np: OU Suspect Testing Round 2 - Who am I to break tradition?

[SJCrew]

And since when did we pick and choose what to ban?

The second you decided Swift Swim, an ability that does absolutely nothing without a Rain boost, was more broken than the Rain that boosts it and the combination of other factors that contribute to making Rain teams so overpowering and dominant to begin with.

Did you ignore 90% of Rain teams running Nattorei with his reduced Fire weakness? How about Toxicroak getting free health and taking down your Rain counters? Voltolos getting Thunder? Tornelos getting Hurricane? Hell, have you even played this round? Rain teams have ridiculously high chances of overpowering non-Rain teams. These Pokemon all operate in tandem to abuse a field condition that makes them all way better than they should be. Together.

Once again, you're employing a separatist mindset and trying to single out what should be broken about permanent Rain when it's really everything. Drizzle makes entire teams of these monsters viable. Everything you'll commonly see on a Rain team abuses the permanent Rain effect. Even lesser factors like 100% Thunder, 100% Hurricane, or a reduced Fire weakness all culminate into making supremely difficult teams to face. That's why the weather game is as strong as it is now; you're most likely not going to win unless you can turn off the Rain.

It's an entire playstyle and as Aldaron said it's a special case due to it affecting so many things.

We can make a lot of things "special cases" until those cases aren't quite so special anymore. If you can't properly explain why we shouldn't extend this line of thinking to banning certain movesets or other parts of Pokemon just to balance them, then it's going to happen somewhere in the future. The only question is when.

 

[astrohawke]

The second you decided Swift Swim, an ability that does absolutely nothing without a Rain boost, was more broken than the Rain that boosts it.

I really can't be bothered arguing with you anymore because arguing about it isn't going to change what's going to happen whether the proposal goes through or not. What needs to be said has already been said 100 times. The fact that you still think Aldaron's proposal is being put forward because we think swift swim is more broken than drizzle itself and therefore want it banned just shows you don't understand why we're doing what we're doing in the first place.

 

[Arc Tech]

Hey, SJCrew, at least take solace that my proposal did not go through for voting (so it seems, since Philip7086 didn't mention it on the voting thread ;_;... correct me if I am wrong, though!).

That would've put Drizzle under close scrutiny for a potential 2 rounds of Suspect Testing :p
I personally favored banning 2-3 Rain Abusers before resorting to Aldaron's Proposal. but I take this as a compromise between pro-Drizzle and anti-Drizzle camps. I hope Aldaron's Proposal passes to at least give Drizzle a round of closer investigation.

Of course your viewpoint holds high value, since you are apparently an avid player. However, I still take the stand that Drizzle is victimized and treated unfairly for appearing AFTER Swift Swim, and that Drizzle will not be distasteful once the proposal takes act, since most of the complaints are Drizzle + Swift Swim.

He didn't say anything about it, but Aldaron's Proposal is the first step of your proposal so we can always make a movement to implement the second phase next round (only the top 3 banned if not broken, drizzle if broken).

 

[TacoBot]

The second you decided Swift Swim, an ability that does absolutely nothing without a Rain boost, was more broken than the Rain that boosts it and the combination of other factors that contribute to making Rain teams so overpowering and dominant to begin with.

Did you ignore 90% of Rain teams running Nattorei with his reduced Fire weakness? How about Toxicroak getting free health and taking down your Rain counters? Voltolos getting Thunder? Tornelos getting Hurricane? Hell, have you even played this round? Rain teams have ridiculously high chances of overpowering non-Rain teams. These Pokemon all operate in tandem to abuse a field condition that makes them all way better than they should be. Together.

Once again, you're employing a separatist mindset and trying to single out what should be broken about permanent Rain when it's really everything. Drizzle makes entire teams of these monsters viable. Everything you'll commonly see on a Rain team abuses the permanent Rain effect. Even lesser factors like 100% Thunder, 100% Hurricane, or a reduced Fire weakness all culminate into making supremely difficult teams to face. That's why the weather game is as strong as it is now; you're most likely not going to win unless you can turn off the Rain.

And what exactly is wrong with that? Every weather condition features buffs like that. Just because Rain has better boosts doesn't mean it should be banned. Just because a Pokemon completely sucks outside of a given weather doesn't mean that it should not have that right (nearly all the chlorophyll sweepers, arguably Excadrill as well). Just because a good Pokemon gets even better inside a given weather doesn't mean it must have that buff removed from it (Landorus).

