The Effect of Weather in the Doubles Metagame - Gen 6

[BlankZero]

This thread will discuss the nature and effect of Weather, both Auto and Manual, in the Doubles Metagame in Generation 6.

As most of us are aware, permanent weather effects received a huge nerf, as they only give 5 turns of their respective weather effect upon entering the field, or 8 turns with the appropriate item equipped. Considering that in Gen 5, auto-weather was permanent until it was changed, this is a very large change, possibly changing the pace of a game during a crucial turn.

The topic is rather broad, but now that we have had a few weeks to play around with this new mechanic, I feel it needs a bit of discussion. The questions you should consider are: 1. How has the effect of weather been increased or diminished with no more perma-weather? 2. What Pokemon will see a rise in usage? A decrease? Will it affect Sweeping or Weather Counters more so or not at all? 3. Will weather continue to be as dominant a force? Or will other field effects such as Trick Room and Tailwind, which now last comparably as long, take the Metagame by storm?

I'm keeping the OP nice and short, as this topic is very broad overall and I don't want to big down the conversation with a heavy first post.

 

[youngjake93]

I haven't had time to really play test a lot due to work, but I will inject some obvious theorymon.
Ninetales already sucked and manual Sun was already very prevalent. Heatran, Cresselia and the Latis were some of the more popular setter though and these are all post-PokeBank mons. Regardless, I still see Ninetales dropping into UU but having a niche for dedicated Sun teams. Charizard Y could very well be a factor in doubles though.
Politoed and Tyranitar are actually very good in Doubles by themselves so having the Weather bonus will lock them in.
Hippo is even more outclassed now that Tyranitar has EVEN MORE options.
Abamosnow goes from the weather starter of hailroom to the main abuser, bulky tank, weather starter and more due to its sweet upgrade with Abamosite. It has one of the best possible TR stat spreads+spread attack you could get.

I guess this could also be the place to discuss Discharge spam teams get access to Electric Terrain to almost be scary if unprepared.

 

[Pata Hikari]

In all honesty, 5 turns is a long, long time in Double Battles.

Look at Trick Room, 5 turns with it set up was more then enough for a good team based off it. Dedicated weather teams probably won't be effected near as much here as they are in singles.

What I expect is mostly people no longer just tossing in a weather starter just for the heck of it.

 

[TaiCrunch]

Would it still be worth it to use the weather-extending items, then?

 

[Skore]

I think weather will still see a lot of use in the Doubles meta. 5 turns doesn't sound like much but unlike singles you're not "wasting a turn" to get your weather starter into the game and out for a weather sweeper as your weather sweeper is there right beside you.

I think it will lead to a decrease in weather overall, even in Gen 5 there were a lot of good teams that didn't rely on weather and it will be business as usual for them but those that relied on the weather will need a rethink of their strategy and a tweak to ensure it still works for them.

What I DO think will happen is that we'll see the weather setters themselves run almost exclusively bulky sets to keep themselves around incase that 5 turns runs out and they haven't achieved a win yet.
BUT - Mind games can ensue, weather runs out and your opponent predicts you'll switch to your weather setter and lines up the appropriate move - well what happens if you just manually set it instead?

The meta is too young yet and Pokebank will likely shake things up even further when it arrives but in the long run I don't think weather is going away and you should still be prepared to deal with a weather team when building your own strategy.

 

[Nollan]

Weather is still a big part of the metagame, it just has a lot of limitations now that make dedicated teams more risky to use. Protect is obviously even more valuable now, as it not only stalls out Trick Room and Tailwind, but Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream, and Snow Warning, too.

In terms of usage, I have seen a very low number of Excadrill (most of which use Mold Breaker) and Kingdra. People seem to be reluctant to use Pokemon who need weather to operate, since it is no longer as easy to maintain as it once was. I've seen more sun since it can now have both Charizard Y and Ninetales on a team for more weather control (I mean I guess you could've used Vulpix but it would have been dead weight), though Heatran will still do a good job w/ walling sun teams when it becomes available.

Overall I'd agree w/ mostly everyone else that weather is going to stay. It is far easier to handle now, though, which means Goodstuff is probably headed for a spike in usage.

