np: OU Suspect Testing Round 4 - Blaze of Glory

[VaporeonIce]

I realize that some people are bothered by what appears to be a slippery slope argument that people are making about Blaziken. The main problem in my mind is that it isn't even a slippery slope (i.e. "this argument will necessarily be extended to justify things we don't want"); you can use the EXACT SAME argument the justify re-tiering a bunch of different Pokemon/ability combinations right now. Do we want to have a suspect test in UU for Damp Politoed, Flash Fire Ninetales, Sand Force Excadrill, Overcoat Reuniclus, Rivalry Haxorus, Sturdy Magnezone, Illuminate Starmie, Unnerve Tyranitar, Shell Armor Cloyster, Heatproof Bronzong, Zen Mode Darmanitan, etc. (not that I think all of those would be UU, but all of those Pokemon are enhanced by their current OU abilities). I don't think anyone wants to go through all that testing for every Pokemon that's significantly enhanced by its ability.

People are troubled by Blaziken because they're used to it not having Speed Boost, and being UU because of it; it's hard for people to wrap their minds around something getting a new ability, and suddenly becoming a whole different Pokemon (especially one that's relegated to Ubers because of it). But those people need to understand that, from everyone else's perspective, that's no different than saying "we'll allow Kyogre in OU if it gets Truant". We don't want to have ten Pokemon that are all split up by tiers according to abilities. But if we apply the logic for one Pokemon in one tier (Blaziken and splitting it so "not all of it" is in the Uber tier), there's absolutely no reason for us not to allow it with another Pokemon in another tier (Ninetales and "splitting it" so not all of it is in the OU tier). And, quite frankly, that's something most people don't want. We strive for logical consistency in our policies; if we say that we can split Blaziken but not other Pokemon, we throw any claims of logical consistency out the window.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

Like everyone is saying, this isn't the same old Gen. 4, so why should it not change to meet the new challenges it is facing via voting?

Because there's no challenge. There's a pokémon that is broken when using its best set, and then it's banned.

Hey dude, if your into bestiality, I wont judge you for that. But it is in my power to vote to make it legal or illegal. If i could just use your extreme comparison, I'd compare you to a southern white bigot from the 1960s and Blaziken to a cute little black child that wants an education, but can't according to the laws of the time.

Key word here: "wants". Blaziken wants nothing. Blaziken has no heart. Blaziken has no rights. Blaziken is a string of data. Blaziken is a cute little black child that can Hi Jump Kick someone's face any time. Had Speed Boost Blaziken existed since Advance, and only now had it gotten Hi Jump Kick and Blaze, and got banned because of the threat of Speed Boost+HJK (along other factors), would you advocate for a HJK+Blaziken ban? If Telepathy Wobbuffet existed in DPPt, do you think people would advocate for a Shadow Tag Wobbuffet ban?

Voting is the only way of drawing the line. If a new player is confused by this rather simple explanation of banning ability+pokemon, then they could easily find the explanations and the voting that took place to allow it.

You're going to have to explain what makes Blaziken special. Hint: "X being here first" is not a valid argument.

 

[Thorhammer]

And yet the measure of "simplicity" we seem to be using is:



"Intuition" is an extremely foolhardy way to decide things. It's an excuse not to look at a problem with the care that it deserves, so that we can pretend that we took it seriously. "Intuition" has slowed progress so many times in human history that it's not worth counting them. Intuition does have its place, as it can provide a general guide shaping what we want in a solution - but making actual rulings is not an appropriate place.

"Intuition" clouds our judgment of how the game works. If you really think about it, abilities are mechanically no different from items or even permanent statuses; it's just that most abilities are unavailable to a given species as opposed to most items being available. (There are also no examples of having no ability...) Moves really aren't that different, either; they just need to be executed. All of the combo bans that I mentioned are (or, at least, should be) equally easy/hard to implement, other than maybe level restrictions. And yet the presentation of this information by the game's user interface makes it seem as if moves, items and abilities are very different in some vague, unidentified way (despite the existence of Brightpowder + Sand Veil, Shell Bell + draining moves, Iron Barbs + Rough Skin + Rugged Helmet, etc.), and should be treated differently, too. And when we can't explain how they are different, we resort to the magical word "intuition"... a classic case of circular logic if I ever saw one.

You can claim that some combo ban is simpler than all the rest... but appealing to "intuition" will get you nowhere.

I'm not appealing to intuition. I didn't say that new players intuitively defining the two as separate makes them separate; what I said was that new players intuitively defining them as separate makes this alienating to new players.

When it was thought that complex bans would be alienating to new players, that was seen as a reason not to use complex bans. With that in mind, now that it's clear that that that's not the case, and using a simple ban in this case is actually alienating to new players, we must instead deal with Blaziken by means of a complex ban. Whether they are right or not is not what is important here.

