Partial-Trapping Moves in RBY

In its current state, Wrap in simulator RBY isn't a huge deal. It's annoying to fight because it eliminates options, but it's shaky enough that bad "luck" all too frequently beats it. Sort of like Amnesia Slowbro. There's a lot of little mechanics that make Wrap more broken in-cart than currently implemented on simulators, though.

iirc you can actually enter battles with less-than-fully-healed mons in gens 1 and 2. So really, it's not just a matter of PP ups, you could have Wrap with an arbitrary # of PPs from 1-32. Of course, sim limitations effectively clause this out (RIP non-Endure Reversal Heracross in GSC).

Also there's an issue with the lack of a "fight button" on simulators which is something where I always forget why it's important. It's a minor issue, but in-cart, if you're going to stay in to tank Wraps, then you cannot know when Wrap ends until you press the "fight" button. This means to gather information on whether Wrap is continuing, you need to first risk taking a turn of Wrap damage.

While we're on the topic of RBY, does Smogon clause out Dig and Fly? Or does the simulator not trigger the glitch where being fully paralyzed during the invulnerable turn = permanent invulnerability? Because that's definitely broken.
they were banned last year in SPL and classic so I guess the simulator is correct on that
 

jake

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While we're on the topic of RBY, does Smogon clause out Dig and Fly? Or does the simulator not trigger the glitch where being fully paralyzed during the invulnerable turn = permanent invulnerability? Because that's definitely broken.
dig/fly were indeed banned last spl for that reason - idk if its a clause for rby on the site as a whole though
 

Oglemi

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Probably because it's current combined SPL usage is 8% (assuming mons not on the same team) with a combined winrate of about 50%? And this is just counting this year.

Like, I get that Wrap is stupid and I get the reasons why (long games, trapping is dumb in general), but I think the more pertinent fact is that it doesn't actually win games very much, at least not in SPL, but I don't recall anyone taking the metagame by storm in WCoP or Classic with it either.
 

HANTSUKI

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So we need a good win rate in SPL to ban something besides it being obviously uncompettive since idk, new players wheren't even born LOL

OF COURSE it has low usage and win rate. SPL players actually play the tier and will not really rely on something that's pure luck except when they're trying to be funny or I don't know "think it's a legitimate strategy" (lol). The win rate will rarely be high because it's totally luck based. You need to not miss the move till everything is on the range of Beam/Blizz/other move.

Points are:

- despite being unreliable, it can make you win without any skill - just like our lovely moves with 30% acc that are banned;
- why? because the counterplays are pray for a miss or ~PP COUNT~. Does anyone here think it's cool to waste 32 turns switching while taking like 10 SRocks damages without being able to do anything else in return except hope ur opp miss? If someone does, I suggest this person to go see a doc, ur prolly having something really bad in ur life to think it's something cool and needs to work out;
- it's not something u can really predict ur opp has, so there's no "prep" for this and there is no team preview in RBY to make u preserve ur mons for that. You can just use big 4, something like Starmie or Kazam and complete with a Wrapmon, ur team can still beat anything if you have a brain and if ur losing being outplayed u can rely on this bullshit to win in the end - your opp can't really say it's a wrapmon in the back, it could be a normal team;
- remember that the PP count can't be wrong or you can't missclick in the last turn otherwise the PPs will reset 8D;
- c'mon, do we really need any more PP count in this tier? We already have too many Kazam vs Kazam, Chonsey vs Chonsey (remember when Chonseys actually tried to freeze each other?) or Chonsey vs Kazam;
- if Smogon is banning Trap Abilities on new gens for taking u the right of doing something basic as switch out, why not ban something that prevents you to do the most single important thing in this game and that actually makes you win matches: USING A MOVE?;
- it's no fun at all to play against it, watch it and huh...for me at least is no fun at all using it. Again, if you think someone clicking a move without thinking at all and the opp wasting minutes of his life switching out/hoping for a miss without really thinking as well is something fun to watch/play...please, go see a doc, there's something really bad that you need to work out (no offenses, ur prolly need to work out for your own good, seriously, people don't even start to yell at each other because of this to think it's fun to see people salty);

