CAP 32 - Part 1 - Concept Assessment

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I'm inclined to agree that no change to the process order is the best solution to this. even if we were just going to set stat limits, doing it too early would mean that the rest of the process is herded into whatever stat limits we create, and we risk limiting ourselves to whatever we think fits those limits in our other stages. Because there's already such a heavy limitation on what our stats can be, we should keep the rest of the process up till that point as open as possible.
 

Voltage

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I will third the sentiment of no change for the ordering of the stages. The stats are the instrumental portion of this process, so it follows therefore that we need to use the Stats stage to balance out the previous stages, especially with respect to typing as dex has stated. I won't repeat the points he has made, but I have to agree that knowing which STABs to need to calculate for are probably the MOST IMPORTANT THING TO GET RIGHT. To impose stat limits now would be to artificially limit us and I feel that we would immediately overcompensate in some capacity. It makes the most sense in my mind to proceed as normal and then develop stats based on what our previous stages have mandated, and ideally having them be as optimized as possible in the way that others have shown (like the Clodsire example)
 
no change, reasoning being ditto as per the users that posted before me.

I feel that this capmon's concept will be defined by its weaknesses rather than its strengths. "Average" in a clown meta like gen 9 is a scary prospect, and you only need to compare gen 7's ou to this gen's untiered to get a rough idea why. An "average" Pokemon based on current power creep trends could probably be really, really strong and really, really boring. I'm sure it wouldn't be impossible (or difficult) to make a Clefapex that walls the whole tier while remaining average in at least some respect, but it wouldn't be very interesting either. Based on some of the comments I've seen regarding the concept, I think people are looking for a mon that isn't a splashable beatstick of a mon. Something you would use because it does one thing well rather than something that does numerous different things great. Something you would need to consciously choose for what it does rather than being the default option for a free space on your team when you need certain niches filled. Basically, not a glue mon. I'm not saying it can't be one, obviously, but I'm just pointing out the kind of feel I've been getting.
Just saying my thoughts out loud. Not trying to make any implications for the concept or process as a whole.
 

spoo

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Hi everyone, thanks for the phenomenal discussion so far. I think we've narrowed a lot over the past couple days and are approaching a consensus on the questions I asked, so I'll summarize what I've been hearing and pose a couple further questions.

While not unanimous, it seems like the most popular definition for individual "average" stats are those that require significant (usually max) EV investment in order to hit the necessary benchmarks and effectively pose a threat. This definition was first proposed by Garrett and has received a good amount of support. It's also clear that "average" isn't one size fits all, as average offenses and average defenses look quite different. Namely, the bar is much lower for defenses -- for example, 100/100/100 offenses are not nearly as strong as 100/100/100 bulk. This is something crucial to keep in mind as we approach the Stats and Stat Limits stages.

As far as average stat lines, it seems there are roughly two molds: Pokemon that are strong (not exceptionally so) in a single area but very weak in the rest, versus Pokemon that are average across the board. Breloom and Gliscor likely represent an upper limit for the first mold. The former's offensive stats are good to be sure, but not exceptional by OU standards, while the same is true for Gliscor's defensive bulk. However, something like Clodsire goes too far in this regard; its stat distribution is simply too efficient to qualify as average. Pokemon such as Clefable and Nidoking are good examples for the second mold of average stats.

Many of the examples provided for bang average Pokemon in OU are incredibly distinct from one another. This is an indicator that we have a lot of open design space, and aren't anywhere near locked into a single path moving forward. Still, there were absolutely some commonalities to take note of.
  • The majority of these Pokemon offer something completely unique to teams. They can effectively set themselves apart from competition, or simply have no competition at all for what they offer.
  • Many of these Pokemon also have abilities that augment existing elements, perhaps by bolstering their defensive typing with an immunity, increasing the damage or utility of their primary moveset, or by adding "fake bulk" to their stats through abilities that massively increase longevity.
  • Some of the best bang average Pokemon, most often (but not exclusively) offensive mons, have access to high-BP or otherwise excellent STABs that directly compensate for their offensive stats. As an extreme example, Victini's V-Create hits as hard as Flare Blitz off of 170 Attack.
  • Most of the examples possess strong utility in some way, be it Breloom's Spore and Rotom-W's Wisp, Clefable and Gliscor's status immunity, Torkoal and Pelipper supporting their team with weather, Talonflame's incredible priority in pastgens, and so on. By being able to pose a significant threat to the opponent/compete for a slot on a team through means other than sheer offensive output or walling ability, we can circumvent the aspects of our stat line that will almost certainly be lacking.
Moving to the discussion of our power budget, it's beyond clear that we will need to invest heavily in a powerful kit before we reach Stats. The popular approach, and my preferred route as well, is to build CAP32 with intentional synergies between each stage. This does not lock out "broken" elements, nor should it; however, we learn next to nothing from over-reliance on an utterly insane ability, typing, or movepool to compensate for our lacking stat line. To some extent, building with strong synergies is always a goal for a CAP process, but is often difficult to intentionally actualize due to how isolated the stages are from one another. This leads me to my next point.

