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OU Suspect Testing Round 1 Voter Identification and Suspect Nominations
- Thread starter Philip7086
- Start date
- Status
I would like to nominate Manaphy as a suspect. It is well above-average bulk, access to tail glow which can maximize its special attack in two turns (along with +3 being pretty extreme for one turn), an immunity to status during rain which allows it to have a 100% healing move with no drawbacks. It also has an excellent offensive and defense typing, and very solid type coverage with attacks if it needs it. It's overall power level seems to be much higher than almost all pokemon allowed in OU which if my reason for nominating it as a suspect.
In my experiences, manaphy was the problem and not the rain itself as I found all other rain sweepers to be much more manageable.
edit: beaten
In my experiences, manaphy was the problem and not the rain itself as I found all other rain sweepers to be much more manageable.
edit: beaten
Super Mario Bro
All we ever look for
Confirming I'm Super Mario Bro at 1407.
Nominations:
Shaymin-S's substitute sets are appallingly broken. I've seen things like Politoed and Roobushin stay in just to prevent it from setting up a substitute. It frequently beats its supposed "counters", like Blissey and Nattorei, because of untimely special defense drops and flinch hax. Overall, it brings a new sense of luck (or ill-fortune for some) into the game that should not be included.
Deoxys-A's counters are few and far between. Often, the best way of dealing with this thing is letting something die, and revenging it with your Choice Scarf Pokemon. The only problem with this method is that it can simply switch out of your revenge killer and wreck havoc on your team later! Deoxys-A's sheer power and speed prevent it from being a viable OU Pokemon.
Inconsistent is a game of chance, which should be frowned upon in the world of Pokemon. If Octillery gets an Evasion or Speed boost right off the bat, the results can be gamebreaking, and I saw this thing completely wreck some of the most fearsome sweepers in OU by just spamming Substitute + Protect. It's a broken ability, and should go to the graveyard, where it rightfully belongs!
Nominations:
Shaymin-S's substitute sets are appallingly broken. I've seen things like Politoed and Roobushin stay in just to prevent it from setting up a substitute. It frequently beats its supposed "counters", like Blissey and Nattorei, because of untimely special defense drops and flinch hax. Overall, it brings a new sense of luck (or ill-fortune for some) into the game that should not be included.
Deoxys-A's counters are few and far between. Often, the best way of dealing with this thing is letting something die, and revenging it with your Choice Scarf Pokemon. The only problem with this method is that it can simply switch out of your revenge killer and wreck havoc on your team later! Deoxys-A's sheer power and speed prevent it from being a viable OU Pokemon.
Inconsistent is a game of chance, which should be frowned upon in the world of Pokemon. If Octillery gets an Evasion or Speed boost right off the bat, the results can be gamebreaking, and I saw this thing completely wreck some of the most fearsome sweepers in OU by just spamming Substitute + Protect. It's a broken ability, and should go to the graveyard, where it rightfully belongs!
if im able to nominate my nomination will be
Deoxys form (every form due to buffed magic mirror for taunt)
Skymin
Doryuuzu(arguable since he bring massive power to SS)
Randorusu(same as Dory)
Manaphy
Darkrai
Inconsistent Octillery (the only released one and by far the only broken incos user)
(i wouldnt nominate stall mew since its so broken lol i want to abuse it forever)
Deoxys form (every form due to buffed magic mirror for taunt)
Skymin
Doryuuzu(arguable since he bring massive power to SS)
Randorusu(same as Dory)
Manaphy
Darkrai
Inconsistent Octillery (the only released one and by far the only broken incos user)
(i wouldnt nominate stall mew since its so broken lol i want to abuse it forever)
Rhys DeAnno
Slacking Off
Confirming that I'm RDA Ex Machina at 1423.
My nominations:
Inconsistent has the ability to swing an entire match with a couple good rolls. If a team lacks a hard counter such as Perish Song it is completely at the mercy of the RNG, regardless of the rest of the match.
Skymin has completely taken over the meta with its amazing combination of speed, power, and flinchax.
Manaphy has terrifying natural bulk for a boosting sweeper, and Hydration even gives it RestRain to exploit this and prevents crippling by status. In addition, with the likely removal of Skymin, the powerful check of STAB Seed Flares on Manaphy will be removed as well.
I would like to add that unattainable DW ability-egg move combinations (due to event DW mons being 100% male and unable to breed true), most notably Baton Pass Speed Boost Blaziken and Power Whip Chlorophyll Venusaur should be banned if this is possible.
My nominations:
Inconsistent has the ability to swing an entire match with a couple good rolls. If a team lacks a hard counter such as Perish Song it is completely at the mercy of the RNG, regardless of the rest of the match.
Skymin has completely taken over the meta with its amazing combination of speed, power, and flinchax.
Manaphy has terrifying natural bulk for a boosting sweeper, and Hydration even gives it RestRain to exploit this and prevents crippling by status. In addition, with the likely removal of Skymin, the powerful check of STAB Seed Flares on Manaphy will be removed as well.
I would like to add that unattainable DW ability-egg move combinations (due to event DW mons being 100% male and unable to breed true), most notably Baton Pass Speed Boost Blaziken and Power Whip Chlorophyll Venusaur should be banned if this is possible.
Start nominating folks!
Of course my laptop crashed...on the last day of testing. I finally had a decent team too. My alt is smashlloyd20 (not that anyone cares)
Here are my nominations.
Darkrai: The thing about this is Dark Void. 125 base Speed is very fast, and can catch something on a switch in. Once you are sleeping, you have two choices. You can stay in and hope your Pokemon wakes up quickly, or you can switch. Either way Darkrai gets a free Nasty Plot and can sweep quite easily. Its bulk is underestimated; it can take a max attack Mach Punch from Roobushin. For practically forcing you to sacrifice a Pokemon to defeat it...Darkrai for Ubers.
Shaymin-S: This thing is, in my opinion, uncompetitive. If it's faster than you (and chances are it will be) the battle turns into luck: will you move, or will you not? This thing truly deserves to be Uber because nothing you can do will prevent it from sweeping you if you get unlucky, no skill involved.
Inconsistent: See my argument for Shaymin-S, just worse. Once a Pokemon with this ability enters the field, the battle is all luck; which stats rise, and which drop. More often than not, your opponent will get Speed and Evasion boosts off Protect and proceed to sweep you...because of luck. Inconsistent turns a battle into all luck, and thus is uncompetitive.
Manaphy: The fact that this Poke can infinitely heal itself to full, then boost its Special Attack by 3 stages and hit off of 100 base special Attack, all while being immune to status, is simply broken. If you don't OHKO it with a 100% accurate move, you will lose to this. The problem with Manaphy is that it can come in on a NVE or status move, multiply its Special Attack by 1.5, heal off any damage it took, and outright sweep. Similar to Darkrai, this thing can set itself up and there's nothing you can do about it.
Doryuuzu: If this thing comes in in a sandstorm and your team is somewhat weakened, chances are it will sweep. 604 speed in a sandstorm even outspeeds some scarf Pokemon, and it hits like a truck off 135 base attack. The problem with Doryuuzu is that if you have no way to change the weather and your team is weakened, it can sweep entire teams with no effort. And if it gets a Swords Dance somewhere, it can literally OHKO six Pokemon in a row. It's also shockingly bulky, as it can take any nonboosted priority move in existence and live, and OHKO back.
Of course my laptop crashed...on the last day of testing. I finally had a decent team too. My alt is smashlloyd20 (not that anyone cares)
Here are my nominations.
Darkrai: The thing about this is Dark Void. 125 base Speed is very fast, and can catch something on a switch in. Once you are sleeping, you have two choices. You can stay in and hope your Pokemon wakes up quickly, or you can switch. Either way Darkrai gets a free Nasty Plot and can sweep quite easily. Its bulk is underestimated; it can take a max attack Mach Punch from Roobushin. For practically forcing you to sacrifice a Pokemon to defeat it...Darkrai for Ubers.
Shaymin-S: This thing is, in my opinion, uncompetitive. If it's faster than you (and chances are it will be) the battle turns into luck: will you move, or will you not? This thing truly deserves to be Uber because nothing you can do will prevent it from sweeping you if you get unlucky, no skill involved.
Inconsistent: See my argument for Shaymin-S, just worse. Once a Pokemon with this ability enters the field, the battle is all luck; which stats rise, and which drop. More often than not, your opponent will get Speed and Evasion boosts off Protect and proceed to sweep you...because of luck. Inconsistent turns a battle into all luck, and thus is uncompetitive.
Manaphy: The fact that this Poke can infinitely heal itself to full, then boost its Special Attack by 3 stages and hit off of 100 base special Attack, all while being immune to status, is simply broken. If you don't OHKO it with a 100% accurate move, you will lose to this. The problem with Manaphy is that it can come in on a NVE or status move, multiply its Special Attack by 1.5, heal off any damage it took, and outright sweep. Similar to Darkrai, this thing can set itself up and there's nothing you can do about it.
Doryuuzu: If this thing comes in in a sandstorm and your team is somewhat weakened, chances are it will sweep. 604 speed in a sandstorm even outspeeds some scarf Pokemon, and it hits like a truck off 135 base attack. The problem with Doryuuzu is that if you have no way to change the weather and your team is weakened, it can sweep entire teams with no effort. And if it gets a Swords Dance somewhere, it can literally OHKO six Pokemon in a row. It's also shockingly bulky, as it can take any nonboosted priority move in existence and live, and OHKO back.
Alright, nomination time! Sadly I didn't hit 1400 (peaked at 1340. fuck inconsistent T_T)
Shaymin-S
With base 127 speed, there isn't much that can outspeed this guy without running a Scarf set, and you can't rely on them to beat him because if he decides to run scarf too, you're still fucked. When the opponent gets him in, you can either stay in at the risk of getting flinched to death (or outright OHKO'd), or switch and have your "check" either eat the SpDef drop from Seed Flare, or allow Skymin to set up a sub, behind which it can safely set up seeds (at which point it becomes unbelievably difficult to take down without saccing a poke), or go for Air Slash flinches with the sub as a fall back if it doesn't pull off a flinch.
Darkrai
I might not have had as big a deal with Darkrai if it weren't for it's signature move, Dark Void. With it's great 125 base speed, it can come in on a variety of things and put them to sleep, which with the new sleep mechanics is essentially the same as killing something, and giving whatever killed it a free turn of setup. Anything running around with what is essentially a 80% accurate OHKO move that is exceptionally fast needs to go.
