CAP 38 - Part 2 - Concept Assessment

[Spammernoob]

CAP 38 So Far
After a couple good rounds of voting, we now have a concept for CAP 38 courtesy of SHSP which is...Mini-Uber!

Name: Mini-Uber

Description: This Pokemon replicates or is inspired by a strategy, play pattern or niche used by an Uber Pokemon.

Justification: Many of the Pokemon that reside in Ubers- be it this gen or in past gens- have playstyles and niches that are totally foreign to most other Pokemon and tiers. This concept seeks to explore both the design space of those roles and niches, as well as how balance and strength work in Pokemon, to create something that draws from the unique elements of the chosen Uber without being worthy of the tier itself.

Questions To Be Answered:

• What makes an Uber Pokemon interesting beyond just the power level?
• What roles or niches, or playstyles are unique to or common among Uber Pokemon?
• On average Ubers have better stats, abilities, and movepools than OU Pokémon - out of those 3, which are safe to take away without removing a Pokemon's identity? What of these traits define what Ubers?
• Will a Pokemon still be useful even when taken out of its native context (i.e. without the specific metagame threats it checks)?
• Is there room to explore certain Ubers' unique defensive and utility potential in addition to their offenses?
• How can Pokemon already deemed too strong for OU be replicated in a more balanced fashion?

Guidelines:
1) Pay close attention to the Topic Leader during this discussion. Their job is to keep us focused and to bring insight.
2) Do not poll jump. Poll jumping is a serious offense in these threads, and you can get infracted for it. Poll jumping is when you discuss something that should be discussed in the future, like specifying a CAP's stats or typing. You're allowed to hint at such things to conclude a point or to provide an example, but do not centralize your post on a poll jump. Poll jumping hurts the focus of early threads and can cause us to go off on a tangent. If you're not sure if a particular argument is poll jumping or not, err on the side of caution and don't post it.

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How do Ubers Pokemon differ from OU Pokemon? How does this affect what playstyles and niches are available? As SHSP noted, Ubers have better stats, abilities, and movepools than OU Pokemon on average, but this is not exactly uniform (a lot of Ubers are stuck with Pressure, for example). This question aims to examine what elements we can leave mostly as-is, and which elements we need to focus more on toning down.

How do Ubers metagames differ from the OU / CAP metagame? How does this affect what niches are valuable? I hope people who are more familiar with Ubers can give some insight here to help everyone be on the same page with regards to what we're working with.

This question also aims to examine how the environment of Ubers affects the niches that arise. One example that stands out to me is Ribombee, which is rated B+ in Ubers while B- in SV OU.

Many Ubers are defined by high-powered signature moves or abilities. Are these important / necessary in order to replicate their niche? I can't help but think of Glastrier, who languishes in ZUBL while Caly-I resides in Ubers. I think it's a good idea to have a rough guideline of how lenient we want to be with signatures.

What are some niches or playstyles unique to Ubers Pokemon? Which of these are reasonable to replicate in an OU / CAP setting? Which are unfeasible, and why? I think it is a good idea to try to separate out which niches are meta-specific vs. which niches are more portable, as well as which roles fall apart when we try to tone down the power level. Of course, these are not necessarily black-and white, as something designed to beat CM Arceus could in theory be used as inspiration to beat CM Chromera in CAP. Feel free to give specifics here, but this is merely getting a lay of the land. I'll open up submissions to slate in a few days.

EDIT: I'll add one more
What defines a niche or playstyle? Obviously we can copy an Uber and downgrade it; think Spectrier vs. Caly-S. However, this seems a bit unsatisfying. What do we think is the core of a Pokemon that we want to replicate with this process? This might be a bit abstract, but I think it's worth nailing down now.

 

[Shock3600]

How do Ubers Pokemon differ from OU Pokemon? How do Ubers metagames differ from the OU / CAP metagame? How does this affect what playstyles and niches are available? (Combining these two questions)
I think the two key elements to ubers Pokemons are counterintuitively both Versatility and Constraints. Ubers Pokemon often have fantastic stat spreads (that are well rounded to prevent BSR abuse) and movepools, allowing them to suceed at a wide variety of roles and movesets. They're incredibly versatile in a way that OU Pokemon struggle to emulate.

The other elment is Constraints- we now have 1000 Pokemon to choose from, with an approximate upper limit for what normal Pokemon can reach before they are banned to ubers. This means that unless a Pokemon has an exceptional defining element that can singlehandedly bring a Pokemon to viability, OU contenders typically have a well tailored combination of typing, stats, ability, and movepool. Ubers on the other hand, are limited to a much much smaller pool of Pokemon that define the tier. This means Ubers is often centralized around Pokemon with awkward typings (mono psychic?), abilities (pressure! pressure! pressure!) or movepools (nice coverage Calyrex-Shadow)- although as the generations have passed, this element of the tier has slowly been power crept away from. Despite this slowly being dated, I think this combination of traits is part of what makes Ubers pokemon so unique.

Many Ubers are defined by high-powered signature moves or abilities. Are these important / necessary in order to replicate their niche?
No!!!!!! I think unless its incredibly unique and impossible to mimic without ditrectly copying the move or ability, we should avoid doing so! Our goal should be to capture the essence and playstyle- not just copying it. If we just rip a signature move, ability, or typing I think we've failed.

 

[traceyscetchit]

How do Ubers Pokemon differ from OU Pokemon? How does this affect what playstyles and niches are available?

How do Ubers metagames differ from the OU / CAP metagame? How does this affect what niches are valuable? I hope people who are more familiar with Ubers can give some insight here to help everyone be on the same page with regards to what we're working with.

I play ubers formats, but mostly NDUbers, AG, and Dubers, particularly Dubers, which is kinda different but the mons are almost the same. Gonna be lumping these questions together because they're similar and related.
Ubers mons are fat. It's really easy for me to headcalc in ubers because everything kinda hits the same way. is doing more than a , but generally the walls are stronger and the sweepers are bulkier. Additionally, normal things that many ou teams have kinda just aren't as required in ubers formats because the mons that have them are underpowered. Mostly this means rapid spin, but also stuff like defog-blocking from and grass types are pretty much nonexistent. This creates a bit of a dilemma where you either reach down to pick up a low tier support or forget about it, leading teams to only pick up low tiers for things they REALLY need to function, such as on webs teams (shocking, I know), or /unaware mons on stall.
The metas are also more centralized. Mons like fill a million different roles because the competition for those roles is low. You can afford to run that stupid looking coverage move because there's no competer pokemon that doesn't have to rely on stupid coverage, and because the stupid looking coverage move covers a higher percentage of the meta when the meta contains fewer pokemon.

As a testament to the stupid junk that ubers mons can pull off, see this absurd set for lure , whose entire gameplan is setting rocks and pretending to be an innocent before going ultra with a randomly specific statline that beats out a bunch of dusk mane counters, notably , , , and . The attack is lowered using IV's and not nature specifically to hit the threshold of using special photon geyser before ultra bursting for the toxic debris matchup, while still ohko'ing .

Necrozma-Ultra @ Ultranecrozium Z
Ability: Prism Armor
EVs: 16 HP / 24 Def / 244 SpA / 224 Spe
IVs: 4 Atk
Naive Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Photon Geyser
- Earth Power
- Stone Edge

What are some niches or playstyles unique to Ubers Pokemon? Which of these are reasonable to replicate in an OU / CAP setting? Which are unfeasible, and why?

Sets like the one above are really interesing, but impractical. Maybe on a small scale things like ice beam arceus ground are replicatable, because gliscor exists in both ou and ubers, but when transposing ideas we need to be careful to cut out things that are largely meta-specific.
I play don't experiment often in ubers metas, and run the same 1-2 teams repeatedly, so aside from dubers, everything here is from observation of the teams I face more than building teams in these formats, so if you see something you disagree with say so. My perception may be a little warped on some points.

 

[Feldirion]

How do Ubers Pokemon differ from OU Pokemon? How does this affect what playstyles and niches are available?
How do Ubers metagames differ from the OU / CAP metagame? How does this affect what niches are valuable?

In my experience, being a player that enjoys both Ubers and CAP, the main difference is pacing. In CAP, if you make a mistake or a mon sets up you can usually find a way to salvage it. In Ubers, there are a metric ton of mons that can 0-6 sweep you if they're given the chance. Ubers is much, much heavier on taking one mon and using the rest of your team to break down all it's counters.

And, as previously mentioned, Ubers tend to have much higher stat spreads. Sweepers get more bulk, walls get more attacking stats, and everything has much more versality. For an example, take DM Necrozma. It can function as a wall, a trick room attacker, a dragon dance sweeper... it can operate on the special and physical sides, and it can customize to deal with different checks.

In OU or CAP, mons usually have one or two rigid playstyles- their 'niche.' They might be capable of doing other stuff, but they're outperformed at it. Ubers is a much smaller meta, so this competition isn't as prominent. Most Ubers have one 'main' role, but they have enough stats and tools to dip their toes in other waters.

