np: OU Suspect Testing Round 4 - Blaze of Glory

[Royal Flush]

I have to agree with Jabba: weather is cutting diversity in whole new levels of competitive play. That said, I don't believe they're broken or anything, it just happens that gen 5 is boring me stupidly fast with the weather wars. I definitively had more fun playing the first months of Adv and DP. Well at least UU is still fun...

 

[JSND]

Banning weather has been shot down two to three times already. I think it's time for you guys to give up and accept that weather is staying.

For anti-weather guys, here are the options:

1. Continue advocating for the ban of weather (good luck)
2. Suck it up and deal with it.
3. Move to UU.
4. Move to another competitive game.

As for me, I've decided to move to YGO lol. I hear they started a website called Dueling Network that's pretty cool.

That game is far worse than Pokemon in term of ranters.
Pretty much the same case, many player see something new and better(in ygo synchro, six samurai, neo hero, exceed, plants, in pokemon the gen 5 weather) as cheap/broken whatever and noob get a VERY limited perspective in term of cheap cookie cutter things.

In reality, its pretty much better. The said new things promote so many diversity in the game. Actualy i think pokemon is same case

As a user who used so many underatted poke, tbh i found creativity in team proportion play far bigger role than using cookie cutter team which pretty much a coin flip. cougcoughDeoxys-Dcoughcough

 

[Nkululeko]

Because as somebody said before, gen 5 is a NEW metagame, not gen4 v.2.0 -_-; just as in GSC stall was the thing to deal with, or gen4 changed a lot of things with the physical/special split, gen 5 is all about weather.

Then let's embrace the spirit of weather wars and free the Swift Swimmers. Seriously, if Gen 5 is centered around weather, and it's getting there, then shouldn't we clean up the Aldaron Proposal? I really don't think Swift Swim Floatzel is breaking any metagame so why not start adding individual Swift Swimmers to the suspect testing?

 

[Raikaria]

Then let's embrace the spirit of weather wars and free the Swift Swimmers. Seriously, if Gen 5 is centered around weather, and it's getting there, then shouldn't we clean up the Aldaron Proposal? I really don't think Swift Swim Floatzel is breaking any metagame so why not start adding individual Swift Swimmers to the suspect testing?

Actually SS Floatzel has the potential to be broken, especially as it outspeds absolutely everything, gets Taunt to ruin walls, and Bulk Up, so it can set up on something that can't harm it.

Not to mention a decent movepool and a decent attack stat, backed up by Double STAB Waterfall [Flinch Chance too].

Not saying it IS broken, but it's certainly the next physical one after Kabutops.

We might wind up banning 7+ Swift Swimmers just to balance Drizzle. Swift Swimmers who don't even see use in RU [Floatzel]. We'll almost certainly have to ban Kingdra, Kabutops and Ludicolo, and probobly Goyrbass and Huntail [Try Taunting them with Swift Swim active. SMASHPASS GO! [Or Double STAB Water Attacks after a Shell Smash]]

In all honestly, I say save all of the hoo-ha, and wasted time [Not to mention breaking the metagame for at least 2 periods], and either ban Drizzle, or keep Alderon's Proposal. Because, frankly, I think no-one wants at least 4 weeks of the Broken Trio destroying everything, especially when people can now build a rain team that's not purely Swift Swimmers and Manaphy, but can back up their Swift Swimmers with things like Latios, and Tornadus/Thunderus.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

I'm pretty much laddering in UU for the most part. Not a single piece of weather aside from occasional Abomasnow/Hippopotas...

Aside from that, I don't really mind weather overall. It IS a playstyle, and if it is common, we just have to adapt to that. This isn't DP Garchomp, where every team is essentially Chomp/Chomp's Counter 1/Chomp's Counter 2/Chomp's Counter's Counter 1/Chomp's Counter's Counter 2/Filler.

 

[Rosey Oak]

It IS a playstyle, and if it is common, we just have to adapt to that. This isn't DP Garchomp, where every team is essentially Chomp/Chomp's Counter 1/Chomp's Counter 2/Chomp's Counter's Counter 1/Chomp's Counter's Counter 2/Filler.

No. This is the weather check mate era. "Drizzle/Abusers", "SS/Abusers", "Drought/Abusers", "the best anti-weather team".

