CAP 32 - Part 10 - Secondary Ability Discussion

[Wulfanator]

Please pay very close attention to Scizivire's posts during this thread and remain on topic. DO NOT begin by posting massive lists of abilities!

Some general rules for this discussion:

• Custom abilities are banned. No exceptions. Posts suggesting custom abilities will be deleted.
• There are ability banlists for the different stages of ability discussion. Posts suggesting banned abilities will be deleted.
• Flavor abilities do not have any place in this thread. Do not bring up flavor reasoning. Posts that rely on flavor reasoning will be deleted.

The following abilities are banned from this discussion:

Fully Banned Abilities group

Arena Trap
As One
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Beads Of Ruin
Beast Boost *
Chilling Neigh
Commander
Dark Aura
Dauntless Shield
Delta Stream
Desolate Land
Disguise
Dragon's Maw
Fairy Aura
Flower Gift
Forecast
Full Metal Body
Grim Neigh
Gulp Missile
Hadron Engine
Hunger Switch
Ice Face
Illusion
Imposter
Intrepid Sword
Moody
Multitype
Neuroforce
Orichalcum Pulse
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor
Protosynthesis *
Quark Drive *
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield
Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Soul Heart
Stance Change
Sword Of Ruin
Tablets Of Ruin
Teravolt
Transistor
Turboblaze
Unseen Fist
Vessel Of Ruin
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode
Zero To Hero

* These abilities will only be unbanned on a concept which is based around this ability - Such as an Ultra Beast or Paradox Pokemon

Soft Banned Abilities group

These abilities are banned by default and should not be discussed barring exceptional cases. If you believe one of these abilities should be considered, you can make a post trying to explain why an exception is warranted in this specific case and if both the TL and Ability Leader agree, it will be allowed. If the TLT disagrees with the unbanning proposal, they should be considered fully banned and should not be further discussed.

Bulletproof
Color Change*
Defeatist
Dry Skin
Earth Eater
Flash Fire
Fur Coat
Good As Gold
Gorilla Tactics
Huge Power
Ice Scales
Libero*
Levitate
Lightning Rod
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Magnet Pull
Mimicry*
Motor Drive
Parental Bond
Protean*
Pure Power
Purifying Salt
Regenerator
Sap Sipper
Slow Start
Stall
Storm Drain
Truant
Volt Absorb
Water Absorb
Water Bubble
Well Baked Body
Wind Rider

*These abilities can only be considered for an unban if the Ability stage is done before typing.

Secondary Ability ban group

Comatose
Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Fluffy
Grassy Surge
Innards Out
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost
Stamina
Steam Engine
Supreme Overlord
Toxic Debris
Triage

Flavor ability only ban group

Ball Fetch
Battery
Costar
Friend Guard
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Power Spot
Power of Alchemy
Propeller Tail
Receiver
Run Away
Stalwart
Symbiosis
Telepathy

-----

Ability banlist PRC threads:

• US/UM: http://www.smogon.com/forums/posts/7391668
• SW/SH: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3659245/
• S/V: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/3715273/

 

[Scizivire]

Hey it's me, your friendly neighborhood ability leader. Now that we've got our statline sorted, we're almost done with the competitive part of this process. Nonetheless, we still have some important decisions to make, including what becomes of our secondary ability. So let's get right into it! Before we get into specifics though, there is the question of whether or not we even want a secondary ability at all:

1. Given that Pixilate is a very defining ability on its own, is a secondary ability actually desired at all?
This question kind of speaks for itself, and the "No Competitive Ability" option is pretty much guaranteed to be slated, but I want to gauge the interest in another competitive ability early on. Basically, is this necessary at all?

I'll be back later to summarize discussion on this first question, and depending on what we decide on, ask some more questions about what we want our secondary ability to achieve going forward.

 

[Brown4Sides]

By opting for a secondary, we lose our main STABs in Extreme Speed and Boomburst. Not having Fairy STAB on these is a huge nerf, and unless we give it something that would normally be considered primary I don't think a secondary ability is going to be worth using because of this. We still have Moonblast and Play Rough, but Extreme Speed and Boomburst are such good moves that I feel like more likely than not running a secondary ability would make us worse.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

1. Given that Pixilate is a very defining ability on its own, is a secondary ability actually desired at all?

There really isn't a whole lot of desire for a secondary ability in my eyes, and I honestly think it would be fairly distracting to the process as a whole if we choose to go with one. Our offenses are really only solid when taking Pixilate into account, and without it, we really aren't really going to be able to deal a whole lot of damage either. I do think that there might be some merit in leaning into our defenses instead of our offenses, but we have already established that our defensive typing really isn't the best in the Checks/Counters discussion, and there ultimately doesn't feel like there's a whole lot to explore there anyways.

