CAP 33 - Part 12 - Moveset Discussion

[shnowshner]

I think Healing Wish is fine but getting the move should absolutely keep Hazards away from our movepool. It seems like nobody is interested in CAP 33 setting Hazards at the moment, but if we did get them, we're pushed heavily towards wanting to be a Lead with like Scald/Encore/Hazards/HWish. Not sure how well such a set would perform in practice, the main concern is that it's just hella distracting from the main goal.

Whirlpool feels like an okay inclusion to our kit, I don't find this to be a commonly run move nor easy to build with, but the value as a lure/tech enabling CAP 33 to offensively pressure mons that might have gotten too comfortable switching in is interesting. Whirlpool + Encore/Taunt is a scary combo on paper especially with our great Speed, but we are forced to drop coverage to run this and both our STABs are pretty crucial for success. If you run Whirlpool over Scald you're pretty useless into Gholdengo, while dropping Moonblast means any Water immune + Krilowatt are suddenly huge problems. I guess potential Earth Power would be okay as mono-coverage into some of those, but that leaves you very vulnerable to Wellspring and most Ground immunities so it's not really an improvement.

Defog is enticing solely because more hazard control would be great for the metagame, however I do not really think Defog fits our build. If we feel pressured to Defog for the team our gameplan becomes much more exploitable as we won't be spending turns healing or dealing damage. Our STABs + Encore do a fantastic job of actually forcing opponents to play around us, if we're the team's defogger the opponent could easily read us and stay in knowing they could be rewarded with essentially a free turn as we clear hazards. Defog just comes off as a builder trap.

As for sets I'm most in favor of the Fast Wall, Haze, and PhysDef Rough Skin/Anti U-Turn. The Wish Passer set doesn't inspire a ton of confidence but Recover + Wish on a fast mon is really funny and even if our HP is on the lower end having the capacity to ease switch-ins for teammates has merit. I think it's harmless enough to be okay. The Whirlpool set has all the issues I outlined above but I'm not opposed to the idea of it.

 

[Samirsin]

Name: "Undertow" (Whirlpool)

This set could definitely benefit from Perish Song, making Wave an effective Perish Trapper. He wave it all, Speed, Bulk, Healing, and Trapping Moves. This would however make us weak to Volt Switch, so tera ground could be an option here. It needs something to be protected, so Substitute and Recover looks good with Multiscale.

 

[mark6870]

My current opinion, while im not against every movepool addition, is this: We have all the moves we need to be good.

Wishing to teammates, imo, isn't too strong without pivoting. It's something that's nice to have but it's rarely seen as it's pretty telegraphed when you want to switch something in to heal it, and without a pivot that weakened mon will just take another hit before it can get healed since Wish comes at the end of the turn.

I find pivoting to be superfluous. We don't really have space for it considering we want both of our stabs, recover, and I think taunt, encore, or thunder wave just gets us more value than pivoting.

Defog is enticing due to role compression. with Defog, a combination of Venomicon, Cap33, and a ground type like Ting-Lu form a strong defensive core that can take on a majority of the current meta while having rocks, spikes, and removal all covered. I'm not SOLD on Defog, though, because as i said with pivoting i think CAP33 gets more value out of the other utilities we have, but I do not mind Defog

Not sure I'm a fan of Healing Wish. I'm not sure how sound of reasoning this is but the idea of a kingambit having the liberty of being used more and more through the course of a game and then being healed up back to full by the endgame does not sound fun to me.

Whirlpool is fine ig but it's the same boat as defog and pivoting: our current utilities are just more consistent game to game.

as a final note yes i did suggest shoreup purely for flavor. i reasoned that since sand isn't prevalent at all, Shore Up's bonus is negligible. turns out thats not how it works around here so my apologies

 

[Brambane]

I don't have much to add, but any set with Haze could also have Whirlwind.

High Speed is not very intuitive with Whirlwind, but there is marginal benefit where you want to drop priority at times for repositioning and "resetting tempo", such as anticipation of the opponent trying to slow pivot out of CAP33. And if nothing else, you get to steal Lugia's clout by not having an absolute dogshit typing.

 

[snake]

Defog (or other means of hazard removal) would help CAP33 fit onto teams due to a relative lack of hazard control. However, hazard removal would very much move CAP33 away from the sort of build that we're working on, which has ended up being a fast disruptor (see Multiscale and Rough Skin also). CAP33 needs all of its moveslots to make its disrupting moves like Scald, Thunder Wave, and Encore work in unison, while Defog forces CAP33 to move away from that idea. I think that CAP33 can function perfectly well as a fast disruptor and doesn't need to crutch on hazards to have a precense in the metagame.

---

Some defining moves that haven't gotten discussion are Ice-type coverage and Ground-type coverage. Ice-type coverage is entirely unproblematic on CAP33. 88 SpA means that it's hard to run as a coverage move, let alone act as a single attacking move (similar to Mega Latias). Ice-type coverage shouldn't be necessary for CAP33 to function but will likely show up in movepools due to general Water-type move access. Ground-type coverage, on the other hand, is a bit different. Earthquake is out of the picture with only Base 32 Attack, so that really just leaves Earth Power. Putting aside how it's fairly difficult to run Earth Power off 88 SpA, it hits Krilowatt a little harder than Moonblast and Gholdengo a little harder than Water-type STAB, lets CAP33 hit Iron Moth in the sun matchup a lot harder, and gives CAP33 some recourse offensively against some lower tier picks like Mollux, Volcanion, and Toxapex.

