Finding Suspects Within the Current D/P Metagame (Discussion Thread)

[MythTrainerInfinity]

well i don't think anyone with a mite of intelligence would ever presume to outright ban something without testing.

this is smogon afterall

unfortunately at smogon we also like to theorymon up potential metagames!!!

people complaining about sash have a valid point, but sr ban is gonna get tested anyways pretty soon according to order of operations right?

I really don't see too much discussion for the testing of it in that thread. I don't even see SR in the top 10. http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42182

There are some good thoughts Arash, but if SR was gone that would open up things to have many more choices for their movepools (ex. Choice Band/Scarf Areo, Sub/Focus Punch Typholsion, etc.).

The implications of using Taunt is to prevent it SR being used in the first place. Fast Taunters are typically not that bulky, so they have trouble staying in for too long.

really I don't see the point in testing Stealth Rock, nobody has actually given an argument suggesting that it is unhealthy for the metagame rather than just unfavorable to the way that they personally want to play the game. it would certainly be a waste of time to test it before getting all of the other suspects out of the way.

It forces people to play in a certain way, limits how many pokémon can be used in each tier, encourages the overusage of pokémon that can Stealth Rock... The list goes on.

I may not share the same viewpoints as others, but widening up more possibilities for the usage of different movesets, pokémon, etc. would be less centralizing the metagame. Look at how many teams center their play around Stealth Rock.

 

[gorm]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42211 my bad

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

but sr ban is gonna get tested anyways pretty soon according to order of operations right?

actually the issue was brought up in the middle of the whole order of operations stuff, so it wasn't included in the voting process.

personally i'm for testing it following the vote(?) on deoxys-s. if both chomp and d-s are voted uber and then sr was banned we'd still be fine since they'd be retested in an sr-less metagame in jump's stage 3.

 

[Lou Cypher]

I feel that if we get rid of SRock (I hate that move, mind you), Focus Sash should be gone. Yes, there's TTar, Obama and Hippo (Latter two being BL-regions now), but whaddya know, there are pokemon actually immune to the weather. Le gasp. So in order to fend those of, you pack a priority move. So its hailing, and you have your Extremespeed Lucario with you...out comes Focus Sash Froslass. Oh tittybiscuits.

Or yes, you have your TTar out against a Gengar. You hit it for 100% damage, and it hangs on for dear life, countering you into oblivion. Well yeah you killed it with Sandstream, but he killed your pokemon as well. Focus Sash is an evil item (Yet I like it), but without SRock, it will become too good.

 

[Syberia]

I wouldn't ban it, but perhaps limit it to one per team, like many people already do. I agree, a team of six Focus Sash + setup move pokemon is quite annoying to have to face, seeing as you have to kill everything twice. Priority moves would be way more common, that's for sure. And Tyranitar would most likely be everywhere, even moreso than it is now.

 

[Cynthia]

I think testing Stealth Rock is not a bad idea. It's a rather overcentralizing move if you think about it, since it's on nearly every single team. The other reasons for banning it have already been stated, the big one to consider s how many Pokemon it simply invalidates. Garchomp is weaker in a SR-less game, which is something to be considered.

There is the issue that certain pokemon (Salamence,Zapdos, Gyarados) might become imbalanced. If this becomes an issue they can be put into the suspect test as well.

It's also important to note that Spikes and Toxic Spikes can still cause damage upon switching in, as well as threats from weather. Whether or not Focus Sash would become imbalanced is something to be tested.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

I feel that if we get rid of SRock (I hate that move, mind you), Focus Sash should be gone. Yes, there's TTar, Obama and Hippo (Latter two being BL-regions now), but whaddya know, there are pokemon actually immune to the weather. Le gasp. So in order to fend those of, you pack a priority move. So its hailing, and you have your Extremespeed Lucario with you...out comes Focus Sash Froslass. Oh tittybiscuits.

Or yes, you have your TTar out against a Gengar. You hit it for 100% damage, and it hangs on for dear life, countering you into oblivion. Well yeah you killed it with Sandstream, but he killed your pokemon as well. Focus Sash is an evil item (Yet I like it), but without SRock, it will become too good.

If Sash Frosslass comes out you could status it, thus nullifying D-Bond's threat. Also Lucario can learn Bullet Punch.

Point is there's a way around it and I doubt that this will overcentralize the metagame nearly as much as SR does.

