CAP 25 - Part 3 - Concept Assessment

[hawk1113]

I spent my morning shower pondering it, and after a lot of reflection strongly feel that we must do abilities before typing. I had two major reasons:

1) The kind of abilities that are most likely to derail our typing discussion (e.g. immunity-granting abilities) are unlikely to be allowed, as the connection between movepool and ability will be far too tenuous and obscure. Reachzero yesterday outlined that to fulfill our CAP, we must have a clear connection that an outsider can see; that connection won't need to necessarily be as "In Your Face" as Tough Claws or Triage, but I think it'd be hard to make an argument that ANY movepool "supports and synergizes" with say Levitate or Flash Fire - especially since reach also noted that stupidly obvious stuff, like "Adapatability powers up STAB so we gave this mon good STABs", is also off the table, so "Flash fire powers up fire attacks, so we gave it a good fire move" would also not fly.

2) While there's going to be some poll-jumping and challenges no matter what we do, there will be less risk of completely derailing our CAP and failing the concept if we go ability first. As a for-instance that I hope isn't too poll jumpy (it was in the Discord), let's say we do typing first and settle on Fire Dragon for...reasons. Analyzing future abilities or moves for that typing would be poll jumping, so we go with our gut. Now let's say we get to abilities and determine that the screamingly obvious super cool ability for that typing is, in fact, completely broken and stupid. We now have a bad choice - we can further derail our process by kiboshing moves before the movepool phase, or we can audible into a new ability other than the screamingly obvious one and pray we can still fulfill the concept without feeling like "Salamence or Mega-CharX, but with a much lower BST". Both these choices are awful, as they risk either further wrecking our process with even more poll-jumping or making an unviable or failed CAP.

If we do it the other way around, and say we're going to do a powerful Fire-type Wallbreaker with some ability that lets it spam a move and snowball out of control, then when we get to typing we can have an honest conversation about if adding Dragon typing and coverage onto that is a good idea or not. And if we decide "no", the Concept (a powerful Fire-type wallbreaker with an ability that lets it snowball out of control) still works! We can leave it mono-Fire, or add a different typing to grant different coverage or resistances for free switch-ins, or add a typing with other complimentary moves that let it be mixed or more unpredictable, or whatever. It's a much safer route imo.

 

[faithviolet]

Must the ability have moves it directly impacts, or is it sufficient to have moves that support the role that the ability suggests?

The first is very strict, and forces the ability to be more generic-power-up. On the other hand, if we really want synergy between ability and movepool, I don't feel it's enough to have two traits that each are good for a role and call that synergy - rather there has to be something that makes their connection specific to the ability. To take two examples of the extreme, a Mega Launcher Pokemon having Origin Pulse, Dragon Pulse, and Aura Sphere as its main attacking movepool may be strong, but no stronger than a proportional stat boost in SpA would give. Something as simple as that wouldn't give any real insight as to how synergy of abilities matters. On the other extreme, giving a Pokemon with Speed Boost a movepool that includes Tail Glow certainly would make the Pokemon a much more capable sweeper, but this is less because Speed Boost specifically synergizes with Tail Glow and more because they both are good for sweeping ability.

So I would propose that the kind of ability-move synergy we should aim for, is one in which the ability boosts the power of specific moves, with an effect more than just a generic power-up. Tough Claws + Grass Knot is one example, the already existing Triage + Drain Punch is another, even Protean + wide movepool is a synergy because Protean makes coverage (vis a vis STAB moves) more powerful.

How strongly does the Typing of a Pokemon dictate which abilities it can viably coordinate its movepool for?

Some abilities strongly encourage particular types - No Guard encourages Electric (for Zap Cannon) or Fighting (for Dynamic Punch) - while others seem to care less.

The abilities which strongly encourage particular types will either be eliminated, or strongly encouraged (perhaps the Typing Poll results had the ability in mind), if a typing is chosen first. The ones that seem to care less will remain. However, even if a typing is okay with the ability that ends up being chosen, it is unlikely to maximize the potential of the ability. So an eventual choice on an ability that has no real connection to the type chosen will not fulfill the concept as well as one that helps actualize the ability. This means that if we want the ability to fulfill its potential, we would be pushed to choose an ability with a strong connection to a particular type and its movepool. But for any particular type, there are only one or two such abilities.

Because of that asymmetry, I suggest that we choose Ability first. First, this will broaden the range of more subtly movepool-synergistic and interesting abilities to pick from. Second, if we choose Ability first, the type discussion will be about which type will cause best synergy with the ability, and most abilities have a decent number of types that each could arguably be optimal. No Guard can be used with Fire, Electric, Fighting, but also has synergy with Rock, Ice, or Flying. This means that there will be good discussion and more options. By contrast, if we choose Type first, the type will either have been chosen with a particular ability/abilities in mind, in which case the discussion is naturally limited to those abilities, or will be chosen for arbitrary reasons, in which case it's unlikely to fit especially well with enough abilities to have an interesting discussion. Lastly, it's just easier to look at an ability and see what moves and type it would work with than to look at a type and work backwards to what abilities would work well with it. (with the obvious exception of immunity abilities, but it's not like those are likely to be chosen for this concept)

 

[Mr Holiday]

I'm actually in favor of the idea of doing our Ability section first, before determining what, if any, secondary Types we give our CAP Trio. While I don't necessarily think going Type first will completely ruin the CAP, I feel like deciding the Ability first will help us get a clearer idea of what Types we want to consider. How often do we decide on Types with a certain Ability in mind, only to not pick that Ability when we get to it? Just look at Jumbao. All throughout the Typing stage, the refrain was "we can give it (insert Sand Ability here) to deal with Sand damage". Did we? Nope. Now, I'm not trying to say we failed with Jumbao, or that it's a bad design. I'm just saying, we tend to (intentionally or otherwise) make assumptions about what we're going to do in future stages, and with a CAP based entirely around Ability/Type/Movepool coordination, those assumptions pose a serious risk to the viability of this CAP. Granted, going Ability first doesn't completely prevent this risk, but I think it will help us go into the Typing and Movepool stages with a clearer idea of what each CAP is supposed to do. Do we want CAP25f to be a sweeper? Give it a sweeper Ability. A wall breaker? Give it a wall breaker ability. After that, then we can decide "what Type works well with this Ability to achieve the desired goal? What Moves will it need to do it's job?".

