Ok I'm posting this because Alice is lazy (Wobbuffet "discussion")

[Jumpman16]

Let's use a less borderline Pokemon, then:

The OU metagame works just fine without Rayquaza, and thus doesn't need him.

The inverse of that is not that OU only needs 6 Pokemon and the rest should be removed. I don't know how to make this point clearer.

I never implied that "OU only needs 6 Pokemon" or thought that was what you were trying to imply. I'm willing to temporarily accept that Blissey is "necessary" to the metagame for the sake of your argument. However, you're again using a flawed premise in "The OU metagame works fine without X pokemon, and thus doesn't need [it]". This is not how we determine what is uber and what is not. The standard metagame did not "need" Deoxys-S—we are testing it because it perhaps will not overcentralize the metagame as much as we once thought it may/assumed it did.

Regardless, at once you begin to see that "works just fine" is kind of shaky in and of itself. The Garchomp issue is perhaps indication enough that our metagame isn't perfect and perhaps needs a pokemon that counters it without overcentralizing the metagame (maybe this is Deoxys-S coincidentally, maybe it isn't) or that Garchomp itself overcentralizes the metagame. It isn't the case, though, that Garchomp is or is not necessary to the metagame—that doesn't enter into the equation at all. It doesn't for Blissey, either, since it by itself does not overcentralize the metagame. It's just a coincidence that it happens to check myriad special threats by itself and therefore prove itself somewhat "necessary". But this isn't how we determine what belongs in standard and what doesn't (nor do we cite the fact that a pokemon checks a lot of pokemon by itself and therefore may be uber, which is what brought this discussion up in the first place).

I know exactly what you're saying, but I wholeheartedly disagree. I'm not (and never have been) suggesting we should be taking opinions from idiots. By looking at the Shoddy stats I can see a hell of a lot of people who aren't using him, and I very much doubt there's nobody in that group who has a knowledgeable opinion. We don't have to look at the group as a whole and say "Well almost everybody hates him", it can be narrowed down to people who actually know what they're talking about. People are avoiding Wobbuffet, no doubt, and I think it is short-sighted to liken every single one these people to those too ignorant to see why Blissey is important.

I'm not likening the people themselves from the Wobby issue to the Blissey one, I'm likening the arguments. There's a big difference there. I've said a couple times now that it is a bad idea to only take the mass opinion on a pokemon into consideration when deciding what to do with it. A lot of people literally have called both pokemon "gay" and "cheap", and a similar number have said things like "blissey dies to any physical hit i dont see what the big deal is??" and "u-turn and baton pass counter wobbuffet pretty easily". These "arguments" are horrible, and the better ones need qualification in the form of battle logs or a least lot more words that clearly indicate the battler knows what he or she is talking about if they're going to hold any water.

Seriously? So if we were talking about Garchomp and I said "Garchomp can kill most OU Pokemon it faces before it gets killed itself", you would turn around and say "Not Weavile! Not Mamoswine! Stop making it out to be something invincible, lol show me the logs where it kills 6 things completely unaided, rant rant rant"? Because that's exactly what you're doing here, and its completely stupid.

DISCLAIMER: From this point forth, when referencing Wobbuffet's capabilities, I am only talking about Wobbuffets who haven't already been completely crippled.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Don't call any of my arguments stupid, that's unnecessary and bordering on staff disrespect. And besides, here you say "most OU Pokemon", where before you added no such qualifying number or condition. You're probably just not going to admit it, but saying "you either die or let it turn you into set-up bait" is an unyielding, black and white argument, and it was wrong. You are now qualifying it as it should have been, but don't pretend that you weren't exaggerating when you gave that either/or statement, and definitely don't start taking shots at my intelligence when I call you on such a blatant exaggeration.

Anyway, I don't really care about the "weakened" Wobby arguments, because that's entering the realm of theorymon to which we shouldn't waste time attempting to do justice. Actual competitive play by itself proves enough that there are many, many scenarios both where Wobbuffet isn't as invincible as some people would have others believe on paper and that it's more cheap that "u-turn and bp are counters" arguments would would otherwise dispel.

Again, I'm not insinuating that a Garchomp test would give us any new information on over-centralization (or to what extent Garchomp does it), and in fact it might not turn up anything of interest. But the thing is, its a simple and easily workable test that might give us something interesting (10 more Pokemon might become usable for unforseen reasons, who knows?), but even if it doesn't there's really no harm done. At the very least, it would most likely do away with the "If we ban Garchomp, then something else will just take its place and we'll want to ban that!" argument, which is still a small step forward on the whole Garchomp issue.

