Methods, systems, and devices for wireless communications are described. A base station and a user equipment (UE) with a defined capability may communicate using beamformed wireless communications. The defined capability may be that the UE may support fewer activated physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) transmission configuration indicator (TCI) states than activated control resource set (CORESET) TCI states. The defined capability UE and the base station may implement techniques to determine which TCI state to use when the UE supports fewer activated PDSCH TCI states than activated CORESET TCI states. The UE may use an activated PDSCH TCI state selected by a media access control (MAC) control element (CE), an activated TCI state of a specific CORESET, a TCI indicated in scheduling downlink control information, or an activated PDSCH TCI state selected by a radio resource control (RRC) message.