Policy Review Ability Banlist Update

[Bughouse]

Approved by jas61292
-----------------------------------

As members of the CAP 5 PRC will remember, we changed the CAP process on abilities to a system where the primary, secondary, and flavor ability discussions all have specific banlists. There was some wrangling over which abilities should and should not be banned from each stage, and now it's time to go back through and update those lists for the XY metagame. First I would like to make this proposal I think we can agree on:
Proposal 1: The primary ability discussion should also have banned the flavor abilities banned in the secondary discussion.

A slight error seems to have been made previously in how Malaconda's and Cawmodore's OPs listed the banlists (the flavor abilities banned in the secondary discussion were not listed as banned in the primary), so we should fix it.

Moving onto the updated lists. Since this is a massive tl;dr, I have included toward the bottom the main discussion items summarized. For those wanting to peruse a full list of all abilities with descriptions, click here.

​

Previous Banlists:

banned from primary

Air Lock
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Defeatist
Forecast
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Sand Veil
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Snow Cloak
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

banned from secondary

Air Lock
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Defeatist
Forecast
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Sand Veil
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Snow Cloak
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Drizzle
Drought
Huge Power
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Prankster
Pure Power
Sand Stream
Serene Grace
Snow Warning
Speed Boost

Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Run Away
Telepathy

banned from flavor

Air Lock
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Defeatist
Forecast
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Sand Veil
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Snow Cloak
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Drizzle
Drought
Huge Power
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Prankster
Pure Power
Sand Stream
Serene Grace
Snow Warning
Speed Boost

New and Changed Abilities:

new

Aerilate
Aroma Veil
Aura Break
Bulletproof
Cheek Pouch
Competitive
Dark Aura
Fairy Aura
Flower Veil
Fur Coat
Gale Wings
Gooey
Grass Pelt
Magician
Mega Launcher
Parental Bond
Pixilate
Protean
Refrigerate
Stance Change
Strong Jaw
Sweet Veil
Symbiosis
Tough Claws

changed effect

Arena Trap
Drizzle
Drought
Infiltrator
Keen Eye
Magnet Pull
Oblivious
Overcoat
Sand Stream
Shadow Tag
Snow Warning

changed in the metagame aka Weather Abilities

Chlorophyll
Cloud Nine
Dry Skin
Flower Gift
Forecast
Hydration
Ice Body
Leaf Guard
Rain Dish
Sand Force
Sand Rush
Sand Veil
Snow Cloak
Solar Power
Swift Swim

This is a bit of a jumbled mess, so I think the best way to do this is to just start with a proposal and then edit from there as we gather opinions. This is how it was done last time, and we'll now slog through it the same way. Make any and all suggestions about adding/removing abilities to any of the banlists.

Initial Proposed Banlists:

Primary Ability banlist

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Fairy Aura
Forecast
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Run Away
Symbiosis
Telepathy

The abilities banned in Primary discussion in BW have either been:
a) Signatures, legendary or not
b) Incredibly overly defining, as with Shadow Tag, to the point that it was deemed likely to entirely subvert the CAP process
c) Ineffective and only allowed as a Flavor Ability
d) Banned in OU, as with Sand Veil, Snow Cloak, and Moody

For these reasons, taking into account changes in XY, my proposal:

ADDED: Aura Break, Dark Aura, Fairy Aura, Parental Bond, Stance Change, and Ineffective Abilities, which were previously not listed here (as per Proposal 1) and the new additions of Grass Pelt and Symbiosis
REMOVED: Sand Veil and Snow Cloak

Secondary Ability banlist

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Fairy Aura
Forecast
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Aerilate
Arena Trap
Drizzle
Drought
Fur Coat
Gale Wings
Huge Power
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Pixilate
Prankster
Protean
Pure Power
Refrigerate
Sand Stream
Serene Grace
Snow Warning
Speed Boost

Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Run Away
Telepathy

The abilities banned in Secondary discussion in BW have either been:
a) Banned in the Primary discussion
b) Incredibly defining, as with Arena Trap, Sand Stream, and many others, but not deemed so detrimental to the CAP process as to be totally disallowed
c) Likely to distract from other legitimate options, derail the thread, and generally make the Secondary discussion suck

For these reasons, taking into account changes in XY, my proposal:

ADDED: Aura Break, Dark Aura, Fairy Aura, Parental Bond, Stance Change, Aerilate, Fur Coat, Gale Wings, Pixilate, Protean, Refrigerate, and the new and ineffective Grass Pelt and Symbiosis
REMOVED: Sand Veil and Snow Cloak

Flavor Ability banlist

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Fairy Aura
Forecast
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Aerilate
Arena Trap
Drizzle
Drought
Fur Coat
Gale Wings
Huge Power
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Pixilate
Prankster
Protean
Pure Power
Refrigerate
Sand Stream
Serene Grace
Snow Warning
Speed Boost

The abilities banned in Flavor discussion in BW have been:
a) Effective abilities banned in the Secondary discussion

For these reasons, taking into account changes in XY, my proposal:

ADDED: Aura Break, Dark Aura, Fairy Aura, Parental Bond, Stance Change, Aerilate, Fur Coat, Gale Wings, Pixilate, Protean, Refrigerate
REMOVED: Sand Veil, Snow Cloak


Expected Topics of Discussion:

Any arguments over the placement of Stance Change, Parental Bond, and Gale Wings

All are signature and all are good, to varying degrees.​

Whether to ban Protean in Primary Ability or not (currently banned in only Secondary)

Protean is not a signature ability (Kecleon has it too)
However, is it so defining it subverts the CAP process, for example by rendering Typing far less important than it otherwise would be?
​

Whether to unban Snow Cloak and Sand Veil across the board or not (or in between)

These abilities are no longer banned in OU with Hail and Sand being limited in duration​

Whether to ban Aerilate, Pixilate, and Refrigerate in Primary Ability, Secondary Ability, or not at all

Aerilate and Refrigerate are signatures, while Pixilate is not
Do these abilities reach a power threshold to be considered ban-worthy in Secondary Ability?
Should Normalize be lumped in with these somehow?
​

Whether to reconsider the position of abilities we previously reached consensus on that were controversial, such as Arena Trap, Magnet Pull, Skill Link, Scrappy, Serene Grace, Super Luck, Sniper Huge Power, Pure Power, Speed Boost, Tangled Feet, and maybe a few others I missed

A note to remember is the positions listed above on these (banned or not) were all reached by consensus only about a year ago. The PRC is largely made up of the same people, so it would be preferable to not restart arguments over "hax" abilities, for example, unless there is a new and very persuasive argument not already seen in the linked thread at the top of this OP.
​

What if anything to do about signature abilities that weren't banned overall in BW for various reasons as well as new signature abilities

Existing signature abilities that carried over from BW that are available to CAPs at some stage are Normalize, Stall, Pure Power, Toxic Boost, Flower Gift, Flare Boost, Heatproof, Mummy, and Iron Barbs
New signature abilities (not already tentatively placed somewhere above) include Bulletproof, Flower Veil, Aroma Veil, Sweet Veil, and Strong Jaw
What course of action do you recommend with Signature abilities? Should we continue largely banning them?
​

Should Fairy Aura and Dark Aura be banned?

While Aura Break is truly noncompetitive in the OU meta that lacks either Fairy Aura or Dark Aura, these abilities in themselves are neither broken nor noncompetitive
Unlike other Legendaries' abilities, they aren't just renamed abilities (like Turboblaze and Terravolt being Mold Breaker) nor are they as distinctive as signature things like Multitype or Bad Dreams.
They don't exactly fit under any particular banning requirement other than "signature ability" but even then we haven't banned many signature abilities, as noted above.
They are however potential optics nightmares
​

An Addendum:

With this proposal, we're also going to move ahead with the following credential:

All secondary abilities will be considered "secondary" to the primary ability. In essence, they will either be worse than or equal to the primary ability.​

This is something that was brought up numerous times in this thread and on #cap, and I think it's a solid rule that will help guide discussions. It's obvious that there's no good way to quantify this rule, so it's something the Ability Leader and Topic Leader will have to contemplate for each specific CAP; this distinction will be left for them to make during the CAP process.

This was decided upon as a guiding policy last time through. However, looking back at the OPs of Secondary ability discussion on Malaconda and Cawmodore, no note was made. This is because we left it as a distinction for each TL and Ability TLT to make at their own discretion.

The result of this in the case of Cawmodore was an ability in Volt Absorb that you absolutely could argue ended up outshining the primary Intimidate. Indeed it saw much higher usage in the playtest and sees much higher usage in the CAP Meta today. Meanwhile, Volt Absorb was even less troubling than some other suggested abilities could have been.

In Malaconda's case, the losing options from the Primary poll were instantly disallowed by TL/TLT discretion, along with Intimidate and Regenerator. We ended up with an ability that was most definitely not on par with Harvest.

So we should now reevaluate this policy in light of two different paths taken and decide on whether to make a concrete actionable plan (not necessarily the one from Malaconda of banning losing Primary options) to add to policy on Secondary Abilities or to leave it up to discretion as is. Any and all policy recommendations about this are appreciated, since I have not managed to develop one with which I am pleased.

 

[Nyktos]

Specific Abilities
I'm not going to go over everything; anything I don't mention you can assume I either agree with the proposed treatment of or don't care about. (If they become big discussion topics I'll add my opinions then.)

