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.