06-08-2010, 09:14 PM | #1 |
時の彼方へ
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Ditto
He's an interesting Pokémon but nobody wants to use him because of a constellation of debilitating flaws:
Were we to address each of these problems, Ditto might become something really quite overpowered. The goal is not to make Ditto a ban-worthy über. The goal is to merely address one or two of these problems to make Ditto something of a borderline Pokémon between awesome and acceptable. So with that thought in mind, my proposed changes for Ditto.
I think these changes would make Ditto more fun to use, more able to be used, and would still not be sufficient to catapult it into the über tier nor into the upper echelon of the OU tier. Your thoughts?
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Last edited by Talon87; 06-09-2010 at 07:38 AM. |
06-08-2010, 09:18 PM | #2 |
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I think you don't understand what IVs are.
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06-08-2010, 09:23 PM | #3 |
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Good call! XD I was thinking in my brain "current stats" but wrote IVs the whole time. Let me go fix that. Thanks.
Okay, fixed. Also added a new line above the old one specifying that the IVs (this time I really mean it! lol) should be static.
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06-08-2010, 11:01 PM | #4 | |
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06-08-2010, 11:06 PM | #5 |
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Yeah. It'd be broken if it said "I absorb 3 or 4 of your moves." Saying "I absorb 1 or 2 of your moves" doesn't strike me as broken. Ditto's still a P.O.S. with base stats of 48. (Or, as per my recommendation, base stats of 48 plus 1/2 the difference between Ditto's base stats and the opponent's.)
Example: Ditto transforms into a Gengar while facing down a Snorlax. Just suppose. (1) Ditto is now immune to normal-type attacks, Snorlax's only STAB. (2) Ditto now gains life if hit by Ghost-type or Poison-type attacks. Most Snorlaxes would know neither. (3) Ditto is still vulnerable to Earthquake (since it does not inherit Gengar's Levitate ability! All it copied were its moves and types!), and Snorlax could very well know this. Kaboom. (4) Or, Snorlax may know other moves. (5) Or, he may not and them's the brakes and Snorlax needs to be switched out. It's not broken. It's competitive. That's the entire point: that Ditto today is nowhere near competitive. Suggesting that fixes which make him competitive are making him broken is frustrating, to say the least. ^^; Your post did make me think of a second possibility for Ditto's ability, albeit a rather boring one imo: have Ditto's ability be whatever the Pokemon he's transformed into has. So, for example, if Ditto transforms into Gengar then his new ability is Levitate. If he transforms into Charizard, Blaze. If he transforms into Absol, Pressure. So on and so forth. I don't really like that, though, since it would return Ditto to uncompetitive status. The only saving grace I gifted him with was the ability I described. The stats thing was merely to make him usable since base stats of 48 aren't going to be usable in any century and most of his current demerits I've left in place.
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Last edited by Talon87; 06-08-2010 at 11:09 PM. |
06-09-2010, 03:17 AM | #6 | |
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That's a long list of fixes 0_o
But you have a good point. And those fixes would improve ditto vastly. Too vastly? As you said, most likely not. A pokemon that can transform into a pokemon and gain immunity to said pokemon's stab moves would be quite interesting. As you said pokemon most often know moves of other types. And, if a pokemon didn't Ditto would make an excellent switch inducer. The one thing that seems a little edgy is that Ditto would become just about the perfect counter to Ghost-types. Switch in on a NE Ghost move, Transform, gain immunity to type-spam, and type-spam back. I guess you could also say this applies to Dragons, but not so much, as Ditto wouldn't be able to switch in on them. Quote:
Okay, even then, Ditto would be outshone by Sunkern. XD |
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10-31-2010, 11:31 AM | #7 |
Aroma Lady
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I know this thread is kinda dead and all, but... Not to mention this didn't exist back then
Eccentric (dream world) removes the turn to transform. Problem solved. I find it funny that nintendo did just that to improve ditto, what was to be found too uber in this thread |
10-31-2010, 12:01 PM | #8 | |
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Quote:
To be honest, so long as Nintendo fails to address No.2 in that list, they could address every other problem Ditto has and he'd still not be competitively worthy. Base of 48s across the board is abysmal.
