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

[SlimMan]

But anyone who uses Dory knows to save it until your counter is dead. Particularly for stall teams it's difficult because there are so many times where my gliscor or skarmory are either killed by crit stone edge from the likes of terrakion, landlos etc or so weakened after dealing with them that it isn't difficult for dory to come in and clean up. What makes it worse is that if it's a full HP balloon dory, it can still get past pokemon like gliscor/skarm if it gets a flinch on rock slide.

By that logic, CM Jirachi could be broken because a team could wait until anything that beats it is dead. You're right that a good Doryuuzu doesn't act stupid (like switching in on Hitmontop lol), but in the same way that they keep Doryuuzu in the wings, you could keep your Azumarill (or whatever) in the wings.

Then again, a good player would probably force you to resort to Azumarill (or whatever) at some point. So it can really go both ways. I'd say it depends on the skill of the players and team match-ups. Whoa. That statement actually makes it sound pretty broken.

If a pokemon can be broken, I know that it should be considered broken every time. But I'm saying it's not broken because I (a single Smogonite among hundreds of us) haven't had problems with it. I understand that I=/=anyone else. However, I have nothing to draw on other than my own experiences and those I talk to.

One last thing. Any pokemon can sweep with enough hax. Granted that a 30% flinch chance isn't too bad. It's much better than getting a crit, anyway. But if hax gets it past its counters, that doesn't really make it broken.

 

[alexwolf]

to slimman.i replied to you with another post but when i tried to load it,the server did some stupid things and told me to log in again and when i did the post was deleted...anyway the only thing i wanted to point out is that empoleon is a very viable pokemon especially now that all the rain abusers are sweeping everywhere and everyone is searching for pokes to stop their rampage!

 

[SlimMan]

to slimman.i replied to you with another post but when i tried to load it,the server did some stupid things and told me to log in again and when i did the post was deleted...anyway the only thing i wanted to point out is that empoleon is a very viable pokemon especially now that all the rain abusers are sweeping everywhere and everyone is searching for pokes to stop their rampage!

I'm sorry. I've done that a few times and it suuuuuuucks.

Anyway, Empoleon is viable. And it says "Hey Kingdra, you suck."
The thing about Empoleon though is that you have to cater to its niche. You have to use for its unique things (SR, Grass Knot, high Sp Atk).
Because if you say "Hmm, I need a bulky water. How about Empoleon?" then you would probably be better off with Vaporeon or Burungeru or something.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Iron Fist variants have a 92.31% chance to OHKO. If Rocks are up, it is guaranteed to OHKO even if Doryuuzu has a Balloon.

Iron Fist doesn't exist in the Standard ladder yet, so 0/0 Doryuuzu survives even a +0 LO Mach Punch from Rohbushin (83.1% - 98.1% damage).

 

[SlimMan]

Hitmontop is the best Doryuuzu check. It always OHKOes with Fake Out + Mach Punch (and can OHKO with just Mach Punch), and Doryuuzu cannot KO with a single Earthquake.
However, that's like saying that Crobat is the best Skymin check. Where else in this meta would you use Crobat?

 

[astrohawke]

By that logic, CM Jirachi could be broken because a team could wait until anything that beats it is dead. You're right that a good Doryuuzu doesn't act stupid (like switching in on Hitmontop lol), but in the same way that they keep Doryuuzu in the wings, you could keep your Azumarill (or whatever) in the wings.

Then again, a good player would probably force you to resort to Azumarill (or whatever) at some point. So it can really go both ways. I'd say it depends on the skill of the players and team match-ups. Whoa. That statement actually makes it sound pretty broken.

If a pokemon can be broken, I know that it should be considered broken every time. But I'm saying it's not broken because I (a single Smogonite among hundreds of us) haven't had problems with it. I understand that I=/=anyone else. However, I have nothing to draw on other than my own experiences and those I talk to.

One last thing. Any pokemon can sweep with enough hax. Granted that a 30% flinch chance isn't too bad. It's much better than getting a crit, anyway. But if hax gets it past its counters, that doesn't really make it broken.

