Aldaron's proposal: Satisfied?

[Raikaria]

I'm not sure what your main issue with weather is. Do you just want it banned because you don't want to have to counter or play through it? How do you even define a "Normal" team? Don't most teams have counters for threats that they'll have to face? Isn't that the -entire point- of defensive pokemon, to counter something? I really don't understand what you're going on about here.

A 'normal' team is one which does not use weather. If you must, call it a clear sky team, as there is no such thing as normal.

And, with the power behind Rain teams [Double STAB water attacks, 100% Thunder and Hurricane], Sand Teams [Landlos and Excadrill], and Sun Teams [Venusaur, who can sleep your counter, and then set up to +2/+2 in ONE MOVE], makes it difficult for a 'normal' team of six pokemon to counter, or even check, all three dominateing weather conditions.

Pokemon with wether on their side get enough buffs to give them a massive advantage over pokemon who are not receiving benifits from the weather.

Kingdra was mentioned as an example to cut it down to one Pokemon. I indeed advocate for bans of Kabutops + Drizzle and Ludicolo + Drizzle, as well. I'm aware of the potential alternative applications of the latter, but they're no more relevant than the potential alternatives of Blaze Blaziken.

And yes, it would also apply to any other Swift Swim abusers. If Omastar and Gorebyss turn out to also become broken with Swift Swim + Drizzle, then I will advocate for Omastar + Drizzle and Gorebyss + Drizzle. On a related note, I also believe that Manaphy + Drizzle should be tested. In fact, the idea of that ban was what originally lead me to this matter.

I don't support a ban of Garchomp + Sand Stream. Instead, I've been advocating for bans on Sand Veil + Sand Stream and Snow Cloak + Snow Warning.

But that is where the doors slam shut, and no floodgates are opened. For that is the extent to which there is actually a good reason to ban something for weather-related reasons, whether for brokenness or uncompetitiveness. No Pokemon or ability has been indicated to be either broken or uncompetitive when and only when combined with Drought. We should consider such bans to be an option, but they should still only be used when there is something to ban. The fact that we can ban certain things under that rule does not mean that we can or should ban everything under that rule. Not everything warrants a ban.

Ah, that is where your argument is flawed.

Ban Kingdra + Drizzle, because Swift Swim on Kingdra breaks Kingdra.

Ban Sand Veil + Sand Stream, because Sand Veil causes evasion.

Notice where the two arguments you put foward do not match up? For consistancy, you'd either have to ban Swift Swim + Drizzle [Which is what we have now], or, you would have to ban Garchomp + Sand Stream.

Also, Manpahy does have a few suspect sets without Drizzle. There's CroManaphy [CroCune V 2], or ChestoRest + Tail Glow/Calm Mind. While I would support a re-test of Manaphy if, and only if, Drizzle is banned altogether, the banning of Drizzle would cause the metagame to crumble to one dominated by Sand and Sun.

 

[Quixim]

A 'normal' team is one which does not use weather. If you must, call it a clear sky team, as there is no such thing as normal.

And, with the power behind Rain teams [Double STAB water attacks, 100% Thunder and Hurricane], Sand Teams [Landlos and Excadrill], and Sun Teams [Venusaur, who can sleep your counter, and then set up to +2/+2 in ONE MOVE], makes it difficult for a 'normal' team of six pokemon to counter, or even check, all three dominateing weather conditions.

Pokemon with wether on their side get enough buffs to give them a massive advantage over pokemon who are not receiving benifits from the weather.

I don't agree with your arbitrary decision of what is 'Normal". You can say a non-weather team, but if you're playing a non-weather team, you should be prepared for teams that will use weather. That just seems like basic strategy.

 

[Thorhammer]

I have to disagree here. The purpose of a ban is to remove broken aspects of the game from the metagame.

However, looking at what ban is most damaging to existing strategies is how we determine what ban is more acceptable.

I understood that. I was under the impression, however, that one of your points for not agreeing with the idea to ban Swift Swim outright was that it would ruin a playstyle, specifically Swift Swim under Rain Dance. If I misinterpreted, then my apologies.

Replied above.

I fail to see the benefit of preserving a playstyle if it means having to ban Pokemon in the process in order to preserve it. It is in my mind more preferable to have more OU viable Pokemon than it is to have more ways to abuse Drizzle.

I already did. It maintains the approach of simple, concise bans while avoiding as many bans as possible.

I think we've misinterpreted what each other is talking about, so I'll just leave this be.

I disagree. As I stated before, Swift Swim and an out right ban of Drizzle are the only bans to help alleviate the problem that ban as few Pokemon as possible. Banning the Pokemon IS an option, but because this is not a usual case, I do not see a reason to put multiple Pokemon on a chopping block.

Um. How? Ludicolo and Kingdra certainly didn't become unviable just because they lost Swift Swim? Kabutops, I am unsure. As for UU, if you referring to Rain Dance strategies being ruined due to the absence of Swift Swim, I don't see a reason why Swift Swim could only be banned in OU. But that's my take.

