Policy Review Sun/Moon Ability Banlist Update

DHR-107

Robot from the Future
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OK so I guess the time has come to update our Ability Ban lists and discuss some of the Generation 7 Abilities in regards to CaP . Hopefully this will be a rather short discussion and we can come to a conclusion relatively quickly. We had to change things up slightly a few years back with Gen 6 abilities, and this can be read about here: http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/ability-banlist-update.3495149/ I've basically followed a similar idea to what Bughouse did there.

All the new abilities can be found here (with their effects):

http://serebii.net/sunmoon/abilities.shtml

And updated old abilities can be found here:

http://serebii.net/sunmoon/updatedabilities.shtml (Chances are none of these are really relevant, but posting it for completions sake)

New abilities to ban:

Battle Bond (Event Greninja Exclusive ability)
Beast Boost (Ultra Beast only)
Fluffy (Exclusive, similar in strength to Fur Coat)
Full Metal Body (Legendary Exclusive)
Power Construct (Legendary Exclusive, Forme Change)
Prism Armor (Legendary Exclusive)
RKS System (Exclusive, A poor mans version of Multitype)
Schooling (Forme change, exclusive ability)
Shadow Shield (Legendary Exclusive)
Shields Down (Forme Change, exclusive ability)
Soul Heart (Legendary Exclusive)

EDIT: Brought up by Nyttyn, but adding, Primordial Sea, Desolate Land and Delta Stream

The above is only an idea, and of course we are open to discussion on these abilities. Reasoning for my thoughts on these in particular is because of previous precedent with ability bans. Legendary exclusive, event exclusive, forme changing abilities (which we have a number of this Generation) have all popped up. RKS is a version of Multitype, which subverts our typing process. Fluffy is similar in power to Fur Coat (albeit with different mechanics, this is the most unsure one for me).

Abilities to Discuss (For Primary only/Secondary ban abilities):

Comatose (Exclusive, strange mechanics)
Disguise (Exclusive, interesting mechanics)
Electric Surge (Legendary Exclusive)
Grassy Surge (Legendary Exclusive)
Innards Out (Exclusive)
Misty Surge (Legendary Exclusive)
Psychic Surge (Legendary Exclusive)
Water Bubble (Exclusive, is effectively three abilities in one)

I believe that all these abilities will have a significant affect on the CaP on which they are chosen to be on. I don't believe any of these abilities are broken as is, but I believe they should be the focus of the CaP we create that uses any of them if we decide to not ban them.

Flavour Only Abilities:

Battery (Doubles only)
Power of Alchemy (Doubles only)
Receiver (Doubles Only)

I think everything else is pretty much A-OK to go in Gen 7. Nothing else really stands out from the new abilities to be a game changer, sure there are powerful ones (such as Stamina) but I do not think they are all game changers.

Proposed Lists going forwards into Gen 7 (Bold indicates new ability):

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Beast Boost

Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Delta Stream
Desolate Land

Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fluffy
Full Metal Body

Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor

Protean
Pure Power
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield

Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Slow Start
Soul Heart
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Battery
Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Power of Alchemy
Receiver

Run Away
Symbiosis
Telepathy
Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Beast Boost

Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Delta Stream
Desolate Land

Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fluffy
Full Metal Body

Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor

Protean
Pure Power
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield

Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Slow Start
Soul Heart
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Comatose
Disguise

Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Grassy Surge
Innards Out

Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost
Water Bubble

Battery
Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Power of Alchemy
Receiver

Run Away
Symbiosis
Telepathy
Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Beast Boost

Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Delta Stream
Desolate Land

Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fluffy
Full Metal Body

Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor

Protean
Pure Power
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield

Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Slow Start
Soul Heart
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Comatose
Disguise

Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Grassy Surge
Innards Out

Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost
Water Bubble

What I'd like to find out from this thread:

Which new Abilities should be in which ban list? The ones to discuss are posted above.
If anyone thinks any of the other Gen 7 abilities are worthy of being discussed, please bring them up.

Which, if any, previously banned abilities should be unbanned?
And the related,
Which, if any, updated abilities need to be added to any of these listings?
The main one here is Parental Bond, which was nerfed (from 50% power to 25% power). Is this enough of a nerf to take it out of the banned ability list or not? Weak Armor appears to be the only ability that got a Buff, and considering we have one CaP with this ability, I think it should be fine to stay.

If everyone agrees with what I have proposed then we can get this tied up very quickly.
 
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The banlists seem sensible. The only discussion ability that seems plausible for banning is Disguise, because its an amazing ability even on a Pokemon with questionable stats such as Mimikyu. With the power to give a free turn in battle to either deal good damage off a prediction, or to have a free turn of setup, it would be able to easily sweep or revenge kill. I'm still not sure that it is actually ban worthy, but we should keep our eyes peeled. Also, as mentioned below by Integer Mova, it is a form change.

I very much agree with most of the edits Nyttyn proposed below.

If any other thoughts relating to these come to me, I'll edit them in here, but otherwise they look good to me.
 
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The thing with Disguise is that it's hard-coded to work only with Mimikyu and its Busted Form. It's technically a form change. Lots of these new Abilities appear to be hard-coded as well, such as RKS System, Schooling, Shields Down, and so on. Comatose is just weird, to say the least. Water Bubble would be borked as hell if it weren't for Araquanid's mediocre offenses.

I don't have much to suggest in regards to altering the Banlist, DHR.
 
The banlists I think are very sensible, the only way it could change is by getting comatose, and disguise off the list, but I don't even think that is necessary.
 
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HeaLnDeaL

Let's Keep Fighting
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It makes absolutely no sense to me why legendary exclusive abilities from the Tapus would be allowable when from any other legendary in the proposal they are banned. It should be one way or the other for the sake of consistency if we are basing this on terms of legendary exclusivity. Of course, I've long thought it odd for us to ban abilities on an aspect of their flavor (legendary exclusive status is just a flavor attribute) rather than on their power/competitive merit... but I won't get into that conversation just quite yet.
 

nyttyn

From Now On, We'll...
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So I'm going to start my post with a somewhat radical proposal:

We should stop auto-banning non-forme signature abilities without 1:1 equivalents, and in fact ignore the entire idea of "signature."

