Much has been said about how annoying and expensive it is to reroll your legendary Pokemon. With the amount of powerful legendary Pokemon being released, this is a bigger problem than ever before. It is currently difficult to imagine a properly constructed PvP team without at least one legendary - the likes of Landorus-T, Tornadus-T, Thundurus, Manaphy, and Mega Diancie simply have no comparable huntable replacement. Because of this, I would like to present a mathematical analysis on how difficult it is to obtain a legendary that is able to function in its role - having sufficient speed to maintain its speed tier, and the correct hidden power if necessary. I will only look for average secondary stats (HP, offenses, defenses >= 15). These statistics were computed using a script that simulates rerolling a legendary over and over until it meets certain parameters. This was posted in the PvP forum as it is most relevant to PvP players.
First, let's consider this (admittedly subjective) list of essential legendaries:
Essential:
Niche:
Let's consider only the 10 legendaries listed as essential. Here are the speed IVs they must meet to remain in their speed tier:
Let's take a look at how many rerolls it would take to obtain bare minimum speed, reasonable secondary stats, and Hidden Power if necessary (Mean | Median # rerolls necessary in 10,000 simulations rounded to nearest integer):
Sum total: 1877 mean / 1305 median reroll tickets needed for simply playable stats. Source code can be provided if anyone is interested in double-checking my work, but arithmetic will show that these numbers are reasonable. I think no one will disagree when I say this is unrealistic for the vast majority of the playerbase. Of course, the primary offender is Hidden Power, but I would consider these numbers unacceptable even without the [Ice] electrics. As frustrating as it is for players, I can't imagine it's profitable for the game, either - with these numbers most players simply won't bother rerolling, weakening the economy.
My best suggestion for mitigating this issue is allowing players to grind to increase their legendaries' IVs up to a maximum of 15. I'd love to hear any alternative ideas.
As an aside, this forum needs actual moderation. The Greninja thread was a cesspool of low-effort posts and blatant misinformation - Keita eventually closed it, but ideally we would be able to engage in productive discussion without these sorts of distractions.