CAP 13 CAP 2 - Part 5 - Ability Discussion

[MLaRF]

I think I'm going to have to say my thoughts on abilities will be:
Sheer Force for the attacking sets, because (s)he will want to be able to hit hard, but not force switches - this CAP seems like the kind of poke, from its typing and its signature trait, that will not want to force switches. That would just make the opponent love switching in Heatran or Hydreigon or whatever, and that would be rubbish (cheesy synth music). And:
Poison Heal for the defensive sets, making them more defensive in their healing prowess, while avoiding the curse of toxic or toxic spikes. It also helps to ensure a lack of crippling status, for both more stallesque sets, and for offensive sets that want to make use of effect-based moves while avoiding burn or paralysis.

 

[reachzero]

Limber is the absolute most useful ability we could give CAP2. Yes, more useful than Natural Cure (though Natural Cure would be an okay choice). Think about it. CAP2 is likely to be switching in on Thunder a LOT, and Thunder has a 30% paralysis rate. Paralysis is really, really nasty--not only are you not Quiver Dancing, but every single move in the game is then down to effectively 75% accuracy, max. A paralyzed CAP2 is pretty much already crippled. Additionally, Ferrothorn should be one of CAP2's favorite Pokemon to switch in on. Ferrothorn rather often carries Thunder Wave. Giving CAP2 would dramatically increase its comfort in terms of switching in in these situations. So why Limber rather than Natural Cure? The reason we are used to thinking of Natural Cure as a great ability is that the two Pokemon that use it, Blissey and Starmie, have access to reliable recovery. They can switch out when statused, come back in and heal up later. In the process of two switch-ins, you take two sets of entry hazard damage, the damage from whatever attacks you switch in on twice, etc. CAP2 would likely be at dramatically lower than optimal health when it switches in the second time. That would pigeonhole us pretty intensely in terms of movepool; Natural Cure would put intense pressure on us to give CAP2 a reliable recovery move in a way that Limber would not. The clinching question is this: why should CAP2 be protected from poison and burn? These should be perfectly legitimate means of taking CAP2 down, and neither of those statuses come on moves that CAP2 will be switching in on routinely. Limber is far, far more useful for CAP2 than Natural Cure would be.

The best clearly balanced offensive ability for CAP2 in my opinion is Iron Fist. Making CAP2's physical Ghost STAB usable would go a long way toward making Coil and Shift Gears sets workable, and the moves Iron Fist boosts--Shadow Punch, Hammer Arm, Focus Punch and Drain Punch--are almost exactly the moves CAP2 would want.

In fact, these abilities would actually be very complementary for CAP2, as Limber would help Quiver Dancing sets the most, while Iron Fist would help slow, physical attacking sets the most. Shift Gear sets would need to make a tough choice between risking paralysis or having less power available, which would help to balance them.

I am convinced that Limber and Iron Fist are hands-down the best abilities for this CAP.

 

[shinyskarmory]

I think Flash Fire is too powerful, since we would be giving CAP 2 a free switch in on Heatran (unless it runs HP Ice) and then increasing the power of STAB V-Create (which seems like one of the most theorymoned moves right now).

The two abilities I like are Natural Cure and Skill Link. Natural Cure helps to limit the effect status can have on CAP 2, while not actually allowing the pokemon to benefit from status like Quick Feet, Guts, or Magic Guard (by preventing the addition of disabling status). Skill Link allows CAP 2 to effectively abuse multi-hit STAB moves.

 

[bugmaniacbob]

Alrighty, here's my vision. Or maybe thought process. Something like that.

Anyway, I'd like to remind everybody that CAP2's primary purpose is to find out how we can make the best use of Sketch. With that in mind, it follows logically that the abilities we should be considering are those that increase the effectiveness of a certain subset of moves, but not all of them, and therefore allow us to have a much wider range of things to do with Sketch. Why is this so? Put simply, an ability like Natural Cure is just going to increase the effectiveness of Sketchy overall, rather than teach us anything about what happens when you have basically infinite options. If we're going to do this, we have to make sure that we're doing it properly. To this end, the abilities that I have listed here are those that I think would be best for Sketchy to have.