 

[BLOOD TOTEM]

I see very little reason to run Ninetales now, Sun wasn't great pre nerf but now the future looks even less bright for Ninetales and co.
Sunny Day might also decline in usage because it was used primarily as a disruption move to throw a spanner in the works against Rain / Sand and the nerf means there is likely gonna be less Rain / Sand to disrupt.
Tyranitar is such a good mon for doubles imo so it shouldn't drop too much however I don't think we'll see 'sand' teams as such but rather 'teams with Tyranitar on'.
Politoed is also independently quite a strong Pokemon and the 1.5x damage increase for Water moves that it brings with drizzle makes it a worthwhile choice. Not only this but it allows Pokemon to use Thunder over Thunderbolt and, Hurricane. Rain also gives a plethora of Pokemon an opportunity shine through Swift Swim. The extra damage output that rain brings makes it an easily justifiable choice and I feel it will remain a popular playstyle alongside weatherless offense.
What will be interesting is whether people resort to using Damp / Smooth / Icy / Heat Rock is used over other items, I've just built a team using Damp Rock Politoed but I also have Rain Dance on Tornadus as a backup or if I can't get Toed in.

 

[BlankZero]

What about weather counters like Gastrodon/Sunny Day Ludicolo for Rain and running Landorus-T to help check Sand, or Heatran for Sun?

I know these are unreleased, but we are doing some Theorymonning anyhow.

How about manual Prankster setters like Sableye, Thundurus-I, or the new Klefki?

 

[noobcubed]

To be honest I'm pretty sure that we already had "teams with Tyranitar on" rather than sand teams in gen V. Sand had one abuser really (that's right VGC, no Sand Veil Garchomp crap for us), and Tyranitar was used mainly to remove rain and to so generally useful things lie massacring Trick Room setters.

The one weather nobody has mentioned yet is Hail, despite it being way more common and powerful than Sun. IMO Mega-Abomasnow looks pretty terrifying now - I think it must have the second most powerful spread move in the metagame after Eruptran, and it can hard-counter most sleep users with its new-found powder immunity. When I finally get round to building a team it'll probably feature the updated version of the classic Abomasnow/ Chandelure offensive TR core.

 

[youngjake93]

The real question here I think (pertaining to Mega-Aboma) is that, if Hail runs out, and you Mega Evolve, do you restart Hail?

Why would you ever wait 5 turns on a fragile mon with a horrible defensive typing and no item that is crucial to your game strategy to give yourself more than 50% extra special attack and great bulk?
I'm pretty positive that it would restart it if there is no hail left, but won't restart the counter which would actually he useful.

 

[Kuhni]

I've played a SandWind team (Sandstream + Tailwind) for a couple matches on the Doubles Nintendo Rated battle ladder, I think I'm at about 1730 rating now.
The team itself worked pretty well, and because of the faster pace of double battles compared to singles, you don't notice the nerf too much, especially when using a prolonging item.

 

[Darkflagrance]

I find that on the cartridge Charizard Y is even more broken effective than Volcarona in combination with Hitmontop/other fake-out user (I use Mienshao) because of his drought and his nullification of water attacks, and because you can send in Volcarona when he faints to finish what he started. I do dread what will happen to my current team when the Latis, Heatran, and co come over via pokebank though.

The mega-evolving for starters actually adds a ton of mind games. I've countered T-tar/Toed leads and switch-ins by protecting on CharY before mega-evolving him and then murderizing the weather user on the next turn. Tyranitars have in turn countered me by bluffing assault vest and then mega-evolving to reset sand. Abomasnow is janky at pulling this off, but he can still play the round 1-2 megaevolving-to-setup-weather-games with protect. Feint adds another layer to the mind games.

It's almost a shame that rain doesn't get a mega-evolver who drizzles because then it'd be able to match the others in terms of mind games, but that might be too broken.