Rain teams also come with multiple subtypes, so of course there are a lot of Rain teams.

 

[Darusare]

Rain and sand both need their power cut to create a diverse metagame
SjCrew is right
rain is a beast with all of its added effects
sand is less so but the pokemon typically used on sand teams are monsters in their own right
in or out of sand
perhaps drought will need something later
but now we have to deal with the current threats

on another note

i love how many people are voting to ban sand veil
using brightpowder gliscor as a reason and he isnt all that good
plus WE CANT BAN SAND VEIL YET
because all the dreamworld abilities arent released

 

[Lightning Tiger]

SJCrew, if Drizzle is still broken after it cant be used with Swift Swim then itl most definitely be banned next time, calm down and at least give Aldaron's proposal a chance.

and yeah Nattorei in rain is fucking beast... but its not invincible.

That would've put Drizzle under close scrutiny for a potential 2 rounds of Suspect Testing :p
I personally favored banning 2-3 Rain Abusers before resorting to Aldaron's Proposal

I am gald that Aldarons went through over yours because of this.

 

[alexwolf]

4th Gen pre-Mence was terrible. It was literally "Mence, Scizor, Bulky Water, Heatran, Celebi/another Dragon, Lead". Pretty much nothing else was viable.

what?come on let the exaggeration aside!how is it possible that a metagame that was being played for 2 years was terrible?that is only your opinion...it wasn't terrible at all..it was pretty balanced!if salamence was so overcentralizing it would have been banned way sooner...
i am not judging whether he was uber or not i am just saying that you are being too excessive...

 

[mode.9800]

I Think banning swift swim is the wrong approach, swift swim was not broken last generation because there was no permanent rain now that there is the swift swim sweepers are much more powerful. we dont know how drizzle will fare in a metagame without kingdra, kabutops, ludicolo ect but we know how these pokemon fair in a drizzle less metagame. swift swim gets basically nothing outside of rain, while drizzle gets other things without swift swim

 

[DahliaSky]

SJCrew, if Drizzle is still broken after it cant be used with Swift Swim then itl most definitely be banned next time, calm down and at least give Aldaron's proposal a chance.

and yeah Nattorei in rain is fucking beast... but its not invincible.

I am gald that Aldarons went through over yours because of this.

You can say the reverse for the swift swimmers. Or for any of them. If one thing is banned, and doesn't fix the issue, obviously it will be fixed next round. This is not a good argument for why one proposal is better than another.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

What's with all the Drought nominations?
We don't know how popular or how powerful Sun will be without Drizzle,Dory,etc.
Why all the theorymonning?
"Oh,without rain and sand,sun will dominate,so lets just ban it now."
>.>

 

[Lamppost]

What's with all the Drought nominations?
We don't know how popular or how powerful Sun will be without Drizzle,Dory,etc.
Why all the theorymonning?
"Oh,without rain and sand,sun will dominate,so lets just ban it now."
>.>

Drizzle is the only ability that will be up for nomination, and if the blind voting for aldaron's proposal goes through then we skip straight to the nominated pokemon.

 

[Lightning Tiger]

You can say the reverse for the swift swimmers. Or for any of them. If one thing is banned, and doesn't fix the issue, obviously it will be fixed next round. This is not a good argument for why one proposal is better than another.

doubtfull, if it happens that swift swim can no longer be used with drizzle then no one will nominate it again in teh next round, why?, because it wont be broken and it wont nearly be such a big deal, unless your trying to telkl me that swift swim + rain dance is suddenly broken now even though it hasnt been for the previous 2 gens. If Aldarons thing passes then i will be surprised to hear swift swim be brought up again, its just not likely.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85406

Well, Landlos will seem a bit less menacing once this glitch is fixed.

 

[KurashiDragon]

Looks like Landlos is in it for another round or until the glitch is fixed where it can properly be tested. I wonder how much of a problem this glitch actually is. Would someone care to do some Calcs between Life Orb Landos and CB Landos? (Life Orb = Ability Choice Band = Glitched ability)

 

[Hyper Cutter]

http://91.121.73.228/Wifi/index.html
T-tar's #2 in usage, and the two Sand inducers combined have something like 2.5x the usage Politoed does. Not to mention that there are two Sand abusers in the top 5 (and the remaining two aren't affected by it), while the first Rain abuser doesn't come in until #11 (right under Politoed, with exactly the same usage, which is probably significant).

