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

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So, yes, by banning all the broken abusers you actually do kill Rain Offense. And I think we all know Rain Stall isn't broken, and the reason nobody uses it is this exact reason: nobody wants to use a team of 5 Pokemon that become crappy the second Drizzle goes down.

because ludicolo isn't a joke out of rain same goes for kabutops.
 
Man, people overreact to rain so badly.

You want to ban Ludicolo of all damned things but I have not seen a person complain about Dory in a good fucking while in this thread.

I don't think that people want to actually ban rain abusers to make rain balanced. They want to ban Rain abusers so Sand becomes the dominant, uncompetitioned weather again just like Gen IV because people REFUSE to play a new metagame and want to play shit like Gen IV where switching in TTar means permanent Sand with virtually no exceptions.

What is wrong with you people.
 
Man, people overreact to rain so badly.

You want to ban Ludicolo of all damned things but I have not seen a person complain about Dory in a good fucking while in this thread.

I don't think that people want to actually ban rain abusers to make rain balanced. They want to ban Rain abusers so Sand becomes the dominant, uncompetitioned weather again just like Gen IV because people REFUSE to play a new metagame and want to play shit like Gen IV where switching in TTar means permanent Sand with virtually no exceptions.

What is wrong with you people.
there is a difference between what you think we are trying to do + what we are actually doing, i've pointed out that the best way to handle this is to start w/ kingdra and manaphy the two definitively broken ones then work from there.
 
Man, people overreact to rain so badly.

You want to ban Ludicolo of all damned things but I have not seen a person complain about Dory in a good fucking while in this thread.

I don't think that people want to actually ban rain abusers to make rain balanced. They want to ban Rain abusers so Sand becomes the dominant, uncompetitioned weather again just like Gen IV because people REFUSE to play a new metagame and want to play shit like Gen IV where switching in TTar means permanent Sand with virtually no exceptions.

What is wrong with you people.

No, not at all. Sand and rain are both great ways to play, (too great, it seems), but people are just focusing on the rain aspect because it is inherently more divisive. Should we ban drizzle, Politoed, the trio, etc. There's far less abusers of sand, and it would actually make more sense to just ban something like Dory (and maybe Landios) rather than a slew of rain pokemon. At least in my opinion, of course. The constant jeers of, "you people can't accept a new meta!" are just so dumb to me. Sand in Gen IV is nothing like it is in Gen V, so people will have to accept this new game regardless.
 
I play mostly on PO, and my experiences are that rain dance teams, while good and synergistic, are beatable. My team doesn't even have a water resist, but I have a good 70% match-up against rain dancers. Rain Dance teams are tough, but beatable. I did have to build my team with rain dance in mind, but I was able to do so without greatly weakening my other match-ups (I pretty much can't lose to Sun teams, for example, and can generally best sandstorm). Pretty much the only problem with adjusting to beat rain dance is that my revenge killer, ScarfTar (which I also have to kill annoying Psychics that would stop Roob's sweep), means that my LO Gengar dies a lot more quickly. Against rain dance, I focus entirely on killing Politoed. Sometimes, I have to sac a poke to give T-Tar a free switch, but T-Tar always draws in Politoed to replace rain, which is outsped and 2HKO'd after hazards. After that, it becomes a team of bad sweepers with crappy defenses and lousy speed which are easily dealt with. Priority is also very helpful in counteracting the swift swim.

In a game with a metagame, there will necessarily be archetypes that, in order to beat, one must weaken their match-ups against other archetypes. My team, for example, is weak to defensive baton passes, but those teams are rare enough for me to accept the occasional rough matchup while having an acceptable rain dance matchup and a good general matchup. A broken metagame would consist of two viable archetypes: the team-to-beat, and the anti-team. A Drizzle metagame is very far away from a broken one. Even if a team just loses to rain dance, it may be a good metagame choice if it has a good matchup against the rest of the field.

If any pokes in OU are degenerate, it's Manaphy, who is pretty much unbeatable in rain and extremely bannable. Even with 7 turns of rain, all it takes is 3-4 turns to set up a monstrous, fully healthy sweeper with very good bulk.

