CAP 15 CAP 4 - Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion

Status
Not open for further replies.
My proposals are Hustle, Reckless, Swarm, Stall, Flare Boost, Quick Feet, Slow Start or Defeatist. I think they all are risky abilities.

The most interesting ability IMO is Defeatist. After two SR hits, CAP4 has no chance anymore. So you have to keep the field free of this hazards - which can be very difficult. Just think about Whirlwind Skarm, Roar Heatran and Roar Eelektross ...

But also Hustle would be conceivable - but only if CAP4 gets a physical alignment ... However Zen Headbutt with 72 % Acc or Megahorn with 68 % would be very difficult to play ...

Swarm and Flare Boost would be safer abilities, however the player is not forced to make use of them - unless CAP4's special attack would be below average ...
 
Isn't this pokemon suppose to offer a Reward along with amsuch a high risk? So far I see plenty of risk yet little reward. I believe the ability is the place for our pokemon to shine.
I propose we go with an ability that will allow it to threaten the opponent immediately.

Tinted Lens is one of my nominations. It allows our pokemon to hit through opponents that would otherwise counter it.

Moxie is in a similar boat, making our pokemon much harder to counter directly but not impossible to check.
 
I propose Illusion as a risky ability. Illusion's success depends on if your opponent takes the bait on beliving you as that Pokemon, but If they see through you disguise, the turn you depended on tricking them was a cruicial turn wasted.

A few other ideas I'd like to pitch are:
Tangled Feet
Rattled
Steadfast
 

vonFiedler

I Like Chopin
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnus
It seems a lot of people are saying that No Guard isn't risky because it removes the chance of missing with attacks. Well, have you forgotten that we don't want luck based risk? No Guard isn't all that risky on an extremely bulky mon like Machamp with a very abusive STAB for it, but I really like the idea of a pokemon with average or even less bulk carrying it. I'm not gonna jump to say that's how we should go with CAP4, but right now I like it the most and arguments against it fly in the face of the concept.
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
No, no, a thousand times no to Hustle. If we're going to start throwing luck based abilities as an acceptable form of 'risk', we might as well just give it Zap Cannon/etc and call it a day. All hustle would manage to accomplish would be to turn this pokemon into one that shines when lady luck decides to smile on you, and suck royal dick at the worst possible times just because 'lol luck risk so pro'. Luck may be risk, but it's a risk outside of one's control. We have the evasion clause for a reason.
 
I feel Hustle provides a nice risk factor, but I feel at least for me it provides an unfavorable type of risk, something pretty luck based. Something that would be based around making good predictions that can really pay off or really hurt, like Hi Jump Kick, is to my mind the best way to go.

Rivalry is also sort if risk related, but the stakes could be set a bit higher then +/- 20%.

Unburden is probably my favorite so far. Choosing to activate it puts one in the situation that they would want to stay in, if they were to be switched out they would have a useless ability for likely the rest of the game. If a Mon stays in, they could be in a better position to sweep and could be a nuisance to get rid of.
 
I propose Rebound, or a modified version of it. Magic Bounce is far to strong but a Magic Bounce that only works on switches is the epitome of risk reward. You have to be very careful about when and what you switch into. Either you bounce back their nondamaging attack or you get hit for free and your ability is now useless. There's lest risk with Magic Bounce (or is it Magic Mirror?) as the pokemon with those abilities can stay in and set up screen or Roost in order to wait for overpredictions or absentminded people to use bouncable moves. Rebound is far riskier.
 

Imanalt

I'm the coolest girl you'll ever meet
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
First off i'd like to throw my support behind rattled. It allows you to risk large portions of your health (especially large given you are weak to these types), for a boost, and you really only would have 1 chance to abuse this. If you were to try and switch this in at the wrong time, it would be just a sacrifice of cap4, but it could have the potential to cause massive havoc, as +1 speed can provide ALOT (although how much it provides depends hugely on stats).

my comments on a few other abilities:
Hustle: NO, just no.... this is going back to the idea that being afraid of the rng is risk. we dont want this mon to fear luck

No guard: an interesting idea, i dont see it making a huge difference one way or another in how risky this mon is. you arent gonna be switching it into things like stone edge and fire blast anyways, and no guard really doesnt add that much gain without having dynamic punch, zap cannon or inferno.

