CAP 31 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

[spoo]

After two days of polling, we're finally here with Wulfanator's concept Forbidden Fruit! This stage is incredibly important, as it informs the direction of the entire rest of the process. Please carefully read the concept, quoted below, and review the guidelines for participating in this stage as well.

Name: Forbidden Fruit

Description: This Pokémon is permitted access to a singular move from the prohibited moves list.

Justification: In most projects, we are barred from including these mechanics because they are considered some of the strongest options available in-game. Even with the addition of the clause allowing TL and Movepool SL to approve these moves, it is unlikely to ever be implemented given how late into the project this decision is made. This target concept aims to expand the project toolbox and explore how an immediate power spike in the project impacts subsequent design choices.

Questions:

• While the prohibited moves list is dominated by many high base power moves, are there any lower base power or status moves worth considering over them?
• How important should STAB be if we select a damaging move?
• Should we aim to build a Pokémon that maximizes the potential of our move within the context of the CAP meta or that simply uses it as an additional tool in its kit?
• What type of roles are enabled best by the inclusion of these moves compared to our basic toolbox?
• Will selecting a powerful move early negatively impact the selection of stat limits or does it allow us to reprioritize the way we build stats?
• Given the general distaste for the oversaturation of offensive threats in the meta, how will this external factor influence our decisions when faced with a move from the prohibited move list
• Should this concept be expanded to all signature moves and not just the legend exclusive moves since they are often considered taboo to include?
• How important should distinguishing our Pokémon from the original user be?

Explanation: Since this will be the last CAP of gen 8, I figured offering a concept that strips the project of one of its biggest limitations would send the generation off with a bang. There are many unique move mechanics locked behind the prohibited move list and it would be a nice change of pace to explore one of them this project. Instead of selecting a move out the gate and basing the entire concept around that specific move, I figured a community discussion and vote would be a more appropriate route to take this style of project. Users appreciate having more agency over project decisions, especially when it comes to breaking the mold, so the concept was deliberately left open-ended. The concept also aims to reduce the goal of fulfillment to a simplistic benchmark: use a prohibited move. This relaxed goal lets us focus on the elements of the move/Pokémon that truly interest us and avoids bogging us down early with artificial restrictions such as building to the maximum potential of the move. However, this concept does place greater emphasis on concept assessment when it comes to uniting us around a specific design path for the Pokémon. Lastly, I thought this would be a more interesting time to suggest this type of concept given the gripes people have with the meta and the oversaturation of threats. I am most curious to see how this mentality warps the design process.

Guidelines:

1) Pay close attention to the Topic Leader during this discussion. Their job is to keep us focused and to bring insight.
2) Do not poll jump. Poll jumping is a serious offense in these threads, and you can get infracted for it. Poll jumping is when you discuss something that should be discussed in the future, like specifying a CAP's stats or typing. You're allowed to hint at such things to conclude a point or to provide an example, but do not centralize your post on a poll jump. Poll jumping hurts the focus of early threads and can cause us to go off on a tangent. If you're not sure if you're poll jumping or not, err on the side of caution and don't post it.​

CAP 31's TL SHSP will open the thread with their thoughts and a series of questions and considerations. Please make sure to read their initial post and subsequent posts carefully and follow them for discussion! Keep posts civil and on topic, or else they will be deleted.

CAP 31 So Far

 

[SHSP]

Alright, we've got a concept, and a lot of ground to cover in Concept Assessment. Forbidden Fruit is a bit of a broad concept with the options available to us, but I don't want to jump right into trying to debate what prohibited move we should build around. Let's start with a bit of preliminary focusing instead. We've done a number of concepts across the years that have been hugely dependent on specific moves: from defined concepts like Kerfluffle and Equilibra built to use their specific moves to others like Smokomodo and Chromera that had specific moves play large roles in both their process and eventual status in the metagame. Starting with a discussion based on what we've learned through our past processes is a good way to set us up for the eventual discussion of what move we take. With that said, some questions:

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?

With these in mind, I think we'll be setting ourselves up well for the future of the process before immediately jumping into the debate about moves themselves. Let's start with a 24 hour timeline for this step of CA. Looking forward to seeing how this discussion plays out!

 

[Brown4Sides]

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?

I don't have a ton of time to do deep thinking rn but I'm gonna address this one first because it's the easiest to answer. The difference between a utility move and a direct attack is that typing influences direct attacks much more. If we chose a direct attack, we might be more inclined to give it STAB, and would thus potentially add restrictions to the typing process. Of course, we don't need STAB to use direct attacks, and we could absolutely make a Pokemon with a viable forbidden attack without its STAB, but it helps. A utility attack, however, does not impose this on us, or at least not as much.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

The first question is honestly kind of hard for me to answer just because I wasn't really around for most of processes that would be relevant to it, so I'm probably just going to answer questions 2 and 3 for the time being.

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?

