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BSR ABUSE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED AND WILL NOT BE SLATED!
BSR abuse is doing things like 150 HP and 70 Def/SpD to create a theoretical optimum with the limits that you have. The purpose of the stat rating limits is to restrict what submitters can do, not to give them a license to game the system. If you cannot justify your stats legitimately and have not proven that you aren't just making the best stats within the limits, you will not get slated.
A spreadsheet for calculating the biases can be found here. The formulas themselves can be found here. Do not use the BSR calculator on-site, as it is designed for DPP BSR. To use the spreadsheet, you will need Microsoft Excel 2007 or higher, OpenOffice.org Calc 3 or higher, or a similar spreadsheet program that can handle .xlsx files. Alternatively, you can upload the spreadsheet onto Google docs. At any rate, you must have the stat rating values listed correctly in your submission or it will be ignored for slate.
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?
So yeah this is usually my show. Too bad I'm the TL so I can't submit anything.
I built these limits with enough wiggle room to let you run wild. If you max out PT you should reasonably survive LO Venusaur's Earthquake with Max/Max+, though that thought may not appeal to you. There is enough room for decent speed and offenses. Basically, build the case for your spread and what you think it will do, and sell it to the rest of us.
PT: 152.75 - Very Good ST: 173.65 - Very Good PS: 96.85 - Below Average SS: 154.67 - Very Good
BSR: 316.51 - Very Good BST: 542
You will note that the individual stat ratings—PT, ST, PS, and SS—are almost identical to the limits, except scaled down to what I feel is an appropriate BSR, for reasons to be explained below. This is because the stat limits are essentially what I feel the CAP should look like in terms of stats, but they are a bit too high. If you're too lazy to read through calculations, just read the bolded parts that are handily included outside of the hide tags; they convey the gist of my stat spread.
Justifications
OVERALL OFFENSE
In terms of general offense, the first thing that may pop out as people is the Special Sweepiness; I personally don't think that this is too high, though, for reasons given below. In the relevant stat justifications, I will make my case for this stat spread being great offensively; offensively, it can be tailored to do several things, but it's not so good that it can easily accomplish all of them. Substantial investment will be needed in order for CAP3 to beat some of its main threats, which will leave not enough EVs for it to beat other threats.
Speed
- 71 Speed allows CAP3 to outspeed Politoed, Jellicent, and Specially Defensive Heatran.
- CAP3 is still outsped by all of its threats bar Tyranitar
The first thing I wanted to determine was Speed. Given our threat list, it makes sense for it to outspeed as many of the things it is meant to threaten as possible, while not being able to outspeed Pokemon that were supposed to threaten it. Outspeeding Tentacruel seemed like too big of a speed benchmark, so I settled for the next one -- Heatran. 71 Speedallows CAP3 to outspeed Politoed, Jellicent, and Specially Defensive Heatran, while not letting it outspeed the threats that threaten it. That is, CAP3 is outsped by all of its threats bar Tyranitar, who it cannot threaten in any way with only its STABs.
The fastest Jellicent set, Choice Specs, is outsped by one point by 0 Spe CAP3. Likewise, 0 Spe Politoed is outsped by two points by 0 Spe CAP3, and 248 Speed EVs with a neutral nature ensures that CAP3 will always outspeed Modest Politoed; to outspeed Timid Politoed, all that is needed is to use a +Spe nature as well. 212 Speed EVs guarantees that CAP3 will outspeed Specially Defensive Heatran, and, although CAP3 can outspeed Modest Offensive Heatran with a +Spe nature, it really can't do much to it anyways. Out of the five Rock / Ground type Pokemon listed as threats, three of them always outspeed CAP3, one of them—Tyranitar—always underspeeds but walls CAP3, and the last one—Gliscor—simply needs to add 48 more Speed EVs than normal to guarantee an outspeed; if CAP3 doesn't run +Spe, however, Gliscor doesn't need to change its EVs.
Special Attack
- 114 Special Attack allows CAP3 to threaten things it is to threaten offensively, but usually requires substantial investment.
- 114 Special Attack is not enough to deal with its threats.
While 114 Special Attack may seem to be too high for some people, this stat is not without good reason -- blame Politoed's fatness for that. Basically, 114 Special Attack allows CAP3 to threaten things it is to threaten offensively, but usually requires substantial investment. Factoring in Leftovers and assuming at least either one layer of Spikes or Stealth Rock on the opponent's field, Politoed is 2HKOed by 0 SpA Sludge Wave. It might seem strange that I've made it such that Politoed is able to be 2HKOed without any investment, but this is merely a "first step." What I'd call the "next step" is the next level of investment; on average, assuming the same conditions, standard 248/0 Jellicent finds itself KOed with the combo of Acid Spray + Sludge Wave with maximum Special Attack; this is somewhat significant, as we cannot really threaten Jellicent in any other way. Ferrothorn is OHKOed by Fire Blast with no investment, but under rain, where I expect CAP3 to shine given Dry Skin, the only way for CAP3 to deal with Ferrothorn easily is maximum Special Attack LO Life Orb, which is a semi-reliable OHKO with Stealth Rock and a guaranteed OHKO with one layer of Spikes.
114 SpA deals with CAP3's things that it should check quite nicely, but making sure that it's not too much is also a good idea. With maximum Special Attack and a Life Orb, the weakest Ground-type there, Dugtrio, survives Sludge Wave; this shouldn't really be significant, given that Dugtrio will KO with Earthquake, but who knows? Against a Pokemon that may be paralyzed, Standard Terrakion, maximum Special Attack Life Orb Fire Blast deals only around 46% damage; this means that Terrakion has a puny 0.99% chance to be 2HKOed, while, again, CAP3 is KOed with an Earthquake. Thus, we can conclude that 114 Special Attack is not enough to deal with its threats. With that in mind, we can go to Attack.
Attack
- 71 Attack lets CAP3 beat certain Pokemon that it should that it cannot with its Special Attack.
- 71 Attack is still not enough to beat Tyranitar nor the Ground-types.
Aside from having nice symmetry with the Speed stat and making the BST a multiple of five, there are a few reasons that CAP3 has this specific Attack stat. Though not really significant, as I envision CAP3 to be more specially based to deal with the given threats, 71 Attack lets CAP3 beat certain Pokemon that it should that it cannot with its Special Attack. Virizion, though not too common in OU, is not really dealt with by CAP3's Special side, given its enormous Special Defense. On the physical side, however, things are a different story; with 252 Attack EVs, Virizion is (barely) a guaranteed OHKO with Gunk Shot. With a Coil boost, Gunk Shot can also OHKO Celebi, something that Sludge Wave might not be able to accomplish given its lower base power.
It's also important to note, though, that 71 Attack is still not enough to beat Tyranitar nor the Ground-types. At +1 Atk, 252 Attack EVs, and a Life Orb, CAP3 is still dealing only about 32% to Tyranitar per Gunk Shot, while it can Earthquake back and easily KO. And although Landorus should not be getting hit by CAP3, the same Gunk Shot as above only deals about 47% damage -- a mere 9% chance to 2HKO, which is negligible given that CAP3 should never stay in on Landorus, and if it does, it will not survive for two rounds.
OVERALL DEFENSE
I'll admit that 100 / 89 / 100 defenses is very good, but given that Fire / Poison is absolutely horrible defensively, these stats are kind of necessary in order to make sure it doesn't keel over to a wave of a feather. Keep in mind, though, that even with these defenses, CAP3 is basically obliterated by any Ground-type attack.
