[OU Discussion] Dugtrio

[Doctor]

1 minute ago, Scootter said:

While this isn't smogon there is a reason the mon/ability was banned every generation after ADV. 

Yeah, and the reason varies with every generation, and none of the circumstances that got it banned in those generations have happened here because the metagame is radically different. Let's be honest, Dugtrio was a joke until the Shedinja team gained notoriety, even though it's a steaming hot pile of garbage of a team it happens to stomp noobs on ladder so people started complaining about it as if it was this major threat to the entire metagame despite not even seeing tournament play at all; and then that, with all the discourse accumulated over the years on Dugtrio on the main games, crystallizes into this thread.

 

1 hour ago, Frag said:

Like you said, it's fine if we don't match perfectly against every single threat in the game, it is made that way, but playing well you should have a minimal chance of winning when facing a bad matchup, not an instant lose before start, and those arena trap teams have 100% chance of winning against half of the meta.

This I would agree if there was evidence of this being like you describe it, but sadly the stats page is very limited to what it shows. To be clear, you have more experience, skill and matchmaking hours than me, so I'd rather trust your criteria on this than my own, but saying that "half of the meta" has a 100% chance of losing seems like an exaggeration, so if you could elaborate on that a bit I'd be grateful. The chess example is very illustrative, though, if that's where the discussion tries to go.

 

My point is, for everyone in this thread, to please give actual arguments beyond "smogon banned it so we should" and "it's absolutely broken", because both of those are just not arguments at all. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't agree with trapping being a punch in the face in terms of how competitive mechanics are, but before completely kicking a mon out of the metagame I'd like to know WHY we're doing it with sound arguments. I can too read the smogon forums posts and copy/paste what's said there here, but I wanna know specifics that apply to OUR game, and everything that makes it different.

 

Also I'm clearly not the most experienced PvPer here so if my post comes off as boldly ignorant it's probably because it is, but that's exactly why I'm asking for those arguments/stats Otherwise I can't understand how a Pokémon and a team that I have faced countless times in ladder with no major issues than any other team I've won/lost against is now all of a sudden considered to be the root of all evils in the metagame, making it unhealthy and limiting teambuilding and whatnot. Zero to hero for the worse.

[bobliu]

6 hours ago, Ziiiiio said:

Lastly, some post about unheathy mu, A rain player can already see falure when opponent comes up with heavy trick room team, set rocks and trick room then conkeldorr comes up kill 3 pokemons. even it has low usage but I can suggest Ban Trick Room in OU? Because it is not worthy for me to change my team sets because of this low usage team style. The answer is no. A meta game with no "Perfect team" is heathy, because Match-up is like a Rock-paper-scissors game you will face something you never win. Compare to BW, we extend movepoul, added TP and Baton pass on alot of pokemon, Dugtrio itself is not broken, The team comes up with Dugtrio do have common way to solve, and specific way to counter.

It is not about the MU, but about the trapping. The dugtrio trap ability with perfect move pool, good attack and high speed make it can guarantee K.O. Tyran or Kabutops or mons like that since the game begin, and the opponents have no strategy to deal with that, they can't switch but waiting for die. This makes the game become 5 vs 6 or even 4 vs 6 since they met. And that means the Tyran player already lose win the game begin.

 

For the bad MU(rain VS trick room) you take as the example, I don't think it can support your opinion.

First, rain team can win trick room team by some trick and strategy. I am a rain team player since season 0, and I have this MU a lot. There are several tricks, for example, rain player can boost their ability facing the Trick Room pokemons, such as Sword Dance Scizor facing the Bronz, and once the scizor got +4 or even +6, trick room player cannot stop scizor. In addition, without boosting pokemon, rain team can give pressure to the trick room pokemons, and once their Conkeldorr comes up, well predict by player can waste the trick room terms, and have the wincon after the trick room is over. What's more, choice band Aqua jet in rain can also be a method give threat to the opponent.

 

Second, I admit that rain team facing heavy trick room team has relative low win rate, however, player can still get the wincon by their good predict and strategy. Unlike rock pokemons facing dugtrio, player have nothing to do but waiting for be killed. This situation not only make the game no more suspense, but also destroy many players experience.

 

 

To sum up, bad MU is not the real problem, the guarantee KO and nothing to do deal with this result is the main problem.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 7 by bobliu

[Queza]

6 hours ago, Doctor said:

First I just want to say that it's so funny how some people in here were pushing hard for absolutely broken stuff like Draco Meteor Hydreigon but apparently a 3% usage, gimmick more often than not mon is "unhealthy" for the metagame. Makes you wonder if people actually want to improve the competitive scene or they just complain about what they lose against and push for the stuff that wins them games.

 

Now, let's be honest for a moment, because this entire thread is full of half truths or just straight up lies. How exactly does Dugtrio limit teambuilding any more than any other popular threat in OU? How is it any different from considering the existance of rain teams, of Mamoswine to give an example of a solid offensive threat, of Chansey in balance and stall, etc. If your ENTIRE TEAM is weak to Dugtrio with its absolute steaming hot garbage stats, then it's probably weak to every single ground type in the game. Not to mention that, yeah, there's no such thing as a perfect team, you're not supposed to match perfectly vs every Pokémon in the tier. Speed oriented teams lose to Trick Room, double weather teams have the upper hand vs single weather, and that's FINE. It's part of the game. A 3% usage 100 base attack ground type is not breaking the entire format just because it can trap and kill one Pokémon, then maybe set up Stealth Rock and die.