I think that generally, how the move would shape the power budget depends greatly on the viability of the move in question. It goes without saying that stronger moves are going to consume more of the power budget and force us to impose more limits in later stages, while weaker moves consume less of the power budget and overall give us more freedom to work with. That being said, I don't think that having to impose limits such as these during the process is necessarily a bad thing, and hell I oftentimes find that having more limits during the process helps keep the community more focused during the later stages, but it does make me feel that some of the stronger options on the list wouldn't make for a super-interesting process, as we would have to put an undesirable amount of restrictions on the process to keep our power budget in check.

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?

In regards to this question, I mostly agree with what Brown4Sides said in regards to how it would affect our typing stage. In terms of how it would affect our stats stage, most of the more direct attacks on the restricted moves list tend to be very powerful, and this sort of goes back to how I answered the previous question in that we would need to compensate for having such powerful attacks by restricting ourselves further during the stats stage. In regards to how we would handle the more utility based moves on the list, I feel like a similar approach would need to be taken, but in terms of what exact restrictions we would put in place and how strict they would need to be isn't going to be quite as clear, so I think they may demand more discussion than moves that are simply just a move whose sole purpose is to hit the opponent hard. That being said, I do think that some of the moves in question can sort of fall under both categories (I will refrain from naming examples to avoid poll-jumping), and I think that in these cases we sort of need to examine both the power it offers as an attack and the utility it grants us to determine both how much of the power budget it takes up and what restrictions we should impose for future steps in the process to make sure we don't go overboard.

 

[Mova]

In regards to the move we choose, the Pokemon should have STAB on it if it is an attack so it would want to run that move. Some types have better use as STAB, and others as coverage, but we should choose one that works with both, regardless of what typing that could be. The move would definitely shape the power budget if it is a strong move with only low PP as a drawback, which doesn't matter as much in pvp. This gives us a need to balance it out some other way, such as giving a good offensive typing that is not useful defensively, or even giving it a lower-end ability to let it rely on raw power, rather than a good ability.

 

[dex]

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?

It is absolutely going to impact every stage. Some signature moves are incredibly powerful and, more importantly, some come with unique or otherwise strong secondary effects. Base power is going to impact stats quite a bit; however, that second part about strong secondary effects is what is going to impact the project as a whole. I am of the opinion that we should be looking for moves that provide some interesting interaction or are incredibly strong when compared to moves of the same type; this will give direction to the project.

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?

Some of the prohibited moves are absolute trash, some of them are absolute gold. We won't know how it will shape our power budget until we select it, but we do know that it will absolutely impact the power budget in some way. I am banking on our selected move giving us some direction in future stages and, therefore, determining our remaining power budget, but we cannot say what we have to work with before we select our move.

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?

I think there are three possible options for our move selection:

1. We choose a non-damaging move that provides something unique to the table. We then base the rest of the process around maximizing and justifying this move.
2. We choose a damaging move that possesses some unique/interesting secondary effect. We then base the rest of the process about justifying the use of this move because of its secondary effect.
3. We choose a damaging move whose base power/benefit is substantially higher than other common moves of its type and physical/special leaning. We base the process about making our CAP unique in that it alone has access to such a move in the CAP metagame (thinking about something like Zeraora with Plasma Fists)

Personally, I would order the options 2, 3, 1 in terms of preference, but I think they all are valid options. This move is going to define the rest of this process, so I think that no matter what we pick, we are going to be considering it in each stage.

 

[Me bad boi]

I'm gonna preface the post by saying that I'm new to the CAP project and progress. That being said, I have some thoughts on the questions so far.

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?

So far a lot has been said about the typing side of things, but I haven't seen stuff about the potential stats and role the pokemon could fulfill. I feel like a utility move would allow for a far wider range of archetypes that we could choose from. Utility moves could work on anything from a fast attacker to a bulky wall, allowing a lot of freedom later down the line. In comparison to an offensive move, we will have to consider that the pokemon will need to have at least stab or good offensive stats to make that move usable. In fact, it has to be more than just usable, since the "banned" move will play a huge role in the pokemon's identity (after all, if it doesn't, there is no point in doing the project at all). Therefore, this pokemon should be a good user of the selected move and will almost always have to show some offensive prowess. Maybe this concern is overblown, but I definitely think that a utility move will allow for a lot more freedom.

 

[shnowshner]

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?

