Fairy/Dragon --> Fairy/Steel
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What If? - Alternate Timelines (AT Shox [Wall + No Recovery] - Concept Assessment!)
- Thread starter kenn
- Start date
Fairy/Dragon --> Fairy/Steel
Dark/Fire - - > Dark/Ghost
Ngl there should probably be a rule about not being able to vote for your own sub, as it's basically equivalent to giving everyone that subbed an extra vote that they can only use on themselves.
Ngl there should probably be a rule about not being able to vote for your own sub, as it's basically equivalent to giving everyone that subbed an extra vote that they can only use on themselves.
Okay so thanks to AzothBend for providing me with a three-way tie to break instead of a two-way tie, but with that I have a decision to make so without further ado my vote, and the winner, is...
Fairy/Dragon --> Fairy/Steel
Ultimately, I chose this typing strictly because I think the offensive redundancy that vile mentioned when submitting this allows for good compression with AT Ram's moves. I really do like Steel/Electric --> Steel/Flying but I am afraid that having Steel STAB be necessary makes it hard for AT Ramn to actually threaten things with coverage or its STABs whereas Fairy being CAP Song/Fist's type gives a solid offensive typing and can afford to run 2 of the same typed move while not compromising its offensive profile.
Also before releasing the ability discussion to you, I wanna make a note that moving forward we shall be voting in the AT tab of CAPcord to avoid clogging the thread with votes. Furthermore, the voting system will be changing to more of a tiering and point-based system basically all 1st place votes will receive 3 points, all 2nd place votes will receive 2 points, and all other listed votes will receive 1 point. This allows a bit more division between votes and allows those that have interest in multiple options to be able to vote for more than 1 option.
With this, we have AT Ramnarok's typing and must now look into abilities on what helps to complement its defensive transformation capabilities or help to ease the offensive stalwart it has with its overlapping STABs. A question to mull over as a jumping off point:
What abilities would be best to enable the defensive transformation or promote the use of CAP Song for AT Ramnarok?
I will leave discussion up until the end of the week but will probably open suggestions fully come tomorrow or Wednesday so have fun discussing and let's do it to it!
Fairy/Dragon --> Fairy/Steel
Ultimately, I chose this typing strictly because I think the offensive redundancy that vile mentioned when submitting this allows for good compression with AT Ram's moves. I really do like Steel/Electric --> Steel/Flying but I am afraid that having Steel STAB be necessary makes it hard for AT Ramn to actually threaten things with coverage or its STABs whereas Fairy being CAP Song/Fist's type gives a solid offensive typing and can afford to run 2 of the same typed move while not compromising its offensive profile.
Also before releasing the ability discussion to you, I wanna make a note that moving forward we shall be voting in the AT tab of CAPcord to avoid clogging the thread with votes. Furthermore, the voting system will be changing to more of a tiering and point-based system basically all 1st place votes will receive 3 points, all 2nd place votes will receive 2 points, and all other listed votes will receive 1 point. This allows a bit more division between votes and allows those that have interest in multiple options to be able to vote for more than 1 option.
With this, we have AT Ramnarok's typing and must now look into abilities on what helps to complement its defensive transformation capabilities or help to ease the offensive stalwart it has with its overlapping STABs. A question to mull over as a jumping off point:
What abilities would be best to enable the defensive transformation or promote the use of CAP Song for AT Ramnarok?
I will leave discussion up until the end of the week but will probably open suggestions fully come tomorrow or Wednesday so have fun discussing and let's do it to it!
Wow, Kenn, great job! And congrats to Vile!
First and foremost, I'll say that abilities that grant immunities to a certain move type (Levitate, Flash Fire, etc) go too far for me. Ideally this 'mon should dance between it's defensive profiles and these abilities encroach too much onto that framework.
With that said, the two biggest pain points I recognize with our typing is status (namely paralysis) and opposing Fire-types. Abilities that alleviate either or both of these are strong candidates.
As was mentioned in prior posts, offensively, we have a lot of wiggle room with this typing, so while abilities that boost our moves are always good choices, they're not as necessary here.
First and foremost, I'll say that abilities that grant immunities to a certain move type (Levitate, Flash Fire, etc) go too far for me. Ideally this 'mon should dance between it's defensive profiles and these abilities encroach too much onto that framework.
With that said, the two biggest pain points I recognize with our typing is status (namely paralysis) and opposing Fire-types. Abilities that alleviate either or both of these are strong candidates.
As was mentioned in prior posts, offensively, we have a lot of wiggle room with this typing, so while abilities that boost our moves are always good choices, they're not as necessary here.
