CAP 10 Cap 10 - Part 5d - Secondary Ability Poll

[reachzero]

Just to address the Toxic Stalling concern with Poison Heal, I would like to point out that
a. Toxic Stalling is really bad as a tactic for most Pokemon. Two types are completely immune to it, including the type of the #1 used Pokemon in OU. Factor in the Natural Cure Pokemon and Pokemon using Rest, and there are way too many Pokemon that "wall" you.
b. Magic Guard allows for just as much healing ability as Poison Heal; in Sandstorm, you'll recover 6.25% with either ability (if the Magic Guard user has Leftovers and the Poison Heal user has Toxic Orb).

 

[zarator]

To add to what Reach said, no one forces us to give Substitute, Toxic and Protect to CAP10. If we deem that the combination of the three is broken, we may ditch a move with ease (I'd say Toxic, but whatever).

 

[Seizen]

Err... okay... all of the abilities seem broken to one person or another. Me? I don't see why Filter is still here - Intimidate stops EQ better, and the grass moves are uncommonly used, the most common ones being HP Grass, which is never STAB-worthy, and Grass Knot, which again is hardly ever STAB-worthy. Filter simply allows us to take less damage from Earth Power and the uncommon grass moves. Not really all that useful.

As for the others... I personally feel that Poison Heal's vast leftovers recovery doesn't do too much for us if we are taking STAB Draco Meteor or STAB Outrage, for example, so I guess Poison Heal gets my vote.

Especially as despite the whole "We can make the ultimate staller", who will want to? I mean, if I wish to stall someone, I'm much more likely to use an existing team strategy than try to impliment the same one using a new Pokemon which may not even run stall well. CAP10 is better set up to sweep, given it's typing and the fact we want to hit Steel-users hard, practically guaranteeing either Fighting or Fire moves, probably both.

EDIT: Another point which springs to mind is that if we give Poison Heal to CAP10, we shut down it's item use. Which is quite the problem, IMO, as CAP10 might make a surprising Trick-user. We don't know yet, as we haven't implimented the moveset options. So Trace will allow us more item custom, while Poison Heal allows us more healing. Both are useful but have downsides, so everyone wins.

 

[Jandro]

I voted for Magic guard because i do believe this CAP is threatened by status. BUT i fear giving this CAP poison heal because its twice the leftover recovery with immunity to toxic. Meaning this CAP might just stop being a utility counter and starts being more of a massive wall. Add to this resttalk set , a recovery or even just battonpassed aqua ring or ingrain and fear it. Fear it cause even lugia will be jealous.

Also: "I voted Beej is a penis" just cause...i can.

 

[Objection]

@Jandro: There is no way that CAP10 is going to become a massive wall when it's weak to Earthquake, the most common move in the game and a move that is used on OU's greatest physical attackers.

 

[SinisterSamurai]

I voted Poison Heal, but I couldn't tell you why. From what I'm reading none of these abilities is a good choice for the concept. Everyone seems to be arguing and voting for whichever one they feel is the lessor of four evils. There doesn't seem to be a lot of "Why I voted for X." Instead, I'm seeing a lot of "Why I didn't vote for W, Y, or Z."

Maybe we need to look at abilities, look at why they are abusable and how we can make these defensive, and eliminate what makes them offensive. But then I guess I don't really know much about the metagame.

This is going to be a point on which the concept ultimately succeeds or fails, (regardless of the Poke's actual success), and if no one is really happy with the options, then we shouldn't be afraid to step back and try again.

 

[beej]

I voted Poison Heal, but I couldn't tell you why. From what I'm reading none of these abilities is a good choice for the concept. Everyone seems to be arguing and voting for whichever one they feel is the lessor of four evils. There doesn't seem to be a lot of "Why I voted for X." Instead, I'm seeing a lot of "Why I didn't vote for W, Y, or Z."

Maybe we need to look at abilities, look at why they are abusable and how we can make these defensive, and eliminate what makes them offensive. But then I guess I don't really know much about the metagame.

This is going to be a point on which the concept ultimately succeeds or fails, (regardless of the Poke's actual success), and if no one is really happy with the options, then we shouldn't be afraid to step back and try again.

All of the abilities that have made it into this poll allow us to better respond to a certain set of threats situationally. How does that not fit the concept? We had a discussion thread open for days at a time, and it's not like anybody magically conjured up some distinctively perfect, non-broken ability that everyone liked the best, because sometimes that just doesn't happen. I decided against allowing NSA, however, for the reason that I felt it was better to be increasing our counter set than to give up on some sort of principle.

