Water Pulse which is an incredibly weak move with Water Bubble alone becomes stronger than Hydro Pump purely on power alone and also has perfect accuracy and enormous amounts of PP. Any move with a higher base power than this effectively becomes stronger than any of our existing strong STAB options in Brave Bird and Hurricane. In conjunction with Water's terrific neutral applications I can't help but think this forme will end up being a better wallbreaker than CAP30i.

    • What strategies are bolstered by a resistance to Fire typing and an immunity to burn? Can this ability be used in a purely defensive manner while still being “optimized”?

      If we want the defensive benefits alone we would be better served pursuing Thick Fat. That's really all I have to say here. An immunity to burns is great, but by no means a requirement for 30b, and in fact I would suggest that an Ice neutrality is far helpful for the mon to function.

      Overall thoughts: At the end of the day I really do not like Water Bubble for CAP30b. I think it is far too strong of an ability offensively for us to entertain and really competes with Tinted Lens.
  • Stamina
    • In what ways might Stamina affect our stats stage? How can this be taken advantage of?

      I think it can encourage us to calc defense stats specifically with boosts and without boosts to swing some 2HKOs into comfortable survives, kind of in a sense how Chromera was designed with neutral hits into resisted hits. In many ways Stamina is a similar swing. It's also worth pointing out that because Stamina procs on multi-attacks, we can potentially decide how to design around Weavile and Swords Dance Garchomp.

    • How can this be optimized without defaulting to giving CAP 30b Body Press.

      I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with exploring Body Press. In fact I think the fact that Body Press gives 30b a way to bust through certain steels such as Heatran, without being a coverage option that 30i will likely exploit is incredibly interesting and beneficial for us. That being said, it still isn't necessary. Just being able to come in on certain moves and recover up and safely click some utility moves would be perfectly serviceable.

      Overall thoughts: This is one of my favorites up for discussion at the moment. While it is a shame that it doesn't quite sit on Urshifu-R, it is still a very potent defensive option that works well with our type to make us an intriguing physical wall.
  • Thick Fat
    • How can improved defensive matchups against two typings be optimized?

      A range of people have spoken to this, but in all honesty, the Fire resist alone makes CAP30i a pretty flawless Heatran and Astrolotl answer. A particular way to optimise this defensive matchup is to explore Defog / Rapid Spin as this allows us to remove Stealth Rock or Spikes from these two Pokemon and Roost up without any real fear.

    • Given the attacking power of many popular Ice types in the CAP Metagame, how much of an impact would this ability truly make without completely overloading our stats stage?

      I think the key to the Ice neutrality is that it allows us to survive if Kyurem or Weavile are brought in on us. We still can't safely swap in, but we also aren't immediately forced out, particularly if we can threaten OHKOs or 2HKOs from any potential coverage moves, especially depending on our raw speed stat. While I don't want to poll jump by any means, Ice types have a range of super-effective weaknesses that we could exploit as coverage and subsequently threaten them more than their STAB ice moves may threaten us, particularly if they have been chipped over the course of the match.

      Overall thoughts: This is definitely the stand out option to me so far. I think as a defensive ability it gives us a lot of differences to CAP30i, while still allowing us to explore certain shared utility moves we may have such as Roost and Defog that could feasibly be run on both formes, while still playing very differently due to the new Pokemon we directly wall.
 
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Since Water Bubble and Corrosion have received the overwhelming majority of discussion, I won't rehash what's been said already. Briefly, I think snake_rattler expressed what I would say about Water Bubble quite well. It's a really strong ability that any pokemon would love, and there's nothing specific about 30b that says we need Water Bubble. Magic Guard and Regenerator are also strong, splashable abilities that would both help with Heatran. Water Bubble occupies the same space in my mind. It risks overlapping with 30i as well. As MDS said, just give em both Hydro Pump. On Corrosion: I don't feel as strongly about Corrosion, as there is clear synergy here. It'll be a bitch to balance, and I suspect we'll need to make 30b pretty passive to make it fair. Not my favorite ability, but my stance on it has softened a little.

Brief thoughts on other abilities:

Wandering Spirit: Hi, it's me again. Our typing means we take hits from common contact moves in the meta. Stealing abilities to both deny the opponents AND use them for ourselves is very cool. This would likely best work in a pivot role, but there other avenues are still wide open. This would undoubtedly differentiate 30b from 30i.

Cotton Down: Bringing this back too. I think this one is actually cool, and is useful for forcing frail fast mons out by dropping their speed. It'll need additional tools to work, but I don't think it's as weak as it's been made out to be. It's not the most powerful ability being discussed by any means, but it does provide some very neat utility that no other mon can do in the current meta. I also think it works well with our defensive typing, and is another ability that immediately sets 30b apart from 30i.

