np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)

[Pocket]

So as stupid as the above paragraph is, heres what i'm trying to say. The community needs to decide what is the best way to deal with Drizzle. There are a few ways to do this.

1. Bring Smogon Council back. This will show what the most competitive members in Smogon will think about this subject.
2. Continue the suspect test to decide if drizzle will be banned after certien metagame changes. (we're doing this right now)


There are probably many other ways to do this. But I can't think of them because i'm pretty tired.

Or we could have a 2-ladder Suspect Test, one of status quo and the other without Drizzle.

We should aim to get rid of Pokemon that are so unbalanced that most of us are almost forced to use it, but aside from that, we'll proceed as normal and just use what is or becomes viable in the metagame around it, regardless of whether or not former UUs get a second in the spotlight.

Is the current state of Drizzle "so unbalanced that most of us are almost forced to use it?" I'd be interested to see the statistics on Politoed's usage this month. If it rivals with Ttar's usage I would agree. May's statistics did not reflect your sentiment of unbalanced for Drizzle (10.8% =/= people being forced to use Drizzle). Unless Politoed's usage significantly improves, I guess we would have to "just use what is or becomes viable in the metagame around it."

The main point of suspect testing individual abusers is so we can actually get those "other" non-SwSw broken pokemon out of the metagame, because the problem was never restricted to SwSw pokemon themselves.

That is, banning Kingdra and co, could potentially ban guys like Thunderous, Tornadous, and other non SwSw weather abusers.

Can't we just ban Thundurus and other overpowered non-Swift Swimmers without repealing Aldaron's Proposal? Why do you make it sound mutually exclusive (if we have Aldaron's Proposal, then we can't ban Thundurus)?

As an added note, on the issue of testing Swift Swimmers, I am very disappointed that not a single post that even replied to mine said anything at all about my proposed solution. I mean, I didn't expect people to agree, but not even a mention? Really? Not even to tell me how terrible of an idea it is? First they only went on about some of the terrible parts of my first post, and then my next post only got comments from the metaphor. Constructive criticism and consideration, not alliteration guys, that's all I'm asking at minimum.

I personally did not comment on this methodology of yours, because we aren't even ready to talk about testing individual swift swimmers at the moment. There's not enough support for that right now.

 

[SJCrew]

Edit: @SJCrew so variety is a sin i wonder how many of us actually like a change from the constant reruns of the same pokemon that is OU and your arguement against rian fire moves and fire types are less viable is far from true there are these wonderous things called Snadstream and more significantly Drought which negate the power depletion of fire moves and actually does the same thing to water moves while powering up fire ones in drought's case "fire types and fire moves are just as viable unless sand and sun go but for whatever reason rain doesn't.

But once these 'fun and original' Pokemon become standard, they won't be any different than Tyranitar, Gliscor, Politoed, or Thundurus. I'm pretty sure the novelty of Toxicroak finally being OU has worn off and some people are actually writing death threats to the players using it as we speak.

But more importantly, this is going to happen in every iteration of every metagame no matter what we keep or ban. If anything, striving against a major revolution is a great way to ensure we're going to keep seeing the same Pokemon over on teams, which will probably do just as much to take the fun and diversity out of the game for all players concerned. At the end of the day, it's really no one's job but your own to make the game 'fun'.

Is the current state of Drizzle "so unbalanced that most of us are almost forced to use it?" I'd be interested to see the statistics on Politoed's usage this month. If it rivals with Ttar's usage I would agree. May's statistics did not reflect your sentiment of unbalanced for Drizzle (10.8% =/= people being forced to use Drizzle). Unless Politoed's usage significantly improves, I guess we would have to "just use what is or becomes viable in the metagame around it."

My argument was never people being forced to use Drizzle. We've never been "forced" to use Wobbuffet, Salamence, Latias, or anything really broken since Garchomp was around at the beginning of Gen 4 (and while we're at it, I think I could have won a lot more matches if I would have just given up and used it...).

