np: OU Suspect Testing Round 4 - Blaze of Glory

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ginganinja

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I don't run it because I don't need it. 'nuff said.
Thats what what I asked, read carefully

According to YOUR post which, put simply, states that a pokemon that is used a lot and has commonly used counters, is broken. Ferro was the #1 most used pokemon, its dominance led to people running Fire Blast on Tar and HP Fire on Latios. So, according to what you said, Ferrothorn should be banned.
 
Thats what what I asked, read carefully

According to YOUR post which, put simply, states that a pokemon that is used a lot and has commonly used counters, is broken. Ferro was the #1 most used pokemon, its dominance led to people running Fire Blast on Tar and HP Fire on Latios. So, according to what you said, Ferrothorn should be banned.
No, you speak carefully. That is by far not the amount needed for being broken. I said you need to have no reason to use anything else in order to label something broken. There is a reason why I don't use it, and that's because it wouldn't have done my team any good. If it were broken, that wouldn't have happened, and it would have gone on board instantly due to outclassing its alternatives completely.
 

ginganinja

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I said you need to have no reason to use anything else in order to label something broken.
So just because you don't use Ferrothorn its not broken? I never used Moody yet it got banned by an easy 90% majority. Usage does not always determine what is broken and what is not. In Gen 4 Wobbuffet never made the Top 5 most used pokemon and yet it too got banned. If we took your way of doing things then I don't think we would get anything banned.
 
So just because you don't use Ferrothorn its not broken? I never used Moody yet it got banned by an easy 90% majority. Usage does not always determine what is broken and what is not. In Gen 4 Wobbuffet never made the Top 5 most used pokemon and yet it too got banned. If we took your way of doing things then I don't think we would get anything banned.
Remember, we shouldn't want to ban things. It's a last resort. Something which we do in extreme circumstances (i.e. if something is broken).

If nothing has to be banned, then great! The ideal situation!

NOTE: I'm not saying nothing needs to be banned in this metagame. I personally do think something needs to be banned, but I just find it strange how a lot of people here are talking as if it's a bad thing if we were in a situation where we don't need to ban anything. That flow diagram that someone posted (which evidentally, most of you didn't understand) demonstrates that.

Also, I know this is nothing to do with anything, but it's kind of a pity that Poliwag/Poliwhirl don't get Drizzle. In DPP UU, we had a similar-ish situation with Abomasnow and Hail. Some people thought it was the weather that was broken, but Abomasnow got banned and it turned out that Hail teams having to use Snover was enough of a nerf to balance it.
 
Rain is contending with the other weathers just fine without Swift Swim.

Why are you people trying to give me migraines? Rain doesn't need MORE powerful sweepers.
Is this the reason for blanket banned swift swim and drizzle?! Surely I don't think a Golduck is going to sweep your whole OU team? Just ban the broken pokemon, and if the lift of the ban lets a monster out, like lets say Floatzel, then maybe you will just have to deal with it, becuase as good as it possibly could be, its no where near broken.
 
Wobuffett says hi in Gen 4 and Gen 3.

Also, this is the current situation. I'd say about 80% of teams are running a form of weather, which, guess what, counters other weathers. Almost every Sun Team is a clone of the next. Same for Sand. Not as much for Rain, but the basics are there.

The remaining 20% are running anti-weather stall, or attempting to use offense without weather, and failing rather miserably, unless they are abuseing things like Deo-S Duel Screens to Shell Smash Goyrebass.

Which is a broken tactic in it's own right. After all, Deo-S is an automatic suspect this round due to a majority.
Well every metagame had its own style of play didnt it, so weather is this ones style. Weather is very versatile, despite the carbon copy Sand/sun teams you see, its just people dont know how to use weather. Banning one form of weather will seriously harm this metagame because like it or not this metagame is based on weather.
And you could argue that banning weather would result in not making a weather metagame, but I couldnt disagree more. All the banning of Rain teams will do will make Sun teams and Sand teams rise in general due to the ease of use. So yeah Rain brings in diversity as equally as Sub and Sand brings diversity to the metagame
 
