CAP 32 - Part 8 - Stat Limits Discussion

[spoo]

CAP 32 So Far

Alrighty everyone, we’ve just concluded the Threats stage led by spoo with the following conclusions:

Switch-ins:
Shaky Switch-ins:
Stat-dependent Switch-ins:
--
Pressures Us: (Bulky Grounds)
We Pressure: (Offensive Dragons)
--
C&C: (P)(P)(S)
(P=Physical CAP32, S=Special CAP32)

And with that, our threats list is complete! As per ryan’s suggestions, I’ve replaced dondozo with garg in our C&C since it’s a far more relevant meta option right now, and begrudgingly added meow to our shaky switch-ins. I would advise users not to focus much on this matchup at all during stats as meow is a knock + u-turn bot first and foremost (aka not something we want to mess with), but we are indeed able to switch in once or twice and force it out - it’s shaky as all hell, but I suppose that that’s what the category is for.

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

-----

This next stage is Stat Limits, and it's very important! Our Stats Leader, who will be leading this stage, is quziel, so make sure that your posts are generally directed towards him and the questions he asks. Quziel will be deciding the stat limits for CAP 32 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 32. We will look at limits to CAP 32's physical and special attacking prowess, its physical and special tanking capabilities, and the overall power of its stats.

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

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

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

Stat Bias Limits

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

Physical Tankiness (PT)

The rating of the Pokémon's physical defense.

Special Tankiness (ST)

The rating of the Pokémon's special defense.

Sweepiness (S)

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

Physical Sweepiness (S)

The rating of the Pokémon's Physical offense

Special Sweepiness (S)

The rating of the Pokémon's Special offense

A preliminary 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!

 

[quziel]

Welcome to the stats limit discussion. I'd like to preface this with a reference to our Concept Assessment a while back. While we've learned a lot about the mon since then, we agreed then that a "Bang Average" mon is one that requires investment in its stats to be effective in a given area, and that can fit one of two molds: "[a] Pokemon that [is] strong (but not exceptionally so) in a certain area" or "[a] Pokemon that [is] average across the board".

With that I'd like to ask some questions.
1) Is one of the two archetypes above preferable for us? Given our defining moves and ability should we prefer one of them?
2) Are there any existing pokemon that we can draw inspiration from, either in regular metas, or other metas? What do they imply about our stat limits?
3) We have physical and special defining moves, is there a preference between these, and does going mixed make sense for us?
4) Given the above, what speed stats make sense for various archetypes of spreads here?

 

[kenn]

1) Is one of the two archetypes above preferable for us? Given our defining moves and ability should we prefer one of them?

I think we like the idea of being "strong but not exceptionally so" as our ability kinda already leans into that but the benefits of being "average across the board" means we could easily pick and choose what stat to invest in with our EVs whether it be bulk, Speed, or Attack/Special Attack. Personally, I am in the former camp as leaning into being the "EKiller" of CAP sounds like an absolute blast to me (though I am coming from a place that thrives on this kinda stuff *cough* OMs *cough*) but nonetheless I think both are good routes with both having benefits but I personally like the "strong but not exceptionally so" route.

2) Are there any existing pokemon that we can draw inspiration from, either in regular metas, or other metas? What do they imply about our stat limits?

This feels like a question directed at me LOL but for real it is hard to draw inspiration for a potential ESpeed mon in regular play, though there is Dragonite who consistently like to Tera Normal and therefore gain STAB on ESpeed to hit things super hard. On the other hand, in OMs, -ateSpeed is an exclusive thing there being mainly used in metas such as Mix and Mega. Altarianite Dragonite is a huge threat there and for good reason thanks to gaining +40 Attack and already having fantastic stats. That being said, Dragonite feels too extreme (see what I did there?) in terms of where we want CAP 32's stat limits or stats in general to land due to the fact that Dragonite is a pseudo legendary and also has a great stat spread. So I would say Dragonite can be used as a guideline of what is too much but something like Lucario might be a good indication of what an "average" offensive statline could be (though CAP 32 would hopefully NOT have the boosting options it does lol).

3) We have physical and special defining moves, is there a preference between these, and does going mixed make sense for us?

I think if we focus on one side of the spectrum, physical is the way to go because you wanna make the most of using ESpeed as that feels like the most unique route moving forward. Going purely special feels like we just spam Boomburst on everything and forget about our wonderful Fire STAB. That being said, going mixed is another option that could allow CAP 32 to be able to utilize Boomburst to a degree by making the opponent fear switching in their physical wall only to be taken down by a Pixilate-boosted Boomburst. Personally, I like mixed leaning physical the best because it gives us a multitude of options to take down what may be necessary for CAP 32 to threaten.

4) Given the above, what speed stats make sense for various archetypes of spreads here?

I think CAP 32 would appreciate being able to outpace things like Gholdengo, Arghonaut, Great Tusk, Jumbao, and Venomicon-Prologue with investment while naturally outspeeding things like Skeledirge, Corviknight, and Equilibra with 0 investment, so outpacing these particular threats seems like great benchmarks for us to hit with our stat spreads.

 

[shnowshner]

Going to focus on Q3 for the moment as I have to leave soon:

These are both using an unmodified Arcanine with Fairy type + Pixilate versus the Defensive and Offensive variants of Great Tusk in the calculator. Arcanine has 252 Jolly and no boosting item.

Double-Edge is always a 2HKO on either variants (with a potential OHKO on Offensive), but at the cost of heavy recoil. ESpeed is alright versus Offensive but fails to 2HKO without chip on Defensive.

Meanwhile, our 0 investment -Nature special moves are always a 2HKO at worst, with Hyper Voice having better odds to OHKO than Double Edge versus Offensive, and Boomburst simply deleting it unconditionally.

Now, Arcanine's offensive stats are much higher than what we will likely end up with, but the conclusion we can draw from this is that going mixed can have merit depending on our stats and the MU we're facing down. In this case, Great Tusk's massive Physical bulk means our invested Physical attacks can bounce right off it, but our Special attacks, despite being neglected, hit Tusk on its far worse Special side for even greater damage. This manages to be true even for Hyper Voice, which doesn't have the benefit of Boomburst's absurd BP.

The most viable mixed routes IMO are those which take advantage of specific matchups with specific moves. For example, we could have a heavy Physical bias but also carry Boomburst, and despite low Special Attack (even a paltry 65 Special works!) manage to OHKO 252 HP/252 Def Tusk. Alternatively, we could be have heavy Special bias but carry Extreme Speed because a ~95 BP STAB Priority move is simply that good into various fast offensive threats, like Iron Valiant, Roaring Moon, and Dragapult. Even if we can't threaten a 2HKO or OHKO into these reliably, being able to apply heavy pressure versus them is valuable, and we can always rely on chip damage from hazards, status, or teammates to put them in range.

Mixed has a lot of optical issues since we're likely to run 2 STAB moves of our primary offensive stat, so adding a third STAB move for specific MUs leaves us with a singular moveslot, which is really unfortunate for a mon that would like to include moves like Knock Off, U-Turn, Wisp, hazards, and more. I would say that Mixed has potential to work but it has to acknowledge the immediate limitations that going Mixed will imply. To me Mixed works best if it's an option rather than mandatory, that way we only need two slots if we want dual STAB and that third opposite-bias STAB move operates similar to any of our other utility-focused moves.

 

[bigtibba]

Is one of the two archetypes above preferable for us? Given our defining moves and ability should we prefer one of them?

