CAP 33 - Part 6 - Stat Limits Discussion

[Quanyails]

CAP33 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 Da Pizza Man, so make sure that your posts are generally directed towards him and the questions he asks. Da Pizza Man will be deciding the stat limits for CAP 33 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 33. We will look at limits to CAP 33'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!

 

[Da Pizza Man]

What’s up guys! It’s your favorite doctor, lawyer, teacher, astronaut, stats leader Da Pizza Man here! We have reached what I believe to be one of the most important set of stages for any CAP Project, the Stats Stages! While I know many users are excited to submit their own stats spreads, we first need to set a series of stats limits that will guide users on what they should be submitting during the next stage. Since this is a fairly complicated stage, I strongly recommend that newer users read the OP before joining in on the discussion.

With that introduction out of the way, here are my first batch of questions:

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?

4: What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question?

5: Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?

I am currently planning to have this run for 72 Hours before moving on to our next set of questions, although I may give more/less time depending on activity.

As a reminder, now is not the time to start suggesting any limits or actual stats.

 

[Samirsin]

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?
I think that outspeeding Iron Valiant at +0 and maybe Non-Scarfed Meowscarada is a good benchmark. We can be slower than Dragapult without any problems.

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?
Since we already have a fast Fairy-type special wall in Scream Tail, a wall that leans more into Defense would bring more variety to the table. And according to our viability rankings, there are more physical threats, like Kingambit, Hemogoblin, Great Tusk, etc. We should aim for a mixed wall that leans more into physical but still can defend itself with its Special Defense.

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?
As said before, Multiscale complements us, not defines us. We could take Multiscale into account for specific attacks, but we shouldn't depend on it. Our stats by themselves should be good enough for us to still be called a Very Fast Immovable Object.

4: What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question?
Our offense is our Speed, so we should not be offensive naturally. Our attacks are for threatening purposes, not for cleaning purposes. We could define some benchmarks, like 2HKOing Tusk and/or Valiant.

5: Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?
I personally prefer the mixed route, as Speed is our focus, not our Attack or Special Attack. However, I lean more into Special Attack. As stated before, Fairy has only two Physical attacks, which can be enough, but I fear we may end up with 4MSS.

 

[FuecocoBoi]

What’s up guys! It’s your favorite doctor, lawyer, teacher, astronaut, stats leader Da Pizza Man here! We have reached what I believe to be one of the most important set of stages for any CAP Project, the Stats Stages! While I know many users are excited to submit their own stats spreads, we first need to set a series of stats limits that will guide users on what they should be submitting during the next stage. Since this is a fairly complicated stage, I strongly recommend that newer users read the OP before joining in on the discussion.

With that introduction out of the way, here are my first batch of questions:

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?

4: What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question?

5: Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?

I am currently planning to have this run for 72 Hours before moving on to our next set of questions, although I may give more/less time depending on activity.

As a reminder, now is not the time to start suggesting any limits or actual stats.

1. I believe that a good speed stat is somewhere around 123, which is a speed stat that out speeds the most of OU, while truly speedy or scarfers can still outpace it. If we want to lean more bulky, then mid 90s is also a good tier.

2. I think a bit of both, while having considerable more bulk on one side or the other. Think Ursaluna, with 30ish base points more in Physical bulk than special. But I like special more.

3. Definitely. Due to it being the only ability, I think the HP stat be no more than 85-ish. But not to much around the actual Defence.

4. I am thinking around 91 in either attacking stat, and 40-50 to the other stat.

5. Physical is interesting, but Special would be more beneficial to this Pokemon. If we were to give it a sig physical move that could lower opposing defenses, then and only then could it be considered to run special.

 

[Zetalz]

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?

Absolute bare minimum 33 should outpace non-Scarf Meow (123). Flower Trick is a lot less threatening to 33 if we can get the jump on it and threaten it offensively. This would also put our Speed tier over other scary breakers like Cawm (forcing it to have to BP over Acro is huge), non-Speed booster Moon & Val

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?

I'm in the camp that flexibility in our bulk stats is going to be king here. While most walls do favor 1 side of the spectrum over the other, many of the greatest ones do not leave themselves wide on the opposite side and fairly often can afford to invest heavily into their less favorable stat should they desire. Given the wide spread of mons we seek to check, both physical and special, having enough breathing room to cover most of them without hamstringing 33 is key.

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?

I think it should have some impact on the upper limit of bulk, but nothing too restrictive. The fact of the matter is that Multi is not as consistently effective as some might want it to be, so we should treat it is as a supportive component to 33's bulk rather than the main focus.