 

[quziel]

There's likely design space for a secondary ability to focus on our bulk rather than our offenses. This gives us a bit more flexibility to make the mon solid overall, therefore I support a secondary abiltiy stage. I'll say this with the caveat that I don't think there's really many abilities that should be considered, and that NCA should probably be on the poll, but there's enough that I think its a stage worth having.

 

[skippergamez]

pro secondary:

Pixilate is a very strong ability on its own, without a doubt, but I just feel that our typing combined with 55 speed isn’t worth justifying not having one.

anti-secondary:

A secondary ability would be mildly ineffective, especially since we lose good fairy STAB. STAB priority is something we felt we were missing, gaining it with ESpeed, and a secondary ability would take the from us.

I’m personally in favor of a secondary ability, let’s look at some bang average Pokémon to see how they use two abilities.

I would say both Technician and Poison Heal are viable for Breloom for both offensive and defensive reasons.

Magic Guard and Unaware have there merits (Ik MGuard is used way more)

the poster child of this concept. Clodsire primarily used Unaware ‘til Wake showed up, making both abilities very viable in the meta.

With the right ability, we can definitely use a secondary ability to our full potential

 

[shnowshner]

I feel that the given spread is rather unfocused compared to many of our more offensive ones, whether it was high Speed, Attack, Special Attack, or some combination of those. We don't really have high attacking stats or any real Speed. This isn't an immediate problem, as Pixilate gives us plenty of options to carve ourselves a niche so far, but it does leave us fairly unspecialized. With that said, I do think we'd heavily appreciate a Secondary Ability that takes advantage of our strong defensive statline. I'm not saying that we go full defensive, because our typing's various weaknesses make that rather difficult to actualize, but rather something that allows for an alternate offensive angle where we leverage our bulk to bolster our offensive presence. As it stands Pixilate isn't really interacting with a good chunk of our stats: it mostly cares about Attack and Special Attack, and would much rather us be faster or stronger in that regard, which we aren't. An ability that better utilizes the whole of our statline and eventual movepool versus simply our offensives and funny Normal-type attacks would give CAP 32 way more reason to be considered for a team, and that's something we definitely want to make sure of.

 

[singaporygon]

I feel like we have to be real careful about giving 32 a Competitive Secondary, and would lead to non-Pixilate sets being significantly used, because:

1. It takes away from the point of 'primary' ability, which we voted to be what the main set would be based around, vs 'secondary' (term by definition is not the same level as primary).

2. With a strong secondary, the 'success' of 32 in the meta might be mainly due to opponents having to guess the ability or set. And a good builder could make this non-obvious. The problem with this, IMO, is that the opponent will be initially switching alot because of possibilities, instead of due to the strength of our primary-based moves and stats that we chose.

3. A big reason why Fire/Fairy won is because we have this beautiful mix of strong offensive and defensive typing, and so many top ranked threats are either weak to our STABs, or don't have their STABs hitting our weaknesses (forcing them to Tera). Pixilate allows us to check or cripple a huge range of mons just from the pure power of Boomburst (no recoil nor immunities mind you), and prevent fast mons from sweeping the team through Extremespeed. We apply instant offensive pressure even with average/poor stats against a range of cores, while being immune to the common burn status.
Why not we stick to focusing on this great combo?

4. If we do choose a Competitive Secondary (e.g. Prankster), I think we should ask what makes us better than existing users of the ability (e.g. Grimmsnarl), and why should we use it? Like, Grimm could run two STABs & Drain Punch to hit hard anything that would safely switch in on its Thunder Wave, but you don't see this set in OU because it just isn't potent enough to break down teams. A heavy hitter could be paralyzed sure, but it still has a free turn since your ability isn't boosting your immediate damage to punish it further.

I feel that if we wanted dual abilities to enable average stats, we should've done it from the beginning of the process instead of now because of the way things have turned out.

 

[Jewvia]

I think having a competitive secondary ability, in this instance, is a smart move. I have my doubts surrounding this CAP's spread to actually realize anything of worth with Pixilate, and flatly, this CAP still needs an identity, a reason to actually be chosen for a team. As it stands right now, with CAP 32 mostly complete, I don't think it has any sort of identity or use case in the current metagame. A competitive secondary ability can achieve that.

While I am in favour of a secondary ability for the reasons outlined by Quziel and Shnowshner (which is to say, capitalizing on our defensive stats that Pixilate doesn't act as strongly in favour of), I strongly disagree with the line of thought that we lack an identity. This reads like a dangerous line of thought that would lead to us giving this CAP a second primary ability alongside Pixilate boosted Boomburst/ESpeed.

To look at a Fairy with a similar speed tier that has seen viability is Azumarill. Azumarill needs to set up Belly Drum to kill half/a quarter of its health pool to be able to threaten with its inflated 95BP STAB and its 40BP Aqua Jet priority. Its C tier on the current viability rankings and B+ in OU's, it's not in the worst place for a Pokemon that needs 1 turn of setup and 50 base speed.

