Is there any one Pokemon who can stop any sort of team style? No. I don't get your point. All of the Pokemon I listed slow down / stop rain.
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np: UU - Can't Touch This
- Thread starter reachzero
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Is there any one Pokemon who can stop any sort of team style? No. I don't get your point. All of the Pokemon I listed slow down / stop rain.
that's backing my point up...that you need multiple pokemon to do it...and what i'm saying to heysup's comment is you cant just add one of those on your team and say ok rain dance team is countered...
And i believe we are all looking at this from the opposing side of Rain...and we are all viewing this as rain dance teams dont use skill or prediction...the only poke i've seen on rain teams that doesn't seem as though it needs prediction is kabutops
For any clarity, i'm on the side of RD being "not broken." but from what everyone has been writing about it seems as though they say if I can add this on my team then Rain Dance teams shouldnt be a problem.
really all they do is slow them down temporarily...and i've been seeing alot of cresselia run Lunar Dance jsut for those scenarios...and plus you need to have both of those at full health..but i see your point in both of them being a stop for them
I've been reading this, and I'm noticing a lot of parallels to past "broken" strategies in other games. First of all, it's pretty clear that something's wrong when you have to run multiple checks/counters to deal with a single strategy in a metagame (assuming that strategy isn't something completely basic to the game, like using stall, which the extremely specialized RD certainly isn't). The post about how using sun is more powerful with everyone prepared for rain emphasizes this: it's possible to take advantage of the metagame by knowing that everyone has to be prepared for rain, the counter-counter strategy. To give you guys a comparison to work off of; in the Magic the Gathering a few years back there was a single dominating deck, called Ravager Affinity. It was very regimented in that it absolutely HAD to contain artifact lands, Arcbound Ravager, Disciple of the Vault, and supporting artifact cards. There were MANY ways to check or partially counter Ravager Affinity, even sometimes without compromising your own deck's integrity, but they were far from reliable. To quote a player from the era, Brian Kibler:
If you're wondering about the reference to games 2 and 3, it's because competitive Magic has you play with a "core" deck for the first game of every match and then a sideboard of 15 cards that can be switched in between games in a set.
In any case, this strategy WAS counterable (some decks based around nothing BUT countering it grew up and thrived during this era), but that didn't stop Ravager Affinity from being completely and utterly broken. If this example doesn't help because it's focusing on a different game, then let's bring up the famous issue of Garchomp. It had checks and counters as well: dual Ice Sharders for a revenge kill could usually take it down. That didn't stop it from being a huge centralizing force in the metagame, and powerful enough that it was banned.
That's all, really. I've seen things like this come up in the past, and I'm sure they will in the future.
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If you're wondering about the reference to games 2 and 3, it's because competitive Magic has you play with a "core" deck for the first game of every match and then a sideboard of 15 cards that can be switched in between games in a set.
In any case, this strategy WAS counterable (some decks based around nothing BUT countering it grew up and thrived during this era), but that didn't stop Ravager Affinity from being completely and utterly broken. If this example doesn't help because it's focusing on a different game, then let's bring up the famous issue of Garchomp. It had checks and counters as well: dual Ice Sharders for a revenge kill could usually take it down. That didn't stop it from being a huge centralizing force in the metagame, and powerful enough that it was banned.
That's all, really. I've seen things like this come up in the past, and I'm sure they will in the future.
I think what Smurf is trying to say is that the combination of SD Kabutops plus SD Qwilfish + some sort of Ludicolo (+ the usual Rain starters) is overwhelming to the majority of teams, even if they have some of those checks. For example, I bring in Registeel into Kabutops as it SDs, I Waterfall it while it T-Waves me, and then I finish it off or it switches out at minimal HP. Then later I bring in Ludicolo and you don't have your Registeel to help you. The key to Rain Dance teams is understanding that each sweeper has virtually the same counters, in Registeel, Cresselia, Milotic, etc.
Now, I don't think Rain is broken, like Smurf seems to, but it certainly is a very easy strategy to employ to moderate success. I think people just need to find innovative ways to stop Rain teams, such as TrickScarf leads. I even tried a ScarfDrapion lead which can Taunt or Crunch Uxie and Earthquake to OHKO Electrode, as well as letting Froslass leads only get up one layer of Spikes.
