Policy Review Policy Review - CAP Revision Process

[omgthatkid]

Revenankh has curse and bulk up. How about just giving it curse? This would mean that it wouldn't be as easy to sweep with. A small change but it might be one more thing Revenankh needs. Also I agree with all of dougs proposed changes.

Revenankh is a Ghost type, Curse won't work defensively.
Anyway, couldn't we add another inaccurate physical move to Syclant's movepool?
To make Compoundeyes more competitively viable for a physical set?
I mean, Syclant is more often than not seen as a special sweeper.
Giving it viable physical alternatives could give way to more versatility but with less powerful STAB moves, which would take focus off a special version.

 

[tennisace]

Anyway, couldn't we add another inaccurate physical move to Syclant's movepool?
To make Compoundeyes more competitively viable for a physical set?
I mean, Syclant is more often than not seen as a special sweeper.
Giving it viable physical alternatives could give way to more versatility but with less powerful STAB moves, which would take focus off a special version.

Hold up. We say Syclant is broken, so you want to... am I getting this right... give it more things? You already have Stone Edge. Most inaccurate moves are more powerful by default, so you want to give it more power. Not gonna happen. We won't be giving these two any more moves.

 

[Gothic Togekiss]

I agree with most of what Doug suggesting except for this....

1. Get rid of Shadow Sneak.

If you want to remove a move from it, remove Hammer Arm from it's movepool and force it to rely on Brick Break or something. Between the two moves it already have, I say that Hammer Arm is the worst of the two evils. Removing that means he loses some potenial OHKO/2HKO from certain pokemon, thus meaning more chance to stop this thing.

 

[omgthatkid]

Hold up. We say Syclant is broken, so you want to... am I getting this right... give it more things? You already have Stone Edge. Most inaccurate moves are more powerful by default, so you want to give it more power. Not gonna happen. We won't be giving these two any more moves.

I was just suggesting that maybe we could give it some other inaccurate physical move, to take advantage of Compoundeyes for a physical set.
The argument isn't that Syclant is broken because it's an amazing mixed sweeper. The fact that it's so fast with such powerful and reliable SPECIAL attacking options is what makes it questionable. Since Syclant is primarily used as a special attacker, adding physical moves wouldn't be cause for concern. It would diversify Syclant and make a physical set more viable, thus straying away from the potentially broken area of special attacking Syclant has.

 

[tennisace]

I was just suggesting that maybe we could give it some other inaccurate physical move, to take advantage of Compoundeyes for a physical set.
The argument isn't that Syclant is broken because it's an amazing mixed sweeper. The fact that it's so fast with such powerful and reliable SPECIAL attacking options is what makes it questionable. Since Syclant is primarily used as a special attacker, adding physical moves wouldn't be cause for concern. It would diversify Syclant and make a physical set more viable, thus straying away from the potentially broken area of special attacking Syclant has.

That doesn't make the special sets any less broken, and from the other perspective, we're already trying to get rid of extraneous moves.

 

[omgthatkid]

That doesn't make the special sets any less broken, and from the other perspective, we're already trying to get rid of extraneous moves.

I realize that.
But Syclant's original intent was to be a mixed sweeper.
So I'm alright with it not getting another inaccurate physical move, I was just suggesting it.
But I still stand by altering Syclant's stats a bit, specifically Speed, and trimming down the unimportant moves.

 

[ParadOxymoron]

The reason I'm suggesting we change Mountaineer to only negate Stealth Rock damage is because that direct Rock thing doesn't make much sense. When I first read it after coming to these boards and checking out what you guys had made, I was like, "Oh, so that makes it immune to Stealth Rock." But wait! It also makes it immune to Stone Edge … upon switching in? Now I just think that's silly.

I appreciate the exclamation that Eric gave me, but I still just don't feel it really has any reason to be there.

Mountaineer, in my opinion, should simply say, "Syclant is immune to Stealth Rock." I don't know why Cooper, in an attempt to nerf Ice Shell, took away two things and then added something extraneous … I may totally be picking at things that don't matter here, but to me it's like cutting down on the movepool. He really doesn't need to be immune to Rock attacks on the move he switches in, and therefore he shouldn't be. That bit of Mountaineer is extraneous and makes the ability altogether unapproachable. It should say what it does, and what it does (in the metagame) is make Syclant immune to Stealth Rock. I really think the other bit should be trimmed off because it does not need to be there.

And seriously guys, we should just give Pyroak Earthquake. But that's a discussion for another time.

