>>59114215
HP

>>59114220
Counterpoint: shuckle

>>59114215
Probably Defense.
There are a variety of ways to curb physical pokemon, physical pokemon tend to have worse coverage options, and there are more cases of physical pokemon running random special moves, than special pokemon running random physical moves.

If you look at pokemon with absurdly high defense, almost none of them are very good. Aggron and Steelix are probably the best cases of this. Steeling is just kinda ass, Aggron's only redeeming features have almost nothing to do with its physical bulk, and instead are how wide its movepool is for shit like setting up paraflinch, or Rock Head, Head Smash on something not so slow that Rock Polish is useless.
Flip side is Blissey/Chansey. Dump defense and you'll do fine.

>>59114230
Might be onto something, most high-Defense mons are pure shitmons. Maybe it's the fact they're all extremely exploitable but the only OG defensively bulky mon that's been a mainstay to this day is Skarmory

>>59114215
Speed is the only stat where having a giga low value can be beneficial. Special defense can be shored up with assault vest while defense has no equivalent. I’d say speed with special defense as second

>>59114242
And Skarmory mostly coasted off the fact that it had good support moves, so falls into "best user of stealth rock/spikes/whirlwind/defog", that got reliable recovery. Skarmory is about the best a high defense pokemon has ever done, and it does actually use that defense, but I think is also a good example of why most high defense pokemon don't do better. A lot of them don't really do anything, they just kinda sit there. Steelix is the best case of that. Steelix doesn't really threaten anything, it doesn't really advance anything, it forces switches kinda and awkwardly tries to leverage the support moves it actually has.

>>59114223
No reliable recovery. Toxapex, Hatterene, Rotom, Mega Sableye and Ferrothorn all have low HP.
300 HP at level 100 is enough and for that you only need 48 points base.

>>59114242
>>59114266
Gliscor is high def and has been basically OU since its inception

>>59114267
>Ferrothorn
Ferrothorn is an outlier case here in that the low HP stat actually helps it.
Drain/leech tanks benefit from low HP, high defense stats to maximize the value of each point of HP they drain.
I think Toxapex isn't that good of an example, because Toxapex is just Regenerator on a tanky body, with access to good dusruptive moves. I don't think Toxapex would really be that different if it was a more balanced tank or HP focused tank, because what makes it work is it's coming back in at 75% hp again next time.

I think the better comparisons are non-high performing examples like Dusclops vs Guzlord. Generally high defenses are better than high HP if forced to choose, but high defenses are very BST taxing, and make the pokemon very reliant on certain kinds of moves to function, like Night Shade, Leech Seed, status, ect, while high HP means you have a lot more bst to use elsewhere (of course, most very high HP, low defense pokemon utterly waste this on being slow mixed attackers, but just imagine if Guzlord swapped its Special Attack and Speed stats)
HP is thus kinda more of an offensive tank stat, while high defenses are a more passive pure tank stat. Usually.

>>59114295
This is true. But, I think for Gliscor's case, it's more an example that Poison Heal is a very very good ability on something that can take a hit to begin with, more than anything else. Not discounting it or anything, but I don't think it would have stayed OU past gen 4 without poison heal.

>>59114308
Poison heal definitely carries it very far, but I don't know if it would be ou without the defense. I think it only works because it has both the bulk and the ability.

>>59114326
Yeah, both together are important. Breloom doesn't see nearly as much use despite it, 'cuz Breloom is made of paper and explodes if you touch it with anything but Earthquake.
They matter together.

This is probably a little meta dependent, but generally I think it would have to be either HP or one of the defenses. The question of which is ambiguous, but mixed attackers will almost always drop one of their defense stats unless they're specifically meant to work well in trick room. Similarly, bulky mons have ways to stay around (screens, intimidate, assault vest, recovery) even if one of the three is somewhat lacking.

Out of those three though, I'm not sure which you could fairly say will matter the least across the board, because different mons need different things.
>>59114243
The question isn't which stat can be lowest without hurting your team, it's which matters least. Speed unquestionably matters the most, even at low speeds you are specifically building your team entirely around that stat and its corresponding strategy.

