CAP 34 - Part 5 - Defining Moves 2

[Brambane]

Clangorous Soul should be required. It is so influential on the rest of the process that if it isn't required, it should be banned. This is not a move to hedge on being optional. We wouldn't hedge on moves No Retreat or Belly Drum as optional moves either; powerful and unique boosting options are focal to the Pokemon's identity.

Agreeing with above that Fire/Water/Fighting is the most intuitive coverage for CAP34. Flamethrower/Fire Blast, Surf/Hydro Pump, and Aura Sphere/Focus Blast. I am okay with Body Press as well depending on the stat spread, as Clangorous Soul's Defense boost could accommodate a "mixed" booster that uses highDefense to find set up opportunity, thus benefitting Body Press.

Make it optional. Dropping Clangorous allows us to make a frail, attacking-move-as-setup, priority immune, balls to the wall offensive monster, which is a way more honest expression of the choices we've made thus far than Clangorous Soul would ever allow in my opinion. At least give people the option. I understand Clangorous is a safer route, but I don't think sacrificing depth for a bit more safety is worth it. Genuinely, which route is a more interesting expression of the item we based this project around?

I disagree with the notion that the choices we made imply that our choices are an "honest expression" of a non-Clangorous Soul set. To that end, every winning choice we made since Throat Spray was selected pushes us more towards Clangorous Soul than anything else.

We voted in a typing that is overwhelmingly neutral into much of the metagame, with Poison hitting a small but notable list of defensive threats while Dragon is defined by being neutral into most Pokemon. We don't have SE STABs for breaking through most common bulkier Pokemon; the Pokemon that share this trait almost always rely on strong boosting options to pressure defensive Pokemon and sweep through offensive ones. Throat Spray is not strong, and we shouldn't pretend like it is. You get one shot with it, and you only get the benefit off of the second hit. While you have flexibility to switch moves afterwards, this isn't like Choice Specs or Booster Energy that can pressure the mon in front of you or what is switching in with a boosted hit. This isn't as much bundling boosting and attacking, the opportunity cost is different. You are sacrificing an item for effectively a one time weaker Serperior Leaf Storm. That really isn't an amazing trade deal by Gen 9 standards.

Secondly, we could have had abilities that made Throat Spray alone a better boosting option. Unburden, Speed Boost, and Simple were all capable of thus. Dazzling does not benefit Throat Spray specifically at all. It's a decent ability all-around for a sweeper, don't get me wrong. But it isn't giving Throat Spray more boosts from activating it.

I did not favor Clangorous Soul for this process stages ago. But that was then, and this is now. With the tools laid out in front of us, with the typing and ability that one, and the fact we came out of concept assessment with a singular focus on Throat Spray as THE item we want CAP34 to succeed with, it is plain and clear that Clangorous Soul is the most intuitive and viable path forward. I would entertain non-Clangorous Soul builds with the caveat of fully admitting we are purposefully taking a worse and more dubious route for the sake of exploring a less-obvious direction, even it fails to actualize its concept.

Clangorous Soul shouldn't be required at all lol, shoehorning 34 into an omniboost sweeper is drastically limiting and completely ignores more balanced builds that should otherwise be on the table.

It's strange to write off boosting moves (especially Speed) when they don't disincentivise Throat Spray at all. Hell, Toxtricity loves running Shift Gear Throat Spray, which gets me to my last point that boosting status moves boosting damaging moves are apples and oranges. Being able to boost and then next turn firmly establish your win condition while attacking is extremely powerful, and Throat Spray functionally does that as a consumable. Usually boosting on offense means something may have to be sacrificed, in this case the sacrifice boosts SpAtt .

If by "balanced builds" you mean something more suited for balance teams, I encourage you to consider our typing and ability, and what exactly that would bring to a balance team. This Pokemon seems like an overwhelming bizarre choice for a balance team, given that it shares weaknesses with critically important balance pieces like Venomicon. All its ability really does is allow it to plow through priority revenge killers, which is a trait that would benefit the HO archetype more than anything other. And in that case, removing omniboosting would be more limiting to the team structures CAP34 fits on than what you are implying.

It is not "extremely powerful" relatively speaking to other boosting options. CAP34 does not exist in a vacuum. In a metagame with Booster Energy Pokemon, niche and dedicated sweepers like Miasmaw, late-game cleaners like Hemogoblin with the most cracked priority in the game, does a Pokemon that commits an entire item slot for a +1 single-use Serperior-lite effect really seem extremely powerful?

I do agree that at bare minimum, this Pokemon probably wants some degree of Speed boosting. Even if that is something like Flame Charge or Rapid Spin, this is a fast format and as it stands, this Pokemon doesn't have immediate tools for handling a lot of the Unaware or really fat stall/balance staples, so it probably wants +Speed to at least roll over offense.

 

[boo836]

If by "balanced builds" you mean something more suited for balance teams, I encourage you to consider our typing and ability, and what exactly that would bring to a balance team. This Pokemon seems like an overwhelming bizarre choice for a balance team, given that it shares weaknesses with critically important balance pieces like Venomicon. All its ability really does is allow it to plow through priority revenge killers, which is a trait that would benefit the HO archetype more than anything other. And in that case, removing omniboosting would be more limiting to the team structures CAP34 fits on than what you are implying.

It is not "extremely powerful" relatively speaking to other boosting options. CAP34 does not exist in a vacuum. In a metagame with Booster Energy Pokemon, niche and dedicated sweepers like Miasmaw, late-game cleaners like Hemogoblin with the most cracked priority in the game, does a Pokemon that commits an entire item slot for a +1 single-use Serperior-lite effect really seem extremely powerful?

I do agree that at bare minimum, this Pokemon probably wants some degree of Speed boosting. Even if that is something like Flame Charge or Rapid Spin, this is a fast format and as it stands, this Pokemon doesn't have immediate tools for handling a lot of the Unaware or really fat stall/balance staples, so it probably wants +Speed to at least roll over offense.

