CAP 18 CAP 18 - Part 5 - Stat Limits

[jas61292]

This next stage is Stat Limits, and it's very important! Our Stats Leader, who will be leading this stage, is srk1214, so make sure that your posts are generally directed towards him and the questions he asks. srk1214 will be deciding the stat limits for CAP 18 at the conclusion of this thread, based on community input. This is NOT the place where we actually submit stats. That will come later.

These limits will help to define what we consider when making and talking about stat spreads for CAP 18. We will look at limits to CAP 18's physical and special attacking prowess, its physical and special tanking capabilities, and the overall power of its stats.


This is a relatively tricky stage of the process if you're not familiar with what it is we're doing and why we're doing it. For that reason, I strongly encourage those who intend to participate to read the entire OP thoroughly and ask questions where needed.

Please do not poll jump by talking about specific stat spreads or suggesting specific abilities.

Be forewarned that there is no poll for this stage of the CAP. The Stats Leader will decide the stat limits for the CAP upon the conclusion of this thread.

Stat Bias Limits

Stat bias limits set the general stat bias of a Pokemon from an offensive and defensive standpoint. Stat biases are not solely for limiting stats, but they also describe the overall build of the Pokemon in offensive and defensive terms. However, the stat spread is the only part of the project that will be constrained by Stat Bias Limits. There will be four stat biases selected and a total Base Stat Rating (BSR) limit. The Stat Biases are:

Physical Tankiness (PT)

The rating of the Pokémon's physical defense.
​

Physical Sweepiness (PS)

The rating of the Pokémon's physical offense.
​

Special Tankiness (ST)

The rating of the Pokémon's special defense.
​

Special Sweepiness (SS)

The rating of the Pokémon's special offense​

A spreadsheet for calculating the ratings can be found here. If you don't have a spreadsheet program, OpenOffice is free.

If you're a newer member of CAP, we highly recommend that you do some good lurking during this stage in the process. Read this page thoroughly to understand what exactly we're doing here. If you're still confused, check out some of the old Stat Limits Discussion threads for past CAPs in the CAP Process Archive. If you're still uncomfortable with posting here, then I suggest you watch how experienced users post; you can learn a lot from them!

--------------------

CAP18 so far:

Leadership Team:

DetroitLolcat - Topic Leader
jas61292 - Typing Leader
PttP - Ability Leader
srk1214 - Stats Leader
ginganinja - Movepool Leader

Concept: Major Third

General Description: A Pokemon that forms an effective offensive or defensive core with two lesser-used OU Pokemon.

Justification: Cores have always been an integral part of the metagame, whether you're running Talonflame/Staraptor to brute force everything, Slowbro/Amoonguss/Heatran for Regenerator-Leftovers stalling, or a whole team of Dragons + Magnezone. We've previously explored what it takes to make a successful partnership in CAP11 (Voodoom), but the metagame (and the simulator!) has changed dramatically since Voodoom's creation. I would also like to up the ante a little bit: Instead of just one, can we now take TWO Pokemon and find their missing piece? Whether we opt to build on an established two-Pokemon partnership or choose two previously unrelated Pokemon and put them together, I think that we can certainly find a Voodoom for a more offensive time.

Questions to Be Answered:

• How do effective cores in the current metagame differ fundamentally from the cores of previous metagames, if at all?
• Is synergy as important (relative to power) in the current metagame as it previously has been? (That is, has power creep rendered synergy unnecessary?)
• What differences are there between tailoring a Pokemon to two others and tailoring it to one? What else must be considered besides weaknesses and resistances?
• How does the addition of a Pokemon to a core change what other Pokemon can be effectively run alongside the core?
• Does Team Preview make running cores more difficult?
• Is it possible to create a core uncounterable by a single Pokemon? (For example, Celebi/Heatran/Jellicent was a very effective BW core that got slaughtered by Tyranitar. Can a core force opponents to counter it with another core?)
• Tagging onto the above, what is required to "counter-core" a core? What combination of offensive and defensive characteristics among "counter-core" members achieves this?

Pokemon CAP18 should threaten:

It's important that, first and foremost, we threaten the Pokemon and strategies that our core has no answer to. In general, the degree to which a Pokemon threatens Latias and Lucario should be the degree to which CAP18 threatens that Pokemon.

Ghost-type Pokemon: Aegislash, Gengar
Fairy-type Pokemon: Clefable, Mawile predominantly. Togekiss, Sylveon and Azumarill to somewhat lesser extents.
Some Fire-type Pokemon: Mega Charizard Y, Heatran, Talonflame to a much lesser extent.
Bug-type Pokemon: Scizor, Forretress, Volcarona.
Ground-type Pokemon*: Landorus-Therian, Hippowdon, Excadrill.

When I say "to a lesser extent", I mean that CAP 18 should be a threatening presence to this Pokemon, but it should not be an ultra-reliable counter. CAP18 should perform well against every Pokemon on this list, but that doesn't mean CAP18 needs to unconditionally switch into and force out these Pokemon. It should likely be able to do one or the other, but countering all of these Pokemon is neither feasible nor recommended.

CAP18 should be able to handle, either by switching in or 1v1, the Pokemon that defeat at least one of our core members that the other one cannot switch into. For example, Mega Charizard X is a Pokemon that defeats Lucario 1v1 that Latias can't switch into. If Multiscale is active, so is Dragonite. Gyarados, before it Mega Evolves, fits this bill.

*With a weakness to Ground, this will be a difficult task. We should threaten these Pokemon as well as we can, but we should not expect to counter Ground-types, but rather defeat them 1v1.

Pokemon CAP18 should be threatened by:

We should be okay with CAP 18 losing to Pokemon that the rest of our core handles well. For example, Latias is a tremendous answer to Rotom-W, and CAP18 is weak to Electric and does not have a STAB that can hit Rotom-W even neutrally. Rotom-W isn't particularly bothered by Fire- and Water-type support options, so making Rotom-W anything other than a threat to CAP18 is fitting a square peg into a round hole. Keldeo is a similar example, although Keldeo is so commonly paired with Pursuit Aegislash (the bane of this core) that it's not safe to let Keldeo counter this CAP.

Bulky Waters: Rotom-W, Keldeo to a much smaller extent.
Bulky Dragons: Latias, Latios, Goodra.
Walls with minimal offensive presence: Chansey, Blissey.

Pokemon not on either of our threatlists should be overly specifically threatening or threatened by CAP 18. Just because a Pokemon is not in the second list doesn't mean it is our prerogative to beat it. The same goes with Pokemon not in the first list: we shouldn't be expected to lose to every Pokemon that we don't threaten.

Typing: Fire / Water
Abilities: Analytic / ??? / ???

 

[Bughouse]

Hey y'all. I'm srk1214 and I'll be your Stats TLT for these next two steps. First, in this thread we'll determine our stat limits and then in the next thread, the community will make stat spread submissions that fit within those limits. In other words, this thread is NOT where we decide anything about the actual stats CAP 18 will have. We merely set boundaries to guide our submissions in the next thread about how we should be oriented offensively/defensively and physically/specially.

Even better, we don't just say "as specially bulky as Goodra" or "as physically offensive as Mega Pinsir." We have a system and a calculation! We use Base Stat Rating (BSR) which is further composed of PS, SS, PT, and ST, which stand for Physical Sweepiness, Special Sweepiness, Physical Tankiness, and Special Tankiness, respectively. The calculator for these are found in the post above mine and should be your guide in making any arguments. There's no need to look up the formulas and do it out by hand.

In this thread, we will be setting some boundaries for what submissions in the next thread must contain in order to be legal and pro-concept. This generally entails setting maximum limits for each of the 4 components of BSR as well as for BSR itself. So if for example, at the end of the thread I set and DetroitLolcat approves a ST limit of 200, then all submissions in the next stage MUST fit within that limit to be considered. This does not mean that all stats submissions should aim to be at a ST near 200. If you feel your spread with a ST of 150 is best, you will be able to submit that spread and defend it. So remember that when you are arguing about what limits should be proposed. Just because your WIP stat spread has a ST of 147 doesn't mean you need to vehemently argue for a ST limit of 150. As long as you can see a ST limit of 200 as not harmful to the CAP's concept, it is an acceptable limit.

When posting arguments the question you should ask yourself instead is the following: Why do (or don't) we need the limit to be X? If you are arguing in favor of a limit of 150, rather than the 200 some others want, explain why a limit of 200 leaves too much open space for CAP 18 to perform some out-of-concept role and why 150 would in fact be better for the concept. Damage calculations are very good for this *hint hint wink wink* and I recommend using http://pokemonshowdown.com/damagecalc/ but there are other damage calculators out there.

To recap: We've got a Fire/Water Pokemon with the ability Analytic. Our goal is to perform in a core with Lucario and Latias. Latias is assumed to be using its offensive Defog set, while Lucario will likely be running a Swords Dance sweeper set. Very important to keep in mind too is the summary of our Threats discussion in the post by DetroitLolcat here. When making your arguments, it is safe to assume moves such as Fire Blast or Waterfall much more than it is to assume Draco Meteor or Stone Edge. If you feel a calc with a particular non-stab move is imporant, justify it.

Of particular note from our threatlist are Aegislash and Gengar, which we are supposed to threaten. While many wanted Bulletproof to protect us from their strong Shadow Balls that neither Lucario nor Latias can take, that didn't happen in Primary Ability. Therefore, stats is our best spot to handle them, so be especially careful to consider these two threats in your arguments about our ST limit as well as Aegislash-Shield forme's bulk when arguing for either our PS or SS. We have set these two as things we should threaten, so Stats must make it so. Similarly we are supposed to threaten Ground types like Hippowdon, Excadrill, and Landorus-T, even if we can't switch in on their Earthquakes. Similarly, consider all other things we are supposed to threaten or be threatened by in your arguments, not just the two groups I highlighted here. That threatlist is the primary guideline we have for the remainder of the project.