>>59114215
Special Defense by far, it's a meme stat

>>59114215
probably sp. def
you need def for body press and taking less damage against confusion, also physical attackers are more common than special attackers in most metas

>>59114266
defense isn't a bad stat, gamefreak just consistently marries high defense stats to shitty typings and movepools because rock and steel are the "defense" types so they have to have high defense and nothing else. the vast majority of them have no recovery, no utility, and are weak to common physical types that they should be walling.

OU has several mons that have defense as their highest stat and do just fine (gliscor, g-weezing, garganacl, pecharunt, corviknight) but most of them are from recent gens because of older gamefreak's retardation about physical walls.

>>59114220
This is the definitive answer. If we're talking across EVERY pokemon like OP's rules for the thread wants, then it couldn't be anything other than HP. It's the one stat that keeps the pokemon in shape to actually battle. You don't need high attacking stats or defensive stats because you can still be chipped away by status, you don't need speed because trick room and priority moves can make slow pokemon go first anyways, but the vast majority of moves in the game have a direct impact on the target's HP and you cannot win without reducing the opponent's to 0. It's also the only stat you can see in-battle without having to open a separate summary screen to see all the other attributes. HP is the most important stat and it isn't even close.

>>59114215
For most pokemon i believe special defense is the least important stat because there are very few priority and utility special attacks compared to physical (FakeOut, KnockOff, U-turn FlipTurn) and defense can also by utilizied through body press, and if for whatever reason you want a pokemon to be specially bulky AV + hp&spdefEV's can make alot of mons very survivable.

>>59114395
That's the exact opposite of what op is asking

>>59114215
HP. having high HP has never been a requirement to be good, for either offensove or defensive mons. hell, even hard stall teams don't need high HP mons to succeed. skarm, corv, mega sableye, clefable, toxapex, quagsire, etc. all don't even break 100 HP. it's helpful, sure, but even when it comes to pokemon that rely entirely on bulk they clearly don't need it to excel.

>>59114443
also, high HP can be a considerable weakness due to draining moves restoring more HP to your opponent, while low HP's weakness of fixed damage moves comes into play extremely rarely. low HP mons can also cope with pain split if they don't have other recovery like dusclops does, and they can also get huge wishes passed to them from mons like alomomola that restore most of their HP. high HP mons have no alternatives for these.

>>59114395
>>59114420
This may have just convinced me the answer to OP's question is HP anyway. Winning at 1 HP is the same as winning at full. It's just a resource like any of the other stats. But unlike the other stats, you could set it to a default number for every Pokemon, say 100, and most Pokemon would still have the same build they have now. Some Pokemon with very high HP might do a little worse, and some with very low HP might do a little better, but generally no wall is going to wall things with HP alone, it needs one or both of the defensive stats, abilities, resistances, or moves to be good at what it does. Similarly, frail sweepers might get a little bulkier, but HP alone isn't going to turn them into a powerhouse, or prevent them from running items like focus sash.

The main use of HP competitively is to finesse things into place so you can survive exact situations in order to attack back. An extra turn here or there, adjusting it up or down as needed. But suppose you're not sure what threats to be calcing for? As long as you have enough HP left to survive, any amount left will do. It's the stat that is the most forgiving to invest in poorly. And it's not even the stat that most bulky mons prefer to invest extra EVs in, that's nearly always the other defense or preferred style of attack.

>>59114215
the pokemon with the highest special defense in OU is primarina, with only 116. every other stat has a rep with 140 or more (mola lando pecha moth deo-s) but special defense is lacking such a mon.
it's obviously the least important stat.

>>59114555
Blissey was instrumental to early gen with

>>59114560
blissey is good because it has a retarded amount of BST in bulk, not because special defense is a vital stat. 400 of its 540 BST is used for bulk stats, which is a bigger raw number than even defensive box legendaries like giratina and lugia who only have 390.
blissey being a huge special sponge also makes it a less important stat overall because every single wall pokemon with high special defense now has to be compared to blissey and will usually come up short, reducing the value of the stat as a whole.

