Double Team

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Its_A_Random

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This thread will be tightly moderated to keep discussion focused, or something to that effect.

Post #280 of the Feedback thread. User deadfox081 raises some questions of the ambiguity of Double Team. The following ten posts in response to this proposal kinda warranted a discussion on Double Team in general, whether your own Earthquakes should take out your own clones or not, should weather take out your own clones or not, & some other facets of the move that you want to bring up/were brought up that I cannot be bothered talking about.

Double Team data:
Double Team said:
The user moves with incredible speed, creating several illusory clones to foil the aim of its opponents. Attacks against the user first check their accuracy as normal. If they are successful, a check is made to see if the real target was struck (100 % divided by number of targets). If the stricken target was a clone, it vanishes. If the real user is struck, all of its clones are lost. Moves make as many checks as they have targets (e.g. a move that hits all targets always strikes the real user). A Pokemon is limited to four clones at a time.

Normal | Other | User | -- | -- | Energy Cost Formula: 4 * Clones Created | -- | No | 0 | Passive | Yes | No
So I guess I have to throw some discussion points?
  • All Clone dissipation: What should, or should not wipe out all clones upon use? What damage should the user take for all their clones to dissipate?
  • Double Team Clones: How should we interpret Double Team Clones? Post #288 from Dogfish44 provides a possible interpretation for this.
  • Double Team mechanics: Should we actually replace the clone system & overhaul the mechanics of the move?
  • Any other points you want to bring up that are relevant to Double Team?
Remember that general forum rules apply here, & doing things like flaming, trolling, & whatnot may land you a warning.

Stay on topic... Otherwise, have fun discussing Double Team I guess?
 
I agree with the system brought up in making each clone have all the same stats and abilities as the creator, except 1 HP. When the user of that move is targeted, any move that lacks a never-miss trait (so excluding moves like Aura Sphere and Aerial Ace) will randomly hit a clone. Moves may hit as many clones as their are targets, and every one of those targets should roll to see if the target is hit.

Due to this new system, weather that the creator is susceptible to (meaning does damage to) would get rid of any clones at the end of the action. Getting struck by a move that only inflicts poison or burn (like Will-o-Wisp) would cause the struck clone to be burned (and it would disappear at that action's end).

This would also mean that a non-damaging move would have no effect. Currently, moves like Growl have a spread effect so will get rid of at least 3 clones (and will usually get rid of all clones), despite dealing no damage. Those moves would still have a chance of hitting clones instead of the user, though.

In my opinion, there should be a minimum damage that the creator needs to take in order to have all the clones disappear.
 
I think that only direct damage should break clones, since we already have enough effective ways to defeat DT (Rock Slide, EQ, & Aerial Ace are on almost everything, Shock Wave is on most pre-Gen III mons, Heat Wave is on everything pre-Gen V with wings, etc.) and auto-DT counter would make DT useless vs anything that packs Sandstorm, Hail, WoW, or Toxic. And considering that 99% of mons get Toxic...

Clones should instantly dissipate when any direct damage inflicted by the opponent is dealt IMO.
 
So my question: Why should non-damaging moves, from a flavor perspective, not eliminate the clones? The clone might not be destroyed, but the mon will realize that it had no effect & therefore will know that it isn't real & not target it. Aside from that question I completely agree with the proposal outlined by Dogfish here.
Also IAR I see why you like ampersands so much.
 
Something that has been brought to my attention; apparently spread moves will always destroy every clone? If it's Surf, I get that. But Rock Slide? i gotta object there. If my target has 4 clones up, then there's 5 potential targets. If I Rock Slide, I can hit up to 3 of them. This should be RNG'ed, and yet I'm hearing that nope, I somehow magically hit all 5 targets just this once.

Also, on IRC I heard an interesting point; I guess clones aren't currently immune to the same things the mon is? Would Gengar's clones vanish to EQ even though Gengar doesn't get it? Would Will-O-Wisp eliminate an Arcanine clone despite flash fire? Dogfish's proposal covers it nicely, but as of now I guess the clones get no such luck.
 
I have never reffed or believed that Rock Slide et al automatically hit through Double Team, they simply give a higher chance of hitting the real thing.

I definitely believe that clones should inherit the immuneties of the maker but I'm a little undecided on if non damaging moves should be able to remove clones. It definitely makes sense that Toxic or Will-O-Wisp would but how about Tail Whip or Torment? I think this warrants some discussion.

However it looks like we are fairly well agreed that a mon's own Earthquake/anything that hits doubles team mates should destroy clones?
 
Anything that hits a teammate in doubles and would hit the user of the move if used by some other pokemon should destroy the user's clones (so an Earthquake from a Tyranitar would destroy clones, but not one from an Aerodactyl, for example). Also, with the current system, a spread move with 3 targets has a 60% chance of hitting through a maximum number of clones.

I also think that non-damaging moves should NOT remove clones, if hit. Status moves that inflict a damaging status condition (Poison and Burn) should destroy the affected clone(s) at the end of the action. Only hitting the user of the move with an attack should get rid of all the clones.
 
Mulan, why do you think that last part? I provided the flavor reasons for my opinion but you have provided no argument ~~~.
 
Flavor: If the pokemon could figure out to not target a certain clone due a status move having no effect, and then keep track of the clone, why couldn't the pokemon just keep track of the original?
 
