How a One-Hit-KO Move took over Competitive Pokemon 

if it isnt 100% accurate it's 50% accurate

@@grixan8012 EXACTLY

Me after missing 10 air slashes in a row

@@grixan8012 hall yeah

​​@@zachpro5475 hail yeah

focus blast: "If it no 100%, it 0%"

@PEYTON THE PROTAGONIST if that’s the case, why not use Tera Blast? I know it’s a lot weaker than Focus Blast but it has 100 accuracy no?

I heard this while watching pokeaim and I've never heard anything more true

mikey fans after discovering ohkos

Unless it’s a poison type using toxic, that’s the one exception

playing against stall mons is worse tbh, I would rather have 1HKO moves than have to sit there and watch a glalie wipe my entire team for free

Omg, so cool to see you here Dan! It's just so lovely that two of my favorite RU-vidrs are friends united by pkm

I guess it’s accuracy is what keeps it legal, or lack of accuracy.

honestly skill issue

Imo, at the time, if fissure was considered the best strategy that existed and someone wasn't using it they didn't want to win as much. When playing competitively, winning is the only thing that matters

having the "recharge" turn first is also arguably better then having it second, in many circumstances.

@@vivil2533 is it? I was under the impression that moves like solar beam and the like were worse than recharging moves because the opponent knows what you’re going to do and can switch out to a pokemon that resists it. Is this assumption wrong?

@@finderfinder4290 the idea behind such moves is that they're suppose to be so strong that no pokemon takes it well. If a strong pokemon uses solar beam the opponent has to choose switch to a resist, or likely lose a pokemon. The idea being that the resist takes so much damage that you can finish it off. Solar beam is a bad move mostly because if typing, a lot of double grass resists exist, and not many super power house grass types. If I use giga impact however, I will kill whatever is in front of me, but then give my opponent a free turn to do whatever he pleases. He even gets switch advantage since his pokemon fainted, allowing him to switch to his sweeper and counter ko, or use a set up move like sword dance, dragon dance, or belly drum completely safe. The incoming attack being predictable, allows you to somewhat manipulate the opponent, but the recharge being second allows the opponent to do literally anything he wants, with full knowledge you can't do shit about it. To be fair both types of move are worse than moves that don't waste a turn, but choosing who to throw into an ove base 100 move is alot different than choosing hoe to take advantage of a free turn. (Double battles complicate thing but it's mostly the same premise, with the addition of not onow who is being targeted)

​@@vivil2533 or they can just use protect when your attack charges.

@@serhumano3692 thats still not as detrimental as giving them a turn that they know is free. IMO you're giving them a free turn either way, but in on instance they know its free, and can just set up on you. also if it's doubles, they have to either guess who you're attacking or double protect, in which case your second pokemon is safe to set up. Any move that takes two turns is bad, but think about all the things you can do if you KNOW you're opponent cant do anything, now think of all the things you can do if you KNOW a 140 Base Power sky attack is coming. Like i said you could argue one way or the other, but i would rather not give my opponent a turn where they know for certain I cant do anything. also in doubles things like taunt can be used to make set up moves, and protect non issues, but two turn moves aren't that good so i doubt you would want to commit that hard.

As a smart man once said “If it ain’t 100% accurate it’s 50% accurate” MandJTV

Lmao i got my master ball tier by double rock slide

@@jasonmarholz2427 Hail Yeah!

Either it happens, or it doesn't.

Got ohko in the same battle twice with this thing yet almost none of my rock slide flinched lmfao im cursed

All that and it's an easy strategy to learn. When a new game or series comes out, the ladder is usually saturated with these style of strategies and less with more complicated ones, (Example hyper offence vs. trick room.) This is because people are trying to learn the new matchups and new meta, something easier to do when you don't have to think as much about your teams strategy. It's why Dondozo/Tatsu were so popular at the start of S/V but has become less popular as time goes on.

fun fact, in smogons rulings (in every smogon format except pure hackmons and anything goes the 2 no ban formats) ohko moves are banned not from being op, just from being unfun to play against. It's like if GF gave the E4 aces sheer cold, for normal player yea just go overlevel them, but if you go for a no overleveling rule then you KNOW that thing is gonna okho you at least twice and there is nothing you can do. It just wasn't FUN to lose a game to 30% odds. This is why I actually prefer smogon to VGC smogon operates on a system that is unfun/unfair means it should be banned. VGC, okay let's be real item clause and species clause is meaningless you would very rarely wanna run 2 of the same mons anyway (in smogon ag that is only ever used with stuff like Liepard anyway doing revive cats or other stupid unfun strats). I also hate the mindset of "its a legend it's op". Should we really put Articuno and Mega Rayquaza in the same category?