Inconsitent
Ugh, please lets get rid of this. It isn't exactly broken, but it should be banned on the same basis we have the OHKO clause: It removes competitiveness from the game. Except with inconsistant, instead of a 30% chance to outright KO the opponent's pokemon, inconsistant is about a 20% chance of an outright win for the person using it. And this 20% chance is repeatable 5 times, with no risk to the user other than entry hazard damage...
Drizzle
IMO, Manaphy in rain is broken, and Manaphy outside of rain is not. The thing is, Rain without Manaphy is still incredibly OP, because swift swimmers become unbelievably fast, and get double stab on all water moves they use. Drought isn't as bad, but that can wait until next round (as can Sandstream, if we go that far)
These aren't nominations, but a few things a lot of people will probably be nominating aren't here, so I'd like to explain why. I have played people that got above 1400, and haven't ever lost anyone to their Deoxys. People keep saying it's because it isn't being used "right", but aside from the time one took out my Gyarados with an Ice Beam, I have yet to see one used thusly. I have actually not seen all that many Wobbuffett, so I don't really want to make a decision on that without having really played that many before. Doryuzuu can wait until all the rest of these brokenmons are out, then we can make an informed decision. Same goes for Randorosu, Garchomp, Latios, or anything else people may be on the edge about.
I think that's all, but I get this nagging feeling I forgot something. If I did, I'll edit it in later.
Shaymin-S
With base 127 speed, there isn't much that can outspeed this guy without running a Scarf set, and you can't rely on them to beat him because if he decides to run scarf too, you're still fucked. When the opponent gets him in, you can either stay in at the risk of getting flinched to death (or outright OHKO'd), or switch and have your "check" either eat the SpDef drop from Seed Flare, or allow Skymin to set up a sub, behind which it can safely set up seeds (at which point it becomes unbelievably difficult to take down without saccing a poke), or go for Air Slash flinches with the sub as a fall back if it doesn't pull off a flinch.
Darkrai
I might not have had as big a deal with Darkrai if it weren't for it's signature move, Dark Void. With it's great 125 base speed, it can come in on a variety of things and put them to sleep, which with the new sleep mechanics is essentially the same as killing something, and giving whatever killed it a free turn of setup. Anything running around with what is essentially a 80% accurate OHKO move that is exceptionally fast needs to go.
Inconsitent
Ugh, please lets get rid of this. It isn't exactly broken, but it should be banned on the same basis we have the OHKO clause: It removes competitiveness from the game. Except with inconsistant, instead of a 30% chance to outright KO the opponent's pokemon, inconsistant is about a 20% chance of an outright win for the person using it. And this 20% chance is repeatable 5 times, with no risk to the user other than entry hazard damage...
Drizzle
IMO, Manaphy in rain is broken, and Manaphy outside of rain is not. The thing is, Rain without Manaphy is still incredibly OP, because swift swimmers become unbelievably fast, and get double stab on all water moves they use. Drought isn't as bad, but that can wait until next round (as can Sandstream, if we go that far)
These aren't nominations, but a few things a lot of people will probably be nominating aren't here, so I'd like to explain why. I have played people that got above 1400, and haven't ever lost anyone to their Deoxys. People keep saying it's because it isn't being used "right", but aside from the time one took out my Gyarados with an Ice Beam, I have yet to see one used thusly. I have actually not seen all that many Wobbuffett, so I don't really want to make a decision on that without having really played that many before. Doryuzuu can wait until all the rest of these brokenmons are out, then we can make an informed decision. Same goes for Randorosu, Garchomp, Latios, or anything else people may be on the edge about.
I think that's all, but I get this nagging feeling I forgot something. If I did, I'll edit it in later.
locopoke
Banned deucer.
Nominations
Inconsistent
Anyone who has played on the ladder during this round knows what Inconsistent does and how devastating it can be, which is why this is going to be brief. Inconsistent takes the game out of the players hands and practically makes the entire match a coin flip. If the Inconsistent user gets the right boosts at the right times, it's all over. I myself have been in 5-1, 4-1 and 3-1 situations where I was swept by a last-poke Inconsistent user because it immediately got Speed and Evasion boosts. A Pokemon that can sweep any type of team after one boost under any circumstances is undeniably broken. It's very hard (near impossible) to actually prepare for Inconsistent since once it starts spamming Protect and Substitute all one can do is attack and pray. The fact that any Pokemon with Inconsistent as an ability has the potential to run through teams with such ease leads me to believe that Inconsistent as an ability, as opposed to the individual Pokemon that receive the ability, should be banned.
Drizzle
Rain is arguably the best field effect in the game and a Drizzle team can beat every other weather team 1 on 1. Rain has the best abusers and the most abusers. While some say Manaphy is what breaks Drizzle, I think Pokemon such as Kingdra, Kabutops and Ludicolo are much harder to handle. Drizzle teams overload on same threats with heavy hitting sweepers that are practically uncounterable without a team specifically designed to defeat them. Nattorei is the only real hard counter to true Drizzle teams, but even then Kabutops has Low Kick, Ludicolo has Focus Blast and Kingdra can 3HKO with Hydro Pump. Drizzle is a mindless strategy that anybody can win with and certainly breaks the metagame. There are far too many rain abusers to ban them all individually so I'd rather see the ability itself banned. Manaphy outside of infinite rain is very borderline and deserves it's own suspect test in an environment without Drizzle present.
Shaymin-S
Not much to say about Shaymin-S since we all know what it's capable of. Blistering Speed, stellar Special Attack and above average bulk grouped with 60% chance to flinch and 80% chance to indirectly boost it's Special Attack 2 stages while also dealing massive damage allows Shaymin-S to run through teams single-handedly. It hits like a truck with Life Orb and outspeeds practically the entire metagame with a Choice Scarf, this is a no-brainer.
Darkrai
I think the new sleep mechanics are what pushed Darkrai over the top this gen. In the hands of a good player, Darkrai essentially gets a free kill with Dark Void and then a free turn to Nasty Plot or kill something. Because of the sleep counter resetting upon a switch, switching out basically renders the sleeping Pokemon useless, but staying in allows Darkrai to boost up and possibly land a KO and sleep another Pokemon. It also has reasonable bulk and can sport a Choice Scarf rather nicely.
Deoxys-A and Deoxys-N
Deoxys-A is ridiculously powerful and practically renders defensive teams useless. Base 150 Speed allows it to outrun any Pokemon that isn't holding a Choice Scarf (and even some that are) while still maintaining it's astounding offensive stats. Superpower and Psycho Shock allow it to run through defensive teams with ease and Extreme Speed lets it net kills against weakened priority users and Choice Scarf holders. Psycho Boost, easily it's best move, 1HKO or 2HKO's any Pokemon that doesn't double resist it.
Deoxys-N is a slightly weaker version of Deoxys-A but it actually has enough bulk to take a hit. The loss in power is hardly noticable as it's still able to tear through teams with a variety of special and mixed movesets. Both are also able to set up Spikes with relative ease.
Doryuuzu
Most may not agree with this nomination, but I think it's clear that Doryuuzu is the best sand sweeper and breaks the metagame. Reaches 600+ speed in sand with a nice 135 base Attack stat and STAB EQ. Despite its terrible movepool, all it really needs is Earthquake, Rock Slide and Swords Dance to be a menacing threat to practically any team. It also has access to Rapid Spin and is without a doubt the best spinner in the game because of the fact that there aren't many Ghost-types that want to switch into EQ. I feel Balloon is what pushes Doryuuzu over the top, similar to Yache Chomp in DP. Temporary immunity to EQ allows Doryuuzu to get a free Swords Dance against Pokemon that would normally threaten it and land a KO next turn. It should also be noted that with Balloon, Doryuuzu is only taking 3% at most from entry hazards upon switching in which gives the player a lot of mobility in terms of switching around and making predictions. In the hands of a skilled player, it's very hard to stop Doryuuzu from killing multiple Pokemon on one's team and possibly even sweeping.
Shadow Tag
While Wobbuffet didn't see much usage this round, I wanted to get rid of it before suspect tests started and my stance hasn't changed. Getting free kills is utterly retarded and isn't beneficial to the metagame in any way. That's all I really have to say.
Inconsistent
Anyone who has played on the ladder during this round knows what Inconsistent does and how devastating it can be, which is why this is going to be brief. Inconsistent takes the game out of the players hands and practically makes the entire match a coin flip. If the Inconsistent user gets the right boosts at the right times, it's all over. I myself have been in 5-1, 4-1 and 3-1 situations where I was swept by a last-poke Inconsistent user because it immediately got Speed and Evasion boosts. A Pokemon that can sweep any type of team after one boost under any circumstances is undeniably broken. It's very hard (near impossible) to actually prepare for Inconsistent since once it starts spamming Protect and Substitute all one can do is attack and pray. The fact that any Pokemon with Inconsistent as an ability has the potential to run through teams with such ease leads me to believe that Inconsistent as an ability, as opposed to the individual Pokemon that receive the ability, should be banned.
Drizzle
Rain is arguably the best field effect in the game and a Drizzle team can beat every other weather team 1 on 1. Rain has the best abusers and the most abusers. While some say Manaphy is what breaks Drizzle, I think Pokemon such as Kingdra, Kabutops and Ludicolo are much harder to handle. Drizzle teams overload on same threats with heavy hitting sweepers that are practically uncounterable without a team specifically designed to defeat them. Nattorei is the only real hard counter to true Drizzle teams, but even then Kabutops has Low Kick, Ludicolo has Focus Blast and Kingdra can 3HKO with Hydro Pump. Drizzle is a mindless strategy that anybody can win with and certainly breaks the metagame. There are far too many rain abusers to ban them all individually so I'd rather see the ability itself banned. Manaphy outside of infinite rain is very borderline and deserves it's own suspect test in an environment without Drizzle present.
Shaymin-S
Not much to say about Shaymin-S since we all know what it's capable of. Blistering Speed, stellar Special Attack and above average bulk grouped with 60% chance to flinch and 80% chance to indirectly boost it's Special Attack 2 stages while also dealing massive damage allows Shaymin-S to run through teams single-handedly. It hits like a truck with Life Orb and outspeeds practically the entire metagame with a Choice Scarf, this is a no-brainer.
Darkrai
I think the new sleep mechanics are what pushed Darkrai over the top this gen. In the hands of a good player, Darkrai essentially gets a free kill with Dark Void and then a free turn to Nasty Plot or kill something. Because of the sleep counter resetting upon a switch, switching out basically renders the sleeping Pokemon useless, but staying in allows Darkrai to boost up and possibly land a KO and sleep another Pokemon. It also has reasonable bulk and can sport a Choice Scarf rather nicely.
