CAP 23 CAP 23 - Part 4 - Primary Ability Discussion

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LucarioOfLegends

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Consider this your 24 hour warning before the slate. But real quick, I have some things to say.

All Electric Immune abilities presented seem like a completely useless and unnecessary ability choice because it does not solve the problems that we may face against our Target and Dismantle list, and solves a problem that didn't need solving in the first place. We already resist Volt Switch, and most Pokemon use U-turn due to its larger availability anyways. Even Tapu Koko, who is famed for strong Electric type attacks, can easily just U-turn out in every situation that requests it. The only Pokemon on our Target and Dismantle List that could possibly be stopped by it is Zapdos. And we still are status weak or possibly too weak to actually break through the Target and Dismantle List. I understand that there are a few Pokemon on the Target and Pressure list that would be stopped by Volt Absorb and friends, but our Target and Dismantle group takes priority. I need a very solid reason besides removing Volt Switch Pokemon to stand a chance at getting slated at all.

There seems to be some serious controversy with one ability, so I'm ending it now. Stakeout is an incredibly unbalanced choice for an ability when paired with Spirit Shackle, as SS can easily force switch due to its sheer presence and Stakeout gives us the possibility to deal unholy amounts of damage on said switch. Double damage on switch is unnaturally good in the scenario where CAP23 will likely have a high Attack stat, as even the powerful Volkraken gets only a 1.3 boost against a switched in mon. The only way to be able to actually balance it so it doesn't automatically destroy everything in one hit is to lower the attack in the stats stage, but we may not even be able to break through our Target and Dismantle Pokemon anymore. Generally it just creates an unfair lose/lose situation where it punishes you for doing the best possible move to avoid bad situations, and would be insanely hard to balance correctly. As such, after talking with snake_rattler about the issue, we will be Blacklisting Stakeout. Analytic could be a much easier ability to balance and may compliment Spirit Shackle's trapping ability in a much more reasonable way. Analytic is safe for now.
 
While I don't think Comatose is a terrible choice, I do believe it's complete overkill, Shield Dust already protects us from Scald burns, and really, burn its the only status we should be worried about. Toxic sucks, but really that's not much big of a deal because we're primarily offensive, and shouldn't need a lot of turns to do our job, while Will-O-Wisp is very uncommon, the only common user is M-Sableye, one of our checks, and Mew, who is not in our threat list, while our targets with access to it almost always prefer Lava Plume.
 
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How are these calcs misleading? Doesn't Stakeout double the power of attacks against a switched in threat?
This:
The calcs are misleading cause only the first hit will do that much, the hits after won't do as much.
I'll also quote myself from the exact post that was replied to since it seems to have gone some how over looked:
Aside from the fact that you have some how projected the damage output slightly higher than they should be (by roughly 10% -15%, a lot!). You have also failed to then lower the Attack Stat (or base power of Spirit Shackle) by half again after the initial hit.
All the calculations posted are using Spirit Shackle at a base power of 160, but are not put back down to 80 after the first hit.

Most people don't bother to check posted calculations themselves, thus why they can be so damaging when inaccurate . But 'common sense' prevailed and it was clear an error had been made.

I am requesting snake_rattler and LucarioOfLegends to Blacklist Stakeout and Analytic from discussion. Any supporters haven't shown any evidence or strong argument as to why it should stay and its derailing the thread.
This seems both very reactionary and unnecessary. But if the discussion and exploration of the merits of any given Ability/s in an Abilities Discussion thread is 'derailing' of that thread, then by all means snake_rattler and LucarioOfLegends have both the right and discretion to do so.
 

snake

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I think I've formed my opinion over the last few days of this discussion. Personally, I like Comatose the best. Simply put, Comatose allows CAP23 to not have to worry about being worn down by Toxic OR being crippled by burn. This is important when facing threats like Toxapex, Pyroak, Mollux, and other users of status. The important point that Comatose brings over Shield Dust, Early Bird, or other status immunities (excluding Guts) is that it doesn't require a moveslot like Rest or Substitute to get rid of status or cover for status. I really like Nyttyn's post about how with the use of Z moves especially (but also just item boosted attacks) we don't necessarily need offensive boosting abilities like Tough Claws or Strong Jaw. Overall, Comatose is the best one of these abilities. I still think Tough Claws is a good option but it doesn't seem overly necessary.

As for Analytic, the ONLY thing I see that targets a specific thing on our target and dismantle list is hitting Tomohawk on Roost turns harder than normal. Otherwise, it just limits switch-in opportunities and doesn't really align with either the concept or the target list. We'd have to balance out Analytic for when Pokemon actually switch in, meaning we'll have a lackluster damage output on any other turn.

