CAP 9 CAP 9 - Part 1 - Concept Poll 2

[Plus]

We are down to moi's Stop the Secondary and billymill's Two Sided Attack. Vote for the concept that you think is best.

Contrary to the first poll, we will not allow posts such as "I voted Concept." Put some substance into your post. Discussion is encouraged here. Why did you vote for a certain concept? What don't you like about one concept?

Name: Stop the Secondary
Description: A Pokémon that through means of ability, moves, and typing, can stop a variety of the non damaging affect of moves and moves of non damaging origin.

Justification: While the immediate threat of damaging moves is large and present, the affect of moves such as status, Trick, Leech Seed, Taunt, Stealth Rock, Spikes have arguably had a greater affect to the metagame than anything has ever had, something that this would greatly look in to.

Questions to be Answered:
~ How easily would a Pokémon with such large of a niche be able to fit into a competitive team?
~ How large of an impact would the reducation of non damaging affects and moves have on the metagame?

- What, if any, would happen to the types of teams being used?
- How would this affect the usage of these types of moves?​

~ How much of an affect does typing have on the ability for ANY Pokémon to perform this duty?

Name: Two-sided attack

Description: Can play two incredibly different roles extremely well, but no middle ground. If this pokemon attempts to compromise its strengths, it will suck. Ideally, it will absolutely destroy one type of pokemon using one of its strengths, but will be completely countered if it chose the other specialty. Important: It has no true 100% counter.

Justification: Depending on how this works out, I could see this being a good stall breaker (50/50 shot at breaking one of your opponent's major walls, if this turns out to be a sweeper), or a strong wall of either defense. The important thing is that it makes prediction even more important, and should reduce any luck factor when facing this pokemon.

Questions to be answered:

• Is there anyway to prevent a pokemon from being moderate, and always extremely powerful in a direction using basic methods (i.e.: Would type change or change in formes be necessary)?

• Does such a pokemon actually encourage prediction, or is countering it completely based on luck?

• Is it possible to create a pokemon without true counters, even if it is not overpowering?

This poll will close on September 29, 4:00 EST.



Go US South!!

 

[Umbreon Dan]

moi's stop the secondary

I just think moi's concept offers more to immediately learn than billymills's. moves like taunt and trick have always been a thorn in my side, and there really isn't a currently pokemon that can take advantage of them.

both are great though ^o^

 

[iss]

Disscusion on #cap yesterday changed my mind. My support goes to moi. Two-sided attack is too similar to Luke and Syclant. We don't have a OU Stop the Secondary poke. Besides, Clefable doesn't even block trick.

 

[Virtuoso]

Stop the Secondary

Stealth Rocks/Spikes/Trick/Taunt play a large part in the current metagame, I think a look at a "reduced" secondary could prove quite interesting.

There are entire teams based around those concepts, so I would also like to see how those teams attempt to maneuver around a pokemon like this. And how people implement such a pokemon on their teams.

 

[zarator]

Despite I can't say I really love either of the concepts, I sticked to Two-sided attack. I cannot really see any means for moi's concept to be fulfilled without one of the following:
- Taunt backed up by high speed (which somehow defies the concept IMO)
- Custom stuff like a new ability or a new move

We already used "homemade tools" to complete our concepts in the past (Fidgit's Persistent ability being the most apparent example), but when I have to choose between a concept which needs a custom move/ability and a concept that may do fine even without them (barring low-power STAB like Kit's and Strata's cases), I definitely go with the latter.

 

[Fuzznip]

Moi's Stop the Secondary.

In my opinion, I feel that we can learn the most out of this concept than billy's. I would love to know what happens when moves like Leech Seed, Trick, Taunt, and other moves become less viable, because they are very common in today's metagame.

With billy's, I think that this concept already exists to a certain extent, like Lucario for example. I just don't really think it will teach us anything more than what moi's will.

Good luck to you both!

