Aldaron's proposal: Alternatives?

[Odinwolf]

Don't ban anything.

There are no other competitive gaming communities as ban-happy as Smogon. None. This community doesn't care about being competitive at the actual game, they seem to care about making the game controllable and predictable. This is why tiers like BL are stupid. Someone gets it in their head what UU should look like and anything that diverges from it and forces the game to change gets shifted quickly into BL. Also why Garchomp/Salamence bans were idiotic in Gen4.

Just let Pokemon be about playing Pokemon. If Gen 5 is about controlling weather, then let it be about controlling weather. Don't try to make it "more diverse" by doing a bunch of unnecessary bans. Given time people will work out counters and counter-counters and you'll have a rich metagame to play in. It doesn't have to be like previous generations at all. Stop being scrubs and banning everything that doesn't have an immediate and obvious counter.

 

[THATSAplusONE]

Don't ban anything.

There are no other competitive gaming communities as ban-happy as Smogon. None. This community doesn't care about being competitive at the actual game, they seem to care about making the game controllable and predictable. This is why tiers like BL are stupid. Someone gets it in their head what UU should look like and anything that diverges from it and forces the game to change gets shifted quickly into BL. Also why Garchomp/Salamence bans were idiotic in Gen4.

Just let Pokemon be about playing Pokemon. If Gen 5 is about controlling weather, then let it be about controlling weather. Don't try to make it "more diverse" by doing a bunch of unnecessary bans. Given time people will work out counters and counter-counters and you'll have a rich metagame to play in. It doesn't have to be like previous generations at all. Stop being scrubs and banning everything that doesn't have an immediate and obvious counter.

I see what you are saying, you just want to let things go the way they are and play straight up. Thats cool. But thats just not how we play here. There are reasons that we make tiers and ban certain pokemon. Imo the game can only really be played after all the luck has been sucked out of it.

 

[cantab]

I do not believe there are any other competitively-played games with 649 characters. I also do not believe there are many competitively-played games which provide multiple modes of play where the developers seem to have balanced for a different mode than most competitive players choose. (Namely, Game Freak seem to care more about Doubles, whereas we mainly focus on Singles.)

 

[Fake Sketch]

Don't ban anything.

There are no other competitive gaming communities as ban-happy as Smogon. None. This community doesn't care about being competitive at the actual game, they seem to care about making the game controllable and predictable. This is why tiers like BL are stupid. Someone gets it in their head what UU should look like and anything that diverges from it and forces the game to change gets shifted quickly into BL. Also why Garchomp/Salamence bans were idiotic in Gen4.

Just let Pokemon be about playing Pokemon. If Gen 5 is about controlling weather, then let it be about controlling weather. Don't try to make it "more diverse" by doing a bunch of unnecessary bans. Given time people will work out counters and counter-counters and you'll have a rich metagame to play in. It doesn't have to be like previous generations at all. Stop being scrubs and banning everything that doesn't have an immediate and obvious counter.

In that case ppl can just make de desicion to play nintendo rules instead of smogon.

Anyway, we are making the purpose of these bans are making metagame richer, not the opposite.

For example, if Darkrai werent banned, everyone would use it, and everyone would have to carry a darkrai counter, wasting already 2 slots of 6, making metagame very predictable and boring.

 

[Miscellaneous]

Ban individual broken Swift Swim sweepers, but only with Drizzle

This is the best option to achieve the fewest bans but suppress what is broken. No doubt, no questions, that's a fact.

But there's a but, and it's a big but. It's very possible the ban could go from "SwSw + drizzle is banned" to "X, Y, Z with the ability swift swim in combination with a pokemon with drizzle is banned". The second statement is better for the metagame, but it's very unattractive. It's very complicated, especially for newer users. The complex part isn't what is wrong about the ban, it is just a drawback.

The main problem I have with this is that it's nigh-impossible to truly find out what's broken with only one suspect ladder. Banning kindra + kabutops might be enough, but there may be another viable alternative, in which case it is unclear what should be chosen, when what's most likely is that the first viable option found is chosen. But that is not necessarily correct, as it *should* be the ban which keeps the most things OU as is possible. Finding every possibility and evaluating each individually and comparing them all seems very long winded and ridiculous, and that's because it is.