Protean - Unban this imo. (Well, secondary-ban it.) It's not signature, and it's not in any way overpowered either. It lessens the importance of the typing stage, true, but it doesn't completely eliminate it by any means; the type you are on the switch-in turn matters plenty. I would imagine that this is something that would require some very specific and unusual circumstances to be justified, but that doesn't mean it needs a ban.

Sand Veil / Snow Cloak - Edit: I still don't like these but my recollection of the circumstances surrounding their original banning was apparently faulty. I do still think there's no good reason to ever put them on a CAP but I don't know if that means they deserve a ban.

Flower Gift - This wasn't banned before, but I think it should be. Before this ability got serious consideration during CAP 5, there was a good deal of confusion as to how it actually worked, and in particular whether it was hard-coded to Cherrim. It is, in fact, hard-coded. As such, giving it to a Pokémon other than Cherrim is changing game mechanics just as much as a custom ability is. Arguably, changing the mechanics of a real ability is even worse than creating a new one. I'm not going to push hard on this point since there's nothing "new" here, but that's my position.

Secondary Ability Policy
I think the current policy is more or less fine. Let's keep in mind that the wording is "worse than or equal to" the pimary. Thus there's no reason why losing primary abilities need to always be banned. I also don't think it's necessarily a problem if a secondary ability ends up being better in practice. If secondary abilities are always going to suck compared to the primary, there's no point in even having them. What's important is that the primary ability needs to be kept in mind during the secondary ability discussion, and deliberately trying to overshadow it be forbidden. But if something which seems equally good or slightly worse at that stage ultimately turns out to be better, I don't think that's a problem.

 

[jas61292]

I'll respond in more detail later, but I just want to quickly respond to one thing:

Sand Veil, Snow Cloak - Leave these banned. The banning of them from CAP predates their banning from OU, so the fact that they're no longer banned from OU shouldn't really have any bearing here.

That is actually not the case. The abilities were banned from OU on October 12, 2012, while we did not even open up the discussion on what abilities would be banned until January 9, 2013. So, they were indeed banned in large part because they were illegal in OU. Whether or not the keep them banned I will address later, but I just want to make sure this is clarified going forward.

 

[Bughouse]

To clarify also, since it's a huge wallpost and a lot to keep track of, Protean is indeed currently listed as an option in Primary ability, but not in Secondary. I've edited the discussion text below to make that more obvious.

 

[jas61292]

Ok, so lets just go down that list of discussion topics and give my thoughts on the matters:

Any arguments over the placement of Stance Change, Parental Bond, and Gale Wings

All are signature and all are good, to varying degrees.​

So, to start, I am definitely in agreement with your initial listing of Stance Change and Gale Wings, but not so sold on Parental Bond

Stance Change is a likely hard-coded form changing ability that we don't even have full details on. Now the hard coded part doesn't mean much to me, since we have left things like Flower Gift unbanned already, but form changing is something we have strictly removed with the previous banlist, and I'd like to keep it that way. What's more, we don't even really know how it works. While Aegislash changes sprite and stats, we don't know if it is treated as a whole new form, so could theoretically have completely different stats, or if it simply swaps the offensive and defensive base stats. We simply don't know enough to use it, and what we do know is already enough to get us leaning towards banning it.

(EDIT: I have been informed by Marty that we actually do know that it seems to be treated as separate forms and not just swapping stats [Thanks Marty!]. However, when it comes to my opinion on it, that just makes me feel even more confident about banning it.)

Gale Wings is a highly powerful ability that will almost guaranteed be the defining feature on any Pokemon that has it, provided we give them any Flying move better than Peck. It is not however so powerful that it should never even be approached. I see it very much like Prankster in this regard, and think that primary only is the way to go with it.

Parental Bond to me is in the exact same boat as Gale Wings. Very powerful, Pokemon defining, but not process centralizing to a degree that is worth banning. And, despite people's assumptions, it is definitely not even limited to Kangaskhan as it can certainly be Skill Swapped. Frankly, I just see no reason to put this anywhere different from Gale Wings, so I would support allowing it for primary ability, but banning it for secondary. Primary bans are for things that either have alternatives with better optics or things that destroy the CAP process. Nothing is banned for being powerful. The only one that comes close is Shadow Tag, and even that renders entire stages of the CAP process moot (threats, counters). If you want this banned from primary you really need to show why it is on the process destroying level of Multitype and Zen Mode, not just that it is really fucking powerful.

Whether to ban Protean in Primary Ability or not (currently banned in only Secondary)

Protean is not a signature ability (Kecleon has it too)
However, is it so defining it subverts the CAP process, for example by rendering Typing far less important than it otherwise would be?​

Protean is a tricky one. The power level it has is certainly on par with other abilities banned from secondary discussion, and it is at least as defining as them as well, without going overboard like things such as Shadow Tag. However, I personally am leaning towards saying that we should straight up ban Protean, as I see it as overly disruptive the the process. It practically renders one previous discussion irrelevant, and would be ridiculously overbearing when it came to the movepool stage. I simply don't see that as something we ever want to have to deal with, and we would be better off without it.

Whether to unban Snow Cloak and Sand Veil across the board or not (or in between)

These abilities are no longer banned in OU with Hail and Sand being limited in duration​

100% unban. As I said above, we banned them because they were banned in OU and they are not any more. As you all probably know I am hugely against the concept of banning "hax" abilities for reasons detailed in the past threads on ability bans, and in those past threads the conclusions were to not ban abilities for reasons based on "hax." I see no reason to change that here, so as long as they are legal in OU, these abilities have no reason to be banned here.

Whether to ban Aerilate, Pixilate, and Refrigerate in Primary Ability, Secondary Ability, or not at all

Aerilate and Refrigerate are signatures, while Pixilate is not
Do these abilities reach a power threshold to be considered ban-worthy in Secondary Ability?
Should Normalize be lumped in with these somehow?​

Personally, I believe none of these abilities are actually worth a ban in any stage at all. For the most part, all these abilities amount to are a slightly stronger STAB move or a slightly stronger coverage move. An entire ability for one move. I see it being similar to Technician on Stratagem. Sure, you can use it to get a more powerful STAB and better coverage moves (which is more than these abilities do), but by using it, you are just gaining a bit more power in exchange for losing out on something that in many situations is a better option. Now, that can certainly be worth it, sure, but it is no way defining enough to put it in the same category as things like Drought or Prankster or Arena Trap.

Whether to reconsider the position of abilities we previously reached consensus on that were controversial, such as Arena Trap, Magnet Pull, Skill Link, Scrappy, Serene Grace, Super Luck, Sniper Huge Power, Pure Power, Speed Boost, Tangled Feet, and maybe a few others I missed

A note to remember is the positions listed above on these (banned or not) were all reached by consensus only about a year ago. The PRC is largely made up of the same people, so it would be preferable to not restart arguments over "hax" abilities, for example, unless there is a new and very persuasive argument not already seen in the linked thread at the top of this OP.​

As you say, there was not a lot of change here, so I see no reason to change anything on these.

What if anything to do about signature abilities that weren't banned overall in BW for various reasons as well as new signature abilities

Existing signature abilities that carried over from BW that are available to CAPs at some stage are Normalize, Stall, Pure Power, Toxic Boost, Flower Gift, Flare Boost, Heatproof, Mummy, and Iron Barbs
New signature abilities (not already tentatively placed somewhere above) include Bulletproof, Flower Veil, Aroma Veil, Sweet Veil, and Strong Jaw
What course of action do you recommend with Signature abilities? Should we continue largely banning them?​

I think these new abilities should for the most part follow the standards that we have used previously. If there is an existing, non-signature move with the same effect, then we should stay away, but if it is not banworthy in other regards and has no counterpart, we should leave ourselves open to this. As such, for the most part I don't really think any of these are therefore worth banning, as they are all at least somewhat unique.

Should Fairy Aura and Dark Aura be banned?

While Aura Break is truly noncompetitive in the OU meta that lacks either Fairy Aura or Dark Aura, these abilities in themselves are neither broken nor noncompetitive
Unlike other Legendaries' abilities, they aren't just renamed abilities (like Turboblaze and Terravolt being Mold Breaker) nor are they as distinctive as signature things like Multitype or Bad Dreams.
They don't exactly fit under any particular banning requirement other than "signature ability" but even then we haven't banned many signature abilities, as noted above.
They are however potential optics nightmares​

These ones are interesting. I can't really say that there is anything about them that specifically screams "ban me." In fact, in many situations, they are actually weaker than other good, but not banned abilities. At the same time though, there are no other abilities so similar to them that we can ban them for being signatures close to other abilities, like Victory Star -> Compoundeyes. While I wouldn't mind seeing them out for optics reasons, can't otherwise justify banning them from any stage at all, other than perhaps flavor ability.

​

An Addendum:

So, as many of you guys probably know, I tend to think quite conservatively when it comes to giving out things during the CAP process, and, accordingly, I think that is generally the way to go for something like this. In my mind, the biggest problem we have is that, in our current wording, we use the word "equal." I don't think this should ever be the case. While the secondary ability should be no means have to be useless, we should not be trying to make the secondary one as good, or else that defeats the whole point of saying "All secondary abilities will be considered 'secondary' to the primary ability." I'd argue that the majority of times where problems have arisen from secondary abilities it is not because people are going for something better, but because the door is left open for something "as good" and that is so subjective that they just happen to be better.

