CAP 36 - Part 6 - Defining Moves

[Ayecrusher King]

But why? Genuinely this just means that Cap 36 will have one nearly useless move that is only used to transform it. it'll be better if it was a utility move as well, wouldn't it?

This had already decided early on in the framework already, lifting off most of the things from Relic Song (including the fact that it's a dead slot just for transforming). I also did not realise before that the additional effect had essentially been locked to effects that has a 10% chance in front of it rather than an existing effect which we modify the % chance rate down to 10%

Anyways, gonna throw some support for freeze or any volatile status condition (flinch, confusion, infatuation). Also gonna suggest -1 Speed. At worst, this is probably going to help us break the rare speed tie anyway, and would allow us to maybe strike first in the next turn.

 

[Dusk Mage Necrozma]

But why? Genuinely this just means that Cap 36 will have one nearly useless move that is only used to transform it. it'll be better if it was a utility move as well, wouldn't it?

CAP policy dictates we can't stray far from established gameplay elements.

 

[HallowedHarlequin]

I want to recommend against Thunder to echo sentiments in this thread that paralysis makes this mon a little too RNG-fishy to play against. The main switch-ins are going to be pokemon that don't mind getting burned, but the amount of those pokemon that also don't mind paralysis is extremely low. 30% is obviously less than Zap Cannon's 100%, but it's still the same as Scald's burn chance and makes counterplay much less reliable. Yes, it lets cap36 beat Water types much more easily, but also risks making this a miserable introduction to the tier. Beating Water types through burn chip, item removal etc. and then committing to the transformation to use Freeze Dry or finishing them off with resisted moves from a higher SpA after transformation seems more pro-concept to me. If you need Electric coverage, is Thunderbolt so bad?

 

[Gekokeso]

Freeze Dry –– required or optional?

I say Freeze Dry should be Required. Assuming this gets Blizzard (which seems absent from both the optional and required tables which I think its an oversight) the cap already has 2 solid stabs to work with. Originally I was in the camp that Freeze Dry would be too good as well for it to be required, but the more I think about it it does have some slight downsides that makes options like Thunder potentially more usable, such as hitting fire types for higher damage.

Some moves that were brought up that I'd like more discussion on: Hazards + Removal, Toxic/Poison Gas, Volt Switch, Psychic Noise

Support on Hazards, Volt Switch and Psychic Noise
Against removal, poisoning of any kind.

Lastly, let's kick off the discussion for CAP Song's 10% secondary chance. The effect will be an existing secondary effect, AKA no stuff like 10% chance to clear hazards, but any effect that has a % chance in front of it is fair game. Please try to be reasonable and aim to strike a balance between "you win on the spot if it procs" and "this is useless in 99% of games."

Like Snake's suggestion of a special defense drop. Most of the time you are already forcing out something coming in in what they thought was an inferno by clicking song instead, so a special defense drop just adds to that. Additionally,vit serves to potentiall give the secondary form the little boost needed to get shaky KOs.

 

[spoo]

But why? Genuinely this just means that Cap 36 will have one nearly useless move that is only used to transform it. it'll be better if it was a utility move as well, wouldn't it?

(using this opportunity reiterate these rules since people who weren’t around during framework submissions might be confused)

This has already sorta been answered, but to provide some more context - when we allowed for custom elements to be submitted for this special framework process, we did so with the restriction that customs would only be clones of an existing hard-coded mechanic. AKA no fully custom stuff like a Grass-type 90% accurate Magma Storm or whatever, but if we wanted to pursue a mechanic that would normally be inaccessible for us due to being hard-coded to another mon (like in-battle form changes), we could create a custom clone of that mechanic in order to access it. This opened up the door to all sorts of fun form changes and other pokemon-locked stuff like a Thick Club/Light Ball clone. You can read the full framework rules here.

So this is why CAP Song is a 75BP special move with a 10% secondary effect - we are trying to stay as close to an identical 1:1 clone as possible, only diverging from GameFreak’s established design when strictly necessary like for the move’s typing. It shouldn’t really be treated like our own custom move that we can freely change anything about, it is literally just a reskinned Relic Song. If the secondary effect was anything other than sleep, we’d probably keep that the same too, but sleep is so unpalatable that there’s overwhelming desire to change it.

This is the biggest reason why I personally like Paralysis and Freeze as options - they are the closest thing to the original secondary effect. Kinda indifferent on toxic, and burn is functionally useless. Volatile status conditions like confusion and infatuation (lol) are a step down in my personal preferences, and stat stuff is interesting but I think only worthwhile if we believe that all status besides burn is too impactful (I’m not really convinced of this personally.) These are just my preferences, not making a ruling yet.