Frankly speaking, Gamefreak has, over the years, seriously diluted the concept of what it means to be "signature." They constantly keep re-introducing once-signature abilities onto other pokemon the very next generation, and it is making it increasingly hard to justify locking otherwise cool and interesting abilities behind such a silly idea. From this last generation alone, Flower Veil, Symbiosis, Fur Coat, Sweet Veil, Iron Barbs, Bulletproof were introduced and then given to other families in Sun and Moon, making it pretty clear the idea of "signature" doesn't really mean much. And in this Generation, Gamefreak introduced a lot of really cool abilities that are signature (Steelworker, Berserk, Comatose, Disguise, y'know what it's actually almost all of them I'm not going to bother making a list.), and we'd be robbing ourselves of a lot of options if we decided to keep Signature status as justification to ban an ability.

also come on ultra beasts aren't even legendaries wtf even if we keep the signature legendary ban policy it doesn't make sense to auto ban beast boost for that reason. you can even use them in the battle tree.

edit: also since there was confusion, I'm making these statements assuming our new policy of "primary ability should not be overshadowed by secondary" holds true, and all the abilities i'm pushing to be at the Secondary Ban tier are all strong enough they'd at the very least compete with, if not overshadow, a lot of abilities.

Now, with that in mind...

New Abilities:

RKS System - this is probably the most controversial of the options, but I'm going to push for Secondary Ability Ban. While it does to a large extent subvert our banning process, there is one large difference that seperates it from multi-type - there's an inherent cost involved with using RKS System. Namely, you entirely give up your item slot - which, I feel, is sufficiently enough of a down-side that it justifies RKS System for certain concepts (namely, ones dealing with versatility). Also the only user is kind of hot garbage.........

Soul Heart - Much as I'd like it on the table, banning it entirely is probably fine since Magerana is a good abuser anyway. but i still think signature bans without equivilents are dumb so Secondary Ability Ban please, special moxie would be nice to have.
Fluffy - cool ability with an actual downside unlike fur coat. Worth Secondary Ability Ban imo (unlike fur coat it has an actual downside for the stats and has a few things that get past it....)

Berserk - cool ability, trapped on a bad user (feels weird saying that on something that has the movepool to potentially use it, but not the stats/typing sadly), free it with a Secondary Ability Ban.

Emergency Exit/Wimp Out - cool ability, shitty user, you know the drill. Probably Flavor Ability Ban tho since it's not that great. should probably only allow emergency exit since it's a lot less flavor imposing than Wimp Out is.

Beast Boost - best stat moxie bascially. this is really cool and opens up a lot of potentially neat stat builds. Secondary Ability Ban. i will get very upset if someone tries to go "but ultra beasts!!" like i'll cry. do you guys want me to cry :(

Surge Surfer - has cool synergy with electric terrain, Secondary Ability Ban since 2x speed is always crazy.

Dancer/Reciever/Power of Alchemy/etc - Flavor Ban.

Comatose - really cool ability that provides a complete status immunity. really really cool but also really strong so Secondary Ability Ban

Corrosion
super cool but also super niche?? i mean like, toxicing steels and posions is cool, but also doesn't come up too often. so, not really powerful enough for a primary ban. Flavor Ability Ban

Galvanize
- it's an -ate ability. Secondary Ability Ban since even post nerf the -ates are still realllllyyy strong, albiet still cool (if somewhat nessecarily poll-jumpy to the movepool stage by nature, tho physical attackers all get a 122.4 BP Return so that's cool)

Stamina - cool, strong, Secondary Ability Ban

Disguise
- this is actually an exceptionally absurd and amazing ability that defines a pokemon. frankly it's actually too strong for us to give anything even if it wasn't mimikyu hard-coded exclusive. like, a free turn of set-up is incredibly hard to balance. Ban entirely.

Terrain Abilities - kokos are strong users already so... i'd like them free but i'm not gonna push for it too hard. if we don't push for the whole legendary exclusive angle (and we really should not, GF clearly doesn't care), make it a Secondary Ability Ban.

Slush Rush it's finally happening boys. Hail cap mon 2017. The meme dream is real. Secondary Ability Ban

Queenly Majesty/Dazzling
ok so there's a common trend of 'super cool abilities stuck on shitty users' and this is no different. Secondary Ability Ban, this is a really relevant ability so i'm gonna push hard for it, prioirty's a bitch in OU. i like pretty things so i'ma push for Queenly Majesty to be allowed instead of Dazzling but really they're both equally flavor abrasive so it's probably for the best to just allow both instead of one or the other.

i hope we don't get any freddie mercury influenced pokemon from this...

Innards Out it's a meme but has cool applications. but actually this ability is such a meme i just want a Ban entirely since it's going to completely derail whatever gets it. suicide cucumber!!!!!

Stakeout What IS it with this gen giving amazing and cool abilities to garbage pokemon? It's a shame too because gumshoos is super cool but man, those stats.... Secondary Ability Ban

Tangling Hair/Gooey edit: actually i changed my mind, this isn't really that good. Flavor ability ban.

Triage more limited prankser for recovery moves, just put it to flavor ban since prioriy recover is cool but not THAT strong
this gives drain punch priority holy fuck oml Secondary Ability Ban

Water Bubble - this ability is actually nuts. completely nuts. completely and utterly nuts. beyond nuts. Ban Entirely simply for being way too powerful like holy shitttttttt what was GF thinking at least it's trapped on a bad user

Water Compaction - This is kind of niche but actually still strong? kind of a strange way to give counter-play to a type that's not a complete immunity. Very cool, I hope GF keeps going in that direction. Secondary Flavor Ability Ban

Liquid Voice -
amazingly pointless. like, I guess this breaks boomburst on water types, but why are we giving boomburst to a water type? or anything since it's the most busted move ever. Flavor ban.

Long Reach - has some neat applications but mostly to get around rocky helmet/rough skin. which is still cool, just not really powerful. too tuff to be a flavor ability tho so Flavor ability ban



Old Abilities:

Parental Bond - Move it to Secondary Ability Ban. It got nerfed by a large amount and is now viable to be thrown out for some concepts for niche strats (PuP, Seismic Toss, Elemental Punches), instead of being an utterly dominating ability that's a free band++. I never really agreed with banning it in the first place, and I feel like the nerf is a perfect time to consider moving it to secondary ability ban. Still really strong though.

Color Change i'd really like this unbanned it's a potentially cool as fuck ability trapped on the shittiest abuser known to mankind and it's only a matter of time before GF frees it too.

Grass Pelt turn this into a Secondary Ability Ban since terrain is actually relevant now and it's a cool terrain ability.

Gale Wings poor gale wings. I think it was a oversight to not Flavor ban it since priority roost can throw a wrench in things, and priority attacks on birbs are at least competitively relevant even if its only at max hp.
Primordial Sea / Desolate Land / Delta Stream - crazy op, ban entirely

-Ate Abilities
move them to Secondary Ability Ban they're all really strong and absolutely shouldn't be a secondary or flavor ability but are fine as primaries. i know i'm pushing for them to be suddenly secondary banned post nerf but i feel like they were overlooked and are actually really strong....
 