 

[moi]

zarator, the one thing that I find a bit naive is how you think that the submission is reliant on a custom ability. If you look into my submission, I'd like to highlight a key word.

Description: A Pokémon that through means of ability, moves, and typing, can stop a variety of the non damaging affect of moves and moves of non damaging origin.

While a custom ability would no doubt be needed to stop all of them, a combination of already in use abilities, along with movepool and typing can be used to stop a variety, which I think is a key point.

 

[Objection]

Status counter didn't make it (will we ever see a pokemon that won't mind being hit by Toxic, Thunder Wave and Will-o-Wisp?) so I'm going for the next best thing: Stop the Secondary.

Status is both omnipresent and super annoying. Pseudo-status is not as omnipresent but it's certainly just as annoying (Machamp's DynamicPunch, Jirachi's Zen Headbutt, etc.) and then there's the moves that must have been designed for the sole purpose of shutting down walls: Leech Seed (especially vs Blissey), Taunt, Trick, Torment, etc. Suddenly any pokemon not named Clefable has to tread extra carefully lest it fall foul of a stray Will-o-Wisp or something.

At the same time, status and pseudo-status can be super helpful. Worried about that Metagross sweeping your team? Thunder Wave! Can't seem to beat that Vaporeon that loves spamming Wish and Protect? Toxic! Just want to get something out of the field for a few moments? Confuse it! And I haven't even got to Stealth Rock yet. It now seems that it's better to rely on indirect damage and additional effects than the raw power of moves like Close Combat and Stone Edge (for the sake of argument, Stone Edge's accuracy doesn't matter).

These days, it seems that thanks to all these moves paralysing and indirectly damaging are making a proper sweep impossible to pull off, which is really sad since sweeping is much more fun than walling (or so I find). Furthermore, we may realise that we have forgotten the sheer power of some pokemon or some moves because we are constantly worrying about opportunities to get our pokemon in. What if we as battlers didn't have to worry about these incapacitating effects but at the same time could not use them to our advantage? It's a double-edged sword that makes this concept more interesting and fulfilling than "two-sided attack" (which to me sounds like "mixed sweeper" with only a little less of the "mixed").

Even if this pokemon won't be immune to all non-damaging and indirectly-damaging moves, I'd be happy with at least immunity to two status effects other than freeze.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

I think that both of these options have a lot of potential. They both give us a clear idea of what we want the next CAP to be and how they would be useful to us for research purposes. While Two-sided attack seems to be the more 'fun' option, and probably more challenging from a teambuilding perspective, I am going to have to go with Stop the Secondary.

Non-damaging moves are an integral part of today's metagame, and the fact remains that there are few very reliable ways of tackling status and support moves, at least not in the same way that most Pokemon in the metagame today have their own decent checks. It may well be beneficial for there to be some common way to combat support tactics, since there is no real downside to using them at present. While Two-sided attack does have some standard Pokemon that fit its description to some extent, Stop the Secondary does not, and so we are far more likely to learn something about a potential change to the way the metagame operates.

 

[zorbees]

Voted Two-Sided Attack. For future reference, Billymills' concept isn't purely referring to a mixed attacker or an attacker with both attack stats fairly high.

can play two incredibly different rolls extremely well

Gliscor is an example of this. It can be a physical wall, or a Baton Passer, a stall-breaker, even a decent sweeper, but none of these really mix. For example, while the stall-breaker set can still wall Lucario and Heracross well, it has trouble with other things such as DDMence and Breloom with Earthquake as its only attack. All of this without a high Special Attack stat. The reason why Gliscor isn't a perfect example is

Ideally, it will absolutely destroy one type of pokemon using one of its strengths, but will be completely countered if it chose the other specialty. Important: It has no true 100% counter.

Gliscor has 100% counters and isn't destroyed by different things depending on its role. Gliscor nearly always beats Lucario and nearly always loses to Suicune, for example. I think it would be interesting to see something that has no 100% counter but has many counters to each individual set, something that I don't believe we have currently. Tyranitar would probably be the closest to not having a 100% counter but having counters to each set, but its physical sets largely outshine its special or mixed sets, and Tyranitar has to go to what I would consider great lengths to beat counters such as Swampert or Machamp.

