CAP 32 - Part 8 - Stat Limits Discussion

[quziel]

Wanted to give an update. A bit under the weather, and also visiting family, so I'll do a summary of discussion tomorrow, but wanted to post a few more questions, as that's way less work for me.

1) How much power do we think Boomburst requries us to give up, with respect to special sweepiness and to a lesser extent the raw stat. Please don't give exact numbers, but rather just an idea

Full disclosure; Hvoice 32 doesn't fill me with confidence as competing with Iron Valiant is going to be very difficult, but its a defining move, and I need to base our BSR on Hvoice.

2) I've seen a lot of talk suggesting that we may need to be rather fast on every set. Does an explicit ceiling on Attack (for physical sets) make sense, a Physical Sweepiness ceiling (allowing for breloom style spreads and also greninja style spreads), or a mixture of both.

While some folks have talked about physical being preferable to special, I don't really want to make that decision at the moment, and instead plan to allow for voters to decide that after stat spread are submitted. I also may trial a different stat ceiling for physical, special, and mixed spreads, as they aren't necessarily going to coincide.

3) Does a specific archetype (jack of all trades, specialist) make sense for Physical, Special, Physically Biased, and Specially Biased spreads?

 

[viol and bass]

Before I get to the questions, I just wanna say, mixed feels viable to me. Physical with pocket Boomburst isn't that viable because there's not a lot of reason to run Boomburst over a purely physical set, beyond a slightly better Great Tusk matchup (Double-Edge would hit almost as hard in all likelihood and we wouldn't have to spread our limited stats as thin). However, Pixilate Extreme Speed is an unbelievably good move, so special with pocket Extreme Speed feels like a really viable route. I even think non-Boomburst specially-based mixed routes are viable here, allowing more powerful fire STAB for instance. We differentiate ourselves from the likes of Valiant by having Pixilate Extreme Speed as well as reasonably powerful Fire STAB.

1) How much power do we think Boomburst requries us to give up, with respect to special sweepiness and to a lesser extent the raw stat. Please don't give exact numbers, but rather just an idea

A viable Hyper Voice build will never reach the raw power of a Boomburst build. That's just not feasible with the concept we chose. So it's hard to answer this question properly because in a sense you're probably not giving up that much sweepiness for Boomburst.

2) I've seen a lot of talk suggesting that we may need to be rather fast on every set. Does an explicit ceiling on Attack (for physical sets) make sense, a Physical Sweepiness ceiling (allowing for breloom style spreads and also greninja style spreads), or a mixture of both.

I support a mixture of both. I think an attacking stat that is too high starts to look not average no matter what the speed stat is, but I think we also probably need a sweepiness limit as well.

3) Does a specific archetype (jack of all trades, specialist) make sense for Physical, Special, Physically Biased, and Specially Biased spreads?

Mixed sets inherently have less room for defensive stats within a "bang average" package, and that's their main downside. You'd also likely be running a nature that reduces one of your defenses. So mixed lends itself more to glass cannon spreads (Boomburst mixed sets may be an exception to this since the stat doesn't need to be particularly good, so you have more room for bulk). Purely special sets lack priority so they probably need a higher speed to compensate, and thus will probably also not be that bulky. Physical sets have room to be pretty bulky and slower in my opinion. So physical is the most "well-rounded" option in terms of stats.

 

[Brown4Sides]

1) How much power do we think Boomburst requries us to give up, with respect to special sweepiness and to a lesser extent the raw stat. Please don't give exact numbers, but rather just an idea

Full disclosure; Hvoice 32 doesn't fill me with confidence as competing with Iron Valiant is going to be very difficult, but its a defining move, and I need to base our BSR on Hvoice.

Hyper Voice is much weaker than Boomburst and as such should opting for Boomburst should take a good hit to SS and maybe overall BSR to a lesser extent. I agree though that Hyper Voice doesn't really instill confidence.

2) I've seen a lot of talk suggesting that we may need to be rather fast on every set. Does an explicit ceiling on Attack (for physical sets) make sense, a Physical Sweepiness ceiling (allowing for breloom style spreads and also greninja style spreads), or a mixture of both.

While some folks have talked about physical being preferable to special, I don't really want to make that decision at the moment, and instead plan to allow for voters to decide that after stat spread are submitted. I also may trial a different stat ceiling for physical, special, and mixed spreads, as they aren't necessarily going to coincide.

When I first saw this question, my initial instinct was to not be in favor of an explicit Attack ceiling because I thought just having a physical sweepiness ceiling was enough. But then I thought a bit more about it and maybe having a ceiling on the Attack stat wouldn't be such a bad thing. Since we have priority, it is entirely possible to just outright cheese the physical sweepiness rating. Though we did establish in Concept Assessment that Breloom style does fit the definition of "bang average," so I think we could be pretty flexible with the Attack ceiling, just so long as we're not Rampardos with priority, because that route does not thrill me.

 

[Amamama]

1) How much power do we think Boomburst requries us to give up, with respect to special sweepiness and to a lesser extent the raw stat. Please don't give exact numbers, but rather just an idea

I think an about 20% penalty to SS/SpA seems about right.
The reason to chose Hyper Voice is giving more value to Fire type moves. Thus I think having Fire Blast being weaker on a Boomburst spread about the same amount that Hyper Voice is weaker than Boomburst looks appropriate.
I think this is a bit confusing to read, I hope this is a bit clearer:

Relative Power:
Boomburst (BB)>20%>Hyper Voice (HV), Fire Blast (HV)>20%>Fire Blast (BB)

(BB=Boomburst Spread), (HV=Hyper Voice Spread)
Overall I can see the punishment for Boomburst being a slight lower on slower spreads while a slight higher on fast Spreads.
So for speeds around 120 you have about 25% for speeds around 60 you have 15% since I feel using Hyper Voice is equally a balancing option for fast Special Spreads.

I've seen a lot of talk suggesting that we may need to be rather fast on every set. Does an explicit ceiling on Attack (for physical sets) make sense, a Physical Sweepiness ceiling (allowing for breloom style spreads and also greninja style spreads), or a mixture of both.

Imo we want both. While we established Breloom as an example of bang average, I think it is very much an extreme in this category just bc it’s Attacking stat is among the highest in the tier.
Consider also that Extreme Speed is more than 50% stronger than Mach Punch with a less punishing offensive typing making it usable as main STAB much more than Mach Punch.
All the while Breloom still only needs base 70 Speed to be successful (granted that’s partly bc of Spore).
While it’s a bit arbitrary I think basing this limit around the Standard Deviation of Attacking stats of the top 50 mons could be a solid starting point placing the stat limit at about 123 attack. At that point an Adamant nature still makes a OHKO on Baxcalibur possible which is one of our bulkiest offensive targets, at the same time guaranteeing a OHKO on offensive Tusk with Double Edge and still a good chance of koing defensive Tusk with Blitz into Double Edge.
130 atk guarantees a OHKO on Bax but at that point I think we need pretty hefty penalties to BSR and sweepiness to still make it look like an average Mon.