I understand many people are advocating for no change to the stage order, but I would like to suggest slight modifications. This is not set in stone, so please offer feedback on this proposal if you disagree with it.

Concept Assessment (current step) => Typing => Concept Assessment 2 (choosing a role) => Defining Moves => Ability => Threats => Stat Limits => Stats => Movesets​
Here is my thought process. I think it's clear that Typing is the singularly most informative stage about the rest of this process, so it should go first. After that, though, I believe it's important to have as much information as possible before moving towards Ability. Many bang average Pokemon have strong abilities that directly or indirectly bolster their other aspects: typing, stats, and moves. As such, we should have some idea of each of these things before moving to Ability so that we can choose something highly synergistic with any element of our kit.

With that said, here are my remaining questions:

What do you think of the proposed stage order above? Do you disagree with the conclusions to any of the previous questions I asked, or have any additional comments?
Are there any roles, broadly speaking, that seem better suited to a bang average CAP? Offensive, defensive, support, something more specific, or perhaps a combination of multiple? I posed a similar question when I asked to draw parallels between existing bang average mons, but I'd like to hone in on the discussion of roles. We will NOT be choosing a definitive role here; I just want to broach the topic so that these thoughts are fresh in our mind as we move into Typing.​
 

ausma

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Not really any thoughts on the proposed stage order that haven't been voiced well enough already. There's no urgency to do stats, and being informed by previous stages is obviously quite helpful.

Are there any roles, broadly speaking, that seem better suited to a bang average CAP?
I'm more inclined to say offensive roles work the best, hugely because of the fact that BP scaling and multipliers play such a massive role in damage output, even moreso than raw stats. Some pretty easy examples of potent wallbreakers with not particularly great offensive stats would be Nidoking and Exploud, both packing access to crazy coverage and either SFLO or an insanely high BP STAB move respectively. I think there's a lot of design space to work with in regards to a more offensive angle of CAP 32 because of that, not even mentioning the potential of a relevant STAB type for example. The main stat that would need to be at least serviceable would be Speed, lest we be too slow to be worth considering over faster, more efficient wallbreakers.

Offense is far and away the most realistic/natural course imo, but I think the second most practical choice is a defensive Pokemon. This one is mostly practical because of how insurmountably vital resistances are, but unlike offensive Pokemon our stats are going to be more directly impactful for fulfilling our role. While I think there's inherently less design space to work with by nature of being a reactive force, typing will really give this option room to breathe. Furthermore, support can easily be folded into a defensive Pokemon, and I think if we take a more defensive route that giving CAP 32 natural utility options as a defensive Pokemon will have a solid turnout.

Lastly, I believe a purely support role is the least practical option. The effectiveness of support moves are flat and provide utility independent of stats. However, stats are indeed relevant wrt to actually getting the utility dished out reliably and opportunely. Typing by itself already provides some leverage because we'll wind up with innately good matchups to take advantage of, and abilities can aid in this as well. Though, I believe as possible a route as this is, that we'll need to really provide insane utility compression to make a mediocre-stat utility user worthwhile, and really dive deep into matchups to optimize and maximize our support-providing opportunities. Even Smeargle with its nearly endless utility is cripplingly held back due to lacking the ability to actually dish it out consistently.

Tl;dr any roles are possible due to the key influence of typing/ability/movepool, but some options are innately more limited than others. I think, personally, an offensive Pokemon would be most realistic and have the most design space, but the other two definitely can work if we really hone in on our core matchups.
 