Definitely think we should be strong, but not exceptionally so. "Average across the board" is much more well suited to defensive Pokemon in my opinion, Clefable and the Rotoms being key examples, especially since offensively oriented Pokemon generally only care about two of their stats anyway. Additionally, I don't think an average attacking stat is enough to justify our usage. One might think an "average" attacking stat is around 100 or so, but looking at the current OU physical attackers, (disregarding CAP Pokemon for the moment, but the point still stands) the median physical attack stat is actually 130. Even with the benefits of Pixilate, the current meta is so powercrept that an offensive Pokemon needs above average attacking stats to stand out at all. Granted, Pixiespeed might be useful enough on its own to circumvent this, but as of now I'm supportive of being slightly more lenient on how high we allow our physical attack to be. Additionally, Pixiespeed is extremely useful against fast and frail Pokemon, but against bulky Pokemon it's effectively just a physical Moonblast, so we need usable offensive stats to apply pressure to Pokemon that don't outspeed us. As for the other stats, I definitely think it's fine if they're average, especially given the concept of CAP 32. As an offensively oriented Pokemon, our defensive stats don't matter as much, and while speed is normally important on an offensively oriented Pokemon, I think Pixiespeed does allow us to still function offensively even with average speed.

We have physical and special defining moves, is there a preference between these, and does going mixed make sense for us?

I'm firmly in the physical camp. As I've mentioned in the past, I really think Boomburst is too strong. I've listed many other examples in the past, but one key reason is the insane power of Specs Pixilate Boomburst. For example a resisted Specs Pixilate Boomburst does more than a neutral Armor Cannon w/o Specs, the strongest available special Fire stab to us. There's really no point in clicking any other move other than Boomburst if we get it except to catch Steel type "switch-ins."

(140x1.2x1.5)/2 = 126.

Another key thing to remember here is that stat multipliers do not affect the base stats themselves. A prime example is Azumarill with a base stat of 50. However, with Huge Power, its effective attack stat with full investment is around 150 instead of 100 as you might expect. While this is relatively common knowledge, I still think it's worth mentioning here, as many of these factors apply here. The reason I mention this is when bringing up Hyper Voice vs Boomburst. Boomburst is around 1.5 times as strong as Hyper Voice, so giving Boomburst to CAP 32 over Hyper Voice is essentially the same as giving it a free Specs, especially as we are going to be clicking Boomburst most of the time anyway. You might say that we can balance this by giving it lower stats, but let's plug in some numbers. To test this, I put two Clefairies into the Showdown calculator and tried to tweak their stats to see how low our stats would have to go for the damage output of Boomburst and Hyper Voice to be equal, all else being the same. I kept the Hyper Voice Clefable's special attack at 95, as I felt that was reasonable. With full EV investment and a Modest nature on both Clefables, the damage output was equal when the Boomburst Clefable had a special attack stat of 44. This is not even half of 95. For reference, Eevee has a higher special attacking stat than this. We would have to go to ridiculous levels to balance this move out, and in doing so completely invalidate the rest of our special toolkit. We would essentially become a Boomburst bot. To say nothing of the power level that Specs Tera Boomburst would give us, or Torch Song + Boomburst, which is a topic for another day. I think I've said enough on this for now, though.

TL;DR: Boomburst is too strong.

Hyper Voice is fine, albeit a bit boring as we've already had Pokemon with this combination such as Sylveon and M-Gardevoir. While being boring isn't necessarily a good excuse for us not to run special, I think Pixiespeed is a much better and unique alternative to Pixilate Hyper Voice. The only added advantage that Pixilate Hyper Voice gives over Moonblast besides the damage increase is being able to bypass Substitute. This is certainly useful, albeit a bit situational. However, Pixiespeed obviously brings much more to the table. I think if we don't get Boomburst, it's fine if both stats are usable.

I don't think mixed sets are the way to go, especially with our lower stats, but I think we should have the option to go either physical or special. If we have to choose one, then definitely physical. Iron Valiant and occasionally Dragapult are able to pull off mixed sets because both of their attacking stats are relatively high, so they are able to get away with not fully investing in one of their stats, something I'm not sure if we can do here.

Given the above, what speed stats make sense for various archetypes of spreads here?

I don't think speed is as important because of our strong priority, but I definitely think we should at minimum outspeed Gholdengo. It's a bit difficult to accurately nail down a good speed stat at this point for this mon, so I'm going to hold off on giving a clear answer for now.

Edit: 252+ SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Tera Fairy Shuckle Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Great Tusk: 492-582 (113.3 - 134.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO. This mf has 10 special attack. Prime example of how hard it is to balance this move. And it doesn't even get the additional boost from Tera that CAP 32 would. Granted, Great Tusk has poor special bulk and is weak to Fairy, but the point still stands.

 

[Sawyer.]

3) We have physical and special defining moves, is there a preference between these, and does going mixed make sense for us?

I'm going to answer the third question first, as it has implications for the others. Physical is clearly going to be a focus for CAP32 to fully utilise Extreme Speed and/or Fake Out, but I also love the option of going mixed just because Great Tusk is such a crucial target for us. Boomburst eliminates the elephant and provides us with a threatening yet predictable attack that is obviously pro-concept, forcing switches that we can take advantage of.

The concerns about Boomburst being too strong are not valid, in my opinion, as long as we have sensible SpAtk (~base 80 seems about right) and Speed stats. The sheer utility of Extreme Speed makes it very hard to justify investing fully in CAP 32's SpAtk, for one thing. Specs Boomburst is strong in the calc, but becoming a pure wallbreaker would be an extremely inefficient role for CAP 32 to play given its low stat total, vulnerability to hazards, and ability to hit hard with only one attacking type. To me, Boomburst would just become an optional third STAB that a physical-leaning CAP 32 could utilise for the Tusk match-up and to increase its maximum damage output, but at the cost of key utility options like Knock Off, Strength Sap and so on.

1) Is one of the two archetypes above preferable for us? Given our defining moves and ability should we prefer one of them?

Given my support for a physical-leaning attacker with mixed potential, I think we should pursue a balanced stat spread. Making CAP 32 too physically powerful is a serious pitfall for us to avoid, as anything above ~base 90 Attack risks turning us into a Banded Extreme Speed cleaner that mows through offensive teams. Even with base 90, Banded ESpeed cleanly 2HKOs 252/252+ Rotom-Wash with Rocks up, for example. A relatively low attack stat would still allow CAP32 to easily OHKO the Fairy-weak offensive threats that it needs to.

In terms of speed, my preference is to creep offensive Tusk (with a reduced SpAtk to maintain low special sweepiness). I'm not sure whether maxing EVs in speed would be optimal for CAP32, but it would be good to give mixed CAP32 the option to unconditionally beat Tusk while allowing pure physical CAP32's to spec more into bulk.

 

[mark6870]

1) Is one of the two archetypes (a Pokemon that is strong (but not exceptionally so) in a certain area" or "a Pokemon that IS average across the board) above preferable for us? Given our defining moves and ability should we prefer one of them?
I had different sentiments about this during concept assessment 1, but my mind changed over the course of the process. I believe that A "pokemon that is strong but not exceptionally so in a certain area" has a higher chance of succeeding IMO. It is risky putting all your eggs in one basket, but pokemon such as Craw and Breloom have made it work, and I'd argue pokemon like Dragapult

2) Are there any existing pokemon that we can draw inspiration from, either in regular metas, or other metas? What do they imply about our stat limits?
We could smush Kangaskhan and MnM Arcanine together to make something like:
CAP32 Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Scrappy
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Fake Out
- Extreme Speed
- Bitter Blade
- Spikes
Or for a special route, we take inspiration from AAA Noivern, but make it so the thing isnt as powerful.