For those interested, my team is Reflect Lead Deoxys-S, Bulky Sweeper Roob, CB Scizor, Balloon Heatran, LO Gengar, and ScarfTar.
 
It still sets a new precedent. It's a new way of thinking for a new generation.

Perhaps a precedent of banning an ability, but not a precedent of banning an ability because it's simply broken, instead of being luck-based.



Perhaps my example was a flawed one, but it still stands. Rain stall isn't particularly good or popular, and I see no reason why we should cater to this group.

And non-rain Kingdra's are currently popular as well?



I'm not holding on the last metagame at all. I'm simply saying that, due to our experience with these pokemon, it's very obvious what sends them over the top. This same experience is why we immediately set pokemon like Arceus and Mewtwo to ubers this gen without trial. Do you think that is a wrong decision? I'm not trying to "excuse" them, I'm simply upholding the principles of making a fun metagame with as few bans as possible.

There's a clear difference.

Arceus and co were Uber before, and there was nothing notable in the metagame that would lower them.

Kingdra and co were BL/UU before, and there is CLEARLY a huge difference in the metagame now that could easily raise them up to Uber.



And now there is a new policy. It's a new generation. To quote you, "Last generation means absolutely nothing. Any argument for banning should refer to this generation and this generation only."

Then find me any quote from Policy Review or any other place where people discuss smogon's policy, and tell me where anyone decided to ditch the old policy in favor of this new policy of restricting the metagame to save the pokemon.



But we don't know if these three are even the problem. It's simply arrogant to assume that bucking these three to ubers will fix the problem. If this is the course of action, then I guarantee you that at least one more swift swimmer will be sent to ubers, possibly more, which mauls the metagame even more. At a certain point we're just going to neuter rain offense to the point where the strategy isn't viable, and maybe weather will calm down then, but not until we have a huge banlist that includes weather abusers from all the weather conditions (except hail).

So Dory and Randorosu aren't considered suspects?

Weather abusers from sand, and not t-tar/hippo/sandstream, are ALREADY the ones considered suspect. To likewise target the rain abusers is not only preventing the banning of non-broken playstyles and pokemon, but also keeps us from having a double standard on what are the primary suspect in rain and sand.


Finally, such a scenario would only occur if somehow, by banning some pokemon, the rain playstyle not only drops below broken, but heads straight to unviable-level, which is pretty much impossible.


Man, people overreact to rain so badly.

You want to ban Ludicolo of all damned things but I have not seen a person complain about Dory in a good fucking while in this thread.

I don't think that people want to actually ban rain abusers to make rain balanced. They want to ban Rain abusers so Sand becomes the dominant, uncompetitioned weather again just like Gen IV because people REFUSE to play a new metagame and want to play shit like Gen IV where switching in TTar means permanent Sand with virtually no exceptions.

What is wrong with you people.

Just to clarify, no one is suggesting that "rain abuser" is banned as a whole. We're suggesting that the potentially broken ones, (Kingdra, and possibly Kabutops/Ludicolo) are just run through the suspect testing process, like any other potentially broken pokemon would. Basically, our idea is that, simply, we treat these sweepers like any other overcentralizing force. No special treatment or anything, just test them like we would anything else.
 
I play mostly on PO, and my experiences are that rain dance teams, while good and synergistic, are beatable. My team doesn't even have a water resist, but I have a good 70% match-up against rain dancers. Rain Dance teams are tough, but beatable. I did have to build my team with rain dance in mind, but I was able to do so without greatly weakening my other match-ups (I pretty much can't lose to Sun teams, for example, and can generally best sandstorm). Pretty much the only problem with adjusting to beat rain dance is that my revenge killer, ScarfTar (which I also have to kill annoying Psychics that would stop Roob's sweep), means that my LO Gengar dies a lot more quickly. Against rain dance, I focus entirely on killing Politoed. Sometimes, I have to sac a poke to give T-Tar a free switch, but T-Tar always draws in Politoed to replace rain, which is outsped and 2HKO'd after hazards. After that, it becomes a team of bad sweepers with crappy defenses and lousy speed which are easily dealt with. Priority is also very helpful in counteracting the swift swim.

