Okay so this is another
Doom Desire/Future Sight post from me.
First off, these moves were lumped together because of the similar effects. However, I think it'd be redundant to give both of these moves to CAP 6, so the better option would need to be decided on. I think out of the two of these, the obvious answer is Doom Desire. It has 40 higher Base Power than Future Sight, and no immunities, meaning that a Dark type can't just switch in and make the turn wasted. Another issue that has been brought up constantly throughout the thread is that the Pokemon we make could potentially just use the other moves in its arsenal, leaving the underused move still underused. I don't think this would be the case with Doom Desire (assuming it would be used for Steel STAB), as the 140 Base Power is significantly higher than the next most powerful special Steel move, Flash Cannon at 80 Base Power. This extra oomph would be plenty of incentive for CAP 6 to use Doom Desire, compared to Future Sight where the step down to Psychic (100 BP vs. 90 BP) isn't as strong. Doom Desire is on the same power level as moves such as Draco Meteor and Overheat, and I feel like CAP 6 could use this power quite effectively.
There are plenty of excellent points or ideas in this thread, and I'd like to address a few of them with why Doom Desire would be a fantastic option for us to consider.
Quanyails said:
General Description: A good user of moves with effects not frequently used in the OU metagame.
Justification: There are many moves in Pokémon with great effects, but they often end up unused. Moves such as Gravity, Snatch, and Safeguard have potential in OU, but they are neglected for several reasons: the moves are apparently overshadowed, have poor distribution, or are inefficient compared to another strategy. This CAP uses a combination of typing, ability, and stats to make these underused moves not only feasible, but also capable.
To me, Doom Desire fits this description perfectly. Its effect is seldom seen, if ever, in the OU metagame. With the general focus of B/W2 OU being offense now, the concept of offense later has really never been touched. Why is this? Because Doom Desire embodies the description laid out by Quanyails, in that it has poor distribution, is overshadowed, and seen as ineffcient compared to another strategy. Poor distribution is completely unarguable here, as Jirachi is the only Pokemon that has access to Doom Desire, besides Smeargle. Overshadowing is apparent as well, because as anyone who has played the OU metagame at all can tell you, Jirachi has a wide array of diverse sets that it can use effectively. There are so many things that Jirachi can do well that Doom Desire is almost always overlooked. This is why Doom Desire is usually deemed an inefficient strategy, because Jirachi makes use of its huge movepool, balanced stats, and great typing to pull off other roles in the OU metagame.
In the justification, Quanyails calls for CAP 6 to use a combination of typing, ability, and stats to make an underused move relevant, capable of being something that players need to watch out for. For typing, Doom Desire doesn't necessarily pigeonhole us into making a Steel type (I mean who wants more of those in OU?) but to get full effectiveness out of the move, that's probably the route we'd have to end up taking. However, what makes this move a pretty great concept is that it is not reliant on a single ability to be pulled off well. Other ideas like Heart Swap and Me First may need an ability like Prankster to maximize their potential, but the Doom Desire CAP could work well with almost any ability. With this in mind, we could use this Pokemon's ability to play to its other strengths, depending on what kind of Pokemon we make it, which relies heavily on stats and its other movepool. There are numerous different directions that we could go with this. For example, CAP 6 could be a Pokemon designed to punish the opposition for switching, taking advantage of setting hazards and using Doom Desire to cause a lot of residual damage to the opponent. It could also be a high Speed wall breaker that uses Doom Desire right before a special wall comes in to be able to be able to net a 2HKO instead of a 3HKO, or a OHKO instead of a 2HKO. This little used effect has potential to build on existing strategies, and even possibly create new ones. It fits the description and justification perfectly in my mind, making it a great candidate for what CAP 6 is built around.
capefeather said:
There are two major move categories we can use with this concept. The first category is for moves that seem to have awful distribution, accessible only to Pokemon that use the move ineffectively or are outright bad. The second category is for moves that are normally bad or relatively unsuccessful, and we would be providing these moves with tools that they need to be more successful.
