So what if they have the advantage over non-swift swim. If you bring Drizzle in that situation the risk you take is swift swimmers.
Except not. The point of banning the Drizzle + Swift Swim combination would be to, well, prevent them from interacting together, since that combination proves to be broken. If that combination can still occur regardless with such a ban, then it's not doing its job and as a result definitely isn't a good solution. This is part of the reason why Soul Dew clause banned Soul Dew on all Pokemon when it was tried in Gen IV, instead of just the Lati@s twins: even though it's convoluted, it's still quite conceivable that with it just banned on Lati@s, you could just have another Pokemon hold onto a Soul Dew and use Trick to get it onto your Lati@s. That would defeat the point of the ban though, so Soul Dew was banned on all things to prevent that.
Same situation here. If the Drizzle + Swift Swim combination is broken, then the solution would be one that actually prevents them from interacting with each other. Simply preventing people from using a Pokemon with Drizzle and Swift Swim on the same team doesn't necessarily do this, so it's not a real solution to the problem.
Anyways weather is a constant and a staple of the 5th game metagame. Weather is a constant, it is essentially a normal battle condition, you are likely to battle in weather.
Right now, it currently is. There's no reason at all it needs to be though. All four previous generations show that we're just fine without weather being standard.
Based on the idea that weather is a constant factor, thing's should not simple by kept because of how they operate outside of weather.
True. If weather is fine and not causing any problems, then there's no reason to do anything. However, if weather's a problem, it should be dealt with. If it's broken, it should be banned. Again, Gens I-IV show that we'll be just fine without it and that it doesn't
need to be there. Just because it's common and is the standard right now, doesn't suddenly change that and make weather some key, irremovable part of the metagame. No matter how common it is, doesn't change the fact that if it's broken, it should go. Under that logic, we wouldn't be able to ban anything ("Salamance and Garchomp are just part of common battling conditions, since they're top OU Pokemon--you can't get rid of them; just get used to them being there and look for some other solution").
Kingdra's operation outside of weather does not matter when the normal battlefield of 4th gen is now saturated in a weather of some sort.
Actually, it is quite relevant. Kingdra as a whole isn't broken. In any weather aside from Rain, it's just fine. It's only under Rain that it suddenly becomes a problem. How can it be that it's Kingdra that's the problem then? If it can be used under any weather but Rain without being an issue, but under Rain it suddenly becomes problematic, then how is Kingdra itself the problem? If it's only in one specific situation that Kingdra's an issue, but under all others it's fine, then how could the Pokemon itself possibly be at fault? If Pokemon like itself, Ludicolo, Kingdra, Omastar, Gorebyss, Toxicroak are fine under all battling conditions but one (perma-Rain), then wouldn't it make more sense to get rid of that battling condition (via banning Drizzle) then banning these Pokemon in their entirety (which would suggest that they're broken under all conditions, which is demonstrably not true)? Not to mention, it just takes one ban, instead of banning numerous Pokemon, which seems to be another plus to me.
The problem here seems to be that you're giving perma-Rain a free pass, just calling it a "normal battling condition", and as a result of that, it's not what's banned, and other solutions should be looked for instead. The thing is, I can just as easily spin it around the other way and say something like "the presence of Pokemon like Kingdra and Manaphy is just a normal, natural battling condition of the metagame. In other words, they ARE the metagame and as a result, Weather should be banned, not Pokemon."
There's absolutely no difference between the two. Because weather's not actually a Pokemon, and is a "battling condition" or whatever you want to call it, you seem to be giving it a free pass. However, it doesn't matter what it is: items, abilities, weather, moves, Pokemon, whatever, nothing just gets a free pass. Every part of the metagame deserves to be equally examined, and if we find part of it that's broken, we should ban it. It doesn't matter what that something is, how common it is, or what might happen aftewards: if it's broken, it should be banned. No part of the metagame deserves, or should they get a free pass around this, especially not for reasons like "it's extremely common now," "it's ingrained into the metagame," "but it's a _____, not a ___, so it has to be left alone."