 

[quziel]

Ok, so going to try to summarize discussion:

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?

Generally there's a bit more interest in a Breloom style spread over a Kingdra style spread, at least from what I've read. That's not to say the latter cannot work, and I'm not planning to set stat limits in such a way that disqualifies it, just that there's a general belief that specialization may benefit us, even if the latter arguably fulfills concept better. There's also been a lot of enthusiasm for Talonflame (but worse) spreads on the discord, which have all around stats but are just very speedy.


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's definitely a lot of mons in OMs that we can draw from, eg Pixilate Scream Tail, Altarianite Arcanine, Aerialiate Noivern, which definitely can help us to inform the upper limits of our power; Noivern in particular seems very relevant for informing maximum SS limits for Boomburst spreads as it tends to get banned from every meta its legal in. Chromera and Lucario are some non-OM mons that definitely can help us to examine the strength of our existing spreads; Chromera is clearly not OP, and also uses Tera Specs Boomburst, so the contrast between it and Noivern can definitely help us to inform our limits, though Normal is obviously far worse than Flying.

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

There's a lot of thoughts on this, enough that its hard for me to draw a definite conclusion. Personally mixed seems like it may lead to some moveslot and EV issues, but there's also a lot of support for it. I plan to see if I can set a different BSR limit for each of the archetypes, being Physical, Special, and Mixed, as they appear to have very different requirements.

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

There's a general consensus that being relatively fast (90+) will provide a lot of benefit for us, however I'd like to draw attention to Brambane's post, as especially for physical sets we can fully sidestep speed tiers with Espeed. I plan on assuming that we'll be somewhere between 60 and 120ish speed.

I confess I'm also quite confused on the utility of outrunning Miasmaw; it turns off our Fairy stab leaving Miasmaw able to hit us SE with EQ, while we have to go with a neutral hit with Blitz or Fire Blast. This is a matchup that we're sorta just very neutral in. Miasmaw can never switch into us, we can't switch into it, we can't rkill it (scale shot funny).

-----

Now I'd like to start ironing out some numbers.

8) What are some specific thresholds that let us OHKO or 2HKO specific threats with Boomburst, Hyper Voice, Fire Blast, Flare Blitz, and Extremespeed

This list above is the list of zero assumptions STABs from defining moves + Boomburst, as Boomburst is going to require a substantial downgrade in Special Sweepiness

9) How impactful are our remaining strong Defining Moves (Fire Lash, Strength Sap, Bitter Blade, Armor Cannon, Torch Song)?

Many of these are either weaker than the premiere STAB options, or aren't strong enough to fully transform attack limits, but have substantial secondary effects. I expect these to have some BSR effects, just want opinions on how much.

 

[mark6870]

1) How much power do we think Boomburst requries us to give up, with respect to special sweepiness and to a lesser extent the raw stat. Please don't give exact numbers, but rather just an idea

Enough that the Checks and Counters list STAYS our Checks and Counters. According to the calcs of my first post, We can go up to a decent amount of SpA while still being at least checked by venom, clod, pex, and dirge

2) I've seen a lot of talk suggesting that we may need to be rather fast on every set. Does an explicit ceiling on Attack (for physical sets) make sense, a Physical Sweepiness ceiling (allowing for breloom style spreads and also greninja style spreads), or a mixture of both.

A physical sweepiness limit WITH A direct cap on physical Attack is the best option IMO. Having a direct cap allows for more variety in spreads when subs come around. It also, more importantly, allows us to have a cap on what's "Bang Average."

3) Does a specific archetype (jack of all trades, specialist) make sense for Physical, Special, Physically Biased, and Specially Biased spreads?

A Jack-of-all trades archetype fits Physical more, since the less powerful Extreme Speed is less stat-warping overall than Boomburst. Extreme Speed lends itself to stats similar to to the Rotom appliances or Nidoking.
Specialists fit Boomburst. Something extremely fast with mediocre at best SpA and piddly bulk is what comes to mind initially.

 

[snake]

8) What are some specific thresholds that let us OHKO or 2HKO specific threats with Boomburst, Hyper Voice, Fire Blast, Flare Blitz, and Extremespeed

A quick post regarding Extreme Speed:

252 Atk Pixilate Base 103 Attack Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Iron Valiant: 290-344 (100.3 - 119%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Pixilate Base 103 Attack Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Dragapult: 338-398 (106.6 - 125.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 Atk Pixilate Base 103 Attack Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Roaring Moon: 712-840 (202.8 - 239.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO

For purely physical sets, I'm considering Base 103 Attack as an absolute minimum (if assuming Jolly). If a purely physical CAP32 cannot OHKO Iron Valiant, Dragapult, and Roaring Moon, then it's not accomplishing one of its primary goals. That said, without setup, a purely physical CAP32 can definitely get a lot of value from having its Attack being much higher than Base 103 so that its Extreme Speed is a good attack into general targets or so CAP32 could hypothetically invest in bulk and still net those OHKOs with 0 Attack EVs.

EDIT: Depending on the speed stat, Adamant is definitely a consideration for Extreme Speed sets. Taking the Iron Valiant calc from above (the bulkiest of those three in this context):

252+ Atk Pixilate Base 90 Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Iron Valiant: 290-344 (100.3 - 119%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Base 90 Attack with Adamant is equivalent to Base 103 with Jolly. Consider Base 90 as the absolute minimum if Adamant is assumed. However, I think looking beyond these 3 calcs, Base 90 Attack limits CAP32 in many ways.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

8) What are some specific thresholds that let us OHKO or 2HKO specific threats with Boomburst, Hyper Voice, Fire Blast, Flare Blitz, and Extremespeed

Going to cover just Extreme Speed for now, I might cover some of the other moves when I feel like it.

90 Attack: Adamant OHKOs Iron Valiant
103 Attack: Jolly OHKOs Iron Valiant
112 Attack: Adamant OHKOs Colossoil
128 Attack: Jolly OHKOs Colossoil
130 Attack: Adamant OHKOs Baxcalibur

9) How impactful are our remaining strong Defining Moves (Fire Lash, Strength Sap, Bitter Blade, Armor Cannon, Torch Song)?

I'm honestly not convinced that most of these really impact stats a whole lot. Of the five of these moves, the only one I'm convinced has a notable impact on our stats as a whole would be Armor Cannon, which allows us to get away with having our Special Attack being a bit lower due to the small increase in damage when compared to Fire Blast.

 

[Brambane]

Yeah I agree that 103 Jolly is about as low as Attack should go in general. I think even with ExtremeSpeed nonwithstanding, your unmodified Flare Blitzs are starting to look pretty dogshit at 100 Attack. Like do I really want my 120 BP STAB move doing 35% to Venomicon? That's kinda piss. You would be pretty hard pressed to find a decent physical Attack in this meta with 100 or less base Attack, probably for good reason.

