CAP 36 - Concept Poll 3

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Before you vote, it's important that you read through each concept carefully, as well as look at our TL SHSP's final post in the concept submissions thread with their justification for each that made the slate, since this concept will guide the discussion for the rest of the CAP Process. This is linked here.

This will be a Ranked Pairs vote (RP) (a form of voting where each candidate is ranked according to head to head matchups with each of its competitors in a directed acyclic graph), the details of which were discussed here.

This is a ranked vote: order does matter! You can upvote your favorites and downvote your least favorites. You may choose to rank as many or as few options as you like, but we encourage you to rank as many options as possible to ensure your preferences are taken into account fully.

Bold your votes and nothing else!

A typical vote might look like the following:

Most Preferred
Second Most Preferred
Third Most Preferred

Any comments that the voter has would go below the votes in non-bold text. Bold text is used to determine what the user's votes are, so none of the supplementary text should be in bold.
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IMPORTANT: When voting, use only the exact name of the concept submissions as listed below! The concept submissions are quoted below in order of submission:

Defensive Transformation
  • Name - Defensive Transformation
  • Description - This Pokemon uses a form change in a manner that is primarily or at least partially defensive. This could be changing defensive bias from physical to special to deal with a specific opponent, utilizing immunities from a typing change, or changing from an offensive form to a defensive form.
  • Justification- Frankly speaking we have only seen a Pokemon use a defensive form change once, being Aegislash. Every other forme change is either out of battle, one way, or whatever Cramorant has going on. This concept has explicit interactions with stats, from thinking about how our speed stat interacts with our Relic Song clone, to typing where we can leverage changes in defensive typing to interact with counterplay, to our defensive stats.
  • Questions To Be Answered-
    • Does having a transformation that can be used defensively imply a defensive or offensive role.
    • Is a defensive transformation useful for walling? What does that imply about our stats.
    • Do we need a high speed stat to use a defensive transformation? Is a transformation something that is best used proactively (predicting a switch), reactively (transforming after being hit or before being hit?)
    • Is it best to use major stat changes to focus on a defensive transformation, typing changes, or a combination of the two?
  • Explanation - The most obvious thing that leapt out at me after selecting our framework is how to use the transformation to react to opponent's switching. Gaining a new STAB is cool, and gives you a 1.5x boost on your coverage moves, but going from Dragapult to Melmetal bulk, or going from a weakness to an immunity is life-changing. This is something that's relevant to basically any role as well, a wallbreaker would love to turn into a flying type after Equilibra swaps in, a wall would love to go from specially defensive to physically defensive the second a Zamazenta swaps in. Finally, Dragapult would love to be able to hit an opponent and take basically nothing in return if its playing its cards perfectly.
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Help Yourself
Name - Help Yourself

Description - This defensive Pokémon sets the stage for its own cleaning later on.

Justification - We are exploring and trying to mesh two roles- defensive Pokémon and cleaner. "Cleaner" does not have a set definition on the Smogon Dictionary, but in this context we should consider it as an endgame Pokémon that can sweep a heavily weakened enemy team without using moveslots for boosting moves like Swords Dance. Examples include Iron Moth and Specs Dragapult. "Defensive" is a term that can cover a wider range of valid roles, as long as they work towards an advantageous endgame situation for the cleaner. Some examples include Ting-Lu and Moltres.

