Drizzle does not need to be banned, only DrizzleSwim. If any weather condition is banworthy and broken, it's Sandstorm, but nobody dares talk about that. People are focusing on smaller things and forgetting about sand, which is the metagame. Banning permaweather entirely would bring us back to competitive battling's roots, but a separate tier for weather should be created if this were done so people could still use it.
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Aldaron's proposal: Alternatives?
- Thread starter Thorhammer
- Start date
Sand doesn't give a boost to stab, like rain.
Sand has 1 abuser: Exadrill Rain has: Kabutops, Kingdra, Ludicolo, Omastar, and friends
Sand boosts special defense of rock types; Rain reduces fire damage, making things like ferrothorn a huge pain to take out in the rain
Sand does 1/16 damage; Rain makes thunder 100% accurate.
Sure some aren't parallel but you see the point. There is no overcentalizion on sand for a reason, it's not that good and only has 1 true abuser. Rain has so much more going for it and is much more abusable. There is a reason rain is in question and not sand.
The thing about this Swift Swim ban that irks me is that we didn't follow the same logic with Blaziken. Instead of banning Speed Boost on Blaziken, we banned Blaziken as a whole even though he obviously isn't broken without SB. I think we should apply the same logic to the Swift Swim sweepers. If Kingdra or whatever is found to be broken in Drizzle, ban it outright. I get that there are a lot more SS sweepers than SB sweepers but I can only think of 5 that would possibly be broken: Kingdra, Ludicolo, Kabutops, Gorebyss, Huntail. (The last two only because of Shell Smash, not because of Swift Swim) I just don't like the lack of consistency here.
These are very confusing times in the game of pokemon. Indeed Blaziken isn't broken without Speed Boost but if we were to unban it but ban it with speed boost that'd open a whole new kinda world. A domino effect in which things are placed in tiers with restrictions. Therefore the most obvious move would be to get rid of Blaziken outright but then we contradicted ourselves by not doing the same with Kingdra and company as we did with Blaziken. Without Drizzle Kingdra, Ludicolo, Kabutops, and other possible SwSw pokemon just aren't broken. However, we choose to do a complex ban to keep these pokemon in OU. A contradiction no matter how you state it. Actually, I believe this all started with Inconsistent. It was blanket banned knowing full well the pokemon using it would be completely useless without it. Indeed very troublesome.
However, through it all I think the choice to outright ban Blaziken was the correct one. It was simple and done with quick. People are only whining about it because of the complex bans going on. We need to overwrite these bans and retest them.
At the same time Drizzle is just overcentralising the metagame. It's not broken or uncompetitive but it's overcentralising. It's alot like garchomp in gen 4 in that Garchomp Overcentralised the metagame. (However, it was also broken.) However, at the same time Drizzle is a playstyle. To ban Drizzle is to ban an entire playstyle. That in itself is very bad for the metagame. The concequence of such a ban would lead to another new can of worms. Top tiers pokemon and playstyles would be accused of being broken.
Pretty much what I'm saying is we're far to ban happy right now which is leading to far more chaos in the metagame than even in Round 1. We should stop the bans for now and take a look at the complex bans we made so far and ask if they we're really needed. We should also take a look at what really breaks the metagame. Mabye we should have a seperate server on po dedicated to testing. (I'm not saying we should it's just a suggestion.)
@Lightning Tiger
That seems like a very good idea. I've heard about what the PO server did with seperate metagames but I never really got into it because of the way the usage stats look. Mabye the smogon server should adopt that idea.
I can't say I've given much thought. I personally don't think that it ever will reach the point that so many Swift Swim Pokemon will be banned that it would be preferable to ban Swift Swim as a whole. Such a cutoff number is to be decided by those who feel that it might actually be a concern.
