np: UU Stage 4 - I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas

[SJCrew]

SJCrew, passive damage has been part of Pokemon since GSC. "Free damage" is not an argument to ban anything. Pokemon matches has always been about damage control, being able to do more damage than the opponent. Be killed before getting killed. Set-up Spikes before the opponent set-up Spikes.

Where do you even get the balls to correct me on this? That's exactly what this discussion is about. Spikes are essentially free in UU because our best Spikers and spinblockers exceed our best prevention methods. This has nothing to do with 'competitive standards' or GSC, this is about the state of the Black and White UU metagame where the tier is simply not equipped to handle such powerful Spikers. Spikestacking offense is overdue a huge nerf and I'd rather we take out the Big Three and let people work for their wins with significantly worse Spikers such as Accelgor.

 

[sheniqua]

I haven't played a lot of UU, I mostly stick to the lower tiers. I just wanted to say that Scolipede, Accelegor, and whoever else you guys mentioned really suck. Even in RU they get at max one layer of spikes down. In UU, with fire types everywhere, it would not be hard to stop them at all. There is no need to ban spikes, or the best spin blockers, just ban the big three. That would fix most of your problems.

 

[DetroitLolcat]

Why are people saying the Blockers are better than the Spinners??

Here are the premier blockers in UU:
Froslass (severely weakened with the Hail ban)
Chandelure (weak to all three hazards, frail, slow without Scarf)
Mismagius (Frail; OHKO'd by a lot of Physical attacks)
Sableye (Good Pokemon, but cannot take UU's tougher attacks and weak to all hazards)
Golurk (Might block one Spin before dying; it's main role is not to block Rapid Spin)
Rotom-Normal (Better than it sounds but still Frail)

Also, let's see how many of them have reliable recovery:
Just Sableye.

Now, let's look at the Spinners:

Donphan R.I.OU good buddy
Blastoise (Gets Foresight; most blockers can't touch it, bulky and can Resttalk if needed)
Hitmontop (Bulky; can Foresight; can Toxic ghosts)
Claydol (Immune to (T)Spikes and resistant to SR; can lay hazards as well)
Hitmonlee (ehhh maybe not)
Cryogonal (Fast and great Special bulk, not to mention reliable recovery. Probably the most underrated Pokemon in UU except for Qwilfish)

Yeah, the blockers might be a little better than the Spinners, but it is not hard to Spin and not hard to use Flying types. With Bronzong making a gigantic splash in UU we get another amazing tank that doesn't care about Spikes. It's also a pretty good case to re-test Hippowdon which I'll talk about soon.

All I'm saying is that I don't think pro-Spikes ban have a really strong case to push Spikes to BL. Most of the Spinblockers have fatal flaws that allow Spinners to get past them (not to mention that the two Spinners in UU have Foresight if you need it that badly) and that Spikes doesn't affect some of UU's power players like Flygon and Zapdos anyway.

I'm not saying that Spikes aren't good because clearly they are, but UU's Spinners can overcome the Spinblockers that try to keep them on the field. Keep in mind that if you apply enough pressure to pretty much any Spiker not named Deoxys-D, you can make them regret endangering their Spiker.

Also, in the most recent Suspect round, Spikes took a gigantic hit. Sure, Donphan left, but so did ALL DAMAGING FORMS OF WEATHER BESIDES HIPPOPOTAS. With Sand making up about 5% of the meta, Leftovers are abundant and nullify one round of Spikes after one turn, two after three, and three after four.

The big three aren't broken either. Froslass isn't half of what it used to be (also once the frail, frail Froslass dies you're free to Spin to your heart's content anyway), Roserade is good but is not bulky and dies to most Physical attackers (it can Spike, but cannot Spike and maintain offensive momentum at the same time) and Deoxys-D is...well he's good. If anything needs to be banned (and I don't think it does), it should be Deoxys-D. However, the burden of proof lies on the pro-ban party and I don't think the case is strong enough at the moment. I've used Deoxys-D before and it's either 1. too slow or 2. fast enough but not bulky enough, and that depends on whether he's using a fast or bulky set (bulky is better fyi).