(And yes, I know Jumbao eventually got Overcoat, but that was a third Ability, and there's no garuntee, especially if we follow the traditional Starter template, that our CAPs will get that, meaning the main Ability/s have to really be on point)

I also tend to agree that there should be a strong, clearly defined link between Ability and Movepool. I mean, that's kinda the point of the Concept, unless I'm misunderstanding it. Now, I would argue that we could use our three CAPs to explore how much connection we need to be successful, but I'm not sure I like running the risk of screwing part of CAP25 just to get the rest right, if that makes sense. Having one CAP with a very strong, direct link, another with a weaker link, and the third with a still weaker connection could be very informative, but I'm not sure if that actually fulfills the Concept, so I'm hesitant to really push for it.

EDIT: Yeah, that was a dumb question lol. I read that, just forgot.

 

[hawk1113]

Finally (this may be a bit of a poll jump, but I think it's important to know early on), are we going to give our CAPs the usual Starter Abilities of Blaze/Torrent/Overgrow? Is that already decided, or are we going to wait for the Ability section to decide? I only ask because i think knowing ahead of time will help us make an informed Ability decision, whenever we actually get to that point. Again, I'm not trying to poll jump, I just want to make sure we're all on the same page.

Good thoughts, but to answer this on the first page there's a list of notes about general truisms of starters that we are beholden too, specifically that...

- They will definitely be Fire, Water, and Grass types

- They will definitely have Blaze, Torrent, and Overgrow as primary abilities, so we only get one ability per as their effective "Hidden Ability".

- Their BST will have to stay in the range of 525 to 535, with no individual stat exceeding 126 (Primarina's Sp. Atk, the highest stat on any starter) or being under 56 (Torterra's Speed, the lowest value on any Starter).

There's some other, more minor notes about movepool that aren't direly relevant just yet, so those are the highlights.

 

[reachzero]

I'm pretty happy with the discussion so far, so let's take this up a notch.

What definition of "coordinate" should we use to weed out abilities that do not fit our concept?

We agreed that we should not be extremely exacting about taking only abilities that directly impact the effect of certain moves, so what definition should we use? I'd like to kick this discussion off with a proposed definition of "an ability that coordinates with the movepool that has one or more moves that are significantly impacted by the ability to change that Pokemon's specific matchups". For instance, The standard Mollux set of Lava Plume/Sludge Bomb/Rapid Spin/Recovery would be unaffected in its relationship with Heatran and Colossoil even if it had Serene Grace (ineffective coordination), but its matchup against Zygarde and Arghonaut would be greatly improved (effective coordination).

A critical question moving forward for the direction of this project involves choosing preferred roles for our starters. we already know that our Pokemon will be a Fire type, a Water type and a Grass type. Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be? Note that this does not mean that each starter will have only one viable role, but deciding a preferred role will ease the process of choosing an appropriate typing and ability later, and provide us with some direction.

 

[NumberCruncher]

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be?

For the Grass starter, it would probably be easiest to go with a very defensive mon. Grass isn't really the best offensive typing in the CAP metagame, we don't want it to have to compete with Jumbao, and Colossoil and Zygarde could use some more answers.

For the Water type, we don't want to opt into a fast, special attacker because Greninja and Volkraken will almost certainly be better than anything we could put together with these constraints. We also don't want it to wallbreak, because most walls in the CAP metagame either resist Water or are immune to it. Other than that, Water CAP probably has the most flexibility with how we want to move forward because it's good both offensively and defensively in this metagame.

Fire CAP probably wants to lean fast and physical. Most of the mons that would attempt to switch in are specially bulky (we really don't want Colossoil to be a free switch-in), and middling speed would make us susceptible to all the Ground types in the tier.

 

[Reviloja753]

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be?

Fire, in all honestly, is a garbage defensive typing in CAP, as Volkraken and Ground-type moves are everywhere. As such, I think we should make our Fire-type starter on the more offensive side of things. Fire has the best offensive type of the three as well, making an offensive Fire-type more reasonable. Furthermore, Fire has the strongest STABs on both sides of the spectrum of the three types. Basically, making Fire-type offensive is our best bet. Water and Grass, on the other hand, are better suited to defensive and utility roles respectively. Water is the best defensive typing of our three, with multiple defensive type combinations that can make it worthwhile. It also has useful moves we can abuse defensively, most notably Scald and Whirlpool. Grass can also be defensive with access to moves potentially including Leech Seed and Spore, but I am slightly hesitant on marking Grass as defensive, as Grass is a pretty bad defensive typing, leaving only one true defensive combination available (I'll give you three guesses). It also doesn't help that Ferrothorn, Jumbao and Pyroak are all defensive Grass-types, making competition even stiffer. Grass in my opinion is the most flexible of our options. Perhaps a fast utility Pokemon would be handy? Grass is a bit of an enigma for me. While Water has competition for defensive mons as well, it in my opinion has more room for exploration, as the bulky Water-types are all rather similar to each other (the mons I refer to are Gastrodon, Toxapex and Arghonaut). While they do have differences, they're closer in similarity to each other compared to Ferrothorn, Jumbao and Pyroak imo.

Will likely comment on the first question when I have a better understanding of reach's proposal for a definition.

 

[hawk1113]

I'm pretty happy with the discussion so far, so let's take this up a notch.

What definition of "coordinate" should we use to weed out abilities that do not fit our concept?

We agreed that we should not be extremely exacting about taking only abilities that directly impact the effect of certain moves, so what definition should we use? I'd like to kick this discussion off with a proposed definition of "an ability that coordinates with the movepool that has one or more moves that are significantly impacted by the ability to change that Pokemon's specific matchups". For instance, The standard Mollux set of Lava Plume/Sludge Bomb/Rapid Spin/Recovery would be unaffected in its relationship with Heatran and Colossoil even if it had Serene Grace (ineffective coordination), but its matchup against Zygarde and Arghonaut would be greatly improved (effective coordination).

I am not sure I follow this definition. If I do, another way of restating it is...

"Good and Effective Coordination means that the interaction of this Pokemon's ability and one or more of its moves allows it to succeed where, without those things working in tandem, it would have failed in a given match-up?"

