100% Confusion Chance

During the dynamic punch thread, I gained a bit of insight into possible solutions into improving our metagame whilst looking for potential solutions for the machoke situation that had currently arisen in PU.
Whilst it is deemed that Machoke, by the majority of the PU community is not a broken pokemon on its own, it was being considered for suspect because it uses confusion to break through its checks and counters through the form of dynamic punch + no guard, meaning it never misses, hence has always a 100% chance to confuse the target which leads me onto the thought that the confusion chance was broken, rather than the option of a 100 damage 100% accurate stab that never missed, as it would simply use cross chop instead.

From the dpunch thread, I gathered that Dpunch on its own is not broken, however the combination of dpunch of no guard on selected good pokemon is uncompetitive, which leads me to similar scenarios with similar bans in place. Chatter and swagger come to mind, which lead me to believe it is simply the thought of a move that 100% inflicts confusion, leaves the game into a 50/50 situation, which in result takes the competitive edge away from the game with certain moves. So i propose as a consequence we suspect 100% confusion chance, or better yet ban them as they aid nothing but a coin flip to our competitive battling experience. As a result, this would mean that moves such as Confuse ray and the combination of no guard + dynamic punch would be illegal as it would provide a healthier experience for games in terms of competitive pokemon is concerned.

It is in ways a "complex ban", however we're not banning the move of dpunch, nor are we banning the balanced pokemon which is machoke in pu, it is the mechanic of 100% confusion chance with its main stab which causes the impression it is unhealthy, hence in this account, i think it is appropriate this should be considered for discussion.

This does not mean I am proposing that we ban moves such as water pulse or outrage which have either a 10% confusion chance or a self inflicted confusion chance, I am simply suggesting that moves such as confuse ray, swagger, dynamic punch + no guard, chatter are all uncompetitive, and the only reason why this hasn't been considered for a ban any sooner is because the pokemon which moves these are distributed to are either not very good in their respective tier until it has become a problem in PU.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
swagger is only a 90% confusion chance free swagger :^)

i support this ban because your only options are switch and risk getting confused again or play through it; with hazards ur eventually gonna have to pick the latter. confusion basically is only balanced because its users can't do *that much* with free turns but with machoke we see what happens when they can. others might say the problem is with machoke but i think it's with a mechanic that forces you to play coinflips with the RNG. at least with shit like thunder wave the chance is low enough that you can't count on getting a free turn from it unless you have a method of stalling many turns. confusion is too reliable at granting free turns and frankly just hella stupid
 

Nails

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the moves you mentioned (chatter, no guard dpunch, swagger) have an additional effect (damage or attack boosts which can be used to boost foul play damage) tied to their usage which tips the odds in the user's favor while still turning the game into uninteractive coinflips. confuse ray isn't used anywhere because it doesn't give the user an advantage besides the confusion and is therefore not strong enough to win games more reliably than other moves. dynamicpunch isn't used outside of machokes because it is unreliable except when used by machoke. ban machoke.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
i just played a ladder game today where my opponent had a confuse ray milotic. fortunately he only got 1/4 confusion self-hits across the 3 pokemon he confused but if he'd gotten more i could have been very hosed. also i dont play lower tiers but iirc parafusion was on some strategy dex entries like for regigigas and shit, not that i know how much they got used. From a doubles perspective, fake out shows us the power of a single free turn, even though it takes a lot of skill to use effectively and only works in certain situations. Confusion has very few counters (basically magic bounce lol), it pretty much works all the time and its a powerful free turns generator that completely hands the game over to the RNG and doesn't require much in terms of skillful play.

also ive thought dynamicpunch was really stupid ever since 2009 when i started playing but i'm not the best at dpp so i didnt speak up on it. i still play dpp occasionally and i still think machamp is fucking stupid tho
 

Andy Snype

Mr. Music
confuse ray isn't used anywhere because it doesn't give the user an advantage besides the confusion and is therefore not strong enough to win games more reliably than other moves.
Does this really matter? It's uncompetitive because if used, the turns go into a modified 50/50 (depending on the duration of confusion, accuracy of the moves) between essentially doing nothing vs the result of the user's move, assuming the pokemon stays in. Every 100% accuracy move goes to 50%, and non-perfect-accuracy moves are even worse. I'd say this qualifies enough as taking skill out of the game.
 
