The Mathematical Reason Why Aipom is Overpowered

[@InsertFunnyThingHere]

It's simple, aipom was born in 2000, and by Gen 7's release he became too old to order from the kid's menu

[@grunkleg.2934]

Too old to order off the kid's menu?!

[@justanoreo2.0]

Oh no he can't get c h e e s e b u r b g u r

[@BungBusMonkeSucks]

Too old for minecraft youtubers 😢😢

[@asuuki2048]

I still order off of it lol. Basically every place will let you, it’s just that they *say* you can’t on the menu.

[@MyHandleIsAplaceholder]

Magnemite is older but it's not banned

[@garretthopkins7035]

3:53...and so it is revealed that Freezai does not copy-paste.

[@magicfish8213]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0OOOO

[@p.zansei3280]

​@@magicfish8213it's okay, dividing Zero by a number and dividing by zero are NOT the same thing. The universe is still okay❤

[@Avatarbee]

​@@p.zansei3280jup there is just a 1/16 chance that the attack deals no damage.

[@jellifii]

And that begs the question, how does one split zero into ninety five groups?

[@Avatarbee]

@@jellifii Easy. You split it into 95 groups that contain nothing.

[@madysonandres9571]

The fact that it didn't get Tail Slap until gen 7 is ridiculous.

[@Anthonyvideogame]

And they fact it lost it in Gen 9 is even more ridiculous

[@silliercrayon9588]

Well, wasn't Tail Slap exclusive to Minccino?

[@zotanica]

@@silliercrayon9588crazy that the pokemon with a hand on his tail doesn’t have it

[@tomatogenesis]

​@@silliercrayon9588No move is really exclusive as long as there's another Pokémon that could be perfectly fitted to learn it. Also they literally turned Rillaboom's into a TM so you could also say that the argument's kinda up in the air today

[@TiagoODuelista]

Tbf, the japanese name is "Sweep Slap" with makes more sense as a Cinccino signature, as their tails are basically brooms to sweep dirt and dust off.

[@jahnkeem2875]

PMD fans 🤝 Little Cup players knowing the horrors of multi-hit moves

[@Athanatos3301]

God I remember Sky Tower and all the multi-hit and speed-boosting monsters inside. Aerodactyl was the bane of my existence.

[@drchunkalicious]

memories unlocked

[@PedroMartinez-xx1zp]

​@@Athanatos3301 Bullet Seed topples even the sky god

[@screwtokaiba]

​@@PedroMartinez-xx1zpit helps that the formula for effective multiplier was more generous in PMD. Like Stab not very effective is stronger than super effective no stabs One of the reason why Meganium despite having plenty of bad match up in it is one of the strongest Purity Forest runner. The other being its insanely godly stats

[@PedroMartinez-xx1zp]

@@screwtokaiba Yeah, resistance is 0.7 in MD, so a 0.25 becomes 0.49. With stab, it becomes slightly more powerful than base resistance at 0.735. But I don't need math to figure out Razor Leaf + Bullet Seed with Scope Lens equals a very powerful leaf Dino.

[@fluffyycactus2396]

i love little cup math, its so goofy

[@wizzlepants1274]

Shout out to 19 hp life orb

[@theeducatedfool]

I love when competitive Pokemon is just math with moving pictures of monsters hitting each other.

[@coco88856]

Math is everywhere

[@my_dude_5742]

​@@coco88856 Nuh uh

[@june9914]

Aipom is the most prolific war criminal and has avoided all consequences

[@angeldiselatcia]

​@@tamarindsOr American.

[@sayanmridha4244]

So apom is Hamas or Iran 🙃

[@khub5660]

How did yall manage to make a video about Pokémon political? Yall disgust me

[@june9914]

@@khub5660 nuh uh

[@usernametaken017]

"avoided all consequences" my ass, he got banned from little cup

[@kurenian]

Mystery dungeon, Little Cup, and Cloyster: where multi hit moves are overpowered

[@bmac4]

🤝

[@meteorjohnson139]

Rapid strike urshifu goes burrrrr

[@umwha]

And cinccino

[@TheEternalLightning]

Hey Breloom (with loaded dice) Would like to say hello xD

[@Cardb33]

This is such an interesting and cool explanation of how the damage mechanics work in Little Cup. You did an amazing job explaining it in an understandable way.