On Hippowdon

I think Hippowdon deserves a re-test at the moment. The metagame has shifted a lot since we last banned Hippowdon and I think the new additions make the big hippo viable in UU again. What might be the best Sand counter in the game at the moment, Bronzong, just entered UU. The only Sand Pokemon that can touch Bronzong is Stoutland's Choice Banded Fire Fang. Other than that it walls pretty much anything Sand can throw at it. Bronzong isn't weak to Spikes either.

The second biggest Sand abuser, Alakazam, is OU now. Alakazam was a primary reason Sand was (rightfully) deemed OP, but now there is no Special attacking, LO and Spikes immune behemoth terrorizing non-Sand teams.

So unless Kadabra comes up somewhere, I think Sand has taken enough of a hit to be re-admitted into UU. Hail? Probably not. Froslass and the BlizzSpammers haven't gone anywhere.

 

[shofly12]

Just a note: dusclops can also function as a spin blocker with huge defenses.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Firstly, Spikes aren't that bad. If you let your opponent get three layers of Spikes, you just suck.

I've gotten three layers set up on me. I don't suck. I've set up three layers against Reach, ToF, Upstart, etc. They don't suck.

I really don't get what the hype is about them. If you apply enough pressure, your opponent wouldn't dare to set them up because in doing so they'd just let you dictate the match and hand you a sweep.

Froslass and Deo-D get taunt, which makes it impossible to set up. They also get Thunder Wave and Toxic, which will ruin your day further. Roserade, on the other hand, will just outright kill you.

I have never bothered with Spikes or Rapid Spin in this tier, and my teams have nowhere near sucked. Have you all played Ubers? Do you know how much harder and more annoying Spikes is to try and get rid of in there? You have the bulkiest and most unkillable spinblockers and on top of that, all of them can phaze you, meaning those Spikes would fuck you up even harder. UU has no excuse for complaining about Spikes.

I topped the ladder in gen IV using a team that didn't have Yanmega. That didn't make yanmega less broken. And I don't see what relevance Ubers has to this. Fucking Kyogre gets like 60% usage which, in any balanced tier, would get it banned. Ubers is just a banlist and besides uncompetitive exceptions like Moody isn't an example of a balanced metagame. A better example would be OU. Oh, what's that? You say people got rid of Deo-S because it set up spikes way too easily? Huh. Imagine that.

Secondly, if your team is so susceptible to Spikes, have you all considered adapting to that? You know, use Flying-types and Levitators? It's kind of what happened after Drown All dominated Ubers for a good half a year. I was joking around last metagame with Dugtrio + 5 Flying-types spamming Brave Bird, and it was mildly successful. Yeah, go ahead and set up 3 layers of Spikes. Think I care?

Yes we should all use Pokemon that take the same amount of damage from one turn of SR setup that a normal Pokemon would take from three layers of spikes. That would certainly reduce residual damage!!

You can also use Xatu to bounce back Spikes. What can bulky Roserade to Xatu? Absolutely nothing. Froslass is probably the only Spiker who can kill Xatu, and Froslass has always been broken anyway. You still have pretty good Rapid Spinners in this tier. What was so good about Donphan? Name one spin-blocker that he actually beat.

1) 0 SpA Rosie's Sludge Bomb v 252 / 0 Xatu: 47% - 55.7%
2) Are you actually kidding? Donphan threatened every single spinblocker besides like...Dusclops because none of them dared switch in on Earthquake / Head Smash off 372 Atk. What the fuck is Blastoise going to do? Scald off 200 SpA? lol

So yeah, 1) I don't why you're all complaining about Spikes, and 2) if you hate them so much, adapt to them!

I know how I'm going to be adapting to them - by abusing the hell out of them before my opponent can until the most effective spikes get banned.

 

[jamashawalker]

I can't believe that we're debating on banning Spikes. It's almost as absurd as debating on whether we should ban Outrage.

Firstly, Spikes aren't that bad. If you let your opponent get three layers of Spikes, you just suck. I really don't get what the hype is about them. If you apply enough pressure, your opponent wouldn't dare to set them up because in doing so they'd just let you dictate the match and hand you a sweep. I have never bothered with Spikes or Rapid Spin in this tier, and my teams have nowhere near sucked. Have you all played Ubers? Do you know how much harder and more annoying Spikes is to try and get rid of in there? You have the bulkiest and most unkillable spinblockers and on top of that, all of them can phaze you, meaning those Spikes would fuck you up even harder. UU has no excuse for complaining about Spikes.

