Agreed, we banned Inconsistent and Speed Boost Blaziken, ban Drizzle.
They already wreck hard, all you need is a pokemon to set it up.
I voted for Ban Drizzle only
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Aldaron's proposal: Alternatives?
- Thread starter Thorhammer
- Start date
They already wreck hard, all you need is a pokemon to set it up.
I voted for Ban Drizzle only
Let's just ban all water types. It's clearly the typing that's overpowered; without the double STAB boost, rain would be totally managable. With no water types there won't be anything to take advantage of the double STAB. It's clearly an overpowered type; look at the list of resistances and weakneses/strengths it has compared to, say, grass.
Imagine if they made a move similar to Healing Wish, lets call it Boosting Wish, where the user faints but the next Pokemon benefits, except the effect wasn't to heal the next Pokemon, but to give say +2 in every stat.
If that happened, some might argue something is broken, but what? "Clearly" it's not Boosting Wish used in combination with another Pokemon, since Luvdisc under Boosting Wish still isn't broken. And "clearly" Pokemon that become close to unstoppable (I don't want to actually think about this too much, lets just imagine Hydreigon is one) are broken. So the solution is to ban the individual Pokemon that are broken under these conditions. Hydreigon goes. Salamence and Garchomp too. In fact pretty much every pseudo-legendary, then every other Pokemon with decent speed and defences, good coverage and a high attacking stat. We'll lose some of the better defensive ones too, since they'll become too difficult to take down. And anything with Suction Cups has got to go. And this is good, actually, since it maintains the standard of banning Pokemon that are broken with their best set and right support, and might actually make OU more diverse since any mediocre Pokemon with Boosting Wish can be viable!
Pretty ridiculous example (and no it's not even close to a perfect analogy), but it shows basically my thoughts towards Drizzle. I know you have your rules saying you should ban Pokemon based on their best set and getting the right support. But where there's a single support factor which is so significant it can single-handedly make multiple Pokemon broken, to me it seems better to focus on getting rid of that factor rather than the multiple Pokemon.
Or, to think of it another way, ban Drizzle Politoed based on the fact he is broken with the best "support" (Kingdra, Ludicolo, Kabutops), forgetting the irrelevant fact that he's not broken without the proper "support" (e.g. Luvdisc). So if you remove the more complex ban of Drizzle plus SwiftSwim, I'd say banning Drizzle altogether is the far better option than banning the best rain sweepers.
If that happened, some might argue something is broken, but what? "Clearly" it's not Boosting Wish used in combination with another Pokemon, since Luvdisc under Boosting Wish still isn't broken. And "clearly" Pokemon that become close to unstoppable (I don't want to actually think about this too much, lets just imagine Hydreigon is one) are broken. So the solution is to ban the individual Pokemon that are broken under these conditions. Hydreigon goes. Salamence and Garchomp too. In fact pretty much every pseudo-legendary, then every other Pokemon with decent speed and defences, good coverage and a high attacking stat. We'll lose some of the better defensive ones too, since they'll become too difficult to take down. And anything with Suction Cups has got to go. And this is good, actually, since it maintains the standard of banning Pokemon that are broken with their best set and right support, and might actually make OU more diverse since any mediocre Pokemon with Boosting Wish can be viable!
Pretty ridiculous example (and no it's not even close to a perfect analogy), but it shows basically my thoughts towards Drizzle. I know you have your rules saying you should ban Pokemon based on their best set and getting the right support. But where there's a single support factor which is so significant it can single-handedly make multiple Pokemon broken, to me it seems better to focus on getting rid of that factor rather than the multiple Pokemon.
Or, to think of it another way, ban Drizzle Politoed based on the fact he is broken with the best "support" (Kingdra, Ludicolo, Kabutops), forgetting the irrelevant fact that he's not broken without the proper "support" (e.g. Luvdisc). So if you remove the more complex ban of Drizzle plus SwiftSwim, I'd say banning Drizzle altogether is the far better option than banning the best rain sweepers.
