How can the battle never end if two Wobbufets are facing each other and both of them are holding leftovers?

Question

I read that there is no chance of the battle ending and there is no chance of escapement. How is this possible?

Answer 1

An endless battle with Wobbufets can only occur in Gen 3. It happned when both combatants used a Wobbufet that were holding Leftovers, had Shadow Tag and were eventually forced to use Struggle after running out of PP. Due to how Shadow Tag worked it trapped both Pokemon on the field, making switching impossible and the PP stalling inevitable.
The 'glitch' happned because Struggle had a different base power then, half of the dealt damage, as opposed to a fixed quarter of the users HP. Because of Wobbufets great bulk and poor Attack, in a battle between the two, no one would win. Since they have no other way of attacking and both have Shadow Tag (which prevents escape) a battle could easily become endless if both Pokemon held Lefteovers, since the 1/16 HP healed easily outweighed the measly recoil from Struggle and the laughable power of the opponents Struggle.

Because the base power of Struggle was upped to a quarter of the users HP in Gen 4, and Shadow Tag lost its effect on other Shadow Tag users in Gen 6 it is now impossible to perform this sort of endless battles.

Source: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Struggle_(move)

Comments

Okay, I have no problem here, but for future reference, how can I improve my answers? I answered literally the same thing an hour ago, but something doesn't seem all right in my answer, apparently. Oh well, at least for the next time, what can I do better to answer such questions properly?

Peace ^.^

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He put in a bit more detail and info.

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Also make sure you get the Generation 3 struggle mechanics right.

Answer 2

This is very much possible. The Pokemon simply use all of their moves, and are therefore forced to use Struggle. Struggle makes the user lose 25% of its health, so, sooner or later, the battle will end as one of them will succumb.

Note that the slower Pokemon benefits here.

Edit: Leftovers restore HP, but ultimately, it is not enough for the Pokegame to regain all of the health they lost, since Leftovers only help regain 1/16th of the HP, whereas Struggle damges the Pokemon by 1/4 of its HP. Simple Maths here shows that sooner or later, even Leftovers healing up will not be able to save the Wobbuffet.

Leftovers mainly delay the inevitable.

Comments

http://pokemondb.net/move/struggle

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What does leftovers do?

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Heals HP