4: What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question?

Probably an unpopular take but imo 33 will likely need to have a good amount of power if it wants to actually threaten the things it needs to. The fear of pushing 33 too far in an offensive direction is understandable, but fact is many walls nowadays are quite strong, as they have to be in order to function non-passively. The key component affecting this with 33 is the combination of our Speed & utility suite. The faster we get and/or the more powerful utility we settle on, the less need there will be for high offensive stats to pressure the opponent, but there are many targets that we check primarily via our STAB options that if they are not sufficiently offensively pressured by 33 could easily take advantage of it. A spread primarily using Surf/Hydro as it's Water STAB of choice is going to require much more leeway when its comes to SpA thresholds than one focusing on Scald. 33's offensive power should be limited by the strength & density of it's utility suite over any kind of hard limit imo.

5: Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?

Special is significantly less troublesome to work with than physical just by nature of better moves all around. Mixed should absolutely not be entertained, we don't need to inject that kind of stat strain onto a mon that already needs to be very fast and decently bulky, and going mixed doesn't have any particular value here either (coverage options are roughly the same or weaker, STABs are objectively worse (Spirit Break is a a very fake physical STAB)). Special is for sure the way.

 

[boomp]

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?

Being faster than Iron Valiant and Non Scarf Sneasler would be nice as both mons threatens CAP 33 longevity, so being able to out speed and chip them down is quite nice. Im kind of confuse on the second part of the question but i would try to answer it. Speeds like Dragapult and Zamazenta shouldnt really matter as CAP 33 can deal with it so we can be slower than them.

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?

I would love for CAP 33 to be physically defensive with threats like Kingambit, Meowscarada and now the new Ogerpons running around. For the sacrificing part i wouldn't mind making CAP 33 as physically defensive as possible and lack on the Specially Defensive side only because we can just support Cap 33 with a mon that is Specially Defensive!

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?

We shouldn't factor in Multiscale because its just a little bit of breathing room to tank some attacks, We should treat more as a Condition because it only works if CAP 33 is at Full HP.

4: What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question?

I like what Samirsin said above on Our speed is our offense and i agree. Just being able to outspeed and check our threats like Iron Valiant and Walking Wake is already a plus.

5: Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?

CAP 33 should be a special attacker due to fairy having not really much physical STAB moves. Mixed route can be worth consider as due to CAP 33 being a speedy wall, there wouldn't be no concern on its offensive side if mixed is the route. :D

 

[Brambane]

130 base Speed minimum means uninvested you outspeed Samurott-H. So if you want to fit the bill of "fast wall" without actually having to invest heavily in Speed, that is where it sits best imo. The fewer turns you can give Samurott to Ceaseless Edge, the better. Also catches a lot of stuff if you do invest in Speed, such as Cawmodore and Meowscarada.

I don't think it matters which side we invest on, but obviously the more you give one side the more you need to take from the other. Likely means either generally bulky or extremely focused on one side, either work. I think you end up in the idea of comparing Arghonaut and Great Tusk (not suggesting limits but demonstrating my point: BSR PT/ST wise Argh and Tusk are rounded 116/122 and 163/73 respectively, which add up to 238 and 236 combined tankiness)

Multiscale is not worth considering in stat limits, it should feel excessive by design when it is used effectively. I don't think you can overshoot with this ability if you aren't a set-up sweeper or extremely effective PP staller.

The less you lean on Knock Off and Scald, the more likely this Pokemon will need inherently more power behind its attacks imo. Scald and Knock are great at making progress even if the power isn't amazing, but a CAP33 that focuses on Surf and Moonblast should be in line with other walls in CAP/OU with strong STAB options (i.e. Venomicon, Great Tusk, Equilibra, etc etc). So long we are careful with the BP of our moves and just denying set-up options, CAP33 should not drift from target.

CAP33 should be special. Physical is bad outside of people still trying to make Spirit Break a good move (it isn't in general, and it definitely isn't here) and making a good mixed attacking fast wall means we just have to commit to giving this Pokemon absolutely amazing stats to the point it probably runs a neutral nature like Bashful, and that's dumb as hell.

 

[kenn]

I am so excited to dive into my favorite part of the process: Stats! So let's get into answering these questions!

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?

I think the bare minimum we want to outspeed is Iron Valiant which would put CAP 33 at 117 and that seems like a reasonable Speed stat to work with for our concept. While I do think going even above and beyond and outspeeding things like Dragapult or +1 Great Tusk could be intriguing, I don't think it is necessary for CAP 33 to be successful as a fast wall. Another benchmark that is nice to meet would be outspeeding something like Meowscarada which would put 33 at 124 which allows us to not fear it since while it is weak to our Fairy STAB, we are weak to its Grass STAB.

