Why are double battles unpopular?

[Footnote]

I'm new to the community, so I'll apologize now if this question has already been posed. I didn't find it with the search function, but that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

I'm a long-time player of Pokémon games and I train teams for competitive play, but I've never played online using NetBattle or any other battle simulator. The main reason is that I tend to use a lot of unpopular rules, such as banning Hidden Power. So although I'm well-versed in Pokémon strategy, I don't really have my finger on the pulse of you, the hard-core battling community.

It was a big surprise to me that double battles never really seemed to catch on among the online Pokémon community. Most of the battles I had with my friends in Advance were double battles, because we found them so much more fun and interesting than single battles. In my experience, double battles solve so many of the problems that plague single battles. For example, Wobbuffet is still a beast in 2v2, but it's not ban-worthy. You normally just disable it and attack its partner. Conversely, many Pokémon that are OU or even NU in single battles have great support roles in double battles.

I'm not arguing that double battles are straight-up better than single battles. I'm sure that this community has has this conversation before, back at the beginning of 3rd Gen, but I'm hoping we can revisit it now that 4th Gen is here. It looks like GameFreak's made a lot of improvements to how double battles work. Should they be given another chance?

 

[Kristy Haruka]

I think its unpopular because there are so many things going on in the battle and people can't keep track of everything...

 

[Surgo]

Double Battles were generally unpopular in advance due to some strategies being outright broken, to the point where running anything else was fairly foolish. Earthquake and explosion are two prime examples of this; JAA also highlighted weather abuse.

 

[Footnote]

Those are both valid complaints, and thankfully it seems they've been adressed in DP. Moves like Earthquake and Explosion are now at 75% power against multiple targets, and Earthquake is further mitigated by new moves such as Electrolevitate and Gravity. Another major change to double battles in DP is the sending in of replacement Pokémon. In Advance, if your Pokémon fainted, you sent in a new one immediately. Now, you send it in at the very end of the round. This prevents Double-Exploding in a single round and makes the game a lot less random.

I'll admit that even I have trouble keeping track of all the effects in place in a double battle, but it looks like Pokémon Battle Revolution has addressed this, too. In the videos I've seen, many effects, such as Stealth Rock and weather effects, are visible during move selection.

As for weather effects, they're certainly more effective in double battles, but they have plenty of counters and tend to limit the scope of the teams that use them. So, I wouldn't really call them broken. There are many interesting, non-weather combos that are just as useful.

 

[Pneuma]

Explosion in double battles is entirely too abusable.
Trick room and weather effects are beyond amazing.
Spikes and Stealth Rock are less useful and so is walling in general.
The matches last a few minutes at most. It's a matter of who explodes first usually. There's no room at all for defense.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Footnote, to add to what you said(I was going to point out all those mechanics changes), the move Feint also stands to do something in 2v2. It is ordinarily utterly useless, but in 2v2, it could see some good use. After all, Protect is really spammed that much that it is worth using one of your moveslots to counter exactly one move that your opponent could use but that will do nothing against any other move. It is awesome to be able to hit stuff that's Protecting in 2v2.

Earthquake
Explosion
Protect
Weather

was why no one played RSE 2v2. 3/4 fixed isn't bad, and weather is generally so poor in 1v1 that the level of attention it should receive in standard 2v2s(no K/G) should be fair. JAA really highlighted weather abuse just because of Kyogre and Groudon. That's not really fair because Drought and Drizzle are insanely broken traits even in 1v1; ubers shouldn't be really considered when discussing balance. I should point out that a second sandstreamer and a "hailstreamer" give you more ways to null manual uses of Sunny Day and Rain Dance. It's probably enough to not make the addition of the Wet Rock and whatever the sun one is that makes Sunny Day 7 turns so broken in 2v2.

Also, is my memory correct when I say that I recall hearing that moves like Rock Slide and Surf suck less in DP 2v2? In RSE 2v2, they were useless since halved power really sucks the whole point out of the moves. I recall hearing that Surf was changed in some way; was it just made like quake, or was that whole archtype of move fixed?