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the moves you mentioned (chatter, no guard dpunch, swagger) have an additional effect (damage or attack boosts which can be used to boost foul play damage) tied to their usage which tips the odds in the user's favor while still turning the game into uninteractive coinflips. confuse ray isn't used anywhere because it doesn't give the user an advantage besides the confusion and is therefore not strong enough to win games more reliably than other moves. dynamicpunch isn't used outside of machokes because it is unreliable except when used by machoke. ban machoke.
I'm curious about your stance on Chatter/Chatot. I view it in the same respect as Machoke. Chatot's Special Attack, Speed, and possibly its access to other moves (Nasty Plot / Sub), is what makes Chatter an issue. I personally think that Chatot should have been banned and not Chatter. Do you share the same viewpoint?
 

Lord Death Man

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the moves you mentioned (chatter, no guard dpunch, swagger) have an additional effect (damage or attack boosts which can be used to boost foul play damage) tied to their usage which tips the odds in the user's favor while still turning the game into uninteractive coinflips. confuse ray isn't used anywhere because it doesn't give the user an advantage besides the confusion and is therefore not strong enough to win games more reliably than other moves. dynamicpunch isn't used outside of machokes because it is unreliable except when used by machoke. ban machoke.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding - why do we want something that is almost always, inherently, forcing luck that is in the user's favor in the first place? This thread is about banning confusion, and while I would love for Confuse Ray/Supersonic to be banned on the grounds they're not competitive moves, I would personally be fine with settling on a Chatter / Dynamic Punch ban on the grounds that they cause confusion and do something else that's also in the user's favor, forcing either a series of coinflips or one free turn. In fact, the odds that Chatter or Dynamic Punch connect and don't generate at least one free turn is incredibly low. What does this add to the game?

I also wanted to voice my disagreement with a complex ban of no guard + dynamic punch; Dynamic Punch doesn't suddenly add something to ORAS tiers when it can miss half the time, it just becomes a "bad" move and a source of potential confusion for new players. I believe someone posted in the other thread about the very very small number of mons who might ever want to consider dynamic punch for coverage, and I don't feel that there's actual colleratal damage from this. FU is not an official tier and faces no real risks from declaring nontransivity to my knowledge anyway.
 
Maybe I'm misunderstanding - why do we want something that is almost always, inherently, forcing luck that is in the user's favor in the first place? This thread is about banning confusion, and while I would love for Confuse Ray/Supersonic to be banned on the grounds they're not competitive moves, I would personally be fine with settling on a Chatter / Dynamic Punch ban on the grounds that they cause confusion and do something else that's also in the user's favor, forcing either a series of coinflips or one free turn. In fact, the odds that Chatter or Dynamic Punch connect and don't generate at least one free turn is incredibly low. What does this add to the game?

I also wanted to voice my disagreement with a complex ban of no guard + dynamic punch; Dynamic Punch doesn't suddenly add something to ORAS tiers when it can miss half the time, it just becomes a "bad" move and a source of potential confusion for new players. I believe someone posted in the other thread about the very very small number of mons who might ever want to consider dynamic punch for coverage, and I don't feel that there's actual colleratal damage from this. FU is not an official tier and faces no real risks from declaring nontransivity to my knowledge anyway.
I'm not suggesting we ban the move dynamic punch, I'm suggesting we ban the combination, so that the user doesn't have the potential to have a 100% chance for confusion (in normal scenarios, it would be 50/50 since it is 50% accurate, however with no guard, it is made 100% accurate).
 

Nails

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i just played a ladder game today where my opponent had a confuse ray milotic. fortunately he only got 1/4 confusion self-hits across the 3 pokemon he confused but if he'd gotten more i could have been very hosed. also i dont play lower tiers but iirc parafusion was on some strategy dex entries like for regigigas and shit, not that i know how much they got used. From a doubles perspective, fake out shows us the power of a single free turn, even though it takes a lot of skill to use effectively and only works in certain situations. Confusion has very few counters (basically magic bounce lol), it pretty much works all the time and its a powerful free turns generator that completely hands the game over to the RNG and doesn't require much in terms of skillful play.