 

Also, how is Dugtrio enabling other Pokémon any different from other mons filling a similar role? Tyranitar Pursuit trapping Psychics and Ghosts does the same for a lot of the teams it's involved in, Magnezone very famously is the -mag part of dragmag to get rid of steel-types. And unlike Dugtrio, those aren't wasted slots in a lot of matchups: both can hit so much more than their specific niches/targets. Those two (or other trappers/enablers) aren't automatically useless if your opponent sets up Stealth Rock, they don't automatically lose to priority moves, they aren't dead weight vs. teams they don't specifically counter or check.

 

The only argument I can see being somewhat relevant is that it has no counterplay (although it does), in the sense that it can just come into something if only to chip it for it to be put in range of a OHKO from something else. But multi-hit moves, stealth rock, u-turn from faster mons, and in general playing around it (much like you would against a Magnezone having a steel type in your team) are all options. Let's stop pretending it kills everything it traps when the reality is it's only good at trapping very specific things and sometimes it even struggles KOing them.

 

All in all, sorry, but I can't see this image of a metagame-warping, absolute broken menace some of you are trying to paint here. Similarly with stall discussions, I get the feeling that you just don't like to play vs. it and would rather get it banned than actually engage in playing around it, but that's just my subjective take on this thread, so feel free to boo at me.

Finally someone came and said the truth, Dugtrio can nearly be slotted in almost every archetype especially stall so no shape or form does it limit teambuilding ever, infact it's quite the opposite, my guy doesn't even need teleport/baton pass support most of the time. While i'm not exactly on the "ban" train but i can agree it's incredibly strong, but that ain't our fault you guys decide to keep it around and then proceed to give it access to Swords dance and other tools, only to start crying now once zapdos got released.

 

With access to rock tomb you actually make it have less counterplay or at the very least put yourself in a better position to win, and that's just the sash method. 

 

I saw some comments about the togekiss + dugtrio & espeon + dug teams, these are by far the worst examples to go by for reasoning behind teambuilding or being "broken" since quite frankly those teams are straight up trash examples. Rain zapdos + Dug or Gallade + Dug are far better examples to go by.. jesus people, it's incredibly strong but it shouldn't warrant a ban on it when we allow other gen9 related abilities/move pools or just straight up debuff/gut other mons in the last year. 

 

 

[caioxlive13]

I will just remain quiet and see the arguments. But just reminding to you guys, you can't argue about usage of dugtrio "because 3,8% is too low", you wanted and eventually banned an even less used strat that was KR Cloyster that was uncompetitive, also wished an Serperior / Suicune ban back when both was 6% usage. Explaining better: Talking that dugtrio is not bannable due to being low usage despite their uncompetititve-ness nature, mainly due to AT, is very contraditory with the KR ban that was banned for their Uncompetitive-ness nature despite their low usage in the most part of their time without being nerfed(It was when surging the first problematic team abusing of it that the Item was banned, and now Dugtrio is on the same spot, an problematic team with it rised.).

Edited February 7 by caioxlive13

[YourAngst]

9 hours ago, Doctor said:

First I just want to say that it's so funny how some people in here were pushing hard for absolutely broken stuff like Draco Meteor Hydreigon but apparently a 3% usage, gimmick more often than not mon is "unhealthy" for the metagame. Makes you wonder if people actually want to improve the competitive scene or they just complain about what they lose against and push for the stuff that wins them games.

Quote

 

Yes it is very funny indeed , this argument can just as well be used against you , first let me ask you what do you understand by ''improve the competitive scene''? There were plenty of arguments of how DM hydri would have ( and has have more or less) improved the competitive scene , just because it was in a way most of us didn like does not mean it was healty and the exact same goes for dug in the current state , as funny and ridicules you find the 3% usage to be is a very important factor as to why is such a problem .

 

9 hours ago, Doctor said:

Now, let's be honest for a moment, because this entire thread is full of half truths or just straight up lies. How exactly does Dugtrio limit teambuilding any more than any other popular threat in OU? How is it any different from considering the existance of rain teams, of Mamoswine to give an example of a solid offensive threat, of Chansey in balance and stall, etc.

And this is the part where usage comes into play , all the things you mentioned are real threats in OU , however the diffrence between those threats and dug is that those threaths have big usage , you know you are very likely to encounter them so you prepare accordingly for them when teambuilding and since dug has so low usage you most likely won t be prepared to face a dug team and if were to be prepared for dug you most likely make you re self more exposed to other more commone threats like the ones you mentioned and is for this reason why dug's low usage works so well in its favore , if dug teams where to have a higer usage the meta would start to dance around them just like it did with dm hydrei while it was allowed .

9 hours ago, Doctor said:

If your ENTIRE TEAM is weak to Dugtrio with its absolute steaming hot garbage stats, then it's probably weak to every single ground type in the game

I guarantee you that nobody has a team that is entirely( all 6 mons) weak to dug , at best each team has one or two mons that are weak to ground that of its self is not a problem the problem comes when you CAN T switch out of that ground type , being weak to a ground types that traps you and kills you does not mean you are weak to every single ground type in the game

9 hours ago, Doctor said:

A 3% usage 100 base attack ground type is not breaking the entire format just because it can trap and kill one Pokémon, then maybe set up Stealth Rock and die.

Yes it is and will get into it

9 hours ago, Doctor said:

Also, how is Dugtrio enabling other Pokémon any different from other mons filling a similar role? Tyranitar Pursuit trapping Psychics and Ghosts does the same for a lot of the teams it's involved in, Magnezone very famously is the -mag part of dragmag to get rid of steel-types. And unlike Dugtrio, those aren't wasted slots in a lot of matchups: both can hit so much more than their specific niches/targets. Those two (or other trappers/enablers) aren't automatically useless if your opponent sets up Stealth Rock, they don't automatically lose to priority moves, they aren't dead weight vs. teams they don't specifically counter or check.

