Dre
Member
Posts: 397
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Wrap
Dec 5, 2012 21:21:22 GMT -8
Post by Dre on Dec 5, 2012 21:21:22 GMT -8
Pretty straight forward. We just discuss whether wrap should be legal or not.
As you all probably know, I'm pro wrap. Before I say why, I wanna see why people think wrap is broken, in case I've missed something. I'm personally under the impression that many people here either don't understand the wrap meta, or just think it's boring but don't have an agument against it's competitive viability.
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Zilch
Member
What's in the box?
Posts: 561
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Wrap
Dec 5, 2012 22:23:23 GMT -8
Post by Zilch on Dec 5, 2012 22:23:23 GMT -8
I just have two simple questions: How exactly does Wrap make RBY a better game? What's to be "understood" about it?
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Dre
Member
Posts: 397
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Wrap
Dec 5, 2012 23:02:15 GMT -8
Post by Dre on Dec 5, 2012 23:02:15 GMT -8
It's not about making it a 'better' game. See this is the problem with people here thinking wrap isn't standard. People think wrap has to add something to be added. Wrap is standard, so it doesn't need to make the game better to be added, it has to be shown the ruin competitive play to be removed.
The reason why wrap should be legal isn't because it's particularly fun (although it can be in a lot of cases) it's because it's an RBY mechanic that doesn't break the game. You might as well removes FPs and 7-turn sleeps too because they don't make the game better by that logic. If you're going to remove mechanics because you don't find them fun, it becomes very arbitrary what should stay and what shouldn't. Fun is subjective anyway, and when these decisions affect more than just your community, fun shouldn't be a factor.
As for what there is to be understood, it's more about what there is to be misunderstood. I get the impression that most people here think wrap is just about slowly sweeping slower opponents. That will never happen until end-game. The fact that PO wrap is bugged isn't that big of a deal because 90% of wraps won't last the full duration due to switching. People here seem to think that most wraps will actually finish, and that suggests to me they don't understand the meta.
Wrap-sweeps only work end-game, but so do a million other strategies. So many things would be banned if we banned stuff for shutting down end-game.
Wrap is just as centralising as status and explosion, the difference is wrap takes multiple turns to take effect, whereas the others take only one.
I can think of stuff that's much more broken than wrap. Amnesia+reflectlax if the opponent doesn't have gengar or counter chansey has a legitimate shot at 6-0-ing teams once something has been put to sleep. In fact I have actually done that before, after getting snorlax out on like the 3rd or 4th turn. Once this thing is set up in these conditions, the only way to KO without any kind of luck is to double explode on it then revengo KO it. So it has the potential to more damage than agiwrap in LC.
You can say 'but that can be countered', well so can wrap. You can't say 'you need to run otherwise unviable pokes to use/counter wrap' because it's your fault you weren't using these pokemon to begin with. A wrap community who banned sleep and explosion could make the same complaints about those two.
Again, you guys are the ones who are deviating from standard. If you want wrap to be illegal on a competitive simulator that is not owned by your community, the burden of proof is on you to show that it breaks the game.
Someone please show me how it breaks the game,
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Wrap
Dec 5, 2012 23:21:44 GMT -8
Post by David the Chansey on Dec 5, 2012 23:21:44 GMT -8
Have you not seen a dragonite just wrap a paralysed team to death and finish each pokemon with hyper beam?
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Wrap
Dec 5, 2012 23:28:47 GMT -8
Post by Dexter on Dec 5, 2012 23:28:47 GMT -8
I don't even think dragonite is the worst part about wrap. Cloyster is :s
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Dre
Member
Posts: 397
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 0:43:03 GMT -8
Post by Dre on Dec 6, 2012 0:43:03 GMT -8
I don't even think dragonite is the worst part about wrap. Cloyster is :s Cloyster is too easy too PP stall for him to sweep teams. Also, the 75 accuracy has screwed me over at so many crucial times. Cloyster is just a good defensive pokemon who also happens to wrap. Victrebell is more more scary offensively because because wrap-counters like starmie and zam have to think twice about staying in on a full health victreebell, because they could eat a status and lose their wrap-countering ability. It's just hard to get victreebell in on anything. David- Dragonite is only going to sweep a team if it's end game, there's only a few pokemon left, and they're already pretty bruised up. But then again, like a million other things can sweep in this situation too.
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Isa
Member
FOREVER SECOND
Posts: 1,479
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 5:03:18 GMT -8
Post by Isa on Dec 6, 2012 5:03:18 GMT -8
I just have two simple questions: How exactly does Wrap make RBY a better game? What's to be "understood" about it? This is pretty much it. Nobody on here likes playing with it. I don't think anyone of us has actually argued that PO should ban Wrap (outside of a potential way to deal with Agility+Wrap). I don't, because I cannot make the case that regular Wrap is broken - however, I can make the case that it makes the game incredibly boring to play. This is a subjective opinion, so I don't push it on others to follow my reasons, but it just happens to be so that this opinion is shared by others here. If they think Wrap is broken or just don't like it, I don't know, but we're mostly in agreement that it's less fun to play with, due to one reason or another. (Also - when you say on PO that Crystal is raised on a 2K10 mentality to hate Wrap, you show that you have no idea what you're talking about. Crystal has challenged me with Wrap teams multiple times back in the day, and I know Crystal frequents Smogon a lot - maybe more - and not just 2K10. He doesn't mind Wrap. You are making assumptions when you more or less say that everyone that argues against you have their opinion "based on a 2K10 mentality". It was said by a Smogonite to make the 2K10 community look bad, but not everyone on here opposes Wrap and not everyone that opposes Wrap comes from here.)
