np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)

Its interesting how many people are ready to welcome garchomp back to OU
Because honestly i dont think that rough skin chomp is going to be any less intimidating, it just takes the hax out of it.
Honestly with weather though, its not that one pokemon is common on a certain type of team, its that the same 3 or 4 are almost always present.
and thats why i think it makes the metagame stale
Its not nessicarily that one pokemon is very high i usage or not
but a group of pokemon are high because they all fit together
Its like the beginning of 4th gen when skarm bliss were everywhere
it was the same combination of pokemon that makes people cringe

X5Dragon said:

Let's not lie to each others here, at the start of a match every non-weather team is at a disadvantage to a weather team and it becomes a matter of catching up. I've reached a peak of #9 on the ladder with a weatherless team, but I was always at a disadvantage at the start of the match.

Also, why are you auto-weather advocates so afraid of a legitimate ban? Are you that unskillful with setting up weather or just plain lazy to learn how to properly set-up?

As for my reasons to call auto-weather broken:

A) It's free, it requires no set-up turn and unless someone changes it it's infinite, requiring no maintenance/setting up again


B) Cloud nine is gimped beyond belief and is given to utterly useless pokemon too


C) It's countered by other weather set-ups without having to bring an automatic weather inducer to ruin your efforts (example having to set-up rain dance only to have a 1 HP Tyranitar saved by RNG wreck you).


D) Auto-Weather + Entry Hazards = 2 dead pokemon before you actually start playing. Many teams get caught up in the confusion on who to get rid of first, the weather or the rocks/spikes/t-spikes being set-up.


There are more Clorphyl pokemon than there are Swift Swimmers.

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I'm not sure why you'd bring up personal attacks, that seems completely unnecessary and uncalled for. Regardless weather is just something that bumps a sweep along, it rarely doesn't mean "INSTANT SWEEP." Infernape still needs to Swords Dance or Nasty Plot in the Sun, and Venusaur still needs to use Growth. Volcarona is pretty useless with no Quiver Dance's under its belt. Excadrill means nothing without it being +2. Thundurus? Oh that's right it needs a Nasty Plot. Who am I forgetting?

People still need to set up their pokemon, even in the respective weathers. It's hard for me to firmly grasp why it's hated so much. You yourself have proven that running a non-weather team doesn't put you at that much of a disadvantage (getting to #9 and all) and yet you still argue that you were at a huge one. Come on. You aren't a man who wrestled a titan and won. Playing Weather vs. Non-Weather isn't that bad of a match-up since you don't have to waste a slot on your team for a, more often than not, useless pokemon (Tyranitar, Ninetales, Politoed, Abomasnow).


EDIT:

If you checked PR ever you would see I once brought that up, however it wasn't accepted by the community. And an argument of preference is dumb to argue, I'm arguing fairness.

EDIT 2:
Then it's your fault for letting Tyranitar do all of that so easily. Or it's your fault for making a team completely weak to Stealth Rock. Once again it goes back to team building, which is the main part of this generation. This generation's battles are not won at the start of the match, they're won when you select what team to use. Whether it be non-weather vs rain (good match-up for non-weather) or rain vs. sand (good match-up for rain). Teams are canceling out teams. It's like in Starcraft: Brood War. Terran beats Zerg, Zerg beats Protoss, Protoss beats Terran. Now that isn't to say that Zerg can't beat Terran, but it's a lot harder. The same applies to pokemon.

This isn't an argument about logic or comparing fairness of different types of teams, but one of preference.

If that's the case, let one side have their Clear Skies and the other their Weather Wars and let everyone been content.

I'm not being personal, but if your taking a jab at people for not being good enough to sand up to weather I'm totally entitled to question those who defend auto-weather skills to set up weather without it.

About the inherent disadvantage at the start of each match, TTar almost always sets up SR at the begining, the Sand part being free of course, while I have to rapid spin, kill the TTar and then if I need to use a weather changing move to remove the foes ability to abuse the weather and then start to think about sweeping.

That's just one example BTW.

Also, while I may not have to pack a useless pokemon for setting up weather, I do however find myself having to pack up a useless pokemon to counter it.

HBK said:

Banning weather is being to childish IMO.It's your decision what kind of battle you want to play.a)If you hate weather you could build an Anti weather team and many good players have shown this is possibe b)If you like weather you could build a team that relies on winning the weather war and sweeping with your weather abusing pokes or c)If you wanna use weather that doesn't completely rely on winning the weather you could build a team that's capable of sweeping without weather.Like most will point out the third is hard to accomplish but it's possible.I once built a rain team that abused sharpedo and he could sweep ss and sun teams with SR and Spikes support which the other members of my team set up.One can similarly run something like DDnite on a sun team or anything you like.