Illusion: i think this could be viable, although being stealth rocks weak and spikes weak makes this much harder to work, because if hazards are up it can be very obvious whether or not it is cap4. definitely has some interesting risks though

Moxie: I like this one quite a bit. theres a lot of risk in getting a kill, and this provides a lot of reward if you can manage it though.

Guts/quick feet/toxic boost/flare boost: all of these abilities are on a mon that can take as much as 50% from hazards switchign in, i just dont see these as being viable because even if you dont get hit you die in just a few turns.
 

ganj4lF

Nobody is safe from the power of science!
is a Team Rater Alumnus
After reading everyone's opinion, I'm kinda convinced the best ability for CAP4 is No Guard. No Guard affects our CAP in an extremely desirable way, since it removes unwanted risk (luck based) for both the user and the opponent. While this may seem quite unrisky and advantageous, remember that CAP4 is weak to Rock moves with their horrible accuracy (hi Stone Miss), not to even mention Flying (hi Hurricane), so many unreliable checks become reliable exploiting CAP4's ability. On the other hand, the reward for CAP4 is quite evident, being able to abuse Megahorn without the fear of missing, and the same could be potentially applied to other moves (I'm thinking about Focus Blast here, but it could get Blizzard, Zap Cannon or whatever usable move with low accuracy).

Another very interesting is Trace, since it's very hard to abuse, and could potentially give CAP4 some free switch in (think about switching into Heatran's Lava Plume, or Thundurus' Thunderbolt. Again, this may be perceived as not much risky, but Trace is hard to abuse, and you could end up with an useless ability most of the time, which is a quite big risk in my opinion.

Hustle, although seems perfect for the concept, introduces a very unwanted luck-based risk, which I tend to dislike.

Quick Feet, Guts, Flare Boost & co are all reasonable suggestions, although I don't like them that much. Quick Feet fits better, IMHO, since CAP4 will be more likely fast than slow and bulky, thus being able to fully benefit from a pseudo-immunity to paralysis. Still, they take away a bit of risk while giving a good reward, and they are much more exploitable than Trace. Weak Armor is kinda in the same boat, although I don't like the fact it requires CAP4 to be hit by a physical attack to activate (since I kinda see it as a low bulk poke, a physical hit is likely to cripple it, maybe beyond repair).

The only suggestion I really dislike is Regenerator. It basically takes away all the risk involved into being SR weak and having a "predetermined" amount of switch ins before fainting. Also, that ability is very strong overall, and may force us to make suboptimal decision just to avoid making CAP4 overpowered.
 
Speed boost

Speed boost, if combined with a low base speed offers so many desicions. We could have it outspeed most of the metagame at +2 (Barring High speed scarfers) but at +1 if you pick the wrong coverage it could be sereverly maimed by a hypothetical latios or terrakion. Both of which will still threaten you. Maybe even a scrafty like speed stat, this would mean that even at +2 could be outsped by scarfers and high speed pokemon. This would mean that even with speed boost it could have viability with +spe boosting moves.

If you opt for protect you miss out on a coverage move and could be walled. I'm going to offer a hypothetical situation where you sucsessfully switched into a Deoxsys-D spikes and they have a heatran and a latios in the wings. You have Focus blast (Most powerful fighting coverage specially) along with Megahorn and psychic. Heatran is bulky enough to survive a focus blast (not to mention a miss) and latias can maim you with a draco meteor (SR + LO + Meteor = Sweep over)
I think we should be a little careful about choosing Speed Boost as an ability - where is the risk here? I doubt we're going to give CAP4 low base speed to begin with, because that would limit users into almost exclusively choosing Speed Boost as the ability of choice every single time; assuming that CAP4 has decent base speed, what's stopping it from whittling down entire enemy teams with its moveset? Switch it in on a mon and force a switch-out, then begin sweeping; if a threat like Latios is brought out, U-Turn into something else; you're almost guaranteed to go first given the prior conditions. If we give it frail defenses to make it vulnerable to, say, priority moves, we've essentially just made a special attack-based Ninjask.
 
