Entry Hazards - Are They Broken?

[Kidogo]

This is a long post, and a lot of what I want to say has already been touched on, but I want to try to outline my responses to others' comments as well as why I feel SR warrants a ban or at least a test. Here are some points that have repeatedly come up:

Usage vs brokenness issue: Usage =/= brokenness. Yes, we all agree with this. The critical point here is that SR is so incredibly common that it is hard to evaluate its impact. As I've said before, SR is literally considered "standard battle conditions". This doesn't mean that it is broken because it is so used. What it means is that we have to consider its ubiquity in thinking about what consequences it has. Infernape has become much less viable this gen in large part because of rain's dominance; similarly, many mons are made much less viable because of SR's existence--and many many more mons, and much more so, because SR is so much more common (and arguably more crippling) than rain. This is not an argument for brokenness, don't attempt to take it a such. I'm just noting that SR's ubiquity means it has a nearly inestimable effect on the meta.

Mons that would become broken because of SR: it may very well be true that dnite and volc would be too hard to check without rocks (personally, I would be close to sure about dnite since multiscale is truly a scary ability; volc, really only an issue for very offensive teams that try to prevent it from setting up in the first place, every other check can usually beat it at 100% or 50%). Hopefully we can all agree that this is no reason not to ban rocks (if it was found broken, I will get to this below). If terrakion and keldeo were found broken and removed from OU (not inconceivable, I hope, although of course unlikely), it is possible that volc, for example, would just become too hard for offensive teams to check and would need to be banned. OK then, but this is no reason not to consider banning terra and keldy. We deal with broken things one at a time. I personally don't really see this or anything as an argument that says that SR benefits the meta, and I'll talk about why I feel it harms it below.

Actual effect of SR on a prepared team: this is semi-debatable, but really against an intelligent opponent with a reliable SR user (which are abundant due to the move's incredible distribution), it is not hard to repeatedly set up SR when the need arises (including, critically, at the very beginning of the match). In contrast, rapid spinning is much much harder--not only are there far less viable users, but there is a method to stop it. Furthermore, the spinners that can get past good blockers (jelli and gar essentially, so tenta in rain and starmie in rain) are exceedingly vulnerable to being trapped, either by pursuit or by goth/duggy. And don't you dare say that letting your spinner get trapped is your fault--if your opp brings their spinblocker in on your RS and attacks, you have two choices: switch or attack. If you switch, you don't get the spin off and come in at lower health next time, while the spinner takes no damage (unless there are also hazard up on their side, in which case you're basically arguing that SR checks SR). If you attack, you either beat them (KO the spinblocker) or are beat (have your spinner KOed). Obviously the second version is unfavorable, but even if the first occurs, the opp can sjut bring in their trapper and KO your spinner. In fact, predicting the spin-blocker switch doesnt help in the slightest, since being able to kill it sooner just shortens this.

Magic Bounce: OK, if GF had given this to something with a decent defensive typing and stats, things might be so different. As it is, espeon and xatu cannot switch in on the majority of offensive SR setters, and easily pursuit-trapped, and are close to a lost spot on the team. If I send out my SR terrakion lead, you have to first guess what set I am and then predict absolutely perfectly vs me to prevent me getting rocks up. Not reliable. Ttar is even worse.
Taunt: poorish distribution, and most of the time a waste of a valuable moveslot. The fact that you by definition have to be faster than your opp's lead for it to work is a downside, and the fact that it basically gets no use outside of the lead slot (and on stuff like jelli, but jelli's never gonna be preventing a first-turn SR). Also the fact that, because taunt is so much rarer than SR, it is much easier for me to guess that you carry taunt than for you to guess that I carry rocks--so when you send out terrakion vs my hippo, for example, you can bet im going straight for the eq (or better example: your hydreigon vs my heatran. I just go straight for HP ice). I really don't see either of these as anything approaching reliability.

OK, so in my mind rocks are quickly up and almost always there to stay. So how much does it really affect the game? I'm gonna make an estimation here, let's say the average game is ~30 turns long. Not a super important number, I don't have an actual statistic and it varies depending on playstyle, but 30 seems reasonable to me. Let's say, of those 30 turns, even half of them are spent switching (and this number is certainly higher in higher-level games as well). Let's assume 6 SR-neutral mons. So 15 switches in a game, 12.5% health lost each time. That's 187.5% health lost in a match. Obviously this number is not perfectly accurate, due to stuff like lefties that wouldn't activate if not for SR, mons dying, and various resistances/immunities, but on the whole these are rather balanced out by the fact that having a single SR-weak mon on your team adds way more damage than having a resistant one. So on average, something approximating ~200% is lost by the single move of SR--and of course, this number can be much higher and will in fact be if you engage in a lot of switching, which is often a hallmark of high-level play (indicative, not necessary--don't quote me lol). Personally, this seems like a ridiculous effect for a move that takes one turn and that about every pokemon in the game somehow knows.

Over-centralizing: I don't know if this is actually a word, but in my mind it means roughly this: when a metagame shifts (as a direct result of whatever is purportedly "over-centralizing") to be much more accommodating to certain mons and playstyles (that do well vs whatever is purportedly over-centralizing), and to be much less accommodating to other mons and playstyles (that fair poorly vs the over-centralizer) to too significant a degree. Obviously this is a subjective definition, and feel free to disagree with me on the wording and such, but I think we can all agree somewhat on the definition? The critical word here is the "too"--what is too much of a shift? However, I think it's fair to say that SR has an absolutely enormous effect on the meta--more than any other move, for sure, and I would argue more than drizzle even--which can be seen at the very least from the usage stats I and others have pointed out.

Banning a move: Here's the way I'd like to think about it. We're not banning the move SR--we're banning the condition of having rocks up. Sure, you can teach your mons the move, but it can't be used in battle (in practice, obviously the move would be banned, but that's just a matter of trustworthiness and implementation). This is the same idea as with sleep clause--we are not banning any moves, because the moves are not broken. Being able to freely spam sleep moves is what is broken. So we ban that. Mostly a technicality, and not super important imo--obviously, always a time for firsts, and we've done complex bans, ability bans, even item bans, so I don't see why a move ban is a stretch.

Brokenness: OK, so this is the big issue that a lot of people keep mentioning. I believe SR has a distinctly negative effect on the meta and that it is too powerful. A couple of big reasons:
Sheer damage and ease of use: As I estimated above, in a standard match, if SR is set up first turn, it will cause roughly 200% damage over the course of the game. Yes, it helps that it is distributed over all 6 mons, but even so. I simply don't see a way in which that could not be a little scary. 1 turn of set-up with no cost, more pokemon that learn it than like any other move except tackle (ok, not literally), very very hard to stop reliably, very hard to remove at all, and even harder to remove reliably.
Over-centralization: I don't see why this shouldn't be grounds for banning something, it's one of the foremost arguments for rain's banning in the debate thread ("if you don't abuse weather, you're out of OU" translates quite easily to "if you're weak to SR and aren't a weather-starter, a former uber, or have access to one of the best stat-boost moves in the game, you're out of OU"). SR limits diversity, it makes certain mons and strategies much less viable (I'm not arguing that hail would be particularly good if not for SR, just that it would certainly be more viable). There's also a funny effect that, of course, the more over-centralized on something a metagame is, the less of an effect it has. So in other words, if your team has all SR-resistant mons, you won't take nearly as much damage by switching around a lot (still close to 100% though on average), but you are proving how over-centralizing SR is.
These are my main two reasons for feeling SR is broken, though there are other, smaller ones. One kinda interesting one is that it discourages switching, perhaps the most intellectually challenging and interesting part of battling. Anyway, I personally do see plenty reason for SR to be at least deserving of a test, and little reason for that not to happen.

 

[Lady Alex]

I didn't say they are wrong, i said that they are very subjective and thus hold little weight. Furthermore, if you are using subjectivity as a measure as to if SR should be suspected or not and most people believe that it shouldn't, this should basically answer your own question as to why SR shouldn't be suspected. Because, according to the very subjective reasons you presented as to why SR should be suspected, the subjective opinion of the majority disagrees.

