CAP 20 CAP 20 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

[paintseagull]

Welcome to CAP 20, CAP community, let's get the discussion going! Here's the concept that we've voted in and that we'll discussing here and throughout the project:

Name: Use the Boost to Get Through!

General Description: A sweeper with several boosting options that result in completely different checks and counters. While each set should be viable in its own right, the unpredictability of this Pokemon should make it much better than any one set alone.

Justification: In the early days of Pokemon X and Y, we experienced the first Pokemon that could (viably) boost and sweep from either the physical or special side: Mega Lucario. While it was clear his unpredictability could have a devastating effect (having your Chansey eat a Close Combat, Will-O-Wisping on the Nasty Plot, etc.) the true extent to which this could make a Pokemon better was masked by the fact that Lucario's sets were both already amazing. The purpose of this concept would therefore be to explore the impact of unpredictability in sweepers by creating a Pokemon that can run several boosting sets, none of which are dominant in their own right, but that when combined can result in an extremely dangerous threat.

Questions To Be Answered:

• Is there a limit to how much unpredictability can make a Pokemon better? Can it make a decent Pokemon great? Or can it only make them usable?
• How does being unpredictable with boosting options compare to other forms of unpredictability (such as uncommon coverage moves or trying to speed creep certain threats)? Is unpredictability in sweepers inherently more dangerous because of how easily they can win a game?
• For a Pokemon that is already unpredictable, will we see the use of strange coverage moves (as many sweepers tend to run) or will it tend to stick to standard sets because it already has the element of surprise?
• Which boosting moves are distinct enough to completely change a Pokemon's checks/counters? Are Swords Dance, Nasty Plot, and Agility the only ones that can fit this concept? Or is there a way to incorporate moves such as Dragon Dance without giving the Pokemon "the best of both worlds".
• How effective will double boosting sets be on this Pokemon? Will the ability to "pick your counters" on a Pokemon already designed to bypass its counters be too good? Or can it be designed so that the loss of coverage will still leave it with several checks and counters on any set?
• To what extent will teams have to prepare for this Pokemon? Will they have to pack several checks/counters like for M-Lucario? Or will they be able to just use a standard team so long as they can identify the set early?

Guidelines:

1) Pay close attention to the Topic Leader during this discussion. Their job is to keep us focused and to bring insight.
2) Do not poll jump. Poll jumping is a serious offense in these threads, and you can get infracted for it. Poll jumping is when you discuss something that should be discussed in the future, like specifying a CAP's stats or typing. You're allowed to hint at such things to conclude a point or to provide an example, but do not centralize your post on a poll jump. Poll jumping hurts the focus of early threads and can cause us to go off on a tangent. If you're not sure if you're poll jumping or not, err on the side of caution and don't post it.​

Our topic leader, nyttyn , will start off this thread with his opening thoughts. Make absolutely certain that you use his post as a starting point for your discussion to follow. Continue to pay attention to his posts as he begins to guide the community through the chosen topic! It's very important that we are discussing with each other under the TL's guidance, and not talk *over* each other! Posts will be deleted accordingly!

 

[nyttyn]

With a majority, Use the Boost to get Through! was voted on to be our concept for CAP20. So first of all, congrats to mphallor!

Now then, given the concept's focus on boost moves, it's fairly obvious what we're going to be answering in this concept assessment: Which boosting moves are we going to be focusing on?

Now, we do not have to focus on only two boosting moves - however, focusing on more than two has a larger chance to result in a pokemon whom has too many options, so I will request that, unless you can come up with a particularly convincing case for three boosting options (and no more), that you stick to focusing on two boosting moves in your posts.

As it stands, the current (relevant) boosting options in Pokemon are:
Swords Dance / Nasty Plot (Special Attack/Attack +2)
Dragon Dance (Attack +1 / Speed +1)
Shift Gear (Attack +1 / Speed +2)
Quiver Dance (Special Attack +1 / Special Defense +1 / Speed +1)
Bulk Up (Attack +1 / Defense +1) / Coil (Attack +1 / Defense +1 / Accuracy +1)
Calm Mind (Special Attack +1 / Special Defense +1)
Hone Claws (Attack +1 / Accuracy +1)
Cosmic Power (Defense +1 / Special Defense +1) (Only for Stored Power)
Agility / Rock Polish (+2 Speed)


There's also Geomancy, Shell Smash, and Tail Glow but those are banned from discussion. Curse is also banned, on account of being just an inferior Bulk Up / Coil in almost every situation, in a way that would cripple most set-up pokemon looking for multiple options. Hone Claws is allowed, however, due to its lack of crippling downside, leaving it instead a option lower in power that could thus be combined with more powerful options than Coil.

