Having a weather and non-weather OU

[Mario With Lasers]

There is no point in seeing this as a "suspect" ladder, because the very reason for doing it is to appease two groups. There's no intention of using this second ladder to decide "which metagame should go." We have no intention of eventually getting rid of one. Therefore, it's not a suspect ladder, but a completely different metagame.

We also have to bear in mind it will have a lot less players, simply because it won't be Standard (and having two Standard OUs would have consequences as severe as having two Smogon forums).

It'll need Smogon sanction-- and more importantly, it'll need its own suspect test, suspect process, and ultimately, will result in a completely different ban list. This will put a lot of strain for manpower on a staff that's already kind of spread thin, not to mention divide the community in a more sever way...

This is what interests me the most. What would be the initial banlist? B/W's November one + the weather abilities? The current one with the weather abilities and without Manaphy and Blaziken?

Considering the severity of this action (considering the above), I'd say there's no point in doing this if we don't go all the way-- if we do it, it should be a metagame truly free of permanent weather abilities. This means hail has to go too, or the whole point of doing it will be largely lost. We'd have a "hail ladder," which would just be dumb (if you don't think so, you haven't had enough chance to fight hail-- hail would be popular and dominant in a meta with no other permanent weather).

Just like Sand dominated in ADV and Stealth Rock in DPPt, and yet nothing happened just because people "got sick of it" ?__? While there are people interested in a non-weather metagame, we don't know how many of them there are and setting up the ladder won't help us in finding the real percentage, simply because there is an unknown number people who want non-weather as the Standard (see: people voting to ban weather). It could be that the number of people interested in non-weather as more than a side metagame is as big as the number of those who wanted SR banned in DPPt, or at least in a separate ladder.

This is not about manpower only, but also about its playerbase being worth the effort; I don't think it's going to be pretty if it ends up like PO's official server's Clear Skies ladder.


EDIT-- Well FlareBlitz said what I did but in less words. And how about a poll in DST once we end discussion here?

I absolutely think that we should start off treating this like a suspect test of sorts and, if successful, we may then implement it as a full new metagame.

What's important is that people acknowledge the only "testing" that will be held is whether there is interest in such a ladder or not, not that we find "weather" a suspect in Standard.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

Our DreamWorld ladder just follows the same banlist as OU, and I don't see any major problems with that. If we're going to do testing then it can come later IMO. I think the original idea of this ladder was to have a fun alternative version of OU, not something people will get trophies under their names for being really good at. There's no reason to stamp an official Smogon stamp on the weather-free metagame right off the bat.

 

[Firestorm]

Additional "for fun" metagames are always fun. As long as we aren't making suspect tests with checkmarks and all that time-consuming jazz for what is essentially "I dislike this part of the game and want to play a game more like Gen 4 OU because that's what I started playing and I hate change", it sounds like a cool idea.

I dislike the entire idea of this. This is tuning from "what is broken" to "which ever meta people prefer". If weather is broken ban it. If it's not keep it OU. This feels more like avoiding a tough decision to appease both parties.

Think we hit that point before this generation even started =P

 

[Rising_Dusk]

I'm not a fan of this. If we go through with this, I may as well create a tier without entry hazards too, and one without fully evolved or basic Pokemon, and one where you can only use Pokemon that have Explosion or Selfdestruct in their sets, or one where you have to use Pikachu on every team, or... You see where I am going with this. The only justification being provided by anyone that has agreed with this idea so far in this thread is that it is interesting. Well, I don't add tiers to the server because they are interesting, and I am not programming the extra layers of server code to make such tiers work just because it might serve as a nifty social experiment in Pokemon.

Furthermore, the last thing we need to do is split OU's playerbase. If what you say in the OP is true about half of OU's players liking OU with weather and half wanting no weather, then doing this split will only hurt our usage stats. Now, with this tier, we'd have fewer battles and less representative stats. At the cost of hurting our usage stats, creating a weatherless OU just because it might make a minority of Smogon happy is something we can do without. I am also not okay with just splitting OU as many times as a few people want and then going through the whole suspect testing process with these splinter tiers. Suspect testing is a big deal, and turning our suspect testing into a farce where we tier stuff for random metagames we fashion because we can is insanity. We not only don't have the manpower for it, it's just bad business if we want to be taken seriously.

