BW2 Playstyles: Discussion Thread

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BW2 Playstyles: Discussion Thread​

Our metagame is surrounded with weather. Let's face it, be real. Now, we have all this going with it, how is our metagame evolving? Which playstyles are the most effective? Which playstyles are the worst? Anyways, this is a thread for playstyle discussion. Please stay on topic, and avoid lengthy and useless arguements. Example:

<Guy 1> sun stall sux o_O
<Guy 2> care to say y?
<Guy 2> no reply aeh
<Guy 1> its hard so ye
<Guy 2> so?
<Guy 1> so this!
<Guy 1> /
<Guy 1> /
<Guy 1> /
<Guy 1> /
<Guy 2> biiiaaatttccchhh!!!!

Guy 2 was Permabanned by ~chaos


Rain

Obviously, the most common playstyle, since it's really easy to build a rain team. Rain teams generally SPAM powerful moves such as Waterfall, Surf, Hurricane, adn Thunder, or take more defnsive approach using moves like Scald. Rain teams generally carry powerful Pokemon that can easily blast there way past opponents or use defensive Pokemon that gain most of their utility from the rain. An example of this are Keldeo and Tentacruel.

Rain Offense

Rain Balance

Rain Stall






Sun

Sun teams aren't the easiest teams to play out there. There main weather inducer, Ninetales, is cursed with a disadvantage against all Tyranitar, Politoed, and Hippowdon, making winning the weather wars mandatory for the team's success. However, since Chlorophyll and Drought aren't banned, sun teams have a relatively easy time to secure the match. Drizzle and Swift Swim were banned, since most users of Swift Swim got there STAB doubled, unlike Chlorophyll, where its only distributed to Grass-types. Sun is another great weather in this metagame, however, its harder to pull off unlike rain and sand.

Sun Offense

Sun Balance

Sun Stall






Sand

The most-used weather of early BW1 and late BW2, Sand is an excellent playstyle, and its users are very good. Tyranitar provides a beastly attack stat as well as utility in Stealth Rock and Pursuit, while Hippowdon is good considering it doesn't have to face Dugtrio shenanigans, and has great bulk. While they lack less abusers, they still have a niche in anti-weather support and Sand Rush, with Stoutland and Sandslash the main abusers.

Sand Offense

Sand Balance

Sand Stall






Hail

Hail is the least-used weather, but has niche. It pretty much destroys every other playstyle, if used correctly. While it doesn't bring anything special, it's nice to counter the opponent's weather, which rain teams will struggle due to them wanting to SPAM Hurricanes and thunders and Sun will lose there Chlorophyll abuse and boosted Fire Blast(s). There aren't the best abusers out there, but they are pretty good, such as Overcoat Forretress and SubRoost Kyurem taking Hail into account with its great stalling abilities. Blizzard is one of the main things it does, since it boosts its accuracy to a 100% which is cool. This has turn into a term called "BlizzSPAM"

Hail Offense

yeah but why would you use it over sand offense? tyranitar removes rain and sun too, it doesnt need rapid spin support and its a better pokemon overall thanks to the sp. def boost.
also i've never really get why kyurem is used with abomasnow, do you use it for blizzard? or just because it isnt affected by hail? kyurem is more effective under rain, at least you dont play with two ice types in the same team (and you know how bad ice is, dont you)

Hail hate is silly...none of the other weather starters can switch into Expert Belt Abomasnow except Balloon Ninetales. The overreliance on weather for most Rain and Sun teams makes Abomasnow a soft counter to most of their strategies. The additional benefits to Abomasnow over Tyranitar or Hippowdon include: chip damage on more common Ground/Rock/Steel opponents, Walrein + Kyurem(-B) abuse, Abomasnow's water/electric resistances, and the aforementioned inability of weather inducers to switch into Abomasnow which gives you a BIG advantage in keeping the weather up.

Hail Balance

Hail Stall




Weatherless

This is certainly viable. First of all your wasting a team slot for rain, while this may not seem big, imagine how many Pokemon you need to win the weather war. That's a lot! Weatherless teams usually focus on hazards and breaking through most teams with brute force or staying solid and having proper support to cover threats, while having a solid backbone. Weatherless is the most-used playstyle, so don't be afraid to give it a shot!

