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So many weather teams... Is non-weather viable?
- Thread starter Eleon
- Start date
I would hardly call politoed a revenge killer when it comes to venusaur as you're doing a grand total of 58% damage or so with ice beam. That isn't revenge; it's a desperate measure for desperate times. Better hope he isn't using giga drain to keep himself healthy. I remember him being unable to KO naive shiftry too.
Honestly, politoed isn't useless but he's still pretty bad. His worth comes from squeezing as much value as you possibly can out of him to get the best results. A lot of people tend to forget this and attempt to take him as far as some other great OU Pokemon but this really doesn't work out. He isn't that bulky, nor is he that strong. Or strong enough anyway. On the bright side, he can be nifty team contributer in certain situations. Good thing he was blessed with the best typing in the game.
Honestly, politoed isn't useless but he's still pretty bad. His worth comes from squeezing as much value as you possibly can out of him to get the best results. A lot of people tend to forget this and attempt to take him as far as some other great OU Pokemon but this really doesn't work out. He isn't that bulky, nor is he that strong. Or strong enough anyway. On the bright side, he can be nifty team contributer in certain situations. Good thing he was blessed with the best typing in the game.
I have been using teams without weather, and it's perfectly doable if you build your teams well. I see the weathers as strategies, popular strategies that can be countered with the right tools, just like you can counter volt-turn and smash pass. Of course, the difference is that you can use your own weather to counter others, and it's often easier too.
Maybe I misunderstand what you're saying but this seems rather silly considering Drill and Thundurus are at their best in their respective weathers. Yes you could put them on a non-weather team but aren't you basically hoping that your opponent is using weather so you can use them with maxing efficiency? Because at that point you might as well use a weather inducer yourself.
As a side note, are we allowed to discuss tiering or not? Or does it only count for banning, rather than unbanning?
Maybe I misunderstand what you're saying but this seems rather silly considering Drill and Thundurus are at their best in their respective weathers. Yes you could put them on a non-weather team but aren't you basically hoping that your opponent is using weather so you can use them with maxing efficiency? Because at that point you might as well use a weather inducer yourself.
As a side note, are we allowed to discuss tiering or not? Or does it only count for banning, rather than unbanning?
Just picking up on Taylors post, that as a common user of non weather, (I don't set out to do it, I just dislike what Tyranitar gives me which means ill usually build Rain or non weather since sun is all the same), I personally, wouldn't use Excadrill. Thundurus, fine, I can see, Garchomp likewise, both of these pokemon work fine without there weather up, while being amazing if the weather they favour is active. I look at Excadrill and I see Stealth ROck, and Rapid Spin, and honetly, id consider that a waste of its talents. Under Sand, Excadrill actually reachs its full potential as a hybrid sweeper / revenger / spinner, however without Sand, its average at best IMO.
I think using Excadrill on non weather really is a massive risk, since you still prolly want another revenge killer just in case you play a rain / sun / non weather team, in which case its starting to take up slots which (when I build a team), are really precious. To me, Excadrill really is something id only use on sand, where it can cover sweeper / spinner / revenge killer, all in 1 teamslot, giving me versatility in picking the other 4 members of my team.
I think using Excadrill on non weather really is a massive risk, since you still prolly want another revenge killer just in case you play a rain / sun / non weather team, in which case its starting to take up slots which (when I build a team), are really precious. To me, Excadrill really is something id only use on sand, where it can cover sweeper / spinner / revenge killer, all in 1 teamslot, giving me versatility in picking the other 4 members of my team.
Heatran doesn't really do much against sun, sure it gets up rocks okay, then what?
Sleeped by venu? Trapped by trio? Trapped by wobb? Can't touch sawsbuck with NP either. As a whole heatran is pretty useless against sun, so really for sun you need at a minimum 2 slots dedicated to dealing with sub on a non weather team to really stand a chance, and that's hard to do.
Other than that, hope you have godlike prediction.
Not to take away from Non-weather teams of course, but In the new Meta there really isn't any way to 100% counter everything with a Non-weather team.
Please, half of the sun teams I see are too busy packing spinners and other oddballs instead of Duggy and Wobbuffet.
And, obviously, sleep has to be tanked by another Pokemon. Let's not completely fall off our rockers just yet. Venusuar has to pack either HP Ground or EQ to even touch Heatran. Furthermore, if youre deathly afraid of trapping, Shed Shell is a viable option.
