Approved Demon Jester

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ginganinja

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This concept by Jibaku was approved for discussion. Is this concept worth pursuing? If so, what questions could we ask? How could we improve this? Everyone is free to discuss the following submission as if this was a concept discussion.
Name: Demon Jester

General Description: A Pokemon that seeks an edge over its enemies not through force or raw bulk, but with a hefty number of "underhanded" tactics and psychological warfare. This mon is intended to leisurely toy with its prey and drive it to insanity with every last second of its dying breath.

Justification: A lot of Pokemon nowadays can be classified as fighters - they take hits, and they hit back. Because of this binary interaction, battling has become rather simplified - it's really just "I understand this mon's extent of damage and I'll respond with this and that" and whatever. By introducing this concept, I seek to explore mindgames over brute force. For instance, Zoroark's Illusion concept can do so, but players often prefer Pokemon with more straightforward approaches because they're much easier to calculate. But perhaps, it's time to try a Pokemon that makes both the user and the enemy think outside the box.

Questions to be answered:
  • How does one teambuild around, with, and against a Pokemon so indefinite?
  • How do we give this Pokemon numerous options and keep them all equally viable?
  • How do we clearly create weaknesses for a Pokemon with so many options?
  • A potential roadblock to the concept is Magic Bounce as it renders a lot of status moves ineffective, and a lot of indirect combat lies on those moves. There are two common Magic Bouncers in OU. Do we intend this to be a primary weakness, or will we find ways around it?
Explanation:
Let's all remember SwagPlay. Remember the frustrations that came along with it. That's kind of the stuff I'm talking about. Except something...less luck based. But it should still induce headaches and frustrations, yet somehow still fun to play as and against. Idk what kind of cheap tricks you guys want to pull off - there are many in the book. Unexpected trapping, random moves to take out certain mons, unexpected stalling, random Baton Pass, or something that just abruptly shifts the momentum of the game. It doesn't even have to be move-specific - things like Protean, Stance Change, and Illusion can sometimes force mind games if used correctly.

Why do I want something like that? Well let's just say I'm a twisted guy who likes watching other battlers suffer. And also I like seeing some creativity. Unfortunately, the game's biggest movepools are not quite capable of delivering what I want, mostly because the Pokemon's stats skew the selection of viable moves. I don't know exactly how we'll balance out this mon so it has a crazy number of surprises, but that's where the community can explore, right? One thing is clear, however. This Pokemon should be a highly opportunistic Pokemon.

Think about this mon as your trap card.


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I'm just going to approve this. As much as I would hate battling this, the concept is fun and allows for a ton of different options between movepool/abilities etc etc. It brings me back to this thread in Showdown where someone bitched that they wanted a Regeneration Clause because the tactic was borderline "cheating". This sort of mindset, ie a pokemon that encourages people to post those wonderful OU threads bitching about X, is something that could be fun to do.
 
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Birkal

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The thing I really like about this concept is the intention to create a "hefty" number of tactics. From a process standpoint, I think it would be a blast to make a Pokemon with basically as many tactics/gimmicks we can stuff into it. The second question about keeping them equally viable might be unfeasible, but we still should be able to make every tactic at least usable. There's plenty for us to discuss here for typing, abilities, and especially moves. Great concept with a lot of both flexibility and focus.

APPROVED 2/2

This thread will remain open if you wish to discuss it further. Please don't give any more examples of what these tactics could be; the OP has enough listed.
 
I think this concept was approved without any practical consideration into how this would play. When I think about this concept, it really seems like it is another one of those annoyer sets, like Whimsicott, which generally turns out to be gimmicky and inconsistent. I doubt this concept will get anywhere, especially since a Pokemon that will attempt this will likely have multiple ways to be stopped. And if it cannot be stopped, it will likely take these tactics so far over the edge that it will be flat-out broken and unmanageable for the OU metagame.
 

Jibaku

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There's more than Whimsicott that qualifies under "not offensive/defensive but can win games for you". Some examples with some viability include Smeargle, Scolipede, and regular Sableye. For example, Scolipede can either act as a suicide lead and throw entry hazards around, or utilize Speed Boost and its numerous set up moves to Baton Pass away. It also has some offensive potential to throw enemies off guard.