3) We have physical and special defining moves, is there a preference between these, and does going mixed make sense for us?
(yes i copied this from my threats discussion post)

Physical and Special CAP32 both have their merits. Physical bias means we can run Extreme Speed and potentially Fake Out as well, meaning we can spend more BSR on power and bulk (so we can take neutral hits such as Corvi's Brave Bird better) while still forcing out / Rkilling foes like Roaring Moon, Dragapult, Dragonite, Greninja, and Meowscrada without needing a blinding speed tier.

On the other hand, a special bias lends itself towards Boomburst and Torch Song, which will allow for less special attack to be run in exchange for speed, so it can outspeed such threats naturally and have the power of Boomburst to break through stuff like Specially Defensive Dondozo and Defensive Great Tusk. It's also worth noting that Venom, one of our better checks currently, will be getting hit on the side that isn't boosted by Stamina. It's also worth noting that special movesets have better coverage than physical ones. Psychic and Thunderbolt will always be better than Psycho Cut and Wild Charge.

I REALLY do not like the idea of a mixed CAP32. Mixed attackers can be hell to deal with but they need to have the stats to back it up, and are thus rare in OU. Some of the better mixed pokemon are Iron Valiant, Hex Dragapult, and Kommo-o, 2 of which are Pseudo Legends (and the other being 10 points off from having a pseudo BST). Then you add on the fact that Iron Val has Booster Energy to outspeed the entire metagame just for switching in and mixed Kommo had an Omniboost move and Clanging Scales. Then you take into account that if we become a mixed attacker we're then in DIRECT COMPETITION with Valiant. And we do NOT want to be in direct competition with Iron Valiant.

4) Given the above, what speed stats make sense for various archetypes of spreads here?
For Physical spreads, as I said, we have more leeway with our Speed stat since we have strong priority. However, for both spreads, I would never go lower than 88 to outspeed any tusks of the Great variety. If we go boomburst, I'd rather we have a spread akin to Swellow where almost all of our pounts are shoved into Speed and our lack of attack stat is made up by having a what is basically a spammable Z-move in our back pocket. If we're lucky, we'd have enough speed to outpace mons like Greninja and Meow, but that may bump our special sweepiness


and now i did want to reply to this:

The reason I mention this is when bringing up Hyper Voice vs Boomburst. Boomburst is around 1.5 times as strong as Hyper Voice, so giving Boomburst to CAP 32 over Hyper Voice is essentially the same as giving it a free Specs, especially as we are going to be clicking Boomburst most of the time anyway. You might say that we can balance this by giving it lower stats, but let's plug in some numbers. To test this, I put two Clefairies into the Showdown calculator and tried to tweak their stats to see how low our stats would have to go for the damage output of Boomburst and Hyper Voice to be equal, all else being the same. I kept the Hyper Voice Clefable's special attack at 95, as I felt that was reasonable. With full EV investment and a Modest nature on both Clefables, the damage output was equal when the Boomburst Clefable had a special attack stat of 44. This is not even half of 95. For reference, Eevee has a higher special attacking stat than this. We would have to go to ridiculous levels to balance this move out, and in doing so completely invalidate the rest of our special toolkit.

I have been mulling over this for a while now,
Maybe I'm just dense and missing the point, which is a very real possibility, but all this experiment shows is that Boomburst is significantly stronger than Hyper Voice, which is the reason it is on one of the defining moves list.
However, this did get me thinking about the real power of Boomburst, so I took Specs Noivern, turned that bad boy into a Fire/Fairy, neutered his SPA, and documented how it did against top meta threats:
Everything is done with an *alright* 85 SpA stat.

252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Noivern Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Venomicon: 118-140 (31.5 - 37.4%) -- 87.6% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Noivern Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Venomicon: 156-184 (41.7 - 49.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Noivern Boomburst vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Skeledirge: 133-157 (32.3 - 38.1%) -- 97.4% chance to 3HKO

252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Noivern Boomburst vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 111-131 (23.9 - 28.2%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Noivern Fire Blast vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 145-172 (31.3 - 37.1%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery

252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Noivern Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 64 SpD Toxapex: 108-128 (35.5 - 42.1%) -- 87.8% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
(forget AV)

252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Noivern Boomburst vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Iron Moth: 70-83 (23.2 - 27.5%) -- 77.9% chance to 4HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Noivern Fire Blast vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Iron Moth: 93-109 (30.8 - 36.2%) -- 55.6% chance to 3HKO

The calcs show that our C&C remain our C&C, making this mon about as manageable as we expected.
And then you factor in tera:
252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Tera Fairy Noivern Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Venomicon: 158-187 (42.2 - 50%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Tera Fairy Noivern Boomburst vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Skeledirge: 178-210 (43.3 - 51%) -- 4.7% chance to 2HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Tera Fairy Noivern Boomburst vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Clodsire: 148-175 (31.9 - 37.7%) -- 0.5% chance to 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Tera Fairy Noivern Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 64 SpD Toxapex: 145-171 (47.6 - 56.2%) -- 27.3% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Tera Fairy Noivern Boomburst vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Assault Vest Toxapex: 101-119 (33.3 - 39.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Tera Fairy Noivern Boomburst vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Iron Moth: 95-112 (31.5 - 37.2%) -- 83.2% chance to 3HKO

Most of the checks become rather shaky, with the only switchins who remain safe are clod and AV pex. Every other mon still can check, but they get worn down much easier.

What I learnt from this is Boomburst is still balanceable, but if we want to keep it from becoming AAA Noivern while also keeping it faster than Meowscrada for revenge killability, we'd gonna have this thing Swellow levels of bulk for it to be manageable, and honestly, it's not a COMPLETE turn-off, but I'd much rather stray away from it.

 

[mark6870]

Making CAP 32 too physically powerful is a serious pitfall for us to avoid, as anything above ~base 90 Attack risks turning us into a Banded Extreme Speed cleaner that mows through offensive teams. Even with base 90, Banded ESpeed cleanly 2HKOs 252/252+ Rotom-Wash with Rocks up, for example.

I fail to see how this is a bad thing because
say it with me now
Good Pivots Do More Than Pivot! Becoming a banded extreme speed cleaner doesn't really detract us from being a pivot BECAUSSEE
Pivots force switches!
When you shove a strong Espeed in front of something we threaten out, they may be inclined to switch! and then we can capatalize on that with something like Knock Off or Spikes.When it comes to being a pivot, what matters isn't us using switch moves as much as possible, what matters is FORCING SWITCHES.

If you're still on the fence on why it's a pivot even if it's doing something else, please see: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/cap-32-part-6-defining-moves-part-2.3719280/post-9572695

and please reread: https://www.smogon.com/articles/pivots-sm-ou
If Choice Band Tyrannitar can be considered "one of the best offensive pivots in [SM OU]", we can have a 90+ Attack Stat w/Espeed and still be an offensive pivot.

 

[Sawyer.]

I fail to see how this is a bad thing because
say it with me now
Good Pivots Do More Than Pivot! Becoming a banded extreme speed cleaner doesn't really detract us from being a pivot BECAUSSEE
Pivots force switches!
When you shove a strong Espeed in front of something we threaten out, they may be inclined to switch! and then we can capatalize on that with something like Knock Off or Spikes.When it comes to being a pivot, what matters isn't us using switch moves as much as possible, what matters is FORCING SWITCHES.