Nevermind I could trap their Ninetales and set up a more favorable weather condition if I wamt (i.e. using a team of Kingdra so I have Rain Dance for backup).
I mean by how you put it, every Breloom counter can be beaten 100% of the time because it can Spore. This is not always the case. Can it be? Certainly, but the player will likely seek an alternative to take sleep if possible.
Cloud Nine just needs to like, disperse weather entirely. As is Lickilicki is very close to being able to deal with weather with its extensive movepool, the problem is its support options aren't available with Cloud Nine (heal bell, wish) and if you want to make it bulky enough to withstand attacks well then you're left with mediocre offenses. Also its speed leaves you in too many situation to be set up on.
Yea lol thats a load of bs.
Heatran is a real bitch when used against sun, for starters, they cannot spam their high powered fire moves, (giving Heatran the boost), and it easily walls quite a few members of a sun team. Volcarona, for example, cannot really win if Heatran is alive on the opposing team, Ninetales usually cannot do shit, and so on. Heck, Heatran can even run Balloon which makes it MUCH more tricky for duggy to trap, provided you play your cards right. Heck, I used Specs in BW1, after I set up SR and took out Ninetales, id bring it in and then rape shit, something teams without duggy had no answer too, and those cool Sun Stall teams would just be crushed. Heatran is very, very good aganist sun, and I am disappointed that you underrate it so hard.
Its not, just check out my BW1 RMT Nuclear Warfare (or instead go look in the archives somewhere, there should be a good non weather team in there) which, was actually fairly good against sun, and had no weather. I didn't use godlike prediction skills, it really was simple
Technically, there is no way to counter 100% everything with a weather team either. Every team has a flaw, a weakness, something that really puts them in trouble, weather teams are no different in this regard. In fact, weather teams usually have common pokemon which give them trouble, for example sun hates Heatran (and dragons I guess), Rain hates Gastrodon / Ferrothorn / Kingdra etc, Sand doesn't really like Virizion, and it can be picked apart with generally good pokemon + good play. Non weather is good, its sometimes hard to build, sometimes hard to play, but when you get it right, it can rumble with the best of them.
There are 2 reasons why non-weather is unviable, at least in my personal judgement:
1. What does weather give you: lets take a look what every single of the 4 weathers at OU do for the player running one (or even more) of them. First, the (broken) jewel of our metagame: Rain, i wont mention all of its benefits because i think we all know that the changes brought by BW 2 just made half our teams shake in fear of brand new and abusable threats (namely Keldeo and the Therians), and how could i forget about Steel-types laughing at our ire moves (hell Ferrothorn doesn't even get 2HKOd by HP fire from magnezone in rain), it has so many benefits it forced Smogon to do what we evade at most: a complex ban.
Sun teams are basically the exact same thing, with the exception of the quality and quantity of the abusers, but still it represents a mayor threat.
Sand received basically nothing bar a boon to Sandslash and Stoutland, however the benefits quite par to those of Rain (negating Lefties?, yes please), also it has that infamous Sand Veil on his side (lol chomp), just like Swift Swim it was dissappeared from OU (do not say Gliscor please).
Hell, hail (see what i did there) is the least used of all weathers, but Kyurem spamming Blizzard is nothing to screw off, and it also has the boon to negate Lefties.
Overall, as you can see in all weathers give you lots of thing, all have abusers, but non-weather doesnt have abusers. Sure you dont have a crappy pokemon in your team set in stone (cough*ninetales*cough). See my point?
2. Advantages weather vs non-weather: you sure know that when you have your weather over your opponent's you have a significant advantage, when it comes to playing against non-weather it is much easier for the weather player because he doesnt need to waste time on the war. Also, when it comes to this teams, they function well under certain weather, while the non-weather team wont have a counter to the entire opposing one.
1. What does weather give you: lets take a look what every single of the 4 weathers at OU do for the player running one (or even more) of them. First, the (broken) jewel of our metagame: Rain, i wont mention all of its benefits because i think we all know that the changes brought by BW 2 just made half our teams shake in fear of brand new and abusable threats (namely Keldeo and the Therians), and how could i forget about Steel-types laughing at our ire moves (hell Ferrothorn doesn't even get 2HKOd by HP fire from magnezone in rain), it has so many benefits it forced Smogon to do what we evade at most: a complex ban.
Sun teams are basically the exact same thing, with the exception of the quality and quantity of the abusers, but still it represents a mayor threat.
