np: OU Suspect Testing Round 1 - ...wait, I'm not Jumpman16!

[Behatryce]

@Fluffy

First, in regards to inconsistent and some of the other obviously broken things. They should be removed (inconsistent removed under a clause and some pokes sent to ubers).
Second, While weather does have upsides there are many ways to deal with weather that don't include throwing a random weather changing move on a pokemon. Even so I'm open to the idea of either perma weather inducers or the most severe abusers of weather being tested more thoroughly. Weather was around last generation and wasn't a huge deal mainly due to lack of abusers in sands case or lack of starters in rains case, if after further testing weather is obviously broken then that can be addressed. I believe, however, that when some of the obviously broken things are removed and the metagame becomes less turbulent weather will not be as broken as people here claim. That being said Manaphy should still be removed immediately, and next cycle we could take a closer look at Kindra and Doryuuzu. From what I've read some people have been saying to just ban all speed boosting weather abilities but that would just make weather terrible. Not all pokemon with those abilities are broken unlike inconsistent which makes the game broken by its nature, the proper way to go about controlling weather if it truly is broken would be to remove perma inducers or to remove the strongest abusers of weather.

 

[Fluffy Otters]

Just to comment on a few things:

FYI, there are other counters besides using a weather changing move. Viable alternatives include Trick Room and Lickilicky, the former which makes weather counterproductive for the other team, the latter which shuts down all 5 weather inducers.
That's an oft misquoted test; they were level 60~ something, and it was in a specialized CAP metagame over a short period.

Whether or not the Ubers were level one or not, it still has the broken support.Trick Room is the only viable one really, and that is temporary. You better be able to win in 5 turns since they still have their boosted attacks that would make even Porygon 2 cringe. Altaria would be pretty stupid against Sand (Garchomp, Landlos, Doryuzu is still faster) and Rain and probably even some fire/Chlorophyll abusers, and once Licklicky is dead, weather comes back. Example that an unboosted Kabutops Low Kick/Brick Break (don't know the weight damages of Low Kick) can 2 hit ko max hp/min def (since it needs all the special defense it can get) Lickilicky. I can't imagine taking Poliwrath would be much fun either. It could potentially set up on you with Bulk Up/Belly Drum. Lickilicky barely survives Shell Smash Hydro Pump if Lickilicky really wants to tangle with that. Power Whip won't do all that much to Kindgra unboosted so it can manage to 2-3 hit ko with Hydro Pump/Surf. Assuming both Focus Blasts hit, Life Orb Ludicolo could finish it off and set up rain (or be bulky and subseed you to death). If they're Cloyster or Qwilfish, Lickilicky is in for a terrible surprise (Shell Smash Icicle Spear ohko, Qwilfish Destiny Bond, and honestly most people would be surprised by Destiny Bond, lol.).

For Sun, Lickilicky is going to be afraid of Venasaur Sleep Powder (as would everything really, Sleep is what really made Darkrai uber for most people and here we have something faster and bulkier in the sun who can do much the same thing with 5% less accuracy and even has Nasty Plot/Swords Dance at the same time through Growth boost), without Sleep Talk. Although Rest/Sleep Talk steals 2 slots and could allow for set up on you. Mebjuka will still have Swords Dance and Jump Kick to smash your face in and after Swords Dance, koes Lickilicky or Stab Return/Double Edge (also ohko) or massive damage/recovery from boosted Wood Horn. Hidiharuma still has a horrible Flare Blitz which ohkoes with or without weather. Jumpluff is a lot like Erufuun and will subseed the heck out of you, Sleep Powder as well.

Lickilicky will have troubles without recovery and Rest-Talk could be dangerous. And after he is dead, if he is your only counter, that isn't going to work.

And in Trick Room, Hidiharuma has Hammer Arm and Flare Blitz to blast you to heck. It ohkoes Porygon2 in Sun with Choice Band and nearly with Life Orb as well (at max hp/max def evo stone) and pretty much everything on a Trick team, powering up it's speed through Hammer Arm smashes which could potentially 2 hit ko Porygon as well. That would be slightly tougher for rain but if they survive and ko the Trick Roomers, they'll manage to probably win since Rain is longer lasting than the Room and they'll need to use a turn to get it while you smash with boosted surfs.