The only thing I'm finding broken is sand veil Garchomp. It finds itself consistently getting past solid would be checks (Gliscor, Bronzong, Quagsire, Scarfers, Latios and other faster sweepers) due to repeated lucky misses. I've found players who abuse it and would have lost their Garchomp even with 1 or 2 sand veils misses getting past two of my checks with like 4 or more misses. Doesn't promote much strategy now does it? You can never know when your attack will miss, whereas if you run stone edge or fire blast you know the risk you are running. Should I try running 3 or 4 checks to it? Garchomp itself isn't broken, it's just sand veil, but if it has to be banned for it (or rough skin mandatory which I doubt), it should be. It's just a guessing game.
 
Hey guys, remember that we're still in suspect testing mode, so it's natural for people to try to find tried and tested stuff and abuse them to the max.

Let's also remember that we'll have usage stats maybe tomorrow! Will it prove various people's claims that this metagame isn't that diverse? Or, to put a quantifiable comparison to it, will this metagame turn out to be less diverse than late gen 4's was? Place your bets!
 
I'll bet right now that once the usage stats are up, we'll need the Blue Helms to keep the weather haters in check.

So while I still have time to, I want to beg the aforementioned members of our society to act like Dick Cheney and go about their business quietly, and not explode and kill us ban-opposers when the usage stats are out and my assumption about weather is true.
 
You've both got it wrong (Raikaria more, however), and once again, I redirect to the PR forums. The idea is to not ban anything unless it is utterly outclassing everything else, which defines itself by the following rule of thumb:

When something is so powerful there is no reason to use anything else, and teams more or less only consist of the specified Pokémon and its counters anymore, then it is broken and must be banned.

Unless this happens, no bans. Ever.
That's only ever happened with Garchomp, when the standard D/P team was Garchomp/Garchomp counter/Secondary Garchomp counter/Garchomp counter counter/filler/filler. I don't think that's happening with anything at the moment.

If I may give my two cents, I'm finding Breloom to be pretty overpowered now, especially the Swords Dance versions. I'm finding it getting past Gliscor if it gets enough Bullet Seed hits, which was pretty much its best switch-in. But maybe my team just isn't prepared enough for it.
 
Wobuffett says hi in Gen 4 and Gen 3.

Also, this is the current situation. I'd say about 80% of teams are running a form of weather,
Who logically gives a shit.
If 80% of teams ere running a form of bulky offense would be banning bulky offense?
No.
Weather isn't a pokemon, it's a field effect you execute your style of play in.
Who cares if it's 80% or not, weather isn't a pokemon.
You can run stall,balance, and HO in weather and whatever other styles you want to run and pokemon you want to run. You'd be fine if 80% of teams weren't running weather but if it's the other way around it's suddenly some kind of problem, just because it's weather.
 
That's only ever happened with Garchomp, when the standard D/P team was Garchomp/Garchomp counter/Secondary Garchomp counter/Garchomp counter counter/filler/filler. I don't think that's happening with anything at the moment.
Exactly.

(Though other examples are Gen IV 'Mence, Speed Boost Blaziken, and, as far as I know, Drizzle-SwSw.)
 

Mario With Lasers

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To be frank, we have never had any kind of Garchomp scenario in competitive pokémon besides the actual one, as we've never had a single pokémon centralizing the whole metagame around itself for more than a year to an unhealthy degree and being the main subject of innumerable debates and arguments and bickering and hatesgonnahateism regarding its possible ban.


Not that B/W Skymin wasn't considered idiotically broken, but Darkrai, in example, never had much chance of centralizing anything, as it was too busy being cool blowing shit left and right and not looking at explosions.
 
If I could just toss in my two cents, I'll be out of your way.

Sun Offense
Balanced Sun
Rain Offense
Rain Stall
Balanced Rain
Sand Offense
Sand Stall
Balanced Sand
Hail Stall
Trick Room
Clear Skies Balanced
Clear Skies Stall
Clear Skies Hyper Offense
Baton Pass


No particular order, but this is about the sum of viable and used playstyles in OU (well, the main-metagame) this gen. With auto sun and auto rain introduced onto less viable pokemon to add up to a decent "Weatherman", we've introduced about six new playstyles, while Sand got some nice new abusers as well (while our frosty Abomasnow merely gained a new partner in Ice Body Regice). From what I can see, this is just about what Smogon, and the rest of the battling community could ask for. It's almost beautiful to see such an array of options that many people merely take a look at and say "This disgusts me. It's to weather centralized. Let's make it like 4th Gen".