Deoxys-A and Deoxys-N
Deoxys-A is ridiculously powerful and practically renders defensive teams useless. Base 150 Speed allows it to outrun any Pokemon that isn't holding a Choice Scarf (and even some that are) while still maintaining it's astounding offensive stats. Superpower and Psycho Shock allow it to run through defensive teams with ease and Extreme Speed lets it net kills against weakened priority users and Choice Scarf holders. Psycho Boost, easily it's best move, 1HKO or 2HKO's any Pokemon that doesn't double resist it.
Deoxys-N is a slightly weaker version of Deoxys-A but it actually has enough bulk to take a hit. The loss in power is hardly noticable as it's still able to tear through teams with a variety of special and mixed movesets. Both are also able to set up Spikes with relative ease.
Doryuuzu
Most may not agree with this nomination, but I think it's clear that Doryuuzu is the best sand sweeper and breaks the metagame. Reaches 600+ speed in sand with a nice 135 base Attack stat and STAB EQ. Despite its terrible movepool, all it really needs is Earthquake, Rock Slide and Swords Dance to be a menacing threat to practically any team. It also has access to Rapid Spin and is without a doubt the best spinner in the game because of the fact that there aren't many Ghost-types that want to switch into EQ. I feel Balloon is what pushes Doryuuzu over the top, similar to Yache Chomp in DP. Temporary immunity to EQ allows Doryuuzu to get a free Swords Dance against Pokemon that would normally threaten it and land a KO next turn. It should also be noted that with Balloon, Doryuuzu is only taking 3% at most from entry hazards upon switching in which gives the player a lot of mobility in terms of switching around and making predictions. In the hands of a skilled player, it's very hard to stop Doryuuzu from killing multiple Pokemon on one's team and possibly even sweeping.
Shadow Tag
While Wobbuffet didn't see much usage this round, I wanted to get rid of it before suspect tests started and my stance hasn't changed. Getting free kills is utterly retarded and isn't beneficial to the metagame in any way. That's all I really have to say.
I missed out. Really disappointing...
Nominations:
Inconsistent
Shadow Tag
Darkrai
Inconsistent is not conducive to the metagame. It's too powerful, and its counters are too specialized. Ban ban ban.
Darkrai is too powerful IMO, dark void + bad dreams + sub + nasty plot + dark pulse flinch chance + high stats is an extremely potent combination.
Manaphy and skymin can stay IMO. Neither of them live up to the hype. With tyranitar around, It's all too easy to cripple manaphy, and sure, it's bulky, but not that bulky. Jolteon can check skymin. No ifs or buts. Twave nattorei is a great counter too. Skymin is good, but there are too many gaps in its armor. Priority, pokes that outspeed, it's attacks missing or failing to activate their secondary effects (Which WILL happen.) Counters will develop IMO.
Nominations:
Inconsistent
Shadow Tag
Darkrai
Inconsistent is not conducive to the metagame. It's too powerful, and its counters are too specialized. Ban ban ban.
Darkrai is too powerful IMO, dark void + bad dreams + sub + nasty plot + dark pulse flinch chance + high stats is an extremely potent combination.
Manaphy and skymin can stay IMO. Neither of them live up to the hype. With tyranitar around, It's all too easy to cripple manaphy, and sure, it's bulky, but not that bulky. Jolteon can check skymin. No ifs or buts. Twave nattorei is a great counter too. Skymin is good, but there are too many gaps in its armor. Priority, pokes that outspeed, it's attacks missing or failing to activate their secondary effects (Which WILL happen.) Counters will develop IMO.
Wobbuffet: Now, lots of people keep saying that Wobbuffet isisn't as effective this gen because of the Encore nerf and stronger attackers. Those may be true, but they really don't hinder Wobbuffet enough to make him not broken. Unless your running a team of Pokes that can all OHKO Wobb, he can still Encore that Poke and than either Counter or Moiior Coat it back if it won't 2HKO him, or switch out to something else that can take advantage of the locked in Poke if it was a support/resisted move. Now, there may be other Pokes that can Encore or CounterCoat, but what really makes Wobbuffet so great at it is Shadow Tag. It ensures that after Wobb has Encored your opponent, they won't just switch out unless they have U-Turn, which can be Countered to hit the Poke coming unless it's a Ghost, Volt Change, like U-Turn, but Mirror Coat instead of Counter, Baton Pass, or the Poke is equiped with Shed Shell, which means they can't use a much more usful item like Leftovers or Life Orb. Because the general disturbition of the moves are small and Shed Shell frankly not anything else but letting you switch out of Wobbuffet, means you'll often be able to take advantage of them, which can easily spell your opponents defeat in this metagame. Wobbuffet also makes trying to revenge kill threats with Choice Scarfed Pokes much risker because unless the move they tried to use to revenge a threat is very strong, Wobb will just CountCoat it back and than your sweeper can sweep without the threat of a revenge killer.
Darkrai: The new sleep mehcanics will pretty much gurantee that Darkrai will render one Poke usless unless its specfically used to counter Drakrai or is a Sleep Talker, which is quite rare this gen. Adding on to this, Darkrai can than switch out, its main job done, or he can set up a Sub or Nasty Plot to try and smash the opponents team. It can also run a Choice Scarf+Trick combo with Dark Void to mess up the rest of the opponents team (i've presonally crippled half of someones team with just Trick and Dark Void). Heading back to Nasty Plot and Sub, Darkrai has an absurdly easy time setting up either because of Dark Void. Nasty Plot rips through teams without something faster, a special wall, or priority. even than, Darkrai will need to be weakened by entry hazards or weather to be able to KO him with Mach Punches from Roobushin, the most common Mach Puncher in the tier. Substitute ensures Darkrai will get an attack off and possibly a kill before the Sub is broken, where Darkrai can just switch out and start the cycle all over again.
Skymin: Basically, Skymin is Jirachi and Togekiss with better Speed and Special Attack. There are 11 Pokes that can outspeed Skymin without any sort of Speed boost. They are Meloetta, Crobat, Jolteon, Mewtwo, Aerodactyl, Electrode, Agirudaa, Ninjask, and all the Deoxys Formes besides Defence. Out of that list, only Crobat, Jolteon, the Deoxys formes, and Aerodactyl can KO Skymin and are viable in this metagame or not banned. This assumes that Skymin isin't holding a Choice Scarf, which means she can defeat everything but Crobat if she decides to use one. Choice Scarf also allows Skymin to outspeed all the Swift Swimmers and hit them back with Seed Flare and Air Slash. Even trying to switch a Grass resist or special wall into Skymin is risky because you have the 80% chance to have your Special Defence turned to crap thanks to Serene Grace, which makes Skymin turn into the most deadly Flincher in the game because of the 60% chance of a Flinch from Air Slash. Skymin's ability to force out such a large amount of Pokes means it can easily run a SubSeed set, which it does amazingly because every Flinch from Air Slash means free recovery. Despite not being seen as much, Specs and Life Orb both bring lots of power to the table, Life Orb allowing Skymin to run through teams suprisingly easily, and Specs just being able to clean up so easily late game.
Inconsistent: This is the most bullshit ability ever made. Any Inconsistent user can switch in on something that can't do shit to it and Sub on the switch and start Protecting, hopefully getting Evasion and Speed boosts at first. Evasion boosts will potentially allow you to keep getting boosts and keep your Sub, while Speed boosts will allow you to Sub before your opponent can attack if its broken. Also coming along will be Special Defence and Defence boosts, along with Special Attack Boosts and Attack Boosts. After stalling for long enough, the Inconsistent user can start attacking, smashing though things with boosts to the attacking stat they are using, their Subs standing up to even strong super effective strikes with the boosts to their defences. The easiest way of handling besides making your whole team able to threaten them is to use Perish Song, but the list of viable users is rediclously small, being limited to Celebi and Politoed. Wobbuffet takes care of Politoed and Celebi if it lacks U-Turn, so it's a dubious option. It's possible to be completely immune to their moveset, but a list of those Pokes are few, and they can be PP Stalled if absolutely nescessary, or taken out if the user decides to run different moves than what is normally used. Changing the weather to Sandstorm or Hail is another option, making sure the Inconsistent user won't be getting Leftovers recovery and limiting the amount of Subs they will make, but forcing a player to do either of those just to make sure they have a chance of not losing to a very small group of Pokes is rediclous. Now, Inconsistent does lower a stat along with rasing one, but it raises one by +2 while only lowering one by -1 means your still getting a gain for each turn. I didn't include Hazing, Phazing, or the never miss moves because they can all fail, Hazers being KOed, Phazers missing, and the never miss moves generally not being strong enough to work.
Deoxys A: He needs to be gotten rid of as quickly as possible. He possess movepools and humongous attacking stats backed up with amazing Speed, ensuring that the only things taking him out are Priority or Scarfed Pokes, both of which are easy to notice and with some prediction, eliminate with the right move. Often times though, you can click Psycho Boost and watch the either the Poke thats currently in or the switch in very likely die. Even most resists can't take the move well, severely damaging them or OHKOing them. Infact, Scizor can be OHKOed with Psycho Boost+Extremespeed a large amount of the time with Stealth Rock in play. delving deeper into Extremespeed, it's also one of Deoxys' most important moves, stoping weakened Scarfers and Priority users from revenge killing you so easily. The only reason why either of these two would be considered easy to switch into is because people keep making the most obvious moves, and not taking any risks because of his frailness. If people would actually try and predict with Deoxys, he would be an absolute monster, and pretty much everyone would be saying to ban him.
Drizzle: Now, anyone who's faced me would think i'm only nominating Drizzle because I use Sandstorm. That's not true at all. If you look at all the other weathers and their abusers, you'll see that Rain has the advantage over all of them because of the amount of abusers and the power that comes along with them. Rain also has the advantage with the weather starter, being able to smash right through Sand and Sun with Water smashing through them. Hail has a bit of a advantage because of Abomasnow resisting Politoed's Water attacks, but falls to any using Choice Specs and Focus Blast. The absusers themselves really break it. I keep seeing people say that Nattorei will easily stop Rain teams, and frankly, I find that to be bullshit. Nattorei gets smashed by Kabutops Low Kick, Ludicolo uses Focus Blast, and Kingdra can 3HKO with Specs Hydro Pump. eventually, Nattorei will be killed, and than Rain will have a field day with most peoples only check to them gone. Manaphy can also stall out Nattorei with Calm Mind and Rest, eventually getting to +6/+6, and killing Nattorei and the rest of your team. For anyone who wants to ban them individually, why would you do that when banning the thing thats making them broken will result in less bans? It's just utterly absurd that people could still think that Rain could be okay at all this gen when you can spam it and get a good win streak. Oh, and for anyone saying that banning Drizzle will make Sand dominate, theres something called Suna and Hail, or mabye you should carry something to handle Sandstorm.
