np: OU Suspect Testing Round 4 - Blaze of Glory

[jrrrrrrr]

Jrrrrrrr, what is your take on weather? You seem to have the disposition of preferring to have top threats remain within OU (such as the recently banned Blaziken and Manaphy) while going against the abilities like Drought and Drizzle. I'd like to hear your reasons for these preferences, particularly since you seem more inclined to actually find solutions to problems rather than find problems for solutions the way many posters here seem to do with supposedly "broken" Pokemon.

Weather to me falls under the "ugh, this team again?" category. Sure they're straightforward teams that can be hard to beat, but there's a blueprint to do it and team previews makes it even easier to beat the same rain team over and over again.

I think what this Drizzle + Swift Swim ban has shown us is that auto-rain is by far the best weather effect, because everyone is still using Politoed despite the fact that there aren't SSers to abuse. Thunder users, Tornadus'/Dragonite's 100% Hurricane, Steel-types getting their main weakness removed, and eliminating Doryuuzu's effectiveness are just some of the ways that Rain dominates even without Swift Swim. I personally think Drizzle is a broken ability, especially when you add Swift Swim abusers on top of it.

The other weathers don't really have any "brokenness" characteristics to me. Drought means that your main core is Stealth Rock weak. Most Sun abusers are also Grass-types, which are subpar, or Fire-types that every decent team has counters for. Sandstorm only has one main abuser and the occasional Garchomp hax. Plus, sand teams all have a common devastating weakness to Water-type pokemon. Hail is...hail and Ice-types still suck. Rain teams don't have any gaping weaknesses that can be exploited because of how diverse the abusers of Rain are. Most of the reason why people even use non-rain teams is to counter rain teams, so I think that eliminating the best weather would cut a lot of the "weather = centralization" arguments out of these threads.

tl;dr- I think Drizzle is a broken ability, even on something as crappy as Politoed. We should ban Drizzle and unban Manaphy.

 

[Nails]

"Overcentralization" is the biggest joke of an argument I've ever heard. Something is popular, therefore it must be too good? If you apply that logic every round, you will end up banning literally everything.

No, we get to a balanced meta like we had last gen. No one was trying to ban Heatran at the end there. A metagame with no suspects is the goal.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

No, we get to a balanced meta like we had last gen. No one was trying to ban Heatran at the end there. A metagame with no suspects is the goal.

If you gave it a bit more time, I guarantee you would have seen centralization posts about Heatran. That's what you get when you ban all of something's counters. Why do you think people started complaining about Salamence after Garchomp, Latios and Latias were banned? It was next in line because some of those suspects were keeping other top level threats in check. Some of those original "suspects" that were banned were actually found to be preserving balance by keeping other things in check. AFAIK it never got close to Garchomp levels of popularity, and then DP kinda died so of course it didn't get to that point.

A metagame with no suspects isn't the goal. A metagame with no broken pokemon is the goal. There will always be suspects, that is the whole point of tiers. Some pokemon are just better than others. The words "balanced" and "suspect" don't have any objective meaning and we can only hope to end as much complaining as possible. There will always be suspects to some people.

 

[Cherub Agent]

Guys, what Pokemon do you use to get rid of rain? I don't mean Tyranitar/Hippowdon/Ninetales. I mean like how some people have Hail on Tentacruel and stuff. This strategy intrigues me, and I was wondering whether there were any more, let's say, offensive Pokemon that can take that role, since i really don't like Tentacruel. Offensive Pokemon that can actually benefit from the temporary weather.

Also, to get rid of the weather inducers, I generally lead with Choice Specs Hydreigon. Draco Meteor/Flamethrower/Focus Blast/Dark Pulse can OHKO all of them, and since the main weathers are Rain/Sand, I'd prefer it if this Pokemon used Hail or Sunny Day

 

[Hallow]

I'm not saying that, I'm saying you have to be extra careful and it is a top priority when you're team building.