Sand received basically nothing bar a boon to Sandslash and Stoutland, however the benefits quite par to those of Rain (negating Lefties?, yes please), also it has that infamous Sand Veil on his side (lol chomp), just like Swift Swim it was dissappeared from OU (do not say Gliscor please).
Hell, hail (see what i did there) is the least used of all weathers, but Kyurem spamming Blizzard is nothing to screw off, and it also has the boon to negate Lefties.
Overall, as you can see in all weathers give you lots of thing, all have abusers, but non-weather doesnt have abusers. Sure you dont have a crappy pokemon in your team set in stone (cough*ninetales*cough). See my point?
2. Advantages weather vs non-weather: you sure know that when you have your weather over your opponent's you have a significant advantage, when it comes to playing against non-weather it is much easier for the weather player because he doesnt need to waste time on the war. Also, when it comes to this teams, they function well under certain weather, while the non-weather team wont have a counter to the entire opposing one.
The most successful team I've run in this metagame is non-weather.
People are seriously unprepared for non-weather teams. It's like every team is designed around keeping their weather up, and negating opposing weather.
The largest problem with that strategy is when opposing weather doesn't show up. Any team precautions to prevent losing your weather are wasted. Sure, you get to keep the weather advantage the whole game, but I've also been on both ends of the problem where some options on your team are simply useless because there is no weather to combat. Your threats are more threatening because they keep the abusers off the field, and limit opposing weather options. People aren't prepared to actually fight a team that has 6 Pokemon doing something on it, instead of 5 Pokemon and a weather guinea pig. This game has devolved to 5 v 5 + weather. When a non weather team shows up, ESPECIALLY if you're using <Not Tyranitar>, your weather team is essentially 5 v 6 from the get-go. Sand has the downside of not having a weather that's as abusable as Rain or Sun, though. Gen IV had a similar problem with the whole suicide lead fad. Eventually, longer lasting leads became more prevalent. Good predictions on lead explosions and such turned games into 5 v 6 very quickly. This same process is going on during the weather wars. If you're not prepared for the teams that don't care about you getting up weather, the game becomes 5 v 6, or if you have something like Duggy that's almost exclusively for trapping weather starters... 4 v 6.
In a nutshell, non-weather is still a completely viable strategy, one that's currently so underrated in the current metagame that people are actually less prepared for weatherless than opposing weather. Making a normal, solid team still works in this metagame, no matter how much other people want you to believe that you NEED to run weather to be successful. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
People are seriously unprepared for non-weather teams. It's like every team is designed around keeping their weather up, and negating opposing weather.
The largest problem with that strategy is when opposing weather doesn't show up. Any team precautions to prevent losing your weather are wasted. Sure, you get to keep the weather advantage the whole game, but I've also been on both ends of the problem where some options on your team are simply useless because there is no weather to combat. Your threats are more threatening because they keep the abusers off the field, and limit opposing weather options. People aren't prepared to actually fight a team that has 6 Pokemon doing something on it, instead of 5 Pokemon and a weather guinea pig. This game has devolved to 5 v 5 + weather. When a non weather team shows up, ESPECIALLY if you're using <Not Tyranitar>, your weather team is essentially 5 v 6 from the get-go. Sand has the downside of not having a weather that's as abusable as Rain or Sun, though. Gen IV had a similar problem with the whole suicide lead fad. Eventually, longer lasting leads became more prevalent. Good predictions on lead explosions and such turned games into 5 v 6 very quickly. This same process is going on during the weather wars. If you're not prepared for the teams that don't care about you getting up weather, the game becomes 5 v 6, or if you have something like Duggy that's almost exclusively for trapping weather starters... 4 v 6.
In a nutshell, non-weather is still a completely viable strategy, one that's currently so underrated in the current metagame that people are actually less prepared for weatherless than opposing weather. Making a normal, solid team still works in this metagame, no matter how much other people want you to believe that you NEED to run weather to be successful. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
In my somewhat-but-not-super experienced opinion, it seems as though weather teams are essentially the "easy" way to go. It's very easy to make a simple yet effective weather team. That's not to say that a great player making a great weather team won't be great, but I believe that a great player making a non-weather team will be superior. Weather teams are a great way for decent players to gain experience and succeed, but the great players of the game, I think, are transitioning away from weather in favor of teams with a higher skill ceiling and more innovation.
Honestly, any time someone suggests that non-weather isn't viable or is outclassed or whatever I facepalm. There's just no other appropriate response.
Let me bring some of the points other people have made and put them all together about the FAULTS weather has.