You could go lower if you opt for Adamant, which likely means this mon has almost 0 speed benchmarks it cares about or some critically important Adamant calc, like the one above.

How high could Attack go? 130 is nice and pretty, but 132 is optimal funny number, because then you have an OHKO Roaring Moon if it Tera Flying's with Tera Fairy Adamant ExtremeSpeed (after Rocks, still has a chance to KO with Rocks), which is what I want to see if I am hamstringing my five other stats so I can hit harder than Dragonite with my silly fast move. And 132 is the absolute limit, since at 132 your chance of 2HKOing Skeledirge with Double-Edge is 0.4%, which is an RBY level of bullshit if it occurs. But it does mean Tera Fairy is absolutely goated endgame, as it should be, especially if you nut up and drop Boots for an item that will actually earn your dad's approval.

Boomburst is a great move but gets silly fast. This is mostly Tera Fairy means not only Boomburst goes brazy, but if you build your entire gameplan around clicking Tera Fairy with CAP32 most games, you probably can forgo Boots since you aren't weak to Rocks. And with Pixie Plate and Choice Specs the numbers are really, really funny.

252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Tera Fairy Ninetales Boomburst vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Skeledirge: 178-210 (43.3 - 51%) -- 4.7% chance to 2HKO

That is off of 85 Special Attack with a neutral nature, and Skeledirge ain't got the PP to stall that shit. So we could make CAP32 weaker than Noctowl and have it dismantle slower teams. Clodsire and AV Pex obviously fair substantially better, which makes this BIG SCARY NUMBER not actually that scary since Toxapex and Clodsire on balance right now is like butter on toast.

So from a gameplay standpoint, the threshold for Boomburst is more based on Speed; the more powerful your Boomburst, the easier you should be to force out by double switches, revenge killers, and even other slowish mons. But uh, we probably shouldn't be 2HKOing AV Pex with Specs Tera Fairy Boomburst unless I have like 3 Spikes up, so 90 SpA would be the upper limit of Boomburst for me.

Also we could pretend that having to run Specs over Boots and commit Tera Fairy is a significant downside but if you are utterly dismantling the opponent's defensive backbone with a resisted move that becomes nigh impossible (shoutouts to Mollux) to pivot against, is it? Is it really tho?

Strong Fire moves are in kind of in similar territory since, well, CAP loves its sun and calcs can get silly. But the downside of dropping Boots on a Pokemon that cannot Tera out of its Fire weaknesses seems much greater than what Tera Fairy does. I don't think I would worry about any of the Fire moves at all, just the Fairy ones.

With that being said, you aren't giving CAP32 good Fairy moves (unless you lean in hard to Boomburst) without making its Fire-type defining moves baller. The Tera Fire Sun calcs (oh yeah its time) are about the absolute highest damage threshold that CAP32 can achieve and they are truly goated.

Like remember that 103 Attack stat we mentioned earlier? Well:
252+ Atk Tera Fire Ninetales Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Skeledirge in Sun: 184-217 (44.7 - 52.7%) -- 25.8% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Tera Fire Ninetales Flare Blitz vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Toxapex in Sun: 128-151 (42.2 - 49.8%) -- 89.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

That isn't even with a damage item, thats with Boots! This isn't bad or fear mongering, you are committing to Fire Tera and building a sun team, these are the calcs I want to see CAP32's Fire moves doing. Just be mindful of what your Flare Blitz is doing to shit like Dirge, Pex, and Garganacl; can you CAP32 afford to run Adamant or Jolly, how much damage is it taking in recoil, how fast is it, does it need hazards up? That sort of thing.

 

[kenn]

8) What are some specific thresholds that let us OHKO or 2HKO specific threats with Boomburst, Hyper Voice, Fire Blast, Flare Blitz, and Extremespeed

As everyone has mentioned the threshold for Extreme Speed (I agree with us having a bare minimum of 103 Attack with Jolly though a higher stat may be necessary/more in line with the "exceptional" status we may want), I figured I would try and tackle the special threshold. As you mentioned quz, Boomburst is gonna require a significant cut to CAP32's Special Sweepiness so the best thing I think is to focus on Hyper Voice as I believe going Boomburst just neuters our Fire STAB to the point of potential uselessness.

For Hyper Voice:

Potential SpA Levels

48 SpA Timid OHKOes Iron Valiant
61 SpA Timid OHKOes Greninja
64 SpA Timid OHKOes offensive Great Tusk
75 SpA Timid OHKOes Dragonite after Stealth Rock (or 2HKOes with Multiscale intact)
78 SpA Timid OHKOes Dragapult
81 SpA Timid 2HKOes offensive Rotom-Wash
84 SpA Timid OHKOes defensive Great Tusk
93 SpA Timid 2HKOes SpD Arghonaut
108 SpA Timid OHKOes Colossoil
114 SpA Timid 2HKOes Kingambit
117 SpA Timid OHKOes Baxcalibur
126 SpA Timid 2HKOes defensive Rotom-Wash and OHKOes Tomohawk
137 SpA Timid OHKOes Tank Garchomp

For Boomburst:

Potential Stat Levels

52 SpA Timid OHKOes Colossoil
56 SpA Timid 2HKOes Kingambit
58 SpA Timid OHKOes Baxcalibur
63 SpA Timid OHKOes Tomohawk
71 SpA Timid OHKOes Tank Garchomp
133 SpA Timid 2HKOes SpD Garganacl
163 SpA Timid OHKOes Dragonite through Multiscale (lol)

For Fire Blast:

Potential Stat Levels

34 SpA Timid 2HKOes Jumbao
79 SpA Timid OHKOes Caribolt
95 SpA Timid 2HKOes Equilbra
97 SpA Timid OHKOes NP Gholdengo
112 SpA Timid 2HKOes Miasmaw
119 SpA Timid OHKOes Jumbao
127 SpA Timid OHKoes Phys Def Corviknight

Just from doing this with Timid and not even Modest, I can already tell the descripancy that Boomburst gives CAP32 almost to the point of not needing to run Fire STAB or not having a high enough SpA stat to make Fire STAB worthwhile. My personal opinion is realizing that it may not be even worth it to utilize Boomburst as therefore we can afford a higher SpA stat "ceiling" that allows us to use Hyper Voice as a spammable STAB while also having our Fire STAB as a reliable option to take things Hyper Voice can't.

All in all, I think bare minimum with Hyper Voice we want CAP32 to at least have a base 93 SpA to 2HKO Arghonaut and a maximum of 127 to OHKO Phys Def Corviknight with Fire Blast. If a stat spread does end up utilizing Boomburst, 112 SpA as a minimum would be nice to "force" us to carry Fire Blast to 2HKO Miasmaw, but 133 2HKOing SpD Garg (after Lefties) seems ridiculous as it is supposed to check physical sets and therefore at least soft check special sets imo.