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You can just make a team that has a stradegy agianst weather, but still has the same concepts. Weather teams are powerful, LIKE I SAID NOT BROKEN!

Like someone said earlier, its the abilities. Just ban the abilities, or ban them on a certain pokemon (like no sand rush on excadril?) or (no swift swim on Kingdra)


By the way, to the person who said there are more chliriphyl sweepers. Pokemon who use cholorphyl suck, accept for venasaur or maybe tanglegrowth, and do they give you a problem? Venasaur is powerful, semi-bulky, but no where near broken as ice is a common type attack along with fire, so he is limited to say. And tangelgrowth is a wall pokemon, no where near sweeper, as venasaur is the better choice of the 2

X5Dragon said:

This isn't an argument about logic or comparing fairness of different types of teams, but one of preference.

If that's the case, let one side have their Clear Skies and the other their Weather Wars and let everyone been content.

I'm not being personal, but if your taking a jab at people for not being good enough to sand up to weather I'm totally entitled to question those who defend auto-weather skills to set up weather without it.

About the inherent disadvantage at the start of each match, TTar almost always sets up SR at the begining, the Sand part being free of course, while I have to rapid spin, kill the TTar and then if I need to use a weather changing move to remove the foes ability to abuse the weather and then start to think about sweeping.

That's just one example BTW.

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We don't care what about your "challenge" and just b/c im standing up for weather doesn't mean I use it. I like a powerfu foe ~.I

X5Dragon said:

Why should I be forced to play a weather team at the first place and lose an advantage? Auto-weather is unfair, let's get this out of the way, because nobody is urging otherwise.
We have these options:

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i've been reading this thread and its predecessors for a very long time, but i haven't played pokemon in many moons, so take my words with a grain of salt.

how exactly is auto-weather unfair? is it because you're at a disadvantage when you're not using it? see every change listed in jabba's post. if you did not adapt and incorporate those strategies and/or counter-strategies into your team, you would lose. if you think that the best strategy is unfair then that's more a mentality issue than a metagame one, since there will always be a best strategy.

i don't really understand jabba's post either because he claims that this is the first gen where there hasn't been a radical shift in the vein of leftovers/abilities/evs/life orb, yet appears to refuse to believe that weather is the big change this generation. advance would have been a very, very different metagame without sandstream. it might even have been 'better', whatever that means. regardless, you built your team expecting it to be there every single game, and nobody really complained about it because it was pokemon.

jabba, would you care to elaborate? if it's something i have to play to understand then i'll just have to concede. perhaps weather is too acuminous a shift, or maybe it's a shift of a different kind that makes it unpalatable to a larger sum of people, but regardless, the mentality of the average pokemon player heavily depresses me. why bother adapting when you can restrict restrict restrict?

there are so many metagames to play. you guys have created a tier between uu and nu, for heaven's sake. for a gamerbase that's so desperate to accommodate as many pokemon/playstyles as possible, it's weird that you would prefer to deny weather strategies their place in all of pokemon (except for ubers, where they've existed for like 7 years already).

sorry for 'stirring the pot' but i keep considering monning again but this thread always leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Glen said:

i've been reading this thread and its predecessors for a very long time, but i haven't played pokemon in many moons, so take my words with a grain of salt.

how exactly is auto-weather unfair? is it because you're at a disadvantage when you're not using it? see every change listed in jabba's post. if you did not adapt and incorporate those strategies and/or counter-strategies into your team, you would lose. if you think that the best strategy is unfair then that's more a mentality issue than a metagame one, since there will always be a best strategy.

i don't really understand jabba's post either because he claims that this is the first gen where there hasn't been a radical shift in the vein of leftovers/abilities/evs/life orb, yet appears to refuse to believe that weather is the big change this generation. advance would have been a very, very different metagame without sandstream. it might even have been 'better', whatever that means. regardless, you built your team expecting it to be there every single game, and nobody really complained about it because it was pokemon.

jabba, would you care to elaborate? if it's something i have to play to understand then i'll just have to concede. perhaps weather is too acuminous a shift, or maybe it's a shift of a different kind that makes it unpalatable to a larger sum of people, but regardless, the mentality of the average pokemon player heavily depresses me. why bother adapting when you can restrict restrict restrict?

there are so many metagames to play. you guys have created a tier between uu and nu, for heaven's sake. for a gamerbase that's so desperate to accommodate as many pokemon/playstyles as possible, it's weird that you would prefer to deny weather strategies their place in all of pokemon (except for ubers, where they've existed for like 7 years already).

sorry for 'stirring the pot' but i keep considering monning again but this thread always leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

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Could not have said that better
(not editing other post, its to long...)