Another important thing to point out is about the mental bias some may have about our Primary Ability. Analytic is a very nifty ability that will enable us to gain a free Life Orb when we move second or our opponent switches out. While many may assume Analytic implies a slow CAP, this is not necessarily so. Analytic was a well known ability on Starmie late in BW2, helping strong moves like Hydro Pump nuke switch-ins. In fact, I think most people would argue that being overly slow would be very detrimental to our concept.

Most importantly: Don't polljump. Root your arguments in what CAP18 already has rather than what you want to have.



With all that said, here are my main questions to get us started off:

1. Analytic does not assume anything about our offensive bias. We could either be Physical or Special or even mixed, but nothing about the concept so far necessarily points one way or another. Considering our threatlist, how should we be oriented offensively?
2. As we are assuming CAP 18 may need to switch into some strong attacks neither Latias nor Lucario can handle, how bulky does CAP 18 need to be? As a factor in its overall bulk, remember that it's susceptible to Spikes and weak to Stealth Rock too.
   
3. Finally, Analytic presents a minor thought puzzle. We need enough immediate power to threaten various things we have said we want to threaten and enough speed to do so too. However, we might not necessarily want to become overly powerful, once Analytic is factored in on switches or against things faster than us. In short, Analytic affects important decisions about both our Speed and our (Special)/Attack. What SS or PS limits are needed to satisfy our immediate needs without threatening to break CAP 18 in other situations?

There are many more questions to be asked and answered, but these three should serve as a good starting point. I look forward to seeing this debate unfold both here and on irc.

 

[Albacore]

Analytic does not assume anything about our offensive bias. We could either be Physical or Special or even mixed, but nothing about the concept so far necessarily points one way or another. Considering our threatlist, how should we be oriented offensively?

I think specially. Our typing seems to suggest that we should go specially offensive, and a few Pokemon we are trying to threaten (particularly Landorus-T) are easier to hit on the special side. Plus, bulky Dragon types we are trying to lose too (Goodra and Latias, for the most part) take nothing from any non-STAB or NVE hit. The only real reason going Physical was considered was if we choose Contrary to help with out Pursuit trapping to punish Aegislash for trying to switch. However, Analytic also punishes switches from Aegislash, albeit less directly. The only reason I could think of to make this CAP physically offensive is to threaten Clefable, which can set up on us if we're not careful. However, we do wall the most common Clefable set, and should not take much damage from any of its common moves (unless you count Thunderbolt, which you really shouldn't because it isn't exactly common or viable on Clefable). Therefore, Clefable should not be too much of a problem as long as we give our cap a good move to handle it. And that's down to the movepool stage, so we shouldn't worry about it.

As we are assuming CAP 18 may need to switch into some strong attacks neither Latias nor Lucario can handle, how bulky does CAP 18 need to be? As a factor in its overall bulk, remember that it's susceptible to Spikes and weak to Stealth Rock too.

It needs to be pretty bulky, hopefully, assuming max HP investement, enough to live two Shadow Balls from Aegislash, and maybe enough to switch in on an Landorus-T's Earthquake too (although I've ran some calcs, and we need more than Skarmory-level physical bulk for the latter, so it'll be difficult). However, this raises a huge problem : do we focus on physical bulk or special bulk? That's a very tough question to anwser. Honestly, I'm not sure myself. I'd be teamped to focus on special bulk, since Aegislash is a bigger issue than say, Azumarill, but then again, Aegislash and Gengar are pretty much the only special threats we fear. No matter how common Aegislash is (and it is very common), it is more likely for our core to be threatened on the physical side by than on the special side. And that's not even taking the Will-O-Wisp our CAP will probably be carrying into account. For now, I'd be tempted to say we need to focus more on special bulk, but one thing is certain : it needs mixed bulk. I wouldn't worry too much about SR and Spikes, because we have Defog Latias, which Aegislash loves switching in on. If our CAP can then switch safely in on Aegislash after Defog, we're okay. Admittedly, Bisharp may stop us from getting the Defog off, but that's what we have Lucario for. All of that is down to prediction, really. In theory, at least, our CAP should not have to switch in while SR are up. We may need to bring both our PT and ST up to 210, and need at least 180 for each, in my opinion.

Finally, Analytic presents a minor thought puzzle. We need enough immediate power to threaten various things we have said we want to threaten and enough speed to do so too. However, we might not necessarily want to become overly powerful, once Analytic is factored in on switches or against things faster than us. In short, Analytic affects important decisions about both our Speed and our (Special)/Attack. What SS or PS limits are needed to satisfy our immediate needs without threatening to break CAP 18 in other situations?

I think it goes without saying that we need to 2HKO Aegislash and OHKO Excadrill. Neither of which are difficult in the slightest : indeed, a Fire Blast from an uninvested 100 base SpA is enough. However, the problem is not Aegislash or Excadrill, but rather, what they will switch into. Which I why I think we should be able to, with a Life Orb and 252 SpA deal up to 50% damage to Rotom-W, but only with an Analytic boost. Why Rotom-W? Well, it's incredibly common, and it's also a very obvious switch in to our CAP. This can all depend on what coverage we give it and how we predict, but for now, I'll just assume Rotom-W will be taking a Fire Blast.

As for speed, we need to outspeed Excadrill. Possibly even Garchomp. We do not, I repeat, do not want to make our CAP slow just because it has Analytic. This ability was chosen purely because of switches and for punishing them.

Ultimately, I feel like we should have a PS of around 80-110 and a SS of around 150-180. This, alongside PT and ST, gives us a BSR of 350-380

 

[Deck Knight]

I ran some calculations based on our threat lists, and came to the following conclusions:

Sweepiness: Before I get into physical vs. special, remember that based on our threats, we need CAP 18 to be reasonably quick. Excadrill is basically our bottom limit. As such, Sweepiness says more about SPEED than it does about power.

Physical or Special Sweepiness: I honestly think based on the list we want to threaten, physical attacks are not the way to go. That said, I see no reason not to make it equally as strong as where I think Special Sweepiness should be, which is actually quite high. The biggest wrinkle in this new age of CAPs is the fact we're asking for a Pokemon that can take on several Mega Pokemon threats competently. That's a major stat creep. And thus, the limit should be quite high. My PS / SS recommendation: Lesser Stat: 80-160, Greater Stat: 175-215

This is the kind of level needed to threaten some of our bulkier threats with 2HKOs while OHKO'ing offensive threats to the core. For example, Analytic Sludge Wave under ratiings on the mid-higher end of this spectrum can 2HKO Max / Max+ SpD Clefable, and as Clefable loves to Thunder Wave, this is not entirely infeasible. Meanwhile it consistently scores OHKOs against Excadrill and Gengar with STABs.

Tankiness:
Tankiness is another issue that is a hard bargain with so many specialized Pokemon. Physical Tankiness is the most important given that the threats we want to address do have a lot of strong priority to back up their STAB, I think a similar range to the higher sweepiness is warranted: PT recommendation: 175-215.

The mid-higher end of this range allows CAP 18 to avoid a OHKO from Mega Mawile's Swords Dance Sucker Punch, and easily tank its Rough Play. It enables CAP 18 to survive +1 Mega Charizard X's Dragon Claw and Earthquake.

Special Tankiness is still vitally important given we need a certain baseline to survive. However, because of the Pokemon we want to threaten us, we can't go too far overboard in that direction. For reference, 100/100 stats deliver a special tankiness rating of 171.63 ST Recommendation: 135-175.

The lower end of this spectrum would require an item or outside support to be able to tank Aegislash's Life Orb Shadow Ball, but the middle and upper ranges can take the attack in stride. At roughly the mid-point, CAP18 could survive Life Orb Gengar's Thunderbolt with no prior damage.

Overall Rating:

Let's be honest, we've delivered a tall order in making this specific core work against these threats. Given the countours of what we want this CAP to do, and the fact Mega Evolution influences that goal to such an extent, I believe a recommended overall rating of 340-375 BSR is warranted. For reference, Heatran is 343.58 BSR and Garchomp is 376.42.

 

[Burt Racecar]

Hi, I've been reading the creation of some past CAPs and I'm inspired to join in with the discussion surrounding the creation of CAP18. I know it was recommended newer contributors to lurk during this stage, but nonetheless I want to try answer the questions srk1214 posed.

Analytic does not assume anything about our offensive bias. We could either be Physical or Special or even mixed, but nothing about the concept so far necessarily points one way or another. Considering our threatlist, how should we be oriented offensively?
I'm going to refrain from talking about those Pokemon that are weak to our STABs, the majority of which enjoy more physical bulk (Mawile, Scizor, Forretress, Hippowdon, Excadrill, Landorus-t, Talonflame). This leads me to support CAP18 for being more of a special attacker.

However, on our threatlist I can't envision how we could offensively threaten the fairy type with special moves - all the fairies on our threatlist are specially defensive, except for Azumarill who resists both our STABs anyway. Defensively we're going to resist the fairy type moves, however Clefable could carry thunderbolt, Togekiss can most likely Paraflinch us quite easily. I'm picturing quite the stalemate between CAP18 and the fairy type. We may force a switch, purely in the strategic sense of them reserving their fairy-type for Lucario and Latias.

Overall, I believe specially offensive suits CAP18.

