RBY OU Tauros [Done]

Sub should be taken out completely. It sucks.

 

In theory it's the best way to abuse Tauros being in versus a frozen/sleeping pokemon esp. if they stay in and let their pokemon be sacked.

... actually gonna add this to the analysis since it's about the only way you could justify it

 

Not "especially if". "Only if". Attacking is always at least as good as throwing up a sub (and usually better) if they switch. For Substitute to be worthwhile,

a) You must have Tauros in on an inactive target,
b) They must leave it in (and not have it wake up),
c) They must then use an attack that needs an extra hit to KO 75% Tauros with a substitute compared to 100% Tauros (i.e. something that OHKOs, something that 2HKOs but doesn't OHKO at 75%, something that 3HKOs but doesn't 2HKO at 75%, something that 5HKOs, or something that 6HKOs but doesn't 4HKO at 75%). The list of such attacks is fairly short: Chansey's Blizzard, Slowbro's STAB moves, Thunder + Thunderbolt from Zapdos, Articuno/Moltres' STAB moves, and to a lesser extent (i.e. the KO was very iffy anyway, or still often happens) Starmie's Blizzard, Starmie's Psychic, Lapras' Blizzard, Golem's Earthquake, Jynx's Blizzard, Kingler's Crabhammer and Persian's Slash.
d) You don't get screwed over by not having another move.

All four of these conditions must be satisfied for Substitute to be worthwhile. If even a single one is missing, there is no benefit. So you have to predict their team very well, get a lucky break during the match, and make a correct prediction... in exchange for Tauros surviving one more turn. If that's worthy of Other Options, Toxic is worthy of Other Options on anything that doesn't have Thunder Wave or STAB Blizzard as the most reliable means of stopping Dragonite from setting up.

 

If they switch in something else as fodder instead and you get a sub up (this doesn't necessarily even mean versus a sleeping/frozen opponent) then that's an advantage. So, Tauros must either be in on an inactive target, or in on a target which it can force out because of other circumstances [Tauros can OHKO / threaten to OHKO, but that Pokemon is required to beat something left on your team] and they're switching to something else as fodder.

But yeah as with all the moves, the opportunity cost is the the biggest issue. Yeah Toxic should get an OO mention too I guess...

 

I think Rage should be an OO. The opponent will laugh so hard he/she will lose focus and throw the game.

That's more likely to happen than Sub being useful.

 

Great stuff guys. Really in depth stuff here.

 

Are we seriously including Toxic in a 1U analysis? There comes a point where it doesn't make sense to list something because it's objectively terrible, regardless of what theoretical niche it might have. There have been other analyses where this has occurred and I'm at fault here as well (I'm thinking of my 6U Hitmonlee analysis tbh) and honestly it's getting a little silly.

Also I agree with GGFan on this one. Sub Tauros is absolute ass. I've tested it a fair bit and not once has it actually benefitted from Sub, since as M9M pointed out, the conditions necessary for it to be effective are so incredibly specific that it practically never occurs- not only does the opponent need to decide to sac their mon, but also there need to be no status users present and the opponent cannot have anything that KOs in the same number of hits regardless. It's a worse option than Fire Blast and Thunderbolt by a significant margin, and the latter moves are themselves so blatantly inferior to the standard set that I wouldn't disagree if you argued for scrapping OO entirely, even though FB/Tbolt are plausibly useful (it's a close call in the case of FB tho)

Maybe we ought to distinguish between what's theoretically usable and what's plausibly useful and separate them accordingly. Obviously there's no clear cut distinction though, and in later gens it becomes stupid because of the greater number of options available to each pokemon

 

Yeah maybe I should remove Toxic but I don't think Sub is all that horrible... I wouldn't use it but I also wouldn't use Fire Blast or Tbolt and I honestly don't think it's much worse than those moves.

 

Sorry dude, but in this case it is not even a case of "thinking" or having an opinion anymore. I don't know how one could have explained it any better than m9m did. He literally left no doubt about how bad Sub is... don't know man... just suck it up.