The point is, dory really doesn't have that many hard counters as people seem to think. There are 2 commonly used pokemon that can revenge kill: roob and breloom and a few slightly less used pokemon like azumarill, maybe hitmontop and the rare vacuum wave lucario or mach punch infernape although I personally have never seen any of these pokemon in OU.

As far as counters go, you've got gliscor, skarm, hippo and the bulky waters. It's good on paper but it's generally not so good in practice at least from what I've experienced. Aside from rotom-W, bulky waters still take 80% from +2 EQ so they practically need to be at full HP at the end of the game when dory starts cleaning up. For a stall team, that's very unlikely. It also only takes 1 flinch to kill skarm so it's not exactly hax. I mean if jirachi flinches my skarmory to death with iron head, that's hax but 1 flinch really isn't and it's gonna happen sooner or later. Now hippo can't really do anything to dory if it's standard with only EQ. If it roars, it'll lose half its HP in the process and what comes in will probably force it out before it can heal up meaning it's dead next time.

Essentially, the only hard counter to dory are gliscor and rotom-W with breloom and roob as possible revenge killers. I don't know how many times I've had gliscor or skarm on my team and still gotten swept by dory because they had been dealing with other threats and weren't at full HP or got flinched.

 

[fidgety]

i'm taking this post form a few pages back since none seemed too have read the arguement READ IT this time.

well i'm finally back.
first of all the issue with rain is not that it in itself broken not that swift swim is broken + not that the ss poke is broken 1 mistake i've seen chronically throughout this discussion is ppl interpreting that relationship as 2 parts however when push comes to shove it is in fact THREE parts the abusee (rain), the abuser (the swift swim poke), + the medium for abuse (swift swim). individually none of these aspects are broken heck 2 out of the 3 doesn't qualify broken. however put them together w/ the right abuser (eg. kingdra) + it amounts to something very powerful indeed i will get back to this later on.

while i didn't start competitive play till the platinum meta i like to look upon the past for answers in some respects. one would be surprised how often the answers are right there if you know where to look. how many times did the meta have to change during gen 4 to accommodate new pokes + strategies for example scarm-cress-bliss very powerful stall core until the meta adapted to accommodate it i do believe that it was suspect but eventually pokes rose to the occasion such as t-boa/luke to name a couple. the same will be true w/ rain, however in gen 3 did t-boa just appear in a divine intervention of sorts or did the players have to look for an effective stall breaker themselves + eventually happen upon what is considered a highly effective stall breaker too this day. i would assume the latter the same needs to happen for rain.

this is not the first time that this has been said in suspect + i seriously doubt it will be the last ANYTHING WORTH DOING IS WORTH DOING RIGHT. just banning drizzle when only 1 version of rain (offense) is of genuine concern is not doing it right, if drizzle was the culprit all forms of rain would be broken. as has been mentioned continously throughout the discussion it is only a handful of abusers (manaphy, kingdra, kabutops, + ludicolo) are issues + only the former 2 are genuinely broken in drizzle (manaphy is broken in rain period) + remember if drizzle goes it might as well take more than half a dozen play-styles w/ it the goal of suspect is to create a balanced + fun meta-game W/ AS MANY VIABLE PLAY-STYLES AS POSSIBLE the minimal ban thing is smogon policy not the intent of suspect even just w/o manaphy rain isn't particularly overwhelming if you are prepared (i've been on the beta server since b4 they banned manaphy at least a month or so b4 smogon moved to po so i'm well versed in that meta) if you want to control the "broken trio" whittle away at it kingdra is the best place to start as it is the most dangerous + versatile of them the others are checked/countered easily enough at least in my experience. the reason for this approach is that this way we don't over-ban. edit: also if swift swim was the curprit every ss would be suspect right now not just those three. if it is only the combination of the three (drizzle, swift swim, + the stronger ss pokes) that is an issue it is logical we start w/ the actual problem pokes not just take the easy way out + remove drizzle since rain is not particularly viable w/o it

if we are not willing to allow the meta to change w/ the times then there is no point in testing suspects. i'm gonna use the beta server stats here to show the usage of the auto weather pokes since i don't have any for smogon + the metas are similar enough:
tyranitar:17.74%
politoad:9.73%
hippowdon:8.75%
ninetails:6.84%
abomasnow:3.36%
now factor in that some hippowdon are played along-side tar i would estimate sand to be on about 24.5% of teams not all of which are totally dedicated to it some are more than likely just using the sand steamer on said team for other purposes than sand to begin w/ face it w/o the auto-weather abilities the only auto-weather pokes that would be used are tar + hippowdon. remember the checks/counters will in total usage outnumber what ever that is being checked/countered rain is no exception.