9) How impactful are our remaining strong Defining Moves (Fire Lash, Strength Sap, Bitter Blade, Armor Cannon, Torch Song)?

I don't think any of these should be too impactful on the stat submissions as the only thing that may cause some issues is Armor Cannon vs Fire Blast but the rest should be taken into account nonetheless (such as the +1 from Torch Song or the -1 from Fire Lash).

 

[dex]

88:
Absolute minimum for me.

Why? Low Speed is an absolutely valid option and in some cases is exceedingly desirable to free up other stats to be higher, especially on Extreme Speed builds but also just in general. Breloom and Crawdaunt got by just fine with low Speed stats, I don't see why CAP 32 cannot. There should be no lower limit on Speed whatsoever. Even special spreads could make use of low Speed to balance out a high Special Attack stat; launching off strong ass Pixilate-boosted special moves is a valid route as seen by Sylveon's surprising rise in usage in OU.

As for an upper Speed limit, I also think this could be pretty high. I don't really want to put any limit on it, as anyone using Speed as their "one good stat" (exaggeration) will obviously need to balance the spread in other ways to achieve the concept, which I think is fine.

 

[mark6870]

8) What are some specific thresholds that let us OHKO or 2HKO specific threats with Boomburst, Hyper Voice, Fire Blast, Flare Blitz, and Extremespeed

While it doesn't answer this question specifically, these calcs may be useful:
Everything was done with an Choice Specs Neutral Nature 85 SpA Fire/Fairy Noivern.

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

When 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

Now this looks scary, and I was terrified when i was first doing the calcs, but after some discussion (and im quoting Quizel here-) "a strong mon tera'ing into its stab is gonna have really dumb calcs."
Whether or not we're a pivot, if we get a spread with bburst we're gonna be able to break. Tera allows us to pressure and potentially overwhelm our checks, but the opportunity cost is high since we're spending a 1-per game Terastalization that will not always be the correct play. As long as we dont have the stat distribution of Alakazam, we should be fine running Boomburst.

Here are the other calcs. All of them have been done with MAX EV investment, no boosting item, and a neutral nature.

Extreme Speed Calcs:

You need 39 Atk to 2HKOFlame Orb Colossoil.

You need 48 Atk to 2HKO Baxcalibur.

We need 63 Atk to 2HKO TankChomp.

We need 68 Atk to OHKO Greninja.

We need 74 Atk to 2HKO Standard Arghonaut after Leftovers.

We need 75 Atk to OHKO Meowscrada.

We need 81 Atk to 2HKO Stratagem.

We need 85 Atk to 2HKO Great Tusk after Rocks.

We need 93 Atk to OHKO Dragapult.

102 Atk 2-taps Roaring Moon after it Terastalizes into a Flying Type.

We need 103 Atk to OHKO Iron Valiant.

We need 128 Atk to 2hko Dragonite through Multiscale. If Dragonite has Terastalized, It 2hkos if Dragonite is at 99% or lower.

You need 130 Atk to OHKO Flame Orb Colossoil.

Bitter Blade Calcs:

We need 42 Atk to 2HKO Offensive Gholdengo.

You need 76 Atk to 2HKO Miasmaw.

We need 79 Atk for Bitter Blade to OHKO Drought Jumbao.

We need 83 Atk to 2HKO Kingambit.

We need 84 Atk to OHKO Meowscrada.

We need 107 Atk to 2HKO defensive Gholdengo, although I'm not so sure on how viable of a set it is in CAP.

Bitter Blade will OHKO a Steel-type Roaring Moon at 112 Atk.

You need 124 Atk to 2HKO defensive Corviknight.

You need 129 Atk to 2HKO Spdef Ting-Lu after Leftovers.

Flare Blitz Calcs:

We need 51 Atk to OHKO Meowscarada.

We need 53 Atk to 2HKO Equilibra.

We need 67 Atk to 2HKO Defensive Gholdengo.

We need 71 Atk to OHKO Caribolt.

We need 89 Atk to OHKO Offensive Gholdengo.

We need 93 Atk to 2HKO Orthworm.

We need 108 Atk to OHKO Hisuian Zoroark.

We need 123 Atk to OHKO Offensive Iron Treads.

Fire Blast Calcs:

We need 48 Spa to OHKO Meowscarada.

We need 62 Spa to 2HKO Standard Offensive Great Tusk.

We need 84 Spa to 2HKO Standard Defensive Equilibra.
(We need 224 SpA OHKO lol)

We need 110 Spa to 3HKO Spdef Venomicon.

We need 112 Spa to OHKO Kingambit and to 2HKO Miasmaw.

We need 126 Spa to 2HKO Tomohawk.

We need 127 Spa to OHKO Physdef Corviknight.

Hyper Voice Calcs:

We need 48 Spa to OHKO Iron Valiant.

We need 64 Spa to OHKO Standard Offensive Great Tusk.

We need 102 Spa to 2HKO Standard Defensive Arghonaut after Leftovers.

We need 108 Spa to OHKO Flame Orb Colossoil.

We need 114 Spa to 2HKO Physdef and Scarf Rotom Wash.

We need 118 Spa to OHKO Zoroark-H and Baxcalibur.

We need 126 Spa to OHKO Tomohawk.

Some thoughts on these calcs:
We don't need that much power. Many of the targets we threaten are 2hkoed or even OHKOd with a sub 80 attacking stat. This is not only a testament to the power of Pixilate, but it also disproves the notion that "if we go Boomburst, we'd have to neuter our Spa to the point our Fire stab is not worth Clicking." As much as an unboosted 84 Spa Fire Blast still 2hkoes fat Equilibra even after Leftovers and 62 Spa 2hkos Great Tusk. Its likely a combination of our targets being exceptionally frail in the stat we're hitting them, weak to our STABs, or a combination of both.

Of course this isn't an invitation to make an obscenely weak CAP32, but it is pretty reassuring.

9) How impactful are our remaining strong Defining Moves (Fire Lash, Strength Sap, Bitter Blade, Armor Cannon, Torch Song)

Armour Cannon is the most impactful of those on special sets (especially on Talonflame-esque special spreads), but overall much less warping than our Fairy STAB. Strength Sap has slightly more impact than 50% recovery due to it healing more and having more PP. I don't have much to say on them other than that.

 

[spoo]

I’ve held off on participating up until now as a) I haven’t had the urge or really felt it was necessary, and b) I think the TL’s voice can carry undue weight at times, but I’ve been getting the itch to post given that this is such a crucial stage. Sharing some thoughts not as the TL but just as a regular contributor who wants to see a successful CAP32.