In the case of weather versus weather, the first person to kill the opposing weather's starter has almost guaranteed their win. I mean, some people literary ragequit as soon as their weather starter dies. Does this not imply something is wrong with the Metagame? People ragequitting at 6-5 because they feel that the outcome of the match is inevitable due to the fact that they lost one Pokemon in their team.

 

[Raikaria]

No. This is the weather check mate era. "Drizzle/Abusers", "SS/Abusers", "Drought/Abusers", "the best anti-weather team".

In the case of weather versus weather, the first person to kill the opposing weather's starter has almost guaranteed their win. I mean, some people literary ragequit as soon as their weather starter dies. Does this not imply something is wrong with the Metagame? People ragequitting at 6-5 because they feel that the outcome of the match is inevitable due to the fact that they lost one Pokemon in their team.

I thought every team was Weather Inducer/Weather Abuser 1/Weather Abuser 2/ Other Weather Check 1 / Other Weather Check 2/ Random or other abuser.

Except the non-weather teams. They have no abusers, and no inducers, but are Weather Counter 1-6

What I don't get is if weather wars are so big... why dosen't every weather team run Wobbuffett?

 

[Rosey Oak]

I thought every team was Weather Inducer/Weather Abuser 1/Weather Abuser 2/ Other Weather Check 1 / Other Weather Check 2/ Random or other abuser.

I was referring to 4 separate teams and I meant weather abusers in general. For example how Ferrothorn abuses the side affects of rain.

And I don't think all weather teams run that layout. For example Gliscor is a great check to Excadrill, however I don't think I've ever seen one on a rain team. You could argue that Skarmory could be used on rain teams as an Excadrill counter, however I think this falls into the category of 'weather abuser' because it gets the negative super effective fire affect from rain.


EDIT: Anyway no matter who is right or wrong about the typical weather team layout, the point of my argument was:-

People shouldn't be compelled to ragequit so early on in the match (at the likes of 6-5) because they utterly feel doomed to lose due to the fact that they lost one single Pokemon in their team.

 

[Tobes]

If people want to ragequit that's their own damn business. It has absolutely no relevance here. A good teambuilder makes sure that they have options even if their weather starter dies (example: Rain Dance Tornadus), so if a player makes a team so poorly that they lose the instant their weather starter dies, that's their own fault, not a testament to the "brokeness" of weather.

 

[Charro]

I find weather boring (competitive or not, this is still a game, and want to have fun), but I have no problem dealing with it, I can beat weather without my own, heck even yesterday I made a random team with Mawile, Zebstrika and Chandelure and I beat several GOOD weather teams, and I mean really good, I needed to predict like a motherfucker but still,is MAWILE people!

But please ban Chomp, it is manageable as a sweeper but I missed 3 times in a row in front of him, and it wasn't even behind a substitute. Jirachi can just flinch you, but if you're faster you can beat it, with Chomp you can have 3 checks (like me) and still lose.

And more people needs to realize that Specs Latios isn't even his most powerful set, LO Calm Mind is, he have the power to 2HKO max/max spD Careful Tyranitar in sandstorm, and with hp fire Jirachi is 2HKOed (with max damage roll) as well, Chansey and Blissey are the only mons who stand a chance against that thing, the residual damage isn't even a problem, it can just sweep half team before dying and open the door to someone with the same checks like Reuniclus

 

[chrisrandom9]

The ragequit point is totally irrelevant. People ragequit all the time. Someone ragequit against me because I poisoned their Tangrowth on the switch. Should we therefore ban Toxic because it causes ragequits?

I honestly think people are romanticizing DPP metagame. I'll admit I came to that game late but I spent half my time playing the big stall teams. Stall teams at the end of DPP pretty much built themselves because you needed certain roles filled. Teams have always been cookie cutter. Teams have always gone down if you lose your counter.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

In the case of weather versus weather, the first person to kill the opposing weather's starter has almost guaranteed their win. I mean, some people literary ragequit as soon as their weather starter dies. Does this not imply something is wrong with the Metagame? People ragequitting at 6-5 because they feel that the outcome of the match is inevitable due to the fact that they lost one Pokemon in their team.

On the contrary. Yesterday I was able to sweep a sandstorm team with my rain team, after my politoed died, with sandstorm up. These teams don't need the rain up to be good teams, but with the rain up they become even more powerful.