[@adpg4471]

Funny enough, Aipom only hold Tail Slap in Gen 7 In Gen 9 it had to go back to Fury Swipes, but it now has Tera and most Pokemon are less bulkier so it got banned anyways

[@-libertyprimev1-902]

Ntm you can now run Technician over Skill Link thanks to Loaded Dice, allowing you to also boost its already crazy Stab Fake Outs as well coverage move in Triple Axel. (Why couldn't Knock Off have just 5 less power...)

[@vez3834]

@@-libertyprimev1-902 I think they have Knock Off above 60 for a reason :)

[@Azun_Kurone]

@@-libertyprimev1-902 It wouldn't get the technician boost anyway because the item boost applies before the damage calc checks for technician

[@Toadiferous]

@@-libertyprimev1-902Aipom doesn't get Technician. It has Run Away which becomes Technician when it evolves.

[@Nako3]

I am so very upset that they didnt give Tail Slap to Aipom / Ambipom in Gen 9

[@Laezar1]

As a general rule of thumb when creating math for games like that. low numbers are easy to parse but create goofy situations like that, and if you add a zero or two to every number you make things way less sensitive to threshold effects like that, but you also make numbers much harder to make sense of. That actually makes the formula look less bad, it means at low level you get goofy numbers but that are easy to understand (usually balanced around weak early game attacks to make things easier to control for the devs), but at higher level you get more nuanced numbers that are a bit harder to play with but avoid some silly stuff like that in exchange, makes for a good progression in my opinion!

[@lancelindlelee7256]

Actually, here, it would be a lot simple to stop truncating at every step and just round at the last.

[@Laezar1]

@@lancelindlelee7256 I mean even with rounding you'd get that type of stuff

[@wiilli4471]

@@lancelindlelee7256 Or just dont round in general? I don't see why they cant do decimal damage

[@echogaia1708]

Aipom: i fear no Pokémon. But that thing: Flame Body, it scares me

[@mokarokas-1727]

So he is scared. Didn't really think this line through, did you? The original line doesn't read like that, does it? lol

[@dominicpirola8240]

its "i fear no man... etc" meant to imply that the thing in question isnt human ehh idk how u would adapt the quote to a niche ability

[@BurnadaKnigter]

Static also go brrr

[@echogaia1708]

@@dominicpirola8240 yeah sorry i miss wrote it

[@janfaid8576]

dw bout it its ur effort that counts ​@@echogaia1708

[@masterofchaos7282]

So multi hit moves are overpowered in LC? Sounds like mystery dungeon all over again.

[@jacobfoxfires9647]

Ah man I felt that.

[@sobblegaming350]

Mystery dungeon is essentially little cup for your team only, so fair enough.

[@noobslayer7564]

Usually when someone tries to teach me math we have to fight But this video was really cool

[@qwirkt]

School must have been a crazy time

[@dragon-id5uj]

Well, pokemon uses math to fight, so that might explain why it's all good here :)

[@vez3834]

Math is fun because it's logical. It is frustrating for everyone, but at least there is an objective answer if the question isn't vague.

[@Nako3]

Math is awful

[@bjoernpagaming2485]

I love this kind of in depth video. The information was short, exact, interesting, and easy to follow :)

[@p.zansei3280]

Not going to lie, the layers of math behind Aipom's success really is fascinating. I'm proud of my lil Johto monke. ❤

[@Neonlight3934]

I'm going to bet it's because of rounding Edit: It was, I knew the rounding jank would strike again.

[@vladfi1]

The rounding in his example actually is working against Aipom's favor. It's the +2 which gets added once per attack that makes the difference.

[@growen6474]

Good stuff as always Freezai. Some feedback regarding the math and showing it visually: it can be hard to follow at a glance when viewing it for the first time. I recommend color-coding variables so viewers know what numbers are important and actually differ between them.

[@Poiman64]

I can't believe Freezai talked about the Gen 7 LC Ubers metagame before Reverend did.

[@coughfee1416]

3:53 Ah yes, 0/95 is indeed a decimal.

[@bucketspree4952]

It's the real reason he got banned, Pokemon is trying to hide their crime

[@puppyDawg128]

This is the first time that the Pokémon damage formula has made literally _any_ sense to me. Thanks for the breakdown!

[@BubblesChika]

This makes me happy to hear my beloved ran terror. Aipom/Ambipom was really fun to use in Brilliant Diamond with a moveset consisting of Substitute, Nasty Plot, Shock Wave & Baton Pass, with a Speed increasing nature. Truly the stuff of dreams

[@The_Tormented_One]

Because monke

[@senny-]

Why was Aipom overpowered? Freezai: "If you divide Attack by Defense then multiply with Modifiers like STAB and Life Orb then..." 🤓 Aipom: Am monke

[@overlord3481]

no

[@Lucifers-Stepdad]

Damage rounding thresholds, baby!