HP
100 is a nice number. After tinkering around with several other possible spreads, it also worked the best; it served as the middle ground between having to have absurd Defense and Special Defense stats to make up for low HP, while not encroaching on the "high HP, low defenses" syndrome. As HP is tied in with both physical and special bulk, I'll let those two sections explain; there's not really much point in just explaining the HP stat without mentioning Defense or Special Defense.
EDIT: erisia has just given me an excellent idea. Considering that, after outspeeding 160 Spe Heatran and investing fully into either attacking stat, we have 44 EVs left to spare. By lowering the HP stat to 99, we require CAP3 to invest a large chunk—40 EVs—of the 44 remaining in order to hit a Life Orb number, and 24 EVs to hit a Leftovers / Dry Skin number. Calculations below are essentially unchanged.
Physical Bulk
- These defensive stats -- 99 HP and 87 Def -- give it decent bulk, but are still destroyed by Venusaur and its threats.
- Parts of this justification assume an ability other than Dry Skin.
In order for CAP3 to be even slightly useful, I wanted to maximize its bulk as much as possible, given some restrictions. Essentially, these defensive stats -- 99 HP and 87 Def -- give it decent bulk, but are still destroyed by Venusaur and its threats. -Def CAP3 is always OHKOed by +2 LO Mixed Growth Venusaur's Return, Stealth Rock or not, while 0 Def CAP3 is OHKOed by the same with Stealth Rock and has a decent chance (around 35%) of being OHKOed without Stealth Rock. The main reason why I am including Venusaur in these calculations is that, given Dry Skin, I expect CAP3 to want to stay out of sun. Being threatened by Venusaur only heightens that urgency. Needless to say, all of its physical threats destroy CAP3 with their Ground-type attacks. Dragonite also wrecks CAP3 with Aqua Tail—a guaranteed OHKO under rain and a guaranteed OHKO outside of rain with Stealth Rock; note that this also assumes an ability other than Dry Skin. However, keep in mind that if you choose not to invest in offenses, investing in bulk can allow CAP3 to deal with Venusaur that lack Earthquake. Aside from these Pokemon, there's not really that much more to mention; if you have any calculations you want to see, though, tell me and I'll add them in.
Special Bulk
- Withstands attacks from bulky Water-types even under rain as well as weaker special attackers, but still fall to special threats.
- 99 HP and 100 Special Defense are not enough to let it survive attacks from powerful special threats.
- Parts of this justification assume an ability other than Dry Skin.
The strongest out of all the category's, CAP3's special bulk is slightly dependent on the fact that it will have an ability other than Dry Skin. CAP3's Special bulk allows it to withstand attacks from bulky Water-types even under rain as well as weaker special attackers, but still fall to special threats. Without any investment whatsoever, CAP3 is able to survive a Rain-boosted Surf from the Standard Utility Counter set. This also allows CAP3 to survive Rain-boosted Scald from Standard Politoed, as well as both Scald and Surf from Tentacruel—boosted by rain, of course. CAP3 also fares well against Specially Defensive Heatran with these stats; with Dry Skin and a boost from sun, Heatran's Lava Plume fails to 2HKO, even factoring in the 12.5% residual damage at the end of each round from Dry Skin. Without sun, however, Heatran's Lava Plume isn't even a 5HKO on average, which proves that this special bulk is enough to deal with the Pokemon it should deal with.
On the flip side, however, 99 HP and 100 Special Defense are not enough to let it survive attacks from powerful special threats. Offensive Heatran's Earth Power OHKOes CAP3 the majority of the time (in fact, a supermajority), which means that with any extra residual damage CAP3 is easily OHKOed, and Offensive Heatran often doesn't even need the damage. With a Life Orb, Heatran blows CAP3 into outer space. In fact, with Stealth Rock, LO Modest Heatran 2HKOes CAP3 with even Fire Blast; with Stealth Rock, it can also OHKO CAP3 under the sun. Tank Dragonite has a guaranteed 2HKO on CAP3 with Hurricane factoring in Stealth Rock and leftovers, while Offensive Rain Dragonite has an easy 2HKO on it. It's clear from these calculations that Heatran and Dragonite, CAP3's prime special threats, can still deal with it fairly easily. Gastrodon also gets the jump on CAP3 with Earth Power, easily KOing after some sort of entry hazards, even with a large amount of bulk invested.
RECAP
Overall, I can say with certainty that this spread isn't too good, and it's not too bad either. These stats allow CAP3 to beat out Pokemon that it needs to threaten, but they are not enough to let it withstand the myriad of Ground- and Rock-type Pokemon that threaten it. Its Speed allows it to outpace the faster bulky Water-types bar Tentacruel as well as defensive Heatran, but it is outsped by the Ground-types as well as offensive Heatran. Its offenses, again, beat out the bulky Water-types along with some Grass-types, but aren't enough against the other Pokemon. Likewise, its bulk is sufficient against Pokemon such as Jellicent and Politoed, but almost anything with Earthquake and even the powerful special attackers are able to beat it, despite its higher stats. The EVs give the user a choice as to what it wants to do, which I feel is important in making this normally bad typing better.
PT: 180.9647 - Excellent
ST: 154.4496 - Very Good
PS: 84.7970 - Below Average
SS: 147.2871 - Good
BSR: 309.6214 - Very Good
BST: 560
ODB: -5.9371 Moderately biased towards defense
PSB: -5.844 Moderately Biased towards special
LOOOOOONG Justification, focusing heavily on my defensive spread:
Starting with the 60/140/120 bulk I feel is a very important decision to make. (To read about 60 HP, which differentiates mine, scroll down.) I'm of the opinion that Physical Bulk should be impressive. This is in order to be able to live through un-STABbed Super Effective physical moves and STABbed neutral moves (Stone Edge and Outrage predominantly.) Meanwhile, should CAP3 run max/max+ Special Defense, barring Earth Powers, Psychics and Psyshocks (the relevant Super Effective Special moves), CAP3 is quite safe on the Special side. Things like Specs/Life Orb Draco Meteors from Latios are obviously still threatening, but they SHOULD BE. CAP3 already has a strong niche carved out with countering Rain teams very well. It should not be capable of defeating an entire Rain team by itself however. It must feel at least somewhat threatened by things like Specs Tornadus' Hurricane, which does 55.86 - 66.04% to a max/max+ special defense CAP3 and Dragonite's Hurricanes and Jolteon/Rotom-W Thunders, which do less. These are the only special moves on a typical rain team that should threaten CAP3 at all. Notably, they are all EXCELLENT opportunities to switch in a Tyranitar to change the weather. The reason this is so relevant is that it is proof CAP3 doesn't even need to care too much about its special bulk in the niche it provides of countering Rain. Against about half of the opposing team it won't matter because of Dry Skin and good resistances. My spread might look like unsatisfactory special bulk, but I really can't stress enough that against Rain Stall, CAP3 doesn't need serious Special Bulk hardly at all and against Rain Offense, WE WANT IT TO NOT BE ABLE TO DEFEAT RAIN AS A WHOLE. Spreads with special bulk of 80/114, 100/100, and 120/89 feel exorbitant to me. There is no need to take on Jolteon and Tornadus better. Indeed, those are the perfect chances to switch in Tyranitar and change the weather. As for functioning on a Rain team itself, CAP3 is more likely to be threatened Physically than Specially. This is why the Physical bulk is so important.
