np: OU Suspect Testing Round 2 - Who am I to break tradition?

[SJCrew]

You say if my mentality was gone with we'd be banning moves despite me never once saying to ban a move, your looking at one thing and leaping to another to propose an indirect connection.

Yet my point was still valid. You know that a certain broken aspect of the metagame needs a combination of factors in order to function, but instead of cutting off the source, you want us to cut off a part of the combination to see if the playstyle becomes less broken. We could have done this with absolutely everything we deemed broken as part of a "balancing" process. Why did we need to ban Salamence? Without Draco Meteor or Outrage, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as effective. What about Garchomp? There wouldn't be any SD Yache Chomp without SD. Groudon with no Earthquake? Darkrai with no Dark Void?

The reason we never went this direction was because the players realized that the source of the problem was not hinged on one factor that the Pokemon abused, but the Pokemon themselves that abused a combination of these factors all at once. The source initiating the combination would be more logical to ban, not bits and pieces of the combination. If the source is pulling the strings, what need do we have to cut the strings just so we can keep the source?

It only makes sense from a convenience point of view. You're guaranteed to kill all the zombies but you're also guaranteed to kill all the humans.

Uh...no. My proposition included the machine being destroyed and turning those people back into their normal human selves, which ties directly into my reasoning for employing the same method to handle Raom: banning Drizzle doesn't ban Kingdra, Ludicolo, or Kabutops, it just keeps them from being rampaging murder machines.

 

[astrohawke]

Yet my point was still valid. You know that a certain broken aspect of the metagame needs a combination of factors in order to function, but instead of cutting off the source, you want us to cut off a part of the combination to see if the playstyle becomes less broken. We could have done this with absolutely everything we deemed broken as part of a "balancing" process. Why did we need to ban Salamence? Without Draco Meteor or Outrage, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as effective. What about Garchomp? There wouldn't be any SD Yache Chomp without SD. Groudon with no Earthquake? Darkrai with no Dark Void?

The reason we never went this direction was because the players realized that the source of the problem was not hinged on one factor that the Pokemon abused, but the Pokemon themselves that abused a combination of these factors all at once. The source initiating the combination would be more logical to ban, not bits and pieces of the combination. If the source is pulling the strings, what need do we have to cut the strings just so we can keep the source?

Why then was inconsistent the ability banned and not the pokemon themselves if cutting off the problem at the source is the solution to everything. Undoubtly, if you had inconsistent on a magikarp it still wouldn't do anything so the pokemon themselves obviously were a part of the problem yet they remain unbanned. Clearly every case is different and there's no global rule on how things should and shouldn't be banned.

Uh...no. My proposition included the machine being destroyed and turning those people back into their normal human selves, which ties directly into my reasoning for employing the same method to handle Raom: banning Drizzle doesn't ban Kingdra, Ludicolo, or Kabutops, it just keeps them from being rampaging murder machines.

And I already told you your proposition is invalid because it has no negative consequences whereas banning drizzle entirely does so it's not an accurate direct comparison. Banning drizzle is akin to nuking everyone because while it solves the problem, there are obvious negative ramifications. I.E. Loss of innocent lives in the analogy vs loss of viable aspects of weather based gameplay/strategies in pokemon.

 

[Syberia]

I'm not sure what exactly you two are arguing about with your zombie machines and the like, but my take on it is quite simple - in OU, Swift Swim users and whatnot were far from broken without infinite rain. That's what changed, and that change caused them to be broken. By removing the one ability which can cause infinite rain, you ensure that the problem goes away but you do not need to make any additional bans.

 

[astrohawke]

I'm not sure what exactly you two are arguing about with your zombie machines and the like, but my take on it is quite simple - in OU, Swift Swim users and whatnot were far from broken without infinite rain. That's what changed, and that change caused them to be broken. By removing the one ability which can cause infinite rain, you ensure that the problem goes away but you do not need to make any additional bans.