So, as you can see, we have a few options here: Do we focus on a pokemon who can boost from both the special and physical sides of the spectrum? A pokemon who can choose between speed or power? A pokemon who can choose between bulk or power?

For this next song, well, we're talking about power, right? So why not a house set remix of a song that radiates it?

So go forth, post, and remember that when this thread ends, we will have no poll, as I will be selecting which boosting options we will be focusing on.

 

[PikapowerUltra]

I would love to see a pokemon that uses quiver dance and coil, but if boosting speed is to powerful, coil/bulk up and calm mind would work. this would be perfect for a relatively bulky pokemon that could choose between hitting and defending on the physical side, vs doing that on the special side.

Also, i think you forgot to put coil on the list.

 

[AJC]

with no stats or other moves in the equation this is my option on special boosting ATM

i think quiver dance shouldn't be a option not only does it outclass calm mind as a boosting option it's better than it's physical counterpart dragon dance in also giving a special defense boost. i feel having quiver dance will bias too much stuff toward it

 

[Da Pizza Man]

I personally think that we should try to only focus on one side of the attacking specturm, either Physical or Special, not both. Giving us the option to do both can end up being somewhat broken, as from what Mega Lucario has taught us this generation, and from our own creation, Aurumoth, last generation, being able to preform a sweeping role on both sides can end up being broken. I really think that we should just pick one of these sides of the spectrum to focus on, and since this requires two different boosting moves, I think we should pick Agillity / Rock Polish (Also Automize, I'm really suprised this hasn't been mentioned at all in nyttyn's post, since it does the same thing and also has us take less damage from Low Kick and Grass Knot) for one of our two boosting moves

 

[BigWigs]

Congrats mphallor!

Alright, major thing I've been seeing people having in mind was the traditional Swords Dance/Nasty Plot. I'm worried, once again, Boostmon could get too many coverage options, which COULD be remedied with 4MSS, although 3 moves could very well be all it needs to punch through (unless one is running both, which doesn't seem ideal). Overall, not really feeling it here.

A speed boosting setup move such as Agility/Rock Polish, Dragon Dance, or Shift Gear are moves I believe should be considered as one of the choices. Speed is super important this gen, even with all the priority moves running around, it's always good to outspeed scarfers and the like.

The other choice I believe should be an Attack/Special Attack boosting move. Just like speed, there's also really bulky mons roaming around, that can shrug off even SE hits. With a good damage output booster, you can avoid being hard walled, but at return vulnerable to the super fast mons. You see where I'm going with this? So basically, the main catch, I believe, is for Speed Booster to outspeed fast threats and Damage Booster to break walls, with one set beating the other's problems while struggling with what the other beats with ease.

 

[Mowtom]

I think that it is important to stay away from Shift Gear/Quiver Dance. Both are incredibly powerful boosting moves, and I see no reason why anything that gets one of them would want to run a different boosting move. We should stick with moves that boost only 2 stages (except for Coil, the accuracy bonus doesn't help that much).

 

[Avnomke]

It think that it would be best to have boosting options on different sides, or maybe a more offensive boost and a more defensive boost. Boosting options on different sides is easy to break, though, so imo we should have a bulky option and a fast option for sweeping. I think that having our options be Bulk Up/Coil/Calm Mind (+Recover?) and Agility/Rock Polish/Dragon Dance/Shift Gear would be best.

 

[Bramblestein]

I feel we should avoid giving boosting options that overlap on a stat. If we give something Bulk Up and Dragon Dance, for example, there will likely be few cases where the DD set doesn't completely outclass Bulk Up.

 

[Stratos]

shift gear's ok but yeah i think qd should be crossed off out the gate, i can't think of anything that i would rather run over qd except maybe geomancy which lol

probably the best example of a pokemon that used two different boosting moves and didnt suck was double dance lando-t, which used RP to beat faster threats and SD to break slower walls. it used them on the same set, which i know isn't what this concept demands, but the idea is there. Another example of moderate success is Haxorus, which could run DD or SD Taunt. Obviously Haxorus kind of sucked, but that wasn't due to its sets, where the difference between the two was actually pretty cool and useful (former beating offense, latter beating stall). The other example i can think of of a successful "mixed booster" is mega-lucario which used SD or NP but honestly it devolved into SD 90% of the time, especially once people invented cc/ip/eq. I think the only *sustainable* route is to have one speed and one damage booster. we can do that with np/rp or sd/rp.

