CAP 16 CAP 5 - Part 10 - Attacking Moves Discussion

An attacking move is a move that deals damage to an opponent as its main purpose or one of its main purposes. All other moves are considered non-attacking moves. It is important to distinguish attacking moves, which can be used specifically to deal damage, from non-attacking moves, which are used for some major effects but may happen to deal a small amount of damage. For some moves, such as Rapid Spin, this is clear-cut. However, the classification of moves such as U-turn and Volt Switch are dependent on the user's ability to damage the opponent with the move. Competitive moves are moves that are viable for use in battle on a given Pokemon. This categorization is also Pokémon-dependent.

The Movepool Leader (capefeather) has sole discretion for interpreting which moves are considered attacking or non-attacking, and which are considered competitive or non-competitive, for this project. He will post a list of competitive attacking moves in the first reply to this thread, and classify them into five or six groups:

• Required - Moves are those that must be in every movepool submission.
• Allowed - Moves that have been agreed through general community consensus to be allowed in the Pokémon's final movepool
• Disallowed - Moves that have been agreed through general community consensus to be disallowed from the Pokémon's final movepool
• Controversial - Moves that did not reach general community consensus, and will require a specific vote.
• Pending - Moves that have not received enough support or opposition to determine whether they are allowed, disallowed, or controversial
• Need Discussion (optional) - Moves that the Movepool Leader may want to draw specific attention to at any given time. This will be updated frequently, so check back frequently.

This list will serve as a single point-of-reference for the current state of the discussion. The community should make posts arguing for moves to be allowed or disallowed. The Movepool Leader will re-categorize the moves as the discussion progresses, until he deems the discussion over. The controversial moves will be put to a vote to determine whether they will be allowed or not.

Remember that, technically, nothing is set in stone until the thread is closed.

READ THE RULES FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN

• All posts should be presented with reasoning. NO flavor-based logic will be tolerated.
• It is the responsibility of each user to check the OP before making any post in the thread, so as to stay relevant.
• Posting lists of moves is strictly prohibited, even with explanations. Do not copy the Move Leader's list, and then add "Yes/No" or a similarly worthless comment, beside each one.
• The Movepool Leader and Topic Leader are the sole arbiters for determining "general community consensus". The Movepool Leader may ignore arguments for or against certain moves, if they feel the argument is not presented with sufficient evidence or reasoning. Do not assume that the existence of a few dissenting posts will ensure that a move will be categorized as controversial.
• Non-competitive moves should not be discussed in this thread, unless you feel they are incorrectly categorized and should be considered competitive. In this case, you can post reasoned arguments in this thread.

CAP 5 so far:




Name: Malaconda
Typing: Grass / Dark
Threats: Link
Primary Ability: Harvest
Secondary Ability: Infiltrator
Stats: 115 HP / 100 Atk / 60 Def / 40 SpA / 130 SpD / 55 Spe

So.

I will first say that I would really like us to come to as many consensuses as possible before the movepool submissions. The movepool submissions are kind of a hybrid between flavour and competitive elements, and this has usually resulted in one being ignored in favour of the other (usually flavour is ignored). So while it would still be cool to have different competitive options in submissions and what-not, I think ideally it should be between a couple of small things rather than several things or one big thing (like Quiver Dance on CAP 4). Especially big things should be put to a vote.

I guess what this means is that I'm going to try to interpret consensus not just on what should be allowed/disallowed/controversial, but also on what people really want on the final movepool. The number of moves that appear to be deemed important or unimportant will probably impact the movepool limits later. Just putting that out there!

The determination of competitive moves is relatively straightforward for attacking moves because it's mostly based on coverage. The following categories of moves are NOT considered competitive attacking moves:

• Special moves (except Fire-type moves)
• Status moves
• Physical moves below 60 Base Power (except priority and multi-hit moves)

So here's the list of competitive moves up for discussion:

Pending

Nothing

Need Discussion

Nothing

Required

Seed Bomb
Payback

Allowed

Other Dark-type moves
Power Whip
Wood Hammer
Leaf Blade
Other Grass-type moves
Steel-type moves (Kyurem)
Electric-type moves (Tentacruel sorta, Gyarados, Skarmory)
Bug-type moves other than Megahorn and U-turn (Celebi, Hydreigon)
Dragon Tail
Other Dragon-type moves
Super Fang
ExtremeSpeed
Poison-type moves

Disallowed

Flying-type moves (Breloom)
Psychic-type moves (Toxicroak, Venusaur)
Fighting-type moves (Normals, Hydreigon, Lucario)
Ground-type moves (Tentacruel, Heatran, Jirachi, Lucario, Magnezone, Ninetales, Toxicroak)
Rock-type moves (Ninetales, Thundurus, Volcarona)
Fire-type moves (Ferrothorn, Forretress, Scizor, Skarmory, Venusaur, Breloom, general sun goodness) (including Fire Fang and any special move stronger than Hidden Power)
Other Ice-type moves (including Ice Shard)
Natural Gift
Megahorn (Breloom, Ferrothorn)
Final Gambit
Horn Leech
Water-type moves

Controversial

Ice Fang (Dragon-types, Gliscor, Landorus, Thundurus, Venusaur, Breloom)
U-turn

You may notice that I took the time to list Pokemon that each set of moves would aim to cover. If I missed a competitive attacking move, then please point it out so that it's not inserted into movepools as non-competitive moves! There is also a chance that a move that is not initially considered competitive is inserted after some existing moves are disallowed.