Many Ubers are defined by high-powered signature moves or abilities. Are these important / necessary in order to replicate their niche?

I don't think so. It's possible to make a Zacian-esque breaker without Intrepid Sword. Their abilities and signatures enhance their roles, but the roles exist without them. Not falling back on high-powered signatures can potentially lead us down more interesting design routes, and force us to define what makes a certain playstyle work.

What are some niches or playstyles unique to Ubers Pokemon? Which of these are reasonable to replicate in an OU / CAP setting? Which are unfeasible, and why?

Some Ubers roles may already be covered in a CAP format. Mini-Uber ES Arceus, for instance, might end up playing a lot like Cawmodore. Defining what roles we already have covered would probably be a good first step.

Ubers also tend to have a certain degree of self-support, where mons like Kyogre and Koraidon can come in and snowball with their own tools. Most Trick Room abusers can set it, and so on. Another good question to consider is whether we want to make a mon that has the tools it needs to succeed alone, or whether it's preferable to work off Ubers like Giratina, who support their team more.

Hope some of these thoughts are useful. This looks like an interesting concept!

 

[Amamama]

How do Ubers Pokemon differ from OU Pokemon? How does this affect what playstyles and niches are available? As SHSP noted, Ubers have better stats, abilities, and movepools than OU Pokemon on average, but this is not exactly uniform (a lot of Ubers are stuck with Pressure, for example). This question aims to examine what elements we can leave mostly as-is, and which elements we need to focus more on toning down.

I wanna preface this by saying that I’m an absolute boob wer Uber metas and only have very surface level knowledge of it. That said there are some noticeable trends that you can find even without knowledge, which also already have been pointed out in posts before me:

1) Legendary Statlines create a bulkier and meta. Even offensive mobs still have very good bulk which becomes apparent once you scale stats down to the averages of OU.
Premier wallbreakers like Koraidon or Zacian would “only” end up with around 100 atk/120 Speed but still retain bulk lines close to 90/100/100.
2) More Balanced Stat Spreads and less team building options lead to higher set variety for single mons. (wallbreakers running Hazards or status, bulky mons that can sweep)
3) Less team Building options lead to more centralized metas but also allow for archetype defining mons with way lower powerlevel as some options just don’t exist on Legendary mons. This also creates a higher differtial in stats for niche archetype defining/tech mons (Hazards or Weather setters for example)
4) Legendary Signature slightly balance the more bulky meta but also can lead to bigger discrepancies between STABs and Coverage.

Many Ubers are defined by high-powered signature moves or abilities. Are these important / necessary in order to replicate their niche? I can't help but think of Glastrier, who languishes in ZUBL while Caly-I resides in Ubers. I think it's a good idea to have a rough guideline of how lenient we want to be with signatures.

No. Most roles in Ubers can be linked to mons in OU doing the same thing in a different meta/way and part of the fun of this concept is to try and replicate a mon that plays at a higher power level with tools that are accessible to lower tier mons as well. This is not the concept to steal legendary signatures (Saharaja) or create ridiculous stat lines (These shackles), instead we should focus on analyzing and transposing an interesting mon with unique playstyle. I think it’s very difficult overall to find a mon (or movement/role) in Uber that is so defined by Ability or Moves that it can’t be replicated with other means.

What are some niches or playstyles unique to Ubers Pokemon? Which of these are reasonable to replicate in an OU / CAP setting? Which are unfeasible, and why? I think it is a good idea to try to separate out which niches are meta-specific vs. which niches are more portable, as well as which roles fall apart when we try to tone down the power level. Of course, these are not necessarily black-and white, as something designed to beat CM Arceus could in theory be used as inspiration to beat CM Chromera in CAP. Feel free to give specifics here, but this is merely getting a lay of the land. I'll open up submissions to slate in a few days.

TBH I found it difficult to find a niche or playstyle specific to a mon banned to Uber that hasn’t been done in some similar fashion in OU. Granted I only really looked at gen 9 so far but if you look through the top tier threats the thing that stands out most is mons being able to perform a variety of sets based on EV spreads and move selection.
Otherwise there are some mid speed CM/Bulk Up sweepers without speed boosting or recovery which has been rare in OU.
Koraidon/Kyogre/Necrozma DM and Calyrex I are interesting as they all set field effects than can support a team but are also the best abusers of those field effects, though I’m unsure how healthy such mons might be.

Given the much lower diversity of the meta, it seems more common for Mons to function as very dedicated check to a specific threat, which creates unique quirks in movepools and team building, something I don’t think is possible to replicate in OU where each role has to cover much more ground.

What defines a niche or playstyle? Obviously we can copy an Uber and downgrade it; think Spectrier vs. Caly-S. However, this seems a bit unsatisfying. What do we think is the core of a Pokemon that we want to replicate with this process? This might be a bit abstract, but I think it's worth nailing down now.

Ultimately I think this is about how a mon is able to approach the assigned role. What does enable it to fill this niche? Does it have unique traits that define this niche or does it share these traits with other mons but is simply build best to use it in the specific meta or does it maybe even have strong competition in its main role but has other options that still set it apart while performing this role.
The most interesting part for this process is gonna be deciding wether unique traits can be recreated and transposed for another meta environment and if that requires copying from the chosen Uber or if it means changing and adapting to what exists in OU.

 

[a fairy]

How do Ubers Pokemon differ from OU Pokemon? How does this affect what playstyles and niches are available? As SHSP noted, Ubers have better stats, abilities, and movepools than OU Pokemon on average, but this is not exactly uniform (a lot of Ubers are stuck with Pressure, for example). This question aims to examine what elements we can leave mostly as-is, and which elements we need to focus more on toning down.

I think the line is thinner than it has used to be, and a lot of 'mons in Ubers do somewhat flount this. Ignoring the Policy Review answer, in my eyes the answer simply is "this 'mon is too good at what it does, and what it does is too good" - it has weaknesses and limitations, sure, but overall these are Pokemon who when they set out to do something in the battle, it is exceptionally difficult to stop them from succeeding. The 'what' is often different between different Ubers, SV Espathra and ORAS Mega Sableye may as well be in different games with how they compare in functionality, but the shared connective tissue they all have is that when they set out to do a task, you best have a specific way to stop it or don't care that it's doing its task.

How do Ubers metagames differ from the OU / CAP metagame? How does this affect what niches are valuable? I hope people who are more familiar with Ubers can give some insight here to help everyone be on the same page with regards to what we're working with.

This question also aims to examine how the environment of Ubers affects the niches that arise. One example that stands out to me is Ribombee, which is rated B+ in Ubers while B- in SV OU.

When everyone's super, nobody is, or whatever the quote is. Don't really care. But like, it kinda doesn't matter that your selling point is "I do my thing extraordinarily well" when everyone else is saying the same thing more or less. I do not play Ubers so I can't deeply speak on this question, but I have to imagine that the level of success is just that much higher. Sure, we saw how busted Annihilape was in OU, but in Ubers the bar is just so much higher, causing it to function nearly 0 there and "falling" to Ubers UU.

Many Ubers are defined by high-powered signature moves or abilities. Are these important / necessary in order to replicate their niche? I can't help but think of Glastrier, who languishes in ZUBL while Caly-I resides in Ubers. I think it's a good idea to have a rough guideline of how lenient we want to be with signatures.

Grimacing emoji. I really do not think we need this. A glance at the Ubers VR shows me a fair bunch of Pokemon who don't have signature stuff, not really. Origin Pulse's 5% accuracy buff over HPump is not an important/necessary high-powered signature move necessary to replicate Kyogre's niche. Ho-Oh's Sacred Fire improves its position certainly, but I think it'd still be considerably valuable without, same with Eternatus and Dynamax Cannon.

Yes, many Ubers are defined by these signature moves and abilities. Koraidon and Miraidon, Arceus, Zacian, Necrozma-DM and Lunala fill out some of the best mons that exist in Ubers and would be considerably worse if you replaced their stuff with the nearest common denominator (Drought, ESurge, ETC). You could maybe make an argument against Arceus and Lunala here but I don't really buy it.

All this to say, I really don't think tat it's a necessity to replicate these to make successful 'mini-Ubers'. If anything, the existence of these non-gifted Ubers makes me think that molding after a gifted Uber and kneecapping their special sauce for something more reasonable. Does Caly-I really need both G.Lance and a souped up Moxie? Why recreate a weaker Kyogre, a 'mon already with nothing actually special about it beyond the default Uber characteristics (there's a reason Drizzle's never on a good 'mon...!), let's see what a 'mon looks like when its built like ['mon] without ['mon's special toy] but rather a nearest common denominator. Tera Shell? Nah, we got Multiscale. Sword of Ruin? You're stuck with Adaptability now. I dunno.

What are some niches or playstyles unique to Ubers Pokemon? Which of these are reasonable to replicate in an OU / CAP setting? Which are unfeasible, and why? I think it is a good idea to try to separate out which niches are meta-specific vs. which niches are more portable, as well as which roles fall apart when we try to tone down the power level. Of course, these are not necessarily black-and white, as something designed to beat CM Arceus could in theory be used as inspiration to beat CM Chromera in CAP. Feel free to give specifics here, but this is merely getting a lay of the land. I'll open up submissions to slate in a few days.

