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

[Lamppost]

Too many people are getting carried away with preemptive bans >_>.

I don't understand the Sand Veil/Snow Cloak ban (Especially Snow Cloak, since ya know, HAIL SUCKS), especially since neither have been properly tested (Sand Veil being the reason Chomp sweeps rarely happens, and all Gliscors have basically given it up for Poison Heal.) Not to mention not all of the pokes with these abilities have had their DW ability released (Come on I don't want to see Glaceon, Cacturne, or Froslass banned for stupid reasons).

The reason their nominated (i think) is because it puts matches out of your hands. You could completely have a game in the bag and in just one miss on a 100% move you get set up on and lose. IMO 100% accuracy moves should never miss. It just takes a lot of skill out of the game.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

It just takes a bit of skill out of the game.

Fix'd it for you.
Sand Veil/Snow Cloak isn't like Inconsistent...

 

[AlphaSpade]

The grounds for the bans still don't hold water though (especially in this rain filled metagame.) Besides, Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are the same Sand Veil and Snow Cloak from last gen, with now more factors acting against them.

Since the only problem with Sand Veil seems to be Chomp (bear in mind, his DW ability hasn't been released either tmk.), a Chomp ban would make more sense (well, you'd have no choice right now).

 

[Bologo]

The reason their nominated (i think) is because it puts matches out of your hands. You could completely have a game in the bag and in just one miss on a 100% move you get set up on and lose. IMO 100% accuracy moves should never miss. It just takes a lot of skill out of the game.

Paralysis does the exact same thing, and also lowers your Speed by 75%. When you're paralyzed, the match is completely out of your hands as well. I can't count how many times I would have won the match despite the lowered Speed, but I was fully paralyzed several times in a row which lead to my loss. When you're paralyzed, 100% accurate moves now essentially have 75% accuracy. But you don't see anyone nominating stuff like Thunder Wave/Glare/Stun Spore despite Paralysis being one of the haxiest status conditions out there, possibly because people have just accepted that parahax is part of the game, which I certainly believe as well (despite it still being annoying). Yes I'm aware that it'd be impossible to get rid of paralysis completely due to it being a side effect in many moves, but it'd be hard to inflict without those moves (barring Serene Grace).

Ironically enough, stuff like Sand Veil are actually less haxy than Paralysis, because 100% accurate moves only have 75% accuracy compared to Sand Veil's 80%, it doesn't require a certain weather to be up, and Paralysis also makes it so that --% accurate moves will only work 75% of the time as well.

You may think that Sand Veil and stuff raise the Evasion stat, therefore they're just inherently better than Paralysis. However, with Evasion moves, you don't have a set amount of Evasion, because you can keep raising, instead of it always being 20% like Sand Veil and Snow Cloak.

People need to think long and hard about why they would ever feel like getting rid of Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, yet be perfectly content with Paralysis moves, because I'm seeing yet another double standard here. If people can accept that parahax is part of the game, then they should be able to accept that Sand Veil/Snow Cloak hax is part of the game too.

 

[SJCrew]

Too many people are getting carried away with preemptive bans >_>.

I don't understand the Sand Veil/Snow Cloak ban (Especially Snow Cloak, since ya know, HAIL SUCKS), especially since neither have been properly tested (Sand Veil being the reason Chomp sweeps rarely happens, and all Gliscors have basically given it up for Poison Heal.) Not to mention not all of the pokes with these abilities have had their DW ability released (Come on I don't want to see Glaceon, Cacturne, or Froslass banned for stupid reasons).

Yeah, actually, Sand Veil has been tested properly. All throughout the first year of 4th gen and up until the current metagame, we have all the data we need to conclude that 100% accuracy moves missing is bullshit.

Not that I advocate a ban of these abilities in any way; it's a little extraneous IMO and I can deal with a little bit of hax. You're basically playing with Sand Veil on all the fucking time when you use Stone Edge or Focus Blast. Thank God you never have to hit Garchomp with those.

 

[Fluffy Otters]

Hail doesn't suck, it's just all the other permanent weather and conglomeration of bad weaknesses. But other than that, they can be viable. Especially Kyurem. His Blizzards tear people apart. He is a very underused Pokemon, despite being phenomenal for some reason.

