There are some flaws with these counters. Changing the weather permanently requires team commitment. Chansey and Skarmory are shut down by Taunt, and risk being outlasted. Bronzong and Metagross have no reliable recovery moves, so they risk being outlasted as well.
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np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 9 - Rock You Like a Hurricane
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There are some flaws with these counters. Changing the weather permanently requires team commitment. Chansey and Skarmory are shut down by Taunt, and risk being outlasted. Bronzong and Metagross have no reliable recovery moves, so they risk being outlasted as well.
Um Tornadus-T can Taunt Chansey / Skarmory, but it wont enjoy tanking SToss / Brave Bird in the process
Metagross and Bronzong are solid counters to Tornadus-T; if Rocks are up there is no way Tornadus-T will be accomplishing much of anything.
@ Nyara: Yes, Tornadus-T have many unique attributes shared by no other Pokemon. However, those attributes do not amount to brokenness, as I explained here.
Also Tornadus-T outside of Rain is simply mediocre - please tone down on the hyperbole
Metagross and Bronzong are solid counters to Tornadus-T; if Rocks are up there is no way Tornadus-T will be accomplishing much of anything.
@ Nyara: Yes, Tornadus-T have many unique attributes shared by no other Pokemon. However, those attributes do not amount to brokenness, as I explained here.
Also Tornadus-T outside of Rain is simply mediocre - please tone down on the hyperbole
^^^ But no one have Regenerator, is inmune to Spikes and Toxic Spikes, and can health up it's damage from SR without trouble. Having counters or not doesn't mean X Pokémon is or not broken, Hydreigon doesn't have counters and is OU for example. The problem with Tornadus-T is it's ability, having U-Turn, having great BST for abuse it, and having a great STAB that's almost unresisted on the tier.
And yeah, Rain is common, Rain is hard to put out from the field. And Rain is the most effective weather of the game, and even without Rain, Tornadus-T is just the best of the best of OU, he's just better than any regular OU Pokémon because he can wreak havoc on almost any team (he can't just do it if your whole team is check of him, like any Dragon can't just do nothing if a whole team carry Choice-Scarf and Blizzard on Hail, but you know, both things are really weird, uncommon, and usually doesn't work at all, usually), and is one of, for doesn't say he's the main reason why stall is not viable at all on OU, and why a huge number of tactics are never used again.
Of course, I'm assuming Tornadus-T is used by a good player (a one who doesn't spam Hurricane on Sun, for example), good at laddering =/= good player (wants to ladd? Pick up a Dragon Zone team, have a lot of free hours per day, end), even Arceus can be totally useless if used on the wrong way.
Tornadus-T can be defeated, like any Pokémon, actually. But when you defeat him... you'll relize that you losed a Pokémon, or he crippled your whole team, and if you win the game, it's because the team of Tornadus-T or it's player failed at being good, most of the time. You need to win too many wars in order to stop Tornadus-T effectiviness (stop Drizzle, keep SR on the game, keep spaming Ice/Rock/Electric/Status moves all the time), and even when you do that, he's still being of great help to the team, derp.
And yeah, Rain is common, Rain is hard to put out from the field. And Rain is the most effective weather of the game, and even without Rain, Tornadus-T is just the best of the best of OU, he's just better than any regular OU Pokémon because he can wreak havoc on almost any team (he can't just do it if your whole team is check of him, like any Dragon can't just do nothing if a whole team carry Choice-Scarf and Blizzard on Hail, but you know, both things are really weird, uncommon, and usually doesn't work at all, usually), and is one of, for doesn't say he's the main reason why stall is not viable at all on OU, and why a huge number of tactics are never used again.
Of course, I'm assuming Tornadus-T is used by a good player (a one who doesn't spam Hurricane on Sun, for example), good at laddering =/= good player (wants to ladd? Pick up a Dragon Zone team, have a lot of free hours per day, end), even Arceus can be totally useless if used on the wrong way.
Tornadus-T can be defeated, like any Pokémon, actually. But when you defeat him... you'll relize that you losed a Pokémon, or he crippled your whole team, and if you win the game, it's because the team of Tornadus-T or it's player failed at being good, most of the time. You need to win too many wars in order to stop Tornadus-T effectiviness (stop Drizzle, keep SR on the game, keep spaming Ice/Rock/Electric/Status moves all the time), and even when you do that, he's still being of great help to the team, derp.