@@cryochick9044 Yeah, thing with Smogon bans of Evasion/OHKO moves is that, it's not that they're broken that they would absolutely dominate the game if they were released (they wouldn't), but having the option to run them at some point just takes a lot of the skill expression from both players out of the equation, OHKO moves would still be only rarely used, but absolutely no one is going to enjoy losing a tournament match because their opponent happened to be carrying it AND got lucky with it. And, the main reason being, there's far less counterplay to such moves in a SIngles format, where you only have one Pokémon out at all times

@@NickoStallPato oh evasion WAS stupid. IIRC it was banned before baton pass as they thought that is what made baton pass broken it wasn't but in smogon doubles evasion clause IS NOT in effect as it is weaker

@@cryochick9044 Oh spare my sides. Smogon's metagame choices seem to hinge far more on how butthurt its administrators are feeling at any given time vs new stuff than it does anything being "fun" or "unfun". They've created entire sub-divisions of sub-divided metagames purely out of spite before. (PU being a prime example; because "never" apparently doesn't mean "never" when it's an admin's pet meta)

Also, there's teams so bulky that fissure is genuinely the best strat available, most notably Dozo-Giri.

I guess in this case "expected pokemon kill" is more relevant than "expected damage". Fissure's expected pokemon kill is 0.3 pokemon, and Ruination has...0.

How is using fissure over ruination considered high variance?

Except that isn't exactly true, since we're talking doubles. Sure, ruination won't get that KO, but it CAN ensure that your other Pokémon does. @@user-hz7tt1ed8d

This. The EV math was fine, but the reasoning was just bad.

Is smogon OU singles or doubles mainly?

​@@A_Ali173 singles mostly but they do have a separate doubles section with it's own rules as well

@@A_Ali173 Smogon OU is singles if you're saying it like that, but smogon also has Doubles OU which differs a little from VGC (6v6, no item clause, Pokemon are banned by the community rather than by GameFreak)

Because smogon is trash 😎 who cares about it

​@PCB smogon doesnt have fissure coinflips deciding games, unlike some other formats~

he does't act narcisistic at ALLLLL (I think he does it more as a joke I doubt he actually thinks he is the complete best player)

​@@cryochick9044 afaik he doesn't actually think he's the #1 best, it's almost definitely a joke. he's made a video about the best players (ranked by accolades) before where he put himself at #3, #2 being sejun park and #1 being ray rizzo (the video is old tho). limitlessvgc actually does rank him at #1 but their rating system massively underrates world championship wins (which rizzo won 3 of). (just giving context for those interested)

@@lateralyst thanks king ❤

@@lateralyst ye I didn't think he actually thought he was the best. no doubt he is among them though (best pokemon trainer is honest mewtwo, they can read your mind and always know the right move.)

​@@cryochick9044 mewtwo unfortunately hates humans, and will not be playing in official tournaments anytime soon.

The Mega-Beedrill effect: It doesnt matter if your stat total is bad if your stat distribution is good. Except Ting-Lu also has a good BST which is why its broken

@@alibekzholaman2923 Other examples of this, Flutter Mane, Iron Valiant, Roaring Moon, Clodsire, Toxapex, all of the other ruin pokemon, iron bundle, the list goes on

@@arthurfilion5992 iron valiant has a lot of points wasted on one of its attacks in doubles and wo chien has a lot wasted in both of its attack and its 70 speed

