I just like to say I also got to about #20 with a non-weather team, although I abandoned it after I lost like 10 matches in a row, all the while realising how horrible it was against stall =D.
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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 4 - Blaze of Glory
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I just like to say I also got to about #20 with a non-weather team, although I abandoned it after I lost like 10 matches in a row, all the while realising how horrible it was against stall =D.
haha what a coincidence thats my main problem with non weather teams too. Btw SJ I might have some logs somewhere against weather teams if you still wanted to read them. No logs of me 6-0ing people sorry (since I don't bother logging battles like that) but still decent, even battles. Il put them up later today if you still care
I have no idea why you people are trying to propagandize this thread into believing that weather isn't neccessary. It's pretty much impossible to create a strategy around beating each individual weather, vastly different from each other, without disrupting it yourself.
And this is coming from someone who is rank 3. Probably going to sound like an elitist here but any team that peaks below rank 10 shouldn't be used to emphatically state something about the metagame.
And this is coming from someone who is rank 3. Probably going to sound like an elitist here but any team that peaks below rank 10 shouldn't be used to emphatically state something about the metagame.
Someone doesn't know that his sample size is way too small o_0
And no, my team wasn't handled rain and sand fairly well, and that was quite a big part of the metagame at the time. I had more problems with sun and especially stall, but having checked rain and sand meant the team was relatively safe against a lot of the metagame.
Sample sizes play into statistics a lot different when analyzing a ladder system. If 9 of the top 10 teams get there using weather, it's pretty statistically accurate to assume weather is neccessary in the metagame, and discount the 10th team as an outlier.
Of course you're logically going to beef up your side of the argument. That's how a person wins an argument. But my point is that if you're wanting a ban, then you really need an objective look at the thing in question, to make sure the ban would be right.Nululeko said:
And this is a good point, except for one thing. That says nothing about dealing with Politoed. Of course teammates can eliminate the things which beat Politoed. The same applies to Excadrill, Salamence, etc.
But you didn't say anything about how Politoed doesn't get killed somewhat easily, which is the point in question. I'm saying that Politoed has plenty of revenge killers and safe switch-ins, which can be dealt with by teammates, but help show that Toed isn't a game-breaking powerhouse (which I interpreted your last post to imply).
Except if you're trying to kill Politoed specifically, it means that they aren't rain abusers, because they aren't being used on a rain team.
I fail to see how the Pokemon which the opponent has show Politoed's support. If they were being used in tandem with Politoed, then sure. But in the scenario that we've drawn up, your statement makes no sense.
If you want to prove that Politoed isn't offensive deadweight, then why don't you do calcs on Pokemon who aren't hit SE by Hydro Pump and actually run some bulk? That combination was never done in your calcs. You chose calcs which would display Politoed doing obscene damage. I could only assume it was to influence people via really big numbers.
No, no it doesn't. It shows that Politoed was an overly-dominant force in the meta, and that we attempted to fix it. It has no connection to post-Aldaron Politoed. It has no impact on post-Aldaron circumstances.
See above. How Politoed did then has nothing to do with how Politoed does now.
I admit, your analogy is closer to what you said. After D-Day (Aldaron's Proposal), the German's began a downward slope of power and were forced to go on the defensive (being un-broken) for the remainder of the war (metagame).
You give background, but about a different metagame, in which we had the utterly broken SwSwers running rampant over everything.
It's like if I say that Arnold Swarchenegger is still Mr.Universe, just because he was once. He's gotten older and less buff. Circumstances have changed.
Circumstances have changed since then, therefore what we saw then is way different than what we see now. Ergo, references to Drizzle's previous brokenness are irrelevant to how broken it is now.
Hypothetically yes, but you (or anyone) would be a fool to make a ban without looking at the whole picture, both sides of it, the entire, objective, thing in question. It's one thing to argue, it's anther to actively push for a ban, which is what you said you're doing.
Exactly. Only one Dry Skin user is used, because only one is usable.
It doesn't matter how many options there are, if all but two suck too much to be any good to you.
My point exactly. It's because of the negative effect on Fire moves. If it weren't for that effect, I guarantee you that Starmie/Rotom-W/whatever on a rain team would use HP Fire to kill Ferrothorn. BUt they don't,because the rain limits their options as well.