To contrast, we have even more inflation on our Boomburst and our Extreme Speed than Azumarill. Our ExtremeSpeed, much like Aqua Jet, lets us ignore our poor speed tier to deal quite a heavy amount of damage, while Boomburst against equal defensive stats does significant damage comparable to Azumarill . All without the need to spend a turn belly drumming, but instead being able to stand on our own two legs with an even better defensive statline than Azumarill.

To play the other side, Azumarill also has defensive abilities that make use of its bulk instead of its Huge Power. These abilities don't see use because it's kinda useless without Huge Power due to its low atk stat of 50 (also Thick Fat on a water type is bad.) We have significantly better base stats than that, allowing us to do more than just tickle opponents while bringing a secondary ability that lets us thrive on our bulk

 

[Darek]

At first glance, it's difficult to argue against a secondary ability. Based on our concept of "This Pokemon will attempt to circumvent average or below average stats to become viable," since any extra ability option is more viable than not having another ability option at all, any secondary ability would technically be "pro-concept". That being said, it's very clear that Pixilate has been a major component of our design process thus far, just because we are able to give CAP32 another ability doesn't mean that we ought to. Given the current direction that we've taken, if we can make CAP32 viable solely using Pixilate, then we should continue in that direction.

Several arguments advocating for a secondary ability operate under the premise that CAP32's current stats would struggle to be viable without one, specifically that CAP32 fails to realize its own niche in its current state. Although I doubt the validity of this assumption, for the sake of this discussion let's suppose that it is true. In this case, I find that using CAP32's secondary ability to carve out a niche is extremely backward in design. By taking this direction, it would necessarily imply that CAP32's secondary ability is key to its viability, meaning it will be more central to how it plays than its primary ability. While from a metagame standpoint this isn't necessarily a problem, it heavily alters the direction of this CAP in a fashion that would render much of the discussion we've had prior as trivial, or at the very least relegated to minor use cases. Although this would lead to a viable end product and does fall in line with being "pro-concept"(as anything that is viable is pro-concept), I can't help but take issue with how treating Secondary Ability in such a fashion would harm the process in of itself.

Of course, it is very possible that both Pixilate and our secondary ability can coexist in viability, and that CAP32 has good reason to run both abilities. In practice, from past CAP processes we have seen that this is A) very difficult to do, and B) not always desirable. Even in this case, I would argue that a secondary ability is largely a distraction from the product we have been working towards thus far.

 

[viol and bass]

These two things can both be true:

1) With a "rounded" spread and mediocre sweepiness, we are not the most clear-cut, idealized Pixilate abuser.

2) We benefit immensely from Pixilate and prefer it to almost any other option.

While I'm not totally opposed to a secondary ability that shores up our defenses, I think even defensive sets quite enjoy having Pixilate STABs for either maintaining reasonable power or utility in picking off certain threats.

I also have a bit of a concern that this mon might be hell to play against if we give it a secondary ability, since it already has so many options it may want to run with. Obviously we will eventually coalesce around a small number of viable sets, but with all of specially offensive, physically offensive (boosting?), defensive pivot and possibly mixed seeming plausible, as well as possibly movepool options like Knock Off and Spikes and recovery, trying to figure out what you're dealing with at team preview might get a little wacky if we add ability variance on top of that... I'm not super solid on this point but I'm curious what others think about this.

Anyway, thanks for giving my spread a chance, I'm excited for the possibilities.

 

[HealthGage]

Okay, I'm going to be recycling my pitch for an ability from last to here. Simple. 1 because it fits the theme of bang average, and 2 because it's a good and fast way for #32 to get higher stat increases for a mon that will get knocked out quicker, I mean just imagine a move like swords dance giving 4 stat increases to your attack instead of just 2. That way you can set up faster and deal more damage faster. There might be better options that I am not seeing, but this is my case for simple as a secondary ability.

 

[memesketch]

I don't see us deriving nearly as much value from any reasonable secondary ability as Pixilate, and if we do give it a relevant secondary ability, I don't think we should do so with the intent of having it compete with Pixilate. So much of our project has revolved around Pixilate that it is central both to how CAP 32 is designed and how we intend for it to function, and having a secondary ability that significantly changes its function could compromise the choices we've made so far. When I think of CAPs that make use of two different viable abilities, Equilibra and Jumbao in particular come to mind – two Pokemon with excellent typings and kits and enviable stat spreads that make their abilities an auxiliary aspect of how they function, which our process has thus far suggested is not the case for CAP 32. Therefore, I think sticking to a singular focus by maximizing what we can get out of Pixilate lets us better carve out a specific niche for the mon.

