CAP27 - Part 1 - Concept Poll 1

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Jho

Jho

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Through this series of polls, we'll be voting as a community on which concept we'd like to pursue for CAP 27. Make sure to read through each concept thoroughly; it is imperative that you understand what you're voting for here. Our slate of Six concepts was chosen by our Topic Leader, me, from the Concept Submissions thread.

This will be a Ranked Pairs vote (RP) (a form of voting where each candidate is ranked according to head to head matchups with each of its competitors in a directed acyclic graph), the details of which were discussed here.

This is a ranked vote: order does matter! You can upvote your favorites and downvote your least favorites. You may choose to rank as many or as few options as you like, but we encourage you to rank as many options as possible to ensure your preferences are taken into account.

Bold your votes and nothing else!
A typical vote might look like the following:
Most Preferred
Second Most Preferred
Third Most Preferred

Any comments that the voter has would go below the votes in non-bold text. Bold text is used to determine what the user's votes are, so none of the supplementary text should be in bold.
Click to expand...
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IMPORTANT: When voting, use only the name of the author! The list of possible votes include:


-Voltage-
Quanyails
lyd
sunMYSER
quziel
snake_rattler


This poll will be open for 24 hours. The concept submissions are quoted below in order of submission.

Offensive Team Support

-Voltage- said:
Final Submission

Name: Offensive Team Support (the concept formerly known as "Trickster Cleric")

Description: A Pokemon that is able to fit the role of team support through more offensive and/or utility based means, whether these are through moves, abilities, typings or other factors unique to CAP27.

Justification: This is absolutely an Archetype based concept, if that weren't inherently clear by its name. This more or less comes from the class of a similar name from the fifth edition of dungeons and dragons (not necessarily being a Pokemon that uses Aromatherapy or Heal Bell), and it's meant to fill a role that we haven't explored in CAP since as far back as generation four with Fidgit. Furthermore, of all the offensively-oriented Pokemon that exist in the metagame, very few can also act as support for their team.

Questions to be answered:
  • How can a Pokemon that might be more offensively-focused or utility-focused fare as a healer/cleric/support mon in the current metagame?
  • What are aspects of specific support Pokemon that make them effective in their roles in the current meta?
  • To what extent can CAP27 use the new mechanics of utility based moves be used in a way to benefit players using them?
  • Without getting into overly cheesy strategies, how can CAP27 bring about creative ways to assist the rest of the team it finds itself on?
  • How does CAP27 bring about situations in which the opponent has to debate whether or not CAP27 will be healing or attacking, and how can they effectively beat that 50/50?
  • To what extent does CAP27 have to choose between acting more as a cleric versus acting more as an attacker? Can it do both without sacrificing anything relevant to its viability?
  • Are there any forms of playstyle that CAP27 might be able to benefit just by existing?
  • How can CAP27's offensive or utility presence open opportunities for healing its allies later in the game (if CAP27 gets healing methods) ?
  • To what extent does an offense-oriented support Pokemon need to use healing (via HP recovery or status healing) to support teams it finds itself on?
Click to expand...

Tempo

Quanyails said:
Final Submission

Name: Tempo

Description: A Pokémon that explores the concept of turn efficiency (tempo) in battles.

Justification: Battling competitively involves making the most amount of impact on your opponent in the least amount of turns. For example, moves that set entry hazards are considered useful, as entry hazards have a lasting impact on the match despite taking only a few turns to set up. In contrast, moves that debuff opponents are not considered useful, as the effects of these moves are immediately nullified upon switching. Another example of turn-efficient mechanics includes abilities that automatically "use a move" (e.g., Intimidate or Psychic Surge), letting you use next move for another purpose. While playing efficiently is a core part of all strategy games, we've yet to quantify what this entails in the Pokémon metagame.

This concept falls under the Target category, as it explores a concept integral to Pokémon's battle system.

