Platinum Changing the Accuracy of Hypnosis: The Effect on the Metagame

[Gonzaa]

Hypnosis had it´s accuracy always changing since RBY. I remember it was 66.6% (bible jokes allowed) back then , it changed to 60 % at RSE and to 70% on DP, platinum just got it back to the original chance of 2 out of 3 wich has never had been that bad

Milotic was OU on RSE with that same hypnosis accuracy combined with recover, all thanks to it´s huge Sp Def that could take easily any hits of electric or the lame grass type moves from back then. Nowadays Seed Bomb and Thunderpunch got the crap out of it

PD: A friend of mine cannot register to the forum, the following message appears "registration disabled by the administrator" anybody has any idea of why is that happening ?

 

[Rave]

At least I'm guessing that is why sleep status has one of the most arcane rules going with it (sleep clause).

I don't see it:

Arcane
~ Adjective
very mysterious.

I have noticed the decreasing use of Sleep Absorbers since Plat. It seems like ResTalk in general has gone down, leaving teams more open to status as a whole. God bless you Hypnosis drop.

Of course, this is just my perception. I get caught off guard by Bronzong's Hypnosis (etc.) every now and then. It can give the opponent the upper hand because it's a surprise tactic. There was a time where expecting Hypnosis would be my initial reaction when facing a Bronzong. Not any more. It actually makes wifi confusing sometimes xD.

 

[QibingZero]

At least I'm guessing that is why sleep status has one of the most arcane rules going with it (sleep clause). Maybe Nintendo just wanted people to stop using sleep clause. That may be an interesting test.

jk, I don't like sleep status anyway.

You only need one pokemon to abuse Sleep Clause, and there are other sleep moves than just Hypnosis. Hell, just Breloom itself is reason enough for the clause, but it's a significant competitive rule that even Nintendo understands needs to exist.

Really though, this topic can be almost completely summed up with the word 'Gengar'. I don't see how people can use a 60% accuracy move and a 70% accuracy one on such a frail pokemon (and the stats show many people are realizing this). Scizor's Bullet Punch did a number on Gengar, but somehow even that doesn't feel as big as the Hypnosis nerf. Well, to Gengar specifically at least. Sets like Sub/Focus Punch/HP Fire/Shadow Ball actually work pretty well, but are usually less effective than with Hypnosis in DP.

I get caught off guard by Bronzong's Hypnosis (etc.) every now and then. It can give the opponent the upper hand because it's a surprise tactic. There was a time where expecting Hypnosis would be my initial reaction when facing a Bronzong. Not any more.

This is actually quite true, and in that way it makes switching into Bronzong even more troublesome than before, imo. Thankfully, this is another one of the things RestTalk Rotom-A completely shuts down either way.

 

[E.A.]

Probably the biggest change is Gengar, which Aeroblacktyl brought up earlier. He can't afford to miss with Hypnosis, so he's often dropped it. The popularity of Scizor and the drop in Hypnosis' accuracy has really hurt his usage.

This could also be the reason why Gallade dropped down to the UU when we decided make the New UU. One of Gallade's selling points, especially over Lucario, was Hypnosis, and in tangent with Swords Dance, made him destructive.

 

[Legacy Raider]

During the UU test I must have faced hundreds of Crobats, yet I did not see a single one use Hypnosis. Its status as the 'fastest sleeper in the game' really wasn't shown off at all. Although quite a bit of this could be attributed to Hypnosis' illegality with Brave Bird, the drop in accuracy hit Crobat quite hard too.

Really, the reason that the the slight drop in accuracy was so significant was because many of the common Hypnosis users were quite frail, things like Gengar and Yanmega, which really cannot afford to miss. Milotic can still use Hypnosis quite effectively because with its bulk it can just sit there and fire away (at least in UU), but Hypnosis seems to have a stigma attached to it nowadays that prevents people from using it even on things that still can.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I agree there with Legacy Rider. For Yanmega/Gengar, I'd say use it as a desparation move, or use it preparing to lose more often than you need to climb the ladder. Missing is just too critical for them.