As someone who does not play Ubers but is perusing their VR, it sure seems like they enjoy Stall way more than OU does, as well as hazards? B+ Ting and Hatt, Terapagos and Gliscor in B, Dirge Bliss in B-. Alo, Dozo, Ditto, Clod, Skarm, Garg, Tina all running around in C. For hazards, Lando-T and Deo-S in A-, Bee in B+ (as mentioned) and Glimm (notable mention Hatt), Terap Glisc in B, Grimmsnarl (special mention) Skarm Garg Pech in C. Maybe not all of those 'mons are hard stall, sure, but I'm also assuredly missing 'mons that interface with those categories from a lack of knowledge. When's the last time you saw a Blissey on a stall team?

EDIT: I'll add one more
What defines a niche or playstyle? Obviously we can copy an Uber and downgrade it; think Spectrier vs. Caly-S. However, this seems a bit unsatisfying. What do we think is the core of a Pokemon that we want to replicate with this process? This might be a bit abstract, but I think it's worth nailing down now.

I think it's hard to define somewhat. We can sorta handwave "oh stall is when you outlast your opponent" or "ho-oh's niche is a useful typing, good stats, and the best ability ever to grace 'monkind.", but like, is that really useful as an answer? I don't really think so. I think the core should be the feeling of using an Uber. "Try and stop me, you can't" as you bring out a stats-heavy beast who is going to accomplish its goal, damned what you try to do about it. Obviously that's not exactly a healthy presence in the metagame, but if we're willing to re-examine our metagame, there's a numbe of 'mons who have a similar "try and stop me, you can't" presence to varying degrees of success - Kingambit is a sign of a very successful one, for sure, but when you see Maushold or Falinks in the Team Preview you already know what they're clicking, but also, are you really that threatened?

 

[Gekokeso]

How do Ubers Pokemon differ from OU Pokemon? How does this affect what playstyles and niches are available?

There's two types of Ubers restricted pokémon: The ones who get tested in OU but eventually are proven to been too much for OU to handle for one reason or another, and the ones that are so blatantly broken that they would get quickbanned from in tier in seconds because dropping them in OU would be like dropping a pitbull on a kindergarten. The mayority of the ones that get banned are Box Legendaries, who are so overwhelmingly potent by design and thus tend to have mostly offensive stats while also having a decent amount of bulk. This tends to lead to 3 types of ubers viable mons:

- Offensive mons who do their job better: Every mon in Ubers can hit hard and sweep on its own against many mons, but to be viable you have to be able to do that better than everyone else. Dropping stronger attacks, having better setup moves, that kind of thing.
- Defensive mons that can tank a hit: Fat do nothing mons tend to be just okay in OU since there's more mons that can bypass them while not being too weak to everything else, but in Ubers their defensive capabilities are way more appreciated, making the likes of Blissey or Clodsire more viable in ubers.
- Weird ou viable guys: This category can range from either mons that are already ou viable and have a good matchup with the current meta or a weirder even less viable options that either hard counters a mon in particular or just has tools that make it usable in the tier. Stuff like Kingambit and Gen 8 Weavile come to mind.

How do Ubers metagames differ from the OU / CAP metagame? How does this affect what niches are valuable?

I hope people who are more familiar with Ubers can give some insight here to help everyone be on the same page with regards to what we're working with. I can't speak because I have not enough uber experience and a lot of people here also seem to share this sentiment Someone kidnap Lasen from whatever hole he is currently in and get him here. However, from what I recall the general lack of utility from the box legendaries and their mostly offensive stats tends to push the viable playstyles into mostly offensive playstyles and stall like builds that can afford to tank the nuclear attacks coming from the legendaries.

Many Ubers are defined by high-powered signature moves or abilities. Are these important / necessary in order to replicate their niche?

Absolutely not. Are some signatures moves and abilities better than others and help make an already strong mon stronger? Yes, but moves alone are not enough to make a mon viable, as you can observed by the likes of last respects, rage fist and more only making their users slightly stronger than OU, but they struggle hard in Ubers. There's plenty of mons that found themselves in Ubers without a signature move at all such as Volcarona since their success is more like a product of its stats and movepool rather than of anything unique they may hold.

What are some niches or playstyles unique to Ubers Pokemon? Which of these are reasonable to replicate in an OU / CAP setting? Which are unfeasible, and why?

Some of the most unique stuff about ubers is that there's plenty of filed setters like Kyogre or Koraidon who can setup field advantages for themselves, but typically unlike field setters in OU those mons use the field more for themselves rather than centering the entire team around them. Something I recall as well is that Ubers have some very unique scarfers, as with the speed tiers being completely nuts and generally every mon being able to pack a punch there's a significant variety of scarfers designed to get the jump on the opposing team.

 

[Guingil]

How do Ubers Pokemon differ from OU Pokemon? How does this affect what playstyles and niches are available?
How do Ubers metagames differ from the OU / CAP metagame? How does this affect what niches are valuable?

Ubers seems very much like a “rich boys’ club” tier from an outsider’s viewpoint. Most of the top Ubers Pokemon have a mix of bulk and attacking prowess, which I believe centralizes the tier on making having that mix of bulk and attacking prowess the most important thing.

The chart above plots the higher attacking stat against overall BSR tankiness for both tiers until B- in the viability rankings. The Ubers Pokemon majorly populate the top-right corner, while OU has a far more varied distribution. There are exceptions in Ubers such as Attack-maxxers (Deoxys-A) and Pokemon that fill very specific niches like Glimmora, Hatterene, Ribombee, etc. Skeledirge is an interesting case because, as I understand it, its matchup against Koraidon comprises most of its value. This latter case of super specialists is perhaps enabled or wanted by the “super bulky-attacker” as support, as others have said, but there is only space for those few.

Also interesting is that the boundaries of the chart are mostly viable in Ubers. Aside from the main cluster on the top right and the niche-filling Pokemon, Giratina, Ting-Lu, and Blissey are bulky titans that find their place in the tier.

Funnily enough, some UUBL Pokemon like Hoopa-U, Iron Hands, and Ursaluna make it into the chart between prominent Uber Pokemon thanks to their stats, but they are a tier below proper OU as well due to weaknesses like their typing (Hoopa-U) or Speed (Iron Hands, Ursaluna) that are not easily overcome.

Many Ubers are defined by high-powered signature moves or abilities. Are these important / necessary in order to replicate their niche?

To a certain extent? But I don’t think the signature aspect is as important as having enough elements to define that niche.

For example, what is the essential thing that makes Glastrier different from Calyrex-I? Glastrier has 20 fewer stat points in every stat except HP, does not have the Psychic typing, and lacks key moves like Glacial Lance, Trick Room, and Leech Seed. Both possess Chilling Neigh, but the lack of OTR makes it suboptimal for Glastrier. I think defining the key aspects of the niche would necessitate whether they are executable only with a signature (eg, Triple Axel > Glacial Lance could be an easy enough replacement). There is also the possibility of replicating only part of that niche in our translation of the strategy to the OU/CAP tier, because completely replicating it might be broken.

Pressure being a common ability among Ubers is another point to this, in that the niche might not reside in the ability or the moves at all but in some specific combination (Giratina-O, for example).

What are some niches or playstyles unique to Ubers Pokemon? Which of these are reasonable to replicate in an OU / CAP setting? Which are unfeasible, and why?
What defines a niche or playstyle?

A niche to me is something a Pokemon can uniquely do by virtue of a combination of its traits, which helps it fit on a team. It’s narrower and more meta-reliant than a role, which implies a more general thing many Pokemon can do? Obliteryx to me has a niche as an anti-physical offense Rock setter with a strong Knock Off, while Clefable has a niche as a Knock- and status-absorbing Rock setter with a weaker Knock Off that is still very reliable. Both occupy the role of hazard setter. Maybe a niche is necessarily comprised of an intersection of more than one trait? I think Giratina-O was discussed on Discord as having a niche of hazard remover that is resilient to the strongest priority move(s) in the tier and with an anti-setup option, which funnily enough Mollux occupies in CAP despite going about it in a completely different way.

A lot of these niches for Ubers are stats-driven, but I believe it would be a mistake to take the niche itself to be something as general as “flexibility driven by stats”. Stats should be the means to an end of achieving that niche here. Also the big stat thing is characteristic of the tier itself, driven by other Pokemon having big stats, which we obviously cannot replicate with one CAP38.

Otherwise, I agree with the suggestions already in the thread of “selfish setter”, “recoveryless slow setup” (CM Primarina does not count because of DKiss :sob:), or “unique scarf Pokemon” (Ho-Oh, although Tornadus-T is a distant cousin due to using Regenerator to allow cool strategies for a hazard-weak mon).

 

[Da Pizza Man]

How do Ubers metagames differ from the OU / CAP metagame? How does this affect what niches are valuable?