If so, then on the one hand I like this definition because it makes sure we don't just call it a day and give these things access to Strong Jaws or Iron Fist or whatever; we must focus on, and prove, that the ability in question makes a real, true, and meaningful difference in key matchups for the Pokemon in a way that is superior to just running a different move and a different ability. On the other hand, a focus on match-ups seems to deny the possibly synergy of abilities that do not directly impact moves, but do synergize with them - such as Regenerator which incentivizes a retreat instead of staying in or overcoming a matchup. Part of me sees this definition as, de facto, still requiring direct impact. I don't have a better definition off-hand and honestly may not be tracking, but that's my initial take.

A critical question moving forward for the direction of this project involves choosing preferred roles for our starters. we already know that our Pokemon will be a Fire type, a Water type and a Grass type. Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be? Note that this does not mean that each starter will have only one viable role, but deciding a preferred role will ease the process of choosing an appropriate typing and ability later, and provide us with some direction.

GRASS: There's a few things I wanted to delve into to analyze this for myself...

• There are 11 Grass-type Pokemon currently "ranked" in the CAP meta: Jumbao, Ferrothorn, Kartana, Pyroak, Tapu Bulu, Necturna, Amoongus, Venusaur-M, Tangrowth, Serperior, and Malaconda. While I haven't done the total breakdown, I imagine that makes grass among the most underrepresented typings in the game at this time.
• Offensively, Grass is NVE against 23 of the 40 Pokemon at A- rank or above in the current meta. That means that more than 50% of the time, 25g is going to find its primary stab halved. It is SE against only 7 of those Pokemon. While there's less resistant Pokemon in B-tier, the number of SE targets doesn't really go up at all.
• In terms of roles of current top grass types, offensive Pokemon such as Kartana, Necturna, Tapu Bulu, and Jumbao find success with their amazing secondary typings and strong BST. Necturna is also aided by her infinite movepool, while the rest have strong abilities that improve their damage considerably. Serperior also sees fringe play thanks to its frankly insane Leaf Storm spam and high speed, despite a poor typing, complete lack of coverage, and mediocre Sp.A stat.
• Defensively, there are a ton of Ground, Water, and Electric types around making grass valuable, as evinced by the fact that six of our ten ranked Grass types tend towards defensive sets (and Jumbao and Tapu Bulu run defensive sets nearly as often as they run offensive ones). One oddity of our meta is that several of the best defensive Grass 'mons do not actually resist Ground due to their secondary typing (Pyroak, Amoongus, Ferrothorn, Venusaur pre-mega); this leaves a gap in Pokemon that can reliably come in against powerful ground-based threats like Landorus-T, Zygarde, and Colossoil.
• For whatever reason, despite all the flaws of Grass defensively and offensively, there are a LOT of Assault Vest sets.
• There is no Grass type in the meta that I would say focuses on a utility or supporting role entirely. Ferrothorn, Necturna, and Jumbao come close and sometimes run utility sets, but are often using non-grass type moves such as Sticky Web, Stealth Rock, or Wish to do so. This is an area that may prove fruitful in exploring design space for 25g.

Overall, my analysis is that making an offensively-based 'mon with the restrictions facing us is going to be near-impossible; there are too many Dragon, Steel, and Flying-type pokemon in the meta and we'll have difficulty designing a 'mon that can stand up to those and do so better than the above offensive 'mons. If we do try, going Special and Fast is likely our best way of carving out a new niche.

Defensively there's a bit more room despite the glut of great defensive Grass types in the game. Specifically, making a Pokemon with good ability to serve as a Special Wall and/or a reliable check to Ground types would be a big win for the meta.
But the biggest opportunity might be as a pure utility 'mon. In addition to standard utility moves like Aroma Therapy, Spore, Sleep Powder, and Leech Seed that are well-documented in effect, grass has some underutilized moves such as Strength Sap, Spiky Shield, and Worry Seed that have yet to get the right Pokemon with the right Moveset, Typing, and Ability to really abuse them.

That's all for now, but I'll post more later!

 

[Mx]

What definition of "coordinate" should we use to weed out abilities that do not fit our concept?

I think the definition proposed by reachzero works well in most cases, but can still be improved, because there are cases where I can see it causing trouble, in particular because of how it always reduces the interactions to 1v1 situations. For example, certain abilities that mitigate recoil damage, such as Rock Head, Magic Guard, and to a lesser extent Regenerator don't really affect these 1v1 scenarios, but will have an impact later in the game, where the HP they preserved might allow you to avoid a KO. Maybe these situations could be considered within reach's definition, as they will affect a match-up later in the game, but a small fix to remove this ambiguity could be "an ability that coordinates with the movepool that has one or more moves that are significantly impacted by the ability to change that Pokemon's specific match-up at some point in the game". This should make clearer that this definition is applied in the context of an ongoing game, not just in the vacuum of a 1v1 match-up

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be?

The Fire-type should most likely be offensively oriented. There are example of defensive Fire types in the current meta, like Pyroak and Mollux, but I think that this typing is still better suited for an offensive role, mostly because of its good natural coverage and SR weakness, which would be an issue to overcome with defensive spreads. However, I disagree with NC that we need to go physical. Colossoil is certainly an issue, but if we go physical, Tomohawk will be one too, so we're basically switching one bad match-up for another. I think that both options are more or less equally viable, and can we work on their weaknesses later.

The Grass-type needs to be defensively oriented. Grass (at least by itself) is an overall mediocre typing, but it can definitely be used to serve as the foundation of a solid defensive pivot, thanks to its resistance to Ground (particularly Thousand Arrows), Water, and Electric-types. Offensively, I just don't think Grass is good enough to be of use, the only offensive Grass-types in the current meta are Kartana, which abuses a base 181 Attack stat, Tapu Bulu, which has a 130 Attack stat and an ability that boosts its Grass moves by 50%, and Jumbao, and Jumbao, which has great balanced stats and two powerful abilities. Just by looking at the stats of these three, their power level will be hard to achieve in this project, because of the inherent limitations of starters.

The Water-Type is the one I'm less sure about, as it's going to have a hard time competing in both offense (Greninja and Volkraken) and defensively (Toxapex, Arghonaut and Gastrodon), I think that it will be better to go all out in one direction or another, because I'm afraid that if we try to find a middle ground, we'll just end up with a Jack of all trades but Master of none situation. I believe that defensive is the most safer of the two, because despite Argho, Pex, and Gastro strengths, they still leave an open space where we can fit in CAP 25-W. Offense can still be done, but it will be trickier, and we will almost certainly need a powerful boosting ability to be able to stand a chance against the competition.