Blue_Star said:

Imo, weather shouldn't really be banned. The arguments for banning weather that i've seen so far are:

"It needs to be banned because it's broken" - Broken is, as far as I know, something that is too powerful for the metagame. It's not broken. Drought has problems with Sand/Rain teams; Sand has to deal with water attacks commonly seen on Rain teams; and Rain has to deal with its lack of abusers, Rotom-W, Ferrothorn, and etc, so they don't really ensure an auto-win, even against weatherless teams.

"Ah, but it's due to weather that we banned Manaphy, Blaziken and Garchomp" - I highly they were banned due to weather. Manaphy has a +3 instant boosting move, only 2 weakness, 100/100/100 defenses and can't be revenged properly; Blaziken has 2 STAB moves with 120+ power AND Speed Boost; and Garchomp has Swampert's bulk with Scizor's attack and Landorus' speed, along with Substitute and Swords Dance and almost unresisted STABs. And would you really ban 4 kinds of entires playstyles to bring back 3 pokemon that are already broken?

"But weather overcentralizates the metagame" - EVERY metagame is overcentralized, deal with it. Late DPPt had Heatran on almost 40% of the teams; LC gravitates around Fighting moves; Ubers has Arceus on almost every team; DPP UU had cores with Arcanine / Venusaur / Milotic everywhere. If we banned weather, the metagame would eventually become centralized again, and I especulated it to be around Dragons and Steels, such as late DP and PO's "Clear Skies" tier.

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I don't think centralization is just about weather being on every team. Imo it's because of overpowered weather abusers that have very few viable checks and leave little room for diversity in the metagame. The metagame appears centralized because it is built around striving to counter all the broken shit with a short list of options. For instance, with sand up, LO Excadrill forces you to sac a mon every time it can threaten something out unless you have Gliscor, Skarm, or Bronzong, of which the latter two just momentarily delay its sweep. In the same vein, only a handful of pokes can switch in to boosted water attacks and storm stabs so people have been driven to desperation checks for Drizzle abusers, point and case, Gastrodon being in OU. That impact on the metagame is comparable to Kyogre in Ubers… Drought is only manageable right now because it matches up so badly with rain and to some extent sand because of Ttar, both of which are everywhere. If the voters finally sobered up and banned Drizzle, Drought ought to be banned preemptively before we all get scars from boosted Fire stabs (something like Scarf Hihi + Band Ape would just wreck shit), the myriad Chlorophyll sweepers, and Volcarona, which would go fucking awol without rain to hold them in check. Drizzle is broken in its own right (edit: and sun/sand certainly do NOT hold it in check) so I don’t want to hear that bullshit about how all the weathers counterbalance each other. No. This is turning into a bit of rant, so go find ENZ0’s sig if it’s not sinking in. I’m out.

Alright Gen, since you want to argue fairness and not preference, you can start addressing these two quotes in their entirety:

Every bloody team type needs set-up, hyper offensive teams need to find the right pokemon and use a boosting move, stall teams need turns to stack up hazards and defense boost (and a spin blocker), bp teams use several turns to reach the required level to sweep, TR teams need to set up Trick room every 4 turns, etc.

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and:

A) It's free, it requires no set-up turn and unless someone changes it it's infinite, requiring no maintenance/setting up again


B) Cloud nine is gimped beyond belief and is given to utterly useless pokemon too


C) It's countered by other weather set-ups without having to bring an automatic weather inducer to ruin your efforts (example having to set-up rain dance only to have a 1 HP Tyranitar saved by RNG wreck you).


D) Auto-Weather + Entry Hazards = 2 dead pokemon before you actually start playing. Many teams get caught up in the confusion on who to get rid of first, the weather or the rocks/spikes/t-spikes being set-up.

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Do note that I do not have to say a word here, that a ban is coming either way for one or more auto-weathers and that I'm only trying to understand what's the big deal in banning what is clearly a stiffiling issue for the current OU metagame.


Reply to Edit 2:

EDIT 2:
Then it's your fault for letting Tyranitar do all of that so easily. Or it's your fault for making a team completely weak to Stealth Rock. Once again it goes back to team building, which is the main part of this generation. This generation's battles are not won at the start of the match, they're won when you select what team to use. Whether it be non-weather vs rain (good match-up for non-weather) or rain vs. sand (good match-up for rain). Teams are canceling out teams. It's like in Starcraft: Brood War. Terran beats Zerg, Zerg beats Protoss, Protoss beats Terran. Now that isn't to say that Zerg can't beat Terran, but it's a lot harder. The same applies to pokemon.

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No it isn't, because either I have to pack an Aurasphere user (basically Lucario) with a focus sash to guarantee a scarf TTar won't KO me, or rely on the shaky Focus Blast on pokemon that do not have it as a Stab and hope TTar (and RNG calcs) don't screw me over. I already have a rapid spinner in a team, but an auto-weather team gets weather and hazards in one turn, I can't just rapid spin both of them in one turn too.