 

[Rosey Oak]

The ragequit point is totally irrelevant. People ragequit all the time. Someone ragequit against me because I poisoned their Tangrowth on the switch. Should we therefore ban Toxic because it causes ragequits?

Yes people can ragequit in any situation in general, but this is on several occasions with the same event occurring repetitively. Yes it's peoples choice to ragequit, but they shouldn't feel so disheartened and compelled to ragequit through the loss of one Pokemon i.e their weather starter.

I'm not saying this is the case for everyone because it's not. People on the other hand can find weather teams manageable yet still hate it. The tone of this argument is not to undoubtedly prove weather is broken (it was subjective). It was rather to emphasis the negative atmosphere weather has for some people.

Some people say you play a game to win and whilst I agree with this to some extent, I also think that it is vital for a game to be fun. Yes this is another subjective point, if you find weather fun then fair enough. This is just my opinion.

Teams have always gone down if you lose your counter.

And what is a good counter to stop all teams from setting up their weather? Another weather inducer? Golduck Cloud 9?
There is no effective way to stop the 'playstyle' brought upon the entire battle without your opponent even using a move and nor is there an effective way to get rid of it.

 

[Tobes]

There are plenty of ways to deal with weather without an inducer. You have rain issues? Slap on a Kingdra. Sun giving you problems? Say hi to Heatran. And Bronzong / Skarmory beat sand teams almost on their own. Instead of complaining about auto-inducers, actually look for ways to deal with the weather. It's not that hard.

And take another look at my above post above, Rosie Oaks. It doesn't matter how many people ragequit. It's their own fault for not building a team good enough to handle itself after its inducer dies.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

There are plenty of ways to deal with weather without an inducer. You have rain issues? Slap on a Kingdra. Sun giving you problems? Say hi to Heatran. And Bronzong / Skarmory beat sand teams almost on their own. Instead of complaining about auto-inducers, actually look for ways to deal with the weather. It's not that hard.

And take another look at my above post above, Rosie Oaks. It doesn't matter how many people ragequit. It's their own fault for not building a team good enough to handle itself after its inducer dies.

How is kingdra supposed to beat ferrothorn? how is heatran supposed to beat a faster venasaur? Can Bronzong and Skarm take repeated hits from landorus and terrakion? You can't just solve all weather problems with just abusers or walls. There are simply too many playstyles to reliably counter on a team. And a team that could counter weather completely might fall to any non-weather team.

 

[Yoshiken]

Having to have a different counter for each weather is a problem in itself, though. I don't want to have to bring Kingdra, Heatran AND Skarmory, just so I don't die to 3 specific teams.
-However-, I disagree that there are no answers to all weather starters. The whole thing with them is that they are designed around survivability. This means that things like Toxistalling and anything physically offensive that is neutral or better against the lot (so, anything with a Fighting attack) does pretty damn well against them. I ran a Machamp to do that, then had a Froslass w/Hail to set it up (and then have it run out) after the starter was gone. Two Pokes, entire weather game gone. Problem solved. (And yes, people are a lot more careless with the weather starter if they don't see an opposing one.)

 

[chrisrandom9]

How is kingdra supposed to beat ferrothorn? how is heatran supposed to beat a faster venasaur? Can Bronzong and Skarm take repeated hits from landorus and terrakion? You can't just solve all weather problems with just abusers or walls. There are simply too many playstyles to reliably counter on a team. And a team that could counter weather completely might fall to any non-weather team.

Well if you had Heatran it could beat Ferrothorn. And Venusaur tend not to run earthquake, or anything that could hit Heatran. Skarmory probably could. Kingdra's not the best example but these other two are perfectly good pokemon in their own right, and can do a lot of work.

 

[Tobes]

How is kingdra supposed to beat ferrothorn? how is heatran supposed to beat a faster venasaur? Can Bronzong and Skarm take repeated hits from landorus and terrakion? You can't just solve all weather problems with just abusers or walls. There are simply too many playstyles to reliably counter on a team. And a team that could counter weather completely might fall to any non-weather team.

