Auto weather poll

What should Smogon do regarding auto weather?

  • Ban Drizzle

    Votes: 149 26.9%
  • Ban all Auto-weather

    Votes: 112 20.3%
  • Keep it as it is

    Votes: 292 52.8%

  • Total voters
    553
Status
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Shurtugal

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Not really. Most pokemon can check or counter more than one weather (Mamo beats sand and sun and can even beat on rain rachi, torni, and just plain good). If rain didn't exist, we'd be limited in building by something else. It's not like if rain left that water attacks suddenly suck; you still need water absorbants, etc. I fail to see how weather limits the meta game anymore than a non-weather meta game would imo.
 
I'm going to ask you all this question : what's your main problem with Drizzle ? Hydropump/Surf more powerful ? Ok I do agree, but what pokemons use these moves ? Fire moves are weakened ? It can be boring against a few ones (ferro, scizor, maybe skarm) but come on that's obviously not the main problem.

[Analyses on pokemon]

If your Team is weak to Thundurus-T or to Latios, is it because Drizzle isn't banned ? I don't think so... I know it's impossible to handle all these threats perfectly but you're allowed to bring 1-2 checks/counters to the most threatening Pokemons of the tier before saying "I HAD A BAD MATCHUP" or "BAN DRIZZLE".
What about all of rain's perks compounding with the fact that the weather lasts the entire match and it only requires switching in / leading? It doesn't take up an item slot, it doesn't take up a move slot, it only takes a turn for an ideal switch-in (although it takes up an ability which isn't much of an opportunity cost).

That's my main problem: It's free, last forever, and empowers numerous unique threats (btw I guess Ferrothorn isn't worth a mention?). Shouldn't something so valuable that lasts the entire game cost something, other than using Politoed for a (edit) team slot?

Rain (along with Sun) needs suspecting in my opinion.
 
the "rant" has plenty of solid reasoning behind it if you've played the game enough and can actually analyze what's going on during the match, not just the end result.

i'll tone the argument down to where everyone can understand it; rain is brutally overpowering to the point that where if you're not running it yourself, you either have no problems with it because you've bent over backwards to do so or you get completely slaughtered by it. it is much more restricting than any other playstyle and anyone who thinks different is kidding themselves.

is it so hard to just give drizzle a suspect test?
 

alexwolf

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Well, it's been a while in this discussion that almost everybody agrees that a weatherless team can beat any rain team as long as it prepares for it a minimum (and some already stated that sun is often more troublesome), though I think a good rain team should currently have a good answer to Celebi / Jellicent. I think Lavos just implied that they were less consistent than a solid rain / sand team ; you can't say weatherless teams are on par with weather teams because they have a chance to win ONE matchup. And they do are at a disadvantage from turn one against Rain/Sun basically because they can't abuse the weather condition as much and moreover they will probably have one mon being a dead weight.
Weatherless teams do not only have a chance to win one match-up. Weatherless teams usually have weaknesses to specific Pokemon, and not to entire team-types. This is why they are more consitent than Sun and Rain teams. Because they are less match-up based, so the battle is more influenced by your skill and decisions. Sun and Rain are better in only a specific sense, the sense that they are easier to build, use, and win against teams that are at a disadvantage because of the team match-up. And even if i accept that Sun and Rain teams are a bit better overall than weatherless teams, so what? Better teams and strategies exist in every meta, and as long as they can be beaten without taking ridiculous measures, and as long as they don't kill other playstyles (which would mean limiting diversity), they are just fine. Finally, where did you get the idea that weatherless teams are at a disadvantage against sun and sand teams? Weatherless teams will be at a disadvantage at whatever they chose to be weak to, and this is their strength, their versatility.

EDIT: Also about Kingdra... I saw someone somewhere saying that Kingdra is only useful against rain, and that it is shit against anything else. Rain Dance Kingdra is nothing like that and fares just fine against Sun and Sand, making it a very good Pokemon to run in a Rain weak team.
 
Not really. Most pokemon can check or counter more than one weather (Mamo beats sand and sun and can even beat on rain rachi, torni, and just plain good). If rain didn't exist, we'd be limited in building by something else. It's not like if rain left that water attacks suddenly suck; you still need water absorbants, etc. I fail to see how weather limits the meta game anymore than a non-weather meta game would imo.
There's a difference between needing a water resistance and be forced to use a BULKY (and preferably fast) water resistance able to recover the damages or a water absorber because otherwise Keldeo in rain fucks you.
alexwolf said:
Weatherless teams do not only have a chance to win one match-up. Weatherless teams usually have weaknesses to specific Pokemon, and not to entire team-types. This is why they are more consitent than Sun and Rain teams. Because they are less match-up based, so the battle is more influenced by your skill and decisions. Sun and Rain are better in only a specific sense, the sense that they are easier to build, use, and win against teams that are at a disadvantage because of the team match-up. And even if i accept that Sun and Rain teams are a bit better overall than weatherless teams, so what? Better teams and strategies exist in every meta, and as long as they can be beaten without taking ridiculous measures, and as long as they don't kill other playstyles (which would mean limiting diversity), they are just fine. Finally, where did you get the idea that weatherless teams are at a disadvantage against sun and sand teams? Weatherless teams will be at a disadvantage at whatever they chose to be weak to, and this is their strength, their versatility.
Yeah, i just had the impression you were saying "weatherless can beat rain so it's just as good if not better". I would not say that a weatherless is more consistent than a weather lol, if you built a team that has an edge over Rain/Sand and doesn't get fucked by Sun/DeoD then RMT it asap ! Also I think that beating rain with a weatherless takes huge measure, and beating both Rain and Sun + Volcarona with hp ground or dugtrio (Venusaur is included in "sun") takes ridiculous measures.
Finally, I don't know if "disadvantage" has a weird meaning in english, but yes weatherless has to deal with an initial disadvantage against Rain/Sun. If a soccer team plays on its homefield, it has an advantage though it doesn't mean that it wont lose / is inherently better...
 
