CAP 36 - Part 2 - Concept Assessment

[Spammernoob]

How often are we changing our form?
I think it is a bit early to have a concrete answer to this question, and I agree with DBD that it will end up being as often as we need to. There are a variety of situations when we'd want to use Relic song in either form. For example, in the defensive form, we can use it to transform to sweep, or if Relic Song + another attack in sweeper form 2HKOs. The sweeper form can use Relic Song to tank hits from Pokemon it can't OHKO, or even to snag a kill and preemptively become more resilient to potential revenge-killers. Additionally, either form can use Relic Song preemptively to flip the MU on certain switch-ins. Of course, these use cases are not exhaustive; I think the specifics of how often we change form depend greatly on how we implement the two forms in terms of typing and stats, and I think it is better to try and create two cohesive forms and let players figure out how best to use the transformation.

That being said, it would be a massive failure if Relic Song were not used at all, so I guess that is a consideration to keep in mind.

What form of defense are we most benefited from?
CAP36 will likely take a similar route to defensive Pokemon that do not have recovery and/or do not fully invest in bulk, due to our challenges with EV investment and 4MSS. Some examples include AV Primarina, Landorus-Therian, and defensive Great Tusk, which lack recovery but still are used as key defensive pieces in many teams. These Pokemon share strong typing (immunity and various relevant resistances), solid natural bulk, and solid offensive stats which allow them to trade with the Pokemon they are switching into. They are not really walling in the same way a Blissey or Dondozo would, but rather switching in, threatening to outtrade, and making progress with pivoting or utility. I think this plan works well with our concept because it somewhat addresses our challenges, while also encouraging use of Relic Song to end games as CAP36 will not have the longevity to compete with defensive staples such as Arghonaut, Gliscor, Corviknight, etc.

I am against running low-momentum moves like Recover. Longevity via Leftovers (Heatran/Equilibra), draining moves (AV Hoopa-U) or Regenerator would fit this concept much better because they would aid in CAP36's more proactive gameplan.

An interesting note is that Relic Song can situationally act like a Custap Berry, allowing CAP36 to trade more effectively by moving before an opposing Pokemon after transforming. This is an interesting interaction that can aid in its ability to outtrade offensive threats.

 

[Gekokeso]

How often are we changing our form?
I think we should aim for very few changes throughout a match. While its true that we should 100% avoid the possibility of base outclassing secondary form, the form change itself can be a massive momentum loss that weakens its usage. The transformation should only be done if the opposing team has been weakened enough or if the flip itself can prove beneficial on that turns specifically, such if a flip would result in our typing resisting or being inmmune to an incoming hit. This will also heavily depend on the speed of the base form, as a faster form will be able to switch on command faster, but on the other hand a slower form might be able to take the hit with its bulk, then transition into the faster form to clean.

What form of defense are we most benefited from?
The best defense for a pokémon like this is a good offense. We should avoid forms of utility such as Hazard Setting and Hazard Removal (Stone Axe, Ceaseless Edge and Mortal Spin being the only exceptions to this) since they don't represent a useful function to our secondary form if its priority will be to to clean in the lategame. Defensive utility would be way better suited in the form of spreading status, somewhat akin to the likes of Twave or Will o Wisp. However, as you might have seen from the exceptions I made, the best utility would to just... come in on attacks and attack back. A good example would be Tusk, a mon with no recovery whatsover, but still provides teams with a significant amount of defensive utility via its ability to tank physical hits and force out opposing pokémon. Moltres is another great example, as its switches in, spreads status / heals and forces out the opponent.

 

[kenn]

How often are we changing our form? There's been a lot of different views on what Relic's purpose is in our kit. Some people are viewing it as a sort of a set-up move, where for the cost of a turn we are able to become significantly stronger/faster/etc and succeed through our other slots. Others are viewing it as a move the cleaner form is at times going to click in order to tank a hit better, play into our typing, etc. There's also a group that view Relic as a "dead slot," more or less- we click it once a game to clean and never anytime else. This has me curious to hear more detailed thoughts about how this should work? Are we transforming often, or are we transforming only once or twice? Should the offensive, cleaner form have incentive to change back? How dead of a move is Relic?