LucarioOfLegends

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What do you think of the proposed stage order above? Do you disagree with the conclusions to any of the previous questions I asked, or have any additional comments?
Overall agree with the above stage order. Setting up the general niche that CAP32 is looking to fill is utterly essential to the concept, and that can best be done through establishing one in type and ability, the stages that are usually most important to the success of the example mons given for the concept. Stats as a stage is weird for this process since its somewhat difficult to gauge how much weight the previous two stages will be pulling, and there could be an argument made that doing it earlier will make it easier to balance type/ability with the info of how much they need to compensate, but with how unpredictable the final product will be outside of the limited scope of the testing server its going to be difficult to determine regardless. May as well make the given niche as accomodating as possible to whatever stat spread CAP32 may be working with.


Are there any roles, broadly speaking, that seem better suited to a bang average CAP?
Seems to be a general lean towards offensive roles based on the examples, though there is a lot of wiggle room based on type and ability, particularly the latter. There are certainly major defensive player that can be pointed to who work mainly in the defensive design space, most particularly Clefable and Gastrodon, who usually seem to work in the field of setting up various effects like Wish and Stealth Rocks. I would argue that many of these seem to work in the "sum of their parts box" more often than "nutty hyperspecialization box", and while it may be a bit premature I would like to note an observation on how many of these mons very much leverage some form of immunity into their kit to work off of, either a direct one like a type immunity or an immunity to a form of battle effect like status or chip damage.

Regardless, I do think there is more unique design space in the area of an offensive role rather than a defensive one, especially when the field is already filled with solid defensive statballs with awesome abilities. They do tend to fall into either sweepers or breakers generally since they main just boost the damage, though you can absolutely slap on some utility when an opponent is expecting a strong attack. There's a lot of ways to filet that fish with the ability choices, and I do think the balancing aspect actually benefits with the concept so it's generally a more interesting route to explore imo.
 
Are there any roles, broadly speaking, that seem better suited to a bang average CAP?
Honestly I don’t think there are any roles that aren’t possible with a weaker stat spread. What roles are possible depends more on Typing and Ability sometimes moves and how CAP32 will be able to slot on teams with those elements.
Between generalists like Clef and Rotom and Mons that support niche team styles like Peli or Torkoal, you can find cleaner (Ora’s Talonflame, Crobat), Wallbreaker (breloom/bisharp/Arctozolt), set up sweeper (also both aforementioned, Quaquaval ,and defensive Pivots (Corviknight/Gastrodon/Talonflame) all with more or less average stats.
While I agree that typing first makes sense most of the time some builds are dependent more on ability than typing. Especially team support mons and some wall breaker styles are defined by their ability first.
Malaconda has been a bad weather support for most of its existence bc stacking grass types on sun isn’t great and it can’t make use of its own sun much unlike Bao.
While they aren’t my favorite ways forward I think it will be less likely that we’ll pick such a support style with typing first.
The same goes for some ability move combinations that highly appreciate stab like triage draining kiss.

At this point I’m very unsure if doing stats last is a good way forward. I don’t like the idea of designing ourselves into a corner for stats, both bc of the fear, that discussion and polls will favor highly OP traits in the previous stages as opposed to highly synergistic - to guarantee low stats - and bc realizing as late as stats, that we can’t go as low as we’d like with the stats, means we’d have very little room to adjust, unless we were to track back and take another stab at a previous stage.

At the same time starting with stats seems very odd and I don’t think it would yield good results either. I’m wondering if allowing poll jumping only wrt stats to be able to showcase interactions between abilities moves stats and typing would be an idea to make sure we still have wiggle room once we reach Stats.
 
What do you think of the proposed stage order above? Do you disagree with the conclusions to any of the previous questions I asked, or have any additional comments?
My main concern with this order is that Typing before we determine a role may eliminate some of the options that provide team utility - difficult to decide we should be weather or terrain focused if we don't have that context in Typing. Without a role I'm unclear on what we go into typing arguing to achieve. Do we just make a case for "this is a typing that is good at a bunch of stuff"? I feel as though doing role after Typing solidifies us into a "Pokemon that is average across the board" mold unnecessarily early and I think this concept in particular would benefit from a strongly alignment on role direction up front.