Doom Desire fits the first category listed by capefeather to a tee, and fits in the second category well too. As said before, Doom Desire is Jirachi's signature move, and it uses other sets that are more effective in the metagame because of its typing, stats, movepool, (etc.). This can be seen in Future Sight as well, because the Pokemon that get it are either pretty bad (Grumpig, Mr. Mime, more) or just have more commonly used sets to fulfill a role (Alakazam, Reuniclus, more). By specifically designing a Pokemon with Doom Desire in mind, we could give this unique effect a place in the OU metagame that would be a relevant move players would need to be prepared to deal with.
Birkal said:
capefeather listed some good qualifiers of what kind of moves we're looking for in his original post, but I'd like to present a different method of categorization. For the moment, let's try to think of moves in terms of how much control the opponent has over the end result. For example, using a simple attacking move like Ice Punch gives the opponent only two options: they can either stay in or switch. This might seem brutally obvious, but let's extend it to something like Snatch. That move requires one limited option out of a plethora: the opponent must use a set-up move. Snatch fails when the opponent switches or using any sort of attacking move, which is a loss in momentum. So for the sake of this argument, let's call Snatch a "highly controlled opponent move" and Ice Punch a "lowly controlled opponent move". The former's success is largely based off of what the opponent does, while the latter will likely have a predictable result, regardless of the opponent's own action.
Going by this categorization, I think we could classify Doom Desire as a low to mid controlled opponent move. At the end of the day, Doom Desire is just an attack, the only difference being is that the damage is dealt two turns later instead of the turn it is used. This goes right back to what Birkal said, your opponent can either stay in or switch. However there is some opponent control in that based off type effectiveness, stats, and whatever else plays a role in their predictions, they have a free turn in between Doom Desire's use and hit to analyze the battle scenario and make a smart decision to switch or stay in depending on what is happening in the battle at the moment. In addition to this, the turn that Doom Desire is used, they also have a chance to do whatever, be it attack, boost their stats, set up hazards, heal, or whatever else floats their boat. However, you also have that turn in between use and hit to make your opponent play into your hand, giving you some more control of the situation. With this in mind, the success of Doom Desire is in a way based off what the opponent does, but at the end of the day they will still get hit with an attack and need to react to the user's decisions regardless of what they do. In this way, I can see how Doom Desire would be a middling opponent control move, as Birkal mentioned with Reflect Type later in his post.
capefeather said:
- Possible impact on and/or interactions with the metagame. A lot of posts have been really vague on this aspect. Give concrete examples.
Simple, Doom Desire is a powerful attack that has an effect almost never seen in OU. It can create mind games between players, and can make the whole "Stay in or switch?" decision a lot tougher and more meaningful in a battle. Different strategies to use and counter Doom Desire would be created if we built CAP 6 effectively with a clear role in mind.
capefeather said:
- How we can actually make a move work. You don't have to poll-jump to do this (and you shouldn't). Here, people can and should talk about broad tactics that are possible in the game.
There's two big options that I see here, though there are probably a few others as well. One is a hazard setter that can punish the opponent for switching even more than taking residual damage from Stealth Rock/Spikes already does. Another is a wall breaker that can use Doom Desire along with a high powered attack to get the extra oomph needed to get through a special wall. In addition to these two strategies, Doom Desire has the nifty abilities to provide team support in a way, breaking Focus Sashes and Multiscale, along with hitting through Protect, Detect, and (lol) Wonder Guard. There are definitely more creative people than me out there who could probably come up with another role that CAP 6 with Doom Desire could fill, or create.
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All in all, I feel like giving CAP 6 Doom Desire, or even Future Sight, would be a great fit for Quanyails' concept. In my mind it fits the description and justification perfectly, and would be great at answering the original questions proposed. It'd be an interesting build, as there are a few different directions in which we could go, and out of all unique effects that could be brought to the center stage of OU, I feel it's one of the most interesting and doable while staying true to the concept.