The only non heavily subjectively point that the pro-SR-ban has made is that SR is difficult to deal with, which has been brought down many times in this thread and in practice too. Very few teams go out of their way to deal with SR, and very few teams are actually threatened by SR, so the notion that SR is overly difficult to deal with is ridiculous. It is definitely not easy to deal with, as it happens with many other top threats in OU, such as Terrakion, Jirachi, and Scizor, but this is it.

The points that the Anti-SR side have made are no more or less subjective than the arguments that have been made against it (which don't include yours, since you have yet to make any original arguments about it). The idea, for example that the rapid spin users we have are adequate for dealing with the threat of SR, is subjective (and has been addressed by the Anti-SR side). There's nothing wrong with that, and there's no way to derive a completely objective meaning from that thought, which is fine. But if you are going to say that, you must be able to support that statement with something other than "I find the opposing arguments subjective," since there is inevitably going to be a level of subjectivity that comes from both sides.

The idea that few teams go out of their way to deal with SR and are generally not very threatened by them is absurd. Any team that is using a rapid spinner or magic bouncer to check SR is, strictly speaking, "going out of their way" to deal with it. Using the last three month's statistics, that's ~40% of teams, using Starmie, Tentacruel, Donphan, Forretress, and Xatu (I didn't include Espeon since being an anti-hazard pokemon is occasionally not its primary role). There's no such thing as a team that isn't threatened by SR. By nature of its function, everything is threatened by it, whether it's resisted or not. This might not even be an issue if it weren't for the negligible opportunity cost of setting up SR, which is a large part of the problem. All of this has already been brought up and discussed in previous posts, by the way.

 

[George Eliot]

Stealth Rock takes one turn to set up. It's usually impossible to stop it going up fairly quickly, and it's incredibly difficult to Spin if the opponent doesn't want you to (and normally involves sacrificing / drastically weakening your spinner, while the opponent can just take another turn to set SR straight back up again). Magic Bounce is terrible. There really aren't any reliable ways to cope with Stealth Rock except SubToxic Tenta with Politoed (and even that doesn't mean it's easy to use SR weaks in the team), or just making the entire team resistant or neutral to it.

How much damage do you think Stealth Rock will accomplish if you set it up at the start of a game? Against a standard HO, not a lot, probably a net 100% HP. Against a typical balanced team, make that 150-200%. Against stall, you're getting anywhere from 200-500%. Can you tell me any other move, which can expect to deal 200% damage over the course of a match? Spore, which is often considered broken with the current mechanics, isn't even 100%. Really. No other move comes close to Stealth Rock. Very few pokemon can even claim to be able to deal ~200% damage to an opposing team every match. And yet one move can. Of course, this ignores Rapid Spin and offensive pressure combined with early game Taunt and so on, but these just aren't reliable options as I discussed. They lessen the net damage of SR, by a lot in the case of HO and by a little for other teams. Even so, it's net damage still comes out ahead of any other move and equal (at least) to many OU pokemon. It's just absurd. Keep in mind that these net damage calcs are assuming standard OU where very few pokemon used are Stealth Rock weak. If I was to calc a Hail stall, you're looking at 250-300% even with Rapid Spin taken into account.

As you can tell I think we can ban SR just on the basis of its objective power. We ban pokemon based on how much damage they can do to the opponents team, less the amount of "damage" taken by your team in having to support it. Stealth Rock does damage close or equal to many of the offensive juggernauts we've banned, fits on every team, costs just one turn, and can be set up again and again. I really can't see that the anti-SR side is lacking a decent argument to ban it.

EDIT: Kidogo ninja'd me. Go read his post again, it basically says everything I just did except with better formatting and more detail :)

 

[Curtains]

Usage vs brokenness issue: . This is not an argument for brokenness, don't attempt to take it a such. I'm just noting that SR's ubiquity means it has a nearly inestimable effect on the meta.

If this is the case then any reference to the wide usage of stealth rock and the percentage of teams that have and use it should be thrown out the window and not be apart of the discussion.

Hopefully we can all agree that this is no reason not to ban rocks (if it was found broken, I will get to this below). If terrakion and keldeo were found broken and removed from OU (not inconceivable, I hope, although of course unlikely), it is possible that volc, for example, would just become too hard for offensive teams to check and would need to be banned. OK then, but this is no reason not to consider banning terra and keldy. We deal with broken things one at a time. I personally don't really see this or anything as an argument that says that SR benefits the meta, and I'll talk about why I feel it harms it below.

You can't compare the effect of a single pokemon getting banned to a move like SR getting banned. Banning SR will have a tremendous impact on the metagame unlike any ban smogon has made. Removing SR is not a simple case of "broken or not". It is a case of does SR make the metagame more competitive or not. No matter what post you bring up or other articles talking about banning or not banning based on the resulting metagame, I guarantee you the bulk of votes if it does come to that will be based on the tolerance of a metagame without SR and not the brokenness of SR. SR is used for a reason.. It is primarily a healthy move to have in a game that is based on risk and prediction making.

but really against an intelligent opponent with a reliable SR user (which are abundant due to the move's incredible distribution), it is not hard to repeatedly set up SR when the need arises (including, critically, at the very beginning of the match). In contrast, rapid spinning is much much harder--not only are there far less viable users, but there is a method to stop it. Furthermore, the spinners that can get past good blockers (jelli and gar essentially, so tenta in rain and starmie in rain) are exceedingly vulnerable to being trapped, either by pursuit or by goth/duggy.

First off I want to comment on rapid spinning. Rapid spinning is really not that difficult. The main two ghost in OU are not that great against certain spinners and you always have the team preview to help you with maneuvering around them. So it is up to you to play your cards right or suck it up and deal with the rocks. Most people use rapid spin to prepare a SR weak pokemon to sweep easily. Anyone that has a volcarona team needs to have some kind of spinner or it will lose its health. I don't find that unhealthy for the metagame. Usually the pokemon that take the most from stealth rock are very powerful anyway. There needs to be some kind of penalty for bringing these pokemon in. I believe SR adds a level of depth to the game. It is like castling in chess. You castle to get your king out the middle of the board. In pokemon you use stealth rocks to bust up any focus sashes and get damage on tough pokemon when they come in. SR has to make the opponent make precise moves. They can't just bring in their main sweeper and expect to sweep. They have to navigate through a middle game carefully and set up the win condition for the endgame. I find that the most appealing for the keeping of SR.

OK, if GF had given this to something with a decent defensive typing and stats, things might be so different. As it is, espeon and xatu cannot switch in on the majority of offensive SR setters, and easily pursuit-trapped, and are close to a lost spot on the team. If I send out my SR terrakion lead, you have to first guess what set I am and then predict absolutely perfectly vs me to prevent me getting rocks up. Not reliable. Ttar is even worse.
Taunt: poorish distribution, and most of the time a waste of a valuable moveslot. The fact that you by definition have to be faster than your opp's lead for it to work is a downside, and the fact that it basically gets no use outside of the lead slot (and on stuff like jelli, but jelli's never gonna be preventing a first-turn SR). Also the fact that, because taunt is so much rarer than SR, it is much easier for me to guess that you carry taunt than for you to guess that I carry rocks--so when you send out terrakion vs my hippo, for example, you can bet im going straight for the eq (or better example: your hydreigon vs my heatran. I just go straight for HP ice). I really don't see either of these as anything approaching reliability.

Magic bouncers are interesting because they can be successful but like you said the opponent can predict and kill you with a good prediction. I always found magic bouncers to be only useful against annoying stuff like ferrothorn who can run up to 2-3 support moves. As far as the SR debate is concerned you really make a big guestimation that everyone that plays BW OU has a tyranitar/weavile/goth/magnezone/dugtrio on their team. These pokemon have their own weaknesses and can be set up on by a variety of different pokemon. In such a momentum filled metagame trapping a pokemon may open up for a sweep. For example if you trap my tenta with a gothitelle I can come right in and set up my kyruem or kyruem-b which you can't do much to. Game over. Or if you bring in a obviously banded or scarfed t-tar against my espeon I can easily reverse that and set up for a terrakion sweep or lucario sweep. You can't theorymon with one good player and one shitty ass player and call that fact.