Kyurem is weak to Fighting/Rock/Steel/Dragon. Tyranitar is weak to Fighting and Steel as well and is still good. And it isn't exactly a surprise Kyurem is weak to dragon, all dragons are. But it has very helpful resistances to Grass/Water/Electric (aka water pokes) and has the strongest OU Draco Meteor (tied with Latios but Kyurem's far bulkier as well). Steel types like Metagross and Jirachi are rarely seen and Scizor is not as popular as it once was. And Kyurem can be made bulky defensive to survive steel moves anyways. It can set up Screens, change weather into Hail (and abuse it's stab Blizzards on you as well), attack, it has a lot of utility. The Stealth Rock weakness is not as big a deal as people make of it (bulky Kyurem for example survives 2 Choice Band Scizor Bullet Punches with Reflect AFTER Stealth Rock) and if you want, Wish and Rapid Spin support is fairly easy. And Specs Blizzards from offensive Kyurem are nothing to laugh about as they pretty much 1-2 hit ko everything commonly used in OU and those that aren't fear Focus Blast which will at the least hit neutral if not super effective.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Hail doesn't suck, it's just all the other permanent weather and conglomeration of bad weaknesses. But other than that, they can be viable. Especially Kyurem. His Blizzards tear people apart. He is a very underused Pokemon, despite being phenomenal for some reason.

Kyurem is weak to Fighting/Rock/Steel/Dragon. Tyranitar is weak to Fighting and Steel as well and is still good. And it isn't exactly a surprise Kyurem is weak to dragon, all dragons are. But it has very helpful resistances to Grass/Water/Electric (aka water pokes) and has the strongest OU Draco Meteor (tied with Latios but Kyurem's far bulkier as well). Steel types like Metagross and Jirachi are rarely seen and Scizor is not as popular as it once was. And Kyurem can be made bulky defensive to survive steel moves anyways. It can set up Screens, change weather into Hail (and abuse it's stab Blizzards on you as well), attack, it has a lot of utility. The Stealth Rock weakness is not as big a deal as people make of it (bulky Kyurem for example survives 2 Choice Band Scizor Bullet Punches with Reflect AFTER Stealth Rock) and if you want, Wish and Rapid Spin support is fairly easy. And Specs Blizzards from offensive Kyurem are nothing to laugh about as they pretty much 1-2 hit ko everything commonly used in OU and those that aren't fear Focus Blast which will at the least hit neutral if not super effective.

Hail does suck.
Outside of Kyurem....what else? All I see when hail is mentioned is: Kyurem.
He's strong,there's not doubt about that,but just saying that he is doesn't suddenly make Hail good.
T-tar and Kyurem can't really be compared.
T-tar can be bulkier,thanks to SS,and can do perform many different roles on a team,while Kyurem is mostly used just for Blizzard Spam.
I'm still not impressed by the Frozen Chicken.

 

[PlainN]

Paralysis does the exact same thing, and also lowers your Speed by 75%. When you're paralyzed, the match is completely out of your hands as well. I can't count how many times I would have won the match despite the lowered Speed, but I was fully paralyzed several times in a row which lead to my loss. When you're paralyzed, 100% accurate moves now essentially have 75% accuracy. But you don't see anyone nominating stuff like Thunder Wave/Glare/Stun Spore despite Paralysis being one of the haxiest status conditions out there, possibly because people have just accepted that parahax is part of the game, which I certainly believe as well (despite it still being annoying). Yes I'm aware that it'd be impossible to get rid of paralysis completely due to it being a side effect in many moves, but it'd be hard to inflict without those moves (barring Serene Grace).

Ironically enough, stuff like Sand Veil are actually less haxy than Paralysis, because 100% accurate moves only have 75% accuracy compared to Sand Veil's 80%, it doesn't require a certain weather to be up, and Paralysis also makes it so that --% accurate moves will only work 75% of the time as well.

You may think that Sand Veil and stuff raise the Evasion stat, therefore they're just inherently better than Paralysis. However, with Evasion moves, you don't have a set amount of Evasion, because you can keep raising, instead of it always being 20% like Sand Veil and Snow Cloak.

People need to think long and hard about why they would ever feel like getting rid of Sand Veil and Snow Cloak, yet be perfectly content with Paralysis moves, because I'm seeing yet another double standard here. If people can accept that parahax is part of the game, then they should be able to accept that Sand Veil/Snow Cloak hax is part of the game too.

While I agree that Sand Veil/Snow Cloak shouldn't even be considered, I have to point out that your analogy to paralysis is incorrect. Paralysis needs one turn and one move to inflict against one Pokemon. Sand Veil instantly activates upon entry (granted, you do need the sand up). A more likely analogy would be an ability that instantly paralyzes your opponent (just without the speed loss) upon their entry into the battlefield.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

While I agree that Sand Veil/Snow Cloak shouldn't even be considered, I have to point out that your analogy to paralysis is incorrect. Paralysis needs one turn and one move to inflict against one Pokemon. Sand Veil instantly activates upon entry (granted, you do need the sand up). A more likely analogy would be an ability that instantly paralyzes your opponent (just without the speed loss) upon their entry into the battlefield.