Kingdra can 3HKO with a specs Hydro Pump in the rain or at worst 2hko with hp fire outside of it. Chestorest DD Kingdra can simply set up on Ferro. Also most Venusaur run Energy Ball / Sludge Bomb / HP Fire / Growth, which Heatran beats handily. Landorus barely even tickles Bronzong, who can 2HKO back with Gyro Ball. Likewise, Terrakion can't OHKO, and I haven't run calcs but I'm fairly certain that with the right spread even CB Terra can't 2HKO with CC, while Bronzong easily KOs back. Skarmory whirlwinds out Landorus easily and can then heal off the damage, although Taunt Terrakion admittedly gives it problems.

You say there are too many playstyles to deal with. I disagree. I suppose this is a really subjective argument in the first place, but I think that a well-built team should, and can, be able to handle most everything.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

Kingdra can 3HKO with a specs Hydro Pump in the rain or at worst 2hko with hp fire outside of it. Chestorest DD Kingdra can simply set up on Ferro.

Did you factor in leech seed recovery, and then power whips?

Well if you had Heatran it could beat Ferrothorn. And Venusaur tend not to run earthquake, or anything that could hit Heatran. Skarmory probably could. Kingdra's not the best example but these other two are perfectly good pokemon in their own right, and can do a lot of work.

Well a heatran sure wouldn't be beating a ferrothorn in the rain. Skarm has to roost eventually, and when it does it gets nailed by a SE close combat or EQ. Bronzong has no recovery anyway.

 

[alexwolf]

How is kingdra supposed to beat ferrothorn? how is heatran supposed to beat a faster venasaur? Can Bronzong and Skarm take repeated hits from landorus and terrakion? You can't just solve all weather problems with just abusers or walls. There are simply too many playstyles to reliably counter on a team. And a team that could counter weather completely might fall to any non-weather team.

do you really expect 1 poke to deal with each weather????
are you fucking serious???
so you expect heatran to deal with sun,kingdra with rain and bronzong with sand...if a whole team style was beaten by a sole poke then it wouldn't be used at all...

you are asking how to beat ferro with kingdra????
maybe you can try to remove it first with the other 5 pokes that you have in your team...
you can trap it with a magnezone or weaken him enough with pokes that have similar counters with kingdra...
and after this you can do your job!!

again how do you expect bronzong to take landorus,excadrill and terkion all together???
instead of putting so much responsibilty to bronzong you can instead try putting a conkeldur to deal with the 2 mach punch weak pokes and have bronzong to handle landorus...and both bronzong and conkeldur are not used solley to counet these pokes and have a multitude of uses!!!
or you can instead of bronzong put a scizor to check terakion and a gliscor to deal with excadrill and landorus...do you see how many options there are???

as for heatran and sun teams again you don't have to put all the responsibilites to heatran...
you can always pair heatran with a dragon and those 2 are capable of handling almost everything a sun team can pack...send in your heatran against the venusaur and then immediately switch out to dragonite to see if he has eq...if he has it then he is hopeless against dragonite cause he lacks sludge bomb...
or simply put a balloon to heatran so he can check both sand and sun!!!

the solutions are many and very viable but people are just bored to search for them when building a team...
of course in this gen it is more difficult to build a weatherless team and succeed but if you put some more thought then you will have great results...!
if anything the metagame has become more strategical and difficult to master in my opinion which makes competiton even greater...and i like this!!!

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Did you factor in leech seed recovery, and then power whips?
And what does a ChestoRest set care about that? It just keeps on boosting. Kingdra is naturally bulky enough on its own to take several Power Whips anyway.

Well a heatran sure wouldn't be beating a ferrothorn in the rain. Skarm has to roost eventually, and when it does it gets nailed by a SE close combat or EQ. Bronzong has no recovery anyway.

./fail Fire Blast from NIDOQUEEN kills Ferrothorn in Rain. Heatran wins hands down.

How exactly does Skarmory ever get hit SE by Terakion on its Roosting turn when it is slower than Terakion?

 

[chrisrandom9]

Well a heatran sure wouldn't be beating a ferrothorn in the rain. Skarm has to roost eventually, and when it does it gets nailed by a SE close combat or EQ. Bronzong has no recovery anyway.

Heatran's a lot more powerful than you're giving him credit. It's still SE STAB off 130 base SpA. It shits all over Ferrothorn. Also why is this Skarmory so fast that it's outspeeding Terrakion?

Edit: Totally ninja'd

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Well a heatran sure wouldn't be beating a ferrothorn in the rain. Skarm has to roost eventually, and when it does it gets nailed by a SE close combat or EQ. Bronzong has no recovery anyway.