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Ignus

Copying deli meat to hard drive
I'd actually like to talk about a few of the abilities, if only in the context of using them for specific concepts. A concept focusing on EV spreads, for example, would absolutely love an ability like Beast Boost.
More generally, I'm against banning any ability that has some or all of the following traits:
  • The Ability is already relevant within the metagame being explored or one of the metagames 'below' it (ex: Main: OU | Below: UU, RU, NU, etc)
  • The Ability doesn't detract from discussion by being generically good (i.e. huge power, fur coat, wonder guard)
  • The Ability has a unique or strange mechanic that isn't found within some other ability
Unique abilities aren't something that I consider sacred. In fact, if it were up to me, the only 'uniques' I'd opt to ban are form changes and renamed abilities. While this goes against the previous tiering policy, please understand that this is my mindset going into the changes I'm asking for. I'll do my best to justify the abilities in terms of dealing with how unique they are, but I don't personally believe exclusivity is enough to consider a ban.

Similarly, the only time an ability should be banned for being broken is when the ability is already banned from the tier, or it's named Wonder Guard.

Here's my short list of changes:

Terrain Setters
While right now these abilities are exclusive, I expect that like weather setters this might not be the case in the future. Because the Tapu crew are legendary shouldn't be an excuse for banning them, as the abilities exist within OU. Smogon's general belief with regards to legendaries was that the quality of the Pokemon should determine its ban, and this should be something we follow with regards to ability bans as well. That said, I do think that as abilities they're too generically good to be considered reasonable for most concepts, so we should look at quick-banning them from most CAPs not directly related to their primary functions. (We should do this with most generically good stuff like regenerator that come up every ability stage, but that's something that almost deserves its own thread)
Basically, treat them like weather.
Proposed Position: Primary NO BAN, Secondary NO BAN

Beast Boost

The relevance of its users within OU (and the CAP metagame, for that matter) and its flexibility makes it useful for discussion within CAP. Like terrain, we can talk about quick-banning it on a CAP by CAP basis, but that's something that should be left up to the topic leaders and the community. Part of the reason we have the ability stage in the first place is to eliminate the abilities that don't support the concept. We should do that there, not here.
Proposed Position: Primary NO BAN, Secondary BAN

Soul Heart
This is another place where we need to talk about how "sacred" the ability is. Margearna isn't uber, and the ability is basically a specially oriented Moxie. It's relevant, has a niche that can't really be taken by any other ability, Beast Boost included.
Proposed Position: Primary NO BAN, Secondary NO BAN

Water Bubble
This ability can be broken into three parts: burn immunity, fire resist, and a water boost. Each of these can be done using Water Veil, Heatproof, or just by giving stronger water moves. If we really need an ability that gives all three of these, the project probably has bigger problems. Water Bubble is just too generically good to be worth having.
If it isn't banned, I can guarantee it's going to come up every single time we have a water type CAP. Every. Single. Time.
Proposed Position: Primary BAN, Secondary BAN

The rest I'm fine with where they are.
 

jas61292

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For the most part I agree with what DHR has in the OP, but there are a few things I feel differently about.

First off, our current policy is to ban legendary signature abilities. I personally agree with this policy. Additionally we currently ban form change abilities. I also think this is a good idea. As such, I consider much of DHR's proposed new bans to be good, including Battle Bond, Full Metal Body, Power Construct, Prism Armor, RKS System, Schooling, Shadow Shield, Shields Down, and Soul Heart.

However, this leads to the strange cases of Beast Boost and the Surge abilities. Beast Boost while exclusive to ultra beasts, is not a signature ability of any one Pokemon. There are in fact 7 Pokemon with the ability. And then there is the whole issue of if these Pokemon are even legendary to begin with. I've read that coding wise they are in the same category as trio legends and the like, but lore wise, they are quite different. That said... while I am unsure how I feel about this from an optics standpoint, my current inclination would be to only secondary ability ban them, due to the fact that they are not exclusive to any single Pokemon. The other strange case is the Surge abilities. On the one hand, these very clearly are legendary exclusive abilities (unless you are going to argue that the Tapu's are not legendaries, which I actually have seen people do on other parts of the internet). But, on the other hand, they are all parallels of each other, and incredibly similar to weather abilities, two of which started out legendary exclusive, but are now available on multiple non-legendaries each. In light of this simliarity, and the fact that they are likely to play a massive role in this generations metagame, I think we can safely allow them as primary abilities and secondary ban them, just like Drizzle and co.

Another ability I would like to talk about is Fluffy. I really do not think this one is worthy of a ban. Is it reminiscent of a banned ability? Yes. But the reason Fur Coat is banned, in my opinion, is that it distorts the stats stage of the process. If we want something that takes half damage from physical moves, we can make something with more defense. Fluffy does not effect all physical moves. Only contact ones. This means it still takes normal damage from Earthquake, Stone Edge and others. And, while not as relevant, it actually would take half damage from certain special moves such as Grass Knot. Furthermore, it adds an effective fire weakness. So, while this is clearly a strong ability, it is not taking the emphasis off another stage by basically simply adjusting a stat. It is not something that can be replicated by another stage alone either. Therefore, I think it should be another one that we secondary ability ban only.

The only other ability that I think we should outright ban is Disguise. This is an absolutely ridiculous ability that is making a Pokemon like Mimikyu relevant despite being incredibly mediocre. If anything that was even half good in top tier play based on stats/typing/movepool (which a CAP always is) got this ability, it would be insane. And of course, this is supposedly a hard coded ability that is technically a form change, which itself is practically disqualifying. We are better off without this one.

While there might be another ability or two that deserves a secondary ability ban, nothing else is really jumping out at me as super urgent. That said, I would like to comment on one thing in nyttyn's post. While I agree with what you are saying that RKS System is significantly worse than Multitype, especially now that Multitype can let you change with either a plate or z-crystal, this is still an ability that should absolutely be banned. It still fucks the entire typing stage, which is the main reason Multitype is banned in the first place. It doesn't matter if it is weaker, it still screws up the process just as much. And not just the typing stage either. The threats stage is completely screwed by an ability like this. How can we have threats for something that can be literally any type? And of course, there is the optics side of things as well. Silvally is arguably a legendary Pokemon (it appears to be coded in as one, similar to the ultra beasts), so I don't like giving this ability out on that front either. It really is just a bad ability for the CAP project all around.
 
So here are my thoughts on the moves up for discussion.

Comatose: Secondary ban
Comatose is a bit too weird and appealing to really allow as a secondary ability, but I could easily see a situation where Comatose would be the correct tool to make a concept work.

Disguise: Primary ban
Disguise is a fundamentally disgusting ability that would break any Mon without some combination of bad stats, bad typing, and bad movepool. Probably the least controversial primary ban given the general flow of discussion.

Surge abilities: Secondary ban
Sure these are legendary exclusive, but I doubt that's really going to last long. We're at the point where even Torkoal can get Drought, and the Surge abilities aren't too fundamentally different from weather that spreading the Surges around is going to be an issue. Basically test it like a weather setting ability.