I've seen countless people say, "It's nearly impossible to play stall or normal team-play this Gen. It's either weather or weather countering."

This simply isn't true. Stall Teams are quite viable, especially with the introduction of Mischievous Heart, ie Whimsicott, Sableye, Murkrow. There's also the WONDERFUL new toy Gamefreak gave us in the Eviolite. This has made Chansey, Porygon2 and Dusclops great pokemon, especially since all have access to recovery.

Balanced is also just as viable as 4th Gen, if not more so. Gengar and Starmie are still top-tier pokemon, regardles of if weather is up or not. Same goes for fellows like (sorry, realized I need to switch to English names *shivers*) Hydreigon, Chandelure, Volcarona, Reuniclus, Thundurus, Terrakeon, etc. If anything, most of them can benefit from weather. Chandelure gains huge power in the sun with a 50% stronger fire blast, and same goes for Volcarona, while Reuniclus can withstand and use Sand and Hail to stall while CMing or Trick Rooming, while Thindurus gets 100% Accurate Thunders and coming off of a great SpA stat. Sure, other weathers may interfere, but I digress.

My main point earlier was that, for those who want to ban auto-weather as an entirety, we would be down to this.

Trick Room
Balanced
Stall
Hyper Offense
Baton Pass


This is like sharing cake with your little brother. It may seem like you're cutting it in half, but you're really cutting a bigger portion for you. Joking aside, those in favor of banning auto-weather as a whole are asking to eliminate more than half of the viable playing styles available today.

Now, this looks just like 4th Gen. THIS IS 5TH GEN! Was our goal not to provide a diverse and enjoyable metagame for the majority? Those who are in favor need to make a decision; get on the bus and adapt / get used to 5th Gen while letting go of 4th Gen fundamentals, or stay behind and play in 4th Gen. It's not my choice to make, but I stongly suggest you guys get on the bus.

Thanks to whoever posted this earlier. V

When something is so powerful there is no reason to use anything else, and teams more or less only consist of the specified Pokémon and its counters anymore, then it is broken and must be banned.

Let's see...

Q: Is auto-weather so powerful that there is no reason to use anything else?
A: Absolutely not. There is no reason that the players can't play Stall or Balanced (non-weahter) or Baton Pass or Trick Room or Hyper Offense. The ambundance of "or"s is to emphasize the variety of options available. I do agree that the game is dominated by weather, but that's due to popularity and wanting to enjoy the new options available, not brokenness.

Q:Do weather teams consist of certain pokemon, and only those certain pokemon to abuse / defend their attributed weather?

A: To an extent, perhaps. Ferrothorn, Tyranitar, Hippowdon, Excadrill, and Garchomp are all very common in sand. HOWEVER, sun and rain have quite a variety of options that they can play with. Besides, if something constantly shows up, that's because it's either good or broken.
That being said, is Hippowdon broken? No. Sad Special Defenses and weakness to common Water and Ice attacks keep him balanced with his awesome Defense, HP, respectable attack, and nice movepool. What about T-Tar? No. Bad-ish typing with weaknesses to three forms of priority and weakness to the most common attacking types balanced by his beautiful stats and wonderful movepool. Abomasnow...well, do I need to mention it? Ninetails and Politoed are both in the same boat where they bring great weather and have decent bulk + SpA, but not much else outside of boosted STAB and Hypnosis. Not to say they're not good pokemon, but nowhere near broken. So, in banning auto-weather, you're banning decent pokemon due to your distaste for seeing weather teams quite often. Sounds silly, no?

Now I'm sure alot of you will find this rediculous, and some will like it, but I have to get going. Tbh, I have to take care of my dog.
 
Hey guys, remember that we're still in suspect testing mode, so it's natural for people to try to find tried and tested stuff and abuse them to the max.

