CAP 5 CAP 5 - Ability Discussion Thread

[Vividsketch]

Just a few of my thoughts on some of the recurring Abilities coming up in this thread so far...

Technician - would be an awesome ability. Remedying the low base power of Ancient Power, allowing for base 90 Hidden powers and maybe a small collection of lesser uses moves like, Shockwave, Dragonbreath, Silver Wind, Giga Drain ect.. The biggest problem with this though, that I feel has been over looked, is in fact Ancient Power's 10% stat up boost.

A boost in Speed means that no OU pokemon (bar Ninjask and Deoxys S) can out speed it even with a Choice Scarf. 50% extra power attached to base 120 Sp.att, that will likely already have STABed Ancient Power, Earth Power and a base 90 Hidden Power (wow that's a lot of "powers" lol) at least for type coverage. And with the extra boost in Defenses along with 90 base HP, not even things like Bullet Punch, Mach Punch or Vaccuum wave will take it down any more. It'll sweep entire teams just on that. No other user of AncientPower, OminousWind or Silver Wind can boast that. That is too much of a good thing, seriously...

Adaptability -Similar problems to Technician, in regard to Ancient Power. But not nearly as bad since AP only reaches 120 instead of 135, and nothing get helped along. Then again it'll make little difference if it given generous move pool.

Tinted Lens - This will likely give it too much type coverage capability, which imo it should have to achieve through it's move set, not it's ability. Rock is already an awesome attack type. It doesn't need our help. We do want things other than just Blissey to be able to switch in on this thing after all.

Levitate - Typical as it is, this is the ability that makes the most sense for it. And of course is extremely viable as a useful ability. Allowing for many more switch in opportunities, alleviating it ground weakness with out imposing in any other way to become too broken to manage.

Limber - Similar switch in qualities are granted as with Levitate. And prevents it from ever really becoming useless in battle. Since with out it's speed, it becomes useless and a dead weight.

Insomnia/Vital Spirit - Same again. But Limber seems to be to be more useful for often. A Sleeping Pokemon isn't totally useless after all.

Aftermath - Very interesting idea. And very cool revenge and sacrifice utilities in late game situations. Though to use this we would almost certainly have to introduce a new base 80-90 Special rock move to compensate for the fact that this ability is of no help to it during battle before it dies.

Mold Breaker It association with "breaking the mold" is very cool. But outside of that I don't see it having much negative impact as some seem to think. Once people get wise to the fact that they can’t abuse their Mountaineering Syclants into Ancient powers and Levitating Scarfed Gengars switching into Earth Powers, the threat of it is going to disappear.

Magnet Pull - This belongs to Magnezone..... Leave it alone.

Arena Trap - HA!! And you thought Duggy was bad.....

Pressure - Generic and pointless. Sorry. I assuming we are aiming to give this Cap something it can use.

Rough Skin - This guy is not taking hits. I would much prefer Aftermath.

Rock Head - Aside from the use of Head smash, I see no real point to this. Lets find some other way for him to over come Blissey if we really want it to.

Sniper - I suppose it suits him well. But I would rather not grant it an ability so dependent on luck. And luck over kill at that.

Super luck - Same feelings as above.

Inner Focus - Pointless.

Unburden - Cool idea. But on something already so fast, what use does it really have?



Also touching slightly on the issue of a new Special Rock move for this cap. I do think a move of at least 80 - 90 base power with few to no secondary effects will be necessary for this poke. Unless we do decide that either Technician or Adaptability be use (and I've expressed my feelings on those), this pokemon will likely struggle with only Power gem.

I do support the creation of a new move simply for the fact that will be necessary and also opens up the opportunity for other abilities to be properly considered.

For that reason I feel we, as a community, need to decide whether or not we are going to grant him a new move or not first before we can properly decide on abilities.

As it stands I support these possible combinations:

1st: Levitate
2nd: Limber

The two switch in abilities. Simple.

1st: Levitate
2nd: Technician (this is assuming a new move is granted and ancient power is not actually in his move pool)

These two I feel can complement each other in a trade for switch in ability for power play. With Levitate, grant it moves like Lava Plume, Energy Ball, Signal Beam, Discharge, Shadow Ball, Extrasensory and Flash Cannon (all move with base 80 or less) to work with. While Technician can grant a plethora of Base 90 moves, often with added effects.