If you're still on the fence on why it's a pivot even if it's doing something else, please see: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/cap-32-part-6-defining-moves-part-2.3719280/post-9572695

and please reread: https://www.smogon.com/articles/pivots-sm-ou
If Choice Band Tyrannitar can be considered "one of the best offensive pivots in [SM OU]", we can have a 90+ Attack Stat w/Espeed and still be an offensive pivot.

Frankly Mark, I've had it with the condescending crap and your consistent misrepresentation of my points.

The idea that I somehow don't understand that offensive pressure is necessary for a pivot is ludicrous. In the post you're quoting, I specifically mention the threat of Boomburst forcing switches. My vocal support for Pixilate at the ability stage was specifically predicated on the ability of Extreme Speed to threaten and force switches against faster threats.

Furthermore, my argument against giving CAP32 a high attack stat was not even predicated on its role as pivot. It was because it would make it, in my view, simply too strong against offensive teams when coupled with Banded ESpeed.

All that you have demonstrated is that you have not properly read or understood my posts throughout this process.

 

[Explosion Badger]

1) Is one of the two archetypes above preferable for us? Given our defining moves and ability should we prefer one of them?

Because of how many of our most defining moves affect this mon in general, I feel that the best route this mon can take is a somewhat mixed version of these two archetypes, though with a slight lean towards more generalized. On the one hand, while having a more specialized route ala breloom is useful for ensuring the mon can use its defining moves well, it also becomes a question of how we can balance this pokemon's absurdly strong defining moves, with Espeed and Boomburst needing a much more specific balance between what is overpowered and what cripples the mon too much to be used. On the other hand, though, a more general stat spread might give us more wiggle room, but leaves less room for more restrained moves such as hyper voice, and also can potentially become overpowered if too many stats are good at once. Allowing our stats to be slightly biased in a direction, without specializing enough to severly lower our other important stats, will be the goal for this Pokemon imo.

2) Are there any existing pokemon that we can draw inspiration from, either in regular metas, or other metas? What do they imply about our stat limits?

Looking down at the UU tier, there are some interesting examples we can pull from. Tinkaton shares a similar place with us, having average stats and an incredibly powerful move at its disposal. With Gigaton Hammer, Tinkaton can still keep a relatively strong offensive presense with mediocre stats, while also having room to fill the rest of its movepool with utility moves such as Stealth Rocks and Encore. its stats offer it decent speed and bulk, without giving it enough of either to where sets like Swords Dance could become potentially overwhelming. While we present far more of an offensive presence than Tink, especially with the similarly powerful but more spammable Boomburst, it's a useful mon to look at how we can mix utility and offensive prowess.

3) We have physical and special defining moves, is there a preference between these, and does going mixed make sense for us?

While physical routes with Espeed seem to be the prefered route to some, there is also plenty of support for a special route, with Boomburst providing its own offensive power to match. For me personally, I'll agree with shnowsner in saying that mixed routes are viable, so long as they are made optional for the mon. having an offensive bias, while still being able to beat mons that pressure us, such as Great Tusk for physical leaning sets, is a potentially wildly useful trait for us to have, though it may come at the cost of 4MSS for us, which is a price to consider.

 

[mark6870]

All that you have demonstrated is that you have not properly read or understood my posts throughout this process.

The worst kind of confidence is being confidently incorrect.
After reading this post and the one i originally quoted, yeah I did misinterpret your post, and after reading it again you made good points. I apologize for misunderstanding and being condescending.

 

[Sawyer.]

The worst kind of confidence is being confidently incorrect.
After reading this post and the one i originally quoted, yeah I did misinterpret your post, and after reading it again you made good points. I apologize for misunderstanding and being condescending.

Thanks man. I really respect and appreciate the apology.

 

[Brown4Sides]

3) We have physical and special defining moves, is there a preference between these, and does going mixed make sense for us?

I think physical is the way to go here. IMO the main draw of having Pixelate as our ability is to make use of Extreme Speed. That's not to say special Boomburst routes are bad necessarily, we are just more likely to carve ourselves a niche with physical Extreme Speed routes. Special sets will have to face competition from stuff like Iron Moth, whereas checks to Iron Valiant/Dragapult/Baxcalibur would be much more appreciated in this metagame.

As for whether or not I support mixed, I see the merit behind it, but ultimately I don't think it's worth it. It would require stronger stats, which we are actively trying to avoid this time around. The best argument I've seen in favor of mixed so far was from Reviloja on Discord, who said was 78 with a minus nature Boomburst always kills Great Tusk iirc? Even still though, going mixed would still have us run 3 STABs (Fire STAB, Extreme Speed/Double-Edge, and Hyper Voice/Boomburst), which I am not a fan of because it leaves us with only one free moveslot left, we have stuff like Knock Off, pivoting moves and hazards in our defining moves and I think it would be better if we could run more than one of those on a single moveset. I also don't feel like being able to oneshot Great Tusk is something we absolutely must try to do, our physical moves will certainly do less to it but ultimately I think they're good enough.

 

[bigtibba]

I have been mulling over this for a while now,
Maybe I'm just dense and missing the point, which is a very real possibility, but all this experiment shows is that Boomburst is significantly stronger than Hyper Voice, which is the reason it is on one of the defining moves list.

Probably should have been a bit clearer. What I was essentially saying is that at a certain point decreasing stats has diminishing returns on impacting the power of Boomburst due to the nature of Pokemon stat investment. 252 EVs in Special Attack always increase your total special attack stat by 63 regardless of what your base stat is, which is why Pokemon such as Shuckle are able to OHKO a phys def Great Tusk even with a base stat of 10. This is further exacerbated by boosting natures.

Also, the calcs you shared are pretty good. I would like to mention however that a Modest nature turns Venomicon and Skeledirge into a favored 2HKO and non-AV Pex into almost a guaranteed 2HKO. Iron Moth, Clodsire, and AV Pex do still wall this Pokemon without chip. Of course, this Pokemon may never run Modest anyway, but it's worth mentioning that it does make those specific checks a bit hazy.

Of course, it goes without saying that this Pokemon, even without a Modest nature, 2HKOs the rest of the metagame except Blissey, who isn't really seen anymore anyway, and Libra, who gets nuked by Fire coverage. So you'd better keep your Fairy resist healthy.

My main point, however, was that at a certain point you have to lower the special attack stat so much that Boomburst becomes the only viable special move to use at all, especially since resisted Tera Fairy Boomburst does more than neutral (and inaccurate) Fire Blast . And due to the diminishing returns of lowering stats, the lower the stat is, the more you have to lower it to accomplish the same result. For example, if you wanted to lower damage output by 10%, you'd have to decrease the stat more if you use 85 base Sp.A as a baseline than if you use 100 Sp.A as a baseline. Not sure if I'm making sense though, so I apologize if I'm explaining it a bit poorly.

Of course, I could be wrong, and it could end up being a Caribolt situation, where the physical set is just so much better than the special that the special isn't even worth running at all, although granted no type is immune to Fairy unlike Electric.

 

[shnowshner]

As promized,

1) Is one of the two archetypes above preferable for us? Given our defining moves and ability should we prefer one of them?

