CAP 13 CAP 2 - Part 5 - Flavor Ability Discussion

[MLaRF]

I don't understand why everyone says otherwise, but just because an ability is exclusive or mostly exclusive to a type within the games, doesn't mean the ability should be counted out if the flavour is suiting. For instance, when (Cybeast) Gregar mentioned Tangled Feet (as an example) being exclusive to spinda and flying-types, we don't need to follow this rule, because it's not actually related to any feature of the type (i.e. Big Pecks is actually a biological feature of birds, so it would only make sense to be flying-exclusive).

Also, I'm going to say, do you really find the design "cute"? I feel Cute Charm is kind of not too fitting with the fact that the design looks menacing and vile.

With that, I'm going to have to stick with my previous opinion of Liquid Ooze, which though is mostly poison-exclusive, can still fit carnivorous plants or ghosts with their ectoplasm.

I guess Telepathy, Forewarn, and Anticipation does fit the concept, but for some reason it feels like a far stretch. I may not put my vote in for that during the pre-poll stage. Also, Pressure is NOT competitively negligible, because with protect, Heatran (on a balloon)'s Fire Blast can only be fired off twice, unless you manage to get a lucky 2nd protect in a row.

Sticky Hold and Poison Touch are also interesting options that I feel fit the floral fiend quite nicely, and as Gycepros said with all that talk about not being good against its counters and shit, especially since it only applies regular poison. So yeah, my vote goes to either o' those as well, especially Poison Touch.

 

[Yilx]

About all the yandere-ness being talked about in here, I didn't mean it to be her main personality trait; going as far as to call her that might have been a little too much. Maybe a hint of it, but not over the top. This is partly my fault, too; I just really wanted to reinforce her trait of sticking to one thing closely and not wanting to let go, protecting it no matter the cost.

That and I just wanted to draw her looking creepy at the same time.

Staying on topic though, about Cute Charm and Unnerve... there's going to be a rift here, but I feel both need to die out. Like it's been mentioned, Unnerve will allow her to avoid Lum Berry while using Spore/Sacred Fire/Dark Void, avoid Chople/Occa/etc on her assorted counters. That makes her no-no bits all tingly and that's not a good thing. We want to explore the possibility of sketching a wide variety of moves, not pigeonhole her into preferring to sketch moves that induce status.

Cute Charm is more subjective than anything here too. I understand not everyone would find her cute because of the eyes and jaws...

God damn you Mirai Nikki

 

[capefeather]

For instance, when (Cybeast) Gregar mentioned Tangled Feet (as an example) being exclusive to spinda and flying-types, we don't need to follow this rule, because it's not actually related to any feature of the type (i.e. Big Pecks is actually a biological feature of birds, so it would only make sense to be flying-exclusive).

That's all well and good, but Friend Guard is on exactly the following Pokémon:

Cleffa
Clefairy
Igglybuff
Jigglypuff
Happiny

I see that as a bigger deal than even the Tangled Feet situation, almost equivalent to Sacred Sword and other STAB-only moves. Do we even have a good idea of what Friend Guard is supposed to "be" like? But of course that's just how I see it.

Like it's been mentioned, Unnerve will allow her to avoid Lum Berry while using Spore/Sacred Fire/Dark Void, avoid Chople/Occa/etc on her assorted counters. That makes her no-no bits all tingly and that's not a good thing. We want to explore the possibility of sketching a wide variety of moves, not pigeonhole her into preferring to sketch moves that induce status.

Again, I think that Rising_Dusk and others would prefer a specific example of Unnerve altering or distracting from the concept. I just don't see myself using a Lum Berry just to check CAP 2, and I think that if it does come to that, then CAP 2 may already be broken.

 

[Skore]

I'd like to propose Oblivious as an ability as if the pokemon is communing with the spirits, it may miss what's going on in the mundane world around it.

The other ability I'd like to suggest would be Friend Guard. As a pokemon that makes few friends but can get possessive, wouldn't that possessiveness also extend to protection?

