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CAP 9 CAP 9 - Part 7a - Ability Discussion

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I like the idea of having the two abilities be Guts and Auto-Magic Coat. Auto-Magic Coat gives more reliable switch-ins, but its effects are only temporary and you must stop the secondary user before it tries again. Guts gives riskier switch-ins (since it doesn't block Leech Seed/Trick), but gives a more permanent advantage if you guess right and switch in on a status move. Additionally, Guts punishes Toxic Spikes, while Auto-Magic Coat does not. I like the duality of these two abilities. They both discourage the use of secondary moves, but they do it in different ways.

Also, perhaps we should refer to it as "Magic Coat on Switch-in", to avoid confusion (though we seem to already have had that). "Magic Coat Intimidate" is essentially what it is, but that could get misconstrued.
 
how about we get DJD's opinion on the programming of these possible new abilities before we continue discussion. if he thinks it will be a headache to program in, then why bother?
 
Guts isn't going to do much to deter the Secondary. As I've said sine the beginning of the CAP project, there are a lot more secondary effects than Statuses! We learn nothing by giving this Pokemon Guts. The whole concept of this CAP is "Stop the Secondary" The purpose of CAP is to learn things about the metagame we don't already know. How does Guts do either of these? Guts will "stop" status effects, but does nothing for the huge part of the list that isn't status effects. It also teaches us nothing new.

Guts is just a horrible decision all around. The only people push for it is because they have forgotten completely about the concept of our CAP. We know how to stop status effects, but we don't know how to stop a large sum of other Secondary Effects and that's what we should focus on. Status effects are a problem that has existed since RBY. Why don't we focus on Entry Hazards, and Taunt, and Encore, and the plethora of Secondary Effects we should be addressing. Guts gives our CAP boosted attacks and thats it. We'll get a stronger pursuit, and that's it. Please remember the Concept and not just push for the ability you like best. Guts is cool, we get stronger, but it won't teach us anything, which is the point of CAP.
 
In the interest of keeping away from custom abilities, Guts, Magic Guard and Poison Heal seem the most promising, in that order.

Shed Skin gets an honorable mention, but I think that its luck-based nature ruins it. I want this thing to dependably remove status. Natural Cure is out of the question, as we want our CAP to be able to stay in and get the job done. Synchronize also makes little to no sense. This CAP should be unaffected by most status, and having status stick and then statusing them back would increase the amount of secondary, not reduce it. I would also like to avoid inferior abilities like Insomnia, Immunity, and Water Veil. Levitate is also in this category.

I don't remember who said something about Trace, but are you kidding me? That ability will at best (for our purposes) give us natural cure as we come in on status, and will usually give us an ability that has nothing to do with blocking status/secondary. Arena Trap is kind of useless too. People will know that the CAP is a pursuiter. They will stay in! The only statuser I can think of that wouldn't care about a guts boosted pursuit and would likely switch out is the rare w-o-w heatran. Celebi, Slowbro, Rotom, Cresselia, Roserade etc. will all be forced to stay in.

Guts is number one on my list because it basically allows you to benefit from any status other than paralysis, which ground typing (for the most part) prevents. Boosting our attack when they status us will nearly guarantee our Pursuit has enough power to eliminate the foe, deters people from using status effects in general. This ability is superior to Quick Feet because you don't need increased speed to take on the bulky walls that usually carry status, you need more attack. I am also against Marvel Scale because most statusers are special, and this would go against the offensive nature of the CAP.

Though it is a beautiful ability for the CAP, Magic Guard comes in a notch below Guts because it won't stop burn's attack decrease, which means that pesky rotoms will still be able to w-o-w without fear. That is unacceptable for me. The cool thing is the recoil-less Life Orb, which could allow for mixed sets even if we give him subpar spA.

Poison Heal is a nice option but the problem with toxic orb and this ability is that you will have to bring it in for a turn before you can nullify status effects. This means that you ruin the element of surprise, or come in on a w-o-w before you get the poison up. I think that the element of surprise is too important for this concept, so this puts me off of this ability.

