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Other Is Weather Still Viable?
- Thread starter Beast Mode
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Vryheid
fudge jelly
I still think weather is still very viable. Most of the battles on my offensive rain team last 15-25 turns, 8 turns in the rain is PLENTY of time to cause some damage. Also, it's not like simply shutting down the weather should absolutely cripple a rain team- the best rain teams should be able to function in weather or without. The main thing I will miss is being able to put Specs on Politoed, but a more stally set with Hypnosis and Scald could work too as a defensive pivot I would think.
I'm not sure about that. I've been running a SpD+ Assault Vest TTar, and although he can take nearly any special hit, he shouldn't be the core's sole go-to for Water types. He has trouble with bulky waters. I would not want to be facing a Jellicent with that core. Also, that core lacks any special attacks unless you're really running anything other than Fire Blast on TTar.
T-Tar also has 6 resistances, an immunity, and gets it's already high Sp. Def stat automatically boosted by it's ability. Also, it has offensive potential
Abomasnow has 4 resistances, has horrible stats unless it forgoes it's weather rock. Aurorus is slightly better in that it has actual offensive potential, but still only has 4 resistances.
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Weather will still be good. No more the godly gold strategy, so much that an awfull pokemon as politod could stand for a full generation in top five OU usage, but still plenty good. No mor stallrain or sand stall, but for offensive teams 7 with some smart play and a little of thinking before spamming whether are plenty of time to mess up with the opponent. And tyrannitar is as good as ever. Fairy types is an annoyance for him, but assault vest and mega evolution arejust good. The tyrant now walls special hits as well as the pink blobs, and can hit back.
The first thing I can say is, weather Stall(and maybe balanced) has died(even in Ubers)
I'm curious if Drought and Drizzle got caveats for Kyogre and Groudon. I mean it would make sense given that it's integrated into the lore of those pokemon.
Tyranitar is a special case, though, since benefits from the sand in a big way. Its SDef boost allowing it to become much more durable, and this can be even further augmented with Assault Vest. It also has more resistances than Abomasnow and Aurorus.
Ice-types have no such defensive benefits, and while M-Abomasnow gets quite bulkier, it losing speed is a big problem and it can't as often exploit its heavy Blizzards.
I'm tempted to think the weather gods are exempt from the weather nerf, since X+Y name-drops Hoenn many, many times. Darmanitan-Z also shows that abilities can be hard-linked to specific Pokémon, so it's entirely possible. But that's really just speculation.
Weather is as viable as ever; the nerf simply stops it being overcentralising and allows weatherless teams to be actually viable now. You still can use Politoed, then bring out something like Kingdra (assuming drizzle+swift swim gets unbanned now) or Tornadus-T and wreak havok. The only real difference between this gen and last is that now you have to keep your weather bringer alive for longer.
Oh I think it will still be viable. The only thing that has changed will probably be in how the team is centered around and built. There will be more of a focus on entry hazards and trying to get rid of them, as well as getting good hits in while weather is up, so switch ins and weather inducer survival will be more of a priority. I think in terms of sun teams, I would choose Ninetails over Zard Y, and really that's cause of SR damage. Weather battles will probably be a lot slower since people will be focusing on setting up the opponent more over going for weather right away.
The answer to the question is to look back at how common weather was in Gen 4.
With the exception of Sandstorm from Tyranitar and Hippowdon; the answer is not common at all. Rain Dance/Sunny Day teams were very rare with limited time; and since the inducers get little benifit and a turn would be wasted switching them out to bring in something like Kingdra; it's arguably better to just not even waste a teamslot on Ninetails/Politoad and just run Rain Dance/Sunny Day on the attacker. [Especially in the case of Kingdra and co; who lack coverage moves anyway]
Weather may still be seen; but it'll mainly be in the form of Rain Dance/Sunny Day/Tyranitar. I highly doubt Ninetails is going to be OU; or even Charizard due to 50% SR and eating up the Mega Stone slot; and Politoad is unlikely to make OU either.
It is worth mentioning that Mega Abomasnow and Tyranitar can 'reset' their weathers; like Mega Charizard triggers Drought on Mega Evolution.
Will it be usable? Yes.
Will the inducers be OU? Probobly not; except maybe Tyranitar/Hippo.
Will Rain Dance/Sunny Day be used more often? Almost certainly
Will the entire metagame revolve around it? No way.
Will the suspect process amount to 'How many times do we have to nerf rain before we actually admit we should have just banned Drizzle/Poli in the first place?'. No.