For the likes of Milotic though, I'd say go for it. I remember when Milotic came out in 3rd gen, and people said, "Finally, GF gave recover and hypnosis to a pokemon who can actually use them properly!" xD

 

[diinbong]

During the UU test I must have faced hundreds of Crobats, yet I did not see a single one use Hypnosis. Its status as the 'fastest sleeper in the game' really wasn't shown off at all. Although quite a bit of this could be attributed to Hypnosis' illegality with Brave Bird, the drop in accuracy hit Crobat quite hard too.

I think it actually just has to do with the UU metagames' Crobat's need for Brave Bird to beat Shaymin and stuff. But if it were legal with Hypnosis I would definitely use it.

milotic is the only one that was really affected by the switch

uh...what? Do you really know what you're talking about? Milotic was probably the one least affected by the switch.

 

[KnightoftheWind]

This could also be the reason why Gallade dropped down to the UU when we decided make the New UU. One of Gallade's selling points, especially over Lucario, was Hypnosis, and in tangent with Swords Dance, made him destructive.

Are you sure Hypnosis was a selling point for Gallade? I don't think I've seen a single Gallade with Hypnosis. The only real advantage it has over Lucario is decent Special Defense, allowing it to set up Substitutes and Swords Dance behind them.

 

[dr4g0n]

Are you sure Hypnosis was a selling point for Gallade? I don't think I've seen a single Gallade with Hypnosis. The only real advantage it has over Lucario is decent Special Defense, allowing it to set up Substitutes and Swords Dance behind them.

Yes, it is. Gallade had a period where every one of them was a double-status, and it was inevitably Hypnosis + something. Hypnosis was a very good move in its day, but GF nerfing its accuracy has pretty much eliminated its use, especially for stuff like Yanmega, Crobat, etc.
On that topic, I'm going to agree with LR and Toshio. For bulkier users of Hypnosis, eg Milotic/Bronzong it has become more valuable, since fewer people run a sleep absorber now.

 

[Imran]

I agree with Diinbong to be honest. With Crobat, I would not consider running him if I could not use Brave Bird, regardless of what the accuracy of Hypnosis is. Brave Bird of useful for revenge-killing such a multitude of threats. I believe it is this that contributed mostly to the fact that few Crobat run Hypnosis. On the other hand, every one in about seven Crobats in UU were Hypnosis varients, so what do I know!

I will go back to the July statistics to see the impact of the Hypnosis accuracy change of the main users of the move. I am aware of other factors such as Scizor beating Gengar, etc... But i still think a lot of these are valid:

Gengar - 7th in July - 12th in January
Bronzong - 9th in July - 16th in January
Yanmega - 34th in July - 46th in January
Milotic - 45th in July - 51st in January
Crobat - 50th in July - 65th in January

I think we can see the general trend here, although many people have been saying that it hasn't affected bulkier Pokemon as much, I think we can see that it has. Bronzong especially suprises me, as it is one thing that can actually switch into Salamence's Draco Meteor!

So, overall, we have seen less of the Sleep status flying around, which in a knock on effect, makes it more deadly. I remeber switching something into Milotic, and having been surprised as it slept me, the same goes for Yanmega, who I almost always assume has HP Ground these days. Although using Hypnosis these days is a risk, it can pay off for you, although perhaps not consistantly.

 

[Mekkah]

The 10% extra unreliability does not strike me as very huge when it was nothing to count on to begin with. The chance to miss Hypnosis twice in a row was 9% before, and 16% after Platinum, which are low but significant chances no matter how you look at it. So for Gengar/Yanmega, it does not change a whole lot imo.

Milotic has access to recovery, so an extra miss usually is not going to hurt it as much. I am usually repelled to run Hypnosis on it simply because it is only useful on one Pokemon, and after that it is generally set-up bait for many things unless you forego Ice Beam for Toxic or something (in which case some things still set up on it, especially Refresh Latias).