I'm ultimately of the belief that none of these abilities are inherently broken, and that because Trace is such a good, rare ability, it's going to get plenty of usage alongside our secondary ability no matter what. The abilities in the slate represent a selection of different ways to go about taking on more threats. There's the whole anti-status theme, but you also have Intimidate for powerful physical hits and you have Filter to lessen your two weaks. From looking through the thread, I felt that other abilities were either single-immunity ones that I intended to avoid from the start, or they were niche ways of going about the benefits offered by Magic Guard or Poison Heal.

 

[Raikaria]

Hmm, I'm having a hard time.

Magic Guard my support was for previously, but it left, and I now feel it may be broken.

If Breloom's taught us one thing, it's that giving Poision Heal to anything makes it a lot tougher. CAP10 is anything but frail. Poision Heal is probobly going to be too good.

Intimidate = No, just no. -1 Attack on anything with CAP10's HP means just a minor investment in Defence, and max Sp.Def will make it basically impossible to OHKO short of Choiced Attacks.

Filter/Solid Rock won't be used, and are not useful, Rhyperior taught us that.

Ultimately, I've gone back to Magic Guard

Dissapointed to see no Air Lock, it would have been interesting.

 

[Rhys29]

Another point which springs to mind is that if we give Poison Heal to CAP10, we shut down it's item use. Which is quite the problem, IMO, as CAP10 might make a surprising Trick-user. We don't know yet, as we haven't implimented the moveset options. So Trace will allow us more item custom, while Poison Heal allows us more healing. Both are useful but have downsides, so everyone wins.

Just bringing this back up again because it's dead on. Poison Heal secures the item of CAP10 immediately. There would be no reason to use any other item and then hope to god the opponent attempts to poison you. Intimidate, Filter, and Magic Guard have no items that are basically required for the ability to work. Which in turn provides more customization. I still feel Magic Guard is the most customizable ability there is.

 

[FlareBlitz]

If you want to run something besides Toxic Orb, use Trace. Magic Guard might be customizable, but we don't necessarily want you to be able to customize CAP10 into SuperStarmie.

 

[Rhys29]

If you want to run something besides Toxic Orb, use Trace. Magic Guard might be customizable, but we don't necessarily want you to be able to customize CAP10 into SuperStarmie.

Starmie is a terrible example of what CAP10 might turn out to be. Starmie in general is not a big threat to any team. Not to mention CAP10 has lower speed and offenses, lacks the utility Starmie has, doesn't have the powerful attacks like Hydro Pump Starmie has, and has no reliable recovery. From what I see it was a rash statement to consider it would become a new Starmie and most people are clinging to this without looking at any actual details. CAP10 was designed not to look like any bulky Water out there and through stats and typing it accomplished this goal.

Saying 'use the other ability if you want another item' is a total cop out. The reason Trace was viewed as superior was because it was maleable and could counter many threats. Items like type resist Berries and even offensive items like Life Orb were speculated as being useful on Trace to deal with specific threats. Poison Heal is basically about abusing Toxic Orb. Sure, Magic Guard can do this to stop status too, but it's not the only item viable for the ability. There are plenty of threats left CAP10 must deal with, speculations suggest about half the metagame, so the second ability, I feel, must be as meleable as the first.

 

[beastzero13]

umm, why does poison heal lock us into toxic orb? I mean it makes toxic orb the best choice but still.

Just imagine ur opponent has used their roserade to put up toxic spike and is feeling good about their subpetraya empoleon until.... you bring out lefties Cap 10 for triple leftovers recovery. MUahahahahaha!!! or use toxic orb and get poisoned.

I dont get why magic guard is worse than posion heal for life orb. If u manage to get poisoned u could be using life orb and healing 2.5% every turn. Imagine the devastation.

 

[familyguyman]

umm, why does poison heal lock us into toxic orb? I mean it makes toxic orb the best choice but still.

Just imagine ur opponent has used their roserade to put up toxic spike and is feeling good about their subpetraya empoleon until.... you bring out lefties Cap 10 for triple leftovers recovery. MUahahahahaha!!! or use toxic orb and get poisoned.

I dont get why magic guard is worse than posion heal for life orb. If u manage to get poisoned u could be using life orb and healing 2.5% every turn. Imagine the devastation.