Innards Out: No ban
This is basically an improved Aftermath. It's not so improved that it actually causes problems.

Soul Heart: No ban

If we aren't Secondary banning Moxie, it doesn't really make sense to secondary ban this.

Beast Bond: Secondary ban
So this is a bit of a gray area, as it's dubious whether this counts as an exclusive ability or a legendary only ability because of how odd Ultra Beasts are. It's also substantially better than Soul Heart or Moxie in quite a number of cases. However, I do think that this ability is useful enough that we do want to have access to it. However, I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to primary ban it.

Triage: Secondary ban

There could be a case where we want this a primary ability, but Triage is simply too good to be a secondary ability, especially with all of the good moves that heal nowadays.

Water Bubble: Primary ban

This ability is basically Heatproof and Water Veil slapped on an improved version of Torrent. It's honestly ridiculous how hard it would to make a Pokemon not absurd with this ability.
 

HeaLnDeaL

Let's Keep Fighting
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jas61292 said:
First off, our current policy is to ban legendary signature abilities. I personally agree with this policy. Additionally we currently ban form change abilities. I also think this is a good idea. As such, I consider much of DHR's proposed new bans to be good, including Battle Bond, Full Metal Body, Power Construct, Prism Armor, RKS System, Schooling, Shadow Shield, Shields Down, and Soul Heart.

However, this leads to the strange cases of Beast Boost and the Surge abilities. Beast Boost while exclusive to ultra beasts, is not a signature ability of any one Pokemon. There are in fact 7 Pokemon with the ability. And then there is the whole issue of if these Pokemon are even legendary to begin with. I've read that coding wise they are in the same category as trio legends and the like, but lore wise, they are quite different. That said... while I am unsure how I feel about this from an optics standpoint, my current inclination would be to only secondary ability ban them, due to the fact that they are not exclusive to any single Pokemon. The other strange case is the Surge abilities. On the one hand, these very clearly are legendary exclusive abilities (unless you are going to argue that the Tapu's are not legendaries, which I actually have seen people do on other parts of the internet). But, on the other hand, they are all parallels of each other, and incredibly similar to weather abilities, two of which started out legendary exclusive, but are now available on multiple non-legendaries each. In light of this simliarity, and the fact that they are likely to play a massive role in this generations metagame, I think we can safely allow them as primary abilities and secondary ban them, just like Drizzle and co.
I just want to say that I fundamentally disagree with the use of logic with the above. It starts with the assertion that flavor legendary exclusive abilities should be banned but then finagles around with comparisons that aren't apt. Yes, the surge abilities are similar to each other, but if that somehow makes them unbannable, then that also means we need to unban desolate land and primordial sea because they are "similar" enough to the point of not "really" being legendary exclusive.

Ultimately, what I feel jas is doing is comparing the surge abilities to drizzle and drought, which is competitively apt, but not apt in terms of flavor. It doesn't make sense to me personally to support unbanning the surge abilities as a flavor decision but then argue for them based on competitive comparisons (and indeed I see NO valid argument to unban them from the standpoint that legendary flavor is untouchable; if this truly is our rule, then these, as legendary exclusive abilities, must be banned).

But I think this just highlights a huge flaw in our current system; we're at a point where "legendary exclusive" flavor is almost impossible to define (as seen by the debate of whether ultra beasts are legendary), and I think as a result we need to ban based on 1) project feasibility (as in banning abilities that completely screw over one of our competitive stages; for examble, multi-type would screw over our typing stage) and 2) competitive considerations based on "power." In the past, part of (but not all of) the reason to ban legendary exclusive abilities was because of their disrupting level of power. However, time and time again OU has been the home of many mons with legendary exclusive traits. If we want to stay relevant as a competitive project, I don't see why we are banning competitively stable tools on the basis of flavor.

One of my proposals in the past, shared between certain mods and that ended up no where, was to ban only Uber-exclusive traits (in addition to stage disrupting abilities like multi-type or Huge Power). Tapus aren't ubers? Cool, under this system, their abilities wouldn't be banned. Victini isn't uber and you say a slight increase to accuracy is healthy? Cool, unban Victini's ability. Some ultra beasts not ubers? Cool, still works and let's us keep Beast Boost. Still want Primordial Sea banned? Sweet, this system bans that too when we actually want it banned!

Really, if there was a time to get CAP over its distracting flavor bans, now would be the time to do it while the flavor world is being upheaved by new shades of gray that just overly complicate the system. We identify abilities (and moves) as part of our key competitive stages, but we are only hindering these stages by banning from them based on a flavor condition such as legendary exclusivity.
 

jas61292

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If we want to stay relevant as a competitive project, I don't see why we are banning competitively stable tools on the basis of flavor.
I really don't want to derail the thread, but I have both had discussions with you on this, and read discussions you have had with others about this, and I honestly think you fundamentally are missing the entire point of what we do here with regard to legendaries. You like using the word "flavor" as a catch all for anything not competitive, but this ban has nothing to do with it being bad flavor. We allow tons and tons of bad flavor. Just look at our movepools. Flavor is about whether or not something makes sense on a Pokemon, from a consistency and logical standpoint. When it comes to this ban, it has absolutely nothing to do with that. These bans are about how the project appears to people, not the Pokemon. There are things we can give that could in theory make perfect sense on a given Pokemon, but would still make the project look bad because they are somewhat of a sacred thing to the fanbase. Legendary exclusive things are the pinnacle of this (well, actually, I'd personally argue Pikachu exclusive things are even more so, but... yeah). We ban them to prevent the backlash that could happen from giving them out. And, as a project frequently talking about how we have issues getting new people to join, anything we do that could drive people away is a bad thing.

Ignoring all that for a second though, your proposal makes absolutely no sense. What we do now has policy reasoning behind it, whether or not you personally agree with it. But banning something because it is uber exclusive has no policy reasoning behind it. It is an objective measure, sure, but it is completely arbitrary since there is no good reason to use that specific objective measure. It would exist just to exist, and I would rather have no objective criteria to ban things than have something like that.

Now with regard to what I said about those few specific abilities in my post, I honestly see them as strange cases, and not as clear cut as you seem to. Yes, the surge abilities are all unique, but the follow a mold that has been around for a long time, and all are related. And I think your comparison to the Primal Legendary abilities is not all that applicable, as they are really only related in theme, not so much in function. That said, unlike you implied, I never said they should be unbannable, and I would have no problem seeing these banned if people disagree with my reasoning for them being different. Beast Boost, on the other hand, is even stranger case, because as far as I know, we have never before had an ability that was exclusive to legendaries, but not exclusive to one specific legendary. As we have never before really defined what we meant by exclusive, its hard to say which category these fall in. Due to the combination of disputed legendary status and the shared nature, I have no problem with treating this as a normal ability. But, as with the Surge abilities, if others feel they should count as a signature legendary ability, I have no issue banning them.
 