 

[Fluffy Otters]

@Fluffy

First, in regards to inconsistent and some of the other obviously broken things. They should be removed (inconsistent removed under a clause and some pokes sent to ubers).
Second, While weather does have upsides there are many ways to deal with weather that don't include throwing a random weather changing move on a pokemon. Even so I'm open to the idea of either perma weather inducers or the most severe abusers of weather being tested more thoroughly. Weather was around last generation and wasn't a huge deal mainly due to lack of abusers in sands case or lack of starters in rains case, if after further testing weather is obviously broken then that can be addressed. I believe, however, that when some of the obviously broken things are removed and the metagame becomes less turbulent weather will not be as broken as people here claim. That being said Manaphy should still be removed immediately, and next cycle we could take a closer look at Kindra and Doryuuzu. From what I've read some people have been saying to just ban all speed boosting weather abilities but that would just make weather terrible. Not all pokemon with those abilities are broken unlike inconsistent which makes the game broken by its nature, the proper way to go about controlling weather if it truly is broken would be to remove perma inducers or to remove the strongest abusers of weather.

I am concerned however because what really keeps weather from completely and totally dominating entirely (and they still have a huge portion like Sand/Rain) right now IS the Uber legendaries who can actually outspeed them scarfed. Little is going to speed outside of them (although Voltlos and Tornelos will definitely most likely see an increase in usage with Mischievious Heart Thunderwave/Tail Wind) but the thing is, you're still at a disadvantage as you'll need to outspeed them at 2+ as well and they still smack with boosted moves. Choice Scarf Latios/Shaymin-S/Darkrai/Deoxys could keep the main sweepers of a weather team out but after they're gone...you'll need to survive. And what is (especially against the rare sun since Nattorei will be toasted faster than you blink an eye) going to survive?

It only makes sense to remove the inducers (all of them) and Manaphy who is broken with and without rain but especially with. I mean boosted Growths, better Chlorophyller's and abusers, Shell Smash, I don't see the problem with removing permanent weather since there is always the traditional weather moves. It doesn't kill weather to remove the inducers, it just makes them have to run Sunny Day/Rain Dance and have to use 5-8 turns pretty effectively (and really, Growth Venasaur, Sun boosted Hidiharuma, speed Shell Smash Omastar/Abagora/Gorebyss would be nightmares, even for 5-8 turns, let alone forever until it was managed to be koed). After all, permanent weather essentially forces to use 5 turn moves as well like Trick Room and opposite weather. It isn't any different. And Trick Room (thankfully, Trick Room would kill for it) can't be extended like weather.

I wouldn't call it MANY ways to stop weather (like the "many" ways to stop Inconsistent and it still being horribly broken? We know how effective many of those depending on situation). Trick Room still has to use a turn and take boosted hits to set it up, and even Porygon2 would of the best walls gets ohkoed by Sunny Day boosted Hidiharuma Flare Blitz. It doesn't take Specs Hydro Pump to kindly either. Ludicolo could subseed or Life orb Focus Blast you if both hit as you Trick Room (not likely but possible). Of course after its set up, things like Crimigan could come in and murder but until it is...well, I'm having trouble coming up with something to stop Crimigan (because the thing is a monster under Trick Room, it is surprising it isn't used more), except maybe Sleep Powdering it but if Crimigan goes, Trick Room will likely have some struggle. It'd be hard to say who would win then...except weather has the advantage with boosted moves and Trick Room lasting 4 turns (ridiculous that it counts the turn to use it). If it could win in 4 turns...but if it doesn't....