Let me put it this way. If this had been posted in the PO forum, I'd have closed it and infracted the OP saying the same thing I always say: Create a thread in DST for this and get 'enough interest' that I am convinced that 'enough people' want it, then I will look into it further and consider the actual merits of such a metagame on our server and for Smogon University as a whole. For the record, none of these metagames people do make threads in DST for ever garner remotely close to enough support that I'm convinced that it's worth the effort/time/etc to make them a reality. That said, because you decided to bring this up in PR, I skipped all of that other stuff and am assuming that it has enough support. Even making that assumption, however, I am not okay with adding this specific tier for the reasons I listed above. This metagame literally offers Smogon nothing, it hurts usage stats, and it complicates tiering because we'd have to (or want to) tier stuff for it as well. That all to me seals the deal.

Lastly, because people are bringing up DW OU I'll out and discuss it too... I hate DW OU and DW Uber. I think they should be removed. They are magical fairyland metagames that may never truly exist for all we know. I only added them because there were literally thousands of people pushing for them, and I don't joke when I say thousands. Because Smogon didn't create the first BW server, we have to deal with a community that expects a Dream World set of tiers, regardless of how asinine they are. We lose major amounts of traffic by not having these tiers, and that hurts Smogon. I weighed the benefits and downsides of having and not having the DW tiers, and decided in favor of adding them in. Just because there exists a DW OU or DW Uber tier, however, does not help the idea of a weatherless tier at all. There are not thousands of users clamoring for a weatherless metagame and refusing to log onto Smogon's server unless I add one. It is a completely different story altogether.

 

[mien]

Lastly, because people are bringing up DW OU I'll out and discuss it too... I hate DW OU and DW Uber. I think they should be removed. They are magical fairyland metagames that may never truly exist for all we know. I only added them because there were literally thousands of people pushing for them, and I don't joke when I say thousands. Because Smogon didn't create the first BW server, we have to deal with a community that expects a Dream World set of tiers, regardless of how asinine they are. We lose major amounts of traffic by not having these tiers, and that hurts Smogon. I weighed the benefits and downsides of having and not having the DW tiers, and decided in favor of adding them in. Just because there exists a DW OU or DW Uber tier, however, does not help the idea of a weatherless tier at all. There are not thousands of users clamoring for a weatherless metagame and refusing to log onto Smogon's server unless I add one. It is a completely different story altogether.

This argument only holds true for the DW OU metagame. DW Ubers does nothing aside from reducing the already limited activity of the standard ubers metagame.

I completely agree with the rest of your post however.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Just posting to say that everything R_D said mirrors my thoughts nearly exactly.

 

[Destiny Warrior]

Just posting to say that everything R_D said mirrors my thoughts nearly exactly.

Posting to agree with SDS and R_D.

 

[AlphaJolt]

Just posting to say that everything R_D said mirrors my thoughts nearly exactly.

Agreeing with this. I personally don't like the weather in OU, but my solution is that I just don't play it much. A separate ladder just isn't a great idea imo.

 

[Moo]

Having a weatherless metagame isn't a good idea, I think. Having any metagame set a certain way based on preference is something that should be avoided, because there really isn't a proper reason to get rid of it other than "I like it this way", which won't be everyone's opinion. If all the weathers were broken, I'd support it, but Hail exists.

 

[jrrrrrrr]

I'm not a fan of this. If we go through with this, I may as well create a tier without entry hazards too, and one without fully evolved or basic Pokemon, and one where you can only use Pokemon that have Explosion or Selfdestruct in their sets, or one where you have to use Pikachu on every team, or... You see where I am going with this. The only justification being provided by anyone that has agreed with this idea so far in this thread is that it is interesting. Well, I don't add tiers to the server because they are interesting

I disagree with almost every reason you gave but this one alone is enough to persuade me to not want a separate tier anymore. We can still have weatherless tournaments and such, but you're right when you say that adding tiers just because of a brief swell of popularity would be foolish. It would certainly be a slippery slope and would lead to a situation where we make arbitrary bans on anything. I think most of us agree that a weatherless game could be fun but until there's enough support for it I don't think we should explore side metagames just for the fun of it. If weather is such a problem we should just ban the weather users through the suspect test system. If we have to worry about breaking the userbase of standard OU, then we should just fix OU.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

so can we lock this topic on account of rising duck owning the fuck out of everyone?

if jesus doesn't want to die for your sins, then you're sure as fucking am not getting him to kill himself

 

[Mr.E]

As if preference hasn't taken precedent over competitiveness ever since we started doing suspect tests.

Before I move I want to point out I stand in the middle of the two players in the OP. This is a cool idea, but I think banning every weather is a bit overboard (this why I'm in the middle). In my opinion, Drizzle is broken in the standard metagame, and unfortunately a simple ban would have made things easier over the complex ban. Nonetheless, the complex ban was a step in the right direction because it showed us that even with Swift Swim out of the picture it is still broken. On the other hand, Sand Stream leads to a more balanced metagame, and shou ldn't be banned because its secondary effects aren't as destructive. We also have to note that it only has a few pokemon that abuse it to the extent of broken, which are the Sand Rush and Sand Force users and Excadrill is probably the only broken one.

