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Oh God, not another Wobbuffet discussion!
- Thread starter CardsOfTheHeart
- Start date
dragontamer said:
When we had a tournament, practically everybody managed to write off the results for one reason or another. "All the players were bad." "Everybody was prepared for Deoxys-e." etc. People repeatedly stated that the ladder would be a better test (even though this was part two of the plan anyway). Furthermore, the tournament was a huge effort with thoroughly disappointing turnout (and it took two and half months). Something of that caliber is just not worth it if the results are going to be shrugged off by nearly everybody anyway.
As for ratings, one of the virtues of the glicko2 rating system is that your rating can quickly adjust if your ability suddenly changes. Of course, a rule change that drastically changes which players are the best would result in rating adjustments--both when the pokemon is unbanned, and when it is banned again (if this happens). Of course, you're already familiar with how the rating system works, so it seems like you're throwing this out here even knowing it's an empty concern.
I disagree that players should never have to do any testing. In essence, this is the best way to find out if Wobbuffet is broken. At the end of feburary, we can compare the total number of pokemon whose cumulative usage percents add up to X% to the number that did the month before (and I plan to do this this month for Deoxys-e). If we find the number to have decreased, and we find Wobbuffet to be common himself, we have hard statistical evidence that Wobbuffet is creating centralisation. On the other hand, if we find the number to have changed negligibly, or increased, or if Wobbuffet is not common himself, we know that Wobbuffet has unaffected or diversified the metagame. (As I said I also plan to do this analysis to help to decide whether to leave Deoxys-e banned.) These sort of statistical tests can just not be done in a tournament because there is no before and after to compare. (You could compare to the last month of statistics, but this would be less than ideal because the tournament does not reflect the actual state of the metagame anyway, since a new pokemon has just been introduced.)
The main role of the tournament in the case of Deoxys-e was to establish whether there was a chance he might not be broken. In the case of Wobbuffet, many top players (some of whom have been testing Wobbuffet) already agree that it might not be broken, which is good enough for a full scale test.
You do raise a legitimate concern, however. The ladder should not be a continual testing ground, or it is not a constant competitive environment. However, Wobbuffet is the last pokemon we plan to test on the ladder in the near future, so you don't need to worry about the ladder becoming nothing but a testing ground for possibly standard "ubers".
I have to say that you're exactly right. Wobby faces very little threat from taunt. But that doesn't change the fact that wobby is awful at switching in, except via u-turn/baton pass, must take an often crippling amount of damage to score a kill, and usually must take huge damage in order to set up what should be an easily dealt with threat.
This is still a test, it's just being conducted in a different manner. Allowing Wobbuffet in standard play may upset some people, but it will get results a lot faster than a tournament, is much easier to implement, and will generate a ton more feedback. If it does turn out to be ridiculous, I doubt it will last more than a couple weeks.
I think we can handle losing a few shoddybattle ranking points to settle an issue which has been theorymon'd about an obnoxious amount of times.
Good Luck, Wobbuffet! --TAY
The difference I can see here is that all of the pokemon you named are all capable of learning offensive moves, while Wobbuffet is not. There are a full six usable moves learned by Wobbuffet, so there will be almost zero variation between Wobb sets. This means that while, if a person is legitimately concerned with Blissey vs. Blissey stall wars, they can at least spam Ice Beam and hope for the 10% freeze to kick in, but if a person is concerned with Wobb vs. Wobb stall wars, well...
Wobb vs. Wobb stall wars will ALWAYS come down to Struggle and, god forbid, Countering your opponent's Struggle. This means that no matter what, the Wobbuffet who had used the fewest PP during the match wins almost automatically, as they will reach Struggle last, and thus have Counter PP to use on their opponent's Struggle. The sporting thing to do would be to run 0-PP-Ups across the board on your Wobbuffet, since there's very little chance of you actually using all of the PP of any of your moves, and it gets to the Struggle war that much faster. However, since the person who reaches Struggle first LOSES, the optimal layout would be the full 3 PP-Ups on every move, which makes the race to Struggle absolutely unbearable.
But, realistically, a Wobbuffet v. Wobbuffet stall war would inevitably come down to both players calling it quits, rather than the stall wars you mentioned, which would generally be played out to their conclusions (with the possible exception of Gliscor v. Gliscor with both packing Earthquake as their sole attack move, and neither having Roost.)
Or, in the worst-case-scenario, the less-sportsman-like of the two players would insist on continuing to play, leaving the player less inclined to being an ass stuck with having to either play out the stall war or quit, giving the poor sport a win for the match.