Now, I don't think Rain is broken, like Smurf seems to, but it certainly is a very easy strategy to employ to moderate success. I think people just need to find innovative ways to stop Rain teams, such as TrickScarf leads. I even tried a ScarfDrapion lead which can Taunt or Crunch Uxie and Earthquake to OHKO Electrode, as well as letting Froslass leads only get up one layer of Spikes.
Rain dance doesn't near approach ravager affinity levels of broken though, there was no debate needed on Ravager Affinity.
I don't mind the idea of banning damp rock in UU if Rain Dance is too powerful. Granted, that would kill it pretty dead. I see no reason not to test it if nothing else. That said, Rain Dance seems efficient but like all forms of Heavy offense the right threats can dominate it's face in. Explore the options more, look for ways to stop it. Look past Water Absorb. look at Sun. Look at other forms of weather change. look at taunt leads. Granted it's hard to be faster than Electrode, but there are ways to do so.
I don't mind the idea of banning damp rock in UU if Rain Dance is too powerful. Granted, that would kill it pretty dead. I see no reason not to test it if nothing else. That said, Rain Dance seems efficient but like all forms of Heavy offense the right threats can dominate it's face in. Explore the options more, look for ways to stop it. Look past Water Absorb. look at Sun. Look at other forms of weather change. look at taunt leads. Granted it's hard to be faster than Electrode, but there are ways to do so.
Could multiple people post multiple logs of a non raindance team vs a raindance team? Maybe this would help in deciding what the real problem is if there is one.
I used trickroom's fantastic stall team of froslass/steelix/venusaur/milotic/hitmontop/chansey and got obliterated by SD ludicolo, after having everything worn down by a one two combo of Kabutops and Quilfish. Stall beats Rain? I think not.
My own offensive balance team was, well, disemboweled by Franky's rain team, probably with minimal thinking on his part.
I've not ventured into battle with hyper offense myself, but with the inability to outspeed rain and take any hits with 6 glass cannons, I'm thinking carnage as well.
3 different styles, yet Rain will come out the superior team 70% of the time. When some random can shove together 2 RDancers and Kabutops/Ludicolo/Quilfish and clean up some of the more prolific teams with mindless playing, I fail to see how thats not broken.
My own offensive balance team was, well, disemboweled by Franky's rain team, probably with minimal thinking on his part.
I've not ventured into battle with hyper offense myself, but with the inability to outspeed rain and take any hits with 6 glass cannons, I'm thinking carnage as well.
3 different styles, yet Rain will come out the superior team 70% of the time. When some random can shove together 2 RDancers and Kabutops/Ludicolo/Quilfish and clean up some of the more prolific teams with mindless playing, I fail to see how thats not broken.
I don't get all this talk about Registeel coming in on Kabutops to paralyze it. Every time I do the calculation, a +2 LO Rain Waterfall comes out as an OHKO all the time against standard Regi. Registeel with Defense investment can survive, but has that really become the norm now?
I know heaps of people run a sweeping Cresselia, but the full blown physically defensive version used in old OU can really stop a Rain team. As long as you don't switch into a +2 Waterfall, you can survive the it and Thunder Wave Kabutops and paralyse it with Thunder Wave. Yes, I know "revenging" isn't really a very good argument, but crippling Kabutops mean a Rain team would mean it is severely crippled. Taking out Kabutops (Even via paralysis, a paralysed Kabutops can pretty much be considered dead) pretty much means you have taken out 25-67% of its team (Most rain teams use 2-4 sweepers). If the Cress happens to carry Sunny Day as well, consider it gg.
722 Atk vs 372 Def & 444 HP (80 Base Power): 325 - 384 (73.20% - 86.49%) <= This is how much Max Attack Adamant Kabutops does to Cresselia in the rain with Waterfall.
722 Atk vs 372 Def & 444 HP (80 Base Power): 325 - 384 (73.20% - 86.49%) <= This is how much Max Attack Adamant Kabutops does to Cresselia in the rain with Waterfall.
