Wobb Usage

[Kohaxx]

So, I have this issue. I've always thought Wobb was cool since G/S/C. Then they introduced that Shadow Tag ability which everyone despises and got him Uber status in S/R/FR/LG. Now he's unbanned on Shoddy and I'm enjoying his niche role as a forced switch and wall eater.

However, most matches go with something along the lines of:

Guy: WOBB, ARE YOU SERIOUS!?
Me: Don't blame me, Shoddy unbanned him
Guy: Yeah I will blame you because you are a tard.

Guy2: No offense, but using Wobb is seriously ghey.
Guy2 leaves room.

Now I get that people hate the idea of a pokemon that counters your synergy and can pick holes in literally any team, but let's be real here. He's unbanned on Shoddy for testing, and it's already been stated that if he is to get banned again his usage is going to have to go up first.

Wobb fixes the major problem with Encore, anything that gets Encored is likely to switch, and if the Encoring pokemon doesn't have a counter for the switch or Pursuit, the Encore was completely pointless. I get that anything that can only be countered by a certain few moves, or brute force is rather high-powered, but is it really so bad to play against it in Shoddy?

Also if you're "too good" to use Wobb and don't think he serves a unique purpose, what do you use to buy a turn to setup a Belly Drummer or Calm Minder? It's really hard if not impossible to get a setup going when most people are prepared to swap and 1HKO or 2HKO your setup. I'm not saying it's impossible to do without Wobb by any stretch of the imagination, but do you choose to play the game the hard way for the sake of "being better" than everyone else?

Which asks a bigger question, are rules and bans made to remove pokemon/conditions that are impossible to compete against, or too frustrating to want to play against?

/prepares for a long line of Wobb related flames.

 

[Jumpman16]

the latter doesn't enter into the mindset of anyone who is thinking about the aims of competitive pokemon objectively. for the most part, we more are striving for the competitive metagame with the most viable pokemon and the smallest amount of luck than anything else. double team and ohkos literally and easily rely on luck regardless of them also being frustrating to most to play against so i'm just going to head off that counterargument right there

also the "garchomp in a sandstorm with brightpowder and sub" argument for luck does not usually objectively account for the fact that garchomp has to forego an otherwise better item, a moveslot for sub and sometimes 99% of its health to get a free swords dance

 

[phalanx]

yes it is impossible to play against,never have a OHKOed it, i did once get over half to it and got destiny bonded instantly
you cant set up on it because you end up encored leaving a free switch and set up.
you attack wobby it OHKO's with its counter or mirror coat basically making set ups instantly and cheaply stopped.
and also wobb and dug combo is stupidly broken

brightpower is banned on shoddy anyway so cant really break the clause

 

[Jumpman16]

brightpowder isnt banned on shoddy what are you talking about

if there are going to be more posts like the one above this thread is not going to go very far, lol. blanket statements about how a pokemon performs that aren't backed up by something substantial don't really promote good discussion

 

[Kohaxx]

The ladder is a way of testing how effective your team is.

I understand that Evasion and OHKO take no skill and only work if lucky.
The sleep and ice clause have been around since Stadium for good reason.

My argument is that Wobb is counterable, but he's also good enough that he should be on any team's threat list. Pursuit, U-Turn, Baton Pass, there are lots of ways to get around him. Shed Shell on a tank you fear allows Wobb to setup. The whole point of unbanning him WAS TO TEST HIM and yet it seems rather than consider him a part of the game and deal with it most are making threads saying he's uncounterable and clearly uber, that or trashing those who ARE TESTING HIM.

 

[phalanx]

well no one uses it on shoddy.
anbd whats wrong with the post? i see the argument i'm putting across perfectly fine, where am i supposed to find evidence to something as obvious as ruined set ups when its clear to see, and free set ups for itself.
i don't see how making a team and working your set ups into the match should be stopped and the poke you set up killed so easily.
then anything you do bring in you cant set up due to encore allowing free set ups for the wobby user because of the inability to switch. thats a valid self explanetry arguement
and yes you can BP U-turn out, i have teams with BP (my BL team has 2) i think i have been able to successfully pull off a BP once ever on a wobby due to what i had out at the time (mid sweep). wobby comes in on a pokemon not running any means of escape its fainted pokes all over. so either you run a set up of squad with 6 pokes capable of doing this, or you are more often then not going to be stuck. which to me seems to smell of over centralize

 

[the pugilist]

Just thought I'd mention that Wobb is an invitation for several pokemon for several pokes to get free switchins (Via Wobb killing something or predicting a Wobb switch). When I played Wobb, I cringed when Breloom or Heracross was brought out as they put me on a tight position.