 

[Empress]

There's another reason why Nasty Plot and Swords Dance would not be the best choice for this mon. There's a chance it'll end up broken, but there is also a chance that one set will completely overshadow the other. For example, in UU right now, Lucario runs SD far more often than NP, meaning it may be difficult for us to make both sets equally viable.

On the flipside, one damage-boosting move and one speed-boosting move is the way to go. Going back to the UU tier, let's look at another sweeper: Porygon-Z. P-Z can choose NP to wallbreak against bulkier teams, or Agility to attempt to sweep against hyper offense. Granted, it often runs both moves in a Double Dance set, but it can use either one depending on what it wants to beat. That is to say, both options are equally viable. By giving this mon a way to break bulky and HO teams alike, we will ensure that it can pick and choose its checks and counters and have both options be of equal viability in the OU metagame.

 

[Deck Knight]

I think the best road to go with this kind of sweeper is Dragon Dance and Nasty Plot / Calm Mind.

When I looked through the January 1825 stats on the concept thread, the Pokemon that actually used their boosting move to sweep were predominantly the Pokemon using those moves. I've reproduced the stats I went through below.

Jan 1825 Top 5

Tyranitar - Dragon Dance 8.307%
Charizard - Dragon Dance 39.035%
Altaria - Dragon Dance 43.005%
Gyarados - Dragon Dance 93.792%
Dragonite - Dragon Dance 35.058%

Bisharp - Swords Dance 63.648%
Scizor - Swords Dance 51.084%
Garchomp - Swords Dance 21.364%
Talonflame - Swords Dance 41.594% [Bulk Up 7.661%]
Gliscor - Swords Dance 25.469%

Thundurus - Nasty Plot 12.905%
Celebi - Nasty Plot 17.360%
Infernape - Nasty Plot 4.460%
Togekiss - Nasty Plot 21.878%
Lucario - Nasty Plot 6.399% [Swords Dance 87.718%]

Landorus - Rock Polish 27.397%
Diancie - Rock Polish 31.435% [Calm Mind 11.957%]
(Nothing noteworthy uses Agility or Autotomize)

Keldeo - Calm Mind 41.468%
(Latias - Calm Mind 2.891% /
Latios - Calm Mind 4.507%)
Clefable - Calm Mind 64.536%
Slowbro - Calm Mind 21.114%
Sableye - Calm Mind 54.446%

(Nothing noteworthy uses Bulk Up)

What I immediately notice about the prominent Swords Dance users is that they are all coupled with strong priority, and an ability that boosts the viability of their priority attacks. Scizor has Technician Bullet Punch, Bisharp has Defiant and Sucker Punch, Talonflame has Gale Wings Brave Bird.

By comparison, Gyarados (67.5% Gyaradosite) and Altaria (100% Altarianite) have abilities that increase the number of targets they can hit or their coverage (Mold Breaker Waterfall / EQ and Pixilate Normal attacks). They also have more solid builds than the Swords Dance users above (save perhaps Mega Scizor).

Keldeo would seem to be the model to go on here, and Keldeo's special attribute of Secret Sword makes its set so prominent, because it can effectively use Calm Mind to hit both Defense and Special Defense. Secret Sword is, of course, a much better offensive type than Psyshock (nukes Chansey), which is why Slowbro and the Latis use it when they use a CM set.

I'll leave it to others to determine why Nasty Plot just can't seem to break through in popularity, but if I had to hazard a guess, Togekiss' low speed dooms it while the others simply have better options like Prankster Thunder Wave + 3 Attacks at their disposal in the case of Thundurus. If we do focus on Nasty Plot, we'll need to identify what's holding it back from being used.

