CAP 16 CAP 5 - Part 5 - Stat Limits

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Next up is the Stat Limit stage! Our Stats Leader for this stage is Detroitlolcat, so make sure that your posts are generally directed towards him and the questions he asks. Detroitlolcat will be deciding the stat limits for CAP 5 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 5. We will look at limits to CAP 5'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 (Detroitlolcat) will decide the stat limits for CAP 5 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 and the formulae themselves 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!

CAP 5 so far:

Name: Type Equalizer

Description: A pokemon whose presence in the metagame increases the usage of one or more underused types and simultaneously decreases the usage of one or more overused types.

Justification: Take a look at the OU usage statistics for January and you'll see that 9 out of the top 10 pokemon have either steel, water, dragon or fighting as one of their types, and extending it to the top 20 shows 16/20 with those types. We should also be asking ourselves why these trends exist so strongly and what can be done about them. In creating this CAP, we'd have to discuss in depth many different aspects of what makes a type and opinions can ultimately being tested in the playtest.

Questions To Be Answered:

  • Is a types usefulness relative to the metagame or is it intrinsic? (Ie. Can any type be the "best" type given the right circumstances or do type match-ups, available STAB moves etc mean some types will always be better than others?)
  • What exploitable weaknesses do "good" types in OU have? Are their currently pokemon that can exploit them and if so, how do they function differently to CAP5?
  • How (if at all) will the targeted types adapt to the situation created? Will people choose different movesets, abilities, etc or will they just use them more/less? How is this linked to the way CAP5 functions strategically?
  • What effects will the changes on certain types' presence have on the metagame?
  • Which members of the targeted types will benefit and suffer from this most and why?
  • By creating CAP5, have we learnt any new ways to counter good types or use bad types?
Typing: Grass / Dark
Abilities so far: Harvest
 

DetroitLolcat

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Hey, everyone. I’m DetroitLolcat and I’m your Stats TLT member, so it’s my job to direct the Stat Limits discussion that occurs in this thread. Remember, the Stat Limits discussion is not where we ultimately decide on the stats for this Pokemon, it’s where we decide how biased this Pokemon is towards Physical offense, Physical defense, Special offense, and Special defense.

To summarize what we have already done, we have chosen a concept intended to balance the Overused type chart by promoting one or more underused types while hindering one or more commonly used types. As we narrowed down on how to do so, we settled on building a Pokemon that uses the Sun weather effect to promote the less commonly used types that Sun types often use. On the other hand, this Pokemon is also intended to perform well against Water-type opposition commonly found on Rain teams that Sun frequently has problems facing. As we discussed why Sun faces these problems against Dragons, Rain, and Water-type Pokemon, the argument that Sun lacks sufficient teamslots to handle those threats emerged. DougJustDoug’s post on common roles that must be accounted for on every Sun team highlights how limited many Sun teams are in teambuilding, and the community extrapolated Doug’s feelings and decided that a “pivot” Pokemon would successfully fulfill CAP5’s concept. Just as Rain teams have Ferrothorn, Tentacruel, Rotom-W, and other shutdown Pokemon that shifted a match near-immediately, we decided to give Sun a true pivot of its own. Whether this Pokemon would be an offensive or defensive pivot is still controversial, and will be decided on by the end of this thread.

The typing discussion yielded interesting results. Instead of trying to do too much, we instead chose to specifically target two Pokemon, Latios and Latias, as our quarries when designing this Pokemon. Furthermore, we decided to target Water-type Pokemon such as Politoed, Starmie, Keldeo, and Rotom-W as Pokemon to counter. In order to contend with Rain-boosted Water Pokemon and two of the most menacing Dragons in the tier, we chose a Grass/Dark type which both resists Water and defeats the Lati twins with Pursuit, Sucker Punch, Crunch, and various other Dark moves. To balance this Pokemon, we allowed ourselves to be threatened by Heatran, Scizor, Fire-types, and the non-Water Pokemon commonly found on Rain teams such as Toxicroak. Dragons whose names did not start with L-A-T-I were left open to interpretation, but our stat limits will help us focus on what CAP5 can reasonably threaten.

The Abilities thread focused on Harvest, which didn’t as much add to the Pokemon as much as it added to the concept. Harvest ties this Pokemon to Sun teams automatically, opening up a plethora of strategies such as Harvest+Sitrus, Harvest+Lum, and Harvest plus the various type-resist berries. However, Harvest’s options will be dictated by the stats. For example, it will take significant Physical Tankiness to successfully use the item Tanga Berry, as it would reduce CAP5’s susceptibility to U-Turn by half and potentially allow CAP5 to fare better against Scizor. With significant Special Tankiness, this Pokemon can successfully abuse Occa or Yache Berries that remove CAP5’s susceptibility to Fire and Ice. Although it is evident that Harvest will open up a veritable Pandora’s Box of strategies, it will be the stats that decide just which options on CAP5 will be viable and which strategies will fall by the wayside.

At the moment, we have a Grass/Dark Pokemon with Harvest as its ability. The Grass/Dark typing is intended to soak up the hits from Rain-powered Water attacks, Thunders, and Earthquakes while firing back with attacks that can slice Water-type Pokemon such as Jellicent, Politoed, Rotom-W, and Keldeo. The Dark type was selected to rip up Latios and Latias with powered-up Pursuits, take Psychic attacks from Pokemon such as Celebi and the Latis, and make this Pokemon vulnerable to U-Turn, a move commonly seen on Scizor (one of our counters/threats). But that’s enough reCAP.


Here is where we decide stat limits, which dictate how capable this Pokemon will be in various aspects of attacking and being attacked. For those who don’t understand how stat limits work, this thread’s purpose is to provide ranges for Physical Sweepiness (PS), Physical Tankiness (PT), Special Sweepiness (SS), Special Tankiness (ST), and Base Stat Rating (BSR). Base Stat Rating describes how well this Pokemon’s base stats predict its viability in the OU metagame. BSR is a more sophisticated version of BSt that actually takes into account how well a Pokemon can use its stats, which is why CAP has always preferred BSR to BST as a quantification of a CAP’s power. After we as a community discuss how apt this Pokemon should be in the five aforementioned categories, I will provide ranges of values that will constitute acceptable stat spread submissions. For example, if I stated that Physical Tankniess must be between 160 and 190 at the end of this post, then every stat spread’s combination of HP and Defense according to the Excel calculator in capefeather’s post above must result in a value between 160 and 190 for Physical Tankiness or else the stat spread will not be considered for slating. There will be defined boundaries (both upper and lower bounds) for all five of the above statistics.