By "balanced" builds, I meant something that isn't so blatantly broken as to completely unbalance how our build is influenced towards a single stage, not "plays well on balance," sorry that wasn't clear.

But yeah, an omniboosting mon with an extra +1 SpAtt and immunity to priority is insanely strong, idk why anyone would pretend otherwise, generational power creep or not.

 

[Genuine_Angus_B33F]

I understand those who think it makes sense to go forward with a solid assumption that we're focusing on Clangorous Soul at this point. While there's still room to make a design that doesn't use Clangorous Soul, there isn't much room, and it railroads a lot of the remaining choices in terms of stats and movepool.

I will say though, having Clangorous Soul will make this design center around Clangorous Soul more than Throat Spray. There are numerous ways to utilize Clangorous Soul without Throat Spray, and the impact of Throat Spray itself is lower when used alongside Clangorous Soul than it would be on its own due to the math behind stat stage stacking, which is going to make it more difficult to pin it as the defining item. If success here ends up being a sweeper that uses Clangorous Soul on ~99% of sets and Throat Spray on ~60, then fair enough, but it's probably going to be pretty difficult to drag Throat Spray along in this process.

Really though, Clangorous Soul should've been decided on itself earlier. How much earlier is tricky to say, but I am pretty certain it should've been decided on before any ability votes at least. Several of the abilities we slated mean something entirely different depending on if they exist with or without Clangorous Soul, and nailing down that ambiguity sooner would've prevented a situation where the choice of ability carries within it another hidden but equally defining decision

 

[quziel]

I will preface this with the statement that I feel csoul is less mechanically interesting of a route than a mon that uses Clanging Scales and Throat Spray to clean through a weakened team, and I find it a bit boring.

With that said, I feel the route I laid out above died with our choice of ability. There is no synergy between Throat Spray and Dazzling, and trying to force that route given the choices we have made will likely lead to a mon that prefers to run Heavy-Duty Boots or Choice Specs, or even Life Orb, because frankly speaking, those are significantly better items on a mon lacking explicit synergy with Throat Spray. There is a reason that the mons that currently run Throat Spray are: Kommo-o with Clangorous Soul's Throat Spray synergy, Toxtricity which runs Throat Spray purely on ladder, and not in tournaments, and Yanmega, which has direct synergy between Speed Boost and Throat Spray.

We have made our bed, it is time to sleep in it, rather than going back to the kitchen. We should require Clangorous Soul, because I have zero faith that a non-soul build would run Throat Spray given the choices we have made, and trying to create appropriate limits for non-soul builds, and determining a proper slate including non-soul build feels like it will create a disorganized at best stats stage, and detract from the quality of the resulting product.

 

[Earthflax]

It's strange to write off boosting moves (especially Speed) when they don't disincentivise Throat Spray at all. Hell, Toxtricity loves running Shift Gear Throat Spray,

There have been no conscious efforts to "write off" Speed boosting moves but it should not come as a surprise that there is little discourse or focus on them considering the other options which are on the table, and the mold of mon 34 would need to be to actually make use of a move which boosts only Speed. Toxtricity is a wallbreaker by nature, not a sweeper, aided by its ridiculously strong coverage and STABs, and its Shift Gear set is meant to extend its wallbreaking damage to a sweeper role; note that its Specs set is used more even despite the fact that both its STABs and its strongest coverage move in Boomburst all have immunities, which draws some pretty clear parallels to 34 (although 34 does match up more neutrally into most of the meta).

I will say though, having Clangorous Soul will make this design center around Clangorous Soul more than Throat Spray. There are numerous ways to utilize Clangorous Soul without Throat Spray, and the impact of Throat Spray itself is lower when used alongside Clangorous Soul than it would be on its own due to the math behind stat stage stacking, which is going to make it more difficult to pin it as the defining item. If success here ends up being a sweeper that uses Clangorous Soul on ~99% of sets and Throat Spray on ~60, then fair enough, but it's probably going to be pretty difficult to drag Throat Spray along in this process.

I'll quote hit user spoo in saying "some routes are better than others". Clangorous Soul is maybe the only tangible solution to this concept that has pretty significant evidence backing the fact that it would be used alongside Throat Spray all of the time. We would absolutely be fulfilling the concept's goals by using Clangorous Soul as it would incentivize Throat Spray, much more than we are able to do so via our ability or whatever our stats may be, and it would create a much more intuitive and straightforward path to being a competent CAP in its own right.

 

[HealthGage]

I would like to share that I recall in prior discussions about 34 and CS being "Clangorous Soul isn't going to make the CAP a Dragon type nor is it guaranteed to be in the final move pool" back when we were deciding typing, however I believe the idea of making a stronger Kommo-o that isn't quad weak to fairy had infiltrated the minds of many people to the point that it over road more interesting strategies and typings for a straightforward powerful play.

I feel as though that we could try and deviate from the use of CS and instead go for a newer strat, but CS will most likely power through every other move/item combinations for the allure of a turn 1 +2 to SPA and +1 to every other stat. Not to mention every decision past the first defining moves has been heavily influenced by CS from my understanding such as the typing and ability, rather than being played around the use of the throat spray.

Finally I feel as though we were too intimidated by the presence of Hemogoblin and E-Speed to the point we essentially hard countered the CAP in question with typing and ability, negating the use of E-Speed entirely, resisting fire and taking neutral damage from fairy. This doesn't feel like we're making something based on the theme "collectors edition (throat spray)" and instead "How to eliminate the current meta" and in turn making a new problem for us in the future in making 35 where we supposedly "have" to counter 34 to "make sure it stands a chance in being relevant in competitive use."

