CAP 30 - Part 9 - Stat Limits Discussion

[quziel]

Yo

1)
Physical is cooler because relying on Hurricane would require us to buff our Def/SpD majorly to insulate ourselves from the risk of missing. Brave Bird is 100% accurate and allows for frailer builds to excel. Basically if we rely on Hurricane as our main stab, the mon has to be viable when missing Hurricane, which means that it needs to be insulated from the risk of not connecting. That said, Special is very valid.

3)
There's arguments for both sides, but given that we have Thunder Wave as a defining move, and that using TWave lets us wallbreak without needing overwhelming power, I think being able to use both sides of its effect would be very nice. This is my way of arguing that our speed should be good at most. Roughly speaking, I'd like us to be a hair over 270 when running a +speed nature, aka 74 base speed.

4)
Keeping the same HP stat gives more verisimilitude, so I'm for it. While it does allow less freedom w.r.t. bpress/bbird, we can work around that and I see no reason to break precedent.

 

[Pipotchi]

1. What should our offensive bias be?

2. Tinted Lens makes balancing 30i's offensive stats very delicate, as we don't want it to be able to burst through its potential checks and counters. How can we achieve this?

I think it should be specially offensive. What we should be doing is making a mon that utilises Tinted Lens. in this case, that means targeting steel types- thats the type that we couldnt hit neutrally without this ability. The common steel types that arent flying-neutral in the tier: are all heavily physical-leaning apart from heatran. Attacking them on the special side gets 2hkos before tinted lens starts 2hkoing the entire meta.
Also, lets look at the real spammable move of the special attacker: Sludge Bomb. Steel types for the most part should not be switching in, and are getting beaten 1v1 afterwards if they dare to, meanwhile something like doesnt want to be taking a Hurricane or even Air Slash on a predicted switch. This makes Sludge Bomb way more spammable than on other poison types, as immunities can still lose after their prediction, and resists are getting hit for neutral (and therefore near your max dmg output anyway). A mostly neutral Sludge Bomb spreading poison makes sense with "Utility Wallbreaker", and also hits hard paired with the item for effectively 118BP. The point of this is to show that the mon can succeed without living or dying by Hurricanes accuracy (which is also massively overplayed imo- its a fine move). Its comparable to Kerfluffle, which sometimes holds Focus Blast but likes to spam Moonblast.

are great switchins to all special routes and offer hard counters that allow numbers to be ramped up a lot higher than the physical side, if wanted. Alternatively it works well with a spread with a lower dmg output but fast- there are a lot of successful routes for special attacker imo.

The solution to the physical 30i seems to be to switch in common steel types, unless it has additional moves to get around them. To me, both of these situations are a concept flop, since these moves allow you to win vs those mons without tinted lens also, as we should be using Tinted Lens. Some examples of this would be fire coverage or taunt. On the other hand, it can be powerful enough to break through every physically defensive steel, and also the rest of the metagame, ohko all offensive switchins with Brave Bird and basically rely on recoil and lando-t sacrifices to stop it. Which imo sounds obviously bad. It starts to do this around 120 atk. I wouldnt consider it similar to a mon like Zapdos-G which can do similar, thanks to 30i having a better defensive typing, recovery, no clear switchins like Tapu Koko or Zapdos, and no need for prediction against Steels, Ghosts etc.


Also, I believe it should have the same hp between forms, like Giratina.

 

[dex]

1. What should our offensive bias be?
I think physical is the way to go here. Getting 30i in is most likely going to be a struggle given its rock weakness, so I think having the consistent damage of Brave Bird is preferential over Hurricane's lack of recoil.

2. Tinted Lens makes balancing 30i's offensive stats very delicate, as we don't want it to be able to burst through its potential checks and counters. How can we achieve this?
We simply should not be outright breaking through certain mons. As listed in the Checks and Counters section, Skarmory, Slowbro, and Toxapex should not be able to be 2HKOed cleanly. I also think that Corviknight should not be 2HKOed without Stealth Rock, as while it cannot touch 30i, it can pressure stall and slow U-turn.

3. A huge part of 30i's identity is utility. Should we go for a fast or slow 30i?
I think there is merit to both, but too slow a Speed runs the risk of 30i being easily taken advantage of. There's going to be a precarious balance between Speed and Attack, but there is a wide range of Speeds that will probably work. As an upper bound, I would say Syclant should outspeed 30i (or at least Weavile). As a lower bound, while I think there is some good in slower Speed stats, outspeeding Kyurem and Specs Lele is pretty huge (This would be base 96). I do see some value in outspeeding mons that reach the 270 mark, though I think this is preferential if using an Attack boosting nature. This would result in the following Speed boundaries: 86 < 30i Speed < 121.

4. Should the HP between the two formes be the same, considering there is precedent in most forme changes and especially so on the Pokemon we're based on, Giratina and it's Origin forme?
I don't think it's wholly necessary to keep the HP the same, but I don't actually see the biggest problem with doing so. HP is the only stat that really doesn't have too much of an impact on a mon unless it is very high or very low, and any bulk balancing concerns can probably be ironed out with the other defensive stats, given that we are going to have a dump stat of either Attack or Special Attack. Therefore, I think that keeping the HP stat the same is totally fine, and I am for it.

 

[snake]

1. What should our offensive bias be?

I think our offensive bias should be physical. While Poison-type moves are highly effective moves we can run due to their Poison chance, the fact that Flying-type moves don't have any immunities means that they're just more spammable. For example, since getting Tinted Lens in Gen 5, Venomoth has run Bug Buzz as its primary STAB because it doesn't have immunities. I think that CAP30i should be able to deny Steel-types in the same way.