Questions to be answered:
  • What are characteristics of types, abilities, moves, and items that are efficient/inefficient?
  • What makes a move more or less efficient over the course of battle?
  • What circumstances make switching efficient or inefficient?
  • When does it become efficient for the player to use a turn to negate an existing advantage? (E.g., using a move to remove entry hazards, using Knock Off to remove items.)
  • How does RNG factor into the efficiency of an action?
  • What actions can force the opponent to lose a tempo (become behind on turn advantage)?
  • How can a player recover from losing tempo?
Click to expand...
Good 'Ol Switcheroo

lyd said:
Name: The Good Ol' Switcheroo
Description: A Pokémon that takes advantage of item-swapping moves such as Switcheroo or Trick.
Justification: This should be an Archetype concept. It explores a relatively uncharted role in a Pokémon that can cripple its opponents through swapping items with them.
Questions To Be Answered:
  • How should CAP27 approach its goal of being the ultimate Switcheroo / Trick user?
    • What ability / abilities could CAP27 have to encourage the successful use of Switcheroo / Trick? Klutz, Magic Guard, Poison Heal, another ability that benefits from status effects, something else entirely?
    • What role should CAP27 play in-battle to optimize its goal? A fast offensive pivot, a defensive pivot, something else entirely?
  • How should CAP 27 make it flexible and easy to Switcheroo / Trick hindering items to opponents? Tricking Choice Items has the limitation of only being able to do it turn one, making it predictable and prone to fail. Tricking other negative items such as Flame Orb, Toxic Orb, or Sticky Barb, means having an immunity to these items, be it through typing or abilities.
  • Should CAP27 focus on Switcheroo'ing / Tricking one particular item to cripple foes? Or should it attempt to have a multitude of different items it can Switcheroo / Trick to its foe?
  • Should CAP27 also have other outs against defensive Pokémon other than Switcheroo / Trick? Or would such a Pokémon be too powerful of a Stallbreaker / Wallbreaker?
Click to expand...
Contrast Is Key

SunMYSER said:
Final Submission

Name: Contrast is key

Description: A Pokemon that can perform two contrastingly different roles, but not at the same time.

Justification: I think this concept would fit best into Archetype and Actualization categories. CAP 27 should feel like two completely types of pokemon depending on what set it is running.

Questions to be Answered:
  • What are the various roles one pokemon can be, which ones work together naturally, and which ones don't?
  • What tools would each role need that would would be nearly useless to a different role?
  • Which roles would be effective or needed in the current metagame?
  • What type of limitations should be put on CAP 27 to make sure that both roles that it will encompass are of equal viability?
  • Why do certian roles or sets of a pokemon drop off, while others retain viability? (e.g CM Naviathan vs DD Naviathan)
Click to expand...
Role-Switching It Up

quziel said:
Name: Role-Switching It Up

Description: This Pokemon fulfills two or more different role, but crucially, it switches between roles during a battle based on in-battle factors.

Justification:

This concept fits under the Actualization category. The aim is to create a Pokemon that firstly is able to be effective in two different roles, and secondarily will be able to distinctly switch between them during a battle.

Some examples of pokemon that broadly fulfill this concept already are Pre-Home SwSh Rotom-Heat, which spent the early game spamming Will-o-Wisp and Volt Switch, and then transitioned to a wallbreaker once its answers such as Seismitoad and Kommo-o are weakened into Overheat range. ORAS era Calm Mind Clefable also fulfills this category, as it has the bulk and recovery to spend the early game as a pivot, using Thunder Wave to status its answers, and then transitions to a Sweeper once answers such as Heatran are weakened. SMNU Comfey is a very clear example of this concept in action, as it spends the majority of the early game using its +3 priority moves to revenge kill threats, and then, once its counters are chipped (by its team) into range of a +1 Hidden Power, it attempts to sweep.