I think in an ideal game, CAP 36 shouldn't be constantly switching back and forth, as it kinda loses its oomph and stability as it does that, but the same can be said for CAP Song (what I have personally dubbed it until it has a new name lol) being used once, where it therein becomes a "dead slot" seems ridiculous to me. In my opinion it is crucial we dive into a potential zone where both formes are usable without one overshadowing the other to drive incentive to being in either forme. I also think it is obvious in saying that the concept alleviates the idea of 36 having to rely on teammates and can rely on itself to potentially set it up to win games, so I think switching back and forth constantly, or only once or twice, is just not a viable end product for 36 or this concept. I believe the "cleaner" form having incentive to change back is so that it can either continue on its sweep, by gaining STAB on its ex-STAB move similar to Terastallization, or to be able to take a hit while powering through the foe to make way for itself later or for other teammates by utilizing potential resistances or immunities its primary forme's typing may bring.

What form of defense are we most benefited from? Knowing that we should aim to have some sort of activeness in our defense, how should we look to do this? What sort of utility benefits both our defensive side and our cleaner half? What crosses the line and becomes too offensive?

This has been stated quite a bit in CAPcord and in the thread on the whole "defensive" forme thing and imo we need to be a bit more lax when it comes to that definition. I think in this particular case instead of leaning on potentially a "statball" type of stat spread or recovery moves, as those negatively impact the 3 moveslots we are already constrained with, are not the ideal way to look at it, but rather leaning on an unique resistance or immunity profile that allows 36 to leverage that to either offensively take down threats or defensively take hits so as to keep itself healthy early game and be able to help itself late game.

 

[dex]

the same can be said for CAP Song (what I have personally dubbed it until it has a new name lol) being used once, where it therein becomes a "dead slot" seems ridiculous to me

This is questionable logic. If you use the bulk of the first forme to safely transform into the stronger second forme, that’s great. You’ve accomplished the goal of the concept. I don’t see why that’s a ridiculous idea. It’s perfectly valid to focus on the second forme over the first, as that is a pretty clear way to incentivize running the transformation move. If the second forme is better, and you want to stay there, you’ll be running that transformation move and using the bulk of the first forme to get there. Relic Song is basically a boosting move, which are fine to be dead slots. Clangorous Soul is a dead slot on Chuggalong, it’s still pretty good. There’s lots of other examples like Meteor Beam, Solar Beam, etc. Having a one-time use move is really not that bad I don’t understand why it’s viewed as such a terrible thing.

There’s other ways to achieve the concept, too, and I think it’s possible to focus on a more forme-changey style, but removing what is probably the easiest path to follow seems foolish at this time.

 

[Pipotchi]

How often are we changing our form? There's been a lot of different views on what Relic's purpose is in our kit. Some people are viewing it as a sort of a set-up move, where for the cost of a turn we are able to become significantly stronger/faster/etc and succeed through our other slots. Others are viewing it as a move the cleaner form is at times going to click in order to tank a hit better, play into our typing, etc. There's also a group that view Relic as a "dead slot," more or less- we click it once a game to clean and never anytime else. This has me curious to hear more detailed thoughts about how this should work? Are we transforming often, or are we transforming only once or twice? Should the offensive, cleaner form have incentive to change back? How dead of a move is Relic?

What form of defense are we most benefited from? Knowing that we should aim to have some sort of activeness in our defense, how should we look to do this? What sort of utility benefits both our defensive side and our cleaner half? What crosses the line and becomes too offensive?

I'm gonna put another soft 48 hour limit on this discussion. Thank you guys again for the amazing stuff so far!

I pretty much agree with Spammernoob's post where he details that the nature of Relic Song is going to lead to bonus options past our intended "stay-in-first-form-for-most-of-the-game-then-transform-later-to-clean" gameplan. There's going to be times where Relic Songing lets you attack twice in a row, for instance, which can be valued. I think we should probably find a middle-ground between limiting the mon to our playstyle, and also leaving it open to doing what Relic Song is naturally capable of.
Plasmanta feels like a mon where we limited the mon to a gimmick strategy too strictly, but at the same time Relic Song has such an expanse of strategies (see: all of the different concept submissions related to swapping mid-battle) where we don't really want to actively lean into these and end up with a completely different optimal playstyle. It is possible to fail the concept in my opinion if the mon doesn't play as an early game support and lategame cleaner. So to clarify- yea, I think Relic Song is "supposed" to be clicked once, after the defensive mon has done its job, in the perfect scenario, and we can build the mon with that in mind. But it won't always play out that way.

