CAP 35 - Part 6 - Stat Limits Discussion

[SHSP]

CAP 35 So Far

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This next stage is Stat Limits, and it's very important! Our Stats Leader, who will be leading this stage, is Brambane, so make sure that your posts are generally directed towards him and the questions he asks. Brambane will be deciding the stat limits for CAP 34 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 34. We will look at limits to CAP 34's physical and special attacking prowess, its physical and special tanking capabilities, and the overall power of its stats.

This is a relatively tricky stage of the process if you're not familiar with what it is we're doing and why we're doing it. For that reason, we strongly encourage those who intend to participate to read the entire OP thoroughly and ask questions where needed.

Please do not poll jump by talking about specific stat spreads or suggesting specific abilities.

Be forewarned that there is no poll for this stage of the CAP. The Stats Leader will decide the stat limits for the CAP upon the conclusion of this thread.

Stat Bias Limits

Stat bias limits set the general stat bias of a Pokemon from an offensive and defensive standpoint. Stat biases are not solely for limiting stats, but they also describe the overall build of the Pokemon in offensive and defensive terms. However, the stat spread is the only part of the project that will be constrained by Stat Bias Limits. There will be four stat biases selected and a total Base Stat Rating (BSR) limit. The Stat Biases are:

Physical Tankiness (PT)

The rating of the Pokémon's physical defense.​

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Physical Sweepiness (PS)

The rating of the Pokémon's physical offense.​

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Special Tankiness (ST)

The rating of the Pokémon's special defense.​

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Special Sweepiness (SS)

The rating of the Pokémon's special offense​

A spreadsheet for calculating the ratings can be found HERE. To use it for yourself, create an editable copy with File > Make a copy. If you don't have a spreadsheet program, OpenOffice and Google Sheets are free.

If you're a newer member of CAP, we highly recommend that you do some good lurking during this stage in the process. Read this page thoroughly to understand what exactly we're doing here. If you're still confused, check out some of the old Stat Limits Discussion threads for past CAPs in the CAP Process Archive. If you're still uncomfortable with posting here, then we suggest you watch how experienced users post; you can learn a lot from them!

 

[Brambane]

Hello everyone, welcome to Stats Limits. During this stage, we will determine the parameters for stat spread submissions. CAP does this using a spreadsheet found above to calculate stat bias and a Base Stat Rating (BSR.) Please do not submit stat spreads during this stage; there will be a separate thread specifically for stat submissions.

There are a couple of expectations I want to establish as the stage leader for this discussion.

First and foremost, my responsibility as stage leader is to ensure the community opinion is represented in the process, but also set limits that facilitate our end goal. And the end goal of this project, as established earlier, is a wall with contradictory typing. We are making a Pokemon that is unequivocally and definitively a wall. We are NOT making a wallbreaker or fast sweeper. I want to make that clear right now; Electromorphosis as our ability does not change our identity as determined by our concept assessment.

Second, I am making an immediate decision to set a base Speed minimum to 29. This is solely to prevent BSR abuse concerns when setting our stat limits. There isn’t much reason to go below 29 in the CAP metagame, as minimum Speed Slowking-Galar is the most relevant slowest Pokemon. However, the BSR calculator continues to reward you for going slower and slower. For a wall, this leads to a clear way to abuse the calculator within our stat limits without having any significant relevance to the metagame. This lower limit ensures that your submission is less likely to constitute an unfair manipulation of the BSR calculator.

Third, I would like to direct your attention to this thread:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/cap-power-creep.3751478/

For our stat spreads and CAP processes in general, I think we often end up voting with the either clearly stated or subconscious intention of:

1. CAPs should try to be as a balanced as possible while being metagame relevant
2. If a CAP isn’t balanced, it is better to be too good than too weak
3. Unviability is a failure of the CAP process, so we should aim for high viability

Point 2 is reinforced by Point 3. It is difficult to make a perfectly balanced Pokemon, as evident that Game Freak frequently nerfs mechanics and now Pokemon themselves between games for VGC to balance their game. In response to this challenge, we as a community start to become hyper critical of our flaws and push the power level higher, often with the later stages of stats and movesets. For this process, we are going to address this trend directly.

We want to make a Pokemon that is good and balanced, but that just isn’t always what happens. I am not setting limits for “if it’s not balanced, it’s broken.” I am going to set limits for “if it’s not balanced, it’s meh.” If you disagree with this assessment, I would bring up our design philosophy for CAP projects in the above posted Power Creep thread. For now, this is the decision moving forward: we aim for balanced, but won’t break the Pokemon if we miss.

With all the above being said, here is your first discussion point:

I am considering a base Special Attack limit/maximum of 103. This number was chosen as it is proven effective on an Electromorphosis user already. Do you agree with this limit? Should it be higher or lower, and what number would you suggest? Feel free to use the defining moves and damage calculator to support your reasoning.

I am looking forward to an exciting stats stage!

 

[SunshineFuture]

I am considering a base Special Attack limit/maximum of 103. This number was chosen as it is proven effective on an Electromorphosis user already. Do you agree with this limit? Should it be higher or lower, and what number would you suggest?