 

[Palosaks]

I would like to share that I recall in prior discussions about 34 and CS being "Clangorous Soul isn't going to make the CAP a Dragon type nor is it guaranteed to be in the final move pool" back when we were deciding typing, however I believe the idea of making a stronger Kommo-o that isn't quad weak to fairy had infiltrated the minds of many people to the point that it over road more interesting strategies and typings for a straightforward powerful play.

This post rubs me the wrong way, because it kinda ignores why people are arguing for Soul at all. It's not because CAP 34 is dragon type, nor is it because people want to make a "stronger Kommo-o that isn't quad weak to fairy", but rather because it's a safe and powerful option that can ensure CAP 34 runs Throat Spray when the rest of our current kit does nothing to synergize with the item. Dragon/Poison as a type offensively has very neutral coverage while struggling to hit things super effectively, for this reason appreciates the +2 to help it actually break things when trying to sweep, additionally it's defensive profile is rather nice letting it come in and set up more often. Dazzling eases our match up into priority users and preventing us from being picked off as easy, but it does nothing to directly incentivize Throat Spray, making other items more likely as a result, however because it protects us from being picked off it makes set up much easier, making Soul better. Now as for Soul, it loves Throat Spray. When you click Soul, you're locked in due to the HP cost, a similar issue Throat Spray itself has, however this is offset but how strong the omni-boost is, which in turn also makes Throat Spray less risky because the main downside of it applies whether of not it's ran, additionally the added +1 to make the boost a +2 is much stronger than the +1 by itself.
While I am not personally a fan of Soul and don't agree with the notion that it's our only way forward, it's effectiveness can not be denied and we shouldn't just dismiss it because of Kommo-o's use of the move and the shared typing. There is plenty of reason to include this move on CAP 34 even when ignoring Kommo-o.

 

[mark6870]

Finally I feel as though we were too intimidated by the presence of Hemogoblin and E-Speed to the point we essentially hard countered the CAP in question with typing and ability, negating the use of E-Speed entirely, resisting fire and taking neutral damage from fairy. This doesn't feel like we're making something based on the theme "collectors edition (throat spray)" and instead "How to eliminate the current meta" and in turn making a new problem for us in the future in making 35 where we supposedly "have" to counter 34 to "make sure it stands a chance in being relevant in competitive use."

It's very easy to get frustrated with the choices That have been made (spoo personally ripped the prospects of my beautiful no-guard thunder blizzard focus blast clangorous souls electric fighting type from me and they cackled like a witch while they did it) we can only work with what we have and move forward. That is why so many, including myself, are pushing for Clangorous. None of what we chose so far really synergizes with throat spray so we need Clangorous to do that.

Hemoglobin is the best mon in the tier rn, and it matches up bestest into HO. The reason CAP34 has been designed to beat strong priority is because it's meant to fit onto HO team structures as a late game cleaner, and the biggest threats to that is priority from gambit sucker punch and hemo espeed. If we were, say, designing a balance breaker, hemo would be less of an issue because we have checks to it on balance (we'd probably instead try to work to break down hemo's checks because hemo is found commonly on balance)

 

[HealthGage]

It's very easy to get frustrated with the choices That have been made (spoo personally ripped the prospects of my beautiful no-guard thunder blizzard focus blast clangorous souls electric fighting type from me and they cackled like a witch while they did it) we can only work with what we have and move forward. That is why so many, including myself, are pushing for Clangorous. None of what we chose so far really synergizes with throat spray so we need Clangorous to do that.

Hemoglobin is the best mon in the tier rn, and it matches up bestest into HO. The reason CAP34 has been designed to beat strong priority is because it's meant to fit onto HO team structures as a late game cleaner, and the biggest threats to that is priority from gambit sucker punch and hemo espeed. If we were, say, designing a balance breaker, hemo would be less of an issue because we have checks to it on balance (we'd probably instead try to work to break down hemo's checks because hemo is found commonly on balance)

I think the first thing you said here sums up my feelings when writing that out, admittedly I made that post out of frustration rather than critical thinking and trying to add something meaningful to the conversation. Kind of shows in the fact that I don't really make posts like these, putting emotions before logic.

This post rubs me the wrong way, because it kinda ignores why people are arguing for Soul at all. It's not because CAP 34 is dragon type, nor is it because people want to make a "stronger Kommo-o that isn't quad weak to fairy", but rather because it's a safe and powerful option that can ensure CAP 34 runs Throat Spray when the rest of our current kit does nothing to synergize with the item. Dragon/Poison as a type offensively has very neutral coverage while struggling to hit things super effectively, for this reason appreciates the +2 to help it actually break things when trying to sweep, additionally it's defensive profile is rather nice letting it come in and set up more often. Dazzling eases our match up into priority users and preventing us from being picked off as easy, but it does nothing to directly incentivize Throat Spray, making other items more likely as a result, however because it protects us from being picked off it makes set up much easier, making Soul better. Now as for Soul, it loves Throat Spray. When you click Soul, you're locked in due to the HP cost, a similar issue Throat Spray itself has, however this is offset but how strong the omni-boost is, which in turn also makes Throat Spray less risky because the main downside of it applies whether of not it's ran, additionally the added +1 to make the boost a +2 is much stronger than the +1 by itself.
While I am not personally a fan of Soul and don't agree with the notion that it's our only way forward, it's effectiveness can not be denied and we shouldn't just dismiss it because of Kommo-o's use of the move and the shared typing. There is plenty of reason to include this move on CAP 34 even when ignoring Kommo-o.
I'll either make my own post or edit this post later with my own thoughts on Soul.

And sorry for rubbing you the wrong way with that post. The points you made against mine did help in making me understand this better, I do actually like some of the decisions we made like the use of a niche ability with a niche item and overall role we're aiming for in a late game sweeper.