1) Weather teams are so reliant on their weather being up that they have to dedicate a fairly large amount of their moveslots and even Pokemon slots to keeping it up. This has the effect of basically weakening weather teams against teams that don't bother with controlling the weather at all, since it renders significant parts of the weather user's team redundant.
2) Weather limits the variety of Pokemon and strategies you can use much more than non-weather does. Strong fire type attack become much less useful in rain and weaknesses to Grass and Electric type attacks pile up due to multiple water types. Similarly, in Sun water type attacks become much less useful and teams become much more vulnerable to ground, ice, rock, and ironically enough, opposing fire type moves. Sandstorm and Hail cause residual damage that is severely detrimental to Pokemon that are not immune to it. All these factors lead to one thing; predictable teams with large common weaknesses. This opens them up to being easily dominated by one or two Pokemon such as Heatran for sun teams and Gastrodon or Breloom for rain, forcing them to dedicate counters for these threats, which weakens them FURTHER against teams that don't have those counters in the first place.
3)If their weather DOES get eliminated they're really screwed. It's not an uncommon practice for random Pokemon on non-weather teams to pack hail on a random Pokemon, just to screw with weather teams that get careless with their auto-inducer.
4)Their own weather can be utilized against them by clever opponents, with Kingdra and Heatran being the most common examples. Others like Volcarona and Starmie can also take advantage of opposing weathers while not being dead-weight on the non-weather team using them.
5)They're predictable as hell. When you see weather, you know what you're getting. You can usually guess what sets the opponent is running just by looking at their team composition. Non-weather teams do not have this issue and gain a great advantage from it.
So yes, non-weather is perfectly viable. As long as you remember to account for common metagame threats you'll do fine as always. The only difference between now and the past is that these days the most common threats are weather abusers.
Hell, it's not like you have to carry dedicated counters to weather or anything, unlike what a lot of people of the opinion that non-weather is less viable claim. I just threw my current team together without even thinking about countering weather and it's been my most successful team to date. It's not that hard to put together a team that can handle common weather threats without sacrificing your creative side if you're willing to take the time to think about what you're putting together.
I think a lot of newer players are perceiving non-weather as being "worse" than weather because it IS generally harder to use. The reason for this isn't because non-weather is less powerful or potent or anything though. No, the reason is because it's a lot less formulaic than weather is. Weather teams are easy to put together and play because they come with a well known and easy to follow set of guidelines. You put your weather inducer here, then a bunch of weather abusers, and ta-da! Teambuilding complete! But when you run a non-weather team there are just so many more options available and so much less is decided for you out of the gate that new players flounder and put together teams with crappy synergy and no cohesion. So when their weatherless team fails due to them not really knowing how to put it together, they just assume it's because weather is better. It's like volt-turn was before BW2; formulaic and with a simple playbook to follow, but very effective.
Essentially, when something is easy to use people are going to assume it's overpowered, especially more inexperienced people who don't have the experience yet to figure out non-formulaic ways to win. Building teams that don't conform to a well known formula is much more challenging simply because of the sheer amount of possible combinations that are available. There are so many more ways to get it wrong essentially, far more than there are to get it right. But because it's not formulaic, there ultimately are more ways to get it right than there are for a formulaic approach. Basically, there are so many ways to get it right AND to get it wrong, whereas with formulaic playstyles there's usually a much smaller number of ways to get it right that are much more immediately obvious.
I hope that kind of makes sense, I'm having some difficulty trying to express what I mean. Point is, easier =/= overpowered, harder =/= non-viable or outclassed. So, weather might be easier to use but it certainly doesn't make non-weather teams outclassed in any way; they just require more know-how to put together properly.
EDIT: So Ultimario ninja'd half my list and Absolete ninja'd the whole point of my last 3 paragraphs. This is what writing enormous essays does people, learn from my mistakes :P
Let me bring some of the points other people have made and put them all together about the FAULTS weather has.
1) Weather teams are so reliant on their weather being up that they have to dedicate a fairly large amount of their moveslots and even Pokemon slots to keeping it up. This has the effect of basically weakening weather teams against teams that don't bother with controlling the weather at all, since it renders significant parts of the weather user's team redundant.