Darkrai: The new sleep mehcanics will pretty much gurantee that Darkrai will render one Poke usless unless its specfically used to counter Drakrai or is a Sleep Talker, which is quite rare this gen. Adding on to this, Darkrai can than switch out, its main job done, or he can set up a Sub or Nasty Plot to try and smash the opponents team. It can also run a Choice Scarf+Trick combo with Dark Void to mess up the rest of the opponents team (i've presonally crippled half of someones team with just Trick and Dark Void). Heading back to Nasty Plot and Sub, Darkrai has an absurdly easy time setting up either because of Dark Void. Nasty Plot rips through teams without something faster, a special wall, or priority. even than, Darkrai will need to be weakened by entry hazards or weather to be able to KO him with Mach Punches from Roobushin, the most common Mach Puncher in the tier. Substitute ensures Darkrai will get an attack off and possibly a kill before the Sub is broken, where Darkrai can just switch out and start the cycle all over again.
Skymin: Basically, Skymin is Jirachi and Togekiss with better Speed and Special Attack. There are 11 Pokes that can outspeed Skymin without any sort of Speed boost. They are Meloetta, Crobat, Jolteon, Mewtwo, Aerodactyl, Electrode, Agirudaa, Ninjask, and all the Deoxys Formes besides Defence. Out of that list, only Crobat, Jolteon, the Deoxys formes, and Aerodactyl can KO Skymin and are viable in this metagame or not banned. This assumes that Skymin isin't holding a Choice Scarf, which means she can defeat everything but Crobat if she decides to use one. Choice Scarf also allows Skymin to outspeed all the Swift Swimmers and hit them back with Seed Flare and Air Slash. Even trying to switch a Grass resist or special wall into Skymin is risky because you have the 80% chance to have your Special Defence turned to crap thanks to Serene Grace, which makes Skymin turn into the most deadly Flincher in the game because of the 60% chance of a Flinch from Air Slash. Skymin's ability to force out such a large amount of Pokes means it can easily run a SubSeed set, which it does amazingly because every Flinch from Air Slash means free recovery. Despite not being seen as much, Specs and Life Orb both bring lots of power to the table, Life Orb allowing Skymin to run through teams suprisingly easily, and Specs just being able to clean up so easily late game.
Inconsistent: This is the most bullshit ability ever made. Any Inconsistent user can switch in on something that can't do shit to it and Sub on the switch and start Protecting, hopefully getting Evasion and Speed boosts at first. Evasion boosts will potentially allow you to keep getting boosts and keep your Sub, while Speed boosts will allow you to Sub before your opponent can attack if its broken. Also coming along will be Special Defence and Defence boosts, along with Special Attack Boosts and Attack Boosts. After stalling for long enough, the Inconsistent user can start attacking, smashing though things with boosts to the attacking stat they are using, their Subs standing up to even strong super effective strikes with the boosts to their defences. The easiest way of handling besides making your whole team able to threaten them is to use Perish Song, but the list of viable users is rediclously small, being limited to Celebi and Politoed. Wobbuffet takes care of Politoed and Celebi if it lacks U-Turn, so it's a dubious option. It's possible to be completely immune to their moveset, but a list of those Pokes are few, and they can be PP Stalled if absolutely nescessary, or taken out if the user decides to run different moves than what is normally used. Changing the weather to Sandstorm or Hail is another option, making sure the Inconsistent user won't be getting Leftovers recovery and limiting the amount of Subs they will make, but forcing a player to do either of those just to make sure they have a chance of not losing to a very small group of Pokes is rediclous. Now, Inconsistent does lower a stat along with rasing one, but it raises one by +2 while only lowering one by -1 means your still getting a gain for each turn. I didn't include Hazing, Phazing, or the never miss moves because they can all fail, Hazers being KOed, Phazers missing, and the never miss moves generally not being strong enough to work.
Deoxys A: He needs to be gotten rid of as quickly as possible. He possess movepools and humongous attacking stats backed up with amazing Speed, ensuring that the only things taking him out are Priority or Scarfed Pokes, both of which are easy to notice and with some prediction, eliminate with the right move. Often times though, you can click Psycho Boost and watch the either the Poke thats currently in or the switch in very likely die. Even most resists can't take the move well, severely damaging them or OHKOing them. Infact, Scizor can be OHKOed with Psycho Boost+Extremespeed a large amount of the time with Stealth Rock in play. delving deeper into Extremespeed, it's also one of Deoxys' most important moves, stoping weakened Scarfers and Priority users from revenge killing you so easily. The only reason why either of these two would be considered easy to switch into is because people keep making the most obvious moves, and not taking any risks because of his frailness. If people would actually try and predict with Deoxys, he would be an absolute monster, and pretty much everyone would be saying to ban him.
Drizzle: Now, anyone who's faced me would think i'm only nominating Drizzle because I use Sandstorm. That's not true at all. If you look at all the other weathers and their abusers, you'll see that Rain has the advantage over all of them because of the amount of abusers and the power that comes along with them. Rain also has the advantage with the weather starter, being able to smash right through Sand and Sun with Water smashing through them. Hail has a bit of a advantage because of Abomasnow resisting Politoed's Water attacks, but falls to any using Choice Specs and Focus Blast. The absusers themselves really break it. I keep seeing people say that Nattorei will easily stop Rain teams, and frankly, I find that to be bullshit. Nattorei gets smashed by Kabutops Low Kick, Ludicolo uses Focus Blast, and Kingdra can 3HKO with Specs Hydro Pump. eventually, Nattorei will be killed, and than Rain will have a field day with most peoples only check to them gone. Manaphy can also stall out Nattorei with Calm Mind and Rest, eventually getting to +6/+6, and killing Nattorei and the rest of your team. For anyone who wants to ban them individually, why would you do that when banning the thing thats making them broken will result in less bans? It's just utterly absurd that people could still think that Rain could be okay at all this gen when you can spam it and get a good win streak. Oh, and for anyone saying that banning Drizzle will make Sand dominate, theres something called Suna and Hail, or mabye you should carry something to handle Sandstorm.
Forgot about the deadline until today so I didn't even try for 1400, still nominating
Inconsistent: Maybe if it didn't have a chance to raise evasion it would be a legitimate strategy, but its power when receiving a good boost is surreal. Countless logs showing teams being swept by things like Bibarel prove my point.
Manaphy: Too powerful in a metagame of infinite rain. Maybe drizzletoad will banned one day and Manaphy should be retested but as it stands rain seems to be a balanced playstyle that happens to have a key player that is too good. 100/100/100 defenses, insta-healing, and status-immunity all make fighting it a nightmare.
Skymin: Its speed and power allow it to muscle through all but specialized counters like Crobat. The scarf set is a phenomenal revenge killer and can force many switches, coincidentally switches that allow a non scarf Skymin to get a sub up are very deadly.
Not to say the rest mentioned aren't broken (especially the controversial Darkrai), but I'd like to see them in a less hectic meta before I take a final stance on them.
Inconsistent: Maybe if it didn't have a chance to raise evasion it would be a legitimate strategy, but its power when receiving a good boost is surreal. Countless logs showing teams being swept by things like Bibarel prove my point.
Manaphy: Too powerful in a metagame of infinite rain. Maybe drizzletoad will banned one day and Manaphy should be retested but as it stands rain seems to be a balanced playstyle that happens to have a key player that is too good. 100/100/100 defenses, insta-healing, and status-immunity all make fighting it a nightmare.
Skymin: Its speed and power allow it to muscle through all but specialized counters like Crobat. The scarf set is a phenomenal revenge killer and can force many switches, coincidentally switches that allow a non scarf Skymin to get a sub up are very deadly.
Not to say the rest mentioned aren't broken (especially the controversial Darkrai), but I'd like to see them in a less hectic meta before I take a final stance on them.
Guys, I'd like to see more thought behind nominations. I will literally just skip over anything that lists Pokemon or abilities that you'd like to see banned.
My avatar confirms me to be xiaolongnu
Nominations:
Inconsistent - While I have not used Inconsistent myself, I have played against it enough times to nominate it to be banned. The reason for putting it on the chopping block is:
1) Introduces a huge luck factor into the game and takes away skill - All the user of Inconsistent has to do is to bring the Pokemon (usually Octillery) in and spam Substitute and Protect and hope for favourable stat-boosts, which they get a lot of the time. One key thing about Inconsistent is that the user will get a net positive boost every time, since a boost is +2 and a drop is only -1. If OHKO and Evasion are banned due to involving too much luck, then Inconsistent should even more so be banned.
2) Takes away a lot of fun - I don't how much everybody else has played against Inconsistent, but every time I've played against it, I've had to spend 30, 40, 50 or more turns just trying to take down the Inconsistent Pokemon. I've been able to find a decent check to Inconsistent on my team, but it involves PP stalling with my Calm Mind Manaphy. I don't know who would find that kind of monotonous struggle to be fun.
Shaymin-S - Base 127 Speed and 120 Special Attack with decent defenses (for OU standards) already makes a beastly Pokemon, but add Serene Grace to this, you have a frustrating and likely broken Pokemon. What is annoying about Shaymin-S is again, the luck factor surrounding its ability. With timely flinch hax or Special Defense drops, Skymin can more often than not muscle past its dedicated counters, examples would be using Seed Flare to lower Blissey's Special Defense, then flinching it once with Air Slash and then taking it out with another Seed Flare, or finally getting down to <25% on the Subseed set, flinch the opponent and get enough health back to restart the stalling cycle. Skymin needs to go.
