Wish i could vote myself but i agree with this nomination. Allowing certain pokemon's ability's to be used and the residual damage is very broken. For sure a good nomination for suspect.
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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)
- Thread starter JabbaTheGriffin
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lol @ bringing swift swim back when most of you can't even deal with rain without the swift swimmers
you're like retards trying to run when you can't even walk
you're like retards trying to run when you can't even walk
Honestly if swift swim drizzle comes back in Ou i would probably quite for a while until smogon rebans it lol
I agree with this. (Though in not so much a harsh way)
Rain is borderline overpowered without Swift Swim. Many people just cant deal with rain right now. With SwSw added back into the mix. It's literally like trying to run when you cant walk.
I can see one of the reasons people want swift swim and that's because Smogon's hypocrisy when it comes to treating stuff special. Garchomp wasn't treated special. Neither was Blaziken. Why is Drizzle then?
However, if we get rid of the proposal so easily, it wouldn't be any good for the metagame. We'd be needlessly putting pokemon on the chopping block for a ban where they obviously dont deserve it. We should have other options before resorting to something like that.
Agreed. Even the one swift swimmer per team rule is overpowered.
I wouldn't call Aldaron's Proposal a hypocrisy. Drizzle encompasses something MUCH larger than a single Blaziken or Garchomp. Relating Drizzle to any of these mons is flawed, due to the difference in the sheer scope of the issue. Please do not trivialize Drizzle as something that is solely contained within Politoed. It affects the viability of MUCH MORE monsters than Politoed, so much that it would cause a drastic disruption in the metagame that Blaziken or Garchomp could ever achieve. Once something gets banished to Ubers the decision is more or less irreversible, so we had to tread carefully when it came to Drizzle.
Aldaron's Proposal was unconventional but not hypocritical at all. We simply eliminated the element of the game that deemed broken (at the time Swift Swim + Drizzle), just like any other time. There was enough Swift Swimmers being overpowered at the time to warrant this clause. Banning Swift Swim could have produced the same results, but arguably more undeserved than Aldaron's Proposal.
As observed by the previous suspect round's voting results, more than half of the qualified voters believed Drizzle to be balanced and manageable at the moment. Combination Ban aside, Aldaron's Proposal has done a good job to finally achieve balance among the different weather conditions. However, the view was not even close to unanimous. I believe that having a Drizzle-less suspect metagame would once-and-for-all disillusion any arguments for and against keeping Drizzle, help us come to a more decisive action, and stop dragging the Drizzle issue around every round. The Suspect Process could then progress forward (whether that be testing Swift Swimmers or something altogether different due to the ban of Drizzle we will not know yet).
Aldaron's Proposal was unconventional but not hypocritical at all. We simply eliminated the element of the game that deemed broken (at the time Swift Swim + Drizzle), just like any other time. There was enough Swift Swimmers being overpowered at the time to warrant this clause. Banning Swift Swim could have produced the same results, but arguably more undeserved than Aldaron's Proposal.
As observed by the previous suspect round's voting results, more than half of the qualified voters believed Drizzle to be balanced and manageable at the moment. Combination Ban aside, Aldaron's Proposal has done a good job to finally achieve balance among the different weather conditions. However, the view was not even close to unanimous. I believe that having a Drizzle-less suspect metagame would once-and-for-all disillusion any arguments for and against keeping Drizzle, help us come to a more decisive action, and stop dragging the Drizzle issue around every round. The Suspect Process could then progress forward (whether that be testing Swift Swimmers or something altogether different due to the ban of Drizzle we will not know yet).
We did the Aldaron Proposal because we didn't have enough knowledge of drizzle to ban it. It was obvious that Drizzle was the main factor in all of these broken pokemon but nobody wanted to because of how young the metagame was at the time. You also seem to have misunderstood me and thought I always thought of the Aldaron Proposal as a Hypocrisy. At the time it was proposed I wanted that to happen because I knew as well as everyone else that this was the way to go. Now however, I see there's no need to keep it for it's intended reason. We all know that Drizzle is broken yet we keep it because of this supposed balance the metagame has right now. (Which I personally think is a huge load by the anti banners part imo) So we continue to keep the Aldaron Proposal in place to nerf Drizzle and keep it in the metagame. On a base level, it's pretty much the same thing as if we decided to ban Speed Boost + Blaziken just to keep Blaziken. The importance is different but the practices and reasons are the same. Therefore Hypocrisy.