I just want to clarify that imo this mon should have a little bit of offensive and defensive prowess to ensure that it's not one-dimensional and can be fit into teams more easily (the one- or two-dimensionality is a problem with a lot of the "annoyers" and this concept is intended to make sure that doesnt happen) . However, those traits should not be the highlights, of course.

The other thing I would like to explore with this concept is the community's general limit of tolerance when it comes into things that aren't necessarily defined under the offensive and defensive characteristics of an Uber. I fully intend this concept to be a tricky, broad, and somewhat dangerous one - one that takes a lot of brainstorming to balance out, and I want to know what different people consider as 'annoying' or 'cheese' for them and perhaps bring them together into a way that doesn't make it overwhelming. At the same time, I also want a lot of room for imagination so the building process is enjoyable. It doesn't end there, of course - we can always throw in new strategies that could potentially be very annoying to face, such as a PP Stalling one.
 
There are 3 things which I can think of immediately that could be seen as annoying:
1) Strong/Hard to beat - Stuff which you struggle to beat is annoying, and its therefore, usually not always, good.
2) Time-taking/wasting - PP Stall, SubSeed and other similar strategies are the only real things that fit into this category off the top of my head, but the point is that things which take a long time usually annoy us, which kinda plays into the first category as well, I guess.
3) Unpredictability/Flexibility - Pokemon like Aegislash and Greninja were annoying not only because they were strong, category 1, but also because they were unpredictable and flexible, which was also part of what made them so good. They forced you to think/guess and sometimes took a lot of work (and/or time) to get around.

As you can see, they are all linked, in that they lend themselves to each other and come together to form an annoying mon. Whimsicott and Sableye use Prankster, along with Substitute + Stun Spore + Leech Seed and Will-O-Wisp + Recover respectively, to make themselves hard to beat, fulfilling the first category. In doing so, they often take a long time through SubSeed and Recover stalling, fulfilling the second category. They don't really have that much unpredictablility because you already know their main strategy (assuming we're excluding Mega Sab), but they do have a bit of flexibility in moves like Cotton Guard, Taunt, Encore, Dual Screens, Knock Off, Sucker Punch, Momento, Tailwind and U-Turn, allowing them to keep part of their capability hidden, making them even more annoying.

With Smeargle, it's just category 3, except taken to further lengths, but Smeargle isn't really that annoying IMO anyway. The only real problems I have are if I get hit by Dark Void when I predicted a Spore, or somehow gave it a free turn to set up.

Scolipede combines Sub + Protect Speed Boost stall to fulfill category 2 and to some extent 1, while using its good movepool and decent offensive presence to allow it to function as a Baton Passer, a Sweeper or as a Hazard Setter/Lead, but these have small differences between themselves (Megahorn on a SD Passer set getting the surprise KO, predicting it to BP and instead getting hit by a full sweeper set, or giving it a free turn to set up hazards because you tried to counter the BP/Sweeper set) that allow it to maintain some unpredictability which makes it more annoying and making its category 1 stronger in the process too.
 

nyttyn

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Personally I'm somewhat worried about how indefinite this CAP is. In the past, CAP's really struggled with that kind of thing - especially as of late, with Eijinhar and Very Risky. I mean, there's plenty of cool stuff we can do, but it does leave room for concern that another indefinite CAP will lead to another Aurumoth or Plasmata.

I'm also somewhat worried that people will use this CAP, like underused move, to bandwagon their favorite gimmick strat without concern as to its viability in OU as a whole - simply that they can finally push it onto a mon that could conceivably see some measure of success with it.

Neither of these concerns is enough of a deal breaker for me to advocate against this concept, but they're definitely things we should keep in mind if we do decide to use this concept for a CAP.
 

Ignus

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Here to follow up on some of Nyt's worries.