Speaking just current gen Ubers, it is a considerably much more offensive metagame than OU/CAP, largely due to the overwhelming offensive pressure that Pokemon such as Koraidon and Zacian-Crowned are able to apply. This results in bulkier team styles such as balance largely being overshadowed by more offensive teams. This is a very stark contrast from OU / CAP, especially the later, where bulkier teams see much more representation overall, both due to the overall power level being lower, and in the case of CAP particularly, the amount of tools the metagame has to apply pressure on very offensive teams. This creates a bit of an awkward situation where we are looking at Pokemon from a very offensive metagame and trying to recreate them in a more balanced one. I don't think this would the ability to replicate an Uber impossible or even too nessecerily hard, but it is something that we should be considering during this process.

Many Ubers are defined by high-powered signature moves or abilities. Are these important / necessary in order to replicate their niche?

The answer is here is pretty much always going to be "no" outside of a handful of exceptions. I largely agree with Amamama that we should be striving to re-create the playstyle of a mon rather than trying to effectively re-create the mon at a lower power level itself. In my opinion, the best way of going about this would be to look at individual mons and break them down to their core, with us making a mon that serves more of an abstraction of said core rather than a direct recreation of the mon itself. This approach is ideal, as it gives us a lot more freedom throughout the process while also giving us plenty of room to course correct during any stage of the process.

 

[viol and bass]

How do Ubers Pokemon differ from OU Pokemon? How does this affect what playstyles and niches are available?

This point is really feeding off Shock3600 's post so check that out.

One of the things that stands out to me about Ubers pokemon vs. their OU counterparts is that they're often poorly optimized. They often have very poor typings, weak ability synergy, un-minmaxed stats (many of the box legendaries, especially older ones, have a stat floor of 90). Many of them make up for this with a mountain of stats and colorful movepools.

As an example, Calyrex-Ice is a slow mon that has to tank a hit to set up Trick Room because it's so slow, and it might have literally the worst typing in the game for doing so. But it's so bulky and hard hitting that it succeeds in spite of this. If you think about it, Arceus is one of the least optimized mons of all time. A little bit of stat tinkering would go crazy with that mon. Compare this to your average OU mon which probably has a good typing, good ability synergy, a reasonable "stat shape" for its role, etc. It's hard to succeed in that environment if the package isn't working together nicely.

I realize the pitfalls of this but I think recreating the "poor optimization" in some way might be an interesting approach, depending on which uber we choose. Not just in the sense of huge stats making up for poor everything else, but maybe being a little looser with the synergies. Something like Lokix where the whole package is working together very cleanly and it's optimizing the use of its ability quite well is sort of the spiritual opposite of an uber to me.

 

[Spammernoob]

Alright, PigGPT here to summarize current discussion and move thread onto next phase.


How do Ubers Pokemon differ from OU Pokemon? How does this affect what playstyles and niches are available?
How do Ubers metagames differ from the OU / CAP metagame? How does this affect what niches are valuable?

I think the main observations regarding Ubers Pokemon are high all-round stats and high-power STABs. This means that offensive mons have solid bulk, and bulky mons are stronger. This leads to a lot of snowbally setup sweepers, since they have the bulk to live most neutral hits when setting up. Revenge killers like Scarf Koraidon / Kyogre need a lot more raw power to function in Ubers than similar Pokemon in OU. This dynamic, combined with less relevant status absorbers, make Thunder Wave and Toxic major progress-making tools (even stronger than OU).

Well-rounded stats and centralization also lead to natural flexibility. Pokemon like Groudon can play an offensive SD / Rock Polish role or defensive utility with Thunder Wave / Toxic, Stealth Rock / Spikes, Roar, etc. with very customizable EV spreads. Any non-Legendary Pokemon needs to make up for lack of stats with relevant immunities, or extreme specializations. Lando-T and Gliscor are 2 examples of the former, and Blissey and Ting-lu are 2 examples of the latter.

Regarding the meta, we see a lot of centralization due to a relatively low selection of high power Pokemon and high redundancy in typing / role leading to certain Pokemon being outclassed (a lot of Dragons, so Dragons with less power / utility like Palkia, Reshiram, etc. are mostly irrelevant). This also means that tech coverage moves have a higher chance of hitting their desired matchup, despite being less useful outside of their targets due to the prevalence of strong STABs. This indicates that we should expect certain meta-specific niches that are hard to replicate in a more decentralized metagame like CAP / OU.


Many Ubers are defined by high-powered signature moves or abilities. Are these important / necessary in order to replicate their niche?

Looks like everyone wants no sigs.


What defines a niche or playstyle?

I like guingil's description of a niche as an intersection of relevant interactions a Pokemon has with a metagame. Something like Giratina-O might be characterized by hazard resistance, (almost exclusive) access to hazard removal, strong matchup into common hazard setters (Ting-lu), access to anti-setup tools (Wisp, Dragon Tail), and emergency answer to strong Priority sweeper Extremespeed Arceus, and ability to spinblock (less relevant).


What are some niches or playstyles unique to Ubers Pokemon? Which of these are reasonable to replicate in an OU / CAP setting? Which are unfeasible, and why?

The main archetypes listed were flexible multi-role and selfish setter. The other interesting playstyle mentioned was mid-speed CM breaker role of Kyogre, similar to CM Lele from past gens.

I think multi-role will be difficult to replicate. Based on the answers to previous questions, we have the impression that Ubers is more centralized and there is low competition for certain roles due to limited selection of Pokemon that meet the stat requirements to properly perform these roles. Thus, we are more likely to see Pokemon that are forced into multiple roles to fulfill their team's needs on both a defensive front and an offensive / utility front (eg. wincon NDM sets still need to defensively answer Zacian-C). This is less of the case in OU and especially CAP, where there are a wider variety of options for utility roles. Thus, there is more competition so there is a higher bar to be cleared for each role to be viable.

-----

These first questions were mostly to lay the groundwork for the rest of Concept Assessment. From here, the plan is as follows:

1. Assemble slate of Ubers to build around; decide via poll
2. Compile various roles, properties, interactions of this Uber.
3. Sort these into 3 categories: Important to replicate, optional to replicate, and can be ignored. This step is highly subjective and I will just go off of my perception of community consensus (we can also poll it if that feels better).

Without further ado, feel free to submit Ubers we want to replicate. Include a small explanation of their unique niche / playstyle that you find interesting, and we'll poll in a few days. I'll leave it at this, and if the formatting of submissions ends up being too open, I'll make another post or something.

 

[Sqookblooks]

Big boy Zygarde-Complete-- (Specifically the Gen 8 variant but Gen 7 valid too) .

The niche of Mr. Zygarde C is pretty neat, and anyone whose played along with the big guy can tell you he's a really funny guy and definitely someone I think is currently being underrated in the convo for Uber to emulate. You can summarize it with the following tenets

1) Illegal levels of bulk-- Zygarde C is definitionally the bulkiest Pokemon in the game, and it's not hard to see with that 216 HP Stat. Even the normal uncomplete version is still very bulky with 108/121/95 bulk. This bulk is massively important for Zygarde-C's gameplan as it allows you to be a ruthless endgame sweeper, tanking hits to setup either Coil or Dragon Dance
2) Different Modes of Setup-- Speaking of which , coil and dragon dance offer two very different modes of setup that are both threatening in their own ways and both can either setup / take advantage of different Pokemon. Coil in particular is really nice to fuck with physical boosters like SD Groudon or Ho-Oh
3) Defensive Utility before the end-game sweep-- Zyg-C often packs multiple different forms of utility alongside its sweeping / setup sets. That includes things like the dreaded Glare which got the normal version banned from OU, Toxic, and Dragon Tail for phazing. You also see Rest to aid in the utility of Zyg-C over the course of the match. Unlike other utility mons, a Zyg-C clone would have dual utility in acting as a utility mon before becoming a sweeper at end game. Also, Zyg-C doesn't pack things like Recover, instead relying on Rest and it's raw bulk to reset itself back to neutral
4) Lack of Coverage / One Move Click-- Ok yeah, this is obviously the most standout quality of Zyg-C. Thousand Arrows is broken, we get it. Obviously a Zyg-C clone would not be packing Thousand Arrows because we're not giving out sigs. But there's still plenty of very very useful one move-attacks that can be used in place of Thousand Arrows for similar effect. Thousand Arrows is a massive benefit to Zyg-C ofc, making it so it only really needs one attacking move and enabling its utility that I described earlier. You basically never see any other coverage on Zyg-C, but it's not exactly like it's missing anything because its coverage is pretty dogshit anyway.
5) Relatively Mediocre Attacking Stat: Zygarde's base attack stat 100 is also mediocre, esp for Ubers standards, and this is another massive part of its identity because it's not hitting *that* hard without setup even with a Thousand Arrows basically having no relevant resistances in ubers due to the lack of grasses / bugs.

