np: OU Suspect Testing Round 4 - Blaze of Glory

[SlimMan]

I'm pretty sure Azumarrill is a straight counter to Excadrill. Azumarrill has the bulk to take an Earthquake.

In order to take a +2 Adamant Balloon Earthquake, it has to invest in a hell of a lot of bulk (practically Max/Max and a boosting nature). Even then, it can still die with Stealth Rock up.
Plus, Azumarill should always use Max Attack and Adamant nature. It's simply not worth it to use Azumarill if you don't. But it can't take the hit by doing that. Azumarill shouldn't be trying to counter Excadrill. It should stick to OHKOing it with Aqua Jet.

----------
I agree that if Sand Veil Chomp is found too haxy for voters' comfort (or if he's actually, y'know, broken), then we definitely ban Garchomp, not Sand Veil Garchomp. Even the "it's uncompetitive" people couldn't make an argument for banning Sand Veil Garchomp, because they'd be dealing with a single Pokemon, not the whole thing which is "uncompetitive" (Geez, I hate that word).

 

[Alice]

In order to take a +2 Adamant Balloon Earthquake, it has to invest in a hell of a lot of bulk (practically Max/Max and a boosting nature). Even then, it can still die with Stealth Rock up.
Plus, Azumarill should always use Max Attack and Adamant nature. It's simply not worth it to use Azumarill if you don't. But it can't take the hit by doing that. Azumarill shouldn't be trying to counter Excadrill. It should stick to OHKOing it with Aqua Jet.

Azumarill doesn't need to take a +2 EQ to counter Excadrill. He'll be switching in while 'drill Sword dances, or at least is going to take a normal EQ, and then threaten with Aqua Jet .

 

[SlimMan]

Azumarill doesn't need to take a +2 EQ to counter Excadrill. He'll be switching in while 'drill Sword dances, or at least is going to take a normal EQ, and then threaten with Aqua Jet .

I don't where I thought Excadrill was getting that +2 from. Yeah, I was, for some reason, assuming Excadrill would come in at +2 (maybe I faced one too many Baton Pass teams? o.0)
You're right. Just another counter to list when people ask, I guess.

 

[Thorhammer]

In order to take a +2 Adamant Balloon Earthquake, it has to invest in a hell of a lot of bulk (practically Max/Max and a boosting nature). Even then, it can still die with Stealth Rock up.
Plus, Azumarill should always use Max Attack and Adamant nature. It's simply not worth it to use Azumarill if you don't. But it can't take the hit by doing that. Azumarill shouldn't be trying to counter Excadrill. It should stick to OHKOing it with Aqua Jet.

----------
I agree that if Sand Veil Chomp is found too haxy for voters' comfort (or if he's actually, y'know, broken), then we definitely ban Garchomp, not Sand Veil Garchomp. Even the "it's uncompetitive" people couldn't make an argument for banning Sand Veil Garchomp, because they'd be dealing with a single Pokemon, not the whole thing which is "uncompetitive" (Geez, I hate that word).

Sand Veil Garchomp is not the problem. Sand Veil everything is the problem.

When a problem is inherent to an ability and almost or completely independent of the Pokemon that might have it, then and only then must the ability alone be addressed, not the Pokemon in any form. This is one such case. The only thing that differentiates Garchomp from other Sand Veil and Snow Cloak Pokemon is that it's the most viable in OU, but as I've explained so many times before, this is not just about OU. It's about dealing with a group of uncompetitive Pokemon throughout OU, UU, NU, and any more tiers between them. All of the tiers are equally important, and therefore Garchomp, Cacturne, Froslass, and everything else are equally important, and must be dealt with equally: by preventing practical use of the ability, not be banning entire Pokemon.

 

[shrang]

Sand Veil Garchomp is not the problem. Sand Veil everything is the problem.