I think the standard stuff like attacks with 30% status chance, knock off, uturn, psynoise, future sight, and other supportive attacks make sense. I believe it will cross the line into too offensive if it manages to become a complete stallbreaker in its own right- things like Shadow Strike Kitsunoh and previously Fire Lash Astro have been able to "stick" damage on defensive pokemon while playing slowly by threatening to burn through all their recovery and eventually outdamage it if they attempt to keep recovering- and this makes the offensive mon want to click an attack instead, leaving some chip on them. But I think this might be too offensive.
I think the majority of our defensive benefit is still going to come from our typing choice and bulk though- even with a more tank-like approach. We want that first form to be able to wear things down faster than it gets worn down, so some resistance to status and getting worn down is surely essential.

 

[Guingil]

TLDR: I think a combination of Tank + Defensive Utility for the base forme is the best way to go about this, with us being able to choose which of these two roles we want to lean towards with moveset/EVs/ability/item.

How often are we changing our form?​

What form of defense are we most benefited from?​

The exact defensive function(s) CAP 36 performs largely determines how often it can, or wants to, use our Relic Song; and how (or if) it functions as a cleaner. I agree with Amamama's take that we are most likely looking at a Pokemon that can do multiple things, but as he and others have mentioned, our 4MSS and EV allocation issues make this quite difficult. I don't believe our mon needs everything, however, and I explain my reasoning below.

I've done a soft dive with four defensive roles, namely, Tank, Defensive Pivot, Defensive Utility, and Wall, to theorycraft how they interact with our other design limits (having Relic Song, wanting to clean). Real Pokemon, of course, perform multiple roles at any given time, with Landorus-T being able to do all of the above with just one set, even, but I will initially treat each role as only being able to perform only its defined function and nothing else. That is, a Tank, Pivot or Wall won't have utility moves, the Utility pokemon won't have pivoting moves, and so on. I will get to ways these roles can be combined in the next section. The definitions lifted off the Smogon Dictionary are:

Spoiler

Tank: A Pokemon intended to take either physical or special attacks and hit back, but does not have to do so consistently over the entire course of a match.

Pivot: A pivot is a Pokemon that is generally only used for switching. Due to good defensive stats and a solid defensive typing, they can usually take little damage as they switch in, and the opposing switch they force allows the player to switch again safely to another Pokemon. [...] A defensive pivot will be difficult to break past, and thus will slow the opponent's momentum.

Utility Pokemon: A Pokemon who is capable of performing a large variety of tasks, and is usually tailored to one specific task that the team requires. Often, this will be because of a combination of good base stats and a wide movepool.

Wall: A Pokemon intended to take either physical or special attacks extremely effectively and consistently over the course of a battle.

Table for combination of possibilities of distilled role, cleaning, and relic song usage

	Possibility for Setting Itself Up for Cleaning	Saves Up Relic Song Once for Cleaning	Uses Relic Song Sometimes, as Opportunity Presents	Uses Relic Song Frequently as Core Kit
Tank	Decent	Low	High	Medium
Defensive Pivot	Low	Low-Medium	Medium-High	Medium-High
Defensive Utility	Decent	High	Low	Low
Wall	Low	High	Low	Low

Explanations:

Spoiler

1. Tank to Cleaner: Many have mentioned (quziel I think repeatedly) that a tank to a cleaner is the easiest transition. Both roles have a joint interest in wanting to invest EVs into attack. The tank keeps on dishing out damage to weaken the opposing team, and the cleaner finishes the job. This achieves the concept's goals. I think this combination won't need to save up its Relic Song till the end as a setup at all, because it works well in the tank build too. In fact, with the example of Melmetal/Kartana, it is very much possible to try to get a KO with Relic Song in the Mel form, and then continue the onslaught in the Kartana forme. It helps that it can have all attacking moves, to maximise supereffective coverage to better enable its offensive progress. This also makes Assault Vest possible, which can further bolster its bulk, AV Glowking being a good example of this strategy. Another benefit is that we can make the base forme weaken the cleaner's checks throughout the battle with strong STAB attacks, which Azothbend mentioned.

The ready reason to switch formes, however, is also why I think it won't save Relic Song till the end to clean up. This might be fine, but the fact that a pure tank won't have recovery moves also affects its longevity. With these two aspects combined, I think this leads to a mon that provides good defensive and offensive value during the start and middle of the game, but it might not make it till the endgame as a "cleaner".

2. Defensive Pivot to Cleaner (?): A pure defensive pivot really does not do much to help its other forme clean at all, at least directly. It has to dedicate an extra moveslot to a pivoting move, which already makes it a less potent offensive option when it transforms. While it might invest into speed EVs, speed might be counterproductive and is better utilised by offensive pivots anyway. But it does have the possibility for some interesting interactions with Relic Song, namely, that the base forme can basically pivot into its other forme which can function as an offensive pivot.