Problem here is that you compare those 3 base on one aspect they have in common , wiche is traping , all 3 of them do the traping part in very diffrent ways lets start with ttar.

 

Yes ttar does pursuit psychics and ghosts quite well however it can t easly do that , for psychics most common one that comes to mind now is starmie , ttar despite having good sp def and hp dosen t raw switch into starmie unless you either  switch in on a rapid spin or switch in via a momentum move  and even then a bulky starmie won t die to pursuit as long as it dosen t switch out so even if you do trap and kill the starmie that starmie would have hit ttar with 2 strong surf by now not to mention if this instance where to happen you as ttar can go for a crunch insteed of pursuit  if the starmie user reads that can freely switch out , a scarf jolly ttar does outspeed starmie however as long as it dosen t switch out it can survive one pursuit and either rapid spin the rocks away or hit ttar with a huge surf , not to mention that this scarf ttar would take a lot more from surf then a bulky one so even tho the traping did happen and starmie died  interaction between those 2 still happend this interaction is very important and shows a huge diffrence between ttar traping starmie and dug traping a grounded mon , in the ttar/starmie one there are ways for one of the parties to make a bad read , to make a mistake aka the traping either did not work or was not as succesful as it could have been (ttar has taken damage or a lot of damage ) so this resuslts in a healty interaction , same can t not be said about dug as dug only needs to click one move onace the traping begun and the trapped can t do anything against dug most of the time so its a toxic interaction or better say there is not interaction at all

As for the ghost types the same thing applays , ttar dosen t frelly trap the ghosts since there is the risk of geting burned by w-o-w , even chanda oance traped by ttar can opt to go for a flamethrower and hope for a burn , as for gengar can do the same go for w-o-w if it has it for a focus blast so even tho ttar can trap and eliminate psychic and ghosts its not something risk free there are ways for the traped pokemons to do something against ttar and do not fall flat on theyr face onance ttar has hit the field

 

Magnezone can only trapa and kill  the steel types but it can t do that for free , against deffensive ones like like skarmory and ferra while magne can in theory switch in on them for free and trap them it comes at a cost and the only way to make it risk free is to trap them on a double switch , witch can be hard to pull of , not to mention that most magnezones will be choice lock so while there may not be any interaction here between the traper and the traped the interaction comes affter , magnezone traping and killing a steel type is a huge momentum sink and due to it being choice lock a set up can easly come in and take advantage of that , it dosen t have to be a setuper either it can be hazzard setter to set hazzards up for free or even a u-turn/volt mon to take back mometum from the traping , offensive steel types however have more outs regarding this , scizor is hard to get a hold off due to u-turn spam makeing a slippery target for magnezone not to mention scizor can just opt to go for CC , it may not hit magnezone with that CC but it also prevents magne from raw switching in , a bulky lucario sruvvives HP fire and kills with CC , bisharp can also survive HP fire with a bit of hp invesment and kill magne with low kick+sucker punch , what i am trying to say here is that even if the traping of the steel type where to happen that traping does not eliminate interaction

 

While yes over a long series of games even if those 2 don t have what to trap they are still useful , however the way you described dug as to be dead weigth it is not true , even if dug has nothing to trap it can opt to do other things , such as act as a suicide lead haveing acces to not only sthelth rock but also rock tomb to set even more speed control for the rest of the team as well as memento so even in a case where something slow may want to set up in front of dug , dug can just memento and make that setupr ussles  also anoter thing that you mentioned is that the other 2 are not ussles if stelth rock goes up that is true if not for sash dug would be a way way worse mon( will go over this in a bit ) however you are not geting stelth rock up against those dug teams and even if you get them up and keep them up then it ussualy means its way to late , ttar and magne can  die to  priority tho only mach punch true but they still do die so i don t really know why you said they won t .

9 hours ago, Doctor said:

But multi-hit moves, stealth rock, u-turn from faster mons, and in general playing around it (much like you would against a Magnezone having a steel type in your team) are all options

Multi hit moves do work but you know dug is not going to stay in and eat those , stelth rock is no , you simply don t get stelth rock up against that team and this one small thing  is what makes dug so hard to deal with , simply because there is no way to remove its sahs without direct damage to it and in doing so dug as done its job , what are those faster mons with u turn ? i would like to know the only one that is faster then dug naturaly and has acces to u-turn is Accelgor  outside of that everything else needs to be scarf and for those fast scarf mons with u-turn shedninja exists , shed will simply blink them and make you re scarf momentum mon be locked on the field while shed can go for batton pas and gain even more momentom on you , again there is not much to play around as long as dug has its focus shash intact all forms of interactions regarding arena trap are removed this does not happen with the other two that have a lot more downsides to theyr traping when compare to dug.

 

5 hours ago, Doctor said:

Yeah, and the reason varies with every generation, and none of the circumstances that got it banned in those generations have happened here because the metagame is radically different.

The reason dosen t differ at all , here is a quck run down : dug was OU up till gen 7 SM where it got that stat buff atk went from base 80 to 100 that + acces to Z moves made dug a great teammate for stall teams useing the combo of arena trap-z move to eliminate key threaths to wich the stall teams would start and well.. stall so affter some time it got tested , demded uncompetitive and baned , this is gen 7, affter that players started and used dug in the earlyer gen despite being overall a way weaker dug it did achived the same results and thus it got baned from all of them besides ADV and it is a fine and ok pokemon in ADV for many reasons (more on that later) but yeah dug was allways there players were never aware of it

5 hours ago, Doctor said:

This I would agree if there was evidence of this being like you describe it, but sadly the stats page is very limited to what it shows. To be clear, you have more experience, skill and matchmaking hours than me, so I'd rather trust your criteria on this than my own, but saying that "half of the meta" has a 100% chance of losing seems like an exaggeration, so if you could elaborate on that a bit I'd be grateful. The chess example is very illustrative, though, if that's where the discussion tries to go.