For any sort of VoltTurn punisher, there's no good reason for these abilities. Yes, they escape our trap. However, we shouldn't be focusing our primary ability on these VoltTurners because they are not in our target and dismantle section. Additionally, these abilities just don't help that much at all. For slow Volt Switchers, Rotom-W would rather burn CAP23 than escape from its trap, and Cyclohm would rather hit CAP23 with Ice Beam or Draco Meteor, and Magearna would rather hit us with Fleur Cannon or Ice Beam. For faster VoltTurners (Tapu Koko, Mega Crucibelle, etc.), why would they want to switch into CAP23's trap move, just to U-turn out of it and escape? It's illogical. If they're faster anyway, they don't get trapped. So what's the point of punishing VoltTurn for those? As for punishing U-turners in general, it requires something like Iron Barbs. If Iron Barbs gets chosen, there's absolutely no chance for CAP23 to get any sort of recovery because trapping a physical attacker, chipping them down with Iron Barbs (maybe Rocky Helmet too), and recovering off is a really stupid opportunity cost, just to try to punish a couple of U-turners from escaping. Abilities like Iron Barbs, Rough Skin, Rattled (bad because of the speed boost and we have lots of fast checks), and Electric-type immunities just don't address what this CAP needs to do.

I've already addressed Defiant, but again, it applies to basically 1 Intimidate Pokemon, Landorus-T (Gyarados, Mega Mawile, Salamence, Tomohawk, Cawmodore, and Mega Manectric either don't use it, threaten CAP23 out, or aren't relevant in the metagame), exactly 1 Defogger, Zapdos (Mega Latias, Latios, Tapu Fini, and Kitsunoh all threaten CAP23 with their STAB moves), 1 Parting Shot Pokemon, Kerfluffle, which already threatens CAP23 with Moonblast so does it really count(?), and Sticky Web, which doesn't hurt the concept but doesn't help either. That's 2 Pokemon and one hazard. Defiant is really fringe and frankly pretty useless.

Compared to the other status-preventing abilities, Guts poses a lot of problems with this CAP. Guts means we have to balance the power level around Flame Orb Guts. This places a lot of pressure stats stats because a) we have to hit a specific range of power to beat Tomohawk (and Landorus-T to a lesser extent) but also NOT beat Skarmory and b) we can't focus as much on Z-moves as much because we have to focus so much on Flame Orb. Guts basically removes how we've been discussing "do we want status immunity/discouragement" or "do we want more offensive power" and rolls them into one big ball, but that's not necessarily good. Guts is just straight up the best objective ability in this thread and does way too much for CAP23, even if it doesn't cover all of the specialized jobs of abilities like Tough Claws and Comatose.

tl;dr Comatose is, in my opinion, the best ability we could give CAP23.

EDIT: Tough Claws would be a close second for me tbh.

Other status prevention abilities are our next best option. Offensive boosting abilities are not necessarily required with some Z moves, which we decided were a good thing in Concept Assessment, but they are still good options. VoltTurn punishing abilities do not address what we need to address in the primary ability thread and focus on fringe benefits if there are any. Defiant only addresses 2 Pokemon and Sticky Web, which doesn't necessarily align with the concept. Guts just covers too many bases at once, removes any sort of creativity we can have with this CAP, and would be hard to balance. Analytic addresses one thing on our target list and suffers from how we have to balance our attack stat.
 
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I still don't get the point of protecting ourselves against status. Toxic destroys any offensive non-Steel-type, so that seems pointless. Para is hard to fish for frankly and we would still likely outspeed all of the things we want to dismantle barring Zapdos. That only leaves burn, which we can simply pack coverage to kill them before they can burn us. As such, I do think Tough Claws is our best choice. The ability with Shadow Claw lets us avoid the crappy path of running Shackle 99.9% of the time. We can have it get Anchor Shot (50/50 by now) and use it as coverage. If we HAD to go defensive, Shield Dust would be my choice. The only things I know run Will-o-Wisp are Rotom-W and MegaSab. Still would prefer the offensive option.
 

