In order for your team to successfully counter a Rain-team, you're gonna need at least 2 or 3 Pokémon dedicated to countering it. Now some Pokémon (like Nattorei) also have uses outside that, but you're going to have them fit in on your team somewhere, so you can't use another Pokémon of your choice. Isn't that overcentralizing, needing at least a Pokémon or two to counter Rain?
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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 2 - Who am I to break tradition?
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Regardless of what's too hard to combat his analogy still stands. THIS is the 5th gen meta. This is what 5th gen brought to offer and we are being picky eaters. I don't find anything wrong w/ that I'm mainly protecting his analogy.
What single pokemon can take on a team with SD Balloon Doryuzuu, Life orb SD Sandslash, and Landlos all at the same time? After you revenge one of these pokemon, I'm just going to pull out another. Hell, Dory can now run Brick Break instead of X-scissor, leaving that to Sandslash eliminating every single balloon counter.
I think several people in this thread have managed to create teams able to counter Rain whilst still being viable - statements about there being less Rain at the top of the ladder allude to this too. Clearly Rain is not uncounterable - however in order to do so it seems that certain other strategies become much less viable, restricting the metagame, and that is the issue. You don't have to over-spcialise to counter Rain, it can be done with the current OU mons, but some of OU becomes very much unviable against Rain.
Surely though - it would be worth testing some of the broken trio or even Swift Swim to see if without that extra speed or say Kingdra Rain would remain such a difficult to counter playstyle? You yourself say that the combo of Speed and the three best Swift Swimmers are the main things which Drizzle makes so powerful. I'm honestly interested in your response to this, I'm not really trying to argue a point.
Is taking a turn to Transform and taking a turn to setup Rain rather than switching in to do the same that different? Admittedly Ditto was awful without Eccentric and Rain was reasonably good, but the analogy is sound in that it illustrates how the setup turn can prove disadvantageous.
Well the metagame has been altered as now permaRain is possible - so under these new conditions it is possible that something like Kingdra is now broken. Yes they themselves have not changed, but the circumstances around them have - what me and some others are suggesting is that it is the sweepers or some aspect of them rather than the circumstances that may be broken.
One thing you cannot do with the move RD is U-Turn to get it in instantly, or to set it up for free on a KO. In these circumstances the turn of setup is shaved off. Also - for Drizzle you can a. switch in Politoed and then b. switch to sweeper. Unless running RD on your sweeper and restricting its moveset and maybe item, you had to a. switch in RDer b. use RD c. switch in sweeper. so in that way too it eases the setup of Rain.
In any case the latter of the above paragraphs was merely to illustrate the point that without Drizzle Rain will be unviable and vanish from the meta, for those who missed the previous discussion.
Indeed - all the above are OUs who you can make a good team from - but the amount of OUs very much useless against Rain is high and I think is what is causing the overcentralisation and the issue - not Rain being inherently broken.
Care to explain why you anticipate Sun to be broken when Rain is absent? I'd be interested to hear your reasons. Admittedly it is much more powerful than a lot of people give it credit for, but since even the OU Dragons and Heatran give it so many issues, it seems that cure-all counters for it are a lot more of a reality than for Rain. I'm also pretty averse to the suggestion that everyone has been waiting to play a metagame more similar to 4th gen OU where weather is solely Sand and Hail, with Sun and Rain having to be cast manually. Why is it that a weather meta seems such a bad idea to you?
This statement above is one I wish to emphasize. A metagame where Drizzle is absent removes Rain-based strategies as viable ones, for reasons I have explained many times. Admittedly it is tricky to find a solution other than banning Drizzle, but surely if a desirable meta is diverse, then we should place some value on maintaing Rain as a strategy?
A metagame with Rain is incredibly non-diverse, because it's necessary to run it, opposing weather, or Rain counters to stop it. If a desirable meta is diverse, and allows for the most viable strategies possible, then that's just more reason for Rain to be banned; it so overpowers the metagame that it almost destroys the idea of different team types.
