For coverage I think we should add scald earth power and flamethrower but if it ends up being a physical attaker then wave crash flare blitz and earthquake sludge wave and gunk shot for poison stab and def clanging scales to activate throat spray and I think psychic noise will also be a good option to deny healing these are just my thoughts so far for attacks and for support we should add twave and maybe recover or life dew for recovery.
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CAP 34 - Part 5 - Defining Moves 2
- Thread starter quziel
- Start date
- Status
We should make this easy:
Assume the following moves for the following categories.
Dragon STAB: Clanging Scales, Dragon Pulse, Draco Meteor
Poison STAB: Sludge Wave, Sludge Bomb
Setup: Clangorous Soul
At least one from the following categories:
Fire Coverage: Fire Blast, Flamethrower
Water Coverage: Hydro Pump, Surf, Sparkling Aria (this moves realistically is just Surf but I know some folks want to max out our sound moves)
Fighting Coverage: Close Combat, Aura Sphere, Focus Blast
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Defining moves is not the movepool stage, its sole purpose is to allow folks to justify the stats spreads that they're submitting, and I don't see a huge reason to overcomplicate things. The list above imo gives about every major permutation of a Throat Spray Clang Soul set, with various relevant coverage moves, and choice of coverage will help to justify differing SpA stats.
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The only things that are not on the above list that could be defining moves, specifically optional defining moves, are, in my opinion, the following.
Boomburst is functionally as strong as Sludge Wave post-stab, and gives us very broad neutral coverage. I really don't love it here, as Sludge Wave well, does a fairly good job with Dragon, but Dragon/Fire/Normal and Dragon/Water/Normal are very very competent typings in combo with eachother, and a Tera-Normal set with Boomburst would be quite potent. I can 100% see this move as an optional defining move, though again I personally don't love it.
Recover clones are a fairly obvious route forward; Clang Soul has a major HP cost and increases defenses, Recover mitigates the HP loss, and abuses the increased defenses to potentially get +2 instead of +1. That said, our typing really does not do well on a 2 attack / recover / setup kinda route, as we're forced into Dragon/Fire, Dragon/Water, or some other similar route, all of which have major issues breaking past major mons in the meta.
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Torch Song seems just straight up worse than Fire Blast here? +3 Torch Song is about 10% weaker than +2 Fire Blast, and this is a setup sweeper that is likely to fit on fairly hard offense structures. We are almost guaranteed to care more about our ability to chunk Libra for 80 and then die, than the potential to go for a very long game. Our ability to inflict major damage after a single turn of setup, and either abuse our teammate's prior work weakening a wall, or to heavily weaken a wall for a teammate is more important than our ability to put out long term damage.
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Frankly when it comes to designing stat spreads, I'm not really sure if we need that many defining moves? This mon, as it is, is a very simple mon to design.
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Edit:
Thinking more, probably just say "any reasonably distributed Fire, Water, or Fighting type move" just because part of my brain wants to give this mon every single pledge move.
Assume the following moves for the following categories.
Dragon STAB: Clanging Scales, Dragon Pulse, Draco Meteor
Poison STAB: Sludge Wave, Sludge Bomb
Setup: Clangorous Soul
At least one from the following categories:
Fire Coverage: Fire Blast, Flamethrower
Water Coverage: Hydro Pump, Surf, Sparkling Aria (this moves realistically is just Surf but I know some folks want to max out our sound moves)
Fighting Coverage: Close Combat, Aura Sphere, Focus Blast
----
Defining moves is not the movepool stage, its sole purpose is to allow folks to justify the stats spreads that they're submitting, and I don't see a huge reason to overcomplicate things. The list above imo gives about every major permutation of a Throat Spray Clang Soul set, with various relevant coverage moves, and choice of coverage will help to justify differing SpA stats.
----
The only things that are not on the above list that could be defining moves, specifically optional defining moves, are, in my opinion, the following.
Boomburst is functionally as strong as Sludge Wave post-stab, and gives us very broad neutral coverage. I really don't love it here, as Sludge Wave well, does a fairly good job with Dragon, but Dragon/Fire/Normal and Dragon/Water/Normal are very very competent typings in combo with eachother, and a Tera-Normal set with Boomburst would be quite potent. I can 100% see this move as an optional defining move, though again I personally don't love it.
Recover clones are a fairly obvious route forward; Clang Soul has a major HP cost and increases defenses, Recover mitigates the HP loss, and abuses the increased defenses to potentially get +2 instead of +1. That said, our typing really does not do well on a 2 attack / recover / setup kinda route, as we're forced into Dragon/Fire, Dragon/Water, or some other similar route, all of which have major issues breaking past major mons in the meta.
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Torch Song seems just straight up worse than Fire Blast here? +3 Torch Song is about 10% weaker than +2 Fire Blast, and this is a setup sweeper that is likely to fit on fairly hard offense structures. We are almost guaranteed to care more about our ability to chunk Libra for 80 and then die, than the potential to go for a very long game. Our ability to inflict major damage after a single turn of setup, and either abuse our teammate's prior work weakening a wall, or to heavily weaken a wall for a teammate is more important than our ability to put out long term damage.
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Frankly when it comes to designing stat spreads, I'm not really sure if we need that many defining moves? This mon, as it is, is a very simple mon to design.
