np: OU Suspect Testing Round 2 - Who am I to break tradition?

[MSB]

I'm using a rain team I made in 5 minutes on the ladder. Drizzle's not really broken from what I'm seeing right now, but it was made in 5 minutes and I haven't laddered that long either. But I do think manaphy is broken as hell and has to go.

EDIT: I'd just like to add this isn't directed at anything really, I'm just saying what I think of rain from the games I've used it in.

 

[XxX999XxX]

toxicroak has become very annoying too i vote ban to manaphy, he should be uber, and no drizzle in OU

drought doesnt have enough broken pokemon to abuse it so i think drought shouldnt be banned

 

[alphatron]

Well, I definitely don't agree with the subsequent banning of all good swift swimmers until all we have left are lumineon and luvdisc, but I don't think we'd need to go that far if only a few swift swimmers show themselves to be too good.

I can see the differences between 8 turn rain and infinite rain, but perhaps I am just underestimating or simply not seeing how rain is easily stalled out of eight turns. Was nothing in UU not capable of doing this since Damp Rock was apparently considered suspect at one point? Was it too hard for UU pokes to last those eight turns whereas OU exclusively contained pokemon who could handle 4th gen rain teams with ease? And even under the rain, don't most swift swimmers still need to use a turn to set up anyway (kabutops needs his sword's dance, gorebyss needs his shell smash)?

As far as rain stall goes, it's a very real strategy, even if it isn't used. But I'm not going to argue for losing the playstyle too much. When 4th gen salamence was banned, all teams using the fatmence build had to drop him. All variants of garchomp also had to go once his broken set was found. It might be a bit too complicated to ban the combination of swift swim on select pokes (rain stall still uses swift swimmers) and drizzle, so if drizzle is found broken then losing rain stall will just be something we have to deal with unfortunately.

 

[DahliaSky]

Well, I definitely don't agree with the subsequent banning of all good swift swimmers until all we have left are lumineon and luvdisc, but I don't think we'd need to go that far if only a few swift swimmers show themselves to be too good.

I can see the differences between 8 turn rain and infinite rain, but perhaps I am just underestimating or simply not seeing how rain is easily stalled out of eight turns. Was nothing in UU not capable of doing this since Damp Rock was apparently considered suspect at one point? Was it too hard for UU pokes to last those eight turns whereas OU exclusively contained pokemon who could handle 4th gen rain teams with ease? And even under the rain, don't most swift swimmers still need to use a turn to set up anyway (kabutops needs his sword's dance, gorebyss needs his shell smash)?

As far as rain stall goes, it's a very real strategy, even if it isn't used. But I'm not going to argue for losing the playstyle too much. When 4th gen salamence was banned, all teams using the fatmence build had to drop him. All variants of garchomp also had to go once his broken set was found. It might be a bit too complicated to ban the combination of swift swim on select pokes (rain stall still uses swift swimmers) and drizzle, so if drizzle is found broken then losing rain stall will just be something we have to deal with unfortunately.

The damp rock in UU is actually not comperable in this situation. People believed (because there are less viable rain counters and still a good number of rain pokes that were even viable in OU) that the 3 less turns would make up for the power difference between OU and UU as far as counters.

Not only this but it was found to also not be broken in uu, so stop using it as an example. People also have complained for ages about blissey, but who really listens to that?

While I agree that swift swim is powerfull, it is only barely more (i say barely because you can switch between them, but only a few times... also gives your opponent a free turn when you do, so not waaay broken or anything) than agility when you have to take a turn to use it. The +1 power on water moves only helps to balance out how weak these pokemon are compared to normal agility users like metagross and lucario... but only works on 1 type that can be absorbed or resisted pretty commonly on most teams.

In no way was swift swim ever considered broken in gen 4, and it certainly won't be in gen 5 if it took a turn to use and lasted 8.

 

[alphatron]

I wasn't using Damp Rock as an example. I was asking what caused people to believe that damp rock broke UU rain in the first place while OU rain teams were pretty bad. What made rain bad in OU while it was such a dominating force in UU?

Swift swim and rain in general wasn't considered broken in 4th gen. It wasn't even considered good. So with drizzle, is it really THAT much better. Yes. But is it completely broken and too hard to handle? Does it necessarily over centralize, or is it simply another threat to be consider when making teams and movesets? Is the fact that you have to pack counters for drizzle unhealthy to the metagame, or is drizzle merely molding the metagame the same way top threats in OU Gen IV did? Even in this thread, the posts on the matter differ with many of them in opposition of drizzle.

Sand teams being higher is probably due to their good matchup against rain, as said in this thread. Or it could be due to the fact that they're just better. If drizzle is banned, I suppose we'll see.

 

[ensoriki]

Quilfish is hardly "outclassed" He's one of the most useful sweepers in rain, especially considering he absorbs toxic spikes for the team. Destiny bond also lets him deal with certain counters.
He fits in for something like Kabutops relatively well.
To be short the 4th gen rain sweepers, are just wtf strong in rain outside of Kingdra, Ludicolo and Kabutops. While there are a good chunk of powerful swift swimmers, there are some that simply aren't as powerful, who are good but not "as good". You could ban to that level if one wished to do so.