also ive thought dynamicpunch was really stupid ever since 2009 when i started playing but i'm not the best at dpp so i didnt speak up on it. i still play dpp occasionally and i still think machamp is fucking stupid tho
confusion on regigigas is used to stall out slow start turns, it's an exception because it has an incentive to waste time. as for confusion in doubles that's a totally different beast, using it as a support option to allow a hard hitting partner a chance at free turns is a proven powerful strategy. i haven't seen any confuse ray teams taking games in spl, if it turns out confuse ray is dominating world cup we can revisit this in a month after that has happened. it's not strong enough to be an issue though, the mons who could abuse it (pranksters like sableye for example) have better things to do with their time (taunt wisp recover foul play, etc). confuse ray was very rarely used (read: i think i used it a bit, idr anyone else doing it) as a panic check to sweepers in bw but no one called for a ban on it.
Does this really matter? It's uncompetitive because if used, the turns go into a modified 50/50 (depending on the duration of confusion, accuracy of the moves) between essentially doing nothing vs the result of the user's move, assuming the pokemon stays in. Every 100% accuracy move goes to 50%, and non-perfect-accuracy moves are even worse. I'd say this qualifies enough as taking skill out of the game.
you give up a full moveslot to force a coinflip, if that's the best use you can get out of your moveslot then your team could likely use some improvements. rby is an exception, gengar and lapras both can use cray effectively as a pseudo taunt to break chansey/block its healing, but many mechanics/moves have been introduced since to do that job more effectively, rendering confuse ray outclassed.
I'm curious about your stance on Chatter/Chatot. I view it in the same respect as Machoke. Chatot's Special Attack, Speed, and possibly its access to other moves (Nasty Plot / Sub), is what makes Chatter an issue. I personally think that Chatot should have been banned and not Chatter. Do you share the same viewpoint?
somewhat, i didn't know it was happening at the time but like always it's a matter of the strength of a strategy which determines if it's an issue; no one is calling for a nerf to machoke in ou. chatter is really dumb on everything that learns it so i care less about it than dpunch, but yeah i'd prefer a chatot ban to a chatter ban.
 

Lord Death Man

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I'm not suggesting we ban the move dynamic punch, I'm suggesting we ban the combination, so that the user doesn't have the potential to have a 100% chance for confusion (in normal scenarios, it would be 50/50 since it is 50% accurate, however with no guard, it is made 100% accurate).
And I'm saying I can't reasonably support that ban, it seems overly complicated for no legitimate gain. Either the combination of 100% confusion + damage move is bannable, confusion is bannable, or nothing is. A complex ban doesn't fit this scenerio at all. I also think it'd be fair to have different clauses for singles and doubles here if Confuse Ray has a legitimate use in Doubles.
 

Andy Snype

Mr. Music
you give up a full moveslot to force a coinflip, if that's the best use you can get out of your moveslot then your team could likely use some improvements. rby is an exception, gengar and lapras both can use cray effectively as a pseudo taunt to break chansey/block its healing, but many mechanics/moves have been introduced since to do that job more effectively, rendering confuse ray outclassed.
i would argue that the means to cause endless battles is also a case of uncompetitiveness that we had to cover with that leppa berry + heal pulse / Trick. There are surely other more competitive sets, but that set had no competitive goal in mind and was still abused by others that simply did not care or aimed to win by convincing their opponent to forfeit. I think that the opportunity cost of giving up a full moveslot for a scenario is going to be ignored by other players, esp by trolls and lesser-skilled people.

However, when the result of this outcome is that interactivity between a player and the result is cut by approximately 1/2, that is a major warning sign in the ability to call the game skillful. I think we, as a competitive Pokemon community, should take steps to reduce uncompetitiveness where we can; looking at this 50% reduction in player interactivity is a start.
 

Nails

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i would argue that the means to cause endless battles is also a case of uncompetitiveness that we had to cover with that leppa berry + heal pulse / Trick. There are surely other more competitive sets, but that set had no competitive goal in mind and was still abused by others that simply did not care or aimed to win by convincing their opponent to forfeit. I think that the opportunity cost of giving up a full moveslot for a scenario is going to be ignored by other players, esp by trolls and lesser-skilled people.

However, when the result of this outcome is that interactivity between a player and the result is cut by approximately 1/2, that is a major warning sign in the ability to call the game skillful. I think we, as a competitive Pokemon community, should take steps to reduce uncompetitiveness where we can; looking at this 50% reduction in player interactivity is a start.
endless battles are uncompetitive in the sense that they push the game toward a draw or a stalemate and pokemon should be played to win with few exceptions (old gens when playing for a draw -> rematch is your best play; it's still playing for a win of the series). confuse ray is just an ineffective/bad strategy. cray has a 49/64 chance to make the target self-hit at least once provided they do not switch out, but at that point you've spent 1 turn to get 1 of their turns. it has a 23/64 (36%) chance of getting 1 (or more) free turns, a 7/64 chance of getting 3+ hits, and a 1/64 chance of getting the maximum 4 hits. the switch button stops confusion if the victim doesn't feel like gambling, even though the odds are against the confuse ray user. it's been available to players for decades, and it has been a bad option except for extremely niche situations for all of that time period. it's a move that does nothing over 23% of the time even when used optimally, and mons are stressed for moveslots as is.

being able to perform quick mental math and determine which plays give you the best chances of victory is an important skill. confuse ray is really bad. if it starts dominating tour play i will admit that i'm wrong. as for the low ladder, we don't decide tiering policy based on the results of 1200 rank ladder games. we balance around a high level of play, and we shouldn't be talking about banning a move which sees no use in tourneys. yes, the brightpowder ban was also retarded.
 