While getting Poisoned can certainly happen, it's very unreliable for something as important at Poison Heal. Yes, Life Orb + Poison Heal + getting Poisons ~ Magic Guard + Life Orb, but I don't think you can build a set around the former as you most certainly will with the latter.

 

[FlareBlitz]

It's not a rash statement at all. Calculations were provided on the discussion thread; please feel free to look them over. They clearly illustrate that CAP10 would have the power to get the job done as a special sweeper with a Life Orb attached. CAP10's speed is nearly as high as Starmie's, with the only Pokemon it loses out to (that can actually threaten it) being Infernape and the soon-to-be-Uber Latias. It gains STAB on Thunderbolt, and is much bulkier than Starmie will ever be. Its secondary typing is defensively superior as well. And, importantly, its Attack is high enough to go Mixed, meaning that Starmie's primary nemesis (Blissey) will not be troubling us. Your speculations on whether it will get Hydro Pump and Recover aside (don't assume it won't), Surf, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, and [coverage] are more than enough to wreck over half the tier. Magic Guard facilitates this by removing the significant disadvantage Life Orb carries (especially significant since CAP10 can actually take hits and appreciates its bulk) and goes even further by eliminating Sandstorm, Hazard, and Status damage, all of which would otherwise discourage using this thing as a sweeper.

And it's not a cop-out to say "use another ability if you don't want to run Toxic Orb"; Poison Heal is here if you want to minimize the total amount of damage you take from various threats due to the extra healing and if you want to gain immunity to status. If neither of those is that important to you, use Trace. It's a perfectly viable ability.

If you want extra healing and immunity to status and the ability to use Choice Scarf or something, then there aren't any non-broken abilities we could feasibly give CAP10.

 

[hydrolphin]

I voted for Poison Heal. It is the only one that I don't have a major problem with. Intimidate seems like a more all encompassing Trace, and overlaps on Trace's best quality-weakening Mence and Gyarados. I don't like the lack of LO recoil with Magic Guard, especially considering that the best physical STAB move CAP10 could have is Volt Tackle-which is a 120 bp move with no drawbacks while you have Magic Guard. Now I think it would take a lot to make this thing a full on sweeper, especially from the physical side, but the combo of LO, VT, and Magic Guard is probably the closest we could come barring something stupid like Pure Power. Filter does not do enough to make this thing worthwhile. It makes EQ slightly less powerful... hooray? Poison Heal is a solid ability-I don't particularly like it, but I don't see much wrong with it.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Oh wow, I even forgot that this could feasibly get Volt Tackle.

For fun, here's a 0 ATK Life Orb-boosted CAP10 Volt Tackle against standard WishBliss: 45.4% - 53.6%

 

[Tortferngatr]

umm, why does poison heal lock us into toxic orb? I mean it makes toxic orb the best choice but still.

Just imagine ur opponent has used their roserade to put up toxic spike and is feeling good about their subpetraya empoleon until.... you bring out lefties Cap 10 for triple leftovers recovery. MUahahahahaha!!! or use toxic orb and get poisoned.

I dont get why magic guard is worse than posion heal for life orb. If u manage to get poisoned u could be using life orb and healing 2.5% every turn. Imagine the devastation.

Simple. The metagame adapts to become less focused on Toxic Spike strategies. Unlike having to predict weaknesses, simply losing one viable team archetype to face won't exactly detriment CAP10.

And unless it is possible to shoot the rest of one's team in the foot and TS oneself, then Toxic condition is pretty darn unreliable if as a result of CAP10 Roserade would head south to UU in CAP again. (Forretress would have better things to run.) Guts users simply abuse the presence of status. Toxic can much more easily be substituted for Will O' Wisp or Lava Plume.

And what exactly is the point of having only 0.65 of your physical strength, granted 1.3 special attack, while losing 22.5% of your HP each turn? None. Toxic Orb is the only thing Breloom really runs in order to abuse Poison Heal, the only way we can truly abuse Poison Heal is Toxic Orb as well. Besides, the guy doesn't get STAB Focus Punch off Base 130 attack, heck we don't even have to GIVE this thing Focus Punch.

