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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 1 - ...wait, I'm not Jumpman16!

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What I am saying is that Cloyster can cover Rain's weaknesses well, and the bossted Hydro Pump means he can invest pretty much entirely in attack also, saying "Just don't let him set up" is absurd. Pokemon can get set up on. Like say you have a Nattorei and you finish something of with Gyro Ball. Cloyster switches in. You can't stop it from setting up, as a neutral Gyro Ball to something with that high defense will do very little, and then your team gets swept

Uninvested Nattorei Power Whip vs. -1 uninvested Cloyster (don't forget Nattorei hits it AFTER it sets up) has a 38% chance of an OHKO.

Safe setup my arse.
 
1) Doesn't that fact that Swift Swim isn't the only "broken" thing seem suspicious. Manaphy is broken as well, due to Drizzle. Clearly, rain makes multiple things "broken". So why ban every little thing instead of a single ban which would alleviate the need to neuter many other pokemon. People are basically saying that we should ban a bunch of things broken in rain, simply so that rain can exist.
Ban the things or their ability? Kingdra has agility son...& Dragon dance... yeah Kingdra is as fast as it god damn wants to be. Without Swift Swim, Kingdra may just have to set up to sweep...which is the EXACT same thing it will do if you ban drizzle since it will need rain dance set up. A turn is still being used regardless.
Drizzle benefits MANY pokemon not just Swift Swimmers. Parasect, All hydration users, all rain dish users, anyone who wants fire damage reduced (Bronzong), anyone who carries a water move.
The total list of pokemon who benefit from rain period whether Drizzle or RD is higher than those who just use swift swim. You weaken the affect all those pokemon who benefit in rain if you force them to use RD to get that benefit..


2) This goes in with the above. If Smogon likes to ban as few things as possible, then why shouldn't we do that. If we ban Drizzle, Politoed is neutered and Rain Stall dies. If we ban Swift Swim, many mons are neutered and Rain Offense dies. Either way, a playstyle dies, but we neuter fewer mons by banning Drizzle. We end up with fewer bans and and a just-as-good end result.
Rain offence does not die. That's a misconception. That's like saying Fire pokemon don't do well in Sunny day because it's not boosting their speed, only their stab. The STAB boost on rain is already an offensive benefit.
Oh and Empoleon has higher SpA than Kingdra....gets agility.
Kingdra gets agility & Rain dance. No Rain offence does not die, it changes.
With infinite rain it's still hardly "weak". If Swift swim goes, Rain Offence gets reworked but survives and rain stall exists. So both rain offense & rain stall exist.


3) Analogy time. Inconsistent Bibarel is broken, right? However, pretend that when we ban Inconsistent, Simple turns out to be broken. We could ban it, since Bibarel also has Unaware. But the fact that more than one ability would be broken on it suggests that it is Bibarel which is broken, not the abilities on it. Now, we don't ban pokemon+ability combos, so this analogy seems flawed. But my point remains intact. Repeating number 1, if mulyiple things are broken in rain, then perhaps rain is the broken thing.
Name all the things in rain that are broken without swift swim.
What Manaphy...and? What Vaporeon? No one bitches about Vaporeon so what? Manaphy and...? Parasect? People say it's amazing and rain but they're not calling it broken. Whats broken in rain when swift swim is gone?


I may have been repetitive, but I'm trying to say that banning Speed boosting abilities would be a dire mistake in this stage of metagame-development.
Because what?
If you ban Drizzle it's just favouring Rain offense, it's a bias towards that.
If you ban swift swim it's a bias to...everything else, knowing that Rain offense will still exist in some form, as the damage boosting qualities of rain REMAIN. I don't want to be rude, theres definitely a point that you and everyone else are making by saying to go after Drizzle itself, but if you remove swift swim that should also be a viable alternative to addressing the rain issue, while keeping rain offense, stall & any other teams using rain for support.



Unless you feel rain offense is not viable at all without break neck speed pokemon. No swift swimmers learn thunder so who's missing out on the always accurate thunder if drizzle is banned? Not swift swimmers.

When you remove drizzle from 5th gen you are removing more than just infinite manaphy hydration or the sweeper's having their speed boosts forever.

Rain dish users take a hit
Hydration users
Pokemon that want reduced fire damage
Synthesis, morning sun and moonlight have more chances to do their full heal.
Thunder's not always at peak accuracy
Dry skin users take a hit
Water damage is not as high

If you remove swift swim, all that remains but the sweeping potential is brought down to reasonable levels when you consider the benefits that they're getting.
Kingdra has to either outspeed only what pokemon under 85 base speed...or it can carry agility or Dragon dance.
Floatzel's naturally fast...and still has agility.

Rain offense isn't going to die when they still have an infinite power boost to their moves.
You allow a lot more things to be competitive if you keep drizzle, and tone down the ridiculousness of current rain when you remove swift swim.
Oh and for those swift swimmers that are slow?
With infinite rain, you can still run trick room sets.
Yeah everyone on Rain still has a place in rain. It's just Rain would naturally adapt to the loss of swift swim.
Which isn't going to be hard when the rain is infinite.
 