Due to Resistances and Dry Skin, CAP3 can afford to, and should, invest in Physical bulk. If invested fully, this bulk is so good that CAP3 is almost guaranteed to not have Subs even 2HKOed by something relatively weak, like Specially Defensive Jirachi's Body Slam. Toxicroak, something that also might be seen on a Rain team, fails to hit for 25% as well. Sucker Punch hits for only 14.81 - 17.59%. But the key here is how well CAP3 takes neutral and resisted Physical hits. CB Scizor notably fails to break the 25% barrier as well. Smogon Standard Mixed Attacking and Specially Defensive TTars that often lack Stone Edge would always fail to break a sub from CAP3 with Crunch. The KEY to CAP3's overall succes in the OU/CAP metagame is the ability to capitalize on it's resistances to make up for it's SR weakness. A Physical bulk like 60/140 enables CAP3 to switch in quite easily on very threatening moves. For example, CAP3, if being used on a Rain team itself, can work as a check to Fighting types.
If CAP3 is being run defensively on a Rain team itself, it will be running Protect to get Dry Skin + Lefties Recovery. Just ask a Tentacruel. Therefore, Lefties CAP3 will heal 25% between being hit and being hit again, after 1 turn of protect-stall. This means that with Protect-Stalling under Rain, even after taking Rocks damage, CAP3 is still 2HKOed by Max Attack Conkeldurr Stone Edge. Similarly, with Protect-Stalling under Rain, even after Rocks, CAP3 has a chance to not be 2HKOed by Jolly Scarf Terrakion Stone Edge, not to mention the frequent missing.
The reason for having such good Physical bulk is that it means a 252/252+ CAP3 under Rain would not become useless at 50% health even with Rocks up. CAP3 can still switch in and survive a Jolly Scarf Terrakion Close Combat, heal from lefties and Rain, and potentially survive another, even without Protect-Stalling, depending on min-max damage.
It's this kind of general bulk that is necessary to truly take advantage of all of CAP3's resistances.
Finally, to briefly answer the question about the low base HP that I'm sure you are all wondering about. 324 HP max gives defensive CAP3 the capability of POSSIBLY LOSING to Chansey/Blissey under rain, where with lefties and Dry Skin, CAP3 is recovering 40 HP per turn, not mentioning Protect. Thunder Wave, naturally, could pose a problem for CAP3. Once paralyzed, CAP3 would have a very small percent chance of managing to stall out the blob's Seismic Tosses. The basic point of this is to force defensive CAP3 into running Will-o-Wisp/Toxic/Lava Plume/Scald in order to outstall Blissey, if CAP3 gets no recovery itself. This I don't think is an unfair burden.
However if CAP3 is to run a different kind of set, maybe Offensive Calm Mind, if it gets it, of course, CAP3 has a minimum 261 HP, would recover only 32 HP per turn from Rain + Lefties, and would CERTAINLY lose before being able to set up in any meaningful way.
The secondary reason for doing this is that this would make Pain Split a viable recovery option for CAP3. Often we comment on reliable recovery and are hesitant to give anything Recover without serious consideration. Pain Split is a bit less of an issue, most of the time. (All that follows is perhaps poll-jumping, but I do think it is necessary to talk about a few individual moves to highlight points in a Stat Spread.) Indeed Rotom-A have 50/107/107 defenses and Pain Split and Weezing has 65/120/70 defenses and Pain Split, yet in neither case does Pain Split prove to truly be reliable recovery. Instead, I'm very curious to push the limits. I would love to see if Pain Split could be reliable, without being broken, on a Pokemon with 60/140/120 and Dry Skin.
One benefit of the Dry Skin ability is that CAP3 under Rain can basically run a Life Orb for almost no cost. The result of this with the 105 base Special Attack is that CAP3 can deter certain things from switching in. Offensive DD Dragonite have a chance to be 2HKOed even through Multiscale, meaning you might be able to catch one and KO it if it Dragon Dances on what it assumes is a switch due to the threat of EQ. However, CAP3 cannot expect to deal with things like CB Dragonite without running HP Ice, which I think is good. The Special Attack is also such that we can give CAP3 a boosting move like Calm Mind if we want, without fear of just creating a bulky set-up sweeper. As for the Physical Attack, I chose 61, as I want to maintain a potential Coil Set as potentially viable, should CAP3 be given Coil. 61 is the example of the lowest base stat in OU that is ever intentionally raised by a specific set, DD Tyranitar. (I suppose this also keeps Shell Smash as a possibility, if we for some reason want to go down that route.) For example, a set of Coil/Substitute/Gunk Shot/Aqua Tail - very speculative, I know - could potentially work on a Rain team. The neat thing about this kind of set is that while the list of Pokemon who can take it defensively once CAP3 gets one Coil off or a Sub set up (Ferrothorn, Tentacruel, Jellicent, Gastrodon, Toxicroak, Forretress, Skarmory, and more sort of) is HUUUGE, basically none can actually threaten CAP3 back.
Most importantly, I want to stress that we mostly seem to be submitting bulky spreads. There's no reason to need 125+ Special Attack to function in OU as a bulky Pokemon. Something in the ballpark of Vaporeon's 110 and the pixies' 100 seems more appropriate to me. I don't think we need to be giving such a high attacking power. It will only over-emphasize set-up sweeping instead of truly utilizing the advantage of Fire/Poison, which is predominantly defensive resistances.
I see Dusk explained his high Special Attack as being necessary to OHKO Scizor after Rocks through rain, etc... but the point of my spread is more so that Scizor won't be doing ANYTHING to CAP3. It can't even break a Sub. Same goes for Ferrothorn. I don't think we should be focusing on giving such a high special attack exclusively to beat things we already beat, but slightly faster.
As for Speed, I was at base 70 originally, to tie with many notable OU Pokemon. I have since changed my mind to be at base 71 to be able to always outspeed them if CAP3 needs to. Not a huge change, and I don't think I need to explain why I put CAP3 there much really, since many spreads lie in the 70-75 range.
Conclusion: My spread tries to focus on maintaining a realistic Special Attack stat of 108 for a Pokemon as bulky as 60/140/120. The Attack is low at 61, like others', but is high enough that a set-up could still be possible (as Tyranitar Dragon Dancing past it's Speed of 61 shows us). The Speed of 71 places me right in the middle with everyone else. I think that this set would enable us to explore specifically Pain Split to it's fullest extent, while also not limiting the ability to play offensively with either Coil or Calm Mind set up.
Finally, this set is intentionally NOT as amazing as possible, as some have tried to be, leaving open the doors for those who were/are in favor of Drought as a second/DW ability. Just think about it... Ninetales Fire Stab under Drought can hurt reasonably bad, and that's coming off of base 81 Special Attack. My 108 stays within reason of functioning ok without Drought's extra STAB support while simultaneously not becoming overly threatening should the bandwagon for Drought pick up pace.
This is way out of my league, and I like the explanations of your post Engineer Pikachu, but in your special defense analysis you talk a lot about surfs, scalds (even nite's aqua tail), and I just letting you know that Dry Skin is a water type immunity, and even a health restorer up to 25%, so that may or may not make you want to change your ideas.