Another note: U-turn and Dragon Tail should technically be considered attacking moves, but considering that they depend on both coverage elements and their secondary effects, they will be allowed only if both their general types (Bug / Dragon) and similar non-attacking moves (Baton Pass / Volt Switch / Roar / Whirlwind) are allowed. So I guess they'll be in limbo for a while... EDIT: Since switching moves are pivotal to the need for certain coverage or lack thereof, U-turn is on the list separately from the other Bug-type moves. EDIT 2: Ditto for Dragon Tail.

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The first round is mostly the straightforward stuff. Bug-, Dragon-, Ice- and Steel-type moves are the ones that do not hit any of the designated threats. The most powerful Grass-type moves are there because I want to establish for certain whether or not we want the STAB Base Power ceiling to be 80, 90 or 120. The moves that hit Toxicroak and Breloom are also there to ease us into the harder stuff.

Moving forward, people should remember that carrying a move to cover a threat does not make the threat cease to be one. This is especially true for Malaconda, who is slower than everything that we've designated as threats. We should strive to have most, if not all, of the designated threats strongly check or counter Malaconda, but some of these threats could actually make Malaconda a liability, which may not be desirable.

So, have at it, ya weirdos! Mind the rules, now!

Oh, and today is the birthday of Robert Bunsen and Stefan Banach. Both of them were fucking crazy.

A relevant statistic: to guarantee a 2HKO on defensive Politoed with Wood Hammer or Power Whip, CAP 5 needs no investment in Attack. To do so with Leaf Blade, it needs 184. With Seed Bomb, it can't even do it with a neutral nature. Given that beating Politoed is one of our primary goals and physically defensive spreads are quite common, and I'm quite certain we want to encourage or at least allow defensive EV spreads on CAP 5 as well, I think we definitely should allow at least one of Wood Hammer and Power Whip. My preference would be the latter, or both, since a slow and bulky Pokémon doesn't want to be using recoil moves if it can avoid it and I see no reason to imagine Power Whip would be overpowered.

In terms of the coverage moves, I think we should be skeptical of coverage in general. I expect a lot of arguments along the lines of "let's not be useless against [so and so mon]". The problem with that is that a defensive/supporting set is unlikely to have room for three attacks. As such, using one of those coverage moves means either ditching a STAB move or going offensive. Neither of those is something that I think we need to encourage. We chose Grass/Dark specifically because of what its STAB types offered a sun team, and built our threat list around those types being its primary means of attack. If it is not using both of them, it's not doing what we want it to be doing. Similarly, we need moderate to heavy defensive investment to beat many of the things we've set out to beat, and if it's choosing to maximize Attack instead, it's again straying from out main goals.

I don't mind giving it coverage to allow for some niche sets, but I think we need to stick to things that we can be confident will actually be niche options. I also think that we should really avoid giving it moves super effective on things we decided it should lose to in the threats discussion. While I do understand that giving it those moves doesn't necessarily mean that those threats stop being threats, I fear that having those moves available may turn out to be too tempting and end up distracting from our goals. And I think there are other, better ways to avoid being a complete liability against those threats, largely in the non-attacking moves category.

In terms of the coverage types currently on "needs discussion", I strongly feel we should disallow Flying and Psychic attacks. I see no way in which beating Fighting-types helps the goals we've laid out, and we identified Breloom and Toxicroak as being things that beat us. The other types I haven't yet made up my mind on; my initial inclinations are against them but I am quite willing to be swayed.

Right off the bat I think we should eliminate fighting type coverage from Cap 5's movepool. Having a fighting type coverage move, like brick break for example, makes it too easy for CAP5 to eliminate Heatrab who is supposed to be a counter to this CAP. Also, fire type moves shouldn't be considered either because of Scizor and how he should be a check to CAP5 as well.

I will also vouch for pursuit being on the required list for how useful it will be for eliminating the lati@s.

On the Grass STAB Ceiling...

Power Whip: I don't see any problem with allowing Power Whip. Its 85% accuracy keeps it from being too powerful in my opinion.

Wood Hammer: I don't think would hammer should be allowed. A 100% accurate, 120 base power STAB with essentially no drawback thanks to Harvest+Sitrus is too powerful for the role we're trying to fill and will encourage use as a bulky attacker.

On Flying and Psychic type moves...

I have to jump the gun a bit here and mention Natural Gift. The two berries most likely to be used make Natural Gift:

A 60 base power Flying attack (Lum Berry)
A 60 base power Psychic attack (Sitrus Berry)

These are the only Flying/Psychic coverage moves I think we should be seeing. I'll post more thoughts on Natural Gift when we are up to discussing it.

On other matters...

I can't think of any justification for having a Bug type move other than a CAP vs CAP scenario. The same goes for Dragon and Ice moves, although I feel the elemental fangs will need discussing at some point and it will be sensible to include all three if either of the other two gain traction (they aren't very good anyway, and CAP 5 isn't going to be getting the chance to flinch much).