Remember, we have much more to do after deciding stat limits and even stat spreads for CAP5, meaning that we should look at stats within the context of the entire Pokemon. We will potentially choose another ability for CAP5 after the stats have been decided, and some of the proposed abilities that did not succeed in the Primary Ability poll will be greatly affected by this Pokemon’s stats. For example, if a high Physical Sweepiness or Special Tankiness is chosen, it is unlikely that Flower Gift will appear as CAP5’s Secondary Ability. So remember, stats provide a framework to base the remainder of the Pokemon around, and these limits provide a framework for that framework. To help guide us through this portion of the project, I have devised some questions that should be addressed in the thread. Some of these questions are specific while others are general, but every question listed below is important to determining how this Pokemon should function.
  • What degree of Special Tankiness is necessary to check or counter Latios and Latias, two Special attacking titans this Pokemon is designed to threaten?
  • Does Sun require a pivot with the Physical Tankiness required to handle Dragons other than Latios and Latias?
  • How do we reconcile the high-attacking threats that we desire to threaten while leaving CAP5 vulnerable to the Pokemon that threaten it?
There are plenty more questions that are relevant to deciding stat limits, but those three should get us off to a great start. Not every limit proposed will answer those questions, and not every post needs to address these questions and nothing else. I will post my own opinions for what I personally believe is the way to go with CAP5 later, but to let this discussion begin as soon as possible I’ll save my personal take for my next post. For live discussions of CAP5’s stats and Stat Limits, be sure to head to #cap on IRC to chat in real time with other CAP members!

Let’s have a great discussion over CAP5’s Stat Limits!
 

Deck Knight

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What degree of Special Tankiness is necessary to check or counter Latios and Latias, two Special attacking titans this Pokemon is designed to threaten?

We need Fantastic (>200) Special Tankiness to adequately deal with the monstrous special offensiveness of threats like Specs Latios. Most of the problems with sun Pokemon is that they tend to be either moderately frail (Ninetales, most fire-typed sun threats) or they are put into very high amounts of pressure (Venusaur, Heatran) that don't allow them to take full advantage of their typing. By making a threat can specifically toast Latios and Politoed's buns along with an ability that would greatly prefer the consistency of Sun, we can tailor CAP 5 to be a very specific Pokemon that aids a very specific playstyle.

Does Sun require a pivot with the Physical Tankiness required to handle Dragons other than Latios and Latias?

No. In order to prevent CAP 5 from being a very generic bulky Pokemon with a good ability, an Above Average physical tankiness (100-125) akin to Ninetales or Venusaur will make it so that CAP will be used for its typing strength and not as a generic wall that has to watch out solely for Scizor's super-up U-turn. This level of defense will let CAP 5 switch into resisted Earthquakes or neutral Rock attacks, but not with enough efficacy that it can do more than come in and potentially spin, then try and either heal on a predicted switch or retreat.


How do we reconcile the high-attacking threats that we desire to threaten while leaving CAP5 vulnerable to the Pokemon that threaten it?


The overwhelming majority of the things we want to threaten are special attackers with lesser physical defense, while the overwhelming majority of things we want to threaten CAP 5 are physical attackers with higher or boostable physical defense (Toxicroak being a good example as a Bulk Up User).

The only other thing we want to avoid is becoming a generic sweeper. To that end I think Very Good Phyiscal Sweepiness stats (between 150-175) will allow for a Pokemon with adequate offense and speed that can stay above pace of Pokemon we want to threaten while never having the stats needed to become a truly terrifying sweeper or a wall that wins through attrition.

Special Sweepiness on the other hand is largely unnecessary and can afford to even be Poor (50-75) or Below Average (76-100) because it would otherwise make it very easy to address some of the threats just by slapping on a 4x Effective Hidden Power. Take away that option and you can really focus on the goal you want to achieve.
 
What degree of Special Tankiness is necessary to check or counter Latios and Latias, two Special attacking titans this Pokémon is designed to threaten?

I definitely agree with Deck Knight's position of huge special tankiness. In order to counter Latios and Latias, one has to take into account not only Specs variants but also Calm Mind variants. In order to properly be able to dispose of these boosting monsters, CAP5 needs to be able to take anywhere from a +0 (threatening them out) to perhaps, say, a +2 Latios (maybe just enough to make a powerful hit a 2HKO - we may need Sucker Punch or a high base speed to make CAP5 successful). Additionally, Pokémon such as Rotom-W, Politoed, Starmie, and Gengar are also very powerful Special attackers that have a movepool capable of scaring off a Dark-type or Grass-type, but are also, in the latter two's case at least, weak to Dark-type. As such, being able to tank a powerful Special hit and strike right back with a Dark-type move may be of CAP5's best interest to survive in the metagame.

Does Sun require a pivot with the Physical Tankiness required to handle Dragons other than Latios and Latias?

I stand by the idea that if we attempt to make a bulky, general wall, we'll have to sacrifice attributes in other important areas, such as Attack or Speed. In fact, Pokémon already exist that can counter physical Dragon-types on a Sun team - Donphan, Forrestress, Ferrothorn (if you look at it in a certain way), even Mamoswine is able to deal with these threats to an extent. Special Dragons and Pokémon such as Latios and Latias who have to be taken down with Pokémon such as Blissey need to be looked at much, much more than the physical Dragons.

How do we reconcile the high-attacking threats that we desire to threaten while leaving CAP5 vulnerable to the Pokémon that threaten it?

Well, one simple way to look at it would be the movepools of the Pokémon we're attempting to threaten. None of Latios, Latias, or Politoed's movepools contain any priority - meaning, if we build a Pokémon able to take on these threats, but weak to priority, we may be able to create a well-rounded specific wall.

Take a look at some of the more powerful physical attackers - Scizor, Breloom, and Conkeldurr. Notice one important thing in common - all three have access to priority moves (Bullet Punch and Mach Punch for the last two, respectively). Now, Scizor can already threaten out CAP5, even without the base stats in front of us yet, with a mega-powerful Choice Banded or Swords Danced U-Turn or Bug Bite, so Scizor's not the issue. In fact, leaving CAP5 vulnerable to priority attackers such as Breloom and Conkeldurr may be our best option - maybe we make it fast, but not give it the coverage to take these Pokémon on? Just an option.

