***[VOTE] The final Wobbuffet "discussion" thread***

After a couple months of playing around with Wobbuffet on shoddy's ladder, we've arrived at a crossroads: just where does Wobbuffet fit into the big picture? No longer deemed "Limbo" by Smogon, the time has come to finally decide the fate of the blue blob known only by the alias of Wobbuffet, once and for all. We've had plenty of time to test out just what the metagame is exactly like with the addition of Wobbuffet in our midsts.

It is time for the community of Smogon to decide for themselves whether Wobbuffet is uber or not - a simple yes or no will do, and soon Wobbuffet will be banished to the uber tier, or it will enjoy its company in the ranks of the OU for a very very long time to come. Only if you truly have experienced the DP metagame for yourself, however, should you come forth and voice your opinions. (No theorymon!)


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IPLs vote is as follows -chaos

Wobbuffet... how has it changed the game, you say? Why should it be banned?

Well, first off, Wobbuffet is the king of all "revenge killers," being able to revenge kill anything in the game, minus, of course, another Shadow Tag user. This means that Wobbuffet can have his pick of any Pokemon on the opponent's team to pick off. Or, if the trapped Pokemon decided to use a non-damaging move, Encore comes for you, and you have either the option of being Tickle-Pursuited to oblivion or a simple switch to Dugtrio for the non-Flying/Levitating victims. I can remove any piece of your team I wish, at any time... think about this: if we were playing regular Pokemon, and after seeing most of each other's teams... the score being 6-6, I was allowed to choose and sacrifice a Pokemon for ANY POKEMON ON YOUR TEAM, would you be pleased? Well, Wobbuffet gives its user the ability to do exactly that... (with few exceptions.) Now you have to pack maybe yet another Garchomp / Lucario / Mamoswine / <insert threat here> counter or risk having your only counter trap-killed by Wobbuffet...

There are very very few limitations to Wobbuffet's trapping abilities, only fearing Special-based Darks, Physical based Ghosts, U-Turn + Ghosts, Taunt, and Shed Shell. That leaves Houndoom, Dusknoir, and some variations of Tyranitar as the few totally immune to Wobbuffet's effects, however it is important to remember that they CANNOT SWITCH IN. U-Turn without a Ghost on your team (hey let's all have Spiritomb / Gengar / Dusknoir on every team!) will lead to the new switch-in taking a hefty Counter to the face. Shed Shell on Pokemon that don't like to get trapped by Wobbuffet (ie Hippowdon) would become a clear example of how Wobbuffet affects the metagame in extremes if people had to go that far to prevent Wobbuffet from wreaking chaos upon their teams, and of course people won't go that far since Shed Shell is going to remain impractical to deal with one threat in the DP world of myriad threats.

Wobbuffet almost always does its job. Either you throw an attack at it to weaken it, and it probably got a kill through Counter/Mirror Coat - it took out at least one Pokemon. Or, you don't attack it, get Encored and trap-killed by Tickle-Pursuit/Dugtrio or allow any of several of DP's dangerous sweepers to set up. It's a win-win situation for the Wobbuffet user because it always gets its cost, one Pokemon, back, and so much more.

Because of the reasons I listed above, I cast my vote that Wobbuffet is Uber.

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How will you vote? Feel free to discuss Wobbuffet and what merits its banning or otherwise here, however keep strict theorymon limited.

Post your vote in bold, with clear reasoning behind why you are voting so.

This thread will be moved to Stark for further discussion after hearing from the badgeholders.

Wobbuffet Uber? Yes.

As if the whole "it guarantees at least one KO per match without even trying" argument wasn't enough, there's the fact that it completely halts the match the turn its brought in. No matter how fast or slow a game is going offensively, Wobbuffet brings it all to a complete stop the second its brought in. No other pokemon can just stop a game and change momentum like Wobbuffet can. There are always two options in pokemon: attack or switch. Wobbuffet completely removes one of those options from every pokemon, and that is one too many.

Wobbuffet is uber - simply because he changes how the game is played.

Once Wobbuffet is out on the field - everything stops. Offensively, Defensively. What happens next simply comes down to either 1) Sacrificing the Pokemon in play to weaken Wobbuffet, or 2) Allow Wobbuffet to give another Pokemon a chance for a free set up.

