CAP Buff 3 - Part 2 - Miasmaw Buff Discussion

[spoo]

This thread serves to outline the context of the CAP being buffed, in terms of its original design intent, historic usage, current usage, and any other factors surrounding the CAP that must be discussed before buffing or changing it in any way. This thread should also include discussion of the important updates this CAP has gotten in terms of the SM-era updates, early Gen 8 updates, and IoA tutor move additions. After discussion of context is concluded, buff submissions and discussion will open.

The leader for this buff process is Wulfanator.

The CAP being discussed is Miasmaw, whose stats, typing, and ability are listed below.



Typing: Bug / Dragon

Abilities: Neutralizing Gas / Hyper Cutter / Compound Eyes

Stats: 85 / 135 / 60 / 115 / 85 / 92

Concept:

• Name - Roadblock
  
  
• Description - A Pokemon that excels at slowing down, punishing or otherwise disrupting the opposing team's pivoting strategies.
  
  
• Justification - This is a Target concept, we are looking to shut down Teleport, U-turn, Volt Switch strategies in the meta, as well as targeting the abilities and items that enable them. Right now, Teleport has come to dominate the metagame, and the advent of Heavy Duty Boots and new Regen pivots has taken U-turn/TP on certain mons to a new high. Kril is also just as frustrating as before, spamming Volt Switch among others. Furthermore, pivoting goes beyond just moves- Toxapex, Tomohawk and Equilibra are well-known pivots that act as a mid-ground between 2 pokemon, usually scouting and sponging a hit before switching to something more appropriate.
  
  
• Questions To Be Answered -
  -In what way(s) does pivoting most commonly manifest in the CAP meta?
  -What typings, abilities and items allow specific mons to become the strongest pivots, and how can we target these?
  -What do our target Pokemon gain from pivoting? Are they focused more on scouting information, sponging attacks, or dealing damage?
  -Is it possible to dissuade or even block pivoting attacks like U-turn using reactionary methods?
  -What are the difference between the direct methods and indirect methods of preventing pivoting, and which is appropriate for each target?
  -Do offensive or defensive playstyles work best for preventing different styles of pivoting?
  -Is it better in the current to create a blanket check to pivots, or a more tailored response to a few key pivoting mons/strategies?

Current Smogdex Set:


Miasmaw @ Choice Band
Ability: Neutralizing Gas
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Hammer
- First Impression
- Poison Jab
- Close Combat

I will now handle this over to Wulfanator to make his first post.

 

[Wulfanator]

Hey everyone. I will skip the typical introduction and move straight into the buff process.

Miasmaw was dealt a rough hand this generation. Miasmaw’s concept leaned heavily into addressing meta trends of the time only to release 4 days before the launch of Crown Tundra. With the DLC release came a major metagame shift. The real problem that plagued Miasmaw is that it never got to explore the game it was designed for and struggled to find footing post-DLC despite the best efforts of its diehard fanatics.

Just to highlight this point more, I dug up the Viability Rankings from the end of Isle of Armor. While not an adequate reflection of the change at the time, comparing it to the current VR shows just how unkind the progressive metagame shifts have been to both Miasmaw and the strategies it was designed to thwart.

Isle of Armor VR

S Rank:

Astrolotl
Equilibra
Tomohawk

A Rank:

A+ Rank
Dragapult
Slowking
Mandibuzz
Toxapex
Urshifu
Zeraora

A Rank
Blissey
Hydreigon
Jumbao
Kerfluffle
Pajantom
Volcarona

Current VR

S- Rank

Ferrothorn
Weavile

A Rank:

A+ Rank

Arghonaut
Clefable
Dragapult
Heatran
Landorus-Therian
Melmetal
Saharaja
Tornadus-Therian
Zapdos

A Rank

Astrolotl
Garchomp
Kartana
Slowbro
Tapu Fini
Tapu Koko
Tapu Lele
Toxapex
Tyranitar
Venomicon
Venomicon-E

Here are some questions to answer.

1.) What obstacles are preventing Miasmaw from having a meaningful presence in the current metagame?

2.) The primary take away from Miasmaw's concept assessment was that "CAP 28 will be targeting primarily Teleport pivots." How important is concept loyalty to the buff process now that many of the mons we originally wanted to target are not as prevalent?

3.) There were two additional goals established during Miasmaw's concept assessment.

• CAP 28 should always aim to have good offensive presence
• CAP 28 should be able to act as a stallbreaker, which in this context means that it should be able to win most of the time against passive strategies

Do these hold up now? Are these additional goals something to maintain during the buff process?

4.) What elements of Miasmaw are considered its best assets? Do these elements suggest what route Miasmaw needs to pursue in order to be successful?

As a reminder, this is not the time to formally submit buffs. That will come later.

 

[Lasen]

Busy busy day today so I'll try to keep this succinct.

1.) What obstacles are preventing Miasmaw from having a meaningful presence in the current metagame?

Frankly, Miasmaw was built for a very, very slow metagame where common breakers shared its type as it was (Dragapult, Hydreigon, Pajantom all are Dragon-types with a different 2ndary typing). Its job was very targeted- Slowtwins pivoting HAVE to go. By looking at the current Viability Rankings, only Toxapex remains highly ranked and Miasmaw STILL needs a Choice Band Earthquake to deal with it. Astrolotl functions completely different and doesn't exactly switch in comfortably. Hell, because of how the meta has changed, Slowbro runs Ice Beam for Saharaja as is, meaning Maw isn't even safe switching in to one of the mons it's supposed to force out!
Of course, the abundance of ways to revenge kill Miasmaw hasn't done it any favours, either. Besides its pre-existing offensive checks, Weavile, E-Book, about 1000 Flying-types, the Tapus and Melmetal all beat the Darekmon up. Its kind of awkward Speed tier is not helping either, outspeeding Lando-T but losing to base 95s like Tapu Lele.
Fairy-types! They absolutely beat the hell out of it because a Miasmaw locked into Poison Jab is not doing any types of damage to anything but Fairies, while Fairies beat both of its STAB options. Just absolutely miserable time trying to get every turn right.

2.) The primary take away from Miasmaw's concept assessment was that "CAP 28 will be targeting primarily Teleport pivots." How important is concept loyalty to the buff process now that many of the mons we originally wanted to target are not as prevalent?

Most importantly: its niche is no longer all that valuable! I could sit here all day typing up a storm on how Miasmaw's bulk is poopy, its offensive typing is poopy and only Darek has had success with it. But if you don't see too much Regenerator pivoting, what good does it do? The opponent gets any hazard up thus checking what item Maw is carrying then moves accordingly. It's CB? Mid-ground it with something like a Steel-type. It's HDB? Literally go anything and hope it didn't Swords Dance. Teleporting is relegated to exactly Slowbro at the moment which actually beats Miasmaw if it doesn't get hit by exactly First Impression/Ice Beams it on the switch-in.

3.) There were two additional goals established during Miasmaw's concept assessment.

• CAP 28 should always aim to have good offensive presence
• CAP 28 should be able to act as a stallbreaker, which in this context means that it should be able to win most of the time against passive strategies

Do these hold up now? Are these additional goals something to maintain during the buff process?

Its offensive presence is still... fine? Nobody builds a defensive core and then thinks to themselves "Oh no! This gets 6-0ed by Miasmaw!" and it straight up doesn't happen. Stall strategies employ Clefable and Toxapex, defensive cores can pivot around it rather well if it's not given a set-up turn for absolute free and even if it is, something like Corviknight removes it with the swiftness. Neutralizing Gas does get the job done in putting fat teams behind, but opposing HDB do mitigate how much damage Miasmaw can do.
I think holding on to the identity of "beats stall" should be a given; if it can't break through, what's the point? Maybe we can lean moreso towards this direction with the buff we end up giving it.

4.) What elements of Miasmaw are considered its best assets? Do these elements suggest what route Miasmaw needs to pursue in order to be successful?

Miasmaw lives and dies by Neutralizing Gas + its insane power output. We should continue taking advantage of it and just put our foot on the gas pedal.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

1.) What obstacles are preventing Miasmaw from having a meaningful presence in the current metagame?

There is really no one specific factor that is preventing Miasmaw from having a meaningful presence, but rather a combination of multiple factors that all add up to each other. I think it would be better to just list each of these off and talk about them individually.

Fairy-types: Fairy-types are pretty much everywhere right now, which is really bad for Miasmaw because it struggles a ton against them.

Flying-types: Flying-types are even more prevalent thank Fairy-types, and while Miasmaw isn't quite as helpless against Flying-types as it is against Fairy-types, it still does not appreciate having them around in the slightest.