Of course, again, all my comparison between the two tests was meant to show was that an almost harmless test probably isn't going to be done while a test that could have knocked the metagame around completely went ahead with no public (as in, on the forums) discussion until the day before it happened. I'm not saying either test is more worthy than the other.

I dislike the "if we ban Garchomp, then something else will just take its place and we'll want to ban that!" argument as much as you do, which is something else we can agree on at least to do away with that being a good reason to test Garchomp. We still need a better reason though, and this is probably not the place to discuss that.

And I'll remind you that these aren't the Shoddy Battle forums. Wobby was unbanned on Shoddy battle, and Colin was under no obligation to run that by all of us on Smogon before doing that. Now, he is one of our most respected Policy Reviewers, and is running a lot of things by our competitive battling community, but the Wobby unbanishment happened before he was very active on the forums.

No, I don't have a better alternative. Right now there is no better alternative, although I don't think it would be so hard to create one: For instance an invite-only Shoddy server (and only inviting decent/level headed battlers) could be better if a large enough sample crowd was collected. All I'm alluding to here is that if Smogon/Shoddy's core userbase is so horribly aligned to the anti-Wobbuffet side (which again is something I'm drawing from the stats), then I don't see how efficiently any tests can be done here.

I can't help but initially think of your stance on how easily a Garchomp test would be initiated while at the same time thinking that a Wobbuffet test is that much more invasive and unfair to the community.

 

[SubVersion]

However, you're again using a flawed premise in "The OU metagame works fine without X pokemon, and thus doesn't need [it]". This is not how we determine what is uber and what is not. The standard metagame did not "need" Deoxys-S—we are testing it because it perhaps will not overcentralize the metagame as much as we once thought it may/assumed it did.

Yeah, that premise alone doesn't have any bearing on whether a Pokemon should be OU or Uber or whatever. However I didn't state that premise on its own. My original post was:

All I'm saying with regards to Blissey is that she , liked or not, actually adds a much needed element to the game (special walling) while Wobbuffet adds nothing. The hatred of the two can't be compared because Bliss is a necessary "evil" in this highly-competitive game, while Wobbuffet isn't necessary at all.

Blissey's presence changes the game dramatically with regards to the use of special attackers, just like Wobbuffet would change aspects of the game if he was whored by everyone (that part is theorymon and sadly it doesn't look like it'll ever actually happen). One of these changes is "needed", Wobbuffet's change isn't (in the same way Heracross or Infernape aren't needed) - Which brings us right back to my very first point: Is Wobbuffet's change wanted, and is there anyone listening to anything to people's opinions and not just logs and stats?

I've said a couple times now that it is a bad idea to only take the mass opinion on a pokemon into consideration when deciding what to do with it. A lot of people literally have called both pokemon "gay" and "cheap", and a similar number have said things like "blissey dies to any physical hit i dont see what the big deal is??" and "u-turn and baton pass counter wobbuffet pretty easily". These "arguments" are horrible, and the better ones need qualification in the form of battle logs or a least lot more words that clearly indicate the battler knows what he or she is talking about if they're going to hold any water.

Since the beginning I've only been arguing against a seemingly complete reliance on usage stats when it comes to determining Wobbuffet's place, not that they're completely irrelevant. There's more to whether Wobb should be unbanned or not than just what the numbers show, that isn't to say the numbers are useless.

Don't call any of my arguments stupid, that's unnecessary and bordering on staff disrespect. And besides, here you say "most OU Pokemon", where before you added no such qualifying number or condition. You're probably just not going to admit it, but saying "you either die or let it turn you into set-up bait" is an unyielding, black and white argument, and it was wrong. You are now qualifying it as it should have been, but don't pretend that you weren't exaggerating when you gave that either/or statement, and definitely don't start taking shots at my intelligence when I call you on such a blatant exaggeration.

I'm now "qualifying it as it should have been"? No, I haven't changed the argument whatsoever. Its rubbish to suggest that by saying "most OU Pokemon" is a brand new exception to the rule, considering the original quote (which you've been taking out of the context of the paragraph repeatedly) quite plainly states that some things do kill Wobbuffet before it can hurt them and Wobbuffet will die before it can do this to 6 Pokemon straight. You've basically plucked one sentence of my argument out from its surrounding qualifiers and I don't see how that is constructive at all.

You've also conveniently dodged the question I posed here, as well. You know as well as I do that if we were talking about Garchomp and I made the sweeping statement that it kills most things pretty easily, you wouldn't suddenly jump to the conclusion that I think Garchomp kills anything and never dies even if it gets hit, and that just having it on your team leaves your opponent with no choice but to die. It wouldn't be a convincing rebuttal if you made it in that discussion, and its not a convincing rebuttal now.