I personally think this limit is a bit too low for my liking. The thing about Electromorphosis is that you want to avoid having too high a SpA stat to where we are encouraged to be a slow wallbreaker, but also not so low as to effectively make Electromorphosis have zero impact on how we threaten stuff out. On that latter point, 80 SpA does this against Offensive NP Gholdengo with Discharge:

0 SpA Bellibolt Discharge vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Gholdengo: 78-93 (24.7 - 29.5%) -- 99.9% chance to 4HKO

Even with Electromorphosis, you still only 3HKO, as even the maximum roll is about 49%. If this is what we want to aim for, that’s fine, but I feel our SpA ceiling should be a bit more generous than 103 to allow for slightly greater flexibility regarding our offensive calcs. My personal suggestion for a maximum SpA at the moment is 115 SpA, particularly because of this calculation:

+2 0 SpA Bellibolt Discharge vs. 248 HP / 116 SpD Venomicon: 372-440 (99.7 - 117.9%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

With the +2 simulating Electromorphosis, 115 SpA almost always OHKOing the support Venomicon set with a boosted Discharge feels like a solid, defined ceiling for our power, at least at first blush. Maybe there’s some other knock-on effects that I’m not aware of for this level of power, but this is what I’m thinking at the moment. I’d calculate and discuss what impacts that level of SpA has on Special Sweepiness/BSR, but the calculator actually isn’t updated for Chuggalong as of writing, so when that happens I can update this post with thoughts on that. That said, I definitely feel that whatever limit we set, Special Ice-type coverage should have a noteworthy Special Sweep/BSR penalty. I think this just has to happen because the last thing we want to do is turn this Pokémon into a bulky Wallbreaker, and I feel Special Ice coverage with higher SpA absolutely runs the risk of that.

 

[Imw0rstadP0keM0n]

I am considering a base Special Attack limit/maximum of 103. This number was chosen as it is proven effective on an Electromorphosis user already. Do you agree with this limit?

I would like to preface answering this question with this--are we a mixed attacker? Or explicitly a special attacker? In our final Movepool, we landed on (just to quote, I've labelled specific physical options in red below)

Required: Electric STAB (Thunderbolt/Discharge), Normal STAB (Hyper Voice/Body Slam), 50% Recovery, Knock Off, Paralysis (Glare/Thunder Wave/Nuzzle)
Optional: Ice Coverage, Volt Switch, Super Fang

Our safest Electric STABs are all special (for obvious reasons, Physical Electric STAB are either horrendously weak (spark lul) or have huge recoil, extremely dangerous for walls). However, we still have Knock Off and potentially Body Slam as physical options, as well as potentially our Ice coverage should we choose that route (which personally I think pushes us too closely to "fat wallbreaker" but that's just my opinion)

If we are a mixed attacker, we also likely should limit the amount of Attack we have as well--though not nearly as severely as Special Attack granted we're highly unlikely to be attacking with Electric physical STABs (unless we decide on something like Volt Tackle like psychopaths). If we instead keep our Attack stat very low, and relegate ourselves to using moves like Knock Off/Body Slam solely for utility purposes, we'll likely need a good Special Attack stat to make up for our relative passivity with Knock/Slam.

Additionally, I think we should consider a slight BSR (or if applicable, an SS) penalty if we include Volt Switch. Electromorphosis boosted pivots are incredibly scary, and those doing 80% on a neutral hit is potentially overpowered on the spot.

Special Ice-type coverage should have a noteworthy Special Sweep/BSR penalty.

Full agree with this.

---

a slight funny aside...

on speed tiers

I am making an immediate decision to set a base Speed minimum to 29.

I totally wasn't going to pitch 19 Speed for CAP 35 lmao

 

[Amamama]

I think a limit to SpA at 115 is fine with the condition that coverage is heavily limited at higher SpA stats: realistically with the electromorphosis charge in the back ground types should be sturdy reliable options to check 35.

Getting into these territories, while being able to really threaten grounds feels like an incentive to run more and more SpA invest:
252+ SpA Bellibolt Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 240+ SpD Slowking-Galar: 202-238 (51.2 - 60.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ SpA Bellibolt Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 228+ SpD Gliscor: 352-416 (100 - 118.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO

(This is 115 SpA without boosting item.)

Another option, aside from limiting Special coverage, is disallowing high differentials between a low HP stat and High mixed defenses (Rotom-W style) as well as high differentials between a High HP and Lopsided defenses (Melmetal Style), for spreads that reach a certain SpA threshold. This way we can make bulk less efficient for EV spreads, that try to run 252 EVs in Attack.
I also think that with SpA as high as this, we should be really careful with Superfang. Yes you aren't going to threaten to beat ground types on your own, but 35 will enable other breakers, that like to force in Ground types and once those are removed, 35 has very few real switch ins.