But, we don't need to give this CAP only one ability, do we? Why not give it a choice of two abilities that would, in conjunction, stop whatever secondaries you want?

So, we could give him two of the above abilities, or we could give him one of the above and also give him something like Stick Hold or Klutz to nullify trick. This gives you the ability to customize him to beat the statuses you are more worried about!

@ Pink: Without creating some stupid new ability or giving it Skrappy in preparation for Rapid Spin, there is little we can do at the ability level to reduce entry hazards and Encore. We will probably have to give him a move like Taunt or Rapid Spin to do that. For now we are trying to remove statuses, as there already exist a plethora of ways to reduce status effects at the ability and typing level. Yes, Guts already exists, but there is currently no pokemon that makes good use of Guts + Pursuit to remove statusers. We aren't removing the status per se, but we are deterring it. We will at worst find out that even the perfect status absorber/counter will not cause a decrease in status.
 
Pink said:
Guts isn't going to do much to deter the Secondary.
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I disagree. Status is a very large part of what is the secondary. Guts gives ongoing immunity to that.

Like I've said on IRC, there are two major parts of the mindset going on here in stopping the secondary:

A) This Pokemon can take the secondary and keep working. That means status, particularly.

B) This Pokemon beats up Pokemon that use the secondary.

Tar could be considered an example of B without A. It destroys Rotom, but WoW creates a gigantic headache for it.

In this regard, Guts backs both A and B. It means status (possibly self-inflicted) isn't going to be as much of a headache (especially if self-inflicted), which backs A, and it means we hit harder, which backs B. By creating a Pokemon that actively destroys users of the secondary - Rotom for instance - we're actively discouraging it.

For other secondary effects, I think this is why Guts would perform so well as a secondary ability with Auto-Magic Coat.

Auto-Magic Coat as it stands, only applies on the switch - meaning you'll need very good prediction to use it effectively. Though it notably provides the "Make them think twice about using secondary" that extends to CAP 9 regardless of what ability it's actually using. If we give it AMC, even if user x packs Guts on their CAP 9, user y is going to make decisions (most likely in team-building and the early game) taking into account that CAP 9 could be packing AMC. Basically: they'd work really well together.

Guts provides ONGOING protection against status in conjunction with a solid offensive bonus. That can be very important in the long run towards fighting users of the secondary.
 
Anachronism said:
I don't remember who said something about Trace, but are you kidding me? That ability will at best (for our purposes) give us natural cure as we come in on status, and will usually give us an ability that has nothing to do with blocking status/secondary.
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That was me. The point of Trace would, essentially, be to give Natural Cure but also other things if you need them, like Levitate or Water Absorb. We all know Natural Cure is a great choice, but why limit it? Trace is a very, very flexible ability that can be used to stop the secondary but also some other small jobs along the way.

Since when did the ability have to relate to Status? Wasn't the point of making a Ground type to handle Thunder Wave? If we want to handle Will'O'Wisp, why not give Flash Fire?

Poison Heal is probably the best bet (well, safest bet) but Trace still can do a lot in conjunction with the typing.
 
I already mentioned that Natural Cure is inferior to other options like Guts, Poison Heal, and Shed Skin. Basically, we would not only be giving it natural cure, he wouldn't even have natural cure all the time!

This CAP really has no business switching into the most useful Trace targets anyway. The best Trace targets are generally on things that don't status or use secondary effects, while the best abilities to stop secondary effects are uncommon.

Basically, we would be giving it multiple inferior abilities rather than one that actually supports it. Even if he did manage to get poison heal, he could already have the toxic orb, and wouldn't have it the next time he switched in.

Trace just adds a degree of unreliability. Yeah, it is randomly useful, but it is also randomly useless. Another reason why it sucks on this CAP is that it has so many weaknesses. Porygon 2's versatile normal typing allows it to come in on everything but fighting types, but our CAP doesn't have that luxury.

The ability should focus on stopping status or trick because those is the easiest types of secondary effects to remove at the ability level without a custom ability.
 