In a game with a metagame, there will necessarily be archetypes that, in order to beat, one must weaken their match-ups against other archetypes. My team, for example, is weak to defensive baton passes, but those teams are rare enough for me to accept the occasional rough matchup while having an acceptable rain dance matchup and a good general matchup. A broken metagame would consist of two viable archetypes: the team-to-beat, and the anti-team. A Drizzle metagame is very far away from a broken one. Even if a team just loses to rain dance, it may be a good metagame choice if it has a good matchup against the rest of the field.

If any pokes in OU are degenerate, it's Manaphy, who is pretty much unbeatable in rain and extremely bannable. Even with 7 turns of rain, all it takes is 3-4 turns to set up a monstrous, fully healthy sweeper with very good bulk.

For those interested, my team is Reflect Lead Deoxys-S, Bulky Sweeper Roob, CB Scizor, Balloon Heatran, LO Gengar, and ScarfTar.

You're using a weather inducer to beat rain.
You're pretty much confirming what we're saying.
Btw,no offense,but most teams on PO just suck,
 
Man, people overreact to rain so badly.

You want to ban Ludicolo of all damned things but I have not seen a person complain about Dory in a good fucking while in this thread.

I don't think that people want to actually ban rain abusers to make rain balanced. They want to ban Rain abusers so Sand becomes the dominant, uncompetitioned weather again just like Gen IV because people REFUSE to play a new metagame and want to play shit like Gen IV where switching in TTar means permanent Sand with virtually no exceptions.

What is wrong with you people.

Pretty much this. Weather is obviously shaping up into (or already is) a major factor in the metagame, a bit like Stealth Rock last gen. Trying to preserve the Gen 4 metagame is pretty stupid, IMO. I think we should at least hold off banning weather abusers/inducers of a little while longer. I have decent win/loss ratios against sandstorm, rain, and hail teams, as well as a near perfect win ratio against sun teams.


However, if we decided to ban rain, I feel the best ban would be only Drizzle Politoed and maybe Manaphy. Standard 5-7 turn rain dance teams are hardly overpowered and would make a great counter against SS teams.
 
No, not at all. Sand and rain are both great ways to play, (too great, it seems), but people are just focusing on the rain aspect because it is inherently more divisive. Should we ban drizzle, Politoed, the trio, etc. There's far less abusers of sand, and it would actually make more sense to just ban something like Dory (and maybe Landios) rather than a slew of rain pokemon. At least in my opinion, of course. The constant jeers of, "you people can't accept a new meta!" are just so dumb to me. Sand in Gen IV is nothing like it is in Gen V, so people will have to accept this new game regardless.
no rain is being focused on because there are as many powerful abusers as there are + will settle easier than sand which has only a small handful + nothing to pick up the slack so is best off being pot off untill we see what rain becomes there is this thing called prioritizing.
 
Pretty much this. Weather is obviously shaping up into (or already is) a major factor in the metagame, a bit like Stealth Rock last gen. Trying to preserve the Gen 4 metagame is pretty stupid, IMO.

Dear God, are you seriously saying that SR is anything like drizzle? It may have been all over the place, it may have pushed some (as in two) pokemon down a tier, but it's really nothing like rain. It's not a playstyle, and it doesn't severely change the battle in the way perma-rain does. Again, people need to stop accusing the community of trying to hang on to the old gen. I've seen very little evidence of that from anyone.

no rain is being focused on because there are as many powerful abusers as there are + will settle easier than sand which has only a small handful + nothing to pick up the slack so is best off being pot off untill we see what rain becomes there is this thing called prioritizing.

And now we're fighting about why we're fighting? Brilliant.
 
Ahhh so much ninja, make an edit to my other post and now there are like 10 after it lol

@UltiMario, you bring up a very good point with Dory. Rain may be getting all the attention right now, and as a result nobody is talking about Dory or any Sand abusers for that matter. But to be quite honest, I any discussion on that topic will be ignored until Rain is dealt with.