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?

I think we could honestly afford any type of a defensive stats spread as Water/Fairy is a solid typing on both sides of the spectrum. Furthermore, Multiscale can help patch up the weaker of the two should we decide to lean one way or the other. If we do want to lean physically or specially with 33, I don't think it should be at the cost of the opposite defensive stat.

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?

I believe that Multiscale should be able to support CAP 33's bulk rather than be the main focus of it. As the process has gone on, I personally have felt that Multiscale, while still a fantastic pro-concept ability, doesn't have the many applications that I once thought it did so having 33's bulk be mutually exclusive from its ability will allow 33 to make a name for itself and have Multiscale be the proverbial "cherry on top".

4: What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question?

I think we definitely need a powerful enough attacking stat to threaten the Pokemon we wanna threaten like Iron Valiant, Meowscarada, or Great Tusk but too high of an attacking stat could lean 33 into a different route rather than being a fast wall. Therefore, being careful with what stat we decide for 33's offenses is imperative to make sure we still fulfill the concept rather than just making an offensive speedster.

5: Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?

I am 100% in the camp of making 33 a special attacker. Water and Fairy have way better options on the special side than they do the physical side (Fairy moreso than Water). Overall the utility and BP of the physical STABs don't even come close imo to the utility and BP of the special STABs and therefore shouldn't be focused on when making a stat spread. I would say that mixed offenses tread into a BST behemoth and I don't think we need or want that for 33 to succeed so I think solely focusing on the special side is the way to go!

 

[mark6870]

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?

Base 110: You outspeed invested unboosted Walking Wake, Enamorous, and Hisuian Samurott. You speed tie Iron Moth.
Base 120: You outspeed invested unboosted Valiant, Cinderace, and Ogerpon.
Base 125: You outspeed invested unboosted Greninja, Sneasler, Tornadus, and Meowscrada.
Base 130: You outspeed invested unboosted base 85s with no investment of your own. Unless i am missing a mon or two, there are no reasons not to EV a base 130 CAP33 to be more than 383 Speed.
Base 140: You outspeed invested unboosted Zamazenta and Barraskewda.
Base 143: You outspeed Dragapult.

I would say, at MINIMUM, that CAP33 be 111 speed. That way, we outspeed non-boostered Iron Moth. I think around the 125 mark is also super solid since you can harass Meowscrada and Greninja with your STAB/Scald and Torrnadus with Taunt.

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?

I second Kenn's statement and believe we can swing either way and still be effective. I personally would be more inclined to see a CAP33 with solid defensive stats in both areas, however it would not be a necessity for CAP33 to be good.

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?

As previous discussions have pointed out, we should be prepared to not have multiscale in many scenarios. In such case, Multiscale is most likely either a way to lower chip damage or eat SE coverage for a single turn or other conditions like that.

4: What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question?

Pokemon like Talonflame show that Speed can make up for offensive prowess, and thus we don't need as much raw offensive power to be offensively threatening. Additionally, with potentially Scald and Knock's oppressive nature, we wouldn't need a big attacking stat to exert pressure. That being said, we'd still want enough attacking stats to threaten pokemon like Grusk, Hamurott, and Walking Wake.

5: Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?

SPECIAL
Scald/Surf and Moonblast are better Liquidation and Play Rough in consistency, base power, secondary effects, and targets they hit. physical has very little going for it IMO.

 

[Jomakl]

What’s up guys! It’s your favorite doctor, lawyer, teacher, astronaut, stats leader Da Pizza Man here! We have reached what I believe to be one of the most important set of stages for any CAP Project, the Stats Stages! While I know many users are excited to submit their own stats spreads, we first need to set a series of stats limits that will guide users on what they should be submitting during the next stage. Since this is a fairly complicated stage, I strongly recommend that newer users read the OP before joining in on the discussion.

With that introduction out of the way, here are my first batch of questions:

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?

4: What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question?

5: Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?

I am currently planning to have this run for 72 Hours before moving on to our next set of questions, although I may give more/less time depending on activity.

As a reminder, now is not the time to start suggesting any limits or actual stats.