Wobb is deadly but he's not the ultimate poke people think he is.

 

[Chou Toshio]

^I think the issue most people have with that argument, is that if Wobb has killed a pokemon than it's already done its job.

Pokemon is a game where each player gets 6 pokemon, and the way you win is by beating the opposing 6.

Just for the sake of arguement, in Yu-Gi-Oh the main control on what you can do is the number of cards you're holding. A card that does a 1 for 1, use up 1 card to destroy 1 other card, is considered good but not broken. Cards that can wipe out multiple opposing cards are clearly broken.

The same rational should apply in pokemon-- when 1 pokemon takes out 1 other pokemon, it's already "broken even," and anything more it gets out of its run is just bonus. Why do you think moves like Explosion or Destiny bond are so popular? Because they do an incredible job of assuring that 1 kill to "break even."

But they are fairly balanced, they aren't "sure fire." Explosion, depending on the user, has a chance of not killing things, or hitting a ghost switch in and just failing. Destiny bond can be screwed by prediction as well. Things like Hyper Beam Porygon Z give the opponent a chance to set up a sweep, and thus there is a huge price to that high-kill chance.

Thing is that if Heracross comes in on Wobbuffet after a kill, Wobb has already "broke even," and unlike a recharging porygon Z, doesn't even give Heracross the chance to really set up more than any other normal pokemon. If Hera attacks and Wobb switches, it's just like any other psychic pokemon being forced to run away from a bug attack, so there's no special disadvantage to using wobb.

The point where there's debate in this argument is whether or not Wobbuffet has a 100% chance of breaking even or more-- to which I would have to say, "no." Wobb can fail to make the 1 for 1, just like Explosion or Destiny Bond. It's certainly powerful, but whether it's broken or not is up for debate.

Hence the testing.

 

[Killernoob]

ok i like you liked wobb in GSC. the ability makes him disliked. I too dislike him now. i wouldn't mind so much if people used him to "set up", but i have never ran into a person who used him in that manner. its always been just pp stall with encore safegraud. and counter mirror coat. or the doorman way of using him. tbh i've never had one encore and switch out to set up a different pokemon, thus he is used in a uber manner. a way that makes him next to unkillable and then when theres light at the end of the tunnel and the fucker dies, you have no pokemon left to combat the rest of your oppents team.

 

[c l e a r]

may be the reason that shoddy don't see usage is because smogon's stance is not clear yet and that most players respect the game and its players enough to not use it.

Just a thought.

 

[animenagai]

you know what, i have yet to have been smoked by a wobb. a lot of times i feel like that isn't entirely possible for a wobb to destroy my team, yet no one seems to have used him properly yet. the only exception i can think of is doorman's (i think it's him) stealth rock --> struggle strategy. it's quite a weird situation we're in. so many people find wobb abusable yet so little people will go and prove it. wobb therefore stays OU.

 

[Kohaxx]

If you use him to PP stall you're not going to get far. Think of it this way, he Encores, you hit him once, likely hard unless it's a wall or you didn't have a strong move, then he counters/mcoats it and kills you but at this point he's probably below 30%, next pokemon either chases him off or gets to setup. Once he's at low health he won't be swapped back in again successfully.

I've tried Speed Wobb before which was albeit hilarious when it worked, the problem is it relies completely on what the metagame is at that moment, right now wall use is down and it's mostly offense making it hard to pull off the Encore Stealth Rock for an easy setup strategy. His low speed balances him out in that you can choose to attack him or get a move off, very little is slower than an unev'd wobb.

 

[Jumpman16]

well no one uses it on shoddy.
anbd whats wrong with the post? i see the argument i'm putting across perfectly fine, where am i supposed to find evidence to something as obvious as ruined set ups when its clear to see, and free set ups for itself.
i don't see how making a team and working your set ups into the match should be stopped and the poke you set up killed so easily.
then anything you do bring in you cant set up due to encore allowing free set ups for the wobby user because of the inability to switch. thats a valid self explanetry arguement
and yes you can BP U-turn out, i have teams with BP (my BL team has 2) i think i have been able to successfully pull off a BP once ever on a wobby due to what i had out at the time (mid sweep). wobby comes in on a pokemon not running any means of escape its fainted pokes all over. so either you run a set up of squad with 6 pokes capable of doing this, or you are more often then not going to be stuck. which to me seems to smell of over centralize

you're still implying that wobbuffet is this invincible pokemon that stops everything which is what annoyed me so much in my own thread about wobbuffet. as far as overcentralization goes, colin has proven that there has not been any as far as our traditional definitions of the term are concerned

 

[shadydentist]

Wob is good, but his limitation is that when your opponent plays properly, he should kill ONE and only one opposing pokemon. Walls are typically wobuffet bait, and the correct course of action is usually to attack him. Typically, this will result in two hits, as he encores the first and mirror coats/counters the second. At this point, although he has killed your wall, he will typically have taken enough damage so that he can be easily ko'd by any of your sweepers.

