Would you still play in Smogon's OU Metagame if Stealth Rock was banned?

[Chieliee]

You are just QQing because you can't use certain pokemon because of it, right?
Yes, yes I am and there is nothing wrong with that. Its ridiculous that one move, and not even a pokemon, makes several upon several good pokemon completely hindered from the get go, which goes back into the forcing me to carry a rapid spinner.

Solar Power Charizard would be OU. It OHKO's or 2HKO's everything except Blissey/Chansey.
Yanmega would be top OU. Speed Boost/Tinted lens are both GREAT abilities, and it's stats are quite good as well.
Volcarona would be a major suspect/go to Ubers. ChestoRest/Morning Sun is REALLY dangerous. Do I need to explain?
Vespiquen would be a great wall in UU. 70/102/102 defenses is something not many pokes have. Acces to Roost and Defend Order make her even better
Eviolite Scyther would get nearly as much usage as Eviolite Porygon2 Great defensive AND Offensive power
Moltres and Articuno would be used just as much as Zapdos. Articuno might fall a bit behind, but not nearly as much as it is now. Moltres>Zapdos without SR.
Archeops would be a good scout, without losing it's power after 2 switch-ins.

if stealth rock did not exist. Some of these might not be true, just my expectations.

I am one of the players here on Smogon who absolutely hates SR. ONE move that makes so many potentially useful pokes completely useless.... I don't think that's fair.

Stealth Rock is currently one of the least broken things in the metagame right now. Things like Ferrothorn, Rain, Sun and Excadrill are far more broken.

It's not broken, it just completely changes the metagame.


Just my opinion.

 

[Togelover]

It's not broken, it just completely changes the metagame.

Yeah, broken might not be the best word for it, but the point still stands.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

Actually, SR balances the metagame. Charizard wasn't even that good to begin with, outside of stuff like Bellyzard it's quite crap, really. IMO SR was the last nail in the coffin for Charizard, but what really screwed him over was a massload of Heatran and Infernape. In UU, he gets trolled by Moltres. Hence, NU.

Eviolite Porygon2 is still bulkier than Eviolite Scyther. Porygon2 has BoltBeam. 85/90/95 beat 70/80/80 defenses. So nope for Scyther.

You should be thankful Archeops didn't come in Gen 4, or Roost is no longer a TM. I dunno how bad the metagame would be if Archeops was legal with Roost.

IMO, SR actually buffed the Rock-type. Rock was pretty meh for an attacking type before Gen IV, with the highest powered move being Rock Slide. Stone Edge and Head Smash were somewhat decent improvements, but Stone Edge is called Stone MISS for a reason and Head Smash was exclusive to... wow. Rampardos. And Relicanth. Not to mention recoil. Compare this to other types. Fire had Fire Blast, Ground had Earthquake, etc. It may as well be over-buffed, but remember that Gen IV also introduced a lame pile of crap called Draco Meteor, a move that pretty much always has STAB and is resisted by only 1 type. In fact, an era where the DP meta was pretty much Dragon/Steel happened, ending with pretty much the banning of Latias and Salamence.

If SR should be banned, you guys might as well ban DM with it. >_>

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

IMO, SR actually buffed the Rock-type. Rock was pretty meh for an attacking type before Gen IV, with the highest powered move being Rock Slide. Stone Edge and Head Smash were somewhat decent improvements, but Stone Edge is called Stone MISS for a reason and Head Smash was exclusive to... wow. Rampardos. And Relicanth. Not to mention recoil. Compare this to other types. Fire had Fire Blast, Ground had Earthquake, etc. It may as well be over-buffed, but remember that Gen IV also introduced a lame pile of crap called Draco Meteor, a move that pretty much always has STAB and is resisted by only 1 type. In fact, an era where the DP meta was pretty much Dragon/Steel happened, ending with pretty much the banning of Latias and Salamence.

If SR should be banned, you guys might as well ban DM with it. >_>

I actually have to agree with you here, strong attacks such as draco meteor have led to a much more cetralized metagame then stealth rocks. Would Latios and Latias been banned in 4th gen without it? Would Latios even be a suspect this gen? The answer is argueably yes, but then again smogon has a strict policy about banning specific moves on pokemon, and I have to agree, thats just picking hairs.

 

[Jirachee]

Not to forget Mence is weak to SR!

 

[Chieliee]

Actually, SR balances the metagame. Charizard wasn't even that good to begin with, outside of stuff like Bellyzard it's quite crap, really.

