I'm not sure about that. I've been running a SpD+ Assault Vest TTar, and although he can take nearly any special hit, he shouldn't be the core's sole go-to for Water types. He has trouble with bulky waters. I would not want to be facing a Jellicent with that core. Also, that core lacks any special attacks unless you're really running anything other than Fire Blast on TTar.A sand core of SpD tank TTar, Physical wall Hippo (both with rocks) and Excadrill will work nicely even with the nerf.
T-Tar also has 6 resistances, an immunity, and gets it's already high Sp. Def stat automatically boosted by it's ability. Also, it has offensive potentialSlow down there. Tyranitar's defensive type is every bit as bad as Abomasnow and Aurorus' (7 weaknesses, including a 4x one) and it's still perfectly viable thanks to its 600 BST in its base forme and 700 BST in its mega-evo forme. You can be damn sure that if its BST was as low as the hail inducers it wouldn't see the light in the day in UU, let alone OU.
I'm curious if Drought and Drizzle got caveats for Kyogre and Groudon. I mean it would make sense given that it's integrated into the lore of those pokemon.The first thing I can say is, weather Stall(and maybe balanced) has died(even in Ubers)
Tyranitar is a special case, though, since benefits from the sand in a big way. Its SDef boost allowing it to become much more durable, and this can be even further augmented with Assault Vest. It also has more resistances than Abomasnow and Aurorus.Slow down there. Tyranitar's defensive type is every bit as bad as Abomasnow and Aurorus' (7 weaknesses, including a 4x one) and it's still perfectly viable thanks to its 600 BST in its base forme and 700 BST in its mega-evo forme. You can be damn sure that if its BST was as low as the hail inducers it wouldn't see the light of the day in UU, let alone OU.
I'm tempted to think the weather gods are exempt from the weather nerf, since X+Y name-drops Hoenn many, many times. Darmanitan-Z also shows that abilities can be hard-linked to specific Pokémon, so it's entirely possible. But that's really just speculation.I'm curious if Drought and Drizzle got caveats for Kyogre and Groudon. I mean it would make sense given that it's integrated into the lore of those pokemon.
That is a good point. Sacrificing a weather inducer for an extra slot for some more coverage is certainly an option to consider now, espeically with access to pokemon with prankster or have good defense and speed stats to cover for the ability loss. I'd also say adding a pokemon that wouldn't normally work in a gen 5 weather team would be advantageous for when the weather is over and you need type coverage, though i dont know how well that'd work in pracitce (Azumarill on a sun team for example).The answer to the question is to look back at how common weather was in Gen 4.
With the exception of Sandstorm from Tyranitar and Hippowdon; the answer is not common at all. Rain Dance/Sunny Day teams were very rare with limited time; and since the inducers get little benifit and a turn would be wasted switching them out to bring in something like Kingdra; it's arguably better to just not even waste a teamslot on Ninetails/Politoad and just run Rain Dance/Sunny Day on the attacker. [Especially in the case of Kingdra and co; who lack coverage moves anyway]
Weather may still be seen; but it'll mainly be in the form of Rain Dance/Sunny Day/Tyranitar. I highly doubt Ninetails is going to be OU; or even Charizard due to 50% SR and eating up the Mega Stone slot; and Politoad is unlikely to make OU either.
It is worth mentioning that Mega Abomasnow and Tyranitar can 'reset' their weathers; like Mega Charizard triggers Drought on Mega Evolution.
Will it be usable? Yes.
Will the inducers be OU? Probobly not; except maybe Tyranitar/Hippo.
Will Rain Dance/Sunny Day be used more often? Almost certainly
Will the entire metagame revolve around it? No way.
Will the suspect process amount to 'How many times do we have to nerf rain before we actually admit we should have just banned Drizzle/Poli in the first place?'. No.
This is easily for the best for the metagame too. Rain teams were braindead easy and stupidly powerful. Stick Kledeo; Politoad; Ferrothorn and 3 other pokemon that benifit from Rain in some way on the team. Smash with superpowered STABS and block anything that tries to Thunder you with a Ferro.
This is what I think personally. Because Tyranitar and Hippowdown are inherently strong competitive Pokemon independent of most teams, they will become the most dominant weather users, and thus the metagame will be more sandstorm oriented much like in 4th Gen.Weather will surely be viable. In fact, Rain and even Sun teams are more viable than in DPPt, where there were no auto-inducers and Sandstream was an ever-present, permanent force. Rain teams in Gen 6 seem to play more like the Gen 4; a group of hyper-offence Swift Swim sweepers backed by a few bulky Rain-setters, just that Politoed is there to skip the manual rain turn.
Sand is the weather I think will be dominant, if only because of T-Tar and Hippowdon (which are used for more things than sand). Excadrill might see some use as a fast revenge-killer.
Hail is really unlucky this time. Even though it got M-Abomasnow and Aurorus, they still have the two worst defensive typings in the game and the main selling point of hail, Stallrein, is effectively neutered.