2) Weather limits the variety of Pokemon and strategies you can use much more than non-weather does. Strong fire type attack become much less useful in rain and weaknesses to Grass and Electric type attacks pile up due to multiple water types. Similarly, in Sun water type attacks become much less useful and teams become much more vulnerable to ground, ice, rock, and ironically enough, opposing fire type moves. Sandstorm and Hail cause residual damage that is severely detrimental to Pokemon that are not immune to it. All these factors lead to one thing; predictable teams with large common weaknesses. This opens them up to being easily dominated by one or two Pokemon such as Heatran for sun teams and Gastrodon or Breloom for rain, forcing them to dedicate counters for these threats, which weakens them FURTHER against teams that don't have those counters in the first place.
3)If their weather DOES get eliminated they're really screwed. It's not an uncommon practice for random Pokemon on non-weather teams to pack hail on a random Pokemon, just to screw with weather teams that get careless with their auto-inducer.
4)Their own weather can be utilized against them by clever opponents, with Kingdra and Heatran being the most common examples. Others like Volcarona and Starmie can also take advantage of opposing weathers while not being dead-weight on the non-weather team using them.
5)They're predictable as hell. When you see weather, you know what you're getting. You can usually guess what sets the opponent is running just by looking at their team composition. Non-weather teams do not have this issue and gain a great advantage from it.
So yes, non-weather is perfectly viable. As long as you remember to account for common metagame threats you'll do fine as always. The only difference between now and the past is that these days the most common threats are weather abusers.
Hell, it's not like you have to carry dedicated counters to weather or anything, unlike what a lot of people of the opinion that non-weather is less viable claim. I just threw my current team together without even thinking about countering weather and it's been my most successful team to date. It's not that hard to put together a team that can handle common weather threats without sacrificing your creative side if you're willing to take the time to think about what you're putting together.
I think a lot of newer players are perceiving non-weather as being "worse" than weather because it IS generally harder to use. The reason for this isn't because non-weather is less powerful or potent or anything though. No, the reason is because it's a lot less formulaic than weather is. Weather teams are easy to put together and play because they come with a well known and easy to follow set of guidelines. You put your weather inducer here, then a bunch of weather abusers, and ta-da! Teambuilding complete! But when you run a non-weather team there are just so many more options available and so much less is decided for you out of the gate that new players flounder and put together teams with crappy synergy and no cohesion. So when their weatherless team fails due to them not really knowing how to put it together, they just assume it's because weather is better. It's like volt-turn was before BW2; formulaic and with a simple playbook to follow, but very effective.
Essentially, when something is easy to use people are going to assume it's overpowered, especially more inexperienced people who don't have the experience yet to figure out non-formulaic ways to win. Building teams that don't conform to a well known formula is much more challenging simply because of the sheer amount of possible combinations that are available. There are so many more ways to get it wrong essentially, far more than there are to get it right. But because it's not formulaic, there ultimately are more ways to get it right than there are for a formulaic approach. Basically, there are so many ways to get it right AND to get it wrong, whereas with formulaic playstyles there's usually a much smaller number of ways to get it right that are much more immediately obvious.
I hope that kind of makes sense, I'm having some difficulty trying to express what I mean. Point is, easier =/= overpowered, harder =/= non-viable or outclassed. So, weather might be easier to use but it certainly doesn't make non-weather teams outclassed in any way; they just require more know-how to put together properly.
EDIT: So Ultimario ninja'd half my list and Absolete ninja'd the whole point of my last 3 paragraphs. This is what writing enormous essays does people, learn from my mistakes :P
Honestly dugtrio sucks and shouldn't really be run on any weather team. Or any team at all. Give me a terrakion, mamoswine, dragonite, or landorus and I'll be fine. Sure, I may not trap enemy weather inducers but why would I need to? What is the point of trapping enemy weather Pokemon when I have a weather team of my own that doesn't fully care if an enemy weather is up? I'll set my weather back up on my own terms once I need to again. For now, my other Pokemon aren't too bothered by it being down. This is a better and more reliable option than running a Pokemon who can't even switch into what I need it to trap and is near useless 85% of the time. And also a big dissapointment since its so easy to play around.
The minute you start worrying so much about how to defeat other weather teams, your weather team is gonna have some serious issues. Don't run sun teams with gastrodon to defend yourself against rain. Don't handicap yourself when you should simply be making a good team that can utilize weather but can also work just fine without it. Once you understand this, heatran really isn't a problem for sun teams. If you're doubling up on sun sweepers that all get walled by the same Pokemon, then you've just built a bad team. Heatran by himself should not be shutting you down under any circumstances.
The combination of heatran and subCM Latias however...