As far as taunt goes the most useful user is terrakion. it is fast and can hit hard and set up rocks. But it doesn't do well against some other SRers. For example, if you are wasting time taunting a mamoswine you can end up dead in 1 1/2 moves. Does this make SR broken? Not at all. It actually makes SR a liability to set up sometimes. Most of the time it is either set up SR or die or both. Losing a pokemon in this metagame is not like losing one in DPPT. Fodder pokemon are extremely useful in a metagame that revolves around momentum and scouting. SR isnt good enough to the point where you have to waste turns getting rid of it unless you are running a poorly made team with 5 pokemon weak to SR (or if you reallllly want to use that Hp ground moltres). I would rather take the turns to get in a good position than to waste trying to taunt something even though it can switch out and do it again later.

OK, so in my mind rocks are quickly up and almost always there to stay. So how much does it really affect the game? I'm gonna make an estimation here, let's say the average game is ~30 ......[snip]

Pretty good analysis.. But spending half the game switching is a bit of an exaggeration...

I don't know if this is actually a word, but in my mind it means roughly this: when a metagame shifts (as a direct result of whatever is purportedly "over-centralizing") to be much more accommodating to certain mons and playstyles (that do well vs whatever is purportedly over-centralizing), and to be much less accommodating to other mons and playstyles (that fair poorly vs the over-centralizer) to too significant a degree. Obviously this is a subjective definition, and feel free to disagree with me on the wording and such, but I think we can all agree somewhat on the definition? The critical word here is the "too"--what is too much of a shift? However, I think it's fair to say that SR has an absolutely enormous effect on the meta--more than any other move, for sure, and I would argue more than drizzle even--which can be seen at the very least from the usage stats I and others have pointed out.

I don't understand this paragraph. You don't really explain how SR shifts the metagame. Most of the pokemon that are 4x weak to rocks are either not in OU (moltres/articuno) or good enough to be in OU (volcarona). over centralizing doesnt really make sense in pokemon terms. If it is centralizing what is making it "over" centralizing? Can the sun be over-centralizing? Or just centralizing? The "over" is just put there to make your point seem more appealing. The only thing centralizing the metagame is over powered boosted water attacks. You need a defense for that on every team. SR really doesn't centralize because nothing revolves around it.Rarely are games decided by the accused brokenness of SR. Bad play and poor calculation cause these final SR loses.SR deepens calculation. Something that will be absent in a focus sash offensive frenzied metagame. Only in minor cases when you run a gyarados,volc, d-nite, and salamence on the same team does SR become a problem..It should! These pokemon are instant press a button and sweep pokemon. They need a penalty to come in to keep them from being good offensively and hard to take down .

Here's the way I'd like to think about it. We're not banning the move SR--we're banning the condition of having rocks up.

really a pointless statement... If you can't properly use a move in a battle it is banned. That is like having snow cloak in a wifi battle but not being able to show that your pokemon has snow cloak unless it is activated. If you can't use it then obviously people won't put it on their pokemon.

SR limits diversity, it makes certain mons and strategies much less viable (I'm not arguing that hail would be particularly good if not for SR, just that it would certainly be more viable

How does it limit diversity? I keep on bring up moltres vs volcarona because it is a valid point. If a pokemon is good enough for OU it will be OU. People here play to win the game. It isn't about showing off how well you can use bad pokemon. It is about being the last one with a pokemon left no matter how pretty it looks or how many of your favorite pokemon you used. Use your moltres...use your articuno... Just know that you will have to put in the same work to keep these guys alive like people do volcarona.


All in all: SR creates a balanced metagame that relies more on calculation and good positioning. SR doesn't have the same characteristics that a pokemon has. Therefore the thinking of "broken now, ban now, fuck the future" needs to go.

 

[Kidogo]

I don't have time right now to go back and answer every one of your points, so first of all, please, consider what you're really saying before you post it. Make sure you actually read my post before claiming to rebut it. Also, don't just quote fragments of an argument out of context and then answer them instead of the argument--for example, you responding to the line "here's the way I'd like to think about it..." by saying it's a pointless statement...come in, that's basically what i admitted in the next line. I said this obviously wouldn't change anything in the mechanics, it's just about the mind-view were we to ban it. You did the same thing with the usage vs brokenness idea--of course it should be thrown away as a reason to ban! I'm saying that people claiming it as a reason for banning are weakening the anti-SR argument by committing a fallacy. However, you again ignored what comes right after--what the ubiquity of SR does mean. These are just examples--please, read and respond to things in context.

Lemme try to do this quickly since I don't have time for something major. Why shouldn't I compare the effect of a move and a mon? Please give some reasoning behind your assertions--what gives you the backing to claim that SR is "a healthy move to have in a game that is based on risk and prediction-making"? This seems incredibly contradictory to me given that SR discourages switching (which you would know if you read the last section of my post), which you claim is the basis of the game! Please don't assert things without foundation for them, they just waste time and force us to point out the lack of evidence. And jsut because the banning system doesn't work properly is no reason to want it not to...this doesn't make sense to me.

OK, what in my paragraph about the difficulty of rapid spinning did you not read (or understand)? Don't just say "it is up to you to play your cards right or suck it up and deal with rocks". I just outlined clearly how it is very difficult to reliably get rid of SR, even when you manage to beat the spinblockers...to which you reply that the spinblockers aren't that good and you can maneuver around them. You're not even addressing the main part of my argument.

There is a critical difference between "the foe has 1 turn of set-up opportunity because I have to switch" and "I just guaranteed lost a pokemon because the opp has me trapped". Since when does a free turn with terrakion/luke equal a sweep? i don't care what my ttar is locked into, I'm not gonna leave it in on terrakion, I'm gonna go to my terrakion check. Trapping is guaranteed, a set-up is not because you can switch.

As I said, I was definitely estimating there. I hope you won't say that roughly 1/2 turns spent switching is not out of the ballpark though, and that it can certainly by that much or more in high-level play.

OK, even the section you quoted refutes you. I explicitly said that I'm not claiming moltres would skyrocket to OU's highest usage, just that it would sure become a hell lot more viable if not for SR. And seriously, please stop citing volcarona. Volcarona would almost certainly be broken if not for SR (I think so, and this is one of the arguments brought up most in your favor)--the fact that is considered easily at home in OU just proves how much SR lowers the viability of something weak to it! There is nothing inherently BAD about moltres--volcarona jsut happens to be so incredibly good that it can survive in OU despite a huge hindrance. Moltres? It might be perfectly good enough for OU, but with that detriment it sure isn't.

OK, this post was more in-depth than I meant it to be, but please--read and think carefully before responding.

 

[ElectivireRocks]

Usage vs brokenness issue: Usage =/= brokenness. Yes, we all agree with this.

No. What we can agree with is that while they don't automatically imply each other, there is an obvious correlation between the two. Genesect, Excadrill and Garchomp back in gen 4 were all broken and top OU pokemon. Deoxys-D's usage suddenly skyrocketed when it was mentioned as a possible suspect test before it got banned.
It's only natural for people to abuse "the next best thing" whenever it's available.

I think the real problem here is not whether something is broken or not, it's whether it's accepted or not.
Snorlax was broken in GSC, but it was accepted as an integral part of OU.
Mew was never given a chance to be tested in OU in DP because it wasn't considered acceptable.

Drizzle is right in the middle: people are split between those who consider it broken and those who consider it acceptable (with more people moving towards to the "acceptable" side as more rain abusers got banned).
The same can be said about Stealth Rock in Gen 4: it was considered outright broken at the start but as people got used to it now it's mostly considered acceptable.

This is a double standard that goes directly against the common definition of "ban worthy" and the way things were handled in this generation has made it all the more obvious.

 

[vyomov]

I'd like to mention at this point that SR is directly ties in with Rain's dominance of the metagame and the suppression of other playstyles.
Most people have said Rapid spin, way to get rid of rocks, so no ban
Well
a) What a coincidence that the ONLY two VIABLE rapid spinners in OU just happen to be rain-centric?(Tentacruel and Starmie)
b) What a coincidence that the only spinblocker viable in the OU metagame just happens to be a major component on Rain teams???
Stealth Rock is stifling creativity, suppressing playstyles(Sun, Hail) and is much more destructive than constructive to the metagame.
People who claim it is a necessary evil: Really? Chopping off 50% health off Pokemon like Articuno and Moltres is "a necessary evil"?
The objection of most is the threat that Multiscale Dragonite might be broken. For your kind information, statuses EXIST! One toxic and down multiscale dragonite goes.
Volcarona is equally so not a threat without SR, most rock-types in OU as well as some in lower tiers can OHKO.
Stealth Rock is horrible because
a) Like I said, random Pokemon who DO NOT need it get SR(Chansey, Blissey anyone?)
b) It limits the options a person has when setting up a team(Hail? Not viable. Sun? Not viable. This is the centralization that SR has indirectly caused by forcing teams to go for either sand or rain or weatherless(which always has a disadvantage vs a weather team)

Focus Sash would actually not be broken even without SR. Why? Because, as I mentioned earlier, Statuses factor in breaking the Sash. We could always implement the rule stating an item can only be used once on a team

Stealth Rock is acceptable?? Yeah well if you don't give people an option of a metagame WITHOUT SR, people will eventually acclimatize to the metagame with SR.
It's like an election with only one party as an option - there's no point
People should have the right to see the alternative before choosing.

