crap this is super cool. good stuff antar, statistics is the shit. will you be providing analysis of both bias and stalliness, or will you try to focus on just one?
will you be providing analysis of both bias and stalliness, or will you try to focus on just one?
Tachikoma (Rotom-Mow) @ Choice Scarf
Trait: Levitate
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 4 HP / 252 SAtk / 252 Spd
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Will-O-Wisp
- Leaf Storm
- Trick
George III (Slowking) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 SAtk / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Slack Off
- Fire Blast
- Scald
- Thunder Wave
Tuesday (Qwilfish) (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 Spd
Impish Nature
- Spikes
- Waterfall
- Poison Jab
- Aqua Jet
Haderach (Steelix) (M) @ Leftovers
Trait: Sturdy
EVs: 52 HP / 204 Atk / 252 SDef
Sassy Nature
IVs: 0 Spd
- Dragon Tail
- Gyro Ball
- Earthquake
- Stealth Rock
Maeby (Audino) (F) @ Leftovers
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SDef
Calm Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Toxic
- Protect
- Wish
- Heal Bell
Magna (Amoonguss) (F) @ Black Sludge
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SAtk
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Spore
- Sludge Bomb
- Giga Drain
- Synthesis
Bias: -1864
Stalliness: 2.17296992568 (13.53 T/KO)
Tags: ['weatherless']
i'd look at the rmt archive for this; it's got tons of great stuff and it even has the team style/importables written down for convenience. i'll just pluck out two to start with and speculate on what i think their stalliness should look like.
for example: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3463417. the archive deems this balanced. it consists of utility physdef jellicent, tspike/spin forry, sdef heatran, sd virizion, np mew and subdd nite. i offer this example mainly because it's a balanced team - 3 bulky mons and 3 boosting sweepers - and could land on any side of the stalliness metric, so it's interesting to see where teams like this actually end up.
Bias: -1340
Stalliness: 0.753748735461 (5.06 T/KO)
Tags: ['weatherless']
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3458118 textbook heavy offense in the deoxys-S era. screen/sr deoxys-S, sd viriz, all-out-offensive ddnite, all-out-offensive dd gyara, taunt/dd wallbreaking haxorus and offensive sd scizor. this should be really easy to categorize as extreme offense, every single mon has a 252/252 spread and a boosting move except for an obvious dual screen deoxys.
Deoxys-Speed @ Light Clay
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 HP / 4 Def
Timid Nature
- Safeguard
- Taunt
- Reflect
- Light Screen
Virizion @ Life Orb
Trait: Justified
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 SDef
Jolly Nature
- Swords Dance
- Close Combat
- Leaf Blade
- Stone Edge
Dragonite @ Lum Berry
Trait: Multiscale
EVs: 6 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Fire Punch
- ExtremeSpeed
Gyarados @ Life Orb
Trait: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 Def
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Waterfall
- Double-Edge
- Bounce
Haxorus @ Lum Berry
Trait: Mold Breaker
EVs: 126 HP / 252 Atk / 132 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Outrage
- Earthquake
- Taunt
Scizor @ Life Orb
Trait: Technician
EVs: 224 HP / 252 Atk / 32 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Bullet Punch
- U-turn
- Superpower
Bias: 640
Stalliness: -2.09125482297 (0.70 T/KO)
Tags: ['weatherless']
TURRETBOT (Smeargle) @ Focus Sash
Trait: Own Tempo
EVs: 4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spd
Jolly Nature
- Spikes
- Explosion
- Spore
- Stealth Rock
HENRYVIIIBOT (Slowking) (M) @ Choice Specs
Trait: Regenerator
EVs: 248 HP / 252 SAtk / 8 Spd
Modest Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Surf
- Psyshock
- Trick
- Fire Blast
Kabutops @ Life Orb
Trait: Weak Armor
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Swords Dance
- Stone Edge
- Aqua Jet
DOGBOT (Entei) @ Choice Band
Trait: Pressure
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spd
Adamant Nature
- Flare Blitz
- ExtremeSpeed
- Stone Edge
- Sleep Talk
ANGRYBOT (Tauros) @ Life Orb
Trait: Sheer Force
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spd / 4 Def
Naive Nature
- Rock Climb
- Earthquake
- Zen Headbutt
- Fire Blast
GEICOBOT (Sceptile) @ Flying Gem
Trait: Unburden
EVs: 32 Spd / 224 SAtk / 252 Atk
Naive Nature
- Acrobatics
- Leaf Storm
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Rock Slide
Bias: 1472
Stalliness: -1.22751600486 (1.28 T/KO)
Tags: ['weatherless']
Bias: 8
Stalliness: -0.13358472882 (2.73 T/KO)
Tags: ['rain']
Bias: -528
Stalliness: -0.371123101207 (2.32 T/KO)
Tags: ['sand']
I just wasted a ton of my life but yay, my ultra stall team gets 26.76 and a -2498 bias B).