I also did not realise that the additional effect had essentially been locked to options that are exclusively 10% on existing moves rather than anything else creatively with a modified % change.

I think wires might’ve gotten crossed in the discord yesterday, sorry if we were talking past each other. The secondary effect does not need to be something that’s exclusively 10% on existing moves, it will just be 10% on CAP Song. It can be anything that functions with a % chance. So for example, while Salt Cure indeed has a secondary effect that’s even blocked by Shield Dust, it does not function on a % chance. If the secondary effect has a % chance in the move’s description, then it’s fair game, exactly as I said in my earlier post.

Assuming this gets Blizzard (which seems absent from both the optional and required tables which I think its an oversight)

Blizzard is a universally assumed move for Ice-types (the full list is in post 1) and will be included

edited in responses to ayecrusher and geko

 

[cat111ca]

This has already sorta been answered, but to provide some more context - when we allowed for custom elements to be submitted for this special framework process, we did so with the restriction that customs would only be clones of an existing hard-coded mechanic. AKA no fully custom stuff like a Grass-type 90% accurate Magma Storm or whatever, but if we wanted to pursue a mechanic that would normally be inaccessible for us due to being hard-coded to another mon (like in-battle form changes), we could create a custom clone of that mechanic in order to access it. This opened up the door to all sorts of fun form changes and other pokemon-locked stuff like a Thick Club/Light Ball clone. You can read the full framework rules here.

So this is why CAP Song is a 75BP special move with a 10% secondary effect - we are trying to stay as close to an identical 1:1 clone as possible, only diverging from GameFreak’s established design when strictly necessary like for the move’s typing. It shouldn’t really be treated like our own custom move that we can freely change anything about, it is literally just a reskinned Relic Song. If the secondary effect was anything other than sleep, we’d probably keep that the same too, but sleep is so unpalatable that there’s overwhelming desire to change it.

I don't want to be annoying but. Why is that a thing? All it does is limit the possibilities.
1. it's not easy to make: copy Meloetta and relic song, make it 50bp steel and copy Ceaseless Edge but for toxic spikes onto it, or do something else.
2. it's too complicated: and why is that a bad thing? when trying to make new and interesting Pokemon when there's already 1025 Pokemon you need to think a bit outside the box and not just copy paste some others Pokemon's gimmick.
3. it'll take time for everybody to agree what it'll be: Ok, so? making an original Pokemon designed around being balanced and fun it'll take time. It's already been 3 month's since the start of cap 36 and it'll take at least another month to finish.

 

[spoo]

I don't want to be annoying but. Why is that a thing? All it does is limit the possibilities.
1. it's not easy to make: copy Meloetta and relic song, make it 50bp steel and copy Ceaseless Edge but for toxic spikes onto it, or do something else.
2. it's too complicated: and why is that a bad thing? when trying to make new and interesting Pokemon when there's already 1025 Pokemon you need to think a bit outside the box and not just copy paste some others Pokemon's gimmick.
3. it'll take time for everybody to agree what it'll be: Ok, so? making an original Pokemon designed around being balanced and fun it'll take time. It's already been 3 month's since the start of cap 36 and it'll take at least another month to finish.

The purpose of this thread is not to relitigate a decision we made months ago. You asked for an explanation and I gave one. If you want to learn more about why we decided on these rules, you can read through this PRC thread, but the rules won’t be changing at this late stage in the process. Further posts about this will be deleted - let’s please focus on the topic at hand

 

[SunshineFuture]

Just gonna briefly weigh in here. I personally would like the secondary effect to be to drop the opponent's Special Defense by one stage. The way I think about this would be something akin to Specs Dragapult Shadow Ball (albeit with only 10% chance versus 20%). The drop would never be something to fish for, as the reward for doing so is far less than the effort it takes to keep hoping you get it (compared to something like Freeze, for example); when you do get it though, it either makes the opposing mon die faster or force a free switch to do whatever with your next turn. This pairs particularly well with 36p, given that it will likely be a rather fast Pokemon in battle. Even if you get the drop in a scenario going back to 36a though, that opens the possibility of 36a getting a free turn of utility if the foe switches. It's simple and low-power enough to not be toxic to face, but has the minor potential to change the course of a game when it activates. I would also be okay with it being able to drop the opponent's Attack by one stage, since the base form then becomes tankier by proxy and the cleaner form is less vulnerable to priority/revenge killers; I do not think we should have our Defense boosted though, since increasing our bulk directly feels kind of problematic for a cleaner as (probably) explosive as 36p will be.