@@arthurfilion5992 Iron Valiant is a terrible example of good BST distribution. If Iron Valiant's 570 BST wasn't eaten up by 130 Atk AND 110 Sp. Atk. If it dropped one of those stats by 70 points, it would be able to put those now freed up 70 points into something like its HP, defenses, or god forbid, its speed. If you run physical Valiant, your BST is actually 460. If you run special Valiant, your BST is a pathetic 440. The same philosophy can be applied to anything with 70-90 base speed. You're not fast enough to outrun the base 100 speed tier or anything higher. The only speeds that matter are 100+. So if you have 500 BST to distribute to your own concept pokemon, and you give 70 of that BST to speed, you're wasting 70 BST. Make the base speed 10 and put those 60 base points into stacking up one offense stat and rounding out its defense. 120 HP, 10 Atk, 110 Def, 140 Sp. Atk, and 110 Sp. Def, to go with the base 10 speed. With a 500 BST, I made the best trick room stat spread in the game. Dragonite has a 600 BST and is less tanky than my pokemon, doesn't hit as hard with either stat, and isn't even fast enough to outspeed the base 100 speed tier, nor slow enough to benefit from Trick Room. Dragonite has an average base 80 speed and a horrifying 100 Sp. Atk. Why is that 100 Sp. Atk horrifying? Because no one in the history of ever would use that stat when they can use 134 Atk to click Extreme Speed, Dragon Claw, and Earthquake. If that worthless 100 Sp. Atk got dropped to 50, and put those 50 base stats into its speed, all of a sudden you now have a base 130 speed and you're now a fast threat that isn't only useful for clicking Extreme Speed. Or, you could drop your speed all the way to 30 and use those 100 base stats to invest in your bulk and become unkillable. You don't care about being fast if you have a great priority move and can never get killed because you have such high HP and defenses.

@@dariogomezlopez3278 Tbf iron valiant is supposed to be a mixed attacker, but yeah, some points in wo chiens bst are wasted

Kind of but also not really. There's two main differences between using stomping twice and using it once after whiffing a move: - First, and kind of obviously: both interactions play over the course of two turns. Going for two stompings guarantees you damage on the first turn, whereas a move failing doesn't. That means if you, say, get ko'd, or find yourself unable to make a move on the second turn, then one of the scenarios nets you damage while the other doesn't, which can be pretty impactful in a metagame where a lot of pokemon are very bulky like vgc. Besides, using two stomping tantrums allows you to potentially switch up your target between turns. - Second, variance. Because each stomping tantrum has 16 different damage rolls, rolling the die twice over once means you get a different average damage using either strategy

Yea his editing has really stepped up in Gen 9, really shows the effort he's putting into his videos this generation

Sometimes i think it's too much of a videorebus, almost everything he says is represented with animations. It can give the impression that the viewer might not be smart enough to understand his explaination without visualizing. But it's indeed fun to watch.

​@@Symonch_a lot of children probably watch these videos and also the animations are good for people with shorter attention spans

@@-.bella.- the attention span part (outside of more clinical cases) is concerning nowadays

Interesting idea!

I like this line of thinking but it neglects the opportunity cost of running an OHKO move. A different 4th move could increase the chances of winning too.

@@KingHarambe_RIP that's definitely true, i don't know enough to comment on all the alternatives tbh

In terms of yugioh I think it would be good to look at fissure or other one hit KO moves like having an Exodia deck or other auto win cards. They are incredibly powerful but so inconstant that very few people ever use them.

@@danielbernhardt1327 Yeah but imagine if exodia was just a single card instead of 5. That'd be more accurate (although that is still not that accurate, there just isn't a good analogue). The opportunity cost of running fissure here is fairly low and you certainly don't have to base your entire strategy (or any of it) around running fissure.

Mind games are just a more colorful way of saying "we actually had to use real strategy in this match". Clicking the button that has the mathematically highest chance of success on repeat isn't strategy or skill.

​@@dontmisunderstand6041constructing the teams and movesets to accommodate the meta is absolutely skill based (unless you're netdecking obv)

@@anguishedcarpet If the only thing you constructed your team and moveset around was the meta, you just lose to every rogue team. You need to start with a solid core strategy independent of the meta and then adapt it to raise your odds within the meta without introducing too many glaring weaknesses to off-meta strategies. Yes, team building is skill based, but focusing solely on the meta is going to kill your win rate in any scenario where the meta isn't 100% of the opponents you face.

