Would we want a Stealth Rock suspect test? [Read #196]

[Kidogo]

This is coming off of the thread talking about whether or not SR is broken, and is an attempt on my part to take a step and see if we as a community actually want to do something about this issue. The big question here is whether or not SR should be suspected. Not whether not not it is broken. The purpose of suspecting would be to determine whether or not it is broken. A ton of people have cited in the SR thread that many of the arguments being made are difficult to support or evaluate because they are simply too hypothetical; none of us really knows what a meta without SR would be like. Well, this is the chance to do some testing and find out for real. I personally feel that, even if we don't ban SR (a possibility I am very open to), having a ladder without it would be an incredibly valuable experience--just how much does SR impact our metagame, and does it do so in an unhealthy way?

Answer the poll according to what fits you most closely--even if you don't believe SR is broken, but if you think a test would be beneficial, give the second answer. Conversely, if you think SR is broken but think testing would be a bad idea for one reason or another, answer the third. Feel free to explain your choices and to talk about why you believe SR should or shouldn't be tested, but remember that the main focus of this thread is simply to discuss the benefits and disadvantages of a SR suspect test, not whether SR is broken or not.

 

[alamaster]

Much like weather has been determined as part of the game in gen 5, Stealth Rock finds itself in a similar position. I won't go into much detail because I'm lazy but just imagine a tier where Dragonite will always come in with multiscale, Tornadus/Thundurus-T can switch in with impunity, where Volcarona now has way more chances to set up, ScarfMence switches in for free...no. Just no. It stops a bunch of stuff from being broken. Is it centralizing to the metagame? Of course, but I believe it is a necessary evil for being a pretty good stop to the pokemon listed above and more. It is annoying but can be prevented with relative ease (if you even care about preventing it), for that reason alone it should not be suspected.

 

[ElectivireRocks]

I'd like to see a metagame without SR after all these years of theorymoning.
I don't care whether SR is banned or not, I just want to have the answers to questions such as:

-Will Volcarona and Dragonite be broken?
-Will sun and hail teams see more use?
-Will UU and below SR-weak pokemon such as Yanmega be viable in OU?
-Will Focus Sash abusers centralize the metagame or will they miss the boost from Life Orb?

 

[dice]

Stealth Rock is an interesting phenomena in the OU metagame. The pro-ban and the anti-ban parties both provide interesting arguments as to why Stealth Rock should or should not be banned. Although a Stealth Rock-less metagame makes a lot more Pokemon viable (think: Moltres [kacaw], Hail, etc.), it conversely turns quite a few Pokemon into unstoppable forces. Dragonite and Volcarona lose one of their main drawbacks and become more standalone Sweepers rather than ones that need support. Keep in mind that both of these Pokemon have almost been considered suspects in the past! Although they may gain a few checks, none of them are solid by any means. Aerodactyl falls so a HP Rock from Volcarona for example. We only have ~5 months or so until Gen6 comes around, and no one will want to suspect test in Gen5 while we have a whole new meta to explore. We would only have a short period of time to conduct suspect testing which would result in rushed, uneducated results. A Stealth Rock test would just completely devastate the balance (if that is possible) that OU currently has. Like ala said, although it's definitely a centralizing move because every team practically HAS to have it, it's a move that makes the metagame "stable" at this point in time. Because of this, I'm going to have to say no on the Stealth Rock test. Landorus on the other hand..

p.s. Dragonite and Volcarona aren't the one Pokemon that could be borderline broken with the lack of Stealth Rock. Tornadus, the Kyurem formes, Thundurus-T, Darmanitan, Victini, etc. all become a lot stronger and would require a lot of time to sort through which we just don't have.

 

[HUARGH]

Much like weather has been determined as part of the game in gen 5, Stealth Rock finds itself in a similar position. I won't go into much detail because I'm lazy but just imagine a tier where Dragonite will always come in with multiscale, Tornadus/Thundurus-T can switch in with impunity, where Volcarona now has way more chances to set up, ScarfMence switches in for free...no. Just no. It stops a bunch of stuff from being broken. Is it centralizing to the metagame? Of course, but I believe it is a necessary evil for being a pretty good stop to the pokemon listed above and more. It is annoying but can be prevented with relative ease (if you even care about preventing it), for that reason alone it should not be suspected.

This is an incredibly shitty argument and has been addressed multiple times in multiple threads by multiple people.