Weatherless Offense

Much as people like to claim that non-weather is still viable, it really is just 100% outclassed by sand simply because you can cancel sun and rain. Sun is just damn scary if you can't remove it.

Weatherless Balance

Weatherless Stall





Other

There are certainly other playstyles out there. The first is DragMag, which involves a steel trapper like Probopass -__- or Magnezone. After steel-types have been removed, dragon-types such as Haxorus will steamroll through entire teams. Next is VoltTurn, which involves almost every Pokemon having either U-turn or Volt Swittch to keep momentum and ease prediction. Trick Room and F.E.A.R are also used. Most of these playstyles are run on weatherless teams, but have usage on weather teams too, since they can have both utilities at the same time. Experiments...

DragMag

VoltTurn

Trick Room

Trick Room will pretty much always be anti meta due to the meta usually being highly focused around speed and TR exploits that at the cost of being less effective against slower teams such as balance and stall.

Choice





Discuss!

This is thread for Playstyle discussion, so discuss all you want, and argue, ye. Regardless, I'll post some quotes from you guys under each playstyles, if there solid, but until then.. discuss this.

What to keep in mind:

• Which playstyle is the easiest to deal with?
• Are some playstyles unplayable?
• Are some playstyles taking over the metagame?
• Which playstyle is the most effective and why?

Please stay on topic, and keep it with variety. Thanks.

 

[ShootingStarmie]

For me, my preferred style of play is either Rain stall or Weatherless stall. While I feel there are some Pokemon that just demolish stall (Kyurem-B, Landorus-I etc) I feel that stall is the "safest" option, as I believe offence relies way too much on prediction to be constantly effective, since prediction is basically an educated guess, and if it goes wrong, offence teams are left at a big disadvantage. Now I'm a ladder player, and I haven't played in much tournaments, but I would guess that it's different in tournaments since tournament players often use "gimmicky" sets to catch people off guard. While I'm not saying this is good or bad, it's pretty inconsistent when you're on the ladder, as people know the surprise sets, and are more prepared for it next time.

 

[ginganinja]

I don't build a team with a playstyle in mind (one of the reasons why I disliked shoehorning in a playstyle in the CAP process), because i'm building a team around a pokemon or two first, and team style naturally evolves when i have the finished product. Also some of the definitions for balance / semi stall / stall etc etc are vague so I don't concern myself with building a team with a playstyle in mind as it fucks up my teambuilding.

Couple of points (since I dislike how this thread is presented)

No playstyles are technically "unplayable" as its very possible to play TR, or Volt Turn or shit, Swift Swim Rain Offense etc etc. Some playstyles are underused because they are less effective against the common meta. Trick Room will pretty much always be anti meta due to the meta usually being highly focused around speed and TR exploits that at the cost of being less effective against slower teams such as balance and stall.

Rain and Sand are prolly the most effective playstyles at the moment (I'm not saying "Sand Stall or anything because Sand is p good atm and all Rain archetypes are also fairly effective) for various reasons. Keldeo + Landorus + Tar prolly sparked the Sand increase, but teams such as Miens (?) also promoted Sand "Balance / Stall" as well so that helps. I don't really consider one playstyle the best considering its entirely possible for different playstyles to beat one another based on the pokemon actually used on the teams. I'm 2 lazy to bring up specific examples (and stating that one playstyle has an advantage over another I dislike since skill often comes down to it) because I generally prefer to look at ow effective teams are based on the pokemon choice, rather than an arbitrary definition of a Playstyle.

Everyones welcome to disagree with me here tho.

 

[Neliel]

Hail is easily the worst playstile. you will never use a random abomasnow because you need it for something, but instead you will start your build with it, knowing you want an hail team. The problem is that its stealth rock weak, half of the metagame kos it, and while the same can be said for ninetales, you have abusers in sun. Sure abomasnow has a better offensive presence, but it isnt really difficult to deal with. Imo, if you dont use hail offensively you will be even more disappointed. I tried many times to build an hail stall, but they looks good only in paper, the hail is detrimental for your walls and in the end you will prefer an hippo or something else.
One of the playstiles im liking more atm is double sand. the reason is pretty simple, sun and rain teams really struggle to beat both your inducers, and often without their weather they wont do much (think about a toxicroak without rain or a venusaur under sand) even more if you use stoutland which is a very good pokemon (yes use it more pls so we can make it ou :( )
What is better is that hippo and ttar arent bad pokemon on their own. Unlike the other inducers, they have specific roles (like, ttar pursuitting stuff, hippo walling phisical swepers) so if you face a drag mag or everything else you wont have "bad matchup", like when you face 3 dragons and you are using a sun team.
Anyway, i dont think that virizion really defines weather stall ( lol ) neither roserade or jolteon, they really seems out of place..