Eh. You're making Tornadus-t sound better than it actually is. W/o rain its mediocre, don't try and deny that. Having to rely on a poor accuracy move as a main stab sucks, because a miss can be game changing. Air slash is also piss weak and does nothing to remedy Torandus' power outside of rain. You also have to waste a turn setting up rain dance if it lacks drizzle support, and in that turn your opponent can attack or set up as well. Also, the whole "outlasting its counters" part is BS. No competent player would let their counter be worn down too easily, and like wise they'll have a back up solution to deal with it, I.E. scarfers, and priority. Regenerator isn't some god ability that does everything. SR is still an issue because Tornadus will be easier to pick off as it comes in(it's 2HKo'd by tentacruel's scald in the rain after rocks, that's how pathetic its bulk is).
Yes, then it U-turns away without being punished by entry hazards because of regenerator to a counter or a trapper that can handle them. The Tornadus-T counter either switches out or dies, and then Tornadus-T attacks again; most counters can't reliably switch into Tornadus-T twice.
This leads right back to the question posted earlier; should Tornadus-T be judged by itself or with the support that it will inevitably have?
This leads right back to the question posted earlier; should Tornadus-T be judged by itself or with the support that it will inevitably have?
You realize that the opponent can always stay in and tank Tornadus-T's pussy U-turn, right? So Tornadus-T just took LO recoil for a piss-weak U-turn and must take SR damage just to come back in.
Posting for posterity:
kd24: I mean if you use Hurricane, and the opponent simply switches into their Jirachi / Rotom-W, you're the one losing momentum, not the opponent. You Hurricane and U-turn with Life Orb, and you just lost 45% health in total, a net 12% loss with Regenerator. The next time Tornadus-T comes out, it'll be at 63% health. That's not what I would call "sticking around for the entire game"?
Posting for posterity:
kd24: I mean if you use Hurricane, and the opponent simply switches into their Jirachi / Rotom-W, you're the one losing momentum, not the opponent. You Hurricane and U-turn with Life Orb, and you just lost 45% health in total, a net 12% loss with Regenerator. The next time Tornadus-T comes out, it'll be at 63% health. That's not what I would call "sticking around for the entire game"?
well thats just silly. you can spam hurricane brainlessly and then u-turn with life orb, and with specs you can come in on sr, hurricane something, and switch out to magnezone, ferrothorn, etc while literally regaining healthy back with tornadus
i would say that is exactly the brainless spam tornadus-t gets away with
Pocket: as if tornadus-t doesn't have opportunities to switch back in and immediately double switch for an actual net gain even through stealth rock, or as if jirachi and rotom-w suddenly are taking 0 damage from hurricane so that they dont have a net loss. you make it sound so easy to just "switch it in" but with stealth rock and spikes supplied by jirachi and rotom-w counter ferrothorn, tornadus-t certainly doesn't seem to mind losing a net of 12% in order to make taking down its counters that much easier. think of that initial 12% as an investment if their best answer to tornadus-t only comes in that form.
i would say that is exactly the brainless spam tornadus-t gets away with
Pocket: as if tornadus-t doesn't have opportunities to switch back in and immediately double switch for an actual net gain even through stealth rock, or as if jirachi and rotom-w suddenly are taking 0 damage from hurricane so that they dont have a net loss. you make it sound so easy to just "switch it in" but with stealth rock and spikes supplied by jirachi and rotom-w counter ferrothorn, tornadus-t certainly doesn't seem to mind losing a net of 12% in order to make taking down its counters that much easier. think of that initial 12% as an investment if their best answer to tornadus-t only comes in that form.
Keldeo is far from broken, in my opinion, just based on how many strong switchins there are to it that are great pokes in their own right (ie. Latias, Croak, even Jellicent to an extent), and Specs is quite easy to revenge, while Scarf lacks the destructive power of Specs (increasing the number of viable switchins greatly. It takes one cautious switch to determine what set a Keldeo is, and from then on you can exploit the weaknesses of whichever set it is.