In your examples, having your pokemon use a moveset with no attacks would be a silly thing to do, but in the case of Wobbuffet, it's inevitable.
And speaking of pokemon with no attacks, Wobbuffet v. Wobbuffet Shadow Tag locks aren't an issue, but god forbid Wobbuffet gets switched in on a pokemon with absolutely no offensive moves...
And for that to happen, several epochs have to happen. Volatility has to increase, time has to pass by, RD has to increase, and then volatility drops back down, time passes by, RD decreases and the score is stable again.
And then you decide to reban Wobbuffet. For the ratings to get back... Volatility increases again, time passes by, RD increases, etc. etc. etc. Is this faster than just plain old Elo system? Probably, yes. But regardless of how you put it, it unnecessarily will punch a hole into people's ratings.
The good thing is that the more you battle, the more accurate the rating.
The best way to figure out the human brain is to do random lobotomies on multiple subjects, enough for a statistically significant result. Yes, this is a hyperbole. You later address this point in your post and I think you understand where I'm going with this. Basically, the ladder is not the place to test. It is the best place without a doubt, but it is the current game environment. Tests belong elsewhere, especially when they are potentially gamebreaking.
Do remember, unlike Deoxys-E, Wobbuffet was tested in a Smogon tournament before, and determined to be Uber afterwards. Yes, it was almost a year ago and on WiFi instead of a simulator, but it is nonetheless official evidence of Wobbuffet's Uber status. Similarly, the least I could ask is that some sort of evidence of Wobbuffet's non-Uber status come out before testing it in the real ladder. Even if it is just a few battle logs, I'd like to see something here and a valid argument. I have seen neither.
Finally, a major issue on Wobbuffet here. Wobbuffet is an amazingly annoying pokemon to use and to battle against. Further, there is nothing you can do when a Wobbuffet comes out. No pokemon, except Wobbuffet, can switch out unless it has Shed Shell. This effect can have Wobbuffet over centralizing the metagame, but fewer people using him because of the stall-wars that can happen. (Wobbuffet vs Wobbuffet and so forth)
dragontamer said:
I already responded to this argument. You can't just quote one sentence from my reply and say "Basically, the ladder is not the place to test." and then repeat the argument I already addressed.
Note that the damage from a lobotomy is irreversible whereas Wobbuffet can always be banned again. Your analogy is completely inappropriate.
draongtamer said:
I've seen you repeat this several times but it's a poor argument. Whether something is "annoying" is entirely subjective. There are two separate questions here:
1. Is it agreed that Wobbuffet is just no fun?
2. Does how fun something is matter for its tier placement?
I answer (1) in the negative because I have seen players discuss how they find Wobbuffet fun and enjoyable. AA, for example, thoroughly enjoys using Wobbuffet.
I am not in a position to evaluate what the Smogon administration thinks about (2), but for the Shoddy Battle ladder, I don't think the subjective "fun" of a pokemon matters for whether it is banned. We have objective methods, such as measuring how the metagame centralises or diversifies as a result of unbanning a pokemon. There is no need for bringing in a basically useless (for the purposes of tiers) concept like "fun".
Blissey stalls will generally be broken by a lucky Ice Beam freeze, while Wobbuffet stalls will ALWAYS last for between ~80 turns (If both Wobbuffets use Destiny Bond as their fourth move.) and ~112 turns (If both Wobbuffets use either Safeguard or Charm as their fourth move.)
In addition, Struggle damage might very well do more damage than leftovers recovery, but Struggle is a physical move, which is laughed at by the fact that the opposing Wobbuffet will have Counter as a rule. As I mentioned, this means that the Wobbuffet with more PP available wins automatically, since it hits for twice as much damage, and doesn't take recoil to boot.
This runs counter (haha, see what I did there?) to the idea that the players are racing to be the first to have an attacking move, since the first person to get there will have a 50/50 shot of having their first Struggle Countered (Wobbs would inevitably have equal speed, of course.) It just... feels wrong. I don't know how else to put it.
I'm not going to be using Wobbuffet, since I have decidedly sub-par prediction skills. =/
As a final note, I'm not really anti-Wobbuffet, nor am I legitimately concerned with the very very low chances of Wobbuffet v. Wobbuffet stalls becoming commonplace. I'm just playing the devil's advocate.
Does Wobbuffet even have to kill anything to be pulling his weight?