Basically,
Levitate - Less power more switch in capability.
Technician - More power/move flexibility, less switch in opportunity,

 

[X-Act]

Tinted Lens is broken on this Pokemon, guys. I really hope you have at least the sense of not voting for it.

Rock is already among the best attacking types in the game. You want to improve it even more by giving it no resistances... on a Pokemon with 120 SpA and 130 Spe?

Also, to the poster above of me, why is Inner Focus pointless?

 

[Hazmat]

I'm in full support of limber and levitate.

Useful abilities that add to it's main role without breaking him. An additional plus is that they fit flavor wise.

 

[beej]

Tinted Lens is broken on this Pokemon, guys. I really hope you have at least the sense of not voting for it.

Rock is already among the best attacking types in the game. You want to improve it even more by giving it no resistances... on a Pokemon with 120 SpA and 130 Spe?

Well, we're assuming that this Pokemon isn't getting any boosting moves, meaning that unless we give it every single special move under the sun, it's still going to be walled by things with enough bulk. As I said before, Electivire is famous for hitting things neutral and still getting walled. If it suddenly gained 130 Speed, I could still see this happening. With this Pokemon, it's a special attacker, meaning it'll never be able to break Blissey/Snorlax unless we do something incredibly stupid with its movepool. However, if Tinted Lens wins, I suspect it'd be a bad idea to give this Pokemon a new STAB move. In the end, though, I'm not too worried.

 

[eric the espeon]

How about Shield Dust?
It would help a lot with switching in on Togekiss's Body Slam and Air Slash, and be some use in other situations (Blocking the odd Para from an electric attack, or freeze.).

You can argue the flavour side as the "Dust" could be kicked up by it moving so fast.

The others that I like are Levitate and Aftermarth.

Also I think that this Pokemon should not be made by its ability's like most of the other CaPs (Rev's ShedRest, Persistent Fidgit, and Syclant...). They should be a nice boost but it will be able to function without them due to its great stats and (hopefully) solid movepool.

If we plan to make a new move an option, do we really need to PR it? 'cos if so we should get onto that asap.

 

[JohtoPro]

I'd have to say currently Clear Body and Adaptability/Technician(leaning more towards adaptabilty since it's less broken than Tech)

Clear body would help to prevent any stat losses(which now that I think of it..... not too many affect him but there's always the chance of a Special Intimidate in Gen5.)

Adaptability would at least give him a good high-powered Special STAB move w/o making the rest of his movepool underpowered or (like its been said) make Ancientpower usable.

The way I see it niether are very Rock-esque abilities either so that should at least give those two points for breaking the mold.

As for making special abilities/moves. Not a fan. I'd rather stay as true to the game as possible and the CAP IMO is pretty cut and dry. Special sweeper. The only other ability I can see helping him in this regards is Levitate(and IMO another non-Rock typing abilty so fits the idea).

EDIT: Actually screw Clear Body. Choice #2 for me goes to Levitate for easy switch ins.

 

[Mekkah]

Also, to the poster above of me, why is Inner Focus pointless?

I can think of three situations where Pokemon get flinched, and they aren't extremely common. Then this thing's stats and type make it more likely not to care or not to land in them.

One is that a faster Pokemon uses Rock Slide or something, but this thing is so fast that this is pretty much just Aerodactyl.

Second is Fake Out, which doesn't do shit.

Third is something paralyzed this thing, and is now trying to take it down. Most common Pokemon to rely on this have SE moves (Skymin, Togekiss), so it doesn't happen a lot to begin with, and then he was already screwed the moment he was paralyzed.

Unburden - Cool idea. But on something already so fast, what use does it really have?

Becomes harder to revenge kill, and can abuse Petaya, I guess.

I'm going to be vouching for Technician, I think. Everything else I've seen is either kind of useless, or too powerful.

