NP: UU - Silent Night

[shrang]

Dude, I'm not trying to make you remember games we played earlier, it's just I'm quite sure the record is 3-0 or 4-0 using your Rain team against me at the moment.

There's no point in comparing your screw ups to mine. I lost a sweeper in early game due to a stupid move. You made slightly-less-than-optimal moves that didn't cost you anything but turns (which are important, granted, but not 1/3 of your offensive force important). I screwed up harder.

That doesn't matter. The "less than optimal moves" were not that light either. Get Hitmontop Zen Headbutted was probably the biggest mistake in the game (Since no revenging of Kabu later), after your needless saccing of Gorebyss. If you remember correctly, wasting turns is probably one of the biggest parts of beating a rain team, so yeah. Anyway, there's probably no point comparing these, since it still proves that if you make a mistake you are condemning yourself to loss, which I almost did. However, Smurf going "If you make a mistake against a Rain team, you lose" is just a very silly argument, because you can apply this to everything. It is also a crappy argument because if you lose because you misplayed, whose fault is it, Rain's or yours?? I'll quote the best one liner in MoP's Mence paragraph (The other bits were average, are going to be ignored because they sometimes are not the strongest arguments you can put forth):

You have to play Pokemon by eliminating threats WITH YOUR POKEMON, not with BANS.

I've beaten players who are better than you (no offense mate) multiple times

I don't want to sound sore, but is this really relevant?? If anything, you're telling me that Rain is more likely to lose against crappier players than better players, which is a complete contradiction to what I've been fed already. Yes, I'm not an elite player going around, but I will just remind you that I have voted quite a number of times and have the experience to tell what is broken and what is not.

If you want to argue why rain isn't broken, you'll need to point out how an average team in this metagame can beat it without just switching around for 6 turns and hoping to get lucky. Especially against a good player...

It doesn't work that way. I don't want to come to my warstory again, but when you finally had Rain up in the battle, how many times did I mindlessly switch around?? "Switching around hoping to get lucky" is exactly why people think its broken. There is a difference between analysing your position and switching with purpose and mindlessly switching like what appears to be a good move.

 

[SJCrew]

I agree with your stance on Rain, but get off MoP's dick man...that wasn't a good post nor even a good point. That was just him sticking up for the lowest common denominator players saying the same thing with no real basis or experience.

 

[shrang]

I agree with your stance on Rain, but get off MoP's dick man...that wasn't a good post nor even a good point. That was just him sticking up for the lowest common denominator players saying the same thing with no real basis or experience.

I'm not saying that was a good point, it's just that was a good line (I do admit the rest were pretty average, and the line itself probably didn't sound well with the rest of it either), seeing that a lot of people are forgetting that you counter things with Pokemon instead of with bans at the moment.

EDIT: Or maybe should I say, you counter things with smart play, not with bans

 

[Dark Ace]

Hey guys, arguing about who is the best battler or who has the most wins between you 2, won't determine whether rain is broken or not. Personally, I believe that Damp Rock shouldn't be banned (imo rain is not that broken). The best argument that backs up the "rain is broken" thesis so far, is this: "if your team is heavily prepared for rain, it is vulnerable to another playstyle." Well this true. However this goes for any playstyle. Rain is nothing special, just another playstyle. Its extremely difficult to be prepared for any palystyle with just one team. For example balance has usually a hard time against stall, but stall is vulnerable to hyper offence. TBH i have never used rain effectively and thats mostly my fault, but the times I have been swept by one are very very few and I dont think I am overprepared.

 

[FlareBlitz]

I'm not continuing this retarded back-and-forth anymore. If you want to see the effects of rain's centralization, get on the ladder. Hint: Someone just faced me with a scarf manectric.

(I still won. Lolrain.)

 

[shrang]

I'm not continuing this retarded back-and-forth anymore. If you want to see the effects of rain's centralization, get on the ladder. Hint: Someone just faced me with a scarf manectric.

(I still won. Lolrain.)

And I just thumped this guy's Rain team with a UU 4drag2mag. Your point??

 

[YaM]

Thanks Banedon. Would the community like to start discussing Rain using my logs? The last time I produced 30 nothing too much came out of it, and most of you ignored the 10 logs I provided and had to go through the trouble to comment on.