Changes to pivots: Slowking has been usurped by his Galarian Brother. That leaves Slowbro, and while it is still around, it is a lot harder for Miasmaw to deal with now, as it is now running Ice Beam quite frequently for Saharaja. Furthermore, there are just a lot of Pokemon right now that either doing an overall better job at keeping these two in checks, or offer additional utility that Miasmaw just cannot offer. What I think really spelt doom for Miasmaw in this department however is that Tornadus-T is now the premier pivot, which Miasmaw just can't beat with any form of consistency.

Speed: Like Lasen said, the metagame has speed up considerably since Isle of Armor, and Miasmaw is just no longer up to par with the rest of the metagame in this department. Admittedly, this is probably the smallest factor of all the ones I have talked about, but it's still worth bringing up nonetheless.

Darek sucking at mons

2.) The primary take away from Miasmaw's concept assessment was that "CAP 28 will be targeting primarily Teleport pivots." How important is concept loyalty to the buff process now that many of the mons we originally wanted to target are not as prevalent?

I honestly don't even know if it's really even possible to stay faithful to Miasmaw's concept, at least in respect to how it was handled in its process. Slowking has largely fallen off the face of the planet, so the only real Teleport mon left is Slowbro. There is another problem with this though, which is that thanks to Saharaja, Slowbro has been running Ice Beam a lot more frequently then it used too. This heavily affects Miasmaw's ability to threaten it as an unintended side effect. For that reason, I don't think that concept loyalty is going to be very important for this buff process. Besides, even if we do choose to stay loyal to the concept, I think that Miasmaw's concept is very flexible in how we choose to interpret it, and it would be really hard to go down a path that would go against the concept anyways.

3.) There were two additional goals established during Miasmaw's concept assessment.

• CAP 28 should always aim to have good offensive presence
• CAP 28 should be able to act as a stallbreaker, which in this context means that it should be able to win most of the time against passive strategies

Do these hold up now? Are these additional goals something to maintain during the buff process?

Kinda? Against bulky teams, if you can deal with all of the mons that Miasmaw would struggle with, then it's going to kick ass and chew bubblegum. The major issue is that there are just so many mons right now that are very easy to fit on teams and can very easily deal with Miasmaw. Same thing applies to Stall for the most part. I absolutely think this is something that should be looked into in regards to this buff process. Heck, I will even go as far and say that this should be our main focus of the buff, as I think this is one of Miasmaw's biggest strengths as of right now.

4.) What elements of Miasmaw are considered its best assets? Do these elements suggest what route Miasmaw needs to pursue in order to be successful?

Miasmaw's best assets are its access to Neutralizing Gas and it's potential to just rip a new one through bulky teams & stall. Our best course of action here would be to capitalize on these strengths.

 

[Voltage]

1.) What obstacles are preventing Miasmaw from having a meaningful presence in the current metagame?

Miasmaw faces the tough double whammy of having its offensive niche being not all that relevant anymore, and having almost zero defensive presence in this metagame. It is unable to meaningfully threaten many of the common metagame threats that were also introduced during Crown Tundra like Weavile, Garchomp, Tornadus-T (which is especially amusing given that it was designed to beat Pokemon with Regenerator), and the Tapus. The issue is that outside of First Impression, Miasmaw just doesn't have a way to meaningfully punish these Pokemon from switching in at opportune moments. Furthermore, with Bug/Dragon + its relatively poor defenses, it cannot reliably come in and immediately check Pokemon. while Miasmaw was never intended to be a defensive Pokemon and we were hoping to lean into its offensive uses more, in this metagame with flying spam, stronger fairy types, the rise of Meteor Beam spam, the delcine of the slowtwins and other metagame trends, Miasmaw's niche is essentially non-existant.

2.) The primary take away from Miasmaw's concept assessment was that "CAP 28 will be targeting primarily Teleport pivots." How important is concept loyalty to the buff process now that many of the mons we originally wanted to target are not as prevalent?

The issue with remining loyal to this concept is that Teleport spam is not nearly as common as it once was now with the prevalence of newer metagame threats. Teleport is still common, sure, but compared to when we suspected Clefable for Wishport sets (lol), it's not nearly as metagame warping as it once was. I think that because this change has existed in the metagame for so long now, it isn't as imperative that we hold ourselves to this initial assessment, especially if it hinders the final product of this buffing process.

I think it's more important to address the concept of "pivot" as a whole, and maybe get a broader umbrella of pivots that Miasmaw should be able to threaten. In today's metagame, maybe of these pivots have a lot more offensive capabilities. while Tornadus-T now opts to go without Hurricane just based on metagame trends, it still poses a significant threat with the combination of Knock + U-turn. Choice Specs Dragapult has always been a reliable breaker and pivot that Miasmaw simply cannot touch. Tapu Koko can easily enter in on either of Miasma's attacks and then Volt Switch out of there as needed, pivoting into better teammates. It's curious to me that these pivots also happen to be Pokemon that Miasmaw entirely struggles with, and I wonder if it's possible to find a way to make Miasmaw have better responses to these Pokemon.

3.) There were two additional goals established during Miasmaw's concept assessment.

• CAP 28 should always aim to have good offensive presence
• CAP 28 should be able to act as a stallbreaker, which in this context means that it should be able to win most of the time against passive strategies

Do these hold up now? Are these additional goals something to maintain during the buff process?

Let's be clear, a banded Fimp from Miasmaw is always going to be concerning and will require effective play. The issue then, for the Miasmaw user, is the fact that it needs to have a choice band to be any kind of offensive presence in the metagame. Miasmaw has coverage yes, but in order to make any of its coverage notably useful, it needs to be locked into it with Choice Band. And even if the Miasmaw user is able to catch someone with coverage, the coverage moves that Miasmaw runs are common types with immunities that are run on teams. Steel types are immune to Poison Jab, Flying types are immune to Earthquake, and Ghost types are all immune to Close Combat. This also carries over to its Dragon STAB which is negated by a Fairy type. All four of these listed types are essentially staples on modern CAP teams. I'd challenge you to find a winning team that doesn't at least have a Steel type, a Ground-immune mon, and a fairy type on it. Because of this current teambuilding composition, Choice Band Miasmaw is going to always lose ground once its locked into a move, and will thus have to switch on a regular basis. (and because it's got a choice band it's especially vulnerable to hazards, but that's not the point right now).

When Miasmaw doesn't run choice band, it's a middling attacker with coverage that fails tot 2HKO threats that it would normally want to with its coverage. Miasmaw is forced to run taunt and act as a stallbreaker, which means that in theory it should be able to win against passive strategies. But consider some of these calcs against some Pokemon common on Stall and semistall teams:

252 Atk Miasmaw Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 168+ Def Corviknight: 101-119 (25.2 - 29.7%) -- 0% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Miasmaw Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 120-142 (39.4 - 46.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Miasmaw Dragon Hammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Arghonaut: 114-135 (27.5 - 32.6%) -- 72% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Miasmaw Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 196+ Def Clefable: 105-124 (26.6 - 31.4%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Miasmaw Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 160-190 (45.4 - 53.9%) -- 3.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 Atk Miasmaw Dragon Hammer vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Venomicon: 136-162 (36.3 - 43.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Miasmaw Dragon Hammer vs. 152 HP / 0 Def Buzzwole: 114-135 (29 - 34.3%) -- 3.3% chance to 3HKO
252 Atk Miasmaw Dragon Hammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 43-51 (12.8 - 15.2%) -- possible 7HKO
252 Atk Miasmaw Dragon Hammer vs. 128 HP / 0 Def Revenankh: 166-196 (47 - 55.5%) -- 74.2% chance to 2HKO (yeah ok Rev isn't exactly a stall mon, but it's still a reasonable semistall wincon despite losing Triage)

Notice how you're likely forced to choose between Earthquake and Close Combat when deciding which defensive threat you want your Miasmaw to beat and which one you'll have to be ok with losing to. Additionally, when you're forced to rely on Dragon hammer as your only powerful offensive STAB option, and physical Bug attacks aren't a reliable backup option, you're going to run into problems.

Also I think it's worth noting that special Miasmaw is just a really bad option despite having even better coverage. It is too slow to reliably use Nasty plot to set up and sweep through teams.

4.) What elements of Miasmaw are considered its best assets? Do these elements suggest what route Miasmaw needs to pursue in order to be successful?

Beyond the obviously powerful ability that is Neutralizing Gas, Miasmaw has a superb amount of potential power output that it SHOULD in theory be able to use with 135 Attack and 115 Special Attack. If we compare this to another hard-hitting Dragon typesin the metagame, Dragapult, we can see that Miasmaw has it beat number wise as Dragapult has 120 Attack and 100 Special Attack. This should theoretically indicate that Miasmaw has the power to shred through teams that aren't ready for it, and I suggest we lean into Miasmaw's already present offensive potential.

 

[shnowshner]

1.) What obstacles are preventing Miasmaw from having a meaningful presence in the current metagame?

