Oh God, not another Wobbuffet discussion!

[Little Green Yoda]

Well, my original point is that you really can't base overcentralization or whether something deserves to be banned to ubers solely on usage. At least not without considering Blissey/Garchomp/Gengar for ubers (not what I'm advocating but bear with me).

In terms of weighted usage, those three Pokemon have been the three most used Pokemon on Shoddy for the past three months. What's interesting is the gap that's widening between these three and the #4 most common Pokemon. Back in November, #3 had less than 3% more usage than #4. By December, the gap increased to nearly 17% more. In January, the #3 Pokemon was used more than the #4 Pokemon by 26%. So clearly these guys are becoming very popular. Is that enough to banish them to ubers?

If not, then does that mean Wobbuffet has to leapfrog all three of these Pokemon to reach "brokenness"? IMO statistics are like a bikini; they show a lot but they don't show everything.

 

[Cathy]

You seem to be interpreting the fact about usage incorrectly.

Let P represent "a given pokemon is centralising the game" and Q represent "the same pokemon is being used a lot".

P is sufficient for Q. However, P is not necessary for Q. in the above post, you took the claim as its converse.

 

[Raikou]

You say "half the people on shoddy" didn't know he was unbanned, but I'm curious: how many people did you survey to derive that figure? Or did you just make it up to give your argument some illusion of statistical basis?

Also, the server is rarely down, it's just hard to log on. Being persistent will work. There's not much I can about my current ISP, aside from getting a new one, which I plan to do sometime in the relatively near future.

I don't understand why you think there is some evil conspiracy here. My interest here is purely scientific. If the results suggest something, that's what we'll go with. I have never suggested ignoring evidence (although people debating the empirical method with the aid of psychological arguments often have). I don't even have an opinion on Wobbuffet, or any vested interest, so I'm baffled why you assume I am just out to make some sort of point.

I also don't understand why you insist on repeating that caricature of Obi's opinion. He doesn't suggest unbanning Kyogre (in isolation); he suggests unbanning a lot of pokemon to test which ones should actually be banned--and this would take place as basically a new metagame, not as an amendment to the current one. Note that Obi has not said he suspects Kyogre would work just fine in standard. His proposal just involves testing it as well as other pokemon. His proposal might have some flaws, but both here and in the other topic, rather than point out actual flaws, you just misrepresent his opinion in order to belittle him, and now it seems you're doing that to me too.

Perhaps you should take what I say (and what Obi says) at face value. There is no hidden evil plan here.

I never said you have an "evil plan", like I said I could care less about shoddy as I rarely use it and when I do the server's usually down. It's a placeholder for competitor as far as I'm concerned. It's just clear that, since you have no basis for what overcentralization is, you will interpret any statistics you gather as you please. Wobbuffet isn't #1 most used? Oh then he can't be uber. Every team now has taunt, u-turn or shed shell on every member? Doesn't matter because Wobbuffet is just #14 right?

You are also incorrect about some of your statements regarding Obi's argument for ubers in OU, particularly in assuming it would be a new metagame instead of an amendment to the current one, but that's irrelevant so you can read that thread if you'd like.

On shoddy I noticed many people are (or were) unaware Wobbuffet is allowed, I don't need a statistic to please math geeks when it's something I and many others in the thread observed, unless you would like me to poll every person who uses it because that's practical. There are still a lot of people who won't use it because it's boring and cheap and this is a game played for fun, not a money at stakes tournament.

It looks like some people are so bored with playing OU to death, they want to switch it up for good or worse. If this is the case, please try UU, no one plays it.

 

[ULra]

After more tests and five Wobbs later, I have concluded that all you need to do to beat Wobbuffet is the following:
1. Get it to not be able to switch itself. This can be achieved by KOing every other Pokemon.
2. Maintain 2 Pokemon capable of U-Turning/Baton Passing, one of which that can sleep it.
3. U-Turn Between the two.