 

[DT]

Banning of move a move a bit extreme?
-Stealth Rock is not all u crack it up to be there are plenty of spinner that resist this move.
-Only Bug/Flying Fire/Flying i guess Ice/Flying(only 1 Pokemon Articuno) are murdered by this move which types aren't very prevalent most flyers, fires and ice get hurt but not enough for this move to get banned sure it counters a mojority of tactics such as Sash Shedninja, or Belly drumming Charizard but the games all about out tacting your opponents

Deoxys
-On this point however i agree this thing easily can be used as one of the most annoying pokemon in the game. But u just said that the whole point >.>. Lawl i kno but think about every other form of Deoxys is banned due to overwhelming power and it belongs in uber it can't be outspeeded by all pokemon even parlyzed it still outruns so many pokemon its ridicoulous. It sets up Double Screens with ease while at the same time having the ability to be the fastest taunter and best revenge killer second to Dugtrio in the game
-On the latter end it has become key to peoples team but its an uber face it.

 

[Syberia]

There is the issue that certain pokemon (Salamence,Zapdos, Gyarados) might become imbalanced. If this becomes an issue they can be put into the suspect test as well.

That's the kind of logic I have a bit of a problem with. Removing one suspect to create two or three more just doesn't make sense to me. I would hope that if removing Stealth Rock made Salamence and Gyarados broken, the solution would be to re-instate Stealth Rock as opposed to banning two or three more pokemon, in addition to SR.

 

[gorm]

i say we should wait at least until stop the rocks is done and hopefully fabbles can provide metagame insight


we can all agree that testing no sr is very interesting to most of us us but unfortunately we have a backlog of shit to test right now =|

maybe we could get sr moved up in priority but beyond that i kinda feel like the discussion is done and this thread is just degrading into theorymon right now, and alot of it has already been covered in the thread i linked to =|

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Think about how many pokémon are punished for being used in an SR environment vs. Salamence, Gyarados, and Zapdos. That's like 30 or so to 3.

i say we should wait at least until stop the rocks is done and hopefully fabbles can provide metagame insight


we can all agree that testing no sr is very interesting to most of us us but unfortunately we have a backlog of shit to test right now.


i kinda feel like the discussion is done and this thread is just degrading into theorymon right now

Well what about other suspects people could discuss?

 

[gorm]

blissey and cress!

 

[TAY]

Stealth Rocks is a very powerful move. However it is not broken, as some people would suggest. The pokemon which take 25% damage are certainly not crippled by it, as evidenced by the continued use of Salamence, Gyarados, Zapdos, and others. The only pokemon really ruined by SR are Moltres and Charizard, the latter of which carries a gimmicky standard set which doesn't really mind SR anyway.

If your team really fears SR, then run a taunt lead or a Rapid Spinner, or predict the SR use and take the time to set up. Taunt is one of the most amazing (and sadly underrated) moves in the game, and I don't see how anyone can call rapid spin a waste of a turn/moveslot when it takes the same amount of time to use as SR and is useful in almost every match.

Not to mention an SR-less metagame would pave the way for the retardedness that is Focus Sash. Spikes is almost exclusively a move for defensive pokemon, and the removal of SR would be a huge shot to offensive teams which don't use the gimmicky focus sash.

I have an inkling that SR will be tested after Deoxys-E anyway...

@Gorm: Stop the Rocks is a great tourney idea, but I think it's been made pretty clear from past results (such as the MDWL tourney) that tournaments provide little useful insight into the potential metagame. There are pretty much no metagame changes because there are so few matches, and often players will use certain pokemon simply for novelty.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Using Taunt is good, but eventually people are going to figure it out and save their SR poké for later in the game.

Then you got Rapid Spin, which only a few pokés can learn, thus centralization of the metagame increases.

 

[Bourbon]

@ TAY: I agree that small tournaments accomplish nothing. I hosted a 50 player Garchomp Free tournament last year, and while some pokemon interestingly enough increased in usage (Salamence obviously and Empleon for some reason) I had a lot of people using random crap like Umbreon and Fearow, it just didn't make sense.

 

[Kevin Garrett]

Using Taunt is good, but eventually people are going to figure it out and save their SR poké for later in the game.

Then you got Rapid Spin, which only a few pokés can learn, thus centralization of the metagame increases.

If they save their SR Pokemon for late-game then it won't have a huge impact on the game or it might not get set up at all. Taunt is a valuable move, unlike Rapid Spin, because it has a wide range of use. It also prevents support, healing, and status moves from being used. That's a lot better than using a move that has a base power of 20. -.-"

 

[lilyhollow]

It forces people to play in a certain way

and? well I mean first of all "what doesn't?" and secondly, "so what?" We can still stall, we can still go offensive, we can still do everything in between. It isn't as balanced as Adv in that offense is clearly easier to do in DP, but I see nothing wrong with that.