Kurashi Dragon, that's the problem. You and others deem that Drizzle is still broken - others believe that the metagame is fully balanced and okay as it is. There's a large split in the user base that seems to be perpetually unresolved. The previous voting result reflect this.
Which is why I support capefeather's suggestion to have a Drizzle-less Suspect Ladder to at least shift the community to one side or the other by experiencing both metagames. The more balanced metagame would be the desirable one.
I believe that only after Drizzle survives the next Round could we begin bothering resolving Aldaron's Proposal to see if we can ban Individual Swift Swimmers rather than a blanket soft ban. If we reach a certain threshold of Swift Swimmers ban, however, I believe we should simply revert to Aldaron's Proposal (The specific course of action that I suggest is explained here)
Which is why I support capefeather's suggestion to have a Drizzle-less Suspect Ladder to at least shift the community to one side or the other by experiencing both metagames. The more balanced metagame would be the desirable one.
I believe that only after Drizzle survives the next Round could we begin bothering resolving Aldaron's Proposal to see if we can ban Individual Swift Swimmers rather than a blanket soft ban. If we reach a certain threshold of Swift Swimmers ban, however, I believe we should simply revert to Aldaron's Proposal (The specific course of action that I suggest is explained here)
KurashiDragon cut it with the hypocrisy bullshit. We do not all "know" that Drizzle is broken, and it's pretty damn pretentious of you to think that just because you think Drizzle is broken everyone else does too. Aldaron's Proposal did what it was meant to do. It removed a broken aspect from the metagame. Drizzle sans Swift Swim and Manaphy is not broken in the opinion of many, as evidenced by the recent votes, where Drizzle did not even receive a simple majority. We could have had the same effect by banning Swift Swim and Manaphy, but Aladron's proposal saved a group of playstyles, something you cannot claim a Blaziken + Speed Boost or Garchomp + Sand Veil combo ban would do. It is not hypocritical in the least.
Because Kingdra is OU.
This is like saying Garchomp outside of Sand shouldn't be banned because it still has that role as a bulky SRer.
@Pocket
Yea I know that's what you want. That's semi what I want as well. However, what I don't want to do is divide the player base. There's an obvious split between those that want weather banned and those that don't want weather banned. If we make a suspect metagame people will flock to that just because there's no weather there.
@Tobes
It's totally hypocritical. Whether or not the reasons behind it are just is beside the point. The fact is that this is happening and it shouldn't. You can use this as a reason to unban Blaziken + Blaze. How many people stated that we'd be hypocritical to do a Complex ban on Garchomp when we didn't do it on Blaziken. It's obvious that there is a just cause for keeping the Aldaron Proposal but you can argue about it in the same way for a Garchomp and Blaziken ban.
Bottom Line is that on a base level they are the same. Whatever reasons there are for keeping the Aldaron Proposal remain beside the point. It's hypocrisy.
Also the Aldaron Proposal was not meant to remove a broken aspect of weather. If that were the case, barely anybody would've accepted it. During the same we had a young metagame. We did the Aldaron Proposal for knowledge of Drizzle and to keep drizzle in case it wasn't broken. However, drizzle has proven to be almost as powerful as it was with Swift Swim and (to me. I get that not everyone thinks that weather is broken. However, you also don't need to put so much emotion into your post just because you think I'm being pretentious.) is still broken.
Yea I know that's what you want. That's semi what I want as well. However, what I don't want to do is divide the player base. There's an obvious split between those that want weather banned and those that don't want weather banned. If we make a suspect metagame people will flock to that just because there's no weather there.
@Tobes
It's totally hypocritical. Whether or not the reasons behind it are just is beside the point. The fact is that this is happening and it shouldn't. You can use this as a reason to unban Blaziken + Blaze. How many people stated that we'd be hypocritical to do a Complex ban on Garchomp when we didn't do it on Blaziken. It's obvious that there is a just cause for keeping the Aldaron Proposal but you can argue about it in the same way for a Garchomp and Blaziken ban.
Bottom Line is that on a base level they are the same. Whatever reasons there are for keeping the Aldaron Proposal remain beside the point. It's hypocrisy.
Also the Aldaron Proposal was not meant to remove a broken aspect of weather. If that were the case, barely anybody would've accepted it. During the same we had a young metagame. We did the Aldaron Proposal for knowledge of Drizzle and to keep drizzle in case it wasn't broken. However, drizzle has proven to be almost as powerful as it was with Swift Swim and (to me. I get that not everyone thinks that weather is broken. However, you also don't need to put so much emotion into your post just because you think I'm being pretentious.) is still broken.