 

[Lectrys]

When it comes to Clangorous Soul, it feels like the majority of the community is behind it as our primary option. Though I wouldn't go as far as some in the thread have and call it "essential," I am of like mind here, and I'm sold on including it in our defining moves, but I want to hear from the community if it should be Required or Optional.

I've been an outsider and lurker for much of this process, but given how controversial Clangorous Soul has been the entire time, I fully support putting Clangorous Soul to the polls on whether it should be Required, Optional, or even Banned. I suspect we're going to make a lot of people unhappy no matter which option we choose. May as well ensure they're unhappy but resigned with poll results instead of unhappy and fuming.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

I've been thinking about this for a while, and I've sort of come to the conclusion that it would make sense for us to list Clangerous Soul as a Required move.

Simply put, I do not have much faith in the non-Clangerous Soul routes at this point. As quziel has already pointed out, our ability alone has very little, if any direct synergy with Throat Spray, giving us very little reason as to why we would chose to run Throat Spray as opposed to a more powerful item such as something like Life Orb or Heavy-Duty Boots. As such, the types of builds that we can realistically work with that aren't using Clangerous Soul that would still want to use Throat Spray are going to be fairly limited to a degree that I do not think they would be very interesting options to explore. Furthermore, allowing builds that both include/exclude Clangerous Soul I believe would result in a stat process that has very little focus, resulting in the submission of spreads that don't really have a clear goal set in mind, something we saw as an issue during Hemogoblin's process. While granted, I don't think it would be as extreme, since this time around it's a fairly safe bet that we are going to be a special attacker, I really don't think it would be that unrealistic to expect similar issues to crop up here.

That aside, I also want to address a lot of the complaints I've seen from people saying that the Clangerous Soul route would simply be boring as it would just essentially be creating "Kommo-O 2.0", and that we would have learned very little if anything from this process by doing so (Admittedly I've seen this more on Discord than in the thread itself, just to clear up why I'm saying this even if nobody has really posted this yet). Quite frankly, I think this is a really flawed way of looking at this process as a whole, as it is focusing solely on what our end product is and not the decisions we have made during this process (Which I personally believe we can learn just as much, if not more from than the end product itself). I also don't think that it's necessarily a problem that we would be taking the "obvious and boring" route here as opposed to something people would find to be more creative, as the reason those routes are "obvious" is that they have already been determined to be an effective way of fulfilling the concept we have, and I find that trying to reinvent the wheel just for the sake of it often does more harm than good for the process.

 

[thundergoos]

That aside, I also want to address a lot of the complaints I've seen from people saying that the Clangerous Soul route would simply be boring as it would just essentially be creating "Kommo-O 2.0", and that we would have learned very little if anything from this process by doing so (Admittedly I've seen this more on Discord than in the thread itself, just to clear up why I'm saying this even if nobody has really posted this yet). Quite frankly, I think this is a really flawed way of looking at this process as a whole, as it is focusing solely on what our end product is and not the decisions we have made during this process (Which I personally believe we can learn just as much, if not more from than the end product itself). I also don't think that it's necessarily a problem that we would be taking the "obvious and boring" route here as opposed to something people would find to be more creative, as the reason those routes are "obvious" is that they have already been determined to be an effective way of fulfilling the concept we have, and I find that trying to reinvent the wheel just for the sake of it often does more harm than good for the process.

I want to echo this. I also am in agreement that Clangorous Soul should be listed in Required, as the decisions we’ve made thus far have gotten us to the point where I think Clangorous Soul is the only truly surefire way to ascertain that Throat Spray is used over another, better use-case item like Boots or Specs. But Da Pizza Man is entirely right, those very same decisions that have gotten us to this point also present an interesting learning opportunity. Why did we as a community opt for an ability that doesn’t support/engage with Throat Spray directly, as opposed to Unburden, as an example? Why did we decide to opt for a typing that hits most opponents neutrally with a few key defensive targets, but is perhaps less optimal for an all out sweeper (e.g. something like Water/Electric or Electric/Fighting, which are stellar offensive type combinations)? There are reasons for these decisions we made as a community, and learning what informed those reasons is interesting and could tell us some valuable information about how we tend to approach our processes.

But that’s all concerning the learning opportunity question that people have brought up. The fact of the matter is, we’re here now, with a Dragon/Poison type sweeper with Dazzling who wants to use Throat Spray and Throat Spray alone to facilitate a sweep. How do we make sure that we only use this item? Opting only for Clanging Scales or other sound coverage just doesn’t seem to possess the kind of power incentive that an Omni-boost/Nasty Plot single-slot combo does. Clangorous Soul is far and away our best option to ensuring without doubt that Throat Spray — and only Throat Spray — will be used on CAP34. It should be Required.

 

[SHSP]

Been an awesome couple of days of discussion, wanted to check back in with some takeaways and my thoughts:

After discussing with the rest of the TLT, I'll be moving Clangorous Soul to Required. There's been debate back and forth about it, but posts like Rabia's and Earthflax's (among several others) sum up why I'm making this call the best: its more than likely the best and most feasible route here, and we should be honing in on a route like that in this stage before Stats becomes messy and disjointed. Other sound moves are absolutely in play, still- there's no reason not to enable other routes that can come about that work with Throat Spray and don't run Soul- but Soul should be the focus moving forward.

When it comes to coverage, it seems like the general consensus is that we should be focused on Fire, Fighting and Water moves. My question now is: with these in mind, and Soul required, how strong should this coverage be? Several of the posts have highlighted combinations of these types- "Flamethrower or Fire Blast," for example- and its worth looking at these types with more depth. What sort of power level are we looking for in our coverage? Are we considering moves like Lava Plume, which trade some power for secondary effects? Additionally, are we solely looking for coverage, or does any other type of move appeal to our build enough to be considered going forward?