You all might not agree with me on this, but I actually think the approach taken during CAP5 is the best way it could have been done. Take everything that is even debatably on the same level as the primary ability and just push it off the table. Obviously, what this level is will vary from CAP to CAP. While, going forward, we might say Volt Absorb is too good for secondary should the primary be Intimidate, I think it is obvious that Volt Absorb would not be too good for secondary should the primary be, say, Magic Bounce.

Basically, I don't think there is a ton we can do as far as codifying any specific limits, but I think we do need to change the wording of what we expect from that discussion so that it is clear that secondary must be secondary. Not equal. Secondary.

 

[DarkSlay]

On the placement of Stance Change, Parental Bond, and Gale Wings:

Stance Change: We could talk about the issue of hard-coded abilities, as well as our previous stance on hard-coded abilities, but I think the bigger point on Stance Change is the sheer complication of the ability itself. Aegislash was specifically designed to use this ability, and at the current time its only use is to transfer stats at a specific point in time. This is no different than something like Zen Mode, just without the HP-based trigger and with a move-specific trigger (offensive attack vs. Kings Shield). Combined with the fact that it's a signature move, it should be viewed exactly the same way as Zen Mode, thus leaving it banned from all parts of the process.

Parental Bond: This should be viewed in a similar light at Pure/Huge Power. It's simply an offensive boost for the sake of an offensive boost, just affecting the moves as opposed to affecting the stats. We have the Stats process for that. This should be banned from all parts of the process. I'll un-strike this after we discuss Pure/Huge Power.

Gale Wings: This is a bit different than the other two abilities in this category. While signature, it's not terribly complicated and has a use outside of a simple power boost. It could be argued that this is a simple Speed boost, but remember that it only affects Flying-type moves as opposed to every move like Parental Bond (with the exception of non-attacking moves). That said, it's a very, very good ability, as labeled, and is something that I see being heavily reliant on the concept for usage rather than something that can be used for all concepts equally. This means that it should be banned from secondary ability discussion.

On whether to ban Protean in Primary Ability or not (currently banned in only Secondary):

Agree with its current position. Much like Gale Wings, this is something that isn't really overpowered should be seen as something that is concept-reliant rather than universal. Banned from secondary ability discussion.

On whether to unban Snow Cloak and Sand Veil across the board or not (or in between):

This is an interesting topic that, in my opinion, should be viewed in a different light than simply the abilities themselves. We need to ask ourselves this question: What do the inclusion of accuracy-evasive abilities mean in terms of how we view their usefulness for concepts? Snow Cloak and Sand Veil give Pokemon an increased evasion chance against all attacks with accuracy. Nothing more, nothing less. However, these abilities really don't affect how the Pokemon plays at all, besides giving said Pokemon an incentive to be run on a Weather-based team. Ultimately, as they always have been, their use has been to give a Pokemon a percentage chance of escaping something that would normally hit them or have a normal chance of hitting them. I personally can't really see someone making a legitimate, competitive argument to have them selected as a primary or secondary ability for the sake of a concept itself. Meanwhile, as flavor abilities, their usefulness and luck-based benefits make them too useful to be considered non-competitive. That makes them a detriment for competitive reasons. This is not a case of weather being nerfed either: it's not about the metagame, but what the ability actually means for the Pokemon and what it does. Due to the actual purpose of these abilities, I'm going to have to say that these abilities should remain banned from Generation V.

On whether to ban Aerilate, Pixilate, and Refrigerate in Primary Ability, Secondary Ability, or not at all:

Again, going by what we should be expecting from our concepts in relation to abilities, these are abilities that have some sort of purpose outside of being an outright power boost to the Pokemon and are limited by specific moves, but are also reliant on specific measures that relate to the concept itself. That meets most of the abilities that are banned for secondary ability discussion. Normalize is a bit different, as it doesn't convert specific moves but rather encompasses all moves. This probably needs more discussion in terms of whether it should be banned outright or just from secondary discussion, as selecting Normalize is going to be heavily reliant on the concept.

On whether to reconsider the position of abilities we previously reached consensus on that were controversial, such as (list):

Not much to say here, agree with the positioning of the abilities discussed.

On what if anything to do about signature abilities that weren't banned overall in BW for various reasons as well as new signature abilities:

We should probably keep the previous protocol of these moves. It seems we place heavy emphasis on Legendaries with signature abilities as opposed to just signature abilities outright, which I think is the right attitude. In terms of the new signature abilities, none of them really are anything to overly worry about. They're probably fair game.

On whether Fairy Aura and Dark Aura should be banned:

I do think that this goes into the last topic too, in that signature abilities that deal with Legendaries should be treated separately than just signature abilities outright. The optics of allowing these are definitely something that should be considered. If it were my own opinion, I'd ban them outright.

Now, onto a new discussion not mentioned in the OP:

Should Huge Power and Pure Power be banned outright?

So as it stands, Huge/Pure Power are allowed as primary abilities but banned as secondary abilities. I personally can't see why it would be okay for these two abilities to be considered for a primary ability. If we're going to create a Pokemon with a good Attacking presence in mind, we should just give it a high Attack stat. Giving it Pure/Huge Power kind of beats around the bush a bit, to be honest, unless the concept requires a Pokemon with an Attack stat that is way higher than what base stats allow.

On the point about potential concept that Huge Power would give the CAP the option of changing roles, I find it very hard to believe that Huge Power won't always be the primary option on all sets, due to its sheer usability and power. If the Attack stat is low and the SpA is high, then Pure Power will simply promote one of the best mixed attackers known to man. No Defensive Pokemon wouldn't appreciate a high attacking stat either, unless the competing ability is so amazing it can actually compete with Huge Power (the only one that comes to mind is Magic Bounce at this point).

On the point of controversial objects being analyzed and balanced (ex: cape's argument concerning CAP3 and Necturna), this point is valid, but brings up a bigger point that kind of overrules the whole point of including Huge Power in the basic ability process: Sketch was the concept. Our entire process revolved around balancing Sketch, essentially. It took an entire project to explore the power of Sketch. There is nothing wrong with including Huge Power in a similar process, but if that's the case, it needs to be outside of the ability process and should only be considered conceptually. As in, it should only be used if the concept is about Huge Power. The merits of such a concept are subjective, so I'll leave that outside of this discussion and for actual voting time in CAP projects.

 

[Qwilphish]

I'm not going to make a super long post because most of my opinions are the same as DarkSlay's. (Agree on Fairy / Dark Aura, Previously Controversial Abilities, Stance Change, Gale Wings, and Protean)

On the subject of Pixilate, Refrigerate, and Aerilate: I don't know why Normalize was brought up considering it is completely different that the aforementioned 3 abilities considering that it 1) Doesn't provide a power boost and 2) Converts all moves to normal instead of the other way around. I also don't understand why it is being discussed even though it was already unbanned from all stages and that it remains unchanged from previous generations. Normalize should be allowed for allowed for all stages as it was previously.

-Ate Abilities: These abilities are strong, but I doubt their ability to completely mess up a project. If you look at the Pokemon who have these abilities right now, there is only one that stands out as excessively powerful and that is Mega-Pinsir. The thing with these abilities is that they are completely movepool reliant, a stage that conveniently after the Secondary Ability Poll. I think that the perfect user that shows how these types of abilities are not defining is Sylveon. It has its clearly defined role that doesn't become muddled even though it has access to a powerful Pixilate Hyper Voice. Of course it uses it to be able to hit hard, but its primary role is still defensive. Allow the -ate Abilities for all stages.

Parental Bond: Parental Bond is a very strange case. It is the equivalent of a Choice Band + the ability to "bypass" Focus Sash and Substitute. I think that it everyone can agree that it should be banned from Secondary Ability as it is a defining ability no matter what the circumstances are. The question is whether or not it is "too good" or "too exclusive". I personally believe that this ability is too restricting when it comes to building the rest of a CAP as you would need to account for the fact that it will be receiving a 1.5x boost on all attacks and that it will be breaking any "one-time fix". I know that flavor should be ignored when it comes to competitive discussions, but this one is too hard to simply ignore. Unlike other "exclusive" abilities such as Gale Wings and Snow Warning (pre-Gen 6), Parental Bond seems to be an extremely focused ability that was made for Kangaskhan with every aspect of it. Because of this, AND the fact that it was already controversial, I say that it should be banned from all discussion.

Huge / Pure Power: I can't really see a place for these abilities anywhere in CAP unless we feel the need to have an obscenely high attack stat (like on par with Mega-Mawile). Even then, I can't see a place where this is necessary. The difference between Huge Power and Parental Bond is that fact that PB hits twice which can mess up a lot of normal stops to Huge Power. Of course, HP has a 2x multiplier over 1.5x so that somewhat balances the two out. In every scenario I play out in my head, Huge / Pure Power is never completely needed to complete the concept and it is too centralizing on the rest of the stages. Ban from all discussion.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

I'll run down the list of discussion topics. My general philosophy is to be pretty conservative with our banlist because of all the checks we have in place to prevent the Ability stages from dominating a CAP. We have an Abilities Leader and a Topic Leader charged with the task of keeping discussion reasonable and preventing overpowered abilities from dominating the discussion. We have enumerated that the Secondary Ability should be no stronger than the Primary, and we expect the discussion leaders to uphold that policy. Since we have so many checks on the process, I don't believe in restricting discussion by policy fiat. Our leadership structure forces Abilities to go through two independent discussion leaders and numerous polls before being chosen. Therefore, I support placing the bulk of the ability banning power in the hands of the Ability Leader, Topic Leader, and poll voters rather than the PRC. During Cawmodore's process, the Ability Leader placed a gag order on some abilities so that more powerful abilities would not dominate the process. I believe that is a much more effective method of deciding abilities than an extensive banlist. But enough about that, here are my positions (sorry for stealing your formatting, jas!).