Rain Dance + Swift Swim has always been a side note, not a main point. The point I have been focusing on is Drizzle + Swift Swim, and you haven't been addressing it in the slightest.

Banning Swift Swim won't increase the number of OU-viable Pokemon. Without Swift Swim, the only Swift Swim Pokemon that are any good in OU are Kingdra and Gorebyss. On the other hand, banning Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Kabutops would leave at least six or so Pokemon viable in OU with Swift Swim + Drizzle sets, possible more. Banning Swift Swim will only decrease the number of OU-viable Pokemon, as it has already done.

That's not an answer. As I have explained over and over again, "concise" bans that ban a large group of things are not automatically better than banning the three or so Pokemon within that group that are actually broken. You need more of a reason than that.

This is a completely usual case. Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Kabutops are broken sweepers. That's all there is to it.

When Swift Swim + Drizzle was banned, Ludicolo and Kabutops became largely unviable in OU, and are now only seen on Rain Dance teams. Banning Swift Swim entirely would remove them from even those teams.

And no, banning Swift Swim only in OU and permitting it in lower tiers is not an option:

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85063

Whilst i think this is probably the best alternative, for me, it brings ups the whole slippery slope argument. I mean, where do we draw the line with banning certain pokemon and abilities? Im not questioning anyone's thought process or anything like that, just wondering what we could do to prevent us going down a slippery slope where we end up banning Excadrill and Sandstream or Venusaur and Drought (not saying they're broken, just two solid examples of pokemon who are probably the best abusers of the other two (prominent) forms of weather.)

We draw the line at common sense, rationality, and things that actually have a good reason to be banned. As I observed in another thread, Aldaron's proposal opened the door to ideas of future complex bans, but rather than a slippery slops, the door lead to a sticky slope, where any idea is inspected carefully before going anywhere. There's no danger whatsoever in a sticky slope as long as we maintain it.

I think we're not going to get a very complex ban though. Blaziken was banned, rather than Blaziken+Speed Boost. The tiering contributors may see Kingdra+Drizzle, Kabutops+Drizzle, Ludicolo+Swift Swim+Drizzle as being way too complicated.

I seriously don't think that having 3 elements in a ban is anywhere near too complicated.

Blaziken + Speed Boost was a different type of complex ban than Kingdra + Drizzle, and one that requires different principles. The key difference is that the principles required for a ban of Kingdra + Drizzle were already accepted in the accepting of Aldaron's proposal.

Also, if we leave Swift Swim out of the bans, it's still just two elements, not three. While there is merit at adding Swift Swim to the ban, especially for Ludicolo, there are matters much more important than Rain Dish Ludicolo at stake here.

Ah, that is where your argument is flawed.

Ban Kingdra + Drizzle, because Swift Swim on Kingdra breaks Kingdra.

Ban Sand Veil + Sand Stream, because Sand Veil causes evasion.

Notice where the two arguments you put foward do not match up? For consistancy, you'd either have to ban Swift Swim + Drizzle [Which is what we have now], or, you would have to ban Garchomp + Sand Stream.

Also, Manpahy does have a few suspect sets without Drizzle. There's CroManaphy [CroCune V 2], or ChestoRest + Tail Glow/Calm Mind. While I would support a re-test of Manaphy if, and only if, Drizzle is banned altogether, the banning of Drizzle would cause the metagame to crumble to one dominated by Sand and Sun.

No, these are the arguments:

Ban Kingdra + Drizzle, because Drizzle makes Kingdra broken.

Ban Sand Veil + Sand Stream, because Sand Stream makes Sand Veil uncompetitive.

They're essentially the same argument. The only differences are that Sand Veil should be restricted for uncompetitiveness rather than brokenness, and that Sand Veil is an ability rather than a Pokemon. However, this is no different from the current bans we have in place. We ban Blaziken, Darkrai, Deoxys, and Deoxys-A because they as Pokemon are broken, and we ban Moody from all Pokemon because it makes all Pokemon broken. By the same token, we should ban Kingdra (+ Drizzle), Ludicolo (+ Drizzle), and Kabutops (+ Drizzle), because they as Pokemon are broken (in combination with Drizzle), and we should ban Sand Veil (+ Sand Stream) because it makes all Pokemon uncompetitive (in combination with Sand Stream). That isn't a matter of inconsistency in the slightest.

Indeed, Manaphy might still be broken, but it should still be tested at some point as long as it is not used with Drizzle. There is no reason why an entire Drizzle ban would be necessary for that rather than just a Manaphy + Drizzle ban, though.

 

[Banryu]

Not really. Mostly 'cause it feels like now Sand is broken, LOL. Sun actually balances Sand better than I thought it would, but we could use Rain (with sweepers) to help balance it out some more.....?

As for the poll, not really sure what to vote for at this time.