Just like last time lets stop for a moment , forget about that stat page and what it shows , yes it is important but even without all the extra information it does offer by takeing a quick look at only what pokemons are the most used you do see how dug does destroy most if not all of them , how? its simple dug job is only to take out key mons that can stop its own teammates from seting up and one of those teammates is volcarona well know for runing over many teams affter one boost , you migth say now ''oh but the team was weak to volc '' no it was not weak to volc however onace the dug managed to take out that key threat the said team becomes weak to volc so dugtrio in of itself as a pokemon dosen t not destroy half the tier , its the other pokemon it heavely enables quite easly ( since its hard to brake the sash) that destroy half the tier onace theyr check its gone

 

The chess exmaple is very good and to further build on this analogy made by frags , competitive pokemon is essentially chess , expect we also have rng , in chess the first thing you should do is to start and develop the boarde aka get all the pices out and moveing all the pices not just the horses and some pawns , even the bishop,rooks  need to move ,quenn too  here this can be viewed as useing all 6 of you re pokemons trying to spread damage acroos the field (the boared development) while minemazing risk and just like in chess the value of you pices/pokemons will shift each turn , now imagine that you re opponent's quenn is dugtrio and from the get go this quenn was not set in her normal starting possision but insteed ready to take down one of you rooks as soon as they are left unguarded therefore during  you re turns you did not move/use you re rooks and because of that your side of the bored is not fully developte / you are not useing all 6 of you mons meanwhile you re opponent has done the bored development and its ready to shift into offense , does the chess analogy make sense now?

This is what dug does to most of the teams rn

5 hours ago, Doctor said:

My point is, for everyone in this thread, to please give actual arguments beyond "smogon banned it so we should" and "it's absolutely broken", because both of those are just not arguments at all. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't agree with trapping being a punch in the face in terms of how competitive mechanics are, but before completely kicking a mon out of the metagame I'd like to know WHY we're doing it with sound arguments. I can too read the smogon forums posts and copy/paste what's said there here, but I wanna know specifics that apply to OUR game, and everything that makes it different.

Who did copy paste from smogon? I would like to know , show me that person and show the the text they did copypasted aowdhu ye i fell like all the explenation i did up to this point does sum it up why dug or ataleast why arena trap+magic bounce is not a good fit at all

6 hours ago, Doctor said:

Also I'm clearly not the most experienced PvPer here so if my post comes off as boldly ignorant it's probably because it is, but that's exactly why I'm asking for those arguments/stats Otherwise I can't understand how a Pokémon and a team that I have faced countless times in ladder with no major issues than any other team I've won/lost against is now all of a sudden considered to be the root of all evils in the metagame, making it unhealthy and limiting teambuilding and whatnot. Zero to hero for the worse.

This one is the most simple one to explain , you , me and everyone else here whether they like to admit it or not have teambuilding patterns and tendencys and we do fallow those patterns and tendencys whether we are aware or not,  concensly or subconcensly , simply put you re patterns and prefences allow you to have a easy time against this dug team , fun fact my own patterns and tendencys allowed me to have a swell time against dm hydra and yet i did not come into the hydra disscusion claming it is easy to play around it just because I as an individual had succes against it , i still acknowledge hydra as a threat to the metagame at large , something most ppl here on this forum are not able to do regarding  dug... sad

 

Last time i did this doctor you seem to have taken it as some sort of personal atk it was not back then and  this one is not one now but since you asked why dug bad in pokemmo seems only fair to start w u from ur first post

 

So far from what ive seen only matt and godhell have acknowledged that dug is a problem more so thanks to its teammates while everyone else seems to only focus to dug in a vacuum , dug would not be as strong as it is now if not for espeon being able to keep its sash intact , some folks don t want to ban dug since that would mean to ''mindlessly copy smogon'' by that logic we should also remove the sleep clause , since smogon has it , remove the freez one and moddy allowed everywhere too anyway I for one am down to try a complex ban too arena trap + magic bounce or even arena trap+magic bounce + wonder guard for OU  , this is all for now

 

 

[caioxlive13]

8 minutes ago, YourAngst said:

 

 

And this is the part where usage comes into play , all the things you mentioned are real threats in OU , however the diffrence between those threats and dug is that those threaths have big usage , you know you are very likely to encounter them so you prepare accordingly for them when teambuilding and since dug has so low usage you most likely won t be prepared to face a dug team and if were to be prepared for dug you most likely make you re self more exposed to other more commone threats like the ones you mentioned and is for this reason why dug's low usage works so well in its favore , if dug teams where to have a higer usage the meta would start to dance around them just like it did with dm hydrei while it was allowed .

This was my argument the entire time. The problem is that we can't build a team that stops all threats in OU, we're overloaded. We has to focus on the highest ones and get exposed to the lower ones.

[Doctor]

14 minutes ago, YourAngst said:

[...]

Already told you in DMs but a million thanks for this, this is what I meant about giving arguments and not just repeating mantras from past gens. I think it's pretty easy to get tangled in what does and doesn't Dugtrio enable and how it is bad or good for the metagame when the real thing to be discussed here is the uncompetitiveness of Arena Trap. Which, besides a few quick remarks here and there, wasn't argumented properly, and the game is so somewhat "balanced" that it's something that almost never gets brought up.