The closest you're going to get to that kind of reasoning is Tyranitar and Ferrothorn taking the top spots in OU to both change the weather on and check Politoed respectively. We observed this trend last Gen when Scizor took a massive downcut on usage once Salamence was banned. We didn't lazily have to slap a CB on it just to keep from getting swept by Dragon Dance. Sometimes, the biggest threat to the bannable offender will accrue more usage than the offender itself. Regardless of what usage tells us this month, I know Drizzle is a problem and we'd be much better off without it.

 

[XienZo]

Can't we just ban Thundurus and other overpowered non-Swift Swimmers without repealing Aldaron's Proposal? Why do you make it sound mutually exclusive (if we have Aldaron's Proposal, then we can't ban Thundurus)?

Well, the whole downside to Aldaron's proposal is that it's a complex ban, which is more problematic than simple bans that accomplish the same.


We could do/are doing that, but that's basically implementing a second solution while we're still paying the costs of the first one. At that point, if we just entirely switched over to the second solution, we'd still have everything solved, but we'd get rid of the complex ban.

 

[fidgety]

Strange how about 15 pokemon extra can't all fit into OU infact really standard only applies to the top 60-70% of the OU tier. The only ones who will really be debatably Standard after you remove Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Kabutops would be Poliwrath (Water Fighting coverage + BD + SS), Floatzel (BU + SS), Qwillfish (Suicide Spiker/T-Spiker), Omastar (Suicide Hazard Setter/Shell Smash + SS), and maybe Huntail/Gorrebyss (SS +Shell Smash + BP). that is 6 pokemon and none of them are hardly unstoppable.

Also as for tar/ferrohorn; Tar is used on some teams to Keep rain Down but others it is an active Strategy Tar will be a perpetual top 5-10 pokemon just because it does so many different things and does them decently to Exceptionally, Ferrothorn not only keeps some aspects of rain (AKA ones without some overpowered option like kingdra or a fighting move like Kabutops), it has excellent defenses and a Support movepool to match. these pokemon are hardly used only for Rain Control that is only part of their job or in some cases an added bonus.

And if you want rain gone Remember you are banning what suits you if rain does everything everyone is complaining about to the level where it needs a ban, Stealth rock should have long since been banned. It is the single move centralizing thing in any tier worse than rain, sand or sun simply because it removes entire pokemon from the face of existence worse than any of those three however it hasn't been banned People have learned to live with it this gen weather will likely have to work out the same way.

 

[IcyMan28]

The closest you're going to get to that kind of reasoning is Tyranitar and Ferrothorn taking the top spots in OU to both change the weather on and check Politoed respectively. We observed this trend last Gen when Scizor took a massive downcut on usage once Salamence was banned. We didn't lazily have to slap a CB on it just to keep from getting swept by Dragon Dance. Sometimes, the biggest threat to the bannable offender will accrue more usage than the offender itself. Regardless of what usage tells us this month, I know Drizzle is a problem and we'd be much better off without it.

This. We should all note that in this particular case, the number 1 pokemon has been Top 5 for 3 generations regardless, which is an extremely high indicator of its general adaptability and success outside of its ability to start weather. Politoed cannot claim this, and yet look at where it is.

 

[Pocket]

That is a valid point, SJCrew, but I have to argue that Rain is not even half the reason why Tyranitar and even Ferrothorn is in the top 5. Even if Drizzle is removed, Tyranitar and Ferrothorn usage may drop but will undoubtedly remain in the top 10 due to them being fantastic mons.

IcyMan, obviously Drizzle is what makes Politoed OU. Naturally a Politoed in previous gen did not see use, because it did not have Drizzle. Yes, an Ability can make a once NU / UU Pokemon OU (See Scizor in RSS vs Scizor in DPP), but that doesn't mean it's broken.

 

[IcyMan28]

It may not always be the case, but Politoed sure as hell isn't the best abuser of Drizzle and it really does show just how much Drizzle is worth having.

I'm kind of stating the obvious here, but it's just that I find it to be a small point of note in the anti-Drizzle argument.

 

[iSkittles]

I'm starting to lose hope that this Drizzle situation will ever be resolved, even with high quality posts from both sides of the debate. =/ Too many people want to maintain status quo even though we're bending over backwards to save something that's borderline broken because it's "not a pokemon". I can't wait for this to be over with already.

