Wobbuffet stands out among the current ubers as the only one who is not a legendary Pokemon. In fact, he stands out among all Pokemon. He is one of only two fully evolved Pokemon to get no direct attacking moves, and unlike the other one, he can actually be effective. Too effective… or so the prevailing wisdom has been.
I propose that, having used Wobbuffet on my team in Shoddy Battle for a few months, he is not unfairly good. Make no mistake; Wobbuffet is a very good Pokemon. I consider him about as good as Blissey which most people consider one of the best Pokemon. However, that’s all the good he is. Wobbuffet is a very forcing Pokemon that can win you strong advantages, but he’s very limited. His rigid play style really limits the sort of teams that can be built around him, and you’d have to be braindead to not have a pretty good grasp of what he’s planning to do next once he comes in.
Most people just want to hear why he’s worse than he is in RSE. Here’s my list:
U-Turn - This move is a wonderful way to screw with Wobbuffet. He can Counter it to some effect, but it puts the decision making in the hands of the user and out of the hands of Wobbuffet.
Longer Taunt - Taunt users are scarier than ever; Gyarados’s spot at the helm of standard strikes fear into the heart of Wobbuffet.
Super choice items go! - Wobbuffet is way easier to 3HKO in DP than he was in RSE. In RSE, he could come in on weaker Pokemon all day and own them. In DP, these weaker Pokemon are much more scarce. The metagame is full of high power choice item users who smash through Wobbuffet. You need to use resistances to take hits well in DP, and Wobbuffet’s typing is pretty horrible for that.
Physical dark moves - These are the bane of all pure psychic types, Wobbuffet included.
Toxic Spikes - If these are on the field, your Wobbuffet is useless.
Really, Wobbuffet’s problem isn’t performing once he gets in but getting in. He has trouble against many common leads, and revenge killing never gets you ahead (ask Dugtrio). If you want to gain advantage, you eventually have to switch him in. Now, what do you bring him in on? Defensive Pokemon frequently have status moves that ravage him, and offensive Pokemon hitting you with a good hit on the switch quickly make you useless (you might get your kill, but you’ll be trading your fresh Wobbuffet for their used sweeper which is going down).
The one reason Wobbuffet seems broken is that most people don’t know how to fight him. Wobbuffet vs. Hippowdon really demonstrates it for me. Hippowdon users always seem to use Stealth Rock against Wobbuffet, and they are always bitter about my “uber”. However, if I rematch after explaining what they should do, it always turns out better for them. Hippowdon can 3HKO Wobbuffet with Earthquake, and just because his name is Hippowdon, he gets sand. If Hippowdon uses Earthquake on Wobbuffet’s Encore, he’ll get sand and make Wobbuffet useless, going down a Pokemon but really strengthening his position in the match. The only reason to ever use Stealth Rock against Wobbuffet is predicting a Counter, in which case you are just sweetening the deal for yourself (sand, SR, and a nearly dead Wobbuffet potentially).
Some smart fellow is probably going to say “Wobbuffet with Wish support”. Wobbuffet would like an awful lot of support. He wants grounded poison type support to get rid of Toxic Spikes (which will become way more common with him around). He wants Dugtrio to exploit his Encores for easy kills. He wants a powerful stat booster to take advantage of free turns otherwise. Now he wants Wish support? That’s 5/6 of your team spoken for before you’ve even considered dealing with threats and establishing your own; it’s completely impractical to build your whole team around Wobbuffet to give him all the support he really wants. At some point, you have to give up some of the support that Wobbuffet wants to make the rest of your team function, and that really helps curb how much Wobbuffet can accomplish. It makes sense; Wobbuffet being worth two Pokemon means nothing if he needs five team slots to make it happen.
Most people worry about countering Wobbuffet a great deal. You are right; there are no Wobbuffet counters. However, that’s just thinking about Wobbuffet incorrectly. Wobbuffet takes up a team slot, and he must accomplish the worth of killing one of his enemy’s Pokemon if he wants to break even. It’s perfectly reasonable to prevent him from doing this. After all, he’s a rare Pokemon that is worth pretty much nothing when his HP is low. Just wearing him down with someone is likely enough, and you can play prediction games with him to stretch out how much value you get for your Pokemon. You can use the large number of Pokemon against which he simply cannot win to keep him out and to force him to come in at times at which he will gain the least. The solution isn’t to “counter” him; the solution is to just play some Pokemon to make sure he doesn’t get what he wants.
In terms of how much I’ve actually been winning? Well, I have a pretty good score, but I like to think I’m no pushover as a battler. Most low skill players break on Wobbuffet like a ship against a craggy shoal, but better players force me to predict very carefully. If I guess right, I might go up a good deal, but if I guess wrong, Wobbuffet ends up accomplishing nothing making me lose both a Pokemon and all momentum in the match. I’m not the only one who favors Wobbuffet testing; Obi at least has frequently said that Wobbuffet is worse than Deoxys-e who we have recently unbanned. He really deserves a shot, and I hope people don’t take it too hard that the administration of shoddy battle has decided to cut out the pointless debate that never goes anywhere and get straight to testing. Congrats for making it through the post if you read it all, and happy Pokemon battling!
On a side note, there's no reason to be flaming Colin. I was the one who has been doing his best to get Wobbuffet unbanned. Colin doesn't even play Pokemon. Yes, the decision was ultimately his, but if you want someone to hate for this, make it me.