I have seen a decent amount of fear around Tera Fairy Boomburst calcs (a little bit here, but moreso on Discord) and I am not totally sure that the fear is warranted. In general, I worry that some folks are too afraid to hit hard or create a wallbreaker that’s difficult to switch into. I’ll first say that I think we should be assuming Boots for the majority of decisions we make. Because there’s no surefire way to know whether CAP32 will prefer Specs or Boots on a special set, it’s safer to wrongly assume Boots and end up being a bit too strong than wrongly assume Specs and be stunted on our primary set. I think Specs calcs are fine to run––in fact, it’s often a good idea to look at them––but we should defer to Boots when making crucial decisions about our stat spread and limits.

I will also say that if we spend our Tera on CAP32, we should be strong––yes, even devastatingly strong. Consider Tera Water Krilowatt, Tera Iron Moth and Floatzel, CB Tera Fighting Tusk, or Tera Fire LO Jumbao: these are Pokemon which appear utterly unwallable if you only look at the calcs, but are still generally manageable facets of the metagame. Consider also Specs Lele and Kyurem (this wasn’t the set that got Kyu banned) in SS: two inordinate behemoths if you only look at the calcs, but again, both manageable.

This is because all of these mons have inherent flaws that calcs cannot show. I’ll remind us that CAP32 will almost definitely be quite frail, doesn’t have a great defensive typing, and may even be slow. Moreover, Tera is a player’s single most valuable resource each game; there are many Pokemon that are strong when Terastallized, and many more Pokemon that are situationally strong, so we need an incentive to spend this resource on CAP32 over its competition. If we are Specs (read: exploitable), Modest (read: slow), and Tera Fairy (read: a massive commitment), then yes, we should be reaching pretty outrageous benchmarks.

Moving on, I think Hyper Voice is a huge distraction. In my opinion, this concept is not about skirting the line between “average” and “above average”, using as much power as possible while still “getting away with it”, but instead about pushing our stats as low as possible while still being strong. In this sense, there is little to no reason to use Hyper Voice over Boomburst––it is actively choosing higher stats to achieve the same result. The one justification I have seen for HVoice > Boomburst is to maintain a strong Fire STAB, but I have also yet to see why this is even necessary in practice. It seems to me like people are arguing for this point just because they can. Why is having a stronger Fire STAB than Fairy STAB important for CAP32? Why is it necessary to hit harder with our Fire moves when it also means having less “bang average” stats? I need practical answers to these questions before I can support Hyper Voice in any form.

At risk of this post being too long-winded I'll wrap things up by saying I prefer physical > special > mixed, though not by huge margins. Pixilate Extreme Speed is a well-defined niche, takes pressure off of our Speed stat, and is (imo) a more unique approach than "big numbers go brr." Pixilate Boomburst probably gets away with the lowest stats, which means it arguably fits concept the best, but is not super interesting to me outside of that. Mixed is the best of both worlds in some ways but the worst of both worlds in others––namely moveset compression, needing more stats, awkward EV distribution, but ESpeed and Boomburst on the same set is nonetheless very cool.

 

[ryangregory78]

8) What are some specific thresholds that let us OHKO or 2HKO specific threats with Boomburst, Hyper Voice, Fire Blast, Flare Blitz, and Extremespeed

I probably won't be bringing anything new to the ESpeed conversation, so I'll just offer some opinions on what I've seen so far.

For ESpeed spreads, we have absolutely no reason to go any lower that base 103 Attack. Being unable to consistenyly OHKO Iron Valiant immediately takes away one of the single biggest selling points of CAP32 - the ability to pivot into Iron Valiant and threaten it out with ESpeed - so yeah, we're probably shooting ourselves in the foot if we don't it that benchmark. On the flip side, I think that base 130 Attack is a pretty solid upper limit for our purposes, letting us OHKO Bax with an Adamant nature, which, considering how easily he can just end games after a DD or two, is incredibly valuable.

As of writing this, I haven't seen anyone give stat thresholds for Flare Blitz, so I figured I'd throw some out into the ether while I have time (also with double Double-Edge calcs because it at Flare Blitz serve a similar purpose for CAP32)

- 82 Jolly OHKOs Bax w/ DE
- 89 Jolly OHKOs Ghold w/ FB
- 99 Jolly 2HKOs PhysDef Tusk w/ DE
- 108 Jolly OHKOs SpDef Argh w/ DE
- 113 Adamant OHKOs Offensive Tusk w/ DE
- 114 Adamant OHKOs Libra w/ FB, 2HKOs Washtom w/ DE
- 129 Jolly OHKOs Offensive Tusk w/ DE
- 130 Jolly OHKOs Libra w/ FB, 2HKOs Washtom w/ DE
- 131 Adamant OHKOs Kingambit w/ FB

Ok changed my mind base 131 Attack should be our upper limit. Knock out Kingambit in one foul swoop actually means we can offensive check it pretty damn well, either forcing it to Tera or removing it outright. ESpeed still does its thing against Bax and friends and FB gets the extra lush it needs to knock if one of the biggest threats in the meta. Also means that SpDef Dirge never gets 2HKOd by Tera Fairy Double Edge from full, which prevents a whole new level of bullshit that no one wants to deal with.

9) How impactful are our remaining strong Defining Moves (Fire Lash, Strength Sap, Bitter Blade, Armor Cannon, Torch Song)?

Fire Lash and Torch Song are both similar cases in which it's not the move itself that'll influence stat limits, but rather the effect of the move and how it ties in to our Fairy STAB. If FL and TS are gonna be major components of our moveset, then our stat calcs would have to accommodate for the damage from not just FL/TS, but also the subsequent Double Edge or Boomburst that will almost certainly follow it. I can't say for certain how much of an impact it will actually have, but it's still something I think we could consider in the stat stage.

I think that Bitter Blade and Strength Sap could both also be important for setting stats because both of these moves synergize very well with low HP. I was thinking about this the other day, and at least on paper, it could be a really cool direction for CAP32 to go in, not just being viable in spite of bang-average stats but using them to its advantage, as well. Bitter Blade preys on high-HP Fire-weak targets like Corv, Libra, and Bao to heal off incredible amounts of damage, and Strength Sap does funny Strength Sap things and heals you right back to full. Other than that, Bitter Blade requires higher attacking stats than Flare Blitz to compensate for much lower BP (which could admittedly be a pain in the ass) and Strength Sap is a status move, but all in all, I think these moves could have really cool applications in this project.

Armor Cannon shouldn't have too much of an impact, in the grand scheme of things. The BP isn't that much higher than Fire Blast, so all it foes is probably set stat thresholds a bit lower, which will always be useful if we're working with Boomburst on Special sets. It's definitely something to make not of, but I don't think it's anything earth-shattering.

 

[Explosion Badger]

Moving on, I think Hyper Voice is a huge distraction. In my opinion, this concept is not about skirting the line between “average” and “above average”, using as much power as possible while still “getting away with it”, but instead about pushing our stats as low as possible while still being strong. In this sense, there is little to no reason to use Hyper Voice over Boomburst––it is actively choosing higher stats to achieve the same result. The one justification I have seen for HVoice > Boomburst is to maintain a strong Fire STAB, but I have also yet to see why this is even necessary in practice. It seems to me like people are arguing for this point just because they can. Why is having a stronger Fire STAB than Fairy STAB important for CAP32? Why is it necessary to hit harder with our Fire moves when it also means having less “bang average” stats? I need practical answers to these questions before I can support Hyper Voice in any form.