Adaptability - One thing I have been worried about with this CAP is the fact that it may not ever elect to choose a better STAB move, especially on the special side, given the massive scope for boosting and powerful coverage moves that a single use of Sketch provides. Of course proper STAB moves are important - naturally we will be giving Sketchy Seed Bomb and Magical Leaf and whatever it wants. But if it might want to Sketch a more powerful attack, like Power Whip or Seed Flare, there is literally no incentive to do so - you lose coverage, which is important on a 4-move attacker, and for minimal gain. To an extent, Adaptability alleviates this. You can have potent two-move coverage in Seed Flare/Shadow Ball or Power Whip/Shadow Punch or whatever, and there is, importantly, an incentive to said combination, as it is actually viable to use. I doubt it would be terribly powerful - Grass is not an unbearably strong attacking type and Ghost has no powerful Sketch options - so can't be said to be over the top. It gives us a very nice new angle in which to take Sketchy, and more importantly, gives us a reason to do so.

Compoundeyes - There are a lot of inaccurate attacking moves out there that Sketchy could make good use of. Focus Blast, Thunder, Blizzard, Hydro Pump, Stone Edge, Fire Blast, and even Power Whip and Seed Flare could use the boost from this. Sacred Fire and Hi Jump Kick could use the boost too. And as others have mentioned, a 97.5% accurate Will-O-Wisp and Stun Spore can come in handy as well. This is so incredibly useful that it may well be slightly too powerful, but then we can deal with that in the movepool stage. My only slight gripe with it is that it does not make any subset of moves more usable directly, though I suppose it does make Thunder and Blizzard more plausible as coverage moves, or else may free up your Sketch slot by making Focus Blast usable over Sketch Aura Sphere. Or something.

Rock Head - I really like this one too. It makes Volt Tackle and Flare Blitz more appealing as Sketch moves, as well as Hi Jump Kick, and Wood Hammer for STAB. But the biggie is probably Head Smash - while inaccurate, the coverage that Grass/Rock provides is pretty damn good, such that a 2-move attacker set with support moves becomes plausible. As long as Head Smash and boosting moves are separated (which they will be), this shouldn't be overpowered. However, this is about the limit of its usefulness, so it doesn't give us the same scope for variety that the others do. I'm not under any illusions - Head Smash will probably be the Sketched move in 99% of cases where Rock Head matters (assuming no Wood Hammer). For this reason, I would advocate the other three to a far greater extent over Rock Head.

Technician - Everything under base 60 is boosted, including Shadow Punch, most priority, and most importantly, the Hidden Powers. This constitutes a massive, MASSIVE leap forward for what we can feasibly accomplish through Sketch. Base 90 Hidden Power means we can have a special coverage move and a better special STAB, like Seed Flare. Or Magical Leaf becomes a feasible STAB move, freeing up our movepool for more or less anything we want. On both physical and special sides, you get a hell of a lot more stuff you can do. I wasn't fond of it before, but I've come to see its benefits after thinking about it. Technician is a solid ability.

Here's some stuff that follows my criteria, but that I don't like for whatever reason:

Iron Fist - Boosts punching moves. So, we've got STAB Shadow Punch, the elemental punches, Mach Punch and some other Fighting-type attack. Not going to lie, this does sound quite a bit like an effort to boost Sketchy's credentials as a physical Ghost-type, and not much else. Shadow Punch becomes 72 BP rather than 60, and the elemental punches become 90BP. Fun times. To be quite honest, I'd much rather use Technician, since it actually makes a difference where it matters.

Reckless - a bit like Rock Head only boosts the attacking power a bit. Since this is meant to be "bulky offence", not "tear stuff up and die immediately", Rock Head gets the nod over Reckless for Sketchy.