Shield Dust

If an attack with a secondary effect that affects this Pokemon is used, the secondary effect will not trigger. If the effect of the move affects the user of said move, Ominous Wind for example, it still works.


This and Unaware may help out.

Any status that happens from attacks such as the burn from Flamethrower are stopped with Shield Dust. That makes sense considering that this is Stop the Secondary. You can say " omg unoriginal" and "but cyclohm haz it" but that does not change. We have 2 Fighting Types, 2 Ghosts and this will be our second Ground. And unless you want stuff like hax and that from things like Body Slam, then you'll want to see Shield Dust. (Or Limber but that doesn't really shut down everthing against you)

However, you may be thinking about Unaware, and that's to prevent things like Ancient Power and Meteor Mash's boosts, and it basicly means no boosts at all. But using this with the typing makes it more bent to beating the secondary boosts. Gyarados, Lucario, Scizor, ect all have SD/DD to set up but you still don't want CAP in against them. Gyarados has Waterfall, Luke has CC and Scizor has Super Power/ U-Turn.
 
Pink said:
Guts isn't going to do much to deter the Secondary. As I've said sine the beginning of the CAP project, there are a lot more secondary effects than Statuses! We learn nothing by giving this Pokemon Guts. The whole concept of this CAP is "Stop the Secondary" The purpose of CAP is to learn things about the metagame we don't already know. How does Guts do either of these? Guts will "stop" status effects, but does nothing for the huge part of the list that isn't status effects. It also teaches us nothing new.

Guts is just a horrible decision all around. The only people push for it is because they have forgotten completely about the concept of our CAP. We know how to stop status effects, but we don't know how to stop a large sum of other Secondary Effects and that's what we should focus on. Status effects are a problem that has existed since RBY. Why don't we focus on Entry Hazards, and Taunt, and Encore, and the plethora of Secondary Effects we should be addressing. Guts gives our CAP boosted attacks and thats it. We'll get a stronger pursuit, and that's it. Please remember the Concept and not just push for the ability you like best. Guts is cool, we get stronger, but it won't teach us anything, which is the point of CAP.
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Alright, then:

Stoic: The user is not affected by Taunt, Encore, Sweet Scent, Spite, Pain Split, Curse (if used by a Ghost-type), flinching (note: this is debatable,) Torment, Charm, Growl, Tail Whip, Captivate, Attract, Tickle, Trick (also debatable,) Memento, Grudge, or Fake Tears. Does not affect Choice items. (May or may) Whether they affect Baton passing to/from CAP9 or not depends on what's easier for Doug to program.

Flavor, ingame description: Stoic: This Pokemon is unaffected by emotional or directly pain-based attacks.

Many of the effects listed above are for "flavor" aspects of the ability: the idea being "Which moves would be unlikely to affect Mr. Spock from Star Trek, or a highly genre-savvy villain?" On the other hand, not all concept arts look very stoic. Another thing: A big secondary effect is "stat drops" and I noticed a lot of them involve emotional references. Why not have a stoic Pokemon that resists them? (We can discuss whether to include flinching and Trick in that description later. I don't know if it should negate Intimidate or not, though. Switcheroo is exclusive to NU, and I highly doubt everyone will start running Iron Ball Switcheroo Lopunny in order to subvert this guy.) Obviously this ability is very powerful passively, negating many secondary effect moves at once (note: Sonic attacks are negated by Soundproof, hence Screech and Metal Sound are not included,) but it isn't going to cut it against Scizor, Gyrarados, and other Pokemon who don't use secondary moves. So in other words, this stops the secondary in ways other than status, as you suggested, Pink.

I say this because upon reading Pink's argument, I noted that it would be good to counter. We already have Machamp and T-Tar, so I think that Stoic would be a nice way of beating a lot of the secondary-using metagame without completely breaking this guy, as he's still vulnerable to Burn/Toxic/Sleep/Freeze (which we can stop and know how to stop,) and his ability is useless against most sweepers. (No OU Pokemon sweeper besides Jirachi and Togekiss suffer much depending on if Stoic negates flinch or not, and if we give it a high speed stat anyway we won't have to worry very much at all about flinches.)

