OU Suspect Testing Round 1 Voter Identification and Suspect Nominations

Time's up! What did you think of the metagame? How did you fare? If you didn't see my post in the other suspect thread, I lowered the req from 1500 to 1400, which around 50 accounts hit... but are YOU one of them?

This thread serves two purposes:

First, if you passed the 1400 mark on any of your accounts, please post to identify. You don't have to identify all of your accounts if you don't want to, but it would be pretty cool to see who was badass enough to get more than one alt passed the threshold. Remember, meeting rating reqs is all you need in order to vote, so you don't need to worry about any sort of paragraphs or anything like before. I took a screen shot of the ratings at exactly 12:00am, and here it is:

Midnight Ladder Screen Shot (open) Midnight Ladder Screen Shot (close)

If you didn't pass the 1400 mark, but believe you should be allowed to vote, I will be allowing special permission applications. Please answer the following questions and PM your responses to: Philip7086, Aldaron, Earthworm, Gouki, Jibaku, and reachzero. Do not post your special permission application in this thread.

Please keep in mind that I do not plan on accepting very many special permission applications, seeing as ~50 users were able to meet the requirements. You should have a very compelling reason you didn't make it if you want to be accepted, and please don't waste my, or any of my colleagues' time if you don't. Note: a compelling reason is not "I'm obviously good enough, as demonstrated by my DPPt success stories". In fact, such a claim is irrelevant, considering that this is a brand new game. Instead, we want to read about your understanding of the metagame, and things of that nature. Prove to us that you're knowledgeable enough to vote.

Second, even if you did not qualify to vote, you may post suspect nominations in this thread. Please do not respond to other users' nominations, as that would just clutter this thread up with useless arguing. Use the other thread if you want to argue about suspects. Users who do not follow this rule are at risk of getting a forum warning. When posting nominations, please keep these things in mind:

1. For the first time ever, we are allowing people to nominate abilities for a ban vote. If you nominate an ability, keep in mind that it will be banned on all Pokemon who get it. If a Pokemon only has one ability and that ability gets banned, said Pokemon will also effectively be banned (at least, until its secondary ability is released in Dream World).
2. You may not nominate an ability + Pokemon combo.
3. Remember that you may also nominate current Uber Pokemon to bring down into OU for testing. If these Pokemon get voted down, they will automatically be suspect to a vote after the next round to determine if they should stay OU or not.
4. You are not required to cater your nomination to any of the three 4th gen characteristics of an Uber. All we are looking for in these nominations are sound logic and nomination popularity.
5. There is no minimum length per nomination; if you get your thoughts across, and you show good reasoning, that's all we need to see.

If we believe one suspect directly impacted another's performance, we will purposefully not accept the weaker nomination so that the Pokemon can be tested without its partner in crime to see if it's broken on its own. Also, in terms of voting order, ability votes will be held before Pokemon votes, in case one Pokemon is only broken due to another Pokemon's ability.

I'm Golden Sun Duh

Confirming that I am TobesMcGobes.

identifying as drumrolllll

JabbaTheGriffin and Gordon Bombay


now here come da noms (gonna be short because i'm lazy)

Inconsistent - completely takes the game out of the hands of the player. sometimes luck is irrelevant too since eventually it will balance it out and if you get it in in a good position you're likely to get the boosts you need sooner or later. it's also insanely frustrating and that's no fun!

Skymin - bulkier than it looks, hits like a truck and fast as fuck combined with a 60% flinch move, a STAB base 120 move that has an 80% chance to lower special defense by 2 stages and a pretty sweet movepool puts skymin into "ridiculous" category of mons.

Drizzle - the amount of pokemon that can push the broken line with nonstop rain is just ridiculous (compared to say sand where i think there's 1 broken mon because of sand and one really good one). i think it'd be better to take it out at the source (drizzle) rather than going after specific mons.

Doryuuzu - the only broken mon in sand so i'd rather take that out. 600+ speed, nice attack, awesome typing, swords dance, stab eq. man this thing is a fucking annoying beast. rock slide is a really good compliment to a stab eq so i'm unwilling to overlook its brokenness because of a shitty offensive movepool.

Deoxys A & N - jesus christ deoxys-a hits like a fucking truck. the amount of safe switchins that can keep up with it for an entire battle is pitifully low. i'm grouping N in there because it's essentially the same thing with a tad more attack but can actually take a weak hit if need be.

Sleep moves - that's right, fuck it. gamefreak broke sleep mechanics. a good player using a sleep move is in most battles equivalent to using a high percentage ohko move because of the sleep recounter resetting when you switch out. it's terrible and makes pokemon that could be much easier to handle simply retarded because they get that initial sleep kill then get to do what makes them good on top of that. (phil not taking noms for this so i'm going to post a pr topic later to discuss this)

Sand Veil/Snow Cloak - just lumping snow cloak in there for posterity. sand veil is the real culprit. there's a reason evasion moves are banned. evasion is retarded. getting automatic evasion in the sand is ridiculous. i always felt we should have done something about this in gen 4. if you use a 100% move on a pokemon, that move should hit. simple as that.