 

[tehy]

Mid-post edit: also a good idea Deck; Box, that'd certainly be interesting and it'd be nice to see those moves get some play, but to be honest, that's kind of a nerf right off the bat, since you sacrifice the ability to basically get moves a lot of Pokemon learn like Swords Dance (Simple Howl) and Iron Defense / Acid Armor / Cotton Guard (simple defense curl). I guess i wouldn't rule it out entirely but it seems like a waste of an ability. / edit

I was hoping this mon would be a way better Luke, which could actually go SD + NP and either would be legitimately good

and possibly a Work Up set would be actually viable ?

that's a pretty tall order (espc. Work Up) but it's what i'd like to shoot for.

To be honest, a Speed booster can't really surprise an opponent, outside of i guess boosting on a switch to death fodder but even then; you can always just go to an SD counter, first off; it can be a bit of a problem for offensive teams, but my main issue is that it at best will get one kill and they'll bring in their other counter (Or it clean-sweeps, but in that case it wasn't really versatility, just them being weak to the mon). Also, any mon faster than it that OHKOes and can take 1 Agility'd hit checks the hell out of it, and I assume there will be a few broadly speaking.

If it ends up Speed / Power booster I just don't think it'll be great, I see a lot of people going ' o double dance mons you can choose which teamstyle to break' yeah but that's not unpredictable.

Personally? QD + SD; sure QD is powerful and good, but I think we can stop it from being the total best. If SD packs some priority, you can get a legitimately good offensive mon who can pretty much always get 1 kill and often sweep versus bulkier teams via forcing in the wrong check / counter, and who can do well against offensive teams by somewhat doing the same + just being a good sweeper.

Edit: I think one of NP's biggest problems is lack of priority; that applies to CM, but CM is harder to revenge thanks to the SpD boost. It's also distributed fairly sparsely, especially compared to Swords Dance.

 

[Alfalfa]

If Quiver Dance is banned from discussion, then I think Dragon Dance + Nasty Plot would be a sufficient combination. Nasty Plot gives the Pokemon the ability to wallbreak in a physically-oriented metagame, whereas Dragon Dance can be used for simple late-game cleaning. Both together would yield an entirely different set of checks and counters, as one boosting move is more inclined towards late-game sweeping whereas the other wallbreaking.

 

[Burt Racecar]

Physical or Special in my opinion. Keep it nice and easy with Swords Dance and Nasty Plot. Or Bulk Up and Calm Mind. Generally anything that is parallel to one another, so pretty much limited to these two combinations. It would be a lot easier to balance than a convoluted combination of NP/DD for example. This doesn't necessarily mean an equal value in both attacking/defense stats.

The original concept is heavily ingrained with questions about unpredictability. There's not that much difference between running SD and running DD, the opponent's response will generally be to send out the same check/counter. Therefore we should really steer clear of choosing two moves which raises the same stat.

I would be quite on board with a choice of power or bulk too, as this option still explores the questions predictability in the original concept, I just don't favour it over the physical/special split.

 

[mphallor]

I think one of the main benefits of the Speed vs. Power route is that it will be easier to design both sets to be viable. With SD+NP there are going to be a lot of threats that are defeated by both (frail mons with less speed) while there will also be a lot of threats that lose to neither (faster threats that can OHKO, unless the physical set gets priority). Due to this overlap, one set being marginally better is all it will take to make that set become dominant (ie Regular Lucario in UU). By choosing one speed option and one power option, it will be easier to design Boostmon to be checked defensively on the speed set, and offensively on the power set. That way we can pick very distinct, yet easily identifiable checks and counters for both sets.

The main issue with this route however, is that if Boostmon is good with +2 speed, it will probably also be good with +1 speed, which opens the door to Choice Scarf sets usurping the boosting ones. For this reason I think instead of Agility we should pick Shift Gear and a Two Stage Damage Booster. Some qualms have been raised about Shift Gear being too powerful, but so long as CAP's Attack stat is selected appropriately, it won't be any more dangerous than the physical Agility set we might have designed. On the other hand, we can design Boostmon to be good with a shift gear boost, but bad with a Choice Scarf.

The other advantage of Shift Gear over Dragon dance is that the CAP will be less susceptible to random Choice Scarf revenge killers. Just as an example, if CAP has base 100 speed and is supposed to beat Landorus-I with a Dragon Dance set, Landorus might start running Choice Scarf (the playtest is always centralized after all), and all of a sudden it can beat our CAP even when CAP is running the "right set" for Landorus. By giving it Shift Gear, CAP should be fast enough to only answer to priority moves and bulky walls, the former of which tend to be weaker moves, and the latter of which can be broken by our other set.