HeaLnDeaL

Let's Keep Fighting
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There are things we can give that could in theory make perfect sense on a given Pokemon, but would still make the project look bad because they are somewhat of a sacred thing to the fanbase. Legendary exclusive things are the pinnacle of this (well, actually, I'd personally argue Pikachu exclusive things are even more so, but... yeah). We ban them to prevent the backlash that could happen from giving them out. And, as a project frequently talking about how we have issues getting new people to join, anything we do that could drive people away is a bad thing.
I think it makes the project look worse to ban based on flavor rather than on competitive merits. This is very very similar to the idea of the build triangle. In the past, the build triangle was a sturdy range of acceptable power levels for the fourth/fifth generation metagames. But after experiencing Gen6 for a while, we came to realize that the power creep in OU was just too much for us to be married to the concept of the triangle anymore, and that doesn't look like it will change anytime soon at all.

Legendary exclusives, like the build triangle, are optics issues from the past and I don't believe they are relevant optic issues of the current time. We now have a metagame that is so much different that taking so many exclusive tools and banning them leaves CAP with a huge shortage of tools compared to the number that are competitively relevant today. We're asking our participants to play without a full deck of cards and expecting them to still have the same odds of getting a royal flush or a four of a kind or whatever else you want to think of as a good hand.

The policy of banning legendary exclusives was a great optics decision for CAP's earlier generations. I do not in any way try to dismiss the policy from formerly having a high optics value. Earlier generations simply didn't have as many legendary exclusives and the OU metagame thus wasn't impacted by them quite as much. But it's unwise to simply call something "optics" as a defense for saying it has no flavor implications, and it makes even less sense to call an old policy based on old optics an overriding force to the flavor implications of legendary exclusives in the current time.

The label of legendary exclusives used to be a mix of good optics and flavor in what it covered. Now that I believe that it is no longer in good optics, I have and will refer to it as flavor. It is fundamentally a flavor aspect because the status of being a legendary Pokemon is fundamentally a flavor label. It adds to their lore and to their roles in-game to have this label. But having this legendary label does not equate to something being considered outside of the parameters of normal competitive play. GameFreak lets Raikou be used in the Battle Tree, which is one example of an in-game competitive playground. Here on Smogon, OU is considered the normal competitive playground. Raikou having the legendary label does not in anyway impact its competitive play. If it's not a competitive label, then it is a flavor one. This is is not to say that every optics issue is a flavor issue. I mentioned the build triangle earlier, and it is quite obvious that that was an optics issue with more competitive implications than flavor implications. During old metagames where the status of legendary Pokemon was more highly correlated to the being "above the standard" of power, this made sense to ban them as the optics had a decent amount of competitive influence. I now believe that the policy has lost all of its competitive influence, especially when the far easier way to judge "above the standard" would be using the list of Pokemon above the OU tier.

I also just want to look back at look at some of the inconsistencies of ways at looking at exclusives. Jas himself just mentioned that he thinks the Pikachu exclusive move of Volt Tackle should be a more sacred barrier than even legendary exclusive moves. The simple fact, however, is that this is not the current policy. Volt Tackle is technically legal in CAP right now. This, however, just goes to show the subjective nature that we are dealing with when it comes to the label of exclusives. We all have a higher priority of what is "sacred" to the game's flavor and our multiple interpretations of flavor make it very hard to come with a consistent policy on exclusivity. This is itself mirrored by Jas's proposal to unban the legendary exclusive Surge abilities; it is an inconsistent policy based on an inconsistent method in the terms of how exclusivity is implied. Jas has tried to argue that the Surge abilities should be unbanned because they are "similar" and thus not "really" exclusive. However, if we look back at Gen5, we had a similar group of four legendary mons that all learned the move Sacred Sword. During Gen5 CAP, Sacred Sword was banned because it was only on legendary Pokemon, even if it wasn't shared to a single legendary Pokemon. If you want to call the the Surge abilities all the same ability, it still does not remove the fact that they are only on legendary Pokemon and thus are still legendary exclusives.

There is an inconsistent use of the legendary exclusive label. It's happening right now. It's something the people that support the legendary exclusive ban are struggling to get around right now. Why not just make it easier and more straightforward on us all by no longer banning something just because it is legendary exclusive? It actually pains me to see some of this happening. I can imagine people like jas genuinely wanting to play with the surge abilities, but no matter how I try and cut it, they just aren't compatible with our legendary exclusive banlist. If we want to still play with them, then the legendary exclusive banlist has to go out the window.

CAP is largely competitive project. Mons banned from OU were banned based on competitive implications. It's thus not hard to see why an uber's exclusive ban would align much more closely to CAP's competitive goals than a legendary exclusive banlist. That said, I'm definitely not saying "banning on Uber exclusivity is the way it HAS to be." I want a system that bans on competitive power levels and on project feasibility. An uber exclusive banlist + a project feasibility banlist is merely one way this could go down. If people instead want to go one by one and try to judge the competitive feasibility of legendary exclusive abilities/moves, then I am perfectly willing to do that instead. My method is not nearly as fixed as my priorities of banning on competitive worth and project feasibility.

TLDR: Legendary exclusives exist in real competitive play, why shouldn't we explore them to? The optics of the past don't apply anymore because legendary exclusives are much more expected to be seen in standard competitive play (OU). If it's not a competitive-related decision anymore, and if there's no one (or few people) who think that "zomg CAP using legendary exclusive stuff makes them a fanboy project LAWL CAP", then it's in bad optics to keep the policy, reducing the policy to one based on mere flavor labels. Let's just get rid of our ban on legendary exclusives so that we can more adequately portray ourselves as a relevant competitive project.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
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I'm not reading the walls of text but I have gathered they're at least partially about the Terrain abilities.

There's a difference between these and other legendary exclusive abilities. Some legendary-only abilities are pretty clearly meant just for that Pokemon. Bad Dreams was clearly made for Darkrai, with its move Dark Void (though lol now it sucks). Multitype or RKS System are clearly made for their mons too. This is also true of the Aura abilities for Xerneas, Yveltal, and Zygarde. And for Soul Heart on Magearna. These are all obvious cases to be banned from CAP discussion.

The same wasn't ever true about weather starting or now either about Terrain starting. Here's the key difference: They have identical effects that can be started by many Pokemon with the use of a single move.

So why were Drought and Drizzle ever banned? Well, we had Drought and Drizzle largely banned in Gen 4 CAP because they were permanent weather metagames where the abilities themselves were pretty broken. This was tested on Pyroak at one point. The same wasn't /as/ true in BW and Drought was discussed on what became Mollux. It was heated. But by XY and now SuMo, with weather no longer being permanent, we know the abilities can be perfectly balanced.

