You don't seem to understand how irrelevant it is that knock off doesn't get STAB, when it allows you to bypass most your usual checks and counters. I agree with you that I was wrong about toxicroak, and the points about machamp were right, but lets get some things straight.
1. Even if it does require high damage rolls, a potential 2HKO is still a potential 2HKO. Please do not attempt to undersell a very important point in regards to the effectiveness of how pokemon can use knock off, when its obvious how dangerous it actually is.
2. Like I said, there's a big difference between U-turning out of a pokemon, and 2HKO'ing a pokemon. Take a plausible in-game scenario for a second.
-Your opponent has mienshao out on the field. You currently have...oh lets say for the sake of an argument a non-choice scarfed hydreigon.
-Your opponent also has a crawdaunt in reserve. You would like to keep hydreigon healthy to make sure it can at least tank a crawdaunt hit once, so you switch to mew.
-Mienshao used Knock off. You now have a near dead Mew, and no way to KO Mienshao before it KO's you. At this point, given the lack of risk in spamming knock off, you either have to sack mew, or have another one of your pokemon lose an item. I don't think you understand how big of an advantage that would truly be.
Whereas if you U-turn, sure you get momentum for it, but you have to convert that momentum back into advantage, which against pokemon like mew, isn't always as clear cut to achieve. KO'ing what would otherwise be a hard stop to your set, without compromising your movepool is an incredible advantage, arguable moreso than simply u-turning
I also have my doubts on the usage stats. I'm not saying all of it is wrong, but I am somewhat surprised that Torn-t is that low and I would think things will change on that list significantly, which would give knock-off a chance to become a prominent weapon.
You also ignored my points on Crawdaunt. I wouldn't mind your thoughts on that either, since you did go to a lot of trouble to get usage stats for me to debunk most of my points.
I agree for the msot part it is a disruption move, but to outright denying it to be a major threat on the right pokemon is blatant ignorance on your behalf. Please don't do that.
1. I'll concede on the Reuniclus one. However, it still maintains that Mienshao can already U-turn out of Reuniclus to begin with. This simply means Reuniclus can't switch in on Mienshao, but there are other options to bring in Reuniclus anyway, such as slow U-turns. All Reuniclus really needs to do then is to Psychic and maim Mienshao, or whatever Mienshao u-turns into.
2. Mienshao can U-turn on a Reuniclus switch-in --> Bring in Reuniclus counter? Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant from the start. Hydreigon is also weak to U-turn, so in that scenario I'd still U-turn regardless, dealing strong damage to Hydreigon in the process. Or Mew. And then if you U-turn into Mew, you can just switch Crawdaunt in.
re: crawdaunt: It's the strongest user of Knock off, so it's a threat to watch out for. Unfortunately it's a frail little shit, and honestly speaking I found more success with him in OU than in UU >_>" besides that, Crawdaunt isn't exactly the fastest thing in the world. My stance on crawdaunt is no longer leaning very heavily towards ridiculous (well, when you have used stuff like Bisharp and Kyub, it's hard to really say what exactly is overpowered because those two are literally in a league of their own lol), but more of just: strong wallbreaker.
The right Pokemon is really specific, that's the thing. Mienshao is the only other thing besides Crawdaunt that's really being argued here. But I think most of us here can agree that Mienshao is far from overpowered, especially with his lack to any priority other than lolfakeout and his horribad defenses. The problem is, is Knock Off so amazingly overpowered that it pretty much makes everything that gets it zomg-amazing? For the pro-ban side, I really only see Mienshao and Crawdaunt being argued here: I already demonstrated that most fighting types are too rare or have other issues to really be relevant in the current metagame, and other STAB users likewise have their own problems (Krookodile is good but sits in a very inconvenient speed tier, Scrafty is weak without boosting, and I didn't mention this for some reason but Weavile has really shit defenses and rather average STABs: Icicle Crash is illegal with Knock Off which is another issue). Heracross doesn't mind Knock Off's buff but he's already shitting over Psychic types with Megahorn anyway, and he's being killing Chandelures with Stone Edges for a long time.
Really, if you guys actually think that Mienshao is that hard to switch into, you're probably more suited to a stance that Mienshao is too broken for UU. Which is probably the most retarded idea ever (like, wtf, Mienshao more broken than fucking hax or kyurem?). Is Knock Off broken (if it even is, like, the others aren't even that overpowering) on most shit that gets it other than Mienshao and Crawdaunt?
Knock Off is still a coverage move, and at the end of the day, you simply have to prepare for it. After BW2 came out you suddenly couldn't blindly switch in Ferrothorn into Haxorus anymore because Haxorus 2HKOes with Superpower. So uh... ban Superpower?
re: stall: The power creep every generation has done nothing except cause stall to become more and more unviable. You have got powerhouses like Haxorus, Kyurem and Crawdaunt around, and stall simply has more and more threats to handle until it's simply impossible to cover everything with just 6 Pokemon. While Knock Off is indeed fatal for stall, the real question is: is stall still as viable as before, when you've got more and more powerhouses to deal with?
tldrgdibanningcoveragemovesjustbanicebeamalreadysuicune2hkoesroseradeandchesnaughtwithicebeamlgi
also yeah rowdog's replay pretty much shows the one thing i have with knock off: it's a one-time nuke. you can switch out and back in and superpower again at full power. you can't do that for knock off. if knock off doesn't kill, then it's not going to for the rest of the match. burning stuff and using recovery moves is very helpful for this.
edit: lel 3.2k
