CAP 29 - Part 8 - Stat Limits Discussion

[quziel]

CAP 29 So Far:

And just like that, we're done! Thanks to everyone who contributed to this discussion. There's a lot to unpack with how a Color Change Pokemon will work in the CAP metagame, but I feel confident in what we've selected. Let's take a final look at the summation of our hard work in this thread:

Switch-Ins for CAP29
Slowking
Slowbro
Slowking-Galar (AV)
Ferrothorn
Clefable (Utility)
Rillaboom (CB)
Mandibuzz
Zeraora

CAP29 Pressures with Sludge Bomb (Poison-type Moves)
Rillaboom (SD)
Tangrowth
Jumbao
Tapu Lele
Tapu Koko
Tapu Fini
Kerfluffle
Clefable (CM)

CAP29 Pressures with Dark Pulse (Dark-type Moves)
Aegislash (Offensive)
Dragapult
Pajantom
Latios
Victini
Kartana

Difficulty Checking CAP29
Corviknight (Can't check, but can U-turn out)
Mandibuzz (Can't check, but can U-turn out)
Regieleki (Can't check, but can Volt Switch out)
Cyclohm (No Toxic)
Suicune

Counters to CAP29
Gastrodon
Blissey (Only against CM sets)

Checks to CAP29
Tyranitar
Colossoil
Garchomp
Arghonaut
Toxapex
Heatran (Defensive)
Landorus-T (Scarf)

Please note that these contain information based on what we know about CAP29 right now with our ability and typing. These lists will absolutely change in the near future as we give CAP29 stats and a competitive movepool. Our counters list in particular was left very narrow in order to allow our stat spread submitters maximum flexibility in how they plan their sets (how bulky, how offensive, and how speedy). That list will grow significantly as CAP29 is given stats and limited in its coverage options. But for now, Gastrodon in particular can serve as a perfect counter for calculations against special CAP29 sets (CM) and optional physical ones (Coil), which will bring many more Pokemon into the fold of countering CAP29.

Now let's look towards 2spoopy4u and Stat Limits! Thank you all once more for your continued participation.

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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 2spoopy4u , so make sure that your posts are generally directed towards him and the questions he asks. Spoo will be deciding the stat limits for CAP 29 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 29. We will look at limits to CAP 29'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 three 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.

Special Tankiness (ST)

The rating of the Pokémon's special defense.

Sweepiness (S)

The rating of the Pokémon's offenses. This can be divided into Physical Sweepiness and Special Sweepiness.

Physical Sweepiness (S)

The rating of the Pokémon's Physical offense

Special Sweepiness (S)

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!


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As a reminder, the BSR calculations were changed after CAP 28 / before CAP 29, so please familiarize yourself with the changes here. Major changes include a renormalization of the BSR itself to more closely match BST, and the change to a single Sweepiness limit that incorporates both a Pokemon's Attack and Special Attack stats.

 

[spoo]

We’ve finally arrived at the stats stage! I hope you’re all as excited for it as I am. Of course, our first order of business is to decide on appropriate Stat Bias Limits, so I highly encourage all of you to read up on what those are in the OP before joining the discussion here.

I’ll also ask that we don’t start suggesting any actual limits or stats quite yet; we’ll get there soon enough, but for now let’s all just get on the same page about what general direction to move in. With all that in mind, here are a few questions I’ve prepared to get the ball rolling on discussion:

1. What are some stat-related trends among other viable CM sweepers that we can use to inform CAP29?

2. CAP29’s Speed tier has been a hot topic of discussion throughout this entire process; what level of speed is most appropriate for us to succeed in our role as a bulky CM sweeper?

3. How much extra offensive power, if any, will CAP29 need to compensate for often losing its STAB boost? How much of an offensive threat should CAP29 be before it sets up?

4. Given our knowledge that CAP29 will be boosting its Special Defense, should it start off with high special bulk, high physical bulk, or perhaps more balanced defenses?

 

[kjnjkmjk1]

1. What are some stat-related trends among other viable CM sweepers that we can use to inform CAP29?
There are currently two common Pokemon in the CAP metagame that regularly run CM sets, which are Clefable and Tapu Fini. Less common are Pokemon like Reuniclus and Suicune, although they are both ranked on the viability rankings and are certainly capable of running CM sets. The Lati twins both run Calm Mind sets on occasion (Latias moreso than Latios) as well.

Clefable: 95 HP / 70 Atk / 73 Def / 95 SpA / 90 SpD / 60 Spe
Tapu Fini: 70 HP / 75 Atk / 115 Def / 95 SpA / 130 SpD / 85 Spe
Reuniclus: 110 HP / 65 Atk / 75 Def / 125 SpA / 85 SpD / 30 Spe
Suicune: 100 HP / 75 Atk / 115 Def / 90 SpA / 115 SpD / 85 Spe
Latios 80 HP / 90 Atk / 80 Def / 130 SpA / 110 SpD / 110 Spe
Latias 80 HP / 80 Atk / 90 Def / 110 SpA / 130 SpD / 110 Spe

The stats here are a bit all over the place, but the most prevalent prevalent traits are at least decent bulk all around, with a specially defensive lean, as well as at least decent special attack. Speed stats hit a wide range, with the Lati twins being particularly fast, Clefable and Reuniclus being rather slow, and Tapu Fini and Suicune sitting somewhere in the middle, so it's a bit hard to get a read on this.

2. CAP29’s Speed tier has been a hot topic of discussion throughout this entire process; what level of speed is most appropriate for us to succeed in our role as a bulky CM sweeper?
I think that, barring exceptional physical bulk, we should aim to be faster than Adamant Rillaboom. This makes our job of switching into and checking various Rillaboom sets easier, as Banded Wood Hammer is an extremely difficult move to take, even when resisted. If we are faster than Adamant Rillaboom (by far the most common nature), we can guarantee the ability to hit it super effectively at least once and perhaps even force it out or 2HKO (special attack pending).
I'm not so sure what an upper bound should look like. Our counters are based on defensive merits, so outspeeding them is not a worry. We could use Jolly Garchomp to ensure that it can always check us on CM sets, or the ability to outrun Adamant Rillaboom with no speed investment on our end as a sort of "reach" goal, but I think that our speed will be constrained more so by us needing to put more of our power budget into other areas, so it's a bit early to say.

3. How much extra offensive power, if any, will CAP29 need to compensate for often losing its STAB boost? How much of an offensive threat should CAP29 be before it sets up?
I think CAP29 should be at least mildly threatening before it sets up, in the sense that it should still be able to threaten good damage onto the various offensive Pokemon that it switches into and/or pressures with super effective attacks, even without STAB. I don't know if it's necessary to threaten 2HKOs on them, although it would be a nice bonus. With that in mind, I don't think we can afford to go as low as some of the other Calm Mind sweepers for special attack (particularly the sub-100 SpA stats). As a related point, I do think we need some kind of extra offensive power to compensate for losing STAB, as the CM sweepers with lower special attack stats can at least fall back on STAB to give them more bite, whereas we will likely not be able to depend on it. I do think there's such a thing as overcompensating in this case, but the bar for that is extremely high (I'm thinking OHKOing some of our frailer switchins/pressures at +1 without STAB or +0 with STAB, at which point it might be easier to just run Choice Specs for the consistent boost).

4. Given our knowledge that CAP29 will be boosting its Special Defense, should it start off with high special bulk, high physical bulk, or perhaps more balanced defenses?
A lot of the existing Calm Mind sweepers in the meta lean on the special defense side, with weaker physical bulk, which gives them an exploitable weakness in that sense. However, we already have a weakness in the form of Color Change, and the main offensive Pokemon we are treating as switchins (Rillaboom and Zeraora) are both physically offensive. On the other hand, a weak special bulk could make it harder for us to pressure certain Pokemon, as while we would be able to hit them super effectively, they could willingly tank an attack and proceed to wreck us. I'm in favor of more balanced defenses all around, although I'd be OK with some sort of physical bias to better deal with our physical switchins, as long as we don't completely neglect our special defense in the process.