This is a high-risk low-reward breaker that needs to get every turn right to even secure KOs. There's some cool stuff it can do but those things don't matter when its competition is stuff like Weavile in S-Rank despite our near-perfect counter to it and Venomicon who laughs in the face of "prediction." There are stronger, more dangerous and/or role compressing wallbreakers out there.

Honestly the biggest problem for Miasmaw is that it's too specialized. This was designed primarily to screw up Slowking and Blissey in a metagame without many good Fairies (this includes the Clefable that had been banned for its entire process), and in that department it did so quite excellently, denying Regenerator and Natural Cure from those two and having a lot more liberty to throw out its strong STAB. Like Tomohawk was S-Rank during this time and quad-resisted Bug, but committing to a Dragon move wasn't as much of a problem when one Fairy type was Jumbao, who had to fear our Bug STAB, and the other was Kerfluffle which you could just throw a Pex at, and Levitate on Equilibra wasn't an issue either since your Earthquake was still threatening it. Despite the weird direction Miasmaw took, it was successful at doing its job, and its somewhat janky design for the concept honestly helped make it feel a lot more balanced.

Unfortunately when taken out of the environment it was specialized for, its many flaws really start to show. Not only are the (3) Tapus back in full force but Clefable has been freed from prison, and this was not good for Miasmaw. The metagame also saw a massive power level shift, things are faster, hit harder, deny progress better than before. I honestly don't think Torn being the premier Regen pivot is even 10% of the issue for Miasmaw, because who is hard switching their Torn into Miasmaw that dude's getting 2HKO'd and you WILL miss Hurricane. Yeah Miasmaw can't come in either but it didn't necessarily come in safely on Slowking in the first place. The metagame is just so much stronger now in every aspect and Miasmaw's vulnerability to most things and need to make correct predictions to work is just not worth it when you have these strong defensive cores and nuclear offensive teams.

2.) The primary take away from Miasmaw's concept assessment was that "CAP 28 will be targeting primarily Teleport pivots." How important is concept loyalty to the buff process now that many of the mons we originally wanted to target are not as prevalent?

Honestly I think this is a fairly broad concept that with a few tweaks we can still get to the heart of, which was slowing down/disrupting/punishing the opponent's pivoting strategies. Neutralizing Gas is unmatched in terms of disruption and Pokemon that would naturally come in to try and harass a Physical Attacker, like Zapdos, Landorus-T, Venomicon, and Ferrothorn, aren't able to do that as effectively, in a vacuum at least.

I don't think we need to focus too much on concept loyalty because denying Regenerator is sorta a thing Miasmaw just, does naturally? If Miasmaw is a good Pokemon in its own right it will find these opportunities to force lose-lose situations against Regenerator mons, and thus it's still fulfilling that side of its concept. Like okay you can't easily 1v1 a Toxapex or Tornadus but you can catch them at low health and force them to either risk staying in and dying or switching out and not regaining 33%.

I would argue that our primarily direction for Miasmaw's buff is better enabling it to utilize Neutralizing Gas and the many potential upsides it presents. If Miasmaw is a good user of its signature ability then the stuff we wanted it to do in the first place will become more of a reality for it.

3.) There were two additional goals established during Miasmaw's concept assessment.

• CAP 28 should always aim to have good offensive presence
• CAP 28 should be able to act as a stallbreaker, which in this context means that it should be able to win most of the time against passive strategies

Do these hold up now? Are these additional goals something to maintain during the buff process?

For the first point, lol no it does not, but yes we should try to ensure that Miasmaw has a good offensive presense as its the best way to make use of its traits right now.

For the second, Miasmaw isn't really that good of a stallbreaker in the stall matchup, it's too vulnerable to being chipped down, and doesn't really have room to run Recover to compensate, along with either needing Band and proper prediction to break or run SD/NP and hope it can actually win. There's certainly ways we could buff it to make the stall matchup more in its favor, but I honestly think the "win most of the time against passive strategies" is more apparent against balance structures, those that employ low-commitment options to punish the opponent's attempts to make progress: stuff like Iron Barbs, Rocky Helmet, Static, hazards. Miasmaw is unique in that it getting paralyzed by damaging Zapdos, or attacking into Heatran and discovering it's Flame Body, or needing to play smart versus Venomicon lest it activate Stamina, is never happening to it. These abilities are good because you don't have to do anything to activate them, but once activated their effects are immediately giving you an advantage, and Miasmaw gets rid of all that. The unfortunate part is that it can't really do anything to benefit from these interactions, and so attacking into these Pokemon is often still putting the player is a worse position. I think this view of "stallbreaker" as meaning "the opponent's passive strategies are less effective because Miasmaw genuinely doesn't care about the ability half of them" should be the goal we're looking towards.

4.) What elements of Miasmaw are considered its best assets? Do these elements suggest what route Miasmaw needs to pursue in order to be successful?

Yeah so Neutralizing Gas is a frankly insane ability, like when people were running Weezing-Galar in OU solely because of NGas, an ability it didn't even make good use out of, that's a big indicator of just how potent it can be in the right hands. This is the whole reason you'd want to add Miasmaw to your team and going forward it looks to remain that way.

Taking an offensive direction with Neutralizing Gas was the correct choice back then (despite how many times we fumbled doing that properly), disabling other abilities doesn't matter if the opponent isn't really scared of you and most of the strong abilities in use right now are more defensive in nature. It'd make sense for us to have an mon with strong offense take advantage of the compromised defensive traits of these Pokemon.

To further that Miasmaw is like the one Pokemon that always prevents Pyroak from making meaningful progress, and its more than happy to trade because what the hell else is it going to do.

Uhh beyond that is has like stupid setup and coverage and utility options. STAB First Impression to delete something for a single turn? You also get Recover but this guy already wants to run 9 moves good luck fitting that.

 

[quziel]

1.) What obstacles are preventing Miasmaw from having a meaningful presence in the current metagame?

Repeating others, but the mons it was designed to target aren't really in the meta atm (namely Kanto Slowking), and it wasn't desgined to have to really deal with fairy types, and is now in a meta where they have a combined 73.18% usage (assuming one fairy type per team, which while not certain, is close enough to be workable).

Beyond that, it has major issues when compared to other breakers. Thanks to its typing, speed, and frailty it is comparably hard to get in, lacking super actionable resists vs stuff like Weavile (offensive ghost resist, also trivially forces switches with its speed), Urshifu-RS (Dark + Ice resist), or Kartana (great physical bulk, DiB/Water resist). Once in it also has to make relatively risky predicts, lacking a relatively safe move to click. This is again in comparison to other breakers, eg Venomicon-Epilogue which literally can just click BB and never be punished, Weavile which can freely click Knock Off, or even more prediction reliant breakers like Urshifu-RS, which still has U-turn to relatively freely gain advantage.

By being harder to get in, and harder to use once its in (not necessarily less impactful, but to reach the same impact you have to play better), Miasmaw simply isn't justifiable over its competition. While Neutralizing Gas used to be enough to justify a slot, Miasmaw's neutral at best matchup into most of the format's regen pivots basically leaves it as an intimidate and iron barbs immune physical breaker.

4.) What elements of Miasmaw are considered its best assets? Do these elements suggest what route Miasmaw needs to pursue in order to be successful?

At this point, Neutralizing Gas absolutely is one of its best assets, but it really struggles to effectively use it given the current meta structure. While I think this absolutely is a key element to our success, its not something we can really focus on super hard during the buff process unless we want to completely change our typing to match into current Regen pivots better. First Impression is a bit more accessible, as the switches it forces buy us time to use wallbreaking moves. Adding a relatively safe move to click when First Impression forces a switch is a direction I think could be successful.

Our coverage is also a very important asset here; Ngas Earthquake is a super powerful tool, and one that I believe we need to keep in mind for any buff we do.

 

[Pipotchi]

1.) What obstacles are preventing Miasmaw from having a meaningful presence in the current metagame?

I feel like the goals of Miasmaw are not actually specialized, but instead spread extremely thin to hit a ridiculous number of concept-relevant situations- being a physical breaker that can't be buffered by intimidate pivots, having an incredibly weird bug/dragon typing to tank zeraora's coverage AND slowking in one while checking rillaboom, and having a mix of physical and special attacking stats so nothing can theoretically wall it. But as those targets have fallen away, we're left with a mon that's feeling the pain of the sacrifices made to set up these concept-relevant scenarios. It has giant defensive holes in typing and stats which leave it hard to justify and painful to switch in- its physical leaning also causes issues for longevity between helmets and burns (for mons that it wants to hit and get hit by in theory), awkward STAB combination, and in the end it feels like every stage is disjointed from the last.
This is on top of the other things people have mentioned such as Fairies, huge meta change, etc.

2.) The primary take away from Miasmaw's concept assessment was that "CAP 28 will be targeting primarily Teleport pivots." How important is concept loyalty to the buff process now that many of the mons we originally wanted to target are not as prevalent?

