CAP 37 - Part 8 - Stat Limits

[Spammernoob]

CAP 37 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 Da Pizza Man, so make sure that your posts are generally directed towards him and the questions he asks. Da Pizza Man will be deciding the stat limits for CAP 37 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 37. We will look at limits to CAP 37'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. To use it for yourself, create an editable copy with File > Make a copy. 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!

 

[Spammernoob]

DPM is busy right now so this thread will be closed until he is ready to make a post, likely until Monday.

Thank you for your patience.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

So it turns out I lied about not posting until Monday, but I had a bit more time that I thought I would and you guys have been patiently waiting anyways. That aside, I guess I might as well introduce myself for anyone unaware.

Hello people, my name is Mr. Dr. Professor Daniel Pizza Manson III, better known as Da Pizza Man (Yes, I completely made that up on the spot). I will be your guide for the next couple of stages, the Stats Stages! We first need to establish our stat limits, which will serve as a guide for the types of spreads people should be submitting during the next stage. Since this is a fairly complicated, and in my opinion, very important stage, I strongly recommend that newer users read the OP before joining in on the discussion. With that out of the way, here is my first batch of questions, starting with what I personally believe to be the most important.

1: What types of general roles (Offensive/Defensive/Support) or and/or specific builds lend themselves working best for utilizing Beak Blast? What are some of the pros and cons of each of these? Is it worth constructing more broad limits made to support multiple of these different builds, or should we just have more focused limits designed around supporting a single one of these?

This question might seem a bit redundant, given this was touched upon during Role Discussion. However, this was really only touched upon in a broad sense to help guide future stages, while I'm looking to establish a much more definitive answer to this question, as I believe it is mandatory for helping me create limits that adhere to the general wishes of the community. Another thing I would like to establish is that I have no plans to create different limits for different potential routes, as was done during Hemogoblin's process, as I personally find them very distracting and not of much help. We will have a single set of limits that everyone will use, and I don't see my stance changing on this.

2: It goes without saying that having good physical bulk is required to make full use out of Beak Blast, so we should talk about that a bit in detail. What are some important Defense benchmarks for us to meet and/or consider? How much should burns provided from Beak Blast play into our physically defensive prowess?

3: How important is having good special bulk for utilizing Beak Blast? Should we consider the idea of spreads with mixed defensive spreads, or even spreads that play more into special bulk than they do physical bulk? Can spreads that sacrifice either of these in favor of boosting the other be considered optimal?

4: While Speed in of itself isn't too important for optimizing Beak Blast due its negative priority, several other aspects of our toolkit are greatly affected by it, most notably Taunt. In an earlier stage, Spammernoob provided a set of notable speed benchmarks that influence Taunt (Listed below), which I find of great use for this stage specifically. How important are each of the benchmarks on this list, and are there any notable benchmarks that may be missing from this list? What other defining moves may be influenced by our speed? Are there any downsides to having high speed?

Notable speed tiers:
236 - Zapdos
226 - Gliscor
218 - Jolly Kingambit
216 - Moltres
209 - Adamant Hemogoblin
199 - Adamant Kingambit
186 - Arghonaut
170 - Corviknight
156 - Clefable, Equilibra

I plan to allow discussion to run for 72 Hours before moving on to my next set of questions.

 

[shnowshner]

Regarding Taunt our access to Opportunist means there's reduced pressure to use Taunt as anti-setup so our most relevant targets are largely users of hazards, status, or Recovery.



Ascending order of common Taunt targets for us. Anything slower than Clef we probably don't need to worry about our Speed stat for frankly.

There's still merit to some other H2Hs like preventing Hemo from using Moonlight if you expect it to heal instead of ESpeed. I could see 252 Speed Dragonite as being a particularly relevant benchmark as we invariably match its Speed boosts when possible and can shut down Roost reactivating Multiscale.

CAP37 would definitely like to outpace Moltres, it's already an awkward matchup for us since Knock can result in a Burn and Beak Blast doesn't let us move first, so if it does come in being able to prevent Roost and Wisp is quite handy. And if we beat Moltres we in turn also improve our Pecharunt MU, a Pokemon infamous for eating SE physical hits (especially post-item Knock Offs), and a potential booster that we may be unfit to deter.

 

[N-Manifold]

I somewhat favor very slow spreads here, even though this makes taunt a bit less useful. In a good portion of interactions, taunting first or second is a matter of one extra recovery move (e.g. against corv) which, while impactful, has somewhat limited utility. As far as I'm concerned, unless we have 96+ speed to outpace gliscor and deny toxic, there's pretty limited benefit in a speed stat and I think it's cleaner to just have low speed.

How important is having good special bulk for utilizing Beak Blast? Should we consider the idea of spreads with mixed defensive spreads, or even spreads that play more into special bulk than they do physical bulk? Can spreads that sacrifice either of these in favor of boosting the other be considered optimal?

I actually think any spread that can't take a special hit is almost DOA. Obviously it doesn't need to be toxapex, but even e.g. tusk, a big physically defensive physical attacker, has pretty respectable special bulk. The only mons which have high physical and very low special bulk are RUBL and below, and even those generally need a lot of extra tools to fulfill a role (e.g. cloyster getting shell smash). With that being said, I think a large number of bulk profiles can work here, even ones with mixed bulk. A mon with mixed bulk can still play into one side or the other (see phys defensive mandibuzz) it just places harder limits on our offensive presence. I agree that something like a BSR limit is more elegant than different sweepiness ratings for different styles.