Andy Snype

Mr. Music
endless battles are uncompetitive in the sense that they push the game toward a draw or a stalemate and pokemon should be played to win with few exceptions (old gens when playing for a draw -> rematch is your best play; it's still playing for a win of the series). confuse ray is just an ineffective/bad strategy. cray has a 49/64 chance to make the target self-hit at least once provided they do not switch out, but at that point you've spent 1 turn to get 1 of their turns. it has a 23/64 (36%) chance of getting 1 (or more) free turns, a 7/64 chance of getting 3+ hits, and a 1/64 chance of getting the maximum 4 hits. the switch button stops confusion if the victim doesn't feel like gambling, even though the odds are against the confuse ray user. it's been available to players for decades, and it has been a bad option except for extremely niche situations for all of that time period. it's a move that does nothing over 23% of the time even when used optimally, and mons are stressed for moveslots as is.

being able to perform quick mental math and determine which plays give you the best chances of victory is an important skill. confuse ray is really bad. if it starts dominating tour play i will admit that i'm wrong. as for the low ladder, we don't decide tiering policy based on the results of 1200 rank ladder games. we balance around a high level of play, and we shouldn't be talking about banning a move which sees no use in tourneys. yes, the brightpowder ban was also retarded.


not disagreeing w/you on the importance of move slot competition and ability to do probability management, but the issue with confuse ray is not that placing its user in an advantageous position; the reason it should be banned is that it's got the same uncompetitive issue as the other issue with the 100%-confusion moves. This is akin to Froslass and NFE casualties regarding Evasion in DPP and basically any other user that has had its opportunity reduced despite not necessarily being as strong/advantageous as the other choices (i.e. SWSW + Drizzle Armaldo/Beartic in BW Swift Swim + Drizzle when main offenders were Kingdra Ludi, Tops). Similarly, Confuse Ray provides a scenario for 100% confusion, along with the main reasons for this thread: No Guard + DynamicPunch & Chatter, that it is a 100% move that decreases the opportunity for player choice to interactively, which is the direct ability for skill to be brought into the game. Because it decreases the odds of a player's choice actually mattering by half in one turn, I am inclined to believe that that is an inappropriate amount of player skill to be removed. The key important trait to note is that a lot of Pokemon rely on imperfectly accurate moves, which changes the game of "likely to hit" to "likely to not hit" and even "100%" accurate moves to "half-accurate moves." How can we expect player skill to matter knowing that on average, slightly less than half the moves they make will actually provide a result? Providing one or two free turns is often enough to turn the momentum of a game, and even forcing a switch may win the game as well.

Though I do agree that we should not be balancing around the 1200 ELO players for the discussion of overpoweredness, this is an instance of uncompetitiveness by directly taking player skill out of turns. If this is something that can be used within our current legal ruleset for an uncompetitive discussion, we should address it. Nothing is stopping anyone from using it within our current rules. A common assumption we make of players is that they make all choices assuming they think is rationally the best, but in practice, players can honestly bring whatever they want, and so long as it's competitive, it should be allowed. If this is deemed to be uncompetitive, players should not be allowed to bring this "strategy" to higher-elo or tournament play, the latter of which is more matchup-based than anything, which is where I'd expect the 3HKO/2HKO odds to matter the most regarding confusion.
 

Giagantic

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I honestly do not think that Swagger and Confusion are necessarily all that comparable outside of the fact that they both induce confusion.