Things to not ban:

- "it's been here all this time. why change it now? xD" (is this a real arg? the people who play now are mostly people who doesn't even played at the old RBY days on netbattle);
- "i think it is a legitimate strategy, it's your choice to be in that position" (yeah, just like evasion and OHKO moves are as well, you decide you'll have that % of win);
- "the win rate and usage is not that high, so it's probably not that bad XDDD" (okay, should I come back to RBY next SPL and try to win with this shit just to get it banned? I think we could do the same to other tiers, it's a really good policy!!!);
- "i enjoy using/watching it" (OH PLEASE).


My limited brain can't think of anything else to support it staying, sorry.


So can't we really ban it asap? Do we have to suspect something like that? Isn't enough putting bo3 only in this gen without a good reason? Can we make some progress here? C'mon, it's not that hard in this case.

Also thanks to the guy who liked my post from more than 1 year ago so I could come here and argue about Wrap at my 5am.
 
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Bedschibaer

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Oh lord bless this poor soul for all the fallacies it has commited.

And before you personally attack me: I am fully aware of how cocky and dickish this post comes off, it just so happens that when people talk alot without saying much and it's mostly just fallacies and tropes it gets me really riled up.

So we need a good win rate in SPL to ban something besides it being obviously uncompettive since idk, new players wheren't even born LOL
This is a strawman argument. The point of it having both low usage and unimpressive winrate (not only in spl, also in countless other tournaments) is to point out that it isn't gamebreaking and does not directly link to whether or not it should be banned or not. You are attacking an argument that was never explicitly made.

OF COURSE it has low usage and win rate. SPL players actually play the tier and will not really rely on something that's pure luck except when they're trying to be funny or I don't know "think it's a legitimate strategy" (lol). The win rate will rarely be high because it's totally luck based. You need to not miss the move till everything is on the range of Beam/Blizz/other move.
despite being unreliable, it can make you win without any skill - just like our lovely moves with 30% acc that are banned;
Ok so you are trying to go into the luck vs skill argument without actually fully acknowledging it and that really fires up the neurons. Can we all just please universally accept that Pokemon is a game of variance. Like I am for real, read the sentence "Pokemon is a game of variance" and let it sink in for a moment, because here comes my argument basically consisting of tropes and loaded questions too: Where is the difference between clicking "the move" (wrap) until everything is in the range of Beam/Blizz/other move and clicking "another move" (insert ice beam, body slam, explosion, whatever really) until everything is in the range of Beam/Blizz/other move? Right, if I put it that way there is none but it's a dumb argument because it's simplified down to oblivion where it doesn't even remotely aligns with how games actually play out in practice.

The difference between luck and skill in this game is arbitrary. The better player doesn't always win, deal with it. Why? Because Pokemon is a game of variance. The better player usually wins, that's how you can explain consistency of the top performers. Luck is a factor in every single game and I would actually like to know where the difference between getting a timely hbeam crit, getting a first try freeze, getting a scald burn, getting 5 full paras in a row, getting [...] and actually hitting enough wraps without any response is. Where do you draw the line between actual play and relying "on something that's pure luck". Because I sure won games because of timely crits, freezes, scald burns, full paras, etc before. Games that I should not have won (even though the "should win" argument is dumb too, it pretends like there is some sort of predetermined faith and someone deserves an outcome and most importantly it ignores the fact that Pokemon is a game of variance). What exactly takes skill in having any secondary effect or any occurance of variance happen?

My point is that just like there are games where one player got the lower chance and won the game based on one of the scenarios that I described there will also be games where the wrap player never misses or gets all crits. The difference is that the wrap player often goes into the game with lower chances because, as we determined before, wrap is an inconsistent strategy and will on average win less games than a standard team.

why? because the counterplays are pray for a miss or ~PP COUNT~.
Except that is not true and simplified down again to make you avoid an actual argument.

