the case for OHKOs to instantly sweep your opponent

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inspired by this beautiful thread
hear me out here. As we know, most OHKO moves are 30% accurate. But how do we get that up to 100% to ensure KO'ing your opponent?

First of all, you'll need plenty of neutralizing gas/skil swap users to identify and remove any sturdy mons. ezpz. Maybe you also want to use soak to make sure mons can't get around you with immunities.

Then, the real fun begins. Unfortunately tradebacks to gen 1 are not possible so Machamp cannot be given Fissure. However, this is where a little knowledge of statistics comes in.
Screenshot 2024-10-09 at 14.19.47.png


1. Fissure/Horn Drill/Sheer Cold/Guillotine/Horn Drill are 30% accurate. That means if you use them four times that's 120% chance of it hitting, which means your fourth time will land with the KO.
2. With PP Ups enabled, you get 8PP per OHKO move, which is enough to KO two mons. This means you just need to find a way to fit 3 OHKO moves onto your team.
3. bUt WhAt AbOuT pReSsUrE what about shut the fuck up, did you notice that you still have 21 moveslots available on your team? Just double up on OHKO moves, or even Leppa berry/Sleep talk. Lapras wins big in this metagame shift, with access to both of these, as well as Horn Drill + Sheer Cold.

I will not be taking questions but I will be taking donations to my Patreon.
 
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okay let's do some stats, this'll be a fun distraction.

hitting a move follows a binomial distribution, that is there are two outcomes: the move hits, or doesn't hit. for OHKO moves, that means that you're working with a 0.3 probability of hitting your opponent with the move and a 0.7 probability of not hitting your opponent. These moves have 8 PP and as far as I am aware, there's not a dude in the pokemon world that learns more than one (i have not looked this up, please screech at my window at night while I'm sleeping if I'm wrong). So then, if you're playing a stall jobber who can't hit you for shit, so your OHKO mon is on the field for all 8 turns and will be able to attack each turn, the average amount of times you can expect your guy to hit their OHKO move is a simple calculation: (number of trials) × (probability of success). No seriously, that's it. You're going to hit your ohko move, on average (0.3) × (8) = 2.4 times +/- ~1.3 times (sqrt(np(1-p)). While it is exceedingly rare, it is still within expected statistical bounds that you could theoretically hit the 99.7th percentile and hit 2.4 + 3(1.3) = 6.3 times, which IS enough to sweep an entire team.

this is actually probably the reason why OHKO moves are banned :pimp:
 
Voltage said:
okay let's do some stats, this'll be a fun distraction.

hitting a move follows a binomial distribution, that is there are two outcomes: the move hits, or doesn't hit. for OHKO moves, that means that you're working with a 0.3 probability of hitting your opponent with the move and a 0.7 probability of not hitting your opponent. These moves have 8 PP and as far as I am aware, there's not a dude in the pokemon world that learns more than one (i have not looked this up, please screech at my window at night while I'm sleeping if I'm wrong). So then, if you're playing a stall jobber who can't hit you for shit, so your OHKO mon is on the field for all 8 turns and will be able to attack each turn, the average amount of times you can expect your guy to hit their OHKO move is a simple calculation: (number of trials) × (probability of success). No seriously, that's it. You're going to hit your ohko move, on average (0.3) × (8) = 2.4 times +/- ~1.3 times (sqrt(np(1-p)). While it is exceedingly rare, it is still within expected statistical bounds that you could theoretically hit the 99.7th percentile and hit 2.4 + 3(1.3) = 6.3 times, which IS enough to sweep an entire team.

this is actually probably the reason why OHKO moves are banned :pimp:
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yeah 4 x 30% = 120%
 
cookie said:
First of all, you'll need plenty of neutralizing gas/skil swap users to identify and remove any sturdy mons. ezpz. Maybe you also want to use soak to make sure mons can't get around you with immunities.
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Bad news, friend. Shuckle has sturdy, learns gastro acid to remove neutralizing gas and can use mimic to skill swap its sturdy ability back. It's hopeless before the power of Shuckle.
 
