CAP 29 - Part 8 - Stat Limits Discussion

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I agree with the total BSR being raised to either 590 or 595, as with the strong desire for 29's stats to be good across the board, 585 makes it difficult to find a suitable balance for all of 29's stats. In particular, speed is a notable issue, as at certain thresholds it dramatically increases the BSR, especially when in tandem with the high attacking stats 29 desires. Personally, I ask that the BSR be raised to 595, but can work with 590 as well.
 

spoo

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It hasn't even been a full 8 hours since I initially posted, but there are some important updates to relay-
(I've had mixed responses from TLT/Mods on whether Calm Mind still needs to be the focus, Coil spreads need to at least give lip service to Calm Mind, or that we can ignore Calm Mind completely).
Thanks for bringing this up. There has been some confusion here and especially in our discord server about the legality of Coil sets (understandably so) and I want to be very clear about what's allowed and what isn't. Calm Mind being "Required" and Coil being "Optional" essentially means that you may not ignore the viability of Calm Mind sets if you choose to focus on Coil, however, you may ignore the viability of Coil sets if you pursue Calm Mind. It is completely fine if a set is clearly focusing on Coil, and attempts to make Coil sets more viable than Calm Mind ones; though, it still must not ignore Calm Mind entirely, and Calm Mind sets should always at least be viable on paper.

I apologize if there was any miscommunication along the way that conveyed that something other than this was true. Defining Moves is of course still a new stage, and we're still ironing out what "Required" vs "Optional" really means, and the attitude with which we should approach that dichotomy. I also acknowledge that it's very hard to draw the line between where a Coil-centric set starts to border on outright ignoring Calm Mind––for right now, I'll be suggesting a hard floor of 95 SpA, and to make sure that any Coil set triggers as "Mixed" under "Offense Category (OCAT)" but as always, do let me know if that number needs to be tweaked. I hope this explanation helps a bit and if anyone is still in need of clarification then don't hesitate to say so. Moving on to a few other things:

This pokemon is likely to spend a lot of turns both using recovery moves, and facing recovery move users, which means we should modify the t parameter to account for that. Currently the t-parameter is set at an "expected number of turns to KO" of 2.0. I believe we should increase this to 3.0 to reflect the reality that one recovery move (aka 50% more HP) will be likely used in a typical interaction between us and a hypothetical opponent. This can be accomplished by modifying the "Expected number of targets" value in the spreadsheet from 1.5 to 1.0. This then changes the resulting Sweepiness graph as shown below.
I'm on board with this change––the T value is left open to be changed by the TLT on a by-project basis, and based on your reasoning here, this change seems like it'll be for the best.
So, for everyone else looking at the BSR calculator, you'll need to navitage to the "Turns value (T)" page and change "Expected no. of targets" from 1.5 to 1. It may take a few seconds for your calculator to update, but in effect, this should ultimately grant faster offensive spreads some appreciated extra freedom.

There are a few things here that are different from previous stat limits stages. I talked a bit with the TLT and, because of the combined "Sweepiness" stat in the new BSR, I felt it wasn't really necessary to propose individual PS and SS limits. The second question in my last post implied this could happen for PS, but I'll be doing it for SS as well.

Instead of proposing two different PS and SS, I'm suggesting an initial Sweepiness of 125 along with a hard ceiling of 135 for Attack, 140 for Special Attack, and 120 for Speed. Because none of this is final, though, please feel free to discuss whether this is the right way to go about things or whether we should be doing individual PS and SS as usual, as opposed to just S + base stat ceilings. (As a reminder, you can see Sweepiness under the "toggle offenses" dropdown in the BSR calculator.)
This is the final thing I want to address. So, I've been discussing some more with the TLT and mulling things over myself and I'd like to just have PS and SS limits instead of S + caps for the base stats. I apologize for any confusion caused by going back on this so soon, but I figure that there's no point in waiting, and doing it the usual way should just be simpler overall. The intial PS and SS I'll be proposing is 140 for both of them, along with the hard cap on Speed not exceeding 120. Furthermore, I agree with the general consensus that our BSR should be raised, so I'll be bumping our preliminary BSR limit up to 590; combined with the effect from changing the T value, this should hopefully give enough freedom to stat submitters, but nothing is set in stone yet.

There was admittedly a good bit to go over in this post so as a quick summation:
Update your BSR calculators by changing the "Expected no. of targets" to '1'
Coil sets are perfectly fine as long as CM isn't completely discarded
And our new preliminary limits are:
PS 140
SS 140
PT: 135
ST: 130
BSR: 590
Speed must not exceed 120 and SpA must not fall below 95
 

dex

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our new preliminary limits are:
PS 140
SS 140
PT: 135
ST: 130
BSR: 590
This may not be the majority consensus, but I think the special tankiness limit should be higher. Looking at the BSR of other CM sweepers, there is a distinct trend towards the specially tanky side. Getting a stronger benefit from the CM SpD boost is quite nice, especially considering that most CM sets will likely have some Def investment barring a ridiculous speed stat, so I would propose switching the PT and ST values to up the ability of CM spreads that look to take advantage of the boost.

