A far greater number of things take advantage of Stealth Rock, and as you once told me, not using it just puts your team at a disadvantage. So why is Drizzle broken, and Stealth Rock not?
It's win-lose for
both players. Both players can use it to their advantage not only because it makes things easier to sweep, but also because it helps keep certain sweepers in check, making them easier to beat. Salamence and Gyarados are shining examples of this. Stealth Rock didn't "hurt" the game any, it just made it different. Fliers have to watch out now, Fighting types have another plus on their resume, you can't troll people with Butterfree, etc.
You also say that too many things take advantage of Drizzle. I beg to differ. A great many things get better in the Rain, indeed, but not all of them become broken because of it.
I don't care how many of them become broken on their own because they never function on their own. Swift Swimmers and other abusers break walls together and beat teams in tandem. They're hilariously imbalanced against other playstyles. Even if you could win a match or two, or even on a regular basis because your team was that good, Rain always had the best sweepers, the best perks, and the ability to beat most other teams without a lot of effort. The playerbase got tired of this very quickly.
We wanted to deem Drizzle broken because of three to four abusers, depending on who you ask. All the other ones, no one used, because there was no point. When was the last time you saw a Qwilfish sweep your team? Or an Armaldo? How about Omastar? All of those things just do not get the job done as mind-numbingly effective as the Trio and Manaphy did. Making something better =/= broken, and that's what you're claiming. You're assuming most everything that can abuse rain is broken for it, and that's utterly false.
Back to the "it's the Pokemon" argument. It's not that I'm saying Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Kabutops weren't the biggest threats at the time, because they were, but you're severely undermining the presence of Rain's other sweepers if you think that all we really need to do to balance Rain is get rid of the most popular sweepers. Shell Smash Gorebyss and Omastar will become hot topics, then CM Golduck, Bulk Up or CB Floatzel, etc. They will all beat teams together. It won't stop until we get down to the bottom of the barrel and start seeing Luvdisc, at which point we're all going to come to the realization of how silly the entire process was.
3 or 4 Pokemon becoming broken due to one field condition is a large enough sample size anyway. Instead of adding more Pokemon to the banlist to keep said field effect, it'd be more prudent to get rid of the benefactor that pushes them into the overpowering territory to begin with. Even if the rest haven't had a chance to prove themselves because of the big trio hogging their spotlight, many of us will agree that the other Swift Swimmers, each with their own set of perks, will just come out of the woodwork and leave us at square one. Some of us actually have been testing more than just the big three, whether it be out of intrigue or surprise factor, since many people are extensively prepared for the most popular choices. Heck, screw Rain teams; with Rain up, Gorebyss and Omastar can easily sweep teams by themselves. The common denominator was always permanent Rain.
You downplay sand because it has two viable abusers, but when it comes to Rain, you trumpet them out as if every single Swift Swimmer was broken, which is so utterly untrue.
No. I'm discounting Sand as a legitimate playstyle because those two abusers were really the
only things it had going for it. Other than that, it was just Tyranitar and Hippowdon canceling out the weather so that you don't get swept. Landlos and Excadrill, while influential, don't have what it takes to do what Rain teams did.
Rain wasn't broken in Gen 4 because it wasn't permanent. But now it is, so now things have become a problem. And instead of dealing with the fucking problem, you're taking the easy way out, and want to press the time machine button, and go back. You want to crawl into a little ball and wait for this to end. That's just so completely wrong. Ban what's broken, not what fixes the problem the fastest.
Stop being such a douche. I'm suggesting removing permanent Rain because I have enough experience with Rain to understand what the real problem is. I experienced both the 4th gen metagame where it was prominent and the 5th gen metagame where it was dominant. The permanency of Rain and having a single summoner that requires no turns to setup was what pushed it over the edge.
Now you can just focus on making your team kick ass instead of having one half summon it while the other abuses it. If we did it this way, not only would we not have to worry about getting swept or changing the weather every other turn, but we couldn't use it as a precedent for other complex bans. Complex bans are really going to kill this generation of Pokemon.
