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How RNG Strategies Are Being Abused In OU


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I'll provide not only theory but also evidence from recent tournaments & current ranked play from this season + last season to back up this claim. In this very long winded post I will break down how the introduction of RNG strategies bit-by-bit has slowly began to shape OU into an RNG hell hole.

 

*I have tried to find at least 1 video example for each point here, but the video may not correlate directly with the point made since I do not record every single duel which I play lol

 

In this thread i will attempt to list and create a discussion on the current RNG abuse which (mainly) is happening in OU, alongside a list of viable solutions for each. I hope to create a discussion and dialogue with players, mods and developers alike. So we can nip these issues in the bud. If anyone has any good examples in lower tiers please post and I'll add it to the post too.

 

Firstly I want to speak about in my opinion the biggest issue right now, and that is:

 

Kings Rock:

 

For those who don't know, or need a refresher this is what this item does:

 

"Grants all attacking moves that do not already have a chance to flinch a 10% chance of causing each target to flinch."

 

Now, a 10% flat rate would not be entirely problematic, it's an annoyance.. sure. The issues begin to arise when you combine this item with multi hit moves, specifically Skill Link on Cloyster. Utilising King's Rock gives Cloyster a 41% chance of flinching the opponent when using Rock Blast or Icicle Spear. a 41% flinch chance is very high. 2nd to only Togekiss (60%) having this high of a % rate to brute force an opposing check or counter with flinches is way too high, and way too consistent when paired with a move with can boost speed up to +2. I'll show some examples below.

 

Example 1: https://streamable.com/4by1p9 Cloyster brute forcing probably the best wall against it (Relaxed Poliwrath) Typically this is unviable, but this was used in an anti Cloyster counter team. Even so it was irrelevant because it just dropped to the flinches. - Warning message did not do anything.

 

Example 2: https://streamable.com/mi5wkg Cloyster brute forcing its way past a Jellicent even after it was disabled by its only move which hits Jellicent for decent damage. The other player is forced to recover, then scald and pray for a burn, which does not happen. - Warning message did not do anything, again.

 

Example 3: One of my many personal experiences with this horrible mon flinching my bold Rotom-Wash to death from max HP.  Warning message did not do anything.... Yet again. (This was from ranked so I could not record for a better view.)

Spoiler

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In every single scenario the new change in mechanic of announcing King's Rock had 0 impact, and this is the case almost every single time. As there is nothing to counterplay this mon other than luck itself. Even if you hard counter it.

 

What are the solutions to fix this item?

Well, there are a few viable ones. However the developers are very hard headed on not banning hax items for some strange reason. Below I will list off a few acceptable / "viable" options which I will list from best to worst.

 

1) Remove the item from competitive play

2) Nerf the flinch % to 10% even on multi hit moves

3) Make Skill Link + King's Rock banned under a new clause "Skill Link + Kings Rock Clause"

4) A complete rework of the item, changing it completely adding a new viable strategy; you are unable to be flinched. This will mimic how the old version of inner focus used to work.

 

As you can see the lower we go in the list the more wacky the solutions are, I would also like to mention that I strongly believe even if it is banned for Cloyster we will see a big spike in usage of King's Rock on Weavile to utilise beat up + Icicle Spear, which is manageable yes. But still utilises a very broken anti skill strategy. But other than this I believe they are all are suitable changes which will balance this item.

 

Cursed Body:

 

For those who don't know, or need a refresher this is what this ability does:

 

"When a Pokémon with this Ability is hit by a damaging move, there is a 30% chance that the Cursed Body will disable that move of the attacking Pokémon for 4 turns."

 

 Once you begin to play regular ranked / tours you really notice how ridiculous and pretentious this ability is. The 2 users of this ability mostly have to be attacked directly to be taken down, since Gengar is immune to toxic and very hard to chip to death; while Jellicent almost always carries taunt. Putting you into a situation where every time you attack with a choice locked mon (which is most commonly used to eliminate both mons) you immediately can become setup bait for a setup sweeper hiding in the back. 

 

Here's an example below of how Cursed Body takes the game out of peoples hands from those who have very valid strategies of eliminating a Pokemon with cursed body:

 

Example 1 (shortened): https://streamable.com/17g5yt

Example 1 (full battle): https://streamable.com/c4ho7d

 

As you can see, the game was won until cursed body had activated and he was able to put rocks up..  So he switched while rocks went up, meaning that he could no longer set up rain and win the game. This would not have been able to happen without Cursed Body.

