Other A Metagame Without Weather

[SomeoneStoleTheNameIWant]

I wouldn't say this is going to be a weatherless metagame, it's more that weather has been brought back down to a strategy on the same level as things like Trick Room and Gravity: Not a sure thing by any means, but potentially very rewarding.

Nobody has really been talking about Sun teams from what I can see, but there have been some significant changes to this playstyle.

A) Yeah, that was mostly a catchy, extreme title to get people to post...

B) OH MY GOD THANK YOU SOMEONE POSTING ABOUT SUN

Those points aside, and as others have said before, Hyper Offensive Weather, while not necessarily enjoying the nerf, are able to operate effectively even with the reduction of the weather duration, so long as they have support.

Hyper Offense Sand and Sun seem to be pretty popular ideas at the moment... Time to bust out my good ole' Excadrill...

 

[azureleaf17]

The problem with weather before wasn't really the Swift Swim ability, or Sand Rush. It was the permanent x1.5 bonus to water or fire type moves.

That was later. The FIRST thing that got banned was Drizzle + Swift Swim, which was so strong on the Pokemon that had Swift Swim that it constituted the first complex ban that Smogon has ever done. Sand Rush Excadrill got banned too; the only reason why Sandslash and Stoutland didn't get banned was because they hit like a turkey sandwich without an item and don't really have the stats to back them up in-weather (and even Stoutland is a beast in sand, but almost unusable outside of it).

 

[56k]

That was later. The FIRST thing that got banned was Drizzle + Swift Swim, which was so strong on the Pokemon that had Swift Swim that it constituted the first complex ban that Smogon has ever done. Sand Rush Excadrill got banned too; the only reason why Sandslash and Stoutland didn't get banned was because they hit like a turkey sandwich without an item and don't really have the stats to back them up in-weather (and even Stoutland is a beast in sand, but almost unusable outside of it).

There's some kind of feedback loop going on and it's hard to exactly pinpoint the cause of something's uber-ness, but I honestly think those Swift Swimmers were only unreasonably dangerous because Kingdra, Omastar, Kabutops, etc, all had that x1.5 boost on their water attacks (on top of the speed). It wasn't the speed alone that made them broken, but, free speed in combination with free power boost. Not to mention the non-swift-swimmers on any Rain+Swim team (Starmie comes to mind) were all getting water boosts that allowed them to get past things that could otherwise make a stop. You can deal with the speed if you just survive an attack, but the power boost from rain meant otherwise walls like Skarmory and Blissey could be broken.

Anyway, nowadays weather is plenty viable and I'm using a sandstall team with hippowdon right now. I've always preferred Hippo because it has reliable recovery. Sand Offense is also doing fine; mixed Landorus is absolutely destructive. Splash a few of excadrill/talonflame/megagengar/alakazam/rotom/scizor/thundurus/azumarril/mawile/lucario alongside your TTar and you've got some wall breaking sand offense right there.

 

[Ghostbone]

Weather as a team style is pretty much dead this gen.

"Sand teams" still exist because ttar only needs the sand for itself (and only for a few turns), and hippowdon is a great physical wall even without perma sand. They're both mons that would be OU or close to it because of their own qualities, rather than the support they give for a team.

Whereas ninetales/politoed are utter trash without their abilities (and tbh close to trash with them in OU at least), they only exist as support for the rest of the team.
Specstoed's probably going to tear up UU though lol.

Sure Charizard Y might still be around with its sun, but just because Charizard Y is on your team doesn't make it a sun team, because 5 turns of weather is not enough for anything else on your team to take advantage of.

 

[AOPSUser]

Now that Drizzle's gone and the powerful stall behind Hydration/Rest MIGHT get two uses at most per rain cycle, who thinks Manaphy might be a viable option again?

Manaphy was tested in Clear Skies OU (which was OU with all weather banned) in Gen 5. It was still too broken. I don't think it's been nerfed enough to the point that it might be OU again.

Weather as a team style is pretty much dead this gen.

"Sand teams" still exist because ttar only needs the sand for itself (and only for a few turns), and hippowdon is a great physical wall even without perma sand. They're both mons that would be OU or close to it because of their own qualities, rather than the support they give for a team.

Whereas ninetales/politoed are utter trash without their abilities (and tbh close to trash with them in OU at least), they only exist as support for the rest of the team.
Specstoed's probably going to tear up UU though lol.

Sure Charizard Y might still be around with its sun, but just because Charizard Y is on your team doesn't make it a sun team, because 5 turns of weather is not enough for anything else on your team to take advantage of.

Sun and Rain teams were very much alive in Gen 4, without Drizzle or Drought, and in the presence of Hippowdon and Tyranitar. Now you have Pokemon that can use the weather move by just switching in. True, some sweepers are dead (no more Venusaur sweeps), but, especially if/when SS+Drizzle is unbanned, those sweepers will be about as viable as they were in Gen 4 (maybe less since Gen 5 power creep happened).

Ninetales is still decent in OU with the nerfed Drought. Without Drought at all it might have been something like RU/upper NU in Gen 5, but Ninetales itself is not utter trash like Spinda or Delibird. It has support moves like Will-O-Wisp, Toxic, and Roar, and offensive Ninetales sets weren't really that good in Gen 5 anyways. In Gen 6 you now have to make the trade-off between Drought and something like Arcanine as a defensive/support Fire-type, and Drought is still good for support.