 

[Rhys29]

It's not a rash statement at all. Calculations were provided on the discussion thread; please feel free to look them over. They clearly illustrate that CAP10 would have the power to get the job done as a special sweeper with a Life Orb attached. CAP10's speed is nearly as high as Starmie's, with the only Pokemon it loses out to (that can actually threaten it) being Infernape and the soon-to-be-Uber Latias. It gains STAB on Thunderbolt, and is much bulkier than Starmie will ever be. Its secondary typing is defensively superior as well. And, importantly, its Attack is high enough to go Mixed, meaning that Starmie's primary nemesis (Blissey) will not be troubling us. Your speculations on whether it will get Hydro Pump and Recover aside (don't assume it won't), Surf, Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, and [coverage] are more than enough to wreck over half the tier. Magic Guard facilitates this by removing the significant disadvantage Life Orb carries (especially significant since CAP10 can actually take hits and appreciates its bulk) and goes even further by eliminating Sandstorm, Hazard, and Status damage, all of which would otherwise discourage using this thing as a sweeper.

I once again say none of the provided calculations are impressive. At all. If Starmie, who has a higher base Attack than CAP10, isn't considered a major threat outside of perhaps sweeping late game, then, in theorymon logic, CAP10 will not be an offensive threat. Especially if you are using Starmie, which is, once again, a horrible example to base your opinion off of since it looks nothing like CAP10. There is no reason to use something as bulky as CAP10 with low offenses and turn it around into a 'doomsday sweeper'.

I also mentioned on the calculations that none of them compared to Starmie. All the SE Thunderbolt calculations showed Starmie hit everything CAP10 could 2HKO and OHKO with 2HKO's and OHKO's of its own. And Blissey still walls CAP10 to death, any physical move deals laughable damage when CAP10 would be a 'special sweeper'.

Waterfall vs. Standard Blissey: 193 - 228 (29.38% - 34.70%)
Brick Break vs. Standard Blissey: 242 - 286 (36.83% - 43.53%)

Completely ignorable damage. If you are considering CAP10 would replace special or mixed threats like Infernape, Salamence, Latias, Azelf, Heatran, and Empoleon you are terribly mistaken. Having no LO recoil is nice, but dealing considerably low damage compared to many other proven sweepers is not what most teams are looking for. You are theorymoning on nothing logical beyond 'it doesn't take LO recoil'.

And it's not a cop-out to say "use another ability if you don't want to run Toxic Orb"; Poison Heal is here if you want to minimize the total amount of damage you take from various threats due to the extra healing and if you want to gain immunity to status. If neither of those is that important to you, use Trace. It's a perfectly viable ability.

Magic Guard provides the 'much needed' status immunity. You can also use Leftovers and not be hindered from countering threats under SS or Hail. Right away you don't have a two in one as you do with Poison Heal. As I said before: it doesn't promote customization. That's all I need to say about anything anyone else argues.

Everyone stop theorymoning that CAP10 will get any attack. Comments about moves like Hydro Pump, Recover, and Volt Tackle are completely ignorable.

 

[QuimicVital]

I think Magic Guard would be cool to help it utility countering!!

 

[TacoHawk76]

Lol QuimicVital that was a silly post. Of course you do, else you wouldn't have voted for it.

My support is for Filter (Aesthetically, Solid Rock doesn't fit for an electric-water pokemon, but water works well with he whole filter thing.). Think about it: How am I to counter Swampert if he can nail me with super-effective STAB EQ over and over? With Filter, you can counter a pokemon even if it has a move that is SE towards you, because the extra damage is mitigated (but not erased).

 

[Rising_Dusk]

I once again say none of the provided calculations are impressive.

Surely you recognize that the point isn't that those calculations are impressive, as they are that powerful with or without Magic Guard, it's that with Magic Guard they come at absolutely no cost to CAP10 at all. With Magic Guard, the sheer bulkiness of CAP10 and immunities to all sorts of residual render it far superior in the grand scheme of things to Starmie. Even at a few percent less damage here and there, the thing does all of it with enough bulk to hit more often and with far greater sustainability than Starmie.

 

[beastzero13]

Simple. The metagame adapts to become less focused on Toxic Spike strategies. Unlike having to predict weaknesses, simply losing one viable team archetype to face won't exactly detriment CAP10.

And unless it is possible to shoot the rest of one's team in the foot and TS oneself, then Toxic condition is pretty darn unreliable if as a result of CAP10 Roserade would head south to UU in CAP again. (Forretress would have better things to run.) Guts users simply abuse the presence of status. Toxic can much more easily be substituted for Will O' Wisp or Lava Plume.