You must be joking. Do you want to know why I am a serial failer at Pokémon? Because I seem to be unable to remember what threats and walls I need to look out for, so I build teams in an unlikely and deficient manner. If what you're saying wouldn't apply to every single top threat in the metagame, then I'd probably have reached a ladder ranking in the top twenty last Gen.

Having spent a little more time laddering, all supicions that Reuniclus is not broken have been erased from my mind. Haxrachi is the only solid counter because the others take so much damage on the switchin from Focus Miss that they can't reliably beat it. It is also incredibly easy to pair Reuniclus with Magnezone and basically cut the counter number to nil. I guess Ttar is still possible but it's not really a solid counter - more of a check, since you can't switch into Focus Blast.
To use the example of my team, I use Swords Dance Scizor to beat Reuniclus. If the opponent has Magnezone, my options are to be swept by Reuniclus or to have my Scizor killed by Magnezone and then get swept by Reuniclus. I don't want to use Tyranitar or Spiritomb on every team. Deo-D and Mew also need to be in relatively good shape to counter it so the opponent forces you to only use 5 Pokemon just by using Reuni. If that's not broken then say, Garchomp definately isn't either. There are lots of things that can stop +2 Garchomp if they have full health. Additionally vs. deo and mew fetus can just switch out and then you are incurring entry hazard damage while it is not. (incidentally if clus doesn't get banned this round I'm going to start abusing it with toxic spikes and Magnezone because once specifics are eliminated it can often guarentee a win.

I think what you're saying is that you haven't yet thought of checking Magnezone. I think it's pretty obvious that someone who knows people are like to use Scizor or Escavalier to counter Reuniclus would carry something to check them, especially the former one. Also, Haxrachi is not much more a threat to Magnezone than Scizor is. I quote myself:

All of you whining to ban something: First read Dougjustdoug's Characteristics of a desirable metagame and then proceed to study Sirlin's Playing to Win Part 1 and 2.

Seriously.

This is exactly what is wrong with this community has become. Let me summarize your post:

"I don't want to think about my opponent's pokemon when making a team, so let's just ban everything that's popular."

Most of the people posting in this thread would flip a shit if they were playing in the past gens. The same people complaining about how they have to think to counter Reuniclus would ragequit every GSC match when they saw a Snorlax. You think it's broken? Why not use one of the dozens of counters we've listed and own opponents who are trying to use it? That will cut down on this "centralization" real quick. This thread has turned from legitimate discussion of potential threats to a soapbox where every random user can complain about pokemon they can't be bothered to beat.

"Overcentralization" is the biggest joke of an argument I've ever heard. Something is popular, therefore it must be too good? If you apply that logic every round, you will end up banning literally everything. Overcentralization isn't even a word. Stop using it like popularity decides what is good.

Can I have you as a pet?

 

[Ulevo]

Weather to me falls under the "ugh, this team again?" category. Sure they're straightforward teams that can be hard to beat, but there's a blueprint to do it and team previews makes it even easier to beat the same rain team over and over again.

I think what this Drizzle + Swift Swim ban has shown us is that auto-rain is by far the best weather effect, because everyone is still using Politoed despite the fact that there aren't SSers to abuse. Thunder users, Tornadus'/Dragonite's 100% Hurricane, Steel-types getting their main weakness removed, and eliminating Doryuuzu's effectiveness are just some of the ways that Rain dominates even without Swift Swim. I personally think Drizzle is a broken ability, especially when you add Swift Swim abusers on top of it.

The other weathers don't really have any "brokenness" characteristics to me. Drought means that your main core is Stealth Rock weak. Most Sun abusers are also Grass-types, which are subpar, or Fire-types that every decent team has counters for. Sandstorm only has one main abuser and the occasional Garchomp hax. Plus, sand teams all have a common devastating weakness to Water-type pokemon. Hail is...hail and Ice-types still suck. Rain teams don't have any gaping weaknesses that can be exploited because of how diverse the abusers of Rain are. Most of the reason why people even use non-rain teams is to counter rain teams, so I think that eliminating the best weather would cut a lot of the "weather = centralization" arguments out of these threads.

tl;dr- I think Drizzle is a broken ability, even on something as crappy as Politoed. We should ban Drizzle and unban Manaphy.