People have to keep in mind that a good team is supposed to avoid this problem of "team matchup". There are obviously more threats to check in BW2 OU than in DPP but as you can notice it now, people are now using this argument of "team matchup" to explain their losses even in DPP or ADV. The main problem is in the teambuilding, not because the opponent brought the perfect "counterteam". Maybe you should accept that your team isn't that good and this is the reason why your opponent has a good "matchup". I'm not saying that the team matchup factor doesn't exist, it actually does exist but a good team is supposed to have a "good matchup" as much as possible against other teams. This includes against rain teams (and sun teams as well).

you answered this yourself, theres more threats to cover which makes things more reliant on team matchup. if you dedicate yourself to beating rain and sun, then you're setting yourself up to lose to that many more singular threats which will cost you long-term.

I'm going to ask you all this question: what's your main problem with Drizzle? Hydropump/Surf more powerful? Ok I do agree, but what pokemons use these moves? Fire moves are weakened? It can be boring against a few ones (ferro, scizor, maybe skarm) but come on that's obviously not the main problem.

a combination of these things is a problem. did you seriously just ask which mons use hydro pump and surf? oh i dunno, keldeo, politoed, starmie, latios, rotom-w, etc. fire moves being weakened is kind of a huge deal when you have such huge threats like ferrothorn who is probably the single most influencing mon to ever exist (and i stand by the fact that tournament stats and high ladder quality stats would have ferro at 50+%). you also didn't mention the subtle nuances of thunder being 100%, dragonite keeping multiscale intact more easily, etc.

- Politoed? Is Politoed a broken pokemon itself? I dont think so. Though Pump from the Specs is really hard to handle, but it's also slow and not THAT hard to kill.

timid specs toeds hydro pump: 252 SpA Choice Specs Politoed Hydro Pump vs. 4 HP / 252+ SpD Blissey in rain: 202-238 (30.98 - 36.5%)

timid specs latios draco meteor: Draco Meteor: 30.82 - 36.34%

YIKES. slow yes, but still fast enough to at worst tie with breloom (altho with torn-t gone i expect you'll outspeed more of them) and make it extremely hard for any team to switch into this. like seriously, water is actually a great offensive typing and it just causes such havoc that it's unfair to teams.


- Lati@s? Well, their counters are still the same I guess plus in Rain they cannot use HP Fire so they're totally walled by Ferrothorn. They're in my opinion as good in Rain as in Sand. Draco Meteor isn't more powerful in Rain ^_^

i think this speaks more about ferrothorn being that much harder to beat in rain lol...specs hp fire latios isn't even a great answer to it. who would think wed live to see that day in pokemon. also you neglected to mention surf but thats fine, i'll ignore the bias.

- Rotom-W? It is actually more used in Sand than in Rain. Rotom-W is a great Pokemon but it's not broken

again, you're looking at things extremely narrowly - boosted hydro pumps, 100% thunders if it so chose... these are attributes that rain takes to its advantage and makes it that much harder to deal with. i dont think any mon you name will be broken by itself.

- Gyarados? OK this thing is scary in Rain.

um..ok? i guess you do think a mon you name is broken by itself o_o

- Toxicroak? lol

good argument here. i personally dont like toxi but you cant ignore that with life orb and rain, its healing 2% every turn and that it is a great stall breaker that rain has access to because of that (so much so that its hard to run stall in a meta where even rain can shit on it via toxicroak .. unless you have hippo! more weather zawa zawa zawa)

- Tornadus? Well Torna is threatening but it's not as good as Torna-t. It was even UU ...

well no shit considering you can't use both on the same team and torn-t was clearly better. like is this a joke?

- Kyurem-B? I hear it wasn't broken at all ^______^ ( I personally think it's a broken Pokemon and not because of Drizzle lol)

wat does this even have to do with rain lol

- Tentacruel? lol

actually tenta is pretty insane with rain dish, i think tenta + ferro is one of the most dominant cores i have ever seen in my 6+ years of playing pokemon. it once again restricts playing freely and abuses most teams

- Starmie? Not really often used and still has the same checks/counters. It's actually more broken in DPP than in BW2 OU...

specs starmie is pretty busted, shame no one uses it

- Keldeo? Ban this shit, it's not broken because of Drizzle but because as you noticed it, it's at least as good in Sand as in Rain due to the fact that Tyranitar traps its few counters. Drizzle just helps it being more broken when you're spamming Surf/HPump like a nobrain.

oh, because this thing exists. drizzle certainly makes this more broken as you said so yeah..

- Thundurus-T? It's not like Thunder helps getting crucial KOs lol, T-Bolt does enough damage and it hits in Sand/Sun.

its a 40 BP jump lol, allowing thund-t to sweep through teams way easier. how can you say it doesnt get crucial kos when its providing what a 25% increase in power o__o. also you mention sand sun because once again, weather dictates everything about this stupid gen.

If your Team is weak to Thundurus-T or to Latios, is it because Drizzle isn't banned? I don't think so... I know it's impossible to handle all these threats perfectly but you're allowed to bring 1-2 checks/counters to the most threatening Pokemons of the tier before saying "I HAD A BAD MATCHUP" or "BAN DRIZZLE".

you're again thinking solely on a singular level and not taking into account drizzle as a whole. i feel like its a waste of time arguing with anyone whos just going to use "THUND-T ISNT BROKEN BY ITSELF HOW COULD DRIZZLE BE BROKEN" as an argument
responses in bold

smh
 
EDIT: Also about Kingdra... I saw someone somewhere saying that Kingdra is only useful against rain, and that it is shit against anything else. Rain Dance Kingdra is nothing like that and fares just fine against Sun and Sand, making it a very good Pokemon to run in a Rain weak team.
I didn't say that. Actually, my post was mostly the opposite. Kingdra can't do jack to a team full of Water types and Steel types, and it begs for Ferrothorn to come in. Also, Rain Dance Kingdra was one of my exceptions, seeing as it messes up Sand and Sun teams, but it requires the rest of the team to not get shafted by the rain it needs to work.
 

alexwolf

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It requires the rest of the team to not get shafted by the rain it needs to work? So basically the team must not have a Fire attack user and that's it? And even if you have a Fire move in your team you can use it just fine, as Kingdra usually comes out late game. So can you mention some examples of Pokemon that can't be used with Rain Dance Kingdra because they don't like being in rain?
 
