I knew we'd get to Ferrothorn eventually. It's an intricate and well designed pokemon that has very few flaws, is unique, powerful and damn annoying to fight. Banning it though?
Reasons to ban Ferrothorn:
Amazing typing: Grass / Steel grants ferro 11 type resistances. It also has only four neutralities which are, interestingly, weaknesses of one of its types evened out by the other (ground, ice, flying and bug.) Its two weaknesses are easily walled by several pokemon, making it an easy to base a defensive core around. It's also the first steel type to resist grass water and electric, allowing it to function as a solid special wall.
Stats: 74 / 131 / 116 defenses are mind blowing. Barring HP, it has the highest mixed defensive stats of all steel types commonly seen in OU. This combined with it's typing and resistances (and leech seed) make it one of the best defensive pokemon in the entire OU tier. Few pokemon can match it's sheer walling power, and the few types that can hit it for neutral damage can only manage 3HKOs on average. Take garchomp for example. He has an extremely powerful STAB earthquake, right? We all know this. It can tear through most foes that take neutral damage from ground, and has great super effective coverage against most steels. However, unless chomp carries fire fang, he doesn't seem like such a good choice against ferro, does he? If you sub, he just breaks it with power whip or gyro ball. If you SD, he seeds you and gains the upper hand. If you EQ it's a 3HKO at best without swords dance, giving him plenty of free time to set up. Other strong contenders like mamoswine and scizor struggle to KO with their most powerful STAB moves. Ferrothorn is clearly an exception that needs to be accommodated if you hope to take it out cleanly.
It's quite powerful offensively as well. Base 94 attack (224 without investment) is unusually high, giving it a notable offensive presence. STAB power whip and gyro ball (complemented by base 20 speed) are strong enough to OHKO almost any offensive threat weak to them. Defensive pokes that are too slow to be threatened by gyro ball can be maimed by power whip (which has a higher base power than the grass STAB moves most offensive pokemon use.)
Movepool: Ferrothorn has access to the following viable moves:
Curse, Gravity, Hone Claws, Ingrain, Iron Defense, Leech Seed, Protect, Spikes, Stealth Rock, Substitute, Swords dance, Thunder Wave, Worry Seed, Bulldoze, Gyro Ball, Payback, Power Whip and Shadow Claw.
As you can see, it has support options out the wazoo, the best STAB moves it could possibly want and enough coverage moves for a boosting set. Swords dance, hone claws and curse can all turn ferro into a powerful bulky sweeper. Thunder wave and worry seed are lesser seen support moves that can cause a lot of trouble for his potential checks and counters (I.E. Reuniclus) finally, spikes and SR let ferro take advantage of any free turns he has. Access to spikes allows him to take advantage of the switches he causes, and provide tremendous support for your team, while putting pressure on the opponent, as they cannot be spun away easily by most spinners due to iron thorns, and the lack of spinners that can pose any real threat to him (only hitmontop comes to mind.)
Protect and leech seed are the real horrors here. The Proseed combination gives ferrothorn access to reliable recovery, persistent residual damage, scouting with protect and pseudo-passable recovery for other pokes on your team.
The Residual Damage Factor: Ferrothorn's proseed, iron thorns ability, ability to set hazards and immunity to sand make it one of the most effective "users" of residual damage. I'll demonstrate with a possible worst case scenario below.
Stealth rock and sand are up. the opponent switches in a life orb salamence and uses outrage. I switch in my trusty ferrothorn to take the hit. Outrage lasts three turns, and I use leech seed on the first turn (turn 2 of outrage.) Salamence takes:
25% from rocks.
12% from iron thorns (first turn of outrage)
10% from life orb
6% from sand (end of first turn)
12% from iron thorns (second turn of outrage)
10% from life orb
6% from sand
12% from leech seed (end of second turn)
12% from iron thorns (last turn of outrage)
10% from life orb
6% from sand
12% from leech seed
Ferrothorn is free to set up hazards or attack during this turn. Salamence is now free to use his fire type move, so we will assume ferrothorn scouts with protect on the next turn.
6% from sand
12% from leech seed
This all adds up to 151%
Salamence is at 7% at the end of the second turn. This shows how quickly ferrothorn can pile on the residual damage, and how well he can take advantage of mispredictions.
Overcentralization: Stall teams cannot reliably ferrothorn without taunt, strong fire/fighting moves or sleep/burn. He fits into defensive cores extremely well, using other pokes to cover his few weaknesses, while playing a massive support role of his own. He provides leech seed recovery for teammates, hazards to aid sweepers, a toxic immunity and many resistances. You simply cannot get past a good ferrothorn player without powerful fire/fighting attacks, and his ability to deadwall and threaten so many different pokemon allows the player to seize momentum easily. His impact on the OU metagame is obvious. He holds the No. 1 spot in usage stats, and fire/fighting moves are everywhere specifically to deal with ferrothorn. One could argue the metagame revolves around him.
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Reasons not to ban Ferrothorn:
"Glue" Argument: It was stated earlier in this thread that ferrothorn is a glue pokemon in OU, maintaining a balance of offensive and defensive pokemon. He keeps dragon types in check, as they cannot play around him without hp fire.
This took me ages to type, and I'm tired now. I'll finish it tomorrow.
I will say that I'm opposed to a ferrothorn ban. I believe that he has a beneficial effect on the metagame, keeping rain teams in check and promoting fire/water/grass defensive cores (that is, steering away from a dragon/steel metagame.) Banning him would break open the dam, possibly leading to a series of bans on pokes like latios and garchomp.
