CAP 13 CAP 2 - Part 4 - Stat Limits

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LouisCyphre said:
So we want to get past one of Skarmory, Heatran, and Jirachi, but not all three at once. We shouldn't be able to get past Hydreigon without giving up the STAB slot to dispatch it.
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I hope that this doesn't sound rude, because I certainly don't intend for it to, but I understand how it could:
I don't recall that having been something that was agreed upon, certainly not the way that you seem to be declaring it. I think that making premature statements like that is going to needlessly limit later portions of the project. I understand that I'm new here, but my understanding (and please correct me if I am mistaken), is that while the conversations from the Threat Discussions in Part 3 should certainly be kept in mind so that we're already thinking about Sketchy in the context of the meta-game, that doesn't mean that those conversations need to dictate the rest of the project as though the discussed counters must remain counters or as though Sketchy cannot end up with additional counters because of elements that we have not already even begun to discuss.

That said, I agree with you that it may be best to forgo any specific physical or special bias. If we want to make sure that Sketch is usable to its maximum potential and that we can learn as much from the project as possible, then I think that Sketchy should be offensively viable on both its physical and special sides. Even if it ends up that with equivalent such stats Sketchy ends up favoring one over the other for whatever reason, I would like to leave the option open for that other to surprise the opponent every once in a while, which is, after all, the point of Sketchy.

Beyond that, I'd like to say that out of all of the areas that we can really set out to limit and thereby balance Sketchy for its versatility, I think that stats is the place to do it. It's where Smeargle did it, and while I certainly don't think it should be so dramatic here with Sketchy, it is worth considering that we already know that works.

EDIT: It's also worth noting that, with access to such great boosting moves and such awesome high-powered attacks, Sketchy does not need to have super high Attack or Special Attack to do what it does and to do it well. Simply Good or maybe even just Above Average stats in those departments will be enough to get the job done, at least by my understanding.
 
It's fair enough to question the assumption, yes. I predicated it mostly on the fact that I didn't see lot of opposition to the idea, if any. The concensus was fairly comfortable with letting CAP2 be threatened by these "blanket" checks. Responses to individual sets require that stats and abilities are known, and are thus discussed later in the process.
 
You people are forgetting that this Mon has access to every boosting move in the game. With stats like Very Good and even Good, who cares how bad he is, we'll quickly end up with a brokemon.

Further, I am against the middling speed option. I think the best way to go is the serperior track, with good speed and meh offenses, but with lower defenses than Serpy. This allows the most options. Instead of mandating Gear Shift / SS / QD, he can use SS for a mixed set, SD for a physical, Tail Glow, QD, or even something like Cotton Guard since he has great speed for a supporting set (maybe even put that in his normal movepool? polljump sorry.) He can run support sets, or even a late-game cleaner i.e. deoxys with LO and a powerful coverage move. The important part is we give him not that great stats.

The other important part is that his Shell Smash set is killable, because you don't realize the impossibility in walling one. If he has three or four defensive typing based checks, he will be broken. Scizor's BP should be a 2hko after a SS at all times, and Mamo and Weavile's LO Ice Shards should OHKO. If you can't check it, only have one or two counters by the HP type, then it'll be broken again.
 
Pwnemon said:
You people are forgetting that this Mon has access to every boosting move in the game. With stats like Very Good and even Good, who cares how bad he is, we'll quickly end up with a brokemon.
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You can't say that without even knowing what his movepool besides the Sketch slot will look like.

On another note, though, I'd like the community to reconsider the bias on special defense rather than physical defense. I understand the admittendly good points behind it, but if you really want stuff like Heatran or Hydreigon to check it, is good special defense the way to go? After a Quiver Dance, even something like Very Good Sp. tankiness, if EVed correctly, can tank a hit from those two, and I'm not totally sure this is what we want. On the other side, though, a good physical defense is something we should not give without serious thought, because as people mentioned, leaving it vulnerable to revenge killing from the likes of Scizor is a crucial factor to the balance of CAP2 (especially any Quiver Dance set).