However, I disagree with you that we are trying to bring gen V to gen IV standards. That is going to happen if we make any attempt to balance Drizzle or Drought (if it needs it)

To everyone else, anyone that can give me a good example of why they would use a team with Politoed or Ninetales on it just to make the 5 other Pokemon on their team usable (and not broken) in Standard gets a cookie. And keep in mind that anytime TTar or Hippo shows up those Pokemon generally become very, very weak, while anytime your Drizzletoed appears Garchomp doesn't get any weaker.

@ Below, that's what everyone said last suspect testing round :(
 
what was notable in the metagame that got manaphy moved down?
actually garchomp is weaker to the tune of -1 evasion :P
drizzle does nothing on its own.. it just makes rain, not broken. only problems i see with rain are manaphy and kingrda
 
drizzle does nothing on its own.. it just makes rain, not broken. only problems i see with rain are manaphy and kingrda

Support Characteristic
A Pokémon (Or now, Ability) is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep.

And ok Garchomp is weaker in terms of -1 evasion, but it's not weaker in terms of "I'm slow as fuck and my water attacks are significantly less powerful"
 
Well most sun teams on Smogon would hardly be considered broken, so that's one weather down. XP

And you could always pair up Toed with a bunch of fire weak pokes like Nattorei and most steels.

Dear God, are you seriously saying that SR is anything like drizzle? It may have been all over the place, it may have pushed some (as in two) pokemon down a tier, but it's really nothing like rain. It's not a playstyle, and it doesn't severely change the battle in the way perma-rain does. Again, people need to stop accusing the community of trying to hang on to the old gen. I've seen very little evidence of that from anyone.

No, I meant that just like teams fought to get SR up and keep it last gen, weather should be treated similarly to that. Yes, weather gives a player a significant advantage, but there are many ways to take away that advantage. For example, against rain teams, I try to preserve the focus sash on my lead voltos so it can come back later in the game, thunderbolt one swift swimmer and T-wave another. Another strategy I use is putting tail glow manaphy on my team to reverse sweep them. The trick to dealing with weather teams (I think) is to constantly apply pressure so they never get an opportunity to make a clean sweep.

I agree that playing against a weather team is much harder than playing with one, but I don't believe that we should ban weather effects so soon.
 
Landlos is weaker.
Dory is slow as hell.
There you go.

Every Pokemon with a Water move is weaker.
Every Swift Swimmer is slow as hell.
As opposed to only 2 Pokemon, both of which will likely end up being suspects eventually. And that's assuming that we decide on banning the abusers. If we ban Drizzle, then Drought and SandStream might follow.

Speaking of banning broken abusers,
To everyone else, anyone that can give me a good example of why they would use a team with Politoed or Ninetales on it just to make the 5 other Pokemon on their team usable (and not broken) in Standard gets a cookie. And keep in mind that anytime TTar or Hippo shows up those Pokemon generally become very, very weak, while anytime your Drizzletoed appears Garchomp doesn't get any weaker.

I have yet to give out a cookie.
 
I play mostly on PO, and my experiences are that rain dance teams, while good and synergistic, are beatable. My team doesn't even have a water resist, but I have a good 70% match-up against rain dancers. Rain Dance teams are tough, but beatable. I did have to build my team with rain dance in mind, but I was able to do so without greatly weakening my other match-ups (I pretty much can't lose to Sun teams, for example, and can generally best sandstorm). Pretty much the only problem with adjusting to beat rain dance is that my revenge killer, ScarfTar (which I also have to kill annoying Psychics that would stop Roob's sweep), means that my LO Gengar dies a lot more quickly. Against rain dance, I focus entirely on killing Politoed. Sometimes, I have to sac a poke to give T-Tar a free switch, but T-Tar always draws in Politoed to replace rain, which is outsped and 2HKO'd after hazards. After that, it becomes a team of bad sweepers with crappy defenses and lousy speed which are easily dealt with. Priority is also very helpful in counteracting the swift swim.