I guarantee you that once Drizzle is banned, people will be nominating Landlos (and Doryuuzu) for suspect. Landlos was a blatantly overpowered become to start with, but it appears that *usable* special attack finally broke him. In my opinion, Landlos running Jolly LO Landlos with Rock Polish / EQ / HP Ice / Stone Edge (or Swords Dance) is too much for this metagame. The only Pokemon that can *counter* him are Skarmory and Bronzong. Everything else simply can't handle that sheer power.
Doryuuzu is something I don't want to get into right now, but I think Balloon made him Uber.
Edit: This is why rain is problem:
I want to build a new team. Hey why not try out Breloom? Oh, I almost forgot I need to run 2 (sometimes 3) of: Nattorei, Birijion, Rotom-W and Burungeru.
That's not all, you also need to run 1 of: Tyranitar and Hippowdon
Rain is absolutely killed the diversity in this metagame. You can't tell me that's healthy for the metagame in the slightest. You can't deviate from the standard or you Rain will 6-0 you. You also need to take into account that overly preparing for Rain makes you weak against certain *non-rain* teams. This is why rain needs to be banned imo. I want to play gen 5, not a pseudo version of Ubers.
Benlisted said:
In order for that to happen you would need to ban nearly all of the rain abusers. I'd rather ban an ability over several viable Pokemon.
You most certainly don't need several pokes dedicated to countering it. You do however need several pokes capable of beating its various aspects, which as alphatron says, is the case with any team. The problem arises in that the diversity of the meta is threatened because those pokes not useful against Rain become that much less viable.
I concur that with Rain in its current state that is true, and that Rain centralises the meta. However again, if diversity is desirable, then surely some effort should be made to at least see if Rain can be made less overpowering, so it still exists in the meta, but no longer overcentralises it?
Sand isn't broken. Sand was perfectly fine before Politoed and Ninetales were released (PO had already banned Skymin and Darkrai, and that metagame was actually playable). I had a quick ladder session today and got to 1250 in about 45 minutes with an incredibly shitty team I'd made in about ninety seconds.
So Rankurusu seems to be quite good atm. Sand teams have a lot of issues and it kinda pulls its weight against Rain by switching into Nattorei, stopping Birijion and generally causing mayhem until you sack it to kill a Swimmer.
So Rankurusu seems to be quite good atm. Sand teams have a lot of issues and it kinda pulls its weight against Rain by switching into Nattorei, stopping Birijion and generally causing mayhem until you sack it to kill a Swimmer.
Benlisted said:
Thank you, Benlisted. You took the words right out of my mouth.
I don't think that Swift Swim is that broken. Damp Rock is in no way broken in this Gen. Which means that it is the fact that rain is infinite that makes them broken. So if they are only broken because rain is infinite, then it is the fault of the infinite rain.
Ditto was kind of a bad example due to its absolutely terrible stats. But your point does stand.
That's what I was saying earlier. If they are broken in one instance, but not in another, then they aren't broken by their own power. They're broken because of what something else gives them. It's making them be broken, rather than them simply being so. I would say that if the circumsances make something unbearable, then it is the fault of the circumstances. It's only bad in infinite rain. So you're saying that because rain does the dirty work, we should punish those who benefit?
I agree that the set-up is much easier with Drizzle.
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I'm not ure what else to say here.
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It's true that without Drizzle rain becomes much worse. But without knowing what the metagame will eventually look like, it's hard to say that it will disappear forever.
Though as a matter of principle, I'd rather that something intolerable disappear than leave it to tear up the meta.
I agree that it is over-centralizing. But that's why many people consider it to be broken. If you do have to run certain pokemon, yes it's over-centralizing, but that points to the fact that it is broken.
By your same argument I could say that Mence was not broken in Gen4. I could say that it made most of OU unviable, but because some pokemon could take it on, it was simply over-centralizing and not broken.
Sun actually is pretty boss. Will it broken without rain? I'm not sure. But it could be.