Let's also remember that we'll have usage stats maybe tomorrow! Will it prove various people's claims that this metagame isn't that diverse? Or, to put a quantifiable comparison to it, will this metagame turn out to be less diverse than late gen 4's was? Place your bets!
Usage stats tommorrow? :drool:

The metagame will be significantly more diverse than it was in late gen IV. Each type of weather has it's own OU. Tornadus is used on Rain teams. Venusaur is used on Sun teams. Excadrill is used on Sand teams. Kyurem is used on Hail teams. When you account for all the common Pokemon each different type of weather-based team uses, the amount of total common Pokemon towers over that in late gen IV (depending on the amount each respective weather is used)

As for the "only broken if we have something like we did with gen IV chomp" argument, did teams only consist of Deoxys-A and its counters in Round 1? No. That would be a really crappy rule of thumb to use, and I have no clue where you pulled it from. Whether a Pokemon is broken or not is always going to be subjective, there is no set of rules that defines whether it is broken or not. If it is banned, the majority of the voting pool can't find a reasonable way to deal with it (and as such thinks it's broken). If it is not, they can.
 
If I could just toss in my two cents, I'll be out of your way.

Sun Offense
Balanced Sun
Rain Offense
Rain Stall
Balanced Rain
Sand Offense
Sand Stall
Balanced Sand
Hail Stall
Trick Room
Clear Skies Balanced
Clear Skies Stall
Clear Skies Hyper Offense
Baton Pass


No particular order, but this is about the sum of viable and used playstyles in OU (well, the main-metagame) this gen. With auto sun and auto rain introduced onto less viable pokemon to add up to a decent "Weatherman", we've introduced about six new playstyles, while Sand got some nice new abusers as well (while our frosty Abomasnow merely gained a new partner in Ice Body Regice). From what I can see, this is just about what Smogon, and the rest of the battling community could ask for. It's almost beautiful to see such an array of options that many people merely take a look at and say "This disgusts me. It's to weather centralized. Let's make it like 4th Gen".

I've seen countless people say, "It's nearly impossible to play stall or normal team-play this Gen. It's either weather or weather countering."

This simply isn't true. Stall Teams are quite viable, especially with the introduction of Mischievous Heart, ie Whimsicott, Sableye, Murkrow. There's also the WONDERFUL new toy Gamefreak gave us in the Eviolite. This has made Chansey, Porygon2 and Dusclops great pokemon, especially since all have access to recovery.

Balanced is also just as viable as 4th Gen, if not more so. Gengar and Starmie are still top-tier pokemon, regardles of if weather is up or not. Same goes for fellows like (sorry, realized I need to switch to English names *shivers*) Hydreigon, Chandelure, Volcarona, Reuniclus, Thundurus, Terrakeon, etc. If anything, most of them can benefit from weather. Chandelure gains huge power in the sun with a 50% stronger fire blast, and same goes for Volcarona, while Reuniclus can withstand and use Sand and Hail to stall while CMing or Trick Rooming, while Thindurus gets 100% Accurate Thunders and coming off of a great SpA stat. Sure, other weathers may interfere, but I digress.

My main point earlier was that, for those who want to ban auto-weather as an entirety, we would be down to this.

Trick Room
Balanced
Stall
Hyper Offense
Baton Pass


This is like sharing cake with your little brother. It may seem like you're cutting it in half, but you're really cutting a bigger portion for you. Joking aside, those in favor of banning auto-weather as a whole are asking to eliminate more than half of the viable playing styles available today.

Now, this looks just like 4th Gen. THIS IS 5TH GEN! Was our goal not to provide a diverse and enjoyable metagame for the majority? Those who are in favor need to make a decision; get on the bus and adapt / get used to 5th Gen while letting go of 4th Gen fundamentals, or stay behind and play in 4th Gen. It's not my choice to make, but I stongly suggest you guys get on the bus.

Thanks to whoever posted this earlier. V

When something is so powerful there is no reason to use anything else, and teams more or less only consist of the specified Pokémon and its counters anymore, then it is broken and must be banned.

Let's see...