Tornadus-T is reeeeeally rain-dependent, but is so good in rain that I think it is banworthy. It's so hard to switch into Torn with anything but Bronzong, Rachi, Rotom-W, or some other very specific check, and U-turn + hazards gradually wears down said checks to the point where Tornadus-T can Hurrican with impunity, essentially ending the game once the opponent's priority/scarfer is gone, and their Rachi/Rotom/Zong is too weak to switch into Tornadus. The fact that it can kill non-chople Ttar and do great amounts of damage to Lati@s with U-turn (common checks to rain special sweepers) AND be a strong Breloom check with Sleep Talk makes Tornadus too powerful in my opinion, although it is definitely debatable.
Tornadus-T is reeeeeally rain-dependent, but is so good in rain that I think it is banworthy. It's so hard to switch into Torn with anything but Bronzong, Rachi, Rotom-W, or some other very specific check, and U-turn + hazards gradually wears down said checks to the point where Tornadus-T can Hurrican with impunity, essentially ending the game once the opponent's priority/scarfer is gone, and their Rachi/Rotom/Zong is too weak to switch into Tornadus. The fact that it can kill non-chople Ttar and do great amounts of damage to Lati@s with U-turn (common checks to rain special sweepers) AND be a strong Breloom check with Sleep Talk makes Tornadus too powerful in my opinion, although it is definitely debatable.
I've actually been testing some Banded Breloom. Stone edge murders tornadus-t switch ins, fuck you trying to take a spore lol. js.
All seriousness -- tornadus-t is very strong. I need to test more on the ladder and stuff but it seems to have shaky checks / counters. Barely passing the description of a check / counter imo (im reffering to wash / rachi / ferro).
All seriousness -- tornadus-t is very strong. I need to test more on the ladder and stuff but it seems to have shaky checks / counters. Barely passing the description of a check / counter imo (im reffering to wash / rachi / ferro).
I think Torn-t is pretty obviously broken. Too fast and, and while its SpA isn't the best, Hurricane (in rain) is one of the best moves in the game. It helps rain easily control the weather battles (with access to u-turn making ninetales not as safe of a switch as it should be and superpower making ttar useless). Tenta is a great partner too, so SR isn't always up like it may be against other team archetypes (weatherless offense for instance). And skipping past the paper arguments, it just plays too well for the metagame. So I'm just going to make a few points about Keldeo since it seems a lot of people are wary of its brokenness.
What I think is so good about Keldeo is that he pretty much does the same thing that swift swimmers were able to do in early BW. He's insanely fast with scarf and can spam a boosted surf/hydro pump backed up with good coverage from secret sword. Admittedly, it'd be nicer if he had Ice Beam, but hp ice/icy wind is usually enough to revenge most of the dragons. Scarf Keldeo is probably the number one problem Pokemon for weatherless offense. It almost makes the entire playstyle unviable. You're limited to using Scarf Latios as your check/counter (or going for the tie with terrak or your own keldeo) or risk being dominated, and even then you're going to be hard-pressed to switch in to rain-boosted hydro pumps. I don't like Pokemon that shut down an entire playstyle, and the next closest thing to Keldeo in this regard is Venusaur, which is much easier to check.
Outside dominating weatherless offense, Keldeo is still a beast of a pony. Rain teams are going to have the same sort of trouble with scarf keldeo unless they pack tenta on every team (and keep him alive long enough and in good enough health to eat a hydro pump late game). Specs also tears through just about everything, though it's much easier to revenge, as is CM (which can have a nice little niche).
I'm having trouble coming up with paper arguments for Keldeo, but it's one of those Pokemon that does much better in practice than it does on paper. Like I mentioned earlier, it almost plays out like a swift swimmer. Bring it in at the right time and spam surf/hydro pump while being too fast to revenge and being able to eat most priority. The speed, power, and difficulty to revenge are what push it over the edge for me.
What I think is so good about Keldeo is that he pretty much does the same thing that swift swimmers were able to do in early BW. He's insanely fast with scarf and can spam a boosted surf/hydro pump backed up with good coverage from secret sword. Admittedly, it'd be nicer if he had Ice Beam, but hp ice/icy wind is usually enough to revenge most of the dragons. Scarf Keldeo is probably the number one problem Pokemon for weatherless offense. It almost makes the entire playstyle unviable. You're limited to using Scarf Latios as your check/counter (or going for the tie with terrak or your own keldeo) or risk being dominated, and even then you're going to be hard-pressed to switch in to rain-boosted hydro pumps. I don't like Pokemon that shut down an entire playstyle, and the next closest thing to Keldeo in this regard is Venusaur, which is much easier to check.