Maybe you don't play stall correctly, because I've never lost a game when it mattered to a rain dance team.
It's so easy to predict the switches to Kabutops and Ludicolo. They are almost always the first to enter after something like a lead Uxie sets up rain. The way you play around rain teams is that you get them to bring something you can easily handle. I'd the the majority of Ludicolo are special, so the way you beat rain is you always bring Hitmontop in on the U-Turn so that they are forced to bring in Ludicolo, while bringing in the appropriate counter each time (in your case, Chansey after, then Hitmontop on the expected Kabutops, etc). You in this manner stall the rain while also inflicting some form of damage on the rain sweepers. It really isn't hard, you have to use your noggin.
Why are they forced to bring in Ludicolo? Gorrebyss and Qwilfish both enjoy coming in on a Hitmontop. And yeah, have fun bringing in Chansey and then watching Ludicolo use Swords Dance. gg.
You've crippled on e your pokemon just to oaralyze ONE sweeper?
Kabutops is good but he s hardly the backbone. You've still got to deal with the other sweepers.
Besides Cress is dead anyway if she stays in, and bam you've just sacrificed one pokemon to paralyze another.
I see that there's a pretty intense argument about the broken-ness of rain in UU, and I'm willing to venture my two cents about it.
At the beginning of the last meta, I tried rain out on a whim and discovered its incredible power. I would easily defeat teams that my previous (sucky) teams couldn't stand a chance against.
The thing is, at this point I completely sucked as a battler. I rarely, if ever, predicted and just spammed whatever attack was super effective against the current pokemon. However, even with virtually no skill involved, I was able to get on the leaderboard and beat a lot of good players simply because the power of double STABed max Attack/Special Attack Waterfall/Surf was too overwhelming.
Basically, with virtually no skill involved, I was able to ascend to the higher tiers of the UU community. From my own personal experience, I would say that rain is simply too easy to use and too powerful and therefore broken. It can definitely be defeated, with the checks that have been mentioned, but generally overwhelms most teams.
Note: cleanup141's Scarf Gardevoir was an excellent counter to rain, tearing through every sweeper with either Thunderbolt or Psychic.
At the beginning of the last meta, I tried rain out on a whim and discovered its incredible power. I would easily defeat teams that my previous (sucky) teams couldn't stand a chance against.
The thing is, at this point I completely sucked as a battler. I rarely, if ever, predicted and just spammed whatever attack was super effective against the current pokemon. However, even with virtually no skill involved, I was able to get on the leaderboard and beat a lot of good players simply because the power of double STABed max Attack/Special Attack Waterfall/Surf was too overwhelming.
Basically, with virtually no skill involved, I was able to ascend to the higher tiers of the UU community. From my own personal experience, I would say that rain is simply too easy to use and too powerful and therefore broken. It can definitely be defeated, with the checks that have been mentioned, but generally overwhelms most teams.
Note: cleanup141's Scarf Gardevoir was an excellent counter to rain, tearing through every sweeper with either Thunderbolt or Psychic.
There's been a lot of discussion about Damp Rock, so here's an idea: make two Rain teams, exactly the same, but with one major difference. Team A runs Damp Rock, Team B does not. Team B will obviously do worse, but the question is, how much? Is Team B still viable without the Rock? I'd do it myself, but I suck so badly at team-building, it's not even funny.
I think that's not even needed as I believe not many people here actually believe rain will still be viable without Damp Rock (if we are getting to the point of discussing wether it's broken or not, and have a good number of players backing up both points of view; it means that if rain is broken at all it isn't THAT much).
jamashawalker said:
I don't think that anyone ever said that...
It seems to me that people seem to be assuming that Rain's opponents don't use prediction... In any case, if you outpredict someone, I'd say that you generally deserve to win.
Smurf. said:
And 75% of all statistics are made up... Seriously, you use a team that you borrowed (and we don't even hear trickroom's opinion on this; whaddayaknow), one team that you made (How well-developed is this team, anyway?), and theorymon about a team style that you haven't played, to make your point. Seems rather odd to call this an argument.
I played against RD teams 3 times today. I used the same team against all those. Won 2, lost one.