Biggest problem is that rain as a whole is broken, the collective combination of about 15 pokemon that can make a good rain team. Banning individuals is a practice that in turn indicates a misunderstanding of the situation. This isn't a question of just one or two pokemon, like was the case with Garchomp. Banning anything rain related immediately changes the situation for every other rain "abuser", the interdependence forces another approach and personally it seems to me as if no one really appreciates the kind of thought, let alone execution, involved in that kind of approach. Trial and error won't work, so unless the community is open to another method or approach I think it's best to stick with "drizzle + SwSw", the alternative being a ban on drizzle. Drizzle is a nice ban because it's banning one possibility, it's simple and it doesn't cripple any rain strategies. But drizzle + SwSw is better as it allows for more possibilities, whilst keeping rain under control. "X, Y, Z with the ability swift swim in combination with a pokemon with drizzle is banned" is the best solution, but it not only has unattractive properties, it's also extremely hard to reach that ban reasonably. I suppose unbanning each swift swimmer with drizzle one by one, from "worst" to "best" might be a possibility. But how to know what to unban first? But what if we end up with 7 SwSw pokemon, 3 of which seem definitely broken, and 4 of which seem contraversial? Which of the 4 would one unban, if any? I suppose it would come to a vote, but it would involve XCY(exp.5) possibilities where X is the number of contraversial bans, Y is the number of resolutions and 5 indicates the number of pokemon on a team without drizzle. It's horribly complex, I doubt anyone would really want to be involved in that, and a simpler solution wouldn't really work unless one was to literally change everything about how the suspect test works. Drizzle + SwSw seems the best option by far. I don't think there's anything wrong with the current situation, only drawback is it shoves a few SwSW pokemon out of OU that would never really have been present without the ban anyway.

I'll add in thoughts on the other options later perhaps.

The reason I don't support a Swift Swim ability ban is because many Pokemon don't have an alternative ability. And while it might be hilarious to pseudo-ban Magikarp, Feebas, Luvdisc, Floatzel, and friends, I think it is an unacceptable solution.

Yes, but it's a ban from OU. Does it harm OU to ban those pokemon? It's not like you're preventing certain common strategies. The real philosophy behind stopping bans like these it that they do too much harm: limit rain as a strategy. But I don't think any of those have a usage higher than say 0.01 per 20 teams. Ultimately, it doesn't hurt OU at all, so I wouldn't say it's unacceptable. It may be better to make exceptions for these pokemon; but it's not necessary. (unless there's some pokemon that only have SwSw and could very easily be in OU, even with only support from rain dance.)

Imo; best solution would be one that fixes rain, is as simple as possible, but keeps other OU rain strategies open.

 

[charizard24]

I voted option 1 only.

Well, the metagame in its current state is pretty stable if you ask me. Nothing seems to be too overpowering. Sure Rain is powerful but so is SS and Sun. They all have their perks and let-downs. The problem now lies in the fact that we feel that some pokemon such as let's say Qwilfish/Floatzel/Armaldo have been denied their possible spot in the OU metagame because of Aldaron's proposal. All Swift Swimmers albeit even the lesser ones such as Magikarp and Luvdisc have supposedly been denied their rights to flaunt higher speed. At least that's what i'm getting from the current posts.

To me it seems a little odd that we wanted Drizzle and it's sweepers banned soo badly in Round 2 and yet now, we are advocating their return. I'll admit not all of them seem broken. It's possible that qwilfish could be present in OU and everybody would be fine with it.

However, i still see so many people to this day that are fighting for a Ban on Drizzle as a whole. That means that they still feel it is overpowered even after Aldaron's proposal has taken effect. Now, how do we convince them to keep Drizzle OU and not Ubers? Why we bring back more Swift Swimmers of course, that will surely make them feel that Drizzle is more manageable. (sorry if i sounded a bit rude there)

Anyways having said all that, i would still welcome a test to determine if the lesser Swift Swimmers are inherently not broken and which of them can be used. This would however take a long long time and will be an extremely tasking job with plenty more arguements and debates galore should it take place.

EDIT: I agree with Miscellaneous' post above me, the the 4th paragraph at least. He seemed to sum it up in a nice way.


I suppose i'll add in some of the other options as well.