As a summary, CAP 29 benefits more from having a higher SpD than Def, and the limits should reflect that.
 
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MrDollSteak

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Just want to add that I don't see any major problems, I think that all of the current stat limits are fine. The tankiness limits are already more than generous enough on both the physical and special side of things to take on our switch ins, as are our PS and SS limits. I think we can get a pretty large amount of diversity in existing spreads with these limits, and I can't see any major benefits to raising them. That being said, after some further testing I think that a slight bump of the BSR limit up to 595 would be a good idea, as there have been a few interesting spreads that have fallen just slightly above 590 (I'm talking 590.2 and 590.5 for example), as well as the fact that a lot of the sets that favour fire power over bulkiness tend to fall in the roughly 593 range.

It is also worth keeping in mind that even though the amendment to the t value does mean that the spreads more or less within our expected speed range of 85-120 are not punished as much as they were using the original t, the slower spreads will in fact end up with higher BSRs than they would otherwise, and a limit of 595 would therefore also allow a slightly bit more flexibility with far tankier slow spreads should anyone feel the need to submit them.
 

Wulfanator

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I think Spoo had the BSR limits right in the first place. The jump to 590 BSR was more than generous and should provide enough flexibility to allow users the ability to build a variety of unique spreads for CAP29 that avoid riding the BSR limit. Anything more is unnecessary.

In regards to the required vs optional issues, users should build spreads with a CM set as the primary function of CAP29 and Coil as an optional secondary set. Coil should not overshadow CM. If you have to gimp necessary benchmarks to make the optional Coil set work similar to Tommaniacal's example, perhaps its time to reconsider your spread.

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Yes.
 

Birkal

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In regards to the required vs optional issues, users should build spreads with a CM set as the primary function of CAP29 and Coil as an optional secondary set. Coil should not overshadow CM. If you have to gimp necessary benchmarks to make the optional Coil set work similar to Tommaniacal's example, perhaps its time to reconsider your spread.
There's a small difference here between Wulf's opinion here and what 2spoopy4u stated previously about required versus optional moves. In spoo's words, we are indeed still "ironing out" what these two words mean for the Create-A-Pokemon Project, and I think it'd be ill-advised to pidgeonhole them so quickly. Calm Mind is a required move, yes, but we're not at a point in the process where we can accurately determine that Calm Mind should be on CAP29's primary set. Coil might end up being the ideal set, or even a 3-attack + recovery set, but we can't predict 100% how that will play out right now at this stage in the process. The community consensus is that we'd like CM to be a significant part of CAP29's game plan, but that plan shouldn't necessarily exclude other paths at this time.

This is a prime example of us getting too 'lost in the weeds' in the middle of a CAP process. It's tempting to say that CAP29 needs to be a bulky sweeper; that's what we determined in Concept Assessment 2, right? Well, yes and no. As a community, we determined at that time that being a bulky sweeper would give CAP29 the best chance of actualizing its concept of making a viable Pokemon with a defective ability (and even perhaps working with that ability). But if CAP29 ends up being most viable with a non-setup primary set, I would still consider that a 'win' for this concept. It feels even more pedantic to mandate that CAP29 needs to prefer one setup move over another in order to achieve its concept. There's clearly more than one way to fulfill this concept, so I find it ill-advised to limit those avenues.

Let me be clear: Calm Mind should absolutely be a viable move on CAP29, and any stat spread submissions that completely ignore this move are against what we've decided earlier on in this process with Defining Moves. But it feels disingenuous to require this early on that CAP29's CM set should be preferred over Coil. We don't know much about how a Color Change CAP is going to function in the metagame, so let's keep our options a bit more option for our stat contributors.

Finally, I agree with MrDollSteak that an increase to 595 would be appreciate. If you're playing with higher speed, the T-value shift certainly helps (reminder: change your Expected Number of Targets in the last page of the spreadsheet from 1.5 to 1, as spoo recommended). But even with this modification, it can be difficult to cram in the required bulk while maintaining speed and a decent SpA. I don't think it would hurt to raise the ceiling to 595 BSR or even 600 BSR for one simple reason: spoo has set a preliminary ceiling on Attack (130), Special Attack (140), and Speed (120). Raising the BSR at this point doesn't feel particularly harmful, as those hard limits (which are great, imo) will probably do more to limit CAP29 at this point, from my perspective. 590 BSR is totally workable, but I don't think it's too scary to bump that up +5 or +10 either. Jumbao, Garchomp, and Latios all would still have a higher BSR than us, and those mons all have non-defective abilities.
 