Outside dominating weatherless offense, Keldeo is still a beast of a pony. Rain teams are going to have the same sort of trouble with scarf keldeo unless they pack tenta on every team (and keep him alive long enough and in good enough health to eat a hydro pump late game). Specs also tears through just about everything, though it's much easier to revenge, as is CM (which can have a nice little niche).
I'm having trouble coming up with paper arguments for Keldeo, but it's one of those Pokemon that does much better in practice than it does on paper. Like I mentioned earlier, it almost plays out like a swift swimmer. Bring it in at the right time and spam surf/hydro pump while being too fast to revenge and being able to eat most priority. The speed, power, and difficulty to revenge are what push it over the edge for me.
I know a lot of people have been insisting that Torn-T isn't that good outside of the rain. They have a fair point, but I feel like they are still underselling him. Air Slash is not a bad STAB move to have, and he can always pack his Fighting coverage (or Heat Wave, which is arguably better for Torn-T outside of the rain), his stupid fast Taunt, and Regenerator.
But you guys are forgetting that rain is still the most common weather right now, common enough for some Pokes (Starmie and Magnezone are the two examples I've seen most often) to run Thunder over Thunderbolt just because the player using them sees rain that often. And a Tornadus-T in the rain is about as hard to stop, in my stupid insane analogy, as Garchomp with Sand Veil. The buff in difficulty to stop/power/holy shitness is roughly analogous for the two. We all know now that Garchomp without Sand Veil is very much OU material, what with him only being fast, bulky, and powerful, but not too much in any extreme. Give him Sand Veil and he has too much of an edge. I believe the same is true of Tornadus-T; he's too much to handle with permanent rain available.
In much the same vein as we removed Garchomp from the equation before we removed Sand Veil, I suggest we remove Tornadus-T from the equation because we are not looking at Drizzle right now.
But you guys are forgetting that rain is still the most common weather right now, common enough for some Pokes (Starmie and Magnezone are the two examples I've seen most often) to run Thunder over Thunderbolt just because the player using them sees rain that often. And a Tornadus-T in the rain is about as hard to stop, in my stupid insane analogy, as Garchomp with Sand Veil. The buff in difficulty to stop/power/holy shitness is roughly analogous for the two. We all know now that Garchomp without Sand Veil is very much OU material, what with him only being fast, bulky, and powerful, but not too much in any extreme. Give him Sand Veil and he has too much of an edge. I believe the same is true of Tornadus-T; he's too much to handle with permanent rain available.
In much the same vein as we removed Garchomp from the equation before we removed Sand Veil, I suggest we remove Tornadus-T from the equation because we are not looking at Drizzle right now.
There is no possible way to stop Tornadus-T from doing what it does once it gets a free switch. Other U-turn/Volt Switch users eventually die from sandstorm, hazards, etc whatever, not Tornadus-T.
Hurricane is the best offensive move in the game with rain up, along with U-turn and a fighting move for perfect coverage. Not to mention it can run Sleep Talk since it doesn't have 4mss.
I don't think any other Pokemon in OU can boast a better kit than this.
Hurricane is the best offensive move in the game with rain up, along with U-turn and a fighting move for perfect coverage. Not to mention it can run Sleep Talk since it doesn't have 4mss.
- Fastest Viable Pokemon in OU
- Hardest Pokemon to switch into bar Terrakion
- Best ability in the game
- U-Turn
- Coverage is not an issue
- STAB Hurricane
I don't think any other Pokemon in OU can boast a better kit than this.