Any arguments over the placement of Stance Change, Parental Bond, and Gale Wings
All are signature and all are good, to varying degrees.

Stance Change- Stance Change is a forme-changing ability, so it already has precedent for its banning in Zen Mode. Since Stance Change changes a Pokemon's forme in a way that also requires a signature move obviously designed for one Pokemon, it would be poor optics and poor design to allow Stance Change in any stage of the process. Furthermore, the type of leverage Stance Change would give us almost inherently breaks the CAP it would be on; with Stance Change, we could literally alter a Pokemon's stats (and possibly more?) with just one move. Combining a (currently) signature ability with a signature move has been against CAP policy for over a year, and I see no reason to revise our policy on in-battle forme changes. Ban Stance Change in all steps of the process.

Parental Bond- I agree with jas61292 on this Ability. Parental Bond exists solely to make a Pokemon more powerful, but it isn't a concept-destroying Ability nor does it marginalize a step in the process. Parental Bond, although it is ridiculously powerful, is not entirely better than other allowed abilities such as Huge Power or Speed Boost. It is entirely possible to balance Parental Bond on a CAP as well; the only Pokemon that has it in OU also has 105/100/100 bulk, 100 Speed, and 125 Attack. Even then, it takes great moves like Sucker Punch and Power-Up Punch to push Mega Kangaskhan on the brink of brokenness. Parental Bond is possible to balance, but clearly one of the best abilities in the game. It is a free Choice Band, after all, and combining this Ability with an item like Choice Band may easily push any Parental Bond CAP over the edge. However, we can be responsible with an ability this powerful, and to nix it from the discussion list seems too overbearing. I support banning Parental Bond as a Secondary Ability, but allowing it for a primary.

Gale Wings- Gale Wings is a very interesting Ability. There are a plethora of Physical, Special, and Status-based Flying attacks, many of which could lead to interesting scenarios when combined with Gale Wings. We have already made a Pokemon with great bulk and Prankster Roost, and that was in the previous generation. Pokemon have only gotten stronger since, and Game Freak has already given us the blueprint for a great Gale Wings user. There is so much intrigue with this Ability: Physical priority abuser, Special priority abuser, Gale Wings in conjunction with moves like Tailwind, Roost, Defog, etc. In fact, I'm not sure if Gale Wings even needs to be banned at all. We can show restraint with throwing every Flying-type toy in the box at a Gale Wings CAP. If a CAP were to only get one or two great Flying-type moves, it's entirely possible to see Gale Wings as a secondary option to a different Ability. For example, if a defensive CAP were only to get Roost, then Gale Wings would not be nearly as defining as it is on Talonflame. If a non-Flying type were to get it, then it might only be for an extra priority move to take out Scarfers. To be succinct, there are plenty of feasible situations where Gale Wings would be strictly inferior to another Ability. Do not ban Gale Wings in any context.

Whether to ban Protean in Primary Ability or not (currently banned in only Secondary)
Protean is not a signature ability (Kecleon has it too)
However, is it so defining it subverts the CAP process, for example by rendering Typing far less important than it otherwise would be?

I think we can all agree that Protean is not a ridiculous ability. Greninja might be the most perfectly tailored Pokemon for Protean, but imagine Protean on a Pokemon with far less than 122 base Speed. Greninja is great because it can hit anything it wants with a STAB attack, including U-Turn, and change its type before the opponent can attack. It will likely be one of the two or three fastest (non-Mega) Pokemon in the tier. Protean is based almost entirely on Speed, and that's something Greninja's got. On some CAPs, Protean wouldn't be all that useful. However, I still support banning Protean as a Secondary Ability. The Secondary Ability stage is after stats while the primary ability is before stats, and Protean's usefulness is almost entirely predicated on the Speed stat. It is entirely possible to suggest a high Speed stat after Protean loses as a Primary Ability to set it up as a Secondary. Protean is already on thin ice as an Ability because of how it marginalizes the Typing Discussion, but I don't necessarily see that as a problem if it's for the greater good of the project. For example, could you imagine how much better Krilowatt would have fulfilled its concept with Protean? Protean is far too interesting an Ability to leave off entirely, but it needs to be limited to Primary only. Allow Protean as a Primary Ability, but not as a Secondary Ability.

Whether to unban Snow Cloak and Sand Veil across the board or not (or in between)
These abilities are no longer banned in OU with Hail and Sand being limited in duration

Unban these abilities across the board. There is no argument in favor of their brokenness with permanent auto-weather a thing of the past, and there's plenty of precedent for allowing luck-based Abilities. Serene Grace is allowed, Harvest was allowed and actually implemented on a CAP (remember that it's an entirely luck-based ability outside of the Sun), and plenty of other abilities are allowed. Snow Cloak and Sand Veil could be invaluable assets for a weather-based concept, but they certainly are not nearly as effective as they were in Generations 4 and 5. I'm not going to soap-box about how they shouldn't have been banned in the first place, but now that they're not banned in OU, they shouldn't be banned in CAP.

Whether to ban Aerilate, Pixilate, and Refrigerate in Primary Ability, Secondary Ability, or not at all
Aerilate and Refrigerate are signatures, while Pixilate is not
Do these abilities reach a power threshold to be considered ban-worthy in Secondary Ability?
Should Normalize be lumped in with these somehow?

First of all, Aerilate, Pixilate, and Refrigerate are retypes of each other. Although Aerilate and Refrigerate are signature Abilities, they are Skill Swappable retypes of an ability that is not a signature Ability. It's not reasonable to treat Aerilate and Pixilate as signature abilities. They definitely should not be banned outright; the only ability banned solely because of its power is Shadow Tag and there are plenty of abilities better than Refrigerate, Aerilate and Pixilate that don't come close to the power level of Shadow Tag. However, it's hard to underestimate how powerful these abilities are. They turn a poor attacking type into a very good attacking type (Ice, Flying, and Fairy are all very good attacking types), and provide a recoil-free Life Orb boost on top of it. There's no rule saying that the Pokemon with Refrigerate, Pixilate, and Aerilate have to be Ice-, Fairy-, or Flying-type, meaning that these Abilities could practically add a third STAB to a CAP as well. I'm on the fence about banning these abilities as Secondary Abilities. I struggle to think of a situation in which Aerilate, Pixilate, and Refrigerate make good secondary options. Either ban these as Secondary Abilities or not at all.

Whether to reconsider the position of abilities we previously reached consensus on that were controversial, such as Arena Trap, Magnet Pull, Skill Link, Scrappy, Serene Grace, Super Luck, Sniper Huge Power, Pure Power, Speed Boost, Tangled Feet, and maybe a few others I missed
A note to remember is the positions listed above on these (banned or not) were all reached by consensus only about a year ago. The PRC is largely made up of the same people, so it would be preferable to not restart arguments over "hax" abilities, for example, unless there is a new and very persuasive argument not already seen in the linked thread at the top of this OP.

If there's one ability I'd take issue with on this list, it's Serene Grace. Serene Grace is a fine ability, but it's not nearly as good as Arena Trap, Magnet Pull, Pure Power or anything else on the Secondary Ability banlist. Arena Trap single-handedly pushed Dugtrio, a likely NU bottomfeeder without this Ability, into OU last gen and two out of the past three Generations. Magnet Pull has made Magneton a solid Pokemon to use in OU for two out of the past three Generations. Pure Power and Huge Power need no explanation. Serene Grace isn't enough to move a Pokemon up one tier; it's only enough to make a Pokemon somewhat substantially better in the tier that it's in. Even a Pokemon nearly perfectly designed to abuse Serene Grace, Jirachi, is plenty good without the Ability and certainly not broken with it. I struggle to comprehend why Serene Grace is being included in a list that includes Drizzle, Drought, Magic Bounce, Magic Guard, and Prankster among others. Look at the Abilities we're discussing for inclusion in that banlist. Parental Bond, Gale Wings, Protean, etc. Serene Grace is not half as good as those Abilities. Allow Serene Grace as a Secondary Ability.

What if anything to do about signature abilities that weren't banned overall in BW for various reasons as well as new signature abilities
Existing signature abilities that carried over from BW that are available to CAPs at some stage are Normalize, Stall, Pure Power, Toxic Boost, Flower Gift, Flare Boost, Heatproof, Mummy, and Iron Barbs
New signature abilities (not already tentatively placed somewhere above) include Bulletproof, Flower Veil, Aroma Veil, Sweet Veil, and Strong Jaw
What course of action do you recommend with Signature abilities? Should we continue largely banning them?

Signature Abilities that are not intrinsically tied to a Pokemon do not merit special protection. In plenty of cases these signature abilities aren't even the only ability on the Pokemon, so it's hard to consider abilities like Normalize and Toxic Boost "signature" when the former isn't even the best ability on the Pokemon that gets it. I do not believe it is poor optics to give a Pokemon something like Flare Boost when that Ability isn't particularly overpowered. None of the abilities mentioned above are that dominant with the exception of Pure Power, which will be mentioned in the following paragraph.