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10-31-2010, 12:42 PM | #9 |
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DITTO FOR BASE 150 ACROSS THE BOARD!! YOU CAN DO IT DITTO! I BELIEVE IN THE HEART OF THE POKEBALLZ!! PENIS!
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10-31-2010, 12:43 PM | #10 |
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I didn't ask for that either. If you had actually bothered to read my post, you'd know that. I asked for a pretty modest change to his stats: one which would neither make him broken nor relegate him to NU.
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10-31-2010, 12:53 PM | #11 |
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That is unfortunately not possible and you know it thanks to how EVs work.
Depending on Ditto's transformation target, even if Ditto was like 75-90 across the board (which is decent), you cannot EV train it properly to get it versatile enough to copy and be as useful. If Ditto had 150 across, it could compete with a Skarmory in defense; it could compete with a Ninjask in speed; it could compete with a Mewtwo in being broken, even with minimal EV investment in any category. The sheer idea of Ditto being even slightly usable in competition is a big FUCK YOU to whoever trained Ditto's target. "Check it out! I worked really hard to breed and hatch my Pokemon with all the awesome moves. I even had to chain a bunch of egg moves to get this combination!" "Oh. Good to know. Lemme copy all that in 2 seconds with my Ditto and somehow kill your guy with it." "..." "GG. My 2 second investment really kicked your hundreds of hours of work." |
10-31-2010, 01:23 PM | #12 |
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Not necessarily. You act like EV training a Ditto is impossible and therefore there's no alternative but to make him broken by giving him IVs on steroids and therefore no fun at all for the opponent. I disagree. I disagree big time. You can totally EV train Ditto. In fact, that's part of what would make him balanced.
If you remove EVs from the equation, then Ditto is either bad at everything or good at everything. The former makes him undesirable to be used, the latter undesirable to fight against. But if you leave them in the equation, then what you start to see is that Ditto is a high risk, high return kind of guy. He could prove to be a huge liability to your team of six if, for example, you EV train him to be a mixed sweeper but your opponent is always running Pokémon whose speed exceeds 100 base and has 252 Speed EVs invested. In that case, Ditto is only ever going to be copying over the movesets of sweepers -- and he's going to be slower than them each and every time. He'll always get hit 2nd. Because that particular opponent decided to not run a MixedGross, MixMence, or to even run slower Pokémon in general like Blissey or Bronzong. Vice versa. You decide to EV train your Ditto in Physical Attack and Speed. You're counting on the fact that your opponent will: (a) have at least one good physical sweeper for you to copy; (b) not be able to successfully KO your Ditto when you switch it out to copy that sweeper (c) somehow lose to your Ditto (who has copied their sweeper) or else will switch out to someone else, giving Ditto a break for one turn; and (d) have at least one Pokémon who fills a crucial role on their team and who happens to be vulnerable to physical attacks That's a ton of Ifs. What if the opponent has zero physical sweepers on their team? What if they have one but it's way too strong for Ditto to switch in against? (e.g. Garchomp) What if you pull that off but the rest of their team has no vulnerabilities to physical sweepers? You act like a base-90 Ditto would be unusable, and I don't think that's the case. He'd never be OU, but making him OU was never the point and the sooner you realize that the better. He also wouldn't be NU any more. He could see use. For sheer novelty, he'd be popular. Factor in the EVs, which for some frustrating reason you keep factoring out , and Ditto is hardly broken. Ditto is a huge gamble, is how I've retconned him. Yes, in the right place and time he can rape a team. But those times'll be few and far between. And if the opponent who loses that fight can't appreciate that and feels cheated for the reasons you just outlaid in your last post, then too bad for him. He needs to grow up and get over it.
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10-31-2010, 01:38 PM | #13 |
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Uhm, you DO know that ditto copies EVERYTHING (EV's, IV's and even statboosts) save HP when transforming right?
Or is this a 100 stat accross the border in exchange for the copy discussion? |
10-31-2010, 01:43 PM | #14 |
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Yeah, agreeing with milo here. If you'd go over to smogon, you'd see it's really popular right now, and one of the most potent (yet one-note) threats so far.
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10-31-2010, 02:11 PM | #15 |
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Nope. Thanks for the correction.