 

[Nysyr]

Hail is easily the worst playstile. you will never use a random abomasnow because you need it for something, but instead you will start your build with it, knowing you want an hail team. The problem is that its stealth rock weak, half of the metagame kos it, and while the same can be said for ninetales, you have abusers in sun. Sure abomasnow has a better offensive presence, but it isnt really difficult to deal with. Imo, if you dont use hail offensively you will be even more disappointed. I tried many times to build an hail stall, but they looks good only in paper, the hail is detrimental for your walls and in the end you will prefer an hippo or something else.
One of the playstiles im liking more atm is double sand. the reason is pretty simple, sun and rain teams really struggle to beat both your inducers, and often without their weather they wont do much (think about a toxicroak without rain or a venusaur under sand) even more if you use stoutland which is a very good pokemon (yes use it more pls so we can make it ou :( )
What is better is that hippo and ttar arent bad pokemon on their own. Unlike the other inducers, they have specific roles (like, ttar pursuitting stuff, hippo walling phisical swepers) so if you face a drag mag or everything else you wont have "bad matchup", like when you face 3 dragons and you are using a sun team.
Anyway, i dont think that virizion really defines weather stall ( lol ) neither roserade or jolteon, they really seems out of place..

Clearly doing hail wrong :p. You use it like you would sand offense really, Snow is just there to remove rain and sun, pocket revenge kill, and make bulky waters piss themselves. I'll just say it now, Snow + Sub Kyurem normal or Kyu-B = hails last stand. Nothing else really is.

Putting my team in sig if you want to try anyways.


Much as people like to claim that non-weather is still viable, it really is just 100% outclassed by sand simply because you can cancel sun and rain. Sun is just damn scary if you can't remove it.

 

[Neliel]

yeah but why would you use it over sand offense? tyranitar removes rain and sun too, it doesnt need rapid spin support and its a better pokemon overall thanks to the sp. def boost.
also i've never really get why kyurem is used with abomasnow, do you use it for blizzard? or just because it isnt affected by hail? kyurem is more effective under rain, at least you dont play with two ice types in the same team (and you know how bad ice is, dont you)

 

[Nysyr]

yeah but why would you use it over sand offense? tyranitar removes rain and sun too, it doesnt need rapid spin support and its a better pokemon overall thanks to the sp. def boost.
also i've never really get why kyurem is used with abomasnow, do you use it for blizzard? or just because it isnt affected by hail? kyurem is more effective under rain, at least you dont play with two ice types in the same team (and you know how bad ice is, dont you)

3HKO on standard ferro. Immune to chip damage from hail while removing sandstorm.

And variety is the spice of life. 100% sand offense teams on ladder is boring.

 

[Spinda]

Am I the only one who actually thinks Abomasnow is a good pokemon in itself? I mean.. It does work o.O.
It's also the weather starter that has the best matchup vs politoed, and the hail does on practically everything can't be underrated.
I like to use hail on flare blitz/v-create spamming teams simply for that reason ( and abomasnow beating countless of other water types darmanitan and victini have trouble with, and luring and killing heatran... ), and yes, those teams can actually work quite well, if you can keep your pressure up and prevent things from setting up rocks.

Hail offense, Rain offense, Sand stall, Sun stall, and Weatherless offense are teams I've had a lot of success with in the current metagame.

 

[G-Von]

I'm currently running a Sand Balance/Offense team right now to great success. Sand or Hail is absolutely needed to keep the two dominant weathers at bay. I've been able to beat the usual cookie-cutter LanKelTar core on a regular basis and have little problem with weather teams as well thanks to T-tar. The main problem with the team is that I have to use perfect prediction to get by Breloom to LO stall him. Mamoswine can be a bit of a problem but Jellicent and Ferrothorn have their ways of getting by it.