Like you say it's a combination of 2 things that make it broken. Swift swim + permanent rain. So you can solve the problem by either taking away swift swim or by taking away permanent rain. Taking away swift swim removes the broken-ness and nothing else. Taking away permanent rain removes the broken-ness but it also removes rain based strategies that aren't broken like stall.

While a year ago you might argue that it's too selective to ban certain aspects like abilities or moves which is why we ban garchomp/mence and not outrage/DM or we would be going down a slippery slope, you can no longer say that because a precedent has been set with the banning of inconsistent. So banning of an ability is not so inconceivable and if it allows for a better, more varied metagame where rain has a chance to be used without being broken, then why NOT test it?

 

[DahliaSky]

I don't mean to be rude here, but some of you appear to be quite dense.

Allow me to line out the reasons drizzle needs banning, and you can actually argue about how I'm wrong instead of spouting the same argument over and over like a car with the proximity alarm stuck on.

Drizzle is semi permanent. This is the issue we're debating: does its semi-permanence make it too powerful or too centralizing.

Now we need to look at a few key points in the current metagame. With drizzle out, we see many more successful rain teams than we did before, even though there are stronger counters and no new sweepers in this gen.

Why is this?
Because drizzle allows a rain team much more maneuverability to stall out opponent's rain counters, and then just come strait back to sweeping without even a setup turn.

Because drizzle allows hydration pokemon to rest all the way to the end of their PP for rest and keep getting the status healed.

Because bulky swimmers can't just be waited out anymore by stalling. They have turns up to their max PP to kill you, and can switch around to counter you without worrying about having to come back and restart rain.

Look at the meta and it's clear Drizzle is the culprit... i mean better and stronger counters for rain have been released, there has been no changes in the pokemon that are used on rain as sweepers, and it is still looking to be banned.

Because of this combination of things, it would suggest that insetad of rewriting the stable rain dance concept that was obviously not broken since manaphy went uber last gen, we should instead look into the one thing that's new that is allowing rain teams to overpower the meta game and the one change: Drizzle.

Another thing, this is not the death of rain, nor does this remove rain from the meta. Yes, it will be very hard to run an all-rain team... but isn't that how it should be? you shouldn't be able to have a group of 6-8 different pokemon that when grouped give you a huge advantage... and are all similar typing that is hard to kill. I personally run rain dance Kingdra in this meta, and you know what? It works. Its not a whole rain team, but it can easily finish off 2-3 pokemon at the end of a fight if played right and saved.

 

[masterful]

Why then was inconsistent the ability banned and not the pokemon themselves if cutting off the problem at the source is the solution to everything. Undoubtly, if you had inconsistent on a magikarp it still wouldn't do anything so the pokemon themselves obviously were a part of the problem yet they remain unbanned. Clearly every case is different and there's no global rule on how things should and shouldn't be banned.



And I already told you your proposition is invalid because it has no negative consequences whereas banning drizzle entirely does so it's not an accurate direct comparison. Banning drizzle is akin to nuking everyone because while it solves the problem, there are obvious negative ramifications. I.E. Loss of innocent lives in the analogy vs loss of viable aspects of weather based gameplay/strategies in pokemon.

The source was never the pokemon. Octillery, Smeargle, and the like have other uses outside of the brokenness that is Inconsistent, and banning them instead of the one ability eliminates that variety.

 

[astrohawke]

I don't mean to be rude here, but some of you appear to be quite dense.

Allow me to line out the reasons drizzle needs banning, and you can actually argue about how I'm wrong instead of spouting the same argument over and over like a car with the proximity alarm stuck on.

Drizzle is semi permanent. This is the issue we're debating: does its semi-permanence make it too powerful or too centralizing.

Now we need to look at a few key points in the current metagame. With drizzle out, we see many more successful rain teams than we did before, even though there are stronger counters and no new sweepers in this gen.

Why is this?
Because drizzle allows a rain team much more maneuverability to stall out opponent's rain counters, and then just come strait back to sweeping without even a setup turn.

Because drizzle allows hydration pokemon to rest all the way to the end of their PP for rest and keep getting the status healed.