The only one of those Abilities that I would ban from all discussion is Pure Power, as Pure Power is entirely dominated from an optics perspective by Huge Power. Although giving a Pokemon another Pokemon's signature ability isn't bad optics, it is not particularly good optics either. Pure Power and Huge Power are entirely clones of each other barring some semantics with Role Play and Skill Swap (IIRC), neither of which are relevant enough in the OU metagame or any metagame to justify using Pure Power over Huge Power or vice versa. Since Pure Power is a signature ability while Huge Power is not, Pure Power is entirely superfluous. Ban Pure Power from all discussion.

Should Fairy Aura and Dark Aura be banned?
While Aura Break is truly noncompetitive in the OU meta that lacks either Fairy Aura or Dark Aura, these abilities in themselves are neither broken nor noncompetitive
Unlike other Legendaries' abilities, they aren't just renamed abilities (like Turboblaze and Terravolt being Mold Breaker) nor are they as distinctive as signature things like Multitype or Bad Dreams.
They don't exactly fit under any particular banning requirement other than "signature ability" but even then we haven't banned many signature abilities, as noted above.
They are however potential optics nightmares

They certainly aren't overpowered, and they certainly are optics nightmares. I'd suggest leaving these to TL/TLT/voter discretion, but I'd like to hear an argument where Dark Aura and Fairy Aura are so important that they merit breaking the Legendary Signature Ability policy. Don't ban these unless they're considered too much of an optics problem for their own good.

An Addendum:
fat Birkal said: ↑
With this proposal, we're also going to move ahead with the following credential:
All secondary abilities will be considered "secondary" to the primary ability. In essence, they will either be worse than or equal to the primary ability.
This is something that was brought up numerous times in this thread and on #cap, and I think it's a solid rule that will help guide discussions. It's obvious that there's no good way to quantify this rule, so it's something the Ability Leader and Topic Leader will have to contemplate for each specific CAP; this distinction will be left for them to make during the CAP process.
This was decided upon as a guiding policy last time through. However, looking back at the OPs of Secondary ability discussion on Malaconda and Cawmodore, no note was made. This is because we left it as a distinction for each TL and Ability TLT to make at their own discretion.

The result of this in the case of Cawmodore was an ability in Volt Absorb that you absolutely could argue ended up outshining the primary Intimidate. Indeed it saw much higher usage in the playtest and sees much higher usage in the CAP Meta today. Meanwhile, Volt Absorb was even less troubling than some other suggested abilities could have been.

In Malaconda's case, the losing options from the Primary poll were instantly disallowed by TL/TLT discretion, along with Intimidate and Regenerator. We ended up with an ability that was most definitely not on par with Harvest.

So we should now reevaluate this policy in light of two different paths taken and decide on whether to make a concrete actionable plan (not necessarily the one from Malaconda of banning losing Primary options) to add to policy on Secondary Abilities or to leave it up to discretion as is. Any and all policy recommendations about this are appreciated, since I have not managed to develop one with which I am pleased.

Cawmodore and Malaconda's Secondary Abilities were handled differently, but I do not see that as a drawback to the process or a slight against either of them. We knowingly elect leaders with different philosophies on various issues. Malaconda's TL had a much more minimalist view than Cawmodore's, and that's not a criticism of either TL or either Secondary Ability. The Secondary Ability should definitely not be better than or overshadow the Primary Ability, but there's definitely precedent set by Game Freak where one Pokemon has two equally useful abilities.

Did Volt Absorb overshadow Intimidate in Cawmodore's playtest? Maybe a little, but both abilities were used plenty and both were used by successful ladder players. In the future, we should strive to have the Secondary Ability complement the Primary instead of overshadow it, but I don't think Policy Review is the place to set immutable rules. This addendum will accomplish much more by formally recommending future Topic Leaders and Ability Leaders to keep in mind the proper roles of Primary and Secondary Abilities.

 

[Bughouse]

While I certainly recognize the points raised in favor of not outright banning Parental Bond, there seems to be a misconception that it's merely a Choice Band without move restrictions. It's actually both a Choice Band and Choice Specs without move restrictions. It is two +1 boosts, effectively more or less the same as the +2 boost granted by Huge/Pure Power. Both are abilities that purely boost power, which we can do in the stats stage regardless.

If you are in favor of banning one, it would only seem natural to ban the other too. It is true that Parental Bond has additional interesting mechanics that Pure/Huge Power doesn't have when it comes to beating Substitutes and using Power-up Punch or Seismic Toss, but (imo) we already know about this quite well from Kangaskhan in the limited time we've been able to use it. Pretty much the only interesting uses I could imagine for Parental Bond to explore would be Flame Charge and Acid Spray, and even these are questionable and more or less require a polljump.

 

[jas61292]

Pretty much the only interesting uses I could imagine for Parental Bond to explore would be Flame Charge and Acid Spray, and even these are questionable and more or less require a polljump.

Not to beat on this point any more than I already have, but I just want to say that this is a very unfair analysis. I could say the same thing about half of all abilities that exist. There is almost no interesting use for Technician that hasn't really been covered. And even if there is, by its very nature it would have to be a poll jump. But does that mean Technician is an awful ability for CAP that should be banned? Certainly not.

I think people really need to make sure they are looking at bans from the right perspective. We didn't put in a ban list to prevent us from overpowering our Pokemon. We decided on a ban list because there are certain abilities that can serve to cause massive problems with the CAP process. While the secondary banlist is filled with things that are simply too powerful to be choosing if they are not the focus ability of the project, the primary ability banlist itself was only for those things which could really ruin the CAP process itself. If an ability does not meet those kind of process altering standards, than whether or not it fits within the limits of power acceptable for a given concept should be a decision for the TL and Ability Leader. We are not here to make decisions on what is good or bad for a CAP Pokemon. We are here to decide what is good or bad for the CAP process.

Now, that is not to say that you cannot have concerns over legitimate things when it comes to this ability. DarkSlay brings up a good point in comparison to Huge Power and how it affects stats. However, I would argue that this is true about any ability that affects move power. Sheer Force, Tough Claws, Strong Jaw, Iron Fist... even Drought or Drizzle. All of these give significant power boosts beyond what the stats stage would imply. Sure, Huge Power is more generic, but its not like we would give Iron Fist and then not give punching moves. If something gets a power boosting ability, it will have the capability to utilize it, and we will have the ability to customize our creation around it. I can't really see how Huge Power or Parental Bond is anything special in this regard at all.

Overall though, I'm making this post because I get the feeling that a lot of people are trying to pass arbitrary power based judgments about individual Pokemon, rather than policy judgements. And those, in my opinion, are really not the PRCs judgements to make.

 

[DHR-107]

The only abilities I'm not sure on are Huge Power/Parental Bond. It basically subverts parts of our process because of how it affects our attacking stats and stats distributions. It's only with mega evos that a mon with more than 60 base attack has had Huge Power (Mega Medi/Mega Mawile). I think that should be a precedent we stick with.

Parental Bond comes under the same rules for me, its Mega Exclusive (even though it can be Skill Swapped etc) and it subverts how we look at stats because it gives such a huge power boost.

All of the others I am fine with, Aerilate/Pixelate are fine and the only other one I am on the fence about is Protean. Protean basically totally disregards our typing stage totally because it's only balanced by stats and how we build the mon, our first type is totally irrelevant to the discussion because it can be any type it needs to depending on the movepool. If we decide to use Protean, I think we need to be incredibly careful during its movepool creation stage. Galw Wings I have no problems with either being in either list, I think it is tempered by the fact it only effects Flying Moves which we can tightly control through the movepool selection
Whether to unban Snow Cloak and Sand Veil across the board or not (or in between)
I think these should be banned/unbanned whenever OU ban/unban them. Honestly, I don't know about these abilities, they bring an amount of luck into the game which I don't think CaP should be supporting even if the abilities are legal in that respective tier or not.
What if anything to do about signature abilities that weren't banned overall in BW for various reasons as well as new signature abilities
Existing signature abilities that carried over from BW that are available to CAPs at some stage are Normalize, Stall, Pure Power, Toxic Boost, Flower Gift, Flare Boost, Heatproof, Mummy, and Iron Barbs
New signature abilities (not already tentatively placed somewhere above) include Bulletproof, Flower Veil, Aroma Veil, Sweet Veil, and Strong Jaw
What course of action do you recommend with Signature abilities? Should we continue largely banning them?

Add a rewording including the banning (Or Primary Ability Only) of Pure Power (as it is a direct clone of Huge Power anyway), all the rest should be fair game imo should the Pokemon require/need it to be effective. Stall should be moved to the Flavour only list imo, its not competitively viable unless you fill the move pool with moves like Payback/Avalanche. Flower Gift should be banned as it is hard coded to Cherrim as other people have said; but most of the others should be fair game.
Should Fairy Aura and Dark Aura be banned?
Yes. They have no equivalent in OU (making Zygardes ability null anyway) and they really only come into their own in Doubles and Triples.

 

[DougJustDoug]

Of course, we should ban abilities that subvert the CAP process. I think we all agree with that general objective. The devil is in the definition of what is "subversive" or not.

I agree with jas that an ability being "too powerful" is not a justification for banning it from CAP. That is a big reason I really don't like describing these abilities as "Banned", even though they are disallowed from CAP steps. The word "Banned" is just too commonly associated with the connotation of "Overpowered" or "Uber", and tends to make it hard to keep discussions like these on track. I prefer to use the term "Exceptional", as in "They are the exception to the norm". Exceptional abilities can be "good", "bad", or just plain "weird". It's not about the power level of the ability.