If I had to personally pick a cutoff number, it would be 17. Note that I haven't given this much thought; it's simply a number I thought of just now for the following reasons. There are 19 fully evolved Swift Swim Pokemon, but there are 33 Swift Swim Pokemon total, and all are affected. If more than half of the total number of Swift Swim Pokemon are broken, then it might be worth reconsidering. What's also significant is what it would take to reach the number 17. Of the 19 fully evolved Swift Swim Pokemon, only 16 appear as if they could ever be competitively viable. In order for there to be 17 broken Swift Swim Pokemon, not only all of the competitively viable Swift Swim Pokemon would have to be broken, but also either a pre-evolution, Seaking, Lumineon, or Luvdisc. If that was the case, it would give an indication that Swift Swim as an ability might really be the issue, rather than the Pokemon. I do not believe that that is the case, and therefore I do not believe it will come to this.
If the Swift Swim users push rain over the edge, then they aren't balanced.
There is no evidence that 10+ Pokemon will be made broken by Drizzle. The most that seems plausible right now is 7 or 8, as an absolute maximum. More likely, it will be around 5 Pokemon, all of which are broken not simply because of Drizzle, but because of their own characteristics which are brought out by Drizzle.
If people love rain so much as a playstyle, they can play Double or Triple Battles. You can (and probably should) ban all weather-inducting abilities there and weather-inducing moves will still be used.
But what am I saying? Try something new and different? That'd be crazy! No, we'd better all just stick to 6v6 Single Battles and make sure that weather can still be viable there...for some reason.
I don't recall this discussion involving anything but the 6v6 tier?
Seriously we should create a serepete Tier where Drizzle, Sandstream, and Drought are not allowed, i and many others would be satisfied with that and then you guys can ban whoever the hell you want from the regular OU.
Wait, why is this such a complex issue?
Politoed with Drizzle: Banned.
Blaziken with Speed Boost: Banned.
How does this cause problems? Those are Dream World abilities and, for the most part, aren't obtainable in-game internationally, right?
EDIT: To clarify, Dream World abilities are basically special event alterations to the Pokemon and aren't legitimately obtainable in the normal game. It's extremely confounding to me that there's such a huge issue about these special event abilities that most people can't even obtain right now. It would be like banning Zapdos entirely because it got Metal Sound in Pokemon Gale of Darkness.
Politoed with Drizzle: Banned.
Blaziken with Speed Boost: Banned.
How does this cause problems? Those are Dream World abilities and, for the most part, aren't obtainable in-game internationally, right?
EDIT: To clarify, Dream World abilities are basically special event alterations to the Pokemon and aren't legitimately obtainable in the normal game. It's extremely confounding to me that there's such a huge issue about these special event abilities that most people can't even obtain right now. It would be like banning Zapdos entirely because it got Metal Sound in Pokemon Gale of Darkness.
Yeah I have to admit I find being able to just ban Dream World abilities to make a lot of sense, there's a clear difference between them and "normal" abilities so to me it's not the equivalent of banning, say, Technician Scizor but not Swarm Scizor. If a Pokemon had a natural ability that made it broken then banning the entire Pokemon rather than just one ability is the right call, but if it's the Dream World one that's broken than ban only that.
That might just be me because I'm more someone who plays the games and occasionally plays on simulators rather than the other way round, but to me the Dream World thing isn't an inherent part of the Pokemon, just an added extra that can be banned without starting a "slippery slope" of allowing crippled Pokemon in different teirs by banning their best abilities / moves.
Maybe that's the problem?
Because there are so many different ways to play the game now, some strategies are just plain going to work better in one environment than another. Instead of insisting that rain be viable in some tier of Singles play, why not just let it be viable in Doubles and Triples, where it's more powerful anyway?
Whether we ban Dream world abilities or natural abilities on a pokemon it is still a Pokemon+Ability ban which as you know is deeply frowned upon as it may cause a cascade of bans. The fact that they are Dream world abilities is irrelevant really. As I could still get it in game if I really wanted to. That's like saying all event pokemon should be banned because they are just add-ons and are not meant to be part of the overall game.