Ther merits of either are going to boil down to two things:

1. The moves we would be using, and their advantages.
2. The Pokemon we will be targeting, and which they are more vulnerable to.

Namely, a move like Extreme Speed is significantly more threatening to Pokemon faster than us, as we can ignore their Speed stat they rely on to avoid taking too many hits. Boomburst and Hyper Voice, meanwhile, are sound-based moves, meaning we can bypass Substitute users or Shed Tail recipients, which feels pretty powerful given the current metagame. Certain Pokemon are also way easier to bring down on one side of the attacking spectrum than the other, thus it'd be would be smart to look closely at the mons we can threaten, and the routes onto the field we can take, to discover which of our Physical or Special kit is the most valuable and straightforward to benefit from.

Right now I find Physical to hold a lot of promise solely due to Extreme Speed giving us a clear niche as a strong Priority user, letting 32 prey on the countless Offensive teams running around the metagame right now as a check to key threats or a reliable Revenge Killer to weakened mons.

2) Are there any existing pokemon that we can draw inspiration from, either in regular metas, or other metas? What do they imply about our stat limits?

There are a couple examples but it's slightly awkward to compare given how many unique traits CAP32 could have.

Like we can look at Exploud for example, it has a very powerful STAB Boomburst aided by Scrappy, and strong coverage moves like Hydro Pump, Fire Blast, and Focus Blast. It's a surprisingly efficient wallbreaker that some people have even found success with in OU metagames, but is held back significantly by poor Speed, reliance on Boomburst, and extremely poor defensive utility.

Any OM that allows for Noivern to gain STAB Boomburst tends to have it get banned, so I think that's a good example to look at for limits. Noivern is both quite fast and has respectable Special Attack, along with a strong secondary STAB and decent movepool. We already have the capacity for a good movepool and STAB, so if we wanted to avoid being too strong with those in mind, our stats would need to be significantly neutered to keep us balanced.

If we want to focus more on Hyper Voice, my mind immediately looks at Sylveon, which does a similar thing. Sylveon is quite relevant in VGC thanks to its useful support movepool, good damage output from Hyper Voice, and for this gen its unique ability to run Tera Blast as both a STAB move pre-Tera and as coverage (usually Tera Fire) when conditions are favorable. It has even run Quick Attack in the past, often for partner combos like Weakness Policy, but having the move on-hand could prove invaluable against Focus Sash users or any opponent that survives with a sliver of health left.

Bit harder for me to think of a Physical comparison. Intuition tells me that any Pokemon which gets by solely off of having a very strong Priority move works here. Honestly I keep thinking about Bisharp, which suffers from unimpressive Speed and somewhat lacking defenses, but between Defiant, SD, and Sucker Punch all riding off high Attack managed to remain a dangerous Pokemon. We don't have all these going for us, obviously, but Bisharp does help inform us about how a strong Priority attack and potent STAB combo goes a long way in pulling weight your stats fail to (especially pre-Eviolite).

4) Given the above, what speed stats make sense for various archetypes of spreads here?

Physical sets can get away with being slower due to having Priority attacks to fall back on, I think anything from the ~70 to ~90 range is suitable. Depends a lot on what Pokemon you want to be pressuring, either through being faster or by having higher Attack and/or bulk.

Special sets will depend on coverage. If we have Boomburst, we will need to be slower to balance out our massive damage output. Without Boomburst, I can see our Speed going quite high, in a similar sort of build to Talonflame. I find 120 to be a good benchmark as it outpaces Roaring Moon, but leaves us behind versus the fastest Pokemon in the metagame.

 

[Amamama]

My main point, however, was that at a certain point you have to lower the special attack stat so much that Boomburst becomes the only viable special move to use at all,

I don’t think this is really true.
luckily with fire we have chosen a type that has naturally insanely strong stab options.
The differential between boomburst and fireblast is lower than between Draco and Shadowball on Pult. Granted boomburst has absolutely no drawback and is much more Spammable with more super effective hits, which means fire blast would basically be a glorified coverage move but still a coverage move that hits hard.
If you draw the comparison to Pult further 75 Spa Boomburst hits as hard as 100 Spa Draco and Fire blast hits as hard as Shadow ball from the same Spa.
Yes that looks dangerous but it also perfectly aids our concept by making it possible to run ridiculously low SpA and still be threatening.
Between extreme Speed and Boomburst, the latter does more for the concept although in the end both feel about equal in power meta wise.
Wrt Tera Specs Boomburst.
If you commit to tera and specs you want to be able to break through checks or force sacks (or stop a Mon defensively). Tera Ground Volcarona suddenly beats Skeledirge, Tera Fire Iron Moth blasts through resists same with tera water floatzel.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

2) Are there any existing pokemon that we can draw inspiration from, either in regular metas, or other metas? What do they imply about our stat limits?

Physical:

(Mix & Mega): I seriously couldn't think of a better posterboy for this route if I tried. Arcanine's stats are fairly average all things considered, as despite having 555 BST, a very good amount of it ends up getting wasted on a fairly use stat (Special Attack), and the end result is that it's stats a whole end up being fairly average across the board. However, this is enough that when, combined with the boosts from Altarianite, make it a rather threatening offensive mon that also offers quite a bit of defensive utility. This to me suggests that there is quite a bit of value in taking on the approach of being sort of balanced all across the board (I guess this kinda serves as my answer to Question 1 as well).

Special:
: Almost every metagame that grants this Pokemon access to Aerliate has it banned (Mix and Mega and Balanced Hackmons are the only ones I can think of that don't, and even then, that can largely be chalked up to the power levels of those metagames). Even with only 97 Special Attack, the sheer power of Aerliate-boosted Boomburst just destroys pretty much everything in the tier that doesn't either resist it or has extremely high special defense, and on top of that, due to it being incredibly fast, there aren't really a whole lot of options that allow you to deal with it defensively either.

Obviously, this would not be the route we should be considering, so I decided to talk about two different approaches that could be taken in regards to balancing this

(AAA): The big thing that separates Pixilate Scream Tail from Aerliate Noivern is their Special Attack stats. 65 Special Attack is honestly quite abysmal for what is intended to be an offensive Pokemon, and it's this discrepancy between its low offensive stats and the incredibly high power of its moves that allow to be viable but not broken. Personally, I think that this would be a fairly interesting way of approaching the concept, since outside of Krillowatt, we have never really explored the concept of an offensive Pokemon with low offensive stats. That being said, it does have its downsides, namely that it sort of sabotages the power of our Fire STAB.

Chromera sort of takes a different approach in regards to balancing the power of Boomburst, and that is the fact that it has to deal with a fairly big Achilles' heel in regards to its ability (Color Change). Obviously, we aren't really going to be able to replicate something like that with an ability, but I'm thinking that there are a couple different approaches that we could take in regards to our stats that can replicate something like this. I'm personally not the biggest fan of this approach, as I think it sort of just opens the door up for spreads that wouldn't really be considered bang average, and that it would also be fairly hard to balance as well.

Outside of Boomburst, I don't really have a whole lot to talk about in regards to Special spreads. We have seen Pixilate Hyper Voice used effectively in the past with both Sylveon and Mega Gardevoir, and I really don't think there's a whole lot that needs to be said in regards to those two.

4) Given the above, what speed stats make sense for various archetypes of spreads here?

