CAP 35 - Part 2 - Concept Assessment

[quziel]

CAP 35 So Far

Our concept is Uphill Battle by Reviloja753

Final Submission

Name - Uphill Battle

Description - This Pokémon succeeds in its role despite a severe contradiction in one of its key components (type, ability, stats, or moves) which would typically hold its role back.

Justification - CAP has a general tendency to shy away from contradictions in its designs; why undermine a concept/role by picking something that actively seems detrimental for it? While this impulse is understandable, it also leaves a great deal of design space unexplored. This CAP shall explore how a Pokémon can succeed despite its apparent contradictions by building around them to fill a cohesive niche in the metagame.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Are certain roles more capable of working with an individual Pokémon’s counterproductive elements than others? For example, would it be easier to build a viable sweeper with a bad offensive typing than a viable wall with a bad defensive typing?
• For each component of a Pokémon’s kit, what makes it “counterproductive”? Do the components have different thresholds depending on what the role is, and if so, how?
• Are certain contradictions in a Pokémon’s kit more easily managed by the rest of its kit than others? For example, is a counterproductive typing easier to work with than counterproductive stats?
• How “counterproductive” can the chosen aspect of this Pokémon’s kit be for its role to prevent it from being unsalvageable while still remaining on-concept?
• With one aspect of the Pokémon working against its role, how strong should the other elements be to compensate without making this aspect trivial to how the Pokémon plays?
• How can the Pokémon be designed such that it thrives in the metagame beyond acting as a check against current powerhouses, as certain Pokémon of this nature have previously done?

Explanation:
Before jumping into examples of Pokémon succeeding despite having bad type, ability, stats, and moves, there are two things that need to be made clear.

Firstly, "bad" and "counterproductive" are two similar but separate ideas. The former refers to a component which is low quality outright or otherwise missing something. "Counterproductive", meanwhile, can be good on Pokémon with certain roles but unhelpful or detrimental with other roles. Using abilities as an example, Color Change is a bad ability regardless of role whereas Tinted Lens would be counterproductive on a defensive Pokémon that is not trying to break through foes. As a general rule, "counterproductive" is more role-specific than "bad". For example, Electric/Ice is a fantastic typing offensively, but if our chosen role is that of a defensive pivot, then Electric/Ice would be a counterproductive typing. These categories are not mutually exclusive; for example, a Bug/Grass wall would both have a bad typing and a counterproductive typing. This concept focuses on counterproductive elements, not bad elements.

Secondly, whatever aspect is chosen as the contradiction should be actually noticeable in how the Pokémon functions in battle. This first means anything like useless/flavor abilities (like Justified on Keldeo) don't count for this concept; the only "detriment" is the lack of an actually functioning ability and it simply isn't interesting to explore that. Largely neutral type combinations, such as mono-Normal, also don't count. More importantly, this means the process should not be about outright evading the contradiction; it will necessarily need to be shored up in some fashion, but the methods of doing so should not be so direct as to minimize the contradiction’s impact on the Pokémon. For example, a wall working around/shoring up a poor defensive typing can look like giving access to tools which increase its defensive stats or longevity others may not have, but giving an ability that directly mitigates type weaknesses (such as Flash Fire or Thick Fat on a Bug/Grass type) to a poor defensive typing is evading the deficiency and is anti-concept. There is no getting around it: something about this Pokémon will suck for one of its role.

Below are some examples of what a counterproductive component has looked like and could be for typing, ability, stats, and moves.

Typing

The classic example is AV Tyranitar, which in past gens was a key defensive 'mon despite a defensive typing with immense weaknesses. More recently, Kartana has been a devastating offensive threat despite a quite weak STAB type combination. Many types which usually are seen as ill-fitting for specific roles have potential synergy which can make them work much better than expected. One hypothetical example would be a defensive Ice-type with Snow Warning and a move to boost its Defense, turning it into a massive physical wall. Another possibility could be a monotyped offensive 'mon, as two STABs tend to be better than one.

Ability

Chromera's process was an extreme example of building around a counterproductive ability, but Tapu Fini's Misty Surge is another case; while in past gens it appreciated a status immunity, it would ideally like to be able to status opponents (especially if/when it enters a generation without universal Toxic). Potential examples for a contradictory ability would be a wall with Weak Armor or a defensive pivot with Speed Boost.

Stats

As Spoo pointed out in the original version of this concept, Galarian Moltres in Gen 8 had more defense than offense, and yet was used as a setup sweeper. Another example is Poison Heal Breloom, which served a key defensive role despite pitiful bulk. Either of these examples can serve as templates for this concept.

Movepool

Lastly, there are a number of ways in which a counterproductive movepool can be wielded in interesting ways. For some extreme examples, look no further than Gen 8 Spectrier. It had absolutely no coverage whatsoever, but even with that caveat it proved to be so explosive that it got banned from OU. Busted Uber 'mons are not the only path forward, though. Serperior, for example, has historically had success with Contrary Leaf Storm despite having mostly a utility-focused movepool and its only useful coverage being HP Fire/Tera Blast (though this gen it's in UU). Likewise, despite having a number of offensive tools, Tinkaton runs mostly a utility set due to its stat spread. Another example, however mild a case, actually is in Dragapult; it would absolutely love to reliably run physical Dragon Dance sets, but with no access to physical Ghost moves better than Astonish, it's forced to run special sets. Any of the above scenarios could be quite interesting to build around.

This concept was inspired by an old concept from spoo, and so I want to thank him for allowing me to use it as a base for my concept!

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 a particular argument is poll jumping or not, err on the side of caution and don't post it.

Now I'm going to hand it over to kenn for the opening post.

 

[kenn]

The concept has been voted on by you the people, so let's get down to business to defeat the Huns. We got an uphill battle ahead of us that we must prepare for with this beast of a process. We are gonna be trying to focus on how we make a viable CAP that has a fatal flaw, but can still do its job on a team. With that being said, let's jump right into the questions!

1. Our first goal needs to be coming to a consensus on what a "fatal flaw" is. What is considered to be "fatal"? Do we want to just be contradictory to the role this CAP may have? Or is there more to having a fatal flaw than just that? Why?

2. We have 4 broad options in typing, ability, moves, and stats for a "fatal flaw". Which one/s seems like the most unexplored route? Which one/s have already been thoroughly explored? (whether that be through past CAP Processes or by "standard" Pokemon) Which one/s seem the most intriguing? Why?

3. Our second goal should be nailing down a role for this CAP! I think us having a solid direction of whether we wanna lean offensively or defensively is gonna be huge in not only determining where the fatal flaw could lie, but also to have some sort of focus for this and future stages! With that, what roles would be a viable option? Which one/s wouldn't be? Why?

4. Do we poll the drawback at the same time as our role? Why or why not?

I believe we need to end CA knowing what role and drawback we are going with so when the future stages occur, there is a sense of direction to lean on in regards to answering potential questions in those respective stages as well as to guide users suggesting specific typings/abilities/stats/moves.

Remember that everything should be in the context of the current CAP metagame. I am excited to see everyone's insights!

 

[Amamama]

This sorta is an answer to the first question and my thoughts on the concept in general:

I hope we are not going to lean too far into the „fatal flaw“ idea, where we make a mon, that is hindered by one part of its kit. Instead I hope we can focus on creating a mon that performs a role, which on first glance you would not think it can perform well, due to a contradictory element in its design.

Initially I wasn’t enthusiastic about this concept, due to a what is in my eyes is a misunderstanding of the premise -I believe we are not designing a mon with a deep flaw rather than a mon that fulfills a role despite parts of its kit not looking the part, which - as I see it - was clarified by Reviloja before the concept poll.


While I didn’t like the idea of doing yet another Bad Typing/Bad Stats/Bad Ability CAP - which was my first interpretation of the concept - building a Mon with counterintuitive traits is something entirely different, since counterintuitive doesn’t equal bad or even detrimental in my opinion.

I believe instead a „counterintuitive“ Pokémon fulfills these requirements:
1)The traits which appear contrary to its role are balanced by one or several traits, which are highly geared towards said role (e.g. Kartanas high attack and access to Beast Boost)

2)Having multiple contradictory traits is possible, having no highly role-conducive trait is very likely impossible.