The minute you start worrying so much about how to defeat other weather teams, your weather team is gonna have some serious issues. Don't run sun teams with gastrodon to defend yourself against rain. Don't handicap yourself when you should simply be making a good team that can utilize weather but can also work just fine without it. Once you understand this, heatran really isn't a problem for sun teams. If you're doubling up on sun sweepers that all get walled by the same Pokemon, then you've just built a bad team. Heatran by himself should not be shutting you down under any circumstances.
The combination of heatran and subCM Latias however...
The reason why Dugtrio is even used on Sun Teams mostly, is because Sun teams tend to use Venusaur/Victreebel/Sawsbuck/Lilligant with Chlorophyll. Dugtrio tends to beat easily Tyranitar, Politoed, sometimes, and never win againts Hippowdon but hell, Hippowdon can be beated quite easily.
Now, what happens if you lose the weather war? The generic Chlorophyll sweeper can't do shit other than damage something random before it dies.
This isn't the case for Sand, while it does have Stoutland, Sand Teams still can rely on Landorus, which is very common with teams that have Stoutland.
Also, Ninetales sucks so it can be beated by every weather inducer (lolAbomasnow).
Now, what happens if you lose the weather war? The generic Chlorophyll sweeper can't do shit other than damage something random before it dies.
This isn't the case for Sand, while it does have Stoutland, Sand Teams still can rely on Landorus, which is very common with teams that have Stoutland.
Also, Ninetales sucks so it can be beated by every weather inducer (lolAbomasnow).
But the generic chlorophyll sweeper shouldn't be your only offensive threat. And outside of venusaur and Sawsbuck, there is never any reason for you to use more than one of them as most of them get walled by the exact same things. Ignoring the fact that rain simply hates venusaur even if sun is down (it isn't uncommon for venusaur to run sunny day anyway), your team should be backed up by Pokemon who can help venusaur work his way around enemy threats that he doesn't like facing.
So your venusaur can't kill heatran? Run something that can. And while you're at it, make sure this Pokemon isn't also heavily reliant on weather. So blaziken (RIP), Infernape, terrakion, mamoswine, landorus, techniloom, etc., can work.
The same applies to other Pokemon you might use sun for. Under sunlight volcorona is nigh unstoppable and any efforts to sweep will only be stopped by scarf landorus/scarf terrakion when you're at +1. And sp. def heatran if you aren't running the situational hp ground. Noticing this, do you run a dugtrio and a bunch of other Pokemon who have the same issues? NO! Non weather teams don't do that junk and neither should you. Any Tyranitar switch ins let me get a free turn with my terrakion. Politoed is a non factor before my agility thundurus.
But Alphatron! Why should you use weather at all if your team isn't 100% reliant on it? The better question is why would you use weather at all if your team IS 100% reliant on it? Do you want your opponent to laugh at you as you squirm and struggle to bring back in your weather starter everytime something goes wrong? Do you want your entire team to fall apart after just one factor in the battle changes? The answer to this question is always no. Weather should be an additional factor that allows you to win battles, not the only factor.
So if I'm running volcorona on a sun team, it isn't because he's the only Pokemon on my team that can ever win any battles. It's because sunlight allows him to muscle down even the bulkiest of walls under that weather condition. And volcorona can perform even if sunlight is down too.
Admittedly, dugtrio may have been a thing back before the drizzle swim ban and the excadrill ban. Back when letting your opponent control the weather meant you were probably going to lose the game. Nobody used him then though. I tried him once and was constantly dissapointed at how often I was getting a 2hko on Tyranitar.
Edit: Running dugtrio gives tehy another reason to laugh at sun teams. I...I can't have that. >_<
So your venusaur can't kill heatran? Run something that can. And while you're at it, make sure this Pokemon isn't also heavily reliant on weather. So blaziken (RIP), Infernape, terrakion, mamoswine, landorus, techniloom, etc., can work.
The same applies to other Pokemon you might use sun for. Under sunlight volcorona is nigh unstoppable and any efforts to sweep will only be stopped by scarf landorus/scarf terrakion when you're at +1. And sp. def heatran if you aren't running the situational hp ground. Noticing this, do you run a dugtrio and a bunch of other Pokemon who have the same issues? NO! Non weather teams don't do that junk and neither should you. Any Tyranitar switch ins let me get a free turn with my terrakion. Politoed is a non factor before my agility thundurus.