 

When I mention the smogon copypastes I mean what I said above, just meaningless repetitions of what happened in other gens with no regards of what is going on here. We don't have Heatran, we don't have Cresselia, we don't have Jirachi, we don't have the Lati twins, we don't have Kyurem-B, which are all teammates that Dugtrio either heavily enhanced or was designated to trap and kill. Which is why I mentioned how the discussion should gravitate towards OUR game and not past gens and how in those Dug was banned (not to mention permanent weather, sleep mechanics, yadda yadda)

 

One thing I gotta disagree with is with the usage % being an argument for Dugtrio limiting teambuilding, the fact that it's not a "known" threat is precisely what makes it not limit teambuilding because at the end of the day you're not gonna run into too many of them. But I can understand how, that being the case, there are certain teams that can't help but fold vs. Duggy, since they're not prepared for them and maybe it removes the exact check/counter that team needed to face Dugtrio's team's main threat.

 

The Shedinja team I don't think should even be brought up here, though, it's nothing more than a noobstomper team (nothing wrong with that, but I don't think it's relevant enough for discussing any of the mons it involves); like I said, the topic is somewhat derailing towards how "broken" Dugtrio is (it's not) instead of how uncompetitive Arena Trap is. I don't know the specifics about King's Rock's nerf because it was like a year or so ago, but it does make sense that, if only for consistency, KR was banned with an even lower usage than Duggy due to its uncompetitiveness, Dugtrio or more likely Arena Trap should go in the freezer as well.

 

Again, double disclaimer: I'm not claiming Arena Trap is or isn't competitive, but rather that if it is it has nothing to do with Dugtrio being broken or not. It's absolutely not broken in any way, the ban discussion was started because of the other argument, so I think any dwelling on that topic is just looping around the same wrong question over and over again. And the second disclaimer: I'm not a PvP expert by any means, and of course my view of PvP is skewed by the playstyles I prefer and the teams I tend to build so please, please if I'm being blatantly ignorant or spewing nonsense do quote me and point out how mistaken I am like Angst did because that's how we learn ♥

[LiveLaughHate]

Dugtrio is quite an interesting pokemon. It enables an almost completely unique playstyle that is not seen with other team archetypes. Just based on its usage I think it is fairly hard to establish whether or not it is actually broken or if its winrate is simply inflated by the only players using it being higher ladder players; ergo likely higher winrates in general. Regardless it having a low usage cannot be a serious argument for a ban; are we going to ban quagsire next? It is sitting at a 56% winrate in OU and currently sports a wopping 1.25% usage making it unreasonable to team build for so obviously it too needs to be removed since its hard to plan around. Rather than brokenness, the crux of the argument around dugtrio is whether or not it is "uncompetitive" or not.

The uncompetitive debate is a tough one since by definition it just means that the pokemon is unfair to use. Switching is a universal game mechanic in all pokemon games and dugtrio with arena trap subverts that mechanic. Does that make it uncompetitive? Well by definition I'd say no since it is a part of the original pokemon games specifically designed to stop the switching mechanic it is just deemed uncompetitive by many due to the value we have placed on switching.

There was a comparison drawn between dugtrio and king's rock but I personally find these to be completely different circumstances. For starters, usage and fairness are not correlated. I will state that I personally fall heavily on the side of king's rock being a more unfair item due to it introducing significantly more RNG into a game already riddled with it, as well as the inability to actually ascertain whether or not the pokemon actually has king's rock until it flinches. Dugtrio does not hide its cards like that and it is not RNG reliant. When you see dugtrio on the opposing team you know exactly what it can and will do which should in theory enable you to play around it.

 

I'll briefly touch on the dugtrio/espeon/shedinja team since that seems to be a prevalent topic in the replies. For starters and this is a biased opinion but I think that team has many flaws and is weak to a plethora of common threats, most notably the recently added zapdos almost 6-0s that team just from preview. I will also add that simply having a dugtrio doesn't stop tyranitar from being a hinderance to shedinja as you can still make predictions yourself. You aren't forced to bring tyranitar in on the obvious espeon baton pass into dugtrio, instead set up sand prematurely and then apply pressure while sand is up to stop them from going to shedinja. Going back to the uncompetitiveness debate, just from the replies it seemed almost like shedinja was the biggest reason the team was uncompetitive as it was what was stopping alot of pokemon being able to break the team. Now I'm not going to advocate for a shedinja ban it's just food for thought.

 

I will say though that I believe alot of people are severely underestimating just how many pokemon dugtrio can trap. Basically any slower choiced pokemon is trapped. Most offensive pokemon with a little bit of chip such as garchomp, gallade, scizor, starmie, breloom, volcarona etc can be trapped if played correctly. With swords dance it can also trap many of the bulkier pokemon like non tp chansey and with a bit of chip porygon2, ferrothorn, even suicune if you can catch it on the turn it clicks rest. It seems bizarre to me that dugtrio seems to be almost exclusively used on gimmick teams when its true strength is found in removing the single biggest threat to your team. Historically in generation 6 and 7 which is what I am most familiar with; dugtrio was almost exclusively used on stall teams with its purpose mostly being to trade 1 for 1 with your opponents biggest threat to your team and relying on your 5 stall mons to be able to beat your opponents remaining 5. I personally think this is where dugtrio truly shined but as stall has been significantly nerfed post gen 9 and this game applying those nerfs; combined with dugtrio stall having basically 0 usage I cannot verify if it is in the same broken state from gen 6 and 7. I think it would be more interesting to cover this debate again later with the avent of further hidden abilities like regenerator alomomola or slowbro which with combined with dugtrio might actually make for an overpowered combination.