I think rain is not broken, but things like torn-t, thundurus and drizzle+swift swim, were banned because of rain, that is why I think they should ban it.
 
It requires the rest of the team to not get shafted by the rain it needs to work? So basically the team must not have a Fire attack user and that's it? And even if you have a Fire move in your team you can use it just fine, as Kingdra usually comes out late game. So can you mention some examples of Pokemon that can't be used with Rain Dance Kingdra because they don't like being in rain?
Some stuff needs Fire moves for coverage, such as Celebi, Lati@s (to an extent, they can go without it), TTar, some mixed Kyu-B sets, Salamence, Hydreigon, and HP Fire Gengar are the ones that immediately come to mind. There's also defensive things to worry about. I'm thinking about being ruined because of stuff like Scarf Keldeo, Starmie, etc. decided to show up after you Rain Danced, got KO'd (Kingdra has good bulk, but it isn't invincible), and they take advantage of it and spam Hydro Pump at you. And of course there's going to be that guy running Rain Dish Tentacruel and Dry Skin Toxicroak in weatherless that ordinarily wouldn't be huge problems, but now they are. You have to be prepared for other teams to use your weather as well, just like you try to use theirs.
 

alexwolf

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Keldeo gets outsped and dies from Kingdra's DM anyway, and if Kingdra doesn't have DM, Keldeo should have been weakened already. Anyway enough theory, use Kingdra on your offensive team and then come back with results. Everything you said is a non-issue in real play and the limitations to using Rain Dance on your weatherless team are non-existent.
 
The problem with weather is that NOTHING that is not weather is anywhere near the same magnitude as Drizzle (and Drought) as team support.


Hazards? Residual damage on switches; can be spun away, Magic Bounced/Coated, Taunted; requires a turn (or more) to set up; requires a moveslot.

Now hazards are very useful, and are metagame defining. They keep power houseslike Volcorona in check, and Stealth Rock weakness is one of the biggest determining factors in a Pokemon's viability. They also support sweepers by weakening walls, and are almost essential to a stall team. But there are plently of ways of circumventing hazards. Rapid Spin is viable solely for its ability to remove hazards, and Magic Bounce users are seen in OU for the same reason. Taunt is also usable in a pinch, as all hazards are non-attacking moves. Hazards also take time to set up. Stealth Rock only takes one turn, but Spikes and Toxic Spikes take multiple turns of setup for the full effect. Hazards also use a moveslot, which might be used for another utility or attacking move.

Dual Screens? Half damage for 8 turns; can be taunted, stalled out; requires 2 turns , 2 moveslots, and typically an item.

Dual screens are also useful. The halved damage can give frail setup sweepers a chance to shine, or allow Pokemon with a vulnerability to priority or scarfers an opportunity to sweep. There are substantial flaws though. Taunt can completely ruin Dual Screens, and opposing Pokemon can sett up alongside the Screen user. There is also a significant investment needed for the strategy to bear fruit. Two turns are needed to set up both Screens, and a turn must be spent either suiciding or switching to a sweeper. The item Light Clay is almost required for the Dual Screener, but there are still only about five turns of Screens available to the sweeper, which can be stalled out with clever switching or use of Protect. The Dual Screener is also commited to the strategy, with little outside utility.

(Space to answer other forms of team support)

Drizzle? Boosts Water-type moves, that have good neutral coverage, by 50%; reduces Fire-type moves by 50%, buffing the already defensively great Steel type; fixes Thunder's and Hurricane's accuracy; gives free healing to Pokemon with certain Abilities, like Dry Skin and Rain Dish; gives Pokemon with Hydration practical immunity to status; activates Swift Swim (which we banned); lasts entire battle, cannot be removed except with weather; requires a teamslot; must switch in to activate.

First up, Water-type move boost. The 50% boost is very strong, turing strong Pokemon like Keldeo and Gyrados into wrecking balls, and offensively mediocre Pokemon like Politoed into legitimate threats, as well as making the useful Scald the same effective strength as a Hydro Pump is under clear skies. The 50% decrease to Fire-type moves is extremly beneficial to many defensive Pokemon. Steel types in general appriciate effectively losing one of their few weaknesses, with such beneficiaries as Jirachi and Ferrothorn, which are already great defensive Pokemon. The Fire-type move nerf is also useful against Dragon-types, which often run Fire-type coverage. The boost to Thunder is destructive, allowing many Electric Types to replace Thunderbolt with a 35 BP stronger move and triple the paralysis chance, and the boost to Hurricane gives select Pokemon a 120 BP move with great neutral coverage (among Pokemon ranked OU, better even then Dragon), a 30% chance of confusion, and no drawbacks. The activation of Dry Skin benefits mainly Toxicroak, who can use Black Sludge, Bulk Up, and Drain Punch to become nearly indestructible, or gain 2% hp per turn with Life Orb. Rain Dish is known for being used by Tentacruel, a Pokemon with good defensive typing and stats. Rain Dish gives Tentacruel a method of reliable recovery, making it one of the best, if not the best, Rapid Spinners in OU. Hydration is seen less in OU. The main abuser is Vaporeon, who is very hard to take down between its bulk and one turn Rest (Manaphy also used the ability to net multiple Calm Minds or Tail Glows, but it was sent to Ubers). There is also the ability Swift Swim, which was banned in conjuction with Drizzle for being too powerful). Drizzle also requires little effort to setup and maintain. Activating it requires only that Politoed be sent in, and it will last the entire match unless the opponent switches a weather inducer of thier own in or uses a weather move (a subpar option). And Politoed is not deadweight once rain is set up; someone posted calcs earlier showing that Specs Hydro Pump from Politoed is about as strong as Specs Draco Meteor from Latios.
Drought? Boosts Fire-type moves 50%; Reduces Water-type moves 50%; activates Chlorophyll; makes Growth twice as effective; lasts entire battle; cannot be removed except with weather; requires a teamslot; must switch in to activate.

