Good argument, but DT can stack; the user doesn't have to only use it once.
It can, but that doesn't really matter in the case of Scarfchi Iron Head, which you have to use Double Team 5 times, almost the maximum, in order for it to match Iron Head's chance of stopping your opponent from doing anyway.
You're correct, but this is situational; this applies to Jirachi (and Togekiss), so of course they will pass up DT for flinchax. Double Team has a broad range of users that don't have something like flinch as a better option.
True, but the effect is still the same: Making your opponent unable to attack, while you rake up the damage on them (nothing is immune to Steel). If DT ends up being too much hax and thus is bannable, then the same would have to go for Iron Head Scarfrachi and Air Slash Scarfkiss, which can both do the same thing with much less setup.
If Serene Grace was a mass spread ability or these flinching moves had better coverage, there would be an issue. 2 pokemon vs. the whole spectrum of pokemon that can learn TMs is an entirely different issue though. Jirachi can be contained, but with Double Team accessible by nearly every pokemon, there is an issue.
Limited coverage doesn't really matter if you can never get a chance to attack. And if you can get a chance, then it's probably not that broken.
As for how common it is, that alos makes it less of a threat. Everyone would be trying to either squeeze it on to all of their Pokes or make an Evasion Baton Pass team, and trying to Taunt the opposing Pokemon to stop the opponent from using DT at all. Taunt just ends up in speed-ties, which give you only a 50% chance of the match going your way, which will cause people to give that strategy up eventually due to not wanting the match to be decided by a coin-flip. Both Pokemon using DT would result in no real gain for either side, resulting again in people to stop bothering with it.
Serene Grace Pokes have some problems with coverage, yes, but DT's problem is the huge risks that a strategy with it involves: Getting Taunted right off the bat, having the opponent do the same thing, and even if you manage to get it set up while preventing he opponent from doing so, there's still the chance of it not doing anything and having been a waste of a move. There are chances for huge gains, but the tremendous risks in using such a strategy, especially in an environment where it would be extemely common, shold keep it in check.
There's also the issue that Jirachi must be faster in order to gain the flinch. And I have to pick this out; "(and even then, your pretty much kidding yourself if you don't think that the hax is one of the primary reasons to choose IH on Jirachi)" well why else? The only reason to pick Bullet Punch on Scizor is for priority. Steel gives crap for coverage and if Iron Head didn't have a flinch rate, it wouldn't be used.
Scarf pretty much takes care of that, and either forces you to use a Scarf on something yourself (analogous to forcing you to use DT yourself) or an Inner Focus Pokemon (analogous to Machamp).
That's what you missed; things like Jirachi. But just how many are there? Now how many DT users are there? You need to look at the big picture rather than focus on one pokemon (and its effects) and comparing it to one move, while ignoring that this move is everywhere.
Irrelevant. There only being one Jirachi (and Togekiss as well, which can play the same game) doesn't change one it can do. Either a 60% chance of stopping your opponent from attacking is too much or it isn't. How many Pokemon can pull it off doesn't affect whether it's broken or not. What matters is if the strategy is actually effective enough and if there are Pokemon that can effectively use it.
Yes, there are a lot more Pokemon that can use DT. But if that increased chance of an attack missing isn't enough to actually stop Pokemon from being hit, then it really doesn't matter how many Pokemon can use it, as the basis of the strategy plain and simply doesn't work. Likewise, if such a chance is significant, then that should also lead to Togekiss and Jirachi being suspect, due to having a very high chance of accomplishing the same thing right off the bat.
Nonetheless, a very good argument. Good job.
Thanks.
I'll be honest; on at least three occasions I've brought Magnezone or Heatran in on Jirachi from perfect condition and was flinched to death (I got one attack in as Magnezone). But I suppose you're right; there are ways to effectively "stop" flinch, but there's also ways to stop evasion. Don't ignore that.
This is very true. They are ways of stopping both, so likely neither is broken. DT has things like Taunt, Whirlwind/Roar, Haze, Machamp, plain old attacking, and itself while flinch has Whirlwind/Roar as a temporary answer, Inner Focus Pokemon, Faster/Equal Speed Pokemon and just continuing to keep attacking.
Agreed, but if it doesn't contribute to the metagame one bit except for make games more prolonged and agrrivating, wouldn't that be essentially weakening the structure and give jurisdiction to the ban?
Ah, but this goes into whether it should matter if something should contribute to the metagame or not. Take Sky Attack for whatever. It's not really that great of a move, since it will just give your opponent a free switch-in to a Flying-resist, but it's still a very powerful move on Pokemon like Honchkrow and will probably take off a fair amount of HP as a result of that. And then there are moves like Bubble and Tackle, and movesets with only one good move, and the ability to use Pokemon like Gible in OU. Should those be banned just because they don't contribute to the metagame? Do we really care more about making the game competetive and avoiding luck (which no matter what we do, we won't we rid of anyway, since the RNG plays a huge part in Pokemon), or staying true to the original game and thus having to tell people to just accept that the RNG is a huge part of what Pokemon is and thus will cost you some matches ocassionally?
But for both, you don't have to have a surefire counter; as Nitpicker said, you can just deal.
There are surefire counters for both: Inner Focus/faster Pokemon for flinching and Machamp for evasion. With Prediction, a speedy Taunt will also stop a DT, and Defog, which I don't believe is affected by evasion, will cancel it out.
