Banning Auto-Weather

[Ulevo]

I'm not going to open up with some fancy argument in attempts to persuade the reader, since my sentiments are boldly expressed here already. I'm sure there are those of you who feel or have similar thoughts as it is.

The elephants in the room, ladies and gentlemen. What do you propose?

Also:

If you wish to take this as a proposition to ban Sandstream and Drizzle then, and have a testing period for Drought and Hail after the fact, then please do so. A blanket ban is simplistic, but that is also the most logical method. Either would be fine.

 

[Ice-eyes]

To be honest, I think each auto-weather should be decided on merit. Clearly, auto-Hail isn't broken, and auto-Sun probably isn't either. There is no real reason to ban either of them when we could just come to a conclusion (separately) on whether Drizzle is broken (personally, I think it is), and whether Sand Stream is broken (needs another test metagame, without Drizzle in it), and if so, ban each. Lumping all auto-weather together is like banning Altaria because you think that Rayquaza and Garchomp prove that Dragons are broken.

 

[Ulevo]

If you wish to take this as a proposition to ban Sandstream and Drizzle then, and have a testing period for Drought and Hail after the fact, then please do so. A blanket ban is simplistic, but that is also the most logical method. Either would be fine.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Isn't 3) exactly the reason we shouldn't blanket ban auto-weather (or ban two and test the other two)?

 

[undisputed]

Obviously I agree because I was the first to really bring it up. I think weather should just be blanket banned because if were like "sun isn't that bad it can stay" then it opens the door for a lot of gray and stupid arguments. Simplicity is the main selling point of the idea.

 

[reachzero]

So, is there a reason why the OP of this thread isn't in the Suspect nomination thread? Because under our process, that is where it actually belongs. Posting it in PR does nothing except attempt to undermine the process that we have established for putting aspects of the metagame into community consideration.

 

[Aldaron]

I'd like to say that I would have no problem with banning all of Drizzle / Drought / Sandstream (not hail cause it isn't broken), but would prefer we attempt to balance diversity in strategy with balance.

We could go the ban Politoed / Ninetails / Tyranitar / Hippowdon with their weather inducing abilities route, but I'm afraid we'd be drastically reducing the usage of various Pokemon and strategies.

That said, since we're removing such a big part (and not just one component of weather), for this specific scenario I can't really theorymon what might happen as accurately as I might like; who knows, maybe a plethora of other strategies will open up once you don't have to worry about checking the various weather sweepers?

I'd love to open up an alternate weatherless ladder, but my only concern is activity. Perhaps now is when we should approach Beta and consider a compromise in policy of sorts and combine servers, because atm the playing community is split into about 65% on average on Beta and 35% on average on SU (granted the majority of this is PO's own community, but still, they're Pokemon players who could really help us).

 

[capefeather]

While I get what you're saying, I don't think that we should default to banning the weather abilities. I find that only one sand Pokémon finds it sufficient to have support from a sand team, namely Landorus, as opposed to Excadrill/Doryuuzu, who I find basically needs sand to be up to function. On the other hand, by banning Sand Stream, we ban Tyranitar and Hippowdon by technicality. So I see banning the Pokémon as the simpler solution, even if Excadrill/Doryuuzu were banned as well.

Rain is kind of a different beast, though. Kingdra is bulkier than Excadrill/Doryuuzu, enough to be pretty significant, and has pretty beastly defensive typing and STAB coverage, while Ludicolo also has beastly defensive typing and STAB coverage, both in contrast to Excadrill/Doryuuzu's primarily offensive stat/typing structure. I'd argue that they don't require rain up to function as much as Excadrill/Doryuuzu does. (This is different from support from a rain team; I'd happily agree that Ludicolo sucks outside of a rain TEAM, but if push comes to shove it's not dead weight if rain happens to be down for a while.) Versatility on both of their parts helps a lot. We could ban them both and possibly even Kabutops, but banning Drizzle is actually the simpler route in this case because Politoed isn't banned by technicality. And this is why I am personally inclined to treat sand and rain differently.