Tickle isn't the reason Wobbuffet is broken - we argue that Wobbuffet is broken is because it simplifies the entire game into a Blind Guessing Game, from a "game of measuring risk". There is absolutely nothing to manage here other than you attempting to realize "which option, 1 or 2, will screw over my team more?" and when this happens early on, when someone has no clue about the opponent's team, I just believe the game simply forces your opponent to take stab in the dark.

It changes how the game is played. It changes the very nature of the game in a negative manner

As much as I personally fare against Wobbuffet, I can see that it is uber from other perspective and should treated as so for 'the better of the metagame.' Think of Wobbuffet as a the Pokemon version of the status freeze.

Wobbuffet is uber. No questions asked.

I'm not going write a paragraph of theorymon, that is useless. I play pokemon, and can recognize a problem when I see it. It reduces the amount of pure skill necessary to win a game of pokemon in a competitive environment. That is reason enough.

Aeroblacktyl summed it up for me here, mostly:

Think of Wobbuffet as a the Pokemon version of the status freeze

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It doesn't promote diversity or change in the metagame, if anything the opposite. It makes the game more stagnant. Wobbuffet's position as a pokemon is beyond Stall and Offence really. It STOPS the game until it leaves play. For this reason, I believe Wobbuffet is Uber.

Wobbuffet is uber because it doesn't promote skill and simplifies the game too much--and I can speak from personal experience (though limited) for once. I hadn't played Pokemon in, like, four months, but today I made a team similar to TAY's--the one in his "infamous" log--and won 3 out of every 4 matches on what felt like a fluke.

I'd have to say yes, Wobbuffet is uber. It basically allows the user to dictate the pacing of the game and to determine which Pokemon of his opponent's he wants gone. The way in which it operates truly undermines the way in which Pokemon should be played.

I'm voting no, it's not uber. I've already outlined my reasons in several other topics, so let me make this one statement:

Wobbuffet is currently (or at least was until very recently, I don't know if it was fixed) more powerful than it ought to be. There was a problem with Skill Swapping to escape Wobbuffet. I thought there was a bug with Encore but apparently that was just coincidence when I tested it.

As much as I love to use and abuse it, Wobb is uber, based on its set it and forget it style of play. Considering that if a team like TAY's became popular due to its ease of use and high win percentage, I would venture to say it was centralizing the metagame, it hasn't reached that point yet, but Wobb is still quite a danger even without total centralization.

Wobbuffet's ability to bring the pace of any game to a halt just by switching in is simply too much. I've argued against it's inclusion into OU since it began being considered for OU and with this i cast my vote. Wobbuffet is Uber

I agree that Wobbuffet is uber. Everything I would have said has been said better already by IPL and others. It chooses its matchups, can guarantee 1 KO, stops the battle ect. If people started using it instead of complaining how cheap/boring it is then its sure to become centralizing in OU.

Wobbuffet's impact upon the game is negative, and thus is uber. I think MoP put it best; Wobbuffet is Freeze personified, er, Pokemonified. The thing is, not just one Pokemon is frozen. Instead, the whole game is frozen, put to a standstill. Wobbuffet controls the outcome of the game.

Like many in this thread, I used TAY's team. I found myself winning much, much more than usual. The few times I lost were when the opponent also had a Wobbuffet.

Bleh, Wobbuffet is one of my favourite pokemon, but unfortunately, I'm going to have to call it uber as well, though I may regret this later.

Really, I used it on one of my super-gimmick teams, that had stuff like L1 Endeavor Kangaskhan, and other random crap on it, but I was still able to rape opposing teams thanks to Wobbuffet screwing my opponent's over so much. I personally love trappers, and I love Encorers too, but when the two things combine, especially with Wobb's great defenses, it becomes ridiculous. Really, that strategy is absolutely sadistic, even by my standards.

The only reason I'd ever really think of keeping Wobbuffet in OU would be because of Toxic Spikes/Spikes/Stealth Rock/Sandstorm/Hail being so frequently used, but really, I don't know if that's a good enough reason for it to stay OU. After all, no good player is going to be bringing out Wobb against a Taunt user or a CBer that can deal fatal damage to it.

