Suspect Discussion: "Hail"

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TCTphantom

formerly MX42
I'm not a great player nor experienced in RU, so this isn't exactly a balance viewpoint, but I personally think having only 1 perma-weather user in any tier is a bad thing, regardless of how good or bad that weather is. Either a tier should have all 4 weathers like OU, or no auto-weather at all in my opinion.

The reason for this is simply because there is zero strategy or difficulty in keeping up your weather up if there is nothing else to change it. The hail user just has to send out snover on turn 1 and hail will be up for the rest of the match, unless you carry a manual weather-starter which is not only rare but not a very satisfactory counter anyway - it requires you to use up a valuable moveslot (and possibly an item slot if you want to run a duration boosting rock), switch in the pokemon safely and then be a sitting duck for a second turn while you use the sunny day/rain dance/sandstorm. The opponent has 2 separate turns to either kill you, taunt you, set up on you or just do crippling damage so your mon can't switch in and continue to do its job effectively for the rest of the match. And if that wasn't bad enough, even if you successfully get the weather move off, snover can switch back in and instantly hail is permanently back, and you don't have a single turn to prevent this.

Sure, the hail user has to use up a teamslot for the shitty mon that is snover so it might well be theoretically balanced, but I personally hate strategies where you just have to sit back and take it. As much as I hate the omnipresent weather wars of OU, I find playing weatherless vs perma-weather of any kind to be far more unpleasant.

Also, I've played against stallrein a few times and I have never experienced such a potent combination of mind-numbing boredom and acute, hair-pulling frustration. It is seriously the least fun thing to face in the whole of pokemon, other than maybe sub/swagger liepard which is annoying for more luck based reasons.

So that's my take on this.
I can understand your viewpoint, yet I completely disagree.

For starters, Sunny Day and Rain Dance teams are perfectly viable. One use of the move and you force Snover out (Snover never runs hail), forcing it to take crucial SR damage and break its sash. Not to mention, it's easy to give either move to a wall and just stop hail cold, once Snover is down and you are in safely. If your team is hail weak, you run a hail counter, as you would vs any Pokemon or play style. Not too mention, hail offense is not too powerful, as most threats are super weak physically, and a good fighter can easily Sweep them, most notably Gallade. Fire types also wreck hail, like Entei. Also, several pokemon have barren move sets yet can work great vs Hail, like Rain Dance Kabutops and Sunny Day Entei...

Also, you point out the frustration of Stallrein. An ice body + snow warning ban ruins this play style, while leaving other hail teams viable. In a meta sense
 
I'd like to point out that a well-built hail team is usually not particularly weak to Fire or Fighting types. The Blizz-spammers are probably weak to these, but I doubt anyone is going to stay in with Specs Glaceon against an Entei when they have a Slowking or Qwilfish.
 

breh

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Also, several pokemon have barren move sets yet can work great vs Hail, like Rain Dance Kabutops and Sunny Day Entei...
I actually used Sunny Day Amoonguss while laddering and it worked pretty well. Although I wish sunny day had more pp (the fact that this is relevant in stall wars is kind of hilarious), I was able to make do without that moveslot (though I admit my team has issues with Escavalier in general). I used Rain Dance Kabutops at one point, too (and should have considered Sandstorm, in retrospect) and had Sunny Day Scarf Emboar on another team as well. Don't ever lead with these types of moves; just use them when snover is dead (people will readily fodder it)/ rocks are up and it's down to sash.

I'd like to see if anybody else can get success with this kind of stuff. Hail is a really, really easy weather to eliminate, but a good chunk of its mons (Escavalier, Rotom) are still really frightening outside of it. I did not enjoy putting random fire moves on everything in order to solve my escavlier problem.
 
Yeah, people are really quick to sack their Snovers because they pretty much provide nothing to their team except for hail. I used sunny day Moltres to good success, as most people don't really expect it as nothing else on my team benefits from sun except Tauros because of fire blast. Sun really only helps Tauros OHKO Tangrowth though, as I have exactly enough SpA to ohko 252 hp Escavalier after rocks and loldurant's SpD. It's not a wasted slot on Moltres at all, as sunny day Moltres is a decent sweeper/wallbreaker on its own with fire/grass coverage. People saying they can't fit weather moves onto their team are either lying or lazy and would rather just get rid of hail instead.

That's not to say I don't think hail is very powerful, because I do. I'm just saying it can be dealt with in ways that don't compromise your Pokemons' ability to perform.
 

Molk

Godlike Usmash
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Yeah, people are really quick to sack their Snovers because they pretty much provide nothing to their team except for hail. I used sunny day Moltres to good success, as most people don't really expect it as nothing else on my team benefits from sun except Tauros because of fire blast. Sun really only helps Tauros OHKO Tangrowth though, as I have exactly enough SpA to ohko 252 hp Escavalier after rocks and loldurant's SpD. It's not a wasted slot on Moltres at all, as sunny day Moltres is a decent sweeper/wallbreaker on its own with fire/grass coverage. People saying they can't fit weather moves onto their team are either lying or lazy and would rather just get rid of hail instead.
That's not to say I don't think hail is very powerful, because I do. I'm just saying it can be dealt with in ways that don't compromise your Pokemons' ability to perform.
Well, firstly I'd like to say Snover isn't completely useless outside of setting hail in my opinion, despite its low stats it can do some damage because of the high BP of its STAB Blizzard and possibly Wood Hammer (totally legit option, lures Slowking and Cryogonal really well), most notably, Snover can do a decent amount of damage to the opponent's Blizzard resists early game with a combination of its own STAB Blizzard and hail damaging, softening them up and letting the Blizzspammers sweep later on.