Brave Bird, while it does induce recoil damage, is 100% accurate, making CAP30i consistent at dishing out damage, as opposed to having to rely on Hurricane. Why Nasty Plot Tornadus-T is considered its "weakest" set is in part to how inconsistent it is. In fact, some utility variants of Tornadus-T drop Hurricane for Heat Wave, which is just more consistent. While not a perfect corollary to CAP30i, CAP30i will actually want to make the most of its turns on the field, so giving it access to a 100% accurate Flying-type STAB is setting it up for success.

If we want to go all in on Tinted Lens, CAP30i should have a 100% accurate Flying-type STAB that doesn't have resistances, and going physical accomplishes this.

All that said, I think going physical has some good built-in balancing factors, including having to deal with Brave Bird recoil damage, burns, and contact-punishing abilities/items. I really enjoy the idea of CAP30i being terrifying to face at high health but then being more vulnerable at low health. While it's important to make sure that this Pokemon has counterplay, my hope is that we're comfortable with CAP30i being able to dish out very heavy hits - because that's what a Tinted Lens wallbreaker should do.

 

[MrDollSteak]

1. What should our offensive bias be?

As others have eloquently stated, I think that we should absolutely lean physical as a result of having access to a more consistent and powerful STAB option in Brave Bird. Tinted Lens makes our Flying coverage hit everything bar Magnezone neutrally, and as a result is highly spammable, something that should be considered pro-concept. Furthermore, by being a 100% accuracy move, Brave Bird is something that both the user and opponent can plan around more effectively. While this makes the move more powerful, it does also give us as a community more ability to balance 30i, as we do not have to rely on a 30% chance to provide counterplay.

2. Tinted Lens makes balancing 30i's offensive stats very delicate, as we don't want it to be able to burst through its potential checks and counters. How can we achieve this?

As mentioned above, I think the key to balancing Tinted Lens is ensuring that we understand the consistency and power of the Pokemon. I think that so long as our calcs are dependent on 100% accuracy moves, we will be able to appropriately measure how we want the Pokemon to perform, as it will do its job 100% of the time. Furthermore, I think that it is important to note that there is already far more significant counterplay and balancing checks for physical attackers. Firstly, Brave Bird will often force high amounts of recoil back onto us impacting on our longevity. We are forced to run an offensive item meaning that we will be impacted quite significantly by Stealth Rock. We will be able to be hit with Intimidate drops (it is worth pointing out that the main Intimidate user in the metagame at the moment doesn't particularly threaten us, but it can still be brought in to stop a "sweep"), and Rocky Helmet, Iron Barbs and Rough Skin chip. We are also very vulnerable to burns which will likely be common as quite a few of the bulky waters such as Toxapex and Tapu Fini aren't likely to be immediately dismantled. With this in mind, I don't think we need to be as scared of giving 30i a high raw attack stat, as being able to solidly 2HKO most Pokemon in the metagame on paper isn't always going to work out as well as expected due to the general obstacles to physical attackers in the metagame.

3. A huge part of 30i's identity is utility. Should we go for a fast or slow 30i?

I think there's merits to both approaches, but I personally think as far as balancing goes, we should be aiming to be fast and fairly frail, so that the main counterplay to the mon is from offensive checks. This is consistent with our role as wallbreaker, as we should be aiming to exploit walls, and fold to more offensive threats. I agree with Dex that somewhere in the 86-121 range is ideal. We should absolutely be outsped by Weavile at the very least.

4. Should the HP between the two formes be the same, considering there is precedent in most forme changes and especially so on the Pokemon we're based on, Giratina and it's Origin forme?

While I don't think it's exactly necessary to do so as we're not beholden to in-game logic, and it's clear that shared HP is primarily to do with out-of-battle healing options, I still think it would be preferable to maintain this feature. While this does cause some minor issues in designing spreads as 30i will likely want a higher raw HP number to minimise Brave Bird recoil, and 30b will likely prefer a higher raw Defense stat to maximise Body Press damage, I don't think it's an unreasonable limitation, and in fact, inspires further creativity.

 

[Da Pizza Man]

What should our offensive bias be?

Physical is definitely the way to go here. As many people in both the thread and on Discord have already mentioned, Brave Bird is a far more reliable source of dealing damage than Hurricane, and given our role as a wallbreaker, we should generally strive to be as consistent as possible. Furthermore, relying on Brave Bird creates an interesting dynamic where the constant recoil in combination with our weakness to Stealth Rock gives us an inherent weakness of being very easy to wear down, which I think gives us more room in the design process to go with more powerful spreads using this inherent weakness as an interesting balancing factor. Furthermore, given that we have already determined that CAP 30b is going to be a special attacker, making 30i a physical attacker means that, depending on our stat spreads, we can give a coverage move to 30b that we don't want to have 30i using and vise-versa.

Tinted Lens makes balancing 30i's offensive stats very delicate, as we don't want it to be able to burst through its potential checks and counters. How can we achieve this?

As I mentioned earlier, having a reliance on using Brave Bird as our main source of power gives us an inherent downside of being very easy to wear down, and while that does give us a bit more freedom to explore more powerful attacking stats, there are obviously still mons that we want to answer even taking this into account. I think the best way to accomplish this would simply to just make sure that we avoid critical 2HKOs to the bigger physical tanks in the tier such as , , and .

A huge part of 30i's identity is utility. Should we go for a fast or slow 30i?

