CAP 37 - Part 5 - Primary Ability Discussion

[Da Pizza Man]

CAP 37 So Far

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Please pay very close attention to viol and bass's posts during this thread and remain on topic. DO NOT begin by posting massive lists of abilities!

Some general rules for this discussion:

• Custom abilities are banned. No exceptions. Posts suggesting custom abilities will be deleted.
• There are ability banlists for the different stages of ability discussion. Posts suggesting banned abilities will be deleted.
• Flavor abilities do not have any place in this thread. Do not bring up flavor reasoning. Posts that rely on flavor reasoning will be deleted.

The following abilities are banned from this discussion:

Fully Banned Abilities group

Arena Trap
As One
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Beads Of Ruin
Beast Boost *
Chilling Neigh
Commander
Dark Aura
Dauntless Shield
Delta Stream
Desolate Land
Disguise
Dragon's Maw
Fairy Aura
Flower Gift
Forecast
Full Metal Body
Grim Neigh
Gulp Missile
Hadron Engine
Hunger Switch
Ice Face
Illusion
Imposter
Intrepid Sword
Moody
Multitype
Neuroforce
Orichalcum Pulse
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor
Protosynthesis *
Quark Drive *
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield
Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Soul Heart
Stance Change
Sword Of Ruin
Tablets Of Ruin
Teravolt
Transistor
Turboblaze
Unseen Fist
Vessel Of Ruin
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode
Zero To Hero

* These abilities will only be unbanned on a concept which is based around this ability - Such as an Ultra Beast or Paradox Pokemon

Soft Banned Abilities group

These abilities are banned by default and should not be discussed barring exceptional cases. If you believe one of these abilities should be considered, you can make a post trying to explain why an exception is warranted in this specific case and if both the TL and Ability Leader agree, it will be allowed. If the TLT disagrees with the unbanning proposal, they should be considered fully banned and should not be further discussed.

Bulletproof
Color Change*
Defeatist
Dry Skin
Earth Eater
Flash Fire
Fur Coat
Good As Gold
Gorilla Tactics
Huge Power
Ice Scales
Libero*
Levitate
Lightning Rod
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Magnet Pull
Mimicry*
Motor Drive
Parental Bond
Protean*
Pure Power
Purifying Salt
Regenerator
Sap Sipper
Slow Start
Stall
Storm Drain
Truant
Volt Absorb
Water Absorb
Water Bubble
Well Baked Body
Wind Rider

*These abilities can only be considered for an unban if the Ability stage is done before typing.

Secondary Ability ban group

Comatose
Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Fluffy
Grassy Surge
Innards Out
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost
Stamina
Steam Engine
Supreme Overlord
Toxic Debris
Triage

Flavor ability only ban group

Ball Fetch
Battery
Costar
Friend Guard
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Power Spot
Power of Alchemy
Propeller Tail
Receiver
Run Away
Stalwart
Symbiosis
Telepathy

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Primary Ability banlist

Fully Banned Abilities group + Soft Banned Abilities group + flavor ability-only group

Secondary Ability banlist

Fully Banned Abilities group + Soft Banned Abilities group + secondary ability group + flavor ability-only group

Flavor Ability banlist

Primary ability group + secondary ability group

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I'll now hand this over to viol and bass to make the first post in the thread. Please have a good discussion.

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Ability banlist PRC threads:

• US/UM: http://www.smogon.com/forums/posts/7391668
• SW/SH: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3659245/
• S/V: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3715273/

 

[viol and bass]

Hey everybody! I'm very excited to open up ability discussion on our floaty friend. We'll start with a round of questions, mostly centered around our area of focus: where we stand currently, what's important to address in this stage, and what can be left until later. You can name abilities as examples when answering these questions, but keep in mind ability submissions are not open yet. Let's get our beaks warm.

• Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

By the time we got to the ability stage in Ramnarok’s process, we already knew that we faced issues with limited moveslots and with real defensive utility, both of which were addressed to different degrees by the addition of No Guard. This question is trying to identify our weak points / foremost areas of concern for this stage. Examples might be issues with Beak Blast itself, our threat level, our defensive coherency and ability to switch in, competition from similar pokemon for a teamslot, etc. The second part of the question is important here. If we face a problem, but that problem can easily be solved in the normal course of a future stage without making any grand assumptions, maybe it's best to save our ability slot for something else.

• Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

Many have mentioned the fact that switching out is currently really good Beak Blast counterplay. If we can make switching out difficult, we may be able to activate Beak Blast's conditional effect more often. The thrust of this question is "is it enough to just hit pretty hard?"

• Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

We have a very good typing with some nice defensive boons, but it's not necessarily a perfect typing for switching into real mons in the metagame. As we established in our Role Discussion stage, we will be tanking hits regularly with this CAP, and we're quite vulnerable to status from pokemon we'd otherwise like to switch into. The defensive end is an area of concern for me currently, since defensive issues are not always easily solved post-ability stage.

Planning to leave about 48 hours for this.

 

[Robraf]

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

We are SR weak and therefore Knock Off Weak. We can give 37 an ability that punishes contact and therefore punishes Knocking Off but we have to question if further disincentivizing contact moves is fulfilling our concept. Such an ability would definitely help out our typing but it would practically go against our concept which is an unfortunate dilemma.

Damage output could be criticized tho this is technically always something you could make up with stats but given our great offensive typing we want to significantly chip away.

Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

Personally I 100% agree with this. BBs concept is not just fulfilled when we effectively threaten burns but it also needs to actually be able to deal damage. Does that need to be our ability? Idk about that but either that or our Attack Base needs to make up for it. We have mentioned Stakeout and Analytic before but especially Stakeout does phenomenal in combination with Beak Blast in the concept of pinnning our opponent. It‘s such a potent strategy that should definitely be considered. But I‘ll go deeper into that when we actually get to Ability Submission.

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

I already talked about the contact punishing abilities but I do wanna emphasize that there are some that I 100% do not personally wanna see on 37 that being Static, Flamebody, Effect Spore and Poison Point. All of these abilities heavily go against our concept cause they discourage us in playing BB at all.

Coming to the more defensive leaning abilities. Some very good ones that could even excuse the lack of 50% recovery with Regenerator and Magic Guard quickly come into mind, considering that our worst trait is the fact that we are Rocks weak and function well into a lot of mons that run Knock Off. Tho we have to also consider that both Magic Guard and Regenerator are soft banned abilities, so you‘d have to make a really good argument to get them slatted.

Other abilities that I‘ve seen being valuable would be Shield Dust or Natural Cure which both primarily wanna help us into status. I do see quite some value in these abilities as Burn is quite an annoying status for 37.

 

[Jomakl]

• Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

One problem with 37 is that status can play into with some freedom, unless 37 switches out every time a status spreader comes in its going to be status-ed. Most teams run at least one mon with wisp, twave, glare or toxic. All of these hurt 37 in particular, poison dropping survivability, burn reducing threat of beak blast and para being annoying as always. I think this could be covered here in ability, whether directly or indirectly; abilities that benefit switching out or matchup well into status spreaders would be just as beneficial as abilities that reduce the risk of status altogether.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

i've already mentioned a couple, but here's some extras i was thinking about:

one minor issue i've noticed about 37 is that fire-types can just come in and use contact attacks on it with impunity, since they can't be burned. i think a good way to address this would be to give it either heatproof or thermal exchange to discourage fire-types from hanging around it too often. thermal exchange gives a burn immunity and +1 attack when hit by fire moves, both of which help 37 offensively against fire-types as well as discouraging will-o-wisps from non-fire guys and protecting against other forms of burn, which 37 would likely be vulnerable to otherwise. heatproof is the more defensive option, effectively giving the mon a fire resistance to complement the quite good defensive profile granted by the ground immunity and ghost and dark resistances we have already, but does nothing about burn aside from halving the already minuscule damage it does. thick fat would also be a decent idea for this, both providing a fire resistance and eliminating an ice weakness. ice being a type that's used with non-contact moves a lot more than contact ones, it's probably a good idea to make 37 a little less vulnerable to it

