CAP 31 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

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quziel

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Yo, lets talk about moves that see significant use in BH/Sketchmons/STABmons, aka the ones that do nutty stuff (I am excluding just high BP stuff here cause there's not much I can say about Glacial Lance other than its stronger than Axel).

Thunder Cage and Magma Storm are both fairly strong STAB moves that trap the opponent, which see very significant OM use because of well, the sheer utility of trapping on a move that is strong enough to be a legitimate STAB/Coverage move. These are very strong options that near instantly give a very powerful identity to the pokemon. I lean to the former cause like Heatran is nearly the perfect Magma Storm user. Thousand Waves also is in this category, and is an equally valid option, as seen in Demon Zygarde.

Core Enforcer is something that I sorta have to list on its own because of how incredibly unique it is. There is no other move that completely disables an opponent's ability. Sunsteel Strike, Photon Geyser, and Moongeist Beam ignore the opponent's ability, giving them an instant identity as stallbreaking options, which can be very easily seen with Photon Geyser Necrozma farming Arghonauts in the ladder tour, but I do sorta lean against them as they're already done fairly well by Necro itself.

Techno Blast and Multi-Attack (not on the above) both lean into a very unpredictable wallbreaking chassis, and honestly? I think they both have insane potential to make a successful project thanks to their sheer power and unpredictability. You'd have to balance both of these rather carefully, and think hard about your STAB moves, but both are very valid.

Oblivion Wing is one of the most goodstuffs moves in existence. Great STAB typing, secondary effect fits literally every single playstyle, good PP. Overall very good option.

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Jungle Healing has been brought up on like 3 caps by now, and for very good reason. Combining Refresh with a minor heal takes a move that was already good enough to see niche usage, and boosts it to significantly higher viability. This move has many routes available to maximize it, and honestly I'd love to choose it.

Shadow Force is very cool as its one of the few two-turn moves that has enough power behind it to actually be viable. I like this one a ton, and it has potential to have us play like quite literally no other mon.

This is non-exhaustive, just going over stuff that makes me hyped.
 

Ema Skye

Work!
How does the addition of such powerful moves to a movepool shape the process in its later stages?
It will definitely shape the process, but the degree to which will depend on the move itself. A lot of the moves on the list are either straight upgrades or slight sidegrades to normal moves and I don't think they would change much of anything. For example, something like Fiery Wrath will likely not impact the process that much, or Steam Eruption would be more likely exert greater influence in the later stages.

A lot of these damaging moves would likely require STAB, or a typing that would benefit from strong coverage, in order to fully embrace the concept, and will absolutely dictate the typing process later. I don't believe any of the raw damaging moves will impact non-stat or type slates, unless we want to better optimize the move's use in the ability slate (such as Sticky Hold + Techno Blast, to protect the drives, or Iron Fist+Plasma Fists, to increase damage output).

On the Techno Blast mention, I can see it greatly shaping the moveset creation process as the type changing mechanic greatly shapes the viability of the move. As Genesect shows, it doesn't really bother with it given it has the coverage to not require 75% of the types, especially given that it doesn't require an item slot. Techno Blast Douse Drive has always been a niche option for it.

Geomancy is the other option I see impacting movepool and stats, given the ease of setting up with it. This would probably also be under a lot of scrutiny to ensure it doesn't overlap with Necturna. As a boosting move, I don't believe it will influence typing discussions much.

How would picking a more utility based move shape the process compared to a more direct attack? What would either approach require of us later on in the process?
Even though the utility moves (Thunder Cage, Thousand Waves, Core Enforcer) are probably still just as reliant on the typing slate as STAB ensures these are viable instead of weird coverage options. Of the status moves, Jungle Healing probably still influences typing/ability discussion as the Pokemon should be able to beat status spreaders. Lunar Dance probably doesn't influence typing much, but may influence other moves.

How does a move like one on the prohibited list shape the power budget of the concept overall, especially considering the wide range of viability and playstyle between many of the prohibited moves?
Given the wide range of viability (from completely useless moves like Roar of Time to meta defining moves like Thousand Arrows), I don't think this question can really be answered until the move is picked. A competitively useless move will obviously allow us a higher budget, but I think that is due to the challenge of making the Pokemon's use of the move interesting.
 

shnowshner

You've Gotta Try
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I'm a bit more interested in reducing our options rather than pointing out potentially cool ones, so here's a couple I think we can all agree on not doing:

  • Doom Desire (already thoroughly explored with Equilibra)
  • Behemoth Blade/Behemoth Bash/Dynamax Cannon (Done better by other moves like Sunsteel Strike and Core Enforcer)
  • Land's Wrath (I mean it avoids the Grassy Terrain nerf and doesn't have accuracy issues like High Horsepower but ??? seriously???)
  • Crush Grip (isn't good nor interesting in effect. Even the Lati sigs at least have secondary effects)
  • Fiery Wrath (just Dark Pulse with less PP and more BP)
  • Glaciate (if this was just a bit stronger it might be cool, but this is barely an upgrade over Icy Wind)

Quz has pointed out a lot of the ones which saw plentiful discussion on Discord, but one that wasn't mentioned that garnered a lot of attention is Diamond Storm. It's a pretty unique move in raising Defense by two stages and being the rare Rock-type move to have good BP and not be plagued with horrid accuracy. Rock moves are quite nutty right now (see Stratagem/Nihilego going ballistic in the past month) but Physical Rock-types are practically unseen in the metagame, so this would be a potentially novel route to take.
 

Astra

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I would like to say upfront that I have a very high preference towards moves that can provide utility for CAP 31 and/or its teammates over moves that are just raw power, barring one exception that I will cover later in this post.

Here are some of the moves I take a liking to thanks to the utility they may provide:
  • Diamond Storm: With its respectable power and 50% chance to boost the user's Defense by 2, I find Diamond Storm to fit well on a couple of different archetypes, especially an offensive tank as seen on Mega Diancie in generations it's available in.
  • Oblivion Wing: Being able to heal the user of 75% of damage done on a pretty good offensive typing makes Oblivion Wing a strong candidate for CAP 31, additionally giving us flexibility as to what direction want to take with it excelling in offensive and defensive contexts shown with Yveltal in the Ubers metagame.
  • Thunder Cage / Thousand Waves: Thunder Cage and Thousand Waves can prove useful again offensively or defensively simply with how useful trapping moves like it can be, shown in the current metagame with Heatran and Magma Storm. Magma Storm technically would also fit the bill for this, but I find it pretty ill-advised to do so given that Heatran is already so dominant with it in the metagame.
In terms of raw power moves, there's a lot of them that I would like to avoid. Moves like Fusion Bolt, Behemoth Bash, and their counterpart should be avoided due to the fact that there are better moves in terms of raw power, since their effects literally do not matter at all in this metagame. I'd also be cautious of moves proven to be powerful in the metagame already, specifically Wicked Blow and Thousand Arrows. Those moves obviously weren't the only reason why Urshifu-S and Zygarde were banned, but they played a huge part in it and, despite us saying we should be more relaxed when it comes to balancing CAP 31, their effects I'd like to believe would be very hard to balance around.