I also don't think Moi's concept makes a lot of sense. We also have an example of this concept in Flygon. Flygon takes no damage from Spikes and Toxic Spikes, reduced damage from SR, doesn't care about Taunt, can U-turn out of Leech Seeders, doesn't care about TrickScarf, can take Thunder Waves, etc. A speedy Taunt user could work, but I don't really think anyone wants another Deoxys-E or anything even close to it. I also think Fidgit is another example of this, taking Toxics, Sleeps, and Thunder Waves, Spinning away hazards and Leech Seed, most don't terribly mind Taunt or Torment, etc. Even if these aren't perfect examples, I find these are much closer examples than there are for Two-Sided Attack.

 

[Kaxtar]

Moi's Stop the Secondary.

We already have quite a great example of a Two-Sided attacker in OU in Lucario, and to a lesser extent almost all of the mixed attackers, though many of them can do this job very well. And also, how do you even make something that can attack on both sides of the spectrums very well, but make it suck when it tries to go Mixed? And how do you make a supporter/wall that can also be good offensively, but sucks when it tries to do both at once (points to all the tanks like Swampert and Celebi)?

While we already have Pokemon that can only do one job in one set well, and many Pokemon that can play both (or all) of its roles well (Mence and Infernape), we have no Pokemon the can stop most of what we call secondary damage. While we have Rapid Spinners, we also have Spin-Blockers. While we have a few Pokemon that can block Trick or preform decently with a Choice item, common users of Trick can OHKO-2HKO these switch-ins. It would also be interesting to see how stall teams adapt, and how often Suicide Leads would now be used, as well what would happen to Spike Stacking and other such strageties. SR, Leech Seed and company make up what could very well be the most fundamental part of competive Pokemon, aside from actual attacking moves themselves. What could happen if you shake the metagame to it's core? That's what I would like to find out.

 

[Gooey Kablooie]

My vote goes to Stop The Secondary.

Overall I really liked both ideas, but I felt billymills' idea may get out of hand in the later stages of the project; whereas moi's submission is more concise.

 

[Infiltrator]

I'd have to go for Moi's Stop The Secondary. Moi has a great concept overall, and I think we could learn from this and see how it will affect the current Metagame. On a personal side, I'd like to see how trick users would be affected by this.

I'm also voting for Moi because there are Pokemon in the current Metagame that can preform Billymill's concept, such as Lucario like Kaxter said.

 

[thebattleax]

After about 2 minutes of sifting through my head the concepts, I voted for Stop the Secondary. This is because I would not see how two-sided attack would work out in the metagame, while Stop the Secondary is a more "traditional" concept. Again, I am also not so sure about creating something with no 100% counter, but, hey, some previous CAPs also had no 100% counter.

Overall, this was a hard decision for me, and I almost voted for two-sided attack.

 

[Objection]

Voted Two-Sided Attack. For future reference, Billymills' concept isn't purely referring to a mixed attacker or an attacker with both attack stats fairly high.

Care to explain why it is called two-sided attack then if it isn't referring to attack stats?

 

[Cybeny]

I voted for Two Sided Attacker.

I could be wrong, but Stop The Secondary sounds too simple, a fast pokemon who knows Taunt and has the ability of Shield Dust. Taunt stops non-damaging moves and Shield Dust stops the seconday effect of moves.

Two-Sided Attacker doesnt really have any obvious options, which means we can learn more from it.

Care to explain why it is called two-sided attack then if it isn't referring to attack stats?

Attack doesn't nessicarly mean damaging your opponent, it could mean, for example, crippling your opponent with status or Trick,

 

[Plus]

I voted for Two Sided Attacker.