Okay, a couple of arguments which are being thrown around that are very flawed, in my opinion:
Tornadus-T + Ferrothorn is broken, because Ferrothorn sets up free Spikes on all of Tornadus-T's counters:
First of all, whether the above statement is true or not is very disputable as it is. SubCM Jirachi outright sets up on and murders both. However, more importantly, why are we basing a potential banning of Tornadus-T on its performance when it's used with another Pokemon? How do you know that Tornadus-T is the culprit? Why is Ferrothorn not the broken party? There is no way to tell, reasonably, the right answer to this question (please don't give me shit like Tornadus-T has 120 BP Hurricane, blah blah blah because that says nothing about why it's broken, that's just telling me what it can do). You cannot ban a Pokemon for being broken because of its performance in a combo/team archetype. If you could, EVERY SIGNIFICANT Pokemon in the game could potentially be broken because there WILL be a team that you can use that Pokemon in way that it can destroy teams. When we talk about how broken a Pokemon is, we base its performance on its own, or in standard battle conditions. Which brings me to my next point:
Rain is NOT so common that they can be considered to be standard battle conditions. I know rain is probably the best weather condition out there and Ferrothorn is a great Pokemon, but they are not used SO commonly that they can be considered a given in every battle. Stealth Rock is what we call "standard battle conditions". Rain, while common and dominant, is still held in check by sun / sand / hail.
Tornadus-T outlasts its counters due to Regenerator / U-turn:
Maybe I'm not getting the proper meaning of this, but isn't the point of every Pokemon battle to have your team "outlast" the opposing team? So what? Does this mean your team is more "broken" than the opponents? If Tornadus-T could not "outlast" its counters, it would be a pretty shit Pokemon, wouldn't it? In all seriousness, it fails to even do that sometimes. Jirachi can use Wish to heal itself, Rotom-W can use Pain Split, Zapdos can use Roost. You can tell me that Tornadus-T can use Taunt to prevent Wish / Roost, but are you seriously telling me you'd risk staying in on Body Slam / Thunderbolt / Volt Switch? If you pulled that off, it's more due to your smart play than the brokenness of Tornadus-T.
Tornadus-T + Ferrothorn is broken, because Ferrothorn sets up free Spikes on all of Tornadus-T's counters:
First of all, whether the above statement is true or not is very disputable as it is. SubCM Jirachi outright sets up on and murders both. However, more importantly, why are we basing a potential banning of Tornadus-T on its performance when it's used with another Pokemon? How do you know that Tornadus-T is the culprit? Why is Ferrothorn not the broken party? There is no way to tell, reasonably, the right answer to this question (please don't give me shit like Tornadus-T has 120 BP Hurricane, blah blah blah because that says nothing about why it's broken, that's just telling me what it can do). You cannot ban a Pokemon for being broken because of its performance in a combo/team archetype. If you could, EVERY SIGNIFICANT Pokemon in the game could potentially be broken because there WILL be a team that you can use that Pokemon in way that it can destroy teams. When we talk about how broken a Pokemon is, we base its performance on its own, or in standard battle conditions. Which brings me to my next point:
Rain is NOT so common that they can be considered to be standard battle conditions. I know rain is probably the best weather condition out there and Ferrothorn is a great Pokemon, but they are not used SO commonly that they can be considered a given in every battle. Stealth Rock is what we call "standard battle conditions". Rain, while common and dominant, is still held in check by sun / sand / hail.
Tornadus-T outlasts its counters due to Regenerator / U-turn:
Maybe I'm not getting the proper meaning of this, but isn't the point of every Pokemon battle to have your team "outlast" the opposing team? So what? Does this mean your team is more "broken" than the opponents? If Tornadus-T could not "outlast" its counters, it would be a pretty shit Pokemon, wouldn't it? In all seriousness, it fails to even do that sometimes. Jirachi can use Wish to heal itself, Rotom-W can use Pain Split, Zapdos can use Roost. You can tell me that Tornadus-T can use Taunt to prevent Wish / Roost, but are you seriously telling me you'd risk staying in on Body Slam / Thunderbolt / Volt Switch? If you pulled that off, it's more due to your smart play than the brokenness of Tornadus-T.
I think what people are getting at with Regenerator and U-turn is that it's as easy as pressing the button and you get free longevity. It's similar to the problem with had with Genesect: Press U-turn to win. Only with Torn-T the problem is "Press Hurricane until something that can take it comes in, then press U-turn. Repeat until victory has been attained." It's rewarding poor playing.
Just something that's confusing me: People say Tornadus-T is useless/underwhelming outside of Rain because then Hurricane has 70% Accuracy... what about Excadrill without Sand, or even Swift Swimmers without Rain (except for Kingdra, he could afford setting up its own rain)? I mean, even Ninetales could revenge kill Excadrill because it was just so slow.