At the same time, it is true that our statline doesn't mesh as well with Pixilate as perhaps we'd like, and it's also very much true that a relevant (ideally defensive) secondary ability could increase our viability beyond solely having Pixilate. This facilitates the argument that whether a secondary ability "fits" our project is less important than its potential to increase the mon's competitive edge, and I see the value in that sentiment. Overall, I'm not in favor of a competitive secondary ability, but not totally ready to write it off yet – interested to see what options get thrown around.

 

[Sawyer.]

If CAP32 gets a secondary ability, it should help it to fill a role as a defensive pivot. Giving CAP32 a second viable offensive ability would just create an unhealthy coinflip for opponents when it first enters play. Going more defensive would also allow us to carve out a separate niche which won't compete with the Pixilate variant for a team slot.

Given that CAP32 has such a weak statline and a supremely useful primary ability, I am requesting that discussion be allowed on select abilities that are currently in the banlist - namely Prankster, Levitate/Earth Eater, and Regenerator. Otherwise, "No Competitive Ability" is going to be the only possible outcome.

 

[Brambane]

Alright so here's the bit.

CAP32's concept is not about Pixilate, and CAP32 itself is not about Pixilate. CAP32's core, the meat and potatoes about the project, is its stat distribution. We should do everything in our toolkit to derive as much value from our stat spread while keeping CAP32 a healthy addition to the metagame. Pixilate was a means to an eventual end, and letting it be the focal point of all our future decisions would be barking up the wrong tree.

Our stat spread is decidedly average, although not across the board. Our Speed is poor, our attacking stats are definitely below the power curve, and our overall bulk is decently above average. Pixilate is more empowered by our move choice than our stats spread, and I think it would be beneficial for us from a learning and design process to find an ability that synergizes well with our spread and typing. This was the merit to doing stats earlier in the process as mentioned in CA1, and we should definitely explore the options. At the very least, we always put No Secondary Ability on these polls, so you will get your vote anyways if you don't want CAP32 to be anything more than a Pixilater.

As an aside, CAP has a pretty solid record of creations utilizing multiple abilities effectively across the generations. To go down the list of creations:
1. Revenankh uses Air Lock and Shed Skin with equal viability in Gen 4 (Lefties Rev in sand is pretty good!)
2. Fidgit uses Vital Spirit to answer Breloom in Gen 4, and Persistent is Persistent if you build a Trick Room team you use it
2.5. So Technician Stratagem is viable for Hidden Power shenanigans but it is extremely niche and fishy in general
3. Kitsunoh uses Frisk and Limber in Gen 4, they are actually pretty interchangeable and useful, although Limber is always safer
4. Cyclohm can use Shield Dust and Static in multiple generations, although Static is definitely the more dominant ability
5. Rebound Colossoil has seen tournament success in multiple generations, although as it stands now Guts is its best ability for Gen 9
6. Tomohawk is the strongest example, switching between Intimidate or Prankster to suit the team's needs
7. I refuse to elaborate on Aurumoth, Gen 5 need not concern itself with its awful visage anymore
8. Jumbao runs both Trace and Drought, although which is more dominant depends on the generation
9. Equilibra runs both Bulletproof and Levitate very effectively

There are only an handful of other CAPs that we gave two competitive abilities (at the time) that really never ran them. CompoundEyes Syclant is basically greed overload and doesn't see use, Cawmodore and Krilowatt had their primary ability eclipsed by an absurd secondary ability that completely outclasses it, and Serene Grace Saharaja saw the most tepid of tournament use to make Body Press sets lure Equilibra and Ferrothorn. Considering that most of the later CAPs have only one really competitive ability, our record shows it isn't that hard to make a Pokemon that uses two abilities effectively.

There are two things to keep in mind though:
1. We probably don't want a Krilowatt situation where the secondary ability completely displaces the niche of the first, although considering how Pixilate works I consider that unlikely
2. Secondary abilities should not make any CAP extremely inconsistent to face and counter, requiring massive teambuilding sacrifices to answer a single Pokemon due to its versatility

We should explore our options first before immediately rejecting a secondary ability, especially with a spread as bulky and flexible as this one.

 

[ryangregory78]

1. Given that Pixilate is a very defining ability on its own, is a secondary ability actually desired at all?

I've been thinking about this for some time, and I must say, especially considering the stat spread we chose, I think a secondary ability is absolutely desirable.

Pixilate as an ability, especially in tandem with moves like Espeed and Boomburst, lends itself best to being used offensively. Strong Pixilate-boosted attack let us blitz past offense with the great SE coverage of ESpeed or absolutely shatter fat teams with a comically powerful Boomburst, which I believe is part of what makes Pixilate so valuable as an ability. However, the stat spread we chose doesn't exactly benefit from Pixilate as much as we could've hoped. That's not to say we aren't good at using Pixilate - we still do what we need to - but 99/99/55 offenses means we're always gonna be left wanting for either power or speed (lest we run a mixed set which comes with its own concessions) when we go offensive. Despite our obvious offensive shortcomings, our stats do give us surprising solid bulk, which 90/80/97 providing CAP32 with a really nice defensive profile that I believe could be really powerful direction to take this project.