As we are assuming CAP 18 may need to switch into some strong attacks neither Latias nor Lucario can handle, how bulky does CAP 18 need to be? As a factor in its overall bulk, remember that it's susceptible to Spikes and weak to Stealth Rock too.Yes, in my opinion it needs to be considerably bulky to survive neutral hits from pokemon we're supposed to threaten, Aegislash in particular. Specially or Physically is the real question.
If I'm assuming correctly we would sacrifice speed for bulk, which suits our primary ability of Analytic anyway. However, CAP18 will fall to Landorus-t's and Excadrill's earthquake both of who CAP18's actually meant to threaten, as I don't believe it would be fast enough to get a shot on them first (assuming it is bulky). This raises a bit of a conundrum here in order to threaten Landorus-t especially, we'd need to outspeed him or have outstanding physical bulk to survive a super-effective STAB. If the latter is the case, I feel our special defense would suffer as a result of this, which is no good with dealing with a plethora of moves we are supposed to be tanking from Aegislash, Gengar, Charizard-Y, Volcarona all of which have very substantial Sp.Att stats.

I feel we need CAP18 to have good mixed bulk, probably slightly leaning towards the special side.

Finally, Analytic presents a minor thought puzzle. We need enough immediate power to threaten various things we have said we want to threaten and enough speed to do so too. However, we might not necessarily want to become overly powerful, once Analytic is factored in on switches or against things faster than us. In short, Analytic affects important decisions about both our Speed and our (Special)/Attack. What SS or PS limits are needed to satisfy our immediate needs without threatening to break CAP 18 in other situations?
CAP18 should have a very average speed, even though there are many Pokemon we could do with it being faster than, again Landorus-T as an example, we would suffer attack power or bulk for speed, both of which are not ideal for CAP18, we don't want it to turn into a speedy Carbink with outstanding mixed bulk and equally impressive speed because our offensive presence will be non-existent.

I have my own ideas about what stats CAP18 has, but it will be very interesting to see what the community decides on.

For a first foray into contributing to CAP I hope I've adequately answered the questions - be gentle ;)



EDIT: Forgot to even mention the stat bias - d'oh!

All of these numbers are derived from my personal answers to the questions posed.

PS: Since I think CAP18 may be suited more of a special sweeper I've come up with a range between 70-125 for physical sweepiness

SS: Therefore the Special sweepiness is somewhat between 160-190

ST: Again based my own opinions of what suits CAP18's function, I derived a special tanking limit between 170-220

PT: And for physical tanking, not quite as high as special, but still considerable 160-200

This gives an overall rating between 330 at the low end and just under 380 at the top end.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Analytic does not assume anything about our offensive bias. We could either be Physical or Special or even mixed, but nothing about the concept so far necessarily points one way or another. Considering our threatlist, how should we be oriented offensively?
We should definently be specially offensive. From our Threats list, we can not only see that most of the Pokemon that we are trying to threat are physically bulky, we can also see that the Pokemon that we are trying to get threatened by are quite specially bulky, so from there we can see it would be a wise choice to be specially offensive. Also, in terms of our core of Lucario, Latias, and CAP18, Latias as the special attacker has less raw power than lucario as the physical attacker, imo this says that we should defienently be specialy offensive.

As we are assuming CAP 18 may need to switch into some strong attacks neither Latias nor Lucario can handle, how bulky does CAP 18 need to be? As a factor in its overall bulk, remember that it's susceptible to Spikes and weak to Stealth Rock too.
Yes we do need to be bulky, espically on the physical side if we want to be able to take hits from Physical Aegislash and Garchomp. It is an absolute neccessity that on terms of the phsical side, we will have enough to be able to live an Earthquake from Garchomp and an unboosted Sacred sword from Aegislash, it would be a nice luxury to be able to take boosted hits from them, but it would definently be required that we can take unboosted hits from them, espically when Stealth rock is up.

In terms of special defense we surprisingly dont need to be that bulky. As I said in the abillity discussion, the only way Aegislash can OHKO Lucario is with Sacred Sword, while Lucario can OHKO blade form and can 2HK0 Sheild form with a combination of Bullet Punch and Earthquake, assuming its at +2. We can all admit that Lucario is not bulky at, having 70/70/70 defenses. Seeing this shows us that we only need to be a bit bulky than this on the special side in order for us to be able to live a shadow ball from Aegislash and possibly a thunderbolt from gengar. Infact having us have a ST of 200 is a bad idea because not only is it unnecessary but it also gives us ridiculous stats, I had to give CAP 18 stats that would have rivaled Aurumoth in terms of BSR just to be able fit what I think we should have and that limit, can we please stop acting like we need to be super bulky on the special side when Lucario cant even be OHKOd by Aegislash's Shadow Ball

Finally, Analytic presents a minor thought puzzle. We need enough immediate power to threaten various things we have said we want to threaten and enough speed to do so too. However, we might not necessarily want to become overly powerful, once Analytic is factored in on switches or against things faster than us. In short, Analytic affects important decisions about both our Speed and our (Special)/Attack. What SS or PS limits are needed to satisfy our immediate needs without threatening to break CAP 18 in other situations?
I honestly dont have that much to say about this one, I honestly think it would be good if we find some middle ground between our threats that would let us get the anlaytic boost on the threats that we dont mind getting outsped by, but also outsped the threats we need to outspeed

Stat Bias:

PT: 220 - 235
ST: 160 - 175
PS: 40 - 50
SS: 170 - 190

 

[Clankenator007]

Analytic does not assume anything about our offensive bias. We could either be Physical or Special or even mixed, but nothing about the concept so far necessarily points one way or another. Considering our threatlist, how should we be oriented offensively?

Our threatlist is very unkind to physical attackers at the moment. Aegislash's king's shield and intimidate from the likes of Landorus-T makes being physically based a liability. That and the fact that Fire/Water has much more useful moves on the special side make me want to say special. I wouldn't say that going special is particularly beneficial, but going physical could certainly be detrimental.

As we are assuming CAP 18 may need to switch into some strong attacks neither Latias nor Lucario can handle, how bulky does CAP 18 need to be? As a factor in its overall bulk, remember that it's susceptible to Spikes and weak to Stealth Rock too.

To be able to swtich in on everything on the threatlist (to the core not CAP) we need a ridiculous amount of bulk. Like, seriously ridiculous. You need at least 100/100 hp/def (~ 170 PT rating) to not get 2HKO'd by Mega Mawhile's play rough uninvested (no hazards), and we resist that. I'm doing my damage calc's uninvested assuming we are going to invest in offenses and speed to be a wallbreaker, so if we go dedicated tank (which I do not support) we don't need quite as much bulk, but still that is a lot. To avoid the 2HKO from Aegislash's Shadow Ball you need even more, something in the neighborhood of 100/115 hp/spdef (~ 200 ST) uninvested (no hazards), which is also freaking huge. Assuming CAP still wants to outspeed grounds (which we straight just cannot tank) and then needs to have enough power to break Aegislash this is quickly getting ridiculous. I propose we aim to get around this more creatively than just pumping more numbers into bulk.

I propose:

PT: 110 - 150 and deal with the stronger physical attacks with burns or by outspeeding and KO'ing first

ST: 160 - 200 and deal with stronger threats by investing in some more bulk or outspeeding and KO'ing

Finally, Analytic presents a minor thought puzzle. We need enough immediate power to threaten various things we have said we want to threaten and enough speed to do so too. However, we might not necessarily want to become overly powerful, once Analytic is factored in on switches or against things faster than us. In short, Analytic affects important decisions about both our Speed and our (Special)/Attack. What SS or PS limits are needed to satisfy our immediate needs without threatening to break CAP 18 in other situations?

Gotta go fast. I think that tanking every hit we'd like is unreasonable, but outspeeding and KOing before we get hit is perfectly in the realm of doable. Most are in concensus that we cannot be slower than Excadrill, but I would go one step further and say we don't want to be slower than Landorus-T. Of course, once we're that fast it's hard to keep Lucario as the main sweeper over CAP. Still, that can be remedied in movepool so I'm all for giving CAP some great speed. Yeah, it kinda detracts from Analytic but not getting KO'd before we even make a move seems smarter to me. Besides, we still get that Analytic boost on switches which shouldn't be underestimated.

For limits in the sweepy department I propose:

PS: 80 - 120 CAP has no business being a physical sweeper / wallbreaker but we shouldn't make the bottom limit of PS too low or else we get unrealistic attack stats submitted like 45.

SS: 180 - 220 The best defense is a good offense. We can avoid all that nasty damage by just roasting our threats before they touch us.

Overall, we need a strong Pokemon but it doesn't need to be all that strong if it's efforts are focused right.
BSR: 300 - 350

 

[jas61292]

As has been said by the posts above me, I think special offense is the way to go. With our type, the best reliable STABs are better on the special side than the physical. More importantly, said physical STABs are contact moves, meaning they are incredibly risky to use against Aegislash. We want to threaten Aegi offensively, not be threatened by it when we go on the attack. The existence of Kings Shield pretty much makes this decision for us, in my opinion. In addition, among those Pokemon that we chose to be a threat to us, there are a few huge special tanks/walls like Goodra and the pink blobs, while not really anything hugely physically tanky to that same extent. Going special helps keep the threat list in tact far better than going physical.

Defensively, I think that we need to choose a side and be bulky on it, but I don't think mixed bulk is a huge necessity. The list of things we want to threaten is long; far too long to check them all defensively. Offense was the way we decided to go in typing, and I think we need to stick with that. As such I think that we need to pick one side and be pretty bulky there. Which side we want that to be I am still not sure of myself though. However, we don't want it to be both as we need to leave room for offensive stats. I'd probably say I'm leaning towards special bulk for switching into Aegislash and the like, but either way I believe could work.

However, the one issue I have the strongest opinion on is this last one. Analytic lets us be more powerful on switches, but the question then becomes whether we want to be only so powerful that Analytic makes us threatening, or whether we want high enough power so that if we get in on something we counter, they are put in an awful situation, knowing that switching is just as bad as staying in. In my opinion, we absolutely need to do the latter. Our typing will not let us be as good a tank as a lot of OU mons. So lets not be a tank. Lets be a nuke. Once we get in on Aegislash or the like, they should be put in a situation where staying in is death, but switching won't improve the situation unless they have one of the limited number of hard counters, such as Chansey, as noted above. We don't want good power, we want an awesome amount of power. I don't think we can wall Aegislash, but we need to deal with ti some how, and the best way to do that is to make it so that people don't want it in the battle as long as CAP 18 is around.