As for changing the weather later on in the game to counteract hail, if strategies like this get more common: especially to the extent that you could identify Pokemon that might run a different weather move to counteract Snover's hail midgame, wouldn't the hail players start being less willing to sacrifice their Snover early on until the possible sunny day/rain dance/sandstorm had been removed from the match? (i've even won against full rain teams by keeping snover alive for just long enough, haven't faced full sun though) Of course this is easier said than done because of Snover's Stealth Rock weakness and fraility, but from my experience its definitely possible to keep Snover alive for long enough to counteract the opposing temp weather.

Furthermore, recently i've found that its still possible to pull off a win with a hail team even if the opponent managed to change the weather, at least with hail offense and hail balance, dunno about hail stall (against decent players too :s). Of course, it might be a little more challenging because of Blizzard's accuracy cut and the lack of Ice Body recovery/residual damage, but a lot of hail teams run at least three solid Pokemon that can function perfectly well outside of hail to fall back on even if the weather has been changed from my experience (for example, my hail offense runs Escavalier, Golurk, and Slowking, all 3 of which can pull their weight regardless of the weather). Futhermore, Things like Choice Scarf Rotom-F can use revenge kill foes and scout with Volt Switch if the weather's been changed as well, so at least in some cases not even the hail abusers are completely crippled if the weather ends up reset :s.

TL;DR: from my experience with hail changing the weather helps a bit but its not completely foolproof
 

Pocket

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Molk, I agree that Snover isn't complete deadweight, but it's certainly not a top-tier Pokemon as say Politoed in OU. Snover offers absolutely nothing defensively, and with numerous exploitable weaknesses, you can't deny that it's a challenge to keep it alive for more than 5 turns. You say that you experienced otherwise, but it's true that your opponent postponed or hampered your hail offense while they had the ability to change the weather. From my experience with manual Rain teams, once I get SR up, I have an immense advantage over Hail teams, and I often come out on top, because Snover is simply not switching into any powerful moves after SR damage, so something is taking that Rain-boosted hit. Basically, Hail isn't as brainless to abuse especially if Sunny Day / Rain Dance summoners come into play, and there are plenty of Pokemon that can take advantage of these weather conditions to deadly extent (they aren't solely used to remove Hail)
 
Yeah I probably shouldn't have made it sound like changing the weather was an end-all be-all, because it's obviously not. It puts an end to ice body stalling, and puts a small damper on hail teams otherwise in the form of no residual damage, and less accurate blizzards. I completely agree with the "helping a bit but not completely foolproof" part.

I know Snover isn't completely useless, and that it can deal heavy damage to things, but once its sash is gone, its use outside of setting up weather is pretty much gone outside of weak ice shards. Yeah, you can save it to get rid of your opponent's manual weather, but with its rock weakness and frailty a lot of (bad) players opt to sack it early because they don't see it doing much after turn one. I don't blame them, because I consider it dead weight myself once the sash is gone. This is just speaking from my experience facing hail though; I didn't really see it much at all while laddering for reqs so players might be smarter than that.
 
What happens when hail players start saving Snover instead of sacrificing it early-game? All Snover has to do is be sent in once to give its team momentum again. Many Pokemon would much rather use another move than manual weather. Using Sunny Day/Rain Dance/Sandstorm gives the opponent a free turn and kills momentum. Plus if you're using it on a random mon like Amoonguss, it's useless vs. non-hail teams. I guess I would have to test it more but when I used stuff like Sunny Day Entei my opponent just took advantage of it and put a lot more pressure on my team.
 
I only have my phone so this will probably be sloppy so I'll apologize ahead of time. Alrighty, with college I've been away for about 4 weeks and I came back to find a ladder in suspect and crawling with hail teams. Rather than fight it I decided to just roll with it and use basically Oglemi's team with a glaceon over glalie. And yes, hail teams are good. Very good. Before I would have argued that they were having a tiny impact but with having played probably close to 40 matches today I'd have to say that it's finally starting to skew things with stuff like thick fat hariyama and miltank popping up more often. I ran full physical on glaceon and it was surprisingly bulky while still having stupid firepower thanks to that amazing base 130 spa and a free base 120 bp stab to throw around. With HP ground it maims qwilfish and with toxic it can beat the levitators like uxie which both of which can have their advantages depending on what you run on walrein. Some other random things I ran include toxic and wood hammer on snover to get the early toxic on uxie or the early slam on slowing or cryogonal all of which can be important. I've also considered actually dropping blizzard for HP fire since everyone prepares for the blizzard they don't have as much of a problem switching in their esca or whatever, the only reason I haven't is that it basically invites moltres in for free. I'm of the opinion that the ice body abusers are what might be broken, but not hail as a whole. Blizz spam with no glaceon is containable and the residual damage, while annoying, is much less so when you don't have to sweat about letting one mon in and having to live through 32 turns of it. At this point I'm leaning towards no ban but if it anythings jumps out as being deadly to a lot of different things its definitely the stall machines so if anything I would be more for an ice body ban since that would fix up the issue of those abusers while dialing back blizz spam some with its strongest abuser gone.
 