 

[Darek]

1. What are some stat-related trends among other viable CM sweepers that we can use to inform CAP29?
Like Kj said, based on current trends CAP29 should have solid bulk and special attack. However, with regard to the leaning towards physical and special bulk, although the base stats indicate that the CM sweepers have higher special bulk, in practice EVs are invested into physical bulk over special. Unable to boost their physical defense, they often make their defense as high as they can afford. Because of this, CAP29 would best be optimized with high physical bulk.

2. CAP29’s Speed tier has been a hot topic of discussion throughout this entire process; what level of speed is most appropriate for us to succeed in our role as a bulky CM sweeper?
CM users have found success at a wide range of speeds, but Color Change heavily restricts the options we have. Being slow severely hampers using two main ways: First, it will allow our opponent to change our type before we attack causing us to lose STAB. Second, it hinders our ability to take neutral/weak -> resist hits because it effectively changes whether we take the resisted hit at 20% versus 70%. Because of these factors, I believe being at least somewhat fast is a necessity here. With specifics as to how fast, I agree with Kj that Rillaboom seems like the most concrete benchmark to hit; if we want even faster, I think that creeping Jumbao and Tapu Lele would also be quite useful.

3. How much extra offensive power, if any, will CAP29 need to compensate for often losing its STAB boost? How much of an offensive threat should CAP29 be before it sets up?
This is kind of awkward because it's not one of our defining moves, but I think that whether or not we have Boomburst plays a big role as to how high we're raising our special attack stat. It's basically the difference between having STAB sometimes versus having a pseudo-STAB all the time, and from what I've seen in custom games, we won't be able to use our real STABs more often than not. That being said, I believe CAP29 should try to be at least a decent threat so that it can at least force meaningful chip on its switchins, but I can't really get more specific than that.

4. Given our knowledge that CAP29 will be boosting its Special Defense, should it start off with high special bulk, high physical bulk, or perhaps more balanced defenses?
I touched on this in the first question but I'll reiterate that I think that we should start off with high physical bulk as our priority. Clefable, Suicune, Tapu FIni, and Reuniclus all in practice end up investing into their physical bulk so that it ends up being higher, and I think this goes to show that CAP29 would best be optimized with increased physical bulk. Although lower physical bulk often leaves these CM sweepers with a sort of built-in weakness to prevent them from being unkillable, I feel that we've been saving our power budget with this CAP for quite a while and we can definitely afford to optimize our bulk in this manner.

 

[Explosion Badger]

I mostly agree with kjnjkmjk1 here. Our speed stat shouldn't be under Rillaboom's and probably shouldn't be over something like Garchomp or Pajantom, as it could mean both a strain on the other stats as well as less of a reason to focus on the bulky setup route and with it less of a focus on Color Change, and our defenses should both be reasonably good, though with a bias specifically on physical defense, as that allows us to focus on outspeeding relevant matchups while still not taking over half from attacks such as CB Rillabooms Wood Hammer.

 

[shnowshner]

Joining the consensus on not being faster than Garchomp, go beyond that and it's not the most amazing check anymore if it can be outsped, and I feel like if we're too fast the whole setup-sweeper shtick will be ignored in favor of attacking quickly before we lose our STAB. I'd go as far to say we may want to avoid being faster than even Colossoil.

3. How much extra offensive power, if any, will CAP29 need to compensate for often losing its STAB boost? How much of an offensive threat should CAP29 be before it sets up?
Part of what makes a setup sweeper effective is the ability to force or threaten damage on the opponent instead of immediately boosting. If we are only dangerous after reaching +2 or so, what's going to stop the opponent from taking advantage of us those previous turns? Dark and Poison STAB is pretty good since most Pokemon that want to take a Dark attack are not too fond of taking a Poison one instead, primarily Fairy-types. What I envision is that we threaten immediately with our unboosted STAB attacks, and then threaten with raw damage output after boosting but probably having lost our initial typing. Again, if we're too strong, CAP29 might prefer being an All Out Attacker over what we're primarily designing it to be, so I think leveraging our strength based on these two different points in time (unboosted STAB vs. boosted non-STAB) is crucial. Clef and Fini both demonstrate this ability well IMO, neither have incredibly high Special Attack or the most damaging moves, but they can do enough to the things they beat that going straight on the offensive is a good way to apply pressure and make room for a sweep later.

4. Given our knowledge that CAP29 will be boosting its Special Defense, should it start off with high special bulk, high physical bulk, or perhaps more balanced defenses?
In terms of past-and-present bulky setup-sweepers, there's two avenues I thought of with Calm Mind: I'll call them passive boosting and active boosting. Both depend heavily on what kinds of Pokemon we want to square off against.
Passive boosting has us boost our Special Defense in the face of Physical Attackers who can't threaten us on the Special Side.
Active boosting has us boost our Special Defense in order to prevent Special Attackers from continuing to threaten us, increasing over time.

For passive boosting, this implies having a higher Defense stat, enough that the Physically-biased Pokemon we match-up well against struggle to break through us, making it easy to start stacking CM boosts. The advantage here is that our ability to set up is independent of if we've already increased our defenses. In theory you could have a unimpressive SpDef stat at first, but after setting up in the face of a Physical Attacker, you're now much harder to break through on the Special side as well.

For active boosting, we already have a high Special Defense stat and set up on Special Attackers, meaning that as we use Calm Mind the Pokemon facing us only become less able to break us. Doing so gives us more control over what we can stand up to: Special attackers that might be troublesome for us would be hard-pressed to break through something with naturally high SpDef sitting at +1/+2. We may not be as sturdy against various Physical threats, but ideally there'd still be some room to breath against the ones we matchup well against.

Right now I'm leaning towards a more passive boosting approach. Calm Mind doesn't help us stomach Physical hits so we should be able to reliably tank hits from physically-biased Pokemon, as we can improve our match-up against Special Attackers through CM. Of course much of our Switch-in and Pressure lists are Special Attackers, so going the opposite direction is fine as well. There's also the potential to find a middle-ground between these two styles, and it may help us greatly to give 29 the option to do either or both of them depending on what a team needs.
Historically, however, bulky Calm Mind users usually go for high PhysDef investment. Since much of our Special bulk will come naturally from Calm Mind, investing in our Physical bulk is generally more efficient use of EVs and Natures. The only case in which we don't do this is if our Special Defense is too low for what CAP29 needs, and this trend of PhysDef investment may be biased by the fact that many CM users are less proficient Physically compared to Specially, though not all of them. Suicune especially is a good example thanks to 115 in both defenses and Scald being a giant middle finger to most Physical mons (there are other examples outside of Gen 8 OU/CAP as well). I think its approach gets it the most out of being able to wall Physical threats and gradually become unbreakable on the Special side.

To actually answer the question, I'm a fan of going the balanced route. We should be able to stave off hits on both sides of the spectrum, either naturally or through smart use of investment.

 

[dex]

I wanted to take a look at any BSR trends I could find in kj's list of cm sweepers.

Clefable: SS: 81.91, PT: 84.14, ST: 101.62
Tapu Fini: SS: 98.77, PT: 104.5, ST: 117.94
Reuniclus: SS: 79.23, PT: 93.83, ST: 105.63
Suicune: SS: 95, PT: 126.91, ST: 128.46
Latios SS: 146.76, PT: 82.39, ST: 109.39
Latias SS: 128.76, PT: 90.84, ST: 126.21
Mollux SS: 118.39, PT: 93.43, ST: 115.49

Something interesting to note here that sort of goes against the common consensus at the moment is that every single one of these mons has a higher Special Tankiness rating than Physical Tankiness. I think this is a trend we should attempt to follow for CAP 29. I think we are seriously undervaluing the effect of full defensive investment. Take Clefable as an example: it has an average 73 Def, which might seem low at first, but combined with a high HP stat and good SpD stat, the mon becomes quite the CM sweeper with full Def investment. We could very easily get away with a physical defense stat of 80, and that would probably be the way to go in terms of making the mon operate well in the meta. Additionally, since CM sets will most likely not be investing in SpD, a higher SpD stat would probably be appreciated more than a higher Def stat to see more immediate benefits tankiness-wise from using CM.

Obviously sweepiness is all over the place given the varying speed and offenses of these CM users, but given the route and playstyle CAP 29 is looking to accomplish, I think Tapu-Fini and Suicune both provide fairly good examples in terms of Speed and offenses of what we should try to accomplish for this stage.