I specifically used Belly Drum Smeargle and WishTurn Jirachi.

 

[Cathy]

Wobbuffet isn't #1 most used? Oh then he can't be uber. Every team now has taunt, u-turn or shed shell on every member? Doesn't matter because Wobbuffet is just #14 right?

1. I didn't say anywhere that Wobbuffet had to be the most used to be uber.
2. How do you know every team has those things? The statistics haven't been published yet. This is a statistical claim, you can't make it withouttstatistics.
3. I said we would be considering moves in my last reply to you, yet here you pretend you didn't know that.

Please stop attributing to me positions I do not hold. If you want to find out what I think about this stuff, read my posts. It seems you would rather just assume there is a conspiracy at work here.

I don't need a statistic to please math geeks when it's something I and many others in the thread observed

You said that "half the people on shoddy" didn't know he was unbanned. This is a statistical claim, you can't make it without statistics.

There are still a lot of people who won't use it because it's boring and cheap and this is a game played for fun

I addressed this psychological argument in an earlier post.

 

[Little Green Yoda]

You seem to be interpreting the fact about usage incorrectly.

Let P represent "a given pokemon is centralising the game" and Q represent "the same pokemon is being used a lot".

P is sufficient for Q. However, P is not necessary for Q. in the above post, you took the claim as its converse.

Okay, so you won't be using usage statistics as the only determinant of whether Wobby is uber or not? So how will it be decided? I'm not trying to an asshole but all that has been said so far has been usage statistics, usage statistics, and usage statistics.

As for people knowing or not knowing about the unbanning of Wobby, I don't think the login screen is read by many people. I think the best way is to just use Wobby to popularize it and let people know it's unbanned. For example, when I first started using it at nighttime (this was last night, so it had been unbanned for a few days), several people were surprised it was usable in ladder play. Few people were as surprised during the daytime, probably because more people use Wobby during peak hours.

 

[Cathy]

Okay, so you won't be using usage statistics as the only determinant of whether Wobby is uber or not? So how will it be decided?

I've already answered this at least three times earlier in the topic. It does include usage statistics, but it does not work based on the logic that what is used the most is uber. Check my earlier posts for details.

 

[Raikou]

I addressed this psychological argument in an earlier post.

The problem with applying your "psychological argument" to everything is that you can't. If you unbanned Lati@s, people might gripe at first but even if they are a little powerful for OU, they're versatile and fun with a unique typing, and without soul dew just another variation of specsmence. People would be far more inclined to "abuse" this unbanning because they really don't change the way the game is played. Nor does Mewtwo to a degree.

Wobbuffet is the only Pokemon in the game which removes the one thing that makes playing against people preferable to playing against CPU. Unlike Dugtrio and magnet pull Pokemon, his ability to do so is unlimited and he can guarantee something a free 2 turn setup. There are no other Pokemon in the game that guarantee 2 turns of setup, because while many things have encore or sleep or the like, you can still switch out. A free SD for something like Lucario in this game often means a 6-0. Wobbuffet is fundamentally different than any other ubers because of this, and people don't boycott him because they think he's uber, they boycott him because this style of play is braindead.

 

[Little Green Yoda]

I've already answered this at least three times earlier in the topic. It does include usage statistics, but it does not work based on the logic that what is used the most is uber. Check my earlier posts for details.

I just checked the last half of the topic and found only this (my apologies if you described it earlier in the topic):

It's too early to say what we'll see for Wobbuffet but it will certainly provide some insight. So long as players are trying to win, rather than to satisfy a purely psychological code of honour, people should get tired of being beaten by Wobbuffet and start adding it to their teams (assuming he is broken). Of course, this alone doesn't necessarily mean that he's broken--just that he's popular for some reason (it could be that he's broken, or it could be because he looks cool). We'll also consider other statistics such as the number of viable pokemon, or any contraction in the number of viable moves.