With that said, when it comes to a Special Sweepieness limit, I think we need to be very loose. Lower limits are never necessary for these things, imo, so I'd just leave it out, and when it comes to an upper limit, I'm almost tempted to say the same. However, we need power, not massive speed, so to allow people to have a wide range of powers without allowing something too fast with too much power, I think the limit needs to be at least 225, and probably higher. I might even recommend a SS limit of 250, as having looked at what that allows, I don't think there is anything there that gets too fast, and I have a hard time seeing any reasonable power level that would allow as too high. No need to restrict something like this overly just to restrict it. We want to punish switching, so lets let ourselves do it as best we can.

I'm not really sold on any particular limits for the others yet, but I may post again later if I end up having a more solidified opinion.

 

[Yoshuriken]

Analytic does not assume anything about our offensive bias. We could either be Physical or Special or even mixed, but nothing about the concept so far necessarily points one way or another. Considering our threatlist, how should we be oriented offensively?

I'm in agreement about the special offenses. However, I think we need "decent" physical prowess to handle the fairies like Togekiss, Sylveon, and AV Azumarill. Volcarona to a lesser extent as well. I'm thinking something similar Garchomp's attack stats but in reverse.

As we are assuming CAP 18 may need to switch into some strong attacks neither Latias nor Lucario can handle, how bulky does CAP 18 need to be? As a factor in its overall bulk, remember that it's susceptible to Spikes and weak to Stealth Rock too.

It shouldn't be overly bulky, though it does need some bulk. I'm thinking stuff like Keldeo who has decent natural bulk so he doesn't die to any attack. I do think one side of the spectrum should be favored over the other to make it more effective. Which one though I'm not sure of.
Looking at the threat list, I see 7 physical attackers, 7 special attackers, and 1 mixed (Aegislash). However, one thing DLC said was that the ground types, who are all physical, should not be countered by CAP but rather lose 1v1. If CAP is fast enough, he can potentially OHKO all the ground types before they move. Thus, I advocate the bulk to be focused more on the special side of things, especially since CAP is all but guaranteed to be able to spread burns.

Finally, Analytic presents a minor thought puzzle. We need enough immediate power to threaten various things we have said we want to threaten and enough speed to do so too. However, we might not necessarily want to become overly powerful, once Analytic is factored in on switches or against things faster than us. In short, Analytic affects important decisions about both our Speed and our (Special)/Attack. What SS or PS limits are needed to satisfy our immediate needs without threatening to break CAP 18 in other situations?

The interesting thing about this question is that a large limit could produce wildly differing results concerning the power level of Analytic. Both 140 Spatk/50 Speed and 70/130 have a SS rating of 130.168, but the former would be much more powerful with Analytic (and in general, but that's not the point). Even with a really small limit of 100 we could have a spread of 145 SpAtk/20 Speed, which could be quite powerful with decent bulk. Now, I'm not saying I think a spread that abuses the limit like that is likely to win the voting, but this question is actually rather hard to answer.
Personally, I think as long as CAP's SS and PS rating don't get ridiculously high, it won't be a problem. Starmie has a rating of 184.301 and certainly isn't broken with Analytic, despite great attacking typing and movepool. Now I know Starmie has other problems but it's only an example. (and actually not a very good one because of my recommendation, but oh well.)

Finally, my recommendations for limits:

tl;dr

PT: I'm going for 100-150
PS: I think 140-160 would be good, as it affords it decent physical prowess but not great prowess.
ST: 140-190
SS: 190-240

 

[Torty73]

Analytic does not assume anything about our offensive bias. We could either be Physical or Special or even mixed, but nothing about the concept so far necessarily points one way or another. Considering our threatlist, how should we be oriented offensively? The threat list seems to drift towards specially defensive pokemon, so making it a physical based pokemon would be making it overpowered. This would support Lucario and Latias well.

As we are assuming CAP 18 may need to switch into some strong attacks neither Latias nor Lucario can handle, how bulky does CAP 18 need to be? As a factor in its overall bulk, remember that it's susceptible to Spikes and weak to Stealth Rock too? Hmm. The point of this pokemon is covering the holes in the core. I believe this should be biased towards physical bulkiness as talonflame and Aegislash are big threats to the core.

Finally, Analytic presents a minor thought puzzle. We need enough immediate power to threaten various things we have said we want to threaten and enough speed to do so too. However, we might not necessarily want to become overly powerful, once Analytic is factored in on switches or against things faster than us. In short, Analytic affects important decisions about both our Speed and our (Special)/Attack. What SS or PS limits are needed to satisfy our immediate needs without threatening to break CAP 18 in other situations? This is tough. my first thought was to make it slow so it can cash in on the boost, but I think it should be medium, outrunning Base 90's for sure but allowing it to work it against faster threats which will help it destroy Lucario counters
PT: 130 - 170
ST: 100 - 120
SS: 160 - 180
PS 80 - 100

 

[Full_Korbe]

Analytic does not assume anything about our offensive bias. We could either be Physical or Special or even mixed, but nothing about the concept so far necessarily points one way or another. Considering our threatlist, how should we be oriented offensively?
Without a doubt, I will answer a Special offensive bias, and there are several reasons.
Our main sweeper, Lucario, is a physical one, and I don't see how we will break through Hippowdon, Landorus-T or Skarmory if we lack special power, especially the first who is quite bulky. Charizard-Y will be a pain to OHKO even with physical power, while both special and physical attacks can hopefully 2KO it. Then, we have the Fairies who are mostly specially-defensive... Except that Clefable may want to invest in physical bulk, and our main concern is Mawile. Last but not least, most of the Pokemon we want to be threatened by are specially defensive (Goodra, Lati@s, the blobs).
Hippowdon can be really bulky, even on the special side. We have also, of course, Aegislash, and, most of all, we want to not give free turns to our opponents. Latias is, imo, a poor RK (well, it's not its role), so we want to rely on immediate fire power.

As we are assuming CAP 18 may need to switch into some strong attacks neither Latias nor Lucario can handle, how bulky does CAP 18 need to be? As a factor in its overall bulk, remember that it's susceptible to Spikes and weak to Stealth Rock too?
A tough one. We are dealing with powerful juggernauts, and if by virtue of our typing, we can reliably control some (Charizard-Y), most of them can use our Rock / Ground weaknesses. We need to reliably stomach weak Earthquakes, we need to take a +6 Aqua Jet from Azumarill, a +2 Sucker Punch from Mawile, and the list is only starting.
However, on the special side, things are easier. Pokemon don't generally use "random" Ground coverage, so we are only fearing Thunderbolt, and even Gengar barely uses it. Still, there is one peculiar attack we need to take : Shadow Ball from Aegislash. And it needs big, big defenses, but well, we don't want to big defenses everywhere. Moreover, Latias already sports great 80/130 special defense, and we want her to complete CAP. Still, these Shadow Ball's

Finally, Analytic presents a minor thought puzzle. We need enough immediate power to threaten various things we have said we want to threaten and enough speed to do so too. However, we might not necessarily want to become overly powerful, once Analytic is factored in on switches or against things faster than us. In short, Analytic affects important decisions about both our Speed and our (Special)/Attack. What SS or PS limits are needed to satisfy our immediate needs without threatening to break CAP 18 in other situations?
Honestly, as soon as I saw the threat list, I knew what was the speed tier I seeked.
The problem is that our typing won't let us stay in. CAP will generally come in, and take the hit to kill / damages the opponent or scare him away. If he switches, he hope for a burn, but we will likely switch out then. That's why I don't think we need to be quick, to suit this hit-and-run strategy. However, we do need to be quick enough to scare away some Pokemon, and most notably Excadrill and Landorus-T.
That's why I'm leaning towards the following numbers :
PT : 170-210
ST : 145-175
PS : 80-135
SS : 170-210

 

[EternalSnowman]

Analytic does not assume anything about our offensive bias. We could either be Physical or Special or even mixed, but nothing about the concept so far necessarily points one way or another. Considering our threatlist, how should we be oriented offensively?
I think that on our threat list, most of the pokemon we are hitting (Landorus-T, Excadrill) along with the pokemon we hit super effectively (Hippowdon, Mawile) are hit stronger if we use specially attacking moves. On top of this, Water/Fire seems like a special attacking pokemon, since the its physical movepool would be limited to Waterfall+FlareBlitz/FirePunch for STABs, so I think specially offensive would be better.

As we are assuming CAP 18 may need to switch into some strong attacks neither Latias nor Lucario can handle, how bulky does CAP 18 need to be? As a factor in its overall bulk, remember that it's susceptible to Spikes and weak to Stealth Rock too.
I think that it should be quite specially bulky, enough to survive 2 Shadow Balls from Aegislash. This is because other than physical Aegislash, the only other physical threat to the core is Excadrill, and we would need ridiculous amount of bulk to survive Earthquakes from it. Landorus-T is taken care of by Latias and other grounds, while Faries are mainly special other than Azumarrill which we can presumably burn. Excadrill can also be revenge killed by Lucario if it is not speed boosted.

