CAP 25 - Part 7 - Competitive Ability Discussion

[Roland le preaux]

Also, I don't see any mention of Flower Veil for 25g. It's exclusively used as doubles ability due to its fickle effect condition so it's rather unexplored, but seems to be pretty strong and worth exploring imo.

You're kidding right?

I want to address the challenge we are dealing with here: Making a grass-type starter viable in CAP/OU. This is no easy feat. We can't be afraid of making something too strong... that should actually be our goal. CAP is full of OU legendaries, Ultra Beasts, and CAP-psuedo-legendaries with amazing stats and enormous movepools that a regular starter can't hope to compete with. Just look at Serperior, it is a very fast mon with one of the most broken ability/movepool combinations in the game. But even in regular OU Serperior is often only BL nowadays, and in the CAP metagame it is virtually unseen. This means we are going to have to really make these starters pretty broken in order to make them viable.

If we are talking about abilities with power: Grass Electric have significant sustain which gives greater credence to abilities like Water Compaction and/or Stamina. Combined with the limited stat spread both of these come in absolute wonders: we can mitigate low defense and completely sack attack to switch into Scalds without fear for the former, and allow free reign in items with Leftovers, AV, Choice Specs/Scarf, Life Orb, and have some significant welly in the offense department, and provoding perfect bait for Tomohawk: Tomo has to come in a Haze away to prevent a Snowball especially in the case of Stamina, but then has to eat a STAB electric attack.

While I understand your reasoning a bit more... neither of these abilities is strong enough to accomplish our goals. There is a reason not a single Pokemon has a viable set with Amnesia or Acid Armor: defensive stat boosting just isn't that good. So we switch CAP25g into a Scald, potentially get burned, get a boost to our Defense via one of the above abilities, and then what? We are still vulnerable to Ice Beam, Bug Buzz, Hurricane, etc. They can still switch in Plasmanta or Mega Venusaur on us and have a field day. We'd just get forced out and have absolutely no way to capitalize on those Defense boosts.

Let me reiterate. If we want CAP 25g to be viable in the CAP/OU metagame, we have to be prepared to go further than they did with Serperior. Situational defensive stat boosts just aren't going to cut it. Right now my top 3 choices for CAP 25g are, in order of preference:

1) No Guard

2) Prankster

3) Triage (I'm less inclined toward this one because it seems more appropriate on a revenge killing wincon or set-up sweeper than on some sort of specialist... but I can't deny that it has potential)

 

[InvalidOS]

1. Regarding CAP25f, what offensive abilities have good ability-movepool interaction? Which one is the most effective with regard to its Fire / Ground typing and why?

I think that having Mold Breaker on it would be good for it. Mostly because it would be able to hit Pokemon that have Levitate with it's Ground-type attacks, which is very helpful against some Pokemon like Rotom-Wash and Lati@s who would otherwise force it to switch. It could also ignore Unaware, helping against Clefable and Arghonaut. It also wouldn't take damage from hitting Ferrothorn, though it might not care about that damage.

2. Regarding CAP25w, what defensive abilities can take advantage of ability-movepool interactions? If the ability cannot create direct interactions, how does the ability enable CAP25w’s movepool to be used to maximum potential?

Stamina. This could turn into a very annoying physical wall. Reasons for giving it Stamina were given in earlier posts, so I'll just sum the biggest reasons up here. It would increase how long it could stay out and allow it to set up hazards and/or boosts more easily.
I'd recommend giving this guy low special defense if you decide on giving this guy Stamina, for obvious reasons.

3. Regarding CAP25g, what are some roles that current Grass-types in the CAP Metagame currently do not achieve? What abilities facilitate this new role? How does Grass / Electric typing help CAP25g execute this role?

Something I don't think I've seen achieved by a Grass type in CAP would be a Pokemon that utilizes Unaware offensively. Now, this does already exist in CAP in the form of Arghonaut, but, of course, Arghonaut is not Grass type, and this usage of Unaware could have been unintentional. Grass/Electric means it can check threats utilizing defensive stat boosts, such as CAP25w and Hawlucha. It could also hit Clefable and Zygarde for neutral damage, but going in against Zygarde would likely be too risky for it.

Also, if you haven't noticed, each of the abilities actually counter each other. (Except maybe Mold Breaker and Stamina, i'm not sure if that works)

 

[Guzzy]

Maybe Unaware could be the ability for CAP25w? I think it'd be useful for a defensive 'mon to be able to ignore its opponents attack boosts; like, look at Clefable, for example.

 

[Rifou88]

how does guaranteed Crit Set Up Sweeper that doesn't have to rely on items with Fire/Ground coverafe NOT work, and be anti concept?

I can guarandteed it won't work simply because x1.5 damage output is not enough. it like a non-stackable work up. seriously, do you really think that a sweeper that can only boost it-self at +1 is good only because it can aply that +1 to unware? it is simply not strong enough, sorry.

Mythlore replied for me to the merciless part.

 

[CharSiuEmboar]

If dedensive stat boosting isnt effective why is tge arguably archetypal worst CAPmon, Malaconda, suggested as being broken as a potential idea?

As a 4x Water Resist, and especially if it can ignore Burn in some way, 25g is getting free boosts that allow it to ignore the starter BST limitations. Stamina more freely, except without the crippling Uturn weakness.

And you are saying its not enough? What is it you are smoking? Assault Vest + Stamina with HP sustain is damn fat and allow defensive momentum generation. Worst comes to worst, it requires a guaranteed poisom switch in to deal with, allowing an easy switch.

I'

In my opinion, Merciless is the most fitting ability for the concept that has been suggested for any of the three starters. The concept is to maximize the potential of the ability. While one way to maximize Merciless would be to spread poison as much as possible (as Toxapex would probably do if Merciless wasn't overshadowed by Regenerator) another way to maximize it is by beating Steel and Poison types. Fire/Ground is the perfect typing to do the latter, as you both beat the types that can't be poisoned and have good enough STAB coverage to run poisoning utility moves as well. Merciless has the benefits that Super Luck and Sniper have while having the freedom to set up earlier in the battle. It doesn't require a specific item in Scope Lens while still being able to be used on the first turn should the opposing pokemon be poisoned earlier in the battle.