However, whether or not they are right depends on simplicity, and that can easily be objectively measured. How simple a method of nerfing a Pokemon is depends entirely on how many possibilities are opened up. Nerfing a Pokemon by banning an ability only opens up 2-3 possibilities per Pokemon. Nerfing a Pokemon by banning a move or item on that Pokemon opens up 50+ possibilities per Pokemon. Nerfing a Pokemon by banning specific levels opens up exactly 100 possibilities per Pokemon. Nerfing a Pokemon by banning combinations of moves can open up billions of possibilities per Pokemon - and as I explained some time earlier, it's almost impossible to isolate one move and not others as being broken on a Pokemon. To use Blaziken as an example, if you were to ban it in combination with its best attacking move, how would you decide whether to ban Blaziken + Hi Jump Kick or Blaziken + Flare Blitz? Either one would most likely prevent it from being broken, but it would be impossible to choose one, so you would have to instead ban Blaziken + Hi Jump Kick + Flare Blitz, opening a world of unimaginable complexity. And nerfing a Pokemon by banning specific EV spreads would likely go even farther; I don't even want to try to figure out how many possibilities per Pokemon that would be.

It's clear where this goes from reasonably simple to unreasonably complex. So the new players are right - not because of their intuition, but because of the facts.

 

[SlimMan]

When it was thought that complex bans would be alienating to new players, that was seen as a reason not to use complex bans. With that in mind, now that it's clear that that that's not the case, and using a simple ban in this case is actually alienating to new players, we must instead deal with Blaziken by means of a complex ban. Whether they are right or not is not what is important here.

Wait, what? "Because this is alienating to new players, we have to use a complex ban". Thorhammer, I don't even want to think of where that logic leads.

I'm not going to get into another "official policy" argument with you, Thor, but we both know that nerfing a Pokemon into a certain tier has always been directly against Smogon philosophy. Now, I want you to explain to me why Blaziken should change that. I want to know why having Blaziken back is so important, especially given that it certainly won't be OU, and UU is irrelevant to this Suspect Test.

Someone said earlier that while our previous complex bans limited a team, this one (and item/moves/level) would limit a Pokemon, which was where to draw the line. I think that his distinction was a good one to make. The "slippery slope" argument has been ragged on in this thread, but I'd say it's happening right now, as some others have said. People were worried about doing an Ability + Ability ban, people thought even that was unacceptable. Now we have people suggesting Pokemon+Ability bans. I'm not one to type up a long and persuasive post, but I'd like to know why you think this ban would be important, and why you aren't worried about the (most likely) terrible implications it would have for future bans.

 

[Kingclown50]

Explain this: Blissey has been the most centralizing thing since RSE. No special attackers could beat the little bitch, until one day someone tricked a Choice Band onto her. She still beats most, if not all, special attackers to this day, but no one cares. Its not centralizing, because you can just attack it physically or Trick it. It survives most Outrages. There are plenty of good Trick Absorbers available.

Now, all of a sudden, Ferrothorn is broken. BUT YOU CAN TRICK IT!1!1!! Its 4x weak to Fire.

"Yeah, but it has Rain Support!"
So Ferrothorn isn't broken itself...
"No, it still is."
...

Why is Rain not getting blamed for being overcentralizing, along with Sand? Rain is only not completely broken because of sand, and vice-versa. The argument of "Let's not ban Drizzle because Rain Stall would be unviable!" is a joke to me. How about all of the playstyles Drizzle makes unviable? You can't run a decent non-weather team without having to use one of Excadril's few counters. Thats pretty overcentralizing right there. Oh, but then you run into a well made Drought team, and then THEY rape you because you had to counter Sand. Weather Wars are the most overcentralized thing OU has seen since RBY Psychics.

"Oh, but that's 5th Gen. Deal with it."

So weather is fine because its intended to be part of the game, so we should adapt to it instead of banning it. Ok that makes sense. Kind of. Individual Pokemon, however, were obviously not intended to be a part of the game. That's ok, we can ban them if they break the metagame.

The metagame should be free from any threat that can kill the majority of the metagame, can wall a majority of the metagame (Ferrothorn does not fit this description, by the way), or can effortlessly set up one of the above situations for a teammate. If you ask me, both Drizzle and Sand Stream fit 2/3 of those, if not definitely the 3rd one. They make the metagame a 3 playstyle reverse-clusterfuck (Rain Stall/Hurricane + Thunder Spam, SS Offense, and Other [Read: bad teams]).

The current metagame is full of hypocrisies and contradictions. You don't want to ban Excadril. You don't want to ban Sand Rush + Excadril. Ban Sand Stream + Sand Rush, like you did for Swift Swim. It seems like the metagame is allowing the "Idiot Proof" things (Latios, Excadril, etc.) because that's what the player base wants. The rules from the past, that spawned metagames most people enjoyed, are being ignored. Quite honestly, I have seen numerous viewpoints on every topic, from Blaziken, Banning, tiering, etc. People are protecting the things they can abuse the most easily, and attempting to ban the things they just don't like playing against. I have never seen so many Smogonites disapprove of something this much since "The Great Salamence Banning of 4th Gen". Quite honestly, I don't think anyone actually likes this weather situation. They either deal with it because they think they have to, or they just hate it. Period.

"Rain makes Blastoise, Toxicroak, and Ludicolo more viable in OU. Yay! It promotes variety!"

Variety isnt as important as having a balanced metagame with health competition. And this metagame is far from balanced. This metagame is more about who has the most weather users (Dual Sand Streamers), who gets the first crit on the opponent's weather user, and who anti-teams a certain weather the best.