 

[reachzero]

Quanyails asked an absolutely wonderful question on Discord, and I'd like to pose it here: "Which roles benefit the most from ability-movepool synergy?"

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

Will get to the first question in a later post when I can better analyze it, but wanted to touch on the second right now.

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be?

Fire
I think simply because of metagame trends and the high prevalence of Stealth Rock, even with Defog, it is fairly safe to say that this Pokemon is likely to become offensively orientated, and I agree with this. The presence of possibly the tiers best Water-type in Volkraken is downright centralizing, and other threats such as Mega Crucibelle, Landorus-T, Colossoil, and Zygarde make it near impossible to play defensive. Sure, the type does have numerous great resistances against the common Fairy- and Steel-typing, and can beat common stuff like Jumbao, Ferrothorn, and Magearna, but I feel these aren't reasons enough to make it defensive. Stealth Rock already forces it down in terms of switch-in opportunities, meaning that consistently switching it in to wall stuff would be inefficient and terrible for actually walling. It would likely have only a few chances to strut its stuff without a significant defensive typing, which could tear away from its ability. I think offensive is absolutely the way to go here.

Water
This is a much trickier type to actually pin down. We have numerous powerful Water-types on the offensive side (see Volkraken, both forms of Greninja, and Naviathan) but we have equally powerful mons on the defensive side as well (see Gastrodon, Arghonaut, and Toxapex). This honestly could either way, and I think the metagame woud benefit if we give it the tools it needs to fulfill a specific role and was able to execute the role efficiently. Currently, I think the metagame is in need of a more defensively orientated water-type, as the current three options have the ability to be momentum sinks, so something possible to use on more defensive or balance teams that doesn't completely suck away your momentum I think would be appreciated right now. The Water-type also could offer sufficient utility options that the other don't quite offer as of current, while I feel an offensive mon would be treading on already covered ideas.

Grass
In all honesty, I think this is the hardest one to decide. While we could just easily classify it in the defensive type category, we already have numerous defensive Grass-types that it has to compete with, including but not limited to Ferrothorn, Pyroak, and Assault Vest Tapu Bulu, and feel like these Pokemon would be massive competition to CAP25-G. I excluded Jumbao from that list because it is actually a great example of how we can also possibly go offensive as well as defensive. I actually object to mxmts's claim about not being able to create an offensive Grass-type, because while it is true that we cannot give attack stats or abilities like what Kartana and Tapu Bulu have, Jumbao is living proof that it is certainly possible. Its not a perfect example since it does have a BST higher than 535, its offensive stats do fall in range of CAP25's limits, and it has shown itself to be incredible in roles such as Choice Scarf or Offensive attacker. This is further supported by the fact that Drought isn't the "best" ability on it because it uses Solar Beams, Trace can be run just as well and still have a special attack stat to spare. AND it can also run a more defensive wish support set, making it even harder for us to make a defensive mon when we have that around. Yes, it would absolutely have to compete with the current Grass-type offensive mons and Grass isn't a great STAB offensively, but we don't have to directly compete with them specifically. I think specifically a Grass-type pivot could actually work out beautifully if done well. I am personally leaning a bit more towards the offensive side, but this is honestly a very hard question.

Edit when making: Also answering this one I guess .-.

Which roles benefit the most from ability-movepool synergy?

I feel like out of all major roles, any offensive attacker usually gets the best ability-movepool synergy out of most current roles. There are a ton of abilites that specifically make certain moves hit harder, or just generally improve them in a lot of ways. Tough Claws, Technician, Mega Launcher, Iron Fist, -ate Abilities, Adaptability, Reckless, and Rock Head come to mind, but there are probably a few more that I am forgetting. This is true for both sides of the bias spectrum, as both sides can use a lot of these abilities on either side and they have a similar amount of abilities that work on only one side. If we do want the best actual ability-movepool synergy, looking into most attackers is a pretty easy option to actually abuse said synergy.

 

[Mx]

Which roles benefit the most from ability-movepool synergy

I don't really think that there is one role that benefits most than others. Offense has more overall options, but most of them are just to boost damage. Defensive/Supportive role might have less options, but there are still lots of ways in which they can benefit from ability-movepool synergy just as much as offense. A lot of examples already exist: M-Slowbro combines Shell Armor with Calm Mind to guarantee that its sweep won't be stopped by a random crit, Tomohawk uses Prankster to take full advantage of Haze and Roost, Magic Guard lets Clefable use its numerous support moves or Calm Mind without having to worry about status, and Unaware gives Arghonaut the chance to use Spikes much more freely against threats that would otherwise be able to freely boost against it, and with Circle Throw, it can get rid of things that would otherwise beat it 1v1, even being able to stop Cawmodore from sweeping if at full HP.

 

[Gross Sweep]

What definition of "coordinate" should we use to weed out abilities that do not fit our concept?

So I'll start this off by saying my favorite definition so far comes from mxmts, and that definition is: "an ability that coordinates with the movepool that has one or more moves that are significantly impacted by the ability to change that Pokemon's specific match-up at some point in the game". I talked with this user on discord, and he helped alleviate some of my concerns that this definition doesn't box us in to just trying to cover a stereotypical bad match up. He mentioned making a good match up better, which reassured me that this definition became workable. Possible reassurance on that would be much appreciated, just to make sure we didn't chat about that on discord and then we as a community don't end up allowing that option going forward. I feel like the word change is probably the issue for me. I would like to see a different word such as enhance or improve as it lends itself to giving yourself a better match up no matter the starting point, instead of changing a bad match up to good - since changing from good to great sounds like it could be seen as stretching going forward with this definition.

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be?

I can't lie I really look forward to answering this question as I've got some ideas, I will try my best not to pull jump, but I have some strong opinions and ideas that might lead to me getting a bit specific.