Besides, Sand shouldn't be so easy to set up either and have such good users. It's pretty much broken as well with 2 inducers and awesome users. Rain still has more but sand is probably easier. Getting rid of Sandstream wouldn't kill either Tyranitar or Hippowdon utility (both have alternative dream world abilities) and would require a cost to play sand like it would for sun and rain (and hail since if you get rid of the otjhers, you might as well get rid of it, although it might be interesting to see how it would play as Hail being the only permanent weather). Doesn't mean their abilities are great but they're somewhat useable and Hippowdon is still bulky enough to run Sandstorm the move. It boosts Earthquake power and Stone Edge power for Hippowdon. But whatever, I'm probably dreaming if Sand ever gets banned (although with the ever empowering of weather one must wonder...).

 

[fidgety]

Rain will be still drop powerful hits into your team without Kingdra, don't get it twisted.

no what i'm saying is w/o manaphy or kingdra rain looses it's two best attackers/abusers by removing swift swim we condemn 18 pokes far too many, by removing drizzle we cripple an entire strategy (not beyond use but it becomes far less viable) its unreasonable 2 just jump 2 this # of bans.

 

[SJCrew]

Fidgety is right, and that was primarily what I was suggesting when this was brought up. Swift Swim is the wrong culprit; Drizzle offers support to an entire strategy, which encompasses more than just boosting Speed. The best way to nerf Rain is to get rid of the permanency, making it about as effective as it was in 4th gen.

 

[fidgety]

Fidgety is right, and that was primarily what I was suggesting when this was brought up. Swift Swim is the wrong culprit; Drizzle offers support to an entire strategy, which encompasses more than just boosting Speed. The best way to nerf Rain is to get rid of the permanency, making it about as effective as it was in 4th gen.

i was sugesting just starting on manaphy + kingdra since they r really the main reason rain offense is what it is + then if it is still an issue drizzle should be considered.

 

[FearZeCrawdaunt]

As I said earlier...

"Why are we talking about banning weather?

I fail to see how placing weather control as top priority in the metagame is any different than placing high speed as the top priority in Gen 4. As far as I'm concerned, weather allows a greater diversity of pokemon to be effective, and that makes the metagame more enjoyable. Once the initial Ubers classifications are established, things can calm down a little and more precise decisions regarding weather can be made.

Personal opinion, don't get ban-happy at the start. Begin by banning the bare essentials, things that >80% of the community agrees should be banned, and then spend the next few months slowly but surely developing a better understanding of the metagame and what should be banned on top of the listed Ubers."

Most people here are complaining about TailGlow Manaphy. That solution is pretty simple. Manaphy was Uber last generation and with an upgrade, it maintained it's complete dominance of this generation. Skymin is the same way, though without the extra useful upgrade.

Generation 5 is still incredibly young, and with 649 pokemon to sift through, finding the ones that work best on your team has become that much more difficult. But that by no means invalidates entire strategies, simply because you have to look through more pokemon.

Rather than ban strategies, counter them. Once you prove that can be done, and more importantly, can be done without building a significant portion of the team around being able to counter a strategy, then the strategy is perfectly fine.

And if we find that there really IS no way to counter swift swimmers etc... in OU thanks to toed, then that's a decision we can come to when we get there. But just because a question is hard, doesn't mean you just hand in the test without writing anything down.

 

[SJCrew]

I fail to see how placing weather control as top priority in the metagame is any different than placing high speed as the top priority in Gen 4.

You must not be looking hard enough. There's a pool of, what, 18 Pokemon with Swift Swim and Water STAB? That's an obvious shift and imbalance over the ~100 Pokemon viable sans weather. Weather abusers make up a small portion of the game. And no, I'm not talking about Heatran getting a stronger Flamethrower, I'm talking about over-the-top shit like Ludicolo and Kingdra, getting double Speed and STAB boost. Swift Swim sweepers overpower the rest of the metagame, period.

Also, idk who's talking about "banning weather" but the general discussion taking place does seem to conclude that perma-Rain is pretty broken. If we had to keep setting it up with our supporters and Damp Rock, it'd be much easier to handle and much less worth using.

"Why are we talking about banning weather?"

Better yet, why do you keep rewriting your arguments word for word. It's not as if we didn't hear you the first time.