The biggest issue that Pixilate brings to a defensive CAP32 is that Pixilate as an ability provides next to no defensive utility. Sure, a solid defensive Pokemon doesn't need a powerful ability to succeed, but especially considering that our stats are as average as they are, we absolutely need a strong defensive ability if we want to be even remotely viable. I've heard shit like Filter and Sticky Hold tossed around on Discord, and I think both of those options are each really cool, Filter especially. Weakening incoming SE attacks not only bolsters CAP32's already solid defensive profile, but also means that we're not forced to Tera nearly as much, allowing us to play much more flexibly. Sticky Hold might not seem like a strong choice at first, but negating Knock Off effectively makes our bulk even better than it already is since our Boots can never be Knocked.

All in all, I think that CAP32 benefits a ton from a secondary ability. However, this ability should serve to bolster our defensive capabilities as opposed to our offenses, which ate already supported by Pixilate.

 

[Ehmcee]

Other abilities like Triage also have a ton of potential, giving massive priority to our Strength Sap Bitter Blade and turning it into a potent tool for both defense and revenge killing.

Small caveat to this point, Bitter Blade does not currently interact with Triage, due to it lacking the "healing" flag in SV.

Edit:

Realistically, I think this pretty much guts Triage as a possible option for CAP32, our mediocre stats don't particularly offer much for Draining Kiss, our only stab healing move. For Triage to be an option we'd have to spec into a reliable 50% recovery option, which I guess is a niche? But it definitely isn't good enough of one to overshadow Pixilate, even on defensive builds.

 

[Pipotchi]

So one thing that I think started getting discussed during Saharaja and in my reordering ability stage PRC thread was the idea of- "if an ability is technically competitive, but never used due to being completely outclassed by the Primary abil, is it a competitive ability or a NCA?". And for me, I believe that it should be considered NCA. For Pixilate, this is a very defining ability that has warped stats and should heavily affect movepool, and this means there arent many things that can justify being ran over it that aren't Primary-level strength. Although I agree that defensive routes are interesting and dont overlap with Pixilate, for this specific typing we know from the primary discussion that the strongest routes of these are immunities and can't be added here. With that being said,

1. Given that Pixilate is a very defining ability on its own, is a secondary ability actually desired at all?

I believe there's space to explore the concept further with abilities, but many of the abilities of interest are competitive-in-a-vacuum abilities that explore our low-stats concept further but wont be realistically used- in the exact same vein as Saharaja. For me, this includes 90% of all abilities geared towards exploring defensive routes for this mon. For instance, Filter and Sticky Hold are abilities that should really be classified as NCA due to them not holding a candle against Pixilate. So I don't believe we should do a secondary stage, but rather widen the definition of non-competitive abilities and explore the concept inside a NCA.

 

[viol and bass]

To illustrate why Pixilate is still relevant on a defensive set, An uninvested Boomburst on a fully defensive spread hits as hard as a fully invested Modest Moonblast from 140 base Special Attack. So we're hitting stuff like we're Iron Moth (out of sun, unboosted, with only one move... I'm not really making a 1 to 1 comparison here) with no EVs at all. That's just undeniably a powerful trait to have, and prevents us from being setup fodder, threatens things like Great Tusk and Baxcalibur with dying on switch-in which is not possible otherwise, etc. I don't think we can outdo that with any other ability that's reasonable to pick as a secondary. So I'm fully on board with Pipotchi 's suggestion of considering weaker but still competitive-in-a-vacuum abilities as essentially flavor.

 

[Amamama]

1. Given that Pixilate is a very defining ability on its own, is a secondary ability actually desired at all?

Given how powerful Boomburst and Extreme Speed become with Pixilate, I don’t think there’s any reasonable (open for discussion in ability 2 ) offensive ability able to take pixis spot on a set.
Especially since this spread is capable to flex into two entirely different builds with physical speed control or special Wallbreaking power.
It’s interesting, that this spread also allows defensive approaches with big bulk investment.
This jack of all trades design definitely opens the possibility to explore the concept further, looking into how to actualize average stats in different ways.
BUT I don’t think it’s necessary at all for CAP32s success and imo clarity of design is really important here, as the stat spread already kept things vague wrt to set diversity.
Adding another ability will spread 32 out even further without any guarantee it will even run either of the abilities (if the secondary is strong enough).
If we keep it at one ability with Pixilate though, we CAN guarantee its use and make our lives a lot easier.

Moreover I cannot agree with anyone, that claims that Pixilate with this spread will not be enough.
There are clear routes we can take with what we have - both physical and special.

