CAP 35 - Part 5 - Defining Moves

Status
Not open for further replies.
Lurker here! Have been playing a bit of CAP here and there so I thought I would pop in and say my opinion so please go easy on me :

From a defensive perspective, CAP 35's typing is omega ass. We're already not walling anything discernable other than Gholdengo, Dragapult, and the flying and electric type mons that electric typing should wall. We're likely also passive bait for several of the tier's prominent hazard setters. I think people are also overrating the amount of momentum Electromorphosis will generate for us a fair bit here. It's true that Electromorphosis will allow for us to get some wicked damage in, but Electromorphosis needs to be triggered in the first place meaning that there is inherent counterplay to our damage output that can and will be played around in practice. In addition, the necessity of balancing CAp 35 to prevent a Regieleki type situation from occurring will likely limit the strength of unboosted Thunderbolts from CAP 35. Futhermore, our sheer lack of resistances means that whereas most defensive mons in the tier will be taking 50% damage from random moves thrown out, we're going to be getting hit hard by the full base power of most moves from most mons which automatically makes us worse in the builder.

That's not to say CAP 35 is somehow doomed of course! I agree with the notion that we're going to need to give CAP some serious utility like Knock Off, Status Moves, Healing, and potentially Water/Grass coverage to boot. But none of those factors are really going to make CAP 35 stand out from the rest of the pack IMO. There are already plenty of fantastic defensive mons with actual worthwhile resistances that also pack plenty of great utility (like that bitch Cresciedon!), so I think we honestly need to go even further in terms of power to help CAP 35 stand out from the rest of the pack. Which is why I'm going to propose the following move:

Teleport: Alright hear me out. Hopefully I don't need to explain how teleport is a strong and useful move. Instead, I'm going to try to make a case that Teleport leans heavily into the identity we're trying to build up right now for CAP 35 and thus would help it perform a key defensive role despite its weak typing.

Currently, because of our typing and because of the way Electromorphosis works, we're going to be wanting to build up a mon whose modus operandi is to be fat, soak up hits despite the lack of relevant resists for Electric/Normal, and won't give free-switch ins to some of the most annoying ground types of all time like Gliscor and Ting-Lu. Teleport leans wholeheartedly into that direction. We want to be fat as shit? Teleport rewards our ability to take neutral hits and grant a secure switch in for any teammate. We want to punish obvious Gliscor and other ground type switch ins? Teleport is one of the best moves to do so without relying on something gimmicky (like gastro acid) or something potentially too weak for SPDEF invested Gliscor or Ting-Lu (like Surf or Scald). Want to enhance the game of chicken with Electromorphosis? Teleport existing means opponents will think twice before switching out which will bolster our ability to effectively use electromorphosis moves on mons.

I already know that someone's going to be typing up "Why not Volt Switch? Why not U-Turn or Flip-Turn" Ignoring the obvious issues with contact effects, immunities, and what not, another big strength of Teleport is that it is a negative priority move and is thus guaranteed momentum if we can tank a hit no matter our opponent's speed stat compared to ours. That means we can have the ability to have slow pivoting while also having room to be fast enough to move before other defensive/bulky mons which will allow us to always slow pivot out of mons like Kingambit for example while being able fast enough to threaten out defensive or other bulky mons with Electromorphosis boosts or use any of the other utility moves we would likely have. (Of course, we would likely have volt switch anyway with Teleport for the option select).

I'm aware that Teleport is a very strong move and can be toxic on the wrong mon, but I genuinely don't think it would be that bad on CAP. We wouldn't have Magic Guard nor Regenerator, so we won't have the ability to constantly generate guaranteed momentum throughout the match. But we'd likely have enough bulk to make a couple key Teleports the same way Blissey was able to back in Gen 8 but in a much more unique and interesting fashion. Another thing worth considering is that Teleport has gotten nuked off the planet from basically the entirety of every relevant mon's movepool in Gen 9, and we currently have no CAP capable of using Teleport which would immediately set CAP 35 apart from every single other mon currently in the meta.
 
I want to try making an argument against Thundercage.
Historically trapping moves like this have 2 major and one minor function.
1) Stallbreaking: This is what Heatran basically used its Magma Storm for (aside form just good damage and missing 50% of the time). The combination of strong attack with a trapping effect meant that only bulkier defensive answers could risk switching in on magma. Often they were bulky water types that naturally resisted this move and relied on recovery to stay healthy. With the addition of Toxic and or Taunt Heatran was able to seriously trouble these mons through racking up chip damage via toxic and trapping and or its coverage moves (most often EP).
This however was only possible bc Magma Storm was actually able to hit Trans main Switch ins, something that Thundercage won't be doing for 35.
Additionally for Tran this meant dedicating all it's moveslots to this Task, and relying on natural bulk and it's incredible defensive profile for sustain.
This is something that 35 is likely not going to be able to afford, especially when it's main STAB is met by an immunity.
Thirdly Fire Ground plus toxic is a known super combo, which has no real holes in its coverage and is trouble for all switch ins not named Gliscor, wich is another thing that is going to very hard to replicate with Electric, the closest being Electric + water + wisp. If we want to go that route I'm fine with that, but I believe that this build would require quite potent offensive stats, so that the ground types switching in actually feel a Surf or Scald.
For this role Magma also filled a minor function in racking up chip especially in conjunction with Toxic on Switch ins like Lando or and soft checks like Torn T, which heatran wasn't able to go into a tank battle against.

2) Another example of using trapping plus Taunt as Stallbreaking method was Tapu Fini.
This method again relied on Finis main answers actually being affected by Whirlpool and it's ability to quickly chip them down via Nature's Madness alongside the trapping Chip.
This however was far from Finis main set and actually falls into the second category of trapping, which is lures.
Trapping is quite nice for lures, as it ensures the lure to be effective.
Block Spite Pex or Grassium Z Tran are other examples of this.
I think that it is actually more realistic, that we manage something like this for 35 especially given the possibility of using Tera on a Trapped Ground Type.
For that to work however the trapping can't be Thundercage as it does not affect our main answers. Realistically moves like Block, Magma Storm or Whirlpool would be far superior for this task as they actually manage to trap Ground Types.
I'm also not sure how moves like whirlpool interact with Rapid Spin, but in general trapping can only be a successful strategy if you actually lure and trap mons that would be your main counters.
Even If that is more easy to facilitate, for a lure to work it can't be the main set.

In the end I rate Thundercage as a side grade at best to Discharge. A) bc it actually fails to deliver the utility that trapping wants to provide. And B) bc Discharge at least adds a para chance and is 100% accurate.

And at this point I really don't see a value in allowing a legendary signature move to pass any further than this discussion, if it's going to function as a electric Stab without real additional benefit or be relegated to a lure set.

(If you still want that with trapping do Magma Storm at least, that one is going to work better.)
 