Bronzong has the same bulky thing going on, but due to its lack of recovery it has no eternity. Crobat is the opposite - it is not that tanky, but it has access to recovery. But like Imran said, Brave Bird rules a bit too much.

 

[muna]

What I see this as is a time for non-hypnosis sleep moves to shine as teams get rid of their sleep talkers and status absorbers. Roserade, Breloom, and maybe even Smeargle, will all become more popular due to this switch. I would also like to point out that while going from 70% to 60% may seem like a huge change, all that that means is that in platinum, the move will hit 1 out of 10 less times in comparison to diamond and that hypnosis, even with the 10% accuracy drop, is still a very useful move, and it could be argued to become better, as most common hypnosis users will probably stop using the sets with hypnosis, and the opponent will probably predict based on that fact which can lead to you putting their sweeper to sleep instead of their sleep absorber.

 

[faint]

Imran the statictics do show that, however think about the difference between the metagame now and back in July. Now every lead is generally a suicide lead and was capable of beating the Pokemon you mentioned.

For example Gengar, Bronzong, Yamnega, and Crobat all failed to stop the current suicide leads such as Azelf, Heatran, and Infernape. Milotic on the other hand would never be used as a lead, and even so it was never used much in the first place.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Imran the statictics do show that, however think about the difference between the metagame now and back in July. Now every lead is generally a suicide lead and was capable of beating the Pokemon you mentioned.

For example Gengar, Bronzong, Yamnega, and Crobat all failed to stop the current suicide leads such as Azelf, Heatran, and Infernape. Milotic on the other hand would never be used as a lead, and even so it was never used much in the first place.

Well, I don't know about *fail* . . . I mean to be fair (leaving hypnosis at 70%),

Gengar: is faster than heatran and infernape (also immune to fake-out), and could sleep them before they could do jack (since none of these guys are running lum berry and you know it).

Yanmega: 2hko's all of azelf, heatran and infernape, and with speed boost, it has a good shot of leaving the enemy at 6 v. 5 (whoopie, you got SR up at the cost of being stuck with only 5/6 of your fighting strength). IMO, a suicide lead is only successful if it manages to get SR + something extra (like SR and then take out something with Explosion or Endeavor).

Crobat: Is immune to fake out and faster than azelf. It can sleep infernape, azelf and heatran, and speed-ties Aerodactyle.

Bronzong: . . . Ok, this is kind of fail (considering taunt leads). But it can do some fair damage with Gyro Ball to fast taunt-users, and Metagross/Heatran cannot 1hko it (lol heatproof lead-zong) and don't get taunt. It can also Boom.

 

[reyscarface]

I think some counters got affected indirectly.

For Example:

Now that Hypnosis is so unreliable a lot of Yanmegas choose HP Ground instead of Hypnosis (which wasnt that common when hypnosis was 70%). That means that Heatran, Magnezone, etc. are no counters anymore.

And i see way more sleeper leads than before (Roserade, Scarf Smeargle, Scarf Breloom)

 

[faint]

Well, I don't know about *fail* . . . I mean to be fair (leaving hypnosis at 70%),

Gengar: is faster than heatran and infernape (also immune to fake-out), and could sleep them before they could do jack (since none of these guys are running lum berry and you know it).

Yanmega: 2hko's all of azelf, heatran and infernape, and with speed boost, it has a good shot of leaving the enemy at 6 v. 5 (whoopie, you got SR up at the cost of being stuck with only 5/6 of your fighting strength). IMO, a suicide lead is only successful if it manages to get SR + something extra (like SR and then take out something with Explosion or Endeavor).

Crobat: Is immune to fake out and faster than azelf. It can sleep infernape, azelf and heatran, and speed-ties Aerodactyle.

Bronzong: . . . Ok, this is kind of fail (considering taunt leads). But it can do some fair damage with Gyro Ball to fast taunt-users, and Metagross/Heatran cannot 1hko it (lol heatproof lead-zong) and don't get taunt. It can also Boom.