I think this is the weakest combination for the concept, personally, at least for a pure pivot.

Spoiler

3. Defensive Utility to Cleaner: I think utility to cleaner is also a strong contender but in a different way from a tank. By spreading status, hazards or otherwise just crippling some would-be checks to the cleaner forme, the base form actively helps set the stage for cleaning. Add to that the fact that it can dedicate a moveslot to healing, it is the likeliest to make it till the endgame. However, all these strengths are marred by this being the transformation most affected by 4MSS and EV spread issues.

This build is one of the likeliest to save Relic Song till the end and use it as a cleaner, simply because it has no use for it otherwise. But this also runs the risk of it foregoing Relic Song as others have mentioned. This would need us to make the cleaner forme strong enough to justify always putting Relic Song in the moveset. But if we make it too strong, there is the possibility that the base forme will be used a cost to just get to the cleaner. So tough to balance but possible.​

4. Wall to Cleaner: Similar to utility, but worse because repeatedly taking hits does not help set the stage for cleaning directly. Only benefit of extra bulk might be if we use contact abilities like Toxic Debris/Flame Body/Static, but this is more than pure walling and I will get into it in the next section.

​

​

Table of the most direct ways (that I could think of) to combine the distilled roles

	Tank	Defensive Pivot	Defensive Utility
Tank	x	x	x
Defensive Pivot	High offensive stats + Pivoting Moves	x	x
Defensive Utility	Multipurpose moves (Ceaseless Blade/Barb Barrage/Psychic Noise/Lumina Crash) Offensive contact abilities (Poison Touch) + contact moves Defensive abilities (Intimidate/Flame Body/Static)	Offensive contact abilities (Poison Touch) + U-turn Defensive abilities (Intimidate/Flame Body/Static)	x
Wall	Drain moves (Bitter Blade/Drain Punch)	Longevity ability (Regenerator/Magic Guard)	Defensive contact abilities (Flame Body/Static)

It is not necessary to limit the combining to two distilled roles, and the best defensive Pokemon in the tier do three or even all four (Lando-T, Gliscor, Moltres, Glowking, etc)

I believe the Tank and the Defensive Utility builds, which both have decent ways to set themselves up for cleaning, could be combined to make a mon that has a very good chance of doing so. Pivoting, I feel, has the least value for this concept, and if we have to scrap something, my vote would be for that. The extra bulk from a Wall over Utility is not very useful, as long as the CAP 36 has some elements of healing either through one move or an ability.

This combination also makes it so that the mon uses Relic Song sometimes, but mostly saves it for only the endgame because it simply has better utility stuff to do during the start and midgame. The choice of whether to function more like a more offensively capable Tank or a more defensive Utility mon could be made through moveset/EVs/ability/item, as I mentioned in my previous post. I think designing such that both options are possible, and not super optimizing the mon for either, is a good way to avoid othershooting and not reaching the concept goals (see how the Tank and Utility could fail in my explanations).​

 

[viol and bass]

How often are we changing our form?

We've pretty much all agreed that we need to pack a lot of value into every moveslot, and that limited moveslots have the potential to be our achilles' heel. If Relic Clone is clickable to some degree early- and mid-game, that greatly helps alleviate what we have collectively identified as our biggest problem. Being able to play flexibly is so important here, because that's really the one massive strength of this framework and this concept. In my opinion, make these forms offensively and defensively complimentary, and let the chips fall where they may.

What form of defense are we most benefited from?

I don't think we have to get too crazy with utility options to be honest. We've identified tank as a legitimate route here, so sometimes softening things up can just mean hitting them a couple times. Things like status and hazards are legitimate, and I really like item displacement (as long as you can threaten common knock absorbers in some fashion).

The utility options I'm not fond of are pivoting and removal. Unless you're absolutely chunking things, pivoting serves primarily to bring in a teammate that threatens the opponent. This isn't really you softening things up for yourself, so it's not particularly pro-concept. Similarly, removal isn't doing anything to soften the opponent up either, it's just maybe letting you come in more easily next time, which is only abstractly at best pro-concept. There are plenty of utility options that fit the bill better here in my opinion.

 

[AzothBend]

How often are we changing our form?