Heatran still gets a STAB SE move to hit Ferro with. It'll still hurt him badly.

Skarm is slower, so the CC/EQ will not be SE.


EDIT: Mega Ninja'd


Btw, I always found it amusing to use Chandelure to kill an opposing Tyranitar and then switch in Kingdra to set up Rain :3

Sure, Kingdra isn't that great without Perma-Rain, but it's still fun to do, especially higher up in the ladder which is filled with Sand and Rain.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

do you really expect 1 poke to deal with each weather????
are you fucking serious???
so you expect heatran to deal with sun,kingdra with rain and bronzong with sand...if a whole team style was beaten by a sole poke then it wouldn't be used at all...

you are asking how to beat ferro with kingdra????
maybe you can try to remove it first with the other 5 pokes that you have in your team...
you can trap it with a magnezone or weaken him enough with pokes that have similar counters with kingdra...
and after this you can do your job!!

again how do you expect bronzong to take landorus,excadrill and terkion all together???
instead of putting so much responsibilty to bronzong you can instead try putting a conkeldur to deal with the 2 mach punch weak pokes and have bronzong to handle landorus...and both bronzong and conkeldur are not used solley to counet these pokes and have a multitude of uses!!!
or you can instead of bronzong put a scizor to check terakion and a gliscor to deal with excadrill and landorus...do you see how many options there are???

as for heatran and sun teams again you don't have to put all the responsibilites to heatran...
you can always pair heatran with a dragon and those 2 are capable of handling almost everything a sun team can pack...send in your heatran against the venusaur and then immediately switch out to dragonite to see if he has eq...if he has it then he is hopeless against dragonite cause he lacks sludge bomb...
or simply put a balloon to heatran so he can check both sand and sun!!!

the solutions are many and very viable but people are just bored to search for them when building a team...
of course in this gen it is more difficult to build a weatherless team and succeed but if you put some more thought then you will have great results...!
if anything the metagame has become more strategical and difficult to master in my opinion which makes competiton even greater...and i like this!!!

I wasn't expecting 1 poke to deal with each weather at all. I was saying that 1 poke WOULDN'T deal with each weather.


As for the roosting, that's completely my mistake.

 

[Rosey Oak]

WEATHER

In my opinion Drizzle and Drought are broken, whilst sandstorm is not. The only ones who break it (ability wise) are Garchomp and Excadrill. What makes Sandstorm different is the fact that it does not affect the outcome of so many Pokemon just by existing. Sandstorm does not boost the power of specific moves by 50%, nor does it it take super effective hits away from specific Pokemon, the only two Pokemon which gain the Sp.Def advantage boost of SS are Tyranitar and Terrakion.

To get to the point - Sandstorm is fair. It does not give such a large number of Pokemon the power to kill or live something else, which it wouldn't be able to do out with the weather. Call this a 'playstyle' if you want, but the fate for such a large number of Pokemon should not be decided on something that doesn't even require using a move.

Now back to my second point. There is no effective way to stop weather and ALL of it's affects from the moment the weather inducer is switched in, and nor is there an effective way to get rid of it.

There are plenty of ways to deal with weather without an inducer. You have rain issues? Slap on a Kingdra. Sun giving you problems? Say hi to Heatran. And Bronzong / Skarmory beat sand teams almost on their own.

The problem about Drizzle is that there are so many Pokemon that can abuse it. You say use 'Kingdra' to counter rain, however this only deals with sweepers that abuse the water stab boost affect. Pokemon like Tornados and Thundurus are common on rain teams too, and therefore Kingdra isn't a reliable counter to drizzle as it can't be switch in to take either of those hits and counter the Pokemon back.

I agree that Heatran counters most sun teams but then again, I can imagen wanting to use it against a Drizzle or SS team if that be the case.

And anyway if you are suggesting I should always use "Kingdra, Heatran, Skamory/Brongzong" in my teams to counter all weather, then I think it is clear that weather is over centralizing.

Instead of complaining about auto-inducers, actually look for ways to deal with the weather. It's not that hard.

By your logic I need to carry 4 (or 3) Pokemon indefinitely to counter all of weather's (sweeper) abusers effectively, however this does not change the inevitable fate that so many Pokemon will face in regards to the direct and indirect effects of weather.