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?
Ultimately our Speed Tier is likely to fall within a specific benchmark location instead of a rounded 125 or 135. This will mean that outspeeding a mon will often require as much investment as possible, and that's a pretty significant benefit to us. Of course, there might be matchups where we are comfortable, or even prefer being slower than the opponent. I think it's safe to assume that we will run about 248 EVs and a +Nature in most circumstances. I'm assuming that we're likely to creep a Pokemon by 1 Base Stat; even if not, CAP 33 will have to content with itself, and depending on where our movepool goes forcing the Speed Tie might be optimal.
I do not think we need terribly high Defense stats to compensate for EVs going into Speed. We identified early on that being fast is a massive defensive boon that many slower walls have to compensate their lack-of: this manifests itself as heavier defensive investment. Let's say that a mon has 60 BS in Defense and 120 BS in HP. If you want this mon to take hits physically the best it can, you obviously want to put as much into Defense as possible. Where should the rest go? Well, if you're Speed stat lays in the lowest echelons, you're best bet is investing in HP, as even with heavy Speed investment you're likely to lack the initiative. If you're very fast, however, you'd likely be more incentivized to invest in Speed so you can act before the opponent even has the chance to damage you. Essentially, Speed's best defensive attribute is letting you avoid the problem of taking damage in the first place, whenever possible.
Especially with Multiscale in the mix, CAP 33 is much less concerned of remaining healthy enough to withstand two attacks, just that it can both live the initial hit, and follow-up with a strong response to regain advantage. If anything we could probably get by with
less defensive stats than current Walls, just by merit of our Speed. But, having higher defensive stats is likely to result in us just focusing in on those more than Speed. Like if our defensive stats on their own rival the likes of Arghonaut and Corviknight we'd probably be quite comfortable being a max/max fat blob of a mon that randomly outspeeds Hoopa or something silly like that.
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?
Personally I think these moves in isolation are perfectly fine on CAP 33 and don't need any restrictions. Where things get murkier is having these two in conjunction with the other. Scald + Knock is hell to switch into for, well everything to be honest. Scald chips you + threatens Burn, which also chips you and makes nearly all Physical attackers weaker. Knock Off chips you, and removes applicable items, either further chipping you indirectly or making nearly all attackers weaker. Basically, it sucks! And a mon that is tasked with handling CAP 33 using both is likely to contend with both during a match, resulting in no item + potential Burn + whatever damage you took from the move itself. Now combine that with the fact that we're not SS Toxapex (aka not ass slow) and potentially able to chain these moves together on the same target if we want, and there's a clear problem.
I think the only penalty we need is if a spread elects to have
both Scald and Knock Off instead of just one. These moves become way more problematic when combined with one another. effective bec they're easy to spam, and have effects which change the course of a match on a whim. But, often that's just on initial activation. A mon that is Burned isn't more threatened by Scald, similarly if you don't have an item Knock Off is just a 65 BP Dark move that's not even STAB off us. It's much easier to find a mon that is comfortable taking one of these, versus one that has to deal with both.
I'll commentate on this a bit more though,
As it stands we're likely to want Water STAB to handle various mons, and that's probably Surf. A move like Knock isn't exactly taking Surf off our moveset, but Scald absolutely is. So while Knock Off has "opportunity cost" (as much as a move like that can), Scald is just a better version of a move we'd already likely to use. So I think a
minor penalty can be applied to Scald. If you want an idea of what, I'd recommend hits to Special Attack and/or HP. SpA is lowered simply because Burn can pretty easily outdamage the 10 BP difference on the right target, while HP is just to compensate for Burn making us a better Physical wall by proxy.
You could maybe consider a
minor Speed restriction for Hydro Pump as well, if only to discourage sets getting too offensive. I thought about a Special Attack penalty but found that was contradictory to the point of the move, plus it might get awkward if Scald has a similar penalty, so this felt like a good compromise.
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?
Something that complicates matters is simply the diminishing returns of increasing Speed relative to the BSR increase we accrue as a result. We're outspeeding new mons less and less the higher our Speed gets, and our Sweepiness ratings fail to reflect how impactful certain benchmarks really are. I've included four images below showing BSR and related values with a slew of Special Attack and Speed combos, with the T-Value set to 1, 1.85117, 2.5, and 3.5 respectively.
Note how little our Special Sweepiness increases from 140 Base Speed to 145 – even though this is a significant difference in the context of CAP, as far as the BSR calc is concerned, we've barely increased the amount of Pokemon we outpace. In general this means that spreads whose best offensive attribute is Speed are punished way less than spreads that prefer Special Attack.
What I'm struggling with is that a lower T-Value punishes higher Special Attack values, which sounds ideal given we want CAP 33 to not focus on offense, but a low T-Value implies that our time to KO is very fast. A large T-Value feels more appropriate for a wall, but results in Special Attack contributing less to our BSR and thus letting you have higher offenses than we may want. I feel kinda lost with all this? It almost feels like the T-Value is doing the exact opposite of what we want for a fast wall.