>>59114483
>but generally no wall is going to wall things with HP alone
Chansey and Blissey.
They have some special defense, but mostly that's just raw HP tanking.
Also Giratina, especially Origin, and Yveltal to an extent.
Alomamola does pretty fine as a pure HP tank, I think Alomamola is probably the best case for "pure HP tanking isn't a bad idea from the outset, just most pure HP tank pokemon do not have the movepool to do it", since Alomamola is pretty solid, even with what little it has besides Regenerator+Wish and Scald.
Kinda Snorlax, though Snorlax sucks ass nowadays. Potentially interesting trend, that pokemon like Chansey and Snorlax have slowly gotten worse over time, but I think that's more the Normal type getting worse over time, moreso than HP.
Kyurem is an interesting case, mostly Black. Kyurem's HP isn't super high, but it is well above average, and that's basically entirely how any of the Kyurems have any durability at all.
Dondozo has a good defense stat too, but is an HP tank first and foremost, and while it has some other things going for it, the fat bastard was the face of Battlespot, to the point of running Fissure because nobody can kill the fucking thing.

I think pokemon like Wailord really are a stigma on raw HP pokemon. Wailord isn't bad because it's an HP tank, it's bad because it's trying to make base 90 offenses and "fuck you" mid tier speed work, has abilities it doesn't want, and has a support movepool that begins and ends at Toxic.
If Wailord had, say, 45 attack, 110 Special Attack, and 85 speed, maybe Wish, maybe Thunder Wave or Stealth Rock, I think it would be way better. Maybe give it Levitate or fukkin, I dunno, anything else. Unaware, maybe.
If anything, I think the problem with HP is that, whether accurate or not, GF seems to value the stat highly, so cripples pokemon with high HP stats to balance them.
Prooooobably a knee jerk response to the olden days of competitive, where teams of 6 Chansey were a thing.

>>59114230
Counterpoint: Body Press. Mons that can use it, can really fucking use it. There is no special equivalent.

>>59114215
Overall it's definitely special defense but it's not by a super wide margin

>>59114483
>And it's not even the stat that most bulky mons prefer to invest extra EVs in,
Eeeeh that has to do more with where investment matters, and how overall defensive profiles work.
A point in defense is not the same for every single pokemon, because defense works by ratio.
Chansey invests fully into physical defense, while Aggron almost never does, because the 50 some odd points from EV investment literally double Chansey's physical bulk, while they are barely noticeable to Aggron, iirc something like a 15% difference, less than the range of a damage roll.
There's nuance to it, math you can do to figure out optimal spreads ect, but the rule of thumb is you always invest in the lower stat of a pokemon's defensive profile you plan to use, if you have to choose. Deoxys-D wants to invest in HP, Guzlord wants to invest in defenses.
HP is usually preferred for non-tank pokemon, just because it covers both, so is used more often.

>>59114722
Maybe?
It's definitely something Defense has over Special Defense, but I also feel like that's not really that big of a deal. Like, most of the good Body Press pokemon, are only good because they ALSO have good special defense, right? I can't think of anything that uses it, has shit special defense, and is good. Steelix has it, but isn't really good with it, right? I could be blanking, of course.

>>59114230
>than special pokemon running random physical moves.
Counterpoint, Psyshock. And iirc Secret Sword but I don't think anything but Keldeo both has it and uses it, but I could be wrong.
Not all special attackers have it, but a good amount do, and it means special attackers have a pretty accessible way to bypass special defense.

If nothing else, that's a point against special defense, since a lot of pokemon can ignore it if they want to.

>>59114770
defensive fighting types use it well even if they're rare, chesnaught and cobalion for example. when most people think of body press they think of ironpress sweeper sets, and the reason most of those suck is because the overlap between "has body press" and "has a defense boosting move and recovery" is very minimal. aside from the obvious corviknight and garganacl, the only other mons in gen 9 that fit that criteria are skarmory, appletun, and avalugg. you don't exactly see a lot of appletun or avalugg, and skarm is just objectively a worse ironpresser than corviknight.

The least important stat is the stat a Pokemon does not use to attack with.

>>59114770
>I can't think of anything that uses it, has shit special defense, and is good.
archaludon
though that's probably the exception that proves the rule

>>59114929
This is obviously true, but OP is explicitly asking for a different answer precisely because that’s so obvious. If a Pokémon isn’t going to use a particular attacking Stat then that stat might as well be 0.

>>59114215
Special defense.

If this was any other RPG with just one defensive stat, then that would be it (as the truly most important "defensive" stat is always HP, not defense), but here it's defense AND special defense, and out of the two special defense is by far the one that has the least going on for it.