The best way I could understand these questions was by breaking down the prohibited moves into a few loose categories. These are a tad subjective so bear with me:

1. Overpowered STAB: These are moves that don't really have any unique effects or mechanics to them, instead opting for raw damage instead, and usually without the heavy downsides of your traditional high BP moves.
   • Astral Barrage doesn't have any negative attributes besides low PP.
   • Precipice Blades has 120 BP with decent accuracy and 16 PP, compared to other moves of similar power like Fire Blast or Hurricane which often have worse accuracy, damage, or PP, though this comes without any additional effect.
2. Upgraded Utility: This is any move whose mechanics are borrowed from elsewhere, but have the benefit of generally being much stronger than those counterparts in a variety of ways.
   • Magma Storm may have low accuracy and PP compared to Fire Spin and the like, but a fantastic BP of 100 lets it also serve as a primary attacking move,: in practice, this helps condense moveslots on Heatran.
3. One-Of-A-Kind: The mechanics of this move are unqiue or work in a much different way to other moves that are otherwise similar.
   • Spectral Thief is a good example as its effects are nowhere else in the game and can't be replicated outside of this move.
   • Core Enforcer nullifying abilities is borrowed from Gastro Acid, but the mechanic doesn't belong to any other damaging move and only applies if moving last.
4. Nonsensical, Unviable, and Broke: Basically these are options I don't see us really considering for a multitude of reasons.
   • Moves like Behemoth Blade aren't so bad as much as their main effects aren't relevant to the metagame, which can make it hard to justify over using regular STAB or another restricted move.
   • Likewise, something like Nature's Madness is an improvement over Super Fang, but in many cases it works just the same and some people may not be a fan of using our concept on a move easily replicated.
   • Any of the recharge moves probably aren't good for Singles even with their very high BP.
   • Luster Purge and Mist Ball are genuinely awful.
   • Conversely, Double Iron Bash is an extremely powerful move that would almost certainly draw a lot of negative stigma due to its high flinch rate, being multi-hit, and thr effective 120 BP.
   • Thousand Arrows.

Overpowered STABs would have a good deal of influence on our attacking power. These moves tend to be quite spammable so I imagine cuts to stats, weaker abilities, and perhaps a more limited movepool would be on the table. Typing would also be huge like Brown4Sides first mentioned. These are the least interesting options available, but some of them do stand out simply due to being stronger than the moves we'd normally consider (Glacial Lance and Bolt Strike are massive improvements versus the regularly-distributed Ice and Electric Physical Moves, for example).

Upgraded Utilities are harder to gauge as in terms of damage they tend to be lower than a lot of regular moves: its the secondary effects that let them stand out. Trying to generalize their impact is hard, but I imagine they'd all have a lot of influence on our move selection: what we want to do, and whay we don't. I could see bulk being a large factor here as well, given that damage may not be the main appeal.

The One-Of-A-Kind moves are the most interesting but daunting: there is limited data on what these are capable of and I can see lots of people not being familiar with their full impact. I imagine things could get pretty chaotic in the movepool and stats stages as some try to play it safe while others vastly underestimate what we're working with.

The last category (or group thereof) doesn't sound like a smart idea. Some moves are obviously just not strong enough, while the more powerful options are dubiously doable but would definitely bring controversary and probably overcentralize our CAP around said move, likely to the detriment of its other features. And some simply aren't very interesting given other routes we can take, even if the move itself would be fine for the process and is relatively unexplored.

I am trying to look through this in a more "state and cohesion of the process" way versus whether or not we could make a good CAP out of a given move; I don't doubt there's a route towards a balanced Thousand Arrows addition to the metagame, but following the steps needed to get there could be a massive headache versus a less powerful, yet tamer and more nuanced option.

 

[Bloopyghost]

Gonna keep this short and also answer these two together.

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?

This would for sure depend on what move is decided on. Most of the prohibited moves are reliable nukes and/or pack strong secondary effects such as high status chance or guaranteed stat drops. Picking such moves would definitely take a good chunk of our power budget and be front and center for this CAP, possibly requiring a dialed down sweepiness.

That said, there are certainly other valid routes we can take, which I’ll address in this next question.

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?

I think the big nukes would set us down two paths: 1) an offensive threat, 2) something fat or a utility mon that leverages the high power and reliability of whatever nuke we choose to apply offensive pressure without necessarily being a breaker or a sweeper.

The more utility-based options however can lead us down a much more unique road and open up new possibilities. A trapper, a drain tank, counter to sweepers, and a more defensive mon all become available, one-of-a-kind avenues when we look at these prohibited utility moves.

 

[Zetalz]

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?

Concepts like this inherently lend themselves to a more structured process with a more clear idea of direction off the jump. The type of move we choose can greatly inform the future direction of the process, a pure damage move could imply some type of breaker with STAB, while a more utility based move could imply a support/defensive mon, each with large effects for every stage. Way I see it, where we intend to focus our efforts will have the most impact on the project. If we try to make the most use of the move itself, or use the move in a way to make the most of our desired playstyle, either way changes the shape of the process considerably.

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?

Answering these together since my thoughts are not entirely separate.

Moves with more of an emphasis on their utility/unique effects interest me a lot more than direct attacks. While direct attacks of this sort can offer a significant power boost to a mon, they often act merely as enhanced versions of STAB or coverage the mon would normally run. A move with a more unique effect, whether it be through its utility or the kind of playstyle it enables, leaves a lot of varied exploration with the concept beyond a flat investment into damage output. Not that 'big number do big damage' isn't a viable path, but it's certainly a less exciting or thought-provoking avenue to take imo.