[@MelodyBarrens]

In other words, everyone is afraid of the math monkey. Fear his algebra.

[@vandelay33]

Wouldn't things like Rocky Helmet, Rough Skin/Iron Barbs, Stamina, Effect Spore/Flame Body all be reasonable counter play?

[@floorgle]

I dont think there are any relevant rough skin or effect spore users in lc, rocky helmet is never worth it over eviolite, and there are very few stamina, flame body and iron barbs users, it is counter play, but aipom is still too strong for lc

[@erizoh]

You have Ferroseed, but it's vulnerable to Fire Punch, so it kind of falls off as a counter.

[@echogaia1708]

Ponyta and Larvesta were aipom best counters

[@megapussi]

Note: most of this info comes from me reading the ban announcement page. Iron Barbs is not good counterplay. There is exactly 1 user of Iron Barbs in the format, Ferroseed. Aipom destroys it with Fire Punch. Rough Skin is not good counterplay. Rough Skin does 10 damage when Aipom plays straight into it. You have to run an ass pokemon who's only job is to die to Aipom, and even then it only does like half his health. Remember, Aipom is also very fast, after your "counterplay" dies, the entire rest of your team dies too. Defense is not good counterplay. Aipom runs Grass Knot, which will 2HKO Mudbray even after getting the +5 defense. The best counterplay described here is probably Flame Body, which is on pokemon who get 4x weakness to Stealth Rock which is not that much of an ask to get online before switching in your Aipom. None of that is mentioning the fact that Aipom has Uturn, meaning even if these half-counters are actually being run, that doesnt actually mean you even get to use it. In Summary, none of these counters are actual hard counters. You will need two of them at minimum on every single team you build, just to counter 1 pokemon that everyone will be running. Thats like, the textbook definition of a pokemon that needs to be banned.

[@StarfieldDisarray]

116 Atk Life Orb Aipom Fire Punch vs. 84 HP / 108+ Def Eviolite Ferroseed: 21-26 (95.4 - 118.1%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO

[@mandalorianhunter1]

I always loved Aipom, glad it's back.

[@Aeirion]

I love how Little Cup has those Paper Mario low numbers

[@junglecruiser4785]

Curiously, now that aipom can't use tail slap in gen 9 anymore, I've started to see discussion on unbanning them due to the aforementioned fury swipes downgrade. Idk if that'll materialize, but if it does it'd be good to play the lil hand monke once more!

[@r.c.3813]

Lol aipom is one of my fav pokemons i never knew how powerful the little guy was

[@goldenpsi8764]

shout outs to aipom, my goat

[@patricialock1862]

Aipom appreciation 🎉

[@ryanpearce6297]

This was interesting! Cool video

[@EL4701.]

gee i sure do hate that one in sixteen chance for all your move damage to get multiplied by 0/95 and just end up doing absolutely nothing. people talk about gen 1 misses a lot but this is so much more likely and annoying.

[@mermaidmeeple1608]

Thank you for actually showing the math!

[@nin10doadict]

"You banned me? Why?" "Mmm... monkey... also Tail Slap"

[@mickeyd8966]

Early gen 5 little cup was my favorite. Most things were allowed, it was just 3 OP pokemon and 3 gimmiky mons trying to win

[@sagacious03]

Great analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

[@GeorgeDCowley]

"Friendship" is one of the few official terms I prefer.

[@RRRR-jr1gp]

Minncino also has skill link tail slap? Why is it not banned?

[@almendratlilkouatl]

because he cute and aipom is ugly af

[@luizfelipevbf5567]

20 less attack and 10 less speed

[@JasperHuang-vt5iw]

Every time I use fury swipes it misses am i cursed

[@reniac3128]

My favourite statement about the format is Aipom being the equivalent of mega ray in LC

[@RainShadow-yi3xr]

Gen 7 LC Ubers meta analysis when?

[@dreamfirefight9456]

This is why Shiv has this as his ace!

[@Inverse_Intellect]

Omg Desolation reference, this gave me so much nostalgia 🥺

[@wenxiwu6480]

I see that you are a man of culture

[@TheBillz206]

my brain is not braining

[@gameboy3d943]

Math: 😒 Math, but Pokémon: 👀

[@vez3834]

I really recommend looking into good math channels like Numberphile. Math has a lot of cool history and can be applied everywhere. Every new concept is like a new mathematical tool.

