CaP 24 Prevo - Part 2 - Ability Discussion

[DHR-107]

Hey All!

Lets get going with Ability Discussions! As I have said previously in the discussions for Brattler, Drought is an incredibly powerful Ability in LC:

Vulpix is the only Pokemon in LC to have the ability Drought. With the abilities to auto set up sun, Vulpix provided excellent support to Chlorophyll Pokemon such as Bellsprout and Bulbasaur. Sun hindered teambuilding and the dual Chlorophyll teams became too much so it was banned.

In this discussion I will once advocate against giving Jumbaby access to Drought like its evolution Jumbao. I do not want to be forced to outright Ban a CaP Prevo (Cawdet is currently banned through Gentleman's Agreement) because of an ability we pick. If there is good discussion for it then I may be forced to slate it, but it will likely mean that Jumbaby will not be playable ever.

I will update this thread when Jumbao's flavour ability has been decided, so this will be open for at least a couple of days. I would advise for the time being keeping discussion to Primary/Secondary abilities to replace the two we currently know, and then we can talk about the tertiary ability at a later point.

Jumbao's current Abilities are Drought and Trace.

 

[TerrickTerran]

I think that Leaf Guard might be an acceptable thing for Drought. It still involves the sun without causing the damage tht Drought would do so. Trace seems fine to me as its other ability.

 

[Nuukia]

I agree with Leaf Guard replacing Drought, and I'm also gonna suggest Chlorophyll as one of the possible abilities. Trace is good as well.

 

[akaFila]

I'd bring Solar Power up for discussion in replacing Drought. Leaf Guard would also be a solid option to replace this slot, but I find particular interest in Solar Power with it providing a more aggressive approach to the idea of 'sun support' being upheld. Trace would be just fine in keeping a slot.

Solar Power: If Sunny Day is active, this Pokemon's Sp. Atk is 1.5x; loses 1/8 max HP per turn.

As an adolescent plant/seed/whatever(Presumably), Jumbaby would appreciate soaking in all the rays possible and draw strength from such in turn

 

[Dogfish44]

Trace is Solid, like it's not godly flavour but it's not overwhelming to the point of changing it.

Precedent from Wingull, Poliwhirl, and Vanilluxe is that the Weather Summoning Ability is usually previously a weather-ability that doesn't summon - the exceptions are the Sand Stream mons (who all benefit directly from typing anyway). Any of Leaf Guard, Chlorophyll, and Solar Power will work imho.

 

[Y Parahax]

I really like Chlorophyll for the ability. Gives it a tie in to sunny weather and it was one of the abilities discussed a lot for Jumbao's primary ability, so I think it fits. Leaf Guard and Solar Power are also decent. I think it is fine to keep Trace on it.

 

[G-Luke]

We already got a Chlorophyll mon, and Leaf Guard is pure trash, so I think Solar Power is the right way to move in terms of sun based abilities for Jumbao's prevo. Trace ofc should not be replaced.

 

[Pipotchi]

I like the idea of Solar Power for the prevo, as well as keeping Trace. I dont like Leaf Guard so much because I feel like it forces the prevo to be leafy which limits concepts. Chlorophyll would also be decent but I prefer Solar Power.

 

[Bice]

I think keeping Trace on our baobaby is perfectly fine. There's no real need to replace it.

On the other hand, I definitely think we should replace Drought, as the baobaby probably wouldn't be strong enough to generate its own sunlight. Solar Power is my favorite suggestion, but I also like Leaf Guard and Chlorophyll.

 

[YellowAdminSilver]

Getting Trace out of the way first real quick: only two families get Trace, with the exception of a Mega, and in both cases it's shared across the whole line. Keep it pls.

Drought is most definitely a no-go for me. Most Pokémon who get weather-summoning abilities do so only upon reaching their final evolution; exceptions being both forms of Vulpix, Hippopotas and two other hail setters. Notably, none of the above evolve into particularly strong mons who directly benefit from their respective weathers.

For replacements, I'm not too keen on Solar Power. It's not bad, but the only Pokémon who get SP as a primary or secondary ability are the Sunker line, which is most likely an exception due to their terribly terribad power. If the primary ability is directly sun-related, I'd much rather get Chlorophyll.

That being said, I don't entirely agree with Doggo's statement that the ability must be weather-related--look at Roggenrola, Larvitar, Charmander (to an extent) and even Brattler (lol). Tbh the first ability that popped into my mind was Flash Fire, mainly because of a weird Vulpix connection. It's a bit out of left field, but it could work.

 

[Frostbiyt]

You guys ready for another controversial suggestion? So right off the bat, this suggestion has one big obvious problem. It is a legendary exclusive ability. That ability is Desolate Land. This ability would fall in line with Jumbao's ability as it is a variation on Drought. I think it would fit the design well as Baobab trees grow in desert (which some may describe as desolate) environments. Desolate land doesn't have the problem of making Jumbaby's(love that name btw) teammates too powerful since the effects end when it's withdrawn from battle. It would also directly buff any opponents carrying fire moves or with abilities enabled by the sun which would make it easier to dispatch Jumbaby.

As far as benefits for Jumbaby, Desolate Land would make solar beam and max synthesis recovery completely reliable barring cloud nine, it would be functionally immune to water moves which may be useful on certain teams, and it could be used to reset the weather either for your own team or against an opposing weather team.