Saving question 3 for last since I sort of want to finish talking about

Physical: Physical is a bit akward to give an exact answer for, and that's largely due to how much leeway our access to Extreme Speed gives us here. I guess if somebody put a gun to my head and forced me to give an exact answer, we should consider having at least 85 Speed to outspeed Gholdengo, and having at least 88 Speed to outspeed Great Tusk is also pretty appealing as well.
Special: Special on the other hand is a lot easier to answer. First things first, 88 Speed should for all intents and purposes be treated as the absolute minimum amount of speed that we should have, as anything less would fail to outspeed Great Tusk. That being said, our actual speed stat is likely going to end up being quite a bit higher than this, as looking at the examples I gave for my answer to Question 2, I personally think that a lot of the mons in this category gain a lot from being able to outspeed a lot of the metagame in addition to the power of their moves.

3) We have physical and special defining moves, is there a preference between these, and does going mixed make sense for us?

All things considered, I think that going with physical is most likely the best approach for this project. Physical offers an already well defined niche in access to Extreme Speed, doesn't really have many of the problems that Special spreads have with regards to balancing, and also offers more stat freedom in general. However, I do think that Special spreads should still be allowed, as I do think that the question of whether or not to have Boomburst on spreads offers a good amount of freedom for different specially-based spreads, and access to sound moves is pretty good in a metagame that is currently being dominated by Orthworm.

In terms of going mixed, I don't even think we should bother. Because of how the BSR Formula works (It notably has a fairly heavy bias against mixed spreads, since having Sweepiness ratings within a certain threshold of each other causes them both to be taken into account for the overall rating), you are forced to make sacrifices in certain areas (Whether it be speed or bulk) to get the rating down to a more reasonable level. Normally in the process, this isn't a super big deal, but I firmly believe that we will not have the budget to be able to compensate for this phenomena when taking our concept into account. Even outside of just the technical issues that this would cause, I largely agree with bigtibba's point that the main reason that stuff like Iron Valiant and Dragapult see success as mixed attackers is that both of their offensive stats are high enough that they can generally get away with not investing heavily in one of them, something I do not think that we will be able to pull of here.

 

[bigtibba]

I don’t think this is really true.
luckily with fire we have chosen a type that has naturally insanely strong stab options.
The differential between boomburst and fireblast is lower than between Draco and Shadowball on Pult. Granted boomburst has absolutely no drawback and is much more Spammable with more super effective hits, which means fire blast would basically be a glorified coverage move but still a coverage move that hits hard.
If you draw the comparison to Pult further 75 Spa Boomburst hits as hard as 100 Spa Draco and Fire blast hits as hard as Shadow ball from the same Spa.
Yes that looks dangerous but it also perfectly aids our concept by making it possible to run ridiculously low SpA and still be threatening.
Between extreme Speed and Boomburst, the latter does more for the concept although in the end both feel about equal in power meta wise.
Wrt Tera Specs Boomburst.
If you commit to tera and specs you want to be able to break through checks or force sacks (or stop a Mon defensively). Tera Ground Volcarona suddenly beats Skeledirge, Tera Fire Iron Moth blasts through resists same with tera water floatzel.

Great points. However, I personally would rather have higher special attack stat with two useful STABs than a low special attacking stat with one useful STAB and a STAB coverage option for Steel-types. Fire Blast is slightly stronger than boosted Hyper Voice, (110 vs 108) but it's also inaccurate, so Hyper Voice is still the more useful option in a vacuum. I personally much prefer that pairing over Boomburst+Fire Blast. Additionally, it allows us to use special coverage, as non-STAB 75 Special Attack is not going to do anything for us coverage wise.

Since Boomburst is so spammable and has essentially zero drawbacks outside of Soundproof, which no remotely viable Pokemon currently run, I personally think it suggests a Specs set, especially since it's so much stronger than Fire Blast. A resisted Specs Boomburst is stronger than a neutral Fire Blast after all. Granted, it isn't quite as much of a difference as Draco Meteor and Shadow Ball, but if Draco Meteor was 100% accurate, had no immunities, and didn't halve Pult's Special Attack, I don't think it would really ever click Shadow Ball anyway outside of coverage.

Something else to keep in mind is that with 75 special attack we struggle to 2HKO Equilibra with Fire Blast if we don't run Specs. I definitely think we should at least be able to do that.

Of course, this is just my opinion. I've definitely changed my mind about Boomburst. I don't think it would be as warping as I initially thought, but I still think it's too strong for us in the long run.

 

[Lectrys]

Welcome to the stats limit discussion. I'd like to preface this with a reference to our Concept Assessment a while back. While we've learned a lot about the mon since then, we agreed then that a "Bang Average" mon is one that requires investment in its stats to be effective in a given area, and that can fit one of two molds: "[a] Pokemon that [is] strong (but not exceptionally so) in a certain area" or "[a] Pokemon that [is] average across the board".

With that I'd like to ask some questions.
1) Is one of the two archetypes above preferable for us? Given our defining moves and ability should we prefer one of them?
2) Are there any existing pokemon that we can draw inspiration from, either in regular metas, or other metas? What do they imply about our stat limits?
3) We have physical and special defining moves, is there a preference between these, and does going mixed make sense for us?
4) Given the above, what speed stats make sense for various archetypes of spreads here?

3. Funnily enough, Great Tusk has a gaping hole in its special bulk, but Equilibra has more special bulk than physical bulk. Against Ground-types, our CAP therefore could very well end up preferring physical Fire moves and special Fairy moves. Special Fire (and Fairy) moves don't end up proccing Venomicon-P's Stamina on the switch, though.

4. I agree that our special CAPs should likely have at least 88 base Speed to outspeed Great Tusk and Baxcalibur (that dragon's Earthquake is going to sting). However, our Extreme Speed-using physical CAPs can both tolerate lower base Speed and oddly may want higher base Speed than 88:

Base 81 Speed:
Outspeeds Dragonite so our super-effective Pixilate Extreme Speed always goes first. Even forcing Dragonite to Tera has value.

Base 85 Speed:
Outspeeds the Fairy-resisting but Fire-weak Gholdengo.

Base 100 Speed:
Outspeeds Miasmaw, which loves using Neutralizing Gas, which turns Pixilate off so it gets hit by a much wimpier non-STAB Normal-type Extreme Speed.

A nice-to-have target for base Speed is 111 to outspeed the Fairy (and Psychic) resist Kitsunoh and hit it super effectively with a Fire attack. Our CAP also outspeeds Iron Treads at that base Speed.

I still would rather see our CAP's base Speed max out at 111, though: Electrode and Greninja are not what I consider as Pokemon with average stats, despite both of them having mediocre offensive stats and lackluster bulk, and that's because both of them have high Speed. Perhaps I should have said this earlier in this CAP's process, but I consider a bang average Pokemon to be "[a] Pokemon that [is] average across the board", such as Clefable, Phione, and the Rotom forms. Breloom definitely starts looking not so average to me. There's also the part where about the only Fairy resist that's Fire-weak above base 111 Speed is Cawmodore, at an already above average 118 base Speed and the ability to Bullet Punch our CAP for neutral damage.

 

[ryangregory78]

Is one of the two archetypes above preferable for us? Given our defining moves and ability should we prefer one of them?