 

[phalanx]

only issue i have with rain teams is the kingdra, but that is because of its typing, and manaphy, because it is broken.
ludicolo is not much of a problem, kabutops? no shortage of super effective prioirty moves around.
here is a point, hail has not changed, and hail was barly viable in gen IV thanks to sand, now a new weather comes along that can compete with sand it is broken?
sand has also got stronger as well, rain goes, sand will still be there with broken dory and landlos and 10% chance to sweep garchomp.
and sand has TWO instant setups, making it EASIER to change to sand as the other weathers need to protect the set up poke, and also sand set up pokes are bulky, nintails? frail, abomasnow, weak to a fair few common moves, polytoad, weak to common moves, t-tar? either focus blast (then it misses and its a waste) or phyiscal attacks, hippo, doesnt mind switching in for a turn to change weather either, and has recovery.

 

[Fluffy Otters]

I'd like to take this time to mention a poke that is amazing for Rain.

MEW

This little sucker is underrated but is one of the best support pokemon around. What can it do for a rain team? Loads of things.

-Lure out and KILL/CRIPPLE Tyranitar and Scizor via Boosted Aura Sphere/Will-O-Wisp. Change weather back with Politoad.
-Kill Roopushin and Breloom (Shell Break support)
-Cripple Nattorei via Will-O-Wisp/Aura Sphere and get into kill range for Swift Swimmer
-SCREEN Support with Reflect/Light Screen (this also helps allow Shell Breakers to sneak in one since there is no way of really stopping it then).
-Rain Dance to change back to Rain.
-Hurt Tentacruel and Birijion with Psychic
-Be a very annoying thing to kill.
-Serve as another attacker with Nasty Plot over Screens and is still bulky.
-Surprisng fun.

 

[JSND]

^ sadly the biggest counter for mew that you mention exist. It is named 4 moveslot syndrome.

But mew is amazing this meta. Stall mew lose only to gliscor and some other but then some last attack variants beat him.

About weather, while a balanced team will be hard to suceed, i think balanced team with weather inducer will be able to suceed. This case happen without we realizing but SS for example is called playstyle due to using Dory and focus on Dory or Landlos terra.

Now, i have tried to make balanced team with Ttar in it not for the weather but for the synergy and its prowess it offer my team, with NO abuser except for defensive garchomp and it hve suceed so far. All they need is to pack some counter/check to offensive core the weathers have and voila, it work. However when making a team right now, we need to make sure to not gliscor weak. That thing is everywhere

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

The point is, dory really doesn't have that many hard counters as people seem to think. There are 2 commonly used pokemon that can revenge kill: roob and breloom and a few slightly less used pokemon like azumarill, maybe hitmontop and the rare vacuum wave lucario or mach punch infernape although I personally have never seen any of these pokemon in OU.

As far as counters go, you've got gliscor, skarm, hippo and the bulky waters. It's good on paper but it's generally not so good in practice at least from what I've experienced. Aside from rotom-W, bulky waters still take 80% from +2 EQ so they practically need to be at full HP at the end of the game when dory starts cleaning up. For a stall team, that's very unlikely. It also only takes 1 flinch to kill skarm so it's not exactly hax. I mean if jirachi flinches my skarmory to death with iron head, that's hax but 1 flinch really isn't and it's gonna happen sooner or later. Now hippo can't really do anything to dory if it's standard with only EQ. If it roars, it'll lose half its HP in the process and what comes in will probably force it out before it can heal up meaning it's dead next time.