 

[Thorhammer]

The assertion that people mellow out and accept the status quo is pretty unprovable either way - for instance some people still complain about Chomp's 4th gen banning, there's absolutely no way to quantify this though. As I've said before, the 64% who are dissatisfied does not say anything about whether those people would want to do anything about it, though you do know this. Moreover, arguably the including of both pro and anti Aldaron elements is unfair, since those anti-Aldaron and pro-Drizzle banning would presumably not care about the content of the ban at all - which like I mentioned is the aim of this thread. Essentially, it means that people irrelevant to the thread's aim are biasing the poll, which is why even the 64% shouldn't be assumed to mean anything at all in terms of potential action, though your assertion of dissatisfaction stands.

I'm not going to make another thread - because there's already enough discussion threads on the matter, and because LightningTiger has made one anyway so I'd be repeat posting even more.

Though I don't think there's any point arguing over a course of action since the poll in no way indicates the support said action would have, I'll go over stuff in detail once here. Other issues should be dealt with first since Aldaron's proposal did what it was intended to - balance Drizzle more. All altering the ban would be doing is fine-tuning Drizzle's balancing, and since I personally do not agree with any complex bans for reasons already discussed, it seems that the primary option open to us if we follow this protocol is banning Swift Swim instead - which would have few impacts on the meta. Individual abusers would be possible but given the length of time it would take, and the huge opposition to banning something not inherently broken like Kingdra I recieved when I proposed it in round 2, I would not think this would be be accepted by the community. Yes this is somewhat of a leap in logic, but I see no point going through with a process unlikely to be accepted when I personally tried very hard to promote individual pokemon bans previously. I also think I've already made clear my reasons for not wanting to go further with complex bans, so hopefully you can see why my logic leads me to this conclusion.

The other reason I advise waiting until the meta is fully stable to alter this is that it gives us something to do. In Gen 4 UU, people were so bored by the end they rejoyced when Hera fell and shook up the tier. When OU stagnates, looking back on the lesser issues and refining them gives the meta chance to shift slightly and not become stagnant. This should have no bearing on the decision however, it's just an advantage to not doing this right now.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. Brain Drain would occur if two projects were on at the same time, there is no doubt of it. People testing Aldaron's proposal in isolation from the rest of the suspect process are not people testing suspects. I mention above why I don't like the idea of splitting it off, but the other point I think I didn't make clear is this: if we split off an Aldaron's Proposal test, how will we control when it returns and when it impacts upon the meta? If it hopes to significantly alter AP and hence the meta, then the suspect meta would also be altered by those changes when implemented. If implemented partway through a period, then more time would be needed for the period, delaying suspect testing (effectively the two processes run in serial rather than in parallel anyway). If implemented after or at a supect test period, we could end up with Manaphy syndrome bans, mons no longer broken by things added back into the meta through the parallel AP test, which is obviously an issue.

People still complain about Chomp's banning, but far fewer now than back when it actually happened. And we could prove that with a poll.

This poll was not meant to signify what action should be taken, just that some action of some sort needs to be taken. As much as I have an interest in gathering those in favor of scaling back the bans, that is not the aim of this thread.

There's another alternative. As I've been saying throughout the thread, we always have the option of treating this like past bans and simply banning the broken sweepers, starting with Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Kabutops. You say it would take a long time, but there's no reason to assume that. After banning those first three, it shouldn't take more than a round or two of suspect testing to get things cleaned up, if any more bans are necessitated at all. As for your suggestion of huge opposition, I haven't seen any evidence of that. Perhaps that would be a good topic for a third poll?

Revising Aldaron's proposal is not a lesser issue. This poll shows exactly one thing, and it's that revising Aldaron's proposal is a high priority. While there is some merit in having some things to do later, leaving high-priority issues until later for that sake would be highly unwise. This metagame will be changing enough with Dream World abilities, later games, and events without any more help.

So... what you're saying is, the only solution is to re-test Aldaron's proposal before doing other suspect tests? Because that's how it looks. No matter how else it happens, there will be issues from putting it off. We need a decision from PR about this and related matters, and we need it before Round 4 starts. We need someone with PR access to prompt them to make a decision about where to proceed with regard to complex bans, and where to proceed with regard to Aldaron's proposal.

Not really. Mostly 'cause it feels like now Sand is broken, LOL. Sun actually balances Sand better than I thought it would, but we could use Rain (with sweepers) to help balance it out some more.....?

As for the poll, not really sure what to vote for at this time.

If for any reason, you aren't satisfied, vote no. Sounds like that's what you would want to vote for.

EDIT: New poll created. It may be necessary for this thread to be locked and for discussion here to be redirected there, although I hope that won't be the case.

 

[Benlisted]

People still complain about Chomp's banning, but far fewer now than back when it actually happened. And we could prove that with a poll.