I'm not sure how to put penalties on Ice coverage, but I think up until around 90SpA you don't require penalties even for Ice Beam, as without invest you should be able to threaten a 2hko vs Gliscor
0 SpA Bellibolt Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 228+ SpD Gliscor: 212-252 (60.2 - 71.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
while not being able to OHKO it with max investment
252+ SpA Bellibolt Ice Beam vs. 244 HP / 228+ SpD Gliscor: 296-352 (84 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO.
From there having a small penalty to SS and/or Mixed Tankiness for every 5 Spa (or hitting certain calc limits) seems fine.
I think targeting mixed tankiness is more effective as sweepiness isn't going to be super high anyway and while speed has importance for 35, it's not super problematic if it's slow. Additionally the merit of higher SpA is sniping stuff like Venom and Argh, which becomes much harder for Venom if you're slower.

Aurora Beam and probably even Ice Spinner don't really require heavy penalties bc they are just fairly weak or in case of ice Spinner encourage mixed spreads, which already limit potential.
0 SpA Bellibolt Aurora Beam vs. 244 HP / 228+ SpD Gliscor: 188-224 (53.4 - 63.6%) -- 84.8% chance to 2HKO after Poison Heal
(115 Spa)
0 Atk Bellibolt Ice Spinner vs. 244 HP / 36 Def Gliscor: 208-248 (59 - 70.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
(115 atk)

So Yeah I think 115 SpA is a good ceiling for SpA.
To limit offensive potential Ice Beam should have stepped BSR/Tankiness penalties, starting at 90 Spa.
Idt Aurora Beam or Ice Spinner really require penalties for their power, but having a small BSR/Bulk reduction if you include them is fine for me, since being able to threaten Gliscor is better than to not be able to do that.

 

[Brambane]

Given the discussion here and on Discord, I am comfortable setting the Special Attack maximum at 115. There will be a BSR limit on all optional moves, with Ice Beam having the clearly highest limit since it is the most direct and dangerous response to Ground-types. This is still open for contest, so if you have a different limit let me know. I am just moving along since this stage tends to stagnate quicker than others.

As for physical Attack limit and sweepiness, I am not going to set one although the Physical Sweepiness will likely be the same as the Special Sweepiness. Electric typing disincentives fully physical by its nature. I think this Pokemon could go special or mixed, and with Knock Off kind of already is, but any substantial Attack is going to just to eat into your overall BSR limit. I am okay with allowing more flexibility with Attack, and a lighter BSR penalty for Ice Spinner than Ice Beam. If you have strong thoughts on this, feel free to post.

For the T value, I am considering 2.5. This is lower than Cresceidon's 2.75, taking into considering the offensive power of Electromorphosis. However, given the limited coverage of our STAB, I am not going to set it to the standard 2. If you have strong thoughts on this, I am open to feedback.

What would you consider to be the highest Speed benchmark for CAP35 while maintaining its role as a wall first and foremost? Are there any Pokemon we particularly value outspeeding or underspeeding? What is the upper limit where we clearly have too much Speed than needed? I am looking for the lowest comfortable Speed maximum for CAP35.

How bulky should CAP35 be?

• What existing Pokemon have base stats in HP, Defense, and Special Defense that fit your ideal defensive profile for CAP35?
• What are important defensive benchmarks for CAP35?
• Please feel free to either list specific Pokemon and/or reference damage calculations.

If forced to choose, would CAP35 rather have higher physical or special bulk?

 

[Gekokeso]

What would you consider to be the highest Speed benchmark for CAP35 while maintaining its role as a wall first and foremost?
While being slower than the opponent is important to take advantage of Electromorphosis, I believe being faster than , and are good speed benchmarks to beat, especially the latter. These are pokémon that we naturally beat with our Electric STAB without the need to activate Electromorphosis, but have ways to annoy us should we be slower than them (Spikes/Knock with Argh, Body Press with Venomicon, Flip Turn / Wish with Alomomola). Being faster than them should be as much speed as this mon really needs.

If forced to choose, would CAP35 rather have higher physical or special bulk?
Both would be preferable, but Normal Electric was chosen for a reason: screw up the strong ghost types of the tier. The likes of Dragapult, Gholdengo, Creseidon and Raging Bolt are realistic targets for this pokémon, While the pokémon that check us tend to be physical in nature such as Gliscor or Great Tusk. Higher special bulk should be the priority.

 

[Amamama]

I think the only Mons where outspeeding matters are Venomicon and Corviknight, two mons CAP 35 should realistically be able to check at least offensively, something that becomes harder when the roost is faster. Still I can see 35 going slower for more bulk if someone wants that. I think otherwise low benchmarks aren't really there unless you wanna build to beat Kingambit.
For the upper limit I feel like it should just be a function of Special Sweepiness limits. Idt theres a risk of this becoming a breaker or sweeper if you have to largely sacrifice your Attack for any speed. At most I'd see this becoming a fastish but weak pivot with Volt Switch.
Looking to other mons with similar builds like Venom, Libra, Skeledirge or Cyclohm
I think setting it somewhere between 95 and 110 SS should work well enough.