Essentially, the only hard counter to dory are gliscor and rotom-W with breloom and roob as possible revenge killers. I don't know how many times I've had gliscor or skarm on my team and still gotten swept by dory because they had been dealing with other threats and weren't at full HP or got flinched.

So,your counters didn't work because they weren't at full HP?
That would be your own fault for using him for things other than Dory.
If you see they have a Dory,there's no point in sending Gliscor on that Terakion.
You can also just slap on a balloon on almost any fighting type and it will counter Dory. I gave my Terakion a balloon and if I encountered the rare Brick Break Dory,I still had my Skarm.(Just an example of a Fighting type)

I'd also like to ask.
How would Genosect be considered broken by any means?
He's good,but he's not THAT good.
1.He has almost no physical attacks to abuse that 120 Attack.
2.He depends entirely on his Download ability to boost his offenses.
3.He's trolled by all mons with base 100 speed by a single point.
4.He has no boosting moves aside from Rock Polish,Nitro Charge,and lolClaw Sharpen.
I do have to admit,he has some INSANE coverage with FlameBoltBeam

 

[Benlisted]

About weather, while a balanced team will be hard to suceed, i think balanced team with weather inducer will be able to suceed. This case happen without we realizing but SS for example is called playstyle due to using Dory and focus on Dory or Landlos terra.

Now, i have tried to make balanced team with Ttar in it not for the weather but for the synergy and its prowess it offer my team, with NO abuser except for defensive garchomp and it hve suceed so far. All they need is to pack some counter/check to offensive core the weathers have and voila, it work. However when making a team right now, we need to make sure to not gliscor weak. That thing is everywhere

Yeah, I'll just emphasize what you say again - that non-weather teams can be viable and effective against Rain/SS if built with them in consideration as a major threat. Jorba and to an extent Hawkstar's recent RMTs show this pretty nicely, with use of Nattorei, TTar, Voltlos, Rotom-W and Birijion as aspects of their defence against Rain.

I still think part of the issue lies in whether this overcentralises what people can viably use in particular on non-weather based teams to a degree that is harmful to the meta. And furthermore, if the reduced diversity in viable non-weather teams is made up for by the increased diversity in viable weather teams.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Yeah, I'll just emphasize what you say again - that non-weather teams can be viable and effective against Rain/SS if built with them in consideration as a major threat. Jorba and to an extent Hawkstar's recent RMTs show this pretty nicely, with use of Nattorei, TTar, Voltlos, Rotom-W and Birijion as aspects of their defence against Rain.

I still think part of the issue lies in whether this overcentralises what people can viably use in particular on non-weather based teams to a degree that is harmful to the meta.

They still use a weather inducer. And there are only 4 of those in OU >.>

 

[Benlisted]

They still use a weather inducer. And there are only 4 of those in OU >.>

Actually I think Hawkstar had no TTar, though he's considering adding one (though due to it helping his Chomp and Terakion as well as removing his 50% SR weak poke). And do you mean that not all of the above are in OU? If so what usage are you looking at, because I was honestly unaware smogon had actually setup OU with a list like that. In any case, it seems to me that all of them are viable in both VS weather and non-weather matchups, in particular more so than the Cloud Niners or Tracers.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Actually I think Hawkstar had no TTar, though he's considering adding one (though due to it helping his Chomp and Terakion as well as removing his 50% SR weak poke). And do you mean that not all of the above are in OU? If so what usage are you looking at, because I was honestly unaware smogon had actually setup OU with a list like that. In any case, it seems to me that all of them are viable in both VS weather and non-weather matchups, in particular more so than the Cloud Niners or Tracers.

Well I meant OU,as in the currently most used mons.
What I meant is,that those teams pretty much mean that you still need 2 - 3 rain counters and possibly a weather-inducer(which is 1 of 4 mons,3 if you don't count Politoed) just to handle rain teams :/

 

[astrohawke]

So,your counters didn't work because they weren't at full HP?
That would be your own fault for using him for things other than Dory.
If you see they have a Dory,there's no point in sending Gliscor on that Terakion.
You can also just slap on a balloon on almost any fighting type and it will counter Dory. I gave my Terakion a balloon and if I encountered the rare Brick Break Dory,I still had my Skarm.(Just an example of a Fighting type)

So what you're proposing is that I should not use my dory/terrakion counter until dory comes out and let terrakion sweep my team. Or maybe I should have 1 counter for dory, 1 for terrakion, 1 for landlos, 1 for garchomp.