The thing that's really scary about this concept is that "Underhanded Tactics" is so unclearly defined - and while it looks interesting on the surface, we may find ourselves in concept assessment choosing something to focus on that isn't later viable competitively or that's so narrow that we end up losing interest later on in the project. Maybe the conversation on what some of these tactics would be happened elsewhere - IRC and the like, but I think it's important to put it here too.

I think we should look at this a little harder before this is voted on as a project and we hit such a wall. Could some of the supporters of the concept give some examples of what they consider the direction of the concept will be? What will we end up focusing on?
 

Da Pizza Man

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Personally I'm somewhat worried about how indefinite this CAP is. In the past, CAP's really struggled with that kind of thing - especially as of late, with Eijinhar and Very Risky. I mean, there's plenty of cool stuff we can do, but it does leave room for concern that another indefinite CAP will lead to another Aurumoth or Plasmata.
Risky Business was a problem more because of BugManiacBob abusing his position of TL rather than the actual concept, we really couldn't see what we could truly do with the concept, although we did with Eijinjar.
 

nyttyn

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I went ahead and complied a list of all the "Gimmick" moves/abilites we could possibly used.

Moves
Counter/mirror coat - requires predicition, but can work in the right circumstance. However it never works as a main option, as the opponent will simply OHKO you and thus negate the move.
Metal Burst - Works in more circumstances than the prior moves, but deals less and you can actually be too fast to use it.
Mirror Move - requires a lot of prediction and a good situation, but can work to beat setup sweepers and copy entry hazards/rapid spin.
Super Fang - requires a fast user and a few other cicrumstances, but is actually quite good.
Reversal - Requires set up, but can be devastating with the right circumstances. Physical Only
Acid Spry - can force things out at times. special only.
Focus Punch - requires set up and the right circumstances, but is potentially devastating. physical only.
Feather dance - can put in serious work but mandates prankster or a metric crapton of speed.
Gravity - allows a mon to BS out EQ against a few mons. only good on mons that also have earthquake.
Reflect Type - starmie shows this can work decently well with the right circumstances.
Magnet Rise - allows a mon to bs against a ground move user. only good on ground weak mons.
Trick Room - works in tour play but a bit too situational/easily screwd over for the ladder.
Soak - necturna has shown this works in a few specific circumstances.

Abilities
Unfortunately most of the actual gimmicky abilities that aren't unviable are also banned
Prankster - Basically mandatory for magnet rise / feather dance / soak / reflect type without a super high speed stat.


Items
King's Rock - lol flinch hax. Synergizes well with, and only with, skill link.
Red Card - can force something that can 2hko out and force it to come back in, or stop a sweeper in their tracks. Only worthwhile on sturdy or extremely bulky mons whom only need to survive for long enough to throw out hazards.
weakness policy - see dnite. Need an ability or superior bulk to survive the SE hit, and need good weaknesses to come in on so you can actually get nailed. Far too easily forced to be worthwhile most of the time in this priority infested meta tho. Sweeper only.
power herb - can let you get OHKOs you normally wouldn't, or set up geomancy. Actually a decent option for surprise value, but usually pales in comparison to having a life orb and just using f-blast or something.

Honorable mentions:
Stance Change - could cause a lot of shenangins, but banned
SwagPlay - we all know how infamous this is, but banned
Baton Pass - Smeargle and Scoliopede already do anything youc ould ever want with it, and thanks to based deNnNis it's banned to one user/team anyways.
Forecast - could be really funny to bring out a surprise fire/water/tc type but banned.
Illusion - the ultimate in shenanagins, but also mode +b (thanks aurumoth).
Imposter - Ultra shenanagins off of a unexpected user but banned.
Parental Bond - Twice the effects, 200 HP seismic tosses out of nowhere, twice the banned already.
Multitype - Turbo gimmicky, any type! also turbo banned.
Zen Mode - this could make for a nasty surprise were it not banned.
Protean - can cause nasty surprises, but banned.
Color Change - lel. Gimmick, not that good but banned anyways.
Lock On + OHKO - banned
Evasion - Banned


So yeah, not really a huge list.
 