Questions to be answered:
  • How do we ensure that the Pokemon does not focus purely on one of its two possible roles? That is, what elements do we need to include to allow this shift, and what elements should we remove?
  • What battle conditions can serve as a trigger to switch focus between its two roles?
  • Are there any sets of roles that lend themselves to a transition within battle? Are there roles that are incompatible with eachother?
  • Are certain roles keyed towards early-game effectiveness, are certain roles keyed towards late-game effectiveness? Do we need to pick an early-game and late-game role, or can we pick two early-game or two late-game roles?
  • Does a Pokemon such as this need to switch roles once, or can it smoothly transition between multiple times?
Click to expand...
One-Hit Wonder

snake_rattler said:
Final Submission

Name: One-Hit Wonder

Description: This Pokemon has one reliable and strong move to deal damage, but otherwise it has to rely on a) significantly weaker coverage options, b) utility options and/or c) team support options to circumvent its checks and counters and to make it worthwhile using.

Justification: One-Hit Wonder is an Actualization concept, and the CAP should be known for using the chosen powerful move. This idea may not have been too well-explored before Generation 8, but in Sword and Shield, Dracovish, Dracozolt, Arctovish, and Arctozolt have access to Fishious Rend and Bolt Beak, which would all fit the concept very well. As such, we can see how some of these Pokemon can be very successful with the powerful move (Dracovish is firmly OU, Dracozolt is UUBL) and how some of these are not (Arctovish and Arctozolt have fallen far). Thus, a Pokemon that simply has an extremely strong move isn't necessarily good. A bigger challenge is to limit the CAP's coverage movepool such that it relies heavily on its chosen move - this CAP ideally shouldn't have coverage options that approach the power of its super powerful move.

Some other examples would be:
  • Tapu Koko's Thunderbolt (in Generation 7)
  • Melmetal's Double Iron Bash (although Melmetal has a sufficiently large and powerful coverage movepool too)
  • Obstagoon's Facade
  • OU/CAP Specially Defensive Centiskorch's Fire Lash
  • Silvally's Multi-Attack
  • Araquanid's Liquidation (supported by Water Bubble, yes)
  • Tsareena's Power Whip
  • Tornadus-T's Hurricane (in Generation 7)
  • Assault Vest Magearna's Fleur Cannon (in Generation 7)
Note that this concept does not necessarily mandate that this Pokemon be an offensive juggernaut. The only requirement is that it has ONE main offensive move that is much more powerful than the rest of its arsenal of damaging moves. Tapu Koko is a fantastic example of this concept, as its Thunderbolt was threatening, but it had to rely on Hidden Power Ice most of the time to compliment it, and that was not a strong move against Pokemon that aren't 4x weak to it. Tornadus-T relied mostly on Hurricane, but it utilized team support options to become the dominant force it was in Generation 7. When Assault Vest Magearna was used for its defensive capabilities, Fleur Cannon's high base power compensated for a lack of Special Attack investment.

Questions To Be Answered:
  • What types of Pokemon are best at using a singular, powerful move while bringing other benefits to its team?
  • Does this Pokemon need coverage to complement its powerful move? What is the weakest (but meaningful) coverage we can provide it that makes it worth using? Can it rely more on utility and team support to be effective?
  • How offensive does the Pokemon need to be to make it worth using its one move without centralizing the metagame?
  • Will this Pokemon be added to teams because its move does a lot of damage? Or will it be added to teams for other reasons (positioning, utility, checking certain threats, etc.), with its primary damaging move giving it the offensive pressure needed to achieve other goals?
Click to expand...
CAP 27 so far
 
Last edited:
snake

snake

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CAP Co-Leader
snake_rattler
quziel
-Voltage-
sunMYSER
lyd
Quanyails

Good luck everyone!! I think any of these will make for a good project :)
 
GMars

GMars

It's ya boy GEEEEEEEEMARS
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lyd
sunMYSER
quziel
snake_rattler
Quanyails
-Voltage-
 
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Wulfanator

Wulfanator

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snake_rattler
Quanyails
Lyd
-Voltage-
quziel
sunMYSER

Good luck to all. Overall, this is a really solid slate. Nice work, Jho.
 
Gravity Monkey

Gravity Monkey

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sunMYSER
quziel
Quanyails
-Voltage-
snake_rattler

Modedit: correcting spelling of quziel.
 
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