Here's a tip: status quo doesn't make something fair game. Weather is pretty status quo atm, and the only way to consistently beat it is to conform to weather-based strategies. I don't mind adapting, but Rain DOMINATES. You can't properly adapt to a playstyle that ruins shit that hard.

 

[ensoriki]

Fidgety is right, and that was primarily what I was suggesting when this was brought up. Swift Swim is the wrong culprit; Drizzle offers support to an entire strategy, which encompasses more than just boosting Speed. The best way to nerf Rain is to get rid of the permanency, making it about as effective as it was in 4th gen.

Why are we just removing strategies from the game if we can avoid that?
Exchanging rain stall for rain offence is a bias I find, where drizzle would be removed to allow RD rain offence but essentially remove the stall.
That's essentially what making it as "effective" as it was in 4th gen does. So then it's about voters liking RD rain offence as a strategy more.

 

[SJCrew]

Banning Drizzle isn't removing an entire strategy from the game, it's making it so that it doesn't overpower the shit out of the rest of them. -__-

 

[Schtizzel]

Banning Drizzle isn't removing an entire strategy from the game, it's making it so that it doesn't overpower the shit out of the rest of them. -__-

What about Rain Stall Teams. Without the infinity rain they can't be played...

 

[alphatron]

As a sun player, I can safely say that a ludicolo with hail does not counter sun teams at all. He cannot take SE sTAB Sludge bombs from Venusaur or Victreebel nor does he like being put to sleep by the rest of the users. MH users are a problem though.

Banning drizzle would indeed make rain about as effective as it was in fourth gen. Rain was not effective in fourth gen. There's a reason rain was UU. Now I'm not one of those guys who thinks UU=crap, but if rain was such a dominating force, why wasn't it run more often in standard? Banning perma rain kills off the rain stall strategy altogether. Rain stall isn't broken at all. Niether parasect, ludicolo, or any of its pokemon fit the support of defense characteristic.

In fourth generation, the only OU swift swimmer was Kingdra. Kabutops and Omastar? UU. Qwilfish? UU. Floatzel? UU. Hell this generation, omastar got shell break. It STILL isn't used very often.

Drizzle is simply a powerful ability. Excluding manaphy, it doesn't push any pokemon over the edge at all.

And sun without drought? I got laughed at for playing this in fourth generation, and for good reason. It was laughably pathetic. Sure in fifth gen, it got boosted offensively, but even then it still has problems. Whereas people mention Nattorei as the pokemon rain teams have trouble with, would you want to know what sun has trouble with? Heatran, Balloon Heatran, Balloon Shandera, dragons in general, Urgamoth, etc. Without drought, sun also loses out on a number of pokemon as well.

 

[SJCrew]

if rain was such a dominating force, why wasn't it run more often in standard?

*facepalm*

The reason it wasn't used last gen was because it took an entire team to do, was only temporary, and once the rain wore off, all you had was a team full of shitty Pokemon. I think you meant to say, "There was a reason Omastar, Ludicolo, and Kabutops were UU."

Now that it's permanent...go apeshit.

 

[masterful]

As I said earlier...

"Why are we talking about banning weather?

I fail to see how placing weather control as top priority in the metagame is any different than placing high speed as the top priority in Gen 4. As far as I'm concerned, weather allows a greater diversity of pokemon to be effective, and that makes the metagame more enjoyable. Once the initial Ubers classifications are established, things can calm down a little and more precise decisions regarding weather can be made.

Personal opinion, don't get ban-happy at the start. Begin by banning the bare essentials, things that >80% of the community agrees should be banned, and then spend the next few months slowly but surely developing a better understanding of the metagame and what should be banned on top of the listed Ubers."

Most people here are complaining about TailGlow Manaphy. That solution is pretty simple. Manaphy was Uber last generation and with an upgrade, it maintained it's complete dominance of this generation. Skymin is the same way, though without the extra useful upgrade.

Generation 5 is still incredibly young, and with 649 pokemon to sift through, finding the ones that work best on your team has become that much more difficult. But that by no means invalidates entire strategies, simply because you have to look through more pokemon.