Also, let me take the Blaziken example. If we ban Blaziken+speed boost to Ubers and leave Blaziken+Blaze in OU (or UU really but whatever) then doesnt that defeat the point of having "Tiers". If I have a pokemon that is simultaneously Uber and UU at the same time. I cannot see how that is possible. It makes no sense at all that we now have two Blazikens. What if Shaymin-S (for example) had another ability, would Serene Grace+ Shaymin-S be Uber while idk Telepathy+Shaymin-S be OU. How is that possible really? To basically spilt a single pokemon in two and throw one in one tier and another. Let's say i wanted politoed in UU at the moment. So i could opt for DrizzleToad to be OU and the other versions to be UU. Or DroughtTales or any other pokemon that i wanted really. Given enough restrictions, why not? Overall it seems morally wrong and yes against our policy. (oh and dont bother arguing Kingdra with me. That is a special case as it is TWO abilities that make it broken. One it's own and the other Politoed's. So it is a lot more difficult to determine what to do there.)
TheMaskedNitpicker said:
For one thing, almost nobody plays Doubles/Triples. So what goes on there is not our primary concern. The standard metagame is the Singles 6v6 one. Not Doubles/Triples. And you just said it was more powerful in Dble/Tple's and yet you want that to remain a part of those tiers. Which is a very contradicting statement really.
How is the dream world not an inherent part of pokemon? Because it wasn't an inherent part of Gens1-4? I'm not saying combination bans are a slippery slope that will lead to allowing crippled Pokemon in different tiers by banning their best abilities / moves.
I'm saying that Drizzle is not the brokenest part of a drizzle team. Rain teams were REALLY GOOD ALREADY. It's not like rain teams were absolute shit, and drizzle came and changed things.
Drizzle is the straw that broke the camels back. However, the camel was already carrying a bunch of other stuff, like Kingdra. Should we ban drizzle just because it's the last thing on the camel? That's not a very good reason to ban something.
It's like blaming the Collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge on the wind, and not the engineers. The wind broke the bridge, but the bridge was "broken" before. It just wasn't a problem before wind came along. Same as Swift Swim Sweeprs. Kingdra's more fundamentally broken than drizzle by a long shot. It was just here first, and without drizzle, it wasn't a problem.
Our situation is a bit different that the bridge analogy. For one thing, it is combination of Drizzle and Swift Swim that breaks Kingdra. Kingdra definitely isn't broken in the metagame as it is right now. The Bridge however was inherently broken and all it needed was the wind to finally push it over the edge. Kingdra wasn't that way. It wasn't at the threshold of Uberness last gen and it certainly isnt anywhere near there right now. It is not one simple factor that pushed it over the edge but TWO, it's own ability and that of another that breaks it. I doubt that RD Kingdra is broken. No one can argue that. It's like saying (just for example, it's not really what happened to that bridge) that the Nuts/Screws of the bridge were a bit rusty but the bridge as a whole was still fine. However, when the wind came along it accelerated the "Rusting"(Swift Swim) to a point that it was unbearable and the bridge collapsed. So, was it the fault of the bridge(Kingdra)? Or the Faulty Screws(Swift Swim)+The wind(Drizzle) that messed it up so badly. I believe it was the latter. Thus the reason we have this ban in the first place.
Thorhammer said:
Well for one thing, the pre-evolutions of these pokemon will almost never see the light of OU. Even if we allow Swift Swim Horsea and SwSw Kabuto they wont really be used in OU now will they. Considering the fact that the ability Drizzle is only readily available within the OU tier and not in UU or below, it would not be wise to consider such pokemon on the premise of such a proposal. I'm sure that would shorten the 33 SwSw's down to something like ~20. And as you stated, it is possible that 7-8 of them are likely to be overpowering.
And another thing, I dont see why we should care quite frankly! So what if the ban is unfair to the lesser Swift swimmers? A ban as high profile as this one is bound to have some collateral damage. So let's get to the facts, you are arguing that these pokemon were unfairly treated because as you percieve it, they have been denied their rightful spot in the standard metagame. But to allow a few of them to return, presumably only 7-8 competitively viable ones, you'd have us ban another 5-6 pokemon to Ubers. But wait, where is their right to be allowed in the standard metagame? Since Kingdra/Ludi/Kabu/Oma aren't broken right now. You'd be robbing them of this privelage to be in OU. And all to let another 4 similar but less powerful ones take their place. It's not like you cant use Qwilfish and friends and it's not like their completely unviable. If you really want to use them in OU that badly then run a Rain dance team. And if it is still argued that in a rain dance team, King/ludi/kabu outclass them then dont they belong in UU?