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I think there might also be a potential case for an ability like Cursed Body, because it has unique synergy with a speedy form change. Your opponent could aim a super-effective move at you, only to have it tanked by a quick typing change and disabled by Cursed Body. It would help maintain a guessing game with the form switches, meaning if that thing outspeeds you then you've got to seriously weigh up your options.
Or really any ability that punishes the opponent for losing the mind game (Cursed Body was just the first one that came to mind) could be a good fit. Something like Stamina that rewards the player just feels kind of cheesy, but those punishing abilities- like Gooey, Cursed Body, Flame Body and their kindred, keep the ball in your enemy's hands, all while Alt Ramnarok glares daggers at them and dares them to do their worst.
Or really any ability that punishes the opponent for losing the mind game (Cursed Body was just the first one that came to mind) could be a good fit. Something like Stamina that rewards the player just feels kind of cheesy, but those punishing abilities- like Gooey, Cursed Body, Flame Body and their kindred, keep the ball in your enemy's hands, all while Alt Ramnarok glares daggers at them and dares them to do their worst.
Sorry, ability dump incoming
Misty Surge
It's gonna win and its a good choice, but let me yap about the cool stuff first. As a side note though, this is also cool because it discourages dragon stabs, which encourages cap song as the dragon removal move, and takes away an incentive to stay in base form (stab on the dragon moves).
Sand Stream/Sand Spit
This is as simple as AT Ram not taking sand chip while transformed but slowly killing itself while in base, encouraging it to use a "defensive" transformation to stop itself from getting chipped too much. It also lets us be a sand setter for mons like excadrill, who synergizes REALLY well with us because we can switch into every super effective move coming at an excadrill except for ground moves. Finally, sand chip is really useful for wearing opponents down. Yes, this is a bit of a stupid loophole in the concept wording, but its really funny.
Water Bubble
Ok, so hear me out.
Right now AT RAM really can't hit fires, who resist both fairy and steel, but with water coverage+water bubble it can blast equilibra, along with all of the really annoying and threatening fire and ground types (including hemogoblin!!!), into orbit. Then, we can patch a little bit of its status weakness by giving it burn immunity, and remove the pirouette form's fire weakness while making base form's resistance a quad resist. Only issue is that the remaining power budget looks like a mote of dust.
Tinted Lens
It frees up movepool. A lot. Coverage becomes optional, and we can easily run cap song+moonblast+whatever random things you feel like. It also takes a big bite out of the power budget, but presumably our PS and SS limits would just be way lower to compensate.
Limber/Quick Feet
We fast. Para bad.
Misty Surge
It's gonna win and its a good choice, but let me yap about the cool stuff first. As a side note though, this is also cool because it discourages dragon stabs, which encourages cap song as the dragon removal move, and takes away an incentive to stay in base form (stab on the dragon moves).
Sand Stream/Sand Spit
This is as simple as AT Ram not taking sand chip while transformed but slowly killing itself while in base, encouraging it to use a "defensive" transformation to stop itself from getting chipped too much. It also lets us be a sand setter for mons like excadrill, who synergizes REALLY well with us because we can switch into every super effective move coming at an excadrill except for ground moves. Finally, sand chip is really useful for wearing opponents down. Yes, this is a bit of a stupid loophole in the concept wording, but its really funny.
Water Bubble
Ok, so hear me out.
Right now AT RAM really can't hit fires, who resist both fairy and steel, but with water coverage+water bubble it can blast equilibra, along with all of the really annoying and threatening fire and ground types (including hemogoblin!!!), into orbit. Then, we can patch a little bit of its status weakness by giving it burn immunity, and remove the pirouette form's fire weakness while making base form's resistance a quad resist. Only issue is that the remaining power budget looks like a mote of dust.
Tinted Lens
It frees up movepool. A lot. Coverage becomes optional, and we can easily run cap song+moonblast+whatever random things you feel like. It also takes a big bite out of the power budget, but presumably our PS and SS limits would just be way lower to compensate.
Limber/Quick Feet
We fast. Para bad.
Steely Spirit
This would boost our Steel moves to STAB-level on Aria, and to well above-average levels in Pirouette. The former is fine, since we'd likely omit Dragon STAB in favor of just Fairy and Steel, and the latter encourages the transformation.
Additionally, this would make us a fantastic Equilibra partner, since - a factoid I've already managed to hear several times within the CAP community - Steely Spirit boosts the damage of an ally's incoming Doom Desire.
The two mons already perfectly cover each others' weaknesses (with every weakness turning into a resist save for this mon's Ice weakness turning "only" into a neutrality on equilibra, which it can cover with Pirouette anyways), so I feel like this is a good avenue for exploration (and might also make this a partner process that (theoretically) actually works???)