it was also mentioned that status conditions are generally a problem for 37, so other abilities that mitigate the effects of various statuses (in a similar vein to thermal exchange's burn immunity) would also be good. as mentioned already, shield dust protects from quite a lot of status conditions and is a great risk-reduction tool in general. shed skin or natural cure would allow for self-healing of status conditions; shed skin's probably preferable here because beak blast seems like more of an "i want to stay in" move than a "look at me, i'm a pivot" move. marvel scale would trade some long-term survivability or speed for an immediate defense boost to bolster 37's ability to take mostly-physical contact hits in the case of being statused (and as a bonus, it's conditional, so it works with the concept)

lastly, i'd like to give a potential look at opportunist. this might seem a bit out of left field, but i think 37 would be vulnerable against bulky or flying-resistant setup sweepers whose counterplay to beak blast is simply refusing to engage and clicking the funny setup move. think kingambit, or roost dnite, or a tera'd revenankh. opportunist deters that by giving 37 the exact same stat boosts, making it extremely risky for an opponent expecting a beak blast to respond by clicking, say, swords dance and getting smacked by a +2 beak blast

 

[Robraf]

Most teams run at least one mon with wisp, twave, glare or toxic.

We have Taunt guaranteed so I don‘t see massive issue with that honestly. Like obviously we won‘t have the speed to taunt all the status spreaders but I‘m moreso worried about Will-O and Sludgebomb/Malignant Chain

 

[Robraf]

i think a good way to address this would be to give it either heatproof or thermal exchange to discourage fire-types from hanging around it too often.

I do like Thermal Exchange cause Burn is quite annoying for us and getting an Immunity alongside getting boosted by fire type moves definitely helps 37 into the one type it can‘t burn at all.

Heatproof on the other hand I don‘t really like that much. It doesn’t give us Burn Immunity and just halves the burn damage which is neat but not that relevant. And taking less from Fire Type Attacks I don‘t see as that valuable either. Especially if we get Knock cause Fire Types have to fear getting Knocked.

 

[Shock3600]

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

Between Dark/Flying and Beak Blast, I'd say the only thing we might inherently struggle with is having a natural defensive profile. Ghost/dark/psychic resists helps bolster our spdef profile, but we are a bit lacking for physical resists. The immunity to ground and dark resist do help give us switch ins, but we are going to be relying on stats to do a lot of heavy lifting if we want to be able to switch in to physical attackers in order to leverage the threat of beak blast. An ability could help provide these switch in opportunities- either through directly bolsteing our defensive profile/bulk, improving our longetivity, or making us more resilient to counterplay such as knock.

Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

I would actually argue this is backwards, in a sense. I don't think we want to capitalize on forced switches- we instead want to increase the threat of forced switches, in order to push the opponent into staying in and accepting the trade. This is mostly semantics but I think an important perspective. I think there's a fairly limited pool of abilities that directly help this, but any ability focused on increasing our offensive potential is going to contribute to it.

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

I think it's an important route to consider. I'm really split on if its better to boost our defence, offense, or utility, but I'd say there are some specific defensive/utility abilities that will benefit us in a way that's harder to replicate with increased bulk instead, while boosts to our offense ae more acheivable with stats alone. Abilities increasing longetivity or altering our defensive profile are going to let us more finely tune our matchups into the metagame to try and aim for a beak blast burn.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Hey everyone! Just a quick reminder to avoid directly suggesting abilities until viol and bass says so.