You still need to use a turn to switch in T-tar/Hippo.

 

[PlainN]

You still need to use a turn to switch in T-tar/Hippo.

Ah yes, a good point indeed. However, remember that a paralysis inducing move only paralyzes one of your opponent's pokemon, which means all others have the same "accuracy (chance of not getting parahax)" while Sand Veil has the opposite effect of reducing the accuracy of every one of your opponent's pokemon as long as the Sand Veil 'mon stays in. Thus, to have the equal effect (actually more devastating since it's permanent most of the time), you would need 6 turns to paralyze all six of your opponents Pokemon.

 

[Bologo]

While I agree that Sand Veil/Snow Cloak shouldn't even be considered, I have to point out that your analogy to paralysis is incorrect. Paralysis needs one turn and one move to inflict against one Pokemon. Sand Veil instantly activates upon entry (granted, you do need the sand up). A more likely analogy would be an ability that instantly paralyzes your opponent (just without the speed loss) upon their entry into the battlefield.

Ok, so paralysis needs one turn and one move to inflict against one pokemon (keeping in mind that a majority of the time, Paralysis lasts the entire remainder of the match, so it's basically Sand Veil with Speed loss that affects all of your attacks against every pokemon on your opponent's team). You can pick from several paralysis inducers, and they're very easy to fit on a team.

Sand Veil/Snow Cloak needs one turn and one entire pokemon (out of an amazing 3 pokemon to choose from) to have any effect, barring the opponent having one of those 3 pokemon. This effect goes away once the user switches out, and if the user dies, there's no nasty after-effect of still having to deal with the accuracy and Speed loss. This effect is also completely nullified if the inducer(s) die and the weather is switched by another inducer, which is a common occurrence in this weather-based game. You shouldn't just brush off the requirement of Sand for Sand Veil, because that's one of the big factors that makes it a lot harder to abuse than Paralysis.

Yes, a paralysis move only affects one of your opponent's pokemon, but the fact that it lasts the entire remainder of the match is really important.

 

[Fluffy Otters]

Hail does suck.
Outside of Kyurem....what else? All I see when hail is mentioned is: Kyurem.
He's strong,there's not doubt about that,but just saying that he is doesn't suddenly make Hail good.
T-tar and Kyurem can't really be compared.
T-tar can be bulkier,thanks to SS,and can do perform many different roles on a team,while Kyurem is mostly used just for Blizzard Spam.
I'm still not impressed by the Frozen Chicken.

Kyurem can provide many roles for a team (probably not quite as many as Tyranitar but it's good and you can't exactly say Fighting/Steel weaknesses are accpetable on one but not the other). It can be a bulky screener, a Specs attacker, Scarved revenge killer, the (meh) mixed attacker, a Lure (Kyurem is an ultimate lure like no other for any priority user to get trapped and murdered), Hail set upper if you're desperate for something against rain, etc.

The bulky Screener especially is fascinating because it survives a whole bunch of things and destroy with Draco Meteor+Icebeam/Focus Blast and survives obscene things like 2 hit koes from Choice Band Scizor's Bullet Punch after Stealth Rock, Choice Band Tyranitar Stone Edge, Landlos, etc with Reflect. Light Screen gives it further power against Water/Dragon/Fire pokes and makes them fairly vulnerable as well and it isn't nearly as hard to Rapid Spin or prevent Stealth Rock from being played if it's necessary and Stealth Rock isn't nearly as common as before (although still used decently).

 

[TorchicBlaziken]

But you can only have one Kyurem on a team at a time.

 

[Bunny_Man_OC]

Ah yes, a good point indeed. However, remember that a paralysis inducing move only paralyzes one of your opponent's pokemon, which means all others have the same "accuracy (chance of not getting parahax)" while Sand Veil has the opposite effect of reducing the accuracy of every one of your opponent's pokemon as long as the Sand Veil 'mon stays in. Thus, to have the equal effect (actually more devastating since it's permanent most of the time), you would need 6 turns to paralyze all six of your opponents Pokemon.

And that still doesn't take into account that some pokemon are just flat out immune to paralysis, status healing berries and pokemon who are already poison'd/burned and can't be paralyzed...

my point being, that paralysis can be easily healed, and doesn't affect all pokemon, and is harder to spread to an entire team, where Sand Veil/Snow Cloak isn't.