1. We don't actually know if this would be the case. This is the pointless theorymoning that the OP mentioned in his very post, we don't know and thus he suggests a suspect test so we do know. Also, taken directly from this topic:

Stealth Rocks have always aided Pokemon in sweeping past defensive threats more than they have aided Pokemon in checking offensive threats. This much has always been true, and you'll realize how true it is when nearly every offensive Pokemon analysis mentions "can 2HKO X with Stealth Rock" but hardly any defensive Pokemon analysis does. So why is it that people fail to recognize that if / when Stealth Rocks would be removed, we wouldn't be hurting our list of ways to counter certain Pokemon like Dragonite / Volcarona. We'd be ENHANCING it.

Additional Pokemon that would counter Volcarona outright if SR didn't exist: Moltres / Aerodactyl / Gyarados
Pokemon that Dragonite would be unable to break, even with its amazing Choice Band set, if SR didn't exist: SKARMORY (Fire Punch only 2HKOs if you're Adamant, and only has a 12% chance to do so without Stealth Rock) / Cloyster / Cresselia / Gliscor (assuming Poison Heal is up)

I could go on but you get my point. Banning Stealth rocks ADDS counters to these Pokemon's list, it doesn't remove them, and the Pokemon that used to counter them STILL DO. This goes the same for every super threatening sweeper in OU that is weak to Stealth Rocks. Stealth Rocks have never helped to "Counter" these Pokemon. What they have done is increased the number of potential CHECKS, but they have always been checks at best - you cannot rely on them at all and more often than not these Pokemon will sweep through your checks even if Stealth Rocks are on the field.

2. If something like Volcarona or [insert anything] seems broken regardless, we will also suspect that.

 

[dice]

HUARGH, Lonelyness fails to recognize that Hidden Power Rock in Sun would nail all three of those "counters". Additionally, Dragonite is often a "breaker" on offensive teams so that another Physical Sweeper can wreck havoc. Skarmory fails against a DD Dragonite + SD Terrakion for example (or against any other kind of SD sweeper). Cresselia is already a known Dragonite counter, and Cloyster fails to switch into Superpower from Banded sets or even a Draco Meteor from a rare mixed set. Cloyster also typically runs Offensive sets, so it would fail by being 2HKO'd by Outrage. Gliscor is a mediocre check at best since Toxic just gets rid of Lum Berry and Ice Fang is just bad. In general, Lonelyness provided false examples and mediocre substance in his argument. Many "checks and counters" aren't really added, but they just become slightly better at checking which isn't wouldn't seem to be enough. With this being said, it is plain theorymon on both sides, but we don't have the actual time to do this testing anyways.

 

[Erazor]

We should test SR to ensure that people use Charizard!

But seriously, it will be fascinating to play a metagame without stealth rock. We will be able to determine, at least partly, just HOW centralizing it is and how it keeps the metagame in check. This "suspect test" needn't have the end result of banning stealth rock - but it would be a fantastic experience. Would Dragonite and Volcarona be unstoppable? Would stall completely die out? Would Moltres see an increase in usage?

Such questions, and many more, are what people keep bringing up in arguments, but don't really know the answer to. Well, let's find out.

 

[vyomov]

Firstly, thanks a lot Kidogo for starting this thread!
I've been fairly vocal about the fact that SR needs to be tested.
In my opinion, the real reason for the dominance of rain and sand over hail and sun IS SR. Whereas Rain and Sand sweepers can switch in and out with impudence, Sun and hail sweepers find it difficult to do so. Moltres can only switch in once with SR on the field, as can Volcarona. Likewise, Articuno, a really good wall fails simply because of the disadvantage of SR.
However, at the same time, I am fully aware of the opposing arguments(that mons like Volcarona and Dragonite will become broken), and I do realize that these may be correct. However, unless we ACTUALLY test these factors, theorymonning about it is pointless.(Personally, I feel that Kyu-B will be much more dangerous than Dragonite without SR, although I'm probably wrong).

Shirking the task that lays in front of us by claiming "there isn't enough time" is not something I agree with. We have June, July, August and September(and some part of October too, but I assume the server will be busy preparing for Gen 6).

I'm awaiting an opinion from the OU Council, who can possibly enlighten us with their opinions. Until that time arrives, I fully support the testing of SR. Even if it is deemed not broken and the ban does not happen, it will be a valuable insight into how exactly SR impacts the metagame and how the metagame would look without SR.