 

[Amamama]

1. What are some stat-related trends among other viable CM sweepers that we can use to inform CAP29?

Due to Calm Mind's slower nature of boosting compared to that of for example Nasty Plot, as well as its defensive boost, Calm Mind is a move suitable for Pokémon that possess either a naturally good defensive typing which we kind of have, or strong defensive stats.
While most of the currently viable cm mons lean specially defensive in their base stats, most of them patch up their physical defense through evs, which leads me to believe, that a good physical bulk (wether achieved through evs or natural bulk) is necessary.
The lati@s are an exception to this trend of defensive investment. They’re comparably low physical bulk (after evs and nature) is offset by they’re rather high speed, which they chose fully invest in instead.
I think CAP 29 can go either way of great natural bulk (with a physical inclination) or good natural bulk with additional higher speed

2. CAP29’s Speed tier has been a hot topic of discussion throughout this entire process; what level of speed is most appropriate for us to succeed in our role as a bulky CM sweeper?

As seen above, high speed doesn’t necessarily matter for us. Calm minders have been successful with really low speed but great bulk, as well as higher speed and above average bulk.
In the end i think we will have to strike a Balance between our speed and bulk, somewhere between the extremes of Mega Slowbro and Latias.

3. How much extra offensive power, if any, will CAP29 need to compensate for often losing its STAB boost? How much of an offensive threat should CAP29 be before it sets up?

I think power is much more of the essence, than Speed having the ability to create free turns and momentum with more than justour defensive presence is very important.
The more room a CM sweeper gets, the better it can function. Being able to threaten stuff out, by virtue of our offensive means, can help us keep our typing, boost or cripple switch ins, while pressuring the mons that want to check us.
Ensuring 2hko on a wide variety of our pressure match ups regardless of STAB is this very important.

4. Given our knowledge that CAP29 will be boosting its Special Defense, should it start off with high special bulk, high physical bulk, or perhaps more balanced defenses?

I want to echo dareks thoughts here, that having a good physical bulk will be more efficient and free up evs to allocate in Atk, speed or special bulk.
this also fits with our switch in list, where the hardest hitters are on the physical spectrum
I don’t think we should skew the stats too much,

 

[Pipotchi]

1. What are some stat-related trends among other viable CM sweepers that we can use to inform CAP29?
I think trends between viable CM users have been covered at this point- Clefable, Fini, Reuniclus, etc. I think its interesting to look at the stats of some mons who dont succeed as CM sweepers also, that exist in the same ballpark of stats. This is gunna be loosely tied to the question, but Ill wrap it up at the end.
: Mew has excellent stats all round, Calm Mind, Recover, and all of the moves we discussed getting in the defining moves stage. No-one would ever use this as a CM sweeper in the current meta.
Cress has recovery, cm, insane bulk, and a decent movepool. Again, a horrible choice for CM user in the tier.
/ The slowtwins are very interesting because they are very viable, but not as CM users. Its not just a case of Teleport being S and CM being slightly worse, you can see from previous gens that CM is not considered viable.

A lot of these mons fail for the same reason: they dont have the right level of resilience, or "staying power" to match their offensive potential, while successful CM users do. Running something like CM (or any boosting move really) you need to be able to realistically click the button as many times as you need to get going for it to be worth it. Clefable and Tapu Fini do a really good job at this because they are status immune and after one boost become very bulky on both sides- this means they often get a free turn to setup and then after that are bulky enough to boost again or hit hard with good coverage, high BP moves, or recover up and go for more boosts. Cresselia on the other hand needs more than one boost to be a real offensive threat thanks to poor SPA, and cant afford moveslots to protect itself from status- this doesnt mesh together into a result that makes CM viable for it. Slowtwins struggle with CM because their low speed and typing is a major problem wrt staying power. They are outsped and threatened out by strong physical attacks no matter which twin is used and no matter how many boosts are racked up. Suicune's unique Sub/Protect method of getting things done (which only works thanks to Pressure) means it can actually stick around vs things like Rillaboom where Slowtwins cannot, as if it has a sub up it can stall out its attacks. Mew is similar to Cresselia where its initial strength is weak and it has no protection that helps it ramp up enough boosts. Its higher speed helps it avoid being revenge killed, but its main issue is with slower Pokemon wearing it down or trading blows with it.

So looking at the mon we have- we have a small amount of "staying power" provided by the Toxic immunity of our typing, but this is lost quickly. On top of this, there is a negative offensive tempo when getting hit, which requires another boost to get going to reach the required level of offense to sweep. This is a problem, as we arent really the type of mon that can fully rely on high defensive stats and immunity to boost 3+ times like a Tapu Fini can. The point Im trying to make here is be careful modelling these spreads on the trends of Clefable, Reuniclus and Tapu Fini. Without their broken abilities, you might be left with a CM Mew, Necrozma or a Cresselia. Instead I believe we will see more success with stat routes like that dont rely on immunity or a key interaction with an ability to get going.
All of that rambling will also hopefully set some groundwork for my answering of the next questions.


2. CAP29’s Speed tier has been a hot topic of discussion throughout this entire process; what level of speed is most appropriate for us to succeed in our role as a bulky CM sweeper?
I think we need to be fast. If we are boosting spdef, and get easily revenged by the common ground types in the tier like Lando and especially Garchomp, then it feels like it will be a serious uphill struggle and dissuade boosting. Whats more, higher speed is a good way to get a position on teams. There is an idea that the "adequate" speed tier for this is outspeeding rillaboom by a point- but I dont think adequate is going to cut it here considering we havent really given this mon anything good yet in the previous stages.


3. How much extra offensive power, if any, will CAP29 need to compensate for often losing its STAB boost? How much of an offensive threat should CAP29 be before it sets up?
For me, I think CM sweepers need to be threatening to begin with. Dark Pulse is a very weak stab move and I think it needs some compensation for that, and then on top of that we can effectively be pushed to -1 very regularly- its effectively a minus tempo for us, and that will hurt when it also removes our resistance to Toxic status. I think we should have a sizeable special attack stat that can give us setup opportunities by actually threatening mons out (in particular slower U-turners), while also giving a little compensation for that -1. There is nothing we can do that fully compensates for the stab loss here, and it creates a wonky relationship with non-stab moves, but considering we have many CAPs and OU mons (both offensive and defensive ones, which have strong abilities alongside them) that already have top tier SPA I dont think it sounds unrealistic to say we should definitely be top tier SPA also.


4. Given our knowledge that CAP29 will be boosting its Special Defense, should it start off with high special bulk, high physical bulk, or perhaps more balanced defenses?
This question feels a little more free- I think the CAP would prefer to have as least decent defenses on both sides- see something like Clefable for the minimum- but it would definitely appreciate having a high SPDEF to begin with as this offers more switchin opportunities in the CAP meta. Overall Poison/Dark is more geared to taking special hits from Psychic and Fairy type pokemon as well as Color Change working well against neutral Water/Fire/Elec moves which makes me more happy to lean special. Surviving Rillabooms Grassy Glide is the main thing that stands out to me on the physical side, as we probably dont want to be directly switching in on a U-turning Knock Offing mon with our CMer that often. And we survive even neutral glide from pretty average physical defense stats, especially when HP invested. I could see physically defensive working too for the obvious reason that CM fills the gap- but in that case it'll operate more as a mon that wont be switching in as much. Which is totally fine too. I dont mind how that turns out.

 

[Zephyri]

I agree with the general consensus on Q1 and Q3, and I think Pip specifically brings up a really cool point about longevity w cm sweepers.

That said there are a few things w the consensus that i kinda disagree with

2. CAP29’s Speed tier has been a hot topic of discussion throughout this entire process; what level of speed is most appropriate for us to succeed in our role as a bulky CM sweeper?