Finally, Analytic presents a minor thought puzzle. We need enough immediate power to threaten various things we have said we want to threaten and enough speed to do so too. However, we might not necessarily want to become overly powerful, once Analytic is factored in on switches or against things faster than us. In short, Analytic affects important decisions about both our Speed and our (Special)/Attack. What SS or PS limits are needed to satisfy our immediate needs without threatening to break CAP 18 in other situations?
I think that the most important thing for our CAP is to be able to outspeed at least Landorus-T, so we can beat it in 1v1 situations, or if not Landorus, then Excadrill. In how I see it, most Ground types can be taken by Latias, with speed and Ice Beam/Surf, as long as it gets a safe switch with Earthquake. However due to Excadrill's massive attack stat and access to Mold Breaker, Latias is unable to switch in. This makes Excadrill public enemy #1 or 2 depending on Aegislash. CAP18 will probably outspeed Aegislash since its speed is a pitiful base 50, but Excadrill sits at base 88, so without a Choice Scarf, Lucario outspeeds it. Base 103 would outspeed Garchomp, who could predict the Latias switch and procede to wreck Latias with a Dragon STAB.

 

[Zebstrika]

I'm not really putting out as much of an opinion here other than to support special attacking, since Aegislash, Landorus-T, Mawile, Hippowdon, and Scizor get hit on their special side a lot better. A physical attacker is really only better with Charizard Y, a couple of fairies and killing itself with Flare Blitz recoil. The CAP doesn't really need Aqua Jet imo, most of the threats are slower and bulky enough to take it.


Anyway, here are some calcs left here just to get a good idea of what it takes to beat certain threats:
Special tankiness, with no EVs:

special tankiness

Survive Max SpA LO Aegislash Shadow Ball after rocks: About 165 ST (keep in mind this will not let you switch into one after rocks, since Shadow Sneak finishes CAP off)
Take away the LO: About 122 ST.

Survive 4 SpA Heatran Earth Power after rocks: About 125 ST. Also about the same to survive Modest 252 SpA 'tran without rocks.

Avoid the 2HKO from Zard Y Solar Beam, without Leftovers: about 182 ST. Avoid the OHKO after rocks: About 114 ST. So most suggestions here fall in between.

Survive a LO Gengar Thunderbolt: About 150 ST.

Physical tankiness

again no EVs:

Survive an uninvested Hippowdon Earthquake: About 140 PT.

Survive Mega Mawile Sucker Punch after rocks: About 124 PT.

Survive +2 Sucker Punch without rocks: 200 PT. No thanks.

Avoid the 2HKO from Play Rough + Sucker Punch without rocks: About 180 PT.

Survive +6 Aqua Jet from Azumarill from full health: 191 PT. Not that it could kill it back in 1 shot anyway unless it gets SE coverage.

Survive Adamant Banded Talonflame Brave Bird from full: About 135 PT.

Special attacking

(a couple notes: I'm using actual stats here because I don't think "sweepiness" is a good measure here, our CAP is not sweeping, right? Plus speed doesn't affect the calcs. Also, when I say a certain special attack stat is equivalent to a base stat, I mean with 252 EVs and no boosting nature.)
OHKO a Max HP Aegislash with a LO or Analytic Overheat: 299 SpA, or a base 100

Take away the LO: 389 SpA. This is a Timid Chandelure (145 base SpA)

LO Fire Blast: 355 SpA, or 128 base.

2HKO specially defensive Heatran with Surf: 363 SpA. Base 132, or a LO boosted base 90.

2HKO Charizard Y in the sun with Hydro Pump: 335 SpA, or base 118.

OHKO Mega Mawile with Flamethrower: 355 SpA, or base 128. OHKOing with Fire Blast or Overheat is pretty easy, though, as is OHKOing with an Analytic Flamethrower if Mawile uses Sucker Punch.

OHKO physically defensive Hippowdon with Hydro Pump: 319 SpA, same as Latias' base 110. This easily takes care of Lando-T and Excadrill too.

For what it's worth, I support:
PT: 140
ST: 125
PS: 100
SS: 190

The bulk lets CAP take a combo of Shadow Ball + Shadow Sneak from Lefties Aegislash from full health once. It is a bit more physically bulky because more threats are physical, and Latias is a decent special wall. 140 PT will let it survive stuff from unboosted Mawile, Talonflame and Hippowdon. 125 ST takes an Earth Power from defensive Heatran after rocks, or offensive Heatran with rocks, and I can't dump it too far or Aegislash's Shadow Ball will near OHKO.

The special sweepiness is really the product from a high special attack and moderate speed. High special attack is to make sure it gets those OHKOs and 2HKOs, I didn't make it overly bulky so every switch in should count for something. The speed was enough to creep a Landorus-T and Excadrill, but I don't think it needs to be much higher since those are the 2 big threats that must be checked offensively only. The physical sweepiness is just dumped.

Altogether, this is a BSR of about 305. I'm cutting it close with stats, so beefing up each of PT/ST/SS by about 5-10 is fine to give some breathing room, so you can take a little residual damage and still survive the necessary attacks, and that would give a BSR of about 325 if you did that.

 

[Draco Blue]

1. Analytic does not assume anything about our offensive bias. We could either be Physical or Special or even mixed, but nothing about the concept so far necessarily points one way or another. Considering our threatlist, how should we be oriented offensively?

As has already been pointed out, generally our threatlist seems pretty evenly divided between foes we'd be better off hitting physically versus specially. However, it is worth noting that, concerning the most important things on our threatlist, there is a slight bias toward special offense. First and foremost: we NEED to attack Aegislash from the special side. King's Shield would enable Aegislash to play around a physical attacker, and we don't need that. Also, two-thirds of our Ground-type friends are going to be most threatened by special attacks, especially Landorus-T, while Excadrill is frail regardless. Mawile also is best dealt with specially, between Intimidate and its naturally higher Defense. All of this said, we'll need to pack a decent punch physically as well. Clefable and our Fire-type foes all cause immense trouble to the core and are best dealt with physically. The remainder of the threatlist doesn't have a particular bias to either defensive stat (Forretress and Scizor don't really count as they'll be fried regardless and pose no direct threat), with the exception of Sylveon and Togekiss, who both should fold to any halfway decent Attack stat.

In short, we need the ability to go mixed, but we need to make sure we're applying a fair bit more pressure on the special side.

2. As we are assuming CAP 18 may need to switch into some strong attacks neither Latias nor Lucario can handle, how bulky does CAP 18 need to be? As a factor in its overall bulk, remember that it's susceptible to Spikes and weak to Stealth Rock too.

This is a much simpler question. The threatlist is divided exactly in half this time. I think it would be be prudent, though, to acknowledge that we are likely to be spreading burns throughout the match, and thus adjust to give ourselves a bit more room specially. Both sides need to be super solid, as we are going to be taking attacks from some of the strongest hitters in the metagame (Mega Charizard-Y, SD Aegislash, and Mega Mawile all come to mind).

3. Finally, Analytic presents a minor thought puzzle. We need enough immediate power to threaten various things we have said we want to threaten and enough speed to do so too. However, we might not necessarily want to become overly powerful, once Analytic is factored in on switches or against things faster than us. In short, Analytic affects important decisions about both our Speed and our (Special)/Attack. What SS or PS limits are needed to satisfy our immediate needs without threatening to break CAP 18 in other situations?

Given that I've stated my belief in giving the CAP naturally healthy stats both offensively and defensively, I believe it makes sense to fixate on Speed here. Analytic coupled with these all-around good stats requires us to pick a very, very specific Speed stat. Anything that outspeeds us and can OHKO us is obviously our worst nightmare, but anything that outspeeds us and cannot OHKO us is hurting pretty hard, and if we aren't careful we could build quite a nuke. Anything that cannot outspeed us nor OHKO us is probably going to suffer anyway, so not getting the Analytic boost shouldn't matter much. Anything that cannot outspeed us but can OHKO us is very dangerous, and as such we will want our offensive stat to be able to severely dent it or kill it outright WITHOUT help from Analytic.

This means that our central question for the stat bias is this: Which foes on our threatlist are we best off outspeeding and killing (thus avoiding an OHKO in a 1v1 matchup), and from which foes are we best off avoiding the OHKO through our bulk and returning a hit? Through this, we will be best able to ascertain the appropriate Speed stat.

I think this question is best answered by first determining what simply does not make sense to outspeed, as having Analytic is literally entirely useless if we outspeed everything or even a majority of Pokemon. This eliminates Gengar, Volcarona, Talonflame, Excadrill in sand, and imo Mega Charizard-Y as well. The next question basically is: what must we outspeed? The reasoning is roundabout, but sound- we must be just slow enough to outslow anything against which it is absolutely essential to have an Analytic boost. There is no reason to be any slower, as at that point we are giving the Pokemon unnecessary free boosts. SO, we have to determine the slowest Pokemon against which we must have the Analytic boost in order to pose an offensive threat; or, in other words, what we will and will not be strong enough to pose a threat against if we outspeed it. This also leads to the reasoning that we should be able to take a hit from whatever we decide NOT to outspeed.

So, I present to you our eligible threatlist members, in order of ascending Speed: Forretress (40), Hippowdon (47), Aegislash, Azumarill, and Mawile (50), Clefable and Sylveon (60), Scizor (65- MEvo is 70), Heatran (77), Togekiss (80), Excadrill (88), Landorus-T (91).

So let's start from the beginning. We certainly will not be dependent on excessive power to beat Forretress. Even though we may not always OHKO Hippowdon, a 2HKO is quite probable, and the opportunity for one virtually guaranteed if we can survive a hit, which between burns and natural bulk should be possible. Being slower would leave us too susceptible to being killed by Earthquake, as it is unlikely to be anything less than a 2HKO, and as such faster is better. I think the lowest justifiable limit would be below 50, if only because Aegislash is such a big threat, and being slower enables us to hit it in Sword form, which in turn demands less of one particular offensive stat, giving us more freedom with offensive invenstment while also virtually guaranteeing the OHKO.

And now to work from the other end. To be faster than Excadrill or Landorus more than likely means winning a matchup, because if we are that fast, we are more than likely capable of running an offensive set with a power-boosting item. Coupled with solid natural offenses and a STAB Water move, you're blasting them away. So theoretically, even though you are losing out many on Analytic boosts, it could be worth it to go faster than 91.