This is easily for the best for the metagame too. Rain teams were braindead easy and stupidly powerful. Stick Kledeo; Politoad; Ferrothorn and 3 other pokemon that benifit from Rain in some way on the team. Smash with superpowered STABS and block anything that tries to Thunder you with a Ferro.
With the exception of Sandstorm from Tyranitar and Hippowdon; the answer is not common at all. Rain Dance/Sunny Day teams were very rare with limited time; and since the inducers get little benifit and a turn would be wasted switching them out to bring in something like Kingdra; it's arguably better to just not even waste a teamslot on Ninetails/Politoad and just run Rain Dance/Sunny Day on the attacker. [Especially in the case of Kingdra and co; who lack coverage moves anyway]
Weather may still be seen; but it'll mainly be in the form of Rain Dance/Sunny Day/Tyranitar. I highly doubt Ninetails is going to be OU; or even Charizard due to 50% SR and eating up the Mega Stone slot; and Politoad is unlikely to make OU either.
It is worth mentioning that Mega Abomasnow and Tyranitar can 'reset' their weathers; like Mega Charizard triggers Drought on Mega Evolution.
Will it be usable? Yes.
Will the inducers be OU? Probobly not; except maybe Tyranitar/Hippo.
Will Rain Dance/Sunny Day be used more often? Almost certainly
Will the entire metagame revolve around it? No way.
Will the suspect process amount to 'How many times do we have to nerf rain before we actually admit we should have just banned Drizzle/Poli in the first place?'. No.
This is easily for the best for the metagame too. Rain teams were braindead easy and stupidly powerful. Stick Kledeo; Politoad; Ferrothorn and 3 other pokemon that benifit from Rain in some way on the team. Smash with superpowered STABS and block anything that tries to Thunder you with a Ferro.
That is a good point. Sacrificing a weather inducer for an extra slot for some more coverage is certainly an option to consider now, espeically with access to pokemon with prankster or have good defense and speed stats to cover for the ability loss. I'd also say adding a pokemon that wouldn't normally work in a gen 5 weather team would be advantageous for when the weather is over and you need type coverage, though i dont know how well that'd work in pracitce (Azumarill on a sun team for example).
There was still a very vocal group yelling for the bans of Rain Dance teams during the 4th Gen - Damp Rock was very nearly banned from
UU and while attempts to nerf Rain Dance team in OU never gained meaningful traction, they were still considered to be very dangerous and nobody particularly enjoyed coming up against them.
They won't be the metagame-defining force that they were last gen but they'll be just fine.
UU and while attempts to nerf Rain Dance team in OU never gained meaningful traction, they were still considered to be very dangerous and nobody particularly enjoyed coming up against them.
They won't be the metagame-defining force that they were last gen but they'll be just fine.
I'm VERY sad that Hail will no longer be as good :( I used to use it as my anti-government, anti-weather, anti-everything sort of playstyle which worked surprisingly well and I loved it, but I doubt it'll work anymore. Mega Abomasnow is a joke, sadly. All that power but no speed to even outspeed some of the most basic (and slow) walls and threats.
On the other hand, I'm very happy that rain stall will finally be over. I fucking hated rain stall.
Sun teams were mostly countered by Tyranitar and I always thought they packed much less of a threat that rain stall/offense, especially because I always carry Tyranitar on my teams, so it'll definitely suffer a lot and probably be used much less.
I'm not so sure on sand though, it's sad that it won't last forever (cancelling Leftovers recovery was useful, and the 50% SpD boost certainly helped Terra), but it won't affect Tyranitar all that much, it'll still be one of the best metagame Pokemon.
Ultimately, I think it'll still be viable, but not as much as before. Stalling it out is easier now, and you have to switch in weather-starters in and out just to start the weather and give other Pokemon opportunities to sweep, and switching that much will definitely hurt.
On the other hand, I'm very happy that rain stall will finally be over. I fucking hated rain stall.
Sun teams were mostly countered by Tyranitar and I always thought they packed much less of a threat that rain stall/offense, especially because I always carry Tyranitar on my teams, so it'll definitely suffer a lot and probably be used much less.
I'm not so sure on sand though, it's sad that it won't last forever (cancelling Leftovers recovery was useful, and the 50% SpD boost certainly helped Terra), but it won't affect Tyranitar all that much, it'll still be one of the best metagame Pokemon.
Ultimately, I think it'll still be viable, but not as much as before. Stalling it out is easier now, and you have to switch in weather-starters in and out just to start the weather and give other Pokemon opportunities to sweep, and switching that much will definitely hurt.
This is after extensive testing.
