OU Suspect Testing Round 2 Voter Identification and Suspect Nominations

[Philip7086]

Hey everybody, hope you had a good suspect test run this round! As you should know by now, the qualification rating threshold was set to 1400 this round. All the accounts listed as 1400 or higher below are qualified to vote. Please take this time to identify any accounts you qualified with, as I need your forum username to set up the voter permissions. Here's the list, as of midnight:

Midnight Ladder Screen Shot

If you do not have an account rated higher than 1400 listed here, but feel you are qualified to vote, you are allowed to submit a Special Permission Application for review by the Policy Review staff. Please answer the following questions and PM your response to Aldaron, Earthworm, Gouki, Jibaku, reachzero, and myself:

1. What was your highest ranked account, and what was its rating on Tuesday, January 18th at 12:00am?

2. Why do you believe you should be given voting rights, even though you did not meet the requirements?

As you should also know, voter identification is not the only purpose of this thread. All users are allowed to submit their nominations for suspects to be voted on here. Here's a list of things to keep in mind when submitting nominations:

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

Reminder: This thread is NOT for getting into debates about whose nominations are good or bad. Please do not reply to any posts in this thread. I will keep the other suspect voting thread open for such discussions to take place. All posts breaking this rule will be deleted, and the users are subject to a forum warning.

If you have been following the threads in Policy Review, you might be familiar with a new ban idea brought up by Aldaron in this thread. I personally have a torn opinion on his suggestion. I think both sides of the argument present excellent points. To help decide whether or not such an option should be put up to vote, I would like to hear your opinions on the matter. If I see enough support for Aldaron's alternative, I will put it up to a vote before anything else gets voted on.

Finally, I just wanted to thank everybody who actively participates in our tiering process. A big part of what makes Smogon the dominant force in competitive Pokemon that it is today is the fact that we put so much work and dedication towards getting our tiering right. None of this would be possible without the massive amounts of testing and debating that we do, and you guys are the ones that make it all happen.

 

[Iconic]

officer slater at your service

 

[wilson46]

Confirming myself wilson45.

for noms:

Latios: Nominated this last round, going to do it again. This thing is just so powerful with Specs. Specs Draco Meteor tears apart all of the metagame, with only the exception of bulky steels like Nattorei, or pokemon with very high Special Defense, such as Chansey, Blissey, or Tyranitar. However, Latios has more than enough in its movepool to deal with these pokemon. Hidden Power Fire has gotten very common on Latios, and it scorches stuff like Nattorei and Scizor on the switch in. Psycho Shock or Trick can be run for Chansey/Blissey, and Surf plus SR easily 2hkoes Tyranitar unless it's running a huge amount of SpDef, which some do, but to do that just for Latios is a bit silly if you ask me (Ttar could be using those evs in SpDef for speed to hit benchmarks, or in attack to hit stuff harder).

Rankurusu: Nominated for numerous reasons. Magic Guard plus good bulk backed up by monstrous SpAtt makes a terrifying pokemon to face. Even with only two viable sets to use, Calm Mind, and Offensive Trick Room, it basically rips holes in teams once it gets in. Stall has a really tough time dealing with Calm Mind, as the hazards and damaging weather aren't going to be doing anything to it, while it sets up Calm Minds on your defensive, and weak- hitting walls and proceeds to break your stall. Offensive Trick Room on the other hand, easily destroys an offensive team, being basically the slowest mon when it uses trick room, then hitting hard with its LO attacks and good coverage with Psychic/Focus Blast/Shadow Ball.

Sand Veil/Snow Cloak/Brightpowder [Evasion]: In my opinion these abilities and items should be lumped under evasion clause, but if not, they should be banned anyway because of what they do. It's not fair when you expect to hit a pokemon with an 100% accurate move only to miss in the face of Sand Veil.

Also nominating that Deoxys - N be brought down from Ubers, as we did not get to see it's strength and impact when everyone and their mother was only using Deoxys - A. This way, we get to see if Normal forme's slightly lower attack and slightly higher bulk will make a difference or not in the metagame. Also, I agree with Aldaron's proposal.

 

[Lamppost]

Pure Skill here

 

[Zephyr]

Zephyr is me

 

[dbolt]

confirming dbolt

 

[Snunch]

I'm penpow, proving to people the power of pendoraa

nominations:

Doryuuzu:

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

Drizzle: It simply overpowers too many pokemon and overcentralizes the metagame too much to stay. In order to consistently stand a chance against good drizzle users, you must have a weather-inducer of your own, meaning nearly every competitive team will have Tyranitar or Politoed. The number of pokemon that have genuine merits against both styles of play is ridiculously low, thus drizzle creates an unhealthy metagame. I don't support Aldaron's idea at all because his justification for not simply banning drizzle - that banning drizzle will limit the amount of viable pokemon and strategies - is just absurd. He hasn't proven that his idea creates a better metagame than simply banning drizzle, so I don't support it.