 

 

Potential solutions:

1) Ban the ability from competitive play

2) Nerf the Cursed Body chance to 10%

3) Only non contact moves / non choiced etc

4) Ban Cursed body + Revert gengar to Levitate

 

Sand Veil:

 

Probably the last of the big RNG issues in OU right now is sand veil, It is able to completely turn the tides in games and you can be absolutely helpless to it..

 

Example: https://streamable.com/egvs01

 

As you can see, this player was about to win with Excadrill - but out of no where Garchomp dodges an earthquake and kills his win condition. There is no way it would have survived without this dodge. It is able to change games and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. There is no counter play other than not using sand yourself, and hoping that your opponent does not use sand (this is difficult when Tyranitar is used with Garchomp 47% of the time). This is not healthy.

 

In my opinion this ability should fall under the current evasion clause we have in PVP, since the ability literally says

 

"Sand Veil raises the ability-bearer's evasion by 20% in a sandstorm. It also gives immunity to sandstorm damage"

 

How does this not fall under the evasion clause? This is an ability which directly boosts evasion. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Accupressure:

 

This is NOT an over-arching meta destroying move, but i thought i'd mention it since it should simply just be immediately banned under the evasion clause.

 

I won't type much for this, as it is honestly quite rare. However - I just ask you to watch this example clip of it boosting evasion.

 

This is absolutely insane, I know. But I literally spectated 1 game from this specific person and I saw this lol. I was also told from various players about them auto losing to this because they simply couldn't hit.

 

Example: https://streamable.com/yxrkr3 - For context the Cofagrigus was tricked.

 

We have an evasion clause, this should simply fall under the evasion clause and the move should no longer boost evasion or simply be banned in competitive play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, how successful and consistent are these strategies? Let me show you examples from a player who i have anonymised as "RNG Abuser" to prevent any witch-hunt or toxicity directed to this person. Since it is not their fault that these strategies are available to be abused, but the current system which enables them.
 

The team he abuses: https://pokepast.es/1ff4127f4d6d5766 (Abuse of Kings rock and Cursed body)

 

 

 

CC Win

Spoiler

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Official Final (OU)

Spoiler

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Official Final (OU)

Spoiler

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Spoiler

image.png.5e83b972c52a3e79eea16c1f43a87eeb.png

 

All of this is within the past 2 weeks (from written), these are examples from 2 back to back official OUs and 1 CC. But, if this is not enough please see below that he is able to net himself on a top 10 spot, with a 70% WR on ranked in over 500 games. Using purely, and only RNG strategies. This is not the only person abusing such strategies, but the most prominent one who caught my eye.

 

 

 

I don't necessarily want to close off this post at all, but rather I'd like to continue the discussion to the rest of the comments in this post. I want people to share their thoughts on these items, abilities and moves. Are they as potent as I believe they are? And if I am wrong please disprove me below. I am open to all forms of discussion with anyone with good points, thank you for reading.

 

 

Chinese translation + thread: 

 

 

Edited by Lvkee
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16 minutes ago, Huargensy said:

Totally agree, I have been asking for these things to be banned for months, acupressure is rare to see, I would not take it as a problem but it would be better if it is eliminated, it is not relevant anyway.

Psdt: Now caioxlive comes to say that they help defeat the stall

I agree, however I wanted to include it as a last sub-section as I think it is stupid how it is abuseable.

 

7 minutes ago, Quinn010 said:

i think this a wrong clip

 

Thanks for pointing that out, 3 clips were incorrect they have all been fixed.

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Personally I came back to MMO for a bit last month and if I'm being honest OU feels terrible to play.

Most of the time it feels like you're matchup fishing no matter what you build, not only is hyper offense completely hopeless in this meta with stuff like rain or conk existing but now even normal offense has to deal with a thick layer of RNG product of dev meddling which makes it simply not fun to play against. I've been very vocal about Cursed Body lately, and if I'm being honest Sand Veil is just as bad.

 

An offensive team of mine is pretty damn solid with Tyranitar in it, however the Garchomp matchup becomes a complete coin toss because of Sand Veil, I do have stuff that can oneshot chomp however most of the time if sand is active I have to find myself making either crazy reads to stall out sand so I can land an Ice Beam proper or else I'll likely take big losses just dictated by RNG, this pretty much discourages me from using Tyranitar who, again, is usually a perfect fit for my teams in order to use something worse just because luck may not be on my side, that or just dropping offense altogether.