Defense interacts with body press, psyshock-style moves (hell the fact these types of move effects exist at all but there's practically no examples of the opposite should already tell you everything), defense also matters more as physical attacks tend to have higher BP with less urgent drawbacks than special attacks, to the point burn exists and is one of the most important status conditions but the closest special equivalent needed is assault vest. Special walls are dime a dozen and it's among the worst stat archetypes out there (also when they don't know where to dump stats they always inflate SpD and they create absolute garbage, look at thievul or mega malamar). There ARE great special walls but having high special defense alone is never enough.

HP, Atk/SpA and speed are the trinity* of important, game-defining stats, so if you had to kill anything SpD should be it.

>>59114970
agreed. there's a lot less demand for strong special walls since special sweepers are generally a lot easier to check between weaker spammable moves, a lack of options to boost speed, and assault vest turning things into fat special sponges. AV regenerator in particular is a very strong combo that obsoletes a significant portion of specially defensive mons as they simply cannot compete.

I'd say HP. Obviously it can't be absolute trash, but staying healthy has the least restrictions
S/Attack: Every Pokemon that actually wants to deal damage wants this. Unless you go for a full support set
Speed: Basically everything but Trick Room wants this
That really only leads survivability. S/Defense or HP. Typically I find that increasing Defense has a better overall support to raising HP and investing in both defenses does more in general survivability than hyper focusing on one type of offense. Unless one of their defenses is so low its not worth investing into in the first place

>>59114215
HP. Low HP with high Def/SpDef is preferable to high HP with low defenses. Chansey and Blissey quite literally are the only examples who get away with it, due to having high HP AND high special defense.

>>59114215
Sp.Def, there are so many alternative ways to get it for free. Special Moves also have no priority attacks unlike Physical to worry about

>>59114215
Speed is the most important stat by far. Determining turn order is the biggest consideration each turn and it enables Pokemon that otherwise low in every other area to be viable. So definitely not it.
HP is pretty useful since it impacts both sides of the attacking spectrum, so it's not HP either.
You do still need to attack. Even defensive Pokemon still need to use attacking moves, otherwise they become way too passive and can easily be dealt with options like Taunt or Trick. Between the 2, Atk is a little more important to consider since it has the majority of priority moves, with only 3 special moves being priority moves and 2 are signature moves.
That also means Def is important even on frailer Pokemon since it determines your survivability against priority. And also Def can be used in moves like Body Press and accounts for moves like Psyshock and Secret Sword.
That leaves Special Defense.

>>59116315
>Pokemon that otherwise low in every other area to be viable. So definitely not it.
Eeeeh
You don't see much Electrode.
I think literally the only time Electrode has ever been relevant is gen 1 Ubers. Admittedly because of its speed, it's the only thing faster than Mewtwo that can also stick thunder wave, so is one of the few Mewtwo "checks", but it hasn't ever been used besides that. Weird ubers picks are just a fact of life, so probably shouldn't matter too much. Shedinja and Quagsire are frequent visitors to Ubers, after all.
Speed is important, but you have to actually be able to do something to make it good, and Electrode is a strong example of this. Base 80 offense, and no real support moves besides Thunder Wave isn't worth going first for.

>>59114215
I'll answer your question with a question.
Is Goodra the worst Pseudo?

>>59116779
Electrode has been of niche use in gen 3 through 5 OU. Its speed tier was enough to make it useful.

>>59116779
Ok now imagine if Electrode had 80 speed and 140 special defense

>>59116797
>More specially bulky than Bastiodon
Unironically it's not THAT bad.
It's basically Cryogonal with way better typing, that doesn't explode to physical.

I feel like this is the kind of pokemon that I hear has had a massive resurgence in Advance, but since tiers are no longer updated it's still NU

>>59116844
cryogonal's claim to fame is its decent speed tier + decent Ice STAB + rapid spin, none of which fit that new stat spread, dough.

>>59114215
Elusion and precision
Nobody wants to use rng dependant stuff

>>59116859
you're an idiot

>>59114215
Happiness, now that Return and Frustration are gone.

>>59116923
You're an idiot, too.

>>59116948
Happiness is a stat.