It's pretty unequivocally true that terrain abilities are not broken in SuMo. Allow them as primary abilities. They're fundamentally similar to the weather setting abilities. And the guardians are all OU (or possibly lower), and even if one gets banned, it would not be due to the ability alone.
 

Ignus

Copying deli meat to hard drive
Shouldn't it be noted that the people that would scream "OMG those guys put a legendary ability on their own fakemon they just want to make super strong stuff all the time" are the same people who would scream "OMG this guy is using Articuno on his team stupid legendary user noob"?

I don't think we particularly want to attract that crowd to the project in the first place. Sure the project is sort of naturally new-Smogoner friendly but if we can't convince someone that having legendary traits isn't the same as something being busted or overpowered we have a bigger problem.
 

DHR-107

Robot from the Future
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Orange Islands
OK,

There is obviously a bit of a discussion about the Surge abilities, which I think is fine. A little, heated, but fine.

However, if you want to look at the "blurred lines" of ability bans, then I suggest this discussion be put on hold and that discussion takes place first. Otherwise, I will continue to look over this thread and how things are doing.

I'll try and keep it brief in response to what people have brought up about which abilities... Hopefully this won't be too TL;DR until the bottom part.

nyttyn As I said on Discord, a lot of abilities this gen are exclusive, but are not added to any of the above lists. RKS System will not be being unbanned, unless a lot more people come out in support of it being unbanned. It simply completely undermines our typing process, and unless we make a Pokemon with that ability in mind from the get go (which would mean a very constrained concept) then I don't see it being allowable for the same reasons Multitype is banned.

Soul Heart however does open up Pandora's box somewhat. Bizarrely, Moxie isn't on any of our ban lists (including flavour, which I will talk about at the end of this post). As a Special Version of Moxie in singles (it does have an added effect in doubles), Soul Heart is likely not considered broken by anyone here. Does the fact that it is a legendary/event only ability preclude it to be banned, as opposed to being allowed? This will also relate to the grouped Surge Abilities which are currently only on the Tapu's. However, other "580bst" legends (I know Tapu's are 570), have abilities which are not unique. So this gives an interesting thing to discuss.

Related to Soul Heart, Beast Boost will likely need more discussion too. The only UB to be able to use this effectively (by that I mean with the most different stats) is Celesteela, who has the most balanced stats, and the "easiest" way to guarantee boosts in each stat. Most of the other UB's have such disproportionate stats that it will always be the same stat being boosted regardless of you you play with Natures/EVs. I would be happy for this to move down to a Secondary Ability Ban.

Fluffy almost contravenes our stats stage just as much as Fur Coat. However, it does have a downside. It's only applicable to contact moves and gives the user a Fire Weakness. This is an ability that I believe will require more discussion on.

Disguise has been brought up to be pretty much unanimously banned by everyone here. This will be moved to Total Ban/Primary Ability Ban. It's huge advantages will be inflated even more so during a CaP Project and while I believe it could bring an interesting project, its effect seems like it would be amplified ten fold without the poor stats that Mimikyu has.

I will likely also be moving Water Bubble up to Primary Ban. After thinking about it a little more, having Water Veil + Heatproof + Water Move Only Huge Power is frankly insane. On a mon as powerful as a CaP, it would be beyond broken unless we gave it a completely gimped movepool. The other aspect to this is that Water Bubble itself inherently needs a Water Bubble in its design, which I believe is overly limiting to artists.

If anyone else wants to have a look over Nyttyn's post above and talk about what he did feel free. At the moment he is the only voice on a number of abilities.

What I did want to get onto here was how sparse our Flavour Ability ban list is. As it stands, Moxie, Gale Wings, -Ate abilities, Adaptability, Download, Dry Skin and a whole host of other abilities which could potentially have extreme effects are not on it. I only realised after doing this list that a bunch of abilities which should probably be banned in Flavour discussions aren't. Do we rely on common sense to override suggestions made in the flavour threads? I am happy with that, but are others?

Updated Lists:

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Delta Stream
Desolate Land
Disguise

Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fluffy
Full Metal Body

Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor

Protean
Pure Power
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield

Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Water Bubble
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Battery
Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Power of Alchemy
Receiver

Run Away
Symbiosis
Telepathy
Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Delta Stream
Desolate Land
Disguise

Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fluffy
Full Metal Body

Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor

Protean
Pure Power
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield

Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Water Bubble
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Comatose
Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Grassy Surge
Innards Out

Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost

Battery
Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Power of Alchemy
Receiver

Run Away
Symbiosis
Telepathy
Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Delta Stream
Desolate Land
Disguise

Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fluffy
Full Metal Body

Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor

Protean
Pure Power
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield

Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Slow Start
Soul Heart
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Water Bubble
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Comatose
Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Grassy Surge
Innards Out

Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost

<Potential List of Non-banned Abilities which should not be allowable for Flavour reasons>

Water Bubble/Disguise are now Banned Entirely
Beast Boost is a Secondary only Ban
Soul Heart has been removed from all listings (Potentially needs to be added to the new Flavour Ability ban list)
 
Last edited:

DarkSlay

Guess who's back? Na na na! *breakdances*
is a CAP Contributor Alumnus
Soul Heart has been compared to Moxie for the most part in this thread, but there are two defining characteristics of this ability that makes it better than its comparison.
  • A Soul Heart boost cannot be wiped out by an Intimidate user. Intimidate often stops the momentum of Moxie sweeps, but you can't eliminate a +1 SpA boost on a switch. It may seem situational, but Intimidate is often how teams stop Moxie momentum sweeps. Soul Heart retains all momentum sans a bulky Special wall switching in.
  • Soul Heart activates when an opposing Pokemon faints, not just when your own Pokemon faints it. That means when a Pokemon dies of Toxic, Burn, hazard damage, weather damage, or any other non-direct form of damage, the Soul Heart user will gain the boost. This is much more powerful than Moxie, since you can't do things like hazard sacrifice to prevent the boost. That's pretty big.
I personally believe those two reasons are pretty major in terms of Soul Heart standing out (not counting "it's a Legend's ability"), making it much more consistent/threatening, and thus would ask the PRC to place Soul Heart on the Secondary Ability Banlist.

I'm on the fence with Fluffy. Taking double damage from Fire-type moves is pretty big, especially if the ability were to be put on a naturally Fire-weak Pokemon. That said, it's true that an ability like Fluffy and Fur Coat essentially circumvents the "stats" section of the process. I'm starting to lean towards "allow more abilities at the cost of increasing expectations of our TL/TLT leadership" when it comes to balancing out a CAP (I think a good TL would know what Fluffy does and set a stat limit to an appropriate level, including BST). However, we would need to re-evaluate CAP's position on these abilities to make that determination.