 

[ginganinja]

vyomov, I am going to give you a verbal warning both for double posting, AND for your, often, quite frankly, terrible arguments. I really really don't want to have to infract you, but you are really pushing my patience.

a) What a coincidence that the ONLY two VIABLE rapid spinners in OU just happen to be rain-centric?(Tentacruel and Starmie)

I wouldn't pin that on Rain. Its true that Tentacruel got a huge buff from Drizzle, but Starmie always has and always will be an excellent spinner for offensive teams, both on rain, sand, and no weather. Rain perhaps enjoys having access to quality spinners, but I highly doubt you can claim that SR is so overcentralising and broken it forces people to run rain support, thats just plain wrong.

The objection of most is the threat that Multiscale Dragonite might be broken. For your kind information, statuses EXIST! One toxic and down multiscale dragonite goes.

This is when I doubt your skills as a player, as well as your experiences. One of the most common items Dragonite holds is a Lum Berry, to shut down pokemon attempting to burn it. So please do feel free to Toxic my +1 Dragonite - ill simply get to +2. Heck, Toxic it again for all I care, ill get to +3 and kill everything before Toxic kills me. Status is hardly a reliable way to beat Dragonite, nor does it break MultiScale with the exception of Toxic and Burn.

Volcarona is equally so not a threat without SR, most rock-types in OU as well as some in lower tiers can OHKO.

Terrible Argument. Thats like me saying Salamence sucks because most Ice types can OHKO it. The number of pokemon that can switch into +1 Volcarona is tiny, and without Stealth Rock its harder to take it down in one hit, especially with Volcarona sometimes running bulk.

a) Like I said, random Pokemon who DO NOT need it get SR(Chansey, Blissey anyone?)

I can make this claim about any move really. Why on earth does Gyarados get Outrage, its not like it needs it etc etc. This is hardly something that proves SR is broken.

b) It limits the options a person has when setting up a team(Hail? Not viable. Sun? Not viable. This is the centralization that SR has indirectly caused by forcing teams to go for either sand or rain or weatherless(which always has a disadvantage vs a weather team)

Trying to be as nice as I can be here, but kindly pull your head, out of your ass, and play the dam metagame! Sure, hail might not be common, but it IS viable, and sunlight isn't just viable, its exceptionally good. We have numerous RMTs from many qualified battlers reflecting just how strong sun teams can be, so your claim that sunlight is unviable is 100% incorrect.

Focus Sash would actually not be broken even without SR. Why? Because, as I mentioned earlier, Statuses factor in breaking the Sash. We could always implement the rule stating an item can only be used once on a team

Fine, go Toxic my Garchomp while I swords dance, it doesn't really matter, as I get my free set up with Sash whether you status me or not.

EDIT

you know what, that post was so flawed, that im infracting you anyway, consider the above warning before you next post please or you might recieve a second one.

 

[MMII]

Okay, I'm going to try to reply to this post. If I completely ignore a section it's because it was in response to a terrible argument. (so I'm obviously not going to defend it)

usage and brokenness

Usage vs brokenness issue: Usage =/= brokenness. Yes, we all agree with this. The critical point here is that SR is so incredibly common that it is hard to evaluate its impact. As I've said before, SR is literally considered "standard battle conditions". This doesn't mean that it is broken because it is so used. What it means is that we have to consider its ubiquity in thinking about what consequences it has. Infernape has become much less viable this gen in large part because of rain's dominance; similarly, many mons are made much less viable because of SR's existence--and many many more mons, and much more so, because SR is so much more common (and arguably more crippling) than rain. This is not an argument for brokenness, don't attempt to take it a such. I'm just noting that SR's ubiquity means it has a nearly inestimable effect on the meta.

I understand you are just responding to others but it gets really confusing when you bring up a point and then say it has no value in an argument. (at least, I think that is what you are trying to say. I'm not good at this lol)

Anyways, I agree that usage is useless when it comes to discussing the brokenness of something. There's just so many reasons that something can be used that it is impossible to label it as a symptom of anything and high usage itself isn't anything that is bad or good. The only real gripe is that you see the same thing over and over again but that's obviously completely useless when we are discussing suspecting/banning something.

SR vs prepared team

Actual effect of SR on a prepared team: this is semi-debatable, but really against an intelligent opponent with a reliable SR user (which are abundant due to the move's incredible distribution), it is not hard to repeatedly set up SR when the need arises (including, critically, at the very beginning of the match). In contrast, rapid spinning is much much harder--not only are there far less viable users, but there is a method to stop it. Furthermore, the spinners that can get past good blockers (jelli and gar essentially, so tenta in rain and starmie in rain) are exceedingly vulnerable to being trapped, either by pursuit or by goth/duggy. And don't you dare say that letting your spinner get trapped is your fault--if your opp brings their spinblocker in on your RS and attacks, you have two choices: switch or attack. If you switch, you don't get the spin off and come in at lower health next time, while the spinner takes no damage (unless there are also hazard up on their side, in which case you're basically arguing that SR checks SR). If you attack, you either beat them (KO the spinblocker) or are beat (have your spinner KOed). Obviously the second version is unfavorable, but even if the first occurs, the opp can sjut bring in their trapper and KO your spinner. In fact, predicting the spin-blocker switch doesnt help in the slightest, since being able to kill it sooner just shortens this.

Magic Bounce: OK, if GF had given this to something with a decent defensive typing and stats, things might be so different. As it is, espeon and xatu cannot switch in on the majority of offensive SR setters, and easily pursuit-trapped, and are close to a lost spot on the team. If I send out my SR terrakion lead, you have to first guess what set I am and then predict absolutely perfectly vs me to prevent me getting rocks up. Not reliable. Ttar is even worse.
Taunt: poorish distribution, and most of the time a waste of a valuable moveslot. The fact that you by definition have to be faster than your opp's lead for it to work is a downside, and the fact that it basically gets no use outside of the lead slot (and on stuff like jelli, but jelli's never gonna be preventing a first-turn SR). Also the fact that, because taunt is so much rarer than SR, it is much easier for me to guess that you carry taunt than for you to guess that I carry rocks--so when you send out terrakion vs my hippo, for example, you can bet im going straight for the eq (or better example: your hydreigon vs my heatran. I just go straight for HP ice). I really don't see either of these as anything approaching reliability.

OK, so in my mind rocks are quickly up and almost always there to stay. So how much does it really affect the game? I'm gonna make an estimation here, let's say the average game is ~30 turns long. Not a super important number, I don't have an actual statistic and it varies depending on playstyle, but 30 seems reasonable to me. Let's say, of those 30 turns, even half of them are spent switching (and this number is certainly higher in higher-level games as well). Let's assume 6 SR-neutral mons. So 15 switches in a game, 12.5% health lost each time. That's 187.5% health lost in a match. Obviously this number is not perfectly accurate, due to stuff like lefties that wouldn't activate if not for SR, mons dying, and various resistances/immunities, but on the whole these are rather balanced out by the fact that having a single SR-weak mon on your team adds way more damage than having a resistant one. So on average, something approximating ~200% is lost by the single move of SR--and of course, this number can be much higher and will in fact be if you engage in a lot of switching, which is often a hallmark of high-level play (indicative, not necessary--don't quote me lol). Personally, this seems like a ridiculous effect for a move that takes one turn and that about every pokemon in the game somehow knows.

