CAP 27 - Part 5 - Stat Limits Discussion

[Jho]

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CAP27 So Far

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This next stage is Stat Limits, and it's very important! Our Stats Leader, who will be leading this stage, is Jordy , so make sure that your posts are generally directed towards him and the questions he asks. Jordy will be deciding the stat limits for CAP27 at the conclusion of this thread, based on community input. This is NOT the place where we actually submit stats. That will come later.

These limits will help to define what we consider when making and talking about stat spreads for CAP 27. We will look at limits to CAP 27'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, we strongly encourage those who intend to participate to read the entire OP thoroughly and ask questions where needed.

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

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

Stat Bias Limits

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

Physical Tankiness (PT)

The rating of the Pokémon's physical defense.​

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Physical Sweepiness (PS)

The rating of the Pokémon's physical offense.​

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Special Tankiness (ST)

The rating of the Pokémon's special defense.​

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Special Sweepiness (SS)

The rating of the Pokémon's special offense​

A spreadsheet for calculating the ratings can be found here. If you don't have a spreadsheet program, OpenOffice and Google Sheets are 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 we suggest you watch how experienced users post; you can learn a lot from them!

 

[Jordy]

Hello cappers : ). It's finally time for Stat Limits Discussion!

Before posting in this stage, you need to know what Stat Bias Limits and BSR are and how they work. I recommend reading up on them in the OP.

Please do not start with throwing out suggestions for our stat limits; it's important to iron out what direction we want to take first.

Here's the first couple of questions:

1. What are some notable trends among offensive support Pokemon stat-wise? What can we take away from that?

2. Up to this point, we've had very little to no idea about the offensive stat bias CAP27 will have, do you reckon we should focus on physical or special sweepiness? Or should the limits leave room for both options?

 

[Roland le preaux]

1. What are some notable trends among offensive support Pokemon stat-wise? What can we take away from that?

Fairly high speed, specifically to outspeed all defensive Pokemon and common wallbreakers, is a notable trend among offensive supports such as Jirachi, Fidgit, and Alolan Ninetales. However, it's important to point out that these speed tiers are generally lower than those of dedicated sweepers, such as Zeraora and Dragapult. And while there are not many offensive Wish passers in the metagame currently, any Wish passer would obviously benefit from a high HP stat to provide more substantial heals to its teammates.

2. Up to this point, we've had very little to no idea about the offensive stat bias CAP27 will have, do you reckon we should focus on physical or special sweepiness? Or should the limits leave room for both options?

I think the limits should leave room for both options, to allow submissions for mixed attacker stat spreads. Tornadus-T proved last gen that dealing meaningful chip damage with support options such as Knock Off and U-Turn could be helpful for even a specially-inclined offensive support. The tendency for many offensive supports (like Rocky Helmet Tornadus-T) to run full investment in Speed and HP, rather than either Attack or Special Attack, also means that mixed sets are more appealing than they'd be to a mon that dedicates 252 EVs into one specific attacking type.

 

[Orig Stall Guy]

1. What are some notable trends among offensive support Pokemon stat-wise? What can we take away from that?

2. Up to this point, we've had very little to no idea about the offensive stat bias CAP27 will have, do you reckon we should focus on physical or special sweepiness? Or should the limits leave room for both options

Now that we have the ability, it time to discuss some stats.

1) That is a bit varied. They are either frail and fast, slow but bulky, and then some are in the middle. is super fast but relaitlvley frail owing its ability to tank hits due to Regenerator. TankChomp might be another example but I wouldn't call 108/95/85 bulk frail. For the latter, is my go to. As for those who are somewhere in the middle, CAP's Colossoil is a solid example. . 95 speed isn't that slow but not super fast and its quite bulky due to a high HP stat. In general, I think we need enough bulk to promote sufficient defensive utility but enough speed to outspeed key threats. For example, Therian was so fast that it didn't require 252 speed EV giving EV's for bulk or firepower.

2) Because our ability is regen, there is no inherent bias caused by ability. So instead Im doing this based on offensive STAB options.

Physical attacks:
Outrage
Dragon Tail
Breaking Swipe (for physical attack Control)
Dragon Claw
Flare Blitz
Fire Lash (super good move for this concept)

Special attacks:
Dracometeor
Dragon Pulse
Fire Blast
Flamethrower
Lava Plume (30% chance of burn)
Mystical fire (SpA control)

Both sides offer serious firepower with some risk or low power but solid support options. Personally think special is the better route because of Lava Plume but physical is also not a bad route to consider. There is also a mixed route to discuss. As stated by Roland, the chip dmg caused by Therians utility moves can help supplement a specially offensive pokemon.

 

[snake]

1. What are some notable trends among offensive support Pokemon stat-wise? What can we take away from that?

I'm going to take a look at two offensive Regenerator Pokemon from the past: Tornadus-T and Mienshao.

Their most utility focused sets are in these Gen 7 analyses:

https://www.smogon.com/dex/sm/pokemon/tornadus-therian/
https://www.smogon.com/dex/sm/pokemon/mienshao/

Both have really a good combination of speed and offense, as well as below-average bulk. They also have decent mixed attacking stats, even if they don't necessarily use them. I think following these trends would be an excellent way to preserve the idea of offensive support with Regenerator rather than creating something like Tangrowth, Toxapex, or Slowbro. While they can support offensive teams, they themselves are not offensive.

