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Makin' it Rain: UU Rain discussion
- Thread starter reachzero
- Start date
This argument makes one consider the age old debate follow policy or follow common sense.
I think and i think others think it would be a bit ridiculous to just ban 3 Pokemon because they function very well in the rain its just not that feasible. But on the other hand the pokemon are clearly the reason for rain being "broken" - 8 turns of rain wont help Huntail or Lumineon to sweep.
I hope we don't go down the ban happy road. However the alternative aproach IMO would be the equivalent of saying support Garchomp isn't broken but a variant that utilises SD and SS is so we should ban that specific combo instead. see ToF's argument:
Whatever is done will have to be done tentatively. However from what some of the more experienced and best battlers have said Rain seems to be manageable it seems the less experienced members disagree and have jumped to conclusions on its tiering based on their experiences of sweeping with and being swept by it. Yes it easily sweeps under prepared teams and poorly thought out counter strategies but the same can be said for most sweepers. It may also be the case that because rain teams are so formulaic they seem easier to make and use and are therefore more broken in the eyes of these players - just because something doesn't take a great deal of skill to use doesn't mean it should be banned. In order to prove that good players (those capable of making tiering decisions) are easliy swept and therefore rain is OU logs will be neccessary (I'd love to see these out of pure curiosity), however i doubt they will prove this.
Sorry for butting in, especially as I know very little about UU, although i have used rain teams in OU a fair bit.
I think and i think others think it would be a bit ridiculous to just ban 3 Pokemon because they function very well in the rain its just not that feasible. But on the other hand the pokemon are clearly the reason for rain being "broken" - 8 turns of rain wont help Huntail or Lumineon to sweep.
I hope we don't go down the ban happy road. However the alternative aproach IMO would be the equivalent of saying support Garchomp isn't broken but a variant that utilises SD and SS is so we should ban that specific combo instead. see ToF's argument:
I think we can see this is also clearly not the correct approach.
Whatever is done will have to be done tentatively. However from what some of the more experienced and best battlers have said Rain seems to be manageable it seems the less experienced members disagree and have jumped to conclusions on its tiering based on their experiences of sweeping with and being swept by it. Yes it easily sweeps under prepared teams and poorly thought out counter strategies but the same can be said for most sweepers. It may also be the case that because rain teams are so formulaic they seem easier to make and use and are therefore more broken in the eyes of these players - just because something doesn't take a great deal of skill to use doesn't mean it should be banned. In order to prove that good players (those capable of making tiering decisions) are easliy swept and therefore rain is OU logs will be neccessary (I'd love to see these out of pure curiosity), however i doubt they will prove this.
Sorry for butting in, especially as I know very little about UU, although i have used rain teams in OU a fair bit.
How is it even possible that you think having rain going for twice the time doesn't make a big difference? It's inconceivable. Read through the thread maybe, so you can get a better understanding of Rain and UU, since you don't seem to know very much about either.
Qwilfish is a great spiker, and will be one of the few replacements for Froslass once (if) it leaves. Ludicolo isn't used very much, I agree, but I highly doubt banning Ludicolo would fix the rain problem, meaning we'd have to ban at least one more Pokemon..banning one item > banning two pokemon.
Why on earth would you ban rain, completely destroying a type of strategy and sealing the fate of many viable UUs, when you could just ban damp rock? Banning the rock at least allows people to still use rain, and give rain abusers a chance to be used.
Just because your opinion is different from the voters doesn't mean they 'blew it again as usual', in fact it's quite ironic how much critiquing you do while also writing nonsensical posts like this so frequently.
Again, I suggest learning more about UU in general, and also rain, before trying to argue about it. Just because you have a suspect tester badge doesn't mean you have to post about every banning subject, especially if you know little of the topic ( which you have clearly shown). If you really feel you need your say in everything, at least learn more about the game first!
RBG. Please explain why my demonstration of how the removal of Damp Rock makes rain dance teams around 50% less effective was so irrelevant to merit no response whatsoever.
Your numbers are way off. Read the last post on page 7 of this thread.
Your numbers are way off. Read the last post on page 7 of this thread.
Rain in UU is very prominent because there is one pokemon that can set up Rain and then sweep with it, namely Ludicolo. Ludicolos Damp Rock set utilizes the fact that Ludicolos Waterfall gets the rain boost, and takes advantage of Swift Swim, drastically increasing Ludicolo's speed. Therefore Ludicolo is probably the most broken Rain user in UU. It can get down rain due to its fairly good defenses, the sweep with impunity on a good portion of UU's pokemon.
I completely second this. The difference between 8 turns and 5 turns is so totally crucial that unless you are using Rockless Ludicolo, you will only get about 1 attack off.