Swagger by its self is an extremely risky move to use as the +2 attack could easily come back to bite the user in the ass, it was only through the combination of Swagger + Paralysis + Foul Play that the move became an issue. Swagger on its on is actually fair as technically both sides are given the same chance to take advantage of the situation, just that it is outside of a players choice and entirely RNG, however, Thunder Wave in combination with Swagger shifts things in favour of the Swagger user. That +2 attack is no longer such a bitter sweet aspect of the move as the Swag user was able to shift what was a 50/50 coinflip into a match that went decidedly in his favour without the other opponent being able to do much outside of bring amazingly niche Pokemon or switch only to get swagger'd / Thunder Waved again. This only further became an issue in generation 6 with the addition of Foul play that further shifted the matchup in favour of the Swagger user especially in tandem with prankster users or exceedingly fast users. To outplay it meant as mentioned previously, to run exceedingly niche or outright non-viable Pokemon (a meme at the time was that Own Tempo Numel was the Swagger counter), switching meant little as many of the swagger abusers had prankster or were at the very least fast and often times they would set up hazards before starting the swagplay shitfest to make switching less viable as a means to stop the confusion.

Now onto the current issue, Confusion induced through Confuse Ray or No Guard Dynamic Punch is not all that comparable to Swagger in my opinion, Dynamic punch by itself (ie without No Guard) is more likely to hit the broadside of a barn then a pinpoint target as was argued repeatedly in the previous thread and Confuse Ray was just an inconsistent and often utterly worthless move to run. Confusion without the boost provided by Swagger can easily be quite pathetic especially if the stats of the Pokemon that was confused was on the low side and this is ignoring the fact that it can just switch to gain a better match up if it does have a good attack stat or doesn't want to risk the coinflip. Sure, you can again add Thunder Wave into the equation but that really only goes so far in terms of making it comparable to Swagplay as the point remains that there is significantly higher degree of player choice in this case as the confusion damage is not continually being boosted nor is foul play necessarily such a huge threat. Confusion in general is not broken, sure it can somewhat trivialize player choice but it still leaves a lot of openings for you to outplay it and doesn't punish you all that harshly for risking the RNG like Swagplay did. Thunder Wave by itself can result similarly in trivializing player choice as I am sure everyone has had back to back turns of paralysis resulting in a lost turn even if you made the correct play.

As Nails mentioned previously Confusion based moves has had little impact on the competitive scene outside of Swagger or No Guard Mons, and the Pokemon that do get No Guard + Dynamic Punch have other issues that prevent it from being an truly broken combination outside of PU. Both the Machamp line and the Golurk line have a major crippling aspect that prevents them from being viewed as broken due to this combination namely, their base 55 speed that means you should absolutely be able to outspeed these two lines of Pokemon with some member of your team. It is a move with 8 pp, is fighitng which means ghosts are immune and have to either properly predict a switchin to abuse the forced switches or spam Dynamic Punch at the risk of running out of said pp. I honestly do not think that the grounds for which you are trying to suspect 100% confusion is all that convincing and as such I do not support the idea of such a suspect as I did with the Dynamic Punch conundrum in the previous thread.
 
I honestly do not think that Swagger and Confusion are necessarily all that comparable outside of the fact that they both induce confusion.

Swagger by its self is an extremely risky move to use as the +2 attack could easily come back to bite the user in the ass, it was only through the combination of Swagger + Paralysis + Foul Play that the move became an issue. Swagger on its on is actually fair as technically both sides are given the same chance to take advantage of the situation, just that it is outside of a players choice and entirely RNG, however, Thunder Wave in combination with Swagger shifts things in favour of the Swagger user. That +2 attack is no longer such a bitter sweet aspect of the move as the Swag user was able to shift what was a 50/50 coinflip into a match that went decidedly in his favour without the other opponent being able to do much outside of bring amazingly niche Pokemon or switch only to get swagger'd / Thunder Waved again. This only further became an issue in generation 6 with the addition of Foul play that further shifted the matchup in favour of the Swagger user especially in tandem with prankster users or exceedingly fast users. To outplay it meant as mentioned previously, to run exceedingly niche or outright non-viable Pokemon (a meme at the time was that Own Tempo Numel was the Swagger counter), switching meant little as many of the swagger abusers had prankster or were at the very least fast and often times they would set up hazards before starting the swagplay shitfest to make switching less viable as a means to stop the confusion.

