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More Thoughts on Stealth Rock
- Thread starter MythTrainerInfinity
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That can work both ways, however. Remember both of them would have to switch in on something and they run the risk of getting worn down too.
If you want to have a good chance of winning, you play what the game tells you is viable, not whatever you want.
A team of Pachirisu, Plusle, Minun, Electrike, Pichu, and Magnemite will never do well in Standard play. Why? The metagame says they won't. Pokemon exist that are stronger than them, and they all share a common weakness to a very common attack. Metagame forces make such a team unviable.
Stealth Rock works in much the same way. It hinders the viability of Rock weak Pokemon, and increases the viability of Rock resistent ones.
The crucial factor is how big of a force Stealth Rock is in shaping the metagame. It's a big force, but it's hardly the only thing that determines whether a Pokemon is usable or not.
i feel like if we got rid of the rocks, a few things would definitely happen.
1) Tons of sand again
- just like before garchomp was banned, hippowdon and ttar would begin to dominate leads again. Zapdos, being common on sand teams, would also rise in usage.
2) Hail teams become much more practical
- One of th main reasons i haven't ever made a hail team is that ice pokemon take 25% from stealth rock. That puts a serious downer on the majority of the team. I realize that some ice pokemon probably take 12.5 but hey, every little bit counts.
3) A lot more spikes/tspikes.
- Haha i feel like a ton of people are now addicted to residual damage. Coupled with sand/hail, either form of spikes can really make switching undesirable.
4) A ton of 2hko's with rocks become 3hko's
- How often do you see in RMT's or the creative moveset thread that so and so has a 2hko on a pokemon, but only with rocks. This will either force those pokemon to invest more ev's in attacking, or make it downright impossible to 2hko certain walls. This is the only thing i kind of don't like, because it can allow pokemon like maybe zapdos or blissey to recover stall.
5) Attackers face ways to get around new counters. (Later Skymin)
- I believe that it has already been mentioned that skymin is pretty much walled by moltres, and to a lesser degree even charizard. Thus allowing them to set up/ attack on the incoming poke. Some pokemon that would have been 2hko'd with rocks would now be able to come in on certain pokes. The fact that they can survive two blows enables them to switch in and ko the attacker. I feel like this will allow for a more fun and creative metagame, in which attackers are forced to use better prediction, and maybe use unorthodox methods to defeat new counters.
All in all, i think we should at least test stealth rock. I think that if we left it alone it would be fine, but seing as it's nothing more than a test, i see no harm in it. Haha i suspect that some of the better battlers that rely heavily on those "rock 2hko's and OHko's" are some of the ones voting against it.
My 2 cents = )
1) Tons of sand again
- just like before garchomp was banned, hippowdon and ttar would begin to dominate leads again. Zapdos, being common on sand teams, would also rise in usage.
2) Hail teams become much more practical
- One of th main reasons i haven't ever made a hail team is that ice pokemon take 25% from stealth rock. That puts a serious downer on the majority of the team. I realize that some ice pokemon probably take 12.5 but hey, every little bit counts.
3) A lot more spikes/tspikes.
- Haha i feel like a ton of people are now addicted to residual damage. Coupled with sand/hail, either form of spikes can really make switching undesirable.
4) A ton of 2hko's with rocks become 3hko's
- How often do you see in RMT's or the creative moveset thread that so and so has a 2hko on a pokemon, but only with rocks. This will either force those pokemon to invest more ev's in attacking, or make it downright impossible to 2hko certain walls. This is the only thing i kind of don't like, because it can allow pokemon like maybe zapdos or blissey to recover stall.
5) Attackers face ways to get around new counters. (Later Skymin)
- I believe that it has already been mentioned that skymin is pretty much walled by moltres, and to a lesser degree even charizard. Thus allowing them to set up/ attack on the incoming poke. Some pokemon that would have been 2hko'd with rocks would now be able to come in on certain pokes. The fact that they can survive two blows enables them to switch in and ko the attacker. I feel like this will allow for a more fun and creative metagame, in which attackers are forced to use better prediction, and maybe use unorthodox methods to defeat new counters.