Generic Pokemon 1 with no move to 2HKO Wobb kills your Pokemon. You switch in Wobb. Wobb encores Generic Pokemon 1, takes less than 50%. Wobb user now knows which attack is coming and can make an appropriate switch, guaranteeing a turn of stat up (so if you encore EQ, switch to a flier/levitator. etc). Wobb may not have killed anything here, but I don't think that means he hasn't pulled his weight. He's given you the one turn you need to set up BellyZard. He's given you the one turn you need for Smeargle to come in, get off a Spore, then Sub+Drum+Salac to something like Medicham or Azumarrill. And there's not a damn thing you can do to stop it.
And in that example, Wobb is still alive with more than 50% health remaining. There's also the chance you Encore a stat-up move, which means he still has 100%. Which means he can come in and do it again at least one more time, even in a worst-case scenario for the Wobb user. Add Wish support and you're good to go for a lot longer. He doesn't even necessarily need help with Toxic Spikes if he's only staying in for one turn each time he appears. He also doesn't need Dugtrio if you've got a couple of stat-up sweepers with the immunities/resistances needed to switch in after an Encore.
To be honest, if we're not going to test Wobb in a controlled environment like we did initially with Deoxys-S, I think at the very least he shouldn't be added to ladder play straight away. Make a new tier (OU+Wobb or something), or just add Wobb to regular OU play but not the ladder. Just don't force Wobbuffet onto a metagame that might not be suitable for him.
Generic Pokemon 1 with no move to 2HKO Wobb kills your Pokemon. You switch in Wobb. Wobb encores Generic Pokemon 1, takes less than 50%. Wobb user now knows which attack is coming and can make an appropriate switch, guaranteeing a turn of stat up (so if you encore EQ, switch to a flier/levitator. etc). Wobb may not have killed anything here, but I don't think that means he hasn't pulled his weight. He's given you the one turn you need to set up BellyZard. He's given you the one turn you need for Smeargle to come in, get off a Spore, then Sub+Drum+Salac to something like Medicham or Azumarrill. And there's not a damn thing you can do to stop it.
And in that example, Wobb is still alive with more than 50% health remaining. There's also the chance you Encore a stat-up move, which means he still has 100%. Which means he can come in and do it again at least one more time, even in a worst-case scenario for the Wobb user. Add Wish support and you're good to go for a lot longer. He doesn't even necessarily need help with Toxic Spikes if he's only staying in for one turn each time he appears. He also doesn't need Dugtrio if you've got a couple of stat-up sweepers with the immunities/resistances needed to switch in after an Encore.
To be honest, if we're not going to test Wobb in a controlled environment like we did initially with Deoxys-S, I think at the very least he shouldn't be added to ladder play straight away. Make a new tier (OU+Wobb or something), or just add Wobb to regular OU play but not the ladder. Just don't force Wobbuffet onto a metagame that might not be suitable for him.
ColinJF said:
It wasn't an argument. I was simply making a response. I noted that I knew you already responded to that point. And yes, I understood I took the analogy far, which is why I admitted it was a hyperbole.
Ultimately, I view the modification of the metagame as Game Design. And from that perspective, the number one most important part of a Metagame is the fun aspect. Of course it would be subjective as "fun" is indeed a subjective feeling. I personally think that Wobbuffet is a mistake that should be erased from the game. [insert earlier argument on Wobbuffet and fun here].
I agree on your point #2, I'm also in no position to declare OU's placement or how the tiers go. Nonetheless, the goal of any Game Designer is to make sure the collective view of the community of gamers get to have the most fun. Here, on Smogon, it is generally accepted that a highly competitive environment is the most fun. I feel that I've already laid out good reason to show that the subgame of Pokemon vs Wobbuffet is simply not a competition, it is too trivial, too simple and detracts from the richness of strategy available in Pokemon.
Does that alone make Wobbuffet Uber? I guess not. Nonetheless, my point of view remains the same. I simply think that allowing Wobbuffet in standard play would detract from the game.
-------
On the topic of Wobbuffet's Uberness, I note again that Wobbuffet has been tested in the first Smogon tournament and was declared Uber after that period of testing. Therefore, it is up to the "Wobbuffet is not Uber" crowd to prove or provide evidence that Wobbuffet deserves testing. I haven't seen any such logs, let alone any tests. Makes no sense to me to reject an earlier decision without some sort of small-scale experiment and enforce this new rule upon the hundreds of Shoddybattlers with little to no public discussion.
From the perspective of a battler, instead of a gamer, the very least I could ask for is again, a couple of logs that demonstrate what one can do that can possibly make Wobbuffet not an uber pokemon.