The biggest difference between "boosting wish" and drizzle is that boosting wish will benefit any and all pokemon (even if they're still useless they're better), and typically by quite a lot, and makes quite a few of them broken. Drizzle on the other hand, only benefits a select (but admittedly a good size) group (water-types, fire-weaks, electrics, and hurricaner's, swift swimmers), and out of those makes only a few broken.
Ban individual broken Swift Swim sweepers. It is a simple solution and bans shouldn't be overly complicated if it can be avoided.
Banning Drizzle would also be simple but I'm not entirely convinced it's broken without the broken Swift Swimmers.
Banning Drizzle would also be simple but I'm not entirely convinced it's broken without the broken Swift Swimmers.
You know that's an exception.
While luck is an assumed addition to the competitive Pokemon scene, strictly making this game about probability management and proper team building skills, Double Team and other hax inducing items/moves/abilities reduce the need for these skills and instead relies on the RNG to produce an outcome.
That is an anti-competitive element, and goes against the grain of a competitive community. I won't argue whether or not it is broken (that's another topic all together), but it isn't a desirable trait to have existing in the least.
That to me isn't a good argument. It's rhetorical and silly.
The poll is split right down the center still. It is pretty insane. Not to say that the poll is the end all answer but I really see it just as it was.
29% keep aldaron's proposal
26% ban individual users
25% ban drizzle
We are all split so evenly with less than a 4% difference on what we should do. I am so lost as to how this will ever get resolved.
IF we decided to attempt banning individual sweepers during a.... testing trial period... in which we will ban the main triple threat of Kabutops/Kingdra/Ludicolo... TEST the meta with all the other SwSw users... we must make sure that DRIZZLE is immune to suspect testing, as if it is found to be too broken even with other swift swimmers, we must unban the initial three, and just put it back into Aldarons Proposal.
In this event, we would STILL have to decide if we wanted to ban those specific broken SwSw users with Drizzle, or just ban those specific users in general.
Honestly, I have no problem TESTING. But we have to be sure with a precise and clear result of how we want the meta game to evolve. If this doesn't work, then we move back to where we are now, and those bitching about wanting to use "lesser" SwSw users can shush up and deal with it.
29% keep aldaron's proposal
26% ban individual users
25% ban drizzle
We are all split so evenly with less than a 4% difference on what we should do. I am so lost as to how this will ever get resolved.
IF we decided to attempt banning individual sweepers during a.... testing trial period... in which we will ban the main triple threat of Kabutops/Kingdra/Ludicolo... TEST the meta with all the other SwSw users... we must make sure that DRIZZLE is immune to suspect testing, as if it is found to be too broken even with other swift swimmers, we must unban the initial three, and just put it back into Aldarons Proposal.
In this event, we would STILL have to decide if we wanted to ban those specific broken SwSw users with Drizzle, or just ban those specific users in general.
Honestly, I have no problem TESTING. But we have to be sure with a precise and clear result of how we want the meta game to evolve. If this doesn't work, then we move back to where we are now, and those bitching about wanting to use "lesser" SwSw users can shush up and deal with it.
I still believe banning Swift Swim would solve this entire mess. It would keep two of the camps happy. Unfortunately, the group that wishes to ban Drizzle still won't be pleased, but you can't please everyone.
That said, it doesn't look like the polls would go that way, so I assume the best alternative, as RaRaRabbit suggested, is to have a testing period in which Drizzle itself is immune to the test so we can test individual abusers, and after deciding which ones go upstairs, reassess the situation.
That said, it doesn't look like the polls would go that way, so I assume the best alternative, as RaRaRabbit suggested, is to have a testing period in which Drizzle itself is immune to the test so we can test individual abusers, and after deciding which ones go upstairs, reassess the situation.
Agreed. This is probably the best solution (at least as far as actually testing goes). I support this.
Well, the percentage for keep the current ban is a little higher if you consider my mis-vote but they are still pretty close.
Oh rally, tahts fair, lets have an elemant atht a significant portion of the players think is broken become copmpletely IMMUNE FROM SUSPECTHOOD while the other dpeople gets rid of all the swift swimmers and everything else that could opossibly make rain unbearable for, all of this while we deal with a MORE POWERFUL THAN NOW RAIN for a few months, yeah, i see right through this nonsense.