Adding on to what Deck Knight is saying once again, "Physical Sweepiness" may be a much more important thing than "Special Sweepiness." Give it poor Special Attacking stats, and suddenly Hidden Power loses a lot of value - both its STABs are resisted by Pokémon like Ferrothorn and Forretress, who are both Physically Defensive Pokémon. If we don't give it proper coverage to handle these threats, we could potentially allow for a Physical sweeper walled by certain Pokémon but designed to take on others.
 

jas61292

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Looking at the questions DetroitLolcat put out there, I think all three can be answered very simply. Latios and Latias are specially powerful. What we want to threaten are specially powerful. What we want to be threatened by is physically powerful. And no, sun does not need a physical pivot, it needs a special one, for the exact reason that the things we want to threaten are the things that threaten sun, and these are special.

With that said, when it comes to limits on our bulk, I think we need to hike up the Special Tankieness while leaving the Physical Tankieness at a level that is passible but could not be used defensively. To this note, I think a good target for ST would be the Fantastic range. I was originally thinking that we might be able to even go Amazing, but with the awesome power of our chosen ability, I fear that might be too much. With that said, the lower end of amazing probably isn't bad. On the other side, while we don't want to die to every physical hit, I don't think we want to be able to invest in physical bulk to beat our counters, so I would suggest putting PT in the Below Average range. Above Average could be fine too, but I'd rather undershoot than overshoot. Ideally I'd like to say we should be Average, but such a level does not exist.

Offensively, the things we need to threaten most are threatened more from the Physical side, thanks both to their stats, and our potential STAB moves. So, I'd definitely like to see us attacking from the physical side. However, I don't think we actually need much power at all. With our ST, we will be walling things, so we have no need to OHKO what we threaten. We need to beat them, but that can be done in two, or even three attacks. Going high on the power will just make us attractive to other team styles. A Pokemon with an OK typing that is tailored specifically to beating things that threaten sun won't appeal to rain or sand, but, especially with our ability providing awesome staying power even out of sun, such a Pokemon that is also a great bulky attacker will seeing much more worth it. We need the power to get the job done and absolutely no more. I don't think we need speed, since we cannot outrun the most important things we need to and still get good power without pumping stats to an undesirable level. And with low speed, we don't need a high limit on Physical Sweepieness, as that would just lead to overly bloated power. As such, I want to suggest that the limit on PS be placed at the Below Average level. With low speed, you can still get reasonable attack stats up into the low hundreds (which I personally think is still more than we need).

On the Special side of things, well, we should be bad. Very bad. We have a defined list of counters, and I don't think we want to be able to just kill one by running a random hidden power. We have no need for this stat, so I'd like to see it dumped. So, yeah, I'd say SS should be Bad level. This is quite low, but with the speed stats I think we can work with, it is not too hard to reach.

Overall, I think we don't need to do all that much. Our type is great for our needs and our ability is incredibly powerful. We don't need huge stats outside of our Special bulk, and with such a powerful ability, we should not be giving CAP 5 anything more than it needs to function properly. While I think there is a lot left to be discussed, to just complete my suggestions, I think we can achieve our goals with an overall BSR of Below Average. While the most common level for OU Pokemon is Above Average, when you look at the Below Average Pokemon in the tier, they are all Pokemon that excel at a specific role. Gastrodon or Skarmory for example. We want to be filling a similar role for sun, and we don't want to be a generically good mon, so I think this level is the best to emulate.

EDIT: Actually, on that BSR, Above Average may be better. While Below Average is ideal if we can do it, doing so sample spreads, it may just be too hard to achieve with what we want.
 
What degree of Special Tankiness is necessary to check or counter Latios and Latias, two Special attacking titans this Pokemon is designed to threaten?

Definitely a lot. We probably want this Pokemon to have enough Spec. Tankiness too, I'd say, be 3HKO'd by Specs Meteor and (at least) +1 Dragon Pulse from Latios. That way, it could switch into either and threaten out with Pursuit without risking the KO if Lati@s stays in; that way we don't need to make it OHKO them with Pursuit, or something equally ludicrous.

Does Sun require a pivot with the Physical Tankiness required to handle Dragons other than Latios and Latias?

Eh... shmeh... neh. I'm going to go with what Deck said and say that this CAP should only be decently physically bulky so that it can get by physically defensively with it's typing as opposed to naturally taking anything that comes its way. Looking at the list of Pokemon it needs to threaten, most of them are more specially orientated, so special bulk should the prime focus of this CAP, and Physically dealing with the other Dragons should be left to resisted hits. It should be a Pokemon that CAN check physical Dragons if circumstances and prediction work out for it, (i.e. switching in on a Garchomp's EQ,) not just the go-to solution for any single Pokemon that may threaten Sun.

How do we reconcile the high-attacking threats that we desire to threaten while leaving CAP5 vulnerable to the Pokemon that threaten it?

Again like Deck said, the Pokemon that threaten it the most are physically offensive and defensive and the Pokemon it threatens are specially offensive and defensive, so focusing on good physical sweepiness and amazing special beefiness will pretty much slot it right into the category it needs to be in. Poor special sweepiness should make it so that it can't just slap on HP Fire and deal with Scizor, so I would reccomending it to be specially weak enough to not be able to 2HKO Scizor with HP Fire in Sun without so much investment it takes away from other areas it needs to perform its main functions. That poor. Also, this is all assuming it hits the speediness necessary to outspeed the Latis, at least. Give it good physical offense and great speedianess, and we can build it's movepool so that it doesn't get too boost happy, preventing general sweeping past the things that would otherwise threaten it and making it's role more as an offensive goalee for sun, if that makes any sense.
 

Bughouse

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I agree with the general distribution of stats (Higher ST and PS, lower SS and PT), though I've yet to decide just where they should lie, now given Harvest.

More often than not, though, I'll hedge on the side of higher on Stat Limits, and tailor a spread to submit over the coming days. Give people flexibility.

That being said, Fantastic is the max needed. Amazing is pushing it on ST.
On PT, spreads maybe should be Below Average, I think offering Above Average is acceptable.
SS should be capped out at Below Average, though it very well may end up Poor or Bad.
And finally, PS I think needs to be in the Very Good range.

Basically, what Deck said. Though I wouldn't say Fantastic is necessary on ST. Only that it should be allowed. Harvest is a potent ability and Excellent may well suffice.
 