-Torterra-Infernape-Feraligatr-
 
Shield Dust -- For the very reason that it simply blocks any secondary effects... Isn't that a perfect fit for the theme?
 
We already did the whole Shield Dust thing with Cyclohm (and it was really the whole point of the concept). Plus, what we're more looking to stop this time around are moves like Toxic, T-wave and Will-o-wisp, where the status is the primary effect, which Shield Dust doesn't stop in the least--thus the Ground type and thus why people are talking about stuff like Guts and Poison Heal. All Shield Dust will stop is the lucky-burn of Flamethrower and such, which isn't quite what we're after here. Thus, I'm not really feeling Shield Dust this time.
 
STOP THE SECONDARY

Not just block status lol. Where does it say beat only status in the concept? It says both. Which means that it has to beat both, not one or the other. Shield Dust just stops status and drops from beating you randomly. >_> Abilities such as Flame Body and Water Veil can't stop Pokemon with Body Slam from Paraing you. The main statuses are Burn, Para, Sleep and Flinch. Flinch is secondary and Hypnosis isn't that common. There's Freeze too. Secondary is more common than


The main focus was to stop mostly the secondary, is it not?
 
boo836 said:
STOP THE SECONDARY

Not just block status lol. Where does it say beat only status in the concept? It says both. Which means that it has to beat both, not one or the other. Shield Dust just stops status and drops from beating you randomly. >_> Abilities such as Flame Body and Water Veil can't stop Pokemon with Body Slam from Paraing you. The main statuses are Burn, Para, Sleep and Flinch. Flinch is secondary and Hypnosis isn't that common. There's Freeze too. Secondary is more common than


The main focus was to stop mostly the secondary, is it not?
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Yeah, much as I would love an omnibus ability that stops all of random gimmicks people use, I'm afraid Leech Seed, Confusion, Encore, Taunt, Torment, etc. Are all incredibly rare and not worth investing the time in to block. Status is not rare, I believe in one commentary someone said Burn was a very common status for Stall teams. Status is everywhere, where these other secondary effects are not.

X-Act had some disappointment with CAP9 already because its stats are now too high to make an Continuous Taunt ability something that isn't broken. Continuous Taunt would stop all of these things even on the turn it switches in and indefinitely (as long as the pokemon is out)

Also, Shield Dust only stops secondary effects from damaging moves. It does nothing against the likes of Hazards or direct Status attacks.
 
Guts is not a good idea. If you guys had wanted to use Guts as the ability, you would have voted for the Status Absorber concept. Guts really does nothing to stop the seconday, it benefits from it. Which is not what moi was suggesting, that was someone else's idea. So Guts = does NOT stop the secondary.

Auto Magic Coat is a good idea. Every time a player uses a status move, they will have in the back of their mind "Does my opponent have CAP 9? Is this worth the risk?" I think it is a great idea.
 
I strongly oppose shield dust. we already created almost the perfect shield dust user in cyclohm, and we found out that shield dust really isn't that good of an ability.

also, a one-turn taunt ability seems like an inferior version of beej's suggested custom ability, so i oppose that too.

after discussing it in #cap, i'm thoroughly convinced by the auto-magic coat ability suggested by beej.
 
skymin_flower said:
Guts is not a good idea. If you guys had wanted to use Guts as the ability, you would have voted for the Status Absorber concept. Guts really does nothing to stop the seconday, it benefits from it. Which is not what moi was suggesting, that was someone else's idea. So Guts = does NOT stop the secondary.

Auto Magic Coat is a good idea. Every time a player uses a status move, they will have in the back of their mind "Does my opponent have CAP 9? Is this worth the risk?" I think it is a great idea.
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Guts, when activated, turns a moderate offensive threat into a major one, thereby discouraging throwing out predictable status moves. It makes using Status a liability, something which an immunity does not do. An immunity to secondary effects makes you lose one turn. Turning one of your opponent's pokemon into a major offensive force instead of its usual moderate one can cost you an entire game. Individually you can get by most Status simply by switching in the appropriately typed pokemon. Obviously merely being immune to a secondary effect of some kind has never seriously curbed its use, thus the concept.
 