What? I haven't heard ANYONE complaining about Sand Veil Sandslash, or Sand Veil Gliscor, Sand Veil Dugtrio or even Sand Veil Cacturne. True, the first three have better abilities to abuse, but Sand Veil isn't broken on them, and I'm quite sure most people would agree. Even Sand Veil Cacturne, who primarily runs hax sets, isn't hard to deal with due to how crap it is (No-one has complained about Sand Veil Cacturne, apart from that one random guy who loses to it every now and then and rages about it).

 

[hamiltonion]

I agree with Shrang. Sand Veil Garchomp is more of a problem than the others for the express reason because a Sand Veil miss on Gliscor isnt going to cost you a match. But if youre playing a remotely skilled opponent, a Sand Veil miss on Garchomp could be critical, what with Substitute, SD and the awesome Speed Sand Veil Chomp needs to go.

 

[Yoshiken]

It's about dealing with a group of uncompetitive Pokemon throughout OU, UU, NU, and any more tiers between them.

a group of uncompetitive Pokemon throughout OU, UU, NU

uncompetitive Pokemon

uncompetitive

Can I scream now?
Seriously, just look back a couple of pages on the post someone else made regarding this. Or take a look through the "Uncompetitive and overcentralisation" topic.

To anyone else looking at Sand Veil/Garchomp/SS+SV, can we please just look at Garchomp? Nothing else is broken, which is the most important thing here, and Aldaron's proposal included an explicit rule that it would be the only complex ban - the line was drawn before we even started this round of testing. Sand Veil being banned would lead to Garchomp+friends being banned completely from every tier in Gen 4. Is that seriously the best move for every metagame? (Remember, evasion-banning isn't just relevant to Gen 5, it's a retrospective ban with clauses.)

I'm going to say outright now that nothing is broken. When I can get top 1000 in the rankings with none of the weather starters/Starmie/genies/Latios/Excadrill/FerroCent/SkarmBliss then I think it has to be a pretty balanced metagame, honestly. >.> Everything has a decent enough number of answers, even if they're just checks, and nothing stands out as being stupidly powerful/supportive.

 

[wicked_cj13]

Ok, let me sum why I think certain things should be banned.


Garchomp - Garchomp with sand veil has been proven to be way to luck based. A player comes in and subs until they get a free turn in which most cases they do. It gets +2 and there is not much you can do after that except bring in something to wall it, but even then it still damages a team pretty badly.

Excadrill - This is THE best late game sweeper, if people aren't using rain or sun, they are most likely using Excadrill. Paired with Balloon and an almost unbeatable speed stat, it sets up on the opposing pokemon while they break the balloon. Not much to say after that.

Drizzle - Rain teams are pretty much autopilot after they bring in politoed. People run ferrothorn, double genies (Tornadus and Thundurus) in rain. Tornadus can just spam a 100% accurate Hurricane, and there isn't a lot of things that can switch in safely. It honestly takes no skill to bring in toad and then a rain abuser, which is the case with all weather teams.


Latios - Specs Draco spam, no safe switch ins!


The things that I dislike most about these "suspects", is that they really limit team-building in the aspect of you always have to have a counter or check for these guys, if not your team will most likely lose.


top 1000 without using any standard isn't anything special.

 

[Requiem[9]]

What? I haven't heard ANYONE complaining about Sand Veil Sandslash, or Sand Veil Gliscor, Sand Veil Dugtrio or even Sand Veil Cacturne. True, the first three have better abilities to abuse, but Sand Veil isn't broken on them, and I'm quite sure most people would agree. Even Sand Veil Cacturne, who primarily runs hax sets, isn't hard to deal with due to how crap it is (No-one has complained about Sand Veil Cacturne, apart from that one random guy who loses to it every now and then and rages about it).