Guts/Flare Boost
Guts is a more well-proven viable ability than Quick Feet, and boasts a three-in-one deal, boosting our damage output, giving a Para immunity, and potentially letting us serve as a Knock absorber, since we don't care about losing our Flame Orb. Flare Boost is added as an option to enable a Special bias.
This would boost our Steel moves to STAB-level on Aria, and to well above-average levels in Pirouette. The former is fine, since we'd likely omit Dragon STAB in favor of just Fairy and Steel, and the latter encourages the transformation.
Additionally, this would make us a fantastic Equilibra partner, since - a factoid I've already managed to hear several times within the CAP community - Steely Spirit boosts the damage of an ally's incoming Doom Desire.
The two mons already perfectly cover each others' weaknesses (with every weakness turning into a resist save for this mon's Ice weakness turning "only" into a neutrality on equilibra, which it can cover with Pirouette anyways), so I feel like this is a good avenue for exploration (and might also make this a partner process that (theoretically) actually works???)
Guts/Flare Boost
Guts is a more well-proven viable ability than Quick Feet, and boasts a three-in-one deal, boosting our damage output, giving a Para immunity, and potentially letting us serve as a Knock absorber, since we don't care about losing our Flame Orb. Flare Boost is added as an option to enable a Special bias.
I quite like Punk Rock as an ability that specifically buffs our CAP song to respectable power, and means our base forme can easily swap into Chromera, which is a mon that our secondary form checks as well. Giving our secondary forme a 4x Boomburst resist is also nothing to scoff at, and solidifies a cool niche for us. There's also a lot of neat coverage options we can access, from the interesting Fairy/Electric Overdrive (to target the 1 person still using pex), Sparkling Aria, etc.
Guts doesn't give a para immunity; the speed drop stays. Quick feet negates the speed drop from para. Also, guts is more well proven because it has a real distribution and there's no para orb for quick feet. I'm not really sure we want this mon running a flame orb anyways.
Flare boost doesn't even give a damage boost when parad, it only affects burn, which we don't really care about if we're a special attacker. This just makes us run a flame orb. To be fair, orb sets with either ability are immune to status in general, but what does it do that misty surge doesn't? The damage boost just feels like unnecessary power budget cost.
well, yes, the intention was that we'd run flame orb with these abilities. quick feet negating paralysis's speed drop is nice, but you're still susceptible to full paras, so it's not like you love getting para'd the same way a Guts/Flare Boost mon loves getting burned.
as for the power budget, frankly - it seems as if we want all of:
1. good power (we want to run a 75 BP move, and are likely omitting Dragon and Steel STAB for coverage; this inherently makes our base damage output lower than pokemon with similar attacking stats and average-power STABs),
2. high speed (we want to transform before the threat can attack us), and
3. respectable bulk on at least one end with each form (so that dancing with cap song is actually effective)
a boosting ability means that we could allocate more budget to bulk and speed. basically being locked into an item, as well as the chip damage each turn, are also reasonable drawbacks for having an inflated statline
Flame orb builds just don't seem to add much that's specifically useful to us other than para immunity:
1. Burn chip encourages fast play; why use the defensively inclined form when every burn tick is chipping at your offensive form when it transforms back? High damage just encourages moonblast spam. Taking a turn to use a low power move is more impactful when you're a heavy-hitter on a timer.
2, 3. Good power is nice, sure, but 1.5x is a LOT of power. Do we really have much left for bulk and speed? I find it doubtful that flare boost is leaving us left with MORE statpoints for bulk and speed than the simple limber. This is even worse when we're taking bulk and speed power budget away from the defense mode.
And to add insult to injury, we still can't switch into twaves. Finally, while I think quick feet and limber are fairly equal power due to the speed boost, I prefer limber due to the decreased rng. Quick feet does have a nice burn interaction, but again, burn is a lesser priority.
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I have a couple ideas that empower AT Ram's role of longevity on the field. Considering how much of the power budget is going into the typing, I wanted to keep these abilities relatively low to medium power.
Wandering Spirit
This is probably the ability I had the most ideas for. For reference, Wandering Spirit swaps itself with an opponent's ability when an opponent uses a contact move. This has several notable interactions with significant Pokemon in the CAP meta:
- Gliscor Knock Off or Facade will swap Poison Heal with Gliscor. This will both enable AT Ram to stay in on potential Toxic, but also if timed correctly could KO Gliscor since the Toxic buildup would go into effect once Gliscor loses its ability.
- Alomomola cannot freely Flip Turn out on AT Ram as it would lose Regenerator before switching out, and give AT Ram a free swap out with Regenerator
- Hemogoblin would not be able to spam E-Speed as it would lose Pixilate upon making contact with AT Ram.
- Zamazenta would give AT Ram a +1 Defense boost when making contact due to Dauntless Shield.