Given how Cresceidons performs having a solidly fast Mon with para can be really good and would still fall well within the realm of a wall, as long as offensive potential is limited. I could see restricting coverage for very high speeds, but idt we need an upper or lower speed limit (below 29)

 

[Agile Turtle]

What would you consider to be the highest Speed benchmark for CAP35 while maintaining its role as a wall first and foremost?

I'm inclined to agree with amamama, a sweepiness limit should already maintain speeds on spreads. If anything I'd set a speed limit for ice coverage? I don't think we have business being faster than Great Tusk and carrying ice beam, for example. But I think a speed limit in this case serves as a distraction more than a deterrent.

• What existing Pokemon have base stats in HP, Defense, and Special Defense that fit your ideal defensive profile for CAP35?

Can't say I've ironed out ideal yet, but I've been thinking about blissey and her ability to not really be deterred by focus blasts. (255 HP/10 Def/135 SpD) I don't think replicating her stats is the right Idea though, even if we were to take blisseys special bulk and cut it in half we'd have formidable special bulk. I think a more realistic goal would be Goodra (90HP/70Def/150SpDef). I'm definitely looking for less impressive physical bulk than special, can't be insanely impressive on both sides. I think our type inherently serves us better against special attackers, but I don't think that means the physical tankiness limit needs to be significantly lower than special bulk.

• What are important defensive benchmarks for CAP35?

I think being able to take two focus blasts from gholdengo is important to solidify our matchup against it. It takes a lot of bulk, but Goodra can handle it. 252 SpA Gholdengo Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Tera Normal Goodra: 146-172 (38 - 44.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

 

[SunshineFuture]

What would you consider to be the highest Speed benchmark for CAP35 while maintaining its role as a wall first and foremost? Are there any Pokemon we particularly value outspeeding or underspeeding? What is the upper limit where we clearly have too much Speed than needed? I am looking for the lowest comfortable Speed maximum for CAP35.

I agree that generally we won't need a speed maximum so long as the Special Sweepiness limit is such that you cannot go with high SpA and any speed that would make us no longer a wall, but if I had to set a hard number, the fastest I feel we could be that does something even remotely useful for us would be 71 Speed, as at that level you outrun Skarmory. That said, the only Pokemon CAP35 needs to outspeed is Venomicon and maybe Corviknight. If you're going to outspeed Corviknight, you need at least 68 Speed. Venomicon I feel is an absolute requirement to outspeed unless you have absolutely monstrous bulk, which needs a minimum of 65 Speed. In other words, there are about four speed benchmarks I see for CAP35:

71 Speed (Skarmory)
68 Speed (Corviknight)
65 Speed (Venomicon)
29 Speed (Minimum)

I feel most spreads likely will fall somewhere between 65-71 speed, but if any maximum is set, going a little higher makes sense to calibrate our system. That said, I don't think a maximum is needed.

What are important defensive benchmarks for CAP35?

Some important defensive benchmarks for me that actually interact with our typing involve Earth Power from Equilibra, Draco Meteor from Dragapult, Focus Blast from Gholdengo (ideally at least one when +2 but absolutely unboosted), and Body Press from Venomicon. Beyond that, I think generally strong attackers can be looked at to measure our bulk, such as Nasty Plot Darkrai, Hemogoblin, Iron Moth, Ogerpon-W, etc. The only Pokemon I would argue we absolutely should not focus on are Great Tusk and Chuggalong. Great Tusk hits us incredibly hard with super-effective STABs with very high power, whereas Chuggalong tears through even the bulkiest of neutral attackers once boosted even with 90/150 bulk:

+2 252 SpA Chuggalong Clanging Scales vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Heliolisk: 204-241 (53.1 - 62.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

 

[Imw0rstadP0keM0n]

What would you consider to be the highest Speed benchmark for CAP35 while maintaining its role as a wall first and foremost?

Considering Electromorphosis, I'd say the slower the stronger our pokemon is. That being said, with our typing, I think its' important we don't outspeed our wallbreaker counters without investment (or the lack thereof on the wallbreakers count). I think our best example would be Great Tusk. We should, with investment, be able to outspeed an uninvested (e.g, bulky, or HP Adamant) Great Tusk, but outspeeding a 252 Jolly Great Tusk should be impossible as it suddenly becomes much easier to cripple our would be counter with our utility moves.

That being said, I'd say CAP 35s' speed should be NO HIGHER THAN 86. While a good chunk of Grounds would continue to outspeed us at that tier (Lando-T, GTusk, and Gliscor), spreads can still choose whether or not outspeeding Equilibra and Venomicon, or even trying to underspeed pokemon like Necturna with Volt Switch.

Also keep in mind the closer we get to our SpA celing of 115, the higher our ability to wallbreak becomes. The SS of a pokemon with 86 Speed (my pitched speed limit) at 115 SpA (our current SpA limit) is roughly equivalent to Dragapult... which is probably fine if we're mainly relying on our STABs. The moment we add any coverage at all, let alone something like Ice Beam, would make that very scary even before we've started on bulk.

I think our SS should stay around ~160, and around ~145 if we have Ice-type Coverage. Whether we choose to do that through our speed or our special attack is up to TL.