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?

It will definitely have a major effect on stats most succinctly, but it'll lowkey effect every stage due to a general higher power budget. These moves at the very least are a straight upgrade to other moves (Psystrike is just Psyshock but stronger) and some effects get really really strong as well alongside that. On the correct assumption that CAP31 will actually want to utilize these moves, we will have to make room for them in the budget, which means being more cautious with basically every stage.

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?

Each move is case by case in terms of their viability (are we actually going to consider Fusion Flare), but there are a few interesting things to note about the majority. Most important off all is their base power is quite a step higher than the more common variants. Even if the selected move is delegated to coverage only it's important to keep in the back of the mind how hard this move will be hitting, and really consider how much power offensively they will need to be successful at whatever they plan to do.

 

[Gekokeso]

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?

Currently i feel like there are 3 power categories in which prohibited moves can fall into:

Straight up dogshit moves or outclassed:
These moves are straight up ass, it would be a huge waste of a concept to work with these considering we finally get an option to touch the other, actually fun moves.
Examples: Land's wrath, Luster Purge, Relic Song

Moves that are just stronger or distinct versions of regular moves:
These are, at its core, moves that just happen to be slightly better than other alternatives that mons usually don't get. An example would be a flying that has aeroblast instead of hurricane. You trade 10 bp for a way more reliable flying move that also has a decent chance to crit. These could honestly just lead to a normal process where we just enjoy a normal cap.
Examples: Diamond Storm, Steam Eruption, Psystrike

Straight up ridiculous stuff:
Lets not kid ourselves this is exactly what most of us want to do and its gonna take the biggest balancing act. Stuff like broken setup options like Geomancy would end up nuking our stats, stronger stabs like V-Create and Psycho Boost would kill our remaining movepool, and stuff like Thousand arrows or Spectral Thief just really screws how the meta plays. Still, despite how they tighten the power budget, these are the coolest options.

If anything we should explore thisconcept by taking a look at the process that birthed Equilibra, since its creation was both a great example of making sure a mon makes the most of that particular tool given to it as well as how one can possibly overfurfill the concept at hand (has flashbacks to the time Equilibra still had toxic)
Edit: Actually Shnowshner's are a bit more centered and better i think.

 

[lezzy cuttlefish]

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?

I'd argue it stands to put a significant limit on the impact we can make during move selection, just given the way building around a powerful move like this claims a spot on all sets the moment we pick it. Look at the difficulty of fitting Pain Split on Equilibra; we had all this great discussion about whether any recovery would be balanced to give it, eventually landed on Pain Split, and now it barely ever runs it anyway because Doom Desire/Rapid Spin/Earth Power is already three, and it can turn a lot of pretty important matchups from L's to W's with aura sphere or flash cannon.

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?

I mean, that depends on what move we pick. If we go for one of the big dumb STAB attacks, all we have to do to keep 31 in line is watch our thumbs during stats, keep that attack/sp attack from crawling too high. Conversely, moves like Spectral Thief answer entire huge swathes of the meta all by themselves. We'd be hard pressed to justify any abilities that add too much more utility in such a case; the idea of a Thousand Arrows user with magic bounce is physically nauseating.

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?

A move with utility of any sort would provide a lot more direction early on, I feel. If we pick searing shot, we're going to want to pick a niche that can make good use of that burn chance. But the only direction psystrike gives us is "psychic type. Probably?"

On that note, I'm not sure STAB typing is as much of a necessity for strong signature attacking moves as it's been made out to be so far. Some of these might be more interesting to think about as a third stab, almost like a free steelworker!

 

[Lectrys]

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?
Interestingly, we have already seen how picking almost any of the prohibited status moves can affect a CAP with access to them: with Sketch, Necturna has access to every prohibited status move but Jungle Healing and the snapped status moves. Pretty much the only prohibited status move I recall seeing on Necturna is Geomancy (intriguingly, I don't tend to recall sleep moves on Necturna), so some prohibited status moves may need a mon much more suited to them than Necturna in order to be used. Notably, Necturna was nerfed in Gen 7 because of its physical Shell Smash set, not its Geomancy set.

The power budget of a prohibited status move CAP 31 would probably be noticeably higher than post-nerf Necturna's power budget.

Picking a prohibited non-status move would shape the process into making CAP 31's typing more important, as opposed to the more typing-agnostic status move. Now whether CAP 31 gets STAB on the prohibited non-status move matters. As we've seen with Choice Band Necturna sets, even huge truck attacks like V-Create and Dragon Ascent can be tamed with a low enough power budget, and part of lowering that power budget can include not giving CAP 31 STAB on the massive attack (along with gimping CAP 31's offensive STAB, coverage, and stats).