When you remove drizzle from 5th gen you are removing more than just infinite manaphy hydration or the sweeper's having their speed boosts forever.

Rain dish users take a hit
Hydration users
Pokemon that want reduced fire damage
Synthesis, morning sun and moonlight have more chances to do their full heal.
Thunder's not always at peak accuracy
Dry skin users take a hit
Water damage is not as high

If you remove swift swim, all that remains but the sweeping potential is brought down to reasonable levels when you consider the benefits that they're getting.
Kingdra has to either outspeed only what pokemon under 85 base speed...or it can carry agility or Dragon dance.
Floatzel's naturally fast...and still has agility.

Rain offense isn't going to die when they still have an infinite power boost to their moves.
You allow a lot more things to be competitive if you keep drizzle, and tone down the ridiculousness of current rain when you remove swift swim.
Oh and for those swift swimmers that are slow?
With infinite rain, you can still run trick room sets.
Yeah everyone on Rain still has a place in rain. It's just Rain would naturally adapt to the loss of swift swim.
Which isn't going to be hard when the rain is infinite.

really just start w/ manaphy + kingdra w/o those 2 rain offense becomes much more manageable.
 
Gonna have to chime in with Banning Auto-Weather to Ubers. It worked last Gen with Kyogre and Groudon; shouldn't be too different this time around.

Ubers: Darkrai, Skymin, Manaphy, Deoxys, Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream, and Snow Warning.

Perma-Ban: Inconsistent.



If you want a Rain Team, do it the old-fashioned way. Same for the others; Dory's not nearly so dangerous when you're down a Poke for setting it up.
 
Perma-Ban: Inconsistent.

I hope you do realize that in Ubers, Inconsistent can still be used. AKA Ubers isn't a true metagame, it's just a banlist.

Moving on, I just want to put my two cents that I would rather see Politoed banned, with its Drizzle, considering how Rain seems to be quite the prevalent weather for most teams. Of course, I didn't even make the cut-off anyway, so... Meh.
 
I don't subscribe to the idea that banning Drizzle will make Sandstorm teams more common. Sandstorm teams are not perfect, and just because someone uses one weather team does not mean he or she is naturally predisposed to running weather teams in general. Sand offense and stall will always be good. Perma-rain is OP in many ways, and should not be kept just as a deterrent to sandstorm teams. There are many strats to counter and break apart sand teams (eg. Breloom), whereas fighting rain teams frequently requires one to do away with the rain to have much of a chance. The reason Rain is unbalanced is that Perma-rain has many more abusers than sandstorm. Randorosu either has to deal with low speed or just not quite enough power, and Doryuuzu can be relatively easily dealt with by things like Hippo or Skarm (or Breloom), or anything with a strong, unresisted priority. While it is yet to be seen if Doryuuzu will be deemed imbalanced, the absolute deluge of Swift Swimmers with the ability to use Belly Drum, or just fire off Specs STAB rain-boosted Hydro Pumps with +2 speed is clearly more powerful
 
I hope you do realize that in Ubers, Inconsistent can still be used. AKA Ubers isn't a true metagame, it's just a banlist.

Moving on, I just want to put my two cents that I would rather see Politoed banned, with its Drizzle, considering how Rain seems to be quite the prevalent weather for most teams. Of course, I didn't even make the cut-off anyway, so... Meh.


Why ban a Pokemon when its the ability that makes the Pokemon broken (In a lot peoples minds)?

From my experience, its not Politoed that's broken, its not even the rain that's broken. As much I hate facing Rain Dance teams, I find that Manaphy is the only, truly broken Pokemon.

Same goes for Sandstream. There is nothing broken about T-tar, Hippowdon. I have not faced, nor have I seen a Sandslash in a sandstream team, but I have faced my share of Doryuuzu's. I know all to well about how Doryuuzu can sweep a team after a Swords Dance if you don't have a check. I've been seeing my fair share of Azumarill lately. I know from experience that Azumarill can kill off Doryuuzu no problem.

Sandstream is not worthy of a ban. Doryuuzu, IMO, should stay suspect for next round. I don't even care to talk about Drought.



 
I hope you do realize that in Ubers, Inconsistent can still be used. AKA Ubers isn't a true metagame, it's just a banlist.

Moving on, I just want to put my two cents that I would rather see Politoed banned, with its Drizzle, considering how Rain seems to be quite the prevalent weather for most teams. Of course, I didn't even make the cut-off anyway, so... Meh.

I guess he meant something like a Clause.
 
Sandstream is not worthy of a ban. Doryuuzu, IMO, should stay suspect for next round. I don't even care to talk about Drought.

That's because Drought is literally the butt monkey of the weather quartet. Sand and Rain, really, are consistently the best of the weathers.

And well, in the case of Politoed, I'd rather just see the perma-rain gone, considering how every Swift Swimmer and its momma can wreck teams apart if they don't have any means of changing the weather themselves. Sure, you could argue they could set up Rain again, but remember this: Before we had Politoed and its ability, it was just an 8-turn deal. Now, it's permanent, which of course, is troublesome when you have Kabutops and Floatzel running around and tearing teams apart, and that's not even getting into Manaphy.