I had a thought though, this thing has excellent stats: Nice bulk, a lot of attack and high speed (most submissions suggest over 100). If we give it guts, no one's going to use it to stop the secondary, they'll just whack on a Flame Orb and sweep. It'llbe outspeeding a large number of things, surviving faster things and priority thanks to it's bulk and destroying everything with STAB Earthquakes and Crunches coming off over 500 Attack. The power of a choice bander with the ability to change attacks, like Marowak but with decent speed.
 
I'm torn over Guts and Poison Heal. On one hand, Lord Jesseus put it almost perfectly - were we to give this thing Guts, people wouldn't give half a flying fuck about stopping secondary effects - they'd just slap on a Flame Orb and sweep away. Poison Heal might be used similarly, except generally to stay in longer rather than just sweep. There is, however, one major perk to Guts and Poison Heal that cannot be overlooked that also fits the concept fairly well - when burned or poisoned, a Pokemon cannot be affected by any other negative status (except confusion). This is the main reason I am torn over these two abilities. However, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the immunity to other status wouldn't really be that useful - the only status that is really common other than burn and poison is paralysis, and this guy is already immune to Thunder Wave, the most common paralysis move. Mostly, I feel that Guts and Poison Heal would be a waste of an ability.

The two abilities that have me most intrigued are Exclamation Point's Earthshaker and Beej's Auto-Magic Coat.. Auto-Magic Coat is the higher risk, higher reward ability, as one would need to predict correctly in order for it to work - it would only reflect effects that affect CAP9 itself. Earthshaker, on the other hand, is a safer choice, as it shuts down all the opponent's secondary options, even the ones that don't directly affect CAP9 (damaging moves, like Knock Off or Rapid Spin, would still work, though). In addition, this guy would become the perfect Trick counter, as it would switch in, nullify the effect, and put in a serious dent with Pursuit on the switch. I'm still not sure which ability would work better in more situations, but these two abilities are probably the best choices.

Edit: Goddammit, too many of these custom abilities are the same (Exclamation Point's Earthshaker, familyguyman's Provoke, etc.). It just makes it really confusing over which one to support. For the love of god, people, try to put some originality in your custom abilities.
 
familyguyman said:
I have 2 ideas:

Custom Ability: Provoke
Description: Upon entering the field, any non-damaging move, used by the opponent, will have no effect. This includes the first turn.

This will allow CAP9 to be an awesome anti-lead, preventing Taunt and Stealth Rock on turn 1. It will also encourage many switches by the opponent. It will prevent any status on the switch in, as well as Trick, entry hazards, Recovery, weather, etc. Note that it won't stop Rapid Spin, so it's not a silver bullet for support moves. When combined with Pursuit, Sucker Punch, etc, CAP9 will be a mind game master while shutting down secondary moves left and right. It's essentially a one turn Taunt, but only on the switch.
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I completely agree with this, as I posted the something similar in one of the discussions. This will completely stop the second, but it will not render it over-powered in my opinion.
 
Oh, I didn't even see FamilyGuyMan's. I must of scrolled pass it. However, I edited mine to what my original idea was.

My non-custom choice would be Poison Heal. While Poisoned you would gain double Leftover Recovery, status prevention, and Toxic Orb essentially acts as a Trick deterrent.

Custom ability wise I think that this would be appropriate...
Earthshaker: Switch-in and causes a one turn Taunt on grounded Pokemon only. This does not affect Pokemon with levitate or Pokemon with flying typing.

One step above Auto-Magic Coat. This ability encourages people to attack instead of carelessly setting up. The ability can "Stop the Secondary" in most regards.
(don't read: Flavour-wise Earthshaker name fits with typing and the ability could help the inevitable four move-slot syndrome)
 
Y'know, tortferngatr's Stoic doesn't seem to be too bad ability-wise, and it has a nice flavor to it (almost savory, with a hint of lemon). Though Beej's Auto-Magic Coat is quite tasty as well, and Reverse Psychology is... interesting, to say the least.