I disagree with banning individual broken Swift Swim sweepers as then; well Kingdra, Ludicolo and Kabutops will be Ubers and possibly more mind you. Though i'm not going to sit here and argue that they arent broken with their other abilities and thus should be let in OU or some ridiculous pokemon+ability bans like the Blaziken discussion. Think about it this way, as the current situation stands, all of the aforementioned pokemon are allowed in standard play. They just cant be used on a team with Drizzle. Trying to change this would actually contradict our original purpose of banning the least number of things.

Also, if you truly want to use your Swift Swim pokemon it is possible. Last time i checked, the move Rain dance and the item Damp Rock havent changed at all and havent been banned now have they. Please refrain from saying RD sucks. Think about it, if Drizzle is so prominent in the current metagame then you'll run into one of them eventually and if you play smart you'll win with your SwSw sweepers. For all the teams that dont have Drizzle, use Rain Dance. It is a viable strategy if you want to use it. All pokemon are allowed as the current situation stands. The metagame is not as hectic as before. We have the most number of viable strategies and options available to those that want to use them. So why bring back ghosts from the past to haunt us yet again.

 

[Lightning Tiger]

However, i still see so many people to this day that are fighting for a Ban on Drizzle as a whole. That means that they still feel it is overpowered even after Aldaron's proposal has taken effect. Now, how do we convince them to keep Drizzle OU and not Ubers? Why we bring back more Swift Swimmers of course, that will surely make them feel that Drizzle is more manageable. (sorry if i sounded a bit rude there)

I see this as well.

It should be pretty obvious to everyone that even with no swift swimmers allowed rain is still quite easily still the most powerful of the weathers as a whole, it removes fire weakness from steel types, boosts hurrican and thunder accuracy, and boosts water type moves by 50%, not to mention rain dish, dry skin, and hydration on Vaporeon (is that out yet?). And many people still want it banned, hell 25% of the poll respondent so far do.

So i cannot understand how anyone could possibly want to undo the combo ban and add 10 or so pokemon who get an x2 speed boost in rain, itl just make rain even more powerfull.

Its like, "Rain is the most powerfull weather, you know what would rock?..... lets make it even more powerful".

The only conclusion i see in bringing swift swimers back is either things eventually going back to the combo ban or with even more demand for the banning of drizzle... because Drizzle would just be evem more ridiculous than it is now.

How much more powerful do people want to make rain before they are satisfied?, seriously...

 

[Ulevo]

The reason I don't support a Swift Swim ability ban is because many Pokemon don't have an alternative ability. And while it might be hilarious to pseudo-ban Magikarp, Feebas, Luvdisc, Floatzel, and friends, I think it is an unacceptable solution.

This is a good thread. Thanks for it.

I'd wish people became more informed about this, as I feel it is influencing their decisions as far as a Swift Swim ban is concerned.

All Pokemon that have Swift Swim as an ability have an alternate ability.

Also.

Don't ban anything.

There are no other competitive gaming communities as ban-happy as Smogon. None. This community doesn't care about being competitive at the actual game, they seem to care about making the game controllable and predictable. This is why tiers like BL are stupid. Someone gets it in their head what UU should look like and anything that diverges from it and forces the game to change gets shifted quickly into BL. Also why Garchomp/Salamence bans were idiotic in Gen4.

Just let Pokemon be about playing Pokemon. If Gen 5 is about controlling weather, then let it be about controlling weather. Don't try to make it "more diverse" by doing a bunch of unnecessary bans. Given time people will work out counters and counter-counters and you'll have a rich metagame to play in. It doesn't have to be like previous generations at all. Stop being scrubs and banning everything that doesn't have an immediate and obvious counter.

This is nice to see.

 

[charizard24]

I'd wish people became more informed about this, as I feel it is influencing their decisions as far as a Swift Swim ban is concerned.

All Pokemon that have Swift Swim as an ability have an alternate ability..

That might be true. However not all pokemon that have Swift Swim as their only ability have their DW ability released at the moment so it would still mean some soft bans on pokemon such as Magikarp, Luvdisc, Floatzel (yeah pretty much what Rising_dusk said).