The truth of the matter is, no pokemon has a right to be in OU. They are there for the simple reason that they are There. To pick one over another seems very biased towards the weaker pokemon and unfair as one might suggest towards the others. Especially when the fate of an entire playstyle hangs in the balance.
It's not just the combination of drizzle and swift swim.
Yes. Drizzle is important to Kingdra's being broken
But not nearly as important are his ability, typing, stats, and movepool are. People ignore all this, and point fingers at drizzle because it's new. People scream and cry about the double speed, and the double STAB, but that's not the only issue here. That's not the only thing that makes kingdra good. Every swift swimmer has those. Everything else that kingdra has is what breaks him. That's what sets him apart. Same with Kabutops and Ludicolo.
I hear so many people saying that drizzle is broken, but what does it do? It means that you can't have the back option of stalling out rain turns. Does that really make Kingdra that much better individually? No, it doesn't. It makes RAIN TEAMS better. The whole team. Every member of a rain team sees the improvement of not having to get shafted on the last turn of rain, forcing a free turn to re-gain momentum. This small improvement has made a fantastic pokemon broken.
Yes. Drizzle is important to Kingdra's being broken
But not nearly as important are his ability, typing, stats, and movepool are. People ignore all this, and point fingers at drizzle because it's new. People scream and cry about the double speed, and the double STAB, but that's not the only issue here. That's not the only thing that makes kingdra good. Every swift swimmer has those. Everything else that kingdra has is what breaks him. That's what sets him apart. Same with Kabutops and Ludicolo.
I hear so many people saying that drizzle is broken, but what does it do? It means that you can't have the back option of stalling out rain turns. Does that really make Kingdra that much better individually? No, it doesn't. It makes RAIN TEAMS better. The whole team. Every member of a rain team sees the improvement of not having to get shafted on the last turn of rain, forcing a free turn to re-gain momentum. This small improvement has made a fantastic pokemon broken.
I'm probably about to lay down a stupidly-worded argument, but.
Let's say I have a Drizzle team. Let's say it contains, for example, Drizzletoed/Beartic/Wash Rotom/Azumarill/Tornadus/Ferrothorn (I like odd choices, sue me). Now, is it broken? Probably not, I can only see two that could be a bit over-the-top.
Now, let's say I have another Drizzle team. Let's say it contains Drizzletoed, Kingdra, Omastar, Kabutops, Floatzel and Ludicolo. Now, is it broken? From what I've seen, most of the Pokemon are the ones that caused the ban; so most probably yes.
Now, should I be allowed to use my first Drizzle team? Probably, since most of the Pokemon mentioned aren't that problematic in Drizzle (feel free to argue with me on this one).
Should I be allowed to use the second one? Probably not, since it contains most of the "rusty screws" that will make the bridge of the metagame teeter and crumble.
But, isn't it unfair that I'm not allowed to use the perfectly competitive first team? Just because another team I have is broken?
(I'm not sure I nailed which Pokemon were the problematic ones, so correct me if I'm wrong.)
I already know that a Pokemon has been banned due to its ability, but in my opinion that is something that should try and be prevented because Pokemon such as Blaziken in Ubers just because of speed boost seems kind of unnecessary especially when it doesn't seem broken any other way. Once again, it would be nice to test every single pokemon with swift swim and see if they are broken; however that would take much too long that we could be testing other seemingly broken Pokemon and combinations. Why test every single pokemon with swift swim when you could just ban the combination all together, it just seems so much more simple...
I'd think banning overpowered/overcentralizing special event alterations to be more logical than banning a whole Pokemon because of them. It's a more elegant solution. Politoed with Drizzle, an ability that is not a naturally occurring statistic, breaks the metagame. So why is Damp, Politoed's default ability, banned?
Not at all. Normal Blaziken is too strong for NU, but adding Speed Boost makes it too strong for OU.
Speed Boost Blaziken is not the same as Blaze Blaziken, especially since Speed Boost is acquired through alternative means. You make it sound like it's an incomprehensible concept haha.