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 7:09:13 GMT -8
Post by redemption on Dec 6, 2012 7:09:13 GMT -8
I just have two simple questions: How exactly does Wrap make RBY a better game? What's to be "understood" about it? This is pretty much it. Nobody on here likes playing with it. I don't think anyone of us has actually argued that PO should ban Wrap (outside of a potential way to deal with Agility+Wrap). I don't, because I cannot make the case that regular Wrap is broken - however, I can make the case that it makes the game incredibly boring to play. This is a subjective opinion, so I don't push it on others to follow my reasons, but it just happens to be so that this opinion is shared by others here. If they think Wrap is broken or just don't like it, I don't know, but we're mostly in agreement that it's less fun to play with, due to one reason or another. (Also - when you say on PO that Crystal is raised on a 2K10 mentality to hate Wrap, you show that you have no idea what you're talking about. Crystal has challenged me with Wrap teams multiple times back in the day, and I know Crystal frequents Smogon a lot - maybe more - and not just 2K10. He doesn't mind Wrap. You are making assumptions when you more or less say that everyone that argues against you have their opinion "based on a 2K10 mentality". It was said by a Smogonite to make the 2K10 community look bad, but not everyone on here opposes Wrap and not everyone that opposes Wrap comes from here.) Smogonites degrade all communities about competitive Pokemon that doesn't happen to be named Smogon. Also PO has in 5th Gen OU banned Pokes that had counters and such things but made the game boring when they worked.
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Isa
Member
FOREVER SECOND
Posts: 1,479
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 7:10:33 GMT -8
Post by Isa on Dec 6, 2012 7:10:33 GMT -8
Yeah, I don't agree with the purist mindset - in the end, we play to have fun. We should try to find what maximizes our fun, and this community has agreed that as a whole, we have more fun without Wrap.
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 7:26:56 GMT -8
Post by David the Chansey on Dec 6, 2012 7:26:56 GMT -8
Exactly. Even if you don't mind wrap, many many others will, and that will always be the case. It's not like they don't have a good reason to dislike it so much, either. I'm sure you can understand it when someone gets agitated when they play a game and then wrap is used...
And yes, clamp is by far the most lethal. Assuming it hits 5 times (which is does most of the time on PO) that's a base power of 175! And it's STABd. Not only that, but it gives you literal free switches, which is also the annoying/broken part of wrap altogether. It's just "cheating", not like switching in on a hyper beam and then switching again on the recharge where you had to skilfully predict it in the first place.
As an afterthought, if you think about the geometric expectation of how many turns you get to use clamp before you miss, it's 1/0.25 -1 = 3. Multiplying that by the base power of 175 means that, on average, you dish out 525 base power of damage before you miss a clamp... STABd... Please just give a moment to look at that number.
525 STABd = 787.5
Let's look at the expected damage against certain pokemon before cloyster misses a single clamp (let's assume cloyster is always faster):
Exeggutor: 55-65% Lapras: 57-67% Chansey: 70-82% Slowbro: 75-88% Starmie: 78-92% Cloyster: 93-110% Articuno: 113-133% Zapdos: 113-133% Snorlax: 127-149% Gengar: 131-154% Alakazam: 131-155% Jolteon: 143-168% Jynx: 158-186%
This is all before he misses just one clamp. It will most likely survive at least one hit, and still has STAB blizzard and explosion at its disposal.
Also, if they're paralysed and you're not, your effective accuracy increases from 0.75 to 1 - (0.25*0.75) = 0.8125. This means that the expected number of clamps before you miss is massively boosted from 3 to 1/0.1875 -1 = 4 + 1/3. So for every value you see above, multiply it by 13/9. This means that provided the opponent is paralysed and you're not, you are expected to ko almost any pokemon thrown at you. Please note that this doesn't imply you are expected to ko more than one pokemon, it just means you are likely to ko any one of them at a time.
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 8:09:19 GMT -8
Post by David the Chansey on Dec 6, 2012 8:09:19 GMT -8
I'm sorry, but clamp cloyster is CLEARLY a broken tactic, and there is just no argument. As for other wrappers, I can't be bothered to calculate percentages for them, but just playing the game gives you a feel that they're pretty high... and in the case of Dragonite, he can hyper beam quite early instead of having to constantly wrap.
Ok, amnesia setups are just as deadly, but they're much harder to set up. All you need with cloyster is to spread paralysis, and if you're countered by a certain pokemon, free switch to you. Heck, cloyster would go well with dugtrio for your hit and run tactic, Dre.
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 8:12:40 GMT -8
Post by jorgen on Dec 6, 2012 8:12:40 GMT -8
Warning wall of text don't say I didn't warn ya
Okay, so, I'm going to address two of the main uses of wrap:
-To abuse the free switches it produces to get really good looks -To abuse the mechanic to pull off a sweep against paralyzed/slower opponents
The first one I don't think should be enough to rustle any jimmies, even though it is often used in arguments against wrap. The thing is, if Cloyster is Clamping out to pivot to Lax against your Starmie or something, I don't think that's especially bad, especially when Clamp only has a 75% chance of letting you do that successfully. It's basically a ghetto U-Turn with crappy accuracy and no power behind it, and the fully-powered form of U-Turn is definitely not an inherently broken mechanic in later generations.
So that leaves the abuse of the mechanic for sweeping purposes, and let me tell you, THIS is the reason we hate wrap. Sure, most wrappers can't abuse it effectively. If it's not named Wrap, partial-trapping moves have a paltry 75% accuracy that's incredibly unreliable. The Pokemon that get Wrapping moves are largely useless without them, and usually have pretty crippling weaknesses to BoltBeam. However, with paralysis spread and a little patience, wrapping moves can easily wear down your team if you try to switch around it to try and stall it/avoid being a sitting duck for the ghetto U-Turn switch-in. The outright sweep is uncommon, but leaving your whole team battered and bruised for, say, Tauros to just spam Hyper Beam and win IS. Plus, it's just no fun not being able to move, so if it's not an inherently broken mechanic, it's most likely an inherently DUMB mechanic.