Otherwise, no concerns bringing Defining Moves earlier in the process, I think that works well.
 

Da Pizza Man

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What do you think of the proposed stage order above? Do you disagree with the conclusions to any of the previous questions I asked, or have any additional comments?
I'm really not a big fan of having Defining Moves before Abilities. The order between Defining Moves and abilities here feels largely interchangable in a weird way, but I feel that having ability first will lead us into having a more focused ability discussion (Throwing out an assortment of moves that synergize with out typing doesn't give us a very good direction on what we should be looking at, and while it is true we would still have a role in mind, I don't really feel as that would help a whole lot). My bigger concern, however, is that choosing to go with Defining Moves beforehand is going to lock us out of abilities that sort of require certain moves to function well. It would be very unforunate to, say for example, lock ourselves out of something like Technician because we didn't really pick any low-power moves beforehand. This to me would be a huge mistake, as there are quite a few abilities that would be very much pro-concept but otherwise fall into this trap. I have no qualms with the ordering of the process otherwise.
 
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What do you think of the proposed stage order above? Do you disagree with the conclusions to any of the previous questions I asked, or have any additional comments?

As long as Typing, Ability, and Defining Moves are done before Stat Limits, I’m fine with it. I do think we should define a role now, as it does narrow down the typing process. And having Typing not define our role overall is better

Are there any roles, broadly speaking, that seem better suited to a bang average CAP?

I know a lot of people have said that there’s a better design space for offense, but I would prefer to make CAP32 have a defensive role. As spoo mentioned, there’s a higher benchmark to reach with offense than defense. At this point I should mention that I would prefer to go the route of a Pokémon’s stats that are average across the board. An offensive design space heavily leans towards the other route due to the high benchmark that needs to be reached. A counter argument could be “because of the lower benchmark of defenses, not as much investment would be needed, therefore, not making it average.” However, of all the (viable) Offensive mons in the CAP metagame, the lowest stat goes to Greninja, who still has a 106 base SpAtk, and it only goes higher. Meaning that if we were to make a defensive Pokemon with “Average” stats, to handle threats we WOULD need investment to reach a higher level of defensive prowess. Because of this, I believe that going a defensive role is the way to go. (We could also go Tank (take hits and hit back) but that’s for another Concept Assessment route)
 
I'm really not a big fan of having Defining Moves before Abilities. The order between Defining Moves and abilities here feels largely interchangable in a weird way, but I feel that having ability first will not only lead us into having a more focused ability discussion (Throwing out an assortment of moves that synergize with out typing doesn't give us a very good direction on what we should be looking at, and while it is true we would still have a role in mind, I don't really feel as that would help a whole lot). My bigger concern, however, is that choosing to go with Defining Moves beforehand is going to lock us out of abilities that sort of require certain moves to function well. It would be very unforunate to, say for example, lock ourselves out of something like Technician because we didn't really pick any low-power moves beforehand. This too me would be a huge mistake, as there are quite a few abilities that would be very much pro-concept but otherwise fall into this trap. I have no qualms with the ordering of the process otherwise.
Seconding this. I don't see a particularly good reason to do Defining Moves first. There are many abilities that influence movepool, so much so that there was an entire concept around it that got 3rd place. Doing Ability first would allow for a more focused Defining Moves process. Not much else to add here, Da Pizza Man explained it pretty well.
 
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What do you think of the proposed stage order above? Do you disagree with the conclusions to any of the previous questions I asked, or have any additional comments?

I don't think we need Defining Moves before ability. We can discuss available STABs in broad terms when submitting typings ("Fighting has access to high-BP stabs on both sides of the spectrum"), and we can hopefully discuss potential synergies with moves when submitting abilities. I think it would be helpful to relax polljumping rules a little bit for that stage since we're trying to create a highly synergistic kit with this CAP. With those things said, Defining Moves before Ability becomes largely unnecessary and potentially restrictive. There will be moves that are enabled only by our ability that we miss with the Defining Moves stage, and abilities that have synergies with moves not on our list may not be chosen because of this. I don't think it's worth it.

If we do a Defining Moves stage before Ability, we should do Defining Moves 2 afterwards. But even this double-pronged approach will restrict our ability choices in my view. Let's just not do it.