 

[Benlisted]

Well I meant OU,as in the currently most used mons.
What I meant is,that those teams pretty much mean that you still need 2 - 3 rain counters and possibly a weather-inducer(which is 1 of 4 mons,3 if you don't count Politoed) just to handle rain teams :/

I hesitate to see anything as a "Rain counter" per se. Over the pages of the thread I think it's been proven that there is nothing that can wall all of the rain sweepers in one, and that that is one of the things that makes them so deadly. However, it seems to me that using 2/3 of the pokes on your team to beat Rain (both of the examples I gave used 3 including TTar) is actually quite reasonable. If half your team combined can take on a whole team in theory, then it seems a reasonable tradeoff. Look at it this way. An offensive team with many fast sweepers is of course not as easy to predict as a Rain team is, but you will still have to have fullstops for each combination of possible sweepers it can field, which will probably amount to 2-3 teamslots. The pokes used to counter Rain also have other utility against the rest of OU, and are not completely useless against anything else.

Again, I think the problem may lie in that both Rain teams and non-weather teams are a little too overcentralised. This is admittedly a hard to define thing, which I think is why both sides of the debate are still going. Anyway, I've actually only just begun to consider the former so I'll try to explain:

On say a Sun team for example, you have a choice of viable sweepers - for Chlorophyll users you have Venusaur, Tangrowth, Shiftry, Mebukijika, Victreebel, and all are feasible to be used. In terms of Fire mons, Blaziken, Arcanine, Ulgamoth, etc are all also viable.

However, when you look at a Rain team, they are much more formulaic, despite having an equal if not greater number of abusers. Kingdra, Ludicolo and Kabutops to an extent (with Manaphy) are used on almost every single team. To me, this suggests even more strongly that there is an issue with the power of these sweepers in particular (they are admittedly the best Rain abusers), and that they should be examined for suspect status. To an extent, the overcentralising we've been talking about to deal with Rain in weatherless teams is just as present in Rain teams themselves, and I think that tells us something about the mons being centralised around by both teamstyles.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

I hesitate to see anything as a "Rain counter" per se. Over the pages of the thread I think it's been proven that there is nothing that can wall all of the rain sweepers in one, and that that is one of the things that makes them so deadly. However, it seems to me that using 2/3 of the pokes on your team to beat Rain (both of the examples I gave used 3 including TTar) is actually quite reasonable. If half your team combined can take on a whole team in theory, then it seems a reasonable tradeoff. Look at it this way. An offensive team with many fast sweepers is of course not as easy to predict as a Rain team is, but you will still have to have fullstops for each combination of possible sweepers it can field, which will probably amount to 2-3 teamslots. The pokes used to counter Rain also have other utility against the rest of OU, and are not completely useless against anything else.

Again, I think the problem may lie in that both Rain teams and non-weather teams are a little too overcentralised. This is admittedly a hard to define thing, which I think is why both sides of the debate are still going. Anyway, I've actually only just begun to consider the former so I'll try to explain:

On say a Sun team for example, you have a choice of viable sweepers - for Chlorophyll users you have Venusaur, Tangrowth, Shiftry, Mebukijika, Victreebel, and all are feasible to be used. In terms of Fire mons, Blaziken, Arcanine, Ulgamoth, etc are all also viable.

However, when you look at a Rain team, they are much more formulaic, despite having an equal if not greater number of abusers. Kingdra, Ludicolo and Kabutops to an extent (with Manaphy) are used on almost every single team. To me, this suggests even more strongly that there is an issue with the power of these sweepers in particular (they are admittedly the best Rain abusers), and that they should be examined for suspect status. To an extent, the overcentralising we've been talking about to deal with Rain in weatherless teams is just as present in Rain teams themselves, and I think that tells us something about the mons being centralised around by both teamstyles.