I like Deadfox's ideas and support his views on codifying Double Team clones:
  • Rock Slide and co. only has higher chances of hitting the real one, not a guaranteed counter. (The mathematics on the hit chance would be slightly convoluted, though).
  • Surf and co., as well as perfect accuracy moves, are guaranteed counters to Double Team, even if it is performed by an ally.
  • Clones inherit immunities of the original - EQ-ing Gengar does not remove Gengar clones.
As to the Toxic and WoW, versus Tail Whip and Torment (or any stuff of the sort), I venture that we let "all Double Team clones mimic the facial expressions of the original", and imagine the following scenarios:
  1. A Seviper tries Toxic on a Double Teaming Greninja. If Toxic hits the real one, all clones would look nauseous, and Seviper would know it nailed the right Greninja. If Toxic hits a clone (it's a glob of spew, after all), the clone vanished, and Seviper realises it fails.
  2. A Seviper tries Taunt on a Double Teaming Greninja. Greninja and all clones get mad at the Taunt, but Seviper still didn't know who's who, since Greninja hasn't taken any damage to break its Double-Teaming focus, and they all look equally pissed.
It's the sort of logic I can write down at the moment, but I think you can get the general idea. Open to nitpicks.
 
Well, I can see weather destroying Double Team clones. It makes sense flavor wise. It would also help diminishing the power of such a move, since it is OP as hell (and I've only confronted it a couple times).

IMO, damage from things like poison should not destroy Double Team, since the clones can just copy the pain gestures of the original one.

Everything else may as well stay as it is.
 
I think it should be noted that a Pokemon that uses Double Team isn't creating clones: it's moving quickly to a set of locations such that it generates afterimages, and the more locations that are present in the set the more energy the Pokemon expends. Because of that, multi-target attacks with a limited number of targets should not guarantee a hit; after all, the Pokemon has only a one in whatever the number of images you've created chance to be at any one of those locations. To follow that up, all multi-target attacks that hit an infinite number of targets should still destroy the clones, ignoring the stupid immunity cases. Also, all damaging attacks obviously destroy other clones upon hitting the correct location. I believe these conditions do not exclude friendly fire, because let's be honest – your ally isn't going to be sure which one is you at any given time.

Then, the only cases remaining to tackle are a) residual damage and b) non-damaging attacks.

Residual damage should not destroy clones. True: it's a global effect that hits every location and therefore it may be considered as a multi-target attack that hits infinite targets. However, for the sake of consistency, we can't treat weather damage differently from status damage (i.e. poison and burn). And the "clones can copy pain gesture" (not singling you out tavok, it's just the first thing I saw) argument is erroneous; the clones do not copy gestures, but rather each "clone" is that Pokemon a fraction of the time, and therefore each "clone" quite obviously has the same appearance as "the real Pokemon." If a Pokemon that sustains a burn can move around quickly just fine, there's no reason a Pokemon that's getting pelted by hailstones can't. Why can't we just make all residual damage destroy clones, then? Simply put, I don't think it's enough damage (both actual and flavor) to justify destroying clones. While weather damage can sometimes do more than actual attacks, that's extremely rare (maybe if Incinerate is your only multi-target attack???) and even then an "arc of flame" sounds like it'll do more damage than "hailstones" and therefore have a higher chance of knocking the Pokemon out of concentration long enough that it can't perform the quick movements necessary for Double Team.

Non-damaging attacks are slightly trickier, in my opinion. I think that currently they do break clones, but applying the same logic as above leads to the conclusion that they shouldn't destroy clones, since, well, wagging your tail at an enemy is going to do less to disable them from moving around than hailstones will. As much as I'd like them to destroy clones (personal bias go!) consistency reigns supreme, unless this change really breaks Double Team which I'd highly doubt. I don't particularly mind either way how this ends up going, though.

At the end of the day, Double Team is simply a high-risk high-reward move that is accessible to virtually every Pokemon. It costs a rather impressive amount of energy to use, and the result is up in the air, which is one of the worst things that you may have to deal with when ordering second. Oh, and you definitely don't want to use it going first. Can it completely screw over the person that ordered before you? Yes. Can it backfire, making you waste 16 EN and an action? Absolutely. I don't think Double Team is overpowered; it's excellent in select scenarios, and there's no need to make its effective situations even rarer.
 
Discussion is dying again, this one completely slipped off my radar.

48 hours if you still want to discuss, else I'm going to put up a slate soon.
 
Voting Slate regarding Double Team, Spread Moves, Residual Damage and non-damaging attacks. Lots of questions raised are just continuations of logic.

Should the user's own field-hitting moves (Surf, EQ) break clones?
Yes
No

Should moves targeting up to 3 adjacent targets always break through Double Team, or target up to 3 clones?
Yes
No

Should such moves suffer the spread BAP Reduction?
Yes
No

Should damage caused by Weather destroy clones?
Yes
Yes - But exclude cases where it is not the weather, but the Pokemon's ability, such as Dry Skin
No

Should non-damaging attacks break a targeted clone?
Yes
No
Some should and some shouldn't

Should other residual damage break clones? (This includes Poison, Burn, and any damage caused by an arena)
Yes
No

Moving this small list to a voting thread ¬¬
 
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