Confirming as Valetta

Drizzle: Rain is hands down the best weather in the metagame. The problem with Drizzle is that there are to many rain abusers and it's nearly impossible to handle them. Manaphy has the reputation of being unstoppable in the rain, but frankly I think there are far worse Pokemon to face in the rain. Kingdra, Kabutops and Ludicolo are easily the top 3 rain sweepers are impossible to stop. Each of the rain sweepers have over 400 speed (making them them hard to revenge kill) and an additional STAB boost (making it next impossible to take a rain boosted Water attack) Initially I ran Magnezone to remove Nattorei (one rain's biggest checks) but I eventually removed it because rain sweepers could power through Nattorei. Between Specs Hydro Pump (which 3HKO all varients of Nattorei) from Kingdra, Low Kick from Kabutops and Focus Blast from Ludicolo Nattorei can hardly "wall" all rain teams. Manaphy itself is no slouch either, as the bulky Calm Mind-Rest + 2 attacks is also pretty broken. Manaphy can rest off
the damage dealt by attacks and continual cycle between Calm Mind and rest until it's maxed out. It can actually beat standard Nattorei 1 on 1 this way.Rain teams are just to strong for the standard metagame.

Shaymin-S: The single best pokemon in the metagame. Shaymin-S's combination of high speed, special attack, ability + moves to abuse said ability make it ridiculous to face. Switching into Shaymin-S is really hard, because not only is Seed Flare ridiculously powerful, it has an 80% chance of sharply dropping the targets Special Defense. Even Steel types will lose to Shaymin, because Air Slash has a 60% chance of flinching and is quite damaging after the Special defense drop. It can also run SubSeed to dismantle teams (either by Substitute + Leech seed stalling due to its insane speed or Seed Flare + Air Slash spamming) Shaymin-S can run circles around teams, and is just to strong for the standard metagame.

Darkrai: To start things off, due to gen 5's sleep mechanic change, Dark Void is nearly an instant kill move. Darkrai itself is quite the sweeper, with incredible offensive stats and Nasty Plot. Usually, Darkrai switch in, fire off a Dark Void to remove one of it's counters, setup a Nasty Plot and sweep. It gets unresisted coverage in Dark Pulse and Focus Blast and is quite hard to wall. Defensively, Darkrai isn't too shabby either and can easily take a powerful Mach Punch from the likes of Roopushin.

Wobbufet: Shadow Tag is still a broken ability and Wobbuffet is capable of abusing it to its maximum potential. It has the bulk to survive nearly any attack and OHKO with either of its counter moves. Wobbuffet also carries Encore which forces you too attack or useless repeat a non-attacking move making the trapped Pokemon setup fodder.
Note: I nominated Wobbufet as a whole because it's other ability (Telepathy) hasn't been released yet.

Deoxys-A & N: I lumped together because they're basically the same Pokemon. With it's unholy 180/180/150 offensive stats wide list of coverage moves and priority in the form of Extreme Speed, Deoxys-A is impossible to switch into. It can't switch into anything, but it only needs to come in on the revenge kill to secure 1, or 2 free kills. Deoxys-N is a weaker version of Deoxys-A, but it has the bulk to take an odd priority move making it nearly as effective as Deoxys-A.

Doryuuzu: A Pokemon with an ability that gives it 604 speed and base 135 Attack. It's movepool is lacking, but it has the bare essentials specifically Swords Dance and Rock Slide. If Doryuuzu manages to get a Swords Dance, it will sweep you because nothing can keep up with it's speed. It literally has only 1 hard counter in Gliscor, while checks like Skarmory (can't really threaten Doryuuzu / only phazes it) and Hitmontop (can't repeatedly switch into Earthquake) aren't enough to stop it. Balloon was the straw that broke the camel's back, as it gave Doryuuzu an unnatural ground immunity, giving it even more opportunities to set up and sweep teams.

Inconsistent: An ability that turns a battle into a game of chance. If an inconsistent user gets an early evasion boost or speed, it's basically gg. An evasion boost means that inconsistent user gets a free turn (or several depending on how high your evasion is) allowing the Inconsistent to potentially max out its stats. Inconsistent users can spam protect / sub until they are super bulky (making their subs impossible to break) or super powerful (capable of easily sweeping). Matches that were once in your favor can quickly turn into losses due to how stupidly broken this ability is. Inconsistent needs to be banned immediately.

I am CHOMP MODE.

Darkrai: In the last gen, sleep usually equaled a death. In this gen, sleep guarantees a death with the new sleep mechanics. That combined with the fact that it gets another turn to do whatever shit it wants (Nasty Plot/Substitute) just adds up to it being too strong.

Shaymin-S: Obviously it's just a game changing Pokemon. It has a shitload of utility, being able to beat Pokemon like Blissey with the SubLeech set, and being able to beat steel-type Pokemon like Magnezone with Earth Power. The flinch-hax is purely annoying and can turn the game out of direction. Like this one time I had a Magnezone against a scarfed Skymin using Air Slash - it flinched all 100% of Magnezone (with Leftovers)

Manaphy: Really, this is the only thing threatening about rain imo. To beat it you basically have to carry a faster Pokemon that can OHKO it or else you're a set-up fodder. It also causes stall to run some odd Pokemon to beat it like CB Garchomp or Specs Latios which is a bit unreasonable. Not really nominating Drizzle because rain without Manaphy is manageable and destroying a whole play style because of one Pokemon is not good.

Inconsistent: I really don't have to explain this one out. Inconsistent is basically Skymin x2000000000 and makes the game non-viable.