At least once is the simple answer; however more a nuanced response says CAP36 should change form whenever it's beneficial to do so. Rather than pinning it to the move itself, it's perhaps better to think of the relation the two forms will have with each other and the team. Is the base defensive form a means to a powerful offensive end? Then 36 will change just once per switch-in. Or do both forms have individual, if perhaps uneven, merit? Then 36 likely won't change more than once but will always have the option.
The latter is preferable for a number of reasons. It plays into the unique strengths of Relic Song over other forms changes, that are typically one-way, and functionally similar set up moves. CAP36 can't compete with the immediate offensive pressure of other cleaners when it has to spend a turn transforming, so it should leverage the unique advantages it does have.

What form of defense are we most benefited from?

This gets at maybe an underdiscussed aspect of CAP36: how selfish should it be? Traditionally a defensive Pokemon is thought of as supporting its team through its ability to take hits. But it seems obvious CAP36 can't be a generically good defensive Pokemon lest it risk ignoring Relic Song. It will have to make some sacrifices in either form. So is its goal to only be defensive in so far as that advances it's eventually offensive role? And where does that overlap with generically good defense. Will it want to risk taking damage for its teammates or prioritize keeping itself healthy for later. Is it better to abuse resistances and immunities and high speed to pivot for momentum? Is it better to favor damage-dealing draining moves over pure recovery? Etc. It's a delicate balance to strike and probably ends up approximating something like utilizing inherit defensive aspects of typing and abilities to leave an already limited moveslot open for the secondary form.

 

[Explosion Badger]

How often are we changing our form? There's been a lot of different views on what Relic's purpose is in our kit. Some people are viewing it as a sort of a set-up move, where for the cost of a turn we are able to become significantly stronger/faster/etc and succeed through our other slots. Others are viewing it as a move the cleaner form is at times going to click in order to tank a hit better, play into our typing, etc. There's also a group that view Relic as a "dead slot," more or less- we click it once a game to clean and never anytime else. This has me curious to hear more detailed thoughts about how this should work? Are we transforming often, or are we transforming only once or twice? Should the offensive, cleaner form have incentive to change back? How dead of a move is Relic?

I'll agree with the sentiment that Relic Song shouldn't be clicked all that often. While there might be a few cases where 36 uses it more than once in a battle(such as doing some early game cleaning or the occasional psuedo-switch), for the most part Relic Song should be used once, just before 36 is ready to sweep. As much as it would be cool for 36's transformation to function like Aegislash, changing between defense and offense at will, we unfortunately don't have a protect clone that lets our defensive form avoid being worn down for a turn while also negating the need for speed investment.

What form of defense are we most benefited from? Knowing that we should aim to have some sort of activeness in our defense, how should we look to do this? What sort of utility benefits both our defensive side and our cleaner half? What crosses the line and becomes too offensive?

For this concept in particular, I actually feel that Knock Off is not a good form of utility for us. Using Knock Off for utility purposes early means that we're limited in how much we can use it for offensive purposes later on, and with Relic Song already taking up a slot, that limited power hurts us quite a bit. Instead, I feel that our utility should focus more on utility like secondary status effects and residual damage. having moves like Sludge Bomb or Scald, which deal good damage while also potentially inflicting status effects allow 36 to contribute to wearing down an opposing team early on in the match, then having enough firepower to blast through what's left of the enemy team in the endgame.

 

[SHSP]

Alrighty guys! Thank you again for one of the higher quality CA's I can remember being a part of. We've definitely got our work cut out for us, but I think we're extremely well set up to take on the challenges ahead. Here's what we seem to be in alignment with for these last questions.

Relic is flexible. We're definitely clicking our version of Relic Song at least once, ideally: we're going to use it to transform and clean late. We shouldn't build ourselves in a way where we want to click it a ton of times, mostly because we're going to want to do a lot more with our turns and our moves than chip damage, fishing for a 10% chance, and transforming. At the same time, we shouldn't build ourselves in a way where we're only going to want to click it to win the game. Spammer and Pip's posts highlight this: we can't be super rigid with the transformation, and there's going to be points in games where its a big help to go into our offensive form early or swap back to our defensive one.

Our defensive form needs to have a direct impact on the gamestate. We have to balance the defensive first form delicately: too good, and we're going to have builds and situations that focus super heavily on that first form and drop Relic. Too bad, and we're going to fail the concept by not enabling our second cleaner form. Utility like status is going to be very helpful to nail this balance and still have defensive applications, as well as flatly just dealing damage. Active tank roles that emphasize chip damage and impactful utility that a cleaner really desires later on in games seem to be the most effective route.

With these takeaways added, I think we're ready for the first big step: figuring out not just one typing, but two. I'm excited to hand it off to kenn and get going!