Fire - I see a general consensus for an offensive approach, which I agree with

Water - This one definitely has had the most general disagreement, but I find myself leaning towards a bulkier approach. Greninja really perfectly set up an offensive starter water type, and it's going to be hard to beat that frog in an offensive face off especially factoring that thing having Battle Bond. you could go physical, which would be improving upon mons like Feraligatr and Samurott, which is doable. The physical waters of the past have gone with a more bulky almost want to be breaker role, which just hasn't worked - so physical sweeper who put a bit more emphasis on speed than its predecessors could work out. The idea I'm more excited about is a bulkier route though. Some of my favorite starters over the years have been Swampert and Empoleon, who lets face it aren't amazing in the CAP metagame (basically extinct). However, similar to main tiers I'm sure if we had a CAP UU they'd be solid options. I would really like to break down what these two mons have going for them, and what their biggest set backs are. I believe trying to create a better bulky water than our best two examples will lead us to where we want to go in creating a solid water type starter in the CAP metagame.

Grass - I feel like a lot of people believe this is the hardest role to decide on, and I'd agree with that. I've heard a lot status spammer stuff, which definitely interests me, but hasn't sold me just yet. I would like to bring up a mon that isn't a starter (I know, crazy given my last post and this one so far). I feel like Magnezone is a great role model for our grass starter, a 535 BST mon that isn't overwhelming yet finds a niche as it fulfills a roll nothing else does. Grass starters have always been bottom of the barrel at the highest level, except for a few exceptions. Serperior is the only decent Contrary user in the meta making it useful (even then it's still pretty weak and doesn't get usage even with a broken ability), and Venusaur in gen 5 was the best Chlorophyll abuser making it a common fit on sun teams. I think finding a good underutilized niche for this thing and going all in on that, even if that means it doesn't fit on a ton of team archetypes is the best option. Really avoiding an "overall" type of mon, and going with a "specialist" be that a status spammer, or something like a decent Strength Sap user fitting on fatter teams just as long as it doesn't really face to much competition for what it wants to do. I don't have a ton of ideas for what that niche could be, so sorry if you feel like I left you hanging with no amazing example.

Which roles benefit the most from ability-movepool synergy?

I think if you need a direct move - ability connection it favors offense, but if it's just the ability favors the role and supportive movepool then you have to give it to defensive. Abilities like Regenerator, Natural Cure, Unaware, immunity giving abilities, or even Intimidate greatly aid defensive mons, and having a good ability can be make or break for fatter mons. However, Natural Cure or Regenerator wont really have any move - ability connection causing it to falter if that direction connection is needed. While offense has stuff like Magic Guard Head Smash and Triage Drain Punch that really utilize that direct connection. There are defensive examples like Prankster and Roost/Haze on Tomahawk or unaware Circle Throw on Arghonaut, yet I still find myself leaning towards giving the edge to offense based on a wider variety of options as there are fewer defensive abilities that have a direct move connection. That said both roles can take advantage, so I'm not to concerned making either option work going forward in the process.

 

[Okamu]

What definition of "coordinate" should we use to weed out abilities that do not fit our concept?

I'll start from where we seem to currently be, with mxmts's definition (with some syntax improvements): "An ability that coordinates with the movepool significantly impacts one or more moves, causing a change in that Pokemon's specific match-up at some point in the game." This is a fine definition, and if we want to roll with it that's fine. However, I would like to further break this down, and in doing so get to a few potential improvements that we might make.

First off, let's start with 'significantly impacts.' What does it mean for an ability to significantly impact a move? It's easy enough to say stuff like 'Strong Jaws powers up bite moves' but the general consensus seems to be that abilities can have a bit more nuanced relationships, such as with Regenerator and swap moves, Prankster Haze/Roost, or Shell Armor with defensive set up. This is far and away my biggest gripe with the current definition. If we still aren't sure what it means for an ability to impact a move, it's going to be much more difficult to have discussion on what abilities to keep and which to throw out. The first possible fix that comes to mind would be to change 'significantly impacts' to 'significantly improves the risk/reward ratio for using.' This encapsulates Prankster boosts to status moves, using set up moves with Shell Armor, Unaware, or Disguise, Magic Guard with Head Smash, and, well, most everything combination we've talked about so far; at least, as far as I can tell that is.

Still, we then have to ask ourselves what 'significantly' means. It's by no means as large an issue as the first in my opinion, but it would be useful to have some kind of baseline for what level of strength we're looking for in these effects. Naturally, the place to start here is comparing a move's usefulness with and without the given ability. Ideally, when you take away that ability, the moves that coordinate it should become weaker, riskier, or less spammable in some way. In my opinion, the quickest, if not most incontrovertible way to check if that drop is 'significant' or not is to ask the question: If I didn't have this ability, would I still want to/be able to use this move as often as I do with that ability?

Consider this example of Prankster Tomohawk. If Tomo lost Prankster, would you still use Roost and Haze as frequently? Well let's look. Roost is a no-brainer. Tomo is fairly defensive, and even without Prankster that doesn't change. Roost is a strong, reliable recovery move that also removes some of Tomo's weaknesses when facing slower opponents. You would still want to run it. However, since ,without Prankster, Roost doesn't end up almost always occurring first in the turn. As a result, Tomo would not be able to use Roost as freely as it does now. In some situations it would be outsped and so wouldn't be able to heal to a level in which it could live out the turn. It may then be beneficial in such a situation to forego Roost and switch out, saving Tomo for a later time. But what about Haze? Without the Prankster priority boost, Haze suddenly looks quite a bit worse. You won't be able to Haze set up sweepers if they naturally outspeed you or if their boosting move of choice happens to boost their speed past yours. As a result, one may want to start running a bit of speed for crucial set-ups they want to stop, which in turn will cause a decrease in bulk that, in the end, might not be worth the benefits of stopping that one crucial 'mon. Without Prankster, Haze might not even be worth running the majority of the time, especially compared with other options such as SR and Spin. In all, without Prankster, Tomo loses the ability to use Roost as frequently and carefreely as it currently does, and it may not even want to Haze at all. Because of this, we can reason that Haze and Roost are both significantly aided by Prankster. Obviously this applies to many ability-move combos, and as I said before, is by no means meant to be hard and fast. However, what this interpretation does do is provide a means for at least investigating that relationship in a relatively consistent manner.

Thanks to these last two changes though, I would also point out that we don't really need the point about 'changing a specific match up.' Besides potentially diverting our attention towards micromanaging the threatlist even more, I think this language was also a bit unclear. Regenerator plus U-Turn most definitely changes potential later MUs by providing a heal, but Regenerator does that by itself normally. The trick with U-Turn is allowing a change in when Regenerator can prock, meaning that your Regen mon can take a hit and slow U-Turn out into your check while also regaining some of the lost HP from the hit. This doesn't particularly change the match up of the Regen mon, but instead alters the MU of the check, by allowing them to not take damage as they come in.