Because CAP projects are built step by step, it is necessary that each step have a certain measure of control and predictablity. If a CAP project can be turned upside down on a single step, that's not good for the project. Steps leading up to to the potentially disruptive event will be altered with unstated motives and backroom dealings (since poll jumping rules prevent the future event from being discussed outright). The disruptive step itself will be a shitstorm of arguing and disagreement. And every step after the disruption will be problematic as the project struggles to deal with the aftereffect. As CAP history has shown, no project step has more potential for major project disruption than Abilities. That's why we ban exceptional abilities. NOT to prevent CAP pokemon from being overpowered -- we do it to prevent haphazard project execution.

So, when I'm looking at the XY abilities, I'm looking at the potential for project disruption. And BTW, the fear of members complaining "OMG this ability is too powerful!" is NOT a "disruption" I care about much at all. I DO care about project optics, but more on that on some specific abilities later.

Since Ability is chosen after Typing, I think we should ban the abilities that are so intimately tied to typing that would be subversive. Protean is the biggie here. Once again, this isn't about the power of the ability. It's just that Protean completely redefines the concept of STAB. And in the CAP process, we all assume we are choosing STAB when we pick the Typing. If we allow Protean on the slate, we are basically overruling a major aspect of the previous Typing decision by the community. I can't envision how Protean could be picked without a huge outcry that we should go back and revisit the typing phase, because it so fundamentally alters what the typing means. I think Protean is a cool ability, and not at all overpowered -- but it just doesn't fit in a project where the pokemon is built step-by-step.

I think type-centric abilities like Aerilate, Pixelate, and Refrigerate have the potential to be somewhat disruptive, if they are chosen for a pokemon without the commonly assumed base typing (for example, if we put Refrigerate on a non-Ice pokemon). But I don't see this as something we need to deal with in the banlists. I personally see it as highly unlikely to occur (CAP flavor purists hate aberrations like that), and if it did occur, it would be a minor disruption at most.

I see Parental Bond as a more exceptional case of ability like Huge Power and Pure Power, but I'm not entirely clear on how many aspects of the CAP project it impacts. I see Parental Bond throwing a big monkey wrench into our stats steps, and probably our movepool steps too. Stats are chosen after the primary ability is set, so it's not like we couldn't deal with it specifically there. We can deal with Huge Power too. But, Huge Power is nothing more than a decision to make the Attack stat twice as large, which means choosing Huge Power is basically a Stat Step masquerading as an Ability Step. That's why Huge Power/Pure Power should be banned. Parental Bond is similar, but even more disruptive because it redefines so many aspects of the pokemon. It mechanically alters almost EVERYTHING the pokemon does in battle. I need to think more about it, and I look forward to seeing more discussion here. But right now, I see Parental Bond as AT LEAST as problematic for our process as Huge/Pure Power, and most likely much more.

As for "Signature Abilities", I tend to think we should only avoid signature abilities of Legendaries. This is mostly about optics, IMO. Yes, the supposed signature abilities of non-legends can cause optics problems too. But my personal take is that legendaries are the PR hotspots we need to avoid.

 

[Bull of Heaven]

Just a quick post for now. Please note that I have yet to play a single game of XY OU.

Any arguments over the placement of Stance Change, Parental Bond, and Gale Wings
All are signature and all are good, to varying degrees.

I don't really care about "signatures" except in the cases of legendaries. Non-legendary signatures come and go all the time; legendary ones tend to be kept exclusive for a while, have a more exclusive flavour to them and have bigger implications for options. As for the abilities themselves, Stance Change is complicated and does weird things to stats, so it's an obvious candidate to ban. Gale Wings seems fine to me; it's so dependent on the movepool stage that it hardly seems inherently damaging at all. I would allow it for at least the primary ability, and maybe even secondary. Parental Bond is more problematic, since its main function effectively undermines the stats stage, but it does have one niche that I think is worth allowing; a single Power-Up Punch or Flame Charge becomes the equivalent of a Taunt-proof Swords Dance or Agility. Allow Parental Bond, but only as a primary ability.

Whether to ban Protean in Primary Ability or not (currently banned in only Secondary)
Protean is not a signature ability (Kecleon has it too)
However, is it so defining it subverts the CAP process, for example by rendering Typing far less important than it otherwise would be?

Ban Protean entirely. Doug is right about what it does to the typing stage, and granting STAB on everything would likely have undesired effects on stats as well. It isn't an appropriate ability for our process.

Whether to unban Snow Cloak and Sand Veil across the board or not (or in between)
These abilities are no longer banned in OU with Hail and Sand being limited in duration

Honestly, I doubt that this even matters. These are not abilities that should ever be given to a CAP, and I think we all know that. If it were solely up to me, I think I would keep them banned, but I'm fine with unbanning them, since I doubt that it will make any practical difference.

Whether to ban Aerilate, Pixilate, and Refrigerate in Primary Ability, Secondary Ability, or not at all
Aerilate and Refrigerate are signatures, while Pixilate is not
Do these abilities reach a power threshold to be considered ban-worthy in Secondary Ability?

I think these abilities are absolutely fine. This isn't a case where I'm concerned about signatures, and all that they do is broaden a Pokemon's options to an extent that can be perfectly acceptable, or even helpful, in a particular project. Suppose, for example, that we make a physical Fairy and want a better STAB attack than Play Rough. Or maybe we'll need a Flying STAB that's better than Air Slash and more reliable than Hurricane. This kind of problem is exactly why we took the drastic steps of giving custom moves to Stratagem and Kitsunoh, and it's honestly a relief to finally have what looks like an acceptable solution. These abilities are in no way objectively bad for the project, and should be allowed as primary abilities. I'm not sure about the secondary ability stage, but my hunch is that these are too powerful for that.

What if anything to do about signature abilities that weren't banned overall in BW for various reasons as well as new signature abilities
Existing signature abilities that carried over from BW that are available to CAPs at some stage are Normalize, Stall, Pure Power, Toxic Boost, Flower Gift, Flare Boost, Heatproof, Mummy, and Iron Barbs
New signature abilities (not already tentatively placed somewhere above) include Bulletproof, Flower Veil, Aroma Veil, Sweet Veil, and Strong Jaw
What course of action do you recommend with Signature abilities? Should we continue largely banning them?

I've answered this already.

Should Fairy Aura and Dark Aura be banned?
While Aura Break is truly noncompetitive in the OU meta that lacks either Fairy Aura or Dark Aura, these abilities in themselves are neither broken nor noncompetitive
Unlike other Legendaries' abilities, they aren't just renamed abilities (like Turboblaze and Terravolt being Mold Breaker) nor are they as distinctive as signature things like Multitype or Bad Dreams.
They don't exactly fit under any particular banning requirement other than "signature ability" but even then we haven't banned many signature abilities, as noted above.
They are however potential optics nightmares

Yes, ban them. Legendaries are different in terms of optics.

Ban: Stance Change, Protean, Fairy Aura, Dark Aura, Aura Break
Primary Only: Parental Bond, Aerilate, Pixilate, Refrigerate, maybe Gale Wings
Allow: Non-legendary signatures, maybe Gale Wings
Doesn't Matter: Snow Cloak, Sand Veil

 

[Bughouse]

OK so I've been delayed on this by quite a bit, but it seems everyone that has wanted to has gotten their word in. It seems to me that the following lists can be decided on thusfar:

Primary Ability banlist

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Pure Power
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Run Away
Symbiosis
Telepathy

Secondary Ability banlist

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Pure Power
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Drizzle
Drought
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Parental Bond
Prankster
Protean
Sand Stream
Serene Grace
Snow Warning
Speed Boost

Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Run Away
Telepathy

Flavor Ability banlist

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Pure Power
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Drizzle
Drought
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Parental Bond
Prankster
Protean
Sand Stream
Serene Grace
Snow Warning
Speed Boost

The well-sorted-out:

Fairy Aura and Dark Aura have been banned entirely.
Stance Change has been banned entirely.
Pure Power and Huge Power are now banned entirely (I'm going with Doug's well-worded explanation: "choosing Huge Power is basically a Stat Step masquerading as an Ability Step")
For this reason, I have banned Fur Coat entirely too, since it follows the same logic as Pure Power and Huge Power.
Aerilate, Pixilate, and Refrigerate are now unbanned.
Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are now unbanned.

The big ones still up for debate:

Parental Bond and Protean are now banned in Secondary, but remain up for discussion on whether or not to allow them as the primary ability.
Gale Wings has not been banned anywhere. DetroitLolcat's arguments on this are important, in my opinion, so I want more discussion on that from those that think it should be banned in Secondary.

Smaller issues:

Due to its hard-codedness, I'm going to leave Flower Gift up for grabs. It seems to me this one may need an executive decision, since the arguments are purely philosophical about using hard-coded abilities.
Serene Grace was mentioned for unbanning. I want additional opinions on that, since it falls in the same general "luck" category as Sand Veil and Snow Cloak and many other unbanned "luck" abilities.