And what exactly is the point of having only 0.65 of your physical strength, granted 1.3 special attack, while losing 22.5% of your HP each turn? None. Toxic Orb is the only thing Breloom really runs in order to abuse Poison Heal, the only way we can truly abuse Poison Heal is Toxic Orb as well. Besides, the guy doesn't get STAB Focus Punch off Base 130 attack, heck we don't even have to GIVE this thing Focus Punch.

hahahaha, ok guys i was actually just joking. dont take it so seriously, but ya thats pretty much exactly what i was thinking. With this new cap any rare attempts at using toxic spikes would probably end. But still triple lefties lol. just imagine u could use substitute and almost gain health.

oh and actually the only reason breloom runs poison heal is because even w/o a toxic orb, it is still much better than effect spore. Even on boosting sets utilizing Life orb poison heal is the superior choice because of effect spore's uselessness.

All i'm saying is that some gimmicky sets can be used based on using poison heal and a different item. However, it's use is situational at best because of the rarity of toxic. Also, toxics usage will probably drop making it even more rarely useful.

 

[Anachronism]

I would like to point out again that those calcs were also with modest... Honestly, who is going to use Modest sweeper CAP 10? 105 Speed is too good not to use. Honestly the calcs weren't good in the first place, but when you consider that CAP 10 will be Timid they become worse. Honestly I think that all of these abilities will make CAP 10 a useless generic tank rather than a counter that is customized for specific threats. Out of these abilities, do any of them encourage you to customize? Not at all. Honestly, why would we want to give CAP 10 these abilities when we could have made up our own that actually fit the concept... These are just nice abilities for any wall. Yes, wall. CAP 10 has shitty offensive stats no matter what item you use, so it will be a general wall that just uses uninspiring stab/stab/recovery/filler sets. Also, why the hell did status immunity suddenly become the #1 concern in ability poll #2? Do you realize how few threats actually use status? Celebi (can't switch into grass attacks anyway, and your stabs suck against it), Blissey (I wouldn't bother countering this with CAP, even if I could), Cresselia (same), Magnezone rarely, Jirachi, Vaporeon rarely, Gliscor rarely (would rather eq or more than likely gtfo), Rotom-A (Only legitimate thing on this list imo), Dusknoir (lol), Roserade (You can't even switch into it on the first turn and you fear leaf storm anyway), tentacruel (okay, fairly useful here too, but not a very common poke), forretress (not what I would be countering, but it is helpful here).

Out of that list, there are only a few that I would even use CAP to counter, and only a few that actually need to be countered at all. A large portion of that list also is able to hit a weakness.

I vote for Intimidate because it is the least gimmicky of all of the selections (Filter shouldn't even be on here, so it doesn't count).

 

[FlareBlitz]

Don't get me wrong, I voted for Intimidate too since it's clearly the best choice as far as I'm concerned, but at least Poison Heal does SOMETHING to help against all the things Trace fails again, as opposed to Magic Guard, whose only legitimate purpose is protection from hazard damage build up and weather (which Poison Heal does just fine) and which has quite a few not-so-legitimate uses.

 

[SJCrew]

Also, why the hell did status immunity suddenly become the #1 concern in ability poll #2? Do you realize how few threats actually use status?

I'd like to add that while Toxic Orb is a plus in allowing CAP to negate some 2HKOs, it doesn't activate right away, so you will not block status upon switching in and you don't receive the extra recovery until turn 2. And really, you're you're just plain fucked if you need something to switch into Twave, Will-o-Wisp, etc. Poison Heal requires CAP to have prior exposure sometime during the battle, in which case your opponent becomes aware of it and can predict future switch-ins.

Also I'm just curious, how exactly is Poison Heal going to help CAP 10 function as a utility counter? And has anyone stopped to consider how this ability might aid it offensively as well as defensively? Let me propose a set and scenario:

CAP10 @ Toxic Orb
252 Sp. Att/252 Speed
Timid Nature

- Ice Beam
- Substitute/Magnet Rise
- Surf
- Thunderbolt

This will be the defining set for CAP. No one's going to bother using it as a utility counter when it can just use this to plow right through offensive teams without much effort. Snorlax and Blissey as well as Pokemon with CM/special bulk, AND access to a recovery move could counter it, but this set threatens so many things at once, it's not even funny.

Poison Heal is a great abilty for Breloom, but it doesn't overpower OU because it's slow, there are a good number of Pokemon in the tier that resist both of its STABs, its special defense is terrible, and its Grass typing leaves it open to a lot of weaknesses. CAP has absolutely none of these problems and can freely use the double Leftovers recovery to compliment its bulk. Why are we advocating this, again?