CAP 3 - Part 6 - Stat Spread Poll 2

[capefeather]

This poll will be open for 24 hours starting from Deck_Knight's vote below (i.e. 12:17:33 a.m.).

The Seven fought a brave and valiant battle. The ensuing clamor was epic to behold. Nothing in The Avengers could have compared to the glorious sight of these stat spread submitters. FlareBlitz used Flare Blitz, and Steamroll countered with Steamroller. Korski summoned a vast armada of ships out of nowhere (turns out he was lying about dropping his Admiral rank) and pummeled Rising_Dusk with cannon fire, but the Golden Scizor bravely beat back the assault with his shining armor. Meanwhile, Scoopapa scooped up all of the ammunition he could and hurled it at the others. srk1214 rushed to the scene and started slapping everyone with his infamous 1214 Slaps technique. As the fight went on, bugmaniacbob, who had secretly been spamming Fury Cutter on capefeather's not-slated remains, went on a killing spree. However, he had become so blind with rage that he knew not whom he was killing, nor did he know which, if any, of his blows were even successful.

Now, three remain. Who will come out on top in this bone-chilling battle of numbers?

This is a single bold vote, which means you vote for one entry. Make sure that you bold your votes and nothing else! A typical vote might look like the following:

My Preferred Entry

Any comments that the voter has would go below the votes in non-bold text. Bold text is used to determine what the user's votes are, so none of the supplementary text should be in bold.

If you want even more clarification, we hope that this will satiate your appetite for text.

Please post only your votes in this thread. If you are feeling the need to have a discussion, then head on over to #cap. There are consequences if you are looking to spark a discussion here. Again, please leave all discussion to #cap. Thanks for your understanding!

The options:

Rising_Dusk
Korski
Scoopapa

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SUBMISSIONS YO:

Originally Posted by Fat Rising_Dusk

Final Submission

95 HP / 45 Atk / 83 Def / 131 SpA / 105 SpD / 76 Spe

PT: 141.97 (Good)
ST: 177.08 (Excellent)
PS: 66.89 (Poor)
SS: 181.07 (Excellent)
BSR: 309.37 (Very Good)
BST: 535 (Magnezone-tier, 62nd percentile in BW OU)

Before I say anything else, note that this is perhaps the most uneven stat spread you will ever see me submit or support. Three whole stats are not divisible by 5. It took every ounce of my willpower to click "Submit Reply". Every stat is specially tailored for the purposes of this CAP, however, and thus I need you to bear with me and hear me out.

I was originally going to type up a super massive post before this thread was put up so that I could submit this spread first because I knew that others had similar things going. Instead, I've been working a lot and haven't had the time. That said, I am going to present my spread regardless because it is different in key ways from other spreads that make my spread objectively superior where it really counts. Hopefully by the end of this post, you'll agree with me.

Speed:

I jump to the discussion on Speed because it is the most relevant to every spread right now, and I do not think any other Speed stat besides 76 is acceptable. This is because our threats list specifically lists offensive Heatran as threatening CAP 3 while defensive Heatran as threatened by CAP 3. This hinges mostly on Heatran's usage of Earth Power, but is also contributed to by offensive Heatran running max Speed Timid. Bulky Heatran use Speed EVs sufficient to beat all Adamant Scizor (229), meaning they hit 230. This means that we want the maximum Speed stat that we can have in order to reduce the EVs necessary to beat defensive Heatran's typical Speed while not outspeeding max Timid Heatran (or tying it). 76 Speed is the only Speed stat that achieves this.

The result of this is that my spread requires 172 Speed EVs to beat the typical specially defensive Heatran set. Give or take several sets of 4 for purposes of beating slightly faster variants, this Speed hustle results in 336 EVs for use elsewhere in CAP 3's spread, distributed to bulk or offense and thus maximizing CAP 3's usable EVs.

I do not think that Speed-tying Dragonite or any other logic is as relevant as what I have presented above, and hope that you agree with me.