Are there any roles, broadly speaking, that seem better suited to a bang average CAP?

Among roles not really discussed yet, I think fast support (think Tornadus, Astrolotl, Cyclizar without Shed Tail) is a really cool option! I also think defensive roles are solid. A lot of the most competent mons with "average" spreads are defensive in nature.
 
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When people say Bang Average, do they mean the BST or the actual stats?

I see a lot of people mention Clodsire and Breloom as examples, but both of these pokemon have incredibly minmaxed stats
Clodsire's HP stat of 130 and special defense of 100 is not something that i would consider "average." Breloom's Attack stat (and access to technician to boost its power even further) falls under the same boat. They have less BST to go round, but they are minmaxed for success.
It is noteworthy that their abilities, typing, and movepools carry these pokemon even further than their minmaxed stats.

In that case, if we ignore the minmaxed mons, the last Bang Average pokemon i could find that doesn't have any one obscenely good stat is...

:sv/pelipper:

well this doesn't really surprise me. Firstly, it's the only weather setter in the game (and if Politoed existed, it'd still be better despite Politoed's much higher BST), so if someone wanted to use rain, they'd have to use the toilet bird. Even then, Pelipper's stats work for its role, its typing is not only really good on its own as it greatly benefits from the rain it sets, had Knock Off, and it has reliable recovery and pivoting.

I think, with CAP 32, we should try to emulate the example of Pelipper.
Its stats, at best, are just okay. Its offensive capabilities come from the synergy of its typing, ability, and moves, and its defensive capabilities come from the resistances it would have rather than raw bulk.
well now im just stating what bang average is at this point hm
 

SHSP

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What do you think of the proposed stage order above? Do you disagree with the conclusions to any of the previous questions I asked, or have any additional comments?
Heavily agree with the proposed order with one exception. I don't think we need to mess with the process order all that much, to be honest, and I think having typing first before we lock ourselves into more of a direction is super helpful to keep that stage much more open and free flowing. My one gripe is that I think we should be doing ability before defining moves. I don't think having ability later helps much generally, and I think having defining moves first can lead to some unfortunate situations where hypothetical move choices dictate ability discussion too much and shape the stage in an unhealthy way.


Are there any roles, broadly speaking, that seem better suited to a bang average CAP?
I'm gonna echo Ausma's post here cause I'm pretty solidly in agreement with it: Offensive mon slightly more effective of a role than defensive, and then both highly above supportive roles. I think offensive roles vs defensive ones are close, actually, but I lean towards offensive ones being easier to deal with through all the other options available to us in a more open power budget. Supportive roles aren't impossible, but I feel like it's more feasible to see utility options in an offensive/defensive shell than something purely set up for support.
 
I'd like to make the argument in favor of moving role discussion before typing, and what that means for each potential role CAP 32 could fill. Looking at the examples of bang average Pokemon we've talked to death, here are some inferences between role and typing specifically.

Offensive:

The ways that offensive average Pokemon excel is largely possible independent of their typing:

Breloom - Grass/Fighting - 60/130/80/60/60/70 - 460
Nidoking - Poison/Ground - 81/102/77/85/75/85 - 505


Breloom would most certainly be able to make do with a different secondary typing with access to a stab priority move. We can easily imagine it throwing off aqua jets, ice shards, or bullet punches instead of mach punches. It gets a lot of mileage out of spore specifically from grass, but even that is technically not tied to its typing. Nidoking is even more extreme, you could probably pick typing out of a hat and make a Sheer Force pile of perfect coverage good. I believe that we can find a combination of moves and a boosting ability to make any typing work offensively, and from that perspective typing first makes sense.

Support:

Game freak has historically put field effect abilities on Pokemon with that same type, but this is not necessary at all for CAP. We've done this before with Jumbao to great (often too much) success, and discord discussion not beholden to poll jumping rules is already alight with suggestions of interesting "off-type" field effect Pokemon. Similarly to the previous examples, we can make almost any typing able to provide this kind of support for its teammates, so typing first is fine.