Politoed is almost utter trash without Drizzle, because there's so many other Water-types, albeit none with its kind of movepool. In Gen 5 we saw it take a support role mostly, thanks to moves like Perish Song and Toxic that it gets. There were also offensive versions. Politoed is still very usable in OU since it can summon its own Rain to power up its Surfs, Scalds, and Hydro Pumps. You can also play it as if you were playing a Gen 4 rain team.

Mega Charizard Y is really powerful since it can summon its own Sun to boost its Fire Blasts, similar to how Specs Politoed works.

 

[Ghostbone]

Sun and Rain teams were mostly a gimmick in Gen 4
And now there are way more checks to them, general power creep makes them overall weaker, and there's no element of surprise because of team preview.

And yes Charizard Y is good on its own (well with defog support) because of double STAB fire blasts and access to Solarbeam.

 

[Super Mario Bro]

Manaphy was tested in Clear Skies OU (which was OU with all weather banned) in Gen 5. It was still too broken. I don't think it's been nerfed enough to the point that it might be OU again.

Didn't Clear Skies just have a brief stint on Showdown, and garnered almost no attention until it was chopped from the OM list? Yeah, I wouldn't put an ounce of faith in that anecdote, especially now that we're entering a new gen with more potential answers to Manaphy, like Contrary Serperior and Volt Absorb Raikou, along with some of its old checks and counters, like Ferrothorn and Thundurus(-T). Besides, I question that it would have been broken in a clear skies Gen V, since Keldeo was finally determined to be OU, and Manaphy in a tier with no weather would have been exponentially weaker than Keldeo in a tier with perma-drizzle.

 

[Iura]

I love no weather. I am and always will be a main sand player due to me starting with it and Ttar :)

 

[MudcrabDL]

Just a sidenote: Swift Swim+Drizzle was banned because of Drizzle not only doubling speed, but providing double STAB to most pokemon that learned Swift Swim. ChloroDrought wasn't touched, because upping fire type moves is a double edged sword for most Chloro users.

Content wise, I think weather hyperoffense is going to be facing some serious competition from bulky stall teams and hazard stackers this generation, due to the sheer amount of switching that will need to happen to keep up those 8 turns of help. (Plus, protect stalling is going to be infinitely more effective.) It's still viable, but it's much easier to counter now with creative playstyles, which I'm damn thankful for. Though I'm going to miss my Ninetales just straight up winning games for me, it's going to create a metagame with much more variety.

 

[nikovan]

I'm just hoping weather abilities become viable again. It's no longer ridiculous to fight against weather knowing you can stall it out.

Which brings me to my next point: with people bragging too much about the weather nerf, dedicated weather teams might still be incredibly, incredibly powerful. It was not uncommon to carry a weather starter on weatherless teams just to clean unfavorable weather, but now with our guard down, a nice dedicated DrizzleSwim team could punch a lot of holes into our teams if we are not prepared.

When people realize that weather is not as dead as they think, the meta will become quite interesting, if not a bit annoying. I hope weather teams don't end up being more than 25% of the teams used. And in any case, if they do, I'll give it to them, you now need much more preparation to have your team working decently, so if you beat me with a Gen VI weather team, I will not be even mad. Good for you, I should've been more careful.

 

[56k]

Sun and Rain teams were mostly a gimmick in Gen 4
And now there are way more checks to them, general power creep makes them overall weaker, and there's no element of surprise because of team preview.

And yes Charizard Y is good on its own (well with defog support) because of double STAB fire blasts and access to Solarbeam.

I just want to point out that Charizard Y + Venusaur/Tangrowth + unsuspecting sunny day user (Heat Rock Sableye?) can give you a little bit of surprise factor.

 

[Photofluid]

Have you consider running double weather caster like what is generally did in Gen 4, except you now have an extra skill slot on one of your pokemon.

But what really sucks is that you are forced to have empty turns, really unappreciated.

 

[Lord Ninjax]

Really, I think this'll simply make people use their inducers with a lot more tact, and they'll set the field so that when weather finishes, they can switch in their inducer. Plus Heat, Damp Rock and all will become more common

 

[MisterBobobo]

I think weather will be used in the same way as it was in DP. I don't know if Drizzle + Swift Swim will be unbanned, but Chlorophyll and Drought will probably be used anyway.

 

[doinktonberry]

Azumaril takes damage from Hydro Miss and then retaliates with Play Rough, instagibbing Kingdra. Azumaril is a legitimate counter (just not on the switch-in.)

Forgive me if I am wrong or sounding like a condescending prick but I am pretty sure you just described a check. Anyway, I like the weather nerf. Allows for more tactics instead of simply spamming hurricane and hydro pumps. All of a sudden it becomes much easier to work around instead of relying on niche pokemon like Gastrodon whose only purpose in ou was to essentially counter those kinds of teams. At the same time it doesn't seemed nerfed enough to the point of unviability, so you can still do well with them. I really like the ambition gf did with their balancing. And I am looking forward to thge meta now.