 

[DougJustDoug]

The reason I'm suggesting we change Mountaineer to only negate Stealth Rock damage is because that direct Rock thing doesn't make much sense. When I first read it after coming to these boards and checking out what you guys had made, I was like, "Oh, so that makes it immune to Stealth Rock." But wait! It also makes it immune to Stone Edge … upon switching in? Now I just think that's silly.

I appreciate the exclamation that Eric gave me, but I still just don't feel it really has any reason to be there.

Mountaineer, in my opinion, should simply say, "Syclant is immune to Stealth Rock." I don't know why Cooper, in an attempt to nerf Ice Shell, took away two things and then added something extraneous … I may totally be picking at things that don't matter here, but to me it's like cutting down on the movepool. He really doesn't need to be immune to Rock attacks on the move he switches in, and therefore he shouldn't be. That bit of Mountaineer is extraneous and makes the ability altogether unapproachable. It should say what it does, and what it does (in the metagame) is make Syclant immune to Stealth Rock. I really think the other bit should be trimmed off because it does not need to be there.

Pokemon are not immune to specific moves. Pokemon are immune to classes of moves. To single out Stealth Rock for immunity is more contrived than Syclant's 121 speed. Such a change would be too specifically targeted to the current competitive metagame. That would be like making an ability that makes a pokemon ignore the recoil from Close Combat -- instead of Rock Head which ignores recoil moves of all kinds. Levitate does not apply just to Earthquake, it applies to all Ground moves. Rapid Spin doesn't just clear Spikes, it clears all passive damage threats including TSpikes and Leech Seed. Mountaineer really is just following that same form.

We debated this heavily in the Syclant creation threads. There was serious talk of making an ability that conveyed immunity to all passive switch-in damage. That's fine, because it covers a whole category of moves (SRocks, Spikes, TSpikes). But, to make an immunity to a specific move seems very contrived. Maybe there are examples of specific move immunities ingame, but none come to mind immediately.

Besides - nerfing Mountaineer to only ignore Stealth Rocks doesn't really change it very much. Having full rock immunity for a single switch in is not much more powerful than immunity to Stealth Rock only. Not many people use Rock moves on Syclant. It has much more to fear from Fire and Steel moves. Perhaps nerfing Moutaineer would change that, but I doubt it. I'm curious what some of the more avid Syclant users have to say on it -- not Mountaineer in general, but rather if Rock moves would be used more against Ant, if Mountaineer did NOT convey full Rock immunity on switch in.

EDIT: Basically, I'm asking -- Is this a competitive issue or not? If not, then let's drop it. I don't want this discussion to get sidetracked on flavor issues with Mountaineer.

 

[tennisace]

[snipped long and completely right post]

EDIT: Basically, I'm asking -- Is this a competitive issue or not? If not, then let's drop it. I don't want this discussion to get sidetracked on flavor issues with Mountaineer.

No, since Mountaineer isn't overpowered in the least. I suggest we stick to the main issues: Lowering Syclant's Speed/Revenankh's Special Defense, and trimming Movepools.

 

[bumfacepik]

However we change the Pokemon in anyway I propose we do it slowly. Not dropping moves and base stat at same time for an example. We need to get them as balanced as possible and doing it one step at a time will be easy and we will get them as balanced as humanly possible.

 

[Bull of Heaven]

Just get rid of all the unused support moves and unnecessary attacks like Air Slash, Crunch, Flash Cannon, Knock Off, Spikes, Water Pulse, etc. Make it conform to X-Act's guide. IF we do that -- I DON'T CARE HOW -- then it will be fine. But, for those of you that have not tried to make a movepool according to the guide -- be aware that Syclant will lose a LOT of moves. This is a good thing. I don't care which moves it keeps and which moves it loses. Just make it have a reasonable movepool, as defined by the guide.

Syclant's movepool is already surprisingly close to X-Act's guidelines. I tried taking it apart earlier, and found that the elemental Fangs were really the only things that made it questionable. If they're removed, X-Scissor, Ice Punch and Bug Buzz are the only viable moves in the level-up list. We could remove Night Slash if it really matters. Syclant would still get Shadow Claw. Earth Power, Superpower and Tail Glow are the only egg moves that get any use as far as I know. That only leaves a total of six viable moves in both lists, unless you consider Counter viable. We could probably even keep one of the Fangs. Maybe Thunder, since it fits better flavor-wise.