Alright, first things first. The ability(s) we give CAP4 needs to bring some reward with its risk, or we're going to have to rely on inflated movepool and stats to compensate. Bug/Psychic is already a pretty mediocre typing, and if we give it Defeatist (persay) we're going to need to seriously oversize its stats and/or give it a Clefable-size movepool to make it viable and not outclassed. For this reason, I believe that Stall, Slow Start, and Defeatist should not be considered as abilities for CAP4. In addition, this principle works in reverse as well; If we give it abilities that are absolutely stellar and have little to no risk involved, we're going to have to limit CAP4 in other areas to compensate. As such, Regenerator, Tinted Lens, No Guard, Moxie, and Download seem like they would be problematic. Come on, people; ability is usually a defining part of how CAP accomplishes bringing the concept to life. Mollux: Dry Skin. Tomohawk: Prankster/Intimidate. Arghonaut: Unaware. These are a few examples of the importance of the ability to fulfilling the concept. In fact, Necturna is the only CAP I can think of off of the top of my head that didn't use its ability for a large amount of its concept. This is supposed to be a risky pokemon, let's give it a risky ability.

As for the abilities that I like:

Simple
I like this but it wouldn't incorporate enough risk unless CAP4 was a primarily physical attacker. The threat of being robbed of 2 stages of Attack from Intimidate is quite a problem. And no, it would not be fair to give CAP4 Tail Glow with Simple.

Weak Armor
Yes, it's weird and unreliable. But Weak Armor could be an ability that really takes the risk factor to a whole new level. Let's say we give CAP4, oh, 71 base speed. Yes, it does outspeed Tyranitar, Breloom, Scizor, Politoed and crew. But that's not what I want to draw your attention to. I want to point out the fact that max speed +1 CAP4 would be able to outspeed Tornadus-T, Terrakion, and Modest Scarf Heatran. +1 CAP4 would be able to outspeed a bunch of its checks and potentially that advantage could give it the edge that it needs to become a really, really dangerous threat. But how would one achieve this magnificent speed? Weak Armor. If CAP4 had enough physical bulk to be able to switch into miscellaneous weakish physical attacks (resisted, obviously) it would be able to start off its potential sweep by scaring out the opposing pokemon which so generously gave CAP4 the boost. That said, every time it gets the boost it becomes physically frailer; this leads us to the bizarre dilemma of the fact that every time Weak Armor activates, it makes CAP4 more susceptible to one kind of stop to its sweep (priority) while simultaneously making it less susceptible to normal speedy revenge.

Trace
Yes, I know this one's more than a little bizarre. How often do you see Trace on a setup sweeper? My guess is, not very much. Think about it for a second, however, and you're bound to notice the plethora of abilities that could potentially really, really help CAP4 succeed.. Jirachi's Serene Grace. Heatran's Flash Fire. Breloom's Technician. Starmie's Natural Cure. Mamoswine's Thick Fat. The possibilities are endless. On the flipside, CAP4 could obtain a really useless ability, essentially rendering it without one of the four main tools that Pokemon need to succeed. Imagine switching into Heatran (it's surprisingly safe with Trace) only to discover that they switched to Tyranitar. Gee, thanks for the completely useless ability and a Pursuit to the face. Who can say there isn't a risk in that?

Finally, something we need to keep in mind during this process is that there's a pretty good chance that we'll give CAP4 a secondary ability; as such, we should remember to give it a primary ability that can be on par with another ability so that they both have merit. There exists risk in choosing between two abilities, knowing that in some cases you would've really like to have Heatproof on your Bronzong instead of Levitate when your opponent traps it with Chandelure and proceeds to sweep you with Outrage.
 
I have been looking through a few abilities that could be classified as high risk high reward without them being too overpowered.

Flare Boost is obviously a good mention since it boosts special attack at the cost of being burned and lets people take risks by switching out of pokemon an opponent would like to burn and letting it burn this to make it more powerful.

Analytic is a good choice as well making you sacrifice speed (a big risk in any game) to hit more powerfully and this is another high risk high reward style of play.

Sniper is a less mentioned choice but can pretty much define what we are trying to do here. If we would give this pokemon high critting moves like Psycho Cut, Night Slash it could make this type of play style a lot of fun as long as we don't make it able to crit all the time.