Birkal

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I'm going to start throwing out some specific ranges, because I think we're at the point where we can try to start defining some of these things. I agree with jas61292's post above, so I won't cover that ground again. I will say this though: if you want Physical Sweepiness to be high, you should explain why CAP 5 needs speed. Because from my vantage point, if we're serving as a wall, there's no need to be quick about it. Through the below estimates, I've barely considered speed as a factor, because I simply don't see the need for it. As soon as you start stacking it on, you run into issues of outspeeding other Pokemon, and that takes away from our true goal as a defensive pivot: to wall.


Physical Tankiness (PT)

Looking at our threat list, I don't think we want much here. I think right around Above Average to Good is what we'd like to shoot for. I don't think we should leave ourselves completely open to physical attacks, but it'd be nice to tank some non-super effective attacks. Pretty solid for a defensive pivot.

Physical Sweepiness (PS)

I personally will push for Below Average being our limit here, but I guess I could see Above Average falling in to the mix. I think it's sort of universally understood that we should be pushing our Attack stat for CAP5, so it's good that we set a flexible limit for PS. We should try to avoid going overboard, however. CAP 5 does not need to be a bulky attacker, so let's try not to enable that.

Special Tankiness (ST)

This should be set at Amazing, in my opinion. If we want to tank Latios, we should have some flexibility here. I think it's fine that most spreads run something around Fantastic level, but I am really loving the idea of a special wall for this CAP. If some people want to bum a stat in order to make ST shoot up to Amazing, I think they should have the ability to do that. Just please, don't go above 225 ST and have good stats elsewhere.

Special Sweepiness (SS)

Low. Non-existent. I'm thinking between Bad and Poor here. As soon as we make this level high, we're going to have big problems keeping Hidden Power off this Pokemon. Some of the Pokemon we want to be threatened by can get destroyed by a specific HP, so it's a top priority to have this effectively neutered.
 
Because we're not focusing on speed right now I'll make this post short, but I would like to say that we could really go either route for speed as long as we balance out the other stats to fit it. If we make the Speediness fast than I would suggest not making the physical sweepiness too high, or we might get, as Birkal said, a bulky attacker, and that might distract from the point. However, if we make the CAP slow, we might be able to buff up its physical attack a little bit due to its speed hindering it from a sweep. Overall though, it should really not be much more offensive than Ferro; it should be able to take hits and dish them out decently well for a Pokemon of its bulky focus, but it shouldn't really ever be outright used to sweep.

Edit: I do have one more thing to add. We intend for this thing to be able to be mainly used in Sun, however this does give Latios a chance to hit us with Sun-Boosted HP Fire. Take note that normal super effective HP Fire deals slightly more damage than STAB Dragon Pulse, and that Sun Boosted super effective HP Fire deals the same damage as STAB Draco Meteor without the miss chance or Special Attack drops. We have to be wary of that.
 

ganj4lF

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Well, there's little to add here, let me add my own opinions (which mostly agree with Birkal and...almost everyone else) to the mix.

Physical Tankiness
An Above Average PT allows us a bit of freedom with the HP stat while remaining threatened by all those physical powerhouses that should do so. Good can be OK too, but I'm more inclined to keep this a bit lower to compensate the special bulk side.

Special Tankiness
Definitely a lot. I see only one reason to not pick Amazing, as Birkal said, and that reason is optics, essentially. Fantastic can be enough too, but I would be willing to sacrifice something in the other ratings to be allowed to go Amazing here. That would grant some flexibility and some leeway for a bit of residual damage or whatever we can suffer. As long as CAP5 has other vulnerabilities, it's not a problem to make it impervious from the special side.

Physical Sweepiness
Both Above Average and Below Average are reasonable here, the stat spreads I'm working on are in Above Average territory by a handful of points but it won't hurt the concept at all to lower them a bit. Incidentally, this prevents CAP5 to have disproportionate Speed stat, which will be more harmful than helpful IMHO.

Special Sweepiness
Anything below Poor (included) is fine. This limits the coverage options for CAP5 even before going into the movepool stage by making Hidden Power almost unusable, which is perfect according to our threatlist.
 

Deck Knight

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Just remember that Speed affects the Sweepiness of both stats, so when you say you want the lowest levels on Sweepiness you are making a statement both about Attack/Speed AND Special Attack/Speed.

As far as Speed itself, I'm going to basically use the argument I made for Krillowatt's stats as a utility counter: Speed is effectively a defense. Ferrothorn is extremely bulky, and it always maxes defensive investment because when you are using Ferrothorn, you know you will *always* be taking two attacks whenever it switches in.

Even with amazing special bulk, a CAP 5 that is slower or at some pittance speed above Politoed is going to run into this problem: Specs Politoed will be willing to sacrifice small amounts of bulk in order to nail CAP 5 twice with Ice Beam or Focus Blast. If you make CAP 5 fast enough where that sacrifice is significantly limiting on Politoed's capabilities against other Pokemon it usually faces, you do not waste time on a pointless speed creep war that wastes EVs in non-productive stats. Speed is both a ceiling and a floor.

As far as the overall BSR, which is really where the limits come into play, my suggestion is somewhere around 315-320. Most of the core of Sun is filled with Pokemon that have a very specific niche and rely on their abilities rather than their stats. The Pokemon on sun teams with the highest BSR tend to be the offensive fire types used (Heatran, Volcarona, Infernape), and 320 is slightly lower than Infernape (322.5561). A comparison with a similar kind of bulky Pokemon with a good offense and a dump stat, Gyarados has a BSR of 316.7952 - Milotic has the same stat numbers rearranged, and is actually higher at 318.3057. I feel those Pokemon are representative of the kind of threat we want - Pokemon with sufficient offensive power, middling speed to capitalize on their defense against stronger but slower threats, a lesser defense capable of type-based switching, and a specific statistical focus.

Also to Address jas' concerns, Detroitlolcat does not need to stick with the BSR categories. He could indeed choose "Average" by setting a limit between 90-115 rather than Below Average's 75-99.99 and Above Average's 100-124.99. The same can be done for all stats, though I do think it would be prudent to set a range equal to 20-25 to allow for a diversity of spreads.
 

erisia

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What degree of Special Tankiness is necessary to check or counter Latios and Latias, two Special attacking titans this Pokemon is designed to threaten?