Have you ever faced Solar Power Zard? Fire Blast, a 120 BP move, getting 3 1.5 boosts, or 120×1.5^3 = 405. Give it a Scarf and it outspeeds quite a lot

IMO SR was the last nail in the coffin for Charizard, but what really screwed him over was a massload of Heatran and Infernape. In UU, he gets trolled by Moltres. Hence, NU.

Prediction. Focus Blast/Air Slash. Although it was hard to predict without team preview... Also, Yes, Zard sucked in gen 4. But in gen 5 he is just awesome (IMO)

Eviolite Porygon2 is still bulkier than Eviolite Scyther. Porygon2 has BoltBeam. 85/90/95 beat 70/80/80 defenses. So nope for Scyther.

Scyther has much more offensive presence, as I said. 105/110 is really good for such a bulky poke

You should be thankful Archeops didn't come in Gen 4, or Roost is no longer a TM. I dunno how bad the metagame would be if Archeops was legal with Roost.

Totally agree with you here

IMO, SR actually buffed the Rock-type. Rock was pretty meh for an attacking type before Gen IV, with the highest powered move being Rock Slide. Stone Edge and Head Smash were somewhat decent improvements, but Stone Edge is called Stone MISS for a reason and Head Smash was exclusive to... wow. Rampardos. And Relicanth. Not to mention recoil. Compare this to other types. Fire had Fire Blast, Ground had Earthquake, etc.

I agree with the fact that Rock type needed a buff, but not at such big costs.

It may as well be over-buffed, but remember that Gen IV also introduced a lame pile of crap called Draco Meteor, a move that pretty much always has STAB and is resisted by only 1 type. In fact, an era where the DP meta was pretty much Dragon/Steel happened, ending with pretty much the banning of Latias and Salamence.

If SR should be banned, you guys might as well ban DM with it. >_>

Actually, I agree with this too.

Quote from below:

I still think that SR is a bit too overcentralizing, but I know it's never gonna get banned, so I'll live.

I totally agree. It'll never get banned, and I have to deal with it.

 

[Gneiss is nice]

I never understood these arguments. You have a total of 24 moveslots on a team; you're telling me you can't pick one poke that learns rapid spin and dedicate one (1) moveslot to it? People pretend that if something learns Rapid Spin, that's all it's good for, which is very false (Case and point: Starmie, Blastoise, Donphan, Claydol, Hitmontop, etc).

Well, picking one pokemon does limit your choice for one of team slots from over 600 to around 20 (ok, technically you don't really have over 600 pokemon to choose from for an OU team since most pokemon are unevolved and even from the evolved ones, many are not fit for OU at all, but the point is, Rapid Spin is only available to a handful of pokemon). That's kind of annoying.

It used to bug me a lot that I felt like I had to run a Claydol on my Hail team, but I admit that I've gotten attached to the little bugger.

I still think that SR is a bit too overcentralizing, but I know it's never gonna get banned, so I'll live.

 

[alexwolf]

But Ice Shard will OHKO Yache-less Garchomp, so basically it forces Garchomp to run an item.
Stealth Rock forces you to lead with Yanmega OR carry a spinner/magic mirror-er.
Or run Leftovers + Protect to 1) take advantage of speed boost and 2) recover that lost health.
Also, do you really believe that Garchomp wouldn't be better than Yanmega anyways in a Stealth Rock-less metagame?
Stealth Rock can be counteracted at any time by a Rapid Spinner. You can't delete Ice Shard off your foe's Mamoswine just because you have a Claydol.
Also, Stealth Rock doesn't make all pokemon 4x weak to it horrible by itself. For example. Volcarona is still top-20 OU despite being 4x weak to Stealth Rock (AND getting hurt by other hazards).

To go through other 4x-weaks:

Charizard isn't that great of a pokemon with its average base 100 speed and 109 SpA being its one other notable stat. Honestly, isn't Infernape better?

Articuno is Ice/Flying. Even without Stealth Rock, Ice is still a bad defensive typing, and Articuno isn't as good as its bird brethren at attacking.

Volcarona is arguably being kept OU as opposed to Ubers thanks to Stealth Rock.

Ninjask is a lead and doesn't need a whole lot of bulk anyways.

Yanmega is nerfed and the main problem it has with that is dying to priority. But it's still countered by Sp. Def. Scizor and dies to Ice Shard.

Moltres Actually, it would be kinda cool to use Moltres in an SR-less environment <3 Moltres is already solid UU and could fill a neat stalling role on Sun teams. (However, Zapdos is UU so idk about how much Moltres would improve)

Butterfree Screw Butterfree.