1. For the first we should have more than or equal to threats like Mewoscrada then if possible and doesn't cost us other stats maybe a little more.
2. Personally like the idea of CAP 33 being a physical wall because many threats to it are physical and therefore most common match up.
3. Multiscale could be factored in but only a little not as much as if this were a fast sweeper.
4. Enough so that fights against ourselves isn't just a struggle match and so it isn't only chip damage being dealt maybe two hit a neutral opponent with stab.
5. Ok i am kinda being devils advocate right now but hear this out. Physical Ice and Ground coverage have been mentioned both of which have access to good physical options. Additionally Nuzzle has been mentioned allowing us to slow and hurt threats like intimidate Cawmadore. This also makes it not just being another surf spamming water type.

Edited; fixed cawmadore sort of

 

[mark6870]

Additionally Nuzzle has been mentioned allowing us to slow and hurt threats like Cawmadore.

cawm is immune to electric moves

 

[Magic Mayhem Maiden]

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?

These two questions matter a lot if CAP33 has Scald, Will-o-Wisp, or Strength Sap. Will-o-Wisp immediately cripples a physical attacker, Scald's chance to burn is also a heavy risk to them, and Strength Sap prevents any progress at all (especially with Multiscale). Even with only passable physical bulk, any of these moves, combined with the speed to go first, effectively makes CAP33 a physical wall. I don't think there is a Pokémon with the combination of speed, bulk, recovery, and the moves to lower ATK.

If none of these moves are present, then the defenses can be varied, it makes more sense to still be physically oriented with more physical mons we switch into.

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?

As CAP33 goes on, it seems that Multiscale is no longer the ideal ability for the concept, and people are suggesting it that it should only complement CAP33. However, Multiscale is a powerful ability. CAP33 is able to stop a sweep if preserved, and it has a much easier time dealing with attackers that do under 40%. Increasing the bulk without Multiscale necessarily increases the bulk with Multiscale. Being said, there may be enough instances without Multiscale that this may not be a problem.

 

[Agile Turtle]

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?
I don't think there are any necessary critical benchmarks, "fast" is largely relative, and specific slower speed tiers could work well but we should be reasonable. Rotom functions similarly, I wouldn't call it fast but it always made good use of its unique speed tier. So I think a speed tier around rotom's could be justified, but that would be the floor for me. I don't really think upper limits need be imposed, a dragapult tier can just as easily be justified as rotom tier. There are a lot of fun tiers to look at in between too; do we want to specifically outspeed greninja, or underspeed? that ultimately defines the matchup. This is also a mon that may run varying degrees of EV investment depending on the tier it sits at, so I'd be interested to see how matchups change if the mon can afford to not run full speed investment.

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?
A physical wall seems more useful in the current metagame, and I think there's some potential balancing that can be done by making one defensive stat less bulky, but I don't think it should be frail on either side.

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?
I don't think the CAP should be forced to keep multiscale up to function well, but it should definitely be considered. If multiscale is required to survive a 2hko from a mon and CAP needs to recover to get multiscale up, it's most likely still a losing matchup for CAP. No matter the bulk benchmark there will be some mons that CAP can only beat 1v1 if starting at full health, but I would mainly consider what CAP reliably beats. Multiscale will make a difference but I fear if we focus on the bulk boost from multiscale too heavily, we'll probably end up with a product that's recovering nearly every turn and relying on low damage rolls from the opponent to get attacks off.


4: What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question?
It's hard to say, especially when we look at EV investment, depending on stats we may be in a situation where it may need offensive investment to actually threaten anything, or the mon might need bulk investment to adequately survive. But a wall should have at least enough offensive power to actually beat the mons it wants to wall, or the utility it needs to dispose of them otherwise.

Higher speed does add value into the mons offense, just by being able to attack first, and if it wants to actually be threatening, it's gotta have somewhat offensive stats. The mon could opt for a choice band or choice specs, but I think if it would prefer to trick those away then it's not too strong. The mons just gotta be able to 2hko or 3hko enough mons that it can successfully sit in on and recover against that it's useful.


5: Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?

I don't think it specifically needs to go either way, but if we were to go the route of physically tanky, most physical attacking mons are frailer specially, so theres potentially more mileage in special attacks. Liquidation has great synergy with the staying power of speed/recovery/multiscale to help win 1v1s, but I think scald still has more mileage with the potential chip damage + weakening of enemy's attacks through burn. Moonblast also has the tiny chance to lower special attack, so less likely but still likely if the mon is firing off a lot of them.

 

[Explosion Badger]

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?