Dex favored a Scizor-like Mon during stat subs, which imo is very much an option with this spread considering:

252+ Atk Pixilate Arcanine Extreme Speed vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Crabominable: 356-420 (89.4 - 105.5%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Arcanine Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Crabominable: 440-522 (110.5 - 131.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Crabominable: 351-413 (88.1 - 103.7%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
252+ Atk Life Orb Scizor Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Crabominable: 465-549 (116.8 - 137.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Technician Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Crabominable: 270-318 (67.8 - 79.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

0+ Atk Iron Fist Crabominable Ice Hammer vs. 78 HP / 0 Def Arcanine: 99-117 (29.1 - 34.4%) -- 5.7% chance to 3HKO

0+ Atk Iron Fist Crabominable Ice Hammer vs. 76 HP / 0 Def Scizor: 90-106 (30 - 35.3%) -- 25% chance to 3HKO

Imo this comparison shows how strong this spread still is with its physical Attack and that a physically offensive set up set or a utility pivot similar to Scizor seem potent.
While we have a defensive typing that isn’t nearly as good as Scizor, we have much better STAB Coverage, slightly better bulk, still can add recovery, taunt, Bitter Blade and knock off among other stuff, all of which are move compression that scizor doesn’t have, we can also flex into special sets, threaten Arghonaut with STAB and we don’t kill ourself with lifeorb, while hitting as hard as Life Orb Scizor (though we take Blitz recoil).
(And yes I know Crabominable isn’t relevant at all, but it is a Mon weak to all moves that scizor or physical CAP32 might run and also resisted by both, to make comparisons easy)

(A) physical set(s) comprised of these moves seem(s) very solid to me:

CAP32@Heavy Duty Boots
Level: 100
Adamant Nature
Tera Type: Fairy
Ability: Pixilate
EVs: 168 HP / 252 Atk / 88 Spe
- Extreme Speed
- Flare Blitz/Bitter Blade/Fire Lash
- Knock Off/Taunt/Morning Sun
- Bulk Up or Swords Dance/Parting Shot/U-turn

You probably can invest more into bulk similar to SS Scizor depending on moves.

On top of this CAP32 realistically might also run Special Wallbreaking or Utility sets with varying focus on Power vs Bulk.

This is already incredible set variety, that I don’t think we should try to expand with another ability, that allows for even more builds, especially not with the premise of gaining „more focus“ or leveraging a stat spread that was clearly designed to be leveraged by Pixilate - since realistically we actually distract from our current focus even further and I doubt, that there are many options that leverage the spread similarly or even better than Pixilate.

I do agree with Brambane, that a discussion on a secondary can be helpful to illuminate more aspects of low stat spreads but I hope that by the end of this stage we will come to the agreement, that actually adding another ability does nothing of immediate value for 32.

 

[Sawyer.]

To illustrate why Pixilate is still relevant on a defensive set, An uninvested Boomburst on a fully defensive spread hits as hard as a fully invested Modest Moonblast from 140 base Special Attack. So we're hitting stuff like we're Iron Moth (out of sun, unboosted, with only one move... I'm not really making a 1 to 1 comparison here) with no EVs at all. That's just undeniably a powerful trait to have, and prevents us from being setup fodder, threatens things like Great Tusk and Baxcalibur with dying on switch-in which is not possible otherwise, etc. I don't think we can outdo that with any other ability that's reasonable to pick as a secondary. So I'm fully on board with Pipotchi 's suggestion of considering weaker but still competitive-in-a-vacuum abilities as essentially flavor.

Given CAP32's defensive typing and stats, I doubt that using a defensive Pixilate set (i.e. one that doesn't invest heavily in its offensive stats) would ever be justified over a bulky offensive build. Realistically, players will invest in just enough bulk to survive key KOs, and then the rest will go towards boosting damage output.

On the other hand, a defensive CAP32 utilising one of the three ban-listed abilities I mentioned earlier (Prankster, Levitate, or Regenerator) would merit use over the offensive Pixilate set on some team structures. Levitate, for example, could make CAP32 an effective physically defensive pivot that counters the majority of Dragon- and Ground-types.

This idea that some abilities are inherently unreasonable to pick as a secondary ability seems flawed to me. How would it be unreasonable to pick Levitate, for example, given that it would just fill a narrow niche and be less effective than Pixilate on the majority of teams? It's not like opponents would have to avoid clicking Earthquake until they knew CAP32's set, because a defensive Levitate CAP32 would be a) highly predictable based on team structure, and b) unable to seriously punish them anyway.

My general attitude is that "Bang Average" is a very rich concept that we've barely scratched the surface of. Why not pursue a competitive secondary ability that allows for a lot more creativity and interesting discussion?

 

[mark6870]

A secondary ability is objectively better than having just 1 ability. And (while I will admit I preferred Dex's spread) the spread we have allows for great variability. A secondary ability can play into that flexibility in the spread.