This is why, personally, I'd propose we don't make CAP2 Very Good at either of defenses. To compensate, we could give him Excellent Physical Sweepiness and Good (or worse) in everything else. The reason for it is that, as other mentioned, physical set up moves are kind of underwhelming compared to their special alternatives. And most importantly, Grass and Ghost generally have worse physical STABs than special STABs. Plus, you can't abuse Hidden Power if EVed physically, and this is relevant as well. All in all, I think a strong physical offense would make this Pokémon more diverse, assuming everything else is kept at an average level as I suggested.
 
when i saw Grass/ghost bulky offense, i was reminded of cradily to an extent, i think cradily is a great pokemon to look at in this situation. it has only average attack and special attack, but good bulk to set up with. Scrafty is also a perfect example of this, i'd have to say that i go along with shetchmon having slightly more special defense than defense, but i dont want it to be to much of a difference, so as i said, i think cradily will be excellent inspiration for where we are going, and in a way its stats should be similar, which once again, implies physical attacker with a bit more special defense
 
At this stage the statdistribution is still really vague. I agree that moves are a different discussion alltogether, but I feel there's some things that have to be said before stats are discussed.

If we give this thing good offensive stats, it will have the moves to back that up with Sketch. Keep in mind that this thing will have access to all insane moves.

By insane moves I mean Tail Glow, Shell Smash, Dragon Dance, Growth(sun!), Quiver Dance, Aeroblast, Sacred Fire, V-Create, Spacial Rend, Dark Void, Psystrike and Psychoboost. There's some others, but these are the ones that I think most people agree on that they are F-ing great. Special mention goes to Seed Flare: 140 BP, STAB and a 40% chance of doing double damage next turn.
This thing will have every move it wants/needs/wishes for.

Seeing as this thing is meant to be bulky offense, I have these limits:

Physical Sweepiness (PS): Good
Special Sweepiness (SS): Good
Physical Tankiness (PT): Very Good
Special Tankiness (ST): Good

When tinkering in the excelfile, I ended up with a 541 BST with an "very good" rating. I kept both attack stats under 100.
 
Considering what Pwnemon said, that CAP2 will have access to any boosting move it like (including tailglow) I'm thinking that the offensive stats of this 'mon could be quite gimped and still lead to a very strong attacking force, all that is required for it to succeed is any substandard Grass type and Ghost type STAB and it'll be quite fearsome. I suggest:

ps:Good
pt:Above Average
ss:Good
st:Above Average
 
I feel that when it comes to setting stats for CAP2, it will be useful for us to meet certain specific goals in addition to acknowledging some of the less concrete (but still valid) concerns that have already arisen. When I say specific goals, I mean questions like "are boosting sets revenge killed by CB Scizor?' or "do the majority of sets lose to Heatran?" When we see the shape that answering these questions creates, we'll get a good picture of what we want.

1. Are boosting sets revenge killed by CB Scizor?

I would argue that this would be a good thing from a balance standpoint, especially for Shell Smash CAP2. If this has monstrous physical tankiness it becomes significantly more difficult to revenge kill.

2. Are most sets beaten by Heatran?

Don't underestimate Heatran's sheer offensive power. Unless this gets Excellent special tankiness, Timid max SpA Heatran is going to kill it if it hits it with one Fire Blast. In other words, given CAP2's typing and Heatran's power, the only way it will consistently beat Heatran is if the special sweepiness is high enough to power through Heatran (physical sweepiness is less of an issue because of the lack of Hidden Power).

With these out of the way, let me address some of the less concrete concerns.

1. Spork is correct, the stat-up moves that boost special sweepiness (Quiver Dance, Tail Glow) are much better than their physical equivalents, while the coverage moves that would be used on an all-out attacking set tend to favor physical sweepiness. This would strongly suggest that to balance out boosting sets and all-out attacking sets, it would be preferable to have higher physical sweepiness than special sweepiness.

2. The vast majority of attacks CAP2 will want to switch in on are special. When you resist Water and Electric, these will tend to make up the bulk of your switch-ins. Whatever else CAP2 is in terms of stats, it MUST have high special tankiness in order for it to be effective. As noted earlier in my post, this is less likely to stop Heatran than you think.

With each of these factors considered, I would recommend these stat limits.

PT: Above Average
PS: Good
ST: Very Good
SS: Above Average
 
We should go with Physical attacker with Good, but not Excellent special tankiness.
CB scizor should be able to 2HKO Sketchy with Bullet punch after one Shell Smash even if Sketchy invest's in defense. Speed is not that important to me.

I recommend these stat limits.
PT:Good
PS:Very Good
ST:Very Good
SS:Above Average
 
I'm gonna go ahead and throw my support behind what reachzero said.

Scizor should be able to take down offensive boosting sets, but I think it should have enough physical bulk so that a defensive spread is viable where Scizor cannot just break right through it. Additionally, Heatran should be able to destroy it if it does not carry a move specifically to beat Heatran. I think we should also make sure Hydreigon can take it down even after a single boost to SpD. However overall, the special defense should be pretty good.

