Well, I do pray you get back from your road trip and clear things up
I made it back with only two fingers missing this time...
Your argument against "overpowered" is that Dugtrio is far too situational to be considered "overpowered" and that doesn't "translate as well when you're actually battling." What do you mean by translation? Do explain, it is extremely vague.
Your argument against "uncompetitive" is that it narrows the decision making process, and that Dugtrio is still "in the spirit of competition." Again, this is too vague. What do you mean by this? And while it is true Dugtrio narrows decision making process, the same applies to the other 801 Pokémon out there. This is not exclusive to Dugtrio, and I don't understand why you're treating it like it is.
Your argument against "requires no skill" is mentioning the various downsides of using Dugtrio, such as being too fragile to be taken seriously. However, you do not mention the various rewards of using Dugtrio, namely being able to assuredly remove enemies without giving the enemy ANY fighting chance. You get a HUGE reward for so little a cost. This is a major point, but is something you conveniently forget to mention.
And yes, being unable to switch freely is a VERY big deal. There's a good reason why this is being treated with vitriol: it's such a huge deal. I'm getting the impression from your post that you think it's not such a huge deal, being able to switch. To which I say: why? Why is switching so unimportant?
And also, you mention that "Dugtrio takes away players' ability to make ALL of the previously possible decisions." What decisions? You haven't mentioned ANY decisions, instead just telling me why Dugtrio is not overpowered. I have to assume that you're talking about switching, because it's not mentioned there.
Uninformed and vague posts like this achieve the very "b####ing" you're tired of. "B####ing" implies that the post doesn't get anywhere, and – no offense intended – your post fits the bill. It is very posts like this that achieve toxicity.
I do think I was a little too harsh in my previous post (hence why I'm editing this and apologizing for jumping the gun), but you do understand your post does draw some confusion, right?
I'm gonna go through all of this in detail because I think you made an excellent post that leads to productive conversation. I didn't see your previous iteration of the post, but I appreciate you fixing it to reflect a more respectful stance. I think that's in short supply on these forums, so good on you for policing yourself.
Your argument against "overpowered" is that Dugtrio is far too situational to be considered "overpowered" and that doesn't "translate as well when you're actually battling." What do you mean by translation? Do explain, it is extremely vague.
Okay starting off; yes, my apologies (and I may echo this apology a few times) for vagueness. I'm unconvinced by the argument that DUGTRIO is overpowered (and I guess maybe the emphasis on the Pokemon doesn't matter because transitively it sort of has to be OP if Arena Trap is OP, but I would argue the ability and the Pokemon should be looked at separately). When I talk about Dugtrio's brokenness being situational, I'm referring to the argument that people use when they're essentially assuming Dugtrio is at 100% against whatever the hell target it is--meaning it's in for free without having to take into consideration the tremendous risk that switching it in carries. Dugtrio is the very definition of high-risk, high-reward; it dies to essentially one hit from nearly all of its targets, meaning you have to take a huge risk in hard switching it in. Are there things mitigating this risk? Yes, but they too require a great deal of risk too--Eject Button comes with a heavy opportunity cost and a very high risk of accidentally consuming the item with a missed prediction; U-Turn/Volt Switch require you to predict a switch, meaning it once again comes down to an inherently riskier play than running an outright counter/more effective check to "X" Pokemon. Do I think it has a tremendous payoff? Yes! Dugtrio is
devastating when it's able to do its job, but the community at large overstates its ability to actually do its job.
Let's not forget that the only ways Dugtrio is safely in are thus: a high risk is rewarded, or it is coming in off the revenge--a situation which means you are oftentimes (not always in the case of certain sacrifices, but I would argue sacrifices can still be disadvantageous in the long run) at a disadvantage because you are now a Pokemon down. There is this argument that I see all the time that Dugtrio forces the opposing play to "Shit their britches constantly", but that's also true for the Dugtrio user. Mispredict a switch? Fuck, my Zard-Y is now hard countered for the duration of the game because Dugtrio got bopped. It gets blown out of proportion, and I think there is tremendous bias in our community.