S. Court

[Takes hits in Spanish]
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CAP23 shouldn't have Anchor Shot, it'll pressure some of our desired checks for this project, and giving it Shadow Claw with Thoug Claws would actually make people prefer using Shadow Claw instead Spirit Shackle and it'll make it a standard wallbreaker. It's an undesired risk imo

I support Comatose or Shield Dust (even when this one give targets still a way to status pressure CAP23) because I think being consistent with this role it's a top priority, and it can use Z-Move luring to increase its power, or giving it a good but not excesive attack stat to solve the offensive power it needs. Tough Claws could be a choice but again, with Shadow Claw it'll put unnecessary risk to fail what we want to achieve. I prefer Strong Jaw as a possible offensive ability, Psychic and Ice Fang could be a barren choice of powered up moves, but they're just the necessary things to heavily pressure our targets.
 
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Having multiple sets would not be an issue since there'd be multiple Z-Move options that deal with some or other things better, as shown by Nyttyn's previous post. Furthermore, the simple fact that not everyone may choose to run Toxic also means that there'd be enough variables even without the Z-Moves for CAP23 not to be easily read just because it has Comatose.
 
I'm sorry, I'm not sure how you came to these conclusions, but these calculation are completely WRONG.

Aside from the fact that you have some how projected the damage output slightly higher than they should be (by roughly 10% -15%, a lot!). You have also failed to then lower the Attack Stat (or base power of Spirit Shackle) by half again after the initial hit.

Even with a MAXIMUM damage roll on every attack it is not even a 3HKO against any of these defenders (except for a slight chance Tapu Fini). And this is coming off an Adamant (not Jolly) Base 130 Attack. Need I remind people that this is already EXTREMELY generous, and getting well ahead of ourselves to an areas of the CAP process that we have not even come close to addressing yet.

Calculations like these are unfairly misleading and they don't even bother address Analytic at all (I realize this was never the intention). I'd also like to point out that, while the analysis of calculations like this is already flawed, how is it that they, and their arguments would not also apply to Adaptability/Tough Claws/Strong Jaw etc... ???
Let me break this down, then I'll get into my personal opinions on Analytic, since I've kind of flip flopped between both sides personally.

To start off, G-Luke's calcs are fine for Stakeout imo, as I would hope most people know how Stakeout works or if they don't, at least go to look it up. If you want to talk about misleading, you actually blatantly lied about what Stakeout accomplished, stating it didn't even reach 3HKOs on the defensive mons when in reality it granted a guaranteed 2HKO on Fini. Furthermore, you also said that the calcs were done with an Adamant nature. A brief look at the calcs and a quick check in the calculator reveals that no, they were done off of Jolly. So, seriously, cool your jets.

Regardless, you have made clear that he didn't include the calcs for a normal Spirit Shackle alongside the boosted version so allow me to do that for Analytic:

[Side Note: I had done this for Stakeout too, but it got blacklisted before I could post xP rip 1/3 of my post]

Analytic: (Base 80 *1.3 = 104 BP)

Tapu Fini:
252 Atk Garchomp Spirit Shackle (104 BP) vs. 248 HP / 8 Def Tapu Fini: 151-178 (44 - 51.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

Since Analytic also applies to when the user moves second, as well as when the opponent switches in, this is the only calc we really need to look at unless we plan on passing 85 base speed (which is admittedly possible, but since Fini typically runs speed... eh). This is a guaranteed 3HKO, bordering on an easy 2HKO with something like Life Orb, Stealth Rock, Spikes, or even just running Attack-boosting nature. Fini is easily beat.

Ferrothorn:
252 Atk Garchomp Spirit Shackle (104 BP) vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn: 115-136 (32.6 - 38.6%) -- 4.3% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Garchomp Spirit Shackle vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn: 88-105 (25 - 29.8%) -- 0% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Analytic doesn't let CAP23 break Ferrothorn easily. Pretty simple.

Celesteela:
252 Atk Garchomp Spirit Shackle vs. 252 HP / 132+ Def Celesteela: 133-157 (33.4 - 39.4%) -- 17.7% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Garchomp Spirit Shackle vs. 252 HP / 132+ Def Celesteela: 102-121 (25.6 - 30.4%) -- 1.8% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

Depending on speed, either of these could become consistent damage outputs, but for the most part Protect/Leech Celesteela beats CAP23 out.

Calcs in Sum:
Admittedly, Analytic does allow us to break Tapu Fini, but we would have to take a Moonblast in return. It would make Fini not a counter and not really a check either without more than standard defensive investment. The other counters take more damage on switch, and possibly in general, but mostly remain unaffected.