This poll was not meant to signify what action should be taken, just that some action of some sort needs to be taken. As much as I have an interest in gathering those in favor of scaling back the bans, that is not the aim of this thread.

There's another alternative. As I've been saying throughout the thread, we always have the option of treating this like past bans and simply banning the broken sweepers, starting with Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Kabutops. You say it would take a long time, but there's no reason to assume that. After banning those first three, it shouldn't take more than a round or two of suspect testing to get things cleaned up, if any more bans are necessitated at all. As for your suggestion of huge opposition, I haven't seen any evidence of that. Perhaps that would be a good topic for a third poll?

Revising Aldaron's proposal is not a lesser issue. This poll shows exactly one thing, and it's that revising Aldaron's proposal is a high priority. While there is some merit in having some things to do later, leaving high-priority issues until later for that sake would be highly unwise. This metagame will be changing enough with Dream World abilities, later games, and events without any more help.

So... what you're saying is, the only solution is to re-test Aldaron's proposal before doing other suspect tests? Because that's how it looks. No matter how else it happens, there will be issues from putting it off. We need a decision from PR about this and related matters, and we need it before Round 4 starts. We need someone with PR access to prompt them to make a decision about where to proceed with regard to complex bans, and where to proceed with regard to Aldaron's proposal.

Unless you have polls to prove the numbers of people who complained about Chomp's banning taken at the time it was done, and then get the same people to vote on a poll now seeing if they still dislike the idea, then you wouldn't be able to prove it beyond reasonable doubt at all, but anyway. You could ask people if they thought it was unfair intially compared to now, but memory is inherently very easily influenced so such a poll would be very dubious.

Even if the point of the poll isn't in itself to determine that, the thread has now very much turned to that direction, as it naturally would when you brought the issue up, it's naive to assume that people will not use a poll, even if not meant to justify action, to attempt to do so. The fact that this poll is not ideal in this respect is why I brought it up, as it poses an issue in terms of biasing future opinion.

As I said, personally I advocated for the banning of Kingdra/Ludicolo and perhaps more SwSwers if need be in the round two thread when people were discussing options. Then I believed avoiding complex bans was ideal, as I still do, but the idea was shot down for both complexity and banning not always broken mons as a whole - people seemed to prefer the idea of just banning SwSw. If you don't want to believe that fair enough, but I'm not digging through the thread to find the discussion. The reason it may take a long time is both in knock on effects on the meta it would introduce, as well as the rising of lesser SwSwers to possibly become broken and require banning. Anyway, a poll including: Aldaron's proposal is fine; Aldaron's proposal didn't go far enough; Aldaron's proposal needs revising but not right now; and Aldaron's proposal needs revising now; would be a good start, ans then for people who voted on the first poll and chose believe revision is needed should vote on what they believe is the best option. That would be the best thing to do if we want to find a community consensus, but frankly until PR or at least a mod or two gives support (basically none have) it seems like the effort would be wasted.

The poll LightningTiger made has only 61 people admittedly, but is shaping up much differently to yours. Only 55% on it believe revision is necessary, barely a mojority, and that's not mentioning if people believe its needed now or not. Admittedly stats are basically evil, but I wouldn't go so far as to say the revision is a clear cut high priority when similar evidence to this poll suggests it is less important than this.

I really wish you wouldn't put words in my mouth :\ I know it may seem I say something like thay, but when it clearly goes against my whole post and you take that to the fullest extent it is somewhat frustrating. My last paragraph was in regards to the process of testing AP whenever it was done, not about any time in particular. There are issues from putting it off, issues with doing it right now, issues with doing it whatever time we do it, and issues with not doing it at all, and all are impossible to quantify. Unless PR puts out a statement saying the direction they wish to go in with AR and also complex bans, I would default to following previous procedure for complex bans and leaving AP as is. If you want to drum up support to try and nominate for a restest of AP then by all means do so, but that seems to be the option open. I'd love a decision from PR to clear everything we're discussing up, but it doesn't seem likely unless much is going on in the hidden sections of that forum.

 

[Sajak]

I'm not sure if I believe that. Banning an ability on the pokemon is significantly different than banning a move or an item on a pokemon. A different ability fills a different niche and serves a completely different purpose than another one.

SwiftSwim Ludicolo functions as a powerful, bulky sweeper whoc an stay alive thanks to giga drain.

Raindish Ludicolo turns into a staller that can regenerate HP quite well. They don't really have anything in common.

And a Resttalk Gyarados functions much differently than a DD Gyarados, and the only difference is the moveset and EVs (and nature). But the ability stays the same.

Abilities are considered a part of a Pokemon, and if a Pokemon has an ability that makes it broken, the Pokemon as a whole is broken. If a Pokemon has an ability that makes it OU, it's OU. I don't see anyone saying that Slowbro without Regenerator should be UU while Slowbro with Regenerator should be OU, and that's exactly my point.

 

[TSPhoenix]

Well its pretty clear we all have differing opinions on the big points of contension here.

