CAP 8 CAP 8 - Concept Assessment

[Not Scicky]

I'd like to throw my support in for the following >:U

Unburden: Drifloon? Seriously? Even after the speed boost he's a mediocre mixed sweeper, unburden coupled with certain moves like fling, could create unknown results, and some pretty ingenius strategies.

Slow Start: Comeon Regigigas, you didn't HAVE to suck so bad, with the right moves to support it, slow start could actually work to CAP8's benefit, skill swap maybe?

Skill Link: Who doesn't hate substitute? Or those damn resist berries, never fear! Skill link is here to tear through subs and yache berries. With plenty of moves like icicle spear and bonemerang hanging around, this could create a powerful sweeper in a whole new way.

Scrappy: Need a good lead? Afraid to explode because the may switch to rotom? Need to get rid of their focus sash but *gasp* they're a ghost? Look no further then Scrappy

Rough Skin: Special walls pretty much suck at taking physical hits, and hell, even physical walls can be unreliable when it comes to doing their job. How about getting some payback without even having to lift a finger?

Quick Feet: Max speed ursaring only reaches 343 speed AFTER the quick feet boost, and 356 attack. This is outsped and has less attack (though probably a better arsenal) then max attack weavile, aaand is also probably slowly dying, can't we find something that can use this better?

Mold Breaker: God damn this is a fantastic ability, heatran can't switch into fire nearly as well, bronzong and other levitators eat earthquake.

Iron Fist: Hitmonchan sucks, and I'll admit, a 20% boost in BP isn't insane, but it's definately enough to make a difference

Hustle: I thought it was fair to include this, I mean, can't we put this to better use than CBKiss?

Gluttony: One attack later you'll be ripping through your opponents team.

Forecast: Mainly because I'm an art whore and designing 4 different designs for a CAP would be sweet, but also, weather is becoming consistently dominant in the metagame, tyranitar is everywhere and rain teams have become much more common with Kingdra getting outrage.

Effect Spore: DON'T! Touch me! Teams tend to rely on bulky stuff to get the status out there, and even then, they have to waste a moveslot on that. What would happen if we had something that could almost indefinately status at least one of the opponents pokemon, without even wasting a turn?

Damp: I believe explosion is used on like... 11 percent of teams or something, maybe even more now that meta is the #1 lead, well, how about we throw a wrench into everyone of those teams?

Color Change: Here I am, resisting your attacks, getting STAB on everything and playing tricks with your head! What would happen if you had a pokemon that can do anything, but it's all up to your opponent?

 

[Veedrock]

Wonderguard has more to do with stats than typing. Shedinja wouldn't be bad if it had the HP to survive Stealth Rock and whatnot.

 

[MapleSandwich]

Hustle is a grand choice that could make for an interesting CAP that would take advatange of moves like Aerial Ace and Shadow Punch.
Scrappy would be helpful to stop those damn Rotom Formes.

And finally, whatever happened to Multitype? It's certainly under-represented, and far from broken if given to the right Pokemon.

 

[Dragonknight!]

I think that limber would be a good choice. many stall teams are using paralysis to slow down their opponent's sweepers, making them easier to kill. a sweeper with limber would easily bypass this.

 

[Magmortified]

So for Unallowed, I'm thinking:

We should be careful concerning the extreme abilities such as Pure Power, Wonder Guard, Truant, Slow Start, etc. These kinds of abilities really require a kind of precision here to either avoid being horrible, or avoid being broken. And I'm not really sure we should risk that, considering CAP is usually more of a blunt axe kind of thing than a scalpel. I'd support putting them immediately in Unallowed. :S

Abilities like Magic Guard and Simple, which aren't necessarily overpowered abilities like Pure Power or Wonder Guard, should still probably be taken with a modicum of care, if made/kept Allowed. It can be really easy to overshoot these kinds of things.

Additionally, I'd avoid (extremely) passive or otherwise situational abilities. Things like Static, Cute Charm, Magma Armor, Poison Point, Shell Armor, etc. Would be examples of abilities like that. They're simply not big enough as abilities to be based around, and are more like nice bonuses in the fairly rare situations they're useful. It's a fine line, because things like Shield Dust could also technically apply by this (even though the ability to block a secondary ability is usually much more applicable considering moves like Fake Out, DynamicPunch, and Iron Head running around). But putting the most obvious abilities as mentioned above in Unallowed might help.

So I was thinking maybe we could try these abilities in Allowed:

Solar Power/Chlorophyll: The broadness of the concept allows us to go with more of a Sun sweeper kind of Pokemon if the typing and build bias allows for it. So it mightn't hurt to put these on there just in case. I guess part of the freedom in this concept is that we can do other things while carrying it out. Kingdra of the Sun might yet see the light of day, if you'll excuse the pun.