Offensively, its special attack should be usable, but outclassed by the physical offense due to the power of the special boosting moves. Ideally this will allow it to go both physical and special, but make the styles of the two different.

Overally, I think the limits provided by reach are very good. I might say that letting the physical tankiness go into the lower end of "Good" would be perfectly fine as long as we make sure Scizor still can get the kind of KOs we want.
 
When I think of how we could learn from Sketch, I think that we should be making sure some characteristics would encourage us to try out different options. The Defense>Offense build means that we can try some support/stall options and not always have to use a boosting move in the set (even though the 3+ from Tail Glow is always a consideration).

Boosting moves are obvious. Having access to any one of them makes for a very threatening sweeper. Why further shaft any other potential strategies by giving it better offensive stats?

I'm in agreement with reachzero's reasonings and a lot of others' thoughts as well. My spread is slightly different however:

PT: Good
PS: Above Average
ST: Very Good
SS: Average

There are plenty of attacks this would try to switch in on and get the upper hand. More Special ones for sure, so the ST should be higher than PT. A good PT, for me, ensures that we could explore our options, but it isn't gravely required. Most Physical attackers have their moves boosted in some way (Choice Band, Swords Dance--as opposed to special attackers not always being boosted), so a higher PT than ST is not necessary.

Like what many of you say, the Special boosting moves are more dangerous, so a lower SS han PS balances this out.

Special Tankiness seems to be a key aspect here so far.
 
Why are we scared of physical sweepiness? Given it's typing, what moves it have acsess to? I mean power whip is a little intimidating, but Skarmory Dnite and most steels will shrug that off with ease, shadow punch is so meh it might be left unused, and few grass types ever get physical coverage moves, nor do ghosts. While this easily fixed with sketch, at that point YOU CAN NOT BOOST. For the ability to sweep to be balanced; given sketchy's STABs we need atleast good or excellent PS. If this is done we bring a mixed SS set without physical EV'ing and excellent special coverage, to help cover these i suggest around average PT, due to the fact that most priority is physical. As far as special bulkiness I would like it to be good/excellent, so it maintains bulk.
 
I agree with the idea of making CAP2 have a physical bias. With a Special Bias moves like Tail Glow and Quiver Dance will become exceedingly difficult to handle. By giving him a lean towards the physical side I believe it help balance out his CAPabilities.

I believe that ol' Sketchy should have a flare of unpredictability to it; the very nature of Sketch can make that a certainty. But unless his stats lend themselves to being balanced then CAP2 will eventually become more pigeonholed than we want it.

With a physcial bias(mind you its special sweepiness should still be good) it could utilize a surprise heavy hitter for those predicting the Quiver Dance etc.

CAP2 should have a slight bias towards Physical Sweepiness (PS).
 
Pwnemon said:
You people are forgetting that this Mon has access to every boosting move in the game. With stats like Very Good and even Good, who cares how bad he is, we'll quickly end up with a brokemon.

Further, I am against the middling speed option. I think the best way to go is the serperior track, with good speed and meh offenses, but with lower defenses than Serpy. This allows the most options. Instead of mandating Gear Shift / SS / QD, he can use SS for a mixed set, SD for a physical, Tail Glow, QD, or even something like Cotton Guard since he has great speed for a supporting set (maybe even put that in his normal movepool? polljump sorry.) He can run support sets, or even a late-game cleaner i.e. deoxys with LO and a powerful coverage move. The important part is we give him not that great stats.
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The topic is Bulky Offense. You want Sketchy to have speed enough to out speed the Lati twins,crap offense,and bulk lower than Serperior's crap 75/95/95 defenses? That isn't gonna cut it. I agree with the last part though.
 
I'd like to point out how important this part will be.

Smergle's problem is that it doesn't have the stats to abuse it's massive movepool. You'd see it do stuff like Spore/BellyDrum/STAB ExtremeSpeed and not be able to sweep anything because of it's base attack of like 20.

Sketchy's ability as a sweeper, with access to every stat-boosting move in the game, is going to exploit whichever side of the spectrum it has access to.

Sets like QuiverDance Seed Bomb or Belly Drum Shadow Sneak are ultimately going to be determined by the move pool thread, but these stats are going to determine if it's set is going to be hyper offensive or not.

In my opinion, things like Deo-S, DW Serperior , and Honchkrow needs to be examined as roles that CAP 2 could do, and we need to determine if it should play roles with similar effectiveness, more effectiveness, or less effective than the afformentioned.

Deo has the stats, the set-up move, and the coverage to be an amazing sweeper. Why does it not excel in the position? 95 base attacking stats.