As for the TM moves, I see no need to change any of them. Unless there's an urgent need to toss useless flavor moves, and there isn't in this case, I think they should stay. Say what you want about the CAP project's purpose, but a pokemon with an incomplete movepool would upset the fanboys in all of us. I'd support removing Spikes and the Screens just because they make little sense flavor-wise, but let Air Slash, Flash Cannon and Water Pulse stay.

Basically, Syclant's movepool isn't as bad as people think. I'd scrap no more than the following moves: Fire Fang, Night Slash, Reflect, Light Screen, Spikes and possibly (probably not) Thunder Fang. Note that these suggestions only follow X-Act's guidelines, and don't consider the possibility that, say, Earth Power or Superpower might be broken. Still, I would lower Syclant's Speed before thinking about that.

 

[Hyra]

@Hyra: Syclant learns the 100% accuracy Superpower (and has higher physical than special attack), so I don't see how just taking away focus blast would solve that. It even has swords dance! Even if we take away Focus Blast and Blizzard, it could still run a successful SD set and just use Mountaineer with SD/Ice Punch/X-Scissor/Superpower OR Crunch, or a support set: Taunt/Reflect/Light Screen/Spikes, or an immune-to-SR countersash, or a mixed set: Ice Beam/Bug Buzz/Superpower/Stone Edge (Earth Power when Platinum comes out). Granted any of those would be weaker than the special set, but the point here is that Syclant's problems run deeper than just removing one move can solve.

I meant all Fighting moves besides Brick Break when I said less Fighting moves (I just used Focus Blast as an example because it is by far its Fighting move). We could even drop Brick Break if we felt like it. The Support set you mention should probably be removed except for Taunt, all the rest seem out of place. Stone Edge is definitely going when we revise and I've already mentioned that I don't like Superpower. Crunch + X-Scissor is meh coverage seeing as Ghosts and Cresselia are already hit hard. And I am entirely against Syclant getting Earth Power tutor as long as it still has Tail Glow (and Super Power to a lesser extent).

Basically, I feel Syclant's offensive movepool should be reduced to mostly STAB attacks and the rest of the moves be around 80 BP, so that the boosting moves don't make them too powerful.

I would only drop the Speed on Syclant to 120... Not that it matters anyways... since the difference between what outruns 120 and 115 is non-existent, and its not like anything with 120 base Speed can switch in (excluding Stone Edge Duggy revenge). And at 115, its still tears up the same stuff, it just fears a speed tie, but most pokes at 115 don't max Speed while Syclant almost always does.

I can see the argument for dropping SDef on Revenankh.. I just don't like messing with Base Stats too much. I also don't see the problem with LockLight, its not like its used. We can cut it if we need to drop moves to conform to X-Act's movepool guide, but otherwise I see no reason to.

I will agree that Shadow Sneak needs to do. Hammer Arm was voted in as the main STAB attack and is one of Revenankh's defining characteristics (my god, why can't I spell that word?). I actually find Ice Punch/Hammer Arm to be a better combination than Shadow Punch/Hammer Arm, because it allows you to nail Salamence and Gliscor, but this isn't really overpowering because Machamp can run the same set, it just can't recover as well as Revenankh (really... why did no one notice how powerful ShedRest would be earlier?).

But yeah... I think the simplest change to Revenankh would be not allowing it to survive Modest SpecsTran's Fire Blast (I have tried this and been very disappointed before). And allowing faster Ghosts and Psychic types to actually hit it before it hits them.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Syclant's movepool is already surprisingly close to X-Act's guidelines. I tried taking it apart earlier, and found that the elemental Fangs were really the only things that made it questionable. If they're removed, X-Scissor, Ice Punch and Bug Buzz are the only viable moves in the level-up list. We could remove Night Slash if it really matters. Syclant would still get Shadow Claw. Earth Power, Superpower and Tail Glow are the only egg moves that get any use as far as I know. That only leaves a total of six viable moves in both lists, unless you consider Counter viable. We could probably even keep one of the Fangs. Maybe Thunder, since it fits better flavor-wise.

As for the TM moves, I see no need to change any of them. Unless there's an urgent need to toss useless flavor moves, and there isn't in this case, I think they should stay. Say what you want about the CAP project's purpose, but a pokemon with an incomplete movepool would upset the fanboys in all of us. I'd support removing Spikes and the Screens just because they make little sense flavor-wise, but let Air Slash, Flash Cannon and Water Pulse stay.