It doesn't necessarily remove rain-based strategies. Depending on how the metagame ends up, Damp Rock could have a similar niche to last Gen.
But by removing the best abusers, you pretty much kill offensive rain teams. By removing Drizzle, you pretty much kill rain stall teams. However, more people play rain offense than stall, and Smogon is a place where majority rules.
You could say "What if rain stall would be dominant in the future? What if it will be dominant and you're not giving it that chance?" My response is that what if in Gen6 there is an item that automatically gives Scizor +6 Atk when it holds it? Should we try to formulate our future metagame around that possibility? Of course not. Just as we shouldn't try to work for something that may be popular later this Gen.
Rain as a strategy doesn't exist. Rain as some strategies does exist. And we are going to have to do something about it. Banning Drizzle is one way to do it, although there are others. But the difference is that banning Drizzle is an immediate fix as opposed to potentially allowing more things to go wrong. Not only that, but banning Drizzle appears to be what the greatest number of people want.
Benlisted said:
Yes. Which is part of the reason why so many are calling for it to be banned.
We want diversity, but we're not trying to force strategies to work that otherwise don't. Why not ban 5 viable OU's if it will make 6 unviable NU's work in Standard? Because we want the metagame to settle itself out, not to *make* certain strategies work.
Wouldn't it be possible to create a non-weather tier? Just to try it? Maybe it turns out that that is actually more playable, or enjoyable for that matter.
You're missing some key factors here. Landlos should not be compared to the rain sweepers because he is easily revenge killed or even have something faster switch in on the SD and force him out. He doesn't sweep your team once your counters are down like the rain sweepers do.
Doryuuzu and Sandslash can be countered by skarmory, bulky waters like rotom-W, dusclops and I'm sure there are others. Keep in mind that once the 1st one goes down, the second one comes in doing pitiful damage because they don't have +2 attack. What's even worse is that even max speed sandslash can still be outsped and revenge killed by anything with above 105 speed carrying a choice scarf.
It's really much easier to counter these pokemon because they're all basically the same. Physical attackers with the same weaknesses.
If you weren't citing it as a fact, then why'd you refer to the definition? A definition is the meaning of a word, term or phrase that's defined, meaning it is accepted as fact.
If you weren't intending for it to come off that way, your words would have been better chosen.
As for poor balance and low variety; those are generally accepted negatives amongst any competitive community. I am asking you how this pertains to the community we have now, with the metagame we have now.
Blissey is gimmicky? Nattorei is gimmicky? Burungeru is gimmicky? Latias is gimmicky? Porygon2 is gimmicky? Vaporeon is gimmicky? Never mind that I am mentioning single Pokemon here that happen to fair well individually against rain teams---Pokemon isn't a 1v1 game. There are many variables that come in to play that ruin seemingly flawless paper strategies in practice.
There is a difference between a gimmick and an unconventional method of battling. The difference is how effective it is. Even so much as using a move slot to dedicate to using Hail or Sunny Day would work, and I've lost matches to players using both sand and rain teams who have applied this strategy. I would sacrifice my weather inducer to a threat I knew I could expend it on, either because my opponent lost their Politoed, Tyranitar, et cetera, or because they had none to begin with, and then they would use a weather altering move. I would lose the advantage, and it has costed me games.
People would call this ridiculous, and yet we spent an entire generation previously devoting our team slots to Pokemon specifically for Rapid Spin support due to the prevalence of Stealth Rock. A singlular move to rid a specific strategy? Sounds fine to me, especially when you consider that the benefits sand, rain and sun give are FAR greater than what Stealth Rock alone offers.
And? Your point? Not only do I disagree with you that weather teams are the superior breed in all archetypes of team building in every case, but even assuming they are, it just makes them the better strategy. The better team. The better tool. These will always be present in competitive gaming. The only time you should bother to intervene with this is when the dominant strategy is SO dominant (i.e. RBY Mewtwo) that the game is otherwise unplayable without using that strategy; you win if you use it, you lose if you don't, and the only way the game can be decided by skill of any degree is if the strategy is used always.