I personally think we should stick to the threats list as closely as possible, and therefore disallowing Fire, Fighting, Psychic, Flying, Ice and Ground moves.

As far as Ice goes we already hit the Dragon-types we need to hit (Latios and Latias). There is absolutely no need to go further than that.

Also I'd like Power Whip allowed for a nice strong STAB attack. It has a reasonable downside as well.

So, i think that as of now nobody sane would run cap5 on their sun team. There are few attacking moves that would see use over a "flagship set" of rest / spin / grass / dark, but they exist. As of now, our CAP is a shitty pokemon that exists to forfeit momentum on a spin and I don't really think Sun rolls that way. Its STABs and speed and low Atk are basically begging to be used as setup fodder for things that sun can absolutely not afford to let set up—Landorus-I, Garchomp, and Dragonite. Ice Fang, while not probably making any main sets, would still serve to at least encourage these Pokemon using offensive moves against CAP5, just in case, so that they don't get the free boosts they need to absolutely roll over a sun team. Our CAP has a low enough Defense that it will hardly become a full counter to U-turn Lando-I's or any type of Dragon, but it will be able to prevent these Pokemon from switching in willy-nilly on the spin, pounding whatever-in-the-fuck for huge damage, and switching back out until your sun team is in shambles.

Another move that I think we should consider for similar reasons is U-turn. I'm honestly convinced that U-turn / Dark / Grass / Rest is a better set for sun teams than one with spin, because it beats pokemon we need to beat without having momentum dysentery, and it beats scizor at its own game by going to an appropriate counter on the switch instead of having to play reactive—which sun really hates to do—and letting scizor chip away at your fire types. If we don't give this CAP u-turn it will be an absolute flop imo

oh also nyktos is right re: powerwhip and unitas is right re: pursuit

Power Whip
Wood Hammer
Leaf Blade

Allow Power Whip and Leaf Blade. Disallow Wood Hammer. Wood Hammer is unnecessarily strong for CAP5 to accomplish its goals and will only encourage Band sets.

Bug-type moves (Celebi, Hydreigon)

I could see this working for X-Scissor. U-turn I have a harder time allowing. For now, I'm gonna pass on these. I'll pass judgment later.

Dragon-type and Ice-type moves (Dragon-types, Gliscor, Landorus, Thundurus, Venusaur)

Of these, Dragon Tail is the only one I think should definitely be allowed. Others seem a bad idea, largely.

Steel-type moves (Kyurem)

I have absolutely no issue with CAP5 getting Steel moves allowed. They add very little coverage, even in the neutral department.

Flying-type moves (Breloom) + Psychic-type moves (Toxicroak, Venusaur)

No. Disallow. These shouldn't even be separate. They hit all the same threats. And all are unnecessary to hit.

I'm inclined to agree with pwnemon at this point. I've been tinkering with potential CAP sun teams, and promoting good team synergy with Snakey's awful defensive typing is quite difficult, especially since Snake was supposed to be saving team slots for Sun teams. In terms of hazard defense Xatu and Espeon are still both clearly better, as stopping to use Rapid Spin wastes a valuable turn.

I really don't want Snakey to become a dud for sun, so I'm going to work through this logically, and keep him focused to what he needs to do. He doesn't need great coverage; he just needs to hit certain things.

Sun teams have a pretty straightforward philosophy:

Step 1: Kill opposing weather, if any.
Step 2: Kill things that resist both fire and grass, IE fire types (most notably Heatran) and Dragons.
Step 3: Spam powerful and fast fire and grass attacks.

So obviously, Snakey isn't a sweeper, nor can it ever be a true special wall until its counters are removed. As awesome as Harvest is, because of its lousy defensive typing, Snake will get chased out by any decent fire type, fighting type or bug type. While his list of support moves will definitely aid in this area too (I actually think support moves could define him), I see him functioning more like a momentum gathering tank who assists in steps 1 and 2.

The steps:
Killing opposing weather
Snake's got this part down. Politoed, Hippowdon and Tyranitar are all grass weak. For maximum effectiveness, he should be able to cleanly OHKO all three. That's easy enough in T-tar, but max def Politoed and Hippowdon are harder, but with some attack investment, it can be done. Power Whip and Wood Hammer both have the same base power, and I feel both are good options. They both have their downsides, but Wood Hammer works better with Harvest.

Kill things that resist both fire and grass
Here's a quick list of notable OU mons:
Infernape
Ninetales
Victini
Darmanitan
Chandelure

I will say something about non-STAB moves... I try some damage simulation with (+252 attack EVs) and choose standard sets for the other pkms.

Fighting moves: lets see some simulations (using the standard sets) with Low Kick we got *1HKO vs Tyranitar, 2HKO vs Mamoswine, Heatran, Kyurem-B and 3HKO Ferrethorn, Blissey. Only with resist berries we can hit 2 times Mamoswine or Heatran, and it help to make a non-OP cover, so I fully support Low Kick for allowed.