3)It often lacks traits, which would encourage a seemingly more fitting role (Cawmodore having no Roost or significant utility; Tyranitar being rather slow)

4)If it has traits that might allow it to perform a more intuitive role, it still has more value in the counterintuive role due to a combination of other elements (Kartana has access to Knock Off synthesis and Defog, but rarely opts for a defensive build, bc it is such a powerful wallbreaker)

5) (This in my opinion is the most important) The contradictory traits don’t have to be detrimental to its task and can even be beneficial despite not appearing so at first glance. (Tyranitars „dreadful“ defensive typing combined with its ability is what makes it a great defensive check for powerful Psychic and Ghost types in the relevant Metas)

Let me explain this further with the example of Cawmodore:

When you first see it in the Builder, at first glance it looks like a pretty solid defensive mon, having one of the best defensive types in the game with Steel/Flying, which is even further improved on by two great defensive abilities in Intimidate and Volt Absorb and its Stats make it look like a slightly frailer but faster Skarmory with its highest stat being a respectable 130 defense.
This is deceptive enough, that you can sometimes see Players new to CAP trying to make a defensive set work.

But everyone who plays CAP for a while knows better. Cawm isn’t a wall or defensive pivot at all. At times it has been one of the, if not the most terrifying sweeper in the Meta, highly controversial, with many, especially new players asking so often why it hasn’t been banned or nerfed, that Cawm has its own FAQ in the Showdown room.

All of this is counterintuitive from what Cawmodore looks like though, when you first see it in the list among other CAPs.
Except for its higher Speed Stat none of the traits that are immediately visible hint at a sweeper or even an offensive Role and its low attacking stat belies its gameplay. Still non of its traits are exceptionally bad in themselves.
Steel/Flying is a great typing in general, both of its competitive abilities are very useful especially in combination with its typing and while its stats are on the weaker side it does look comparable to a Skarmory especially if you factor Intimidate.
There is however a mismatch between these traits and its actual role.

Most wouldn’t view Steel/ Flying as an particularly offensive typing, some would maybe even say it’s lackluster, as it has overlapping resists and doesn’t hit a lot of typings super effectively.
None of its abilities immediately improve its offensive presence, rather they lean into further bolstering its defenses.
And while it’s speed tier is pretty solid for a sweeper it’s Attack Stat is nothing to boast with.
How then, can a mon with a subpar offensive typing and fairly low Attack Stat become such a strong physical sweeper?

The answer lies in its movepool which is highly conducive to a sweeper role and at the same time entirly useless for a defensive build. Having such an element or several such elements conducive to its role, is something that I believe every viable counterintuitive mon shares. Be it Kartanas hilariously high Attacking Stat, Tyranitars combination of solid natural bulk, ability and typing or Cawmodores access to Belly Drum, a drawbackless high power STAB (Acrobatics) which happens to be super effective against the best anti sweeper mon in the tier (Arghonaut), STAB priority and a move that compresses almost perfect two move coverage and healing.

Moreover, while most of its traits are counterintuitive to its role, they not only are not detrimental, they are in part even conducive to its task as well.
Its base typing combined with Volt Absorb boasts three immunities and several great resists affording Cawm with a host of opportunities to set up, while having only one weakness and solid natural physical bulk makes it much harder to revenge kill.
While it’s STAB typing doesn’t have many super effective hits and overlapping resists, Flying is one of the best mono STABs you can find, giving access to one of the strongest no drawback moves, which is easily complemented by only one additional coverage move. This is especially useful, as it makes room for a STAB priority move, which makes its base Steel typing worth a lot offensively.

While it doesn’t look the part at first glance, all of its traits - except for its fairly low attack - are helping it succeed in its role and we can only hope that the Cawmodore will never have a higher attacking stat.

Overall I think Cawm is a prime example of this concept, showing that counterintuitive traits not only can be not detrimental but actually beneficial to a role. Which is why I believe we should focus on making a contradictory and counterintuitive Kit work as a whole instead of focusing on a hindering element.

 

[sun_dew]

woo! concept assessment time

1. Our first goal needs to be coming to a consensus on what a "fatal flaw" is. What is considered to be "fatal"? Do we want to just be contradictory to the role this CAP may have? Or is there more to having a fatal flaw than just that? Why?

I think it's important to note that our concept specifically states that the "fatal flaw" of this CAP is a contradictory aspect, not a bad aspect. I think focusing solely on the contradiction between our selected element and the CAP's role is the best way to go about executing this. Really, I'd argue that the term "fatal flaw" is misleading and generally a bad way to think about this concept. This CAP does not have a fatal flaw, rather it has a seemingly contradictory aspect. This is not necessarily a flaw, and I surely hope it isn't a fatal one.

2. We have 4 broad options in typing, ability, moves, and stats for a "fatal flaw". Which one/s seems like the most unexplored route? Which one/s have already been thoroughly explored? (whether that be through past CAP Processes or by "standard" Pokemon) Which one/s seem the most intriguing? Why?

Typing and ability in particular have been explored quite a bit in terms of "flaws" and contradictions, though this is for good reason - they're fun to explore and there's a ton of different ways to go about them. Stats are something that I think are particularly unexplored in CAP - generally we tend to go for high BST highly specialized statlines that perfectly complement our role. This makes sense, after all, we're trying to create something viable, but I think it would make NOT doing that for this concept all the more interesting.

3. Our second goal should be nailing down a role for this CAP! I think us having a solid direction of whether we wanna lean offensively or defensively is gonna be huge in not only determining where the fatal flaw could lie, but also to have some sort of focus for this and future stages! With that, what roles would be a viable option? Which one/s wouldn't be? Why?

For this concept, I personally believe that pivots and setters are the most interesting way to go about this concept, particularly if we end up going with ability or moves as our contradictory factors. They present unique challenges and allow for contradictions that normally would not be present if we just went for "sweeper with a weird typing" or "wall with an offense-oriented ability". A speedy trick room setter or a pivot that is encouraged to stay in via a stat boosting ability, for instance, is something I think could be really interesting to explore (Not those specifically, but more generally role/contradiction combos like them). Not exactly sure if these types of roles would be viable, though.

Either way, I think it's best we lean defensively, but anything could in theory be viable here. It is very much down to specifics how well this concept functions, and on a broader scale I think it's very hard to narrow down what we want to do. Knowing what contradiction we're going for before selecting our role may be helpful in this regard, as I think different roles interact with each of the aspects we can have a contradiction in to differing degrees.

4. Do we poll the drawback at the same time as our role? Why or why not?

Moving onto this point, I think this is the best way to go about things. Polling for drawback, then immediately after polling for role (or polling based on contradiction/role combos directly) makes the most sense and best informs us as we move forward. Moving forward without being sure of what drawback we're going for sounds like it would be extremely messy and generally not conductive to creating a cohesive CAP. Role is also important to figure out here, otherwise we'll have no idea how to make our contradiction actually contradictory in later stages.

 

[SunshineFuture]

Before we start, I just wanna thank everyone who believed in my concept enough to vote for it. I’m incredibly honored to have been able to create our thirty-fifth concept. Let’s get started!

Our first goal needs to be coming to a consensus on what a "fatal flaw" is. What is considered to be "fatal"? Do we want to just be contradictory to the role this CAP may have? Or is there more to having a fatal flaw than just that? Why?

Admittedly, one regret I have about how I worded the concept description was the usage of the phrase “which would typically hold its role back”. While I still stand by it, I don’t want us getting so hung up on the exact wording. Not everything can be truly detrimental to a role, but are imo still within the bounds of the concept. I view our “fatal flaw” as an element which contradicts/goes against how the role traditionally finds success which ultimately factors into how the Pokémon functions on a team. I’d also advise against the use of “fatal flaw” in this concept more broadly. I prefer using “contradiction” as our term. Amamama’s examples of Cawmodore, Kartana, and Tyranitar I think are a very good starting point for those trying to understand the crux of the concept. In past gens, Poison Heal Breloom, with its paltry bulk, is another example of this. As I explained in the submission, a counterintuitive element does not inherently mean an element which holds it back at the end of the day. It should still be something which cannot be ignored when using the Pokémon though. AV Tyranitar was great in SwSh for checking the powerful Ghost-types of the tier, but it still had to account for its Rock/Dark typing when deciding what to stay in on. The overall point is this is very much not a repeat of Hemogoblin and Chromera’s processes, and people should not fall into the trap of thinking it as such. Kind of my fault, but c’est la vie.

We have 4 broad options in typing, ability, moves, and stats for a "fatal flaw". Which one/s seems like the most unexplored route? Which one/s have already been thoroughly explored? (whether that be through past CAP Processes or by "standard" Pokemon) Which one/s seem the most intriguing? Why?