Except you neglect counters. My opponent sends in Heatran on my Parasect (lol). I send in Suicune as he DTs. I start to double team. He's +6 when I'm +5. Who has the advantage? Suicune, because Heatran should've switched to something that can actually HIT BACK rather than stay and get stonewalled.
That also shows how DT isn't that great of an option though, although in a diffrent way. The standard Crocune would be better in that situation; Calm Mind up 5 times and you solidly wall Heatran, and will only need one hit to KO it. Since you solidly wall it by that point, the chance highly favors you being able to KO it since, barring a crit, which is something that could happen anyway, it won't be doing anything to you. That would also have been a huge waste of DT on his part if he doesn't get a crit or two, in additon to the misses, since Heatran can't even Pass the DT's to something else. Of course, there's also the option of Explosion on Heatran, but that would pretty much have the same result regardless of DT, so it doesn't really need to be considered.
Also, even in that situation, if your other moves are Rest/Sleep Talk/Surf, you still pretty solidly wall it, so despite having a bit less evasion, the odds are in your favor that you will probably be able to KO it due to that, combined with how you can recover your HP with Rest, which since I'm getting the feeling is offensive, wouldn't be able to do.
I don't see why you're bashing Skymin. It wasn't a bad pokemon. And you're making predictions with no base, be wary of that. Who's to say it won't stick?
I'm not meaning to bash Shaymin-S; it's a very solid sweeper in OU, and it also has SubSeed, which can get very annoying. What I'm saying is that people really overhyped it's abillity to sweep at first, which caused its usage to be very high at first, and then start to drop once the hype wore off and people got a more accurate view of its abilities. It is a very good Pokemon, but in practice it usually wasn't as devestating to a team as the hype made it seem.
And ture, it may not turn out that way, but that's why it needs to be tested: So we don't need to rely on this theorymon. Right now though, that's all we have. And going on that, based on Shaymin-S's sharp decrease in usage, which was originally very high because of Serene Grace but then started decreasing once that didn't work often enough to be dependable, I'm for now expecting the same thing to happen with DT: It will start off high, but then start to decrease due to everyone using it, meaning people not being able to get far with it. A similar thing with the Wobbuffet test will probably also have a role in it, with people insisting that it's broken, but not using it themselves out of honor and respect for the opponent.
And for those that don't use evasion? (I won't lie, I don't quite understand this part, but oh well).
I mean pretty much what I said earlier in my post by that; in the beginning of the test, due to it's nature, everyone will probably be testing Double Team, and since practically every Pokemon can learn it, it will probably also be on multiple Pokemon on each team. Because of this, it's very likely that two players who face each other on the Test ladder will try to use it against each other. However, in doing so, neither player will make any progress, meaning that Double Team itself will have a small effect in such matches.
If you don't use DT yourself, then there are other ways to get rid of the effects of DT or stopping your opponent from using it, which you will probably have on your lead anyway due to the nature of the test. There's also of course the option of just keeping attacking, which will probably work.
If you mean what happens if you DT and your opponent doesn't, then it's pretty much the reverse situation: Your opponent will probably be using one of the other ways to deal with evasion or will just plain old attack you, which will probably work.
I don't see where these claims are coming from.
Pretty much based on the results of the Skymin and Wobbuffet tests; Shaymin-S has a pretty good chance of causing you some big problems one way or another with Seed Flare and Air Slash, even when compared to DT. That didn't turn out to be enough for it to be reliable though, and its usage began to plummet for several months in a row. Based on that, I'm expecting such decreases to occur when DT is tested. Of course, I could be wrong and it turns out to be more reliable then I'm thinking and thus is able to maintian usage, which is why it needs to be tested, preferrably over a multi-month period.
Taunt can miss. Not to mention that only prevents further boosts (it still carries the ones it has). Haze is rare to say the least. Phaze can miss.
What I mean in the case of Taunt is predicting the opponent's actions and using a speedy lead with Taunt to Taunt the opponent's lead before it can use DT (DT Baton Pass teams are likely to be tried, so it wouldn't be surprising to see it on leads). And even if the Pokemon doesn't have DT or wasn't planning on using it, Taunt is still a good move as it will stop recovery moves, support moves, and stat-upping moves. Meaning, unless the Pokemon is Choiced, using Taunt has a pretty good chance of doing you some good anyway, especially on leads.
Only a few Pokemon have access to Haze, but there are a few good ones and it is a good move. DT inspring the use of an uncommon move isn't necessarily a bad thing, unless it becomes a constant war between the two moves. And even if it doesn, again, SR comes in to play. Taunt and SR are in a war on leads right now, but that doesn't seem to be enough to ban either of them, so moves simply inspring the use of themselves or others isn't enough to call for a ban. The stratagey itself will actually need to prove broken, which we'll have to wait for the results of the test to see.
Phazing can miss, but will more than likely end up htting before the Pokemon is defeated, which means it will have done its job.
SR is like Double Team; you can choose to ignore it. If you have an SR weak pokemon, don't switch it in as much. (that's pretty much what I do).
True. Both are ignorable and have means that can be used to deal with them. I suppose only the test itself can show whether those means for DT are actually effective enough to stop it.
Correct. But just how bad evasion can be has yet to be seen.
True. How good DT is in this metagame will ultimately only be revealed through the test.
Jeez. Finally done. I probably have things worded wrong and whatnot, but oh well. It took forever to go through this ;o; If there's more posts I might just cry, lol.
Yeah. >.< These tl;dr posts really take too long to think of responses to and type up, but they are what these kinds of threads have a habit of leading towards.