The solution could be, by the way, to make an exclusive CONCEPT ONLY ability list, where Primary Ability bans can be explored only through concentrated concepts on the subject. There's a lot of abilities that fit this bill currently, and this way, we can retain procedural balance while refraining from eliminating viable abilities outright. Water Bubble may also fall into this category.
 

jas61292

used substitute
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Don't have ton of time at the moment, but I just would like to quickly clarify that Soul-Heart is not just special Moxie that happens to be legendary exclusive. It is better special Moxie, as you get the boost on any KO, not just ones caused by your direct attacks. With Moxie, if a Pokemon is about to be knocked out, and you have someone else who will die on the switch in from hazards, you can sacrifice them to let you switch to someone else without taking a hit or giving the opponent a Moxie boost. Similarly, if the Moxie user just barely misses a kill, and then the opponent dies to poison or burn, there is no boost given.

This is not the case with Soul-Heart. Any KO gives you a boost, whether you caused it with an attack or not. No sacrifices to avoid it, no lucky breaks with status or recoil or whatnot. I don't know if this makes a big enough difference to change anything, but it should be kept in mind.

EDIT: DarkSlay beat me to it...
 
I'm aware that my stance on legendary-exclusive abilities may be radical to some, but here it is: I think that it should have absolutely zero impact on whether or not an ability is banned from discussion. If an ability isn't something we deem incredibly busted, doesn't distract from or undermine a stage of the process, and doesn't involve a form change, I think it'd be fine for us to discuss it for its competitive merit.

A really straightforward example of this would be with Victory Star. In singles, it's an objectively worse Compound Eyes, so what reason other than flavor / Victini's legendary status / (whatever you want to label it) do we have for keeping it banned? Is flavor reasoning for the rules of a competitive thread a precedent that we really want to keep? I say no.

I won't go into all the examples or push for this too hard. There are only a handful of currently banned legendary-exclusive abilities that I think would be actually worth unbanning (some of them are legitimately too good or distracting, don't really care about unbanning carbon copies of other abilities). I just find it silly that flavor reasoning helps dictate the rules of a competitive stage of the process.

What I did want to get onto here was how sparse our Flavour Ability ban list is. As it stands, Moxie, Gale Wings, -Ate abilities, Adaptability, Download, Dry Skin and a whole host of other abilities which could potentially have extreme effects are not on it. I only realised after doing this list that a bunch of abilities which should probably be banned in Flavour discussions aren't. Do we rely on common sense to override suggestions made in the flavour threads? I am happy with that, but are others?
I'm fine with relying on common sense for the flavor ability thread. In fact, a few of these could be pretty neat flavor abilities. Take Moxie for example. Obviously it's a great ability and it would be too good in *most* cases, but it would almost certainly be useless on something with say, base 30 Attack (lol). If someone is dull enough to suggest it as a flavor ability for a CAP with base 140 Attack, then the topic leader or ability leader just says "no" and bans it from discussion, easy. I have faith in our ability to call it as we see it.

Also, Grass Pelt is still on the primary ability banlist, lumped in with the useless abilities. Terrains are more relevant this gen, so I think it'd be fair to unban this.
 

emma

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DPL Champion
All my thoughts have already been explained in this thread

I agree with jas on literally everything he said in this post.

I know I'm not technically voicing my opinion, but DHR wanted for discussion on the Fluffy ability, and I, just like jas, believe it should only be on the Secondary Ability Banlist.

Also free Grass Pelt, terrains are good this gen so Grass Pelt is no longer useless.
 

Deck Knight

Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
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The only point I want to reinforce about Surge abilities is that like Drizzle and Drought, they have parallel moves (and boosting items) that mirror / extend their effects, and therefore I would lean heavily on allowing them for primary discussions and banning them for secondary discussions. Desolate Land and Primordial Sea incidentally *do not* have parallel moves and items that mirror their effects, so they are not affected by this consideration.

Fluffy is sufficiently targeted and multi-faceted in its buffs and drawbacks that it should be allowed for discussion, as a practical concern for slating it would probably need immense justification, but we're talking about whether it should be allowed to be discussed, not if it will ever be a practical selection.

Beast Boost is a stat-customizable Moxie and therefore very cool.

Soul Heart's passive KO boost is problematic, and it has optics issues being a legendary-exclusive. Beast Boost on a mon with sufficient Special Attack replicates this effect without the passive KO problem, and I think the optics problem is considerably less. I defy anyone to tell me if we threw Colossoil or Krillowatt's spreads out with the Ultra Beasts people would be able to tell the difference (and I submitted them both originally so I can bring this up, lol). Anyway, leaning Ban on Soul Heart. "Create-A-Ultra-Beast" Project.

My understanding of Queenly Majesty is that it only protects allies from priority moves, whereas Dazzling protects only the user. QM should thus be Primary and Secondary banned, but not Flavor Banned while Dazzling should be Secondary and Flavor banned.

Victory Star is basically an inferior Compoundeyes that is Legendary exclusive. It's bad for flavor optics, not really replicable (bar Hone Claws / Gravity), and is more a PR headache than an overpowered ability. Retain the total ban.
 
Deck Knight Queenly Majesty also affects the wielder, and Dazzling is the exact same thing with a different flavor attached to it.

Anyway, Grass Pelt is no longer useless, as several fellow users stated above. Soul-Heart seems to be an even better special-based Moxie, since a sacrifice won't help against it by any means. Gale Wings has been heavily nerfed, so there's no real need to ban it anymore, unless it's Flavor-exclusive.
 

DHR-107

Robot from the Future
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Orange Islands
As this somewhat died off and I thought it was implemented and apparently wasn't, I am giving you guys 48 hours to dissent/discuss anything else.

The "New" Ban list will be as follows unless someone brings up good ideas. While I would like Legendary Exclusive abilities to remain banned, I am very much open to more discussion on the Surge Abililites and Beast Boost as these abilities are potentially both bad for optics and bad for making a Pokemon around. In my opinion, the Tapu's embody what the terrains are about, and I personally believe Beast Boost is more than well explored on the Ultra Beast Pokemon. However, I am open to them both being only allowed as Primary Abilities as there has been good discussion all round and the pros/cons have been weighed up. The only other Ability which really needs discussing is Soul Heart. Victory Star is the only other "Mythical" ability we have banned as all the others are not exclusive. I believe that if we decide to not ban Soul Heart, then Victory Star should also be unbanned.

I would also like to cut down/out the entire "Flavour Ability Banlist" and simply replace it with common sense. I know we have the ban list so we can infract people who are stupid with an actual reason, but I'd really rather just get rid of it all together and simply have to two ban lists, Primary/Total Ban and the Secondary Ban.