While it doesn't maintain the power should the opponent switch out like a set-up Sniper or Super Luck would, it has room to set-up earlier in the game and maintain the set-up even when itself switches out. Due to teammates being able to set-up the poison as well allows 25f to still be effective even in matchups where it is unable to set-up. Since we are limited to starter BST, our bulk will likely be sub-optimal which limits the effectiveness of setting up which Sniper and some Super Luck sets would require.


Frankly no idea why you think this - at worst Merciless gives us enough power to allow us to have a lower attack and get more bulk. At best it gives us enough power to allow 25f to be a relevant threat in the metagame even with the starter BST.


Also I don't follow what you are saying here - Sniper has room to achieve 100% crit through a +2 crit move (normal or Z) and high crit move, or a +2 crit move and scope lens. I'm not sure where the 33% power number comes from as you would likely never run a Sniper set that doesn't achieve 100% crit after setting up.

If after what i posted (essentially merciless limiting a SR weak mon in moves or team viability while provinding no oomph against a massive part of the metagame), while providing no significant emphasis over Super Luck, especially while subBST on things like Heatran or Zard X, theres not much more we can talk about, as you are essentially saying that it's weaker than Super Luck, and think that it's too powerful?

Merciless provides less uptick in damage than Super Luck does due to the ease at which the Poison condition can be mitigated, Sniper and Super Luck only though an ability, or set depending Knock Off, and sometimes not even then. Mercipess is objectively weaker.

So why is it still being supported?

 

[Deck Knight]

I'd like to mirror Dogfish44 's sentiments.

What I'm looking for in abilities is a few distinct qualities. They ought to be immediately or imminently useful (as in from the gate or after only one turn, such as Poison Heal's activation or Sniper's setup turn), they ought to be centered around the user's condition rather than the opponent's, and they ought to significantly alter the set of useful moves to each respective CAP.

For 25f this puts abilities like Super Luck, Sniper, Technician, and Mold Breaker in the spotlight. The thread seems to have understood this push, although it helps that so many movepool interacting abilities are offensive. Merciless on the other hand centers its condition around the opponent's status, making it more unreliable unless your team is completely avoiding the use of Scald/Lava Plume/Glare etc.

25w seems to be the mental block for most people because most defensive abilities don't have direct interactions. Poison Heal has interactions with a handful of moves and only needs the single turn or switch-in to something other than Knock Off or a permanent status inducing move to activate the first time.

Contrary also interacts with a handful of moves, these ones in particular being decent coverage for a Bug/Water type in addition to their defensive or offensive properties. It punishes Intimidate and Shadow Strike from Kitsunoh, as well as other random stat-drop hax. To the extent Bug and Water moves are both incredibly useful on something like an Assault Vest set, this ability gives that set more utility.

My issue with Magic Guard is it's going to operate indistinguishably from Krilowatt. Attach Life Orb, become an attacker. While Magic Bounce doesn't share that exact property, it is extraordinarily powerful and defining but if anything it has anti-move interactions because it makes some support moves on the CAP almost obsolete.

I'd like to bring up a new potential ability for 25w: Refrigerate or Aerilate. This seems odd for a defensive ability so let me explain: Normal has a few moves whose only flaw is that Ghost types are immune to them. They are fairly effective even without STAB, and when combined with Water and Bug STABs become very effective coverage. Since we are still barring specific moves, I'll just elaborate by saying Normal's fixed damage, hazard removal, and low-BP stopgap options welcome the ability to be used unimpeded by any immunity. While Pixilate would also perform this function, Refrigerate or Aerilate meshes the best with 25w's STABs by covering common Dragon/Grass types/Flying or Grass/Fighting types that resist one of 25w's two STABs. The best defensive Grass types in CAP (Pyroak and Ferrothorn) are neutral or weak to either of these abilities, but resist Pixilate.

And also a set: Snow Warning or Ice Body. The direction these abilities would be going in are fairly obvious, they allow use of one very specific support move that only works in Hail more effectively. This support move is incredibly powerful but currently only on Pokemon with very bad weakness/resistance profiles, a trait 25W doesn't really have, SR weakness aside.

Finally on 25g. Much like 25f, a few of the more obvious stand-out offensive abilities like Triage, Prankster, Galvanize, and No Guard have been discussed, and they all seem to fit the right mold.

 

[naturalstupidity]

Discussion right now seems to be going in circles about which of the crit abilities to give CAPf, so I'm going to try and revitalize conversation on CAPw. In my opinion, its ideal ability is the seemingly-undiscussed Marvel Scale.

Marvel Scale is among the most pro-concept abilities we can give CAPw that also aids its defensive role. Many of the discussion points (Poison Heal, Magic Guard, Magic Bounce, etc.) are centered around turning CAPw into a status absorber. It's fairly obvious how Marvel Scale does this. Furthermore, it has the same move synergies that the other abilities do, allowing a successful general defensive set. It also directly synergizes with Special Defense-boosting options to create a mon with excellent mixed bulk and defensive abilities. What I find particularly interesting, though, is its relationship with Rest. (I'm not sure if this is polljumping since we're basically guaranteed to have it, but if it is I'll edit this out) Rest makes this very difficult to take down from the physical side, and allows for various mono-attacking sets with utility options (a la Zygarde) or boosting (a la CroCune). Marvel Scale gives CAPw similar status-absorbing utilities as other proposed abilities while having direct move relationships that allow CAPw to fill defensive niches, and is easier to actualize than other choices. As such, I firmly believe Marvel Scale is the ideal choice.

 

[faithviolet]

I want to agree with Dogfish44 and Roland le preaux that we need quite high power levels of ability to allow our low-stat starter Pokemon to be viable in the CAP metagame.

Dealing with the water-type for now, Infiltrator, Water Compaction, Ice Body, Marvel Scale, even Analytic on a defensive mon, all are so underwhelming in power we really can't consider them if we want to be viable.

I move on to those on the weaker end but not immediately discardable.