Now my question to you is that, if its easy to beat the same rain team repeatedly, especially with so much experience in dealing with them (given how often they appear on the ladder) and having Team Preview at your disposal, why promote to ban them (Drizzle) in the first place?

Typically when I see the proposed arguments for why Drizzle or just rain teams in general are broken, it's often just a citation of the benefits of Rain Dance in effect vs the other weathers. Obviously this proves that it is indeed the best weather, since it has clearly more advantages than the other three. But being "the best" and being broken are not synonymous. These advantages are not what make or break rain; its how they come together in relation to the rest of the metagame, which is typically what I feel most people fail to explain properly.

 

[Benlisted]

@Cherub Agent

For Hail users, after a brief skim of the move page Mamoswine, Dragonite, Gyarados, Gastrodon, Swampert, Suicune, Quagsire, and Azumarril are the things which stick out as viable users aside from Tentacruel.

None of them but Mamo really benefit from it unless the residual damage causes any OHKOs or 2HKOs, but noone really benefits from Hail offensively anyway. Could I suppose go for a Blizzard abuse set.

As for Sunny Day, Gengar, any Eeveelution, Aerodactyl, Crobat, Xatu, Azelf, Mence, Chomp, Gliscor, Tran, Victini, Whimsicott and Darmanitan seem like potential users, though literally a ton of things learn it.

The Fires obviously get the best use out of it, as do Dragons and Azelf who boost Fire Blast (though they may not want to spare the moveslot). The rest are generally things where it would work OK as filler if you can spare the slot.

 

[666lumberjack]

If you switch you Magnezone check into Reuniclus you're going to take massive damage from Focus Miss. All it takes is for your opponent to make one prediction and they probably just seized victory. Yes, Reuniclus has a few counters. However, not only does it prevent you from using them until it comes out, it's also very easy to defeat those specifics. Scizor and co. are easily beaten by zone. All defensive counters lose to Toxic Spikes because they can't do enough damage to it. Tyranitar is the only one who really threatens it despite these measures, but beating tyranitar is not hugely difficult.

 

[Ulevo]

Prediction is not an argument. Thanks for coming out.

 

[Benlisted]

If you switch you Magnezone check into Reuniclus you're going to take massive damage from Focus Miss. All it takes is for your opponent to make one prediction and they probably just seized victory. Yes, Reuniclus has a few counters. However, not only does it prevent you from using them until it comes out, it's also very easy to defeat those specifics. Scizor and co. are easily beaten by zone. All defensive counters lose to Toxic Spikes because they can't do enough damage to it. Tyranitar is the only one who really threatens it despite these measures, but beating tyranitar is not hugely difficult.

Again, "if your opponent makes one prediction they've won" is not a good reason for something being broken. If Latios HP Fires the steel you bring into it, you may well have lost. If it HP Fights your TTar as you bring that in, you may well have lost - the same applies for literally hundreds of other scenarios. Basing a ban off prediction is an awful idea, since if you mispredict you could for instance be facing a counter-sweep if something able to setup on +0 Reun comes in, and again the same applies for every other threat. Similarly, "the counters are easy to kill" is an awful argument as well. If you build a team even vaguely right you can probably eliminate the counters for any sweeper with relative ease, Reun is no exception.