I've really been feeling a versatile stat spread for CAP 3. With this spread, CAP 3 can be a bulky sweeper, or a wall, or a Choice Scarf or Choice Specs user, or anything in between. Lots of people have wanted something specific out of CAP 3, so I say, let's do more than one of them. This spread has a lot of potential not just to give CAP 3 many possible roles, but also to make the secondary ability and movepool stages that much more exciting with the stuff we could put on CAP 3 to make the most of its build.
I'm probably not going to budge from this, partly because other spreads are rather similar and I'd rather just vote for them than change my spread in agreement to some of their points, and partly for reasons that I am not entirely at liberty to divulge quite yet. Suffice to say that I personally believe that many aspects of this spread are too perfect to let go to waste, and that I want to prove a point with this CAP, which I think my spread does a bit better than some of the others. I also don't think that any of these spreads right now are "objectively superior" because they're trying to achieve different interpretations of what we have forged with the threat discussion, the concept assessment and the typing discussion. I'm quite certain that some of us are more worried than others about, for instance, how CAP 3 is going to switch into most OU threats.
The bulk allows for a lot of customization. Take Ferrothorn, for example:
0 Atk Ferrothorn Gyro Ball
vs 4 HP / 0 Def / 252 Spe CAP 3: 28.09% - 32.93% (Modest vs Timid doesn't matter)
vs 252 HP / 252+ Def / 0 Spe CAP 3: 13.45% - 15.98%
So CAP 3 can go offensive and rely on burn support to get moves like Ferrothorn's Gyro Ball below the important 25% threshold, or it can run a physically defensive set and wall Ferrothorn all by itself. (btw Choice Band Scizor's U-turn does 17.2% - 20.2% to 4/0 CAP 3) 252/252+ CAP 3 can also survive a 0 Atk Stone Edge from Tyranitar (59.39% - 70.05%), while 4/0 CAP 3 does decently enough against Crunch (40.66% - 48.19%). With Leftovers, CAP 3 only needs 16 HP EVs (or 12 SpD EVs, I guess) to avoid a 2HKO from Timid Life Orb Starmie's Thunderbolt completely with Stealth Rock damage. CAP 3 can then retaliate with its own Thunderbolt (97.3% - 114.9%), Energy Ball (82% - 96.6%) or Giga Drain (77.4% - 91.2%), depending on what it gets in its movepool (all the calcs assume 252 SpA Modest, but even Timid Giga Drain inflicts 69.7% - 82.8%, enough to OHKO after Stealth Rock and Life Orb recoil). I suppose Wash Rotom with Thunder(bolt) is more dangerous, but CAP 3 can still win if it has a Grass-type move, unless Wash Rotom is choiced (just switch out) or runs enough Speed to outrun CAP 3 (making it less bulky). A specially defensive spread could also be used to tank Thunderbolts. A somewhat bulky Choice Scarf set (maybe 76 HP / 252 SpA / 180 Spe Modest, outrunning Starmie) is possible as well; the best that Politoed can do then is Choice Specs Focus Blast (or Hydro Pump if CAP 3 happens not to have Dry Skin, but it's pretty pointless to account for that): 24% - 28.3%, not even enough to break 25% assuredly. (Okay, I'll admit that that last EV spread is rather bizarre and probably won't see use, but it's there...) Choiced Politoed can beat CAP 3 on the switch into Stealth Rock with Psychic (75.9% - 89.8% against 4/0), but getting locked into Psychic is pretty dangerous for Politoed and it really just means that CAP 3 isn't completely safe in trying to counter it. Starmie could run Psychic, too, but again, it has that moveslot syndrome to deal with.
The Speed is a very controversial point for me. The designated threats to CAP 3 run the gamut from very slow (Tyranitar) to very fast (Terrakion), so all sorts of Speed benchmarks are arguable. 90 Speed to outrun Wash Rotom was a distinct possibility, while 75 to make it impossible to cheese through Timid Heatran with Hidden Power Ground was an interesting option as well. Ultimately, I decided to tie with Dragonite. I think that being faster than Dragonite would make it too easy to beat it, while being slower would make it quite a bit more difficult. Besides, CAP 3 also has the option of trying to cheese through Tyranitar and maybe Heatran with Hidden Power Fighting, sacrificing the tie with Dragonite. Relevant calcs:
e.g. 252 SpA Modest Hidden Power Fighting
vs 252/192+ Tyranitar: 41.6% - 49.5%
vs 0/4 Heatran: 53.3% - 63.2%
Okay, so it can outrun Timid Heatran, but doing so requires a Timid nature on CAP 3 and I'm really doubting that this will be the norm. If you look at the other OU Pokémon in the 78-89 Speed range (the range where you can outrun Timid Heatran, but only if you run a +Spe nature), you may find that they tend to prefer +Atk or +SpA natures over +Spe natures. Technically, non-DD Dragonite (say, Choice Band Dragonite trying to use Outrage) could nip offensive HP Ice Heatran in the bud by running a Jolly nature, but it rarely chooses to do that. Toxicroak could run max Speed Jolly to afford to set up on offensive Heatran, too, but it doesn't do that, either. Non-Choice Wash Rotom could also lose if it switches into Hidden Power Grass... unless it runs max Speed Timid. The opportunity not to risk losing to Timid Heatran is dangled right in front of their faces, and yet they often don't take it. I find this rather interesting and I'd like to take this opportunity to see whether CAP 3 would also refuse Timid when given it.
I also intend for CAP 3 to suffer greatly from four moveslot syndrome and/or Hidden Power syndrome, being able to fight back against maybe one of the designated threats, at the cost of losing to the other threats and even perhaps some of the supposed non-threats. It's notable that with this submission's base SpA (more on that shortly), it can OHKO SpD Heatran with Life Orb Hidden Power Ground, but only with a Modest nature (88.31% - 103.89%); without Life Orb, it can also KO Heatran with a neutral coverage move followed by Hidden Power Ground (67.53% - 80%), which Modest will again probably help with. If CAP 3 doesn't get Grass-type moves, then its performance against Starmie also becomes quite iffy with Timid.
The main reason I can think of for running Timid would be to run some kind of Calm Mind set (if it gets it) and attempt to set up on offensive Heatran. Timid Air Balloon Heatran's Earth Power does 60.4% - 71.3% to +2 CAP 3, so it wouldn't be advisable imo.
The Special Attack is the other big sticking point. 125 approaches the power level of Terrakion and has the potential (in sun) to exceed that of Landorus in sand. However, do keep in mind that Terrakion has two 120 base power STABs with great coverage by themselves, while CAP 3 has one. The other thing to consider is that the coverage moves for a special attacker are usually not as powerful as, say, Earthquake and Stone Edge for a physical attacker. To meet or exceed 100 base power, we only really have Thunder, Hurricane and Hydro Pump at our disposal (shut up Blizzard, and I doubt Focus Blast would be allowed). I feel that we need a high Special Attack stat to give CAP 3's coverage moves the power they need. The ability to nuke things in the sun (not even as well as, say, Volcarona) is not as compelling when nearly everything that resists Fire becomes a significant threat. As seen with some of the damage calculations, I'd say that 125 is actually on the low end of what we need with this CAP. Such a high offensive presence is valuable for everything that CAP 3 sets out to do.