I don't even play BW yet and even I can tell that the idea of Sand being oh-so-balanced is a load of crap. Tyranitar, Garchomp, and Excadrill are all top ten in usage (as is Gliscor but I hear it mostly uses Poison Heal these days) and this is in a metagame where Drizzle supposedly dominates and rain straight-up romps on sand (Water > Rock/Ground, who knew?). Take away rain and it's basically DPP + Excadrill where games played in sand are twice as common as non-weather games and pokémon/item combinations are domnated by what works best in sand only. And secondary effects? Dealing damage is far more destructive than anything rain (or sun) does, having a drastic effect on item usage in addition to the pokémon usage that all weather influences.

That said, I wouldn't mind a weatherless metagame but as far as straight competitiveness is concerned, no weather should be banned lest the other ones become imbalanced. Unlike most of Smogon, I'm interested in competitive balance before I am personal preference. But I do find it quite silly for some people pushing for bans on abilities that only work well in permanent weather (especially the "complex ban" and Garchomp due to Sand Veil) without considering the enabler. Sand defining the metagame is the only reason anyone has a problem with Garchomp, likewise Kingdra and Manaphy (and Gorebyss?) with Drizzle on the other side. I don't see anyone clamoring to have Glaceon/Froslass/Beartic or Drought + Chlorophyll banned.

Maybe the metagame should instead be constructed such that these problems never occur. You're banning X number of pokémon either way but the weatherless metagame is a little more open with regard to viable movesets on whatever does get used. Leftovers on Sand-vulnerable mons becomes less of a premium, Moonlight and Morning Sun are viable recovery moves, and hell those who still choose to play weather teams become much more dangerous when getting screwed over isn't as simple as making a switch.

Seems like I rambled on a bit much but if weather is the metagame we choose, we also have to claim what comes along with that. And if we're not bitching about Garchomp and Excadrill, we'd be bitching about the Latis instead. Something has to be the best, just accept whatever happens to be and leave things alone. And as far as Garchomp in particular is concerned, Pokémon never has been and never will be deterministic. The better player loses all the damn time to thousands of different statistical anomalies, Sand Veil being a miniscule fraction of those causes. Quit bitching and move on, you'll win next time. Unban fucking Brightpowder and Lax Incense while we're at it, that retarded bullshit ban doesn't even make sense.

tl;dr version without Garchomp ranting: Stop trying to fucking ban everything but if you're gonna ban shit anyway, ban the enablers instead of the abusers. A weatherless metagame is more open than the weather game, so if you're gonna ban shit to remove the most egregious abuses of weather anyway then you might as well just get rid of weather itself. also my preferences are better than your preferences free garchomp (and brightpowder), latias > latios, t-tar is a huge (BAN ME PLEASE) etc.

 

[ENZ0]

MrE I understand where you're coming from, but your argument is petty, at least the paragraph being directed to me. How do you know that sand won't lead to a balanced metagame through usage stats? I understand this is your way of determining things. My way of determining if its balanced might not be the best either, but at least its based on logical reasoning of abilities and how they can be abused, not some continuously-changing numbers. The fact is that sand isn't broken like Drizzle and Drought because it only has a few pokemon that abuse it to the extent of broken, i.e. Excadrill and Garchomp (maybe Landorus, we don't know for sure yet). And dude, Tyranitar is at the top in usage because it's the so-called 'enabler' that has to counter the other 'enablers', we are in a weather war metagame and not everyone is going to uniformly use Politoed. Also, your point of BW OU becoming DPP OU+Excadrill is sad and not thoroughly thought out. Based on this statement, I expect you to believe that everyone and their mother is going to use sand in BW OU after rain is out. Did everyone and their mother use sand in DPP OU? Tell me, if by chance sand and hail remain the only permanent weathers in BW OU, you really think everyone is going to use sand or hail? No, because the abusers that would be left, with Excadrill and Garchomp banned, would not outweigh the variety of existent sweepers that can wreck without the need of weather. Hypothetically, with Excadrill and Garchomp banned, Landorus (doubt other Sand Force users would outweigh the other sweepers available) and 5 other Rock-Types (plus old Rock-Types) that have been added this generation would be left to abuse sand. This brings me back to why sand could potentially lead to a more balanced metagame. With only Landorus and 5 other Rock-Types added this generation, do you expect sand to take over? Based on ADV OU and DPP OU, I can say that the inclusion of sand in the metagame leads to a decently balanced metagame (NOT COMPLETE BALANCE, just in case anyone feels like refuting that), and with not much change in sand abusers (with Excadrill and Garchomp hypothetically banned) we end up with a metagame not dominated by sand. Also, please don't say everyone is going to start using sand because of the fuking ~6% that chips at your health. Of course, this is my opinion, my subjective analysis trying to be objective about BW OU's stand (dgaf if it's an oxymoron).