117 should be the bare minimum for our Speed, in my opinion. This allows us to outspeed non-booster Wake, Moth and Valiant with max speed investment. This speed means we lose the ability to invest into our bulk beyond HP without also losing our Speed advantage against these mons, which to me makes it difficult to justify anything lower than this, especially considering that 117 with 0 investment is unable to outspeed anything above 73 speed if they max their speed investment. Beyond that, 120 Speed allows us to outpace Roaring Moon and Cinderace, letting us avoid potentially getting hit by things such as a surprise Gunk Shot before we even get the chance to retaliate. 124 lets us outpace Meowscarada, and 130 means that with minimum investment we can outspeed base 85 speed mons with max investment, which includes the likes of Gholdengo and H-Samurott as mons we can outpace with maximum bulk investment. While anything beyond that is mostly superfluous imo, it is worth noting that 133 speed means we always outspeed Tusk with neutral investment, 140 speed lets us outspeed neutral speed Tusk even after a rapid spin, and 143 allows us to outpace Dragapult, along with everything stated beforehand.

 

[FuecocoBoi]

Looking at all the responses, I really like 123 speed. this outspeeds the majority of OU unboosted, except for Pult and Zama, which it can easily wall with fairy typing. This also outspeeds all CAP pokemon, except for Stratagem, which once again, it can wall with Water type. This is the premier speed, which still leaves enough BST to distribute.

 

[Epicgamergod69]

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups? I agree that 123 is a good minimum so somewhere from 123- 130 and we should absolutely be slower than pult

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more? Physical wall however I want it to be more slight with only a difference of somewhere around 20-30

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?
It should be conditional as that makes stat as only being a wall for one hit isn't really being a wall

4: What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question? As for speed definitely sub base 100

5: Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?
Special absolutely and mixed should not be talked about as it puts unnecessary strain on distribution

 

[Fenghuang]

Many of the things said on this thread I agree with, and many more I disagree with but think are valuable. In particular, I agree that our defensive spread isn't too important and either physical, special, or mixed spreads would work well. In particular, I think something high overall mixed like corv's 100/105/85 (maybe not with numbers that high idk) could really work.

I also agree that multiscale should not be a significant factor for the vast majority of stat spread considerations, and our bulk should mostly stand on its own without it. It is an important factor when considering break points for surviving e.g. a +1 blood moon from luna or other extremely strong hits that we only need to take once or twice, but that is a small part of stats considerations.

I was initially worried that the process would be generally too afraid of higher attacking stats, but this seems to not be the case. I agree that having stats that are far too low would render 33 far too passive, and also agree that lower stats allow us to more easily give 33 moves like knock and scald that force progress in other ways. I agree with Zetalz that mixed spreads are a no-go, and agree with the general sentiment here that special is the preferable option here. I personally do not know if I favor special or physical here, spirit break has low bp but fast special drops is a cool idea and liquidation dropping defense is not nothing as well as giving us a stronger knock. Worth a consideration I feel, even if we end up going special.

As for speed tier, I suspect this will be the most contentious part of our build during stats phase. I generally lean towards much higher speed on this one, and I want to advocate for outspeeding pult. Being able to hit pult before it u-turns on us and being able to outspeed on a specs shadow ball are actually invaluable for being able to properly counter it.

 

[RTM]

1: What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?
It must have more speed than valiant, plain and simple, while not as important, speed for meowscarada could be really useful for it and maybe even enough to tie weavile. An underlooked aspect of this even if it goes against the concept is making the wall fast at low investment. Base 125 allows it to outspeed heatran + max speed 80 speed mons such as hoopa-u without investment. The higher the speed tier the less the defenses really matter.

2: Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?
I think this should favour physdef but not by a lot. Having it slightly physdef biased like a less physdef oriented slowbro could work.

3: How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?
A decent amount, multiscale + speed + 50% recovery really makes a mon a lot more bulky than it actually is so stats shouldn't be too high. Consider the scenario of it getting off a toxic (not in movepool but for sake of argument) against a zapdos coming in and being able to stall out the zapdos by simply recovering every turn to take under 50% from the thing that should 1v1 it with ease.

4: What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question?
80~ spa as walls lacking toxic are prone to being setup on and a passable spa stat would help fight this a bit while not allowing it to be a slowking-g level threat on stall teams.

5: Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?
Special, physical would make it fodder for some of the things it's meant to outright wall, such as tusk and zamazenta. Mixed is not worth considering imo.

 

[Amamama]

What are some speed benchmarks that are critical to reach for CAP33 to serve as a successful fast wall? What speed benchmarks, while not quite as important to our success, still have a notable effect on our matchups?