Drizzle - While some people are advocating to ban a few rain sweepers first (like Manaphy) then test Drizzle, I believe Drizzle is thing that is pushing these rain sweepers over the edge. With the rain boost, Swift Swim abusers essentially get the equivalent of an Agility and Cheer Up boost (on their Water STAB) while Hydration abusers get an unlimited Lum Berry. While problem Pokemon like Kingdra and Manaphy are extremely powerful outside of rain, I believe they are still manageable but rain pushes them over the edge. For example, I've been using Modest Choice Specs Kingdra in my battles. If rain was not present, you'd have a Pokemon with similar power to Choice Specs Latias with better STABs, but less bulk and speed. However, with the rain boost, it is ridiculous, obliterating virtually all offensive teams while breaking down walls of a lot of defensive ones. Blissey and Chansey are possibly the only Pokemon that can reliably switch into it, even Nattorei is taking ~40% from Hydro Pump, meaning it can only switch it once reliably. While you can say "ban Kingdra" instead, without the rain, Kingdra is far more manageable. Firstly, it is pretty easily revenge killed (269 Speed is mediocre), secondly, without the STAB boost on Water-type moves, Pokemon like Nattorei can more easily wall it. Rain is the thing that makes the Pokemon broken, not the Pokemon itself. EDIT: I'll just expand on why Manaphy is broken in the rain and not necessarily so out of rain just so I can explain why it's rain and not Manaphy. Without the rain, Manaphy has +3 Tail Glow, decent coverage, great bulk and good Speed. After a Tail Glow boost, 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe Timid Manaphy's stat spread is 342/212/236/747/236/328. Now if we look at Garchomp after a Swords Dance, a Pokemon who (at the moment) doesn't seem broken, his stat spread (4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe Jolly) after a Swords Dance is 358/718/226/178/206/333. The difference in stats aren't all that great, and while Garchomp has a bigger exploitable weakness than Manaphy, Manaphy finds itself walled by Blissey like most special sweepers (and it has worse coverage than Chomp), so they are comparable. Outside the rain, +3 Surf from Manaphy is 4HKOing Nattorei while in the rain it has a chance to 2HKO with some hazards up. Calm Mind Manaphy is another Pokemon that is a whole different story in the rain from out of rain. With Drizzle support, Manaphy can Rest as it pleases and has space an extra moveslot for a precious coverage move (usually Ice Beam). Without Drizzle support, the same Manaphy runs Rain Dance/Calm Mind/Water STAB/Rest, a largely toned down version because rain is only last 5 (or 8) turns, so Manaphy needs to manually turn on the rain, so it can't Rest as it pleases, while without the extra coverage move, it's going to be walled by a host of extra Pokemon. This said, Manaphy is broken because of the rain and not necessarily by itself.
Doryuuzu - Doryuuzu is a ridiculous sweeper. In the Sand (which is EXTREMELY COMMON), is virtually impossible to revenge kill without using Fighting or Water priority, or packing a Pokemon like Gliscor, Skarmory, Bronzong or Hippowdon whom all can be beaten with a resist berry or a bit of luck. Fighting priority from a Pokemon like Roobushin can be mitigated by letting Doryuuzu hold a Chople Berry, Water STAB a Passho Berry while Gliscor and Hippowdon are beaten if Doryuuzu holds a Balloon. This leads Skarmory and Bronzong, who must at absolute mint condition to take on Doryuuzu (Skarmory takes 40.72% - 48.20% from LO Adamant +2 Rock Slide). While it can be said that Doryuuzu can't hold all Life Orb/Chople Berry/Passho Berry/Balloon and have a Jolly/Adamant nature at the same, the point is that multiple Pokemon has be used to check Doryuuzu since he can find a way to get past specific checks. With the check gone, there is virtually nothing outside something ridiculous like Choice Scarf Golduck or something like that and it can easily sweep. While I don't want to go back to the 4th gen Uber Characteristics, I'd like say that because of this Doryuuzu can sweep an opponent's team with little effort.
Nominations:
Inconsistent - While I have not used Inconsistent myself, I have played against it enough times to nominate it to be banned. The reason for putting it on the chopping block is:
1) Introduces a huge luck factor into the game and takes away skill - All the user of Inconsistent has to do is to bring the Pokemon (usually Octillery) in and spam Substitute and Protect and hope for favourable stat-boosts, which they get a lot of the time. One key thing about Inconsistent is that the user will get a net positive boost every time, since a boost is +2 and a drop is only -1. If OHKO and Evasion are banned due to involving too much luck, then Inconsistent should even more so be banned.
2) Takes away a lot of fun - I don't how much everybody else has played against Inconsistent, but every time I've played against it, I've had to spend 30, 40, 50 or more turns just trying to take down the Inconsistent Pokemon. I've been able to find a decent check to Inconsistent on my team, but it involves PP stalling with my Calm Mind Manaphy. I don't know who would find that kind of monotonous struggle to be fun.
Shaymin-S - Base 127 Speed and 120 Special Attack with decent defenses (for OU standards) already makes a beastly Pokemon, but add Serene Grace to this, you have a frustrating and likely broken Pokemon. What is annoying about Shaymin-S is again, the luck factor surrounding its ability. With timely flinch hax or Special Defense drops, Skymin can more often than not muscle past its dedicated counters, examples would be using Seed Flare to lower Blissey's Special Defense, then flinching it once with Air Slash and then taking it out with another Seed Flare, or finally getting down to <25% on the Subseed set, flinch the opponent and get enough health back to restart the stalling cycle. Skymin needs to go.
Drizzle - While some people are advocating to ban a few rain sweepers first (like Manaphy) then test Drizzle, I believe Drizzle is thing that is pushing these rain sweepers over the edge. With the rain boost, Swift Swim abusers essentially get the equivalent of an Agility and Cheer Up boost (on their Water STAB) while Hydration abusers get an unlimited Lum Berry. While problem Pokemon like Kingdra and Manaphy are extremely powerful outside of rain, I believe they are still manageable but rain pushes them over the edge. For example, I've been using Modest Choice Specs Kingdra in my battles. If rain was not present, you'd have a Pokemon with similar power to Choice Specs Latias with better STABs, but less bulk and speed. However, with the rain boost, it is ridiculous, obliterating virtually all offensive teams while breaking down walls of a lot of defensive ones. Blissey and Chansey are possibly the only Pokemon that can reliably switch into it, even Nattorei is taking ~40% from Hydro Pump, meaning it can only switch it once reliably. While you can say "ban Kingdra" instead, without the rain, Kingdra is far more manageable. Firstly, it is pretty easily revenge killed (269 Speed is mediocre), secondly, without the STAB boost on Water-type moves, Pokemon like Nattorei can more easily wall it. Rain is the thing that makes the Pokemon broken, not the Pokemon itself. EDIT: I'll just expand on why Manaphy is broken in the rain and not necessarily so out of rain just so I can explain why it's rain and not Manaphy. Without the rain, Manaphy has +3 Tail Glow, decent coverage, great bulk and good Speed. After a Tail Glow boost, 4 HP / 252 SpA / 252 Spe Timid Manaphy's stat spread is 342/212/236/747/236/328. Now if we look at Garchomp after a Swords Dance, a Pokemon who (at the moment) doesn't seem broken, his stat spread (4 HP / 252 Atk / 252 Spe Jolly) after a Swords Dance is 358/718/226/178/206/333. The difference in stats aren't all that great, and while Garchomp has a bigger exploitable weakness than Manaphy, Manaphy finds itself walled by Blissey like most special sweepers (and it has worse coverage than Chomp), so they are comparable. Outside the rain, +3 Surf from Manaphy is 4HKOing Nattorei while in the rain it has a chance to 2HKO with some hazards up. Calm Mind Manaphy is another Pokemon that is a whole different story in the rain from out of rain. With Drizzle support, Manaphy can Rest as it pleases and has space an extra moveslot for a precious coverage move (usually Ice Beam). Without Drizzle support, the same Manaphy runs Rain Dance/Calm Mind/Water STAB/Rest, a largely toned down version because rain is only last 5 (or 8) turns, so Manaphy needs to manually turn on the rain, so it can't Rest as it pleases, while without the extra coverage move, it's going to be walled by a host of extra Pokemon. This said, Manaphy is broken because of the rain and not necessarily by itself.
Doryuuzu - Doryuuzu is a ridiculous sweeper. In the Sand (which is EXTREMELY COMMON), is virtually impossible to revenge kill without using Fighting or Water priority, or packing a Pokemon like Gliscor, Skarmory, Bronzong or Hippowdon whom all can be beaten with a resist berry or a bit of luck. Fighting priority from a Pokemon like Roobushin can be mitigated by letting Doryuuzu hold a Chople Berry, Water STAB a Passho Berry while Gliscor and Hippowdon are beaten if Doryuuzu holds a Balloon. This leads Skarmory and Bronzong, who must at absolute mint condition to take on Doryuuzu (Skarmory takes 40.72% - 48.20% from LO Adamant +2 Rock Slide). While it can be said that Doryuuzu can't hold all Life Orb/Chople Berry/Passho Berry/Balloon and have a Jolly/Adamant nature at the same, the point is that multiple Pokemon has be used to check Doryuuzu since he can find a way to get past specific checks. With the check gone, there is virtually nothing outside something ridiculous like Choice Scarf Golduck or something like that and it can easily sweep. While I don't want to go back to the 4th gen Uber Characteristics, I'd like say that because of this Doryuuzu can sweep an opponent's team with little effort.
Didn't reach the 1400 (hell I dunno if I ever exceeded like 500), but still nominating.
Darkrai:Nominating because this thing is just ridiculous. Fantastic SpAtk and Spd, combined with Dark Void, make it too hard to deal. You need something like TechniLoom or TechniTop to really deal with it.
Shaymin-S: Too fast, too powerful. Serene Grace Seed Flare and Air Slash are too overpowered. The only things that wall it (as far as walling goes, as you can get flinched and get your SpDef lowered) can barely do anything in return.
Deoxys-S/-N: Too fast and too powerful, again. Both have great Atk/SpAtk and Spd, pack strong moves and priority. Too hard to deal with.
Doryuuzu: Again, too fast and too powerful. In a Sandstorm, its speed is unmatched, coupled with 135 Atk, lots of opportunities to set up a Swords Dance, and good coverage with Earthquake and Rock Slide alone.
Inconsistent: Takes the battle complete out of hand, in such a way that neither of the players can really influence it. There is no sure stop to this. Ban it ASAP.
Drizzle: I first thought of nominating Hydration to make Manaphy easier to deal with, but in the end I nominate Drizzle because not only Manaphy, but also stuff like Kingdra and Kabutops are too hard to deal with. Why Drizzle but no Sand Stream? Because, aside Doryuuzu, nothing benefits from it like Drizzle benefits some mons.
Darkrai:Nominating because this thing is just ridiculous. Fantastic SpAtk and Spd, combined with Dark Void, make it too hard to deal. You need something like TechniLoom or TechniTop to really deal with it.
Shaymin-S: Too fast, too powerful. Serene Grace Seed Flare and Air Slash are too overpowered. The only things that wall it (as far as walling goes, as you can get flinched and get your SpDef lowered) can barely do anything in return.