What happens when hail players start saving Snover instead of sacrificing it early-game? All Snover has to do is be sent in once to give its team momentum again. Many Pokemon would much rather use another move than manual weather. Using Sunny Day/Rain Dance/Sandstorm gives the opponent a free turn and kills momentum. Plus if you're using it on a random mon like Amoonguss, it's useless vs. non-hail teams. I guess I would have to test it more but when I used stuff like Sunny Day Entei my opponent just took advantage of it and put a lot more pressure on my team.
Hail is not really momentum. Considering Snover usually comes in early in the match (often turn #1), switching it out to preserve hail will cause you to lose momentum straight away, simply because that's what happens when you save a pokemon from being KO'd by switching out. One of Snover's biggest weaknesses is his weakness to everything--in other words, his defenses are garbage and he can't switch in to save his life. This means that more often than not, you need to let something faint in order to bring Snover back in, just for it to take hazards and have to switch out again. Rain Dance users with swift swim do not sacrifice their momentum by using Rain Dance; it makes them stronger and faster. Sunny Day users such as Moltres or those with Chlorophyll do not sacrifice their momentum by using Sunny Day; it makes them stronger and sometimes faster, and many offensive fire types already have good speed. Judging by my own experiences as a Hail user, I greatly benefit from Snover's underestimated offensive abilities, and a little bit of skepticism that the opponent might be hiding a hail move will not stop me from using Snover to it's fullest offensive potential. This offensive potential is put to waste if you try to save Snover with more than 1 HP. In other words, you cant expect to use Snover offensively and try to preserve it at the same time.

If Snover needs to switch out and then come into hazards repeatedly, it's going to be a momentum killer rather than a pokemon that helps you gain momentum.
 
I meant that it gives its team the advantage again.** But it is incredibly easy to gain momentum from hail just because of the power behind Blizzard (mostly Glaceon). Specs Glaceon 2HKOes almost everything except for like Cryogonal, Lanturn, and Hariyama who are easy to wear down, Slowking, Walrein, SpDef Magneton, and random stuff in NU like Munchlax and Regice.

I think you're underestimating how often Snover can actually switch in. It's not like it gets no chances to. It has good resistances so it can come in on things like Volt Swiches, Scalds, Waterfalls, and some Earthquakes. Specific examples include Manectric, Rotom-C, Lanturn, Alomomola, Qwilfish, and Steelix. Even if Snover faints to set up hail, you will still have the advantage without putting in much effort (and you can then go ahead and send in whatever you want to gain momentum again). I don't think you even need to use Snover offensively most of the time, it's really just there for support. Trying to wear down foes with Snover's Blizzard is just an added benefit; you could probably use Eviolite Snover over Focus Sash and the team will be just as effective.

Rain Dance users etc. need a turn to set up, which makes them vulnerable for that turn. For example, Moltres can use Sunny Day while the opponent sends in Slowking. Solarbeam doesn't OHKO, and then Moltres just gets paralyzed. Or the opponent can just send in Rotom-F and OHKO. This goes for most other weather setters too.

My thoughts right now:

Without Glaceon, Blizzspam is much less effective because there isn't something else that can 2HKO most Blizzard resists. This makes it much harder to clean up late-game. If Glaceon had a third ability, I would strongly consider banning Snover because the support it brings creates a strategy that is unmatched (only 1 perma-weather setter). shoogle's post on the last page explains it pretty well. However, banning Snow Warning + Ice Body takes out both the SubProtect strategy and Glaceon, the keys to the success of hail teams. If you take away the key components to hail teams, the strategy becomes much less effective. I'm not sure if this conflicts with banning philosophy but these are my thoughts nonetheless.
 
I'd possibly support an ice body/hail ban for the reasons you mentioned. In fact, a separate suspect ladder banning Ice Body would let us find out from experience how effective hail teams can function without it. It's kind of awkward to do a full hail suspect test first. I mean, I understand why it's being done this way, but if hail gets banned we may not get have the opportunity to experiment with a no-icebody metagame.

As for Snover, it needs a lot of defensive investment + eviolite to take resisted hits well if SR is up. So this means it needs to sacrifice most of its offensive capabilities, which I find are very useful. This is what makes Snover a dead weight of a pokemon, with its only useful abilities being hail summoning and protect stalling if it doesn't have attack investment. As you pointed out, Glaceon is where you regain all of your momentum and insane hail power at the cost of having a defensive Snover. So, maybe for Glaceon preserving Snover is worth it. Otherwise, it really doesn't seem worth the trouble.
 

EonX

Battle Soul
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Honestly, I will sometimes preserve Snover for something quite important actually. And no, it's not to keep it around to reset Hail in the face of a possible Sunny Day / Rain Dance user. If I see something like Lilligant or Amoonguss, I can and will save Snover just for sleep fodder. Usually, this would require using something that isn't built to lead, but i thankfully carry a more traditional (non-Hail) lead for such scenarios and it also happens to match up well against many of the leads Snover struggles against (Uxie, Cinccino, Crustle, and Fire-types in general) so it's actually quite common I use my secondary lead to start off a match.