 

While this is obviously very impressive I do believe it comes with a bit of a caveat. For a lot of these pokemon dugtrio needs to maintain it's focus sash; this means having to potentially over index into keeping hazards off the field and potentially suffering because of it. For some pokemon you can hard switch in to trap but many you either have to pivot in or come in on a sac to trap the pokemon. For the sac argument that already requires you to have lost a pokemon and with dugtrio being unable to ohko most of the tier you will also be left with it on most likely 1 hp. This might actually be a worthwhile trade if the pokemon you are removing is the biggest threat to your team but it is pretty clear that this outcome might not be without its drawbacks. I personally think the pivoting argument doesn't hold much water. There are not many pokemon that can pivot and even less on teams that dugtrio is built around. If you get caught by a teleport or a baton pass from a pokemon into a dugtrio it might sound harsh but I believe that you need to learn how to predict a bit better. I will agree that pelipper u-turn with rain dugtrio is harder if you have to go into tyranitar to deny rain but I'd argue that if your team is so weak to rain you need to make such a forceful play then it is just an unfortunate match up and having bad match ups happens all the time.

 

I personally think that the unique playstyle dugtrio adds is incredibly interesting and at least right now definitely warrants keeping around. I think the constant mindgames about when the dugtrio will go for a trap makes for an interesting game. Both you and your opponent know what dugtrio is trying to do and there is a constant tug of war to find the right moment to bring dugtrio in. If you get the turn right you can be greatly rewarded but due to dugtrio's frailty if brought in at the wrong time it becomes dead weight to the team. An example would be a match I literally had earlier today. I was using dugtrio and our match was becoming closer and closer. My opponent had life orb excadrill which was a huge threat to my team. Unfortunately coupled with the rest of his team I could not simply sacrifice a pokemon to bring in dugtrio and trap it as being down 1 of my other pokemon would mean being unable to hold back the rest of my opponents team. Eventually I tried to bring dugtrio in on what I hoped was an earthquake but since my opponent saw I had dugtrio and was also jostling for position, correctly predicted it with a rapid spin which both broke the focus sash but also increased its speed basically rendering dugtrio useless. This might be a stupid example and maybe I am just bad at pokemon but I think this kind of interaction is so unique and I think it would be a shame to remove it.

Sorry about the essay feel free to skip it but I think it covers most of my thoughts and might be a good perspective for those that aren't as familiar with dugtrio outside of the one espeon shedinja team. My opinion is fluid, if dugtrios usage increases and appears on a higher variety of teams and it becomes apparent that it is too overbearing for our meta I'd be more than happy to switch sides but for now I would definitely say DO NOT BAN.

Edited February 7 by LiveLaughHate
misstyped

[CanadaSorry]

10 hours ago, bobliu said:

One more thing, I use the ‘without risk' is mainly because the crobat can do the trap by using the Mean Look. But what will be like, if the crobat has trapping ability, and don't need to use 1 term to trap? 

will u still think it is healthy?

Comparing dugtrio to crobat is about as close as it gets to an "apples vs oranges" comparison. 

[gbwead]

16 hours ago, Munya said:

Quick ban and standard ban process has been merged into one process.  A quick ban happens when a vote during a standard ban reaches a unanimous vote and bypasses the time restrictions needed for a standard ban.  A standard ban requires at least one week of the thread being up and has a more lenient voting requirement.

Standard Ban:
TC votes 5-1, the thread stays open for a full week and players discuss for no reason because the voting already occured.

 

Quick Ban:

TC votes 6-0, the thread gets closed instantly and the discussion is over. 

 

What's the difference? Players have no say regardless, quick ban or standard ban. This doesn't make sense. 

 

 

 

 

[Munya]

10 minutes ago, gbwead said:

Standard Ban:
TC votes 5-1, the thread stays open for a full week and players discuss for no reason because the voting already occured.

 

Quick Ban:

TC votes 6-0, the thread gets closed instantly and the discussion is over. 

 

What's the difference? Players have no say regardless, quick ban or standard ban. This doesn't make sense. 

 

 

 

 

Those votes are not considered final/locked in the case of a standard ban, they can be changed by the arguments presented here and those that voted are able to swap those votes.  They don't make a vote and its locked in unless its unanimous, in which case there is enough support that any further discussion would be pointless

[gbwead]

2 minutes ago, Munya said:

Those votes are not considered final/locked in the case of a standard ban, they can be changed by the arguments presented here and those that voted are able to swap those votes.  They don't make a vote and its locked in, unless its unanimous in which case there is enough support that any further discussion would be pointless

If the quick ban vote is 6-0, what's the point in opening a thread in the first place then. Shouldn't the quick ban vote happen before opening the thread?

Edited February 7 by gbwead

[Munya]

Even in the old policy a thread had to be opened for a quick ban to say that a ban was immanent/likely to happen, this just streamlined the process.

[gbwead]

3 minutes ago, Munya said:

Even in the old policy a thread had to be opened for a quick ban to say that a ban was immanent/likely to happen, this just streamlined the process.

Quick ban in the old policy has nothing to do with what a Quick Ban is today.

 

A Quick Ban in the past was if something new was introduced in a metagame, the TC had the ability to ban it instantly because of the harm it could cause.

 

A Quick Ban now is if TC wants the community to shut up, they can silence them at will.

 

These things are completly different, so it doesn't really matter what the old policy did with Quick Ban because even though the same words are being used we are talking about two different things.

[Munya]

So you would prefer a quick ban to be issued without allowing the community to have any input whatsoever?  Thats the vibe I am getting here since this insures they at least have an opportunity.

[gbwead]

7 minutes ago, Munya said:

So you would prefer a quick ban to be issued without allowing the community to have any input whatsoever?  Thats the vibe I am getting here since this insures they at least have an opportunity.

Yes.

 

If TC has the power to silence us, they should vote on whether or not we should be silenced before opening the discussion thread. There is no point in keeping up appearances. It takes so much time for a thread to get written, approved and then opened. If TC intends on silencing us, they should not give us the illusion that our input matters. I assume the reason this thread is still opened is because TC doesn't want us silenced which is great, but if TC wanted us silenced, opening a thread for having it closed 2 minutes later is counter productive.