Final remark:
I think that the Speed is significant enough to distinguish it from Rising_Dusk's spread (plus, the stat ratings are all a bit inferior and the SpA is lower), and that the SpA is significant enough to distinguish it from Korski's. I've considered trying to make my submission more different from the others in some way, but it mostly requires moves that I wouldn't agree with making. The only thing I can think of is to leech off the Atk to bump up the Spe or SpA a bit, but I feel that the Atk is low enough without looking unrealistic and it still *does* make physical sets a bit plausible (though FlareBlitz mentioned that more than I'm willing to).
Regardless of what happens, may the best spread win :)
My only feedback thus far is that Flarephoenix, Engineer Pikachu, and capefeather have very similar spreads. I'd recommend you all write very detailed explanations about why your spread is specifically better for CAP3 than the others. Because I don't expect Deck to slate 3 nearly identical spreads. Maybe not even 2.
So if it is survival of the fittest... um, be the fittest?
EWork in Progress, and subject to change and more substantial descriptions:
Stat Spread:
120 HP / 70 Att / 89 Def / 85 SpAtt / 89 SpDef / 87 Spe
PT: 178.5181 - Excellent
ST: 177.3354 - Excellent
PS: 106.3100 - Above Average
SS: 133.4821 - Good
BSR: 328.1192 - Very Good
BST: 540
Yes, I know that this rides the BSR limit. However, I believe that every point, bar possibly some Special Attack, is necessary to accomplish the goals of this stat spread.
The basis of this stat spread is that it deals with Volt-turn exceptionally well. At the start, I was trying to calculate a number of calcuations against Bulky Waters, but eventually I realized that it was fairly hard to make a stat spread that does this in particular, and if we give it another ability that doesn't counteract water moves, then the spread will naturally encourage Dry Skin. Basically, I wished to find a niche that Dry Skin and the typing allow it to do, but would still allow it to work outside of rain.
Why Volt-turn? Simply put, this Pokemon resists U-turn, and is immune to Rotom-W's strongest STAB move. While it will not like switching, and is easily dealt with by the partners of Volt-turn, I felt as if this could at least be a major asset against Volt-turn given team support, and it could do this to an extent without a water-dampening ability, even if it won't like taking Hydro Pumps at all.
Speed was actually one of the last things I considered with this spread, but I feel like listing it first, as most people seem to care most about it. This Pokemon was deliberately given 85 speed to allow it to outspeed and harm Modest Specs Rotom-W before it switches, if CaP3 has max speed investment. This can be used to get off a Toxic, or just about anything, without having to wonder what he's going to switch to. It also helps confirm if the Rotom is carrying Specs or a Scarf. While this speed is quite high, and indeed above most of its checks, I would like to point out that it allows CaP3 to outspeed one of the fastest bulky waters (Rotom-W), and greatly aids in destroying Volt-turn. Even then, only Heatran and Tyranitar are really outspeeded, and due to this Pokemon's offenses, both are still very threatening.
I'm listing them both here, as they are fairly similar in purpose. I decided that I wanted to optimize the bulk to allow it to just get KO'd by its checks, but also to ensure that it can deal with Volt-turn very well. In short, I picked a spread that allows it to take a U-turn and a Volt-Switch from Adamant Choice Band Scizor and Modest Rotom-W and come out alive, twice. This assumes that it has to switch into Stealth Rock, and that Rain is up to activate Dry Skin. If there is no rain support, the same results can be achieved by keeping rocks off the field. The high HP was chosen because CaP3 benefits far more form high HP than high defenses. No leech seed user wants to switch into a Fire Type, and this gives it extra insurance against Blissey's and Chansey's Seismic Tosses. As for concerns about the relatively high bulk allowing CaP3 to survive its threats, this is not true. Assuming 252/252 physical defenses, not a single one of the ground or rock type threats listed, in addition to Earth Power Heatran, will fail to KO CaP3 if it switches into Stealth Rocks once. Only Gliscor really comes close, and Gliscor is probably the check CaP3 can do the least back to, due to its effective status immunity.
In general, high bulk allows this Pokemon to deal adaquaetly with Volt-turn, and encourages bulky boosting sets, or simple status-spreading sets, that work well with its impressive set of resistances.
I'll start with Attack. Engineer Pikachu made a very good argument for 71 attack earlier on the page, so I'll just summarize. This physical attack, while far from impressive, lets CaP3 deal with Virizion and the incredibly Specially Bulky waters more easily than it would with a very, very low attack stat, and makes Coil a viable boosting option. However, this set still fails to 2HKO almost any of its checks with just physical poison coverage.
Special Attack is a bit trickier. It took me a while to come up with 90, and I may still change it, but I'll just lay out the basic case. 85 base Special Attack, unboosted, allows CaP3 to 2HKO most Bulky Waters, often through leftovers. This includes Rotom-W, which is a pretty major focus of this particular spread. The exact number could be brought down a little bit, but I like it at 90 to keep CaP3 offensively workable, but not overwhelming by any standards. I'll have more calcs tomorrow. As for the bulky waters that CaP3 can't 2HKO, most are either threatened by Toxic or do roughly 20% back to CaP3, allowing it to use them as set-up-bait. Indeed, the only major failing of these offenses is that they don't threaten Tentacruel, but Tenta can do almost nothing back bar set up Toxic Spikes that CaP3 can absorb later, and Rapid Spin, which would be a problem bar Special Attack investment much higher than what anyone is seriously proposing.
tl;dr This spread allows CaP3 to deal well with Volt-turn as a cool niche granted by the typing and ability. The set is threatened by the Pokemon designed to threaten it, and has the bulk to capitalize on the resistances, status, and boosting moves granted by the typing.
Will edit in specific calculations tomorrow.
Edit: Random Calcs
LO Timid Starmie Psychic vs 0/0 CaP3: 85.03 - 100.78%
LO Timid Starmie Psychic vs 252/0 CaP3 : 72.97 - 86.48%
LO Timid Starmie Psychic vs 252/0 CaP3: 55.85 - 66.21%
CaP3 wtith max Special Defense investment can potentially survive hits from LO Starmie, although this still allows niche sets to beat it.
Timid Specs Toed Psychic vs 0/0 CaP3: 59.31 - 69.81%
Timid Specs Toed Psychic vs 252/0 CaP3: 50.9 - 59.9%
Timid Specs Toed Psychic vs 252/252 CaP3: 39.18 - 46.39%
Even Politoed carrying a move to get around one of their checks will still be poisoned by it. And this is assuming its most powerful set. Bulky Toed will have basically no way of getting around CaP3.
Timid Specs Rotom-W vs 252/128 CaP3: 31.98 - 37.83%
Adamant Choice Band Scizor vs 252/128 CaP3: 8.78 - 10.36%
Super Power isn't that much more impressive. Basically, my spread neuters Volt-turn due to its typing, ability, defenses, and speed stat. While Rotom-W with Pain Split is an issue, it doesn't like Toxic, can't do much back, and in the rain CaP3 is healing off the damage fairly easily. Consider that it's Volt-switch isn't doing much more.
Upon being asked to explain it, I prefer high HP and lower defenses, because I want this thing to beat the standard Special Walls, and believe that since this already matches up well with the top Pain Split user, that really only leaves Gengar in OU, who is not on our threatens or threatened list, and is a much smaller price to pay than the gains earned by letting this take on Chansey, a key member of rain stall, and win 1 vs 1.