Additional Considerations and Personal Opinions:
Initially, I liked the logic on the face of Analytic: Punish the opponent by dealing more damage when they switch in their check/counter to avoid having a weaker mon trapped. However, one has to fundamentally look at what that is actually saying. At its most basic, this logic implies that the goal of the ability is to make the checks and counters less effective at their job because they want to come in by the nature of being checks and counters. To me this seems fairly counter intuitive to having them as checks and counters. Even if some of them, such as Ferro and Steela are not impacted greatly, some such as Tapu Fini are. If you wish to do more damage with Spirit Shackle, Adaptability would have been a good choice. If you just want to do more damage in general, not with Spirit Shackle, Tough Claws is a very good option. Overall though, I just don't see how Analytic respects the idea of the checks and counters list, especially when there are other damage-boosting abilities that have been suggested that do their job well. Succinctly: according to common sense, why would I try to be punishing my counters for being counters? They're going to be trapped anyways, so why not just switch out to something that threatens them back?
 
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Considering paralysis and poison are more or less annoyances vs the walls it removes, I feel like deticating an entire ability to avoiding burn is kinda limiting other potential abilities that could allow CAP 23 to effectively fulfill it's role as a trapper.

As discussed, Will-o-Wisp is fairly uncommon and often used by things that pressure/beat CAP 23 anyways. This leaves only moves like Lava Plume and Scald as our main concerns, both of which are resists. In that case why not just give it access to Substitute? Not only will the sub tank an univested attack effectively avoiding burns, but it can also prevent status in general from moves like Toxic and Discharge.

While I do agree an ability like Comatose is a more consistent way to deal with status, in my opinion the option to run sub could give us more room to consider other potential abilities for CAP 23.
 

S. Court

[Takes hits in Spanish]
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Considering paralysis and poison are more or less annoyances vs the walls it removes, I feel like deticating an entire ability to avoiding burn is kinda limiting other potential abilities that could allow CAP 23 to effectively fulfill it's role as a trapper.

As discussed, Will-o-Wisp is fairly uncommon and often used by things that pressure/beat CAP 23 anyways. This leaves only moves like Lava Plume and Scald as our main concerns, both of which are resists. In that case why not just give it access to Substitute? Not only will the sub tank an univested attack effectively avoiding burns, but it can also prevent status in general from moves like Toxic and Discharge.

While I do agree an ability like Comatose is a more consistent way to deal with status, in my opinion the option to run sub could give us more room to consider other potential abilities for CAP 23.
... At the cost to use a moveslot, and even when Dragon and Ghost have a good offensive coverage, to dismantle specific targets we'll need specific moves (in tandem with Z-Moves probably)

This CAP will have a 4MSS with just coverage, we don't need to give it even more troubles to its role making it needs to sacrifice a moveslot to cover itself against status
 

david0895

Mercy Main Btw
I don't understand why we should use Shield Dust over Comatose: this is definitely better, except for the fact that we can't use Rest as recovery.
About Tough Claws, I agree with reviloja about Tough Claws because CAP23 needs to run different sets
 
... At the cost to use a moveslot, and even when Dragon and Ghost have a good offensive coverage, to dismantle specific targets we'll need specific moves (in tandem with Z-Moves probably)
The problem is you are really dependent to the Z-move to do your job. Even if CAP23 get specific moves to dismantle targets, it cannot deal with all targets with a defensive ability. You need your Z-move psychic to get rid of toxapex and have the Z-move flying to get a chance to kill Pyroak. So an other part of the issue applies for you too (and in a worst way, you cannot bypass mega venusaur and toxapex successively).

I support Strong Jaw. I think it's the best way to dismantle the most part of our targets. One of my favorite was Hustle too but unfortunately, it didn't pay too much attention

I dont like Comatose because it can lead CAP23 in a direction we woudn't want like a status absorber thanks to the good defensive typing. It prevents as well to get the moves with negative priorities.
 
I don't understand why we should use Shield Dust over Comatose: this is definitely better, except for the fact that we can't use Rest as recovery.
About Tough Claws, I agree with reviloja about Tough Claws because CAP23 needs to run different sets
Comatose announces the ability and Shield Dust also prevents flinches and stat drops from damaging attacks. So it is actually a neat trade off if you think about it. The only difference is how far you want to go in terms of status prevention.
 

david0895

Mercy Main Btw
Comatose announces the ability and Shield Dust also prevents flinches and stat drops from damaging attacks. So it is actually a neat trade off if you think about it. The only difference is how far you want to go in terms of status prevention.
Except iron head, there's not relevant attacks that cause flinches and most of its users are steel type that check/counter it (and a lot of them don't even use it).
The only relevant move that has an high chance to reduce a stat is shadow strike.but kitsunoh is supposed to be a check.
Unless the second ability will not be a niche, there's no point in worring about the comatose announce
 

OLD GREGG (im back baby)

old gregg for life
Shield Dust prevents flinching from Air Slash, Zen Headbutt, Waterfall, Icicle Crash, Rock Slide, and Fake Out while also stopping secondary status from moves like Sludge Bomb and Lava Plume. Comatose allows us to abuse choice band/choice scarf sleep talk which might be problematic.
 