I'm really not seeing any reason we should go for a slow 30i. Like dex has already said, being too slow means that we run the risk of being able to be taken advantage of by faster offensive threats, and while I don't want us to have blazing fast speed either, having fast speed in my opinion is critical to being able to provide utility throughout the match while still being able to perform the role of a fast wallbreaker. We should still be outspeed by threats such as , , and though, and I feel that we should also be rather frail stat wise so that we can provide ourselves. Furthermore, I feel that making ourselves bulky sort of creates some competition between the two forms in that they are both sort of trying to do the same thing (Take hits and deal damage), and I think that we should try to make these two forms as different as possible to more thoroughly explore this framework.

Should the HP between the two formes be the same, considering there is precedent in most forme changes and especially so on the Pokemon we're based on, Giratina and it's Origin forme?

I think we should have the freedom of choosing our own HP and that it shouldn't be the same for both forms, mostly because I feel that it would be important for determining how we want to handle Body Press across the two different forms (Having a High HP Stat but a low Def stat but equivalent bulk with a Low HP Stat and a high Def stat means absolutely nothing for how capable we are of taking hits, so we can be less concerned on that front, but it's absolutely critical to determining how effective of a move Body Press is going to be).

As for the flavor arguments, we already have a few Pokemon that change HP between their forms ( ) so saying that keeping our HP the same would respect precedence isn't really true. Besides, don't we sort of break precedence all the time within this project? I mean we have things such as whose concept revolves around a Mythical Pokemon's Signature Move, and we often give signature abilities out as well ( is the only CAP we did this generation that doesn't have an ability that is a signature one in fact). Besides, I think it's kinda silly to be focusing on these things in a competitive stage of the process anyways, as that sort of goes against our modus operandi.

 

[Zetalz]

As promised, da rest

1. What should our offensive bias be?
No diverging opinion from the masses here, I too am part of the cult of Brave Bird Murder Machine founded by lord snake. Other users have really said all that needs to be said, balancing factors of physical are just much more pleasant to work. (Also every Tinted Lens mon that actually exists is special, so there's a bit more novelty for those who enjoy that kind of thing)

2. Tinted Lens makes balancing 30i's offensive stats very delicate, as we don't want it to be able to burst through its potential checks and counters. How can we achieve this?
Generally of the same mind as others that there's already a slew of factors at play for 30i. I don't think we need to be terribly scared (but still a lil scared) of letting 30i break a majority of things in the tier. Realistically I think if 30i doesn't 2hko a lot of things it will struggle to find use. With that in mind I think there should perhaps be an emphasis on restricting 30i so that it can't reliably 2hko some of it's fatter checks ( ), and making sure it can never 2hko . There is also something to be said for letting it not get clean OHKOs on some of the more threatening steels that can punish it back like

3. A huge part of 30i's identity is utility. Should we go for a fast or slow 30i?
There is value to both directions when it comes to speed, I've been of the mind that a more average CAP speed tier (the cursed 90 something) gives 30i plenty of room for wallbreaking while maintaining offensive counterplay. The higher speed range presented by dex does have a lot of value though if you fancy a better mu vs things like & so I'll just agree that we should be flexible in this regard.


I talked about question 4 in my last post already post so I'll just put a little addendum to it here since I don't think I adequately communicated my feelings about it. I'm definitely not against doing same HP as whole, I just feel it shouldn't be a requirement. Unless I'm missing an obvious flaw with letting people design spreads as they will, I think it's fine to let users have choice in the matter.

 

[ultramafia]

1. What should our offensive bias be?

Personally I prefer physical. Part of the appeal with Tinted Lens is its ability to make very consistent offensive progress using a single moveslot, and Hurricane's poor accuracy just feels like it works against this. Physical also has more counterplay via contact punishment, burns, and Intimidate. That said, there are some benefits to going special. In particular, the amount of SpA needed to break through Blissey and Slowking-G is so high that we don't have much risk of the scenario posed in question 2 occuring.

2. Tinted Lens makes balancing 30i's offensive stats very delicate, as we don't want it to be able to burst through its potential checks and counters. How can we achieve this?

There's a few ways we can achieve this, depending on whether or not we have access to boosting moves.

If we forgo boosting moves then we can simply make our Atk/SpA too low to easily break through our counters. Personally I wouldn't mind it if 30i could break through some of its counters (most likely Pex) with hazards up and an Adamant/Modest nature, so long as running the neutral speed nature had a meaningful impact on 30i's speed tier. That's about the upper limit though. With this route it should be fine to have above-average speed by breaker standards (base 100-120 range), although a slower/harder hitting spread could work too.

If we have boosting moves, then we want to fall well short of 2hkoing our counters prior to boosting, but we probably want to 2hko them after boosting (otherwise what's the point in setting up). If we go this route we probably want to be a bit slower than average by breaker standards (something below 95), this expands the number of pokemon on the Pressures list that can act as checks to stop a boosted 30i from clearing through the opposing team (we're stilling aiming for a breaker not a sweeper after all).

3. A huge part of 30i's identity is utility. Should we go for a fast or slow 30i?

As discussed in the question above, I think it depends on whether or not we give 30i boosting moves. With boosting I prefer something below base 95, without boosting I like something in the 100-120 range, although slower could still work (especially if used in conjuction with Thunder Wave).

Going faster has the benefit of fewer pokemon forcing 30i out, which may give more opportunities to use utility moves. However if going slower means a bulkier 30i, then that will also open up more opportunites to use utility. The latter option does feel like it risks overlapping too much with 30b however.

4. Should the HP between the two formes be the same, considering there is precedent in most forme changes and especially so on the Pokemon we're based on, Giratina and it's Origin forme?