Wonder Skin is the last ability I want to mentions right here because it revolves a huge risk in using it as it lets you sponge status moves half the time instead of all the time like Magic Bounce and makes you take a huge risk in using it. Itself it isn't that strong of an ability but I think its still worth mentioning.

Well comments would be appreciated.

EDIT: Forgot to add Trace as an ability since it is another risky ability but its pretty good as well. Other people have mentioned it before but I support it as an ability too.
 
Gonna throw some support in the general direction of Tinted Lens. Why so much focus on making the ability as risky as possible? We already have a risky typing, and if we truly want this thing to not have any counters, as was decided, we either give it an amazing movepool, which is fine I guess, or we could give it Tinted Lens to not even worry about things coming in to resist hits.
Being able to spam your STAB and just say "lolol idgaf about ur resist" is an amazing reward for a Pokemon with so many weaknesses. We could compensate for the spammability, if that's a word, in the stat spread if need be.
Plus it's just so perfect flavorwise :3
 

Asylum_Rhapsody

Guest
I'm really puzzled by some of the opposition to No Guard. Let me see if I can address some of the worries...

I certainly won't be crying if No Guard was chosen. But I feel there are too few good, low-accuracy STABs available to CAP4 and fear it might work against it too much.
No Guard - Reduces risk, not many low accuracy STAB moves to abuse it with.
One of the surprising counts people seem to have against No Guard is lack of low accuracy STAB options, but remember that those aren't the only things that could be benefited by No Guard. Some important coverage moves like Focus Blast could benefit greatly, as could many significant status moves like Hypnosis or Will-o-Wisp.

I'm against No Guard... [I removes] risk, period: once you have No Guard you no longer care about moves missing...

Was Machap risky to use because of No Guard? Quite the opposite...
Machamp was not tragically weak to Fire Blast and Stone Edge. No Guard becomes riskier for out Riskymon exactly because of the typing that we selected. And, yes, we no longer care about moves missing once we give it No Guard, but we are looking for an ability that gives some reward too. I don't know if maybe you missed this part of No Guard, but all moves used against the Pokemon are also guaranteed to hit.

No Guard is probably the least risky ability currently being discussed. Your opponent is already more likely to hit Stone Edge, Fire Blast, or Hurricane than they are to miss, No Guard just guarantees the move they'd use anyway will hit. On the flip flop, you now have the power to spam moves with extremely low accuracy with no repercussions.
This comment just flat out confuses me. I could exactly as correctly say that No Guard is all downside because now the opponent has the power to spam moves with extremely low accuracy without repercussion while you're already more likely to hit than miss anyway with moves like Focus Blast, Mega Horn, and Will-o-Wisp.

In the case of No Guard, the risk it gives CAP4 of being hit by an inaccurate move is very small compared to the reward it gets by abusing inaccurate moves itself.
Thank you, I can see things like this as reasonable arguments to make against it, actually wondering about how the risk and reward factors of No Guard balance out and whether they balance out desirably, but some of the other responses against it seem so bizarre.

I've made my case for it, though, and I guess that's the best that I can do. I think a lot of people need to read what bmb posted at the start of the thread, because a lot of the suggestions in this thread, especially Hustle, are quite counter to what we're actually looking for. We're not looking for luck-based risk, and we're also not looking for something that merely mitigates an already existing bad situation.
 
I'll tell you what's my problem with No Guard, AR. When BMB stated that accuracy-based risk (of missing) was not to be the focus for CAP4, I understood that it meant attacks with unreliable accuracy were off limits for us. Therefore introducing No Guard to bring them in looks to me like going against the concept.

But I could be wrong on this point. If compensating for their low accuracy is allowed, then we have a couple options to consider. The concept statement does mention Risk Management as well, and this could be the part that turns our otherwise risky moves into a reward.

-Low accuracy coverage like Focus Blast and Thunder becomes an attractive option (previous stage there was mention of Bug+Psychic+Fighting/Ground+Electric coverage).
-The physical route with Megahorn and Zen Headbutt becomes much more reliable (and this might even invite a move like Cross Chop? Hopefully not Hi Jump Kick....)
-Various status moves would be much more reliable (Stun Spore, any of Hypnosis/Sleep Powder/Sing, non-miss Toxic too etc.)