I say no. If it has to come to taht then just ban Drizzle... and all problems would be solved instantly.
OR we could just keep things the way theya re now.
Have drizzle immune from testing?, yeah, i see right through this game, the people who have a problem with drizzle itself would be ignored for a few months since itl be untouchable while you guys ban everything that makes rain a bitch to deal with that would not be a problem at all if drizzle did not exist. Why? to save drizzle?, keep drizzle is not worth banning multiple pokemon over, not when teh existance of drizzle is the only thing causing anything to be a problem.
I know how to solve it instantly, permanent weather?, away with it, thats how.
What if we did shorter testing periods? We could attempt just shorter testing periods. It wouldn't be the goal to make drizzle immune. The goal would just accurately test, and if everything is proven broken we just go back to where we are now, and everyone would be happy... except for those who want to ban drizzle flat out.
I have three options: Keep the proposal, ban the three sweepers or lift the ban all together.
I use rain on my most successful team. I have only one other water type on my team and that is a Rain Dish pokemon. I don't see the point of banning Drizzle because Kyogre already had the stats to abuse it. Comparing Kyogre and Politoed is like comparing Apples and Oranges. They are both water types but stat wise, Kyogre with Water Spout is GG.
Outside of the STAB boost and resistance to Fire, Rain Dish and Hydration abuse what else is there left.
Sun gives a boost to fire, gives Chlorophyll and Solar Power users something, reduces Water Types.
Yes there are no fire types to abuse Chlorophyll. I get that but the fact that you want to ban non-broken Swift Swimmers like Beartic and Luvdisc because of three abusers?
I am at the point where you ban all perma-weather and get it over with because this is getting rediculous.
I use rain on my most successful team. I have only one other water type on my team and that is a Rain Dish pokemon. I don't see the point of banning Drizzle because Kyogre already had the stats to abuse it. Comparing Kyogre and Politoed is like comparing Apples and Oranges. They are both water types but stat wise, Kyogre with Water Spout is GG.
Outside of the STAB boost and resistance to Fire, Rain Dish and Hydration abuse what else is there left.
Sun gives a boost to fire, gives Chlorophyll and Solar Power users something, reduces Water Types.
Yes there are no fire types to abuse Chlorophyll. I get that but the fact that you want to ban non-broken Swift Swimmers like Beartic and Luvdisc because of three abusers?
I am at the point where you ban all perma-weather and get it over with because this is getting rediculous.
Making something you want to protect (drizzle) immune from the supect rules or nominations so that everything else can be targeted is ridiculous.
Drizzle deserves no more special treatment than any other element of the game.
Intelligence?, all heart man, all heart.
Nothing should ever be immune from teh rules, even drizzle. Forbiding ti from suspect testing for any ammount of time is crazy.
Drizzle is also more broken because the Swift Swimmers can be stopped from sweeping (though only barely), but you can't prevent Politoed from setting up rain since all it has to do is switching in. It makes all Swift Swimmers faster (and sometimes improves their attacking power) permanently which is better than Mew giving only one Pokemon +2 Speed and one of its attacking stats. If I am not mistaken, this is the support characteristic for an Uber.
I see an argument that Rain is so powerful due to the speedy set-up...All Weather does that.
However, we have become so used to the 4 Gen "Stall" Idea, that any idea of hyper power is obsurd. No one's complaining that, for example, a Barrier Cradily in the Sandstorm is helluvalot harder to take down than a Rain team. Any situation can be abused to make a pokemon broken, simple as that.
Also, for those saying that a well-built rain team can't be beat without another weather, it's the exact same as carrying steels for Dragons and Rapid Spin for Entry Hazards. The Metagame's changing; go ahead and adapt instead of trying to keep your team. Honestly, is it that hard to put hail on your Chansey or Sunny Day on your Amoongus? One move and BAM!, no more rain.
I propose to keep Aldaron's Proposal, for it makes the metagame more diverse and more skill-inducing, which is, in the end, what I think everyone wants.
However, we have become so used to the 4 Gen "Stall" Idea, that any idea of hyper power is obsurd. No one's complaining that, for example, a Barrier Cradily in the Sandstorm is helluvalot harder to take down than a Rain team. Any situation can be abused to make a pokemon broken, simple as that.