I do would like to mention that, despite my distaste for the raw power moves, I do have a liking towards Glacial Lance given the context of the current metagame. A 130 BP Ice-type physical move with perfect accuracy sounds incredibly scary, there are a good handful of physical walls that could be potential switch-ins to it, particularly bulky Water-types like Toxapex and Slowbro, as well as other Pokemon like Heatran and Melmetal. The fact that it only has 8 PP makes is a pretty big hinderance as well; with the aforementioned Pokemon being fairly common in the current metagame, Glacial Lance cannot be easily spammed without running out so quickly. Compared to the other moves of comparable power, I'd like to think that Glacial Lance wouldn't make balancing CAP 31 so backbreaking with the current options the metagame can already provide on paper.

Quick edit: Bolt Strike would also be a cool move for us to choose for similar reasons to Glacial Lance. I perhaps may even have a higher preference for that now over Glacial Lance because I forgot about Triple Axel and how similar it is to it. I would like to think that it being 10 BP more powerful, perfectly accurate, and non-contact has some merit, though.
 
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Zetalz

Expect nothing, deliver less
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Talking about every move is boring and tedious so I'll just comment on the ones I like. As mentioned previously, moves with greater emphasis on their utility or the kinds of playstyle they enable are what interest me most. Of these are half a dozen or so that I think stand out.

Thousand Waves/Thunder Cage could make for an interesting take on a trapping concept as both have very prominent immunities that makes counterplay to them less annoying than existing trappers. We've done a trapper move concept before and have couple viable examples in the meta atm but there's definitely some more to explore with these (quz made better points about these as I was typing this).

Jungle Healing has become quite the meme in CAP, and understandably so. It's a very unique move that really leans into a strong stallbreaker kind of build. In my eyes this is really the only interesting status move to pick from, Lunar Dance & Nature's Madness are largely or almost exactly the same as existing status moves and Geomancy is honestly a big can of worms I'd rather not open. (Besides it technically already exists in the meta, even if Necturna ain't in a good place.)

Techno Blast is a direct damaging move, but unlike the vast majority of them offers a unique ability to pick and choose high-powered coverage at the expense of an item slot. I'm apprehensive about this one, incentivizing a mon to forgo a stronger item for important coverage is definitely doable but might prove more annoying than anything else. Still though I think there's a fair amount of diversity in how to execute a TB user, so I'd be all for it. Also worth noting I think this is a much safer alternative compared to Multi-Attack, the difference between a guessing game of 4 types vs 17 can't be understated lol.

Core Enforcer is fairly tame as a pick, it would function more like an upgraded version of Dragon Pulse but having the option to nullify an ability can be very crippling to certain mons. Unfortunately since it doesn't work on switches this utility is less impressive on first glance, but it's still something worth considering.

Diamond Storm is my favorite pick from this selection right now without a doubt. It's a more consistent Stone Edge with strong defensive utility baked into it. Rock is also versatile in what we choose to do with it, being both a good STAB option and very good coverage. There's been quite a clamor in the community lately for something to help fix the overly saturated meta threats, to me Diamond Storm would be a very cool way to answer that call since the move can work equally well on both an offense and defense side. Very cool.

Spectral Thief/Thousand Arrows I left till last for obvious reasons. These moves are absurdly strong and would consume a large amount of our power budget right out of the gate no question. That said it's still worth talking about the unique implications each would imply. Spectral Thief in particular has the potential to be meta-warping to a ridiculous degree if we're not careful, but the boon of having a way to greatly disincentivize set-up in a very threat saturated meta might be worth the risk to some. I personally am not big fans of exploring either of these but still wanted to talk about them fairly.
 
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dex

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I wanted to go ahead and sort these moves into 4 categories: Non-Damaging, Damage + Interesting Secondary Effect, High Damage / Fewer Drawbacks, Outclassed/Uninteresting. Now obviously this is a bit subjective on my end, but hopefully this is a helpful resource for the rest of the discussion. I'm gonna bold some of the moves that I think are particularly interesting, but many of these are totally deserving to be chosen.