Sun, Hail, and Rain are virtually unplayable now. Or rather, the downside of running Politoad, Abomasnow or Ninetails is more than the upside of getting temporary weather boost, and any team that you would consider them for would be better off running something better that doesn't commit you to a shaky strategy. Basically its a 1-2 punch of having the weather inducers suck (being forced to switch in more often means that those pokes will NOT live long and do very little) and having the benefits of the weather be largely lost when the weather goes away. A kingdra in the rain is dangerous. A kingdra out of the rain is laughably easy to stop. Combine this with the fact that all of rain and sun's sweepers are vulnerable to a host of new priority moves and you can basically write them off as dead. This nerf has basically killed them.
Sand on the other hand lost virtually nothing. Damage from sand doesn't disappear when the sand goes. Tyranitar only needs 2-3 turns of improved defenses to go mega and start hammering things. Bulky ground has become massively more relevant, meaning that you will get use out of Landorus and Excadrill regardless of the weather, and Hippowdon and Tyranitar were good Pokemon who loved to switch in and out even during the weather wars, so teams running them loose virtually nothing to get near permanent sand.
Basically sand is everywhere right now on the sims, its easy to see why, and I see no reason for that to change anytime soon. Most of the new major threats are physical, and most of the new major walls are specially defensive. Sand's major counters are pretty much dead and were not really solid counters to start with, and they got a host of new pokes to play with as well as their major players released from ubers, including genesect and landorus.
Sun, Hail, and Rain are virtually unplayable now. Or rather, the downside of running Politoad, Abomasnow or Ninetails is more than the upside of getting temporary weather boost, and any team that you would consider them for would be better off running something better that doesn't commit you to a shaky strategy. Basically its a 1-2 punch of having the weather inducers suck (being forced to switch in more often means that those pokes will NOT live long and do very little) and having the benefits of the weather be largely lost when the weather goes away. A kingdra in the rain is dangerous. A kingdra out of the rain is laughably easy to stop. Combine this with the fact that all of rain and sun's sweepers are vulnerable to a host of new priority moves and you can basically write them off as dead. This nerf has basically killed them.
Sand on the other hand lost virtually nothing. Damage from sand doesn't disappear when the sand goes. Tyranitar only needs 2-3 turns of improved defenses to go mega and start hammering things. Bulky ground has become massively more relevant, meaning that you will get use out of Landorus and Excadrill regardless of the weather, and Hippowdon and Tyranitar were good Pokemon who loved to switch in and out even during the weather wars, so teams running them loose virtually nothing to get near permanent sand.
Basically sand is everywhere right now on the sims, its easy to see why, and I see no reason for that to change anytime soon. Most of the new major threats are physical, and most of the new major walls are specially defensive. Sand's major counters are pretty much dead and were not really solid counters to start with, and they got a host of new pokes to play with as well as their major players released from ubers, including genesect and landorus.
Weather is defiantly viable but it wont run the meta like last generation,
Ninetales is very weak in general but now there are 2 mons that can set up sun (but one is double weak to stealth rock) So keeping sun up will be possible.
Politoad isnt the BEST pokemon, but it isnt the worst either, with its respectable stats all around as long as you keep it alive for the most part you can keep a solid rain team.
Ttar and hipowdon are two tanky strong pokemon that can set up sand, so just hipowdown ttar and sand rush excadrill can really hurt a lot of teams so I see sand being a very prominent force this generation even though it isn't permanent.
and hail is hail, not much can be said about it because its always been just hail. xD
Ninetales is very weak in general but now there are 2 mons that can set up sun (but one is double weak to stealth rock) So keeping sun up will be possible.
Politoad isnt the BEST pokemon, but it isnt the worst either, with its respectable stats all around as long as you keep it alive for the most part you can keep a solid rain team.
Ttar and hipowdon are two tanky strong pokemon that can set up sand, so just hipowdown ttar and sand rush excadrill can really hurt a lot of teams so I see sand being a very prominent force this generation even though it isn't permanent.
and hail is hail, not much can be said about it because its always been just hail. xD
I can't speak for sun, hail, or rain but I agree with Golem Rising that sand is here to stay, especially with the invention of assault vest. I've been running assault vest Ttar as a special tank and it's not fair to other teams. The boost from assault vest plus sand plus his decent 100 sp def let him tank even super effective hits. That's not even mentioning that most likely excadrill will be staying OU.
You mean you have an opportunity cost in your team building now in return for your 1.5x boost to powerful water and sun attacks, as well as potential Swift Swim coming back? Oh, you have an item that extends the duration and pokemon that automatically cause your weather still? If people like ben gay and myself can do well on the ladder with Trick Room teams, you're still going to be okay with weather.