What existing Pokemon have base stats in HP, Defense, and Special Defense that fit your ideal defensive profile for CAP35?

We naturally check a good chunk of the tiers' special attackers, so we can either choose to lean into that or attempt to patch up our rougher matchup into the tiers' physical attackers through phys bulk. There are good amounts of pros and cons to both approaches, so I'll list them in a table

Special Tankiness > PT	Physical Tankiness > ST
With our typing naturally checking a good chunk of special attackers, gaining huge special bulk not only allows us to blanket check (if not counter) those attackers, but also gives us winning matchups into some of the most dangerous pokemon in the meta (threatening paralysis on Walking Wake for example)	Being significantly less scared of SE coverage options on physical attackers we'd otherwise check or scare off (EQ Dnite/Rmoon, CC on anything) allows us to more liberally switch in to spread paralysis and knock dangerous attackers. I definitely prefer this if we go for Glare!
We are significantly less scared of Equilibra EP! :)	We still check Gholdengo and Dragapult even with lower special bulk thanks to the niches of our typing
Our typing still helps us check Necturna and Kitsunoh, even if we are specially bulky as opposed to physically bulky	Getting hit less hard by Knock Off and U-turn is always a decent plus, since those are our primary activators of Electromorphosis.
We go from checking Venomicon to countering Venomicon	We can now check (if not counter) Kingambit! :)
We are significantly weaker to EQ as a coverage option, such as on Roaring Moon.	Equilibra full counters us now :(
Most Grounds would like 2HKO if not 1HKO us. :(	We have to be incredibly wary of Focus Blast, which makes some would be counters (Gholdengo primarily) into shaky checks at best.

We also want to consider if we want Low HP + Stellar Defenses vs. High HP + ok Defenses. One of the primary decisions lying behind that is whether or not we want to use Parabolic Charge. Parabolic Charge is significantly stronger if we have Low HP as it heals us for comparatively more effective bulk than it would with High HP. High HP would likely be overall stronger if not for unique interactions with Parabolic Charge, so decision for that would likely be whether or not we want to rely on that move.

(An additional (though minor) interaction would be that Low HP has a poor matchup into Fixed Damage users such as Blissey, who we're likely to suffer against anyways thanks to our primarily special attacking nature and its' access to Heal Bell/Natural Cure.)

High HP will naturally make us more of a mixed wall than we would be otherwise (unless we pull a Blissey/Stonjourner lul)

So, leaves us with four options (included some listed example mons for defensive spreads, below pokemon ignore offenses, speed, and abilities):

Low HP + Specially Tanky (incl. Parabolic Charge)	High HP + Specially Tanky	Low HP + Physically Tanky (incl. Parabolic Charge)	High HP + Physically Tanky
Goodra, Araquanid, Latias	Blissey, Scream Tail, Vaporeon	Orthworm, Skarmory, Gliscor	Alolomola, Great Tusk, Hydrapple

If forced to choose, would CAP35 rather have higher physical or special bulk?

I'd personally prefer CAP 35 be a special wall, though I'm good with things either way. For calculations, I'd like to show some minimums we should be able to deal with regardless of our preference towards Special/Physical attacks...

What are important defensive benchmarks for CAP35?

going to do seperate "minumums" for a specially defensive tank and a physically defensive tank (and two sub categories for each, though each of these should hit roughly the same ST/PT)

For Specially Defensive Sets (my personal preference): I think a good minimum would be living two Focus Blasts from max SpA Gholdengo. Since one of the main goals of our niche is to counter Gholdengo, we need the ability to at least deal with Focus Blast sets, even if they are an anomaly with the standard CAP usage of Gholdengo. Attached below are some calcs for a High HP ST set and a Low HP ST set, and the insuing "minimum ST score" to fufill the base requirement of our role at 120 and 60 HP respectively.

Cap 35 ST spread vs. FBlast Gholdengo!

All calcs assume positive bulk nature + optimal EVs.

Our minimum ST score to fulfill this requirement is 212 (assuming maximum invest).

Consequently, even our Specially Defensive set needs to survive some physical hits. I think a good benchmark would be to barely survive an offensive Lando-T Earthquake (not counting Hazard damage). Here are below calcs for doing so.

Cap 35 ST spread survives Landoquake!

All calcs assume maximum investment (Max EVs + positive bulk nature)

Our minimum PT for a Specially Tanky spread is 112 (assuming maximum investment).

Final scores for ST + PT for a specially defensive should be (minimum) 112 PT and 212 ST.
What do these scores allow us to do?

show em what for, CAP 35!

(Assuming 112 PT + 212 ST, EVs are 252 HP, 0 Def, and 252+ SpD)

Choice Specs Dragapult doesn't do much...

+2 SpA Chuggalong? We're fine!

hell, we can even deal with Earth Power

Again, bear in mind those are the minimum scores to fufill our role (tank an EQ from Scarf Landorus-Therian, and tank at least two Focus Blasts from offensive Gholdengo). Combine that with above offensive scores for a (examplatory) statline...