@@dontmisunderstand6041 I said "accommodate" not "completely hyper focused on countering". Nice strawman tho 👍

@@anguishedcarpet Demonstrate precisely how my argument is a strawman. In other words, explain in detail exactly how you would go about accommodating the meta without sacrificing anything whatsoever against any and all potential non-meta threats. If you cannot do that in a satisfactory manner, then my argument is not a strawman, it's just correct. I'd be more than willing to concede this point to you if you can show how it's possible to maintain those two seemingly contradictory states of being simultaneously.

The best kind of win is by defult

But how angry will you be if the only reason you lost a match is because you lucked out ? Answer : For some, enough to quit pokemon and other rng heavy games entirely

imagine if real life were like that, failing simply for bad luck?

@@maxentirunos Budy I play yugioh for fun, I am no stranger to this

@@hectorrodriguezgonzalez8938 I mean, at least not every single card ask you to throw a dice each and every time you want to use an effect, attack or change position with the action failing if you got a 1 or 6.

Yeah dondonzo, another toxic OHKO move user XD. Amazing typing amazing stat amazing ability

@@mic01851165 And here's the underlying truth: *If the OHKO moves are actually viable, something is horribly wrong with the metagame.*

Oh yea I have seen that in dondozo v dondozo mirrors you want fissure so they can have a chance to deal with one another, I made a vgc team and it has dondozo with tera flying and fissure soely for that reason. (full set was tera blast fissure wave crash rest)

@@misirtere9836 This seems like the actual truth, GF did a terrible mistake by introducing stuff like Dondozo and Ting-Lu the way they are, not like Flutter Mane existing helps any matters

From my personal(!) understanding, that is the very definition of "broken" - it breaks the fun of the game. Ot's not overpowered because there are clear weaknesses, but it definitely takes away the fun for one of two players - and 3 outta 10 times that's not the person who decided to run the move.

didn't expect to see you here

oh wow glitch's here!

A Very unexpected appearance from you

Clicking on this video after a 3-hour run of Reborn and seeing you in the comments is a surreal experience.

Except that this mon can afford to keep clicking the button for effectively no downside because it's so bulky.

Me too

What about mind reader and sheer cold?

​@@NA-ut6dzall OHKO moves are banned in official Smogon competitive, if you're talking about pure hackmons we might've met in a battle and yes that's a strategy

​@@NA-ut6dz a timeless classic?

​@@NA-ut6dzthat combo is really bad actually since you can just switch out after mind reader to nullify its effects (or just use Protect).

Yep Corgrats Wolfe

Do you know what happened to the million sub stream?

Wolfe Was Caught CHEATING !

@@melvondrewhite2674 when? Please enlighten me

definitely congrats, but your comment is real sus

hello pear!

My guy

Wait WHAT my two favorite youtubers?

Oh no now he knows now how to use ting lu

Where was Ray? Kept waiting for him to pop up.

I was about to write up the same point. Glad to have this correction in the comment section. Please pin !

Ya was thinking the same thing. I guess most of the time people would only click either of those two moves when their opponent is max hp?

Unless you're only ever spamming fissure (meaning your opponent is always max hp) fissure also goes down in value when your opponent takes damage, just like ruination. Fissuring a 4hp target is just as bad as ruination on a 4hp target. Basically, the calculations still hold even at less than max hp.

If you're talking about single battles, sure, your argument makes sense. But in double battles, which is where this whole Fissure discussion came up recently, I believe you get more value with Ruination because even if the effect from Ruination decreases as the battle goes on, it might leave opposing Pokemon just in range to be knocked out by Ting-Lu's partner, which makes it more consistent than a OHKO move that can take up to 3-4 attempts in general to produce some effect.

Except that you forgot that the value of fissure in an opponent with less health also decreases. You wouldn't use fissure at a target with 20% or less, as well as you're not clicking ruination on that turn. Ruination is just more consistent because it not only deals damage more consistently, but it helps ting-lu's teamates clean up the field more easily.

-mandjtv (you are truly a man on culture)

Ruination should knock out eventually, becaus attacks do a minimum damage of one if they connect.

Yeah, Wolfey's expected value argument pretends that all damage is equally valuable (ignoring KOs). I think he even knows this doesn't make sense, he just wants to make Fissure look bad.

@@MouldMadeMind The "expected value" of knocking out a pokemon THAT way is extremely low, though. What's more plausible is Ruination-Ruination-(some other attack) for the knockout; but the expected value of that isn't actually higher than the expected value of using Fissure 3 times (except against Flying types).