Offensive Capacity:

Assuming the 172 Speed EVs I discussed above and 248 HP EVs for maximized overall bulk with minimum investment (while being able to switch into SR 5 times), this leaves 88 EVs for use elsewhere. Assuming that these are put into SpA, it will become clear why I made 131 the SpA stat. (This means that the EV spread is 248 HP / 88 SpA / 172 Spe)

88 Modest CAP 3 Lava Plume (Rain)
_vs. 248/0 Adamant Choice Band Scizor: 91% - 108.5%
_vs. 252/168 Relaxed Leftovers Ferrothorn: 58% - 68.2%

You will notice two key points here. Scizor is always OHKOed after SR and standard Ferrothorn is always 2HKOed after Leftovers recovery. This means that CAP 3 can safely utilize Lava Plume to scare incoming physical attackers while still achieving the base requirements of its Fire-type STAB against rain teams. Note that 130 (and lower) SpA does not achieve this 2HKO against Ferrothorn given 88 SpA investment and a +SpA nature. Note again that this all changes if CAP 3 runs different EVs, runs Flamethrower, its targets run more special bulk, or what-have-you. What's important to take away from this is that this stat spread guarantees that Lava Plume can be used successfully even against rain teams on a relevant competitive EV spread. You're not forced to run Fire Blast or Flamethrower unless you want to, and that's something that will be valued by CAP 3.

Note that CAP 3's physical prowess is essentially a non-issue because its physical options are substantially inferior to its special options within and without its STABs. For what it is trying to achieve, particularly against Pokemon like Jellicent and Politoed which typically invest heavily in Defense, it should be focusing on its special offense.

Bulk:

95/83/105 bulk is good for quite a few reasons. It targets special bulk in order to more adequately take on Pokemon like Jellicent, Tentacruel, and Politoed. You will, of course, ask what relevance the 83 Def stat has, to which I respond:

0 Sassy Tyranitar Stone Edge
_vs. 248/0 Modest CAP 3: 82.4% - 97.7%

The same spread I've been discussing is tailored specifically to be KOed by a 0 EV investment mixed attacking Tyranitar Stone Edge after Leftovers recovery and SR damage. Technically, 84 Def would've also worked, but this makes the BST work out to a pretty number, helping my OCD self not be too butthurt. 95/105 special bulk achieves excellent special tankiness against the likes of Jellicent and others, but is mostly tailored to maximize at the following calculation:

4 Sassy Gastrodon +0 Earth Power
_vs. 248/0 Modest CAP 3: 88.5% - 104.8%

This means that Gastrodon can KO you regardless of its Ground-type attack and with at least 1 layer of spikes up, not too much to ask when Ferrothorn and Skarmory are such common teammates for it. This helps the neutral balance of Gastrodon and CAP 3 switching into each other.

Conclusion:

My spread achieves very key calculations against key Pokemon that are very relevant to the way CAP 3 will eventually operate in and against rain. I think that it achieves these thresholds the best of every spread submitted thus far, and hope that my presentation has made that clear to you. Cheers, and good luck to every spread submitter regardless.

Originally Posted by Fat Korski

Final Submission

HP: 91 323-386
Atk: 60 140-156-219-240
Def: 94 201-224-287-315
SpA: 105 221-246-309-339
SpD: 116 241-268-331-364
Spe: 89 192-214-277-304

PT: 155.6445 (Very Good)
ST: 189.4554 (Excellent)
PS: 92.2324 (Below Average)
SS: 163.8857 (Very Good)
ODB: -4.6382 (Slightly biased toward Defense)
PSB: -15.4488 (Highly biased toward Special)
BSR: 331.7683 (Very Good)
BST: 555

The Spread: 91/60/94/105/116/89

It was tempting for me to re-make Volcarona or Heatran for these stats, but I chose a different path that lies somewhere between the two in terms of playstyle so that it doesn't get outclassed by both. This spread aims to use a reliable defensive backbone and a manipulative Speed stat to get most of its work done in conjunction with the movepool, which I believe should be diverse if this Poke is to get any sort of foothold in OU (we've done a pretty good job of neutering its STAB effectiveness via typing and primary Ability, and Volcarona and Heatran are both adept enough at launching high-powered Fire moves for OU). The spread as a whole is pretty balanced compared to the others. Its offensive stats are less dramatic in order to emphasize Speed and coverage-based defensive viability instead of falling back on Hidden Power and enormous stats for raw power.