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10-31-2010, 02:49 PM | #16 | ||||
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This discussion is purely about Talon's insane Ditto idea from pre-B&W
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-or in UU- Lemme copy your Claydol! LOL I have higher offenses than your original Claydol while still maintaining decent defenses and higher HP. Lemme spam Calm Mind and blow your own Claydol away with his own moveset. Totally not broken. In either situation, you are either superior or inferior to your target. And it will either turn out broken or useless, both of which are bad. If Nintendo had to choose 1 direction, I would rather have more useless Pokemon than overpowered Pokemon. Quote:
It isn't like running a Tentacruel and wondering "Oh man, I wonder how useless this Liquid Ooze is if my opponent never uses a draining attack!" Tentacruel is still useful even if Liquid Ooze never triggers. It fits under "Oh man, this Pokemon is completely useless- I may as well have had not brought it," category. If B&W Ditto is a copy everything Pokemon (which I thought old Ditto was also aside from the need to Transform), then I assume the only limiting factor is it's PP (like when using Transform). It's hardly a balancing force considering it becomes the ultimate middle finger. Turning every match with a Ditto a coin flip that is evenly 50/50. Most Pokemon do have the power to KO themselves if offensive and if defensive, have no way to kill their clone, forming a stalemate (which I guess the PP limit might work on). But with knowing that, no one would clone a defensive Pokemon. Ultimately it forces everyone to play in "Can I kill my own sweeper?" style. If you have no answer for your clone, you are boned when Ditto shows up and gets a lucky first attack. A rather annoying Russian Roulette game. "Salamence? GO GO Ditto! Do that funky Outrage! We have a 50% chance to kill him in one shot too!" "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF" "Oh man my 2 second Ditto just raep'd your- GACK!" *strangling* |
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10-31-2010, 03:09 PM | #17 |
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Well, it looks like our argument is moot anyway. If what was said earlier is to be believed, then Gen5 Ditto copies the opponent's IVs and EVs, making him a bonafide replica of the opponent. And since he transforms passively now (i.e. without wasting a turn to do it), it means it's a 50/50 chance he hits his opponent first.
So basically, Ditto will see much more use in the next year than he has in the last ten. People will come to hate him and he'll be banned by many players. This is pretty much what I didn't want to have happen, and it has. But contrary to what you said, it looks like Nintendo's on my side: "if we had to pick between broken and unusable, we'd pick broken." Fuck unusable, man. Why would you want the franchise littered with more Farfetch'ds than Garchomps? Both are bad, but fuck Farfetch'd, man!
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10-31-2010, 03:12 PM | #18 |
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If it satifies you, copiing everything applied to gen I to IV aswell. Now just without the set-up turn.
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10-31-2010, 03:46 PM | #19 |
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Just tossing in that Smogon has for the most part decided the only usable, most efficient Ditto carries a Scarf.
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10-31-2010, 04:36 PM | #20 |
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Make that most reliable. In a trickroom team, give it an ironball/machobrace
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01-05-2011, 12:52 PM | #21 |
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I'm through page 17 right now of the Ditto thread on Smogon. It seems like the Eccentric Ditto carrying the Choice Scarf would indeed make for:
(a) a great revenge killer (b) an even better punisher of Calm Mind, Dragon Dance, Swords Dance, etc abuse However, as has been pointed out in the thread, there are numerous ways to check this thing so I don't think it would necessarily be broken-broken. Spoiler: show
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01-05-2011, 02:43 PM | #22 |
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Actually, Payback will double in power if the opponent switched since it counts as the user going second (switching has priority), so the first use of Payback will hurt, but the following ones will be weaker. I doubt this was changed in B/W, but who knows.
I think a better counter for Ditto is the use of a Substitute using sweeper. If you send in Gengar and open with a Substitute while your opponent sends in Ditto, because you have a little wall to take the incoming attack and you assuming you can have your Gengar kill yourself, it's a simple kill. Granted, upon seeing a Substitute, Ditto will likely switch out anyway, you did in fact get a free shot off and in a no better or worse situation than previously. |
01-07-2011, 12:18 AM | #23 | |
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Quote:
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01-07-2011, 12:21 AM | #24 |
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Aww.
Citation? |
01-07-2011, 02:37 PM | #25 | |
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Quote:
Another interesting fact- Ditto's Eccentric ability does not activate against Zoruark. |
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