Just keep in mind Rain is a TEAM, not a Pokemon. Why is it wrong to devote one, two, three Pokemon to check it..? Did you devote four Pokemon to check offense? Bulky offense? Stall? Hail? Sand? Surely you don't expect for there to be so many of a one Pokemon to check the three or four Rain sweepers on a Rain team? (and Golduck and Gardevoir do this very well) Of course you don't have to use these two Pokemon as there are other Rain checks out there, but you have to use more of these to cover for their lesser ability to check Rain. For example my loss against Johto-Master had his Venusaur, Persian and bulky Porygon2 managing to check Rain.

I agree with Dark Ace. It's like if I bring a load of wallbreakers like SD Ken, Clefable, Bulky TauntMissy.. I'll be at a large advantage against Stall, but I'll be disadvantaged against offense who would hit my slower Pokemon hard. I think Flare said something about Rain versus an "average" team. Perhaps he is implying that Rain easily beats the average team. But what is the average team? Is it prepared towards Rain? Or offense? Or stall? Or what? What's wrong if your team can't handle let's say... Sand and Trick Room teams at the same time? Whose fault is it, Sand or Trick Room?

 

[FlareBlitz]

When I said "average team", I was being charitable.
I meant rain against a team that is metagame-viable while still having a couple of rain checks. Something like uxie/vensaur/sd croak/rotom/arcanine/milotic, which combines the average team given usage charts with a toxicroak.

On the surface, that team seems really solid against rain. It's not. Ludicolo sets up against Milotic and wrecks the entire team. And god help you if you have normal, flying or fire-typed attacker without a grass or ground/fighting coverage move (swellow, scyther, and the 'Pom come to mind) because then Kabutops gets an SD and you learn what "pain" means.

I'll re-iterate what I said before: rain has three negative effects on the metagame.

1) Centralizes the metagame heavily and unduly. Proof: look at toxicroak/poliwrath usage before/after rain surge. Also consider that this was a metagame with Cresselia in it. Yes, Toxicroak usage spiking during a metagame with a fucking cresselia is a big deal. Also check stats on jolly v. adamant on kabutops, and hell, kabutops stats in general. Also leafeon. Also tangrowth. Now you might say "so what, the metagame should adapt, blah blah" because we're talking about every team need 3+ water resists or a water immunity and a couple of resists. What the fuck is that?

2) Causes matches to be predicated around team-matchups instead of skill This one is pretty obvious. Remember heysup's team? That one based around swellow/moltres and froslass spikes rape. He basically had a 0% chance of winning against any competent rain user. Not because of his skill, but because his team, which peaked leaderboard, fared horribly against the playstyle. You simply cannot "properly" prepare for rain while also preparing for everything that you need to prepare for in order to be successful in the metagame.

3) It's easy to play, hard to beat. This ties back in with the other points somewhat. I know I say "rain in the hands of a a competent user", and that's exactly what I mean: competent. Not good. Not amazing. Competent. While I may not win as much using rain as I do with a regular team (and I will say right now that I don't) the fact is I built my rain team in SEVEN MINUTES and do little more than make obvious switches and spam waterfall whenever necessary. My bulky offense team, by comparison, took well over three days to properly build and test, and requires substantial thought on my part because I don't have sweepers on steroids that can plow through resists with the same attack. Seriously, have you guys done any calcs? Kabutops 2hkos Venusaur and fucking Feraligatr with unboosted Waterfall! This cannot be okay!

...whatever. I know I said this already, but I'm tired of talking about this. The problem with this subject is, as YaM pointed out, it's very theorymon reliant. Logs aren't going to help. We tried that, and there's always something wrong...

The only real way to convince people would be for me to go out and recruit a bunch of good players I know and have them all use rain for a few months. But that does not appeal to me at all, and unless we talk about it here rain is still very uncommon and used by people who aren't very good, so I doubt it would ever affect me personally if it wasn't banned.

It's still broken of course, but it's one of those situations where I'm finding it increasingly hard to give a fuck.

 

[shrang]

I'll re-iterate what I said before: rain has three negative effects on the metagame.

First of all, having a "negative impact" does not mean a Pokemon is broken. I'm quite sure something like Tyranitar would have a "negative impact" because it limits a lot of Pokemon. He's not broken and is unlikely to ever be thought of broken (At least this Gen anyway).

1) Centralizes the metagame heavily and unduly. Proof: look at toxicroak/poliwrath usage before/after rain surge. Also consider that this was a metagame with Cresselia in it. Yes, Toxicroak usage spiking during a metagame with a fucking cresselia is a big deal. Also check stats on jolly v. adamant on kabutops, and hell, kabutops stats in general. Also leafeon. Also tangrowth. Now you might say "so what, the metagame should adapt, blah blah" because we're talking about every team need 3+ water resists or a water immunity and a couple of resists. What the fuck is that?