Rather than ban strategies, counter them. Once you prove that can be done, and more importantly, can be done without building a significant portion of the team around being able to counter a strategy, then the strategy is perfectly fine.

And if we find that there really IS no way to counter swift swimmers etc... in OU thanks to toed, then that's a decision we can come to when we get there. But just because a question is hard, doesn't mean you just hand in the test without writing anything down.

One. In case you have not played 5ht gen yet, Rain teams have the potential to be incredibly strong now, with so many swift swimmers and hydration users
Two. This is for suspects. We need to test how the metagame changes when Drizzle is banned

 

[Arc Tech]

As a sun player, I can safely say that a ludicolo with hail does not counter sun teams at all. He cannot take SE sTAB Sludge bombs from Venusaur or Victreebel nor does he like being put to sleep by the rest of the users. MH users are a problem though.

Banning drizzle would indeed make rain about as effective as it was in fourth gen. Rain was not effective in fourth gen. There's a reason rain was UU. Now I'm not one of those guys who thinks UU=crap, but if rain was such a dominating force, why wasn't it run more often in standard? Banning perma rain kills off the rain stall strategy altogether. Rain stall isn't broken at all. Niether parasect, ludicolo, or any of its pokemon fit the support of defense characteristic.

In fourth generation, the only OU swift swimmer was Kingdra. Kabutops and Omastar? UU. Qwilfish? UU. Floatzel? UU. Hell this generation, omastar got shell break. It STILL isn't used very often.

Because there was sandstream in standard in Gen IV. This seriously reduced the utility of rain dance/sunny day. However, this gen, if one of the auto-weather abilities gets banned, I see them all (except maybe hail) being banned. This means that normal weather moves will be much more viable in OU.

 

[masterful]

Because there was sandstream in standard in Gen IV. This seriously reduced the utility of rain dance/sunny day. However, this gen, if one of the auto-weather abilities gets banned, I see them all (except maybe hail) being banned. This means that normal weather moves will be much more viable in OU.

That makes no sense. Sand Stream was allowed last gen, while Drought and Drizzle were not (albeit the pokes they were on were OP already), yet that was fine. Drizzle is broken because of how many pokes can be awesome with it. The pokes that got Swift Swim will likely reach OU status easily if Perma-rain is left unbanned. Drizzle needs to go because it has so many more abusers than any other weather and can decimate other non-weather teams

 

[ensoriki]

"normal weather moves" What do you mean?
Few moves except for Fire type and Water type moves are affected by weather.
3/4 weather stalls are smashed in the face without weather.

Drizzle needs to go because it has so many more abusers than any other weather and can decimate other non-weather teams

Makes it seem like Gen IV 2.0 is all that's acceptable.

 

[Arc Tech]

That makes no sense. Sand Stream was allowed last gen, while Drought and Drizzle were not (albeit the pokes they were on were OP already), yet that was fine. Drizzle is broken because of how many pokes can be awesome with it. The pokes that got Swift Swim will likely reach OU status easily if Perma-rain is left unbanned. Drizzle needs to go because it has so many more abusers than any other weather and can decimate other non-weather teams

I said that sandstream was allowed last gen. I was saying that sandstream nerfed the viability of the weather moves, which was why rain wasn't very good in ou last gen; and that, this gen, after (if) all the autoweathers are banned, normal weather moves will be more viable since there won't be autoweathers to mess them up.

By normal weather moves I mean the actual moves rain dance, sunny day, sandstorm and hail; rather than using their respective autoweather abilities.

 

[ensoriki]

By normal weather moves I mean the actual moves rain dance, sunny day, sandstorm and hail; rather than using their respective autoweather abilities.

So banning auto weather...to make those...viable?
Of course they'd be the only thing viable for weather based teams when there is no alternative. If anything they're still somewhat decent.

I killed a politoed, and then believing their weather finished since Hippowdon took it out I got lax with hippo. Feeling I could finally let it go and just clean up with Randorosu, Dory & Rankurusu. Scizor then came, bullet punched hippow dead (since it was low), used fucking rain dance, and I was screwed when Dory then went to normal speed, and the rest of his team cleaned up.
In a weather based metagame having a weather setter just to mind game them into thinking you've gone completely vulnerable can score wins.

