Sand Rush
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Doubles CAP Project thread! Stage 8: Stat Limits
- Thread starter Stratos
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Sand Rush
sand rush
Stratos
Banned deucer.
Okay, it's time for the next stage in the process, Stat Limits!
In this step we'll be determining the upper limits for the Pokemon's stat biases. If you don't know what that means, then why the fuck did you skip that hide tag? Again, in this thread we'll be looking at all five of Physical Sweepiness, Special Sweepiness, Physical Tankiness, Special Tankiness, and Base Stat Rating to determine what ceilings our CAP should hit. Keep in mind that Sand Rush does not factor into our Sweepiness ratings! If you want to fiddle around with different stat spreads to see what sort of stat biases they give (which I strongly recommend), then here is a download link for a spreadsheet that will let you do so.
There is no poll to conclude this thread. The poll will be at the end of the stat submissions thread when we vote on an exact stat spread. My Co-Fuhrer and I are simply going to declare what limits we'll be moving forwards with (but we're going to be generous enough to ensure that every stat spread is not the exact same).
Straightforward measures of "Attack," "Defense," etc. aren't particularly the best measures for measuring a Pokemon's stats because of the way multiple stats interplay in damage calculations. As such, X-Act developed a method called Stat Bias which ranks Pokemon based on "Sweepiness" (Attack and Speed) and "Tankiness" (Defense and HP) in both physical and special categories. In addition, the overall measure of a Pokemon's strength is not BST (Base Stat Total), but BSR (Base Stat Ranking), a calculation from the four other categories.
In this step we'll be determining the upper limits for the Pokemon's stat biases. If you don't know what that means, then why the fuck did you skip that hide tag? Again, in this thread we'll be looking at all five of Physical Sweepiness, Special Sweepiness, Physical Tankiness, Special Tankiness, and Base Stat Rating to determine what ceilings our CAP should hit. Keep in mind that Sand Rush does not factor into our Sweepiness ratings! If you want to fiddle around with different stat spreads to see what sort of stat biases they give (which I strongly recommend), then here is a download link for a spreadsheet that will let you do so.
There is no poll to conclude this thread. The poll will be at the end of the stat submissions thread when we vote on an exact stat spread. My Co-Fuhrer and I are simply going to declare what limits we'll be moving forwards with (but we're going to be generous enough to ensure that every stat spread is not the exact same).
I think Special, mostly because It means we won't be susceptible to Wil-o-wisp and intimidate like Excadrill and Tyranitar are and also it can get access to some nice special moves because of it's grass typing like Earth Power, Leaf Storm, Energy Ball etc. Special overall will cut out a majority of the weaknesses that ttar faces because it itself won't be affected by them
special would be nice because you can lead it with tyranitar and immediately begin putting work in, as with excadrill or garchomp-M (the thw existing sand abusers) you can't do use earthquake while next to your own tyranitar.
Obviously moves like drill run get around that, but as fangame said, there are other things discouraging physical attackers, and the current sand abusers are physical too.
Obviously moves like drill run get around that, but as fangame said, there are other things discouraging physical attackers, and the current sand abusers are physical too.
Stratos
Banned deucer.
Pros of physical:
Some of the best STABs in the game in Power Whip and Earthquake
Hit Terrakion on its weaker defense (Earth Power from 125+ does not OHKO meaning you would need to use Leaf Storm to KO it or carry LO if we went special)
Pros of special:
Don't care about Intimidate, which is huge considering Intimidate is a big cockblock to Tyranitar.
STAB does not threaten Tyranitar (Physical could technically run Drill Run but it's weaker than EP, can miss, and can't attack into Aegislash's shield).
Access to Hidden Power
Just the first bullet point in the pros of going special is enough to convince me that a special attacker is the right move here. So unless someone has some other points to bring up in favor of a physical attacker that I forgot to mention—or believes I'm undervaluing Power Whip and Earthquake (yes I know those are really difficult to give up)—I'd like to refocus our discussion on the less "duh."
How much Physical and Special Tankiness should our CAP have, and how much Sweepiness? (Basically for any Tankiness rating, whether it's 1 hp and 255 def or 60 hp and 90 def, the pokemon will take the same amount from a relevant calc).
Some of the best STABs in the game in Power Whip and Earthquake
Hit Terrakion on its weaker defense (Earth Power from 125+ does not OHKO meaning you would need to use Leaf Storm to KO it or carry LO if we went special)
Pros of special:
Don't care about Intimidate, which is huge considering Intimidate is a big cockblock to Tyranitar.