The bolded part is very exaggerated. Toxicroak usage in Jan->Feb was #39 -> #35. Poliwrath went from #46 to #41. Yes, there is a change, but down the bottom of the tier there, that isn't a "huge" spike. Please check the stats before making such a judgement. Also, who the hell is carrying 3+ water resists in their team (Even if they are, it's probably something like F/W/G + Altaria or something, which is just a balanced team rather than one heavily geared for rain).

2) Causes matches to be predicated around team-matchups instead of skill This one is pretty obvious. Remember heysup's team? That one based around swellow/moltres and froslass spikes rape. He basically had a 0% chance of winning against any competent rain user. Not because of his skill, but because his team, which peaked leaderboard, fared horribly against the playstyle. You simply cannot "properly" prepare for rain while also preparing for everything that you need to prepare for in order to be successful in the metagame.

A team will always have weaknesses, his just happened to be Rain. Do you remember my old team, Flare?? It fared pretty well against most teams (It got me onto the leaderboard, so it wasn't utter crap), but completely annihilated rain. That team never lost ONCE to Rain. Please do not use absolutes like "simply cannot" when there are quite a lot of examples that prove otherwise.

3) It's easy to play, hard to beat. This ties back in with the other points somewhat. I know I say "rain in the hands of a a competent user", and that's exactly what I mean: competent. Not good. Not amazing. Competent. While I may not win as much using rain as I do with a regular team (and I will say right now that I don't) the fact is I built my rain team in SEVEN MINUTES and do little more than make obvious switches and spam waterfall whenever necessary. My bulky offense team, by comparison, took well over three days to properly build and test, and requires substantial thought on my part because I don't have sweepers on steroids that can plow through resists with the same attack. Seriously, have you guys done any calcs? Kabutops 2hkos Venusaur and fucking Feraligatr with unboosted Waterfall! This cannot be okay!

@ Bolded part: Really?? Whenever I see a Rain team these days, I get an easy battle. Yes, I'm speaking of my own experiences again (Which is what the Suspect Test is all about), but I'm quite sure there are others who feel the same way.

Also, I know how hard Kabutops hits. Kabutops 2HKOs Venusaur with an unboosted Waterfall in the Rain. Big whoop. Getting the Rain up and Kabutops in takes two turns. I'll come back to my Feraligatr example. In two turns, Feraligatr can 2HKO Venusaur with Waterfall too.

whatever. I know I said this already, but I'm tired of talking about this. The problem with this subject is, as YaM pointed out, it's very theorymon reliant. Logs aren't going to help. We tried that, and there's always something wrong...

The only real way to convince people would be for me to go out and recruit a bunch of good players I know and have them all use rain for a few months. But that does not appeal to me at all, and unless we talk about it here rain is still very uncommon and used by people who aren't very good, so I doubt it would ever affect me personally if it wasn't banned.

It's still broken of course, but it's one of those situations where I'm finding it increasingly hard to give a fuck.

That did happen last time this whole subject was brought up Flare. Syrne played Rain. You played Rain. A lot of others did too. It was found to be UU.

Also, don't get me wrong for sympathising with Rain. I personally think it's a stupid playstyle and it is very annoying, just like how Baton Pass/Trick Room/Gravity is annoying. I feel like the opponent is showing me no respect whatsoever. However, there is a difference between what is an annoying playstyle and a broken playstyle. A very, very big one.

 

[Alchemator]

Please do not use absolutes like "simply cannot" when there are quite a lot of examples that prove otherwise.

Please do not use language like "lots of examples" when you have only given one.

 

[shrang]

If Damp Rock was voted to be UU, I'm quite sure there are more examples for my argument than those against, thank you.

 

[Alchemator]

Regardless, you have only give one in your argument. It's difficult to justify rain being not broken with points made in a completely different metagame where the experiences were so contrasting to this meta.

All you've said here shrang to the arguments put forward by people who advocate a Damp Rock ban is "I can deal with it", which doesn't really convince me at all.

 

[Dark Ace]

OK.....lets change subject since arguing over rain is pointless (both sides have good arguments so its a tie I guess :P) and it is becoming a flame war........... Is it me or our "little" phoenix Moltres friend has become extinct. I strated laddering again 2 weeks ago and I've never seen one....