 

[smashlloyd20]

Is the Sunday December 19 thing a typo?

Anyway I'm smashlloyd20, for nobody to care about.

 

[hanke]

hey im hanke

Nominations:

Doryuuzu: As i said before that thing is a monster after SD + earthquake stab can easily ohko most of pkmn in this metagame, thanks to 604 speed in sands, really annoying try to defeat him depending on item.

Rankurusu: Probably the most annoying thing than i ever had faced, theres no true (except ttar, scizor and lol spiritomb) counters to try to defend him. Both sets are pretty good because if you give some free turn rankurusu trick room can sweep easily your team (thanks to great spA bases and magic guard), blissey still can handle trick room set but she can't handle calm mind set ;_;

Randorusu: Too strong, sand power, able to sword dance, rock polish, nice offensives bases (Atk, SpA, Speed) as i said before for dory that thing is a monster in sands(thanks to sand power)

By the way I agree with aldaron's proposal

 

[Nails]

Confirming as Nails

Nominations:

Drizzle, Doryuuzu, Randorosu, Drought


They make the game far too centered on whoever can keep their own weather up.

• Rain gives the STAB boost to all water type attacks while giving some pokemon a free speed boost. I voted it broken last time and will this time.
• Doryuuzu and Randoruso are both incredibly powerful sweepers. Doryuuzu may have counters, but the way it annihilates a large majority of pokemon in the metagame pushes it over the edge for me. I don't like the fact that you're forced to keep your counter alive or you're swept, because it has so few counters and it puts pressure on the opponent before it ever switches into a battle. Randoruso on the other hand lacks counters. It's too strong for the metagame.
• Drought is likely not going to be very popular, but I'm including it more as a preemptive ban, as like sand and rain, I feel it is too powerful and would be broken in a metagame with sand and rain offense gone.

Shadow Tag

I voted for it last time and I will again. It's bad for the metagame and I feel that wobbuffet is broken already. It will be banned when shandera becomes released, so why not get it out of the way now?

 

[The Grand Babido]

Confirming that i do in fact farm gyarados.

(i am gyarados farmer)

 

[Rhys DeAnno]

I'm rhys deanno unsurprisingly.

Kingdra, more than any other rain abuser, really has taken over the meta and warped it in an unpleasant way. Kingdra's only good counter is Nattorei due to its awesome dual STABs, and it is Kingdra's presence in the meta which has caused Nattorei usage to rise to such ridiculous levels. Other swift swimmers such as Ludicolo and Kabutops, and even Manaphy, are praised for breaking through Nattorei mostly since that leaves the path free for Kingdra to sweep. I believe that this unbelievable imperative to beat Kingdra is what's making Drizzle so obnoxious now, and with it banned things will be much more manageable.

Manaphy, often Kingdra's partner in crime, helps it and its Swift Swimming brethren function by breaking through the more stally teams Kingdra and the usually unboosted Swimmers have trouble with. Without Manaphy to boost and break through walls or Kingdra to wear them down to death with it's dual STABS, Offensive Rain is limited to things like SD Kabutops and Toxicroak, which are much less reliable and easier to wall or counter.

I believe that with Kingdra and Manaphy banned rain has a strong chance of being balanced, and that measures required to check the other rain pokemon are not excessive or overly centralizing. After reading Eric's post and thinking about it, I decided banning problem Pokemon was the best solution, and I think banning Politoed at this stage would be premature and unnecessary, invalidating common usage for many more than the two Pokemon I think need to be banned.

Doryuuzu is to sand what Kingdra is to Rain; an extreme force of centralization warping the meta to its own ends. Dory's ability to be an excellent revenger, while at the same time being either an excellent sweeper or an excellent spinner and a good sweeper, is completely ridiculous. Only a few measures such as Skarmory, Gliscor, and Roopushin can be used to reliably check Doryuzuu, and worse yet with either the proper fourth move or a flinch from rock slide it can force its way through many of these. Moreso, its ability to spin with such offensive, game threatening pressure behind it is overpowered for standard.

Though this round was dominated by weather in a way that even the last was not, one Pokemon stood out over all the rest as completely obnoxious in the way it forced teams to take notice of it or be ripped apart. Latios and its Draco Meteors rip through anything that isn't Chansey/Blissey, Tyranitar or a steel type, and its usual complement of Surf made Extreme SpD TTar, Nattorei, and Chansey/Blissey the only vaguely safe switches. Even they were all threatened by Trickspecs, and Psycho Shock could do serious damage to a Blissey. Latios required excessive measures to check and eliminate with any degree of reliability, and it was yet another reason for the unbelievably high and restrictive Nattorei usage among better teams.