Doryuuzu: As many have already said, this is the most controversial Ubers nomination out of them all. The fact that it can break stall in 2 turns is just devastating. Also, you know, the fact that it can out-speed and kill everything (apart from like, Bronzong and Gliscor) makes it kinda a bitch too. And even then, with Balloon, its "counters" have to waste a valuable turn breaking its Balloon and watch it get a SD up and then tear a hole in their team. JUST TOO STRONG Q_Q

Deoxys A/N: It's strong as hell, fast as hell, has great coverage, what else does it need. The only real counters I can think of to these 2 Pokemon are Sp.Def Jirachi and Forretress and it's really not that hard to carry a Pokemon like Magnezone to clear out its counters for Deo to sweep again. Other than that the only real way to kill it is either priority or residential damage (MENCE FLASHBACK).

as one of the few/only people to qualify under 3 alts, i think my vote should count for exactly 5.26315789% of the total vote!!!!!!

i am blue sky noise, divinations and layla

Inconsistent: Definitely the most broken thing of the suspect testing. It introduces an element of luck that is incredibly unhealthy for the game, and it has the ability to change what would be a surefire loss into a win. Although many aspects of Pokemon can do this (a timely crit, a useful freeze, etc.), the difference here is magnitude of "game-breakingness". For instance, I don't think a single critical his has the ability to break down a team of six Pokemon barring very particular circumstances or unless the team is very poorly constructed. On the other hand, I'm sure many top-tier players have horror stories about leading 6-1 only to lose to Octillery who happened to nab an Evasion boost on its first Protect. Inconsistent is very unreliable, so it is not broken in the classic sense because one can't just spam it and win every game. However, the fact that Inconsistent has the ability to frequently put the entire outcome of a game on the dependency of a dice roll means it needs to go.

Shaymin-S: SubSeed Shaymin-S has virtually no counters. It can simply flinch its way past its best "checks" like Skarmory and Bronzong with Air Slash (which is made worse if they switch into Seed Flare) or simply outstall the likes of Blissey and Snorlax with Leech Seed. It is surprisingly bulky and hits incredibly hard thanks to its huge Special Attack, but what really sets it apart is its Speed. Being able to reach a Speed of 388 with no boost lets Shaymin-S to take advantage its SubSeeding ability as well as its ridiculous 60% Air Slash flinch rate to the fullest. Although it's a lesser problem, Seed Flare makes Shaymin-S even harder to counter, as 68% the time its counters will have to try and beat it with -2 Special Defense. If that's not bad enough, Shaymin-S can outpace almost everything with Choice Scarf, making it even harder to revenge kill. Although its BST is 'only' 600, its stats are perfectly placed for it to abuse its amazing movepool and ability.

Darkrai: Darkrai has a ridiculous Special Attack, blistering Speed and an amazing movepool, making it extremely difficult to deal with. Dark Void is one of the best moves in the game, and it almost always gives Darkrai the opportunity to set up a Nasty Plot after it has put an opponent to sleep. The new Sleep mechanics have only made it better, as it nets Darkrai a pseudo-kill unless its opponent is ballsy enough to stay in and try to wake up, which won't happen 2/3rds of the time. I also believe that the team preview has made Darkrai better as well, because it gives Darkrai an opportunity to come into the game without switching into an attack. If the opponent's lead is slower, then they've essentially lost a Pokemon for the rest of the game thanks to Dark Void, and they then need to figure out how to deal with the prospect of facing a +2 Special Attack Darkrai the next turn.

Deoxys-A / Deoxys: I'm grouping them together like most other people for reasons already mentioned. Life Orb Deoxys-A's Psycho Boost hits like a truck, and the only Pokemon that can truly switch into it safely are Dark-types, who promptly get destroyed by Superpower the next turn. Between Psycho Boost / Superpower / Thunderbolt / Ice Beam, Deoxys-A hits just about every thing super effectively, and the power behind all its attacks is absurd thanks to its amazing stats. If that weren't enough, its Speed puts it in an elite tier of Pokemon that naturally outpace manly commonly Scarfed Pokemon. Beating Deoxys-A usually relies on sacrificing Pokemon to bring in a priority user because nothing can safely switch into its attacks without potentially fainting. If that's not the definition of uncounterable then I don't know what is.

Confirming Bad Ass.

Shaymin-s: The most broken set is probably the SubSeed set, followed by Scarf and Sub + 3 Attacks. The SubSeed set is relatively bulky, can stand some assaults (max Attack Roobushin is dealing around 35% with Drain Punch to 0/0 Shaymin-s.), and can heal back a lot of damage taken using Leech Seed and its blazing speed to Air Slash Flinch. The speed is exactly what makes Shaymin-s too much. It can't be revenge killed without using Ice Shard, Deoxys, Jolteon, Crobat, or a Choice Scarf User. Other moves require it to be weakened before it can be revenge killed (e.g. Bullet Punch). Then it has the ability to use Earth Power and HP Fire, halve your Special Attack with a 180 BP move and then flinch you 60% of the time with 120 Special Attack, and you have an Uber.

Inconsistent: The definition of broken. You could have absolutely no skill and win with this. There is no preparing for it, really. I've used Calm Mind / Refresh Latias to beat Inconsistent Octillery, and I STILL lost. The only way to truly prepare is to have some ridiculous stuff like Haze / Toxic Spikes Tentacruel, or some other ridiculous thing. This is a no-brainer.

Darkrai: One of the worst things to deal with, easily. To start, you have Sleep which has now been upgraded from "Hey, this is great!" to "Fuck, this guy's out for the match." And Darkrai has the best Sleep move outside of Spore. Base 125 Speed means that it is very likely that it's getting off a Dark Void. After something of yours is slept, Darkrai can use Nasty Plot to boost his 135 base attack. Then it has near-perfect coverage in Focus Blast and Dark Void. Reasonable bulk also helps; Roobushin can't OHKO with Mach Punch.