Geomancy: Obviously is strong, but we do have Geo Nect in the metagame currently
Jungle Healing: I know this move is contentious in terms of whether it is even that strong, but it is a genuinely unique move with cool implications
Core Enforcer: Nullifies foe's ability if foe moves first. Fits in both categories
Crush Grip: normal meh
Diamond Storm: 50% chance to raise Defense
Dragon Energy: Dragon-type Eruption, can be devastating, really fits in both categories
Glaciate: Probably too weak to really use, but it is basically stronger Icy Wind
Magma Storm: Know it, run from it, but strong trapping is always cool
Oblivion Wing: Draining moves are cool, and one as powerful and consistent as Oblivion Wing would be sick to work with
Photon Geyser: Cool move that allows for mixed shenanigans, also just wrecks Unaware Arghonaut
Sacred Fire: 50% burn is nasty on a move this strong
Searing Shot: Stronger Flamethrower with a 30% burn rate is cool
Secret Sword: Fighting-type Psyshock, I think the move is cool but in practice probably not the best into what it would want to hit
Spectral Thief: Awesome move that has both offensive and defensive components
Sunsteel Strike: Putting this here cause Double Iron Bash is stronger, but its effect is sorta cool into Venomicon? Not my favorite if I'm being honest.
Techno Blast: This fits in both damage categories, and it is definitely interesting for the mind games. Kinda sucks being so Knock Off weak tho. I like this one cause it impacts typing the least.
Thousand Arrows: Funny Ground move hit Ground immunes, but it is cool
Thousand Waves: Shai Hulud. Trapping is cool, and trapping moves with immunities are even cooler.
Thunder Cage: Interesting for the same reasons as Shai Hulud; however, I like it even more cause it comes with that 12% chip per turn
Thunderous Kick: Fighting-type Fire Lash, kinda cool but Astro yknow
Aeroblast: Not as high damage as Hurricane, but is much more consistent
Astral Barrage: Buff Shadow Ball without the SpD drop
Blue Flare: Stronger Fire Blast with twice the burn chance
Bolt Strike: Strong physical electric move with a para chance
Double Iron Bash: We've seen this move wreak havoc, and it would be lead to quite the power budgeting situation, but its power is enticing
Dragon Ascent: Flying-type Close Combat. Kinda cool, but Brave Bird
Dynamax Cannon: Stronger Dragon Pulse, not a fan cause Core Enforcer has an effect
Fiery Wrath: Stronger Dark Pulse
Fleur Cannon: Fairy-type Draco Meteor
Freeze Shock: Charge move, maybe good but I find it uninteresting given the Meteor Beam spam atm
Glacial Lance: Cool move, but Triple Axel being only 10 BP less kinda sours this one for me
Ice Burn: Opinion is the same as Freeze Shock
Mind Blown: Nuke, but its recoil makes this unattractive to me
Moongeist Beam: I am including this here because of its PP difference from Astral Barrage, its secondary effect is not really meaningful
Precipice Blades: Slightly stronger Earthquake
Psystrike: WAY stronger Psyshock, I think this one has some cool implications to it
Shadow Force: Stronger Phantom Force, not a great choice but Dragapult proves you can run the move
Spacial Rend: I would honestly just do Core Enforcer or Dynamax Cannon, losing 5% accuracy infuriates me
Steam Eruption: Omega strong Scald, could be cool
Surging Strikes: We know what this move can do and how strong it is, but I almost want to nix it to avoid Technician talks
V-Create: There are moves so strong that STAB on them seems almost necessary to get their full value, then there are moves so strong that STAB means absolutely nothing. V-Create is the only move so strong it supersedes STAB. Only worries with this is that we have Victini and have seen Necturna use the move.
Wicked Blow: Eh, we know what this move does. Not super interesting to me, but it is stronger than the next closest Dark-type move.
Behemoth Bash and Blade: Outclassed by Double Iron Bash
Doom Desire: Only putting it here cause Libra, we know this move and it would be a waste to focus on it
Eternabeam: Hyper Beam moment
Freezing Glare: Technically it is a better Psychic, but I don't wanna focus on a freeze chance
Fusion Bolt: Plasma Fists clone, Bolt Strike is more interesting
Fusion Flare: Searing Shot but no burn chance
Land's Wrath: Why does this move even exist
Lunar Dance: IMO creating a project around Healing Wish is uninteresting considering the move's uninstructive nature. Also, this is basically just Healing Wish
Luster Purge: I think if this was a 100% chance and not a 50% chance it would be interesting, but atm I don't think it is worth discussing
Mist Ball: Worse Luster Purge
Nature's Madness: cool move, but super fang
Origin Pulse: Hydro pump
Plasma Fists: Zeraora says hello, also Bolt Strike cooler imo
Prismatic Laser: Hyper Beam moment
Roar of Time: Hyper Beam moment

I definitely have a preference for moves that fall into the "Interesting Secondary Effects" category, as I think those give us the chance to make the most unique project, but I think any of the bolded options and a few I didn't bold would lead to informative processes. Right now, my personal favorites are Thunder Cage, Fleur Cannon, Spectral Thief, Oblivion Wing, and Diamond Storm
 
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Well "later today" wasn't that much later huh? Got a lot on my mind rn.

For starters, I think any move with recharge should be off the table. They are obviously unviable moves as all recharge moves are.

I don't want to completely discount moves with nothing to them but raw strength just yet, but I think the ones with legal alternatives are worse. Stuff like Blue Flare and Glacial Lance should be off the table as their are legal alternatives that are pretty much just as good. I think moves like Aeroblast and Bolt Strike are much more interesting in this regard, we don't have any legal Flying special moves that are both strong and accurate, and all legal Electric physical attacks are dogshit. That being said, I think Zeraora is a good enough physical Electric that I feel like a physical Electric move might be a waste, but Aeroblast is a maybe.

Photon Geyser I think is cool too because the concept of it being a mixed attacker would be really interesting, and would make for a diverse Pokemon. That being said, it would likely mandate the Psychic type.

Something I'm not seeing getting a lot of talk is Dragon Energy. It's absolutely currently of my current favorite "raw power" moves. It’s strong enough to not need to be Dragon type, and not only that, it essentially provides a Dragon type nuke on a Pokemon that might not be Dragon type. The HP lowering power helps balance this a little, and I think this could actually make for a decent process.

Jungle Healing is obviously great because not only does it not mandate a STAB and we don't have many Pokemon in the metagame that like to heal their own status conditions, and the extra health it provides means it might not have to dedicate another move to recovery. The fact that it's really the only "pure utility" move we could choose really by itself makes it a top contender.

I'm not a huge fan of Thunder Cage or Thousand Waves. We already have two viable trappers in the metagame, and I think going with one of these would be a waste, and that there is so much more we could be doing with our banned move that is more unique.
 
My personal favorite route for this concept is the "third stab," using one of the moves with extremely high base power on a Pokemon that does not share a type with it. I favor this route because it leaves the typing stage relatively open, and it invites a cool conversation about what three-type spreads offer the most bang for our buck with whatever move we end up picking. I do think that in order to make this idea work, it's important to select moves that are not only high BP, but are useful enough attacking types to significantly expand what CAP31 can do.
We'd be more or less handing out an unusually strong coverage move with this route, so an easy way to narrow down the options for it is to look at types that are already popular coverage options! I'm going to go ahead and talk about some moves fitting these criteria that I like, and some that I don't like.

Astral Barrage, Moongeist Beam
Ghost is an obvious choice for two reasons, the first being its strength in the current meta and the relatively low base power of its normal options. (Looking at you, shadow ball)
Between these two I feel Moongeist Beam is slightly cooler for the interaction with Unaware, but I'd be very happy with either. While we're talking about Ghost type, I think it's worth talking about Shadow Force here, too; it's obviously a very cool move, and some pokemon (like physical pult) occasionally run its kid brother Phantom Force, but the 2-turn limitation is enough of a drawback that I think we'd have trouble making it work as a "third-stab." It's better suited to a real Ghost type, if you ask me.

Blue Flare, Mind Blown
Fire is another choice I think would work nicely here; fire has always been a popular coverage option, and for good reason. But I don't much like either of the obvious options. Blue flare only has 20 BP on the already common fire blast, and doesn't even have the decency to be any more accurate! Mind Blown's drawback, meanwhile, suggests either another suicide 'mon for HO teams, or something taking recoil and healing it off. We literally just did one of those!
There are more fire moves on here, of course, but the likes of Searing Shot, Sacred Fire and Magma Storm offer more utility than raw power and don't really fit the bill for a "third stab."

Precipice Blades
I can't imagine it would be hard to justify running strong ground coverage right now; mercs 'pex, 'tran, and astro. I'm a big fan of the way Precipice Blades is essentially a ground-type fire blast; that's cool! It has applications that definitely excite me. I think it's worth mentioning why I don't like Thousand Arrows here; It could be argued that its strong effect is enough to compensate for the moderate BP, but if you can fire off a strong enough Thousand Arrows to matter what on earth do you need those first and second STABs for?