I have lost to Sand Veil Cacturne before. Granted, it was in gen 4, but the point is that nobody should ever lose to a Cacturne when they have a healthy Heatran, Scizor, and Suicune left on their team. Granted, that will happen only one out of ten or so games and the fact that player has a Cacturne on his team will lose him the other nine, but the point is that Cacturne shouldn't win any games. Similarly, it can't be fun missing against something like Specs Glaceon. While, objectively, those pokes go from awful to just bad and only Garchomp goes from good to broken, it's the same principle as Inconsistent: it's not going to win many games, but it will win games it does undeservedly. I mean, it's not a big deal if Sand Veil's legal and Garchomp is banned since it won't effect high-level play at all and is much more aesthetically pleasing, but -- with the advent of Dream World abilities -- I think it's reasonable to just remove the option.

 

[reachzero]

Due to the extensive period(s) of server downtime, we'll be extending the testing period deadline to 11:59 PM EDT June 4th. All the other dates will be moved back accordingly.

 

[Shiny Crobat]

Ok, let me sum why I think certain things should be banned.


Garchomp - Garchomp with sand veil has been proven to be way to luck based. A player comes in and subs until they get a free turn in which most cases they do. It gets +2 and there is not much you can do after that except bring in something to wall it, but even then it still damages a team pretty badly.

Excadrill - This is THE best late game sweeper, if people aren't using rain or sun, they are most likely using Excadrill. Paired with Balloon and an almost unbeatable speed stat, it sets up on the opposing pokemon while they break the balloon. Not much to say after that.

Drizzle - Rain teams are pretty much autopilot after they bring in politoed. People run ferrothorn, double genies (Tornadus and Thundurus) in rain. Tornadus can just spam a 100% accurate Hurricane, and there isn't a lot of things that can switch in safely. It honestly takes no skill to bring in toad and then a rain abuser, which is the case with all weather teams.


Latios - Specs Draco spam, no safe switch ins!


The things that I dislike most about these "suspects", is that they really limit team-building in the aspect of you always have to have a counter or check for these guys, if not your team will most likely lose.


top 1000 without using any standard isn't anything special.

Blissey?

 

[jrp]

I have lost to Sand Veil Cacturne before. Granted, it was in gen 4, but the point is that nobody should ever lose to a Cacturne when they have a healthy Heatran, Scizor, and Suicune left on their team. Granted, that will happen only one out of ten or so games and the fact that player has a Cacturne on his team will lose him the other nine, but the point is that Cacturne shouldn't win any games. Similarly, it can't be fun missing against something like Specs Glaceon. While, objectively, those pokes go from awful to just bad and only Garchomp goes from good to broken, it's the same principle as Inconsistent: it's not going to win many games, but it will win games it does undeservedly. I mean, it's not a big deal if Sand Veil's legal and Garchomp is banned since it won't effect high-level play at all and is much more aesthetically pleasing, but -- with the advent of Dream World abilities -- I think it's reasonable to just remove the option.

A cacturne that's played successfully doesn't nesecarilly need to rely on sand veil. You can still get that Swords Dance in and OHKO a ton of things with Sucker Punch. However, I agree that losing to pokemon that rely on sand veil is a problem. Plus, how the heck does suicine wall Cacturne? I understand that it can Ice Beam it, but Cacturne's STAB is super effective, and if Cacturne is a behind a sub, then it's hardly the opponents fault if you let your Suicune take a Seed Bomb

 

[Yoshiken]

All to Wicked CJ:
Garchomp: There's a lot of big threats that outspeed Chomp, so they can't just sub until they get a free turn. Even then, they have a 20% chance. Assuming Leftovers, that means they get 5 turns. That's a 2/3 chance of missing over 5 turns. ono, they might kill one Pokemon by spamming Sub. So you bring in something else that's faster/Scarfed.
Not arguing that it's completely unquestionable, just that 'luck-based' isn't a problem if it doesn't make it broken, and being able to Sub repeatedly until the opponent misses isn't enough on its own unless it can reliably kill off multiple threats.

Excadrill... I did have trouble with Excadrill originally, I'll admit. That said, there are a hell of a lot of priority users around, and it only takes any two of them to kill Exca, generally. (Not to mention that not every team runs TTar/Hippo, so it's not really "if people aren't using rain or sun, they are most likely using Excadrill.")