Last edited:
Quickly going to mention some other obvious movers that haven't been brought up:

Grass Knot is a midline coverage option for Great Tusk, Ting-Lu. and Garganacl. It hits little else, making it a useful tool for balancing a stat spread around weaker coverage options into Gliscor and Equilibra while not being completely dead in the water against all Ground-types (and Garg.)

Seismic Toss/Night Shade are good when all else fails. Like Grass Knot, they are a good for balancing a stat spread that focuses on weaker coverage options. They additionally have some use with moves like Infestation and Thunder Cage, if we pursue that route.
 
Wanted to throw support for Flip Turn. It allows us to act as a pivot without getting stuffed by grounds, all while creating interesting scenarios alongside Electromorphosis, forcing the opponent to predict whether we're going to abuse our boost and switch into their ground, our simply pivot out.

If not for that, I do think Volt Switch, should be somewhat of a given, tanking moves and then pivoting out with a very strong boosted volt switch is self evidently strong, and would absolutely give us a niche, provided that we're able to somewhat threaten Ground Types.
 
yawn - punishes tusk, libra and provides value for the team. not necessarily sleep, more pseudo phasing.
glare - punishes tusk libra etc
nuzzle - fair enough is it not
knock - cripples switch ins
super fang - cripples switch ins
recover (or clone) / wish - duh, would prefer recover though because i can sense the 4mss it would face having to run wish and protect just to properly utilise its ability. preferably it gets both.
roar - real phasing
encore - so things don't set up on it
zing zap - allowing a physical spread to be used, as well as paraflinch which helps it get over some thing which try to setup on it
 
If we should not go for Water/Ice/Grass Coverage we can instead opt for good utility into Ground Types. So things such as Leech Seed, Will-O-Wisp, Soak + Thunder Cage, Super Fang, Seismic-Toss/Nightshade and/or Strength Sap

Basically I believe that 35 can function as a wall even without the distribution of the aforementioned Coverage. STAB + amazing Utility can get a mon places. I‘m very indifferent overall if 35 should get decent coverage or not. I just wanted to show that the Coverage isn‘t needed here to make 35 viable or to underscore our identity.
 
Defining moves should be well, moves that either define a set, or significantly impact stats for us.

With that in mind I think some of the things we should probably be paying attention to are:

Defining Moves that are just gonna be there:
  • Recover / Moonlight
  • Thunderbolt
  • Discharge
  • Zing Zap
  • Body Slam
  • Tera Blast
  • Hyper Voice
  • Volt Switch
This category consists of moves that are either mandatory for most walls (we did not vote wall without recovery), are drawback free options, or have near universal presence on either normal-types or electric types. Zing Zap's a bit special here, but if you want a physically leaning mon, which likely is something we should allow, its sorta the single electric type physical stab that doesn't actively suck in every way. That said physically leaning is probably not amazing. Aside from that they're just relatively solid moves that we likely should assume non-controversial access to.

Defining moves that likely don't impact sets but define context:
  • Rapid Spin
  • Defog
  • Stealth Rock
  • Thunder Wave
  • Will-o-Wisp
  • Super Fang
  • Encore
  • Haze
  • Iron Defense
  • Body Press
  • Haze
  • Wish
  • Surf
  • Aurora Beam
  • Ice Spinner
  • Soak
  • Infestation / Whirlpool
  • Heal Bell
  • Leech Seed
This is a list of moves that actually help us get onto teams. There's a wide mix of power levels here, and I could see an argument for shifting some to the next category, but like, yeah. Rapid Spin, Defog, and Stealth Rock let us interact with the hazard game, which is a common way to get defensive mons onto the team and should 100% be in the conversation. My personal feeling is that removal is probably a tad better here than setting here as CAP tends to have ground-type removal and non-ground setters, which means we likely have a better match-up into setters than removal.

Status moves are just good for us. If we want a way to interact with either sweepers or ground-types they're a fairly safe way to do that as Wisp, while very annoying for Great Tusk, is a mild-annoyance vs. libra and actively does nothing vs Gliscor. T-wave is worth mentioning as Electromorphosis tends to incentivize opponents to try to either switch around us or set up until they can OHKO us, and T-wave punishes that play pattern. For the same reason Haze is something that realistically you can build around even if I don't think its great. I think it probably slots decently well onto a special-walling set as it interacts very favorably with mons like Chuggalong, and can prevent Gholdengo from attempting to just boost strong enough to 2hko us.

I've also included some ways to interact with Ground-types that are weaker here. I think Surf is realistically something you can calc with but isn't all that strong. Even assuming fairly decent SpA stats you're struggling to even 4hko Libra on the switch and don't necessarily deal great damage into stuff like Gliscor, or especially Ting Lu. Aurora Beam is a fairly weak option that exists purely to let you 1v1 Gliscor and Great Tusk while affecting basically no other matchups, and that's very valid. Finally, Ice Spinner is another move that affects basically only the Gliscor matchup, while keeping Great Tusk as a check. This also helps into some of the frailer Dragon-types such as Dragapult and Chuggalong.

Defining Moves that are likely to impact stat limits:
  • Parabolic Charge
  • Ice Beam
  • Scald
  • Court Change
  • Knock Off
  • Thunder Cage
  • Strength Sap
I've llisted out this category for moves that are either very strong, dramatically impact matchups into many would-be checks, dramatically impact our play-patterns, or are just somewhat rare. Ice Beam and Scald both dramatically change how we interact with Ground-types, with Ice beam having the potential power too muscle through Gliscor, force it to tera, or force it out, while having the power to do that to other Ground-types as well. You'll still struggle into Libra and Ting-Lu, but this dramatically raises your threat profile vs a lot of teams. I don't view it as necessary at all here, but like, its worth mentioning. Scald is much the same, but now you can threaten a burn into Libra, which makes its ability to check you a lot less secure.

Knock Off is fairly similar to Scald in letting you neuter a lot of the Ground-types that would otherwise help check you, dramatically lowers Garganacl's effective sustain, especially on the Protect set, and is just a very strong move on us in particular. We all know how impactful Knock is at wearing down mons that otherwise lack reliable recovery, and our checks are likely to be those kind of mons at least in part. Thunder Cage is a legendary signature move that, if played right, can just guarantee a KO. Because of that its absolutely worth considering; we need strong sequences, and this is a great way to get at those. At the same time that's quite strong. Finally Court Change and Strength Sap are upgrades over Rapid Spin and Recover respectively, at least sorta, offering higher tempo than the more standard options.

Defining Moves that you should let me have access to:
  • Blood Moon
Boomburst but it has major PP issues, can't be used twice in a row, and has what are potentially some of the weirdest play patterns out there. We've seen how Tinkaton plays almost fully within the wall role despite technically having the kit to function in a tank role using Gigaton Hammer, and this is a move that implies the same. That said unlike Tinkaton our ability screams tank as well, so giving a 140 BP stab in addition to a 180 BP stab (Tbolt + Emorph) definitely has a danger of pushing us out of bieng a Wall. That said this is mechanically interesting enough that you should totally trust me with it.