This logic has baffled me. Please explain how it is better. I don't buy the "less bans is better" line. If banning 3 pokemon makes rain not broken, but still viable in UU teams, then why shouldn't we do that? You all claim that Damp Rock would be less broken, but none of you have yet to prove that. You have the potential to take a Damp Rockless team on the ladder to prove this, as Heysup has suggested, yet you have not done this. IMO, this is one of the best ways to prove that it is in fact Damp Rock is broken, yet no one here has done that.
Granted, there is a limit. Banning 6 pokemon over 1 items might be overkill, but I believe that 3-4 Pokemon being banned will hurt rain teams enough to make them worthless anymore, but still a threat.
I have already mentioned this. "If you are arguing the support characteristic, you have to be able to explain why it is the supporter that is broken and also explain why it is not the supported." You have stated the difference the amount of turns makes. You have not explained why banning any pokemon would not change anything. Yes, it has been explained over and over again why Damp Rock could be broken, but not why the Pokemon are not the culprits.
I got a question RBG. What kind of arguments are you looking for? I know you said you're looking for arguments why Damp Rock is the problem and not the Pokemon, but I can't imagine any arguments that would argue that the Pokemon aren't overpowered but Damp Rock is. I can't conceive of one even if Damp Rock made rain last 200 turns. Can you give an example of an argument you might accept?
I think the support characteristic is being taken way out of hand. Its become a mini-offensive characteristic which i suppose im ok with, now people are trying to ban an item which im slightly uneasy with, banning a move completely would be a step too far in my opinion. I think the most "simple and effective" way to operate banning rules is by making sure the rules dont become unmanagable.
That would be a very sad day.
Quoted for truth. A pokemon is as good as its best set.
If it can be shown that a pokemon is usually seen in rain, then rain should be assumed as "normal battle conditions" (as they are normally seen in rain). This is a particularly potent argument in rain's case as mostly any pokemon can set it up. SR is often assumed in nomination analysis and rain is far easier to set up than SR.
One problem with this is that DougJustDoug's Usage stats dont include whether or not the pokemon is used in rain. However, if we assume that Kabutops is only given Swift Swim if it is going to be used in rain (a fair assumption i think) then we can see that 86.1% are on rain teams. Then it has to be argued that Kabutops in rain is broken.
But Kabutops is easier than others; it isnt fair at all to assume that ludicolo only uses swift swim in rain and there isnt any apparent clear indicator. So deep statistical analysis or heavy hypothesising is needed.
Here is my list of the viable Swift Swimmers in UU:
Kabutops, Lucidolo, Omastar, Floatzel, Gorebyss, Qwilfish, Relicanth
I think if the bolded pokemon could be removed it would, looking at the remaining pokemon, strike a very delicate balance leaving rain teams viable and versatile but not overpowered (perhaps Qwilfish might be the next candidate to be removed) even with 8 turns of rain. It would be an ideal if not realistic answer. Because of the nature of the nomination process, a degree of coordination and collusion would be required to ban multiple pokemon as opposed to the individual item damp rock. The nomination process favours the individual analysis.
So in conclusion. If we agree that rain at present is broken then we ought to then establish what exactly is broken about it and how to resolve it. I think one possible resolution is banning kabutops and ludicolo in a manner described above.
EDIT: ive just noticed ive repeated a fair bit of RPGs post(s), sorry if it sounds repetative.
It truly is bizarre. I was thinking the exact same thing when i was writing my post. I consider banning an item or a move rash and irrational when we can ban 2 pokemon for which the policy, the framework is already in place (using the above template to consider rain as a "normal battle condition", which as i see it RPG has endorsed, correct me if wrong).
From what I can see, if rain was to be nerfed, we have to choose between
a)kabutops, ludicolo, gorebyss with 3 turns to attack with doubled speed, more water power, etc
or
b)lumineon, huntail, qwilfish with 6 turns to attack with doubled speed, more water power, etc.
I think one of the things RBG is saying is we haven't explained why a) is better than b), because we haven't really touched upon the rain sweepers outside of Ludicolo, Kabutops, and Gorebyss.
a)kabutops, ludicolo, gorebyss with 3 turns to attack with doubled speed, more water power, etc
or
b)lumineon, huntail, qwilfish with 6 turns to attack with doubled speed, more water power, etc.
I think one of the things RBG is saying is we haven't explained why a) is better than b), because we haven't really touched upon the rain sweepers outside of Ludicolo, Kabutops, and Gorebyss.
It's not 8 and 5 turns, it's 5 and 2.
I should think it is obvious why more turns under rain is better. Twice as many rain turns means that the rain team can deal twice as much damage. I'd say an item that gives 100% increased damage to a team is pretty obviously the broken part. Also, if you had been reading the thread, you would see that the main way of beating rain is stalling through the rain turns. This is agreed upon by both the supporters and naysayers of the ban. If you only need to stall for half the time, you are much more likely to survive the onslaught and take out the sweepers and the rest of the team.