 

[Nubagator]

I don't agree with the banning of drizzle, but let's theorymon for a minute that it is banned. Some of you are saying oh Ferro and TTar will drop in usage. Wut? Ferrothorn maybe, but no way in hell would TTar drop, in fact I think he'd see much more usage. With one of the other weathers gone, most competitive players who favored drizzle would simply switch to sand or sun. Probably sand, since it does a good job against Sun in general. If sand already makes up 20% of teams just imagine it in a drizzle-less meta game. I think as a response there would be proposals to ban sand. and if Somehow sand was banned from that point Sun would dominate as the only viable weather type. In the end we would end up in a weather free metagame. Some people probably want this outcome, and who's to say if it will ever end up this way, but imo Thundurus is the only thing that really needs to go. I have never seen Drizzle as broken after Aldaron's Proposal was implemented, and I feel removing it would be unhelpful for the metagame as a whole. I'm sure many of you disagree, this is all my opinion and a little theorizing after all.

 

[iSkittles]

I don't agree with the banning of drizzle, but let's theorymon for a minute that it is banned. Some of you are saying oh Ferro and TTar will drop in usage. Wut? Ferrothorn maybe, but no way in hell would TTar drop, in fact I think he'd see much more usage. With one of the other weathers gone, most competitive players who favored drizzle would simply switch to sand or sun. Probably sand, since it does a good job against Sun in general. If sand already makes up 20% of teams just imagine it in a drizzle-less meta game. I think as a response there would be proposals to ban sand. and if Somehow sand was banned from that point Sun would dominate as the only viable weather type. In the end we would end up in a weather free metagame. Some people probably want this outcome, and who's to say if it will ever end up this way, but imo Thundurus is the only thing that really needs to go. I have never seen Drizzle as broken after Aldaron's Proposal was implemented, and I feel removing it would be unhelpful for the metagame as a whole. I'm sure many of you disagree, this is all my opinion and a little theorizing after all.

Garchomp kept Mence in check but that didn't stop him from being banned in the previous gen. But if no weather means we'll have the most balanced and desirable metagame, I don't see why so many are opposed to it.

They're pussying out of banning broken stuff (or getting away from status quo would be more accurate) out of paranoia, which is a problem IMO.

 

[Rosey Oak]

I don't agree with the banning of drizzle, but let's theorymon for a minute that it is banned. Some of you are saying oh Ferro and TTar will drop in usage. Wut? Ferrothorn maybe, but no way in hell would TTar drop, in fact I think he'd see much more usage. With one of the other weathers gone, most competitive players who favored drizzle would simply switch to sand or sun. Probably sand, since it does a good job against Sun in general. If sand already makes up 20% of teams just imagine it in a drizzle-less meta game. I think as a response there would be proposals to ban sand. and if Somehow sand was banned from that point Sun would dominate as the only viable weather type. In the end we would end up in a weather free metagame.

Ok. I see what you mean now. Yes I agree that if Drizzle where to be banned, the other weathers (not hail) would most likely dominate.

However lets say, hypothetically both lv1 Kyogre (Drizzle) and Groundon (Drought) were allowed in OU and no other permanent weather inducers existed, therefore they both balanced out each other. If we were to do a suspect ladder test in which banned Kyogre (Drizzle) from the Metagame and Groundon (Drought) remained as the dominant weather, which eventually was proven to be over powered without the existence of Kyogre, would both become Uber or would they both stay OU because they balance each other out?

IF all Kyogre and Groundon do is hold each other back from being broken then I would ban them both. Why? because both in their own right were overcentralizing and dominating the Metagame.

We should all look at each weather individually. Would Drizzle be manageable without the existence of other weathers to balance it out and viceversa. I doubt hail would be a problem and the only Pokemon I think poses a problem in Sand is Excadrill.

In this case what would create a more balanced healthy Metagame:

1. The existence of Drizzle, Drought, Sand(Excadrill) which balance each other out.
2. The extinction of Drizzle, Drought and Excadrill which overpowered sand.

In my opinion it would be option 2, but I guess this is where those who are anti-weather and pro-weather views differ.