 

Gengar is another case, it's really fast, hits hard and has always been a fairly annoying matchup for offense, the best way to deal with it is usually a Scarfer or CB Scizor, if you do manage to hit it, you'll have a chance of triggering Cursed Body and after killing it, your opponent has complete momentum and freedom to set up a powerful win condition that maybe they wouldn't be able to do were their opponents not locked into using Struggle.

Hell even when you set up for a sweep yourself and say, your STAB being spammed wins the game, hitting a Gengar at the wrong time with it may make you lose the game altogether since you could be forced out by something else that can set up, likely twice, on you and turn everything around.

 

It's not just offensive play that gets stomped by Cursed Body though, I've had admittedly rough matchups using stall where I cannot do anything about Gengar, due to my low offensive power and limited options to take a hit and retaliate Gengar usually requires more than one hit to be taken down, usually from my Blissey or maybe a Mandibuzz or whatever, but if I get Cursed Body'd on one of these usually mono attackers, it's all over, that Gengar has objectively single handedly won the match as it can set up a second time and nuke everything unless it gets incredibly unlucky with Focus Blast. Stall has a bit more leeway on the Garchomp issue since Chomp has a harder time breaking past stuff now, but say you wanna use Hippowdon with something like Ice Fang or Whirlwind to phase it out since normally Hippowdon is a perfect fit for your team, then you're accidentally adding another layer of RNG to the match even if you don't desire it.

Edited by suigin
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@Lvkee In your OP, please tag the devs or whichever genius was behind dropping Kings Rock so that they are notified of this thread and as a result can't pretend that this thread doesn't exist. 

 

I've mostly played OU ever since stuff like Garchomp and Rotom were implemented, and since the only tier I play is garbage right now because of how it is infested with RNG strategies where players can just freely cast their fishing rod and snag any sort of luck -> flinch, cursed body activation, sand veil evasion - I have zero desire to play this game. 

 

I noticed some positive changes made in the competitive side like changing definition of certain terms and banning P2 and Lucario (if I'm right), which I really commend, but please save OU now. 

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I've been suggesting it for like a year already to nerf king's rock to activate only once even on multi-hit moves. We know the outcome, though ? 

 

E:

@Lvkee I noticed that Quick Claw was not mentioned in there. Maybe @OrangeManiac could shed some light on that ridiculous item as I do remember he was very disgusted with it's mechanics

Edited by RysPicz
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7 hours ago, NikhilR said:

@Lvkee In your OP, please tag the devs or whichever genius was behind dropping Kings Rock so that they are notified of this thread and as a result can't pretend that this thread doesn't exist. 

@Rache@Squirtle @Kyu

 

I'd appreciate if any of you could read my post, and any corresponding replies from known members of the community - and potentially respond. Thank you ? 

Edited by Lvkee
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I agree with King's rock.

I disagree with Cursed Body. There are multiple ways to work around the ability the same way one can play around Togekiss or even stuff like Gyarados. I don't understand the video you showed either because the rain player misplayed to oblivion.

Accupressure is a meme and I won't even dwell into it.

Sand Veil is valid because fixed evasion is just bs in this game in general.

 

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12 minutes ago, pachima said:

I disagree with Cursed Body. There are multiple ways to work around the ability the same way one can play around Togekiss or even stuff like Gyarados.

Provide 3 ways to do so.

For flinchers: Outspeed them using your speed stat, Have abilities that ignore flinch, use priority to hit them.

Now tell me 3 ways a direct attack can outplay a Cursed Body proc without giving away a ton of momentum.

Quote

Sand Veil is valid because fixed evasion is just bs in this game in general.

Can you elaborate on why it is valid? Why shouldn't fixed evasion be removed altogether?

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3 minutes ago, suigin said:

Provide 3 ways to do so.

For flinchers: Outspeed them using your speed stat, Have abilities that ignore flinch, use priority to hit them.

Now tell me 3 ways a direct attack can outplay a Cursed Body proc without giving away a ton of momentum.

Can you elaborate on why it is valid? Why shouldn't fixed evasion be removed altogether?

I mean valid as being problematic sorry. 

 

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On 11/7/2021 at 3:54 PM, pachima said:

I disagree with Cursed Body. There are multiple ways to work around the ability the same way one can play around Togekiss or even stuff like Gyarados.

 

On 11/7/2021 at 4:16 PM, suigin said:

Provide 3 ways to do so.

For flinchers: Outspeed them using your speed stat, Have abilities that ignore flinch, use priority to hit them.

Now tell me 3 ways a direct attack can outplay a Cursed Body proc without giving away a ton of momentum.