1. Snow Warning allows for immediate powerful defensive set-up, but unfortunately deals chip damage to our own defensive Pokemon. It also requires significant team support.

2. -ate abilities allow better utility against ghost-type Pokemon, which is niche but very useful when relevant. Primarily the abilities allow the CAP to fit more supporting moves on its movepool because its previously-normal-type moves are guaranteed to work.

3. Corrosion allows better utility against Poison-type and Steel-type Pokemon. This is more likely to be relevant, as Ferrothorn and Celesteela among others really do not want to be poisoned. It is still only a way to get around one specific interaction, and so potentially useless in many games.

Then there are the powerful abilities. They are more likely to be able to make 25w viable, but tend to have less movepoll interaction.

1. Fluffy's strong defensive strengths cover nicely with its resistance to Earthquake, and help it withstand the amount of offensive pressure that OU has. It has a strong interaction with a single move, and weak interaction with moves that boost Special Defense, as most contact moves are physical.

2. Contrary is the one strong ability with a large amount of movepool interaction. With high-BP moves that reduce the user's stats, 25w can boost up in stats while still providing pressure. However, the defensive power of this ability has nothing to do with our typing, and it's easily countered by Tomohawk and other hazers.

3. Magic Guard helps out the weaknesses of our typing by stopping all chip damage, such as from Poison and Stealth Rock, both of which are major obstacles to our viability. However, it encourages Life Orb and offensive moves, and can compete with Krillowatt for a teamslot, while having less optimized stats.

4. Magic Bounce is powerful, also can help prevent Stealth Rock damage (while having SE STAB against many common setters), avoids most poison, and cannot be taunted, all of which are valuable on a defensive pokemon. Unfortunately, it has only a few moves that synergize with it, among them many pseudo-status moves that are especially useful on switch-in, which Magic Bounce can be expected to do more often.

5. Poison Heal gives gradual healing, which is valuable on a defensive Pokemon, while preventing poison damage, and synergizes with other gradual healing moves. It's less powerful than some of the other abilities here because it takes up the item slot, but still can be a massive threat, as Gliscor's power testifies to.

Additionally, there are a few mistakes I want to address.

As a 4x Water Resist, and especially if it can ignore Burn in some way, 25g is getting free boosts that allow it to ignore the starter BST limitations. Stamina more freely, except without the crippling Uturn weakness.

merciless limiting a SR weak mon

1. Neither Grass/Electric nor Water/Bug is a 4x Water resist.

2. None of the abilities suggested for 25g or 25w allow it to ignore burn.

3. Fire/Ground is not weak to Stealth Rock.

subBST on things like Heatran or Zard X

not be able to deal crits against Levitate, Flying, Steel or Poison mon

more relevant than a mon which can run at the minimum of 2 sets in order to achieve the same effect (autocrit)

1. Heatran and Zard X are beaten by our Ground STAB, and so the difficulty of poisoning them is irrelevant.

2. Again, Steel and Poison Pokemon we can beat with our Ground-type attacks, so not being able to deal crits against them is not a weakness. And Latias/Latios are on our checklist, so it's okay to be not as good at dealing with them.

3. In order to guarantee a critical hit, Super Luck needs an additional +2 critical hit. In addition to the opportunity cost of having Super Luck as our ability, losing an item slot hurts, reducing the power of the offensive moveset to use high-crit-chance moves instead of high-BP-moves hurts, and losing a turn and a moveslot hurts even more. There is no way Super Luck is abusable enough to make it worth it.

 

[Sereg]

As much as I want a Merciless mon, Merciless shoots a Fire type in the foot, as they no longer want to burn their opponent, which so many of their attacks do. If we were making a pure ground type (or better, part Ghost type, due to a certain move), it would be amazing, but that's not what we have to work with.

I actually agree that Galvanize can work well for 25g. The arguments in favour of it are good.

For 25w, we really want a strong ability to make up for our Stealth Rock weakness and lower stats, which is why I support Prankster (we can sacrifice some speed for more bulk and possible offensive presence, but can still use the status moves we need quickly) and Contrary (support from several moves and it would be nice to have a mon that uses Contrary defensively). As many people were worried about Toxic, I think that Poison Heal and Marvel Scale also seem like good concepts, though I like the fact that the latter has more options and is less in the limelight than the former.

EDIT:V Oh, I looove Triage on 25w. As said, it has clear interactions, and can not only e used defensively, but can be used in a non-passive fashion with one of our STABs. Simple can work well too, admittedly.

 

[Birkal]

These Pokemon each maximize the potential of their given, separate abilities by coordinating their movepools and that ability's competitive effect.

As we discuss abilities on CAP 25w, I think it’s imperative to remember the concept, specifically over the arbitrary goal we set of being a “defensive” mon. Abilities like Poison Heal, Magic Guard, and Regenerator are amazing defensive abilities, but they don’t directly address the concept. People argue that these stellar abilities actualize moves like recovery and hazards, but it really doesn’t. That just makes a good defensive mon.

A good criteria I have been thinking on is the difference a utilized ability versus an inherent ability. A utilized one directly affects a move that you need to click. This would be Iron Fist boosting a Fire Punch — it takes a turn and requires a move. An inherent ability doesn’t require a turn to use. Magic Guard inherently prevents status. Poison Heal inherently heals poison. The former (utilized) is precisely our concept, while the latter (inherent) won’t end up with a product that fits the concept without some convoluted reasoning that is convincing to the community at large.

That’s why I think we need to look much closer at utilized abilities. Contrary, Simple, Snow Warning, and Triage should be getting a lot more discussion for CAP 25w. Pipotchi also made a great point that a defensive Pokémon doesn’t need to run a full defensive set. 3 attacks Zapdos is still a defensive mon. If someone has a utilized defensive ability to suggest, I’m all ears. But otherwise, I urge us to go offensive with our ability to actually fulfill the concept. A defensive mon with some teeth are definitely viable, as noted by mons like Celesteela and Tangrowth.