Now onto the current issue, Confusion induced through Confuse Ray or No Guard Dynamic Punch is not all that comparable to Swagger in my opinion, Dynamic punch by itself (ie without No Guard) is more likely to hit the broadside of a barn then a pinpoint target as was argued repeatedly in the previous thread and Confuse Ray was just an inconsistent and often utterly worthless move to run. Confusion without the boost provided by Swagger can easily be quite pathetic especially if the stats of the Pokemon that was confused was on the low side and this is ignoring the fact that it can just switch to gain a better match up if it does have a good attack stat or doesn't want to risk the coinflip. Sure, you can again add Thunder Wave into the equation but that really only goes so far in terms of making it comparable to Swagplay as the point remains that there is significantly higher degree of player choice in this case as the confusion damage is not continually being boosted nor is foul play necessarily such a huge threat. Confusion in general is not broken, sure it can somewhat trivialize player choice but it still leaves a lot of openings for you to outplay it and doesn't punish you all that harshly for risking the RNG like Swagplay did. Thunder Wave by itself can result similarly in trivializing player choice as I am sure everyone has had back to back turns of paralysis resulting in a lost turn even if you made the correct play.

As Nails mentioned previously Confusion based moves has had little impact on the competitive scene outside of Swagger or No Guard Mons, and the Pokemon that do get No Guard + Dynamic Punch have other issues that prevent it from being an truly broken combination outside of PU. Both the Machamp line and the Golurk line have a major crippling aspect that prevents them from being viewed as broken due to this combination namely, their base 55 speed that means you should absolutely be able to outspeed these two lines of Pokemon with some member of your team. It is a move with 8 pp, is fighitng which means ghosts are immune and have to either properly predict a switchin to abuse the forced switches or spam Dynamic Punch at the risk of running out of said pp. I honestly do not think that the grounds for which you are trying to suspect 100% confusion is all that convincing and as such I do not support the idea of such a suspect as I did with the Dynamic Punch conundrum in the previous thread.
Okay by judging your argument here with the same response nails gave to the 100% confusion argument, anyone can do "simple math" and know that with swagger, you can just play the 36% chance to hit yourself twice, whilst if you're using a physical attacker, you get a free +2 boost, right? So if this is the case, why not unban swagger if you're placing this logic on the other forms of confusion.
I'm not suggesting that by any means that it is a "broken" tactic, as it's all the way down in UU, NU and PU respectively with all the relatively decent dpunch users are concerned whilst in UU, they have an absurdly high amount of fat shit to take on machamp whilst more threatening pokemon to threaten it out, so in general machamp nor machoke / golurk are broken pokemon nor are they too good.

My point is that having the option for a 100% accurate confusion move forcing unnecessary 50/50's can negatively impact games and take away the competitive aspect of "competitive pokemon". It's an uncompetitive mechanic that allows free turns, whilst also provides damage. But I really don't understand why people wouldn't want to ban this - why in the world would you not want to increase the competitive nature of games. Whilst the only reason this has been ignored previously is because there is a taboo nature around bringing moves that produce confusion in high level play - but this doesn't take away the fact that they are uncompetitive and there is no real reason to want to keep them in play.
 

atomicllamas

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From the dpunch thread, I gathered that Dpunch on its own is not broken, however the combination of dpunch of no guard on selected good pokemon is uncompetitive, which leads me to similar scenarios with similar bans in place.
How did we get from "PU wants to ban Dynamic Punch" to No Guard + Dynamic Punch is a problem in all tiers? No other tier that has a good Dynamic Punch No Guard user (ORAS NU / UU, BW2 UU / RU / NU) has proposed a ban on Dynamic Punch or any of its users, this includes ORAS UU under the Koko system where 2 council members wanted to ban Toxic Spikes. If Machoke or Dynamic Punch was an issue in UU I think that it probably would have been addressed, or at least brought up. The general impression I get, granted I only skim most NU and UU discussions, is that neither of the users of NG DP are an issue in those tiers, and if I were TL of any of these tiers, I'd probably be a little peeved people were trying to go about banning them like this. There is 0 reason for NU or UU (or RU / OU / Doubles / LC for that matter) to ban Dynamic Punch or Dynamic Punch + No Guard if they are present and not issues in the tier (same w/ chatter).

From the other thread:
But we're only posting this thread because we do think the combination of No Guard Dpunch and Machoke is the problem and not Machoke itself?
Dynamic Punch + No Guard + Other Machoke Stuff is the problem (as stated by a PU player). If Dynamic Punch + No Guard is not an issue in other tiers, and both also fall into the category of "Machoke Stuff", then the issue really does seem to be Machoke. (This is a tangent but so are these threads so w/e).

Additionally, one of the things repeatedly said in the other thread is that "w/o confusion its outclassed by Cross Chop anyways", this is not the case for Golurk, as Dynamic Punch is its hardest hitting Fighting move that does not have a draw back. Smogon should tier Pokemon, not nerf them.