EDIT: Damn you Ulevo, ninja'd :P

 

[Hallow]

If you switch you Magnezone check into Reuniclus you're going to take massive damage from Focus Miss. All it takes is for your opponent to make one prediction and they probably just seized victory. Yes, Reuniclus has a few counters. However, not only does it prevent you from using them until it comes out, it's also very easy to defeat those specifics. Scizor and co. are easily beaten by zone. All defensive counters lose to Toxic Spikes because they can't do enough damage to it. Tyranitar is the only one who really threatens it despite these measures, but beating tyranitar is not hugely difficult.

Since you seem so concerned about Focus Blast, here's a fun fact for you: Tyranitar is 4x weak to it. You could go for something unorthodox instead (which you would surely never even consider) and use Claydol, because it sponges both Focus Blast and Psychic (and fucks Magnezone right over) with 120 base Special Defense and a typing of Ground/Psychic. Of course, that would be "overcentralization", but since you seem to be practicing that actively anyways, it wouldn't make it any worse.

What's that? You worry about Shadow Ball-carrying Reuniclus variants?

Prediction is not an argument. Thanks for coming out.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

Now my question to you is that, if its easy to beat the same rain team repeatedly, especially with so much experience in dealing with them (given how often they appear on the ladder) and having Team Preview at your disposal, why promote to ban them (Drizzle) in the first place?

Because even with team previews and a blueprint to beat them, rain teams are the most dominant force in the entire metagame. Drizzle takes terrible pokemon like Armaldo and Kabutops and turns them into some of the most fearsome sweepers in the game...while also buffing top tier pokemon like Thundurus, Ferrothorn and Dragonite. It's telling that even without the double Speed + double STAB abusers, Rain is still used everywhere. To me, the brokenness comes from my own personal opinion that there is no reason to NOT use rain. Even wasting a team slot on Politoed doesn't have enough drawbacks compared to the benefits it brings.

Just because I can personally beat something doesn't mean that it's not worthy of a ban, just like someone having difficulties doesn't make something broken.

Can I have you as a pet?

:3

 

[Ulevo]

Because even with team previews and a blueprint to beat them, rain teams are the most dominant force in the entire metagame. Drizzle takes terrible pokemon like Armaldo and Kabutops and turns them into some of the most fearsome sweepers in the game...while also buffing top tier pokemon like Thundurus, Ferrothorn and Dragonite. It's telling that even without the double Speed + double STAB abusers, Rain is still used everywhere. To me, the brokenness comes from my own personal opinion that there is no reason to NOT use rain. Even wasting a team slot on Politoed doesn't have enough drawbacks compared to the benefits it brings.

Just because I can personally beat something doesn't mean that it's not worthy of a ban, just like someone having difficulties doesn't make something broken.

To me, the bolded part is what stands out the most. It is my feeling that if a strategy, tactic or competitive asset is so good to the point where you don't have an excuse to run anything else, then it is broken by exact definition. It is nice to see someone who promotes that exact ideology when promoting something as a suspect. Most people unfortunately do not do this.

However, I don't necessarily agree with you that there isn't a reason to not use rain. The mere fact that using sand and sun can effectively counteract rain is reason enough to use them as alternatives. Yes, each of them have downsides, such as Ninetales being effectively the worst of the weather starters, or sands reliance on types that commonly have the same weaknesses (Tyranitar/Excadrill/Ferrothorn/et cetera). However, they have advantages that rain does not. Sand teams tend to have less Pokemon that are effected by Stealth Rock and even Toxic Spikes, and there weather sets up residual damage to turn 3HKO's in to 2HKO's, and 2HKO's in to 1HKO's. And currently with Swift Swim banned from play with Drizzle, sun is the only team weather with multiple Pokemon that can effectively double there speed at no cost. I'd also like to note that unlike many of the powerful sweepers on rain teams, sun teams consist of Pokemon that don't rely on the weather to be effective, much in the way Hurrican Tornadus and Dragonite, or Thunder Thunderus do.

Admittedly rain in of itself is the best weather, but I don't see it outclassing the other two. And as long as weathers are able to effectively counter each other, I see rain staying balanced.