But Alphatron! Why should you use weather at all if your team isn't 100% reliant on it? The better question is why would you use weather at all if your team IS 100% reliant on it? Do you want your opponent to laugh at you as you squirm and struggle to bring back in your weather starter everytime something goes wrong? Do you want your entire team to fall apart after just one factor in the battle changes? The answer to this question is always no. Weather should be an additional factor that allows you to win battles, not the only factor.
So if I'm running volcorona on a sun team, it isn't because he's the only Pokemon on my team that can ever win any battles. It's because sunlight allows him to muscle down even the bulkiest of walls under that weather condition. And volcorona can perform even if sunlight is down too.
Admittedly, dugtrio may have been a thing back before the drizzle swim ban and the excadrill ban. Back when letting your opponent control the weather meant you were probably going to lose the game. Nobody used him then though. I tried him once and was constantly dissapointed at how often I was getting a 2hko on Tyranitar.
Edit: Running dugtrio gives tehy another reason to laugh at sun teams. I...I can't have that. >_<
I think non-weather is a very good prospect on paper as you don't have to use trash like Abomasnow, Politoed or Ninetales to set up weather (Hippowdon is usable, Tyranitar is a beast), and you don't have to rely on over-reliant abusers of the weather (Tentacruel, Excadrill (pre-ban), and Venusaur) to have a good team that can pull its weight. But it has three key problems; You have avoid using Pokémon like Tentacruel, Venusaur and most Fire and Water Types in general, as an alternate weather from their preferred one can and will screw them up; Your team can get torn apart by things like Keldeo, Blaziken (RIP), Kyurem or Excadrill (RIP), or it will stalled to death by things like StallRien or Tentacruel; and lastly, it can just use there terrible weather inducer as a sacrifice against your sweeper to gain the opposition's team momentum.
However, non-weather is perfectly viable as you can use 6 superb Pokémon with synergy, you don't have to waste up to three teamslots for winning the weather war, and you don't have to use generic and predictable strategies. Because of these points you can acheive good coverage, and good momentum and you can abuse the fact if the opponent is using weather the main trend is to slap 5 weather abusers/ set-up onto a team and add dugtrio to destroy other weather set-up (WHY?!). But non-weather absolutely MUST be played cleverly, as must weather, and if you don't play non-weather cleverly you end up with a team that loses ever match. But if you ask me, non-weather is very viable, and it can outdo normal weather. But the same does apply for weather.
However, non-weather is perfectly viable as you can use 6 superb Pokémon with synergy, you don't have to waste up to three teamslots for winning the weather war, and you don't have to use generic and predictable strategies. Because of these points you can acheive good coverage, and good momentum and you can abuse the fact if the opponent is using weather the main trend is to slap 5 weather abusers/ set-up onto a team and add dugtrio to destroy other weather set-up (WHY?!). But non-weather absolutely MUST be played cleverly, as must weather, and if you don't play non-weather cleverly you end up with a team that loses ever match. But if you ask me, non-weather is very viable, and it can outdo normal weather. But the same does apply for weather.
I have heard it many times, but in practise someone does it? It's really worth it? I never saw it.
Like using Cloud Nine in OU, anybody uses a Pokemon with it?
As far as this goes HEAVENS NO! Excadrill and Blaziken both have a very specific niche in ubers and fulfill it perfectly. Especially Excadrill who can wreak havoc on even the sturdiest physical wall. And as far as Blaziken goes although he isn't the most used uber he also has a neat, very specific niche in ubers. These two should definitely stay where they are. In terms of unbanning i think the only one that could warrant a retest is Garchomp because thanks to his troll base 102 speed he can outspeed and KO many of the latest threats such as Choice Scarf Thundurus.
Now onto the main topic, lets face it weather is a huge part of the metagame. Non-weather is completely viable and should not be underestimated. However, sometimes its easier to just slap on a weather inducer because of how damn effective they are. For example if i wanted a specially bulky Stealth Rocker that can dish out a few hits in non-weather the first person i would look upon is Heatran. However i should ask myself do i benefit more from having a Tyranitar who can do the same thing, provide weather and also function as an even better switch in for things such as Tornadus-T and Thundurus.
Although non-weather is very viable you really must ask yourself whether you are better off using a weather inducer. The reason being that weather is already a huge advantage to your opponent. Letting it freely be summoned and utilized is a dangerous game.