 

[tofucocoa]

^ i do like the second paragraph of your post but using volcarona AND charizard is just asking for trouble imo, and i don't like your use of the word 'broken', but i know that probably isn't what you mean. i haven't tried charizard y out yet (i've been trying megazard x for now because i have it on cart and it looks cooler :3), but it's been more impressive than what i thought it would be. it's kind of weird how they didn't give a megavolution drizzle to complete the set, though politoed would probably still be the premier setter even if they gave something like swampert drizzle that didn't have it before simply because when you first send out toed you get the benefits of swift swim earlier as opposed to send out mon>mega evolve>wait a turn for the speed to set in. sun doesn't really have this problem, but i wonder if a first turn fast chlorophyll mon would be worth it to use ninetales (i'm expecting a no because tales sux but bear with me here).

 

[Darkflagrance]

i wonder if a first turn fast chlorophyll mon would be worth it to use ninetales (i'm expecting a no because tales sux but bear with me here).

It's definitely up for debate whether Char Y is worth that MegaSlot when ninetales does a similar job AND lets you run SolarZard and MegaHoundoom. That also allows you to run the chorophyller (I like Venusaur :D) you mention. (I actually fought a team like this on ranked wifi and beat it, but that's just anecdotal evidence...) An additional disadvantage of CharY is that it is 4x weak to Rock Slide.

The advantage I see for using CharY is that it is a powerful solo operator and it has delayed but max priority weather set-up, and that because it flies, I can set up WaveQuake with Garchomp as a partner. Because Ninetales is so weak I have to be setting up its allies to justify it, but I feel better letting Charizard be the main sun user on the team and simply supporting his Heat Wave with Quakes and Wide Guard. Both Ninetales teams and ZardY teams also have nice synergy with Talonflame.

 

[Eeyore]

To be honest I'm pretty sure that we already had "teams with Tyranitar on" rather than sand teams in gen V. Sand had one abuser really (that's right VGC, no Sand Veil Garchomp crap for us), and Tyranitar was used mainly to remove rain and to so generally useful things lie massacring Trick Room setters.

It's in this that I find most that I agree-- weather has been used a lot as a perme set-up in Smogon Doubles, but not so in VGC. I found I was making teams with Scizor, T-tar and Garchomp but not always using them. It wasn't a sand team, it was a Cresselia and other weather counter.

I think that in this, trick room gets the upper hand. It's the only one of the big three (Rain, Trick Room, and Sand) of Doubles that has practiced with 5 turn rounds. Hydration Users and Sand Rush abusers now have to watch the clock before their abilities become nothing better than illuminate and Pickup...

 

[Mocha]

In all honesty, 5 turns is a long, long time in Double Battles.

I thought so too at first, until I started to test my weather team. One must understand that with the weather nerf, getting past 5 turns is not as difficult as it would seem, when you're running into moves like Protect, may that be from your own Pokemon, or the opponent's, and the Substitute now and then, which help stall out the turns. Not to mention if you or your opponent have bulky Pokemon, or cannot do much to each other initially - this will also wear off the turns of weather quickly. With this being said, weather teams seem to encourage a more offensive style now in which you must kill things as fast as possible before your turns of weather run out.

I myself have a mostly bulky offensive rain team, and doing so requires me to have another Pokemon that can set up Rain Dance, when Politoed is gone, or if I need to bring him later in the match, rather than always leading with him. The more bulky Pokemon you're running in your team, the more evident that having another Pokemon to set up your weather for you will become.

 

[BlankZero]

I've noticed that battles in Gen6 Dubs are quite a lot longer. Most of my games are around 20 turns averaged out. I'm thinking this is use to the lack of gems, as well as a slew of bulky mons this gen which is seemingly balancing the Hyper Offense trend in Gen5. Coupled with this is the startling lack of Rain teams on the ladder (AB's team non-withstanding) and the spike in Sand and Charizard Y Drought teams (lol bye Ninetales) which seem to be more test teams than serious teams. I have even seen a Gen 5 Goodstuffs team (Meta/Hyd/Chomp/Rotom/Togekiss/Something) that the only changes apparent was that Chomp went Mega at the end.

I feel weather is going to turn into something akin to Tailwind or Trick Room, but more popular due to Smogon players having a huge hardon for weather in general.