I deleted a fair number of posts that aren't really engaging with the discussion viol and bass is trying to lead as are more jumping the gun on suggestions. I understand ya'll are eager, but let's try to take things a bit more slowly here.

 

[Sivanandi]

Hello! First post in a CAP discussion, and I'm pretty new to both the cap process and the metagame, so please feel free to correct me if I get something wrong

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

Others have already discussed switching and various statuses, which I agree with. I'd like to also bring up, though, that Beak Blast is scary cause it can burn physical attackers, which is pretty much negated by physical attackers that can't be burned (Hemogoblin, Gliscor, Ceruledge come to mind). Additionally, some of its weaknesses tend to have mons that hit really well on the special side (Kyurem, Stratagem, Krilowatt come to mind).

I think these might be more of a priority to address in the ability stage than the below question, and I'll explain why after addressing that one

Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

I would say that while it's fine for the ability to address this, it's also very possible that we can cover this better when we get to the movepool. Beak Blast kind of makes it a guessing game, right? You have 37 in front of your opponent's mon that doesn't wanna get burned, and the mind game is, do I switch and eat a (move that punishes my switch) or do I knock off its boots and risk getting burned? And I bring that up cause I feel like the category of "move that punishes my switch" is a pretty wide one, and we can definitely address this issue there in my opinion. Not that it wouldn't also be nice to have the ability help with this issue, but I hope my point comes across.

Meanwhile, I think it's harder to address a bad match-up independent of switch-ins with your moves. I'm having trouble thinking of a move that you can click in front of a mon that you know is gonna wisp you ("oh siv magic coat" alright alright). Similarly, if the risk is that hemogoblin is gonna e-speed you, what are you really gonna do about that with a move? ("oh siv comeuppance" alright alright). So I think an ability that helps handle some of these better would be more immediately beneficial than one that capitalizes on forcing switches, which I feel like... is already kinda just good by itself? I understand the argument that switching is good counterplay to Beak Blast, but if you're already switching and eating a hit from a 100 BP move I feel like that can already be punishing for losing momentum or taking damage or taking hazard damage or whatnot.

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

This is what I'm thinking is a useful route to consider. There are a good amount of abilities that activate upon switch-in that can make switching in itself an action that 37 would want to do, which is one route we could take. Discouraging non-contact moves is tougher, especially since stuff like ice scales or, idk, misty terrain misty seed isn't allowed, but there's some stuff that could do it as well. Also, though, sure you'd lose the tradeoff of boots, but assault vest is an item that exists and you can still click beak blast while wearing it, so it could be a good thing to pair with an ability to be decent against special attackers, maybe? In general I think defensive synergy could be interesting on this mon cause of its relation with stealth rock and the fact that clicking beak blast means we're likely getting hit.

 

[Gekokeso]

Mind the poll jumping people.

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

There's a couple of issues we face by virtue of out typing, some we can solve with a decent ability, others require very specific stuff. The ones that fall in the first category are the following:
- Status: Most flying types are annoyed by status as status combined with a loss of boots really hurts our long term longevity. Most CAP viable flying types that still rely on boots are at least immune to one type of status, such as Moltres and Venomicon. We do not, so we would need something to keep our longevity well enough.
- Speed: Its somewhat weird to determine the most optimal speed for 37 as yes Beak Blast will always go last, but your other moves can certainly finish off weakened opponents before they attack or try to pivot out on us. An ability that can either take advantage of the slow state 37 finds itself with due to the low priority attack, or that can make it slightly tankier to ensure the attack goes through could help.
- Set Up: Im gonna bring this up when making the case for a particular ability when the time comes but there is one of situation that does annoy 37 to a certain degree, and that is that certain setup sweepers that resist beak blast like Gambit or Raging Bolt may choose to try and setup on us, as well as many potential targets like Revenankh and Zamazenta setting up thanks to tera. Admitedlly we could solve this in the move stage as well but abilities can also help in that department.

Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

I feel like this question is being somewhat restrictive as its clearly trying to bring up Stakeout and Analytic rather than actually try and bring up a question with more space to discuss about. Id say a better way to frame the question would be not to just focus about abilities that force switch-ins, but rather abilities that increase the move's general offensive output, as how much damage Beak Blast does to a target staying in is just or even more important that to one switching in.

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

Yes to the defensive manner portion to the question, absolutely not to the portion of discouraging non-contact moves. If we make going for contact moves on 37 way too punishing even without Beak Blast then the move is just not gonna be ran, as most contact users wouldn't be staying in anyways. IF we pick a defensive ability it should be one that increases our staying power while actively giving an incentive for the opponent to go for the gamble of clicking the contact move against us.

 

[Spammernoob]

• Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

Currently, the build has some issues switching in. Dark/Flying has few relevant resists (mostly Ground immunity and Ghost resistance?) and no safeguards against status (except vs. Prankster copium). This is exacerbated by the fact that we are Physical due to Beak Blast, making Burn especially annoying (not to mention Wisp is common on Ghosts, which we might otherwise want to come in on).

I think this must be addressed somehow, either by making CAP37 more resilient, or by making each switch-in more impactful. If we aim to do the former, it makes more sense to do it in the ability stage, as abilities allow us to address status / passive damage, which cannot be addressed in stats or movepool (at least not on the turn we switch in). If we aim to do the latter, we need to accept that we will often be forced out or be unable to come in on certain mons (eg. Gking) due to the threat of status (ironic). However, we can afford to be more flexible with our ability, as this can always be patched in stats / movepool.

• Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

Forcing a switch inherently gives you an advantage because you get to throw an attack without taking damage in return. Combined with Beak Blast's high pp and non-contact nature, it is basically unpunishable by switching. Thus, I think it's not necessary to double down on punishing forced switches with the ability.

Additionally, abilities that are being discussed for this role, such as Analytic and Stakeout, can be emulated in later stage (eg. stats) so it is not vital to lock in this type of ability. They can be considerations that further incentivize the opponent to take the burn from Beak Blast, or push the impact we make each switch-in, but I think it is not vital to fulfilling the concept. I'm not sure if there are any other abilities that capitalize on switches which provide something unique other than damage (I can't think of any) but those would be more interesting to me as early considerations.

• Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

Using our ability slot defensively is definitely worth considering. As noted before, anything that mitigates chip damage in various ways is much appreciated for CAP37, and cannot be replicated via stats (CAP37 has Taunt which can help in some way vs. slow status mons). I think this route should be explored further, as this uniquely allows us to tune our MUs vs various mons.

I think a specific defensive ability will be ideal here. For instance, if we want to target Kitsunoh / Dragapult, we can consider Thermal Exchange. Alternatively, if we want to target Garganacl, we can consider Shield Dust. The key for this route is to consider CAP37's role and what mons we expect CAP37 to beat, and patch said MUs with an appropriate defensive ability if needed.

I'm not sure what discouraging non-contact moves would entail. Technically, Water Absorb to deny Ogerpon-W works as discouraging a certain non-contact move, but I'm not sure we want to go this route, unless we deem it necessary to fulfill our role.

 

[viol and bass]

I feel like this question is being somewhat restrictive as its clearly trying to bring up Stakeout and Analytic rather than actually try and bring up a question with more space to discuss about. Id say a better way to frame the question would be not to just focus about abilities that force switch-ins, but rather abilities that increase the move's general offensive output, as how much damage Beak Blast does to a target staying in is just or even more important that to one switching in.

Just to clarify this question, abilities that capitalize on forced switches are not necessarily limited to Stakeout and Analytic. I highlighted the "force out" interaction in particular since it was discussed extensively in our role discussion (see this excellent post by Guingil as an example) as a common interaction particularly early-game. Damage output abilities can punish switch-ins and in fact are valid for this question, and other abilities can make use of forced switches in other ways. One angle is thinking of a forced switch as a free turn. It's a different question from "is it important to increase our raw damage output via our ability", which I don't think is a productive discussion, particularly since that can be entirely dealt with in later stages. Just clarifying my intent with this question but let's keep things on track.