There's probably other benefits... all at the cost of getting 100% by moves like Fire Blast or Stone Edge.

I didn't miss that detail, AR. I didn't mention it because I don't think it excuses us resorting to No Guard. Just about any Pokemon given No Guard can spam innacurate moves and come out on top, especially with the status option of a handy Spore (and with more PP, and not stopped by Sap Sipper, though that's a very minor point).

What I'd like to point to is that Compoundeyes exists. It wouldn't give us quite the same freedom as No Guard, but it wouldn't punish CAP4 for choosing this ability and guaranteeing enemy moves hit, it would give us decently accurate Stun Spore/Sleep Powder/Hypnosis/whatever, improve quite a few attacking moves that might need it (Megahorn becomes VERY reliable with this). And it's much easier to justify from a flavor standpoint, and has plenty of precedent among Bug types already (Butterfree, Dustox, Galvantula especially).

To the crowd supporting No Guard, if you want an ability to make inaccurate moves more reliable, consider Compoundeyes please. It's not as powerful an ability, but that's an advantage so we don't go overboard. Depending on how later the moveset pans out, what we give out of Sleep Powder/Hypnosis/Sing etc. will be workable but it won't be another Spore user brought into OU. Which we know how awesome it is because hey Breloom.
 

jc104

Humblest person ever
is a Top Contributor Alumnus
Weak Armor

An excellent choice. Real potential, risk involved in switching into hits. Potential for unwanted effects too if you haven't fully thought things through.

Hustle

This ability is clearly the epitome of risk, but is apparently not what we want as discussed previously. I can't believe somebody actually suggested this ability was too weak though. This is one of the strongest abilities in the game, but one we don't need to use. I we want CAP4 to have an enormous attack stat, we can give it an enormous attack stat. We don't need to make it miss all the time.

Trace

I like this one. It involves switching CAP4 into the right pokemon, which can at times be difficult. I do feel like the reward is a little lacking here though. The majority of abilities in OU are of relatively little use to CAP4.

No Guard

By a country mile, the worst option that has been suggested so far (edit: except for tinted lens). Just because we decided that the kind of risk we wanted was not hax-related, does not mean that we have to go out of our way to remove it. We just decided that luck based risk was not the concept, not that it had to be removed at all cost. There can be absolutely no denying that this ability removes risk, and does nothing but remove risk. This ability might have a drawback, but not an especially significant one, nor one that you can particularly control. A drawback does not make an ability risky automatically. In this case, it makes it less risky, because a risk for the opponent is a risk for you. I'm going to say this again: a drawback does not entail a risk. A drawback merely makes a pokemon worse unless you have some control over it.

Quick Feet, Flare Boost, Toxic Boost, Guts etc.

Bearing in mind out CAPs vulnerability to residual damage, I think the running of a status absorb would be suicide. I would be highly surprised if many people used one. I might even go as far as to say that deliberately switching in to a status move would be suicide. As such, these abilities merely provide insurance against status – they could almost be seen as safe. Might have been good with a different typing, but on balance, I'd rather not.

Synchronize

Again, I just think this is a "safe" ability really. You're not going to deliberately switch into status moves generally, so it's just insurance.

Download

I think this ability would only really qualify as risky if CAP4 were only to have one good attacking stat. Otherwise, this ability might carry relatively little risk. Look at Genesect – because it commonly runs both physical and special moves, which DL boost you get is often inconsequential. Also, many pokemon have balanced defensive stats, and would therefore merely leave you guessing as to which boost you'll receive (pure luck) rather than just relying on you getting Genesect in on the right pokemon. Still, a decent choice.

Regenerator

This ability is strong, all of the time. It attempts to cancel what we deliberately did when we determined CAP4's typing, making it weak to residual damage. A very safe ability, and a poor choice.

Unburden

Yeah I like this one. One time use (in all likelihood) so there's definitely a risk involved there.

Moxie

I actually think this one might work well. If your risk taking / good play pays off and you get a kill, you have a potential for more, thereby accentuating the effect of the risk. Only worry is that we didn't want CAP4 to have any real counters, and moxie makes checking stuff by sacrificing things rather tricky.