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quziel

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I believe that 590 is fine for spreads that take some of the weaker defining moves, but that a spread taking few or none of them would be better off with 595, ergo I am supporting a raise to 595 BSR. I would also like to request a symmetrization of the bulk limits, that is, allowing for a maximum of 135 ST for spreads that want to focus primarily on special walling, or even slower far bulkier spreads. Looking at Calcs the change in BSR would be roughly a 2.5% increase in bulk (keeping sweepiness constant) for reasonable spreads, and that is something that would be appreciated here.

I am asking to Increase BSR to 595.

I would also like to just note that we should be decreasing our spreads power if we take some of the stronger defining moves, eg I don't think a spread should come anywhere near to 595 if its taking Strength Sap.

Edit: How to change T value:

Open the BSR Calc and navigate to the Turns-Value (T) sheet:

1616176976919.png

Change "Expected no. of targets" from 1.5 to 1.0. Your Calc should match the below:
1616176935990.png
 

spoo

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Alright, here are the final limits I've concluded on.

Code:
PS: 140
SS: 140
PT: 135
ST: 130
BSR: 595

Maximum Speed stat: 120
Minimum SpA stat: 95
The major thing you'll notice is that the BSR has once again received a slight boost of 5 points, bringing it to 595. In all honesty, I believe that 590 would have served our needs perfectly fine; however, it really comes down to whether we'd like to err on the side of restraint or not, and I believe that this isn't the right time to do so. CAP29 already faces numerous challenges at this stage in the design process so I'd like to not be holding us back any further than necessary with our BSR. MrDollSteak and quziel also brought up some great points, in that a small increase to 595 allows for more spreads that just barely didn't make the previous cutoff of 590, and that it's an appreciated increase for spreads that don't opt to take multiple "optional" moves and thus have less of a need to restrict themselves.

To elaborate on the rest of our limits, our PS and SS were both chosen to accomodate for spreads that highly prioritize offensive potential. These provide more than enough room for offensively oriented spreads to flourish, and essentially represent that maximum of what we should be comfortable giving to CAP29; for example, with a Speed stat of 120, the highest SpA this allows for is 122, which I believe is roughly within the bounds of what's appropriate for the most offensive spreads.

Our PT and ST are as high as they are to give some headroom for spreads prioritizing bulk above all else. They were chosen based on attacks from Pokemon like Pajantom, Tapu Lele, and Dragapult, and ultimately I believe the current limits to be suitable as upper bounds to our defenses. There were a couple arguments made to raise our ST slightly, but 130 should still be high enough to hit anything we're shooting for––personally I didn't see any important benchmarks between 130 and 135, and I still believe that 130 will offer the right amount of freedom to any prospective stat submitter.

The hard limit on our Speed stat, as first suggested by Birkal, is a great place to limit ourselves while still providing a ton of room for faster spreads. I haven't really seen anyone request that we should be outspeeding Tornadus-T and Syclant, and this just feels like the most obvious place to draw the line. The minimum SpA stat was a bit tricker to pin down, but with maximum Speed the highest you'd be allowed to go in Attack is 127, and 97 is the lowest SpA that still registers as "Mixed" in its Offensive Category (OCAT). Therefore 95 seems like a reasonable floor for us, as any lower than this and it becomes questionable whether Calm Mind would work at all.
Just to be bluntly clear though, any spread prioritizing Attack will still need to trigger "Mixed", and you can check this for yourself by clicking on the dropdown window called "Toggle offense ratings" and selecting "S", which should then allow you to see whether your spread is physical, special, or mixed.

And with that, we're all done! Thanks to everyone who contributed during this conversation, I'm very happy with how it went and I think the stat limits I've chosen should allow for CAP29 to really succeed. I'll pass this over to Birkal to sign off on, upon which we'll be opening up the floor for full spreads to be submitted.
 

Birkal

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I have truly nothing else to add -- I believe that 2spoopy4u and the CAP community have set some flexible, yet fastidious stat limits for CAP29. I would encourage stat spread submitters and voters to approach these next few stages with mindfulness about the process we've had up until this point. While we are trying to create a Pokemon with a defective ability, there also needs to be reasoning behind our stat submissions. I encourage everyone to put forward spreads that are sensible for CAP29 specifically. Don't feel the need to champion the most powerful stats just because they're the biggest numbers; support the submissions that have the most solid reasoning for how CAP should interact with potential checks and counters, but also with Color Change itself.

Overall, amazing job here everyone. This has been a particularly lively Stat Limits Discussion, and I am here for it! Let's get a'cookin' on some stats.
 
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