 

[Crim09]

All of you whining to ban something: First read Dougjustdoug's Characteristics of a desirable metagame and then proceed to study Sirlin's Playing to Win Part 1 and 2.

Seriously.

Under That overview of the Metagame banning any weather unless it is extremely overpowered should not be done. I support this with the statement of :

Variety
The metagame should have the widest possible variety of playing options and strategies that are viable and competitive for knowledgeable players.

While the game should be balanced, there should be lots of variety and weather is definitely a source of variety. There is also variety in weather counters and ways of circumventing it that are being explored and still need to be explored. Though if weather is HURTING variety in that every team is based around drizzle for example or set up to beat drizzle than it should be looked into to ban. Though in my opinion for laddering I have not found this to be the case.


Also the new question that has arisen in my mind for garchomp after reading that outlook is to decide if Garchomp is within reasonable luck factors or is sand veil completely unreasonable.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

However, I don't necessarily agree with you that there isn't a reason to not use rain. The mere fact that using sand and sun can effectively counteract rain is reason enough to use them as alternatives.

I would argue that other weather strategies are mostly worth considering because they cancel out rain. I'm wonder how good Sun teams are in an environment that doesn't cater to rain teams. Things like Heatran, Lati@s and Tyranitar are already really popular and they both do a number on Sun teams.

Not to say that there aren't great Sun teams. They are just very rare and very hard to make. Although if V-Create Victini gets popular and Blaziken gets retested this may change.

 

[Ulevo]

I think sun teams are better than what most give them credit for. I think the stigma they've had in early B&W when we had Kingdra, Ludicolo, Kabutops, Gorebyss and Huntail around has carried over since there departure when Drizzle + Swift Swim was banned, and that's why people are underrating Drought. When they were around, Blaziken wasn't nearly as effective since his Speed Boost didn't matter when Water types could come in and be at a +2 when Blaziken had to wait for turns to stat up. That said, even though sun has lost Blaziken, it still has powerful assets, and has Victini to play with now.

I will admit they are harder to make than sand or rain.

 

[TorchicBlaziken]

I'd think that Thundurus or Tornadus would be used more outside of Drizzle to set up rain with priority for Kabutops and Armaldo.

 

[Benlisted]

Mostly from personal experience, I'd think Sun teams would thrive without Rain teams, especially if Chlorophyll is retained. A really well played and built Rain team is unbelievably difficult to beat, similarly to a stall team which matches up well against you when running a normal offensive team. Unboosted, grass STABs just aren't that hard hitting, and since Fire attacks are neutered unless your Sun team is more of Sun balance, your greatest assets are lost unless you can take down Toed, which frankly is easiest by stacking up residual damage. SS may have TTar who threatens Fire mons, but so many can carry a Fighting move to deal with him that dedicated SS teams are sometimes less of an issue (Grass hits do a number on them in general) and teams running TTar for a weather along with varied threats are more of a problem.

I'll agree that they are very hard to make, however, due to shared weaknesses and inherent weaknesses of the mons involved, but they are certainly a valid threat when played well, I honestly believe the reason more aren't seen is because of the difficulty building a team when compared to the other weathers.

 

[Thorhammer]

Because even with team previews and a blueprint to beat them, rain teams are the most dominant force in the entire metagame. Drizzle takes terrible pokemon like Armaldo and Kabutops and turns them into some of the most fearsome sweepers in the game...while also buffing top tier pokemon like Thundurus, Ferrothorn and Dragonite. It's telling that even without the double Speed + double STAB abusers, Rain is still used everywhere. To me, the brokenness comes from my own personal opinion that there is no reason to NOT use rain. Even wasting a team slot on Politoed doesn't have enough drawbacks compared to the benefits it brings.

Just because I can personally beat something doesn't mean that it's not worthy of a ban, just like someone having difficulties doesn't make something broken.


:3

Kabutops is not terrible. As for Armaldo, do you have any evidence of it ever being used in a broken manner in OU?