In this case, yes, Rain's a very common part of the metagame right now and lots of people use it. That does not mean that we suddenly can't or shouldn't examine options like banning Drizzle, as abilities and Pokemon are just as much a part of the metagame as the other. Neither of them should get or deserves special pleading to not be examined due to being "a big part of the metagame"/" a big play-style" or anything of the sort. The latter is especially cringe-worthy, as it forgets or ignores that Rain Dance is still a move and one that enables RD team to still be used, but on a tolerable level and from there makes special pleading that weather like Rain deserves/needs to be on a certain level of quality, which the move RD can not provide and therefore that's not an acceptable option.
However, the thing is, that's not true at all. Rain isn't "owed" anything, just like Kingrda isn't owed anything, nor Manaphy, nor Pokemon like Darkrai or Shaymin-S. It being a playstyle or weather or whatever doesn't change that (again, especially as it'll still be there: "it not being good enough anymore though" isn't a reason we shouldn't ban something if it's broken, as nothing's owed anything, especially not a particular level of quality). No part of the metagame is, or should be, immune from being examined, including abilities like Drizzle. If they're broken, they should be banned and if not, leave them alone. Regardless, they deserve as much a look as anything else, and Rain being common or the norm or whatever now doesn't change that, and definitely doesn't mean that we should ignore these options.
From what we know, it seems that outside of Rain, Pokemon like Kingdra aren't broken, so banning them in their entirety, just because Rain's common now, doesn't make much sense, especially with a bit of foresight (what if Rain eventually does die down after this? Should we bring Kindgra back since it wouldn't be broken anymore and just get rid of Drizzle as it is). Things should be banned because they're actually broken, not because of current metagame trends, which is what this option seems like to be: deciding what to ban based on current metagame trends and on what's common, instead of whether it's actually broken or not, which makes no sense, because trends change and you're not hitting the real source of the problem (if something's only broken in one weather condition, and is fine in all of the others, it's probably that weather that's broken and not the Pokemon. The weather being common at the time doesn't and shouldn't be a reason to change this).
From there, you get to the option of banning Drizzle + Swift Swim, which I covered at the beginning of this post.
Then, there's the option of just banning Swift Swim. However, this does nothing to address the other effects of Rain, such as abilities like Dry Skin, Rain Dish, etc, but most importantly, essentially changing Water-Pokemon's STAB modifier from 1.5x to 2.25x, which makes them a whole heck of a lot more difficult to deal with, even without Swift Swim. Not to mention, the thing is, Swift Swim itself isn't really broken. First off, it's really only an issue inside of Rain to begin with. Beyond that, the real important point is that are Pokemon like NFEs that have it. In the case of Inconsistent, even Pokemon like Bidoof were a menace due to it. With Swift Swim though... well, even in perma-Rain, Pokemon like Kabuto aren't too threatening. In other words, for Swift Swim to be threatening, it needs to be in Rain and be on a Pokemon that was at least half-way decent to begin with, so it seems to be a hard-sell for being broken.
From there, the's the Pokemon. I've touched on this already, but the thing is, most of these are just fine in any weather but Rain: it's only under Rain that they're a problem, so banning them in their entirety just because Rain is common now doesn't really make much sense. Plus, that could easily require upwards of 10+ bans, which really makes this option seem unappealing when there are options that just require banning one thing or another.
That leaves banning Drizzle itself, via process of elimination. The only real problems with this are that it makes Rain not as good as it is now (which, as I've already hit on, isn't a good reason), and it could make other weathers like Sand broken afterwards (which is also silly: if something is broken, it should be banned. It doesn't matter what happens afterwards. If something else becomes broken, just ban that too. If nothing does, that's great. In any case, what may happen in the future isn't a reason to prevent something from being banned, if that thing is indeed broken).
In any case, this is getting
way longer than I intended for it to be, so I'll leave it off there for now.. except for addressing this little part that I almost missed.
The saturation is fine however, neutral weather does not need to be the constant weather in any metagame.
Indeed. Rain or Sand or whatever weather simply being common is fine. If Sun or Hail were to become the dominant weather, that's great too. What weather is dominant doesn't matter at all. However, if a weather condition is potentially broken, this should be looked at and considered as much as the other options. Whatever weather is most common doesn't matter, but if one of them could be broken... well, that's a problem, and it should be looked at. Whether Drizzle actually is or isn't broken is an entirely different question, but the point of all this is, Drizzle shouldn't just be written off a suspect just because it's the dominant weather or it's a big part of the metagame right now or whatever.