And OF COURSE banning the Pokemon would kill the team. No shit. But it's far better for the metagame to have more Pokemon to use. Banning the Rock would sufficiently nerf rain without removing 3+ Pokemon from the metagame. It's like everyone else on this thread said, we're trying to ban the Wobbuffet of this metagame rather than all the setup sweepers that can benefit from it.
Your most accurate statement.
Exactly. Why is it people can say everything i say in less words?
Of course it is better, but you have to explain why it is broken when 5 turns of rain is not, RPGs quote makes that clear. You aptly explain why it is better but dont address why it is broken.
Im only trying to help you write a better explanation that will be considered in the voting.
This assumption is deeply flawed. Most people who use Kabutops on non-Rain teams with an offensive / fast EV spread (esp. Jolly variants) use Swift Swim so that it can check any Rain teams they run into. Only slower / bulkier builds are inclined to use Battle Armor, but those aren't as common.
It's a lose-lose situation. Without Rain Dance's most powerful and versatile sweepers such a style of play would simply not be fun. Furthermore, you are simply punishing others by banning a pokemon that they may employ outside of rain dance teams.
You can't say that such players do not matter because they DO matter. I like Omastar outside of Rain Dance teams, as well as Kabutops. I don't see why you favor playstyles over pokemon.
Call me jaded, uninformed or whatever, but banning pokemon because of an item doesn't sit right with me.
Just my 2 cents.
PS: Can someone provide me a RD team with the broken 4? (Gorebyss, Luddicolo, Omastar, Kabutops.)
This post is in response to RBG's post on the last page.
"All I have heard is that "rain will be crap without these pokemon" or "these pokemon are useful outside of rain, so they shouldn't be banned". Both of these are false arguments, the latter of them being the worst. I could just say "Special Attacking Garchomp wasn't broken, so we should keep it in OU", and it would be inline with your statement. It doesn't matter if one of it's choices for a set is broken, it matters that its most broken set is broken and deserves being banned."
Except we're not talking about different sets. I'm not talking about SD/Stone Edge/Waterfall/Return Kabutops over Bubble/Ancientpower/Splash Kabutops. I'm talking about the same exact set, in different supporting conditions. Think about Choice Specs Latias versus Soul Dew Latias. Same exact moves (except maybe no Trick on the Soul Dew one), but one is broken because of a support condition. I'm not saying "let's ban usage of damp rock with physical kabutops but allow it with special kabutops"; that's the only statement your rebuttal would apply to. Different supporting conditions are my concern, not different sets of Pokemon.
"Also, there is a difference between Soul Dew/Latias and Damp Rock/Rain Abusers. Soul Dew only works with two pokemon, while Damp Rock augments any pokemon that uses a Water Move, in addition to those with the Swift Swim ability."
I seriously do not understand your point here. You differentiate Soul Dew and Damp Rock because Soul Dew only benefits two Pokemon, but Damp Rock benefits multiple Pokemon...and therefore it's okay to ban Soul Dew and not ban Damp Rock? Really? So if Soul Dew affected everything with a Dragon typing, you'd prefer banning all the dragons to banning Soul Dew? Because that's what I'm getting from this statement, and that's not really something that invalidates my comparison.
If anything, what you wrote about reinforces my point. We avoided banning just TWO Pokemon, instead choosing to ban an item, simply due to the fact that the two Pokemon in question could possibly contributed to a diverse metagame if they weren't autobanned due a supporting condition. And yet you want to do the exact opposite here by banning multiple Pokemon and leaving an item that would probably be completely useless (who wants to support a Lumineon sweep?) if the sweepers they support left.
"When something is supporting something else, you have to say why it is broken and not what it supports. This has not been done up until now."
I don't mean to sound trite, but this is pretty easy to determine. Let's take a Pokemon like Kabutops:
Is Pokemon X broken without supporting condition Y? No.
Is Pokemon X broken with supporting condition Y? Yes.
So why would it suddenly be the Pokemon that's broken? The ONLY variable you're changing is the supporting condition.
And don't say "well if Kabutops is broken in rain but not Lumineon, why shouldn't we just ban Kabutops?", because that argument borders on facetious. Shitty Pokemon should never be taken into account when evaluating whether something meets the support clause. If someone nominates Deoxys-S under the Support characteristic in UU (work with me here) and you say "Okay, fine, it greatly helps Moltres and Swellow sweep, but what if someone used Luvdisc with spikes support? Clearly, Luvdisc could not sweep through a significant portion of the metagame, therefore Deoxys-S isn't broken in UU". Do you see where I'm going?
Really, what's going on is this:
Pokemon sets up rain -> Swift Swimmer gains double power and speed -> Swift Swimmer is able to sweep very easily.