I think that there is a good case to be made about all of them except ability. Ability is probably the option with the fewest potential routes and is likely the hardest to define success with, as a lot of abilities have multiple uses across roles and what it means to have a contradictory ability is probably more nebulous than any other option. Contradictory typing is probably the most explored option both in CAP and actual Pokémon, but there are definitely a great number of options for routes which haven’t been seen. Stats has some examples (most notably the aforementioned Poison Heal Breloom and Cawmodore, though Tinkaton may also qualify), but I think there is also a great deal of exploration we could go for in this process. Moves is probably the least explored route and may have the most to teach us about competitive Pokémon: how does a wall function with a primarily offensive movepool and little utility? How can an offensive mon use utility options to get past opponents? What about a breaker which has to rely on coverage to get the job done? I’d be okay with any of types, stats, and moves, but gun to my head I am feeling moves the most right now. I think it’ll make for the most interesting and informative process of the choices.

Our second goal should be nailing down a role for this CAP! I think us having a solid direction of whether we wanna lean offensively or defensively is gonna be huge in not only determining where the fatal flaw could lie, but also to have some sort of focus for this and future stages! With that, what roles would be a viable option? Which one/s wouldn't be? Why?

Personally, I’m not currently super particular on roles, but I feel myself leaning more towards being a Wall atm. I just feel offensive roles are a tad more explored on this concept, but I don’t have a massive preference right now. I think between Sweeper and Wallbreaker, I’d rather a Wallbreaker.

Do we poll the drawback at the same time as our role? Why or why not?

I think that, unless we come to a general consensus in this thread about role, this would be the most flexible option. Certain contradictions work better with specific roles imo, and so letting people submit them as packages would allow for a greater diversity in options to go forward.

 

[Lectrys]

Answering #2:

I think moves is the most unexplored route, and the other 3 are more explored. For moves examples, Spectrier's shot coverage and Dragapult's lack of good Ghost physical STAB have already been mentioned, and I'd throw in Dondozo's lack of reliable recovery and being forced to use Rest. Everything from shot coverage to lack of reliable recovery have tanked all sorts of Pokemon to UU or lower, though, such as Keldeo (can't break Toxapex/Slowking/Primarina/etc.), Serperior (being a Tera hog just to get coverage blows), and Goodra-H (awesome defensive typing, not passive, recovery is shot).

Typing already seems more explored right off the bat. Kartana is infamous for being a ludicrously powerful wall-breaker with a poor offensive typing, Cawmodore has already been mentioned as a feared set-up sweeper relying on a defensive typing, and every Stored Power sweeper (but Magearna) is saddled with the iffy Psychic type. Scizor is feared in slightly lower tiers as a combination pivot and breaker with a strong defensive typing but weak offensive typing. Garganacl gets by with the weakness-riddled Rock typing and a strong penchant for using Salt Cure instead of stronger Rock STAB, emphasizing a defensive role (admittedly in Terastallization: the Generation, where every Pokemon can change their typing). Venomicon-E was purposefully built to actually want Tinted Lens, which means a poor offensive typing (because a great offensive typing like Ground/Ice wants Adaptability instead).

Ability has been plenty explored. As much as it's been made a negative example of, Keldeo's ability being close to useless on it is one example. Ogerpon-W manages to be the most feared Pokemon with an immunity ability for a type it already 4x resists (partially because blocking Flip Turn, Scald, and some walls' entire offensive kits is that good). Corviknight, Dragapult, Moltres, Primarina, and Weavile all overcome mediocre abilities with great typings and/or stat spreads. Cinderace is sometimes caught honestly using Blaze instead of Libero.

Stats have similarly been repeatedly explored. Nearly every Contrary sweeper has neither base Attack nor base Special Attack above 100 - the only ones that do have higher offensive stats are Lurantis, which is stuck with the mediocre Grass typing and is rather slow and frail, and Enamorus-I, whose by far the best boosting move with Contrary is a coverage move that Ghosts are immune to, and Gholdengo, Skeledirge, and Slowking-G dare her to use Ground coverage and go at least partially Special (and even ditch Contrary for the very situational Cute Charm). Speaking of Skeledirge, it ends up being used as a special wall more often than a physical wall (at least in OU and lower) despite the higher base Defense. And Clefable and Gholdengo are both stuck walling things with Clefable-tier bulk and substantial defensive EV investment (Gholdengo is admittedly less passive).

Contrary sweepers have already involved multiple flaw routes in the same mon. Serperior's drop to UU is the generation that it finally lost coverage (along with its mediocre offensive and defensive typing, its fairly low Special Attack, and its only decent bulk). Pyroak needed a powerful STAB move (Leaf Storm) ripped from its kit in its nerf process, along with its offences dropped to be lower than Serperior's. Even Enamorus-I's typing and movepool are flawed for a Contrary sweeper, with her lack of good Flying STAB, her Fairy STAB not coming with Contrary boosting moves, and her being stuck boosting with coverage Ghosts are immune to (again). Being very weak to Raging Bolt revenging her doesn't help.

As for another flaw route, it's quite possible that Gholdengo being stuck on a great defensive ability that doesn't boost its offences at all is the one thing preventing it from being thrown into Ubers in at least one generation like its fellow rounded Steel-types Aegislash (can pick up 150/150 offences, at least before) and Magearna (Soul-Heart threatens snowballs even with a mediocre offensive typing, lack of Moonblast, and a lean on coverage so hard that some Magearna sets ditch STAB completely).

 

[Sephy Took My Name]

usually don't get involved too much with the process itself but wanted to throw my hat into the ring here!

Typing and ability in particular have been explored quite a bit in terms of "flaws" and contradictions, though this is for good reason - they're fun to explore and there's a ton of different ways to go about them. Stats are something that I think are particularly unexplored in CAP - generally we tend to go for high BST highly specialized statlines that perfectly complement our role. This makes sense, after all, we're trying to create something viable, but I think it would make NOT doing that for this concept all the more interesting.

you've got good points here, but personally i'm a bit reluctant to go for stats as our contradictory element. obviously "mediocre stats" aren't necessarily the same as "stats that contradict a pokemon's primary role, but i do still worry that we might fall into similar execution to hemogoblin if we're not careful (in addition to lectrys' point about existing pokemon with counterintuitive stats).

I think that there is a good case to be made about all of them except ability. Ability is probably the option with the fewest potential routes and is likely the hardest to define success with, as a lot of abilities have multiple uses across roles and what it means to have a contradictory ability is probably more nebulous than any other option.

part of me wants to argue for abilities having more potential than they might seem to, but for a viable result it is probably more practical to go with one of the other three options. still, i do wanna play devil's advocate for a second just because it does feel like a potentially really fun (if difficult) design space.

if we go more defensively, it may be fun to think about how we might make something viable despite an ability that encourages more aggressive play or adds more risk to dealing with certain types. if we lean offensively, how might we make a successful threat with an ability that on paper might limit the effectiveness of its moves or incentivize it to leave the field? there's absolutely ways to make something unique by using existing abilities in unusual ways and there's some potentially really interesting interactions depending on specific roles.

however, given that the best way to avoid retreading old ground with is (in my opinion) leaning into using unusual abilities in ways that might be a bit of a headache to think of, i definitely admit it'd be a real challenge to take that route while also making sure the end result is competitively viable.

i had to bring up the option though, i hear "counterintuitive role" and my gut response is to go all or nothing into it.

absolutely agree on moves being a really interesting option though. considering how important a pokemon's moveset tends to be for its success, making that our counterintuitive element definitely seems like an interesting idea to work with across just about any role we could choose.

Polling for drawback, then immediately after polling for role (or polling based on contradiction/role combos directly) makes the most sense and best informs us as we move forward.