This comparison is not to say that we need to replicate Mienshao or Tornadus-T moveset-wise. But these are two very good past examples of offensive support with Regenerator.

2. Up to this point, we've had very little to no idea about the offensive stat bias CAP27 will have, do you reckon we should focus on physical or special sweepiness? Or should the limits leave room for both options?

I think it makes a lot of sense for CAP27 to have a higher physical bias than special. Let's take a look at the threatlist:

Switch-ins:
Pressure: :krillowatt: Faster Dragon-types
C&C: (General)
Checks: Faster Dragon-types
Counters
(Physical only)
(Special only)

Pokemon we want to have a positive matchup with like Corviknight, Clefable, Mollux, Equilibra, and Tyranitar are specially defensive. I'm especially looking at Corviknight, Clefable, Mollux, and Equilibra, which are high-profile threats in the current metagame. Pokemon we want to ideally lose to like Toxapex, Tomohawk, Arghonaut, and Hippowdon are more physically defensive. On top of this, Primarina is ranked relatively low on the VR compared to other counters, and Sylevon has recently been unranked from the CAP VR, so I'm not sure how much of counters they'll be for a special CAP27. While Seismitoad is generally run more physically defensive, specially defensive variants are very plausible to improve its matchup with Equilibra considerably. Ferrothorn also runs physically defensive sets, but given our 4x effective STAB, I don't think it really matters to Ferrothorn whether or not CAP27 is physical or special.

The overall trend with the threatlist is that we want to pressure/beat more specially defensive Pokemon, while we want to lose/be forced out by more physically defensive Pokemon. Thus, I think it makes more sense to be physically offensive so that we can more easily beat the Pokemon we want to beat and more easily be pressured by the Pokemon we want to lose to. I wouldn't be opposed to a mixed CAP27, but I definitely think that physical offense needs to take a greater focus than special offense.

 

[quziel]

1. What are some notable trends among offensive support Pokemon stat-wise? What can we take away from that?

So, lets look at a few; Thundurus-i (ORAS), Celebi (DPP), Tornadus-Therian (SM), Jumbao (SMCAP), Cinderace (SS). There's not really a common thread beyond all of them having good offensive spreads. All of these have relatively quick speed tiers, some more than others, enough bulk to come in on some attacks, and good offensive stats. Broadly this is similar to basically any other offensive mon that isn't a literal glass cannon. Basically we need enough speed and offenses to incentivize primarily offensive ev spreads, whether that's as silly as torn's 252 hp / 252 speed (though I don't view helmet torn as an offensive support, more of just a pivot), Celebi's "creep a threat, max spA, rest in HP", or the lightning bruiser spreads of Thundurus-I, Cinderace, and Jumbao. Practically I think this means we should be faster than some threat we need to outrun to beat.

2. Up to this point, we've had very little to no idea about the offensive stat bias CAP27 will have, do you reckon we should focus on physical or special sweepiness? Or should the limits leave room for both options?

I think physical is the safest bias here. Beating Corviknight is one thing that this typing naturally lends itself to, and well, that is easier done with high Attack rather than high Special Attack. Additionally, if we look at the rest of the switchin and pressure list and we note a few things; Going physical means we can pressure both spdef Clefable and Mollux far more efficiently, even if we can't easily switch into them. It means that we can pressure Equilibra more easily, same with Tyranitar. Basically, if you look at our pressure list, we get far more reliable pressure relationships from going physical as opposed to special, and going Physical means we can more reliably switch into and force out Corviknight.

 

[LucarioOfLegends]

1. What are some notable trends among offensive support Pokemon stat-wise? What can we take away from that?

Speed is a key factor for good offensive support. It allows you to get your support moves out first and significantly helps in the offensive pressure department. This is pretty much all I want to cover for now for this question, but I think we should be working making sure our PS and SS are decently high in the speed department.

2. Up to this point, we've had very little to no idea about the offensive stat bias CAP27 will have, do you reckon we should focus on physical or special sweepiness? Or should the limits leave room for both options?

We have been pretty in terms of actually deciding a bias, but I think it is about time we commit to something. As such, I think our main offensive bias should be physical. And the reasoning for that is our threats list.

Our threats list is generally filled with a lot of specially bulky stuff, particularly on our Pressure list. I remember we had the desire to be able to actively pressure them and beat them, however I do not think it is as reliable against stuff like Tyranitar, Clefable, and Mollux if we decide CAP should be specially biased. With physical attacks, I think our chances of pressuring these Pokemon are much higher.

A physical spread also helps better define our C&C, as that leaves three more mons as counters for us, those being Tomohawk, Arghonaut, and Hippowdon. I think considering our stab choices and the fact that this mon is meant to apply offensive pressure, I think it would be better to maximize our counters in this case and physical does that so.

 

[Pipotchi]

2. Up to this point, we've had very little to no idea about the offensive stat bias CAP27 will have, do you reckon we should focus on physical or special sweepiness? Or should the limits leave room for both options?