Now what you're asking is "Why is a pokemon setting up rain broken versus the swift swimmer gaining double power and speed?" Which doesn't make any sense to me, because what you're doing is isolating a secondary cause and creating a dichotomy between that and the primary cause. It would be like me saying "Ceteris paribus, a decrease in prices causes an increase in demand which causes an increase in sales", and you saying "Well how do we know whether a decrease in prices causes an increase in sales or whether an increase in demand causes an increase in sales?"
And PK Gaming, Omastar/Gorebyss aren't really broken. I've been experimenting with an all-physical rain dance team, and it's utter destruction. All you need to do is set up rain and smack their physical wall until it's low on health, kill it with your next sweeper, and then rip their team apart. I've noticed that stall really has no answers to an all-physical rain dance team, because most physical walls are either weak or neutral to the primary STAB of swift swimmers (and don't have Chansey's massive bulk to compensate). Only Slowbro and Milotic are commonly used that don't fit the above criteria (Tangrowth as well, but it's not commonly used and loses to Qwilfish anyway), and you can easily dispose of them with Ludicolo.
Another thing that I've found to really fuck over stall is Heal Bell on one of your rain setters. I use it on Uxie (Lanturn works fine too), and it's lol-worthy to see to Registeel sacrifice itself to paralyze Kabutops and then me going and putting it back in commission in just one turn.
"All I have heard is that "rain will be crap without these pokemon" or "these pokemon are useful outside of rain, so they shouldn't be banned". Both of these are false arguments, the latter of them being the worst. I could just say "Special Attacking Garchomp wasn't broken, so we should keep it in OU", and it would be inline with your statement. It doesn't matter if one of it's choices for a set is broken, it matters that its most broken set is broken and deserves being banned."
Except we're not talking about different sets. I'm not talking about SD/Stone Edge/Waterfall/Return Kabutops over Bubble/Ancientpower/Splash Kabutops. I'm talking about the same exact set, in different supporting conditions. Think about Choice Specs Latias versus Soul Dew Latias. Same exact moves (except maybe no Trick on the Soul Dew one), but one is broken because of a support condition. I'm not saying "let's ban usage of damp rock with physical kabutops but allow it with special kabutops"; that's the only statement your rebuttal would apply to. Different supporting conditions are my concern, not different sets of Pokemon.
"Also, there is a difference between Soul Dew/Latias and Damp Rock/Rain Abusers. Soul Dew only works with two pokemon, while Damp Rock augments any pokemon that uses a Water Move, in addition to those with the Swift Swim ability."
I seriously do not understand your point here. You differentiate Soul Dew and Damp Rock because Soul Dew only benefits two Pokemon, but Damp Rock benefits multiple Pokemon...and therefore it's okay to ban Soul Dew and not ban Damp Rock? Really? So if Soul Dew affected everything with a Dragon typing, you'd prefer banning all the dragons to banning Soul Dew? Because that's what I'm getting from this statement, and that's not really something that invalidates my comparison.
If anything, what you wrote about reinforces my point. We avoided banning just TWO Pokemon, instead choosing to ban an item, simply due to the fact that the two Pokemon in question could possibly contributed to a diverse metagame if they weren't autobanned due a supporting condition. And yet you want to do the exact opposite here by banning multiple Pokemon and leaving an item that would probably be completely useless (who wants to support a Lumineon sweep?) if the sweepers they support left.
"When something is supporting something else, you have to say why it is broken and not what it supports. This has not been done up until now."
I don't mean to sound trite, but this is pretty easy to determine. Let's take a Pokemon like Kabutops:
Is Pokemon X broken without supporting condition Y? No.
Is Pokemon X broken with supporting condition Y? Yes.
So why would it suddenly be the Pokemon that's broken? The ONLY variable you're changing is the supporting condition.
And don't say "well if Kabutops is broken in rain but not Lumineon, why shouldn't we just ban Kabutops?", because that argument borders on facetious. Shitty Pokemon should never be taken into account when evaluating whether something meets the support clause. If someone nominates Deoxys-S under the Support characteristic in UU (work with me here) and you say "Okay, fine, it greatly helps Moltres and Swellow sweep, but what if someone used Luvdisc with spikes support? Clearly, Luvdisc could not sweep through a significant portion of the metagame, therefore Deoxys-S isn't broken in UU". Do you see where I'm going?
Really, what's going on is this:
Pokemon sets up rain -> Swift Swimmer gains double power and speed -> Swift Swimmer is able to sweep very easily.