I know some people might quibble about the nature of Zyg-C relying on a transformation from normal Zygarde, but tbh, I don't think the transformation is 100% necessary for the "essence" of Big Zyg-C to be captured. Most good players are realistically getting Zyg-Complete anyway in a match, and the biggest thing that actually changes for Zyg-C's transformation is the HP / Bulk. The attack doesn't change at all. We could emulate Zyg-C by making a defensive utility setup sweeper that starts at 100%'s bulk.

As for potential analogs, it's pretty tricky since Zyg-C's niche is honestly pretty damn unique. The best I could do is some old gen variants of Dragonite, specifically those SubFly D-Nite sets / defensive setup Dragonite. Depending on how generous the analogue we want, I'd argue Bulky Safeguard Volc could also count. Finally, I'm sure in all the gens that both Tyranitar and Salamence have been run, we've surely seen a similar set. Lmk if yall have any other similar Pokemon to this. Truly wracking my head. EDIT: Forgot but CM TWave Clef could also count under this utility into sweeper mold of mons

Anyways, up big Mr. Zyg-C!

 

[Rysachi]

I'm not the most informed to the Ubers ladder meta plus I feel like multiple people have already covered the prior questions extremely well so I'll move onto the part 2 of suggesting which Ubers have caught my interest as possible slate options, what part of the Uber interests me and some suggestions on what could/should be removed to make them take a step towards OU-usable. Without further ado, here is the list:


Calyrex-Ice has a very unique case in the fact it is one of the most viable case of self-TR setting due to having extremely well balanced defences ontop of a very high physical attack. It has the caveat of having low speed which happens to help Calyrex-Ice in the case of being a method of countering HO Web teams that rely on middling/faster Ubers through Trick Room. Calyrex-Ice also has a very easy way to snowball fast by having a mixture of SD, Glacial Lance and As One for attack boosting per kills which can get out of hand extremely fast. Whilst I think Calyrex-Ice would require a lot of changing to bring it down to an OU level requiring changes such as stat lowering to replacing the ability to self boost in such a manor, Calyrex is a rare case in which I believe Glacial Lance as a signature move would potentially not be necessary to remove and rather balanced around due to being an extremely reliable ice type move with no repercussions and 120BP which puts it on a higher level than Ice Beam which is typically the move that the ice typing tends to default to on the special side outside of some exceptions. Ice/Psychic is also in theory a somewhat good offensive typing with an immediate issue of hitting steel types and a very large number of weaknesses to give a CAP version quite a lot of counterplay to have to worry about and work around. Calyrex overall will need a lot of reworking especially on the stat side to even be considered usable but I think can make for interesting discussions throughout to see what direction people would take to make a viable Ice/Psychic typing.


Firstly want to make it extremely clear, I have absolutely no interest in making a CAP with Orichalcum Pulse. CAP as a whole and CAP ladder does not need more sun in the meta let alone an upgraded version that can raise its own attack stat whilst doing so, save the sun for and . What makes Koraidon an interesting case for me is the typing whilst not required to replicate, Fighting/Dragon is an example of a strong offensive synergy between what it can hit for neutral or SE but has a clear caveat with a 4X weakness to fairy that makes it more reliant on tera to cover for fairy types and Tera Fairy as a whole being an immediate counterplay option.
The other main detail and the one that interests me the most is potentially the only other Uber signature move that I feel we could justify keeping in Collision Course. For starters, Collision Course is quite a unique concept (and far less broken than Electro Drift) in being a 100BP fighting move that gains an inbuilt Life Orb boost for hitting Super-Effectively. Whilst seems good on paper and has the damage ceiling higher and no drawbacks compared to Close Combat, is never seen used on Koraidon compared to Close Combat or Low Kick due to Ubers not only being a meta full of heavy Pokemon but also the fact that Collision Course has plenty of typings that resist, neutral or is immune to it to the point Collision Course is quite difficult to gain the boost to where it isn't used. I feel if we wanted to work around replicating Koraidon, we have a very unique signature move to also work around and a very clear area to how we can turn it into an OU-usable CAP by lowering the BST and removing the very clear broken ability.


My final suggestion is one that doesn't look to use the signature move due to Dynamax Cannon having a secondary effect that has absolutely no relevance to SV ontop of being more consistent to Draco Meteor. What intrigues me about Eternatus is that this CAP is one of many that doesn't rely on its ability due to not inheritently being broken compared to other Ubers e.g. Shadow Shield, Orichalcum Pulse, Mutiscale, Regenerator etc. However, due to the natural all around stats that Eternatus has ontop of an extremely generous HP stat and recovery, Eternatus has the capability to be able to live plenty of neutral hits (even super-effective ones sometimes) to where Eternatus is able to stick around the field for an extremely long time and Pressure has the potential to have relevance in this case if you are unable to break Eternatus. Another interesting thing to note in a similar sense to both previous examples is that both poison and dragon are both easily checked to steel types which are plentiful in CAP. What saves Eternatus and makes for a good conversation regarding the movepool discussion is that Eternatus has both Flamethrower and Fire Blast which is arguably the perfect coverage option to hit steel types and potentially remove them once weakened. Eternatus also has an easy way to turn into a very immediate offensive presence through Meteor Beam which not only can be used to gain super effective coverage on a niche selection of Ubers it can hit and remove e.g. but also can allow Eternatus to abuse the "perfect coverage" it has to essentially have no counterplay or safe switch ins. This gives us 3 potential places for us to look at and decide what we would want to keep and remove out of Recovery, Coverage and Self-Boosting ontop of a clear need of BST changing. An Eternatus slate would also allow us to easily explore other typings in a sense of giving two STAB's a coverage option to turn it into "perfect coverage" in an OU setting.

 

[Spammernoob]

As an addendum: If someone else has made a post about a mon that you want to add to, feel free to quote their post.

I was also asked about pre-ban OU sets for Pokemon like Magearna or Genesect. I'll discuss with TLT and get back on that front, but I'm currently leaning towards no? I can see cases for it though.
EDIT: TLT agreed with me (big surprise), so only actual Ubers-viable sets.

 

[FaelisongTalim]

It's Eternatus Time babyyyyyy

This is kind of just a rambling of thoughts but I feel like Eternatus is a very interesting Ubers-tiered Pokemon to design around because at first glance, it has very few ingredients and those ingredients are rather simple but they still achieve some interesting set variation and fulfill a unique role within the Ubers metagame.

Eternatus' tools is interesting. What immediately stands out is its stat spread, having high HP, SpA and Speed. This is quite an unusual distribution for a lot of mons, since it is generally accepted that a Pokemon can only satisfy two out of three with regards to bulk, offensive power and speed, and never all three at the same time. This gives Eternatus a very interesting bit of flexibility where Eternatus is customizable to fulfill different niches, such as a Pokemon that absorbs damage well with its high HP, access to Recover and typing that allows it to stomach Fighting, Water and Fire type hits while still leaving it plenty vulnerable to all of the Dragon and Ground moves flying around. In addition, as Rysachi has mentioned, Eternatus' Poison and Dragon coverage is only stopped by Steel types which its access to Flamethrower patches up that offensive blindspot, and that 145 SpA can ascend to incredible heights after a Meteor Beam.

Another key aspect of Eternatus is how shallow its movepool is. Dynamax Cannon is a signature move but it's very easily substitutable with Dragon Pulse, Sludge Bomb/Wave is the alternative STAB option and then a choice between Recover and Toxic/Toxic Spikes or Flamethrower and Meteor Beam. The fun thing is that this is basically EVERYTHING that Eternatus could run save for a cheeky Cosmic Power set or a possible Dragon Tail set. Compared to other threats such as Arceus and Necrozma Dusk Mane, Eternatus' movepool is rather starved. Yet despite this, it still manages to carve out a unique role not only within the Ubers metagame but it's just a very unique role that has applications in other Tiers, CAP especially. CAP movepools are rather shallow already, but it is quite fun to experiment with a mon that has a lot of useful traits with very little tools to begin with.

The Ability is of another note. There are many Ubers that are forced to run Pressure as an Ability. Pressure is quite notorious in how it does not contribute strongly to a Uber's powerset and a majority of Ubers would be better without that Ability. Eternatus is unique however, because Pressure actually serves a usable role with its high HP and Speed allowing it to stall out the low PP signature moves that dominate the tier. The stat spread of Eternatus almost implies a role similar to Cresceidon where it can utilize Recover faster than the opponent could wear it down. The combination of Pressure and Recovery is shared by another Uber, Mewtwo, but Mewtwo's typing and overall bulk leave much to be desired. It would be fun exploring a Pokemon that has an ability that is mostly undesired but can pose a powerful threat within the right circumstances.

Eternatus ultimately is a Pokemon that lacks a lot of immediate showiness. It lacks any insane stat thresholds defined by its compatriots in the tier, its movepool is not very deep at all and ultimately it looks like just one more Dragon type in a tier infested by Dragons. Despite this, it remains A-ranked in the Ubers VR of Generation 9 and S-ranked in Generation 8. It really does not have a lot of ingredients and lacks spice, but it feels like a nice warm home-made meal that could satisfy whatever cravings you may have some the basic necessities of the pantry, and it comes with a unique spin on rehashed ideas. Taking CAP38 in such a direction is not as crazy as something such as Deoxys-Attack or Primal Groudon or E-Killer Arceus but fulfills a unique role with unique implications especially in a offensive-heavy metagame.