If we could ban abilities, then by all means, let's get rid of Drizzle. If not, let's take away Politoed. And in a similar vein, why not take away Doryuzu's Sand Throw, and let it have its Sand Power, considering it appears that the steel mole's speed is what allowing it to sweep nigh-on effortlessly once it gets in.

I guess he meant something like a Clause.

Makes sense I suppose. Then again, I was half-under the impression that literally anything goes in Ubers. Could be wrong by that, ah well.
 
If we could ban abilities, then by all means, let's get rid of Drizzle. If not, let's take away Politoed. And in a similar vein, why not take away Doryuzu's Sand Throw, and let it have its Sand Power, considering it appears that the steel mole's speed is what allowing it to sweep nigh-on effortlessly once it gets in.

But then we'd have to ban Sand Throw on everything; we're not going to do "pokémon+ability" bans, only "pokémon OR ability" bans. So, we may ban "Politoed" or "Drizzle", but not "Politoed with Drizzle".


Makes sense I suppose. Then again, I was half-under the impression that literally anything goes in Ubers. Could be wrong by that, ah well.

All Clauses take effect in all tiers. This issue was brought up a few months (years) ago in PR, iirc, but I guess it didn't change the status quo.
 
Why ban a Pokemon when its the ability that makes the Pokemon broken (In a lot peoples minds)?

From my experience, its not Politoed that's broken, its not even the rain that's broken. As much I hate facing Rain Dance teams, I find that Manaphy is the only, truly broken Pokemon.

Same goes for Sandstream. There is nothing broken about T-tar, Hippowdon. I have not faced, nor have I seen a Sandslash in a sandstream team, but I have faced my share of Doryuuzu's. I know all to well about how Doryuuzu can sweep a team after a Swords Dance if you don't have a check. I've been seeing my fair share of Azumarill lately. I know from experience that Azumarill can kill off Doryuuzu no problem.

Sandstream is not worthy of a ban. Doryuuzu, IMO, should stay suspect for next round. I don't even care to talk about Drought.



There are many other pokes that are broken with the help of perma-Rain
 
I hope you do realize that in Ubers, Inconsistent can still be used. AKA Ubers isn't a true metagame, it's just a banlist.

Moving on, I just want to put my two cents that I would rather see Politoed banned, with its Drizzle, considering how Rain seems to be quite the prevalent weather for most teams. Of course, I didn't even make the cut-off anyway, so... Meh.

I still think the traditional thinking of Ubers being merely a banlist instead of an actual seperate identity is a load of bull and outdated ever since at least the third gen with the introduction of enough viable uber pokes and things to work with/against them to actually create a game. It was definitely a ban list in 1 and 2 when it was just Mew/Mewtwo/Lugia/Ho-Oh but now there are so many it creates it's own game and niches of rain and sun teams, bp teams, set up sweepers like Rayquaza/Groudon/Arceus or special Kyogre/Arceus/Mewtwo etc.

I mean it has it's own (large enough) pool of players, tournaments, and everything with a multitude of strategies and sweepers and pokes. It is actually more diverse than the OU metagame (what with the BL ubers who were rarely used there and assumed potential OU but now it is clear they aren't okay in OU due to extreme power and overcentralization of needing counters to stop them and having ridiculous power that makes it even harder to stop and Rain/Sand domination, and how does it make sense to move something off the banlist for not being used without the banlist in effect if it was just a banlist? It would have permanently remained there if it was merely a banlist, despite little usage in the no-banlist metagame which according to traditional thinking, wouldn't have existed or counted in the first place.) since it has two very viable weather pokes, Sand is held horribly in check there, and Sun/Rain teams dominate although it is possible to play without one due to Dual weather attacking pokes like Palkia and things that don't need/rely on weather. Rayquaza also clears weather. Actually, it is way more balanced when compared to OU with Weather and "BL" Uber Nightmares and Doryuzu. In OU, there really isn't much that could deal with both at the same time and stopping one often means being horribly vulnerable to another and cause over stress on one Poke who if killed (Nattorei against rain, Skarmory/Weezing, priority for Doryuzu), means you're dead.

And when playing the Ubers tier (damn it, it is a tier despite what tradition says, it is just playing with faulty semantics to justify it being otherwise. The maxim "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, acts like a duck, then it probably is a duck" or something like that applies here.), it will play with clauses like Sleep Clause, Evasion Clause, etc. You can't ban something from a ban list and by "it's just a ban list", you'd probably be seeing unlimited sleep and double team everywhere. Darkrai would destroy that tier with Dark Void and whether or not anyone who doesn't play ubers cares for that, those who want too certainly wouldn't like that. Inconsistent Passing would also be beyond broken in any tier, hence an all across clause like Sleep and Evasion.