Sticky Hold: Echoing Brambane here: this ability is a basic bitch. Doesn't make 30b a knock absorber, but increases defensive utility a little bit. That's all there is to say really. Would have been nicer on a Fire/Bug/Ice type for the other hazards.

Gale Wings: I would hate to not be able to switch into U-turns. Poison/Flying is great defensive typing, and Gale Wings really doesn't let us make use of it. If our STABs were a bit better, I could be convinced of an offensive role, but we're stuck with Poison.

No Guard: Gunk Shot and Hurricane, obviously. I'm not sure if they would both be viable on the same mon. It'll likely be one of the above + low acc coverage. Sleep moves could be cool, and I don't think they'd be super OP in a Koko and Fini meta. The process will ultimately hinge on the defining moves section. I'm pretty indifferent about this. Other mons have used this to great effect in the past as well, so it feels like trodden ground.

Filter: SE moves are likely to still be too powerful to not be 2HKOd by. What we might be able to do though is stay in on Lele or Koko and threaten them out with a STAB hit. Still seems only situationally useful; I think a different typing could have made much better use of this.

Fluffy: Even though this only affects contact moves, I think it's less situational than Filter given our list of resists. Since the damage reduction is higher (and the contact moves in the meta are generally weaker), we can even take contact moves we're weak to. Again, this differentiates 30b from 30i immediately. Me likey.

Fur Coat/Ice Scales: In the same boat as Water Bubble in terms of "any mon would love these". But I do like them a little more because they take a little bit of the pressure off the BST conversation, and the only balancing needed is moving some stats around. I'm on the fence about both of these, but I think I like Ice Scales a little bit more because our weaknesses lean special, and the moves we're weak to are generally more powerful specially, so that helps balance.

Stamina: I like this one, and it leaves options pretty open for the coming stages. I don't think there's a need to avoid Body Press; it just works and we don't need another Bonemerang Smoko situation where the moves that CLEARLY synergize with the pokemon aren't included.

Thick Fat: The Fire damage reduction is cool, but Ice moves in the meta are super strong. On the Ice side, this would act more like Filter, in that we avoid OHKOs and not 2HKOs. Without super strong SE coverage, we're unlikely to threaten them with an OHKO anyway. On the Fire side, it's pretty much just Heatran and Lotl (and Volc, when that comes back). Without significant help from the movepool, we're unlikely to be able to do much to Heatran anyway. I can kinda see the merits, but I can't help feeling like we're still exploring trodden ground here.
 
I don't really get the "just run Hydro Pump" argument against Water Bubble. For one thing, Hydro Pump is really bad on a defensive mon. It has low PP, it misses, and it's also not particularly strong on a defensive build. People have said there's no reason why we need Water Bubble on 30b, but being able to make progress against the best and most common type, which we otherwise can't touch, is a reason, isn't it?

(Base 100 SpA) 0 SpA Crobat Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 88 SpD Corviknight: 82-97 (20.5 - 24.2%) -- possible 6HKO after Leftovers recovery
(Base 100 SpA) 0 SpA Water Bubble Crobat Scald vs. 252 HP / 88 SpD Corviknight: 119-141 (29.7 - 35.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

That's a pretty substantial difference. The non-Water Bubble set here literally runs out of Hydro Pumps before it breaks Corv and that's assuming it never roosts lol. The stat is arbitrary, this is just an example (we can go physical obviously and the burn immunity is really helpful). Water Bubble also offers moveset compression in the sense that you don't need different coverage moves for different Steel-types; Water coverage is enough to pressure all of them (Ferrothorn is neutral to our Flying STAB).

It doesn't outclass 30i because it's not a breaker if we don't give it an offensive build. We're not gonna be foolish enough to give this thing a hefty attacking stat with Water Bubble. Sure, you can run Specs and 2HKO Corv, but then you don't have boots, and you're not breaking the water resist that inevitably enters. You have strong Water moves, but you're not breaking most water resists, and you're also super prediction-reliant as a specs breaker. It's not unheard of power by any means, and the tradeoffs of not running Boots are substantial. It's suboptimal at best and does not in any way outclass 30i.
 