Thereby giving you a second Water-type, preventing you from using any more without tripling up weaknesses and losing synergy or devoting the rest of the team to fixing the synergy, probably preventing you from being as powerful as you otherwise could.
Or if you decide not to triple up weaknesses, then you can't spam Specs Starmie or Rotom-W or whatever, so you lack a good abuser of the Double-STAB.
Not to mention that your opponent might also have a bulky Water Absorb Pokemon (Without potentially killing their synergy).
Also, lol @ Water Absor Vaporeon on a rain team. Not that Hydration gets Wish and Baton Pass, why would you ever use Water Absorb on a rain team?
But it's not a big benefit. At all. In the entire OU tier, only bulky Volcarona uses those moves, whom your Double-STAB SE attacks kill anyway.
The nerf to those 3 moves has absolutely no significance to a rain team.
Well, when you said it right after Thundurus and Tornadus, I naturally assumed you hadn't moved on. But let's face it, any given Pokemon will only get one of those 3 benefits, meaning that "across the board" is an inaccurate term, as it implies that all benefits work for on single 'mons. It's "across the board" for that team as a whole, but not for any Pokemon on it.
If you mess up, and the opponent gets Sun up once, then how well would Politoed switch in on a Venusaur or Sawbuck? About as well as Ninetales on Politoed.
Politoed would have to switch back in on a revenge-kill, which Ninetales does too.
The Pokemon who spam Thunder/Hurricane are almost always the genies. Whose "other options" are Focus Blast and Hidden Power Ice. Neither of which are reliable and hard-hitting.
But if you meant other options for STAB, then they're not abusing Thunder/Hurricane, in which case they aren't reaping the benefits of rain. Which makes the point moot anyway.
Well, Sun can check rain, because once Sun is up it can be quite difficult for rain to get momentum back (try getting momentum against a +2/+2 ChloroSaur by using a Water-type Pokemon). Once Sun gets set up successfully, it checks rain pretty well. And vice versa is also true (Hurricane >Chlorophyllers).
THe thing about Politoed is that if it delves into its support movepool, it lacks the power you mentioned earlier. More offensive Toeds lack the support moves. Like I said earlier, Politoed is so mediocre that it can only do 1 thing well at a time. Politoed can have excellent support options, or absurd power, but not both.
Not that my comment was directed at you, anyway, but it was just speculation based on alphatron's statement. Nothing worth conversing over.
Although, it can't be applied to every OU Pokemon. Infernape, Swampert, Tentacruel, etc. are all things which reap no benefit from their abilities.
@Meru:
I'm curious. In a hypothetical scenario, where 9 of the top 10 teams were non-weather, would you personally discard the outlier so easily? I know this isn't so, but would you decide to discount a weather team just as you are currently discounting the hypothetical non-weather team?
Also, what if 9 of the top 10 were non-weather, but then every single other team in the metagame was weather? I know that wouldn't happen, but that would be a pretty un-representative top 10, eh?
I agree that the top 10 are a very good indicator of what's needed to win in the metagame, but I don't think they're the only things that should be counted at all.
Damn I was only at rank 32. Guess I can't say shit about the meta huh? Like how weather dominates it, or how Garchomp is stupidly annoying as is Gorebyss (go fuck yourself with a rake if you use this thing, I hate running a shitty hazer like Milotic/Perish Song just to nullify this tactic). Also, 10 in a sample size of ~35000 is statistically insignificant, so don't think that helps matters. Feel free to cut the 35k in half accounting for accounts that only did one battle/alts. Long story short, you fail statistics forever.
Yes I'm being sarcastic. Only reason I didn't get higher and ended up decaying too far down this time was because I spent the past two weeks recovering from a car wreck that nearly killed me. Oh well, doesn't matter, I was in a slump anyway.
whatever, decisions regarding the meta almost never come down to raw statistics anyway.