In a game with a metagame, there will necessarily be archetypes that, in order to beat, one must weaken their match-ups against other archetypes. My team, for example, is weak to defensive baton passes, but those teams are rare enough for me to accept the occasional rough matchup while having an acceptable rain dance matchup and a good general matchup. A broken metagame would consist of two viable archetypes: the team-to-beat, and the anti-team. A Drizzle metagame is very far away from a broken one. Even if a team just loses to rain dance, it may be a good metagame choice if it has a good matchup against the rest of the field.

If any pokes in OU are degenerate, it's Manaphy, who is pretty much unbeatable in rain and extremely bannable. Even with 7 turns of rain, all it takes is 3-4 turns to set up a monstrous, fully healthy sweeper with very good bulk.

For those interested, my team is Reflect Lead Deoxys-S, Bulky Sweeper Roob, CB Scizor, Balloon Heatran, LO Gengar, and ScarfTar.
This is why I think Manaphy should be banned before even considering drizzle. As already mentioned, it doesn't even need drizzle to become a beast; Raindance is enough for it to setup.
 
the reason i'm defending rain is there is no real reason to condemn every other play-style for rain (which is more than half a dozen) just because 1 style is this powerful when did the goal of suspect not include enabling as many play-styles to be usable as possible the support characteristic isn't fully applicable as almost all versions of rain would be suspect if that was the case.
 
I'm kind of confused lol. Are you arguing that we should ban Swift Swim or the abusers, or that we should ban Drizzle? Because your first statement explains exactly why we can't ban Swift Swim: It doesn't break all of the abusers.

We should ban only what's broken, so we should thus only ban the abusers that are abusing it to the point of brokenness. The Trio come to mind, and I'm still not convinced that they're all broken, but it's very possible that all three are.

Drizzle is broken under the Support Characteristic: It makes it significantly easier for other Pokemon to sweep. By your logic, we should have banned every Pokemon with a setup move last gen instead of banning Wobbuffet. I know that's an extreme example, but you get what I mean. Banning Drizzle achieves essentially the same outcome in the long run as banning all the broken abusers, but with less bans. That statement satisfactorily answers half of your points.
No, that's not what support charcteristic means. Support Characteristic was made for Wobbuffet, in that he made every single sweeper easier to use, and better. Drizzle only gives the select few good Swift Swim and Hydration users the ability to sweep easily. It doesn't break all Swift Swimmers, and it doesn't make anything that doesn't have a rain affiliated ability better.

I never said banning everything broken by Drizzle was the same as banning everything good under Drizzle. What I said was banning Drizzle would have pretty much the same effect on the metagame as banning all it's broken abusers. If you ban Drizzle, you typical rain team has a full team of 6 Pokemon that rely on Rain Dance to be good. If you ban the broken abusers, you have 5 Pokemon that rely on Drizzle to be good, and 1 Politoed who no longer has anything to make broken to balance the fact that you have to carry it. A good example would be the Inconsistent ban: Banning Inconsistent essentially banned the Pokemon who had its' serious usage in OU.
Ok, so much is wrong with this last part. You honestly think that playing 8-turn rain is exactly the same as playing balanced Drizzle? Let me give you a clue, one is a far superior and more viable strategy to use. The double bonus clue? It's the one that doesn't involve 8-turn rain.

Meanwhile, Politoed doesn't suck, he's just been outclassed by other bulky waters, but Drizzle gave him utility. He's not broken because he jumped in usage because he suddenly became useful. You act like a Politoed is a detriment to your team, rather than a great Bulky Water and fantastic support Pokemon in general.


Lets just ban drizzle and be done with it T_T

Yeah, this kind of laziness about just wanting to ban Drizzle because it's easier is exactly why I post in here. If we want to fix a problem, fix it correctly, and the problem won't show up again.
 
Yeah, this kind of laziness about just wanting to ban Drizzle because it's easier is exactly why I post in here. If we want to fix a problem, fix it correctly, and the problem won't show up again.

I'm just tired of all the crap like:
"oh,u just want 2 maek this liek 4th gen"
Or
"dis a new meta,accep it"

>.>
 
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