100 percent agree about the polls, considering how important these ideas are to the concept it'd probably be a good idea to decide on them at about the same time.

that's about all i have to say at the moment, so i'll leave the rest to the experts unless i have something interesting to share

 

[uppa]

Just gonna spit out some ideas for the kinds of mons I enjoy and the kinds of drawbacks that could be fun. Using SSOU mons as an example mostly because that's the tier I know best. Here goes ^_^

OFFENSE

These two stand out to me as really great examples of how an offensive mon can be simultaneously broken on paper, balanced in practice, and wholly interesting and dynamic to use as well. These two (both coincidentally steels, though it's much less relevant to kartana) have the battle of breaking down some of the most splashable archetypes, while having great offensive tools for everything else. Kartana is interesting in that it goes from 0-100 as soon as the opponent's bulky flyings are broken down, but sending in Kart early has a huge risk associated with it. Unless it holds protective pads (which these two often do) knocking off a heatran, zapdos, or moltres comes with the chance that you're throwing away your wincon. This mon, which in theory would fit on extremely offensive teams, counterintuitively promotes patient play, which is tangential to the concept but still a really interesting dynamic imo. Melmetal, in a similar vein, needs its checks worn down due to its lackluster stab typing. It's similarly scared of contact effects, and this notably gives it a dilemma of item choice, where its protective pads set lacks the breaking power or longevity of choice band, leftovers, or assault vest. Melm is checked by lots of mons in the tier, and it has to choose its coverage carefully to be able to chip down what it needs to. Ferrothorn, Slowbro, Toxapex, Gastrodon, and Rotom-Wash all give it trouble, but it's not necessarily helpless against it either. With toxic, thunder wave, or DIB flinches, it has outs against each of these, and is never dead weight in any matchup.

My point here is that making this CAP walled by one or two mons in particular (say, walled by cresciedon or mollux) isn't future proof, and for the concept to remain intact in future generations we should be looking at broader archetypes, like how Kart and Melmetal are walled by bulky Flyings and Waters. This mon should have tools to punish or make progress against its hard counters (Kart knock off, Melm toxic) but NOT outright beat them in a vacuum. This is especially important to consider with tera in mind this gen.


DEFENSE

Unlike my first pairing, these two represent very different and interesting drawbacks imo. Buzzwole, to put it briefly, checks nearly every physical threat in the tier, for as much as 16 Roosts will allow it. It would seem like it's splashable and incredibly valuable to any fat team, but the specific tools it has leave it as an insane momentum sink. It's unable to absorb Future Sight in conjunction with Knock Off, making it an imperfect counter to much of the tiers wallbreakers, but what really interests me is that it's an amazing wall that's completely helpless against opposing walls. All of Zapdos, Torn-T, Clefable, Slowbro, Toxapex, and Corviknight immediately force it out, and in turn makes it very vulnerable to hazard chip throughout a game. Like melmetal, it can punish some of these with Toxic, but it's horrible offensive typing and ability unsuited for its role make it very intruiging to me as a defensive mon.

While Buzzwole has many issues, it's unfortunate role as a "defensive mon that loses to other defensive mons" makes it very interesting to me, and that would definitely be a cool concept to build a CAP with. This would be particularly hard to balance with this gen (and CAP's) power creep.

Onto Tapu Fini, it's drawback is more straightforward. On paper, its massive bulk, perfect typing, and utilty would allow it to switch in to just about anything and gain a huge amount of leverage. It's lack of a reliable recovery move, however, makes it a not-quite-broken, but still incredible defensvei asset. In a similar vein to this gen's dondozo or ting lu, lacking recovery can often make for a more interesting, more versatile mon. Rather than the line always being "click recover on their switch" Tapu Fini is able to slot more utility into its moveset, and it becomes way more interesting as a result.

A defensive mon lacking reliable recovery gives it much more diversity in how it plays. Being on a timer is a huge drawback, yes, but the lack of opportunity cost for running utility options could make the eventual CAP much more of a healthy presence. In essence, it allows you to make other aspects of the mon more "broken" to be an effective blanket check without any longevity.

UTILITY


Only one example for this one! I considered Ferrothorn for this as well, but it essentially whittled down to the same point as Tapu Fini. Nevertheless, Magnezone intrigues me as a trapper that doesn't necessarily have its dream matchup against everything it wants to trap. It naturally traps corviknight, yes, but Ferrothorn and Excadrill require more finesse with IDBP and magnet rise sets respectively. If we were to focus on a mon with magnet pull, or partial trapping moves, its matchup shouldn't be so dominant against its targets to where its dynamic becomes stale, linear, and frustrating to play against. The bad ending, so to speak, would be ADV magneton, where it has a 99-1 matchup vs its targets, and it ends up polarizing the tier into very discrete team structures to circumvent or abuse its trapping ability.

Trapping is difficult to balance, but the sweetspot IMO is to encourage a cat-and-mouse of innovations between the trapper and its targets. If you're familiar with ADV dugtrio, it hits a similar note to what I'm describing here.


I probably strayed from the point or missed it entirely, but that was a few observations I made for drawbacks that lead to healthy mons, rather than becoming oppressive or unviable (Think specs dragaoult and wo-chien respectively). There's plenty of more mons to reference for these concepts, and I think having a mon in mind, perhaps something that isn't viable anymore but was in the past, could be a cool way of reintroducing their drawback in a modern context.

 

[Shock3600]

Answering #2:

I think moves is the most unexplored route, and the other 3 are more explored.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say the other three have been extensively explored, atleast going off of this list of examples. While typing does have some great examples of the concept, I’m not convinced that either stats or ability have. The vast majority of the Pokémon read to me as Pokémon with one underwhelming element made up for with an otherwise powerful toolkit. I don’t look at dragapult and think “wow this would make a great wall” because I see infiltrator. I think treating mediocre elements of a mons toolkit as fulfilling the concept is missing out on what really makes the contradictory elements interesting and something cap can learn from.

 

[quziel]

I believe we should consider the "drawback/contradiction" simultaneously to the role, and poll them as such. I am very interested in the following. A wall that lacks traditional recovery moves. A wallbreaker that lacks a traditionally threatening STAB combo. I am however less interested in a wall that has a "bad" defensive typing, or a wallbreaker that lacks a boosting ability. I feel that if we poll the contradiction and role separately, we are sorta necessarily losing design space. We'd almost definitely choose a role that has a lot of different ways to have a contradiction in-built, and would likely ignore roles that have only a fewer, but potentially more interesting ways to include a contradiction.

Aka we should end the concept assessment stage with a poll of Contradiction + Role Combo.

 

[Gekokeso]

1. Our first goal needs to be coming to a consensus on what a "fatal flaw" is. What is considered to be "fatal"? Do we want to just be contradictory to the role this CAP may have? Or is there more to having a fatal flaw than just that? Why?

As people have pointed it out the "fatal flaw" doesn't need to be something that is actively holding us down from the target we are trying to archieve. Could it be disadvantegous? Sure, but said flaw should either be a way to balance the CAP to ensure it performs its role without being overwhelming and/or provide it with a distinct niche that can only being performed by making us work with that flaw.

2. We have 4 broad options in typing, ability, moves, and stats for a "fatal flaw". Which one/s seems like the most unexplored route? Which one/s have already been thoroughly explored? (whether that be through past CAP Processes or by "standard" Pokemon) Which one/s seem the most intriguing? Why?

Lets examine the options:

Stats:
Looking at our options, having the fatal flaw being in our stats would be an interesting way to take the cap, albeit the one that can be argued to have been explored the most or least intriguing due to have been fairly recent. Hemogoblin's process already proved that even average stats aren't a limiter to a pokémon's success, since the other 3 main components are able to carry a pokémon even if it is not spectacular. However, it is not a route that doesn't have any merit, as there are a lot of ways in which we could explore stats, such as having a mon with terrible bulk in one defense ala Kartana or having a terrible speed stat.

Ability:
The second least interesting route to me is the one of abilities. We also explored a faulty ability project in the pass, but while hemogoblin's concept succeeded in making a viable pokémon, Chromera's... didn't. At least not until its buff slate. However, I don't think that Chromera's concept not suceeding should discourage us from taking this route. After all, this concept could allow us to explore either abilities that would be contradictory to the pokémon's design (eg. fire type with drizzle, dragon type with misty surge) or routes that were not allowed in the previous project (eg. skill swap), as well as take another shot to a concept that we had previously failed at with everything we have learned since.

Movepool:
Now we move to uncharted territory, as wellas one of the two more interesting options to explore in my opinion. The movepool aspect of the CAP process always tends to give out a pokémon a significant amount of tools to use at its disposal, so making a pokémon that doesn't get such options and has to occupy more urseen moves to adapt can be a pretty interesting way to balance a pokémon. Of course, there is the example of Kyurem-Black and how its lack of usable stabs made it fully explore its kit prior to gaining dragon dance, and there are a lot of ways we could take this pokémon.

Typing:
Finally, we come to the option that I am particularly most interested in. Cap has always prioritised types like Poison, Water and Dragon due to being generally well optimized typings, but very little exploration has been done to typings thare not generally favoured by the meta such as Psychic, Ice and Normal. Typing gives us a lot of space to work with since nearly every type of role has a list of typings that work better, which allows us to explore stuff like sweeper with poor offensive typing, tank with unusual defensive typing among others.