First up, 50% boost to Fire-type moves. This is very destructive. Fire-type moves hit quite a few defensive Pokemon for supereffective damage already (most Steel-Types, for example), and the boost just makes them hit harder. There are also some real powerhouses among the Fire-type, like Victini, Volcorona, Darmanitan, and Chandelure; the boost just makes them hit with nuclear force (fun fact: 252 Atk Choice Band Victini (+Atk) V-create vs 4 HP/0 Def Kingdra: 53.77% - 63.36% 2 hits to KO). The Water-type move nerf is less useful, as few defensive Pokemon are weak to Water, but it does help Fire-types. The activation of Chlorophyll is one of the biggest boosts of sun, turning formerly slow Pokemon into speed demons, outspeeding even many Scarfers. Growth is another of sun's main attractions, giving the user (often a Chlorophyll user) a Nasty Plot boost and a Swords Dance boost, letting Pokemon become fantastic mixed sweepers. Drought also has a similarly low cost to Drizzle, requiring only a switch to activate, and once again being permanent unless countered with opposing weather. The teamslot used for Ninetails is much less useful than that used by a rain team's Politoed, as Ninetails is almost useless outside of Drought (it can...use Will-o-Wisp, and... that's about it).
Sandstream? Deals 6.25% damage per turn to all Pokemon that are not Rock, Ground, or Steel type. Boosts SpDef of Rock types 50%; Activates the Abilities Sand Rush and Sand Force (also Sand Veil); lasts entire battle; cannot be removed except with weather; requires a teamslot; must switch in to activate.

The passive damage is one of the main features of Sandstream, negating Leftovers for many Pokemon and chipping away at others. The SpDef boost is one of the other selling points, as it makes certain Pokemon (mainly Tyranitar and Terrakion) much harder to KO. Sand Rush, which doubles Speed in sandstorm (and it also negates the passive damage), is the last main selling point, letting Stoutland function as a great revenge killer and late-game sweeper, and Sandslash as a Rapid Spinner/sweeper. Sand Force, which provides a 30% boost to Rock, Ground, and Steel type moves, is seen mainly on physical Landorus-I, which can smash through teams with the boost. Sandstream also has perhaps the lowest cost of all the weathers because while it still requires a teamslot, it can be used by both Hippowdon and Tyraniter, already good Pokemon to begin with. Sandstream also has the low turn cost of switching in, and permantently takes effect unless the opponent counters with another weather.
Snow Warning? Deals 6.25% damage each turn to all Pokemon that are not Ice type; Fixes Blizzards accuracy; Activates the Ice Body ability; lasts entire battle; cannot be removed except with weather; requires a teamslot; must switch in to activate.

The residual damage to Pokemon that are not Ice type is the main feature of hail, negating Leftovers for or chipping away at almost all Pokemon. Blizzard becoming perfectly accurate gives Pokemon that previously used Ice Beam an effective increase of 35 BP, while still retaining the chance to freeze. Activation of Ice Body is the final effect of hail, giving Pokemon with the ability free Leftovers recovery. The only Pokemon seen using this ability are Walrein (using the infamous "Stallrien" set with Substitute and Protect to stall for 32 turns) and Glaceon (which usually runs an more offensive set with Substitute). Hail is the least seen weather for multiple reasons. The first is that few benefits are gained by using hail, compared to other weathers. The second is the difficulty of fitting Abomasnow into a team, as it brings seven weakness to the team, while not contributing much. Abomasnow's main selling points are the ability to beat or greatly damage the other weather inducers one-on-one, and STAB Ice Shard to check Dragons. Indeed, hail is more often used to deny the opponent their own weather than for its own merits. But hail shares the low turn cost of other weathers, requiring only that Abomasnow be switched in, while lasting until replaced with another weather.
Note that for Drizzle, Drought, Sandstream, and Snow Warning I only listed effects you are likely to see in OU.

The various kinds of weather (mainly Drought and Drizzle) stand head and shoulders above all other forms of team support. Weather (once again, mainly Drizzle and Drought) provide much more powerful effects than other forms of team support. They also have a low cost attached to their use, and are difficult to remove.

So why is this a such a bad thing? Let's imagine something for a moment. Let's say that we tiered team support , just like we tier Pokemon. Drought and Drizzle would be clear Ubers, because of how powerful they are in comparison to other forms of team support. The current metagame revolves around weather, in the same way the metagame would revolve around a Uber Pokemon like Ho-Oh if it was made legal in OU. If Ho-Oh came to OU, the metagame would focus on abusing Ho-oh, and countering Ho-Oh

There is a definite correlation here, in the effects weather has on the metagame and the effects an Uber would have on the metagame. Let me be the first to say, however, that correlation does not imply causation. It is perfectly possible that my analogy is simply invalid. I do believe, however, that it is correct, and that weather is simply bad for the metagame.

TL;DR Weather cause the metagame to centralize in the same way that an Uber like Ho-Oh would if allowed in OU.


EDIT: Sorry kd24. I meant to flesh it out before posting, but I was called away unexpectedly. I'm putting the rest of it in quote tags. It may take some time though.