Snow Warning: Haha. Maybe. I'll just put this up for consideration. People may've been opposed to a Hail sweeper, but maybe giving a secondary option for the Hail starter that's the basis of any Hail team. Again, it might depend a lot on what people go with for typing, but if by some chance we go for it - hey, why not? This might be able to support Hail teams in its own way by, giving them more flexibility and options. Kind of like how you can choose between Hippowdon and Tyranitar for Sand Stream. Just a thought.

I'm not weather-focused - I'd back Mold Breaker and other abilities too. But we shouldn't forget that a lot of weather lies in the ability. And since there's no point in reiterating things that are already fully considered Allowed, I might as well point these out.

 

[Afti]

Iron Fist would be nice, on the offensive side of things. Hitmonchan sucks, but give it to a Pokemon with nice stats and movepool, and you've got something scary.

 

[Ascalon]

I'd avoid (extremely) passive or otherwise situational abilities. Things like Static, Cute Charm, Magma Armor, Poison Point, Shell Armor, etc. Would be examples of abilities like that. They're simply not big enough as abilities to be based around, and are more like nice bonuses in the fairly rare situations they're useful.

I'm not sure that Static or Flame Body are unusable. If a tank will or may burn a physical attacker merely by having said attacker attack it, it could avoid 2HKOs or force a switch. It would therefore be defending itself from physical attackers not only by virtue of its defences, but by the oponent not wanting to get their sweeper burned. At present, they are relatively useless "nice bonuses" as you mentioned, but isn't the idea here to create a pokemon which can actually use these to their advantage in a major way?

 

[Farewell]

Thick Fat. is rarely used in OU, while still a very useful ability. Typing alone cannot grant Immunity to either Fire or Ice attacks.
Additionally, helping Pokemon with glaring 4x weaknesses to Fire or Ice (like Flygon), or Pokemon nuetral to Fire and Ice (Think Hariyama) work to provide a unique set of resistances that remove the restrictions usually considered when deciding a CAP's typing.

Additionally, Grass types (weak to both Ice and Fire), wouldn't fear using Sunny Day to sweep or reach their full potential. Not hesitating to take advantage of moves like Weather Ball, Solar Beam, Synthesis etc. while offering Sunny Day teams a durable, yet powerful set up can really boost the effectiveness of Sun teams in general. The advantage here is not having to worry about dual typing to cancel out weaknesses (Think Ludicolo). Grass is simply used as the example due to the large # of weaknesses it has, and b/c its weak to both.

With Thick Fat benefiting all three spectrums, Thick Fat would seem like the best choice no matter which stat distribution/role the new CAP receives:
Offensive- Easier switch-ins (Think Hariyama)
Defensive- More resistances, less weaknesses (Think Grumpig)
Balanced- More durability to support teammates (Think Miltank)

Color Change also seems like an ability that can really alter the way a team, and the metagame is designed. Having a more defensive minded Pokemon than Kecleon, with an interesting Recovery move, say Roost, can perhaps allow for really diverse movesets and combinations. The ability to change typing based on your foe's choices would really help to alleviate, yet keep balanced, some of the most threatening strategies and Pokemon. The advantages could be very interesting, while balanced because the STAB will always shift on your moves.

Ultimately this could provide a unique defensive supporting option to teams that use unpredictability to their advantage.

 

[armogohma]

I just had a thought: scrappy spinner

 

[Unownasofyet]

A few possible ideas:

A Substitute killer/tank with Skill Link.

A Sun/Kingdra with Solar Power or a similar ability (like Drought or Chlorophyll).

A Normal Physical Sweeper with Scrappy or Mold Breaker.

I am personally supporting the Solar Power/Sun Sweeper set, as it was a cool concept originally, but it did not make it to the polls.

 

[zarator]

First of all, I'd like to rule out %chance and "contact-like" abilities. I mean Static, Flame Body, Effect Spore, Rough Skin and so on. You cannot build a Pokémon around them since they are VERY unreliable.

Limber is also out of the question. Kitsunoh already have it.

Seriously, I'd like people to focus on abilities which offers us really a chance to build something around. things like Iron Fist simply give a little boost to a bunch (or a punch, lol) of moves, but it is too little of a benefit to really make the difference.

Things which could really make the difference offensively-speaking are Scrappy (which allows Normal/Fighting to have unparalled coverage), Adaptability (which would be interesting if, for example, we give a Pokémon a good-coverage dual STAB such as Ice/Electric or Fighting/Flying but not giving it anything else that STAB moves) and Skill Link (just to give some perspective, with this ability Bone Rush outdamages Earthquake and Rock Blast would deal more than Stone Edge... Icicle Spear, on the contrary, does not even match Icy Wind which is kinda shitty).