As to what the other boosting move should be (SD or NP) I'm not really sure which one would be better. NP lets us hit some physical walls on their weaker side, further enhancing the unpredictability. It will also be easier to pick distinct checks. On the other hand, SD allows us to pick a more targeted movepool without worrying about the rise of mixed sets (such as SD Garchomp with Fire Blast for Skarmory). Not to say mixed sets are inherently bad, but it will be harder to design the mon to be checked by all the right things if we go the Shift Gear/Nasty Plot route. Overall, I would say I'm personally leaning towards SD, but I can see the merits for NP as well.

 

[Billy the Uncle]

This is more of a personal wish than a deeply-thought idea, but I would like if, of the two viable boosting sets, one would focus on raw power and the other on a more sweeping or defensive boost. To put it simply, one of the moves should be a two-stage booster (SD, NP), and the other a multiple-stat single stager (CM, DD, Coil). A good example of this is the Dragon Dance/Sword Dance duality, but quite a lot of Pokemon can already run them both viably (Haxorus, Feraligatr, Rayquaza in Ubers) so I would avoid this combo, if any because it's the most explored already.

Speaking of Feraligatr, I like how it can run a wallbreaking set with SD and heavy HP investment, or a fast DD sweeping set, and I'd like if CAP20 followed this concept too. Personally, I would vouch for Dragon Dance and Nasty Plot, since it would pave the way to a great deal of unpredictability (speedy physical or bulky special). Of course, that would require extra care not to make one of the set underpowered or the whole mon too OP. Another option I like is offensive+defensive vs purely offensive boosts (such as SD and Bulk Up, or NP and CM) that would get unpredictable in the "grab a boost and then sweep"/"slowly but steadily setup a la Crocune" way.

 

[Ununhexium]

Here is a list of all Pokemon capable of learning both Swords Dance and Nasty Plot

Cacnea, Cacturne, Celebi, Chimchar, Darkrai, Infernape, Lucario, Mew, Monferno, Nuzleaf, Riolu, Seedot, Shiftry, Smeargle, Toxicroak, Weavile, Zoroark, Zorua

Take out all not fully evolved Pokemon and you got: Cacturne, Celebi, Darkrai, Infernape, Lucario, Mew, Shiftry, Smeargle, Toxicroak, Weavile, and Zoroark

Out of all of those Pokemon, six are relevant in OU (Celebi, Infernape, Lucario, Mew, Toxicroak, and Weavile)

Out of all of those, a whopping one of them can run a viable set with both of them (Baton Pass Celebi)

Now, out of all Pokemon with those moves that are Uber, only one of them was broken for being able to boost both stats (Mega Lucario)


What I'm trying to say here is that having both Swords Dance and Nasty Plot doesn't make it inherently broken. People are saying "omg Mega Lucario is so broken" which it is, but who actually says we're going to exactly replicate Mega Lucario. Short answer: it's not going to happen. There are plenty of ways to make a Pokemon that can viably run either move without being broken. I give my full support to a Pokemon that can boost from both sides of the spectrum because it makes the Pokemon more unpredictable, a central point of the concept. Therefore, my choices would be a combination of one of either Nasty Plot or Calm Mind and one of Swords Dance, Bulk Up / Coil, or Dragon Dance (or Shift Gear for that matter but I feel like people would think it's too broken).

On the topic of the ethics of allowing / disallowing Quiver Dance, I don't think it would be too broken in a vacuum, but it would definitely put a lot of strain on the other areas to A) balance the Pokemon (because it is a very powerful move) and B) it would be very hard to make another set viable enough that it would be used when you could just use Quiver Dance instead.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

I'm not a fan of giving this Pokemon Quiver Dance. While the abundance of physical revenge killers could prevent a Quiver Dance CAP from being broken, it's going to be extremely hard to make a different boosting set viable. Quiver Dance takes pure Special Attack/Special Defense, and Speed boosting off of the table because nobody would use Agility/Calm Mind/Nasty Plot or its clones when QD is available. The only other move I could see working alongside Quiver Dance is Shift Gear, but I'm wary of a Pokemon that can use both of those moves well being balanced in the metagame unless we seriously gimp it in other areas.