I'm curious to see how stally full-stall is.
Bias: -2188
Stalliness: 1.94288779003 (11.53 T/KO)
Tags: ['sand']
Here's a little rain offense-balance team. I'd classify it offense with some defensive pivots, mainly that the strategy is to have offense with things to take hits, not stally mons with things to clean up. It'll be interesting to see how this gets classified.
Bias: -764
Stalliness: 0.195072164949 (3.43 T/KO)
Tags: ['rain']
That’s really disappointing, because what is says is that I’m missing something. What makes a team heavy offense vs. offense? balance vs. semi-stall? Is it just a judgement call, or is there something concrete that I can try to incorporate?
Defining playstyle as a combination of roles rather than through a metric like stalliness is definitely one route we could go down, but I'm not quite ready yet to give up on stalliness.
For example, hail and sand should count towards stall, rapid spin is really a stall move (magic bounce, though, I think plays better for offense, so I'm leaving it off for now), I was obviously weighting will-o-wisp WAY too strongly in favor of stall, and setup moves are not all created equal (Shell Smash is far more offensive than Calm Mind).
For example, hail and sand should count towards stall, rapid spin is really a stall move (magic bounce, though, I think plays better for offense, so I'm leaving it off for now), I was obviously weighting will-o-wisp WAY too strongly in favor of stall, and setup moves are not all created equal (Shell Smash is far more offensive than Calm Mind).
As you can see, it’s not perfect, but a lot of the teams that are incorrectly classified are pathological cases (for example, the Balance team that almost scores high enough to be Full Stall was designed by Molk and is built around a Scraggy). Frankly, no one has adequately explained to me the difference between Offense and Heavy Offense (Hawaiian Air is the Offense team with the lowest stall score, and it features two exploders and two more Pokemon that set up and, frankly, seems much more offensive than the "Hyper Offense" team Reflections).
curious to know which teams landed where in the metric vs what they were classified as in the archive index
i agree, these both look like HO
- Iron Maiden Can't Be Fought! @ -1.77. Description sounds like classic HO to me. I note that no NU teams in the archive are classified as Hyper Offense.
- Too Many Mices @ -1.80. Ditto. Also kind of an idiosyncratic team.
blame these both on the ferrothorn, and CM users (wishcm rachi in the first, manaphy in the second are most responsible, i'd suspect). the stalliness looks reasonable imo
- Eriatarka @ 0.23
- I used to hate Rain Dance @ 0.20
it's the toxic staller gliscor and the sdef heatran here. with mons as offensive as hydreigon and cb terrakion, this team definitely plays offensive despite those two. the score looks pretty legit though so not much room to complain, it's PRACTICALLY on the offense side of the split.
the fact that it's all choiced except a hitmontop makes me think HO right away so the score seems to agree with a surface analysis. i guess it was mainly called bulky offense because the mons themselves (azumarill, zapdos in particular) are a bit bulkier and not as aggressive as setup-based HO would be.
- Won't You Stay @ -1.55. Another idiosyncratic team.
i had individual things to say for each of these but they all sounded the same.. basically i agree. they all have enough bulky mons that they might as well be balance, and really the line between bulky offense and balance is a fiiiine one
- Dancing Free @ 0.05. Close enough.
- Download Destruction @ 0.004. Um... Ditto.
- Ultimate Balance @ 0.38. Dude. It's CALLED Ultimate Balance
yeah this team is actually really stally even though the objective is obviously to set up for a garchomp sweep. i would rather say that it's semistall with garchomp as the cleaner, than offense with the rest of the team as support lol
- Negative 3 @ 1.26. Wish/Protect Jirachi + no-attack Skarm + Slowbro throws everything off.
no argument, i agree completely
- Team WOLF GANG @ -0.75. Two SDers and a Nasty Plot Celebi. How is this not offense?
intriguing because i would definitely call this balance. i kind of wanna break this down more finely to see what it looks like but in any case i agree, lugia is the most obvious culprit
- Drown All @ 1.21. I blame Lugia.
this team is kinda on the defensive side what with flareon/tangela/quag FWG and a very bulky variant of scraggy that probably looks like a stallmon. however it's obviously not THAT stally. i have an interesting suggestion here because i don't think this team deserves that high of a stalliness: perhaps eviolite should count for less in lower tiers? as the higher evolutions get caught in higher tiers, lower tiers can often make use of eviolite to turn their pre-evos into viable competitors, especially if those mons have either boosting moves with which to turn their bulk into a sweep, or some natural bulk to begin with. the obvious culprit here is the scraggy whose moveset, EVs and item look stall-minded at first glance, but are actually meant to play as an offensive late-game cleaner. this could have significant effect in LC as well because even the most aggressive of LC mons can run eviolite and suddenly go from all-or-nothing suicide sweeper to bulky setup mon.