Anyway, back to the preservation of Snover. As I already mentioned, I will preserve Snover for sleep fodder if I see a common sleep inducer on my opponent's team, but there's also another thing I sometimes preserve it for; a sacrificial switch-in. For a Hail Stall team, this can be the difference between maintaining the upper hand and just outright losing something too important. This can really help ease the strain on the user to maintain the health of everything else as you know you have that one sacrificial switch-in for Snover left if you absolutely need it. Best of all, it can actually stall for a turn of residual damage (Hail, poison, burn, etc.) while also letting you get your counter or hard check in without a hitch or risk of the opponent predicting it.

As to Molk's point about the manual weather thing, I can speak from experience as a Hail Stall player (never thought I'd ever say that lol) it is fully possible to win a match where Hail gets removed. If you have a defensive core that can function outside of Hail, but still benefits from Hail, then you can still win. SubProtect Glaceon still has use after Hail is gone since it still has strong as hell Blizzards to threaten opposing teams with, and although they might not hit with consistency, the threat of them is still there all the same. Heck, even Walrein can operate to some extent out of Hail since it can still phaze somewhat effectively and/or spread poison around.
 

complete legitimacy

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I think I am starting to be convinced that Hail is indeed broken. I feel as though you have to use it or else you will be at a significant disadvantage against those who do use it. To me, this is an undeniable definition of broken. Whether it's Hail Offense or Hail Stall, you pretty much have to use one of these two playstyles to be successful. I think that non-Hail teams have to go way too far to check Hail. This isn't helped by the fact that Specs Glaceon's only consistent counter is Walrein (and HP Fire Cryogonal I guess but it's way too easy to take advantage of and is pretty niche outside of countering Hail mons).

Now, if Hail itself is what you must use to remain competitive 95% of the time, I don't understand why some people are advocating for a complex ban here. While a Snow Warning + Ice Body ban will most likely get rid of all Hail's "broken" aspects, I feel it's unnecessary because to me Hail is just broken as a whole. This just seems like a bid to "preserve" Hail offense (let's face it the complex ban kills Hail stall, the more common and generally better of the two playstyles), even though its most essential mon is being removed from it. I think this can be compared to banning Speed Boost on Blaziken but nothing else. There is a broken force in the metagame, and instead of banning the broken force, we ban the best thing about the broken force ("what makes it broken"). While I know that there are some people that would have wanted this, we have to face the fact that this is just not what Smogon does (at least not yet). My personal belief is irrelevant in this, but Smogon bans the whole of a broken force, and the precedent there is much greater than that for a complex ban.
 

Honus

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I think I am starting to be convinced that Hail is indeed broken. I feel as though you have to use it or else you will be at a significant disadvantage against those who do use it. To me, this is an undeniable definition of broken. Whether it's Hail Offense or Hail Stall, you pretty much have to use one of these two playstyles to be successful. I think that non-Hail teams have to go way too far to check Hail. This isn't helped by the fact that Specs Glaceon's only consistent counter is Walrein (and HP Fire Cryogonal I guess but it's way too easy to take advantage of and is pretty niche outside of countering Hail mons).

Now, if Hail itself is what you must use to remain competitive 95% of the time, I don't understand why some people are advocating for a complex ban here. While a Snow Warning + Ice Body ban will most likely get rid of all Hail's "broken" aspects, I feel it's unnecessary because to me Hail is just broken as a whole. This just seems like a bid to "preserve" Hail offense (let's face it the complex ban kills Hail stall, the more common and generally better of the two playstyles), even though its most essential mon is being removed from it. I think this can be compared to banning Speed Boost on Blaziken but nothing else. There is a broken force in the metagame, and instead of banning the broken force, we ban the best thing about the broken force ("what makes it broken"). While I know that there are some people that would have wanted this, we have to face the fact that this is just not what Smogon does (at least not yet). My personal belief is irrelevant in this, but Smogon bans the whole of a broken force, and the precedent there is much greater than that for a complex ban.