Deoxys-A and -N: Grouping these together like Jabba because they are the same Pokemon in essence. Take two of the fastest Pokemon in the game, give them 150/150 or 180/180 offenses, every coverage move imaginable, and Extremespeed. This is Deoxys. With the right moves, he can 2HKO everything in OU. Thunderbolt beats bulky Waters, Superpower takes down the rocks and steels, Ice Beam fucks up Grass and Ground types, and just as a little icing on the cake you have Psycho Boost, which can nearly OHKO Doryuuzu. Doryuuzu, with 110 base HP (albeit low Special Defense) and a resistance to it is nearly OHKOd by it. You really can't stop this thing late game.

Deoxys-S: This is totally different from -A and -N. Since it actually has bulk (defenses equal to Swampert, bar the poor HP), it can almost always lay down Stealth Rocks and then a layer of Spikes to boot since it is the fastest Pokemon in the game. And since it is the fastest Pokemon in the game, it can run one of the best clean-up / revenge killing sets ever. Thunderbolt / Ice Beam / Superpower / Extremespeed or Psycho Boost or HP Fire cleans up arguably better than anything else in the game, and can revenge kill anything bar Swift Swimmers / Sand Throwers. Seriously, you need to have base 105 speed, a speed boosting nature, and 252 EVs to outspeed this at +1. That equates to...not much. It even outspeeds ScarfChomp. Add to this great coverage and modest attacking stats, and it becomes a monster.

Drizzle: This ability is insane. While most people justify it being OU because Politoed is mediocre, they are wrong. Politoed itself is an average Pokemon, but I've seen some people utilize it really well on rain teams with bulky Specs sets, Scarf sets, Hypnosis and Toxic sets, and Perish Song sets. Politoed is not dead weight at all -- I can't tell you how many Shaymin-s I've had Ice Beamed by Scarf Politoed, or Nattorei KOd by Specs Focus Blast, or Latias crippled by Hypnosis or Toxic. But the real reason Drizzle is broken is the abusers. Manaphy becomes unbearable with no-risk Rest, and Kingdra is even worse than Doryuuzu. Specs Kingdra can 3HKO Nattorei in the rain, and can outspeed Deoxys-s. Most everything else is 0 or 2HKOd by Specs Surf or Hydro Pump. It breaks multiple Pokemon; hell, even Kabutops and Ludicolo are suspect under infinite rain. It eventually boils down to banning the four or so Pokemon that become broken with Rain, or banning Rain itself. No-brainer.

This contains some of my thoughts as well.

I am Schoolmaster

Here are my suspect nominations:

Doryuuzu: Absolutely ridiculous as a sweeper, requiring every competitively viable team to carry a hard counter. Even then, it can use items to eliminate certain checks and counters: Balloon and Chople Berry get past Hippowdon and Roobushin, Life Orb lets it beat defensive Garchomp and offensive Rotom-W, leftovers helps it beat Skarmory, etc. However, the most dangerous part of Doryuuzu is not the ability to 6-0 any team without one of the few dedicated counters that exist, but its ability to rapid spin and in the process beat stall by itself. Not a single useful ghost can safely block rapid spin against Doryuuzu. Burungeru, the most common ghost on stall teams, takes 81.9% - 96.8% from an adamant +2 earthquake if it runs 252/252+. That's a KO roughly 50% of the time with rocks, and 100% of the time with rocks and sandstorm. The more common specially defensive spreads are easily OHKOed. 252/252+ Spiritomb takes 82.9% - 97.7%; again, a guaranteed OHKO after rocks and sandstorm. While evo stone Dusclops and physically defensive Desukaan can both take a +2 earthquake and burn with will-o-wisp, both are frankly poor choices on any team and their non-existence on the top of the ladder shows this. Compounding this problem is that rapid spin is not used by many Doryuuzu's; first, the stall player must determine that Doryuuzu does in fact carry rapid spin, which can only be done by knowing the other player's movesets or by letting it spin once. If an enemy Doryuuzu spins away rocks and some number of layers of spikes and toxic spikes, the stall team is already crippled. Doryuuzu quad-resists rock and doesn't take damage from spikes thanks to balloon (a glitch on PO has balloon pokemon affected by grounded hazards, which will hopefully be fixed soon), meaning that it can switch in on Blissey, Skarmory, and many other classic stall-oriented pokemon and spin the hazards away while taking minimal damage. The threat of a swords dance sweep also means that once the stall player knows that Doryuuzu carries rapid spin, they still can't switch in their spinblocker without risking Doryuuzu SDing on the switch and inflicting major damage on their team. Most of Dory's hype has been related to his amazing sweeping capacity, but its ability to rapid spin without contest is what pushes it over the line to uber.

Deoxys-A: Because of its speed, power, and coverage, the only way to beat this is by priority. Even then, no priority users can switch in more than once except for random, borderline uncompetitive pokemon like Spiritomb. Even if the priority user switches into a resisted hit, many are still KOed by extremespeed after the residual damage. If you don't have priority, the only way to beat Deoxys-A is with LO recoil or poison. The only redeemable quality of Deoxys-A is that it cannot switch into any attack except seismic toss, but good players find a way around that by abusing u-turn and volt change, as well as making smart switches. Absolutely broken and needs to be dealt with now.