This variety you speak of comes at a cost, and that cost is the balance you speak of. You can't have your cake plus your ice cream and eat both. Particularly in Pokemon.
Why? It won't accomplish anything. You'll apply a Gen II mindset to a Gen V team and pick apart all the particular exploits and holes within the build, be it by rain or otherwise, when the fact is that every team in Gen V has this problem. I can build a team that does well against rain, or sand, but I am left open to other threats. That's not the consequence of rain being "too good", it's the consequence of what we've been handed as a package in Gen V. There are a LOT of threats to cover (many would argue too many) and this is the result.
If you remove rain from the picture, your focus is only going to shift elsewhere to other threats unless you severely diminish the amount of Pokemon available in OU at this point. But then you're just backtracking to previous generations. This is not the "slippery slope" argument I am referring to. I am talking about attempting to cover for the dominant strategies in the metagame without leaving yourself open to exploitation from other viable but not as dominant strategies--because of the load we carry in this metagame, removing rain won't remedy this problem because there's simply too much to consider even without it around.
+2 LO sandslash 2hkos Skarm. Bulky waters, rotom, and dusclops get worn down by repeated assaults just like nattorei, etc. And I've swept, with sandslash/doryuuzu, without +2. Its not sweeper-level damage normally, but its enough to finish a weakened counter. And how many things above 105 speed carry a choice scarf commonly? Scarf lati@s have been largely replaced by sazandora thanks to uturn (and flamethrower).
Also, once you get rid of kingdra and ludicolo, you can say the same thing about rain sweepers- they're all special sweepers with the same weaknesses. (well, except there are a couple physical, but the strongest physical water attack is waterfall anyway, on average).
@ uvelo
the entire point in my opinion is to make a fun and fair metagame that limits overpowering strategys
although not every team runs rain
there is a very large portion of teams that run weather
and personally
i think some restrictions on their power will increase the diversity of the metagame
the entire point in my opinion is to make a fun and fair metagame that limits overpowering strategys
although not every team runs rain
there is a very large portion of teams that run weather
and personally
i think some restrictions on their power will increase the diversity of the metagame
Oh yeah. Something else I'd like to note. If you look at the statistics for WiFi on Pokemon Online's site, it'll show you clearly that rain isn't even the dominant weather threat; sand is.
http://91.121.73.228/Wifi/index.html
Politoed sits at #12, while Tyranitar sits at #2, and everything from #11 to #1 supports sand, some even exclusively.
The only difference between their server and Smogon's as far as rain is concerned is that Manaphy is gone.
This should tell you something.
http://91.121.73.228/Wifi/index.html
Politoed sits at #12, while Tyranitar sits at #2, and everything from #11 to #1 supports sand, some even exclusively.
The only difference between their server and Smogon's as far as rain is concerned is that Manaphy is gone.
This should tell you something.
Not it doesn't. Adamant +2 Rock Slide deals: 33.5% - 39.5% to Physically defensive Skarm (43.1% - 50.9% to specially defensive) keep in mind that Jolly deals noticeably less damage.
Have you forgotten that Kabutops can run an effective SD set? Floatzel and Qwilfish are also physical. Yes Waterfall is their strongest STAB move, but it hits incredibly hard after the rain boost.
Not really, Smogon users=/=PO users. Do I really need to point atrocities like Landlos at 35, and Electivire at 44? Various Pokemon who are OU material that are in the 60's? That alone should tell you PO's statistics shouldn't even be considered.
Yeah, clearly Swift Swim isn't inherently broken - with doubled speed you can do nothing unless you have good attacking stats or support movepool. I merely think that perhaps even the Drizzle+Swift Swim ban suggested earlier is a better idea than banning the entire weather. I'll talk more about this in a sec.