 

Yeah it's bad but to me it's not that much worse than Fire Blast / Tbolt... and honestly just explaining why the move is bad is worth doing too.

 

Quite. I was listing Toxic as reductio ad absurdum - "Substitute on Tauros is more niche than Toxic on half of 1U; putting Toxic in Other Options for half of 1U is silly*, so listing Substitute on Tauros is also silly". I was assuming "putting Toxic in Other Options for half of 1U is silly" would kinda be taken as read.

I would oppose removing OO entirely; the rationale for Thunderbolt isn't some highly-specific scenario with a few percent better chance. All you need for Tbolt to be unquestionably worth the cost is "the opponent has Cloyster"; an entire 1U Pokemon is kinda definitionally worth consideration in a 1U analysis. Fire Blast is iffier** and Tail Whip/Toxic/(especially) Substitute don't really merit inclusion, but neglecting Tbolt actually would be a mistake.

*Yes, I know it's probably worthy of OO on Zapdos. That's a special case.

**Blizzard directly outclasses Fire Blast except in status and effectiveness against Bug or Ice Pokemon. There are no Bugs relevant in OU; the only Ice against which Fire Blast is substantially better than Body Slam is the rare Articuno (Lapras and Jynx take more from Body Slam; Cloyster takes slightly more from Fire Blast but the 3HKO and 4HKO chances are worse) - and Articuno still wins that matchup. In the status department, you've got a 9% chance to freeze against a 25% chance to burn; there are very few OUs against which the latter is substantially better (Wrappers, as well as Ices by default) and all of those have a 30% chance to be paralysed by Body Slam, leaving only Victreebel and the aforementioned Articuno as worthwhile targets (Dragonite actually prefers paralysis to burn, but as Blizzard OHKOs on a crit, Blizzard's 26% probability to freeze or KO is larger than Fire Blast's chance to burn). Two non-1U Pokemon that see occasional use, whose matchups are only slightly improved, is quite a bit weaker than one 1U whose matchup is turned on its head and one non-1U seeing occasional use (Kingler) whose matchup is tightened up substantially. Toxic takes the matchup with Dragonite from ~even to a clear win, but only in one specific situation (it has to be a fresh Dragonite, at full health and unstatused but without Agility up) - that massively cuts down the likelihood of being relevant in a game, and unlike team choice can't be accounted for pre-game.

 

I could see Sub being more useful in a generic matchup than tbolt would be. It ain't all that good overall and it's better to use that moveslot for something else, but you can say the same about Fire Blast and people still use that. I think all of Tauros's OO options are kind of shitty, and I never use any of them. But for people who do I guess because I don't use any of them I don't really distinguish much between the different kinds of shittiness - shittiness that helps vs 1 specific pokemon you rarely see vs shittiness that helps but not that much vs 1 very common pokemon vs shittiness that can gain u an advantage if u make possibly risky plays / find yourself in somewhat specific situations, but situations that don't really depend on what your opponent brings. In all cases, you're fucked against a couple of somewhat important pokemon because of that move you've chosen to drop, but yknow... if your opponent brings cloyster a lot, or your opponent rarely brings gengar/counter users or your opponent rarely brings rocks, then those alternative moves are maybe a bit better to have. I wouldn't bring any of them but I think you can make a case for theoretically when it might make sense to bring any of them. If my opponent literally brought dragonite every game I don't really think Toxic would be off the table, but barely anyone uses dragonite, let alone bringing it to nearly 100% of games, so it's a shitty option not even worth mentioning.

 

I mentioned that, albeit obliquely. Freeze >> Burn (crits and special attacks ignore burn), so 25% burn is not substantially better than 9% freeze. There's also the issue that if you miss, you just straight-up lose instead of it coming down to the speed tie.