- Revenakh would lose Triage and potentially be outsped and KO'd w/ a Fairy move
There are a few other examples with less impact (Ogerpon, Great Tusk, etc.) but in general, Wandering Spirit enables longevity by surgically removing abilities from significant offensive threats. I believe these niche interactions are enough to justify the ability being somewhat useless against non contact moves, due to how oppressive AT Ram's defensive profile would be.
Flame Body / Static
These are simpler ideas, simply rewarding AT Ram for staying in on physical threats for long periods, enabling progress by burning them. It has good general value but of course relies on RNG (however, the RNG improves if the number of turns on the field increase, which expresses the concept)
I also have some love for Misty Surge. While it's a little odd in my eyes for a Dragon to set terrain that weakens its own stab (we're already immune to dragon in both forms sooo) I do like the removal of status and potential STAB option in Terrain Pulse.
Wandering Spirit
This is probably the ability I had the most ideas for. For reference, Wandering Spirit swaps itself with an opponent's ability when an opponent uses a contact move. This has several notable interactions with significant Pokemon in the CAP meta:
- Gliscor Knock Off or Facade will swap Poison Heal with Gliscor. This will both enable AT Ram to stay in on potential Toxic, but also if timed correctly could KO Gliscor since the Toxic buildup would go into effect once Gliscor loses its ability.
- Alomomola cannot freely Flip Turn out on AT Ram as it would lose Regenerator before switching out, and give AT Ram a free swap out with Regenerator
- Hemogoblin would not be able to spam E-Speed as it would lose Pixilate upon making contact with AT Ram.
- Zamazenta would give AT Ram a +1 Defense boost when making contact due to Dauntless Shield.
- Revenakh would lose Triage and potentially be outsped and KO'd w/ a Fairy move
There are a few other examples with less impact (Ogerpon, Great Tusk, etc.) but in general, Wandering Spirit enables longevity by surgically removing abilities from significant offensive threats. I believe these niche interactions are enough to justify the ability being somewhat useless against non contact moves, due to how oppressive AT Ram's defensive profile would be.
Flame Body / Static
These are simpler ideas, simply rewarding AT Ram for staying in on physical threats for long periods, enabling progress by burning them. It has good general value but of course relies on RNG (however, the RNG improves if the number of turns on the field increase, which expresses the concept)
I also have some love for Misty Surge. While it's a little odd in my eyes for a Dragon to set terrain that weakens its own stab (we're already immune to dragon in both forms sooo) I do like the removal of status and potential STAB option in Terrain Pulse.
Some general thoughts: This typing pair is really, really potent defensively. The base typing naturally answers mons like Oger/Wogerpon, Caribolt, Raging Bolt, Walking Wake, some Zamazenta, Hydrapple, Revenankh, and probably quite a lot of other mons depending on stat bias, vulnerability to burn (offensive stat bias), etc. Checking a mon only after transforming is not perfect obviously, but the pirouette form is great into mons like Darkrai, Obliteryx, Hoopa-U, Kyurem, special Valiant, Pecharunt, etc.
None of the initial form's weaknesses are retained on transformation (in fact 3/4 become resists/immunities), and the same applies to the reverse direction. We do have a few awkward matchups (Hemo for example), but we're not struggling on the defensive end.
Because of this defensive potency, I'm inclined to think an offensive-leaning ability isn't a bad idea. Offensively we have a situation where of our 3 stabs, we could easily get away with running just 1 of them. This makes coverage very lucrative (a few typings that come to mind are fire, water, ground, maybe electric and fighting), and abilities that boost said coverage in some way are probably pretty good. I am a little nervous about an overly offensively potent base form since that might encourage just slapping stuff instead of transforming, so that's something to be careful with. I think the balance right now is somewhat base form heavy, so like with Ramnarok, we should be afraid to give the pirouette form serious stats to encourage transformation.
Anyway, here are some ability thoughts:
Punk Rock is pretty high on my list because of boosting a sound-based CAP song, and has some really solid coverage hits while also allowing us to check Chromera sort of as quz pointed out.
Wandering Spirit does have some funny interactions. It's inherently inconsistent and also dependent on the opponent's actions which is always a downside, but maybe that's fine. There is some synergy with our current "stay in for a while by flipping all your weaknesses" package.
Misty Surge is definitely usable since we can pretty freely forgo dragon STAB as a fairy, but I think it might go too far. It's already very difficult for the opponent to properly hit us sometimes, so I think retaining status as counterplay might not be a bad thing.
Other status solves feel similar to me. I think they're fine overall, but I feel they encourage pretty passive gameplay (we can pretty freely sit on the field, but what are we doing while we're there? That's a problem that has yet to be solved).
