Some people may think that. They do not appear to by anywhere close to a representation of the whole of Smogon, and I don't think there's any chance that Drizzle will be banned. Anyone willing to vote against the banning of Drizzle, which I expect to be a majority, should be willing to agree to at least test to see if Pokemon such as Quilfish and Omastar would be reasonable in OU using Swift Swim + Drizzle.
-
Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
np: OU Suspect Testing Round 3 - So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
- Thread starter reachzero
- Start date
- Status
What's with all the (mostly) weak nominations? So many random people posting 3 sentence nominations filled with mostly "once it's counters are gone it sweeps easily!" hyperbole and little analysis. What happened to longer, detailed nominations with evidence and calcs to actually prove a point beyond some vague statement?
I guess I'm just not convinced at all by most people's reasonings for why things should be banned. The only thing that is a little hard to handle from my personal experience is Speed Boost Blaziken, although I dont think it's good enough to be banned (and I think Speed Boost is more the culprit but w/e).
I guess I'm just not convinced at all by most people's reasonings for why things should be banned. The only thing that is a little hard to handle from my personal experience is Speed Boost Blaziken, although I dont think it's good enough to be banned (and I think Speed Boost is more the culprit but w/e).
Really, I don't get why people underrate Rain. Rain is currently the best weather right now, IMO. The thing is, Rain doesn't really need speed boosting abilities, as most sweepers are already speedy(ex. Tornadus, Starmie, Voltlos, etc.). Also, even if you have a Pokemon speedier than all of them, Tornadus just laughs and uses Tailwind to troll.
Meanwhile, Sand has residual damage, the setters are slow, and the main abuser, Excadrill, is easily beaten by Gliscor and almost all priority users. At least Politoed can abuse Scarf to spam effectively 270 BP Hydro Pumps. in addition, Sun gets destroyed by Stealth Rocks killing Ninetales.
Meanwhile, Sand has residual damage, the setters are slow, and the main abuser, Excadrill, is easily beaten by Gliscor and almost all priority users. At least Politoed can abuse Scarf to spam effectively 270 BP Hydro Pumps. in addition, Sun gets destroyed by Stealth Rocks killing Ninetales.
If Speed Boost was the culprit wouldn't Yanmega be broken too?
IIRC that's now banned on PO, and even then that's not even the problem, it's Blaziken outrunning everything and smashing everyone's shit in with a SD set.
Baton Pass has never been the threatening set, because that's basically just a Ninjask that sucks less. The threat is high attack and speed, an excellent movepool, and the ability to go mixed.
It's more that Blaziken has Speed Boost and a +2 stat-up move, which Yanmega and Sharpedo lack. Ninjask lacks pure attacking stats and the movepool to take advantage of it.
It's not just having access to SD. Blaziken's powerful STABs and ability to hit from both ends really set it apart from other speed boosters. The chicken has unprecedented offensive potential and that's what makes it broken imo.
I was more countering his point than asking 'Is Speed Boost broken?'. Blaziken obviously is much more threatening than Yanmega is due to it being ablew to hit both sides of the spectrum and stat up easily. It also helps that Blaziken has some pretty insane coverage for something that can boost its Speed.
Except he's really frail and can be really easily revenged by priority(besides Bullet Punch).
So now we all have to run azumarril? It's the only thing that can revenge (and only out of sun).
CB Azumarril's aqua jet vs 4/0 blaziken: 106%-125.2%
CB Azumarill's aqua jet vs 4/0 blaziken in sun: 53%-63.6%
+2 Blaziken HJK vs 4/252 Azumarill: 117%+
CB Dragonite's Espeed vs 4/0 Blaziken: 55.2%-76.8%
+2 max+ Blaziken's HJK vs CB Dragonite: 70.6%-83.3% -remember that Dragonite is SR-weak... and sandstorm will seal the deal if it's up.
CB Lucario's Espeed vs 4/0 Blaziken:56.6%-66.9%
Blaziken's...lol not bothering.
Conkeldurr's mach punch vs 4/0 Blaziken: 33.8%-40.1%
+2 HJK vs 252/0 Conkeldurr: 110%-130% OHKO
And all these were against 4/0 blaziken, and blaziken had no life orb. With speed boost, Blaziken can afford to invest more in defense (since nearly all priority is physical, it should probably be investing in physical defence rather than hp). And it only needs LO to break through some of the toughest walls (mainly hippowdon and suicune), as well as to guarantee the KO on some lesser walls (although a layer of spikes in addition to SR, courtesy of natty or skarm, does this just as well, and gives him a decent shot at hippo and suicune as well).
CB Azumarril's aqua jet vs 4/0 blaziken: 106%-125.2%
CB Azumarill's aqua jet vs 4/0 blaziken in sun: 53%-63.6%
+2 Blaziken HJK vs 4/252 Azumarill: 117%+
CB Dragonite's Espeed vs 4/0 Blaziken: 55.2%-76.8%
+2 max+ Blaziken's HJK vs CB Dragonite: 70.6%-83.3% -remember that Dragonite is SR-weak... and sandstorm will seal the deal if it's up.
CB Lucario's Espeed vs 4/0 Blaziken:56.6%-66.9%
Blaziken's...lol not bothering.
