CAP Updates: Aurumoth Discussion

[NumberCruncher]

Pressure could be a nice ability to add to Aurumoth. It seems pretty nice as a pseudo-legendary, and Pressure is a nice pseudo-legendary ability.

 

[Okamu]

If there is an Ability that would be interesting for Auromoth it would be Rattled. It's an extremely niche and risky Ability, making it overshadowed by the other two Abilities, but it would be quite fun to get a slight boost in Speed when hit by three of its weaknesses, like a random Knock Off.

That's definitely an interesting choice, but I would worry that it might incentivize not attacking Aurumoth with those types of attacks, in fear of giving it a speed boost it needs to sweep or something.

I'd also like to mention Magician though. It's a pretty useless ability that only matters when you don't have an item, and therefore are able to steal one from the opponent. That's my understanding of it anyways. In addition, it also matches up decently with the Psychic typing while retaining the mysticism of Illusion.

 

[Gerard]

That's definitely an interesting choice, but I would worry that it might incentivize not attacking Aurumoth with those types of attacks, in fear of giving it a speed boost it needs to sweep or something.

Weak Armor already does that.

 

[Okamu]

Weak Armor already does that.

I see the parallel, but I frankly have to disagree; there are notable enough differences. Weak Armor applies to any physical attacks, so typing doesn't come into play. Rattled however specifically targets three types that Auru is weak to, de-incentivizing their use if the mon can't kill with said attack. I guess my main point was more that Weak Armor is more general in what it targets, whereas Rattled specifically targets types Super Effective on Auru. In that respect, I personally feel it isn't necessarily inferior to Weak Armor at all, but just an alternative way to get a passive speed boost.

Think of it this way, there's an Auru in front of you at 1 Quiver Dance, and you don't know what ability it has, but you know it isn't No Guard because it missed some move earlier. You have a scarfer that can kill with X neutral move in the back, but it needs a bit more damage. At this point, you have a choice. You can send in a mon that does said damage through a physical attack, or a special attack of Bug, Ghost, or Dark type, whatever moves they might be. Depending on what ability it is, you either get away with your damage and kill with the scarfer, OR you accidentally activate the ability, and now your scarfer doesn't outspeed and gets knocked out by Auru.

Now, I know that's a very specific example, but my point is that Rattled isn't as niche as one might be inclined to think solely because of the fact that it's activated by types super effective on Auru. You might accidentally let it sweep your team by trying to kill it with a Scarf Lele's Shadow Ball or something. I don't know. My point is simply that, in my honest opinion, we shouldn't be giving Aurumoth an ability that can be useful to it at all. Rattled simply doesn't provide the uselessness that abilities like Illuminate, Heavy Metal, Magician, and Telepathy do.

 

[cbrevan]

I think we've reached a consensus on how to handle the ability slot Illusion will leave; we'll be replacing it with a flavour ability as opposed to a third competitive ability. This is what I wanted us to reach a decision on, so I'll be putting a temporary stop on the flavour ability discussion until after we've hammered out of the rest of the competitive discussion. Therefore, I'd like people to focus on the other question I asked earlier. Specifically, I want us to figure out if any other changes would be needed in addition to the removal of Illusion, or if removing Illusion would be enough. This is the last point of competitive discussion I foresee for Aurumoth, so we should definitely shift our focus towards it. Once we reach a decision on it, we will continue with the flavour portion of this update and get onto the flavour ability and moves. We've made some great process so far, so lets keep moving forward.

 

[snake]

I'm still going with what I said in this post.

I've seen some comments wondering if Aurumoth will ever be used over Volcarona, given that Volcarona has better Speed and Special Attack. However, Aurumoth takes less from Stealth Rock and has better physical bulk, different abilities, wider coverage, and different boosting moves (Dragon Dance and Tail Glow) to differentiate itself. This gives Aurumoth a clear niche over Volcarona, even though both are good picks for a team. I truly believe that no more removals are necessary to nerf Aurumoth.

 

[david0895]

Removing Illlusion for Aurumoth is a really big nerf. Even with powerful boosting options, stat spread, movepool, and coupled with unique abilities, I think that Aurumoth will be a balanced, top tier threat in the metagame. It's already mainly forced to run its STABs to get the damage output it wants, it'll be much easier to check it with a scarfer and either a) force it out after setting up or b) make it attack and not set up. While you can compare Aurumoth to Genesect in that they're both Bug-types with sub-Base 100 Speed, really wide coverage, and excellent stats all, this isn't mon with Download-boosted attacks pivoting everywhere either. So in my opinion, we should not remove any other aspects of Aurumoth aside from Illusion.