I think there should be room for both options, if you look at some of the stuff we want to beat, some work better with phys and some work better with special:

best to hit with a physical fire move (specially defensive mon)
best to hit with special dragon move (higher BP available)
either side is fine
best to hit with a special move (bulk up pokemon)
best to hit w physical fire move (could go spdef or cm)
either side is fine
either side is fine

some pressure mons that we wnt to hit physical:
some pressure mons we want to hit special: (sometimes )

For our checklist we could be more likely to preserve argho and tomo as checks if we go physical, however i think there is a balance that could be struck here to get the option of both. Since our checklist can be translated to bulky neutral walls (most of which have nice defenses on both sides) and faster pokemon, our choice of physical or special does not really cause us a lot of issues when it comes to beating stuff that should be beating us, at least as far as I can see right now.

Also a lot of utility attacks are available on both sides, and additional power behind these even non-STAB will help us perform our role better no matter which side we choose to specialise in. For instance you can see the additional impact of a u-turn from torn-t or dragapult (with natural higher atk stat) over the u-turn of volkraken even though none of these mons are investing in atk.

 

[Agile Turtle]

1. What are some notable trends among offensive support Pokemon stat-wise? What can we take away from that?

My personal take away from the concept: Attacking stats need to be high enough to facilitate the "offensive" part of offensive support, and speed helps with this as well. We'll also need good speed/good bulk or some mix of both to help facilitate the use of support moves. Logically, higher speed is both good for being offensive as well as getting off support moves.

Looking at pokemon that I consider to be good examples of offensive support:

Obviously with 27's ability I've got to start with Tornadus-Therian, as many people have brought up already:
-Good attacking stats
-Very high speed
-Kinda mediocre bulk
It works because it has good offensive stats and high speed, while regenerator helps to give it the longevity it needs. I think it's really important to note that Tornadus-T either invests in full HP and Speed or full Special Attack and speed, running full HP more often, so we need to account for that likely being the case with 27 as well if we continue to go in a similar direction to Tornadus-T.

Jumbao:
-High Special Attack
-Pretty good speed tier
-Good bulk
Jumbao definitely has the tools it needs to be both offensive and provide support. The attacking stats are there on top of good bulk, it's not super fast but being able to outspeed base 95s, a very congested speed tier, puts it in a really good spot I think.

Rotom (I'll use Rotom-H as my example since it's the most used currently, but it's applicable to all variants):
-Good Special Attack
-Respectable Speed Tier
-Mediocre bulk
Rotom I think is one of those mons that's good despite it's stats rather than because of them. And while I think its good typing and ability help it more than anything, it's got enough in the stats department, and it's got the right moves to work. Typically, unless scarf, Rotom runs full HP investment to pull off the pivot role it uses to help its team. It definitely hates being outsped by the likes of Excadrill, but 86 speed is by no means slow, and it works well for scarf variants. Even without running special attack investment, Rotom still hits hard, and can use nasty plot to help it wallbreak with its powerful overheat.

Incineroar:
-High Attack
-Slow Speed Tier
-Good Bulk
Incineroar is definitely on the slower end but it has intimidate and the bulk to make up for it. It has great attack to threaten with Blitzes and Knocks, while also having a really good supporting movepool.

Cinderace:
-High Attack
-High Speed
-Kinda bad bulk
Cinderace is definitely on the more offensive side than with its high attack stat and strong high base power attacking moves, but I think it's important to bring up because it is also on the frailer side. That threatening offensive presence definitely helps it get the opportunity to use court change, and Cinderace's really high speed definitely helps it both threaten a lot of mons it is faster than, but also helps it get off a court change just by being faster. Cinderace's low bulk is definitely not very conducive to a support pokemon, but it works because court change is highly impactful and isn't something that needs to be used repeatedly, mainly just once and maybe twice, more of a one-and-done situation.

There are plenty more examples I could bring up, but I think these few will help me explain what I want to say. I think there are quite a few directions we could go with this. The one thing all of these pokemon have in common is that they can hit hard, that's important for being offensive. But other than that there is no specific statline that we have to use in order to facilitate providing support. I think a lot of these mons show good stats definitely help them do their job, but rotom shows you can still do the job you need to even without particularly great stats.

In my opinion, the frail cinderace route isn't the way to go after we've put so much emphasis on repeated utility this whole process, but I don't think 27 needs bulk at the level Jumbao or Incineroar either, especially when we've got Regenerator. I do think realistically with the switchins outlined in our threatlist, we will need at least a pretty decent amount of physical bulk if we want to be able to take on the likes of Zeraora. Speed I think is really helpful for both being offensive and supportive, but I don't think we need to go one way or the other. My personal preference would definitely be on the faster side, but not at the level of like Cinderace or Tornadus.


2. Up to this point, we've had very little to no idea about the offensive stat bias CAP27 will have, do you reckon we should focus on physical or special sweepiness? Or should the limits leave room for both options?

I think, as many people have brought up, a physical bias definitely helps hit a lot of the mons we need to a lot better. I'm not opposed to special attacking, but we'd need higher special attack than we would attack to hit what we need to. I'm also not opposed to mixed potential with a physical bias to threaten things with draco meteor, but I don't think it's necessary.

 

[MrDollSteak]

I feel like there has already been great discussion surrounding question 1 and don't have much more to add except reiterating that I think the key to CAP 27 will be in having high speed, decent bulk and reasonable offenses taking particular inspiration from Tornadus-T.

2. Up to this point, we've had very little to no idea about the offensive stat bias CAP27 will have, do you reckon we should focus on physical or special sweepiness? Or should the limits leave room for both options?