Why should it be harder when we can all start on the same ground and then our actions decide our victory? Why can't you set-up sand storm and then SR?

GtM said:

The only ban I'd want this round is Sand Stream + Sand Rush, primarily because Excadrill is just as good at abusing it as any of the Swift Swimmers that were deemed broken with Drizzle. It hits harder than physical Kingdra in the Rain, is faster and has better coverage considering that Kingdra has to penalise itself to use a secondary STAB other than Dragon Pulse, either through locking or SpA drops. Not to mention it's a free switch to all Ferrothorn, whereas Gliscor can be worn down with repeated attacks.

And if Kingdra was the main reason for Swift Swim + Drizzle to be banned, it follows that Excadrill is sufficient reasoning for Sand Rush + Sand Stream to be banned. This still lets people use Excadrill in different ways (such as a bulky SD set with Sand Force or Mold Breaker, or a bulky Rapid Spinner.), has little effect on the rest of the pokemon in the metagame (apart from usage) and prevents people from trying to use annoying copycats (for example, people using Sandslash as a weaker Excadrill when it is released)

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I don't think its accurate to say that Kingdra was the main reason for the SS+Drizzle ban.

Kingdra was the single most powerful Swift Swimmer sure, but he was usually used alongside several other very viable swift swimmers that could have easily taken his place if he was banned. It wasn't "ban either Kingdra or SW+Drizzle" it was "either ban Kingdra, Ludicolo, Kabutops, and Omnastar, or ban Drizzle, or ban SW+Drizzle"

So its not really applicable to the current situation with Excadrill. If people want to use Stoutland in lieu of Excadrill after he is banned fine, its not like he's going he's going to render any playstyles obsolete with 100 base attack and normal stab.

lets sum up the arguements:

weather banners:
- Some abilities make pokemon broken
- Auto-Weather is broken
- Weather is shitty
- Ban Auto-Weather

weather defenders:
- Some abilities in question/None at all
- Auto- Weather is not broken
- Weather IS Ou
- Do not ban auto-weather

So we NEED to compromise. BOTH sides need to give a little to gain a little. Lets try to come up with suggestions (and NO being stubborn like do everything weather banners want and no defenders, its a COMPROMISE). If the compromise doesn't work, Smogon will have to decide.

My suggestion:

Excadrill seems to be the main problem.
Haters:
-Broken on Sand Rush
-Ban Him

Defenders:
-Sand Rush is not broken
-Do not ban him.

Why not just ban Sand Rush, and let excadrill still use Sand Force/Mold Breaker?

I say, since the abilities are in question we ban a few:
Sun:
In my opinioj, leave this weather as it is
Hail:
I have only seen one hail team -_-
Sand:
Sand Rush Ban?
Rain:
????? I don't have any suggestions, can't think of one that can actually keep it :S



As for Landorus:
try the sand rush ban, if landorus gives people trouble, come back and debate?

Any comments or suggestion? I want us all to walk away with our efforts not in vain~ ALL of us means ALL of us~

@Raikaria

I think that Excadrill deserves a chance in using Sand Force or Mold Breaker, and if it STILL broken, then ban him and drop sand rush ban. Sand rush pokes are only 2 anyways and no one can use sandslash. If you don't agree, suggest something else. You didn't suggest any changes, just kinda explained how you felt and thats fine I don't think weather should be banned anyways. Still, we need SOME change that will make both sides happy.
Gastrodon is very useful in OU also for sandstorm teams as it counters Rotom-W, and abosrbs any water attacks that come at them. Water is commonly used with or without rain, so I wouldn't compare it to Gastrodon's state



What should we do about rain? Just about most if it is broken, in the fact that it benefits too many pokemon...\


Freak

The sort of arguments being thrown around by other sides is why I put foward the suggestions that I do.

Yes, Weather is part of the metagame and we need to man up and accept it. Far as I'm concerned, if you honestly think Sand Stream in itself is broken, you should just run off crying and play UU. And if you honestly are nominateing ALL Auto-Weather... includeing Hail? Go to freaking RU.

The only weather that's outright broken is Rain, and that's because it provides massive boosts to a massive range of already powerful pokemon. Water is already a fantastic type, and giving it a boost like Drizzle does it too far. Especially when you factor in Hurricane and Thunder too, as well as pokemon that benifit massivly from the rain, such as Steel-types, and pokemon such as Latios who can run Surf.

Compare that to sun. Sun is a double-edged sword for the Chlorophill users, and the Fire-types don't get extra speed, as well as the obvious SR weakness. Fire moves also tend to be not as good for coverage, or widespread, as Water, except on Dragon-types. Grass types also suffer from the sun, due to a magnifyed weakness.