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david0895

Mercy Main Btw
Shield Dust prevents flinching from Air Slash, Zen Headbutt, Waterfall, Icicle Crash, Rock Slide, and Fake Out while also stopping secondary status from moves like Sludge Bomb and Lava Plume. Comatose allows us to abuse choice band sleep talk which might be problematic.
If comatose will be chosen, sleep talk will be banned.
Also excadrill is the only pokemkon on the target list that use one of the moves that you have listed (rock slide)
 

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
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If comatose will be chosen, sleep talk will be banned.
Also excadrill is the only pokemkon on the target list that use one of the moves that you have listed (rock slide)
This is not necessarily true. The problem with Sleep Talk and Comatose is the combination with phazing moves that increases move priority, not playing Band / Scarf Roulette. A Sleep Talk Band Set would be hilariously unreliable, and Scarf moreso because it doesn't have the raw power factor.

Please refrain from making pronouncements on what will or won't be banned.
 

david0895

Mercy Main Btw
This is not necessarily true. The problem with Sleep Talk and Comatose is the combination with phazing moves that increases move priority, not playing Band / Scarf Roulette. A Sleep Talk Band Set would be hilariously unreliable, and Scarf moreso because it doesn't have the raw power factor.

Please refrain from making pronouncements on what will or won't be banned.
Sorry, it wasn't my intention to be so strong on my words. Also when i was talking about sleep talk i wanted to refer about phazing moves, but i forgot to say that. Thanks for saying that for me
 
Ultimately, I think this is going to come down to either Comatose or Tough Claws. I can acknowledge the pros and cons to both, and I think both are good abilities and I think CAP23 stands to be a success with either. The differences ultimately between them are that Comatose would have to have a higher base attack and utilize Z moves more to take out its targets, but the downside is the ability is immediately telegraphed and makes the option of having a secondary ability later work as lures more tricky, even to the point we might have to go with No Competitive Second Ability later on. But Heatran doesn't have one either, so whatevs. Comatose does what we need to do, and benefits non-trap sets too. I don't buy the Sleep Talk argument at all, as we can build our moveset with Comatose in mind.

TC trap sets would be less Z item focused, and more likely to use Substitute/Rest + Toxic (as Toxic will allow it to beat all its targets minus the Poison type ones) with Leftovers to avoid losing to status and win a war of attrition against its targets, in exchange for some serious 4MSS. With only one move left over after its trap move, the obvious single attack logically becomes a Psychic type move, in order to hit Toxapex, Mollux and Mega Venusaur, or Ice, in order to kill Landorus before it can U-Turn out. This set becomes VERY predictable and exploitable. Ironically, this might make the more offensive ability Tough Claws have more defensive move sets, whereas Comatose sets have the freedom to run more coverage with Z item attacks. I also feel we should discourage Substitute to some degree as Leech Seed is what largely enables Ferro and Celes to whittle it down.

Either way, I don't think 23 will be able to hit all its targets at once, but will have to be selective, and I think that will help make it balanced. Ultimately,I do prefer Comatose as it allows for more moveset freedom, as getting bopped with status truly borks our target list, and I'd rather not have to run a move to deal with it on an offensive set.

----------

My quick thoughts on other abilities.

Shield Dust works as a soft Comatose that doesn't telegraph itself, opens it up to being burned by Mega Sableye and Rotom, and prevents Tomohawk's Air Slash flinches if CAP happens to have a lower base speed (although I would argue it should be at least faster than Landorus). SD is worth slating, IMO, but I still like Comatose more.

I don't like Strong Jaw, as it is a less good version of Tough Claws that can only benefit Psychic Fang and Ice Fang due to our counter list, and there are other physical Psychic and Ice attacks we can utilize to hit our targets.

Guts, despite trying to be the middle ground between Tough Claws and Comatose, is too one dimensional as Flame Orb becomes the obvious item of choice and I don't like its lack of survivability especially when paired with moves like Brave Bird.

I appreciate what Volt Absorb and electric immunity abilities are aiming for, but if we really want to target Zapdos for trap kills, we could just have CAP have a base 101 speed to creep it before it can Volt Switch out.