You got it wrong, Kurashi Dragon. The purpose of a Drizzle-less suspect ladder in tandem with the standard Ladder is to narrow the gap between the opinions of pro- and anti- Drizzle players. This is achieved, because qualified voters must reach a certain rating on BOTH ladders to earn the qualification to vote. Thus, people would vote based on their knowledge of both metagames, and which one they found more favorable. No more theorymon to divide the community, but only hard solid evidence that would allow us to come to common grounds. The one who only plays in the Standard Ladder or the Suspect Ladder will be ineligible to vote.
I suppose but that wasn't what I was getting at. My concern is that, if Drizzle were still found not broken by the voters it wouldn't matter to the general community. Much of the community is biased towards weather. Even if weather weren't found to be broken by the voters the community would still be divided and people would flock to either the suspect tier where there is no weather or the standard ladder. There is a huge rift between the community when it comes to weather and people's minds wont change so easily as the voters saying weather isn't broken.
Once the Suspect Round ends, the Suspect Ladder is gone. So, hypothetically, if Drizzle was voted OU, then next round there would only be 1 Standard Ladder with Drizzle (Aldaron's Proposal intact) as the default setting for suspect testing. That's how a 2-Ladder Suspect Testing worked last Gen.
I believe the voters represent the overall community with reasonable accuracy - at least the views of the more informed members. Drizzle was a controversial issue, and the vote results reflected this. Only a handful of people truly felt the other weather conditions as detrimental to the metagame, as represented by the voting results. People complained about Garchomp and Thundurus pretty regularly, and the voters got Garchomp banned and Thundurus a Suspect.
Whether or not biased players would only play 1 ladder or the other is irrelevant, since those people would not be able to objectively argue their side. So ultimately, it is irrelevant.
I believe the voters represent the overall community with reasonable accuracy - at least the views of the more informed members. Drizzle was a controversial issue, and the vote results reflected this. Only a handful of people truly felt the other weather conditions as detrimental to the metagame, as represented by the voting results. People complained about Garchomp and Thundurus pretty regularly, and the voters got Garchomp banned and Thundurus a Suspect.
Whether or not biased players would only play 1 ladder or the other is irrelevant, since those people would not be able to objectively argue their side. So ultimately, it is irrelevant.
Now, I know I'm pretty new to this part of the forums, but I've been battling a lot lately, and I've lurked the suspect threads for the entire 5th gen. I think I have a good idea, so please hear me out.
I think the people wanting to ban Swift Swim entirely are forgetting that there are Pokemon that are not actually broken with Swift Swim. Think about Luvdisc, for example. Do you really think that letting Luvdisc back into OU would have any impact on the metagame whatsoever? Luvdisc has never been OU, even in the days before Aldaron's Proposal got implemented. It should be pretty safe to say that it's NU material (or somewhere around there). Is it really justified to ban a Pokemon that could otherwise be used in NU (and probably not even all that well) just because it shares a characteristic with some other pokemon who are broken under rain? I certainly don't think so.
Back when Soul Dew and Lati@s were being discussed, the point was brought up that if every Pokemon holding a certain item became broken, then the item should be banned, but if not, you should just ban the individual Pokemon that are broken with the item. Since abilities and items are pretty much the same in terms of mechanics, this logic should apply equally to ability+pokemon.
So how do we figure out what is truly broken? The current process is just producing endless bickering, and the arguments regarding drizzle and Swift Swim seemingly just go in circles. So there has to be another, better way to determine what's broken and what's not.
Here is my proposal for how we should proceed:
1) Remove Drizzle entirely for one round. See how teams with Rain Dance + Damp Rock do, and if Swift Swim pokemon are broken without Drizzle there. If they're not (which they probably aren't seeing as that is still ok even in UU), then stop all talk of banning Swift Swim at all. If you all feel this is an unnecessary step to take, just skip to:
2)Let a Lv1 Drizzletoed in for the next round, and keep the Swift Swim mons there, too. See if Drizzle really is broken with Swift Swim. If it is, ban Drizzle, because Swift Swim is not broken as determined by Step 1. If Drizzle teams are still not broken under these conditions, continue to:
3) Let Drizzletoed back into OU in all its glory for a round, and let it fight alongside all the Swift Swimmers. If these teams are broken, then Politoed should be banned. End of story. If everyone feels that this step is stupid because we all know that Drizzle + top tier Swift Swim pokes like Kingdra and Ludicolo and stuff are broken together already, then skip it and ban Politoed already.