Glacial Lance
This is one of my personal favorites because of the consistency offered over its non-restricted counterpart, namely Triple Axel. It would obviously see play as third stab on, say, an electric type, but that's by no means the only route we could take - look at Pheremosa running Triple Axel in Ubers right now! (Freeze Shock exists as well, but suffers from the same problems as Shadow Force.)

Technoblast
I might be a tad biased here because this is my favorite choice out of the entire prohibited list, but I think technoblast would give us an extremely cool process! Yes it's knock-off phobic, but there are multiple very cool ways to limit the damage knock-off could do to a TB user. As a 100% accuracy 120 base power move coming in your choice of four pretty good coverage types it easily leaves us the most open during typing stage, really demonstrates the sorts of consistency advantages a prohibited coverage move could offer, and invites some interesting debate on whether to make multiple drives viable and, if so, exactly how much hidden information is too much hidden information. I'm very interesting in the differences between good old Hidden Power and a non-genesect Technoblast too; there are only four possibilities here, but it's literally twice as strong! The sort of type-scouting that might be necessary against a techno-blast user CAP31 would provide an significant advantage to more defensive teams facing off against it, which is a shift it seems like a lot of us want right now.
TLDR; technoblast might be the most difficult of these to make work, but I also think it would be the most fun.
 
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LRXC

ADV 1v1 Pioneer
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Hey everyone! I'm very very new to CAP and admittedly have not played a lot of CAP OU or been a part of any of the processes, but with my recent interest in CAP 1v1 I am finding CAP to be really exciting and intricate! Absurd amounts of creativity this community utilizes to make CAP really great.

Anyway, this Forbidden Fruit idea is really cool to me, and I really enjoy a lot of the ideas. I think I'd be repeating what everyone else has said if I was to talk about Diamond Storm or Oblivion Wing, which are my two favorite options. Also wanted to add Core Enforcer on a slow pokemon is a really interesting idea! Id be down to roll with that one

One option I think is interesting that nobody has talked about yet is Mind Blown. (damn okay user above just did but STILL)The impression I am getting about CAP OU right now is the fact that offense is really threatening, and players want some more defensive options, which again is funny because what I'm realizing is so many of these prohibited moves are just huge powerful attacks because kids be like HAHAH LEGENDARY MON USE COOL MOVE!!! :D

I think that Mind Blown has the potential to channel that energy, which I believe is somewhat at the heart of Forbidden Fruit, and going out of this gen with a bang, but maybe an explosion? Mind Blown is surely a powerful attack, but because of its clear downside, I think it could require some creative ways to play around it and support a mon utilizing the attack! Pairing it with Regenerator(cringe maybe)? Emergency Exit? Magic Guard?Using it as a Suicide Pivot? Who knows. Even tho I realize that said CAP Pokemon won't be fully centralized around the attack, and it doesn't need to be, could be an interesting option on a Pokemon that doesn't even need to be a FIRE type.

I feel as if I'm not able to commentate on how such a move could warp or guide the later process of CAP as I have never been a part of one, but just thought I'd throw my idea out there!

Excited to see how CAP 31 turns out :)
 
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snake

is a Community Leaderis a Top CAP Contributoris a Contributor to Smogon
CAP Co-Leader
Quick thoughts:

Core Enforcer: Really interesting utility that would be very much worth exploring. Could necessitate making an extremely slow Pokemon, and I'm always a fan of making Pokemon on the extreme ends of speed tiers.

Diamond Storm: Building with the defense buffs is really cool also and gives Diamond Storm a reason to be picked unlike something like Bolt Strike which is just "haha powerful electric move." Also having a Rock-type that doesn't rely on Meteor Beam or Stone Edge in the metagame would be really cool.

Techno Blast: It's hard for CAP to touch Techno Blast, so if we're going to explore it, now would the time to do so. Picking the typing for this one will be the most interesting part of the project I think, but every stage will require lots of thought.

Thousand Waves / Thunder Cage: Trapping moves are my favorite, and what I like about these is that they have a common immunity. While that means that Pokemon can pivot around them, it does mean that we can potentially provide these Pokemon with better tools to use. For example, Taunt was almost immediately banned from Pajantom because Normal-types were barely used. Thus, with those immunities, Thousand Waves / Thunder Cage CAP31 could feasibly have more powerful moves without completely breaking the Pokemon. Very probably one of my top options.

And for one I don't like:

Jungle Healing: I thought this move was Life Dew + Aromatherapy - that would really strong move! But it's not. afaik it's Life Dew + Refresh on yourself (and ally in Doubles), but not the whole team. Thus, I think this move would heavily focus on making a boosting wincon, and I don't really want to pursue that route with this CAP.
 
Right away, the move that strikes me as the most effective, if a bit basic, for fulfilling our concept is Jungle Healing. The idea of healing and status recovery at the same time is just really interesting and would be interesting to explore compared to other mons with good recovery that lack status recovery (Slowbro, Astrolotl)

I also don't see this move on the list, so I want to ask, what about Psycho Boost? Yes, it would just probably lead to Contrary shenanigans, but it is still a Legendary signature move (one of the better ones, I might add) so it should be slotted for consideration.
 

dex

Hard as Vince Carter’s knee cartilage is
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Right away, the move that strikes me as the most effective, if a bit basic, for fulfilling our concept is Jungle Healing. The idea of healing and status recovery at the same time is just really interesting and would be interesting to explore compared to other mons with good recovery that lack status recovery (Slowbro, Astrolotl)

I also don't see this move on the list, so I want to ask, what about Psycho Boost? Yes, it would just probably lead to Contrary shenanigans, but it is still a Legendary signature move (one of the better ones, I might add) so it should be slotted for consideration.
Psycho Boost is snapped and is unusable in the current SS metagame; this is why it is not on the list.
 
Alright time to talk about Diamond Storm. And like ten people did it before me but I have extra points!

The main reason I'm really leaning Diamond Storm is that I feel it gives us the most design space in the rest of the concept. Rock is an excellent coverage choice, and the high accuracy and reliability of Diamond Storm mean it will be a quick pick on a moveset for any type, STAB feels less relevant here. As well, the secondary effect being tied to defensive strategies encourages that we can look into different, less directly offensive options. Rock is also an awesome type in the current meta, with the current ascent of Nihilego and Stratagem as examples. I feel like we don't confine ourselves into certain types, roles or even stat blocks with this move - its mix of offensive pressure and defensive benefits gives us so much room to explore.