One of the playstiles im liking more atm is double sand. the reason is pretty simple, sun and rain teams really struggle to beat both your inducers, and often without their weather they wont do much (think about a toxicroak without rain or a venusaur under sand)

Neleil gets it. I bolded that part because 5-6 of a rain/sun team's pokemon fully rely on its weather being up. It is also why I consider any type of sand the strongest since you can throw literally any viable pokemon on it and don't have to use "sand abusers" on a sand team. I don't want to say that I find rain or sun to be the "weakest" playstyles since when they play weatherless they will more than likely dominate, but I think it takes the least amount of effort to neuter them of their main utility. Ran has the most members to abuse it's weather but I feel like they face the same problem as pokemon like Lucario. Lucario is commonly known as a pokemon with 4MSS because it can't perform to its fully potential with the 4 moves its only allowed to run. I feel as though rain teams have a similar problem because every time I try to build a rain team, I'm always stuck wishing I had another slot or two to add more abusers. People may say that every team wishes it had more team slots, but I feel like other teams are able to accomplish what they want with the 6 members they put together. I have the same problem building a sun team but not to the extent of rain teams.

Feel free to jump down my throat on my views.

EDIT: Shouldn't Baton Pass be mentioned as an Other playstyle?

 

[jpw234]

Hail hate is silly...none of the other weather starters can switch into Expert Belt Abomasnow except Balloon Ninetales. The overreliance on weather for most Rain and Sun teams makes Abomasnow a soft counter to most of their strategies. The additional benefits to Abomasnow over Tyranitar or Hippowdon include: chip damage on more common Ground/Rock/Steel opponents, Walrein + Kyurem(-B) abuse, Abomasnow's water/electric resistances, and the aforementioned inability of weather inducers to switch into Abomasnow which gives you a BIG advantage in keeping the weather up.

 

[SmashBrosBrawl]

Hail IS viable. The problem is that abomasnow has so many weakness its ridiculous. You need to dedicate a great part of your team to cover them not to mention rapid spin. Theres also the fact that if youre using one of the kyurems some of those weakness are doubled. I find hail offense to work best since mixed abomasnow is nearly impossible to switch in. There just inst much that can actually claim to come in into all of its attacks. Unfornately mixed aboma dies very fast so you need to be sure to beat the opponent weather inducer quickly. Hail also inst that good against weatherless since hail itself lacks many abusers and none of them can really be used together as youre stacking too many weakness. However its still ridiculous anti-meta and both kyurems are extremely dangerous being able to wear down their checks and abuse a 100% accuracy blizzard (other stuff like the nidos, starmie, tentacruel and other mons with good defensive synergy in hail and access to blizzard can do the same). Overall an effective but very hard to build team. If you wanna try something new that inst gimmick or just wanna screw weather teams this will definitily suit your needs.

 

[Nysyr]

Well, after much laddering with Hail I can say that it really isn't viable for topping ladders. You can get to 2k+ sure, but you need increadible ladder luck and hax gods not being mad at you.

The problem I've found with Hail is that one missplay or hax against you, it becomes impossible to recover since Aboma is really mostly a wasted slot, and requires too many support pokemon.

Oh and Scarfrachi/Banded Terrakion just make hail cry.

 

[MCBarrett]

I think Weatherless is much more viable than people are giving it credit for in this thread. Hazard Lead + Gengar to keep Hazards in your favor is very effective, especially since you can tailor Gengar's set to beat any spinner. I've used Sash+Destiny Bond so I can beat either Starmie or Tentacruel rather easily if I have kept Hazards off the field with Taunt. Also, if you something like a Sub PainSplit set with LO, Gengar can become a very annoying Offensive Threat in his own right. Add 4 powerful Offensive Threats on top of this and you have a team that is always going to keep your opponent on their toes. Unpredictability is probably the most threatening part of a weatherless HO team since it does not follow a cookie cutter mold like other playstyles do. This allows you to bluff Choice Items to much greater effect, giving more set up opportunities that leads to your team having many more win conditions than other playstyles can fit on to their teams. Lastly, you aren't forced to having to deal with an inherent weakness to a certain playstyle like Sun Teams have to Rain. You can prepare for all Weathers pretty equally and with the vast amount of Offensive Threats in this meta it isn't too hard to be able to cover nearly all threats offensively.