 

[Ewil]

That's it !
Kingclown you take my thought in to words.
In a first time i was happy to see Toxicroak so powerful in rain (and finally in OU) but an hydro pump from a Starmie or a Rotom-w is too powerful .
And i hate the fact that loosing a single pokémon can compromise all the battle (ttar, toed, tales, hippo), yeah if i want to build a weather team i must think of 1-2 pokemons that can lives with or without the weather support but i loose part of the team by loosing a single mon(specially in the sun teams). I hoping that you get my thought.

EDIT: Note that we start banning things 'coz, the most part, are really insane in the weather, see Blaziken with sun, see now the multiple discussions on Garchomp in the sand, even Shaymin-s was damn good in rain.

 

[Alice]

The metagame should be free from any threat that can kill the majority of the metagame, can wall a majority of the metagame (Ferrothorn does not fit this description, by the way), or can effortlessly set up one of the above situations for a teammate. If you ask me, both Drizzle and Sand Stream fit 2/3 of those, if not definitely the 3rd one. They make the metagame a 3 playstyle reverse-clusterfuck (Rain Stall/Hurricane + Thunder Spam, SS Offense, and Other [Read: bad teams]).

The current metagame is full of hypocrisies and contradictions. You don't want to ban Excadril. You don't want to ban Sand Rush + Excadril. Ban Sand Stream + Sand Rush, like you did for Swift Swim. It seems like the metagame is allowing the "Idiot Proof" things (Latios, Excadril, etc.) because that's what the player base wants. The rules from the past, that spawned metagames most people enjoyed, are being ignored. Quite honestly, I have seen numerous viewpoints on every topic, from Blaziken, Banning, tiering, etc. People are protecting the things they can abuse the most easily, and attempting to ban the things they just don't like playing against. I have never seen so many Smogonites disapprove of something this much since "The Great Salamence Banning of 4th Gen". Quite honestly, I don't think anyone actually likes this weather situation. They either deal with it because they think they have to, or they just hate it. Period.

"Rain makes Blastoise, Toxicroak, and Ludicolo more viable in OU. Yay! It promotes variety!"

Variety isnt as important as having a balanced metagame with health competition. And this metagame is far from balanced. This metagame is more about who has the most weather users (Dual Sand Streamers), who gets the first crit on the opponent's weather user, and who anti-teams a certain weather the best.

If they ban both sand and rain, then sun will completely dominate. I'm using a "bad team" (aka - team with no weather inducer) and the only thing that I haven't been able to deal with in any way is CB victini under the sun. T-tar and politoed are among the only things able to "counter/wall it", without 'em it will wreak havoc like there's no tomorrow...

then of course we can ban sun, so hail will have its time (and kyurem become the usual suspect), then we'll be banning hail too...

so by this kind of logic, why don't we get rid of all the auto-weather pokemon for once and for all... -_-

 

[AlphaSpade]

Why is Rain not getting blamed for being overcentralizing, along with Sand? Rain is only not completely broken because of sand, and vice-versa. The argument of "Let's not ban Drizzle because Rain Stall would be unviable!" is a joke to me. How about all of the playstyles Drizzle makes unviable? You can't run a decent non-weather team without having to use one of Excadril's few counters. Thats pretty overcentralizing right there. Oh, but then you run into a well made Drought team, and then THEY rape you because you had to counter Sand. Weather Wars are the most overcentralized thing OU has seen since RBY Psychics.

If people want a completely different OU metagame that badly, then they should throw their support behind the clear skies metagame!!!!!

All joking aside, the problem with applying "ban anything that is broken" to weather is that there has not been a metagame in the past where all four weathers have been sandboxed in the same metagame, so naturally this is kinda of an unprecedented situation (whereas previously metagames were controlled by 1-2 pokes, this one is controlled by 3 weathers making things like Venusaur and Toxicroak OU). It's not that easy coming up with a solution that won't completely transform OU.

 

[Kingclown50]

@Alice That's exactly my point. You act like banning auto weather would be an unspeakable act of stupidity. It wouldn't be. Overcentralization was not a problem last gen with SS and Hail. Hail got nothing exciting, tbh, as Kyurem isn't going to break Hail. Less than 100 Speed, weak to Fighting, Rock, and (obviously) Dragon. And now there's a less electric weak Walrein (Regice). That's about it.

Sun IS broken. Rain and Sand are just more broken and ironically more subtle about it. (Nothing hits as hard as Darmanitan Flare Blitz in the Sun.). Banning all three would provide the most balanced metagame (I regularly play in a metagame with Drought, Drizzle, and Sand Stream banned/nerfed. I much rather enjoy playing in said metagame, where tons of more things are viable like). I wouldn't ban Sand Stream though. I would just ban Excadril (or his Sand Rush Ability if we decide to go that route) and Garchomp (or Sand Veil) and take it from there. Nerfing Sand is the trickiest choice we would have to make about weather. Harder than the other two, to single out whats broken, at least. I'm not perfect, but I think a sweeper nerf rather than the ability ban would make more sense in this case. (Bans should be case by case, and not by precedent. It's not altering the game's mechanics if you ban weather. You've already altered how the game is played by banning certain Pokemon and moves that break and overcentralize the metagame. [Rightfully so.] Ban weather, which has the same effect on the metagame.)