I feel Thousand Waves and Thunder Cage also fit the bill for having high versatility and will allow for a more open discussion, so those draw my interest as well.
 

Bloopyghost

guging
is a Pre-Contributor
Hey I wanna talk about moves that I believe should not be chosen for this CAP, the moves whose users not only wield them perfectly already, but are relevant in CAP/OU:

Doom Desire: This was Libra's entire concept. Goes without saying that we don't need to repeat this.

Double Iron Bash: Melm says hi. Ultimately just a strong Steel move with some hax attached, not fun to center a CAP around.

Geomancy: This is Nect's bread and butter, and looking at Ubers, it's also Xern's best set. Not to mention the high threat saturation in the current meta makes me less than excited about adding another sweeper.

Magma Storm: Heatran been using this for four gens straight. It would be a waste to focus on this especially since Thunder Cage and Thousand Waves are on the table.

Photon Geyser: Necrozma has been smashing the CAP ladder lately, and there's not much we could do with this that wouldn't just be Necrozma again.

Plasma Fists: Zera says hi too. I guess there's some weird gimmicky stuff that could be done with its secondary effect, but those are gimmicks and the move is just gonna be an Electric nuke above anything else.

Surging Strikes: Ursh says hi three. Going to OMs, Surging Strikes Argh has also been taking lives in CAP STABmons. So I'm not interested in this.

Thunderous Kick: Gapdos says hi four. I have seen some mention in CAPcord about making a Thunderous Kick user with low offensive stats, but I think Lotl already does that to a degree with Fire Lash, where the main purpose of the move is to force out the opponent with Defense drops instead of nuking them. Not excited about this one.

I didn't touch on moves whose users dwell in other tiers such as Diamond Storm and Wicked Blow since others have already touched on them and/or there could be some additional design space for these moves in CAP. Otherwise ye, I believe that these moves should not be chosen for the project, as there is not much to be explored with them.
 
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Some more thoughts because I can't stop posting today:

Of course any move that's already used by a viable Pokemon should not be on the table. This would include Plasma Fists, Magma Storm, Double Iron Bash, Fiery Wrath, Thundurous Kick, Surging Strikes, and Doom Desire. I don't think any of these have enough design space to do something different enough from their respective competition.

In terms of moves that nullify abilities, Core Enforcer > Sunsteel Strike > Moongeist Beam. I don't like Moongeist Beam, or really any Ghost attack for that matter, because I don't think the metagame has enough good Ghost resists and it already takes a lot on the meta to deal with Dragapult (same reason why I'm against Spectral Thief, and that's arguably an even better move than Moongeist Beam and would just be stupid broken in this meta IMO). I like Core Enforcer more than Sunsteel Strike, because not only does it have fewer resistances but I think the "moving last" aspect adds another layer to it and can potentially be made to go first against stuff it beats and go last against stuff it doesn't beat, and is very creative. Therefore I think Core Enforcer is a pretty strong contender.

This flew under my radar before, but I think Techno Blast is an excellent option that really is a great example of how we can use this signature move to do something unique (unlike a certain pair of moves that I'll get to in a minute). The talk about this move reminds me of how there was a concept slated for CAP 29 based around Multi-Attack, I think Techno Blast is the superior option here because you only get access to a handful of types the move could be as opposed to all of them. Especially with Hidden Power gone, I think that makes this even better. I think the lack of being able to hold damage boosting items would help ensure it is balanced and I think there are other sacrifices that can be made to ensure balancing as well.

Oblivion Wing is neat because it's actually a consistent Flying special attack, and it has fewer resistances than Giga Drain which is a plus. But I don't think it's strong enough to be worth using without STAB and would likely mandate the Flying type, which is the part I don't like.

Diamond Storm isn't at the top of my list but it's not at the bottom either, and I don't think it's a bad option. This move offers for a surprising amount of design space in terms of roles, and it doesn't necessarily rely on STAB as the secondary effect is cool.

Still not a fan of the popular Thunder Cage and Thousand Waves. This concept allows for a variety of possibilities that wouldn't be possible in any other concept and I don't think rehashing what Heatran and Pajantom are known for is a good use of it. We can do better.
 
I'm gonna put some thougths out there on some moves that really spoke to me.

- A lot of people mentionned Core Enforcer and I'm a fan! Nulifying abilities is a really versatile ability as it can help break defensive teams (nulifying regenerator and natural cure to name a few) or neuter offensife threats (beast boost becoming a non factor). It would really allow a lot of creativity on the role the mon could play in general.

- Diamond Storm is a strong rock type move that raises defense with tolerable accuracy and doesn't railroad us towards any archetype, so it's a solid option.

- One move I haven't seen at all is Secret Sword. From what I can tell, Keldeo is not a thing in the tier, so the new mon wouldn't be replicating something that is already in the meta. It's also not a completely bonkers move that would screw the power budget too hard, in fact it is one of the more reasonable options from the list. It's more likely to put us on an offensive route though, so there's that, but as a move, it seems really reasonable. Plus, and that's just me, it allows us to make a dumb counterpart to the Swords of Justice, something like the Simitars of Law. Any other dumb pun is viable.

- Techno Blast plays a lot on the coverage side of things and could allow some cool robot desings, so I'm all for it!
 
Something I'm not seeing getting a lot of talk is Dragon Energy. It's absolutely currently of my current favorite "raw power" moves. It’s strong enough to not need to be Dragon type, and not only that, it essentially provides a Dragon type nuke on a Pokemon that might not be Dragon type. The HP lowering power helps balance this a little, and I think this could actually make for a decent process.
Respectfully, I take some issue with this opinion.

Dragon Energy is not good. It's an exact clone of Eruption and Water Spout, except unlike those two it runs aground against Fairy-types. Neither of its counterparts (who are not banned) contends with a widespread immunity. Furthermore, there is not a single type combination in the meta that runs Dragon moves for coverage. For Dragon Energy to be serviceable on non-Dragon Pokémon, there needs to be a demand for Dragon moves that typically does not exist. You'd need a wacky type combination like Fire/Electric that otherwise gets walled by staple Dragon-types because Dragon itself is the only thing taking SE damage from Dragon Energy. Pyroak has long fit this profile, but it's still never found use for its Dragon moves. It'd much rather snipe Heatran.

Furthermore, consider the one actual Pokémon that uses Dragon Energy: Assault Vest/Choice Scarf Regidrago.
  1. It's outclassed by the same Pokémon using Dragon Dance + Outrage.
  2. It runs Draco Meteor on the same set because Dragon Energy is so unreliable as the battle wears on.
  3. It benefits from STAB and a unique multiplier called Dragon's Maw.
  4. Despite these massive advantages, it's still RU.
Trying to build a viable Pokémon around Dragon Energy without STAB on Dragon moves and without the multiplicative effect of Dragon's Maw sounds like a fool's errand. It would be better served by Eruption or Water Spout. Even if we were to give it the aforementioned bonuses, we would just be reinventing Regidrago. Dragon Energy is a cool move, but there are very few ways to engineer a Pokémon that would rather not be running something else.