EDIT: I support Pocket's Proposal, as is probably evident from the nominations above.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

zoom zoom i got 3 other people in the car hoppin in the Carpool Lane

Nomities:

before i get to anything: I agree with aldaron's proposal

Rankurusu: Magic Guard on what would already be a very solid mon just makes this thing ridiculous. It reminds me of Latios last gen (scizor or ttar or bust, and even ttar isn't a guarantee). Once this thing gets a calm mind under its belt it's insanely hard to take down. Trick room versions are also ridiculous as they are still bulky as fuck but also hit insanely hard and don't have lo recoil to wear it down.

Doryuuzu: Hits insanely hard, has really good typing, and 600 speed in sand. Its counter list is very very small and a few of them he can just power through with a rock slide flinch. I felt this and rankurusu were probably the two mons i constantly had in my head while building teams and building around them was difficult to say the least.

Randorusu: Hits way too hard in sand. Give it a boost and there's hardly anything that can take a hit from it. Can run swords dance or rock polish and both are equally as threatening. Also i'm going to throw in a Sandstream nomination with this and the above mon since 2 pokemon break 2 pokemon i don't care what's banned. I don't know how you want to deal with that situation so yeah.

Latios: specs latios is just as dangerous as it was last gen (maybe even moreso now that blissey can't counter it because of psycho shock. cm versions are also insanely dangerous. it's still fast in comparison to the metagame as most new mons fall just short of its speed.


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

 

[Giga Punch]

Confirming as Metronomic

Deoxys-N for OU

Aside from what was already mentioned in the thread about deoxys-normal at least in regards to it being lumped together with Deoxys-a, I think it should be retested for OU since apparently last voting round there was not the clearest majority vote in regards to those who wanted it banned, not banned or simply abstained.

 

[Warped Worlds]

Posting to confirm myself as Drizzle.

 

[TEzeon]

Confirming myself as Raitei Zeon and (even though it doesn't matter) TEzeon

Nominations:

Sand Veil/Snow Cloak - Quite possibly the most game breaking abilities there are. You could potentially sweep an entire team with just one Pokemon given your opponent misses at the right moment.

 

[Rag]

confirming vanillatea

 

[Limitless]

Confirming as Limitless.

 

[M Dragon]

Hi Im M Dragon and Empire of Fire

 

[Maaf]

Confirming as Maaf.

 

[Jonathan]

I'm Jonathan.

Nominations:

Swift Swim - my reasoning for this can be found here. Additionally I would like to also state my support for Aldaron's proposal. My only concern with his proposal though is that we don't know for certain whether banning Drizzle and Swift Swim together will be enough to balance Rain, maybe the additional power to Water moves will still break too many Pokemon. Which brings up the question of what we do in that scenario. If we simply decide to just ban Drizzle at that point, then I'm 100% on board with this, but I wouldn't want this course of action to bring up proposals for banning Drizzle + Swift Swim + Hydration + Thunder + Hydro Pump. That's why I still slightly favor my original proposal, but if mine doesn't get enough support, Aldaron's has my full backing.

Landlos - for something with only about 6 viable moves, this thing is ridiculously hard to take down if you mis-predict its set, and even if you guess correctly chances are you're still going to lose a Pokemon or two. HP Ice shuts Gliscor down, Substitute makes it impossible to cripple with Burn or Sleep, and depending on whether it runs SD RP or both, the Pokemon you would ideally send in to counter changes significantly. Yes, a lot of things have this kind of versatility in OU, but not backed by this ridiculous level of power and speed.

 

[idiotfrommars]

ME=STUPID<----------------------This is true, as well as IFM

Right now the metagame seems a little out of place. I have yet to put my finger on why, but i figure i might post a couple of nominations.

Drizzle: I am still stuck securely on the fence regarding drizzle. I believe that it is much less broken without manaphy, so I believe that we should leave our final judgement on it until after we ban Manaphy, which leads me to my next suspect.

Manaphy: This is quite easily the suspect I feel most confidently about. It is broken in and out of rain and its CM set is a sight to behold.

I would also support the unbannng of Deo-N as I believe that we didn't give it enough of a test the first time around.

I will leave the rest of the nominations up to you guys, though I hope that we won't try to get to complicated with the rules.

 

[Elevator Music]

prepower is me

 

[Ciele]

Confirming as Entity and rainbow magic.

 

[pi face]

confirming as Vikstrom