In regards to other parts of this thread. Dynamic Punch on its own is clearly not an uncompetitive aspect of the meta game, it is less likely to generate free turns than Thunder Wave over both the short and long term (its actually more likely to give the opponent free turns). Extending the analogy, since the argument seems to be "potential to generate free turns via luck" = uncompetitive, over the long term Paralysis inducing moves are also more likely to do this than 100% confusion moves, since it isn't a volatile status. I'm not suggesting we ban Thunder Wave/Glare/Stune Spore (as much as I like to complain about them !_!), as their speed lowering effect is a competitive and necessary part of Pokemon. I guess my question for those in favor is, at what point is a chance of getting a free turn uncompetitive and when is it just part of the game? Paralysis and Confusion are the most relevant examples to this thread, but there are other things like bright powder that can do that too (I also agree w/ nails this ban was dumb). What makes confuse ray, a move that is for the most part a lesser version of T wave at the "uncompetitive" ability to create free turns and just in general worse, too much? Before Confuse Ray = Swagger, this isn't really the case, Swagger was not only being used to create free turns using confusion, but also functioned as swords dance. If you confuse something w/ confuse ray and it doesn't hit itself in confusion you wasted the previous turn, if you do it with Swagger, you still hit with a +2 foul play next turn.

heres why people dont want to ban confusion: its really stupid and luck based but at least nobody uses it

???

if nobody uses it cuz it's not actually good then the only reason u would use it is to bs people by getting mega lucky so i dont see how thats a great argument
Its more like, it introduces luck into the game, but it does so in such an inefficient manner that it is getting virtually no use in competitive play (ladder or tournament). Bans should aim to improve a meta game in some tangible manner, banning confuse ray does, nothing? Every time something has been banned for being uncompetitive (Swagger, Moody, you could argue BP), they were seeing at least some play in tours (especially live tours) and significant play on the ladder, something that is not true for confuse ray. What's the point of banning something that has no tangible impact on the meta game? Unnecessary bans do nothing but weaken the legitimacy of Smogon's tiering system. If confuse ray actually becomes an issue then it should be banned at that time, but if it continues to remain dong and unused then this ban would accomplish nothing.
 

Bughouse

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Swagger was seeing next to no use on mons that didn't have Prankster, and certainly no successful use. Yet the ban was on Swagger. Not Prankster Swagger. Sand Veil was seeing next to no use on mons that weren't Gliscor, and very little successful use. Yet the ban was on Sand Veil. Not Sand Veil Gliscor.

There is plenty precedent to ban an uncompetitive element in its entirety. The issue with Dynamic Punch is the 100% confusion, confusion being a luck element. It introduces this element equally "efficiently" to using Swagger on a Pokemon without Prankster (in that it doesn't go first every time). I really don't see how making a 100% confusion clause would be remotely inconsistent with the Swagger ban we already have.


Basically, don't make brokenness arguments when it comes to uncompetitive elements. They are different and have different standards. This was the whole point of defining "uncompetitive" as something separate from "broken."
 

Bughouse

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Nice try, but the luck is exactly equivalent. Both moves are used for the primary goal of causing confusion. The confusion that they cause is the exact same type of confusion that lasts the same number of turns.

If Swagger is uncompetitive enough to deserve banning, so is any other move that causes confusion with this high of a degree of certainty.
 

Giagantic

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Nice try, but the luck is exactly equivalent. Both moves are used for the primary goal of causing confusion. The confusion that they cause is the exact same type of confusion that lasts the same number of turns.

If Swagger is uncompetitive enough to deserve banning, so is any other move that causes confusion with this high of a degree of certainty.
Sigh, this part has already been addressed in my post and others, Swagger was not banned solely because of the confusion rather because of the combination of Swagger with its dual effects of raising attack by 2 stages in addition to the confusion.

Foul play only further cemented the effectiveness of such a strategy on top of paralysis which is why it resulted in a ban, if Swagger merely induced confusion and only that it would not have been banned. Why do I claim it would not be banned because the reason that the strategy of swagplay was so successful was because the +2 attack increased the damage of foul play and the damage incurred upon hitting yourself; confusion by itself does not have this issue meaning that if a Pokemon with pitiful attack hits its self it is little more then a nuisance, this is all on top of the fact that you can just switch out.

In many cases thunder wave already accomplishes what confusion does but with the additional fact that their speed is crippled and that it can't be removed with a simple switch. Just because Swagger and Dynamic Punch / Confuse Ray share the same effect does not mean they share the same circumstance and as such comparable as precedence's that can be used to push such a ban with the underlying argumentation that it is uncompetitive.