-Edit: If you ban one weather ability, you have to ban them collectively unfortunately. While the power of Sun has hitherto been mostly unseen due to Sand and Rain having much better weather starters prominently and Ninetails being a fairly weak and average poke in itself, without Rain dominating, Sand would overtake it with pokes like Doryuzu, Landlos, Garchomp, Sandslash, as well as TWO awesome sand starters Tyranitar and Hippowdon and neither a rain nor a sand dominated metagame is much fun. But Sand has grown to such power that it needs to really be looked at as well as rain since it has insanely fast strong Pokemon as well to abuse the sand. Doryuzu broke the speed barrier wide open, FORCING priority and Sacrifices to stop him and Ditto isn't as viable as a counter since it is easy to see Choice Scarf Earthquake coming and switch to Landlos/Gliscor and Doryuzu is insane with Life Orb (special defensive Weezing can get 2 hit koed by flinch and max hp/max def Weezing is 2 hit koed by Sand. 348 def Skarmory can be 2 hit koed with Stealth Rock so the only real counter is Gliscor although Adamant can 2 hit ko with Rock Slide assuming flinch and both hit and Gliscor takes Stealth Rock damage so even then...)

Besides, Dory will try to clean up after the priority users are gone and he is a nightmare then. Sand could potentially be up to par for banning if rain goes (since it is hard to switch in on each other Rain vrs Sand since Rain will have trouble switching in Politoad while Sand will have a really hard time getting Tyranitar/Hippowdon in due to having a weakness to everything a rain team has).

And without Rain and Sand, Sun will become Uber powerful as well with Solar Flare Charizard, Chlorophyll Venasaur, +2 Growths, Sun boosted Hidiharuma Flare Blitz...
 
But then we'd have to ban Sand Throw on everything; we're not going to do "pokémon+ability" bans, only "pokémon OR ability" bans. So, we may ban "Politoed" or "Drizzle", but not "Politoed with Drizzle".

Oh no, I MEANT the former, honestly. Sorry I didn't word that well, dude.

And in the case of Ubers being a metagame, well... I just think of it like BL: It's a banlist, and that's how it will always will be. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but that's how it always was since I've read most discussions on this forum.
 
comments in bold


Ban the things or their ability? Kingdra has agility son...& Dragon dance... yeah Kingdra is as fast as it god damn wants to be. Without Swift Swim, Kingdra may just have to set up to sweep...which is the EXACT same thing it will do if you ban drizzle since it will need rain dance set up. A turn is still being used regardless.
Drizzle benefits MANY pokemon not just Swift Swimmers. Parasect, All hydration users, all rain dish users, anyone who wants fire damage reduced (Bronzong), anyone who carries a water move.
The total list of pokemon who benefit from rain period whether Drizzle or RD is higher than those who just use swift swim. You weaken the affect all those pokemon who benefit in rain if you force them to use RD to get that benefit.

Yes, a turn is used regardless, but when using RD you don't lose your boosts every time you switch. Also, it's better that a mon who can take a load of hits use the set-up turn as opposed to the only slightly-bulky Kingdra, from the user's point of view.

Drizzle benefits many pokemon yes, but at the same time, more pokemon will be affected by the sudden lack of Swift Swim than those you mentioned. If you count up every Hydration, Rain Dish and Dry Skin pokemon, it's still less than Swift Swim. You hurt more than you help.


Rain offence does not die. That's a misconception. That's like saying Fire pokemon don't do well in Sunny day because it's not boosting their speed, only their stab. The STAB boost on rain is already an offensive benefit.
Oh and Empoleon has higher SpA than Kingdra....gets agility.
Kingdra gets agility & Rain dance. No Rain offence does not die, it changes.
With infinite rain it's still hardly "weak". If Swift swim goes, Rain Offence gets reworked but survives and rain stall exists. So both rain offense & rain stall exist.

Actually, rain offense does die. There's a reason pokemon like Kabutops are very rarely used outside of rain teams. They are simply hard-hitters who can't afford to be revenge-killed. Maybe Kingdra can take a hit, but without Swift Swim most rain sweepers end up being more trouble than they're worth on a team. In fact, Kingdra/Flaotzel are the only commonly-used rain sweepers who can boost their speed without Swift Swim.

And I fail to see how your Sunny Day analogy connects to anything. Please elaborate, as I believe that there is a viable argument somewhere in there. Same for your Empoleon reference.



Name all the things in rain that are broken without swift swim.
What Manaphy...and? What Vaporeon? No one bitches about Vaporeon so what? Manaphy and...? Parasect? People say it's amazing and rain but they're not calling it broken. Whats broken in rain when swift swim is gone?

I don't even think Swift Swim is broken in the rain. I'm simply defending it, not calling it broken.

Because what?
If you ban Drizzle it's just favouring Rain offense, it's a bias towards that.
If you ban swift swim it's a bias to...everything else, knowing that Rain offense will still exist in some form, as the damage boosting qualities of rain REMAIN. I don't want to be rude, theres definitely a point that you and everyone else are making by saying to go after Drizzle itself, but if you remove swift swim that should also be a viable alternative to addressing the rain issue, while keeping rain offense, stall & any other teams using rain for support.

Actually, favouring a minimal numbers of bans while limiting the things that are banned to the things that are actually broken. I once again argue with your rain offense statement. Sorry, but I just totally got distracted and forgot the rest of this argument.