Skill Link - As much as I like the idea of Skill Link, I think that a) Cloyster already pretty much has this covered and b) Let's not kid ourselves. We'd have Bullet Seed for STAB, then one of Bone Rush, Rock Blast, or Icicle Spear for coverage, assuming we aren't sketching a boosting move. Two-move coverage can be good, but not with Grass. More to the point, I'd rather take Power Whip and something else and keep my Sketch move. So what's the point I'm making? Skill Link boosts basically nothing and doesn't give us anything we didn't already have. More to the point, Technician is just better, and is fair game for multi-hit moves regardless.

----

And for the love of God, don't just give it an ability that will make it sweep more easily or whatever, like Natural Cure. That seems to me to be both lazy as hell and wasting the concept. More to the point, remember all the little abilities we gave to Pokemon just to make them better (see: Limber Kitsunoh, Magic Guard Krilowatt). Let's not do that.

EDIT: Also echoing Deck Knight and saying that everybody should post some sort of reasoning behind their ability choices, not just post them with a brief description of what they do.

 

[RotationalBasis]

Just as an aside, would Flare Boost work as a pseudo Flash Fire? I mean it would certainly make WRotom think twice before using WoW, leaving it with only NVE moves, and you could switch in on WoW or even carry Flame Orb for a handy boost and resistance to Spore/Twave.

 

[Aura Disciple]

Just as an aside, would Flare Boost work as a pseudo Flash Fire? I mean it would certainly make WRotom think twice before using WoW, leaving it with only NVE moves, and you could switch in on WoW or even carry Flame Orb for a handy boost and resistance to Spore/Twave.

I really wish Flare Boost would be a viable choice. I advocated for this with CAP1. However, this time we're going for a bulky offense, so a deteriorating health wouldn't be very bulky. Also, Flare Boost is more intended for special sweepers like Drifblim should be...should be. On top of that, the special stat isn't enough to abuse a flare boost.

I like the idea, just not here. Not yet. I guess the same goes for Toxic Rampage.

I propose cloud nine for the purpose of being a theoretical threat to teams and because weather is now a top metagame team, CAP2 will become the threat that teams will take into account...and because I hate sandstorm teams.

Secondly, I propose wonder skin as status moves like thunder wave and will-o-wisp would cripple CAP2. However, to remove them completely is a bit too much . Therefore, having them work half the time would seem to balance things.

 

[jessifer]

Natural Cure: Fits with bulky offense, and limits the effect of status, which CAP 2 has a problem with, while not giving it an outright immunity. Also works as a ability for a grass type.
Rattled: A good choice to boost CAP 2's decent speed. May lower the usage of U-turn and also makes the opponent think twice about using weak, non-STABed Dark or Ghost moves.

 

[ReshiramBlitz]

I'd say Technician, due to the competitive prowess, while not being broken. Magical Leaf/Ominous Wind/Shell Smash/HP Fighting 60 works would be a + 2 +1 stat booster with 90 BP moves all around.

 

[Asylum_Rhapsody]

Just as an aside, would Flare Boost work as a pseudo Flash Fire? I mean it would certainly make WRotom think twice before using WoW, leaving it with only NVE moves, and you could switch in on WoW or even carry Flame Orb for a handy boost and resistance to Spore/Twave.

I didn't get where you were going with this at all at first (way back in post #8), but now that I've read this justification for it, I actually sort of like it. It keeps in with the flavor, and it provides an interesting option to specially offensive sets, but it doesn't include that fire immunity that everybody seems so scared of. Honestly, I think that people are overreacting to Heatran not being a great counter anymore if it gets Flash Fire. Sketchy would still have exploitable typing weaknesses (Dark, Flying, Ghost, Ice), and it seems to me like people just got too attached too soon to the idea of Heatran being a counter, even though that discussion was only supposed to be a speculative look forward and not a strictly guiding element of the CAP. Still, if people still don't like it, then people don't like it. C'est la vie. Anyway, if we're looking not to give Sketchy anything too powerful or significant for fear of overpowering it, then Flare Boost does seem like a creative and flavorful way to go.