Is Rain really the problem weather here?

 

[Mario With Lasers]

http://91.121.73.228/Wifi/index.html
T-tar's #2 in usage, and the two Sand inducers combined have something like 2.5x the usage Politoed does. Not to mention that there are two Sand abusers in the top 5 (and the remaining two aren't affected by it), while the first Rain abuser doesn't come in until #11 (right under Politoed, with exactly the same usage, which is probably significant).

Is Rain really the problem weather here?

Yes, because that's Official Server's stats, not Smogon's.

 

[Nanoswine]

http://91.121.73.228/Wifi/index.html
T-tar's #2 in usage, and the two Sand inducers combined have something like 2.5x the usage Politoed does. Not to mention that there are two Sand abusers in the top 5 (and the remaining two aren't affected by it), while the first Rain abuser doesn't come in until #11 (right under Politoed, with exactly the same usage, which is probably significant).

Is Rain really the problem weather here?

Please don't use PO's server as evidence, tbh stats from that server are BS. Togekiss is used more than both Randorosu and Borutorosu :/

 

[Deco]

Also, people are already using fewer Drizzle-based teams because they know/think it's going to be banned soon anyway, or because they think it's lame/broken.

Edit: Don't underestimate Togekiss this gen, it's the star of my team, really. o.o

 

[Saibankan]

doubtfull, if it happens that swift swim can no longer be used with drizzle then no one will nominate it again in teh next round, why?, because it wont be broken and it wont nearly be such a big deal, unless your trying to telkl me that swift swim + rain dance is suddenly broken now even though it hasnt been for the previous 2 gens. If Aldarons thing passes then i will be surprised to hear swift swim be brought up again, its just not likely.

I have to agree with this. It is understandable if Drizzle + Swift Swim were banned (this has only been possible in Ubers up to now so its not an out of place concept at all) but to ban Rain Dance + Swift Swim seems a bit of a stretch. I might be a bit biased as I do have a fondness for teams that are aided by rain but there is no sense in banning the whole strategy which has held up for a while now because of a single ability granted to only Politoed.

 

[TLK]

I don't see how anyone can fairly judge Landlos with this glitch being revealed. I think he should be a suspect, but he should get a test when the glitch is fixed.

 

[Cuiv]

Please don't use PO's server as evidence, tbh stats from that server are BS. Togekiss is used more than both Randorosu and Borutorosu :/

Just curious, where is the Smogon server's usage data? Or are we doing this blind?

 

[cosmicexplorer]

Just curious, where is the Smogon server's usage data? Or are we doing this blind?

No data has been released yet for the Smogon server, as far as I am aware.

 

[Cuiv]

No data has been released yet for the Smogon server, as far as I am aware.

And... no one thinks this is a problem? We're just relying anecdotally on the belief that rain is a dominant playstyle, and that teams have morphed substantially to meet it?

I mean, I understand that Latias, for example, was not top of the usage charts when it was banned last gen, but it was remarked that many Latias counters had risen in usage primarily to combat Latias to the point that Latias was centralizing the metagame. Do we even know that rain, or Doryuzuu, or any of the other candidates for banning are actually distorting the metagame? Or are we just guessing?

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

We are basing off of the vast number of reports of personal experiences. While statistics help as evidence to a cause they by no means alone imply necessary action. The majority of decisions are based off of experiences, not stats.

 

[Rhys DeAnno]

It's only anecdotal, but I'm fairly certain Nattorei is the most used Pokemon, and among highly rated players at least its usage seems to be in the neighborhood of 40% or so, if not more. Nattorei has the unique attribute of being a Kingdra counter (aside from Empo lol), does fairly well against a lot of other rain Pokemon, and incidentally is also a good check for Latios.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when I slap Natty on the team, the thinking is usually that I need a Kingdra counter, I need to be more solid against Latios, so I need Nattorei. The abundantly high usage of Nattorei and the lack of other good options to check either Latios or Kingdra (Latios has a few, but Natty is among the best of them) suggested to me that there was a problem with Kingdra and Latios.