 

[dex]

I think Primal Groudon would be a very good choice as the uber to base this CAP off of. There are a couple reasons for this, which I will list.

Set Versatility
Primal Groudon has perhaps the most immense set versatility of any Pokemon ever. In its two generations of existence, it could run a defensive utility set, an offensive utility set, a Speed-boosting sweeping set, a stallbreaker set, an Attack-boosting wallbreaker set, an anti-offense set, multiple mixed attacking sets, a double dance set, and a Rest wall set. This level of set versatility is essentially unheard of in OU. The closest comparison you can make is DPP and BW Tyranitar, but even it struggles to compare with the wide-reaching nature of Primal Groudon's splashability due to how many ways you could effectively use it.

Typing Lacking a Key Weakness
No OU Pokemon has really had Primal Groudon's unique typing profile with a weakness that it is immune to. Part of the reason Heatran is as good a Pokemon as it has been for so many generations is that it turns a neutrality into an immunity. Primal Groudon goes above and beyond that by turning a weakness, a 4x weakness no less, into an immunity. I don't think this trait is as defining to Primal Groudon as the above set versatility is, but its extremely unique type profile is definitely something to consider.

Lack of Recovery While Being a Wall
One of Primal Groudon's many good sets is a defensive wall, which it accomplishes with aplomb despite its total lack of recovery from either Leftovers or a recovery move. It accomplishes this through immense physical bulk, its incredible type profile, and double status immunity. OU's walls for essentially all of the recent generations, barring a couple exceptions (Ting-Lu and Heatran), have not operated this way, and it's a very unique way of inhabiting the role. Comparing it to Ting-Lu reveals the differences between the two; Groudon forces things out because it can hit extremely hard, while Ting-Lu forces things out because it will get up entry hazards until you make it stop. Despite this feature currently existing in OU, it is still extremely rare in modern OU for a Pokemon to act this way. Even with Ting-Lu and Heatran as counter-examples, those are two Pokemon that get immense value out of Leftovers and often will be positioned to take advantage of that passive recovery. Primal Groudon does not need such a luxury to act as a wall.

 

[Feldirion]

I'm seconding Calyrex-Ice here, because I think it's an exemplar of the Ubers mindset, and for the following reasons.
.Trick Room. Calyrex-Ice embodies the selfish setter mentality typical of many Ubers. It makes use of Trick Room, traditionally a doubles-orientated move, in a singles format. Pokemon like Ursaluna have experimented with Trick Room in OU, but I've searched my brain and I can't think of any mons that set and abuse it (correct me if I've overlooked someone.) Mini-Calyrex-Ice would shed light on an entirely unexplored niche.
.Snowball. Points to a fairy for summarizing this better then I ever could. The core game experience with many Ubers is "Try to stop me, you can't." Calyrex-Ice is one of the most terrifying sweepers, because once it gets rolling all you can really do is try to time out it's Trick Room. Obviously, it would be taken down a good few notches, but if we could replicate that feeling, even on a lower scale, I think we'd have done a pretty good job on this concept.
.Typing. Calyrex-Ice thrives because of it's massive bulk, but it does so with one of the worst defensive typings in the game. It gives us a lot more freedom going forward, and we get to ask some interesting questions: do we give it a better typing but lower stats? Do we handicap it? Calyrex-Ice has a lot of weaknesses to exploit, but it's also capable of hitting many offensive threats with it's STAB. It's well-balanced in that respect.
.Stats. As it stands, Calyrex-Ice has all the stats it needs. 100/165/150/85/130/50 is one tanky spread. We'd undoubtedly have to reduce it, and that in itself can open up more avenues of thought. How would Calyrex-Ice operate with lower bulk? How would it's impact have been different if it's attack had been much lower? It's a Pokemon that gives a lot of questions for us to explore.
.Clear Niche. Admittedly, this can also be seen as a bit of a downside. Ubers like or have a lot more versality and creative freedom, whilst Calyrex-Ice is firmly set in its role. On a more positive note, however, this focus will prevent any scope creep or instances where we try to make a mon do too many things at once.
.Summary. Calyrex-Ice is an Uber that explores an entirely new niche in CAP while retaining the traditional Ubers 'feeling'. It's also a very carefully balanced package, meaning we'll have a lot of options and freedom in scaling it down to OU levels.

 

[Xeggutor]

Firstly want to make it extremely clear, I have absolutely no interest in making a CAP with Orichalcum Pulse. CAP as a whole and CAP ladder does not need more sun in the meta let alone an upgraded version that can raise its own attack stat whilst doing so, save the sun for and . What makes Koraidon an interesting case for me is the typing of Fighting/Dragon being quite strong offensively but with a clear weakness to fairy that would make the CAP potentially reliant on tera to cover for fairy types and Tera Fairy as a whole being an immediate counterplay option. The other main thing that catches my interest is potentially the only other signature move that I feel we could justify keeping is Collision Course. For starters, Collision Course is quite a unique concept (and far less broken than Electro Drift) in being a 100BP fighting move that gains an inbuilt Life Orb boost for hitting Super-Effectively. Whilst seems good on paper and has the damage ceiling higher and no drawbacks compared to Close Combat, is never seen used on Koraidon compared to Close Combat or Low Kick due to Ubers not only being a meta full of heavy Pokemon but also the fact that Collision Course has plenty of typings that resist, neutral or is immune to it to the point Collision Course is quite difficult to gain the boost to where it isn't used. I feel if we wanted to work around replicating Koraidon, we have a very unique signature move to also work around and a very clear area to how we can turn it into an OU-usable CAP by lowering the BST and removing the very clear broken ability.

Throwing my support behind Koraidon
Not super familiar with Uber, but I have some experience with using this guy in restricted formats in VGC so I'm writing this with the hope that I'm not too far off from how it plays in Ubers.
What makes Koraidon really stand out to me is that in an environment where the top threats want to stick around and deal out a lot of damage, this guy is somehow dominating while actively lacking longevity, reducing its own bulk with Close Combat, taking recoil from Flare Blitz, and being vulnerable to all types of passive damage.
The funny thing is that we already kinda have a mini-Koraidon, its name is Blaziken, and it’s struggling in OU for exactly what I have mentioned with bad longevity. Obviously Koraidon has Dragon STAB and better stats going for it, but it’s interesting how it’s succeeding in a generation where having bad longevity is kind of a death sentence, and I want to see its success replicated in OU.

 

[quziel]

Firstly want to make it extremely clear, I have absolutely no interest in making a CAP with Orichalcum Pulse. CAP as a whole and CAP ladder does not need more sun in the meta let alone an upgraded version that can raise its own attack stat whilst doing so, save the sun for and . What makes Koraidon an interesting case for me is the typing of Fighting/Dragon being quite strong offensively but with a clear weakness to fairy that would make the CAP potentially reliant on tera to cover for fairy types and Tera Fairy as a whole being an immediate counterplay option. The other main thing that catches my interest is potentially the only other signature move that I feel we could justify keeping is Collision Course. For starters, Collision Course is quite a unique concept (and far less broken than Electro Drift) in being a 100BP fighting move that gains an inbuilt Life Orb boost for hitting Super-Effectively. Whilst seems good on paper and has the damage ceiling higher and no drawbacks compared to Close Combat, is never seen used on Koraidon compared to Close Combat or Low Kick due to Ubers not only being a meta full of heavy Pokemon but also the fact that Collision Course has plenty of typings that resist, neutral or is immune to it to the point Collision Course is quite difficult to gain the boost to where it isn't used. I feel if we wanted to work around replicating Koraidon, we have a very unique signature move to also work around and a very clear area to how we can turn it into an OU-usable CAP by lowering the BST and removing the very clear broken ability.

Gonna push back on the bolded bit here. I don't really like the implication that we're stealing the ubers typing whole sale. Like to my view we should be trying to replicate the overall vibe of the mon, and if we're saying we can only replicate a mon by stealing its typing then its probably a poor choice. Beyond that I don't really like Korai as a choice here. There's not really much to go on. It has premium offensive stats, just enough bulk, when combined with its typing and ability to get frequent switchins, a premium offensive ability, and perfect offensive coverage thanks to having 3 extremely potent stats. Its just sorta sauceless due to how perfect it is in almost every way. Its drawback is literally that you have a 4x weakness, which is trivial to tera out of given you have a steroid to Fire moves, and Fire lets you naturally resist those.

