Here's my final calls on the abilities I have opinions on.
Water Absorb is certainly one of the best options on the slate. It turns a weakness into an immunity, specifically one against the omnipresent Scald, which gives us a great matchup into bulky Waters that would normally dumpster us. Additionally, it turns a losing matchup against Urshifu-R to a winning one, which is huge for a (potential) physical tank. This gives us a massive niche of being an offensive(ish) Ground type that beats most Water types. Should definitely be considered for the slate.
Over time, I've become more and more convinced that
Poison Heal is just straight-up busted. It would make CAP31 almost as splashable as Lando, especially considering how well it would do
against the ever-present Lando. It just wouldn't be able to make
any meaningful progress against CAP31, which would result in, imo, CAP31 becoming 'the new Lando,' considering that it has reliable EdgeQuake and the beneifits of offensively boosting its Defense. I think such a mon, unless we give it Delibird-level stats, would be insanely meta-warping and not what we're going for. Please
do not slate.
Mirror Armor tries to fulfill the same purpose as PH (screwing Lando's wife), but without being absolutely busted (screwing Lando's mom instead). The only major progress Lando could have would be to remove 31's item or Toxic it, which aren't necessarily super crippling. Other than that . . . well, it don't do much. We get to switch in on Fire Lashes from Astro well (who can still burn us), do better against Shadow Ball spam (which still chunks us anyway) and have perfectly accurate DS on Defoggers (not super huge, as 95% accuracy is reliable enough). I don't think this should be on the slate, as I just think there are better abilities for screwing Lando's family, including . . .
Defiant. This allows us to actually
threaten Defoggers, Lando, SB spammers, and (sort of) Astro. Instead of screwing Lando's mom, we screw his hot sister. The main concern I've seen is the metagaming and mind-games that having a Defiant user on a team leads to, and its hypothetically constrictive teambuilding implications, which are as much of a concern for me, because, as I've mentioned before, CAP31 seems to lend itself, regardless of ability, to forcing switches and pivoting, which is very good for hazard stack teams. Making it punish Defog just reinforces this niche. It should definitely be considered for the slate. However, my favorite way to screw Lando's family is with . . .
Neutralizing Gas. This ability gives us an edge against Lando without us really shutting him down (screwing Lando's hot third cousin). It also gives that slight edge against a number of very viable targets including . . .
- Melmetal (reducing damage output of physical attacks, especially DIB and Ice Punch)
- Venomicon-E (reducing Gunk Shot damage)
- Corviknight (saving our meager DS PP)
- Dragonite (neutralizing Multiscale to smack it with DS)
- Pyroak (no boosts, no sweeping)
- Arctozolt (can't outspeed and smack us before we smack it)
- Colossoil (Flame Orb variants now do much worse into our physically defensive mon)
- Rotom-Wash (can smack it with EQ now)
- Stratagem (see above)
- Equilibra (see above above)
- Scizor (neuters its offensive potential of BP)
All of these are B and up on the VR. There are several targets that this allows 31 to heavily threaten, including our Regen bois (Astro, Slows [sort of], Torn-T, Pex) and Venomicon-P, who can't outlast us through Stamina. This allows CAP31 to be very viable, but without becoming the Lando-destroying god that PH would make it. All in all, I think it's a very useful and strong ability, but not absolutely busted, and it should
definitely be considered for the slate.
Enough of screwing Lando's family, let's move on to
Moxie (and
Beast Boost if y'all wanna go crazy). I'm not super huge on this specifically, but I agree with others that it's very pro-concept and synergizes with DS and good coverage. Yes for the slate.
Comatose, imo, is one of the best status-immunity abilities we've had suggested. It's just that, nothing more: pure status immunity (unless you want more RNG with Sleep Talk shenanigans). I won't waste time explaining why this is good. This would work very well for 31 without being overbearing. I don't like others for dependence on other conditions (eg the right status for Immunity/WV, keeping up terrain with MS, RNG for Shed Skin). If we're going to consider only
one for the slate, I think it should be Comatose.
TL;DR - WA good, please God not PH, MA bad, Defiant good, NGas better, Moxie and Comatose are aight.