Would anyone be willing to find out how many of the top ~50 teams are weather teams, or dedicated anti-weather teams? I'm guessing it would be over 30, which is pretty damn high. If the only way you can win is to use Strategy/Pokemon X or Strategy/Pokemon X's small list of counters, then that Strategy/Pokemon is overcentralizing.

I repeat: Securing viability of playstyles is not worth overcentralizing the metagame. We never had any problem with OU last gen when Rain Stall wasn't viable. Why didn't we allow Level Balanced Kyogre and Groudon then, if those playstyles are so important?

I think all this mess about weather is coming down to laziness. Most everyone sees the metagame now, and don't particularly enjoy it, and are scared to ATTEMPT to try to make it better. Are you worried that people won't agree with you? That you'll make it worse? Prove to me and my supporters and fellow Anti-Weather Users that this metagame truly is balanced. Prove to us banning this clusterfuck of weather would be BAD for the metagame, and then take the opportunity to laugh at us if you end up being right. Unban the weather. But you have to make an effort to try to begin with.

 

[Mario With Lasers]

If they ban both sand and rain, then sun will completely dominate. I'm using a "bad team" (aka - team with no weather inducer) and the only thing that I haven't been able to deal with in any way is CB victini under the sun. T-tar and politoed are among the only things able to "counter/wall it", without 'em it will wreak havoc like there's no tomorrow...

then of course we can ban sun, so hail will have its time (and kyurem become the usual suspect), then we'll be banning hail too...

so by this kind of logic, why don't we get rid of all the auto-weather pokemon for once and for all... -_-

...Or we would ban Victini. And Sun becomes acceptable.

 

[Kingclown50]

Charizard can 2HKO most bulky waters with LO Fire Blast. It doesnt even need to predict and use Solarbeam...

Darmanitan can OHKO Gyarados, among other things with Flare Blitz

Lilligant, Venusaur, and Tangrowth can all sweep using Sleep Power + Growth/Quiver Dance.

Sun is very underrated right now, and would easily become broken upon ban of the other 2 dominant weathers. I would never use Victini simply due to its 40 less base attack than Darmanitan and Sucker Punch weakness. Victini would be the least of my worries when fighting Sun. It gets a kill/weakens a wall once and then has to switch or die. Darmanitan stays fast and bulky enough to survive some priority attacks thanks to 110 base HP.

 

[KurashiDragon]

...Or we would ban Victini. And Sun becomes acceptable.

Sun would take a hit but it'd be nowhere near acceptable. It'd just be another SwSw drizzle. Getting rid of something in an attempt to make weather managable. There are still a ton of abusers of sun out there. Even taking care of the top threat of weather doesn't change it to much. This is why I feel the proposal was mostly meaningless. (It did lessen the strength of drizzle a little bit.)

 

[AlphaSpade]

Banning all weather is beyond radical. Looking at the current statistics, removing weather would affect a majority of OU pokes.