Manaphy: Unless you have a faster pokemon with a SE STAB attack or can change the weather, manaphy will 6-0 you. Even then, they can't safely switch in without taking a huge hit (Manaphy has nothing to lose by trying to hit that Skymin/Borotorosu on the switch with an ice beam). When things couldn't look worse, Manaphy can run certain sets to take care of its common checks; wacan/rindo berries cut Manaphy's checks in half, bulky defensive spreads make Nattorei set-up bait, and use of CM over TG means specs Latios can no longer beat it. Either carry two checks to Manaphy or risk losing whenever a Manaphy set comes by that can deal with your check.

Darkrai: With the changes in sleep mechanics, a sleeping pokemon will probably never wake up. These same mechanics also make resttalking almost non-viable except to take on Darkrai. Furthermore, nasty plot variants and sub variants have completely different checks, meaning that unless you're using something like scarf sleep talk Heracross, the switch after you absorb sleep will be a 50/50 guess. Switching Scizor into a sub version or switching Blissey into a nasty plot version means Darkrai is guaranteed to take out another pokemon aside from the sleeping one. Definitely needs to go.

Confirming myself, wilson46

Anyway, for nominations:

Darkrai: Combined with the 80% accurate sleep move Dark Void, blistering speed and special attack stats, and the change in sleep mechanics, equals beast that is Darkrai. As many other people have said, sleep is like the equivalent of death in this gen. If it has slept one of your pokes, you basically have to switch out, and by then it has set up a sub, set up with Nasty Plot, or hit your incoming pokemon hard. I've seen choice scarf leads that will outspeed almost everything (including Deoxys formes and non- scarf Skymin), and disable you with Dark Void. Ice Beam (which makes it great at killing dragons, even with +1 speed with choice scarf) and even Psychic variants started showing up too. Even if the sleep mechanics weren't changed, I would still nominate Darkrai for uber.

Shaymin- S: With 127 base speed that bests even Darkrai, really solid special attack, and its movepool and ability push Skymin over the edge. To go more in depth, Skymin has Air Slash and Seed Flare upgraded from Serene Grace, which makes fighting it mostly based on luck. This means that even though you might have, say a special defensive Nattorei as a wall, Skymin can easily break through that with flinches and SpDef drops. The premier special wall from last gen, Blissey, is easily taken down by its SubSeed set, the most annoying set of them all. Seriously, if it gets a sub up, you basically have to sacrifice something, or else it will out stall you with Sub +Lefties recovery + Leech Seed + Air Slash flinches. Scarf Shaymin - S is also quite a problem, outspeeding many things such as neutral natured Kingdra in the rain. All in all, the this thing has to be banned,

Inconsistent: Inconsistent is the ability that everyone loathes and wants gone. It's very easy to see why, because it revolves around luck, to fight and to use. To hope to beat it, you basically have to resort to using stuff like Toxic Spikes Tentacruel, phazing (which would fail in last poke situations), or Perish Song. As of late, I've seen competent Inconsistent abusers use things to cover their weaknesses, as in a Toxic Spikes Tentacruel of their own (to lay up the deadly Toxic Spikes of their own, helping them out stall you and absorb the ones you may have laid). I mean evasion combined with all the other potential boosts the poke may get is just too ridiculous.

Deoxys A/N: The complete powerhouses of the test, they dismantle all sorts of teams. Their attack is off the charts and their speed aides them greatly, outspeeding some slower scarfers as well. Offensive teams are easily taken down by their speed, coverage, and power. Stall teams also succumb to thier power. And you may say that the defensive steel types like Jirachi, or the priority users like Scizor stop them. Well, I've seen many times that Magnezone is paired with Deoxys, making checking it even harder and more frustrating.

Latios: Many times, Latios' power has been shown to be far too powerful. Just by slapping on a pair of Specs, or giving it a Scarf, it turns into a powerful wrecking ball, or a speedy fighter plane, capable of decimating teams. Specs Draco Meteor is just ridiculous, easily shaving off about a third of Nattorei's health at once (correct me if I'm wrong on that), and OHKOing mostly everything that doesn't resist it. Blissey, whom would normally wall Latios, is not nearly as common as it was back in Gen 4, due to the prevalence of the new fighting types (Roobushin and Zuruzukin, for example), and with Latios' tricks like STAB Psycho Shock and Trick, Blissey is not safe. It has been known to run Hidden Power Fire as well; a quick kill to any Nattorei or Scizor that dare switch in anticipating Draco Meteor.

Shadow Tag: Pretty much self - explanatory, as said already. With Shadow Tag, Wobbuffet (Wynaut too), is able to trap anything and either kill it with CounterCoat, or Encore it to give another Pokemon a free set up turn. Yes, even with Encore's nerf, it still has the power to support a set-up pokemon, and one costly turn may be fatal (in the case of something like SD Garchomp, DD Ononokusu). Pretty broken, because there's nothing for you to do once the poke with Shadow Tag is in.

i am prismism and ddiamondd.

it's me, dbolt

confirming as one of few people to MAN UP and not park their asses at 1400

LUCKY

im hanke

Nominations:

Inconsistent: inconsistent is based on luck, with the combination Protect + Substitute can try get +2/+4/+6 evasion, speed, spA etc etc everytime you want. Just a bit of luck you can win a game with this ability.

Shaymin-S: Great offensives bases and serence grace helps a lot moves like Air Slash (giving 60% to flinch anything) and Seed Flare (80% to drop spD in 2 stages), Subseed set is really annoying to face, thanks to 127 base speed :/.

Darkrai: Thanks to the new sleep mechanics, now darkrai can easily sweep because dark void now can probably unusable a pkmn and gives a free turn to sweep.

Deoxys-A: Not much to say, can OHKO or 2HKO everything in the metagame, able to use extremespeed, great offensives bases, great movepool, works well as lead or mixed sweeper.