Okay, the problem I have with the first bit is that you assume that being unable to remove SR is a strike against it. It's kinda like arguing that because you can't do anything about a Choice Band Stone Edge besides minimize the damage that there's grounds for suspecting Stone Edge. (I know its an exaggerated example but you get my point) I think the thing to take away from alexwolf's arguments is that there are actually ways to remove/prevent SR that can work in the right hands on the right teams. This is good enough seeing as SR doesn't have a damning effect in a battle (more on this soon) and it introduces the possibility of new strategies/teams. (Like using Moltres)

Okay, so let's assume the same 30 turn scenario except that every member on the team has Leftovers. By the end of those turns the total recovery is ~187.5%. If every mon has LO, then they had to deal roughly 139% less than they normally would have to to KO the entire opposing team. My point is that there is a lot of damage and recovery going on in Pokemon that sharing one specific number doesn't really say anything at all. Stealth Rock has more than proven that it isn't an unbalancing force in a battle as there have been many teams that are weak to SR succeeding and many battles where the side that couldn't set SR up still won. (I know that you were trying to point out that is a lot for one turn which is why I provided examples that were based on items which don't even take a turn at all)

Overcentralizing

Over-centralizing: I don't know if this is actually a word, but in my mind it means roughly this: when a metagame shifts (as a direct result of whatever is purportedly "over-centralizing") to be much more accommodating to certain mons and playstyles (that do well vs whatever is purportedly over-centralizing), and to be much less accommodating to other mons and playstyles (that fair poorly vs the over-centralizer) to too significant a degree. Obviously this is a subjective definition, and feel free to disagree with me on the wording and such, but I think we can all agree somewhat on the definition? The critical word here is the "too"--what is too much of a shift? However, I think it's fair to say that SR has an absolutely enormous effect on the meta--more than any other move, for sure, and I would argue more than drizzle even--which can be seen at the very least from the usage stats I and others have pointed out.

Except the problem is that this discrimination doesn't explain that much at all to actually use as an argument of brokeness. It doesn't tell you how large the group of viable Pokemon is. (which is all we care about since there will always be a much larger group of unviable mons) It fails to say whether this significant element is completely removing entire playstyles from viability. (Please don't mention Hail, weather is just a support. "Rain Stall", "Hail Stall, and "Weatherless Stall" still have the same fundamental goals and mindset they just use different tools to do so.) It doesn't inform you on whether or not this element is an overbearing and unbalanced force in battle. (Swift Swim could sweep teams easily and effortlessly. Stealth Rock is still going to ask for a superior team and smarter playing regardless of being an important part in battle.) All you can draw from something being "overcentralizing" is that it's important and you have to pay attention to it more than most things. This is normal, there will always be something that is going to have a wider effect than others. Switching is very, very centralizing, far more than anything we have ever banned. Yet it is by no means broken in any way and doesn't deserve a suspect test or ban.

Brokenness

Brokenness: OK, so this is the big issue that a lot of people keep mentioning. I believe SR has a distinctly negative effect on the meta and that it is too powerful. A couple of big reasons:
Sheer damage and ease of use: As I estimated above, in a standard match, if SR is set up first turn, it will cause roughly 200% damage over the course of the game. Yes, it helps that it is distributed over all 6 mons, but even so. I simply don't see a way in which that could not be a little scary. 1 turn of set-up with no cost, more pokemon that learn it than like any other move except tackle (ok, not literally), very very hard to stop reliably, very hard to remove at all, and even harder to remove reliably.
Over-centralization: I don't see why this shouldn't be grounds for banning something, it's one of the foremost arguments for rain's banning in the debate thread ("if you don't abuse weather, you're out of OU" translates quite easily to "if you're weak to SR and aren't a weather-starter, a former uber, or have access to one of the best stat-boost moves in the game, you're out of OU"). SR limits diversity, it makes certain mons and strategies much less viable (I'm not arguing that hail would be particularly good if not for SR, just that it would certainly be more viable). There's also a funny effect that, of course, the more over-centralized on something a metagame is, the less of an effect it has. So in other words, if your team has all SR-resistant mons, you won't take nearly as much damage by switching around a lot (still close to 100% though on average), but you are proving how over-centralizing SR is.
These are my main two reasons for feeling SR is broken, though there are other, smaller ones. One kinda interesting one is that it discourages switching, perhaps the most intellectually challenging and interesting part of battling. Anyway, I personally do see plenty reason for SR to be at least deserving of a test, and little reason for that not to happen.

Okay, I pretty much addressed your two reasons earlier in this post. The problem here is that neither of these two reasons are inherently bad or good. I could argue that theses are actually good things about Stealth Rock (which I actually do believe). As you said, switching is very powerful and I personally believe that something that gives so many benefits should have some sort of significant risk or drawback. Stealth Rock does just that by being so easy to put on a team, set up and maintain that it is a constant. It is something that we can count on to make sure that the other team isn't going to be switching around for free. Spikes isn't enough IMO, there are far too many Pokemon immune to them. Stealth Rock hits everybody for something (ignoring Magic Guard) and it deals something noticeable for most of them.

 

[Curtains]

for example, you responding to the line "here's the way I'd like to think about it..." by saying it's a pointless statement...come in, that's basically what i admitted in the next line.

Well don't put it in your post if you dont mean it. Post with conviction. learn how to post with more tone if you don't want to be misunderstood.

Lemme try to do this quickly since I don't have time for something major. Why shouldn't I compare the effect of a move and a mon? Please give some reasoning behind your assertions--

First off it is a move... Not a pokemon.. This move doesn't have pokemon counters. This move doesn't have any properties of a pokemon. SR is alot more than getting rocks up and doing damage. It is a strategic move that is ingrained into pokemon thinking (and rightfully so) because it balances the metagame so much especially in super charged BW. If you ban it all the analysis has to be redone. Every pokemon will now take up a different role. With a pokemon ban you just delete the analysis and be done with it. SR is not a pokemon.

OK, what in my paragraph about the difficulty of rapid spinning did you not read (or understand)? Don't just say "it is up to you to play your cards right or suck it up and deal with rocks". I just outlined clearly how it is very difficult to reliably get rid of SR, even when you manage to beat the spinblockers...to which you reply that the spinblockers aren't that good and you can maneuver around them. You're not even addressing the main part of my argument.

I read the paragraph and I don't understand it because it is simply not true. If it is hard for YOU to rapid spin then maybe it is YOUR team or YOUR skills. Many good battlers can tell you that it is not hard to spin.... If you are playing against a weatherless team who exactly is going pursuit you? If you are playing against a rain team who exactly is trapping your starmie or tenta? maybe a random dugtrio? You know that they have it... So you play accordingly and have a plan for that to gain the momentum if they do it.... your argument is completely ridiculous.

There is a critical difference between "the foe has 1 turn of set-up opportunity because I have to switch" and "I just guaranteed lost a pokemon because the opp has me trapped". Since when does a free turn with terrakion/luke equal a sweep? i don't care what my ttar is locked into, I'm not gonna leave it in on terrakion, I'm gonna go to my terrakion check. Trapping is guaranteed, a set-up is not because you can switch.

That is what strategy is. If you switch then I can get up a SD and try to sweep.. You should know this since you use NP baton pass celebi. Also trapping is never "guaranteed." Tell that to the scizor's and tyranitars that get 2hkoed on the switch by a specs latios surf. Or tell that to the dugtrio that doesnt get that KO on a tenta and gets hit , burned and killed by scald. Not everyone uses a tyranitar. Please understand that.If you want to spin you have to make good moves... just like any other part of the game. Why should removing rocks be easier than something else in the game? Like I said before depending on the mon that puts up rocks it could be a liability to try to keep it alive to put up rocks again after they have been took out.


OK, even the section you quoted refutes you. I explicitly said that I'm not claiming moltres would skyrocket to OU's highest usage, just that it would sure become a hell lot more viable if not for SR. And seriously, please stop citing volcarona. Volcarona would almost certainly be broken if not for SR (I think so, and this is one of the arguments brought up most in your favor)--the fact that is considered easily at home in OU just proves how much SR lowers the viability of something weak to it! There is nothing inherently BAD about moltres--volcarona jsut happens to be so incredibly good that it can survive in OU despite a huge hindrance. Moltres? It might be perfectly good enough for OU, but with that detriment it sure isn't.

