Approved Use the Boost to Get Through!

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jas61292

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This concept by mphallor was approved for discussion. Is this concept worth pursuing? If so, what questions could we ask? How could we improve this? Everyone is free to discuss the following submission as if this was a concept discussion.

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Name: Use the Boost to Get Through!
General Description: A sweeper with several boosting options that result in completely different checks and counters. While each set should be viable in its own right, the unpredictability of this Pokemon should make it much better than any one set alone.
Justification: In the early days of Pokemon X and Y, we experienced the first Pokemon that could (viably) boost and sweep from either the physical or special side: Mega Lucario. While it was clear his unpredictability could have a devastating effect (having your Chansey eat a Close Combat, Will-O-Wisping on the Nasty Plot, etc.) the true extent to which this could make a Pokemon better was masked by the fact that Lucario's sets were both already amazing. The purpose of this concept would therefore be to explore the impact of unpredictability in sweepers by creating a Pokemon that can run several boosting sets, none of which are dominant in their own right, but that when combined can result in an extremely dangerous threat.
Questions To Be Answered:
  • Is there a limit to how much unpredictability can make a Pokemon better? Can it make a decent Pokemon great? Or can it only make them usable?
  • How does being unpredictable with boosting options compare to other forms of unpredictability (such as uncommon coverage moves or trying to speed creep certain threats)? Is unpredictability in sweepers inherently more dangerous because of how easily they can win a game?
  • For a Pokemon that is already unpredictable, will we see the use of strange coverage moves (as many sweepers tend to run) or will it tend to stick to standard sets because it already has the element of surprise?
  • Which boosting moves are distinct enough to completely change a Pokemon's checks/counters? Are Swords Dance, Nasty Plot, and Agility the only ones that can fit this concept? Or is there a way to incorporate moves such as Dragon Dance without giving the Pokemon "the best of both worlds".
  • How effective will double boosting sets be on this Pokemon? Will the ability to "pick your counters" on a Pokemon already designed to bypass its counters be too good? Or can it be designed so that the loss of coverage will still leave it with several checks and counters on any set?
  • To what extent will teams have to prepare for this Pokemon? Will they have to pack several checks/counters like for M-Lucario? Or will they be able to just use a standard team so long as they can identify the set early?
Explanation: One aspect of OU that seems to be omnipresent is unpredictability. And so it should come as no surprise that many of the proposed concepts (such as One Hit Wonder and Distribution Revolution by nyttyn and trc respectively) have tried to tackle this issue. The purpose of this concept is to take a slightly different angle and explore unpredictability in a sweeper specifically. What makes boosting sweepers unique from other Pokemon is that if you lose a specific check or give them one too many free turns, they can single-handedly win a game. My vision for this Pokemon is one that could be extremely deadly if mishandled, but that if you can identify its set early on, a standard team should be able to handle it. That way we could avoid some of the complications Lucario presented, and instead focus on how deadly unpredictable boosting really is.
 
Didn't we already try this, to an extent, with Auromoth? While Aurumoth was based on risk + reward, it has several boosting options that makes its checks and counter vary, though some still stay the same.
 
I see this project getting busted or railroaded pretty easily. The way I see it, we have a few different ways it could go down.

a) The pokemon can boost on either it's Atk or S. Atk stat:
The problem with this is that you're going to have to invest heavily into Attack and Special Attack in the stat spread, which is going to significantly cut the investment you can make in other stats. This is going to lead to several incredibly similar submissions as far as spread, which means we can probably guess what this pokemon is going to look like even before it starts.

b) The pokemon can boost on either it's Atk/S. Atk stat or it's Speed stat:
This can get broken pretty easily. The problem you face when a Pokemon can boost an Atk or Speed efficiently is that it could easily decide to do both. In order to avoid that being the defacto right answer, we need to give this pokemon a severe case of 4 moveslot syndrome, which means poll jumping the movepoolsections, which will influence the typing discussion. This seems like the most dangerous option.

c) The pokemon can boost either on it's Def or S. Def stat:
We could go with this route, but this seems to secure it's roll as exclusively a wall. Walls don't tend to deal enough damage by themselves to punish the opponent for not picking up on your set right away. Plus, most walls don't actually need to set up to become walls. That's going to severely hamper it's OU potential.

d) A pokemon that chooses between offensive buffs or defensive buffs.
Not only does Clefable already do this version of the concept, but we once again run into the problem that the pokemon will have a harder time being a defensive setter than an offensive one. Simply put, it's rather hard to make defensively buffing as good as an offensive buff.

e) A Pokemon that can either boost two stats at once, or another stat to a far greater degree
This is the direction I'm inclined to think the project should go in. For example, a combination like Dragon Dance/Nasty Plot as it's boost options. Maybe even something like Power-Up Punch + Technician/Charge Beam + Serene Grace, where having one boost option changes what abilities you can carry on your Pokemon to make it viable. That way, there would be more flexibility in how we divvied up the stats to make both sides "fair". Heck, if we were feeling really saucy, we could make a painfully weak Pokemon with Quiver Dance and Belly Drum as moves. Chansey certainly can't wall your Belly Drummer, and I wouldn't feel so secure about an offensive pokemon's ability to outspeed the CAP after a few Quiver Dances. These are just examples, but essentially, the basics is that we should either be able to go hard one way, or to be more well balanced another way.
 