I still think that auto weather is viable. It's not the same as gen 5 where you could just slap Politoed, Ferrothorn and 4 sweepers that could benefit from rain and start sweeping and win games.
Weather is still going strong despite the nerf, not as strong as in gen 5 but definitely viable.
However now are we almost back to gen 4 when it commes to weather. You need to plan your team better if you want to use weather. Not only in team building but also during the match preview. I think it will take some time before people get used to this and adapts to the new meta.
Hail is different story as it have definitely lost its main purpose as an anti-weather.
Weather is still going strong despite the nerf, not as strong as in gen 5 but definitely viable.
However now are we almost back to gen 4 when it commes to weather. You need to plan your team better if you want to use weather. Not only in team building but also during the match preview. I think it will take some time before people get used to this and adapts to the new meta.
Hail is different story as it have definitely lost its main purpose as an anti-weather.
Maybe this has been mentioned, but I think it's interesting that guys like Politoed now have to run Damp Rock to extend the weather to a reasonable degree, or risk their Swift Swim sweepers being slowed by lack of weather, meaning that bulky weather leads like Toed and Hippo now might have a lot less lasting power for being unable to run Leftovers during their perma-weather. With Damp Rocks and the like, Swift Swim might still be powerful enough to be banned, but I foresee running a weather Poke on each team becoming something of a norm to deal with that if it isn't banned.
I feel so bad for Heliolisk. It was made to be THE weather Pokemon, with abilities that benifitted from each kind of weather... And GF nerfs the weather in the same gen. Troll Freak at its finest.
This is what I think personally. Because Tyranitar and Hippowdown are inherently strong competitive Pokemon independent of most teams, they will become the most dominant weather users, and thus the metagame will be more sandstorm oriented much like in 4th Gen.
Furthermore, it's not particularly hard to make a strong team around Sandstorm, because Sandstorm is less ability reliant than the other weathers.
I also don't think it's all bad for Hail, because Safety Goggles exist. That should allow some defensive Pokemon with recovery to do well under Hail, although I do think Hail will not be viable for primarily defensive teams, but offensively it should be pretty useful. Hail I feel should be treated like Sandstorm in providing utility in residual damage, except more consistent due to fewer Pokemon resisting it, which can help offensive teams score crucial KOs.
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There are a few other factors to consider outside of the turn limit.
Mega Gengar can trap and revenge kill them, putting making them think twice about knocking out any mons or switching. IRRC, weather starters do not have access to U-Turn to escape from Gengar.
Buffed partial trapping moves allow certain pokemon trap defensive variants of Politoad and Ninetails, using them as set up fodder. I doubt T-Tar will be affected by this because none of the seemingly good users of those moves would want to stay in one 130 attack stat.
The nerf to entry hazards potentially allows them to switch in more often.
Mega Gengar can trap and revenge kill them, putting making them think twice about knocking out any mons or switching. IRRC, weather starters do not have access to U-Turn to escape from Gengar.
Buffed partial trapping moves allow certain pokemon trap defensive variants of Politoad and Ninetails, using them as set up fodder. I doubt T-Tar will be affected by this because none of the seemingly good users of those moves would want to stay in one 130 attack stat.
The nerf to entry hazards potentially allows them to switch in more often.
I think people are preaching doom far too early. When have you ever needed rain or sun for 8 turns if you weren't stalling?
Weather stalling is the only thing I see getting nerfed hard. Also, weather teams will need to pay special attention to choosing the right walls, and hazard setters / clearers.
Is it so bad that weather teams no longer means setting up and blasting away pokemon without much thought, but rather carefully setting up brief spurts of heavy fire, and protecting key offensive members and your weather setter with versatile defensive pokemon.
Basically, weather is no longer an infinite ammunition option, but requires reloading. And that's not bad at all, nor is it unviable. It just gives non weather teams more breathing room. Which is really what this meta game needed.
Weather stalling is the only thing I see getting nerfed hard. Also, weather teams will need to pay special attention to choosing the right walls, and hazard setters / clearers.
Is it so bad that weather teams no longer means setting up and blasting away pokemon without much thought, but rather carefully setting up brief spurts of heavy fire, and protecting key offensive members and your weather setter with versatile defensive pokemon.
Basically, weather is no longer an infinite ammunition option, but requires reloading. And that's not bad at all, nor is it unviable. It just gives non weather teams more breathing room. Which is really what this meta game needed.
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