Also, "there is no room for defense" is untrue. What IS true is that focused walls don't work very well since they can use both physical and special sweepers at once. 2v2 still does use the same battle formula, and it's not like stuff's any more or less likely to die in one hit there. Remember in RSE 2v2 that Dusclops was an absolutely great Pokemon as a defensive ghost with Imprison and all of the key 2v2 moves except Explosion. The fact that he could take a lot of hits meant a lot, and I don't see why in DP 2v2 Pokemon like Regice are nessecarily doomed. Your walls just can't sit there and do nothing like they can in 1v1 since that's just asking for the opponent to gang up on your other teammate. I don't see this as negative really. You just have to focus on using things that can both take hits well and can serve useful functions in moving your team forward. Or you could be like that one kid at the JAA who nearly won with his Blissey by gambling that they'd blow up all their physical Pokemon early and use special ones to sweep at the end - thus his Blissey would wall them at the end of the match while still managing to be productive by paralyzing their whole team. He had a forced win; the time limit was the only thing that ruined it.

They might not have gone far enough, but it seems clear that 2v2 got some serious effort put into it this time. I look forward to playing around with it and seeing how it has improved. I thought 2v2 was a cool idea in RSE, and I hope for the chance to play it more in DP than I was able in RSE.

I'll admit that even I have trouble keeping track of all the effects in place in a double battle, but it looks like Pokémon Battle Revolution has addressed this, too. In the videos I've seen, many effects, such as Stealth Rock and weather effects, are visible during move selection.

Really? That's great news! Does that count status changes from moves like Swords Dance, or do you not know?

 

[Footnote]

Amazing Ampharos, you've hit a lot of these nails right on the head, as far as I'm concerned.

I think the reason that I never had a problem with over-abuse of weather techniques in my battles is that we never used legendaries of any sort, so Kyogre and Groundon were right out. The reason we disallowed them, ironically, was to increase the number of Pokémon that were viable choices in a competitive battle. But, that's another topic, so I'll just say thank you for reminding me of them.

If you're not using Kyorgre and Groudon, Sunny Day and Rain Dance are still useful, but you have to give up both a moveslot and a turn to use them, which is quite a mitigating factor. They also stop in 5 (or more, with those new held items) turns. Sandstream and Snowstorm I'm not as worried about because Sandstorm and Hail aren't quite as powerful. That's probably why they have 10PP to sun and rain's 5.

So Pneuma, I don't believe that weather effects are beoynd amazing, but the jury's definitely still out on Trick Room. It does look like it has the potential to be really sick. On the other hand, I'm willing to give it a try if it'll help normally underused Pokémon shine.

Ampharos, you're absolutely right about moves that hit both opponents. The research thread is doing tests on this, and it appears (tentatively) that all moves that hit both opponents now hit them each for 75% power instead of 50%. I never used moves that hit both opponents before, but now I'm definitely considering Eruption, Heat Wave, Blizzard, and the like. You're also right about Surf. Apparently it hits your partner now, too. And like all similar moves in DP, it has 75% power when hitting multiple targets.

Also, you summed up my feelings about defense being a factor better than I could have. On a related note, Spikes and Stealth Rock are less useful, but they're not useless. I think one of the reasons I was attracted to Double Battling was that I was sick of the switch-fests. In double battles, you can't usually just switch to a counter. Chances are good that one of your opponents will be able to hurt it. Switching is still viable, but you have to be more thoughtful about when you do it. You have to think more about, "Here's the situation now. How can I use what I have?"

Unfortunately, in Battle Revolution, I don't believe it displays changes to your stats. I'm hoping that if you're using your DS that there'll finally be a place to view that for your own Pokémon, as well as what your stats actually work out to with those changes. But that's just pure speculation and wishful thinking at this point.

 

[Mekkah]

The 2v2 feature was added in Advance and labeled by its creators as "shiny" and "new", but I feel they sort of blew it up. There's quite a lot of possible combinations in 2v2 with the partner system, but in my opinion not even close to enough. D/P is fixing this which is good, but I feel they haven't exploited the potential of DP just yet.

Also, you have to consider that 1v1 battling has already been there for 2 long generations. People have an annoying preference to stick to what they know. 2v2 battling was all cool, flashy and awesome to try out once in a while, but I think it resembles 1v1 too much. Basically nostalgia is beating new, promoted actions here.