Timid Specs Tornadus Hurricane vs 252/252 CaP3: 54.95 - 64.86%
It does not beat all of rain with my spread, and there are still many rain threats this can not beat.
I have a spread but don't have the time to submit it! Hope everyone else can pull off some amazing ones that appeal to the community. Just a comment though. Personally, I'd like to see how CAP handles SE Rock moves from physical threats like Gyrados, Conkeldurr, etc. It would be cool to also see how much a burn status would affect these numbers. The stats that I used for HP and Def took roughly 160% from Ttar's Stone Edge so a burn would actually allow it to survive a hit should he decide for some reason to stay in. That is of course assuming no prior damage. Also, would it be alright to include damage calculations that factored in boosts, like from Coil? The spread would help us decide some moves that may be desirable though that may seem like a subtle way to poll jump...
First and foremost, you will note that my CAP's defenses are exactly the same on both sides of the spectrum. There is a reason for this - I emphasized strongly in the Threats discussion that I wanted a CAP that was capable of posing a threat to many Fighting-type attackers, as that was one of the greatest merits of the Poison typing. My spread has a greater focus on physical defense where other spreads do not for these reasons. This CAP is capable of serving as an excellent check to quite a few Fighting-types with just max HP investment, with its great natural physical bulk. It is never ohko'd by max attack Conkeldurr's Stone Edge, and can take Mienshao's LO Stone Edge in a pinch, in case of a mispredict. It's also much better at switching into powerful STAB Fighting attacks - for example, CB Terrakion's Close Combat never 2hkos this CAP and, while we did state that Terrakion should be a threat, I am using that as a metric to point out that a spread with lower PT than mine will not satisfactorily exploit one of the primary perks of our typing: a fighting resistance. More interesting calcs:
SubPunch Breloom's Stone Edge: 61% - 72%
MixApe's Stone Edge: 61.5% - 72.5%
Leftovers SD Virizon's +0 Stone Edge: 43.4% - 51.1% (never a 2hko)
Leftovers SD Virizion's +2 Stone Edge: 86.3% - 101.6% (somewhat frequently fails to ohko due to Lefties / Dry Skin, even after SR!)
So, simply put, we can survive even on a mispredicted switch, and generally have enough HP between Dry Skin and Leftovers (possibly with Protect!) to be in decent shape afterwards. Spreads with lower physical tankishness do not accomplish this, and I feel that checking Fighting types is an important aspect of this CAP.
Note that this spread does not sacrifice much special tankishness to accomplish this either - this spread has approximately as much as other, similar spreads. This level of special tankishness is required to take some of the stronger hits this CAP is liable to run into against rain teams, such as Rotom-W's Thunder and even Tornadus' Hurricane in a pinch, and it's certainly required to tank random HP Grounds from Jellicent / Tentacruel / Politoed. For reference, we only take 51.6% - 61.5% from Support Politoed's HP Ground. Now, you might be saying, "this still takes a lot of damage from those!" Well...that's where our offensive stats come in. I didn't go with extreme special tankishness like some of the other spreads, because I wanted to focus this towards bulky offense (taking a hit and doing massive damage back) instead of giving it enough defensive acumen that I would have to nerf its offensive ability.
I am using a lower HP / higher defenses spread because I want to encourage maxing out or investing substantially in HP and SpA, but I didn't go with something like 50/130 because I wanted things to be efficient for sets that do go all out on the defense.
TLDR: I included much more physical defense than others to take advantage of a valuable niche our poison typing offers us.
Justification for offenses:
All right, so I am sure that the 135 base SpA, the highest of anything posted here, jumped out at people immediately. I am going to argue that we need every bit of that power. Remember, our primary STAB is probably going to be Poison against bulky waters. The strongest special poison move in Sludge Wave, at just 95 BP. Let's look at some calcs:
252+ Leftovers Sludge Wave v. 252/0 Politoed: 45.6% - 53.9%
We're looking at a barely-guaranteed 2hko here, with our current level of power. Remember Politoed's HP Ground calcs from above? Yup - we need this power to avoid losing to some dumb HP Ground Politoed.
Let's look at something interesting - our Sludge Wave v. Naive Tornadus:
252+ Leftovers Sludge Wave v. 0/0 Tornadus: 78.6% - 92.6%
Yup - guaranteed ohko after SR. Since we always survive a Specs Hurricane from Tornadus, it cannot beat us (although we should be hesitant about switching in for obvious reasons)
HP Ground v. 252/0 Tentacruel: 40.7% - 48.4%
Looking at a 3hko, which is better than Tentacruel can do to us!
HP Ground v. 252/252+ Calm Heatran (note: this is on our "Threatens" list!): 62.2% - 73.6% (Guaranteed 2hko even with Protect). Note that Heatran's Earth Power does not ohko us unless it gets quite lucky.
Note also that this increased power allows us to use Fire STAB pretty effectively in rain!
Fire Blast v. 252/252+ Ferrothorn (rain): 83.2% - 99.1%
Fire Blast v. 252/224+ Jirachi (rain): 40.6% - 48%
Fire Blast v. 4/0 Magnezone (rain): 85.8% - 102.1%
But the most important reason to have so much power is for when this CAP decides to run a fully defensive set! Let's look at 0 SpA attacks against some common threats:
0 SpA Sludge Wave v. 112/0 Rotom-W: 46.8% - 55%
0 SpA Fire Blast v. 252/168 Ferrothorn: 66.3% - 80% (2hko, even with Leech Seed)
0 SpA HP Ground v. 252/252+ Heatran: 46.6% - 56% (2hko if no protect, sometimes even if protect)
Okay, now for the other stuff. The base speed is lower than Heatran's and Dragonite's, but higher than Politoed's, Breloom's, Conkeldurr's, Scizor's, and other things we should be able to counter. 75 is the perfect spot to put it for these reasons. The base attack is 60 because, while I love the idea of a Coil set, Gunk Shot is bad without the accuracy boost (which means our best STAB on sets that don't involve Coil would be...Poison Jab), Flare Blitz has recoil, and we'd need to make this thing weigh 8999 pounds if we want Heat Crash to do anything. I had to pick my Poison (get it? :3) and I went with a special-offense set for more overall versatility. That said, I didn't make it a total dump stat by giving it like base 30 atk. Base 60 is just enough to make a Coil set usable. I didn't want to make Coil too viable, because it allows us to get past our counters pretty easily (with a higher attack, we could actually 2hko Terrakion with +1 Gunk Shot, while it would fail to 2hko us back with Scarf Stone Edge).
TLDR: I gave this thing an exceptional attacking stat because it needs every bit of power against bulky waters and other specially-defensive threats, especially when running a defensive set itself, decided against mixed due to mediocre Poison STAB options, give it low speed so it's beaten by offensive heatran and dragonite and also so I could get away with the lol135SpA. We also need high SpA to beat powerful offensive threats before they can beat us.
Other things of note:
This does ride the limits of the BSR rating, but I feel it's justified, because I envision this CAP having a choice between being an extremely powerful offensive threat that can take hits moderately well from both sides of the spectrum, or a moderately powerful offensive threat that can take hits very well from one specific side of the spectrum while taking them moderately well from the other. To accomplish this, it needs excellent stats. Given that we're trying to take a mediocre typing and turn it into an OU-viable mon, I feel like higher stats are justified.