Defensive:

Rotom-Wash - Electric/Water - 50/65/107/105/107/86 - 520
Corviknight - Flying/Steel - 98/87/105/53/85/67 - 495
Gliscor - Ground/Flying - 75/95/125/45/75/95 - 510
Clefable - Fairy - 95/70/73/95/90/60 - 483


These Pokemon rely on their very specific typing to be good, and I can prove it. Consider just how much better Rotom-Wash is compared to Rotom-Mow/Heat when all that sets them apart is a single type and move. How the likes of Mandibuzz can never be a better defogger/pivot compared to Corviknight because of its typing, or a defogger/toxic spreader than Gliscor, despite having a better defensive stat spread than both of them. How much better Clefable is than the likes of Reuniclus and Sigilyph. The conclusion to be drawn is that typing is vitally important to these Pokemon and their role, and slight changes would cause them to drop entire tiers. Rotom-Wash is still the best example of this, its type and defensive profile is not only unique with levitate, but perfectly situated to threaten the ground types that would stop it from being a reliable pivot. If we wanted to create a defensive Pokemon with great internal synergy, we need to be able to get very deep into how typing affects and benefits role, and in a much more divided typing stage between disparate end goals that becomes nearly impossible.

I'll come back to the 8+2 vs 2+2+2+2+2 analogy from earlier, and though my response to the first round of questions might have implied that I was playing devil's advocate for 8+2, my intent was to question whether 2+2+2+2+2 really exists. The poster children 2+2+2+2+2 defensive Pokemon above do have something exceptional that sets them apart, and while it isn't quite as obvious as an ability like Sheer Force or Drizzle, it is what makes them unique and successful. Namely, average Pokemon like Rotom-Wash excel because of their typing profile being unique and highly desirable for their role. The existence of below-average statline 2+2+2+2+2 Pokemon being successful in OU is a myth, and those that supposedly fit the description have a "4+2+2+2" power budget profile that is harder to see.

For most roles, that +4 comes in the form of a powerful ability, or move, or combination of the two. But for defensive Pokemon? Often their biggest strength is their typing, and for us to skip over a thorough exploration of ideal typing for a defensive role would be a disappointment to the greatest examples of this concept. If we do go with role before typing and end up with a more flexible offensive or support role, nothing has really changed. But the reverse, typing before role, makes the discussion of unique defensive niches much harder than it would be otherwise.
 
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quziel

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Imo the ideal role of the mon will be heavily dependent upon typing. Steel/Fairy probably would be easier to do with low BST as a defensive pivot, Ice/Ground, probably not. Both are likely still relevant to the typing discussion, and choosing a role before typing will cut out potentially successful paths for this project in a way that doesn't benefit us as a whole. I don't mind identifying, but not committing to a subset of roles before typing, but choosing a role, or a subset of roles before typing seems like it doesn't help us.

Are there any roles, broadly speaking, that seem better suited to a bang average CAP?

Anything with priority is probably gonna be pretty good for us. Whether its defensive pivot, setup sweeper, cleaner, etc, priority lets us sidestep our speed stat. We've seen this with Sableye punching far above its weight thanks to prankster encore / wisp / taunt, or Talonflame doing the same with broken brave bird. Ig this doesn't influence role a ton, but any role where we can access strong priority moves seems neato.
 
Imo
When people say Bang Average, do they mean the BST or the actual stats?

I see a lot of people mention Clodsire and Breloom as examples, but both of these pokemon have incredibly minmaxed stats
Clodsire's HP stat of 130 and special defense of 100 is not something that i would consider "average." Breloom's Attack stat (and access to technician to boost its power even further) falls under the same boat. They have less BST to go round, but they are minmaxed for success.
It is noteworthy that their abilities, typing, and movepools carry these pokemon even further than their minmaxed stats.

In that case, if we ignore the minmaxed mons, the last Bang Average pokemon i could find that doesn't have any one obscenely good stat is...

:sv/pelipper:

well this doesn't really surprise me. Firstly, it's the only weather setter in the game (and if Politoed existed, it'd still be better despite Politoed's much higher BST), so if someone wanted to use rain, they'd have to use the toilet bird. Even then, Pelipper's stats work for its role, its typing is not only really good on its own as it greatly benefits from the rain it sets, had Knock Off, and it has reliable recovery and pivoting.