 

[Lee]

The bolded part is very exaggerated. Toxicroak usage in Jan->Feb was #39 -> #35. Poliwrath went from #46 to #41.

Not only are you being subjective in claiming that that's not a big deal ('Croak went from being uses in 5.33% of battles to 6.43% which is actually quite notable) but you've chosen to neglect that this is in a metagame dominated by Cresselia - a Pokemon that counters and sets up on/easily beats both 'Croak and 'Wrath.

(I) never lost ONCE to Rain

Could you revive that team and save a few logs for us? I'd be very interested to see them, may even change my stance on Rain but atm FlareBlitz's point of team matchups > skill is ringing especially true with me. I was up to top 10 on the leaderboard with a team I thought to be pretty solid but the team became redundant when the mini-Rain spike started. I had a bulky GK Mesprit, a Bulky Water and a Bulky Grass type but was still pissing into the wind against rain. So I made some changes to better deal with Rain and found myself infinitely worse off against standard teams. So I just got frustrated, slapped together a quick rain team and saw instant results. There's something very wrong with that.

Since this 'Rain is broken, Rain isn't broken' circlejerk between you and Flare is going nowhere fast I'd be interested to hear some more Damp Rock-orientated discussion. It's not like banning a Pokemon where you completely remove it and it's influence from the metagame altogether - we're just 'nerfing' it. Rain will still exist. It'll just require more thought, skill and creativity then the mindless, cookie-cutter spam-fest that infests the metagame right now. I'm all for that.

 

[Arcticblast]

OK.....lets change subject since arguing over rain is pointless (both sides have good arguments so its a tie I guess :P) and it is becoming a flame war........... Is it me or our "little" phoenix Moltres friend has become extinct. I strated laddering again 2 weeks ago and I've never seen one....

I agree with Dark Ace here. First, I would agree that Moltres is losing usage.

Second, this Rain discussion is getting out of hand, like he said. All this is now is a flame war between shrang and Flareblitz with a few other people here and there, like Yondie. So, instead of basically saying RA1N IZ BROK3N LOLZ (which we are basically doing now that all the good arguments are gone) why don't we either discuss how to BEAT rain or simply move the topic to another subject, such as hyper offense (just an example)? If the need still arises to discuss rain, we can open up a new Rain topic (the old one is just a random clusterfuck) or take it to IRC.

 

[sharkz]

OK.....lets change subject since arguing over rain is pointless (both sides have good arguments so its a tie I guess :P) and it is becoming a flame war........... Is it me or our "little" phoenix Moltres friend has become extinct. I strated laddering again 2 weeks ago and I've never seen one....

I'm seeing that too, and the usage stats say MOltres is dropping like a brick... Swellow too. Absol is also dropping for some reason, hated him so yay.

Maybe SR weak sweepers are not in right now? I s'pose Whorelass leaving did hurt for them though

 

[Lee]

OK.....lets change subject since arguing over rain is pointless (both sides have good arguments so its a tie I guess :P) and it is becoming a flame war...........

Second, this Rain discussion is getting out of hand, like he said. All this is now is a flame war between shrang and Flareblitz with a few other people here and there, like Yondie. So, instead of basically saying RA1N IZ BROK3N LOLZ (which we are basically doing now that all the good arguments are gone) why don't we either discuss how to BEAT rain or simply move the topic to another subject, such as hyper offense (just an example)? If the need still arises to discuss rain, we can open up a new Rain topic (the old one is just a random clusterfuck) or take it to IRC.

Oh, be quiet and stop trying to mini-mod. There's no flame war going on, it's just apparent that shrang and Flare are both quite passionate on the subject and neither are willing to back down. I'm finding this to be some of the best discussion the thread has had in a few dozen pages. If you want to discuss something else then you'll have to bring something new to the table and 'hey dudes, i aint seen moltres in a while ?_?' doesn't cut it.

 

[shrang]

Since this 'Rain is broken, Rain isn't broken' circlejerk between you and Flare is going nowhere fast I'd be interested to hear some more Damp Rock-orientated discussion. It's not like banning a Pokemon where you completely remove it and it's influence from the metagame altogether - we're just 'nerfing' it. Rain will still exist. It'll just require more thought, skill and creativity then the mindless, cookie-cutter spam-fest that infests the metagame right now. I'm all for that.

On that topic, I reckon IF Rain was found to be broken, I would like to see one of Ludicolo and/or Kabutops banned, THEN see what happens. Qwilfish, Gorebyss and Omastar all seem to be quite manageable under the rain, and Floatzel and others are meh anyway. I mean, when Dragons were being annoying in OU, we it by banning Mence and Latias, not Outrage/Draco Meteor or something Dragon specific, right??