Though I edited this back into my first post after seeing some of the suggestions from other posters, I want to mention it again since I'm already posting anyway and so that I can elaborate:
I don't think that we should be reusing the same generically useful abilities that have been used by CAP before. Specifically, I'm looking at Compoundeyes, Limber, Rock Head, Shed Skin, Shield Dust, and Technician. I can even certainly understand the justification behind Compoundeyes, Rock Head, and Technician, considering that Sketchy really is in a very unique position to make good use of those abilities, but I don't think that we should consider reusing abilities like Limber, Shed Skin, and Shield Dust that are not central to or necessary for Sketchy's success, especially because I don't feel like they do very much to teach us about our selected concept. If we want an ability to help Sketchy against status (and I can certainly understand that desire, after all part of why I suggested Flash Fire was help against it being burned), then there are more interesting and unique abilities that we should consider, even if they may be inferior, such as Leaf Guard, Natural Cure, or (my favorite of these particular ideas right now) Wonder Skin. The important thing is that we want CAP to teach us new things, and that's not going to happen if abilities are always selected from a pool of our twenty or so favorites. Sure, repeating ability once wouldn't be the end of the world, but it's not a precedent that I think should be set so soon.

If, however, we really do want an ability that directly affects what we might decide to Sketch, then we still have a lot of other great options out there besides reusing Compoundeyes, Rock Head, or Technician, as tempting as those may be. Skill Link was brought up earlier on, but more recently, reachzero has made fantastic arguments for Iron Fist. I actually in the same boat as bugmaniacbob in that I really dislike it flavorfully speaking, but I do have to admit that it's a pretty good idea. My only worry is that I don't want every set to simply sketch a Fighting move so that it gains perfect coverage with its existing Ghost STAB. This isn't supposed to be just a 5th generation Revenankh.

EDIT: I want to talk statistic here for just a second. Maybe somebody can tell me what I'm missing...
By my count, 4/46 (~9%) existing OU Pokemon are immune to the paralyzing effects of Thunder Wave (I call out Thunder Wave because it's the most common and reliable way of inducing paralysis), all of which are so immune due to their Ground typing.
0/46 (0%) existing OU Pokemon are immune to paralysis altogether.
On the other hand, 4/12 (~33%) existing CAPs are immune to the paralyzing effects of Thunder Wave, only half of which are so immune due to their Ground typing.
If we are seriously considering making a second CAP immune to paralysis altogether, then I think that it may be safe to say that we're just a little bit too worried about Thunder Wave and paralysis.
Despite the popularity of the suggestion, these numbers only make me even more skeptical of Limber.

 

[RotationalBasis]

I fear abilities like Technician would be overpowered on CAPmon, and am generally against them, but there are a couple of abilities I quite like that might be a little borderline. The ones I have in mind are Unburden and Adaptability, which fit well in terms of flavour.
I'm tempted to admit that Unburden is too much, as combining it with a Gem practically gives you three stabs on your first turn and +1 speed from then on. My reasoning in favour of it is that it opens new avenues for sweeping, and can give you speedy chesto-resters and Lum Berry walls.
Adapdability is a reasonable choice, and Bugmaniacbob gives solid reasoning in favour, but it still seems like a lot of free power maybe...
Trace is also a good one, but the scary part is that you can switch in on Heatran and counter it thanks to Traced Flash Fire, or get Technician Hidden Power against Scizor. What about Tracing Espeon's Magic Bounce, or switching in on Multiscale Dragonite or Water Absorb Jellicent? Trace might prove just as OP as the top abilities out there.

EDIT: Also agreeing with Asylum Rhapsody over the direction in general, and Wonder Skin specifically as a cool idea. I actually have no idea what to think of Flare Boost, but I did want to put it out there as a possibility.

 

[remetagross]

I'd put forward Miracle skin, as it prevents nasty things such as wow or Toxic to happen that easily, or maybe Synchronize, which would put a dent at Ferrothorn or Jellicent trying to toxic/paralyse/burn however Sketchmon. Moreover it's pretty flavour i think.

 

[Spenstar]

Nature Cure is a wonderful defensive ability on this Pokemon, and serene grace would be its wonderful offensive counterpart. So my support goes to those two.