On top of this, we're "pretty sure" that the loss of Landorus and possibly Excadrill/Doryuuzu would be enough of a hit to sand to prevent it from being broken. We don't have the same assurance for rain, and while it can't be made for certain that it *would* still be broken, this uncertainty in comparison to sand is enough to sway people toward treating the two weathers differently. As far as argument goes, last is least here, but I think that it needs to be said.

 

[Nails]

...[keeping ttar] prevents a dragon witch hunt like there was last gen. Lati@s are A. great checks to a lot of the dragons in OU and B. hard countered by ttar (in the sand). I'd like to see if the meta without rain and dory/landlos can support all of the dragons. That is the reasoning behind my desire to keep sandstorm legal. If Lati@s get banned then garchomp loses two great checks (with EQ immunity), and then salamence runs wild... I'd prefer if the meta didn't go down that route again.

And I'm not guaranteeing that the latis aren't broken. I think that they'll have a far better shot of staying OU if Ttar keeps sand stream though.

I copied that because it applies here too. I don't feel SS is broken, the sweepers are, and having it is beneficial to the meta as a whole. With that said, I fully believe drizzle is broken. I made a number of posts in this thread giving my reasoning, but it amounts to rain giving a free band/specs with no cost and sandstorm not giving a power boost of any sort (outside of abilities).

Editing to say that I feel this is how bans this Gen will progress, please don't tell me "you don't know that's what will happen". I don't, but I strongly believe it will end up that way.

 

[undisputed]

Reach, I think it's better to talk about this in pr first. I don't think anyone is ready to put this into action on such short notice, and by being in pr it weeds out a lot of bad posts by randoms. This idea is pretty rough, and I think discussion among intelligent users about it should happen before it's nommed.

Nails I don't get your reasoning tbh. It just seems like you're playing favorites. "I want to keep lati@s in ou because with sand storm tyranitar can kind of check them if it's not nailed by specs surf or draco" is what I'm interpreting. It just seems like you'd rather have other pokemon you want to keep in ou rather than what would be preserved here (which is most of ou atm).

I'm kind of scattered right now (typing at school on iPod) so I'll clarify anything if I'm being confusing when I get home

 

[Nails]

yeah ok. after running some calcs I've changed my opinion on latios (posted that at school as well as a matter of fact). I've been running an extremely bulky ttar which has admittedly skewed my opinion of it. latias' 20 less SpA makes gives it far more counters than latios though, and i feel like it deserves some time in ou without any of its counters nerfed.

i am playing favorites, i'd prefer to have latias in ou than the nerfed sand sweepers, as it provides a niche that nothing else can really fill (terakion is arguably a better landlos outside of sand, while latias's resists are pretty much exclusive).

starmie is the only comparable offensive spinner of course... it's a tough choice.


edit: banning sand and rain isn't at all the same thing though. it's been beaten to death, but i'm going to hit the point again. the number of pokemon that benefit offensively from sandstorm are vastly outnumbered by rain sweepers, and we know that sand isn't broken if we make the two bans. the reason rain has more support for a ban is because we don't know how many pokemon it breaks.

 

[idiotfrommars]

I know most of you don't agree with this, but I believe that we should really ban Manaphy before we ban drizzle. In my experience from playing on the PO server rain is much less broken without Manaphy though Kingdra and Ludicolo can still be extremely dangerous. I feel that just like sand not being broken with out Rand and Dory, rain has the potential to be fine with a ban of Manaphy and possibly Kingdra and Ludicolo. I feel that we may be rushing into this process a bit to fast, and if we attempt to remove the most threatening drizzle abusers first then it is quite possible that rain will be unbroken without them.

 

[eric the espeon]

No weather condition can be said to be broken in it's own right, nor can any ability.

What decides whether these things are broken is the metagame in which they find themselves. Pokemon can be broken in a weather condition which are otherwise not, Pokemon can be broken with an ability which are otherwise not. So long as the weather condition would not cause all Pokemon to be broken it is not inherently broken, it is simply the combination of it and another part of the metagame that is broken. This means we have a choice of which to ban in order to remove broken elements.