Not Defining Moves:
  • Electroweb
  • Screens
  • Chilling Water
  • Mystical Fire
  • Pain Split
These moves are all fairly weak. Pain Split is the outlier here as there's a case to run Pain Split instead of Recover to have a lower power level spread that can still heal itself, but the rest of this list are weak enough that I don't think they're super worth considering when crafting stat spreads.
 
I actually think Blood Moon is kind of elegant here. You hit non-Libra grounds reasonably hard on the switch and then you switch out. The power level might seem intimidating, but it’s worth noting that it’s not doing that much to Gliscor, Ting-Lu, or Libra, you can’t click it twice in a row which means you can’t spam it, and even though you probably shouldn’t stay in on Gliscor, protect shenanigans mean you often can’t hit Gliscor at all except on the switch. Our special attack will be based around an effective 160-180 power move, so tacking on a 140 base power move that you can only click every other turn may not be as nuts as it seems. This counterintuitively feels like a more balanced move than some of the coverage options that have been suggested.

This would have to be paired with extremely limited coverage. Blood moon becomes the move to hit ground types, so in my view this basically precludes decent ice, grass, or water moves. Knock should be allowed as a way to not be complete dead weight into libra.
 
Since I made my last post, I figured I'd also give my commentary on the stronger options that people have been talking about in this thread!

Thunder Cage-- Simultaneously extremely broken and frustrating if the ground type mon on the opposing side has gotten blown up by a lure. Also extremely weak if the ground type is still on the opposing field but will still see play because Thunder Cage is a genuinely spammable move with 24 pp. Could you imagine a world where Heatran was able to slam you with a 160 base power Magma Storm that only misses 10% of the time instead at every inconvenient moment, had way more pp on its trapping move, heals off any weak hits taken due to its astronomical bulk, and spreads the yellow magic to walls to cripple any attempts to break through? I suppose we could gimp CAP 35's utility movepool in order to make Thunder Cage not so frustrating to face once the opposing Gliscor/Libra are forced to tera, but at that point, we're building less of a wall and more of a polarizing stallbreaker. Thunder Cage is a cool move but IMO I think it needs a concept built around it instead of being something tacked onto this one.

Blood Moon-- I'm think Blood Moon is a pretty good move here that I'd like to see on CAP 35 but with one potential caveat.

Blood Moon is strong and offers a ton of power which compliments our high powered approach, but I think designing our offensive gameplan around two high powered but inconsistent stab options will present issues to CAP 35 by providing extremely obvious countermeasures to the gameplan. To a certain extent, substitute sweepers will always give issues to any defensive wall in the metagame, but I think the effects would be acutely felt on CAP 35 because substitute gives sweepers an avenue to absorb Electromorphosis hits and any status moves we send out, and Blood Moon as our primary normal stab exacerbates that issues. Realistically though, Substitute shouldn't even be a problem for CAP 35 because the possibility of Hyper Voice/Encore or whatever on the set should make clicking substitute risky, but if we design stats around Blood Moon, its going to be hard for us to justify any other third move except Knock-Off (otherwise we can't touch Dragapult). IDK what the most popular sets are in CAP Tournaments are but I'm personally a huge believer in shit like SubNP Darkrai or SubCM Primarina, and I think those are the types of mons we should focus our sights on doing well against as they are strong special attackers that are either somewhat frail or are incentivized to tera on us to avoid weaknesses. This ultimately a pretty minor concern, and the strengths of Blood Moon are undeniable and appealing for sure.

Surf/Water Coverage-- I'd prefer Blood Moon tbf but Surf isn't terrible. Assuming only 120 SpAtk (which is honestly probably too high), itonly 5HKO's Ting Lu and Equilibra and 3HKO's Gliscor when unboosted but that's nothing to sneeze at.

Encore-- Great option. 10/10. But fuck encore though. Somehow it feels like every CAP and their mother is capable of locking you into any move. I miss the good old days when this move was only seen on very few good mons and mainly shit mons. It's still a good move and plays into the strengths of CAP 35's design so I'd vote for it, even if only begrudgingly.

Glare-- IMO the best of the status moves suggested so far and the one I'm most likely to vote for. Spreading the yellow magic freely is exactly what CAP 35 needs to be a true menace and is likely the best utility move for discouraging any ground type switch ins. Unlike Thunder Wave, Glare doesn't take out Electromorphosis so we can also continue to retain the boost.

Teleport-- I suggested it. Of course, I'd still go to bat for it :) But in all seriousness, one thing I forgot to expand upon is explaining the specifics on why I think Teleport is much better than other pivoting moves. To do that, let me make a comparison. One of the things that makes defensive Landorus-Therian so good is that its decently fast and very strong even when running minimal speed investment and attack investment. For that reason, Lando still puts in a lot of work against bulkier teams with its extremely strong uninvested Earthquakes while still being slow enough to provide slow U-turns against faster threats. Same thing goes for Gliscor and Great Tusk too as they are both walls that are fast enough to threaten all the walls slower than them. However, one weakspot of this pivoting strat is that you can't give slow U-Turns on mons slower than you so if you want to pivot out of Slowking-G for example, you risk them predicting this and staying into attack the switch-in which is an extreme annoyance if you want safe pivoting against fat balance teams. This would never be an issue if you have teleport though. In its current design, CAP 35 has plenty of defensive targets it could potentially outrun and force out with Electromorphosis-boosted attacks even when uninvested in lieu of defensive Lando. On the lower end of the spectrum, this includes stuff like Arghonaut, Venomicon, Snaelstrom, and Primarina and on the very upper end, we could even give ourselves room to outrun stuff like minimum speed investment Moltres. Meanwhile, we'd still have the bulk needed in order to slow pivot out of even the slowest fuckers like Slowking and absorb incoming attacks/status moves for our teammates while walling the mons we need and want to wall. I think a design philosophy like this, helped by the guaranteed slow pivoting of Teleport, is the best way to incorporate the strengths of our Normal/Electric typing and and our offensive ability so far while also helping CAP 35 fit into the defensive standard set by other mons like Lando or Cresceidon. This, in addition to the other benefits I mentioned for Teleport in the first post, is also something that moves like U-Turn, Flip-Turn, or Volt Switch can't really achieve as easily.
 
I wanna start off by saying thanks to everyone for the awesome discussion so far! I've lead my fair share of defining moves stages before, and I'm already thinking that this is shaping up to be one of the most interesting yet. Let me get you guys a view of where I'm at, and then toss some further questions to you guys on decisive stuff so far. Nothing is set in stone yet, so please feel free to bring up thoughts on anything listed if you feel strongly about them: just because I say I'm leaning towards something being locked in or out does not mean that its a guarantee, and more thoughts are always helpful in making decisions like this.