Offenses: 60/105/89

On their own, they're pretty dismal, I'll admit. I did this on purpose, however, to open CAP up to choosing the correct coverage options to defend itself against its most devastating checks (most threats are frail-ish or have 4x weaknesses). 60 Atk is unusable but not too low to intentionally fudge the numbers. I don't envision Flare Blitz or physical Fighting moves being real options here when we have a Stealth Rock weakness and immunity to Chansey/Blissey's Toxic. 105 SpA is just fine to take advantage of weather-based attack boosts and performs adequately on its own, when invested in (252 EVs, neutral nature). It can potentially nab 2HKOs on things like Vaporeon (46.88 - 55.36%) or defensive Politoed (46.87 - 55.2%) with SR and Thunderbolt, which isn't overpowered, imo, considering the investment it took to get to those results. It doesn't impact our threat list too much, though, as it'll take a Modest nature, 252 EVs, and a Life Orb to do substantial damage to SpDTar in Sand with even something like Focus Blast (77.22 - 91.08%, Scald/Energy Ball being the next best options at 25.74 - 30.69%). Uninvested, its 246 SpA stat is "just okay" for using those defensive attacks like Scald or Flamethrower in the Sun. Flamethrower by itself still OHKOs Ferrothorn with SR (93.18 - 110.22%), and something like Energy Ball would do respectable damage to offensive Rotom-W (47.1 - 56.19%) and Gastrodon (82.62 - 97.65%). SpDTar takes 43.56 - 51.48% from Focus Blast in Sand, with Energy Ball or Scald a distant second with 14.35 - 17.32%.

The primary draw here I think is the Speed stat. 89 Spe rests in a particularly sparse area of Speed tiers in OU. The 214-304 Spe range is one I think is worth exploring with a Pokemon like this, especially considering how so many crucial Pokemon like Heatran, Politoed, Mamoswine, Tentacruel, Gliscor, Rotom-W, Haxorus, Dragonite, Jirachi, and Celebi hang out in this neighborhood. All of their playstyles could be affected if CAP finds a way to check them. The faster 'mons like Gliscor and Jirachi may have to sacrifice bulk in exchange for Speed order to defeat CAP, and the slower ones may run faster EV spreads to pressure CAP to do the same. Conveniently enough, Timid Heatran outruns all neutral-Spe CAPs by a point, leaving it on the threatlist for defensive or Modest builds. Jolly Mamoswine and Timid Rotom-W outspeed neutral CAP as well, while on the flip side Haxorus, Landorus, and base 100s like Celebi and Salamence must run +Spe to guarantee being faster than Timid CAP. This could make a noticeable impact on how these Pokemon are used and how effective they are in the metagame. The Speed is also perfectly boostable; it can outrun Scarf Rotom-W at +1 or with a Scarf of its own (456 Spe w/ Timid) to help combat VoltTurn (hopefully with a good coverage move). 89 Spe is right at the top of the middle-slow area of OU, allowing CAP to choose how best to use Speed to handle the particular tank-ish and defensive threats it needs to handle, while at the same time tapping at the toes of the faster threats who neglect Spe out of a lack of necessity.

Defenses: 91/94/116

I thought for a while about what advantages this Poke ought to have defensively. At first, I looked at the list of resistances and planned on throwing all the stats into physical Defense, but I eventually came around to the idea of checking errant Volt Turns and Hurricanes and Draco Meteors and ended up maxing out on SpD as a result. I took the Heatran model of defensive Fire-type and tilted it toward the Special end, resulting in something more in line with SpD Jirachi, when invested. Tanking Special hits will be key to allowing this CAP to switch in to SR and accomplish something; it's prefect for setting up on the likes of Politoed and Starmie (unless both start running Psychic, otherwise Vaporeon or Jellicent will do, amongst others). Even with 252/252+, CAP falls to nearly every Earthquake in OU with SR damage, but at the same time it takes pittance from Scizor and Water-types that usually rely on Ice or Grass or Toxic for coverage.

