- How can CAP35 use its ability to facilitate its role and warrant a spot on a team?
There are so many things abilities can do for us, but we should be able to narrow things down. Let's start with what we do know, typing alone: Not stealth rock weak, not necessarily tied to heavy duty boots but would probably still run them often. However, very worth noting other defensive items like lefties and covert cloak would probably fare well with the mon as well. Ideally we wanna keep that same semblance of item freedom going forward so no Cheek Pouch, no Harvest (I'll make an exception for poison heal though). We're paralysis immune and ghost immune, so if we can lean into checking/countering ghosts more broadly and/or paralysis spreaders, we should be able to solidify a niche or two. In that same vein, immunity to other status would be helpful for a wall, preventing damage over time from poison or burn. An ability that gives cap an immunity to another status (or more!) would allow CAP35 to function more generally as a status absorber for its teammates. There are also abilities that grant HP recovery, passive or conditional, helping improve the survivability of a wall and potentially freeing up a moveslot from recovery. Move specific immunity abilities are definitely a grey area for the concept, but I'd give a pass for well presented matchup benefits. Bulletproof for example, definitely improves matchups against many ghosts we aim to check, but only because it makes us immune to their fighting coverage, definitely a grey area for me. Aroma veil on the other hand doesn't target moves we're weak to via typing, but walls do have a weakness to taunt that 35 would benefit from avoiding, undeniably a decent choice. We can take a route less about survivability, and aim for utility instead. A mon meant to take hits surely benefits from making progress just via switching in, and there are a few abilities meant to do just that. They're mainly designed for contact punishment, and I think our type is better suited for special walling, but it's not a bad route for a wall to take. Abilities that can facilitate utility moves come to mind as well, such as prankster, or yet again, aroma veil.
I got a lot of abilities I wanna talk about so I'll just dive right in, categorized by the kinds of abilities covered above:
Asterisks are my attempt at attributing power levels to abilities in three tiers. take it with a grain of salt lol
Status Absorbing:
Immunity: *
poison/toxic are large threats to a wall always, damage over time threatening their survivability, and toxic in particular putting mons on a quick timer. Ability to take toxics for team members, or switch into a sludge bomb with no risk of poison is appreciated utility.
Water Veil: *
Burn is less dire for a wall, especially if it doesn't care about its attack stat. However, the ability to avoid the damage over time from burn is still useful, as is the ability to absorb W-o-Ws and deny enemy scalds their burns.
I feel it important to mention Water Bubble somewhere so I'll do it here: Burn immunity is great as discussed above, however I feel as though it undermines our concept in the way it manipulates our type charts and begs for our teams tera.
Natural Cure: *
Not exactly status immune, but still offers the mon the ability to absorb status for its teammates and heal itself of said status, and it allows it to do so with any status!
Shield Dust: *
Not specifically status immune either, but allows the mon to avoid status from secondary effects on moves like the aformentioned sludge bomb/scald, but also avoids secondary effect of moves like salt cure or flinches from fake out. Worth noting the item covert cloak does what this ability does and would probably work well on the mon with another ability.
Good as Gold: **
Now I'm not saying we should just steal Gholdengo's Ability, BUT it does block all status moves. This does
not prevent status inflicted via secondary effects, but it
does block other status like taunt or leech seed :)
Purifying Salt: **
Maybe Gholdengo's too rich a target, well if we steal Garganacl's ability, we get complete coverage from status conditions, whether from direct moves
or secondary effects. The ghost resist is... lol, but a teratyped 35 will appreciate the continued resilience against the undead I'm sure.
Misty Surge: **
I don't mind the dragon resistance here, it helps against mons we already aim to check, and it isn't permanent. Setting terrain, especially one that prevents status on the mon AND its teammates for a few turns is definitely useful utility. The concern I guess is that it prevents 35 from spreading status in turn, but that's not the only way a wall can make progress.
Poison Heal: ***
Compressing complete status immunity with impressive passive healing, Poison Heal is a great ability for a wall to have. Knock off doesn't threaten its passive recover once it's poisoned, but renders the mon abilityless and itemless if careless.
Magic Bounce: ***
Not technically status
immune, but a really powerful ability. Allows the mon to not only block status moves, but send them back to the user. That includes taunt, leech seed, and everyone's favorite part: hazards. The abilities existence alone makes clicking status moves at all more of a risk for the opponent, even if the mon isn't on the field.
