Confuse Ray is fucking bullshit.
I was fighting Steven Stone two days ago with my level 70 Tyranitar that I had pseudo-naturally hacked in and played with in most of the region for a one Pokemon challenge, and I swear to you, Edward's Demon is a real factor in this universe.
See, I did some math. I was doing pretty well until Cradily came out, which I had dreaded just as it was imminent because it's got the kind of moves and strategy that could ruin the run. But Cradily did go down fast enough, it was actually the confusion status it had landed on my Pokemon shortly before fainting that caused me to lose. The odds in a mathematical sense should have been higher for me, but Steven got the lucky rolls. I'm no math or probability expert, but I've picked up some things.
Steven only had Aggron and Metagross left, and naturally Metagross was going to come out. I knew Metagross was supposed to be scary, but what I didn't know is how rigged probability would be. Tyranitar was still confused, a bullshit condition on any day, and though she was faster than a league champion grade Metagross, I couldn't get a hit in. I think earthquake could have worked. I could take Metagross out and then use a super effective move on Aggron at extremely low health for a clutch victory.
Metagross used Meteor Mash twice and destroyed my dream of doing this without annoying post-gym grinding. How? Confusion turns stopped her from defending herself, and Meteor Mash didn't miss.
Edward's Demon is the hypothesis I've come up with that says in a probability situation, The Universe weighs consequences against a human being's favour, benefiting non-human opponents.
Confusion is a 50% chance to screw you over each turn. Meteor Mash is 85% accurate in Generation 3, which I was playing.
First off the confusion for two consecutive turns is surely 25% likely to happen because you'll be multiplying a half by a half. That's still what I ended up dealing with. She never got to hit Metagross.
So I got a 25% chance bad luck with being able to attack on the most crucial turn, but what did Metagross do? Earthquake for guaranteed damage? No, it did Meteor Mash only. 85% of 85% equals 72.25%. Which doesn't sound that bad, and you can kinda know that it's not a bad move, but then consider how Steven got all hits in and I got none.
18.0625%. That's the probability of both confusion turns making Tyranitar "confused" and two Meteor Mashes hitting her. At this point, why not throw in the random attack stat buff?
Steven has poison and confusion statuses on his team, but for some unfortunate reason I thought I could use a Sitrus berry, on a Pokemon with high-leveled gargantuan health. That was the final insult. She healed for basically nothing. Sure I know now, but I've been through the Elite Four in this save a lot of times and it's a bummer. The rules I've enforced are that I don't time travel by reloading outdated save points. That makes the champion fight a lot harder. Maybe I should have gone in Shoal Cave a bit, but Leftovers are not accessible before the end of the game here. I was constantly poring over move PP and the right item to use during each Elite Four battle, and it was stressful.
This happens in countless let's plays, in lots of games. I've seen Pokemon players get screwed over by the game being luckier than them time and time again. I need to go to a university and do a series of experiments to see if Edward's Demon is actually real.