Jibaku

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I can think of a few more (disregarding potential bans but I want to simply offer some ideas).

Moves:
Torment - Combined with a really strong defensive typing can leave your enemies unable to hit it properly. However that might not fit this concept. Still something to think about perhaps
Spite - I remember facing a weavile with this and it nearly stalled me out while expecting it to use something else.
Fairy Lock - Suicide 1 turn trapping (I think bulbapedia and showdown mention different mechanics on this but I'm not sure).
Acupressure - Extremely high potential move but may be too luck based for our liking.
Heart Swap - Can completely reverse sweeps out of nowhere


Abilities:
Sturdy: Endeavor and Pain Split abuse - situational but can be devastating.
Serene Grace/No Guard: Mostly for status moves that deal damage.
Anger Point: Probably not going to happen but it's one of the cheesiest abilities ever.
Mummy: Would've worked better if megamence was around but oh well.

Anyways, the concept isn't really about gimmicks. It's primarily about not beating the opponents through brute force/defense and instead focusing on other methods to still accomplish that. Bluffs and baits are other ways to look at this concept.
 
Machamp's No Guard + DynamicPunch is gimmicky because that is not that difficult to stop and is easy to pressure, but something like No Guard + Inferno could easily inflicts burns onto bulky Water, Dragon, and Rock Types; Tyranitar in particular hates getting burned, as most of its offense comes from physical attacks.
 
Recycle can be a decent gimmicky move that this CAP could abuse to re-use certain items like Red Card, which have been mentioned earlier on in the thread. When XY first came out, I used an Air Balloon Recycle Klefki to hilarious results. It was able to set up Spikes cleanly against any team, even if they led Mamoswine, one of Klefki's key (hah) counters back then.

While probably more viable than gimmick, stat-resetting moves like Haze and Clear Smog can be disruptive and "underhanded" without necessarily being gimmicks. Phazing to an extent is the same way. Partial trapping moves like Sand Tomb and Fire Spin could also be potentially potent on this CAP.
 

Birkal

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Anyways, the concept isn't really about gimmicks. It's primarily about not beating the opponents through brute force/defense and instead focusing on other methods to still accomplish that. Bluffs and baits are other ways to look at this concept.
I've been pretty much in agreement with this concept until this thought came up. Finding a way to snag KOs / disrupt opponents is vague for a concept. Also, that's sort of what we covered with our last concept, so I can't really get behind it. When I look at this concept, I view it more as a "gimmicks master" than anything else. Something that has numerous options to disrupt opponents with strategies that are typically not feasible due to poor distribution or general waste of space.

I'd argue that we should make edits to the original concept to reflect this mentality. In my opinion, we're going to learn the most out of this concept if we essentially make a Pokemon with plenty of gimmicks to keep the opponent guessing. If it comes out and you don't know what gimmick is coming, then we've accomplished the "bluffs" portion that Jibaku is talking about. I think that bluffing will come out naturally if we focus on stacking gimmicks. Agreed?
 

Jibaku

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Oh gimmicks are still on the table of course. I'm merely saying it's not the primary focus and there are other ways to look at the concept. If gimmicks are the best way to approach it, then go ahead. I just didn't want to be single-minded on this, that's all.
 
I think one support move that hasn't been pointed out yet is Parting Shot. Lowering both attacks while switching out is and outstanding move and imo certainly fits into the category of "underhanded tactics" and seems like it could work well in conjunction with this mon
 
I think an aspect that seem people have been forgetting is the mindgames part. Not only do we want to give this CAP a tool of gimmicks, but we want them to be the kind of gimmicks that make the game more interesting and less one-dimensional. I think another possibility for this is abusing the MegaEvolution that it will have access to. We could make it so that there is a mindgame involved with when the CAP is gonna megaevolve. For instance, the MegaEvolution could have Magic Bounce while the regular version has some other good competitive ability that would be worth holding onto. Then there's a mindgame involved where the opponent has to decide whether or not to go for the status while the user has to decide whether to keep the ability or go to Magic Bounce.