Yeah realistically it's a lot more situational than just expected damage value. If ruination+you're allies next attack is a guaranteed kill, that shoots up it's value. You also have to consider that many times, one of the other two attacking moves is going to be stronger than ruination, making it redundant, whereas fissure is only redundant if you have a guaranteed kill with another move. Also has the bonus value of killing through sub IIRC. So even if ting-lu never changed, the meta itself would play a big role in how valuable one is vs the other.

​@@MouldMadeMind it still takes 8 attacks for ruination to get a ko

UNFORTUNATELY

@@babybababofski7908 TING-LU

"So we got this monster of a mon And the rest is history..."

We’ll have to wait about 9 or 10 years for a video like that.

Singles section would be smaller 😂

You do know that there are 2 pokemon on your side right? 50% is usually enough to threaten anything from your speedy partner the following turn or at least force you to play around it by switching/protecting (oh look the same thing you would do against the 150 power Tantrum on miss).

@@amethonys2798 And ting Lu is usually the slowest of your allies, which diminishes the value of ruination to the point it's kinda equal to Fissure.

He didn't come up with this. He's just relaying the message

​@@melvondrewhite2674 If you really thought he was a cheater then why are you on his video.

@@ShinyHydrapplTheSyrpent Thought ? It’s Already Been Proven 😂

Yeah, its stupid to drop a strategy just because of some sense of worthless pride, especially when the Fissure strategy is actually quite interesting with how it intersects with other moves in its kit and how it can be countered.

True, I mean look at the TCG, luck based choices are EVERYWHERE. And most of its contemporaries like Yugioh or MTG to a slightly lesser extent have entire archetypes and playstyles built around luck and manipulating your chances.

And this is why vgc has such a low viewer count. Pokemon yes does have a skill level of some sort but the amount of luck based moves and abilities are insane. So many games I have watched on vgc that end on pure luck even when that player winning is clearly outskilled by the other, this is something that plagues the game very badly.

Yes

Saying this is about pride misses the point of what wolfey was trying to say imo He doesn't care about pride and frankly caring about it is exactly how you plateau at a skill-based game. That's how it goes However, he asks these questions because he wants to ask people how it feels to play around these OHKO moves (why would you play your favorite game if it's not rewarding in what it determines as skill) AS WELL AS ask the following: WHAT DO THE OHKO MOVES REWARD PEOPLE FOR DOING? OHKO moves are essentially a dice roll and are a high risk high reward shotput of a move that people tend to click til they hit the jackpot - while they may follow the game's rules on a basic foundational level, they bypass several of the nuances of skill-based mental gameplay that are the main selling point of the franchise's games. The moves encourage clicking them as many times as possible before the opportunity wanes out. Rewarding someone for cheesing the OHKO 30% of the time, especially when it happens multiple times, is a good way to discourage the actual appeal behind pokemon (trying to mindgame your opponent) and simply encourages gambling for the 30% chance you simply kill the pokemon without bothering with any other interaction it would've proposed - is that an appealing game to watch, let alone invest time into?

This seems pretty fun. I love me some antimeta gimmick crap.

Anti meta gimmick strats can be really fun and perform great on the ladder since it’s best of 1 closed sheets

What version of Lycanroc? If you used the Midnight version, 100% respect.

Interesting. Yeah, your point is correct but some players prefer consistency.

​@@blazechaos212 Naturally, the choice is not straightforward: I like to look at it as a maximization of expected added value to the pokémon. My only point here is that expected value of the damage is an insufficient argument to decide one attack over the other. A bit math below: It can be meta-specific that one attack outperforms the other (also based on coverage), or just preference. 1. coverage (If there are a lot of flying/levitate pokémon in meta; fissure=bad. If my damaging moveset does too little damage and switching seems suboptimal; fissure=strong) 2. My favorite reasonings: follow-up turns (with x% certainty this strategy can ko the opponent's pokemon within y turns; or have as goal to just harm the pokémon. Fissure kills for sure on average within 3 1/3 turn; this is a statistical certainty:30% chance on first turn, 51% chance within 2 turns, 65.7% within 3 turns).

