Why is Crabominable considered frail?

Question

According to Crabominable’s page on Smogon Fourms, most people consider Crabominable to be a glass cannon. While 77 Def and 67 SpDef is pretty bad, its still got a good 97 HP. If you add up 97 and 77 together and divide by 2, you get 87. This means Crabominable has 87 physical bulk, which isn’t very good; but it’s not that bad either. If you also add up 67 and 97 together and divide by 2, you get 82 special bulk, which also isn’t that bad. That means that Crabominable has 84.5 overall bulk, which I don’t think is considered frail. Yet Dhelmise and Vikavolt are considered to have decent bulk, while arguably, their bulk is actually worse than Crabowniable. Dhelmise has 85 physical bulk and 80 special bulk, while Vikavolt has 83.5 physical bulk and 76 special bulk. Is having low HP and high defenses better than having high HP and low defenses. Am I just an idiot? Can somebody explain what is considered average bulk and above?

Answer 1

Crabominable has common weaknesses, like Fighting, Fire, and Psychic, that make it harder to survive hits than Vikavolt and Dhelmise. Dhelmise actually has good enough bulk and access to Rapid Spin to be a Main choice of Mono Ghost teams, which go against way higher tiered Pokémon.

You also have to consider Crabominable's Role. Vikivolt and Dhelmise are great defensive Pokémon, while Crabominable is a more offensive Pokémon, getting less EVs and generally no nature investment into it's Defenses. :P

Decent Bulk is 80 HP with 80ish Defense, although, it doesn't exactly work by averages, and bad defensive typings and EV/Nature investment can contribute. A Pokémon could have 255 HP and 5 Defense (an average of 130, Higher than defensive bulk Arceus's Average) and still be a Glass Cannon.

Defense matters a little bit more than HP; 80 of a Defense with 70 HP is generally better than 70 of a Defense with 80 HP. Here are calcs to prove this (I used no EVs, Items, Hardy Natures, Abilities, etc.):

90 Base Atk Test Pokémon Tackle vs. 70 Base HP / 80 Base Def Test Pokémon: 33-39 (11.7 - 13.8%) -- possible 8HKO

90 Base Atk Test Pokémon Tackle vs. 80 Base HP / 70 Base Def Test Pokémon: 36-43 (11.9 - 14.2%) -- possible 7HKO

^{As you can see, the Pokémon with less HP and more Defense took less damage.}

Source

Crabominable has a minuscule 67 Special defense, when it's weaknesses are more abundant in Special Attacks. It also gets most of its bulk from HP, which isn't the "greatest bulk". Crabominable is also slow, so even if it could take more hits, it would still be at a disadvantage always being hit first. For these reason, Crabominable isn't great competitively and usually goes down quicker than most Pokémon, but hitting hard before that, and thus being a Glass Cannon. :P

Source: Experince

Hope I Helped!

Comments

Yay sniped!

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Thanks. I never thought crabowniable was a good pokemon, but I didn’t know that defenses mattered more than HP. I guess that’s why Toxapex is a great defensive pokemon despite its low HP and Wailord is a bad defensive pokemon despite its gargantuan HP stat. They really should of given Crabowniable ice shard and Mach lunch. Maybe given it technican instead of anger point. Also, they could lower its special attack to increase its defenses. That would of helped a lot

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Unfortunately, Game Freak doesn't have similar mindsets as Smogon, but competitively bad Pokémon make Competitively good Pokémon good, if that makes any sense. :P

...Was Fizz happy to get Sniped? :P

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That comment didn't read to me that way when I posted it, but I definitely see what you mean lol

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Fizz's answer has that.

Answer 2

Crabominable isn’t exactly frail stat-wise. I don’t think it’s fair to suggest the consensus at Smogon is they think it’s a glass cannon when their analysis describes its defensive stats as ‘solid’ and ‘decent’, at least by PU’s standards. However, Crabominable is an unequivocally poor defensive Pokémon: something that has more factors to it than the numbers you’ve already mentioned. To address your main point first...

If you add up 97 and 77 together and divide by 2, you get 87. This means Crabowniable has 87 physical bulk...

...you can’t really do this. Making an average like this only holds water if HP and defences are regarded the same way in damage calculations, which they are not. This model suggests Dhelmise would lose a higher percentage of its HP than Crab from the same unresisted hit, when this is not the case: tests on Showdown’s damage calculator show that Dhelmise in fact takes less damage. It is true Defence and Special Defence matter more than HP alone.

Crabominable’s main predicament though is that its defences, which are passable for an offensive Pokémon, are not matched with a good defensive typing. Offensive Pokémon appreciate a typing with good resistances, as this grants switch-in opportunities. However, Crab’s only meaningful resistances are Ice and Dark; and without exceptional defences to come in on neutral hits, it leaves much to be desired as a switch-in candidate.

Further, Crabominable has three more weaknesses than it does resistances, and among those are types like Fire and Fighting which are two of the best offensive typings in the game. It becomes easier to take advantage of this due to Crab’s slowness. These are the factors that combine to make Crabominable such a hard sell defensively. It’s not so much that it’s frail: it just has nothing going for it as a tank, which is sort of needed on slow Pokémon.

What bulk is considered average or above average is similarly relative. Slow Ice-type Pokémon would need excellent defences, and probably a self-sustain move, to justify themselves defensively. But for a Pokémon like Klefki — which scores 74 and 72 in your averaging model — the selling point is entirely in its coveted Steel/Fairy typing and further utility with Prankster, which placed it OU in its debut generation.

In short, stats alone don’t dictate what works defensively: and what is conventionally frail or bulky can operate very differently in reality having considered other the many other factors at play in competitive Pokémon.