 

[FluffyZergling]

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?
One move is all it takes to create a pokemon. A Clefable can use moon blast as that line is known for coming from space, Tapus' have nature's madness because they are the rage of the Aloha Islands, mushroom pokemon have been known to own the move spore. It all depends on what one looks at a move and what flavor they want to add. One can expand on the pokemon with the power of a restricted move. What does the move Seed flare have over the sister move of energy ball? The effects are not that different, but the move has much more flavor! Seed flare is a blast of plant-based energy generated from filtering out pollution and letting it out as light and water (This is the pokemon movie, not just me talking.) Energy ball is taking the energy from nature and fires it like a bullet. An Alakazam or Giratina can use that energy from nature, but only a grass type with a powerful connection to a plant's very being can use a powerful move.

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?
Where one powerful move possesses a flaw, the pokemon that can cover those faults can take the point in changing the battle ecosystem. The pokemon can not cover their weakness with items or abilities or it will overwhelm the ecosystem that they are placed in. If a pokemon is just going to click one move when it comes out, why should it have coverage? The prime example in my mind is Regieleki. Boosted electric moves on both physical and special with utility in: Screens, rapid spin, a few coverage moves, and the ability to volt switch, has to lead to the only counters being ground types. Slap a magnet on Regieleki with 4 attack EVs and wild charge has a 17.6% chance to 2HKO Blissy. It would be even worse if it had bolt strike or dare I say it bolt beak. Put a min defense and min HP Cubone out there and body slam is a 3HKO with a max attack. The goal to get ground types weak to a Regieleki is to trade a ring target onto the ground type. Regieleki can't give a ring target that allows that pokemon to have partners like Rotom-W to bait in the ground with a volt switch. Sure Rotom-W is at risk of being hit with a ground type, but that pokemon is made to turn an obstacle for Regieleki into another stepping stone on the road to victory! Finding the right prohibited move to use in this creation lies in what situation a counter needs to be overwhelmed before the rest of the opponent's team can be felled.

If the tools to make use of prohibited moves are available in great supply then it is best to avoid the potential of creating a broken pokemon. If the stats are underwhelming to support the prohibited move or the task to break common counters is too great, then there is a chance that it won't be the most effective tool and would not make the move slot. The flavor that a prohibited move provides to this new pokemon will be lost.

 

[Amamama]

Before jumping right in I want some clarification on which moves are allowed for the concept?
Atm I read the concept as purely based on the restricted moves list, which mostly contains legendary signature moves. But on discord some where working with the assumption, that non legendary signatures are allowed too.
Are we going to leave this open for now or will we work close to the original concept?

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?

A lot of the legendary signature moves on the prohibited move list are straight power buffs to existing regular moves.
This means they mostly influence stats as their power ceiling is obviously higher.
Something that might be less apparent for these high base power moves is, that (if we assume STAB) coverage options are much less powerful or if we assume it as coverage, that they might be as strong as a STAB move, which also impacts how CAP 31 will interact with its threatlist. Tbh this is the most interesting aspect of the straight power buff moves.
Some of the legendary signature instead have a singular effect attached to them, which can be the gimmick that we explore during this concept. There are several different options for this, which all would lead to different power levels.
All in all these moves offer a high power ceiling, which means we will have to work with a little less elsewhere.
That said the POWER DIFFERENTIAL between these and regular moves might actually allow us more power than what we might think right now.

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?

As already said a lot of the options on the Restricted List are just straight power buffs.
If we decide to chose an effectless attacking move, we might want to specify, what we want to do with the Mon, that we couldn’t do with a weaker alternative. For example, if it might make sense to use this powerful move as basically a third STAB similar to how Necturnacan use V-Create or if we want one super powered nuke STAB similar to Venomicon-Epilogues Brave Bird, that is a lot more powerful than it’s coverage options.
In general these moves give a little less direction, as an additional effect of a move can influence what role the Mon wants to play and the lower power of the utility based moves can mean, that we would require STAB on an utility based attack.
A move that offers additional utility can shape the role of a Mon significantly, which gives us a bit more to work with but also means more restrictions going forward. A Mon using Thousand Waves will be designed around trapping in some way for example.

 

[pyuking muku]

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?

This really depends on the type of move we go for. Overall, as many have mentioned, we’ll have a generally lower power budget depending on the move, but if we use something more offensive (eg Oblivion Wing or Magma Storm), we’ll need to balance its offensive stats accordingly. On the other hand, it’s equally possible to pick a more defensive or non-legendary signature move (eg King’s Shield or Court Change), in which case we may have to balance it more around being a utility or defensive mon. Whether we decide to balance around an offensive, defensive, or utility move will heavily affect our typing, as an offensive move would lean toward offensive typings and would probably want STAB, while a defensive or utility move would likely want a more defensive typing with resistances and immunities so that it can better use its move.

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?