Secondly, if your team is so susceptible to Spikes, have you all considered adapting to that? You know, use Flying-types and Levitators? It's kind of what happened after Drown All dominated Ubers for a good half a year. I was joking around last metagame with Dugtrio + 5 Flying-types spamming Brave Bird, and it was mildly successful. Yeah, go ahead and set up 3 layers of Spikes. Think I care? Not only that, you have other tools at your disposal. You have Prankster Taunt, which can be used by Whimsicott and Sableye. You can also use Xatu to bounce back Spikes. What can bulky Roserade to Xatu? Absolutely nothing. Froslass is probably the only Spiker who can kill Xatu, and Froslass has always been broken anyway. You still have pretty good Rapid Spinners in this tier. What was so good about Donphan? Name one spin-blocker that he actually beat. Blastoise and Hitmontop, on the other hand, could not be prevented from spinning unless 1) severely misplayed, 2) your opponent runs double-Ghost (meaning that they are stacking on weaknesses) or 3) you missed Froslass due to Snow Cloak miss (which has been fixed).

So yeah, 1) I don't why you're all complaining about Spikes, and 2) if you hate them so much, adapt to them!

No offense but all of this sounds like you havent played much of UU this metagame, or didnt utilize/faced against a good spike user

1.) Xatu gets 2HKOed by bulky rosreade if it switches into sludgebomb which is a definite give away thanks to team preview, who would use spikes on the first move if they saw xatu on the team? Xatu needs special bulk to switch into roserade safely, but it has the biggest added risk of being poisoned and limiting its durability to being able to constantly switch into roserade.

2.) Whimiscott and sabeleye are hardly a stop for spikes. You make it sound like they are already in and the person is switching in their spiker. When you have your roserade in and have to switch in your Prankster. While it already set up 1 spike while you switch in. And whimisott can barely switch into any of the spikers. Frosslass kills with ice beam, roserade kills with sludgebomb, and as rare as whimiscott is seen ive seen way more Magic Coat Deoxys-D.

3.) Donphan was good because it has the advantage over the other two spinners and that was actuallly being able to threaten roserade. The greatest thing about roserade is that it is able to switch into blastoise and hitmontop trying to spin its spikes away and threaten them. At least donphan can hit roserade with a strong EQ instead of just being bait. Not only hitting roserade, but also other ghost stronger than blastoise/hitmontop. With donphan gone, more sabeleye are now running SpDef EVs over Def.

4.) Frosslass is hardly broken now, but each spiker provides a different approach for a team. Frosslass is for offensive teams for the battle of who ever gets the spikes up first. So for spinners they get only 1 switch in to attempt to spin or by that time it might already be too late. (that is the goal for frosslass and its team) You can focus on trying to rapid spin or gain the momentum back, but either way its almost like a battle the person with spikes on the field has the upper hand.

5.) Flying types do have the weakeness of Stealth Rock. People are utilizing Bronzong, but you cant make a team full of levitators without every team being the same.

EDIT: Damnit flareblitz always ninja's me lol

 

[shrang]

I've gotten three layers set up on me. I don't suck. I've set up three layers against Reach, ToF, Upstart, etc. They don't suck.



Froslass and Deo-D get taunt, which makes it impossible to set up. They also get Thunder Wave and Toxic, which will ruin your day further. Roserade, on the other hand, will just outright kill you.

What the hell can Froslass do to something like SubCM Raikou? Yeah, go ahead and try and use Thunder Wave or Toxic while I Sub and get a Calm Mind. Oh, did I also mention that Froslass is also weak to SR? Deo-D, on the other hand, has no offensive value whatsoever. What's it going to do to stop Blastoise from spinning on it?

I topped the ladder in gen IV using a team that didn't have Yanmega. That didn't make yanmega less broken. And I don't see what relevance Ubers has to this. Fucking Kyogre gets like 60% usage which, in any balanced tier, would get it banned. Ubers is just a banlist and besides uncompetitive exceptions like Moody isn't an example of a balanced metagame. A better example would be OU. Oh, what's that? You say people got rid of Deo-S because it set up spikes way too easily? Huh. Imagine that.