Can you respond please, otherwise what you have said is baseless and adds nothing to this thread.

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RNG makes part of game. You can only accept. We can explain to you how to check/counter two RNG based Strategies, King's Rock and Cursed Body:

- King's Rock: 

King's Rock's Flinch depend of multi hit, but how many moves have Multihit + Priority? None. To solve it, just use a offense with Priority Move. Cloyster and Weavile, two premier leads with king's rock, are Extremelly Weak to Special Fighters, like: Lucario(BL1) and Infernape(OU), and without focus sash, he are OHKOed regardless of situation.

- Cursed Body:

Disable of Cursed Body cannot disable two moves in a row. So, you can still attack with other move to confuse the opponent, and makes him miss one predict, that once disable, your switch is almost certain and he will try to predict which mon you put in.


Like you don't even say when the guys use stall: RNG is there and you can use it and abuse it, right?

Edited by caioxlive13
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If an argument is good or bad, we can all read for ourselves and judge for ourselves.  I will not be removing posts just because they are disagreed with.  I will remove posts that degrade to being just a personal attack.  If you disagree with something, argue against it, or if you think its something not worth responding to, trust in your fellow players to also make that judgement.

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On 11/7/2021 at 12:54 PM, pachima said:

I agree with King's rock.

King's Rock can be countered with offense strategies, but Stall/Semi-Stall/"Balanced" has more difficulties, because it is more than obvious that Wall suffers with Hax.

Want an example of an offensive strategy capable of stopping King's Rock?
King's Rock's Flinch depend of multi hit, but how many moves have Multihit + Priority? None. To solve it, just use a offense with Priority Move. Cloyster and Weavile, two premier leads with king's rock, are Extremelly Weak to Special Fighters, like: Lucario(In actual season, BL1) and Infernape(In Actual Season OU), and without focus sash, he are OHKOed regardless of situation.

 

The biggest problem is that they ban offensive strategy after offensive strategy, but defensive strategy is rarely banned, this makes players who play a lot with this type of strategy feel more comfortable and ask to ban anything that comes with potential to Counter or Check in defensive strategies. A clear example is the King's Rock and Hax item in PvP, which literally had RIDICULOUS low uses, both before and after Nerf, but still asking for the Ban of the strategy.  That's the reality, and Semi-Stall/"Balanced"(With really big quotes)/Stall players will have to leave their comfort zone and adapt, whoever has the decency to put fighting pokemon on the team, even more with Hydreigon in the meta (Being some Naive Superpower to think twice before entering the field with blissey) ends up doing better, but who likes to stall and win the game or in the 100 turns, or with opponents forfeiting, obviously will losing and dropping an opponent poke is a miracle.

Edited by caioxlive13
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13 hours ago, caioxlive13 said:

King's Rock can be countered with offense strategies, but Stall/Semi-Stall/"Balanced" has more difficulties, because it is more than obvious that Wall suffers with Hax.

Want an example of an offensive strategy capable of stopping King's Rock?
King's Rock's Flinch depend of multi hit, but how many moves have Multihit + Priority? None. To solve it, just use a offense with Priority Move. Cloyster and Weavile, two premier leads with king's rock, are Extremelly Weak to Special Fighters, like: Lucario(In actual season, BL1) and Infernape(In Actual Season OU), and without focus sash, he are OHKOed regardless of situation.

 

The biggest problem is that they ban offensive strategy after offensive strategy, but defensive strategy is rarely banned, this makes players who play a lot with this type of strategy feel more comfortable and ask to ban anything that comes with potential to Counter or Check in defensive strategies. A clear example is the King's Rock and Hax item in PvP, which literally had RIDICULOUS low uses, both before and after Nerf, but still asking for the Ban of the strategy.  That's the reality, and Semi-Stall/"Balanced"(With really big quotes)/Stall players will have to leave their comfort zone and adapt, whoever has the decency to put fighting pokemon on the team, even more with Hydreigon in the meta (Being some Naive Superpower to think twice before entering the field with blissey) ends up doing better, but who likes to stall and win the game or in the 100 turns, or with opponents forfeiting, obviously will losing and dropping an opponent poke is a miracle.

I cannot begin to stress the amount of pain from reading this. 
In what universe are you having 1v1 with Weavile/Infernape vs Cloyster in any match where the opponent isn't using cloyster very late game to win by rng factor and isn't already +1 shell smash'd? 