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Obviously people who like OHKO moves haven't seen this battle facility beast. Obnoxious bulk, RestTalk to discourage slowly chipping at it, and Lax Incense for extra trollage. It ruined this Doubles streak with hax.

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This one cost PeterKO his 2363 win streak in the Platinum Battle Tower thanks to the Thunder Wave immunity, possible Hyper Cutter to block Charm, and Guillotine. Jumpman16 hated it too, and it was rather ironic that he later made Gliscor into a Battle Maison hero.

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With this one you can't even rely on Substitute to avoid the OHKO moves because it can outprioritise you! It hits like a truck even when it's not using Fissure. A similar Quick Claw Rhydon murdered a 1159 streak.

1728566592498.png

120 base speed and Bright Powder! This one was so scary GG Unit was forced to run Substitute on his Scarf Truant Durant just to have a shot at stalling some of the Fissure PP out. I'm not aware of this specific set ruining any runs, but the at-the-time biggest Singles Streak ever lost to Fissure Dugtrio.
 
cookie I am a math minor and wanted to correct a common error I see in both your message and other places. Accuracy and probability are NOT additive in the way you described, meaning using a OHKO 4 times does not guarantee it will hit or become 120% accurate. Think of it like this... it is possible, although unlikely, for 4 OHKO moves to hit 4 times in a row. Each of them still has a 30% chance per hit. If we used your logic in the example I provided we would be saying they have 100% accuracy per hit.

For the actual percentages for each event, the math would be like the following:

1 - 0.3 = 0.7 = 70% (this is the chance of the move missing which I think we agree on)

0.7^4 = 0.2401 = ~24% (this is the chance of the move missing after 4 attempts)

1 - 0.2401 = 0.7599 ~76% (this is the chance of the move hitting at least once in 4 attempts)

We would actually need roughly 13 attempts (0.7^13) to have about a 99% chance of hitting a OHKO at least once in 13 attempts.

Please let me know if I am unclear and I am happy to help more.
 
donphan fan said:
cookie I am a math minor and wanted to correct a common error I see in both your message and other places. Accuracy and probability are NOT additive in the way you described, meaning using a OHKO 4 times does not guarantee it will hit or become 120% accurate. Think of it like this... it is possible, although unlikely, for 4 OHKO moves to hit 4 times in a row. Each of them still has a 30% chance per hit. If we used your logic in the example I provided we would be saying they have 100% accuracy per hit.

For the actual percentages for each event, the math would be like the following:

1 - 0.3 = 0.7 = 70% (this is the chance of the move missing which I think we agree on)

0.7^4 = 0.2401 = ~24% (this is the chance of the move missing after 4 attempts)

1 - 0.2401 = 0.7599 ~76% (this is the chance of the move hitting at least once in 4 attempts)

We would actually need roughly 13 attempts (0.7^13) to have about a 99% chance of hitting a OHKO at least once in 13 attempts.

Please let me know if I am unclear and I am happy to help more.
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idk why we are getting complicated mathematical symbols like the exponent or the decimal point involved, but i appreciate the pursuit of truth

as an empire racist i tried to verify this myself, and this was what I found
1. Horn drill 1 - MISS
2. Horn drill 2 - MISS
3. Horn drill 3 - MISS
4. Horn drill 4 - HIT

seems pretty self-evident
 
cookie said:
idk why we are getting complicated mathematical symbols like the exponent or the decimal point involved, but i appreciate the pursuit of truth

as an empire racist i tried to verify this myself, and this was what I found
1. Horn drill 1 - MISS
2. Horn drill 2 - MISS
3. Horn drill 3 - MISS
4. Horn drill 4 - HIT

seems pretty self-evident
Click to expand...

Empire racist?... I hope this is a language barrier. :trode:
 
cookie said:
hear me out here. As we know, most OHKO moves are 30% accurate. But how do we get that up to 100% to ensure KO'ing your opponent?
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It's really simple. These moves gain +1% Accuracy for each level above your opponent. Therefore, we bring a Level 170 Pokemon to a Level 100 battle.

30 + (170 - 100) = 70

Can anyone help me find the error? Math lied to me.
 
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