I want to reiterate the discussion points by saying that I think a physical lean is preferable. Many of our checks are special in nature which makes Physical attack preferable. That being said, the generally superior high base power and lack of drawback moves on the special side could also work well in a general sense. I think the option to lean in either direction according to team composition and sets is pro concept, and would allow Cap 27 to be as offensively supportive as possible, and as such will recommend having a fairly high physical and special attacking stat.

 

[Orig Stall Guy]

Going back to point 1, I want to look at Regen pokemon stats.

Snake had already pointed out and as 2 great examples of offensives support mons with regen. Both have high speed, good mixed attacking stats, but below average bulk (especially ). But other regen mons most notably and are very slow but very bulky yet still have good attacking stats to work with. Based on these previous examples, regen mons tend to fall in 2 categories. Basically glass cannons or tanks.

Even non-regen offensive support mons like , , and follow these trends.
In general for support mons, speed is a critical stats to consider. Which is why I want to bring up Offensive Support mons that are a bit more rounded in terms of stat spreads.

Pokemon like , , (kind of) , and have shown off to be very effective. Statwise, I would define these pokes as quite well rounded and not nearly as extreme as the examples I listed earlier. These Pokemon have solid bulk (but not Tangrowth or Slow levels of bulk), a high singular attack stat (except and maybe Chomp?), but speed stats that are not super fast but not super slow (86-102). They can and have run 252 ev +spreads or EV to creep specific threats. I like this a lot because not only does this add variance in EV spreads, it also frees up EV's for bulk or power. Also, by not being to fast, the risk of 27 becoming a pure offensive mon should decrease a bit.

While some historical examples like Mien, Therian, Tang, and Chomp have shown that a mixed spread is viable, I am not 100% sold because instead of our offensive support mon being super hard hitting on 1 side, its mediocre in both. You could make both atk stats high, but that cuts into bulk and again pushes the offensive aspect of 27 at the expense of support.

 

[snake]

I am not 100% sold because instead of our offensive support mon being super hard hitting on 1 side, its mediocre in both. You could make both atk stats high, but that cuts into bulk and again pushes the offensive aspect of 27 at the expense of support.

I don't necessarily agree with this. Remember, Tornadus-T had decent mixed offensive stats, decent bulk, and really good speed. While we don't necessarily have to emulate everything about Tornadus-T, we don't need our attacking stats to be overwhelmingly large to be considered "offensive." To encourage offensive support, I actually think Speed is the most important thing here, as that can swing momentum into CAP27's team's favor the best. Next, CAP27 should have decent - not great but not terrible - attacking stats. The opponent should think, "Ok I respect CAP27's damage output, but it's not going to necessarily just sweep through my team." This is how Tornadus-T was, and I'm sure that AV set Mienshao set was similar. After the attack and speed, the bulk needs to be enough so that CAP27 isn't extremely fragile, but likely not going to tank a lot of repeated neutral blows. Again, I'm not saying we HAVE to go mixed. I'm supporting physically offensive or physically-biased mixed. But I don't think being "mediocre" in both attacking stats is necessarily bad.

Pokemon like , , (kind of) , and have shown off to be very effective. Statwise, I would define these pokes as quite well rounded and not nearly as extreme as the examples I listed earlier. These Pokemon have solid bulk (but not Tangrowth or Slow levels of bulk), a high singular attack stat (except and maybe Chomp?), but speed stats that are not super fast but not super slow (86-102). They can and have run 252 ev +spreads or EV to creep specific threats. I like this a lot because not only does this add variance in EV spreads, it also frees up EV's for bulk or power. Also, by not being to fast, the risk of 27 becoming a pure offensive mon should decrease a bit.

The difference between these Pokemon and CAP27 is that CAP27 has Regenerator. I feel like the slower and bulkier we make CAP27, the more likely it's going to ditch the whole offensive concept and go on the defensive. If the choice of missing the mark on the concept is either "CAP27 ended up going defensive" or "CAP27 was a little more offensive than desired" - I'd much rather skew towards we made it too offensive.

 

[Orig Stall Guy]

I don't necessarily agree with this. Remember, Tornadus-T had decent mixed offensive stats, decent bulk, and really good speed. While we don't necessarily have to emulate everything about Tornadus-T, we don't need our attacking stats to be overwhelmingly large to be considered "offensive." To encourage offensive support, I actually think Speed is the most important thing here, as that can swing momentum into CAP27's team's favor the best. Next, CAP27 should have decent - not great but not terrible - attacking stats. The opponent should think, "Ok I respect CAP27's damage output, but it's not going to necessarily just sweep through my team." This is how Tornadus-T was, and I'm sure that AV set Mienshao set was similar. After the attack and speed, the bulk needs to be enough so that CAP27 isn't extremely fragile, but likely not going to tank a lot of repeated neutral blows. Again, I'm not saying we HAVE to go mixed. I'm supporting physically offensive or physically-biased mixed. But I don't think being "mediocre" in both attacking stats is necessarily bad.

Thank you so much for your reply to my points snake_rattler and I realized some of my thoughts were not fleshed out or some are just...off.
Im so used to Rocky Helmet Pivot Therian, forgot sets like offensive Z move set has solid dmg output. That was quite absent minded of me. I def agree with speed being extremely important to 27, just wary of it being to fast. Which is why I kind of liked the stats spreads of or because their speed stats are good but not overbearing. Little confused on what you mean by attack stats don't have to be super big to be "offensive." Isn't an offensive mon "offensiveness" defined by the inherent BP of their moves and attacking stat? As for the mixed spread, that was an assumption based off historic examples. Just to clarify, Im not saying a mixed spread isn't an bad thing and to shoot it down, just not sold on it right now. That can def change if someone pitches a solid mixed spread.