 

[Roland le preaux]

As we discuss abilities on CAP 25w, I think it’s imperative to remember the concept, specifically over the arbitrary goal we set of being a “defensive” mon. Abilities like Poison Heal, Magic Guard, and Regenerator are amazing defensive abilities, but they don’t directly address the concept. People argue that these stellar abilities actualize moves like recovery and hazards, but it really doesn’t. That just makes a good defensive mon.

A good criteria I have been thinking on is the difference a utilized ability versus an inherent ability. A utilized one directly affects a move that you need to click. This would be Iron Fist boosting a Fire Punch — it takes a turn and requires a move. An inherent ability doesn’t require a turn to use. Magic Guard inherently prevents status. Poison Heal inherently heals poison. The former (utilized) is precisely our concept, while the latter (inherent) won’t end up with a product that fits the concept without some convoluted reasoning that is convincing to the community at large.

That’s why I think we need to look much closer at utilized abilities. Contrary, Simple, Snow Warning, and Triage should be getting a lot more discussion for CAP 25w. Pipotchi also made a great point that a defensive Pokémon doesn’t need to run a full defensive set. 3 attacks Zapdos is still a defensive mon. If someone has a utilized defensive ability to suggest, I’m all ears. But otherwise, I urge us to go offensive with our ability to actually fulfill the concept. A defensive mon with some teeth are definitely viable, as noted by mons like Celesteela and Tangrowth.

So this is very hard to address without polljumping, but I will try. I would argue that Prankster can be a utilized defensive ability for CAP 25w, with priority recovery and utility moves benefiting directly from the ability. I also think Regenerator, when paired with a common and extremely useful STAB pivoting move, could fulfill the concept of an amazingly actualized ability that benefits CAP 25w as a potentially slow-pivoting defensive mon. Magic Guard, Marvel Scale, and Poison Heal, when paired with specific status moves (like that incredibly annoying Sigilyph set we all know) could also be defensive abilities that are directly utilized by the movepool.

I do however think Contrary, Simple, and Triage are all interesting possibilities for CAP 25w. Snow Warning I am completely against, as it doesn't provide immunity to hail damage and a defensive mon cannot afford to lose 1/16th of its health every turn with no obvious benefit. This is especially true of a defensive mon with a Stealth Rock weakness.

 

[Pipotchi]

As we discuss abilities on CAP 25w, I think it’s imperative to remember the concept, specifically over the arbitrary goal we set of being a “defensive” mon. Abilities like Poison Heal, Magic Guard, and Regenerator are amazing defensive abilities, but they don’t directly address the concept. People argue that these stellar abilities actualize moves like recovery and hazards, but it really doesn’t. That just makes a good defensive mon.

These abilities, whilst being generically good, also are explicitly fitting the concept. All three synergize with recoil, Regenerator synergizes with pivoting moves, and Poison Heal synergizes with the obvious unnamed attack ( :| ) and protection moves. Im not gunna list the big list of indirect synergies cus I dont wanna debate that part any more hehe.

I think the situation you're describing is a case of "these Pokemon can choose to totally ignore move synergy and still benefit greatly from the ability", unlike other abilities that need to be activated by a move first. There's also an element of "this pokemon gets freebies without even clicking any moves" when it comes to abilities like Regenerator. I think there's also an element of "but these moves are low impact/niche! why would we use them?"
But we are able to create these Pokemon in a way that they will be encouraged to use their synergistic moves, through stats and other moves in the movepool that work well paired with them. Would Cawmodore still use the niche move Belly Drum all the time if it got Roost+utilty options? Hell no. We've guided CAPs towards their intended movepools so many times, I dont see why we wouldnt do it here also. And its not a case of forcing moves into bad movesets or gutting their movesets of good alternatives, we are still going to cater stats to benefit these synergistic moves too, plus giving incentives to use those moves. For instance, a Breloom might not want to use Focus Punch because its a niche move. But if it has a synergistic move like Spore which renders a pokemon incapable of moving for a turn, Focus Punch becomes more usable. In this situation, Focus Punch is the niche move that might synergize with the ability, and Spore is an additional supportive aspect to encourage usage. While this example isnt perfect, its what I could think of without connecting it to our mentioned abilities (even tho breloom has poison heal also, this isnt a poison heal example)! Another example is maybe I'd be more encouraged to use a Dark-type move that synergizes with the ability if I have a powerful but ability-unrelated Fairy-type move in my movepool, because then I can create a really nice coverage with 2 moves. There are a lot of good things about Poison Heal 25w from the get-go. But it doesnt become viable without a strong movepool. Its our job to not just throw in a bunch of powerful unrelated moves that allow Poison Heal to be a side-factor, we have to guide the Pokemon towards actualization. This is going to be essential for the defensive abilities!!

And as a side-point, this is the difference between the above interactions and Magic Bounce for me. Magic Bounce is the standout of "this Pokemon can ignore move synergy and still be incredible". Magic Bounce doesnt need anything to be a threatening force in the metagame, because its role is so valuable for switching into hazards and status- an advantage you can gain without clicking a move whatsoever (and thats the point of its strength). At first I thought perhaps it needs recovery, but honestly even without it could become an enormous pain. We'd be lying to ourselves to say that Magic Bounce would be successful for its movepool synergy because thats not what makes Magic Bounce special in the first place. Besides its free momentum from switching in, its otherwise near-identical to Magic Guard (excluding Taunt, and being not ENTIRELY status immune).

 

[snake]

Hi everyone! It's time for me to comment on CAP25w abilities now. I'll be using the same format as my last post on CAP25g. Let's get started!

Magic Bounce: So this ability has seen a lot of ups and downs in this thread. Balancing issues aside, I really can't see how we're coordinating ability and movepool with this one. Not even with looser connections. There's really just no move that you can link to Magic Bounce abuse. The ability really seems anti-concept and also hard to balance. Remember that this mon has a BST range near 535 and that, obviously, the mon will have an item slot. Mega Sableye has a BST of 480 and no item slot. Even though Mega Sableye might be facing some issues in the current metagame, this brings up a lot of balance issues, especially when considering recovery, which most defensive Pokemon need to function well, especially in this metagame. Given these worries I'm really hesitant to consider this ability as a contender for this stage. Coordinating a Pokemon's movepool to fit Magic Bounce just doesn't seem feasible when everything benefits from Magic Bounce.