Q: Is auto-weather so powerful that there is no reason to use anything else?
A: Absolutely not. There is no reason that the players can't play Stall or Balanced (non-weahter) or Baton Pass or Trick Room or Hyper Offense. The ambundance of "or"s is to emphasize the variety of options available. I do agree that the game is dominated by weather, but that's due to popularity and wanting to enjoy the new options available, not brokenness.

Q:Do weather teams consist of certain pokemon, and only those certain pokemon to abuse / defend their attributed weather?

A: To an extent, perhaps. Ferrothorn, Tyranitar, Hippowdon, Excadrill, and Garchomp are all very common in sand. HOWEVER, sun and rain have quite a variety of options that they can play with. Besides, if something constantly shows up, that's because it's either good or broken.
That being said, is Hippowdon broken? No. Sad Special Defenses and weakness to common Water and Ice attacks keep him balanced with his awesome Defense, HP, respectable attack, and nice movepool. What about T-Tar? No. Bad-ish typing with weaknesses to three forms of priority and weakness to the most common attacking types balanced by his beautiful stats and wonderful movepool. Abomasnow...well, do I need to mention it? Ninetails and Politoed are both in the same boat where they bring great weather and have decent bulk + SpA, but not much else outside of boosted STAB and Hypnosis. Not to say they're not good pokemon, but nowhere near broken. So, in banning auto-weather, you're banning decent pokemon due to your distaste for seeing weather teams quite often. Sounds silly, no?

Now I'm sure alot of you will find this rediculous, and some will like it, but I have to get going. Tbh, I have to take care of my dog.
To all your options on the top I'll put in my own 2 cents by saying your just splitting subcategories into it. It's all rain, it's all sun and it's all sand. (I don't include Hail because well I've heard it sux. :P) This also applies to your 5th gen into 4th gen paragraph. It may seem like half of the options are gone (I'm actually inclined to agree with you there) but what it really boils down to is Rain, Sand, and Sun. (Rain is actually the most suspect right now. I don't think Sand and Sun should be suspect)

To your second paragraph I hear this argument alot in those that don't want Weather to be banned. Adapt to the threat which is simple and difficult at the same time. Rain is running like crazy in this metagame. It has a few checks. (I say checks because the sheer scope of options available in Rain makes it difficult if not impossible to find a counter that can take all it's threats. Nattorei is the closest but it's 2hko'd by Thundurous' Hammer Arm so it to is a check.) I suppose if your put one pokemon that can specialize in fighting the weather that pisses you off your good but what options are there. I've seen people mention Golduck and Lickylicky but it should be obvious that those two arent viable enough to combat weather even with their abilities. Mabye if these abilites permanently got rid of the weather but sense they don't they aren't. They die to easily which means you wasted a perfectly good member on your team for a chance to defeat weather.

What other options could their be? Nattorei, I suppose, sense it wouldn't have to much trouble against sand but other than that I can't really see it making much of a difference. What other options than that? Weather to counter weather, is a good choice. After all you basically put the weather in your favor. However, that's not good either. Not because it's not good in the convential term. It's perfectly fine to do so but that seems bad for the metagame. If we go by this pretty soon everyone's gonna be using weather. You can't say non weather is good either. I'm not saying it's bad because I can't say that. I'm saying to state non-weather is good in this metagame is just guesswork until statistics come out. (Which, luckly for alot of people wasting their time with these arguments, is coming out tommorrow) The only sure thing as of right now is that the metagame is one of weather. That might be fine for some people but for others (Including myself) it just isn't fun to face a weather team every other battle.

To your first Q and A: Once again you can't judge that until stats come out. Until they do it's just guesswork.

To your second Q and A: Tornadus is another good example. Without rain it's really not anything special. It's completely outclassed by Thundurous. Another good one for rain is actually the Swift Swim Ability. Most of the users of SwSw can't really do much of anything else. Other SwSw weren't used very often, when Drizzle was still legal with SwSw because of the big three. If we were to make that combination legal again and start banning individual users (Which seems like a terrible idea when you figure the common factor in any user banned beyond the big 3 would be drizzle. To ban(Possibly) so many pokes just to keep Drizzle in is a very stupid thing to do.) these other SwSw users would make their way up to ou just because they do good in Drizzle with their respective sets and SwSw. Without drizzle there's literally no reason to use them just as there would be no reason to ban the big 3.