 

[Korski]

I see no reason not to give this CAP Pressure as an ability. Flavor-wise, it has no associated design requirements like Sticky Hold or Cute Charm, so it automatically fits. It's also menially competitive; switching into Fire Blast won't do CAP any good, but it could do an okay job switching into those nasty Rain-boosted Hydro Pumps and lowering their effectiveness over time. Apart from that, PP stalling is not really a strategy and CAP doesn't resist Gyro Ball or Stone Edge, so Pressure's usefulness would be relegated primarily to increasing the recklessness of those high-powered moves slightly. This is about as neutral an Ability as there is. It doesn't distract from the concept because it couldn't possibly and is "competitive enough" to not seem arbitrary, which I think is exactly what we're looking for here.

 

[Yilx]

Again, I think that Rising_Dusk and others would prefer a specific example of Unnerve altering or distracting from the concept. I just don't see myself using a Lum Berry just to check CAP 2, and I think that if it does come to that, then CAP 2 may already be broken.

That's a good point... correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only type resist berry around now are Chople on Tyranitar as Heatran would rather use balloon now.

Don't get me wrong, Unnerve would be a pretty sweet ability for her, these are just a little of my concerns, that's all.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

Jumpluff makes a pretty darned good case against Cute Charm. She isn't the only one who has brought it up, either, as reach made a strong case against it earlier. While I consider it a far cry from being as good as Cursed Body or something, maybe it's just powerful enough to be frustrating while flying under my NCA radar. I also think it'd be at least mildly distracting to have to actually think about genders in a serious way during the playtest, although I personally do that anyway. I think I will remove it from the allowed list because of what's been said about it.

From discussion, my current favorite abilities are Unnerve, Forewarn, Sticky Hold, and Liquid Ooze. I think they're all definitely under the label of negligibly competitive; as neat as maybe it would be to block Trick from Rotom-W on a bulky Pokemon, I don't think it's powerful enough to make a huge difference, and CAP 2 pretty much should switch into Rotom-W with impunity anyway. Being immune to Knock Off is irrelevant too. Liquid Ooze is definitely negligibly competitive because CAP 2 is immune to Leech Seed and Drain Punch, while it resists Horn Leech and Giga Drain. Dream Eater is senselessly bad and irrelevant. Unnerve is mostly useless in OU, stopping only sets reliant on Chesto or Lum Berries. ChestoRest is not going to be a good response to CAP 2 anyway, and Lum Berry might only be decent on something trying to avoid a burn. That said, nearly everything that runs Lum Berry that might switch into Sacred Fire is 2HKOed with another coverage / STAB move, so stopping the burn is mostly irrelevant. Forewarn is kind of like the black sheep in this list, as it's an interesting ability that is mostly irrelevant, but might provide legitimately useful information once in awhile. I will think about it a bit more, but in the meantime, Anticipation could be considered a legitimate flavor alternate to it. It's worth thinking about.

Lastly, I want to emphasize that even though this is a flavor discussion, the creator of the art design does not have a 'last say' in the matter of what makes sense or doesn't. Don't let yourself get put down if Yilx gets a little pushy; he has as much say as anyone else participating in this thread!

Good discussion so far regardless! Keep it up!

 

[Asylum_Rhapsody]

It doesn't distract from the concept because it couldn't possibly and is "competitive enough" to not seem arbitrary, which I think is exactly what we're looking for here.

Could you explain what you mean by that? "'competitive enough' to not seem arbitrary"? Because I cannot at all tell what you mean. How are entirely non-competitive abilities "arbitrary"?

I disagree that we're looking for an ability that has at least some competitive use. If anything, it seems to me that what we're looking for is an ability that is conceptually appropriate but exactly as noncompetitive as possible, so given the choice between a conceptually appropriate ability that has some competitive use and a conceptually appropriate ability that has no competitive use, we should still consider the latter.

In other words, we should not be shooting down ideas for conceptually appropriate abilities just because they aren't "competitive enough". That's exactly the point.

EDIT: If anything, it seems like a lot of the attempts to look for a minimally competitive ability are the ones that are arbitrary. Sticky Hold, Liquid Ooze, and Pressure? Sticky Hold I even sort of get, but I have a lot of trouble seeing abilities like that as conceptually appropriate as Telepathy or Friend Guard or Unnerve. They really just seem like an attempt to suggest something more at least minimally competitively relevant.

 

[Stratos]

I, even ignoring the competitive side, do not see the support for Cute Charm. When you look at other Cute Charmers, they're all cute li'l furballs and stuff. Flytrap Maiden has a FREAKING EVIL PLANT GROWING OUT OF HER BLOODSTAINED SCALP. Not exactly cute, y'know.