There's definitely some conflict between the two formes regarding the optimal HP, but I don't think it's that bad that we should give the two different HP stats. On a purely flavour note, it would also just feel weird giving the Stamina tank forme less HP than the Tinted Lens wallbreaker form.

 

[Astra]

Small post here because it's past midnight and I have to wake up in less than 7 hours.

1. What should our offensive bias be?

I agree with most of the posts so far that we should lean towards making 30i a physical attacker for pretty much the same reasons: Brave Bird is a more consistent move compared to Hurricane, so we don't need to compensate 30i in other aspects if we make it a special attacker, and, as a balance for Brave Bird being such a spammable move, the different types of chip damage it would experience throughout a match like Stealth Rock and contact damage allows for more strategical play by the 30i user and more counterplay for their opponent.

The only other thing that I would like to add is that I would prefer that we make 30i unable to run mixed sets to close to equal success as whatever standard set it may run because with the low number of its projected counters for both a physical and special approach, it could be fairly easy to wear them down with a mixed set, no matter what offensive bias 30i has. It's hard for me to put in words, but to put it simply, I'd prefer that we try to prevent 30i from being able to effectively run a mixed set and try not to entertain the thought of it.

2. Tinted Lens makes balancing 30i's offensive stats very delicate, as we don't want it to be able to burst through its potential checks and counters. How can we achieve this?

Most of the posts here already address my thoughts on the matter, which including making sure 30i won't be able to easily break through its proposed counters and finding balance between its offensive stats and Tinted Lens. Making sure that the 30i user has to actually be cautious of keeping 30i healthy with the recoil and chip damage it will experience also should be a thought when trying to achieve this goal.

3. A huge part of 30i's identity is utility. Should we go for a fast or slow 30i?

This honestly can kind of tie in to the previous question. The list of proposed checks to 30i all have very high Speed stats, so it would obviously be ideal to give 30i a lower Speed stat than them. For example, having a base Speed stat higher or lower than 95 would make the difference in whether or not Kyurem would be able to outspeed and (most likely) OHKO 30i. I know the question was more so targeting 30i's potential utility, but I feel like the point is still important to stress.

4. Should the HP between the two formes be the same, considering there is precedent in most forme changes and especially so on the Pokemon we're based on, Giratina and it's Origin forme?

I personally don't really care. Aesthetic-wise, having both formes share the same HP stat would be nice, but it would be fine by me to not restrict it as such if it would make the submissions portion of this stage more difficult otherwise.

 

[boo836]

1. What should our offensive bias be?

Physical, with no mix split. I'm not committed to that though.

2. Tinted Lens makes balancing 30i's offensive stats very delicate, as we don't want it to be able to burst through its potential checks and counters. How can we achieve this?

We did that when we said we would not give CAP30 any real boosting moves. After that point, calculating the base stat is just a matter of looking at Threat discussion and calculating 120 item-boosted STAB moves off of the listed threats.

3. A huge part of 30i's identity is utility. Should we go for a fast or slow 30i?

Average to below average. My ideal range would be anywhere from 56-85, always outspeeding Blissey at slowest. Part of that's because the community opted to go for generic and nonvolatile status on a wallbreaker. It'll give us options for stuff like TR and Parting Shot down the line when the community figures out that CAP30 needs one hell of a lot more utility options. Thunder Wave is a defining move, and a lower speed stat allows 30i to lean into the move with an optimised stat spread. However, Taunt is the other status move to look at, one that's pretty important for wallbreaking. Most walls do not invest in speed, so we may find that having an average speed could allow 30i to stay ahead of walls it is supposed to break.

4. Should the HP between the two formes be the same, considering there is precedent in most forme changes and especially so on the Pokemon we're based on, Giratina and it's Origin forme?

Yes, there's been a consistent rule that species have a certain amount (or maybe range is more accurate) of HP, something that only changed with Dynamax. I will also make the argument that the HP should be high, in accordance with my previous argument for 30b.

 

[Amamama]

All that said, I think going physical has some good built-in balancing factors, including having to deal with Brave Bird recoil damage, burns, and contact-punishing abilities/items. I really enjoy the idea of CAP30i being terrifying to face at high health but then being more vulnerable at low health.

I don't think we need to be as scared of giving 30i a high raw attack stat, as being able to solidly 2HKO most Pokemon in the metagame on paper isn't always going to work out as well as expected due to the general obstacles to physical attackers in the metagame.

As listed in the Checks and Counters section, Skarmory, Slowbro, and Toxapex should not be able to be 2HKOed cleanly. I also think that Corviknight should not be 2HKOed without Stealth Rock

I think, that Snake and MDS are right in saying, that we should not be scared of giving 30i a lot of raw power, if we’re going to lean physical.
Brave Bird recoil, Contact abilities, Helmet, Burn and Stealthrock all pose a serious threat to 30is health and intimidate and burn are able to cripple 30i to a point, where it will not be able to reliably break its checks.
I do think physical is the way to go and these interactions are the reason why.
I also believe, that these are the reasons we should allow the capacity to 2hko any physical wall in the tier with the aid of hazards or 30is own utility.
I don’t think, that any mon should be able to face it regardless of these measures.

I see the fear of 30i being able to break the meta with brave bird alone.
I don’t share this fear, bc if we only were to give 30i Brave Bird and no other move, really nothing, it might be able to kill Pex or even Skarm etc. with enough power, but it also would die itself over two turns, bc of recoil, stealth rock and helmet chip or be so crippled, that it would become unusable afterwards.