I feel like the slower and bulkier we make CAP27, the more likely it's going to ditch the whole offensive concept and go on the defensive. If the choice of missing the mark on the concept is either "CAP27 ended up going defensive" or "CAP27 was a little more offensive than desired" - I'd much rather skew towards we made it too offensive.

Yeah thats quite the delicate dance the stat speed has to be. Personally think a defensive skew is not bad as to offensive but saying that aloud made me realize of how off concept that sounded.

 

[Deck Knight]

1. What are some notable trends among offensive support Pokemon stat-wise? What can we take away from that?

The best thing about offensive support Pokemon over the generations is that they tended to be pretty stable. They were never Mega Pokemon utilized in Gen 6, and while there were Z-Crystal sets for Torn-T, that was as much for the power boost as it was to blunt Knock Off. One issue we're going to run into is that so many of those Pokemon are very well rounded and fairly strong, a dangerous combination with Regenerator.

I do think there is a significant split in build, though. The slower an offensive support Pokemon, the more prone it is to a breaker or sweeper role. Good examples here are and , which used Rapid Spin and Knock Off respectively but also employ Swords Dance. We've also made a few CAP Pokemon that have an offensive support role, was practically designed for this style of play, as was . It's difficult to call Colossoil "slow" but is is below the 100 Spe Tier.

One model I do really like for an offensive support Pokemon is . It's not in the SS Dex yet, but it has a lot of good qualities we have or would want to replicate. High speed, credible enough defenses, a useful offensive stat with access to a high-powered STAB, and an ability that assists it in performing an offensive support role (Natural Cure removes status, Regenerator restores HP). It couldn't really keep up with power creep in Gen 6 and 7 leading it to become UU, but it had been OU for all prior generations. We would need to calibrate 27 for the SS Metagame, but Starmie is nearly ideal example of a Pokemon that opponents had to respect offensively even as it provided team support. Starmie also offers an example of potential pitfalls, as it has also had multiple Bulky Spinner type support sets that trended closer to defensive support. Even those sets, however, banked on Speed to provide support.

2. Up to this point, we've had very little to no idea about the offensive stat bias CAP27 will have, do you reckon we should focus on physical or special sweepiness? Or should the limits leave room for both options?

As a matter of the actual Sweepiness rating, both will need to be sufficient to allow for a good speed tier. A slight to moderate Physical Attacking bias appears more useful, as the vast majority of offensive support moves are physically based, our pressure list broadly has a more difficult time with physical attacks, and a more physical bias exposes us to more solid checks and counters. Given both Corvinknight and Clefable are on our Pressure list and they use SpD EVs + Bulk Up and Def EVs + Calm Mind, breaking Clefable with physical STABs should be easier, but raw power on Special STAB can keep Corviknight at bay. I think we ought to have to make an investment choice to beat one or the other more efficiently, but we still need offensive stats high enough to address these threats more naturally.

 

[Voltage]

There have been a lot of posts that really echo exactly how I feel about this topic here, so I won't go over too many things, but I still would like to throw my hat in the ring here.

2. Up to this point, we've had very little to no idea about the offensive stat bias CAP27 will have, do you reckon we should focus on physical or special sweepiness? Or should the limits leave room for both options?

I, like most, believe that CAP27 had ought to have some physical sweepiness bias here. MAy of our supposed pressures such as Clef and Mollux, absolutely cannot opt to take too many hits from the physical side and are inherently biased towards Special Defense. I also think that in terms of movepool, (which I will avoid naming specific moves for now) a physical bias gives us access to a lot more options to really fulfill this concept in a meaningful way. That's not to say that tere are definitely benefits to having a special movepool option as well, but I think that in the grand scheme of things, CAP27 had ought to be biased towards a physically offensive stat spread.

With that in mind, I'm not opposed to giving CAP27 the ability to go mixed if it absolutely wanted. There's been some discussion of this in the Discord, but I think it's not unreasonable to consider that there may be some benefits to having some sort of special nuke from a lower base special attack stat. I like to think of Helmet Chomp on this one, ashown in the set below:

Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast
- Toxic

Despite Chomp having a Base 130 attack and only a base 80 Special Attack, Chomp still ran Fire Blast to threaten some Mons resistances/immunities to ground STAB (Skarm, Celesteela, Scizor, Ferro, etc.). We can also look at an ORAS set for Chomp inthis case as well and see that Fire Blast is a slashed option for a final moveslot simply due to the assistance it can provide for a team.

Garchomp @ Lum Berry
Ability: Rough Skin
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly / Naive Nature
- Stealth Rock
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw / Outrage
- Swords Dance / Fire Blast

It's the fact that Chomp, despite being clearly more physically attacking-biased from its stats, can choose to run a move like this is what makes it so good in its role in my opinion. In the case of CAP27, while I personally don't expect it to get much coverage options, we have some incredibly powerful special STABs that are possible to get in later stages. Maybe I'm making the argument for special bias more than I want, but I think that we should avoid completely minimizing one of our attacking stats.

