CAP 23 CAP 23 - Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion

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LucarioOfLegends

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Alrighty! Its time for the almighty slate!

This thread was generally incredibly split between two different ability focuses: Abilities that give us a straight up power boost to our STABs and/or coverage, and abilities that can remove status to last longer against our Target and Dismantle list so that we can break them. It was a long fought battle, but both sides ended up have strong arguments and notable weaknesses. With that said, here is our slate:

Tough Claws
Comatose
Shield Dust
Strong Jaw

Tough Claws
: Offering a general power boost, Tough Claws' extra power to our Dragon STAB is a direct and surefire way to assist in breaking down our targets without limiting ourselves to Z-moves to beat them. Tough Claws also increases the power of a large number of possible coverage options such as Brave Bird, Zen Headbutt, Psychic Fangs, and Ice Punch, giving us the chance to diversify sets. Finally, Spirit Shackle is not boosted from the ability, allowing us to keep the possibility of Anchor Shot alive while also not making Spirit Shackle a requirement for all sets with Tough Claws Shadow Claw.

Comatose
: A direct stop to all forms of status, secondary or otherwise, is an incredibly powerful tool for CAP23's survival against our Target and Dismantle list, who can easily inflict burns and poisons to hamper CAP's breaking capabilities and longevity. It also allows CAP23 to not waste a moveslot on moves like Substitute to protect against status, giving CAP more move freedom. Preliminary concerns came up about its ability to break through our targets, but nyttyn's post shows that they can still be beaten with a good attack stat and clever usage of Z-moves.

Shield Dust: Most of our targets primarily use secondary effects to inflict their status conditions, making Shield Dust a very reasonably balanced and content contender. It also has the benefit of stopping the possibility of flinch hax from Tomohawk's Air Slash, while also keeping the possibility of ability unpredictability. It may not block direct status moves like Toxic and Will-O-Wisp, but it is certainly sufficient to use against our current Target and Dismantle list.

Strong Jaw: Focusing more on a few strong coverage moves to beat the targets than a large variety, Strong Jaw is a very viable ability without having to worry that our STABs would be blown to ridiculous power levels. Calculations show that it can easily beat our threats with proper stat placement, and coverage choices like Psychic Fangs and Ice Fang cannot interfere with our checks and counters. A modest ability certainly, but one that can get the job done no less.

Awaiting slate confirmation from our glorious TL snake_rattler.
 

snake

is a Community Leaderis a Top CAP Contributoris a Contributor to Smogon
CAP Co-Leader
Alright I believe LucarioOfLegends's slate accurately depicts which abilities got the most positive discussion while also not receiving a high amount of counterattack (in relation to the support each got). Thanks for a great ability discussion guys! We have a really strong slate this time around - I'm sure any of these will help CAP23 progress very well. See you in the polls!

 

LucarioOfLegends

Master Procraster
is a CAP Contributor
Upon further review, there are two more abilities that gained enough support to be added to the slate.

Defiant: This ability garnered a decent amount of support from the thread thanks to the ability to switch into Landorus-T for almost free, which can help pressure it and other threats due to an attack boost. It also discourages common Defoggers, notably Zapdos and Mew, from trying to remove hazards in our presence, as CAP23 would gain a nasty Attack boost from the moves usage.

Volt Absorb: An extra immunity to the ever-so-common Electric type is a benefit that can greatly support CAP23's survivability by recovering health off of Electric type attacks. It also greatly pressures Volt Switch users such Rotom-Wash, Cyclohm, and Magnezone into far worse positions for CAP23 to take advantage of. It gained a good amount of support and went mostly unopposed through the thread, so it has been added to the slate.

So with that, our updated slate looks like this:

Tough Claws
Comatose
Shield Dust
Strong Jaw
Defiant
Volt Absorb


See you at the polls!
 

snake

is a Community Leaderis a Top CAP Contributoris a Contributor to Smogon
CAP Co-Leader
LucarioOfLegends's addition of Defiant is welcome to the slate, as it did garner quite a bit of support throughout the thread. However, as much support as Volt Absorb got, I find it very problematic with respect to our concept and threatlist. The big problem is that you can "hide" this immunity. Because CAP23 could potentially obtain a secondary ability, CAP23 may or may not have an Electric-type immunity. I'd be stupid to use Return or Close Combat on CAP23 because 100% of the time (unless you're Mega Lopunny) CAP23 will be immune. However, CAP23 might be immune to Electric-type attacks, meaning, say, your Choice Specs Tapu Koko or Choice Scarf Plasmanta locked into Thunderbolt is extremely afraid of using it again to finish off a weakened CAP23. This causes very large problems - if you trap a Volt Switch Pokemon or other choice-locked Electric-type, you've potentially given CAP23 at least 10 free turns, and you're even healing CAP23 up in the process. That's a LOT of turns to abuse Swords Dance, Spikes, or other utility that we may or may not give CAP23 down the road. The point is that CAP23 could potentially have many free turns to abuse, just because we want to mess with Volt Switch Pokemon. Furthermore, our dismantle list includes one Pokemon, Zapdos, that uses Electric-moves frequently. Other than that, we aren't directly addressing many of the Pokemon on our lists. While the same can be said about Defiant, which addresses few Pokemon on our list, at least CAP23 can't generate a ridiculous amount of free turns off of it. We could limit CAP23's utility options, keep its speed stat extremely low, or not give CAP23 a secondary ability to prevent potential abuse of the above situations, but the cost of having to direct this CAP Process around an ability that helps our concept very minimally is too high. For these reasons, I will be using my -1 on Volt Absorb.

Now, with a larger slate, we move on to polls. See you there!
 
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