Factoring in their most commonly run items Skarmory, Corviknight and toxapex have the same bulk. Only slowbro excels them by a tiny margin if it’s running boots.
If we don’t beat Skarm, we will not beat Corvi unless it’s knocked (which is not too hard to achieve, but would be necessary).
If we allow Corvi to be beat with say rocks up, this means we beat all of these mons except Slowbro.

126 Atk

252+ Atk Sky Plate Tinted Lens Crobat Brave Bird vs. 248 HP / 168+ Def Corviknight: 188-222 (47.1 - 55.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery

252+ Atk Sky Plate Crobat Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 135-160 (44.4 - 52.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Sky Plate Tinted Lens Crobat Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Skarmory: 144-170 (43.1 - 50.8%) -- 97.7% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ Atk Sky Plate Crobat Brave Bird vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Slowbro: 171-202 (43.4 - 51.2%) -- 6.6% chance to 2HKO

TBH I think reaching this amount of damage would be the way to go. Allow only Slowbro as the mon that takes on 30i, if and only if it’s still holding it’s heavy duty boots and doesn’t get fully paralyzed.

Now this might seem crazy at face value. Ang mon has at least some switch ins right?
Well not any mon does:</p><p>Dragapult can break common checks with a bit of luck (Shadow ball drop) or the right nuke (Draco puts most ghost checks into a position, where they can’t reliably come in on a shadow ball afterwards). Blissey is basically the only defensive mon, that will reliably sponge any hit from special Pult and then even that just gets unturned on and abused by the switch in.
Urshifu-R Ever Switched in your Arghonaut into Shifu and wished you were running pex or bro bc Close Combat does 55%? Toxapex and Slowbro are the only defensive mons that are able to deal with Rapid Strike consistently without any risk (and I guess Jellicent and Shedinja if you are fancy).
Weavile and Garchomp are one swords dance (and one Arghonaut) away from deleting the defensive backbone of your team and if you don’t have a faster check, sweep.
Kyurem and Lele are able to go 6-0 against an unprepared team.
Specs Kyurem can blow up any of its switch ins with the right move prediction. And Lele just klicks Psychic until smth dies.

More fringe options like Specs Blacephalon and Banded Darmanitan can delete even their bulkiest switch ins with just Stabs and hazards.

252+ Atk Choice Band Sheer Force Darmanitan Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Toxapex: 118-139 (38.8 - 45.7%) -- 18.4% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252 SpA Choice Specs Blacephalon Mind Blown vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Toxapex: 150-177 (49.3 - 58.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

252+ SpA Choice Specs Blacephalon Mind Blown vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Blissey: 348-409 (48.7 - 57.2%) -- 94.1% chance to 2HKO

I used the Band Calc for Darm to show Flare Blitzes insane Power Potential, but Life Orb is probably even more threatening as it allows to switch attacks, which is closer to what 30i will be able to do.
Darm basically has anything a Wallbreaker would want, except a typing not weak to rocks and maybe more speed/bulk.
It has High base attack, High Power STAB, that even gets boosted further by its ability, high power perfect coverage, that hits a huge variety of mons super effective, the freedom to switch moves between turns so it doesn’t get punished as hard by predicting wrong a solid Speed tier for Wallbreaking and a pivoting move to yeet out of unfavorable situations.

Note how it still is only Viable on Sun teams and even there struggles to find a spot next to other absurd fire type Wallbreaker like Eruption Heatran, Victini or Blacephalon.

30I is pretty similar as a Wallbreaker.
It will run an Incredibly spammable high power STAB move, that gets boosted by its ability and item and has Free move choice, but it also has to deal with recoil and stealth rocks.

Now 30is typing offers more defensive utility, it will have better utility options and recovery, so I’m not exactly advocating for 140 Atk.
But considering, what I’ve read in the discussion so far, it seems, that the community wants a frailish, fastish mon with good but not great atk.
For comparison
Darmanitan: 105/140/55/30/55/95
With normalized bulk that’s: 74/140/74/30/74/95
Obviously, there haven’t been stats proposed yet, but from what I get from the discussion points above and on , this would look like a possible submission for 30i:
85/<120/80/x/80/120>30i>95
This is definitely stronger, than Darm, considering it’s defensive utility and probable speed tier BUT it lacks its immediate wallbreaking power and has almost the same issues with survivabilty.
Recovering will be for 30i, what hitting Heatran with Ice Beam is for Kyurem: A “lost” turn. You might say, that recovering Heath makes it not a lost turn, but a wallbreaker, that gives its walls room to breath is a huge momentum sink, regardless of its health.
Additionally it will face even more competition for a Team Slot than even Darm, bc it not only has to compete with the other “broken” Wallbreaker, which it still could be used alongside of, but with its own sibling, which to be frank will outclass 30i just bc it is going to be build much more consistent and will have the ability to bullshit it’s way through endgames, once Special attackers have been worn down.

Considering all this, I think, that we should allow stat submitters the option to create stats, that 2hko any given mon, with the aid of hazards or 30is own utility, with a fully invested positive nature Attacking stat.
I don’t think that we need to give a hard ceiling to its Attack stat, as long as the Physical sweepiness is low enough to not be able to go full Dragapult (120//142)/ Weavile (120/125) and the BSR limit set, so that it can’t be strong/fast and bulky at the same time.