Battle Armor: There is a weak connection to this ability with setup moves. Calm Mind Mega Slowbro has shown that being unable to crit through boosting is very annoying. However, like Magic Bounce, it's really hard to find this ability pro-concept where there isn't a move that directly abuses it, in addition to the weaker connection to setup moves.

Stamina: Definitely has a connection to recovery moves, as gaining Defense boosts doesn't mean anything if you don't have the HP to abuse those boosts. As for a defensive ability, it's obviously good to slowly wall a physical attacker better and better if they vainly try to break past the Pokemon by spamming contact attacks.

Poison Heal: As a defensive ability, it's connection with protection moves means it's linked better to the concept better than other defensive abilities. Definitely an ability that's relates the concept, as you can tailor a Pokemon's movepool towards abusing this ability. Being poison-proof is really fantastic for a defensive Pokemon in this metagame and sets it apart from other bulky water-types in combination with its resistance to Ground-type attacks.

Prankster: It has solid movepool-ability coordination, as we've seen with previous Prankster Pokemon, but it borderlines on being a blanket booster, as it positively affects every status move. Overall though, if we figure out what this Pokemon wants to do defensively with Prankster, it can definitely happen, but we need to be conscious of balancing issues.

Oblivious: This feels a lot like Battle Armor. It enables utility moves in the same way, but there's no direct connection.

Gluttony: To properly abuse the ability, you need a certain move, which qualifies for the concept. Overall, though, the only merit that abusing pinch berries would be that you get instant recovery rather than having to predict with a recovery move, but that means you're eating an item slot too. The concept does work, but it feels more item-ability-based than movepool-ability based, even if it requires a move to reach its full potential.

Magic Guard: This ability also has the same problem that Magic Bounce has. Alleviating the Stealth Rock weakness definitely helps, but it's not enabling any particular subset of moves.

Regenerator: Pivoting moves synergize with this ability pretty well, and mitigating the Stealth Rock weakness does help as a Pokemon. The thing with Regenerator is that it works without the pivoting move, but with one, a Regenerator Pokemon can pivot more dynamically than without it. The connection is there, but it's a little bit of a stretch.

Corrosion: It's hard to say much bad to an ability that fits the concept well, with not only one move that's rather obviously coordinated but also a few more related moves as well.

Serene Grace: It fits the concept because you can definitely tailor a movepool to Serene Grace. Stepping back though, it will be a Pokemon based on hax, even if we don't go with a paraflinching route, which makes me question its actualization and whether or not we want to build something like that.

Infiltrator: This feels like the Magic Guard thing. Bypassing substitutes doesn't really help certain moves. You don't really tailor a movepool to a Pokemon with Infiltrator - it's just good for any target move it could run to hit past Substitutes.

Water Compaction: Falls in the same boat as Stamina. It needs a recovery move to make the most of the defense boosts.

Contrary: Contrary fits concept for obvious reasons, but I'm confused about the role it will play. Is it trying to be a slow sweeper with an off-type boosting move like Malamar? Or is it trying to gather defense boosts with moves that have low PP? It definitely interacts with a subset of moves, but I'm concerned about the actual, well, actualization of the ability.

Triage: It fits concept, and a defensive Pokemon will always take priority recovery and a priority STAB draining move (even though it really won't hit THAT hard). It's hard to say much bad about it.

Analytic: A defensive Pokemon punishing a switch-in is definitely interesting, even if we have seen the terror Analytic can cause with Volkraken, However, it's the same thing with some other abilities in that you just don't tailor a movepool to Analytic. If any analytic Pokemon had a different ability, the moveset would stay the same or change around the new ability - not because of the lack of Analytic.

I'm now putting these abilities into groups - keep in mind that the last list will need some serious arguments for their case (you could argue the existence of the last list too). Also, keep in mind that this is an attempt to categorize defensive abilities that have a harder time supporting the concept.

Has a direct link to movepool AND weaker movepool-ability coordination:
Poison Heal
Prankster
Corrosion
Triage

Only has weaker connections to movepool-ability coordination:
Stamina
Gluttony (due to item-based coordination rather than movepool)
Regenerator
Water Compaction

Questionable actualization:
Serene Grace
Contrary

Hard to tailor movepool to ability because it doesn't have to run certain moves for it to work:
Magic Bounce
Battle Armor
Oblivious
Magic Guard
Infiltrator
Analytic

Expect a post on CAP25f soon!

 

[Rifou88]

quick post to defend stamina:

stamina doesn't only benefit from recover but also from spdef boosting movse (because it's good to have one defense stats boosted, but having both allows you to sweep) and from moves that cure status (because mega-bro knows how annoying status are for a defensive sweeper) and directly increase the bp of the two moves that I can't name. It's also intresting to note that turning cap25w in a late game sweeper that just comes one and set-up itself means that it will take sr only once, so it limit our weakness to hazards, in a certain way.

edit: removed the glutony part, i didn't read snake's post well engough

 

[Warren685]

quick post to defend stamina and gluttony (cheek pouf in fact):

stamina doesn't only benefit from recover but also from spdef boosting movse (because it's good to have one defense stats boosted, but having both allows you to sweep).

Stamina doesn't really benefit from sp.def boost it's more of a bonus then benefit. Sp.def boosts wouldn't matter much if Stamina is on a physical wall, since we're working with starter BST we have to make the most of it.

concerning gluttony, it needs a precise move to work, so it is move-related. And anyway, cheek pouf is better than gluttony: iapapa gluttony heals 1/2 = 0.50 of max hp while sitrus cheek pouf heals 1/4 + 1/3 = 0.58.

Also Snake already pointed out that Gluttony needs move synergy to work, no need to repeat that, anyway the thing about Gluttony and Cheek Pouch is that it'll be a very predictable set to run since you would need a move to re-obtain the berry and you're using up a item slot to run this defensive pokemon. This set would also be easy to destroy if a faster pokemon uses Knock Off.