Gonna start off with what I'm very much leaning towards being included in our defining moveslist:
Knock Off- very solid utility, fits well with our typing vs Ghosts, seems to have a lot of general support in-thread so far.
Super Fang- another fan-favorite so far in thread, I think it makes a lot of sense, even if I think it might be a little overhyped?
Recovery in some form- what specific type of recovery we would end up with aside, this feels important to our role, especially given our typing probably won't let us abuse leftovers the way something like a Heatran would in the past, for example.
Paralysis- I think interacting with TWave and Nuzzle is a really interesting interaction with Electromorphosis, and it is solid utility for something like us to have.
Volt Switch- Not only do I think this helps us role-wise as a wall, I think Volt as pivoting in particular has really interesting applications with our ability.

Things I'm less sure about:
Hazard game tools- I think of the hazard game stuffs, removal clears setting here by leaps and bounds. Removal is always appreciated (especially in a meta like SV), and its something we've used a lot as a "Get Viable Quick" method, but I'm not 100% sold on it being a super effective tool here? I'd enjoy hearing more about what we all think about removal.
Will-o-Wisp- Nice having another status move here, I vastly prefer Wisp to Toxic and think it does a solid job against a lot of what would come in on us.
Surf- A cool tool to have, anti-Ground stuff that hits Libra most notably (compared to something like an Ice move to hunt Gliscor and Lando to a lesser extent). Curious to see if it'd be used enough later on, but feels fitting as coverage to consider in Stats, and that's the point of Defining Moves to an extent.
Phasing- Very useful tools as SV as a gen has shown. Mostly indifferent on these, honestly, and not sure how they fit in the category of Defining.

Now for some stuff I'm leaning against, either in general or because I don't think it qualifies as a Defining Move:
Haze, Heal Bell, Electroweb, Chilling Water, Screens, Spiky Shield/Burning Bulwark- I can't see any of these really qualifying as a defining move. None of them are THAT shaping for the mon overall to impact us going forward, and fit more as options to discuss in the later movepool stage(s).
U-Turn- Pivoting here could be cool, but U-Turn being able to make our ground matchup "just pivot out as they come in" I think robs CAP 35 of a lot of depth. Flip Turn falls into the same category for me.
Thunderclap- I'll echo what some folks have said about Clap so far. It's not a great move without a lot of juice behind it, which detracts from us actually walling things- plus it interacts weirdly with how our ability kinda implies we want to play.
Scald- Scald seems absurdly good here. Being a catch-all physical mon threat that also heavily threatens grounds seems like faaaaar too much, and I'd much rather have something more like Surf. I'm close to a hard no on this one- it'd take a LOT to convince me this is a good option here.
Parabolic Charge- echoing again what some folks have said, Parabolic is not really that strong on its own and would mostly be done in tandem with boosting options. Those boosting options probably push us away from our goal of being a wall. I'd enjoy hearing more from supporters of Parabolic, but it seems either off-role or weak and not very defining to me.


Lastly, some stuff I'm really looking for thoughts on:
Thunder Cage- This is probably the biggest question we're gonna have to decide in this stage. I can see Thunder Cage being a very good option here: chip damage is great! Trapping is a really cool tool to have as a defensive mon, as we've seen from stuff like Heatran and Fini! It can interact in fun ways with other utility, our ability interacts in a fun way with it as well, and the fact that it has a common immunity creates interesting play patterns and also is a built in check to its effectiveness. On the other hand, I can see it being too much in tandem with something like Toxic, for example. It may not be particularly good at all because of its immunity, and it would become arguably the biggest piece of the mon moving forward and threaten to detract from other elements. The premier trapping examples of Heatran and Fini didn't have recovery, which is something else that has generally wide support, and Cage alone can really impact how our role plays out. I'm very much asking for Thunder Cage to be a big part of the next stage of discussion as we move closer to finalizing our list.
Soak- This is an option that goes amazingly with our ability, as shown by some usage of Belibolt already. It hasn't been talked about a ton yet, so I'd like to hear more thoughts.
Leech Seed- Something that's been thrown in a lot as anti-Ground utility. I think it'd probably work well in that role, but I'd enjoy hearing more discussion about if it'd be a good fit or too much. If the consensus is that we'd like having the option, I'd like to be able to keep it in mind thanks to how it interacts with stats (no, I promise I'm not paranoid after dkiss chugg)
Ice Coverage- Spinner, Beam and even Aurora Beam have been thrown as potential options, most notably as anti-Gliscor (and some other ground) ones. Gliscor's a big target and very important to keep in mind, but are these tunnel visioning too hard on the matchup? Would they be more beneficial or detrimental?
Blood Moon (and something like Boomburst by extension)- Normal STAB hasn't really come up in the convo, but this was a recent addition. Definitely worth having more discussion about.

As a recap, I'd really like to hear more about Thunder Cage, Soak, Leech Seed, Ice Coverage, Normal STABs like Blood Moon, and Hazard Removal. Feel free again to comment on any of the lists, or ask about other options/ideas. I'm putting another rough 48 hour deadline here, and I'll be checking the thread frequently. Thank yall again and keep up the great posts!
 
Thunder Cage is strong, but I think it is only made strong when combined with Taunt and/or coverage for Ground-types. You could very easily turn CAP 35 into a Heatran-style Pokemon with Thunder Cage + Coverage + Taunt + filler move. I think some combinations should have BSR penalties, but it should be an available path. Maybe an individual -10 for Thunder Cage, -20 for Thunder Cage + Taunt or coverage, and -30 for Thunder Cage + Taunt + coverage.

Soak is fine. I don't think that should come with a BSR penalty, I don't think it is largely that impactful when you have access to other more consistent utility moves.

Leech Seed is good but I think not necessary? Has the capability to be very BSR abuse-y but it's a good move that does good move things. Probably like a -5 BSR penalty in my head, or maybe just a penalty to bulk. Wouldn't hurt to cut some fluff though and Leech Seed could be that.

Ice coverage is fine to give. CAP 35 is hopefully not going to be freeze fishing. Lots of the Grounds don't even care or often tera. I think it should come with a smaller BSR penalty like -10 or maybe a penalty to sweepiness.

Blood Moon I think is completely unnecessary. I don't see it as particularly pro-concept (the Tinkaton example doesn't really do much for me, I think Tinkaton would play very similarly if it didn't have Gigaton Hammer). Overall, it just seems a bit distracting and a bit random to shoehorn in a cool individual move where it doesn't really belong.
 
I believe Thunder Cage is an interesting option, as it interacts very nicely with Electromorphosis to deal high damage alongside chip damage and trapping opponents. This has reasonable drawbacks such as accuracy, trapping immunity from Ghosts, Electric immunity from Grounds, and the many pokemon in the CAP metagame with pivoting options. My only fear would be this move would detract from our role as a wall and potentially shift us into a wallbreaker ala Heatran. Albeit, our typing already matches up well into existing defensive mons in the metagame, so I imagine an argument can be made for it. I'm cautious but interested in it.