Then there's the conformism: even if there's a few good Double players, the majority of people would be raising their Pokemon to fit the most played metagame: 1v1. This disturbs the balance between 1v1 and 2v2 even more. You're not going to run around with a Double Battle team on Wifi either when everyone is using Single teams. Brings me to another problem: 2v2 may use the same formulae as 1v1, but nonetheless they require vastly different strategies. You're not going to use a Helping Hand or Lightningrod Pokemon against someone in 1v1 even if they're EV trained, and a Surf/Toxic/Rest/Sleep Talk Milotic isn't quite a good idea in 2v2. So if you like Double Battles but also a lot of competitive battling in general and are about to start a new training session, you will likely train an 1v1 team first to satisfy your battling needs, while EV training your 2v2 army during breaks.

Not that I don't enjoy 2v2. I like playing it very occasionally but I'm simply not good at it, my mind is chaotic as it is and I have enough trouble with keeping track of everything in 1v1 as it is. I'm the kind of person that goes like ????????????? when Giga Drain fails to KO Swampert, then notices Light Screen was up, or switches in a Starmie after a sacrifice on a Swords Danced Marowak only to die to Earthquake because I forgot Jolteon or Ninjask passed it some speed. Not all the time, but occasionally.

 

[Footnote]

Yeah, I had a feeling that the nostalgia and resistance to change were the biggest reasons that double battles never caught on, but I didn't want to be a cynic. Just to be clear, I'll definitely have 1v1 teams, too. I like Spikes and Baton Pass too much not to.

Mekkah, I empathize with the chaotic mind thing. I have trouble remembering those sort of things, too. But I've always considered remembering that stuff to be part of the challenge of battling in general. Just the same, I'm hoping that most long-term effects like Light Screen, etc. will be displayed during move selection in Battle Revolution, like Stealth Rock and weather are.

I'm hoping that there are going to be enough people in the DP and Battle Revolution Wi-Fi that I can find both single and double battles, but it's not going to be much fun if my only opponents for double battles are kids who don't know what they're doing. Your point about 1v1 being the priority saddens me, but I recognize the truth in it.

So, all those of you who like to use "underused" Pokémon, those of you who like to create new and interesting strategies, and those of you who feel stalling and switching wars can get a bit stale sometimes, I recommend that you give double battles a serious look. It could be the breath of fresh air you're looking for. What have you got to lose other than a little time?

 

[Jibaku]

It's probably becuase people have not so much experience on it (and I must admit, I'm not so experienced at it but I'm at least attempting to find a way to cover up most of the 2v2 strategies. Apparently, Trick Room Dialga's the best I could make in ubers because it messes up other Trick Room by Trick Rooming before them thus canceling the Trick Room, while resisting Surf/Explosion is great and being able to do damage while actually setting up a real Trick Room if needed).

Another thing is, is because 2v2 has an unclear metagame.

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

I do want to make it clear that weather moves and stuff have been seen when choosing moves since Pokemom Stadium 2.

I think that Double Battles are not very popular because physical sweepers dominate it so much (even more than in single battles). In double battles physical sweepers get Swords Dance, Choice Band, Dragon Dance, Earthquake, Explosion, Selfdestruct, and it tends to be physical Pokes who are Flying type or have Levitate. It also seems to be physical Pokes who have Defenses high enough to survive stuff like Explosion. Also, I think it may be because it physically orientated. We all want to be defensive, but since in 2v2 we have 8 moves to choose from, it means we can just go offensive rather than be defensive. Firstly, because you will most likely have a move that 1HKOs your opponent out of your 8, and, you will not be able to switch easily to defend yourself since you cant, say, switch to Gengar to counter a Slaking with Eq, Return and Focus Punch, as its partner will have a move to cover Gengar then. And also, Pokes like Gengar, Slowbro, Slaking, Skarmory, Flygon, Medicham, Claydol, etc. are so much better in 2v2 than a normal standard is in 1v1.

 

[Matt]

I'm seeing a lot of reasons in the vein of "it's different" being posted here.