Anyways...

Drizzle shouldn't be banned simply because people are impatient.
As the current threats the sweepers of rain & Manaphy should be the primary subjects for rain. Then when it's found that banning rain sweepers does not work, the assumption should go that the support from infinite rain itself is simply too much.

You don't ban Screens for making Skymin,darkrai & deoxys harder to kill, you look at the main pokemon first and if screens proves a problem then you remove screens.

Same should apply here.

 

[Sheaz]

Screens? That's what your comparing drizzle to, really? Screens can...

A) Be stalled out, which drizzle can not.
B) Provide aid for any given member on the team; it doesn't break any one thing in particular.
C) Needs to be set up manually, wasting a turn, which is obviously not the case for drizzle.

Screens had absolutely nothing to do with how broken the pokemon you listed are. And screens are much more comparable to damp rock than drizzle. If a pokemon had auto-reflect/lightscreen that lasted the whole game, then you would have a point. And that would be also be broken as hell, in my opinion.

 

[alphatron]

The thing is, no one wants to ban multiple pokemon, but rather just one.

 

[Nanoswine]

Drizzle shouldn't be banned simply because people are impatient.
As the current threats the sweepers of rain & Manaphy should be the primary subjects for rain. Then when it's found that banning rain sweepers does not work, the assumption should go that the support from infinite rain itself is simply too much.

You don't ban Screens for making Skymin,darkrai & deoxys harder to kill, you look at the main pokemon first and if screens proves a problem then you remove screens.

Same should apply here.

Yeah except the screens are infinite -__-

Drizzle getting banned wouldn't be because people are "impatient," it's because Smogon policy is to achieve a desirable metagame with minimal bans. Banning Kingdra, Ludicolo, Kabutops, and Manaphy as opposed to banning the one ability that breaks them (Manaphy deserves a test outside of rain) goes against policy. It doesn't matter that if we remove the pokemon broken under infinite rain Drizzle becomes balanced, because removing any more than 1 Pokemon would go against Smogon policy.

It's not a question of do you ban the thing that breaks the Pokemon or do you ban the Pokemon itself, (which is a whole other issue) it's a question of do we follow Smogon policy or go against it.

 

[Benlisted]

Drizzle getting banned wouldn't be because people are "impatient," it's because Smogon policy is to achieve a desirable metagame with minimal bans. Banning Kingdra, Ludicolo, Kabutops, and Manaphy as opposed to banning the one ability that breaks them (Manaphy deserves a test outside of rain) goes against policy. It doesn't matter that if we remove the pokemon broken under infinite rain Drizzle becomes balanced, because removing any more than 1 Pokemon would go against Smogon policy.

It's not a question of do you ban the thing that breaks the Pokemon or do you ban the Pokemon itself, (which is a whole other issue) it's a question of do we follow Smogon policy or go against it.

But you could interpret the part of the smogon policy to create a diverse metagame in the opposite manner - banning a few more things (Rain abusers rather than Drizzle) to maintain but balance several playstyles and a weather archetype could be seen as outweighing the part of policy that says to have a few bans as possible. It all depends on your perspective.

 

[Sheaz]

Several playstyles? The only one getting the boot would be rain stall, which is hardly used anyway.

 

[Nanoswine]

But you could interpret the part of the smogon policy to create a diverse metagame in the opposite manner - banning a few more things (Rain abusers rather than Drizzle) to maintain but balance several playstyles and a weather archetype could be seen as outweighing the part of policy that says to have a few bans as possible. It all depends on your perspective.

What playstyles? Rain Offense would be dead if we got rid of all the broken abusers, and Rain Stall sucks regardless. The only reason rain is so good is because there are broken-ass Pokemon that benefit from it to counterbalance how much Politoed sucks. If you get rid of them, it's like playing with a 5-man team.

EDIT:

Look up my posts if you want to see why I think banning Drizzle would be the end of Rain as a viable strat in OU (Hint: improved SS and Sun), i cba to explain it again as I have done about 5 times already.

Look up my posts to see why the same thing happens if we ban the abusers. Hint: TTar and Hippo aren't dead weight.

 

[Benlisted]

Several playstyles? The only one getting the boot would be rain stall, which is hardly used anyway.

Look up my posts if you want to see why I think banning Drizzle would be the end of Rain as a viable strat in OU (Hint: improved SS and Sun), i cba to explain it again as I have done about 5 times already.

Likewise if you wish to know why I think Rain without a few of its most powerful abusers but still with Drizzle will still be viable but not broken.

 

[Sheaz]

I just posted this on GameFAQS, but this fits in to what Benlisted just said:

The thing that sets drizzle apart is how many good users it has. Kingdra is always great, but Ludicolo and Kabutops weren't even good enough for standard last gen. There's 19 fully evolved pokemon with access to swift swim (though not all are released). There's at least seven viable swimmers with boosted STAB. Compare that with the two pokemon who receive a speed boost in sand, or the sun teams which have to contend with making their chlorophyll team members even weaker to fire attacks while not boosting grass STAB.

