responses bolded in quoteThe Speed boost from Rapid Spin is also slightly worrying when combined with SD in particular but I'm really not worried about it that much, especially if a stat spread that elects to pursue Rapid Spin is diligent about properly accounting for its added strength. It's a very minor concern for me personally, though I do see where the concern ultimately stems from.
I really do not see how Rapid Spin is worrying. If anything I think it's a bad option for most set-up sweepers (Excadrill being an exception for quite a few reasons). Taking two turns to set up is a MASSIVE drain on the user's pacing, especially on mons relying on recoil STAB. If CAP30 had access to Rapid Spin, I would sooner opt to use different dedicated hazard removal than to compress the role into 30i
This feels like a large overstatement to me. I don't think there's any reason for us to be this concerned and fatalistic about the prospect of boosting moves. I'll try to take this point by point because there's a lot to unpack here:
This is just a flat-out bad idea that eliminates Slowbro and neutrally hit walls as defensive switch-ins.
+2 Boosting moves do complicate defensive counterplay, but the tradeoff is that our unboosted power will be much weaker than without SD/NP. This opens up new avenues of counterplay on its own. Without boosting, we will likely be able to 2HKO our outright OHKO every relevant mon in the tier with a single move, bar two or three exceptionally bulky answers; I don't see how this is much better than a situation where we're far more limited in base but can conditionally boost our power even further.I warned previously that I had serious concerns about the viability of CAP30. These concerns have not changed, but adding a boosting move effectively removes the damage ceiling on CAP30i, turning it into something that 2HKOs everything not named Magnezone with only 90 attack. It's basically Aurumoth all over again lol. We're basically making excuses for a suboptimal mon to get access to boosting moves because the community is beginning to realise that CAP30 will be irrelevant in the meta. My other issue is that we rejected several move options/typings/Abilities for being "too broken" or against flavour rules before, and now we're entertaining the possibility of completely abandoning decisions made at previous stages (especially Threat and Concept stages) because the community is beginning to realize CAP30 will likely end up being two more C-listers. At this point the concept doesn't even matter because we've made almost no real effort to actually optimise either Tinted Lens or Stamina beyond giving 30b Body Press.Set-up as a whole really undermines the point of utility wallbreaking too...I am strongly against this route and would rather see 30i lean into its role of utility wallbreaker.
The two aren't mutually exclusive – what would you call a set of SD/BB/Roost/Spin? Or NP/Cane/Roost/TWave? The definition of utility breaker you're operating under feels very narrow to me. It could be argued that the examples I gave aren't as "utility breaker" as, say, something like BB/Knock/Roost/Taunt, but that's just splitting hairs at that point; they're all ultimately variations on the same theme.I would call the first set mediocre, the second set bad, and the third more or less the expectation of what 30i should run. For starters, using Rapid Spin as a substitute for a double-dance set-up move more often eats up offensive tempo than not. Secondly, Using Hurricane as a primary move for wallbreaking is EXTREMELY inconsistent performance-wise. If you wanted to give the community flexibility in choosing whether 30i should be physical or special, then yall shouldn't have barred shit like Aeroblast or Oblivion Wing from discussion lmao. Status is also a rather ineffective support option for a wallbreaker. Again, the reason why Melmetal takes advantage of paralysis so well is because Melmetal has a multi-hit flinching move to pair alongside it. There have been several robust support options that have been totally ignored. Trick Room and Court Change were mentioned by others but saw almost no discussion from others besides myself and one other person. As @CharSiuEmboar pointed out, running shit like Defog isn't optimal for a Tinted-Lens wallbreaker, because unlike Kartana, the opponent will have a more difficult time switching. Court Change on the other hand steals offensive tempo, so even the cost of failed predictions is still somewhat mitigated. Moreover, it is not "splitting hairs" to expect that we stick to the utility wallbreaker role. This is exactly what I mean by abandoning previous stages. It's weird that we suddenly decided on making something that has no real defensive checks.
I think calcs can sometimes be misleading. I could list out LO NP Hydreigon calcs or Specs Blacephalon calcs all day long and they would be (and are) terrifying, but both of these Pokemon are ultimately limited in crucial ways, which we are as well. Our forced reliance on fundamentally unreliable STAB options (be it heavy recoil or inaccuracy) and crucially our weakness to Rock are two important ones to point out here. We will still have defensive counterplay even if we hand out boosting, as well as new offensive counterplay like I previously mentioned.On a last note, boosting is far from "decided," so framing it like that is a bit weird; it's an optional move for a reason, and any stat spread that elects to include boosting will have to adjust its strength accordingly – that is the whole point of this stage. Arguing that boosting hamstrings stats too much would honestly make more sense than saying it's outright impossible to balance (though I still disagree with the former).
Offensive counterplay cannot be assumed without stats. We have no idea what speed tiers 30i reaches. Even then, why would an attacker switch into a (potentially Lens-boosted) Brave Bird? If your offensive counterplay depends entirely on perfect prediction or sacrificing a Pokemon first, then that counterplay is not remotely sustainable. As for defensive counterplay, there is VERY LITTLE to use against a Tinted Lens mon with access to boosts, Taunt, and recovery.
Modnote: Edited out inflammatory sentence.
Modnote 2: removed second inflammatory sentence
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