Drizzle is the one that I absolutely cannot agree with in your summary. Yes, it might be broken, honestly. I've not had enough experience with it to say. However, the fact that it is 'pretty much autopilot' or 'takes no skill' has absolutely no impact on whether or not it should be banned. Tornadus has the same issue Chomp has in that it is relatively easy to revenge-kill with pretty much any Scarfer, and if Tornadus is broken in rain then argue that Tornadus is broken, not Drizzle. Nothing else on the team is broken - idly, I've faced more DNite in rain than Tornadus, but I think that's better at it, if anything.

Latios: No safe switch ins! Except for Ferrothorn. Or Scizor. Or Tyranitar. Or possibly even Blissey or Jellicent. And they're only some of the most common Pokes in the meta, it's not like they're specific counters or anything.

Having to have a counter to the biggest threats is a standard for any game. That is like arguing that Whimsicott is broken because it forces you to run some offensive Pokemon or otherwise lose - stall/phaze teams hate Whimsicott, but then it just means they need an answer to Whimsicott.

Just because something doesn't have a specific switch-in/counter, it doesn't make it broken. (Hi Wobbuffet!)

 

[capefeather]

I think that people are kind of overreacting to Thorhammer's statement, though I fundamentally disagree with it, too. His statement is just "evasion is bad => ban as much evasion as possible".

 

[AlphaSpade]

It's about dealing with a group of uncompetitive Pokemon throughout OU, UU, NU, and any more tiers between them. All of the tiers are equally important, and therefore Garchomp, Cacturne, Froslass, and everything else are equally important, and must be dealt with equally: by preventing practical use of the ability, not be banning entire Pokemon.

I operate under the belief that "uncompetitive" and "broken" are synonymous. So I feel that for Sand Veil/Snow Cloak to be banned, the listed pokemon all have to be able to make misses very costly for a team. Technically, Garchomp's the only one that falls into that category. If you're team loses to Cacturne, then it must've been a really bad team to begin with (come on, where's the Skarm or the Scizor). Against Cacturne and Sandslash, a miss isn't gonna cost you, as even after a SD, their speeds are too terrible to take advantage. Really, I'd want to see logs of the afformentioned pokemon tearing up well built teams with Sand Veil shenanigans.

 

[Nonary Game]

If the ability breaks every Pokemon using it, ban the ability.
If the pokemon is broken for any reason (ability, etc), ban the Pokemon.

In any case, it seems that Sand Veil only fantastically "breaks" Garchomp so to speak. Having a miss against SV Gliscor, SV Sandslash, etc won't quite cost you a game, whereas with Garchomp, Substitute/Sand Veil means it can just force a miss, as with 80% accuracy, it's likely you eventually WILL miss an attack. From there it can just Swords Dance and proceed to cut your team in half. Just have something to get rid of Skarmory and Balloon users and you're golden in any case.

Sure, Garchomp isn't quite as fast as everything like it used to be, but Sand Veil is what puts him over the edge for me personally. I'll be honest and say that Garchomp is the one thing that immediately makes me start figuring out a plan for dealing with him. No other Pokemon forces me into this. Most people know that Latios will probably be some Choice variant, and thus predictable to an extent. Garchomp is arguably less predictable because you can't even tell what set it's running until it's got a plan going. It could just substitute, swords dance as a straight sweeper, and be a choice variant (I've seen Banded and Scarfed variants) at the least.

I just outright hate Garchomp period. Bastard's warped the metagame about as much as Ferrothorn. At least Ferrothorn isn't a massive threat. Excellent physical wall/supporter though.

 

[jrp]

If the ability breaks every Pokemon using it, ban the ability.
If the pokemon is broken for any reason (ability, etc), ban the Pokemon.