Wall of text :P : Basically what I'm saying is that most of what your saying has no proof behind it just as most of these silly arguments with weather have. What is fact is that Weather is dominating. The proof of that is simple. Play the metagame for a little while and see just how much weather your facing. Then put that number into a few days, then a week, then a month. So much weather for so long may be a metagame to some but it's boring to most.



 

jas61292

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To all your options on the top I'll put in my own 2 cents by saying your just splitting subcategories into it. It's all rain, it's all sun and it's all sand. (I don't include Hail because well I've heard it sux. :P) This also applies to your 5th gen into 4th gen paragraph. It may seem like half of the options are gone (I'm actually inclined to agree with you there) but what it really boils down to is Rain, Sand, and Sun. (Rain is actually the most suspect right now. I don't think Sand and Sun should be suspect)
Anyone who thinks all weather teams are alike obviously hasn't played enough. Sure many teams are similar, but there are many different Pokemon used, and each weather has at least two different styles of play. You can't group them all together because of one single factor.

To your second paragraph I hear this argument alot in those that don't want Weather to be banned. Adapt to the threat which is simple and difficult at the same time. Rain is running like crazy in this metagame. It has a few checks. (I say checks because the sheer scope of options available in Rain makes it difficult if not impossible to find a counter that can take all it's threats. Nattorei is the closest but it's 2hko'd by Thundurous' Hammer Arm so it to is a check.) I suppose if your put one pokemon that can specialize in fighting the weather that pisses you off your good but what options are there. I've seen people mention Golduck and Lickylicky but it should be obvious that those two arent viable enough to combat weather even with their abilities. Mabye if these abilites permanently got rid of the weather but sense they don't they aren't. They die to easily which means you wasted a perfectly good member on your team for a chance to defeat weather.
Of course a weather team has no counters. If it did what would be the point. Any team that has a single Pokemon that can counter it would unsuccessful. Staying balanced requires that a team has a decent number of checks, not a full on counter. All weathers have that. Just because you can't stop an entire team with one Pokemon doesn't make it broken. Really, think about what you are saying for a second.

Another good one for rain is actually the Swift Swim Ability. Most of the users of SwSw can't really do much of anything else. Other SwSw weren't used very often, when Drizzle was still legal with SwSw because of the big three. If we were to make that combination legal again and start banning individual users (Which seems like a terrible idea when you figure the common factor in any user banned beyond the big 3 would be drizzle. To ban (Possibly) so many pokes just to keep Drizzle in is a very stupid thing to do.) these other SwSw users would make their way up to ou just because they do good in Drizzle with their respective sets and SwSw. Without drizzle there's literally no reason to use them just as there would be no reason to ban the big 3.
So we should ban an entire play-style, and make tons of Pokemon unusable because it is simpler than banning a few guys. Makes a ton of sense to me. Drizzle itself is not broken, and banning if would have much more farther reaching consequence than banning those guys who it makes broken.
 
Clear Skies Hyper Offense doesn't really work unless you have like Rain Dance or Scarf Deo-S. Otherwise you're just going to be outrun and killed by Excadrill and Venasaur, among others.
TBH any Clear Skies team is handicapping itself because a weather inducer is basically a check to opposing weather on it's own. Running no weather IS putting yourself at a disadvantage, unless you're using trick room. But even then, the opponent probably hits harder than you. I hate using a weather inducer, but you're basically crippling yourself if you don't. It's possible to do decently with Clearskies Balanced (I myself peaked #200) but Sun gives you a huge amount of trouble because Venasaur in particular is very fast, very powerful after growth and pretty damn bulky too. Rain and Sand aren't that bad for balanced at present because the only thing that abuses Sand Rush is Excadrill and it's easily walled, but Chlorophyll is still at full capacity.
Just my 2p really. But I'm convinced Sun is the worst thing for balanced.
 