I copy this post, to say that removing Illusion is enough

 

[Alchemister]

I also think that removing Illusion is enough. And, while it is more of a consistency update, it still might be considered competitive enough, so I'm gonna advocate for giving Aurumoth Dazzling Gleam as a Consistency change that affects competitive side. We have both Psychic STAB for fighting and Bug STAB for dark, leaving only Dragons and some less common type combinations (admittedly including Mega Sableye, which might be significant) for this to get hit super-effectively where it weren't before. Adding to that similar Special sweepers were getting Dazzling Gleam left and right for last two gens, I have difficult time reasoning why it shouldn't. Because its most direct competition are your STABs, it doesn't even compress your coverage.

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

I also think that removing Illusion is enough. And, while it is more of a consistency update, it still might be considered competitive enough, so I'm gonna advocate for giving Aurumoth Dazzling Gleam as a Consistency change that affects competitive side. We have both Psychic STAB for fighting and Bug STAB for dark, leaving only Dragons and some less common type combinations (admittedly including Mega Sableye, which might be significant) for this to get hit super-effectively where it weren't before. Adding to that similar Special sweepers were getting Dazzling Gleam left and right for last two gens, I have difficult time reasoning why it shouldn't. Because its most direct competition are your STABs, it doesn't even compress your coverage.

I'm not a fan of this idea at all. Aurumoth's coverage pool is already pretty nuts at this point. The Pokemon you said DGleam can beat can already be beaten by Aurumoth's other coverage (Dragons don't like Ice Beam/Blizzard, and Mega Sableye can be beaten with any coverage move if boosted enough). It already has plenty of coverage, so I am saying no to that.

 

[boxofkangaroos]

Yes, Aurumoth already has ridiculous coverage, but Dazzling Gleam is not a crazy idea because it won't have that big of a competitive impact. As Alchemister stated, Aurumoth has better coverage to hit the things that Dazzling Gleam would hit, besides Mega Sableye. However, Aurumoth can already easily 2HKO Mega Sableye at +1 with Bug Buzz. I can't see anyone running Dazzling Gleam just to hit Mega Sableye when Aurumoth can already 2HKO it easily with a better move, so I think Dazzling Gleam is perfectly fine.

 

[NumberCruncher]

I'm going to put my vote for Illusion removal with no Dazzling Gleam. The only bugs to get the Gleam are Volbeat, Illumise, and Ribombee, and Ribombee only got it because it's a Fairy. Add to that that a little less than half of the Psychics in the game have it, and there's really no reason to add it on.

 

[sparktrain]

In my opinion, Dazzling Gleam is fine. Dazzling Gleam provides very few competitive advantages over Aurumoth's other attacks. It's largely redundant with Aurumoth's STAB moves in terms of super effective coverage and Aurumoth has stronger options to hit Dragon-types (Ice Beam and Blizzard). It basically provides a super effective hit on Mega Sableye.

As far as flavor stuff goes, Dazzling Gleam absolutely has merit. A good chunk of Psychic-types have the move with no other Fairy coverage, and 100% of real Pokemon that learn Tail Glow also have access to Dazzling Gleam. The discussion should really be about whether hitting Mega Sableye harder is significant enough to disallow such a move.

 

[Reviloja753]

Hey guys! I am new here, but I do play CAP and I am an Aurumoth user, and I have some ability ideas for this guy. My opinions likely won't have an impact, but I thought I might be able to bring something to the discussion, so why not.

Aura Break would be a flavor ability, and I only chose this as it has Aura in the name. Not much to it.
Hustle would be interesting to see, as it gives Aurumoth a physical option while still being risky with lower accuracy. However, it might backfire and make it a physical threat in the process.
Illuminate is another flavor ability, which is for the same reasons as everyone else, so nothing to add here.

Besides those options, I think it would be a good idea to remove Tail Glow, and replace it with either Calm Mind or Nasty Plot. This way, it wouldn't be able to set up as fast.

I'm sorry if all of these ideas are garbage, but I thought I could at least attempt to help the metagame out with these suggestions. Thanks for reading!