 

[noobiess]

I agree with Reachzero to go for limber or natural cure. My personal choise is going more to natural cure because it's give CAP2 a good reason to sketch a nice recovery move as well (if it doesn't get one already).

 

[typon77]

I'm agreeing with reachzero that Limber and Iron Fist are two of the best abilities we could give it. They augment the advantages of his typing, bulk, and attacking prowess. However, I was very intrigued by the ideas of Adaptability or Compoundeyes. Both of these abilities are really great abilities that don't see much usage in standard play, as the best users of these abilities are RU. Compoundeyes would let it utilize the plethora of powerful, yet inaccurate moves it has, which would help with not only offensive sets, but let it utilize more powerful moves on defensive sets for that extra power (unless, of course, it got a better defensive ability with it).

Adaptability would provide some boost to its offenses, but Technician would be better for Shadow Punch. Its a cool option, but I think there are better ones.

One ability I thought of after looking at the final stat submission was Intimidate. With his excellent SpDef and good Physical defense, Sketchmon could invest fully in SpDef and still tank physical hits. Intimidate would also give it a buff on offensive sets, as it could tank priority like Scizor's BP much easier.

 

[MektarTheOverlord]

I think this pokemon should have a fairly neutral ability that helps augment its bulk without taking away from the primary focus, Sketch. So I'm in support of useful defensive abilities like Natural Cure and Insomnia which give this pokemon more defensive utility whilst not overpowering the offensive boosting sets. This'd also encourage more defensive sets like Leech Seed and hazard support since the pokemon's no longer shut down by poison, burn or paralysis.

I really don't think that this pokemon needs Fire absorbing abilities to function either, just stick it in Drizzle if you want to use it as a specially defensive tank. Otherwise, wgaf. I'm not a big fan of Cursed Body either since this would just infuriate someone who just tried to revenge the pokemon with Scizor (a check we already agreed on) only to have a 30% chance of being completely forced to switch.

On an unrelated note, this pokemon is a 100% counter to Breloom with Insomnia. Just sayin' :p

I fully agree with this. Something like Limber, Immunity, or Insomnia would be the best option for CAP2, as good-but-not-godly abilities like these will amplify its usefulness and ease of switching in without breaking the CAP. Since everything and their mothers get T-Wave and Toxic, Limber and Immunity would be more useful in general, while Insomnia has more specific applications.

 

[Aura Disciple]

Feel a bit iffy for serene grace and technician.

Serene grace brings paraflinch or confuseflinch or some other form of flinch hax into play, which isn't very favorable to me.

Technician makes me think Choice Band, technician, STAB shadow sneak. It seems nice, but it feels just like Scizor and Breloom.

With CAP2, I thought we should be more creative since he/she/it has every move within the game at his/her/its disposal. We should make something new rather than reinvent a nice wheel.

 

[MLaRF]

I'll have to say, I agree with Aura Disciple and anyone else that disagrees with Technician. The 2 biggest problems with that are: A) We'll be making him essentially Brelloom or Scizor, and B) doesn't a certain Sketch user already have that ability? We should want to provide a greater advantage than Smeargle, who (if he did have the power to abuse it) has a much more diverse movepool, whereas we only really have 1 or 2 good moves moves that are truly worth the boost from it before we need to sketch - and getting another move would eliminate any options for setup, support, healing, status, etc. Technician is, in my opinion, a good idea, just not for this pokemon, especially when we can find something to better suit him/her.

 

[Iceydude168]

Dry Skin sounds really good, actually. It sort of nerfs its capability of massive boosting by giving it such a large Fire Weakness. However, it increases its staying power as a strong Rain staller.
Hydration sort of fits with being a Grass type and whatnot, but it might break it due to it having any stat-up boosting move. Belly Drum + Rest would be ridiculous in Rain. Give it a physical Ghost type and Fighting type move, and it might as well be game. However, if it didn't get a physical Fighting type move, then it wouldnt be as powerful.
Natural Cure I'm supporting.
Unburden would be great fun! It has a "wild card" move which is really cool. Unburden relieves it of its poor Speed, and you can have some awesome strategies. Belly Drum + ChestoRest. Tail Glow + ChestoRest. Shell Smash + White Herb + Unburden. However, this thing would be incredibly powerful with Unburden. If we nerfed its attacking movepool a bit it would be more concievable.