 

[Rifou88]

Stamina doesn't really benefit from sp.def boost it's more of a bonus then benefit. Sp.def boosts wouldn't matter much if Stamina is on a physical wall, since we're working with starter BST we have to make the most of it.

my idea for stamina is that it would turn cap25w in some late game sweeper, so that would work far better with spdef boost, to set up one defense while the other boosts it-self the same turn.

 

[Warren685]

my idea for stamina is that it would turn cap25w in some late game sweeper, so that would work far better with spdef boost, to set up one defense while the other boosts it-self the same turn.

Ok that's your idea for it, but as of right now, Stamina doesn't really have a strong support with movepool as to something like Poison Heal or Corrosion. Stamina users would prioritize more on recovery rather then buffing their defenses to become a good wall. So unless there's more solid support for it, the chance of it getting slated is low.

 

[snake]

Alright, CAP25f, the new offensive juggernaut needs an ability. Let's talk about them!

Mold Breaker: As far as I can tell, Mold Breaker just takes some checks and then throws them out of a 40-story building. Suddenly Mega Latios can't switch into Ground-type STAB or Heatran can't be brave and switch into a Fire-type STAB. I'm really confused about this ability because even though it fits concept, it screws over our threatlist.

Simple: No. I'm sorry but Simple isn't going to work on a Pokemon like this. A Pokemon with 535 BST has enough flexibility to make even Simple Work Up into a good mixed set. Gaining 4 boosts in one turn is absolutely insane, so I'm really hesitant on allowing this ability because Fire / Ground is such a good offensive typing.

Magnet Pull: Steel-types are important to the metagame. Having a Pokemon that floors all of them isn't healthy. Definitely banned as of now.

Super Luck: This ability has gone through twists and turns throughout the thread. It does fit concept in that you can tailor crit-based moves to movepool and focus setup around that, but it forces us to go physically attacking. Other abilities allow more flexibility, so while this is a contender, it's not the best of the bunch.

Sniper: I was a little iffy about Sniper in the beginning of the thread, but after we determined that Scope Lens isn't always the best option, I'm a little more open to it. However, it really plays on hax if we do so, which isn't the end for the ability, but to put it in perspective, after the Pokemon has increased its crit chance by 2, it has a 50% chance to do normal damage or a 50% change to do more than twice that. Requiring a free turn might seem like this is ok, but with such a great STAB combination, I'm worried about such a damage range when balancing for stats.

Merciless: This crit ability, on the other hand, seems like we're working towards something. Tailoring a Merciless Pokemon to movepool is actually rather simple with our typing. Basically any Pokemon that doesn't mind getting poisoned will fall prey to one of CAP25's STAB moves. While this might have detrimental side effects to our threatlist, a more limited movepool and stat spread can overcome these features.

Sheer Force: Definitely fits concept, even if Mega Camerupt exists. The only gripe I have is that basically no physical Ground-type STAB can take advantage of Sheer Force without being outclassed by another physical Ground-type move.

Compound Eyes: Improving the accuracy for certain moves is a reasonable approach for this concept. We can tailor movepool easily to take advantage of Compound Eyes as well. For CAP25f I'm a fan of this one.

No Guard: Similar to Compound Eyes, we can improve accuracy, while enabling a really annoying Fire-type move. With this in mind, I'm a little hesitant whether or not we want to enable this move, alongside a lot of powerful coverage moves. Just infer nothing from this comment :)

Hustle: Hustle actually provides a really cool dynamic with mixed sets. Given that staters generally have good mixed stats, CAP25f could run a specially oriented set with a physical move to deal with certain Pokemon (with a little luck, of course). Tailoring a movepool for Hustle CAP25f would mean having a primarily special movepool and choosing physical moves specifically, as well as choosing stat spread carefully. If we take this approach, I think Hustle could be really interesting. If we just try to spam physical moves though, it's no different than abilities like Guts, where basically any physical move gets boosted and "we did it."

Skill Link: Fits concept, but I'm not sure about the actualization of it. Some of our checks and counters get mauled over by Skill Link-boosted moves, and while I'm not exactly against having coverage for these Pokemon, a cumulatively 125BP mutli-hit coverage move might not be the most balanced plan.

Technician: Also fits concept, but some balancing issues come into play when factoring Hidden Power, which appears on every Pokemon. If physical, it could run Hidden Power to somewhat circumvent checks like Landorus-T, but if it's Special, it has access to whatever 90BP coverage move it wants. It could be a balancing issue, but there are connections to movepool, which makes it pro-concept.

Refrigerate / Galvanize: Reliably smashing our checks and counters with these moves is not good for the project, and having the ability be the central focus of the concept means that these abilities won't take a back seat.

Serene Grace: There are a couple moves that would reliably take advantage of this ability, but we'd have to closely examine which ones are healthy and which ones are not. It achieves movepool-ability, though.

Download: I'm not exactly seeing the movepool-ability coordination here aside from the ability to go mixed, rather unreliably too. I think Hustle is honestly more interesting than Download at this point.

Competitive / Defiant: While these abilities might seem like they don't have any interactions with moves, they are really good for CAP25f if it wants to set up hazards, as it can punish hazard removal and set them right back up. It's a weaker contender, but I think it's interesting.

Multiscale: This ability is really interesting. Although the direct movepool-ability link is weak, it creates potential setup opportunities for this Pokemon in a not-so-broken way. It'd be an interesting ability to work with for sure.

Again, here are some lists to sort out the abilities. I really don't want to see much from the last list, unless someone can elucidate Download.