 

[mael]

I feel like Giganinja is right. I don't think about what style I am going to use, and when I do it's more about whether I am going to use fullstall, balanced, bulky offense or full offense or something like that, and not what kind of weather I am going to use. I take an offensive or defensive core and make a team around them to fully use their potential. If a weather fits I'll use it, if I don't need a weather I won't. I've never used TTar just to get MY weather out and not have my opponents weather around.

I wouldn't say that there is a weather that is the weakest, there are just Pokemon that are easy to use, and Pokemon that are hard to use. Abomasnow for instance takes quite some prediction to use and a team that is built well together and covers all of it's weakness, not just defensive synergy wise but also offensive, while you can slap Tyranitar on nearly every team and give it the appropriate set so that it does it job. I think that itself is the reason why Politoed and Tyranitar are the most used weather introducer. They are not as hard to use and don't require that much thinking while teambuilding. Another reason for Politoed might be that it has the most ways of abusing it. You can get rid of your Fire weak, you can get a 100% Thunder, you can have boosted Hydropumps, which just do damage to everything and you can have 100% Acc Hurricanes, you can abuse Dry Skin and Rain Dish. Sun has Chlorophyll, boosted fire attacks and water attacks being weakend. The last one is rather contraproductive than useful because you cannot use Hydropump on Starmie, and the only Pokemon that can actually take advantage of that are Fire Pokemon, and that makes sun teams even more rocks weak. It is totally true, that nearly every rain/sun team totally relies on having it's weather up to work, unlike Hail and Sand which are mainly there to distract other weathers and to give yourself an advantage.

I'd rather talk about offense or defense instead of about weather. Is it just me, or are purely offensive teams without spikes not existant? I feel like the importance and usage of Spikestacking offense has just risen extremly. Is it due to the power creep? I'd say it is because most of the strong powerhouses are able to 2HKO it's counters by having a layer of spikes around and forcing it to switch in one or 2 times. This extreme power and speed creep made it so hard to make defensive teams, and you have to try very hard to make a team without a scarfer.

Momentum based teams are usually the best I'd say, because unlike in Gen IV, where you could handle most threats with a simple core of Skarmory/Blissey/bulky water, you have to have specific counters for every Pokemon, otherwise it is just going through your team. If you play against a team that has Hazards and Voltturn with a Stall team, you'll just get worn down until CB Terrakion/Specs Keldeo goes through your team.

Lastly, you aren't forced to having to deal with an inherent weakness to a certain playstyle like Sun Teams have to Rain.

When using Sun teams, I have more problems with sand than with rain, I wouldn't say that is true.

 

[ZandgaiaX]

This replay has made me realize that stall is not completely lost, though rare as it is.

http://pokemonshowdown.com/replay/ou-41663430

I still honestly believe that this metagame favors the player to lean towards offensive teams/pokemon/tactics over defensive ones, whilst offensive teams are also easier to make too boot. However with the metagame slowing down, and people starting to use more snizzle after Lando-I left rather than the same snizzle over and over again. I feel there is hope for any of the (semi-)defensive playstyles out there, with or without weather. Despite how cheap it might seem: substitute has become a very important asset to stall-tactics. Whether it's for prediction, a set-up, a layer of protection or PP-stalling. With Gen5 having gone so powerful that lots of things 2HKO very easy, a protective layer of 25% of one's health is a godsend, with a protection against status to boot.
The most notorious examples of substitute users to my knowledge being Kyurem subroost (great against a lot of things once it has a sub up, as a lot of things like Terrakion and Ferrothorn can only deal with it by using low-PP moves), Subseedloom (good defensive wall, and with drainpunch > focus punch it just won't die), subshufflers like Dragonite and subtoxic stallers like Tentacruel in rain, Sableye (shut up, it works) and Heatran.
Yes with substitute, it can eventually end up in a substitute struggle between two players: but honestly everything is better than a scarf Garchomp or Keldeo sweeping a team again, especially since said substitute struggle (as seen in the IMO glorious replay) had some great prediction moments that are quite rare at the moment in 'normal' match-ups.