 

[dex]

1. Beak Blast should hit hard. I think the main value of Beak Blast is its unique ability to force switches that don't want to deal with potentially getting burned. In order to leverage that effectively, Beak Blast needs to hit its switches decently hard, and we have left that to be accomplished via stats. Offensive/defensive/support roles sort of blend together with this mon, so I don't think that focusing on one role in particular is very helpful. Instead, we should focus on particular Beak Blast + Knock Off calcs and particular defensive calcs to get the job done.
2. I think mixed bulk is very much the way to go here. A matchup that I think is a potential target is Boots Zamazenta. If CAP 37 can survive two Stone Edges, or at least two Close Combats, that already puts it in a good place to compete with the tier's other Flying-types. Another matchup to look at securing is Ogerpon-W, a common physical attacker that CAP 37 may simply need to check. Surviving two Tera Water Cudgels would be the upper limit of where we can check it. That isn't a required calc by any means, but it is something to keep in mind as a target. On the topic of burns, I do not believe that burns should play a meaningful part in our discussion on bulk. The threat of the burn is a bigger factor in play than the burn itself, I feel, so I don't think that surviving a normal hit into a burn hit is an entirely necessary thing to think about.
3. I think CAP 37 should have passable special bulk. I think ignoring the special side leaves it too vulnerable to the tier's Ghost-types, something we don't want from a Dark-type. Something along the lines of Corviknight's special bulk makes sense to me at a glance, but it could probably be a little lower. It definitely should not be ignored, however.
4. Speed is where I think we can use some of our defining moves list to impose penalties. Encore and Taunt both improve with speed. As does Body Press (for Kingambit). However, I don't think Speed is wholly that important for CAP 37. It probably shouldn't be dead slow, something above Arghonaut makes a lot of sense to me, but I will think about Speed bounds later in this stage.

 

[Guingil]

1: What types of general roles (Offensive/Defensive/Support) or and/or specific builds lend themselves working best for utilizing Beak Blast? What are some of the pros and cons of each of these? Is it worth constructing more broad limits made to support multiple of these different builds, or should we just have more focused limits designed around supporting a single one of these?

Of the three, purely Defensive does not match our profile. Beak Blast works best with more health, which is significantly hampered by getting chipped by pivot moves, losing Boots due to Knock Off, or getting statused. This awkwardness around switching sort of pushes us towards leaving a higher impact in our limited opportunities. Beak Blast and Knock Off are great offensive and utility weapons, the former giving us free turns by forcing switches and leaving a 100 BP dent in opponents, and the latter being... uh, the most clickable move in the history of Pokémon. A good Attack stat amps up both. This also makes the rest of our kit more valuable. Our 50% Recovery can be a reset we click due to our offensive pressure, rather than something we're forced to do every time we're in for more defensive value. And Opportunist mindgames are scarier when our offenses are higher. So yeah, more Attack please.

But I don't think we can ever be purely Offensive either, as Beak Blast has negative priority and Knock has diminishing returns. So a Tank/Bulky Utility build, with some mix of Attack, bulk, and Speed, seems like the most logical fit. I'd rather we leave some freedom to submitters for whether we want to focus more on the offensive aspect, or the repeatability aspect, with more bulk. Even the same stat spread could feasibly incorporate two ideas with investment (thinking of defensive vs offensive Zapdos, Heatran).

2: ...What are some important Defense benchmarks for us to meet and/or consider? How much should burns provided from Beak Blast play into our physically defensive prowess?

Not getting 2HKO'd by Pokemon we're supposed to check seems like a good benchmark. Given our mostly neutral physical defensive profile, this probably also translates to having some resilience against their coverage moves (eg, Stone Edge/Wild Charge from Zamazenta, Ice Spinner from Great Tusk). I think we should not rely at all on the Beak Blast burn proccing to boost our defensive profile, because Burning will be rare. Rather, the Burn should be a reward obtained due to our physically defensive profile and good play.

3: How important is having good special bulk for utilizing Beak Blast? Should we consider the idea of spreads with mixed defensive spreads, or even spreads that play more into special bulk than they do physical bulk? Can spreads that sacrifice either of these in favor of boosting the other be considered optimal?

Something passable is okay, but I don't think we need much. Our checks (Shox, Cresceidon, Zapdos, Clefable) feed on our special weakness and could also tech status on top of that, so no way we are staying in against them. Living a Doom Desire might sometimes come in handy in this meta, and maybe some Sludge Bombs from Glowking if we come in to take the Future Sight. Dragapult and Gholdengo can tech status or use their other special move on us, so I don't think these interactions are particularly relevant either. There has been discussion about a Ho-Oh-like build where you are so specially bulky that you can afford to invest in physical defense, but I'm not convinced it's necessary.

4: How important are each of the benchmarks on this list, and are there any notable benchmarks that may be missing from this list? What other defining moves may be influenced by our speed? Are there any downsides to having high speed?

Benchmark list seems pretty complete. Given that some Knocks will be implemented on the switch, and Beak Blast being our other STAB, the only other move affected by our Speed seems to be our 50% recovery. I guess this could afford us a less bulky build that can heal up before taking another hit (which is still not in the 2HKO range), which might be concept-relevant if some opponents decide to stay in to kill a weakened 37, but instead have to now contend with a healed up version.
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If you're comfortable with running some vibe code, I've got a matchup checker for you

https://github.com/Guingil/CAP37-matchup-evaluator

Basically gives an idea of some interactions 37 can have based on its stats. The values are obtained from showdown calcs, so you don't have to plug them in one by one. Some logic, such as 2HKOs, Knock affecting HDB mons, Taunt stopping status, etc, is also incorporated. You'll obtain an HTML page with explanations such as the following:

Still a WIP with the logic, but might be useful.