| 1 | Ferrothorn | 127997 | 21.3582 | Lack of rain brings back his problem with Fire
| 2 | Tyranitar | 124735 | 20.8139 | Would have to be banned
| 3 | Scizor | 112589 | 18.7871 | Unaffected
| 4 | Garchomp | 109670 | 18.3000 | Can't pull off any SV Shenanigans
| 5 | Gliscor | 89599 | 14.9509 | Unaffected
| 6 | Latios | 78471 | 13.0940 | Unaffected
| 7 | Excadrill | 78095 | 13.0313 | Becomes dead weight.
| 8 | Reuniclus | 76510 | 12.7668 | Unaffected
| 9 | Heatran | 72800 | 12.1477 | Slightly Unaffected. No sun to boost Fire STAB
| 10 | Rotom-W | 69963 | 11.6744 | Slightly affected by the lost of rain
| 11 | Conkeldurr | 64134 | 10.7017 | Unaffected
| 12 | Jirachi | 62501 | 10.4292 | Slightly Unaffected
| 13 | Politoed | 61688 | 10.2935 | Would have to be banned
| 14 | Dragonite | 60079 | 10.0251 | Hurricane Sets become useless
| 15 | Thundurus | 57828 | 9.6495 | Not sure how much losing Thunder would hurt
| 16 | Gengar | 57689 | 9.6263 | Unaffected
| 17 | Jellicent | 54143 | 9.0346 | Unaffected
| 18 | Skarmory | 53975 | 9.0065 | Unaffected
| 19 | Volcarona | 52072 | 8.6890 | I think this one would actually benefit, with no sand/rain to fuck up Morning Sun
| 20 | Starmie | 49991 | 8.3417 | Specs becomes less scary, but otherwise unaffected
| 21 | Gyarados | 46153 | 7.7013 | Unaffected
| 22 | Hydreigon | 42618 | 7.1114 | Unaffected
| 23 | Forretress | 41393 | 6.9070 | Unaffected
| 24 | Blissey | 40940 | 6.8314 | Unaffected
| 25 | Infernape | 39458 | 6.5841 | Kinda unaffected
| 26 | Ninetales | 37550 | 6.2658 | Banned
| 27 | Vaporeon | 35047 | 5.8481 | lolHydraRest
| 28 | Salamence | 34864 | 5.8176 | Unaffected
| 29 | Breloom | 32410 | 5.4081 | Unaffected
| 30 | Chandelure | 31648 | 5.2809 | I guess the only reason people use this is sun?
| 31 | Scrafty | 31427 | 5.2441 | Unaffected
| 32 | Tentacruel | 31247 | 5.2140 | Would lose out on Rain Dish healing
| 33 | Metagross | 31188 | 5.2042 | Unaffected
| 34 | Terrakion | 31080 | 5.1862 | No Sp. Def boost, otherwise nothing significant
| 35 | Swampert | 30888 | 5.1541 | Unaffected
| 36 | Haxorus | 29906 | 4.9903 | Unaffected
| 37 | Lucario | 28559 | 4.7655 | Unaffected
| 38 | Cloyster | 28456 | 4.7483 | Unaffected?
| 39 | Hippowdon | 28282 | 4.7193 | Would have to be banned
| 40 | Magnezone | 27769 | 4.6337 | Unaffected?
| 41 | Deoxys-S | 27314 | 4.5577 | Unaffected
| 42 | Machamp | 26504 | 4.4226 | Unaffected
| 43 | Landorus | 26297 | 4.3880 | Ability becomes useless
| 44 | Whimsicott | 25583 | 4.2689 | Unaffected
| 45 | Latias | 25340 | 4.2284 | Unaffected
| 46 | Bronzong | 25206 | 4.2060 | Unaffected
| 47 | Mienshao | 24469 | 4.0830 | Unaffected
| 48 | Darmanitan | 23841 | 3.9782 | No nuclear Flare Blitz
| 49 | Toxicroak | 23494 | 3.9203 | Loses niche
| 50 | Virizion | 23124 | 3.8586 | Idk how this would be affected
| 51 | Venusaur | 21397 | 3.5704 | Loses Niche
| 52 | Porygon2 | 20833 | 3.4763 | Unaffected
| 53 | Tornadus | 20586 | 3.4351 | Loses niche

And that's not even taking into account all the non-OU pokemon like Parasect and Sawsbuck who would lose their niche.

 

[KurashiDragon]

Banning all weather is beyond radical. Looking at the current statistics, removing weather would affect a majority of OU pokes.

And that's not even taking into account all the non-OU pokemon like Parasect and Sawsbuck who would lose their niche.