Also:

Chance of Ancientpower triggering at least once after x attacks, rounded to 1 decimal:
1 attack - 10%
2 attacks - 19%
3 attacks - 27.1%
4 attacks - 34.4%

I really cannot see it getting more than 4 Ancientpowers off per match. This thing dies pretty quickly, possibly needs to switch out after attacking regardless of getting a nice boost or not.

But even then:

5 attacks - 40.9%
6 attacks - 46.9%
7 attacks - 52.2%
8 attacks - 57.0%

And then it's out of PP.

 

[Vividsketch]

Also, to the poster above of me, why is Inner Focus pointless?

I can think of three situations where Pokemon get flinched, and they aren't extremely common. Then this thing's stats and type make it more likely not to care or not to land in them.

One is that a faster Pokemon uses Rock Slide or something, but this thing is so fast that this is pretty much just Aerodactyl.

Second is Fake Out, which doesn't do shit.

Third is something paralyzed this thing, and is now trying to take it down. Most common Pokemon to rely on this have SE moves (Skymin, Togekiss), so it doesn't happen a lot to begin with, and then he was already screwed the moment he was paralyzed.

Unburden - Cool idea. But on something already so fast, what use does it really have?

Becomes harder to revenge kill, and can abuse Petaya, I guess.

I'm going to be vouching for Technician, I think. Everything else I've seen is either kind of useless, or too powerful.

Also:

Chance of Ancientpower triggering at least once after x attacks, rounded to 1 decimal:
1 attack - 10%
2 attacks - 19%
3 attacks - 27.1%
4 attacks - 34.4%

I really cannot see it getting more than 4 Ancientpowers off per match. This thing dies pretty quickly, possibly needs to switch out after attacking regardless of getting a nice boost or not.

But even then:

5 attacks - 40.9%
6 attacks - 46.9%
7 attacks - 52.2%
8 attacks - 57.0%

And then it's out of PP.

Thanks for getting my back on that Mekkah. My point exactly. Even in the most situational of situations, Inner Focus still fails to be at all that useful. I'm surprised you missed that X-act.


In regard to Unburden. It can abuse Petaya anyway. And the speed boost provided to a base 130 speed pokemon just to outspeed a few try hard Scarfers, still isn't worth the cost of a more worthy ability from my perspective.


And I'm not interested in the accumulative chances of a Stat up occurring from Ancient power. I'm only interested in WHEN it does happen. For it to occur at ALL is a concern to me. It's not like an Ice beam FREEZE, which only screws over that one pokemon (which may still thaw out), it's about it screwing over 6 pokemon in a row simply because of one unintended, unispired toward (it's not done or achieved on purpose) stroke of luck! We didn't like the advantage that Sand Veil gave Garchomp in one turn. And not even He could do this. I don't want to see it happen again needlessly.

 

[You can call me X]

Mekkah, isn't it true that the chances are the same everytime?
If you had 10 children and they were all boys, the next one has the same chances as all the other guys had.
If you miss stone edge 8 times in a row the ninth time is going to be just as likely.
Right?

 

[Legacy Raider]

Mekkah was putting it as a percentage chance to activate at all. There's a 10% chance for Ancientpower to activate for each attack, but if you use two Ancienpowers it will be twice as likely to activate at least once, since you've given 10% a chance twice.

Hope I make sense.

Oh and I am very strongly in support of Technician.

 

[sanjay120]

Mekkah, isn't it true that the chances are the same everytime?
If you had 10 children and they were all boys, the next one has the same chances as all the other guys had.
If you miss stone edge 8 times in a row the ninth time is going to be just as likely.
Right?

Right, if you miss eight Stone Edges in a row the ninth one is just as likely to miss. However, this is only true after you have missed eight Stone Edges. Before you start attacking with it, the probability of all nine missing is .2^9.

Or at least I think so.

 

[ParadOxymoron]

Mekkah, isn't it true that the chances are the same everytime?
If you had 10 children and they were all boys, the next one has the same chances as all the other guys had.
If you miss stone edge 8 times in a row the ninth time is going to be just as likely.
Right?

At least once.

1 - (The probability that Ancient Power never triggers in all the times that you use it.)