Defiant I find too specific in its benefit and is anti-concept for the specific mon it targets, as it does not provoke Landorus to switch in.

Aerialate seems dead in terms of support, but it definitely is also anti-concept as it doesn't lure grass types or fighting types to be trapped.

Analytic I straight out don't like as it messes with our checks list as demonstrated by calcs. We shouldn't punish Tapu Fini or Ferrothorn for switching in, as neither have reliable recovery beyond lefties.
 
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My preference would be Shield Dust over Comatose for a defensive ability, and Tough Claws for an offensive ability. Defiant I am also a fan of, but I understand people's thought process against it. I'm alright with Strong Jaw, and pretty anti-Guts. Volt Absorb I feel is unnecessary, Aerilate was always a bad choice due to telegraphing our coverage very clearly, and Analytic doesn't really give us anything we need imo.
 

jas61292

used substitute
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I don't understand why we should use Shield Dust over Comatose: this is definitely better, except for the fact that we can't use Rest as recovery.
While I honestly don't have a ton new to say, I really want to just say that "better" in an absolute sense is not necessarily "better" for the project. Stronger is not always the best choice. I personally really do not like Comatose, despite preferring a defensive ability, because I think it is too strong for our purposes. We have a fantastic typing, and judging by what we want to be able to take on, I do not doubt we will have great stats or a precisely powerful movepool. Yes, the specifics of these are undecided, but I think that if we want to give ourselves any wiggle room down the line and be able to actually explore options in other stages, I think we cannot afford to give us something so strong as total status immunity. Remember, while we do want to beat a number of bulky Pokemon, the actual statuses these Pokemon throw around are limited, and a number of the Pokemon we actually have listed as checks or counters also can run status moves. Blanket immunity to status because it is a strong defensive effect is not the right approach.

I think a much better approach would be something like Immunity, which gives a targeted, well... immunity.

Alternatively Shield Dust is a good option, which can block Scald Burns from Toxapex and Arghonaut, Lava Plume Burns from Pyroak or Mollux, Discharge Paralysis from Zapdos and Cyclohm, and Sludge Bomb Poisons from Mollux and Mega Venusaur, while still allowing us to be vulnearble to things like Will-o-Wisp burns from Kitsunoh and Mega Sableye, and Thunder Wave Paralysis from Ferrothorn, Jirachi and Clefable. Overall this might be my favorite option on the table, though other status related abilities, such as Shed Skin have plenty of merit to me as well.
 

david0895

Mercy Main Btw
I re-looked the check list and I found that there's Mega Sableye, then i did this:

252 Atk Garchomp Outrage vs. 248 HP / 116 Def Sableye-Mega: 147-174 (48.5 - 57.4%) -- 93.4% chance to 2HKO

So, unless CAP23 will have less than 130 atk, Mega Sableye can't check it, if it will have Comatose
 

snake

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I re-looked the check list and I found that there's Mega Sableye, then i did this:

252 Atk Garchomp Outrage vs. 248 HP / 116 Def Sableye-Mega: 147-174 (48.5 - 57.4%) -- 93.4% chance to 2HKO

So, unless CAP23 will have less than 130 atk, Mega Sableye can't check it, if it will have Comatose
If we lose a check or two along the way, it's fine. The threatlist is a framework, not an absolute list. That said, we shouldn't ignore it or undermine it.
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
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Jas, I don't think a nice chunk of extra power is unwarranted in this situation - doing exactly what we need to do and nothing more is how we wound up with numerous disappointing CAPs in the past. The fact of the matter is that sun and moon is a very high power level meta, and I do not think we would be remiss to have a high quality ability like this, to help smooth out our natural hesitation towards giving a surplus of power in the later stages.


I will say this - weak abilities like Immunity and Shed Skin absolutely will not cut it. I think Shield Dust is the only reasonable alternative on the table right now, and even then I believe its inferior power level is not desirable for the reasons prior mentioned. However, that is simply my feeling on the matter - I feel like we could still make Shield Dust work, but I do not believe that we will go remiss here by giving CAP 23 a more powerful ability beyond what's simply absolutely needed. In fact, I believe that it is in our best interest to do so, as it will help to smooth out any potential lack of power caused by the natural hesitation to give CAP 23 power beyond what's "needed" in later stages.


And I don't think this is a unreasonable concern either, given that this was a issue last gen, and now in this gen we have a power level so excessive that even Hoopa-U fell out of OU...
 
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