As per my discussion from the previous thread, I don't really think that there should be an upper limit on Special Tankiness for CAP5, as pretty much nothing on CAP5's threat list apart from Ninetales attacks it purely with special moves, and when they do, it's either Keldeo using Secret Sword to hit CAP5's Defense, or Volcarona doing massive damage with a 4x effective STAB Bug Buzz. For the record, even with Blissey-level special bulk, CAP5 is still 2HKO'd by the Bulky Quiver Dance set. So overall, I haven't really seen any convincing arguments as to why CAP5 can't have absurd Special Tankiness. Giving CAP5 Amazing Special Tankiness would let it take attacks from Latios and offensive Water-types well even without any defensive investment, which gives it more freedom to invest in its Speed and offenses.The more Special-Tankiness CAP5 has, simply put, the more effectively it can deal with Latios and Latias, and most of the Water-types we're trying to threaten. This gives CAP5 more flexibilty in dealing with these Pokemon and thus more opportunities for it to provide support to its Sun teammates. I think that the lower bound of Fantastic would be a good lower limit based on calculations involving Specs Latios Draco Meteors, and I don't really think we need to provide an upper limit for anything other than optics reasons. 200-285 sounds like a good range to me, giving people flexibility in how much Special Tankiness they want to give this thing and for what reasons. There isn't much need for overly constricting ranges, otherwise we'll end up with Aurumoth again. :toast:

Does Sun require a pivot with the Physical Tankiness required to handle Dragons other than Latios and Latias?

In a word, no. If we're giving CAP5 the Special Tankiness to take on a powerhouse like Latios without too many problems, and it has the option of 100% effective healing thanks to Harvest + Lum Berry + Rest, the need to give this thing a defensive vulnerability outweighs the need to take on stuff like Dragonite and Salamence. Admittedly, as CAP5 will be replacing the primarily physically-defensive Rapid Spinners currently used on Sun teams (Donphan, Forretress), it will inherently open up a weakness to physical Dragons if we go this route. However, there are still other ways for Sun teams to potentially deal with them, such as HP Ice Venusaur, Mamoswine, and even stuff like Focus Sash Alakazam. Furthermore, a 4x weakness to U-Turn gives even physically-defensive Celebi problems in checking things like physical Landorus, so it'd be a somewhat futile gesture to give this thing good Physical Tankiness in the first place. Taking a Scarf Salamence Outrage and barely surviving would be a good upper limit for Physical Tankiness in my opinion, so I'd say the upper bound of Above Average should be our upper limit to avoid any problems. That said, we don't want this thing to fall to Hippowdon Earthquakes and silly stuff, so I wouldn't really want to go any lower than the lower bound of Poor. Imo, 50-125 is a good range for Physical Tankiness.

How do we reconcile the high-attacking threats that we desire to threaten while leaving CAP5 vulnerable to the Pokemon that threaten it?

I'm at my girlfriend's house atm so I'll edit my answer for this question in later. Also that explains to toast face....[/QUOTE]
 

alexwolf

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I agree with most of the stuff being said here, however i have a little issue. Many people talk about Below or Above Average PS while wanting Attack similar to that of Ferrothorn. This means that the CAP will have base 80 Speed at most, which is something i don't really like. If we are slower than Latios then it has the option to 2HKO us with HP Fire in sun, with LO or Specs, no matter how good special bulk we have. The only way to avoid the 2HKO from HP Fire would be to have Amazing ST and not low tier Amazing. However, if the CAP has a better Speed stat than Latios it can take the first hit and then at least weaken or OHKO back, or just heal. We can give to the CAP enough bulk to take one Specs DM or Specs HP Fire after SR with only max HP (we will need to max Speed too) but we cannot give to the CAP enough bulk to take two HP Fire in sun without Blissey-like special bulk, creating an opening for Latios to take out the CAP before it even does something.

A good Speed stat would be very useful for the CAP, as sun teams are offensive by nature and appreciate fast pivots much more than slow ones. As Deck Knight said, speed is bulk, as the CAP will more often than not get to move first, lessening the need for huge special bulk, and as i said again fitting better in sun teams in general. And there shouldn't be any worry of making the CAP too offensive or whatever, as with mediocre Attack and bad coverage (which most of the community favors i think), as well as weakness to common priority (Ice Shard and Mach Punch) the CAP will be just fine.

Now let's convert all this talk to something more specific:

Physical Tankiness (PT)

85 < PT < 115. I agree with everyone on this one. The boundaries i gave are to prevent the CAP from walling random physicall attackers (Scarf Terrakion for example) and to allow it to at least switch-into resisted STAB physical moves without losing too much health.

Special Tankiness (ST)

190 < ST < 210. This reflects what i said before about Speed. With more Speed than Latios we don't need enough bulk to survive two of its moves, and the same goes for Politoed. The ST i chose allows the CAP to take once any move from Latios and Politoed with only max HP investment, while healing or attacking first in the next turn.

Physical Sweepiness (PS)

170 < PS < 190. This looks different from what everybody else thinks but i already explained why. The PS is so big because the Speed is going to be big, not the Attack. The CAP should have just enough power to 2HKO max HP Latias uninvested imo, which means a ~100 Atk stat, which is a reasonable Attack stat for an utility role.

Special Sweepiness (SS)

70 < SS < 90. Once again, this looks different from the other suggestions, but Speed is the reason. The CAP should have awful SpA (40-50 in terms of base stats) and great Speed, which produce the SS i mentioned.

Finally, i agree that the BSR should be in these boundaries: 315 < BSR < 335.
 
One thing to consider would have to be the overall BST. Aurumoth and Krillowatt are great examples of what we don't want to do.

We may be able to have CAP5 function well without a high BST, while still giving it a couple high base stats. Look at Breloom.



He only has a BST of 460. That puts him on par with such powerhouses such as Dodrio, Mr. Mime, and Camerupt (I'm being sarcastic, of course). Yet, he's one of the top 10 Pokémon in OU consistently.

So, I propose we don't go the way of the Aurumoth, and set a BST limit of maybe 460-500ish.
 
I agree with most of the stuff being said here, however i have a little issue. Many people talk about Below or Above Average PS while wanting Attack similar to that of Ferrothorn. This means that the CAP will have base 80 Speed at most, which is something i don't really like. If we are slower than Latios then it has the option to 2HKO us with HP Fire in sun, with LO or Specs, no matter how good special bulk we have. The only way to avoid the 2HKO from HP Fire would be to have Amazing ST and not low tier Amazing. However, if the CAP has a better Speed stat than Latios it can take the first hit and then at least weaken or OHKO back, or just heal. We can give to the CAP enough bulk to take one Specs DM or Specs HP Fire after SR with only max HP (we will need to max Speed too) but we cannot give to the CAP enough bulk to take two HP Fire in sun without Blissey-like special bulk, creating an opening for Latios to take out the CAP before it even does something.