That is my point. if something is so powerful and takes no skill to use and sweep with.. why is it bad that we have rocks to contain it? Certainly you don't want a metagame where randomnoob123 can just put these pokemon on their team and do well for months after a SR ban.... If a player manages to get rocks off the field and play accurately he deserves his volcarona sweep. I really don't want to see the game come down to how many sweepers you have. Besides if SR were gone many pokemon would go too...Why do you think kyruem-b is OU? Rocks promote diversity. Some pokemon just have it worse than others but you can work around if you try.

OK, this post was more in-depth than I meant it to be, but please--read and think carefully before responding.

Play the game and understand strategy before posting nonsense about banning SR.

 

[George Eliot]

Curtains, that is one of the laziest arguments I've ever seen. First; that we can't ban SR because it's ingrained in the metagame. Utterly stupid. If it's broken, we ban it, no matter how long it's taken us to do it or how "used to it" people are as a result.

Spinning is extremely difficult to do effectively. Saying that Pursuit trapping Starmie, for instance, doesn't give the trapper an advantage because Terrakion can subsequently set up is also ludicrous. I really hope I don't have to explain why. Don't just say "some good people say it's easy to spin" without giving any evidence that they do, or that their beliefs are valid; how about actually showing why the arguments showing that spinning is so difficult are wrong?

You say "if you want to spin you have to play good moves, just like anything else in the game". But this isn't actually true - that's the whole point. There is another move in the game, called Stealth Rock, which rarely requires any skill to get up, which can only be effectively counteracted by Rapid Spin, which does require a lot of good moves to use (more than nearly any other move in the game). And this move is almost indisputably the best in the game.

Basically, your entire post is a load of "this is the way it is, and changing it would be too hard".

 

[youngjake93]

I want to bring up the point of why was Deoxys-Defense banned if hazards aren't that bad?
People say you can't compare SR to something like Darkrai because Darkrai will sweep your team, SR won't.
Last I checked... Deoxys-Defense wasn't sweeping any teams and it got banned. It got banned because its ability to put up hazards were too good. Well Sableye's ability to use Wil-O-Wisp is pretty dang good. It didn't get suspected because Wil-O-Wisp is not broken. Hazards must be broken because that is the only thing Deo-D did.
I know some of this is faulty logic, but I want to bring Deo-D into the discussion because it's weird that nobody else did.

 

[ganj4lF]

I want to bring up the point of why was Deoxys-Defense banned if hazards aren't that bad?
People say you can't compare SR to something like Darkrai because Darkrai will sweep your team, SR won't.
Last I checked... Deoxys-Defense wasn't sweeping any teams and it got banned. It got banned because its ability to put up hazards were too good. Well Sableye's ability to use Wil-O-Wisp is pretty dang good. It didn't get suspected because Wil-O-Wisp is not broken. Hazards must be broken because that is the only thing Deo-D did.
I know some of this is faulty logic, but I want to bring Deo-D into the discussion because it's weird that nobody else did.

It's quite funny, you even recognize your logic is flawed and post anyway. Deo-D was banned for its ability to lay down multiple layers of hazards with almost no risk involved. It wasn't banned for its ability of laying hazards alone (otherwise we should talk about banning Forretress asap, since it can lay every single hazard out there...), but its reliability in doing so and its capability to beat pretty much any spinner you could switch into it. This says very little on how much hazards are "broken". Following the same logic, we should ban the ability Speed Boost since Blaziken uses it and it's "broken" (thus completely disregarding things like Yanmega and Sharpedo which are completely fine, and the second one is even competitively viable in OU). This just doesn't make sense.

 

[King Jackal]

While Stealth Rock makes many pokemons, such as Volcarona, much more balanced, they destroy the useability of many pokemons more than balance the overpowered ones. I think that the damage Stealth Rock deals should be lowered, instead of starting at 12.5% and maxing at 50%, they should half the damage, and make us set two Stealth Rocks to raise it to the current damage it deals. This just seems fair to me. To make it clear, while I think that SR is somewhat broken with the sheer damage output (up to 50% for just 1 turn of set-up), I believe that it should be nerfed instead of outright banned. Then again, since nerfing is up to GF and not us (from what I know, since I'm really new), a test would be the best way to work around this.

 

[GOthee]

If they ban Stealth rock many pokemon weak to it will be OP in the tier. The pokemon that comes to my mind is Dragonite. If they ban it yeah many other pokes will be viable, but thats a problem that other lower tier have, for example Articuno sia a great poke but is NU because he loses half hp with SR, maybe they shoudl implement that ban into other tiers.

 

[jpw234]

Hello, noob trainer! Let's take a trip to Unova! I'll be your competitive pokemon guide! We're going to build a pokemon team! Won't it be fun! You can pick six from all of these great pokemon to go into battle with!

Ooh, ooh, what about that one?

That thing looks badass!

Umm...no. You can't pick that. It's...it's basically deadweight.

Wha? It's got more special attack than standard OU pokemon like Landorus and Latias! It's not crazy fast, but it can either choose one of the best abilities in the game to fix that, or pack a Choice Scarf with Tinted Lens and become a ridiculously powerful revenge killer whose STABs are resisted by nobody but Heatran! Also, just look at it, it's a six foot long monster dragonfly thing, who wouldn't want that on their team?

When did you get so knowledgeable about the metagame? I thought you were a noob?

Just go with it for the purposes of exposition, narrator-dude.

What...whatever. Anyway, it's deadweight because it takes 50% from Stealth Rock every time it switches in.

So? I bet that's not too common.

Actually, every team in the game uses it because it's basically free damage.

Oh...hm. Well, can I get rid of it?

Sure, I guess. You could use Rapid Spin.

Oh, okay. Who can do that?

Well, basically Starmie and Tentacruel. Unless they have a Jellicent. Or a Gengar. Or a trapper to kill them with. Or they just OHKO them before they can move.

Um...how often does that happen?

A lot.

So you're telling me that Yanmega is only going to be able to switch in once in any given battle I use it in because of a ubiquitous field condition that's almost impossible to stop from setting up, has zero downsides, and is incredibly difficult to remove as long as my opponent has one of a multitude of strategies to stop me from Rapid Spinning?

Pretty much, yeah. Look, why don't you stick to the list of approved pokemon, like Jirachi and Terrakion. Don't you worry your little noob head about innovation, leave that to the people who know how to play.

Wait, this sounds stupid. Why is this Stealth Rock thing still around?

Didn't I tell you not to ask silly questions? We need Stealth Rock because it's been around forever! Plus, how would we deal with Dragonite or Volcarona without it?

Um, I don't know. Counter them? Isn't that up to you to figure out once it happens? Besides, if they're so good that the only thing that can stop them from wiping through the metagame is a field condition which supposedly isn't that hard to stop from setting up (says Curtains), and is completely shutting out the viability of other pokemon, why are they still around? Wouldn't that indirectly prove that the presence of pokemon like Dragonite and Volcarona, by necessitating such a battle condition, is itself toxic to the metagame and should stop? And wouldn't the supposed fragility of your counter (I can only counter these pokemon if SR is up, otherwise they're Uber) be a large indication that they deserve to be Uber in the first place?

Listen, kid, you don't understand. Stealth Rock never decides a battle. Curtains told me that "Rarely are games decided by the accused brokenness of SR." Duh. When have you ever seen a game that was swung because SR was on the field? Wait, I thought you were a noob? When have you seen a game at all?

Look, get past that hang-up, narrator-dude. SR sounds like it swings a lot of games. Don't suicide leads like Taunt Terrakion and Custap Skarmory exist because HO teams know that having SR on the field is worth an entire teamslot? Doesn't the on-site analysis of every single offensive pokemon in the metagame specifically say that you need a Stealth Rocker to turn important 3HKOs into 2HKOs, etc.?
Plus, this seems fallacious to me. Even if battles themselves aren't affected, you're sitting here telling me pre-battle that I can't even put this pokemon into my team because of Stealth Rock. It seems to me like most of the damage that this thing is doing happens before a battle even occurs, when large sets of pokemon are implicitly excluded from viability because Stealth Rock is just "accepted" to be a necessary battle condition. I mean, at this point, even if I never played a game where Stealth Rock was up, I'm not going to have Yanmega on my team because you, the onsite analysis, and every other respected OU player I've ever talked to told me that Yanmega is terrible because of Stealth Rock. I bet if I wanted to use Moltres, or Abomasnow, or Honchkrow, you'd tell me the same damn thing.