Does anyone here think it's cool to waste 32 turns switching while taking like 10 SRocks damages without being able to do anything else in return except hope ur opp miss? If someone does, I suggest this person to go see a doc, ur prolly having something really bad in ur life to think it's something cool and needs to work out;
This is an appeal to emotion and definitely not a real argument fitting for this place.

You can just use big 4, something like Starmie or Kazam and complete with a Wrapmon, ur team can still beat anything if you have a brain and if ur losing being outplayed u can rely on this bullshit to win in the end - your opp can't really say it's a wrapmon in the back, it could be a normal team
And exactly where is the difference between just having a Slowbro, a Lapras, an Electric, a Rock type in the back? Those even have higher win percentages, ironically enough. You don't need to specifically tailor your team to beat a dragonite and if your "normal team" gets to a position where everything is parad and you have not enough health left to beat a dragonite without misses then you would've probably lost that game if the dragonite was a lapras or an electric too. Funny, isn't it?

remember that the PP count can't be wrong or you can't missclick in the last turn otherwise the PPs will reset 8D;
Pretty sure a good rby player is supposed to know the mechanics of the gen really well and how to operate within them. You are listing this as a reason to ban the mechanic just because it's a mechanic you dislike. Special pleading.

if Smogon is banning Trap Abilities on new gens for taking u the right of doing something basic as switch out
False cause. The difference is that there is actually a gamebreaking (you know, really high win percentage) synergy on stall teams with a trapper.

Things to not ban:

- "it's been here all this time. why change it now? xD" (is this a real arg? the people who play now are mostly people who doesn't even played at the old RBY days on netbattle);
- "i think it is a legitimate strategy, it's your choice to be in that position" (yeah, just like evasion and OHKO moves are as well, you decide you'll have that % of win);
- "the win rate and usage is not that high, so it's probably not that bad XDDD" (okay, should I come back to RBY next SPL and try to win with this shit just to get it banned? I think we could do the same to other tiers, it's a really good policy!!!);
- "i enjoy using/watching it" (OH PLEASE).
This whole section is just a compilation of fictional quotes with some half-ironic responses. This is both a strawman and appealing to emotion and also just lazy as fuck. Jesus christ.

So can't we really ban it asap? Do we have to suspect something like that? Isn't enough putting bo3 only in this gen without a good reason? Can we make some progress here?
Those are some pretty loaded questions. You imply that the state of rby is horrible right now and that everyone who actually argues for or against this is ruining the tournaments or something.

okay, should I come back to RBY next SPL and try to win with this shit just to get it banned? I think we could do the same to other tiers, it's a really good policy!!!
Floppy tried this before. Guess how it turned out.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge defender of wrap and I think some points against it are actually legit. If you actually think it has value, I stated my opinion on the subject in this thread already. I am just not a big fan of posts like that in a serious discussion thread because they don't contribute anything of value in my opinion. And another friendly word of advice, if you want to be taken seriously don't do any of this:
LOLOF COURSE(lol)~8DChonseyxD!!!(OH PLEASE)
Bless up.
 

Mr.E

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Swagger ban is the dumbest fucking thing Smogon has ever done, so let's not encourage more of that Zarel.

OHKO/Evasion ban well precedes Smogon (though they weren't there in competitive Pokémon's beginnings like Sleep Clause). The fact is the matter is that OHKO moves are absolute, 100% pure RNG that basically remove skill from the equation of competitive battling period (especially in early gens, though they'd still break stall mirrors in newer ones). Evasion moves behave similarly, albeit with less reliability but maybe a smidge of strategy involved.

Nonetheless, even if you consider Wrap as being entirely devoid of any skill which I would disagree on, it's simply not reliable enough to be a game-winning strategy by itself and that's why it doesn't need to be banned. Kinda like when we slipped a Brightpowder ban into some other ban for a while and then later removed it. Swagger's only a 45/55 itself that doesn't even work against defensive teams, OHKOs are 30%, evasion moves/abilities starts at what 25%? (The abilities are also effectively worthless without a secondary enabler!)