I could be wrong, but Stop The Secondary sounds too simple, a fast pokemon who knows Taunt and has the ability of Shield Dust. Taunt stops non-damaging moves and Shield Dust stops the seconday effect of moves.

Two-Sided Attacker doesnt really have any obvious options, which means we can learn more from it.

Well first off, Shield Dust only prevents secondary effects from moves whose primary effect is to damage. This does not block Status Moves, or secondary moves overall which was what moi's concept wanted.

I also wouldn't call it simple when there's a variety of ways to pull this off. Whether it be an ability, a move, or favorable typing, you are able to block at least a variety of secondary moves. It does not mean "fast pokemon with Taunt".

 

[Mattman324]

I'm going to have to vote for billymills's Two Sided attack. While StS is nice, the only way possible currently is to be a fast user of Taunt (or have Shield dust, but I can't see that happening), which is counterintuitive, because then you would be using a secondary move.

EDIT: Plus posted after I loaded the page... still, while there are many ways to do it, I can personnally see one. How else are you suppost to stop, say, Swampert from setting up rocks? If you are Grass, then what stops Metagross? If you are Grass/Fire, then wouldn't it just be a better Pyroak?

 

[Apocalypse B-C]

Simply don't know how a two-sided attacker would work without also working as a mixed sweeper, and as stated above, strong "two-sided" sweepers already exist, in Lucario and Infernape. Another pokemon fitting the same general mold would just be redundant.

On the other hand stopping support means generally depriving supportmon - in other words, radically less use for Blissey, Celebi, etc. And at least for me, the metagame is even more offense-trending than ever, so it wouldn't really be much help to further the trend....still, it's something that hasn't really been done in its entirety before, which is more than can be said for the other concept....

So, due to originality and potential interest in seeing how the metagame shifts to acommodate it, my vote goes to moi's Stop the Secondary....again.

 

[Korski]

I voted for Two-Sided Attack, and let me tell you why:
Roles that a pokemon can play: Physical sweeper, Special Sweeper, Mixed Sweeper, Physical Wall, Special Wall, Mixed Wall, Support, Annoyer, Tank, Revenge Killer, Scout...
Anyways, the list goes on and all that. I think something that could be really good at ANY two or more of the myriad of roles a pokemon can play would be quite a dangerous and exciting force. It doesn't have to be a "either physical or special attacker" pokemon. In fact, I don't think that that's the idea here at all. It could be very interesting to pursue a CaP that would facilitate more strategy in battle, instead of less, which I will get to in a moment.

Regarding Stop the Secondary:
Any pokemon that can switch in multiple times (bulky) and threaten a good amount of the metagame (is likely to carry high-powered attacks that offer good coverage), causing switches, is more than prepared to Taunt on the switch and shut down the use of non-damaging moves. Give it Rapid Spin and Scrappy and entry hazards will disappear forever. Then give it good defensive typing and strong enough attacks to take advantage of Choice items, and Trick users will decline. I'm thinking a faster Gliscor with Rapid Spin (EDIT: Zorbees beat me to it...). Anyways, the metagame will most certainly shift to pure offense. CaP9 will hardly ever be seen; the mere possibility of its presence will eliminate its own need. Everything will be Choiced/Life Orbed and will be stating up and launching the highest BP moves they can muster, just to get more damage out there before the opponent does to win. Or it will create a world of endless switching wars (due to disappearance of entry hazards) until one player outpredicts him/herself and loses the match based on that one wrong decision. I think secondary and non-damaging moves are the things that keep this kind of metagame from developing, the kind that is much less about strategy than the current metagame. If we have a pokemon that can effectively stop most or all of these moves, it will make them disappear, along with CaP9. I don't know, that's just how I see it going down.

 

[Cybeny]

Well first off, Shield Dust only prevents secondary effects from moves whose primary effect is to damage. This does not block Status Moves, or secondary moves overall which was what moi's concept wanted.