This makes Step 2 the only mandatory step in the process IMO, but if everyone else feels differently because they actually think Swift Swim pokemon are broken outside of Drizzle, then by all means, implement step 1, as well.
Now, I know you might all moan about the prospect of "eliminating a playstyle," but if it's broken, you have to face the facts. That's how Smogon policy has worked in the past and should work ideally. You won't lose your beloved rain completely, either, since you will still have Rain Dance + Damp Rock. Also, don't forget that even lv.1 Kyogre was tested and banned in the 4th gen, and rain has only gotten better since (or so we think given the fact that Drizzle has been suspect every round of its existence even without Swift Swim), so it's not like banning drizzlemons is anything new.
And you guys complain about complex bans just as much as you complain about Drizzle and Swift Swim... so think about it: this way of going about things (with or without skipping steps) results in the simplest bans possible along with the simplest way to test both abilities that some people think are broken this round.
And okay, okay, if you are really deadset against banning Drizzle and/or Politoed forever, and you deem Swift Swim Pokemon to be just fine outside of Drizzle, then at least keep Aldaron's Proposal, because otherwise you are banning things that clearly aren't broken outside of an environment that is broken.
I think the people wanting to ban Swift Swim entirely are forgetting that there are Pokemon that are not actually broken with Swift Swim. Think about Luvdisc, for example. Do you really think that letting Luvdisc back into OU would have any impact on the metagame whatsoever? Luvdisc has never been OU, even in the days before Aldaron's Proposal got implemented. It should be pretty safe to say that it's NU material (or somewhere around there). Is it really justified to ban a Pokemon that could otherwise be used in NU (and probably not even all that well) just because it shares a characteristic with some other pokemon who are broken under rain? I certainly don't think so.
Back when Soul Dew and Lati@s were being discussed, the point was brought up that if every Pokemon holding a certain item became broken, then the item should be banned, but if not, you should just ban the individual Pokemon that are broken with the item. Since abilities and items are pretty much the same in terms of mechanics, this logic should apply equally to ability+pokemon.
So how do we figure out what is truly broken? The current process is just producing endless bickering, and the arguments regarding drizzle and Swift Swim seemingly just go in circles. So there has to be another, better way to determine what's broken and what's not.
Here is my proposal for how we should proceed:
1) Remove Drizzle entirely for one round. See how teams with Rain Dance + Damp Rock do, and if Swift Swim pokemon are broken without Drizzle there. If they're not (which they probably aren't seeing as that is still ok even in UU), then stop all talk of banning Swift Swim at all. If you all feel this is an unnecessary step to take, just skip to:
2)Let a Lv1 Drizzletoed in for the next round, and keep the Swift Swim mons there, too. See if Drizzle really is broken with Swift Swim. If it is, ban Drizzle, because Swift Swim is not broken as determined by Step 1. If Drizzle teams are still not broken under these conditions, continue to:
3) Let Drizzletoed back into OU in all its glory for a round, and let it fight alongside all the Swift Swimmers. If these teams are broken, then Politoed should be banned. End of story. If everyone feels that this step is stupid because we all know that Drizzle + top tier Swift Swim pokes like Kingdra and Ludicolo and stuff are broken together already, then skip it and ban Politoed already.
This makes Step 2 the only mandatory step in the process IMO, but if everyone else feels differently because they actually think Swift Swim pokemon are broken outside of Drizzle, then by all means, implement step 1, as well.
Now, I know you might all moan about the prospect of "eliminating a playstyle," but if it's broken, you have to face the facts. That's how Smogon policy has worked in the past and should work ideally. You won't lose your beloved rain completely, either, since you will still have Rain Dance + Damp Rock. Also, don't forget that even lv.1 Kyogre was tested and banned in the 4th gen, and rain has only gotten better since (or so we think given the fact that Drizzle has been suspect every round of its existence even without Swift Swim), so it's not like banning drizzlemons is anything new.
And you guys complain about complex bans just as much as you complain about Drizzle and Swift Swim... so think about it: this way of going about things (with or without skipping steps) results in the simplest bans possible along with the simplest way to test both abilities that some people think are broken this round.