I'm comparing it to Ubers because we're not complaining about it, even when the situation is like 10x worse than it is in UU. It shows how much of a nanny state this place is.

Yes we should all use Pokemon that take the same amount of damage from one turn of SR setup that a normal Pokemon would take from three layers of spikes. That would certainly reduce residual damage!!



1) 0 SpA Rosie's Sludge Bomb v 252 / 0 Xatu: 47% - 55.7%
2) Are you actually kidding? Donphan threatened every single spinblocker besides like...Dusclops because none of them dared switch in on Earthquake / Head Smash off 372 Atk. What the fuck is Blastoise going to do? Scald off 200 SpA? lol

Blastoise uses Foresight and spins on them instead of getting forced out by whatever came in.

I know how I'm going to be adapting to them - by abusing the hell out of them before my opponent can until the most effective spikes get banned.

I actually wouldn't care if we just banned the top Spikers, but banning Spikes itself is just retarded.

 

[jamashawalker]

What the hell can Froslass do to something like SubCM Raikou? Yeah, go ahead and try and use Thunder Wave or Toxic while I Sub and get a Calm Mind. Oh, did I also mention that Froslass is also weak to SR? Deo-D, on the other hand, has no offensive value whatsoever. What's it going to do to stop Blastoise from spinning on it?

Got any other pokes besides Calm Mind Raikou?

I'm comparing it to Ubers because we're not complaining about it, even when the situation is like 10x worse than it is in UU. It shows how much of a nanny state this place is.

You dont complain in ubers because ubers is a banlist tier. So far we havent seen any tier for banning a pokemon/strategy that was too strong for ubers. You deal with what you have in ubers, its not a tier where usage stats determine the tier process.

Blastoise uses Foresight and spins on them instead of getting forced out by whatever came in.

That actually provides support that something is wrong with spikes.People really have run foresight for their rapid spinner. and even spinning one time doesnt stop spikes from having a second round. without reliable recovery, taking hits, and switching into spikes..blastoises and hitmontop survivability is serverly screwed because you want it to do so much and to keep on doing it throughout the match?

 

[TheBaron]

Let's take a look at some under appreciated spinners who have some nice quirks.
First up, its Claydol.
Claydol is probably the bulkiest spinner available right now, and with its immunity to both forms of Spike and resistance to Stealth Rock, it can come in again and again. However, there's always a catch. Claydol is weak to ghost type attacks, (never good for a spinner) and is weak to the omnipresent Roserade, firing off Energy Balls and Leaf Storms.

Next, let's look at Cryogonal.
Cryogonal is a weird little snowflake. He's got the handy ability known as Levitate, just like Claydol. He's also got immunity to both kinds of Spike and boasts great special defense. But he is weak to Stealth Rock, and has horseshit defense. He does have recovery in Recover, and can hurt Roserade with Ice-type STAB.

 

[Aldaron]

I'm not posting this taking a philosophical side on this Spikes issue. This post is simply technical in nature.

Due to the nature of PO and how the Smogon Server has to implement non Pokemon bans (consider any ability, move, or combination ban), all bans in tiers related to each other by usage are affected by one limiting factor: all bans in upper tiers are present in lower tiers. Lower tiers on PO by default use a "parent ban class" concept.

I'm not saying that Smogon philosophically will ban all things in upper tiers in the lower tiers; I'm just saying the simulator currently limits us to that.

So a Spikes ban in UU will cause a Spikes ban in RU and NU.

There may be extraordinarily complex ways to get around this, but considering this would be the second degree of difficulty (the first is simply implementing a move ban, which again, due to PO is not as easy as it seems), I'm not going to go out of my way to search for it.

I also am not going to ban Spikes in RU and NU if the the concept of banning Spikes in UU is questionable...if it were say analogous to Mewtwo in OU (meaning 100% obviously no questions asked broken), then I could see reason in implementing the ban in lower tiers as well. However, from what I am gathering, this Spikes issue is controversial and more analogous to Garchomp / Thundurus bannings (closer to 50/50s and more buffer ubers).

Therefore, unless both RU and NU want Spikes banned, I will not ban Spikes on Smogon Server on PO while it remains exceptionally difficult to first implement a move ban and then bypass the parent tier mechanism.