And I'm sorry if you think me calling you out on a poor argument is "bordering on staff disrespect", but you said yourself that you'll call me out if you think I've said something dumb; I'm certainly going to do the same in response.

And I'll remind you that these aren't the Shoddy Battle forums. Wobby was unbanned on Shoddy battle, and Colin was under no obligation to run that by all of us on Smogon before doing that.

Was it discussed on the Shoddy forums, even? I don't think it was, but I don't frequent them so I wouldn't know for sure.

I can't help but initially think of your stance on how easily a Garchomp test would be initiated while at the same time thinking that a Wobbuffet test is that much more invasive and unfair to the community.

I've thought there should be a dedicated test server since before Deoxys-E was unbanned, and ideally any tests (Garchomp, Wobbuffet, whatever) would be carried out there. But since currently both tests are/would be carried out on the main server, I'm highlighting the vastly different volatility of the tests in that server rather than an imaginary one.

 

[Veteran In Love]

lol @ people saying that wobb isn't broken because of u-turn, baton pass,etc.
What a bunch of ignorant fucks, so now i have to stick u-turn/baton pass/shed shell on more than half my team to counter one pokemon?

Seriously though, people always disagree on tiers because of how their OWN teams and strategies fare against "broken" pokemon, it's always subjective.

 

[Jumpman16]

Yeah, that premise alone doesn't have any bearing on whether a Pokemon should be OU or Uber or whatever. However I didn't state that premise on its own. My original post was:



Blissey's presence changes the game dramatically with regards to the use of special attackers, just like Wobbuffet would change aspects of the game if he was whored by everyone (that part is theorymon and sadly it doesn't look like it'll ever actually happen). One of these changes is "needed", Wobbuffet's change isn't (in the same way Heracross or Infernape aren't needed) - Which brings us right back to my very first point: Is Wobbuffet's change wanted, and is there anyone listening to anything to people's opinions and not just logs and stats?

Since the beginning I've only been arguing against a seemingly complete reliance on usage stats when it comes to determining Wobbuffet's place, not that they're completely irrelevant. There's more to whether Wobb should be unbanned or not than just what the numbers show, that isn't to say the numbers are useless.

To be fair, the original Colin post you replied to which set our little back-and-forth off deserves to be revisited. He was expressly responding to one of the terrible pervading arguments this far about Wobbuffet:

"It overcentralises the metagame to the point where every wall will need a Shed Shell or U-Turn, and that just makes pokemon a whole lot less enjoyable."

and stating to what extent that the argument was absolutely false, of course referring to the only thing that can prove this one way or another: statistics. He has hard statistical evidence that disproves the above "argument" that the metagame is being overcentralized with regard to Shed Shell and U-turn, and that's that.

Now, to the argument that the metagame is or will be overcentralized because of Wobbuffet for some other reason...it's still probably not true, if only because many of "us" are still not using Wobbuffet (or weren't before I made this thread to be more accurate, I don't know how much its usage has gone up or even if it has at all and I'm certainly not trying to imply that I have some sort of magical instant sway over the competitive metagame with every post I make). Colin's conclusion in the aforementioned post is this:

"Wobbuffet has been unbanned two months now and there is still no evidence that it is causing the metagame to become more centralised. I'm not sure what you want here, Aldaron. Two months is a pretty long time and I would really expect that we'd be seeing some evidence of that centralisation by now, but it is just not materialising."

The thing is, you can't really argue against this (at least right now) for two reasons. One, Colin has carefully chosen his words (as he normally does), and is only talking about the "centralisation" issue. There may be other factors that may ultimately contribute to Wobbuffet being rebanished to ubers, but first, as I've stated a few times now, we (the community) need to hammer down extremely accurate definitions of "overcentralized" and "uber" before considering to which extent Wobbuffet has anything to do with either. Regardless, "48->47->47" does not indicate overcentralization as it pertains to the number of viable pokemon in the standard metagame, and nor does the number of Shed Shells and U-turns since they have barely increased in comparison to the numbers we had for them before March.

And finally, with regard to Heracross and Infernape and other pokemon that the metagame does not "need", there is, of course, no argument for their banishment. But as Colin has stated, when going in the other direction: "As I've explained in the policy review, lines are indeed required when banning pokemon, but not when unbanning them." Now I'm not really trying to speak for him or anything but it seem that much of the things we've butted heads on have started from what you think his solutions are to this Wobbuffet issue (that we can only determine this through statistics and nothing else).