4. Given our knowledge that CAP29 will be boosting its Special Defense, should it start off with high special bulk, high physical bulk, or perhaps more balanced defenses?
(i think my answer below summarizes my opinions on both these questions decently well and i also think that the questions themselves are somewhat related)

I personally don't think our speed tier is as relevant to us as its being played out to be. If we look at CM sweepers in the metagame, you'll see that mons of extremely varied speed tiers (Reuni, Suicune, and Latias) all have equal-ish viability in the metagame and none of them really care about their speed tier a ton. That said, theres a decently common trend between them in that the slower they get, the more reliant they are on their physical defense. Take Latias, a mon thats never had to invest in its physical defense in the years of play its had as a cm sweeper, and even Mega Latias has never really had to care about physdef. Reuniclus on the other hand has either had to fully invest in Physdef or even boost itself solely on the physdef side w acid armor sets. Suicune, a mon with midground speed, has had to run physdef ev investment a lot of the time throughout its play. With all of that information I think we want to go for a high physdef low speed mon w decent spdef

Looking at the list of what we can switch into, the mons w the highest damage output that we want to switch into are zera, rilla, and gking. We beat rilla and gking well enough at the beginning by virtue of our typing; however Zera can chain neutral hits decently well and can even generate SE hits if given enough turns, and the neutral hits themselves are decently high power. Looking at the calc with 100/80 defenses (decently midground if we were to focus on spdef), Plasma->Knock->CC will beat our set assuming we have reliable 50% recovery and no defensive boosts. I also think physdef would allow us more switchin opportunities into mons like Kart and Syclant which we should be able to beat by virtue of our typing.

 

[Amamama]

With all of that information I think we want to go for a high physdef low speed mon w decent spdef

I don’t think this is the right conclusion of what was said in your own post.
Fixing ourselves to any given Speed tier be it low, middling or high, just inhibits flexibility for the stats.
I think, as you said yourself as well, that our speed tier doesn’t matter as a stand alone stat, but rather, that it is a combination of both bulk and speed, that is important.
Ultimately my stance on this matter is, keeping the bsr rating open to both suggestions with low speed and extreme bulk and with high(er) speed and low(er) bulk.

 

[Full_Korbe]

I more or less agree with the consensus here but to chip in on some specific points:
1. What are some stat-related trends among other viable CM sweepers that we can use to inform CAP29?
All of them are already bulky to begin with. Even Latias has usable physical defense to work with her speed / typing. All of them has a good special defense because it allows them to create more set-up opportunities and because they want to be hard to bring down as soon as possible: Calm Mind is not a patch for a weak special defense but a way to take it up to eleven. They are also all decently threatening with one or at the very least two boosts (the worst being Suicune who still have STAB Scald) so we will want good immediate firepower. Hard without reliable STABs but they are ways to go around it.

Also I just want to point out one thing there: I have tried to look for any physical counterpart (which is very much not 1:1 but is interesting nonetheless) and I have trouble looking any decent Pokemon that uses Bulk Up, especially over Sword Dance (looking at you Urshifu) with one big exception: Coil Zygarde. Zygarde terrorized OU by using its huge defenses on both sides (and Glare) and then boosted itself further (among other things). The point is: it already had good defenses. I think we could also learn from CM Arceus from other gens.

2. CAP29’s Speed tier has been a hot topic of discussion throughout this entire process; what level of speed is most appropriate for us to succeed in our role as a bulky CM sweeper?
That's tough. Outspeeding Rillaboom is the bare minimum we should go for. As for the maximum... honestly I don't know. I like Pipotchi point as it reminds me of the Quiver Dance discussion. Speed is great to let us have more control on Color Change, keep our STAB one more attack (thus being more threatening) and because frankly otherwise I don't see us doing anything before 3 boosts if we go for a stat spread similar to other CM.
Yet outspeed Garchomp will put in jeopardy a big check... I think going for a good speed (more than Chomp in any case) would be very interesting as a Pokemon but I don't know if this is the best for the concept.

4. Given our knowledge that CAP29 will be boosting its Special Defense, should it start off with high special bulk, high physical bulk, or perhaps more balanced defenses?
As said in 1. I think we want at least "Good" bulk on both side to begin with. Here is why:
Rillaboom's Grassy Glide is the "weakest" physical attack we should absolutely not be 2KOed by with little investment. Wood Hammer provide a good upper limit: a Good PT rating will not be 2KOed by Grassy Slide with little to no investment and might take 2 Wood Hammer with full investment, allowing us to tweak with out EVs investment.
A Good ST rating is enough to comfortably take Clefable Moonblast and let us to some nifty stuff like not being afraid of Glowking cycling us with Flamethrower + Scald.

Then, it all depends on our speed really. If we are fast (by that I mean more than Chomp at the very least), we don't need that much bulk as shown by Latias / M-Latias: a Good rating is probably enough. If we hover between Garchomp and Rillaboom, the question becomes trickier but I think we would still want very good bulk on both sides, slightly skewed to physical (because gosh we will need it).

 

[MrDollSteak]

Apologies for not responding sooner, I've been very busy recently, but I've made the time to jump in to discuss my favourite stage!

1. What are some stat-related trends among other viable CM sweepers that we can use to inform CAP29?

I think this has been decently covered by other posters, but the main thing to keep in mind is that the best CM sweepers in the current metagame seem to lean either in the direction of being fast, specially tanky and with decent special attack stats, or slow, bulky and with average to high special attack stats. Of course it is worth pointing out that the later category is represented by two Magic Guard users, and is therefore more likely that we will need to be decently fast, have decent enough all around bulk, leaning specially from the first place, and having a relatively high starting Special Attack stat.

2. CAP29’s Speed tier has been a hot topic of discussion throughout this entire process; what level of speed is most appropriate for us to succeed in our role as a bulky CM sweeper?

As mentioned previously, I think it is of paramount importance, considering that the only successful slow Calm Mind users carry Magic Guard. I personally think that we want to be in the range between 90 and 100 Speed so as to be able to beat the majority of other defensive Pokemon as well as our key offensive switchin in Rillaboom. I also think it is quite important that we under speed Krilowatt and Garchomp as they are otherwise pretty important consistent checks to our shenanigans, and we can realistically still irritate them with some of our existing optional coverage moves, Garchomp in particular, with a predicted switch.

3. How much extra offensive power, if any, will CAP29 need to compensate for often losing its STAB boost? How much of an offensive threat should CAP29 be before it sets up?

I think this is a great question because all the other fast enough Calm Mind sweepers generally have a pretty middling offensive presence before setting up, that said, they will never lose stab, so in effect I think we want to ensure that being at +1 with no stab, is at least somewhat comparable to some of the other more middling Calm Mind sweepers being at +1 with Stab, for example Suicune and Tapu Fini, lest we be completely unable to do any damage. With this in mind I think it is quite possible for us to be towards some the higher end of existing Calm Mind sweeepers in terms of raw Sp. Atk. I think doing so will also mean that it might sometimes be preferable for us to click an attack on our first free turn rather than a Calm Mind boost which may make us slightly less predictable and therefore more viable. The key is to make sure that our combined Sp. Atk and Speed aren't high enough that we instead opt for Choice Specs or Choice Scarf sets. While I don't necessarily think its anti-concept for such a set to exist, I do think it will show that we have rather missed the mark if those sets are significantly more viable than Calm Mind ones.

4. Given our knowledge that CAP29 will be boosting its Special Defense, should it start off with high special bulk, high physical bulk, or perhaps more balanced defenses?

While common logic would dictate that we would want a higher physical bulk since it's not getting boosted and we want to be as tanky as possible from the beginning, I think as others have noticed, the trend seems to be that most Calm Mind sweepers actually have pretty solid starting special defense stats with above average at best physical tankiness. I think this trend is important as far as counterplay goes, but also because having a high base special defense means that we can still function as a decent enough special wall before boosting through Calm Mind, considering that these are also the majority of switchins that we want to come in on. I think as far as physical tankiness goes we need to find that sweet spot of being able to consistently take on Rillaboom and Zeraora, but simultaneously still be threatened by things like Garchomp, Landorus-T and Colossoil. In this sense we will likely be somewhat balanced in terms of our defenses, but I do think we should lean into Special Tankiness.

 

[naturalstupidity]

I've been lurking CAP for a while, but the stat stage has always been my favorite, so I wanted to contribute and put my thoughts in.

1. What are some stat-related trends among other viable CM sweepers that we can use to inform CAP29?

I've been noticing a lot of people argue that since the majority of viable CM users have a specially defensive leaning, a specially defensive focus helps make a CM sweeper viable. This logic has a pretty big hole, though. Most CM users are specially defensive because Game Freak gave more specially defensive Pokemon Calm Mind. The trend here is entirely due to sampling bias. I looked through the list of remotely viable Pokemon who know Calm Mind and have a higher physical than special defense, and there was slim pickings: Slowbro, Entei, Cobalion, Landorus-T, and Kartana(wut). Most of these either are not OU viable or have much, much better things to do than CM sweeping, so let's focus on why Slowbro isn't a viable CM user.