Now what you're asking is "Why is a pokemon setting up rain broken versus the swift swimmer gaining double power and speed?" Which doesn't make any sense to me, because what you're doing is isolating a secondary cause and creating a dichotomy between that and the primary cause. It would be like me saying "Ceteris paribus, a decrease in prices causes an increase in demand which causes an increase in sales", and you saying "Well how do we know whether a decrease in prices causes an increase in sales or whether an increase in demand causes an increase in sales?"
And PK Gaming, Omastar/Gorebyss aren't really broken. I've been experimenting with an all-physical rain dance team, and it's utter destruction. All you need to do is set up rain and smack their physical wall until it's low on health, kill it with your next sweeper, and then rip their team apart. I've noticed that stall really has no answers to an all-physical rain dance team, because most physical walls are either weak or neutral to the primary STAB of swift swimmers (and don't have Chansey's massive bulk to compensate). Only Slowbro and Milotic are commonly used that don't fit the above criteria (Tangrowth as well, but it's not commonly used and loses to Qwilfish anyway), and you can easily dispose of them with Ludicolo.
Another thing that I've found to really fuck over stall is Heal Bell on one of your rain setters. I use it on Uxie (Lanturn works fine too), and it's lol-worthy to see to Registeel sacrifice itself to paralyze Kabutops and then me going and putting it back in commission in just one turn.
Ludicolo is the biggest issue on rain teams because it is unpredictable. Everything else has guaranteed sets and is not nearly as hard to beat down. If I think the item isn't a problem, why should I ban the item lol? The Pokemon are obviously the ones doing the sweeping, not the damn item...
If the playstyle is broken and requires no long term thinking skill whatsoever, why can't it be banned huh? Whether you have two usable turns of rain (which is flawed, not all Kabutops will Swords Dance turn 1) or 5, so what? Kabutops is still usually killing something, and with really tough walls like Registeel and Uxie to CONTINUOUSLY come in and set up rain again, the difference is negligible. Remember your rain sweepers aren't suppose to be taking much damage, so what's the problem with continually setting rain up again and again?
Um, I voted for like the first few suspects, and things went smoothly. I stopped voting after the first Froslass vote, and everyone goes banhappy. Guess what I said during the first Froslass vote - Its broken. Yet the voters insisted that it wasn't broken, citing reasons that I thought at the time were somewhat valid though oversimplified. Oh hey, guess what, you guys think Froslass is broken now. My posts aren't nonsensical, you guys are just behind the times again and again. You did blow it, otherwise we wouldn't be voting on the same suspects multiple times, constantly changing positions as well. If the voters didn't blow it (which includes me as well since I did vote), we'd have a stable and fun tier to play in, which is obviously not the case.
I suggest you get to #1 on the UU ladder multiple times, hold the position, go win some UU tours, rack up the experience I have in the tier, and then come back and address me. Saying I have no knowledge of the tier, god you gave me a good laugh.
You basically are nitpicking at one thing I said that didn't agree with your views. I don't think 3 versus 6 turns of sweeping are critical, and I'm entitled to that view. I suggest learning to argue rather than ridicule, you might just be viewed as a better member of the community.
Perfectly good criticism, i did think about this when writing but the oversimplification was the best i can muster. More importantly, Lemmiwinks, what do you think of the underlying principle i was exploring?
Exactly why they didnt keep latias in Ubers. It was deemed the item was what made it broken, when removed it came down. What RBG is asking (correct me if wrong) is for us to justify that it IS the item that is breaking the pokemon and not the other way around.
I think (this one is abit less certain) that RBGs point was that banning Soul Dew caused no disruption at all to the Standard metagame. Banning Damp Rock would have widespread consequences and alot of disruption. Generally in the voting process we prefer not to disrupt the metagame any more than we have to, so Soul Dew and Damp Rock are totally different cases.
Ok to use your analogy; remember that the supporting condition is NOT rain in your example, it is three extra turns of rain. RBG is saying that people havnt convinced him that it is the three turns over and above the normal five that breaks Kabutops. I.e. Noone has shown that Pokemon X is not broken without the extra three turns.
And remember we are talking about BREAKING a pokemon. It is not enough to say that Kabutops is better with 3 extra turns of rain, that is as plain as day (pun intended). You have to show that it is not broken with 5 turns of rain and it is with 8 turns if you want to justify damp rock being banned. Otherwise the reasonable response is to ban the sweeper.
Quoted for truth and humour.
"I think (this one is abit less certain) that RBGs point was that banning Soul Dew caused no disruption at all to the Standard metagame. Banning Damp Rock would have widespread consequences and alot of disruption."
You believe that banning an item that only rain teams use would cause more disruption than banning multiple Pokemon that both rain teams and normal teams use?
Please explain your reasoning.
"You have to show that it is not broken with 5 turns of rain and it is with 8 turns if you want to justify damp rock being banned. Otherwise the reasonable response is to ban the sweeper."