(1) Is Drizzle broken on its own?
Some are saying its still broken with the SwSw combo ban. That alone says something.

(2)Is Swift Swim broken?
Varying opinions here too. While I don't think anyone is claiming Luvdisc an uber, a good number of the SwSw users have been name checked.

(3) Are abusers like Kingdra and Ludicolo broken?
Well with the 50% boost some seem to thing that the strongest rain abusers are still to strong. DD Kingdra is never a pushover but a 180BP move before boosting is serious business. I don't know how anyone can argue Kingdra is useless outside the rain even if its tough to pick him over Salamence or Gyarados.

 

[Elite_Trainer_U]

Well its pretty clear we all have differing opinions on the big points of contension here.

(1) Is Drizzle broken on its own?
Some are saying its still broken with the SwSw combo ban. That alone says something.

(2)Is Swift Swim broken?
Varying opinions here too. While I don't think anyone is claiming Luvdisc an uber, a good number of the SwSw users have been name checked.

(3) Are abusers like Kingdra and Ludicolo broken?
Well with the 50% boost some seem to thing that the strongest rain abusers are still to strong. DD Kingdra is never a pushover but a 180BP move before boosting is serious business. I don't know how anyone can argue Kingdra is useless outside the rain even if its tough to pick him over Salamence or Gyarados.

I think to answer these questions we must define "broken." With a definition of what can be banned, then we can eliminate most doubt about what is ban worthy or not. And if something does meet that definition, then it would be easier to ban.

So anyone got a good definition for "broken"?

 

[Sajak]

So anyone got a good definition for "broken"?

I'll take a swing at it and then other people can nitpick as they choose. :P

Broken: When a Pokemon, Move, Item, or Ability becomes overpowered to the point where using the Pokemon, Move, Item, or Ability requires little to no skill to be effective and becomes unable to be countered 100% of the time given that there are no hax (i.e. crits, misses, etc.) and that the battle has just begun.

I figure that's a good foundation at least, but I'm sure I'm missing something.

 

[Showsni]

So anyone got a good definition for "broken"?

Something is broken if every team that can runs it, because there is no reason not to run it and a team will invariably be stronger if it does run it. For example, Amnesia Mewtwo in Gen 1. If it's legal, you have to run it, because it's so unquestionably good; any team that doesn't run it is definitely worse than the same team that does run it.

That's basically what ubers are; stuff so strong that if they were legal everyone would run them.

To take another example, most of the Power Nine in Magic the Gathering. Unless you're running a rather specific deck (e.g. Dredge), given the option Black Lotus would be run in every single deck, and Time Walk and Ancestral Recall in every deck that can get blue mana.

 

[Elite_Trainer_U]

So thus far, something broken is something that requires no skill to use, and there's no reason not to run it.

Well the first part is largely opinionated, so that's always a pain to argue. The second part has some merit though. We can easily see how many people are using politoed when we finally get usage stats. If politoed has some ridiculously high percentage of people running it, then I would say ban drizzle. But since we do not have usage stats yet, we'll have to set tight for at least another month.

 

[Sajak]

So thus far, something broken is something that requires no skill to use, and there's no reason not to run it.

Well the first part is largely opinionated, so that's always a pain to argue. The second part has some merit though. We can easily see how many people are using politoed when we finally get usage stats. If politoed has some ridiculously high percentage of people running it, then I would say ban drizzle. But since we do not have usage stats yet, we'll have to set tight for at least another month.

People aren't running Politoed because he is good, people are running Politoed for the benefits he can provide a team while preventing others from being as effective.

Last generation, Scizor hit a usage percentage of almost 40%, and yet nobody (or at least very few) consider Scizor to be Uber, just very good. Usage in OU is not a good indicator of whether something is broken or not, it just an indicator of something being centralizing.

 

[Quixim]

People aren't running Politoed because he is good, people are running Politoed for the benefits he can provide a team while preventing others from being as effective.

Last generation, Scizor hit a usage percentage of almost 40%, and yet nobody (or at least very few) consider Scizor to be Uber, just very good. Usage in OU is not a good indicator of whether something is broken or not, it just an indicator of something being centralizing.

I think that broken and centralizing are fairly synonymous here. We want the metagame to have variety, and if there's something that isn't -broken-, but commands a huge amount of the metagame, then it should be eliminated. A good example of this is the Inconsistent ability: Any team would be better by having one of them around to stall and gain ridiculous stat boosts and then sweep teams with it. Only very, very few teams would be worse off for having an Inconsistent user.

And to relegate your point about pokemon's abilities being moves - okay. I mean, I personally believe that different abilities should be treated differently, and you don't. I take it you draw the line at stat distributions (So various different forms of the same pokemon could be tiered differently, such as Giratina and Deoxys)? This is just a matter of opinion. I feel that we should draw the line just past abilities, and you feel that we should draw the line just before.