In any case, I'll be working on some stat spread that keep this consideration in mind, though I look forward to see our BSR limits when they're presented.

 

[Jordy]

It's become pretty apparent that people are looking for a physically offensive bias, a fast Speed tier, and relatively middling bulk. I'm very happy with the discussion so far as it's outlined a very clear path. I think we're about ready to start discussing limits.

Here's a few things to consider that I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts on.

1. Many people have expressed some concern with being too strong, or too fast, which could lead to diverging CAP27 from its concept. What level of sweepiness, both physically and specially, with a physical bias, should we aim for to maintain being a support Pokemon?

2. People have also expressed that they don't think CAP27 should be very bulky, not like Toxapex or Tangrowth, but more along the likes of Pokemon like Tornadus-T and Mienshao. What PT and ST do you reckon would be a good benchmark for the limits?

 

[Agile Turtle]

Glad to have a BSR calculator updated for SS!

1. Many people have expressed some concern with being too strong, or too fast, which could lead to diverging CAP27 from its concept. What level of sweepiness, both physically and specially, with a physical bias, should we aim for to maintain being a support Pokemon?

The beauty of having such great coverage with just your STABs means you aren't left needing coverage, so theres always room for support moves. I generally disagree with the notion that this thing can be too offensive without going way overboard with stats, but I do think there comes a point were it just becomes unnecessary, and we shouldn't just make it super strong for the sake of it. I think realistically, with Tornadus-T running sets with full HP and Speed investment as well as full Special Attack and Speed investment, we should expect that 27 will also do the same. We should make sure that even when 27's attacking stat is uninvested it still has a respectable damage output that we can consider offensive.

I've been playing around with stats and calcs and so far I've been fine with Physical Sweepiness at ~190 and ~195, so I think an upper limit of 200 on physical sweepiness would probably be okay. However Tornadus-T has a Special Sweepiness rating of ~212 so I that's probably a good case to set the upper Physical Sweepiness limit closer to 210. I've seen many people say they don't consider Rocky Helmet Tornadus-T (the one with full HP investment) offensive enough to be considered "offensive support" so there could be a case for setting it even higher, but I'm not convinced we should.

Special Sweepiness is definitely a lot less important for what we're trying to accomplish, and I haven't run too many calcs with it, so I don't have anything to say about that at the moment.


2. People have also expressed that they don't think CAP27 should be very bulky, not like Toxapex or Tangrowth, but more along the likes of Pokemon like Tornadus-T and Mienshao. What PT and ST do you reckon would be a good benchmark for the limits?

We certainly have to have some level of bulk to switchin, but with regenerator we can be a little more forgiving on that front. The problem with bulky regenerator mons, especially Toxapex, is they're annoying as hell to kill, and we definitely don't need to be emulating that. Mienshao is too frail for what we need, but Tornadus-T is a little more up our alley. Tornadus-T has a Physical Tankiness rating of ~116, and a special tankiness rating of ~136. With mons like Zeraora on our switchin list, I think we are looking at more emphasis on physical tankiness rather than special tankiness. From stats I've been playing around with, ~134 physical tankiness works okay for me, and I've been satisfied with ~115 special tankiness. A limit of 140 Physical Tankiness and 120 Special Tankiness would probably be just fine, but the physical tankiness rating could maybe go higher to help the matchups with stronger physical attackers *cough* zeraora *cough*

 

[Deck Knight]

I just want to reiterate that if you are making suggestions, please use the updated calculator. BSR ratings have changed drastically since the last iteration because all ratings are relative to existing metagame Pokemon. If you want to use examples of Pokemon not in the calculator (example Starmie or Torn-T), make sure to run their statline through the updated calculator like Agile Turtle did. Ratings used in past discussions do not chart directly to ratings suggested here.

1. Many people have expressed some concern with being too strong, or too fast, which could lead to diverging CAP27 from its concept. What level of sweepiness, both physically and specially, with a physical bias, should we aim for to maintain being a support Pokemon?

Based on Pokemon similar in concept, I believe an upper limit of 205 PSweep and 180 SSweep would be appropriate. These allow for spreads generally in the range where Speed and Attack can both exceed 100 without exceeding 120. This is roughly the same level of PSweep as Excadrill (206.16), and about 3% less than Cinderace (212.59) for comparison. Definitely enough to be offensively threatening, not enough to become a sweeper without enabling via movepool, which we can avoid. On the special side, it's a little better than Galvantula (175.30), and a little less than Noivern (183.49). Perfectly reasonable offensive benchmarks with our high-powered Special STABs, but not sweepers without a boosting move.

Represented as a table, this is where those limits roughly maximize:

205 PSweep, 180 SSweep
Spd Atk SpA
125 111 94
120 112 95
115 113 96
110 114 97
105 118 100
100 120 102
95  125 106
90  130 110
85  136 115

I think this is enough wiggle room to allow credible fast, offensive spreads or slower spreads with better mixed capability. It might even be too generous on SpA, but I think realistically being able to push that limit while staying in the spirit of a physical bias is a good option.

2. People have also expressed that they don't think CAP27 should be very bulky, not like Toxapex or Tangrowth, but more along the likes of Pokemon like Tornadus-T and Mienshao. What PT and ST do you reckon would be a good benchmark for the limits?