And okay, okay, if you are really deadset against banning Drizzle and/or Politoed forever, and you deem Swift Swim Pokemon to be just fine outside of Drizzle, then at least keep Aldaron's Proposal, because otherwise you are banning things that clearly aren't broken outside of an environment that is broken.
"One" ban and "a lot" of bans is completely semantics.
That "one" ban basically removes a significant playstyle, SwSw-backed rain offense, and associated pokemon,SwSw, across several tiers.
On the other hand, "a lot" of bans still affects less pokemon than a drizzle ban would, since every single pokemon banned individually would also be affected by a drizzle ban anyway.
It's not like reintroducing Huntail prevents us from removing Thunderous...
Also, Aldaron's proposal was essentially an ad-hoc "duct tape" fix on the metagame; we were being particularly ban-happy at the time, so in order to keep us from going ahead and banning Drizzle before we could see its effects.
Now, yes, it's still holding, but the problem is, the "duct tape" fix now justifies complex bans, a fairly ugly mess that brings little to no advantages over solutions that could be done through simple banning.
Thus, there's no reason not to create a new solution that not only avoids the complex ban issue, but also fixes the problem more precisely than Aldaron's proposal did.
Agreed, minus the retard comparison. Yes Drizzle is quite powerful compared to the other weathers for all the passive benefits it gives. Drizzle just gives better benefits when compared to the other weathers to the point there's almost no comparison.
Sandstorm:
- 1/16th damage per turn to all non-Rock, Steel, and Ground-typed Pokemon.
- A 50% SpDef bonus to Rock-types.
- Doubles the Speed of Sand Rush users, and Sand Force bolsters Rock, Ground, and Steel-type moves by 30%. Sand Veil also increases evasion by one stage (25%). These abilities also grant a Sandstorm immunity.
- Weather Ball becomes a Rock-type move.
- Solarbeam's power is halved
- Moonlight, Synthesis, and Morning Sun is reduced to only 25% healing as opposed to 50% otherwise.
Drought:
- Fire-type moves get a 50% power boost.
- Water-type moves get a 50% power reduction.
- Solarbeam requires no charge-up.
- Accuracy reduction on Thunder and Hurricane to 50%
- Moonlight, Synthesis, and Morning Sun heal 66% of Max HP instead of 50%.
- Growth now boosts Attack and SpAttack by two stages.
- Doubled speed for Chlorophyll users, Dry Skin users take damage, Flower Gift bolsters the party's Attack and Special Defense by one stage. All other Sunlight-based abilities trigger.
- Harvest will no longer fail to restore Berries.
- Weather Ball is now a Fire-type move. Forme shifts in Castform and Cherrim.
- Freeze chance reduced.
Drizzle: (Oh here we go)
- Water-typed moves get a 50% power boost.
- Fire-types moves get a 50% power reduction.
- Solarbeam's power is halved.
- Thunder and Hurricane have perfect accuracy.
- Moonlight, Synthesis, and Morning Sun's healing is reduced to 25%.
- Dry Skin now heals a Pokemon by 1/8th of their MAX HP each turn, Castform and Weather Ball become Water-typed, Hydration users basically gain a status immunity, Rain Dish users gain healing every turn, and Swift Swim users have doubled speed.
Hail:
- 1/16th damage each turn to non-Ice types.
- Blizzard has perfect accuracy
- Solarbeam's power is reduced.
- Moonlight, Synthesis, and Morning Sun's healing is reduced to 25%.
- Snow Cloak users have their evasion increased by one stage. Ice Body users receive 1/8th healing every turn.
- Weather Ball is an Ice attack; Castform gains an Ice-typing.
What I think sets apart Drizzle from the other weathers is the innate boost every abuser of Drizzle can use. Specstoed' Hydro Pump is scary enough already due to the insane power boost Drizzle gives, and just about every other abuser can make use of it. Swift Swimmers more often than not get their best STAB boosted, for instance. Drought just cannot compare here. While Fire-typed moves are boosted, just about every abuser of Sunlight barring Heatran, Darmanitan, and Volcarona has to rely on Hidden Power Fire for the boost in power. Each ability has a similar amount of users, but Drizzle boosts EVERYONE who gets it; Drought by comparison only boosts Hidden Power Fire, and just about every Chlorophyll user has a terrible movepool, exceptions being Venusaur and Sawsbuck. This ultimately is a moot point however due to the current Drizzle + Swift Swim ban in effect though. The only thing Drizzle is missing? Passive damage.