All in all, i think we should at least test stealth rock. I think that if we left it alone it would be fine, but seing as it's nothing more than a test, i see no harm in it. Haha i suspect that some of the better battlers that rely heavily on those "rock 2hko's and OHko's" are some of the ones voting against it.
My 2 cents = )
You know he's talking about types, and yet used this dumb example. SR is the only thing that determines whether a Pokemon type is viable or not, you can go on and use Minun as your Baton Passer without too many problems (besides the obvious low stats), but Scyther is just unplayable just because he's 4x weak to rock.
It doesn't matter how much skilled you are, you just can't play certain Pokemon just because SR is too easy to set up.
This not only limits team synergy, but also limits many strategies.
Every ban was made thanks to subjective opinions on what's better for the metagame, there wasn't a single one "obviously uber" (like Mewtwo on OU for example). I don't understand why this isn't happening to SR, even when the thread is suggesting a test.
But, after reading this topic again, I'm sure a test wouldn't result into a SR ban.
People already decided that "SR isn't broken no matter what I hear or see", just like Skymin's several uber voters, who haven't even tested the damn thing.
why should we care about type discrimination? How is "all bug/flying pokemon are weak and I don't want them to be" any different from "Farfetch'd, Kakuna and Cacturne are weak and I don't want them to be?"
You say things like "he was talking about types duhhh" as if that actually makes a difference in either of your arguments. I still fail to see how it does, especially considering that Fire type was arguably more useless in Advance than it is now, and there are various fliers (and yes, even bug/flyers) that are either OU or are reasonably OU-viable.
We've decided that Stealth Rock isn't broken because we've been "testing" it since the beginning of DP and have come to our conclusion. A metagame without Stealth Rock might be "better," but it won't make Stealth Rock "broken." I'm not sure why you decided to compare this to the skymin situation in the first place, in which several people voted to ban something they had limited experience with. Quite unlike pushing to keep something in the game that we've had over a year to determine our position on.
You say things like "he was talking about types duhhh" as if that actually makes a difference in either of your arguments. I still fail to see how it does, especially considering that Fire type was arguably more useless in Advance than it is now, and there are various fliers (and yes, even bug/flyers) that are either OU or are reasonably OU-viable.
wow ok, this is so incomparable I don't even know what to say. You really think that we're the ones who are going to be inexperienced with Stealth Rock? And MTI with his "I don't use Stealth Rock" signature is somehow going to become more "informed" after testing a metagame without Stealth Rock?Glen ^^ said:
We've decided that Stealth Rock isn't broken because we've been "testing" it since the beginning of DP and have come to our conclusion. A metagame without Stealth Rock might be "better," but it won't make Stealth Rock "broken." I'm not sure why you decided to compare this to the skymin situation in the first place, in which several people voted to ban something they had limited experience with. Quite unlike pushing to keep something in the game that we've had over a year to determine our position on.
It's different because Farfetch'd and Kakuna were meant to be weak (Cacturne is awesome), having low stats, bad movepool and one of them not even being fully evolved.
I'm not saying "4x weak to SR are weak". They aren't weak. They're unplayable and don't even have an opportunity to do what they're meant to, that's even worse.
Adv was a very limited metagame and Bug, Grass, Fire and Steel moves was so rare that using a fire type was almost a waste of a slot. D/P is a completely different metagame, being useless in Adv doesn't mean nothing.
Various flyers only if you consider the ones that leads matches and stays there until something kills them. If you don't count them, how many you have? Gyarados, Zapdos, Salamence, and Dragonite if you want to look cool.
The argument being about types makes all the difference. Typing is a group of Pokemon, not just one or another individual.
Wait, how can you say something isn't broken before even playing without it first? This isn't testing at all.
What if we since the start played "anything goes", without any experience with tiers and rules? Ubers wouldn't be considered broken at all.
But I'm going to say this first: things doesn't need to be broken to deserve a ban.
Garchomp's test was with and without him, so people could experience both metagames. And, after liking the one without Garchomp better, the community banned him; fair enough.