, limits how many pokémon can be used in each tier,

so does everything- again, none of this is inherently unhealthy until we define the point at which "centralization" becomes "overcentralization," and then we would have to be sure that we could attribute that overcentralization (which doesn't even exist until someone explains otherwise) to Stealth Rock and Stealth Rock alone. If Stealth Rock is banned, it won't be because of "overcentralization."

encourages the overusage of pokémon that can Stealth Rock...

really? By the way, even if this were the case, then who's to say that it isn't just the pokemon themselves that are to blame? Maybe Azelf is crazybroken and banning it would make Stealth Rock less "overpowering."

I think testing Stealth Rock is not a bad idea. It's a rather overcentralizing move if you think about it, since it's on nearly every single team.

really? so I assume you've gotten a hold of some statistics that show that the same can't be said of, say, earthquake?

Then you got Rapid Spin, which only a few pokés can learn, thus centralization of the metagame increases.

you... you mean decreases right? How does an added option to remove Stealth Rock centralize the metagame? Yes, choosing that option disallows me from choosing certain other moves for that slot. That's not evencentralization, that's just a decision.

Using Taunt is good, but eventually people are going to figure it out and save their SR poké for later in the game.

You keep listing different things that can be done about Stealth Rock, and then what strategies the SR-player can employ to avoid those (but at a cost) etc., and then saying "...and that's a bad thing" out of the blue sky.


this entire argument is basically just people saying "getting rid of stealth rock will rid of us all these bad things!!!" when they're either talking about something imaginary ("overcentralization") or something beneficial (added strategies are... bad?)

>_>

 

[TAY]

Using Taunt is good, but eventually people are going to figure it out and save their SR poké for later in the game.

Then you got Rapid Spin, which only a few pokés can learn, thus centralization of the metagame increases.

Well if people save their SR poke for later in the game, then that's a pretty big step forwary since they will then A.) have the danger of switching it in and B.) give you more switches without taking SR damage. It isn't like taunt is a bad move outside of stopping SR. It is actually a very, very powerful move against every basic kind of team (stall, offensive, and balanced/mixed).

Though you're right about Rapid Spin...there are really only a couple viable spinners (Starmie and Forretress), which limits a player's ability to make an original team with a spinner.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Well I'm thinking more or less getting their SR in no later than mid game. Like when the taunter is not out at least.

 

[gorm]

theorymonnnnnnnnn attaque

 

[Chou Toshio]

I think testing Stealth Rock is not a bad idea. It's a rather overcentralizing move if you think about it, since it's on nearly every single team. The other reasons for banning it have already been stated, the big one to consider s how many Pokemon it simply invalidates. Garchomp is weaker in a SR-less game, which is something to be considered.

There is the issue that certain pokemon (Salamence,Zapdos, Gyarados) might become imbalanced. If this becomes an issue they can be put into the suspect test as well.

It's also important to note that Spikes and Toxic Spikes can still cause damage upon switching in, as well as threats from weather. Whether or not Focus Sash would become imbalanced is something to be tested.

>.>

I think I'd rather HAVE Salamence, Zapdos and Gyarados then get rid of SR. >.>

 

[lilyhollow]

>.>

I think I'd rather HAVE Salamence, Zapdos and Gyarados then get rid of SR. >.>

well there's just no reason to blame stealth rock for anything in the first place if the first thing that happens when we unban it is the exact opposite of what we wanted to happen >_>

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

When are Discussion threads not full of theroymoning?

>.>

I think I'd rather HAVE Salamence, Zapdos and Gyarados then get rid of SR. >.>

I doubt they are broken. Like I mentioned earlier Jolly Areo with Choice Scarf is faster than Gyarados and most Salamences with two DDs under their belt. Not to mention Areo also gets Thunder Fang and Ice Fang.

You got your Ice Shard Weaviles too... There's a lot, really...

Also... Charizard gets ThunderPunch in Platinum? Huh... Imagine that...

 

[Chou Toshio]

If you make a habit of running overall inferior pokemon just to "counter" (or in this case not even counter, just revenge kill) overall superior pokemon, you won't go far in this game. Let's face it: Jolly Scarf Aero (lol) is a lot less threatening overall than salamence is.

 

[Evisu]

So basically your saying is because a pokemon can kill Salamence it's not all that broken. Makes perfect sense!