Similarly, the MegaPokemon could switch types drastically (only one type can change, but it can be the sort of change that turns weaknesses into resists so that its still a big difference) forcing more mindgames about when the pokemon will shift. Naturally, we would need ways of making sure that immediately MegaEvolving is not always correct. In fact, just the presence of MegaEvolution can make the mindgames more interesting because now the opponent doesn't know if you're sandbagging your mega or if you just don't have it. Suddenly this could be made more interesting if you include a Pokemon that almost always MegaEvolves, but don't make it Mega. This tricks your opponent into thinking that the Charizard is the mega when it's actually the CAP. Obviously, the viability of such a strategy is questionable, but it's a possibility and these are the kind of things we want to encourage.

Another option is giving the CAP Shadow Tag and another good ability. Then the opponent is forced to decide which ability the CAP has and whether it is worth trying to switch out.
 
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I went ahead and complied a list of all the "Gimmick" moves/abilites we could possibly used.

Honorable mentions:
Stance Change - could cause a lot of shenangins, but banned
SwagPlay - we all know how infamous this is, but banned
Baton Pass - Smeargle and Scoliopede already do anything youc ould ever want with it, and thanks to based deNnNis it's banned to one user/team anyways.
Forecast - could be really funny to bring out a surprise fire/water/tc type but banned.
Illusion - the ultimate in shenanagins, but also mode +b (thanks aurumoth).
Imposter - Ultra shenanagins off of a unexpected user but banned.
Parental Bond - Twice the effects, 200 HP seismic tosses out of nowhere, twice the banned already.
Multitype - Turbo gimmicky, any type! also turbo banned.
Zen Mode - this could make for a nasty surprise were it not banned.
Protean - can cause nasty surprises, but banned.
Color Change - lel. Gimmick, not that good but banned anyways.
Lock On + OHKO - banned
Evasion - Banned


So yeah, not really a huge list.
But here is your immediate problem right here. Even if this CAP were to reach fruition, most probable would be a ban in the future. The mon in question would exist well here but again, the problem is that the current smogon meta doesn't take kindly to gimmicks in the first place. So honestly (my own opinion rather), this discussion is already doomed from the get go.
 
I think the key for this concept would be versatility for indirect attacks. So as you not rely on gimmicks, when you see certain pokemon you can easily predict what the role will be on the team (status, hazard, wall, sweep) this concept should blur the lines between these roles and make it hard to predict the role until its too late. It should have a large move pool with access to many hazards and status moves, along with other annoying tactics like confusion, subseed, paraflinch, ability supression, phasing, and many priority moves would make this a very dangerous pokemon to prepare for and deal with if left unchecked. It should rely on a good defensive typing to allow for many resistances and immunities to switch in on and rely less on bulk, opening for more offensive and speed stats. There could be several abilities that would be tricky and it could have 3 extremely different abilities that would set the pace for the role it should play.(Offensive ability, defensive ability, or a tricky ability) And once the opponent has been worn down through the use of hazards or status it should be able to clean up with decent offense and priority moves. But shouldn't be geared too offensive or really powerful moves or you risk everyone just using the pokemon as a sweeper and that goes against the versatility.
 
I think the key for this concept would be versatility for indirect attacks. So as you not rely on gimmicks, when you see certain pokemon you can easily predict what the role will be on the team (status, hazard, wall, sweep) this concept should blur the lines between these roles and make it hard to predict the role until its too late. It should have a large move pool with access to many hazards and status moves, along with other annoying tactics like confusion, subseed, paraflinch, ability supression, phasing, and many priority moves would make this a very dangerous pokemon to prepare for and deal with if left unchecked. It should rely on a good defensive typing to allow for many resistances and immunities to switch in on and rely less on bulk, opening for more offensive and speed stats. There could be several abilities that would be tricky and it could have 3 extremely different abilities that would set the pace for the role it should play.(Offensive ability, defensive ability, or a tricky ability) And once the opponent has been worn down through the use of hazards or status it should be able to clean up with decent offense and priority moves. But shouldn't be geared too offensive or really powerful moves or you risk everyone just using the pokemon as a sweeper and that goes against the versatility.
I feel like giving a Pokemon a very good defensive typing, a ton of great status moves, three great and vastly different abilities, and the capacity to play the role of defense, support, and offense would be way too much. At that point it would just be a Pokemon that can do absolutely anything very well, making it extremely overcentralizing to the metagame, which, in the end, is not healthy for the metagame.
 