I believed this to be relatively apparent. 5 turns of rain compared to 8 is half the time Kabutops has to sweep, accounting for the "wasted" turns. If I take a Kabutops, stick it on a team with SD/Waterfall/Stone Edge/Rain Dance @ Life Orb, it would be no more than moderately successful, because it only has 4 turns to sweep and loses Aqua Jet/Return (important to beat priority/Toxicroak). It would be even worse if I had to use a wall to set up just 5 turns of rain and move to Kabutops, because then it only gets three turns of rain and has the potential to eat hazard damage and get slammed on the switchin. This is why Kabutops is not broken with 5 turns but is broken with 8 turns: it simply has much more potential to cause damage. If you want a comparison, imagine a sweeper constrained by Life Orb and Toxic Spikes damage and a sweeper constrained only by Life Orb damage; it makes a huge difference.
If Kabutops/Ludicolo/whatever else were automatically broken in just 5 turns of rain, you can bet your ass that they'd be popular standalone sweepers on offensive teams. They're not. They NEED damp rock to be able to sweep, otherwise they'll just get stalled out or end up getting a kill and then losing massive amounts of momentum to enemy setup Pokemon. Damp rock helps rain teams keep pace and helps them keep momentum, which is much more important to rain teams than literally any other factor.
But if you guys are really that skeptical of the difference between 5 and 8 turns of rain, you should make an otherwise identical rain team but with Damp Rock on your bulky rain setters on one team and Leftovers on them on the other team. You'll see the difference yourself. And I say this as someone who was ambivalent about the whole rain issue, made a rain team, and came to the conclusion that it's much too powerful. The extra turns are absolutely a big deal, and you'll find that for yourself if you test it.
You believe that banning an item that only rain teams use would cause more disruption than banning multiple Pokemon that both rain teams and normal teams use?
Please explain your reasoning.
"You have to show that it is not broken with 5 turns of rain and it is with 8 turns if you want to justify damp rock being banned. Otherwise the reasonable response is to ban the sweeper."
I believed this to be relatively apparent. 5 turns of rain compared to 8 is half the time Kabutops has to sweep, accounting for the "wasted" turns. If I take a Kabutops, stick it on a team with SD/Waterfall/Stone Edge/Rain Dance @ Life Orb, it would be no more than moderately successful, because it only has 4 turns to sweep and loses Aqua Jet/Return (important to beat priority/Toxicroak). It would be even worse if I had to use a wall to set up just 5 turns of rain and move to Kabutops, because then it only gets three turns of rain and has the potential to eat hazard damage and get slammed on the switchin. This is why Kabutops is not broken with 5 turns but is broken with 8 turns: it simply has much more potential to cause damage. If you want a comparison, imagine a sweeper constrained by Life Orb and Toxic Spikes damage and a sweeper constrained only by Life Orb damage; it makes a huge difference.
If Kabutops/Ludicolo/whatever else were automatically broken in just 5 turns of rain, you can bet your ass that they'd be popular standalone sweepers on offensive teams. They're not. They NEED damp rock to be able to sweep, otherwise they'll just get stalled out or end up getting a kill and then losing massive amounts of momentum to enemy setup Pokemon. Damp rock helps rain teams keep pace and helps them keep momentum, which is much more important to rain teams than literally any other factor.
But if you guys are really that skeptical of the difference between 5 and 8 turns of rain, you should make an otherwise identical rain team but with Damp Rock on your bulky rain setters on one team and Leftovers on them on the other team. You'll see the difference yourself. And I say this as someone who was ambivalent about the whole rain issue, made a rain team, and came to the conclusion that it's much too powerful. The extra turns are absolutely a big deal, and you'll find that for yourself if you test it.
ToF said:
I actually agree with this 100%. I think it would be more productive to work on this then complain about it, but really I think we've tried. It's good to know that there are other respectable (at the very least) players who think this though.
FlareBlitz said:
My turn: "lol".
I would like to address this part of your post because it's really the key point that you are not making that you really need to.
Simply saying, as if it was fact, that Kabutops and co are not broken over 5 turns does not justify your argument. In fact, I completely disagree, I think Kabutops in particular is broken over 5 turns and simply just more so over 8. Barely more actually, since you will likely be forced out after 1-2 turns.
When I ran a team with Damp Rock, it was "meh I'm playing rain I either win or lose depending on whether or not my opponent is good". Without Damp Rock, I would have the same strategy, but there were so many other benefits from not using Damp Rock. a) I wouldn't be fucked over by my own lead which is common now (Scarf Venusaur) because I could use Lum Berry b) I can use Leftovers on something like Cresselia and c) When you play a skilled opponent, they will be able to force your sweepers out on the revenge kill making the shorter rain more convenient for setting up rain a second time.