I like the idea of being "strong but not exceptionally so" a lot. For one, I think this approach leans really deeply into what it means to be a "bang average" Pokemon, in that your power level, while sufficient, pales in comparison to the absolute strongest Pokemon around it. This flaw can be circumvented through a Pokemon's other unique attributes, namely a strong typing, powerful abilities, and a deep and resourceful movepool, all of which can either supplement your threat potential or give you more utility to offer a team, thus making you a more alluring choice that you would riding off of you merely adequate power level. This probably wouldn't extend to a more "average-across-the-board" approach because spreads like that often rely on some of the very best abilities im the game to compensate for their otherwise mediocre stats (Clef, Nidoking, Glalie, our very own Kril), as opposed to CAP32's merely good ability in Pixilate. Now, Pixilate Boomburst would probably work with such a statspread (I'll go deeper later as to why I don't really like that option), but seeing as ESpeed has far more support from myself and seemingly the community at large, I'd say a strong-but-not-exceptionally-so archetype is our best bet.

Are there any existing pokemon that we can draw inspiration from, either in regular metas, or other metas?

This is honestly pretty tough. I'd say we could look to standard-fare fast pivots like Meowscarada and Dragapult for inspiration, but looking at those Pokemon shows me something that makes CAP32 incredibly unique. Whereas Meow and Pult exert pressure through their blazing Speed tiers and spammable STABs, our most spammable STAB move just sk happens to pack +2 priority. What this means is, whereas these two Pokemon have to contend with faster threats like opposing Pult, +1 Bax, Scarf Bao, and Booster Val, CAP32 doesn't give one iota for any of them, either completely walling everything they can do or straight up blasting through them. The fact that we get to throw off super-effective Pixilate ESpeed against virtually every fast Pokemon in the tier turns us from a moderately strong threat with a middling speed tier into effectively the single fastest thing in the metagame.

It should go without saying that not much really does anything close to what we're trying to go for. Sucker Punch abusers like Bisharp and Kingambit and Extreme Killers like MnM Arcanine and DD Dragonite can offer a blueprint for a strong prio spammer, but those Pokemon are often more disposed to sweeping and breaking than pivoting around.

With that in mind, I think the best example we have to go off of though is absolutely Scizor. Even since it got Bullet Punch in Platinum, Scizor has been defined by his effective 90 BP priority move and STAB U-Turn, allowing him to work around his low speed by threatening powerful Bullet Punches and using U-Turn to bring in his faster teammates in forced switches. To my knowledge, Scizor is one of the only OU-viable pivots to ever run priority as its main source of damage, so looking to the metal bug to see what works and doesn't work about his design could give us a great groundwork to build off of.

We have physical and special defining moves, is there a preference between these, and does going mixed make sense for us?

Physical should absolutely be preferred here. I've expressed my distaste for Boomburst on CAP32, and that feeling mostly boils down to the facts that a) Boomburst is incredibly tough to balance, especially with Pixilate, and b) the sheer utility and statistical leeway provided by ESpeed cannot he passed up.

Starting off with the obvious, Boomburst is already a mind-bogglingly powerful attack in its own right, but, with Pixilate in tow, loses its immunity, maintains excellent neutral coverage, and shoots up to a face-melting 168 BP (!!). The mind-numbing power of this combo can be seen at full force in the form of AAA Noivern. What makes AAA Noivern significant to this project is not solely the fact that he has been banned from every single AAA format he has been allowed in, but also that his stats are, by and large, pretty bang average. A serviceable but not particularly good 97 special attack, workable but not particularly impressive 85/80/80 bulk, with his only really good stat coming in his blazing 123 Speed. If we use AAA Noivern as any basis for what could push Special CAP32 over the edge, we'll either end up with a) such poor bulk that we lose our ability to switch in on our own, b) not enough speed to threaten the offensive metagame, or c) such low Special Attack that our Fire and coverage moves are rendered ineffective.

Not only does a physical bias remove the necessity of balancing CAP32 around a 168-BP death button, it also provides incredible utility that going Special wouldn't be able to replicate. The most obvious example of this is ESpeed, which lets CAP32 circumvent middling speed by giving it access to the strongest priority move in the game. It should also be noted that just about every relevant Pokemon faster than above base 110 is weak to Fairy, meaning that with ESpeed in our arsenal, we can easily function as the de facto fastest Pokemon in the metagame irregardless or our actual base Speed. While the advantages of ESpeed are obvious and have been incredibly well-documented, I think the incredible power of Bitter Blade has been incredibly overlooked. Bitter Blade combines a strong, accurate STAB option with a means of recovery that can heal huge amounts of HP from the likes of Corv and Libra. Being able to recover while attacking is also important because it allows us to forgo a recovery move while still maintaining longevity, freeing up a moveslot for something like Spikes, Knock Off, or coverage.

As far as going mixed is concerned, I can't say that I'm opposed to it, although I do think we should still have a very heavy physical bias. The main draw of our mixed potential stems from using Boomburst to immediately crush Great Tusk, as even with a Special Attack-lowering nature, CAP32 lands an guaranteed OHKO with Boomburst with as little as 78 base Special Attack. One of the biggest draws of a mixed attacker is being able to hit as many targets as you can for significant damage, and packing Boomburst on a mixed set lets CAP32 hit Great Tusk, Garchomp, Tomohawk, and Baxcalibur on their weaker Special Defense, letting us break through them much more easily than we otherwise would. The only real issue I have with such a set is that it outs us in direct competition with Iron Valiant, and since we need to run two Fairy moves on our mixed set instead of just Moonblast, vying for such a role over one of the best, most versatile and consistent offensive Pokemon in the game is more than a foolhardy effort. Even with that, I do see potential in a physically biased mixed set, just because of how little we need to invest in Boomburst for it to be effective.

Given the above, what speed stats make sense for various archetypes of spreads here?

Given the fact that we're gonna be relying on ESpeed for much of our offense, we can actually afford to have a less-than-great speed stat if Extreme Speed's gonna be picking off most of the faster Pokemon in the metagame. As such, here are some potential Speed number that I've come up with:

- 88 Speed - This should be self-explanatory. Great Tusk is one of the best, most reliable Pokemon in the metagame, and being able to outrun and threaten him with heavy damage is immeasurably valuable. Also lets us get the jump of Gholdengo and Baxcalibur which is always nice.

- 97 Speed - This speed tier lets us capitalize on our free point-of-entry into Jumbao perfectly. Just barely outrunning him allows us to threaten an OHKO with Sun-boosted Bitter Blade and use the forced switch to either pivot to a teammate and keep momentum going or to

- 100 Speed - Not only do we now Speed-tie with Plasmanta and unboosted Volcarona, we now also get the jump on Miasmaw. Now, getting the jump in Miasmaw is important because not only can we block his Scale Shot and prevent a snowball, but his dumbass also turns off our Pixilate with NGas. Fortunately, he's physically brittle enough to get comfortably 2HKO'd by Bitter Blade, so we won't have to worry about that.

- 103 Speed - This speed lets us get the jump on all of unboosted Volcarona, Plasmanta, Venomicon-E, and importantly Garchomp. Chomp's natural bulk and Rocks resistance means that he'll be able to take one ESpeed without a fair bit of chip damage and OHKO back with EQ. Outrunning Chompy Boi allows us to threaten an OHKO with stronger Fairy STAB in the form of Boomburst or Double-Edge

- 107 Speed - This is probably the absolute fastest we can go. This speed gets the jump of Krilowatt and unboosted Caribolt and preserves BSR while also being outrun by Iron Moth. It might seem counterproductive to have CAP32 be outrun by something that threatens it as much as Iron Moth does, but I for one think that having a solid offensive check is important for balancing out Pixilate ESpeed, especially since it absolutely destroys just about everything faster than Iron Moth aside from Astrolotl (who eventually gets pushed over) and Cawmodore (who's always gonna be taking Bitter Blade from 75% thanks to Belly Drum and is also a Steel-type soo...).