Once again, this will likely lower the remaining power budget that we have to work with, though it doesn’t have to. Again, moves like King’s Shield and Court Change might allow for more power budget. One move that I think would be especially interesting to consider would be Core Enforcer. This move is almost entirely unviable on Zygarde, because why do anything else when you can spam Thousand Arrows? The move does see a lot of play in BH, where it’s used to nullify the many powerful abilities circulating the metagame, and it’s also a decently powerful Dragon-type move. The interesting component to this is it requires the user to move last to work, which can allow for more interesting stat spreads, such as a low speed mon that makes better use of the effect, or a mid speed mon that can easily force switches to other Mons. However, this may be jumping ahead; I mostly mention it to make the point that based on the move’s effects, we can easily end up with much more variable stat spreads.

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?

Again echoing my last two answers, the move chosen can easily dictate the archetype our mon is meant to fill. However, that’s not to mean that it must be connected to our type of move. We can easily create something like a defensive status spreader that uses a powerful move such as V-Create or Wicked Blow to force switches, or an offensive mon that creates openings to use a utility move like Court Change or Octolock. Going for an offensive move would require us to make sure that there are possible switch-ins to the chosen move (eg Heatran or Astrolotl for V-Create), and if the move has certain powerful effects, that there are mons who can mitigate them (eg the Slows being likely unaffected by Core Enforcer). Depending on the utility move, it may require looking into how that move is used by its mon (or not used) and why this move is better than other utility moves (eg why use Octolock over Magma Storm/other trapping moves).

 

[Voltage]

I'd also like to bring us back to the mindset of the CAP community during Equilibra's process. As SHSP may recall, many people believed that Doom Desire was actively detrimental to Libra's viability and they expected that Libra would forego Doom Desire for 3 attacks and utility. Therefore, it was decided that Equilibra's stats and ability needed to be compensated in order to ensure that the mon was viable. With the power of hindsight, we can clearly see that Doom Desire was one of, if not, the biggest boons Libra could have in conjunction with two immunity abilities and incredibly useful stats. In contrast to Future Sight, the other delayed move, Doom Desire hits every single Pokemon, as there are no natural immunities to Steel type moves. Eventually we had to nerf Libra multiple times in order to ensure that the mon wasn't a ginormous blight on the metagame.

I bring up Libra because it is a more specific case of this new concept we have. Clearly, (as is standard with a SHSP process I guess) we will have to tread the same ground with knowing how to compensate later stages of the process to accommodate the inherent power, or perceived lack thereof, of our chosen move. I think there's a lot more to explore, and I think it would be interesting to see if we could take one of these perceived weaker moves like Luster Purge or Mist Ball, and turn them into a move that CAP 31 would actively like to use. Of course, utility is something I also think has a lot of merit in this process. There's a lot of specific utility moves that CAP31 might be able to take advantage of, like Court Change or King Shield, that would be interesting to see play out. Ultimately, though, we have room to work.

With respect to the power budget, I think we need to be very careful how we define "powerful" in this case, as I would expect that the power budget will be inversely related to the perceived power of the move we choose. If we were to choose something like Double Iron Bash or V-Create as our move, then we will like have to ensure that the stats aren't so high that hax from the move will break the game. Conversely, if we choose something like Court Change, we might have more room for offense-oriented options, but we may need to pull back on defensive measures. This is a general statement, yeah, but I think when we consider what the move does, in order to balance CAP31, we will likely need to slightly pull back more than we expect in the area where the move is useful. In my mind, it's better to make a CAP with an underwhelming meta-impact than one that warps the metagame. We hit the sweet spot with Venomicon-P, so I'm confident in our process for 31 to approach this nuanced concept.

 

[sneakyjeans]

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?
I mean main thing I see here is the impact on typing - in particular that selecting an offensive move will have us leaning very strongly to a STAB match that will restrict the typing stage. However I actually think exploring options outside of this and having the signature move be non-STAB coverage can help us with both power budget and looking at interesting synergies. Moves like Diamond Storm or Thunder Cage have interesting effects beyond damage, and we can definitely consider what kinds of mons benefit from those effects beyond the damage output.

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?
It definitely does mean we need to think critically about how powerful the move is - and I have some reservations that we could be too conservative with the power budget depending on move choice. For instance, Psystrike is a stronger version of Psyshock - but with Psychic Terrain up, Tapu Lele's Psyshock has a higher equivalent base power than Psystrike. In a situation like this we would need to really focus on:

• Differentiating CAP 31 substantially from other threats with similar power levels - either through utility, bulk, etc.
• Consider match-ups where CAP 31 is preferable over similar choices - but not always the default choice (Tapu Lele is not replaced for instance)

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?
There's no shortage of "move hits really hard" options on this list - and that's fine. The utility options however make for a slightly more complex process, and also are less restrictive on something like typing. Either approach should lead to a great process, and I think this comes down more to what we would really rather see enter the meta.