Teleport pivots are not really a thing anymore, so it doesnt make sense to try and build around that. That being said I think there is still room for overall concept loyalty, which is to target some form of pivots in the current meta. More on that later-

3.) There were two additional goals established during Miasmaw's concept assessment.

• CAP 28 should always aim to have good offensive presence
• CAP 28 should be able to act as a stallbreaker, which in this context means that it should be able to win most of the time against passive strategies

Do these hold up now? Are these additional goals something to maintain during the buff process?

It makes sense for Miasmaw to retain offensive presence with the typing it has. Its hard to make a defensive bug, and harder to make a mainly defensive bug/dragon.
Stallbreaking is vague, but I usually associate it with mons that stonewall defensive strategies and force through or force them to switch due to them being unable to outlast you- this could be due to chip immunities, magic guard, taunt strats, sub + boosting etc. I think we made a wallbreaker to begin with and I think we could drop the word stallbreaker- we were clearly referencing something that was very specific with "passive teams" in Miasmaw's original metagame which I dunno if it still even exists with the presence of books, pyroak, heatran, clef, and other quality stall-resistant additions to the tier. Tldr: I'd drop this part, because I find its original intent is outdated.

4.) What elements of Miasmaw are considered its best assets? Do these elements suggest what route Miasmaw needs to pursue in order to be successful?

Miasmaw has a lot of small positive qualities. It has bonkers coverage, a hard hitting STAB, and in theory can be unwallable. It can use smart switches to prevent Regen.

Its really hard to say whether Miasmaw's "best" assets and current best sets should outline its future.
Miasmaw has a playstyle that feels like poverty. A lot of it is just working with what you can, instead of what you really want. An example is being forced into boots as a bug, when you'd love to smash things with an offensive item. You often run a slew of coverage instead of being able to make the most of powerful dual STAB, because bug is mostly garbage and First Impression is janky but unique, while Megahorn is high damage but you just never get to put it on a set. You have a great ability for "stallbreaking" as we mentioned before, but its very hard to leverage because you'll often be oneshot or massively chunked even by defensive mons. You even have excellent boosting moves while blocking Unaware, Sturdy, etc- but it just doesn't mesh with its miserable staying power and lack of switchins.

I think there's space here to explore new territory for Miasmaw. It had its fingers in the following pies upon creation:
-Physical attacker that is intimidate-proof/contact ability-proof ( )
-Regen "counter" ( )
-Check and RK voltswitch/uturn users ( )
-Defeat hazard removal glues ( )
-Stallbreak on normally chip-immune mons ( )

Its absolutely not successful at all of the above now, with a lot of the mons listed that fit those categories straight up dunking it or providing a really unstable matchup. The only one where I feel like it does its job well is being a intim/contact-abil immune beatstick. Some of these goals can't be achieved together- for instance, we'd have to stretch stats in every way possible to justify stallbreaking (not wallbreaking) Clef while also being able to force out Torn. Another example is its Intimidate/Static/Iron Barbs immunity doesn't overlap well with wanting to regen-counter and potentially eat Scalds and burns. It would make sense to ignore a vast majority of its original goals and tunnel in on one, and pair that with our intent to create a mon with good generic offensive presence (just general improvements to perform well in more situations overall, separate from concept relevancy).
With that in mind, I don't think there's really any part of Miasmaw that feels too sacred to touch as long as one of these pillars remain and leads our process.

 

[snake]

1.) What obstacles are preventing Miasmaw from having a meaningful presence in the current metagame?

With its titanic 135 Atk, good 115 SpA, and colorful movepool, Miasmaw should be essentially a giant battering ram against defensive teams. However, imagine that battering ram having a tiny base (its horrible bulk), squeaky wheels (its sorta bad speed), and a balloon on its front rather than pointy surface (its bad STAB typings). I'm having trouble fitting the fact that Miasmaw has to choose what move it needs to use extremely carefully every time it switches in into the analogy, but the point is that its high offensive stats are basically impossible to leverage effectively in games. Shoring up some of these flaws could make Miasmaw into a functional Pokemon.

The fact that Miasmaw doesn't just have a good baseline move to click is particularly awful. Think about it: it's not First Impression, not Dragon Hammer, not Earthquake, not Close Combat, not Megahorn, not Poison Jab...none of these moves are really safe to click without having something healthy potentially switch in, tank the otherwise strong attack, and force Miasmaw out. Miasmaw just has to pick its move carefully every single time it clicks a move.

Another issue is that our dilapidated battering ram is sitting right next to slightly faster battering rams with actually good offensive typing and safe moves to click like Tapu Lele and Urshifu-R. It's really hard to justify adding Miasmaw as your sorta frail wallbreaker when Tapu Lele and Urshifu-R are very easy replacements for that kind of specific role.

4.) What elements of Miasmaw are considered its best assets? Do these elements suggest what route Miasmaw needs to pursue in order to be successful?

Miasmaw's high offenses are just not being supported well right now. Trying to fix the supporting elements of the "battering ram" should ultimately help Miasmaw actually achieve meaningful placements on teams and progress in games.

 

[SDK03]

1.) What obstacles are preventing Miasmaw from having a meaningful presence in the current metagame?

As many others and the OP have said, Miasmaw at the moment is a glass cannon that has trouble even being a cannon as it has low speed and no moves it can click to force damage with without worrying about being instantly being hardwalled, forced out or revenge killed by something switching in. It may have Neutralizing Gas and 135/115 offenses to do major damage to stall teams, but even those can capitalize on Miasmaw’s weak STAB, frailty and lack of easily spammable coverage.

Another example of a Pokémon that faces the exact same kind of issues as Miasmaw is Haxorus, another Dragon type with an extremely high attacking stat let down by bad STAB by today’s modern Pokémon standards, middling speed, weak bulk and, ironically enough, a lack of reliable coverage options it can spam as it only has access to the exact same mainstay non-stab as Miasmaw (Close Combat, Earthquake and Poison Jab, along with First Impression). Haxorus, like Miasmaw, even has access to Mold Breaker to deny opposing Pokémon the ability to reliably use their defensive abilities and that still isn’t enough to cover for the other issues it has. Even during B&W, a generation you’d think it would excel in due to Dragon only being resisted by Steel at the time, Haxorus was still easily revenge-killed and heavily checked by the meta for all of the issues listed above.

2.) The primary take away from Miasmaw's concept assessment was that "CAP 28 will be targeting primarily Teleport pivots." How important is concept loyalty to the buff process now that many of the mons we originally wanted to target are not as prevalent?

Seeing that Miasmaw still possesses an extremely powerful ability in Neutralizing Gas combined with its high attacking stats, I would say that we shouldn’t worry too much about staying loyal to the original concept as the best qualities that Miasmaw currently possesses still allow it to excel in its original role in the case it ever needed to. Any buffs made to it shouldn’t dramatically hurt its abilities in threatening pivots like Slowbro, and should most likely even improve those good matchups it was meant to have. Considering Miasmaw has qualities that on paper should make it a fierce wallbreaker, that is the niche we should focus on improving Miasmaw’s effectiveness in instead of worrying too much about it not fulfilling an already obsolete niche.

3.) There were two additional goals established during Miasmaw's concept assessment.

• CAP 28 should always aim to have good offensive presence
• CAP 28 should be able to act as a stallbreaker, which in this context means that it should be able to win most of the time against passive strategies

Do these hold up now? Are these additional goals something to maintain during the buff process?

One of the main complaints that everyone currently has about Miasmaw is its lack of a good offensive presence due to its inability to stay in on even a lot of defensive Pokémon in the tier and also gets revenge killed by almost everything in the tier, so that goal has definitely aged poorly. However, one niche that Miasmaw still manages decently is stallbreaking thanks to its high attacking stats and Neutralizing Gas, so although it could definitely do better than it currently does against defensive mons like Clefable and Slowbro, it does do well overall against more passive stall teams and fulfils that goal quite well.

4.) What elements of Miasmaw are considered its best assets? Do these elements suggest what route Miasmaw needs to pursue in order to be successful?

Like I and many others in this thread said before, Neutralizing Gas and its great mixed attacking stats are its best assets. Straight up removing opposing Pokémon’s abilities so that they can’t even offensively, defensively or passively benefit from them is extremely strong for breaking through strong walls AND neutering offensive threats that would otherwise switch into Miasmaw with complete ease. These qualities on paper would make it an excellent wallbreaker, so the most likely direction for Miasmaw to veer into is into becoming a strong wallbreaker that capitalizes off of things such as Equilibra, Zapdos, Landorus-T, Clefable, Toxapex and many others losing their most important abilities and being heavily threatened by Miasmaw’s power as a result of that.

 

[Gekokeso]

2.) The primary take away from Miasmaw's concept assessment was that "CAP 28 will be targeting primarily Teleport pivots." How important is concept loyalty to the buff process now that many of the mons we originally wanted to target are not as prevalent?