 

[Alchemator]

The difference here between Rain and an OU Dragons comparison is this:

SD Kabutops works decently outside of rain too (I've tried it), but with Rain under its belt it effectively gets an agility too and a STAB boost.

The sweepers by themselves are manageable (lol SD Ludicolo outside of Rain), it's the Rain that pushes them over the edge. Therefore we need to think: How can we nerf rain? Answer: Ban Damp Rock.

There is an unbelievable amount of difference between 5 and 8 turns. 8 allows you to set up Rain, get in your sweeper, stat up and then sweep a significant portion of their team (5 turns left). With only 5 turns, you only have 2 turns to sweep if you use a boosting move - not worth it when you're easily annihilated after Rain is gone.

By banning Damp Rock we would remove the trend of Rain sweepers using stat-up moves, which nerfs them as a whole. Banning Damp Rock is therefore the best route to go down without banning two or three whole Pokémon that are definitely not broken outside of Rain (but still usable!).

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

The sweepers by themselves are manageable (lol SD Ludicolo outside of Rain), it's the Rain that pushes them over the edge. Therefore we need to think: How can we nerf rain? Answer: Ban Damp Rock.

Rain teams without Ludicolo and Kabutops are manageable (lol SD Lombre on a UU rain team), it's Kabutops and Ludicolo that pushes them over the edge. Therefore we need to think: How can we nerf rain? Answer: Ban Kabutops and Ludicolo.

Infact, I've not even taken sides on whether rain is broken or not. I'm just trying to demonstrate a point here. If we're going to be making arguements about why we should ban an item rather than ban a couple of Pokemon, we shouldn't use an arguement that's exactly the same as the arguement that the people who are arguing for the other side are using. Discussions like this tend to go around in circles.

Here's some notes to everyone, as people will probably not understand what I'm trying to say.

Note 1: I didn't have to pick on this particular post. Most of the posts in the discussion have done exactly the same thing.

Note 2: I am NOT saying rain is broken, just demonstrating a point. I haven't actually decided whether rain is broken yet. This post is about the method of debating that most people in this thread are using.

Note 3: I'm not saying Kabutops and Ludicolo need to be banned. Perhaps rain would be not broken if just one Pokemon was banned. Perhaps 6 Pokemon would need to be banned to stop rain being considered broken. Perhaps rain isn't broken. Perhaps Damp Rock should be banned to nerf rain. They're just examples. This post is not about whether Ludicolo makes rain broken or not. Again, this post is just to point out a flawed debating tactic that most posters are using here at the moment.

 

[Smurf.]

We'll just have to agree to disagree..

fuck it lets have a vote.

 

[Alchemator]

fuck it lets have a vote.

This. Not like I'd manage to get rights though :(

 

[uragg]

Well it would certainly help the rain-is-broken proponents if more of you decided to nominate Damp Rock/rain sweepers. I know Smurf feels very passionately that rain should be banned, and he was the only one that decided to voice this concern when it mattered. I kind of feel like we're beating a dead horse by arguing the same points as we did when rain was first raised as a potential suspect. If you really support banning rain, then do something like topping the ladder with it like franky did (much much easier now than when he did it) instead of repeating the same arguments that we could just read in the old rain thread.

edit: this isn't directed at flare, I know you laddered a ton with rain

 

[yond]

To get a real vote going though we would need a significant amount of people writing up nominations to suspect Damp Rock again. Considering it was a majority vote last time Jabba and Reach probably would have to make a decision right? Either way I definitely agree we should not just ban a playstyle, but put limitations on it to make it more manageable. Like the banning of Damp Rock. I am for this for the exact same reasons as alchemator posted above.

 

[capefeather]

I actually find it rather disappointing that the "usual crowd" is the only group arguing about Rain, and saying the same things. If anyone else plays UU and would like to contribute something to this particular, now would be a good time.

For me, when I used Rain, I lost when the opponent outplayed me, and I won when the opponent didn't. Simple as that. In fact, I'm rarely more confident that the winner simply outplayed the loser in general than I am when playing UU Rain. This doesn't really translate to "broken" to me. That's just my stance on it.

EDIT: I never really meant to argue about this -.- Well, when I said "when I played Rain", it should be "when I used Rain" not "when I played against Rain". I don't think that playing against Rain even matters that much considering how uncommon it is.