It would be kind of neat to have a hazards-less tier separate from OU (perhaps combined with a Clear Skies tier) so that we'd see some different pokemon shine, but I don't really believe that Stealth Rock should be banned from the actual OU tier. This discussion has come up time and time again and somehow Stealth Rock is never voted suspect (or even nominated?)
Still the best chance SR-haters have is to "join forces" with the weather haters. lol.

Still, I don't really believe Stealth Rock has that negative of an impact on the metagame.

BTW @OP: creative title for the thread I really like your originality
Why not just ask "Should Stealth Rock be banned?"
The reason why my poll asked "would you still play" was because of a debate I had about the potential split in the playerbase :/

even though i hate sr just because of its type discrimination i wouldn't want it banned...
if only it could be nerfed in 6th gen so it would do like 1%/6,25%/12,5%/18,5%/25% then it would be great...
but you have to admit that your reasoning on why those pokes are good or bad is very biased and simple minded.

f.e.:''ninjask is a lead and doesn't need bulk anyway...''
ninjask is used as a lead 'cause of sr!and of course he needs bulk so he can tank hits better before passing the boosts!and with sr stripping away 50% of its life it can't even take 1 priority hit after sr...

another example.:Yanmega is nerfed and the main problem it has with that is dying to priority. But it's still countered by Sp. Def. Scizor and dies to Ice Shard.
is this a serious reasoning???yanmega's most serious problem is obviosuly sr!!!of 'course it has some priority issues but that happens to all frail speedy sweepers...also the fact that it is countered by sp.def scizor doesn't say anything(and ice shard also doesn't say anything 'cause you already have mentioned priority)...every poke has its counters!!!the fact that it has some counters doesn't mean that sr doesn't fuck him badly!many pokes in ou have some hard counters but they are still used!of 'course almost all of them don't lose 50% of their health upon switching in...

and also you forgot to mention how sr affects every fire,bug,flying and ice poke...a poke doesn't have to be 4x weak to sr to get serisously hampered by it...have you forgot why a defensive fire type is a joke???'cause of sr!
also ice types are bad enough!do they need sr to fuck them up even more???


anyway the thing i am trying to say was that all your examples were very biased and your post wasn't saying much...that's all!

and something last that goes to everyone:
whoever says that sr keeps so much pokes in check so it shouldn't be banned,this is irrelevant!completely irrelevant!
if these pokes were deemed broken without sr then they would just get banned!we don't adjust the situations so that some pokes won't be broken!we ban the pokes with the given circumstances!
so if volcarona was deemed broken in a metagame without sr then so be it...
the fact is that the pokes that get seriously nerfed by sr are much more than the pokes that it keeps in check!so my guess is that the ban of sr would indeed increase variety which is a wanted aspect for a desirable metagame!
but i don't want it banned only for 1 reason:without sr some pokes will be able to switch freely with no penalty!and this is big!

 

[TM13IceBeam]

Well, picking one pokemon does limit your choice for one of team slots from over 600 to around 20 (ok, technically you don't really have over 600 pokemon to choose from for an OU team since most pokemon are unevolved and even from the evolved ones, many are not fit for OU at all, but the point is, Rapid Spin is only available to a handful of pokemon). That's kind of annoying.

It used to bug me a lot that I felt like I had to run a Claydol on my Hail team, but I admit that I've gotten attached to the little bugger.

I still think that SR is a bit too overcentralizing, but I know it's never gonna get banned, so I'll live.

Even then, there are common Pokemon that CAN use Rapid Spin and still work fine in the competitive environment. Starmie is still good even with Rapid Spin because frankly, BoltBeam covers almost everything neutrally(only Lanturn, Shedinja and Magnezone resist that iirc) and Starmie has got decent Speed and Special Attack to pull it off. Hitmontop is an excellent utility mon for UU with its decent bulk, revenge-killing prowess, and the like.

Generally speaking, the mons who get Rapid Spin are more than capable of devoting a slot to Rapid Spin itself.

^above guy who managed to ninja me: Explain exactly, what priority hit will Ninjask ever survive, even WITHOUT rocks? Ninjask doesn't need bulk, he just needs 3 free turns and you'd be staring down at a +2/+2 whatever preparing to sweep your team.

Yanmega is still countered by Specially Defensive Scizor, because what exactly can Yanmega do? Other than a neutral Air Slash, which can't flinch a priority user. Volcarona is different because there really isn't a priority user that can beat him one-on-one.

In fact, in the face of sheer attacking prowess, Stealth Rock is pretty much lol. Why exactly is Ho-oh, a 4x SR weak Pokemon, banned again? Simple, its too powerful for the metagame, with Sacred Fire+Brave Bird easily 2HKO'ing the crap out of everything while in a ridiculously high Speed tier. And he is still screwed by SR. Problem?