Also, have you considered that an outright SwSw ban would destroy any hopes of using a RD + SwSw strategy in UU or lower where Drizzle does not exist? It might not be viable in OU at the moment but who's to say it might not be viable in the lower tiers. Perhaps that's where your Qwilfishes will shine. Which is another reason why i believe that things should be the way they are.

 

[10fore]

Lightningtiger, nobody wants to make Rain teams more powerful. It's not about that. It's about making the rules properly. I want the game to be balanced as much as everyone, but I don't like following rules that are bullshit.

Aldaron's proposal indicates that swift swim and drizzle are broken together. They aren't.

We've gone from banning broken pokemon to banning combinations of things that aren't broken individually or together. I don't understand how this makes sense to anyone.

We can take shortcuts to castrate rain teams and balance the metagame, or we can take the time to figure out what is broken and get rid of it. Don't ban shit because it's convenient.

Aldaron's proposal was a band-aid, but the gash that Offensive Rain ripped in the metagame needed stitches.

 

[Je-Muzu]

i voted for Ban individual broken Swift Swim sweepers, but only with Drizzle, but what i was wondering, was if it was just broken swift swimmers banned would it be okay to still use kingdra just with sniper instead. and still have drizzle on the same team?

 

[Ulevo]

That might be true. However not all pokemon that have Swift Swim as their only ability have their DW ability released at the moment so it would still mean some soft bans on pokemon such as Magikarp, Luvdisc, Floatzel (yeah pretty much what Rising_dusk said).

Yes they do!

See. This is what I'm talking about. People are voting without evening being inclined on the topic. Go look it up.

EDIT: Here. http://www.serebii.net/blackwhite/dreamworldareas.shtml

Also, have you considered that an outright SwSw ban would destroy any hopes of using a RD + SwSw strategy in UU or lower where Drizzle does not exist? It might not be viable in OU at the moment but who's to say it might not be viable in the lower tiers. Perhaps that's where your Qwilfishes will shine. Which is another reason why i believe that things should be the way they are.

Then unban Swift Swim in UU. Problem solved.

 

[cantab]

Then unban Swift Swim in UU. Problem solved.

It seems weird for something to be banned in OU, but not in UU. Not saying it can't or shouldn't be done, but it's extremely counter-intuitive.

 

[Ulevo]

It seems weird for something to be banned in OU, but not in UU. Not saying it can't or shouldn't be done, but it's extremely counter-intuitive.

Little Cup bans Berry Juice, and I believe Dragon Rage and Sonic Boom. I don't know if they banned Eviolite, I don't believe so, but it was up for consideration at one point.

There's no difference between banning these items/moves in LC and not in UU, OU, and Ubers, and banning Swift Swim in OU, but not in UU.

They're different tiers with different requirements for stability.

 

[RaRaRabbit]

The below numbers were taken at the time of my writing of this post:
Ban individual broken Swift Swim sweepers - 29.07%
Ban individual broken Swift Swim sweepers, but only with Drizzle - 16.28%
Ban Drizzle entirely - 26.74%
Ban permanent weather entirely - 16.28%

So, reading this... this means that 45% want to bring back SOME FORM of swift swimmers, yet another 42% of everyone wants the entirety of drizzle banned?

How is this logical? How would it be logical to let some swift swimmers come back when a good chunk of people want drizzle banned overall? How would it be logical when drizzle was nominated for round three of voting?



I voted for options 1 and 3.

Option 1, because I feel like this meta is clean and diverse. Losing all of the swift swimmers may have not been ideal, but I can deal with out using Perma-SwiftSwim Golduck/Luvdisk/Armaldo and etc.

And option 3... If for some reason we HAVE to test out the other swift swimmers, they should be banned outright. Not the combination of individual pokemon with SwSw and Drizzle.

Option 4 is ridiculous. Remember that slippery slope everyone bitched about back when the Drizzle + Swift Swim ban was proposed? This is it. This is that slippery slope. We allowed one complex ban that wasn't even all that complex, and people want to complicate it more. Don't say banning the 3 main threats (kabutops/kingdra/ludicolo) in drizzle with swift swim isn't any more complicated because I'd be damned if it wasn't. "oh you can use swift swim golduck in drizzle, but not ludicolo. Poliwrath but not kabutops." No thank you. I don't want to go through that. Either ban the pokemon on the merits of the pokemon itself, or ban nothing.