You are correct by those, however I wasn't very clear when I mentioned it. I meant it more on the lines of:

Gengar loses to Azelf. (Focus Sash)
Yanmega can lose to Infernape, due to Fake Out+Fire Blast. (Focus Sash)
Yanmega would also lose to Heatran, since if were talking about Hypnosis it wouldn't be running Hidden Power [Ground] at the time.
Bronzong loses to Infernape and Heatran.
Crobat has a slight chance at beating Azelf, but a very minimum chance of beating Heatran. Obviously it was one of the few Infernape counters.

 

[Imran]

Let's take a look at the statistics Faint! I was interested to see whether you were right on this matter so I dug up some other statistics. We have seen how those Pokemon's useage has dropped (in relative terms) but I was also interested to see if they were used as leads in a similar proportion to what they were before. My findings are very interesting! (You can tell I love analysing the metagame!):

Bronzong - 47.7% were leads in July - 36.9% were leads in January
Gengar - 22.3% were leads in July - 16.6% were leads in January
Yanmega - 52.4% were leads in July - 57.0% were leads in January
Crobat (lol) - 79.1% were leads in July - 67.3% were leads in January

Looking at the statistics, the face of leading Pokemon has changed dramatically over this 6 month-ish period, and I believe you are right, some of their drops in popularity has been simply because they cannot stand up against other common leads these days. I feel that it is probably the culmination of factors that has caused this. Gengar leads especially will have been affected by the Hypnosis drop as they no longer have such a potent ability to get off a fast Hypnosis, but as you said, they also simply do not stand up against common leads!

Thankyou for pointing that out, it seems as though these leads have been dropping due to a culmination of factors, not just simply the Hypnosis drop!

 

[bugmaniacbob]

You are correct by those, however I wasn't very clear when I mentioned it. I meant it more on the lines of:

Gengar loses to Azelf. (Focus Sash)
Yanmega can lose to Infernape, due to Fake Out+Fire Blast. (Focus Sash)
Yanmega would also lose to Heatran, since if were talking about Hypnosis it wouldn't be running Hidden Power [Ground] at the time.
Bronzong loses to Infernape and Heatran.
Crobat has a slight chance at beating Azelf, but a very minimum chance of beating Heatran. Obviously it was one of the few Infernape counters.

Gengar can use moves like Trick + Scarf and its own STAB Shadow Balls to defeat Azelf, it isn't always losing. Yanmega almost always is running Protect, it doesn't care about Ape's Fake Out, so Infernape has the choice of setting up Rocks or damaging Yanmega. If Heatran leads were a problem for the Yanmega user they would get rid of Air Slash or something, I don't know. If Bronzong runs Heatproof it can defeat Infernape and Heatran with Earthquake, as almost nobody bothers trying to EQ a Bronzong as they naturally assume it to be Levitate.

And of course all of these can ruin their counter-leads with a little imagination.

 

[Chou Toshio]

You are correct by those, however I wasn't very clear when I mentioned it. I meant it more on the lines of:

Considering Sleep = Win, which is pretty much true.

Gengar loses to Azelf. (Focus Sash)I think you're forgetting that back in the day, a lot of Gengar were Scarf. Scarf Gengar would beat Azelf 70% of the time (When hypnosis hit)
Yanmega can lose to Infernape, due to Fake Out+Fire Blast. (Focus Sash) Um, Fake Out is useless against a pokemon who carries protect. >_____> Also after protect, Yanmega would out-speed and have a 70% chance of putting infernape to sleep.
Yanmega would also lose to Heatran, since if were talking about Hypnosis it wouldn't be running Hidden Power [Ground] at the time. Um, since we are talking about hypnosis, Heatran would just be put to sleep, 70% chance loss for heatran (since none of 'em carry lum berry). Also, Yanmega outspeeds even without boost, so it can just out-right hypnosis without using protect, so heatran is even worse off than infernape since there's no chance to try and out-predict yanmega by SRing while it protects.
Bronzong loses to Infernape and Heatran. Well yeah, but I said that already. Also, heatran can't stop bronzong from setting up SR, and if infernape wants to it has to run taunt, which it would have a hard time fitting in amongst fake out/stealth rock/fire blast/close combat/endeavor/counter
Crobat has a slight chance at beating Azelf, but a very minimum chance of beating Heatran. Obviously it was one of the few Infernape counters. What the hell are you talking about? Crobat outspeeds all of these and has a 70% chance of winning with Hypnosis.