Lots of shit in mons is no-skill BS but at least we typically only ban the most reliable and abusable forms of such. We don't ban Quick Claw or Brightpowder (except for that one brief period...). Swagger wasn't banned simply because it causes confusion. It's not even the best confusion move. Swagger was singled out because it's also highly abusable with Foul Play, Ditto, etc. in addition to being more dangerous for the opponent to attempt fighting through the confusion. OHKOs are simply too accurate for the risk involved in using them, and while Evasion moves/abilities are slightly less reliable we presume it's close enough to the OHKO case to not risk it, especially since they're subjectively unfun to almost everyone anyway and there's no actual strategic element to "use it and pray the opponent misses." By the same token, we don't ban accuracy-lowering moves because the opponent has the significant counterplay option "switch out" in their case.

Wrap is 85% per pitiful turn of chip damage, especially against teams with Golem/Rhydon. Even a successful Wrap setup simply fails itself far more often than it manages to pull off a sweep because you have to hit so many it makes Brightpowder look reliable in comparison. Doesn't work at all against Gengar. You must be faster than the opposing mon... No legitimate Wrap user (i.e. not Rapidash) even has above average Speed, to say nothing of the ubiquity of paralysis in the RBY metagame. Sure, I can play like a puss and do everything in my power to protect my Wrapper from PAR. I could also just do that with my Tauros like everyone else does and straight 2-3HKO everything, and sometimes you get paralyzed anyway because literally everything in RBY has either Body Slam or T-Wave. (No Wrappers are Normal-type.) Poor distribution forces you into using bad mons to boot, which exacerbates the issue when Wrap-as-a-sweeping-tool inevitably fails you.

Most of the time Wrap is just punishing slow paralyzed mons, like fucking Chansey who nobody likes and why are people actually trying to ban a tool that makes Chansey even slightly less of a bag of dicks, and being a shitty facsimile of U-Turn. That's very fair. And I don't give a fuck whether or not anything is "fun." This is competition, and not a mainstream one we need to sell TV sponsors on. Nobody is forcing you to play or watch RBY games if you don't enjoy them.

Can we BO3 all gens, because I don't understand why we only do it for RBY in SPL anyway? Do people honestly believe their shitty lategen matches that can literally be decided in teambuilder, let alone the continued existence of crits and ever-inaccurate moves and status RNG, are any less luck-based? I think people just don't want to be bothered to build/use multiple teams per week, which takes longer when you have 100+ viable options instead of 20.

I mean, I'd rather BO1 everything because I'm also lazy but the important part is not treating RBY like a retarded kid that needs to take special classes to be as competitive as other gens. I'll settle for BO3 everything though!

bumping. this is still retarded and I have no idea why we allow it
By "this" did you mean this thread?
 
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Wrap is 85% per pitiful turn of chip damage, especially against teams with Golem/Rhydon.
Most "Wrap" users have a way to get rid of Rhydon/Golem. Victreebel runs Razor Leaf, Dragonite runs Blizzard, Cloyster runs Blizzard as well (STAB, and Clamp is super effective against them), even Tangela (which is not used) has Mega Drain. Just Moltres (which is not used as well) can't break through rocks.

Most reliable wrap checks are Starmie, Chansey (which both recover and can paralize on Wrap miss), somehow Snorlax (w either Reflect and/or Rest), and Tauros just as switch-in on miss.