Taken in sum, I think all of these changes would make my ideal definition of an ability that successfully coordinates with the movepool: "An ability that improves the risk/reward ratio of one or more moves in the movepool to the point that they become more desirable to run or more freely useable when already run."

 

[NumberCruncher]

What definition of "coordinate" should we use to weed out abilities that do not fit our concept?

Taken in sum, I think all of these changes would make my ideal definition of an ability that successfully coordinates with the movepool: "An ability that improves the risk/reward ratio of one or more moves in the movepool to the point that they become more desirable to run or more freely useable when already run."

Your definition seems to vague and open. Crawdaunt having Aqua Jet and Adaptability fits perfectly under your definition as the Adaptability makes it less likely that Crawdaunt will fail to kill a weakened Water resist with its priority, possibly nabbing you a kill that a non-Adaptibility Crawdaunt wouldn't have been able to secure.

 

[hawk1113]

Which roles benefit the most from ability-movepool synergy?

I think that actually, it is defensive and utility rolls that benefit the most from ability-movepool synergy.

1) Some abilities grant a boon to certain moves and thus roles that simply cannot be replicated any other way - Prankster, Triage, to a less extreme extent Infiltrator, Corrosion, Gale Wings, and Scrappy, and for a CAP-specific ability Persistent. The interaction of these things creates an advantage that is truly incredible, improving match-ups and granting the ability to divert power entirely into bulk and dedicate items to survivability, since you can have absolute confidence that your recovery, utility, or status moves will go first and/or connect with the target.

2) Less directly, rolls such as "setter" (of Tailwind or hazards or weather or whatever) or "defensive wall" or "spinner" or "pivot" benefit greatly from Regenerator or less extremely Natural Cure, Intimidate, Magic Guard, and Mountaineer. The combination of those abilities with the moves that define those roles makes for a huge advantage, allowing the Pokemon most called upon to switch in over and over again the freedom and safety to do so and preserving their health pool to carry the day.

We can point to offensive Pokemon defined by their ability interacting with their movepool for sure (Greninja, Serperior, Mega-Metagross), but it seems more possible and plausible for us to capitalize on defense and utility because offensive 'mons have to compete against the idea of "sure, I can do <this gimmick>...but I can also just run a banded/scarfed/orbed Pokemon that has better moves and a higher BST and accomplish the same role". There's a reason that most dedicated Skill Link, Mega Launcher, Technician, Strong Jaws, and Reckless 'mons are not on the tier list or are ranked quite low - the best-ranked Technician, Scizor, would likely trade Technician for literally any other remotely competitive ability since it mostly defogs, roosts, and u-turns around.

 

[david0895]

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be?

FIRE: this type is very offensive so stuff like revenge killer or all-out attacker seems to be good for this. I could suggest even the wallbreaker role, but I fear that this could be a dangerous route that will force us to cut out a lot of options.

WATER: this is a type that can be good both on offense (Ash-Greninja, Keldeo, Mega Swampert, etc...) and defense (Toxapex, Tapu Fini, etc...), so
we have a wide range of choices

GRASS: it's not surprising that some people are not sure on what they want to do, that's because this type has good strenghts but also bad weaknesses. If you look at the most viable grass type, they all have a good secondary type and a strong ability, that allow them to properly attack of defende. I like the Gross idea to give a unique niche, since it has been a lot of time since we saw a unique trait into a competitive pokemon (iirc the last one was Necturna).

Which roles benefit the most from ability-movepool synergy?

I think that almost every role can benefit from this synergy since there's a combination for every competitive move and ability
For example an -ate user synergize with Return and Hyper Voice, a Filter user synergize with Recover, and so on.

 

[Squawkerz]

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be?

Fire- The consensus for what role our Fire CAP will take is offensive. The only viable defensive fires in CAP right now are Pyroak, Mollux, and Heatran, with all of them being good defensively either because of a strong movepool, a solid secondary typing, or an immunity ability to improve on the shortcomings of the fire type. Stealth Rock just makes Fire typing bad if not used offensively, especially if it has no recovery moves (i dont think this is poll jumping right?). Strong Waters like Greninja and Volkraken and Grounds like Zygarde and Colossoil would prove too much of a problem for Fire CAP. (Poll jumping redacted). A lot of the pokemon a fire type should be able to deal with have high special defense stats like Magearna, Jumbao, Malaconda, etc. The only notable exception is Pyroak.

opinions on water and grass roles will come later.

 

[Deck Knight]

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be?

Fire: The dirty little secret of Fire Typing is that it's one of, maybe even the single best offensive pivot typing. It has 6 resistances and all of them are useful for switching in (or in the case of Bug, mitigating U-turn finishes or chip). It's 3 weaknesses are all bad ones to have, true, with Rock worst of all because of SR damage - but once a fire type gets in, it is scary to face. Offensively it scares away Steel types, the premier defensive typing in every metagame since their introduction in GSC. If you're ever wondering why Volcarona is a terror despite being 2HKO'd by SR alone, it's because once it gets in defensive answers struggle with its combination of Fire STAB and Giga Drain for bulky waters, rocks, and ground types, the usual answer to Fire offense. And its huge list of resistances thanks to Fire typing let it get in. Volkraken does this too - Fire type gives a huge number of safe switch opportunities.

Interestingly, even defensive fire types (the few that work) rely on offensive pressuring to get their job done. Pyroak and Mollux are both defensive Fire types that can provide huge pressure against defensive Pokemon because of their threatening Fire STAB and ability to handle most bulky waters. Heatran's combination of the two best defensive types (resistance wise) with Flash Fire makes it equally menacing. The thing is, Pyroak is the outlier because of Grass typing and a defensive build. Heatran and Mollux both capitalize on huge (130+) SpA stats giving them immense pivoting utility and pressure. Basically, Fire is an offensive pressure typing that can find lots of switch-ins, and all roles rely on this to an extent. Pure Fire types usually fail almost solely on a lack of speed or coverage to maximize their offensive potential. Arcanine with 10 less in each defense and 20 more in Speed would be terrifying.