I think this is the sentence that irks me somewhat. It's nice that you're expanding the statistical analysis beyond the standard weighted rankings we see every month. But the tone suggests that you have some bias towards keeping Wobby in OU even if you have to use another subset of statistics to prove it. Would you mind giving us a rough idea of what these statistics entail? Have the moves of every Pokemon been recorded in past months to compare to this month?

Blah, blah, blah evil agenda isn't my point here. I just feel that certain statistics can be given to encourage a certain interpretation. You probably wouldn't intentionally try to deceive us with your stats; I'm just open to the possibility that bias could subconsciously keep you from analyzing additional statistics once you've been satisfied with the end result. Of course, we don't know the extent of what statistics you record on the server. But could we discuss which statistics would/should help determine whether or not Wobby would be uber?

EDIT: Sorry if the above offends you in any way. It is not meant to be a personal attack on you or your ethics.

 

[Cathy]

Of course, this alone doesn't necessarily mean that he's broken--just that he's popular for some reason (it could be that he's broken, or it could be because he looks cool).

I think this is the sentence that irks me somewhat. It's nice that you're expanding the statistical analysis beyond the standard weighted rankings we see every month. But the tone suggests that you have some bias towards keeping Wobby in OU even if you have to use another subset of statistics to prove it.

That sentence is just another way of saying what I said a few posts ago:

Let P represent "a given pokemon is centralising the game" and Q represent "the same pokemon is being used a lot".

P is sufficient for Q. However, P is not necessary for Q.

In fact, my actual bias is to ban Wobbuffet so that some of the people in this topic stop repeating the same arguments over and over again that have already been addressed. But I'm too much of a scientist to let my intuition decide what to do when we can use evidence.

But could we discuss which statistics would/should help determine whether or not Wobby would be uber?

I already did. I'm not going to keep repeating myself because I've done it too much in this topic already. If you can't find it, tough luck. It's not fair for me to have to keep repeating myself. In fact, I even said the sort of statistics I am talking about in the sentence after the one you put in bold, but I went into more detail in an even earlier post.

 

[xcfrisco]

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.

Thats the post. I'm quite confused as to what you define as centralization. "If more people use wobbuffet which makes people use other pokemon less" is what it comes off at. Can anyone provide better clarification?

You mention "broken" here too, but never say what it means. I must ask, what exactly is broken? And does a "broken" pokemon deserve to be banned?

*Ninja edit: all the bolds in Colin's post were his, not mine.

 

[Little Green Yoda]

Thanks, xcfrisco. I guess I should've looked through the entire topic before making my previous post.

In other news, I've made a full-fledged Wobby team now. So far, the Wobb-Duggy combo has been amazingly effective and teams without U-Turn usually stand no chance from my experience.

So far, the biggest problems with the team I'm running is that between Wobb-Duggy, Starmie to spin, and a DDDraggy to take advantage of setup opportunities, I really don't have enough Pokemon to get all the key resists that I like. Still, it's preliminary so I may shift the role players around a bit.

 

[animenagai]

first of all let me say that i'm all for the test. i consider myself a competitive player but that doesn't mean i'm not willing to sacrifice a few of my points. for all i know, this could help me out in the long run.

i'm also not big on the "it's boring" argument. a lot of pokes really have a very limited set anyways. the fun in wobbufet comes in the team making combinations. to me, if wobbufet is not overpowered then it should be allowed in the metagame. whether or not using one is fun or not should not be in the decision making process as that is very personal and situational.

if you don't like wobbuffet, go ahead and make a good wobbufet team. show the world how 'broken' it is and post the team on the RMT section. if you really dislike wobbuffet so much you can't stand looking at that somewhat cute blue monster, take a break. i doubt that this test would last longer than a month or 2 anyways.

 

[Distorted Chaos]

also although probably quite thouroughly stated substitute fully counters Mirror Coat and Counter however I do have a question as to wether you can encore Substitute?

 

[merubin]

Yes. Yes you can.