An additional thing to note about any unbannings is that we previously made the banlist for flavor abilities be anything banned from Secondary. Of course, we can change this, and that is something to consider. I'm fine leaving this to the TL discretion since anything like the currently unbanned Gale Wings for example would either be obviously competitive in many contexts or not at all, depending on the movepool. The flavor banlist doesn't need to be comprehensive in my opinion since we have a strong police system in the form of the TL, TLT, and Mods, but feel free to raise a disagreement. It's a matter of dealing with people who suggest abilities that might suggest abilities that are clearly not flavor on a particular CAP, even if they weren't considered bannable in Secondary. It could be considered distracting, I suppose.




As to the addendum on policy about secondary abilities, few people posted here specifically. I've talked to various people on IRC about this though, and we seem to have a divide. Some, like jas61292 are quite clear in wanting a second ability that is obviously secondary, while others, such as DetroitLolcat, see great value in allowing a second ability to be equally strong to the primary, even at the risk of it outshining the first, as long as they appear equal at face value.

The devil is always in the details, which is to say what constitutes an "equal" ability? This is why I brought up the topic. I'd appreciate it a lot if more people could make written arguments about their thoughts on this, so I'm not relying on IRC. It's a pretty important policy decision.

 

[Nyktos]

oh look things to talk about that arent mega evolution :o

Parental Bond
I think this belongs with Huge Power. The magnitude of the boost is smaller, yes, but we've already seen that it's enough to push a Pokémon to Uber if it has a decent Attack stat, and this one also affects special moves and Seismic Toss. (Plus it's good against Substitute and stuff.) Like Pure/Huge Power, this ability is distinguished by being an indiscriminate power boost, as opposed to something like Iron Fist that only affects a subset of the moves a Pokémon is likely to receive. Given that we've now decided Iron Fist is okay and Huge Power is not, I think that that's got to be the major distinction to be made in deciding what counts as "doing the job of stats in the ability stage" and what doesn't. Ban it.

Protean
This one I'm not certain about. Previously I supported secondary-banning it only, but I think some of the arguments in favour of a full ban have been fairly convincing. While I still believe that it doesn't completely invalidate the typing stage, it certainly does lessen its importance significantly, while also putting a ton of pressure on the movepool stage as every coverage type must now be evaluated defensively as well as offensively. I'm not sure if it's "process-destroying" as some have called it but it certainly does mess with the project in some strange ways. As such my inclination is now toward a full ban, but I'm interested to hear (in thread or on IRC) if someone can come up with some interesting ways to use it that don't end up just being "better Greninja". If there's a good enough concept for Protean it might be worth allowing it.

Gale Wings
I agree with DetroitLolcat that this ability has a lot of potential to be used in many different ways (including on Pokémon very unlike Talonflame). I would definitely never support a full ban. I think the best argument for keeping it primary-only is that it's a very noticeable ability, being not only signature to a highly prominent OU Pokémon but also the main reason why that Pokémon is so prominent. However, being noticeable is not the same as actually being relevant, and I think we can easily make a CAP where it doesn't overshadow the primary. If the ultimate decision on secondary abilities is that they can be "equal" there's no reason at all to ban this one. Even if it's decided that they must always be worse, I think this one is probably safe to allow. Obviously if we were every to make something like a Flying-type Belly Drum user (hmmm...) we'd never consider this for secondary (or maybe even for primary) but in the abstract it's got nowhere near the power level of most of the other abilities that are secondary-banned. (It's probably about the same as Serene Grace, but I'm getting to that one.) This is fine as fully allowed.

Flower Gift
You all know how I feel about this one by now. Nuke it from orbit.

Serene Grace
This one is interesting, because while a lot of Smogoners dislike it due to an association with Jirachi and Togekiss, it's not really a hax ability in the way that Sand Veil is. It's certainly entwined with random chances, but the whole point of it is that it lets you use "haxxy" moves without relying (as much) on the dice favouring you. It's normally used to turn 30-70 chances into 60-40 ones so it does increase variance, but it's not adding any hax potential that wouldn't already be there, unlike the evasion abilities. I don't think anyone could actually argue that it's in the same power category as the likes of Drizzle and Magic Bounce, and not every Pokémon that has it actually makes much use of it at all: look at Chansey and Blissey. I'd argue that Serene Grace Blissey is quite comparable Inflitrator Malaconda in being a viable-ish and interesting option but clearly much worse than the other one. (And note that Blissey's "primary" ability is fully legal as a secondary in CAP.) Let's also keep in mind that we are not obligated to give a CAP with Serene Grace any 30% flinch moves. Unban it.

I'll do a thing about secondary abilities at some point, either as a new post or an edited-in addendum to this one. Right now I'm out of time, so I'll just say I'm in support of allowing them to be "equal".

 

[nyttyn]

Gale WingsAt first I was afraid of the ability. I was petrified. Kept thinking CAP couldn't live with Gale Wings by its side. But I spent so many nights thinking about how it did me no wrong, and I grew strong. And I learned that honestly Gale Wings is a pretty neat ability with a number of potential uses that could keep it from becoming just Talonflame 2.0. Though it will put some stess on the movepool depending on when it's selected, and it can potentially cause distractions by virtue of PRIORITY BRAVE BIRD, the fact it can fulfill a number of roles (due to a plethora of moves of varying power existing in the Flying-type, as well as Tailwind) leads me to believe the move is fine as fully allowed.

Protean
Greninja is basically optimized to use this. I honestly cannot think of a single concept that wouldn't just be Greninja 2.0 with this. Ban Entirely.

Parental Bond
I know I'm a bit late to the party here, but: This is just a raw 1.5 Multiplier to every single attack the Pokemon makes. It can have unintended consequences by enabling a Special or Physical set that would otherwise be nonviable, and it doesn't add much interesting aside from double proccing some moves, which really is only truly interesting with a very small handful of moves that have a 100% activation rate, which Mega Kangaskhan already explored to the logical extreme (Power-up Punch). Ghenghis Bhan it, Parental Bond adds nothing interesting, and can easily have unintended consequences.

Whether to unban Snow Cloak and Sand Veil across the board or not (or in between)
Late to the party, but: Make them flavor abilities. They aren't reliable enough to be used as a primary or secondary, and by their very nature of utter unreliability should not be chosen as a primary or secondary.

Whether to ban Aerilate, Pixilate, and Refrigerate in Primary Ability, Secondary Ability, or not at all
Once again, late to the party, but: I'm not seeing how we could possibly explore these abilities in a way that Mega-Gardevoir, Sylveon, Mega-Pinsir, and ice-rock dinosaur (I have no idea how to spell that name) haven't already completely covered in every way imaginable. They're simply generic power boosters that can have unintentional consequences, and are Signature/Pesudo-Signature to boot. Ban completely.

Flower Gift
You all know how I feel about this one by now. Nuke it from orbit.

Serene Grace
This one is interesting, because while a lot of Smogoners dislike it due to an association with Jirachi and Togekiss, it's not really a hax ability in the way that Sand Veil is. It's certainly entwined with random chances, but the whole point of it is that it lets you use "haxxy" moves without relying (as much) on the dice favouring you. It's normally used to turn 30-70 chances into 60-40 ones so it does increase variance, but it's not adding any hax potential that wouldn't already be there, unlike the evasion abilities. I don't think anyone could actually argue that it's in the same power category as the likes of Drizzle and Magic Bounce, and not every Pokémon that has it actually makes much use of it at all: look at Chansey and Blissey. I'd argue that Serene Grace Blissey is quite comparable Inflitrator Malaconda in being a viable-ish and interesting option but clearly much worse than the other one. (And note that Blissey's "primary" ability is fully legal as a secondary in CAP.) Let's also keep in mind that we are not obligated to give a CAP with Serene Grace any 30% flinch moves. Unban it.

As for the new Signature Abilities: They're actually pretty interesting so I'd say don't universally ban them.

To go into detail:

Bulletproof

This is an amazing ability that provides a lot of potential switches. It can be situational, but holy hell I can see this getting serious mileage on a variety of pokemon roles. Primary Only.

Flower Veil

This is just a Floges-specific Clear Body that's even more specific in usage. Ban Entirely, no sense in robbing Florges' flavor when we already have a much better ability to use.

Aroma Veil

This actually has potential uses from both a primary and secondary ability stand point, albeit somewhat niche and not incredibly powerful ones. Flavor-ban, allow in Primary and Secondary.

Sweet Veil

See: Flower Veil. In the same boat as it's just Insomnia. Ban Entirely

Strong Jaw

This is pretty much just a different slant on Iron Fist. I honestly don't know what to make of this ability, but I'm leaning towards Primary Only. Don't feel strong enough about it to bold though.

 

[Nyktos]

ok two weeks later here's that post on secondary abilities

I support allowing a secondary ability that is (nearly) as good as the primary, provided that there's a reasonable justification for doing so. While CAPs along these lines have been problematic in the past, I don't think that it goes against our philosophy or anything to build a CAP that's meant to be versatile or unpredictable, and having multiple viable abilities is useful in that case. It is quite true that the majority of Pokémon have only one viable ability, but it's far from unheard of for one to have two. (On the other hand, it's extremely rare for a Pokémon to have three good abilities, so I don't mind that we don't do that.) I'm not suggesting we should do this particularly often, but I don't think it's something that needs to be completely excluded from consideration.