Still, good management of paralysis spread should avoid allowing the truly frustrating Wrap sweep to manifest, and if you can't manage your paras well enough you're either garbage or it took some skilled play to get you in a position where your whole team is para'd or slow and their Wrapper is unpara'd and healthy, so kudos to your opponent for executing their strategy, even if, when their plan comes to fruition, it isn't all that exciting and, truth be told, not even worth it most of the time due to Wrap's inherent unreliability. However, if you're up against AgiliWrap Dnite, you're just boned. Nothing is faster after a boost, which can be really easy to get, so you have no choice but to switch back and forth between things to try to stall it, not just to mitigate multiple turns' worth of damage but also because it's a bitch to count Wrap turns unless it's one Wrap PP per "Dnite used Wrap!" (atm PO's logs don't differentiate PP turns from non-PP turns with a "X's attack continues!" notification, maybe this should be reported so it can be fixed). Oh, you can TRY to stay in and take the full fury of 2-5 turns' worth of damage to get in that Ice Beam or Thunder Wave or whatever, but good luck getting that 15% to jive with you as your health is drained a lot more quickly than you anticipated. Oh, and one unSTABbed Ice Beam/Blizzard fails to OHKO whereas Thunder Wave can be undone to an extent by another Agility. And at the end of it all, Dnite is either killed by bad luck or, more likely, just ends up stalled out of Wraps, but even then you've most likely taken a buttload of damage across your team even if you switch back and forth to limit these Wraps to one turn (if you go back and forth between Slowbro and Golem, for instance, Slowbro will have 45% or so shaved off and Golem about 30% from nothing but Wrap spam, and this is likely increased if you've bothered trying to stay in). Your only real chance is to have a Gengar, but even then you're likely to have Exploded it because, come on, it's Gengar, that's what Gengar does. Plus Gengar just gives Snorlax free switches anyway via the ghetto U-Turn, so it doesn't even help that much since your opponent just gets an easier way to beat you down with conventional means.
Imo, AgiliWrap Dnite, while unreliable at times, is very much broken and incredibly un-fun to play against. The rest of the Wrap metagame is fine, if unexciting, since there isn't an insurmountable Speed advantage to make it impossible to play around and to more than make up for Wrappers' inherent shortcomings. So I'd be willing to compromise with a purist mindset and just nix AgiliWrap as broken and leave the kind of bullshit, but ultimately not insurmountable, Wrap mechanic. Wrap is ultimately a simpler ban, though, and I'm fine with a totally Wrap-free metagame although Agility + Wrap Dnite is the only truly broken thing imo. (Possibly even Agility + Fire Spin Moltres/Rapidash, but I'd need to see it in action to confirm it as similarly bad to Dnite in practice as it seems like it could be on paper).
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 8:17:38 GMT -8
Post by David the Chansey on Dec 6, 2012 8:17:38 GMT -8
Clamp is different to U-Turn in the way that it prevents them from attacking full-stop. It's not attack, switch, and receive attack, it's just attack and switch and fuck them over and watch them quiver in dispair.
If you're going to say that wrap is just another strategy, then why not allow evasion moves too? It's not like it's boring to play/watch or anything...
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 11:54:41 GMT -8
Post by gunbladelad on Dec 6, 2012 11:54:41 GMT -8
I'll be honest, I personally dislike Wrap, but I do see it as a valid tactic. Those of you who've played Stadium no doubt remember that Lance's Dragonair & Dragonite just LOVE to use Thunder Wave, Agility and Wrap, resulting in a very annoying match where you're forced to either leave a Pokemon in to take damage again and again, or switching out and either being stuck in the same situation again, or eating a T-Wave.
Yes, it's annoying as hell when you're on the receiving end of it, but by no means should it be banned. If you ban wrap, then you may as well ban every single multi-hit multi-turn move as well as anything that can potentially inflict a status change.
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 13:28:21 GMT -8
Post by Dexter on Dec 6, 2012 13:28:21 GMT -8
The first one I don't think should be enough to rustle any jimmies, even though it is often used in arguments against wrap. The thing is, if Cloyster is Clamping out to pivot to Lax against your Starmie or something, I don't think that's especially bad, especially when Clamp only has a 75% chance of letting you do that successfully. It's basically a ghetto U-Turn with crappy accuracy and no power behind it, and the fully-powered form of U-Turn is definitely not an inherently broken mechanic in later generations. Yes it's U-Turn, but U-turn is incredible. It might not be broken in later generations, but volt turn is(was? I don't know) still a dominant strategy. You can't say that because it's not broken in later gens, it's not broken in RBY anyway. Mew is Uber in RBY but UU in gen 5. You can't compare the two. I could go on about how good clamp cloyster is but I'd rather just refute your claims of dragonite being god. Yeah dragonite is really threatening and bad, and I've seen it sweep 6 pokemon before, and whatever, but you are way over exaggerating it's deadliness. It still has to set up an agility or paralyze or weaken all of your opponents pokemon to win, on top of getting lucky with wrap. If you paralyze all of your opponents pokemon you deserve to win anyway, and this argument is about cloyster vs. dragonite and cloyster can sweep a paralyzed team just as easily as dragonite can. Setting up agility is much harder than it looks considering everything in the entire game except maybe snorlax and gengar carries either a paralyzing move or an ice type move. And dragonite can't touch gengar, and I would make the bold statement that snorlax shouldn't even be played in a wrap metagame. So what is it setting up agility against that's not going to either cripple or maim it? Again, I'm not saying dragonite is bad. It's certainly extremely good. But I think cloyster is better, or at least more annoying to play against.
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 14:28:46 GMT -8
Post by WaterWizard on Dec 6, 2012 14:28:46 GMT -8
We should collect all the best comments from the last three years and make a sticky thread on why Wrap is banned here.
There are many.
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Dre
Member
Posts: 397
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 14:47:51 GMT -8
Post by Dre on Dec 6, 2012 14:47:51 GMT -8
Isa- I never said Crystal was brought up hating wrap. I said 2k10ers in general, particularly the newer ones. I know when I first came here, I was given the impression that wrap was terrible and that non-wrap was the standard.
I seriously don't understand why people keep saying how broken clamp is because of how strong it is and that it can last five turns. It'll almost never last turns except for end-game because the opponent will always just switch.
How much damage a 5 turn clamp does is as about as relevant to the meta as how much damage a crit snorlax body slam does. They're probably as likely to happen as each other.
As for free switches, people are forgetting that the opponent can switch to. If you're always clamping their starmie to go to chansey, they can go to snorlax on the same turn, so that's not broken at all. The only time they get a free switch is if they switch and you don't, but you should be switching nearly every time.
Again, aginite can be PP stalled. Of course you can say "well what if we do it when he has only a few battered pokemon left" well then if you had to earn that position first then it isn't broken, because a lot of things can sweep from that position.
David- Evasion and OHKOs degenerate the game into pure luck. Wrap is only about pure luck if the victim is dumb enough to keep their pokemon in for multiple wraps, but if someone actually thinks that's what happens in the wrap meta then they shouldn't be commenting on whether wrap should be legal or not. There are many more pure luck situations in RBY like dittos, speed ties etc.