i'm not really sure how valid the first few lines are. In fact I think it's the complete opposite. Most hail offense teams lose badly against hail stall, being Tspikes weak, offering a lot of opportunities for Walrein to set up, Level 51's team, which is pretty strong itself, has a very hard time vs. hail stall outside of Escavalier, which hail teams can play around quite well. As for hail stall, well it often depends on team matchup, but whenever I see them, my first priority is to kill the Qwilfish/Drapion [which both lack recovery and have to stay in on something to lay their own hazards], after Tspikes are down, most hail stall builds seem to crumble as well, or at least the ones with multiple ice body users or non-rest Spiritomb do. Basically what I'm saying is that when 2 hail stalls fight one is probably going to have a significant advantage, whether its because of one team having spikes and tspikes, or one having a Clefable. My own hail stall build has a good matchup against most of the hail stalls that I've seen, but that's beside the point, I'm pretty positive that hail stall's worst enemy isn't opposing hail stall, and it definitely isn't opposing hail offense. Most hail stall teams have holes, because you simply can't cover everything and maintain a great functionality [having a special wall like clefable, having room for a spinner/blocker, etc] and have answers to everything, Durant can run through a lot of hail stalls that rely on Qwilfish to beat it, Emboar, Entei, Magmortar are all pretty big threats to hail stall if you don't let them die on the first turn like most ladder players, certain setup sweepers can probably do work as well. As for 'going way too far' to check hail teams, I assume shit like Sunny Day Emboar is one such example, but I think the reward for using Sunny Day is way higher than the 'risk' of using a moveslot for it. I mean maybe it will lose its element of surprise, but Snover isn't really a key piece in a lot of players' long term thinking, I usually sacrifice it pretty quick to get a Toxic off or some damage, or keep it around with the sash on to take a close combat or flare blitz later, overall it's not really a big player and players wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice it, the fact that Focus Sash Snover is the preferred set is pretty indicative of this. Anyways Snover dies pretty easily, which sets the stage for Emboar or whatever to set up Sunny day, after that you pretty much completely fuck the playstyle with no Ice Body BS and boosted fire attacks, I'd say that being able to wreck hail this bad once Snover is gone is worth putting Sunny Day on Emboar. So yeah, as a hail player, I'm more scared of non hail teams with a good matchup.
 

TCTphantom

formerly MX42
If one element of a playstyle is broken, it is banned. For instance, Rain was so dominant in BW OU Stage 2. Who were the big offenders Swift Swimers. Now with a pool of pokes that big, suspecting rain might seem the most painless, but with a ban to Drizzle+SS, the meta would be able to be more diverse, and not have the same style teams of Toed, Kingdra, Ludicolo, Ferro, and two others. In RU, the scenario applies to a far lesser extent to Hail. While Blizzspam may be decent, its clear that HailStall is the way to go. Now, just banning Snover means the whole playstyle of Hail Offense is gone, while not ban worthy akin to HailStall. However, with a Snow Warning + Ice Body Ban, we delete the biggest offenders, Glaceon and Wallrein, while stopping new usage of a replacement in Dewgong. Blizzspam also loses Glaceon, its biggest call to fame, as while Rotom F and Jynx may be strong, they pale to Glaceons overall power in Rotom F's respect, or bulk in Jynx's. To put it bluntly, we allow more diversity in the meta while eliminating the more broken threats.
 
If one element of a playstyle is broken, it is banned. For instance, Rain was so dominant in BW OU Stage 2. Who were the big offenders Swift Swimers.
For sure Swift Swimmers were the ones who took the hit, but that doesn't mean it was the broken part of the combination. I would argue that it was Drizzle that was broken. Nobody would even have considered banning SS if it had to be set up using manual 5-8 turn rain. If Walrein could only stall with Ice Body for 8 turns at a time before having to use Hail again, nobody would be worried about him either.

Auto weather is the broken thing here and it always has been. The one problem is that hail is shitty compared to the other weathers, and not really worth spending a turn, a moveslot, duration-boosting rock, abilities to abuse it just for 8 turns of cancelling out your opponent's leftovers, and a more accurate Blizzard. At this point, hail just becomes a shittier version of sand (which is already never used outside of OU), which has more/better abusers and good abilities like Sand Rush. Non-permanent hail is garbage, but Snow Warning is broken. It's a bit of a dilemma, since you either ban Snow Warning and kill off hail completely, or leave a broken ability in the metagame just for the sake of keeping Walrein and co around.

To put it bluntly, we allow more diversity in the meta while eliminating the more broken threats.
No hail abuser is broken if you can reliably get rid of the hail, either through stalling it out or using your own weather starter. Stalling it out is impossible with perma-hail, and using your own weather starter is only a mediocre solution at best (it takes 2 turns to pull off and can be taunted, while snover's hail starts instantly as soon as it switches in. He can switch into CB Entei's Flare Blitz and STILL successfully get hail up), and unless you have a pokemon/team that can actually make good use of Sunny Day/Rain Dance, then you're shooting yourself in the foot against all non-hail teams. If you're running a weatherless team that basically means you have to run a weather move on some random mon (someone mentioned Sunny Day Amoongus, which actually boosts one of his weaknesses so it is WORSE than useless against non-hail teams) to counter Walrein. If we're getting to the point where people are recommending Sunny Day Amoongus (a mon with an Ice weakness who can't abuse Sunny Day is supposed to be a counter to hail!?) then prolly something has to change.

I guess if people are dead set on keeping Snow Warning around, then as a plan B the complex ban on Ice Body sounds like the best option available to me.
 

migzoo

new money
I have two main problems with Hail, neither of which are as simple as "Hail is broken" and neither of which have been mentioned in depth yet. However, I will also be discussing some of the reasons why I believe Hail is broken throughout.