If I were him I would qualify that statement by stating that obviously there is no sweeping consensus to unban Rayquaza and Mewtwo (though he, if I remember correctly, and definitely Obi argue that testing literally every pokemon besides the "obviously uber" Rayquaza and Mewtwo and a few others and then reshaping the standard metagame, which is something we probably shouldn't get into here), but pokemon like Wobbuffet and Deoxys-S have been sounded off on enough times to warrant their testing on Shoddy. Obviously that is the farthest from a statistical approach because there's "no line" required when unbanning a pokemon, but it wasn't unbanned randomly as a "no line needed" argument may suggest. That's a bit of a digression but whatever.

I'm now "qualifying it as it should have been"? No, I haven't changed the argument whatsoever. Its rubbish to suggest that by saying "most OU Pokemon" is a brand new exception to the rule, considering the original quote (which you've been taking out of the context of the paragraph repeatedly) quite plainly states that some things do kill Wobbuffet before it can hurt them and Wobbuffet will die before it can do this to 6 Pokemon straight. You've basically plucked one sentence of my argument out from its surrounding qualifiers and I don't see how that is constructive at all.

What definitely isn't constructive is saying "you either die or let it turn you into set-up bait" and then waiting until later to say "some things do kill Wobbuffet before it can hurt them and Wobbuffet will die before it can do this to 6 Pokemon straight." I honestly don't know why you're being difficult about this, lol. I'm not taking anything out of the context of that original paragraph at all. I will paste it here for kicks though:

"That's a poor example, especially Blissey. Blissey is basically required to keep special attackers from being an indomitable force, and annoying as she may be, without her the really aren't any "good" special walls left (the lack of recovery moves and significant HP differences between her and Pokemon like Empoleon being an example of why this is). Not only that, but at least you can still play pokemon against Blissey and Garchomp. They're only "annoying" insofar as any good Pokemon is annoying if you don't have the right Pokemon to stop it. Wobbuffet, on the other hand, doesn't let you play Pokemon. You either die or let it turn you into set-up bait. And with not a damn thing you can do to stop it if the Wobb user has even a single shred of intelligence, I'd consider that something different entirely to the game being played whenever wobbuffet isn't on the field."

Please point out where, in this paragraph, you at all qualify that Wobbuffet is not indeed capable of doing this to every pokemon it faces as your statement logically and obviously suggests. I honestly fail to see how I took your "you either die or let it turn you into set-up bait" out of context. (And I'm not going to repeat why I'm making a "big deal" out of this.) If you cannot point out such "surrounding qualifiers", you literally have no argument against my assertion that you were not exaggerating in this post (which is why I've picked on it so relentlessly). I don't have too much of a problem with you qualifying it later, but I do have a problem with you seemingly pretending you never said what you said or that I'm twisting your words.

You've also conveniently dodged the question I posed here, as well. You know as well as I do that if we were talking about Garchomp and I made the sweeping statement that it kills most things pretty easily, you wouldn't suddenly jump to the conclusion that I think Garchomp kills anything and never dies even if it gets hit, and that just having it on your team leaves your opponent with no choice but to die. It wouldn't be a convincing rebuttal if you made it in that discussion, and its not a convincing rebuttal now.

And I'm sorry if you think me calling you out on a poor argument is "bordering on staff disrespect", but you said yourself that you'll call me out if you think I've said something dumb; I'm certainly going to do the same in response.

I've said "shaky arguments", I've said "unnecessary" and "blatant" exaggerations, but I have yet to use the word "dumb" or otherwise imply that you or your arguments are inherently stupid. The worst I've said is "horrible" which wasn't even directed at you. You may be reading in some vitriol in my responses to you, but there isn't any there. I've been doing this long enough to be courteous to other people, and I expect the same in return (and not just because I'm an admin).

Regardless, how many times do I have to say that this is different because of your unyielding and unqualified "you either die or let it turn you into set-up bait" argument? This argument indicates "all" and not "most", as does your mock Garchomp argument. Let's take a look at your whole paragraph again so we are crystal clear:

'Seriously? So if we were talking about Garchomp and I said "Garchomp can kill most OU Pokemon it faces before it gets killed itself", you would turn around and say "Not Weavile! Not Mamoswine! Stop making it out to be something invincible, lol show me the logs where it kills 6 things completely unaided, rant rant rant"? Because that's exactly what you're doing here, and its completely stupid.'

Ok, see where you said "most"? Now if you had said "Garchomp can kill all OU Pokemon it faces before it gets killed itself", I (and anyone else with half a brain) would have a legitimate argument against it. You didn't say that here, though. By the same token, nowhere did your "you either die or let it turn you into set-up bait" argument indicate a "most".