Good ability-movepool coordination:
Sheer Force
Compound Eyes
Serene Grace

Weaker movepool coordination:
Super Luck
Hustle
Competitive / Defiant
Multiscale

Potential balancing issues:
Mold Breaker
Sniper
Merciless
No Guard
Technician

Actualization issues:
Skill Link

Pressures threatlist too much / is broken / doesn't coordinate movepool with ability:
Simple
Magnet Pull
Refrigerate / Galvanize
Download

 

[jas61292]

So, I just want to make a general comment about abilities that people have talked about as being potentially unbalancing: they will all be perfectly balanced. No, seriously. We are making starters. That means some serious limitations, especially on stats. And not just in the BST category. We are not going to get any super high stats, and we are not having any obvious dump stats either. There is only one starter that is broken in the current metagame, and as much as people love blaming that on ability alone, it is the combination of a fantastic ability, great offensive typing, stats to perfectly abuse its ability, ability to boost offenses, and dual STAB attacks with 120+ power. We do not need to give our Pokemon all that stuff. I mean, look at Greninja and Serperior. They both have super powerful abilities, and in Greninja's case, great stats and abilities to abuse it. Neither is broken at all in the current meta.

All I'm saying is that, please, please don't worry about balance here unless you are recommending Wonder Guard. We are not going to break this thing. Not even the Fire type.

So with that in mind, I do want to directly comment on a couple of the abilities for our Fire Pokemon that were directly mentioned as balance concerns. First of these is Mold Breaker. Contrary to what snake said, I think this ability actually is great for movepool coordination. One of the most important uses for it is to get status moves to go through Magic Bounce. As such, status moves, such as hazards and status effects pair perfectly with it. Furthermore, core offensive move that has a common immunity ability for it pairs super well. In our case, both our STABs fit this description. I do not think the fact that none of these are super specific moves takes away from the fact that we will be coordinating the movepool with the ability. And, as far as what was mentioned with it letting us beat counters.... well... that's fine.

The only ones of its listed checks or counters that this ability actually affects are Mega Latios and Latias, Arghonaut, Pyroak, and Gastrodon. Arghonaut is only effected if we give 25f boosting moves, something we can decide on later. The ability for Pyroak to be a counter is not going to be dependent on its ability to avoid crits, thus making the ability irrelevant. Gastrodon's ability only effects water moves, so really should effect us when Ground already hits neutrally. As such, the only checks/counters actually effected are Latios and Latias, both of which, and especially Latias, can still be at least checks, even if they are not full counters. Really, the benefit of Mold Breaker is far more about improving our neutral matchups than defeating counters or things we already threaten.

The other ability I want to briefly talk about is No Guard. Yes, no guard enables us to utilize inaccurate moves as if they were accurate. Yes, some really good, really inaccurate, moves exist, including on our Fire STAB. However, there are two counter points I want to make about this. First, none of the best inaccurate moves that we would be looking are are likely to have that much more power than any of the standard STABs we can reasonably expect to have. On STABs at least, all it would do would be to add a bit of utility to the offense, at most. And as far as coverage.... we do not need to give it every inaccurate move ever just because we can. If there was only one lesson that I think we should have learned from Aurumoth... well, it is not that. But that would be my second or third choice of lesson. But in all seriousness, the real attraction of this ability, for me, is the ability to utilize good status moves along side powerful offense. Our STABs are great already, so giving us something neat to do with our other moveslots besides boosting or coverage could be a good approach. And yes, we can also use it for powerful offense. As I said above, I am not worried about breaking this thing at all. If there is a powerful move it shouldn't have, it just won't get it. No Guard is not a reason to give a move all by itself.

 

[Magic Mayhem Maiden]

I'd like to say Corrosion only benefits one move because attacks are still blocked by steel types. Also, Corrosion screws our checks/counters by poisoning a lot of mons that are defensive, most notably Toxapex, and doesn't really help against switch ins and pressures, as 3 out of 4 matchups are nice to get poisoned, but burn is probably better since they are physical, and Fidgit as a utility Mon probably doesn't care.

I feel like we are focusing too much on the move-ability interactions that we are forgetting the threat lists we made last time. Sure, beating 1 or 2 checks are probably fine, but removing 1/3 of the checks are not cool

Also I like what Roland le preaux said in the beginning of this page. We need an ability that is powerful so that the starter can be relevant in OU. Mediocre abilities will not help us keep it relevant. Remember, we only have 535 BST, So while Compound Eyes has good move-ability interaction, it doesn't really add much other than letting us use stronger less accurate moves, and what options do we have? Snake_Rattler has a list of Abilities with Potential Balancing Issues. I feel like we should use one of 4 abilities in that section; No Guard is much like Compound Eyes, but worse since we also get no missed against us. Technician is solid with now high powered utility moves, Sniper and Merciless can help us break walls tanky mons, and I don't know about Mold Breaker. Other abilities we could use are Sheer Force, Hustle, Competitive Over Defiant, Multiscale. I'm also not sure about Serene Grace. I do agree with the abilities we should NOT use, though.

This doesn't only go for the Fire Mon. Writing down 25w is hard because the abilities don't really have a solid ground yet. For 25g, I like the choices, so no complaint there.

 

[SHSP]

So I wanna post about a few things here:

Addressing Snake's post on Multiscale: at least in my mind, the ability-move synergy is more than weak. Both of the real cruxes of a given Multiscale set would be based around the mon's interaction with the ability itself. You want it at full to take advantage of Multiscale: recovery gets you there, giving us interaction, synergy, etc. Boosting works best when we're taking advantage of Multiscale's defense boost. The ability and the set do go hand in hand, just in a bit more unique of a way than "lets boost the power of X moves" like all of the three labeled "Good ability-movepool coordination." Just because it doesn't flat out boost our power as is doesn't mean that it's not as strong of a synergy.

On Triage for Grassmon: God, please no. The appeal as I've seen described is powerful priority on both STABS as well as a great concept fit. I don't think the concept fit is arguable. I'm a lot more worried over what it does from a metagame standpoint. Both STABs having priority is really, really strong, especially considering what wants to switch into our electric STABs do not like our others. Lemme look at some of the top Grounds right now:
Lando switches in on elec, and depending on the other STAB can be forced out if we're special
Colossoil cannot hypothetically Sucker us if we're in range: +3 priority cancels it out
Zygarde ends up beating us best but is still limited: it can't revenge us with ESpeed and could lose to healing based on stats

If the greatest appeal is strong priority, Galvanize gives us a similar strong possibility while also preserving a lot more checks and counters in stuff like these grounds that all likely beat us because of the limitations in place, still maintaining a strong concept tie.