Truth be told i see zero reason to not ditch out the initial concept assement that primarily targeted teleport pivots, as even in this very reduced role in the meta Miasmaw tended to struggle with just switching into the slow twins due to scald burns and focused on threat that have simply just have fallen away over time such as Zeraora. The process focused way too much into limiting it to staying at a b-level mon for a very closed meta that it did nearly zero efforts to futureproof its concept, and as such its fallen out of favor.

If some effort is wanted to be loyal to the concept then the original concept assessment should be ditched out in favor of just taking advantage of Miasmaw's own slight niches in order to be able to take down pivots while actualizing its entire powerkit to fit not only with current meta, but also to make sure that the mon will be able to fare well for itself in the future.

 

[Amamama]

1.) What obstacles are preventing Miasmaw from having a meaningful presence in the current metagame?

Its typing really doesn’t give Miasmaw anything great to work with except high power dragon STAB.

Based only on typing It’s defensive utility is non existent outside of its water, electric and ground resist. Add poor defensive stats, that mean you still probably get 2hkoed by Lando and Zera, a severe hazard weakness, fear of scald burns and several weaknesses to important types (especially flying) and you get a Mon that has almost zero opportunity to enter the game.

Now, since it is designed as a balls to the wall breaker, all that wouldn’t matter as much, if it’s stabs were super clickable - and arguably it’s dragon typing puts it half way there, but thanks to its heinously bad dual STAB, it struggles to break past two of the most common defensive staple typings in fairy and steel without coverage and fitting the coverage it needs and desirable utility makes it wish it had three more moveslots at least.

The primary take away from Miasmaw's concept assessment was that "CAP 28 will be targeting primarily Teleport pivots." How important is concept loyalty to the buff process now that many of the mons we originally wanted to target are not as prevalent?

We definitely should step away from targeting solely teleporters, as they are almost non existent in the current meta. Slowbro is there but it’s teleport is less and less effective as more aggressive playstyles shut it down fast and - other than that - most mons using pivoting moves are much stronger offensively inclined mons, including Landorus-T, Dragapult, Tornadus-T, Tapu Koko and Urshifu-R, none of which Miasmaw can actually comfortably come into atm.

Pivoting strategies, which Miasmaw was supposed to be a roadblock to, have shifted from defense-offense vortexes based on futureport, to fast offensive pivoting mostly based on uturn paired with Defensive pivots that rely a lot more on bulk and typing than anything else right now.
Imo Miasmaw actually would kinda enjoy Fat mons being less skiddish like they are now, since it’s power means it’s not super trivial to find a defensive pivot, that actually takes two hits.
But it just can’t safely come in on most of these defensive mons, bc it is so easy to cripple with knock off or Scald or pressure with SE STAB moves, that a lot of bulky mons carry vs it.
On top of that, while it has the power to 2hko a lot of stuff it falls short on OHKoing even a single defensive staple atm, meaning it can’t really immediately force the switches it needs to, to effectively pressure defensive structures.
Which means defensive mons can just stay in often enough and wall Miasmaw fairly easily, if Miasmaw doesn’t carry a choice band or taunt.
Meanwhile most offensive mons, that it could potentially threaten with its power are just faster and thus can easily take advantage of it, either pivoting out and doing huge chunks of damage - even with uninvested non stab U-turn or simply koing it outright due to its bad bulk.
All in All Miasmaw is not equipped to adequately pressure current pivots, be it defensive pivots, due to its STABs limited threat potential or offensive pivots due to its bad speed tier and defensive qualities.

3.) There were two additional goals established during Miasmaw's concept assessment.

• CAP 28 should always aim to have good offensive presence
• CAP 28 should be able to act as a stallbreaker, which in this context means that it should be able to win most of the time against passive strategies

Do these hold up now? Are these additional goals something to maintain during the buff process?

I think this is where Miasmaw is closest to where we wanted it to be. It’s power is astonishing. If the opponent doesn’t bring a fairy, a banded outrage can be devastating, even 3HKOing defensive steels like Equilibra or Heatran.
Its offensive presence still is lacking though, because it has no safe move to commit to right now and because it’s speed tier means it can’t adequately pressure faster teambuilds.
It still can be a devastating stall breaker with a bit of help because it’s fast enough to take advantage of fatter teams and Neutralising Gas plus taunt plus high power mean, it can put holes into fat teams.
But stall is also fairly rare right now and there are so many other breakers that can do this much more organically, while providing other good qualities to a team for other Matchups.

4.) What elements of Miasmaw are considered its best assets? Do these elements suggest what route Miasmaw needs to pursue in order to be successful?

Neutralizing Gas is the one reason you consider using Miasmaw.
Originally this was to stop Regenerators to live forever.
But looking at the current Regen pivots, Miasmaw can’t safely come in on Torn or Astro, really doesn’t like switching in on Glowking, Slowbro now often runs ice beam and fear of getting scald burned means it is always a risk to bring it in raw against Pex or the Slows.
Often the best way to take advantage of it rn is aggressively doubling Miasmaw in, when you pressure out the Regen pivot with another Mon.
On the other hand neutralizing gas is much more relevant for its ability to block contact abilities and intimidate, meaning you freely can spam physical contact moves.
It has occasional use against weather and could be used to chip Clef via hazards or status, as well as statusing Tapu Fini or letting Equilibra take spikes damage.
The other reason you might want to use Miasmaw atm is that a 120BP Stab move from 135 base attack potential with band will hurt anything that is not resistant (or immune)
Miasmaws potential for OHKOs against frailer mons is actually very impressive.
On top, it also can use its Special side both in mixed sets or as full special attacker, making it harder to predict.

 

[Wulfanator]

Fantastic discussion so far. Much of the consensus in the thread revolved around the same talking points, and for good reason.

Miasmaw was designed for a slower metagame where its STABs were far more punishing. Now, the saturation of fairy-types, flying-types, and offensive threats like Weavile have reduced Miasmaw’s playstyle to a prediction heavy mess. Compared to other breakers, Miasmaw lacks a safe, clickable move that is guaranteed to make progress (consider Weavile’s Knock Off). Without such tools, its subpar offensive presence demands items like Choice Band to keep pace with the rest of the tier. This necessity denies it the luxury of items like Heavy-Duty Boots which forces it to contend with its Stealth Rock weakness.

Now that much of its original niche is absent, it is perhaps time to move away from our initial interpretation of its concept. Many of you acknowledged that Neutralizing Gas in conjunction with its raw offensive stats and coverage is a strong foundation to pursue with this buff process. Neutralizing Gas grants Miasmaw the unique trait of being a physical mon that doesn’t have to content with the likes of Intimidate or contact-punishing abilities. This is considered one of the best ways to preserve Miasmaw’s current identity without contending with the baggage from its concept assessment.

While I am not opening submissions for buff packages yet, please discuss what changes can be made to better enable Miasmaw’s favorable traits. Feel free to use the following questions for guidance. However, you are welcome to deviate from them entirely if there is an idea that does not fit nicely into any of them.

1.) What movepool changes would remedy the issue of lacking a safe, clickable move despite having access to a plethora of coverage? What makes these tools more spammable than the moves it already has access to?

2.) What can we change about Miasmaw’s stats to make in a more competitive choice in the current metagame?

3.) Typing changes are a controversial topic when it comes to CAP adjustments. Given the problems Miasmaw faces, is a change of typing valid to consider? How high or low of a priority should this type of change be? How would this type of change impact your answers to the previous 2 talking points?

4.) (Applies to all previous questions) How are these changes improving relevant matchups in the metagame?

 

[SDK03]

1.) What movepool changes would remedy the issue of lacking a safe, clickable move despite having access to a plethora of coverage? What makes these tools more spammable than the moves it already has access to?

Miasmaw’s movepool already has some valuable options in both Earthquake and Close Combat, but what it would really value in terms of coverage are spammable 75-90 BP moves with practically no drawbacks on them. Dragon Hammer already does this while serving as STAB, but the Elemental Punches or similar elemental coverage of 75 BP or higher seem like pretty good options for threatening STAB. Choice Band Tyranitar is a good example of something that takes great advantage of its colourful coverage options for whenever it’s already good Rock/Dark STAB can’t break a hard switchin it’s having trouble with, as it reliably hits Garchomp, Dragonite and Landorus-T with Ice Punch, almost every steel except Heatran with Fire Punch and Corviknight with Thunder Punch if you ever felt like running it. As of now though, Miasmaw only has access to the mediocre Elemental Fangs which share just 65 BP and 95% Accuracy.