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Edit:
Thinking more, probably just say "any reasonably distributed Fire, Water, or Fighting type move" just because part of my brain wants to give this mon every single pledge move.
Last edited:
I concur with quizel and others here, I think that torch song is a bit of a take-it-or-leave-it move and I am not concerned about it one way or the other. One thing I will point out is that calcs which just compare it to fire blast are I think missing the point a little bit: firstly, fire blast can miss, and secondly, torch song also powers up your other moves making it much stronger on the switch.
With soul already a required move, it feels like the movepool stage will go pretty smoothly. The addition of recovery moves or utility will likely have a negligible effect on what this guy actually does. I will say that if we want fighting coverage, mixed physical coverage (superpower, close combat, etc) pairs really nicely with soul.
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet is stored power, maybe as an optional move? One soul+spray gets it up to 140BP, I don't know if strong psychic coverage is anything but psychic type boomburst feels cool idk.
With soul already a required move, it feels like the movepool stage will go pretty smoothly. The addition of recovery moves or utility will likely have a negligible effect on what this guy actually does. I will say that if we want fighting coverage, mixed physical coverage (superpower, close combat, etc) pairs really nicely with soul.
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet is stored power, maybe as an optional move? One soul+spray gets it up to 140BP, I don't know if strong psychic coverage is anything but psychic type boomburst feels cool idk.
Now that Clangorous Soul has made it onboard, I think it's about time to bring up the move that ended 1,000 battles. I am of course speaking of Stored Power.
Psychic coverage, dex? On a Pokemon walled by Steel-types? Yes, it may seem strange, but we identified that Dragon/Poison offers more to CAP 34 defensively than offensively; it is not out of the question to suppose CAP 34 has the capability to drop a STAB move to run two coverage options. Stored Power after one Clangorous Soul boost + Throat Spray reaches 140 BP. That's a Psychic-type Boomburst! Stored Power gives CAP 34 the potential to actually power through Arghonaut (no small feat) or force a Tera off it, which HO teams take great advantage of. Stored Power also means Venomicon is forced out instead of it potentially using Hurricane on the set-up turn followed by KOing with another Hurricane while tanking a Clanging Scales. Stored Power is often a risky move to give a Pokemon, but I don't think it is actually that risky to give CAP 34 given all we know about it. Its STAB combo is walled by the things that can take Stored Power, and CAP 34 isn't the bulky behemoths that infamous users of the move like Hatterene and Magearna are. It doesn't have recovery and it can't feasibly go past a BP of 140 on the move. Given Throat Spray and Clangorous Soul's single-use nature (I know Clangorous Soul is not single-use by definition but it kinda is in practice, though the idea of a Stored Power sweeper that uses Clangorous Soul twice in a row is quite funny), I think Stored Power is a strong but not too strong option to give CAP 34 that I would love to hear other's opinions on.
Psychic coverage, dex? On a Pokemon walled by Steel-types? Yes, it may seem strange, but we identified that Dragon/Poison offers more to CAP 34 defensively than offensively; it is not out of the question to suppose CAP 34 has the capability to drop a STAB move to run two coverage options. Stored Power after one Clangorous Soul boost + Throat Spray reaches 140 BP. That's a Psychic-type Boomburst! Stored Power gives CAP 34 the potential to actually power through Arghonaut (no small feat) or force a Tera off it, which HO teams take great advantage of. Stored Power also means Venomicon is forced out instead of it potentially using Hurricane on the set-up turn followed by KOing with another Hurricane while tanking a Clanging Scales. Stored Power is often a risky move to give a Pokemon, but I don't think it is actually that risky to give CAP 34 given all we know about it. Its STAB combo is walled by the things that can take Stored Power, and CAP 34 isn't the bulky behemoths that infamous users of the move like Hatterene and Magearna are. It doesn't have recovery and it can't feasibly go past a BP of 140 on the move. Given Throat Spray and Clangorous Soul's single-use nature (I know Clangorous Soul is not single-use by definition but it kinda is in practice, though the idea of a Stored Power sweeper that uses Clangorous Soul twice in a row is quite funny), I think Stored Power is a strong but not too strong option to give CAP 34 that I would love to hear other's opinions on.
As smarter people than I elaborated on torch song, it seems to end up being pointless. No reason to have a third signature move that ends up doing nothing.
Stored Power is very interesting, with a set like sludge wave/stored power/fire blast/clangorous soul being very alluring, and it has the trade off of leaving ting lu as a hard answer. Like dex mentioned we also say bye bye to argh as an answer, which I'm not entirely sure is a good thing as it may limit counterplay a bit too much. Because of our ability making us immune to priority and ability to boost our Speed with Clangorous, we don't have many offensive answers to CAP34 outside of one-time booster mons and the occasional scarier. This means we have to lean on defensive answers to keep us in check, which really only leaves us with Ting Lu, Clodsire, the rare Blissey, and Arghonaut as solid answers. I'm not sure removing Arghonaut and Clod (mainly argh) as answers is that great for us. If we go with stored power we should have a stronger BSR limit on our Speed than we would otherwise.