As for my own thoughts, ummm... I did initially like Court Change, but the number of situations where it's more advantageous than Rapid Spin are few. If your side of the field has five layers of hazards and the opponent has none, you're either running six pairs of boots or losing badly. I'm also not a fan of Thousand Waves. We did it before. It was called Pajantom.

Techno Blast is tantalizing. I seem to recall some heated debate on that subject when a Multi-Attacker was suggested for CAP29, but it's a cool move that does lend itself well to non-STAB coverage unlike some other moves in contention. A funny thing is that it could theoretically serve as both primary STAB and coverage option on the same Pokémon (if that Pokémon's type were Normal). I don't think many players would embrace a CAP31 that could choose between Specs or a Drive to whack completely different checks, but I think it's important to note we can do more with this move than Genesect already does. Then again, beating different checks is the entire point of having four Drive items to begin with.
 
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One move that I haven’t seen at all has been King’s Shield. While I’m not sure how much use Aegislash sees in CAP, I’m assuming that we can do something unique by divorcing King’s Shield from Stance Change (or not, but that seems anti-concept). Protect and its clones are often uncommon moves, and I think that King’s Shield allows for a wide variety of playstyles, from offensive to defensive to utility.

I really like Core Enforcer. As I mentioned before, it’s super huge in BH and can allow us many interesting options. One potential problem with this could be trying to reinvent Miasmaw, who already nullifies abilities and is a Dragon.

I think that Thunder Cage is also an awesome option. It would be interesting to see the different routes we could go with another trapper. I know that many people have protested that “we have two trappers already,” but back before Pursuit was snapped, we had a whole host more trappers. I also like what people have mentioned about it being absorbed by Ground types, which offers some defensive response. Additionally, Pajantom and Dragapult both resist the move and can switch out from it. Finally, this move can help address some of the million Flying types dominating CAP (eg venomicons, Zapdos, torn).

I also really like the idea of the “triple STAB” approach, which would use something like V-Create or Glacial Lance as coverage. I think a really interesting option here could be to create a mixed attacker (eg a special Electric type that has access to Glacial Lance to beat its Ground checks and special walls).
 
If there's a common sentiment that CAP needs less offensive juggernauts right now, then I think avoiding moves with little or very specialized counterplay should be avoided. "Triple STAB" is nice in theory but this might not be the right time for it.

One of my favorites is Diamond Storm. Offensive rocks have been making quite the ruckus, but we can certainly lean into its defensive properties. As long as we don't make "Venomocon but it can boost its weaker stat twice instead of once," it should be a good fit. (Oblivion Wing does a similar song and dance, but I'm not keen on the meta having another strong birb.)

Spectral Thief is another, so long as we don't make said user offensive or A-tier viable. Having another option against setup sweepers wouldn't rock the boat too much, and might even be beneficial, if it's on a rare, defensive mon.

Lastly there's Sacred Fire, which also might be dangerous in the wrong hands. Whether on offensive or defensive mons, its health should be gauged by how many mons can stomach it. Since we have Pajantom, Heatran and quite a few Fire-types, it might be worth it.
 

spoo

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In general I'm leaning towards the moves that are a) mechanically rich and b) cover new design space. I think a lot of the nuke-y moves / moves with more "normal" secondary effects are going to be poor at supporting in-depth exploration over a four month process. Just gonna give my thoughts on some moves that I like, or ones that have been seeing more discussion.

Techno Blast is one of my favorites atm. I think it's one of the "riskier" moves we could chose, but would still lead to a fascinating and rich process. There are a lot of routes you could go here - sweeper, breaker, even defensive mon is valid - and as long as we don't make the mon impossible to scout, a Techno Blast CAP would probably be one of the coolest and most unique possible end products from this list. I've seen some people complain about the Knock Off weakness here, and while that's a fair issue, there are a number of avenues around that weakness and it's not like there are no other successful mons highly reliant on their item.

Diamond Storm is a very safe option, and could take us in some cool directions trying to get the most value out of the Defense boost. While Diancie has used it in a number of ways in the past, it's still the sole user so the move is fairly unexplored, meaning there's room for us to learn and discover new interactions with it.

Spectral Thief is mechanically distinct as well. It would be interesting to see where CAP goes with this one; I don't imagine we'd want to add another difficult Ghost-type to check, but there's also no shortage of setup mons that could be nice to screw with. I think this move would lead to some valuable discussions about the metagame, threat saturation, utilizing boosts vs merely stealing, and how to approach (over)centralization. There's also a ton of room to set ourselves apart from its sole user in Marshadow and go down a new path.

Core Enforcer is one I haven't thought a ton about but seems dope on first glance. Once again, just a completely mechanically unique move that allows us to explore new territory. Not much more to say about it than that atm.

Photon Geyser is awesome and would be higher on my mental list if it weren't for Necrozma. I think Necrozma's sheer versatility with this move removes a little bit of the excitement and room for us to learn, but I trust CAP could still do something unique with it. The most interesting thing here imo is that it can change between phys/special depending on the user's highest stat - I feel like there's more we can unearth with that.

Thunder Cage is decently high up there for me. Trapping has been explored quite well in CAP and in gen 8 as a whole, but this move manages to stand out as an option we can continue to learn and explore with. While CAP has already dedicated an entire process to Spirit Shackle and the effects of trapping more generally, I think both the partial trapping element and the fact that every team should have a Pokemon immune to this move will help us break new ground.

Jungle Healing is also one of the coolest moves on this list imo, but it has its issues. First the good stuff: there's really nothing in the game that does quite the same thing as Jungle Healing, and Zarude is a pretty nice proof of concept - the move 100% has places where it shines - so I'd predict a very interesting process with a nice balanced end result. Jungle Healing is a bit on the weaker side, though, so I think it's a puzzle that might take a bit more work compared to other options. Kind of in the same boat as Techno Blast in that way, but for different reasons. I also agree with the sentiment that this move heavily implies a wincondition or wallbreaker (with boosting being especially likely), which I would also like to stay away from. Awesome move, but I'm not sure if it's time to pursue it. Probably middle of the pack for me preference-wise.

Oblivion Wing is something I wish I was more interested in. Competitive Pokemon has truly run the gamut when it comes to healing moves, and despite this one's low distribution, I don't feel that we would be learning anything significant. Compare the move's depth to things we've done in the past like Spirit Shackle and Doom Desire, and to me, it's hard to believe Oblivion Wing has the depth to support four full stages.