STAB does not threaten Tyranitar (Physical could technically run Drill Run but it's weaker than EP, can miss, and can't attack into Aegislash's shield).
Access to Hidden Power
Just the first bullet point in the pros of going special is enough to convince me that a special attacker is the right move here. So unless someone has some other points to bring up in favor of a physical attacker that I forgot to mention—or believes I'm undervaluing Power Whip and Earthquake (yes I know those are really difficult to give up)—I'd like to refocus our discussion on the less "duh."
How much Physical and Special Tankiness should our CAP have, and how much Sweepiness? (Basically for any Tankiness rating, whether it's 1 hp and 255 def or 60 hp and 90 def, the pokemon will take the same amount from a relevant calc).
Another reason that I think a special set is favorable is that it is beaten by different things than Tyranitar and Excadrill. Intimidate and burns send the two in the current sand core reeling away in fear, so a CAP that doesn't care about eithernof those things will be good. What does everyone think of a Specially Based Mixed Attacker? When I say specially based I mean stays like 90 Atk 120 SpA. This would let us run Power Whip or Earthquake, letting it kill Terrakion while in the sand, in addition to our special STAB + coverage / support.
I also say that to balance out its (hopefully) good offensive stats it could have only moderately good bulk. It could say switch in twice, maybe with a chance of 3 times, into Landoge's EQ but no more.
I also say that to balance out its (hopefully) good offensive stats it could have only moderately good bulk. It could say switch in twice, maybe with a chance of 3 times, into Landoge's EQ but no more.
okay so I feel balanced overall stats, with middling speed and a high special stat.
things that i would like it to do are:
things that i would like it to do are:
- switch into Rotom-W's hydro pump or W-o-W and take it out (meaning i want it to be special)
- Outspeed Heatran, and survive one of its attacks
- outspeed scarf lando-T and KO it with a hidden power ice
- tank 2 Lando-T U-turns
I think http://survivalcalc.appspot.com/ is a good tool to use for this, it allows you to customise your attack calculation and also see how much defense investment your chosen base stats would need to survive key attacks.
For example, if our CAP were to have base 80 HP and 100 def it would take a max of 85% from an Adamant Terrakion's Close Combat without defensive investment and it would need quite significant investment in HP and Defense (184/252) to survive 2 x Lando-T U-turns.
Given this, I propose our cap goes with Good PT, Above Average ST, Poor PS and Excellent SS.
Question about Speed. In a Sand vs Sand match - do we want it to out-speed Excadrill or not?
For example, if our CAP were to have base 80 HP and 100 def it would take a max of 85% from an Adamant Terrakion's Close Combat without defensive investment and it would need quite significant investment in HP and Defense (184/252) to survive 2 x Lando-T U-turns.
Given this, I propose our cap goes with Good PT, Above Average ST, Poor PS and Excellent SS.
Question about Speed. In a Sand vs Sand match - do we want it to out-speed Excadrill or not?
I don't think it should. If CAP outspeeds Excadrill, then it could easily be used by non-Sand teams as an anti-Sand measure, which goes against the CAP's original role as a Pokemon tailored to Sand teams.
I really like Hashtag's ideas, but I'd like to mention that it should be able to 2HKO Heatran with Earth Power (which was kind of implied in your post I guess), even if said Heatran eats a Shuca Berry (ie deal over 66% damage, which seems far from impossible). If we can do that, I quickly calced and it turns out we can 2HKO M-Mawile and Terrakion and OHKO Lando-T with HP Ice. Walling a Heat Wave from Heatran is gonna be a little tough, but it's really not impossible at all.
Occa Berry \o/
edit: okay if that seemed like a shitpost, what i meant is that perhaps we could curb the CAP's effectiveness by forcing it to hold certain items to overcome different threats. just an idea.
I don't think people need to be overly worried about Heatran. For example, this is 115 Special Attack:
252 SpA Life Orb CAP Earth Power vs. 56 HP / 0 SpD Shuca Berry Heatran: 335-398 (99.4 - 118.1%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
Moreover not even close to all Heatran carry a Shuca Berry.
The consensus overall has pretty clearly been a special attacker, and I can't see any particularly useful reasons to be a specially based mixed attacker, as there is basically nothing relevant for the CAP to hit on the physical side.
The important things to focus on right now are not single Pokemon but a total package:
The easiest way to do this step is to just go into a calc (sweepercalc and survivorcalc work fine) to see what it takes to KO/live the things you want to KO/live. Then go to the BSR spreadsheet and put in the spread you come up with and see what the ballpark of limits are.