252 Atk Choice Band Miasmaw Ice Fang vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dragonite: 328-388 (84.9 - 100.5%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Miasmaw Dragon Hammer vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dragonite: 338-398 (87.5 - 103.1%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
252 Atk Choice Band Miasmaw Ice Punch vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Dragonite: 376-444 (97.4 - 115%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO

Even Ice Punch has a monumentally better chance of netting an OHKO here than Ice Fang. Yeah, putting punch moves on something that doesn’t have fists is thematically kinda weird, but Wooper and Gastly have no arms and learn Ice Punch while Kyurem-Black has a whole ass ice arm and can’t punch or even create icicle crashes with it, so who cares about zany coverage lmao

2.) What can we change about Miasmaw’s stats to make in a more competitive choice in the current metagame?

Obviously more speed and bulk to compensate for the Stealth Rock weakness and to allow it to actually stay in on the stuff it’s supposed to be killing easier. Other than those, its Attacking stats are perfectly fine.

3.) Typing changes are a controversial topic when it comes to CAP adjustments. Given the problems Miasmaw faces, is a change of typing valid to consider? How high or low of a priority should this type of change be? How would this type of change impact your answers to the previous 2 talking points?

Although Dragon/Bug may not be the best typing offensively or defensively, it’s still a unique typing that does offer Miasmaw some potent STAB options in Outrage, Dragon Hammer, Draco Meteor, First Impression and Leech Life which synergizes well with it being a strictly offensive mon. Even if it doesn’t end up using its Bug STAB at all, I’m pretty sure Dragon + Great coverage will help it quite a lot as Dragonite doesn’t even run STAB on serious sets and Venomicon-P runs Earth Power as a second move to compliment Hurricane instead of Sludge Bomb. I don’t see Miasmaw having nearly as severe of an issue with its typing as something like Malaconda, and Miasmaw actually gets to benefit in some way for its intended purposes with its STAB (unlike Malaconda), so I don’t think Miasmaw’s flaws go that far.

4. (Applies to all previous questions) How are these changes improving relevant matchups in the metagame?

These improvements would help Miasmaw keep up the pace in an aggressive, fast-paced metagame where keeping offensive momentum with offensive teams is key. Extra speed and bulk make it harder for Miasmaw to be instantly shut down by opposing offense such as the Tapu family, opposing Dragons and Zapdos, and more spammable coverage makes defensive mons think twice before choosing to immediately switch in such as again Zapdos, Tapu Fini, Clefable, Toxapex and Ferrothorn.

 

[Lasen]

Gonna speedrun making this post:

Miasmaw does NOT need coverage. Its movepool is bloated to all hell and it struggles with picking what to run. It has coverage, it has set up options, hell, it has MIXED options. Buffing it defensively risks us making Dragonite 2.0 where people just run recover + hdb and slowly but surely make progress.
I do wanna touch upon the type change aspect: one of the defining features of Miasmaw besides Gas is its STAB Fimp. Take away its Bug typing, it is never running it again. Take away dragon and it instantly becomes worse in every conceivable way. Changing its typing would mean changing BOTH types and then losing part of its identity. I am not necessarily against said identity being lost, but since its concept is already partially lost due to metagame developments out of our control, we DO have to ask if we wanna try and salvage what we can or just throw it out the window and start with a blank state. I'm leaning towards trying to salvage what we can.
How do we achieve this? Wait for buff packages to formally open and I'm dropping EXACTLY what you expect me to.

 

[Brambane]

Miasmaw doesn't really need "spammable" attack in the same way Weavile Knock Off is spammable or Dragapult Shadow Ball is spammable. The nature of its STABs means Miasmaw just doesn't have room for that kind of playstyle. There aren't spammable Dragon-type and Bug-type moves in the Gen 8 metagame, Miasmaw isn't going to be that kind of wallbreaker. It already has (most) of the coverage tools it needs in its kit, but what it lacks is any kind of safe option alongside them. Miasmaw forces you to make hard predictions when you play it. Compare it to Dragapult and Urshifu; Pult has a less resisted STAB typing and access to U-turn to reposition to another threat; Urshifu has a much better STAB coverage and also U-turn. Weavile too has much better STAB coverage and can force progress long-term with Knock Off.

I don't see a reason to reinvent the wheel. Give Miasmaw the tools to reposition to maintain offensive pressure and make progress. Predicting for Miasmaw needs to be an option for Miasmaw, not the requirement every time you bring it in. U-turn and Knock Off (but especially U-turn) give Miasmaw safe tools to work with and keeps it more competitive with other wallbreakers.

An aside, in the current metagame U-turn is hyper synergistic with NGas. What other U-turn users don't have to worry about chip from Iron Barbs or Static from Zapdos or proccing Stamina from Venomicon? Absolutely incredible.

The only coverage move (Knock aint coverage don't play) that Miasmaw feels like it really needs is Gunk Shot. Poison Jab is just complete ass unless you are specifically targeting Jumbao and Tapu Bulu. This shit doesn't even 2HKO Clefable reliably. Allowing Miasmaw to actually threaten Clefable and Tapu Fini would go miles as a wallbreaker, and Gunk Shot is the fast option (as oppose to something like Taunt + Recover or Toxic) which is more in-line with keeping Miasmaw a traditional wallbreaker with a gassy twist.

Agreed with lasen on typing; STAB Fimp is Miasmaw's most unique tool and should probably stay. The move does have only like 1 consistent target in the current meta (Weavile) but with STAB you can sometimes grab a Stratagem or Kartana as well. I think FImp is a bit of a honeypot at times and waste of a moveslot compared to coverage, Recover, or SD, but we shouldn't remove this tool and identity from Miasmaw. The Dragon part of the typing is kinda ass lol but it does like Miasmaw switch into Heatran once instead of never, so that's something.

It's stats are mostly fine. I entertain swapping Attack and Special Attack for big funny Draco Meteor, but the above changes have a net stronger effect on the mon and the metagame imo. Being slower than Lele and Urshifu is kind ass tho, especially since despite its typing this mon take a million from Surging Strikes. 98 Speed seems pretty reasonable, especially with U-turn.

These changes make Miasmaw better into balance teams, the match-up it should be thriving in but instead struggles. Miasmaw just sacrifices too much momentum compared to other breakers against these teams unless you get every turn right, and even then if they have Clefable or Corviknight or Toxapex (and you are CC not EQ) it feels like it doesn't even matter anyways!

 

[Amamama]

1.) What movepool changes would remedy the issue of lacking a safe, clickable move despite having access to a plethora of coverage? What makes these tools more spammable than the moves it already has access to?

It’s Typing grants it STAB acces to one of the most spammable and least punishable moves in all of Pokémon, namely U-Turn.
During its process we made the short sighted decision to deny Miasmaw this move, lest itd become what it was supposed to beat.
This should be remedied now.
With Neutralizing gas blocking Contact abilities and Boots covering Hazards, Uturning is almost entirely free once Maw is in against a slower Target that it can threaten. This Means punishing Maw becomes much harder and it is able to aid Wall breaking teammates with Uturn chip, removing regenerator or Magic Guard while bringing them in against Mons it can’t break itself.

In a similar Vein Volt switch could help provide it with opportunities to gain momentum, given that no Ground type really likes switching in on a ground resist, that has mostly neutral Stab or SE coverage against them.

Atm Miasmaw has great powerful Coverage options, that hit specific targets very hard and ALL have immunities against them. Clicking any of those is great, if you nuke the intended Mon. But if the opponent can use a Sponge to scout it becomes relatively easy to find not only a resist but an immunity, which means Choice Band which would be a great item on Maw suddenly becomes easy to play around a lot of times.

Miasmaw could use a Midground - similar to Thunderbolt, which it used on some sets before.
Physical electric or fire (special would be neat too) coverage would give it option, that are less easy to punish and make its 4mss less significant, as they round out its coverage more organically, than the moves it has acces to now.

Finnaly moves like Knock off or Toxic could be options that are mostly safe to use and provide it with a way to make progress even if it is type walled.

2.) What can we change about Miasmaw’s stats to make in a more competitive choice in the current metagame?

Imo this comes mostly down to speed.
Miasmaw is horribly outpaced by almost all offensive threats in the tier. And given its poor defenses it has not only few opportunities to come in on a resit, it often also gets forced out subsequently because a faster threat can take it on.
It’s poor bulk doesn’t help, but I don’t think it’s the root of the problem.
Imo making it easier for Maw to pivot in on Ground electric or Water types would help it but much more important is significantly improving its speed tier, imo to somewhere between 100-120.
Mons like Koko, Ebook, Weavile or Stratagem aren’t the pinnacle of bulk, but their speed makes them much harder to punish.
Being able to actually outpace some frail offensive mons would give Miasmaw more opportunities to be threatening with its high power moves and good potential for 2hkos, while not relying on a move, that it only can use turn one and is easily walled by most of the tiers defensive mons.

3.) Typing changes are a controversial topic when it comes to CAP adjustments. Given the problems Miasmaw faces, is a change of typing valid to consider? How high or low of a priority should this type of change be? How would this type of change impact your answers to the previous 2 talking points?