One principle which I think would be generally good to follow is this: "When deciding which element of a broken combination to remove, it is usually better to remove the one with less far reaching consistences.". As well as this, the principle of simplicity leads us to consider banning specific Pokemon before removing entire team styles (turn limited weather is possible, but most likely will not get much high level play especially if Hail is around to shut it down.).

I think that as several people have explained far better than I will here in the suspect nom thread Manaphy is the primary reason rain is broken. Perhaps rain teams will still be overpowered without it, but until we remove the main problem we cannot know. If the main Sand sweepers are removed then Sand teams will almost certainly not be broken.

I do very much like the post linked to in the OP and share many of the sentiments, just don't agree with the conclusion and think if the ban-happiness can be kept to a minimum we could sort out the metagame with a fairly small number of simple bans, or at least fix the things everyone seems to be complaining about. I particularly empathize with the deep frustration with a huge number of people in the suspect nom thread who are openly giving utterly absurd reasons for nominations. "Lets nom Drought since it may be broken if we ban 5 other things, even though it's not very useful in the current metagame." is a joke, but many others are well not well backed up enough and appear to be not well thought out. I'm shocked to see this kind of thing coming from those who are deciding the future of the metagame.

 

[Rhys DeAnno]

I couldn't agree more with Eric here. What really irks me is the "lazyness", for lack of a better word, I see which is pervading opinions on suspects today. The best example of this is the people who want to ban Drought: They suspect it might be overpowered, so rather than "wasting time" figuring out if it is, they'd rather ban it right now to be safe.

This same reasoning is what seems to be at the crux of all the fuel for the outright Drizzle ban: people say that Manaphy, Kingdra, and the other high class rain abusers couldn't be the problem, because of course Omastar and Huntail and Luvdisc have Swift Swim too, so they'll obviously be just as good as Kingdra is. People would rather take the easy solution and theorymon ban a whole bunch of things immediately than test variations in the metagame slowly and carefully, which I think is very short sighted. Already, we've seen with Deoxys-N how when we ban things based on theory and not practice that the community has a tendency to question and regret it later anyway, which is what I think will happen if we implement global or complex bans against Weather (or abilities, but that's a whole different can of worms) instead of just methodically banning individual Pokemon which show themselves to be broken.

 

[idiotfrommars]

I also believe that Deoxys-N is a perfectly example of what happens when people get overly ban happy. It seems like the most of the people who were unsure of its brokeness abstained or theorymon'd that it would be broken without actually testing it. This led to a ban that we hadn't fully tested yet, and now we are seeing the results of that in the nomination thread. I agree with ete and Rhys that we should take the drizzle ban's slowly and start off by removing the most broken abusers. Over time we will eventually get to the point where only the unbroken things remain, because I don't care how much arguing you do, Luvdisc will never be as good as Kingdra. It is much better to leave as many play styles available as possible and try to minimize bans as much as possible.

 

[locopoke]

I agree completely infinite weather is really stupid, I've brought this idea up on IRC several times in the past.

 

[zapzap29]

I think that a blanket ban on such complex conditions in the metagame would undermine the suspect testing process and alienate a lot of community members. We're already months into Gen V, do we really want to undermine all the work that's gone into the metagame? We'd be creating a completely different game based on theory and that goes against our policy. I think the cons of this idea far outweigh the benefits.

 

[undisputed]

Ok I'm going to just get it out there. I know I may take some heat or people may stick up their nose in the "I'm amazed that you could even dare to think that" way that some posters like to adopt. This is just my opinion on the whole metagame and weather issue. Here goes:

Weather is ruining my favorite game. It's no longer about who can come to the match with the best combo of 6 pokemon anymore. It's turned into: first to ko the other's weather abuser wins. And if it's two of the same type of weather, it's almost 100% team matchup. My kingdra won the speed tie vs his? Hot damn I win since he can't outspeed me anymore.

Countless times have I come up with a team idea at school. And it's getting rolling, and 5 mons in I realize I don't have a weather changer. Bam. Team ruined because ttar/toed/tales doesn't fit. I know that weather is ruining my game when having no weather changer makes my teams automatically at a disadvantage.