Steely Spirit IMO this shifts us in the direction of an offensive transformation rather than a defensive one, so I'm not a big fan.
Flame Body / Static feel very potent to me at first glance, and they help solve the "what value are we getting when we're on the field" thing. I can see us extracting a lot of value out of these with our transformation. They also encourage the defensive aspect of the transformation since they require tanking hits. They're very annoying and arguably too much but yolo. Static is probably better in a vacuum unless we want to deliberately keep Fire types as answers which is probably valid.
Flare Boost / Guts feel a bit at odds with our build. They do solve the passivity issue while helping us into some status mons, but trying to make a defensive transformation work on a guy that's losing health every turn really makes me think of those old flame orb marvel scale Milotic sets that were kind of ass. I do also worry that an overly threatening base form discourages transformation so a 1.5* boost is a bit much to me.
Water Bubble for STAB+ is kinda funny since it compliments Fairy reasonably well, but I prefer Punk Rock for a more reasonable pseudo-STAB build since it's also directly encouraging the transformation move.
Tinted Lens to me means you click the strong Fairy move / Draco and don't look back or transform.
Speed Boost and Stamina were mentioned on Discord and I think they're both pretty interesting. One of the things that sets this defensive transformation apart from just switching to a defensive pivot is that you can keep your stat boosts while "pivoting". Speed benefits both forms pretty nicely since it lets you get a transformation off, and Stamina synergizes with our build too since you can transform to resist a hit while grabbing a boost. Speed Boost often implies another form of boosting, but I do think that could actually work for us fairly well if we want to go that route. Anyway, I think both of these are pretty valid.
Edit @ below: Pressure is sick
None of the initial form's weaknesses are retained on transformation (in fact 3/4 become resists/immunities), and the same applies to the reverse direction. We do have a few awkward matchups (Hemo for example), but we're not struggling on the defensive end.
Because of this defensive potency, I'm inclined to think an offensive-leaning ability isn't a bad idea. Offensively we have a situation where of our 3 stabs, we could easily get away with running just 1 of them. This makes coverage very lucrative (a few typings that come to mind are fire, water, ground, maybe electric and fighting), and abilities that boost said coverage in some way are probably pretty good. I am a little nervous about an overly offensively potent base form since that might encourage just slapping stuff instead of transforming, so that's something to be careful with. I think the balance right now is somewhat base form heavy, so like with Ramnarok, we should be afraid to give the pirouette form serious stats to encourage transformation.
Anyway, here are some ability thoughts:
Punk Rock is pretty high on my list because of boosting a sound-based CAP song, and has some really solid coverage hits while also allowing us to check Chromera sort of as quz pointed out.
Wandering Spirit does have some funny interactions. It's inherently inconsistent and also dependent on the opponent's actions which is always a downside, but maybe that's fine. There is some synergy with our current "stay in for a while by flipping all your weaknesses" package.
Misty Surge is definitely usable since we can pretty freely forgo dragon STAB as a fairy, but I think it might go too far. It's already very difficult for the opponent to properly hit us sometimes, so I think retaining status as counterplay might not be a bad thing.
Other status solves feel similar to me. I think they're fine overall, but I feel they encourage pretty passive gameplay (we can pretty freely sit on the field, but what are we doing while we're there? That's a problem that has yet to be solved).
Steely Spirit IMO this shifts us in the direction of an offensive transformation rather than a defensive one, so I'm not a big fan.
Flame Body / Static feel very potent to me at first glance, and they help solve the "what value are we getting when we're on the field" thing. I can see us extracting a lot of value out of these with our transformation. They also encourage the defensive aspect of the transformation since they require tanking hits. They're very annoying and arguably too much but yolo. Static is probably better in a vacuum unless we want to deliberately keep Fire types as answers which is probably valid.
Flare Boost / Guts feel a bit at odds with our build. They do solve the passivity issue while helping us into some status mons, but trying to make a defensive transformation work on a guy that's losing health every turn really makes me think of those old flame orb marvel scale Milotic sets that were kind of ass. I do also worry that an overly threatening base form discourages transformation so a 1.5* boost is a bit much to me.
Water Bubble for STAB+ is kinda funny since it compliments Fairy reasonably well, but I prefer Punk Rock for a more reasonable pseudo-STAB build since it's also directly encouraging the transformation move.
Tinted Lens to me means you click the strong Fairy move / Draco and don't look back or transform.
Speed Boost and Stamina were mentioned on Discord and I think they're both pretty interesting. One of the things that sets this defensive transformation apart from just switching to a defensive pivot is that you can keep your stat boosts while "pivoting". Speed benefits both forms pretty nicely since it lets you get a transformation off, and Stamina synergizes with our build too since you can transform to resist a hit while grabbing a boost. Speed Boost often implies another form of boosting, but I do think that could actually work for us fairly well if we want to go that route. Anyway, I think both of these are pretty valid.