- The Little Lizard that could @ 1.45. Molk be trollin'.
i'd categorize this team as bordering on full stall actually if you ask me. the victini is probably what makes all the difference. interspersing even ONE offensive uturner into a team swings it towards offense quite significantly, in terms of actual play. score looks reasonable.
- Subfreeze @ 0.97. Close enough.
Leftovers do nothing to the metric. I based this decision on my observations of the differences in metric between bulky- and fully-offensive sets. In some ways, Leftovers are the “anti-Life Orb” in that it adds health where Life Orb takes it away, but the difference between a Life Orb and Leftovers set shouldn’t be a whopping 1.0. Fine then, you might suggest, split the difference and have it be Life Orb -0.25, Leftovers +0.25. The two problems with this are that (1) I truly believe that Life Orb should have the same effect as Choice items, and (2) in my experience, Leftovers is the item you throw on your Pokemon when you don’t have anything better to give it. I see plenty of Leftovers Pokemon who run offensive (even heavily offensive) sets. On the other hand, you rarely see a bulky Pokemon go with Life Orb.
This will mean your formula cannot take into account the advantages of being a mixed sweeper, or, more importantly, the fact that some Pokemon may have one decent defensive stat but be extremely frail to the other kind of attacks (Cloyster, Aggron, Blissey, and Mantine are excellent examples, but even more mildly unbalanced defenses will cause a Pokémon's stallishness to be overestimated to a lesser extent). I can see why you'd want to make that simplification, dealing with both stats can get kind of messy, but this seems likely to be the biggest issue with your formula's correctly assigning stallishness from stats. For attacks perhaps raising both to a power, adding them, then taking that power's root of the result would be effective? A larger power would mean a smaller boost for mixed attackers, and visa versa. Ideally this would only be applied if the set used both physical and special moves. A similar method (perhaps with a different power) could be used for defenses.I propose to measure “stalliness” based on the the number of hits of a (non-STAB) base-120* neutrally effective move it would take for a Pokemon to KO itself, or, more precisely, its mirror (ignoring items, abilities, status and actual movesets, and assuming the Pokemon is using its stronger attack stat against its stronger defense stat).
Generally a good idea, but I'd suggest some change to how healing berries and berry juice are handled. In LC holding an item like that gives a massive boost to endurance, even though Eviolite seems much more popular in 5th gen and Berry Juice is banned from both. Making these items have the same effect as Salac or a Gem seems backwards. I'd suggest making one time use items which heal health either have +0.5 or at least be neutral (also helps with VGC/doubles/triples, where Sitrus is somewhat viable, and clearly more defensive than other one-time use items). Status healing berries are more debatable. They're used with Rest for one time healing, but of course that's still just a one time thing, not full stall's style, but also not hyper offense style.One-time use items subtract 0.5 from the metric. The idea here is that consumption is antithetical to stall. Stall teams are often in pretty much the exact same position 50 turns in as they are 25 turns in. It’s what makes stall so annoying. There is an exception to this reasoning: Harvest and Recycle. See below. Note that this negates the effect of Red Card, which I believe is well and good.
This is assuming Protect is used purely as a stall tactic, rather than to activate a status orb, delay for more Speed Boosts, or for scouting dangerous moves as a frail sweeper. Also, while Protect is used to stall along with Wish/Leech Seed/Toxic/other passive damage, those forms of passive damage already give a significant + score. Adding a whole +1 to that seems too much. Many offensive sets will use Protect only occasionally, and even defensive seed/toxic stallers risk giving free turns by using it predictably, so the mathematical double turns is not generally applicable (except for Stallrien and friends).The move Protect (and variants) adds 1 to the metric. From a mathematical standpoint, it’ll take you at least twice as many turns to KO this Pokemon.
Halving the change to the metric because of a fairly small difference in health gained, when it can be activated on the switch rather than needing a turn to just heal.. hm, maybe it's not quite as stally as others, but 0.5 does seem slightly low.The ability Regenerator adds 0.5 to the metric. It’s less simply because it recovers less health.