Like I said, being broken or not doesn't mean anything. Banning something too good to make the metagame more competitive and enjoyable is our objective in testing Suspects, I believe.
This is the reason I compared those two, since everyone in this thread have almost zero experience with SRless metagame, and some of them (me, too) already have their mind set to "ban" or "not ban".
Unless we have experience with and without said suspect, I don't believe a proper judgement can be made.
Just to make things clear, Skymin's issue is with people who got haxed by him and started believing he's uber, not even bothering to abuse the shit out of him to make sure he shouldn't stay in OU.
this is a horrible argument. I'm sure Garchomp wasn't meant to be Uber, or Entei to be completely inferior to Suicune/Raikou in advance, etcetera.Glen ^^ said:
I have performed well with both Yanmega and Moltres as leads in the past. But that isn't even the point, you're saying that they're "meant to be played" when there's no reason to believe that that's the case. Gamefreak didn't issue some official statement of "intention that Vespiquen and Articuno be strong enough for Standard Shoddybattle play," and even if they did, who cares?
It means plenty, considering that the Adv metagame was perfectly playable despite having what all metagames, all games have, in various limitations to what you could or could not effectively put to use. So would you go back and call Advance play "broken" then?
why shouldn't we count leads? And considering that you're ignoring fliers that have a secondary type resistant to Rock (and also Togekiss and Skymin), I'm not so sure what the problem is with having four high-top tier Stealth Rock weak fliers. They're doing better than most types.
I know that, but forgive me if I'm still completely confused as to its significance. At worst it harms strategy that is entirely reliant on using a certain type of pokemon, like with Hail teams, which are viable anyway.
What? It may not be directly attached to the word "test," but that doesn't mean we don't learn everything we need to know about a Stealth Rock metagame by... playing in a Stealth Rock metagame. If something is broken, we find out whether it's broken by playing with it and seeing how much it dominates, not by testing a metagame without it to see which one is better off. Doing that will tell us... which one is better off... and that's it
why can't you admit that that is exactly what you're trying to do with Stealth Rock then, instead of trying to pass it off as a "broken" move? I'm not sure if you just don't realize what "broken" really universally is supposed to mean or if you're just trying to make Stealth Rock seem more "harmful" than it is, but one of my biggest beefs with your argument right now is that you're not only acknowledging that you support a "let's test stuff that we might be better off without" mentality, you're pretending that there's somehow "more to it" with Stealth Rock and that we're actually trying to somehow determine whether a move we've used for 1.5 years is broken by testing a metagame without it.
As for the Garchomp situation specifically: I can't speak for anybody else, but I personally found the metagame to be unacceptable ("broken") with Garchomp in it and therefore supported a suspect test from the beginning. The reasons I supported its ban were unrelated to but consistent with those who wanted it gone because "they liked the game without Garchomp more." If Garchomp really wasn't the cause of the problems I thought it was, or if it was "the lesser of two evils," I would have wanted it to remain OU.
While I believe that testing things that we "might be better off without" is a terrible idea, I acknowledge that that seems to be the path Smogon is taking; that wasn't the problem I had with your post, which implied that it is ridiculous for anyone to say that "we already know Stealth Rock is not broken."
If you want to test Stealth Rock because you think a test might tell us whether the move is "broken" somehow, your reasoning sucks. To support a test of Stealth Rock you have to recognize that you're testing it because you might prefer the alternate metagame, not that you actually think the move is "too good to remain in a balanced OU" as Smogon's Philosophy dictates.
This might all be semantics, I don't know, but it certainly needs to be made clear either way, because so many people are erroneously throwing around the word "broken" when it basically doesn't even apply to the Stealth Rock argument at all anymore.
That's because "not ban" is the automatic choice for anyone who believes that we should only bans things that are broken (myself included).
Rewind 3 months substitute Stealth Rock for Garchomp and re-read the sentence.
replace "isn't broken" with "can't be proven broken by a SRless test" and it's a little clearer what I'm getting at.