When it comes to roles, offensive pivot is the core of Fire's strength and any other purpose (like defensive) relies heavily on a typing that mitigates Fire's weaknesses. I think CAP has already come to two perfect iterations of that in Pyroak and Mollux. It's really hard to make a better Pyroak, Mollux, or Heatran within these limits, so a more aggressive pivot seems the best route to take.

Water: Water is the ultimate neutral typing. It fares poorly against little and its biggest benefit is how good it is in match-ups against the aforementioned Fire types and the strong Rock or Ground Pokemon that tend to pop up. The only thing that tends to prevent a water type from being successful is being directly outclassed by another Water type, like Gastrodon vs. Non-Mega Swampert and Quagsire. Toxapex vs Tentacruel. Greninja vs Starmie (why doesn't Starmie learn Water Shuriken anyway, it literally is one...) ,Gyarados vs a whole slew of physical Water types, Keldeo vs. a whole slew of special ones, etc. The only thing Water needs to worry about is not being directly inferior to an existing Water type.

Water can take on any role, but it must distinguish itself in a crowded field. Since it is so good at neutral play, bulky offense or defense are ideal, they just need to be pushed to a distinguishing extreme.

Grass: Grass is the literal thorniest type to address. It's one of the worst offensive typings except against the Pokemon you need it to nuke, being resisted by 7 typings and hitting Water, Rock, and Ground hard. Defensively it has 5 weaknesses of varying severity in practice, but it resists 3 great offensive types in Electric, Water, and Ground (plus itself). This is why combinations of Grass typing that address its weaknesses tend to fare the best, with Grass/Steel dealing with all of them except Grass's Fire weakness, Grass/Poison removing Poison and Bug weakness while adding good resistances to Fighting and Fairy, Grass/Fairy removing U-turn weakness and addressing Dragons, and other Grass combinations focusing mostly on offense like Breloom in its heyday. Basically, whatever a Grass type intends to do it has to be really specifically good at it, like Technician Breloom (or the Poison Heal SubPunch set in past gens), Amoonguss's huge bulk and status spreading augmented by Regenerator, Ferrothorn's contact punishment, Kartana and Bulu's raw strength, etc.

Grass is most similar to Water in that whatever it's supposed to do, it needs to do it well. Bulky Grass types need to have exceptional merits (like Ferrothorn or Amoonguss), while offensive Grass types need to be utterly terrifying to mispredict (Kartana, Tapu Bulu). Basically, avoid making Grass a milque-toast milkweed and fully draw out whatever role you give it. The difference is Grass isn't good at neutral play. It has to go all out.

 

[Frostbiyt]

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be?

I think it is a bit premature to decide something like this at this stage. This is something very much dependent on the secondary typing, ability, movepool, and stats of the Pokemon. I think that while all three have roles that they encourage, the types are flexible enough that they could end up with any sort of role. All three have both offensive and defensive strengths and weaknesses. I think that most types have this flexibility. If you look at the steel type for example, it is probably the best defensive type, yet it is still able to be used offensively(Kartana, Heatran, Magearna).

I've also had an idea for the process itself. I think the ability and typing stages should be split into three stages.
1. Ability discussion: potential abilities are discussed with minimal or no discussion about typing.

The abilities are then either voted on and the top X number move on or the topic leadership selects X to discuss in the next stage.

2. In this stage, typing is discussed in relation to the abilities previously selected. This can include both primary and secondary typing. This stage would be just discussion, with no submissions.

Then there would be a vote for each of the three primary types for which ability it should get.

3. Finally, with abilities and primary type decided, there will be a short discussion on the secondary type.

There will then be a vote on secondary typing for each.

This would allow for more focused, competitive discussion at each stage.

 

[GMars]

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of these types and the present state of the CAP metagame, what can we reasonably expect the preferred role of each starter to be?

I think it is a bit premature to decide something like this at this stage. This is something very much dependent on the secondary typing, ability, movepool, and stats of the Pokemon. I think that while all three have roles that they encourage, the types are flexible enough that they could end up with any sort of role. All three have both offensive and defensive strengths and weaknesses. I think that most types have this flexibility. If you look at the steel type for example, it is probably the best defensive type, yet it is still able to be used offensively(Kartana, Heatran, Magearna).

While such a discussion might seem premature, I think it's important to look at the competition our CAPs will face under the constraints already imposed by our framework. You're right in saying that all three types have offensive and defensive strengths and weaknesses, and in a vacuum any of these types could be made into a viable option for any role through secondary typing, ability, stats, and movepool. However, our starter constraints mean that we have certain hard limits we can't break that can prevent our CAPs from competing for teamslots against titans like Ash-Greninja, Kartana, or Heatran if they directly conflict with these Pokemon in their roles. Giving ourselves early direction through well-thought out analyses like the ones already posted in this thread can allow us to understand where we have to distinguish each type from the others in the CAP metagame to allow us to achieve our framework's goal of a fully competitive trio within its inherent constraints.

 

[Deck Knight]

What definition of "coordinate" should we use to weed out abilities that do not fit our concept?

So this is a little tricky, and I've been hesitant to weigh in because I didn't want to prejudice anyone's thoughts on it.

When I think of coordination in this concept I think mostly of direct interaction abilities that reachzero mentioned earlier. A coordinated ability is an ability that expands the viability of the Pokemon's core moveset in an identifiable way throughout the match, and it does so in as many situations and for as many viable core moves as possible.

To use an example people will hate, Stench on a Pokemon with lots of priority and multi-hit moves is a coordinated ability. It may be coordinated on a 10% flinch hax luck (more for multihits), but it is coordinated under this definition. In every interaction the Pokemon has, it can make use of its ability.

Corrosion and Toxic for this purpose fits under the slimmest definition but in order to be fully coordinated it would also include interactions with Hex, Venom Drench, and Venoshock. While this does not mean a Pokemon must exhaustively use only moves coordinated with the ability (there are for example balance concerns with all the coverage possible with some broader abilities), the idea of coordinated abilities is that they define the Pokemon's playstyle.

Simple and moves like Flame Charge / Power-Up Punch to double the boost, or even novel strategies like Overheat/Leaf Storm combined with Power Swap for a unique stat-drop interaction that can't be replicated any other way would also qualify as abilities that would fit the concept on the merit of coordination.

To boil it down to testable statements:
A coordinated ability:
1. Has specific interactions with specific moves individually or in combination.
2. Has those interactions without requiring outside activation (e.g. items or opponent action).
3. Actively utilizes that benefit each time it encounters a neutral or advantage situation.