Therefore, the probability that Ancient Power triggers at least once after using it X times = 1 - 0.9^X

 

[You can call me X]

actually, the actual percent of the move goes up, just the probability of the same number being hit form 1-10 going down.

 

[Pombo]

Right, if you miss eight Stone Edges in a row the ninth one is just as likely to miss. However, this is only true after you have missed eight Stone Edges. Before you start attacking with it, the probability of all nine missing is .2^9.

Or at least I think so.

You are right =] 2^9

Just a few of my thoughts on some of the recurring Abilities coming up in this thread so far...

9,0-Technician - would be an awesome ability. Remedying the low base power of Ancient Power, allowing for base 90 Hidden powers and maybe a small collection of lesser uses moves like, Shockwave, Dragonbreath, Silver Wind, Giga Drain ect.. The biggest problem with this though, that I feel has been over looked, is in fact Ancient Power's 10% stat up boost.

A boost in Speed means that no OU pokemon (bar Ninjask and Deoxys S) can out speed it even with a Choice Scarf. 50% extra power attached to base 120 Sp.att, that will likely already have STABed Ancient Power, Earth Power and a base 90 Hidden Power (wow that's a lot of "powers" lol) at least for type coverage. And with the extra boost in Defenses along with 90 base HP, not even things like Bullet Punch, Mach Punch or Vaccuum wave will take it down any more. It'll sweep entire teams just on that. No other user of AncientPower, OminousWind or Silver Wind can boast that. That is too much of a good thing, seriously...
ABSOLUTE RIGHT, IMO. TOO STRONG.

8,0-Adaptability -Similar problems to Technician, in regard to Ancient Power. But not nearly as bad since AP only reaches 120 instead of 135, and nothing get helped along. Then again it'll make little difference if it given generous move pool.
ISNT BROKEN. CAN FIT, IMO

3,0Tinted Lens - This will likely give it too much type coverage capability, which imo it should have to achieve through it's move set, not it's ability. Rock is already an awesome attack type. It doesn't need our help. We do want things other than just Blissey to be able to switch in on this thing after all.

9,0-Levitate - Typical as it is, this is the ability that makes the most sense for it. And of course is extremely viable as a useful ability. Allowing for many more switch in opportunities, alleviating it ground weakness with out imposing in any other way to become too broken to manage.

7,5-Limber - Similar switch in qualities are granted as with Levitate. And prevents it from ever really becoming useless in battle. Since with out it's speed, it becomes useless and a dead weight.

0,0-Insomnia/Vital Spirit - Same again. But Limber seems to be to be more useful for often. A Sleeping Pokemon isn't totally useless after all.

8,0-Aftermath - Very interesting idea. And very cool revenge and sacrifice utilities in late game situations. Though to use this we would almost certainly have to introduce a new base 80-90 Special rock move to compensate for the fact that this ability is of no help to it during battle before it dies.

7,5-Breaker It association with "breaking the mold" is very cool. But outside of that I don't see it having much negative impact as some seem to think. Once people get wise to the fact that they can’t abuse their Mountaineering Syclants into Ancient powers and Levitating Scarfed Gengars switching into Earth Powers, the threat of it is going to disappear.

1,0-Magnet Pull - This belongs to Magnezone..... Leave it alone.

0,0-Arena Trap - HA!! And you thought Duggy was bad.....

2,0-Pressure - Generic and pointless. Sorry. I assuming we are aiming to give this Cap something it can use.

1,5-Rough Skin - This guy is not taking hits. I would much prefer Aftermath.

1,0-Rock Head - Aside from the use of Head smash, I see no real point to this. Lets find some other way for him to over come Blissey if we really want it to.

1,5-Sniper - I suppose it suits him well. But I would rather not grant it an ability so dependent on luck. And luck over kill at that.

Super luck - Same feelings as above.

Inner Focus - Pointless.

Unburden - Cool idea. But on something already so fast, what use does it really have?



Also touching slightly on the issue of a new Special Rock move for this cap. I do think a move of at least 80 - 90 base power with few to no secondary effects will be necessary for this poke. Unless we do decide that either Technician or Adaptability be use (and I've expressed my feelings on those), this pokemon will likely struggle with only Power gem.