Edit @ below: Pressure is sick
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I would like to throw my support behind Limber and Punk Rock as the neatest pro-concept options. I don't think PR's Chromera countering aspect is as important to our niche, but it's a neat plus over comparable options that can boost the power of CAP Song (and doesn't require it to be of another category, on top of the possible equipping of Throat Spray).
AzothBend also brought up Stamina and Speed Boost on Discord, to accrue more boosts by staying in longer through the defensive transformations. Activating Flame Body/Static more reliably through multiple turns of tanking is also a good use of the transforms. In the same vein, I'd also like to bring up one more option, something that OU/CAP players are pretty familiar with...
Pressure
Being able to waste opponent PP by transforming into a typing/defensive bias that takes less damage from an incoming attack is great. Additionally, two aspects of our current kit:
1. Relatively speedy, to transform before being attacked (assuming the pseudo-Tera transformation as described by quziel)
2. Needs protection against Paralysis
Both lead to the possibility of a faster Substitute, as part of the universally available SubTect kit, with Pressure. While the Sub blocks status, the main draw here is that AT Ram can consistently make it difficult to break the Sub by transforming its defensive profile with CAP Song. Users/victims of this strategy know how frustrating it is when you can't break a Substitute on Kyurem, and how much progress that entails.
One of the features of our chosen typing(s) is also the offensive redundancy, which lets us afford to run the two moves for this strategy + CAP Song while not missing out on much, and still keeping a slot for coverage or other utility options.
AzothBend also brought up Stamina and Speed Boost on Discord, to accrue more boosts by staying in longer through the defensive transformations. Activating Flame Body/Static more reliably through multiple turns of tanking is also a good use of the transforms. In the same vein, I'd also like to bring up one more option, something that OU/CAP players are pretty familiar with...
Pressure
Being able to waste opponent PP by transforming into a typing/defensive bias that takes less damage from an incoming attack is great. Additionally, two aspects of our current kit:
1. Relatively speedy, to transform before being attacked (assuming the pseudo-Tera transformation as described by quziel)
2. Needs protection against Paralysis
Both lead to the possibility of a faster Substitute, as part of the universally available SubTect kit, with Pressure. While the Sub blocks status, the main draw here is that AT Ram can consistently make it difficult to break the Sub by transforming its defensive profile with CAP Song. Users/victims of this strategy know how frustrating it is when you can't break a Substitute on Kyurem, and how much progress that entails.
One of the features of our chosen typing(s) is also the offensive redundancy, which lets us afford to run the two moves for this strategy + CAP Song while not missing out on much, and still keeping a slot for coverage or other utility options.
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Thoughts on ability so far:
Our typing here already is very strong. I'm coming around to our not needing a crazy ability to make this 'mon work effectively. On that note, I mentioned before that our two pain points were status (especially para) and opposing Fire types.
Since posting that, I've concluded that the latter is probably unsolvable in the ability stage, as the best course would be an immunity ability of some kind. Yet, as I also mentioned, immunity abilities probably eat into the defensive dancing idea. That's fine
Before I touch on status, I'll add a new consideration I've gravitated toward reading over the posts here: staying power. As has been mentioned, one of the unique strengths of our concept is it's a defensive Pokemon that can flip its defensive profile. In practice this means it's a defensive Pokemon that can stay in — and transform — where others may be forced out. Further incentivizing this with the ability is appealing to me.
On that note, Misty Surge is out for me. Steel Roller memes — and they are just memes — aside, the five-turn timer risks AT11 playing around its ability and not the transformation.
Conversely, any abilities that reward our staying in, namely Pressure, Stamina, Speed Boost, and — to an extent — Wandering Spirit from the submissions are high on my list. Also just to note, Speed Boost wasn't my idea. That's a quz original.
I'm less inclined to Punk Rock. One of the reasons we chose the typing we did is we won't really need Dragon or Steel STAB. We don't need the move slot compression. That said, obviously it's still very good and I have no qualms including it in the slate.
That same thinking applies to other offensively orientated abilities like Steely Spirit. It's obviously good to do more damage. I'm just not sure it's necessary here.
Our typing here already is very strong. I'm coming around to our not needing a crazy ability to make this 'mon work effectively. On that note, I mentioned before that our two pain points were status (especially para) and opposing Fire types.