 

[IcyMan28]

Second, why the hell does it matter if Sand dominates the metagame? Last I checked, such was the case during all of Gens 3 and 4, and Excadrill is the only offensive Sand abuser that even deserves to be considered an issue, IMO. Landorus is good, but it isn't so good as to be suspect.

If Drizzle were banned and Sand dominated, we would ban Excadrill. Simple, clear steps. I don't understand what is so appalling about that idea.

 

[Pocket]

I agree with Nubagator to some extent. To me, it seems like we are at the end point, or very close to the end point of balancing weather. Why disrupt this balance we have achieved / about to achieve by banning Drizzle / bringing back Swift Swimmers?

 

[Rosey Oak]

IF Drizzle is not broken solely because it has other weathers to balance it out, does this not mean that it IS violating the terms of the word ‘broken’ under the category that you must use it or use the one counter (i.e strategy) that effectively counters it.

 

[Matthew]

IF Drizzle is not broken solely because it has other weathers to balance it out, does this not mean that it IS violating the terms of the word ‘broken’ under the category that you must use it or use the one counter (i.e strategy) that effectively counters it.

By that logic Stealth Rock is broken and, hell, most pokemon that can run Draco Meteor effectively. There's counters to specific threats but you don't have to use them to win: see not running rapid spin or not relying on weather sweepers such as Scrafty.

 

[Rosey Oak]

By that logic Stealth Rock is broken and, hell, most pokemon that can run Draco Meteor effectively. There's counters to specific threats but you don't have to use them to win: see not running rapid spin or not relying on weather sweepers such as Scrafty.

Many Pokemon can learn rapid spin whereas there are only a limited number of weather inducers (Tyranitar, Politoed, Ninetales and Abomasnow). Additionally, in the scenario of stealth rocks, both players must use one move in order to lay or get rid of it, whereas weather inducers produce weather and all of it's effects on the switch in and the only fair effective way to get rid of it, is to use another weather inducer yourself (or Cloud 9). Whilst I agree that you don't need to use a weather team in order to beat drizzle, drizzle's direct and indirect effects puts the other player at a disadvantage whether they like it or not.

 

[Matthew]

That can be said about anything pokemon related though. I switch in a Volcarona and they didn't bother to put Stealth Rock on their team they are fucked, in most cases. You bring up one move to get it down or get rid of it, out of the handful of pokemon that can get Rapid Spin only two are really used, on top of that Rapid Spin itself can be countered with a Ghost-type. The only way setting up your own weather is countered is by making your weather starter slower than everyone else's, that comes with a risk itself.

 

[Tobes]

Many Pokemon can learn rapid spin whereas there are only a limited number of weather inducers (Tyranitar, Politoed, Ninetales and Abomasnow). Additionally, in the scenario of stealth rocks, both players must use one move in order to lay or get rid of it, whereas weather inducers produce weather and all of it's effects on the switch in. Whilst I agree that you don't need to use a weather team in order to beat drizzle, drizzle's direct and indirect effects puts the other player at a disadvantage whether they like it or not.

Many Rapid Spinners =/= many viable Rapid Spinners. We're looking at Excadrill and Forretress, and that's just about it, one of whom needs sand to work. And anyway Stealth Rock only needs to be used once in most situations, whereas weather generally needs to be reactivated multiple times against a team with an opposing weather inducer.

Also I don't like the "Drizzle puts the opponent at a disadvantage" argument, especially since it's automatically untrue if the opponent bothers to pack a Swift Swimmer on a non-Drizzle team. (And you're not really going to argue that an opposing Drizzle team is at a disadvantage because of your Drizzle, are you?). I could just as easily argue "Using six Dragons puts the other player at a disadvantage whether they like it or not".

 

[jas61292]

Second, why the hell does it matter if Sand dominates the metagame? Last I checked, such was the case during all of Gens 3 and 4, and Excadrill is the only offensive Sand abuser that even deserves to be considered an issue, IMO. Landorus is good, but it isn't so good as to be suspect.

Well, I'll ask you a similar question. If a sand dominated metagame is OK, why is a rain dominated metagame not OK?

 

[astrohawke]

Well, I'll ask you a similar question. If a sand dominated metagame is OK, why is a rain dominated metagame not OK?