As I said at the beginning of my post, this is a legendary exclusive ability so I find it unlikely to be considered. I would like to say in regard to that though, that Drought was also a legendary exclusive until gen 5 and this is CAP, we can do whatever we want. Although I would completely understand if this ability was rejected just on that basis and I won't debate it if that's what's decided.

So since that is unlikely, I would also like to throw some support behind Solar Power and Trace. I don't really like chlorophyll though since there are already so many grass type LC mons with that ability(12! Although only two of them are actually listed on the viability rankings).

 

[Project_Mars]

Desolate Land is a banned ability in all stages of the process.

I do agree with Getting Rid of Drought for the prevo. As for a replacement... I actually like Chlorophyll and Leaf Guard in that order. The idea of baobaby getting a boost from Jumbao seems pretty good, flavor-wise, with Chlorophyll seeming to be a much better fit out of the two. Trace should be fine.

 

[Clawed Nyasu]

Keeping Trace seems like a no-brainer.

Replacing Drought with a sun-boosting ability also seems like a fun idea, and of the three, Solar Power is the most appealing. Leaf Guard places unnecessary art restrictions, especially considering Jumbao doesn't even have many leaves, so it'd require Jumbaby to have more leaves for some reason.

 

[Scizivire]

I like the idea behind Flash Fire, but I think Heatproof would be better from a flavour standpoint.

Flash Fire currently is only available to Fire types, and I feel like living in an arid climate would not prevent you from taking any damage at all from any heat-based attack. However, I do think it would make you more resilient to heat, which is why I think Heatproof would make sense. Either way, I wouldn't complain if Flash Fire was chosen over Heatproof or other abilities.

I do think Trace would be fine on the prevo, though it may be hard to justify on the design considering people tend to relate Trace to Jumbao's ability to copy the opponent's fighting style. Not sure how much we could deviate from Jumbao's design without making a near identical, smaller version that way, but we'll see.

 

[Frostbiyt]

I'd also like to throw in Water Absorb. Baobabs are capable of storing large quantities of water in their trunks. There are three grass Pokemon currently that get water absorb, those being Cacnea, Cacturne, and Maractus. All three of which are based on cacti which also store large amounts of water in their trunks.

I also like the above suggestion of Heatproof. Apparently the bark of the Baobab is fire resistant.

 

[K. Roolest Shark]

We should keep Trace for the prevo, but replace Drought with Inner Focus as Jumbao is based on a Sumo and I imagine baobaby would be like the young sumos and train around their Inner Focus around becoming the wrestlers.

 

[Point_At_Me]

Trace should be kept while Drought should be replace with either Solar Power or Leaf Guard as sun-based should go.

 

[YellowAdminSilver]

Fwiw I agree Heatproof makes more sense than Flash Fire, since an outright Fire immunity might seem over-the-top and not really fit design-wise.

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

Generally, I see no reason to replace Trace, since it is already a pretty solid ability, so I won't touch on that much. As for the Drought replacement, Solar Power is the seemingly popular option, but I choose it because it can work really well. When you think about it, Jumbaby doesn't quite have thick enough bark yet, so it would make sense that it would smolder in overly harsh sunlight. For this reason, it has my support.

 

[Wulfanator]

I doubt there will be a lot of support for this, but Blaze could be an alternate to Drought. Sun and Blaze both give a 50% boost to fire moves.

Trace should remain the same.

 

[DHR-107]

So it has been decided that our final ability for Jumbao is Overcoat.

So far I have seen a lot of resistance to changing Trace so that option will likely remain on all the slates I determine to come up with for this project. I am looking at the following so far:

Solar Power/Trace
Leaf Guard/Trace
Chlorophyll/Trace

Opening up discussion on tertiary ability as of now!

 

[Point_At_Me]

Pre-evo should keep Overcoat as my opinion but my opinion might change depends on the design we might get

 

[YellowAdminSilver]

A bit disappointed Heatproof didn't make it, would probably not have won but it was still a cool idea.

Looking at the mons who get Overcoat ingame, all of them share the ability throughout their entire evolutionary family, so picking something else feels like change for the sake of change. Monohm and Duclohm are the sole exceptions (sort of), since they lose Overcoat for Cyclohm's Damp.

The only ability that I can think of that could be seen as pre-Overcoat flavor-wise would be Leaf Guard if that one didn't win the first poll, but those don't even do the same thing, really. Vital Spirit keeps the Sleep Powder immunity from Overcoat and fits with a more juvenile mon, but is completely useless due to the Grass typing. Again, change for the sake of change.

 

[Reviloja753]

Frankly, I see no reason to change Overcoat. It’s usually seen throughout the line. Monohm and Duclohm only loses it atm due to the fact that prevos hasn’t come around to them. Overcoat has decent flavor and perhaps competitive use in LC for Sand Plinks. Idk how sand plinks work here but still.

 

[Deck Knight]

I think an interesting option that hasn't been discussed is Flower Veil. Flower Veil acts like a Leaf Guard that actually does what it's supposed to do when it's on a Grass type, which is protect against Status. There are a ton of Chlorophyll mons in LC, having Jumbao Prevo do something unique with a useful ability that isn't sun related might be cool.