Perhaps we can even have the "Experimental Ladder" Clause, which represents ladder tests. Can you program a clause that flags the server to gather statistics? That would be the ideal case. You guys get to test Wobbuffet, and those who don't want to participate in this test don't have to. And then there is no large-scale tournament to organize.
Finally, I think there should be a "Waste PP" option in battles if Wobbuffet does come into play. Both players can then hit "Waste PP" and the server will step through the next 80 turns automatically. This ought to make the end stall-wars significantly less tedious. I mean, at that point of the match, it is simply a Struggle war between the two pokemon.
Some sort of option to speed up PP depletion might be a good feature but it is actually more subtle than you might think (considering you'd want it to be available for a variety of cases). Then again, some people might oppose this because it deviates from normal gameplay. It is not that important. Stallwars are not exactly rare in common play.
Note that just because somebody advocates testing a pokemon, this does not mean that he has a particular opinion on that pokemon being uber or not. I don't have an opinion on whether Wobbuffet is uber. I'm not saying it's not uber. I am just facilitating a test of it, a test with little room for evasive replies. If we did some sort of alternative ladder, it would easily be dismissed with nonsense like "No good players played on it." etc. (We actually got a lot of this for the tournament, even though it had many notable players).
I don't know much about the WiFi tournament that allowed Wobbuffet, but the immediate purpose of this test is to determine whether to unban Wobbuffet permanently on the Shoddy Battle ladder. Of course, the data will likely be relevant to debate about Wobbuffet in general, but its immediate purpose pertains to the ladder.
The test is going to proceed as planned. Wobbuffet will be unbanned tomorrow on the ladder.
Note that just because somebody advocates testing a pokemon, this does not mean that he has a particular opinion on that pokemon being uber or not. I don't have an opinion on whether Wobbuffet is uber. I'm not saying it's not uber. I am just facilitating a test of it, a test with little room for evasive replies. If we did some sort of alternative ladder, it would easily be dismissed with nonsense like "No good players played on it." etc. (We actually got a lot of this for the tournament, even though it had many notable players).
I don't know much about the WiFi tournament that allowed Wobbuffet, but the immediate purpose of this test is to determine whether to unban Wobbuffet permanently on the Shoddy Battle ladder. Of course, the data will likely be relevant to debate about Wobbuffet in general, but its immediate purpose pertains to the ladder.
The test is going to proceed as planned. Wobbuffet will be unbanned tomorrow on the ladder.
If I can just give my quick opinion, I'm of the belief that Pokemon is a completely different game to Pokemon w/ Wobbufet. Wobbufet reduces the game into a more primative form of play with less options and no matter how well you predict, you'll always be vulnerable.
Look on the bright side though...a few weeks of testing could be fun. I intend to put Shed Shell on some of my more Wobbufet-weak Pokemon, and pack a Choice Band Weavile.
Whether or not it proves to be "broken," I hope the administration will consider another important factor - is the game a better game with Wobbufet? I fully accept that fun is a subjective term, but Wobbufet is a Pokemon with the potential to completely alter the game we know and love.
Look on the bright side though...a few weeks of testing could be fun. I intend to put Shed Shell on some of my more Wobbufet-weak Pokemon, and pack a Choice Band Weavile.
Whether or not it proves to be "broken," I hope the administration will consider another important factor - is the game a better game with Wobbufet? I fully accept that fun is a subjective term, but Wobbufet is a Pokemon with the potential to completely alter the game we know and love.
I'm all saddened. Garde with WoW no longer counters wobbs. Aw. That was a fun parlor trick in adv.
As for the rest of it, I see little reason not to test it. There's a discussion to be had here since it's not easily demonstrable that he eats the metagame (unlike say, rayquaza and DD outrage damage calcs) so why not extend that discussion to the battles on shoddy? A few weeks of testing is going to, at worst, force you to use wobbs to not lose your current rating (all other things equal).
Spore on breloom gives it a free turn, and it's pretty dangerous as a result. I have no doubts wobbuffet will prove itself dangerous and look forward to watching matches with it. Will it be more dangerous than the rest of OU is? Well, I'm no good at theorymon so I'll let it play out.
As for the rest of it, I see little reason not to test it. There's a discussion to be had here since it's not easily demonstrable that he eats the metagame (unlike say, rayquaza and DD outrage damage calcs) so why not extend that discussion to the battles on shoddy? A few weeks of testing is going to, at worst, force you to use wobbs to not lose your current rating (all other things equal).
Spore on breloom gives it a free turn, and it's pretty dangerous as a result. I have no doubts wobbuffet will prove itself dangerous and look forward to watching matches with it. Will it be more dangerous than the rest of OU is? Well, I'm no good at theorymon so I'll let it play out.