Basically, Syclant's movepool isn't as bad as people think. I'd scrap no more than the following moves: Fire Fang, Night Slash, Reflect, Light Screen, Spikes and possibly (probably not) Thunder Fang. Note that these suggestions only follow X-Act's guidelines, and don't consider the possibility that, say, Earth Power or Superpower might be broken. Still, I would lower Syclant's Speed before thinking about that.

X-Act's guide refers to "competitive moves worth using". Since Syclant has huge offensive stats on both sides, and can double either stat with a single Swords Dance or Tail Glow -- almost any offensive move with 60 BP or more is "viable" on Syclant. Just because these moves are outclassed by a 120 BP 91% accurate Blizzard, does not mean that the moves are not viable. It just means they are inferior to a godly Blizzard. I also think any commonly used support move that is used by other OU pokes, should be considered "viable".

In Syclants Level Up list, I count ten (10) good moves:

Thunder Fang
Fire Fang
Ice Shard
Knock Off
Icy Wind (debatable)
X-Scissor
Night Slash
Ice Punch
Bug Buzz

All of those moves are high-powered attacks or are support moves used by various OU pokemon in the metagame. X-Act's guide suggests no more than three that aren't also TM's. So, X-Scissor is fine and Icy Wind is debatable. Pick three from the remaining seven. So Syclant loses four (4) moves there.

Let's look at TM's. I'll remove all the TM's that are Bug or Ice, all the "must have" TM's that X-ACt's guide specifies, and all the worthless moves. That leaves us with:

Water Pulse
Taunt
Light Screen
Brick Break
Reflect
Aerial Ace
Steel Wing
Roost
Focus Blast
Drain Punch
Shadow Claw
Stone Edge
Swords Dance
Rock Slide
Poison Jab
Flash Cannon

That's 16 decent moves remaining. Now, X-Act's guide does not advise any limits on viable TM moves. But just for sake of comparison, Infernape -- widely known for having a TM list to die for -- has only 14 moves left after the same criteria is applied. So, if we wanted to give this an Infernape-like TM list (we don't have to, but I think we should), then we remove two (2) moves here.

Lastly, we get to Egg Moves, where Syclant is really obscene. X-Act's guide specifies no more than four (4) competition-quality moves. Syclant has seven (7) Egg Moves, and they are all high-powered, commonly-used metagame moves:

Earth Power
Superpower
Spikes
Counter
Air Slash
Crunch
Tail Glow

So we need to lose three (3) moves there.

By my count, Syclant should lose nine (9) moves, at a minimum. And that is assuming that we max out every move category. Any time you slash nine competitive moves from a movepool, that's a major change. We can leave most of the moves used on common sets. That's fine with me. But we need to get the movepool within reasonable limits. It is far from reasonable now.


EDIT: I removed Bite from my list of "viable" Level-Up moves. I didn't notice it until Hyra pointed it out below.

 

[Hyra]

X-Act's guide refers to "competitive moves worth using". Since Syclant has huge offensive stats on both sides, and can double either stat with a single Swords Dance or Tail Glow -- basically any offensive move with 60 BP or more is "viable" on Syclant. Just because these moves are outclassed by a 120 BP 91% accurate Blizzard, does not mean that the moves are not viable. It just means they are inferior to a godly Blizzard. I also think any commonly used support move that is used by other OU pokes, should be considered "viable".

In Syclants Level Up list, I count ten (10) good moves:

Thunder Fang
Fire Fang
Ice Shard
Knock Off
Bite I would call this debatable too, especially since it gets Crunch anwyays
Icy Wind (debatable)
X-Scissor
Night Slash
Ice Punch
Bug Buzz

All of those moves are high-powered attacks or are support moves used by various OU pokemon in the metagame. X-Act's guide suggests no more than three that aren't also TM's. So, X-Scissor is fine and Icy Wind is debatable. Pick three from the remaining eight. So Syclant loses five (5) moves there.

Let's look at TM's. I'll remove all the TM's that are Bug or Ice, all the "must have" TM's that X-ACt's guide specifies, and all the worthless moves. That leaves us with:

Water Pulse
Taunt
Light Screen
Brick Break
Reflect
Aerial Ace
Steel Wing
Roost
Focus Blast
Drain Punch
Shadow Claw
Stone Edge
Swords Dance
Rock Slide
Poison Jab
Flash Cannon

That's 16 competitive moves remaining. Now, X-Act's guide does not advise any limits on viable TM moves. But just for sake of comparison, Infernape -- widely known for having a TM list to die for -- has only 14 moves left after the same criteria is applied. So, if we wanted to give this an Infernape-like TM list (we don't have to, but I think we should), then we remove two (2) moves here.