Soak is objectively synergistic with our typing and ability. It eliminates Ground type STAB and Ground's Electric Immunity, which is why it's so valuable on Bellibolt. It additionally opens up more options to status opposing mons as Water lacks status immunities. I'd simply rather not go that direction since Bellibolt already explores that direction in its entirety, and there's plenty other utility options this mon can explore to separate itself from the Big B.

I'm not fond of Leech Seed or Hazard Removal, both would be great utility on any mon but they have specific hurdles I dislike. Leech Seed does nothing against Gholdengo, the mon who our typing is meant to counter more than any other, and being unable to recover in front of a mon we're meant to check doesn't inspire confidence in me. Hazard Removal gives us agency in a hazard filled meta, but the majority of setters are able to scare us out (Tusk, Gliscor, Arghonaut) and we already have a significant amount of removal in the meta atm. No need to click the "get viable quick" button.

I don't think Ice Coverage or Blood Moon are necessary. Considering Ice Coverage was brought up mainly to go against grounds, I find it unnecessary as Water or Grass coverage fills a significantly similar role, without providing us access to BoltBeam coverage. Blood Moon I think also distracts from our main agency in Electromorphosis, as it again is mainly to deal with Ground types, which Water/Grass coverage already does without giving us such a tremendous power budget. In both cases, I think outside of Grounds, our agency should come from Charge-boosted Electric attacks, and as such we don't need access to other significant offensive options since that power is so great.

Lastly, considering Paralysis was mentioned by SHSP, I'd like to agree with Sqookblooks and say that Glare is one of the most interesting utility options we can get. Paralysis is a important tool of the Electric type, but with options like T-Wave and Nuzzle, we once again find ourself drawing a blank against opposing Ground types. An Electric type with Glare would be an incredibly unique presence as it allows us a direct way to weaken Ground types on the field.
Additionally, wasting our Charge on a weak Nuzzle or even a non-damaging T-Wave would eliminate CAP 35's momentum, allowing the opponent to potentially setup or use other utility as we'd have to wait for them to hit us to get Charged (it's for this reason I'm also interested in Taunt). Glare allows us to spread paralysis while being able to sit on our Charge, waiting for the crucial moment to strike. We're also great against opposing para-spreaders thanks to our Electric typing. TL;DR I believe Glare should be brought to our moveset.
 
SHSP said:
As a recap, I'd really like to hear more about Thunder Cage, Soak, Leech Seed, Ice Coverage, Normal STABs like Blood Moon, and Hazard Removal. Feel free again to comment on any of the lists, or ask about other options/ideas. I'm putting another rough 48 hour deadline here, and I'll be checking the thread frequently. Thank yall again and keep up the great posts!
Click to expand...

Thunder Cage - I brought this one up, and I still like it. I think trapping is cool, and is an interesting use of our power budget. I can see it being controversial, but I am curious to see how a wall without resistances can use selective picking to choose what it wants to stay in against and wall. I think there is sufficient counterplay against it in a standard game, as well - nobody is raging against Magma Storm when it chips their Heatran counter.

Soak - I don't get this one, even after reading posts advocating for it. I just don't really see a world where this 'mon can justify running it on top of everything else a wall already naturally needs. Soak I guess would be taking some sort of offensive/momentum utility position, but are you really going to be running it over pivoting, coverage, or whatever more niche option a clever builder wants to use? I guess Soak might be the niche option a clever builder might use. But as a defining move...?

Leech Seed - I actually quite like this move. When handling recovery in our post-PP Nerf environment, finding consistent healing long-term is difficult. However, I hadn't considered the benefits of something like Leech Seed. I'm a fan! It benefits from tying recovery to skill, ensuring that CAP35's player needs to be able to anticipate switches and what-not. It shouldn't be our only healing (I believe 50% recovery is already defined?) but having it as an option is wonderful. I support.

Ice Coverage - I can see it. I don't know that we need to be defined by it, but I can see it. BoltBeam was the everything back in the day, so it'd be cool for a 'mon to have that in its toolbelt to make sure it's not pushed around or a total momentum sink. I think that my personal vision of it is probably a bit 4MSS running BoltBeam-styled coverage, but giving it something like Freeze-Dry or Ice Punch could be quite nice.

Normal Stabs - Blood Moon seems bonkers to me. I don't see it as a wall move, I don't think it needs it, and I think it would muddy the intentions and goals of this concept or 'mon to have powerful STABs to fire off. I read through the reasons advocating it, but I can't say I agree with it personally. Hyper Voice or Body Slam are satisfactory tools in my mind.

Hazard Removal - I don't feel particularly strong here about whether or not it should have it, but I don't think having it should define CAP35. I think it's fine to have, but I think if I'm imagining using this 'mon, it being able to clear the field is a bit whatever to me. I don't think we should be working things around it being so notable to this 'mon that it can remove hazards.
 
Thunder Cage: I really think a discussion needs to be had on this about whether or not we are fine with giving out a Legendary Signature Move for this process, as I really don't think it's something we can just brush off given our historical stance on these types of moves (Only really giving them out if they are essential to the concept, which in this case it's obviously not). That being said, if we think this is fine, then I don't really have any issues with the move, and it does admittedly open up some really cool paths for this process.

Leech Seed: I really don't get this if I'm being entirely honest. Scepticskep makes a very good point that we can't really heal against Gholdengo if we go with this option, and that kinda makes this option feel like shit considering that's supposed to be one of the main mons we are trying to check (And before somebody brings it up, no we aren't going to be running other recovery alongside Leech Seed, that's just a waste of moveslots). Also, I already know from Chuggalong's process that users are going to be focused on trying to hyper-optimize the HP gain from this with a bunch of low HP/high defensive stat submissions, which is rather distracting, and in my opinion, also constitutes as BSR Abuse, and this is something I would rather not enable a second process in a row. This move is distracting and counter-productive, hard pass.

Blood Moon: There's zero reason for this. We already have a fairly strong STAB options and ways to apply pressure to Ground-types, giving ourselves a nuke button just distracts from our role as a wall. I also agree with dex here about the Tinkaton example not being super convincing as to why this would be an interesting option to pursue. Another hard pass for me.

Don't really have much to say about Soak or Ice-type coverage at the moment, but I think they are both good options too.
 
Soak and Leech Seed both feel like “okay do these need to be DEFINING moves.” Because of that Soak I heavily disagree with because it feels like a slot only worth running if you have an incredibly tight movepool, also I feel like that route is literally just a buff Bellibolt route and not something I really love so. Leech Seed, while a neat utility option, let’s be honest this thing is going to get so much utility that is Leech Seed really worth trying to make whole spreads around?

Other than the whole Legendary signature dilemma (we are a competitive Pokemon not flavor so idk do with that what you will), I feel like Thunder Cage has some incredibly fun utility and opens up set diversity for CAP35, which I think will allow us to succeed. Being able to trap foes and try to para spread or Taunt is a really interesting tech that I feel isn’t seen this generation.