For the sake of making this clean I’m not looking at not fully invested speeds. Imo if you wanna creep a speed tier with less than max evs you just pick the next higher speed tier that helps you do that.
111: Outspeed Ogrepon and unboosted Iron Möth and Walking Wake
121: Outspeed unboosted Sneasler, Cawmodore, Roaring Moon and Iron Valiant
124: Outspeed Meowscarada and Greninja
131: Outspeed Stratagem
139: Outspeed Zamazenta
143: Outspeed Dragapult
156: Outspeed Booster Tusk and Scarf Gholdengo
(204: Outspeed +1 Chomp, Booster Wake, Booster Moth, Booster Valiant and Booster Moon)

Do we have any preference regarding whether we want CAP33 to act as a physical wall or a special wall? Assuming there is a preference, do we want to consider the idea of sacrificing our less important defensive stat to greatly increase the one we value more?

I think this typing lends itself well to be mixed. While our Matchups are generally better on the physical side, which suggests a physically oriented spread to hone in on these, the Matchups against Special attackers (Like Pult or Wake) might need a bit more stats to be accomplished well. To me this implies a flexible spread that lets you adjust for what the team needs, maybe with an emphasis on shoring up the slightly weaker special Matchups.

How much should we factor in Multiscale when determining our Stats Limits? Should we be treating Multiscale as a key component of CAP33, or as more of a conditional boost to our bulk?

Multiscale should absolutely not be the baseline for calcs or we risk making a Mon that has to recover every time it hits the field and loses its ability to function defensively quickly with its precious recover PP.
Instead Multiscale should enable calcs which are otherwise hard to achieve for this Mon or any existing Mon tbh (Think eating two plus two Chomp Earthquakes category or taking one Boosted Sludge Wave from Moth if at full) which would allow 33 to serve as emergency check to these incredibly Powerful moves.

Do we want CAP33 to be a physical attacker or a special attacker? What are some of the pros and cons to each? Are mixed routes something that we should be considering?

I think for the sake of fostering variety we should allow physical spreads, though it’s clear that special just offers more to this typing.

 

[Amamama]

What is an acceptable amount of offensive power for a wall? How much influence does having higher speed have on the answer to this question?

We should absolutely be nowhere near 2hkoing neutral defensive Pokémon (with full invest and Hydro), but I’m of the opinion that having the ability to clean an offensive team with SE attacks should absolutely be possible.

I think to achieve this for this Mon instead of looking at the interaction of power and speed for sweepiness i think we should focus on interaction between power and bulk. Technically Mons like Toxapex or Clefable can function as Cleaners if the opposing team ends up lacking the power to break past their defense even if they don’t hit particularly hard.

To me that means a Spread that can’t clean a weakened (offensive) team via Power should be able to clean via Bulk and Speed.

 

[Waldinji]

I think for starters , we should set a limit to the key stat of this mon , Speed!

I think we have an agreement to NOT make CAP33 basically an OU Eternatus (even if it's the closest thing to our design logic of a fast wall) , so Anything above base 130 would be clearly Unbalanced! But at the same time , we want this to be fast , so Let's look at the fastest viable wall to give us some sort of Average , Gliscor seems to be the new runner for the Fastest Wall at base 95 , so Anything between Base 96 & Base 129 is fair game. Now that we have established that wide benchmark , Let's see what common mons in Both OU , CAP & Speedtiers in general are in between these 2 Base stats so we can establish a more accurate speed stat.

Let's go up & up the list of speedcreeps. Starting with the first speed tier that's generally considered "fast" by a majority of the playerbase , Garchomp and Its base 102 , a former game-breaking speed tier that's still the bare minimum for a fast Pokemon , so for our fast wall , I do believe Garchomp's speed stat is a bare minimum to look at for this mon. The next Speedcreep that's notable is Mid-Late 100s! Pokemon like Krilowatt or Enamorus are the next step of speedcreep that's considered relevant in competitive. That speed tier seems healthier for something that's meant to be both fast & Bulky at the same time , as It can very easily be overtuned in one direction or the next. Rendering it slower than Most offensive pokemon that are considered very fast like Ogerpon while still outspeeding most of what you'll find in a Bulky Team (This I believe to be the ideal range). The following ranges should still be considered , but I do not believe to be nearly as healthy: Faster than Ogerpon-Tie with Iron Valiant! This would be very big , as we now start entering the point where wallbreakers/Stallbreakers that run Max Speed / Heavy Speed EVs (think your gen 4 Machamp or maybe your Magma Storm Heatran as examples) are naturally outspet even by a 0 Speed EVs , this could change core interactions of various teamstyles against it , which I believe is what's getting attempted , so again , This should be a consideration. And to finish the speedcreep fot this answer , Base 120+ ... This , while very fast , I'm afraid it would over-compensate too much in speed for a bulky pokemon to be reasonable , again , Look at Eternatus as a example of what we can accidently reach in terms of a Fast Wall. While this would perfectly see our goal of a "fast wall" as literally as possible , I don't believe this to be a reasonable speed tier , especially for a mon with recovery as good as this mon's would have.