Because the pokemon community as a whole tends to have a bias towards banning heavily offensive threats and and not really being too bothered about defensive threats even if both are equally centralizing.

Rain is heavily offensive with double speed, increased power, thunder/hurricane spam etc on most of its abusers. Sand is more defensive with its passive damage and +sdef boosts with excadrill and landorus being the only real offensive abusers and these are seen as manageable at least by most.

It's the same reason every banned threat so far has been offensive and the reason why something like ferrothorn wouldn't even be considered. That's the reason why sand domination is ok but rain domination isn't.

 

[MetaGross66]

Many Rapid Spinners =/= many viable Rapid Spinners. We're looking at Excadrill and Forretress, and that's just about it, one of whom needs sand to work. And anyway Stealth Rock only needs to be used once in most situations, whereas weather generally needs to be reactivated multiple times against a team with an opposing weather inducer.

Also I don't like the "Drizzle puts the opponent at a disadvantage" argument, especially since it's automatically untrue if the opponent bothers to pack a Swift Swimmer on a non-Drizzle team. (And you're not really going to argue that an opposing Drizzle team is at a disadvantage because of your Drizzle, are you?). I could just as easily argue "Using six Dragons puts the other player at a disadvantage whether they like it or not".

It's not automatically untrue if the Drizzle user happens to be carrying a Ferrothorn which happens to be able to cripple the most common swift swimmer, Kingdra, with Thunder Wave. The rest have to either eat a super effective power whip or get cripple with Thunder Wave.

And tbh, Drizzle and SR are not comparable. Lirg provided a good explanation as to why on pg 25 of this thread. The quote is below. I provided one as well, but I feel his sums it up better.

For me, it's not comparable. Because you have to use one turn to use SR ! The only way to compare these two is to compare SR with Rain Dance. In this case, I agree with you, SR is more threatening. But here, nothing can prevent politoed to bring rain. You can prevent the user of SR by taunting him, use magic coat, use espeon or Xatu and eventually if Sr is laid, you can spin them. With drizzle, all you can is to bring Tyranitar or Ninetales or use a move that changes weather (but it cost you one turn like SR and you must bring the poke who know it)

 

[tomtom5858]

"Doubled speed"? Please read up on Aldaron's Proposal.

 

[alexwolf]

Um, no. Like I said earlier, Vaporeon is still a good Pokemon with Water Absorb, and won't be made unviable by Drizzle leaving. Even if it did (like Toxicroak would be), something else just as good, if not better would take its place. Something like Alomomola, for instance, who performs mostly the same support role as Vaporeon, but uses its Attack stat instead.

You didn't get the point...Variety is what matters in that case.And almost no poke can replace vaporeon's niche as a hydrarest toxicstaller.So we certainly have a loss in variety which is never a good thing.

If anything, their dependency on a single weather effect makes them unreliable, especially when you consider something like Toxicroak, who's OU only because of Drizzle and really isn't that great to begin with. If Toxicroak is made unviable once Drizzle leaves, we're not going to shed tiers for it, we're just going to replace it with something better and more usable in common metagame conditions.

What you mean toxicroak isn't that great anyway?
You talk like drizzle is not standart in the metagame...
Pls tell me which is the biggest reason that moltres,arcanine and starpator aren't used in ou so much and are considered not so good choices for ou.'Cause of sr!But you consider all these pokes already bad 'cause you are used to sr!
It's the same with toxicroak!Toxicroak is ou now and that is all!You cannot tell that it is not good outside of drizzle 'cause i can tell you another 100 pokes that are not good under certain circumstances...

20 Pokemon losing viability once Drizzle is gone could just as easily mean 20 more Pokemon taking their place. Maybe just 15. Either way, we're not playing a worse metagame without Drizzle. It'll be different for sure, but Toxicroak and friends losing OU viability doesn't make us any worse off. Why not start using Arcanine, Infernape, Victini, or Darmanitan to prepare for Drought? Those Pokemon become extremely viable without Drizzle around.