Because bulky swimmers can't just be waited out anymore by stalling. They have turns up to their max PP to kill you, and can switch around to counter you without worrying about having to come back and restart rain.

Look at the meta and it's clear Drizzle is the culprit... i mean better and stronger counters for rain have been released, there has been no changes in the pokemon that are used on rain as sweepers, and it is still looking to be banned.

Because of this combination of things, it would suggest that insetad of rewriting the stable rain dance concept that was obviously not broken since manaphy went uber last gen, we should instead look into the one thing that's new that is allowing rain teams to overpower the meta game and the one change: Drizzle.

Another thing, this is not the death of rain, nor does this remove rain from the meta. Yes, it will be very hard to run an all-rain team... but isn't that how it should be? you shouldn't be able to have a group of 6-8 different pokemon that when grouped give you a huge advantage... and are all similar typing that is hard to kill. I personally run rain dance Kingdra in this meta, and you know what? It works. Its not a whole rain team, but it can easily finish off 2-3 pokemon at the end of a fight if played right and saved.

You have it backwards. Permanent rain did not make swift swim broken. Swift swim was already broken but an 8 turn rain kept it under control because it could be stalled out.

And by removing drizzle, you do essentially remove rain based teams from the meta as they are no longer a competitive strategy. They go back to being the gimmick they were last gen. Is it possible to play with gimmicks in OU? Sure but it's also possible to play with a UU team in OU. They're still not a part of the actual metagame.

The source was never the pokemon. Octillery, Smeargle, and the like have other uses outside of the brokenness that is Inconsistent, and banning them instead of the one ability eliminates that variety.

And drizzle has other uses outside the brokenness that is swift swim and banning it instead of the one ability eliminates that variety.

 

[Arc Tech]

Drizzle isn't a "single aspect" of a deadly combination, it's the single and absolute source of this combination's existence. On the same wavelength, Draco Meteor and Outrage alone can't do anything; they're just moves. The broken Dragons that abuse them are the ones that make them so problematic. Why do you think we haven't banned Altaria or Flygon?

If we went along the same mindset as yours, we would indeed be banning moves instead of the Pokemon that make them so powerful. I mean, how strong do you think Groudon would be without Earthquake? Rayquaza without Extremespeed? Your way is wrong and will not achieve anything close to the balance we're striving for right now.

...

No, the answer is still to destroy the machine. It saves you the trouble of having to check to see who's human by ensuring without a shadow of a doubt that all of the zombies are gone. If you have a problem with me bringing up the convenience aspect, just paraphrase that as "destroying the machine is the only guaranteed method of eliminating all of the zombies." My solution would still make more sense.

Drizzle is anything but the only source of the Kingdra's, Ludicolo's, and Kabutop's power. If instead we had Omastar, Gorebyss, and Qwilfish (the next best 3, as far as I can see), do you honestly think they would be anywhere near as broken? They would have a very hard time going through bulky waters, especially absorbers, as well as not having the power and/or coverage to 1-2hko everything.

To put your Zombie Machine analogy straight, the machine is affecting many, but only some affected by the machine are turning into zombies. This implies they already had traits that made them susceptible, and the machine alone is not the sole cause.

In this case you could say that Drizzle provides too much support (but not that it alone causes it), but the fact that it only provides a select group of pokemon support, and not every pokemon, such as Deoxys-s or wobbuffet, and only 2-3 of these become broken, then I would say that it is the ones who become broken who are to blame, not the sweepers.

 

[Ice-eyes]

Inconsistent isn't broken! It only provides support to 4 pokemon!

Drizzle breaks 4-5 pokemon, and it would break a large proportion of pokemon if they had it.

 

[masterful]

You have it backwards. Permanent rain did not make swift swim broken. Swift swim was already broken but an 8 turn rain kept it under control because it could be stalled out.

And by removing drizzle, you do essentially remove rain based teams from the meta as they are no longer a competitive strategy. They go back to being the gimmick they were last gen. Is it possible to play with gimmicks in OU? Sure but it's also possible to play with a UU team in OU. They're still not a part of the actual metagame.