Since posting that, I've concluded that the latter is probably unsolvable in the ability stage, as the best course would be an immunity ability of some kind. Yet, as I also mentioned, immunity abilities probably eat into the defensive dancing idea. That's fine
Before I touch on status, I'll add a new consideration I've gravitated toward reading over the posts here: staying power. As has been mentioned, one of the unique strengths of our concept is it's a defensive Pokemon that can flip its defensive profile. In practice this means it's a defensive Pokemon that can stay in — and transform — where others may be forced out. Further incentivizing this with the ability is appealing to me.
On that note, Misty Surge is out for me. Steel Roller memes — and they are just memes — aside, the five-turn timer risks AT11 playing around its ability and not the transformation.
Conversely, any abilities that reward our staying in, namely Pressure, Stamina, Speed Boost, and — to an extent — Wandering Spirit from the submissions are high on my list. Also just to note, Speed Boost wasn't my idea. That's a quz original.
I'm less inclined to Punk Rock. One of the reasons we chose the typing we did is we won't really need Dragon or Steel STAB. We don't need the move slot compression. That said, obviously it's still very good and I have no qualms including it in the slate.
That same thinking applies to other offensively orientated abilities like Steely Spirit. It's obviously good to do more damage. I'm just not sure it's necessary here.
Okay as per my last post, we have now moved voting for the AT Project in CAPcord to avoid diluting the discussion here and keep things tad more organized. The pinned post in the tab lets you know how votes will be tallied as well as other details for future slates, including this one.
Speaking of, here is the ability slate for AT Ramnarok! (I will cross post this in the CAPcord tab before opening it up to voting so people can reference it there instead of going back and forth)
Flame Body
Limber
Pressure
Punk Rock
Stamina
Wandering Spirit
As for some of the more popular options like Speed Boost or Misty Surge, I genuinely think that may put AT Ramnarok over the top unnecessarily and deemed them as potentially too warping but the 5 on the slate have viable paths that won't end with us making a mess of a CAP lol.
Voting will end ~24 hours from now
REMINDER: DO NOT VOTE IN THIS THREAD ANYMORE. PLEASE VOTE HERE
EDIT: I AM HORRIBLE AND FORGOT LIMBER MY BAD :(
Speaking of, here is the ability slate for AT Ramnarok! (I will cross post this in the CAPcord tab before opening it up to voting so people can reference it there instead of going back and forth)
Flame Body
Limber
Pressure
Punk Rock
Stamina
Wandering Spirit
As for some of the more popular options like Speed Boost or Misty Surge, I genuinely think that may put AT Ramnarok over the top unnecessarily and deemed them as potentially too warping but the 5 on the slate have viable paths that won't end with us making a mess of a CAP lol.
Voting will end ~24 hours from now
REMINDER: DO NOT VOTE IN THIS THREAD ANYMORE. PLEASE VOTE HERE
EDIT: I AM HORRIBLE AND FORGOT LIMBER MY BAD :(
Last edited:
The votes have been tallied and points awarded based on the placement of people's votes so without further ado, here are the results!
Therefore, Stamina will be AT Ramnarok's Ability!
Now we move onto defining moves to help us with the stats stage! CAP Song is obvious but what other moves can be beneficial in shaping how we submit our stat spreads for AT Ramnarok? Is 50% recovery a necessity or more of a boon that may come at the cost of AT Ram's overall BSR? What kind of coverage or maybe setup moves would be potentially too much and therefore need to have a penalty attached when heading into the stats stage? These questions are just the beginning of this stage, but it is a vital piece of the puzzle before we open up stat submissions! Since I know this part of the process is fairly straightforward/quick to figure out, I am aiming to start the stats stage on Tuesday, June 23rd. Until then, let's define some moves!
Flame Body - 3
Limber - 14
Pressure - 13
Punk Rock - 16
Stamina - 18
Wandering Spirit - 8
Limber - 14
Pressure - 13
Punk Rock - 16
Stamina - 18
Wandering Spirit - 8
Now we move onto defining moves to help us with the stats stage! CAP Song is obvious but what other moves can be beneficial in shaping how we submit our stat spreads for AT Ramnarok? Is 50% recovery a necessity or more of a boon that may come at the cost of AT Ram's overall BSR? What kind of coverage or maybe setup moves would be potentially too much and therefore need to have a penalty attached when heading into the stats stage? These questions are just the beginning of this stage, but it is a vital piece of the puzzle before we open up stat submissions! Since I know this part of the process is fairly straightforward/quick to figure out, I am aiming to start the stats stage on Tuesday, June 23rd. Until then, let's define some moves!
Here's my thoughts.
50% recovery feels like something Alt Ramnarok should have. Base Venomicon, another CAP Stamina tank, has Roost. I think some kind of fifty-percent recovery should be included, even if it comes with a stat drop to balance it out with such a good typing.