 

[Distorted Chaos]

awww thats too bad but still with sub encored Wobby can still do nothing but wait till hes un-cored

 

[DemonOfWrath]

He can switch to something that can setup.

 

[SubVersion]

After more tests and five Wobbs later, I have concluded that all you need to do to beat Wobbuffet is the following:
1. Get it to not be able to switch itself. This can be achieved by KOing every other Pokemon.
2. Maintain 2 Pokemon capable of U-Turning/Baton Passing, one of which that can sleep it.
3. U-Turn Between the two.


I specifically used Belly Drum Smeargle and WishTurn Jirachi.

That's fucking stupid. "oh Wobb is easy to beat just kill everything else first lol". Great point.

Let P represent "a given pokemon is centralising the game" and Q represent "the same pokemon is being used a lot".

P is sufficient for Q. However, P is not necessary for Q.

I don't think the opposite is necessarily untrue. I mean, if only ten people on the ladder were allowed to use Mewtwo and everyone else had to do without, those ten players would do really well, and teams would be built with the intent of being able to kill Mewtwo, resulting in fewer Pokemon being usable and fewer sets being viable. That's an example of P occurring without Q.

Of course, that restriction may not actually apply on Shoddy, but the point still stands that if people avoid Wobbuffet because they hate him for whatever reason - however stupid that mindset may be - then there's still the possibility of him centralizing the game without necessarily being used in large numbers.

I know that's largely irrelevant since from the early stats you posted previously he was being used pretty commonly, I'm just pointing out you can't make such a clear-cut definition of how things will change the metagame.

 

[Little Green Yoda]

Update: After I've started using my full-fledged Wobby team the past two days, I've won around 80% of my matches. Probably a third of my losses have been hax-induced (SubpowderChomp, crits/status hax on switches, etc.). The rest of my losses have been my own inexperience and stupidity (letting a SD Toxicroak setup and getting raped by Sucker Punch).

I don't know if it's a testament to my experience with the team (lol two days) or the ease of using Wobbuffet, but most battles aren't requiring much thinking at all. The Wobb-Duggy combo has worked in most of my battles, sometimes multiple times in the same battle.

 

[ultimifier]

this is a joke. i am not playing shoddy again until wobboffet gets removed from ladder play.

please hurry up with competitor so this shit can disappear and the online game can be run by someone with a brain

 

[ThaPhantom07]

I haven't had any problems with Wobbuffet. Maybe I'm just not playing anyone good on ladder, but he hasn't done anything devastating to me.

 

[Jumpman16]

this is a joke. i am not playing shoddy again until wobboffet gets removed from ladder play.

please hurry up with competitor so this shit can disappear and the online game can be run by someone with a brain

just so we're clear i will be infracting the shit out of posts like this for reason i hope are obvious

 

[Instinctive]

What reasons?

And while Wobby may not be statistically used more than everything, he definitely improved my team. I would say that 75% of the time I use my best team, I pull off a 5-0 (because I blow up me lead)

 

[Little Green Yoda]

I don't think the Pokegods liked me saying how easy things were with my Wobby team. After making that post, I was ended up losing a huge majority of my matches due to bad matchups and poor decisions on my part. I dropped like 40 points in less than an hour lol.

Which supports my previous assertion that utilizing the Wobb-Duggy combo would keep me from having true counters to enough threats in the metagame. It's tough enough to build a team that can counter most threats in the metagame, but having two Pokemon that aren't safe switch-ins to common offensive threats does hurt. I.E. never depend solely on revenge kills. =(

 

[SubVersion]

Since nearly every real-life use of Wobbuffet commented on in this thread revolves around using him to trap stuff then switch to Dugtrio or something, I'd like to hear what people's success rates are when they use Wobby to Encore a utility Pokemon and use the two turns to set up something else. Its an entirely different and imo more effective option for Wobb, but I don't battle nearly enough per day for my experiences alone to hold much merit.

That said, for what it's worth, I'll probably battle fifteen times a week, and I easily win about ten of those matches on average.