Doryuuzu: Nice ability giving 604 speed in sands, great offensives bases, able to use sword dance, Stab for earthquake etc etc. That thing is ridiculous after SD can easily sweep and depending on item(ballon or life orb) doryuuzu can be annoying to try to defeat.

record ruiner

My noms:

Deoxys-A,N Lumping them together due to their extremely similar stats, in a very offensive metagame Deoxys stands above the rest of the Pokemon, it outspeeds and outhits everything bar scarfers, and it can even fix that issue with Extremespeed. It can OHKO and 2HKO most everything in the metagame, and because of its speed and attacking power there are no safe switch-ins, Deoxys has to be revenged to be taken out.

Shaymin-S Unlike other luck based Pokemon like Jirachi and Togekiss that require Scarf to be their best, Shaymin can forgo the Scarf because of its speed, in tandem with Substitute it becomes very difficult to hit Shaymin with 60% chance to flinch every Pokemon slower than it, making even its "counters" not completely surefire counters.

Darkrai With the new Sleep mechanics putting a Pokemon to sleep becomes much more beneficiary, and combined with Bad Dreams a Pokemon can stay in and take damage each turn while Darkrai is free to set up or switch out and possibly never wake up during the match. Each version of Darkrai has entirely different checks and makes it a difficult Pokemon to completely counter.

Drizzle Gives an automatic +2 Speed +1 Attack/Special Attack to any Pokemon with Swift Swim, no other weather provides a boost that great, and due to it being infinite, the only way to prevent those boosts is to change the weather. It makes other Pokemon suspect, but the first step is removing the instant and auto Rain.

Inconsistent Inherently luck based, users can select Protect and hope for a certain boost, most usually Evasion. Unlike Double Team and Minimize, the user does not need to attack and can idly gain Evasion boosts, unlike Brightpowder, the user can retain Leftovers and gain HP every turn it is not hit, and unlike Sand Veil/Snow Cloak, it doesn't require other factors to be effective.

My alt is Fucking Rain.

Deoxys A, N - They hit hard and have incredible supereffective coverage. There's like 3 things that can live a hit from it (natt is out if Deoxys has hp fire), and it has extremespeed if it feels like it to boot. Deo-N is less broken, but broken for the same reason.

Skymin - Has no counters, from sub seeding to flinching it to death with air slash. The level of luck it adds to the game is bad too, but mostly it's just too fast/strong.

Darkrai - 125 speed, nasty plot, the second most accurate sleep move in the game, near unresisted coverage... it's too good.

Drizzle - I think Manaphy is not broken without rain, and Rain is still broken with Manaphy gone. Rain gives a +2 speed and +1 attack/special attack on their stab to any swift swim mons, which is rediculous. Rain is too good. So is sun, but I'm not 100% on that and so will wait for the next vote.

Inconsistent - Outside of the fact that it's going to give you all +6s, it goes against evasion clause, except it's better, because you can use protect and get boosts instead of using minimise and praying. Really contradictory, and broken anyways.

Shadow Tag - Since I can vote to ban abilities, why not. This ability is impossible to counter, which destroys the concept of competitive pokemon. The reasons it was broken in gen 4 still apply.

Editing in that Doryuuzu shouldn't be countered by trying to outrun it. I have run a gliscor on every one of my teams... because it's an amazing pokemon otherwise. I'm going to point at this post as my reasoning, as it sums up my opinion for not thinking it is broken. http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3163426&postcount=183

stvn would be me. I also played some more after the deadline and got another account (Vikstrom) above the 1400 mark...

nominations:

Shaymin-s: Shaymin-s has everything in its favor. The highest speed in the metagame bar deoxys-a, jolteon and aerodactyl (and the latter two aren't really used), great stabs that are boosted greatly by serene grace, considerable bulk (considering its offensive prowess) etc. There is no safe switch-in to an offensive shaymin-s, between its coverage moves, sdef drops and flinches. Not much else to say really - everyone that played knows how powerful this thing is.

Darkrai: With the new sleep mechanics, darkrai is guaranteed to "kill" at least one pokemon and, if it wasn't enough, any decent player will know when is the right time to attack or nasty plot, making it even easier to cripple another team member of the opposing side. This is too much.

Deoxys-A: Deo-a hits so hard it's ridiculous. Standard CB scizor takes 97% of it's health if psycho boost plus extremespeed both roll minimum damage and if SR is on the field. That's comming from naive 4atk/252satk/252speed LO, which to be honest is only used to speed tie other deoxys-a. A +satk version or one with more attack guarantees the kill all the time. I know deoxys can't switch into anything, however it's not very difficult to find opportunities with u-turn or double switches. Nothing bar jirachi or metagross can switch into his psycho boosts. This seriously needs to be banned.

Manaphy: I'm in the group that thinks manaphy is what pushes rain over the top. Kingdra, kabutops and ludicolo all have good checks (water absorbers, nattorei, priority, blissey), not to mention that rain balances all that sandstorm dominance, which i think is on par with rain itself because of doryuzuu and randorosu. That said, manaphy in rain is a whole new level. It's easy to weaken its counters with rain boosted surfs or ice beams (to catch latios/skymin), come back later and start boosting with tail glow/calm mind - both are just as effective - and resting off all the damage with its huge bulk (it doesn't really need any satk investiment to do its thing).