Points 2 and 3 are important for weeding out abilities like Regenerator which only activates when a Pokemon withdraws from battle, Guts which provides a generic boost to all physical attacks when statused (which requires an item and a turn or an item or hit by status on a good predicition, an example of outside activation), or Intimidate which only impacts situations that might advantage cap. The idea is not generically good abilities that might provide a benefit, but abilities that become a core part of the Pokemon's battle interactions. You could for example argue that Volt Switch and U-turn or recoil attacks have a specific interaction with Regenerator, but they only have that interaction as a method of recovery during retreat. Regenerator isn't usable in the active position, you only get its benefit if you SPAM U-turn or Volt Switch every time it comes in.

Outlier abilities that qualify under this definition are the type hit -> stat-up abilities which can be combined with Stored Power or Power Trip, however ineffective that initial single boost might be.

That was my thought process when I was making the concept. 3 Starters that each had a defining core moveset reliant on their ability. That would be my definition of a coordinated ability for the purposes of this concept.

 

[Birkal]

To rewind the conversation back to talking about whether we should determine abilities or typing first, I fall heavily into the camp that we should determine our secondary typing first. I understand the fear of wanting to do ability first, since it is so integral to what this actualization concept is all about. But CAP25 has a significant advantage in this area by the virtue of us already having half of our typings already chosen (unless we go monotype). We should absolutely lean into the knowledge we already have about these typings to give us some general insight on our CAPs movepool, and therefore, which abilities will synergize well with those types.

Fire - Heavy mixed offensive, with its only supportive moves being Will-O-Wisp and Sunny Day. Within that offense, Fire has a lot of utility though, from trapping (Magma Storm) to fishing for SpA boosts (Fiery Dance), from absolute nukes (Eruption / Overheat) to grabbing burns (Inferno / Lava Plume). That is plenty to assume for what we should want in a pairing for Fire-type; lots of other typings can pair well with any of those utilities, whether it be looking for hax to pairing well with trapping.

Water - Varied with a special offensive bias. While Water has priority Aqua Jet and flinching Waterfall in its physical arsenal, it has a ton to play with in its special movepool. Brine, Scald, Water Shuriken, Whirpool, and Water Spout are all ripe for pairing with varying abilities. Aqua Ring, Water Spout, and Soak all have a niche to fill as well. There is tons of fertile ground here for other typings to work with in the typing stage.

Grass - Crazy utility. Yes, there are some cool Grass-type offensive moves, such as Horn Leech, Leaf Storm, and Seed Flare. But Grass has so many utility moves to work with, including Aromatherapy, Forest's Curse, Leech Seed, Strength Sap, and Recover. There is a ton to work with in our abilities here. Grass could really splurge and almost carry any typing it wanted to thanks to how much there is to work with in its natural movepool.​

So that'd be my argument towards putting typing stages first. In typing discussion, we can talk about which typings pair well with their respective roles and highlight how that typing has STABs that pair well with FWG, both in terms of coverage and how they actualize abilities (e.g. pairing Leech Seed with another type that is known for bulky recovery). By choosing broadly flexible typings to compliment FWG, that means we also have a lot to discuss for abilities. Going the other way, I fear that our abilities discussion will be too baseless without knowing how the secondary typing will interact. And then when we get to typing after abilities, the conversation will be all but over. There is a LOT more flexibility in choosing abilities than typing, and picking an ability first restrains an already restrained typing discussion.

By putting typing first, we give ourselves a lot of flexibility later down the road, both in terms of choosing abilities and actualizing our chosen abilities on FWG mons.

 

[reachzero]

"An ability that coordinates with the movepool that has one or more moves that are significantly impacted by the ability to change that Pokemon's match-ups at some point in the game"

mxmts' definition is a good revision, so as of now this is the one that should be addressed in comments. While I understand Okamu's concerns, I feel that the examples he brought up are already implicitly covered in this definition, so I feel it is acceptably worded as is.

There appears to be a growing consensus regarding the preferred roles of our starters:

25f should be primarily offensive in nature, with an eye toward differentiating itself from Volkraken in particular.

25w should be primarily defensive, with an eye toward differentiating itself from Arghonaut, Gastrodon and Toxapex.

25g should be specialized in some way; we have a challenge in that defensive specialization seems to be the best fit, but differentiating 25g from Tangrowth, Jumbao, Tapu Bulu and Ferrothorn is a real challenge.
A major goal for our future stages will indeed be differentiation. "Why would I use this when Jumbao is an option?" is a major issue for us, and one we must constantly keep in mind.

Are there any final objections to mxmts' definition before we begin winnowing to define the scope of our available pro-concept abilities?

 

[jas61292]

So, there are two things here I want to cover. First, with regard to stage order, I would like to concur with what Birkal said with regard to stage order. Its easy to go with ability next, because it is central to the concept, but I do not think that ability going before the secondary typing would be good for the project. The thing is, if we do ability first, we either have to polljump and assuming we get the typing we want when we pick an ability, or we have to assume there will be no secondary typing, and any we do get will just be a bonus. But... if we are honest, no one will actually do the latter. And while we may not come right out and say it, picking ability will be strongly based on what a desired typing will be, which I think will be detrimental to the discussion. On the other hand, if we are using this thread to pick out roles, it becomes very simple to pick out a good secondary typing for each Pokemon, even without knowing what the abilities are, because typing is so integral to a Pokemon's ability to actually play a role. And I would also argue that there will be a much wider breadth of viable choices for abilities if we pick typing first, than there would be for typing if we pick ability first.

The second thing I want to touch on are the roles we have been talking about. While I fully agree with the summaries reachzero has posted for Fire and Water, I do not necessarily agree with regard to Grass type. The majority of useful Grass Pokemon are defensive, but I think that has far more to do with the individual Pokemon's stat's and abilities than any sort of fact that Grass inherently is better defensively. Grass, to me, is only really a "defensive" typing because it is not an offensive one. But I think that a Pokemon like Serperior has shown us that offense out of a Grass starter is absolutely possible, and with the extra ability we have to make sure a Pokemon a tad more optimized, we could easily go down that route. Personally, I'd much rather try out an very offensive route and make a Pokemon that is far less likely to fall in the shadow of the existing defensive/bulky offensive grasses.