Look, kid, you don't have a RIGHT to use Yanmega. Stealth Rock is no more "overcentralizing" than any other powerful pokemon. It's just like, your opinion, man, that's no reason to ban it. Alexwolf said that we only ban things if they meet certain criteria, like ''does a Pokemon restrict a certain playstyle to a big extend'', ''does a Pokemon only have few ways to be dealt with, out of which most are only useful for dealing with it'', and ''does a Pokemon force teams to be overprepared for it or lose''.

But Stealth Rock isn't a pokemon, with checks, counters, and strategies available to stop it, which takes up an entire teamslot. It's a single move that takes one turn to set up and is distributed over massive numbers of already-powerful pokemon (Terrakion, Mamoswine, Celebi, Blissey, Jirachi, Tyranitar, Hippowdon, I could go on for days). It's so difficult to stop that even if it's possible, I have to build my team under the assumption that Stealth Rocks will be on my side of the field. Apparently every team has to have Stealth Rock and can mindlessly throw a game-defining field condition into play in only one turn. Didn't we ban mindless stuff like Moody and Blaziken for very similar reasons?
As to your criteria, they seem to fit. Hail, for example, is crippled by Ice-type's weakness to SR. Stall gets whacked because it's the most switching-intensive playstyle there is. "Does a Pokemon only have a few ways to be dealt with" - hell you just told me that all I could do was Rapid Spin, and there were only two Pokemon that could do that, and only in very favorable conditions! "Does a Pokemon force teams to be overprepared for it or lose" - well, this is different with a Pokemon and a field condition. But it sounds to me like what we're doing right here, building a team specifically around having very few or no weaknesses to Stealth Rock, is itself a form of overpreparing. Why aren't we at least suspecting this again?

Because...because...we don't have enough time. Alright? We're out of time. Now here. Politoed, Tentacruel, Jirachi, Ferrothorn, Jellicent, Keldeo. Nice and happy, nobody who's Stealth Rock weak, SR possible on two pokemon, you can spinblock. Shut up and ladder like everybody else.

...


Edit: Along with the above, I would also like to pose this as a question to those who believe there is nothing wrong with Stealth Rock. You come across an RMT which uses the following Togekiss spread.

Togekiss @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 4 SpD
Calm Nature
- Body Slam
- Air Slash
- Flamethrower
- Roost
The user says: Togekiss is my counter to Landorus. See? Look:
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Togekiss: 133-157 (35.56 - 41.97%) -- 89.84% chance to 3HKO
Does that seem reasonable to you?

 

[George Eliot]

I wrote something here but then I saw jpw's post and erased it, because that thing is the single greatest thing I have ever seen on the internet (besides girls obviously).

 

[alexwolf]

The points that the Anti-SR side have made are no more or less subjective than the arguments that have been made against it (which don't include yours, since you have yet to make any original arguments about it). The idea, for example that the rapid spin users we have are adequate for dealing with the threat of SR, is subjective (and has been addressed by the Anti-SR side). There's nothing wrong with that, and there's no way to derive a completely objective meaning from that thought, which is fine. But if you are going to say that, you must be able to support that statement with something other than "I find the opposing arguments subjective," since there is inevitably going to be a level of subjectivity that comes from both sides.

The idea that few teams go out of their way to deal with SR and are generally not very threatened by them is absurd. Any team that is using a rapid spinner or magic bouncer to check SR is, strictly speaking, "going out of their way" to deal with it. Using the last three month's statistics, that's ~40% of teams, using Starmie, Tentacruel, Donphan, Forretress, and Xatu (I didn't include Espeon since being an anti-hazard pokemon is occasionally not its primary role). There's no such thing as a team that isn't threatened by SR. By nature of its function, everything is threatened by it, whether it's resisted or not. This might not even be an issue if it weren't for the negligible opportunity cost of setting up SR, which is a large part of the problem. All of this has already been brought up and discussed in previous posts, by the way.

The weight is in the pro-ban side to present good arguments as to why SR is broken. I don't need to present any argument as long as am i able to refute yours. Let me show you some much more objective criteria for banning something than those that your group presents: Keldeo is very difficult to check for offensive teams because of the limited amount of Pokemon that can avoid the 2HKO from Keldeo's Scarf Hydro Pump/Surf, forcing them to use few specific Pokemon to deal with it. Therefore Keldeo can be suspected under the criteria of restricting certain playstyles. The statement that Scarf Keldeo is very difficult to check for offensive teams and forces them to run few specific Pokemon is not subjective at all, it is a fact that every player who uses offensive teams knows. Whether or not the strain that Keldeo puts to offensive teams with its scarf set is enough to get it banned or not is up to each person's opinion, but the reason for suspecting Keldeo is mostly objective. So long, the only somewhat objective reason for suspecting SR is that it is difficult to deal with, and this is the only real reason presented to suspect SR. This means that if the majority doesn't find SR to be hard to deal with then it shouldn't be suspected, and so far this is the case. Finally, packing a Rapid Spinner doesn't mean that a team goes out of its way to deal with SR. Rapid Spin deals with Spikes as well, and the popular spinners have multiple uses as well. In the same way that packing a Celebi to deal with Keldeo doesn't meant that you are overprepared for Keldeo, it's the same with packing a spinner.

Also Kidogo, please don't mention only the facts that are convincing for your argument. You say that a spinner can be blocked by spinblockers and that they can even be trapped by trappers, yet you nowhere mention how susceptible to Pursuit trappers the two common spinblockers seen in OU are. You also nowhere mention that many offensive teams don't even mind SR up as they don't make more than 6-7 switches in each game and they also don't pack any SR weak Pokemon. Finally, you say that SR will be up most of the time, acting as if the turns that it won't be up won't be important. If a team focused around a Volcarona sweep manages to spin SR in the late game, it only needs them to stay off the field for the next turn that Volcarona will come in. SR being up in most of the game doesn't mean anything as its effect is not as crippling or centralizing to warrant a ban. So many teams are completely functional with SR up, and so many teams can deal with SR without going out of their way to do so. Preparing for the major threat that SR is doesn't meant that SR is broken, it means that SR is a dominant force in today's metagame. Do you build a team without ways to deal with the top threats? No. There are many ways to deal with SR, and some teams don't even care enough about it to pack some measure against it, so i don't see it being restricting enough to warrant a ban.

EDIT: Posts such as the last one of jpw234 make this thread really difficult to read and drop the average quality quite a lot.

 

[Curtains]

I wrote something here but then I saw jpw's post and erased it, because that thing is the single greatest thing I have ever seen on the internet (besides girls obviously).

Yeah lets ban stealth rocks so everyone can use Yanmega.... "If we don't have yanmega in ou smogon is destroying originality and diversity!" Are you guys serious? Stop cherry picking 2/dozens of pokemon 4X weak to SR. This is seeming more and more like a rebellion against smogon more than SR. "Smogon says use SR so we can't use our favorite pokemon because smogon said so". This reminds me so much of the youtube pokemon community thought process. Also instead of assuming that it is broken make a reasonable argument that it is broken first. Do that first.

 

[Neon Kaiser]

So you're telling me that Yanmega is only going to be able to switch in once in any given battle I use it in because of a ubiquitous field condition that's almost impossible to stop from setting up, has zero downsides, and is incredibly difficult to remove as long as my opponent has one of a multitude of strategies to stop me from Rapid Spinning?

Pretty much, yeah. Look, why don't you stick to the list of approved pokemon, like Jirachi and Terrakion. Don't you worry your little noob head about innovation, leave that to the people who know how to play.

Being able to play "innovative" Pokemon like Yanmega isn't really a good reason to ban Stealth Rock. Do you think that if Stealth Rock was banned, you would finally be able to be innovative and play Yanmega? No, because it would just be an OU Pokemon, which makes it not innovative at all to play Yanmega. There are always gonna be popular Pokemon and unpopular Pokemon. Why would a metagame with Yanmega, Volcarona and Dragonite as the main threats be better than a metagame with Jirachi and Terrakion as the most commonly used Pokemon? Banning Stealth Rock wouldn't increase innovation in any way. It would just increase the usage of some Pokemon and decrease the usage of others and in the end it would just even out.