 

[Trinitrotoluene]

Weatherless offense is a good playstyle, and sand offense definitely does not outclass weather offense, despite what some people (*cough*Nysyr*cough*) claim. Weatherless offense gets to have an actual 6th team member that can fit itself to the team's needs. In addition, weatherless teams don't have to waste turns when facing opposing weather teams, unlike what happens when, say, a rain stall team faces a sun offense team. Just like MCBarrett, I too have had success with Skarmory offense (heck, I wrote the Custap Skarm analysis), and I can attest to its effectiveness. However, I'd like to bring attention to the DragMag playstyle. This playstyle is so effective since Dragon-type moves are only resisted by one type, which is easily picked off by Magnezone and Mamoswine; in addition, dragons resist Water- and Fire-type attacks, making them effective against rain and sun offense. The power of some of these dragons (Kyurem-B come to mind) and the unpredictability of some of the key members (even with Team Preview) prevents stall from hard-walling DragMag teams, and the fact that it's so easy to acquire momentum with DragMag means that balanced teams (even with weather attached) have trouble stopping them. However, the only problem with DragMag offense is that the user has to keep the momentum going on his / her side, because of the multiple weaknesses shared among many of the team members. If an opposing sweeper manages to set itself up, then DragMag offense generally has a hard time stealing momentum and recovering its pace.

I also agree with ginganinja's statement regarding team building, since I usually determine the playstyle the finished team will have after I lay down the initial core of the team and a few teammates. Just my 2 cents.

 

[MCBarrett]

When using Sun teams, I have more problems with sand than with rain, I wouldn't say that is true.

First of all it was just an example. Secondly, just because Sand might give Sun more trouble than Rain in the current metagame (and that is a statement that could be up to debate) it doesn't mean that Sun does not have trouble with Rain at all. Nothing on anything resembling a Standard Sun Team is going to enjoy taking Choice Specs Hydro Pump from Politoed and having to deal with a CM Latias setting up on it afterwards. The fact of the matter is that some weathers generally do better against other weathers (depending on your team it may vary but for the most part it stays the same) while Weatherless teams that use Offensive Pressure and Spike Stacking like you had mentioned, will likely not have a specific weather that is going to threaten them if their team was built properly. Whereas, even on a well built Sun Team, for example, things like CM Latias and DubDance Lando-T are almost always going to be trouble. I think this can definitely be seen as an advantage for Weatherless HO teams since they fare well against a larger portion of the metagame.

 

[Oddish is the best]

I personally am enjoying Sand Stall the most at the moment and I fin that it is a really effective playstyle when used effectively especially if you have hippo-roserade-latias-skarmory.

 

[Gary]

I myself have always been more of an advocate for weatherless teams because of how much you can experiment with them and without the need of sacrificing a slot for a weather inducer. Still, as I'm beginning to get more and more into trying out certain Pokemon, I have found myself branching out and found that I'm more than capable of building teams around other play styles, rain in particular. Playing against opposing rain teams on the ladder has always disgusted me on how repetitive some of the rain teams are, as they all seem to have the same FerroCruel core with either Tornadus, Keldeo, or Thundurus-T as sweepers and wall breakers. I never saw the fun in building rain teams if they all seem to built around the same damn offensive and defensive cores. I always used to build the occasional rain teams, but they were always so unoriginal. All of this changed when I really wanted to build a team with SD Toxicroak, and I knew that I would have to use rain in order to maximize its potential. My latest team based around SD Toxicroak in the rain has taught me that building a rain team can actually be fun if you are open to ideas. I found that I can be a lot more creative with rain teams then I thought, and because of that, I now actually really enjoy building rain teams featuring interesting things. The same thing happened to me a long time ago during the Excadrill era when even Sand was a new ballpark for me, but I wanted to use Excadrill on a team it would benefit from the most.

Basically, I agree with what many of you said above. I never really go into a team knowing exactly what playstyle it will become in the end. It all depends on what I find works best for the Pokemon itself. Sub Roost Kyurem just isn't the same without never missing Blizzards, nor Sharpedo without rain boosted Water attacks. Although I prefer weatherless over any play style, I am very open to pretty much any play style depending on the situation or whatever I'm building the team around.

tl;dr My play style depends on what I base the team around

 

[Grey Knight]

Its clear that the metagame is more dragon centric-phobic than ever,
drag-mag and drag-drag is by far the best weather less play styles both effective and extremely easy to play with
weather less stall along with TR are probaply the hardest play style to use mostly because of the dragon and weather domination .
Weather play styles usally have an unfair avd over weather less teams but they lose that avd when they run across a weather team of the opposite or the same weather as they have to fight for that avd, something that keeps weather unbroken but the tier infested by weather.