252 SpA Life Orb CAP Earth Power vs. 56 HP / 0 SpD Shuca Berry Heatran: 335-398 (99.4 - 118.1%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO
Moreover not even close to all Heatran carry a Shuca Berry.
The consensus overall has pretty clearly been a special attacker, and I can't see any particularly useful reasons to be a specially based mixed attacker, as there is basically nothing relevant for the CAP to hit on the physical side.
The important things to focus on right now are not single Pokemon but a total package:
- Speed Tier (both in and out of sand)
- Power (use relevant metrics: KO Landorus-T with HP Ice? 2HKO Rotom-W through Sitrus?, etc.)
- Bulk
The easiest way to do this step is to just go into a calc (sweepercalc and survivorcalc work fine) to see what it takes to KO/live the things you want to KO/live. Then go to the BSR spreadsheet and put in the spread you come up with and see what the ballpark of limits are.
This is Torterra (75 base SpA)
252+ SpA Life Orb Torterra Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 120+ SpD Rotom-W: 187-221 (61.5 - 72.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Torterra Hidden Power Ice vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 317-374 (82.9 - 97.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
if 103 base SpA
252+ SpA Life Orb Torterra Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 120+ SpD Rotom-W: 229-273 (75.3 - 89.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Torterra Hidden Power Ice vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 385-458 (100.7 - 119.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Torterra Earth Power vs. 56 HP / 0 SpD Shuca Berry Heatran: 343-406 (101.7 - 120.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Just ignore the leftovers, and imagine sitrus is there.
So basically, the toughest thing to deal with is not the special attack stat. putting it at a reasonable "Special Attacker worthy" number should solve many threats.
Increasing the special attack to beat the other tough threats: Aegislash and Scizor, would require racking up the special attack to insane levels though (over chandelure levels), which I am not yet sure is worthwhile. Scizor is a very different story though if this thing gets an ice/fire move, since that will allow HP ice+fire move/HP fire+ice move.
As for speed I want this thing to beat scarf Keldeo. It doesn't matter how rare that is because it will be important to kill. I get the feeling that I am not allowed to propose any base stat numbers here (?) but from calculations, at modest nature it will be extremely slightly above Kabutops. Which seems reasonable.
As for the bulk, I am torn between the choices of semi bulky nuker or super bulky threat killer. From using stoutland in singles (not sure if that is a fair comparison), I get the feeling that semi bulk nuker is much better, as threats are not the only thing you are killing. Putting not too much in HP is also good for gaining more from giga drain, though we could make it meet up to the 404 hp limit if anyone wants to build 252 hp sub build (?)
Oh and more physical defence than special. I like to hit my teammates in doubles so it would be good if this can take a few eqs from excadrill.
Therefore I propose Fantastic PT, Excellent ST, Poor PS, Excellent SS
252+ SpA Life Orb Torterra Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 120+ SpD Rotom-W: 187-221 (61.5 - 72.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Torterra Hidden Power Ice vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 317-374 (82.9 - 97.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
if 103 base SpA
252+ SpA Life Orb Torterra Giga Drain vs. 252 HP / 120+ SpD Rotom-W: 229-273 (75.3 - 89.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Torterra Hidden Power Ice vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Landorus-T: 385-458 (100.7 - 119.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Torterra Earth Power vs. 56 HP / 0 SpD Shuca Berry Heatran: 343-406 (101.7 - 120.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Just ignore the leftovers, and imagine sitrus is there.
So basically, the toughest thing to deal with is not the special attack stat. putting it at a reasonable "Special Attacker worthy" number should solve many threats.
Increasing the special attack to beat the other tough threats: Aegislash and Scizor, would require racking up the special attack to insane levels though (over chandelure levels), which I am not yet sure is worthwhile. Scizor is a very different story though if this thing gets an ice/fire move, since that will allow HP ice+fire move/HP fire+ice move.
As for speed I want this thing to beat scarf Keldeo. It doesn't matter how rare that is because it will be important to kill. I get the feeling that I am not allowed to propose any base stat numbers here (?) but from calculations, at modest nature it will be extremely slightly above Kabutops. Which seems reasonable.
As for the bulk, I am torn between the choices of semi bulky nuker or super bulky threat killer. From using stoutland in singles (not sure if that is a fair comparison), I get the feeling that semi bulk nuker is much better, as threats are not the only thing you are killing. Putting not too much in HP is also good for gaining more from giga drain, though we could make it meet up to the 404 hp limit if anyone wants to build 252 hp sub build (?)
Oh and more physical defence than special. I like to hit my teammates in doubles so it would be good if this can take a few eqs from excadrill.
Therefore I propose Fantastic PT, Excellent ST, Poor PS, Excellent SS
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