For existing Abilities, why not go all out broken and go with Shield Dust/Magic Guard? =D Seriously, though, Guts seems to be one of the better options without getting ridiculous, but Jesseus has a point. I know I'd definitely throw an Orb on and go to town with CaP9 if he had the attack boost.
 
I'd like to suggest "Safeguard on the switch in", it means: Blocks burn, confusion, freeze, paralysis, poison, and sleep upon switching in.

This will allow CAP9 switch in status effects without trouble.

Why this ability over existant ones?

- Guts: A pokémon with Guts is vulnerable to sleep, confusion an freeze.
- Poison Heal: Poison Heal obligates us to put a Toxic Orb on CAP to be effective.
- Water Veil/Insomnia/Immunity: This abilities only prevents one kind of status.

I don't know if someone already posted this ability, if yes, sorry for that, I didn't find anyone.
 
Poison Heal is a great idea for reasons other have mentioned. Maybe a custom Burn Heal ability would work, obviously negating the attack drop aswell, since it's likely, the way the spreads are leaning, that WoWers will be trying to cripple CAP9 with it.
 
It looks like most people in this discussion are looking for something that is a status absorber. If that was the case, why didn't everybody vote for the status absorber concept? In CAP, moves like Leech Seed and Encore appear more frequently than they do in the standard metagame thanks to Fidgit, Pyroak, etc. There NEEDS to be an ability that contributes to preventing not JUST status, but other secondary effects as well, like Leech Seed, Encore, and Taunt.

Because of that, I think the best ability that applies to the concept of this CAP is Deck Knight's Strikes Back. It applies whatever secondary (no damage) move effects that the opponent uses to the opponent itself, BUT its only on the first turn, so it is not completely broken. What this will do is cause teams, particularly stall teams that rely on entry hazards etc., to worry about CAP9 switching in and applying the effects to their side of the field, which could equal trouble if Toxic/Toxic Spikes is used when CAP9 switches in, for example. For those reasons, I think that Strikes Back should be the primary ability of CAP9.

As for a second ability (if we decided to have 2), an ability that takes advantage of secondary effects could be useful. This ability should utilize making CAP9 into a more pronounced threat than it already was. Even though this ability relates mainly to status, Guts is one of the better choices for a second ability. Some people might be thinking: "Why is he ranting about how this concept is not all about status then picking an ability that relates directly to status?" This is because Guts isn't just about switching on attacks that cause status like Will-O-Wisp or Toxic, but it also allows CAP9 to come in on Toxic Spikes an immediately be a powerful offensive threat. The threat of CAP9 will force teams that utilize Toxic Spikes or status to think twice before using them. In effect, it does stop one part of the Secondary.

The utilization of both Strikes Back and Guts on CAP9 will cause opponents to think twice before they place up entry hazards, attempt to cripple with status, or Leech Seed/Encore CAP9.
 
Sc4rfCh0mp said:
It looks like most people in this discussion are looking for something that is a status absorber. If that was the case, why didn't everybody vote for the status absorber concept? In CAP, moves like Leech Seed and Encore appear more frequently than they do in the standard metagame thanks to Fidgit, Pyroak, etc. There NEEDS to be an ability that contributes to preventing not JUST status, but other secondary effects as well, like Leech Seed, Encore, and Taunt.
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I wonder why people keep bringing up other CAPs... Guys, our aim is to playtest our creations in the OU metagame. Our learning focus IS the OU metagame. In the standard metagame, statuses are much more common than both Leech Seed and Encore. THIS is what matters.

How CAP9 does against other CAPs is irrelevant. Leech Seed and Encore are more common in the CAP metagame? Well. Who cares? CAP metagame is a simple byproduct of the community process, and definitely not what we are trying to analyze. Comments like this (about other CAP Pokémon and CAP metagame) show a complete misunderstanding of the CAP Project.
 
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