Which of these categories do you think will allow for a strong CAP process, with varied and in-depth discussions at each step of the way (threats, typing, stats, and movepool)? Conversely, which of these categories do you think will lead to a weak CAP process, stifling specific stages from having good conversations?
Honestly, I think just about any category could lead to a good and interesting CAP process. No matter the group we pick from, we would still have plenty to discuss and many different approaches we could take. Even the Purely Negative abilities that, with ability spreading off the table, pretty much mean we would be making a Pokemon that works around its ability rather than with it, can still have a variety of ways to go about it. We can always use a secondary concept assessment to give a solid direction so we are not just aimlessly trying to make something strong in spite of its ability. So with that said, really, I'm not concerned about which kind of ability we pick insofar as the process itself is concerned.
Now with this said though, I think that Give and Take or Contradictory abilities would be a poor choice. The reason for that being that they are, in many ways, relatively normal abilities. The concept itself stats that the ability we use should be "generally considered harmful." And looking at these categories, I don't think, for the most part, the abilities in either of these categories fit that description. Simple, the one used as an example for Contradictory, is an ability that often comes up in ability discussions because of its power. And Weak Armor, an example for Give and Take, is an ability we have seen in action on Aurumoth, and know how it can be good. Sure, these abilities can have negative effects, but these negative effects are rarely bad enough for the ability to be "generally considered harmful" and will only be harmful in actuality if we intentionally let them be. And if we do that, we are not really making a Pokemon that succeeds because, or in spite of, a poor ability. We would be making a mon intentionally crippled from taking advantage of its ability, which is not what I feel this concept is really about. As such, they would likely lead to a process that diverges too much from the concept for my taste. The process might be good, but it would not be what we are going for.
Which of these categories do you think will allow for a viable and balanced CAP for the CAP metagame, that ideally finds viability in spite of (or maybe because of) its defective ability? And finally, which of these categories do you think will lead to a potentially broken threat in the metagame? Or a potentially unviable CAP in the metagame? Which categories might feature mechanisms that are considered unhealthy for a metagame?
As for this, while I also think we are capable of doing a decent job with any of these categories, the one I would be most concerned about would be the Purely Negative abilities. The Give and Take and Contradictory categories are, in many ways, relatively normal abilities that would not be any harder to work with than the kinds of things that we normally choose, while those in the Unreliable and Mechanic Dependent categories are a bit more difficult, but ultimately provide us with unique direction, and hopefully a niche that we can build for without being overly crippled or going too far. Pure Negative on the other hand, is much riskier. We have already seen how Pokemon with insanely good stats and decent movepools can become utterly worthless because of abilities like these. While I think it is a tightrope we could balance, these abilities are easily the biggest risk and most likely to end in something that in not viable or balanced in some way.