I think, with CAP 32, we should try to emulate the example of Pelipper.
Its stats, at best, are just okay. Its offensive capabilities come from the synergy of its typing, ability, and moves, and its defensive capabilities come from the resistances it would have rather than raw bulk.
well now im just stating what bang average is at this point hm
imo you should neither focus on the BST not a single stat as marker for being average. Instead the BSR ratings of a Mon are much more indicative of it being average or not.

You are right to say that Clodsires Stats are exceptional for what it wants to do and this is reflected in its BSR. Of all common OU mons it has the highest Special Tankiness. It also has two massive dump stats masking it’s highly efficient spread behind low bst.
Breloom on the other hand - even though it has a very high attack stat, that is among the highest in OU has a physical sweepiness rating that sits just at one Standard Deviation higher than the average in current OU if you consider every mon. If you only consider mons that are physical attackers though it’s already rated lower than the average and if you only consider offensive physical attackers this trend becomes even more pronounced, meaning Brelooms Attacking prowess is actually below average for a physical attacker.
 
Are there any roles, broadly speaking, that seem better suited to a bang average CAP?

This is a pretty difficult question, honestly. Of all the "bang average" Pokemon I've seen mentioned over the past few days, there's not really one single role that such a Pokemon can fulfill. On one hand, you have really strong offensive Pokemon like Breloom, Nidoking, Crawdaunt, and Azumarill that can circumvent pretty middling or even terrible stats with either really unique synergies (Breloom, Nidoking) or just raw power (Azu, Craw). But then there's also the more defensive Pokemon like Clef, Gastro, Quag and Clod, and even Gliscor who take advantage of immunities and outstanding abilities to hold off certain threats.

With that said, I think that going down the route of a defensive/utility pokemon would he the best way to do it. As opposed to offensive Pokemon, defensive Pokemon can afford to rely much more on the typing and abilities to check threats because their natural resistances and, if applicable, immunities can do much of the work for them. As we've seen in Pokemon like Clefable, as long as CAP32 has just enough bulk to live what it needs to, its positive attributes will be able shine through its average stats.

Another thing I'd like to highlight about this concept is that, for this concept to work, CAP32 would need some significant advantage over its competitors that would make up for a lack of stats. Crawdaunt is a good example of this. Crawdaunt merely being a Water/Dark type with 120 Attack and nonexistent defenses makes it little more than beta Sharpedo, but its Adaptability Crabhammer and Knock Off make it a terrifying threat that can compete for a team slot with otherwise far superior pokemon like Urshifu-R and Weavile. The same can be said for Clefable, whose outstanding abilities and support movepool allow it to compete with other bulk Fairies like Tapu Fini in spite of its unimpressive stats.

All in all, I think that, although I think that a bang-average Pokemon is best suited for a defensive role, no matter what CAP32 ends up doing, it's imperative that this Pokemon has at least one differentiating factor to set it apart from its stronger competition.
 
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Breloom on the other hand - even though it has a very high attack stat, that is among the highest in OU has a physical sweepiness rating that sits just at one Standard Deviation higher than the average in current OU if you consider every mon. If you only consider mons that are physical attackers though it’s already rated lower than the average and if you only consider offensive physical attackers this trend becomes even more pronounced, meaning Brelooms Attacking prowess is actually below average for a physical attacker.
Breloom is not a sweeper, so i understand why it would have low sweepiness. It can break through even resists with a CB or with Swords Dance, but it wont sweep games on its own. Breloom is successfull at crippling or removing a threatening defensive pokemon so its teammates can sweep, but it is far too slow (especially in gen 9) to sweep on its own.
 
Breloom is not a sweeper, so i understand why it would have low sweepiness. It can break through even resists with a CB or with Swords Dance, but it wont sweep games on its own. Breloom is successfull at crippling or removing a threatening defensive pokemon so its teammates can sweep, but it is far too slow (especially in gen 9) to sweep on its own.
Baxcalibur, Cinderace, Garchomp, Great Tusk, Iron Threads, Meowscarada or Roaring Moon aren’t (always) sweepers either and still mostly have wildly higher sweepiness ratings. (Also Breloom can work as SD sweeper in some situations thanks to mach punch). Hydreigon, Greninja and Zoroark H have higher physical sweepines and aren’t even physical attackers.
 

shnowshner

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Late on this one sorry

Concept Assessment (current step) => Typing => Concept Assessment 2 (Role discussion) => Start Defining Moves => Ability => Finish Defining Moves => Threats => Stat Limits => Stats => Movesets

Typing is without question the most basal quality of a CAP, it infers everything from the damage we'll be taking and dishing out to finer details like how we interact with field effects or specific move classes. Getting a loose understanding of what our role is or could be immediately after choosing a type makes sense.