I honestly find this whole situation absolutely ridiculous as the sole reason that we are even discussing this is because someone decided to bring up the topic of banning a move on a Pokemon for the sake of a tier's "stability" then when they were opposed vehemently by many, over the course of several repetitious arguments (that are still going on) it was then decided to suspect 100% confusion which is even more silly from my perspective. If we are suspecting 100% confusion we may as well suspect every bloody move that can incur a random effect or has an aspect of uncompetitiveness because apparently that alone is enough to justify such bans.

The reason Swagger was banned was because it was both broken and uncompetitive.
 

Lord Death Man

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If Swagger was broken, it being specifically uncompetitive shouldn't have even come up - it was just broken, and therefore ban worthy, and all broken things should be and are inherently uncompetitive. It was banned because it was uncompetitive. Saying that Thunder Wave accomplishes what confusion does ignores that Confusion is inherently in favor of the user because it generates slightly more than just a free turn when it does activate, which skews the 50/50 (which I already believe is uncompetitive) in favor of the user.
 

Pocket

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Obviously Confusion is inherently in favor of the user (is it really, though? you waste a turn to confuse the opponent and then it's just coinflips unless the opponent switches out, which can be done freely), why else would you use it? Would you use a move that would put you at a disadvantage? Like a move that paralyzes your own Pokemon? LOL

Paralysis & sleep are also inherently in favor of the user, because the latter drops the opponent's Speed by a quarter and both have a chance to immobilize the opponent. I must add these two status conditions offer more consistent and reliable advantages to the user than the volatile confusion. Again, there is really no reason to ban something that is a worse status affliction than the accepted ones, just like how we aren't going out of our way to remove Quick Claw, Focus Band, & Attract (which is a kin to a permanent non-damaging confusion until you switch out). This is also why we unbanned Brightpowder & Lax Incense, because they're inconsistent and waste of an itemslot, making the bans silly. Let's stop the witch hunt of removing irrelevant & purely RNG aspects of the game, when they have their fair-share of risks and barely ever come into competitive play. Truly skillful players wont rely on dice rolls to win games when a more reliable option is available.

Reasons why confusion shouldn't be banned:
1 - takes away a turn and a moveslot to induce confusion, unlike Evasion or Moody boosts which are free boosts
2 - cannot avoid taking hits before confusing the opponent, unless the user is faster or has priority confusion
3 - risk:reward of this RNG is medium-high, unlike OHKO moves which is very low (OHKO moves are actually overpowered, not simply luck-based).
4 - manageable RNG that can be handled with skillful play (only exception being Prankster Swagger), just like paralysis fps & sleep turns
 

atomicllamas

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Bughouse mechanically confuse ray and swagger are simular, baton passing Speed + other boosts is also the exact same mechanic as baton passing speed or a different boost (or no boost), and yet one was deemed uncompetitive and the other was considered worth going through a lot of effort to conserve. I mean swagger and attract are mechanically very similar and yet, this thread isn't about attract. "If swagger is uncompetitive all confusion moves are," doesn't hold up when swagger has additional mechanics associated with it, mechanics which make it both a much better move and more uncompetitive. Primarily the risk reward is tilted a lot more towards reward for swagger than it is for other confusion moves. Simply stating any 100% confusion move is uncompetitive because Swagger was deemed to be isn't super convincing when there is a single move that is uncompetitive in one situation but completely competitive in a different context. There's also a weird double standard where free turns generated via confusion are being called out as uncompetitive but not free turns generated from different luck based mechanics.
 
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Nails

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Obviously Confusion is inherently in favor of the user (is it really, though? you waste a turn to confuse the opponent and then it's just coinflips unless the opponent switches out, which can be done freely), why else would you use it? Would you use a move that would put you at a disadvantage? Like a move that paralyzes your own Pokemon? LOL

Paralysis & sleep are also inherently in favor of the user, because the latter drops the opponent's Speed by a quarter and both have a chance to immobilize the opponent.
If all sleep moves inherently favored the user, people would use grasswhistle on sceptile, abomasnow, shaymin, and whimsicott. However, grasswhistle only gives 1.1 average sleep turns per use, for an average .1 free turns of sleep. People don't use it because it sucks; other moves are way more reliable and give more utility than .1 free turns, and it isn't worth the moveslot. Confuse ray is the same. People would use it if it didn't suck schlong. Players could use grasswhistle on their shaymin but they'd have to give up substitute, leech seed, or coverage to do so. So to address your first sentence, people don't use it because it's not good to do so.
 

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