Not to mention the sun abusers are not exactly stellar.

Then there's sand, which, if anyone thinks that in itself is broken, they need a check. Excadrill is the issue with sand, remove him, and we can keep Sand.

And Hail sucks.

Likewise, if you honesty think that weather, as it is, is fine, you're wrong. To be sucessful a team either has to run weather, or almost completely devote their teams to anti-weather-sweeper pokemon, such as Gliscor for Excadrill, and Gastrodon for Rain. [And need I say it again, the mere fact that something as dreadful as Gastrodon is even mid OU speaks VOLUMES about the state the teir is in right now]

Seriously, people constantly argue about pro weather and anti-weather. How about people stop argueing about black and white, and start talking in terms of shades of grey? Shades which will please both sides, allowing some weather to stay in the metagame, but also making it so it's not a domeint strategy.

X5Dragon said:

Do note that I do not have to say a word here, that a ban is coming either way for one or more auto-weathers and that I'm only trying to understand what's the big deal in banning what is clearly a stiffiling issue for the current OU metagame.


Reply to Edit 2:


No it isn't, because either I have to pack an Aurasphere user (basically Lucario) with a focus sash to guarantee a scarf TTar won't KO me, or rely on the shaky Focus Blast on pokemon that do not have it as a Stab and hope TTar (and RNG calcs) don't screw me over. I already have a rapid spinner in a team, but an auto-weather team gets weather and hazards in one turn, I can't just rapid spin both of them in one turn too.

Why should it be harder when we can all start on the same ground and then our actions decide our victory? Why can't you set-up sand storm and then SR?

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Sorry to burst your bubble here, but weather being banned is not a foregone conclusion like you're making it out to be. This is the last round of suspect testing, so weather needs a supermajority to be banned. It still has a good chance of staying, especially when considering the vehement arguments in this thread. And at any rae the burden of proof is ALWAYS on the shoulders of the people who are trying to get something banned.

Also I'm sure most people would agree with me when I say that Tyranitar's best sets are its Choice sets, neither of which have the room to carry Stealth Rock. If you're using Stealth Rock you've automatically reduced Ttar's capabilities, especially if you're using a Choice item. Tyranitar is not as difficult to kill as you make it out to be, as long as you've actually built a competent team.

I don't like the fact because he fears the advantage of a sand team he thinks its broken, thats what I meant by the over-usage of the word "broken"
(he being x5dragon)

This is one of the number one reasons why people want it banned. Look, like I said, lets come to a agreement. Because, just because its hard to beat DOES NOT MAKE IT BROKEN, AND ONLY BROKEN THINGS GET BANNED.
(sorry about caps, trying to get point across)
So with that in mind, lets ban sand rush (since only 2 pokes use it anyways and ppl complain about it on excadrill) AND, lets do something about rain, like maybe, i don't know, suggest something. There is one thing for sure, is that auto-weather or weather should NOT be banned. If you want weather bannned and do not want a compromise, then let smogon decide.

Glen said:

i've been reading this thread and its predecessors for a very long time, but i haven't played pokemon in many moons, so take my words with a grain of salt.

how exactly is auto-weather unfair? is it because you're at a disadvantage when you're not using it? see every change listed in jabba's post. if you did not adapt and incorporate those strategies and/or counter-strategies into your team, you would lose. if you think that the best strategy is unfair then that's more a mentality issue than a metagame one, since there will always be a best strategy.

i don't really understand jabba's post either because he claims that this is the first gen where there hasn't been a radical shift in the vein of leftovers/abilities/evs/life orb, yet appears to refuse to believe that weather is the big change this generation. advance would have been a very, very different metagame without sandstream. it might even have been 'better', whatever that means. regardless, you built your team expecting it to be there every single game, and nobody really complained about it because it was pokemon.

jabba, would you care to elaborate? if it's something i have to play to understand then i'll just have to concede. perhaps weather is too acuminous a shift, or maybe it's a shift of a different kind that makes it unpalatable to a larger sum of people, but regardless, the mentality of the average pokemon player heavily depresses me. why bother adapting when you can restrict restrict restrict?

there are so many metagames to play. you guys have created a tier between uu and nu, for heaven's sake. for a gamerbase that's so desperate to accommodate as many pokemon/playstyles as possible, it's weird that you would prefer to deny weather strategies their place in all of pokemon (except for ubers, where they've existed for like 7 years already).

sorry for 'stirring the pot' but i keep considering monning again but this thread always leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

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Yeah when I was posting I kind of considered addressing that issue of "isn't weather the major change." What I kind of meant is that each metagame brought a major change that really had an effect on the way the game was played, both in pacing in playstyles. Weather doesn't have the same kind of effect on pacing/playstyle that something like Life Orb obviously has, where it makes battles faster and promotes more offensive playstyles. You can still play the same sort of battles you played in gen 4, it's just that now weather is a factor in the battles. And of course you have a ton of battles where both people use the same weather inducer where you're essentially just playing a gen 4 battle (especially if that weather inducer is ttar/hippo).