 

[ciaranroy]

Princess Bri, you fail to mention that if Volcarona runs HP Rock, it is completely and utterly walled by Heatran. Sure, it could use Dugtrio support, but Volcarona will still have difficulty with Tentacruel, Keldeo, Jellicent and Garchomp if it uses a set of Fire Blast, Bug Buzz, QD and HP Rock. Even if it runs Giga Drain over Bug Buzz, Liquid Ooze Tentacruel could become a more viable option to stop it, and it will still be nearly impossible to beat Garchomp.

I would like to see a metagame without Stealth Rock. It would be interesting to see the changes. I could see Accelgor maybe moving to OU, as it will have a niche as the fastest Spiker outside of Ubers. SR leads will obviously completely disappear, like Lead Terrakion, but be replaced by fast spikers. Maybe Spikers with Choice Scarf could even become viable. I could see the likes of Donphan dropping just because it becomes less necessary for Sun teams to have a spinner, although Spikes will need to be gone for Dugtrio to do its job. Hail would become a lot more viable, especially Blizzspam as Kyurem will become more viable. I don't think Dragonite would be unstoppable, as Sand and Hail teams don't have to worry about Multiscale and the likes of Kyurem-B and Haxorus will always be able to revenge it, unless Dragonite is at +1 and they don't have a scarf. But if Dragonite carries Leftovers to negate this, it will become susceptible to status.

All in all, I think it woul be a good experience to try the metagame without Stealth Rock. It is definitely overcentralizing and this is what we try to avoid.

 

[HUARGH]

HUARGH, Lonelyness fails to recognize that Hidden Power Rock in Sun would nail all three of those "counters". Additionally, Dragonite is often a "breaker" on offensive teams so that another Physical Sweeper can wreck havoc. Skarmory fails against a DD Dragonite + SD Terrakion for example (or against any other kind of SD sweeper). Cresselia is already a known Dragonite counter, and Cloyster fails to switch into Superpower from Banded sets or even a Draco Meteor from a rare mixed set. Cloyster also typically runs Offensive sets, so it would fail by being 2HKO'd by Outrage. Gliscor is a mediocre check at best since Toxic just gets rid of Lum Berry and Ice Fang is just bad. In general, Lonelyness provided false examples and mediocre substance in his argument. Many "checks and counters" aren't really added, but they just become slightly better at checking which isn't wouldn't seem to be enough. With this being said, it is plain theorymon on both sides, but we don't have the actual time to do this testing anyways.

These are hardly problems related to stealth rock and I think you are being unfair when you are giving Volcarona HP rock. It can only learn 3 moves alongside quiver dance. You can throw anything on it and say '[x] doesn't counter hurricane on rain team Volca, [y] loses to HP ground, [z] loses to bug buzz, [a] gets smashed by giga drain, loses to HP water, [c] can't deal with bulky roost sets, ...,'

'we don't have actual time' is a really weird thing to say when we have 4-5 months until gen 6. Do you really believe that 4-5 months is not enough time? Does anyone actually share this opinion? I doubt anything more than 2 months is necessary, let alone a grand 4 months or more.

 

[Lork]

whether it really IS broken is hard to tell; it's conjecture by definition. BUT, surely it is worth a suspect test.

 

[Cherub Agent]

My opinion on this is that I simply see no harm in suspecting Stealth Rock. We can only benefit from this experience, not be harmed by it. Stealth Rock is a very controversial move and with this Suspect Test we could gain valuable knowledge about just how good it really is. It really cannot possibly harm us to suspect it; if it's obviously not broken, then fine, we've just confirmed it. If it is broken, we've removed another uncompetitive aspect of competitive Pokemon. Also regarding the time issue: this is a Suspect Test that could have a huge influence on how we start off with Gen 6, it won't be just limited to this generation.

 

[Curtains]

I don't see why we need an extra thread for this? You could have made this in one post in the entry hazards thread. Go ahead and have your focus sash sweeper fest. Actually make it a actual permanent ladder so the regular ladder can increase in quality.

 

[dice]

We do not know what lies ahead in Gen6. Rumors of Fairy-types and dual-typing moves are being passed around, so who knows that GameFreak won't create a new way of preventing hazards? The time constraint is indeed a factor because if Stealth Rock is determined to be broken at this stage of the metagame, we'd had to go through several tedious steps. The first would be determining which Pokemon are indeed broken. The second would be having various suspect tests. This is time consuming work (think: debate threads like this, laddering), and I'm sure 5 months would be stretching it. If we speed ourselves, we'll possibly end up with an uneducated final decision that affects BW for the rest of Smogon's future. If this extends into XY, the playerbase that wants to finish out testing will decrease and the overall opinion of what should happen is less trustworthy as a result.