Ice Coverage is whatever do with it what you want

I like Blood Moon specifically, but it is probably overblowing just a little and especially combined with Thunder Cage.

I think the defining moves list should look like:

50% Recovery
Knock Off
Discharge
Electric STABs
Super Fang
Paralysis
Volt Switch
Surf/Ice-Move
Thunder Cage

Even this list feels long, which does allow for stat spread variety, but it’s still narrow (enough?) to let the stats be the shining aspect of CAP35’s ability to wall in the metagame.
 
Last edited:
SHSP said:
As a recap, I'd really like to hear more about Thunder Cage, Soak, Leech Seed, Ice Coverage, Normal STABs like Blood Moon, and Hazard Removal. Feel free again to comment on any of the lists, or ask about other options/ideas. I'm putting another rough 48 hour deadline here, and I'll be checking the thread frequently. Thank yall again and keep up the great posts!
Click to expand...
Thunder Cage: Aside from the questions regarding just giving a random mon a legendary signature, Thunder Cage does make me curious on how it'd interact with the currently assumed STAB choice of Discharge. While there are other options for inflicting paralysis available for us, Discharge compresses both damage and the threat of Paralysis into one slot, making it risky for any non ground types to even consider switching in. While Thunder Cage does cover different mons better than discharge, I'm not sure if it covers enough for both to be used at once, and while we can use other paralysis options alongside it, losing the compression of Discharge feels hard to pass up.

Soak: I like how this move interacts with Electromorphosis, but I'm not sure if it's particularly notable enough to be considered a defining move. Compared to things like Super Fang and Knock Off, it's very selfish in its application unless Toxic is considered for this mon.

Leech Seed: I agree with DPM's thoughts above, being unable to use our recovery against the mon we're supposed to beat feels like a very bad idea, and running Leech Seed alongside recovery feels like a waste of moveslots.

Ice Coverage: While BoltBeam seems very good here, I'm not sure how necessary Ice coverage is. There are other ways to pressure the plethora of strong grounds in the tier, including the ones that don't particularly care about Ice moves.

Normal STABs: None of these provide us with any utility whatsoever, they simply give 35 an outlet to damage. The only one that comes even close to utility is Tri Attack, which...is Tri Attack.

Hazard Removal: I feel like a case could made for this being a defining part of 35's playstyle. Being able to force switches with Electromorphosis while dealing extremely well with Gholdengo feels like the perfect mon for getting rid of hazards. That being said, being an Electric type means that we also invite a lot of the hazard setters in the tier in, so there's also an argument to be made that we're not as good as it as we initially seem.
 
Thunder Cage is in my opinion too much of a liability for us to use because of how easy it would be to stray from our framework of being a wall and instead lean towards wallbreaking, especially when Super Fang (which is very likely going to be defining move from the discussion so far) automatically chunks non-Ghosts for 50%, and at that HP level 1/8 chip damage really matters. Moreover, Knock Off (another likely defining move) I think exacerbates this problem by removing Lefties and HDB, deleting another avenue of healing and dissuading switching even further lest someone dies to SR or Spikes. I also don't like risking suffocating other utility options like Discharge by virtue of opportunity cost. And finally, I know this isn't the point, but I think the optics needs to be seriously considered. Optics is one of the reasons given that Parental Bond and Water Bubble weren't slated for abilities, and I personally don't feel great undermining that by slapping someone's signature move on 35, let alone one that CAP already has precedent for treating as special and noteworthy enough on its own, when it was slated for Saharaja's Concept Assessment.
 
Thunder Cage
I've given my opinion on Thundercage. I don't like it for multiple reasons. The move is a distraction and while it would make sense to add it for Calc purposes, once it is in that pool of possible moves, I have a hard time believing people being able to refrain from adding the move to the final movesets. If it's a defining move here, people will vote for spreads, that have the move.

Soak
Seems comparably mild to me. I am not a fan, since this is something that Bellibolt pretty much entirely explores already. But overall I don't think its so centralizing that it's gonna hurt us. Realistically, it might be good to have it in defining moves, as I believe it requires some more strict limits on SpA.

Leech Seed
I can imagine this being run alongside other recovery if - and that is a big caveat - we consider it as a replacement for coverage against ground types. Basically Leech Seed alongside moves like Knock, Body Slam or Super Fang would be the moves, that let us make progress against grounds. Especially with Knock I think it has merits, as it eases matchups into other mons like Garg (offsetting Salt Cure a bit and effectively reducing its bulk) gives us recovery and chip when we don't need to click 50% and is one of the few ways, that makes minimal Progress vs Glisc, that isn't Ice coverage. (Ironically one of the few Thundercage sets I can see working is with leech)

Ice Coverage
Honestly, I think ice should take precedent over Water. While most other Ground types can be worn down via utility, Gliscor just shakes that off. And while Water does hit all Ground types, the damage into them outside of Tusk is going to be almost negligible.
I'm fine with saying Gliscor is a hard counter, as that gives us more power budget probably, but if you wanna make Glisc Sad ice is the only way.
I do think it's neat, that Ice has a variety of options on different power levels and I think it's fine including everything from Ice Beam to Ice Spinner.

Normal STABs like Blood Moon
There is no move like Blood Moon.
I Can see the vision. I can see a really fun Mon with this move and I'm sad I have to argue against it. But I feel it's gonna distract from our other notable Signature element. Electromorphosis boosts only Electric moves and those should be the focus of our damage output imo. While Blood Moon isn't coverage for Grounds I still think it would cut into our stats and moves Budget quite a bit leaving less wiggle room for electric moves.

I'm gonna place Glare here since someone else brought it up. Glare is an incredibly Cancer move on any Good Mon. I'd be fine with it only under the condition, that 35 cannot Touch Gliscor and Garg, which means limiting coverage and Spa.
If you wanna para Ground types Body Slam is a much less volatile option, that doesn't impact stats, which imo should definitely end up on the Mon, though idk if it actually is defining.

Hazard Removal
I've given my opinion on this earlier but I think removal has merit, given our matchup into several good setters (Argh, Venom, Skarm) and Ghost types, especially Gholdengo. I'd love to see Defog more than anything but I'd be fine with other options.
I should note, that I believe 35 would be run as additional/secondary removal option alongside mons like Libra/Tusk, which match up better into Setters like Glisc or Ting Lu, but Mollux proves that Ground weak removal can function.
 
Last edited:
I haven't seen this mentioned yet, perhaps because it's boring or is seen as a given, but decent Normal STAB such as Body Slam should be included on CAP35. This is very far from a groundbreaking move that will often get passed up for utility, but it provides broad neutral damage with decent damage thanks to our Normal type, along with the ability to spread paralysis. Since Normal's resistances in Steel, Rock, and Ghost are all hit neutrally by our Electric STAB, we actually hit the majority of the meta neutrally with our STABs alone, with notable exceptions being Equilibra, Dragapult, and Iron Treads. The para perk of Body Slam makes it riskier for Gliscor to switch in until Toxic Orb has been activated, and Body Slam's effective 127.5 base power is enough to do solid chip to Ground switch-ins without removing them as blanket counters like Scald or Ice Beam would.