I also wouldn't call it simple when there's a variety of ways to pull this off. Whether it be an ability, a move, or favorable typing, you are able to block at least a variety of secondary moves. It does not mean "fast pokemon with Taunt".

The concept clearly states "non damaging affect of moves and moves of non damaging origin."

The "non-damaging affect of moves", refers to the secondary affect of damaging moves, which would be prevented by Shield Dust.

The "moves of non-damging origin" refers to the status moves and secondary moves overall that you were talking about, and would be prevented by Taunt.

I understand that there are a variety of ways moi's concept could take shape, but I'm guessing that the most likely form it will take is "Fast Pokemon with Taunt" which wouldn't be very interesting and I feel that overall we would learn more from Two-Sided Attack

 

[Magmortified]

Went with Stop the Secondary

The thing about Two-sided Attacker for me is that, for the most part, nobody's really been able to tell me what we'd learn that we couldn't find out already.

For Two-Sided Attacker, I think this is kind of a street that's been gone down before. There are already a fair number of examples of something similar to what's described by the concept, such as Lucario, or Celebi, which can go bulky or use LO. Given a close look at the given examples (Lucario, particularly), I think we could already find the answers to most - if not all - of the questions billy raised.

Moi's at least, would let us get a better look at something that doesn't really exist in OU right now. Something that maybe should get more attention as to exactly what it does to the metagame. I think we could look at that and learn something.

 

[moi]

Cybeny, that statement is completely false. Taunt is a non-damaging move. It's affect? It stops you from using non attack moves.

Trick is a non damaging move that has the affect of switching items. It can be viewed as fitting both descriptions.

The key issue I think you don't realize is that you can't switch in and use Taunt on the same turn. You get hit by that move before you can, and therein lies the problem.

My main concern with billymills' submission is that we can already learn from previous examples. Even zorbees, who voted for it, pointed out pokemon in this metagame that can already fufill the submission.
also it's moi not Moi please :(

 

[Raikizen]

I'm voting on moi's Stop The Secondary.

Honestly, it sounds like what would be an OU viable Clefable to me. Except, we can twist and alter it to suit our needs throughtout the project. As stated before, we don't really have something in the current metagame that could really be applied to the way this concept could take shape. There are a myriad of ways this could be interpreted. (I already have a few myself.)

- Would it be an ability similar to Clefable's Magic Guard?
- Could it be a move lasting x number of turns that prevents all secondary effects?
- Could it prevent the side effects of moves? I.E. Recoil, Decrese, Increase, Stat Boosting, etc.

There are surely more questions that could be asked, and different answers for each question. I trust you, Plus, to keep us from meandering too much and thing this would be a fun and interesting path to take.

 

[Plus]

The concept clearly states "non damaging affect of moves and moves of non damaging origin."

The "non-damaging affect of moves", refers to the secondary affect of damaging moves, which would be prevented by Shield Dust.

The "moves of non-damging origin" refers to the status moves and secondary moves overall that you were talking about, and would be prevented by Taunt.

I understand that there are a variety of ways Moi's concept could take shape, but I'm guessing that the most likely form it will take is "Fast Pokemon with Taunt" which wouldn't be very interesting and I feel that overall we would learn more from Two-Sided Attack

You cannot prevent all secondary moves with Taunt, as it also requires a switch in to the move as well as immunity. Taunt does not do that, and that switch-in turn is one of the most common ways to use an immunity.

We already have "fast pokemon with Taunt", such as Aerodactyl and Azelf in OU. None of those could be considered "stop the secondary" pokemon. Can you switch an Aerodactyl or Azelf into a status move? No.

If anything I believe that moi's concept really does emphasize secondary moves above all else, although he has mentioned "non damaging effect of moves" in his concept. If you wanted a pokemon that could only be immune to the "non damaging effect of moves", then I'd advise using Cyclohm on the CAP ladder.

Additionally I would not advocate jumping to conclusions here. Pointing out different possibilities a CAP could take is fine; however, don't make it too specific by narrowing down ability, moves, or any combination.