Also, for those saying that a well-built rain team can't be beat without another weather, it's the exact same as carrying steels for Dragons and Rapid Spin for Entry Hazards. The Metagame's changing; go ahead and adapt instead of trying to keep your team. Honestly, is it that hard to put hail on your Chansey or Sunny Day on your Amoongus? One move and BAM!, no more rain.
I propose to keep Aldaron's Proposal, for it makes the metagame more diverse and more skill-inducing, which is, in the end, what I think everyone wants.
The Luvdisc example is primarily to prove that Swift Swim isn't broken, and therefore the combination of Swift Swim + Drizzle isn't broken. Drizzle itself is a somewhat different matter, and Boosting Wish really only applies to arguments about Drizzle. This is because Boosting Wish, like Drizzle, is a support move, not one that's part of the only Pokemon it affects, like Swift Swim.
As for what makes Boosting Wish not like Drizzle, it's the application. If Drizzle can be balanced without unreasonable bans, it can become a powerful balancing effect in the metagame. That may or may not be possible, and we need to find out whether it is or isn't possible before proceeding. Boosting Wish, on the other hand, doesn't seem like it helps out much of anything, as it makes any half-decent Pokemon broken. And then once those are all broken, every other half-decent Pokemon is also broken, so you keep banning until everything is banned, since a Pokemon being broken is always relative to the metagame.
Of course, the metagame also includes Boosting Wish, so alternatively, what might also happen is that not many things will get banned, and the metagame will become completely centralized around Boosting Wish. That seems like a far more rational direction for it to go. And not necessarily a bad one. If a variety of Pokemon get Boosting Wish, then the metagame would change so that pretty much every team would include one or more Pokemon with the move Boosting Wish, and most other Pokemon used would be ones that can either take advantage of Boosting Wish or combat Pokemon under the effect of Boosting Wish. If that happened, then it's actually rather plausible that the metagame would balance itself out rather effectively while still allowing a large variety of Pokemon to be viable in OU. And that wouldn't be so bad, and wouldn't require much banning at all, if any.
Alternatively, let's say only one Pokemon gets Boosting Wish, or a similarly small number. In this case, it's a bit different. If the number is small enough, then the metagame would be completely centered around every Pokemon in existence with Boosting Wish. If there were three or less, every team would need to pack all three of them in order to stand much of a chance, and that would result in a far more limited and overcentralizing metagame than anything Drizzle would result in. So in that case, yes, Boosting Wish would be broken, but either way, it's very different from the Drizzle situation. Drizzle teams don't require Drizzle teams to stop them; the best way to stop them is to use other weather of your own. The result is a metagame that focuses on a few different strategies and conflicts between them, which results in a far more desirable metagame than focusing on a single strategy.
You sound like you're assuming that options 3-6 can only be applied to Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Kabutops. If it turns out that rather than just those three, we have to ban or restrict four or five, maybe even six or seven Swift Swim Pokemon, we should be open to the idea of doing that. Of course, if that's what you meant, then never mind.
That said, what you say is true. If it turns out that there really is no good, reasonable way to solve the problems with the metagame by addressing individual users, then and only then should we resort to more general methods such as the one currently in place. Not that I agree that such a situation is at all plausible. And I have to say, even then, I might prefer an entire Drizzle ban to the one we have in place right now.
Mew is not currently uber. Nor are Gorebyss, Huntail, or Smeargle, all capable of passing Shell Breaks rather effectively.
The Support Characteristic isn't nearly so clearly defined. None of them are; in fact, the Defense Characteristic is imaginary. Also, all three are outdated; note that the thread containing them has been de-stickied. And they were never more than guidelines.
This, I believe, is a more clear, updated Support Characteristic I think should be acceptable for the purposes of this thread, assuming no one objects:
I believe this provides more reasonable, useful, and concrete standards than the current Support Characteristic, while still being open to interpretation. It also has a way of considering abilities, a matter which has now become relevant. However, it raises a question of what standard should be used to determine exceptions. For that, I think the following definition should be enough for now:
This should answer the question of the relevance of whether or not Magikarp is broken with Moody, as well as the relevance of whether or not Luvdisc is broken with Swift Swim.