I also like spoo's list; I have been thinking about Cose Combat is a coverage option and it is rather interesting. Assuming our SpA and Atk are equal, Close Combat is a weaker option than Focus Blast that also drops our defenses but it's 100% accurate and hits certain baddies for much weaker. interesting trade off
Stored Power is very interesting, with a set like sludge wave/stored power/fire blast/clangorous soul being very alluring, and it has the trade off of leaving ting lu as a hard answer. Like dex mentioned we also say bye bye to argh as an answer, which I'm not entirely sure is a good thing as it may limit counterplay a bit too much. Because of our ability making us immune to priority and ability to boost our Speed with Clangorous, we don't have many offensive answers to CAP34 outside of one-time booster mons and the occasional scarier. This means we have to lean on defensive answers to keep us in check, which really only leaves us with Ting Lu, Clodsire, the rare Blissey, and Arghonaut as solid answers. I'm not sure removing Arghonaut and Clod (mainly argh) as answers is that great for us. If we go with stored power we should have a stronger BSR limit on our Speed than we would otherwise.
I also like spoo's list; I have been thinking about Cose Combat is a coverage option and it is rather interesting. Assuming our SpA and Atk are equal, Close Combat is a weaker option than Focus Blast that also drops our defenses but it's 100% accurate and hits certain baddies for much weaker. interesting trade off
It is worth noting that OHKOing Arghonaut with 140 BP Stored Power takes a lot of SpA. Like way more than CAP 34 could even dream of getting. Tera Psychic makes it easier, but the real value is forcing big chip on Arghonaut/forcing it to Tera. However, it’s a dangerous move for sure.
OKHO yes, but with even 100 SpA it can tack on a healthy 60-70% with max investment, which makes arg much less consistent.
I know this isn't C&C, but it's worth noting that if we want to be walled by Blissey it's absolutely vital that we don't get physical fighting coverage. This might not be an issue, I really like superpower/CC, but Blissey and Ting-Lu are I think good counters and giving 34 more tools to circumvent them might not be ideal. Probably definitely needs to come with heavy BSR penalties at the very least.
There's a point in every CAP where we must ask ourselves: Are we giving CAP 34 a lot of good things? Well, it's not as the suggestions are already on it, however, does it really need more things? This is hard to develop correctly without stats, but they play a big role on terms of which moves would be overkill, like Stored Power, for example.
Using quziel's list, I would change at least one from to maximum one from.
Also high BP coverage moves are not attractive to me, specially Close Combat. We can use Toxtricity as an example, after Shift Gear it can either Brick Break or Drain Punch, Close Combat's debuff would be nice if it didn't have priority immunity, as revenge killing is not as easy.
Using quziel's list, I would change at least one from to maximum one from.
Also high BP coverage moves are not attractive to me, specially Close Combat. We can use Toxtricity as an example, after Shift Gear it can either Brick Break or Drain Punch, Close Combat's debuff would be nice if it didn't have priority immunity, as revenge killing is not as easy.
I think Stored Power is just a tad bit too strong for us IMO. While it does hit relatively few mons for SE damage (the only major ones are Arghonaut, and Venomicon which while really good, is still a very small list compared to our other coverage options), with the right stat distribution, it has the potential to break through these mons way too easily:
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 108 SpD Unaware Arghonaut: 250-296 (60.3 - 71.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 116 SpD Venomicon: 534-630 (143.1 - 168.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Venomicon: 430-506 (115.2 - 135.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
These calcs keep Toxtricity's base SpA of 114, for reference. Here are the maximum SpA values needed for CAP 34 to not reach these benchmarks:
93 SpA to not guarantee the 2HKO on Arghonaut WITH NO HAZARDS UP (+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 108 SpD Unaware Arghonaut: 218-258 (52.6 - 62.3%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery)
75 SpA to not guarantee the 2HKO on Arghonaut WITH ONE LAYER OF SPIKES UP (+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 108 SpD Unaware Arghonaut: 192-226 (46.3 - 54.5%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery)
70 SpA to not OHKO specially defensive Venomicon (+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Venomicon: 314-370 (84.1 - 99.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)
64 SpA to not guarantee the OHKO on mixed defensive Venomicon (+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 116 SpD Venomicon: 372-438 (99.7 - 117.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO)
And this isn't getting into calcs against neutral targets or calcs with Tera Psychic!