 

[capefeather]

I'm going to post in soft defense of Technician. If people who read my submission will recall, I originally set the Special Attack at 96, but lowered it, and I explained that the purpose of 85 was to give wiggle room for power-boosting abilities if they were deemed needed, but I was wary of setting the SpA lower than that. As it turns out, +1 Technician Hidden Power Fighting from Timid CAP 2 deals 322 damage at maximum to 0/4 Heatran, one point shy of its 323 HP. Consequently, the Shell Smash sets also miss the OHKO on the two targets for which I'd posted calculations. Yes, there is still the entry hazard factor, but one layer of anything won't guarantee any KO of these examples. I agree it's still a big concern, since Heatran is likely to be damaged, anyway, but let us at least consider this before dismissing it off-hand.

I'd also like to mention a small concern with Limber. Paralysis is probably Jirachi's best weapon against a setup sweeping set. On the other hand, reachzero brought up Ferrothorn's Thunder Wave, making something like Shield Dust slightly less desirable as an alternative, and I'm also not a fan of random immunity abilities for this CAP so I can't really support something like Volt Absorb, either. (Unlike Voodoom, I don't see a pressing need for immunity abilities.)

I really like the Iron Fist suggestion, though. Although Shadow Punch may prefer a 50% boost over a 20% boost (lol), it still reaches a decent 72*STAB power, and the other boosted moves are very appealing for physical CAP 2.

 

[Aura Disciple]

Flower Gift would have been a fitting ability for Sketchmon. It stays true to Sketchmon's concept of being a bulky, offensive pokemon, and the 50% boost to Sacred Fire is a huge plus (Fire attackers won't mind the 50% Sp. Def boost in the sun). Note I used the words "would have been" because a Shell Smash set completely breaks Sketchmon. Sketchmon, with 252 EVs, a boosting nature and after one shell smash hits 1116 Attack in the sun while still having decent special bulk. So yeah, without Shell Smash, we would have had a great bulky pokemon, and with Shell Smash, we have a terrifying sweeper which deals 77.5% - 91.4% to Hydreigon with Shadow Claw in the sun.

Leaf Guard, Shed Skin, Natural Cure are useful (and safer) abilities which counter status, which Sketchmon is quite weak to.

I also want to bring up flower gift again for the bulky offensive emphasis. Collol makes a good argument but it seems like it was paved over by other posts and was forgotten. Is it possible to discuss this a bit?

 

[Kaos]

Poison Heal: I really love this ability for our CAP. It grants all the benefits of Natural Cure, Limber, Shield Dust, and all the other crazy status-avoiding abilities being suggested, in one. To me it seems to me the perfect ability for him, as it aids all variants without making any of them too broken.

Defensive - Our CAP got great defensive stats, and I'd be surprised if a bunch of people didn't want to utilize them over his sweeping prowess. Poison Heal first and foremost gives defensive variants of our mon the immunity to status it needs to be seen as an effective rain counter. The extra recovery is also very welcome and aids survivability significantly. Without the benefit of these two things, I think defensive variants of the mon run the risk of becoming totally inferior options to offensive ones.

Offensive - Poison Heal is also not a bad ability offensively. The status immunity allows you to switch in and set up on walls with near impunity, and the extra recovery provides a great buffer against priority and sand damage while sweeping. While I expect the mon would receive a more outright offensive ability in addition to Poison Heal, it being there as an option would provide some nice diversity.