Questions to be answered -
  • How will this mon handle the various crippling tools of the tier that defensive Pokémon are supposed to take in place of offensive mons, knowing that it needs to transform into an offensive form later?
  • As a speedy mon, how will this Pokémon match up to dominant fast Pokémon like Dragapult and Hemogoblin? How will this matchup affect its viability?
  • What type of support do cleaners from different team archetypes (balance, weather, etc) value most and how does it differ between archetypes?
  • What are some mono-types that contain both strong offensive dual types and strong defensive dual types? Can we find a pair of typings (with a shared type) that both make the offensive version offensively strong and defensively weak, and the defensive version the opposite?
  • How does the speed of the Relic Song user affect its awkwardness? Is it better to Relic Song before or after the opponent moves?
This is a Pokémon that must share its moveslots between two forms, and for that reason:
  • What coverage moves would do best in the tier when it comes to cleaning with the fewest possible moves?
  • What defensive tasks can be performed in the fewest possible moves?
  • Are there attacks in the tier that could be used for both cleaning and incremental damage?
  • How can this mon find a strong EV middle-ground between being capable defensively and also powerful and fast enough offensively?
  • What abilities can help alleviate the lack of moveslots, acting as an additional move for the purpose of either defense or cleaning?
  • Can Relic Song be made into a useful attack for one or both forms, rather than just a transformation tool?
Explanation - One of the most frivolous roles in modern Pokémon has been the "cleaner"- a very fast Pokémon that simply takes out the trash once the enemy team has been weakened enough, usually by outspeeding the remaining Pokémon and ohkoing them from their remaining HP percentage. Nowadays, this is a trait which is tacked onto other mons with more solid purposes for being added to a team. Examples include Iron Valiant- which provides either sweeping with CM or extremely solid anti-sweep with Encore, or Hemogoblin who is very capable of sweeping.
Its rare, however, for a mon to be able to be both a cleaner and defensive Pokémon. These two roles tend to sit at the far opposite ends of the spectrum in all ways- cleaners of the past are more likely to be single-use and aim for big hits, while defensive mons want to switch in and out all game and lean towards incremental damage that can stack up despite lack of investment, or performing other tasks to give their team an advantage. It'll be interesting to combine the two halves of the same strategy inside of one mon: the defensive mon "sets the stage" for the cleaner by crippling and chipping down the opposing team. It could also make the cleaner's job easier by enabling teammates such as wallbreakers to break down the opponent.
In CAP, we rarely explore the upper tier of speed- Hemogoblin being a rare exception, so a true cleaner in the ranks of Iron Val, Deoxys-Speed and Dragapult would be a new frontier for us.
Now, we have had all-rounders in the past- Cresceidon and arguably Kitsunoh could be called defensive mons that can clean- but these mons offer a very different playstyle thanks to their ability to attack and defend at once- Meloetta forms can be much more extreme in their offensive/defensive capabilities and also separate them from each other, resulting in the player needing to be more strategic. It should be a great way to explore the unique framework we find ourselves with.
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Duality of Ability
Name - Duality of Ability

Description - This pokemon utilises it's ability that is identical between forms in two different ways

Justification- A unique aspect of Meloetta's design is despite being a form change Pokemon, it has access to a standard ability. Unfortunately, Meloetta's ability, serene grace, does not play a significant role in it's viability, limited to essentially raising SpDef drop chances of Psychic / Shadow Ball / Focus Blast. It's effect on Pirouette is similarly weak and irrelevant, outside of boosting the odds of the initial Relic Song sleep. CAP36 aims to remedy this by not only have an ability that is actively contributing to it's battle prowess in every battle, but one that can serve two different purposes between two respective unique forms

Questions To Be Answered
  • How can a single abillity serve multiple purposes?
    • Theres no real precedent for an in-battle form-changing Pokemon that makes particular use of it's ability. With this in mind, what can be learned from other Pokemon that have multi-faceted abilities that either do or don't effectively utilise all the facets of the ability?
    • How will the importance placed on CAP36's ability interact with it's stats and typing, and influence the other steps of the process?
    • How do the trends of the metagame influence the chosen ability, and it's overall effectiveness?
  • What opportunity costs would arise from using its ability in one form as opposed to another?
    • In what ways can the "proper" usage of the forms ability be incentiviesed through the design process?
    • Is niche "improper" usage of one forms ability a drawback of the design or a an interesting facet of the design?
  • How can CAP36 be incentivised to click "Relic Song"
    • Is there a notably "stronger half" to different multi-faceted abilities?
    • Should the base form have a more niche or more relevant use-case than the transformed form?
Explanation - I feel like the best way to simplify what I'm talking about is to talk about the initial ability that inspired the concept, Unaware. Unaware is typically viewed as a defensive ability, an ability for walls to sit in front of set up sweepers and ignore their boosts. This ability also comes with the less used facet of being able to wall break defensive boosting Pokemon within the meta, such as the physically inclined Skarmory, Corviknight, Venomicon, Zamazenta, Hemogoblin, Garganacl, and Dondozo, or even calm mind users like Raging Bolt, Iron Crown, Clefable, Blissey and Iron Valiant. Utilising both a defensively oriented form, with limited attack investment, and an attacking oriented form, CAP36 would be able to both be able to serve as an Unaware wall, as well as an Unaware wallbreaker that only properly in either role in their proper forms.