Rattled

This one is pretty cool. Requires you to take an enormous risk, allowing a super effective move to hit CAP4, and provides a reasonable reward in the form of a speed boost. Could produce some interesting mind games against Pursuit users. However, I feel that the reward might be too small to justify taking a super effective attack.

Swarm

A rather boring ability, and difficult to take advantage of deliberately bearing in mind Cap4's residual damage weakness. Reward is not great enough to justify deliberate lowering of health.

Speed boost

No idea why this was suggested really. This is not a risky ability, but a consistent and very strong ability.

Simple

Stat-up moves are definitely somewhat risky so I suppose this could work. It doesn't really fit all that well into the "no counters, plenty of checks" thing very well though.

Sheer Force

I don't get it. Removes luck-related things and life orb recoil, both of which would have been appreciated for the concept. If we want CAP4 to be powerful we can make it powerful.

Technician

Don't get it either. It's easy to use, and continuously in effect.

Tinted Lens

Extremely safe ability. Tinted lens is really easy to make use of, is absurdly strong, and goes against what we've said in previous threads – that this pokemon's STABs shouldn't be spammable. The second worst of the lot. edit: nah it's actually the worst lol.
 

erisia

Innovative new design!
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I've seen it brought up before, but I'd like to add my support to Magic Bounce. This ability introduces a whole new element of risk; can I switch CAP into a Pokemon such as Tyranitar as it uses Stealth Rock (or Skarmory as it uses Spikes), or do I risk being hit by a super-effective STAB attack? Based on prediction, the risk is being OHKO'd by an attack, which is quite easy to achieve given CAP's typing (and we can make it frail if desired), but the reward is GREAT in preventing your opponent from setting up hazards. You can then switch something into their attack and seize the momentum from them, but only if you predict correctly. Immunity to status somewhat decreases the risk of switching in as CAP can't be hit by Thunder Wave, Toxic, Will-O-Wisp etc, but most attackers should be able to threaten CAP regardless thanks to its many weaknesses, and possible frailness. It's a very powerful option, but I think it deserves some consideration.

Other entries that I really feel maximize the risk factor are Unburden, Weak Armor, and Moxie, which would really help CAP secure a sweep, but require a lot of effort to utilize successfully.
 
I've been thinking that Anger Point might be an interesting idea to toss around. You would be relying on a critical hit to become effective, but then you could attack very powerfully or baton pass it to something else.

Pickpocket is another ability that could either work really well or completely backfire and give you an unwanted ring target or something along those lines.

Unburden is another good risky ability, giving a stat boost for losing an item.

Rattled will be "risky" only if there is another ability option, so I would hold off on this one for now.
 
Simple could be good for this. CAP 4 would become more vulnerable to Intimidate(if physical or mixed) and it makes stat dropping moves like Psycho Boost or Super Power riskier to use. It does offer plenty of rewards though, CAP 4 would get double the boost from stat up moves and potentially makes Stored Power a viable move on it.

No Guard, Weak Armor, the status abilities and Unburden all seem like good options for CAP 4.

Tinted Lens should not be given to CAP 4. Bug/Psychic already has good coverage and one of the reasons the typing was chosen is that the STABs are not spammable. This makes coverage moves less important and lets set up sets have more options besides running one.

I believe that Hustle would not be a good ability for this. It does have risk and reward, but it is luck based risk and makes Megahorn very unreliable. The only way to really make good use of this is to use accuracy raising moves.
 

ganj4lF

Nobody is safe from the power of science!
is a Team Rater Alumnus
Sorry, it's the second post in a little timespan, but I want to express my full support to CiteAndPrune's reasoning. Compoundeyes makes much more sense than No Guard on a Bug type, and still has similar advantages. In my opinion this slightly diminishes risk, since those Stone Edges will miss you sometimes, and Tornadus-T is less reliable outside Rain (must resort to U-Turn to hit hard); however, superior flavor and greater risk (although luck-based) while using moves such as Thunder, Focus Blast and Statuses make up for the loss.
 