I'm going to put a soft 24-48 hour warning on this thread, depending on how discussion goes, so we don't spend too much time on the last stretch here. Thank you guys again for the great discussion, its been highly illuminating for myself and the team when it comes to making these decisions.


Note here, wearing my Mod hat rather than a TLT hat- This is not the place to lament our past decisions and what-could-have-been's. There have been a couple of posts in the last discussion stage that haven't been relevant to the questions asked or the stage as a whole, instead complaining about the results of past stages, and I'm gonna keep a closer eye on the next bit of discussion to keep us more on topic.

 

[mark6870]

In terms of coverage, considering our role leans towards late game cleaner, we'll probably want the strongest coverage possible, meaning well want Hydro Pump, Fire Blast, or Focus Blast. Having utility in our coverage isn't in our best interest because those options are generally weak and we'll end up 4hkoing Ting-lu and Equilibra at +2. The exception is Focus Blast, because its lack of accuracy does make aura sphere more appealing.

That being said, it may be worth giving up coverage or even a STAB for some utility that can make setting up easier. Moves like Encore and Taunt come to mind, and I can see something like soul/encore/fire blast/sludge wave being a thing since you can lock Cresciedon into Scald or Hemoglobin into Extreme Speed.

 

[viol and bass]

Moves like Lava Plume are better suited to Pokemon that can come in and out repeatedly throughout the game and fish for procs, which is unlikely to work for us as a mon that runs a consumable item and therefore doesn't run boots. I do think we need to be careful with the strongest coverage moves like Hydro Pump, although I'm not sure on disallowing them. Priority-based counterplay doesn't work against us, scarfers effectively don't exist, and Booster Energy is single-use and can be baited out by teammates. A lot of our counterplay therefore may be defensive counterplay. Goes without saying, but it's important for us to have at least a few relatively consistent checks. Our gameplan should probably revolve around wearing those checks down early game, but they should need to be worn down. I also think we should limit coverage types that are available to us. To me, one of fire, fighting and water coverage is enough, especially since we're now confirmed to be filling another moveslot with Clangorous Soul.

Edit: it's also worth noting that our tera type is very, very free with this Pokemon because we don't have to worry about becoming weak to various priority moves, so for example Tera Water Hydro Pump to blast Libra is much easier to run when you don't have to worry about being weak to Rillaboom and Raging Bolt afterwards. This is another reason to consider limiting the most powerful coverage.

 

[Samirsin]

When it comes to Clangorous Soul, it feels like the majority of the community is behind it as our primary option. Though I wouldn't go as far as some in the thread have and call it "essential," I am of like mind here, and I'm sold on including it in our defining moves, but I want to hear from the community if it should be Required or Optional.

With these takeaways in mind, I want to open the floor to discussion of moves themselves in more detail. What coverage types and specific moves work best? What additional moves raise our floor? Its time to discuss and decide what we're going to be looking at within the stats stage; I'm going to give some time before I jump back in and highlight some of what works best that gets suggested. Thanks again for the great discussion so far, and I'm looking forward to more! (also, go huskies)

I would like to vouch for Clangorous Soul as required, as long as our coverages are not extremely powerful and not utility-based. CAP34 should get its power from Clangorous Soul and Throat Spray, not side effects or strong moves from the get-go. However, this makes me think that if Throat Spray requires only one sound move, all the other options will tend to go to more powerful moves, like Fire Blast as coverage, for example, and unless Stats takes care of that, it may end up extremely broken, especially with Priority immunity. For that reason I suggest few coverages moves with not that much BP.

 

[Red_Cypan2341]

How much support do we need from our other moves to find success in our role? What holes in our build do we need to patch, and what can be done specifically here as compared to Stats?

How about something like Torch Song? It provides the steel type coverage it desperately craves, as well as synergizing well with throat spray for major sweeping potential from a +2 boost from a single already reasonably threatening move.

It would also provide a different playstyle to those choosing to run a clangorous soul moveset, potentially providing potential for more versatile usage.

 

[Amamama]

Clang Soul should be required.
with coverage I think our focus should be on the most powerful Fire, Water and Fighting moves and their 90BP reliable alternative.
I think at least one of Hydro Pump/Surf, Fire Blast/Flamethrower, Focus Blast/Secret Sword/Aura Sphere/Close Combat should be required, given that theyre necessary for the build, but which option should be open to the stat sub.
I don’t think we should bother with the weaker utility options like Scald and Lava Plume as they don’t really fit the play style we’re going for and might distract from the vision we’re building towards now.
I also think that aside from Clanging Scales we shouldn’t bother with sound based attacks, as being able to preserve the item for a clang soul sweep is good imo.
Clang Scales is an exception here bc dragon doesn’t provide a move of equal or better power that doesn’t come with a drawback and the power drop to Dragon Pulse is very noticeable. (So unless we wanna allow Core Enforcer, Fickle Beam or Spacial Rend Scales is the best option)

 

[modularform]

How about something like Torch Song? It provides the steel type coverage it desperately craves, as well as synergizing well with throat spray for major sweeping potential from a +2 boost from a single already reasonably threatening move.

It would also provide a different playstyle to those choosing to run a clangorous soul moveset, potentially providing potential for more versatile usage.

While Torch Song does synergize with Throat Spray, providing the unique strength of getting us to +2 while also attacking, its overall effect would be to disincentivize using Throat Spray. With Torch Song, you have access to Throat Spray's effect on every turn without needing to burn your item slot, and instead of a single chance, you have 16 chances to boost with it. Were we to get Torch Song, I would fear there's a significant chance other items, like Heavy-Duty Boots, would outshine Throat Spray. HDB + Torch Song means we can put in work in the early-game in addition to going for a late-game sweep, and it alleviates taking chip (which we really appreciate considering that Clangorous Soul eats 33%) when we come in for a late-game sweep. While Throat Spray gives us a +2 boost instead of +1, Clangorous Soul is already giving us that +2, at which point Torch Song is just a "win more" tech. After our checks, like Arghonaut and Equilibria, are chipped or removed, Clangorous Soul + Throat Spray should already be able to sweep. Indeed, the power jump of Fire Blast would be far preferable here, giving us that little bit more of damage we need to secure important KO's. For example, one has the following damage calcs, at base Special Attack 100 as an arbitrary stat number to test.