| 1 | Ferrothorn | 127997 | 21.3582 | Lack of rain brings back his problem with Fire
Losing that fire weakness would actually make Ferrothorn better for the metagame. Right now it's borderline broken when combined with Rain. If rain were gone Ferrothorn probably wouldn't be as much of a problem.
| 2 | Tyranitar | 124735 | 20.8139 | Would have to be banned
| 3 | Scizor | 112589 | 18.7871 | Unaffected
| 4 | Garchomp | 109670 | 18.3000 | Can't pull off any SV Shenanigans
That would get rid of alot of arguments. I can see that this would be a good thing rather than a bad thing.
| 5 | Gliscor | 89599 | 14.9509 | Unaffected
| 6 | Latios | 78471 | 13.0940 | Unaffected
| 7 | Excadrill | 78095 | 13.0313 | Becomes dead weight.
I'll agree. If there we're no sandstorm Excadrill would most likely fall down to uu.
| 8 | Reuniclus | 76510 | 12.7668 | Unaffected
| 9 | Heatran | 72800 | 12.1477 | Slightly Unaffected. No sun to boost Fire STAB
I've never seen Heatran on a Sun team so I have no personal opinion in the matter but I believe losing sun wouldn't decrease his usage by the slightest.
| 10 | Rotom-W | 69963 | 11.6744 | Slightly affected by the lost of rain
I'll agree with this one too. Being able to resist Water while giving off double stab Hydro Pumps and Stab No-miss Thunders does make it viable on rain teams but I don't think it'd decrease to much if rain were gone. | 11 | Conkeldurr | 64134 | 10.7017 | Unaffected
| 12 | Jirachi | 62501 | 10.4292 | Slightly Unaffected
| 13 | Politoed | 61688 | 10.2935 | Would have to be banned
| 14 | Dragonite | 60079 | 10.0251 | Hurricane Sets become useless
Doesn't matter in the slightest. True it wouldn't have the rain set but Dragonite has a crap ton of other sets it can work with. It's an anti metagame pokemon after all. It won't be affected.
| 15 | Thundurus | 57828 | 9.6495 | Not sure how much losing Thunder would hurt
| 16 | Gengar | 57689 | 9.6263 | Unaffected
| 17 | Jellicent | 54143 | 9.0346 | Unaffected
| 18 | Skarmory | 53975 | 9.0065 | Unaffected
| 19 | Volcarona | 52072 | 8.6890 | I think this one would actually benefit, with no sand/rain to fuck up Morning Sun
Mabye this is me arguing for the sake of the argument but I'd disagree with you there. If it didn't have sun it couldn't abuse that cool Base SpA with Double STAB fire and Quiver Dance.
| 20 | Starmie | 49991 | 8.3417 | Specs becomes less scary, but otherwise unaffected
| 21 | Gyarados | 46153 | 7.7013 | Unaffected
| 22 | Hydreigon | 42618 | 7.1114 | Unaffected
| 23 | Forretress | 41393 | 6.9070 | Unaffected
| 24 | Blissey | 40940 | 6.8314 | Unaffected
| 25 | Infernape | 39458 | 6.5841 | Kinda unaffected
| 26 | Ninetales | 37550 | 6.2658 | Banned
| 27 | Vaporeon | 35047 | 5.8481 | lolHydraRest
Wish sets are just all around better.
| 28 | Salamence | 34864 | 5.8176 | Unaffected
| 29 | Breloom | 32410 | 5.4081 | Unaffected
| 30 | Chandelure | 31648 | 5.2809 | I guess the only reason people use this is sun?
Agree. Abusing that stupidly high SpA with Double Stab Fire Blast would be useful. Without it I'm pretty sure it would be uu.
| 31 | Scrafty | 31427 | 5.2441 | Unaffected
| 32 | Tentacruel | 31247 | 5.2140 | Would lose out on Rain Dish healing
I'll mostly agree with you on this one. Rain Dish is a good ability on a pokemon like Tentacruel and it'd be a shame if it couldn't use it anymore. However, losing Rain Dish wouldn't stop it from doing it's spinning job.
| 33 | Metagross | 31188 | 5.2042 | Unaffected
| 34 | Terrakion | 31080 | 5.1862 | No Sp. Def boost, otherwise nothing significant
| 35 | Swampert | 30888 | 5.1541 | Unaffected
| 36 | Haxorus | 29906 | 4.9903 | Unaffected
| 37 | Lucario | 28559 | 4.7655 | Unaffected
| 38 | Cloyster | 28456 | 4.7483 | Unaffected?
| 39 | Hippowdon | 28282 | 4.7193 | Would have to be banned
| 40 | Magnezone | 27769 | 4.6337 | Unaffected?
| 41 | Deoxys-S | 27314 | 4.5577 | Unaffected
| 42 | Machamp | 26504 | 4.4226 | Unaffected
| 43 | Landorus | 26297 | 4.3880 | Ability becomes useless
I actually think Landorus would be UU. It's used on alot of sand teams because of that ability. If sand we're to go I think it's usage would decrease below the line.
| 44 | Whimsicott | 25583 | 4.2689 | Unaffected
| 45 | Latias | 25340 | 4.2284 | Unaffected
| 46 | Bronzong | 25206 | 4.2060 | Unaffected
| 47 | Mienshao | 24469 | 4.0830 | Unaffected
| 48 | Darmanitan | 23841 | 3.9782 | No nuclear Flare Blitz
It might be UU. I can see that Double Stab Sheer Force Life Orb Flare Blitz is just OMGawd WTF HAX but it would find usefullness on other teams just because Flare Blitz Darmanitan is such a beast. It'd be hard to tell if wether or not this would be uu.
| 49 | Toxicroak | 23494 | 3.9203 | Loses niche
| 50 | Virizion | 23124 | 3.8586 | Idk how this would be affected
Unaffected. It can't really find a usefullness in any kind of weather. Mabye rain to get rid of that Fire Weakness.
| 51 | Venusaur | 21397 | 3.5704 | Loses Niche
UU
| 52 | Porygon2 | 20833 | 3.4763 | Unaffected
| 53 | Tornadus | 20586 | 3.4351 | Loses niche
Heh NU

In other words, 4 pokemon, in my opinion, would drop in usage to the point of changing their tier. The rest would be relatively unaffected and more pokemon would be allowed in OU because weather is gone. To me it would actually be a good thing if weather were gone. Then again, this is all just speculation.

 

[shrang]

Banning all weather is beyond radical. Looking at the current statistics, removing weather would affect a majority of OU pokes.

Invalid argument. We don't give a crap about how many Pokemon it affects. If it's broken, then it should be banned, no ifs or buts.

eg: When Garchomp was banned in gen 4, quite a number of Pokemon lost a big part of their niches (Weavile, Mamoswine, etc). Did we care? No.

 

[alphatron]

You've never seen a heatran on a sun team, Kurashi? Really? Heatran is one of sun's best pokemon and I know for a fact that I'm not the only one who uses it. Balloon Heatran 2HKO's 252/0 Swampert with fire blast in the sun. Flash fire heatran? Everything dies.

Please don't try to say that sun would become broken if other weathers left the tier...most of the chlorophyll pokemon are outsped by random choice scarf pokemon (not the same for popular swift swimmers. Thanks tangrowth) and none of them get a boosted STAB move outside of hidden power fire. If you want to talk about the fire pokemon they can use, that's another story.

I don't think sunlight was what pushed blaziken over the edge at all. If it was, then he wouldn't have been banned (sun and rain help latios muscle past his counters too). All sun did was give him added setup oppurtunity and added strength, as well as the ability to avoid being revenged by CB azumarill. But seeing how hard it is to keep sunlight up in comparison to any other weather, I found it kind of strange that a portion of the blaziken arguements made it seem like sun was the only weather in OU.