If drizzle goes then some playstyles will be gone.And the places that will be left empy cannot be filled by other pokes...'cause there will be no rain!These places were meant to exist only in drizzle!So without it ou will effectively losen 20 pokes!'cause no other pokes could fill their niche...!And all these sun pokes that you are talking about already exist...And of 'course less diversity means a more boring metagame and thus a worse metagame!

Also, I can just as easily name several things that are made less/unviable with Drizzle around.

- Fire-tyes
- Fire moves

Metagame diversity!

No, seriously, those types of arguments don't mean anything. We should aim to get rid of Pokemon that are so unbalanced that most of us are almost forced to use it, but aside from that, we'll proceed as normal and just use what is or becomes viable in the metagame around it, regardless of whether or not former UUs get a second in the spotlight.

Fire type moves and fire types are already used in ou so your point is null...Many fire types and fire moves fullfill certain niches in ou already so it is fine!
When we talk about variety we don't mean that ou will get bigger or that more top threats will arise...We are talking about the number of pokes that are usable in ou...That's what matters!And with drizzle the number of these pokes is increased by 20 more or less.If we ban drizzle this list will shrink by 20 pokes and will not get any bigger!Maybe fire types will see more use but this doesn't matter 'cause fire types already have uses in ou!We don't examine percentage of use we examine viablity!And without drizzle 20 pokes lose their viablity in ou...!Answer me if you understand this...I am not mocking you i just want to know if the you got the variety thing...

My feelings on Drizzle have been stated multiple times, however, this time, I'm going to be explaining something a little different.

Right now, we've already made a complex ban to save Drizzle. Swift Swim + Drizzle.

We didn't make it to save drizzle...We made it so we could calmly find the broken factor in this whole mess.The fact that many people back then accused drizzle doesn't say shit...The fact is that without experience we can't judge things that are new to us...So instead of making rush decisions we took the right way...

Anyone who says that banning Kingdra and co was the right solution is likly wrong. This is mainly because Drizzle is borderline broken as it is already. Imagine if it had the likes of Swift Swim Floatzel, and Goyebass as well on top of what it has now?

It is nor borderline broken.Thundurus is borderline broken.Drizzle didn't even get a simple majority so pls stop talking like it did...And it would be better if we had real experience than trying to imagine situations...

Then there's the issue of how far we have to go to save Drizzle, to me, it's seeming like 4th Gen Mence all over again. Scizor was everywhere to deal with Mence. Sand is everywhere, and teams that don't run sand run Ferrothorn or Virizion, two of the very few checks to Drizzle teams. Many Sand teams have started running Rotom-W with Thunder, from my observations. Thunder Rotom-W is kinda useless in the Sand...

Again all this wasn't to save drizzle as you mean it...Of 'course the point was to save drizzle!Not save it by nerfing it ...Saving it by preventing a non broken element getting rashly banned by inexperienced people!By this definition then yes we saved it...Again you don't have any evidence ass to why drizzle is broken so pls stop telling that it was...
And if you are going to say to me:if it wasn't broken the why did we have such a huge mess i will tell to you that kingdra,kabutops and ludicolo did it under drizzle not drizzle alone...!Drizzle was not their only common factor...These pokes had also SS so why are you telling that drizzle is broken when it doesn't even break the majority of it's abusers???(see my above posts to see what an abuser is).And all your examples are showing centralization not brokeness...

I mean, look at what Drizzle does:

It undoubtedly breaks Kingdra and Manaphy
It probobly breaks Ludicolo and Kabutops
It might break several other Swift Swimmers
It makes Thunderus more broken
It makes Rotom-W a juggernaught
It makes CB Azumarill obliterate literally anything that dosen't resist Water or have Skarmory-like defenses
It makes Ferrothorn even more inpregnable
It makes Fire-type attacks less viable in the metagame
It gives many pokemon who use Water as a coverage move more power, such as Latios and Hydregion [He can use Surf, belive it or not]
It allows Hurricane Spam from Tornadus and Dragonite [And other non-viable pokemon]
It makes Rain Stall possible.