+2 252 SpA Mew Torch Song vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Equilibra: 188-222 (46 - 54.4%) -- 4.7% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Mew Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Equilibra: 258-304 (63.2 - 74.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 252 SpA Mew Torch Song vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Iron Treads: 260-308 (80.7 - 95.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+2 252 SpA Mew Fire Blast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest Iron Treads: 358-422 (111.1 - 131%) -- guaranteed OHKO

I have no idea if these sets are accurate to what Equilibria and Iron Treads actually run in the CAP metagame (I used the default Equilibria set on the calculator, and the Iron Treads AV set is listed on the calculator under Ubers), but regardless, these calcs illustrate that the damage drop-off from Fire Blast to Torch Song is really significant. We need as much power as we can get in our coverage. Another negative of Torch Song is that it only applies the special attack boost after it does damage. We're a sweeper, so we will likely be on the frailer side, meaning we cannot afford to give our targets the chance to strike back. It sounds great to get to +3, but if in doing so means we fail to KO Equilibria, it chunks us with Earth Power, putting us in danger of getting revenge-killed by threats like Booster Energy Iron Valiant. After Clangorous Soul, at 100 / 100 bulk (as we are an offensive Pokemon, we will likely have much less bulk than that), EP + Moonblast KOs. After our initial boosting, we want to do nothing but use the most powerful attacks, not twiddle our thumbs with utility options or more boosting; we are building a Pokemon that wants to come in, go nuclear with Clangorous Soul + Throat Spray, then go all-in for the kill. Torch Song risks making Throat Spray irrelevant, its Special Attack boost is unnecessary, and we would really feel its lack of power compared to Fire Blast.

In order to make Throat Spray the optimal item, over stalwarts like HDB and Life Orb, for us-- which is our driving concept-- we need to build a Pokemon with stats competent to sweep, yet has a special attack benchmark where +1 is just not quite enough. In other words, we need to really uniquely need Throat Spray over any other option! I see this as a really interesting and thin design space, and I think it won't be boring at all, in contrast to the "This is just a more optimized Kommo-o" talking points. Maybe we do end up building a more optimized Kommo-o, but doing so does not at all have to be boring.

 

[boo836]

While Torch Song does synergize with Throat Spray, providing the unique strength of getting us to +2 while also attacking, its overall effect would be to disincentivize using Throat Spray. With Torch Song, you have access to Throat Spray's effect on every turn without needing to burn your item slot, and instead of a single chance, you have 16 chances to boost with it. Were we to get Torch Song, I would fear there's a significant chance other items, like Heavy-Duty Boots, would outshine Throat Spray. HDB + Torch Song means we can put in work in the early-game in addition to going for a late-game sweep, and it alleviates taking chip (which we really appreciate considering that Clangorous Soul eats 33%) when we come in for a late-game sweep. While Throat Spray gives us a +2 boost instead of +1, Clangorous Soul is already giving us that +2, at which point Torch Song is just a "win more" tech. After our checks, like Arghonaut, are chipped or removed, Clangorous Soul + Throat Spray should already be able to sweep. Indeed, the power jump of Fire Blast would be far preferable here, giving us that little bit more of damage we need to secure important KO's.

TL;DR: Torch Song risks making Throat Spray irrelevant, its Special Attack boost is unnecessary, and we would really feel its lack of power compared to Fire Blast. (I want to provide a list of calcs to make this last point better, but I'm writing this in a rush, sorry. Maybe I can edit them in later.)

In order to make Throat Spray the optimal item, over stalwarts like HDB and Life Orb, for us-- which is our driving concept-- we need to build a Pokemon with stats competent to sweep, yet has a special attack benchmark where +1 is just not quite enough. In other words, we need to really uniquely need Throat Spray over any other option! I see this as a really interesting and thin design space, and I think it won't be boring at all, in contrast to the "This is just Kommo-o but better" talking points.

Torch Song doesn't make Throat Spray irrelevant, it's literally a Nasty Plot with the damage output of Lava Plume. I don't think people really fully grasp how strong attacks with guaranteed effects are. If there's a compelling reason to switch between 34 and something else, HDB is going to get used. After all, why wouldn't you run HDB to make sure you don't turn your Clangorous Soul into a -45% if it means you can set up against a greater number of Pokemon? Why would you prefer Fire Blast over a move that takes advantage of the durability of the omniboost to take out more threats? These are just not compelling reasons to drop Torch Song if you ask me.

As for the criteria you set out, Throat Spray is never going to be able to guarantee its use over Choice items or HDB and we shouldn't expect it to. If we're creating something that can only situationally function with 55-67% HP at most it's going to be really difficult trying to justify its use over other win conditions that can pose a threat without a boost.

 

[mark6870]

I don't think people really fully grasp how strong attacks with guaranteed effects are.

We do, and that's why torch song has been shot down multiple times. It's officially received it's death when we said SpA boosting has been denied but I love to yap so here I go

Torch song on its own invalidates Throat spray because instead of our boost coming from a one time consumable it comes from a move we can click whenever we want wherever we want. Thanks to our neutral typing and ability that grants us defensive utility, that kind of flexibility would more likely shift us towards an "hdb offensive pivot that can clean late game" assuming it didn't use clangorous. You are correct when you say we can still be an effective sweeper with Torch song, but considering we're guaranteed to have Clangorous, that combination leads to a few different possibile outcomes, none of which are really good for us:

A) because we already get to +2 via Clangorous and Torch Song, we don't find throat spray necessary and instead use a different item which throws us off concept.