So basically, does anyhere still think wrap is actually broken, or just boring?
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 14:50:55 GMT -8
Post by t3h Icy on Dec 6, 2012 14:50:55 GMT -8
Alright, so this is my argument on Wrap. First let's back up and discuss why things get banned. Mewtwo and Mew are banned because they'd otherwise be on every team, though in OU, Tauros (and Chansey, Exeggutor to a lesser extent) are on over 99% of teams. This isn't a problem though because Tauros is not miles better than every other Pokemon like Mewtwo and Mew are, so despite being on basically all teams, it's fine. Clearly, the issue is how much better Pokemon/tactics/etc are, and not how commonly used they are. Let's look at Double Team/Minimize. Every Pokemon can get them, and when paired with Rest, can be extremely difficult to take out, not to mention how well they devour PP while the player saves 2 PP each rotation of Rest. Evasion moves don't need to be paired with Rest, but it's the simplest combo, and both moves are universal. For many Pokemon, it would be Rest, Evasion move, and two other moves, likely to further support the defensive play. The only solution to Evasion moves are OHKO moves, which are banned, Haze, which is learned by 3 Pokemon, only one being good, or Swift, but Swift does garbage damage. A Sandslash with Swords Dance x3 and Swift does at most 66% to Chansey, which isn't too terrible, but considering the setup and Chansey being frail, it's rather poor. Oh yeah, and Gengar exists. Clearly, allowing Evasion moves degrades the game into something barely competitive, and also very boring. So the two things these have in common are that they're significantly better than everything else that's available. Sure, they are both available to all players, and the game is still playable, but they completely redefine the metagame and leave a very small amount of viable options left. The thing with Wrap is that it's sort of on the borderline between metagame-defining and just another viable strategy. Using Wrap moves is generally a more effective strategy than not, and it's recommended to have certain Pokemon and movesets to handle Wrap teams (Gengar, more Paralysis, etc). So let's look into the mechanics of Wrap. When used, it hits for 2-5 turns in a row with the chance of numbers of hits being 37.5%, 37.5%, 12.5%, and 12.5% respectively. Meanwhile, the opponent misses their turn, regardless if the user decides to switch or stay in. If the opponent switches, Wrap is automatically restarted against the next Pokemon and costs 1PP. Essentially, Wrap can keep the opponent locked in permanently, so long as it doesn't miss. Also to note, despite doing no damage, Ghosts can still be Wrapped, in the case they want the free switch. That alone is pretty powerful, as it allows the user to switch without suffering the normal consequences (the opponent using a move). The only cost is the risk of hitting the move, and if the opponent switches simultaneously, it's effectively the same as a normal switch. Obviously, players are using Wrap for the damage though. If the player stays in against Wrap, they're repeatedly taking hits until it misses. Wrap, Fire Spin, and Bind having 15 base power do an average equivalent to 45 power, while Clamp does an average of 135. For most Pokemon, this isn't major damage, but being unable to counterattack, it doesn't matter how long it takes. Though of course, they could miss. So a few notes from this. Each series of Wrap has over a 50% chance to hit 4 times in a row, which is an average of 180 power, all while the opponent can do nothing, and the user can switch at any time. To give a rough power gauge on this, if Dragonite were to be guaranteed to OHKO Chansey with a 1x move, it would require 290 base power, which is equivalent to 7 series of Wrap, which has a 32% chance to succeed, which is greater than regular OHKO moves, and the user can switch whenever. Also don't forget that not succeeding will still usually yield massive damage, PP is not as much of an issue compared to OHKO moves, and since 7 series is actually a base of 315 (on average), some Wraps only doing 2 hits still has a high chances of being successful (290 is 20 hits of Wrap across 7 turns). Let's also not forget that Dragonite is not required to use Wrap the entire time, and can finish Chansey off with Hyper Beam. In this case, this would only be 4 series of Wrap (52%), followed by Hyper Beam (90%), though that can get into when to read switching into Hyper Beam, etc. Also, I haven't even mentioned Critical Hits. That's a bit of an extreme example as Chansey is defensively weak and Dragonite is very powerful, but lesser versions of that is still very effective. So because of this, it would probably be best to just rapidly switch, but the problem is that Wrapping moves restart when the opponent switches, meaning that it wouldn't end until the new one misses. Of course though, 1-turn Wraps are not as damaging, only doing 15 per PP, but it now requires 2 misses in a row. This means that there's a 15% chance for Wrap to miss, and then a 15% chance for it to miss again, which is a 2.25% So over continuous uses, the user has a 50.5% of hitting 30 times in a row, which is a base power of 450, spread across whatever Pokemon the opponent is switch around to. Also, should the opponent finally get a chance to attack back, they get to use one move before it begins again, which may not necessarily be useful, depending on what Pokemon happens to be out at the time. Also again, the user can switch at any time, and assuming it's Agility Dragonite, can use Hyper Beam or Blizzard at any time to finish off opponents. The one drawback for Dragonite is that he requires setup of one turn with Agility before he can begin, and ideally avoid Paralysis as not to affect his chances of Wrapping. This can happen at any turn as the player switches him in and uses Agility on whatever happens to be out at the moment, so the opponent has to be able to use something to stop Dragonite (either damage or Paralysis) with the Pokemon that is out the turn Dragonite comes in, as switching on his Agility lets him setup successfully. The counter to this is of course spread Paralyzing moves, Ice moves, or just being able to setup first. Gengar also works, but he has to be used very carefully as he can't heal. Gengar could also be baited, say the player sends out Dragonite and immediately goes to Alakazam, and then whatever happens beyond that. Gengar doesn't get to function usefully because any damage brings him closer to KO, which has to be avoided to effectively stop Wrap. He sort of just gets to exist, unless the player with him is confident on their reads (such as using him against Explosion). So this makes Wrap costly to counter. Now Wrapping Dragonite is the most extreme example, but lesser users are also dangerous. Victreebel with double powder for status, Swords Dance for boosting Wrap's strength, and Razor Leaf for Golem/Rhydon are all very useful, though Victreebel is not as fast or tough, but makes for a vicious late game sweeper. Cloyster