I like how Azumarill vanished after Blaziken's ban by the way.

 

[Nkululeko]

You've never seen a heatran on a sun team, Kurashi? Really? Heatran is one of sun's best pokemon and I know for a fact that I'm not the only one who uses it. Balloon Heatran 2HKO's 252/0 Swampert with fire blast in the sun. Flash fire heatran? Everything dies.

Agreed. Heatran is straight in a weather-less metagame but under sun it's kinda ridiculous lol.

Please don't try to say that sun would become broken if other weathers left the tier...most of the chlorophyll pokemon are outsped by random choice scarf pokemon (not the same for popular swift swimmers. Thanks tangrowth) and none of them get a boosted STAB move outside of hidden power fire. If you want to talk about the fire pokemon they can use, that's another story.

If Rain and Sand go I know there'd be a push for Sun to be banned but I don't find it Uber, sorry Ninetails. Sure, it's highly offensive and poses a serious threat with pokes like Darmanitan, Volcarona, Venasaur, etc. But the popularity of Scarfed revenge killers and SR kinda keep it in check and the other weathers are hard counters to it IMO. I'm not the biggest fan of weather in the meta but I think that the four (might as well be three in OU) weathers do keep each other in check.

I don't think sunlight was what pushed blaziken over the edge at all. If it was, then he wouldn't have been banned (sun and rain help latios muscle past his counters too). All sun did was give him added setup oppurtunity and added strength, as well as the ability to avoid being revenged by CB azumarill. But seeing how hard it is to keep sunlight up in comparison to any other weather, I found it kind of strange that a portion of the blaziken arguements made it seem like sun was the only weather in OU.

A "portion" of Smogon will always be wrong, or misinformed. Blaziken was great in the Sun but had a great STAB in HJK that made weather almost a non-issue for it. For the record, Ninetails keeps Sun from being broken. It's not fun to abuse weather when your weather starter is SR weak.

I like how Azumarill vanished after Blaziken's ban by the way.

It's services were no longer required.

 

[Rosey Oak]

alphatron: "Please don't try to say that sun would become broken if other weathers left the tier...most of the chlorophyll pokemon are outsped by random choice scarf pokemon (not the same for popular swift swimmers. Thanks tangrowth) and none of them get a boosted STAB move outside of hidden power fire."

With just 8 speed EV investments Venasaur can outrun base 130 speed Pokemon (such as jolteon). Lilligant on the other hand needs no speed EVs to outrun the above (216 no EV investment). Which makes it clear that with just a tad more speed EV investment, it is near by impossible to revenge kill through the use of Choice Scarf.

Additionally, although Choice scarfers gained a 1.5 speed boost, it was made balanced by the fact that they can't switch between thier moves. On the other hand, Chlorophyll Pokemon get a x2 speed boost and full access to all moves. Not only that but with drought this speed boost is made permanent.

Yes, chlorophyll sweepers doesn't get the stab water boost like drizzle water types, but they do get access to a stab base 120 solarbeam with 100% acc. (I am aware that this is not as good as the water stab boost but none the less this doesn't mean drought isn't broken.)

I don't feel like rambling now so I'll get straight to the point. I completely agree with KingClown on the points he has made about weather being over centralizing. Additionally, Kurashi has made many valid points too, ok he was wrong about the Heatran thing, but the point of his whole argument wasn't aimed at the OPness of drought Heatran, it was about how the lack of weather won't effect most of the OU usage statistics =/ would anyone care to comment on that instead?

 

[Raikaria]

[On topic of Azumarill]

It's services were no longer required.

That couldn't be much more wrong.

Azumarill can tear Sand teams apart, and rip a hole in Rain teams.

Superpower, Aqua Jet and Waterfall. Enough said. Tyranitar can't come in, Waterfall and Superpower would rip it a new one. Excadrill dies, Landlos dies, Garchomp dosen't like the STABS or Ice Punch, Ferrothorn dies to Superpower unless it's heavily invested in physical defense [Making it vunerable to special attackers], making the Rain team lose their only pivot 99% of the time.

People just thought that Azumarill's work is done with Blaziken gone, if anything, Azumarill became better, because there's somewhat less Sun floating in the sky. [Azumarill can't OHKO Blaziken under the Sun, BTW]

Sometimes, I wager that between Azumarill and Rotom-W/Thunderus/Ferrothorn, both dominant weathers are stopped dead, unless the player knows what they are doing.

 

[Kingclown50]

Invalid argument. We don't give a crap about how many Pokemon it affects. If it's broken, then it should be banned, no ifs or buts.

eg: When Garchomp was banned in gen 4, quite a number of Pokemon lost a big part of their niches (Weavile, Mamoswine, etc). Did we care? No.