I've had a couple of battles with tornadus-t in oucurrent, and it has been moderately manageable, but certainly a challenge to remove. (When i speak of torn-t, I talk only of LO. I have never run into a specs set). I've only really lost to two teams holding this birdy, but it's always really frustrating and annoying in any case (IMO). In one battle, I took out rain, and set up sunny day. It u-turned my heatran, and i koed the switch in with fire blast. but then it comes back, and right when i switch to skarm knowing i have a superpower coming, it taunts. My skarm is useless, so i switch out to gastro, knowing it can take a u-turn at full health. it u-turns, i survive, and in comes celebi. I head to latias since i know its a CM set and in comes tornadus-t. I had no idea if it would taunt or u-turn. I aimed for a sub, fearing u-turn, and in comes taunt. It literally had an answer to everything my team had coming, and it just pivoted back and forth to things that would counter what i sent out. Luckily, Gastrodon got an Ice Beam on it later on, but all it had to do was u-turn out, and it was back to around 60-70% health again, and i was against celebi once again.
The difficult thing with this is that it is so damn versatile in its role. It may have a predictable movepool, but it is pretty unpredictable in what it will do with it. If you have a defensive counter out, it just taunts or u-turns out. When it senses a priority, it switches out and regenerates. When you have a slower pokemon, it switches out with u-turn and returns with an appropriate counter. And if rain is up, you're spammed with hurricane.
It might not be powerful out of rain, but it's ability to act as a pivot that wears down your pokemon is certainly undeniably. I know its easy to take care of with the right conditions, but going through all this to remove ONE pokemon is just too much. By the time you kill it, you'll be worn out and the rest of the team will take you out. And while this isn't true for all battles, I am sure there are a good number of players that experience this.
The difficult thing with this is that it is so damn versatile in its role. It may have a predictable movepool, but it is pretty unpredictable in what it will do with it. If you have a defensive counter out, it just taunts or u-turns out. When it senses a priority, it switches out and regenerates. When you have a slower pokemon, it switches out with u-turn and returns with an appropriate counter. And if rain is up, you're spammed with hurricane.
It might not be powerful out of rain, but it's ability to act as a pivot that wears down your pokemon is certainly undeniably. I know its easy to take care of with the right conditions, but going through all this to remove ONE pokemon is just too much. By the time you kill it, you'll be worn out and the rest of the team will take you out. And while this isn't true for all battles, I am sure there are a good number of players that experience this.
My problem is that Excadrill / Swift Swimmers were so ridiculously broken inside / outside of sand / rain that it was prudent to ban them. On the other hand, Tornadus-T isn't THAT overpowered even in the rain, while outside of it, it is just totally unremarkable.
Anyway, a couple of things I was thinking about today about Tornadus-T. There are two cases that are sort of similar in the past: DPP UU Crobat and DPP Latias. Both were fast hard hitters but were not blatantly overpowered like some other BL / OU Pokemon were / are. Crobat was fast, could abuse Brave Bird easily, use Roost to heal itself and U-turn out just like Tornadus-T could. Latias used her bulk to spam powerful Draco Meteor / Surf to break down defensive Pokemon. Lets just look at Tornadus-T's advantages over both with respect to their metagames:
Against Crobat:
- Regenerator means it doesn't have to waste a turn using Roost
- Hurricane doesn't take recoil
- Has better 2 move coverage
- Not as crippled by status (especially burn)
Against Latias:
- Not Pursuit weak
- Regenerator
- Main spamming attack does not drop Special Attack
However, there are also disadvantages:
Crobat was better in these ways:
- Not weather dependent
- Actually outsped every non-Scarfer (except for Electrode at the time), while Tornadus-T is outsped by a couple of pretty decent Pokemon (Weavile / Jolteon).
- Roost - While needing an extra turn to use, it actually allowed Crobat to take down potential counters without having to switch-out at all (eg against Registeel and Weezing, he could just Taunt, Brave Bird, Roost if necessary, rinse and repeat).
- Actually has significant resistances (Shaymin, Gallade, Roserade, etc)
Latias was better in these ways:
- Not weather dependent
- Could actually cripple EVERY ONE of its counters with a timely Trick, something which Tornadus-T could only skirt around with U-turn.
- Was ridiculously bulky and also had significant resistances which made half the metagame a liability to it.
- Coverage move was actually spammable - Latias generally had nothing to lose when spamming Surf, Tyranitar and Scizor risked getting killed by it, so Pursuit was a risky move.