[@urkerab]

STAB does round but Pokémon always rounds halves downwards and STAB is usually 1.5× which means it looks like it truncates but if you have Adaptability Tera Double STAB then that's 2.25× so it can round up e.g. 2.25×3 will round up to 7.

[@Dilpickle131]

How come minccino isn’t banned for having skill link and tail slap

[@paulloy8728]

It's overall a downgrade to Aipom, particularly on stats

[@gotdamn4989]

aipoms stats r better

[@Choicexband]

making a 10 minute video out of something that can be explained in 2 sentences award 🥇

[@armorbearer9702]

It's time for Aipom's Amicable Alliance.

[@Rexir2]

You know, rocky helmet bulky gible or ferroseed could give aipom and it's contact moves trouble

[@s1rumbrens.u133]

rocky helmet is never recommended to use because of the mecanics of level 5 so is better off just use eviolite instead

[@way2clueless]

math, ugh, aipom, yipeee

[@Number1drizzilefan]

Before watching my guess is that down in Little Cup where damage calcs are run with level 5's, weaker moves aren't as weak relatively, so Skill Link Aipom loves outspeeding and breaking sashes

[@dissect123]

Small correction: The little cup originated in Pokémon Stadium 2, not Pokémon Stadium.

[@lesbiangregorsamsa507]

he's just a silly little guy

[@Coach_Cena]

wouldn't minccino also be broken then? he also has tail slap and skill link

[@vez3834]

Its stats are lower. Atk, def, spdef and speed are all lower. It has fewer coverage moves than Aipom. No Fire move means that Ferroseed is tough to break through for example.

[@almendratlilkouatl]

also mincino is italian and aipom is ugly

[@shirshobanerjee7751]

Basically, each hit is calculated separately, so a move like tail slap on aipom is 37.5 bp after STAB, hitting 5 times, which is 187.5, a little stronger than non-STAB V-create. It’s why the base power on multihits is shown as one number and not a range (ie: tail slaps bp is displayed as 25, not 25-125) For reference, STAB return is 153 base power and doesn’t ignore focus sash. Video goes in more depth but that’s the surface reason. (Also aipom is stronger mincinno in both of its relevant base stats (20 higher attack, 10 higher speed) So basically, it would nuke everything unless you had ferroseed, but A: ferroseed has to be healthy; and B: because ferroseed is a relevant meta mon, most good teams will have ways around it. If I had to guess, this is why aipom is banned and also why all my teams get 6-0’d by shell smash Cloyster in gen 8 (I just use the funky guys and not the mons who win games)

[@ruukinen]

Just fyi, multiplying the before or after value with stab, results in the same number. 25 * 5 = 125, 125 * 1.5 = 187,5. The reason multihits are good in little cup is the small + 2 in the damage calcs.

[@shirshobanerjee7751]

Not me forgetting how mutliplication works, thank you for the correction

[@Outersoy]

LETSS GOOO AIPOM THE GOAT FINAAAALY

[@cdkw2]

3:57 typo at #6 couldn't resist to notice lol

[@666blaziken]

Child: "I want pokemon super mystery dungeon!" mom: "we have pokemon mystery dungeon at home" **points to little cup** (for those familiar with multihit moves in the mystery dungeon series)

[@ladonmccabe]

Aipom finally getting his dues.

[@Sonim470]

your videos are very informative and have a lot of thought and knowledge behind them and they way you present your arguments makes them easily understood. that said I would advise working on your script because you tend to repeat yourself and sometimes you get too long to get to the point for no reason, for example you presented the idea that furry swipes is better than return at 1:00 and didnt get to why until 2:00+ which can make the viewing experience frustrating

[@thisimagelooksslightlybett1020]

RE: Life orb rounding instead of truncating Considering how the damage formula works, Life Orb would be an… underwhelming item if the damage increase were truncated, especially with the HP cost. (Just a stupid example: “My attack does 2 damage, but with Life Orb it does 2.6! Which is… 2 with truncation.” Something like that? Hope it makes sense.

[@Rye-Uh]

Does Mincinno carry the same thing? Or does the base attack difference make a huge difference.

[@zdelrod829]

Aipom being a Skill Link bot in Little Cup is funny.

[@pmnt_]

my guess for Life Orb would be that it's implemented as *4/3. what happens at 2 damage? If it's a multiplication with 1.3 with rounding, it will be boosted to 3 damage, if it's an integer operation *4/3, it would stay at 2 damage.