Unless you feel rain offense is not viable at all without break neck speed pokemon. No swift swimmers learn thunder so who's missing out on the always accurate thunder if drizzle is banned? Not swift swimmers.

When you remove drizzle from 5th gen you are removing more than just infinite manaphy hydration or the sweeper's having their speed boosts forever.

Rain dish users take a hit- 4 of these
Hydration users- 9 of these
Pokemon that want reduced fire damage- You still get this with RD
Synthesis, morning sun and moonlight have more chances to do their full heal.- Let's ban unnecessary things in order to nerf 3 moves!
Thunder's not always at peak accuracy- You still get Thunder with RD
Dry skin users take a hit- 3 of these
Water damage is not as high- Once again, if you need the boost, there's RD

If you noticed, 4+3+9 = 17. There are 18 Swift Swimmers. We end up nerfing MORE pokemon by banning Swift Swim than Drizzle.

If you remove swift swim, all that remains but the sweeping potential is brought down to reasonable levels when you consider the benefits that they're getting.
Kingdra has to either outspeed only what pokemon under 85 base speed...or it can carry agility or Dragon dance.
Floatzel's naturally fast...and still has agility.

As I detailed, 3 of those are not at all hampered by banning Drizzle. Also, the power could also be brought down to manageable levels by banning Drizzle.

So it's okay to destroy all the other Swift Swimmers as long as Kingdra and Floatzel can still boost their speed? Well then, let's ban Sand Strenth in order to nerf Randorosu! After all, he still has SD, right?


Rain offense isn't going to die when they still have an infinite power boost to their moves.
You allow a lot more things to be competitive if you keep drizzle, and tone down the ridiculousness of current rain when you remove swift swim.
Oh and for those swift swimmers that are slow?
With infinite rain, you can still run trick room sets.
Yeah everyone on Rain still has a place in rain. It's just Rain would naturally adapt to the loss of swift swim.
Which isn't going to be hard when the rain is infinite.

To repeat myself, they aren't going to be sweeping much when they have pitiful speeds, even with the offense boost. Look at sun. Fire types have their offenses boosted, but because they don't ALSO get a speed boost, sun is practically non-existant. It would be completely non-existant with rain, due to the lack of variety which sun teams have.

By keeping Drizzle, we also have to make many more bans, simply to make sure that our favorite little things will be OU viable. Yes, Smogon wants the most diverse metagame possible, but banning things until we get there is not the answer. If it were, everyone would be playing NU.

Yes, because it's MUCH more viable to run the 5-turn Trick Room as opposed to the 8-turn Rain Dance.

Rain would "naturally adapt" by losing a major playsyle. And yes, it would be hard, regardless of the length of the rain.
 
Inconsistent shouldn't and probably won't be "banned" to Ubers. I would consider it to fall under the evasion clause, and just become outlawed entirely
 
Inconsistent shouldn't and probably won't be "banned" to Ubers. I would consider it to fall under the evasion clause, and just become outlawed entirely

I agree with this.


What I think should be banned.

Deoxys-A. Even though Extremely frail and that priority is its mortal weakness, Deoxys-A is just such a beast. A Deoxys-A with 404 speed and a Choice Scarf damn near outspeeds any and all Pokemon. It surely out speeds those who obtain 2x speed in weather, with the exception of a few that are rarely seen. Given that you gave that 404scarf set a speed nature, you are free to spread much more EV's into Atk/Sp.A.

T-Bolt
Ice Beam
Psycho Boost
Super Power

With a speed of 606 (thanks to scarf) and that set, Deoxys-A makes for one, if not the best checks for anything in the entire game.

Deoxys-N. For the same reason as Deoxys-A, just not AS powerful, but powerful enough.

Skymin: My reasoning will be nothing new. Incredible stats. A great double stab
(Seed Flare: Has a chance to sharply lower Sp.Def)
(Air Slash: With Serene Grace, Air Slash has a 60% chance to flinch.)

With Skymin, that's really all you need. You outspeed so many possible threats, with access to Sub and Leech seed, you have the option to stall out slower Pokemon, another reason why 60% to flinch makes Skymin worthy of a ban.

Manaphy: Drizzle gives Manaphy access to full recovery (HP and status) which makes stalling it impossible. Manaphy has access to Tail Glow (gives a +3 in Sp.A. Meaning it only takes two) and Calm Mind. Add that to the fact that manaphy can be somewhat bulky. Add this together and you have one difficult Pokemon on your hands.



 
Shadow Tag: Wabb can be broken in the right situation but Shandera has way more opportunities to come in and trap.

Shandera can come in on a Choiced Pokemon locked into a normal / fighting type move.
Shandera can come into Pokemon like Chansey / Blissey and any other bulky wall that can touch it after Shandera sets up a sub.

Once Shandera has trapped, he is either going to kill (Choice Scarf set) or set up Sub/Calm Mind.

Of course, there is still U-turn and Volt Change, but really, if Shandera is Scarfed, you just lost a Pokemon.

Shandera is not broken without Shadow Tag. Quite frankly, I think Shandera very much so sucks without Shadow Tag. Shandera is in no way worthy of a ban, its the ability that is broken.