A problem with this is Doryuuzu, for example. Without Sand doubling his speed, I don't think anyone would consider him inherently broken at all (not to say that he is, this is just an example) - and the same can be applied here. My point being that if something is made broken even by something else, and even if a lot of things are by that same thing, the precedent is still to ban the pokemon itself (or restrict it in some way). I know this isn't a perfect example as SS=/=Rain, but I'm just trying to point out a bit of a flaw with that particular way of looking at things.
Yeah, admittedly I cannot predict what the meta will look like with perfect accuracy by any means. I'm just going by the example of Rain in 4th Gen OU not being very common when Tales, Dory and Randorosu were absent primarily - and even when people were less familiar with weather, to form my prediction. It seems that a few others in the thread share my view, I don't know if you do but I just wanted to point out that it isn't solely me who thinks this will be the case :P.
I entirely understand that something intolerable cannot stay in the meta. I don't think there has been a concluded discussion on Rain as of yet though, so I'll withold my opinion and presume that something about Drizzle is found broken - I'd rather remove the intolerable aspects if possible while mainaining at least something of the archetype.
I see where you're coming from - but I think what we're delving into here is the two factors of: something being broken, which I see as completely unsuitable for the meta (Ie say Kyogre for a noncontroversial example); and something which is dubiously broken but certainly overcentralises the meta (Salamence). It seems to be the definitions being blurred a bit here so I just thought I'd state what I see as both. The difference ofc is that the former can be countered (all pokes can) but only by such absurdly specialised things as Quagsire, etc, whereas Salamence had undoubtedly more and more viable counters - but had the two deadly sets which were a non-tangible factor of brokenness.
In the end, I think we both agree that something which overcentralises the meta even if it is not clearly broken needs to be addressed, however, since Drizzle is a much more multifaceted thing than say Salamence, we have the oppurtunity to address in in a different manner than if we were addressing a single pokemon - as the other factors which theoretically make it broken can be dealt with in other ways.
Yeah you really can't stress enough how underestimated Sun is. It annoys me, but I also love taking advantage of people who do so in battle :D. Like alphatron said earlier though, I doubt it would be found broken without Rain, though it is possible.
Reachzero raised an interesting point a while back about him not wanting to face a Rain team even if Swift Swim were banned. It's reasonable enough - Rain would still have that power boost along with Thunder etc to abuse, and Water-move spam would simply become slower and most probably bulkier and more diverse. Rain offense would be altered for sure by removing Swift Swim, but probably not eliminated.
I think the distinction between Rain having the right to be preserved as a strategy and said item for Scizor, is that weather is one of the game mechanic cornerstones, and an entire strategy as opposed to an item for one pokemon. I know your example wasn't the best but i hope you unerstand my point.
Yeah sorry, I generally encompass any possible Rain strategy as an archetype, similar to Stall or Offense or Balance when referring to it like that, I really need to make myself more clear... I admit a Drizzle ban is the easiest way to solve any problems, but I just don't think it's necessarily the right way, for reasons I'm sure you gather. The whole reason I began posting here was due to the volume of people advocating for its ban - as I wanted to explain to the masses my train of thought as to why we should try an alternative. Of course if the suspect votes say differently there's nothing else to be done, but I may as well get my voice heard.
Sandslash learns stone edge, which is 33% more powerful.
44.3% - 52.1%, SR and and skarm's dead. And even with SR + lefties, it's still a 2hko on average.
Also, waterfall is still no stronger than the dragon's outrages, and has more resists and even immunities. Plus they all share an electric weakness. And since the main part of his post that they all had the same weaknesses still stands, and is really the more important.
I was going to make a post on electrivire and others, but you beat me to it. Also note that electivire is only 1 below rotom-w, and above voltolos, his main electric-type competition, who really outclass him. All he has is that he's physical, and motor drive I guess.
Precisely, I've been pushing this for several pages now. Rain can be countered with a combination of many viable pokemon currently in OU. However, much of the rest of OU and some combinations of these pokemon on teams fare very poorly against Rain, and this is what causes the overcentralisation and makes it hard to counter Rain without altering your teambulding style to account for that.
