CAP 34 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

[Explosion Badger]

2. What makes Throat Spray unique? How can we leverage Throat Spray's unique qualities to not only ensure that it gets used on CAP 34 but also that CAP 34 excels with it?

As others have said already, Throat Spray's main unique quality is the control one has over its activation. With it, its activation is entirely in the players hands, and the effect it gives does not limit the players options or longevity. While its role as an activatable consumable means that it lacks the immediate power and consistency of items like Choice Specs, the control the player has over it means that they gain a substantial power boost when they want to, and neither their options or longevity are limited on it. For this, I feel that in order for CAP 34 to be able to fully excel with this item, it needs two things:

1. The speed, power and coverage to turn Throat Spray's activation into a pivotal moment in the battle, where its STABs and coverage can tear apart the opposing team and clean up a game after the opponent has been effectively weakened.
2. The ability to come into the battle at multiple points, threatening potential cleanup/sweeps while still being effective outside of that role. I want to highlight this in particular, since it is the main thing that I feel emphasizes Throat Sprays strengths. Because Throat Spray's activation is entirely in the hands of the user, CAP 34 should be able to best maximize the benefits of that control. Where an item like Booster Energy requires the user to stay out of the battle until it's their time to shine, and Life Orb requires the user to make effective use out of limited time, Throat Spray should allow 34 to enter the battle multiple times, using whatever coverage and resources it has to help whittle down the opposing team before deciding its time to sweep, all the while using the threat of starting a sweep at anytime to scare the opponent into not giving it chances to switch in. The ability for 34 to boost up using offensive moves further emphasizes this, as it makes it harder for opponents to take advantage of its setup turn, and thus easier for CAP 34 to make its presence on the field scary.

3. Should we entertain swapping the Ability and Typing stages (I.E. going directly to Ability first and then Typing)? Why?

I agree that ability going prior to typing is probably the best route to go for this CAP. Being able to discuss broadest possible options for what abilities to pair with Throat Spray will allow us to then narrow our focus to a specific set of typings that pair immensly well with both our item and ability.

On the topic of defining moves, while I do feel that having a short discussion on the available moves prior to ability would be useful, I would hope that the conversation made does not prematurely interfere with our choosing of ability by making us have to pick an ability that works with a large portion of the defining sound moves, and leaving us with an ability that is too broad in its application to make full use of the one sound move needed.

 

[boo836]

1. What sort of roles does Throat Spray inspire in Pokemon? Are there any roles that have not been explored in the context of Throat Spray that may be worth pursuing?

It's clearly a special/mixed attacking role, probably as a wallbreaker or a sweeper. Usually the one-time use relegates users to being win conditions rather than an attacker oriented towards simply making progress.

2. What makes Throat Spray unique? How can we leverage Throat Spray's unique qualities to not only ensure that it gets used on CAP 34 but also that CAP 34 excels with it?

What makes Throat Spray unique is its one-time use in lending a boosting effect to a move. The two sorts of moves that benefit most are strong attacking moves and moves with secondary effects. Unfortunately, there are very few sound-based moves, the majority of which are rather weak and lack secondary effects. In order of best to worst, they are Boomburst, Psychic Noise, Eerie Spell, Torch Song, Clanging Scales, Sparkling Aria, Hyper Voice, Alluring Voice, Overdrive, Bug Buzz, as moves that (loosely) fit these criteria as moves at 80 BP or above. The first five are the ones I think that should be focused on the most, as I think they have the most potential to set CAP 34 apart from other Throat Spray users.

The only exceptions to this are Clangorous Soul and Metal Sound although one basically has you just retooling Kommo-O and the other is just a one-time phazing move. The only real workaround is Recycle for reclaiming your Spray, which pushes CAP34 into a (w/st)allbreaker role.

3. Should we entertain swapping the Ability and Typing stages (I.E. going directly to Ability first and then Typing)? Why?

Yes, the Ability is going to be integral to establishing what kind of role we want CAP 34 to fit. Typing will severely constrain our move options and our process. Honestly, I think we should be doing the moves stage before typing too, so we establish what exactly we want CAP 34 to do.

 

[dex]

Awesome! I think we have a lot better of a handle on what we want to do now. To summarize:

1. CAP 34 is going to inhabit some kind of sweeper role most likely. While wallbreaking is a potential route, Throat Spray lends itself much more towards sweeping due to its single-use nature. It would be fine, even preferable, for CAP 34 to have wallbreaking potential to make it more of a help in the mid-game, but sweeping is the goal.
2. There are many positive qualities about Throat Spray that we can take advantage of. Because the user is in control of when Throat Spray procs, CAP 34 has the capacity to offer value throughout a game and threaten a sweep at multiple points. This leads CAP 34 towards being more of a "balanced" Pokemon, exerting pressure throughout a game before attempting a sweep. More offensive options focusing on the single-use aspect of Throat Spray are also fine, looking to have CAP 34 be the coup de gras in a game.
3. Exciting news, we will be going directly into Defining Moves! We will seek to pick out a move (or a set of moves) that we think will be good options to leverage Throat Spray with. Beyond that, I haven't seen any real compelling arguments for messing with the process order any further. Typing will be heavily influenced by the defining moves stage, while Ability may just not have enough to go off of from just Defining Moves.

Take er' away, SHSP!