When Tbolt helps: ~70% of games when you're facing Cloyster (Thunderbolt vs. Cloyster is usually a bigger deal than Blizzard vs. Rocks), ~20% of games when you're facing Kingler but not whatever you dropped coverage for
When Fire Blast helps: maybe like 1% of all games in which you're not facing whatever you dropped coverage for (Tauros ditto improvement; I haven't run the numbers), ~20% of games when you're facing Victreebel/Articuno but not whatever you dropped coverage for
When Toxic helps: ~10% of games when you're facing Dragonite/Moltres
When Sub helps: <5% of games when you're facing Blizzard Chansey/Slowbro/Thunder Zapdos/Articuno/Moltres but not whatever you dropped coverage for
When Tail Whip helps: dear god I don't know

Thunderbolt gives a big advantage in a rare situation. Fire Blast gives a tiny advantage in a common situation and a moderate advantage in a rare situation. Toxic gives a small advantage in a rare situation. Substitute gives a tiny advantage in a rare situation. You know game theory well enough to tell that these are not equally good.

 

I wouldn't necessarily say Substitute is a tiny advantage if you get it up for free. It gives you protection against Explosion & if it means Tauros getting off another attack which is huge bc it's Tauros. So to me it's:

Tbolt: medium advantage in a rare situation
Fire Blast: small advantage in a very common situation, bigger advantage in rare situations
Toxic: small advantage in a very rare situation
Sub: small advantage in a rare situation

Also remember substitute eases prediction in some circumstances too

 

I think you might be forgetting how Explosion vs. Substitute works in RBY. Blocking Explosion with Substitute isn't worthwhile because Exploding on a Substitute doesn't cause the user to faint.

The rare situation is "they have one of the attacks that takes an extra turn on their team, and they don't have any of the Pokemon you lost coverage for". It's a tiny advantage because you then have to get an absolutely-free turn with Tauros, which is unlikely, and they then have to choose to attack you with one of the attacks that takes an extra turn, which is unlikely. And even then, one more turn of Tauros may not suffice to change whether it lives or dies (it depends on the matchup), whereas Thunderbolt vs. Cloyster definitely does.

 

No I remember, but the point is that they can't do a high damage move on that turn and do more than break your substitute (so basically 25% damage)

I don't think it's that unlikely if you take some risks, you have to know when your opponent is in a situation where preserving what's currently in vs Tauros is more important than avoiding the extra damage taken by switching out. And if in switching out they go to some fodder (e.g. a sleeping mon or a mon at low health and para'd or whatever) as you sub, you just got use out of a sub.

Also being vs a frozen Pokemon obviously is another time.

 

So what? If you're in against Golem, you Sub and they Explode, all that happened that turn is you took 25% damage for no benefit. That's clearly counterproductive.

No, that only makes Sub neutral (as opposed to a waste of a turn). To gain a turn, that has to happen and they then have to use one of the attacks which takes an extra turn to KO. Which most don't.

 

I wasn't thinking of like that, I was just using it as an example of a high-damage attack that can't do high damage if you get a sub up.

Here's a hypothetical scenario where Sub Tauros is helpful.

Say you have Tauros in versus a Chansey at 35% or so, and you have some moderately strong special attacker, revealed, in the back (say a Starmie for example). Say they have a Pokemon they can fodder left (e.g. a sleeping jynx [with your own sleeper down] or a Lax at 10%). Then, as they switch to that Pokemon, you use Substitute, and then proceed to KO with Body Slam. Then say they go to something else afterwards to follow up against your tauros, say a Lapras/Cloyster, or a Tauros. Then you've managed to get off an attack and lost 25% of your HP instead of whatever damage their attack might have done (e.g. Lapras Blizzard which has a chance to 2HKO), in return for that extra damage. If they go Tauros (most likely) although the difference is not big (25% vs the ~30% from their Body Slam), you're shielded from a crit, whereas they aren't. 75% Tauros behind a Sub vs 100% Tauros, the 75% Tauros behind a sub is favoured.

The point of the hypothetical scenario is: using the threat of KOing + your opponent valuing what's in more than some other fodder they have in the back gives you a free turn where you can use that opportunity to get up a substitute. It's prediction reliant, but it's really easy to pull the trigger, especially with how Tauros so rarely runs the move.

Another way of using Sub is similar to how Rhydon sometimes does it, where you fish for paralysis at some point where the 25% HP lost doesn't make a difference to the amount of attacks it takes to KO you (none come to mind though).