Thousand Waves
is something I'm torn on. This may sound hypocritical or contradictory given what I said about Thunder Cage, but this move feels slightly more like a repeat process than its competition. Despite the unique elements afforded to Thousand Waves by virtue of every team having at least one Pokemon immune to it, the similarities to Pajantom's process are sort of hard to ignore for me. If we're going to dedicate an entire CAP process to a single move, I'd like to avoid retreading ground as much as possible, so ultimately I prefer Thunder Cage when it comes to trapping moves as a slightly more fresh option. That said, the depth is certainly there, and I have 100% faith we'd be able to churn out something exciting and unique at the end of the day.

Other stuff besides maybe Sunsteel Strike/DIB haven't really piqued my interest yet. Like I said, the more "high BP with nothing else" moves don't really interest me - eg if someone submitted a "V-Create" or "Bolt Strike" concept a week ago, I probably would have written if off immediately - but I'm honestly surprised at the amount of cool options we have to work with.
 
While almost all moves here are attacking moves, I’ve begun to see, that there are actually an good amount of different avenues to explore and I’m more hyped for the concept now, than I was during voting.

Obviously this list holds some moves, which are incredibly unique in both effect and power. A lot of these moves probably have enough depth to build more than one mon with it. Like Consider Jungle healing, which now has been seriously discussed in three consecutive concepts.
In general i don’t think we can go wrong with most of these more unique moves, as their effects alone are enough to create a niche for CAP 31.
However we should not cast aside the „merely power buffed“ moves, that we can find on this list as well.
Some of these are incredibly interesting JUST BECAUSE they are 50% stronger than their alternatives.
Having one super powered STAB can shape a Mon.
Look at Victini, Melmetal or Venomicon-Epilogue, all of which have a single STAB that is so much more powerful than all their other moves, that they almost never go wrong with just clicking buttons.
At the same time there’s also the option of exploring the „Third STAB“, a move that grants you essentially three attacking types.
One of my favorite Pokémon competitively is Aegislash, which basically performs as two different Pokémon offensively and defensively, one being a ghost fighting attacker (on offensive sets) and the other a ghost steel wall. The fact that Close Combat is it’s strongest physical attacking move, which also happens to complement both its STAB ghost and Steel attacks and its strong mixed attacking capabilities is so awesome.
Aside from a powerful Third STAB, some of these nukes could also open up the possibility of a Mon, which leverages its typing mostly or exclusively for defensive purposes and only runs one or even no actual STAB, which in turn makes the typing stage a lot more interesting.
Having a defensive profile, that is entirely detached from your offensive capability is really cool.

Anyway these are the moves, that are most interesting to me in no particular order:
Astral Barrage, Bolt Strike, Double Iron Bash, Glacial Lance, Core Enforcer, Diamond Storm, Dragon Energy, Fleur Cannon, Jungle Healing, Mind Blown, Secret Sword, Shadow Force, Spectral Thief, Techno Blast, Thunder Cage

Below I give my evaluation of all available moves

Aeroblast tbh I kind of rate this only a tad stronger than Hurricane because less PP and Power. I also dislike it bc we just did two excellent flying types and this heavily implies another
Astral Barrage Ghost nuke is something we can consider although I might prefer Moongeist beam as an option that ignores boosts (please don’t let me lose to demon Mew again)
Blue Flare Giga Fire Blast is solid but idk if it offer so much more over its weaker cousin
Bolt Strike Probably one of my favorite Pure Power options bc it’s both great as coverage and STAB and also fuck Fly Spam.
Double Iron Bash let’s give this to something really fast >:) no but for real the move is cool to explore. Giga Iron Head has a lot of potential
Dragon's Ascent It’s kinda stronger than Brave Bird but not so much that it’s interesting also fuck Fly Spam (might be interesting if we think of it as a coverage move since flying usually sucks as coverage)
Dynamax Cannon let’s allow dynamax (otherwise this is very bland compared to other dragon moves)
Fiery Wrath honestly why game freak? It’s literally dark pulse
Glacial Lance I don’t buy the comparison to axel. This move is a billion times stronger as it has more BP more accuracy and doesn’t make contact and works as both STAB and Uber reliable busted coverage, also fuck fly spam
Glaciate 10 more BP and it would actually be interesting
Origin Pulse Hydro Pump is right there
Precipice Blades I don’t know might be interesting to explore the effects of power vs. rng on the viability of a move (say we gave this and High Horse Power, what move would be run)
Psystrike Psyshock exists just give it 20% more SpA
Searing Shot Lava Plume exists just give it 20% more SpA
Spacial Rend Idk if exploring high crit moves can be interesting maybe I guess
Steam Eruption Scald exists just give it 40% more power