I do support the creation of a new move simply for the fact that will be necessary and also opens up the opportunity for other abilities to be properly considered.

For that reason I feel we, as a community, need to decide whether or not we are going to grant him a new move or not first before we can properly decide on abilities.

As it stands I support these possible combinations:

1st: Levitate
2nd: Limber

The two switch in abilities. Simple.

1st: Levitate
2nd: Technician (this is assuming a new move is granted and ancient power is not actually in his move pool)

These two I feel can complement each other in a trade for switch in ability for power play. With Levitate, grant it moves like Lava Plume, Energy Ball, Signal Beam, Discharge, Shadow Ball, Extrasensory and Flash Cannon (all move with base 80 or less) to work with. While Technician can grant a plethora of Base 90 moves, often with added effects.

Basically,
Levitate - Less power more switch in capability.
Technician - More power/move flexibility, less switch in opportunity,

Lol i give my notes before i saw your last opinion =P
But i Add Adaptibility to this.

 

[Gothic Togekiss]

Magnet Pull - This belongs to Magnezone..... Leave it alone.

I fail to see how that a valid reason to not give him Magnet Pull. We gave Revenankh Air Lock, Ray's signature ability so I don't see any problems giving it Magnet Pull. One more thing, the Nosepass family has Magnet Pull as well and Nosepass is a pure Rock type. Justifying the ability onto it would be as easy as pie.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Every Rock type gets Earth Power in Platinum. I mean all of them, even the ones with crappy Special Attack that'll never use it. Unless there's overwhelmingly good reason to break this precedence, I don't see any reason to deny this EP.

Shit, I was going to say "to break the mold!!!!". I'm so predictable.

Back on topic, I think that any new ability should contribute significantly towards a CAP's ability to perform its job properly, and in a way that no existing ability can compare. Persistent makes Tailwind/Trick Room/Gravity more usable in a fundamentally unique way, Mountaineer saves Syclant from being totally boned by SR on the switchin. If we want a marginal ability, we've got plenty of existing ones to choose from. If we want one more immunity for easier switchins, we have several to choose from without having to go through the trouble of making one up.

My thoughts exactly. We don't need to create a new ability.

And I really think we should just (or at least) give Adaptibility to it. Factoring STAB in, Ancientpower becomes a 120 BP move, and Power Gem, 140. It's like Ancientpower has 80 Base Power and Power Gem, 93, and then STAB is counted. Tell me how they're broken this way.

 

[Jenigmat]

I don't necessarily support Mold Breaker as my top choice, I just think it's interesting to note how Syclant is suddenly unable to switch into Rock Attacks, taking away Mountaineer from it on the switch in.

 

[yoshi!]

Wait, if you missed 8 Stone Edges, surely you'd have no more... :/

I can see Pressure working on it, with it's claws stopping it from moving, or Levitate, as it's floating, Compound Eyes, with the number of eyes it has (6, I think), Mold Breaker with reference to the objective, or we can have a completely new ability for CAP and Rock Types.

Competitively, Limber would stop Paralysis, which would bring it down like a rock balloon.

Just my $0.03 (cos I can afford more 8D).

 

[PirateDelux]

I really like Mold Breaker, or Compound Eyes- because he has what looks like 6 or 8 or something eyes.

Mold Breaker fits because it's the sole purpose of this Rockmon,
and

While it is special, there's no 100% Acc phsycical rock move, and those- such as head smash, work well against blissey and other types.


I am also, sadly, kind of in support of magic guard, it fits in well with it's art. But besides that, I don't know.

 

[Hyra]

For Aftermath, are we going to give this Stealth Rock (and Taunt)? Because with Aftermath, SR, Focus Sash, and Taunt, we just got a Suicide lead that can do something to TTar while still setting up Rocks. Azelf, who was designed as a Special Sweeper falls into the Suicide Lead role now, and I am afraid that our guy will too, which breaks no molds, since Aerodactyl is reduced to the exact same thing in OU. So if we give it Aftermath, it needs to have another ability that helps its sweep, or it will just have too much potential as a Suicide Lead to not be used as one.