Shandera doesn't have Shadow Tag yet.
This is Standard.
 
So every non-SS user would have to be screwed over if Drizzle is banned simply to preserve RD swift swim?

Actually, rain offense does die. There's a reason pokemon like Kabutops are very rarely used outside of rain teams. They are simply hard-hitters who can't afford to be revenge-killed. Maybe Kingdra can take a hit, but without Swift Swim most rain sweepers end up being more trouble than they're worth on a team. In fact, Kingdra/Flaotzel are the only commonly-used rain sweepers who can boost their speed without Swift Swim. [/quote].
Omastar can shell break, Gorebyss & huntail also can shell break. It's not just agility. White herb also helps maintain any durability they have.
Rain offence wouldn't be full of fast sweepers, but have some pokemon who can fast sweep, and others who would use the power boost of the rain in the first place to cause damage.
Rain offence, survives altered but not killed.

And I fail to see how your Sunny Day analogy connects to anything. Please elaborate, as I believe that there is a viable argument somewhere in there. Same for your Empoleon reference.
The connection is simple.
No fire pokemon learn sunny day, however fire pokemon are not made weak in sunny day despite the lack of a speed increase. Many fire pokemon are also frail, and yet have no speed boost to give them what Kabutops and the like get. The power boost of Water moves is enough to make Rain still offensive. The power of Fire moves in sun is enough to keep fire pokemon going.
Also Empoleon was mentioned because it can also attempt sweeps in and out of rain.

Naturally we don't want many bans but removing politoed removes play styles, while swift swims removal hinders a play style but does not remove it.

Even though you get the same boosts from rain with RD because RD is limited in duration, the effectiveness of those boosts suffer incomparison to Drizzle because they are not up at all times.

The randorosu statement doesn't hold from what I can see. If rain is broken then to maintain the most playstyles you get rid of SS.. Banning swift Swim is an attempt to preserve as much as possible while addressing the issue, it's not about saying SS users can just move on.

If you ban drizzle you say it's okay to let any rain dependent play-style suffer while SS can just use RD to get back some of it's glory. If you ban swift swim you say it's okay to let swift swim take a hit in order to preserve the most play-styles. Either way you look at it could be a "but I don't want that", easiest solution to those would be to leave both alone, however if rain has to be addressed then something has to be decided and theres more playing options from a swift swim ban.

Sun teams are non-existent right now because Rain is dwarfing them.
Rain team's don't need to run all water either to do rain offense, when Salamances hydro pump drops dents in hp's as well.

Glad we're talking about it though :P
 
I agree with this.​




What I think should be banned.​

Deoxys-A. Even though Extremely frail and that priority is its mortal weakness, Deoxys-A is just such a beast. A Deoxys-A with 404 speed and a Choice Scarf damn near outspeeds any and all Pokemon. It surely out speeds those who obtain 2x speed in weather, with the exception of a few that are rarely seen. Given that you gave that 404scarf set a speed nature, you are free to spread much more EV's into Atk/Sp.A.​

T-Bolt
Ice Beam
Psycho Boost
Super Power​

With a speed of 606 (thanks to scarf) and that set, Deoxys-A makes for one, if not the best checks for anything in the entire game.​

Deoxys-N. For the same reason as Deoxys-A, just not AS powerful, but powerful enough.​

Skymin: My reasoning will be nothing new. Incredible stats. A great double stab
(Seed Flare: Has a chance to sharply lower Sp.Def)
(Air Slash: With Serene Grace, Air Slash has a 60% chance to flinch.)​

With Skymin, that's really all you need. You outspeed so many possible threats, with access to Sub and Leech seed, you have the option to stall out slower Pokemon, another reason why 60% to flinch makes Skymin worthy of a ban.​

Manaphy: Drizzle gives Manaphy access to full recovery (HP and status) which makes stalling it impossible. Manaphy has access to Tail Glow (gives a +3 in Sp.A. Meaning it only takes two) and Calm Mind. Add that to the fact that manaphy can be somewhat bulky. Add this together and you have one difficult Pokemon on your hands.​

Wobbuffet can do the same on Choice Fighting and Counter them. However, Shandera could potentially set up on them and be nearly unstoppable so...

I'm not sure how efficient Choice Scarf Deoxys-A is considering it likes the freedom to switch moves, but it has plenty of power for most things and if you use the right move, they are dead. It however is easier to trap and kill than Deoxys who can switch but most people don't have trappers so it could work and outspeeding Doryuzu is a big plus. Shandera can ironically set up on Choice Scarf SuperPower but it is doubtful they would know it's Scarved considering how unlikely it is.