is also mediocre for side-benefits when using a Wrapping move, but Clamp has over double the power, and it's STAB, functionally working 3x as fast, though not hitting as often as Wrap. It has a 31% chance to hit 4 times successively, with an average base power equivalent to 420, and 630 when considering STAB (rough approximation). This helps him handle Tauros and Snorlax even better and I'd argue that it makes him a true counter given that Tauros/Snorlax is Paralyzed. Fire Spin and Bind don't get the benefits of extra power or accuracy, and they're used by less viable Pokemon which is why they're not as common. With Paralysis spread around by the user before beginning Wrapping decreases the opponent's chances of attacking further, makes them all slower, and limits the number of useful Pokemon the opponent can use when given a chance to attack further. So the last idea would be PP draining. Wrap and Fire Spin have 24 PP, and Clamp and Bind have 16 PP. If the opponent were to rapidly switch, they would drain much faster, though still needed to take 23/15 hits first, which is still a lot of damage. It is also crucial not to keep switching past 24/16 because if the user is forced to restart the Wrap move, the PP will drop to -1, thus rolling it over to 63. This means the opponent needs to be counting the number of uses of Wrap each time. Doing this mentally is certainly possible, or just making a note, but that is a bit bothersome and somewhat out of the scope of playing the game. That point is arguable, but regardless, getting hit by 24 attacks (average of 20 based on accuracy), is still a lot. To conclude, Wrap is very powerful and needs just a little setup to give massive results. Sure, it's unlikely it will take out entire teams, but the damage done is colossal and is completely luck-based on stopping it. The opponent could just stop Dragonite/Cloyster/Victreebel/etc as soon as they come, but they would need to always be prepared for their appearances, including on KOing their own Pokemon, where they can come in for free. The Wrap user could also self-KO their own Pokemon via Explosion/Self-Destruct to force a chance to setup, and switch if the plan failed. Wrap changes the metagame, and though not to the same extreme as Mew/Mewtwo or Evasion moves, it's still enough to decrease the number of viable options and gameplay strategies. Also from just a fun perspective, Wrap is incredibly boring, and since anything could be made competitive, why not be competitively playing something that is fun? Drinking mud could be made competitive for example. So you might ask why WaterWizard and I included Wrap moves in RBYPlus. We think that the force switch is a neat mechanic, just that the rest of Wrapping sucks, so we adjusted the PP, base power, and accuracies (all nerfs) so that they can't effectively be used to sweep teams anymore. Most Pokemon are also tougher and it would be significantly harder to be useful with them at all. That's why I've banned Wrap moves in all tournaments here.
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Dre
Member
Posts: 397
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 17:32:57 GMT -8
Post by Dre on Dec 6, 2012 17:32:57 GMT -8
Interesting essay. It's nice that something tried to give me a detailed explanation as to why it's broken.
A couple of things though. I don't know how many times I have to say this, but how much damage it does after 3-5 is largely irrelevant because you'll almost always be switching on the first turn.
Secondly, the difference betwee OHKO/evasion and wrap is that they are almost entirely luck-based. If two people are using these strategies, the winner is determined almost entirely by luck. When the two people use wrap, the winner is dertermined by skill (and hax, but that goes with every RBY strategy).
All it takes to stop regular wrap is to go to something faster like zam or starmie and threaten paralysis. They probably won't even finish the wrap because they'll switch out beforehand.
As for agiwrap, I've said that 100 times, it can be PP stalled. Counting the wraps isn't hard when you have a log and you always switch on the first turn. In fact, a lot of people will switch out nite once they realise what you're doing and that their sweep isn't working. You can say "well what if the opponent doesn't have enough HP amongst his pokemon to stall it" well if that's the case the wrapper has set up a significant advantage and it isn't broken at all.
It's also hard to get wrappers in safely due to twave and paraslams. Wrappers need as much protection as a tauros does, yet they have to come in a lot more and earlier, when there is more dangerous shit around.
And no, the wrap meta isn't about sweeping the wrap. The damage isn't the big deal, it's about controlling the match, and covering all switch ins the opponent makes. This idea that you're actually going to be sweeping with wrap unless it's end-game and you already have an advantage is completely wrong.
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 20:57:02 GMT -8
Post by t3h Icy on Dec 6, 2012 20:57:02 GMT -8
Sure the opponent switches after 3-5 turns as you say, but Wrap is still doing damage. Like I mentioned, it restarts if the opponent switches. The damage doesn't stop until it's missing, regardless of switching around.
Wrap is heavily luck based. The setup is not, but the actual Wrapping does, and has way more variation than Evasion or OHKO moves. It's possible to sweep an entire team, and it's also possible to miss the first two turns and get taken out.
The problem with sticking to Alakazam/Starmie and spamming Paralysis, is that they can't stall forever. Chansey alone can sit in front of them and not worry much. If you think you'll be outspeeding the opponents, they'll make sure to Paralyze you first. Besides, Alakazam and Starmie are two Pokemon that are usually Paralyzed more often than they aren't due to how the flow of the game works and how they function.
Even during PP stalling Wrap, it hits an average of 20 times (plus more if you stay in against the final one to drop its PP to 0), which is equivalent to 300 base power spread across a bunch of Pokemon. That alone, regardless of what happens after is a lot of damage, and again, Dragonite can be switched out for free at any time. Ideally, Dragonite is used late as well (following Paralysis), and Wrap alone isn't what's dangerous, but he also can use Hyper Beam. It takes 20 hits of Wrap to KO Chansey, 15 for Alakazam, and 22 for Starmie. If counting a Hyper Beam to finish, this takes 10 for Chansey, 5 for Alakazam, and 12 for Starmie. This also doesn't assume Critical Hits, and those numbers are for guarantee KOs. The average of 20 hits from Wrap is 7 shy from setting all three up for Hyper Beam, just to give an idea of how much Wrap is doing over time. Tauros and Snorlax probably want to avoid jumping in since they can't Paralyze Dragonite or OHKO, and since they're late sweepers, they don't want damage either. Exeggutor isn't too bad, but that's why Dragonites use Blizzard over Surf. PP stalling still requires taking all those hits.