Nonetheless, the rest of your points make sense. Weather shouldn't be banned if its gonna make another one stronger, and as a result a weatherless metagame is another path BW OU can take in the long run. I personally think that the banning of Drizzle won't make sand, the weather you describe in this case, overpowered (with Excadrill and Garchomp banned), and will probably result in Drought becoming hell for everyone (I suggest this gets banned soon). In retrospection, just because the path I chose to predict doesn't match the one you predict doesn't make your 'preference' better, it just makes it another one in the bunch.

The three paths I think BW OU can take are: the one I describe with rain and sun out of the picture, the one MrE describes being weatherless, and the one jibs advocates which is NO SUSPECTS (which I think I understand now because the current metagame is ironically balanced in middle of the weather wars with nothing truly broken). The path Smogon takes will be dependent on suspect tests.

As a final note, I want to say that I completely agree, the banning of Brightpowder/Lax Incense and the intent in banning Sand Veil/Snow Cloak is dumb.

P.S. I'm in favor of banning Politoed, Excadrill, and Garchomp if that helps you understand my perspective.

 

[undisputed]

I must say that I agree with MrE's post entirely. I don't understand why people believe that Rain and Sun are inherently worse than Sand especially when Sand is on the majority of top ladder teams.

ENZ0, I know that no one can accurately say what the banning of Drizzle/Drought will do to Sand's popularity, but I can't figure out why Sand would suddenly become balanced. Given the choice between a Sand team and a no weather team, Sand has obvious advantages while the non-weather team simply doesn't.

Aside from this, it seems like there are two different parties coming to the weather issue. One side wants weather gone like the OP of this thread. But, the other side wants to keep weather and get rid of the things weather benefits (ie Garchomp, Excadrill, etc). I dont get the philosophy behind the 2nd point of view to be perfectly honest. Why don't we ban Thundurus or Tornadus instead of Rain? Seems like if Rain needs to go, under the same rationale Sand would need to go too (instead of Garchomp and friends).

 

[Mr.E]

I'm not usually one for usage stats, it's just telling that sand dominates despite the assertion that rain is broken in about fifty different capacities and rain is the man on top when it comes to a direct fight between weather-bringers. The assertion that Tyranitar is used to fight other weathers is somewhat misleading, since a lot of people just use it because it's good on its own merits and Abomasnow would be a much better choice if weather is the main concern. And denying the importance of chip damage just after leaving behind the generation dominated by sand and entry hazards is laughable... As far as abusers are concerned, what difference does the number make? Even if it did, the list of actually-threatening rain abusers isn't much longer anyway (Kingdra, Manaphy, Gorebyss?). One of those is already banned and the other two took a significant by the combo ban. It would've been much easier to just ban Drizzle Politoed.

So why ban Excadrill and Garchomp when we could just ban Tyranitar and Hippowdon? That was my entire point. Either way, shit's getting banned. The difference is that one eliminates sand from the metagame, which is already dominant as it is and would only be more pervasive without rain keeping it in check. (Drought blows and so does Ninetales beyond it, Hail is niche and T-tar scares the bajeezus out of Abomasnow directly.) At least if you ban the weather, you open up more options elsewhere; Cresselia becomes quite usable with a real recovery move, for example. Or you follow the precedent set by aldaron and ban Sand Stream + Sand Veil or Sand Rush so you can keep sand in the metagame, which is more confusing and begs the question of how the exact same effects in Snow Warning + Snow Cloak or Drought + Chlorophyll aren't also banned. (What's that? Hail is worse and so are all the potential Snow Cloak users? Better backtrack on that whimsical Brightpowder ban, it's never been a good item! Free Swift Swim Poliwrath and Armaldo, they shouldn't be unusable in rain because Kingdra is overpowered in it!)

At the end of the day, any of these are equally (un)appealing options and I'd say to just let them be but what's going to happen is going to be whatever the administration and/or general populace vote to happen. I don't get to decide jack shit and the inevitability of some stupid new rule just makes me less enthusiastic about ever getting into BW. In-between nonsense won't work with weather, either get rid of it all or leave it all. After that, it's just preference and not worth a discussion.