I didn't include a lot of defensive calcs because...well, I'm not a defensive player, and this was already long enough. If you want some idea of what this can take, think "heatran".
Speaking of defenses, 80/110/110 is actually inefficient from a BSR perspective - something like 105 / 93 / 93 would lower BST and BSR while offering more defense. However, I didn't go with higher HP / lower defense spreads because a) I felt like it was gaming the system b) as I explained earlier, lower HP / higher defense spreads offer more value for maxing HP.
I'll add more stuff here if I think of anything else.
I'd like to point out to Srk and rediamond, with 50 and 120 hp respectively, are on opposite ends of the sketchy spectrum. With dry skin, because there is a percentage being restored o taken away each turn depending on sun or rain, I think 304? and 444 are a bit extreme, if you catch the logic of my post.
These hp stats will also make CAP's interactions with s-toss Chansey and pain split Rotom-w a little too strange, as both Mons will be fairly common among CAP's niche of rain.
*sighs* I hate being late to the party. Oh well, suppose I best get on with submitting my spread. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that it'll end up similar to someone else's.
To be honest, my reasoning for this number is pretty canon. All I did was take the HP stats of the highest and lowest Fire-types and the highest and lowest Poison-types, averaged those two values out separately, and then averaged the results. Pretty simple when you think about it: it's just maths. Interestingly, the only Pokemon that shares this HP stat in OU is Volcarona, So... yeah, it makes for a change.
89Def
My first milestone number. Basically, I wanted to make sure that Dugtrio could always kill it, so what I did was whip out a damage calculator and started to plug in some numbers. Turned out that, with 374HPs, I needed no more than 304 Defense in order for our Jolly Dugtrio to secure the KO (without even needing a Life Orb or a Choice Band, which they do opt against running at times.) That way, along with its lack of Speed, it can still easily get countered by our Ground-mons.
120SDf
Another milestone I came up with. This time, I wanted a low enough score that it would have to invest in bulk if it wanted to survive a Modest Starmie's Psychic (keeping in mind that it has STAB) when switching into Stealth Rock. With 311HP (well, 233/234, actually, since it would lose 25% on the Stealth Rock), that gives a Special Defence score of 276, which (naturally) would be the score something with a 120 stat would sit at when uninvested. That should be enough to handle rain with quite the ease.
71Spe
Jellicent sits at 60. Politoed sits at 70. Heatran sits at 77. The only target this mon wouldn't outspeed is Tentacruel which sits at 100, but that's only the offensive variants. To be perfectly honest, 71 is all we need, as we can work with it and make it outspeed Defensive Tran and TormenTran, while still allowing the more offensive Trans to outspeed us. Even if Politoed turns out to have Choice Specs, we can still troll him with max investment. Now, the last two things to sort out are the offenses.
138SAt
I wanted to run 140SAt, but unfortunately when combined with the 71Spe which we have to have to beat Politoed, that breached the SS limit. So... yeah, it's obvious for me to say that I had to tone it down slightly. Suffice it to say that it gives off a score of 312 when left uninvested, and that's more than what most walls could even hope to dish out. That means you can leave the SAt alone and focus on pumping up enough speed to outrun Politoed, and then pump up some bulk that'll probably be necessary to survive key attacks. I'll edit this post with some calculations so you can see what a Special Attack score 312 can do, as well as some defensive calcs as well.
TheStarRapper, I will be addressing, of course, why I picked such a low base HP. It partly does have to do with Pain Split Rotom-W and also slightly to do with Chansey/Blissey. But to be honest I think low base HP and higher defenses is just the way to go.
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)
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.
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.
99 HP / 60 ATK / 100 DEF / 110 SpA / 105 SpD / 76 Spd
Offensive Justification
60/110/76 is what I believe to be the ideal offensive set for CAP3 for a multitude of reasons. My set as a whole revolves around the balance between offense and defense, since I believe that the best way to abuse CAP3's typing is to give it the defensive prowess necessary to abuse the resistances given to it. For that reason, the offenses of this Pokemon had to suffer a bit. I believe it was Rising_Dusk who first suggested a Speed stat of 76, and I wholeheartedly agree with that stat. I don't think 76 is the only viable Speed stat, but it's definitely the best. We need to lose to offensive Heatran but still beat defensive Tran, and that means that outspeeding or even Speed tying the lava monster is probably not a good idea. However, we want to be able to outspeed the defensive set, and the easiest way to do that is to undercut Heatran's maximum Speed by a point. Though it's possible to beat Modest Tran by running Timid and significant EV investment, the defensive prowess of this set discourages significant Speed investment because it's much more advantageous to run Special Attack, HP, Special Defense, or Defense instead.
60 Attack is supposed to be reasonable for a CAP's lowest stat (plenty of Pokemon such as Alakazam, Reuniclus, and Chandelure have laughable Attack stats), but not too low to signal it as an obvious "dump stat". Obviously, there's no reason to use such a poor stat, but I didn't want to "BST/BSR abuse to the point where I could hyper-inflate the rest of the stats. Notice how 110 is the highest stat on this Pokemon.
Speaking of its highest stat, let's look at that base 110 Special Attack. Though the 130s seem to be a popular idea at the moment, let's think for a moment. This Pokemon will probably not be running a +Speed nature. Unless we want to make just another offensive Fire-type with a spammable Poison STAB (which is actually spammable to an extent) and possible coverage moves in Earth Power, we'll probably just be making a better Heatran. The set I propose really lets us abuse the Poison typing by sponging just about every Fighting type move in the game. Moves like Choice Band Terrakion's Close Combat will bounce off of this Pokemon thanks to the defensive stats, yet unlike some Terrakion checks, CAP3 can hit back hard.
We also hit what we need to hit. Toxicroak is still 2KO'd by Earth Power. Gyarados is OHKO'd by Hidden Power Electric with Stealth Rocks down a nd minimal investment. Max HP Dragonite can't stall us out with Hidden Power Ice. In fact, we'll almost always KO Dragonite with Hidden Power Ice with SR down and only 40 EVs! I think a set like 252 HP/ 40 SpA/ 216 SpD Calm could be a flagship set of this Pokemon since we'll be able to contend with so many of OU's Special power hitters. We still 2KO Ferrothorn in the Rain with Flamethrower, we OHKO Scizor in the Rain with Flamethrower, but who cares since we wall him anyway. SubCM Jirachi sets up on us, but he'll set up on just about any set once he Calm Minds regardless of investment thanks to losing his Fire weakness.
Defensive Justification
Here's the bread and butter of my reasoning here. Now, what sets my spread apart from some of the other spreads is that the defenses are the main selling point of the spread. We're trying to abuse a typing here, and I don't see how it's possible to abuse a typing if you can't abuse your own resistances. For that reason, I want to make the bulk a selling point of CAP3. 99 HP isn't 100 for a reason, it's to slightly discourage the use of Substitute and make it unable to set up on Blissey and Chansey. Honestly, with the set given CAP3 has no place setting up on Blissey and Chansey and 101 HP Substitutes (given by a base 100 HP) encourage it. 100 Def and 105 SpD give it bulk comparable to Celebi physically or Jellicent specially, with a little more Special Defense. This gives us the ability to wall Starmie and barely be 2KO'd by Psyshock or have the ability to take two Specs Hurricanes from Tornadus with Leftovers, assuming no Stealth Rocks of course. This assumes we're using a Specially Defensive set. Specs Rotom's Volt Switch gets laughed at.