 

[ginganinja]

These are hardly problems related to stealth rock and I think you are being unfair when you are giving Volcarona HP rock. It can only learn 3 moves alongside quiver dance. You can throw anything on it and say '[x] doesn't counter hurricane on rain team Volca, [y] loses to HP ground, [z] loses to bug buzz, [a] gets smashed by giga drain, loses to HP water, [c] can't deal with bulky roost sets, ...,'

Answering this in the contest of the discussion (ie how volcarona still lacks counters and avoiding the issue as to whether its broken).

Life Orb Volcarona with Quiver Dance + Fire Blast + Giga Drain + Bug Buzz is exceptionally hard to deal with. It doesn't even have to be Life Orbed, you can just run sunlight and use your STAB to 2KO most of whats listed. Gyarados / Moltres / Aero cannot take repeated sun boosted Fire Blasts etc.

Even ignoring the above, the issue is that beating Volcarona isnt as easy as you claim, when the fact of the matter is that it can and will run HP Rock / Ground / Giga Drain and you would need to prepare for all the above least you get swept by it.

'we don't have actual time' is a really weird thing to say when we have 4-5 months until gen 6. Do you really believe that 4-5 months is not enough time? Does anyone actually share this opinion? I doubt anything more than 2 months is necessary, let alone a grand 4 months or more.

O.k lets say we have 4 months. We play this poll out and the OU council STILL needs to be convinced of a suspect test. Assuming favourable conditions, it would potentially take about a month for the suspect thread to go up, and about a month to test + vote and all that stuff. That is 2 months gone. Now say we agree that Stealth Rock is broken and we ban it, now we suddenly have pokemon such as Dragonite and Volcarona, as well as various other mons such as Kyurem-B, Darmantian etc etc and suddenly we need to test those eventually but yet again, we cannot rush this since we need the meta to settle after making a change such as potentially banning SR etc etc. All the while Gen 6 is getting closer and closer, stuff is getting released and translated, the hype is building, and people just in general care less about the old generation and focus on the new one.

Sure, I am very likely overestimating some of the time it takes to do some of these things, but the point is that while 4 months sounds like a long time, the suspect process also takes a while, and its not just limited by SR either - if it got removed we would need to spend time rebalancing the meta (if it wasn't already balanced) and this as well takes time.

 

[panamaxis]

a) SR stops a lot of pkmn being broken
b) if SR gets banned there isn't enough time left to sort of the ramifications it will have on the metagame.

2 main reasons I think it's a bad idea. This thread is a nice for theoretical discussion but I'd pretty much bet my life on SR never being suspected in BW.

 

[ElectivireRocks]

a) SR stops a lot of pkmn being broken

It also stops the pokemon that could check them. See: Moltres -> Volcarona.

 

[Chou Toshio]

^What giga said. The real problem is not in doing a suspect test in 4-5 months.

The problem is that IF SR were banned, BW(2) would require tremendous subsequent testing to achieve a new balance point-- that's something we don't want to do. Dragonite, Volc, and friends would most likely need suspecting, and with SR gone, pokes in Uber that they check well (aka like Blaziken) would likely need a second look as well.

We're not even getting into the effect on lower tier stability as key Pokes like Moltres, Zapdos, and Victini potentially rise to OU, while others likely fall.

If at all possible, we want Gen 5's suspect testing to be completely finished (or at least stable) before going into Gen 6.

Even at the end of Gen 4, many players (especially veterans) thought it was ridiculous that we were still not done tiering shit when Gen 5 was announced, with mence's test rolling up right to the release of BW-- it was a big wake-up call. Now we're talking about starting new testing 4-5 months before Gen 6's release? Nah...

 

[ElectivireRocks]

Life Orb Volcarona with Quiver Dance + Fire Blast + Giga Drain + Bug Buzz is exceptionally hard to deal with. It doesn't even have to be Life Orbed, you can just run sunlight and use your STAB to 2KO most of whats listed. Gyarados / Moltres / Aero cannot take repeated sun boosted Fire Blasts etc.

In a metagame without SR a specially defensive Moltres would become viable and here's how it fares against a +1 LO Volcarona in the sun:

252 SpA Life Orb Volcarona Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Moltres in sun: 159-187 (41.4 - 48.69%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Moltres has Roost, Roar, Toxic, Air Slash and HP Rock on its side to deal with Volcarona. On top of it it has Pressure so it can just PP stall Volcarona until it runs out of Fire Blasts.