 

[alphatron]

Apparantly, if we ban rain's strongest abusers, we'll have to ban the abusers who replace them. Once we ban qwilfish, we ban floatzel, and then all we have left will be luvidsc, magikarp, and lumineon.

Wait! You're ReasonIsTreason?!

 

[Sheaz]

Sure am.

 

[JSND]

so hes reasonis treasonis lol im demiseend btw(notice the kuimugan FTW post i always made)

i think rain is more like easier playstyle than sand. While sand is more rewarding in longer run, rain is so easy to use as proven by how easy it is to find rain in lower ladder but how hard it is in higher one. I dont think Floatzel etc is broken tbh.
Unlike Broken trio esp kingdra, all floatzel FEX might do is laughably easy to predict while kingdra you need to guess Specs or DD and 1 fail turn while have potential to cost the game. (Specs pump, Sub, DD is so annoying) While tops and ludi just plain ridiculous in their own spectrum and make kingdra even more of a threat

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Apparantly, if we ban rain's strongest abusers, we'll have to ban the abusers who replace them. Once we ban qwilfish, we ban floatzel, and then all we have left will be luvidsc, magikarp, and lumineon.

Wait! You're ReasonIsTreason?!

I seriously doubt Qwilfish and Floatzel would be as impossible to stop as the Trio.
Banning the trio keeps rain offense alive with weaker,but still powerful mons.

 

[Nanoswine]

I seriously doubt Qwilfish and Floatzel would be as impossible to stop as the Trio.
Banning the trio keeps rain offense alive with weaker,but still powerful mons.

The only reason rain is so good is because there are broken-ass Pokemon that benefit from it to counterbalance how much Politoed sucks. If you get rid of them, it's like playing with a 5-man team.

Why is it nobody bothers to look at other people's posts in this thread T_T Not calling you out or anything, pretty much everyone does. (including me sometimes)

And just in case anyone brings it up, we can't just get the perfect balance between abusers and the necessity of Politoed, that would be like using Ubers in OU but "only if you also run Magikarp"

 

[fidgety]

Banning the trio keeps rain offense alive with weaker,but still powerful mons.

the point of offensive strategies is to use powerful pokes to attain victory in short. also this general approach (although to avoid banning more pokes than nesisary this approach should start with manaphy + kingdra + if that isn't enough go to ludicolo or kabutops the next round + the last if for some ungodly reason that still isn't enough the remaining member of the "broken trio") enables the other rain strategies to stay since the only reason they aren't used right now is they are so horribly eclipsed by rain offense that they go unused.

 

[tehy]

Why don't we just have a clause;where you can't use drizzle with the three main abusers on a team?

That way you can either have a team that manually uses rain dance and has its strongest swift swimmers;or weaker swift swimmers but infinite weather.

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

the point of offensive strategies is to use powerful pokes to attain victory in short. also this general approach (although to avoid banning more pokes than nesisary this approach should start with manaphy + kingdra + if that isn't enough go to ludicolo or kabutops the next round + the last if for some ungodly reason that still isn't enough the remaining member of the "broken trio") enables the other rain strategies to stay since the only reason they aren't used right now is they are so horribly eclipsed by rain offense that they go unused.

It's not like Qwilfish,Floatzel,and Gorebyss would be so over whelming and so extremely powerful that no one will want to use rain stall.
Gorebyss would be the strongest of those 3 but Shell Smash makes it pretty frail.
Actually,just from thinking about it,Floatzel,Gorebyss,and Omastar would just be weaker versions of the current broken trio.
Omastar and Floatzel can soften things up for Gorebyss quite easily,which is pretty much what's happening now. 2 members of the trio soften everything up for the 3rd one to sweep.
Banning Drizzle would be the simplest thing to do :/

 

[Kefka Palazzo™]

Why don't we just have a clause;where you can't use drizzle with the three main abusers on a team?

That way you can either have a team that manually uses rain dance and has its strongest swift swimmers;or weaker swift swimmers but infinite weather.

This is not a new idea,several people suggested it....it would suck.

 

[fidgety]

It's not like Qwilfish,Floatzel,and Gorebyss would be so over whelming and so extremely powerful that no one will want to use rain stall.
Gorebyss would be the strongest of those 3 but Shell Smash makes it pretty frail.
Actually,just from thinking about it,Floatzel,Gorebyss,and Omastar would just be weaker versions of the current broken trio.
Omastar and Floatzel can soften things up for Gorebyss quite easily,which is pretty much what's happening now. 2 members of the trio soften everything up for the 3rd one to sweep.
Banning Drizzle would be the simplest thing to do :/

i meant as it stands for rain stall being eclipsed.
yes they would be inferior most likely to the point of easily controllable.
+ shell break baton pass gorebyss is a serious dick.

 

[Lamppost]

rain stall isn't very good IMO. The only pokemon that really benefits from it is vaporeon with hydrations and manaphy. Also the 4x fire weakness pokemon benefit from it, it's not enough to make it really viable this metagame. IMO sand stall outclasses it, and probably always will.