[Munya]

Votes don't happen immediately, some votes can take days to happen.  They are going to have to make a thread anyway for it to be banned and I am not comfortable having bans where input isn't taken at all. Reading arguments and accepting the possibility that they might be wrong on some view given the right argument should be something every TC member is willing to do, being rigid and unmoving is not a good thing because then discussion would entirely be pointless.

 

Splitting the policy also causes other complications, then we need to decide does it need a quick ban vote or a normal vote which is its own problem and delays things further.  All of it being in one makes the policy easier to follow and mistakes less likely to be made.

[gbwead]

4 minutes ago, Munya said:

Votes don't happen immediately, some votes can take days to happen.  They are going to have to make a thread anyway for it to be banned and I am not comfortable having bans where input isn't taken at all. Reading arguments and accepting the possibility that they might be wrong on some view given the right argument should be something every TC member is willing to do, being rigid and unmoving is not a good thing because then discussion would entirely be pointless.

 

Splitting the policy also causes other complications, then we need to decide does it need a quick ban vote or a normal vote which is its own problem and delays things further.  All of it being in one makes the policy easier to follow and mistakes less likely to be made.

Quote

 

1. A community member or tier council member recommends further discussion on a Pokemon or an aspect of the competitive metagame (i.e. move, ability, etc.).
2. If deemed appropriate, a tier council member then opens a discussion thread in the public forum.
3. A Quick ban vote is initiated, this is an ongoing vote for the duration of the standard process until the standard ban vote is carried out. If at any time the quick ban vote reaches a unanimous vote, a quick ban an be handed out.
4. The community and tier council discuss the aspects of the aforementioned Pokemon, move, ability, etc for a period of at least one week, but likely more.
5. A standard vote will be initiated, for this a 2/3 majority is required in favor of the ban for a ban to occur. At this point the vote for a quick ban is closed.
6. When the decision is made, the council will post in the thread and notify the community of the decision. This post will provide the reasons behind the decision. All votes and the thread will be closed at this point.
7. The Ban will be pushed through in game once the above is done and an overseeing staff member is available.

 

I'm not saying the policy should be split. I am saying #2 and #3 should be swapped. A thread should not be opened if TC already made up their mind.

 

Edit: Also, #2 and #3 are already swapped whenever a new ability or new mechanic is introduced. If Alakazam gains Magic Guard over night, you're not going to ask TC to go through the trouble of writing a thread, approve it and then opening it. They will vote instantly as they should.

Edited February 7 by gbwead

[bobliu]

53 minutes ago, CanadaSorry said:

Comparing dugtrio to crobat is about as close as it gets to an "apples vs oranges" comparison. 

bro, you get it wrong. You need to read the post before that

 

It is Zio who mentioned about the topic of crobat, he take crobat as an example to object my points; thus, I ask him what will happen if crobat can do the trap work. That's it.

 

I will not compare these 2 pokemons, if zio do not mention that

 

 

[Ziiiiio]

1小时前，bobliu 说：

I will not compare these 2 pokemons, if zio do not mention that

 

It's ur problem if you cant read. 

 

I am saying the spesific Crobat stops popular mon, Dugtrio's it self is a spesific tool traps popular mons as well, they both low usage, counter alot of polular mons in metagame

 

If Baning dugtrio because it limits regular sets make any sence, then Ban Crobat should make sence at same time, I just copied Banning group's text and transfer to Pokemon Crobat, and you jump out and transcribing Unheathy laws to me, it is useless. 

[bobliu]

6 minutes ago, Ziiiiio said:

It's ur problem if you cant read. 

 

I am saying the spesific Crobat stops popular mon, Dugtrio's it self is a spesific tool traps popular mons as well, they both low usage, counter alot of polular mons in metagame

 

If Baning dugtrio because it limits regular sets make any sence, then Ban Crobat should make sence at same time, I just copied Banning group's text and transfer to Pokemon Crobat, and you jump out and transcribing Unheathy laws to me, it is useless. 

lol

U still avoid the question about the trap ability. Go read the text XD

[bobliu]

15 minutes ago, Ziiiiio said:

If Baning dugtrio because it limits regular sets make any sence

You should first understand the difference between Counter vs. trap&kill

[Doctor]

2 hours ago, LiveLaughHate said:

Dugtrio is quite an interesting pokemon. It enables an almost completely unique playstyle that is not seen with other team archetypes. Just based on its usage I think it is fairly hard to establish whether or not it is actually broken or if its winrate is simply inflated by the only players using it being higher ladder players; ergo likely higher winrates in general. Regardless it having a low usage cannot be a serious argument for a ban; are we going to ban quagsire next? It is sitting at a 56% winrate in OU and currently sports a wopping 1.25% usage making it unreasonable to team build for so obviously it too needs to be removed since its hard to plan around. Rather than brokenness, the crux of the argument around dugtrio is whether or not it is "uncompetitive" or not.

The uncompetitive debate is a tough one since by definition it just means that the pokemon is unfair to use. Switching is a universal game mechanic in all pokemon games and dugtrio with arena trap subverts that mechanic. Does that make it uncompetitive? Well by definition I'd say no since it is a part of the original pokemon games specifically designed to stop the switching mechanic it is just deemed uncompetitive by many due to the value we have placed on switching.

There was a comparison drawn between dugtrio and king's rock but I personally find these to be completely different circumstances. For starters, usage and fairness are not correlated. I will state that I personally fall heavily on the side of king's rock being a more unfair item due to it introducing significantly more RNG into a game already riddled with it, as well as the inability to actually ascertain whether or not the pokemon actually has king's rock until it flinches. Dugtrio does not hide its cards like that and it is not RNG reliant. When you see dugtrio on the opposing team you know exactly what it can and will do which should in theory enable you to play around it.