Continuing on with the abusers, there's just so many more that can abuse Drizzle outside of that ability. Ferrothorn, Forretress, and Scizor love having their Fire weakness reduced, and Dragonite, Jirachi, Thundurus, and Tornadus have their movesets improved.
Sand is an interesting case. There are very few Sand Rush and Sand Power users, notably Excadrill, who enjoys the doubled speed, and Landorus, who enjoys the extra power behind Earthquake and Stone Edge. There are very few users outside of this that see any competitive use.
tl;dr Drizzle's benefits outstrip all of the others in almost every aspect.
I won't be discussing Hail as I never see it.
Look, here, now while a Drizzle ban would likely be better than a Swift Swim ban, it still suffers from the fact that it's a highly inprecise ban, hitting stuff like rain stall.
More importantly, this "one" ban has a massive impact on the metagame, completely removing one of the top playstyles and removing one major factor of the weather wars that define this metagame. This is far greater of an impact than would be necessary; again, a individual weather abuser ban would ONLY target the broken pokemon without actually removing any single playstyle whatsoever.
Here's my previously posted in-depth reasoning of why an individual weather abuser ban would be better than either a Drizzle ban or a SwSw ban:
Arguing that banning Drizzle is "inprecise" is pretty stupid IMO. Unless you're a supporter of silly complex bans, we ban whatever is the source or main contributor of the problem. For example, Blaziken vs. Speed Boost or Garchomp vs. Sand Veil. Only those combinations of Pokemon+Ability were broken, so we opted to remove the one causing the most trouble (banning Blaziken would only have Blaze Blaziken as a "casualty" while banning Speed Boost would have seven other Pokemon as "casualties"). Anyways, speaking of Garchomp, it's a prime example why "inprecise" ban arguments falter. We all know that Garchomp was banned because of the Sand Veil abuse paired with his monster stats (SubSD, SDOutrage, etc), but someone who was using Garchomp as say, a revenge killer (Scarf) or bulky Stealth Rock mon could argue that their sets were broken and the Garchomp ban was "inprecise" so Garchomp shouldn't be banned.
As far as Smogon policy is concerned though, pokemon themselves are a single package; that is, any Garchomp is tiered under what Garchomp's best set can attain, and any "sub-optimal" ones are hit anyway.
That's nothing special, and we've accepted that as part of Smogon's policy.
However, a Drizzle ban would hit other pokemon that aren't ban-worthy at all, and unlike all the possible sets of Garchomp, which, by Smogon policy, are packaged together, all the Drizzle abusers aren't packaged together.
Essentially, the only reason why we have "imprecise" bans on Garchomp and Blaziken is because Smogon policy treats pokemon as packages in order to avoid the mess that surrounds complex bans.
A drizzle ban, on the other hand, doesn't avoid any complex bans since the alternate solution, to simple ban the abusers, does not involve any complex bans in the first place.
That is, since a Drizzle ban has no major advantages (besides the dubious time-saving) over individual bans, there's no reason to go with an "imprecise" solution when we lose nothing, unlike the Garchomp/Blaziken examples, if we go with the alternate possibility.
Finally, a large problem with "imprecision" is not what we accidentally hit, but what actual threats we do miss; a Drizzle ban does nothing to solve a potential Drought overcentralization that could occur afterwards, and a SwSw ban misses stuff like Thunderous that end up having to be individually tested anyway.
Meanwhile, individual suspect testing can deal with all potentially broken weather threats, whether they be Kingdra, Thunderous, Venasaur, or Excadrill, something no other solution can accomplish.
That being said, "precision" is not the sole reason why I consider an individual ban superior, but I must note that individual bans do avoid unnecessary nerfing with little to no cost compared to the other solutions.
DRIZZLE BAN LET'S GET IT
If we're to ban anything, we need to ban from the source. Drizzle+Swift Swim is not the source, Drizzle is. Say we undo Aldaron's proposal and opt to ban every individual Swift Swimmer that is broken. Each of those Swift Swimmers will have another ability or two that makes it not broken at all. So if we were to ban 10 Swift Swimmers deemed broken, that would lead to 15-20 Pokemon+Ability combinations that were not broken at all. For the most precision (paired with avoiding complex bans), banning Drizzle is the only logical route to follow, as it removes the very source of the problem.