Besides, that combination isn't even permitted anymore, so it's a moot point. What's left of Drizzle is a top-tier playsrtyle, but it doesn't make any Pokemon broken, and therefore it itself is not broken.

 

[KurashiDragon]

Actually, I think armaldo would do bad in Rain. Apart from swift swim it doesn't really have a way to abuse Rain. Not only that but in rain it would have a 4x weakness to water That's a mute point though.

Sun Teams: Meh. Some beat me some don't. Some are annoying some arent. Sun teams are few and far between and they're not very good because of the common weaknesses between the abusers of said weather. Getting up stealth Rock cripples alot of sun abusers as is and as for the grass abusers of sun, they have a 4x weakness to Fire in sun. Sun itself is easy to get past. That's not to say it isn't good. It's got plenty of strengths and the abusers are powerful and common. However, in the end it really confuses me why people are saying that sun needs to go.

Sand: Another meh for me. It's a powerful weather but it's not ban worthy. It's more powerful than sun but it has very few abusers. Apart from some annoying hax on garchomps part, (Yesterday I battled a garchomp and got 2 misses that actually costed me that game.) and Exadrill nothing to bad. I can sorta understand where people are coming from though.

Rain: This is the face of the metagame. Rain is just terrible. They'd have to be a total newb for me to get past them and even then it's difficult. There are so many abusers it's sickening. The SwSw complex ban didn't help much if you ask me. In fact it actually made it worse because before that ban people had no idea Hurricane was such a threat or that Tornadus would be such a badass in rain. The most major problem Rain has is that it has to many abusers and those abusers are extremely difficult to defeat. As for counters the only counter I can see is using another weather which is just terrible for the metagame. I hate getting on the server because I see weather every other battle. Weather is becoming dominant and while it's not a major cause people need to use different types of weather in order to counter rain. If rain went there'd likely be a dramatic decrease in weather.

 

[alexwolf]

i also have to say that sun teams are still quite underrated...

sun teams have a big plus that rain teams doesn't(except the fact that chlorophyll users are much faster that rain abusers as of now)and that is the synergy between their members!

sun teams can have quite good synergy,having grass and fire types as main sun abusers,meaning that they can cover their weaknesses more easily than rain teams do...with putting only one poke that doesn't benefit from sun,meaning a bulky water(although some of them do like slowbro having flamethrower),you can have a very solid defensive core without any shared weaknesses...

rain teams only had kingdra and ludicolo that had different weaknesses from all the other typical rain abusers and that's why they were such a great asset to rain teams....but now that they can't use sw they don't see any use and this fact makes the teambuilding proccess for a rain team even harder...

the new rain abusers are mainly thundurus and tornadus,and to some degree dragonite,all of them being weak to sr....so in fact rain teams nowadays have even more sr weak pokes than sun teams have while still having troubles with their defensive core...

i am not saying sun teams are better but what i am saying is that a well build sun team has a very good chance(if not bigger that rain has to do so)to beat opposing rain teams for all the reasons i stated above and 'cause the rain setter is weak to grass,which is 1 of the 2 main attacking types of sun teams...

thunder and hurricane spam is fun for sure but so is to see this pokes lose 25% of their health every time they switch in or spamming your own powerful fire attacks with also having very good coverage options to beat the weather setters(like victini having fusion bolt and brick break,arcanine having close combat and wild bolt,hihidaruma having superpower,volcarona having bug buzz,chandelure having hp fighting and energy ball)...for me sun teams are almost in par with rain teams generally and when they fight against each other i think that sun has the advantage..!


p.s.also sun teams have a lot of powerful physical fire attacks unlike rain which has only waterfall...this comes very hand when you consider a major threat that is called reuniclus which gets ohkod by a lot of attacks in sun like choice band v-generate or flare blitz(from victini and darmanitan or even arcanine respectively) but doesn't get ohkod by the rain's abusers attacks(like specs thunders/hurricanes)