And drizzle has other uses outside the brokenness that is swift swim and banning it instead of the one ability eliminates that variety.

Banning Drizzle won't do away completely with any style of play, really, while banning Swift Swim will

 

[DahliaSky]

You have it backwards. Permanent rain did not make swift swim broken. Swift swim was already broken but an 8 turn rain kept it under control because it could be stalled out.

err, that sounds exactly like what i said... an 8 turn rain kept it under control, therefore, not broken.

And by removing drizzle, you do essentially remove rain based teams from the meta as they are no longer a competitive strategy. They go back to being the gimmick they were last gen. Is it possible to play with gimmicks in OU? Sure but it's also possible to play with a UU team in OU. They're still not a part of the actual metagame.

I didn't see them as a gimmick... unless you made your whole team rain based? but making an entire team based in one type and strategy is a stupid and gimmicky idea, so it belongs as a gimmick. Rain can also be used structurally, and effectively, without having a gimmicky team full of them.

And drizzle has other uses outside the brokenness that is swift swim and banning it instead of the one ability eliminates that variety.

Swift swim has again and again been found to NOT be broken while it was constrained on turns. If it were a broken ability, 8 turns would be more than enough to win an entire game most of the time. Instead its, as you said, a gimmick that doesn't work most of the time by itself. Doesn't sound like a broken ability to me at all.

 

[astrohawke]

Banning Drizzle won't do away completely with any style of play, really, while banning Swift Swim will

Er...how does banning swift swim remove a style of play which I assume you're talking about heavy offense. You still have the rain boosted stab. Just your speed now is balanced with everyone else's instead of outspeeding everything in sight for free. I'd say rain HO would still be better than something like sand HO or normal HO as you get the added bonuses rain provides. It just isn't nearly as broken.

Meanwhile, I'd like to see you try and make good use of rain stall with 8 turn rain. *Yay my ludicolo is subseed stalling in rain...oh crap it stopped...must cast rain dance again...but oh no my sub isn't up...do I sub or do I rain dance?and I have no leftovers because I'm using damp rock...aaahh dead*.

err, that sounds exactly like what i said... an 8 turn rain kept it under control, therefore, not broken.

No you said swift swim = ok but drizzle + swift swim = broken.
I said swift swim = broken but 8-turn rain + swift swim = ok.
There's a difference. Drizzle merely changed what was keeping the broken thing under control. It's like if Slaking suddenly got thick fat as an ability and became broken. Thick fat isn't broken just because it was newly introduced and suddenly made slaking broken. It merely changed what was keeping slaking under control in the first place which is truant. So the thing that's broken is still slaking, not thick fat.

 

[masterful]

Er...how does banning swift swim remove a style of play which I assume you're talking about heavy offense. You still have the rain boosted stab. Just your speed now is balanced with everyone else's instead of outspeeding everything in sight for free. I'd say rain HO would still be better than something like sand HO or normal HO as you get the added bonuses rain provides. It just isn't nearly as broken.

Meanwhile, I'd like to see you try and make good use of rain stall with 8 turn rain. *Yay my ludicolo is subseed stalling in rain...oh crap it stopped...must cast rain dance again...but oh no my sub isn't up...do I sub or do I rain dance?and I have no leftovers because I'm using damp rock...aaahh dead*.

You clearly don't understand that without the speed boost, the rain sweepers aren't good.

 

[astrohawke]

You clearly don't understand that without the speed boost, the rain sweepers aren't good.

You don't understand that you don't actually need to use the same old rain sweepers now that they don't have swift swim. Rain HO would still exist. You might be using stuff like Kerudio, starmie etc instead. The playstyle hasn't been removed like you thought it was.

 

[DahliaSky]

Er...how does banning swift swim remove a style of play which I assume you're talking about heavy offense. You still have the rain boosted stab. Just your speed now is balanced with everyone else's instead of outspeeding everything in sight for free. I'd say rain HO would still be better than something like sand HO or normal HO as you get the added bonuses rain provides. It just isn't nearly as broken.