Aye, having a weather move isn't a waste of a moveslot in the current environment. People may not like it, but if you run something to counter the Rain sweeper who beats say Nattorei, and give him Sandstorm or something, then you have a reasonable way of dealing with Rain. I too made the Rapid Spin comparison a few pages back, and had no responses. So I pose the question: why is having to run a weather move different to having to run Rapid Spin if you wish to use things weak to Rain/SR?
You show a pretty unique perspective in this post Ulevo, and it's refreshing. Admittedly I don't agree entirely - I think diversity is the prime factor a meta should strive for - but your point stands in that what is wrong with the dominant strategy being so differnt to a last Gen? I think people should consider this for a second before trying to ratify their assumption that Drizzle is broken and should be banned.
This again is an interesting train of thought, that the entire game in Gen V is now so broad that you can't cover every threat adequately. Something to consider is that with Rain requiring countering in the current meta, perhaps it is tougher for people to counter the rest of the threats too? So they try to beat one or the other and cannot manage to do both?
I don't think you should entirely disregard the statistics nonetheless despite the quirks of portions of the PO community. Especially when the fact that Sand is more common than Rain as shown by them is backed up by the words of several smogon suspect battlers a few pages back - who said that Rain is practically non-existent at the top of the ladder.
I can't say that I honestly am not biased towards this subject. The idea of banning an ability never sat well with me unless it made all of the users of the ability broken (Inconsistent). But the idea of banning an ability because it makes OTHER Pokemon broken, seems completely ridiculous. Granted, my limitations could be barring me from seeing the power, but I simply cannot say I feel the same sense of raw power from Kabutops, Kingdra, Ludicolo that I do from something like Manaphy. The Pokemon are still exactly the same in 8 turn Rain as they are in Perma Rain, there's no getting around it. If Perma Rain makes them broken, then 8 turn Rain should as well. If they aren't broken with 8 turn Rain, then they aren't with Perma Rain. That's all there is to it. Banning Drizzle solves nothing.
I don't deny it. I'd be more willing to be entertained by the idea that they are broken on their own right, rather than Drizzle being the one that causes them to be broken.
This argument that "non-weather offensive teams can't fit into the metagame, thus something is wrong with metagame" bothers me. It just begs the question what does non-weather non-viability now have to do with something being broken. The Speed-Tiers have been reshaped because of Perma-Weather, and we can't just sit here clinging to old philosophies to make ourselves feel more comfortable.
I can't truly say that I am still sure that some of the Swift Swimmers aren't broken. But I think a great many still aren't, even if Nattorei didn't exist. But I uphold with complete conviction that Drizzle is not.
i think its really becaues its almost at a point where things arent weak to rain and sandstorm
theyre too slow for switswim and sandthrow
running a weather move is almost a prerequisite on a team
stealth rocks were prevalent
but you could always run a spinner to protect your one poke who needed it
now almost an entire team may need a weather inducer
or be slaughtered by a dory, kingdra, landlos, or manaphy
PO statistics cant be used for our metagame condition so i will not argue about that.
But i tbh find sand more than rain nowadays for some reason that i dont know.
I find drizzle is the one that is broken. Sun dont boost stab and speed at the same time. And assuming fire abusing sun vs other team compared to water abusing rain vs other team, it uncompared that rain has higher chance of winning,
First of all, ninetales might be quite bulky, but he is not even when Eved. Hes also unreliable due to Hypnomiss and Miss-o-miss, and unreliable way to beat other inducer(energy ball dont 2HKO Hippowdon with full SpA Timid Life Orb). Compared to those like Politoed(decent stats and godly typing with reliable support and some good movepool), ttar(many hole but very unique and influental typing, insane movepool, great stats) and Hippo(Walling Many threats on physical and some insane one on special spectrum such as subsplit gengar) sun is easier to get rid in most cases.
Second, Verstility wise, water is among the most versatile type. A team of many water type(such as rain) already has the versatility of water combined with having their sheer power increased exponentialy by rain. While fire is no means bad, fire has easier to abuse weakness compared to water which has grass which only seen mostly on natts and Vir and Electic which mostly used Un STABed.