Deoxys-S/-N: Too fast and too powerful, again. Both have great Atk/SpAtk and Spd, pack strong moves and priority. Too hard to deal with.
Doryuuzu: Again, too fast and too powerful. In a Sandstorm, its speed is unmatched, coupled with 135 Atk, lots of opportunities to set up a Swords Dance, and good coverage with Earthquake and Rock Slide alone.
Inconsistent: Takes the battle complete out of hand, in such a way that neither of the players can really influence it. There is no sure stop to this. Ban it ASAP.
Drizzle: I first thought of nominating Hydration to make Manaphy easier to deal with, but in the end I nominate Drizzle because not only Manaphy, but also stuff like Kingdra and Kabutops are too hard to deal with. Why Drizzle but no Sand Stream? Because, aside Doryuuzu, nothing benefits from it like Drizzle benefits some mons.
Confirming myself as Jonathan
Inconsistent As much fun as this ability is to abuse, and despite it brining a few before-unseen Pokemon into the limelight, Inconsistent is broken. Early on I made a few posts stating Inconsistent wasn't broken, but after a couple weeks of experience using Octillery I can't say the same thing. Roughly 70% of the time I bring it out it's gg for my opponent, even if we're in the middle of the battle and it's hardly clear who will win. It's won me a number of battles I probably shouldn't have won. I don't think it turns the match into a "crapshoot" as some have been saying, as over the long run (and I've played a lot) it's a strategy that with minimum team support consistently decimates opposing teams.
Shaymin-S Extremely hard to switch into, as you need to realize there's a VERY real possibility whatever "counter" you switch into it will get a sharp Special Defense Drop (usually rendering it useless) or will get flinched several times by Air Slash. That's the bare minimum you should expect upon switching into Skymin and combined with Substitute, it's extremely, extremely difficult to reliably handle.
Darkrai Broken without the new Sleep Mechanic, but that certainly makes things worse. Darkrai consistently puts at least 1 Pokemon to sleep per match and kills 1 - 2 others. And that's assuming the Darkrai user doesn't get sneaky and use Nasty Plot as you switch to your Sleep Absorber, then Sleep you, and then Nasty Plot again as you switch to your real counter (and even if you use Sleep Talk on a Sleep Absorber there's a chance you'll select Rest, and Darkrai is definitely bulky enough to take a powerful neutral hit). Also, the insane Speed and Dark Pulse's flinch rate effectively give all its opponents 80% accuracy when it uses Dark Pulse.
Deoxys-A/N This thing hits like a fucking train and needs to be removed from OU as soon as possible. It shits all over your team unless you have priority (and even if you switch in say Scizor and survive with ~50% health, a good player will just switch Deoxys out and bring it in later). Seriously the number of people who seem to abide by some weird mentality of "I've had a good run, I've taken out 1 Pokemon and severely weakened another so I can sac Deoxys now" is staggering, and is the only reason I can think of that more people aren't nominating him. To even have a shot of reliably revenge killing Deoxys with a Scarfer/priority user you will usually need to sacrifice or seriously maim someone on your team.
Manaphy Manaphy is the only aspect of infinite rain I feel is a bit too much for the average OU team to handle, and that's only because of Hydration. This thing doesn't even need an investment in Special Attack to run through teams when the rain is up. I run max HP/max Speed with Surf/Ice Beam/Tail Glow/Rest and against teams without a Natorrei or a Sand Stream user (which, to be fair, is a lot of teams actually) Manaphy can usually pull off a sweep. Hydration/Rest makes the process so much easier, as Manaphy can seriously dent a counter the first time it comes in, usually take a hit because of its solid defenses, and then just come in later, heal off, and this time rip through the weakened counter.
I would really like to implore the community to hold off on banning Drizzle for now, and if it really comes down to it, consider banning Kingdra eventually (who I have no problem dealing with but a lot of people seem to have trouble with the Specs set). Virtually every other commonly seen Rain Abuser is checked by Nattorei, and Sand Stream teams can more than stand up to offensive Rain teams due to their greater versatility.
Rain has brought an influx of new Pokemon into the OU Metagame, many of which (apart from Manaphy and possibly Kingdra who may be too much to handle) are top tier threats, but certainly not over-the-top. I don't understand why people are uncomfortable with the idea of things like Kabutops and Ludiculo now possibly being on par with Garchomp, Dorry, and other top tier OU threats. And don't forget that Politoed gave rise to a very viable and before unheard-of team archetype: rain stall. Parasect has gone from being a laughable opponent to being one of the best SubSeeders in the game.
People keep harping on how many things benefit from rain. But how many are simply top tier threats and how many are actually broken? If the latter is no more than three, perhaps we should seriously consider just banning those few Pokemon. Because otherwise I don't see ANY reason not to run a Sand Stream team. That archetype got a huge boost this generation and without rain to keep it in check you're pretty much shooting yourself in the foot by not running a Tyranitar/Hippowdon centric team.
Inconsistent As much fun as this ability is to abuse, and despite it brining a few before-unseen Pokemon into the limelight, Inconsistent is broken. Early on I made a few posts stating Inconsistent wasn't broken, but after a couple weeks of experience using Octillery I can't say the same thing. Roughly 70% of the time I bring it out it's gg for my opponent, even if we're in the middle of the battle and it's hardly clear who will win. It's won me a number of battles I probably shouldn't have won. I don't think it turns the match into a "crapshoot" as some have been saying, as over the long run (and I've played a lot) it's a strategy that with minimum team support consistently decimates opposing teams.
Shaymin-S Extremely hard to switch into, as you need to realize there's a VERY real possibility whatever "counter" you switch into it will get a sharp Special Defense Drop (usually rendering it useless) or will get flinched several times by Air Slash. That's the bare minimum you should expect upon switching into Skymin and combined with Substitute, it's extremely, extremely difficult to reliably handle.
Darkrai Broken without the new Sleep Mechanic, but that certainly makes things worse. Darkrai consistently puts at least 1 Pokemon to sleep per match and kills 1 - 2 others. And that's assuming the Darkrai user doesn't get sneaky and use Nasty Plot as you switch to your Sleep Absorber, then Sleep you, and then Nasty Plot again as you switch to your real counter (and even if you use Sleep Talk on a Sleep Absorber there's a chance you'll select Rest, and Darkrai is definitely bulky enough to take a powerful neutral hit). Also, the insane Speed and Dark Pulse's flinch rate effectively give all its opponents 80% accuracy when it uses Dark Pulse.
Deoxys-A/N This thing hits like a fucking train and needs to be removed from OU as soon as possible. It shits all over your team unless you have priority (and even if you switch in say Scizor and survive with ~50% health, a good player will just switch Deoxys out and bring it in later). Seriously the number of people who seem to abide by some weird mentality of "I've had a good run, I've taken out 1 Pokemon and severely weakened another so I can sac Deoxys now" is staggering, and is the only reason I can think of that more people aren't nominating him. To even have a shot of reliably revenge killing Deoxys with a Scarfer/priority user you will usually need to sacrifice or seriously maim someone on your team.
Manaphy Manaphy is the only aspect of infinite rain I feel is a bit too much for the average OU team to handle, and that's only because of Hydration. This thing doesn't even need an investment in Special Attack to run through teams when the rain is up. I run max HP/max Speed with Surf/Ice Beam/Tail Glow/Rest and against teams without a Natorrei or a Sand Stream user (which, to be fair, is a lot of teams actually) Manaphy can usually pull off a sweep. Hydration/Rest makes the process so much easier, as Manaphy can seriously dent a counter the first time it comes in, usually take a hit because of its solid defenses, and then just come in later, heal off, and this time rip through the weakened counter.
I would really like to implore the community to hold off on banning Drizzle for now, and if it really comes down to it, consider banning Kingdra eventually (who I have no problem dealing with but a lot of people seem to have trouble with the Specs set). Virtually every other commonly seen Rain Abuser is checked by Nattorei, and Sand Stream teams can more than stand up to offensive Rain teams due to their greater versatility.
Rain has brought an influx of new Pokemon into the OU Metagame, many of which (apart from Manaphy and possibly Kingdra who may be too much to handle) are top tier threats, but certainly not over-the-top. I don't understand why people are uncomfortable with the idea of things like Kabutops and Ludiculo now possibly being on par with Garchomp, Dorry, and other top tier OU threats. And don't forget that Politoed gave rise to a very viable and before unheard-of team archetype: rain stall. Parasect has gone from being a laughable opponent to being one of the best SubSeeders in the game.
People keep harping on how many things benefit from rain. But how many are simply top tier threats and how many are actually broken? If the latter is no more than three, perhaps we should seriously consider just banning those few Pokemon. Because otherwise I don't see ANY reason not to run a Sand Stream team. That archetype got a huge boost this generation and without rain to keep it in check you're pretty much shooting yourself in the foot by not running a Tyranitar/Hippowdon centric team.
Hi, I am M Dragon
Nominations:
Inconsistent: This is the definition of a non skill ability. You can beat a good OU team easily if you get the right boosts with shitty pokemon like Octillery just with Sub + Protect. Even bad players can beat any player with an inconsistent pokes with the right boosts. When it boosts the evasion, and you start missing all your attacks, you can do absolutely nothing. When even a bidoof can beat an OU team and the opponent is not a bad player, something is very wrong.
Darkrai: With the new sleep mechanics, if it sleeps a pokemon, its basically 6-5 with the new sleep mechanics, and it can easily sweep with its incredible speed + sp atk, and he will get a free NP after sleeping something, and it can survive hits from things like Scarfchomp or mach punch roobushin. I have been using a bulky set, and it was ridiculous, surviving every mach punch, and OHKOing all the mach punchers a +2 Focus Blast.
Shaymin-S: Base 127 Speed and 120 Special Attack, with Serene grace and a move that drops sp def 2 stages 80% of the time, and a move that flinches 60% of the time, and with the bulk that let it survive lots of hits (my skymin even survived an Air Slash from an another Skymin).
Nominations:
Inconsistent: This is the definition of a non skill ability. You can beat a good OU team easily if you get the right boosts with shitty pokemon like Octillery just with Sub + Protect. Even bad players can beat any player with an inconsistent pokes with the right boosts. When it boosts the evasion, and you start missing all your attacks, you can do absolutely nothing. When even a bidoof can beat an OU team and the opponent is not a bad player, something is very wrong.