On Starter Limitations: I think this point that we're incapable of making a broken pokemon is really, really surface deep. I'll use Mold Breaker as an example: We don't need much of a strong stat to beat up Lati@s with ground stab on the switch in, assuming we're slower, doing more than 50% to beat recover isn't hard to reach. We still have to be careful to evaluate what we get and not make it too strong, limitations and all.

 

[Brodaha]

I'm super late to the party, but I think Grassy Surge might be a good ability that fits the concept for Cap 25g.
- It boosts the Grass primary STAB by 1.5x.
- It halves the damage of Earthquake. The more forgettable aspect of Grassy Terrain, this synergizes very well with it's typing to essentially give it a resistance to Ground (or the most common ground move) instead of taking neutral damage.

I don't really have much else to say here, I know I'm probably too late to garner any support and my argument wasn't great anyway.

 

[Raikoben]

Hello! today I want to propose a new ability for CAP25f which noone has talked about before: Chlorophyll

This ability allows us to run a superfast offensive mon (under the sun) without a high invest on speed which help us with our Starter BST limitation. If I'm not wrong, a neutral 80 Base speed with no investment at all can outspeed a 252+ 128 Base Speed.

It also fits the Ability-movepool sinergy as sun boosts our Fire STAB attacks. However, we probably would need some Grass-type coverage to improve in this side which may hurt our Checks and Couters list. Obviously, any way of set up the Sunny weather is a must.

 

[Dogfish44]

Oh, first I'm just going to echo what Jas said with regards to No Guard, because I am not that good a writer, and he's written down my thoughts there rather well. And likewise on Starters - I urge people to, before we go to the polls, mess around with the damage calculator, and realise how little we're going to have, especially when it comes to our defensive stats - remember that we're almost certainly going to have a minimum of 70 Atk/SpA from in-game precedence, that means that HP/Def/SpD/Spe will be at most a combined 395 BST, which is *not* a lot.

---

I'm going to make a few points on 25w and the wider conversation surrounding indirect actualisations in general, in general response to snake's master post on 25w.

I want to look at Poison Heal. Poison Heal is placed under "Has a direct link to movepool AND weaker movepool-ability coordination", and I'm not sure that really works as a description for it - nor do I think that actually matters.

Now, Poison Heal is rather useful when it comes to avoiding poll jumping, since three moves that it synergises with all happen to be universal TMs I can actually talk about - Protect, Substitute, and Facade.

Now, the first is obvious - Protect lets you heal for 1/8th of your HP just by clicking it, regardless of what speed you're at, how much HP you have left, and so on. Substitute is also obvious - you recover your Substitute HP over two turns, thus enabling you to make more of them really easily - especially when you combine that with Protect and recover the entire thing. And Facade is pretty self-explanatory - after all, it hits very hard at 140 BP.

Except... none of these moves directly synergise. These aren't moves that are being directly improved. Heck, Poison Heal doesn't need to run any of these moves at all to heal it's steady 1/8th HP per turn, and should easily slot into the "Hard to tailor movepool to ability because it doesn't have to run certain moves for it to work" grouping. Poison Heal does not give a darn about it's movepool, because it is actualised by Toxic Orb, a hold item, not a part of the movepool.

So, does this mean that I don't think that Poison Heal fulfills the concept? No. Poison Heal's indirect synergies are not just perfectly sound for the concept, but by looking at indirect synergies Poison Heal lets us explore our concept in a unique way. One of the biggest things with a framework doing three different Pokemon is the near obligation to tackle each Pokemon from a different angle of the concept. On that reasoning, it would be a crying shame to primarily seek the same sort of direct synergies across all three pokemon.

(Heck, Poison Heal is even more fun to synergise with because you can synergise with the Item Slot as well as the ability itself)

It's by this exact same reason that I think that pretty much all the abilities on the "Hard to tailor movepool to ability because it doesn't have to run certain moves for it to work" list are excellent for our concept - they have indirect synergies for us to explore, rather than just direct ones. Yes, some are active outside of their synergies - I don't think that's a bad thing, and it allows us to ask questions like "Is Role X the most suitable way to use Ability Y, abusing Synergy Z?". And if the end result is that the answer is "Nope", then... that's not a concept fail, that's just the concept giving us our answer.

---

I'm going to do one final post defending the sort of indirect synergies we can explore in two different abilities, which I'm just going to toss into these hide tags below.

Magic Guard

Magic Guard remains indirectly synergistic with all hazard removal. It remains directly synergistic with some really good recoil/crashing coverage options that allow our defensive Pokemon to look towards some offensive moves, if we want to go in that direction. I don't think that Magic Guard is so inherently powerful that we can't tailor our movepool around it, and I think it remains a very appropriate choice for our Water type.

Fluffy

Fluffy has 3 pretty direct synergies to play off it's inherent weakness, of which Rain Dance is universal, and also does synergise well with anything which provides a solid boost to SpD that helps cover what Fluffy does not (with the only notable moves that are Physical Non-Contact really being Z-Moves, EQ, Spirit Shackle, Shadow Bone, and Stone Edge/Rock Slide). I will concede that we have a smaller pool of direct connections than any other ability, and that Fluffy edges closer towards being "Actualisation via Role via Movepool" than perhaps any other ability proposed, but I think it remains valid in spite of that, and certainly not anti-concept.

 

[Guzzy]

I know I'm new here, but I'm going to throw my hat in for these abilities
CAP25g - Triage. Like Snake said, it has good move synergy with Grass-type moves and potential coverage moves, in addition to a certain weaker Electric-type move. Making it specialize in draining moves would be a really interesting concept, and I'd love to see it work.
CAP25f - Hustle. As Snake said, it'd bring the mixed offensive stats starters usually have to its best potential, which would be crucial to a Fire/Ground-type. The ability to potentially miss might be a bit annoying, but overall Hustle could be a decent ability.
CAP25w - Poison Heal. Even though Bug is by far my favorite type, it's poor as a defensive type, and since defensive seems to be where CAP25w is heading, it'd need a good, reliable way to heal off Stealth Rock damage.