 

[RaikouLover]

Ok, this little stigma that says "Omg hypnosis sucks now and we can't use Gengar and Yanmega" is absolute bullshit. Hypnosis accuracy drop had absolutely NOTHING to do with the Platinum metagame. I'm sorry, it just doesn't, and you are fooling yourself if you think a 10% accuracy drop made all the difference in the world. How many of you would still use Draco Meteor on Salamence if it dropped to 80%??? C'mon, lets be serious.

The reason why you don't see Hypnosis anymore is because the most common users of Hypnosis got nerfed somehow. Gengar is Scizor's complete and total bitch, and Hypnosis being 70% wouldn't change a thing in that regard. Well guess what, Scizor is #1 now with bullet punch, so stop kidding yourself.

Yanmega got nerfed indirectly because of Scizor's bullet punch. Yanmega doesn't care too much for Scizor as much as it cares about Stealth Rock being on 150% of opening pokemon. As if Scarf Heatran, Zapdos, and Rotom super increase had anything to do with Yanmega's usage.... Well, they all rose for fucking Scizor, screwing Yanmega in the process. Again, what does this have to do with Hypnosis?

Milotic is not used as much because people realized that between Vaporeon, Starmie, and Suicune, people can do everything Milotic does better.

Crobat people actually realized that Crobat had much better things to do and didn't need sleep to be a decent pokemon (hell, the sleep set was the most useless one to begin with). Just ask anyone whos played nUU how good of a lead Crobat is just with Taunt and Brave Bird.

So again, wtf does any of this have to do with Hypnosis????

 

[Imran]

If you had read the entire thread RL, you would have seen that we have been discussing that it is a combination of factors. Not just the Hypnosis accuracy, although that has played a part, whether it should do or not. It may just be 10%, but there is also a mentality to it. 60% is way too near 50% for my liking, whether that is rational or not. 70% was a lot more comfortable, I'm thinking that 1 time in 10 I would miss twice in a row, as compared to roughly 1 time in 6 now, that is actually quite a large change.

There are a lot of Gengar sets that still work in the current metagame (most involving Substitute), it's niche has simply changed a little. I have used it a couple of times, but more as Blissey and Scizor bait, as compared to anything else. Many of the sets (especially the Sub set) may have carried Hypnosis previously, but it is now a little too unreliable (the chance of it missing twice has practically doubled!) and people are resorting to stranger and more specific moves such as HP Fire. Personally I would rather be sleeping Scizor, as I can use the sleep status to screw over so many more things than simply Scizor, but I can't really risk it missing with Bullet Punch flying around. There is an example of this culmination of factors.

I do not accept your argument for Milotic at all. How have people suddenly "realised that other bulky waters are better." One can only really argue that the "ignorance of the people" remains mainly constant. There has been no reason for people to "suddenly wake up." The same stands for your argument with Crobat, people have not suddenly realised that Crobat is bad. I believe you may have a point over the long term, although I'm fairly sure by July of last year we still had a very good clue of what was good in OU, and what was not. It is not like we are making comparisons with early DP here.

EDIT: And yes, I really would consider dropping Draco Metoer if it dropped to 80%, that is worse than moves such as Fire Blast, who I find unreliable at the best of times.