Here is what my experience would be like against someone who barely prepares for rain:
Turn 1:
I Set up Rain
they Kill my lead
I send in Gorebyss (for example)
Turn 2:
I kill their lead
They send in something like Scarf Venusaur (for example)
Turn 3:
I switch out to Registeel (for example) who takes lol damage from Venusaur.
Turn 4:
Registeel waits 5 turns to set up rain again!?!??!
This is what should happen to rain against a skilled opponent who even "barely" prepares for rain.
This means that your 5 turns of rain is often MORE convenient than your 8 at times. When you have 8 turns, you're going to be wasting turns switching your Kabutops out of something like Hitmontop, or <insert Rain sweeper> out of Scarf Venusaur or Absol. With 5 turns, you will be able to switch to your Rain set up Pokemon and set up another 5 turns.
This is why I think Damp Rock will barely effect rain. With removing it, you really aren't addressing the real reason Rain is "broken (I don't think it is but whatever)". Additionally, you aren't even "nerfing" rain that much (barely at all imo). No matter what people's experiences against bad players are, three turns does not matter that much when you're going to need to be switching your main sweepers out anyway against a good player. I think the main exceptions to this rule would simply be Kabutops (even considering Gorebyss) since it's so hard to deal with. This is why the Pokemon are broken and Damp Rock is not.
Rain sweepers cannot take advantage of "type synergy" like regular offense can because they are all water-types. With that disadvantage, you have to realize that they will need to switch out to their "wall/support" Pokemon quite often on the revenge kill.
" a) I wouldn't be fucked over by my own lead which is common now (Scarf Venusaur) because I could use Lum Berry"
Or just let it sleep you, go to your other bulky rain-setter, and use heal bell, like I do. And in exchange you get 8 turns of rain.
"b) I can use Leftovers on something like Cresselia"
Yup. Still not worth 3 turns of rain.
"c) When you play a skilled opponent, they will be able to force your sweepers out on the revenge kill making the shorter rain more convenient for setting up rain a second time. "
And if you yourself were skilled you wouldn't be forced out to your bulky setup, you'd go to another sweeper...or you wouldn't be forced out at all. And instead of setting up rain multiple times, eating hazard damage, losing momentum, risking opponent set up, and risking your sweeper taking damage every time it switches, you'd be able to force YOUR opponent to switch, and making them deal with all those disadvantages.
Remember that rain plays very much like Hyper Offense. You don't have time to dick around with switches. Get in, hit things, get out. Use your bulky pokemon as pivots, not walls. Run heal bell, because it's funny to lol at a registeel that sacrificed itself to paralyze kabutops.
Anyway, feel free to take up my challenge. Successfully run a rain team without damp rock and we'll see if your theorymon holds up.
Or just let it sleep you, go to your other bulky rain-setter, and use heal bell, like I do. And in exchange you get 8 turns of rain.
"b) I can use Leftovers on something like Cresselia"
Yup. Still not worth 3 turns of rain.
"c) When you play a skilled opponent, they will be able to force your sweepers out on the revenge kill making the shorter rain more convenient for setting up rain a second time. "
And if you yourself were skilled you wouldn't be forced out to your bulky setup, you'd go to another sweeper...or you wouldn't be forced out at all. And instead of setting up rain multiple times, eating hazard damage, losing momentum, risking opponent set up, and risking your sweeper taking damage every time it switches, you'd be able to force YOUR opponent to switch, and making them deal with all those disadvantages.
Remember that rain plays very much like Hyper Offense. You don't have time to dick around with switches. Get in, hit things, get out. Use your bulky pokemon as pivots, not walls. Run heal bell, because it's funny to lol at a registeel that sacrificed itself to paralyze kabutops.
Anyway, feel free to take up my challenge. Successfully run a rain team without damp rock and we'll see if your theorymon holds up.
For me its not a question of 5 versus 8 turns (or whatever bullshit the other dude was criticizing me on, 2 versus 5) but a matter of the Pokemon being used. I say 5 versus 8 doesn't make a difference because it still allows the rain Pokemon to become overpowered for a short period of time.
Imagine a scenario where you could have rain out for 3 turns or 6 turns. Say you go to Kabutops the instant the rain gets out, so you can either SD and attack or attack twice under 3 turns, or SD and attack three times under the 6 turns. Either way, Kabutops is overpowered for the turns its under the rain, and especially if it bothers to Swords Dance.
I think the same thing applies to Damp Rock and 5 or 8 turns. Yes you get more time to stay on the field, but the same entry hazard thing applies to your argument as well FlareBlitz. If I can stall your rain out properly, you could theoretically be taking that Toxic Spikes damage as well; more turns out there means more residual damage over time (I hate using conditions like this, but since you guys always like to bring them up, I guess I will too; spikes and tspikes are not common battling conditions).