 

[PlainN]

Ok, so paralysis needs one turn and one move to inflict against one pokemon (keeping in mind that a majority of the time, Paralysis lasts the entire remainder of the match, so it's basically Sand Veil with Speed loss that affects all of your attacks against every pokemon on your opponent's team). You can pick from several paralysis inducers, and they're very easy to fit on a team.

Sand Veil/Snow Cloak needs one turn and one entire pokemon (out of an amazing 3 pokemon to choose from) to have any effect, barring the opponent having one of those 3 pokemon. This effect goes away once the user switches out, and if the user dies, there's no nasty after-effect of still having to deal with the accuracy and Speed loss. This effect is also completely nullified if the inducer(s) die and the weather is switched by another inducer, which is a common occurrence in this weather-based game. You shouldn't just brush off the requirement of Sand for Sand Veil, because that's one of the big factors that makes it a lot harder to abuse than Paralysis.

Yes, a paralysis move only affects one of your opponent's pokemon, but the fact that it lasts the entire remainder of the match is really important.

I'm going to say straight up that all of your comments are inherently correct. As I said before, I agree with the fact that Sand Veil should not be banned, but wanted to clarify the analogy. Anyway, I'm not going to go any further on this specific topic.

 

[repulsion]

I think apart from Drizzle and Shadow Tag, the ability banning thing should go to rest. Those two of course are debatable, but I think the Sand Veil and Snow Cloak thing is bordering on ridiculous. How much of a whiner do you have to be, really, to think a slight evasion increase in weather is ruining the game? If anything it's adding more interest. Froslass becomes something more than a semi-decent Ghost, and Articuno will have something fun to play with (especially avoiding Stone Edges and Fire Blasts). UU possibilities are my main interest, but the Garchomp thing doesn't seem like a big deal either. So x % of the time your Ice Beam or whatever misses. It's not like they passed +6 Evasion to him. Bah humbug. This is almost as bad as people on Beta Server demanding Stealth Rock be banned.

 

[TorchicBlaziken]

Plan:

Step 1: Ban Drizzle

Step 2: Test Sand Stream next round

Step 3: Test Drought in the same round

 

[Mario With Lasers]

I think apart from Drizzle and Shadow Tag, the ability banning thing should go to rest. Those two of course are debatable, but I think the Sand Veil and Snow Cloak thing is bordering on ridiculous. How much of a whiner do you have to be, really, to think a slight evasion increase in weather is ruining the game? If anything it's adding more interest. Froslass becomes something more than a semi-decent Ghost, and Articuno will have something fun to play with (especially avoiding Stone Edges and Fire Blasts). UU possibilities are my main interest, but the Garchomp thing doesn't seem like a big deal either. So x % of the time your Ice Beam or whatever misses. It's not like they passed +6 Evasion to him. Bah humbug. This is almost as bad as people on Beta Server demanding Stealth Rock be banned.

While I partially agree with you, this "makes Froslass semi-decent argument" is like saying we could allow Double Team for the lower pokémon such as Raichu and Farfetch'd (and we know they're only going to get +1 or +2 Evasion at best).

 

[cosmicexplorer]

Why would Sand be banned? It only gives boosts to certain pokemon, unlike Rain or Sun, which have benefits beyond Speed-boosting abilities. If Excadrill or Landorus are overpowered, then ban them; Sand Stream isn't the broken part in this case.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Kyurem can provide many roles for a team (probably not quite as many as Tyranitar but it's good and you can't exactly say Fighting/Steel weaknesses are accpetable on one but not the other). It can be a bulky screener, a Specs attacker, Scarved revenge killer, the (meh) mixed attacker, a Lure (Kyurem is an ultimate lure like no other for any priority user to get trapped and murdered), Hail set upper if you're desperate for something against rain, etc.

The bulky Screener especially is fascinating because it survives a whole bunch of things and destroy with Draco Meteor+Icebeam/Focus Blast and survives obscene things like 2 hit koes from Choice Band Scizor's Bullet Punch after Stealth Rock, Choice Band Tyranitar Stone Edge, Landlos, etc with Reflect. Light Screen gives it further power against Water/Dragon/Fire pokes and makes them fairly vulnerable as well and it isn't nearly as hard to Rapid Spin or prevent Stealth Rock from being played if it's necessary and Stealth Rock isn't nearly as common as before (although still used decently).

It's not just weaknesses.
Resistances matter a lot more.
T-tar has a whopping 6 weaknesses but he resists:
-Ghost
-Dark
-Psychic
-Flying
-Fire
-Normal
-Poison
He has 7 resistances,4 being quite common.