Anyone who thinks all weather teams are alike obviously hasn't played enough. Sure many teams are similar, but there are many different Pokemon used, and each weather has at least two different styles of play. You can't group them all together because of one single factor.
Just picking out this quote.

Honestly, when is the last time you saw Sun or Rain stall (especially the former)?

The most Sand Stall has is SubSeed Jumpluff (which Whimsicott can do outside of sun anyway), Leaf Guard Eviolite Tangela (I guess), defensive Heatran with Toxic/Roar, and those are the primary threats I can think of off the top of my head. MAYBE Screens Cresselia thanks to boosted Moonlight, and a bulky ground type that appreciates the removal of the water weak.

There really is no "Sun Balance," in my opinion either, if that's what you were referring to. It is pretty much bulky offense with crazy speed on ChloroSaur and Sawsbuck.

Rain Stall is a little more diverse, with Rain Dish Tentacruel, Ferrothorn, SubSeed Ludicolo/Parasect, and Hydration Vaporeon, but that is about it as well, and it pales in comparison to the amount of Rain Offense I see. It's like Rain teams were back in 4th gen OU - they were there, but not so common compared to other types of teams.

Sand I'll give to you naturally, but I'm not even going to bother considering Hail because of the fact that it is so much less common relative to the other weathers.

Staying balanced requires that a team has a decent number of checks, not a full on counter. All weathers have that.
They do have checks - other weather teams. There is literally no drawback to running weather (Drizzle in particular due to its advantage against the other two), because at worst you'll just have another weather to face and at best you will steamroll the weatherless team that attempts to stand in your way. And by virtue of having a weather starter, they can check other weather as a side effect of utilizing their own strategy.

Weatherless cannot claim this. Every weatherless team should have some anti-weather measure, and it won't always fit into the team as seamlessly as another pokemon might have. Ferrothorn is a great rain check, and even Sand to an extent, but what if I'm running an offensive team that doesn't want to lose momentum? Then of course there's the fact that weather teams can at least scrape by without a dedicated counter to another weather's sweepers so long as they keep their weather starter. Use a weatherless team without Gliscor, Conkeldurr, or Rotom-W, and you have a significantly higher risk of being swept by Excadrill than a Drizzle team that lacks those pokemon.
 
Just picking out this quote.

Honestly, when is the last time you saw Sun or Rain stall (especially the former)? Sand I'll give to you obvoiusly, and I'm not even going to bother considering Hail because of the fact that it is so much less common relative to the other weathers.
Sun stall doesn't work (and as such is nonexistent). I last saw a Rain stall team just a few battles ago. In fact, I used to use one.

It is true that each weather has a most common playstyle. That should be obvious. But to deny that there are multiple common and usable playstyles for each type of weather is just foolish.
 

jas61292

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Clear Skies Hyper Offense doesn't really work unless you have like Rain Dance or Scarf Deo-S. Otherwise you're just going to be outrun and killed by Excadrill and Venasaur, among others.
TBH any Clear Skies team is handicapping itself because a weather inducer is basically a check to opposing weather on it's own. Running no weather IS putting yourself at a disadvantage, unless you're using trick room. But even then, the opponent probably hits harder than you. I hate using a weather inducer, but you're basically crippling yourself if you don't. It's possible to do decently with Clearskies Balanced (I myself peaked #200) but Sun gives you a huge amount of trouble because Venasaur in particular is very fast, very powerful after growth and pretty damn bulky too. Rain and Sand aren't that bad for balanced at present because the only thing that abuses Sand Rush is Excadrill and it's easily walled, but Chlorophyll is still at full capacity.
Just my 2p really. But I'm convinced Sun is the worst thing for balanced.
To be completely honest, certain Pokemon are just OU, and others aren't. Just because you are not running weather doesn't mean that you can choose anyone you want and expect them to be good. In my experience, running no weather is perfectly possible, but often you have use Pokemon that do well in the various weathers. You can't just ignore weather when team building, even if you don't use it yourself. Remember, those who induce weather are not the only ones who can abuse it. I love running a Starmie on almost any team, because it does fairly well against all weather teams. I don't have to run weather myself for it to be useful in the rain my opponent uses.
 