So at the very widest, we're looking at a desired Speed range of about 49-99.

ALL OF THIS SAID: Here are my proposed limits.

SS: 149-205. If we are as offensively oriented as possible with stats, meaning we choose the max Speed of 99, we would need a minimum of 96 base Sp. Atk for a totally uninvested Scald to always 2HKO Landorus, hence the minimum. As for our maximum, the hardest Pokemon for us to bring down specially is Sylveon. Sticking with that base speed of 99 but upping the base Sp. Atk to 131 allows Modest 252 Choice Specs Surf from the CAP to always 3HKO Sylveon through Leftovers, and I can't see any significant KOs happening without a significant power creep.

PS: 147-228. Again, if we are as offensively oriented as possible with 99 Speed, it will take a minimum base 96 Atk for Adamant 252 Choice Band Waterfall from the CAP to guarantee a 2HKO on Hippowdon, the most physically defensive foe on our threatlist. If we aren't 2HKOing it we aren't really posing a threat, so that's why I used it to set my minimum. As for the upper limit, base 144 fully invested Adamant Choice Band Flare Blitz from the CAP is the minimum guaranteed to OHKO Hippowdon- I doubt that's where we want to go, but for freedom's sake that's my upper limit.

PT: 100-150. I believe it is important here to acknowledge that we will be spreading burns, and as such we want to be bulky but not TOO bulky. I think we should be aiming for about the kind of bulk Rotom-W has. Max Attack Adamant Aegislash's Shadow Claw, which is really the most important hit for us to take, will never 3HKO the CAP factoring in Leftovers IF it is fully invested in Defense. While that may seem excessive, we have to account for the fact that we will be facing SD Aegislash quite a lot, and after the boost Shadow Claw becomes a guaranteed 2HKO. I think this gives us the ability to handle Aegislash without being excessive. That said, of course with discussion we can make the decision to move either direction.

ST: 189-213 So here we don't have burns as a crutch, which is crucial to remember. The most important special attacks we're taking are Shadow Balls from Aegislash and Gengar, and also Mega Charizard-Y's Solar Beam, all of which should be at the very least a 3HKO to play it safe. Sylveon is looking at a potential 5HKO from Solar Beam, and there isn't any reason to be tankier than that. We're not trying to make another Blissey.

This all comes down to a BSR of about 340-380. It sounds really high, but I think for what we're trying to do it may be necessary.

Also, this is my first time doing this sort of thing, so if anyone has feedback for me on how to do it better that'd be appreciated!

 

[Bughouse]

There has been some good discussion and a lot of consensus so far about question 1. People are in agreement that a Special Attacker is needed. I suspected as much, but it's important for the community to voice their opinions and see if any opposition comes up. It hasn't really, so I'm ok to move forward on question 1 as resolved. CAP 18 will be a special attacker, and a pretty strong one at that.

Instead, I would like to posit a new question in its place:

Considering CAP's policy of a "build triangle," (a good read for those interested in CAP policy) which aspect on this CAP are we not going to fulfill?

I will say it very plainly here that a BSR limit of 380 isn't happening. While I haven't come close to finalizing limits, the BSR limit is going to be on the low end of what some of you have proposed, and in some cases may even be lower than the entire range of BSRs someone proposed. And that lower BSR limit just isn't consistent with having it all. While it is true we would like to make a perfect 3 Pokemon core where everything is neatly handled, I am far more in favor of making a Pokemon that works well within the core but may leave a few things around the edges for other teammates to handle rather than making such a behemoth that it has no need to function better with Latias and Lucario than any other teammates.

As your answers to question 1 have implicated PS to be mediocre at best, that leaves SS, PT, and ST. Pick one to be not quite as amazing as you have so far wished it to be and argue why the other two are more necessary.

In the words of Dolores Umbridge, Let us preserve what must be preserved, perfect what can be perfected and prune practices that ought to be... prohibited!

 

[Deck Knight]

Put succinctly, I would argue that the Build Triangle is relative to the metagame you're building for. I don't know what your specific thought on an upper BSR limit are, but suffice it to say "Bulky" in Gen 5 is not even close to "Bulky" in Gen 6, Nor is "Powerful" in Gen 5 even close to "Powerful" in Gen 6. About the only thing to remain the same is "Fast" because most of the specialized mons introduced are particularly Powerful or Bulky.

We also have a policy of not maxing out all limits, though for these purposes that is almost impossible. That said, I can think most of the limits are sound on the upper end, and the lower end should be extended down for a lower BSR. Based on the models I ran, it will be possible to run a spread that accomplishes two out of the three damage metrics I mentioned above - either ceding SpD to allow enough Def, SpA, and Spe, Choosing a lower Speed tier to get the raw offensive power you want and suitable bulk, or a more strategic midway speed that will lack either some form of bulk (insufficient physical or insufficient special) or raw power. Reorienting spreads toward these results in BSRs around the 315-325 range. To get here does require treating Physical Attack as something of a dump stat, but not inordinately so.

Which is fine, but things in this particular range will have great difficulty bringing out all the aspects of the core we would like. Nonetheless, aside from dropping each lower limit by 30 to accommodate something like a 310-340 Overall BSR limit, I would like to register that I believe stats is the best place for us to address how we want our CAP to handle the various physical and special threats. In doing so, we are not forced to spend our secondary ability discussion like we did last CAP, which is scrambling for an immunity ability to save our bacon because "Our SpD is too low to handle X, we need an ability that makes us immune to X!". We shouldn't be afraid of stats unbalancing our Pokemon in a world where legal metagame threats have 600+ BSTs and 400+ BSRs BEFORE you take into account their damage boosting abilities.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Analytic does not assume anything about our offensive bias. We could either be Physical or Special or even mixed, but nothing about the concept so far necessarily points one way or another. Considering our threatlist, how should we be oriented offensively?

There isn't much to say here that hasn't already been said. Fire and Water are much better Specially than they are Physically because Special offense lets us use moves such as Hydro Pump, Fire Blast, Lava Plume, Overheat, and Scald. Although we do have nice Physical options in Crabhammer and Flare Blitz, the former is not as nice as Hydro Pump or Scald and the latter costs a large chunk of CAP18's health to use. We need to conserve CAP18's health, and dropping to the mediocre Blaze Kick is problematic. Not to mention that Physical offense forces us into using contact moves that are affected by King's Shield. We already have a Physical sweeper in Lucario, and we would like to use Special moves to take down the Physical walls that trouble the jackal. Furthermore, a look at our Threats Discussion shows that we would like to be threatened by Special walls such as Goodra, Latias, and Chansey. A Physically attacking CAP18 is not going to fulfill that guideline.

As we are assuming CAP 18 may need to switch into some strong attacks neither Latias nor Lucario can handle, how bulky does CAP 18 need to be? As a factor in its overall bulk, remember that it's susceptible to Spikes and weak to Stealth Rock too.

Let's not beat around the bush, Aegislash's Shadow Ball is the elephant in the room and we've currently got a grand total of zero Pokemon in our triad that want to take a Shadow Ball to the face. I feel like we've had an aversion to beating Aegislash in the past: we chose a typing that does not resist any of Aegislash's most common attacks, then did not choose an Ability that made defeating Aegislash any easier. We've been kicking the can down the road so to speak, and it's time we finally picked a step in the process where we say: "I'm coming for you, Aegislash". We need the Special bulk to take Shadow Ball more than once. We chose Analytic because when we're matched up one-on-one against Aegislash or anything else threatening to Lucario and Latias that we force out, we're either roasting it or roasting one of its teammates. Therefore, to make the most of this Ability, we need the bulk to switch into at least two Shadow Balls throughout the match, hopefully more if we play well. Although it isn't entirely safe to assume Stealth Rock will be off the field, we have possibly the best Defogger in the game in our core and are designing a Pokemon that will take advantage of Latias' support. CAP18 should not have to switch into hazards often, so I do not believe the fact that CAP18 is susceptible to Spikes and Stealth Rock should be a huge factor in defensive calculations. We also have problems with strong Special attackers such as Thunderbolt Gengar that we're supposed to threaten, so Special Tankiness is of utmost importance.

For Physical Tankiness, we need to both work with the strengths and weaknesses of our typing while falling in line with our threatlist. Looking at our threatlist, we want to threaten Aegislash, Ground-type Pokemon, Fairy-type Pokemon, and some Fires as well. We're well-equipped to switch into Fire and Fairy moves, but clearly we shouldn't be trying to switch into or take any Earthquakes. For that reason, I believe we should be able to switch into any Pokemon that cannot hit us super-effectively Physically with STAB except for certain ridiculously powered attacks such as Mega Mawile's Focus Punch.

This question asks "how bulky", so I'll throw out some numbers. We should have the option of taking two Aegislash Shadow Balls without investment before Stealth Rock, so I believe an upper limit of 195 ST is reasonable. For Physical Tankiness, the strongest attack we should be able to take multiple times is Mega Mawile's Play Rough, which we're going to need quite a bit of bulk to avoid the 2HKO. It's not reasonable to expect to switch into a Play Rough and then take a Sucker Punch (that's going to require ridiculous bulk), but we can take two Play Roughs with just over 150 PT factoring in Leftovers recovery. To give us a little wiggle room on top of that, I suggest a limit of 160 PT.

I'll get to srk1214's last question and his more recent question shortly. Think of it this way, I'm sparing you a tl;dr nightmare :P

 

[Agile Turtle]

Considering CAP's policy of a "build triangle," (a good read for those interested in CAP policy) which aspect on this CAP are we not going to fulfill?