As Ununhexium said, mixed boosting isn't inherently broken. The problem is that one boosting set usually overshadows another, which is what our concept strives to avoid. I'd prefer mixed boosting to double physical/special boosting because we already have Pokemon like Swords Dance/Rock Polish Landorus-T and Tail Glow/Calm Mind Manaphy. The two moves that jump out to me are Nasty Plot and Dragon Dance, though any pure offensive booster + offense/speed booster combination is likely to create two different roles in the metagame. We'd have an offense booster to break through stall and a offense/speed booster to outpace offense. While that doesn't mandate mixed boosting, I believe it will be more enjoyable to create a mixed booster because it's a less explored role in ORAS OU.

 

[Cretacerus]

In my opinion this CAP would be a great chance to explore the lesser seen boosting moves, which have their full potential held back by poor distribution. Particularly Coil and Nasty Plot sound very interesting, as they provide different approaches to gathering the boosts (setting up within a single turn vs slowly accumulating multiple boosts), while also covering the different sides of the attacking spectrum, ensuring that both sets will end up having drastically different counters.
Both boosting moves are also fairly easy to balance out against each other, with each of them having noticeable flaws that prevent them from overshadowing the other. For example Nasty Plot is less susceptible to stall tactics such as burns and phazing, but faces a lot of pressure from priority on offensive teams. The opposite is true for a Coil set.
I believe that these two moves can create a lot of diversity and unpredictability with just two sets. If a third boosting option could be added to the mix while retaining equal viability, all the better, though it would require a huge amount of diligence on our side to make it work.

 

[Deck Knight]

Just wanted to post with a few more thoughts.

First, I wanted to mention a combination of moves not mentioned yet.

Shell Smash and Coil.

Now, these two moves are both strong, true, but lead to entirely different sets. Let me explain why I chose Coil specifically, since the Acc boost is relevant. What it does is make all of the damaging phazing moves 100% accurate, as well as providing for a much tankier set - if our mon can phaze threats first, it thereby prevents being phazed and continues the sweep. The Shell Smash set, in contrast, is all about doing damage - FAST, cutting defense for amazing offense.

Then I wanted to get into Stored Power and its possible effect on our choices. We have several strong legal boosters this move could work with:

• Cotton Guard (+3, makes revenging via priority incredibly difficult because of Priority's physical bias)
• Coil (+3 total, also buffs defense making priority revenging harder, but the Acc boost makes a LOT of moves more viable.)
• Shell Smash (+6 total, turns the mon into a complete glass cannon, and very dangerous to use if the opponent doesn't switch. The quickest way to make SP a monster, at the highest risk).
• Calm Mind (+2 total, but the SpA boost makes SP more powerful at the same time.)
• Cosmic Power (+2 total) - to be honest Clefable already has this niche, we should try for something different.

Personally among these I also like Cotton Guard + Coil, primarily because with mixed sweeping stats and, just because I'm arguing Stored Power into the calculus here, the Defiant or Competitive ability to exploit Intimidate and Defog, you could end up with a very imposing, difficult to break and revenge kill physical or special set with Cotton Guard and a slower, tanky physical set with Coil and some other ability. I grant this is a very specific direction, but I offer it up as an idea with a lot of untapped potential.

Either way, there are a *lot* of options open to us to make a strong mixed booster that responds to the playstyles used in the metagame.

 

[nyttyn]

Just a reminder: Please do not post crappy moves. If I did not list it in the opening post, there is a reason for such. Moves such as Howl, Power-up Punch, and Defense Curl are not competitively viable. That being said, I would also like to mention that I have forgotten a move in my first post, Shell Smash. This move is banned from discussion, on account of literally boosting every single stat we could want (baring stored power shennagins, and even then it's pretty clearly the best stored power move by a mile) by two stages. That kind of power is way too much, and also defeats the point of having multiple set-up moves in the first place, on account of being so vastly better than every single boosting option bar maybe Quiver Dance. I apprecaite the idea of, say, Shell Smash vs Coil in theory, but in practice Shell Smash will ALWAYS be used if a pokemon has access to it. It's just that insanely good of a move.

That being said, thus far, the three most compelling arguments have been for Mixed Boosting(EX Swords Dance vs Nasty Plot), Different Boosts (EX Nasty Plot vs Dragon Dance), and Power / Speed Boosting(EX Dragon Dance vs Swords Dance). The first is obvious in its appeal, the second offers the appeal of radically different approaches, while the third is a more conservative version of the second. I would like discussion to focus on the merits of these three options, as they seem the most viable paths for our CAP to take.