Magic Guard: ***
It's maybe too subjective a call, but Magic Guard might be the strongest ability we can give our wall. Paired with our electric typing and the SV ban on sleep moves, Magic Guard would protect 35 from poison and burn too, rounding out its status resistance. It of course doesn't just do that. Blocking chip damage from all nondirect sources is powerful/useful for any mon, but the damage mitigation goes a really long way for a wall. Even though it isn't stealth rock weak, I feel it worth noting that it makes heavy duty boots unnecessary.
Healing:
Poison Heal already mentioned
Grassy Terrain: **
Passive healing is useful of course, but the ability to provide it to your teammates too is useful utility. It's pretty grey for me though, given the earthquake specific resistance, but I might be persuaded.
Regenerator: ***
Maybe the only ability that could give Magic Guard a run for its money for a wall. In general very useful, especially on a mon that could be forced to switch often, and it cannot be understated how useful it is to have healing tied to an ability instead of a moveslot. Opens up room for an assault vest tank set in ways other abilities simply couldn't.
Move Immunities:
Bulletproof: *
The focus blast/aura sphere immunity really opens up the question of is this anti-concept again, but given many ghost types have access to focus blast, I see the point. Luckily for us Gholdengo doesn't tend to have room for focus blast on its sets.
Aroma Veil: *
Taunt immunity for a wall? Yes please! Probably one of my favorite "low power" options. Also protects from encore/torment/healblock/etc
Contact Punishment/Status Spreading:
Rough Skin/Iron Barbs: *
Honestly I don't even know whether to put these at 1 or 2 stars. Making progress just by switching into a contact move is great utility for a wall. I genuinely think we're better suited into special attackers via typing alone, but if contact punishment were the direction we wanted to go in I'm not against redirecting to more mixed or physical walling. Just risky given our ground/fighting weaknesses and their existence as coverage on a large amount of physical attacking mons.
Static: *
If paralysis spreading is the direction we're heading, static is an easy way to fish for paralysis. Paralyzed opponents are weaker, good for the rest of the team, but could allow 35 itself to outspeed mons it wasn't before, too.
Poison Point: *
Same premise as static, just a different goal. Regular poison is an underrated status, the fixed damage is hefty.
Flame Body: *
Again same premise as before, but fishing for burns is a chance to decrease the physical damage CAP35 takes as well as some minor chip over time.
Effect Spore: *
Here we go again, but it's a gamble on paralysis, poison, or sleep. A little less direction here but sleep chance is scary.
Toxic Debris: *
Is physical move specific rather than contact move specific but it's the same idea: making progress just by switching in. A mon targetting you with an earthquake or a close combat will still give you a layer of toxic spikes, and something tells me a lot of mons wanna use those moves against us.
Other Utility:
Pressure:
Pretty generic wall ability, but wasting PP is the walls job!
Perish Body: *
Disruptive to say the least. Puts the user on a time too, but could be worth it to stop sweeps/corner mons.
Neutralizing Gas: *
To be honest with you I didn't do a deep dive on how many relevant mons this is actually useful on, but like mold breaker allows you to status Ghold/Garg, and it weakens mons like hemo.
Intimidate: **
Another ability that's hard to quantify for us. I'd hope we weren't aiming to hurt our overall physical bulk by a significant amount for this ability, but its disruptive, defensive and worth mentioning.
Unaware: **
Incredibly powerful ability allowing walls to tackle setup sweepers. I think it's worth noting we've got a decent selection of unaware mons this gen already, but its power shouldn't be overlooked just because of that.
Prankster: **
The utility ability of all time for sure. If we do go with status spreading we can opt to do it with priority! priority taunts! priority hazards? but the biggest benefit for CAP35 is priority healing. Triage works for a lower power (just healing moves) alternative.
I'd generally be happy with any of these abilities, but my favorites are: Good as Gold, Purifying Salt, Poison Heal, Magic Bounce, Magic Guard, Regenerator, Aroma Veil, and Prankster.
, which reinforces our ability to check offensive ghost types. This alone, mind you, is somewhat negligible, as Focus Blast is infamous for having low accuracy, and 
, 
, and 
. Being able to switch in for free on Sludge Bombs is huge, even if we can still be hit neutrally by secondary STAB or coverage, and immediately gives us something to work with when it comes to filling a niche. Earlier, I mentioned Shadow Ball, which may seem strange as we are already immune to ghost moves. IMO, one of the biggest selling points of Bulletproof is that we can Tera without losing our ghost immunity. While obviously physical Ghost types do exist (notably 
and 
as of recent), the majority of Ghost types and the majority of Pokémon with Ghost coverage are running Shadow Ball. Being able to check ghosts regardless of current typing is pretty damn nice as a wall in a meta with Tera.