Body Slam is obviously more useful if we go a physical route alongside Zing Zap, which collectively would give us excellent paralysis spreading ability to non-Grounds and Grounds alike. This is admittedly less likely due to the typing's inclination for Special moves, especially with our desire to utilize Volt Switch. Having Hyper Voice for this probably-more-likely route would still offer the broad neutral coverage but without the utility, making a dedicated utility move more appealing in this scenario.
 
Leech Seed: I‘ve seen various ppl comment on this move saying that it‘s uneffective against the mon we are supposed to check being Gholdengo. While this is true I don‘t see why it would be a big deal? Does every move we consider have to funtion against Gholdengo? What about the actual benefits of this move? Leech Seed, while being atrocious against Dengo, is an amazing utility and progress making tool against any incoming Ground Type. Which let‘s be fair is going to be the no brainer switch in compared to Dengo. Dengo is already in a rough spot against 35, aside of Focust Blast or the attempt to trick us, it‘s not like Dengo can do much to begin with. Therefore I believe that we shouldn’t tunnel vision on if X move is good against Dengo and moreso looking at the full picture. Additionally Leech Seed also plays a part in favor of our ability as it chip heals us constantly providing us more spongability to take hits and strike back even harder. All in all I believe Leech Seed to be a really great tool in pressuring grounds and getting some sort of progress. I would say that Leech Seed is significantly better here than something like Strength Sap which was talked about before as well.


Thunder Cage: I believe this move is absolutely outstanding. The only fear I have is what others have already commented. Are we really a wall anymore or are we becoming more of a stallbreaker? Do we want to shift our role more towards a new type of Heatran or do we want to pursue the path of a legitimate wall? I‘m honestly fine with both but I have to admit that Thunder Cage would give 35 a unique identity.


Hazards/Removals: I believe Hazards to be absolutely superfluous on 35. Most of the common spinners are ground types which wanna switch in on us anyway. Setting hazards seems therefore useless as it only further incentivizes grounds to switch in. The meta has more than enough good setters, 35 doesn’t need to explore that route. Removal on the other hand can be seen. Setters aren‘t typically Grounds therefore I can see merit in removals. I feel indifferent about what sort of removal. I like all three options of Defog,Rapid Spin or Court Change.


Soak: Great move but it‘s not defining, next!

Ice Coverage: I believe that we can all kinda agree that 35 should if anything only have one of the following coverage Typings: Ice/Grass/Water . With that being said I believe that Ice is probably the best one here as it enhances our MU into Gliscor while being pretty uneffective against Libra. I believe making Libra the best check against 35 is more interesting than letting Gliscor beat yet another mon. If we shouldn’t go for Ice but rather Grass/Water the aforementioned Surf is also very promising but I‘d argue that Surf would be barely used at all. The damage with 110 Base is like barely a 4Hit against Libra and doesn’t really do much into the likes of Gliscor or bulky Lando-T. Many other Utility moves would likely see more play for being more universal. Grass Coverage I don‘t see much hope either unless we wanna be crazy and lean into Matcha Gotcha. We talked about this move very shortly on the Discord and it was quickly being said that the move was just too strong and overbearing. I see why ppl would see that as it can burn and heal all simultaneously. It‘s a great role compression move. But nothing that it does is particularly accurate. The move itself can miss and the healing is negligible as we will likely not have much invest in our offense anyway. The burn is most definitely a very good side effect but with the chances of missing I would argue that it‘s actually a worse Scald here. Scald would hit most of the Grounds for x2 damage so Gliscor, Libra and even Iron Threads while Matcha Gotcha, a Grass Coverage move would make way less damage into these folks. To sum up I still believe that any sort of Ice Coverage would be the most effective path to take, water Coverage I think is almost meaningless (aside of Scald which is busted) and Grass coverage I‘d like to explore Matcha Gotcha if Ice Coverage should be overruled.


Regarding Phasing Moves I don‘t really have a big opinion but I‘ll say that if we wanna consider them then we should only look at Whirlwind/Roar as they actually also bypass Substitute which is an active annoyance for 35.


Normal STAB: I think that Bodyslam and Hypervoice are fine as staple Normal Type attacking moves. I don‘t particularly have an opinion towards Blood Moon but I believe that many folks here have made good arguments for that already

Glare: I initially already talked about Glare in my first post but since a couple of ppl brought it up here again, I thought I might as well say something about it. I think Glare is absolutely mandatory on 35 as it allows us to further annoy does pesky Ground Types and thematically just makes sense considering our typing and the fact that Glare is a normal status move that inflicts paralysis. Additionally Electromorphosis boosts for wouldn‘t get consumed by Glare while electric status moves still take up the charge boost.
 
Last edited:
Thunder Cage - Definitely still like this as a potential option, despite its not so good optics. Its not the end of the world if it is not included, but I do believe its interactions with other utility options still are worth exploring, despite any potential punishment of the BSR. I have seen people fearing that this pokémon way deviate from being a wall, but I believe that if we are sucessfully switching in and forcing out pokémon out of fear of being in a losing siutaiton due to Electromorphosis + Thunder Cage it would greatly prove the concept correct, and unlike other legendary signatures this is a tool that no other move can truly replicate. We can probably poll this if people have issues with it.

Soak - I think not enough people are seeing the vision with this one. Soak is an option that allows to have pseudo coverage instead of utilising water or ice moves. It also helps to make ground types forcing us out a less dangerous precedent, as the loss of STAB and sudden weakness to our electric moves may force a switch out, futher killing the opponent's momentum. People have been fearing us stepping on Bellibolt shoes, but similar concerns affected the process during the ability slate with Blissey and have so far been put to rest, not to mention Bellibolt having water coverage while Soak 35 may don't. Definitely the biggest boon however is allowing for higher BSR as this move should be niche enough to not warrant BSR, allowing us to go full throttle on stats, the part of the process where we want to go all in in other to take advantage of our low number of weaknesses.

Leech Seed - Not a fan of this one. This looks like another Draining Kiss situation where we are adding a bizarre movepool addition out of wanting to throw stuff at the wall to see what is going to stick. I believe its very hard to justify leech seed on sets like Electric Stab / Knock Off / Recovery over other utility options. People have mentioned Gholdengo and what not but even with that in mind it doesn't offer anything that is much different than what coverage options tend to offer, especially since it makes Grass types an easier switch in for this CAP. There's also the fact it leads to a lower hp stat which leads to less possible stat allocation. I could maybe see it as an option with the aformentioned Thunder Cage but otherwise I don't see it.