Meanwhile, I'd like to see you try and make good use of rain stall with 8 turn rain. *Yay my ludicolo is subseed stalling in rain...oh crap it stopped...must cast rain dance again...but oh no my sub isn't up...do I sub or do I rain dance?and I have no leftovers because I'm using damp rock...aaahh dead*.

ludicolo still makes a decent sub seeder regardless. He won't be able to pull off a walrien-like stall, but he'll be able to hit on 2 stabs from behind a sub, or stall out water/ground pokemon with ease. Either way it isn't even relevant, as these still were around and even have a smogon set from gen 4, so obviously they were decent.

 

[SJCrew]

The source was never the pokemon. Octillery, Smeargle, and the like have other uses outside of the brokenness that is Inconsistent, and banning them instead of the one ability eliminates that variety.

Allow me to add to this a bit: Octillery and friends did not use the ability to make themselves broken. The ability used them as a vessel. Most other [fully evolved] Pokemon could have taken their place and achieved the same effect. The property of boosting two stages of any random stat each turn is entirely too potent to allow in competitive Pokemon.

Why then was inconsistent the ability banned and not the pokemon themselves if cutting off the problem at the source is the solution to everything. Undoubtly, if you had inconsistent on a magikarp it still wouldn't do anything so the pokemon themselves obviously were a part of the problem yet they remain unbanned. Clearly every case is different and there's no global rule on how things should and shouldn't be banned.

Inconsistent was the source lol. We're capable of discerning between the influence the ability and the Pokemon have. Notice how I've not once mentioned banning Politoed. Drizzle is pulling its weight, not Politoed. Politoed is just the vessel to host the broken ability. Even if Drizzle were on something REALLY bad like Spinda, everyone would still be using it just because of how ridiculously well it supports other Pokemon.

If instead we had Omastar, Gorebyss, and Qwilfish (the next best 3, as far as I can see), do you honestly think they would be anywhere near as broken?

Yes. Two of those guys have Shell Smash and would sweep through teams in a heartbeat. Five is enough to say that Drizzle is doing too much, but even if we got rid of those, I don't entirely doubt that someone else will just find a way to make the other Swift Swim sweepers broken. Drizzle just gives too much of a boost to two many things. It needs to go.

To put your Zombie Machine analogy straight, the machine is affecting many, but only some affected by the machine are turning into zombies. This implies they already had traits that made them susceptible, and the machine alone is not the sole cause.

You are reading too much into it. There is no implied meaning other than what I've already clearly stated. No conditions were outlined and the scenario only goes so far as to say that both the zombies and the machine exist. If you could choose between the zombies or the machine, which one would you choose to get rid of? Most people would say the machine, and rightfully so, since it allows us to restore the people who were turned into zombies that wouldn't be zombies without that machine.

And just in case you were wondering: Swift Swim is not the machine. It never will be the machine as long as there is a much larger factor at play allowing it to function the way it does. There is more than Swift Swim making these Pokemon broken and banning Drizzle handles every single one of these problems in one fell swoop.

 

[ensoriki]

You clearly don't understand that without the speed boost, the rain sweepers aren't good.

You don't get it.
Kingdra learns Agility, and Dragon dance.
Sorry but Kingdra doesn't even technically need swift swim to sweep it just makes it's job easier. If kingdra's is in water it doesn't give 2 shits about anybody and their mother, regardless of it's ability.

Floatzel is still 115 Base speed, with agility, & bulk up, it still pulls out sweeps at it's will.

Shell break cloyster also gets STAB boost.

Kerudio, though not released.

Starmie obviously with rain hydro pumps.

Rain offense gets changed without swift swim it's not killed.

Not that im saying to remove swift.

 

[masterful]

You don't understand that you don't actually need to use the same old rain sweepers now that they don't have swift swim. Rain HO would still exist. You might be using stuff like Kerudio, starmie etc instead. The playstyle hasn't been removed like you thought it was.