- Could run a whole bunch of very viable sets - Specs was the best, but it was also able to run Scarf, Life Orb + 3 attacks, Calm Mind (offensive and balanced), defensive and support sets.
So in the end, I think what brings Tornadus-T down and stops it being broken are the two things in which I bolded. Like I said in my previous post, rain is not that common that it can be classified as standard battle conditions, which means it is still significant support. The other important thing about the other two Pokemon that pushed them over the edge, was the fact that had way more safe switch-ins that Tornadus-T did. Crobat had numerous resistances (especially 4x resistances), and serviceable bulk in the UU tier. It was also able to defeat a number of seeming checks without having to switch-out. Latias had a bunch of resistances (Fire/Water/Grass core ONLY got a new lease on life AFTER her banning) as well as huge special bulk, allowing her to switch in repeatedly into attacks and nuking stuff. Tornadus-T really needs to be careful switching into attacks, since it's not very bulky, and its main resistance, Fighting, isn't much of a resistance when shit like Breloom 2HKOes you with Low Sweep + Bullet Seed and Terrakion just destroys you with CB Close Combat. It's relatively safe coming in for a revenge, but hey, pretty much every Pokemon is.
1 | Politoed | 4818 | 27.431% | 4425 | 30.230%
9 | Tyranitar | 2267 | 12.907% | 2025 | 13.834%
So... 1/3 of times your opponent will show up it's own rain for you. While only the 2/10 of times your opponent will carry other weather caster, only the 20% of times you'll have to battle a weather war in order to retain rain, and you know, Tyranitar and Ninetales are weak to water, so, on those 20% of times, you have the type-advantage to win the weather war, so, let's even put the worst scenary of 50/50 chance to win the weather war (everyone knows that rain usually wins it, and Tornadus-T helps even futher to it)... only the 10% of times Tornadus-T will be out from rain, while on the 90% of times he'll spam it's overpowered Hurricanes, and will just flee of it's counters (less Jolteon) with U-Turn while he's not having damage at all from hazards because Regenerator (and if Stealth Rock if out from play, he'll even recover 30% of it's health on place of 5%).
Yes, Rain is predominant, and yes, Rain is the best weather. This have to taken in account while we talk about Tornadus-T, because Rain will not be used less unless it's best abussers are out from the tier, and even then it's powerful as hell (Kyogre and friend are the prime force on Ubers from it's born).
And even then, Tornadus-T is not 100% useless outside of Rain, like others said before, Air Slash is still powerful because it's almost not resisted on the tier, it also do have a dandy handy flinch rate. Tornadus-T still have it's Taunt, making him the best wallbreaker and taunter of the game, and he still have it's ability and it's inmunities to spikes, making him able to scout a high ammount of times on mid match, and to just wreak havoc, flee from it's counters, and stuff. So, even outside of rain (only 1/10 of times at best), if SR is up, he's still the best wallbreaker of the tier and the best scouter currently available, and if SR is down, he's almost invencible unless the opponent carries multiple checks or Tornadus-T is the last standing Pokémon of the team.
In other words, a team with Tornadus-T have an important higher chance to win than a team without him, with the actual metagame, of course, but the actual metagame will not change at all, except because introducing somewhat horrible counters and checks just for him, or just starting to overcentralizing him with the time, because that fact.
Note: And just to make it clear, I'm not using the usage-stats as a main argument, because, for example, let's say Tyranitar is used 20% of times, Ninetales 14% of times, and Abomasnow 1% of times, it's still a really slow chance of 35% to start a weather war, where if you lose the 50% of times (unrealistic, actually), he'll still have rain up on the 83.50% of times.
Comparing Tornadus-T to Crobat and Latias in GEN 4 is just as bad as if not worse than comparing it to Jolteon. It doesn't even prove your point, since both were considered broken by non-quantifiable amounts.
It's dubious enough to argue "X is powerful in Metagame 1, and Y is not as powerful in Metagame 2; X is not broken; therefore, Y is not broken."
Even more illogical is the premise of your post, which is essentially, "X is powerful in Metagame 1, and Y is not as powerful in Metagame 2; X is broken; therefore, Y is not broken." It is completely fallacious.