Again, I don't know why you're being so stubborn about this. I didn't take anything out of context and you can't honestly tell me that your original statement or the paragraph it was in actually implied that Wobbuffet isn't capable of killing all pokemon or making them all set-up bait, as you qualify later. Don't get me wrong—I can and will argue till I'm bluer in the face than the pokemon we're talking about, but I'm pretty much going to be copy-pasting from here on out if you continue to say that "I haven't changed the argument whatsoever."

Was it discussed on the Shoddy forums, even? I don't think it was, but I don't frequent them so I wouldn't know for sure.

Don't know, don't care—take it up with Colin.

I've thought there should be a dedicated test server since before Deoxys-E was unbanned, and ideally any tests (Garchomp, Wobbuffet, whatever) would be carried out there. But since currently both tests are/would be carried out on the main server, I'm highlighting the vastly different volatility of the tests in that server rather than an imaginary one.

Well, if this is true:

"If that is, as you put it, a problem with this community... Then maybe this community is not the right place to be testing Wobbuffet?"

then I am not sure where you would find the necessary "decent/level headed battlers" to conduct this test in the first place, let alone moderate the project, record the findings and report them back to the community. Again, if you actually care about it and aren't just content to vent on the forums about how bad his ideas are, take it up with Colin if you seriously want to spark some change in the competitive battling community.

 

[obi]

Regardless, "48->47->47" does not indicate overcentralization as it pertains to the number of viable pokemon in the standard metagame, and nor does the number of Shed Shells and U-turns since they have barely increased in comparison to the numbers we had for them before March.

Not 47 Pokemon; 49 Pokemon. The "47" figure doesnt include Wobbuffet and Deoxys-S, which is kind of silly in a debate about centralization. You can't include their effects but not actually count them. That would be like having 40 Pokemon OU, unban 10 Pokemon, and one of the old OU Pokemon becomes UU, and thus saying that the unbanning has a centralization factor of 1 Pokemon. In fact, it just increased the pool of OU Pokemon by 9.

In other words, the "47" statistic is misleading because it doesn't include the actual Pokemon unbanned.

 

[Jumpman16]

I CPed that from Colin's post but it's still doesn't even matter and in fact proves his point right now that, at least from the "less viable pokemon" standpoint, there is no indication of overcentralization because a grand total of one pokemon has been bumped from OU with the inclusion of two more. Which actually means that, from a "more viable pokemon = better" perspective, the inclusion of Wobby and DX-S is unarguably a good thing for the metagame so far.

Of course, it is indeed very arguable because the definition of overcentralization alluded to above likely leaves something to be desired. But it's still worth noting that 48 plus 2 is not yet less than or equal to 48 as some people assumed it would be by adding two "uber" pokemon to the standard metagame.

 

[obi]

I mostly posted that because Aldaron was talking to me about how because we don't have a good definition of "overcentralized" we don't know whether 48->47 is "too centralized". I was talking to him about that before I properly read X-Act's list, and now that I see that it's actually 49 including the unbanned Pokemon, the line defining "overcentralized" is irrelevant, because there is no way for 49 to be overcentralized if 48 is not.

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

I'd like to think that a "material" (significant) reduction in the number of OU Pokemon as a result of the unbanning of one Pokemon means that the unbanned Pokemon is overcentralizing to the OU metagame and should be banned. I'd also like to think, naive it may be, that we all share this general idea of overcentralization.

The problem, of course, then becomes defining "materiality" in this sense. How do we define it?

• Do we use a % change in the number of OU Pokemon? Do we base that off actual usage or predicted usage?
• Do we use a statement that defines a material reduction in the number of OU Pokemon as "a reduction such that the average player would acknowledge the metagame as different than before?"
  • Should "the average player" be considered? Or should it be the community as a whole? A majority of the community? The key decision makers of the community?
  • Does the metagame have to be "different?" Why not "worse?" And to what degree?
• Is there another way to define it? Is a systematic method available?

Personally, I don't know which way we should go until a general definition of overcentralization is established. What I do know is that my lack of recent battling experience precludes me from making such a definition. It should be up to the more experienced, more knowledgable players to competently come up with this definition.

 

[Jumpman16]

Wobbuffet "Discussion", mark II

I'm bumping this to urge those of you who have used Wobbuffet in the almost two months since I posted this thread to weigh in with your findings.

And less obviously—unless you've read and comprehended one or more of my Walls of Words in this thread—I'm bumping this thread to remind everyone that we're not going to be able to test a damn thing until and unless those of you who have used Wobbuffet and faced it in high-level competitive play can tell the community what you've experienced. Unless you've been under a rock the last week, you've noticed the myriad threads about Mew, Darkrai, Manaphy, evasion, and even Wobbuffet in Stark Mountain. These are all well and good, but you all must realize that you can't expect anything actually to, you know, *happen* if you don't actually use the suspects in question. You can't expect Policy Reviewers like Obi, Colin, Mekkah and myself to have anything to go on when nothing is really being reported back on the forums as to how Wobbuffet usage is actually affecting the metagame from a strategic standpoint.