 

[Sajak]

I think that broken and centralizing are fairly synonymous here. We want the metagame to have variety, and if there's something that isn't -broken-, but commands a huge amount of the metagame, then it should be eliminated. A good example of this is the Inconsistent ability: Any team would be better by having one of them around to stall and gain ridiculous stat boosts and then sweep teams with it. Only very, very few teams would be worse off for having an Inconsistent user.

And to relegate your point about pokemon's abilities being moves - okay. I mean, I personally believe that different abilities should be treated differently, and you don't. I take it you draw the line at stat distributions (So various different forms of the same pokemon could be tiered differently, such as Giratina and Deoxys)? This is just a matter of opinion. I feel that we should draw the line just past abilities, and you feel that we should draw the line just before.

Broken and centralizing are not synonymous. Stealth Rock is not broken, as it's presence does not automatically win somebody a match, it just improves their chances, and it also does not make any Pokemon dysfunctional as Volcarona and Ho-Oh both disprove that notion, as they could not be hurt more by SR, but are still OU and Uber, respectively.

In every case of a Pokemon having a different form, there is a visible difference in the sprite, stats are altered, and sometimes typing changes (not to mention signature moves and different abilities as well). That essentially makes a Pokemon's alternative form(s) a different Pokemon. The only difference between the same Pokemon with one ability and another, aside from some attacks being availabe in the case of some DW Pokemon, is just the ability. No other differences are present, so they are the same exact Pokemon, just used for different purposes or to a different effect.

 

[Recoil]

I still believe that Damp Rock + manual Rain Dance is the only thing that OU rain teams need - weather wars are bad enough already, so having them end at some time should make things much more manageable to the side being washed away and allows for more strategy on the side of who's washing everyone away. Hasn't it always been like this? Both Trick Room and the odd Gravity work like this, and they're pretty strong (especially the first), so I sincerely don't see why mini Kyogres should be allowed. Leave that guy to Ubers.
Same thing for sun, in my opinion, even though it's in no way as powerful as rain.

 

[Ryanide]

I still don't see why there's this bias towards sand. Why is perma-sand allowed wheras perma rain and sun are taboo for wahtever reason?

Sandstorm teams ARE a very dominant force. You have two very powerful sand stream pokemon (T-tar, whom everyone knows and fears as being badass, and Hippowdon which is an amazing physical tank). You don't lose anything by having those pokemon on your team like you do using mediocre Ninetales, Politoed and Abomasnow. Sand also boosts special defense of rock pokemon, making them really bulky for no reason. It completely prevents most of your opponent's team from using focus sash, severely weakens their overall defense with residual damage (which is arguably just as good as getting an extra damage boost on ONLY water or fire type attacks) and gives a swift-swim like speed boost to Excadrill and Stoutland, both of who are hardly terrible pokemon in the slightest. Oh, and it makes any pokemon who use synthesis or moonlight to heal very unhappy.

A sand team is usually going to be stuck full of steel, rock and ground type pokemon. Likewise, a rain team is going to be stuck with a bunch of water, electric and dry skin pokemon. Sun teams will be full of fire, flying and grass pokemon. Most good weather teams play to their respective strengths in a predictable, methodical manner.

I really don't see why perma-sand is ok while rain is not. Either way, all weather teams are countered the same way. You need to KO the weather maker and then clear the field with a weather effect of your own, or just lump it.

It's not like rain dance pokemon are uncounterable once rain is up. Sure they get an attack boost to water attacks only and a lot more speed, but it's not like they are suddenly immune to paralysis. Whimsicott still jumps in and ruins their fun for free.

 

[lmitchell0012]

Lol, thats the worst thing I have ever read. If you ban Politoed, the current "useless" Kingdra, ludi, and kabutops stay the same as they do under aldaron's proposal. Wtf were are you thinking that banning poli would be different for kingdra than having kingdra + poli banned? We still have normal rain, and that is still viable.

ROFLMFAO this is the most pathetic attempt at trolling I've ever seen! First of all, I never said that those pokemon were useless, I said that swift swim is useless for those pokemon with the current ban.

And you're just further proving my point by saying that they're still viable in normal rain. If they are viable in normal rain, why do we need drizzle?? It just makes swift swim even more broken and we don't need that in the metagame. So, having said all of this, give me one good reason why we should keep drizzle.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Swift swim isn't useless, many people toss a swift swimmer on there team to counter rain team. Think I am wrong? Try it out some time before you judge.

 

[Buzzcut]

I really don't see why perma-sand is ok while rain is not. Either way, all weather teams are countered the same way. You need to KO the weather maker and then clear the field with a weather effect of your own, or just lump it.

It's not like rain dance pokemon are uncounterable once rain is up. Sure they get an attack boost to water attacks only and a lot more speed, but it's not like they are suddenly immune to paralysis. Whimsicott still jumps in and ruins their fun for free.