Frankly, if we take the interpretation that the secondary ability has to be absolutely worse than the primary, we may as well just have two flavour abilities. I recall arguing about this on IRC during CAP 5: what purpose did Infiltrator serve on Malaconda? Practically none. Yes, the ability was vaguely viable on Choice Band sets, but (in gen 5) it's so marginal that I can't imagine those sets being significantly less successful than they were if they'd been stuck with the effectively null ability that Harvest is without a berry. Besides that, the Choice Band sets were never what we wanted Malaconda to be primarily doing anyway. Infiltrator did absolutely nothing to advance either Malaconda's original concept or the sun-supporter direction that we'd decided upon. It was basically added just for the hell of it. That's a bad way to choose an ability, but it's more or less the only way if we can't have a secondary that actually gives the primary some competition. You only get to use one ability, after all.

On the other hand, we got Volt Absorb Cawmodore which was arguably better than the Intimidate variety. This has been pointed to as a failure of the process since it violated our principle, but I think it's the principle that's at fault there if Infiltrator Malaconda (virtually useless, did nothing for the concept) is considered a success while Volt Absorb Cawmodore (very much helped achieve the concept) is a failure. Yes, the secondary is meant to be secondary, but it's a bit silly to say the abilities stage was a failure but would have been a success if the abilities had been chosen in the reverse order.

I think what's important is to look at why it's bad to make the secondary overshadow the primary. To me, there are two reasons. The first is to avoid the Weak Armor Aurumoth effect (where we compensated for a bad ability by giving it high physical bulk, thus making the sets with better abilities even scarier). Allowing the secondary ability to be roughly equal to the primary does that just fine; it's only a problem when the secondary is much much better. The second reason is to avoid derailing the process by picking something that pushes in another direction. This is an issue even if the ability is worse, but is a much bigger problem if the distracting ability is more competitively viable. However if that's the issue we're trying to solve by making the secondary ability have to be weaker, why not do it directly instead?

My proposal is this: The primary ability may help establish a direction for the CAP. The secondary ability must push in the same direction. (This is in addition to the "less than or equal" principle.) That is, on most CAPs the secondary ability should be useful in roughly the same contexts as the primary ability. If we've decided we want to make a versatile Pokémon, it may be the case that the two abilities go on different kinds of sets, but the secondary ability should be fit in the framework that's already been established by the preceding stages (not just primary ability, but concept assessment and stats as well). Another way to think about it is this: if the secondary ability does turn out better, we should still expect the CAP to turn out more or less the way we planned. With that restriction, I think "equal" secondary abilities are fine and much more interesting than bad ones.

 

[paintseagull]

I do like what Nyktos says in theory, but the more I think about it the more it seems problematic for our process. Unless we decide Primary and Secondary in the same step, having a Secondary ability that's more effective than the Primary means that we had to have stepped on the toes of the Primary discussion or its concluding vote, otherwise why wouldn't we have chosen it for Primary in the first place? It's an awkward back-step that we are trying to avoid when we ban things like Huge Power and Fur Coat and it messes up our process. If we wanted this to be possible on the final product without messing up the process and bulldozing Primary, I think we'd have to allow something like a proposal for two abilities in Primary discussion, which I'm not sure is feasible.

 

[Nyktos]

To be clear, we still shouldn't deliberately choose a secondary ability that clearly outclasses the primary. As you say, that's basically going back and saying we made the wrong choice for the primary, which is something that we should avoid. The primary ability should always be a viable option, and if the secondary ability is so much better that that isn't true, we've messed up. However, provided that reasonable justification is given for why a CAP needs two viable abilities, it should be okay to give it a secondary that is comparable in power level to the primary, and in that case it's not automatically a failure if the secondary turns out more popular as long as the primary sees use as well.

 

[paintseagull]

Oops, I meant to make this point part of my post: It seems extremely difficult to get two 'equal' abilities. Chances are, one will be preferred, if only slightly. Unless we explicitly vote down an option in Primary because we think it's overpowered (I guess a lot of people would have to comment on their vote to that effect), it mightn't be clear in Secondary discussion what qualifies as an equally good ability that we just happened to not pick as opposed to an ability that we shouldn't have because the community thought it was inappropriate. Forcing the Secondary ability to be lesser than Primary guards against that.

I could see allowing a duality of abilities in Primary working, but we'd definitely have to be careful about people pushing for it all the time and having this becoming the norm, because in reality it's super rare to get that on a competitive Pokemon.

 

[Birkal]

srk1214, let's run with this for our "ticklish" abilities. Note that this doesn't have to be perfect. If we run into a frustration with the Ability Banlist during CAP 1, it's easy enough for us to review it as a PRC and get things shifted around. There is no realistic way for us to troubleshoot every single problem an ability could cause us during the Policy Review, so let's just give it our best. The following list is a combination of community consensus and my "gut reaction" to how much an ability will martyr the CAP process.

Protean: Ban Entirely

Parental Bond: Ban Entirely

Gale Wings: Unban Entirely

Serene Grace: Unban Entirely

Doesn't really break the process... It's a great ability and gives a lot of flexibility for movepool abuse, but that comes after it in the CAP process. There isn't an issue here. I don't think it's necessarily a good ability for any given concept to have, but let's leave that subjectivity to the voters.​

Flower Gift: Unban Entirely

Note here that Zarel and I have discussed this ability on numerous occasions. Sure, it's hardcoded to Cherrim. But it's not on Pokemon Showdown, and it'd be pitifully easy for us to transfer the ability to any created Pokemon. It has significant competitive worth (despite the Drought nerf) and we could potentially find use for it. We aren't implementing CAPs into the game anytime soon, so Flower Gift will remain available.​

I think your list is fine outside of that. Once you have a final synthesized list, post it again srk1214. I'll give it an "approval" stamp and we'll be ready to rock and roll for CAP 1.

As a final note, I don't agree with Nyktos' proposal. It seems pretty subjective and hard to codify in a meaningful way into the CAP process. Some abilities are better than others, sure, but the purpose of an ability banlist is to ease the CAP process in terms of how we go about discussing abilities. Remember ability threads before we added them? I do; they were horrendous. Now the discussions are enjoyable and sensible, so I think we've achieved our goal. I don't see the point in making additional red tape to limit the process. So what if Volt Absorb is better on Cawmodore than Intimidate? We learned something from it, and that's arguably the goal of CAP. It's certainly not broken with both abilities, so I don't see the issue here.

 

[Nyktos]

As a final note, I don't agree with Nyktos' proposal. It seems pretty subjective and hard to codify in a meaningful way into the CAP process. Some abilities are better than others, sure, but the purpose of an ability banlist is to ease the CAP process in terms of how we go about discussing abilities. Remember ability threads before we added them? I do; they were horrendous. Now the discussions are enjoyable and sensible, so I think we've achieved our goal. I don't see the point in making additional red tape to limit the process. So what if Volt Absorb is better on Cawmodore than Intimidate? We learned something from it, and that's arguably the goal of CAP. It's certainly not broken with both abilities, so I don't see the issue here.

I'm not sure if you misunderstood me or if I'm missing exactly what part of my suggestion you disagree with, but I'm pretty sure we're mostly in agreement here. I'm defending Volt Absorb; what I want less of is Infiltrator, the tacked-on secondary ability that does nothing for the concept but doesn't break anything either because it's just not a good ability. My post wasn't really meant as a proposal of a new process rule, more a philosophical guideline on what exactly a secondary ability should be. That said it's not incredibly important to me that my suggestion is adopted as an official CAP philosophy or anything like that. What I really don't want is for it to be codified that secondary abilities must be unambiguously worse than the primary. Leaving the status quo (with the "or equal" wording) as it is is fine by me, in which case my post serves as simply one way to interpret the existing guidelines.

 

[jas61292]

So what if Volt Absorb is better on Cawmodore than Intimidate? We learned something from it, and that's arguably the goal of CAP. It's certainly not broken with both abilities, so I don't see the issue here.

I'm not really gonna argue much more on this point, as I don't think what we do now is necessarily bad, even if I do think it could be better. However, I take exception to the above point. Yeah, we learned something, and yes, that is what we are all about. So why make any restrictions? After all, no matter what we do we learn something. The key is whether what we learned is worth learning, with respect to the concept, and I would certainly argue that there are times, such as this one, where what we learn from an addition is not something worth learning within the scope of the project we are doing, and that is the entire point of having rules in the first place.

 

[Bughouse]

Looks good to me on the banlists, Birkal. The consensus on those remaining abilities seemed to me to be leaning in those respective directions too, but I wasn't sure whether to wrap it up yet or not. I'm more than happy to summarize it all one more time.

Primary Ability banlist

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Protean
Pure Power
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Run Away
Symbiosis
Telepathy

Secondary Ability banlist

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Protean
Pure Power
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Drizzle
Drought
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Prankster
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost

Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Run Away
Symbiosis
Telepathy

Flavor Ability banlist

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Protean
Pure Power
Shadow Tag
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Drizzle
Drought
Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Prankster
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost

As there didn't seem to be much interest (either here or on IRC) in amending policy on secondary abilities as they relate to the primary ability, the banlists seem to be the only thing in need of implementation. So I think this just about sums it all up. These should be ready for approval, Birkal.

 

[DHR-107]

Looks good to me srk. I am not totally sold on Birkal's no banning on Flower Gift, but if he thinks it should be exempt then so be it.

I don't really have a view either way on which abilities should best represent the CaP, I believe we are already limiting ourselves with at least one of our abilities being flavour (If it has a Flavour ability). If the two abilities that get picked happen to both work as primaries I don't have a huge objection, but I think they should be a lot more even in terms of power over all (VA is much better than Intimidate on Caw for example).