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spoo

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CAP Co-Leader
Defending water bubble rq

  • "water bubble is an offensive ability; it will overshadow 30i, and we should not choose an offensive ability"
This kind of argument largely is not true. Water bubble provides great benefits offensively, yes, but it is not an offensive ability by nature. It can absolutely work on a defensive build - having the defensive benefits of poison/flying while retaining your ability to pressure the opponent effectively with strong water+flying coverage is really appealing. Essentially, this pokemon does not have to be a wallbreaker if we do not want it to be. Moreover, "offensive ability" is frankly such a large spectrum that, even if water bubble could only be used on an offensive build, it shouldn't even matter; two offensively-natured pokemon of the same typing are not always going to be directly competing, where one ultimately overshadows the other. Would gale wings 30b, for example, overshadow TL 30i? My gut says no, because gale wings (or water bubble) offers a distinct niche outside of "utility wallbreaker." It is also worth noting that the 2x boost is not so powerful that it cannot be balanced. Literally all we need to do is to limit the BP of water moves we give out. Who cares if our water move is stronger than our flying move or vice versa as long as we're still using both and we still end up balanced. This ability is strong, but I heavily disagree with the notion that we cannot balance it offensively.

  • "thick fat is better; it's more targeted, whereas water bubble will be good on pretty much any mon"
My main gripe with thick fat is that its only benefit is essentially countering heatran. Not getting ohko'd by kyurem and weavile is cool too (would be cooler if we had some way to ohko back but we can't say at this stage), but realistically speaking, being a good tran counter is far and away the leading benefit of this ability. I still like thick fat more than most defensive abilities, it's absolutely a fine choice for us, but I worry that it's lacking a lot of depth. Imo "we counter heatran now, but we get next to nothing else we can consistently take advantage of" is just not the most interesting package. Water bubble is a higher-strength option that still offers this same targeted defensive benefit; we retain the fire resist, but the boost in water moves gives the process direction by implying additional information about how 30b should function, while also allowing for greater freedom in our build -- ie, the water boost means that we can more be offensively capable if we want to be (not necessarily offensive outright, but at least able to apply more offensive pressure). The burn immunity is also just a great perk and opens up reliable physical flying stab, which would be huge for us but not mandatory as hurricane is still largely fine.

  • "just pick a different ability and give it hydro pump"
I agree with viol and bass that this argument kinda misses the point. There is nothing special about water coverage specifically (though water+flying is very good) - ie, people aren't arguing for this ability because we just want cap30b to be able to use water-type attacks well. What is so good about water bubble is that it allows us to effectively have a 3rd stab option; this means that we can be a defensive pokemon while still being offensively capable and flexible. In general the post above me covers this well; hydro pump isn't that reliable, and it's not about water coverage specifically but more that the ability implies a specific direction and gives us the strength we'd need to get there.
 

Tadasuke

Tuh-dah-skay
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Discussion in this thread has been continuing really well, thank you to everyone who's chipped in so far!

As might be expected from examining the potential behind two very powerful abilities, discussion regarding both Corrosion and Water Bubble has been fairly divisive. While I do personally enjoy operating with a high power ceiling, I'm finding myself very much on the fence about slating either at this time. If you have any final arguments for or against their inclusion, now would be a good time to make them.

In the interest of keeping pace, I'd like to continue down the list of potential abilities into some of those that weren't included in the last discussion post.
  • Fur Coat / Ice Scales: Although these abilities are technically restricted, I'm more than willing to see them discussed at this point. If they garner enough support I'd be more than happy to allow either one.
    • How do we gain the most from a direct boost to one of our defenses, bearing in mind that Ice Scales simply reduces the damage taken while Fur Coat doubles the stat?
    • Does picking a purely defensive ability shoehorn us into a defensive role? What offensive strategies might be bolstered by these abilities?
    • In what specific instances might these abilities benefit us the most? In what matchups might they fall short?
  • Trace:
    • In what situations can Trace be used most effectively? How might we be able encourage those situations in standard gameplay?
    • What can we do to differentiate ourselves from existing users of Trace and/or use the ability to a fuller extent than them?
    • Does choosing this ability force us to specifically target threats currently popular in the metagame, or are there any ways this ability can be made effective against a wider array of mons?
  • Sticky Hold:
    • What direction can we take from this ability outside of being able to retain Heavy Duty Boots on a Flying type?
    • How might this be optimized to make CAP 30 stand out from mons that already have Sticky Hold?
  • Filter:
    • How does our typing complement Filter? When do we benefit most from the ability, and when is it least impactful?
Once again feel free to keep discussing the abilities brought up in my last post, as well as any others that you feel haven't received enough attention. I'll be back in 24-36 hours with a preliminary slate.
 
  • Trace:
    • In what situations can Trace be used most effectively? How might we be able encourage those situations in standard gameplay?
    • What can we do to differentiate ourselves from existing users of Trace and/or use the ability to a fuller extent than them?
    • Does choosing this ability force us to specifically target threats currently popular in the metagame, or are there any ways this ability can be made effective against a wider array of mons?
:jumbao: is one of the best mons in the CAP metagame right now, and uses Trace on the majority of its sets. As such, Trace is directly anti-concept, and should not be open for discussion.
 
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