QFT

Anyway Alpha, most of the things you listed that benefit from weather would make the metagame actually MORE balanced, not less. (Ferrothorn, Garchomp, Volcarona, etc) Like shrang said, if its broken ban it. And Rain, Sand, and Sun are all broken. It's just hard to tell due to how weather works. They kinda pseudo-counter each other, but they still can beat the majority of other teams that don't pack hard counters for every possible sweeper for a weather. (Yeah, you have to counter Excadril, Zapdos, Dragonite, Darmanitan, Garchomp, Venusaur, Heatran, Charizard, Toxicroak, Tyranitar, etc. AND still be able to beat them and other teams. I don't think I can think of 6 Pokemon that counter all weather [unless of course one of them is Politoed, Hippowdon, Tyranitar, or Ninetales] and can beat ALL weather and can beat non-weather teams.)

I do not think a metagame where a well prepared weather team beats a well made non-weather team well over half the time is balanced or fair. It should be close to 50-50 in that case, plus or minus 1-2 wins.

 

[Kinglypuff]

Weather shouldn't be banned. Yes, it's a real threat to be recognized, yes, some pokemon become absolute monsters under it, but there are lots of ways to deal with it. The best exemple is Virizion wich can effectively be played against most of the sand and rain team. Excadrill's movepool is limited and has difficult times against Gliscor, Quagsire, or even Hitmontop. It can be revenges by Azumarill, Balloon heatran or Terrakion...
Each threat in weather has counters (Thundurus has only checks however), so a well prepared team should be able to deal with it.

In addition of that, removing weather is removing an entire part of the metagame... and I find it sad.

 

[capefeather]

When it was thought that complex bans would be alienating to new players, that was seen as a reason not to use complex bans. etc.

Not that I personally relied too much on this argument, but I think that you're misinterpreting it. The "general new player" will have lots of different barriers to entry that make absolutely no sense to address: their favourite Pokémon not being good for battling, good Pokémon being used very often, ZOMG LEGENDARIES IN MAH OU/UU, and other "intuitions" given to them by the game developers/interface. I'm fairly certain that most "general new players" are just going to have to read Playing to Win and deal with it or leave. On the other hand, we can reasonably consider a (probably) small subset of these players: new players who want to play the actual game. Ultimately, they'll need to shed the flavour-based reasoning that has been ingrained into them, including how abilities are portrayed in comparison to items and such. Once that is done, they still need to learn all of the different complexities of the game: a legitimate barrier to entry. It's not sensible to add another complexity to a game that's already needlessly complex without very good reason, in that many of the complexities actually add little to nothing to the competitive quality of the game.

Nerfing a Pokemon by banning an ability only opens up 2-3 possibilities per Pokemon. Nerfing a Pokemon by banning a move or item on that Pokemon opens up 50+ possibilities per Pokemon.

I find it bothersome that people would be willing to distinguish mechanically identical gameplay features in this way, but that's just what I think about it...

 

[Kingclown50]

Weather shouldn't be banned. Yes, it's a real threat to be recognized, yes, some pokemon become absolute monsters under it, but there are lots of ways to deal with it. The best exemple is Virizion wich can effectively be played against most of the sand and rain team. Excadrill's movepool is limited and has difficult times against Gliscor, Quagsire, or even Hitmontop. It can be revenges by Azumarill, Balloon heatran or Terrakion...
Each threat in weather has counters (Thundurus has only checks however), so a well prepared team should be able to deal with it.

In addition of that, removing weather is removing an entire part of the metagame... and I find it sad.

Something having counters doesn't automatically mean it's not broken (insert cliche Kyogre vs Quagsire/Gastrondon argument here). If the only way to win is to use a certain Pokemon/Straategy or that certain Pokemon/Strategy's small (emphasis on small) list of "counters," then that Pokemon/Strategy is overcentralizing and should be banned. Having to anti-team weather to be successful in this metagame isn't making me want to leave it the way it is.

 

[Blue_Star]

I tought "broken" was the definition of a pokemon who had few/no counters or could beat its counters. Anyways, I agree with kinglypuff and I don't think weather itself deserves a ban because it's one of the 5th gen marks and the metagame would take a big hit with weather banned. And it is, imo, pretty easy to counter.

 

[Kingclown50]

I tought "broken" was the definition of a pokemon who had few/no counters or could beat its counters.

Are you suggesting that Excadril, Charizard, and Thunderous have many counters and/or can't occasionally beat their counters?

Excadrill beats Skarmory with a Rock Slide flinch. One Flinch. Not the best way to beat a counter, but its going to happen 20% of the time.

Nothing can safely switch into SP Charizard. Nothing. Politoed is 2HKO'd with Specs Air Slash, and even if Charizard uses LO, offensive Politoed is still always 2HKOd with SR.

Thunderous has no counters period. it just has too many options to take down things. Taunt, Hammer Arm, Sub Stall with Prankster and Toxic/Torment/etc.

ffs Excadril could even run HP Ice to beat Gliscor. With Naive (there are no common special priority moves, and you lose to Vaccum Wave anyway) Gliscor takes a minimum of 55% from a 4 SpA HP Ice. Toxic Orb activates, and does not heal. Gliscor uses Protect as Drilly HP Ices/SD's. So now Gliscor is at a maximum of 57%. Barring another successful Protect or another very bad damage roll, Excadrill finishes the 2HKO. Team Preview lets you confidently attack with HP Ice knowing there is a Gliscor waiting.

They CAN beat their counters. So yeah, by that definition, they ARE broken.