There are ways to avoid Paralysis; not every turn the opponent is going through is Body Slam or Thunder Wave. Dragonite just needs one turn to use Agility, and let's say to just KO'd a Pokemon with Snorlax. Body Slam doesn't guarantee Paralysis, and Self-Destruct is a bit silly for the situation (it also doesn't OHKO). Or if the wrapping player uses Explosion on a Pokemon, you're forced to stay put with what survived, or to switch and hope you have something useful, should I send out Dragonite afterwards. I can choose to use Explosion on your Golem/Rhydon for example. Sure Rock Slide hurts, but after that, Dragonite will be setup. Even setting up against Paralyzed Pokemon can work, though a bit risky.
Paralyzed Dragonite is also not the end of the world, though it definitely hurts. If Wrap is interrupted due to FP, the opponent still loses their turn, and only FPs while Dragonite is initially using Wrap let the opponent attack. Additional Agilities can also take care of the Speed problem, so if I were to use Dragonite vs Alakazam, I take Thunder Wave, I use Agility, and then go about it as usual. If Alakazam is Paralyzed, then I use Agility a second time, and across two turns, Alakazam has a 56.25% chance to FP himself.
Whether or not the focus is on damage or control, the damage is large, and the control is large. Needing to adjust a whole team to handle Wrap suggests that Wrap is powerful. Covering switch-ins isn't necessary when the simple option of more Wrap covers them. Getting in is a bit tricky, but any moment where there's an opportunity, Dragonite can jump in. And Dragonite doesn't need to be as protected as Tauros. Tauros needs protection because his job is to take out 1 or more Pokemon, but after that, he dies quickly. A Dragonite at 100% or at 1% makes no difference so long as Wrap doesn't miss. Sure, being able to take an extra hit helps and makes a big difference, but isn't necessary.
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Dre
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Wrap
Dec 6, 2012 22:18:56 GMT -8
Post by Dre on Dec 6, 2012 22:18:56 GMT -8
Starmie and zam don't need to stall forever. They just need to come in, and scare the wrapper away. Yes they get stopped by chansey, but that also means they stopped wrapping you, and you can now bring in your chansey-counter or even your own wrapper.
It's not that hard to keep your fast specials unparad. You even really need one to be honest, I usally let zam take the sleep and save starmie for switching into wrappers and then late-game sweeping if possible.
And no, they don't "normally get paralysed". They "normally get paralysed in this non-standard meta that we play in this community". Wrap is the standard, and in that meta they don't want to get paralysed, so they don't normally get paralysed. Having to change your playstyle isn't an excuse for something to be banned.
As for dnite, I recently PP stalled one, the damage isn't that bad. I was stupid and blew up my eggy on it, then forgot he had the speed boost and let my zam take a hbeam, but if I wasn't a retard then it would not have been that bad. Most pokemon don't take much damage from it, and the ones that do can recover it off. You can let rhdyon take half of the damage himself which will equate to 16% of his health, which is similar to one hbeam.
The damage is a problem if he sets up late-game, but again, you have to earn that position, and a lot of things are dangerous late-game. If you're saving him for late game, you can't use him much beforehand, so you're essentially playing with 4 pokemon for the majority of the match if you also have tauros.
You have to look at how much you have to set up for this to be really dangerous. When you compare it to other strategies, there isn't much difference. Tauros needs weakened, paralysed pokemon. Amnesia+reflectlax just needs sleep clause activated, no gengar and no counter chansey and he's good to go. Slowbro basically just needs to not get hit by a crit.
When you compare it to other strategies, it isn't much different. It's just that people find it less fun because they have less control, but the effect isn't that much different.
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Wrap
Dec 8, 2012 14:11:25 GMT -8
Post by lilith on Dec 8, 2012 14:11:25 GMT -8
So a few notes from this. Each series of Wrap has over a 50% chance to hit 4 times in a row, which is an average of 180 power, all while the opponent can do nothing, and the user can switch at any time. To give a rough power gauge on this, if Dragonite were to be guaranteed to OHKO Chansey with a 1x move, it would require 290 base power, which is equivalent to 7 series of Wrap, which has a 32% chance to succeed, which is greater than regular OHKO moves, and the user can switch whenever. Also don't forget that not succeeding will still usually yield massive damage, PP is not as much of an issue compared to OHKO moves, and since 7 series is actually a base of 315 (on average), some Wraps only doing 2 hits still has a high chances of being successful (290 is 20 hits of Wrap across 7 turns). Let's also not forget that Dragonite is not required to use Wrap the entire time, and can finish Chansey off with Hyper Beam. In this case, this would only be 4 series of Wrap (52%), followed by Hyper Beam (90%), though that can get into when to read switching into Hyper Beam, etc. Also, I haven't even mentioned Critical Hits. That's a bit of an extreme example as Chansey is defensively weak and Dragonite is very powerful, but lesser versions of that is still very effective. So because of this, it would probably be best to just rapidly switch, but the problem is that Wrapping moves restart when the opponent switches, meaning that it wouldn't end until the new one misses. Of course though, 1-turn Wraps are not as damaging, only doing 15 per PP, but it now requires 2 misses in a row. This means that there's a 15% chance for Wrap to miss, and then a 15% chance for it to miss again, which is a 2.25% i don't really have an educated opinion on the overall balance issue here having not played too much with or against agiliwrap... so in this post i'm not claiming it's not overpowered (i wouldn't know one way or another), just that i think it's easy to overlook at what cost the strength comes when crunching numbers. i'm sure more experienced players can better weigh the costs and benefits here. so ya, i think it's worth mentioning that a stable strategy will use hyper beam both significantly randomly later than the first possible turn because the cost of it being predicted is so large. so i don't think it's too meaningful to look at "# of turns to ko with wrap+h-beam" numbers like in the chansey example, even if it's not chansey. other h-beam sweepers do not seem to roll over and die as easily if an h-beam misses or is predicted. the worst common case i can think of is tauros eating a t-wave or something. the worst case for dragonite is a blizzard OHKO and there are lots of other bad cases, ya? if dragonite took damage during its setup turn, a blocked h-beam is prooobably death. speaking of that setup turn, i think the "turns to ko" should have +1 for agility because would you really let all your fast pokemon get paralyzed in a wrap meta? (i do think a similar analysis in cases where dragonite gets to use whichever special nuke it picked could be more representative than the h-beam case though. but that's going to be more situational) but dragonite is not really an h-beam sweeper, right? after all, leaving pokemon in in h-beam range seems really silly