Sand negates leftovers and gives rock types a 1.5x defense boost, while giving 2 rare abilities either power or speed (Sand Force and Sand Rush) a valuable use.

Rain provides a water attack boost (I've seen Scarf Politoed only use Hydro Pump and it was actually effective...), fire attacks are weaker (great for Ferrothorn), Hydration is valuable (Sheer Cold/Rest Lapras on PO >.<), not to mention Swift Swim and Thunder.

Sun boosts fire attacks, weakens water, boosts Growth and boosts Chlorophyll, and makes Solar Beam a 1 turn use.

Hail negates leftovers, raises Blizzard's accuracy, makes Ice Body viable, and is anti-meta.


Rain has by far the most benefits, followed by Sun, then Sand, and finally Hail. Sand only has a defensive boost to rock types going for it, which really only effects Tyranitar and Terrakion realistically. Every member of a Rain and Sun team benefits from weakened water or fire attacks, and Venusaur in the sun is legitimately scary.

And I shouldn't be forced to waste 2 Pokemon in order to use an overly specific Prankster Thunder Wave, especially when you can just switch to something else.

 

[Ryanide]

Does it matter? Perma-hail and sand teams are still very obnoxious and if we are going to go out of our way to ban rain, then I say sand and hail should go too for consistency's sake, regardless.

Negation of leftovers is a very big deal, crippling a lot of defensive pokemon who rely on the regen to survive. Sand also doesn't JUSt negate leftovers, it actually does damage every turn to pokemon who don't resist it. That's big. That opens up opportunities for stalling, ruins focus sash based strategies, makes 2ko's into 1ko's, prevents recovery for pokemon who only have morning sun and moonlight to recover without having to waste a slot on protect (Arcanine and Umbreon for example) and so on.

Last gen, sun and rain were considered nearly useless compared to sand stream teams. Most people who tried to run rain dance teams got giggled at and a good number of players went as far as to say it was a bad idea to try to run a weather team other than sand. So where is all this 'sun is better than sand!" stuff coming from all of a sudden? Sun was very rare last gen and rain teams were only slightly less rare. I don't see why that's suddenly going to change if we ban drought and drizzle.

It's not like prankster thunderwave is overly specific either. Prankster pokemon in general are quite useful, so you don't lose anything by having one on your team. Even then, you don't need prankster to shut down a sweeper with thunder wave, just a pokemon who's bulky enough to take a special hit...like Blissey.

You only need to take one slot to have a weather effect. Canceling the rain with sunny day or whatever means that your opponent suddenly loses two levels of power on their water attacks and fire defense, and has to stop whatever they're doing and switch back to their rain-maker. It's like stealth rock abuse in gen 4. If you fear it, you carry a rapid spin user to get rid of the rocks. If you fear drizzle, then carry a pokemon with sunny day. Most rain dance oriented teams WILL get wrecked by sunny day regardless if your pokemon want to use it or not. Even better, you can carry a utility sunny day/thunder wave/rain dance/encore whimsicott to check every weather group and stat-dancer for only one pokemon. what a bargain. Don't like whimsicott? Well then you can always use Patalliro...I mean...Lickilicky as a weather negator/changer who also acts as a fairly decent sponge and status monster due to bulk. There are plenty of options.

Venasaur may be a monster in rain, but regirock is a monster in sand. Even in rain Venasaur is still perfectly weak against psychic, wheras Regirock's special defense boost means that all it's special weaknesses are resisted, and then it gains a futher special resistance to any special move that isn't super effective. Tyranitar is also equally bs in sand but I don't need to bring him up.

 

[sanjay120]

I'd be in favor of Kingdra/Drizzle, Kabutops/Drizzle, and Ludicolo/SS/Drizzle bans. Banning SS/Drizzle obviously didn't work for the reasons outlined. Banning Drizzle itself would give rain stall teams trouble, as well as other useful but not problematic SSers. Banning Swift Swim on those Pokemon bans Rain Dance using, which is good but not too good. Banning all Kingdra/Tops/Ludi with Drizzle bans Rain Dish Ludicolo sets, or at least those that use Drizzle and not Rain Dance. IDK if anyone would ever use non-SS Tops/Kingdra, but if they do then exceptions could be made.

 

[Ryanide]

if it must come to a ban, how about we allow only one of each 'powerful' swift swimmer on the team alongside drizzle instead of banning them completely? Therefore, you can only have drizzle and kingdra, but not drizzle, kingdra, ludicolo and kabutops on the same team. you could, however, have drizzle, kingdra and a lesser SSer like Floatzel on the same team.

At least this would 'emulate' those totally not overpowered sand teams, who only get one 'major' sser (Excadrill) and one minor sser (Stoutland)

 

[Buzzcut]

Does it matter? Perma-hail and sand teams are still very obnoxious and if we are going to go out of our way to ban rain, then I say sand and hail should go too for consistency's sake, regardless.