 

[Antsaya]

I think wires might’ve gotten crossed in the discord yesterday, sorry if we were talking past each other. The secondary effect does not need to be something that’s exclusively 10% on existing moves, it will just be 10% on CAP Song. It can be anything that functions with a % chance. So for example, while Salt Cure indeed has a secondary effect that’s even blocked by Shield Dust, it does not function on a % chance. If the secondary effect has a % chance in the move’s description, then it’s fair game, exactly as I said in my earlier post.

When discussing this in CAPCord, moves listed as having a 100% chance of activating their secondary effects (Fire Lash and Torch Song in this case) were brought up as examples. If we consider these separate to <100%-chance moves, we would have to exclude +1 Speed as a possible secondary effect - the only attacking moves that solely boost speed do so 100% of the time. (Unless the in-game code explicitly treats 100%-chance moves the same as <100%-chance moves.) I don't think that this matters, though, since I recommend against speed boosting as a possible secondary effect.

---

I'm not that partial to any other secondary effect suggestions. Burn is hardly impactful given Inferno's existence but can still provide chip damage and late-game burns without having to click Inferno the next turn (mostly useful against Water-Types). Defense-lowering/Attack-raising seem pointless and uninteractive with the concept but technically fulfil my wish to make the 10% chance minimally impactful. Defense-lowering does open doors for physically-inclined teammates to come in and help afterwards, though.

However, I would recommend against the following (in order of worst to least bad):

1. Boosting CAP36's stats (except Attack) - a 10% chance, whilst low, is still enough for any stat boost (especially Special Attack and Speed) to snowball where it normally wouldn't. Speed might be fine if it is accounted for during the stats stage (e.g. Regieleki speed) and Attack would do very little.
2. Sleep/Freeze - Knocking a pokemon out of commission for a few turns is insane (Sleep). Knocking a pokemon out of commission for an indeterminate time or until you click Inferno into the frozen pokemon is insane (Freeze).
3. Paralysis - I'm generally not a fan of paralysis on a pokemon that wants to prioritise spreading burn and that can try for a 25% chance to get free turns off of a full paralysis on mons that it normally can't immediately clean. The speed drop might be an issue but the Stats Stage could account for it (which it might regardless if Thunder is chosen as a defining move). Annoying Hemo and other fire-type switchins could be funny, though.
4. Lowering your target's Special Defense - Although this doesn't risk a snowball easily, being able to get kills much easier on mons that you shouldn't seems scary. I would like to not have to account for the possibility of the 10% chance allowing us to beat any of our checks whilst simultaneously risking handicapping the mon's ability to reach any other desired benchmarks.

 

[AzothBend]

Late to the party with commentary no one asked for.

Some moves that were brought up that I'd like more discussion on: Hazards + Removal, Toxic/Poison Gas, Volt Switch, Psychic Noise

Given the outlined threats from the previous stage, Hazards seem like a distraction. The large majority of opposing Pokemon that could stop CAP36 in its tracks could care less about Hazards, with some naturally immune through typing and almost all others commonly running Heavy Duty Boots. Many even have passive or reliable recovery to shrug off the chip damage. It may be possible to capitalize on them with Knock Off, but CAP36 is already struggling with moveslots and simply cannot fit both. Likewise, removal seems less than optimal for a 'mon that simply does not match well enough into the common hazard setters and will likely have a sort of 'hit-and-run' playstyle that wants to hit big then get out quickly.

Toxic/Poison Gas or other forms of 'reliable' status spreading are too contradictory to what seems to be the main goal or Inferno burning as much as it can. And similarly, many of CAP36's threats simply are not concerned because of an immunity granted to them by typing or ability.

Volt Switch fares a little better. It naturally plays into the 'hit-and-run' playstyle and, as has been discussed, Electric is great coverage into many of CAP36's defensive checks. It does, however, become awkward for the cleaner form that very much does not want to switch out. That runs the risks of another 'wasted' moveslot on a Pokemon that does not have the slots to waste.

Psychic Noise is the best option of this crop. It's not particularly strong as coverage while offering unique utility. It's roughly on par with Knock Off. It does not however need to be considered as a defining move as it does not significantly impact matchups.

I didn't ask explicitly about Freeze Dry, but I understand that it's a bit hard to not bring up when discussing how other options like Knock Off might fit on a full moveset. So, now I'll ask directly: Freeze Dry –– required or optional?