While we're on the topic of weather, I thought I'd do a bit of research on past experiences. Aldaron's Proposal (January) really shed some light on today's situation for me personally. I really enjoyed reading through the topic and learning about what people thought of a Drizzle + Swift Swim ban. I was, quite frankly, surprised at how many users opposed the idea at the time. Arguments ranged from "won't Sandstorms dominate the metagame?" to "there are better ways of preventing a complicated ban." We eventually decided to take the route of "playing favorites" and outright make a complicated ban. Fair enough, that's in the past.
Fast forward to today's metagame. Weather is still a consistent point of argumentation amongst Smogon's userbase. From complaining about the difficulty of stopping Sub+SD Garchomp to Politoed's considerable power under rain, these arguments continuously pop up. In my opinion, the ban of Drizzle + Swift Swim has only solved a temporary problem. Sure, we stopped what are arguably the best "broken abusers" of weather, but in no way did we stop all of them. Users still debate the viability of multiple threats under any given type of weather.
I believe that an outright ban of all weather enablers is the logical progression. Sure, we can eventually ban Garchomp like we did last generation. Who knows; we might even come to the conclusion that Drizzle Politoed is too powerful for OU. The point I'm trying to make is that all of these issues could be resolved outright if we banned all weather enablers. We would have no need for complex bans like Drizzle + Swift Swim while simultaneously preventing the banning of Pokemon who are definitely viable in OU without their "weather abuse" (Garchomp, Excadrill, etc). In conclusion, this ban would save us from having to create both a complex ban and a ban upon specific Pokemon who are perfectly fine without continuous weather.
I'm sorry that I'm not the most "politically correct" or among the best debaters here on Smogon (I admire how in-depth many of you can argue). I just hope that my points can help stir some thoughts to help us all further understand the nature of today's metagame.
Fast forward to today's metagame. Weather is still a consistent point of argumentation amongst Smogon's userbase. From complaining about the difficulty of stopping Sub+SD Garchomp to Politoed's considerable power under rain, these arguments continuously pop up. In my opinion, the ban of Drizzle + Swift Swim has only solved a temporary problem. Sure, we stopped what are arguably the best "broken abusers" of weather, but in no way did we stop all of them. Users still debate the viability of multiple threats under any given type of weather.
I believe that an outright ban of all weather enablers is the logical progression. Sure, we can eventually ban Garchomp like we did last generation. Who knows; we might even come to the conclusion that Drizzle Politoed is too powerful for OU. The point I'm trying to make is that all of these issues could be resolved outright if we banned all weather enablers. We would have no need for complex bans like Drizzle + Swift Swim while simultaneously preventing the banning of Pokemon who are definitely viable in OU without their "weather abuse" (Garchomp, Excadrill, etc). In conclusion, this ban would save us from having to create both a complex ban and a ban upon specific Pokemon who are perfectly fine without continuous weather.
I'm sorry that I'm not the most "politically correct" or among the best debaters here on Smogon (I admire how in-depth many of you can argue). I just hope that my points can help stir some thoughts to help us all further understand the nature of today's metagame.
Your example is completely irrelevant to your previous statement. The point was 10 players is WAY too small to even get close a full picture of what is occurring in the metagame. We encourage discussion here, not exclude it.
I'm not going to quote you Yourself for the sake of making this post easier, but how exactly would banning all weather help matters? I won't target that point specifically, as I'd need time to get my thoughts in order.
However, take SD+Substitute Garchomp. That set is fairly killable... until Sand Veil breaks him. With Sand Veil, all he has to do is spam Substitutes until a miss occurs, set up, then murder your team. You will lose mons to this thing, I have yet to find someone who has no issues dealing with this shit. Sure Bronzong can deal with it, but what aside can it do...?
In any case, if the players who get suspect rights decide to go the ban route with him, there's a simple train of thought I'd use:
If the ability breaks most Pokemon that have it or all relevant Pokemon, ban the ability.
If the Pokemon is broken, ban said Pokemon.
Simply put, my main issue with this is Sand Veil on Garchomp. That one miss can and probably will cost you a game at some point or another. However, Sand Veil doesn't quite break everything else; I don't recall an Ice Beam miss on Gliscor necessarily breaking the match back in Generation 4.