The main issue here with running Stored Power on CAP34, IMO, is that we'd have to heavily restrict our BSR in order to make it balanced. Admittedly, Clanging Scales does provide a slightly larger damage output due to STAB, but there is one primary difference between Clanging Scales and Stored Power - Clanging Scales lowering Defense, which makes it much easier for physical Scarfers, Booster Energy users, and even mons bulky enough to take a Clanging Scales like Kingambit to revenge kill CAP34. With Stored Power, your viable options for defensive counters are essentially limited to Kingambit, Ting-Lu, Equilibra, and to a lesser extent, Heatran, Clodsire and Skeledirge (the first only reliably checks if it's specially defensive, not a popular set, the second loses to Tera Psychic, and the last was used a grand total of once in CAPCL III, so I'm a bit hesitant to call it a truly viable option in the current meta). In terms of less viable options, there's... checks viability rankings Blissey (C rank unmon) and specially defensive Tyranitar (we have now reached levels of copium previously thought to be lethal by scientists). So with Stored Power CAP34, you'd have to limit its special BSR heavily in order to make sure it doesn't massively restrict teambuilding, which could seriously impact our ability to deal with Pokemon we're supposed to handle easily. Examples (all done at 74 SpA for a reasonable middle ground) include:
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Cresceidon: 216-255 (59.3 - 70%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (cresc is chunked heavily, yes, but now that it lives sludge wave with multiscale, all it has to do is land thunder wave and CAP34 is fucked.)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0+ SpD Malaconda: 312-368 (71.8 - 84.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (similar situation to cresc but CAP34's outcome here is worse bc glare is 100% accurate)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Sludge Wave vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Primarina: 254-300 (79.1 - 93.4%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (av prim isn't the most popular set in CAP I think but if you miss the roll here prim can leave a post-clangsoul CAP34 with a sliver after psychic noise, plus running stored power in this matchup is basically like holding a giant neon sign that says "YOU SHOULD TERA STEEL IN FRONT OF ME PRIMARINA)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Clanging Scales vs. 252 HP / 204+ SpD Garganacl: 199-235 (49.2 - 58.1%) -- 62.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (not guaranteeing the 2HKO here basically guarantees that earthquake 2HKOes CAP34 thanks to clangscales defense drops)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Clanging Scales vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 247-292 (76.4 - 90.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (clangscales defense drop guarantees that eq ohkos without nite needing to set up. also, similar to prim, nite is heavily encouraged to tera here, which makes the matchup worse)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Clanging Scales vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-Therian: 297-351 (77.7 - 91.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (same situation as garg and nite)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Clanging Scales vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 133-157 (42.2 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (the lower base SpA here is an active detriment here because CAP34 can 2HKO offensive dengo with +2 clangscales if its base SpA is high enough, but now it's guaranteed that we become nasty plot setup fodder for even offensive dengo)
And this doesn't even get into the matchups that are worsened by virtue of just running Stored Power over a better coverage move (anything that can viably run tera steel is heavily encouraged to do so in front of a stored power CAP34, and tera steel is a pretty common defensive tera type). Stored Power looks cool on the surface, but in order to work in a balanced way on CAP34, it creates a lot more smaller problems that actively make us worse into the metagame. IMO, it's just not worth all of the BSR headache to find a way to break through two checks when we can just slap on Fire, Fighting, or Water coverage and break through four or five checks/counters with much less BSR hassle.
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 108 SpD Unaware Arghonaut: 250-296 (60.3 - 71.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 116 SpD Venomicon: 534-630 (143.1 - 168.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Venomicon: 430-506 (115.2 - 135.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
These calcs keep Toxtricity's base SpA of 114, for reference. Here are the maximum SpA values needed for CAP 34 to not reach these benchmarks:
93 SpA to not guarantee the 2HKO on Arghonaut WITH NO HAZARDS UP (+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 108 SpD Unaware Arghonaut: 218-258 (52.6 - 62.3%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery)
75 SpA to not guarantee the 2HKO on Arghonaut WITH ONE LAYER OF SPIKES UP (+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 108 SpD Unaware Arghonaut: 192-226 (46.3 - 54.5%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after 1 layer of Spikes and Leftovers recovery)
70 SpA to not OHKO specially defensive Venomicon (+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Venomicon: 314-370 (84.1 - 99.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)
64 SpA to not guarantee the OHKO on mixed defensive Venomicon (+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Stored Power (140 BP) vs. 248 HP / 116 SpD Venomicon: 372-438 (99.7 - 117.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO)
And this isn't getting into calcs against neutral targets or calcs with Tera Psychic!
The main issue here with running Stored Power on CAP34, IMO, is that we'd have to heavily restrict our BSR in order to make it balanced. Admittedly, Clanging Scales does provide a slightly larger damage output due to STAB, but there is one primary difference between Clanging Scales and Stored Power - Clanging Scales lowering Defense, which makes it much easier for physical Scarfers, Booster Energy users, and even mons bulky enough to take a Clanging Scales like Kingambit to revenge kill CAP34. With Stored Power, your viable options for defensive counters are essentially limited to Kingambit, Ting-Lu, Equilibra, and to a lesser extent, Heatran, Clodsire and Skeledirge (the first only reliably checks if it's specially defensive, not a popular set, the second loses to Tera Psychic, and the last was used a grand total of once in CAPCL III, so I'm a bit hesitant to call it a truly viable option in the current meta). In terms of less viable options, there's... checks viability rankings Blissey (C rank unmon) and specially defensive Tyranitar (we have now reached levels of copium previously thought to be lethal by scientists). So with Stored Power CAP34, you'd have to limit its special BSR heavily in order to make sure it doesn't massively restrict teambuilding, which could seriously impact our ability to deal with Pokemon we're supposed to handle easily. Examples (all done at 74 SpA for a reasonable middle ground) include:
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Cresceidon: 216-255 (59.3 - 70%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (cresc is chunked heavily, yes, but now that it lives sludge wave with multiscale, all it has to do is land thunder wave and CAP34 is fucked.)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Sludge Wave vs. 252 HP / 0+ SpD Malaconda: 312-368 (71.8 - 84.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (similar situation to cresc but CAP34's outcome here is worse bc glare is 100% accurate)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Sludge Wave vs. 80 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Primarina: 254-300 (79.1 - 93.4%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock (av prim isn't the most popular set in CAP I think but if you miss the roll here prim can leave a post-clangsoul CAP34 with a sliver after psychic noise, plus running stored power in this matchup is basically like holding a giant neon sign that says "YOU SHOULD TERA STEEL IN FRONT OF ME PRIMARINA)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Clanging Scales vs. 252 HP / 204+ SpD Garganacl: 199-235 (49.2 - 58.1%) -- 62.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery (not guaranteeing the 2HKO here basically guarantees that earthquake 2HKOes CAP34 thanks to clangscales defense drops)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Clanging Scales vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 247-292 (76.4 - 90.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (clangscales defense drop guarantees that eq ohkos without nite needing to set up. also, similar to prim, nite is heavily encouraged to tera here, which makes the matchup worse)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Clanging Scales vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-Therian: 297-351 (77.7 - 91.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (same situation as garg and nite)
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Clanging Scales vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 133-157 (42.2 - 49.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO (the lower base SpA here is an active detriment here because CAP34 can 2HKO offensive dengo with +2 clangscales if its base SpA is high enough, but now it's guaranteed that we become nasty plot setup fodder for even offensive dengo)
And this doesn't even get into the matchups that are worsened by virtue of just running Stored Power over a better coverage move (anything that can viably run tera steel is heavily encouraged to do so in front of a stored power CAP34, and tera steel is a pretty common defensive tera type). Stored Power looks cool on the surface, but in order to work in a balanced way on CAP34, it creates a lot more smaller problems that actively make us worse into the metagame. IMO, it's just not worth all of the BSR headache to find a way to break through two checks when we can just slap on Fire, Fighting, or Water coverage and break through four or five checks/counters with much less BSR hassle.
Well, it's not want I wanted, but happy to see a decision has been made on Clangorous Soul regardless.
I'm fairly happy with the defining moves list quziel lays out. My only real complaint is that having all three coverage options (Fire, Water, Fighting) may be a bit overkill. This is especially true if we allow some of the stronger physical moves of these types, even if it is synergistic with Clangorous Soul's Atk boost.
Completely fine moving forward to the next stage with the expectation that CAP34 gets some or even most of listed coverage, just not every one.
I'm fairly happy with the defining moves list quziel lays out. My only real complaint is that having all three coverage options (Fire, Water, Fighting) may be a bit overkill. This is especially true if we allow some of the stronger physical moves of these types, even if it is synergistic with Clangorous Soul's Atk boost.
Completely fine moving forward to the next stage with the expectation that CAP34 gets some or even most of listed coverage, just not every one.
Much of the point of defining moves is to let folks justify why their spread is a bit weaker than the competing spreads. I said at least one because I could see someone selecting say CC + Flamethrower, and justifying why both their spread has a higher attack stat than everyone else's, but is also a tiny bit weaker than a more focused set that selects just Surf. I don't think we need to restrict ourselves to potentially just having one of these options as I think doing so would reduce the diversity of stat spreads we could make. If the mon proves to be too strong with say CC + Fire Blast + Surf, we can always just remove that in the 2.0 release.
As for Stored Power its honestly probably fine. While we do have a fairly nuclear move after even one turn of setup, its not that much stronger than existing stored power mons; eg CM + Weak Armor Armorouge is a very valid mon on Psychic Terrain HO, and gives very similar numbers to us (accounting for stab). With respect to Starfalcon's post above I am unsure why our ability to break Venomicon easily is remotely a problem. A lot of the positives of this typing are how freely we set up on, and force out standard SR Venom, so being able to KO it easily doesn't seem like a huge difference from setting up on it and then 2HKOing it. Vs. Arghonaut sure we can easily 2HKO it (spoiler Tera Dragon Clanging Scales can do this as well, and would be a valid set), but it can also just Circle Throw us out, and likely prevent us from ever setting up again due to the net damage we've taken in that scenario. This is fairly standard for sweepers on HO, and is how they tend to break fat builds, so I don't really think this is a problem at all? Besides that Stored Power is a fairly medicore coverage typing for this mon, so I personally am unsure it even needs to be a defining move.
As for Stored Power its honestly probably fine. While we do have a fairly nuclear move after even one turn of setup, its not that much stronger than existing stored power mons; eg CM + Weak Armor Armorouge is a very valid mon on Psychic Terrain HO, and gives very similar numbers to us (accounting for stab). With respect to Starfalcon's post above I am unsure why our ability to break Venomicon easily is remotely a problem. A lot of the positives of this typing are how freely we set up on, and force out standard SR Venom, so being able to KO it easily doesn't seem like a huge difference from setting up on it and then 2HKOing it. Vs. Arghonaut sure we can easily 2HKO it (spoiler Tera Dragon Clanging Scales can do this as well, and would be a valid set), but it can also just Circle Throw us out, and likely prevent us from ever setting up again due to the net damage we've taken in that scenario. This is fairly standard for sweepers on HO, and is how they tend to break fat builds, so I don't really think this is a problem at all? Besides that Stored Power is a fairly medicore coverage typing for this mon, so I personally am unsure it even needs to be a defining move.