Manaphy is more than a little bulky with Hydration Rest. With 300+SDef and Max hp, it can take Latios Specs Draco Meteors and survive as well as unstabbed Choice Specs Thunders and survive. Any Stabbed Choice Specs Thunder ohkoes but those are never seen. With Max SDef and Hp, Manaphy can take a Timid Life Orb SEED FLARE from Shaymin-S and ko, although afterwards it would be highly vulnerable to revenge kill with the slower speed. And with Calm Mind boosts, it could have insane Special Defense since after one (even without investment), it would survive Choice Specs Timid Jolteon Stabbed Thunder barely. Either Bold or Calm are very viable natures, depending on if you want to start with invested special defense (which is necessary if you want to survive special attacks like Draco Meteor without Calm Mind) or not. Interestingly, unboosted Nattorei Powerwhips don't even 2 hit ko Max Hp/Max Def Bold Manaphy so if it isn't carrying Swords Dance or Curse, Manaphy laughs in it's face as it sets up with Calm Mind (Edit-Unless a critical hit happens on the second one and koes which could happen as it stalls. But if it crits at full health and not the second, Manaphy would just Rest...)(with that spread Calm Mind>Tail Glow since it'll die to the strong specials without a boost).

And so yeah, Manaphy is HORRIBLY broken in rain. It or weather needs to be banned. Although, even without rain, it could still run Rain Dance/Calm Mind/Rest/Surf as a mono-attacker and with +6, little outside a water absorber would be able to stop that anyways. So, Manaphy is just broken period.
 
Weather is becoming a major factor in the meta game, but it's not really that broken (minus Manaphy). Even in weather, non weather teams can still win, and there is an obvious counter to weather, i.e. changing or eliminating weather. It seems that in the current meta game a check to weather is something you should have on every team much like many teams run counters for dragons. You can argue that this creates an undesirable metagame but personally I don't agree, a dragon and steel metagame isn't the only possible metagame we could have. Swift Swim and Sand Throw are useless outside of their respective weather conditions and once most people start having some sort of check for weather, weather teams will most likely decrease and a proper equilibrium will be established. Weather is actually incredibly weak because it can be changed or eliminated so easily and requires set up. The only reason weather has such a huge influence right now is because people are trying the play the gen 4 metagame under gen 5 conditions (sorry for that pun).
Sleep is a much larger threat than weather, so much so that after some testing it might warrant a full ban as opposed to the current clause we have in place. If you don't carry a rest talker (which is still at best a 66% counter), a natural cure user (which is still free setup and more), a poke with insomnia (which is probably the "best counter") or an aromatherapy user (which is at least one free turn), a darkrai or breloom dark void / spore is essentially at least one free kill every match with a possibility for more due to a free setup turn. That is a much more dangerous overcentralization of the meta game than weather which can be counted in many different ways (Cloud 9, Ditto, other weather (most likely hail due to it being fairly poor relative to other weather and less of a threat to induce to counter other weather like rain or sand), or even trick room to beat speed abusers, etc.)
...Manaphy is fucking broken though get rid of that shit
 
Weather is becoming a major factor in the meta game, but it's not really that broken (minus Manaphy). Even in weather, non weather teams can still win, and there is an obvious counter to weather, i.e. changing or eliminating weather. It seems that in the current meta game a check to weather is something you should have on every team much like many teams run counters for dragons. You can argue that this creates an undesirable metagame but personally I don't agree, a dragon and steel metagame isn't the only possible metagame we could have. Swift Swim and Sand Throw are useless outside of their respective weather conditions and once most people start having some sort of check for weather, weather teams will most likely decrease and a proper equilibrium will be established. Weather is actually incredibly weak because it can be changed or eliminated so easily and requires set up. The only reason weather has such a huge influence right now is because people are trying the play the gen 4 metagame under gen 5 conditions (sorry for that pun).

Tell that to Sand teams, increadly weak. Rain teams as well because even though Politoad is meh, the rest of them are phenomenal and horrible to face. Sunny teams would also be top notch as well except they have the worst inducer (Hail gets a better one) and it is very weak and fragile and it can't switch in on either of the sand or rain pokes at all as well as being weak to ground/rock/water aka all the types on sand and rain teams. If they got the OU equivalent of Groudon on the other hand, then there would be a lot tougher competition with Chlorophyll Venasaur, Solar Flare Charizard, +2 Growths, Hidiharuma Sun Stab Encourage Banded Flare Blitzes...Tyranitar and Hippowdon love to switch in (except against rain where they have trouble, but rain inducer has trouble switching in against sand as well, so it comes down to who has the weather is the winner)

That and it is really hard to fit random weather changing moves that would otherwise be useless in addition to trying to stop Inconsistent, the BL Ubers Shaymin-S, Deoxys (all), Darkrai, Latios, Manaphy, etc and even without them it would be difficult because outside of Tyranitar and Hippowdon who can be good on almost every team except like say Rain and Sun, using non-Sand weather changers Politoad and Ninetails can be difficult, especially Ninetails who would be useless if you aren't running their weather sweepers and could fit rather awkwardly on a team. Ninetails should only be on Sunny Day teams as it is pretty pathetic for the most part otherwise with Rock, Ground, and water weaknesses, Stealth Rock, and fairly horribly average attacking stats that suck without Nasty Plot boost. It can run status but outside of that and Nasty Plot (and even with, it can be pretty weak when Sand comes back up) it doesn't really do much for non Sunny Day. Abomasnow is good for destroying your opponents Leftovers but it affects much more types of Pokes than sand so you better be ready to give up Leftovers as well unless they're Magic Guard/Immune to Weather damage. It isn't bad though and has really awesome water/grass resistances but weaknesses to Fire/Steel/Rock not so much but it isn't as bad as Ninetails for a team. It is a very good subseeder and 100% accurate Blizzards. Politoad is a little bit better than Ninetails on random things but it isn't that great usually on non-Rain Dance and only helps one of the better abusers if you're not running Rain.