I'm going to propose Arceus () as a gestalt as our target. How much of the mon, as a whole, can we replicate? If that's too much then Arceus Ground by itself is acceptable. I think the defining thing about an uber is how many roles they can slot into on a team, and Arceus can do literally all of them except maybe speed control, though its still plenty fast and all of its formes have strong priority (especially if spending tera). I'm more interested in its past-gen sets than current gen, but being able to flit between CM wallbreaker (Ghost, Ground, etc), CM stallbreaker (CM Taunt Flying), Physical Wall (Ground, Water, Fairy), Swords Dance Sweeper (Normal), Swords Dance Wallbreaker (Ghost, Ground) is super cool. I think trying to get all of that into one mon is a major challenge, but its one I think is worth embarking on. If this is viewed as too much, I think the weaker question of "how to replicate Arc-Ground" is still worth doing, as its done a lot of those roles in the past.

Edit:
I also feel there's a lot to Caly-I beyond OTR, and reducing it to just that set is reducing a fairly wide concept to just "make a good OTR mon". Yes I know there's the snowballing element, but like, that's sorta a requirement for a good OTR mon anyways. Mage has it, Staka has it, and yeah Caly-I has it. Ultimately we are doing mini-uber not just OTR mon.

 

[CapitanPabloskii]

After reading a lot of these posts, I have one thing I can add that hasn't been said yet.
Ubers mons have a lot of immidiate/stacking multipliers. All of the paradox ubers, Ogerpon-H, Koraidon/Miraidon, the creation trio with their items, Zacian-/Zamazenta-C with their abilities. This also exists in CAP / OU to an extent. Top Pokemon like Zamazenta and the Ogerpons (still considered banworthy by many) also have immidiate boosting potential. A lot of ubers of old like latios also have items that made them banworthy and the last example I'll give is the transformations like Terapagos' beeg tutel, Ultra-Necrozma or Zygarde Complete, both immidiate and easy to set up while also boosting in their former formes to stack these power buffs. These multipliers serve to bolster their already strong stats either offensively or defensively, especially for strong sweepers. In conclusion, I think ubers mons love to stack boosts and it's what defines many top ubers or banned pokemon that were tested.

 

[Shock3600]

I think Primal Groudon would be a very good choice as the uber to base this CAP off of. There are a couple reasons for this, which I will list.

Set Versatility

While incredible set variety has been brought up as a consistent trend in ubers thats core to what we may look to achieve with the concept, there has been concerns about this- namely how achiavable it is to emulate this trait. When trying to make a mon good enough and versatile enough to run many diverse sets, there's a very fine line between it being incredibly overbearing (hello PPL!) and it being outclassed by the optimized specialists that can replace each of those roles/sets instead. Because of this being one of P-Dons most notable and attractive traits for emulation, I would look to introduce everyone to

DPP Groudon

I am both submitting Groudon as its own uber to emulate, but also want to look at what defines Groudon in DPP to show how we can narrow in on P-Don's vast number of sets and options instead of biting off more than we can chew if we choose to emualate P-Don.

Holder of Few
DPP Groudon is a holder of few- it only resists Rock, Poison, and Electric moves. Rock and Poison are essentially non existant, leaving just the electric immunity- which while it isn't any Pokemon's primaey form of attack, it does allow Groudon to pivot it on the common coverage move thunder (often seen paired with dragon stab). Conversely, Groudon is only weak to Grass, Ice, and Water moves, using Drought to situationally ofset the weakness to water. This leaves Groudon as a Pokemon with few resists, but with few vulnerabilites making it harder to bring down easily. Groudon's defensive profile can be seen as a weaker version of P-Don's, still being difficult to hit hard but without the incredible upsides.

Backwards Defensive Investment
Ground has fantastic physical bulk, with a fairly typical (if a bit below average) special bulk, but because DPP Ubers is defined by an overwhelming prescense of specially oriented monsters with almost no dedicated physical attackers (i.e. Groudon), it has no need to invest further in defense specifically. This means that bulk invested Groudon's instead can fully focus on SpDef (and Health) investment. This in combination with its trait as a Holder Of Few, allows support Groudon to be incredibly well rounded and difficult to take down quickly from any physical, special, or mixed attacker in the tier. This is a trait shared by Pdon (if to a lesser extend due to the tier not being so specially skewed), and is something that can be seen throughout OU's history. This trait is typically shared by Pokemon that have either an overabudance of one defense and get seriously diminishing returns from investing further, or defensive Pokemon that have an ability or typing combination that makes them valuable for checking Pokemon of the opposite bias (such as Ting Lu being a special wall despite its higher Defense due to its ability).

Set Diversity- the Support to Sweeper Spectrum
One of the main reasons I wanted to look at DPP Groudon specifically. P-Don has an ungodly number of sets and roles it can fill, making it difficult to emulate without focusing on a specific subset of these roles. DPP Groudon is still relatively diverse due to its nature as an uber, but follows a much eaiser to follow and emulate spectrum, acfing as a tank that can shift its investment and moveset to fill more of a support, breaker, or sweeper role.

Support Tank
Stealth Rock
Earthquake
Dragon Claw
Lava Plume / Thunder Wave
Groudon can primarily invest in its bulk in order to fill a valuable support and defensive team role, while still hitting hard.

Bulky Breaker
Swords Dance
Earthquake
Dragon Claw
Substitute / Rock Polish / Thunder Wave
Groudon can spread its investment between its bulk, attack, and speed, in order to act as a bulky breaker that can situationally leverage swords dance and/or its fourth move in order to abuse passive Pokemon and trade out its offensive checks.

Fast Sweeper
Rock Polish
Earthquake
Dragon Claw
Fire Punch
Groudon can focus its investments primarily on attack and speed and use the power of a life orb to become a lethal endgame sweeper. Notably, dropping swords dance and instead relying on immediate power allows it to leverage fire punch- while Earthquake + Dragon Claw is sufficient coverage, it means that SD Don is often planning on trading into and breaking Pokemon such as Bronzong for its partners instead of melting through a weakened one to cleanly sweep.

 

[shadowpea]

i think yveltal would be a cool uber to design our cap around since its crazy versatile not just because its jacked, its particularly jacked in a particular way that would be interesting to explore and replicate:

- powerful, versatile stab

twin 131 offenses and dark aura makes yveltal's dark stab do heavy damage on both sides of the spectrum. furthermore, the mon has access to an amazing pool of dark stabs, including dark pulse, sucker punch, knock off, and foul play, allowing them to carry heavy weight on its many, many sets, with a move or three suitable for each one.

in my mind this is the thing that sets yveltal apart from the other hyper-versatile ubers, as unlike most of em who run staple stabs common to nearly every set, yveltal's primary attacking options change depending on what it is doing, completely changing the angle it aims to take on the opposing team. dark aura sucker punch keeps attackers in check, knock off provides power and disruption in one slot, and foul play is anti-offense that takes advantage of the bloated statlines of ubers, retaining offensive presence even on bulkier sets.

- set versatility

has to be mentioned. yveltal's deep variety of sets include life orb wallbreaker, defensive pivot, fast tanky utility, choice scarf anti-offense, both band and specs, hone claws, and taunt stallbreaker. dark/flying provides valuable niches in the several ubers metagames including ghost resist, ground immunity and psychic immunity, and its all-rounder stats, combined utility of its stabs and support moves and reliable recovery in roost lets it do most things and do it well. an interesting aspect of this, i think, is the way it mixes and matches attacks and status moves, and items and evs, on non-aoa sets and come out with sets that play totally different. in the likely scenerio that yveltal's breadth of set variety is too broad to emulate, i think this is the part that is the most appealing.

- sustainable, non-choiced attacker

one of yveltal's flagship sets of all time is life orb, which can run anywhere from 2 to 4 attacks and almost never carries roost. despite this and the fact that the set is on a rock-weak mon, yveltal gets away with it thanks to the amazing recovery potential of oblivion wing, often allowing it to heal off the hp it lost from spamming dark stabs in one attack. this allows such an offensive set to retain significant defensive utility and longevity, a quality that i think would be cool to replicate if this is the route we go down with our cap, given that none of our available options have nearly as much juice as oblivion wing.


also throwing support in the ring for zygarde, who kind of takes the opposite stance of yveltal - it will always have thousand arrows, but thousand arrows takes care of virtually all of its attacking needs, allowing it to tailor the rest of its set as it sees fit. zygarde is also one of the greatest users of rest and has unique incentive to run it (its a defender/snowballer that has to be heavily damaged to activate complete form in the first place), and i think exploring the benefits of rest in this way without the blatant advantages of power construct can be very interesting.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

i approve of a lot of the suggestions given here, particularly yveltal, zygarde, and eternatus in that order, but i'd like to throw my hat in the ring with one more. submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i present to you:

if we're going for a kind of multi-role type of pokemon, this should be in serious consideration to use as a starting point. ho-oh is a jack of all trades and master of most of them. it can slot itself into a vast number of roles, from wallbreaker to revenge killer to tank to pivot to utility to straight-up special wall, thanks to its combination of excellent bulk, excellent stab off of a very good attack stat, an incredible offensive and defensive typing, a wide movepool, and regenerator. even before it got half of the tools it was eventually handed, it was still a meta staple. it's one of the very few pokemon that has ever managed to distinguish itself at the highest levels of its environment while being 4x weak to stealth rock in the era before heavy-duty boots. at its absolute weakest point, in gen 4 when it didn't have regenerator yet but stealth rock had just become a thing, it's sitting pretty at a respectable b+ on the vr. this is one of the rare pokemon that i can truly describe as timeless, and i think its massive set diversity and role as a blanket check to top meta threats across generations makes it a great model for what we should be going for here

 

[Amamama]

I want to slightly push back against Caly I. It is a very interesting Pokémon, but it also likely means following a rather narrow path especially if we want to include the snowballing factor and everyone that supports it has to make sure they are fine with either narrowing down the ability stage to not even a handful of options, try to shoddily replicate that effect with moves (the scaling of snowballing moves vs abilities is very different and probably will require a different approach to stats than what we might expect from a Caly I replica) or be fine with not including the snowballing style.