I believe Hydro Pump and Focus Blast should be required moves, while Fire coverage (specifically Flamethrower) should be optional.
Fact is, Ting-Lu and Equilibra are CAP34's number one threats, due to their ability to switch in at any moment regardless of HP level and be able to threaten to end our sweep. I have been seeing discussion on Surf bt frankly, I believe those options are too weak to achieve the results we require to be a successful threat in the tier.
I will be using 114 SpA as the baseline to judge since this is the SpA of the current strongest user of Throat Spray in standard (Toxtricity), while a respectful 75/105 SpD stat based on Kommo to simulate our hypothetical bulk.
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 224-264 (43.5 - 51.3%) -- 7.4% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
This is most we can assume we can do to a Ting-Lu at any given moment if Surf is our move of choice, not even mentioning Sparkling Aura. We can't even threaten a 2HKO, basically meaning that a Ting-Lu without life threatening chip can come in and Whirlwind us out with little issue, making our sweep null.
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Equilibra: 230-272 (56.3 - 66.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
We do a somewhat better job here versus Equilibra, but the results are similarly, unless significantly chipped, Libra can come in and end our sweep with a well timed Earth Power.
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Equilibra: 282-332 (69.1 - 81.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 272-322 (52.9 - 62.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
The stark difference speaks for themselves. Libra looks like it can be feasibly taken out without commiting to Tera after one decent Knock Off from a partner, while Ting Lu requires more effort, we can actually score a 2HKO here. Making blank Water coverage imo is a waste of time, it makes more sense to hard commit to Hydro Pump to ensure that users have more flexibility to take out mons like Ting and Libra wuthout requiring enormous SpA levels. Focus Blast pushes this model even further, while also helping us score a kill versus mentioned in thread threat Kingambit. Ofc these moves also smack Heatran as well.
The only Steel unacounted for is Gholdengo, and that is a Steel that I believe users should be able to choose how we want to tackle it. Gholdengo outside of Specs doesn't immediately threaten to one tap us out of our sweep, and this is a Pokemon I believe we can address in the stat stage.
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 235-277 (74.6 - 87.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
At +2 with just Hydro Pump and 114 SpA, we can threaten to take out Gholdengo after only small amounts of chip. Gholdengo being unable to instantly stop our sweep unlike the rest of the threats mentioned means we can afford to chip it with our own moves if necessary. In fact...
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Clanging Scales vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 176-207 (55.8 - 65.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
vs
252 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. +1 0 HP / 4 SpD Toxtricity: 127-151 (43.6 - 51.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Scales should be able to 2HKO offensive Gholdengo once boosted, while Dengo shouldn't be able to threaten to OHKO back, which means at the absolute worst SE coverage is a non requirement if we are worried about Gholdengo.
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Gholdengo: 237-279 (62.6 - 73.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Even defensive Dengo is 2HKO'd by a strong Hydro Pump here once boosted, it naturally can't threaten a KO back. Exactly how much of a threat Gholdengo should be to us should be decided in stats stage imo, making Fire coverage required is not necessary and in fact distracts us from moves we need to take out our most dangerous targets in Ting-Lu and Equilibra.
With the ground floor that a decent Clanging Scales can take out offensive Dengo if we are full, the option of physical Fighting coverage specifically Close Combat or Superpower to take out the other threats even easier is also a notable option, but these calcs are ofc dependant on how our statline looks.
Fact is, Ting-Lu and Equilibra are CAP34's number one threats, due to their ability to switch in at any moment regardless of HP level and be able to threaten to end our sweep. I have been seeing discussion on Surf bt frankly, I believe those options are too weak to achieve the results we require to be a successful threat in the tier.
I will be using 114 SpA as the baseline to judge since this is the SpA of the current strongest user of Throat Spray in standard (Toxtricity), while a respectful 75/105 SpD stat based on Kommo to simulate our hypothetical bulk.
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 224-264 (43.5 - 51.3%) -- 7.4% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
This is most we can assume we can do to a Ting-Lu at any given moment if Surf is our move of choice, not even mentioning Sparkling Aura. We can't even threaten a 2HKO, basically meaning that a Ting-Lu without life threatening chip can come in and Whirlwind us out with little issue, making our sweep null.
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Surf vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Equilibra: 230-272 (56.3 - 66.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
We do a somewhat better job here versus Equilibra, but the results are similarly, unless significantly chipped, Libra can come in and end our sweep with a well timed Earth Power.
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Equilibra: 282-332 (69.1 - 81.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Vessel of Ruin Ting-Lu: 272-322 (52.9 - 62.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
The stark difference speaks for themselves. Libra looks like it can be feasibly taken out without commiting to Tera after one decent Knock Off from a partner, while Ting Lu requires more effort, we can actually score a 2HKO here. Making blank Water coverage imo is a waste of time, it makes more sense to hard commit to Hydro Pump to ensure that users have more flexibility to take out mons like Ting and Libra wuthout requiring enormous SpA levels. Focus Blast pushes this model even further, while also helping us score a kill versus mentioned in thread threat Kingambit. Ofc these moves also smack Heatran as well.
The only Steel unacounted for is Gholdengo, and that is a Steel that I believe users should be able to choose how we want to tackle it. Gholdengo outside of Specs doesn't immediately threaten to one tap us out of our sweep, and this is a Pokemon I believe we can address in the stat stage.