Besides, and I know I have been ragged on for relying too much on Theorymonning... But I definitely can see Golduck/Quilfish/Omastar/Poliwrath being top notch over powered threats in drizzle. I am absolutely terrified of Belly Drummed SwSw Poliwrath. Even SwSw Golduck with Encore+CM+HydroPump+Psychic/Focusblast sounds viable as well.

I just can't see how the main 3 being gone and allowing other swift swimmers could warrant a better metagame for Drizzle... when Drizzle was just UP FOR SUSPECT.

 

[Je-Muzu]

Aldaron's proposal indicates that swift swim and drizzle are broken together. they aren't only kindgra, ludicolo, kabutops are broken in drizzle with SS, ban them with swift swim, and test the others, don't ban drizzle, this genration has been geared for weather to be at the forefront.

 

[AlphaSpade]

I can imagine the other swift swimmers giving teams headaches. Ever been on the wrong end of a +2/+2/+4 Omastar/Gorebyss?

I remember a while back some Poliwrath users ran Sitrus Berry to regain 25% (or is it 30?) after they BDed, and Poliwrath definately has the defenses to take Priority attacks. The only problem is Jellicent and Slowbro can completely tank the guy.

If you hate Deo-S for it's fast spiking capabilities, then you will hate Qwilfish, who boasts a Stab Poison Jab to fend off Whimsicott, and the genie bros don't exactly enjoy boosted Waterfalls.

There's probably more SSers that can give teams headaches, but anyone who thinks just banning the trio would balance out rain should look a little deeper into the others.

I just can't see how the main 3 being gone and allowing other swift swimmers could warrant a better metagame for Drizzle... when Drizzle was just UP FOR SUSPECT.

I agree with this.

 

[Benlisted]

Just want to reiterate Ulevo's point for those who may skim the thread - banning Swift Swim would pseudo-ban a total of 0 pokemon from OU - they all have their alternate abilities released!

Anyway, on topic, you can't add the stats up like you're doing RaRa, sadly, since the same people could be voting for banning Drizzle and banning all weather, with slightly more voting for the former. All we can take is that a quarter of people want Drizzle gone as a whole, which is somewhat less than even the suspect test results. In any case, the two most popular options aside from banning Drizzle are leaving it be (highest, on 31%), and banning individual mons who are found broken (29%).

I'm unsurprised that many find the current situation adequate, but am somewhat shocked that so many would want to ban Kingdra, Ludicolo, etc, given the opposition to this idea I faced in round two. I believe that given the lack of knowledge about SwSw not resulting in any pseudo-bans may lower the second option somewhat dramatically, however, since it will essentially result in a similar meta to the one we have now.

 

[RaRaRabbit]

@Benlisted:

I agree I shouldn't put together the percentages. Thats for sure. I think I mainly did it because Option 3 and 4 both clashed with the option of banning drizzle entirely, when it was pretty much the 3rd highest of the set.

Also, whose to say that IF option 3 or 4 happened and took place, that people who voted for option 1 might not go towards the ban drizzle choice?

More theorizing, I know. I just really see banning drizzle clashing completely considering it is so high on the list.

 

[Je-Muzu]

In a way i agree with alpha shade, that bringing swift swim back but only things like poliwrath, would cause headaches, but i personally would see want to use a kingdra with sniper on a drizzle team so wouldn't want kingdra banned outright, but i would also like to use beatric with swift swim and really don't think he would be broken in rain,but at the same time rain and its effects break certain pokemon, and drizzle should stay because between all the weathers all together even thought rain is powerful so are the others weathers, so swift swim is the problem in my opinion. but testing should still done to check if these others are broken with swift swim.

 

[Benlisted]

Also, whose to say that IF option 3 or 4 happened and took place, that people who voted for option 1 might not go towards the ban drizzle choice?

More theorizing, I know. I just really see banning drizzle clashing completely considering it is so high on the list.