Then it becomes worse than sun. A 1.5 boost to one type of attack is not worth using if it takes up a slot n your team. Don't be naive

 

[TheValkyries]

Also, let's look at this from another angle: if we took away Drizzle and had to set up Rain manually, Swift Swim would not be broken. Even with double Speed, we can employ stalling tactics to ensure they don't do anything worthwhile in those eight turns or change the weather on them mid-sweep. Swift Swim can't do anything against those tactics, while all Drizzle has to do is have its vessel show up for all of these methods to be rendered null and void. In this situation, it's clear to see which influence holds more power. The permanence of the Rain is the problem, not the Speed boost.

Wait, so when it's Drizzle, every single one of these major Swift Swimmers are uncounterable and can power through everything, but in 8-turn rain, they suddenly those this ability? The logic here is simply flawed. If something is broken because of Rain, then they're broken no matter what kind of Rain it is. If they're not broken because of rain, why are we even talking about it?

It does make sense. Your banning Kingdra and the other rain sweepers from OU (and the lower tiers) it is so much simpler to ban Drizzle. Why do you insist on weakening Drizzle when you can ban it outright.

Weakening Drizzle from doing what? Raining harder on you? Drizzle does NOTHING but ignite Swift Swimmers. Do we blame the Big Bad Wolf or the Straw House for the collapse? Do we blame the Death toll in Haiti on the Earthquake, or the piss Building codes that made almost all of them fall on top of people?

Bad Analogies aside, why are we blaming Drizzle for the brokenness of Swift Swimmers? I feel like I'm saying this like a mantra, but if something is broken in rain, then it's broken in any kind of rain. 8-turn or Perma.

 

[DahliaSky]

Er...how does banning swift swim remove a style of play which I assume you're talking about heavy offense. You still have the rain boosted stab. Just your speed now is balanced with everyone else's instead of outspeeding everything in sight for free. I'd say rain HO would still be better than something like sand HO or normal HO as you get the added bonuses rain provides. It just isn't nearly as broken.

Meanwhile, I'd like to see you try and make good use of rain stall with 8 turn rain. *Yay my ludicolo is subseed stalling in rain...oh crap it stopped...must cast rain dance again...but oh no my sub isn't up...do I sub or do I rain dance?and I have no leftovers because I'm using damp rock...aaahh dead*.



No you said swift swim = ok but drizzle + swift swim = broken.
I said swift swim = broken but 8-turn rain + swift swim = ok.
There's a difference. Drizzle merely changed what was keeping the broken thing under control. It's like if Slaking suddenly got thick fat as an ability and became broken. Thick fat isn't broken just because it was newly introduced and suddenly made slaking broken. It merely changed what was keeping slaking under control in the first place which is truant. So the thing that's broken is still slaking, not thick fat.

are you serious? The only thing broken about swift swim is that when you have an infinate number of turns to move around without setup you can remove counters to it, not that it's really powerful or too hard to beat on its own.

There are many ways to stop swift swim users in their tracks... but to stop a drizzle team is much harder, and not because the pokemon are just stronger, or faster... but because returning to sweeping requires no extra turn and is impossible to prevent without your own weather user.

You counter a swift swimmer, they counter your counter, then go right back. Only cause: Drizzle. Swift swim by itself is nothing. Kingdra can't touch numerous pokemon, same with kabutops and every other swift swim user. The problem is the infinite ability to counter and return to rain.

Did you even bother to read and understand my post? The thing you are arguing for has been proven invalid, and you are completely failing to validate it in any way.

 

[masterful]

Wait, so when it's Drizzle, every single one of these major Swift Swimmers are uncounterable and can power through everything, but in 8-turn rain, they suddenly those this ability? The logic here is simply flawed. If something is broken because of Rain, then they're broken no matter what kind of Rain it is. If they're not broken because of rain, why are we even talking about it?





Weakening Drizzle from doing what? Raining harder on you? Drizzle does NOTHING but ignite Swift Swimmers. Do we blame the Big Bad Wolf or the Straw House for the collapse? Do we blame the Death toll in Haiti on the Earthquake, or the piss Building codes that made almost all of them fall on top of people?