A good Speed stat would be very useful for the CAP, as sun teams are offensive by nature and appreciate fast pivots much more than slow ones. As Deck Knight said, speed is bulk, as the CAP will more often than not get to move first, lessening the need for huge special bulk, and as i said again fitting better in sun teams in general. And there shouldn't be any worry of making the CAP too offensive or whatever, as with mediocre Attack and bad coverage (which most of the community favors i think), as well as weakness to common priority (Ice Shard and Mach Punch) the CAP will be just fine.
I really don't think CAP5 should be outspeeding Lati@s - it would end up with waaayy more Physical Sweepiness than it needs for the rest of its threatlist in conjunction with the kind of attack it's going to need to actually be an immediate threat to Lati@s, and it would also outrun Ninetales, which would be a big issue - if offensive Ninetales can outspeed and 2HKO it's still a threat, which is what we want. Furthermore, remember that its movepool potentially includes Sucker Punch, which mitigates the problem (especially against a Choiced opponent) and Pursuit, which compounds the threat of Sucker Punch bigtime.

Do you have an argument against the kind of enormous Special Tankiness you think CAP5 would need if it wasn't outspeeding the Latis? I believe that the only upper limit CAP5 needs on its Special Tankiness is for timid offensive Ninetales to 2HKO with Fire Blast 100% of the time - including Harvest/Sitrus variants after rocks (this means that its Sun-Boosted Fire Blast must do a minimum of 56.25%, or 62.5% without rocks). I've been toying with some calcs and spreads and this figure is fully reconcilable with stats that let it tank Dracos for 3HKOs and, for Sitrus variants, HP Fires. So going by my calcs I would suggest a Special Tankiness in the 'amazing' range with an absolute maximum of 264, after which point Ninetales isn't 2HKOing Sitrus runners even with Stealth Rocks up. Of course, 264 is rather ludicrous anyway, so I would advocate a range of 225 - 250.

I agree with the general consensuses that Physical Tankiness should be below average (70 - 90 for me). Fortunately our threatlist is rather well divided - many of our intended threats are physically offensive and most of what we want to threaten attacks specially. There are only two things that we majorly want to have threatening CAP5 that predominantly attack Specially: Ninetales and Volcarona. I've already detailed how we can have massive special tankiness and still die to Ninetales; I'm pretty sure I don't need to do the same for Volcarona, who is clearly going to OHKO with a Bug Buzz.

I agree that Special Sweepiness should necessarily be unusable, else we might see it running sun-boosted HP Fires to 2HKO Scizor. Physical Sweepiness is much more complicated as it covers both Speed and Attack, and as Deck Knight said, Speed is really a defensive consideration. In general though, the kind of speed we would need to consistently outrun Toed and the kind of attack we'd need to be a meaningful threat to Latias would probably result in a Physical Sweepiness anywhere between 'above average' and 'good - I would suggest broader limits here to facilitate consideration of Speed and Attack more separately, so 100 - 150 seems sensible to me.
 

Rhys DeAnno

Slacking Off
I agree that speed creep wars with Specs Politoed are not productive, however I would like to avoid them in a different way. I am fine with CAP5 being significantly slower than Politoed, as long as it is fat enough to take two specs ice beams. Since it probably needs to be fat enough for one and a half dracos anyway, this is not the hard task it seems to be. Also remember we don't necessarily need to endure the full hax of two ice beams since a Lum berry would prevent freezing (and we'd only need to fear a crit).

Physical Tankyness (PT)
I'd like to be able to take resisted hits on the physical side, and not particularly fear supereffective physical coverage hits from specially based pokemon (Politoed used Ice Punch!). This basically amounts to Above Average, I'd say around 110-120 or so.

Special Tankyness (ST)
In my universe, CAP5 is not only living one and a half latios specs dracos but also two politoed specs ice beams comfortably. Amazing is completely justified here, perhaps even way way up in the region of 240-260.

Physical Sweepyness (PS)
If CAP5 is going to be as slow as Wobbuffet (I live for the dream of Wobb outspeeding CAP5), It can easily be content with Below Average Physical Sweepyness and maintain acceptable Attack. Even as low as 75-85 could be fine.

Special Sweepyness (SS)
With awful speed and awful SpA we can basically plumb unseen depths with this stat. I'd be disappointed if we didn't manage Bad.

With this in mind, I'm seeing the total BSR as around 250-280, and I'd be shocked if we were above 500 BST.
 
After checking the BSR sheets, this is what i came up with:

Physical Tankiness (PT)
In order to not be steamrolled by even resisted hits, CAP5 will need a decent PT, which would amount to around 100< PT <115, meaning CAP5 can take resisted physical attacks and coverage from non physical pokemon just fine.

Special Tankiness (ST)
Looking at our threat list and goals, i feel that 225< ST <250 is perfectly justified, Making it so that a specs Politoed barely fazes CAP5. One contributor to both ST and PT is a decent HP stat.

Physical Sweepiness (PS)
With these BSRs, CAP5 is a Specially Defensive Physically Attacking Pivot (more defensive though), and for that, Physical Sweepiness could be at 85< PS <95, so that a Pursuit from CAP5 can threaten Lati@s, but not enough to become a Bulky Sweeper.

Special Sweepiness (SS)
40< SS <50, or maybe not even that, since CAP5 has no business threatening pokemon with low Special Defense. I think we can all agree that SS will be incredibly low.

BSR
With the above, you should get a BSR of around 250< BSR <300.
 

alexwolf

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I really don't think CAP5 should be outspeeding Lati@s - it would end up with waaayy more Physical Sweepiness than it needs for the rest of its threatlist in conjunction with the kind of attack it's going to need to actually be an immediate threat to Lati@s, and it would also outrun Ninetales, which would be a big issue - if offensive Ninetales can outspeed and 2HKO it's still a threat, which is what we want. Furthermore, remember that its movepool potentially includes Sucker Punch, which mitigates the problem (especially against a Choiced opponent) and Pursuit, which compounds the threat of Sucker Punch bigtime.