That's a fair point, we don't know what would occur if SwSwers were reintroduced - if so many SwSwers are in fact inherently broken that it is in fact not worth keeping them - and that's (partially) why I only think any changing of the proposal should occur when the meta is stable otherwise. Option 2 wouldn't change much at all, but the other options for complex bans would both have a possible slippery slope effect and reintroduce potentially broken pokemon into OU at the same time, which may prove somewhat chaotic even when nothing is going on otherwise. In any case I don't want to argue about this since I already have, so if anyone disagrees and wants a response read what I wrote on the last two pages of Thorhammer's last topic, it should cover it.

 

[Lightning Tiger]

I just can't see how the main 3 being gone and allowing other swift swimmers could warrant a better metagame for Drizzle... when Drizzle was just UP FOR SUSPECT.

Didnt you hear?, all the people who naminated drizzle to be suspect would be prefectly alright with it if only there were more swift swimers to abuse... true story.

Lightningtiger, nobody wants to make Rain teams more powerful. It's not about that. It's about making the rules properly. I want the game to be balanced as much as everyone, but I don't like following rules that are bullshit.

Taht may not be the purpose, but its the obvious result.

Drizzle was just up as suspect last round, and probably will be again. It doesnt take much foresight to imagine what happens when you make controversial suspects even more powerful, whatever the "purpose" it.

 

[pharaohcalvin]

I am just posting to say that I don't agree with the current complex ban we have. However, I do not think Drizzle (Unsure of) or SS are broken by themselves. SO basically it comes down to what do we want to ban? One ability that that limits outs Politoad or SS which effects so many more pokemon and affects RD teams? I'd personally go with drizzle, as it is for sure boarderline broken at a min even without SS.

 

[charizard24]

Lightningtiger, nobody wants to make Rain teams more powerful. It's not about that. It's about making the rules properly. I want the game to be balanced as much as everyone, but I don't like following rules that are bullshit.

Aldaron's proposal indicates that swift swim and drizzle are broken together. They aren't.

We've gone from banning broken pokemon to banning combinations of things that aren't broken individually or together. I don't understand how this makes sense to anyone.

We can take shortcuts to castrate rain teams and balance the metagame, or we can take the time to figure out what is broken and get rid of it. Don't ban shit because it's convenient.

Aldaron's proposal was a band-aid, but the gash that Offensive Rain ripped in the metagame needed stitches.

I was always under the impression that Drizzle + Swift Swim is broken. After all, isnt that what warranted such an unuasual ban in the first place. The fact that Swift Swimmers were sweeping teams aways with little to no effort under Drizzle was the breaking point for most people.

And if i may ask, so what if a few of the less powerful swift swimmers wont get a chance to shine in OU. There are always the lower tiers where Drizzle and other weathers are non-existant (except hail). So set up RD and sweep with your Beartics and Luvdiscs. It makes not difference to the OU metagame at all.

What your proposing is that we let a majority of the Swift Swimmers back into OU, increasing the power and viability of an already superior strategy. Which would cause more people to hate it. More people to Rage about it and more people to just go and outright ban Drizzle.

And what if they do end up banning drizzle (out of sheer hate) might i ask.... then what will your Beartic do in OU ......

Yes they do!

See. This is what I'm talking about. People are voting without evening being inclined on the topic. Go look it up.

Ok fine, i'll admit i was mistaken there. But even if we ban Swift Swim, it's not that different than the current proposal in place anyways... You'd still get people complaining about how it's not fair that the other Swift Swimmers are also nerfed and that they deserve to be played with or tested etc etc...

If anything, banning Swift Swim would prevent the people that use RD from even using Swift Swim at all which is more of a disadvantage than an advantage.

 

[Walshy]

I personally voted for a ban of all permanent weather. I have skimmed most of this topic and I have yet to see this option.

I hate to see this happen but I feel like it might be worth testing in the future. Ban all perma-weather not to Ubers, but to a sub OU tier. Perma Weather OU, where players can use pokes like Toad and Tails. With the ban of Drizzle+Swift Swim, I see that Sand is now way over powered. Seeing all weathers thrown into one tier might be worth trying. Plus, it gives people a 4th (or 5th option if you count hail as effective weather) option, Anti-weather teams. I have found choice scarf Golduck with Cloud Nine a nice check to a lot of sand teams. People can use these Gimmick teams too.

I just want to see a balanced Gen 5, where you dont start off every match looking at pre-game team saying "well this is going to be pointless." as soon as you see weather teams.