We "tested" Garchomp for a year, some people thought he was broken, some people thought he was fine. Neither of their opinions had any reason to change after the Suspectless test, just their votes-- if I thought DP was broken already, I might have still voted OU if the Suspectless metagame didn't improve, or became even worse. On the other hand, if I thought DP was fine as it was, I might have voted Uber anyway just because I preferred the game without Garchomp in it.
The point is that testing a Suspectless metagame doesn't tell us whether or not the Suspect is broken, even when there's a split between voters as to whether or not the Suspect was broken in the first place. But votes aren't necessarily decided by our opinions on brokenness either, so again, this might all just be semantics on some level.
We "tested" Garchomp for a year, some people thought he was broken, some people thought he was fine. Neither of their opinions had any reason to change after the Suspectless test, just their votes-- if I thought DP was broken already, I might have still voted OU if the Suspectless metagame didn't improve, or became even worse. On the other hand, if I thought DP was fine as it was, I might have voted Uber anyway just because I preferred the game without Garchomp in it.
The point is that testing a Suspectless metagame doesn't tell us whether or not the Suspect is broken, even when there's a split between voters as to whether or not the Suspect was broken in the first place. But votes aren't necessarily decided by our opinions on brokenness either, so again, this might all just be semantics on some level.
or Colin-esque ruthlessness >_>
We have a lot of the data we can work with (the average moveset, detailed pokemon stats, usage stats) just nothing to agree on.
A Suspectless metagame can show how big of an impact a Suspect has, and can make people think about the Suspect more. I don't think either show anything about Uber-ness unless the metagame completely and radically changes when they are gone - and that only applies to Pokémon, not moves that aren't broken that multiple Pokémon can use.
A Suspectless metagame can show how big of an impact a Suspect has, and can make people think about the Suspect more. I don't think either show anything about Uber-ness unless the metagame completely and radically changes when they are gone - and that only applies to Pokémon, not moves that aren't broken that multiple Pokémon can use.
okay so Chris is me posted this in another thread and im going to edit it
I know Gorm posted the Standard graph earlier, but I wanted to point this one out:
Rock was easily the most effective attacking type in the month of October in UU.
Does anyone think this is relevant to either side of the issue?
Rock was easily the most effective attacking type in the month of October in UU.
- Is that an indication of Rock-weak Pokemon getting pushed out of OU?
- Does that mean that many UU-caliber Pokemon happen to be weak to Rock?
Does anyone think this is relevant to either side of the issue?
A Stealth Rock free game is interesting, and definately plausable to test, but I think it would only damage the metagame rather than help it.
First of all, we will see more Focus Sashers, and they are annoying at the best of times; this is something that SR helps counteract.
Second, as said before, some BL and UU threats could well be usable in OU, Articuno, Moltres. We may even see Yanmega usage rise.
Salamence can finally say it can do as well as Chomp, seeing as Chomp doesn't fear SR like Mence does. Pokes like Zapdos and Gyara can rule the roost.
Rapid spinners will be near enough obsolete, which would ultimately give an extra moveslot on the rapid spinners. Also Spikes may see a rise in usage.
I personally would shudder to think about a metagame without Stealth Rocks. It's one of the few things at the moment that keeps (apart from Salamence) the metagame in check.
First of all, we will see more Focus Sashers, and they are annoying at the best of times; this is something that SR helps counteract.
Second, as said before, some BL and UU threats could well be usable in OU, Articuno, Moltres. We may even see Yanmega usage rise.
Salamence can finally say it can do as well as Chomp, seeing as Chomp doesn't fear SR like Mence does. Pokes like Zapdos and Gyara can rule the roost.
Rapid spinners will be near enough obsolete, which would ultimately give an extra moveslot on the rapid spinners. Also Spikes may see a rise in usage.