 

[alexwolf]

Actually, SR balances the metagame. Charizard wasn't even that good to begin with, outside of stuff like Bellyzard it's quite crap, really. IMO SR was the last nail in the coffin for Charizard, but what really screwed him over was a massload of Heatran and Infernape. In UU, he gets trolled by Moltres. Hence, NU.

Eviolite Porygon2 is still bulkier than Eviolite Scyther. Porygon2 has BoltBeam. 85/90/95 beat 70/80/80 defenses. So nope for Scyther.

You should be thankful Archeops didn't come in Gen 4, or Roost is no longer a TM. I dunno how bad the metagame would be if Archeops was legal with Roost.

IMO, SR actually buffed the Rock-type. Rock was pretty meh for an attacking type before Gen IV, with the highest powered move being Rock Slide. Stone Edge and Head Smash were somewhat decent improvements, but Stone Edge is called Stone MISS for a reason and Head Smash was exclusive to... wow. Rampardos. And Relicanth. Not to mention recoil. Compare this to other types. Fire had Fire Blast, Ground had Earthquake, etc. It may as well be over-buffed, but remember that Gen IV also introduced a lame pile of crap called Draco Meteor, a move that pretty much always has STAB and is resisted by only 1 type. In fact, an era where the DP meta was pretty much Dragon/Steel happened, ending with pretty much the banning of Latias and Salamence.

If SR should be banned, you guys might as well ban DM with it. >_>

the bolded part is not true!
what balances the game means???
does it mean that some pokes would be broken without it??
if this is the case then we would just ban those pokes!!!you know like we always do!
it is exactly the opposite in fact!if some pokes in ou were banned then ubers would get bigger...
the positions of the former ous would be taken by some uu's and the postions of the former uus would be taken by some rus..so actually it would be better 'cause every poke could shine in the tier it deserves to be using its maximum potential,and not in the tier that sr tells it to be just because of the type discrimination and finally we would have bigger variety...and ubers would get bigger!i don't know if this is good or bad just telling...

Even then, there are common Pokemon that CAN use Rapid Spin and still work fine in the competitive environment. Starmie is still good even with Rapid Spin because frankly, BoltBeam covers almost everything neutrally(only Lanturn, Shedinja and Magnezone resist that iirc) and Starmie has got decent Speed and Special Attack to pull it off. Hitmontop is an excellent utility mon for UU with its decent bulk, revenge-killing prowess, and the like.

Generally speaking, the mons who get Rapid Spin are more than capable of devoting a slot to Rapid Spin itself.

^above guy who managed to ninja me: Explain exactly, what priority hit will Ninjask ever survive, even WITHOUT rocks? Ninjask doesn't need bulk, he just needs 3 free turns and you'd be staring down at a +2/+2 whatever preparing to sweep your team.

Yanmega is still countered by Specially Defensive Scizor, because what exactly can Yanmega do? Other than a neutral Air Slash, which can't flinch a priority user. Volcarona is different because there really isn't a priority user that can beat him one-on-one.

In fact, in the face of sheer attacking prowess, Stealth Rock is pretty much lol. Why exactly is Ho-oh, a 4x SR weak Pokemon, banned again? Simple, its too powerful for the metagame, with Sacred Fire+Brave Bird easily 2HKO'ing the crap out of everything while in a ridiculously high Speed tier. And he is still screwed by SR. Problem?

about ninjask:ninjask with max hp survives evry available priority move in the game iirc!but with rock it doesn't...and i am not saying that ninjask desperately need bulk but since other than speed it has no use for its other evs putting them to bulk defitely helps.

about yanmega:i didn't say that it wasn't.i was just trying to tell to the guy that said that those pokes are not so majorly affected by sr that in fact they are...the fact that yanmega has a hard counter in specially defensive scizor doesnt mean that it's usage wouldn't raise dramatically if sr was banned...every poke has counters and this is also true for yanmega!finally a choice specs yanmega with tinted lens could very easily wreck shit and make it to ou since it destroys everything except chansey aand blissey(and snorlax maybe).also a speed boost yanmega would be a very solid finisher for any team!

and of 'course ho-oh is still in ubers despite 4x sr weakness because he is a fucking monster!!!but this doesn't means that sr doesn't greatly screws pokes weak to it...

 

[Great Sage]

1. Grousing about Stealth Rock is so last gen.

2. Stealth Rock will not be banned.

3. The OP contains enough inaccuracies, misunderstandings, and errors of fact that I am convinced it exists just to grouse about Stealth Rock.