My first problem with Hail is that it inevitably slows down the metagame. I think I speak for a lot of players when I say that part of what makes the tier appealing is its pace. (Also, many people play lower tiers because of the lack of weather, but that has already been said and I digress.) Ubers, OU, and NU have all settled into a balanced offense metagame, and UU into bulky offense, RU has been unique in the fact that hyper offense thrives. Sure, RU has a bunch of very bulky Pokemon, but most of them are tanks, not walls, and few have reliable recovery. Even Regenerator Tangrowth and Slowking, arguably the two best walls in the tier, often run offensive sets.
That said, I have observed the following reasons why hail is slowing down the metagame:

1. Stallrein. Pretty much self-explanatory. It is the epitome of stall. But this is not all. It has no counters, period. Specially defensive Clefable needs Thunderbolt to do anything to Stallrein, and can get PP-stalled. Rest + Sleep Talk Poliwrath's Circle Throws don't break Stallrein's Substitutes. Heal Bell Lanturn is PP-stalled, since Toxic has more PP than Heal Bell. Escavalier is hit hard by Surf, and the Choice Band and Life Orb sets are stalled out. And all of these Pokemon fear freezes. As you can see here, all of its so-called counters are slow and bulky. Same goes for its checks. In other words, Stallrein indirectly, as well as directly, slows down the metagame.

2. Non-Ice Pokemon that take no hail damage. The most common are Clefable, Mandibuzz, Duosion, Sigilyph, and Escavalier. The first two are walls, Duosion is extremely bulky with Eviolite, Sigilyph often runs its Cosmic Power set, and Escavalier is very bulky as well.

3. Ice resistances. Ice, as we all know, is an excellent attack type with few resistances. Let's take a look at the RU Pokemon that resist Blizzard. Aggron, Crawdaunt, Cryogonal, Durant, Emboar, Entei, Escavalier, Feraligatr, Kabutops, Lanturn, Klingklang, Magmortar, Magneton, Omastar, Poliwrath, Qwilfish, Slowking, Typhlosion. If you cross out the ones with 70 or less Special Defense, you're not left with much. Four of the remaining ten are weak to Stealth Rock, leaving six that can switch into a Blizzard without taking over 50% (Escavalier, Feraligatr, Lanturn, Klingklang, Poliwrath, Slowking). Mind you, these are just regular Blizzards we're talking about, not even boosted. Furthermore, two of these six (Feraligatr and Klingklang) almost never run HP or Sp. Def EVs. There are some specially defensive Pokemon that resist Ice in NU (Regice, Munchlax, Lapras), but being compelled to use Pokemon from lower tiers is generally a indicator that the playstyle/Pokemon in question is broken. But once again, the Pokemon necessary to deal with Blizz-spam are slow and bulky. This shows that even Hail offense indirectly slows down the metagame.


My second problem with Hail is that it is a stale playstyle. There are not many Pokemon that are very viable in Hail. As a result, the same Pokemon are seen over and over again, and it makes it very easy to build a successful Hail team. All Hail teams have Snover, a Blizz-spammer and/or Stallrein, and a spinner. Then the remaining three or four slots are commonly filled by Escavalier, Sigilyph, Qwilfish, Druddigon, Slowking, or Entei. I threw together a Hail team to try out, with Snover, Glaceon, Slowking, Sandslash, Sigilyph, and Escavalier. Despite the fact that I put very little time or thought into the team, it was fairly successful in the ladder. Cookie-cutter teams such as mine are easy to make, yet hard to beat. Just because the same Pokemon are seen often does not make Hail teams easy to counter. Part of the reason why Hail teams are so successful is that the most used Pokemon on Hail teams are different from the most used Pokemon on weatherless teams. Sound familiar? Hail’s easy, formulaic teambuilding, and exclusive threats are reminiscent of two types of teams in early BW: Drizzle + Swift Swim teams in OU, and Vulpix Sun teams in UU. Both of these playstyles made Pokemon from lower tiers extremely viable, and a comparison can be drawn between Ludicolo, Victreebel, and Glaceon. All three of these Pokemon are NU, but were/are used because of weather.


As a side note, regarding the argument that Hail teams are weak to rocks: I have three points to address this. First of all, RU is not NU, in that there are several good spinners, including one that benefits from Hail (Cryogonal). Also, the few spin-blockers are easily countered. Second, Stealth Rock damage is mitigated to an extent by Ice Body. Third, running Magic Guard users (Sigilyph or Duosion) gives Hail teams a Pokemon to switch in if rocks are up. They can either serve as a quick pivot to the spinner, or simply kill the opponents spin-blocker or hazard-setter before switching to the spinner. These are three reasons why Stealth Rock is far from an end-all for Hail teams.

Way too long; didn’t read: Stallrein and Blizz-spam are broken and slow down the pace of the metagame. Hail as a playstyle is already stale. Hail teams can deal with Stealth Rock.

To those of you who actually read my entire argument, I applaud you. Take an internet cookie on your way out.
caramel+stuffed+chocolate+crinkle+cookies3.jpg
 
I guess I’ll give my two cents. Though a lot I want to say has already been said.

Hail Offense
Blizzspam, the main offenders being Glaceon, Rotom-F, Jynx and maybe a few others. Out of these Glaceon is by far the most threatening. Choice Specs Blizzard is ridiculously hard to switch in to, as even if you resist it you better have good special bulk otherwise you’re likely going down in two hits. Give Glaceon a partner such as the previously mentioned Rotom-F and you’ve got a short list of pokemon that are going to be constantly switching in to these attacks.