Woohoo! First approved submission! I just figured I would respond to some of the concerns NumberCruncher raises about the execution of this project:

a) Your main concern with the boosting Atk or SpA option seems to be a lack of diversity/options in the stat submission stage. Worth mentioning though is that due to the BSR limits stage, the stat submissions are already similar to each other. The focus of discussion over stats is about getting exactly what we want. For this project, the discussion would pretty much follow the standard pattern of 1) Argue over Speed tier, since every single point in Speed usually matters. 2) Discuss how much power is required to net certain kills on our checks/counters list. The offensive stats might vary based on people adjusting to the base power of our STAB options or because they want to balance the effectiveness of the physical and special sets. 3) Discuss how much bulk will be required to reliably execute a sweep. This will also be tied into the offensive stats, since the more threatening our CAP is before boosting, the more opportunities it will get to setup for free. This will also contain additional variety due to some people wanting a mon with the bulk to tank hits and boost, while others may want more of a glass cannon approach.

b) I agree that doing Speed and Atk/SpA might pave the way for double boosting sets (as brought up in question 5 of the submission), but unless we give our CAP amazing STAB coverage, it's safe to assume that it will need at least three offensive moves to either hit everything for neutral damage, or have enough punch to get past dedicated walls. I don't think this is too much of a poll jumping issue since we already pick the typing with the assumption that the CAP will have its good STAB moves, and we tend to avoid any assumptions about the coverage moves. The only real poll jumping will be that we don't give it a "perfect" offensive typing, because we want it to need coverage moves.

c) and d) I agree that defensive boosting probably won't be very viable. The reason it works on Clefable is Stored Power, but since this CAP is supposed to capitalize on surprise factor, I don't think a long and drawn out defensive sweep will be doable for this concept.

e) While I'm not personally a fan of the Belly Drum-Quiver Dance extremes, I do agree with the concept of small offensive boost+speed vs. large offensive boost. I even think it would be worth exploring if we could pull off options that boost the same offensive stat (ie Swords Dance+Dragon Dance, as brought up in the fourth question).

The last thing worth mentioning is that I think it would probably be best to address which boosting moves we're going to use during Concept Assessment. While this might mean we never really explore question 4 (if we pick just Swords Dance and Nasty Plot for example) it will definitely give the project more direction each step of the way if we already know what kind(s) of sweeper the Pokemon is going to be.
 
I'm actually digging this concept quite a lot.

What I'm seeing here is a Pokemon that actually NEEDS the boost to "get through", like the title says. Without said boosts, CAP20 would be unable to do what it's supposed to do. So this concept isn't just about which way the Pokemon will boost, but how to make it able to get those boost. In other words, CAP20 will need some way to get the boosts: the unpredictability will come from the different kind of boosts it can use.

It would be fun if CAP20 was able to utilize both defensive and offensive boosts, on different sets of course, but I acknowledge that would get messy pretty quickly.

As a first impression, I'm picturing a Butterfree-esque kind of Pokemon. Normally, it's as threatening as a bag full of plushies, but after a few boosts, it can actually steamroll through a team. Compoundeyes Sleep Powder goes long ways to help it get the vital boosts. Of course, CAP20 would need more versatility in order to fullfill the concept, as in more than one viable boosting move, and if needed, the right physical and special movepool (like the Lucario example).
 

Ununhexium

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Or like serperior.

I do like this concept however. I think adding a degree of unpredictability in boosting would definitely make a hard to counter pokemon. It would need to be limited or it will simply be too powerful
 
What I see in this concept is basically an attempt at the strategies Lucario (Swords Dance or Nasty Plot), Landorus-T (Rock Polish or Swords Dance) and Bibarel (Curse or Amnesia) performed sometimes - I like the last one the most as those boosting options are unequal, making decision making on countering it more informed - does my opponent want more power or just boost faster?
 
I do not think Bibarel is the best example because it is a rather mediocre Pokemon. However, I think that this concept as a whole will likely result in a Pokemon that will turn out to be far too overwhelming, as it will likely be centralizing to the point where teams will have to dedicate multiple teamslots just to be safe against it.
 
I do not think Bibarel is the best example because it is a rather mediocre Pokemon. However, I think that this concept as a whole will likely result in a Pokemon that will turn out to be far too overwhelming, as it will likely be centralizing to the point where teams will have to dedicate multiple teamslots just to be safe against it.
I think one aspect of the concept that you're overlooking (or that maybe needs to be more clear. This is the place to improve the concept submission after all...) is that the CAP should have "several boosting sets, none of which are dominant in their own right...". As a result, this doesn't necessarily have to be the type of mon that heavily influences team building.