 

[Wulfanator]

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?
This is most dependent on the move we select. Given the perceived strength of these moves, stats and ability will be crucial in establishing the power and threat these moves exert on the game. I use the term “perceived” as a direct response from Equilibra’s project. Many users perceived Doom Desire as a subpar tool that would see minimal use compared to more immediate options like Flash Cannon. As a result, we supercharged Equilibria’s abilities and stats to better incentivize Doom Desire. It is easy to call this a misstep in hindsight, but we have still made similar decisions in more recent projects: Astrolotl and Venomicon-Epilogue. From these experiences, I expect these two stages to be the most influenced by the addition.


How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?

Again, this boils down to perception. If the community does not perceive the move as strong/threatening, it is likely we will afford greater flexibility with the budget in future stages. If the move is perceived to be exceptionally strong, every decision beyond that initial selection will impact the budget in a more exaggerated way. I think with the addition of the post-play lookback, it is always in our interest to be more generous with the power budget since it is easier for us to remove a visible problem rather than find the missing piece that bolsters the mon's kit.

 

[1BluLizard]

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?
Because of the prohibited move in Cap 31's movepool, multiple sections will be influenced because the move chosen will almost certainly be more powerful than most moves. It will change the typing process because either the prohibited move is used as strong coverage like how a lot of Normal-types run dark moves or the large amount of EQ users. It could also be a spammable STAB move. This means that the typing will change depending on the move we chose and the role we want to go with it. Changing typing also then changes the moves that we give it as both STAB moves and coverage moves. The stats will also be influenced, because we do not want Cap 31 to be too strong, which means that some stats will most likely be toned down at least slightly down to make up for the very powerful move at its disposal.

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?
The power budget will probably not change too much, because while the prohibited moves are strong it does not take much tuning to make Cap 31 balanced even with one of these moves. Depending on the role of the move certain stats, either defensive or offensive, will be slightly lower, and most likely Cap 31 will have a lower BST than most Caps, but I can't imagine it will be a large difference. Coverage could also be limited so that the Cap cannot just run its overpowered move and then other coverage moves that cover all of its weaknesses.

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?
A utility move would make the Cap in general more utility based. A utility attack would also influence the typing stage less than a direct attack because with a direct attack the prohibited move being powerful STAB or coverage would need to be taken into account, but with a utility move STAB and coverage does not matter as much. This makes the choice of the move and the process less interconnected in general. A utility move also seems appealing since it sounds more interesting and less directly offensive, but some utility moves are just as strong or stronger than the attacking moves though, so I think that going either way works just as well and both will be interesting.

Other Thoughts
This concept seems very interesting and I look forward to it, but I hope it does not become too centralized. It seems tempting to just take one of the high BP moves like V-Create or Glacial Lance and then give Cap 31 the type of the move and make it a super strong Pokemon. I do not think this is bad itself, and on the other hand I hope that the Cap is kept from being boring to use because its such an interesting concept. I do not think there is a single bad way to go about it, because even though a lot of the prohibited moves are relatively similar, they also have differences that allow each one to be used. I would also prefer to make this Cap would be to make the central point the prohibited move. This does restrict some parts of the process, but not too much, at least in my opinion, and it also lets us come up with the best ideas on how to implement this Cap with a strong move rather than mostly ignoring the move, even if the Cap can function without its prohibited move.

 

[quziel]

How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?

Main concern I have here is that many of the legend sig moves, while not forcing, do imply STAB. Eg if we're choosing Astral Barrage, I feel like it heavily implies that we're a Ghost-Type (this is a bad example). This is really the main thing I'd like to work around, as the power levels of the moves can definitely be adjusted by just changing stats/abilities/restricting the rest of the movepool (see nect). May be worth doing a modified defining moves early to get a shortlist of 2-4 preferred sigs before typing that folks can select from when doing typing subs (eg Astral Barrage + Bolt Strike to allow for Ghost-, Electric-, and Off-type submissions). (Obviously STAB is not forced, but I suspect voting patterns will reward folks who incorporate STAB). This is admittedly far more of a concern with average-bp signature moves (Searing Shot, Thunder Cage...) than premiere-bp signature moves (Bolt Strike...).

 

[Rabia]

mostly just gonna recap what I talked about with el shispador when he was drafting his post

I think the most determining factor w.r.t. later stages is going to be whether the move selected is strictly a damaging move or one that also provides immense utility (i.e. Thunder Cage, Thousand Waves, etc). Each route has great potential to lend itself to a pretty clear role for CAP31, whether that be wallbreaker, stallbreaker, or what have you.