Defensively, Wonder Guard is challenging (something which base 5 HP and awful typing like Ice/Rock is workable even with Scizor-like stats - which aren't exceptional, BTW) and Color Change could work, albeit unreliable (only 9 types out of 17 resist themselves, while 2 hit themselves supereffectively - and working 90% of the time without STAB is not easy if you are not Blissey).

Honestly, however, the one which appeals me the most is Simple. Argo presence help in keeping everything we create in check, probably (unless - God forbid - we give it Baton Pass). But a mediocre Pokèmon with simple Dragon Dance or simple SD/NP would be interesting. For example, we could create something with Shuckle-like stats (I mean something like 10/40/200/40/200/5) and give it a load of stat-up moves, a lot of priority moves and Simple. the possibilities are endless.

Which is why I do not have a pale idea of what I will vote in the next polls.

EDIT: I'm completely against Scrappy Spin. It would sound like "Do not waste your time on stall and hazards. You will lose them in a turn anyway". Making Rapid Spin unblockable is completely unacceptable.

 

[auramaster]

Why do so many people want rough skin? It only takes away 1/16 or their health, assuming they even use a contact move. I think the 2 below are excellent choices.

Mold Breaker: Many Pokemon switch into foes (intimidate) or sweep (technician) because of their ability. Mold Breaker would severly hurt these Pokemon and could be a dangerous sweeper without levitators around.

Scrappy: The beginning of the end for stall teams. With a guaranteed rapid spin, suicide leads will be abandoned as people try to find stealth rockers that can switch in several times, or just use Fidgit. But Cap8 could be more than just a rapid spinner, it could sweep teams with a powerful STAB Return and only one other fighting attack. This would free up an extra slot for said Rapid Spin or even taunt.

 

[Afti]

I actually like Scrappy Spin. Make it suitably fragile, and you have a way to Spin away anything you want- if you're careful and your prediction is good.

 

[Unownasofyet]

Scrappy would also help kill the ever annoying Gengar, making Normal sweepers a lot more fun to play, although Close Combat is still NVE against Gengar.

 

[Run]

Since we are trying to make use of what could be a poor ability on the wrong pokemon, I'd suggest we consider putting Skill swap in the moveset... I know we aren't there yet, but having skill swap could change what people may consider putting on the pokemon.

With that in mind, I would like to suggest Normalize as a candidate. It could be very helpful adding STAB to some powerful moves with secondary effects, and skill swapping it off for a secondary stab and also crippling an opponents sweeper.

On the other hand, if the idea is to take an ability and make it work; using normalize and skill swapping would be kinda gimmicky. Anyway, its just an idea I wanted to throw out there.

If nothing else, I could see normalize as another option on a pokemon with scrappy. If you see a pokemon that can tote either scrappy or normalize, what do you switch in? Skarmory and bronzong seem to be the only safe bets.

 

[Veedrock]

Don't put all your eggs into one basket (lol Easter pun). Remember that there are a lot of things that come before ability polls. It's best not to decide "it should be fragile/bulky/etc to compliment this ability," because the ability is going to need to compliment the build. If you get the build you prefer and then the ability doesn't even win the poll, then we just have a cluster of things put together that don't even go together. Try to give some versatility with your ability submissions and don't suggest "it should be _____" because it's not safe to assume it will, nor is it safe to assume the ability will win because it is of that build.

I agree with Mag that certain extreme abilities should be put straight to unallowed. Examples include Huge/Pure power, Wonderguard, Simple (it will be very easy to overshoot), Drizzle/Drought, and Multitype (seriously?). There are more but not on me right now.

Also, I really dislike the suggestions for bad abilities. You can argue that some abilities are hindered by the pokemon they're attached to, but don't kid yourselves on some of them that are just bad (like Rough Skin and Damp).

 

[Zach]

I think a pokemon that was actually consistently viable in OU as a sun sweeper would be great... Solar Power

 

[kjt]

Aftermath?
It could make "Pinch Berry" Pokemon think twice.Interesting...

 

[bpblu]

*shrugs* Might as well throw my two cents into the ring.

Magic Guard is something that could definitely be utilized. This thing is pretty good on Clefable... it'd be even scarier on a Pokemon that we're trying to fit into the standard metagame. Especially since almost nothing enjoys being Poisoned, Burned, or even with all the entry hazards (looking at you Stealth Rock).