Mod Edit: Deleted portions mentioning custom ability

 

[G-Luke]

I dont see the need to remove Tail Glow, its fine as is.

Illuminate has much discussion and my personal favourite to win, tbh.

Hustle. Hustle is veeery interesting for Auromoth. I do not think any ability better says high risk high reward lije Hustle. Though a 50% boost in attack is very big and might immediately scream broken, one has to keep in mind that Auromoth's STABs are already inaccurate as is, so the chances of them hitting is actually not very high, (less than Focus Blast I believe) which makes it not worth the risk. Also the community said they only wanted a flavour ability to replace Illusion.

But I dont want the guys to dismiss Hustle just yet.

 

[P2X7]

I would like to suggest Light Metal as Aurumoth's third Ability. In addition to being sufficiently useless to fit as a Flavor Ability, Light Metal has excellent synergy with an old post by jas61292 in the CAP 4 Pre-evos Final Product thread that provides an explanation for Aurumoth's weight:

Now like bugmaniacbob did for Aurumoth, I wanted to base the weights on calculations using the densities of the matierials that are the Pokemon's namesakes. However, in looking back at his calculations, I noticed that his weight only took into account a single wing. The calculations all make sense, but looking at them, Aurumoth should clearly weight 6 times what it does. However, this could not be a case of error, as Aurumoth clearly weighs exactly what bmb said. I thought for a while, and finally arrived at this explaination:

Aurumoth uses some sort of psychic power to lessen the density of the its floating wings. While using this ability, the weight of all its plates measure the same as the weight of a single one. For its pre evolutions, this ability has not been fully developed. Cupra, who's two plates are attached to its body, carries the full mass of the copper. Argalis on the other hand, carries the full weight for the 4 acting as a shell, but has developed enough power to cause the two floating wings to only register as one when weighed.

(Bold added by me for emphasis.)

With regards to Dazzling Gleam, I see no issue with the move. Its only real benefit is allowing Aurumoth to 2HKO Mega Sableye, but Aurumoth can already accomplish this feat with Bug Buzz after setting up with Quiver Dance, and its coverage is better without using Dazzling Gleam. Dazzling Gleam is just too niche of an option for its presence on Aurumoth's movepool to be considered questionable or overpowered.

 

[Trox]

Hustle. Hustle is veeery interesting for Auromoth. I do not think any ability better says high risk high reward lije Hustle. Though a 50% boost in attack is very big and might immediately scream broken, one has to keep in mind that Auromoth's STABs are already inaccurate as is, so the chances of them hitting is actually not very high, (less than Focus Blast I believe) which makes it not worth the risk. Also the community said they only wanted a flavour ability to replace Illusion.

But I dont want the guys to dismiss Hustle just yet.

Copying this post to say that I fully support this reasoning, but I don't have any more arguments to add at this point.

 

[cbrevan]

Hustle is defiantly not an option here. If you just do the calcs for it you would see that it allows Aurumoth to damn near OHKO the entire metagame with just one boost and rocks up. Keep in mind that we just decided to nerf Aurumoth-we're not going to be buffing it in significant way. If you're going to bring up something that could be competitively viable, you're going to have to show the calcs and explain how its not creating more favorable matchups for Aurumoth.

Also, take a look at my last post to see what our current discussion points are; please focus on what Aurumoth may need to have removed or why Illusion is enough of a nerf before we start discussing additions.

 

[Deck Knight]

The problem with Hustle, which is something I chatted about with a few server players, is it gives Aurumoth one of the most powerful Choice Band sets going. You might think a 64% Accurate Megahorn is beyond the realm of use, but considering it as if it were a Hypnosis that instead inflicted a OHKO instead of Sleep. Combine with 80% accurate Close Combat and 72% Accurate Zen Headbutt and yes, Aurumoth might be hit or miss but those hits will score KOs.

Also don't forget Z-Moves are perfectly accurate. Savage Spinout *will* take an opponent out before Hustle Megahorn becomes a coin flip nuke.

 

[Reviloja753]

The problem with Hustle, which is something I chatted about with a few server players, is it gives Aurumoth one of the most powerful Choice Band sets going. You might think a 64% Accurate Megahorn is beyond the realm of use, but considering it as if it were a Hypnosis that instead inflicted a OHKO instead of Sleep. Combine with 80% accurate Close Combat and 72% Accurate Zen Headbutt and yes, Aurumoth might be hit or miss but those hits will score KOs.