Lastly, we get to Egg Moves, where Syclant is really obscene. X-Act's guide specifies no more than four (4) competition-quality moves. Syclant has seven (7) Egg Moves, and they are all high-powered, commonly-used metagame moves:

Earth Power
Superpower
Spikes
Counter
Air Slash
Crunch
Tail Glow

So we need to lose three (3) moves there.

By my count, Syclant should lose ten (10) moves, at a minimum. And that is assuming that we max out every move category. Any time you slash ten competitive moves from a movepool, that's a major change. We can leave most of the moves used on common sets. That's fine with me. But we need to get the movepool within reasonable limits. It is far from reasonable now.

Okay. Bold is what I want to stay definitely. Italics is debatable. And Underlined is what I think should definitely go. Anything else, I have no real opinion on, besides man did we throw a lot on Syclant.

 

[beej]

I think that the bigger problem is Syclant, considering that Revenankh can merely be phazed away if it's not the last pokemon and it doesn't start to do that much damage to walls until it's got 3 or more Bulk Ups. That would simply be another case of letting somebody set up on you. In addition, Revenankh is not invincible in the least, and it takes a very large amount of damage from pokemon like Yanmega and Jirachi. Honestly if Metagross starts running Zen Headbutt more or Zapdos needs Metal Sound to take it on, that's just a metagame shift. If Gyarados was removed a whole mess of things would change.

Let's look at Lucario, who is now one of the scariest OU threats around. The Swords Dance threat hits ridiculously hard, and Luke has only 110 Attack and 90 Speed. Syclant, who arguably has better attacks, has 114 SA and 121 Speed. The secret to the success of both, of course, is the enormous base power. I think that STAB Blizzard with Tail Glow is just too damn good. Ice Beam has been considered one of the best attacking moves in the entire game, and yet it apparently wasn't good enough for Syclant...

However, I'd say that the worst part of Syclant is not Blizzard, but Focus Blast. Giving it this move, in my opinion, is comparable to giving Revenankh Thunderpunch, removing Gyarados from its list of checks (in this case we took the smart approach and denied the move to Rev, which I believe was significant). I think we had a perfect opportunity to make Heatran a counter and we kinda blew it. One aspect of Lucario that makes it possible to handle is its move conflict. If it runs Crunch, Gengar outspeeds it and sleeps/kills it. If it runs Bullet Punch, Cresselia and Celebi can handle it much better. Syclant doesn't really have the same conflict at all, Focus Blast just fits right in. It smashes Snorlax, Blissey, Heatran, Forretress, Scizor and Magnezone, who would otherwise do fine against Syclant in general, except for *maybe* Forretress and Scizor. Earth Power is also an issue, for it hits Tentacruel who is the only pokemon in OU that resists Ice/Bug/Fighting, and it's yet another way to smash Tran and Zone, although I don't think it's as large.

If we were to give this 115 Speed or lower, get rid of Compoundeyes and not have Focus Blast or other suspicious attacks, I suspect that we'd see a massive improvement. Currently there is no pokemon that can actually switch right into an unknown Syclant and make it leave 100% of the time. The closest thing would probably be Scarftran, who is also risking the possibility of sash. On the other hand, if it has no Focus Blast, I could see Blissey and Snorlax reliably countering Syclant. It's now outsped. Ice Beam is powerful, but not nearly as threatening to even things that resist it like Blizzard is. These are not neutering issues in the least. Life Orb Gyarados is considered one of the most powerful sweepers in OU, and yet there are several pokemon that can switch right in and scare it away.

 

[yourDeadGrandad]

Besides - nerfing Mountaineer to only ignore Stealth Rocks doesn't really change it very much. Having full rock immunity for a single switch in is not much more powerful than immunity to Stealth Rock only. Not many people use Rock moves on Syclant. It has much more to fear from Fire and Steel moves.

I have issue with the reasoning behind this. Its like saying it wouldn't matter if we removed Levitate from Bronzong because no-one uses Ground moves on it anyway. It has a 4x weakness to Rock, how is Steel more threatening than that? It equals fire, which seems to be used a lot against it, but no-one's going to use a Rock move on a predicted Ant switch if they know its going to be immune...