You actually have to dedicate half your team to have a chance against the Trio. There's still Manaphy,Toxicroak,etc.

So what you're proposing is that I should not use my dory/terrakion counter until dory comes out and let terrakion sweep my team. Or maybe I should have 1 counter for dory, 1 for terrakion, 1 for landlos, 1 for garchomp.

Not really,you could just have a Mach Puncher.
Which can counter Dory AND Terakion. Because unlike the broken trio,the sand sweepers can be killed by the same things.

 

[astrohawke]

Not really,you could just have a Mach Puncher.
Which can counter Dory AND Terakion. Because unlike the broken trio,the sand sweepers can be killed by the same things.

For starters, mach punch doesn't handle landlos or garchomp nor does it OHKO terrakion. And it's a really poor excuse to say just get a mach puncher. That's like saying kyogre's not broken, just use a blissey.

 

[masterful]

For starters, mach punch doesn't handle landlos or garchomp nor does it OHKO terrakion. And it's a really poor excuse to say just get a mach puncher. That's like saying kyogre's not broken, just use a blissey.

Garchomp isn't a sand sweeper/abuser. That is an important distinction to make

 

[Benlisted]

You actually have to dedicate half your team to have a chance against the Trio. There's still Manaphy,Toxicroak,etc.

My point was that you need a similar amount of pokemon to beat any teamstyle, and that the pokemon whose role it is to do this against Rain can have other important roles on your team for other matchups. You have to be sure half your team can combat Rain yes, just as you have to be sure your team can deal with the sweeper comibinations on standard offense. There is no dedicate though, as clearly things like Nattorei serve purposes other than combatting Rain.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

For starters, mach punch doesn't handle landlos or garchomp nor does it OHKO terrakion. And it's a really poor excuse to say just get a mach puncher. That's like saying kyogre's not broken, just use a blissey.

Blissey is 1 mon.
Many mons have Mach Punch.
Terakion can't exactly set up with a Mach Puncher. You can't always OHKO,but he can't set up.

 

[astrohawke]

Garchomp isn't a sand sweeper/abuser. That is an important distinction to make

Whatever. What I'm saying has nothing to do with sand anyway. More to do with the pokemon themselves. They're fairly difficult to reliably counter particularly if a team has more than 1 as they generally share the same counters. One will weaken the counter enough for the other/s to sweep similar to what the broken trio does.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

My point was that you need a similar amount of pokemon to beat any teamstyle, and that the pokemon whose role it is to do this against Rain can have other important roles on your team for other matchups. You have to be sure half your team can combat Rain yes, just as you have to be sure your team can deal with the sweeper comibinations on standard offense. There is no dedicate though, as clearly things like Nattorei serve purposes other than combatting Rain.

Not everyone is going to be running Nattorei.
There are tons and tons of pages of people discussing this.
You have to use specialized counters,a weather inducer,run your own weather team,or use 2 - 3 mons from a very small list.
It's over centralizing.
I agree with XienZo though,rain wouldn't be so bad without the trio.
Omastar,Gorebyss,etc. aren't as overpowering as the trio,but they're still powerful.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Whatever. What I'm saying has nothing to do with sand anyway. More to do with the pokemon themselves. They're fairly difficult to reliably counter particularly if a team has more than 1 as they generally share the same counters. One will weaken the counter enough for the other/s to sweep similar to what the broken trio does.

Except that the broken trio's members each handle each others counters.
Special wall? DD Kingdra and kabutops.
Physical wall? Special Ludicolo.
Nattorei? Focus Blast Ludi and Low Kick Kabu.
Tentacruel? *insert grass attack here* Ludi and DD Kingdra.
Weather inducers? DD Kingdra

Unlike Terakion and Dory,which are again,weak to the same counters.
Sand is a lot more manageable than rain.
Half of the sand sweepers are weak to Ice(Landlos,Garchomp,Sandslash) and the other half is weak to Mach Punch.(Doryuuzu,Terakion)
The one you should worry about the most is Sandslash,who is barely used.