3. Our second goal should be nailing down a role for this CAP! I think us having a solid direction of whether we wanna lean offensively or defensively is gonna be huge in not only determining where the fatal flaw could lie, but also to have some sort of focus for this and future stages! With that, what roles would be a viable option? Which one/s wouldn't be? Why?

I feel like this will highly depend on the drawback. Offensive roles can deal more easily with drawbacks such as bad bulk, poor offensive typing or low coverage options while defensive roles can deal more easily with drawbacks such as low speed, lack of useful abilities or shallow movepools. There's a lot of combinations we could do to determine the role which I think will be the most fun part to decide on in the concept assessment.

4. Do we poll the drawback at the same time as our role? Why or why not?
We should not poll them at the same time. Our role will be highly dependent on our drawback. The only manner where I would see the idea of drawback being submitted at the same time as the role would be in package combinations of contradiction + role as mentioned before in the thread.

 

[a fairy]

1. Our first goal needs to be coming to a consensus on what a "fatal flaw" is. What is considered to be "fatal"? Do we want to just be contradictory to the role this CAP may have? Or is there more to having a fatal flaw than just that? Why?

Well, we want our 'mon to be usable. In some definitions of "fatal", perhaps this is already contradictory. How can something be fatal and yet survived? Surely Alomamola's lack of damaging stats and predictable gameplay hasn't been fatal to the fish's viability, and yet Shedinja was found in a homeless shelter every gen' it was present in. Slaking's carved out a niche in the "content creator VGC" space, but Archeops has flatly fallen on its face.

Fatal flaw, in some ways, is contradictory in it of itself, which is an amazingly exciting concept to explore and succeed in. Whether that's an aspect of the 'mon that is contradictory to its role, or something more inherently deeply wrong to the 'mon that goes beyond "hehe, this special attacker doesn't have the speed for it", I'd hope we explore something a little further than a "minus 2 letter grades on your viability ranking report card" albatross.

I'd like to, on failure, have failed because our flaw was too limiting, requiring creativity to make use of CAP35, rather than having failed because our flaw was an easily-ignorable speedbump.

2. We have 4 broad options in typing, ability, moves, and stats for a "fatal flaw". Which one/s seems like the most unexplored route? Which one/s have already been thoroughly explored? (whether that be through past CAP Processes or by "standard" Pokemon) Which one/s seem the most intriguing? Why?

I'm not a CAP historian, but I'm aware that we've had Chromera who specifically explored what a negative impact ability can (not) do. Additionally, Pokemon like Moltres (typing), Regieleki (moves), and Breloom (stats) have all shown an aptitude to push through their limitations in one way or another to be competitively relevant in some OU or another. I think that any of these can be beneficial concepts to explore, but ability may be less motivating for me personally. With Hemogoblin focusing on stats, perhaps taking a glance at moves or typing could be cool?

However. I'd like to propose that perhaps these four options aren't the only fatal flaws we can investigate or learn from in Game Freak's roster. For example, "a reliance on an item" is a significant flaw in modern SV OU. Imagine if Gliscor had to maintain its Toxic Orb in order to reliably heal, suddenly Knock Off becomes its most scary boogeyman, rather than a free switch-in. When was the last time Chansey or Porygon2 really took charge in OU, risking their Eviolite defensive boosts against so many metagame threats that can freely hand out Knock Offs?

What about needing to setup in order to do damage - Clefable has many uses, sure, but if it ever wants to sweep then it needs a handful of Calm Minds or Cosmic Powers in the bank. Hell, Deo-D can't do anything but dump out hazards unless it wants to boost up. With how many Unaware 'mons exist in SVOU, these 'mons seem to have failed to overcome their fatal flaw.

Wobboffet and Cramorant are the posters child of a fatal flaw, the ability to return volley on being hit - the former getting away with success in a handful of formats, but the latter failing at the starting line being unable access its most effective form without significant risk. Wobboffet was given a skeleton key in Shadow Tag to better pick and choose its battles, but Cramorant is limited both by move and by HP percentage at its chance at spreading paralysis. A bit of damage in return is nice, sure, but needing to take two hits (to go below half HP, and then to activate the Pikachu) is rough.

I'm not trying to advocate necessarily for a second Matryoshka doll of a concept submission for a new fatal flaw, and I hope this isn't necessarily percieved as trying to twist the concept into something that it isn't. However, I think that if we expand what 'mons we look at and what we consider as a fatal flaw in Game Freak's handiwork, we can come out with a better understanding of just why Smeargle kept a niche while Regigigas didn't, or why Articuno never took off while Clodsire's an OU staple.

3. Our second goal should be nailing down a role for this CAP! I think us having a solid direction of whether we wanna lean offensively or defensively is gonna be huge in not only determining where the fatal flaw could lie, but also to have some sort of focus for this and future stages! With that, what roles would be a viable option? Which one/s wouldn't be? Why?

I don't have a strong opinion here! I think that exploring something in-between the two, such as a pivot or a disruptor, could be cool. It seems straightforward enough to go defensive or offensive and then play balance-the-Equilibra between fatal flaw and balancer conditions. Plenty of offensive 'mons have paper-thin defenses or a movepool that makes their 4MSS more of "what even is my fourth move", or a defensive Pokemon that can't handle one side of the binary or needs narrow conditions for peak effectiveness. It's not going to be hard to pull inspirations from the standard 'mons roster for what to look for.

I think that there are more unique roles that we can consider for this 'mon that the concept leaves us open to, roles that maybe are less seen in conversations or average teamcomps. What does, say, a pivot weak to hazards look like (fatal flaw, rocks-weak typing)? What does a disruptor that follows a very predictable flowchart mean (fatal flaw, lack of wide movepool)? What does a hazard stacker do without tools to discourage removal or remove Boots (fatal flaw, lack of counterplay to threats)? What does a trapper do if it has to very specifically kit out what it chooses to trap (fatal flaw, inconsistent/not-readily-available high damage options)?

4. Do we poll the drawback at the same time as our role? Why or why not?

I think we should know our role before deciding on a general drawback idea. What I am worried about, should we poll them simultaneously, is that the votes will go in opposite direction. While I don't think we'll get "defensive wall weak to half the type chart" or "special attacker with 40 spa" or whatever - something that is beyond Super Ironman Nuzlocke Hardcore levels of "well why even try?", I'm worried that our polling will result in a disjointed role|drawback connection. I think if we pick one or the other first, we can use the second poll and discussion in the narrower range to better determine what a "fatal flaw" is and act on it correctly.

 

[FourEyesIsAFish]

I'm gonna write up a more detailed post later, but I want to remind everyone at the moment that "fatal flaw" was bad wording on Reviloja's part, and I think we should focus on their definition of the term here: an element which contradicts/goes against how the role traditionally finds success which ultimately factors into how the Pokémon functions on a team. A contradiction, not necessarily a flaw. One example that illustrates the difference is Tinkaton, who overall looks like a defensive mon but has a very strong offense move in Gigaton Hammer.

 

[SunshineFuture]

Ability has been plenty explored. As much as it's been made a negative example of, Keldeo's ability being close to useless on it is one example. Ogerpon-W manages to be the most feared Pokemon with an immunity ability for a type it already 4x resists (partially because blocking Flip Turn, Scald, and some walls' entire offensive kits is that good). Corviknight, Dragapult, Moltres, Primarina, and Weavile all overcome mediocre abilities with great typings and/or stat spreads. Cinderace is sometimes caught honestly using Blaze instead of Libero.

Stats have similarly been repeatedly explored. Nearly every Contrary sweeper has neither base Attack nor base Special Attack above 100 - the only ones that do have higher offensive stats are Lurantis, which is stuck with the mediocre Grass typing and is rather slow and frail, and Enamorus-I, whose by far the best boosting move with Contrary is a coverage move that Ghosts are immune to, and Gholdengo, Skeledirge, and Slowking-G dare her to use Ground coverage and go at least partially Special (and even ditch Contrary for the very situational Cute Charm). Speaking of Skeledirge, it ends up being used as a special wall more often than a physical wall (at least in OU and lower) despite the higher base Defense. And Clefable and Gholdengo are both stuck walling things with Clefable-tier bulk and substantial defensive EV investment (Gholdengo is admittedly less passive).