Water Bubble - Definitely the most powerful example, and probably too overpowered, Water Bubble would allow a normally fire-weak or neutral defensive form to turn that weakness around, while giving an offensive form a significant power boost to it's water moves. The dodging burns aspect of the ability is appreciated by both defensive and offensive mons in it's own unique way as well, negating chip damage, or not suffering burns physical damage reduction

Storm Drain / Lightning Rod / Flash Fire etc. - Any of these abilities could be used to give a key immunity to the initial form, while providing the potential SpAtk buff to bolster the other form, that isn't at all concerned with being hit by the type that it's immune to. Potentially calls the concept into question due to the consistency of the offensive facet of these abilities coming into play however.

Wind Rider - Similar to above, but probably far too niche/specific, only relevant moves being Hurricane from Moltres/Zapdos/Venomicon/Tornadus-T (also blocking Bleakwind Storm in this case), Heat Wave from Zapdos, or Whirlwind from Ting-Lu

Well Baked Body - Also similar to above, but provides a defensive benefit as opposed to an offensive one, so would require a different approach to the roles of the form than one for offense and one for defense

Grassy / Psychic / Electric Terrain - All 3 of these terrains have pretty obvious offensive benefit in potentially buffing key STAB attacks of an offensive form, with all of their defensive/utility benefit being a lot more up for debate. I'd say grassy sticks out as the obvious one that makes the most sense to the concept, with both it's healing and earthquake-halfing properties being pretty obviously defensively oriented, and similar to all the other above ideas, making a defensive form eq weak, and an offensive one not scared of eq could fire off grass type attacks. However, both are benefitting from the best part of grassy terrain being the passive regen, and I think that somewhat goes against the concept. Psychic Terrain and Electric Terrain both feel weird but could work, as one doesn't have a defensive benefit, and the others defensive benefit is very geared towards enabling offensive strategies rather than reinforcing defenses, but theres potential for one form to be built to be a pure setter/utility mon, with the other being an offensive abuser of the terrains. I didn't include misty terrain due to there not being offensive properties, but there is some potential for it's two different defensive properties to both benefit one form but not another

Weather Setting Abilities - I feel like the other paragraphs inform this one enough where I don't have to go overboard, but put simply, another ability that has both unique offensive and defensive properties.

Download - Very different from the other examples, but one form could utilise the physical boost, and the other the special boost provided by download, were a mixed CAP36 to be decided on

Serene Grace - A bit too extensive to cover comprehensively, maybe will edit more later. Meloettas failure to use this ability succesfully is briefly addressed in my Justication, so this one is interesting. Potentially one form could be aiming to spread status effects, with another form being able to fish for fast flinches, guaranteed charge beam/fiery dance boosts or other things. Undoubtably a lot more possibilities to this one.

Beast Boost - This one is illegal, but it's probably one of the clearest routes to achieving the concept so i'll keep it even if just as an impossible example. CAP36 would be able to switch between two forms that have two different highest stats, using the ability to get different boosts.
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Once again, your options are:

Defensive Transformation
Help Yourself
Duality of Ability

Please ensure your ballot uses the concept names listed above in bold and not the usernames of the submitters. Please do not feel rushed, and instead ensure you make an informed decision!

This poll will be open for 24 hours.
 
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