Do you have an argument against the kind of enormous Special Tankiness you think CAP5 would need if it wasn't outspeeding the Latis? I believe that the only upper limit CAP5 needs on its Special Tankiness is for timid offensive Ninetales to 2HKO with Fire Blast 100% of the time - including Harvest/Sitrus variants after rocks (this means that its Sun-Boosted Fire Blast must do a minimum of 56.25%, or 62.5% without rocks). I've been toying with some calcs and spreads and this is figure is fully reconcilable with stats that let it tank Dracos for 3HKOs and, for Sitrus variants, HP Fires. So going by my calcs I would suggest a Special Tankiness in the 'amazing' range with an absolute maximum of 264, after which point Ninetales isn't 2HKOing Sitrus runners even with Stealth Rocks up. Of course, 264 is rather ludicrous anyway, so I would advocate a range of 225 - 250.
What i have against the kind of special bulk that is needed to tank two HP Fire in sun from Latios, as well as Specs Ice Beam from Politoed, is that it will be so huge that the CAP will wall a multitude of special attackers, not just those that it needs to. Starmie, non-NP Thundurus-T, CM Jirachi, defensive Ninetales, and Alakazam are just some examples of Pokemon that that the CAP would completely wall. Does it seem ok to you if the CAP alone can completely wall and beat at least half of the standard offensive rain team (Toed / Starmie / Thund-T), and even more if they have Lati@s? While we decided that we should check Electric and Psychic types, we didn't decide to completely wall them, and this is what will happen if we use so much special bulk. We will make a Pokemon capable of walling too much stuff, especially when you take into account that type-resist berries can be used as well.

This is why i want a good Speed stat, to avoid making the CAP a generic awesome special wall that never dies and can fix many weaknesses with the versatility that Harvest provides. With ST similar to that of Latias, which is what i suggested, the CAP can still take special hits very well but it dies to the attacks it should do, such as double STAB fire attacks (Ninetales), and strong non-STAB super effective attacks (Starmie's LO Ice Beam).

Even though with a good speed and attack stat the CAP will have good PS, it will mostly stick to the supportive role due to the lack of coverage against many Pokemon in OU (Ferrothorn, Forretress, Skarmory, Lucario, Heatran, Toxcicroak, Breloom, Magnezone, Scizor, Infernape) as well as big weakness to priority in general due to the low PT (especially Ice Shard and Mach Punch). So with a high Speed stat the CAP might be able to use an offensive set, but this set won't be good enough to overshadow the supportive role of the CAP at all, nor it will allow the CAP to get past Pokemon that should deal with it (with a few exceptions such as Ninetales).
 

Bughouse

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I know this is about Stat Limits and not individual stats, but I felt compelled to respond to people suggesting two opposing and equally misled points of view.

The Latis are the easiest threats on our list to deal with come movepool if we choose to do so. We do not need to focus on outspeeding them. And for the people supporting bottom-barrel Speed, nor do I think we should be underspeeding Politoed.

Since we are advocating such low PT, I don't think we need to worry about outspeeding Scizor, our primary threat. Given low PT, Scizor may be able to OHKO (at least after Rocks) CAP5, making the speed irrelevant. Even given that speed, assuming the low Special Attack, which we've been advocating, and no Fire coverage except for HP Fire, which we've also discussed, then CAP5 may be unable to OHKO Scizor with HP Fire even under Sun, much less Rain or Sand.

i.e. CAP5 with 55 Base Special Attack, 252 EVS neutral nature, Life Orb, Sunny Day - against the standard 248 HP CB Scizor, does 103% minimum, guaranteed OHKO.

Take out the 252 Sp Atk EVs CAP5 would not be using. Even in Sun and still using the Life Orb, CAP5 would do 82% max, failing to OHKO after Rocks.

So basically, outspeeding a threat like Scizor is irrelevant given low PT. And even if CAP5 isn't OHKOed by Bullet Punch, HP Fire can be made so laughable it's irrelevant.

Speed is not the end all be all in relation to every check and counter. There are some things we'd like to outspeed or underspeed but Latios and Scizor shouldn't be them.

To translate that back into Base Stat Ratings, given reasonable Attacking Stats, I think that in terms of PS and SS, we should set arbitrary ranges not currently defined by our words.

PS range of 95-120, while SS should be maybe set 65-90.
 
What i have against the kind of special bulk that is needed to tank two HP Fire in sun from Latios, as well as Specs Ice Beam from Politoed, is that it will be so huge that the CAP will wall a multitude of special attackers, not just those that it needs to. Starmie, non-NP Thundurus-T, CM Jirachi, defensive Ninetales, and Alakazam are just some examples of Pokemon that that the CAP would completely wall. Does it seem ok to you if the CAP alone can completely wall and beat at least half of the standard offensive rain team (Toed / Starmie / Thund-T), and even more if they have Lati@s? While we decided that we should check Electric and Psychic types, we didn't decide to completely wall them, and this is what will happen if we use so much special bulk. We will make a Pokemon capable of walling too much stuff, especially when you take into account that type-resist berries can be used as well.

This is why i want a good Speed stat, to avoid making the CAP a generic awesome special wall that never dies and can fix many weaknesses with the versatility that Harvest provides. With ST similar to that of Latias, which is what i suggested, the CAP can still take special hits very well but it dies to the attacks it should do, such as double STAB fire attacks (Ninetales), and strong non-STAB super effective attacks (Starmie's LO Ice Beam).

Even though with a good speed and attack stat the CAP will have good PS, it will mostly stick to the supportive role due to the lack of coverage against many Pokemon in OU (Ferrothorn, Forretress, Skarmory, Lucario, Heatran, Toxcicroak, Breloom, Magnezone, Scizor, Infernape) as well as big weakness to priority in general due to the low PT (especially Ice Shard and Mach Punch). So with a high Speed stat the CAP might be able to use an offensive set, but this set won't be good enough to overshadow the supportive role of the CAP at all, nor it will allow the CAP to get past Pokemon that should deal with it (with a few exceptions such as Ninetales).
It seems perfectly alright to wall Starmie, Politoed, Lati@s and Thundy-T all at the same time to me, yeah - if the existence of CAP5 deters rain teambuilders from using three or four of those at once then we're definitely having the desired effect on the metagame. They're also all things that CAP5 needs to threaten; while it's true that with every new step we do need to re-evaluate the specifics of CAP5's threatlist, in general I feel it is important that we also constantly refer back to Jas's last post in the Threats Discussion as a general outline.