As for the question of the bulk , We need to answer a side question first ? Should we consider Multiscale as part of the defensive stats' calculation or should we NOT take Multiscale into account ? Let's look at Both perspectives!
- On the first Hand , if we take Multiscale into account , our mon can be as Bulky from full as something like Max HP Arceus even by quite literal accident , However , since it's only on Full health or Forcing HDB on CAP33 , which is a reasonable drawback for having such Unmatched Bulk by OU Standards outside of Ting-Lu maybe.
- If we do Not Take Multiscale into account , We should see what's seen as a frailer , but relatively Bulky Pokemon That can afford running Max HP Only for their Bulk investment in the past or today if we have examples of these. This second part should be our main focus to try & Compare to.

But instead of taking various examples. I believe I found a really good Bulk comparaison right away instead of looking at speed tiers: Let me introduce you to Skeledirge. Skeledirge has a really good defensive profile similar to CAP33s in terms of Movepool: Status Spreading , Reliable stab , Good Supporting Moves. However , The reason why Skeledirge hasn't been seen too much as of Late in Gen 9 is the Typing being flawed thanks to all additions of the new format (From Home to DLC adding many new Super Effective attackers for it) and the weak defensive typing. However , CAP33 Wouldn't have such an issue. Not only is Water/Fairy a really good defensive typing with only 3 Weaknesses , but also thanks to Multiscale , We don't truly need Ting-Lu level bulk naturally , as we have several Advantages over Ting-Lu. I do Believe a pokemon that's both fast (At least Garchomp speed+) & around the bulk of Skeledirge seems to combine the best of Both Worlds

I will probably not do the offensive part of this pokemon , as the primary concerns were the bulk & The speed.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

Alright, I've been enjoying what I've been seeing from the discussion so far, but I think it's time that we move things along. Before we do that, however, I would like to give a brief overview of the responses and establish some sort of verdict that I have reached regarding them.

Starting backwards, there's a pretty clear consensus that users vastly prefer CAP33 being a special attacker over being a physical attacker. This makes sense, considering that our special toolkit is both stronger and has more utility than our physical toolkit. It's also fairly clear that we really shouldn't entertain the idea of being a mixed attacker, as it just puts too much unessential strain on our already tight stats budget. As a result, I will be constructing limits designed with CAP33 as a Special attacker in mind. In contrast to this, in terms of how much power we think it would be appropriate to give ourselves, answers have been more mixed. On the one hand, a fair number of users have expressed that we shouldn't be too worried about giving CAP33 a decent amount of power if it wants to effectively force out threats and pressure the opponent. On the other hand, many users have expressed that we shouldn't be giving CAP33 too much power and that it should be primarily using its speed to make progress. I'm personally somewhere in the middle here. While I agree with Zetalz's sentiment that CAP33 will need a good amount of power, at the same time, it's very obvious that with our speed, having too much power means that it's very likely that CAP33 will stray away from defensive roles. For this reason, it seems that the logical conclusion here is to construct limits that try to find a perfect balance between these two ideals.

Regarding our bulk, the general consensus seems that we should desire having mixed bulk, and most of the users who displayed a preference have expressed that they think that physical bulk should be prioritized over special bulk. This, to me, implies heavily that defensive limits should be made very flexible, so as to allow users to invest in both defenses and allow them to decide whether or not they want to prioritize having a more concentrated or a more balanced defensive build. As for Multiscale, I've very much noticed over time that users have sort of started to put into question how effective of an ability Multiscale is in practice, especially since we are going to find ourselves in a fair number of situations where it will not be active. I personally disagree a bit with this sentiment, but I very much see where it is coming from, and as such, I won't be giving it too much consideration when designing defensive limits.

Regarding our speed, in a twist so grand in scale that it would put M. Night Shyamalan to shame, people want us to be fast. Jokes aside, the consensus I've seen is that, at a minimum, we should be outspeeding unboosted Iron Valiant. In regards to other notable benchmarks that people have mentioned, I've also seen that people consider outspeeding Pokémon such as Cawmodore, Meowscarada, and, to some extent, even Dragapult as things that would be considered desirable. Taking all of this into account, it seems like the best course of action here would be to use Iron Valiant as a benchmark for where we should have our speed while allowing plenty of room for spreads that allow us to outspeed faster threats.

With that out of the way, I would like for us to move discussion forwards with another set of questions.