A couple calcs

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Choice Specs Rotom-W Volt Switch vs. 0/0 CAP: 40.24 - 47.67%
Choice Specs Rotom-W Volt Switch vs. 252/0 CAP: 33.67 - 39.89%
Choice Specs Rotom-W Volt Switch vs. 252/252+ CAP: 24.87 - 29.53%
0 SpA CAP Energy Ball vs. 4/0 Rotom-W: 47.1 - 56.19% 2HKO w/SR

Life Orb Starmie Thunderbolt vs. 0/0 CAP: 30.95 - 36.53%
Life Orb Starmie Thunderbolt vs. 252/0 CAP: 25.9 - 30.56%
Life Orb Starmie Thunderbolt vs. 252/252+ CAP: 18.91 - 22.53%
0 SpA CAP Thunderbolt vs. 0/4 Starmie: 62.06 - 73.56% 2HKO
0 SpA CAP Energy Ball vs. 0/4 Starmie: 52.1 - 62.06% 2HKO

Timid Heatran Earth Power vs. 252/252+ CAP: 72.53 - 86.01% OHKO w/SR
0 SpA CAP Earth Power vs. 0/4 Heatran: 79.25 - 94.11% O-2HKO w/SR
0 SpA CAP Focus Blast vs. 0/4 Heatran: 52.63 - 62.53% 2HKO
0 SpA CAP Scald vs. 0/4 Heatran: 35.29 - 42.1%

Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor vs. 252/0 CAP: 78.5 - 92.5% OHKO w/SR
Choice Specs Latios Draco Meteor vs. 252/252+ CAP: 57.5 - 67.9% 2HKO w/ SR (87 - 102% over two consecutive hits)
0 SpA CAP Ice Beam vs. 4/0 Latios: 43.7 - 51.7% 2HKO w/SR
252 SpA CAP Ice Beam vs. 4/0 Latios: 55 - 64.9% 2HKO

Basically, defensive CAP can put up with a lot without being overwhelmingly wallish. From the SPD side, it's a little stronger than CalmTran and SpD Jirachi, but the spread leaves CAP more open to physical attacks in general, something that resistances and Burns can make up for.

Final Comments:

As I said earlier, I want CAP to really catch its niche in its diverse movepool, to make it stand out from the raw-damage, high output offensive Firemons of OU. This spread does its best to accomodate for strategic coverage options and for reliable STABs/statuses at the same time. It's more of an exercise in defensive finesse, as it has neither the ability to sweep nor wall but can still manage to make itself useful despite the faults of the typing. The SR weakness is going to limit CAP's time in battle much of the time, meaning switching in and out will be a burden on the CAP user; by making the CAP more of an urgent threat (higher Spe, tricky SE coverage), we are giving it a specific path to success without relying too much on any one element to "save" the typing (thus allowing later stages of CAP's design to further shape CAP's playstyle and effectiveness).

Originally Posted by Fat Scoopapa

Final Submission

120/90/65/125/95/60

PT:132.9603 (Good)
ST:188.3518 (Excellent)
PS:101.4145 (Above Average)
SS:138.2663 (Good)

BSR:305.4267 (Very Good) (the very upper limit of)
BST:555

This spread is a Special Tank that can attack from both ends of the spectrum, but has to watch out for Super Effective physical attacks.