 

I'll briefly touch on the dugtrio/espeon/shedinja team since that seems to be a prevalent topic in the replies. For starters and this is a biased opinion but I think that team has many flaws and is weak to a plethora of common threats, most notably the recently added zapdos almost 6-0s that team just from preview. I will also add that simply having a dugtrio doesn't stop tyranitar from being a hinderance to shedinja as you can still make predictions yourself. You aren't forced to bring tyranitar in on the obvious espeon baton pass into dugtrio, instead set up sand prematurely and then apply pressure while sand is up to stop them from going to shedinja. Going back to the uncompetitiveness debate, just from the replies it seemed almost like shedinja was the biggest reason the team was uncompetitive as it was what was stopping alot of pokemon being able to break the team. Now I'm not going to advocate for a shedinja ban it's just food for thought.

 

I will say though that I believe alot of people are severely underestimating just how many pokemon dugtrio can trap. Basically any slower choiced pokemon is trapped. Most offensive pokemon with a little bit of chip such as garchomp, gallade, scizor, starmie, breloom, volcarona etc can be trapped if played correctly. With swords dance it can also trap many of the bulkier pokemon like non tp chansey and with a bit of chip porygon2, ferrothorn, even suicune if you can catch it on the turn it clicks rest. It seems bizarre to me that dugtrio seems to be almost exclusively used on gimmick teams when its true strength is found in removing the single biggest threat to your team. Historically in generation 6 and 7 which is what I am most familiar with; dugtrio was almost exclusively used on stall teams with its purpose mostly being to trade 1 for 1 with your opponents biggest threat to your team and relying on your 5 stall mons to be able to beat your opponents remaining 5. I personally think this is where dugtrio truly shined but as stall has been significantly nerfed post gen 9 and this game applying those nerfs; combined with dugtrio stall having basically 0 usage I cannot verify if it is in the same broken state from gen 6 and 7. I think it would be more interesting to cover this debate again later with the avent of further hidden abilities like regenerator alomomola or slowbro which with combined with dugtrio might actually make for an overpowered combination.

 

While this is obviously very impressive I do believe it comes with a bit of a caveat. For a lot of these pokemon dugtrio needs to maintain it's focus sash; this means having to potentially over index into keeping hazards off the field and potentially suffering because of it. For some pokemon you can hard switch in to trap but many you either have to pivot in or come in on a sac to trap the pokemon. For the sac argument that already requires you to have lost a pokemon and with dugtrio being unable to ohko most of the tier you will also be left with it on most likely 1 hp. This might actually be a worthwhile trade if the pokemon you are removing is the biggest threat to your team but it is pretty clear that this outcome might not be without its drawbacks. I personally think the pivoting argument doesn't hold much water. There are not many pokemon that can pivot and even less on teams that dugtrio is built around. If you get caught by a teleport or a baton pass from a pokemon into a dugtrio it might sound harsh but I believe that you need to learn how to predict a bit better. I will agree that pelipper u-turn with rain dugtrio is harder if you have to go into tyranitar to deny rain but I'd argue that if your team is so weak to rain you need to make such a forceful play then it is just an unfortunate match up and having bad match ups happens all the time.

 

I personally think that the unique playstyle dugtrio adds is incredibly interesting and at least right now definitely warrants keeping around. I think the constant mindgames about when the dugtrio will go for a trap makes for an interesting game. Both you and your opponent know what dugtrio is trying to do and there is a constant tug of war to find the right moment to bring dugtrio in. If you get the turn right you can be greatly rewarded but due to dugtrio's frailty if brought in at the wrong time it becomes dead weight to the team. An example would be a match I literally had earlier today. I was using dugtrio and our match was becoming closer and closer. My opponent had life orb excadrill which was a huge threat to my team. Unfortunately coupled with the rest of his team I could not simply sacrifice a pokemon to bring in dugtrio and trap it as being down 1 of my other pokemon would mean being unable to hold back the rest of my opponents team. Eventually I tried to bring dugtrio in on what I hoped was an earthquake but since my opponent saw I had dugtrio and was also jostling for position, correctly predicted it with a rapid spin which both broke the focus sash but also increased its speed basically rendering dugtrio useless. This might be a stupid example and maybe I am just bad at pokemon but I think this kind of interaction is so unique and I think it would be a shame to remove it.

Sorry about the essay feel free to skip it but I think it covers most of my thoughts and might be a good perspective for those that aren't as familiar with dugtrio outside of the one espeon shedinja team. My opinion is fluid, if dugtrios usage increases and appears on a higher variety of teams and it becomes apparent that it is too overbearing for our meta I'd be more than happy to switch sides but for now I would definitely say DO NOT BAN.

This post is amazing and addresses pretty much everything talked about in this thread but very nicely put together (regardless of what someone else's final thoughts might be, you don't have to agree with the "no ban" conclusion to recognize the points given as valid to think about) , there's no point in running in circles about the Crobat/Dugtrio comparison since, like it's been already mentioned, it's not even the point of the discussion. Let's not get tangled in sidequests, friends 🙂

[Zokuru]

3 hours ago, bobliu said:

lol

U still avoid the question about the trap ability. Go read the text XD

You're talking about trapping as if you couldnt play or build around it, check your skills.

[bobliu]

6 hours ago, Zokuru said:

You're talking about trapping as if you couldnt play or build around it, check your skills.

Lmao

U should first learn how to read XD.

Don't  want to explain more to the people who ignore the context, I already post the related info in this thread