It's the Pokemon that do the attacking - Damp Rock isn't some OKHO item lol. It aids in the ability for the POKEMON to sweep, but the POKEMON are the ones that are broken under the rain. It's a really difficult situation to handle because outside of rain none of these Pokemon are remotely close to broken, but if I had to take action on the whole rain fiasco, I'd say Damp Rock isn't the cuprit, but overall rain is. I think the simplest and least hassling verdict should be to ban rain and remove the playstyle from UU; its simply too juvenile a tactic in terms of overall battling strategy and long-term thinking.
Imagine a scenario where you could have rain out for 3 turns or 6 turns. Say you go to Kabutops the instant the rain gets out, so you can either SD and attack or attack twice under 3 turns, or SD and attack three times under the 6 turns. Either way, Kabutops is overpowered for the turns its under the rain, and especially if it bothers to Swords Dance.
I think the same thing applies to Damp Rock and 5 or 8 turns. Yes you get more time to stay on the field, but the same entry hazard thing applies to your argument as well FlareBlitz. If I can stall your rain out properly, you could theoretically be taking that Toxic Spikes damage as well; more turns out there means more residual damage over time (I hate using conditions like this, but since you guys always like to bring them up, I guess I will too; spikes and tspikes are not common battling conditions).
It's the Pokemon that do the attacking - Damp Rock isn't some OKHO item lol. It aids in the ability for the POKEMON to sweep, but the POKEMON are the ones that are broken under the rain. It's a really difficult situation to handle because outside of rain none of these Pokemon are remotely close to broken, but if I had to take action on the whole rain fiasco, I'd say Damp Rock isn't the cuprit, but overall rain is. I think the simplest and least hassling verdict should be to ban rain and remove the playstyle from UU; its simply too juvenile a tactic in terms of overall battling strategy and long-term thinking.
I tried a Damp Rockless team today as suggested by RBG and I am 100% certain that the culprit is Damp Rock not the sweepers. It basically was like playing with a Trick Room team except I get a STAb Boost and Speed is in my favor however, all my sweepers share common weaknesses an disadvantage Trick Room team lacks or at least can play around or w/e.
OVER TWICE the period of time. THAT is the difference between Damp Rock and Rockless rain teams. Once the rain goes down, rain teams start having problems. Let's give you an example. Let's say there was an item that, if held on your lead Pokemon, had Outrage last twice as many turns as normal. Dragons are overpowered with Outrage, seeing as it deals huge amounts of damage to anything (even Steels, although not generally enough to OHKO, it can still really dent them). This allows Dragons to last 6 turns instead of 3, dealing way more damage to the opposing team. Let's say that DD Salamence and maybe Dragonite and Flygon suddenly became overpowered with Outrage and this doubling item. Would we ban the dragons to limit the Outrage power, or ban the doublerage item? I think the answer is pretty clear.
And do the words "support characteristic" mean anything to you?
Thanks for the input GodBlessAtheism. I also asked a few more people to do this for me, so hopefully they'll be back with their opinions as well.
ToF, believe it or not, I actually agree more with your final paragraph (where you suggest that "rain" in general is what breaks the swift swimmers, with or without damp rock) over people saying "it's the rain sweepers who are broken, not damp rock". I don't think it's an ideal situation to ban the move "Rain Dance", because rain teams are still decent without Damp Rock (just not very good or broken) but I'd certainly prefer it to banning perfectly viable Pokemon.
That said, I do have some problems with your other paragraphs. For one, toxic spikes are not a problem for rain teams, as all the good ones have at least one poison type (very valuable on rain due to fighting/grass resist, and of course Qwilfish is an excellent sweeper). You're right in that hazard damage like spikes affects rain teams too, though...which is why I minimize the amount of switching I do unless it's to my levitating rain setters, contrary to what Heysup suggested. I'd prefer to stay in and weaken a wall than to switch out and incur damage when that same wall is just going to come back again.
ToF, believe it or not, I actually agree more with your final paragraph (where you suggest that "rain" in general is what breaks the swift swimmers, with or without damp rock) over people saying "it's the rain sweepers who are broken, not damp rock". I don't think it's an ideal situation to ban the move "Rain Dance", because rain teams are still decent without Damp Rock (just not very good or broken) but I'd certainly prefer it to banning perfectly viable Pokemon.
That said, I do have some problems with your other paragraphs. For one, toxic spikes are not a problem for rain teams, as all the good ones have at least one poison type (very valuable on rain due to fighting/grass resist, and of course Qwilfish is an excellent sweeper). You're right in that hazard damage like spikes affects rain teams too, though...which is why I minimize the amount of switching I do unless it's to my levitating rain setters, contrary to what Heysup suggested. I'd prefer to stay in and weaken a wall than to switch out and incur damage when that same wall is just going to come back again.