DW Serperior is basically the complete opposite of what we're looking for here. It has an amazing inherent ability and can hit ridiculously hard, but it's movepool is as limited as it gets. It could of been really overpowered if it had more coverage, and some people in DW still argue that it's 'too good', but it's stats keep it in check.

Honchkrow really seems to be something to compare CAP2 to. The lower tiers (which I've never played, but read the whining) all discuss how hard it is to read Honchkrow until you see it's move pool. Similar to Gen IV/V Lucario, it can go physical or special really easily. You have high powered priority (Moxie STAB Sucker Punch+Pursuit) specialized attacks to answer threats (Heat Wave, Superpower) and you can boost with Nasty Plot or if you want to count Snatch. Again, his stats limit his ability to sweep even though he has everything on paper that he needs.

I think those three pokemon need to be examined, in the metagames that they are currently excelling in, and use them as reference points when creating the stat spread of Sketchy.
 
Straw Hat said:
The topic is Bulky Offense. You want Sketchy to have speed enough to out speed the Lati twins,crap offense,and bulk lower than Serperior's crap 75/95/95 defenses? That isn't gonna cut it. I agree with the last part though.
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I don't think you realize how good 75/95/95 is. A bulked out Serperior can survive CBNite's Adamant 252 Atk outrage 100% of the time after SR. Sketchy will have access to Cosmic Power, Amnesia, Cotton Guard, Coil, or QD as well as Taunt, Twave, WoW, and more. The goal of CAP2 is to be versatile as hell without being pigeonholed. I think the best way to do that is to go on the Serperior track. I believe Scarftier stats will just resign us to attacking only.
 
Pwnemon said:
I don't think you realize how good 75/95/95 is. A bulked out Serperior can survive CBNite's Adamant 252 Atk outrage 100% of the time after SR. Sketchy will have access to Cosmic Power, Amnesia, Cotton Guard, Coil, or QD as well as Taunt, Twave, WoW, and more. The goal of CAP2 is to be versatile as hell without being pigeonholed. I think the best way to do that is to go on the Serperior track. I believe Scarftier stats will just resign us to attacking only.
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I don't think that 75/95/95 is crap, but I don't want to lower defenses more like 90/80/95 while still being bulky, but not too bulky. bulky offensive is not being fast as hell and having crap attacking stats and good defenses. It's Think about Heatran. It's bulky (91/106/106) and it's not that fast (77) and has Excellent Sp.A (130) and it's not only used for attacking.
 
I think that in such a Physical metagame, CAP2 should be able to distinguish itself based on initial Physical Tankiness. If CAP 2 is able to be OHKO'd by a Scizor Bullet Punch after a Shell Smash, CAP2 wouldn't be very bulky. Also, like a few others have said, I don't think that high initial offensive stats would help us to learn about CAP2's effect on the metagame when the majority of OU is OHKO'd by it's STABs. Therefore, I propose:

PT:Good (But slightly leaning towards Very Good)
PS:Above Average
ST:Good
SS:Above Average
 
I think it's important to consider, Pwnemon, that CAP 2 only has 508 EVs to spread out. If CAP 2 is "bulking out" as you suggest to survive that Outrage, then it is not playing the offensive, and its legit bulk doesn't matter. On the flip side, by investing in the offensive stats (Atk / SpA / Spe), you don't invest in the defensive ones, and CAP 2 cannot take attacks very well at all. This will be the difference between the offensive sets of CAP 2 and the supporting sets of CAP 2, both of which may be interesting to explore should they fall into the bulky offense umbrella.

Grass / Ghost typing is very versatile in the roles it can play offensively. It could run Coil, Quiver Dance, Tail Glow, or Gear Change effectively given its STABs and access to STAB priority in Shadow Sneak (which it may or may not get). That said, I'm currently leaning toward not limiting the offenses too much, but perhaps limiting the combined offenses. I say this because I feel that I don't want CAP 2 to have too much versatility, but I want it to be competent in the offense that the community really wants. This would also serve to diversify the stat spread submissions more. It may be worth it to limit special sweepiness a little more if only because of the presence of the better boosting moves in Quiver Dance and Tail Glow.
 
(PT)

Good bordering on excellent, I want it to be able to sponge a hit or 2 from prominent physical attacks so prevalent in the metagame.

(PS)

Average, I want it to be able to cause some threat with or without boosts as pigeon-holing the Sketched move into a boost move is no real choice at all

(ST)

Average, I don't want it to insta-die the minute a special attacker looks at it but neither do I want it to become the new Blissey without heavy EV investment and use of a defense boost

(SS)

Average, I'd prefer a bias on physical offense but with good use of Sketch I want it to be able to surprise you now and again with a creative moveset.
 