Darkrai: With the new sleep mechanics, if it sleeps a pokemon, its basically 6-5 with the new sleep mechanics, and it can easily sweep with its incredible speed + sp atk, and he will get a free NP after sleeping something, and it can survive hits from things like Scarfchomp or mach punch roobushin. I have been using a bulky set, and it was ridiculous, surviving every mach punch, and OHKOing all the mach punchers a +2 Focus Blast.
Shaymin-S: Base 127 Speed and 120 Special Attack, with Serene grace and a move that drops sp def 2 stages 80% of the time, and a move that flinches 60% of the time, and with the bulk that let it survive lots of hits (my skymin even survived an Air Slash from an another Skymin).
Ok expecting this to be a long post...
1. Shaymin-S Ok so this is an easy nomination. 127 base Speed with a 60% chance of flinching every turn is retarded. It turns 'checks' into Leftovers recovery and counters into shaky checks. The best 'check' I found was Weavile and that was always playing a game of cat and mouse between choosing Pursuit or Ice Shard. In my opinion we shouldn't have even tested this, the metagame lent itself way too much into the favour of Shaymin-S, outspeeding every viable Pokemon in the tier and promptly flinching them to death. Its SubSeeding set is ridiculous too, as is Specs (which was underutilized but still extremely effective).
2. Deoxys-A/N Both come under the same category here, both are way too powerful sporting gargantuan attacking stats and awesome movepools. There really is no check to Deoxys-A. It normally took 2 Pokemon to take out and even then you had to bait a Superpower normally. Psycho Boost is flat out retarded, the simple fact that you can come close to OHKOing Scizor with it on a Rash LO set just shows how ridiculous this Pokemon is. Another Pokemon that shouldn't have been tested. Deoxys-N for the same reasons except it sacrifices Power for bulk, though the bulk helps in a lot of situations like surviving priority attacks, and its assaults are still insanely powerful.
3. Darkrai I don't know why these first three were unbanned, whatever. Darkrai just nullifies all of its counters with Dark Void (barring the people who uses Primeape and Heracross for it...............lol) and proceed to fire off near perfect coverage Dark Pulses and Focus Blasts and setting up on the majority of switches. It is 'less uber' than the other 3 already mentioned because its attacks really aren't as effective, but it centralises and is damn hard to take out to be honest especially with Dark Void and Nasty Plot.
4. Latios Uh why has absolutely no-one voted Latios yet? People think that Steels are be all counters to it, but outside of Jirachi and Bronzong next to none of them are good counters, being ko'd by boosted HP Fire or Surf. With Latios it really is a nasty game because it can either slam you with a Specs Draco Meteor, set up with Calm Mind, Trick Blissey if it is put in that position. Latios is an insane wallbreaker because of Trick and it makes checks few and far between. I don't expect many people to vote it this round but next round it'll be a different story i'm sure.
5. Manaphy Ugh in all honesty, Manaphy was the cheapest part of the metagame, due to the sheer fact in rain it can recover its health instantaneously. Forget Tail Glow, Hydration is pretty much broken by itself with Rest. The fact that you can pretty much OHKO Blissey and Chansey in rain with Tail Glow just should show you this thing does not belong in OU. Short and sweet but I don't think this needed much addressing.
6. Adding Inconsistent to evasion clause I'm being specific with this because as much as I despise the slippery slope argument, I feel there is a simpler solution to this than just add more clauses like 'Drizzle Clause' and 'Inconsistent Clause'. The only reason Inconsistent is broken is because of the Evasion boosts, so in my opinion just add it to Evasion clause and be done with it, no need to overcomplicate matters.
7. Politoed For the same reason as 6, I am choosing to ban Politoed as a whole rather than just Drizzle.
Drizzle in itself is such a gamebreaking ability not only by boosting the speed but give a free Swords Dance/Nasty Plot to Water moves. That is what makes it broken. I'm a firm believer that you could just slam people in battle with no Swift Swimmers whatsoever, and just use insanely powerful water moves and Rain would still be broken. Maybe it is the same with Sun too but we will have to see about that, as Ninetales looks much less competitively viable than Politoed has done.
Also as for the argument that Jonathan posted for not banning Drizzle, I don't know how many rain teams you have played but Nattorei is a check at best to a lot of Rain sweepers. It cannot come in on Kabutops because it is KO'd by a +2 Low Kick. It is also KO'd a lot of the time by a +1 LO Low Kick from Floatzel unless it is Physically Defensive. Qwilfish deals 80%+ with a +2 Revenge to Nattorei and this isn't even getting into just being hit hard by things like Specs Kingdra or +3 Manaphy. Nattorei is usually able to take one hit, maybe two, and then your best counter is gone. People used Scarf Shaymin-S for a while then everyone found things like Jolly Qwilfish and Floatzel outsped and KO'd. A lot of the reason Rain is broken also comes from the fact there are a lot of insanely good rain sweepers which Nattorei cannot stop by itself. Also you want to talk about banning the Pokemon that are top tier viable threats, honestly there are at least 10 threats that are viable and can deal some serious damage to any team in the Rain. I think in the long run it would be better to just ban Perma-Rain altogether.
Also, will people really miss Politoed if that was banned over Drizzle itself? I mean really, it was NU in Gen 4 and no-one ever used it. I'm certainly not going to take a second glance at it if it goes into Ubers, even if it does look 'out of place', and I personally think that is the only reason people are voting Drizzle over just outright voting Politoed. Your choice at the end of the day, I just think its a little dumb.
8. Wobbuffet Again voting Wobbuffet over Shadow Tag, one because currently it doesn't get another ability <_<. The fact it pigeon holes you into killing yourself is why its broken, the Encore nerf did nothing to stop that and will always do that. If you want to ban Shadow Tag thats fine but at least wait until Wobbuffet gets another ability, because I don't know why you wouldn't just ban the one Pokemon that has the ability currently, and come to Shandera and Gochizeru somewhere else down the line because they bring an entirely different problem. Regardless Wobbuffet is still broken, the metagame just didn't lend itself to a lot of usage due to Darkrai, Shaymin-S and Tyranitar everywhere.
9. Deoxys-S Ok these last 2 nominations are going to be kind of controversial I guess and in my opinion can be seen either way in this testing period at least. From personal experience Deoxys-E is by far the best support Pokemon in the game barring Weather setup. As a support Pokemon it is just as good in Gen 4 except it can keep entry hazards on the field with Magic Coat and at the same time prevent itself from being Taunted. it can set up Dual Screens to aid sweeping as well as bring Stealth Rock and Spikes to the field with ease. Basically for the same reasons as in Generation 4 it is broken.
10. Doryuuzu Probably the most controversial nomination and as such i'm leaving this one until last. Doryuuzu has one extremely hard check in Gliscor and as such many people probably see that as it not being broken. The simple fact is though that Doryuuzu requires you to have either a check to Sand (Ninetales/Politoed/Cloud Nine) or that you have Gliscor. Hippowdon loses to Balloon Doryuuzu, Suicune loses to Adamant LO Doryuuzu, and although I hate to bring this up, a lot of checks lose to Sand Power Doryuuzu over Sand Throw (even though no-one uses Sand Power, and for good reason).
I guess whether you think it is broken depends on what you think about centralisation, but I believe that once Politoed is gone that Doryuuzu will literally force you to carry a Gliscor or a strong Mach Puncher like Hitmontop, even then I think people with become smart and use things like Chople Doryuuzu if it gets too popular. It is broken and either it will get banned now or it will get banned next round (in my opinion of course).
Pokemon that i think have grounds to be put into suspect but chose not to:
Randorusu
Garchomp
Whew long post...this metagame needs some serious fixing lol I think we can all agree.
1. Shaymin-S Ok so this is an easy nomination. 127 base Speed with a 60% chance of flinching every turn is retarded. It turns 'checks' into Leftovers recovery and counters into shaky checks. The best 'check' I found was Weavile and that was always playing a game of cat and mouse between choosing Pursuit or Ice Shard. In my opinion we shouldn't have even tested this, the metagame lent itself way too much into the favour of Shaymin-S, outspeeding every viable Pokemon in the tier and promptly flinching them to death. Its SubSeeding set is ridiculous too, as is Specs (which was underutilized but still extremely effective).
2. Deoxys-A/N Both come under the same category here, both are way too powerful sporting gargantuan attacking stats and awesome movepools. There really is no check to Deoxys-A. It normally took 2 Pokemon to take out and even then you had to bait a Superpower normally. Psycho Boost is flat out retarded, the simple fact that you can come close to OHKOing Scizor with it on a Rash LO set just shows how ridiculous this Pokemon is. Another Pokemon that shouldn't have been tested. Deoxys-N for the same reasons except it sacrifices Power for bulk, though the bulk helps in a lot of situations like surviving priority attacks, and its assaults are still insanely powerful.
3. Darkrai I don't know why these first three were unbanned, whatever. Darkrai just nullifies all of its counters with Dark Void (barring the people who uses Primeape and Heracross for it...............lol) and proceed to fire off near perfect coverage Dark Pulses and Focus Blasts and setting up on the majority of switches. It is 'less uber' than the other 3 already mentioned because its attacks really aren't as effective, but it centralises and is damn hard to take out to be honest especially with Dark Void and Nasty Plot.
4. Latios Uh why has absolutely no-one voted Latios yet? People think that Steels are be all counters to it, but outside of Jirachi and Bronzong next to none of them are good counters, being ko'd by boosted HP Fire or Surf. With Latios it really is a nasty game because it can either slam you with a Specs Draco Meteor, set up with Calm Mind, Trick Blissey if it is put in that position. Latios is an insane wallbreaker because of Trick and it makes checks few and far between. I don't expect many people to vote it this round but next round it'll be a different story i'm sure.
5. Manaphy Ugh in all honesty, Manaphy was the cheapest part of the metagame, due to the sheer fact in rain it can recover its health instantaneously. Forget Tail Glow, Hydration is pretty much broken by itself with Rest. The fact that you can pretty much OHKO Blissey and Chansey in rain with Tail Glow just should show you this thing does not belong in OU. Short and sweet but I don't think this needed much addressing.
6. Adding Inconsistent to evasion clause I'm being specific with this because as much as I despise the slippery slope argument, I feel there is a simpler solution to this than just add more clauses like 'Drizzle Clause' and 'Inconsistent Clause'. The only reason Inconsistent is broken is because of the Evasion boosts, so in my opinion just add it to Evasion clause and be done with it, no need to overcomplicate matters.