Mold Breaker is another ability I see that could be pretty well represented. It helps take care of Bronzong and Levitaters in general. But it doesn't need to end there. It CAN stop Pokemon like Heatran from getting in and absorbing a Fire attack (which is good, giving Heatran a boost is suicide)

Scrappy also has some support from my end... especially a Scrappy Spinner. It would help a lot where you see Stealth Rocks practically in every battle you play (I'm probably exaggerating, but I know Stealth Rock is practically everywhere in the OU metagame).

 

[Naxte]

Other than what has already been mentioned, Sticky Hold could be good if we want to go down the road of making a Pokemon that's not vulnerable to Trick.

Out of what has been mentioned though, I'm liking Shield Dust, Scrappy, and Reckless/Iron Fist.

 

[Kamen Rider]

Since most of the abilities Im interested have already been mentioned, Ill just mentioned two.

Multitype was mentioned already, but not really discussed. Since its only been on an pokemon that hasnt been offically released yet (Though Im aware this will change come the next Movie) the effects of a pokemon that can be any type by the users choice hasnt really been looked at.

A pokemon with such flexibility under the players control could potentially be very valuable and fit in a huge range of teams. Plus when using one of the plates it has the added bonus as also functioning as Sticky Hold, preventing knock off and trick from having any effect.

Bad Dreams may also prove interesting. While it is on the Uber Darkie, Darkies stong stats and moves would probably keep it Uber even without Bad Dreams. Hypnosis taking a hit in Platinum has had some effect on sleep strategies the pokemon that use it , which Bad Dreams could potentially reivigorate. Certain moves could also be applied in combination with this to make it into an interesting passive wallbreaker.

On the downside A Bad Dream pokemon could severly cripple standard Resttalk and Rest Status negation strategies, which is not necessairly something we want to add to the metagame.

At the very least I think both these abilites deserve some discussion.

 

[MystErikEry]

I think Solar Power would be an excellent candidate.

Mold Breaker is also really cool.

Scrappy Spinner sounds fun, too.

 

[Calad]

Thick Fat. is rarely used in OU, while still a very useful ability. Typing alone cannot grant Immunity to either Fire or Ice attacks.

Are you missing Snorlax?

IMO, Mold Breaker, Reckless and Rough Skin might be interesting.

 

[Jimbo]

- Mold Breaker
- Scrappy
- Shield Dust

I think the three abilities listed above has great potential and are so "Neglected".

Mold Breaker: Mold breaker is such a great ability but only 2 Pokémon carries this ability with them ( Rampardos and Pinsir) both of which are very fragile. This is able to hit Pokémon with the ability levitate, with ground type attacks, that normally want to come in and set up.

Scrappy: Being able to hit ghost types with normal and fighting moves is so useful, especially when using it on Kitsunoh and the almighty Rotom-A.

Shield Dust: Being able to cancel out secondary abilities from moves, like Iron Head(Flinch), Thunderbolt(paralyzed), flamethrower(burned) etc. Those move are some of the things that prevents Pokemon from sweeping or setting up. Canceling out those side effects would be very useful.

I fully agree with this. Tinted Lens would also be very interesting.

I also like the idea of Magic and Wonder Guard. If we did really good abilities like those, we could make the concept shine through by giving it "ok" stats (i.e. it needs to rely on its ability). Pokemon with new typing and those abilities could do really well.

 

[Deck Knight]

Why Static is our last best hope:

Static confers a 30% chance of paralysis on a foe when they use a contact move. The only problem is that most of the pokemon that possess it either A: outspeed the opponent either way or B: Are insufficiently bulky to be absorbing contact hits. Ampharos and Electrode are arguably the best existent users, Trode because it can take a U-turn and then outspeed the opponent's next pokemon, and Ampharos because it is the only Electric type that is remotely bulky (Magnezone and Rotom-A, sadly, do not possess Static). Even then, 90/75/90 is not exactly confidence inspiring, especially since the most common physical attacks outside of Earthquake are Elemental punches.

Given the right type, this pokemon could be the perfect pivot from Scizor and Gyarados. It could switch in on Fire Punch and Thunder Punch and leave the opponent with a 30% chance to be paralyzed with minimal harm to itself. Additionally it could switch in to take a Bullet Punch (or, less successfully, a U-Turn) and paralyze Scizor in return, destroying much of the viability of its other moves and giving it an effective 75% accuracy.

Static is already proven to be disruptive in Little Cup, where the large use of priority attacks and U-turn. Written onto OU it could greatly dampen the effectiveness of physical attackers.

The only common physical attacks that do not possess Physical Contact trait are Earthquake and Stone Edge. With a potential combination of Magnet Rise and at least neutrality to rock, the employment of these moves can be hampered.