Edit: I also want to shortly broach on the speed tiers discussion.
I agree, that we don’t want 30i to be super slow (unless it has Melmetal style bulk) and that outspeeding common walls should be emphasized. Buzz is probably the fastest wall we want to beat and outspeeding it, will help facing defensive sets running Ice Punch or Stone edge, that threaten to hit us SE. Uninvested this would require 80 base Speed.
I also think that our Speed is pretty open upwards and I am still not opposed to make this mon the fasted mon this side of eleki town.
Previous posts have not addressed how speed can enable or disable certain utility options.
For example Twave and Rapid Spin, become a lot more useful on Slower bulkier builds, that will gain the ability to outspeed Checks in addition to hitting hard/tanking hits.
Although having a super fast mon, that can serve as speed control bc of speed and twave is something we have seen a lot in past generations.
Taunt on the other hand is going to get better the faster 30i gets until around 130 Speed, where most mons stop running utility.
Toxic and Knock Off are probably the most Speed agnostic, but obviously knock off likes spreads with higher Attack so it still does good damage, while Toxic would be better, the bulkier 30i gets. Last but not least SD is going to become more dangerous, the faster the spread is.
For me this means, that a lot of different speed tiers are possible and would probably depend on which utility is favored and on the way we want to use our utility.

 

[quziel]

I've been told to post about this.

We should keep the PS limit for 30i fairly high under the understanding that the full limit of PS will only be reached when not running Brave Bird. Drill Peck is still one of our defining moves, and keeping the limit high enough to utilize Gunk Shot as our high power stab, with Drill as our secondary STAB will allow far more careful balancing. Being able to explicitly target eg Pex without extending that power to Skarm/Corv is a useful tool.

Aka keep PS highish, keep BSR restrained, consider explicitly dinging spreads that access full BSR using BB (maybe literally say you get 10 less BSR with BB).

 

[QxC4eva]

Hi all, just a heads up that I forgot to update the targets list in the BSR calculator, which was using the old top 50 from a few months ago. It's been fixed now. The corrected T value is 1.86611 as opposed to what it was previously (1.94534). Good thing is that it barely changes the BSR values with a difference of only about 1-2 units, but if you already have the sheet downloaded it's obviously recommended to download it again. Follow the same link as the one in the OP or BSR repository: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1J3k6r19sJlAb-rGWluUp5ehfggUkMyApXx6tcr7rR6s/edit?usp=sharing

 

[Quartiapanda]

I'd prefer both forms to be relatively slow, at least under base 100, since that would mean it'd be much harder to turn it into a broken sweeper. Tinted Lens is easy to break especially if it has access to boosting moves (which I think it should). Even if no boosting, then its primary role is still as a wallbreaker and a tank, not a sweeper.
My thoughts would be that to best use Stamina and be a useful physical wall, physical defense should be high and special defense low. We're intending this Pokemon to be somewhat of a tank in the base form, so having a good amount of longevity is important. This means that Hurricane as a primary Flying STAB move is better than Brave Bird, since Brave Bird's drawback would tend to make it weaker in defense, while Hurricane's drawback of low accuracy hurts a lot only if its defenses are poor to begin with.
For the item form, I agree with the arguments for it being primarily physical in that Brave Bird self-balances the potential brokenness of Tinted Lens because of recoil.
In summary I'd put it as high SpAtk (100 to 120) and Def (100 to 140) with moderately low SpDef (80 to 100) in the base form, with a limit of 80 to 100 speed, and for the item form, a high Atk (110 to 130), unsure about defenses, with the same speed restriction.
This would mean close to 580 BSR for the base form and the same or slightly less for the item form. Sample spread: https://imgur.com/a/Cv2yYrV

 

[Lasen]

OK after quite a bit of discussion with the rest of the TLT and seeing how discussion has died down a little bit, I'll be looking setting our preliminary limits. Because we're basically working with 2 Pokemon in tandem, I'll be setting limits for both at once. When submitting, please remember that the two formes should have equal BST - the other stats do not need to match between formes. If you're unfamiliar with how the limits work and what each thing on them means, please use this calc to get a better understanding and follow this step of the process.
So without further ado, here are the limits for 30b:
PS: 90
SS: 120
PT: 130
ST: 120
BSR: 525
PT+ST cannot exceed 215
T=4

Limits for 30i:
PS: 135
SS: 110
PT: 115
ST: 115
BSR: 550
T=2
Hard limit of 120 Speed
If running Drill Peck, an extra 5 BSR can be added.

OCAT cannot say "mixed" for either forme.

Something extremely important to note here is that these two limits are to be calculated with different T values. 30b should be calced with a T=4 and 30i with a T=2. What this basically means is that 30b should be expected to remain on the field for 4 turns before getting a KO whereas 30i only has to be on the field for 2 turns. The distinction is super important, as it gives us the ability to slate a wide variety of spreads for both formes, both slow and fast but at the cost of another stat. For example, with the current limits, a fast wall that slowly builds up its Defense is possible, but its firepower or Special Defense must suffer in return.
The very clear difference between the two BSR limits is because of how much easier it is to inflate an offensive mon's BSR when compared to a Tank, which happens to be the two roles we are working with.
There is also a limit of 215 to the combination of PT and ST on 30i, as tests showed us that slow and sturdy Pokemon with above average firepower were easy to create, especially so with Stamina stacking up Defense boosts.
I've also purposefully kept the physical and special limits of both Sweepiness and Tankiness very close, so as to allow people to submit either physically or specially defensive based on what they seem to prefer.
On 30i I've decided to cap its base Speed at 120, so as to have sufficient counter-play from the offensive threats of the metagame that aim to outspeed us such as Syclant, Weavile and Tapu Koko. This also helps us set a limit on how much firepower we will have. As the limits are for access to Brave Bird, if your moveset will include Drill Peck, an extra 5 BSR can be added to make up for the difference in firepower.