Hail Stall
This is what I believe to be the superior of the two styles. People’s main gripe with this is of course Stallrein.With itssolid bulk, ice body and leftovers it is extremely efficient at stalling out the opponent, whether it be through PP or Toxic. I suppose Dewgong can be put here too even though it’s a bit inferior.

Changing Weather
This here is the problem, unlike OU, hail is the only permanent weather we have. Thus if you want to get rid of it, you’re going to have to switch in and use a turn to set up Sunny Day or Rain Dance. Snover on the other hand simply needs to switch in and as long as it doesn’t die to hazards, hail goes up. Now on the ladder I’ve seen some people willing to let Snover die early on if their opponents’ team doesn’t look like a weather one. So if you have a pokemon like Uxie to change the weather with Sunny Day or Rain Dance you can put an end to the ice body shenanigans and at least make Blizzspam less reliable. Now this comes at the cost of your setter wasting a turn and possibly taking a heavy hit to do so and despite its name, Hail Stall isn’t exactly helpless without hail up. But this is assuming your opponent let’s Snover die early, if they save it you’re going to have to deal with everything the hail brings while Snover is lurking in the wings ready to bring it back up if you do manage to change the weather.

This doesn't mean that teams that don't rely on weather at all can't do well, but it's much more of an uphill battle.

Some people may just feel backed into a corner and forced to run certain pokemon and go through so much trouble to check hail.

With all that I can see why some people may think Hail in general may be too much for RU.

So what it all comes down to, should Hail as a whole go? Or should we go for the Snow Warning + Ice Body route and as Branflakes stated maybe test out how the metagame fares without Ice Body Walrein and Glaceon, who happen to be the biggest abusers, running around?

If we go for the former, Hail goes and that’ll be the end of it, no more perma-weather. If we opt for the latter we can see if Hail is still the same force or if it’ll be easier to manage and if we could possibly get more creativity out of it and who knows, maybe it won't be as dominant.

But I guess the question is without Walrein, Glaceon and everything else with Ice Body, will Hail still be as deadly?
 

Molk

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Hey everyone, sorry to cut in on all of the discussion and stuff, but i just wanted to let everyone know that because of the recent period of PS downtime/instability, i'll be giving the suspect round a short extension to accomodate. The new end date for the RU Suspect test is August 9th, so make sure to get your suspect reqs in by then!

(if i didn't do something important when making an extension let me know, i'm still new to this :s).
 

migzoo

new money
Hey everyone, sorry to cut in on all of the discussion and stuff, but i just wanted to let everyone know that because of the recent period of PS downtime/instability, i'll be giving the suspect round a short extension to accomodate. The new end date for the RU Suspect test is August 9th, so make sure to get your suspect reqs in by then!

(if i didn't do something important when making an extension let me know, i'm still new to this :s).
Molk, you should probably post this update in the ID thread too
 

Bughouse

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Thought I'd add my thoughts here. I was able to get reqs using a team that should have been decimated by hail. Aside from Klinklang and Moltres, not much of anything on my team was well-suited to face hail. So clearly, I don't see Hail itself as the issue. The games I lost against hail were ones where Walrein got a free turn of set up.

Don't give me that Glaceon and Vanilluxe are problematic too, so we should ban Hail. Walrein has bulk Glaceon and Vanilluxe can only dream of. They can't set up against nearly as many things. They're also easier to beat once set up. If I had my druthers, I'd either ban Walrein or do nothing.

(I guess a complex ban could get my support, but really I'd rather just remove Walrein to see how Hail Stall suffers.)
 
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atomicllamas

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srk1214 said:
Don't give me that Glaceon and Vanilluxe are problematic too, so we should ban Hail. Walrein has bulk Glaceon and Vanilluxe can only dream of. They can't set up against nearly as many things. They're also easier to beat once set up. If I had my druthers, I'd either ban Walrein or do nothing.
Yes Walrein has better bulk than Glaceon and Vanilluxe (although 65/110/95 for Glaceon is respectable and 71/85/95 isn't really that bad either), but you've completely ignored their advantages over Walrein. Vanilluxe is much faster, and can set up a sub in front of certain offensive mons more easily due to it's speed (like Absol, who shits on Walrein). I used sub-tect Glaceon myself during the suspect test on a more offensive/balance version of hail, and Glaceon is still broken, sure it is harder to find a time to sub, but Glaceon has huge offensive pressure and can get around the only sure fire way to beat hail stall, it 2hko's SpDef Magneton with HP ground, something Walrein can only dream of. Once behind a sub, Glaceon's only counter check is a defensive Slowking with slackoff, but even Slowking can be pp stalled and isn't really willing to switch into Glaceon as more offensive versions run shadowball. Then you have Dewgong, who is the special equivalent of Walrein, (minus roar, but hey it gets disable instead), Dewgong and Walrein can set up on Moltres, which is ridiculous. Don't throw Rotom-F out of consideration either, as when I used it, it could easily destroy 3-4 mons on offensive teams if played well, and in hail it is the best late game sweeper in the tier bar none. In short, a hail body + snow warning ban should be the bare minimum considered for a ban, but hail may still be a problem without it. If anyone is curious how easy it is to patch up an offensive hail team's weaknesses is, it isn't, I used OTR Slowking, Rocks Drud, and Escavalier alongside Rotom-F, Glaceon, and Snover, and really only lost games to hail stall teams or due to major hax (hey look how nicely three of the best mons in the tier fit onto a hail team :o).
 