As has been talked about before, a bulky CM user needs a ton of survivability if they're going to be slow. It took giving Slowbro 95/180 physical defenses and Shell Armor to make it a viable CM user in ORAS. Furthermore, that survivability needs to help it while it's staying in. While Regenerator is an extremely durable ability, it doesn't help Slowbro here since a CM user needs to stay in. The problem isn't the physical defense; it's that Slowbro can't stay in very long. Give Clefable Slowbro's defense stat, and you have a top tier CM sweeper since Clefable can stay in forever.

In short, most viable CM sweepers are specially defensive, but that isn't a trend that can really tell us anything since Game Freak decided not to give many physically defensive Pokemon CM. It should be more telling that the best CM users we have tend to have fairly balanced defenses and invest heavily in Defense, and I'll get to the independent reasoning for why we absolutely need high defense later.

2. CAP29’s Speed tier has been a hot topic of discussion throughout this entire process; what level of speed is most appropriate for us to succeed in our role as a bulky CM sweeper?

I agree with the general consensus that we need relatively high speed. However, I don't think it's paramount that Garchomp outspeeds us since in a situation where we have boosts under our belt, we almost certainly won't have our typing anymore. Without the Earthquake weakness or STAB on our moves, both CAP29 and Garchomp will be doing less damage overall, so the first move advantage becomes less important overall. The speed difference with Garchomp becomes most important if we are carrying Ice Beam, which would allow us to consistently beat Garchomp if we are faster, so that is really the only key issue that a 102+ speed tier would provide. The question then becomes whether that high of a speed stat actually helps us, which I'm not sure it does since there's a bit of a Speed vacuum between Garchomp and Tornadus-T. The 90-100 range that has been brought up before should be sufficient, but I do think we can go higher without throwing our checks and counters out of wack.

3. How much extra offensive power, if any, will CAP29 need to compensate for often losing its STAB boost? How much of an offensive threat should CAP29 be before it sets up?

More than any almost other viable CM sweeper, if we do not have Boomburst. The only recent CM sweepers I can remember that don't use STAB are BW Reuniclus and ORAS/USUM Mega Latias, who have 125 and 140 base special attack, respectively. We need that level of special attack to be viable since at high boost levels, STAB is the difference between +2 and +4, and +3 and +6. Without STAB, our power ceiling is effectively three boosts fewer than the power ceiling of a normal sweeper. We absolutely need a high special attack stat to compensate for that loss.

4. Given our knowledge that CAP29 will be boosting its Special Defense, should it start off with high special bulk, high physical bulk, or perhaps more balanced defenses?

I've already argued that the Defense/Sp. Def leanings of current CM sweepers aren't a trend we should place too much stock into. I think we will most optimally have high defenses overall, with a clear leaning towards Defense. As has been established before, most CM sweepers invest heavily into their defense, ultimately leaning towards something like CM Clefable or Tapu Fini having a higher starting Defense than Special Defense. The reason for this should be clear. A high Special Defense is less important since we will be accruing multiple CM boosts to make us tanky on that front. We have no way of boosting our Defense, so to give us any survivability at all we need a high Defense stat from the beginning.

Overall, I think we need generally high stats since Color Change has afforded us a ton of power budget that we have yet to use. CAP29's ideal stat spread would have high overall defenses, especially physical defense, a fairly high Speed tier, and a strong Special Attack stat. These stats probably remove Coil as a viable possibility later down the line, but they are essential for CAP29's viability as a CM sweeper.

 

[spoo]

Alright y'all, loving these responses so far. There's been a healthy range of opinions conveyed up to this point, and my goal is to have flexible limits that can accomodate for as many of them as possible; however, it seems that in general, people want CAP29 to be moderately fast (mostly proposed as in between Rillaboom and Garchomp), to have a respectable initial offensive presence, and to have generally balanced defenses (though whether we lean more specially or physically defensive still looks fairly split). I'm not going to propose anything myself quite yet, but I'm opening up the floor for people to float whatever stat limits that they think are appropriate. To guide this discussion a bit, I want to refer back to the last stage, and contextualize the discussion up to this point within our threats list. I'm asking the following questions:

1. Looking at our threats list, what kind of Special Sweepiness best lends CAP29 to beating our switch-ins or pressuring the listed targets?

2. How should we set our Physical Sweepiness such that Coil sets are still feasible? Is it even necessary to set a PS limit, or is the combined Sweepiness limit good enough for our needs?

Additionally, offensive counterplay to CAP29 will likely be somewhat complicated at times, as we'll often be able to avoid being hit super-effectively twice in a row, so I'll pose this last thought:

3. Are there any attacks (or combinations of attacks) from Pokemon on this list that we really shouldn't be taking? Conversely, are there any attacks that CAP29 should be able to consistently take on if it wants to succeed? How do these attacks affect the extent of our Tankiness limits and whether we lean into Special or Physical Tankiness?


Please feel free to continue answering the first four questions as well, as everything is more or less related here. I've also attached our threatlist for convenience:

Switch-Ins for CAP29
Slowking
Slowbro
Slowking-Galar (AV)
Ferrothorn
Clefable (Utility)
Rillaboom (CB)
Mandibuzz
Zeraora

CAP29 Pressures with Sludge Bomb (Poison-type Moves)
Rillaboom (SD)
Tangrowth
Jumbao
Tapu Lele
Tapu Koko
Tapu Fini
Kerfluffle
Clefable (CM)

CAP29 Pressures with Dark Pulse (Dark-type Moves)
Aegislash (Offensive)
Dragapult
Pajantom
Latios
Victini
Kartana

Difficulty Checking CAP29
Corviknight (Can't check, but can U-turn out)
Mandibuzz (Can't check, but can U-turn out)
Regieleki (Can't check, but can Volt Switch out)
Cyclohm (No Toxic)
Suicune

Counters to CAP29
Gastrodon
Blissey (Only against CM sets)

Checks to CAP29
Tyranitar
Colossoil
Garchomp
Arghonaut
Toxapex
Heatran (Defensive)
Landorus-T (Scarf)

 

[quziel]

I believe that we should be KO'd by very strong Neutral-Neutral and Resist-SE attack pairings. Pokemon such as Pajantom, if they manage to get in on us, should be able to 2HKO us with Spirit Shackle into Spirit Shackle. Being 2HKO'd by most ghost moves is something I think to be valuable. A list of attacks that I think are probably a bit too high for us to take, that is, where we should set our limits, follows:

HDB Dragapult's Draco Meteor should 2HKO us without SpDef boosts.
Dragapult's Dragon Darts should 2HKO us.
Pajantom's CB Spirit Shackle should easily 2HKO us.
Heatran's Magma Storm into EP should beat us barring SpDef boosts.
Garchomp's EQ should OHKO us barring typing changes.
Tapu Lele's Specs Moonblast should 2HKO us barring SpDef Boosts.
Tomohawk should be able to 2HKO us with Rocks and Aura Sphere into Hurricane barring SpDef boosts.

Some attacks I think we should always take are
Avoiding a 2HKO from Rillaboom's CB Woodhammer should be the upper limit of our PTank limits to allow for slower spreads.
Avoiding a KO from Zeraora's Plasma Fists into Close Combat is lower than the above but should be guaranteed.