 

[mphallor]

In light of nyttyn's post, I'm going to expand on a point I made earlier. I'm against SD+NP (or "mixed boosting" as nyttyn has coined it) because there will probably be way too much overlap between the sets. Unless the physical set gets powerful priority, both sets will be susceptible to the same revenge killers. In terms of targets the CAP can OHKO after a boost, the only major differences will be which coverage moves each set has to work with, and which walls the CAP can break through. Even then, a lot of ORAS walls don't have the same dichotomy that cores like SkarmBliss used to have. Ferrothorn, Clefable, Rotom-W (not strictly a wall, but oh well), Heatran, Mega-Sableye, and others all have good mixed bulk, meaning our CAP will probably have enough power to get through these walls with either set or else be too weak to beat them with either set. The only real differences between checks and counters for a SD+NP mon will be whether or not it can get past dedicated one-dimensional walls like Chansey and Skarmory. As a result, a mixed boosting mon won't introduce much unpredictability because only a handful of checks/counters are going to be different between sets.

I'm therefore throwing my support behind Different Boosts. I think having a speed boost on one of the moves will be instrumental in making the sets distinct, as it will turn a lot of potential revenge killers into targets of the speed set, while the power set will be the superior set against anything slower than our CAP. I was originally leaning towards Power/Speed Boosting, but I think having the ability to hit off both sides of the spectrum will give us greater freedom to tailor the sets to our Checks/Counters list during both the Stats and Movepool stages. By picking Power/Speed, we have to worry about the fact that any move we give one set to beat a certain threat, the other set may want to make use of. With Different Boosts this is still a factor, but it will be much less dangerous if moves we don't want on a certain set are coming off of an unboosted offensive stat.

 

[tehy]

I have to agree that most people will go for Shell Smash, but Huntail down in NU is a good example of a mon that viably uses both (mostly for BP purposes). I guess it's a failure to a certain extent if the ladder is not actually using it, but the two sets could still be viable (or even equally viable, depending.)

I really prefer different boosts, to be honest. I feel like Power / Speed is just 'it can choose what playstyle to beat' but usually isn't surprising or at all Unpredictable; the playstyle in question knows what you do to beat it and really, the best-case scenario is that you either surprise a revenge killer that can't take a hit switching in with Agility (which you could do by attacking it as it comes in, so that's not *that* surprising) or kill 1 somewhat bulky mon with SD / NP and then get revenged. I'd really rather something that doesn't have safe switch-ins for the most part; it should still have a few, but walling the SD set shouldn't just mean you beat the mon full stop. For an example

'A sweeper with several boosting options that result in completely different checks and counters. While each set should be viable in its own right, the unpredictability of this Pokemon should make it much better than any one set alone.'

Let's take, say, Double Dance Lando-T. Skarmory beats it if it uses Swords Dance, and also if it uses Rock Polish. And latios checks it pretty hard either way. What i'm looking for is more like, say, Calm Mind Lando-T also being a viable set (i'm aware that actual set sucks; i mean on our CAP), where Skarmory switches in and is then like 'oh shit' and switches out / gets sacced, and Latios fails to KO with D-meteor and gets koed back.

 

[YellowAdminSilver]

I for one believe that there are more than enough pokemon that can go for either mixed boosting or power/speed boosting; i.e. we already know that in a double dance set RP Landorus breaks offense and SD Lando breaks stall. Same deal (kind of) with SD/DD Rayquaza in Ubers, the since-banned RP/CM Mega Diancie from UU and the since-banned SD/DD Gatr from NU. While double dance with SD/DD is always nice, the concept specifically brings up unpredictability as the basis for this mon, which isn't really much of a thing when the only change between both sets is whether the opposing Gatr is rocking Aqua Jet or Ice Punch (which admittedly does a great deal of difference as far as revenging/walling goes but bear with me here). If we're truly trying to explore the concept of unpredictability and completely different checks and counters, I believe we should go with Different Boosts, specifically something like DD/NP. I feel like neither boost is powerful enough to make CAP inherently broken, but it at least keeps CAP from being able to carry both moves on the same set with the same spread, which could help us keep it balanced. It also explores a niche that OU is lacking right now, in a Pokemon with two viable boosting sets that each hit from separate sides of the spectrum (unless you count something like DD Mega Latios or something, in which case idk how I feel about that)