Inconsistent: This is like evasion and OHKO moves. On steroids. Inconsistent completely takes the game out of the players hands, and there isn't really anything you can do to prevent that, besides poor moves like haze and clear smog. Even then, you aren't really guaranteed to beat them. It isn't competitive at all and therefore should be banned, since this is a competitive game/community.

Confirming as GHZ with 1410

also I'm ala at 1376 >_>

locopoke

I'm unsurprisingly The_Chaser.

Hey guess what...

Im idiotfrommars and IFM

And for suspect nominations.

Shaymin-S: The combination of its outstanding speed and ability coupled with it's two powerful STAB's make skymin too much for the metagame. It can decimate teams with the SpD drops coming from Seed Flare and the flinches from air slash. Even if you have it completely walled it is still able to hax away it's checks with air slash. Shaymin-S seems to powerful for the metagame in my opinion.

Darkrai: With sleeps upgrade this gen a sleeping poke is as good as dead. Darkrai is almost assured to cripple one poke and heavily dent another. In my opinion Darkrai is too much for the metagame.

Inconsistent: I think that inconsistent should become the first ability to be banned. The ability can turn a 6-0 decimation around through pure luck. It doesn't matter how skilled a player is, inconsistent takes the game right out of their hands and is harmful to the state of the metagame.

Deoxys-A: The combination of his overpowered attack and special attack and his blistering speed leave Deoxys-A a overpowered threat capable of OHKOing almost any poke with the right move. Their is almost no safe switch in, and it can outspeed priority with its powerful extremespeed. I haven't faced enough Deo-N so I don't feel right nominating it yet, but Deo-A is clearly overpowered in my mind

Confirming as XxWafflezxX

Oh and Wafflez is also me and was awesome enough to get the all mighty rating of 1337, thus i am better then all you noobs :D

Nomination Time..
Skymin:It has greatly placed stats making it incredibly fast and hits very hard.Its the fastest Leech Seeder in the game and the Sub Leech Seed set is extreemely hard to take down due to Shaymins great speed,Moderate bulk and ability to flinch the opponent forcing him to do nothing for a valuable turn 60% of the time as Shaymin slowly wears out the opponent.The Scarf set can outspeed everything in the game excluding weather boosted sweepers and has good coverage.The LO set hits extreemely hard and is virtually impossible to switch into.The main reason Skymin is broken is the "Hax" it brings into the game.A lot of special walls like Blissey dont dare switch into him because 80% of the time there S.def is gooing to get Halfed and then get dented very hard.Even if something can survive through that the Shaymin user can always flinch his way through with an amazing 60% Air slash flinch chance.The combination of these factors make Shaymin far too powerful for OU.

Manaphy: Manaphy is one of those reasons that Rain is such a destructive and powerful playstyle.Last gen he was banned for only having the ability to sweep for 8 turns but now with perma rain he has become far more destructive.Manaphy has a great bulk and movepool to set up on a large majority of foes.But the main reason this thing has to go is Rest.Rest in Conjunction with Hydration is effectively a 1 turn heal that also cures all status making it arguably the most reliable recovery move in the game.Due to great Bulk and typing Manaphy is very hard to Ohk0 thus when combined with Rest it can effective stall out a very large portion of the metagame.It can easily set up on a large majority of threats and proceed to sweep with +6 Special attack.Its only that 1 turn heal that makes Manaphy such a sheer terror but thats enough to make him one of the most overpowered pokes in the game.

Inconsistence:Basicly this takes the game out of the players hand and puts it in the control of the all mighty RNG.Even a player with very little skill can beat a strong player by getting a few good boosts and it takes a lot of skill out of the game and increases luck.This is clearly not the characteristics of a desirable metagame and should be banned for pretty much exactly similar reasons to Double Team and Ohk0 moves.

Darkrai:Darkrai is a dangerous combination of Power,Speed and Bulk.Darkrai pocesses the second most accurate sleep move in the game which can effectively take out one of the opponents pokes due to the change in the sleep mechanics.In the meantime Dakrai can easily get a Sub up or set up with Nasty Plot and almost always take out another member of the team.It has a great variety in sets such as Nasty Plot,Standard (Im not really sure what else to call it >_>),Sub Puncher,Scarf etc which makes it incredibly hard to even have a reliable check.All these reasons cause Darkrai to be far too powerful and i think should be banned.

Deoxys-A: Arguably the most powerful poke in the game and processing the highest offensive stats of 180 in both sides of the dammage spectrum.It also has a blistering 150 base speed which is far above average then any average sweeper.It has a great movepool to abuse those stats with great coverage.Its almost impossible to switch in to and can virtually 2hk0 everything in the game.Even when resisted Deoxys' Psycho Boost do insane amounts of dammage and can has the potential to single handedly destroy teams.Unfortunately its rather fragile but with priority of its own it can somewhat solve this minor problem.Deoxys-A is the deffinition of a Fast Frail Sweeper and is simply far too devistating for the game.

Well thats about all i had to say..

Confirming that GoldenGopher is my alt.

Shaymin-S: Skymin is one of the fastest pokemon in OU currently. It may appear fragile, but if it comes in on a resisted attack, it's a nightmare to take out, especially if it uses Substitute. There's no hard counter to it. The two most used attacks by it are Air Slash and Seed Flare. Combined with teh ability of Serene Grace, Air Slash not only gets STAB, but also has a 60% Flinch rate (think haxrachi but faster and more powerful). Seed Flare (with Serene Grace) has an 80% chance to lower SpDef, making it even easier for Skymin to eliminate the threat the next turn. Most SubSkymin run Leftovers, healing the ever-hard-to-kill flying hedgehog. It pretty much takes a Scarfer, something in weather with boosted speed, or one of the few faster pokemon to take it out, because not much can survive one attack from Skymin, and almost nothing can survive two attacks and still reliably take it out. I've seen SpDef Nattorei flinched to death from full HP on multiple occasions. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see how broken Skymin really is.