EDIT2: Quote tags with explanations and conclusion are up.
 
thats a pretty shitty argument deglas. you're not expanding on why those attributes create a problem with weather. talk about why dry skin and rain dish is a big deal - which mons abuse it and why is it good

talk about the water mons that abuse it more, talk about the specific steel types, talk about the mons that benefit from hurricane being 100%, etc etc

your argument right now is it "does more" than hazards do. im completely lost by it - if you want to form an opinion, then form one and explain why things are broken in that respect

and no i didnt go fully in detail in my response to ojama but now ive motivated myself to xD. expect a mega post on drizzles influence everywhere soon .__.
 
thats a pretty shitty argument deglas. you're not expanding on why those attributes create a problem with weather. talk about why dry skin and rain dish is a big deal - which mons abuse it and why is it good
If it helps ... I think his point was that strategies like hazards and dual screens have their balance in the metagame. They provided great support for the team while they took effort to set up and maintain.

Auto-weather, on the other hand, makes a massive influence at the small price of switching in. Of course there are "weather wars," but who thinks switching the same two pokemon in back and forth makes a healthy metagame?
 
As a person who constantly builds weatherless teams, it is the ONLY team style that I need to constantly adjust as I climb up the ladder for the changing trends in weather domination as it is impossible to go from 1000 to 1900 with a static team, no matter how well built as you simply cannot account for every single weather threatening team...

An example, after creating an alt, I often start powering through the lower tiers with mixed bags of offense/defence (haxorus, Landorus-T, latias, Keldeo, etc) and when I hit the 1700-1800 range I have to still seriously consider sun teams with more than 1 sun sweeper. Once I am in the 1900 range the very few sun teams left tend to have 1 sweeper at most as they are too busy being customized to deal with rain and sand and when I hit the 1900's I find it very viable to run some interesting pokemon, like Toxicroak without rain. Why do I do things like this? Because in lower tiers Toxicroak is a liability against sun where I end up doing the equivalent of 6v5 with Toxicroak as death fodder but in the higher ranked zones, that is not as important as I can still beat said sun teams with the 6v5 matchup + liability as they are less about power (Darm, Venu, Victini) and more about utility and keeping away rocks and politoed (etc). That same Toxicroak is an absolute blessing against rain and can often take out at least 1 or 2 pokemon barring excellent prediction and guesses from the opposing rain team, in the higher tiers it becomes INCREDIBLY important that you are able to deal with rain, more significant during the Tornadus-T era but it is still the fact for me now.

Does anybody else share this experience? Meanwhile the few times I make a rain team I can climb from 1000 to 1900 rather easily with perhaps only minor adjustments.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Weatherless teams do not only have a chance to win one match-up. Weatherless teams usually have weaknesses to specific Pokemon, and not to entire team-types. This is why they are more consitent than Sun and Rain teams. Because they are less match-up based, so the battle is more influenced by your skill and decisions. Sun and Rain are better in only a specific sense, the sense that they are easier to build, use, and win against teams that are at a disadvantage because of the team match-up.
rain and sun, and even sand to an extent, are not better than weatherless teams for the reasons you think. you claim that they're better because they are easier to a) build, b) use, and c) win against teams that are disadvantaged by team matchup. the first two are correct: rain and sun teams are definitely easier to build and use than weatherless teams. however, the way you phrase the last of the three points makes me feel that you're not completely understanding my argument. let me be clear: against certain matchups, rain and sun essentially have automatic wins. against other matchups, it's not an auto-loss, either. rather, quite the opposite - because of their offensive nature as a team, even when disadvantaged by team matchup, rain and sun teams still have a chance at victory. the same absolutely cannot be said for weatherless teams. because weatherless teams lack that advantage of having weather over your opponent, their offensive prowess is greatly diluted. let's take weatherless v. sun, for example. your deo-d can't set up on xatu, your heatran (if you even have one) is getting trapped by dugtrio, and your team as a whole can't withstand the dual onslaught of venusaur plus volcarona. if it's weathless v. rain, the situation is the same, but it's now deo-gar failing to beat starmie or tentacruel, jirachi walling your latios, and keldeo cleaning up once your team has exhausted every offensive capability. and sure, if you run kingdra, your weatherless team is now better vs rain, except for that pesky ferrothorn...plus, by having to run a sub-optimal dragon like kingdra as opposed to something better like latios just to check rain, you're kind of proving my point.

And even if i accept that Sun and Rain teams are a bit better overall than weatherless teams, so what? Better teams and strategies exist in every meta, and as long as they can be beaten without taking ridiculous measures, and as long as they don't kill other playstyles (which would mean limiting diversity), they are just fine.
look at that last sentence real quick. you accept that, if rain and sun (specifically offense) are killing off other playstyles, then they are not "just fine". that's the entire crux of my argument against rain and sun. the advent of a new and more powerful rain/sun offense in bw2 has destroyed the viability of numerous playstyles. i'll list them all here: sun balance, sun stall, weatherless stall, non deo-d weatherless offense, hail anything, rain stall (to an extent). that's five or six playstyles right there that rain and sun have destroyed, and therefore, by your own reasoning, rain and sun are unhealthy for the metagame.

Finally, where did you get the idea that weatherless teams are at a disadvantage against sun and sand teams? Weatherless teams will be at a disadvantage at whatever they chose to be weak to, and this is their strength, their versatility.
ah, see, that's the point. a weatherless team has to literally choose, while teambuilding, to be weak to something. going into a battle, you know that if your opponent brings, say, sun offense, you will lose, and you accept that as a weatherless team user. but when you're using rain, for example, you know there are certain matchups you always win, and outside of those matchups, even if you are disadvantaged if your opponent brings, say, sand stall, you still have a fighting chance to succeed by executing good prediction, double switching, and maybe getting a little luck. for weatherless teams, that's hardly ever an option. either you win, or you lose. for that reason, because of weather teams, weatherless teams are actually the ones that are reliant on team matchup moreso than any other playstyle. the "strength" and "versatility" you cite here is knowing that because you have a specs kingdra and a reliable hazard setter on your team, you will beat rain teams 90% of the time. that same team, whatever it may be, is going to lose to sun 90% of the time as well, or maybe sand, or other weatherless teams with a certain combination of pokemon that they utilize. really, it's just a matter of picking your poison.
 