I think the key for this concept would be versatility for indirect attacks. So as you not rely on gimmicks, when you see certain pokemon you can easily predict what the role will be on the team (status, hazard, wall, sweep) this concept should blur the lines between these roles and make it hard to predict the role until its too late. It should have a large move pool with access to many hazards and status moves, along with other annoying tactics like confusion, subseed, paraflinch, ability supression, phasing, and many priority moves would make this a very dangerous pokemon to prepare for and deal with if left unchecked. It should rely on a good defensive typing to allow for many resistances and immunities to switch in on and rely less on bulk, opening for more offensive and speed stats. There could be several abilities that would be tricky and it could have 3 extremely different abilities that would set the pace for the role it should play.(Offensive ability, defensive ability, or a tricky ability) And once the opponent has been worn down through the use of hazards or status it should be able to clean up with decent offense and priority moves. But shouldn't be geared too offensive or really powerful moves or you risk everyone just using the pokemon as a sweeper and that goes against the versatility.
I have some general ideas of how this pokemon could be built to give a more concrete feel and visualization of the versatility and unpredictability this build would provide instead of just focusing on a gimmick. To answer the questions of the concept first: With a pokemon that is so versatile in filling many roles, it could easily fit on many teams as a way to fill in the gaps for whatever the team is lacking. As for preparing against, depending on how the pokemon is built will have certain weaknesses that could be checked by the usual ways to check such threats, although the hard part would come from the enemy trying to predict how you have it built and knowing the right time and the right way to check it. In order to give this pokemon options and keep them all viable, we will need a large move pool that will consist of hazards, status, priority, and moves with secondary effects. If given too powerful attacking moves with no secondary effects then it becomes a plain sweeper and if given too many boosting moves and healing moves then it could easily tank or wall. We should instead only try to partially fill one of these options as a backup if needed but not become the teams primary sweeper or wall. This pokemon shouldn't rely on strong defenses and good healing therefor creating a possibility to wear it down or KO it if the user isn't careful. also if the user focuses too strongly on a certain set up and the enemy predicts correctly then this pokemon wouldn't have the raw stats to deal with a check 1v1. For example, if running too many status or hazards then the opponent can rapid spin/defog or just magic bounce or have the cleric continue to heal the team and cure status. If this pokemon focuses on a revenge killer then it can be walled. If it tries to tank too much then it can be broken and leave the team open for a sweep. The main way to exploit the weakness of this pokemon shouldn't be a simple process of pokemon A will beat pokemon B 9/10 times, but should be more about the mind games and who is the better strategist. Can your opponent see where your teams weakness is and therefore predict what role this one will fill? Will he predict the right time to switch in or switch out? Will he predict the switch in of said pokemon and use a powerful enough move to take him out? The focus is mind games and therefore should only be shut down if the opponent doesn't fall prey to the mind games and can successfully shut down this pokemons set. Now for suggestions of potential builds. As suggested earlier this pokemon should rely on a good defensive typing to offer many resistances and immunities in stead of high bulk. Some suggestions, in no particular order, Poison/ghost, poison/steel, poison/water, poison/electric, poison/dark, ghost/normal, ghost/steel, ghost/water, ghost/grass, ghost/electric, ghost/dark, steel/normal, steel/fighting, steel/flying, steel/bug, steel, steel/fire, steel/water, steel/electric, steel/dark, steel/fairy, dark/psychic, dragon/ghost, dragon/steel, dragon/water, dragon/dark. There may be other good typings that I'm missing, but most of these have many immunities and resistances and few weakness. This can further add insult to injury when combined with some combos with moves or abilities, which I will cover next. On many of these types, the few weaknesses include either ground or fire, this can be even trickier if you offer the option between levitate and flash fire for abilities. Leaving your opponent to try to guess which your only weakness is and your other option for a weakness is now an immunity. Depending on the type, this same concept can carry over with the abilities volt absorb, water absorb, storm drain, dry skin, bulletproof, lightning rod, motor drive, sap sipper, etc. Poison heal should also be considered for a defensive ability as it would offer a way to prevent you from being effected by other status and would offer some passive healing since this pokemon probably shouldn't have access do any direct healing like recover or roost. There are several abilities that offer another immunity that can cover a weakness. In even some cases there is only 1 weakness that can be covered with levitate or flash fire if the choose to play defensively, or if the user chooses a more offensive ability then they leave that weakness open for the opponent to take advantage of. Other abilities should be offered to cause even more frustration if you decide to play more tricky, such as effect spore, iron barbs, rough skin, trace, regenerator, cursed body, prankster, pickpocket, oblivious, serene grace, natural cure, shed skin, flame body, magic guard, mummy, bad dreams, magic bounce, static, gooey, shadow tag, synchronize, trace, illusion, imposter, multiscale, unnerve, liquid ooze, the list goes on for tricky abilities. As for offensive abilities, I think they should be limited to something that could help it become and offensive threat if it chooses, but also something that would only fit the pokemon and not allow it to fall into a category that it becomes primarily a sweeper. Some of the few I suggest would be, technician, infiltrator, justified, unburden, skill link, mold breaker, sniper, adaptability, simple, keen eye, scrappy, and maybe a few others. At first glance I think that either speed boost or protean would fit this pokemon for a more offensive build, but I think that would also be counter productive for the concept as this pokemon should already have decent speed or rely on pranster or priority tactics. Not to mention that anything with speed boost tends to fall into baton passing it to a more powerful slower pokemon. Likewise with the suggested typing for the resistances, protean would eliminate these types and therefore would become a single typed offensive pokemon, but could have the option to switch between types quickly with enough speed and prediction could frustrate the opponent if you keep switching to resist the move they are using. All in all, I think this provides many options for everyone to visually see and will help move this concept in a positive direction to be a fun and interesting pokemon to play with and against.
 