I just wanna take a moment to explain how these are generally misguided ways of looking at the concept.

Firstly, when it comes to ability, while I agree that it is probably the least viable path to success (although I think there may be more paths than I initially thought, particularly for a Pokémon acting as a wall), the examples provided are poor ones. As I said in the original submission, I consider Justified Keldeo as an anti-concept example because Keldeo simply does not interact with the ability whatsoever. It essentially has no ability. There’s nothing to learn from a Pokémon that has no ability. As for Water Absorb Ogerpon-W, I would heavily disagree that the ability is contradictory on it. While it may be considered redundant by some, it very much has a place on the Pokémon as a method to regain health on a well-timed prediction as well as avoiding Scald burns from the likes of Cresceidon. Your other examples of abilities don’t fit the bill either (and some of them aren’t even bad; Pressure is essential to how Corviknight plays and likewise for Moltres and Flame Body). Just because a Pokémon does not actually capitalize on its ability does not mean it qualifies for this concept.

As for stats, I think you’re both on some level conflating contradictory stats with bad/below average stats and missing some of the potential exploring contradictory stats could have. Yes, Contrary boosting paired with low Special Attack is a tried and true formula, but there are many other interesting ways to explore stats as I and others have mentioned, plus I personally wouldn’t consider Clefable and Gholdengo examples of this concept stat-wise. While you didn’t say this, I also want to add that I don’t consider Hemogoblin’s stats to be a pro-concept example either. A better example is Galarian Moltres, which despite bulkier stats overall has run a double dancer set since it’s been introduced.

I’m sorry if this comes across as trashing your post, but I just wanna make sure we don’t get confused as to what we should be aiming for in this concept.

 

[faithviolet]

1. Our first goal needs to be coming to a consensus on what a "fatal flaw" is. What is considered to be "fatal"? Do we want to just be contradictory to the role this CAP may have? Or is there more to having a fatal flaw than just that? Why?

I'm going to join the chorus here with a couple of qualifications. The flaw here does not have to be, and in fact should not, be actually fatal to the viability of the end product. It does not even have to be itself a weakness in isolation. Our "fatal flaw" should be a contradiction between our chosen role and a feature of the CAP which is balanced out by, but not negated, by the other features of our result.

Two previous CAPs which I would argue would not count as fulfilling our concept are Mollux (because a major weakness of its typing was cancelled out by the ability stage) and Venomicon-Epilogue (again, because a major weakness of its typing was cancelled out by the ability stage). Kartana has the same weakness as ebook, but it uses its extreme offensive stats and its ability to boost its role, while leaving its weak offensive typing in place.

4. Do we poll the drawback at the same time as our role? Why or why not?

This is the easiest question to answer for me. The dynamic of role/drawback contradiction is intimately tied to the specific pair, and so polling is likely to result in more bland options. We really ought to poll them simultaneously.

2. We have 4 broad options in typing, ability, moves, and stats for a "fatal flaw". Which one/s seems like the most unexplored route? Which one/s have already been thoroughly explored? (whether that be through past CAP Processes or by "standard" Pokemon) Which one/s seem the most intriguing? Why?

Ability is a potentially problematic route to go down, although I believe it can still be done well. If we do ability, I believe it would be a mistake to take a direct drawback ability (like in Chromera's process) because in order for a Pokemon with such an ability to be viable (without extremities in stats/movepool) its whole kit needs to be working together without any contradiction. Simply having an ability that very rarely fires should also be dismissed, because the "fatal flaw" that makes the concept would not be noticed, and within the process we would have less to go on when making decisions. Poison Heal Breloom is a good example. There are plenty of other impactful abilities like Weak Armor, Moxie, Prankster, etc, which strongly suggest a particular set of roles, but which could be turned to a different purpose.

The trouble with movepool is that most move slots don't contradict roles very much. If we can find a good example, I would be all for it, but none of the examples I can think of really fit. Not having good recovery is a weakness on a wall, but doesn't make people automatically think of something as offensive, especially when the stats are defensively oriented.

Stats is a potentially good one, but we've had Hemogoblin and Cresceidon recently, and while neither of them would fit this concept exactly, they kind of tread on the toes of our options. Venomicon's ability to sweep with Nasty Plot also fits this enough that I'm not excited about this route in particular.

I'm most excited about typing because it's one of the stronger departures from standard CAP process. We are looking for a typing which explicitly signals a role which is contradictory with its actual role, and yet is still able to make the role work.

 

[Lectrys]

I just wanna take a moment to explain how these are generally misguided ways of looking at the concept.

Firstly, when it comes to ability, while I agree that it is probably the least viable path to success (although I think there may be more paths than I initially thought, particularly for a Pokémon acting as a wall), the examples provided are poor ones. As I said in the original submission, I consider Justified Keldeo as an anti-concept example because Keldeo simply does not interact with the ability whatsoever. It essentially has no ability. There’s nothing to learn from a Pokémon that has no ability. As for Water Absorb Ogerpon-W, I would heavily disagree that the ability is contradictory on it. While it may be considered redundant by some, it very much has a place on the Pokémon as a method to regain health on a well-timed prediction as well as avoiding Scald burns from the likes of Cresceidon. Your other examples of abilities don’t fit the bill either (and some of them aren’t even bad; Pressure is essential to how Corviknight plays and likewise for Moltres and Flame Body). Just because a Pokémon does not actually capitalize on its ability does not mean it qualifies for this concept.

As for stats, I think you’re both on some level conflating contradictory stats with bad/below average stats and missing some of the potential exploring contradictory stats could have. Yes, Contrary boosting paired with low Special Attack is a tried and true formula, but there are many other interesting ways to explore stats as I and others have mentioned, plus I personally wouldn’t consider Clefable and Gholdengo examples of this concept stat-wise. While you didn’t say this, I also want to add that I don’t consider Hemogoblin’s stats to be a pro-concept example either. A better example is Galarian Moltres, which despite bulkier stats overall has run a double dancer set since it’s been introduced.

I’m sorry if this comes across as trashing your post, but I just wanna make sure we don’t get confused as to what we should be aiming for in this concept.

I suspect it will be very hard to find ability examples that neither result in the Pokemon not using the ability (e.g. Enamorus-I eschewing Contrary the moment she wants to use Calm Mind) nor result in the Pokemon accepting the double-edged sword (e.g. Tapu Fini, which actually does appreciate the immunity to Toxic and paralysis that Misty Surge provides) nor result in the Pokemon sliding into a different role that their abilities actually synergize with (e.g. Yanmega basically never being an offensive pivot despite having U-turn and Tinted Lens - it's a set-up-style sweeper instead, thanks Speed Boost). It might be telling that I cannot recall a single defensive user of Beast Boost or Moxie (both abilities that only trigger when their user KOes a mon) that cannot itself turn around and go on the offensive with at least some of its sets.

You can argue that a better stats example is Cresselia, which is mainly feared for its Stored Power set-up set in OU despite its great bulk, variety of support moves, reliable recovery, and low offences.

 

[SunshineFuture]

I suspect it will be very hard to find ability examples

I’m a little confused by your point here, and I still like Ability as our path the least, but if we were to do it, I’d pair it with being a Wall and go for something wacky like Weak Armor. Your examples are still somewhat flimsy as well (I feel if we go with ability as the contradiction we only give one competitive ability period, for example).

 

[Golden009]

Going to try and focus in on Question 3 here; the definition of "role" is ambiguous and hard to nail down, but I think picking something that can be done with an interesting twist/contradiction is going to be the key to making this CAP satisfying. I'm going to go through some roles here and fire off how I feel about them.

Set-Up Sweeper
For me, this is definitely the least interesting available path. Set-up sweeping is such a broad category that classifying this as a single role might even be questionable, but really you just need to A. be able to get to a point where you can OHKO normal non-bulky mons and B. not die in the process. There isn't a single shared aspect of set-up sweepers outside of "a good boosting move", and even that has been stretched constantly; we've seen slow sweepers with priority, slow sweepers with bulk, fast sweepers without a speed-boosting move, sweepers that use an ability for power in lieu of raw stats, sweepers that use an ability for speed in lieu of raw stats, sweepers that use an ability for bulk in lieu of raw stats, and so on, to the point where I don't think any of those things can really be called a "contradiction" as much as they're just multiple different ways to get to a similar role. You could get rid of the boosting moves altogether, but at that point you're seriously stretching the role to the point where I don't think it'll get played as a sweeper even if it ostensibly is one.