Anyone who thinks all weather teams are alike obviously hasn't played enough. Sure many teams are similar, but there are many different Pokemon used, and each weather has at least two different styles of play. You can't group them all together because of one single factor.



Of course a weather team has no counters. If it did what would be the point. Any team that has a single Pokemon that can counter it would unsuccessful. Staying balanced requires that a team has a decent number of checks, not a full on counter. All weathers have that. Just because you can't stop an entire team with one Pokemon doesn't make it broken. Really, think about what you are saying for a second.



So we should ban an entire play-style, and make tons of Pokemon unusable because it is simpler than banning a few guys. Makes a ton of sense to me. Drizzle itself is not broken, and banning if would have much more farther reaching consequence than banning those guys who it makes broken.
1. I know weather teams have many pokemon in them but that wasn't what I was referring to. A weather team is a weather team. It doesn't matter what kind of pokemon you have in there. If it abuses weather it's a weather team. If it abuses rain it's a rain team. If it abuses sun it's a sun team. If it abuses Hail it sux. (:P lol I'm kidding)

2. You twist my words. I suppose it would be possible to come to that conclusion given the way I said it but that's not the way I meant it. I never said that a team is broken just because you can't find a counter for it. This isn't gen 3 anymore and there are just way to many pokemon to truly find a counter for any one team. What I was saying was it's difficult to adapt to the weather metagame because there aren't enough checks to weather. Rain especially is making it really difficult to adapt simply because with all the viability rain has to offer it's extremely difficult to find ways to get around rain. I'd like to know some of the options besides Nattorei (Who again is not the all time check for rain. As soon as it's gone you may as well have quit.) I myself have tried many times to adapt to the metagame. I've tried many non-weather teams and have thus far failed to get anywhere. You know based on my arguments that I won't use an actual weather team. Call me stubborn call me foolish but it's just the way I am and I'd call you close-minded for making such a suggestion in the first place.

3. Think about what your saying for a second. To ban many pokemon who are otherwise unbroken because their broken in rain. I understand that many pokemon would return to being unviable but think about your own statement for a second. The common factor in all of those pokemon bans would be weather. If people decided to go with the plan to make Drizzle SwSw legal again and then start banning things that we proved aren't broken outside of drizzle that'd be silly. Hell one of Blaziken's reasons for banning was because of sun. (I'm not saying it wasn't broken for other reasons I'm simply stating a reason that's revalant to this disscussion.) How many pokemon need to be banned because of weather for you to get it through your skull that Weather is the problem not the pokemon?


 
I guess that's true, but Starmie is OHKO'd by unboosted Venasaur and IIRC Excadrill too. You are correct in that some pokemon can shine in multiple weathers, but you absolutely cannot rely on being faster than the opponent to win, unless you're scarf Deoxys-Speed. The pokemon I use are not bad, but the weather starters check more of the metagame than anything else, so nonweather needs to be bulky, and even then you have trouble deal with the majorit of the meta in 3-4 pokes without one of them being Ttar, Toed, Tail or Hippo. (Abomnasnow is horrible if you aren't abusing Blizzard and Stallrein-esque strategies) On top of that, Hippowdon isn't very good at checking other weathers because they're primarily special-based so prey on his weaker stat. That leaves three pokemon that ought to be on every team. To me, that's arguable overcentralization. I don't know how exactly to solve this though. Perhaps a Sun nerf would allow nonweather to compete on a more even field - perhaps not. Does sun deserve a nerf? Quite possibly. Thundrus is also very good - most of his "counters" are obscure water/grounds, since Chansey gets 2hko'ed, and faster things can't really switch in.

Don't get me wrong, nonweather can work in this metagame, but it's very demanding. It's going to require a very fast Scarfer - 105 base or more, generally - a selection of bulky Pokemon that handle a plethora of threats individually, in their favourable weather (a short list indeed), generally some sort of late-game sweeper to eliminate the things that remain which must also be very fast and have certain things defeated beforehand, or else must rely on priority quite heavily, and usually something to matchup favourably against the weather leads themselves. It's not impossible, but It would be a lot easier if you just slapped Tyranitar on and left yourself with permanent sandstorm.
 
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