There's a few things here that I want to discuss, either because I disagree with them or because of other reasons. First, I feel like the notion that the concept is about "pushing our stats as low as possible" is an unusual way to look at "Bang Average" as a concept. There are many pokemon who have been discussed who have either high stats (Breloom), stats that give the mon a decent or good BSR rating for one of the categories (Clefable), or Pokemon that have average stats overall with a high BST (Kingdra). Simply saying that we should push stats to be as low as possible implies that Bang Average means making a Pokemon with a low BST, rather than a mon with useful but unexceptional stats. Of our examples, the only pokemon who's had seriously low stats was Nidoking, who gains an insane amount of power from Sheer Force and Life Orb. To that end, I really don't agree with this idea that we should be pushing to have our stats be as low as possible.

On the topic of Boomburst, I do agree that we should be aiming to be as strong as we can be with this mon, and that a lot of the fear about boomburst seems semi extreme. Activating our Tera and making our item choice specs are two heavy opportunity costs, which while useful, makes this mon a huge teamslot sink if it needs these things to compete with the other offensive mons in the tier, even if we're just an offensive pivot. I'm also of the mind that we should be using our Fire STAB, since, without it, the typing that we chose loses a massive chunk of the offensive power that made it desirable to us. Without the Fire STAB that, mind you, was so popular that 3 of the 8 typings on the slate were Fire type, the weaknesses of our typing become much more apparent to us, such as our need for Heavy-Duty Boots. So to me, Boomburst's power needs to be shown as something truly absurd for me to believe that a power drop is needed, and considering that we need to terastalize and equip Choice Specs to 2HKO some of our main walls with 105 Special Attack, it's a bit difficult for me to believe we can go overboard with Boomburst without seriously pushing the limits of our Special Attack stat.

With Tera Fairy (105 SpA)
252 SpA Pixilate Tera Fairy Sylveon Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Venomicon: 122-144 (32.6 - 38.5%) -- 98.6% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Pixilate Tera Fairy Sylveon Boomburst vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Skeledirge: 136-161 (33 - 39.1%) -- 99.9% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Pixilate Tera Fairy Sylveon Boomburst vs. 252 HP / 64+ SpD Equilibra: 118-139 (28.9 - 34%) -- 99.2% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Pixilate Tera Fairy Sylveon Boomburst vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Assault Vest Toxapex: 78-92 (25.7 - 30.3%) -- guaranteed 4HKO

 

[bigtibba]

On the topic of Boomburst, I do agree that we should be aiming to be as strong as we can be with this mon, and that a lot of the fear about boomburst seems semi extreme. Activating our Tera and making our item choice specs are two heavy opportunity costs, which while useful, makes this mon a huge teamslot sink if it needs these things to compete with the other offensive mons in the tier, even if we're just an offensive pivot.

I'd like to preface this by listing what I think our absolute minimum special attack stat should be. A big advantage of Fire/Fairy offensive STAB is the ability to pressure steels who would otherwise generally resist our fairy STAB, so I think at minimum we should be able to 2HKO the most common steel type in the tier with a Timid nature and HDB. Using the suggested Equilibra spread, we need a minimum of 95 special attack to always 2HKO it with Fire Blast after Leftovers recovery. For reference, Noivern is banned from AAA with a special attack stat of 97.

In theory the point about the opportunity cost of specs over boots makes sense, but Noivern is also weak to rocks, yet still ran specs in AAA over boots. (before its ban) Completely different metagames, and Noivern also has a great speed tier, but there isn't a whole lot else to compare CAP 32 to. Granted, being weak to rocks is not ideal for a choice user. However, the main allure of specs to me is being able to 2HKO common Fairy resists with Terastallization. I cannot emphasize how useful turning 3HKOs into 2HKOs and 2HKOs into OHKOs is, and I'd even argue it offsets the potential 25%+ damage penalty that switching in entails, especially considering how prevalent hazard removal currently is with Equilibra and Great Tusk running around. This is without even mentioning the fact that Terastallization also removes our Stealth Rock weakness, even further incentivizing its use in my opinion. Once the opponent's fairy resist is removed from the field, CAP 32 essentially gets a free kill every time it switches in as long as it outspeeds the opponent. This could be mitigated by putting us into a lower speed tier, but I feel like lowering our speed for the sole purpose of balancing Boomburst is an ineffective way of solving the problem, and one that could potentially lead to several issues down the line. Additionally, removing powerful walls such as Venomicon or Skeledirge benefits more than just CAP 32. There are several Pokemon in the tier that are kept in check by these Pokemon, and removing these checks can sometimes flat out end the game.

Besides turning 3HKOs into 2HKOs, specs is also incentivized by the large gap in strength between STABs. As I've mentioned before, a resisted Specs Boomburst does more than a neutral Fire Blast. The move is just so much powerful than any of our other options that it doesn't really make sense to click anything else 90% of the time except when trying to catch steel type switchins. Since we're only going to be clicking one move most of the time, it makes sense to make that move as powerful as we possibly can, even if it comes at the cost of our longevity.

 

[skippergamez]

Very few calcs that haven’t been mentioned
8) What are some specific thresholds that let us OHKO or 2HKO specific threats with Boomburst, Hyper Voice, Fire Blast, Flare Blitz, and Extremespeed

More calcs for ESpeed
105 Jolly: 2HKOs Phys Wall Tomo
That’s just one ok nvm

I like 103 as the lower limit

9) How impactful are our remaining strong Defining Moves (Fire Lash, Strength Sap, Bitter Blade, Armor Cannon, Torch Song)?

I’m doing Bitter Blade here

109 Adamant: Can OHKO Libra
124 Jolly: Has a 6.3% to OHKO 4 Def Equilibra
135 Jolly: 2HKOes Corviknight

 

[quziel]

Ok, so I've been working on generating a very, very, very long list of calcs with all permutations on specs, band, and tera (on both sides) present to get some limits for Sweepiness.


=======================================
Offenses:

For Physical Sweepiness I primarily focused on Extreme-Speed; its the move that defines us most, and is where we need to focus the most power. One calc in particular was the ability to 2HKO a tera'd Volcarona with Adamant Extremespeed; this places us at 110 attack. This, to me, implies that we probably don't want a speed stat that forces adamant, so I stuck this at 86 speed. Combined this gives a Physical Sweepiness limit of 105. An additional parameter I wanted to set was a hard limit on Attack to prevent 30 speed 140 attack spreads. I put this at 125 Attack to allow spreads maxed out on physical power to OHKO Zoroark-Hisui, but nothing more.