 

[Project_Mars]

Forewarn seems to be the ability a lot of people are going for as the most flavorful, and i concur. A miko who convenes with the spirits would be able to hear them whispering what the enemy has.

Anticipation would work similarly, and perhaps better as spirits might not be able to say just what the danger is, just that it's there.

Telepathy works also for similar reasons. Being in tune with the spirits has it's advantages after all, and being able to know when your friend is going to do something that could catch you in the cross-fire helps. I don't know if Doubles are taken into consideration for this, but this would make Miss Sketchy Miko very very valuable for a doubles team.

Friend Guard doesn't necessarily equate to yandere. She enjoys having friends, and therefor would try to not hurt her valuable friends. However the ability seems to get a few flavor points off because I'm sure she would rather not use anything to cause collateral damage to her friends, it does make up for it when you consider her pulling her punches when doing so. Also the move isn't usable on any competitive 'mon, so it would be interesting to see how useful it can be. And considering Miss Sketchy Miko can learn all the moves, she's great to see how it works.

While Healer could potentially work for a similar reason, she loves her friends and would cure their status inflictions. (which also helps with the Miko vibe. She can also call upon spirits to heal those who seek it, imo.) I do kinda consider this an odd one out of sorts, given that for flavor reasons it would make Miss Sketchy Miko lean more towards a supportive moveset. (which isn't bad. I wouldn't mind seeing Heal Bell on her at least, even if her moveset isn't supposed to be supportive. Mikos use bells also, right?)

Really i can see her going thusly: Forewarn or Anticipation for ability one. These are both single battle oriented, and involve her communing with the spirits to gain insight on any danger to herself from an opposing pokemon. And then for ability two, Telepathy, Friend Guard or Healer. These all are double/triple battle abilities, with the first one being similar to the first one in terms of flavor: She uses the spirits to find out when her friend is about to use a move that could potentially hurt her, and gets out of the way. The latter two both revolve around her nature of caring for her friends.

Edit: Pwnemon doesn't understand the power of Moe then. Shy little ghost miko plant, looking for a friend to protect as best she can... maybe even using sketch to get a move of the one she considers her friend... http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v407/Yilx/nanaembaras.jpg

But i don't think pokemon understand Moe, so i'm not going to defend cute charm. It doesn't work on trainers that way.

 

[Flarephoenix332]

I really don't understand any support for Forewarn. I fail to see how being able to see your opponents best attack (by Base Power) is not competitive. It would allow CAP2 to decipher opposing movesets--for example, if a double switch of CAP2s occur, they could use Forewarn to help tell what kind of moveset the opposing CAP2 is running if, say, they forewarn about Sacred Fire or Close Combat or the like. And the absence of these high powered attacks could suggest that Sketch was a Boosting Move.

At the very worst I think Forewarn is borderline and thus I feel it is important to air on the safe side since we've already voted on No Competitive Ability.

I actually have a huge problem with any ability that has literally any competitive advantage at all in Singles. The first ability poll was voted "No Competitive Ability" not "Only abilities that have some kind of small, unlikely but still possible use in competition". I'm all in favor of abilities that only work in Doubles and/or have no use in battle period--like Klutz or Pick Up. In that sense, I really like Friend Guard as the flavour ability.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

Before I close this, I am going to quote what everyone voted for when they voted for NCA.

Lastly, let's talk about No Competitive Ability. I just don't think CAP 2 needs one, quite frankly. This may be the first time in forever that a TL has been ambitious enough to say that, but I definitely think of all CAPs, it is most applicable to CAP 2. CAP 2 is a very powerful Pokemon, and will end up succeeding at its job with or without a competitive ability to support it. For that reason, we may take the route of having none and choosing flavor abilities instead. What this will do to the process is basically skip the competitive ability stage entirely. We will then decide art, and after art has been decided, vote for one or two flavor abilities. A flavor ability is one, like Illuminate or Honey Gather, that has absolutely no or negligible competitive value whatsoever. The competitive value of an ability is to be determined by the TL. (This means an ability that has competitive value, but for CAP 2 is particularly useless, could be constituted a flavor ability)

Anyway, it's been a little over 24 hours, so I am going to close this. Expect a poll shortly.