 

[TM13IceBeam]

Claydol: shit, doesn't even get foresight, and it like 3hkos sableye. SABLEYE. In the meantime, Sableye gets to burn Claydol and start stalling. Or in the case of mismagius, is immune to earth power and can setup on Claydol. Or even better: Dusclops, who gets 10HKO'd by Claydol's attacks and Toxic Claydol to death.

Cryogonal: Barely 2HKO'ing Roserade like 25% of the time? Not really legit imo. And if its TSpikes Roserade, you just get Sleep Powder'd because not even 4/0 Roserade is OHKO'd. It can't get past Sableye, Mismagius and Dusclops for instance, and Chandelure eats it for lunch.

 

[Mishra]

You know, the sad part about how good roserade is against spinners got me thinking what spinner could drop down to fight it. Out of all the higher UU pokes (apart from the Uber excadril), the only OU poke that could probably fight Roserade is Tentacruel (and even then, it would only stop rose from setting up, it really can't do much to hurt it).

I bring this up, simply because I believe Roserade is the primary problem. Froslass really can't do much with its half-assed sp. atk (and ice beam over blizzard). Deo-d's taunt is delivered from a poor speed that at best, will speed tie with an uninvested Roserade (or, it runs speed EVs and loses is bulk) and suffers badly from 4MSS.

Donphan leaving is tragic, but not really what unlocked the potential. Aside from Deo-d, donphan was not exactly switching in to any of these spikers (but a certain #1 pokemon could to an extent). Spikes has always been an issue, but played 2nd chair to issues such as sand, hail, alakazam, staraptor, ect.

Btw, I still want to see those paragraphs for Abomasnow. I am starting to get the impression the decision was made more in haste for the season, rather than actual logic (I don't believe this, but the thought crossed my mind).

 

[SJCrew]

We didn't forget about the Hail paragraphs. Jabba is still bugging the guys who didn't do it and won't make a new metagame thread until they're sent in. You'll see them when they're all ready.

 

[Heysup]

Alright, so lets focus on whether the any of the big 3 are broken and why since a Spikes ban is out of the question. Also we need to consider on whether or not that ban would actually make a difference.

As I've said, the specific Spikers are annoying but not hard to deal with. The Spin Blockers mostly suck debatably more than the Rapid Spinners. There is no "Gen 4 Moltres / Swellow / Raikou / etc" to abuse these Spikes as badly as they did (turning like 6HHKOs into 3HKOs like for Swellow on Aggron).

 

[spuds4ever]

Roserade, imho, is not broken, but it's getting close. The biggest problem with her, though, is that she completely changes the UU metagame. Every team has to be prepared to have a pokemon pemanently asleep for the whole match and every team with any thing roughly spelling stall has to have a poison type for her infamous toxic spikes. I use Roserade in my own UU team and is an extremely useful member but I think it would greatly benefit the metagame if she was banned as currently she nothing short of dominates the tier.

Froslass isn't broken. Sure it's annoying and was only augmented when abomasnow was still around, but it's not broken. It can't OHKO a lot of stuff with it's pretty weak ice beam and is not bulky enough to play it safe by taunting potential set-up sweepers. She's a solid spiker, but definetely not broken without hail.

Deoxys-D is a toughie. With good speed for a defensive pokemon, great bulk for UU, and a heavenly support move-pool, it's definetely the best man for hazards after the flower. It dosen't get the spin-blocking capabilities of froslass but it is much bulkier and has less common weaknesses than her. I think this guy could come close to banning if Roserade is kicked out as toxic spikes will be a lot rarer without her and they are, frankly, his only real weakness.

 

[Banedon]

Got any other pokes besides Calm Mind Raikou?

NP Azelf ... if you stay in to use the status move, you risk dying at once to Fire Blast. Same applies to many setup Pokemon, such as Kingdra (are you going to Taunt it when it could use Waterfall predicting your Taunt for big damage?) or Mismagius (the same, but with Shadow Ball).

SubCM Raikou will always beat Froslass. There aren't that many Pokemon that can do the same - you need to outspeed Froslass + have Sub before you guarantee you win - but there are plenty of Pokemon that put it in a tight spot and can penalize Froslass with death if it Taunts as they attack. Deoxys-D is the same, except it's easier, because it's only ever going to attack with Seismic Toss that does consistent damage, cannot crit, etc.