Reasons to ban Ferrothorn:
Amazing typing: Grass / Steel grants ferro 11 type resistances. It also has only four neutralities which are, interestingly, weaknesses of one of its types evened out by the other (ground, ice, flying and bug.) Its two weaknesses are easily walled by several pokemon, making it an easy to base a defensive core around. It's also the first steel type to resist grass water and electric, allowing it to function as a solid special wall.
Stats: 74 / 131 / 116 defenses are mind blowing. Barring HP, it has the highest mixed defensive stats of all steel types commonly seen in OU. This combined with it's typing and resistances (and leech seed) make it one of the best defensive pokemon in the entire OU tier. Few pokemon can match it's sheer walling power, and the few types that can hit it for neutral damage can only manage 3HKOs on average. Take garchomp for example. He has an extremely powerful STAB earthquake, right? We all know this. It can tear through most foes that take neutral damage from ground, and has great super effective coverage against most steels. However, unless chomp carries fire fang, he doesn't seem like such a good choice against ferro, does he? If you sub, he just breaks it with power whip or gyro ball. If you SD, he seeds you and gains the upper hand. If you EQ it's a 3HKO at best without swords dance, giving him plenty of free time to set up. Other strong contenders like mamoswine and scizor struggle to KO with their most powerful STAB moves. Ferrothorn is clearly an exception that needs to be accommodated if you hope to take it out cleanly.
It's quite powerful offensively as well. Base 94 attack (224 without investment) is unusually high, giving it a notable offensive presence. STAB power whip and gyro ball (complemented by base 20 speed) are strong enough to OHKO almost any offensive threat weak to them. Defensive pokes that are too slow to be threatened by gyro ball can be maimed by power whip (which has a higher base power than the grass STAB moves most offensive pokemon use.)
Movepool: Ferrothorn has access to the following viable moves:
Curse, Gravity, Hone Claws, Ingrain, Iron Defense, Leech Seed, Protect, Spikes, Stealth Rock, Substitute, Swords dance, Thunder Wave, Worry Seed, Bulldoze, Gyro Ball, Payback, Power Whip and Shadow Claw.
As you can see, it has support options out the wazoo, the best STAB moves it could possibly want and enough coverage moves for a boosting set. Swords dance, hone claws and curse can all turn ferro into a powerful bulky sweeper. Thunder wave and worry seed are lesser seen support moves that can cause a lot of trouble for his potential checks and counters (I.E. Reuniclus) finally, spikes and SR let ferro take advantage of any free turns he has. Access to spikes allows him to take advantage of the switches he causes, and provide tremendous support for your team, while putting pressure on the opponent, as they cannot be spun away easily by most spinners due to iron thorns, and the lack of spinners that can pose any real threat to him (only hitmontop comes to mind.)
Protect and leech seed are the real horrors here. The Proseed combination gives ferrothorn access to reliable recovery, persistent residual damage, scouting with protect and pseudo-passable recovery for other pokes on your team.
The Residual Damage Factor: Ferrothorn's proseed, iron thorns ability, ability to set hazards and immunity to sand make it one of the most effective "users" of residual damage. I'll demonstrate with a possible worst case scenario below.
Stealth rock and sand are up. the opponent switches in a life orb salamence and uses outrage. I switch in my trusty ferrothorn to take the hit. Outrage lasts three turns, and I use leech seed on the first turn (turn 2 of outrage.) Salamence takes:
25% from rocks.
12% from iron thorns (first turn of outrage)
10% from life orb
6% from sand (end of first turn)
12% from iron thorns (second turn of outrage)
10% from life orb
6% from sand
12% from leech seed (end of second turn)
12% from iron thorns (last turn of outrage)
10% from life orb
6% from sand
12% from leech seed
Ferrothorn is free to set up hazards or attack during this turn. Salamence is now free to use his fire type move, so we will assume ferrothorn scouts with protect on the next turn.
6% from sand
12% from leech seed
This all adds up to 151%
Salamence is at 7% at the end of the second turn. This shows how quickly ferrothorn can pile on the residual damage, and how well he can take advantage of mispredictions.
Overcentralization: Stall teams cannot reliably ferrothorn without taunt, strong fire/fighting moves or sleep/burn. He fits into defensive cores extremely well, using other pokes to cover his few weaknesses, while playing a massive support role of his own. He provides leech seed recovery for teammates, hazards to aid sweepers, a toxic immunity and many resistances. You simply cannot get past a good ferrothorn player without powerful fire/fighting attacks, and his ability to deadwall and threaten so many different pokemon allows the player to seize momentum easily. His impact on the OU metagame is obvious. He holds the No. 1 spot in usage stats, and fire/fighting moves are everywhere specifically to deal with ferrothorn. One could argue the metagame revolves around him.
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Reasons not to ban Ferrothorn:
"Glue" Argument: It was stated earlier in this thread that ferrothorn is a glue pokemon in OU, maintaining a balance of offensive and defensive pokemon. He keeps dragon types in check, as they cannot play around him without hp fire.
This took me ages to type, and I'm tired now. I'll finish it tomorrow.
I will say that I'm opposed to a ferrothorn ban. I believe that he has a beneficial effect on the metagame, keeping rain teams in check and promoting fire/water/grass defensive cores (that is, steering away from a dragon/steel metagame.) Banning him would break open the dam, possibly leading to a series of bans on pokes like latios and garchomp.