Bluwing

icequeen
is a Tutor Alumnus
Weather is so dominant in OU it's not even fun I realy wanna build a successfull non-weather team, but it's quite hard as when choosng pokemon abilities and moves you have to consider opposing weather, so so basic strong moves like Surf and Fire Blast is quite risky to use due to facing the wrong weather you actually have a waste off an moveslot.

So when people mostly think of a non-weather team they think hyper offense, and guys hyper offense can be hard, as there is so many weather abuser that hits so hard that you realy can't withstand it, also when im kinda forcing myself to use Scarf Latias to beat Modest Venusaur in Sun as im just so afraid to be weak to it, and Keldeo man that thing is so hard and is almost impossible to counter in Rain it's not even funny, anyway I actually think weatherless is quite an challenge and that OU is way to weather based.
 

alexwolf

lurks in the shadows
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnus
rain and sun, and even sand to an extent, are not better than weatherless teams for the reasons you think. you claim that they're better because they are easier to a) build, b) use, and c) win against teams that are disadvantaged by team matchup. the first two are correct: rain and sun teams are definitely easier to build and use than weatherless teams. however, the way you phrase the last of the three points makes me feel that you're not completely understanding my argument. let me be clear: against certain matchups, rain and sun essentially have automatic wins. against other matchups, it's not an auto-loss, either. rather, quite the opposite - because of their offensive nature as a team, even when disadvantaged by team matchup, rain and sun teams still have a chance at victory. the same absolutely cannot be said for weatherless teams. because weatherless teams lack that advantage of having weather over your opponent, their offensive prowess is greatly diluted. let's take weatherless v. sun, for example. your deo-d can't set up on xatu, your heatran (if you even have one) is getting trapped by dugtrio, and your team as a whole can't withstand the dual onslaught of venusaur plus volcarona. if it's weathless v. rain, the situation is the same, but it's now deo-gar failing to beat starmie or tentacruel, jirachi walling your latios, and keldeo cleaning up once your team has exhausted every offensive capability. and sure, if you run kingdra, your weatherless team is now better vs rain, except for that pesky ferrothorn...plus, by having to run a sub-optimal dragon like kingdra as opposed to something better like latios just to check rain, you're kind of proving my point.
BKC stated multiple times how sand stall dominates Rain teams, and now you are arguing that rain teams actually do have a fighting chance against sand stall. Which one is it guys, i want to know so we can continue this discussion. BKC says that weather makes the games that involve sun an rain completely match-up dependant, while you say that offensive rain and sun teams can overcome the disadvantage of match-up, implying that the match-up deal is not so important. Basically you say that weather teams completely dominate some types of teams, while still having a realistic chance of winning against team types that have an advantage against them, while weatherless teams only have an advantage against certain team types, and not a sure win, while almost instantly losing against weather offense teams. I don't agree with this point of view, and regarding to your statement
because of their offensive nature as a team, even when disadvantaged by team matchup, rain and sun teams still have a chance at victory
i have to remind you that weatherless offense teams are also offensive teams. Be it Deo-D HO, DragMag, or Dual Screens + 5 sweepers, all of those teams can get around bad match-ups due to their offensive nature, so offensive sun and rain teams are nothing special in that regard. A rain offense team choses to use Politoed as their support Pokemon, Deo-D teams chose to use Deo-D as their support Pokemon, and DS teams use dual screen set upers as their support Pokemon. I don't consider any of those kinds of support broken, as rain offense is nothing special whenever i play against it. Weatherless team can stand up to the power of weather teams because they either have their own form of heavy support (DS users, Deo-D, etc) or they have a more solid defensive core due to the ability to run one more Pokemon than rain and sun teams, as well as their ability to have better defensive synergy overall. Finally, i won't comment a lot on your examples about Sun or Rain against weatherless, as this will lead to an endless cycle of theorymon, but i just have to say that it is not as simple as you make it seem. Deo-D can set-up against Xatu with Skill Swap, Weavile can revenge kill any Chloro sweeper after SR + Spikes, and Volcarona dies after SR from Night Slash. Or if you don't want to use the gimmick called Skill Swamp, Weavile can trap and kill Xatu for you. This is how i got my reqs in the last suspect test and it worked just fine. Sun teams didn't trouble me at all.

Oh and Kingdra is not a suboptimal dragon, and if you think it is, i can't help but think you either haven't used it or are very biased against it. How is Rain Dance Kingdra a suboptimal dragon when it fares so well against sun and rain offense, two of the biggest issues for weatherless HO teams?

look at that last sentence real quick. you accept that, if rain and sun (specifically offense) are killing off other playstyles, then they are not "just fine". that's the entire crux of my argument against rain and sun. the advent of a new and more powerful rain/sun offense in bw2 has destroyed the viability of numerous playstyles. i'll list them all here: sun balance, sun stall, weatherless stall, non deo-d weatherless offense, hail anything, rain stall (to an extent). that's five or six playstyles right there that rain and sun have destroyed, and therefore, by your own reasoning, rain and sun are unhealthy for the metagame.
When did i say that it is ok if weather kills other playstyles? I said that weather alone is not killing any viable playstyle, and this is why weather is just fine. Also all of those playstyles you mentioned are still viable in my book, so we have to agree to disagree here. The only playstyle in general that is very hard to use is pure stall, and this is not only weather's fault. Terrakion, Thundurus-T, Kyurem-B, and Sheer Force Landorus are all main reasons to stall's decline as well.