My first problem with Hail is that it inevitably slows down the metagame. I think I speak for a lot of players when I say that part of what makes the tier appealing is its pace. (Also, many people play lower tiers because of the lack of weather, but that has already been said and I digress.) Ubers, OU, and NU have all settled into a balanced offense metagame, and UU into bulky offense, RU has been unique in the fact that hyper offense thrives. Sure, RU has a bunch of very bulky Pokemon, but most of them are tanks, not walls, and few have reliable recovery. Even Regenerator Tangrowth and Slowking, arguably the two best walls in the tier, often run offensive sets.
That said, I have observed the following reasons why hail is slowing down the metagame:
This is untrue. Most of the teams now are balance or bulky offense, but all playstyles are viable. RU is probably the most balanced BW tier as of right now. There are many good walls in RU and defensive teams usually overwhelm offense nowadays. The fact that hail slows down the metagame should not be used as an argument to ban it anyways.

My second problem with Hail is that it is a
stale playstyle. There are not many Pokemon that are very viable in Hail. As a result, the same Pokemon are seen over and over again, and it makes it very easy to build a successful Hail team. All Hail teams have Snover, a Blizz-spammer and/or Stallrein, and a spinner. Then the remaining three or four slots are commonly filled by Escavalier, Sigilyph, Qwilfish, Druddigon, Slowking, or Entei. I threw together a Hail team to try out, with Snover, Glaceon, Slowking, Sandslash, Sigilyph, and Escavalier. Despite the fact that I put very little time or thought into the team, it was fairly successful in the ladder. Cookie-cutter teams such as mine are easy to make, yet hard to beat. Just because the same Pokemon are seen often does not make Hail teams easy to counter. Part of the reason why Hail teams are so successful is that the most used Pokemon on Hail teams are different from the most used Pokemon on weatherless teams. Sound familiar? Hail’s easy, formulaic teambuilding, and exclusive threats are reminiscent of two types of teams in early BW: Drizzle + Swift Swim teams in OU, and Vulpix Sun teams in UU. Both of these playstyles made Pokemon from lower tiers extremely viable, and a comparison can be drawn between Ludicolo, Victreebel, and Glaceon. All three of these Pokemon are NU, but were/are used because of weather.
This is also untrue. I know of many hail teams, including my own, that include at least 3 different Pokemon that are not on the list you mentioned; hail doesn't even need a spinner to succeed. The comparisons to other team styles aren't valid either (Drought isn't even legal in UU). I don't see the point of this argument at all. Just because hail teams can be similar and make lesser used Pokemon viable doesn't have anything to do with whether something is broken or not.

As a side note, regarding the argument that Hail teams are weak to rocks: I have three points to address this. First of all, RU is not NU, in that there are several good spinners, including one that benefits from Hail (Cryogonal). Also, the few spin-blockers are easily countered. Second, Stealth Rock damage is mitigated to an extent by Ice Body. Third, running Magic Guard users (Sigilyph or Duosion) gives Hail teams a Pokemon to switch in if rocks are up. They can either serve as a quick pivot to the spinner, or simply kill the opponents spin-blocker or hazard-setter before switching to the spinner. These are three reasons why Stealth Rock is far from an end-all for Hail teams.
Several good spinners? There's only one good spinner in the tier: Kabutops. Cryogonal is mediocre because it gets wrecked by physical attackers and can't deal with getting pressured because it's weak to Stealth Rock and has poor typing. I don't see how spinblockers are "easily countered" or how the Magic Guard users you listed even beat Spiritomb. I don't think anyone even argued that Stealth Rock severely hinders hail teams.

srk1214 said:
Thought I'd add my thoughts here. I was able to get reqs using a team that should have been decimated by hail. Aside from Klinklang and Moltres, not much of anything on my team was well-suited to face hail. So clearly, I don't see Hail itself as the issue. The games I lost against hail were ones where Walrein got a free turn of set up.

Don't give me that Glaceon and Vanilluxe are problematic too, so we should ban Hail. Walrein has bulk Glaceon and Vanilluxe can only dream of. They can't set up against nearly as many things. They're also easier to beat once set up. If I had my druthers, I'd either ban Walrein or do nothing.
If your team was weak to hail then how were you winning against it? You're contradicting yourself. Plus, you were using Klinklang, which destroys Snover and SubProtect mons (which I don't see how you lost to Walrein with Klinklang, that should say something about the strategy right there). SubProtect Dewgong is similar to Walrein as well. The strategy as a whole is being argued to be broken because you can PP stall the opponent as long as you can start up Sub + Protect. Not really going to explain more because this topic has already been discussed for a whole page. EDIT: ok atomicllamas got it

Honestly if you're going to post here please read the previous posts. Lots of people are repeating stuff or posting things that make me think you don't really understand hail's effect or the RU metagame as a whole. The quality of the ladder is really bad so even if you got reqs you still might not have a solid grasp on the metagame. I didn't want to be a dick in this post but the quality of this thread has really declined in the past week.
 
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