 

[Hallow]

Because even with team previews and a blueprint to beat them, rain teams are the most dominant force in the entire metagame. Drizzle takes terrible pokemon like Armaldo and Kabutops and turns them into some of the most fearsome sweepers in the game...while also buffing top tier pokemon like Thundurus, Ferrothorn and Dragonite. It's telling that even without the double Speed + double STAB abusers, Rain is still used everywhere. To me, the brokenness comes from my own personal opinion that there is no reason to NOT use rain. Even wasting a team slot on Politoed doesn't have enough drawbacks compared to the benefits it brings.

Just because I can personally beat something doesn't mean that it's not worthy of a ban, just like someone having difficulties doesn't make something broken.

Kabutops is not terrible. As for Armaldo, do you have any evidence of it ever being used in a broken manner in OU?

Besides, that combination isn't even permitted anymore, so it's a moot point. What's left of Drizzle is a top-tier playsrtyle, but it doesn't make any Pokemon broken, and therefore it itself is not broken.

You know what?

I think that when I'm back from my vacation and have access to PO, I'm going to make a team that focuses on abusing the opponent's rain, and then I shall distribute it under the posters in this thread, and we shall all use it and post our results here.

If rain is as great and prevalent as j7r and friends argue, then the more talented ones among us ought to have reasonable success with it, especially after modifying my no doubt amateurish build for their own purposes.

If Thorhammer et ceteri are right, we will all fail miserably because there is nothing to take advantage of.

What say you?

 

[SJCrew]

Most of Sun's problem is that the players most likely to use it don't know what they're doing. The real hipsters rep it on the daily and still don't get any respect. But I digress.

If you have a decent spinner, you can keep Ninetales alive the entire match without much problem, even on the most hardcore of opposing weather teams. The trick is knowing when you can get in and taking a few chances to reverse momentum. Like, say you fuck up and TTar gets in for free. You see Leftovers. Stay in and burn its ass while it sets up SR. And don't be afraid to switch Ninetales in on Toed either, since you're not weak to Water anymore. Canceling out Rain while Politoed is in is one of the best momentum reversals there is. You can even double switch straight out to a Chlorophyll sweeper for free setup.

And changing the subject for a moment, I think some of these 'weather balances each other' arguments are bull. Drizzle still sticks out like a sore thumb among weather teams, and it's pretty damn hard to go without one of the five main weather starters on your team. I mean, weatherless can be done, and has before, but don't kid yourself: you're just working harder, knowing Weather teams can still tramp you any moment.

That's why we see the same five or six Pokemon on a team when we click 'Find battle'. This is what the metagame is now. And I don't like it. As long as we have the power to change it, I will willingly exercise that right without regret. We're going to get to that golden metagame that we had at the end of Gen 4, but it's going to take time. Expect more of these threads and more of these circlejerk arguments about what we can and cannot do for balance, but in the end, we're getting a balanced metagame. Period.

 

[Yeah Galo Sengan]

i've been using a team that focuses on abusing the opponent's weather

the 2 main players are shell smash omastar and balloon heatran.

it works very well, but a pure rain team would probably get me a higher rating.

 

[PttP]

You know what?

I think that when I'm back from my vacation and have access to PO, I'm going to make a team that focuses on abusing the opponent's rain, and then I shall distribute it under the posters in this thread, and we shall all use it and post our results here.

If rain is as great and prevalent as j7r and friends argue, then the more talented ones among us ought to have reasonable success with it, especially after modifying my no doubt amateurish build for their own purposes.

If Thorhammer et ceteri are right, we will all fail miserably because there is nothing to take advantage of.

What say you?

dgf



and to the guy saying rain wasnt excellent because of sr, i get a shitload more scared when i see specs politoad who can fire off hydro pumps stronger than latios dm. besides you blatantly ignore other threats such as starmie and toxicroak which is very convenient.