Defenses: 120/65/95The primary reason for this defensive spread is that the special defense is pretty strong even with no investment in bulk, but the defense is highly reliant on investment to be strong. This is highly influenced by the fact that all of the pokemon on our "threatens" list are specially oriented, and most of the pokemon on our "threatened by" list are physical. The minimum special bulk with this spread is 384 HP / 226 SpD, which isn't a wall but is plenty to make use of the insane spread of resistances we have against rain offense. As such, this spread will always shut down the pokemon on our "threatens" list, no matter what EV's are being used. The defense not terrible, however; A 0/0 CAP3 can still always counter Swords Dance Scizor in the Rain, even with Stealth Rock up. The defense can be invested in and paired with Will-o-Wisp to great effect against many physical attackers, without quite shutting down the pokemon on our "threatened by" list. The high HP makes various tradeoffs possible in terms of EV spreads, particularly when mixing offensive and defensive EV's. It is necessary in order to have the high SpD, high variability in Def, and overall bulk at the same time.

Offenses 90/125/60

The speed is very low for a CAP, but I dont think we really need speed to fulfill the concept and stay true to our threat list. Underspeeding Tyranitar goes along with our threat list, and underspeeding defensive Water-types doesn't really change our performance against them much. I don't see underspeeding defensive Heatran as that much of a problem, since the defensive set typically only runs Lava Plume to attack. If we have a lower base speed than Heatran, a surprise Earth Power will always be a concern. Rather than kick off a speed creep arms race between us and defensive Heatran, I think it is ok to concede to Earth Power Heatran and focus stats elsewhere. The current defensive spread survives an Earth Power from defensive Heatran with 252 HP EV's anyway.

The SpA is very high because I am forseeing the use of Sludge Bomb and non-STAB attacks over Fire attacks (due to our synergy with/ability against Rain). As such, a great special attack stat seemed appropriate in order to make Sludge Bomb legitimately scary to non-Steels after a +1 boost. Even uninvested the special attack reaches 429 after a boost. The attack was kept in a "useable" range in order to take advantage of our high SpD and Coil. The low speed is somewhat of a bummer against SD Scizor, but we can still counter it and speed largely irrelevant when switching into U-turn or Bullet Punch. In exchange for speed, this stat spread keeps physical and special attacking options open without sacrificing bulk. This spread is versatile, true to our threat list, and should be a force to be reckoned with.

Here's an idea of where this spread sits compared to others right now:

High ST: less than 2 points under the cutoff and able to take some Super Effective STAB attacks that other spreads can't.
Low PT: Will require some investment in HP to survive Stone Edges from Scarf Tyranitar, Terrakion, and Landorus. A 252/252+ spread is 3HKOed by Stone Edges from Burned opponents (unless they have Choice Bands).
High Attack: (90) much lower than BMB's and much higher than everyone else's. This is meant to take advantage of potential physical options such as Gunk Shot, Flare Blitz, and Coil.
High Special Attack: (125) With the SpA stats ranging from 105 to 135, this one sits in the upper middle. Uninvested Fire Blast will 2HKO the most specially defensive Ferrothorn in the Rain, while Modest and 68 EV's are required to always OHKO after a Storm Drain Boost. This spread has the second highest combined Atk and SpA.
Low Speed: (60) Tied for lowest. We underspeed Tyranitar and tie with Jellicent.

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CAP 3 so far:

Concept: Extreme Makeover: Typing Edition

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Originally Posted by Fat Theorymon

Name: Extreme Makeover: Typing Edition

General Description: The idea here is to create a Pokemon who's typing, while normally considered poor defensively and/or offensively, becomes a strong selling point of the Pokemon itself via help from an ability, stats, and/or movepool.

Justification: There are a lot of typings we scoff at on a daily basis because of their serious flaws, often forgetting about their strong points. For example, Poison is a really terrible offensive typing, but a decent defensive typing, while the Ice typing is good offensively, but awful defensively. Instead of just accepting that some typings will just ruin a Pokemon, this CAP concept aims to take that "terrible typing", and find ways to fix it (usually via ability, movepool, or stats) to the point where the formerly terrible typing becomes the CAP's strong point! The reason this CAP could benefit OU is because a Pokemon who makes a "bad typing" into a great one could find many unique offensive and/or defensive niches that aren't currently found!