Earth Power reference calcs

0 SpA Base 88 Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Krilowatt: 118-139 (26.6 - 31.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
0 SpA Base 88 Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Krilowatt: 148-176 (33.4 - 39.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Base 88 Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Krilowatt: 153-180 (34.5 - 40.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Base 88 Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Krilowatt: 192-228 (43.3 - 51.4%) -- 6.6% chance to 2HKO

0 SpA Base 88 Scald vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 84-100 (26.6 - 31.7%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
0 SpA Base 88 Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 126-150 (40 - 47.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Base 88 Scald vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 109-129 (34.6 - 40.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Base 88 Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 150-177 (47.6 - 56.1%) -- 80.9% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Base 88 Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 162-192 (51.4 - 60.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 SpA Tapu Fini Scald vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Iron Moth in Sun: 68-84 (22.5 - 27.9%) -- 62.2% chance to 4HKO
0 SpA Tapu Fini Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Iron Moth: 216-256 (71.7 - 85%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 SpA Tapu Fini Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 64 SpD Toxapex: 82-98 (26.9 - 32.2%) -- 45.9% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Tapu Fini Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 64 SpD Toxapex: 106-126 (34.8 - 41.4%) -- 70.6% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery

0 SpA Tapu Fini Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mollux: 164-196 (41.6 - 49.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Tapu Fini Earth Power vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mollux: 212-252 (53.8 - 63.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0 SpA Tapu Fini Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Volcanion: 126-150 (41.8 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Tapu Fini Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Volcanion: 164-194 (54.4 - 64.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

My conclusion: CAP33 doesn't need Earth Power. It wouldn't be the end of the world if it were added to CAP33's movepool, but it's certainly not necessary. The benefits of running are fairly marginal compared to the opportunity cost running something like Thunder Wave, which would cripple Iron Moth, Mollux, Toxapex, and Volcanion, and Krilowatt and Gholdengo are chipped down by STABs.

 

[Scizivire]

It seems activity in the thread has slowed down a fair bit, and that's okay because I think this has been a pretty straight-forward stage for us this process. A lot of the direction and thus the general shape of the main sets had already been defined by our concept and Defining Moves stages. I really like most of the sets posted in this thread and I think by this point I have a good idea of which moves should be mandatory to include for our 1.0 release (and likely movepools as well, barring any balance changes from our post-play lookback). I've come to the following list, which is mostly the same as the Defining Moves list:

Required Moves

Moonblast
Surf
Scald
Hydro Pump
Whirlpool
Earth Power

Recover
Healing Wish
Wish

Thunder Wave
Encore
Taunt
Haze

Universal Moves (Gen 9)

Endure
Facade
Helping Hand
Protect
Rest
Sleep Talk
Substitute
Take Down
Tera Blast

Why not (x)..?
There's a few moves discussed in the thread that I've ommited from the list. Some of these, like Defog and pivoting have received negative feedback from other users and myself because they mess with the playstyle we're trying to achieve for CAP33. Others, like Ice Beam and Mystical Fire, generally seem a bit underpowered to be played onthe general sets this mon will be running. I did include moves like Wish, Whirlpool and Earth Power because while they might not be optimal, the utility they provide through team healing and lure sets might be something worth pursuing in the builder. Push comes to shove, if they're not impactful enough they can either be left in the movepool as a more flavorful option or removed as bloat during our post-play lookback.

So what now?
I'm leaving the thread open for another 24 hours, in case someone wants to submit something new or leave additional feedback on the sets already discussed. Please do let me know if you agree with the list of moves above and if anything should be added or removed. If we're all in agreement, we can get ourselves geared up for CAP33's 1.0 release soon!

 

[Scizivire]

24 hours have passed now, and I'm just going to assume the lack of posts means that everyone is happy with the list of moves we'll have going into 1.0 release! We'll wrap up this stage and thread now, and I think we've gained a lot of insight into the sets CAP33 will generally be running. While many of the sets posted overlap a bit in moves and EV spread, there are some fun outliers that might be worth a try as well. Personally I think this speaks to how well we've managed to choose and maintain the direction we've aimed for. I'm very happy with the way this stage has progressed and with the end result.

For now I think all that is left until we can do the first release is the conclusion of the name- and sprite polls, so it is time to get excited! I'll hand things over to ausma to make her closing remarks for the stage, and I'll be back for the movepool stage once we get to work on the 2.0 release.

 

[ausma]

Hi everyone!

I'm completely with Scizivire here in that having some tools like Wish, Healing Wish, and Whirlpool could be really great. They take advantage of our Speed and its ability to force switches in a more aggressive way when it comes to supporting the team. The latter provides CAP 33 more direct means of enforcing progress through options like Thunder Wave and Scald with lockdown at the cost of a moveslot. While I am skeptical of Earth Power's effectiveness I do see the vision and I'm more than willing to give it a shot as it seems to be decent at pressuring Gholdengo and Krilowatt in a more direct yet non-intrusive manner without forcing ourselves to run Knock Off, which has been well-established to be a fairly oppressive option in a Gen 9 landscape in tandem with Scald.

Looking back at everything here, I believe what we've built looks like it will have some really fascinating applications, while providing the metagame with a really incredible, much needed defensive tool that isn't passive and has some unique ways of applying pressure. I am really happy with what we have for our 1.0 kit, and I'm very excited for the upcoming launch. A massive shoutout to Scizivire for an excellent looking 1.0 movepool, and of course to the rest of the TLT for extremely smooth handling of their respective stages and incisive judgment. I'll see you guys super soon for the 1.0 launch and the PPL!