I have also added Triage to the Secondary Ability Ban list, as I believe it would be insanely stupid (and we already gave it to Revenankh). I'd also like discussion on Stamina.

Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Delta Stream
Desolate Land
Disguise

Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fluffy
Full Metal Body

Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor

Protean
Pure Power
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield

Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Water Bubble
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Battery
Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Power of Alchemy
Receiver

Run Away
Symbiosis
Telepathy
Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Beast Boost

Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Delta Stream
Desolate Land
Disguise
Electric Surge

Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fluffy
Full Metal Body

Fur Coat
Grassy Surge
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Misty Surge
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor
Psychic Surge

Protean
Pure Power
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield

Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Slow Start
Stance Change
Teravolt
Triage
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Water Bubble
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Comatose
Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Grassy Surge
Innards Out

Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost

Battery
Big Pecks
Friend Guard
Grass Pelt
Healer
Honey Gather
Illuminate
Pickup
Power of Alchemy
Receiver

Run Away
Symbiosis
Telepathy
Air Lock
Aura Break
Bad Dreams
Battle Bond
Color Change
Dark Aura
Defeatist
Delta Stream
Desolate Land
Disguise

Fairy Aura
Forecast
Fluffy
Full Metal Body

Fur Coat
Huge Power
Illusion
Imposter
Moody
Multitype
Parental Bond
Power Construct
Primordial Sea
Prism Armor

Protean
Pure Power
RKS System
Schooling
Shadow Shield

Shadow Tag
Shields Down
Slow Start
Soul Heart
Stance Change
Teravolt
Truant
Turboblaze
Victory Star
Water Bubble
Wonder Guard
Zen Mode

Arena Trap
Comatose
Drizzle
Drought
Electric Surge
Grassy Surge
Innards Out

Magic Bounce
Magic Guard
Misty Surge
Prankster
Psychic Surge
Sand Stream
Snow Warning
Speed Boost
 
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Point of dissent: "common sense" is what led to the discussion at the end of last year about campaigning and the necessity to potentially be more vigilant in putting forth all the rules on every poll. Eradicating the list would only lead to the same headache in a different category. This is one area where the bureaucracy is for the best.

Another point of dissent: I suggested Grassy Surge as an invigorating ability for Malaconda's update to Gen 7. Malaconda is unique in that it's concept directly relates to weather and it has suffered since Gen 6. The scope of the update leaves potential for Malaconda to receive a new competitive ability in lieu of the questions being asked in the update thread; it is within reason that this competitive ability could be a Primary Ability and as such potentially Grassy Surge. Below is my justification for giving Malaconda a Primary-level Ability like Grassy Surge. Additionally, other abilities that fall under Primary-level (e.g. Speed Boost) still remain as viable in the update thread. I'd like to appeal the decision because, given the unique circumstance of Malaconda's concept combined with its waning and potential for a competitive ability as framed by the update thread, I feel the particular removal of the ability was exceptionally unwarranted. The reason for the removal was that it was a Primary Ability (i.e. based on recent decisions here) and as such I felt this would be the appropriate venue to appeal the decision and generate discussion on the issue.
  • How much of an impact do you believe your ability has overall? Why do you believe that level of impact is health for Malaconda?
  • Does your ability overshadow Harvest or otherwise redefine some aspect of Malaconda's usage? If it does, why do you believe that is acceptable?
Grassy Surge has a major impact; I would argue that it definitely overshadows Harvest for the betterment of Malaconda. Malaconda was made for a bygone era of Pokemon. While this may be true for other CAP projects, arguably all CAP projects as they were up until recently developed for OU, Malaconda was made with a specific mechanic in mind that through proxy crippled Malaconda's usage regardless of meta. Grassy Surge both does and does not redefine Malaconda's usage. At its core, with Grassy Surge, Malaconda becomes a 2.0 Rain check and a self-reliant Pokemon once again. When Harvest was given to Malaconda in Gen 5 it was with the intention that it would be used in perpetual Sun. In theory, that's 100% per turn berry regeneration. With this in mind, Harvest was a great ability when it was chosen; that's the exact reason the movepool was limited to essentials in the first place. Now that permanent Sun is no longer a possibility, Harvest is a mediocre ability and Malaconda's limited movepool and lack of identity are beyond apparent. For those who haven't played Gen 5, this is the equivalent of Talonflame from Gen 6 to Gen 7; the difference between mediocrity and efficiency in ability performance can be key to an otherwise one-dimensional Pokemon. Like Talonflame, Malaconda falls in that pitfall and suffered a generational nerf. So yes, at its core Malaconda is still a Rain check. On the other hand, this ability makes up for the crippling mechanic nerf Malaconda suffered and allows it to accentuate its power output to current Gen standards, stimulate its health through more reliable albeit lesser healing, and weaken key Ground moves which would harm Fire types hoping to take advantage of or set up Drought/Sunny Day. Ultimately this brings Malaconda up to par for Gen 7 while maintaining its original conceptual goal: support a Sun team through being an excellent Rain team counter.
 

Deck Knight

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Here's the relevant bit from the PR Thread where CAP Staff explicitly banned Surge abilities for discussion:

http://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/policy-review-updates-adjustments-mid-update-review.3602122/

Specifically, CAP Staff has discussed the matter of what we consider "defining abilities." These are effects so powerful that they warp the entire way the Pokemon plays on both an individual and team level. The best example of these effects are Auto-Weather and Auto-Terrain, which are in offensive and team support categories within themselves. Many other Abilities such as Huge Power, Water Bubble, and Magic Bounce have similar warping characteristics, but those are generally restricted to primary discussions to begin with. In general our Secondary Ability Ban List is a a decent guide for many of these discussions, but not a complete one.


It is the consensus of CAP Staff that our Updates, even major ones, should be strongly limited by not redefining our previous CAP creations in ways that change their entire role on a team. To take a few examples of our recent and ongoing CAPs, many are concerned about Triage redefining Revenankh to be more akin to a Gen 7 Talonflame, while Voodoom's updates are considered generally tasteful and modest and Naviathan's significant Ability change in line with that CAP's goals
Tl;dr there's no appeal process. If you want an auto-terrain CAP the only legal way to go about getting one is submitting a concept based around it and winning a concept poll.
 
Tl;dr there's no appeal process. If you want an auto-terrain CAP the only legal way to go about getting one is submitting a concept based around it and winning a concept poll.
Despite Grassy Surge not warping Malaconda? Surely a slated ability in an update poll would constitute winning a concept poll, even if an unofficial variant. If there's no appeal process that's fine, but I'm curious as to how Grassy Surge which outside of being a terrain only does what Malaconda was attempting to do prior whereas Speed Boost is a warping-potential ability as well that actually warps Malaconda's role, viability, match ups, checks entirely.
 

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