I personally would shudder to think about a metagame without Stealth Rocks. It's one of the few things at the moment that keeps (apart from Salamence) the metagame in check.
hm coth that's a very interesting argument. the gradient of effeciency of the rock type is a bit of a statistical smoking gun, actually.
the fact that rock other the entire set of fully evolved objectively is a strong attacking force means that these pokemon are naturally disfavoured. is that the simple power of rock as an attacking type, or is it stealth rock alone? probably both, but sr is certainly a factor.
meanwhile, EQ remains the strongest move, possibly due to a cut in the efficiency of flying types?
hm. thoughts? this seems like an actual argument for "oveevrcentralization" that we can actually statistically refer to. I'm just not sure if it's "drastic enough"
The thing is, SR removal would certainly change the metagame. but the effect would be so drastic that it could have wild effects beyond "MOLTRES/OTHER FLYERS ARE MORE VIABLE AND THE BUG TYPE CAN FLOURISH AGAIN!". Metagame effects are alot more complex than any of us can ever guess. a ban of sr as a suspect would be logistically possible, but removing it at this point would be alot like "removing steel will undercentralize the metagame"
steel is an extremely centralizing force defensively, pushing the fight/ground offensive "demand" up, and making pokemon like garchomp and lucario deadly with the combination of high attack and stealth rock hurting those that resist their stabs. when pokemon like that have no viable checks (garchomp), we ban them, since it was immediately obvious that garchomp alone was overcentralizing the OU list, by 2 or more pokemon over the span of a month. that was ban worthy. but is sr ban worthy? is steel ban worthy?
pokemon like skymin can contribute to a metagame trends (scizor/heatran/zapdos) but do not produce it entirely of their own existence as many of us agree. the complication of skymin is that while not being an extremely potent force in and of itself, almost all of it's potent elements are explicitly luck based which most of us agree "degrades the game".
And yet skymin has plenty of checks in the metagame and does not noticeably overcentralize like chomp did. who are we to say its "luck effects" are so devastating on the metagame when the metagame itself appears relatively unscathed?
stealth rock, as far as im concerned, has the data to back it up: it's a powerful move. but banning it arbitrarily really has no foresight into what metagame you're creating. It's "too arbitrary" to say "a powerful force is overcentralizing" because "overcentralizing" is arbitrary in and of itself. the ou list is determined in part by stealth rock, just like it's determined in part by gyarados. to imply that stealth rock is an overcentralizing force is pretty much to tell smogon that it needs to continuously drastically change the game in order to find the best possible metagame... when we havent even refined our testing process for individual pokemon.
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the fact that rock other the entire set of fully evolved objectively is a strong attacking force means that these pokemon are naturally disfavoured. is that the simple power of rock as an attacking type, or is it stealth rock alone? probably both, but sr is certainly a factor.
meanwhile, EQ remains the strongest move, possibly due to a cut in the efficiency of flying types?
hm. thoughts? this seems like an actual argument for "oveevrcentralization" that we can actually statistically refer to. I'm just not sure if it's "drastic enough"
The thing is, SR removal would certainly change the metagame. but the effect would be so drastic that it could have wild effects beyond "MOLTRES/OTHER FLYERS ARE MORE VIABLE AND THE BUG TYPE CAN FLOURISH AGAIN!". Metagame effects are alot more complex than any of us can ever guess. a ban of sr as a suspect would be logistically possible, but removing it at this point would be alot like "removing steel will undercentralize the metagame"
steel is an extremely centralizing force defensively, pushing the fight/ground offensive "demand" up, and making pokemon like garchomp and lucario deadly with the combination of high attack and stealth rock hurting those that resist their stabs. when pokemon like that have no viable checks (garchomp), we ban them, since it was immediately obvious that garchomp alone was overcentralizing the OU list, by 2 or more pokemon over the span of a month. that was ban worthy. but is sr ban worthy? is steel ban worthy?
pokemon like skymin can contribute to a metagame trends (scizor/heatran/zapdos) but do not produce it entirely of their own existence as many of us agree. the complication of skymin is that while not being an extremely potent force in and of itself, almost all of it's potent elements are explicitly luck based which most of us agree "degrades the game".