Nothing deserves to be OU, but when Aldaron's proposal was voted on it solidified the fact that the weather-inducing abilities should be kept in OU in order to prevent a massive cascade of bans. If you want to allow that to take place, and slow down the suspect voting process even more, go right ahead and repeal Aldaron's proposal so we can either ban Drizzle or test each Swift Swimmer.
Also @XienZo, yes it would slow down the suspect process immensely. This isn't suspect round 1 anymore, where we could just look at Skymin, Darkrai, and Deoxys-A and say, "get this shit out." At this point, there is a lot more controversy over what should be banned. We aren't about to chuck out Latios in R4 if we decide to ban weather (TTar), because people are very hesitant to make preemptive bans. Even if one does get through, it still has a chance of being overturned.
I quit playing according to Smogon due to banning drizzle, its not broken imo but just a aspect of the game you need to take into consideration when developing your team...
I never used a rainbased team but I've beaten plenty. And not because I'm completely geared against them, but because I anticipated them and planned against them. Just like I planned against suicide leads or set uppers...
But ah well, what do I know?
I never used a rainbased team but I've beaten plenty. And not because I'm completely geared against them, but because I anticipated them and planned against them. Just like I planned against suicide leads or set uppers...
But ah well, what do I know?
Either ban Drizzle/Politoed, and be done with it, or ban all auto weather so this stupid whine fest can be over and people can move on to the next thing. All of this is just a fancy beating around the bush bullshit to neuter something that's too strong to keep it in OU. Dress it up with whatever fancy words you want to, but that's the issue I'm seeing at the heart of the matter.
There should be a testing period where all weather or just Drizzle is temporary banned and see how the game plays out then. Who gives a fuck if it's unprecedented if playing in OU is fun again. Obviously the weather fanboys will bitch about it, but it's at least worth a shot instead of all those ridiculous bans that are going to happen to keep Drizzle OU.
It should be pretty obvious that when 15ish Pokemon that would otherwise only be fairly normal become almost too much to handle that the common factor that makes them too much to handle be removed, instead of banning everything. So what if it's traditional to ban individually, that doesn't make it any less retarded in this circumstance.
There should be a testing period where all weather or just Drizzle is temporary banned and see how the game plays out then. Who gives a fuck if it's unprecedented if playing in OU is fun again. Obviously the weather fanboys will bitch about it, but it's at least worth a shot instead of all those ridiculous bans that are going to happen to keep Drizzle OU.
It should be pretty obvious that when 15ish Pokemon that would otherwise only be fairly normal become almost too much to handle that the common factor that makes them too much to handle be removed, instead of banning everything. So what if it's traditional to ban individually, that doesn't make it any less retarded in this circumstance.
Considering that the proposal given was to see which individual Pokemon were in fact broken, rather than banning the entire lot preemptively, no it isn't.
If it turns out that after the suspect Pokemon are gone, rain is still a problem, there is no reason you can't nominate for Drizzle to be banned, and for the banned suspects to come back in to OU.
Stop making assumptions.
It's not about "special treatment", it's about isolating the problem between the suspect Pokemon.
All I see are empty words and a whole lot of logical absence.
If it comes downt to simplistic reasons then keep everything as is. It should be pretty odvious that if you ban drizzle then the rest of the dominos will fall, sand, sun, possibly even hail, you name it. Now if anyone preferres a weatherless metagame, go ahead thats for you, but me I like weather and want to keep it around, the metagame is stable as is and thats fine with me.
I still don't find the banning of Luvdisc and all swift swimmers right, but I guess I will have to pick my battles here. Its not like rain is bannable as is and I think you should leave swift swim as is.
And banning the top swim swimmers don't sit right with me, but its laughably a better option then just banning all weather, still Kingdra doesn't belong in uber.
I still don't find the banning of Luvdisc and all swift swimmers right, but I guess I will have to pick my battles here. Its not like rain is bannable as is and I think you should leave swift swim as is.
And banning the top swim swimmers don't sit right with me, but its laughably a better option then just banning all weather, still Kingdra doesn't belong in uber.