Of all of the things that have this ability fully evolved, we have Dugtrio, Cacturne, Sandslash, Golem, Donphan, Garchomp, Stunfisk, and Gliscor. No one runs SV Gliscor these days, or SV Donphan, SV Dugtrio, and I'm not sure if anyone runs Golem, Stunfisk, or Sandslash. That leaves us Cacturne and Garchomp, maybe Gliscor. Missing against Gliscor or Cacturne won't matter much, seeing how Gliscor is generally more of a tank or wall and one miss won matter, and Cacturne sucks. This leaves us Garchomp basically.
Running by that logic I set earlier, the ability doesn't break all of the relevant Pokemon, in fact, it only seems to break one. It'd be less complex to ban Garchomp in that case.
I'd argue that Garchomp is one of the only things that I feel is causing the metagame to warp around it in a way. Yes, Ferrothorn and Tyranitar are higher up, but both aren't as able to take a hit. With Garchomp however, he's essentially getting a free Double Team coming in on Sandstorm. Just about every single team has a way of killing Tyranitar and Ferrothorn. Killing Garchomp either relies on locking him into Outrage to revenge, catching him on the switch, or using Bronzong to Gyro Ball him to death.
As for weather, it seems that other weathers seem to keep the others in check in a way, so going so far as to ban all of them wouldn't make too much sense yet. It's too early. Also, what makes Sandstorm broken this generation? No one raised a complaint against it last gen, or in gen 3, and it really didn't do much other than some passive damage.
However, take SD+Substitute Garchomp. That set is fairly killable... until Sand Veil breaks him. With Sand Veil, all he has to do is spam Substitutes until a miss occurs, set up, then murder your team. You will lose mons to this thing, I have yet to find someone who has no issues dealing with this shit. Sure Bronzong can deal with it, but what aside can it do...?
In any case, if the players who get suspect rights decide to go the ban route with him, there's a simple train of thought I'd use:
If the ability breaks most Pokemon that have it or all relevant Pokemon, ban the ability.
If the Pokemon is broken, ban said Pokemon.
Simply put, my main issue with this is Sand Veil on Garchomp. That one miss can and probably will cost you a game at some point or another. However, Sand Veil doesn't quite break everything else; I don't recall an Ice Beam miss on Gliscor necessarily breaking the match back in Generation 4.
Of all of the things that have this ability fully evolved, we have Dugtrio, Cacturne, Sandslash, Golem, Donphan, Garchomp, Stunfisk, and Gliscor. No one runs SV Gliscor these days, or SV Donphan, SV Dugtrio, and I'm not sure if anyone runs Golem, Stunfisk, or Sandslash. That leaves us Cacturne and Garchomp, maybe Gliscor. Missing against Gliscor or Cacturne won't matter much, seeing how Gliscor is generally more of a tank or wall and one miss won matter, and Cacturne sucks. This leaves us Garchomp basically.
Running by that logic I set earlier, the ability doesn't break all of the relevant Pokemon, in fact, it only seems to break one. It'd be less complex to ban Garchomp in that case.
I'd argue that Garchomp is one of the only things that I feel is causing the metagame to warp around it in a way. Yes, Ferrothorn and Tyranitar are higher up, but both aren't as able to take a hit. With Garchomp however, he's essentially getting a free Double Team coming in on Sandstorm. Just about every single team has a way of killing Tyranitar and Ferrothorn. Killing Garchomp either relies on locking him into Outrage to revenge, catching him on the switch, or using Bronzong to Gyro Ball him to death.
As for weather, it seems that other weathers seem to keep the others in check in a way, so going so far as to ban all of them wouldn't make too much sense yet. It's too early. Also, what makes Sandstorm broken this generation? No one raised a complaint against it last gen, or in gen 3, and it really didn't do much other than some passive damage.
If you want to get a full picture of what is going on in the metagame, look at the statistics.
If you want to get a full picture of what is going on at the top of the metagame, you're going to be looking at the top X players. Even with a sample size as large as the top 40, you're still going to see over 90% of the teams up there being weather-based.
I felt like Aldaron's Proposal was the right decision at that time. It was only Round 2, and the movement to ban Perma-Rain seemed like a rash decision, since we were just introduced to the weather metagame.