B) we go greedy and get to +3 using soul + torch song + throat spray , which becomes overkill with how much of the tier our STABS and coverage hit and we end up having to put large limits on the rest of the process to reel in this combination, and instead of us working around throat spray it's us trying to keep the monster we've made balanced (similar situation to if simple was voted for our ability)

C) Torch song is not used as +2 from throat spray and soul is enough and we end up preferring stronger fire coverage such as Fire Blast. In this case Torch song would likely encourage the other pivot set I mentioned earlier which doesn't encourage our item, meaning we added a third signature move onto this mon just for that move to encourage a set that is anti concept.

Anyway. I think torch song is bad for us

 

[boo836]

We do, and that's why torch song has been shot down multiple times. It's officially received it's death when we said SpA boosting has been denied but I love to yap so here I go

Torch song on its own invalidates Throat spray because instead of our boost coming from a one time consumable it comes from a move we can click whenever we want wherever we want. Thanks to our neutral typing and ability that grants us defensive utility, that kind of flexibility would more likely shift us towards an "hdb offensive pivot that can clean late game" assuming it didn't use clangorous. You are correct when you say we can still be an effective sweeper with Torch song, but considering we're guaranteed to have Clangorous, that combination leads to a few different possibile outcomes, none of which are really good for us:

A) because we already get to +2 via Clangorous and Torch Song, we don't find throat spray necessary and instead use a different item which throws us off concept.

B) we go greedy and get to +3 using soul + torch song + throat spray , which becomes overkill with how much of the tier our STABS and coverage hit and we end up having to put large limits on the rest of the process to reel in this combination, and instead of us working around throat spray it's us trying to keep the monster we've made balanced (similar situation to if simple was voted for our ability)

C) Torch song is not used as +2 from throat spray and soul is enough and we end up preferring stronger fire coverage such as Fire Blast. In this case Torch song would likely encourage the other pivot set I mentioned earlier which doesn't encourage our item, meaning we added a third signature move onto this mon just for that move to encourage a set that is anti concept.

Anyway. I think torch song is bad for us

What on earth are you talking about? Saying we can get to +2 with Clangorous and Torch Song doesn't matter because reaching +2 isn't the goal here. If 34 has both moves, then the goal is potentially to reach +3. None of this makes Throat Spray unecessary or overkill, a fact Modularform implicitly recognised in their previous post trying to tailor 34 around its boosts by requiring those boosts. There is nothing to suggest 34 would prefer a HDB pivot set simply by having Torch Song any more than it would if it didn't, outside of you imagining a set like that based on characteristics no one's voted on.

The argument that Fire Blast is better is also just flat out wrong, the entire point is to stay in, commit and not have to switch. Sets like that want consistency, the don't really appreciate 85% accurate moves, and they sure do appreciate stat boosts that reward them for staying in. Call it anti-concept all you want, but that's just plain nonsense and completely disregards the playstyle 34 is going for. If anything, it makes more sense to argue that it's harder to balance around, but I guess that also doesn't hold much water when you're making an omnibooster lol

 

[Palosaks]

What on earth are you talking about? Saying we can get to +2 with Clangorous and Torch Song doesn't matter because reaching +2 isn't the goal here. If 34 has both moves, then the goal is potentially to reach +3. None of this makes Throat Spray unecessary or overkill, a fact Modularform implicitly recognised in their previous post trying to tailor 34 around its boosts by requiring those boosts. There is nothing to suggest 34 would prefer a HDB pivot set simply by having Torch Song any more than it would if it didn't, outside of you imagining a set like that based on characteristics no one's voted on.

The argument that Fire Blast is better is also just flat out wrong, the entire point is to stay in, commit and not have to switch. Sets like that want consistency, the don't really appreciate 85% accurate moves, and they sure do appreciate stat boosts that reward them for staying in. Call it anti-concept all you want, but that's just plain nonsense and completely disregards the playstyle 34 is going for. If anything, it makes more sense to argue that it's harder to balance around, but I guess that also doesn't hold much water when you're making an omnibooster lol

The issue with Torch Song is it opens a can of worms in terms of balancing that is unnecessary for us to deal with, mainly in balancing CAP 34 around Torch Song, Throat Spray and Clangorous Soul and either making it want all of them, putting limits on CAP 34's stats that wouldn't be needed if it wasn't for Torch Song, or make it want either Torch Song or Soul, which at this point with Soul required it would just be better to leave Torch Song be rather than haphazardly slapping it onto CAP 34. While you are right that Torch Song doesn't inherently dissuade the use of Throat Spray, it doesn't encourage it in the ways you say it does as while you could get +2 off Torch Song + Throat Spray, you could also get +1 and have a item that does more for you than an additionally +1 that you could just get by using Torch Song again. Additionally Torch Song lets CAP 34 switch out and then comeback in to boost more later, in contrast to Throat Spray and Soul locking you in. This is why mark argued that Torch Song would prefer boots, because boots lets it come in more often and be a constant threat throughout the match, where as Throat Spray limits it to either trying to sweep once, or failing the sweep can coming back later to boost more with Torch Song at which point you've wasted your item and could have ran something better. Another thing going against Torch Song is that even if you did tailor CAP 34 around Torch Song + Throat Spray boosts, nothing is stopping CAP 34 from getting to the same place by using Torch Song twice and running a different item, so unless we make CAP 34 desperately need the +2, that does little to make it want to use Torch Song with Throat Spray. Lastly, it's odd that you argue against them saying Fire Blast is better when they didn't say that, but even if the accuracy issues is a point in Torch Song's favor, Flamethrower is already present as a 100% accurate alternative that isn't a headache to balance around and even has a high BP than Torch Song. No matter how you look at it Torch Song just provides more issues than is worth dealing with when we have alternatives that don't provide the same issues and are much more straight forward.