 

[Amamama]

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

Dark Flying is a relatively ability agnostic typing, in the sense that both it’s offensive and defensive profile are potent enough to not require any sort of patching up via ability.
The offensive coverage is so strong that you have a very open moveset as well which means the ability also doesn’t need to provide utility or moveslot compression of any sort.
Overall this means we can really focus on how Beak Blast Functions and how to abuse both its power and conditional effect best.
Even then we have so much flexibility left in future stages, that we could even look at relatively low impact abilities, that patch up minor weaknesses or provide interesting gameplay interactions with beak blast or the game pattern it creates, rather than looking for powermaxing right now.

Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

I think this can play a role in triggering the condition for BBs effect more often, but idt that is particularly necessary to do so via ability. Even just having more special Bulk or an ability that makes it harder for special attackers to tackle 37 can work to force more contact hits.
That said abilities that create pinning situations where the opponent is forced to consider the threat of beak blasts burn as well as the threat of beak blasts (or other moves) damage are very pro concept as they play up the importance of the conditional effect.

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

It’s definitely possible to utilize the ability Slot for more defensive utility or a better defensive profile since the offensive coverage is already so self sufficient. That said same can be said about the defensive profile of the mon. You don’t need much more defensive utility to make it strong.
I do not like however trying to discourage contact even more. While this does play into the ability to force switches against contact move users, it also makes the decision to switch out way easier. Instead of creating a pinning scenario, CAP 37 would make progress via punishing switches. Imo we want to encourage contact moves to a degree so that there’s a real consideration for the opponent to play into Beak Blasts conditional effect.

 

[aaronarium]

Should we consider using our ability slot in a more defensive manner to ease switching in, allow us to tank hits better, or even to discourage non-contact moves? If so, how would we do so?

• I'm not sure I'm in the camp that our ability should be spent increasing the ease of switching in versus getting the most out of the turns where we're already fielded. If we're assuming that we're gonna be soaking Knock (and would frequently have HDB removed), and assuming we're going to be tanky enough to get the most out of BB, then I think switching in would only become truly troublesome after we've already established ourselves on the field. Of course, there are a lot of defensive abilities that would be good for us in general that have a "side effect" of making the switch easier, but I think choosing one of those abilities still needs to either help us with specific matchups or work to bolster BB itself.

Beak Blast is a move that can force switches due to the threat of burn. Is it important for our ability to capitalize on forced switches, and if so, what types of abilities do so?

• I personally don't think forcing the switch itself is as critical compared to discouraging switches to something unbothered by BB. If we come out versus a Pokemon that either cannot handle burn or cannot deal with 37 without getting burnt, we want to make the opponent's choice to switch to something that is neither of those things as difficult as possible. The two main paths I see for this are to either choose an ability that specifically punishes switching, or to choose an ability that somehow gives special attackers as difficult a time dealing with 37 as physical (contact) ones.

Given our chosen move and our typing, what problems does our current build face, if any? Are these issues important to address here in the ability stage, or can they wait?

• The vulnerability to Electric/Ice/Fairy is major in the sense that the most common moves of these types are both special and non-contact, but this is something that can be patched up in the stats stage with better special bulk. Personally, I think role compression is a more important issue. Although I personally think Dark and Flying have the right moves to help with this and our limited moveslots (given that BB is mandatory), none of the ones I have in mind are universal moves for the type and therefore we can't count on their inclusion. I find viol's example of how NG helped Ramnarok to be relevant because essentially what it did for Inferno was compress reliable STAB and status spreading into a single moveslot, so maybe we should be thinking about if there are any synergies that can relieve some of the burden of our movepool so we're freer to include ones that complement BB.