SHUCKLE MAN:
Physical sweepers get Swords Dance, Choice Band, Dragon Dance, Earthquake, Explosion, and Selfdestruct in 1v1 as well. And no, we don't always want to be defensive, so if 2v2 is offensive that shouldn't be a reason to not play it. If you can't switch easily to defend yourself, just play a different way, instead of the usual "switch to pokemon they can't hurt at all" you seem to like. Really, if people just want to be able to counter everything with 6 pokemon and 24 moves, I don't know what to say. This same idea was expressed in a thread about Stadium mode, how no one wants to play it because "it's impossible to counter everything!" Duh, you can't counter *everything*, and of course you're not going to have a switch for every single possible Pokemon. People don't seem to like the idea of "countering" something by killing it before it kills you, or by indirectly shutting it down with general purpose counters like paralyze/sleep/toxic.

Jibaku:
No one plays 2v2 because it has an "unclear" metagame, and it has an "unclear" metagame because no one plays it. If 2v2 was being played as much as 1v1 is, the metagame would be very "clear".

Pneuma:
Spikes/Stealth Rock/walling being less useful isn't a very good reason. So X move/strategy that is good in 1v1 isn't so good in 2v2, no one bother playing 2v2...?
Explosion was nerfed in D/P, so maybe that'll attract more people.
Weather too good? That's the first time I've heard of this. Are you sure it isn't because the biggest example of 2v2 was JAA, which allowed Kyogre/Groudon? Even if weather is good, that's a welcome change from 1v1 where it's hardly ever used, in my opinion.

 

[yawn]

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy deal, the consensus is nobody bothers with 2v2 so nobody bothers with 2v2 so everyone agrees that nobody bothers with 2v2.

I've played a few ADV double battles, and my impression is that it's alot of fun and rather quick too (an added bonus if you're rushed for time). D/P adds more in-game double battles and partners instead of just the 7th gym (usually considered jokingly easy) and optionals, so maybe more people will get the hang of it before wifi>

 

[Misty]

Double battles have a handful of workable strategies in Advance. It's like RBY - it's fun and has some stout supporters, but the lack of variety kind of kills it.

I think DP has gone a long way towards opening up new possibilities for 2v2, especially with Trick Room and items that lengthen weather effects.

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

I agree with Misty with the "Double Battles are in the same situation as RBY" thing.

I also agree that Trick Room will be a very interesting addition to double battles. And I do like the fact that we may be adjusting the IVs more now, thanks to Trick Room.

I think that Double Battles are not very popular because physical sweepers dominate it so much (even more than in single battles).

 

[Footnote]

Tenchi, I wholeheartedly agree. Nicely said on all three counts.

Yawn, I hope you're right about the increased number of in-game double battles raising people's comfort level with double battling.

Shuckle Man, I wouldn't say that 2v2 in Physical-dominated. As an example, Inimidate hits both opponents. In Advance, Physical always seemed more volatile than Special. All sorts of things raised and lowered Attack and Defense, whereas not much changed Special Attack and Special Defense. This was the case for single and double battles, and it looks like its changing in DP.

Misty, I have to disagree with you about there being only a handful of viable strategies in 2v2 in Advance. Not just weather, Earthquake and Explosion, but Helping Hand, Follow Me, Fake Out, Memento, LightningRod, and many more could be a part of a competitive 2v2 team. I do agree that there are many more in DP, though. Hopefully enough that people will give it a chance.

 

[Mike_Thunderbird]

Trick room [... is] beyond amazing.

No joke. Alakazam and Rhyperior may be seeing a teamup now...

 

[Bliksem]

No joke. Alakazam and Rhyperior may be seeing a teamup now...

Eww, why? Trick Room's priority is the absolute lowest, meaning no matter what, the user will go second. Alakazam using Trick Room is a death wish.

 

[Ekul Yen]

It's more Bronzong + Rhyperior, isn't it? You can Trick Room with Bronzong, who's immune to Rhyperior's Earthquakes. Surf looks like it might be used a bit too much for that to catch on, though.

 

[El_Sargento]

It's more Bronzong + Rhyperior, isn't it? You can Trick Room with Bronzong, who's immune to Rhyperior's Earthquakes. Surf looks like it might be used a bit too much for that to catch on, though.

It's more Fake Out user + Bulky Trick Room user, IMO