[@Kalaphant]

0:30 Does it on average boost more than an ability that's already banned?

[@ES_Rblx]

THIS IS NOW MY FAV VIDEO EVER OMG (MY FAV POKEMON IS AIPOM)

[@blakerenimu9033]

And it became even more OP in gen 9 with the Dice... he can use Technician now 💀

[@yoshiwoollyworld]

Doesn’t ambipom get techinician?

[@SonplaysMinEcraft]

we live in a society where overpowered dogs (mienfoo/riolu) get to play in little cup but when the monkeys (aipom/meditite) are op they get banned

[@petelee2477]

One thing you didn't mention is how critical hits affect the damage formula.

[@Kmn483]

"It'll likely be banned in every little cup in the future" Nintendo gonna powercreep little cup until Aipom is unbanned. 30 base multihit as a TM.

[@dannykazari]

Aipom is my favorite Pokemon and I had no idea about this history, very cool funny monkey

[@pkcryo]

as the biggest aipom enjoyer I completely agree

[@ricsouza5011]

smogon lmao

[@terrordarky]

aron: my time to shine

[@bucketspree4952]

This doesn't get countered by Rocky Helmet/Rough Skin?

[@theclew47]

Its funny how aipom didnt learn how to slap someone until USUM. Remember, get to 3.4 e23 Slap Damage

[@banditrests]

Pokémon damage calculations are weird, especially at low numbers. As far as I understand it, the flooring effect is an artifact of the programing language used to make gen 1 not being able to handle decimals. The much weirder thing is that they never changed it, and you still get all kinds of jank around non-linear progression and damage rounding thresholds (tm). Life orb is strange for a bunch of other reasons, possibly because it was added in Gen 4, but it’s also not technically 1.3 and it has the whole sheer force thing.

[@Toadiferous]

I mean it currently does not have Tail Slap in Gen 9 and it's still banned

[@IndigoEuphonium]

Aipom really unlocked Astra

[@keithlyons4359]

Maybe that was why they took Tail Slap away from Aipom in gen 9? Always thought that made no sense. Hopefully it will get it back someday.

[@ZacharyMauser]

Finally, my favorite Pokemon is overpowered.

[@venoxhuro5199]

Now Pokémon desolation makes a lot more sense-

[@dav5oly]

At 3:53 you have a typo for #6. Plz fix thx

[@scoots291]

I thought it was going to be a king's rock stat😂

[@Elyvilon]

I'm 99% certain that regular damage truncates and life orb rounds because Pokemon was created in 1994 and Life Orb wasn't added until the mid 2000s so 2 separate people did 2 separate things. Hell, the guy in 1994 might have been trying to do that tiny bit of extra optimization because we're in early 90s programming where every little bit matters(or, more likely, just cast it to int at the end because whatever, who cares, this is a silly game for 8 year olds)

[@harikiran4339]

Plus loaded dice for more punch!

[@MagnusTB_]

didnt aipom lose tail slap this gen though, home come it's still banned from LC?

[@Kalaphant]

1:24 Does it round up all 5?

[@dream_weaver6207]

First I thought that this was gonna be about ADV ZU

[@anaranjado8635]

3:04 420😂😂😂😂

[@renjitsu26]

Aipom to the top! ❤

[@omegakrome3931]

Why don't they just ban tail slap aipom specifically? Seems a little egregious to just ban it entirely.

[@filedotnix]

This makes me irrationally angry that the damage equation doesn't round across the board. Truncating isn't that big of a deal at high damage values, but when damage is low, it's an invisible value that could mean the difference between a win and a loss.

[@axolotl11_]

now i know why moves always do one damage minimum! cool to know

[@basklisk]

why ban aipom? why not ban only aipoms using tail slap? I don't really pay attention to competitive, but have been watching a bunch of videos lately, so sorry if that's a dumb question

[@luizfelipevbf5567]

That would be what wecall complex bans and, unless the move itself makes any/almost all pokemon with it overpowered Smogon prefers not to do it for the pandora's box that is banning part of a pokemon. If we ban Aipom from using Tail Slap to let people kerp using him, would people argue the same for other broken mons? Ex: Ban Sneasler from using Close Combat so it can be used in OU; Ban Kyogre from using water type moves so it can be used in regular play

[@basklisk]

@@luizfelipevbf5567 ah thanks! that makes sense. I guess it's not too bad since there's so many pokemon to choose from already.

[@marverickbin]

Does tandemaus learn opulation bomb?

[@empirelee7676]

Every OP pokemon is OP because of "mathematical reasons"