We're looking pretty good! This also accounts for Ice Coverage, Glare, Volt Switch, etc. I think above is a pretty good "dead minimum" for a specially defensive stat spread.

---

in conclusion

uh idk i'm not good at this stuff but hopefully this post ive been working on for the last 2-3 hours means something lmfao
also if people want me to do a write up for a physically defensive spread, lemme know in PM

also quick question to brambane, do we need an SS penalty for volt switch?

EDIT: apparently i was working off of the wrong spreadsheet the whole time bruh moment

 

[Brambane]

also quick question to brambane, do we need an SS penalty for volt switch?

My approach to all optional moves is a BSR penalty. I think there is merit to overall BSR and general stat penalties both, but the traditional direction is a BSR penalty. The exact amount it will penalize will depend on the BSR limit itself.

edit: see below!

 

[Brambane]

Given that we have gone multiple days with minor discussion, I am going to move ahead with limits. A common sentiment since the start of this process is CAP35 should be a stat ball. This guided my decision for limits.

Based on feedback, I will not impose a maximum Speed limit. Instead, Special Sweepiness will be limited to 112 to properly guide submitters away from spreads focused more on wallbreaking or sweeping than walling. This limit allows spreads to reach the 115 Special Attack limit at multiple different speed tiers. Given that we are a Pokemon that leans special due to our STAB, I do not see reason to elevate the Physical Sweepiness higher than Special Sweepiness, but will allow an equal limit to facilitate stronger Knock Off or Ice Spinner spreads.

Tankiness is where CAP35 will gain its identity as wall, as its typing and ability do not encourage this role by themselves. As such, I have allocated a tremendous amount of space for bulk. The following limits, alongside the T Value of 3, allow for bulk profiles similar to that of Regice, Dondozo, and Cresselia. While the overwhelming majority of users believe we should lean specially defensive, I have permitted high physical bulk as well. This access to potentially high mixed bulk opens up more variety in spreads submitted, and helps define CAP35 better as a defensive piece.

However, the BSR is relatively low compared to many CAP staples and Pokemon like Cresselia. This was an intentional decision based on the other limits and to address CAP's power creep concerns. Basically, these limits allow CAP35 to be an exceptional stat ball in some places, but not everywhere at once. You can make a strong CAP35, but it won't be very fast. You can make a bulky CAP35, but it's Speed and/or power will be more lacking. Spreads are a targeted stat polygon instead of a stat ball, but you have way higher limits to focus on a stat. 540 is a slightly lower BSR than Dondozo; given that I expect stat submissions to optimize damage calculations, this felt like an appropriate benchmark. I confirmed this with hypothetical spreads in the calculator to see what the limits would allow and I am confident in these individual stat limits alongside a "lower" BSR. Move penalties are optional but encouraged. If you include these moves in your spreads justification, I expect your submission to explain why or why not you included a BSR penalty. Glare I believe is only worth penalizing with other utility options. Volt Switch by itself, Super Fang by itself, and Volt Switch and Super Fang could be penalized but I leave it to the discretion of the submitter.

BSR Limits:

Physical Sweepiness (PS)	112
Special Sweepiness (SS)	112
Physical Tankiness (PT)	200
Special Tankiness (ST)	200
PT + ST	300
Total Base Stat Rating (BSR)	540
T Value (found on T value tab)	3
Minimum Base Speed	29
Maximum Base Special Attack	115

Suggested Penalties:

Ice Beam	-10 BSR
Ice Spinner and/or Aurora Beam	-5 BSR
Glare + Volt Switch	-5 BSR
Glare + Super Fang	-5 BSR

*NOTE: The above penalties are not required, but recommendations. Spreads that include these moves but do not apply these penalties to their BSR may still be slated with reasonable justification why a penalty was not required.

Feel free to submit feedback; expect a final decision on Sunday.

 

[Dogfish44]

I'd love to see BSR nudged up by about 10 here?

Not a mahoosive increase, but if we've got people looking at Goodra-esque statlines for bulk, then I'd love to see options similar to 90/64/70/103/150/68 be legal - this is Goodra's bulk, with an offensive statline that outspeeds Corviknight, and also gives a 100% chance to KO with Discharge when Morph'd. This feels an appropriate route to have for our higher end - and I don't think its overwhelmingly high? Obviously at 540 it's possible to just undercut those numbers to get a similar vibe but the increased flexibility lets people chase what they specifically want - which on a defensive mon I'd argue is fairly important?

I'd also be very tempted to remove the PT/ST combined limit, purely for relevance. If you limit ride there, then with 550 BSR your offensive limits are 91/29, or 68/65. Already at that point people are going to have to argue about either being excessively slow or ignoring ability - I think the limit there is mainly just redundant.

(At 540 BSR, those offesive limits are 84/29 and 62/65. Yes, quite!)

 

[SunshineFuture]

I don’t have much to add, but I do want to chime in and say I agree with raising with both raising the BSR limit to 550 and cutting the PT + ST limit.