Bad Analogies aside, why are we blaming Drizzle for the brokenness of Swift Swimmers? I feel like I'm saying this like a mantra, but if something is broken in rain, then it's broken in any kind of rain. 8-turn or Perma.

That would certainly be nice if it were true, yet banning drizzle doesn't do away with any style of play, while banning SS certainly would.

 

[TheValkyries]

That would certainly be nice if it were true, yet banning drizzle doesn't do away with any style of play, while banning SS certainly would.

I'm not saying ban SS. I'm saying ban the thing that's broken. If that means banning Kabutops, Ludicolo, and Kingdra then so be it. We shouldn't be banning something to nerf something else to uselessness.

 

[masterful]

You don't get it.
Kingdra learns Agility, and Dragon dance.
Sorry but Kingdra doesn't even technically need swift swim to sweep it just makes it's job easier. If kingdra's is in water it doesn't give 2 shits about anybody and their mother, regardless of it's ability.

Floatzel is still 115 Base speed, with agility, & bulk up, it still pulls out sweeps at it's will.

Shell break cloyster also gets STAB boost.

Kerudio, though not released.

Starmie obviously with rain hydro pumps.

Rain offense gets changed without swift swim it's not killed.

Not that im saying to remove swift.

The point is that all of these pokes are good without rain.

 

[astrohawke]

Then it becomes worse than sun. A 1.5 boost to one type of attack is not worth using if it takes up a slot n your team. Don't be naive

lol...stop changing the subject on me and then calling me naive. You said that removing swift swim removes an entire style of play because you naively thought swift swim offense is the only type of rain HO and I proved otherwise. No one said anything about whether it would be better than sun or not. And it's plenty worth it to use politoed for the bonuses rain provides which includes 100% accurate thunder and hurricane and -50% fire on top of making use of abilities like rain dish and hydration. Politoed itself is not even that terrible a pokemon.

are you serious? The only thing broken about swift swim is that when you have an infinate number of turns to move around without setup you can remove counters to it, not that it's really powerful or too hard to beat on its own.

There are many ways to stop swift swim users in their tracks... but to stop a drizzle team is much harder, and not because the pokemon are just stronger, or faster... but because returning to sweeping requires no extra turn and is impossible to prevent without your own weather user.

You counter a swift swimmer, they counter your counter, then go right back. Only cause: Drizzle. Swift swim by itself is nothing. Kingdra can't touch numerous pokemon, same with kabutops and every other swift swim user. The problem is the infinite ability to counter and return to rain.

Did you even bother to read and understand my post? The thing you are arguing for has been proven invalid, and you are completely failing to validate it in any way.

Just because you say something has been proven invalid doesn't make it so. That's what people who have no valid arguments say to try and end an argument as if it shows they're right.

And swift swim as an ability is broken. It's effectively an ability that raises speed by 2x. When you compare it to other abilities like download, guts, quick feet etc anything that alters a stat, it only changes it by 1.5x or 1 level never 2. Therefore, as an ability, swift swim is way better than most other abilities.

 

[ensoriki]

Then it becomes worse than sun. A 1.5 boost to one type of attack is not worth using if it takes up a slot n your team. Don't be naive

No it doesn't, for a speed sweep yes.
As a weather? No.
Water is still an amazzing type and dual stab is loved regardless of swift swim.
Thunder & Hurricane are good still, and the users of those moves aren't water pokemon...unless your like running Lanturn.

If politoed was a crap pokemon maybe, but with Drizzle it really isn't even outside of it's team mates because it brings the rain it gets double stab right the bat every time it comes in, it's hardly weak, and it's definitely got some bulk on it.

Kingdra can also still sweep.

The point is that all of these pokes are good without rain.

Rain makes them BETTER.
Agility Empoleon is another example.
It's pointless to say they are good without rain, that doesn't take away from the point of their still being offense in rain. Outside of swift swim there are numerous pokemon that benefit from infinite rain being present.