The more persuasive portion of your argument is that we might see CAP walling things it otherwise shouldn't - CM Jirachi and defensive Ninetales are the main examples you've given (Alakazam isn't really a big deal IMO, if CAP5 gets Sucker Punch it's doomed anyway and if CAP5 switches in on a Specs/Scarf Psychic attack it's also doomed). The thing about CM Jirachi is that even if it can't hurt CAP5, CAP5 can't really capitalise on this unless it's given more coverage than it ought to be - it's a neutral matchup, and they can only really threaten each other through their status options (which CAP5 may not even get). Defensive Ninetales is, well, defensive; if it can Wisp CAP5 while CAP5 can't really do anything in return that's more than enough to qualify it as a threat. If CAP5 is going to have the kind of special bulk it needs to switch into Latios, it follows that it's not going to be easily toppled by anything that doesn't invest offensively; that seems like a fair trade-off.

On the topic of speed, I'll reiterate that I simply don't think it's alright to outspeed Ninetales; even defensive Ninetales can screw over a wall-like CAP5 if it can get a Wisp off before it attacks. Ninetales is the only thing that is 100% mandatory for a sun team and if it can't check/counter CAP5 then we're doing something wrong. A few things CAP5 should be threatened by that it outspeeds if it outspeeds Lati@s are Ninetales, Volcarona, Infernape, Jirachi, Toxicroak, and in addition to this several of the UU Fire types whose usage we ideally want to improve, including Darmanitan, Victini, and Arcanine. Now I'm not saying that just because it outspeeds them it threatens them - after all it can do sod all to Infernape and Toxicroak with its STABs and Volcarona will probably have Quiver Danced already - but it's a big step in the wrong direction and, in giving CAP5 the first move against many of its supposed threats, restricts our movepool significantly. My point, essentially, is that a disproportionate ST is more in keeping with CAP5's threatlist than a disproportionate speed/PS.

Edit: Of course, as somebody is bound to point out, when HarvestLum is taken into account Wisps don't seem quite so scary - but sunshine HP Fires from Latios should without the Sitrus, so at least there's a tradeoff as some consolation. With such a powerful defensive ability it seems inevitable that we'll have a hard time being checked by everything we want to.
 
Given what I am reading, are we making CAP5 into another Heracross or a better Exeggutor?

Nonetheless, there are four (speed, attack, defense/Sub/Screens, and priority) major factors when it comes to a sweep and Speed and Attack are two of them. If we need to check Lati@s, Metagross, etc. then we need it to be considerably balanced in its Physical Sweeping.
 
</lurk>

I'm going to go against the grain here, as I think we may want to reconsider giving this thing epic amounts of special tankiness in light of the ability Harvest. Of particular concern is the idea of LumRest in combination with Fantastic or Amazing special bulk, on a pokemon who threatens every opposing auto-weather mon. To break such a pokemon Specially would require that you change the weather or can hit it absurdly hard and reliably (i.e. if we can live a Focus Blast or Fire Blast we could stall it out due to accuracy and PP issues.) We can also switch out on the brink of death and heal up to full HP in one turn later if we, say, mispredict a choice move. I fear we could create a win-condition of simply needing Sun and the elimination of enemy physical attackers (and Bug-type special attackers). Even if you don't achieve this win condition, the pressure it creates on your opponent could potentially force them to try and change the weather with CAP5 in play, something the CAP5 user could easily take advantage of. Sun teams can take advantage of choice locked Ice Beams and HP Fires really well, anyway, so trying to hit your CAP5 with one is a move that carries with it significant risk. When it comes to Latios, he has Sucker Punch / Pursuit or (I forget which berry recovers 25% health) to contend with, so even in the event that he can 2HKO us with Specs Draco Meteor, we can still counter it and even threaten to trap and kill it if it mispredicts.

I think a pokemon in the Very Good-Excellent range will do fine at being at tanking the special attacks we need to without walling too many things that we dont. Especially if we want to maintain enough physical bulk to take Earthquakes, I think going into the Fanstasic-Amazing range is overkill.
 
I agree with a lot of the posters on the defenses, but on the offenses I'm leaning more toward posts made by Deck Knight and BrianFantana. To limit Special Sweepiness ratings to Poor ends up saying a lot more about Speed than about firepower, unless we go for truly unrealistic base Speed or base Special Attack, which I think would be worse for optics (and maybe even actual balance) than BSR trickery. Now, I'm not one to suggest that CAP 5 should be super-fast, but I do think that the Speed is more important than some of the others have been suggesting. I feel that one of the biggest things about picking Harvest was an implicit decision to focus more on beating Politoed, and outrunning Politoed is the easiest way to do this. Below base 70 are all Pokemon that do not particularly care about whether they're faster or slower than some threat, with maybe Magnezone being an exception. Base 70 is a key benchmark and we're only really affecting one threat - again, one we would really like to threaten - by exceeding that a bit.

When I think of our Harvestmon, Vaporeon comes to mind. Vaporeon has 131 (Good) PT, 199 (Excellent) ST, 81 (Below Average) PS and 132 (Good) SS, to get 293 (Good) BSR. Ideally, for our mon, I would put PT at Below Average or very low Above Average, enough to take unboosted Earthquakes without trouble, but not much else. ST should probably be Excellent or Fantastic; I don't think that Amazing is quite necessary because I think giving the "Harvest-powered" choice to deal with Choice Specs Latios is perfectly fine, but I can see why some would want Amazing. For the offenses, I would go for flexibly high limits, say Good PS / Below Average SS, but limit the BSR to Good so that it would come at the cost of defenses. I would imagine that spreads should go for either Amazing ST and gimped PS/SS, or Excellent/Fantastic ST and so-so PS/SS.
 
This is an extremely short post, but the options for base speed are;

65< we outspeed Scizor, Jellicent, Tyranitar and Vaporeon, etc.
70< we outspeed Metagross, Politoed, Skarmory, and Breloom.
77< we outspeed Heatran.
81< we outspeed Gyrados, Venusaur, Togekiss, and Dragonite.
85< we outspeed Suicune, and Toxicroak.
95< we outspeed Gliscor.
100< The speed benchmark of OU

I'd very much like to know which we're going for.
 
We could also go for 109, where we outspeed Keldeo and Terrakion, two threats we want to cover and cannot if we are under this speed stat.
 
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