1: Should we be designing limits with the idea that CAP33 will generally want to invest fully into speed in mind? If so, would it be a wise idea for us to have higher than usual defensive stats, compared to other defensive Pokémon in the tier as means to accommodate for the lack of investment?

2: Are BSR penalties on Scald and Knock Off appropriate, as a means to help encourage people to build with spreads not using these moves? If so, how big should this penalty be? What other moves on our defining moves list stand out as needing some sort of penalty?

3: Do we want to be working with a higher or lower T-Value? What are some of the pros and cons of each of these options?

To help answer this last question, below you can find a link to a post made by spoo during Saharaja's process on how different T-Values have a different effect on stats limits, but as a TL;DR, higher T-Values put less weight on speed and more weight on offenses when calculating PS/SS, and lower T-Values do the exact opposite.

https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...limits-discussion.3701312/page-2#post-9207885

Once again, I will be giving this a tentative deadline of 72 Hours. After which, unless I feel that another round of questions is in order, I will be posting my preliminary stats limits for the community to review.

 

[spoo]

1: Should we be designing limits with the idea that CAP33 will generally want to invest fully into speed in mind? If so, would it be a wise idea for us to have higher than usual defensive stats, compared to other defensive Pokémon in the tier as means to accommodate for the lack of investment?

The only times I don't see CAP33 running full Speed investment are A) if we're sitting at some weird benchmark, e.g. 129 or 137 where there's a lot of room between you and the next fastest threat––or, B), a situation in which we're at a benchmark like 139 to creep Zamazenta, but in practice we deem it more valuable to ditch that matchup and put the leftover Speed investment somewhere else (perhaps we beat Zama already without needing to creep it––not saying this is the case, just providing an example).

In situation A, this is really just a roundabout way of squeezing more bulk out of the mon, and I think choosing a benchmark like this wouldn't really be in the spirit of adhering to the stat limits that are set. As for B, we aren't really getting optimal value out of our Speed if we don't invest all the way, right? If we're ignoring matchups that are well within reach because we don't actually need to be faster than a given mon to beat it, I don't think we're utilizing our Speed to the best of our ability, and we should be trying to avoid outcomes like this.

So yes, I think we should definitely assume full Speed investment when we are designing limits. If we don't end up running full Speed investment, well, it's not the end of the world, but I think we probably messed up somewhere. I also believe there is no need to compensate for our resultant lack of defensive investment by allowing higher than usual defensive base stats. There is very little interesting about CAP33 if it can wall key threats through its bulk alone and has its high Speed merely as a bonus. We should be highly dependent on our Speed to beat what we need to beat, and this necessarily means sacrificing raw bulk. Moreover, we can already kind of wiggle around this issue by having a high HP stat and low base defenses, and just investing in something like 252 Def/252 Spe, so I don't think that our inability to fully invest in both HP + Def/SpD is a "problem" that needs to be further accomodated for.

 

[boomp]

1: Should we be designing limits with the idea that CAP33 will generally want to invest fully into speed in mind? If so, would it be a wise idea for us to have higher than usual defensive stats, compared to other defensive Pokémon in the tier as means to accommodate for the lack of investment?

I think we need to fully invest into speed to utilize CAP 33 "Fast Wall" Role. We can shy away the higher defense stats and if anything just slap it into HP investments as our speed and decent defense can be more than enough to wall threats.

 

[viol and bass]

Should we be designing limits with the idea that CAP33 will generally want to invest fully into speed in mind? If so, would it be a wise idea for us to have higher than usual defensive stats, compared to other defensive Pokémon in the tier as means to accommodate for the lack of investment?

Yes. Assuming max or close to max speed investment is a good way to go forward here. Basically every element of this mon is being designed deliberately to get a lot out of moving before the opponent. It's just hugely beneficial for the mon we've built so far, and I'm sure the movepool we give it will only accentuate that trait. So if we're assuming something like a 252 HP / 252 Spe spread, having slightly higher defenses than average is a reasonable way to make us competitive with other walls in the tier. However, you have to also take into account Multiscale and the fact that we're tanking fewer hits on average given that we move first often, so I don't think we should go too far with this.

Are BSR penalties on Scald and Knock Off appropriate, as a means to help encourage people to build with spreads not using these moves? If so, how big should this penalty be? What other moves on our defining moves list stand out as needing some sort of penalty?

I think a small BSR penalty for Scald is reasonable. It's a pretty high-powered option with our build. I don't think a penalty on Knock Off is necessary though. I don't think any of our other options really require penalties.

I'm too dumb for question 3