That actually provides support that something is wrong with spikes.People really have run foresight for their rapid spinner. and even spinning one time doesnt stop spikes from having a second round. without reliable recovery, taking hits, and switching into spikes..blastoises and hitmontop survivability is serverly screwed because you want it to do so much and to keep on doing it throughout the match?

Froslass and Qwilfish doesn't have reliable recovery either, while Deoxys-D is easily set-up on. I'll also recount a conversation I witnessed on IRC with a certain senate member who I'll not name. We were discussing Deoxys-D. Conversation went something like:

#: Deoxys-D cannot be OHKOed by anything
#: Except by something like Escavalier
-: But you can't stop Blastoise spinning on it
#: Yeah but Blastoise does nothing to DeoD
#: I can attack and wear Blastoise down Blastoise doesn't have reliable recovery
-: Then I spin and switch out
#: Then I put Spikes back down
#: Blastoise doesn't have reliable recovery it cannot switch back into hazards
-: But then you only have one layer of hazards and have to switch out
#: What
#: Deoxys-D is so difficult to OHKO
#: Why am I forced out
-: Because Deoxys-D poses no offensive threat
-: So I bring in something that sets up on Deo-D and you have to switch out
-: Like Venomoth
#: You can Taunt Venomoth
#: I've seen max speed DeoD around
-: You still have to switch out with one layer
-: And what if you lose the speed tie?
#: Yeah but Venomoth is rather OP
#: I've played so many games where I just sat there and Quiver Danced and passed to Nidoking and won

No offense to Jabba, but this was when I decided I'd forfeit to j7r every time I saw him on ladder.

I'm all for banning Spikes, not to mention Stealth Rock - I nominated both after all last gen - but not for the reasons given so far.

Incidentally whatever happened to Pursuit trapping Froslass?

@shrang, people have complained about hazards in Ubers. I know I complained about Ferrothorn at some point. People did just learn to cope with it, though. Personally I feel it's a little strange the same did not happen in UU. After all, since day 1, UU has always been a Spikes metagame with so many good Spikers in the tier.

 

[Razza]

The solution is simple, ban Roserade. Deoxys-D cant touch xatu or sableye and has no offensive capabilties, froslass has rather meagre defenses and is stealth rock weak. Roserade can set up spikes, destroy most rapid spinners and find itself many opportunities to set up. Then again now that I think about it roserade isnt even banworthy; a xatu and some basic skills of prediction ( avoiding pursuiters and being careful with when you choose to switch in) will do just fine versus most spikes layers, thats if your opponent isnt a moron as it is very hard to predict versus morons.

Alternatively, just learn to deal with spikes its not too difficult

Also now that alakazam is banned and bronzong exists in UU a retest of hippowdown might be something worth considering.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

There is no "Gen 4 Moltres / Swellow / Raikou / etc" to abuse these Spikes as badly as they did (turning like 6HHKOs into 3HKOs like for Swellow on Aggron).

Darmanitan, Chandelure, Heracross, Raikou, Honchkrow, and many more mons can take advantage of the spikes very easily. I think FlareBlitz has demonstrated that well enough.

 

[Scoopapa]

I find Escavalier works really well at mitigating the effect of spikes. Since people almost always lead with their spiker (do other people share this experience or is it just because I use hippopotas?) I find it pretty useful to lead with Escavalier, who is pretty darn good against the "big 3":

Deo-D:
-Megahorn OHKOes
-Esca doesn't care about Thunder Wave, Toxic, or Taunt
-Pursuit will do massive damage if it switches; this normally means it will stay in, since getting no hazards and taking crippling damage on your only hazard layer is pretty risky for Spikes offense.
-often relied on for both SR and Spikes, meaning it usually just sets SR and dies

Roserade:
-OHKOed by Megahorn or Iron Head
-Esca switches in easily against any set, only risk being Sleep Powder or the rare HP Fire
-Pursuit will do more to it than to Deo-D

Froslass:
-OHKOed by Iron Head
-OHKOed by Pursuit if fleeing
-Ice Beam, Thunder Wave, Taunt don't really bother Escavalier

The best perk of Escavalier, though, is that he defies the argument "but you can just switch out" that often comes up when suggesting ways of dealing with the spikers. This has as much to do with Megahorn as with Pursuit. The only common offense mon that can switch in safely is Chandelure, who is high in usage but arguably less suited to blocking rapid spin than Mismagius or Sableye, who are nearly as high (in 1337 usage) but OHKOed by CB Megahorn.