EDIT 2: In no way are we saying here that this is 100% objective. To be honest I feel "less inclined" to use Hypnosis, but I don't feel that I should never use it. If it has the sort of effect on a number of people, you will find the number of Pokemon using Hypnosis decreases, but it obviously won't go away entirely, because no one thinks:

"Omg hypnosis sucks now and we can't use Gengar and Yanmega"

 

[animenagai]

I disagree with RL (sorry buddy) and agree with Imran.

One has to realize that 70% was a pretty low accuracy to start off with I'm a guy that cringes every time that I pick fire blast over flamethrower. I know the extra power is worth it but the accuracy throws me off. That's still 85% accuracy we're talking about there.

70% was the lowest accuracy I was willing to accept on any given attack. It was the bottom line. Platinum made hypnosis fall through that line, hence I don't use it anymore. I am sure I'm not the only one.

To compare a 10% accuracy drop on draco meteor and on hypnosis is therefore questionable. Though the 10% drops may look the same on paper it actually doesn't because you have to calculate how much that 10% means to the original accuracy. 90%-80% accuracy is a drop of 1/9, 70%-60% is a drop of 1/7. Significant difference. Keep in mind what I said before about how much gamble a player is willing to take, and I think my point is pretty obvious.

Oh and on a side note, I completely disagree with what RL said about milotic (sorry again :P). Even if you are right in saying that those pokes are better in doing what milotic does (and i don't think that was the case back in D/P), that doesn't matter. There were stupid players before, there are stupid players now. Why do you think e-vire is still OU after so many top players constantly bash it? Masses of people just don't all get suddenly 'enlightened' like that.

Of course, milotic did have significant advantages over the other bulky waters, that is hypnosis and marvel scale for rest talk, which none of the other bulky waters have. Sleep usage has gone done, milotic's usefulness went with it. That's my vew anyways.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Ok, this little stigma that says "Omg hypnosis sucks now and we can't use Gengar and Yanmega" is absolute bullshit. Hypnosis accuracy drop had absolutely NOTHING to do with the Platinum metagame. I'm sorry, it just doesn't, and you are fooling yourself if you think a 10% accuracy drop made all the difference in the world. How many of you would still use Draco Meteor on Salamence if it dropped to 80%??? C'mon, lets be serious.

Actually RL, if Draco Meteor dropped to 80%, I certainly would be thinking about it, and I'm always hesitant to use anything like focus blast/stone edge during a turn where its really critical. Hell, if there were a 100% accurate rock move with 75 base power, I would probably never run stone edge again.

Hypnosis is now even worse.

 

[RaikouLover]

Why would you be thinking about it? As if Dragon has another move as powerful as that. Draco Meteor is going to OHKO a ton of shit that Dragon Pulse won't even come close too, so I find it hard to believe any of you would second guess using it honestly. I mean people use Fire Blast when they have the more accurate Flamethrower, but for Draco it isn't quite the test since there is such a great difference in power as opposed to those two.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Well, I generally DON'T use fire blast. Honestly, I don't know why people don't use flamethrower/overheat when the risk involved in missing fire blast against scizor/breloom/lucario/metagross even once is freaking huge.

If Draco Meteor dropped to 80% accuracy, it would be finding itself being used a lot less on my teams, or at least relied on a whole lot less in my play-style. Outrage-dependent physical dragons would be much more attractive overall. Not saying I wouldn't use Draco Meteor, but I would no longer be using it like a main STAB to rely on-- more like a desparation or "let's blast something with the free turn!" move.

Let me put it this way-- right now, if I were faced with a Salamence v. Salamence situation early game, with a max speed mix-mence on my side, there's a good chance I'll use Draco Meteor just because I don't want to get locked into outrage. If draco meteor dropped to 80% accuracy, I would definitely use outrage in that same situation, because the 20% chance of missing outweighs the danger of getting locked into outrage.

If Draco Meteor dropped to 70%, I'd be hesitant to consider it at all, and at 60%, I would flat out not use it-- and no, I don't see hypnosis as so much better than the benefits of a STAB draco meteor, so a 60% hypnosis does seem pretty bad.