Having said that, I want to request a moratorium on comparisons such as these, since they are nearly always needlessly roundabout ways of arguing a point that devolve into detail nitpicking and detract from legitimate metagame discussion.
I haven't really ever gave my opinions on the suspects so here they are.
Keldeo is far from broken. Keldeo is an incredible pokemon without a doubt; just not broken. Keldeo's Specs set is the main argument for banning Keldeo and it is still isn't too overwhelming to work around Specs Keldeo aside from it really hurting. It can get revenged anyway very simply. There are some pokes in the meta that really get a free kill if put into the right situation. That's kinda a thing about BW2 OU. There are so many threats roaming about ready to do gigantic damage on the right situation. The typical BW2 OU match really is just trying to get yourself into that situation where you can clean up on the opponent/ break a wall to sweep.
Tornadus-T on the other hand is broken IMO. It can really outlive its counters thanks to regenerator and U-turn. Most walls can't switch in forever and Tornadus-T is very good at finding itself in the winning situation in the "typical" BW2 OU match. I just find its counters (bar a few) not reliable enough.
Keldeo is far from broken. Keldeo is an incredible pokemon without a doubt; just not broken. Keldeo's Specs set is the main argument for banning Keldeo and it is still isn't too overwhelming to work around Specs Keldeo aside from it really hurting. It can get revenged anyway very simply. There are some pokes in the meta that really get a free kill if put into the right situation. That's kinda a thing about BW2 OU. There are so many threats roaming about ready to do gigantic damage on the right situation. The typical BW2 OU match really is just trying to get yourself into that situation where you can clean up on the opponent/ break a wall to sweep.
Tornadus-T on the other hand is broken IMO. It can really outlive its counters thanks to regenerator and U-turn. Most walls can't switch in forever and Tornadus-T is very good at finding itself in the winning situation in the "typical" BW2 OU match. I just find its counters (bar a few) not reliable enough.
Hell pretty much all pokemon can rip apart your team if you're not prepared for it. Run a heavy specially offensive team and a Chancey can completely destroy you.
^ He can just U-Turn your Chansey; then your Chansey suffers a lot, and is destroyed by anything with decent physical attacks or Pyshock. The only prediction needed: Chansey will fail Toxic or launch a Seismic Toss? 1. If toxic, just change to something who doesn't care about it or can bounce it back, or can heal it up. 2. If Seismic Toss, to any Pokémon with high HP, or recovery moves, or regenerator, or a ghost. Oh, and yeah, if you dislike to predict and if you have a Gengar, just use him, or just use any Pokémon who doesn't care at all about either.
I can't see how a pokemon can be broken on the basis that it's "scarf" set is broken. At the end of the day you're locking yourself into one move.. if Latias switches into an icy wind.. just switch back out into an ice resist.. Jellicent takes a specs HP ghost? check it with a ghost resist. In a metagame where there is a water + fighting resist on almost every team, Keldeo can't be "broken" by considering it's scarf set. Albeit I can see where you're coming from when you say that its difficult for hyperoffense to deal with a scarfed Keldeo in rain. That said, salamence is in a similar position with its scarfed set with the exception of it actually being revenge-able by scizor and mamoswine due to a SR weakness.
If Keldeo was to be considered "broken", I would say it would be broken on the basis that not a lot of pokemon can take two rounds of life orb boosted Keldeo hits, I seriously believe (after testing a lot) that it's LO + Taunt set is the most broken as it's counters are few and far between (252 hp Latias/Sp Def Celebi/Amoonguss/Toxicroak). To iterate my point consider my current 25-2 win/loss featuring a life orb keldeo with NO politoed partner.
That said, I don't find Keldeo broken at all, at least not to the point of banishing it to ubers, she really has created a more interesting metagame as opposed to Tornadus.. who made Jirachi even MORE common then it was and indirectly made specially offensive landorus useless in tandem with Keldeo thanks to specially defensive rotoms and celebi's popping up on every other team.
I am still surprised that despite these threats allegedly being "overpowered" due to rain and everyone criticising the ease with which they deal with hyper offense.. Jirachi has still not been nominated for consideration! I'll stay on topic though and argue that Tornadus-T is overpowered to the point that it has only a few checks that can ALL be worn out or lured by his teammates and it has quite literally 2 or 3 viable OU "counters", but that depends on how you define a counter.
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