 

[Heysup]

Darmanitan, Chandelure, Heracross, Raikou, Honchkrow, and many more mons can take advantage of the spikes very easily. I think FlareBlitz has demonstrated that well enough.

Yea I agree they can all take advantage of Spikes, but it isn't to the same extent where we had mons going from 16 reliable counters to 1 (Moltres) or barely anything that can switch in more than once to the fastest UU Pokemon (Swellow). The counters of the UU metagame of gen 4 were much more effected than current ones. Yea it sucks for counters of the above Pokemon, but it's not a "if Spikes are out, you lose, and if not, you win" scenario.

The Spikers are all trash compared to what Froslass was in gen 4 which I believe to be the line that none of them are currently crossing. Obviously many will disagree, but this is my logic anyway.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Yea I agree they can all take advantage of Spikes, but it isn't to the same extent where we had mons going from 16 reliable counters to 1 (Moltres) or barely anything that can switch in more than once to the fastest UU Pokemon (Swellow). The counters of the UU metagame of gen 4 were much more effected than current ones. Yea it sucks for counters of the above Pokemon, but it's not a "if Spikes are out, you lose, and if not, you win" scenario.

The Spikers are all trash compared to what Froslass was in gen 4 which I believe to be the line that none of them are currently crossing. Obviously many will disagree, but this is my logic anyway.

I've made a number of teams with a variety of spikers and a variety of abusers, and I can safely say that spikes makes it nearly impossible to wall certain pokemon. It's completely mindless how I can get free spikes with deo-d (also whoever said blastoise beats deo-d is doing it wrong, toxic / recover) and then spam powerful attacks without worrying about resists. It's like "He has a blastoise maybe I should predict and use - oh wait spikes are down, who gives a shit, spam Flare Blitz". I've lent my teams to a number of people, and all of them tell me how easy it is to use and win. That doesn't make for a particularly healthy metagame at all.

I think in gen V UU spikes are even more relevant than they were in gen IV. For one, we have absurdly powerful pokemon running around (chandelure, darma, heracross, victini) and pretty much still have the same things from gen IV to wall them with (milotic, blastoise, hell we don't even have chansey anymore). It's inarguable that power creep has favored offense more than defense this generation, which is why I still haven't seen a stall team on the ladder in over a month. And while I don't particularly give a shit about the fate of stall, I think it's symptomatic of how easy spikes are to get down that teams that rely heavily on switch are slowing dying down in favor of teams that simply consist of a bunch of random sweepers.

 

[PK Gaming]

Alright, so lets focus on whether the any of the big 3 are broken and why since a Spikes ban is out of the question. Also we need to consider on whether or not that ban would actually make a difference.

As I've said, the specific Spikers are annoying but not hard to deal with. The Spin Blockers mostly suck debatably more than the Rapid Spinners. There is no "Gen 4 Moltres / Swellow / Raikou / etc" to abuse these Spikes as badly as they did (turning like 6HHKOs into 3HKOs like for Swellow on Aggron).

I actually think you're way off base here, in fact its even WORSE in this gen since we have even better sweepers, on top of that the spinblockers are definitely better off than the spinners. Really, Blastoise and Hitmontop are the only respectable spinners, everything else is flawed. While on the spinblocker side we have Sableye, Mismagius, Dusclops, Rotom, Golurk etc. Darma with spikes makes gen IV Moltres look like Camerupt in comparison.

I mean, I hate to rag on you bro but I can't help but with disagree with everything you're saying.

 

[Pocket]

I've made a number of teams with a variety of spikers and a variety of abusers, and I can safely say that spikes makes it nearly impossible to wall certain pokemon. It's completely mindless how I can get free spikes with deo-d (also whoever said blastoise beats deo-d is doing it wrong, toxic / recover) and then spam powerful attacks without worrying about resists. It's like "He has a blastoise maybe I should predict and use - oh wait spikes are down, who gives a shit, spam Flare Blitz". I've lent my teams to a number of people, and all of them tell me how easy it is to use and win. That doesn't make for a particularly healthy metagame at all.