I am definitely on board with a more defensive secondary for CAP32, specifically one of the soft-banned abilities such as Earth Eater. Ground immunity is good specifically because many of the mon CAP32 would hard-stop otherwise carry ground coverage or ground STAB, like Roaring Moon, Great Tusk, and Garchomp (unless you could like. aqua tail heat or something). It could be interesting(as the post above points out) that CAP32 could function as a both a defensive and offensive pivot, depending on the set.

I've seen concerns about Pixilate and its interaction with a secondary, namely, that Pixilate outshadows other abilities, or the ability is so strong that CAP32 becomes extremely hard to play around until you find out which ability it is running. This gripe makes total sense, although defensive abilities such as Earth Eater straddle this line well. Defensive CAP32 would fulfill a completely different niche than Offensive CAP32, making them both valuable while not outshining the other. You lose the insane power of STAB 96 bp Espeed and 168 bp Boomburst in exchange for a valuable immunity and the ability to switch into many more top threats. It also (as the post above once again points out) it would be easier to figure out which CAP32 you're facing just via team structure alone. Another thing I should mention is, as long as Pixilate remains the most offensively powerful CAP32 set, our C&C for a Defensive variant of CAP32 would be similar, if not the same, to the C&C of Offensive CAP32. Obviously, if it can tank a Specs Boomburst, it can tank an uninvested Moonblast, further making unpredictability a non-issue.

 

[dex]

I have come full circle!

There is no need for a secondary ability because CAP 32 will not use its secondary ability unless it overshadows Pixilate, which is not the goal. The concept of giving CAP 32 a defensive secondary has been brought up numerous times, and you need look no further than previous 2-ability mons to see why this is a no-go. The summary of this is that Pokemon that have two contrasting abilities that call for different roles will always, always prefer to run one over the other to a vast degree. All examples of Pokemon that viably run multiple abilities show that they do not deviate from their role.

Clefable (Unaware + Magic Guard): Magic Guard is not an inherently defensive ability, but it is on Clefable. Outside of a couple move changes, its role does not change.

Heatran (Flame Body + Flash Fire): Two defensive abilities for one defensive frog. Heatran's set is largely unchanged.

Jumbao (Trace + Drought): Jumbao's an odd case where its abilities don't necessarily contribute directly to its role, at least in past gens, but Jumbao has always been an offensive tank no matter what ability it is running.

Equilibra (Levitate + Bulletproof): Equilibra is the sterling example not changing with its ability. It ran the same moves with the same spread doing the same thing with both abilities.

Volcarona (Flame Body + Swarm): This is a cool example for this point because it shows how even a defensive ability can sometimes not cause a role change. Swarm was used on Sub Volca for nuclear Bug Buzz, while Flame Body, the vastly more popular choice, was used on everything from offensive Volcarona to support its team to defensive Volcarona to support itself. The role of Volcarona did not change, however, and CAP 32 is a lot more hamstringed for options than Volcarona has ever been.

Reuniclus (Regenerator + Magic Guard): This one is pretty interesting in that it did cause a role change of sorts. However, Reuniclus still played somewhat the same, relying on its bulk and coverage to do work. Given how linear a mon Reuniclus is and how difficult it would be to find an ability comparably similar to Pixilate on this scale, I do not think this example provides an achievable path for a viable 2-ability CAP 32.

This is not to say that there are no Pokemon with contrasting abilities that use them well. An example off the top of my head that hasn't been mentioned is Seismitoad in SS OU, running Water Absorb when you want rocking Gastro and Swift Swim when you wanna blow shit up. However, these Pokemon have more often than not been relegated to niche usage as a whole due to them performing a couple roles at a mediocre level rather than one role at a good level. There are other examples you may give, such as Pawmot and Gyarados, that do have two usable abilities for the same role, but these Pokemon are largely unaffected by their abilities; they would operate the exact same with or without them.

In short, a secondary competitive ability would need to:

A) Have a use case over Pixilate, something that seems fairly unrealistic given how the mon is, for the most part, designed around the ability, the ability's power level, and that, given the mon's poor stats, Pixilate is an "only out" of sorts.

B) Behave similarly to Pixilate in play, as, given the mon's stats, particularly its poor Speed, creating a separate niche surrounding a new ability is an unrealistic goal at best and detrimental through creating fluff at worst.

C) Not overshadow Pixilate completely, something some strong abilities could absolutely do.

Summary: No competitive ability is the best path forward.

 

[Brambane]

I disagree with dex, largely on the grounds of his points A B and C.

"A) Have a use case over Pixilate, something that seems fairly unrealistic given how the mon is, for the most part, designed around the ability, the ability's power level, and that, given the mon's poor stats, Pixilate is an "only out" of sorts."

This is simple uncreative and shortsighted. Just because a Pokemon is designed around a single ability does not disincline it automatically from other ones. While the spread has collectively "poor stats," its individual components are certainly sufficient support more abilities. Abilities that an accentuate the already sufficient bulk, compensate for the lower Speed in a way ExtremeSpeed cannot, or allow CAP32 to otherwise leverage the value of its typing all have a place here. As soon as Sciz gives the permission, I will happily list them.