And yet skymin has plenty of checks in the metagame and does not noticeably overcentralize like chomp did. who are we to say its "luck effects" are so devastating on the metagame when the metagame itself appears relatively unscathed?
stealth rock, as far as im concerned, has the data to back it up: it's a powerful move. but banning it arbitrarily really has no foresight into what metagame you're creating. It's "too arbitrary" to say "a powerful force is overcentralizing" because "overcentralizing" is arbitrary in and of itself. the ou list is determined in part by stealth rock, just like it's determined in part by gyarados. to imply that stealth rock is an overcentralizing force is pretty much to tell smogon that it needs to continuously drastically change the game in order to find the best possible metagame... when we havent even refined our testing process for individual pokemon.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Clear
I'm not saying that by banning SR will bring more diversity, but it will definitely level the playing field.
How so? Everyone has access to the move.
I think they meant 'level the playing field between the types', assuming that SR creates bias against pokemon weak to rock. Of course, any 'level playing field' argument is ridiculous in the first place, given that not all types are even remotely equal in their usefulness.
It's pretty simple to conclude why SR was an idea in the first place. Gamefreak wanted to add a field damage effect in place that hit the many flying/levitate pokemon who were immune to spikes, and would be immune to the new toxic spikes. Likely, they figured it would see about as much use as spikes, so they figured it had to be more punishing toward flying types and made it rock typing (which had some unfortunate side-effects, in our view at least).
I have a separate question about the UU statistics, before we draw any conclusions. Which pokemon do we consider having gotten bumped down to UU based primarily on their usefulness in a SR heavy environment?
Articuno?
Dodrio?
Glaceon?
Lapras?
Vespiquen?
I'm not sure this is the best argument to explain those statistics, but I don't play UU enough (read: ever) to tell.
Alright. I've posted before, but I've got more to say now.
In our current sr metagame, an argument I'm seeing is that bug and fire types are being unfairly discriminated against. I would like to disagree. I've successfully used a yanmega NOT AS A LEAD. That's right, taking the sr damage. He'd lose half his health, protect to activate speed boost, and LO sweep. Did sr make him last less time? Yes. Was he still completely viable? Oh yeah, hp ground slew heatran every time (killing heatran with a yanmega's hp ground is like bliss OHKOing luke with flamethrower except it actually happens.)
I think moltres could actually function very well in the current OU metagame, killing skymin and, uh, well i dont know what it would do to heatran, but killing infernape too. So you have to roost off the damage. Big deal.
However, before I voted not to test sr. I'm changing my mind- testing sr might be interesting. True, banning a move would leave a bad precedent ("we should ban sketch"), but who cares? Seeing an sr-less metagame could be interesting.
I'm standing by my previous long-term resolution strategy, though.
Except now I'm ok with testing sr in the 4th gen.
SR-less metagame ftw! SR ftw!
In our current sr metagame, an argument I'm seeing is that bug and fire types are being unfairly discriminated against. I would like to disagree. I've successfully used a yanmega NOT AS A LEAD. That's right, taking the sr damage. He'd lose half his health, protect to activate speed boost, and LO sweep. Did sr make him last less time? Yes. Was he still completely viable? Oh yeah, hp ground slew heatran every time (killing heatran with a yanmega's hp ground is like bliss OHKOing luke with flamethrower except it actually happens.)
I think moltres could actually function very well in the current OU metagame, killing skymin and, uh, well i dont know what it would do to heatran, but killing infernape too. So you have to roost off the damage. Big deal.
However, before I voted not to test sr. I'm changing my mind- testing sr might be interesting. True, banning a move would leave a bad precedent ("we should ban sketch"), but who cares? Seeing an sr-less metagame could be interesting.
I'm standing by my previous long-term resolution strategy, though.
Except now I'm ok with testing sr in the 4th gen.
SR-less metagame ftw! SR ftw!
skymin is losing in the polls....
reply
I mean until it gets banned, which will probably be like tomorrow anyway. I just mean to say it deserves a little more love- articuno too, for that matter.
I mean until it gets banned, which will probably be like tomorrow anyway. I just mean to say it deserves a little more love- articuno too, for that matter.
I said that a few days ago and no one has said anything. But back to the subject- I think the addition of sr has diminished (read: destroyed in a hundred thousand gajillion tiny pieces that are scattered to the cosmos and lost in oblivion) the popularity of spikes and t-spikes. They deserve more.
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