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Hydro Pump vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 235-277 (74.6 - 87.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
At +2 with just Hydro Pump and 114 SpA, we can threaten to take out Gholdengo after only small amounts of chip. Gholdengo being unable to instantly stop our sweep unlike the rest of the threats mentioned means we can afford to chip it with our own moves if necessary. In fact...
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Clanging Scales vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 176-207 (55.8 - 65.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
vs
252 SpA Gholdengo Make It Rain vs. +1 0 HP / 4 SpD Toxtricity: 127-151 (43.6 - 51.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Scales should be able to 2HKO offensive Gholdengo once boosted, while Dengo shouldn't be able to threaten to OHKO back, which means at the absolute worst SE coverage is a non requirement if we are worried about Gholdengo.
+2 252 SpA Toxtricity Hydro Pump vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Gholdengo: 237-279 (62.6 - 73.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Even defensive Dengo is 2HKO'd by a strong Hydro Pump here once boosted, it naturally can't threaten a KO back. Exactly how much of a threat Gholdengo should be to us should be decided in stats stage imo, making Fire coverage required is not necessary and in fact distracts us from moves we need to take out our most dangerous targets in Ting-Lu and Equilibra.
With the ground floor that a decent Clanging Scales can take out offensive Dengo if we are full, the option of physical Fighting coverage specifically Close Combat or Superpower to take out the other threats even easier is also a notable option, but these calcs are ofc dependant on how our statline looks.
Does anyone think that stored power is specifically stronger than boomburst, the other 140bp special move? I feel like they're both solidly in optional territory.
One move I haven't seen mentioned yet is pain split; do we think that pain split would be ok on this thing, with soul? Would that end up being mostly useless, or really strong? Definitely a bit of a gimmick, but I think it might merit discussion.
One move I haven't seen mentioned yet is pain split; do we think that pain split would be ok on this thing, with soul? Would that end up being mostly useless, or really strong? Definitely a bit of a gimmick, but I think it might merit discussion.
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After doing some calcs with Close Combat, I’ve come to the conclusion, that fighting coverage only really provides reliability for CAP 34.
The main combination of targets of Ting Lu, Heatran and Equilibra all require substantial attacking stats to equal the damage of SE special coverage.
as an example you’d need 133 Atk to hit Ting Lu for the same damage with Close Combat as 115 SpA Hydro Pump and 129 SpA Surf
which still is just the threshold for a basic guaranteed 2hko.
For SpD Heatran which needs only 86 SpA to Ohko with Tera Water Hydro, you’d need 106 Attack for Close Combat to achieve the same with Tera Fighting and only 115 Spa to reach the same damage with Surf and Tera Water.
For Equilibra (which runs Max SpD atm) you’d need an atk stat that’s still 90% of the base spa to hit the equal damage. And considering Libra likely has some flexibility in Evs, that gap will only become smaller. plus hitting a threshold where you can Ohko Libra with the right Tera is realistic (109 SpA for max SpD Libra), so hitting it on the weaker side becomes less valuable.
~~Gambit just Teras anyway~~ Gambit requires really low SpA to not Ohko with Fire Blast, and still can be picked of with Tera Water Blast and one layer of hazards with around 115 SpA even if it’s full HP invested.
TLDR: Physical Fighting coverage doesn’t provide nearly as much as we thought. It’s basically a boost to reliability for a shitload of additional offensive stats. Imo it’s not really worth complicating stat limits just for that.
The main combination of targets of Ting Lu, Heatran and Equilibra all require substantial attacking stats to equal the damage of SE special coverage.
as an example you’d need 133 Atk to hit Ting Lu for the same damage with Close Combat as 115 SpA Hydro Pump and 129 SpA Surf
which still is just the threshold for a basic guaranteed 2hko.
For SpD Heatran which needs only 86 SpA to Ohko with Tera Water Hydro, you’d need 106 Attack for Close Combat to achieve the same with Tera Fighting and only 115 Spa to reach the same damage with Surf and Tera Water.
For Equilibra (which runs Max SpD atm) you’d need an atk stat that’s still 90% of the base spa to hit the equal damage. And considering Libra likely has some flexibility in Evs, that gap will only become smaller. plus hitting a threshold where you can Ohko Libra with the right Tera is realistic (109 SpA for max SpD Libra), so hitting it on the weaker side becomes less valuable.
~~Gambit just Teras anyway~~ Gambit requires really low SpA to not Ohko with Fire Blast, and still can be picked of with Tera Water Blast and one layer of hazards with around 115 SpA even if it’s full HP invested.
TLDR: Physical Fighting coverage doesn’t provide nearly as much as we thought. It’s basically a boost to reliability for a shitload of additional offensive stats. Imo it’s not really worth complicating stat limits just for that.