Why is baton pass not mentioned is it included on weather less offense ?

 

[Brodon]

I still honestly believe that this metagame favors the player to lean towards offensive teams/pokemon/tactics over defensive ones, whilst offensive teams are also easier to make too boot. However with the metagame slowing down, and people starting to use more snizzle after Lando-I left rather than the same snizzle over and over again. I feel there is hope for any of the (semi-)defensive playstyles out there, with or without weather.


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[PDC]

Personally I try to vary my playstyles a lot, as there is just so many different combinations and things you can use. For me personally, I like either offense, no matter the weather condition, and balance. Incorporating surprises into otherwise rather standard teams is often something I always do to surprise the enemy and keep the teams I use fresh while playing. I actually really like Sand at the moment more than Rain, simply because of how you can stick on all sorts of interesting things on it. CBTerrakion is certainly amazing right now as it seems to have fallen from grace a bit, being less common than Swords Dance sets which now are all people use, and that new Lead Taunt set. The Choice Band Terrakion set works very well on sand balance and offense, but it often does very well on Rain teams, especially when paired with other sweepers like Tornadus and Thundurus. A very solid wallbreaker which rips Sand Offense the shreds, you can really abuse the momentum you gain by using Rain with Terrakion. For the most part, those are my primary 3 styles. I do like Rain, but Sand is my main way to go. I feel the flexibility is just there, and how you can easily abuse Tyranitar in pair with other sweepers in order to get a clean sweep on the enemy team. Hippowdon is also an amazing fail-safe as well, being an amazing team player on basically any type of Sand team.

I also agree with TNT, weatherless offense is a beautiful thing. It is very underrated and deserves a lot more use than it currently gets. ShakeItUp favors this style for the most part, and for a good reason. I have learned that it can basically beat any other style due to the Pokemon it usually contains. Using things like EBelt Thund-T and Dragonite on weatherless offense preform very well against weather based teams like Rain and Sun. For the most part, you don't really have any direct disadvantage.

 

[SomeDrunkRockLee]

Using things like EBelt Thund-T and Dragonite on weatherless offense preform very well against weather based teams like Rain and Sun.

Out of curiosity, why Dragonite? I usually find it inferior outside of rain/sun, since it has a lot more trouble keeping multiscale intact with sand teams running around. What advantages does Dragonite have over Salamence, Garchomp, Kyurem(-B), Latios, and Latias? It's mostly just multiscale, and so when you sacrifice that against every sand team- at least one in ten teams- which means that Dragonite faces a disadvantage on many weatherless teams. I'm interested to know why you'd choose Dragonite. This is really outside my area of expertise (the most offensive I'll go is really semi-stall), so I might be talking about something I don't understand at all lol...

^ Banded Terrakion is a nightmare to face. With the right coverage move, it can pretty much 2HKO any wall in the game. Additionally, I'd like to throw out Xatu, which, while underrated, can really shine against Stall. While Espeon struggles with her frailty (for instance, uninvested Ferrothorn Gyro Ball can 2HKO offensive sets, if I remember correctly), bulky Xatu can rip stall teams apart that don't have the power to take Xatu down. While Reuniclus is often used to fill this same spot, it can still be phazed with any phazing move, making it easier for stall to play around. Xatu, on the other hand, is able to take on threats like specially defensive heatran with ease, blocking stealth rocks, toxic, and roar, and roosting off any damage from lava plume. While Xatu functions best with a spinner and a cleric in the wings, it can really help swing momentum in your favor against balanced and defensively built teams.

 

[vyomov]

My favorite style is Bulky Offense with a dedicated 2-mon defensive core, an offensive-defensive pivot(usually Landorus-T or Gyarados), 1 Scarfer, 1 Specs/LO and one 1 Band. That's just what seems to work for me.
Any other "formulae" like that?

 

[Puma Italia]

Stall has always been my favorite play style. Running full stall has become more difficult in this gen because of all of the offensive threats/volt turn. but stall as a play style is definitely still possible to pull off.