CAP 35 - Part 16 - Flavor Ability Discussion

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spoo

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CAP 35 So Far

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Please pay very close attention to Earthflax's posts during this thread and remain on topic. DO NOT begin by posting massive lists of abilities!

Some general rules for this discussion:
  • Custom abilities are banned. No exceptions. Posts suggesting custom abilities will be deleted.
  • There are ability banlists for the different stages of ability discussion. Posts suggesting banned abilities will be deleted.
The following abilities are banned from this discussion:

Arena Trap
As One
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Beads Of Ruin
Beast Boost *
Chilling Neigh
Commander
Dark Aura
Dauntless Shield
Delta Stream
Desolate Land
Disguise
Dragon's Maw
Fairy Aura
Flower Gift
Forecast
Full Metal Body
Grim Neigh
Gulp Missile
Hadron Engine
Hunger Switch
Ice Face
Illusion
Imposter
Intrepid Sword
Moody
Multitype
Neuroforce
Orichalcum Pulse
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor
Protosynthesis *
Quark Drive *
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield
Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Soul Heart
Stance Change
Sword Of Ruin
Tablets Of Ruin
Teravolt
Transistor
Turboblaze
Unseen Fist
Vessel Of Ruin
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode
Zero To Hero

Bulletproof
Color Change*
Defeatist
Dry Skin
Earth Eater
Flash Fire
Fur Coat
Good As Gold
Gorilla Tactics
Huge Power
Ice Scales
Libero*
Levitate
Lightning Rod
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Magnet Pull
Mimicry*
Motor Drive
Parental Bond
Protean*
Pure Power
Purifying Salt
Regenerator
Sap Sipper
Slow Start
Stall
Storm Drain
Truant
Volt Absorb
Water Absorb
Water Bubble
Well Baked Body
Wind Rider

Comatose
Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Fluffy
Grassy Surge
Innards Out
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost
Stamina
Steam Engine
Supreme Overlord
Toxic Debris
Triage
 
GREETINGS EVERYONE! It has been a while since we last spoke; I hope you all are enjoying Shox. Let's move right into flavor abilities.

I'm going to go ahead and open up suggestions off rip; I don't think we need much discussion to figure out what sort of abilities are acceptable and not acceptable for Shox here. Obviously, any potential flavor ability should have little to no competitive merit and should, naturally, fit Shox's flavor well. Obviously, we don't need a flavor ability, but a lack of flavor ability is a choice in the same way that any particular flavor ability would be, and I encourage posting in favor of or against this option if you feel strongly about it.

This stage will be running alongside Final Movepool Submissions, but will wrap up a little earlier. I anticipate us being finished within about a week, give-or-take. Have fun posting, everyone!
 
As much as I would love Fur Coat, that is too powerful. I also thought about Rivalry but oxes are castrated to prevent aggresion, so anger abilities are out of the table.

I support Cud Chew because nom nom, maybe in dex entries this can be expanded

Oblivious fits the ox theme as well, and look at shox, he looks oblivious. Taunt prevention doesn't look that useful with the other 2 abilities.

Klutz seems fun, he looks like he has so much fun he forgets where he puts the items.
 
To be honest I expect this won't be added (don't let me cook again) but I would like to add Static 'cause a common occurence with most electric type pokemon in anime 'n stuff is that when we give it too much affection it'll usually electrocute the hugger out of joy or anger, will probably clash with sticky hold so that's why it won't be added but I just wanna suggest it for fun ^^
 
Cud Chew, while very boring in my opinion, is also the most realistic option and one I think will ultimately be chosen if we choose to go for a third ability.

For abilities on other cow Pokemon, Sap Sipper is unfortunately banned; Scrappy surprisingly isn't, though as Lectrys points out, might see Super Fang utility against Ghost-types; Thick Fat, while not banned, might be anti-concept in adding Fire- and Ice- resistances; Reckless may fluctuate if folks don't think Shox is a ball of terror, so I'm putting in Soundproof, which we might use to wall Chuggalong but little else.

Speaking of Scrappy, another one that came to mind is Hustle. Any ability that drops accuracy is bad by default, and as aSimpleUnderscore kindly pointed out, Shox can't see well anyway, and among the Hustle examples are Deino and Zwelious, who also can't see well.
 
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For abilities on other cow Pokemon, Sap Sipper is unfortunately banned, but Scrappy surprisingly isn't. I doubt Shox is going to be facing off Ghost-types.
Shox is promoted in https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/cap-shox.3756899/ as "able to consistently check common Ghost-types such as Dragapult, Gholdengo, and Kitsunoh". Yes, I'd like to Super Fang Ghost-types. Scrappy is therefore probably too strong to be a flavour ability.
 
My favorite flavor Abilities are Cud Chew and Plus/Minus (either could work and they are clones of each other, so putting them together). Other Abilities I want to suggest are Rivalry (cows are known for getting pretty aggressive during breeding season), Oblivious (no thoughts head empty), and Klutz (silly goofy guy, and a mon with both Sticky Hold and Klutz is just really funny to me) I also considered Soundproof for like five seconds since Shox is a floofy cow and another floof cow in Bouffalant has this Ability, but then I remembered Chuggalong and Primarina exist soooooooo xdd

On the other hand, I am absolutely against the suggestion of Static as a flavor Ability. It is just way too good of an Ability on a wall IMO. It would almost certainly overshadow Electromorphosis (Bellibolt has both Electromorphosis and Static, but the majority of its sets prefer Static, so there's precedent) and I could honestly see some people choosing to run it over Sticky Hold. It's fitting, but way too strong. I'm also not the biggest fan of Scrappy for similar reasons - I would like it as a flavor Ability a lot more if we didn't have Super Fang, but like Lectrys said, being able to Super Fang Gholdengo, Kitsunoh, and Dragapult makes it way too strong.
 
This was going to be closed yesterday, but I ran into a farcical sequence of events that cooked my schedule; apologies to all for that. With that said here is your slate for flavor abilities!

Cud Chew
Minus
Hustle
Klutz
No Flavor Ability


I opted to exclude Thick Fat, Static, and Scrappy for being overly competitive. I think the latter might have been fine but considering Super Fang was discussed heavily throughout the process and chosen (over its clones) mostly because of Ghosts being immune, I opted to exclude it. Additionally, PPL is coming up and I want us to be able to keep our options open without a flavor ability closing off some paths to us eg Rapid Spin. I chose Minus over Plus because I think contrasting with the Mareep line is super cute lore (both electric livestock).

Tagging kenn to wrap this one up for us. Thank you all for having me as your Ability Leader; it was great fun and this definitely isn't the last you'll be seeing of me! Godspeed.
 
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Enjoy this shiny Furret as a sign of approval from me. No +/- here ;)

To the polls!
 
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