Fire moves: i don´t like a fire move for a grass type and we don´t search to kill scysor, but i run a damage simulator with Fire Fang we can 2HKO vs Ferrethorn (+252 hp and +88 def) and Scysor (+252 hp, 1HKO with sun), 3HKO Forretress (2HKO with sun) and 5HKO Skarmory (3HKO with sun). Fire moves must be disallowed.

Bug Type: I don´t see the need for Bug moves... with both X-Scisor and U-Turn we can 2HKO Celebi (already have dark STAB moves) and 3HKO vs Hydreigon. Bug moves are a waste of time and slot.

Ice moves: I run a Ice Fang simulation, we can 1HKO Salmance (68%, moxie), 2HKO vs Venasaur, Garchomp, Salamance (intimidate) Gliscon (flying gem), Dragonite (multiscale), 3HKO Gliscor (defensive) and 4-6HKO Hippowdon (mix wall - physical wall). Ice Fang will help in some battles and must be allowed.

Hope it helps. Sorry for the bad english.

Ok. Let's start with Wood Hammer and Power Whip

Srk makes a good point that high powered grass moves would encourage band sets and on the basis of that suggests we disallow Wood Hammer. A good point, but in my opinion Power Whip would fit better onto a band set due to having no drawbacks, whereas Wood Hammer would much prefer to be paired with a berry, either to offset recoil damage or as a nifty way of activating pinch berries. Thus, I think Wood Hammer would actually encourage use of Harvest and should be allowed. As for Power Whip, I'm undecided whether I'd want rid of it based on my above argument.

Fighting Moves are something I'm very much against. If our goal is to make CAP5 fit best into a sun team then they're quite simply bad news. Sun teams deal well with steel types (let's face it, that'll be the main use of this coverage) and would be more likely to be CAP5's ideal teammates if it didn't have a fighting move, whereas having one would make it more viable on rain teams, something which I really don't want to do. Disallow fighting coverage.

Ice Moves. *Edited* After some discussion in the irc chat, I've been swayed to the idea of ice moves. With it's low base speed, CAP5 won't be sweeping dragons any time soon and having an ice move will serve as a deterrent to physical dragons setting up on it or switching into it. Ice shard would also allow it to pick off weakened dragons that outpace it, adding to it's repertoire of Lati beating skills.. Allow ice coverage.

More to come at a later date, of course. :)

Going to start out different:

Electric Moves:

Electric moves are fabulous for giving us a better hit on a few specific Rain sets. Although Thunder Fang is weaker than Power Whip and Leaf Blade against Tentacruel, it's much more accurate than the former and I think Horn Leech would better serve CAP 5 in the latter slot. Wild Charge however is much more competitive and would be very useful in taking down Tentacruel and Gyarados. I don't think Skarm is really an issue in the sense it can easily tank an unSTABBed Wild Charge, it can also Roost and not be weak to Electric from our slower Pokemon at all - we're not going to break Skarm with our power level, leaving it as a threat. Electric moves should be allowed.


Fighting Moves:

Fighting Moves are a tough road to hoe because they hit so many of our threats for at least neutral damage. I don't think it would be wise to have a strong, consistently damaging Fighting-type move in our arsenal because the coverage with Dark is too good. After looking at the threats list again, I don't even think Low Kick has a place since literally everything it targets is supposed to be a threat, and therefore its only purpose is to expand coverage against Pokemon we decided we should be threatened by. Fighting moves for disallowed.

STABs:

I'm a full boat person when it comes to STABs. We selected the mons type as a direct link to things it should be countering. I regard Power Whip as the better option even though Wood Hammer is the stronger attack because I want to discourage Band sets as much as possible. While I realize a Band Set couldn't LumRest, I don't really want that temptation there.

Dark STABs I like everything: Foul Play, Crunch, Sucker Punch, Punishment, and Pursuit are all very useful to CAP 5. Foul Play is particularly intriguing because it really aids us against physical set-up Dragons if we catch them on the turn they are boosting.

Power Whip, Leaf Blade, Horn Leech allowed, + All Dark STABs for allowed.

Ground / Rock moves:

I'm lumping these together because I believe CAP5 should not have an effective way to hit Fire-types for consistent, effective super-effective damage. Earthquake hits way too many things we want to be counters way too hard, and should be disallowed on that basis alone. While most Fire-types in OU are neutral to rock, the one that isn't is Volcarona, and Volcarona should definitely be a Counter.

Ground/Rock moves for disallowed.

Dragon / Bug moves:

Going off the OP's contention that approval of these moves for coverage would inherently allow U-turn and Dragon Tail, Dragon / Bug moves for allowed. Dragon moves do nothing but target a type that is hugely prevalent in the metagame and therefore relevant to our concept (and they will rarely be better than Foul Play against physical boosting Dragons anyway), and Bug Moves don't put anything in our "be threatened by" list under duress while also hitting Psychic types on our "threaten" list.