Edit: Along with the above, I would also like to pose this as a question to those who believe there is nothing wrong with Stealth Rock. You come across an RMT which uses the following Togekiss spread.

Togekiss @ Leftovers
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 4 SpD
Calm Nature
- Body Slam
- Air Slash
- Flamethrower
- Roost
The user says: Togekiss is my counter to Landorus. See? Look:
252 SpA Life Orb Sheer Force Landorus Focus Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Togekiss: 133-157 (35.56 - 41.97%) -- 89.84% chance to 3HKO
Does that seem reasonable to you?

That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Just because someone has a poor counter to Landorus means Stealth Rock should be banned?

 

[jpw234]

Dude, Curtains. Seriously. Have you posted a single constructive or reasonable thing in this entire thread? Every post I've seen is poorly thought out or blatantly stolen lines of argument backed up by large amounts of vitriol and name-calling. Right from the first post where you said that "nearly all competent battlers would agree" with you. Being dismissive or condescending of opposing arguments gets you nowhere, it just makes you sound like an idiot.

Lets take a look at some of the "arguments" you made in your response to Kidogo. Within the FIRST TWO PARAGRAPHS you manage to contradict yourself. "Banning SR will have a tremendous impact on the metagame", you say, because it is necessary to keep all of these "oh good too stronk how do I counter Volcarona if it isn't at 50% health" pokemon. And then you say "Rapid spinning is really not that difficult". What? Pick one! Either Stealth Rock is necessary to stop major threats from being uber, or it's easily removable! Because if it's easily removable, than a pokemon like Volcarona or Dragonite (which is apparently Uber if Stealth Rock isn't up, but OU if it is - talk about a mindfuck, right? A pokemon whose tier changes based on the field conditions of a battle? That seems reasonable) shouldn't be able to be countered by it!
Then we have a logical fallacy. "SR isnt good enough to the point where you have to waste turns getting rid of it unless you are running a poorly made team with 5 pokemon weak to SR". I would like EVERYBODY to pay close attention because variations of this argument are being tossed out all over the place. THIS IS CALLED BEGGING THE QUESTION AND IT IS A LOGICAL FALLACY. The "poorly made team" you are citing is ONLY "poorly made" because you have assumed that SR is legitimate. This is circular logic - you have presumed your conclusion, "SR is legitimate", in order to assert your argument, "SR isn't a problem if you make a good team", because your definition of a "good team" implicitly contains the argument that you must take into account the effects of Stealth Rock while building a team.
"Rarely are games decided by the accused brokenness of SR" - see my previous post.
"How does it limit diversity" - really? You would argue that the existence of Stealth Rock does not limit diversity? REALLY? How could anybody argue that? In ANY case where you have two similar pokemon, one of which is weak to Stealth Rock and one which isn't - why would you ever choose the first? There are MANY SR-weak pokemon who never or very rarely are used in OU, but have statistics or niches that suggest that they could be. Yanmega, Honchkrow, Moltres, Froslass, Togekiss, Rotom-H, Weavile, etc. What is the downside? What diversity does SR promote? Are there multitudes of pokemon who would all of a sudden never be used if SR was banned? MAYBE Donphan. Maybe.
"Instead of assuming that it is broken make a reasonable argument that it is broken first." First of all, I find it laughable that you would lash out against people "assuming" things when the entirety of your thought process in this thread appears to have been, "SR exists, therefore it is legitimate, the metagame has it now so therefore it can't be bad". But Kidogo, Lady Alex and myself have made a MULTITUDE of arguments as to why it is broken. Namely, it is a widely distributed and basically required moveslot with little or no opportunity cost which drastically limits the number of viable pokemon and strategies that exist. It is reasonable to assume that this limitation is not a preferable metagame. In addition, there appear to be NO legitimate justifications for keeping SR other than "I dislike change", "I'm scared of Dragonite and Volcarona", and "There isn't enough time to do this before X/Y" which isn't even an argument.

@Neon Kaiser
The point is that Stealth Rock makes a multitude of pokemon unviable, which is bad. "They would become standard so using them wouldn't be innovative" - what? The point isn't that I want to be called a pokemon genius for using some unheard of pokemon like Yanmega, the point is having a field effect which limits the variety of usable pokemon is a detrimental effect on the metagame.
The point of the "Togekiss counter to Landorus" example is to illustrate how a completely viable counter is removed by the existence of Stealth Rock, namely, if Stealth Rock is up, that calc becomes something like a 40% chance to 2HKO. This is a clear example of a statistically viable option being removed because of Stealth Rock.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

THIS IS CALLED BEGGING THE QUESTION AND IT IS A LOGICAL FALLACY.

Oh wow, did you seriously just go there?

Every post I've seen is poorly thought out or blatantly stolen lines of argument backed up by large amounts of vitriol and name-calling.

Being dismissive or condescending of opposing arguments gets you nowhere, it just makes you sound like an idiot.

Did you even read my post? Because if you really thing that my argument was "ban stealth rocks because I'm a Yanmega fanboy <3!?!#!" then you need to take several remedial classes in reading comprehension.

How could anybody with a brain in their head argue that?

The same guy who just tried to call out someone on a logical fallacy goes on to blatantly insult his opposition with random ad hominem attacks and mudslinging?

Seriously, if it wasn't so close to finals and I didn't mind spending plenty of time typing up a post, I'd tear your last post to shreds for all the bad arguments in it, especially the incredible strawman arguments you've cooked up.

 

[jpw234]

Care to explain why it wasn't a logical fallacy? Because it was. Saying that "you don't have to worry about SR if you build a good team" presumes the argued conclusion "SR is legitimate in the OU metagame" - that presumption is contained within "good team".

Ad hominem means using attacks on the opponent to imply that the argument is wrong. I did not intend to do that. Everything which Curtains has posted indicates to me that he has no idea what he's talking about and is an asshole, but that itself doesn't mean that his arguments are wrong. That doesn't mean I haven't shown, separately, why what he said was incorrect.

 

[Neon Kaiser]

@Neon Kaiser
The point is that Stealth Rock makes a multitude of pokemon unviable, which is bad. "They would become standard so using them wouldn't be innovative" - what? The point isn't that I want to be called a pokemon genius for using some unheard of pokemon like Yanmega, the point is having a field effect which limits the variety of usable pokemon is a detrimental effect on the metagame.

Well I guess I misunderstood then. Anyways, I think that the number of usable Pokemon wouldn't necessarily increase (if it's even a good thing for it to increase). There really aren't that many Pokemon that aren't used now that would get used a lot more. Basically Yanmega and maybe Moltres? The other notable examples, Dragonite and Volcarona are already OU. On the other hand, you would see less of Mamoswine, Forretress, Skarmory, Ferrothorn and maybe Tyranitar. Also, I'm not sure if having more usable Pokemon is definitely a good thing? I've heard that DPP and ADV have been more enjoyable metagames than BW, and they obviously had less usable Pokemon. Point is: While yes, Stealth Rock might make a couple of Pokemon a little bit more viable, is that necessarily good for the metagame? You can obviously never tell without testing, and honestly just testing something because it might make a couple of Pokemon more viable doesn't seem worth it. I don't see anyone telling Spikes should be banned because it gives an unfair advantage to Levitate users or Flying-types.

The point of the "Togekiss counter to Landorus" example is to illustrate how a completely viable counter is removed by the existence of Stealth Rock, namely, if Stealth Rock is up, that calc becomes something like a 40% chance to 2HKO. This is a clear example of a statistically viable option being removed because of Stealth Rock.

Well clearly it is not a viable option because it is 2HKOed by Landorus with Stealth Rock.

 

[Agent Gibbs]

Ad hominem means using attacks on the opponent to imply that the argument is wrong. I did not intend to do that.Everything which Curtains has posted indicates to me that he has no idea what he's talking about and is an asshole, but that itself doesn't mean that his arguments are wrong.

No, ad hominem is an attack on a person instead of their arguments, and what you've just said here pretty much confirms exactly what I'm getting at. You're insulting someone just to discredit them as a debater, even if their arguments aren't necessarily wrong? That's what ad hominem is.

Also, don't call someone an ***hole when you just gone done saying they have no brain and need remedial reading comprehension classes. That's beyond hypocritical.