As your answers to question 1 have implicated PS to be mediocre at best, that leaves SS, PT, and ST. Pick one to be not quite as amazing as you have so far wished it to be and argue why the other two are more necessary.

tbh i pick both PT and ST to not be quite as amazing, and make SS very amazing. It's an offensive core, so defensive capabilities aren't too relevant. Walling should be left up to the other three team members. We only need enough bulk to switch in, but there is no need to go overboard. As long as we have enough bulk to switch in to aegi(etc.) and immediately threaten the opponent with offensive presence, we're pretty solid. So really I'd say we only ned 130-160 PT/ST and 220-250 SS.

 

[Imanalt]

on bulk:
In my mind, taking aegislash shadow balls is the single most important thing for us to be able to do at this point. As such I prefer to heavily weight our bulk towards the special side, with an ST possibly as high as 225, which roughly allows for shadow ball to not 3hko a 252/0 spread with leftovers recoveries. This is a very big number, and to accommodate, I prefer much less physical bulk than is generally being discussed, something in the range of 110 PT, which is about what is needed to survive a cb azu waterfall with 252/0. As such we should leave broad ranges for both tankiness stats in this phase, and allow voters to choose between more balanced spreads, and spreads with high special bulk and low physical bulk, and use a relatively tight bsr cap to prevent abuse of these broad ranges. My formal suggestions for ranges for PT and ST are 110-160 and 175-225 respectively.

on speed:
this is where i think we need to make our build triangle choice. By choosing analytic, we went for an extremely aggressive approach to discouraging aegislash by trying to punish the opponent harder than their aegislash can punish us. In order to do with we will need a high special attack, and as i said above on bulk, we have to compromise speed. My personal preference is a speed number faster than heatran, but not much, allowing us to hit it before it can toxic (effectively preventing a suicide toxic to wear us down allowing aegislash to win later), but stays very middling, rather than allowing us to be a fast sweeper. This low speed has little to do with analytic; the only real gain from it is against venusaur and mandibuzz if we are less than 80 speed. Overall though, the real purpose is to be slow enough that all we are is a pokemon that comes in and threatens with one hit, but is easily forced out by faster mons, to prevent being too gamechanging.

This leads us into what our SS should be. I think most people generally agree a special attack roughly in the 130s is what we want powerwise. This leads to easy to find limits, something like 165-225. This allows for spreads as fast as 135 satk/103 speed, and as slow as 130 satk/78 speed.

For overall limits, we clearly cant have all of a 160 pt, 225 st, and 225 ss. This would be absolutely insane. Therefore, I propose that we allow nearly the entire range of SSes, but with anything towards the higher side of this, the spread must be near the lower limit of one of the bulk stats. (e.g 200 ss/110 pt/220 st or 210 ss/155 pt/180 st). This yields a maximum BSR of around 340, (assuming a PS in the 60s or 70s) and forces something similar to the build triangle approach of choosing 2 of our 3 stats to really optimize, at the cost of the other one.

 

[Burt Racecar]

In regards to the build triangle, we do have to take Aegislash shadowballs and numerous other special attacks from the likes of Charizard-Y and a plethora of fairy type pokemon with a variety of coverage moves that Lucario and Latias don't particularly want to take. So I firmly believe ST is important to the success of CAP18.

We're also supposed to put the threat on numerous physical attacking ground types who can hit us super-effectively. In my eyes we can do this in one of two ways; the first is to have extreme phyiscal bulk to withstand earthquakes and retaliate with strong water attacks, given enough PT we can hope to force a switch out of even the strongest threats. The second is to be faster than the ground types we need to threat, I believe Landorus-t is the fastest of those with 91 base speed. In order to outspeed Landorus-t we'd have to sacrifice or seriously mitigate either PT or ST, which I feel would not be the best option. PT is also very important for CAP18.

Now our SS limit is the one I feel we can afford to lessen and here's why. The SS number is generated with both speed and attacking prowess, and I don't believe we need to be overly speedy. We can hit a fairly mediocre SS stat with decent speed and above average Sp.Att. For reference, if we were to limit our SS, outspeeding Excadrill is a push here and if we were to outspeed Landorus-t, then we'd have some difficulty applying enough offensive pressure. In my opinion peed is probably one of the most important individual stats to consider for CAP18, especially when deriving SS limits.

However, I just recalled a previous post mentioning that we can probably spread burn quite efficiently, so perhaps PT isn't quite as important as I originally though. But this is based on the reliability of our burns, 30% burn chance from Scald/Lava Plume might not deter some earthquake-carrying pokemon from switching out.

Hmmm, it's a difficult one - I'm torn between lessening SS or PT.

 

[Yoshuriken]

After looking at calcs some more, and reading about needing to give up on some stuff, I definitely feel PS should be dropped. I did say that "decent" physical prowess would help our CAP; but really, not that much. So out it goes.

Now, Powerful is definitely on the agenda. Analytic and the general discussion says so. When it comes to whether we should be Fast or Bulky, the answer is a bit difficult. Many have said we need bulk, which is fine, but then we can't be Fast. But how fast is Fast? The linked thread about Build Triangles says that the "middle speed" is base 90-- but that was back in gen 5. I didn't play in gen 5, but I've heard a lot about how "[base speed] isn't as fast as it used to be." I personally feel that 100 is the "middle speed" this gen. Thus, if we give CAP a speed below 100, we can still be Bulky. However, many have said, and I am in agreement, that we need to be faster than Landorus-T and Excadrill. That mandates a speed stat of at least 89, which would be on quite the high end of "not fast." It follows that we also then must be on the low end of "Bulky." Our typing affords us few defensive boons: we are weak to stealth rock and have no immunities. Our ability as well gives us nothing defensively. Although we have some nice resistances, including double resistances to fire and ice, it also gives us bad weaknesses. Taking all this into account, I am comfortable that we can give CAP a speed stat that is not "Fast" but not that slow either, and still give it bulk-- but only on one side. In other words, to answer the question

Considering CAP's policy of a "build triangle," which aspect on this CAP are we not going to fulfill?

i will say that we should be Powerful, while giving it good bulk but not enough to "qualify" as "Bulky", and good speed, but not enough to "qualify" as "Fast." (gosh I hope that made sense.) The side I believe we should bulky on is special, for reasons previously stated by me and others.

As for the question

As your answers to question 1 have implicated PS to be mediocre at best, that leaves SS, PT, and ST. Pick one to be not quite as amazing as you have so far wished it to be and argue why the other two are more necessary.

i think PT should be "less amazing." My initial suggestion regarding PT was fairly low anyway, 100-150, but I feel it can be even lower. There is no way we will be able to outspeed Excadrill, take 2 Aegislash Shadow Balls, and take a Mawile Play Rough, and not get a crap SpAtk stat. We can't. Based on the threat list, my preference to base speed, and prioritizing of needs, I believe the best route is to get a fantastic SS and great ST, with low PS and low PT. We have an offensive core; let us make an offensive CAP.

 

[Korski]

I know we need to accomplish a lot with stats here, but I also don't want us to fall off the edge in terms of power trying to shut down a metagame-defining threat. If we end up designing stats powerful enough to reliably destroy Aegislash, then we are inherently running the risk of overpowering our CAP. This was the main problem with the Aurumoth Project (replace Aegislash with Genesect), where the implications of that approach were pretty awful for the end result. This may seem a little arbitrary, but based on my own tinkerings with the stat calculator, I really can't imagine needing something with higher than 330 BSR; meanwhile, I think forcing submitters to stay below this line will be a good first line of defense against creating some generically powerful monster. The only CAPs with BSRs higher than 330 are Colossoil, Krilowatt, and Aurumoth, so you see where I'm going with this.

What I'm seeing from folks in this thread and on irc so far are a couple of common goals:

• This CAP should be able to OHKO Aegislash-Shield with Fire Blast. The low end of SpA stats would need a boosting item/nature to do this, while the high end would not. The OHKO doesn't necessarily have to be guaranteed (100% min damage), as Aegislash could have taken entry hazard damage or a Draco Meteor from Latias or something. Still, it should probably be close, maybe around a 50% chance to OHKO from full health with 252 EVs.
• This CAP should be able to avoid being 2HKO'd by Quiet Aegislash's Shadow Ball from full health. The low end of ST ratings would need some significant EV investment to accomplish this, the high end would not. It's without question one of the most dangerous attacks in OU, and since switching into Aegislash is something our core needs major help with, it is desirable for our CAP to tank some of these hits. Other Special Attacks in the tier will fall in line with this high benchmark. Alternatively, the goal of more offensively-oriented spreads could be to survive Stealth Rock + Shadow Ball + Shadow Sneak, or Shadow Ball + Shadow Sneak + 1 turn of Life Orb recoil with Defog support.
• This CAP should be able to beat Ground-types 1-on-1. Since tanking Earthquakes is a bad decision, this one's all about Speed. This point is actually a holdover from the Threats Discussion, but it applies strictly to stats, so I want to address it. There's nothing we can do about Scarf Excadrill/Landorus-T, but one thing we have in our corner is that these two don't always or often run max Speed. If CAP has a higher base Speed than these two, players won't be incentivized to adapt all that much, nor would they if CAP is close enough below their speed tier to force them to use their EVs disadvantageously. In any case, we don't want to stray too far below that 88 Spe benchmark, imo.
• This CAP should be focused on damage output. We are not building a wall here. We chose an offensively-oriented build in Concept Assessment, we chose an offensive typing, and we chose an offensive primary ability. Our stats should absolutely incentivize 252 SpA EVs on standard sets. This means stat spread submissions should incentivize uninvested bulk or 252 HP / 0 Def / 0 SpD EV spreads at most.