"B) Behave similarly to Pixilate in play, as, given the mon's stats, particularly its poor Speed, creating a separate niche surrounding a new ability is an unrealistic goal at best and detrimental through creating fluff at worst."

First and foremost, implying that the ability needs to be similar to Pixilate is absurd as literally no other ability in the game gives 80 BP physical priority STAB or the raw power of Boomburst. This is not to emphasize the point that creating a separate niche is difficult, but the opposite. It would incredibly easy to create a separate niche on the Pokemon given how non-overlapping its ability is with the vast majority of other other abilities in the game. It probably eclipses all the other move steroid abilities (i.e. Sheer Force) but few others in terms of gameplay. Leaning into another niche with a different, non-overlapping ability is hardly fluff or an unrealistic goal. The example of Seismitoad is excellent, as it demonstrates how a Pokemon with seemingly bad stats (sound familiar?) can carve out a niche through its abilities, and both of the niches serve completely different functions. Seismitoad is certainly not a top metagame option at its peak, but I would argue we are already positioned better than Seismitoad to be more relevant in the format. More importantly, they are very telegraphed abilities, which is also something we should strive for.

As for examples of Pokemon with abilities that serve the same role, well if you give it an ability that's going to make it do roughly the same thing of course it will? Like it's no surprise a Flame Body and Flash Fire Heatran will play the same way, but clearly a Flame Body and Sand Rush Heatran are going to come up with different gameplans. And even still, even if the Pokemon itself is roughly the same in execution, how you build teams with say Trace vs Drought Jumbao or Levitate or Bulletproof Equilibra is interesting, different, and nuanced. Removing the Pokemon from the vacuum of what they do as individuals and instead how they contribute to teambuilding is important.

"C) Not overshadow Pixilate completely, something some strong abilities could absolutely do."

Pixilate is pretty unique so I find this very unlikely, but the solutions to this problem are quite easy. Don't give CAP32 an absurdly good secondary ability. No Magic Guard Krilowatts or Volt Absorb Cawmodores here. I would also say so long as the secondary ability does not completely eclipse the primary, like the prior mentioned examples, it being "better" than Pixilate isn't inherently a bad thing. CAP32 was never meant to be defined by its ability anyways.

So long as we do not make building against CAP32 difficult due to the two abilities having unreasonably varied answers, then having a secondary ability is not detrimental in the slightest, and helps us explore our concept better by giving us a new lens to examine our bang average stats.

 

[mark6870]

Suck my Combusken, Brambane /j
I was making the dex response post First

Anyways i still think ground immunity should be unbanned for discussion and

A) Have a use case over Pixilate, something that seems fairly unrealistic given how the mon is, for the most part, designed around the ability, the ability's power level, and that, given the mon's poor stats, Pixilate is an "only out" of sorts.

Ground Immunity would have a case over Pixilate, wouldn't it? Pixilate CAP32 cannot switch into Great Tusk, Roaring Moon, Garchomp, Ting-Lu, and Equilibra half as safely as it could otherwise.

B) Behave similarly to Pixilate in play, as, given the mon's stats, particularly its poor Speed, creating a separate niche surrounding a new ability is an unrealistic goal at best and detrimental through creating fluff at worst.

Ground immunity wouldnt completely change up CAP32, it would still be a pivot, albeit a defensive one over an offensive one. It still pivots, except it trades nuking power for the ability to switch into much more of the meta.
While we all care less about sticking to its role at this point in the process, Pixilate and Levitate both allow for CAP32 to pivot, just one uses strong moves and priority to force switches, while the other can come in more often and force things out with its resistances.

C) Not overshadow Pixilate completely, something some strong abilities could absolutely do

As significant as a type immunity is, it won't be more useful than STAB extreme speed or Pixilate Boomburst all of the time.


Many of the mons you gave as examples have 2 defensive abilities. Obviously, if a mon has 2 abilities that benefit the same role, they will keep that same role. I wasn't here for those processes, so I don't know if Levitate Libra was meant to have a different niche than Bulletproof Libra, but looking at them now they both just look like solid defensive abilities, so Libra has no reason not to stay a defensive mon.
If you give CAP32 an offensive ability and a defensive ability, it will run the Offensive ability on offensive sets and the Defensive ability on defensive sets. I think that would be fine enough considering how rounded CAP32's stats are, minus Speed.

Also, I'd argue that Magic Guard is an inherently defensive ability, since its value comes from nullifying chip damage. While offensive mons definitely appreciate no LO recoil and hazards, defensive mon that are built around taking hits appreciate it arguably more since they get pressured less and can stay out of 2hko range from their checks easier.
Also on the topic of Clefable, there is an (admittedly niche) case in which ability changes the role. 3atks LO Clef will never run Unaware.