So I'd say the effect weather has on the metagame isn't a massive shift that makes gen 5 a completely different metagame than gen 4 was (though of course there are plenty of people that would disagree with that statement) as the game still plays (as in the battle from turn 1) much like a gen 4 battle would. I'd say what makes weather bad for the metagame is that weather is extremely restricting on teambuilding in practice, even though on paper it makes it seem like it'd make the metagame much more expansive. I personally would not say that a weather metagame is unplayable (hardly anything after the skymin metagame has been unplayable), but I think the teambuilding restrictions imposed by weather really destroys one of the most important and interesting parts of the game.

Adapting obviously is the preferred way to deal with something new. But when adapting means turning a major part of the game that used to be fun (teambuilding) and turning it into a restrictive exercise that's a shadow of what it used to be, I don't think it's unfair for a large portion of the playerbase to want to go back to the way things used to be.

Tobes said:

Sorry to burst your bubble here, but weather being banned is not a foregone conclusion like you're making it out to be. This is the last round of suspect testing, so weather needs a supermajority to be banned. It still has a good chance of staying, especially when considering the vehement arguments in this thread. And at any rae the burden of proof is ALWAYS on the shoulders of the people who are trying to get something banned.

Also I'm sure most people would agree with me when I say that Tyranitar's best sets are its Choice sets, neither of which have the room to carry Stealth Rock. If you're using Stealth Rock you've automatically reduced Ttar's capabilities, especially if you're using a Choice item. Tyranitar is not as difficult to kill as you make it out to be, as long as you've actually built a competent team.

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Not here to argue, but I don’t think that’s right for you to say. That would imply a general consensus that either nothing needs to be banned i.e. no suspects, or, such a system is no longer valid. Neither of which is the case. The first case is clearly not true, certainly not now or in the foreseeable future, especially with the current unreleased DW abilities and 3rd iteration of the games. The second case is not true as long as we still play this metagame :)

X5Dragon said:

Why should it be harder when we can all start on the same ground and then our actions decide our victory? Why can't you set-up sand storm and then SR?

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I don't understand where are you getting with this fairness isuue.
Absolute fair battles don't exist.
And when i say fair i mean battles in which if the players skill is the same then each player should have equal chances of winning.

If you are going to ask why can't we start on the same ground and you accuse weather of not letting you do so,then i am going to say that many there many more things that prevent you from starting on equal ground than just weather.
If you are asking why no turn is required to setup the weather,then i can say to you why no turn is required for many other important aspects of the game like Leftovers,Intimidate,Natural Cure,
etc.
Leftovers makes pokemons much harder to kill,Intimidate lets powerfull sweepers like Salamence and Gyarados setup much easier and finally Natural Cure lets defensive pokemon wall much more easily.
So do they have an unfair advantage just because they don't spend a turn to heal life,heal status or ease setup?I don't think so...

If you are saying that Weather prevents you from starting on the same ground with the opponent,unless you are prepared of 'course,then i can also say that SR prevents me from starting on equal grounds with my opponent,unless i am prepared for this of course.
So both cases require preparation and both cases bring huge disadvantages for the unprepared players but why is weather so different to you?
If i built a team with many SR weak pokes and have no spinner,then i will be at a disadvantage against most teams.
If i built a team with no weather-good pokes i will be at a disadvantage against against weather teams.

There are also many more things that prevent absolute fairness on the metagame.
For example when Thundurus,Excadrill,Landorus and Volcarona are the premier sweepers in the tier every other sweeper is at a disadvantage if equal skill was involved.
And when i say that every other sweeper is at a disadvantage i mean their team.So for example if you could build the perfect team with Thundurus or Lucario(special sweepers),which one would you chose as a competitive player?
And this happens because all these sweepers are the best in what they do in ou!!!
Of 'course there are other sweepers that can work better in some circumstances but for most cases these are the best!

The same goes for weather!It is one of the easier and strongest strategies around(not always but in most cases,see sun)but does this make it broken?
Of 'course no!
In a competitive game there will always be prevailing strategies.
Like weather,SR etc.But this doesn't meant they ruin the game.
This means they make the game.
Everything revolves around them and they dictate the shape of the metagame!

So if something is not broken but seems very annoying and unfair then just get used to it and learn to deal with it.

