"The broken defense stat, and the 2nd great CP re-balance"

#PokemonGO: IntroStats in Pokemon Go are derived from the base stats of the Pokemon in the main series games. Originally, Niantic calculated attack and defense in Pokemon go by taking an average of the Pokemon's physical and special stats, but this caused significant issues. Pokemon who specialized in one or the other, like alakazam and machamp, were hit hard, and people weren't happy about it because it didn't respect the way the Pokemon played in the main series games. Both alakazam and machamp were offensive monsters that hit very hard in what they specialized in, and never used the stat they didn't specialize in. Alakazam never used physical moves, and machamp never used special moves. On top of this, speed did little to nothing. In response to this, Niantic switched to a weighted average system that calculated attack and defense by multiplying the higher stat (physical or special) by 7/8, added it to the lower stat multiplied by 1/8, and added a speed factor to both attack and defense. This made Pokemon like alakazam and machamp much better, but hit Pokemon with balanced stats very hard. In general, it was a positive change that made many fan favorites behave in a way that mimicked the main series. However, over time its become clear that these changes only helped certain types of Pokemon, and punished others.This is a thread that takes a deep dive into the stats behind Pokemon Go, so if numbers aren't your thing, this thread might not mean much to you. If you'd like to read up on exactly how these formulas work, I'd recommend you check out this gamepress article. The rest of this thread assumes you have some understanding of them. If you'd like to follow along with my spreadsheet, check out the public link here.CurrentlyAttack is the best stat hands down. It's vital in raids, helpful in gyms, and makes battles faster to complete. It also weighs heavily on the cp formula.Stamina is the best stat for defense, as it lets a pokemon use more charge moves over its life cycle, forces battles to be longer, and generally is a stronger force than defense.Defense is weak due to it's limited reward, low impact on the cp formula, and its oversimplified calculation method. It makes Pokemon more potion efficient when attacking, and it makes raid bosses harder to defeat, but that's about it.So how can the defense stat be fixed? I've come up with 3 issues and adjustments that can substantially improve how the stat is calculated, and allows for more Pokemon to behave similarly to the main series games. These three changes are discussed in this post.1) Because of the cp formula, defense matters less than other statsPokemonLatiosLatiasRaikouEnteiSuicuneEspeonUmbreonVaporeonAttack268228241235180261126206Defense228268210176235194250177Stamina160160180230200130130260Max CP36453378334933782824300120533157BST600600580580580525525525Solution: Reward Pokemon that specialize in defense by raising their defense stat higherThe Tankiness Factor looks at the total percentage of a pokemon's stats that are put into defense relative to its overall base stat total (BST). If more than 1/3 is in defense, then the defense stat gets raised, if less than 1/3 is in defense, then the defense stat is lowered.Tankiness Factor = (( def + spd)/(BST))/(1/3)Modified Defense = Orginal Defense * Tankiness FactorWinners: Pokemon with high total defensive stats. This includes Pokemon like steelix, aggron, umbreon, suicune, and especially Pokemon like dusclops and shuckle.Losers: Pokemon with very low defensive stats, generally sweepers. Alakazam, mewtwo, espeon, deoxys, etc.While the tankiness factor lead to good initial results such as suicune having almost identical cp to raikou and entei, it unintentionally punished fast glass cannons, aka sweepers. This is an issue resolved later. It also doesn't do enough for balanced tanks, such as umbreon.2) Balanced defensive stats are heavily punishedPokemon can be a specialized or generalized tank. Specialized tanks, like blissey, can be lethal if all the physical threats on your opponents team are gone, but if blissey gets hit physically it folds like a piece of paper. Generalized tanks, like umbreon or duslops, have high defense and special defense, and are useful in more situations. Both have a place in the main series, but in Pokemon Go balanced tanks are punished by the defense formula.Ratio1:12:13:14:113:1def7510011212011spd75503830139speed100100100100100Defense158197217229258ExampleRegisteelRegirockSteelixCloysterBlisseySolution: Greatly reduce the benefit of specialized defenseTo accomplish this, I reduced the 7/8:1/8 factor to 5/8:3/8, and multiplied by 1.2. If you're curious why I used a multiplier of 1.2, check out the second page of my spreadsheet for a graph. Just lowering the factor universally lowered defense stats.Modified Ratio1:12:13:14:113:1def7510011212011spd75503830139speed100100100100100Defense193209216222233ExampleRegisteelRegirockSteelixCloysterBlisseyWinners: Balanced tanks. Most Pokemon fall within a 3:1 ratio, so most Pokemon receive a small boost.Losers: Very specialized tanks3) Speed is not important in defense, but is very important in attackMost tanks in the main series games are slow, and most sweepers are fast. So having speed benefit both attack and defense equally is silly.Solution: Remove the speed modifier from the defense stat and square it in the attack statThis is a simple change that ends up making a lot of sense, and it undoes most of the issue introduced with the Tankiness factor. It makes glass cannons more glassy, and more... cannon-y, and balances out some of the benefit introduced in the first two modifications.Final Formulasif att>spaModified Attack = round(round(2*(att*7/8+spa*1/8))*(1+(speed-75)/500)^2)if spa>attModified Attack = round(round(2*(spa*7/8+att*1/8))*(1+(speed-75)/500)^2)if def>spdModified Defense = round(round(2*(def*5/8+spd*3/8))* 1.2*tankiness_factor)if spd>defModified Defense = round(round(2*(spd*5/8+def*3/8))* 1.2*tankiness_factor)Final Results-Further specialization of Pokemon into the roles they fill in the main series games, particularly sweepers and tanks.-Introduction of roles seen in the main games, specifically defense based tanks and balanced tanks.-A nerf to health tanks and highly specialized tanks, blissey in particular (cp 3219 -> 2686).PokemonLatiosLatiasRaikouEnteiSuicuneEspeonUmbreonVaporeonAttack286244260247183279124201Defense226304197162328174403174Stamina160160180230200130130260Max CP38613822340833783358304025413076BST600600580580580525525525So... is this the end all solution to the defense problem? ...Probably not, but it's a vast improvement that works within the confines of the current cp system. It diversifies the meta greatly, and allows a lot more Pokemon to shine in what they were intended to. It only majorly nerfs blissey, who up until this point was mooching hardcore off the issues with how stats are calculated.It is also worth pointing out that these changes make shuckles defense stat insane, but given how damage rounding works at the moment, it wouldn't be broken. It'd actually be pretty neat because faster lower damage quick moves would be more effective against it than anything else. Still, capping defense at like 600 probably isn't a bad idea. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2GkzHz3