Offensive Pivot
In contrast, I think there are a few interesting ways to go here. Pivots have a lot of interlocking parts-the pivoting move itself, the offensive threat implicit in the Pokemon being on the field, the defensive utility and/or speed that lets the mon take some amount but not too many hits, and the overarching idea that being able to put your opponent into the VoltTurn vortex is an overall positive play for you. Could you build an offensive pivot without a pivoting move? I think you theoretically could, although it would end up looking more like an offensive "utility check" a la current Zamazenta. That last bit is also interesting; both the idea of a rocks-weak offensive pivot and an offensive pivot with an ability that incentivizes it to stay in have been mentioned, and I think both have a lot of potential. Of those two, I think the latter has a greater risk of becoming sort of vestigial; if Speed Boost is only ever marginally better than Run Away for the pokemon, what's the point outside of the flashy name? That being said, if we could take the positives of Speed Boost (or something like Quark Drive/Protosynthesis that only works once per game) and manage to fold them into the pivot role, it would be very cool; I'm just skeptical that that's possible without either losing the ability or the role in the process. The typing idea is a lot more solid to me; clear downside, clear ways to mitigate it, but if hazards are up and you're Boots-less you're going to have to take the kind of risks that pivots normally allow you to avoid.

Wallbreaker
This is sort of similar to Sweepers for me, but with a little bit more room to mess around with. The issue is that I feel like many of the possible contradictions with breakers can be solved with "give it more attacking power", which is not all that interesting. Kartana's been mentioned a whole lot in discussion around this CAP, and is the clearest example of this; yes, the typing is mediocre offensively, yes, the STABs are low-BP, but it has 181 base attack and a very good speed tier, so it kills things dead anyway. Mono-grass is even worse than grass/steel offensively, but Rillaboom has terrain and priority, so it kills things dead anyway. I think a more interesting test case is the other other Grass-type wallbreaker in Tapu Bulu, who had a lot of issues and was ultimately outclassed by Rillaboom despite looking pretty close to perfect on paper; it had mediocre speed, no priority, and was also entirely locked out of physical Fairy STAB, turning what would be a pretty solid offensive typing into an outright-bad one. Could both of those have been solved by giving it 150 base attack and calling it a day? Sure, but it would still be fundamentally limited in a way that Kartana isn't, and that limitation is really what this concept is about to me.

I was going to cover more roles, but I've been trying to type this up for like 2 hours. I'll probably do something on defensive roles tomorrow.

 

[Lectrys]

I’m a little confused by your point here, and I still like Ability as our path the least, but if we were to do it, I’d pair it with being a Wall and go for something wacky like Weak Armor. Your examples are still somewhat flimsy as well (I feel if we go with ability as the contradiction we only give one competitive ability period, for example).

I agree with only going for one ability if we have ability as the contradiction - but it should be one ability period, not one competitive ability and one or more flavour abilities. A Pokemon with one ability that is competitive on paper and at least one ability that CAP would throw in the flavour section can and will use the flavour ability if the competitive ability directly harms its role or turns out to do nothing for it.

Mandibuzz uses the highly situational Overcoat instead of the competitive-on-paper Weak Armor because Weak Armor harms Mandibuzz's role as a semi-passive wall, while Overcoat does not. As a lower-tier example, Charizard uses Blaze instead of Solar Power whenever it uses a physical set (and even with some special attacking sets). As another lower-tier example, Exeggutor-A uses Frisk instead of the devastating-when-it-works Harvest the moment it uses any item other than a berry. Enamorus-I is an example I've already used where she actively uses the near-flavour Cute Charm instead of Contrary (which she does have a boosting move for) the moment she wants to use Calm Mind, and since Enamorus-I is stuck using Calm Mind to boost Special Attack, she does use Cute Charm fairly often. Cinderace is another example I've mentioned before that uses Blaze instead of Libero with its bulkier sets that want to get off a Court Change first and a Pyro Ball second.

 

[Amamama]

I have two role+flaw pairs I’d be interested in exploring the most:
The first is Wall without recovery and/or movepool utility, a movepool contradiction, which has appeared on some Pokémon in different metas. This gen we have two solid examples of that with Ting Lu a mon that rarely runs recovery but still functions as a wall and dondozo, which doesn’t have access to much movepool utility and still performs a key role as defensive piece. I wonder if you could go even more extreme and make a wall without recovery or movepool utility, which centers its gameplay entirely on beeeeg stats and making progress the old fashioned way. This also sorta interesting to me bc it asks the question where the lines between Wall and Tank start blurring.

The second option is set up sweeper without reliable set up move. This is another category we have seen work on several occasions. This gen we have Iron moth and Ash Greninja, last gen we had Meteor Beamers and Blacephalon and choiced Kartana.
Making a mon that can only start a sweep out of a specific position bc its boost is unreliable or needs a specific condition to trigger is fascinating to me.

For this reason I also obviously support a movepool centric contradiction. In my opinion this is the least explored in CAP. Partly, due to the fact that moves come last, we often use movepool to nudge the CAP in the direction we want it to go, when we feel we haven’t gone far enough yet. Partly, because moves appears like the most proactive way to achieve a goal in game. You can actively choose how you execute your strategy and adapt it to the game, whereas other factors that define a role are not as malleable. This results in moveppools, which are both filled with options, that might help the CAP fill it’s niche and superfluous moves, which we intended to help, but rarely see use.
Other limitations or contradictory elements have been pursued multiple times, but we haven’t yet tried making a CAP whose movepool doesn’t fit what it wants to do.

Lastly I believe that polling role+area of contradiction/specific contradiction makes the most sense, as some flaws are just not gonna impact different roles in the same way.

 

[Brambane]

The key word "fatal" here is more of a guideline than a creed for this project. Obviously since the CAP should be viable, it's flaw or contradiction cannot be fatal in that it absolutely kills viability. Instead, the "fatal flaw" should be a relevant weakness offset by substantial strengths. The flaw should in some way always hold CAP35 back, but you still use it because the good parts of the Pokemon are too good to pass up. I think we should have a clear fatal flaw by the end of this discussion via polling, but it doesn't need to be a single element. It could be two or three flaws, but they need to make sense to have them together. Realistically though, one flaw is the simplest and likely best way forward.

First, flawed abilities are a non-starter; it's a bad direction for the project. If the ability is actively detrimental, well we are retreading old ground with Chromera and I think it would be unwise to resurface a concept that was adequately explored and reasonably executed. If the ability is simply irrelevant to the Pokemon's gameplan, then it effectively kills the Ability Stage, which would have been a choice we needed to make back before we voted on a TLT, so a Framework. Either way, there isn't much way forward. A purely contradictory ability is the only remaining direction, but I think that gets lost in a lot of semantics. An atypical ability for a role (think "wall with Sheer Force") either completely changes the role, adds a new role, or remains irrelevant. It's just how abilities work in the game.

Stats suffers from the typical process order and retreads recently explored space. Hemogoblin didn't have fatal stats, but it generated a lot of discussion about what its stats should look like yet stats remained late in the process. This added a lot of ambiguity to its concept and core element of the design process that wasn't resolved until later. I can see this direction suffering from the same issue unless we established the lacking of our stats early. This could be a single stat that is lacking relevant to its role (i.e. physical sweeper with low Attack) or just poor stats across the board. Given that we explored a heavy stats focused concept recently, stats is the most complex stage in the process, and that doing stats really early is going to be esoteric for a lot of users, I think going with stats just makes our process unnecessarily more difficult and less enjoyable. And why should we do that?

Typing and movepool are strong contenders. Typing is a fun juxtaposition of what we normally do; instead on honing in on a types strengths, we would be honing in on a types weaknesses, threading the needle between bad and excessively bad. However, I think its a lot harder to pair a role with typing for this stage and we have done similar typing processes before with Mollux and even Crucibelle. Its a fine direction forward, not my favorite.

Movepool is very unexplored space for us. I cannot think of a time that we went into the movepool of a CAP with the intention of making it weaker. Usually when we omit things its because it would make something too strong if we added it, not because we are intentionally trying to weaken the movepool to add power elsewhere in the process. This is really interesting to me, and also the clearest and best defined direction for Concept Assessment. You can definitively state the kind of move missing from the CAP with its role.