Questions To Be Answered

-What does it take for a Pokemon to overcome its "bad typing" so much that its typing becomes good? Are the stats the biggest contributer, is the ability the thing that saves it, does movepool make it a force, or is it a combination of the above?

-How does the typing makeover effect the Pokemon's playstyle? Does the Pokemon become a unique wall that uses its makeover to overcome its typing's normally fatal flaws, does the make over make a terrible offensive typing into a fearsome sweeper, does the makeover make it into a formidible combination of deffense and offense to a typing that brings it neither, or does the makeover bring forth something none of us see coming from the typing?

-Which resistances and immunities are the most relevant to the metagame? Sure, this concept is aiming to have a "bad typing" become good, but part of that will require the bad typing to have some key resistances and/or immunties to certain typings to defend against or set up on, while still having a very unorthodox competitive typing. This works the other way around too, what are the typings most relevant to hit super effectively or at least neutral?

-How will the rest of the OU metagame react to this extreme type makeover? Will Pokemon start carrying moves they normally wouldn't carry to break through a new defensive threat, will some Pokemon take on new defensive roles due to resisting the unorthodox STABs CAP 3 may carry? Or will This Pokemon, despite being a very real threat, not have many "custom made sets" to beat it, being more of a Pokemon that is a reaction to the metagame than causing a metagame reaction?

-Finally, how will this effect the teams CAP3 is on? Will this be the kind of Pokemon who needs a lot of support to become a threat, will this Pokemon be more of key team member to execute another strategy, or will this be the kind of Pokemon that's part of the glue that holds the team together?

Typing: Fire / Poison
Abilities: Dry Skin / ??? / (???)

[Deck Knight]

Seven started out, Four knocked down. Who shall be victorious?



If it matters, I choose Scoopapa!

[capefeather]

Rising_Dusk

Go, Golden Scizor! Vanquish your enemies!

[Birkal*]

Rising_Dusk

[V4Victini]

Rising_Dusk

Korski

No contest at all as far as I'm concerned. It's the tankiest submission, and it's special attack stat isn't ridiculous.

[Gothic Togekiss]

Rising_Dusk

[Theorymon]

Rising_Dusk

[Redjar]

Rising_Dusk

[reachzero]

Rising_Dusk

[Rising_Dusk]

Rising_Dusk

As I said before, 76 base Speed is an absolutely critical number for our CAP to maximize its EV'd Speed without ever allowing it to beat out the likes of offensive Heatran. This is the most important thing we could walk away from this spread with, next to that being enough power to punch through very bulky Pokemon like Politoed and Jellicent. Good luck to all of the entries either way, though! It's always a pleasure surviving the first poll; that is enough to remind me that I've succeeded. Cheers.

[Steamroll]

Rising_Dusk

closest to mine is the reason.

[prem]

Rising_Dusk

[Mr Holiday]

Scoopapa FTW!

I've already listed my reasons for choosing Scoopapa, but in a nut shell:

Decent Attack provides for a bit of unpredictability, and I like the bulkiness of it.

[g_man92]

Korski.
I like how well-tuned his Speed stat is; it's interesting how positive base 77 outspeeds neutral CAP3, but neutral base 100's are outsped by positive nature. I think the whole "Outspeeds Heatran" thing could be fixed by narrowing its movepool a bit (ie: Don't include Earth Power)

[DTC]

Rising_Dusk

[Stew0The0Jew]

Scoopapa

[DetroitLolcat]

Offensive Tran uses Balloon anyway

Korski for life

[Scoopapa]

Scoopapa

I'm happy to have made it past the first round and I think these are all good spreads!

[Midnight Show]

Rising_Dusk

[Sonic The Hedgedawg]

Korski all the way

[srk1214]

Korski

While I do agree with Dusk that 76 speed is certainly a better number than Korski's 89, I truly believe that everything else about Korski's spread is superior.

[Elevator Music]

Rising_Dusk

[Eternal Drifter]

Korski

[ShyGuy1221]

scoopapa