to me because switching in on dragonite is ~free (which is quite a big deal in my mind). as people mentioned, in the super-late game where everything is in h-beam range, anything can sweep effectively anyway. from what i understand, dragonite's strength lies in spreading damage everywhere, so perhaps it's better to restrict mathematical analysis to those numbers. anyway more on switching. switching into dragonite seems quite safe even when it's set up. dragonite may switch out for free (expect when it eats another turn later when it has to re-agility!), but so do you. it's significant that wrap has two chances to hit your switch-in, but if you switch in right after a confirmed wrap hit, across both of your pokemon you're only taking one more guaranteed turn of wrap (well, 97.75% guaranteed), ya? you can even switch in things that are already in h-beam range for ~free, because if your opponent is trying to h-beam your predicted switch-in, your opponent is probably completely insane! compared to, say, tauros, who perhaps can't dish out as much expected damage before dying, but i think none of your switch-ins really want to give tauros a free turn because tauros actually has good moves and can take more than 1-2 hits, lol. in particular, dragonite simply can't safely punish its opponent for trying to switch out of a revenge kill which strikes me as a very major flaw in its midgame role (zapdos is the only other pokemon i can think of that has this problem to a similar extent, and everyone knows how much it hurts zapdos)... especially for something that needs a turn of setup. also, the dragonite mirror is way less one-sided-in-the-favor-of-the-lucky-player than the exeggutor mirror is! just saying also also, not all expected damage is equal because a player stronger than the field using a more reliable but weaker strategy probably has a better chance to avoid elimination in a tournament (i'm going to get even moar nerdier here and point to drain decks in vintage Magic as an example of strategies strong players often prefer even when the meta is such that they have a bunch of 40-60 matchups). from the sounds of it, wrap still wins tournaments in the wrap meta, but the luck dependence should be in favor of it being somewhat less dominant in tournaments than it would be based on raw power levels (in the form of winrates between equally skilled players). 450 power, but a 450 power solarbeam that can be split across, say, golem and 2 rest/recover users. i still feel like a single number too easily hides the numerous weaknesses of wrap. wrap being banned doesn't really make me sad though coz i don't find it fun at all edit for one last observation: even if PP stalling is statistically worse than tanking wrap until it misses, it is more deterministic - indeed it is much less random than tanking most moves which can all-or-nothing miss or CH, and where one misprediction affects the whole thing (and of course, prediction _is_ random if both players are playing anywhere near a stable strategy). so in games where you already have a certain advantage (i.e. where you're comfortable taking a big chunk of spread-out, not-completely-critted damage to faint an opposing pokemon), you can PP stall to ensure the win, wheras in games you're losing, you can use the randomness of wrap against your opponent. this also seems pretty significant to me.
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Wrap
Dec 8, 2012 14:45:37 GMT -8
Post by Crystal_ on Dec 8, 2012 14:45:37 GMT -8
okay, lets say for a second that stall switching wrap was completely viable. Wouldn't be annoying having to count to 32 correctly each time you find a wrapper/clamper? If stalling it was the only semi-viable way to deal with wrappers, wouldn't it be stupid? What if all the wraps don't happen in a row? Would you have to read the whole log again and count? Maybe pick a paper and a pen and start writing numbers? I already don't know how to count to 8 fire blasts in gsc; come on, 32 wraps?
The thing is, stall switching is NOT the only statistically-not-broken way to deal with wrap. But with the fucking PO bug, it kinda is. With correct mechanics though, just sitting against +2 wrap dnite and wait for the miss is better and will average less damage most of the times. Really, if you have healthy enough mons to pp stall wrap and still keep a legitimate chance of winning the match, then odds will be really against your opponent if you just sit there waiting for the miss instead.
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Wrap
Dec 8, 2012 15:28:53 GMT -8
Post by lilith on Dec 8, 2012 15:28:53 GMT -8
I already don't know how to count to 8 fire blasts in gsc lol, i totally have this problem too
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Dre
Member
Posts: 397
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Wrap
Dec 11, 2012 1:23:54 GMT -8
Post by Dre on Dec 11, 2012 1:23:54 GMT -8
okay, lets say for a second that stall switching wrap was completely viable. Wouldn't be annoying having to count to 32 correctly each time you find a wrapper/clamper? If stalling it was the only semi-viable way to deal with wrappers, wouldn't it be stupid? What if all the wraps don't happen in a row? Would you have to read the whole log again and count? Maybe pick a paper and a pen and start writing numbers? I already don't know how to count to 8 fire blasts in gsc; come on, 32 wraps? The thing is, stall switching is NOT the only statistically-not-broken way to deal with wrap. But with the fucking PO bug, it kinda is. With correct mechanics though, just sitting against +2 wrap dnite and wait for the miss is better and will average less damage most of the times. Really, if you have healthy enough mons to pp stall wrap and still keep a legitimate chance of winning the match, then odds will be really against your opponent if you just sit there waiting for the miss instead. This is just about being tedious or boring rather than being broken. Again, what is 'fun' has no relevance when you're discussing a competitive simulator that is played by people outside of your community. The other problem is if we're basing it on fun, you might as well remove moves like reflect or ice beam, because stall wars can be really boring too. What should stay and what should go gets subjective when you base it off fun.
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Wrap
Dec 26, 2012 18:21:41 GMT -8
Post by GGFan on Dec 26, 2012 18:21:41 GMT -8
As the current #4 ranked player on PO, I have some credibility when it comes to divulging Wrap statistics. Of the 20-30 games that I played, I saw Wrap/Clamp only once. Perhaps others are also against it, or simply don't find it to be useful.
Moreover, as somebody who was around long before Wrap became popular, I can say that, until around 2005-2006, Wrap was usually dismissed as a gimmick. It was not until the finals of TOS5 when M3K used a Clamp Cloyster that I began to reconsider my opinion of the move. For those who knew M3k, he was a very mediocre player, but Clamp Cloyster gave him an advantage that had nothing to do with his skill. Luckily, my experience prevailed and I was able to defeat him nonetheless.
I personally find Wrap to be a very "point-and-click" strategy; it's not the same as, say, choosing to use Body Slam judiciously and benefiting from your prediction. Also, Wrap does not have to be used with the intent of sweeping: the small amount of free damage you inflict early on can come in handy at any given time. Or maybe you just want to use Wrap to manipulate the opponent's switch-in.