Role and flaw should be polled together as bundle. The most interesting directions for us forward are:

1. Wall without reliable recovery: I specifically use reliable since I wouldn't call Leech Seed or Drain Punch as reliable for the general wall. There have been plenty of examples of defensive Pokemon that had to make do with scraps for recovery and defined a metagame. Defensive Heatran and Celesteela are good examples, but even something like RBY Rhydon's ability to wall the vicious Zapdos is relevant here. HP is a coveted resource for them, leading to interesting and often healthy gameplay interactions. This is a very appealing option, and one we have rarely attempted with intention.

2. Wallbreaker without STAB: Not something we have EVER done; good STABs are a key part of every typing stage for an offensive concept. This would be absolutely bold new space for us to explore, focusing on coverage or more support-like moves to break through a defensive team. Considering stall in general as well as the usual balance staples had a showing in CAPPL recently, this is certainly a relevant niche. The relevant weakness is that when dealing just neutral damage, well you don't have STAB, so your power is going to be lower.

3. Wall with shared/common weaknesses: This is the idea that the defensive Pokemon is so good that you don't mind having your defensive staples stacking weaknesses with each other. We already see this in play with something like Arghonaut + Ting-Lu, where they share the same Freeze-Dry/Grass/Fairy weakness, but each one offers a strong defensive profile that makes your team better for it. This concept has a clear flaw that is tied to its typing, and is the most interesting and novel of the typing directions.

 

[spoo]

I agree that role and contradiction should be polled together. Determine the most interesting combinations during this thread, and then poll the best ones; like quziel said, some roles may work with many different contradictions, but not work particularly well with any of them, and we shouldn’t allow these options to sneak through a poll due to their wider perceived design space.

Somewhat tangential, but important — as someone who TLed a project heavily focused on roles, drawbacks, and the semantics of both of those things, a word to the wise: pick a role, define it clearly, and stick to it. Don’t deviate from this decision after the fact, and hold others accountable to do the same. We voted on Hemogoblin’s role (offensive pivot) after typing, and immediately all sorts of discussion ensued: how the vote was not actually binding, how “offensive pivot” is so broad and vague of a role anyways, how we might better off choosing a different route, and so on. It was a largely unsuccessful attempt to impose structure on a concept that was very open ended. A lot of different people contribute to a CAP’s creation, and very few of these people have the same background, whether it’s competitive Pokemon, language, education, culture, or anything else. Some people think certain words and ideas mean different things than other people do. But CAP is at its best when people have a shared understanding of goals, and a shared willingness to pursue those goals. Whichever role / contradiction pair wins — it needs to be well-defined, and it needs to be binding.

 

[Imw0rstadP0keM0n]

1. Our first goal needs to be coming to a consensus on what a "fatal flaw" is. What is considered to be "fatal"? Do we want to just be contradictory to the role this CAP may have? Or is there more to having a fatal flaw than just that? Why?

1) A fatal flaw should be something that should *directly prevent* the pokemon from succeeding in fufilling its' role. Some examples in pokemon would be:

• Regigigas/Slaking for an ability check (nearly identical normal type wallbreakers kept in check by their abilities, the former of which hard limits its' potential for a full five turns, the latter of which makes it very suspectiple to cheese and setup.)
• Frosmoth/Avalugg-Hisui (both of which have horrendous type, the former preventing it from being able to setup with otherwise monstrous special defense and good special attack, and the latter preventing it from being at all a decent physical wall),
• Sableye/Pykukmuku are otherwise great pokemon with horrendous stats (both being potentially strong defensive pokemon held in check by awful BST.
• I can't really think of any good examples of bad movepool off the top of my head (Pyroar would be a good pokemon if it had a setup move or better coverage, but that's not really what we're talking about here)

What I don't think counts is A) "abilities that don't do anything" (Illuminate, Pressure on an offensive mon, etc), B) Well optimzed low BSTs (see Clodsire, Lokix), or C) bad typings that have good qualities (pure Ice for example)

I think it is neccessary to consider our pokemons' role FIRST to find what would be more applicable. What we don't want is, for examples, a pokemon like Toxapex with Slow Start (which would barely apply), or a pokemon like Weavile who has a horrendous defensive typing but doesn't care cause its' a fast banded offense monster with poor defenses anyways.

2) We recently have had stats with Hemogoblin, and Chromera fits ability very well and is relatively recent. While I wouldn't be opposed with either of these approaches, I think we should look at either typing or movepool.

1. We have some CAPs with bad typing, those being Syclant, Aurumoth, and Chromera (Bug Ice is awful and I shouldn't have to explain why, bug psychic is awful offensively and not amazing defensively, normal dark same deal.) Those pokemon have incredible strengths to make up for said typing (mountaineer being free boots for Syclant, Chromera has STAB Boomburst, Aurumoth exists.) Still, I think this one has enough examples that unless we directly undermine our pokemons' role with said typing (ex Avalugg-Hisui, whos role as strong phys wall falls appart with mulitple 4x weakness including one to Close Combat). I also don't think we should use other aspects of CAP 35s design to directly mitigate typing problems (e.g, a pokemon quad weak to ground shouldn't get Levitate for example).
2. Movepool is much more interesting and I think borrowing from early Gen 9 would be a great way of doing this, where movepools were incredibly stripped and options like High Horsepower were considered far more frequently than before. I think for "movepool" to be a fatal flaw, we again need to look at CAP 35s role first before doing so. Having bad coverage doesn't really matter if your pokemon is primarily defensive, but lacking coverage or even STAB as an offensive monster would be extremely detrimental. We also don't really have a good example of this with previous CAPs so I'm leaning towards favoring movepool.

3) With Gen 9 CAPs, two are primarily offensive (Hemoglobin and Chuggalong), and one, while defensive in nature, fits much better on offensive team structures as opposed to defensive team structures (Cresciedon). It is of my personal preference that CAP 35 leans much more defensively oriented in nature than offensively oriented. Designing defensive also gives us more options as to what our Fatal Flaw will be (e.g, its' much easier to design a defensively lacking movepool than an offensively lacking one, its' much easier to build a typing weak defensively than a typing weak offensively, etc)

4) As I've stated a couple of times I think its' necessary to find our role FIRST and then find our flaw. A pokemon like Toxapex or Ferrothorn would mind an ability like Slow Start far less than a pokemon who fills role similar to Zamazenta or Great Tusk.

EDIT: I forgot to bring this up, but another point against typing is that this is a meta with Terastalization. What we don't want to make is a tera hog or a pokemon completely irrelevant in Gen 10.

 

[Amamama]

Don’t deviate from this decision after the fact, and hold others accountable to do the same. We voted on Hemogoblin’s role (offensive pivot) after typing, and immediately all sorts of discussion ensued: how the vote was not actually binding, how “offensive pivot” is so broad and vague of a role anyways, how we might better off choosing a different route, and so on. It was a largely unsuccessful attempt to impose structure on a concept that was very open ended

I agree with Spoo, that for this concept we should well define and stick to one role, as that will help be more concise in our design, make discussion more focused and thus lead to a more insightful exploration of the concept.
I feel this will be a tad easier but also much more important this time than with Hemo, as we are working on a role centric concept. Deviating from an earlier decision was fine for the Hemo process, as it didnt center around role and while it made discussion difficult at times, we still ended up succeeding in making a bang average mon.
Deviating this time likely means we also strayed from the concept bc focus on role is so important to it.
I feel like we ought to look towards Cresceidons process too, as centering on and sticking to a well defined role made the process incredibly smooth and ended Up with one of the best balanced mon we've released in a while.
This is why I also am of the opinion, that we should focus on more easily defined roles such as Wall, Wallbreaker, Tank or Sweeper instead of fuzzier design space like Pivot, Stallbreaker or Support.

 

[earthflax]

Hey all, thought I would pop in and share a few thoughts.

I'd agree with the necessity of polling role and drawback together - there is no reason not to, frankly, and potentially serious issues with polling separately that could be a pain in later stages. I don't have a particular preference role-wise at the moment but I think it is important to note how there is a lot more viable precedent for some examples than others. CAP has a history of being very hit-or-miss with entirely new applications or ones with very weak/tangential precedent, and especially given the nature of the concept it is better to have more examples than less.

I also want to say really quickly that there has been a bit of support regarding the interpretation of the "contradiction" as an aspect which outwardly seems to imply a different role as compared to the actual intended role (eg Cawmodore). I'm going to push back strongly against this, as this interpretation is essentially aiming to create an intentionally confusing Pokemon. This is bad in pretty much every way possible: it provides a greater barrier to break into the metagame, it isn't great for optics, and there is just no real reason to go down this path when there are other equally viable methods of actualization.