So please, for the sake of the metagame, let's get over this first hump and let the community know, from battle experience, what Wobbuffet has done over the last two months. As previous stated, battle logs are fine, as are well-constructed "warstories" featuring Wobbuffet and how it did or did not set up a sweep. I have no problem reading long, raw battle logs if that is what it takes to determine how Wobbuffet's affected the metagame, and in that regard I can speak for my fellow Policy Reviewers (and thus relax the "no battle logs" rule somewhat). But again, realize that there's seriously no other way for the metagame to embrace changes Mew or evasion if we don't know how they actually impact it.

 

[the pugilist]

Okay, I've just had a couple of battles with Ticklewobb (and I intend to post here again after I've played some more matches).

The most interesting match I had while I was battling TAY in a practice match. I had just made a rather stupid mistake of switching Raikou into CM Bliss ( I was pretty tired, okay), After a few CM wars, I decided to turn this blunder into an advantage for me. So I switch in Tickle Wobb. This Wobb was eved to outspeed Blissey and trap it. Unexpectedly however, Wobb was outsped by Bliss and got Critted by a T Bolt. I was surprised ,of course, and asked him about this. Turns out his Bliss had speed evs to stop Wobb from trapping and disposing of Blissey.

I can see a parallel between this and the shed shell argument - the shed shell and the speed evs were only needed as a protection measure against Wobb.

 

[phalanx]

From what i have read wobb has no counters, and in that respect it breaks one of the OU criteria.
I use a wobb that runs counter, mirror coat AND destiny bond, which can revenge kill both physicals, specials and destiny bond mixed sweepers out of the game.
The shed shell and EV's argument to me smells of over centralising as you are in theory making one Pokemon to directly counter another.
The one thing i don't seem to think is an easy thing to take is the bring in Wobb, encore, then bring in dug/zone carrying on the trapping and giving them a basic free set-up, i may have a proper look later at possible broken Wobb/dug combos later today.
and the key point with wobb is, the skill factor where does using Wobb fall here? a person gets into a position to set up using skill, only to lose it to a 50/50 prediction chance (encore or counter/mirror coat).
Whether this is any help the key counters to Wobuffet are physical ghosts and special attacking darks (as those both resist the respective counter or mirror coat).
physical ghosts
Banette
Dusknoir
Shedinja (has bug stab as well as ghost)
Spiritomb
Sableye
Froslass
there are no special darks as such but the interesting thing is Sableye and Spiritomb resist both counter AND mirror coat.

Those are the only direct counters bar spec/physical builds of other pokes in the respective types, out of all those only ONE is an OU poke

 

[Ancien Régime]

I've built somewhat effective teams around Ticklewobb, and I find that:

1: Lead Wobb just doesn't work. Bronzong loses, but Hippo can run Roar (without losing much in terms of Chomp coverage), and it can't stay in on most other leads.

2: Almost needs Wish/Reflect/Light Screen support because of its fragility and the fact that it *has* to take hits.

3: Absolutely needs Rapid Spin support because it cannot afford to take any more damage than absolutely neccesary.

So far, I have yet to see any large scale changes in how people play because of the presence of Wobbuffet, even though I see few of the types of teams Wobbuffet exploits (stallish teams with little offense). I see a few more Roar Hippowdons and Toxic Blisseys, but that's it.

 

[cim]

That's a really smart idea. Well, except for the minor problem that it takes 7 more turns to do that than it does to kill with Magnezone. Both are negated by the rare Shed Shell, so why use Wobbufet when you could use Magnezone?

Granted, Wobbuffet can do this to more than Skarmory sometimes, but still. This isn't all that cheap if you think about it; the CBTar is locked into Pursuit, giving a free switch in. They've wasted 6 Tickle PP. Magnezone is just a lot better at this.

Note: The part that follows is what you're actually looking for.

I used to think Wobbuffet was Uber, but the testing leads me to think otherwise. To use Wobbuffet, you have to give up a team slot that could be used to cover threats or sweep for an overly specific assistant. He can be dead weight if a team's full of heavy hitters and is slow as balls, plus he's ruined by the popular Taunt. He's a complete utter bitch, but I think he's OU. For real.