What compounds my problem with Wrap is the free switch-in that it gives the user. Instead of having Dragonite score the kill, you can use Wrap and switch to something that will have a distinct advantage. For example, thanks to Wrap being horribly glitched on PO (a point that I will get to in a moment), it can easily get that paralyzed Chansey down to kill range via a Snorlax Hyper Beam. This creates, in my opinion, an unfair advantage. Sure, you can keep switching out, but the Wrap user can as well, giving your opponent two advantages instead of one.
But as Wrap is glitched on PO, why willingly play a tainted metagame? Why give yourself that unfair advantage to begin with? If you're going to allow Wrap, then perhaps you should allow OHKOs. After all, OHKOs will only hit 30% of the time and do not the grant the user a secondary effect. OHKOs are just as point-and-click as Wrap and have the same premise: prevent your opponent from attacking and hope you don't miss. However, Wrap also comes with various other advantages, like widespread damage and free switch-ins.
As for the argument that Wrap should be tolerated because other multi-hit moves exist, that isn't the same at all. There is nothing stopping your Chansey from using Thunder Wave or Counter on the same turn that Jolteon uses Double Kick. Wrap hits the opponent with no possibility of retaliation. If the best argument is that it will miss sooner or later, then you're admitting that the strategy is too luck reliant.
By the way, RBY2K10 is not the only community to have banned Wrap. THE Alternative--RBY2K10's predecessor and the most successful RBY tournament forum to date--banned Wrap immediately. It was also banned on the two largest European Pokemon forums, Pokemonexperte and Pokefans. Smogon allowed it, but they have never had authority to begin with when it came to RBY, and they certainly don't now.
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Dre
Member
Posts: 397
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Wrap
Dec 27, 2012 18:45:44 GMT -8
Post by Dre on Dec 27, 2012 18:45:44 GMT -8
Firstly, being ranked 4th on PO doesn't mean shit lol. Wrap is only point-and-click on people who are stupid enough to switch out to a counter or to stall it.
It's not a completely free switch because the opponent can switch out too. It's about as free as switching infront of a sleeping pokemon; if they don't stay in and wake up, you got a free switch, if they switched out, your switch wasn't that free.
The 5-turn glitch doesn't mean much because against good players the wrap will rarely ever finish.
Wrap only counters teams which aren't designed to deal with it. It's same thing as how slowbro can counter teams which don't have thunderbolt or boost-negating moves with some luck.
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Wrap
Dec 27, 2012 18:59:36 GMT -8
Post by Agent Syrup on Dec 27, 2012 18:59:36 GMT -8
The way I see it. If double team was banned for being too chance based, then why not wrap?
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Wrap
Dec 27, 2012 19:34:24 GMT -8
Post by GGFan on Dec 27, 2012 19:34:24 GMT -8
Firstly, being ranked 4th on PO doesn't mean shit lol. Wrap is only point-and-click on people who are stupid enough to switch out to a counter or to stall it. It's not a completely free switch because the opponent can switch out too. It's about as free as switching infront of a sleeping pokemon; if they don't stay in and wake up, you got a free switch, if they switched out, your switch wasn't that free. The 5-turn glitch doesn't mean much because against good players the wrap will rarely ever finish. Wrap only counters teams which aren't designed to deal with it. It's same thing as how slowbro can counter teams which don't have thunderbolt or boost-negating moves with some luck. ~Being ranked 4th (now 3rd) means that I have played many games. ~I don't know what you're trying to say with your remark that isn't point-and-click if you switch to a counter. You should make the wording more clear. Anyways, that isn't the point at all. ~It's a free switch because the Wrap user can switch out without taking any damage, and is easily exploitable in the hands of a good player, as I noted previously. This gives the Wrap user two advantages instead of one, because the victim of Wrap must also figure out which Pokemon the Wrap user will send out. ~Whether or not you think a "good player" will never stay in for the five turns is irrelevant, although this creates an advantage that will be exploited regardless of theory. The point is that you're not only willingly playing a different game, but one that gives somebody an unfair advantage. Is this something you can accept? Yes, and I respect your opinion. However, I do not. Also, the Slowbro-Wrap comparison doesn't work very well because a good team will mitigate his presence effectively. I have never lost because my team wasn't designed to beat Slowbro, unless I used a gimmick team that was intentionally bad. Slowbro will sweep if he's brought out at the right time, but so will Tauros. Wrap, however, is different because it's an easy way to secure free damage and manipulate switches, in addition to its ability to grant sweeps. If the Wrap user doesn't miss when it should have, this is much different than losing because Slowbro was utilized effectively. I can defeat Wrap teams, but I would prefer to play a metagame that avoids the possibility of having matches come down to whether or not the opponent misses as much as possible. This already happens in many matches (Hyper Beam, Blizzard, etc), but I like games that focus on the technical aspect of RBY more and not the luck-reliant factors. These, to me, are more enjoyable than games where Wrap is allowed. One more point I will make: I use the top OUs because they're conducive to success more than other Pokemon, but I don't want to be forced to use Gengar. Thankfully, this will never happen.
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Dre
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Wrap
Dec 27, 2012 22:27:27 GMT -8
Post by Dre on Dec 27, 2012 22:27:27 GMT -8
Wrap isn't even that hard to counter. Simply get something faster in like zam or starmie and threaten with thunder wave, that'll force them out. Or, just throw out twaves more. Chansey is great at catching wrappers switching in with twaves. It's so hard to get wrappers in safely that it is nowhere near broken.
Wrap is not luck-based at all, wrap-sweeping is. Wrap battles are actually much more like chess matches than normal battles are with all the switching and struggling to control the match. There is actually less hax, because crit wraps aren't a big deal. Honestly all the good work you do with wrap can be undone by one hax turn.
Saying that you don't want to use gengar is terrible reasoning. If an RBY community used wrap but banned sleep and explosion, by your logic they could complain about having to change their style to accomodate sleep and explosion. Having to change your style is always a terrible reason to not play with a mechanic.
You seem to be under the impression that the wrap meta is just repreatedly clicking wrap to slowly wrap teams to death and simply hoping you don't miss. It is nothing like that at all, you will never get to sweep unless it's late-game, but by that point so many other things can sweep too.
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