If you do not know how to change the "T" value, here is a guide on how to do so

guide

On the initial BSR calculator, go to the final page, the one labelled as "Turns value (T)"

You will be met with this page. You can double click on the big green box that reads "1.86611" and edit the value manually.

Once you have done so, it should look like this. Do not touch any other setting if you're not sure what you are doing.

Once again, I am open to your guys suggestions as to how we can manipulate these numbers, but I feel like this is a very good start. I should also mention this thread will close in 72 hours after this post goes live.

 

[quziel]

SpA		SpD		Speed
0	You are a paper bag	66	Jumb MB	0
93	Argh, Kart	78	Pivot Torn, Begin Glowking FS, +1 Volc Psychic	61		Slow tings
97	Rev Hurri Pult IB	91	Fini Hydro, Zap Hurri	74		Boomer
106	2HKO Heatran EP, Pult Hurricane	97	Spdef Tran, Clef Thunder Glowking FS	98		Urshifu
111	Chomp IB	104	NP torn, Pult Sball	119		Cawmodore
118	2HKO Clef			126		Weavile

I made a thing. It assumes 85 base HP and a timid nature. Use this how you will. Dex also helped

 

[MrDollSteak]

OK after quite a bit of discussion with the rest of the TLT and seeing how discussion has died down a little bit, I'll be looking setting our preliminary limits. Because we're basically working with 2 Pokemon in tandem, I'll be setting limits for both at once. When submitting, please remember that the two formes should have equal BST - the other stats do not need to match between formes. If you're unfamiliar with how the limits work and what each thing on them means, please use this calc to get a better understanding and follow this step of the process.
So without further ado, here are the limits for 30b:
PS: 90
SS: 120
PT: 130
ST: 120
BSR: 525
PT+ST cannot exceed 215
T=4

Limits for 30i:
PS: 135
SS: 110
PT: 115
ST: 115
BSR: 550
T=2
Hard limit of 120 Speed
If running Drill Peck, an extra 5 BSR can be added.

OCAT cannot say "mixed" for either forme.

So after doing a few tests with these limits I have to say that the total BSR limit is actually really low for 30b.
I think the individual stat limits are actually pretty perfect for what we want to achieve, but it is currently impossible to approach even one of the limits by itself, let alone two, without ending up with a much higher BSR. It is important to consider that become both forms need a shared BST, and BST and BSR are on average actually very close to one another - having a difference of 25 in terms of BSR rating, means that 30i will not be able to approach its BSR, without overshooting 30bs by a lot.

Based on discussion for 30b, there is an expectation that we should have a passable PT rating, and then some combination of decent Spa + Spd, Spa + Spe or Spd + Spe, but not all three at once. Here are some examples to give an idea of how restrictive a BSR of 525 is. Especially considering we then also need to design 30i to have the exact same BST.

Here a few examples to illustrate the point

90

50

90

110

110

78

528

53.80

108.37

96.86

116.54

540.52

This is quite an average, balanced spread. In effect we are a more efficient Slowking-Galar. We approach the limit of 120 for ST, and get fairly close to our SS rating of 120. Our PT is well below our limit of 130. 78 speed gives us enough to only outspeed Heatran. We end up with a BSR of 540, well above our limit of 525.

In order to have the rough style of spread fit within the limits, we have to reduce our Special Defense by 15.

90

50

90

110

95

78

513

53.80

108.37

96.86

103.08

524.37

We now end up with a much lower ST, at 103. Well below our limit of 120. In fact, none of our individual stats are remotely close to their individual limits. If we wanted to preserve our near maximum ST from the original spread we could do the following.

90

50

90

102

110

78

520

53.80

101.74

96.86

116.54

524.70

As you can see, it's much more preferable to lower our Special Attack, because rather than subtracting 15, we only need to subtract 8. Why is this?

It's actually because a T value of 4 is designed for a wallbreaker, not a wall or tank. The current T value of 4 severely overestimates Attack and Special Attack, and undervalues speed. Because what it is effectively saying is that the average Pokemon will take 4 turns to KO another Pokemon. As our Attack or Special attack increases, it is showing that we are able to KO a Pokemon more quickly, and therefore are more powerful. Interestingly enough, Speed is severely undervalued with a T value of 4 and we can end up with the following spread within the limits.

90

50

90

78

110

240

658

64.07

96.10

96.86

116.54

511.24

With our original stat spread functionally the same with Speed and Sp.Atk swapped, we can pump Speed up to 255 if we wanted and remain well below the limits.

If we were to use the exact same spreads for 30i with its T value of 2, we get the following results:

90	50	90	110	110	78	528		58.01	104.44	96.86	116.54	537.89
90	50	90	110	95	78	513		58.01	104.44	96.86	103.08	521.38
90	50	90	102	110	78	520		58.01	98.76	96.86	116.54	524.56
90	50	90	78	110	240	658		75.15	105.59	96.86	116.54	540.60

What this reveals, is that we should realisbtically in fact be using a T value of 2 for 30b, because it better values our Speed.

Furthermore, it proves that there is at most a variation of about 5 in terms of our BSR total, apart from our incredibly egregious example in 240 speed which is more correctly valued for how ridiculous it is. Since, a value of T as 4 is actually more appropriate for a wallbreaker as I have previously proved, and as can also be found on the original BSR calculator amended, we should be, apart from increasing 30b's BSR total, we should also be swapping the limits and giving the T limit of 4 to 30i. That said a T limit of 4 is still very high for a wallbreaker. The suggestion of a wallbreakers T value in the post here where a wallbreakers constant was rationalised here was more around the 3 mark, and as such I would suggest that.