Your argument against "uncompetitive" is that it narrows the decision making process, and that Dugtrio is still "in the spirit of competition." Again, this is too vague. What do you mean by this? And while it is true Dugtrio narrows decision making process, the same applies to the other 801 Pokémon out there. This is not exclusive to Dugtrio, and I don't understand why you're treating it like it is.
Okay, allow me to flesh out what I mean. Competition is two people fighting for the same prize. In a competitive situation, being competitive is using something that BEST accomplishes your goal of beating your opponent to that prize. Being
uncompetitive, however, is the opposite; it's doing things that actively undermine the competition itself. Things like forcing endless battles, SwagPlay, OHKO or Evasion-boosting moves--these are all relying on something OTHER than the "Spirit" of competition because they rely on inherently unreliable tactics or completely remove competition from the equation. I see nothing in Dugtrio/Arena trap that REMOVES a competitive element. I see something that removes agency from one player. Your point about it being extendable to virtually all Pokemon is right! Anti-competitive elements are really few and far between. I would argue even Baton Pass was competitive; it was just mindless and largely removed prediction from the equation, meaning it was almost like playing a completely separate game from the rest of the player base.
Your argument against "requires no skill" is mentioning the various downsides of using Dugtrio, such as being too fragile to be taken seriously. However, you do not mention the various rewards of using Dugtrio, namely being able to assuredly remove enemies without giving the enemy ANY fighting chance. You get a HUGE reward for so little a cost. This is a major point, but is something you conveniently forget to mention.
I addressed this earlier in this post, but yes, Dugtrio has high rewards when utilized effectively. My argument is that people are overlooking these high costs to using Dugtrio. It forces BOTH players to very carefully weigh their options. At the end of the day, Pokemon really is a game of rock, paper, scissors, and ultimately someone DOES have to come out victorious. People overlook the fact that the cost of using--and mispredicting with--Dugtrio is an entire teamslot. It's like playing one Pokemon down for the entire game. If you don't play carefully, you will be at a significant disadvantage. There's an opportunity cost of essentially having a less rewarding but longer lasting check to the things Dugtrio tries to trap and KO. I didn't conveniently forget to mention the pros of Dugtrio; it was implied that people reading this post were well aware of them, considering I'm saying "Hey guys, it's not all roses and butterflies for Dugtrio users too."
And yes, being unable to switch freely is a VERY big deal. There's a good reason why this is being treated with vitriol: it's such a huge deal. I'm getting the impression from your post that you think it's not such a huge deal, being able to switch. To which I say: why? Why is switching so unimportant?
And also, you mention that "Dugtrio takes away players' ability to make ALL of the previously possible decisions." What decisions? You haven't mentioned ANY decisions, instead just telling me why Dugtrio is not overpowered. I have to assume that you're talking about switching, because it's not mentioned there.
I'm not arguing that Arena Trap is not a significantly powerful ability at all. When I'm talking about removing agency, removing decisions, I am referring to removing switching from the equation. Yes, it is a very big deal, which is why I understand why the community flips out over it. Do I think it's the most broken thing ever? Not at all. I think it's interesting because it adds a ~spicy~ element to games with Dugtrio. It adds a bigger element of risk, which I guess maybe makes me more of an adrenaline junkie than a lot of the users (?), but I honestly welcome this added level of severity to particular plays in a game. The way I see it is this: If Dugtrio is in an advantageous position, its user gets to dictate switch-ins; if it's dead, its user is now down a mon and seriously disadvantaged; if Dugtrio is alive and waiting in the rear, both players are still at neutral. Yes, the Duggy user can decide when to switch it in, but also yes, the opponent can choose to throw out an attack and KO it (seriously, it dies to like almost everything...). There's this tremendous rhetoric that the Dugtrio user controls the pace of everything, but that's misleading; it's only true if the user correctly predicted (rock over scissors).
BOTTOM LINE: I do not buy in to the rhetoric that
Dugtrio is this overpowered, cancerous, uncompetitive glitch in the meta game. I think that rhetoric is hawkish.
I do still believe Arena Trap/Magnet Pull deserves its own thread in which we can actually talk respectfully about whether or not we want trapping in our meta game. I personally don't mind the added component to our meta game, but I would like to see people at least realize that Dugtrio is not as one sided as people make it out to be.