As has been mentioned Freeze-Dry is effectively a weaker alternative to Thunder/Zap Cannon here, with similar BP after STAB and hitting many overlapping 'mons (namely bulky Water types). With that in mind, it's entirely contingent on how TLT sees CAP36 interacting with this group of 'mon. If CAP36 should threaten them, Freeze-Dry is a great baseline to start from and should be required.

Lastly, let's kick off the discussion for CAP Song's 10% secondary chance. The effect will be an existing secondary effect, AKA no stuff like 10% chance to clear hazards, but any effect that has a % chance in front of it is fair game. Please try to be reasonable and aim to strike a balance between "you win on the spot if it procs" and "this is useless in 99% of games."

Ideally the secondary chance is impactful enough where It is not useless but not so overwhelmingly strong that CAP36 becomes a fisherman. Just about every possibility has been covered already. Rather than rehashing anyone else's talking points, here are the ones with the most merit:

• Status conditions CAP36 is already threatening: Burn, Freeze
• Volatile status conditions: Flinch, Confusion
• Defensive stat boosts: +Def, +SpD

and least merit:

• Other nonvolatile status conditions: Paralysis, Poison, Sleep
• Offensive stat boosts: +SpA, +Spe

 

[spoo]

Discussion has slowed down so I'm dropping a 24-36 hour warning on this thread.

My stance on Freeze Dry is that every set will either run Freeze Dry or Electric coverage. Therefore, I think it makes the most sense to put it in Choose At Least One alongside Thunder. Reminder that stat submitters can still choose to account for both.

Hazards and Removal haven't really gotten enough support for me to include them. Same with Poison Gas and Toxic. These moves can always be re-evaluated during Movesets proper if necessary.

I don't think Volt Switch really affects the stats stage that much? I agree with what AzothBend had to say about it: it supports our hit-and-run playstyle in base, but might be a wasted slot for the cleaner form, something we can't really afford. It's a weird move that didn't receive much support, so I'm leaving it off.

Putting Psychic Noise in optional. Accomplishes a similar thing to Knock Off but obviously less consistent overall. Its significance in the Mollux matchup, a mon projected to be one of our most consistent switch-ins, is why I think it should be available for benchmarking during stats.

Updated defining moves list:

Required: Inferno, CAP Song, Universal Moves (listed here)​

Choose At Least One: Thunder, Freeze Dry​

Optional: Knock Off, Taunt, Encore, Psychic Noise​

Okay, now onto the secondary effect. A SpD drop seems to be the most supported, but not by a particularly huge margin; it feels like consensus is stretched pretty thin in general, and a lot of people understandably want different things out of this. I am not yet sure if this will go to a poll or simply be decided between myself and the rest of the TLT based on our thoughts + intelligent community consensus.

I will be transparent about my own preferences here - I think Freeze and Paralysis are the best options, followed by Confusion, SpD drop, and then the rest. Freeze is (rightfully) often seen as a pseudo-KO on the same level of Sleep, but I don't believe this is a fair assessment given CAP 36's specific circumstances. This is what I said in TLT chat yesterday regarding Freeze, basically summing up my thoughts:

spoo –– Yesterday at 2:03 PM
i think there are several mitigating factors for freeze
we’re already spreading burns with inferno (and potentially para with thunder), and a handful of our best switchins - hemo, molt, garg, cresc(ish) - are either immune to status or can thaw themselves
if you freeze something, you cant safely click cap song or inferno without risking giving up that advantage (all damaging fire moves thaw), which i think is an interesting dynamic that helps balance it
overall i think it’s about as impactful as paralysis, which is permanent
if all our best switchins were vulnerable, if half our kit weren’t moves that thawed the opponent, and if we weren’t already spreading other status, then this would be a different story, but overall i don’t believe freeze is a super bullshit option here
it also makes by FAR the most sense conceptually - not that flavor is a big consideration, but this is such a minor competitive decision IMO that it just doesnt matter much, kinda like how weight is mostly a flavor decision these days - and it’s also the most symmetrical option with relic song’s existing design

Honestly, I don't think this decision is very important from a competitive standpoint. It's a 10% chance on a move that will only be clicked a couple times a game, maybe. Nothing we choose will be that bad. None of the options we're considering are BS "win on the spot" type effects, even a SpA boost which is arguably the strongest. In a situation like this where the impact of our decision is already so low, I would rather take into consideration things like adherence to design principles (symmetry with Relic Song) and making a conceptually coherent move instead of solely trying to minmax the competitive implications of a something that will account for .0001% of all hax in the tier.