Regarding the latter, I am with Dogfish in believing it simply won’t be a relevant or meaningful limit on our mixed bulk; it takes so much bulk overall to get anywhere near 300 mixed tankiness that you will have to make drastic cuts elsewhere to make a legal submission, and so I don’t think this ceiling is needed.

About the BSR limit, I think allowing that bit of extra flexibility with stat submissions will be both beneficial to the stat stage and will not make our power so high as to be absolutely warping. For context, Cresceidon’s BSR is about 551, and it has both a much better defensive typing and the insane defensive ability that is Multiscale, not to mention the high speed letting it recover before many things attack it. This is not to say 540 BSR is unworkably terrible, but rather that having a ceiling of 550 instead will not cause this Pokémon to become yet another case of CAP power creep. 550 is still noticeably lower than Arghonaut’s 564 BSR, and quite restrained compared to Equilibra’s nearly 600 BSR. In other words, raising to 550 BSR gives the stats just a little more breathing room without absolutely crossing the rubicon, in my opinion.

 

[shnowshner]

Been playing with stats and I think the PT + ST limit is perfectly reasonable, and removing it does not significantly add anything to spreads other than make them arbitrarily more powerful than we'd really need. Lower Special Attack spreads have a ton of room to make bulk absolutely ridiculous..

Electromorphosis is not a purely binding Ability for us, we don't need to interact with it via large Special Attack to start threatening OHKOs: a Charge-boosted Thunderbolt from uninvested Base 70 is doing more to Iron Valiant than a regular 252+ Base 110 would. Using Electromorphosis as a means to push Special Attack lower while still possessing the capacity to deal significant damage is entirely valid as an approach, moreso when Discharge is available and scares a ton of mons already just off Para, and it's here where the bulk and BSR limits are most useful IMO.

75 50 135 85 135 65 545 49.96 82.34 130.02 130.58 533.34
This spread is something I threw together very quickly with zero real planning, other than 85 Special Attack is nice for a couple interactions. It fits very comfortably within all limits and looks plenty bulky on its own.

75 50 150 70 150 65 560 49.96 70.74 142.86 143.41 537.17
Dropping SpA to 70 lets me increase both defenses by 15, a sizeable increase to bulk without getting too close to limits.

If we removed the ST + PT limit and increased BSR limit to 550, I could very easily bump the second spread even higher without having the spread be illegal.

I think the bigger problem with the ST + PT limit right now is that it's so high there's not really a spread that can reach 300 without making huge sacrifices in Speed and offense. I'd want to hear more from other people toying with spreads but in a lot of cases I've been able to ride the 540 BSR limit while keeping PT + ST around 290, even on spreads with frankly disgusting levels of bulk.

All said and done, the current limits feel quite flexible in their current state, even if sometimes extraneously high. Comparing our max BSR to those of other CAPs like Arghonaut and Cresceidon paints a poor picture imo, the former has a lot of BSR come from its Attack which, while useful, isn't entirely necessary for its defensive niche, and Cresceidon has a lot of BSR simply because its got a good stat spread with unusually high Speed. In contrast, strong defensive mons in Slowking-Galar and Garganacl sit at 480 and 513 BSR respectively, well below our 540 limit. We've not even discussed how Typing and Ability can interact; the point being, I don't think comparing our BSR limit to the BSR of other bulky mons provides much value when it comes to making an effective stat spread. The biggest consideration for any spread should be how it interacts with the metagame instead of how it stacks up to other stat spreads: if you cannot find an efficient spread with limits as generous as ours I question their validity.

 

[Brambane]

Generally speaking, the intention of 300 PT + ST is that many spreads will not even try to approach it. Some spreads will, and they will give up the speed and power to do so, but having limits that are all-together feasibly unattainable (you aren't hitting the sweepiness and tankiness limits with only 540 BSR) isn't really an issue. The point of these limits is you can't have it all, but you CAN have a lot of something.

As for BSR limit increase, if there is more support in the thread I will heavily consider it, I am open to the idea.

 

[Gekokeso]

Would also like to support the request for a modest addition of 10 points to the BSR. Right now as it is there are no ways to get enough bulk for certain calcs such as spreads trying to go for benchmarks like living 2 Gholdengo Focus Blasts without heavily sacrificing either physical defense needed for the likes of Venomicon, Special Attack or Speed, even without any of the Penalties in place. A BSR of 550 should also help spreads looking for a faster approach to get the necessary bulk for 35 to perform its walling duties, as well as any decently bulky spreads that already exist to be able to use Ice coverage.

I would also like to argue in favor of removing the penalties for Glare + Super Fang and Ice Spinner/Aurora Beam, or at least on Ice Spinner. The former combination is strong but not necesarily synergistic, as Super Fang tends to pair up way better with other Required moves such as Knock Off, and is in general the main option for coverageless spreads to make progress while still keeping a high BSR. Physical sets are mostly on a big disadvantage considering our targets so removing the penalty on Ice Spinner at least would allow this pokémon to be a viable option.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

I was originally going to make a more in-depth post here, but something came up in my personal life and it took up a lot of my time so I'll have to make this short if I want to get this out by tomorrow.