For Special Sweepiness I first focused on Boomburst, as I think its the most contentious. Of particular interest is the Tera Fairy Specs matchup against Toxapex. In this case I wanted to ensure that you'd have to sacrifice significant speed to get a 2HKO vs it with all things in your favor. You need 100 SpA to 2HKO pex with Rocks, Tera Fairy, and Specs. 99 SpA and 88 Speed then serve as a good limit; This ensures you can't begin to 2HKO Pex without getting up more hazards or dropping to modest, and sets a limit of 100 SS. I should also note that spending Specs, Tera Fairy, and ensuring Rocks have to be up is indeed a fair bit of a team's value. I intend to also place a hefty BSR limit on Boomburst in the future, as I think if you're getting these nutty numbers, you likely shouldn't be bulky at all.

Next I focused on Hyper Voice spreads, which, to me, were really defined by the limits on Fire Blast rather than Hyper Voice itself, as Fire Blast is just a tad stronger. I wanted us to be able to OHKO Kingambit all the time with a Timid Nature (vs 112 HP), and have reasonable speed. As such, 112 SpA, and parking just above Garchomp at 103 Speed translates to 123 Special Sweepiness.

You may notice that the SS limit for Boomburst spreads is incredibly close to the PS limit of physical sets. There's two reasons for this; It is my belief that physical sets are somewhat insensitive to speed stats, as compared to special sets. This isn't to say that they don't care about speed, but just look at how good of a cleaner Kingambit is as base 50 speed, but also do note that PS is generally 3 points lower than SS across the board. 100/100 translates to 107 PS and 110 SS.


=======================================

Summary:
Boomburst: 100 SS
Hvoice: 123 SS
Physical: 105 PS + ceiling at 125 Attack

Discussion points:
1) Are the limits sufficient in all cases
2) Is a ceiling at 125 attack correct? I could be persuaded to raise it to 130, but at a certain point you do begin to diverge from "Bang Average" aesthetics

Calcs:
99 SpA: 252 SpA Choice Specs Pixilate Tera Fairy CAP 32 Boomburst vs. 248 HP / 8 SpD Assault Vest Toxapex: 112-132 (36.9 - 43.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Stealth Rock
112 SpA: 252 SpA Choice Specs CAP 32 Fire Blast vs. 112 HP / 0 SpD Kingambit: 372-438 (100.8 - 118.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO

125 Attack: 252+ Atk Pixilate CAP 32 Extreme Speed vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Zoroark-Hisui: 252-297 (100.3 - 118.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
110 Attack: 252+ Atk Pixilate CAP 32 Extreme Speed vs. 248 HP / 108 Def Tera Grass Volcarona: 187-222 (50.1 - 59.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

I'd also encourage folks to play around with the limits as given to see what's possible. I have a huge list of calcs, but its not formatted perfectly, so I'll not be releasing it yet. There's a lot of room to go a lot stronger than the calcs given, but also a lot of room to go a lot faster. We'll begin to rein these in when we begin with bulk and BSR calcs. I think there's a bit of room to lower these or even raise these numbers as is though.

=======================================
Defenses:

3) What are some moves that we should not be surviving at all?
4) What are some moves that should require us to be riding the limits of bulk to survive?
5) What are some moves that should be relatively easy for us to survive?

 

[Brown4Sides]

3) What are some moves that we should not be surviving at all?

Great Tusk's Headlong Rush/Earthquake, Iron Moth's Sludge Wave, Greninja's Hydro Pump, Garchomp's Earthquake, Stratagem's Meteor Beam/Paleo Wave, Colossoil's Headlong Rush.

4) What are some moves that should require us to be riding the limits of bulk to survive?

Jumbao's Solar Beam is actually a rather strong move that has the potential to 2HKO us if we are frail enough, I've already done some calcs here. In general I would say unboosted non-STAB SE coverage is something we could maybe try to not get OHKO'd by, though this isn't extremely necessary IMO.

5) What are some moves that should be relatively easy for us to survive?

I'm honestly not sure if there's anything that meets this description. In C&C Jumbao was the only thing listed as a switch-in, but even that doesn't take Solar Beam all too well if we are frail enough.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

1) Are the limits sufficient in all cases

Boomburst: This is perfect where it is right now.

Hyper Voice: I would like to advocate raising the limit to 125. 125 SS raises the speed limit for 112 Special Attack from 103 to 106, which notably adds Adamant Roaring Moon to the list of things we can outspeed while also allowing us to tie with Caribolt. These are pretty huge benchmarks for us, as both of these matchups (Especially Roaring Moon) are very reliant on who goes first. I don't think we should go any higher though, since I don't think we should really be able to pivot out of Iron Moth freely, and there aren't really any relevant benchmarks between 106 and 110 speed.

Physical: No complaints in regards to the PS limits. As for the Attack limit, I do have some issues with it but I will save it for the response to the next question.

2) Is a ceiling at 125 attack correct? I could be persuaded to raise it to 130, but at a certain point you do begin to diverge from "Bang Average" aesthetics

I think that raising the Attack Limit to 130 Attack has a fair amount of merit, since there is a lot of value that can be gained by having the ability to OHKO Baxcalibur (Especially since it's likely to not be behind a Substitute anymore) but we should not go any higher than that. Extreme Speed is an incredibly strong move that can very easily get out of hand so we really should not be adding any more power than what is really nessecery for this process.

Will answer 3-5 later

 

[bigtibba]

Is a ceiling at 125 attack correct? I could be persuaded to raise it to 130, but at a certain point you do begin to diverge from "Bang Average" aesthetics

125 attack might have been excellent a few generations ago, but now it's actually below average for OU physical attackers surprisingly. I guess it all depends on how we define "average," but I'd definitely say that 130 attack is enough. Breloom, a prime example of a "bang average" Pokemon, has the same attack stat as well. The best argument against 130 attack in my opinion is that it would be too strong, not that it isn't average enough. If we want CAP 32 to keep up with the big boys and not fade out into irrelevancy, we should give it a physical attack stat thats enough for it to compete with them, especially since this may be the only stat we really care about.

There is certainly a point however where E-Speed goes from forcing switches to forcing sacks. Perhaps the most relevant example of how devastating strong priority can be is the dominance of Kingambit in OU. Sucker Punch and E-Speed hit functionally the same after a few Supreme Overlord boosts. Additionally, unlike Sucker Punch, E-Speed cannot be outplayed with moves such as Substitute. However, Kingambit also has access to Swords Dance, which we do not. Without Swords Dance, I think Kingambit would still be a threat in OU, but not nearly as prevalent as it currently is. This is the path I think fits CAP 32 the best. I think 130 attack is the sweet spot between being able to pressure the Pokemon we are supposed to pressure without overwhelming our checks.

Questions 3-5 are a bit tricky to answer atm. I may come back and answer them later when I have more time. Tentatively, though, with investment I would like to survive Equilibra EP from full.

 

[memesketch]

What are some moves that should require us to be riding the limits of bulk to survive?