That two reason is enough for me to draw that water(rain) is better
But i tbh find sand more than rain nowadays for some reason that i dont know.
I find drizzle is the one that is broken. Sun dont boost stab and speed at the same time. And assuming fire abusing sun vs other team compared to water abusing rain vs other team, it uncompared that rain has higher chance of winning,
First of all, ninetales might be quite bulky, but he is not even when Eved. Hes also unreliable due to Hypnomiss and Miss-o-miss, and unreliable way to beat other inducer(energy ball dont 2HKO Hippowdon with full SpA Timid Life Orb). Compared to those like Politoed(decent stats and godly typing with reliable support and some good movepool), ttar(many hole but very unique and influental typing, insane movepool, great stats) and Hippo(Walling Many threats on physical and some insane one on special spectrum such as subsplit gengar) sun is easier to get rid in most cases.
Second, Verstility wise, water is among the most versatile type. A team of many water type(such as rain) already has the versatility of water combined with having their sheer power increased exponentialy by rain. While fire is no means bad, fire has easier to abuse weakness compared to water which has grass which only seen mostly on natts and Vir and Electic which mostly used Un STABed.
That two reason is enough for me to draw that water(rain) is better
Stop needlessly picking apart things that have nothing to do with the discussion. Maybe my words could have been chosen better but you asked why a sand vs rain metagame is bad and I told you why.
Poor balance and low variety are not "accepted negatives". We do what we can to try and rectify this which is what we're doing. By banning rain, hopefully non-rain and non-sand teams will be more viable and can be used without being completely dominated.
Did I say these pokemon were gimmicky? Stop putting words in my mouth. I'm talking about actual gimmicks to stop rain that are being used on the suspect ladder even now. Stuff like cloud nine golduck/lickilicky, specific UU/NU counters like gastrodon and the things like the stuff in this post:
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3229438&postcount=515
for the sole purpose of countering rain. That's overcentralization.
The pokemon you listed are counters to some common rain sweepers but you need 2 maybe 3 of them if you actually want to stop rain. Again that's overcentralization. Am I forced to pick 3 out of a handful of OU rain counters every time I make a team?
What you do in battles means nothing. You provide a specific situation favorable to your argument where you've sacrificed your weather inducer only to find that your opponent is carrying a weather move. That happens 5% of the time. What about the other 95% of the time where you haven't sacrificed your pokemon and your opponent wastes a turn changing the weather only to have the weather instantly changed back. This kind of tactic wasn't used last gen when perma sand was the only weather. Weather moves are a new gimmick designed specifically to counter rain. That is overcentralization.
It's not about banning what's better. We ban what we think is overpowered or overcentralizing. Sand is clearly better than sun, doesn't mean we ban sand. Staraptor is obviously better than pidgeot, doesn't mean we ban staraptor so pidgeot can see some play.
Whether you agree with it or not, rain is a dominant strategy because it makes so many other things unusable if you want to win against it. It doesn't always have to be black and white, you win if you use it, you lose if you don't.
Um...no. +2 LO sandslash does 40.1-47.3% with stone edge because you will be running jolly or you get outsped by anything carrying a scarf. Not only is that not a 2HKO, skarm comes in on the SD and roost stalls you until LO kills you or phazes you out.
Bulky waters and dusclops have reliable to semi-reliable healing unlike nattorei who only has leech seed. And I don't care what you say but you're not sweeping anything with +0 sandslash.
Having a physical/special mix makes a pretty big difference. It's part of the reason why you need so many counters on the same team to stop rain. Sure Blissey can stop all the special threats, but then you need nattorei to stop the physical ones. Then what happens if they pack 3-4 physical threats instead of a mix and break through nattorei, you need another backup wall.
However I do agree with you that sand throw can still be threatening if they break through your wall. Which is why I'm not entirely against banning dory/sand throw but that's a whole new discussion.
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