Not all Spikers are like Deoxys-D. I set up hazards like candy in OU with Deoxys-D; I am not surprised Deoxys-D can do spike-stacking even better in UU with lack of Scizor / TTar / Tentacruel / Forretress / Espeon.

I agree with Snunch that outright ban on Spikes is really reckless just b/c one or two mons do it well. You really can't conclude that Spikes would still be such a large issue on Pokemon with lesser niche / defense than Deoxys-D, etc.

 

[Heysup]

@PK, consider this a response to you as well.

I've made a number of teams with a variety of spikers and a variety of abusers, and I can safely say that spikes makes it nearly impossible to wall certain pokemon. It's completely mindless how I can get free spikes with deo-d (also whoever said blastoise beats deo-d is doing it wrong, toxic / recover) and then spam powerful attacks without worrying about resists. It's like "He has a blastoise maybe I should predict and use - oh wait spikes are down, who gives a shit, spam Flare Blitz". I've lent my teams to a number of people, and all of them tell me how easy it is to use and win. That doesn't make for a particularly healthy metagame at all.

Are there numbers to support these? Blastoise actually gets 2HKOed by Flare Blitz with just Stealth Rock. I mean almost nothing can reliably switch into Heracross, Rhyperior, Darmanitan, etc. and that has very little (well, nothing) to do with Spikes. Spikes are mainly just there to prevent switching around and checking but as far as counters go, they don't do much.

As far as I've seen so far, we're just saying "Spikes makes it harder to wall Pokemon". Well no shit.

I think in gen V UU spikes are even more relevant than they were in gen IV. For one, we have absurdly powerful pokemon running around (chandelure, darma, heracross, victini) and pretty much still have the same things from gen IV to wall them with (milotic, blastoise, hell we don't even have chansey anymore). It's inarguable that power creep has favored offense more than defense this generation, which is why I still haven't seen a stall team on the ladder in over a month. And while I don't particularly give a shit about the fate of stall, I think it's symptomatic of how easy spikes are to get down that teams that rely heavily on switch are slowing dying down in favor of teams that simply consist of a bunch of random sweepers.

I'm sure you realize that the more powerful our sweepers are the less Spikes matter, since they do their job no matter what. The only thing that matters about Spikes is bridging the gap between 2HKO and OHKO or 3HKO and 2HKO or limiting switch-ins in some form. What you seem to have a problem with is <offensive Pokemon>, not Spikes.

 

[FlareBlitz]

Are there numbers to support these? Blastoise actually gets 2HKOed by Flare Blitz with just Stealth Rock. I mean almost nothing can reliably switch into Heracross, Rhyperior, Darmanitan, etc. and that has very little (well, nothing) to do with Spikes. Spikes are mainly just there to prevent switching around and checking but as far as counters go, they don't do much.

As far as I've seen so far, we're just saying "Spikes makes it harder to wall Pokemon". Well no shit.

Scarf darmantian is the set I was referring to - if we're talking about LO Darmantian, Slowbro and bulky Rhyperior go from hard counters to a 2hko. This is especially relevant in Slowbro's case because due to instant recovery and Regenerator, it can otherwise wall Darmantian all day. Other sweepers have similar stories - Milotic can reliably switch into CB Rhyperior and threaten it with an ohko, forcing it out while it recovers. But with full hazards, it is ohko'd on the switch. Something like bulky shaymin can actually check rhyperior somewhat well by not being ohko'd by stone edge or earthquake and threatening an ohko back. With spikes support, stone edge is a guaranteed ohko. I mean, there are more examples, but the general point is that counters become shaky checks and checks become death fodder.

I'm also not sure why you think making a pokemon harder to wall is trivial. Isn't that the entire point of why we had a support clause? Spikes makes a pokemon prohibitively difficult to wall.

I'm sure you realize that the more powerful our sweepers are the less Spikes matter, since they do their job no matter what. The only thing that matters about Spikes is bridging the gap between 2HKO and OHKO or 3HKO and 2HKO or limiting switch-ins in some form. What you seem to have a problem with is <offensive Pokemon>, not Spikes.

So are you suggesting that darma, chandy, heracross, and zapdos are all broken? That they're not just effective because they can run past pokemon that would actually counter them because of residual damage? I'm not seeing that.