That being said, I just believe that Wrap makes the game unfunny, I wouldn't call it "broken" since it's pretty matchup reliant. Moreover, 85 accuracy often leaves the chance for a countermove (like ThunderWave which destroys the tactic, and we're talking about the most common move on RBY). Reflect, Recover, Rest, together with bulky Pokémon in general are pretty good against it, and since we don't have issues like "reduced PP allowed" or anything, you can still play on PP stall. Even on para vs para, some mons like Slowbro and Snorlax can just Amnesia on miss/fullpara turn to outspeed the wrapper.
Surely wrap counterplay has to be aggressive, if you let your mons all get para'd or you let that Cloyster/Vic/whatever starting wrapping without putting pressure (like doubleswitching or keeping any twave mon on field) you would have more issues but still not what I would consider fair enough to ban (considering that we're talking about a 20-years old gen and only move ban precedents on it were caused by an actual broken glitch)
 

Snou

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Hey, I'm not into rby but I'd like to post this quote from During Summer, cause looks like he has no permissions to post here.

"Hello During Summer here, I can't actually post here because no badges but I think rby is part of my business too. Then - beside there is a small % to win just clicking wrap - ban it is just another way to make even worst this meta. With the new mechs wrap has just become even more easy to counter as a threat since the slam spam won't paralize normal type. From what I've seen there's a nice spam of Reflect Chansey / Rest Snorlax which is always a nice way to solve the wrap threat. Golem/Rhydon are probably able only to stop Moltres (and risk the burn lol) but who uses moltres today? Let's talk about available wrap users: Dragonite / Cloyster / Victreebel. Victrebel (fuck I don't know how to write it right) in a team means that there is no space for Exegg which is a good news for you if you're facing it, actually outspeedded by Tauros/Kazam/Starmie/Jynx/Zapdos/Jolteon/Gengar, what's good with this? Tauros has more chance to clean, Gengar no longer has problem against Psychic spam and Zapdos is about to suffer only +2 Hyper Beam (you know what? If you have Hyper Beam and Sdance, no Sleep Powder!). Dragonite is a little bit problematic but his x4 weakness in an ice-spam meta is p much what you need to stop it. Nite still has to hit a ton of times to kill Starmie for example, no need to explain against Lapras for example. Snorlax has rest and has Body Slam STAB on his side, this means that nite needs to set Agility (=free turn). About PROBABLY the only good wrap user available you just have to play around it, Alakazam/Mie is still a good answer, Clamp is special = chansey has more chance to stop it.

What am I trying to say/explain? It is years that we play RBY (in my case, since 2008) and we find that Wrap is an uncounterable threat only in 2017? even after 2 years of new mechs? Is this a real problem for the RBY community or is it just one of the "big" who has lost against wrap and is trying to let the wrap ban being real instead of saying "Maybe next time I've to play better around wrap, my bad!"?

PS: I think it is better to discuss about making RBY bo1 instead of this

As always, sorry for my bad english >:("

Gimme likes if he said something serious thanks :D
 

Mr.E

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If you're just switching around to waste Wrap PP, it doesn't really matter that Goldon loses to coverage because the opponent is locked into their Wrap move anyway (obviously don't switch them into Clamp though).
 
wraps is unreliable as hell, i really don't see why people overestimate it so much. ofc wrap team can have good matchup vs teams who run rocks / bro, but don't act like it hasn't any drawback. when using wraps, unless you use rhydon over lax you are weak to zap (and if you use rhydon, you can't really switch into boltbeam chansey), and using vic means you aren't using exe, which means you are weak to zam or starmie in the back too if your opp can boom on your chansey. 15% chances of missing is also kind of bad since you usually have to spam it.

i know wraps is kind of dumb in theory, but in practice it does very little (you can also see my g3 vs lusch this week in spl where i tried to surprise him with wraps but ended up losing to zap for instance), and most wrap users (except cloy i'd say) offers very little defensively (dnite is kind of bad as last slot, since it just dies to ch blizzard from bull, and loses to mie / lap in most cases)

tl;dr wrap is overestimated, and thats just something you can't rely on, also it offers some more options to use in a tier where there are very few things to use, which isn't bad. also i don't think the "i don't like playing against it" argument really makes any sense, there are things in pokèmon that are annoying to face, but thats not the reason we should ban them.
 

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