ah, see, that's the point. a weatherless team has to literally choose, while teambuilding, to be weak to something. going into a battle, you know that if your opponent brings, say, sun offense, you will lose, and you accept that as a weatherless team user. but when you're using rain, for example, you know there are certain matchups you always win, and outside of those matchups, even if you are disadvantaged if your opponent brings, say, sand stall, you still have a fighting chance to succeed by executing good prediction, double switching, and maybe getting a little luck. for weatherless teams, that's hardly ever an option. either you win, or you lose. for that reason, because of weather teams, weatherless teams are actually the ones that are reliant on team matchup moreso than any other playstyle. the "strength" and "versatility" you cite here is knowing that because you have a specs kingdra and a reliable hazard setter on your team, you will beat rain teams 90% of the time. that same team, whatever it may be, is going to lose to sun 90% of the time as well, or maybe sand, or other weatherless teams with a certain combination of pokemon that they utilize. really, it's just a matter of picking your poison.
Once again, i am a weatherless team user, and sun teams were never an issue, because i built my team while having the sun threats in mind. Who would be so stupid to use a Deo-D weatherless offense team without a way to get past Xatu, and without a way to stop common sun sweepers? Every type of team has to chose to what it wants to be weak, not only weatherless teams. As shrang already mentioned, chosing to which and how many threats you will be weak to depends entirely on your teambuilding skills, as long as you use viable Pokemon and strategies. So to close this matter, in almost all of the games that i played with my last weatherless team (around 75 iirc), almost none of them was an insta-lose due to team match-up, as you seem to imply for weatherless vs sun offense or rain offense. I don't see weather as a problem, because it doesn't limit my options more than any other meta-shaping factor, and because i can create very succesful teams of various team-types. And i am not even a very good teambuilder, so i don't think that it is so hard for a player with an average level if skill in competitive Pokemon to overcome the difficulties imposed by weather.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
BKC stated multiple times how sand stall dominates Rain teams, and now you are arguing that rain teams actually do have a fighting chance against sand stall. Which one is it guys, i want to know so we can continue this discussion.
first off, please note that i am not bkc. while it is true that he and i share opinions on many issues, we have slightly differing viewpoints. what i'm emphasizing is that, when using a team that is neither rain nor sun, you will automatically lose certain games due to team matchup, and you will win some games due to team matchup as well. however, when using rain or sun, not only will you automatically win some games due to team matchup as well, but you will even have the ability to play your way out of matchup disadvantages and still clutch a win, which is a trait that non rain/sun teams lack.

i have to remind you that weatherless offense teams are also offensive teams. Be it Deo-D HO, DragMag, or Dual Screens + 5 sweepers, all of those teams can get around bad match-ups due to their offensive nature, so offensive sun and rain teams are nothing special in that regard. A rain offense team choses to use Politoed as their support Pokemon, Deo-D teams chose to use Deo-D as their support Pokemon, and DS teams use dual screen set upers as their support Pokemon. I don't consider any of those kinds of support broken, as rain offense is nothing special whenever i play against it. Weatherless team can stand up to the power of weather teams because they either have their own form of heavy support (DS users, Deo-D, etc) or they have a more solid defensive core due to the ability to run one more Pokemon than rain and sun teams, as well as their ability to have better defensive synergy overall. Finally, i won't comment a lot on your examples about Sun or Rain against weatherless, as this will lead to an endless cycle of theorymon, but i just have to say that it is not as simple as you make it seem. Deo-D can set-up against Xatu with Skill Swap, Weavile can revenge kill any Chloro sweeper after SR + Spikes, and Volcarona dies after SR from Night Slash. Or if you don't want to use the gimmick called Skill Swamp, Weavile can trap and kill Xatu for you. This is how i got my reqs in the last suspect test and it worked just fine. Sun teams didn't trouble me at all.
you missed the point i was trying to make and only quoted a small portion of my overarching argument. what i was actually saying is that weather offense teams, by their inherent nature, are able to overcome matchup disadvantages by constantly applying pressure while maintaining the weather advantage. key word there is "while", meaning both of these conditions must be in effect for weather offense teams to stand a chance in a disadvantaged matchup. since weatherless offense teams lack weather, they also lack one of the two conditions for success in disadvantageous team matchup scenarios, and therefore, winning is nearly impossible. you bring up an example here of you laddering for reqs with skill swap deo-d and weavile. first, i'd like to congratulate you on your success with such unusual and innovative sets. second, i'd like to emphasize what i stated earlier, that a) these innovative sets are part of what makes the game enjoyable, and i'm not detracting from their use at all, but also b), that when you use such different pokemon or sets that deviate from the standard, you are making a trade-off. your increased prowess against sun with xatu is coupled with a now greater disadvantage against rain balance and potentially sand offense as well. every change in teambuilding that deviates from the norm sacrifices an advantage against one playstyle for an advantage against another. that is the nature of teambuilding.

Oh and Kingdra is not a suboptimal dragon, and if you think it is, i can't help but think you either haven't used it or are very biased against it. How is Rain Dance Kingdra a suboptimal dragon when it fares so well against sun and rain offense, two of the biggest issues for weatherless HO teams?
if kingdra was not a suboptimal dragon, do you think it would have been left unbanned in dpp while latios was sent to the uber tier automatically? kingdra has lower base stats, a thinner movepool, and less versatility than latios, latias, and even salamence. there's a reason you see it used a whole lot less than the three pokemon i just mentioned. yes, i'm not going to deny that if you manage to get a rain dance up with kingdra and remove ferrothorn from play, it can be quite a dangerous pokemon. however, the trouble lies in actually setting up kingdra, who is notoriously frail in this highly offensive metagame, not to mention preventing your opponent from changing the weather on you mid-sweep. kingdra isn't bad, but it's not the best special or physical dragon out there by any means.

