Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat FrostFireBolt
I think you maybe just forgot it but shouldn't Toxic be in the Status Moves section?
On the topic of hazards, I remember having a discussion with a friend who thought Stealth Rock should be banned (or at least to test a metagame without SR) because it was centralising, put a strain on team building and made too many things less viable. Maybe there's some truth in it, maybe not. I just thought it was an interesting point. I wonder how powerful Spikes would be if they did type-dependent damage like SR. Would Heatran, Magnezone and other 4x Ground weak Pokemon still be OU based on their other merits? Toxic Spikes are kind of hit and miss for me. In OU most Pokemon are immune to their effects and in the lower tiers you have better options for grounded Poison types to absorb them. For example, in UU you have Nidoking and Roserade, among others, who are valuable teammates as well as TS absorbers.
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I completely agree with him, I think an OU metagame without SR (for testing, and for offer more variation than anything else before tried) could be really, really interesting. For example some great Pokémon like Articuno and others are on NU/RU ONLY for their weakness to SR, and that's the same reality for almost the 80-95% of the fully evolved Pokémon. Almost any team have a Rapid Spin user, a SR user, and a Pokémon that works well with SR setted only because
dat move (in other words, the actual shape of OU is almost 100% oriented on SR). Also, SR changed the way to play the battle to a completely different way, strongly more oriented on sweepers who can OHKO only thanks to SR, and on stallers who can constantly force switches, and make a lot of tactics actually useless because that.
Also, SR makes the game a lot more oriented on the Fighting and Steel types, because their resistance to SR (and usually resistance or power against the SR users).
Toxic Spikes by other hands is not a lot of trouble, exist a lot of Pokémon with status-healing abilitys, or using berry’s for coverage, or with status-healing moves, or just can't be poisoned at all (Steel + Poison + Flying + Levitate Users), or some Pokémon just doesn't care to being toxicated at all because; they wanted to explode, help on a set, rapid spin and get K.O, counter something, check and being K.O'ed, help other more important Pokémon, or just and the most common: sweep until get K.O'ed or win. And the Guts users usually loves Toxic Spikes because that usually common move allow them to set and use a Choice Band or Scarf at the same time.
Spikes can be deadly, but Spikes is not so deadly like SR, because the Flying + Levitate Pokémon doesn't care about it at all, only 1 spikes is not usually so destructive, and set more than 1 spikes is usually hard, and even if you do that, you'll most probably lose a Pokémon, and you'll have to outcome a 6vs5 battle. Also, Spikes without SR is not really a great tactic at all, most of the time.
An OU without SR I think it will be less centralized, because exist a lot of counters to Volcarona and friends, still, without need of SR. And SR by other hand, make the game too centralized on itself. I think a OU test or alternative without SR could be a pretty enjoyable and different experience.
Note: Also, is also funny the fact that a huge number of counters to the OU SR weak Pokémon are on lower tiers because their weak to SR, and thus, usually never used as counter to them, without SR the amount of available counters to Volcarona and friends increase (a lot), too. By other hand, I think an alternative OU without SR should be best than a OU without SR (without the existance of a OU with SR), mostly because the community did get used (a lot) to the SR allowed variant (from the Gen 4), and banning it could change the complete current metagame being slightly refined by all those years.
Note 2: Anyway, I always preferred normal poison over toxic poison, why? Normal poison is stronger on the first and second turn, and toxic is exactly the same on the third, and on this fast paced metagame, three turn is an eternity, and... if the user change and comeback, you'll have again a 2 turns superiority. The unique reason to toxic on place of poison for me is to check some sets of Chansey and maybe Starmie for the 1/2 recover move, so, I'm better with just 1 layer of Toxic Spikes. Anyway, why poison something you can ParaConfFlinch? That's the best wallbreaker of the entire game, at least for me.