And of course Heatran walls this set even better since it's immune to Flash Fire and quad resists the other attacks like Moltres.

Volcarona needs rain and possibly HP Water to be able to defeat both of them at the same time, but doing so means that it gets walled by a ton of other things instead.

 

[taxi driver]

I dont understand this whole sr is a necessary evil argument to check op threats like volc and dnite. We've had more gens without sr then with and they turned out fine. I use sr to weaken walls for my sweepers and punish switching, sr is not a defensive move it is an offensive one that people use to strengthen their offensive output. Also time should not be an issue there are discussions going on right now if we should and suspect latias in dpp right now and we've had suspect test for old gens in the past as well.

Kidogo brings up another good point whys should we not test sr, it has such a huge impact on the game we should of tested it long ago. There seems to be a negative stigmatism attached to suspect=ban which is not the case. I personally havent formed a opinion on sr (unlike some people) because i havent seen a sr less metagame. There really is no harm in testing it.

 

[Halcyon.]

I think it's all well and good to say "time shouldn't be a concern," because, yeah, in a perfect world, we would just ban the things that we think are broken and that would be that. But we don't live in a perfect world. When it comes down to it, there really isn't enough time to suspect Stealth Rock. Taxi Driver mentions that discussions are being had about suspecting Latias in DPP. Even if that is true, and these discussions are not just among players of DPP, but also those in charge of tiering, I'd like to point out that BW has been out for three years now. How does this not prove the point that no one will want to suspect anything once XY comes out? Three years since Latias and Salamence were banned to ubers, and we're still only talking about Latias coming back down. If we do something as radical as banning Stealth Rock, BW will lose whatever "stability" it has, and most likely not gain it back.

The way I see it, we have about five months until we get a completely new metagame to play in, and that gives us enough time for probably one good suspect test. As ginga said, it will take time to convince the council, have the discussion/time to ladder, time to vote, etc., which could take upwards of two months. Then we would have to allow one-two months for the metagame we had created to stabilize (this is extremely generous in the case of banning Stealth Rock. It took about this long for the Genesect-less meta to stabilize, let alone one of the most game-changing moves in existence). This would give us not enough time to actually suspect anything that would be found to be broken in whatever meta would follow the suspect test. We basically have four proposals (as far as I can tell) about what to do with this "last test." We could 1. Suspect Stealth Rock 2. Suspect weather 3. Suspect Landorus 4. Suspect nothing. As it stands right now, number 3 is definitely the most manageable, since it would probably have the smallest actual impact on the meta, meaning we would bounce back pretty quickly and the metagame would stabilize before too long. But if I had to choose between suspecting weather and suspecting SR, I would say it's a no-brainer that weather should be the thing suspected. Weather easily defines BW OU, and if anything that has this much of an impact on OU is going to be suspected, it should be weather. The effect that banning weather would have on OU wouldn't (in my opinion) be unmanageable in the next few months. I can't see anything that would really be broken in a metagame without weather, but I can see plenty of things being broken without rocks (Focus Sash, Volcarona, Thundurus-T, Dragonite, Tornadus). Actually Focus Sash hasn't been brought up nearly as much as it should in these discussions. Alakazam was just moved up to A+ rank in the viability thread because it is easily the best revenge killer in the game thanks to Focus Sash. Without rocks, there is only sand/hail damage to keep Flying types from keeping a similar "permanent Sash." If that isn't broken, I don't know what is. A typical argument in this thread is "we shouldn't care if SR keeps other things from being broken, since we can ban those too," but I think that time constraints make that argument wrong. We have to take into account what bans will lead to more and more bans, since don't have time for many.

That's my two cents, anyway.

 

[vyomov]

Without rocks, there is only sand/hail damage to keep Flying types from keeping a similar "permanent Sash."

Yes, but IF SR was to be banned, hail would become MUCH more viable, so that sash would not be so permanent.

But if I had to choose between suspecting weather and suspecting SR, I would say it's a no-brainer that weather should be the thing suspected.

I'd like to disagree. The REAL reason behind the dominance of rain and sand is SR. Without SR, Hail and Sun would be a LOT more viable, leading to an equal distribution between the weathers
All this is assuming SR is broken. To find out whether it is so, the only way is to suspect it, which is why we need a competent battler to take this proposal to the OU Council ASAP. As ginganinja said, suspect testing takes a LOT of time, so if we don't start submitting the proposal now, it will be too late to do anything.