I feel like boosting moves like Iron Defence would be overkill (and not to mention invalidating the whole concept around using the form changes to build Stamina boosts.) Something like Calm Mind, maybe, provided it's special attack is kept low. If Alt Ramnarok has boosting moves, they should reward it's playstyle about sticking on the field. If it can, eventually, snowball, it should be after a massive uphill grind.
And, finally, there may be some move options that can address Alt Ramnarok's status problems. Something like a speedy Taunt- which is generally a good move on tanks- or Substitute. There are probably other options, but they're the ones that leap to mind right now. Looking forward to hearing everyone else's ideas!
50% recovery feels like something Alt Ramnarok should have. Base Venomicon, another CAP Stamina tank, has Roost. I think some kind of fifty-percent recovery should be included, even if it comes with a stat drop to balance it out with such a good typing.
I feel like boosting moves like Iron Defence would be overkill (and not to mention invalidating the whole concept around using the form changes to build Stamina boosts.) Something like Calm Mind, maybe, provided it's special attack is kept low. If Alt Ramnarok has boosting moves, they should reward it's playstyle about sticking on the field. If it can, eventually, snowball, it should be after a massive uphill grind.
And, finally, there may be some move options that can address Alt Ramnarok's status problems. Something like a speedy Taunt- which is generally a good move on tanks- or Substitute. There are probably other options, but they're the ones that leap to mind right now. Looking forward to hearing everyone else's ideas!
Taunt feels like a near-necessary move. The utility of the move is incredible, and it may force more Stamina triggers. 50% recovery (or Rest) also feels solid on this Mon. If we were to have one, Substitute would pair nicely. Without one, though, Substitute isn’t worth the cost with a defensive transformation already. Iron Defense feels overkill, but Calm Mind/Bulk Up feel ok (whichever one helps more) as offensive setup. Anything more than that is once again overkill. Body Press feels fun, but not an essential move.
Decided to share my thoughts on a few of the options.
Cap Song: Required
Moonblast: It hits a lot harder than cap song and is our most reliable source of damage. We can still drop it if the other 3 moves are really good though.
Body Press: A decent equilibra killer move; the cool thing though is that its damage calcs can be fine tuned for each form, making it do more damage in one form while the special moves do more damage in the other. It also incentivizes staying in to keep the stamina boosts, which incentivizes using the transformation over switching
Water Coverage: Right now we have issues with equilibra and fire types. This hits both. Water/fairy coverage only really struggles with mollux, naviathan, toxapex, and water absorb clodsire. There are a LOT of choices for this move (hydro pump, surf, scald, snipe shot, sparkling aria), so I may make another post discussing options for this move later.
Taunt: Good way to force stamina boosts and encourage active play, which can be punished with transforms. Pretty good on dancing builds too.
Substitute: In my opinion, this is really strong on us, to the point that we can probably viably run sub with no recovery, especially if we have boosting moves, like a kyurem or zamazenta. We patch both our status weakness and add longetivity by letting the sub tank for resisted hits after a transform prediction.
Boosting Moves???: They encourage us to stay in, but stamina does that fine already. Defensive boosting also has the concern of being better than the transform in some matchups. Still, sweeping seems natural for us, so I'm open to boosting if people want it.
50% recovery: Please can we not make this thing unbreakable. I definitely prefer the heatranesque route. Reliable recovery is just really strong with our typings and ability. Recover/calm mind/cap song/surf is a really cohesive set, but it is very likely overpowered.
Cap Song: Required
Moonblast: It hits a lot harder than cap song and is our most reliable source of damage. We can still drop it if the other 3 moves are really good though.
Body Press: A decent equilibra killer move; the cool thing though is that its damage calcs can be fine tuned for each form, making it do more damage in one form while the special moves do more damage in the other. It also incentivizes staying in to keep the stamina boosts, which incentivizes using the transformation over switching
Water Coverage: Right now we have issues with equilibra and fire types. This hits both. Water/fairy coverage only really struggles with mollux, naviathan, toxapex, and water absorb clodsire. There are a LOT of choices for this move (hydro pump, surf, scald, snipe shot, sparkling aria), so I may make another post discussing options for this move later.
Taunt: Good way to force stamina boosts and encourage active play, which can be punished with transforms. Pretty good on dancing builds too.
Substitute: In my opinion, this is really strong on us, to the point that we can probably viably run sub with no recovery, especially if we have boosting moves, like a kyurem or zamazenta. We patch both our status weakness and add longetivity by letting the sub tank for resisted hits after a transform prediction.
Boosting Moves???: They encourage us to stay in, but stamina does that fine already. Defensive boosting also has the concern of being better than the transform in some matchups. Still, sweeping seems natural for us, so I'm open to boosting if people want it.