When did i say that it is ok if weather kills other playstyles? I said that weather alone is not killing any viable playstyle, and this is why weather is just fine. Also all of those playstyles you mentioned are still viable in my book, so we have to agree to disagree here. The only playstyle in general that is very hard to use is pure stall, and this is not only weather's fault. Terrakion, Thundurus-T, Kyurem-B, and Sheer Force Landorus are all main reasons to stall's decline as well.
first of all, you misinterpreted me once again. i was not claiming that you said the destruction of playstyles was a good thing; rather, i noted that you said the advent of rain and sun in bw2 did not destroy any playstyles, when in fact it destroyed five to six of them. additionally, whether a playstyle is viable in "your book" or not is irrelevant, i'd be interested to hear how many people in this thread feel that sun stall is still a prevalent and viable threat to the metagame, or maybe hail balance, or rain stall.

Once again, i am a weatherless team user, and sun teams were never an issue, because i built my team while having the sun threats in mind. Who would be so stupid to use a Deo-D weatherless offense team without a way to get past Xatu, and without a way to stop common sun sweepers? Every type of team has to chose to what it wants to be weak, not only weatherless teams. As shrang already mentioned, chosing to which and how many threats you will be weak to depends entirely on your teambuilding skills, as long as you use viable Pokemon and strategies. So to close this matter, in almost all of the games that i played with my last weatherless team (around 75 iirc), almost none of them was an insta-lose due to team match-up, as you seem to imply for weatherless vs sun offense or rain offense. I don't see weather as a problem, because it doesn't limit my options more than any other meta-shaping factor, and because i can create very succesful teams of various team-types. And i am not even a very good teambuilder, so i don't think that it is so hard for a player with an average level if skill in competitive Pokemon to overcome the difficulties imposed by weather.
you seem to continually ignore the point i've been emphasizing with every single post i've made in this thread: teambuilding emphasizes trade-offs. there is no perfect weatherless team, just like there is no perfect rain or sun team, but rain and sun teams minimize the amount of trade-offs necessary to be made during teambuilding, which makes them easier to build, easier to play with, and easier to win with. just because you're a good teambuilder and you faced some rotten opponents on the ladder doesn't mean that weatherless teams are suddenly perfect against all playstyles and never suffer a team matchup loss. again, it's all about trade-offs. your weatherless team might be, for example, good against rain teams, fair against sand teams, and bad against sun teams, or perhaps good against sun teams, fair against rain teams, and bad against sand teams. whatever it may be, i'm going to continue to emphasize that weatherless offense is more dependent on team matchup than any other playstyle in the bw2 metagame until you understand my point.
 
Drizzle is overrated imo everyone is just so overprepared for it that I find it more difficult to win using a rain team than using a sand team or even sun team. Far far from broken. I'm sure people will agree with me.
 
So, the big question is, should we ban drizzle? I don't think we should. While some claim that rain is everywhere or rain is uncounterable, simply look at the usage stats. Politoed had less than 20% usage in december. That's hardly something I consider "overcentralizing". I maintain that the metagame has far more variety than people notice.
I don't think Politoed usage is a viable argument. Of course Scizor usage is higher (Its found on all sorts of teams, including but not limited to all the weather teams.) On that note, the deviations aren't exact, as you only need Politoed to make a rain team, but Scizor doesn't exactly form a ''Scizor Team''.

You also have to keep in mind Politoed always is paired up with another five pokemon that will always count in the statistics (If you're following our rules and not using six Politoeds). The partners that abuse of Drizzle are also varied, so this even further screws the deviations to the equation which you are accounting your argument for. In fact, I'd say even thought not at the top, Politoed usage is quite high!

Just hoping to discard that misinterpreted logic.
 
Drizzle is overrated imo everyone is just so overprepared for it that I find it more difficult to win using a rain team than using a sand team or even sun team. Far far from broken. I'm sure people will agree with me.
Amen to that. Hell I even won more with hail and even weatherless stall teams than I ever did with rain.
 
Honestly I'd be for banning all auto weather, even sandstorm and hail. I feel like auto-weather was limited for a very good reason when it was first introduced. Hell, remember how dominant Tyranitar/Hippowdon+Chomp was in early gen4? And now you have things far, far scarier than that running around getting auto weather boosts. And actually, auto sand pretty much completely killed conventional rain/sun teams since it was so easy to get sand up and so hard to get the other weathers up. I feel it was definitely a bad design choice on Nintendo's part to have auto weather outside of box legendaries.

Of course it's easily possible to run non-weather teams, but the big problem is countering them without weather of your own. I mean, it can be done, but you have to build your team around doing it. And then you have to worry about sun teams too, and to a lesser extent sand and hail. It's almost the age old "why not use X pokemon?" argument. Well, because Y pokemon does everything better. The same can be said of using your own weather to counter enemy weather, you can counter a rain team without sun, but why in god's name would you? The only way to actually clear enemy auto weather is through use of your own weather, and if you have to use the move to summon it, that's a turn you've surrendered to the enemy, which he will likely use to summon his auto weather back.

I think it could possibly be balanced if Airlock/Clear Sky removed weather when entering play and more useful pokemon had them, but as of right now, the game I'm trying to play again has turned into a game of ring around the rosie between Ninetails and Politoed, I'm only playing lower tiers until something comes about to upset the balance of power there.
 
I don't think Politoed usage is a viable argument. Of course Scizor usage is higher (Its found on all sorts of teams, including but not limited to all the weather teams.) On that note, the deviations aren't exact, as you only need Politoed to make a rain team, but Scizor doesn't exactly form a ''Scizor Team''.

You also have to keep in mind Politoed always is paired up with another five pokemon that will always count in the statistics (If you're following our rules and not using six Politoeds). The partners that abuse of Drizzle are also varied, so this even further screws the deviations to the equation which you are accounting your argument for. In fact, I'd say even thought not at the top, Politoed usage is quite high!

Just hoping to discard that misinterpreted logic.
You're misunderstanding my argument. Regardless of Scizor or pokemon that are above it, this new January ladder takes into account player ranking when it calculates usage stats. The fact that less than 1/4 of players use Politoed brings into question how "broken" and "overcentralizing" Drizzle is.
 
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