No matter how many rounds we progress, Perma-Weather would no doubt be the focus of the metagame's attention. It influences so many factors of the battle. Perma-Weather in the BW metagame is somewhat comparable to the advent of Stealth Rock / Toxic Spikes in DPP; it is something to which you always need to pay attention, whether you like it or not. In addition, just like SR, it has impacted the viability of monsters. Undoubtedly, perma-weather has a much bigger influence over the current metagame than Stealth Rock ever had.
Banning the Weather Summoners rather than the Weather Abusers is certainly an alternative option. People who support weather as the 'default' of the current gen, similarly to how Sandstream was assumed as 'default' since RSE, would favor banning the Abusers. Others who believe that weather as 'suspect element' may prefer banning the Weather Summoners rather than the Abusers.
I do not want to side in any position right now, but it is apparent that the amount of weather-abusing capabilities that has been introduced this generation certainly does make banning Perma-Weather altogether as a viable alternative (whereas it would have been laughable in previous generations, in which Garchomp (and to a lesser extent Gliscor) was the only real abuser).
No matter how many rounds we progress, Perma-Weather would no doubt be the focus of the metagame's attention. It influences so many factors of the battle. Perma-Weather in the BW metagame is somewhat comparable to the advent of Stealth Rock / Toxic Spikes in DPP; it is something to which you always need to pay attention, whether you like it or not. In addition, just like SR, it has impacted the viability of monsters. Undoubtedly, perma-weather has a much bigger influence over the current metagame than Stealth Rock ever had.
Banning the Weather Summoners rather than the Weather Abusers is certainly an alternative option. People who support weather as the 'default' of the current gen, similarly to how Sandstream was assumed as 'default' since RSE, would favor banning the Abusers. Others who believe that weather as 'suspect element' may prefer banning the Weather Summoners rather than the Abusers.
I do not want to side in any position right now, but it is apparent that the amount of weather-abusing capabilities that has been introduced this generation certainly does make banning Perma-Weather altogether as a viable alternative (whereas it would have been laughable in previous generations, in which Garchomp (and to a lesser extent Gliscor) was the only real abuser).
to be clear, looking at the "teams of 10 players" will always be too small a sample size.
However, considering the battle history and performance of the top 10 players-- that is, considering all the battles played by those players, is actually a lot of data.
However, considering the battle history and performance of the top 10 players-- that is, considering all the battles played by those players, is actually a lot of data.
Fair enough, although saying anything below top 10 essentially is not usable statistically is about as off as it gets. Posts like that make me seethe as a statistician. Good for clearing up what you meant though. And 90%? Back that stat up. Where's those top 40 players' teams? Prove it.
In any case, the only things that gave me issues this time around was Garchomp, Thundurus, Deoxys-S, and maybe Latios. Nothing else.
Whether or not 90% of teams are weather based is true, don't throw that around without actual proof. A lot of people can throw out random numbers and claim it as facts. -_-
In response to Demo-Kun, I think we are on the same page about SD+Sub Garchomp. Sand Veil is what breaks him. Where we differ is that you argue that Garchomp is broken with its ability. What I'm arguing is that Garchomp wouldn't be broken if infinite Sandstorm didn't even exist.
So with both of our opinions, I would say we'd believe in a ban of Garchomp, right? Please correct me if I'm making an inaccurate assumption. So if Garchomp were banned, we'd now be running two bans because of weather: one complex ban (generally undesirable) and the unjust banning of a Pokemon (undesirable as well). So with issues like this popping up, wouldn't it just be best to kill two birds with one stone? Instead of continuing to argue about Garchomp and Politoed and who knows what in the future, an outright ban would solve a lot of headaches, in my opinion. In your example, if we banned Sand Stream enablers, none of those Pokemon would suffer any consequences. Cacturne and Gliscor SV seem to lose "regardless" while other SV users have better options or aren't viable already. Garchomp would be the only Pokemon to truly suffer, but I'm positive he'd get along in OU just fine.
I do agree with you that this logic is probably too soon. There's lots of testing that needs to be done and opinions that need to be generated. It's not like I'm trying to strike up a banner that every user should follow. I'm just aiming to stir up some thoughts so users realize what we're getting into when we make more and more bans.