Especially if we opt for a physically inclined spread with Espeed, which would allow us to allot more of our stats into our bulk, we should keep some common interactions against offensive mons we'd like to check with this set in mind. Things like Baxcalibur's Earthquake, +1 Tera Normal Dnite's Espeed, two Moonblasts from Specs Valiant, Tera Ghost Shadow Ball from Pult, and Kingambit's Iron Head with 3+ Supreme Overlord boosts are all crucial calcs that are doable within reason with our stat margins, and living these hits would give us the ability to switch into and pressure these Pokemon if we need to. I'd argue that our defensive stats should give us the flexibility to survive such hits with investment, giving us just enough of a defensive presence to work as a proper pivot against offensive builds and have a more convincing presence against them if we choose to expend the resources to do so.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

3) What are some moves that we should not be surviving at all?

We should not be taking super-effective STAB hits from strong attackers, full stop. If we are surviving shit like Hydro Pump from Specs Greninja or Headlong Rush from Great Tusk, we are not bang average.

Outside of that, we should also be 2HKOd by Surf/Sludge Bomb from AV Toxapex (We don't need to be OHKOd by it, and in fact I would rather not, but we should pretty much always be in a position where we lose this matchup w/o coverage).

4) What are some moves that should require us to be riding the limits of bulk to survive?

I think there is quite a bit of merit in allowing us to survive Earth Power from Equilibra (Since being a Fairy-type that wins the 1v1 against it is really good right now), but doing this should very much be skirting the line on what's allowed. 90/93 is the calc I got for being able to survive Earth Power from the standard Equilibra spread, which translates to 101.40 ST. This is a fairly high amount of special bulk on an offensive Pokemon all things considered, and while I do think it would be in the budget to go maybe a couple points higher than this, I think that once we go higher than 105 ST we are starting to call into question whether or not our bulk still constitues our status of being bang average.

On the physical side, I like the idea of surviving Earthquake from Defensive Great Tusk to help out slower Hyper Voice spreads. However, this once again takes a fair amount of physical bulk to do. 90/101 is the spread I got for being able to get this calc, which gives me 108.72 PT. I think that this should be placed right on the line of what's allowed for the project, as it already sort of stretches what can be considered bang average to begin with.

5) What are some moves that should be relatively easy for us to survive?

Jumbao should not be able to 2HKO us (At least not without Life Orb), period. Thankfully, this really doesn't require a whole lot of bulk for us to accomplish. 75/74 Special Bulk is sufficent enough to prevent us from being 2HKOd by anything Jumbao has to throw at us, which translates to 76.55 ST.

 

[quziel]

I am updating the SS limit for Hyper Voice to 125. If you stick with being able to OHKO Kingambit with Fire Blast, this translates to a change from 103 to 106 speed.

======================================

I'd like to thank DPM for some examples of reach cases and also safe cases.

I've stolen those entirely to determine our upper limits for PT and ST:

Initial PT Limit: 109
Initial ST Limit: 102

As said before, these are the amount of bulk you need to live Great Tusk EQ with zero investment and Equilibra with zero investment on our parts. I think these attacks from defensive ground types are good "reaches", and notably prevent us from being able to tank offensive Grounds well. Headlong Rush from Great Tusk does 120 minimum to us, and you need to spend a fair bit more than 252 EVs to even have a roll to live it. This also means that even if we Tera we are still facing an easy 2HKO.

0 Atk Great Tusk Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def CAP 32: 270-320 (84.1 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
36 SpA Equilibra Earth Power vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD CAP 32: 270-320 (84.1 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

With that I'd like to move onto BSR limits. I first focused on Espeed, as I felt it was very important to set the BSR limits there appropriately. I wanted us to be able to max out PS, and also survive the following calcs:

+2 252+ Atk Supreme Overlord 5 allies fainted Kingambit Sucker Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def CAP 32: 271-320 (84.4 - 99.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Tera Fire Jumbao Tera Blast vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD CAP 32 in Sun: 135-159 (42 - 49.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Assuming that we have zero investment, and also zero chip damage. This feels like the minimum we need to really actualize our typing defensively, and translate to 76.82 and 76.19 PT and ST respectively. Given maxed out PS, and those PT and ST values, we come to a total BSR of 466.49. With that I'd like to propose a BSR limit of 467 for purely physical spreads.

Physical Parameters:
BSR <= 467
PS <= 106
PT <= 109
ST <= 102

=============================================

With that I'd like to propose a few questions:
1) Hyper Voice spreads require a significantly higher BSR than Extreme-speed focused spreads; is a separate BSR cap depending on spread focus appropriate?
2) Should I simply give Boomburst a BSR reduction according to the difference in SS between the two spreads (this would be -57 BSR due to how stuff works out). Is forcing Boomburst to be slower enough? Should we also try to dig into its bulk?
3) I am inclined to give mixed spreads a bit more leeway; is allowing mixed spreads to treat their lower attacking stat at 0 functional? How much extra strength is running mixed attacking here?
4) Are the above BSR, PT, and ST limits appropriate?

As I've implied before, please cite changes in BSR using references from the BSR calc.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

1) Hyper Voice spreads require a significantly higher BSR than Extreme-speed focused spreads; is a separate BSR cap depending on spread focus appropriate?

Given that Hyper Voice is considerably less impactful than Extreme Speed, I think that having a seperate (and higher) BSR limit for special spreads is fairly jusitified. If we take the Kingambit Calc with 106 Speed, and we hold Special to the same standards of bulk that we do physical, we end up with 505.18 BSR, suggesting that the limit should be set to 506 BSR. Part of me thinks that this is a bit too high, but I can't think of any alternatives that don't result in dropping the limit by almost 20 points, so for now I'm not going to contest setting this as the limit.

2) Should I simply give Boomburst a BSR reduction according to the difference in SS between the two spreads (this would be -57 BSR due to how stuff works out). Is forcing Boomburst to be slower enough? Should we also try to dig into its bulk?

-57 BSR is already a fairly huge penalty for us to be taking as it is, so I think just forcing us to be slower/weaker would be enough to balance out Boomburst spreads.

If we deem that digging at bulk is desirable though, we could increase the penalty from -57 to -76. I came to this number by removing Special Bulk to the point where it just barely has enough to avoid getting 2HKOed by Moonblast from Jumbao, which gave me 90/48 Special Bulk, or 60.88 ST. This dropped the overall BSR from 448.08 to 429.85, and rounding them up 449 - 430 = 19 + 57 = 76. Once again, I don't really think this is nessecery, but I figured I would bring this option up just in case the conseus is that we do need to tackle bulk.

4) Are the above BSR, PT, and ST limits appropriate?

I'm fine with the proposed limits. At first I was a bit uneasy about the BSR Limit, but after messing around with some stuff I've come to warm up on them.

I'll leave Question 3 for later since that requires a bit more work on my part. I just wanted to get this out since none of the new questions have really been discussed at all.