7. Politoed For the same reason as 6, I am choosing to ban Politoed as a whole rather than just Drizzle.
Drizzle in itself is such a gamebreaking ability not only by boosting the speed but give a free Swords Dance/Nasty Plot to Water moves. That is what makes it broken. I'm a firm believer that you could just slam people in battle with no Swift Swimmers whatsoever, and just use insanely powerful water moves and Rain would still be broken. Maybe it is the same with Sun too but we will have to see about that, as Ninetales looks much less competitively viable than Politoed has done.
Also as for the argument that Jonathan posted for not banning Drizzle, I don't know how many rain teams you have played but Nattorei is a check at best to a lot of Rain sweepers. It cannot come in on Kabutops because it is KO'd by a +2 Low Kick. It is also KO'd a lot of the time by a +1 LO Low Kick from Floatzel unless it is Physically Defensive. Qwilfish deals 80%+ with a +2 Revenge to Nattorei and this isn't even getting into just being hit hard by things like Specs Kingdra or +3 Manaphy. Nattorei is usually able to take one hit, maybe two, and then your best counter is gone. People used Scarf Shaymin-S for a while then everyone found things like Jolly Qwilfish and Floatzel outsped and KO'd. A lot of the reason Rain is broken also comes from the fact there are a lot of insanely good rain sweepers which Nattorei cannot stop by itself. Also you want to talk about banning the Pokemon that are top tier viable threats, honestly there are at least 10 threats that are viable and can deal some serious damage to any team in the Rain. I think in the long run it would be better to just ban Perma-Rain altogether.
Also, will people really miss Politoed if that was banned over Drizzle itself? I mean really, it was NU in Gen 4 and no-one ever used it. I'm certainly not going to take a second glance at it if it goes into Ubers, even if it does look 'out of place', and I personally think that is the only reason people are voting Drizzle over just outright voting Politoed. Your choice at the end of the day, I just think its a little dumb.
8. Wobbuffet Again voting Wobbuffet over Shadow Tag, one because currently it doesn't get another ability <_<. The fact it pigeon holes you into killing yourself is why its broken, the Encore nerf did nothing to stop that and will always do that. If you want to ban Shadow Tag thats fine but at least wait until Wobbuffet gets another ability, because I don't know why you wouldn't just ban the one Pokemon that has the ability currently, and come to Shandera and Gochizeru somewhere else down the line because they bring an entirely different problem. Regardless Wobbuffet is still broken, the metagame just didn't lend itself to a lot of usage due to Darkrai, Shaymin-S and Tyranitar everywhere.
9. Deoxys-S Ok these last 2 nominations are going to be kind of controversial I guess and in my opinion can be seen either way in this testing period at least. From personal experience Deoxys-E is by far the best support Pokemon in the game barring Weather setup. As a support Pokemon it is just as good in Gen 4 except it can keep entry hazards on the field with Magic Coat and at the same time prevent itself from being Taunted. it can set up Dual Screens to aid sweeping as well as bring Stealth Rock and Spikes to the field with ease. Basically for the same reasons as in Generation 4 it is broken.
10. Doryuuzu Probably the most controversial nomination and as such i'm leaving this one until last. Doryuuzu has one extremely hard check in Gliscor and as such many people probably see that as it not being broken. The simple fact is though that Doryuuzu requires you to have either a check to Sand (Ninetales/Politoed/Cloud Nine) or that you have Gliscor. Hippowdon loses to Balloon Doryuuzu, Suicune loses to Adamant LO Doryuuzu, and although I hate to bring this up, a lot of checks lose to Sand Power Doryuuzu over Sand Throw (even though no-one uses Sand Power, and for good reason).
I guess whether you think it is broken depends on what you think about centralisation, but I believe that once Politoed is gone that Doryuuzu will literally force you to carry a Gliscor or a strong Mach Puncher like Hitmontop, even then I think people with become smart and use things like Chople Doryuuzu if it gets too popular. It is broken and either it will get banned now or it will get banned next round (in my opinion of course).
Pokemon that i think have grounds to be put into suspect but chose not to:
Randorusu
Garchomp
Whew long post...this metagame needs some serious fixing lol I think we can all agree.
Phillip, the maximum recipients to send it to is 5 and you have 6 people up. :/
Confirming I'm Monni.
Suspect Abuser
1. Shaymin-s - This is pretty self-explanatory. 80% special defense drop, followed by flinching everything to death. God knows how many games end up being Skymin speed-ties. It does nothing for the game, is utterly broken with or without entry-hazards, and can single-handedly change games. Oh, also doesn't help that it gets great support moves like Leech Seed + Sub and Earth Power for fire types...
2. Inconsistent - this thing is just fucking ridiculous. You can carry 3 "ways to deal" with this thing on a stall team, including Nattorei, Roar Gyarados, and Blissey, and still fucking lose like I did at least 50% of the time. One +2 evasion and this thing becomes difficult to kill. +4 and its impossible. +6 and you're wasting your time playing. I'm not gonna play in a metagame where this ability means a guaranteed 50% loss for me considering the amount of times Octillery will get to boost with Sub and Protect.
3. Darkrai - While I think sleep should be allowed this gen, Darkrai using sleep definitely should not. Darkrai was the reason I won so many matches extremely easily on the ladder. Its basically the perfect Pokemon to use and abuse the new sleep mechanisms. Oh, it also doesn't help that it gets Nasty Plot to boost those ridiculous special attack levels, and it has that high base speed. Only reason this thing was semi-manageable was cause Skymin existed to outspeed it.
4. Doryuuzu - while not many people will agree with this one, this thing hits like a fucking truck. And with the advent of the Balloon, you're forced to run a secondary attack on things like Hippowdon to at least be able to hit it. It basically comes down to this: in order to stop this thing, you need to have either a Gliscor, Skarmory, Bronzong, or Roobushin (and even Roo's Mach Punch doesn't KO without +1). Since SS is such a common condition, chances are its speed will already be doubled, and you will need to play around it defensively. Its like Garchomp in that you're limited to running a very few things to stop being swept by it.
5. Deoxys-A - So....if you thought Latios was bad during last gen's suspect test, you'll love Deo-A. Deo-A hits all those offensive numbers Latios did, exceeds them, adds prowess on the physical side, and also has a priority move to boot. Do I need to seriously explain more? When Scizor takes 70%+ from Psycho Boost, I think its safe to say that Deoxys-A is absolutely ridiculously overpowered.
6. Manaphy - with rain, this thing is as difficult, if not more difficult, to handle than Dory. And since Tail Glow is now +3 (which I never realized until like 2 days ago), its even more broken than it was last generation. The advent of Drizzle Politoad makes this thing even more dangerous. You're basically forced to carry a weather changer just to deal with this bitch.
1. Shaymin-s - This is pretty self-explanatory. 80% special defense drop, followed by flinching everything to death. God knows how many games end up being Skymin speed-ties. It does nothing for the game, is utterly broken with or without entry-hazards, and can single-handedly change games. Oh, also doesn't help that it gets great support moves like Leech Seed + Sub and Earth Power for fire types...
2. Inconsistent - this thing is just fucking ridiculous. You can carry 3 "ways to deal" with this thing on a stall team, including Nattorei, Roar Gyarados, and Blissey, and still fucking lose like I did at least 50% of the time. One +2 evasion and this thing becomes difficult to kill. +4 and its impossible. +6 and you're wasting your time playing. I'm not gonna play in a metagame where this ability means a guaranteed 50% loss for me considering the amount of times Octillery will get to boost with Sub and Protect.
3. Darkrai - While I think sleep should be allowed this gen, Darkrai using sleep definitely should not. Darkrai was the reason I won so many matches extremely easily on the ladder. Its basically the perfect Pokemon to use and abuse the new sleep mechanisms. Oh, it also doesn't help that it gets Nasty Plot to boost those ridiculous special attack levels, and it has that high base speed. Only reason this thing was semi-manageable was cause Skymin existed to outspeed it.
4. Doryuuzu - while not many people will agree with this one, this thing hits like a fucking truck. And with the advent of the Balloon, you're forced to run a secondary attack on things like Hippowdon to at least be able to hit it. It basically comes down to this: in order to stop this thing, you need to have either a Gliscor, Skarmory, Bronzong, or Roobushin (and even Roo's Mach Punch doesn't KO without +1). Since SS is such a common condition, chances are its speed will already be doubled, and you will need to play around it defensively. Its like Garchomp in that you're limited to running a very few things to stop being swept by it.
5. Deoxys-A - So....if you thought Latios was bad during last gen's suspect test, you'll love Deo-A. Deo-A hits all those offensive numbers Latios did, exceeds them, adds prowess on the physical side, and also has a priority move to boot. Do I need to seriously explain more? When Scizor takes 70%+ from Psycho Boost, I think its safe to say that Deoxys-A is absolutely ridiculously overpowered.
6. Manaphy - with rain, this thing is as difficult, if not more difficult, to handle than Dory. And since Tail Glow is now +3 (which I never realized until like 2 days ago), its even more broken than it was last generation. The advent of Drizzle Politoad makes this thing even more dangerous. You're basically forced to carry a weather changer just to deal with this bitch.
Nominations
Skymin
Skymin is monstorous. I have had battles where Skymin has flinched every turn. With a 60% chance to flinch, Skymin decreases the skill needed dramatically. Seed Flare is just as bad as Air Slash with a 80% chance for a SDef drop, opening the way for Air Slash. Earth power means heatran can not defeat it. The amount if luck Skymin involves means nothing counters it, as Blissey and Bronzong can be flinched.
Inconsistent
I am nominating Inconsitent because it forces teams to carry moves such as Clear Smog and I think it violates Evasion Clause. This ability promotes luck and Overcentralises the metagame. People are forced tp carry Toxicroak and Mushroom dude to counter this. The luck involved means anyone can win using this cheap strategy. When you use this ability, the goal is to unfairly gain Evasion and I believe this means, that you are breaking Evasion Clause
Skymin
Skymin is monstorous. I have had battles where Skymin has flinched every turn. With a 60% chance to flinch, Skymin decreases the skill needed dramatically. Seed Flare is just as bad as Air Slash with a 80% chance for a SDef drop, opening the way for Air Slash. Earth power means heatran can not defeat it. The amount if luck Skymin involves means nothing counters it, as Blissey and Bronzong can be flinched.
Inconsistent
I am nominating Inconsitent because it forces teams to carry moves such as Clear Smog and I think it violates Evasion Clause. This ability promotes luck and Overcentralises the metagame. People are forced tp carry Toxicroak and Mushroom dude to counter this. The luck involved means anyone can win using this cheap strategy. When you use this ability, the goal is to unfairly gain Evasion and I believe this means, that you are breaking Evasion Clause
- Status