Thresholds

This is a non-exhaustive list of attacks ordered by strength:
Physical:

Mon	Set
Pajantom	2xCB Shackle
Barraskewda	2x Liquidation
Melmetal	DIB+EQ
Chomp	LO EQ
Landorus	Offensive EQ
Rillaboom	2x CBWH
Excadrill	Offensive EQ
Pajantom	CBEQ
Rillaboom	2x CBWH
Victini	Scarf
Melmetal	DIB
Zeraora	PF+CC
Astrolotl	Lash+Tantrum
Cawmodore	BD BP

Special:

Mon	Set
Tapu Lele	2xSpecsMB
Krilowatt	Surf+TB
Dragapult	Specs SBx2
Tomohawk	AS+Hurr
Kyurem	2xIB
Dragapult	HDB Dracox2
Zapdos	Hurr+Dis
Zapdos	Hurr+VS
Equilibra	Neut EP + DD
Equilibra	1 EP
Tomohawk	2xHurr
Slowking	Scald+FS

Edit for clarity: Assuming moderate investment, aka 252 HP with minimal defence investment

 

[kjnjkmjk1]

1. Looking at our threats list, what kind of Special Sweepiness best lends CAP29 to beating our switch-ins or pressuring the listed targets?
quziel mentioned a few benchmarks on Discord, which I will borrow for this post:
+0 non-STAB (my own addition) (effectively 1x)
+0 STAB -> +0 non-STAB (effectively 1.25x)
+1 non-STAB (effectively 1.5x)
+2 non-STAB (effectively 2x)
This list will be centered on Calm Mind with our "STABs" (Dark Pulse/Sludge Bomb).

As a baseline, Jumbao is the lowest hanging fruit, seeing as how it's the only Pokemon on our threat list with a 4x weakness to one of our STABs. I think we should be able to OHKO an offensive Jumbao at +1 non-STAB, and threaten a 2HKO basically all the time (even at +0 non-STAB to defensive Jumbao with max investment, which is setup bait for us regardless).

At +0 non-STAB, we should aim for 2HKOs on some of our flimsier switch-in/pressures with super effective hits. In particular, we should be looking to 2HKO Rillaboom, Tapu Koko, non-AV Tangrowth, Dragapult, and maybe even Kerfluffle. (Also including Jumbao for completion's sake.) Kartana's sheer lack of special bulk means that it can probably be grouped in here too on a neutral hit.

At +0 STAB -> +0 non-STAB, we should be 2HKOing more of our switchins/pressures. Tapu Lele in particular comes to mind, although I think an argument could be made for Regieleki on neutral hits from Sludge Bomb. (Also including OHKOing offensive Jumbao off of the initial STAB hit.)

At +1 non-STAB (effectively 1.5x), we should nail 2HKOs on almost all of our switch-in/pressures that we can hit super effectively. In particular, I'm thinking of offensive Aegislash, Clefable, Pajantom, Latios, Victini, Slowbro, and maybe even less defensively oriented versions of Tapu Fini, all of which could dodge the 2HKO otherwise. Regieleki should also be a sure 2HKO at this point.

At +2 non-STAB, we should probably get OHKOs on everything we 2HKO'd at +0 (thanks to math). In addition, I think AV Tangrowth and Zeraora are good candidates for being in 2HKO range at this level, as AV Tangrowth is still being hit super-effectively despite its special bulk doubling from its item, and Zeraora would be taking a neutral hit off of its not-great special bulk. Slowking is a less likely 2HKO candidate, given its sheer special bulk, but it might be a good target to include here to at least squeeze into range for.

To actually answer the question, we definitely need a good starting special sweepiness in order to achieve these kinds of OHKOs and 2HKOs. To accomplish this, we'll likely need a Special Sweepiness that's at least Very Good, perhaps even being Excellent.

 

[Birkal]

There's a lot of good discussion here, but I want to zoom out a bit to address 2spoopy4u's question about speed:

2. CAP29’s Speed tier has been a hot topic of discussion throughout this entire process; what level of speed is most appropriate for us to succeed in our role as a bulky CM sweeper?

As others have correctly noted, CAP29 is a pretty apples-to-oranges comparison with other bulky CM sweepers in the metagame. I think it's good to utilize these mons as a case study, but I don't think we should shy away from overcompensating with how high we set our limits. You have to remember that this concept is about making a viable Pokemon with a "Defective Ability," and Color Change was certainly one of the less viable options we could have voted on. We lack reliable STAB to fully utilize the SpA boost from CM, and our opponent has agency over what our typing is defensively in order to score them a super-effective hit int he following turn, negating the SpD boost as well. CAP29 also struggles with hazard damage, status, and residual weather. And none of this holds a candle to the inherent weakness of Color Change that we won't be able to shake: Voltturn. Our opponent can always double-switch in on CAP29 and get a lot of momentum by forcing it out with a pivoting move that will make it lose STAB and fodder for whatever comes in next to deliver super-effective damage.

I'm not here to dump on CAP29, but I'm also concerned about how viable this mon will ultimately be. The checks and counters list was intentionally left small from Threats Discussion, yes, but that doesn't mean that CAP29 won't have checks and counters. I'd like to remind everyone of this list from Concept Assessment 2 that features twenty-eight Pokemon in the current metagame that have a favorable match-up against Color Change alone. Our typing and defining moves will help narrow down that list, yes, but that list is going to be increased by 4MSS; CAP29 can only run so many moves, and we're already strapped for slots if we're relying on recovery and CM. That list of checks and counters is going to get itself populated fast once we determine our stats.

All of this is to say that when it comes to discussing whether CAP29 should be bulky, fast, or offensive, I don't think it's too far-flung to say that we should seriously consider being above-average in all three categories, including speed. CAP29 doesn't have a powerful boosting move like QD to immediately apply pressure, it's likely not going to get an offensive pivoting move, and it's going to struggle to run any utility moves without being forced into a mono-attacking set (which isn't totally out of the picture). The conversation is heading in a good direction in terms of what our bulkiness needs to look like to survive against specific match-ups that we're supposed to capitalize against with Color Change. Offenses (particularly SpA) will obviously need some fine tuning when it comes to the actual submissions, but I also think we're heading in a good direction there.

What worries me is the conversation around speed, and specifically the artificial ceiling we've already started to place on CAP29 with Garchomp . Garchomp is listed on our Checks list at the moment, but a check does not imply that this Pokemon beats us 100% of the time. If we allow Ice-type coverage, that will deter a switch-in, but as I mentioned above, it is real difficult for CAP29 to fit an Ice-type move on its movepool, let alone spam it, hoping Garchomp switches in. No, it'd likely rather run Scald for the utility it provides against a host of match-ups, and attempt to catch Garchomp coming in. This makes CAP29 real predictable though, because if Garchomp is on the opposing team, CAP29 basically can't set up CM and is forced to spam Scald (or set up a sub, which isn't great on a mon that's already taking so much residual damage already). My stance is that Garchomp might be too strong of a check in this scenario, bordering on a counter if CAP29 doesn't have access to Ice-type coverage or Scald. And even with those moves, Garchomp's presence alone is really hampering CAP29 from getting much of anything done on its limited switch-ins.

This is why I recommend people take a look at giving CAP29 a speed stat that exceeds base 102. This changes the Garchomp match-up significantly, as CAP29 can now risk using moves other than Scald or Ice-type coverage when Garchomp is in the wings. Garchomp is still very clearly a check though -- it's going to threaten to OHKO with STAB EQ, and can also predict CAP29 switching out while it sets up with SD or Scale Shot. Having more speed isn't going to fundamentally alter CAP29's match-up with Garchomp: it's only going to give CAP29 a fighting chance against it. As I stated above, CAP29 loses to so many things already, from offensive pivoting moves to residual damage to the entourage of viable mons that can easily use a two-move combo to hit for SE damage on the second turn. Color Change is a horrible offensive ability (it's why we'll never be a choiced user), and it has some defensive niches, but also huge potential drawbacks, depending on match-up. Piling "Garchomp wins almost all the time" onto that list doesn't feel particularly great on a stage where we should really be considering splurging on CAP29's power budget to help it be viable.

So how high of speed should you consider? I'm not entirely sure, but I'm glad people recognize that Adamant Rillaboom should be the absolute floor. I adore the post made by Pipotchi, specifically about how CM CAP29 risks becoming similar to something like Cresselia, and advocates looking into CM Keldeo, Latios, and Latias, which all run healthy amounts of speed. This is going to sound paradoxical, but CAP29 doesn't particularly care about its speed, but it also simultaneously will absolutely use any speed we give it to further its viability, and likely run full EVs if we're north of base 100. Remember, we're not at risk of CAP29 running Specs or Scarf, and due to our poor utility as an offensive mon in general, CAP29 will be leveraging its speed mostly as a defensive tool. I won't go fully into speed tiers, but I think finding a niche right above Krilowatt would help against CAP29's ongoing struggle with pivoting moves. But even outspeeding Astrolotl isn't particularly egregious; you have to remember that we're still outsped by a host of fast mons/scarfers that can hit us with a pivoting move and force CAP29 into a dicey next turn.