Tankiness can be almost directly converted into calculations. In order to tank 2 Corviknight Brave Birds without investment, the Pokemon need a PTank of ~132. I think we should be very, very careful with bulk considering Regenerator, and can't recommend going much higher than that on PTank because, again, this is without Defensive investment. This is a little stronger than Base Gyarados (129.68), and a little weaker than Mollux (136.12). I think an upper limit of 140 is warranted. Enough breathing room if you really think physical defense is imperative, not enough to encourage more defensive support play.

Special Tankiness on the other hand I find much more important given our Pressure list. 27 will be switching into Scalds and eating a lot of powerful Sludge Bombs (Mollux), and Moonblasts (Jumbao, Clef, Kerf), and can't just fall over to Earth Power on coverage (Krilowatt) or get wrecked eating a Doom Desire that was put up. The physical threats on our list trend slower and we either resist (Zeraora) or are weak to their STABs (Terrrakion), the special threats trend faster, or else tend to carry coverage that can give us problems and their STABs are neutral (Kerfluffle, Stratagem [weak to], Krilowatt). I genuinely think a STankiness rating of 175 will allows CAP to achieve its goals. This is around the level of Volkraken (176.27), Pajantom (174.35) and Jumbao (173.27), all Pokemon that usually invest offensively but might exercise some specific bulkier spreads. CAP 27 still needs to be able to come in on some opponents to do its job, it can't afford to slash into both defenses too heavily. It can only switch out to benefit from Regenerator if it actually survives being in play.

 

[Roland le preaux]

1. Many people have expressed some concern with being too strong, or too fast, which could lead to diverging CAP27 from its concept. What level of sweepiness, both physically and specially, with a physical bias, should we aim for to maintain being a support Pokemon?

We should be very careful approaching Tornadus-T's sweepiness levels. We have a much better offensive typing, with far more reliable moves available than Hurricane. I would suggest a Physical Sweepiness limit a bit lower than what Deck Knight proposed. 190 seems like the highest level necessary to me, and I doubt my personal stat sub will reach that. In terms of Special Sweepiness, I'd like to see something lower but still usable in the metagame for an offensive mon. 170 is a number that works for me based on the damage calcs that I have been running and the speed tiers that I think are appropriate for CAP 27.

2. People have also expressed that they don't think CAP27 should be very bulky, not like Toxapex or Tangrowth, but more along the likes of Pokemon like Tornadus-T and Mienshao. What PT and ST do you reckon would be a good benchmark for the limits?

I think a Physical Tankiness limit of 140 is acceptable to avoid the 2HKO from Corvinkinght's Brave Bird and non-Life Orb Zeraora's Close Combat. A Special Tankiness limit of 160 is reasonable for tanking 2 Hydro Pumps from uninvested Rotom-Wash and 2 Sludge Bombs from uninvested Mollux, assuming the first one doesn't poison us. I don't think we need to tank 2 Moonblasts from offensive Jumbao given that our sweepiness levels will likely allow us to outspeed and OHKO the Grass-type without much trouble.

As usual, I would like us to be cautious during this stage and make sure we leave enough power budget for the moveset stage. It's important that we can actually provide the necessary support tools to fulfill the concept.

 

[Yay61]

1. Many people have expressed some concern with being too strong, or too fast, which could lead to diverging CAP27 from its concept. What level of sweepiness, both physically and specially, with a physical bias, should we aim for to maintain being a support Pokemon?
I think it is reasonable to assume that to make the best use of its mixed offences and support capabilities that cap27 will invest in hp and speed. I also think it’d be better to end up too offensive rather than defensive as if this pokemon is designed to be able take neutral hits without investment and has regenerator it will likely end up investing in bulk and be more defensive. I also don’t think being too offensive is an issue we’ll face as our stabs will have supporting effects no matter how much damage we can do and even the most offensive pokemon like dragapult and gengar still make effective use of statuses and taunt to support. Due to this and the lower base power of moves with good secondary effects, I think our physical sweepiness should be around 210 or possibly higher if we’re careful. As for special sweepiness, I think a value around 170 or lower should be okay but if others want more specially oriented sets then it could go higher.

2. People have also expressed that they don't think CAP27 should be very bulky, not like Toxapex or Tangrowth, but more along the likes of Pokemon like Tornadus-T and Mienshao. What PT and ST do you reckon would be a good benchmark for the limits?
Again, if cap 27 invests in health then it really doesn’t need much bulk to take hits from pokemon like Mollux and Corviknight, especially with regenerator. I personally only have around 115 tankiness for each and with health investment Corviknight’s Brave bird / Zeraora’s CC is easily not a 2hko. So I’d say around 130 or above is okay for the limits but ultimately it all depends on what ev spreads people want and whether we should risk it becoming either overly offensive or defensive. Greater tankiness rankings across the board can allow us more flexibility for different submissions but I think much higher is excessive.

 

[Voltage]

A short study into the HP Stat, RR Numbers and optimal HP Base Stats CAP27 should have.​

Basically I was thinking about how we can choose to optimize the HP stat of CAP 27. Sure, it'll likely, be running Heavy Duty Boots, but in the event of other items, being held, it seems smart to want to maximize the times we can switch in on Rocks while still getting the maximium amount of regen recovery. Since Regen recovers 33% of total health and rocks are doing 25% to us on switch in, and that both of these will round down, we want to make sure that we will always have 1 HP remaining on rocks switch ins and that we're not wasting HP on Regen switches. For you math nerds out there, this means our value of HP needs to be:

mod(HP,3) = 0 && mod(HP,4) =1

​

This is a pretty basic congruence relation that yields a linear system where our HP needs to be divisible by three, and needs to have 1 point of HP left over after 4 rocks switch-ins. I've therefore plotted all of these values on the first plot below to effectively visualize what I'm working with. This plot shows the effective Rocks/Regen Number (RR Number) that the HP would need to be.