Nothing is set in stone yet, looking forward to hearing y'alls final thoughts. Like I said, 24-36 hours.

 

[thundergoos]

Gonna chime in to say that I think having Freeze as our secondary effect is absolutely fine. Freeze is one of those effects where it’s absolutely broken on paper, but in practice is balanced by it always being a low chance on certain moves and otherwise circumvented by a common move Type. The chance for it never exceeds 10% on any Ice Type move (Secret Power has a 30% chance under correct conditions, but that move is a meme, so), so CAP Song having a 10% chance would be in keeping with existing precedent. This is a really small percentage in practice, which means that, with how infrequently we’ll most likely be clicking CAP Song, we’re going to be getting a successful Freeze very rarely as it is. Further, spoo is absolutely right that our Fire Type moves limit the effectiveness of a successful Freeze anyway, since we cannot use that STAB without thawing the opponent. With our unique kit and game plan, Freeze is balanced here, and genuinely not all that competitively relevant. I think it would be totally fine.

The rest of the slate looks great. Cheers!

 

[Dusk Mage Necrozma]

I am adamantly against freeze. I believe Inferno doesn't limit the effectiveness of freeze much, as it's not hard to kill with your Ice STAB rather than click Inferno and give a free thaw. I agree that the move's 10% chance has minimal impact, but any game flipped due to this is an instance of unnecessary hax that is fully within our power to eliminate. I feel that we have a duty to do so. I believe an Attack or Special Attack, or potentially Special Defense, drop is the fairest effect, still feeling impactful without flat-out neutralizing an opposing Pokemon.

 

[quziel]

Thinking more and more about it. A Defense Raise is impactful enough that it actually makes a difference, and at the same time will never deny a counter from countering you unless we give this mon like 180 base defense and body press (unlikely). Fire types are still going to beat us even at +1, barring maybe a recovery-less Hemogoblin, while something like Kingambit will struggle to stop us from cleaning. This is sorta a nice middleground and means the 10% chance actually does something, which seems to be where we're trying to place ourselves.

 

[fjordviking]

I think Freeze makes sense as a secondary effect. Freeze can be very game changing when it happens, but 10% freeze chance is not only present but super common on special ice type moves and it hasn't broken the game. Having it on a fire type move unique to a fire/ice mon doesn't feel too strange. Lowering opponent's offensive stats also would also work well, and Special Defense drop is very common on special moves so it doesn't feel out of place either. Paralyze seems out of place as a status for 36 and burn feels redundant and useless.

Hazards would be great to have as something the base form can do once the opponent is burned, assuming no transformation right away (maybe opponent's team isn't worn down enough yet for the alt form to properly clean). Stealth rocks does well into the fire-types that 36 will struggle to hit and cannot burn. Spikes gives a button that can be pressed more than once to help cover for 4mss. Given the frequency of heavy duty boots on fire types, however, it would probably make more sense to focus on Knock Off, and have teammates with less move slot congestion be the ones to come in and set hazards for the team. 36 missing out on hazards would not be a travesty and having Knock Off would still allow for good progress in line with our concept. Fire types can't inherently threaten super effective damage, which allows 36 to click knock off for a turn, prior to pivoting/switching, without taking too much damage in return. Hazard removal doesn't help as much with the concept and other status infliction feels wasteful and runs into 4mss problems.

If Volt Switch is being considered, U-turn should also be. Knock Off already puts some physical attack utility on 36's plate. U-turn being a "worse" pivot move is actually nice because Volt Switch feels like an overly-convenient coverage pivot move. U-turn would force 36 to sacrifice the meaningful coverage in order to reap the benefits that a pivot move provides. Or we just deny pivot moves and 36 will have to switch if faced with a non-burnable or otherwise threatening opponent. If Volt Switch is in, Thunder should also be. If electric is going to be part of 36's coverage pool, might as well give it the main special electric attack that has been common coverage for 20 years. Picking/allowing Freeze Dry over Thunder, assuming the two are mutually exclusive, and then giving 36 Volt Switch to make up for the denied electric coverage option, feels like circumventing 36's completely acceptable limitations. Freeze Dry would also fight with Blizzard for a move slot which doesn't feel right given the ability 36 was given.

 

[chartung17]

I'm not a fan of freeze, but since there is a decent amount of support for it, there's an important question we need to ask: would freeze even do anything, or would CAP Song immediately thaw the target after freezing them?