This is all why I'd recommend that a hard limit on speed be set just under Torn-T and Syclant at base 121. Again, stat spread submitters could submit a much lower speed (still above Adamant Rillaboom), but I think the flexibility would help CAP29 find increased viability and flexible play. Being slower than Torn-T means that CAP29 can potentially set up CM as it switches in, but then needs to reconcile with U-turn (losing our STAB), Knock Off, Hurricane (also losing our STAB), or Torn-T itself setting up. Many more speed control mons still outspeed CAP29 and can neuter its STAB, but at least Garchomp isn't also on that expanding list of mons that will immediately threaten us out and force linear play to be viable.

---

This has been a really long post, but I wanted to give the community the opportunity to view CAP29 through a potential new lens. It can be scary to think about us creating a Pokemon that has great defenses, powerful mixed offenses, and above-average speed, but you've got to remember that CAP29 is doing what no CAP has done before: we're fighting an uphill battle right from the word 'go.' We've been relatively reserved with our selections about CAP29's typing and defining moves up until this point, so I'd like to encourage the community to think a bit more outside-the-box when it comes to setting our stats. You might argue that we can really spruce CAP29 up during movepool, but again, 4MSS is going to weigh heavily on us and what CAP29 can pull off. The ~20 base speed increase I'm suggesting here wouldn't break CAP29, in my opinion, but it also wouldn't hurt.

As a final note, I'm the Topic Leader of CAP29, but 2spoopy4u is in charge of Stat Limits and Stat Submissions. If the community disagrees with my opinions about increasing speed, then that's totally fine; I wouldn't be upset at all. I've just been chewing over the entire CAP29 process, and I felt like we were losing focus on how truly defective Color Change is. It has its niche advantages, but its staggering disadvantages far outweigh them. I feel it might be worth our time to investigate what it would look like to have more "stable" stats that will ensure CAP29 is at least viable in the metagame, which includes a buffed speed stat.

 

[taziathegreat]

I wasn’t going to post this topic, simply because I don’t fully understand the stat limit concept. But We’ve been saving our power spending bucks and at some point we have to cash in at some point. Our overall effectiveness is in constant flux so we should heavily invest in the attributes that are somewhat stable, Because of that I’m suggesting we have above average limits across the board

 

[shnowshner]

There's a lot of good discussion here, but I want to zoom out a bit to address 2spoopy4u's question about speed:



As others have correctly noted, CAP29 is a pretty apples-to-oranges comparison with other bulky CM sweepers in the metagame. I think it's good to utilize these mons as a case study, but I don't think we should shy away from overcompensating with how high we set our limits. You have to remember that this concept is about making a viable Pokemon with a "Defective Ability," and Color Change was certainly one of the less viable options we could have voted on. We lack reliable STAB to fully utilize the SpA boost from CM, and our opponent has agency over what our typing is defensively in order to score them a super-effective hit int he following turn, negating the SpD boost as well. CAP29 also struggles with hazard damage, status, and residual weather. And none of this holds a candle to the inherent weakness of Color Change that we won't be able to shake: Voltturn. Our opponent can always double-switch in on CAP29 and get a lot of momentum by forcing it out with a pivoting move that will make it lose STAB and fodder for whatever comes in next to deliver super-effective damage.

I'm not here to dump on CAP29, but I'm also concerned about how viable this mon will ultimately be. The checks and counters list was intentionally left small from Threats Discussion, yes, but that doesn't mean that CAP29 won't have checks and counters. I'd like to remind everyone of this list from Concept Assessment 2 that features twenty-eight Pokemon in the current metagame that have a favorable match-up against Color Change alone. Our typing and defining moves will help narrow down that list, yes, but that list is going to be increased by 4MSS; CAP29 can only run so many moves, and we're already strapped for slots if we're relying on recovery and CM. That list of checks and counters is going to get itself populated fast once we determine our stats.

All of this is to say that when it comes to discussing whether CAP29 should be bulky, fast, or offensive, I don't think it's too far-flung to say that we should seriously consider being above-average in all three categories, including speed. CAP29 doesn't have a powerful boosting move like QD to immediately apply pressure, it's likely not going to get an offensive pivoting move, and it's going to struggle to run any utility moves without being forced into a mono-attacking set (which isn't totally out of the picture). The conversation is heading in a good direction in terms of what our bulkiness needs to look like to survive against specific match-ups that we're supposed to capitalize against with Color Change. Offenses (particularly SpA) will obviously need some fine tuning when it comes to the actual submissions, but I also think we're heading in a good direction there.

What worries me is the conversation around speed, and specifically the artificial ceiling we've already started to place on CAP29 with Garchomp . Garchomp is listed on our Checks list at the moment, but a check does not imply that this Pokemon beats us 100% of the time. If we allow Ice-type coverage, that will deter a switch-in, but as I mentioned above, it is real difficult for CAP29 to fit an Ice-type move on its movepool, let alone spam it, hoping Garchomp switches in. No, it'd likely rather run Scald for the utility it provides against a host of match-ups, and attempt to catch Garchomp coming in. This makes CAP29 real predictable though, because if Garchomp is on the opposing team, CAP29 basically can't set up CM and is forced to spam Scald (or set up a sub, which isn't great on a mon that's already taking so much residual damage already). My stance is that Garchomp might be too strong of a check in this scenario, bordering on a counter if CAP29 doesn't have access to Ice-type coverage or Scald. And even with those moves, Garchomp's presence alone is really hampering CAP29 from getting much of anything done on its limited switch-ins.

This is why I recommend people take a look at giving CAP29 a speed stat that exceeds base 102. This changes the Garchomp match-up significantly, as CAP29 can now risk using moves other than Scald or Ice-type coverage when Garchomp is in the wings. Garchomp is still very clearly a check though -- it's going to threaten to OHKO with STAB EQ, and can also predict CAP29 switching out while it sets up with SD or Scale Shot. Having more speed isn't going to fundamentally alter CAP29's match-up with Garchomp: it's only going to give CAP29 a fighting chance against it. As I stated above, CAP29 loses to so many things already, from offensive pivoting moves to residual damage to the entourage of viable mons that can easily use a two-move combo to hit for SE damage on the second turn. Color Change is a horrible offensive ability (it's why we'll never be a choiced user), and it has some defensive niches, but also huge potential drawbacks, depending on match-up. Piling "Garchomp wins almost all the time" onto that list doesn't feel particularly great on a stage where we should really be considering splurging on CAP29's power budget to help it be viable.

So how high of speed should you consider? I'm not entirely sure, but I'm glad people recognize that Adamant Rillaboom should be the absolute floor. I adore the post made by Pipotchi, specifically about how CM CAP29 risks becoming similar to something like Cresselia, and advocates looking into CM Keldeo, Latios, and Latias, which all run healthy amounts of speed. This is going to sound paradoxical, but CAP29 doesn't particularly care about its speed, but it also simultaneously will absolutely use any speed we give it to further its viability, and likely run full EVs if we're north of base 100. Remember, we're not at risk of CAP29 running Specs or Scarf, and due to our poor utility as an offensive mon in general, CAP29 will be leveraging its speed mostly as a defensive tool. I won't go fully into speed tiers, but I think finding a niche right above Krilowatt would help against CAP29's ongoing struggle with pivoting moves. But even outspeeding Astrolotl isn't particularly egregious; you have to remember that we're still outsped by a host of fast mons/scarfers that can hit us with a pivoting move and force CAP29 into a dicey next turn.

This is all why I'd recommend that a hard limit on speed be set just under Torn-T and Syclant at base 121. Again, stat spread submitters could submit a much lower speed (still above Adamant Rillaboom), but I think the flexibility would help CAP29 find increased viability and flexible play. Being slower than Torn-T means that CAP29 can potentially set up CM as it switches in, but then needs to reconcile with U-turn (losing our STAB), Knock Off, Hurricane (also losing our STAB), or Torn-T itself setting up. Many more speed control mons still outspeed CAP29 and can neuter its STAB, but at least Garchomp isn't also on that expanding list of mons that will immediately threaten us out and force linear play to be viable.