Also don't forget Z-Moves are perfectly accurate. Savage Spinout *will* take an opponent out before Hustle Megahorn becomes a coin flip nuke.

You make a good point. I was just trying to give it a risky ability that is not useless. I honestly don't see Weak Armor at all, and while it has a niche, it isn't that good due to how fraile it is. For a half-decent ability, how about Rivalry? It has a niche, but isn't that useful. I sort of considered Weak Armor the flavor ability of sorts, but if it has to be a flavor ability, I'm on board with Illuminate or Magician.

For other changes to Aurumoth, maybe lowering its special attack to base 100 or swapping Tail Glow for Nasty Plot or Calm Mind.

 

[reachzero]

Weak Armor is better than you're giving it credit for, it's definitely a competitive ability. Let's make sure Aurumoth's third ability is a truly non-competitive ability; Hustle is absolutely competitive.

I'm fine with Dazzling Gleam going to a poll, it's not game-changing coverage, but I also don't really see why Aurumoth would need it.

 

[Reviloja753]

Weak Armor is better than you're giving it credit for, it's definitely a competitive ability. Let's make sure Aurumoth's third ability is a truly non-competitive ability; Hustle is absolutely competitive.

I'm fine with Dazzling Gleam going to a poll, it's not game-changing coverage, but I also don't really see why Aurumoth would need it.

Alrighty then. Like I said, Magician or Illuminate.

 

[cbrevan]

Hello everyone, I think it's time for us to continue on with our competitive discussion. Originally I had wanted us to come to a decision as to whether Illusion's replacement would be competitive or flavour, so we could address any competitive abilities with the rest of our competitive discussion. However, the thread derailed itself badly as everyone gave their two cents on what that ability should be, which was not the direction I had intended. Therefore, I'd like everyone to listen to what the UL is saying and stop discussing abilities until we reach the flavour stage. It's apparent to me from the many abilities people have suggested that the consensus is that Aurumoth will get a flavour ability to replace Illusion, so we'll discuss it with the rest of the flavour updates.

As such, I'd like everyone to focus on the following question:

With the removal of Illusion, is there any other aspect of Aurumoth that you believe needs a change? This includes both any issues with Aurumoth's current movepool and any of its remaining abilities, as well as any potential removals people would like to see in addition to Illusion.

We've touched briefly on this here and there, but I don't believe we've discussed this question enough for me to gauge how the community feels about this. Essentially what I want to know is if any other major change to Aurumoth will be warranted. It's important that we focus our discussion on this topic before all else so we can move onto further movepool or abilities discussions as needed. As such, I'd also like people to refrain from proposing movepool additions until discussion has developed to the point as to where I can determine a consensus or hold a poll. I'm making this decision because Aurumoth is unlikely to receive much from movepool additions, if any, especially since Aurumoth is one of the handful of CAPs that we're trying to scale back on. In short, it mostly likely won't be receiving much in the way of competitive moves, so I'd like us to focus on the biggest remaining discussion points first.

 

[david0895]

I want to consider the idea of adding more physical coverage.
If you look at the special non-STAB moves, there are: Blizzard, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Thunder, Focus Blast, Overheat, Shadow Ball, Surf, Hydro Pump.
On the physical side there's only Close Combat, moves like Flare Blitz, Wild Charge or Icicle Crash can be a nice addition for the DD set.

 

[Wenderz]

I think that's removing Illusion is enough to make Aurumoth more balanced (It makes me sad, since I really love using it, but that's alright). He has an awesome coverage which leaves him with no true counter, except maybe Unaware Clefable (which can be beaten by a Final Gambit). But without Illusion it will be tougher to set him up, since he has a poor defensive typing. Doing this can fulfill his original concept too.

It will be, as ever, a dangerous Pokemon because of his Movepool and stats making him unpredictable, but it won't be this broken in my opinion. So I don't think that removing any moves is needed.

 

[AJC]

nuking Illusion for a flavor ability will be going a long way to unfucking Aurumoth.

although personally i also really detest all the high BP coverage that synergies with no guard specially on the special sets H-pump/focus blast/thunder/blizzard is pretty damn good coverage by itself.

also why the hell does this thing get overheat which lets it nuke steel type checks and it's even worse now has with Z-moves with a 195 BP inferno overdrive to smack steels with and you still got a 130 power move to use on them later.