Ice Coverage - No issues with this. We know this will immediately help with the ground type problem, that it will have a slight BSR punish, especially with water coverage on the mix, and that it compliments other utlity options pretty well. Not much to discuss here.

Normal Stabs - This seems like people dooming about the CAP being too weak and giving it something ridiculous to overcompensate, but that's is just standard for CAP SV. I see 0 reason to include either Blood Moon or Boomburst as potential options, regardless of its power. With Tera in mind, those moves can potentially make 35 stray away from its purpose of being a wall if we hit too hard, so that may lead to our Spa being significantly reduced as a response, which is dire when it comes to abusing Electromorphosis to its maximum. The only normal type STAB we should ever be running is Tera Blast, as not only can we abuse it a bit pre-tera, but also gives us a strong move to click when terastalized.

Hazard Removal - Don't feel particularly strong on including this or not, should be an option if people want but it might be hard to slot on a set, Dex made a good point that this shouldn't be the focus for how 35 should be defined.
 
Thunder Cage: Right out with the most contentious of the bunch, Thunder Cage is a weird one. The long and short of my thoughts here is that while I am in support of Thunder Cage and would enjoy its addition to our kit, I also understand the arguments against it and would not be dreadfully upset if we ultimately opted to not include it.

My thinking is that while Thunder Cage is undoubtedly an incredible move, it’s also not as good of a trapping move as others (namely Magma Storm). We’re running a trapping move that one of the most common and essential types in the tier is immune to. This generates an opportunity cost where you can’t just click the move freely like Heatran can click Magma Storm; you have to play intentionally and strategically to maximize the potential of the move. That said, Thunder Cage is all around just a very powerful move with the combination of its trapping effect and its interaction with Electromorphosis, there’s no denying that. However, I don’t think it’s too powerful to the point where it would warp the meta.

The point I’m trying to make here is that unlike Magma Storm (which can hit pretty much anything except for other Heatran and whatever other Flash Fire lower tier mons someone on ladder deigns to fuck around with), Thunder Cage requires a higher degree of skillful play to fully optimize. The sequencing this could create is something I find compelling and am intrigued to explore.

As a final note, I’ve seen some concerns about Thunder Cage distracting from 35’s role as a wall and turning it into a stallbreaker. Simply put, I find these concerns unfounded when the ability we’ve chosen already has shifted 35 into a hybrid wall/tank of sorts. We’re not just purely a wall anymore, the gameplan our ability implies is that we want to absorb hits and strike back harder. This, in combination with the utility we chose for ourselves, is where 35’s ability to not be a passive momentum sink comes from. To generate progress, we need to be able to threaten the opponent in some capacity. Electromorphosis just means that the method by which we accomplish this is through functioning as a hybridized wall/tank. Wall is our primary function, yes, but Electromorphosis by its inherent nature means we also function as a tank too. Because of this, I don’t really think the notion that 35 will be able to handle stall effectively is something we really need to be worried about. If anything, it gives us more of a reason to be chosen for a team slot.

Now, I will say that I do understand concerns of Thunder Cage simply being too strong. But with Electromorphosis boosting our damage output according to our sequencing, I think we can get away with an average Sp. Atk stat so that TC isn’t too overbearing. I don’t think it would be too hard to balance, it’s just a matter of whether we want to. And I personally think that it would be worth it to explore what that would look like.

Soak: Soak is a very cool option that I think we could get a lot of mileage out of with some clever play, but I also don’t think it needs to be one of our defining moves. I think 35 should definitely have it in its kit, but it should just be an optional move instead.

Leech Seed: I’ll be honest, I’m not too crazy about this one. It’s very cool on paper to have reliable passive recovery that also generates attrition on the opponent. But I don’t want this to come at the cost of reliable 50% recovery. My solution would be this: keep 50% recovery in defining moves, and move Leech Seed to optional.

Ice Coverage: Ice coverage is meh to me, honestly. Boltbeam has always been good, and for our purposes here, being able to hit Gliscor is undeniably beneficial. But I also don’t see an issue with allowing ourselves to just have Gliscor as a hard counter to us. We don’t need to be able to beat every single Ground type. If we decide to opt for Ice coverage that’s fine I guess, as long as we maintain the BSR penalty. But I don’t think it’s necessary.

(I also think it’s way more interesting to nail Gliscor or another Ground with Soak on the switch, creating a situation where the opponent has to decide whether they want to risk staying in or not, but that’s just me)

Normal STABs: Generic Normal STABs are fine, we’re a Normal type, we’re obviously going to get something like Body Slam or Hyper Voice. But I really, really don’t think we should run with Blood Moon or Boomburst. These are incredibly superfluous for our purposes here, and ultimately would be way too distracting.

Blood Moon, as much as I love it, probably requires a whole process based around it rather than just tacking it on to an existing one. It’s a genuinely interesting move mechanically, and one I would love to explore at some point, but this isn’t the process for it.

Boomburst is just unnecessary, imo. Remember how I mentioned those concerns about Thunder Cage transforming us from a wall into a stallbreaker, and how I think those are generally unfounded and not something we need to worry about? Yeah, that’s not the case here. I genuinely worry that with Boomburst, people would look at the Big Damage move and invest heavily in Sp. Atk instead of bulk, in which case 35 would actually end up being used for some offensive role other than a defensive wall. Boomburst would distract from our role, and it doesn’t really provide anything for us other than the ability to threaten damage, which we already do with our Electromorphosis-boosted Electric STAB and (maybe) Ice coverage should we opt for it. Boomburst doesn’t target anything specifically to improve our staying power as a wall, not like Ice coverage for Grounds or Knock Off against Ghosts (and everything else tbf). It would just take up a move slot that we direly need for other things, like utility and recovery. Body Slam and/or Hyper Voice are just fine, and I honestly highly doubt those would even make it onto any movesets anyway with everything else in our kit.

Hazards: Hazards are an interesting one. I don’t think we need Hazard setting moves, since there are SO many other Mons in the meta that do that way better than we ever could. I also just don’t think Hazards are necessary, and I think they would just end up bloating our kit. Removal, on the other hand, is something I think could be interesting. Our matchup into Gholdengo is cool, because Gholdengo doesn’t really want to switch in on us, lest it take a Knock Off and be unable to do anything really meaningful back. With that in mind, we probably will be able to enjoy more freedom to run Defog than most other Mons in the meta can really claim to. I don’t think Rapid Spin would be worth it on us because of all the other Ghosts in the meta, but Defog could be really interesting. I’m in support of that one.

That’s all for now. Cheers! :D

EDIT: Realized I left out one of the most important moves in Glare. I really support this move for 35 for basically the same reasons as everyone else: it’s a uniquely powerful tool for our purposes because it spreads that lovely yellow magic crucially without consuming our Electromorphosis boost. This is an amazing tool for hitting Grounds, and I think we would be able to leverage this really effectively. Massive support for this one.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top