I also think some of those straight damaging moves likely force typing to give them STAB. That's not the case for them all, as some typings are generally good coverage (say for example you had an Electric-type CAP31 and we opted for an Ice-type attack). However, given some moves just aren't that good of an attacking type on their own, I feel we'd end up wanting to match CAP31's typing with the move's typing to maximize overall usefulness. Obviously, this wouldn't be a must, but as quz states, I think voters may still lean that way so . Compare this to heavily utility-based options, though, which I feel we could slot alongside a much wider variety of typings and still end up with good mileage.

tl;dr some moves probably will want/require STAB to be all that useful/interesting

 

[SHSP]

Thanks everyone for the great discussion so far, it's been a very enjoyable read to see us look back at processes like Libra and the lessons they taught us. It appears that we're in a consensus about a few things so far:

Specifically the strength of the move we select will set the tone for the rest of the project: This does sound rather simple, but it's important to mention clearly and to have in mind going forward. These moves range from relatively low power to strict improvements over existing moves or even absurdly strong moves. Every step of how the rest of the process plays out will be impacted by our selection both directly- i.e. giving a strong move STAB to back it up in typing- and indirectly- i.e. limiting our stats because of our move's strength limiting our power. On the topic, I'd like to echo what Wulf said in his earlier post: especially now with the Post-Play Lookback, I think we are much better off with being generous with what we give CAP 31 and allowing ourselves to take some beneficial risks in its creation.

Though the move itself will give a great deal of direction, it will not entirely define CAP 31: Building with a presumably very strong move as the core of the concept will give CAP 31 direction and a clear end goal, but it is clear from our discussion that it will not immediately give us a blueprint for the rest of the project. More unique effects like say Spectral Thief lend themselves to several different archetypes of Pokemon, and even more basic moves that are realistically just power upgrades do not necessarily dictate STAB- the idea of a "third STAB" with their sheer strength has been brought up in posts like Amamama's and Lezzy Cuttlefish's. Once we have a move to work with, we're going to have to evaluate what roles and archetypes it lends itself to before we launch into the later stages of the concept.

With these in mind, I think it's time we start looking at the Forbidden Fruits themselves. I'll have the updated list of prohibited moves in a hide tag below (please let me know if I've made a mistake and missed something!), and I'm opening discussion about specific routes we can take with our concept. Remember that we're still early on in this discussion, too: there's a great deal of moves on this list that would end up with a viable, successful process, and it may be more effective to bring that list down in size before debating individual moves.

Prohibited List

Moves in [brackets] are unselectable in battle. Moves in (parentheses) belong to Pokemon that do not exist in Sword and Shield.

Aeroblast
Astral Barrage
Behemoth Bash
Behemoth Blade
Blue Flare
Bolt Strike
Core Enforcer
Crush Grip
Diamond Storm
Doom Desire
Double Iron Bash
Dragon Energy
Dragon's Ascent
Dynamax Cannon
Eternabeam
Fiery Wrath
Fleur Cannon
Freeze Shock
Freezing Glare
Fusion Bolt
Fusion Flare
Geomancy
Glacial Lance
Glaciate
Ice Burn
Jungle Healing
Land's Wrath
Lunar Dance
Luster Purge
Magma Storm
Mind Blown
Mist Ball
Moongeist Beam
Multi-Attack
Nature's Madness
Oblivion Wing
Origin Pulse
Photon Geyser
Plasma Fists
Precipice Blades
Prismatic Laser
Psystrike
Roar of Time
Sacred Fire
Searing Shot
Secret Sword
Shadow Force
Spacial Rend
Spectral Thief
Steam Eruption
Sunsteel Strike
Surging Strikes
Techno Blast
Thousand Arrows
Thousand Waves
Thunder Cage
Thunderous Kick
V-Create
Wicked Blow

(Dark Void- Note: Hard Coded to Darkrai)
(Hyperspace Fury)
(Hyperspace Hole)
(Judgement)
(Relic Song)
(Seed Flare)

[Heart Swap]
[Light of Ruin]
[Psycho Boost]

 

[Brown4Sides]

May be worth doing a modified defining moves early to get a shortlist of 2-4 preferred sigs before typing that folks can select from when doing typing subs (eg Astral Barrage + Bolt Strike to allow for Ghost-, Electric-, and Off-type submissions). (Obviously STAB is not forced, but I suspect voting patterns will reward folks who incorporate STAB). This is admittedly far more of a concern with average-bp signature moves (Searing Shot, Thunder Cage...) than premiere-bp signature moves (Bolt Strike...).

Just wanted to second this, and I'm not sure if this is my place to do so, so please tell me if it's not, but my suggestion is to, instead of coming away from this concept assessment having picked one definitive move that we will use, we pick 4 or 5 that have gained the most support, leaving for a much more flexible as well as interesting typing stage, and then not decide on one definitive move until AFTER our typing has been selected. Because I am noticing that the amount of attacking moves on this list by far outnumbers the amount of status moves, many of which would imply a certain typing, and my fear is that in the somewhat likely event we want an attacking move, coming out of this having only picked one will lead to a much more constrained and dull typing process.

Again, I don't know if it's my place to make suggestions on the process itself like this, but I believe that at this point in the process, choosing a handful of moves we could use instead of one would make for a more balanced and flexible typing stage. I'm not sure if this constitutes polljumping because "why not say all of this during the typing stage" I'm saying this now because I'm afraid that by the typing stage it might be too late.

Will post my thoughts on the individual moves later in the day.