What is this pokemon going to add to the metagame? Obviously, it's a new typing that has never been seen before. That's a given on CAP pokemon, so that doesn't count as an answer. What is this pokemon's "mission statement"?
For Syclant, we had two recurring themes in all the creation polls. "A better Infernape than Infernape" and "Garchomp counter". You can argue whether we did either of those successfully, that's not the point. Throughout the creation process we seemed to hear those two "themes" mentioned a lot.
On Revenankh, the theme was almost set in stone right at the beginning and it rarely wavered -- "A legitimate Bulk Up user". It's pretty obvious we delivered on that one, maybe over-delivered.
For both of those pokemon, we were trying to introduce something to the metagame that was lacking or was missing entirely. We wanted to add something distinctive, beyond the obligatory cool typing.
What is this Fire/Grass pokemon going to add to the metagame, that is not already there?
"A good sub-seeder?"
I wouldn't say this is lacking. And I haven't seen many comments that indicate many people consider that this pokemon's "signature".
"A legitimate reason for Sunny Day?" (formerly "Kingdra of the Sun?")
Every ability or move that seems geared for sun is being shot down as making this thing "broken". Chlorophyll, Solar Power, Auto-Sun -- all seem to be meeting heavy resistance, with very compelling arguments behind them.
"A really good wall/tank?"
This is the closest thing to a common theme that is running through this thread. I hope we do better than this. Adding yet another sturdy poke to the game is hardly "groundbreaking". It won't change the metagame very much at all. Yes, it might give a slightly better counter here or there. But, the CAP project should have much higher aspirations than this. Why spend all this time on a creating a new poke, just to end up with a middle-of-the-road defensive poke with interesting typing. If all we get is cool typing and interesting art, then we've wasted a lot of time.
I bring this up because the ability of a pokemon can be a very big determinant in how it works and is used. I think Battle Armor makes a lot of sense with the design. But it really only supports a pokemon with a defensive theme. Yawn..... The same goes for a lot of the other "safe" abilities that are being advocated here. I agree some of the more daring ability descriptions are possibly broken. But, please do not use that as an excuse to advocate an ability that is boring-but-not-broken.
I think the heart of the dilemma is that no one has a really good idea what this pokemon can add to the game. There's no bold direction for this thing. There's no burning desire to make this thing fill a void. It's a Fire/Grass poke with cool wood cannons. Hoop-de-fucking-do...
Personally, I'd like to see this thing make Sunny Day a legitimate weather strategy. It's never been done before and the typing on this thing is perfect for it. However, if any of you think this will make Sunny Day usable just by virtue of it's stats and typing -- I completely disagree. Yes, this pokemon will make Sunny Day MORE appealing than it is right now. But, will this pokemon actually inspire people to run a Sunny day set? I doubt it.
It's gonna need some daring ability that gives it so much oomph in the sun that you base an entire team around it. If we give it oomph, it will likely push the limits of brokeness. Guess what? That's exactly what it takes to make a dent in the metagame.