Concept - I think the greatest thing about Poison Heal though is not how well it fits the mon, but how well the mon fits it. It goes in well with the Bulky Offense concept we wanted to focus on, but more importantly the CAPs Grass/Ghost typing makes perfect sense with it. Grass-types have long been associated with natural poisons and specifically learning ways to cope with them, and the fact that you heal from something that brings slow and painful death to everything else adds a Ghostly, sinister touch. Concept really is the most important thing to take into account, because if the ability doesn't fit the mon, it completely loses its credibility as a real pokemon.

 

[Iceydude168]

Another ability that would be useful would be Harvest. Infinite Lum Berries would be even better than Natural Cure, as it doesn't have to switch out, and it doesn't fear Toxic Spikes.

Though Unburden would still be the most useful for Offense, Harvest would be great for a Defensive 'mon.

 

[Juicy]

I would love to see this pokemon have Immunity or Limber. It would help both defensively and offensively so there is no block in creating either offensive or defensive sets whereas Technician and Adaptability would limit the wonderful sketchmon to offensive sets.

On this vein though could I suggest Marvel Scale. This way we have pseudo-immunities plus a way to make this more defensive or a way to make it more the 'bulky sweeper'.

 

[DarkShiftry]

Mold Breaker, Technician and Shed Skin fit the concept in my opinion, just because it allows Sketchmon to open to new options, and be a more versatile pokemon.
Technician would be a very good ability to have on Sketchmon, because it allows to use lower-powered moves (And a better Shadow Sneak) on the project: Priority, Pursuit, Multi-hit moves, etc. and learn more about said moves and said project as well. And personally I dont think 90 BP Hidden Power could make this pokemon broken, just by its special stats using said move and a boosting move doesnt make it top special sweeper, look at Technician Mr. Mime, it still sucks.
Mold Breaker on the other hand allows to use moves more freely, like Levitators, Multiscale, Unaware (Although Quagsire wont ever dear to switch in) without any worryments.
And in a more deffensive aproach, I think Shed Skin is a good ability, giving Sketchmon less issues with status that may affect it in its role of doing a little bit of everything.

 

[Raikaria]

I guess no-one cares about Analytic, seeing as no-one discussed it. Oh well, I thought it would be interesting for slower, bulkier sets.

Now, my opinions on some currently debated abilities:

Limber: I stated before that this was something I was against, so I'll explain it here. Immunity to Paralysis is something that would be a godsend to any sweeper. Especially those that could set up. Arguably, one reason Excadrill was so threatening was it was immune to Thunder Wave, the main source of Paralysis.

I am highly, highly against Limber, as is removes a whole possibility of crippling or shutting down Sketchy's boosting sets. After Gear Shift or Shell Smash, Sketchy outspeeds virtually anything. Even at +1, most of the meta is outsped, barring scarfers. Paralysis is vital in reigning in sweepers. Giving a pokemon with the ability to use ANY attack, immunity to Paralysis is foolish, in my honest opinion.

Poision Heal works in a similar vein, status immunity on a pokemon that could have any coverage move, or any way to set up, is not sensible.

Iron Fist sems kind of pointless. Sketchy isn't guarenteed to get any other punching moves, indeed, it's likly his movepool will be shallow due to Sketch. Shadow Claw is 70 power already, and has a high Critical Ratio. Shadow Punch with Iron fist is 72 power. It's not worth it.

I'm against Skill Link, simply because of Bullet Seed reaching 125 BP with STAB. Cloyster decimates things with Icicle Spear, from a Base 95 Atk. Sketchy has Base 120. And higher Speed. Grass may be a sub-par STAB, but Ice isnt exactly winning awards either.

Technician makes the threat of Hidden Power too great, especially in Shell Smash sets. Stick Magnezone on the team, and use Grass STAB/Ghost STAB/Shell Smash/HP Ice and sweep.

I would support Wonder Skin, however. A chance to resist pure-status induceing moves is good. Sheild Dust is an alternative I'd prefer, however, if only for being anti-hax, and, to be honest, you can switch out if you can see a Thunder Wave coming.

I don't like the idea of the extra power of Adaptability, on speedy boosting sets, especially with a Life Orb possible. It's one of the reasons why I advocate Analytic, so if you want increased power, you have to trade off in speed.