To be perfectly honest, I don't care if something is "broken" or not anymore. That term is stupid and so convuluted no one knows what it really means. Sure, I can beat a rain team whenever I want... If I prepare my team for rain. Sure I can beat a sand team if I wanted... If I know I'm going to face a sand team. Sun? No problem... As long as I know sun is coming. These teams surely aren't broken if you can beat them whenever you want, undisputed! No, you're wrong. When I teambuild I have to juggle all three. I have to be prepared for all 3 strats and their given sweepers. Then (heaven forbid) I have to prepared for over 200 other mons that could be used on a normal team that just tries to minimize the threat level of other weathers with their own. All this weather together is bad for pokemon

I'm tired of the matches I play being largely determined by who can successfully kill the opposing weather mon first. I want to play gen 5 where 6 pokemon are put on a team and smart players can show us the skills needed in pokemon: improvising, predicting, and executing. The line between good and mediocre players is so blurred right now. Any moron can spam specs kingdra in rain all day long if the only thing they need to worry about is keeping rain up. Doryuuzu is the same way. Already got the speed? Let's just use sd after focusing on beating Gliscor/skamory/bronzong and win the game right there because it's damn near impossible to check without priority fight.

Now, why do people think it's a good idea to ban weather abusers rather than the weather itself? Weather doesn't benefit the metagame more than the 6 or 7 abusers we are looking to ban. All of those pokemon are completely viable. Hell, I'd love to see rand used as a sweeper similar to lo aerodactyl in gen 4. I'd love to see someone setup a team around rain rest Manaphy using rain dance. To pull that off you've got to have a well planned team. Not just toad + Manaphy + rain sweeper + rain sweeper + Natoreii + ttar counter.

I've think I've said what I want. To me it's no longer about what's broken, but rather what I and others think promotes a fun and skill based metagame. I know people will disagree with that philosophy, and I know that a lot of people who haven't played gen 5 much if at all will feel entitled to challenge my position, and that's fine. If you honestly think weather vs. Weather should define gen 5, cool. If you think we shoud ban a lot of monsters because you feel this weather should remain, cool. But I disagree.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Eric's hit the nail right on the head here. Just auto-banning "all weather abilities" seems ridiculously lazy, especially when we've gone to so much trouble to create a process for identifying and removing broken and/or undesirable metagame elements. Resorting to such a "lazy" ban seems like the biggest and most ridiculous step backwards that we could ever take.

Let's face it: Rain is the only weather ability that can even be considered broken on its own, and that's only because of the raw number of Pokemon that can take advantage of it to become arguably broken. Sun is basically terrible due to the ease with which it can be checked; Sand has been perfectly fine for the last 2 generations and only has 2 real "abusers" of its effects- Doryuuzu and Landlos; Hail is hail, and has neither a "good" setup Pokemon nor a good way of abusing Hail's existence, so really the only issue is Rain.

All of this "complex ban" and "ban auto-weather" stuff just seems like a huge step backwards, as it either stinks of laziness (autoban all weather) or favoritism (ban weird combinations instead of banning Drizzle or Swift Swim), and both of these are so harmful to the process that it's nearly impossible to justify them, especially considering that this "metagame benefit" is not only impossible to measure but also absolutely pure theory promoted by the proponents of these special bans.

TL;DR: No ban should be "special". No ability or Pokemon should be set aside as some "special entity" that needs to be preserved. To do so would be a vast undermining of the process that we've spent a good couple years trying to refine, especially when the potential benefits are pure theory.

 

[Philip7086]

This sort of suggestion goes directly against the suspect testing method we have set up. If this is the type of metagame you'd like to push for, fine, but there is absolutely no way that we will blanket ban all weather types without nominating each one and voting on them individually first. I'm closing this thread. As reachzero said, this whole thread belongs in the suspect discussion/nomination threads. If you want to see all permanent weather abilities get banned, I'd suggest you push your case in the proper venues to rally support and hopefully successfully nominate/get a majority vote.