Just as an example, let's say the moves we chose were Dragon Dance and Nasty Plot, we don't give the CAP an ability that boosts its power (that would just complicate the example), and it has an offensive stat line in the neighborhood of 110 ATK, 120 SPA, and a Speed of less than 108. Thanks to it's high power, the Nasty Plot set could blast through healthy teams if they don't have a revenge killer left. But because of it's unfortunate speed tier, the CAP can be revenge killed by anything with 108 or more Speed. The Dragon Dance set on the other hand would be able to outspeed the checks to the Nasty Plot set and clean up a weakened team, but doesn't have nearly enough power to muscle through a healthy Pokemon with decent bulk. While either set could sweep once the right mons were removed, during the team building phase you wouldn't necessarily have to worry about bringing a mon with 108+ speed or a little physical bulk since most teams bring these things anyway.

While there are a lot more factors that would influence overall viability (movepool, typing, coverage, etc.) in this simplified example neither of the CAP's sets would be top-tier OU material. Now would it still be dangerous overall? I don't know. That's honestly the point of exploring the concept. But I think the fact that no one set should be dominant really needs to be stressed, since your earlier comparison to Aurumoth (which has half a dozen sets that are individually dominant) is quite a bit off the mark.
 

nyttyn

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While Double Dance has always been KIND of a thing in OU, it's always been a niche set type deal, or belonging to a totally OP mon, and we haven't really seen a true double dance set in ORAS. It would be interesting to see how such a variable setup pokemon could operate in this meta, especially if it relied on said ability to double dance. The concept itself seems to answer the right questions, and doesn't seem to be in any need of changes or edits, so...

Approved 1/2

 

Deck Knight

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The question I see here is more one of the degree of restraint we might feel. Mega Lucario was too strong in this role and was banned. In contrast, Infernape is too weak for it to stay officially in OU, and Infernape barely ever uses Nasty Plot [and doesn't use SD]. Since Infernape has 104/104/108 Offensive stats and a powerful offensive typing, we should be quite wary of wherever we end up on such a project. Infernape is still in the OU viability rankings, and still does well, don't get me wrong, but check out the moves data (1825 Jan stats):
Code:
| Moves |
| Stealth Rock 79.174% |
| Endeavor 70.240% |
| Fire Blast 60.560% |
| Vacuum Wave 44.051% |
| Close Combat 26.028% |
| Taunt 23.784% |
| Overheat 21.131% |
| Mach Punch 13.442% |
| U-turn 9.023% |
| Flare Blitz 8.510% |
| Grass Knot 7.473% |
| Thunder Punch 4.498% |
| Nasty Plot 4.460% |
| Fake Out 4.386% |
| Flamethrower 3.861% |
| Other 19.378% |
Ape fits a model of what we might want to do, and yet it is mostly used for Rocks and Sash Endeavor (Focus Sash is the item 80% of the time). The real question becomes, if a Pokemon with this much going for it runs Rocks/Endeavor over boosters, where do we look for improvement.

Here's the top 5 mons that use various boosters in OU on their sets in 1825 Jan stats. I've bolded Pokemon that use their booster more than 40% of the time:

Tyranitar - Dragon Dance 8.307%
Charizard - Dragon Dance 39.035%
Altaria - Dragon Dance 43.005%
Gyarados - Dragon Dance 93.792%

Dragonite - Dragon Dance 35.058%

Bisharp - Swords Dance 63.648%
Scizor - Swords Dance 51.084%

Garchomp - Swords Dance 21.364%
Talonflame - Swords Dance 41.594% [Bulk Up 7.661%]
Gliscor - Swords Dance 25.469%

Thundurus - Nasty Plot 12.905%
Celebi - Nasty Plot 17.360%
Infernape - Nasty Plot 4.460%
Togekiss - Nasty Plot 21.878%
Lucario - Nasty Plot 6.399% [Swords Dance 87.718%]

Landorus - Rock Polish 27.397%
Diancie - Rock Polish 31.435% [Calm Mind 11.957%]
(Nothing noteworthy uses Agility or Autotomize)

Keldeo - Calm Mind 41.468%
(Latias - Calm Mind 2.891% /
Latios - Calm Mind 4.507%)
Clefable - Calm Mind 64.536%
Slowbro - Calm Mind 21.114%
Sableye - Calm Mind 54.446%

(Nothing noteworthy uses Bulk Up)

Seems to me NP just doesn't get any love because of the blobs, but even among Pokemon that use the offensive boosters, the only Pokemon that clearly use it to sweep are Altaria, Gyarados, Talonflame, and Scizor. Calm Mind gets a little better representation among sweepers, of both the fast and slow variety.

Not saying any of this is bad or disqualifying, just giving the general layout of what we're dealing with.
 
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jas61292

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Yeah, I pretty much second what nyttyn is saying here. Pulling off two different boosts is something we know can work, but we don't really see that much, either due to it being niche (as Deck's post pretty much shows) or overpowering (mega Luke), depending on the mon. Making this the focus of a project to see how much the boost choice itself can help out a mon could be very interesting. It asks some good questions, and I don't really see any issues with the wording or anything.

Approved 2/2
 
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