I also agree with making him physically offensive, as this allows it to be more versatile, because it could run a specially offensive due to the fact that special boosting moves are, arguably, better than physical boosting moves.

As for defenses, I would say Specially Defensive, as Ice Shard on Mamo/Weavile/Other Reliable User should OHKO after a Shell Smash, and Scizor's Bullet Punch should at least 2HKO after a Shell Smash. This would also allow it to maybe be only 2HKO'd by Heatran if it's not running an offensive set.

PT: Good
PS: Above Average
ST: Very Good
SS: Good
 
Also I think Special Tankiness should be bigger than Physical since its own type already helps him by comming into water, electric and grass attacks so being able to come survive those HP Ice or HP Fire (or even Ice Beams) to set up or attack, Rain has brought a lot of special sweepers and supporters with acces to double STABed water attacks, so being able to come into this as much as possible would be awesome, also, and while we shouldn't jump into movepool, as a ghost it can have WoW for helping him deal with most physical attackers (or just sketch Sacre Fire) and be bulky enough to survive Tyranitar's or Lucario's Crunch after the attack drop, altough Physical Tankiness could be a route if we want to help a bulky set up like Quiver Dance, also, I think something like surviving a scizor's Bullet Punch on normal circunstances but being KOes by it after SS it's a nice way to balance this

Special Sweepiness it's the easier route (not saying it's a bad one) because of the attacking options it has (Giga Drain, Leaf Storm, Seed Flare, Shadow Ball) and HP, as opposed to the ones on the Physical side (Seed Bomb, Leef Blade, Power Whip, Shadow Force), still it makes sweeping harder for a shell smash sweeper with the choice between SS and Sacred Fire cause the first is probably gonna have a lot of trouble with stuff like skarm and ferro, an the secons just woulnd't have the sheer power to OHKO-2HKO the whole tier, I hardly think it would choose SF unless he has enough natural coverage just cause it would give a free switch in to a lot of things that coul treathen this CAP (tar, skarm, scizor, etc...), a Mixed spread with some speed I think it's the best option (with a slight inclination to the Physical side to keep it a little more balanced) would be imo the best since it encourages more options like having Sacred Fire/Giga Drain/Leech Seed/Subtitute, instead of just QD or Tail Glow/Hp Fighting/Giga Drain/Shadow Ball or just using SS and sweeping clean since now it has to use HP and two "average" attacking stats

As an interesting thing about this CAP is that with a sketch move and a good attack it could revenge virtually anything week to priority (more so if he gets technician) so that could give him a nice niche and serve as something other than a set-up sweeper
 
We should defiantly try to make this guy balanced in some way, not leaning to the offensive side too much and not Being slow enough to always counter. What it looks like right now is that people are focusing on its defense PT,ST which is good because of its resistances to Grass,Electric,Ground,Water,and Fighting. so this is mines.

PT:Very Good
ST:Very Good
PS:Good
SS:Good

The first one I did had all very goods but I changed being afraid it would be bad rating or too powerful. I also think he should focus more
on SS because its STAB
is better suited for that since there aren't much good physical grass or ghost stabs and also should be tanking PS beacause it resist ground and takes no damage from fighting.

I want to suggest that the BST should probably be high to somewhat limit its movepool
 
I'd like to see this CAP be a more balanced pokemon. With it's ability to be very diverse, we wouldn't want to harm that. More emphais on attacking stats.

PT: Good
ST: Good
PS: Very Good
SS: Very Good
 
When we set Sketchy's stat limits, we need to be very careful to make sure that it has several viable roles. Too much speed and usable special attack, we're stuck with a Tail Glow abuser. To much bulkiness, and it starts surviving things like Scizor's Bullet Punch after a Shell Smash. Not enough bulkiness and/or speed, and you have eliminated any chance of it playing a supporting role.

Considering that the more dangerous of boosting moves are on the special side (Tailglow/Quiver Dance), it is prudent that we have a higher PS ranking than its SS counterpart so that one orientation doesn't completely outclass the other.

Insofar as defenses go, it is best to hit a range where the pokemon is bulky enough to preform a supporting role ONLY if the ev's are invested in that manner. Without defensive investment, Sketchy should have problems dealing with strong neutral attacks.


Physical Tankiness (PT)
Good

Physical Sweepiness (PS)
Above Average

Special Tankiness (ST)
Good

Special Sweepiness (SS)
Average
 
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