 

[Trainer]

Whether this is any help the key counters to Wobuffet are physical ghosts and special attacking darks (as those both resist the respective counter or mirror coat).
physical ghosts
Banette
Dusknoir
Shedinja (has bug stab as well as ghost)
Spiritomb
Sableye
Froslass
there are no special darks as such but the interesting thing is Sableye and Spiritomb resist both counter AND mirror coat.

Those are the only direct counters bar spec/physical builds of other pokes in the respective types, out of all those only ONE is an OU poke

Those maybe "counters" but a good wobby user is not going to be switching him into any of those.

 

[Green Mage]

It's still broken for all the same reasons previously listed.

So far, I have yet to see any large scale changes in how people play because of the presence of Wobbuffet

What changes could you be talking about? Putting shed shell on everything? Nobody is going to do that, and being forced to do so is the very basis of overcentralization. And don't give me that "there is no clear definition" stuff. Use common sense.

For those that deem numbers, logs and stats the only viable source of information, i'd like to point out why its usage is so low: nobody likes using it. It is cheap, unfun and mindless, and for the couple of days I was testing it, I felt like a complete asshole. Of course you have people who are only interested in winning and nothing else, but they are generally few and far between, and i'd imagine that every one of them is using wobb relentlessly.

You've also got people using its brokenness just to be dicks now; I've seen people encoring things perpetually (in an attempt to struggle them to death I suppose; nobody hangs around to find out), laughing all the while. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, i'll mention that pokemon isn't all that enjoyable anymore. The metagame is indeed broken. Sandhax is bad enough; wobb is overkill.

 

[the_artic_one]

there are no special darks as such

Boah? Houndoom?

I've found that Wobba has trouble with offensive teams because he can't afford to come in on any offensive threat, people always say things like "a smart wobba user wouldn't bring him in on XXXX". The thing is, a lot of teams these days don't even carry more than one or two pokes he can come in on.

The result of this is that wobba gets one chance to set up a sweep when they bring in the vulnerable member of their team. If he fails that chance, the opponent will make sure to keep the vulnerable member on the sidelines, until he's sure wobba won't be able to set anything up.

 

[xcfrisco]

It's still broken for all the same reasons previously listed.

What changes could you be talking about? Putting shed shell on everything? Nobody is going to do that, and being forced to do so is the very basis of overcentralization. And don't give me that "there is no clear definition" stuff. Use common sense.

For those that deem numbers, logs and stats the only viable source of information, i'd like to point out why its usage is so low: nobody likes using it. It is cheap, unfun and mindless, and for the couple of days I was testing it, I felt like a complete asshole. Of course you have people who are only interested in winning and nothing else, but they are generally few and far between, and i'd imagine that every one of them is using wobb relentlessly.

You've also got people using its brokenness just to be dicks now; I've seen people encoring things perpetually (in an attempt to struggle them to death I suppose; nobody hangs around to find out), laughing all the while. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, i'll mention that pokemon isn't all that enjoyable anymore. The metagame is indeed broken. Sandhax is bad enough; wobb is overkill.

Nobody cares if Wobbuffett is fun to use or not, what matters is if he's broken.

People at Smogon play to win, and I'm sure a ton of people from this website play on shoddy. If everyone here felt that they could improve their chances of winning by using Wobbuffet, EVERYONE would use him.

As it stands, Wobb was 43rd in weighted use during April, he's BARELY making the cut for OU . He's right behind Ninjask and in front of Dugtrio and Donphan. That doesn't sounds like a quality of a super broken pokemon that everyone has to use in order to win.


I think you can take the results of April's usage statistics like this:

1.) Wobbuffet is broken, but yet, nobody cares to exploit and use his "brokenness" to attempt to win matches. This is odd because a lot of people play to win.

Or maybe

2.) Wobbuffett just sucks as a pokemon and is too hard to truly exploit in today's metagame.

I think it's closer to the latter than the former.

 

[Purple Jesus]

It's still broken for all the same reasons previously listed.

What changes could you be talking about? Putting shed shell on everything? Nobody is going to do that, and being forced to do so is the very basis of overcentralization. And don't give me that "there is no clear definition" stuff. Use common sense.

For those that deem numbers, logs and stats the only viable source of information, i'd like to point out why its usage is so low: nobody likes using it. It is cheap, unfun and mindless, and for the couple of days I was testing it, I felt like a complete asshole. Of course you have people who are only interested in winning and nothing else, but they are generally few and far between, and i'd imagine that every one of them is using wobb relentlessly.

You've also got people using its brokenness just to be dicks now; I've seen people encoring things perpetually (in an attempt to struggle them to death I suppose; nobody hangs around to find out), laughing all the while. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, i'll mention that pokemon isn't all that enjoyable anymore. The metagame is indeed broken. Sandhax is bad enough; wobb is overkill.