Pwnemon said:

So, i think that as of now nobody sane would run cap5 on their sun team. There are few attacking moves that would see use over a "flagship set" of rest / spin / grass / dark, but they exist. As of now, our CAP is a shitty pokemon that exists to forfeit momentum on a spin and I don't really think Sun rolls that way. Its STABs and speed and low Atk are basically begging to be used as setup fodder for things that sun can absolutely not afford to let set up—Landorus-I, Garchomp, and Dragonite. Ice Fang, while not probably making any main sets, would still serve to at least encourage these Pokemon using offensive moves against CAP5, just in case, so that they don't get the free boosts they need to absolutely roll over a sun team. Our CAP has a low enough Defense that it will hardly become a full counter to U-turn Lando-I's or any type of Dragon, but it will be able to prevent these Pokemon from switching in willy-nilly on the spin, pounding whatever-in-the-fuck for huge damage, and switching back out until your sun team is in shambles.

Another move that I think we should consider for similar reasons is U-turn. I'm honestly convinced that U-turn / Dark / Grass / Rest is a better set for sun teams than one with spin, because it beats pokemon we need to beat without having momentum dysentery, and it beats scizor at its own game by going to an appropriate counter on the switch instead of having to play reactive—which sun really hates to do—and letting scizor chip away at your fire types. If we don't give this CAP u-turn it will be an absolute flop imo

oh also nyktos is right re: powerwhip and unitas is right re: pursuit

Click to expand...

I don't like this logic. We didn't want a Pokemon that could prevent setup opportunities from every threat in the meta, we wanted a Pokemon that could deal with multiple of sun's biggest problems, freeing up some teamslots for sun teams. It doesn't matter if Landorus or Garchomp can setup on the CAP, as the sun team can afford to use a strong check or counter to them with the extra space it gets from the CAP. I am not sure about giving it Ice coverage because it will likely only be used on bulky attacking sets and not on defensive ones, because defensive sets can't give up their dual STABs, Rest, and Rapid Spin. If we want to encourage the use of offensive sets then we can give Ice Fang to the CAP, but if not we shouldn't. Same goes for Ice Shard, except that it is much weaker but has priority, so i like it more.

As for Power Whip and Wood Hammer, if people want Power Whip then i dfon't see how Wood Hammer is better. Power Whip is a better move than Wood Hammer due to the lack of recoil, and both offensive and defensive sets would prefer it. I am fine with the CAP getting both moves, as otherwise it needs too much Atk investment to 2HKO Politoed.

About U-turn. At first i liked this move too, but when you consider that one of the CAP's biggest counters, Heatran, gets trapped by Dugtrio with this move, it starts looking like Malaconda beats Pokemon that it shouldn't with little team support. I know that Heatran could be trapped via a double switch to Dugtrio too, but the point is that U-turn breaks the Balloon that would otherwise prevent Heatran from getting trapped. So for now, i am against U-turn.

Finally, i would like to put my support behind Wild Charge. This move gives to the CAP coverage against Tentacruel and Gyarados, two water-types that are not hit super effectively by Grass attacks, while also giving some acceptable coverage to an all out attacking set that doesn't beat any Pokemon that it shouldn't. For example Wild Charge hits harder than any of Malaconda's STABs Tornadus, Gyarados, Tentacruel, Heatran, Skarmory, and Scizor, while not hitting Scizor, Heatran, and Skarmory hard enough to prevent them from walling us, but at least gives us a way to do some meaingful damage to them with max Atk investment.

So, allow Wild Charge and any other weaker Electric moves, allow every physical Dark and Grass move that the CAP needs, and allow X-Scissor but not U-turn.

I also agree with disallowing Fighting, Ground, Fire, and Rock coverage, as they mess with the Pokemon that should counter us.

In terms of how much these moves help CAP5 do its job, this is what I think:

On Grass-type moves - Allow all 3, Power Whip, Wood Hammer and Leaf Blade. Variety among the STAB options will give more leeway for CAP5 to invest in a defensive build, that's something I look forward to. And, in the end even if these are allowed, it's up to submitters of movepolls to include both Power Whip and Wood Hammer, or just the one they like better, though I don't see who would give up on them when they help so much in defeating rival weather starters and that's precisely what CAP5 will do for sun teams.

On Bug-type moves - Includes U-Turn by proxy... I'm undecided. It's help CAP5 in keeping momentum for sun teams, but it tends to be unwanted coverage for us, Dark already hits Psychics like the Latis so it'd be redundant, and U-Turn's case against Balloon Heatran makes me wary. I'd say disallow Bug moves.

On Dragon-type and Ice-type moves - I don't think CAP5 needs them for coverage so badly, but Dragon Tail and Ice Shard in particular have interesting utility that CAP5 could bring in for sun teams. I'd say allow both Dragon and Ice moves, for now.

On Steel-type moves - Here I'm undecided on the positive side. Basically, I see no harm in including them, at least Iron Tail for an unreliable Steel move if CAP5 really badly wanted it. So, allow Steel moves.

On Flying-type moves and Psychic-type moves - Disallow. 4MSS would kick in and CAP5 has to business taking on Fighting types directly, and Poison types should be our counters to encourage the type's use some more.