Miasmaws biggest flaw is it’s aweful offensive typing paired with the only somewhat serviceable defensive typing, which is further let down by it’s pitiful defenses.
The easiest way to buff Miasmaw probably would be changing its type, as suddenly it’s offensive stats would actually be threatening with good two move STAB coverage, that isn’t walled by so many defensive staples.
At the same time this would also be the largest change to its current build and identity and have the least predictable outcome, as we would be entirely changing, what checks it and how it relates to defensive pivots.
This is the reason I would prefer to not go this route even if I’d definitely enjoy some justice for electric/dark Miasmaw.

 

[That_Dwayneee]

1.) What movepool changes would remedy the issue of lacking a safe, clickable move despite having access to a plethora of coverage? What makes these tools more spammable than the moves it already has access to?

A dragon/bug typing is subpar in presence overall to say the least, however over the generations dragon has proved itself to be a strong stab to spam, it just sucks that fairy types mean that dragons have to look elsewhere for things to do in this situation, and miasmaw finds itself to be walled with its other stab option too.
There has historically been one extremely spammable bug move in u-turn which miasmaw would make excellent usage of considering it is immune to the most common forms of u-turn punishing due to ngas, it only has to contend with rocky helmet chip which is much less scary when you remember ferrothorn loses out on leftovers if it carries it.

2.) What can we change about Miasmaw’s stats to make in a more competitive choice in the current metagame?

The idea of a spD kartana was something mentioned by singaporygon in the discord and it's an idea I think is really cool. Doing this properly would allow it to have some level of safety vs threats like heatran, non-hurricane zapdos, unboosted tapu fini, and more if your prediction game is on point that day.
More specifically I think a speed stat of 110 or slightly would be especially nice since base 92 puts it beneath basically every offensive threat in the tier short of heatran and the base 85s, and 110 opens up a new avenue for a set: choice scarf.
Assuming it keeps cc, base 110 speed would allow it to outdo every other scarf mon in the tier other than astrolotl who sits at base 114, including the ever reliable scarf kartana.

3.) Typing changes are a controversial topic when it comes to CAP adjustments. Given the problems Miasmaw faces, is a change of typing valid to consider? How high or low of a priority should this type of change be? How would this type of change impact your answers to the previous 2 talking points?

Although a typing change would be nice for it, I believe that if miasmaw is buffed enough it wouldn't be strictly necessary.
Electric typing would be insanely powerful on a mon with the ability to deny regenerator, though, and would also give it more inherent defensive utility to boot as a electric, flying, and steel are 3 pretty good types to take half damage from.
Obviously if maw did shed its bug typing u-turn wouldn't be as important for it, but it would need some heavy balancing towards special attacking as well due to electric's physical movepool being at best decent and at worst fucking abhorrent.
I don't think a type change should be done unless strictly necessary though, as it would require heavy movepool shifts and be super unpredictable as to what it would do or even if it would become more viable (though lets face it, it's difficult to get much worse than dragon/bug).

 

[shnowshner]

U-Turn and Knock Off are really good for us, no question about it. Rocky Helmet is the only major anti-contact tool that does anything against us, and while health is still very important, its far less damaging than Paralysis or Burn is going to be. NGas letting us use these two with greater freedom than other Pokemon is something Miasmaw can do and isn't getting taken away from it easily. The closest thing in the metagame to this is Guts Colossoil, and that still has to worry about the likes of Stamina or Iron Barbs.

I think it's worth looking into all the situations where our primarily ability helps make U-Turn and Knock stronger or easier to commit:

• Adverse contact abilities ()
• Activate on-hit/damage threshold abilities ( | [Vs the 1 Cursed Body user])
• Intimidate ()
• Force damage onto certain Regenerator mons + preserve momentum for U-Turn ()

U-Turn works as both a significant buff considering its a good move + STAB, but it also happens to work great with our goal of targeting RegenPort even if that's just Slowbro right now, allowing for those situations where we either deny Regen or dish out heavy damage, except this time we aren't locking ourselves into an exploitable move.

Adding both of these would be a pretty significant step forward but aren't enough on their own IMO


For stats, an increase to Speed would be the simplest way to increase viability. It does feel rather dangerous to give something with such large attacking stats a higher Speed stat, especially above the Garchomp range, but we have freedom to make adjustments elsewhere and higher speed + slightly lower offensive power (whether that is raw attack or coverage/STAB options) would make for a stronger overall presence.

Also like the idea of higher Special Defense so its easier to come in on things like Pyroak, Heatran, Equilibra, and Slowbro. Miasmaw could definitely use some better switch-in opportunities and disabling Contrary from the former is a lot more impactful when you can comfortably take the hits.

 

[Brown4Sides]

1.) What movepool changes would remedy the issue of lacking a safe, clickable move despite having access to a plethora of coverage? What makes these tools more spammable than the moves it already has access to?

I'm gonna be controversial and say that a Speed boosting move could help it out. With something like Dragon Dance/Shift Gear/Quiver Dance, Miasmaw gets to keep its power output, outspeed things it couldn't before, not be as prediction reliant due to not running a Choice Item, and it gets to run HDB. There's also Scale Shot, which effectively makes it NGas Garchomp, and allows it to deal damage while boosting its Speed, which is something I think Miasmaw would appreciate. It does not use its Defense stat anyway.

And while Miasmaw already has coverage to hit everything in the tier for at least neutral damage, Ice coverage I think could help it out. It currently doesn't have anything to hit Landorus-Therian, Saharaja or Zapdos supereffectively with aside from Ice Fang. Icy Wind hits these and the Speed drop could help Miasmaw land kills. Freeze-Dry helps it in terms of clickability, as now you can hit Ground and Water types in the same move. Ice Shard gives Miasmaw another much appreciated priority move and capitalizes on its higher attacking stat. Or you can just go standard and give it Icicle Crash/Ice Beam. That being said, I don't think any of these are enough to make it viable by themselves, and it's still not the direction I'd go. But if we were to give it more coverage, I think it should be Ice.

2.) What can we change about Miasmaw’s stats to make in a more competitive choice in the current metagame?

The best thing you can do for Miasmaw stat-wise is raise its Speed. Something like 103 allows it to outpace Garchomp, Urshifu, and Pajantom. You could also raise its attacking stats, because even with the highest attack out of any CAP, it's still pretty mediocre at wallbreaking. I think Speed would be the better stat to raise, because its Speed is the more awkward stat. I don't think increasing its bulk will help it much without completely changing its role, it still has a terrible defensive typing and it does nothing to protect it from Scald burns.

 

[quziel]

Broadly we need to address one of the major shortcomings of Miasmaw.

1. Miasmaw requires substantially more prediction than its competition to offer similar or lesser reward.

2. Miasmaw is too difficult to get in as compared to its competition.

We can fix 1. a number of ways. We can give Miasmaw a relatively low risk move to click, expand its coverage to increase the reward of predicting correctly (though this runs into 4MSS if we don't choose the expansion perfectly), or increase its stats to increase the reward for clicking correctly.

U-turn is a great solution to 1., letting you have an incredibly safe move (unpunishable by Barbs/Static), and generally is just a major upgrade for a mon whose role revolves around supporting offensive pivots in matchups against defensive pivots.

Wild Charge has been proposed to help out our 4MSS, as Bug/Dragon/Electric/Fighting is actually good coverage, hitting every regen pivot for heavy damage, Fini, and Fighting to cover steel types. I'm stealing this from Jordy on the discord but whatever.

Knock Off is a move I generally like, as it is perhaps the safest move to click in the entire game. If we're in vs a Glowking, and we know they're swapping out, there is likely no move that is freer to use.

96, 98, or 103 speed all make us a lot more rewarding to use once in by letting us outrun Tapu Lele, Urshifu, and Garchomp respectively, thus forcing them out. This both eases prediction, and generally increases the reward for successfully getting Miasmaw in. My preference here is 96 or 98 speed, Lele is a relatively accessible matchup for us given our insane power and Lele's physical frailty, especially if we pair this with U-turn. 98 Speed offers the same, but lets us leverage our typing into CC+Surging vs Urshifu, even if we don't immediately threaten it.

Bug / Dark typing is a bit of a long shot, but this gives us a relatively safe stab to click in Dark, at least compared to Dragon, and preserves the wonder of STAB First Impression. The resists offered are a bit hard to access, but let us use our Weavile-Level special bulk vs Pult the same way it does. This also lets us be a rare Ground+Dark resist, for all that matters.

Bug / Ground typing gives us an EQ resist (same as we have now), removes our need to hold Boots at all times, and offers the insane synergy between EQ + Ngas. This worsens our matchup into Kanto Slowtwins while making our matchup into Pex and Glowtwins substantially better. This typing also matches up very well into both Tapu Koko and Zeraora, both of which are moderate annoyances to us as of the current moment.