This is a very fair point! My reasoning is that if you’re clicking Fissure, you should probably assume the opponent will survive unless it’s a last resort, so I didn’t mention it in the video, but the upside of getting the KO is definitely something worth considering

Meanwhile Wo chien is crying in a corner.

you have a way better chance of OHKO'ing than you do getting a crit, which sounds really wrong to me.

they could change ohko move mechanics to being based on setup

@@GastricProblemsHaver lock on + OHKO?

When i first saw the fissure set, my first thought was "no blunder policy?".

@@-LastStand- Blunder Policy doesn't work with OHKO moves, according to the wiki.

@@calsalitra4689 checked multiple, and couldn't find anything like that.

@@-LastStand- Did you check Bulbapedia? According to that at least it doesn't work with OHKO moves. It's in the effects section. Could be wrong, could be not, I don't know.

Ironically, the only way for OHKO moves to ever be competitively viable is in cases where the strategies around them do make them genuinely good showcases of pure skill rather than luck. So the logic is fundamentally incorrect.

@@dontmisunderstand6041Well Showdown is a matchmaking program. For every person who elevates the OHKO’s viability using a unique strat there’s little timmy throwing out fissures and sheer colds and getting rewarded from time to time. That or people who deliberately make teams to piss people off which is not uncommon in showdown

@@dragonlord564 Statistically, OHKO moves are better than a 4 hit kill. That's just how math works. Reasonably, that on its own puts their viability in terms of pure damage on par with most uses aqua jet. Looking at individual moves in a vacuum like this doesn't exactly tell the full story, as those previous statements should indicate. imo, if your strategy can't handle losing one of its components, it's a bad strategy that deserves to lose. I don't feel bad for people who lose to an errant OHKO, because you should always be prepared to lose a team member unexpectedly. That's a fundamental part of what makes pokemon a game instead of a math simulator.

@@dontmisunderstand6041 For an environment that tries to promote skill OHKO moves are going to be a problem. People already feel like they lose too many games to real RNG with missing and Crits or practically RNG with generational gimmicks like Dynamax or Tera. specifically when the entire game flow turns on it’s head unexpectedly when the opposing Pokémon can just negate a would be counter or there sweep is interrupted and turned around not by outplaying but by having a Pokémon that can some percent of the time always win, this frustration doesn’t even go away if you do win because the brain has a bias towards frustration. It’s just fundamentally opposed to the environment Smogon wants to make

@@dragonlord564 There is no skill involved when there's no RNG, because at that point it's all just math. If it's not possible for things to go wrong, then it's not possible to be skillful. At that point there is no skill, only knowledge. There becomes an objectively correct solution. A solveable game ceases to be a game when either player knows the solution. And that circles back to a point I've been trying to get across: competitive players don't care about skill expression or he health of the game. They want to win, and want to feel like they deserve it. This mindset is inherently anti-competitive and devalues skill, but they don't want to acknowledge this because it would, again, make them feel like they didn't deserve to win.

I doubt it. They don't ban moves unless they cause glitches. Even if they see wide use in competitive play.

They won't remove it or nerf it, they might just ban Ting-Lu

They never ban specific stuff

Vgc having bans? Funny joke mate (besides the pokémon allowed format, which you could argue are banning the non-allowed mons, but since they never ban the overpowered ones I will argue it isn't quite the same)

big stall approved

It actually is straightforward. You're literally losing nothing. Fissure -> Stomping Tantrum is objectively superior to simply using Stomping Tantrum twice. In all possible cases.

@@dontmisunderstand6041 Someone misusing objectively pretentiously as they always do.

@@skeetermania3202 No? Fissure -> Stomping Tantrum is not *subjectively* superior To Stomping Tantrum -> Stomping Tantrum. It's objectively superior. Literally the same result or better in all cases from Fissure -> Stomping Tantrum. It's not a matter of personal opinion, taste, or perspective. It's just fact. It's true no matter what your opinion is. Objective. It's just what the word means. I understand where you're coming from. It's a word that is misused a lot, especially in online forums, and almost always by pretentious douchebags. This is not one of those cases. The word was used correctly.

@@dontmisunderstand6041 Markers of judgment inherently lean themselves to opinion as standards vary.

@@dontmisunderstand6041 Key words being “good,” “bad,” “worse,” “better,” etc.