Or finally as Glen said if you really don't like this metagame go and play Ubers,UU,RU,LC or NU.
There are so many different gaming enviroments to give you what you are searching for,yet you are insisting on playing and trying to fix only one,one that you don't even like in the first place...

Could not have said that any better man!

Seriously of all the arguments against weather, only Jabba's reasoning really hold any weight or soundness. Most of the other complaints about weather utilize vague reasons, such as "unfair," "overcentralizing," "copy-paste teams (lol)" stuff that can be shrugged off with the reply, "haters gonna hate."

I do agree that weather puts a strain in team-building. How will you combat sun without Heatran or Thick Fat Snorlax, when even a resisted Fire Atk oftentimes 2HKO? But you also have to think about the team-building process of weather teams. Sun Teams have pretty bad coverage issues - seriously, a SpecsLatios, ScarfLandorus, Terrakion, or Dragonite can plough through most Sun teams. It's all about who can put the pressure first.

Why am I talking specifically about Drought Teams? Mainly because I find that preparing for other weathers with a weatherless team rather easy. There are plenty of specially-defensive grass mons and Water-immune mons to absorb Rain-boosted Water moves, for instance, whereas there aren't many mons that can take a Sun-boosted Fire move.

Although Jabba has an actual valid reason against weather, it is ultimately a preferential reason - do we want to teambuild with weather in mind or not?

Now is weather actually broken to an extent that weatherless teams cannot win? Obviously not, given the many non-weatherless team, such as lamppost's team, that made it high on the ladder.

Read the thread on my sig. Is a 50%-boost in Rain and 50% reduction in Fire moves, as well as perfect accuracy Thunder and Hurricane really game-breaking? Or is it just a select few abusers with the right Ability, stat distribution, and movepool that are intolerable?

It's pretty clear that if weather gets banned people will be unhappy and if weather stays people will be unhappy; there is a divide. So why not just create a separate tier on the server? There is RU, UU, Standard OU, Dreamworld OU, Ubers, ect, so why not weatherless OU? It would give stuff like Garchomp and Manaphy a chance and also have people who think weather wars are shit a decent game to play. Why go through with the effort? Since arguing over weather is has been such a big deal since the beginning of this thread, I think it is warranted.

I don't know why we're saying that BW battles have no difference in game structure like the previous generations (primarily Jabba's post). There is a huge huge huge thing in Gen 5 that wasn't there in Gen 4 or any other previous generation: Team Preview. Team Preview makes it so you can't hide a single sweeper at the end after weakening your opponent's team, and makes it so your opponent can't guess your team.

How Team Preview Helps

Team preview allows you to know your opponent's team in advance. In that regard, if you see your opponent's Tyranitar/Excadrill/whatever, you know you need to do your best to conserve your Skarmory or Gliscor or whatever you use. If you see their Politoed/Rotom-W/whatever, you know you need to conserve your water resists/etc. Sun? Keep yo' Heatran! I'm pretty sure this is the reason team preview was even adopted: to make playing with the big boys a lot easier.

Black and White is about team building. You need to build your team in a way that can handle current metagame threats, just like in previous generations. The difference with Black and White is your team needs to be able to handle different styles of play (with more stress on this portion) than that of other generations. If you're running an offensive weather less team, for example, it might be a good idea to run a Balloon Heatran as your Stealth Rock setter, or maybe an Air Balloon Terrakion as your main sweeper. Or likewise, you could try and run a Scarf Rotom-W for your revenge killer. A Lucario can help out against a lot of Sand threats, or maybe run an Azumarill. There are a variety of options you can adopt into your team to check opposing threats and play styles that I find it ridiculous we're complaining so much about weather. If you want a defensive team? Tentacruel helps against Drizzle, Heatran or Porygon2 help against Sun, a lot. That Sand team? It's generally a good idea to have a Physical wall, like Skarmory or Gliscor.

You have to rely on team building skills in order to handle both offensive and defensive, weather and non weather play styles. You then rely on team preview to determine your battle strategy for the match in order to come out on top. It's not broken, at all...you just need to team build properly.

In generation 4 you did not win against sweepers such as Nasty Plot Azelf or Swords Dance Lucario if you didn't carry checks for those Pokemon. In generation 5, you don't win against weather if you don't carry checks for weather. I don't see what the problem is. You build your team with threats in mind...while there may be some degree of centralization in what checks weather, you don't have to run a Heatran or Gastrodon or something on every team in order to beat it. Dragons are great against both Drizzle and Sun, while underrated walls are great against Sun (like P2) or against Sand (like Tangrowth). The reason some things like Gastrodon moved up so quickly is because it was so EFFECTIVE at handling weather threats.