Unsure how much I like the typing changes proposed, but wanted to bring up these two as I think they help us a fair bit. I'll let others talk about other stat changes.

 

[SDK03]

Broadly we need to address one of the major shortcomings of Miasmaw.

1. Miasmaw requires substantially more prediction than its competition to offer similar or lesser reward.

2. Miasmaw is too difficult to get in as compared to its competition.

We can fix 1. a number of ways. We can give Miasmaw a relatively low risk move to click, expand its coverage to increase the reward of predicting correctly (though this runs into 4MSS if we don't choose the expansion perfectly), or increase its stats to increase the reward for clicking correctly.

U-turn is a great solution to 1., letting you have an incredibly safe move (unpunishable by Barbs/Static), and generally is just a major upgrade for a mon whose role revolves around supporting offensive pivots in matchups against defensive pivots.

Wild Charge has been proposed to help out our 4MSS, as Bug/Dragon/Electric/Fighting is actually good coverage, hitting every regen pivot for heavy damage, Fini, and Fighting to cover steel types. I'm stealing this from Jordy on the discord but whatever.

Knock Off is a move I generally like, as it is perhaps the safest move to click in the entire game. If we're in vs a Glowking, and we know they're swapping out, there is likely no move that is freer to use.

96, 98, or 103 speed all make us a lot more rewarding to use once in by letting us outrun Tapu Lele, Urshifu, and Garchomp respectively, thus forcing them out. This both eases prediction, and generally increases the reward for successfully getting Miasmaw in. My preference here is 96 or 98 speed, Lele is a relatively accessible matchup for us given our insane power and Lele's physical frailty, especially if we pair this with U-turn. 98 Speed offers the same, but lets us leverage our typing into CC+Surging vs Urshifu, even if we don't immediately threaten it.

Bug / Dark typing is a bit of a long shot, but this gives us a relatively safe stab to click in Dark, at least compared to Dragon, and preserves the wonder of STAB First Impression. The resists offered are a bit hard to access, but let us use our Weavile-Level special bulk vs Pult the same way it does. This also lets us be a rare Ground+Dark resist, for all that matters.

Bug / Ground typing gives us an EQ resist (same as we have now), removes our need to hold Boots at all times, and offers the insane synergy between EQ + Ngas. This worsens our matchup into Kanto Slowtwins while making our matchup into Pex and Glowtwins substantially better. This typing also matches up very well into both Tapu Koko and Zeraora, both of which are moderate annoyances to us as of the current moment.


Unsure how much I like the typing changes proposed, but wanted to bring up these two as I think they help us a fair bit. I'll let others talk about other stat changes.

I forgot about U-Turn and Knock Off, but Knock Off combined with Neutralizing Gas is an amazing option for Miasmaw in terms of wearing down defensive threats and U-Turn actually allows it to deal with bad matchups better than it currently does while still being a threatening STAB option that isn’t too punishable. 98 Speed also seems like the best speed tier for something like Miasmaw as it beats out slower wallbreakers like Lele and Shifu to make Miasmaw’s offensive presence stronger. However, 103 Speed does seem like a bit too much for it as being able to force unboosted Garchomp out and win most 1v1s with it is somewhat concerning. I feel like with a slight buff to bulk, speed buff to 98 and the addition of U-Turn, Knock Off and Gunk Shot (maybe the Elemental Punches too like I suggested cause the Fangs are dollar store coverage), Miasmaw would be pretty decent as an offensive pivot/breaker that can invalidate the defensive abilities of things that would otherwise hardwall it.

One funny thing I remember about U-Turn being discussed is that most people vetoed its addition in the original movepool process as they felt it was contradictory to its role as an “anti-pivot”, but considering Landorus-T (a Ground type) is arguably the best Ground check in the game, Ferrothorn is the best anti-grass and Tapu Fini (a defensive mon) has a sweeper, scarf and trapping set as its best sets, U-Turn wouldn’t hurt Miasmaw’s position as an “anti-pivot” at all, none of the buffs would really do that, it would just strengthen it. But hey, since we want to make this little guy a powerful wallbreaking pivot, it’s a wallbreaker now lmao.

 

[Zetalz]

1.) What movepool changes would remedy the issue of lacking a safe, clickable move despite having access to a plethora of coverage? What makes these tools more spammable than the moves it already has access to?

Preaching to the choir, U-turn & Knock Off are substantial improvements to Maw's kit. Both are excellent midground options that relieve the pressure of needing to click correctly and both synergize with Maw's assumed goals in a game. Won't rattle on this anymore because the rest of the thread already has.

For other moves, the only coverage attack I think even remotely helps Maw would be Gunk Shot. As Bram explained jab just absolutely blows, having a way to actually threaten Clef, Fini, etc. in a much faster fashion would be a great boon. That said I feel it's not super high on the priorities list compared to the aforementioned midgrounds in turn/knock. Toxic is another option that gives it a way to make progress through bulkier teams, though not as immediately threatening as strong poison coverage, and would likely require some more help from other moves and/or stat buffs. (and honestly it should've had Toxic from the jump given it's concept relevance, or at least afterward from it's ppl, but CAP was very Toxic wary after the back-to-back juggernauts of Libra/Lotl lol.)

2.) What can we change about Miasmaw’s stats to make in a more competitive choice in the current metagame?

Stats touch-ups could go a few ways, mainly predicated on what kind of moves it may or may not end up with. +Speed has been brought up a lot and rightfully so, regardless of moveset changes Maw's speed tier is absolutely dire so giving it more opportunities to come in feels good. I'm not married to any specific value, quz mentioned going as high as outrunning Chomper which sounds fine enough a ceiling to me. +SpDef (or just +bulk in general) has been talked about off and on well before this process and it's something I also quite like. Maw's suite of resists, though awkward, would afford it a deal more switch-in opportunities but it currently lacks the wiggle room to be a consistent in to things like Roak or the Slows. However, I do feel this approach would have to be tempered a bit by other buffs or potential tweaking of offensive stats, as we don't want to push Maw into the range of 'too-fast, too-strong, too-fat'.

3.) Typing changes are a controversial topic when it comes to CAP adjustments. Given the problems Miasmaw faces, is a change of typing valid to consider? How high or low of a priority should this type of change be? How would this type of change impact your answers to the previous 2 talking points?

I don't think we should consider typing changes for Miasmaw. Typing changes are something where we have to keep flavor in mind much more than other changes, have to consider whether or not the mon loses it's identity by losing it's typing, and frankly it's a hassle we don't need to go down here. A typing change I feel should only be considered when it is pre-dominantly the root cause of a mon's problems, something that if decided to keep would require us to go above and beyond to fix otherwise. This is not the case for Maw imo. It's defensive profile is awkward, but not unsalvageable through stat changes. It's STABs are subpar, but can be complemented by giving previously mentioned midground moves to click.

We have the means to fix it through (relatively) slim move additions and stat changes and should stick to 'em. Typing changes should be the last thing on our minds here.

 

[Wulfanator]

Thank you all for the thoughtful discussion. This last bit of conversation was to help me quickly gauge what types of changes the community believes are and aren’t on the table. I won’t drag this conversation on longer, so consider buff package submissions open.

As a reminder, users will be submitting neatly packed combinations of buffs, either major or minor. If the submitter believes a proposed change is quite strong, they are also permitted to suggest removals for the sake of balance. To copy Lasen’s homework, an example post would be:

+Solar Power
+7 Spe
+1 HP
-Growl

Remember to provide justification for your proposal either in the form of calculations or specific references to the metagame.

Lastly, make sure that the first line of your buff package post is either WIP or Final Submission to help distinguish between submissions that are still being worked on from those that are complete. Only submissions with that have been edited to a Final Submission status will be considered for polling.

 

[dex]

Final Submission

+U-turn
+11 SpD
+6 Spe
+Dragon Darts
-17 SpA

The basis for this buff is fairly straightforward: allow Miasmaw to generate momentum via U-turn and its coverage. I would imagine a set for this mon would be something like this:

Miasmaw @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Neutralizing Gas
- U-turn
- Dragon Darts
- Poison Jab
- Taunt / Recover / Earthquake

This goes all in on Miasmaw's excellent stallbreaking potential with Neutralizing Gas. Poison Jab allows it to fish for a poison against Clefable, which it would then proceed to beat. Dragon Darts is given in support of Band sets and also to do more damage to Arghonaut. Originally I had Gunk Shot added too, but I feel like Poison Jab is honestly the better move due to accuracy. The extra SpD allows it to take max SpA Tapu Fini's Moonblast from full with no investment:

252 SpA Tapu Fini Moonblast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Miasmaw: 260-308 (83.6 - 99%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

U-turn allows Miasmaw to generate momentum on Regen pivots it likes to switch into.

Speed increase is so that you can pivot on Urshifu-R.