How is Thunder Wave balanced as a move, or rather paralysis as a status?
I genuinely don't understand how this move is considered competitive and I'd like a detailed explanation on how it's okay and not overpowered.
Yes, I understand competitive Pokemon is novel and not really meant to be taken too serious, yes I know luck is one of the most important things when it comes to winning, but Thunder Wave is honestly draining all the fun you could possibly have in this out of it.
I follow all the official tournaments and watch most replays and there's a staggering amount of games that are influenced extremely heavily by paralysis RNG, it makes the already best Pokemon in OU even more busted, it's stupidly well distributed, the status itself is tacked onto random electric moves which makes me terrified of ever switching my Latios in on a Thunderbolt because if I get parad I'm basically dead, it promotes degenerate strategies like flinching, plenty of very high end players I follow complain about it regulary and yet it's being spammed more and more on both the ladder and in competitive games, if someone uses twave in a game I'm watching and they get a few full paras I click X because that game is now garbage and no longer in any sense a good game.
Status in general is obscenely broken in this game series, it always has been, but with all the tiers seemingly wanting to ban silly complicated stuff like No Guard 100% Confusion moves I don't get how a move that can stop your Pokemon 8 turns in a row is ok.
So yeah some good player give me a detailed explanation on how Thunder Wave/Paralysis is a good and >fun< part of the metagame, and don't give me the simple ground/electric types/cleric answer.
Edit: I'm okay with the speed control aspect of paralysis.