I've seen it brought up before, but I'd like to add my support to Magic Bounce. This ability introduces a whole new element of risk; can I switch CAP into a Pokemon such as Tyranitar as it uses Stealth Rock (or Skarmory as it uses Spikes), or do I risk being hit by a super-effective STAB attack? Based on prediction, the risk is being OHKO'd by an attack, which is quite easy to achieve given CAP's typing (and we can make it frail if desired), but the reward is GREAT in preventing your opponent from setting up hazards. You can then switch something into their attack and seize the momentum from them, but only if you predict correctly. Immunity to status somewhat decreases the risk of switching in as CAP can't be hit by Thunder Wave, Toxic, Will-O-Wisp etc, but most attackers should be able to threaten CAP regardless thanks to its many weaknesses, and possible frailness. It's a very powerful option, but I think it deserves some consideration.
I'm glad someone agrees with me!
The problem with Magic Bounce is it's too powerful. This is why I brought up rebound initially. I am not 100% sure how Rebound works but from the description it does not affect hazards. So some sort of ReBounce or mashup of Rebound (the ability on activates on switches) and Magic Bounce (all/almost all nondamaging moves that target the opponent). I feel a bit odd constructing my own ability but it is so close to previous abilities that I don't feel bad, especially with talk of a Special version of Moxie/Hustle, which I support neither of those two in all honesty.
 
To those that feel Rattled isn't substantial enough of an ability, why does it have to be substantial? Look at Necturna.

I think the other thing to keep in mind is the lack of potent attacks that fall in the Bug/Ghost/Dark category. There's no Dark-type Draco Meteor or Ghost equivalents of Close Combat or Superpower. We're talking about Bug Buzz, Shadow Ball, and Crunch. While Bug attacks are really only used for STAB, you're dealing with fairly low base attacks, bar Megahorn (with little OU use at the moment anyway.) Shadow Balls and Shadow Sneaks are usually coming from things that desperately need coverage (Jolteon), or do Calm Mind with Fighting/Ghost coverage (Sableye, Reuniclus).

A +1 Speed boost can be potent on whatever we want it to be- it's totally dependent on their stats. Imagine if pokes with stats like Heatran, Chandelure, Magnezone, Vicinti, could get a +1 speed boost by taking a super-effective hit.

This is either going to be a CAP where either an amazing ability covers up his subpar typing, or above-average stats mitigate it. I think valuing the stats are much more important, because, similarly to how DJD mentioned different abilities creating a risky environment, your EV spread creates more than 2 or 3 risky decisions not only in-match, but far before entering the battlefield.
 
Anything that takes a boost from status ailments like [/B]flare boost[/B] or quick feet seem like high risk high reward abilities but at the same time weak armor, unburden and rattled seem to fit the category pretty well
 
I'm really liking the idea of Weak Armour. I think it kind of epitimizes the risk/reward. As long as we don't give CAP4 too much bulk then you really have to decide, "Do I risk taking a hit to be faster than this pokemon/this counter?" I think it kind of fits in with the theme of CAP4 being a bug too, most insects have a form of armour, and while durable it kind of is easy to break.

Regenerator just seems too powerful, there's not that much risk involved and it negates our vulnerability to hazards.

I also think that if we decide to go with an ability like Weak Armour or Unburden then our other abilities (if applicable) should also be on the same "good but not uber-good" scale. No point having something like Weak Armour then throwing on Intimidate or something, there shouldn't be a clear winner, ability-wise.
 
I would like to add to the support of Adaptability because it allows us to make CAP 4 weaker and still get the same use out of our STABs, in effect reducing the power of non-stab moves, which punishes you more for choosing the wrong coverage move. For example, lets say we make CAP 4 special and give it quiver dance, fire blast, focus blast, earth power, Bug Buzz, and Psychic. You give your's QD, the two stabs, and earth power because you hate missing. Oh ta noes, out pops a specially defensive SD Scizor, you barely scratch it, it SD's, you die to a bullet bunch and now have a +2 adament scizor prized to sweep the remainder of your team. So you go back to the drawling board and decide fire blast is the best solution, but now you have a really big heatran problem as in you cant do jack shit to it and it blows you away with the fire stab of its choice. Now you pick Focus blast, but nope scizor comes back and rains on your parade again, or maybe a SpD. Skarm with brave bird. See the possibilities for "team-building" risk.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top