And sticking Hail/Sandstorm/Rain Dance/Sunny Day on random Pokemon is much more difficult since you give up a valuable slot. The only really viable weather one is the move Rain Dance which again, only really helps Rain Dance Teams out. Sunny Day is hard to fit on random pokes (the best ones being Roserade, Harriyama, Mew, etc) if it doesn't help them and Sand could just switch in again unlike some of the others. Hail/Sandstorm are fairly useless as moves, Sandstorm especially with two very good auto-inducers and no one wants to give a slot up for that. Hail could work but it has Abomasnow and most don't want to waste a moveslot on that since outside of 100% accurate Blizzards, Snow Cloak, and Ice Body, Hail gets nothing (and only on Ice types which have even more horrid weakness conglomerates than Sand/Rain/Fire teams). The best user of it I can think of is Kyurem to take advantage of 100% accurate stabbed Blizzard. Like most people like Kyurem (I don't know why not, he's awesome) or want to use a slot for that if they did use him instead of Specs, Scarf, Screens, etc.

And when on earth are you going to find the time to EVEN USE A WEATHER CHANGING MOVE? Sand has Sand Throw, Sun has Chlorophyll, Rain has Swift Swim and all will kick your butt before you can even make a move thanks to doubled speed. You have to be able to take a weather or very strong stabbed boosted hit, survive, and then proceed to change the weather, when all they have to do is kill your weather changer and bring their inducer back for a turn. How is your weather changer going to survive? Example of Sun boosted Flare Blitzes, Choice Specs Hydro Pumps, super super fast Doryuzu Earthquakes, Sand Power Landlos who has Swords Dance, etc. It takes more than just changing the weather. In particular of Sand who still has some pretty fast pokes even outside of sand as long as you're not using your own weather pokes. Garchomp and Landlos outspeed base 100s and are really bulky (except against Icebeams although it takes a strong one to kill Yache carriers) who carry Swords Dances and Earthquake. Even outside of Rain, water isn't completely destroyed, and while they're not very fast most of them, but they still have power, especially Shell Smashers. They could also run a rain dance in case their inducer dies so even then you're not safe if you kill Politoad and stop rain. Pokes like Ludicolo have always been used before to carry Rain Dance. That way, they still have another 5 fun turns of beating you and you're probably not healthy by that point in the attempt to kill Politoad and survive the perma rain to change. Sun can still use the +2 they got before weather disappeared and beat you since Venasaur is a very fast bulky Pokemon, Hidiharuma is still horrible to have to take Flare Blitz from, etc.

There simply rarely is any time at all to send in a weather changer (that can survive) against perma weather before it kills you. And even then it is temporary since if they kill your weather changer, they still would probably likely have their inducer which they only need for 1 turn to set up and kill you in the permanent weather again. Or, they carry additional weather users in which case, you're still screwed since it would be VERY HARD to kill their weather inducer (if they're playing good) and will take a lot of resources and sacrifices...only to find they have yet more time to wipe whatever you have left out being it's all horribly weakened if you manage to survive the first assault. To change, you have to take a boosted hit since they'll always outspeed you and taking boosted hits is...not fun. If they one shot you, you're screwed. And most weather changers aren't bulky enough to take boosted hits like water and fire or in generally earthquakes from. You really only have one shot unless you're wasting a slot on all your pokes for weather or something and if their inducer is still alive, it really is a waste because then you'd have to manage to survive a second hit...which you won't.

I'm sorry, but random weather changing moves are about as effective as Haze is against Inconsistent against permanent weather. If it was back in the era of 5-8 turns, it would be plausible but now...

And Groudon/Kyogre were found to be uber, even at the hypothetical level of 1 (which isn't possible) due to their weather support. Why that would be any different now for weather support is beyond me as WEATHER ONLY GOT BETTER. Rain was broken before, Sand is definitely broken now, Sun Teams made leaps and bounds in abusers although it is a shame about their inducer since they got the worst one. Facing any one of those is difficult. Instead of Steel Dragon, we now have...Rain/Sand/Possible Sun but rare/Hail potentially although probably even rarer than Sun. Yeah, I don't know about this...
 
Just to comment on a few things:

And when on earth are you going to find the time to EVEN USE A WEATHER CHANGING MOVE?

FYI, there are other counters besides using a weather changing move. Viable alternatives include Trick Room and Lickilicky, the former which makes weather counterproductive for the other team, the latter which shuts down all 5 weather inducers.

And Groudon/Kyogre were found to be uber, even at the hypothetical level of 1 (which isn't possible) due to their weather support.

That's an oft misquoted test; they were level 60~ something, and it was in a specialized CAP metagame over a short period.
 
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