I myself have not had a huge amount of problems facing it, but that's because I can usually deal with the rest of the opponent's team perfectly fine, which means that Wobb won't be much help then. However, unlike Deoxys-S, there are no surefire ways of stopping this thing. It has an answer for every single pokemon, even without Tickle. With Tickle as an event move, it's a serious pain in the ass. If there's a pokemon you cannot deal with on the opponent's team, you can bet that Wobbuffet will take advantage of that and get that pokemon in with ease.

Then there's the dreaded WobTrio combo. Encore a non-attacking move, opponent trapped. Switch to Duggy, opponent still trapped. Duggy kills the opponent, and you just got a free kill, and you can repeat this again during the match on any of your opponent's walls/stat-uppers. I don't know whether to call this ridiculously good, or to feel sorry for the opponent...heh.

Wobba simply has no counters, at all. Anyone can bring him in on almost any Pokemon and get a free set up turn for whatever they want. That's one turn too many. This is one of the smallest reasons, and if that's the smallest reason then you know it has to be bad. Wobbuffet is uber.

I've gotta vote Uber, since it can revenge kill for free and because encore plus trap is just too much. You can be ultra skilled and wob will still work against you anyway. Not to mention wob + trio, wob + pursuiter, wob + set upper, leech seed/toxic/perish song + wob.

I wish to state my opposition to a vote. Consider this vote in objection; I in no way acknowledge that this or any other vote is a legitimate way to make policy. This is a transparent attempt to not only be conservative but regressive by appealing to numbers.

I vote to allow Wobbuffet. Statistics and empirical evidence don't suggest he's broken.

Amazing Ampharos said:

I wish to state my opposition to a vote. Consider this vote in objection; I in no way acknowledge that this or any other vote is a legitimate way to make policy. This is a transparent attempt to not only be conservative but regressive by appealing to numbers.

I vote to allow Wobbuffet. Statistics and empirical evidence don't suggest he's broken.

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What statistics? Statistics only show usage. You may argue that people don't centralise around wob, but really, how do you prepare your team for wob? I won't use a team of dark gosht sheed shell and u turn. However I´ve changed my battling style in case they've got wob. If it's not broken I beg you explain me what to do when they switch wob in. Are there statistics for playing trends? Not very used doesn't mean not powerful.

Actually, as far as I know you don't play on shoddy, so what experience do you have to tell us that wob isn't broken.

Amazing Ampharos said:

I wish to state my opposition to a vote. Consider this vote in objection; I in no way acknowledge that this or any other vote is a legitimate way to make policy. This is a transparent attempt to not only be conservative but regressive by appealing to numbers.

I vote to allow Wobbuffet. Statistics and empirical evidence don't suggest he's broken.

Click to expand...

Then feel free to post a topic with your argument, so I may respond to you without going off topic.

I believe Wobbuffet is uber. If not for the ability it gets, it simply takes out a lot of skill from the game, giving you free set up or ability to easily take out one pokemon without taking much damage in return. No real counter could also speak for itself. Ontop of that, the way it can simply change the pace of the game, turning the tide in one or two turns is something too powerful imho.

(Note: most of my statements are based on experience, but a couple of theorymon statements).

I believe Wobbuffet is uber. If not for the ability it gets, it simply takes out a lot of skill from the game, giving you free set up or ability to easily take out one pokemon without taking much damage in return. No real counter could also speak for itself. Ontop of that, the way it can simply change the pace of the game, turning the tide in one or two turns is something too powerful imho.

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Agreeing wholeheartedly with Junior

I believe that Wobbuffet is uber - so many users above me have already stated as to why it is indeed uber material.

If Smogon is a competitive community that offers superior, unmatched competitive service to users with in-depth articles and resources for their use, to eventually transform them into well-known, competitive and experienced players, then why have a Pokemon in the game that throws all that out of the window once it enters the playing surface?

I believe Wobbuffet is not uber, but it seems I'm in the minority. Anything I'd want to say about it has already been featured in several posts, and I don't feel like going through it again.

I am of the belief that Wobbuffet is Uber, the impact it can have on a game with relatively little effort is astounding - it really does remove skill from the game in my experience.