First up on the chopping block Grass type moves.
Wood Hammer: I'm in agreement with pretty much everyone. Stirus berry+harvest+wood hammer is too overpowered. Basically, you have a pokemon that chops its HP off, then gets it back again via berry. And gets the berry back. Disallowed NO QUESTIONS ASKED.
Power Whip I'm more in agreement with this one. 80% Accuracy is quite a good price to pay To OHKO Politoed. Especially since Wood Hammer is not nice with this dude.
Ice type moves: Ice Shard is the only ice type move I see viable on Snakey. Since we're not trying to OHKO dragons.
Bug Types: U-Turn. This makes Snakey too easy to play against and makes main counter Heatran almost useless when Dugtrio joins the fray. I don't allow that. Other bug moves, yeah sure, why not?
Dragon type moves: Dragon tail will make Snakey a crazy counter for set ups. But still, low damage output and negative priority makes it suitable.
Electric Moves: No comment on Snakey will use Electric moves(Thunder fang?)
Flying Type Moves: The only threat I see Snakey dispatching with Flying type moves is Berloom. Why not?
That's all for now.

On U-Turn. I think U-Turn should be allowed for the momentum it gives to sun team and the niche role on a sun team that CAP5 gains via this role. U-Turn with our low speed and relatively low attack will not be game changing in anyway, but will still allow for some variety between CAP's different sets. Having a slow U-Turner with high bulk is a valuable asset to teams lacking team slots because it allows for the CAP to take whatever hit it has to take, U-Turn out, and go to the best counter for that Pokemon ibstead of wasting a turn switching. U-Turn also gives it yet another option to take out the Lati@s which never hurts, especially when you can dent it for great damage and possibly switch out to a priority user on our team to finish it off.

Overall, U-Turn allows for more diversity on CAP and having slow turns help use team slots to their full potential.

Low Kick: Disallow. There are other alternatives for Fighting-moves that don't have as shaky power as Low Kick. Plus, one of the only Pokémon that Low Kick is needed for is Tyranitar. Thus, disallow.

Revenge: Allow. Revenge is a solid base power move even without the boost, and with Malaconda/Sidewindr's stats, it will usually go last and return a hit. So, allow Revenge. Additionally, it doesn't provide enough coverage to make CAP5 OP.

Wood Hammer/Power Whip/Leaf Blade: Leaf Blade is an allow based on the fact that it is vastly overshadowed by both options. I personally support Power Whip - not only does it make more sense on defensive sets, it also provides less of a downside. With CAP5's low Defense and moderately low HP, it needs to reserve all the HP it has just for staying alive. If you waste that on a Wood Hammer on a full-HP Politoed, you lose a lot of potential to stay alive later on, effectively making CAP5 a dead weight as soon as you click the button for Wood Hammer. So, Power Whip > Wood Hammer.

U-turn: I support it. U-turn could help make CAP5 very strong and versatile, while still being predictable enough and not providing enough coverage to really leave a dent in many teams who have the necessary defenders. Additionally, it could help Sun teams out substantially - if you give CAP5 U-turn, it's able to provide Ninetales a safe switch in, or allow Volcarona to come in before Stealth Rocks come up later in a match without taking a hit. Additionally, it breaks Focus Sash, which is very important for helping out some Sun sweepers like Venusaur.

I think that Natural Gift needs more discussions.

This move can function like a pseudo-hiddenPower but at the cost of a berry on each turn. This means that the CAP5 must decide how use is berry: to recover, with Sitrus or Enigma, to heal, with Lum+Rest, but also to attack, with a generic berry or simply with the same recovery&such berry.

For example, Enigma berry with Natural Gift give provides a 80 base power Bug Attack, which is great to check Celebi and the CAP5 himself.
Obviously, on a dedicated set built around Natural Gift the extremly wide coverage may be a problem.

However, Natural Gift can extend the CAP5 horizons, with this simple dilemma: more offensive or more defensive tank? (Amlet style. LOL)

On the Fighting-Type side, i think that we must disallow every move bar the obvious Natural Gift; however, i don't think that Fighting-Type berry (like Chople-Berry,
that also weaken the power of Supereffective Fighting-Type attack) is useful on our ipotetical standard set (Sitrus, Enigma and Lum berry > anything else against
Lati@s and Poli).

On the Grass-Type side, I think that we must allow Power Whip, but disallow Wood Hammer for the simple reason of the Recoil, which
could really break strategies, like against a Specs Ice Beam Poli and such (i don't have done an in-depth analysis, but I'll have to really soon).


For the other type i'll post later. And really, really sorry for the terrible english.

Grass STAB: Power Whip and Leaf Blade are allowed without question, due to being the obligatory STABS. Wood Hammer isn't that overpowered, since it has the same base power as Power Whip, and if it's enough to knock CAP5 into sitrus range, then that's more than half max hp recoil, and sitrus only restores 25% hp.
Bug Type: In terms of bug type moves, there are only two that would suit this CAP; U-Turn and Bug Bite. U-Turn would suit a bulky regen pivot like CAP5 rather well, as well as helping other sunmons or ninetails switch in. Bug Bite is a more powerful niche option that might lead to some clashes between CAP5's, but would be overshadowed, meaning it would be niche, and niche only.
Dragon Type: Dragon Tail would allow CAP5 to Phaze, which is actually quite nice, and gives another tool against the dragons of OU.
Ice Type: Ice Fang, in conjunction with Stealth Rock, allows us to legitimately threaten Salamence and Draonite.
Flying and Psychic Types: I'm Pretty sure we get countered by Breloom and Toxicroak, so these should be disallowed.