 

[boo836]

The issue with Torch Song is it opens a can of worms in terms of balancing that is unnecessary for us to deal with, mainly in balancing CAP 34 around Torch Song, Throat Spray and Clangorous Soul and either making it want all of them, putting limits on CAP 34's stats that wouldn't be needed if it wasn't for Torch Song, or make it want either Torch Song or Soul, which at this point with Soul required it would just be better to leave Torch Song be rather than haphazardly slapping it onto CAP 34. While you are right that Torch Song doesn't inherently dissuade the use of Throat Spray, it doesn't encourage it in the ways you say it does as while you could get +2 off Torch Song + Throat Spray, you could also get +1 and have a item that does more for you than an additionally +1 that you could just get by using Torch Song again. Additionally Torch Song lets CAP 34 switch out and then comeback in to boost more later, in contrast to Throat Spray and Soul locking you in. This is why mark argued that Torch Song would prefer boots, because boots lets it come in more often and be a constant threat throughout the match, where as Throat Spray limits it to either trying to sweep once, or failing the sweep can coming back later to boost more with Torch Song at which point you've wasted your item and could have ran something better. Another thing going against Torch Song is that even if you did tailor CAP 34 around Torch Song + Throat Spray boosts, nothing is stopping CAP 34 from getting to the same place by using Torch Song twice and running a different item, so unless we make CAP 34 desperately need the +2, that does little to make it want to use Torch Song with Throat Spray. Lastly, it's odd that you argue against them saying Fire Blast is better when they didn't say that, but even if the accuracy issues is a point in Torch Song's favor, Flamethrower is already present as a 100% accurate alternative that isn't a headache to balance around and even has a high BP than Torch Song. No matter how you look at it Torch Song just provides more issues than is worth dealing with when we have alternatives that don't provide the same issues and are much more straight forward.

If Torch Song was on a glass cannon build, no one would be expecting it to switch in and out. Again, it's presuming a lot about 34 to think a Torch Song version would want to keep switching in and out. There's nothing stopping 34 from running other items either, Throat Spray kind of sucks without leveraging massive damage output, especially because the boost is only for the second turn onward. It makes no sense to me to try shoehorning 34 into a very specific niche when again, Throat Spray sucks.

Saying "you can just Torch Song twice" completely misses the point of the set-up. It's about hitting something AND scoring a free Nasty Plot in the same turn, not trying to last two turns just for set-up. What you're suggesting here is entirely suboptimal for a sweeper and feels like you're kind of making up an example that goes out of its way to avoid the concept when it's a much more interesting option than "priority immune omniboost". And that's a whole other thing, Dazzling was basically picked because of Clangorous Soul hype rather than any real concept alignment. Idek if Torch Song is worth looking at specifically because of our Ability choice, because unless it's running something like 120+ speed, who is going to bother with priority?

 

[Amamama]

Tbh I don’t think the question of Torch Song comes down to whether it is unbalanced or even less wether it would distract from Throat Spray.
As long as this Mon has Clangorous Soul, it’s actually a question of Tempo.
Torch Song is a very strong move no doubt.
But it’s also a fairly slow move.
Setting up with Torch Song Takes time we likely won’t have and is much better suited for a slow booster with recovery like Skeledirge.
The reality is that 2 consecutive Fire Blasts out damage two consecutive Torch Songs, UNLESS you run Torch Song with throat Spray, which often gives Fire Blast the edge in an immediate Sweep scenario.

252 SpA Naganadel Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Equilibra: 152-180 (37.2 - 44.1%) -- 99.9% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
X2 = 88.2 Max damage roll.

252 SpA Naganadel Torch Song vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Equilibra: 112-132 (27.4 - 32.3%) -- 57.7% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery +
+1 252 SpA Naganadel Torch Song vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Equilibra: 166-196 (40.6 - 48%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery = 80.3 Max damage roll.

or + +2 252 SpA Naganadel Torch Song vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Equilibra: 220-260 (53.9 - 63.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery = 96 Max damage roll

Given the playstyle we want this Pokémon to have, finding three consecutive turns with Torch Song for it to start out damaging Fire Blast if you run it without Spray seems very unrealistic.

Now if you run Torch Song with Spray it is stronger over two turns than Fire Blast which can be relevant especially if you hit a Mon on the switch. But at the same time Torch Song doesn’t provide and additional speed boost as Clangorous Soul into Fire Blast would.
Neutral Torch Song into + 2 Torch Song gives you roughly 10% more Damage than Clangorous Soul into + 2 Fire Blast.
So you trade the ability to be slightly stronger into fat Pokémon for the ability to be much harder to revenge kill by faster Pokémon.

In addition to this, if you are running both Clangorous Soul and Torch Song instead of Fire Blast, you lose a valuable mid ground move that you can click without committing to a sweep. Breaking open switch ins with Fire Blast is less commital.

Overall I think if we balance around Clangorous Soul (especially bulk and speed) Torch Song becomes actually slightly worse than Fire Blast and that’s if you’re running it with Throat Spray. If you go greedy and try running it with boots it’s actually far worse than Clang Soul with Throat Spray and still not better than Clang Soul with boots.

So where Torch Song would make a difference is on Soulless builds.
It’s sorta hard to wrap my head around if a Soulless build with Torch Song would run Spray or not. But given how the discussions around Soul has developed, this question seems fairly moot.

Overall this leads me to the conclusion, that Torch Song is an unnecessary addition if we also give Fire Blast or Hydro Pump.
I could see it being an option if you want to try and make a spread without Clangorous Soul, but given the uncertainty around how such a build would be run, I feel like concentrating our efforts on Clangorous Soul is much more compelling.

Tldr: I actually think that Torch Song is fairly harmless to the point where I question its addition to the defining Moves list, based on how little it likely provides.