This is a lot to consider. As I said before, I'd like to avoid overcompensating with stats and creating a behemoth, so I wouldn't want this Pokemon to be able to do all these things at once. For that reason, I think there are great cases to be made for a variety of spreads here. The biggest battle ought to be Bulk vs. Speed, as the Power aspect seems to be mostly settled. Outspeeding offensive Pokemon is going to come at a major cost of not being able to absorb as many hits for Latias and Lucario, while tanking those hits is going to seriously hinder the CAP's ability to threaten teams (and Ground-types) offensively. For these reasons, I would propose the following stat limits:

PS: 60 - 120 idk Atk will most likely be a dump stat, 83 Atk / 90 Spe breaks this range but allows submitters to go bigger on Spe without having to dump Atk down too far.
PT: 120 - 180 this range allows for a spectrum of 2HKOs to 4HKOs from Mawile and Azumarill, depending on investment and considering their respective priority moves. Folks that want to focus their spreads on switching into physical Fairies will find plenty of leeway here.
SS: 180 - 225 we shouldn't be afraid to go a little wild here. 225 is the cutoff between 'Fantastic' and 'Amazing,' which allows for stuff like 160 SpA / 85 Spe or 130 SpA / 110 Spe and that's plenty lol. We want a big offensive presence, especially with Analytic, and this range allows us to debate how much of that presence is needed.
ST: 150 - 225 I'm suggesting a pretty big range here, primarily because there doesn't seem to be much consensus on the urgency of tanking Aegislash's and Charizard-Y's attacks. I fully expect faster spreads to take a dive in this category (and probably PT as well), while spreads pushing this limit will absolutely have no room for even average speed.
BSR: 330 upper limit and as I said before, this should constrain submissions enough to keep them reasonable for OU.

 

[jas61292]

To directly address srk's question regarding the build triangle, I think the only acceptable answer has to be speed. If we are supposed to two out of bulky, powerful and fast, we can't say that we are bulky on one side and have both of the other two, especially not when we will likely be able to cripple attackers on our non-bulky side with burns. Additionally, as was mentioned above by Korski, every single aspect of this project so far has been decided to be offensive, and if we are to make sure that these decisions do not go to waste, it is absolutely necessary that they are backed up by great power. So, if we need to cut one of these three descriptors, it cannot be power.

Since it seems that it is a necessity to switch into things such as Shadow Balls from Aegislash, we absolutely cannot compromise bulk. It is completely impossible for an individual pokemon to tank these sort of hits without a resist without being quite bulky. As such, the bulk aspect of the triangle absolutely cannot be compromised either.

With that said, it seems that speed is the only aspect that we can cut without compromising all that we have decided we want to do. Having speed certainly would be nice, don't get me wrong, but the pokemon we miss out on the most by being slower are those such as ground types where we wanted to be more of a softer check in comparison to what we wanted to get out of the matchup with guys like Aegislash, Gengar, and Fairies. It is important to remember, that the majority of the things we wanted to threaten are in fact slow, so the consequences of lower speed are not nearly as dramatic as the consequences of dropping other aspects. What's more, even the things we really did want to outspeed are still mostly average or worse for OU standards, so it is possible, even with a speed stat lower than them, to force guys such as Excadrill to run a less conventional + speed nature or risk getting outran. Putting that kind of team building pressure on those pokemon is in and of itself a partial success, and we don't need to necessarily outrun all such threats in base stats order to defeat them.

Overall, I have to say that I pretty much agree completely to the things outlined by Imanalt in his post above. We need to prioritize power and bulk above speed, and within bulk, special bulk must be prioritized above physical bulk. When it comes to offenses, we should also be free to allow a lot of power. We are taking an aggressive approach, and so long as we are not fast with it, letting us go out and know that we are going to break the things we want to break easily has no negative aspect to it, in my opinion.

Once more though, I want to reiterate what I said near the start of this post: If we are going to stick to the build triangle, we need to either give up bulk or not give up bulk. Giving up one side and being very bulky on the other is not giving up bulk, and is cheating the triangle. Since it is obvious that no one wants to be frail, and (especially when you consider that the triangle includes more than just stats and we have Analytic already) we cannot be weak, I really believe that dropping speed is the only way to go here.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

3. Finally, Analytic presents a minor thought puzzle. We need enough immediate power to threaten various things we have said we want to threaten and enough speed to do so too. However, we might not necessarily want to become overly powerful, once Analytic is factored in on switches or against things faster than us. In short, Analytic affects important decisions about both our Speed and our (Special)/Attack. What SS or PS limits are needed to satisfy our immediate needs without threatening to break CAP 18 in other situations?

A reasonable way to determine the PS and SS limits is to look at the highest Speed stat we can give CAP18 until it becomes problematic for our concept, then see how much Attack or Special Attack we need to give CAP18 in order to fulfill the concept with that Speed. Since there is strong consensus so far that we're going to be a Special attacker, I'm only going to address SS, not PS. The absolute highest Speed stat that we should give this CAP, in my opinion, is 107 because speed tying or outspeeding Keldeo is difficult to justify if we're supposed to be threatened by it. We should not have the ability to 2HKO the Pokemon that are supposed to threaten us without the Analytic boost unless we absolutely ride the maximum, either. I believe a range of 160-205 SS serves us best here, this allows for 122/107, 124/103, 138/92, 145/89, or 155/80. I believe that values above 205 let us "nuke everything" rather than "nuke everything that threatens us". In terms of a Build Triangle, I believe an upper limit allows to be flexible with Bulk versus Speed since cutting Power at this point is not an option.

If there's one statistic that I believe can afford to be less than what's been posted for already, it's SS. One point of the Build Triangle that might have been overlooked is that so far, we haven't just advocated for CAP18 to be Powerful, we're advocating for it to be Very Powerful. In fact, if I may quote the Build Triangle OP:

Pick two. Any single build characteristic to extreme counts as two. That gives us the following six discreet Builds to choose from:

Fast and Powerful (not Bulky)
Fast and Bulky (not Powerful)
Powerful and Bulky (not Fast)
Very Fast (not Powerful or Bulky)
Very Powerful (not Fast or Bulky)
Very Bulky (not Fast or Powerful)

Most Pokemon with 225+ SS such as Gengar and Volcarona are gimped by less-than-great STABs or STABs with 80-90 BP, a problem that this CAP will not have. Even Latios is often good for just one great Draco Meteor before having to switch out. CAP18, between Fire Blast and Hydro Pump alone, will be able to switch between two great attacking types of 110 BP. If we're combining a good offensive typing with great attacks, Analytic, and 225 SS, then we're Very Powerful. If we really want to tack on another attribute, and we definitely do, we need to scale back our Power.

Assuming we do so, this brings us to Bulk vs. Speed. Bulk, in my opinion, is far more important because we need to be able to take hits from Mega Mawile and Aegislash. We have the typing to do so, but we're going to need to supplement that typing with bulk because the Pokemon we need to take hits from are just that strong. We don't need to be Fast to take on bulky Grounds, Mega Charizard Y, or Aegislash. We need to be Bulky or else we're not switching in.

 

[Bughouse]

Though this is perhaps a bit unorthodox, this is not a 24 hour warning, but rather my proposed limits. This thread has been open for 3 days and it seems to me that most everyone has gotten in what they wanted to say. With the permission granted by our dear moderator(/Admiral) Korski, this will be my last post in the thread, which contains limits that DetroitLolcat will then look over and potentially modify.

I think most everyone has had their chance to give good input and as there isn't yet a consensus on many aspects, I'm going to leave a good amount of leeway in the individual limits, but not in the BSR. Because these limits are reasonably loose and I think several builds within these limits could work, I don't believe having a further 24 hours of discussion would cause me to narrow any of the limits further. So! On to the limits:

PS: 100
PT: 160
SS: 215
ST: 190

BSR: 335

BSR is correlated directly with the sum of the 4 category limits. To get under a BSR of 335, you'll need PS + PT + SS + ST < 608. This is compared with the sum of the 4 limits, which is 665. So obviously yeah you can afford to ride one limit, but you might be hard pressed to fit under the 335 BSR limit without making some serious concessions elsewhere. This also leaves a ton of room for individual submissions to diversify themselves. As for 335, I simply tinkered with spreads for a while. And despite tons of tinkering I could not find a single spread at 335 BSR I would consider broken (excusing those with serious BSR abuse in PS.) As I scaled up farther to 340 and beyond it became less certain, so I stopped at 335.

For the most part I was ok with limits people proposed in the past day. However, I did have to push back on two limits some wish were higher for fears of being anti-concept. First was ST. I ran more calculations than you care to know (or I care to re-run and post here) on whether it would be ok to have a ST limit even higher than 190 as Korski, jas61292, and Imanalt, among others, have recently indicated. In doing so, I found enough reasons to raise the ST limit to 190 but could not find any convincing reasons to move any further beyond that. And once you reach that point where nothing more is needed, pushing the limits farther only serves to distract CAP 18 from its role in the core. They cite particular damage calculations involving Aegislash, but looking at the broader metagame, a ST limit of 200 or even 225 is considerably more than we need for the vast majority of situations.

Second was SS. While I was tempted to allow a limit of even 225+ to accommodate something with 103 speed (to outrun Garchomp) that can still have very high Special Attack, I am worried about CAP 18 becoming a total offensive powerhouse. However, as I don't want to discriminate too much against 92 (outrunning Landorus-T) or against 103 as it is still a reasonable Speed, I am going a bit higher than DLC said above. With a limit of 215, 89/150 is possible, which has an 81.3% chance to OHKO Aegislash with a Modest nature or a 25% chance with a neutral nature. 92 Speed/144 Special Attack is also possible, which is enough to have a 56.3% chance of OHKOing Aegislash with a Modest Nature, while almost always falling short with a neutral nature. As I wanted to give even 92 speed variants a chance to OHKO Aegislash more than half of the time, I chose to make a small bump. This also makes 103/130 possible, which still packs quite a punch, while not being obscene.

So those are my limits. Have at it DetroitLolcat! And I look forward to seeing everyone's submissions on the flip side.