For attacking moves, there isn't really anything I strongly oppose. In the realm of Grass attacks, Leaf Blade shouldn't be a huge focus, since it's too weak to do enough damage to certain bulky waters, like Politoed. On Power Whip vs Wood Hammer, the thing we need to realize is that Power Whip's "drawback" isn't really that big of a deal for Snakemon. It isn't exactly game-breaking if he misses a Power Whip, because the things we need to threaten (Poli, Rotom, Lati@s, etc.) can't really do much to take advantage of the miss, and most of the threats to Snakemon (Heatran, Scizor, Volcarona etc.) aren't taking much damage anyway. Wood Hammer isn't really much different, because the recoil can be mitigated through Rest or Sitrus. So, I'm for allowing all of the listed physical Grass moves.
For Dark moves, I cannot conceive any issues with any possible options. Moves like Crunch and Night Slash are pretty much needed for reliable STAB, Pursuit gives it a secure hold on Lati@s and Ghosts, and miscillanious moves like Sucker Punch and Foul Play give it options to revenge kill or punish boosters without being setup fodder. Allow all possible physical Dark attacks.

I'll post my opinions about coverage options tomorrow when I can get to a computer. Typing on a tablet is quite tedious and maybe forthcoming arguments will strengthen my opinions.

EDIT: I do want to talk a bit about Natural Gift though. Nobody who has talked about it seems to oppose it, but I haven't seen any truly solid argument in favor of it. Why is Natual Gift needed when it gives Malaconda coverage many people don't want, and when we can quite easliy give it moves that attain the coverage that Natural Gift is said to achieve?

As the name has been decided, I will call CAP5 Malaconda in this post. Keep this in mind.

I pretty much agree with Legend13 above me. As Pwnemon said, as it stands, without decent firepower and support options, the best Malaconda set will be a Spinning one, with the most variety being which berry to use. LumRest will also work, but still. Given we want a Sunmon to fill a teamslot, you get the idea.

It also needs Natural Gift, in my opinion, for most of the reasons listed earlier. Natural Gift is a Psuedo-Hidden Power, but with lower BST and forcing the user to hold a specific berry; as such, it's more of a niche option, but I see no reason to not have it. Cross Poison would also be nice, and Dragon Tail is a sure gimme. In fact, all "Tail" attacks, like Poison Tail, Tail Slap and Iron Tail, should be included, in my opinion. Not only for Flavour, but it gives it not-too-powerful coverage as a niche, which is the biggest draw to them.

Moving on, I firmly support Wood Hammer. It isn't too overpowered, and, even though Sitrus makes it seem drawback-free, you lose most of Sitrus' natural healing. Also, you kind of have to use Sitrus for that kind of recovery, unless we give it Recover or something, which I hope we don't, but this is the wrong time for that.

Grass Knot is yes. Concluded. Energy Ball is yes. Also concluded. After all, it's not like Malaconda'll do much with a Special move. Same with Weather Ball, IMO.

All Physical Dark moves, except for maybe a couple exceptions (rare exceptions), should be usable.

Let me start off by saying that Wood Hammer is not overpowered. Of course it's not. The main argument I see for this is that Sitrus would work well with Wood Hammer and keep on restoring the recoil, meaning we have a high BP STAB attack with 100% accuracy and no prominent limitations. Well, running Wood Hammer on Malaconda would mean that there would be little use of, say, Lum berry. So Malaconda can easily be whittled down by the likes of Toxic (Toxic Spikes even, set up by rainmon Tentacruel), and can also easily be crippled offensively by Will O Wisp. Heatran, Scizor and others can also switch on the Wood Hammer, serving it useless and potentially damaging Malaconda more than the opposing pokemon. I see no reason to allow Power Whip either. It would work well in conjunction with LumHarvest sets rather than Sitrus sets, whilst having the same limitations as Wood Hammer excluding recoil damage, and a lower accuracy. Leaf Blade is a move which I see no use for competitively. Sure, it's accurate and has no recoil, but it has a lower BP. I don't want this to play out like Aurumoth, so we just allow moves because there is no reason not to. We should allow moves only if there is reason to do so. So, allow Wood Hammer and Power Whip. Disallow Leaf Blade.

I know this is cape's show, and he already kinda said this by making Seed Bomb required but all other grass moves up for debate, but there is one thing I want to say before we get too far:

There is no such thing as an "obligatory STAB move."

Yes, we will have STAB moves, and yes, they are important, but when it comes to any competitive move, people should be presenting arguments for why we should have it. Being a Grass move does not make it an exception to this. I want to see people giving actual reasons of why we need Power Whip. Why not just Leaf Blade or even Seed Bomb? Simply saying "its the best STAB. Why not?" is not enough. I personally have not yet done any calcs, so I do not really have an opinion on which of these should or should not be allowed, but whatever decision is made should be based on actual competitive reasoning, not simply our whims as a group of people who like powerful stuff.