Shed Shell, Trace, Skill Swap, U-Turn, Baton Pass, Gastro Acid, Worry Seed.
So you're saying that every member of my team must have Shed Shell, Skill Swap, Trace, U-turn, Baton Pass, Gastro Acid, or Worry Seed?
Nope, just a non-direct damage move. I think people are VASTLY exaggerating the benefit of a SINGLE "free" turn.
If I'm locked into EQ and you bring in Zard to Drum on my switch, shame on me if I have nothing that either outspeeds Zard or can take a hit.
If I'm locked into [insert stat-up move here], and you bring in Smeargle, sporing on the switch. Shame on me if I don't have something that can either absorb sleep, outspeed your sweeper, or take a hit from said sweeper.
Because my CB[Mon] uses EQ and you switch in BellyZard, case 1 applies without need for Wobb. If CB[Mon] uses Shadow Ball, then Smeargle comes in free. Wobb isn't the only way to get free switch-ins, he just makes it much easier, at the price of 1 less Pokemon that is an offensive threat.
If I'm locked into EQ and you bring in Zard to Drum on my switch, shame on me if I have nothing that either outspeeds Zard or can take a hit.
If I'm locked into [insert stat-up move here], and you bring in Smeargle, sporing on the switch. Shame on me if I don't have something that can either absorb sleep, outspeed your sweeper, or take a hit from said sweeper.
Because my CB[Mon] uses EQ and you switch in BellyZard, case 1 applies without need for Wobb. If CB[Mon] uses Shadow Ball, then Smeargle comes in free. Wobb isn't the only way to get free switch-ins, he just makes it much easier, at the price of 1 less Pokemon that is an offensive threat.
Personally, I think wobuffet is broken due to the fact that it takes a lot of the skill out of the game (just use encore and you don't even have to predict). It is also incredibly hard to counter because you can't switch out against it. However, I am happy to see it tested because we will at least know for certain whether it should be allowed afterwards.
God, will these threads ever die? I say we test it in the most intrusive way possible just to get everyone pissed off at the people that think every Uber is OU, and then we won't have to spend a week talking about why something like Darkrai and Latias are Uber.
As you guys already know, Wobba buys anything one turn of set up with Encore or immediately OHKO's the opponent. Though I agree the RS "Stall War" argument is even more bullshit now then before (thanks Nintendo!), you guys seriously need to shut the hell up and realize how potent Wobbuffet is. If you can't figure out why he's Uber, don't assume it's for a dumb reason and make him OU, for I doubt that it will happen more than once (Deoxys-S).
As you guys already know, Wobba buys anything one turn of set up with Encore or immediately OHKO's the opponent. Though I agree the RS "Stall War" argument is even more bullshit now then before (thanks Nintendo!), you guys seriously need to shut the hell up and realize how potent Wobbuffet is. If you can't figure out why he's Uber, don't assume it's for a dumb reason and make him OU, for I doubt that it will happen more than once (Deoxys-S).
you'd think that four current infraction points would have a poster be a little wary about making such sweeping inflammatory statements as "you guys seriously need to shut the hell up". be grateful i'm not giving you the infraction that would result in your banishment. tone it down already.
anyway, a handful of you may remember that it was me who started the 7-page thread about wobbuffet some 2½ years ago, so my stance may not be that hard to figure out. one thing i will say though is that the "boring" or "fun" argument have such little place in competitive pokemon that it's pointless to bring them up, so please dont
anyway, a handful of you may remember that it was me who started the 7-page thread about wobbuffet some 2½ years ago, so my stance may not be that hard to figure out. one thing i will say though is that the "boring" or "fun" argument have such little place in competitive pokemon that it's pointless to bring them up, so please dont
I'd actually say that if Wobbuffet gets popular, Porygon2 and Gardevoir usage is going to skyrocket, making them possible OU candidates, since they're the only ones with the natural ability to switch out of Wobbuffet without having to take up one of their moveslots to do so.
Trace gets the Shadow Tag, and two Shadow Tag pokemon can switch out of each other, therefore giving them that ability to switch freely. Both can give Wobbuffet statuse that it hates ever so much as well. I know that they can't switch in, but at least there's something that doesn't have to sacrifice a moveslot to escape.
Trace gets the Shadow Tag, and two Shadow Tag pokemon can switch out of each other, therefore giving them that ability to switch freely. Both can give Wobbuffet statuse that it hates ever so much as well. I know that they can't switch in, but at least there's something that doesn't have to sacrifice a moveslot to escape.