Conkeldurr's mach punch vs 4/0 Blaziken: 33.8%-40.1%
+2 HJK vs 252/0 Conkeldurr: 110%-130% OHKO
And all these were against 4/0 blaziken, and blaziken had no life orb. With speed boost, Blaziken can afford to invest more in defense (since nearly all priority is physical, it should probably be investing in physical defence rather than hp). And it only needs LO to break through some of the toughest walls (mainly hippowdon and suicune), as well as to guarantee the KO on some lesser walls (although a layer of spikes in addition to SR, courtesy of natty or skarm, does this just as well, and gives him a decent shot at hippo and suicune as well).
Most priority aside from Azumarill's Aqua Jet does lol damage to Blaziken, so by the time he takes enough damage for it to KO, he's already torn a gigantic hole in your team.
If you really want to run speed evs, you won't really be outspeeding enough things after +1, so you lose a lot of sweeping ability.
Sturdy Steelix with protect revenges Blaziken too, no matter the weather. Use protect first turn to heal off all damage from SR (no other sturdy pokemon does this). He takes on all kinds of Blaziken barring balloon variants.
It's really rare, but bulk up Blaziken laughs at priority even more. Work up blaziken is also something else that needs to be watched out for.
It's really rare, but bulk up Blaziken laughs at priority even more. Work up blaziken is also something else that needs to be watched out for.
I'm not defending blaziken, because honestly, I don't think it's okay! It has an easy time of setting up and there's not many things stopping it from tearing entire teams apart if the blaziken user knows what they're doing. I just wanted to mention a solid blaze check that's gone unmentioned: unaware quagsire. With no investment, quagsire comes pretty close to OHKOing blaze with Earthquake, it should be no problem with hazards + life orb damage + whatever. If you don't predict right, though, you'll probably still lose a poke to Blaze. 
Quaggy can't take two HJKs.
Oh, and don't think Quagsire is deadweight other than checking blaziken. It's a full stop to most excadrill and can really save your ass against a lot of set up sweepers.
Quaggy can't take two HJKs. Oh, and don't think Quagsire is deadweight other than checking blaziken. It's a full stop to most excadrill and can really save your ass against a lot of set up sweepers.
I really do think Drought is what breaks Blaziken. Im not really sure where "ease of setup" comes into play outside of that environment, as it isn't taking hits too kindly and losing 50+ percent from priority is by no means "shrugging it off."
Outside of sun, its fire attacks are significantly less powerful as well, meaning that it is either forced to run Flare Blitz as a double-edged sword, or it opts for Blaze Kick and loses a hell of alot of power.
It may have been overshadowed in the very first round, but before Drizzle and Drought Blaze had a mere 2 additional checks (Deoxys and ScarfMin, IIRC), and was manageable. If weather goes, Blaziken should remain as a suspect for at least one more round, IMO.
EDIT: Voting is up. Looks like weather is on the chopping block as well as item-based evasion. I don't really see the latter passing for some reason but we'll see what happens.
Outside of sun, its fire attacks are significantly less powerful as well, meaning that it is either forced to run Flare Blitz as a double-edged sword, or it opts for Blaze Kick and loses a hell of alot of power.
It may have been overshadowed in the very first round, but before Drizzle and Drought Blaze had a mere 2 additional checks (Deoxys and ScarfMin, IIRC), and was manageable. If weather goes, Blaziken should remain as a suspect for at least one more round, IMO.
EDIT: Voting is up. Looks like weather is on the chopping block as well as item-based evasion. I don't really see the latter passing for some reason but we'll see what happens.
really? if thats the case excadrill needs to banned on sandstream teams. i mean whats the point of new abilities for pokemon who havent been put on a ban list. if your just gonna make up more rules. so what if i have to face floatzel in a drizzle team... so what if i have to face excadrill by the same token. thats the point of gamefreak giving drizzle and drought to something besides groudon and kyogre. now there being murked up before we (the community) even get to use them
If you don't like the rules that the Smogon metagame uses, then either do something about it (by working for voting rights or putting out a real argument) or go play somewhere else. Bitching about it on the forums isn't going to do anything. Also, we've been using them since like September, so I'm not sure where you're getting "before we get to use them" from.
Hello fellow Smogoners, please enlighten me as to why are we voting on Brightpowder / Lax Incense but not on Quick Claw and Scope Lens, please.
And I have the feeling we should vote on Blaziken before voting on Drought, but too late, I guess...
And I have the feeling we should vote on Blaziken before voting on Drought, but too late, I guess...
I assume it's because since we already have a clause in place that specifically prohibits evasion moves and those items increase evasion people feel like they have much more of a precedent to vote those out as opposed to Quick Claw and Scope Lens who don't have anything of the sort. I personally don't see why we should ban those items (especially since they suck) but whatever.
Because people are having an OH NOES EVASION BAD knee-jerk reaction to something that's been a part of the metagame for years with no problem. This whole test is going to be ridiculous.
brightpowder/lax incense is up for voting because it is categorized under the evasion clause, but not banned.
I'm not 100% sure but i think we are just voting on abilties/items right now, and after that we are doing pokemon.
Yeah I know, pokémon will be coming after, but this is me fearing people may end up voting for Drought because of Blaziken. But whatever, I have to trust the voting players, after all!
And Evasion Clause is about moves, not items. At least that's how it's been for... generations. It's like people want to follow precedents instead of banning what's actually broken...
And Evasion Clause is about moves, not items. At least that's how it's been for... generations. It's like people want to follow precedents instead of banning what's actually broken...
- Status