With that all said, I would like to give a few opinions of my own. As I already said, I am undecided as of now on whether or not Power Whip should be allowed, however, if it is, I think Wood Hammer should be as well. You are trading accuracy for recoil. Neither is particularly something we want, but neither goes against the concept in any way. I personally find the notion that Wood Hammer would be too powerful absurd. We are not a sweeper. We are a defensive Pokemon, and no defensive Pokemon wants to lose health. The fact that we have a way to heal does not diminish this. The utility of the two moves seems equivilant in my eyes, and the only reason to include one but not the other would be flavor reasoning on the part of the movepool builders.

As for the other stuff that capefeather currently has in the "Needs Discussion" category, I personally see almost no need for any of it. Dragon coverage hits nothing we care about. Its bad coverage in general and only useful for hitting things we don't care about making us generically better. I think it would be ill advised to allow such coverage. Steel is similar, but opposite. It also hits nothing we care about, and is also bad coverage in general, but unlike dragon it does not really hit anything at all. It is pretty much useless as a type, and I see no reason to disallow it in general. With that said, I would avoid any moves that have their own unique utility outside of typing, which in the case of steel is pretty much just Bullet Punch. It is probably not very useful, but it gives special utility beyond typing that we don't really need. Speaking of that, I would personally like to avoid all priority moves with the exception of the STAB move Sucker Punch. They, as I just mentioned, don't really help with anything specific and just give general utility we don't need.

Moving along, Flying and Psychic seem to me as no brainers. Neither of them hit anything we want to threaten, and both hit things we want to be threatened by. They are the exact opposite of what we want here, and I see little to discuss about them.

Bug and Ice are probably the two most worth discussing. Bug is a typing that is really rather irrelevant. Doesn't hit much we care about either way, and is certainly not helping break our counters. What it comes down to really is whether or not we want U-Turn, as all other Bug moves are hardly worth discussion. And to be honest, I am not sure if we want it. However, at this point I would be leaning towards allowing it. It doesn't let us beat any of our counters, but its existance prevents our counters from making us a liability to have. We can't crack scizor, and we shouldn't be able to, but if we can U-Turn out as it comes in, it will have to think twice rather than just mindlessly coming in and turning out itself. This is especially benificial to sun teams that have many Pokemon who would just love to get in against a Scizor.

Finally, Ice. I mostly feel the same here as I do about Dragon. It doesn't really do anything we need, and feels like coverage for coverage's sake. The key difference here is that Ice hits Landorus and Gliscor, Pokemon who can be very threatening to sun if they are able to set up. While Ice coverage would be a deterent, I'm not sure how useful it would be overall. I personally think U-Turn would solve any such problems better than Ice coverage. However, with that said, the one other thing that Ice coverage has over Dragon coverage is that Ice has a weak option and specific 4x weak targets. This allows a weak Ice coverage move to do the jobs it is meant for, without giving the possibility of general coverage use. As such, while I am not sure whether it should be allowed or not, I personally think Ice Fang should be discussed, while all stronger Ice coverage moves should just be disallowed.

On the subject Wood Hammer and grass in general, grass is a crappy attacking type. Do you know how many things can tank a grass move with a 4x resist? Any comination of Fire, Grass, Bug, Steel, Flying, Poison, and Dragon.

There's a reason grass types have trouble sweeping. No grass move will be overpowered as long as there's Scizor, Skarmory, Crobat, Volcorona, Forretress, Ferrothorn, Amoongus, Heatran, Ninjask, Venomoth, Salamence, Dragonite, Mollux... The list goes on.

I don't think Wood Hammer will be overpowered at all. Besides, a 100 base attack isn't even that great.

I agree with the above posters regarding Wood Hammer. Although having Harvest/Sitrus Berry + Wood Hammer gives it no prominent drawbacks in this regard, the lack of a different berry holds it back somewhat. Disallowing one or the other decreases the versatility of Malaconda, in that viable sets (with different berries) will be limited. (Wood Hammer relies on Sitrus Berry while Power Whip is easily worn down without it, but is more versatile to an extent.) I don't believe that Wood Hammer is overpowered either, as first, they have the same base power (120), and restraining Malaconda with a hax-based accuracy drop doesn't seem necessary, as its mediocre Attack stat balances out the high base power of the moves. Therefore, I'm for allowing all the Grass moves listed. Also, I support Natural Gift as this places emphasis on Malaconda's ability of Harvest, and adds to the unpredictability (similar to Hidden Power) of the CAP, without making it overpowered. Furthermore, because of the usefulness of other berries (Sitrus, Lum, etc.), this helps create a niche in Sun teams, in that it can help cover threats that Sun teams may struggle with. I like basically all of the Dark-type attacks listed, especially Foul Play and Payback, as Malaconda's bulk helps it tank an attack and strike back hard.

I don't particularly like Bug-type moves, as they provide generally redundant coverage with Dark-type moves, but I think a slow U-Turn could help get in frail sun sweepers, so I'm for disallowing all Bug-type moves except for U-Turn. Fighting coverage I'm also against, because it is generally redundant but hits Heatran and Steel-types too hard. Lastly, I don't like Flying or Psychic type attacks because that would make the CAP overpowered in my opinion.