The team I used to qualify for reqs was: Tyranitar/Skarmory/Celebi/Rotom-W/Excadrill/Terrakion. I know, it's not the most original team, but I built it keeping threats in mind. I use Celebi/Rotom-W as my main Drizzle switch ins, and also as my main Pokemon for taking out opposing weather starters. Skarmory is my main physical wall, though it leaves my team pretty weak to Choice Band Terrakion. Tyranitar sets up sand for me, and sets up hazards, crippling many difficult to beat threats. Excadrill rapid spins and is an end game sweeper. Terrakion breaks the shit out of everything. It has difficulties with Pokemon such as Landorus or CB Terrakion, but it's effective and attempts to encompass most threats. I then use Team Preview to figure out my play style for the match to beat these threats (WHICH I TOOK INTO CONSIDERATION WHEN BUILDING MY TEAM).

Also, this just irritates me. You don't run Gliscor to beat Excadrill. You run Gliscor to beat many prominent Physical attackers that make up the metagame (Excadrill/Terrakion/Landorus/Conkeldurr/Dragonite/etc...it's not all fucking Excadrill).

Eggbert said:

It's pretty clear that if weather gets banned people will be unhappy and if weather stays people will be unhappy; there is a divide. So why not just create a separate tier on the server? There is RU, UU, Standard OU, Dreamworld OU, Ubers, ect, so why not weatherless OU? It would give stuff like Garchomp and Manaphy a chance and also have people who think weather wars are shit a decent game to play. Why go through with the effort? Since arguing over weather is has been such a big deal since the beginning of this thread, I think it is warranted.

Click to expand...

I have already brought this up in PR, stop asking. It was rejected by quite a few people and the idea of it ever working now is silly at best.

Im just absolutely tired of the repetitive crap of teams in OU
everything is the same
sure theres a few variables
and sure theres some form of sand stall and some form of rain stall
But i dont ever see them
these brainless teams are just horrible
Ive personally given up and started playing UU
but i would like OU to be weather free just to be able to enjoy it

Eggbert said:

It's pretty clear that if weather gets banned people will be unhappy and if weather stays people will be unhappy; there is a divide. So why not just create a separate tier on the server? There is RU, UU, Standard OU, Dreamworld OU, Ubers, ect, so why not weatherless OU? It would give stuff like Garchomp and Manaphy a chance and also have people who think weather wars are shit a decent game to play. Why go through with the effort? Since arguing over weather is has been such a big deal since the beginning of this thread, I think it is warranted.

Click to expand...

As the high ups put it, it divides the ou players and ultimately hampers the metagame statistics. I believe that's the same reason why nobody wants to make a suspect tier. The second reason is the work that would have to go in to working with that tier which is something not many want to do. It's already tough keeping track of OU UU RU NU BL DWOU Ubers so adding another tier to all of that would be difficult.

I gotta thank Jabba for bringing up the strain on teambuilding. Weather's not very good with diversity, it limits a lot of pokemon from being used, and tbh when I play OU it's almost as if every team I face is Rain/Sand/Sun/Stall/filler. There isn't much of a diversity in playable options as many things end up running sets made to beat weather teams or the most infamous weather inducers. We can play around it, true. But it's taking away from a lot of the fun in the game. And Smogon's official mission may not be specifically "fun," but if Pokemon wasn't fun to some degree nobody would play it.

PS. I'm not drastically generalizing about the teams I end up facing either. It's not indicative of what everyone plays against but I see them more often than not.

Edit: @Pocket I think you're missing Jabba's point. It's not whether we teambuild with weather in mind. It's more akin to we have to teambuild with weather in mind, which really limits the amount of viable things one can run.

Darusare said:

Im just absolutely tired of the repetitive crap of teams in OU
everything is the same
sure theres a few variables
and sure theres some form of sand stall and some form of rain stall
But i dont ever see them
these brainless teams are just horrible
Ive personally given up and started playing UU
but i would like OU to be weather free just to be able to enjoy it

Click to expand...

this is a really bad argument against weather that I'm talking about... Weather or no weather, there will always be people using "brainless teams," people who steal teams from others, people who use bog standard teams. Removing weather wont change any of that.

Let's go back to RSE, no auto-weather other than sandstorm on Tyranitar. Rock types didn't even get a special def boost back then.

Let me tell you, that metagame got stale fast. The brainless teams and copy pasta teams that you are sick of were just a problem then as it is a problem now. But at least it's not the same TTar / Zapdos / Swampert / Celebi / Skarmory / Salamence crap that plagued RSE, but now with more variety - in that there are people who steal rain stall teams, people who still dragmag teams, people who steal rain offense teams, etc.

I'm pretty sure if we remove Drought / Drizzle, etc, you will be even sicker of the OU metagame, because you'll be fighting more of the same teams than before lol.

Now that's not fun.