I have played nearly 200 games this season in OU and on my climb have noticed more King's rock Cloyster then I'd like to admit, usually with Jellicent/Gengar in the same team preview if it doesn't have Electrode, OU itself is playable, but these cases are certainly not. You cannot counter it without giving up 2 or more Pokémon unless you happen to not get flinched. the only handle I've got for this is Kabutops & Ferrothorn. 

There is nothing wrong with someone's playstyle if they wish to play Stall/Balanced, that's a you problem. Fishing for RNG to win outside of some exceptions (Being the issue is the item, Not a ability/move/Pokémon factor) is not a playstyle good sir.

Just to smear this into your brain - +2 252+ Atk Cloyster Icicle Spear (5 hits) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 215-260 (61 - 73.8%) -- approx. 2HKO after Leftovers recovery.  ~ What do you think happens if i get flinched without Kabutops on the field? right, I lose the game because some clown decided to throw some random Cloyster into a team where it makes no sense at all to be in that team just for the RNG chance to win.
But let's just say i'm bad and should be able to deal with it because that's what i'm reading from you're saying.

 

 

14 hours ago, caioxlive13 said:

RNG makes part of game. You can only accept. We can explain to you how to check/counter two RNG based Strategies, King's Rock and Cursed Body:

- King's Rock: 

King's Rock's Flinch depend of multi hit, but how many moves have Multihit + Priority? None. To solve it, just use a offense with Priority Move. Cloyster and Weavile, two premier leads with king's rock, are Extremelly Weak to Special Fighters, like: Lucario(BL1) and Infernape(OU), and without focus sash, he are OHKOed regardless of situation.

- Cursed Body:

Disable of Cursed Body cannot disable two moves in a row. So, you can still attack with other move to confuse the opponent, and makes him miss one predict, that once disable, your switch is almost certain and he will try to predict which mon you put in.


Like you don't even say when the guys use stall: RNG is there and you can use it and abuse it, right?

I don't think you play enough OU, Because opponents are running Sash Gengar for example, once its on 1-34% they'll switch and sac that for a chance to completely struggle your choice locked Pokémon, Giving them one or even two moves in some cases to free set up with Conk/Scizor etc. Some examples that would be choice locked are Kingdra/Ttar/Rotom. 
But for good measure, let's just say you can throw in a hazard to put a end to that. ~ Now, how do we deal with Jellicent? it's extremely bulky, Can Toxic/Willo/Scald you and Has access to Taunt/Hex/Recovery. and at any given time it can activate Cursed Body, Even if you're behind a Substitute. Could be wrong, but pretty sure Cursed body activation has a 30% chance to activate, Imagine fishing for that to prevent Priority or Choice locked mons to set up, you legitimately can't counter it. then you're stuck loss of momentum or your only chance to win. And no, I'm not asking for some Bulbapedia explanation of how to counter Cursed Body Or some Very obvious Counters to Jellicent. I'm talking about the Activation of Cursed Body and how it affects the game, quickly turning the tides of the match.

And to your little comment about the guys that use stall for the secondary effect from moves "RNG" like Burn/Freeze, that's different so please learn that, I think it might of been Pachi that has said it before but i'm sure anyone here will tell you the differences from Secondary move effects to something like Cursed Body, or they given up at this rate.

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image.png.f98a856d438257bf99f3e8884ea8ddf5.png

 

 

Can recommend, 10/10.

 

E:

Guys, a piece of advice- do not respond to him, do not quote him or address his posts at all. We've seen how "discussing" with him looks like multiple times during last few months. Blocking him is a good idea as well. Unfort we can't expect staff to delete his posts, despite the fact that they bear no power, because they are still on topic.

Edited by RysPicz
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8 hours ago, Kupokun said:

I have played nearly 200 games this season in OU and on my climb have noticed more King's rock Cloyster then I'd like to admit, usually with Jellicent/Gengar in the same team preview if it doesn't have Electrode, OU itself is playable, but these cases are certainly not. 

This thing about everyone wanting to use King's Rock Cloyster was the fault of a player named JorgeFireBolt. Nobody told him to say that King's Rock is OP, now beginners with this idea in mind, started to use the item more. Just to give you an idea: Before he opened his topic to ban hax item, King's rock was only used by 1.7% of meta cloysters. Today it is his top item, a little above Focus Sash(But focus sash still better to Set safety shell smash and take 2-3 with you.). 

This only made life easier for Cloyster's counters, which as most use King's Rock, any supereffective special move kills him, but Stall/Semi-Stall/"Balanced" teams don't have the counter on the team, so it has difficulty and depends on lucky to win, and it's good to see how players adapt to it.

 

Edited by caioxlive13
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