If we're to ban anything, we need to ban from the source. Drizzle+Swift Swim is not the source, Drizzle is. Say we undo Aldaron's proposal and opt to ban every individual Swift Swimmer that is broken. Each of those Swift Swimmers will have another ability or two that makes it not broken at all. So if we were to ban 10 Swift Swimmers deemed broken, that would lead to 15-20 Pokemon+Ability combinations that were not broken at all. For the most precision (paired with avoiding complex bans), banning Drizzle is the only logical route to follow, as it removes the very source of the problem.
For posterity:
"Why are you guys even talking about bringing back Swift Swimmers now? This is only exacerbating the pro-Drizzle / anti-Drizzle argument that clutters almost every Suspect Thread. I believe the next course of action before testing Swift Swimmers or what not is to have a 2-ladder Drizzle-less Suspect Test to compare the 2 metagames and decide once and for all which metagame we find more desirable (balanced and varied). We can leave the Swift Swimmers / Aldaron Proposal debate for another round."
If we don't want to bother going through this process, then the only other option I could see is to just keep Drizzle (with Aldaron Proposal). It will just be one of those "Excadrill" nominations that will never fail to pop up every round, but fails to get sufficient support to get it banned, because we are so split in our opinions.
XienZo, I hope you don't think that I am trying to get Drizzle banned through proposing this. I am not. What this 2-ladder system will offer us is the information of two metagames, one with Drizzle and one without, so that we can make an informed decision rather than the overly biased and subjective ones that have been tangible in these threads. Our user base is divided, and unless we make some common grounds, the Suspect process would be a grueling one for most of us. The 2-ladder system will facilitate in finding this common ground by providing us with experience rather than theorymon of the two distinct metagames. The more balanced and varied metagame, the one we desire, will prevail. If that happens to include Drizzle, then we can finally move forward with re-considering Aldaron's Proposal, with the backing of the majority (rather than getting our voices drowned by all the bickering). We need to come to a less divisive agreement.
"Why are you guys even talking about bringing back Swift Swimmers now? This is only exacerbating the pro-Drizzle / anti-Drizzle argument that clutters almost every Suspect Thread. I believe the next course of action before testing Swift Swimmers or what not is to have a 2-ladder Drizzle-less Suspect Test to compare the 2 metagames and decide once and for all which metagame we find more desirable (balanced and varied). We can leave the Swift Swimmers / Aldaron Proposal debate for another round."
If we don't want to bother going through this process, then the only other option I could see is to just keep Drizzle (with Aldaron Proposal). It will just be one of those "Excadrill" nominations that will never fail to pop up every round, but fails to get sufficient support to get it banned, because we are so split in our opinions.
XienZo, I hope you don't think that I am trying to get Drizzle banned through proposing this. I am not. What this 2-ladder system will offer us is the information of two metagames, one with Drizzle and one without, so that we can make an informed decision rather than the overly biased and subjective ones that have been tangible in these threads. Our user base is divided, and unless we make some common grounds, the Suspect process would be a grueling one for most of us. The 2-ladder system will facilitate in finding this common ground by providing us with experience rather than theorymon of the two distinct metagames. The more balanced and varied metagame, the one we desire, will prevail. If that happens to include Drizzle, then we can finally move forward with re-considering Aldaron's Proposal, with the backing of the majority (rather than getting our voices drowned by all the bickering). We need to come to a less divisive agreement.
If that is to happen, the suspect ladder should have both Drizzle and Drought removed, because if not for three Pokemon (Tyranitar, Politoed, Hippowdon), Drought would easily be the most broken weather. The fact that it's countered by two extremely common Pokemon does not mean that it's not broken.
Please get over this. Aldaron's proposal is working great and is perfectly in line with Smogon's policy. Bringing back swift swimmers on drizzle teams would only cause more bitching from people who want drizzle banned.
As others have said other than Luvdisc, Beartic and a few others every swift swimmer (yeah even crap like Floatzel and Poliwrath) is potentially broken with permanent rain support. Let's keep the status quo and enjoy a balanced and diverse metagame where drizzle is still viable and where swift swimmers are still usable on non-drizzle teams.
As others have said other than Luvdisc, Beartic and a few others every swift swimmer (yeah even crap like Floatzel and Poliwrath) is potentially broken with permanent rain support. Let's keep the status quo and enjoy a balanced and diverse metagame where drizzle is still viable and where swift swimmers are still usable on non-drizzle teams.
- Status