 

[Halcyon.]

Yes, but IF SR was to be banned, hail would become MUCH more viable, so that sash would not be so permanent.

I'd like to disagree. The REAL reason behind the dominance of rain and sand is SR. Without SR, Hail and Sun would be a LOT more viable, leading to an equal distribution between the weathers
All this is assuming SR is broken. To find out whether it is so, the only way is to suspect it, which is why we need a competent battler to take this proposal to the OU Council ASAP. As ginganinja said, suspect testing takes a LOT of time, so if we don't start submitting the proposal now, it will be too late to do anything.

Ok so I have to talk about the bolded comment. This is just plain false. Rain is dominant because Water was already a great offensive and defensive typing that got better with the introduction of rain and Scald. Sand is dominant because Tyranitar is a great Pokémon, and can be thrown onto many different teams as a weather "counter." To a lesser extent, sand also gets abusers like Sandslash and Stoutland. SR has little to do with rain and sand's dominance. How could rain enjoy SR when great abusers like Gyarados, Thundurus-T, Tornadus, etc., are harmed by it?

But the big mistake you make is saying that hail and sun would be more viable without rocks. That is juts not true. Believe it or not, I actually have quite a bit of experience with hail. I made a few hail teams a few months ago showcasing SubRoost Kyurem, and later Kyurem-B. I can say with the utmost certainty that the reason that hail sucks is NOT because of SR. Yes, it does add to the multitude of other problems hail has to deal with, but it is not even close to the main reason. Hail's biggest problem is its lack of abusers. The closest things to hail abusers we have are Kyurem and I guess maybe Walrein, which no one uses anyway. It doesn't get a speed-boosting ability to abuse it (Swift Swim Beartic? Really Game Freak?), it gets an accuracy increase from Blizzard, but that's about it. This means that if you want to use hail over anything else, you have to take advantage of the one thing it has over other weathers: being able to hit more types for damage. The residual damage hail provides makes it lean towards stall, and this metagame is not kind to stall. Obviously hail won't do well if it almost always has to run stall-ish teams (seriously, if your hail team is more on the offensive side, you should look at it again and ask yourself why you're even running hail at all over rain. Their team-builds are actually pretty similar when hail tries to go offensive). Another huge problem for hail is that it is extremely weak to both Fighting and Fire. A hail team's only hope against standard sun teams is Heatran, which only makes you weaker to Fighting. Latias does ok, but it hates that hail damage, and not all sun teams are weak to Latias. There just aren't enough team slots to cover everything that hail is weak to, and you end up with a bunch of common compounded weaknesses. Honestly, SR is the least of hail's worries. Especially since hail gets all sorts of good spinners (Hail Starmie, Forretress, Tenta [as a rain counter], etc.).

Also, I don't know why you're saying sun isn't viable. Sun is fantastic. Growth Venusaur, Victreebell, and SD Sawsbuck are terrifying for weatherless teams. The only two reasons it isn't used more than rain are:

1. Ninetales sucks. Give Arcanine Drought and sun would be broken as shit.
2. Rain exists. Rain makes it extremely hard for sun teams to get by, especially since sun teams are usually the most weather-reliant, and Ninetales hates switching into Politoed to switch the weather back to sun. YES this includes Ninetales' SR weakness, but it more has to do with the Specs boosted HYdro Pump waiting for it on the other side. Sun would still have a hard time in a rock-less meta, I think.

But honestly, SR has very little to do with why hail and sun are used the least.

 

[Neliel]

stealth rock is probably an uncompetitive move, but if we ban it now we wont have time to also ban all the stuff that benefit from a metagame without stealth rock, therefore i'll vote the third option.

 

[Natsu Slayer]

1. Stealth Rock help to break Focus Sash and crucial against Flying pokemons like Thundurus or Tornauds. Also it helps to break Dragonite's Multiscale ability from Dream World.

2. Stealth Rock and Spkes are the best choice for a Stall team. If we ban Stealth Rock Flying pokemons will not recive residual damange from Stealth Rock, so the only choice will be to use Gravity.

3. There's a thing called Spinner that has a move called Rapid Spin and another thing called Spinblocker. If you have problems with Stealth Rock use a Spinner, It's easy.

4. Magic bounce users can fix Stealth Rock problems too.

5. Stop doing silly suspect tests.

After that I think that Stealth Rock is crucial nowadays and I don't think that Stealth Rock is broken.