I feel like giving a Pokemon a very good defensive typing, a ton of great status moves, three great and vastly different abilities, and the capacity to play the role of defense, support, and offense would be way too much. At that point it would just be a Pokemon that can do absolutely anything very well, making it extremely overcentralizing to the metagame, which, in the end, is not healthy for the metagame.
This is true, I agree with the fact that this pokemon shouldn't rule the metagame. To clear up my point. It should not have very high defenses so it could be killed if not handled properly. Also should not have too high offensive stats so it can't just sweep the entire team. At most offensively this pokemon should be able to quickly take out a weakned enemy only, and would be walled by anything that is healthy, not affected by status, or is boosted up. Ultimately the goal is to be unpredictable and annoying. You don't want the opponent to look at the CAP and say ok he is going to be defensive and set up hazards and try to wall me for example. This pokemon should be ok defensively, and ok offensively, but where it will truly shine is being tricky and either hard to kill because of constant switches and other hinderances, or being caught off guard by an offensive move when your opponent would predict some kind of hazard or status. You don't want to leave this CAP vulnerable to being taunted and then being completely useless every time. Of course that would be an excellent way to counter certain builds, but then if that was the only thing you had to worry about then every team will have taunt or magic bounce and then it would provide a shift in the metagame there as well because everyone would be prepared for another gimmick such as swagplay, paraflinch, subseed, venom drench/venoshock/hex, etc. I think it definitely should had versatility to avoid becoming just a straight gimmick.
 
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how would this be different then whimsicott? it would have to be wouldnt it?
One way might be no gaurd and low accuracy status move like sing
I think magic Bounce might be something that should be a counter to this thing or prankster + taunt or magic bounce. but one way around this would be damaging moves with secondary effects. Although this goes into serene grace territory which is what you dont want. Then again, there are a lot of low power moves that have a secondary effect so maybe technicain would be good
 
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