I don't really know what you're trying to say here. Using Blaziken, the thing was never really overpowered. So how does a standard set from 4th Gen (which uses Blaze) suddenly become banned simply because the Pokemon could get an ability through an alternative, non-game method? Wouldn't banning that special ability make more sense? Maybe the policy itself needs a review if it's causing some people to just not understand.
Not really because I'm not suggesting that all Dream World abilities should be banned. But if only a Pokemon's Dream World ability causes any problem (e.g. Speed Boost Blaziken, Drizzle Politoed) then I find it does make sense to look at only the Dream World version and consider only banning that, even though I wouldn't for non Dream World abilities. Similarly if there was an event Salamence that got some amazing move that absolutely made it broken, I'd think it would make sense to consider the possibility of just banning that move (or that event Salamence if you will) even though I wouldn't suggest banning only Dragon Dance Salamence and not other ones.
Latias was OU and Uber at the same time, with Soul Dew making it Uber and no Soul Dew making it OU. I could be completely wrong since I didn't follow this so much at the time it was banned, but I was under the impression it was later banned from OU because it was considered broken without Soul Dew, not just because it was impossible for a Pokemon to be both OU and Uber. An ability is not the same as an item, I know, but honestly it isn't that far removed from a Pokemon specific item. If we can look at Latias with and without Soul Dew, and it can be in two different teirs, then I don't see why we can't look at a Pokemon with and without it's Dream World ability and consider banning one and not the other.
Well I guess it's misleading to say it's not an inherent part of the Pokemon since each Pokemon has its own Dream World ability. But because of the way Dream World Pokemon aren't just obtainable in the games and have to be released, there's a much cleared distinction between a Dream World Pokemon and a Pokemon with one of it's abilities. So if only the Dream World version of a Pokemon was broken, I think of banning the Dream World Pokemon only as a much more feasible option than banning one of two non-Dream World abilities. I know it is still a Pokemon with an ability, but a Pokemon with its Dream World ability is different from a Pokemon with one of it's regular abilities.
Nope. The whole "alternative means of acquisition" argument is rough. It doesn't really have anything to do with anything, especially how much Pokemon is played on simulators. Drawing a distinction between the attainable and the unattainable is one thing. Drawing one between dream world and game (and I guess trades and events too if you wanna follow this to its logical conclusion) doesn't make as much sense.
Its coming to the point i feel, that we should just ban swift swim, because drizzle isn't broken, but some pokemon under infinite rain are, and this way no pokemon is banned because they all have other abilites, so you could could still use kingra on a drizzle team if you really want to just with sniper and increase your speed with dragon dance, it seems the fairest solution to me, because i don't want to see any of the perma-weathers go because there just not broken, rain is just the easiest to use though.
Damp Politoed is not banned. I dont know how you got that idea. And second of all, I find it extremely odd that you would call the Dream world a special event. It might not have existed before but it exists now and believe it or not it is a part of the game. The abilities are encoded in the game. They are a part of the game. And besides, saying that something is a special event is irrelevant as it is still obtainable by some means and thus can still be used on our simulator.
That entire statement made no sense at all. I never even mentioned that Blaziken would be NU and you did not even adress the question that i posed in my post. Which was that how on earth can there be 2 Blazikens. One in Uber and one in UU. That defeats the point of "Tiers" in general.
So? So what if I can't go out and catch a Speed boosting Torchic in the game? I CAN still get it. It is irrelevant how i do. The simple fact that it is a legal set is enough premise for me to be able to use it in the metagame.
Oh really, how come my Wish Salamence from Gen 4 was banned when it wasn't the one that was broken but DD Salamence that was broken? Why not ban that specific version of him than ban the entire Salamence? If one set of a pokemon is broken, then the entire pokemon is broken. And if you want to say that Wish Salamence was an event pokemon and thus should be banned also, then you just have a stigma against event pokemon.