Venusaur can't touch us without Earthquake, Volcarona can't touch us without Hidden Power Ground or Hurricane (and he'll need to boost before he's hitting us badly. if it's not in the Rain we'll be able to hurt him).
I support cape's spread for 2 reasons:
1) They are extremely close to the spread I was thinking of, and with very good and convincing points
2) I'm too lazy to make my own spread..
ODB: -7.1154 (Moderately biased towards defence) PSB: 0.6833 (Slightly biased towards physical)
Overall Rating: 325.9086 (Very Good)
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Thoughts on defensive ability
When I started building this spread I wanted to emphasise a defensive build over an offensive one, while still retaining enough offensive power to constitute a legitimate threat, rather than just sitting there like a lame duck. With the above defensive ability, attackers such as Tyranitar and Alakazam are just capable of OHKOing with their STAB moves, assuming no investment in defensive EVs, while we are not 2HKOed by Choice Specs Starmie's Thunderbolt, assuming one round of SR damage and Dry Skin + Leftovers healing. We can't survive a single Ground-type attack - not even Ferrothorn's Bulldoze.
On the other hand, once we start investing we get some interesting results. A spread of 252 HP / 252+ SpD, for sake of argument, gives us a high chance of surviving two rounds of Choice Specs Tornadus's Hurricane, assuming Dry Skin and Leftovers healing in addition to coming in with max health, which is rather good for something that doesn't resist it. Admittedly we cannot OHKO with unboosted Thunderbolt or Thunderpunch without Stealth Rock, and even with, it's slim as can be - but this is demonstrative of the defensive ability capable. With Dry Skin taken for granted we are taking a pittance from the attacks of more important foes, such as Rotom-W (max. 21% from unboosted Volt Switch, for reference).
The bulk is the same on both sides for sake of necessity of choice. CAP3 has the potential to wall threats on both sides equally well, not simply those of rain teams - and it cannot afford to take a high-powered super effective attack regardless of its EVs, so blocking things that we agreed would counter it is not a problem here.
First, the Speed. I am adamant that this thing ought to be slower than Tyranitar. There are a number of reasons for this - so that Tyranitar acts as a proper counter, in the event of us giving it a move that hits it for super effective damage, which is rather likely, so that it does not become a powerful sweeper with the aid of Speed-boosting moves (see DDtar, which is perfectly balanced and powerful), to encourage investment in defensive and offensive EVs, and so that, if we did happen to give this thing Drought, we'd get the sun up first (hup hup huzzah).
Next, the attacking stats. Now, I see that most people have chosen to favour the special attacking end - and that's fine. The Fire-type is perhaps unique in that it grants benefits to both the physical and special ends - on the physical side, there's the immunity to burn, which is always valuable (after all, even a burned Ferrothorn is a much weaker Ferrothorn), and on the special side, access to all manner of powerful moves. I firmly believe that we can take advantage of both of these, but more importantly, that we can offer the user the opportunity to use one or the other or even both, so as to make full use of the typing.
With no investment at all into either end, neither physical nor special STAB is really powerful enough to break bulky Water-types. Thus the following calculations assume some form of coverage move that hits them for super effective damage.
I suppose I should give a little feedback on what I like or don't like about these.
The effort that went into many of these is quite good. Here's a punch list of what I'd be putting in were I a part of this:
Baseline mixed attacking prowess.
One stat would obviously be favored over the other, but I'd try to keep my lower offensive stat in and around the area of Skarmory (Base 70). Uninvested Brave Birds are quite competent at threatening the Pokemon Skarmory uses them again, Flare Blitz can act in the same way. Further, Coil in particular is an excellent move that aligns with Poison typing, and it patches up the accuracy of Gunk Shot as well as some upper lever Fire moves like Blaze Kick, or status like Will-O-Wisp. It even makes Inferno somewhat plausible as well as completely patching up Fire Blast. I really don't see a need to gimp Attack, Sludge Wave is simply not that much better than Poison Jab, and Fire STAB in the rain, physical, special, or otherwise exists to deal with a small list of very vulnerable threats. The typing has a decent number of resistances, it's quite capable of being a bulky attacker, especially with healing in Rain.
Most of the offensive spreads have done well on this aspect, and understand the point that as good as CAP 3 will be in Rain, it will be more reliant on Poison STAB and thus neutral hits. Everyone seems to be on track with that.
Relevant Defensive Calculations:
There are a ton of threats in BW but I think it's important to explain the general utility of these defenses not only in what they take well but also in what they resist. Fire/Poison with Dry Skin has a very unique set of weaknesses and resistances, and it's helping to know if CAP 3 switches into a U-turn with Stealth Rock up, how many times it could do so as just one small example. Don't forget to include Psychic attackers as well, there is a decent chance Politoed and Starmie could start using Psychic against CAP 3.
Speed Justification:
In general I prefer to think of Speed as the 4th Defensive stat (it's why Krilowatt has 105 Spe), and I've seen good logic in justifying the speeds of the various spreads. I usually end up going for more speed, but these levels are fine.
Final Submission 70 / 70 / 81 / 100 / 136 / 102
I really think this 'mon should excel defensively, using it's few resistances keenly. I think a special feel would justify this. Defense is somewhat low only because EQ is so common, I figure the main focus should be special. I gave this thing some offenses because I do want it to succeed offensively should it need to, especially considering it has the awesome Fire STAB. As an aside, I felt like Garchomp's trolly base 102 would work here because it gets the main target range and Landorus.
I really like the idea for this submission of a mobile wall, sort of like Toxicroak in rain or SubSeed Venu in sun or Cryogonal. It would require us to take this cap in a completely different direction than Tomo or Necturna, which were both bulky attackers with a whoppingly similar stat spread and role. By making this pokemon fast and annoying, we would be taking the concept in a completely legitimate, yet different, path, and it would force us to really stretch our brains in movepool and analysis. We can attempt to do, with this mon, more or less what we failed to do with Pyroak. Would it be difficult? yes. Would there be room for failure? sure. Would it be more interesting than making another fucking bulky attacker? you bet your ass.
with that said, i support rediamond's stat spread completely, which was within around five points of every stat i wanted to submit.
EDIT: before someone bitches about base 87 outspeeding heatran, what is your poison/fire mon going to do to harm it? right.
The main reason outspeeding Heatran is a problem is it makes offensive sets, which have been designated as counters, too easy to deal with. Unless we make CAP 3 primarily physically offensive, 252 Timid LO Hidden Power Ground is going to OHKO offensive Heatran even with a base 90 Special Attack stat iirc, meaning we can't *not* deal with offensive Heatran without completely handicapping CAP 3 in terms of offense. A physical attacker that outspeeds Heatran just wouldn't be allowed to have Earthquake, Superpower, Low Kick etc, as these would beat offensive Heatran far too easily. If we moderated this by giving CAP 3 a weaker move such as Brick Break, or by not giving it this coverage at all, it wouldn't be able to break through defensive Heatran before it could kill CAP 3 with Earth Power, and that's the type of Heatran that we're supposed to kill!
If we don't outspeed Heatran, then we can feel free to give CAP 3 Earth Power, Earthquake or something else to break through defensive Heatran without threatening to beat offensive sets, as they can just revenge-kill us before we can do anything. It's just the simplest course of action imo.