Figure 1: The Plot of the numerical uninvested HP stat vs. its Bases Stat value


RR = 2*(Base HP) + 141 for 0 HP EVs, HP ∈ N > 1

​

So for example, an RR number is hit when there are 0 EVs and the Base HP stat is divisible by 6. It should also be noted that RR Numbers are also hit from these base stats every 48 EVs, so a Base 72 HP mon with 48 HP EVs would have an HP value of 297 total HP, the next RR Number in line. I haven't done the math for the cases where you have Base HPs that aren't divisible by 6, but if I had to guess you would just add 48-mod(BaseHP,6)*8 EVs to hit your RR Number appropriately. In anycase this should be taken into account when we eventually do moveset submissions since you'll be wanting to hit RR Numbers on your sets whenever possible.

I've also plotted how much damage you'd take from a rocks and recover from regen based on the RR Numbers, though the axes might be a little weird. I did this in my spare time and have better things to do so sue me. You can choose the HP values you want to recover from Regen and find the corresponding RR value (which might be useful against Seismic Toss users I guess) Yellow lines however represent the values where you have an RR number.

Figure 2: Regen Recovery and Stealth Rock Damage for CAP27 for uninvested HP values

​

What's there to gain from all this? Well I plan on having my stat submission have its HP value from the x-axis of figure 1. This would effectively optimize CAP27's HP stat such that it could run uninvested HP statlines and still be optimized for Rocks and Regen. Note that these values do not take into account the fractional damage from LO and optimization for Toxic damage, though that's just finding a value that's mod(HP,10)=1 for LO mod(HP,16)=1 respectively (don't quote me on toxic damage). Again, also note that this is a not general case and only works for CAP27 and other rocks weak mons. A different typing will require a different modulo value (neutral mod(HP,8)=1, 4x weak mod(HP,2) =1, etc.) which isn't hard to calculate, but would change the RR numbers accordingly.


Voltage out.

 

[Jordy]

What's up everyone. I don't really have any more questions and think we have a very good idea of what we're looking for here already. Here are the preliminary stat limits.

Preliminary Stat Limits

PT: 130

ST: 130

PS: 215

SS: 170

Total BSR: 350*

*Because of the limited pool of Pokemon in SS, and the fact that CAP 27 is looking to be a fast Pokemon, the BSR is generally going to be inflated. It seems like it's significantly more than Jumbao or Equilibra's BSR, for example, but, in reality, it is not.

Please let me know what you think of these stat limits. They are ofcourse subject to change.

 

[Jordy]

Something that's been brought to my attention is that the PS and SS do not go up if you keep increasing Speed beyond the fastest Pokemon in the game, which is in this case Zeraora. Don't get your hopes up because I'm pre emptively setting a hard limit on 144 base Speed.

With that said, I'd like to know whether you believe this is a reasonable Speed limit at all; should it be lowered?

 

[Roland le preaux]

PT: 130

ST: 130

PS: 215

SS: 170

Total BSR: 350*

I really like the direction of these limits. My biggest issue is that I think the PT limit should be increased to 140 in order to tank 2 Brave Birds from uninvested Corviknight. I think given how dominant Corv is in the meta right now, that benchmark is particularly relevant to ensure that it remains a switch-in for CAP 27.

I think the SS limit is perfect, although the PS still seems too high. It does not seem to match the discussion that has been had on this thread so far. Also, there seems to be this idea that no matter how offensive we are, we'll still be a support as long as we only run our 2 STABs and the other 2 moveslots are dedicated to support moves. I think this notion does not take into account general balance concerns. Our STAB combination is really oppressive, and if our offensive stats are too good we run the risk of having to deny important support tools during the moveset stage for fear of creating an overbearing CAP.

As for a hard Speed limit, I would suggest that we go no higher than 141. I want to leave room for diverse stat submissions, but outspeeding Dragapult or Zeraora seems ridiculous and unnecessary. All of the offensive supports we identified during concept assessment are outsped by common sweepers in their tiers.

 

[quziel]

Seconding Roland's post; given that Corv is on our switchins list, and that well, beating corv is likely to be a thing this CAP excels at, I think we should be able to at least take 2 uninvested Brave Birds from us. Even though its often switching to Iron Head over Brave Bird, the ability to take 2 of those really solidifies our matchup against it, and really means that its part of our Switch In list, rather than a mon that would arguably fit a pressure matchup (given that we're unlikely to straight up OHKO it). As such I'd like to argue for a raise to at least 140 PT, if not a tiny bit higher, as that is the minimum needed to take 2 BBs. I think the other limits are generally fine, allowing bulkier spreads to pretty comfortably avoid the 2HKO from uninvested Clefable, which I think is something we need to be able to do to really qualify spdef Clef as a pressure matchup.

PS and SS limits are def also fine for the purposes of allowing faster variants of this mon to work, as well as the BSR being set well to allow for some mixed builds to work.