Going to make a couple last minute comments
Stored Power: I'm sort of conflicted on this move, ngl. On one hand, I really don't think this move will end up being quite as crazy on paper as it will end up being in practice, since it's honestly not going to be hitting a whole lot that doesn't already get fucked by our STAB, with the sole exceptions being Venomicon and Arghonaut. For Venomicon, I really don't understand where Starfalcon is coming from when she says that having powerful coverage for it would be problematic, since Venomicon sort of just feels like it would be a mediocre at best check for us, especially when you consider that it is often running physically defensive spreads rather than specially defensive spreads nowadays. Arghonaut is a completely different story though, as I do question if the ability to just outright blow past this with Tera Psychic is something that we should really be seeking out to do here. I'm not against going with this move entirely, but I think we should tread with care around it.
Fighting-type coverage: After talking about this a bit on Discord, I'm now convinced that this is just straight up ass. Water-type coverage already covers everything that we would want to cover with something like Focus Blast, with the sole exception of Kingambit (Who often Teras into a type that resists Fighting anyways), and does a better job at it at well. Furthermore, the unreliability of Focus Blast, and the fact that Close Combat requires us to have rather significantly high Attack which we might not be able to afford (Was going to provide this myself, but Amamama already made a post about it while I was typing this out, so just scroll up a bit) just make them feel like completely ass to run as well. Also, Fighting-type coverage does absolutely nothing for covering Gholdengo, which is a bit of a problem when we can't really rely on our STAB to hit it.
Stored Power: I'm sort of conflicted on this move, ngl. On one hand, I really don't think this move will end up being quite as crazy on paper as it will end up being in practice, since it's honestly not going to be hitting a whole lot that doesn't already get fucked by our STAB, with the sole exceptions being Venomicon and Arghonaut. For Venomicon, I really don't understand where Starfalcon is coming from when she says that having powerful coverage for it would be problematic, since Venomicon sort of just feels like it would be a mediocre at best check for us, especially when you consider that it is often running physically defensive spreads rather than specially defensive spreads nowadays. Arghonaut is a completely different story though, as I do question if the ability to just outright blow past this with Tera Psychic is something that we should really be seeking out to do here. I'm not against going with this move entirely, but I think we should tread with care around it.
Fighting-type coverage: After talking about this a bit on Discord, I'm now convinced that this is just straight up ass. Water-type coverage already covers everything that we would want to cover with something like Focus Blast, with the sole exception of Kingambit (Who often Teras into a type that resists Fighting anyways), and does a better job at it at well. Furthermore, the unreliability of Focus Blast, and the fact that Close Combat requires us to have rather significantly high Attack which we might not be able to afford (Was going to provide this myself, but Amamama already made a post about it while I was typing this out, so just scroll up a bit) just make them feel like completely ass to run as well. Also, Fighting-type coverage does absolutely nothing for covering Gholdengo, which is a bit of a problem when we can't really rely on our STAB to hit it.
Thanks to everyone for the great discussion down this final stretch of Defining Moves! After consulting with the TLT, I've settled on the following list:
Required: Poison Stab (Sludge Wave/Sludge Bomb), Dragon Stab (Clanging Scales), Clangorous Soul
Choose At Least One: Water Coverage (Hydro Pump/Surf), Fire Coverage (Fire Blast/Flamethrower)
Optional: Fighting Coverage (Focus Blast/Aura Sphere), Physical Fighting Coverage (Close Combat/Superpower)
Required is rather self explanatory: we need to look at STAB moves during Stats, and Clangorous Soul has already been addressed midway through this stage. Coverage as a whole falls into the umbrella of Choose At Least One; the two dominant typings throughout the whole of Defining Moves were these two, and giving those who submit spreads flexibility in what coverage, and how much, they add. Fighting coverage in particular got pushback near the end of the stage, and is generally speaking held in lower regard than Water or Fire, so its been moved into the Optional category. Physical Fighting coverage additionally falls into Optional: its clearly more niche of an option, but it mostly falls into Optional because of the implications it would have on stats proper. A handful of other moves were close, but didn't quite make the cut: Boomburst was generally seen as a poor fit and something that wouldn't really move the needle for us strength wise, and Stored Power similarly seemed too restrictive and specific in its impact to be considered a Defining Move.
With this being said, I'm eager to pass it along to shnow and stats!
Required: Poison Stab (Sludge Wave/Sludge Bomb), Dragon Stab (Clanging Scales), Clangorous Soul
Choose At Least One: Water Coverage (Hydro Pump/Surf), Fire Coverage (Fire Blast/Flamethrower)
Optional: Fighting Coverage (Focus Blast/Aura Sphere), Physical Fighting Coverage (Close Combat/Superpower)
Required is rather self explanatory: we need to look at STAB moves during Stats, and Clangorous Soul has already been addressed midway through this stage. Coverage as a whole falls into the umbrella of Choose At Least One; the two dominant typings throughout the whole of Defining Moves were these two, and giving those who submit spreads flexibility in what coverage, and how much, they add. Fighting coverage in particular got pushback near the end of the stage, and is generally speaking held in lower regard than Water or Fire, so its been moved into the Optional category. Physical Fighting coverage additionally falls into Optional: its clearly more niche of an option, but it mostly falls into Optional because of the implications it would have on stats proper. A handful of other moves were close, but didn't quite make the cut: Boomburst was generally seen as a poor fit and something that wouldn't really move the needle for us strength wise, and Stored Power similarly seemed too restrictive and specific in its impact to be considered a Defining Move.
With this being said, I'm eager to pass it along to shnow and stats!
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