The combined PT + ST Limit is absurdly high and should be reduced by quite a lot. I don't really agree with the sentiment that it's fine because it's largely unobtainable unless users make great sacrifices, as I feel that during this stage your spread is very often considered weak in the eyes of voters if your stat spread is nowhere near the allowed limits.

I also disagree quite a lot with Gekokeso about removing the penalty on Glare + Super Fang, and in fact, I'm actually going to argue that Super Fang itself should have a penalty. Quite simply put, the move is insanely effective at pressuring Ground-types, often being just as good if not better at pressuring most of them (Gliscor is like the only one I can think of that this doesn't apply) than coverage, and as such I really don't think that allowing this without any sort of limits would be a great idea in the slightest.

Also I agree that a BSR increase is in order here

 

[Amamama]

I want to chime in both on the boosting of the bsr ceiling and on penalties for specific moves.

I don’t believe that the BSR ceiling is too low. Keeping the bsr lower means you really have to decide what you want the spread to do. You can’t have it all and that’s the point of it. You want to have absurd special bulk (taking two SE hits from a Mon with 130 Spa) and good physical bulk and good Special attack and don’t dump speed? Realistically give our ability it’s pretty easy to dump spa quite low, without losing the threat to mons we can scare out with SE hits. In return you’ll get Hippowdon levels of bulk, which is still quite a lot.

You can absolutely get a stat line that can tank two Dengo focus blasts with full investment, still have serviceable physical bulk and land at 100 spa and 71 speed within the 540 bsr.

Now for Superfang, I agree with dpm, that superfang should have a penalty on its own and tbh I feel it should at least be as much as ice beam. It definitely isn’t even close to as weak as Ice spinner or even Aurora beam. Grounds except for gliscor rely on bulk and lefties at best to perform defensively. While Superfang can’t break grounds on its own, it substantially threatens ground types coming in, especially in conjunction with Knock off. Frankly doing 50% to a switch in with bulk like Libra is hard even for offensive mons with SE coverage. Ice beam will hit for maybe 20% at best.
Superfang might be awkward in a 1v1 or endgame scenario. But otherwise it actually looks stronger to me into these specific targets than Ice Beam. Additionally it’s also a strong tool to pressure mons like garg to recover consecutively.

Overall I feel like superfang should also have a 10 bsr penalty. Additionally I think people looking at faster spreads (87+) should more heavily reduce their offensive power if they also opt for ice beam in addition to the bsr penalty, just to avoid landing on a spread, that moves away from a wall role (I don’t think you need a Sweepiness penalty or anything, since brambane can have an eye on too offensive spreads.) just for any submitter, keep in mind that outspeeding most ground types and having a strong ice beam probably leads to more offensive builds, given 35s ability.

Lastly idt Aurora Beam requires any penalty, since the move is just asscheecks:
0 SpA Bellibolt Aurora Beam vs. 244 HP / 228+ SpD Gliscor: 188-224 (53.4 - 63.6%) -- 84.8% chance to 2HKO after Poison Heal
0 SpA Bellibolt Aurora Beam vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Equilibra: 34-41 (8.3 - 10%) -- possibly the worst move ever (this is with 115 SpA)

TLDR: keep defensive limits+more heavily scrutinize builds with superfang+no penalty on Aurora Beam.

 

[Brambane]

Final Limits

BSR Limits:

Physical Sweepiness (PS)	112
Special Sweepiness (SS)	112
Physical Tankiness (PT)	198.28
Special Tankiness (ST)	198.28
PT + ST	295.53
Total Base Stat Rating (BSR)	546.67
T Value (found on T value tab)	3
Minimum Base Speed	29
Maximum Base Special Attack	115

Suggested Penalties:

Ice Beam	-10 BSR
Super Fang	-7.5 BSR
Glare	-5 BSR
Volt Switch	-2.5 BSR

*NOTE: The above penalties are not required, but recommendations. Spreads that include these moves but do not apply these penalties to their BSR may still be slated with reasonable justification why a penalty was not required.

Taking feedback from the thread and Discord, I have raised the BSR limit, and slightly lowered the tankiness limits. I was not comfortable bumping up to 550, so settled for a more gracious but still restrained 546.67.

I also split up all the move penalty suggestions in what I consider a more accurate hierarchy of their relative power. The top three all punish Ground-types in some way, so they have the higher penalties compared to Glare. Cumulatively, a suggested penalty of -20 for including all the moves drops you BSR to 526.67, which is still more than enough to make a spread for a wall.

To quickly comment on the PT + ST; the fact these limits are unattainable without sacrificing other aspects of the Pokemon means they are doing their job. The individual limits are meant to be the highest end of commitment I would every consider slating, not boxes to tick.

tagging kenn for final approval

 

[kenn]

I am not too sure how my OCD appreciates the not whole numbers, but Brambane, myself, and the rest of TLT have discussed the limits and agree they look solid, so let's get to submitting those stat spreads!

Fun FE fact: Marth, the usual face of the Fire Emblem franchise, has a last name by accident. It is "Lowell" and it comes from the scrapped anime they had only made 2 episodes of.