In any case, it seems that Sand Veil only fantastically "breaks" Garchomp so to speak. Having a miss against SV Gliscor, SV Sandslash, etc won't quite cost you a game, whereas with Garchomp, Substitute/Sand Veil means it can just force a miss, as with 80% accuracy, it's likely you eventually WILL miss an attack. From there it can just Swords Dance and proceed to cut your team in half. Just have something to get rid of Skarmory and Balloon users and you're golden in any case.

Sure, Garchomp isn't quite as fast as everything like it used to be, but Sand Veil is what puts him over the edge for me personally. I'll be honest and say that Garchomp is the one thing that immediately makes me start figuring out a plan for dealing with him. No other Pokemon forces me into this. Most people know that Latios will probably be some Choice variant, and thus predictable to an extent. Garchomp is arguably less predictable because you can't even tell what set it's running until it's got a plan going. It could just substitute, swords dance as a straight sweeper, and be a choice variant (I've seen Banded and Scarfed variants) at the least.

I just outright hate Garchomp period. Bastard's warped the metagame about as much as Ferrothorn. At least Ferrothorn isn't a massive threat. Excellent physical wall/supporter though.

The thing that pisses me off the most about Garchomp is that it can avoid the attack of my counter and KO it. I've been reduced to running Choice Scarf Cloyster to get rid of the Substitute variants, and when Icicle Spear misses...

And to be honest, the number of sets Chomp can run makes it impossible to have a specific counter. Ferrothorn gets hit by a fire move, ect.

The thing about sand veil/snow cloak is that other pokemon aren't really broken. Sure Frosslass has it, but what can frosslass do? Glaceon is iffy because of that massive special attack, and Cacturne is fairly threatening, but none of them stack up to Garchomp, tbh

 

[Joel]

In order to take a +2 Adamant Balloon Earthquake, it has to invest in a hell of a lot of bulk (practically Max/Max and a boosting nature). Even then, it can still die with Stealth Rock up.
Plus, Azumarill should always use Max Attack and Adamant nature. It's simply not worth it to use Azumarill if you don't. But it can't take the hit by doing that. Azumarill shouldn't be trying to counter Excadrill. It should stick to OHKOing it with Aqua Jet.

Brave works just fine (in Trick Room). Just sayin'.

I agree that if Sand Veil Chomp is found too haxy for voters' comfort (or if he's actually, y'know, broken), then we definitely ban Garchomp, not Sand Veil Garchomp. Even the "it's uncompetitive" people couldn't make an argument for banning Sand Veil Garchomp, because they'd be dealing with a single Pokemon, not the whole thing which is "uncompetitive" (Geez, I hate that word).

Speaking of stuff like Trick Room. Alot of people say teams such as Trick Room, and even Gravity are nothing more than gimmicks. Wanna know what those gimmicks can counter more times, than not? Stuff like Excadrill and Garchomp (or any other speed related Poke abilties via Trick Room, or evasion abilities via Gravity.)

Some people call these gimmicks, but they really do counter most of the things I have seen being complained about in this thread (Sand Veil, Sand Rush, ect.).

This is some of the reasons stuff like Trick Room and Gravity exist in batling. To make stuff like Excadrill and Garchomp non-issues.

Niether Excadrill or 'Chomp are broken. 'Chomp wasn't even broken in Gen. 4 (imo). People need to just battle a little smarter.

 

[Kingclown50]

Niether Excadrill or 'Chomp are broken. 'Chomp wasn't even broken in Gen. 4 (imo). People need to just battle a little smarter.

And if by play smarter you mean devote half of your team to solely killing Garchomp and then losing when one of your attacks misses, then yeah, I see where you're coming from.

Excadrill isn't THAT broken, but it still can effortlessly sweep teams when you get rid of the sole "counter" the opponent is using (teams can't afford to run multiple counters towards Excadrill when there's shit like Dragonite, Conk, and Thundurus running around. Sure, another check maybe, but not another counter).

(July 2010 Stats)
Heatran is used a lot less this gen, majorly due to weather. (Rain, Excadrill outspeeds Scarf, etc.)