---

First of all drizzle doesn't make thundurus broken!Imo and to many others as i have read thundurus,if it proves to be,is broken in his own right!
So except overpowering some SSers i don't see any other negative...All the other examples don't show brokeness so they are fine!Now let me ask you this...
Why are you accusing drizzle for breaking the SSers and not the SSers for breaking drizzle?I think that you do so solely because drizzle was the last element introduced to the situation and you are thinking:''what happened?everything was fine before drizzle so why now are the SSers broken?''
Why don't you think about it this way:the ability drizzle is fine!But when the SSers come in we have a problem!So ban the SSers(or SS in general if you think that SS is the problem)!

So far to save Drizzle, we have:

Implemented a Complex ban, which has opened the floodgates for things like Ability + Pokemon bans.

Banned Manaphy

Even after this, Drizzle got a 31 - 39 vote to ban it, which may range from 37-39 to 31-45, with even the most pro-Drizzle vote possible hardly being resounding [Not even 66%, which, bear in mind is what you need to auto-ban something]

We may be banning Thunderous [Although the degree this is Drizzle's Fault varies, but Thunderus benifits from Thunder, and from more Waters in the metagame <_<]

Again we didn't did these things to 'nerf drizzle'.We did them so everyone can judge drizzle more calmly and with better arguments and experience!

This. We should all note that in this particular case, the number 1 pokemon has been Top 5 for 3 generations regardless, which is an extremely high indicator of its general adaptability and success outside of its ability to start weather. Politoed cannot claim this, and yet look at where it is.

Since when we are judging tering decisions based on older gens???What is the relevance?
What generally useful means?Politoed is generally useful since he sets and abuses one of the standart battle conditions:drizzle!So i don't really get your point...Drizzle is a common and integral part of 5th gen ou so i don't get the 'outside of weather part'.Weather is the standart so we don't have to take into account what happens outside of it...Of 'course drizzle is an amazing ability but since when do we ban amazing abilites?

Second, why the hell does it matter if Sand dominates the metagame? Last I checked, such was the case during all of Gens 3 and 4, and Excadrill is the only offensive Sand abuser that even deserves to be considered an issue, IMO. Landorus is good, but it isn't so good as to be suspect.

If Drizzle were banned and Sand dominated, we would ban Excadrill. Simple, clear steps. I don't understand what is so appalling about that idea.

It matters 'cause variety will be severly limited!And because drizzle is not a broken ability nor politoed is a broken pokes in ou...

 

[alphatron]

You know what? If I can actually make voting requirements, I'm going to nominate the suspect testing process.

This isn't the metagame. This is the majority of players using what they believe to be the easiest strategy to abuse in order to make voting requirements. Of course you'll see the same sand/rain team over and over again. Those teams are the most effective teams. Why experiment and risk lowering your position on the ladder when you can just abuse the same effective strategy that everyone else is abusing.

No wonder everryone bashes weather. You'd see a lot less of it if everyone didn't feel forced to run it. The metagame is easily capable of having more variety than it does now, even with weather around.

 

[jas61292]

Because the pokemon community as a whole tends to have a bias towards banning heavily offensive threats and and not really being too bothered about defensive threats even if both are equally centralizing.

Rain is heavily offensive with double speed, increased power, thunder/hurricane spam etc on most of its abusers. Sand is more defensive with its passive damage and +sdef boosts with excadrill and landorus being the only real offensive abusers and these are seen as manageable at least by most.

It's the same reason every banned threat so far has been offensive and the reason why something like ferrothorn wouldn't even be considered. That's the reason why sand domination is ok but rain domination isn't.

It's true, we are more likely to ban offensive things than defensive ones, but that still doesn't answer my question. What we are know to do is irrelevant.

I just want a serious answer from someone with this point of view. Why is sand good and rain bad? I have yet to get a reasonable answer, and I doubt I ever will.

EDIT:

You know what? If I can actually make voting requirements, I'm going to nominate the suspect testing process.

Lol, good idea. While it is my personal belief that people should be striving to win, and thus using the best teams, I do think having constant testing makes people hesitant to experiment, and it slows the development of new strategies.

However I don't think we really need to change the process. While it might have its faults, it is the best possible system, in my opinion, and we just have to live with those problems in order to get the benefits it provides.

BTW, you don't need to make reqs to nominate something. Go ahead, nominate the process. I would love to see that.