Inconsistent: Octillery finally gets usage in OU! Unfortunately, lots of people ragequit at his sight during preview teams. Why? Inconsistent: the luckiest most haxridden ability in the metagame. Switch him in on something that can't hurt him much, set up a sub, and then switch between Protect and Substitute and watch your stats go up and down, but mostly up. He takes all skill out of the game, because it's impossible to control which stats are affected. Even his evasion can get boosted. If he gets the right boosts, it's gg as he'll be either too defensive to take out, to evassive to hit, or too offensive to handle. As BadAss said, I've also seen him take out CM/Refresh Latias. Relying on luck isn't a great strategy to win. Inconsistent removes all skill from the game while it is out.

Darkrai: One move makes Darkrai broken: Dark Void. With the new Sleep mechanics, it's essentially a free KO provided Dark Void hits. This, coupled with the fact that he's bulky, has a very impressive SpAtk which can be boosted with Nasty Plot, and has base 125 Speed, which is one of the fasted in the metagame. Rooboshin's Mach Punch can't OHKO Darkrai. He has near perfect coverage with Dark Pulse and Focus Blast (not including any filler move), so everything is threatened by him. Not much can withstand his attacks. Out-speeding him is another story, as only seven pokemon (nonboosted) can outspeed him. All these things, combined with the free KO in Dark Void, push him over the top.

Deoxys-A: He has the highest Attack and SpAtk stats in all of pokemon and is only out-sped by Deoxys-S and Ninjask. With such high stats, he can run mixed sets and will hit like a truck even without EV investment. His movepool is so big it's not even funny. His most common set is BoltBeam, Superpower, ExtremeSpeed. This set has perfect coverage and ExSpeed lets him deal with priority users, who give him tons of trouble as they can easily rip through his defenses. With his power, Life Orb isn't even needed. Many people run Focus Sash and use him as a lead. He can take any hit, and will hit twice as his ExSpeed will go before any priority. Not every team uses entray hazards, so some can even get away with Sash non-lead, which is still as deadly, but riskier to pull off. A smart player will not keep him in to take a priority hit, and will switch him out and use him again, causing further demolition to opposing teams. I am not nominating Deoxys-N as the power drop does make a difference, and I want to test him without Deoxys-A around. I personally have not faced the Deoxys-N form.

Manaphy: Manaphy is the main reason to use Rain teams. He gets healed instantly from any status. This grants him to use Rest as a full HP recovery move in one turn, as he'll wake up from sleep at the end of the turn. Combine this with Tail Glow, which raises his SpAtk by three stages. Even without rain, his STAB Surf will hit like a truck. Round off his coverage with either Ice Beam or Energy Ball, and you have a fearsome sweeper who can't get statused. The only hope to beat him is to out-speed him. He's quite bulky with all base 100 stats, and can even take a super effective hit or two before fainting. This means that those who do out-speed him will need to have their own special bulk to withstand his attacks. Banning Rain will not fix the problem of Manaphy being broken. People will just start using Damp Rock and he'll be back, for either five or eight turns, to the same menace that he currently is.

I don't get to vote. But I'll nominate stuff nonetheless.

Manaphy: I don't think that rain itself is broken. Despite the carnage that Kingdra can bring, physical variants can be walled by a number of pokemon, including the ever-common Nattorei. Special variants lack perfect counters, but their inability to set up hinders them. And other than Kingdra, what Swift Swimmer is even questionable? I say that it is not rain which is broken, but Manaphy.

Skymin: There is no pokemon which can answer to Skymin. Even revenge-killing becomes near-impossible with a good player. But this is not like with Shuckle. Skymin is capable of flinching or lowering the stats of every pokemon which can threaten it until they are overwhelmed. If it's an offensive threat, the 120 base Sp Atk can often score a quick KO. On defensive threats, a 60% flinch chance mixed with -2 Sp Def can finish them off quickly enough. The difference between Skymin and other Sene Grace pokemon is this: it's more powerful than all of them, faster, and has the move called Seed Flare in combination. It's simply too much for this metagame to handle.

Darkrai: Darkrai forces you to sac a pokemon when it comes into play, no matter whether it switches into a counter or not. You have to decide which of your pokemon you want to become death fodder via Dark Void. And then you must immediately switch again, to prevent being set up on. It'll either get a free +2 or a free Sub. At which point it can wreak havoc. It is far superior to Breloom, having a base speed of 125. This allows it to be revenged much less easily. Darkrai is an auto-KO when it appears, even if you build your team with it in mind. No more Darkrai.

Inconsistent: This ability means that with one free turn, you can mess up an entire match. If you get one turn to Sub, then you can Protect/Sub every turn for a total of 15 turns, assuming it carries Leftovers. This results in a pokemon with a net stat gain of +15. It can and will sweep your team at that point. Not to mention the turns you can add to the original 15, courtesy of Evasion boosts. It is entirely based on luck and removes all skill from a match. Either you get lucky and it gets the worst boosts 2-3 times in a row, or you carry some absurd pokemon for the sole purpose of PP stalling it out. Inconsistent is broken, and that's all I have to say about that.

Wobbuffet was a tough choice for me. I chose not to nominate it due to the nerf of Encore. But we'll see how it goes in R2