---

This has been a really long post, but I wanted to give the community the opportunity to view CAP29 through a potential new lens. It can be scary to think about us creating a Pokemon that has great defenses, powerful mixed offenses, and above-average speed, but you've got to remember that CAP29 is doing what no CAP has done before: we're fighting an uphill battle right from the word 'go.' We've been relatively reserved with our selections about CAP29's typing and defining moves up until this point, so I'd like to encourage the community to think a bit more outside-the-box when it comes to setting our stats. You might argue that we can really spruce CAP29 up during movepool, but again, 4MSS is going to weigh heavily on us and what CAP29 can pull off. The ~20 base speed increase I'm suggesting here wouldn't break CAP29, in my opinion, but it also wouldn't hurt.

As a final note, I'm the Topic Leader of CAP29, but 2spoopy4u is in charge of Stat Limits and Stat Submissions. If the community disagrees with my opinions about increasing speed, then that's totally fine; I wouldn't be upset at all. I've just been chewing over the entire CAP29 process, and I felt like we were losing focus on how truly defective Color Change is. It has its niche advantages, but its staggering disadvantages far outweigh them. I feel it might be worth our time to investigate what it would look like to have more "stable" stats that will ensure CAP29 is at least viable in the metagame, which includes a buffed speed stat.

I'll play Devil's Advocate for a bit here; while I do think we should have 29 faster than the typical Calm Mind sweeper, I do worry that we might overstretch our boundaries just a little. I'm thinking back to Gen 7 when Dark Void got nerfed to hell and back, to the point where Darkrai literally was better off using the still-unreliable Hypnosis to threaten Sleep on foes. For some it seemed like maybe without reliable sleep, Darkrai could be manageable for OU; the issue was, even without its 80% accurate Sleep move, and even despite being a generally frail attacker with mono-Dark STAB, Darkrai was still an absolute terror to face as its Dark/Fighting/Poison coverage alone was horrific to face after a +2 and its great Speed made it tough to outpace compared to other sweepers.

Now in our case, we only know of having Poison, Dark, and likely Scald and Ice Beam for coverage, which isn't nearly as solid and restricts our moveset pretty hard; we won't be hitting Base 125 anytime soon, can't threaten any sleep whatsoever, and Calm Mind is our boosting move of choice, not Nasty Plot. But I, like others, are cautious about making 29 too strong of an attacker. Darkrai as well pretty much lacks a competitive ability and it still was a terrifying prospect to face.

Part of my concern is that 29 needs a lot to succeed, and we've had little example of what kind of Pokemon 29 should be like. Bulky setup implies being able to tank hits, but you're saying we also may need to break past Garchomp's speed tier to find success, and could go no higher than Torn-T as a maximum. There's not much inherently wrong with fast speed and strong defenses, as long as you are lacking in Special Attack: but then comes the further issue of the community saying the 29 may not be strong enough to cut it, as its dual STABs on the Special side are quite weak for the standard (80/90 compared to stuff like Close Combat's 120), and it's not likely to keep its STAB during a sweep either, further reducing damage output. So, that means we need the capability to hit pretty hard in order to actually pose a threat.

All in all, from discussion so far, it appears we should allow for solid bulk, a great Speed tier, and strong offenses. Which doesn't sound too far off from something way overtuned. Allowing for high Speed and good Attack, to me, sounds like a recipe for making the kind of hit-and-run attacker we decided early on was completely antithetical to the kind of Pokemon we want to fulfill the concept with. There may be a point where we concede that either we're not going to be as strong as we want, or as fast as we want, else risking that 29's bulky setup set isn't seen as viable and any good player just runs an offensive set, should they run 29 at all.

This is all still just in theory; I am in full agreement that its got a horrible weakness to pivot moves and is quite lacking in the Choiced-attacker department, which puts a heavy damper on its capability to simply start throwing out attacks. What I do worry about is 29 simply missing the mark on what we've been trying to make and its Calm Mind set being overshadowed by some other set, due to having good Speed and fairly spammable attacks along with what is likely to be good Special Attack.

Really, all this goes to show is that we've got a real mess of a stats stage going on. Its entirely possible that we may need to simultaneously outspeed Kerf's 370 tier, possess sizeable attacking power, and have the defenses to survive powerful hits coming our way, in order to make 29 work as intended. This means we'll need to be careful of having our CAP end up too weak or too strong, based on how willing we are to compensate for its glaring issues. At thing point its hard to say for certain; I'd ere on the side of having great stats all around, maybe not the Speed limit you're suggesting, but I wouldn't see much wrong with going past the Base 110 crowd so have an edge against annoyances like Latios, Krilowatt, Kartana, Garchomp, and Pajantom.

 

[kjnjkmjk1]

Super short post to throw a bone towards this question:
2. How should we set our Physical Sweepiness such that Coil sets are still feasible? Is it even necessary to set a PS limit, or is the combined Sweepiness limit good enough for our needs?
Coil sets get the benefit of higher power STABs, which means that we likely won't need an attack stat as high as we're aiming to have our special attack stat to accomplish similar things on most of our switchins and pressures. Because of this, I don't really think it's necessary for us to set a Physical Sweepiness limit, as we can just figure out a general Sweepiness limit based on what kind of special power we're looking for and use it to govern our physical power as well. A potential worry is that stat submitters trying to fit both sets at once may find themselves hitting the Sweepiness limit sooner than expected, but I think the tradeoff of getting the versatility of both sets for potentially ending up with somewhat lower offensive stats is fine.

 

[spoo]

Alrighty, the time's come to post some initial limits for us. Discussion has waned recently, but setting appropriate stat limits is absolutely crucial, so I really implore you guys to toy around with the new bsr calc, see what the limits translate to, and please post your thoughts here.

S: 125
PT: 135
ST: 130
BSR: 585

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.)

With respect to the limits themselves, I wanted to allow for as many "builds" of CAP29 as I could. It seems that nearly everyone has a different vision for what stats we should have, so the individual stat limits are all fairly high, while we have a very respectable BSR of 585 to hold everything together. Again, I want to emphasize that this is all very preliminary, including the individual ceilings for Atk, SpA, and Spe. All of what I've suggested here is just a starting point for discussion to take place, and all of it is subject to change if the community consensus suggests it.

On a final note, this thread will close in roughly 48 hours, after which I'll decide on our final limits based on the input shared here. Happy posting!

 

[Full_Korbe]

S : 130
PT : 130
ST : 130
BSR : 590

Your limits correspond to what I have in mind and more importantly account for varied spreads (most importantly for spreads under 80 Speed and above 105). A PT of 130 is enough to comfortably handle Rillaboom and most importantly tanking two CB Wood Hammer with just a bit of investment (relevant for slower spreads). Likewise, 130 ST is enough to barely survive Krillo LO Surf into Volt Switch (which means you can stay in and recover on it) with some investment. Lastly, I have also increased the overall BSR a bit because I noticed that spreads with ~90/100 speed have an hard time being powerful and bulky enough while staying 585. (just a very rough example, a 95/70/100/115/100/95 spread wouldn't shock me at first and sits at 586 BSR).

I have an harder time setting a good sweepiness limit. The thing is I don't think we leverage our speed for sweeping purpose but rather for setting-up. We need a decent Special Attack and it's hard to reach it if we are a bit speedy (106/110 is too much for example) so I would like a bit more leeway.

Completely agree with the hard limit, I don't see any reason for going above 120 speed.

 

[Tommaniacal]

I believe that BSR should be increased to at least 600. A limit of 585 means that it's basically impossible to create a stat spread that allows for coil (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).

For example, 100/120/105/100/80/95 is a BSR of 590, which still leaves Calm Mind barely useable. (100/106 physical defense with full HP investment is the minimum needed to not be 2hko'd by banded rillaboom after either leftovers or Grassy Terrain).

A BSR limit of 590-595 is technically doable for mixed spreads, but I think we should have more room to work with, especially with the power budget we've left available so far. As such, I think a 600 BSR limit gives enough room to work with on mixed Coil/Calm Mind spreads, without being unreasonable.

 

[quziel]

Good day,

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.

Additionally, I would like to petition for a minor increase of total BSR from 585 to perhaps 590 or 595.

Thank you for reading.