TLDR: I am suggesting the following amendments:

PS: 90
SS: 120
PT: 130
ST: 120
BSR: 540
PT+ST cannot exceed 215
T=2

Limits for 30i:
PS: 135
SS: 110
PT: 115
ST: 115
BSR: 550
T=3
Hard limit of 120 Speed
If running Drill Peck, an extra 5 BSR can be added.

 

[quziel]

I disagree with the above. A low T value for 30b would really push the mon far further into the direction of "slow special breaker/tank" and would enable some very silly spreads. Speed does not matter for this mon as much as t=2 implies.

I am going to be comparing spreads on the spD/spe basis. I am setting spA to 110 and comparing a fast spread with a slower spread that maxes out overall bulk.

at T=4 comparing speed = 69 and speed = 120 (slow vs fast)

90	50	110	110	92	69	521		51.36	103.85	114.90	100.39	532.00
90	50	110	110	45	120	525		62.81	125.06	114.90	58.21	531.98

at T=2 comparing speed = 69 and speed = 120

90	50	110	110	92	69	521		54.32	97.59	114.90	100.39	524.12
90	50	110	110	19	120	499		72.90	132.11	114.90	34.87	524.71

at T=3 comparing speed = 69 and speed = 120

90	50	110	110	92	69	521		52.51	101.57	114.90	100.39	529.14
90	50	110	110	35	120	515		66.71	127.87	114.90	49.23	529.58

In summary. Please increase the BSR limit to 530 or 535, and keep t = 4. A t value of 2 completely negates any faster spreads, even if the dump spA and spD. Given that this mon is going to realistically stay on the field forever, a low t value overvalues speed w.r.t. SpA/SpD in comparison to how it "should" be. I would be open to changing t to 3, but t at 2 would neuter any faster spreads far more than they should be. Frankly I also disagree that we should be able to max out 2 of SpA/SpD/Spe, we should be able to max out 1 and have the other be good, not at the limit. That said overall bulk limit could probably be nudged up to 220 as well.

graphs

PS vs speed at 100 attack

Max[PS] / Min[PS] = 1.590056554
Max[PS] - Min[PS] = 42.21150314

Max[PS] / Min[PS] = 1.763900371
Max[PS] - Min[PS] = 50.96116026

Max[PS] / Min[PS] = 2.061121244
Max[PS] - Min[PS] = 63.70503996

Also probably increase the BSR limit for 30i a tad; getting spreads above 100 speed with anything more than paper bulk is really difficult. 120 attack, 100 speed, 90/85/85 seems approximately right for a semi fast spread and hits 560 BSR.

 

[spoo]

As far as the T value debate goes, I think 3 or 4 is where we want to be sitting. Lowering the T value to 3 would be fine as a compromise measure, but I agree that a value of 2 overvalues the importance Speed has for us and would unreasonably limit fast spreads. Other than that I don't have much to offer to the debate.

I also agree that 30b's BSR should be raised. 535-540 (preference 540) Seems ideal; I think MDS did a good job at illustrating how the current BSR can be limiting to certain spreads which are still not over the top. Increasing the BSR does mean that there's more possibility to "abuse" it with some really nutty spreads, however, I think the personal discretion of stat submitters –– and more importantly, the discretion of the SL when deciding which spreads to slate –– will help mitigate that issue. If you want to make an "honest" balanced spread that is still decently strong, it seems fairly hard to do at the moment, so a small increase feels appropriate to me.

 

[Lasen]

Alright, after almost 72hours having passed, it's pretty clear to me what the final limits shall be:

Limits for 30b:

PS: 90
SS: 120
PT: 130
ST: 120
BSR: 535
PT+ST cannot exceed 215 
T=4



Limits for 30i:

PS: 135
SS: 110
PT: 115
ST: 115
BSR: 550
T=3
Hard limit of 120 Speed
If running Drill Peck, an extra 5 BSR can be added.


OCAT cannot say "mixed" for either forme.

There actually weren't a lot of changes made, but I did undershoot a bit with my initial post partly due to inexperience. After deliberation with the rest of the TLT as well as reading the CAP chat on discord, as well as the posts made in here, 30b's BSR has been increased by 10 to now hit 535. This allows more leeway in the submitted spreads as the original BSR limit severely limited those who wished to run a faster 30b with some decent bulk. Make no mistake, it's still all within reason and we will not be breaking the bank in any way. The other change one might notice is that T=3 for 30i. This comes after reading some prior posts made by QxC on how to approach the T for wallbreakers and to also not rely exclusively on our wallbreaking. With a T=3 we're expected to have 3 turns pass before a KO, thus allowing for more bulk to be run on 30i. The max Speed limit of 120 still remains for 30i, as it gives us the opportunity to be outsped and thus revenged by the likes of Syclant and Tornadus-T. This also gives us a respectable 116 Attack if someone tries to go to the absolute extreme, thus not breaking through our projected checks and counters list. OCAT still can't be mixed for fear of creating a nigh unwallable breaker.

And with that, I am done for the moment! I will hand it over to Wulfanator next to sign us off and we'll continue with stat submissions for 30b next. The two formes will have their stat submission stages staggered so as to decide on a BST with 30b at first and then have 30i follow up.

 

[Wulfanator]

Stat limits look very promising. Given the strength of our abilities, they are very generous and should give us some powerful final products. Can't wait to see what type of submissions we will see. Let's get submissions open.