Negation of leftovers is a very big deal, crippling a lot of defensive pokemon who rely on the regen to survive. Sand also doesn't JUSt negate leftovers, it actually does damage every turn to pokemon who don't resist it. That's big. That opens up opportunities for stalling, ruins focus sash based strategies, makes 2ko's into 1ko's, prevents recovery for pokemon who only have morning sun and moonlight to recover without having to waste a slot on protect (Arcanine and Umbreon for example) and so on.

Last gen, sun and rain were considered nearly useless compared to sand stream teams. Most people who tried to run rain dance teams got giggled at and a good number of players went as far as to say it was a bad idea to try to run a weather team other than sand. So where is all this 'sun is better than sand!" stuff coming from all of a sudden? Sun was very rare last gen and rain teams were only slightly less rare. I don't see why that's suddenly going to change if we ban drought and drizzle.

It's not like prankster thunderwave is overly specific either. Prankster pokemon in general are quite useful, so you don't lose anything by having one on your team. Even then, you don't need prankster to shut down a sweeper with thunder wave, just a pokemon who's bulky enough to take a special hit...like Blissey.

You only need to take one slot to have a weather effect. Canceling the rain with sunny day or whatever means that your opponent suddenly loses two levels of power on their water attacks and fire defense, and has to stop whatever they're doing and switch back to their rain-maker. It's like stealth rock abuse in gen 4. If you fear it, you carry a rapid spin user to get rid of the rocks. If you fear drizzle, then carry a pokemon with sunny day. Most rain dance oriented teams WILL get wrecked by sunny day regardless if your pokemon want to use it or not. Even better, you can carry a utility sunny day/thunder wave/rain dance/encore whimsicott to check every weather group and stat-dancer for only one pokemon. what a bargain. Don't like whimsicott? Well then you can always use Patalliro...I mean...Lickilicky as a weather negator/changer who also acts as a fairly decent sponge and status monster due to bulk. There are plenty of options.

Venasaur may be a monster in rain, but regirock is a monster in sand. Even in rain Venasaur is still perfectly weak against psychic, wheras Regirock's special defense boost means that all it's special weaknesses are resisted, and then it gains a futher special resistance to any special move that isn't super effective. Tyranitar is also equally bs in sand but I don't need to bring him up.

You've clearly never used something like Blissey and Hippowdon on the same team. Blissey is by no means crippled at all. It would actually be easier to argue that sand messes with sweepers, as they die quicker with LO/sand every turn.

Drizzle Politoad and Drought Ninetails happened. Stalling for 8 turns and stalling on a team that isn't meant to stall for an entire game are 2 different things.

Pranker Pokes are useful, but I shouldn't be forced to run one just to try and stop rain. It's over centralization.

Why would I ever run a Whimsicott that's only purpose is to change weather? I'd rather run Abomasnow, and actually have been meaning to try it out. Don't even know what the rest of the paragraph is arguing. I'm fine with weather centralization, as it's my choice to not run weather on most of my teams, but rain is ridiculous. It has the most benefits and is the hardest to stop. Even without Swift Swim people still think it's over-powered. That should say something.

I've never tried Regirock in the sand, but it was available last gen and no one used it, so I don't see why it would suddenly be amazing now.

 

[Ryanide]

If you had actually payed attention to my post, you'd have figured out that a whimsicott with sunny day/rain dance/thunder wave/encore can not only be used to change weather, but also shut down stat-uppers and cripple. It has encore and thunder wave too and can use them just fine.

A pokemon like blissey doesn't mind sandstorm because it's already a massive wall to begin with, but there are other walls (gasp, using other defensive pokemon besides blissey and skarm?) who need the leftover recovery to really shine defensively. Scrafty comes to mind. A bulky scrafty without leftovers dies a lot faster than one who has leftovers. And yes, it cripples sweepers too. In fact it's just bad news for any pokemon who's not a ground, steel or rock type. I don't see how that's so different from other weather conditions. The goal of a weather team is to empower certain types at the expense of diversity. Like I said eariler, if you are running a sandstorm team, no guesses as to what predominant types are going to be in your team. The minute your opponent sees you have a weather oriented team they know to expect excadrill/ninetales/kingrda/whatever and that in itself is a weakness, even with team preview.

Just because you don't want to run a counter to something on your team doesn't mean it's omnipotent. Stealth rock requires a spinner to get rid of it or else it will haunt you through the entire match. Using a spinner in my opinion is far more irritating than using a pokemon who can change any of the four weathers to something more suited to your tastes and also run other services while it's working. Why would you want to use abomasnow anyway unless you were making a hail team? Abomasnow can't stop attempts at stat buffing with priority encore, nor can it thunder wave specific threats who require the speed boost from swift swim/cholrophill to be really scary in the first place.

If rain is so ridiculous then why was it considered inferior to sand last gen? Regular set-up rain and sun teams just didn't cut it. They were considered gimmicks. Why is that going to change now if drizzle is banned?