The Bug/Psychic typing is not a defensive typing, plain and simple; it is weak to SR, hit by Spikes and TSpikes, weak to both U-turn and Pursuit, and damaged by Sand, Hail, and Life Orb, including status. It must shove its way into the match through a tiny window of Fighting, Ground, Grass, and Psychic resistances without accidentally stumbling into a Bug, Dark, Fire, Flying, Ghost, Rock, or strong neutral Attack or Special Attack (or switching into too many hazards), things that can only be accomplished simultaneously by superior prediction. In fact, I can't think of a single common Scarfer that doesn't have at least one SE move for our CAP or at least good enough SpA to cleanly wipe it out with CAP's merely Above Average/Good ST, especially considering SR. More to the point, CAP has a primary Ability that makes its defensive capabilities worse and its offensive capabilities better. Oh wait, never mind, ALL THREE of CAP's Abilities make its defensive capabilities worse and its offensive capabilities better. On the offense, at least Bug/Psychic gets decent neutral coverage with its STABs, lukewarm SE coverage between them, poor BP/Accuracy on relevant moves, and a fairly substantial reliance on coverage to get past its checks in the late-game. Based on all this I can literally find no good reason to give this Pokemon high Tankiness at all, especially not higher than either Sweepiness; the only arguments I've seen really have been either "what BMB said" with no further explanation (BMB's original idea was 130/125/80/125/70/70 btw so let's all submit 600 BST mons) or otherwise a semi-agreement based on some wild desire to survive every physical attack that comes our way, even at -1 Def in some cases.
Question: Are there any relevant calculations regarding what CAP can and can't survive at -1 Def?
Answer: No.
We should not coddle Weak Armor to the point where it is the only way to defend ourselves against the all-too-popular 100+ Spe Pokes that infest OU (many of whom are Scarfed). Weak Armor is intended to be used once to facilitate a sweep. That's +1 Spe, only. You could argue for days weather Crobat or Rhyperior would be the stronger Weak Armor abuser, but what everyone should agree on is that between -1 Def and average/good ST, this Poke will most of the time be KO'd by the second move that hits it. The reward here is never having to face that second attack. In-between the first hit and the second is where the reward comes into play: you get a free turn for switching in your Poke well, so you can KO your opponent by outspeeding it, or you can boost up on a predicted switch and sweep, avoiding that second hit via smart playing. I don't care how many stats you throw into HP and Def, but if you have Defense enough to take a couple of attacks but don't have the Speed to outrun key, dedicated revenge-killers at +1, then I don't think there's any reward for that risk. If anything, trading Excellent PT and bad Speed for a +1 Spe boost and bad PT is not a Risk/Reward scenario; it's simply an exchange of stats, a net zero for our Poke and an unhelpful approach to a metagame already chock-full of Scarf Genesect and Terrakion and Salamence and Latios who literally will not give any shits at all when they come in to finish CAP off, even if it did manage to get a Spe boost previously. That is all for Weak Armor and stats: our CAP needs Tankiness enough to survive particular physical (ideally resisted) attacks and then, more importantly, the offenses and movepool enough to capitalize on the boost. I wouldn't call it daring to make CAP's best attribute the same one we are planning on lowering with Weak Armor, nor would I call it daring to make a slow physical tank abuse Illusion in a worthwhile way while being weak to SR, U-turn, and Pursuit and affected by grounded hazards. I would call that a reversal of the direction we've been heading this whole time.
Anyway, I propose these limits:
PT: Very Good (150-70)
ST: Good (120-40)
PS: Excellent (175-95)
SS: Excellent (175-95)
BSR: Excellent (340-70)
I have played around with the BSR spreadsheet a few times before and I know that these ranges can produce redeemable results for our concept. PT does not need to be out of this world like others have suggested; CAP's resistances usually lie on the physical side, so beefing up that end of the spectrum is a good idea as its value can spread to every CAP build, not just Weak Armor ones. ST has been rightly labeled as CAP's soft-spot; I see no reason to waste too much energy on it beyond taking specific damage from defensive Scalds and other annoying attacks. Where I differ from everyone else except capefeather I think is that we need some legitimate offense to offer in conjunction with low-BAP STABs, high-BAP non-STAB No Guard coverage moves, and very limited setup time, regardless of Ability. Very Good is just not going to cut it here in terms of Sweepiness, especially with the charge of offering usable mixed offenses and not-dreadful Speed and noticeable physical bulk. The BSR I've suggested caps at about 10 points below the 100/100/100/100/100/100 pixie spread (look at what tier Mew, Shaymin and Victini are in and decide if these limits are too extravagant), and since those folks share many of the limitations of our own CAP's typing, they'll be direct competition for moveslots right off the bat. Along that same vein (trying to cover redundancies among our CAP and the rest of the metagame), my suggested PS and SS are roughly 10-15 points higher than the pixies while PT is just a bit lower and ST is a full 30 points down. I feel like this is an appropriate way to look at how to move forward:
I say if we're going to go for a reward, let's go for the KO, not the cool trick with the sporadic Weak Armor boosts or Blissey Illusion. We want an either-or offensive Pokemon with above-average bulk (for an offensive Poke) to make up for its lack of resistances, that is all. We have a CAP that is in no way suited for taking hits, which is why we have the typing and Abilities we have, all of it. Why waste time beefing up defenses when we actually only want this thing to take one hit before its plan can be revealed (the one hit will activate Weak Armor if its physical, it will unveil the Illusion, and it is guaranteed to hit every time with No Guard)?