As long as you don't let anything set up, Wob can't do any major harm to your team. After all, no one ever got 6-0d by a Wobuffet.

 

[Chou Toshio]

^again though, killing 1 is plenty.

 

[animenagai]

^again though, killing 1 is plenty.

i'm not sure about that. no one ever calls scarfgross with explosion abusive.

 

[Janenmori]

Wobb does take skill to use. Prediction must be good to use it. Unless you have Encore. Maybe we could get some calcs to see what Max Adamant Ttar CB Crunch, Max Adamant Weavile CB Night Slash, etc. does to it?

 

[Miao]

Wobb does take skill to use. Prediction must be good to use it. Unless you have Encore. Maybe we could get some calcs to see what Max Adamant Ttar CB Crunch, Max Adamant Weavile CB Night Slash, etc. does to it?

Assuming flawless stats, in favor of both sides, Ttar does 76.03% - 89.38% with CB Crunch, 83.39% - 98.12% if Wob doesn't have a +Def nature.

Weaville does 61.64% - 72.43% with CB Nightslash to a +Def Wob, and 67.47% - 79.45% otherwise.

Anyone who switches their wobbafet into either of those is a fool though.

If Wob counters, they're dead naturally, but so is wob as soon as something else switches in.

 

[Arzamo]

as far as overcentralization goes, colin has proven that there has not been any as far as our traditional definitions of the term are concerned

As mentioned in the first post, the reason that it's not "overcentralizing" the metagame based on the traditional definition is because people refuse to use or battle it. If people used it purely based on its effectiveness and did not refuse to battle it, I highly doubt that its usage would remain so low.

 

[c l e a r]

if there is any indications of that being fact, even most people on 4channels, which is not competitive at all and only plays with favourites, knew his effectiveness and it's pretty much a rule not to use him at all.

If Smogon makes a stance and say, yea, he's OU. You'll see the usage go up for sure.

When I'm on shoddy now, I make sure to use Wobb to prove how cheap he is to get him banned again. If people want this matter to end, the solution is to use Wobb and prove how cheap he is.

 

[Jumpman16]

As mentioned in the first post, the reason that it's not "overcentralizing" the metagame based on the traditional definition is because people refuse to use or battle it. If people used it purely based on its effectiveness and did not refuse to battle it, I highly doubt that its usage would remain so low.

And as touched on a few times in my thread about the Wobbuffet issue, that's why I made the thread—so people can start using it on the ladder to either validate the bitching about it or prove that it's not uber once and for all. Its lack of usage doesn't mean people can say Wobby's overcentralized the metagame, though.

I also highly doubt the people portrayed in your OP are all playing on the ladder. I don't care how many people don't want to play against Wobbuffet in non-ladder play, and quite frankly, as far as quality competitive battling is concerned, neither should you.

 

[obi]

As mentioned in the first post, the reason that it's not "overcentralizing" the metagame based on the traditional definition is because people refuse to use or battle it. If people used it purely based on its effectiveness and did not refuse to battle it, I highly doubt that its usage would remain so low.

That's pretty much identical to it not being used because people thought it was bad.

 

[phalanx]

i'll play against wobby none ladder, but i';m not facing the uber blue blob in the ladder.. i feel its broken and takes the skill out of the game (erase one pokemon) i'm half tempted to see if i can counter counter with items

 

[Trust]

Wobbuffet isn't that good:
- Toxic Spikes ruin it.
- Don't forget Taunt, which is really annoying to Wobbuffet.
- U-Turn hurts like hell, and with Super Effective.
- Put it to sleep.
- It's 2HKO'd by most of the strongest pokes.
- It MUST have a Wisher.
- After one kill, it will have problems with Dugtrio, Tyranitar and Weavile.
- Skill is needed to use it.
- If you fear somthing like DDNite, SDLuke or BDZard, carry a Hazer (Weezing).

 

[phalanx]

put it to sleep with what? it encores when your sleep misses..