Contention arises when we consider whether Moves or Ability should go first. There's no shortage of strong or interesting Abilities at play, and it'd make sense to figure Ability out first before our CAP starts to get into specifics. At the same time, however, our restriction on having a rather unimpressive BSR means that we're looking for one of high synergy across the board or formidable power in a single area. Being able to choose a set of moves that we agree are strong, at least for what we'd know of CAP 32 at that point, could be quite helpful in picking out our primary, most defining Ability.

The proposal I've made isn't anything that hasn't been mentioned yet: open up a brief Defining Moves thread and figure out moves our CAP would appreciate given our type and preliminary role, move on to Ability and investigate which one best suits our current kit, and then return to Defining Moves in order to make changes that the community sees fit. This is something we've briefly discussed within the TLT circle and the majority of us are fine with such a process. I definitely prefer it over having Defining Moves first, Ability second, and then immediately heading towards stats. I feel that strong cohesion within our set of traits is crucial for CAP32 to succeed, and adhering to this procedure has a lot of potential to lead us in the right direction.

I have seen concerns that moves could warp our Ability choice; that is something I'm going to try and actively work against should we follow this timeline, and partially why I want to break the discussion into halves. Ideally, our first set of moves is broad enough that it barely influences our Ability discussion, while the second set would be heavily inferred by said chosen Ability.

If you have any questions/objections please feel free to share, this does look like a divide between the TLT and the rest of CAP, so it's critical that we make sure we aren't acting against community interest.
 
Baxcalibur, Cinderace, Garchomp, Great Tusk, Iron Threads, Meowscarada or Roaring Moon aren’t (always) sweepers either and still mostly have wildly higher sweepiness ratings. (Also Breloom can work as SD sweeper in some situations thanks to mach punch). Hydreigon, Greninja and Zoroark H have higher physical sweepines and aren’t even physical attackers.
Yes, because Breloom isn't a sweeper. Pokemon that can sweep better than Breloom are going to have higher physical sweepiness than Breloom.
Pokemon like Bax and Roaring Moon aren't always sweepers but they can still sweep better than breloom.
Breloom will rarely sweep even with SD mach punch becuase there are a lot of good ghosts, and Breloom can't kill everything with a 60 bp stab move. It can happen but is super rare.
 
Yes, because Breloom isn't a sweeper. Pokemon that can sweep better than Breloom are going to have higher physical sweepiness than Breloom.
Pokemon like Bax and Roaring Moon aren't always sweepers but they can still sweep better than breloom.
Breloom will rarely sweep even with SD mach punch becuase there are a lot of good ghosts, and Breloom can't kill everything with a 60 bp stab move. It can happen but is super rare.
I think I didn’t make a good job of explaining myself. Yes Breloom has great attack which is a first step in having great stats for a Wallbreaker. Yet it’s Speed is middling at best for an offensive Mon and paired with truly awful bulk it’s 130 atk would absolutely not be enough to be as good as it is. I agree that 130 Atk doesn’t look average, but Brelooms stats are far below what would be considered sufficient in OU.
 
I think I didn’t make a good job of explaining myself. Yes Breloom has great attack which is a first step in having great stats for a Wallbreaker. Yet it’s Speed is middling at best for an offensive Mon and paired with truly awful bulk it’s 130 atk would absolutely not be enough to be as good as it is. I agree that 130 Atk doesn’t look average, but Brelooms stats are far below what would be considered sufficient in OU.

That is correct, and also my original point. A lot of pokemon with a "bang average" BST in OU tend to have some exceptional stats.
With Clodsire, that was its HP and Special Defense. With Breloom, that was its Attack.
 

quziel

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I think my issue with Clodsire is that it has excellent HP and Special Defense. Breloom by contrast has excellent Atrack. My filter really is that we should only really have one excellent stat maximum if we wanna ensure that we need to invest to really excel in an area.
 
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