So with both of our opinions, I would say we'd believe in a ban of Garchomp, right? Please correct me if I'm making an inaccurate assumption. So if Garchomp were banned, we'd now be running two bans because of weather: one complex ban (generally undesirable) and the unjust banning of a Pokemon (undesirable as well). So with issues like this popping up, wouldn't it just be best to kill two birds with one stone? Instead of continuing to argue about Garchomp and Politoed and who knows what in the future, an outright ban would solve a lot of headaches, in my opinion. In your example, if we banned Sand Stream enablers, none of those Pokemon would suffer any consequences. Cacturne and Gliscor SV seem to lose "regardless" while other SV users have better options or aren't viable already. Garchomp would be the only Pokemon to truly suffer, but I'm positive he'd get along in OU just fine.
I do agree with you that this logic is probably too soon. There's lots of testing that needs to be done and opinions that need to be generated. It's not like I'm trying to strike up a banner that every user should follow. I'm just aiming to stir up some thoughts so users realize what we're getting into when we make more and more bans.
Well, yes, I think we're on the same page regarding Garchomp. I'm too tired to continue this discussion for now though, I'll just pick up in the morning or something.
I'm just not sure if banning is the best solution right now. It'd be far easier to see what others from various points on the ladder think at the least.
I'm just not sure if banning is the best solution right now. It'd be far easier to see what others from various points on the ladder think at the least.
Like Chou Toshio said, one team isn't just one statistic. Its rating may be one single value, but it is representative of huge clusters of data against a few hundred other teams on the ladder. So to use 10 of the most powerful cluster samples in the metagame is hardly a small sample size to me.
I'll concede in that case, it's a fair enough argument and I really can't fault it. In any case, I'll just get around to it next round and actually do something, I just don't have the will to deal with this meta right now. And the rating system sucks period.
Is adding up the usage stats of Tyranitar, Politoed, Ninetales, Hippowdon, and Abomasnow a good way to determine what percentage of teams are weather based?
It comes out to ~46%.
No. The whole point of this debate is talking about how to determine the usage stats of the top X teams, which is impossible since Smogon decided not to use weighted stats.
I'm wondering how many people would be in support of beginning to scale back Aldaron's proposal. As he blatantly stated himself in this post, the purpose of it was to prevent a cascade of weather bans. However, this does not change the fact that it is nothing more than a nerf to a certain amount of pokemon, and that not all pokemon are broken with it (Kingdra is the only borderline case).
If there were enough support, I would think that allowing Drizzle + 1 Swift Swimmer would be the logical place to start (please don't anyone throw in arguments on how the number is arbitrary).
If a particular Swift Swimmer ends up being broken, then we ban it, which is no different than banning Garchomp (the abuser, despite having a viable niche outside of sand), Thundurus, or Excadrill like the masses are clamoring for. I really don't think Ludicolo, Kabutops, or Omastar alone would be broken without other Swimmers backing them up. Hell, even Kingdra may end up relatively balanced.
If there were enough support, I would think that allowing Drizzle + 1 Swift Swimmer would be the logical place to start (please don't anyone throw in arguments on how the number is arbitrary).
If a particular Swift Swimmer ends up being broken, then we ban it, which is no different than banning Garchomp (the abuser, despite having a viable niche outside of sand), Thundurus, or Excadrill like the masses are clamoring for. I really don't think Ludicolo, Kabutops, or Omastar alone would be broken without other Swimmers backing them up. Hell, even Kingdra may end up relatively balanced.
Oh yay! A clever attempt at sarcasm that is the same tired argument used every time this is suggested! How did I not anticipate this!?
In all seriousness, Sand has one Sand Rush abuser and it is manageable. Sun has 2-3 viable Chlorophyll users and it is manageable. Swift Swimmers get a STAB boost too, I'm well aware. I personally would rather scale back the proposal now that we've adapted to weather in general (Aldaron's original intent), and simply test the 1-2 abusers that get the most mileage out of it. If nothing else, it would be consistent with the noms for Chomp, the tired noms for Excadrill, etc. Drizzle does not merit special treatment.
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