The loss was because my damn Armaldo got fully paralized right when i was about to Spin the rocks away. Without the rocks, i would have won.
It's a balanced team(a SR user, a annoyer tank, a Pursuiter, a SleepTalker, a sweeper and a Scarf revenger).
Does those balanced teams better against RD teams?
Or stall is better?
Becuase offense teams are almost ensured to lose unless you have those specialized pokes(Gardevoir for example).
The loss was because my damn Armaldo got fully paralized right when i was about to Spin the rocks away. Without the rocks, i would have won.
It's a balanced team(a SR user, a annoyer tank, a Pursuiter, a SleepTalker, a sweeper and a Scarf revenger).
Does those balanced teams better against RD teams?
Or stall is better?
Becuase offense teams are almost ensured to lose unless you have those specialized pokes(Gardevoir for example).
That loss was against me. (Honestly, I thought your Primeape would OHKO my Gorebyss.)
The fact that an awful player, like me, can defeat an experienced player, like M BLADE, is a good argument for why rain is broken: even terrible players can dominate with it. However, I believe that if we get rid of Damp Rock, Rain will esentially be killed. Trick Room teams, Gravity Teams, etc. are all really rare despite being very good playstyles, because five turns (four unless the user can abuse it) is not enough to wreak havoc upon other teams. Even though Rain teams can do some damage without rain, while Trick Room is screwed after it ends, I predict Rain dying if we get rid of Damp Rock.
The fact that an awful player, like me, can defeat an experienced player, like M BLADE, is a good argument for why rain is broken: even terrible players can dominate with it. However, I believe that if we get rid of Damp Rock, Rain will esentially be killed. Trick Room teams, Gravity Teams, etc. are all really rare despite being very good playstyles, because five turns (four unless the user can abuse it) is not enough to wreak havoc upon other teams. Even though Rain teams can do some damage without rain, while Trick Room is screwed after it ends, I predict Rain dying if we get rid of Damp Rock.
I believe it's because Rain teams don't need predictions and a whole process of team making to win.
Logically, prediction and team process helps you to get even more wins, but even without those you have a good chance of winning with this kind of team.
This style of play is: set up, attack for 8/7 turns with damn powerful attacks. Anything troubling you and you switch to your wall.
It's hard to survive that much power coming from those pokes.
And i swore that your last poke was Kabutops... or else i would keep my Articuno alive and i wouldn't have throw Toxic on your Lanturn to keep my Substitute up... oh well lol
Oh really? You're post makes little to no sense. You want the opposing rain dance team to bring in a predictable sweeper so you can bring in the appropriate counter, duh. Gorebyss is the most predictable Pokemon on a rain dance team, and Chansey stops it completely. Only an idiot would bring in Gorebyss on a Hitmontop and not expect Chansey to come in when playing against stall. The reason Kabutops and Ludicolo are brought in first usually is because 1. they are overpowered, and 2. unpredictable at the same time (mostly applies to Ludicolo). Qwilfish is more of a threat than Kabutops IMO anyway, but its not used as much as the other two I mentioned. And as usage statistics show, not many Ludicolo run Swords Dance, so moot point there. By the way, its not GG if Ludicolo uses Swords Dance, you just bring in Intimidaters on the predicted attacks to both negate the boosts while also stalling out the rain.
Well, while I dont profess to be an expert user of stall, I'd certainly say I'm not some absolute novice. If you want trickrooms opinion so fucking bad why don't you go get it from him, instead of saying 'whaddayaknow'. How well developed is my team you ask? First of all, I don't even see what this question is about. In any case, well enough to 6-0 you if I remember correctly. The only point of yours that has any merit is theorymoning about heavy offense.
Have a nice day.
That is a good way to mis-use statistics.
Hitmontop, Arcanine, and Taurous are the only Intimidators I can think of. None of which can switch directly into Ludicolo because of the threat of Surf. Therefore, more than likely you will only be able to switch in a Intimidator after they have picked off one of your Pokes.
So... you switch in Chansey to take 41.3% - 48.8% from Gorebyss Hydro pump, then again because its so slow.. I've seen alot of rain teams lately that are camoflaged so to speak, with a spiker lead. Chansey doesnt do shit, basically.
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