The reason being that weather doesn't only mean a 1.5x boost to water/ fire moves, it doesn't only mean a 0.5x resistance, it doesn't just activate abilities. Weather is a straight up advantage over your opponent. Similar to Stealth Rock even if your opponent doesn't have any Stealth Rock weak pokemon. It gives you a mental edge over your opponent. Thats why on my current OU team i run a Tyranitar, though it's weather does not greatly help anyone on my team however, it strips away my opponents advantage, it makes me gain the mental edge over my opponent. Even though it doesn't benefit me as much to win the weather war it is a huge defining point in the match. As any good card player would no, it doesn't matter what i actually have, it matter more what my opponent thinks i have.
That said i'm not stupid, TTar isn't there just for show. He has a specific role that he accomplishes reliably almost every match. If you do choose to run non-weather and have decided that a weather inducer does not benefit you as much as another member of your team then you still need a check to weather. Most notably things like Sunny Day Heatran are very effective because when people see you have no weather they are quick to sack their weather inducer
When the cloud nine Pokemon lose to the weather inducers themselves (all of them), they aren't worth the extra trouble it takes to run just to combat weather. None of them are very useful in OU and they aren't as effective against weather as you'll want them to be (because, once again, no good weather team is invalidated the moment their weather goes down).
The only one that ever had a shot at combatting weather was Altaria in UU...before sun was banned. And this didn't work because even the UU sun teams could hold their own when sun was down!
For the record, garchomp would be the worst of those three Pokemon to bring back down. A naturally bulky Pokemon (unlike blaziken) who isn't reliant on weather (unlike excadrill) who has unresisted STAB outside of balloon steels and skarmory and bronzong? Sand veil was merely the tip of the iceberg.
I may be wrong but iirc Cloud Nine works just like Air Lock so not only is it terribly distributed it doesn't counter weather in the least. About 'Chomp I get your reasoning but i really think he is the most reasonable OU suspect. Keep in mind he is KO'd by the latest anti-meta pokemon... Mamoswine. He will barely survive Breloom's Mach Punch at +2
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom (+Atk) Mach Punch vs 4 HP/0 Def Garchomp: 81.56% - 96.37% 2 hits to KO
and he still won't be able to crack the defenses of Ferrothorn, Gliscor even Celebi. Even going back to basics SS cloyster will really do a number on him. anyway im probably going a little off topic here so excuse me.
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom (+Atk) Mach Punch vs 4 HP/0 Def Garchomp: 81.56% - 96.37% 2 hits to KO
and he still won't be able to crack the defenses of Ferrothorn, Gliscor even Celebi. Even going back to basics SS cloyster will really do a number on him. anyway im probably going a little off topic here so excuse me.
I'd just like to point out that the weather inducers aren't "Trash". Without their abilities, obviously none except perhaps Tyranitar and Hippo would be OU, but that doesn't make them worthless. Politoed in particular is surprisingly bulky, and has no problems spreading status, pseudo-hazing with Perish Song, or stopping setup with Encore. It can even run effective Scarf and Specs sets. Ninetales has good Speed and acceptable Special Attack with a Sun, as well as access to Energy Ball to muscle her way past Water types, even in inclement Weather. Abomnasnow is less useful, but he does have a unique STAB combination, and can also endlessly annoy opposing teams with Hail SubSeed should me manage to set up.
Also, why would you need to avoid using Weather abusers on a non-Weather team? I can understand why it would be foolish to run something like Venusaur, but Tentacruel, Landorus, and Kyurem are all examples of viable Weather pokemon who are usable on non-Weather teams. Tentacruel is still a capable TSpikes setter and rapid Spinner, Landorus misses the extra power on EdgeQuake but is still a strong and reliable revenge killer, and Kyurem really only misses out on 100% accurate Blizzard; it still has amazing bulk and ridiculous Attack and Special Attack. If anything, it's nice to have a pokemon that can take advantage of the opponent's strategy and use it against them. That's a big part of the reason Kingdra is becoming more popular. And it's perfectly fine to run Fire- and Water-types on non-Weather teams. Cloyster, Volcarona, Rotom-W, and Infernape are all effective pokemon, even in inclement weather.
As I think so, but I wanted to hear more opinions, they are crappy for OU and no useful even in this job(read not useful)
Cloud Nine needs an update in for of taking away the weather instead of cancelling its effects when the mon is in the field.
At least Golduck is a bit debatable since it outspeeds all Chrollophylls bar Lilligrant and Sawsbuck and Stoutland/Sandslash and it has decent stats, movepool and CM.
About dropping old OU in Ubers, Excadrill scares even more with Iron Head, anything neutral to Steel could be flinched.