Silver Random said:
You say that you would ban my special "event" salamence moveset and yet you would not have banned the obviously broken moveset that already existed. That to me makes absolutely no sense. And it creates huge slippery slope arguement. So why cant i then just remove moves and abilities from Uber pokemon and levels and EV's, IV's, the very basic Stats even, what's stoppind me from then altering the entire pokemon and stripping it of all it's bare fundamentals simply to make it allowed in OU? Tell me, would you like to have a metagame where there are multiple forms of every pokemon? What i mean is that would you like to have a Rayquaza allowed in NU but only if it is level 50 and cannot use half it's moveset and a Rayquaza in UU that s lvl 75 and has movepool restrictions and then the one in OU with some restrictions and then a final one in Ubers. Would you really want these mutated creatures. These imperfct beings running amock in the very tiers they were meant to be removed from in the first place? To me it seems like absolute nonsense. I may be exaggerating but that's what it is.
No, Latias was allowed in OU because of the Soul Dew clause that was in place at the time which prevented it (or any other pokemon) from using the item Soul Dew. It was not a Lati@s+Souldew ban as any other pokemon could also use the item. However if we want Blaziken back into OU, we would have to either ban Speed Boost entirely as an ability or ban Blaziken+Speed Boost. Which would then make the pokemon Uber and OU at the same time. The Latias arguement does not hold true because it was not a specific Latias+Soul Dew ban. This on the other hand will be a specific Blaziken+Speed Boost ban. So, unless you want to propose a Dream world clause or a Speed Boost clause, the arguement stands that there will be 2 Blaziken. One with Speed Boost in Ubers and one with Blaze in UU. Which i cannot find to be acceptable.
Megaron said:
No, it is not fair. You are right on that account. However, with a ban as controversial and game changing as this one is, there is bound to be some collateral damage. It might seem unfair that Beartic is not competitively viable in the OU environment anymore. However, as I said a while back, we simply cannot pick and choose which pokemon should be allowod into OU at the sacrifice of others. And with the burden of an entire playstyle looming over our heads, we really need to make the right descisions.
It's not like his ability is now completely useless, it is still possible to use him in another tier perhaps UU/NU utilizing his capabilities and Rain Dance. Just because he isn't OU doesnt mean that we should ban other pokemon in his place to allow him into OU. To me, that seems unfair.
10fore said:
Drizzle is not a new factor that has suddenly come up and surprised us all. It has been around since the third generation even. So it's not that much of a surprise to most people. Granted however, this is the first time it has been allowed in the OU metagame. Well almost, if you dont count the lvl 1 Groudon/Kyogre testing in Gen 4 that proved that they were Uber with their abilities Drizzle and Drought alone. In fact your last paragraph seems to state just that. That Drizzle is a very game-changing factor that influences a lot of pokemon and makes some of them broken.
But obviously Kingdra isn't broken now is it. The Drizzle+ SwSw ban means that Kingdra even with it's stats, ability, typing and moves is well within the realms of standards acceptable for the OU metagame. If it is this seperate factor that has caused this pokemon and many others to become overpowered or broken, then shouldn't we ban it instead.
EDIT: Sorry for the long post. I don't mean to seem pushy or rude. I just wanted to get some of my thoughts across...
While Drizzle HAS had a huge impact on the metagame, you have to remember, it has had a huge impact on the metagame BECAUSE of Kingdra, Ludicolo, etc etc etc. If they hadn't been as great in the rain as they are, I'm extremely certain that the Drizzle+SwSw ban wouldn't have come through. I'm no expert, but if a Pokemon can have such a great effect on the metagame, I believe it and only it should be banned, whether does it leech off another's ability or not. Because, let's face it, Excadrill also stood as broken for a while, for the same reason. Of course, you might argue that if we didn't ban Excadrill, we might as well not ban Kingdra or Ludicolo or Omastar etc either. But keep in mind, Sandstorm and Rain are extremely different weathers, with each having different abusers and effects and whatnot.
I keep on stating this but people don't seem to get it: if you where to ban SB Blaziken you would not have 2 Blazikens. Why? Becuase one is BANNED, its in uber and no one is going to use it. Its just like Gallade in BL last gen, just because it was too good for UU, doesn't mean its good in OU. I can undertstand the arguement against banning abilties, but just don't go about with the whole 2 pokemon or more thing, becuase thats ridiculus.