Of these options, I think that going for base 100 and 103 Speed makes the most sense given the key threats that outrun us and that we're able to outrun.

 

[Brambane]

Stats for this concept has a large aesthetic component (well larger than normal) since there isn't really a numerical way to establish what is average other than finding the literal average of a bunch of Pokemon's base stats, which itself is fraught with issues. This means that setting limits to try to cater to this aesthetic factor of "looking average" is probably a fool's errand, and I would caution against it.

Mixed is fine, the entire premise of it is basically balancing ExtremeSpeed and Boomburst on the same set one way or another. I don't see why you would pursue mixed without these two moves, seems like a waste of resources. If you want to come up with a mixed attacking spread with these two moves, shoot your shot.

Speed for CAP32 can range from base 67 to 121. Being slower than Skeledirge seems like a good way to make CAP32 need to waste a bunch of Speed EVs to outspeed slow Pokemon and probably places too much strain on its stat spread. I would place the upper limit of Speed right underneath Greninja so it maintains consistent offensive pressure against CAP32 (although it doesn't care for ExtremeSpeed.) Pretty wide range, but given our defining move list it makes sense. I would keep special sweepiness fairly low overall with higher Speeds with specific Boomburst spreads, just citing Aerilate Noivern is the biggest fucker oat.

 

[skippergamez]

1) Is one of the two archetypes above preferable for us? Given our defining moves and ability should we prefer one of them?

With ESpeed as a required move, I see Physical as the best route, however, if Boomburst is chosen, Mixed’s merits definitely are boosted. Looking at the two archetypes a Pokemon that is strong (but not exceptionally so) in a certain area (being Physical) seems like our best route. ESpeed’s traits are clearly defining the way we should approach stats. Like I said though, choosing Boomburst allows us to focus on a Pokemon that is average across the board.

2) Are there any existing pokemon that we can draw inspiration from, either in regular metas, or other metas? What do they imply about our stat limits?

AAA Dragonite gives us a great look at what an -ate user with ESpeed looks like. Obviously, Dragonite has 600 BST, CAP32 will not have that type of power.

3) We have physical and special defining moves, is there a preference between these, and does going mixed make sense for us?

I like Physical better here (look above).

4) Given the above, what speed stats make sense for various archetypes of spreads here?

81: 81 is definitely my favorite, cause we guarantee speed beating Dnite, while leaving room for room in other stats.

100: I also like nichely forcing out Miasmaw

86: Allows us to out speed Tomohawk

107: Wrecks Caribolt and all the above, but probably my personal limit.

 

[nutritious blend]

1) Is one of the two archetypes above preferable for us? Given our defining moves and ability should we prefer one of them?

After taking a look at the viability ranking, I couldn't find any mons that fit the all-around stat distribution of a or a . I also found that of the lower BST mons like that they all had at least one stat of 100+ in either speed or HP/Def/Spdef. So I'll jump on the bandwagon and say that we should be "strong but not exceptionally so."

2) Are there any existing pokemon that we can draw inspiration from, either in regular metas, or other metas? What do they imply about our stat limits?

Most of the above posts focus on speed and PS/SS. I want to look at PT/ST.
I think is a really good mon to draw inspiration from. It has a BST of 525, great typing, two good abilities, access to priority, consistent recovery and can make use of its unimpressive stats to run both a bulky set with Taunt+Bulk Up and offensive set with Sash+Weak Armor. CAP32 shares a similarly good typing and access to even better priority. A key difference is Ceruledge's access to stat boosts in place of CAP32's utility/pivot moves like Knock Off, Spikes, and U-Turn/Volt Switch.
As far as bulk, something in the ballpark of Ceruledge's 75/80/100 seems like a reasonable limit. With EV investment in defenses and some form of recovery, CAP32 will be bulky without changing its role into being a defensive pivot/wall. With fully offensive investment, it will be suffering against any unresisted hits but that's part of the balance.
For some specific thresholds, I feel like we should have enough ST to comfortably take stab, as well as sun-boosted fire Terablast. In addition to being able to live special neutral coverage like Shadow Ball and Tbolt at +1. As for PT, I think we should have a balanced matchup against which is likely to live even super effective moves from CAP32. As a result, we should prioritize PT enough to wear we don't just straight up lose that matchup.

4) Given the above, what speed stats make sense for various archetypes of spreads here?

I initially was of the opinion that speed was unimportant and was an easy stat to ignore thanks to ESpeed. But after making the comparison to Ceruledge, I think something in the range of 100-110 is appropriate allowing it to outspeed fast Jumbao and the other important mons in the 80-100 speed tier. Being faster than is a personal preference, namely to avoid wasting ESpeed PP and using a special move to get around Rough Skin. I feel like this is pretty flexible stat for us given the toolkit. As a result, I don't disagree with the posters arguing for the lower speed stat suggestions like 81 - 90 but feel that we sacrifice pressure and pivoting ability especially since we have limited PP for ESpeed.

 

[Mova]

I like 86 Speed to outspeed Tomohawk and Gholdengo, which is nice to have. Admittedly, I would also prefer we emphasize physical offenses first, although Boomburst would be a nice option for going mixed. I do not recommend going fully special, though.

 

[mark6870]

Expanded thoughts on speed tiers:

88:
Absolute minimum for me. Do not want to be outsped by a dinosaur elephant with dental issues. Additional benefits include outspeeding Rotoms, Baxcalibur, and Gholdengo. Definitely good for Fake Out + Espeed builds, or Boomburst builds with decent SPA.

100:
Yummy speed tier. Now we outspeed Bao, Hydreigon, Miasmaw (although we dont actually have a great MU vs it due to NGas), and Colossoil. Still want Espeed to force out the faster threats. Espeed + Double Edge seems more feasible to me with a speed tier like this. I can't see a higher SpA stat than 90 if we go Boomburst with this speed tier.

111:
Scream Tail Speed Tier. Faster than Zoroark, Iron Treads, Iron Moth, Caribolt, Kitsunoh I guess, and most importantly, Raichu. Not much to say other than Boomburst spreads get lower SPA and Double Edge sets get better.

124:
Absolute max. We now outspeed Greninja, Meowscrada, Specs Valiant, Cinderace, and Band Roaring Moon. Boomburst spreads cap out at 85 SPA IMO. At this stage, I don't think we'd want to use physical sets, seeing as they use Extreme Speed and we've got so much BSR dumped into our Speed stat at this point. Espeed builds would benefit from more bulk for more swithin opportunities or more attack for obvious reasons. However, considering even 85 SpA boombursts are IN-SANE after the Pixilate boosts, we'd probably have to make this mon obscenely frail. Like, scarf Jumbao 2-taps us with Solar Beam frail. That + we're rock-weak (assuming we're running Specs, cuz why wouldn't we) would make it a very hard but very rewarding Pokemon to use. I also would opt to not give this thing any coverage so our C&C remain our C&C (which they would, according to the calcs i documented in an earlier post).
We could also forgo Boomburst and take the still very respectably strong Hyper Voice as our Fairy stab of choice. We could then take a Talonflame or Noivern-esque route and be a super fast-utilitypivot that just-so-happens to be able to revenge kill if need be. Something like Hyper Voice/Armour Cannon/Spikes/Strength Sap, perhaps.