Commenting on your assumptions about a person's character is extremely relevant to a wobbuffet discussion! They are dicks so they use wobbuffet so they suck the fun out of the game soooo lets ban him because then the people that are dicks wont be dicks anymore!!!

Sarcasm aside, I think wobbuffet is still broken. The problem I see in his usage is people just don't know HOW to use him still. I look at imperfectluck's team BASED upon wobbuffet. When you base the team on wobbuffet he can be highly successful and we all know how well imperfectluck's team did with wobby centering it. I see too many teams use wobbuffet with 1 to 2 pokemon that can abuse a free turn of setup - but these teams just use wobbuffet as a tag on and have no real synergy. I don't mean to rant at smogon's top players, but they seem to avoid him. We need more of an effort by them to test him on ladder play of shoddy battle to show proper usage - not just testing him amongst yourselves/ourselves to prove points. The problem he does have is he does slow down your style of play and basing a team off him isn't really fun - but I see very few efforts to effectively do it and it always makes wobbuffet appear not as good as he can really be I feel like. I don't make teams with him because it just doesn't fit with how I like to play and I couldn't get the hang of it. I make teams that are pretty balanced with offense/defense and don't really lean all offensive or defensive because it just doesn't play to my strength. I think wobbuffet has to be played with a more defensive mind and I just never enjoyed my trials with him I guess (and Im a pretty average pokemon player so using him proves very little). If more influential, top ladder players start utilizing him then the arguments for/against him can be better adjusted I feel.

Im going to make a better effort to try and utilize wobbuffet in an intelligent way this next week and try to understand him myself better. I really feel like he is broken so I'll try to improve my effort to use him and come back with logs and something more useful than my lame ranting

 

[obi]

Of course you have people who are only interested in winning and nothing else, but they are generally few and far between, and i'd imagine that every one of them is using wobb relentlessly.

I play to win, and I don't use Wobbuffet because I don't really see it as being that powerful compared to other Pokemon I could stick on my team.

 

[phalanx]

i play to win but wobuffet doesn't fit in, that's why it isn't there

 

[Lyfsaho]

It's still broken for all the same reasons previously listed.

Of course you have people who are only interested in winning and nothing else, but they are generally few and far between, and i'd imagine that every one of them is using wobb relentlessly.

This logic is terribly flawed; the very essence of this Tier System is built on the assumption (and near to fact) that competitive pokemon is played to win.

The first couple of weeks, people could sometimes get away with the excuse of Wobbuffet not being familiar to the average battler, or that "no one uses it because it's cheap" , or whatever.

Open your eyes. Garchomp is the cheapest pokemon in our OU metagame, and it makes you win, and everybody uses it.

There was a sole difference to the introduction of Wobb to OU play: He's unique, and does something no one else does the same way. That naturally means there has to be a small adjustment for most players; he's another threat to be prepared for. However, I believe has become quite clear to every good player that he does in no way overcentralize the current metagame.

Not to mention Tickle's legality is so doubtful that I find myself wondering how it can be allowed to begin with. A couple hundred Wynaut eggs distributed from March-May 2005 in a Japanese Pokepark event, for all we know all with the same nature and IV's... laughable.

 

[Instinctive]

i play Tickle Wobby as well. Unfortunately, I have no logs for yall to see, but I can say from experience that I have always taken out my opponents most dangerous poke and opened up a sweep for one of my guys when I use the wobby team.

I don't always use it though, becuase I find it so cheap and a bit anticlimactic. The only time I have lost when employing this strategy was ot Alice her?self, and she? apparently is worried about it, and thus has a couple counters for it alone in her team.

I really do believe this is too much power for Wobby. I liked having him to use, and found it fun if a bit cheap, but this takes it too far. I think we have to banish him to Ubers.

 

[TDS]

I seriously think that Wobb has no uses in a team. I often find that the only teams that use wobby are teams with the "best" few pokes with wobboffet with no real strategy

 

[Lord Alchemy]

I seriously think that Wobb has no uses in a team. I often find that the only teams that use wobby are teams with the "best" few pokes with wobboffet with no real strategy

I guess I don't get what you mean by "uses" if Wobby has none. I'd consider the ability to give me a free turn a 'use', and with Ticklefet I can see the ability to take out almost any wall I please a 'use'. Just because it isn't a generic lego piece that gets shoved onto a team doesn't mean it lacks purpose.

 

[cim]

It kinda seems like the general conclusion is that Wobbufett is balanced by his competition for a team slot plus a team needs to be built around him. If you see him you know your opponent has something that can set up, so there's a third (or probably more) of your opponent's play style revealed right there.