Kyurem has 4 weaknesses and resists:
-Electric
-Water
-Grass

He only has 3 resistances,along with no immunities,and only 2 common resistances.

Next,lets take a look at their defenses:
Kyurem has 125/90/90
Tyranitar has 100/110/100

I'd say they're comparable,but I think Kyurem can take physical hits better.(And T-tar can take special hits better)
Lets run a calc to see how much Scizor's Tech Bullet Punch does to them.(With no investment in bulk,and an Adamant 252 Scizor.)

Kyurem: 394 Atk vs 216 Def & 391 HP (60 Base Power): 236 - 278 (60.36% - 71.10%)

T-tar: 394 Atk vs 256 Def & 341 HP (60 Base Power): 200 - 236 (58.65% - 69.21%)

Wow,T-tar actually takes LESS damage than Kyurem from a 2x move.
T-tar is bulkier than a Legendary >.>
Wow.Just wow.
Still don't like that frozen chicken.

 

[SlimMan]

While I partially agree with you, this "makes Froslass semi-decent argument" is like saying we could allow Double Team for the lower pokémon such as Raichu and Farfetch'd (and we know they're only going to get +1 or +2 Evasion at best).

I think his point was that the only time it would ever cost a game would be against a Garchomp. Whereas an incredible number of pokemon could become hypothetically broken if they all had Double Team.
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I disagree with a Sand Veil/Snow Cloak ban. Suppose that the only broken Swift Swimmer was Kingdra (debatably true but it's not the point). If only 1 Swift Swimmer was broken, we wouldn't call for a Swift Swim ban. We would call for a Kingdra ban. I think a similar logic can be directly applied to Sand Veil/Snow Cloak.

One other thing. WTF with people nominating all auto-weather? Drizzle makes sense, but to say that Sun and Hail have been broken in this meta is absolutely ridiculous. Sun is merely good, and Hail is actually quite meh. I don't understand what possible motivation someone could have to nominate them. Sand is very good, but I don't think it deserves a ban (though I at least understand the concern).

Why would Sand be banned? It only gives boosts to certain pokemon, unlike Rain or Sun, which have benefits beyond Speed-boosting abilities. If Excadrill or Landorus are overpowered, then ban them; Sand Stream isn't the broken part in this case.

I'm going to have to agree with you.

 

[alphatron]

To be fair, tyranitar is bulkier than articuno.

I don't think Kyurem is bad at all (if latios goes, guess who'll show up to fire scarf'd/spec'd draco meteors, outrages, hidden power fires?), but I've really never understood why gamefreak seems intent on making bulky ice type pokemon. Nobody would have bashed kyurem if he had base 110 speed. Or Earthquake. Or a move that had a 30-50% chance to freeze. Ho-oh is laughing his ass off at this pokemon.

On topic, while sand only has dory and landorus right now, what about sandslash in the future?

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

I think his point was that the only time it would ever cost a game would be against a Garchomp. Whereas an incredible number of pokemon could become hypothetically broken if they all had Double Team.
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I disagree with a Sand Veil/Snow Cloak ban. Suppose that the only broken Swift Swimmer was Kingdra (debatably true but it's not the point). If only 1 Swift Swimmer was broken, we wouldn't call for a Swift Swim ban. We would call for a Kingdra ban. I think a similar logic can be directly applied to Sand Veil/Snow Cloak.

One other thing. WTF with people nominating all auto-weather? Drizzle makes sense, but to say that Sun and Hail have been broken in this meta is absolutely ridiculous. Sun is merely good, and Hail is actually quite meh. I don't understand what possible motivation someone could have to nominate them. Sand is very good, but I don't think it deserves a ban (though I at least understand the concern).

I'm going to have to agree with you.

I agree. I simply don't think most people have battled against hail enough in this metagame to know whether it's broken or not.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Look, an ability is broken only if it is broken by itself. TO break the metagame you have to be too good for it. Is Snow Cloak too good on the weakest pokemon that uses it? No. Ergo, Snow Cloak is not broken. Is The best abuser or Snow Cloak broken with it? Maybe. If it is, then the pokemon should be banned, not the ability. Was Inconsistent broken on the weakest pokemon that used it? Well, kinda yes. So it was banned. To be broken, you have to be too good for the metagame.

 

[Arc Tech]

Double team wasn't broken on every pokemon it was found on. It was banned for creating unnessecary amounts of luck. And it's pretty much agreed upon that sand veil/snow cloak > evasion boosting moves unless they're bped.