Lucario is nowhere near as much as in 4th Gen, due to weather.
14 | Lucario | 119072 | 12.25 | (then)
vs
37 | Lucario | 28559 | 4.7655 | (now)

Gyarados fell 14% in usage.

Abomasnow has fallen 50-some spots from last gen to this gen, completely erasing the viability of hail teams in OU.

Sure, 156 more Pokemon contributed to that (such as in Gyarados' case) but the addition of weather has negatively impacted usage, more so than any changed metagame in the past. Pokemon are judged solely on how they compete with weather sweepers. If it loses to more than one regularly, it sucks. End of story. No one uses it.

If viability of previously-unviable Pokemon is an argument to NOT ban weather, shouldn't it work the other way around as well? Weather has made some of last gen's top threats (ignore Aboma; different example) borderline dangerous to use without weather around it. Heatran is useless in rain. Its nearly useless in sand. I say pick one of the sides, and stick with it, not change it whenever the exact same argument works against it.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

If the ability breaks every Pokemon using it, ban the ability.
If the pokemon is broken for any reason (ability, etc), ban the Pokemon.

Thank you.
Really, why does it have to get any more complex than this?

 

[Aquamentus]

Excadrill... I did have trouble with Excadrill originally, I'll admit. That said, there are a hell of a lot of priority users around, and it only takes any two of them to kill Exca, generally.

...So nowadays it's become acceptable to have to go that far to kill something? Why do we even have a banlist, then?

Last gen, you would ban a Pokemon if you had to devote 2 team slots to counter it in order to not get swept, and priority was not considered countering. Hell, you banned a Pokemon because it forced you to use Pursuit on every team, and I was happy about that (Latias). This whole "nobody cares if it's uncounterable as long as you can check it" thing and the "metagame revolves around 3-4 cookie cutter teams" thing doesn't feel like the Smogon I knew. I guess it's more gen 5's fault than any particular group's, though, you're just going with the flow. If you're having fun here, fine.


(I can counter Blaziken with Slowbro, Zekrom and Kyogre with Ferrothorn, and kill Darkrai with Conkeldurr or Heracross! Obviously OU material)

 

[R_N]

Sure, 156 more Pokemon contributed to that (such as in Gyarados' case) but the addition of weather has negatively impacted usage, more so than any changed metagame in the past. Pokemon are judged solely on how they compete with weather sweepers. If it loses to more than one regularly, it sucks. End of story. No one uses it. \

But now other Pokemon are in usage where the older ones are so can you really say it negatively impacts usage?

Things are always going to replace other things and all

 

[Pocket]

And if by play smarter you mean devote half of your team to solely killing Garchomp and then losing when one of your attacks misses, then yeah, I see where you're coming from.

By playing smart, he means to use your head. Think outside the box. Have you read his examples? Know the metagame, deal with the problem, and alleviate the issue.

 

[Kingclown50]

By playing smart, he means to use your head. Think outside the box. Have you read his examples? Know the metagame, deal with the problem, and alleviate the issue.

In that specific example, he's saying Garchomp was not/is not broken with Sand Veil because players are not playing smart. That's irrelevant. Someone could have a team of Froslass, Scarf Cloyster, Weaville, Mamoswine, Starmie, and Scizor, and STILL get swept by Garchomp. And even if that much hax would never happen, neither would that team. Sand Veil (on Garchomp, not any others) is taking the game out of the opponent's hands any time Garchomp uses Sub. If you miss once, you still have a (slim) chance depending on how you played up to that point. If you miss twice, you're fucked.

Garchomp was and still is broken due to Sand Veil. (Especially if Brightpower is...)

 

[Matthew]

Alright, I want everyone to stop saying BrightPowder makes Sand Veil worse. Okay? It needs to stop! Statistically Leftovers is more useful than BrightPowder -- you get one more sub, and have a higher chance of getting a miss or more misses (when sand is up).

So, please, everyone stop saying BrightPowder makes it worse -- if you want to ban things because it makes sand veil worse then ban Leftovers. Gosh.