If the basis for banning weather is that it's broken. Obviously, one should wonder why, then they should wonder what they could do about it, then what the alternatives are.

 

[Schtizzel]

One. In case you have not played 5ht gen yet, Rain teams have the potential to be incredibly strong now, with so many swift swimmers and hydration users
Two. This is for suspects. We need to test how the metagame changes when Drizzle is banned

At first we should test out a way in which Drizzle will not be banned.
Everyone is thinking about banning Drizzle because some abuser not all are to powerfull. If all abuser are a metagame threat then we can ban Drizzle.
But in all discussion it was said that Manaphy and Kingdra are the biggest threads in- and outside of Rain. So why we aren't testing banning them? If that will make Rain Teams way more handable than we have our solution.
When all hypothetical ways of weaken the offensive Rain play style collapse then we can think about banning Drizzle.
People are taking the easy road by banning Drizzle. IMO not the ability is too powerfull but the abuser will get a huge boost by it. And they forget that Drizzle has created a new play style - Rain Stall Teams. The top priority at suspect testing should be, making the metagame balanced and multifaceted. by banning Drizzle a whole play style would be destroyed.

So only banning the most threaten pokemon will solve this problem.

 

[Daking58]

personally i think deoxys-a should be banned asap...ive sweeped entire teams just with its focus sash lead set

 

[Arc Tech]

So banning auto weather...to make those...viable?
Of course they'd be the only thing viable for weather based teams when there is no alternative. If anything they're still somewhat decent.

I killed a politoed, and then believing their weather finished since Hippowdon took it out I got lax with hippo. Feeling I could finally let it go and just clean up with Randorosu, Dory & Rankurusu. Scizor then came, bullet punched hippow dead (since it was low), used fucking rain dance, and I was screwed when Dory then went to normal speed, and the rest of his team cleaned up.
In a weather based metagame having a weather setter just to mind game them into thinking you've gone completely vulnerable can score wins.

If the basis for banning weather is that it's broken. Obviously, one should wonder why, then they should wonder what they could do about it, then what the alternatives are.

I'm not saying that we should ban auto-weather to make those viable. I was saying that, even if auto-weather is banned, Rain Dance teams would still be better than in 4th gen because someone was saying that we would be killing rain teams if we banned drizzle, and using the fact most rain pokes were UU last gen as an example.

 

[alphatron]

*facepalm*

The reason it wasn't used last gen was because it took an entire team to do, was only temporary, and once the rain wore off, all you had was a team full of shitty Pokemon. I think you meant to say, "There was a reason Omastar, Ludicolo, and Kabutops were UU."

Now that it's permanent...go apeshit.

I'm pretty bad at delivering points in arguements. Rain is pretty lousy without a permanant effect. But without becoming overpowered, its effective with drizzle.

 

[Farukon_o_miru]

I really can´t understand the sense of making the 5th gen to be like the 4th gen, we can´t ban a playstile just for subserve other playstile, and if we ban an entire playstile after it we will need to ban other things to balance the metagame because this playstile can be a few broken but it maintains balanced the metagame (a metagame that with the dreamworld abilities is dominated by a fire-type), and really if you see the usage, rain isn`t too much used as sandstorm, i think that the solution isn´t banning auto-weather abilities, baning weather-abuse abilities is a better solution.

 

[TheValkyries]

OH NOES, I REALLY CANNOT BE BOTHERED TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO HANDLE WEATHER TEAMS THIS GEN. LET'S BAN THE HARDEST ONE TO HANDLE!


Seriously? Get a Nattorei, give it Leech Seed, Protect, Power Whip and TWave. Proceed to watch Rain teams fail hardcore. The only thing on a rain team that can handle that is LUL Manaphy, who actually is broken. When one EXTREMELY common Pokemon can bust it up so easily, y'all have to realize it's not that overwhelming.