Core Enforcer Hell yeah cool effect also let’s us implicitly work with the “the last word” concept. I think this move has a very interesting relationship between its strengths and how they are exploitable. Having to move last and not triggering on switches means we actively have to design around these flaws to unlock/mitigate its power. How do you leverage a move that is strongest when it can cripple pivots but at the same time doesn’t activate when the opponent pivots?
Diamond Storm Hell yeah “unusual gains” returns from the grave, also fuck fly spam.
Reliable physical Rock move that boosts defense is cool. I love Diancie and hope we can make something similarly interesting.
Dragon Energy Dragon type Eruption (Aaaand we have another resurrected concept!) How do you use a move, that probably becomes weaker the longer the game goes? How can you leverage its absurd power early in the game, especially when there’s a common immunity to it? How do you mitigate the loss of power late game? I love HP management studies and think this could be very Interesting.
Fleur Cannon Fairy type go boom! Not sure how interesting this is process wise but designing a Mon that has one or two turns in to make an impact looks actually very interesting. How much is a nuke worth if you can’t follow up? How do we deal with having to switch a lot. Could Fairy type maybe be used as coverage with this power?
Freezing Glare if the freeze mechanic from LoA was live this would be my preferred option ngl. Sadly it isn’t. But I hope we can explore this in gen 9.
Jungle Healing The only actual utility move on the list is incredibly interesting, as it’s inclusion in the last three move discussions shows. I think we can build a fun Mon around this. Although I must admit that I am not the most hype for it atm.
Mind Blown cool ass move! Another one that plays with the concept of careful HP management and how to most effectively use the limited time it has to make an impact.
Moongeist Beam It’s a cool move and ghost is an interesting attacking type. Idk how often it’s effect will be relevant but there’s definitely substance to explore.
Nature's Madness I really don’t know how I feel about this one. Could be cool but tbh Fini already does a great job of using it
Oblivion Wing if it wasn’t flying hell ye. But I really don’t like the idea of another flying type in the meta
Sacred Fire have you ever tried to switch into Band Entei? This move is hell to be up against. But at the same time Power, reliability and a busted effect make for a cool upturn that might make for an interesting process.
Secret Sword Special Attacker that removes Blissey? Hell yeah! I’d like to see if this move could be workable as coverage and how to leverage “mixed” attacking capabilities the best
(Shadow Force) idk Meteor beam is ducking awesome and ghost nukes are always cool imo. Though tbh the most interesting design space is how can you leverage a two turn move? How do you play against recovery? How do you mitigate how telegraphed it is? Are there positive applications of the invulnerable turn?
I worry that it’s too weak but it could be fun to explore
Spectral Thief Hell Yeah! I steal your Belly Drum sir Cawm! What now >:)? This move is awesome and it holds a lot of depth to explore. It would also be an incredible balancing act bc hell this move is broken on the wrong build.
Sunsteel Strike I’d prefer Moongeist Beam here but still interesting
Techno Blast This move is fun. Exploring powerful consistent customizable coverage after Hidden Power was axed is cool. How do you work with STAB vs Coverage? How do you work around potentially losing your coverage move to knock off? How does a customizable moveset impact team building? How can you leverage the unpredictability and versatility in game?
(Thousand Arrows) Zygarde does this near perfectly and we just did a Mon, that ignores the types of its switch ins, so idk how much design space we have here but fuck fly spam so…
Thousand Waves Trapping is cool although a) I prefer limited trapping like Thunder Cage and b) while the process would likely be slightly different due to other targets, we already explored non conditional trapping with Pajantom.
Thunder Cage I think this is a cool option. Trapping as I said is interesting and I love the balancing, that has to go into it to not make it uncompetitive. A reliable AND powerful conditional trapping move, which has an immunity against it is completely unique. How does counterplay work here. What
Mons are desirable to be trapped? Should a trapped Mon be able to come out of the trap unscathed or should a successful trap mean that you can remove the opposing Mon? How could we design this so it’s still a “fair” trade?
Thunderous Kick Astro kind of does this, but it’s a different type and I feel like there’s still other space that could be explored.

Behemoth Bash
Behemoth Blade
Crush Grip
Doom Desire
Eternabeam
Freeze Shock
Fusion Bolt
Fusion Flare
Geomancy
Ice Burn
Land's Wrath
Lunar Dance
Luster Purge
Magma Storm
Mist Ball
Photon Geyser
Plasma Fists
Prismatic Laser
Roar of Time
Shadow Force
Surging Strikes
Thousand Arrows
V-Create
Wicked Blow
 
So far among the Forbidden Fruit, Techno Blast is my absolute favorite. I’m genuinely very interested in what a process centered around a Techno Blast user could look like. The knock-off susceptibility does hurt a bit, but I think that’s a unique trade-off that could be interesting to play around (also potential synergy with a certain knock-absorbing E-book, perhaps?). I really like the idea of being able to choose between four different options for a third STAB, and the freedom for typing stage is very refreshing. Not to mention a whole lot of fun design space that Techno Blast affords. Very cool move, easily my favorite of the bunch.

Core Enforcer is very cool as well, I really like the idea of a slower mon being able to nullify abilities whilst dishing out damage in the process. This could go a couple different ways, such as a slow defensive mon that uses a high-power move to force progress ability nullification, a tried and true tank, etc. This also kind of incorporates the concept from the submissions of a mon that is incentivized to move last, as least in certain circumstances, which I find compelling.

Diamond Storm is interesting in that it’s a physical rock move that’s actually reliable for the most part, but its defense buff is obviously where it shines. Considering that Diancie is hardly viable even in UU, it’s safe to say Diamond Storm has never really seen much use in CAP. Could be fun to explore.

I’m not terribly interested in trapping moves, personally, as I find that territory a bit oversaturated. Heatran is a top mon in the tier and is a premier trapper, and CAP has done trapping before with Pajantom. I just don’t find these moves that interesting despite their inherent immunities.

I also find the “existing move but stronger” moves like Bolt Strike, Blue Flare, Psystrike, etc. to be fairly uninteresting from a process perspective. Where’s the spice? The zest? That said, Mind Blown funny big move go boom
 
Is it too narrow to think about LIGHT OF RUIN/MIND BLOWN in co junction with magic guard? Would that further the offensive saturation or create a breaker for balance and stall?

My favorite of whats in the table besided those is Techno Blast. This seemedije a rwally fun project and would be really unique. Im invisioning like some kind of normal/steel thing with a bunch of guns lol. Obviously not where we are in the process, just a fun imagery. All seriousness, we wont ever get another chance like this to play with this move. Most these other options we can at least corner cade with Necturna
Also I'm really liking almost every suggestion except Jungle Healing. That one is extra boring imo
 
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Oblivion Wing is easily the most interesting option in my view. It is the most flexible in terms of how we build around it. Healing 75% off of attacking moves is really strong but unexplored outside of Tapu Fini and Comfee, both of which use the weak Draining Kiss. It would also be really interesting to see how draining moves affect longevity. Triage Oblivion Wing would be badass.

Techno Blast is my second choice. Giving CAP31 a variable coverage move is a novel concept with proven viability. We could also use abilities such as Pixilate and Aerilate to further expand the variability (and strength!) of the attack.

Spectral Thief is a move that would shut down most sweepers and create offensive pressure. A Pokemon with this move is kind of like Ditto, drastically affecting the opponent's possible win conditions and their decisions just by sitting on the bench.

Jungle Healing is another one that should be considered. Healing status and health simultaneously is HUGE, compressing two moves (and turns!) into a single one.

Secret Sword is a Fighting type Psyshock. My issue with this one is that it CAP's created multiple special oriented Fighting-type Pokemon. What would separate such an attacker from Voodoom, Tomohawk, or Kerfluffle?

Heart Swap is one move that hasn't really seen any mention. Stealing boosts from set-up sweepers and swapping debuffs is extremely powerful when combined with moves like Close Combat, Superpower, or Overheat. Prankster Heart Swap would be a nightmare for many set-up sweepers

Diamond Storm might be difficult to balance. A +2 boost off of such a strong attack is BRUTAL. It's Iron Defence and Stone Edge in one move. Diancie being bad seems to have affected how people feel about this move.

Shadow Force just shouldn't be considered IMO, 2 turn moves are typically bad and I don't understand the value in using an item slot for a single-use 120 bp move. I'd rather we do another Geomancy mon lol

Mind Blown is a neat one to try, but will likely be underwhelming and outclassed by Blacephalon if it doesn't have Magic Guard.
 
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