I also want to throw my support behind Arceus and specifically Arceus Ground. It is a great stand in for the plethora of Ubers with multiple Roles.
Atm it has three entirely different Sets for SV Ubers, which are Calm Mind, Dragon Dance and a bulky/wall set all while being a monotype. It reminds me a bit of Clefable (and Dragonite) in that regard.
This versatility is gonna have a big impact how we design movepool and stats to accommodate such distinct gameplans, while not making it too unpredictable.

 

[bumboclaat]

Thanks kenn for letting me know about this since this is a concept I really like it. First time properly making a post here so please let me know if I've done anything wrong.

How do Ubers Pokemon differ from OU Pokemon? How does this affect what playstyles and niches are available?

As SHSP noted, Ubers have better stats, abilities, and movepools than OU Pokemon on average, but this is not exactly uniform (a lot of Ubers are stuck with Pressure, for example). This question aims to examine what elements we can leave mostly as-is, and which elements we need to focus more on toning down.

As primarily Ubers enjoyer the first that comes to mind is frequently the bulk Ubers level Pokémon possess, even those percieved as frail. For example, Marshadow has a reputation for having the bulk of a wet paper bag but still has the same bulk statwise as Landorus-Therian and can live some surprising hits such as uninvested Precipice Blades and fully invested Dynamax Cannon. The second is, at least before the last couple of generations...how slow bonafide Ubers tend to be. The last two generations have turned this on its head, but before most Ubers sat between 90-100 Speed. Relative to OU, in Ubers the offensive Pokémon are bulky and the defensive Pokémon are (relatively) fast.

In terms of toning things down, it really should be a case by case basis as it is going to depend on what CAP 38 uses as inspiration. When it comes to your 'average' Uber you're looking at a Pokémon firing a ~100 BP move off of ~150 attacking stat coupled with at least Mew level bulk and usable speed. They have 680 BST and that has to go somewhere which leads to very different dynamics on a micro and macro scale. Trying to scale everything down neatly likely isn't going to work if you want CAP 38 to be 'good' and will require precision.

How do Ubers metagames differ from the OU / CAP metagame? How does this affect what niches are valuable?

They are almost apples and oranges for a few different reasons. First, Ubers comes with a level of centralization that is not acceptable in an OU metagame and really doesn't translate well. If OU standards for bans were used in Ubers then half the available Ubers in every generation would be banned which defeats the purpose of the tier existing. That does impact everything, but it also makes Ubers for all intents and purposes a 'smaller' tier than OU. Ribombee is simply a case of Sticky Web being a better archetype in Ubers than OU where it is the premier setter. I don't keep up with SV OU much so I don't know if Aquaranid is still real.

Second, is how that centralization manifests itself. Pretty much every modern Ubers metagame has at least two Pokémon that are 'mandatory' on every team such as Primal Groudon, an Arceus forme, or YEN in SS. That dynamic underpins the tier and has a massive impact on teams and this is before getting to Pokémon that are more or less mandatory on your archetype of choice. That centralization can lead to specific niches - usually defensive, becoming far more valuable than they appear on paper. If you're going to see a lower tier Pokémon outside of a hyper offense lead this will usally be why with Ferrothorn probably being the best example.

Third, there just are not that many Ubers. This is compounded by Game Freak's affinity towards making many of them Dragon and Psychic which can nudge the metagame in a specific direction relative to OU. When both are combined it leads to a different foundation than that which typically underpins OU.

Lastly, for the small stuff. Low PP moves are far more common and a shocking amount of moves are not fully accurate. The speed tiers are also incredibly compressed with most Pokémon sitting at 90-100. Playing Ubers will also make you think Thunder Wave was a universal TM.

Many Ubers are defined by high-powered signature moves or abilities. Are these important / necessary in order to replicate their niche?

Again this is really going to be a case by case basis as it can be both, one, or neither. It is likely to be important in replicating a niche, but won't always be mandatory. Lets look at the weather trio. I'm not going to pretend to be very familiar with the CAP metagame, but I doubt that Drought or Drizzle would recieve a warm welcome on real Pokémon - ditto with Delta Stream, Desolate Land, or Primordial Sea whilst Air Lock is probably fine. It is the oppsite when it comes to signature moves. Neither Precipice Blades nor Origin Pulse would be necessary, but Dragon Ascent would be. It really depends because many of these moves and abilities are probably fine in an OU context when accounted for during other steps of the design process.

What are some niches or playstyles unique to Ubers Pokemon? Which of these are reasonable to replicate in an OU / CAP setting? Which are unfeasible, and why?

I can at least answer in an OU setting as my CAP knowledge is still limited and fairly casual.

Interesting

Marshadow is close to a 'perfect' offensive role compression Pokémon as you'll find whilst remaining fair...it is just too much for OU, but replicating the traits is probably doable. Marshadow gives you a revenge killer, wallbreaker, and cleaner in one slot that is acompanied by a high ceiling for skill expression. It is perceived as having paper thin defences, but it is enough to survive average strength neutral hits from full while still being ohkoed by strong ones. Consequently, Choice Band and LO each provide distinct benefits and drawbacks. Marshadow's defensive utility is an Extreme Speed immunity. It is fast, but has enough Pokémon that outspeed it. It also keeps teams honest. When designed from the ground up this type of Pokémon can work in an OU environment.

Ho-Oh's traits are scattered throughout a couple of Pokémon in OU, but that doesn't really feel like it captures the whole picture. For typing you have Moltres, but that lacks the trademark gargantuan special bulk while Ho-Oh lacks contact punishment. Slowking-Galar does, but both lack the immediate offensive presence due to high powered STABs coming off a sneaky 130 Attack. Also Ho-Oh is a physical attacker while all three are special. The idea of a Ho-Oh style Pokémon in OU is appealing, but it would crowd out a fair number of Pokémon.

This is a wierd Pokémon to have here because it is one of my most hated. That being said, outside of Geomancy sets it is a cool Pokémon that can be a nice defensive piece or function as offensive utility thanks to a nice support movepool that include Defog and Aromatherapy. Despite being known as a Moonblast spammer, it has a surprisingly deep offensive movepool and that sort of blend could be interesting.

An honest wallbreaker that can either take a long term approach with a defensive set or go ham with an offensive one. Defensive counterplay while limited, exists, but isn't always the same for both sets. However, both sets can easily be outoffenced, especially on the physical side. Regardless, outoffensing it is reasonable while set diversity isn't too high and often telegraphed at preview. It'd need to be tuned down a lot, but Primordial Sea seems maybe balanceable since it cannot buff others.

Unsure

Imo Eternatus would be the most interesting Pokémon to model off if Mega Dragalge didn't exist. It will be CAP legal at some point and that turns an otherwise fascinating Pokémon to port down into a real risk. If there is anything that defines Eternatus it would be curated flexibility. You can do almost anything you want with it, but not all at once, and you'll always be missing something no matter which direction you go. Dynamax Cannon is pretty important to that since the other options are the unspammable Draco Meteor or the weak Dragon Pulse. It is a fair move as 100 BP isn't absurd and 8 PP isn't a lot. It is strong offensively, but not absurdly so in an Ubers context and its only offensive boosting option is Meteor Beam. Setting and absorbing Toxic Spikes is probably more important in Ubers than in CAP, but an additional Toxic user may be useful. Even the combination of Pressure + Recover could be useful. Eternatus is one of those Pokémon that can seemingly do everything, but comes with enough concessions to keep it balanced whilst rarely feeling mandatory. Again, the main concern is Mega Dragalge down the line.

You could add a lot of Pokémon here since the role is powerful mostly slightly above average speed breaker with a couple of nice defensive qualities. Vibes wise I feel like you'd end up with a slightly more balanced Ogerpon-W with a different typing and that seems kind of pointless.

Not interesting

Probably too complicated and ends up being Silvally + Recover. An Arceusesque Pokémon in OU would be very cool, but a nightmare to balance.

Interesting to think about, but stupid to do since it does too much offensively and defensively. It'd also just be kind of boring and I don't see how you translate it over without the environment that normally surrounds it.


What defines a niche or playstyle?

Imo we'd ideally replicate the roles and vibes of the Pokémon serving as inspiration. It doesn't need to be a direct scaled down version and as long as it generally does the same sort of stuff it will capture the spirit even if the targets are different.