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You're not quite catching what I'm saying. Froslass was banned without regard to hail. It doesn't matter that hail was really good with it, Froslass was broken outside of hail so we banned it. If it wasn't broken outside of hail and was broken only in hail we would have banned Snow Warning altogether.
The ladder was full of a billion hail stall teams, ~7 of the top 10 were hail teams. Heracross and Venusaur were bitched about too, Heracross was banned. Hail wasn't because Heracross was there.
The standard team was like Snover / SpD Arcanine / Nidoqueen / Hitmontop / Walrein / filler in case that refreshes your memory.
Honestly look at the Froslass / Hail threads if you won't believe me.
I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying either. What I mean is that regardless of the reason of Froslass' banning, we got a very manageable metagame in regards to Hail. You cannot tell me that Hail was broken after that. There were no nominations for Hail or Snover to be banned after Froslass' banning if I can recall, and this is with two or three metagames of "No Suspects". The only bit of publicity that Hail got was from WhiteQueen's team, and like I said, it was a great team but hardly as fantastic as it was hyped.
I've also had a look at the Froslass / Hail threads. They mean absolutely nothing since no-one has posted in eons. The last post in the Froslass thread was on the 18th of March, 2010, when Froslass was still allowed, and most of the "recent" posts didn't have anything to do with Hail. The last post in the Hail thread was a jolly recent Christmas Day of 2009, back in the Cresselia metagame, if I'm not mistaken. They have no relevance to the balanced 4th gen UU we ended up with, so please don't reference them.
About the "billion" Hail stall teams, stop making shit up. I know it's obviously not a billion, but there weren't many Hail teams. The last recorded usage stats that Doug gave in August last year put Snover at 75th most used on the UU ladder, with a whopping 1.98% of usage. It was "dominating" the metagame, alright, dominating in terms of obscurity. Unless some weirdos were Icy Rock and Hail, I'm going to trust my own judgement on this one.
Not "every" hail Pokemon, obviously, but a lot of them. If we ban Abomasnow and Froslass that's already banning more "innocent" Pokemon then simply banning Snow Warning (which effectively isn't banning anything at all, it only forces Snover / Abomasnow to run Sound proof).
Obviously we wont ban Froslass if Abomasnow's banned. It's one or the other, and I personally agree with Honko - removing Froslass is the more conservative action, since you may be eliminating more than necessary by banning Abomasnow.
Yes, Froslass may indeed only be the "symptom" of the root of the problem "Perma-Hail," but the large majority of the posts in this suspect thread puts most of the fault on Froslass.
I'd rather have a manageable playstyle by removing one Pokemon than have a manageable Pokemon by removing an entire playstyle. The latter would be the opposite of diversifying the metagame.
EDIT: oh shit, looks like Mamoswine is stuck in UU for another 3 months... Maybe banning Snow Cloak would hold more weight now.
I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying either. What I mean is that regardless of Froslass' banning, we got a very manageable metagame in regards to Hail. You cannot tell me that Hail was broken after that. There were no nominations for Hail or Snover to be banned after Froslass' banning if I can recall, and this is with two or three metagames of "No Suspects". The only bit of publicity that Hail got was from WhiteQueen's team, and like I said, it was a great team but hardly as fantastic as it was hyped.
I'm not sure why you're taking that approach because it has no base. Just because something happened in the Gen 4 metagame, does not mean it will repeat itself in the gen 5 one. If you spray water on a regular fire, it will likely smoke and go out. If you try and spray water on an oil fire, well you're shit out of luck. Froslass and Abomasnow were banned in gen 4 and that was gen 4 hail. Doing the same thing to gen 5 hail will not. Gen 4 UU is not evidence in this case.
Obviously we wont ban Froslass if Abomasnow's banned. It's one or the other, and I personally agree with Honko - removing Froslass is the more conservative action, since you may be eliminating more than necessary by banning Abomasnow.
One would think it wouldn't be obvious but read the posts above (shrang's). There is intention to ban both of them.
Pocket said:
Yes, Froslass may indeed only be the "symptom" of the root of the problem "Perma-Hail," but the large majority of the posts in this suspect thread puts most of the fault on Froslass.
I'd rather have a manageable playstyle by removing one Pokemon than have a manageable Pokemon by removing an entire playstyle. The latter would be the opposite of diversifying the metagame.
Whatever causes Froslass to be broken would be the thing we ban. Just saying. Doesn't matter if we knock out a play style if it's the thing that's at fault.
And keeping hail around....diversifying the metagame? Seriously?
EDIT: Banedon I addressed that in my response. They are not the same metagame. If you subtract 5 from 7 you get a different answer then if you subtract 5 from a different number. This is even assuming they are both = to what they were in gen 4 which is still not entirely true.
@Heysup - shrang is saying that after Abomasnow's and Froslass's ban, hail was perfectly manageable. The period immediately before and immediately after Heracross's ban hail was definitely not dominating the ladder. That's the period when I was on top of the ladder, and I did not encounter many hail teams. In fact hail stall was considerably rarer than hail offense (aka. Blizzspam). That said, I can't be sure how many hail teams were on top of the ladder, because most of the players there were inactive.
Beyond that I don't know what you're saying.
PS: Who runs SpD Arcanine on a hail team @_@ Hail reduces Morning Sun recovery to 25%; if nothing else hail is a great counter to SpD Arcanine, who can no longer stall Milotic. I don't get it.
Whatever causes Froslass to be broken would be the thing we ban. Just saying. Doesn't matter if we knock out a play style if it's the thing that's at fault.
I'm quoting this because, and I try not to mean any offense but I probably will give it, but this is one of the most ridiculous things I've read in the entirety of every suspect testing thread this gen. This is literally saying that you want to destroy an entire playstyle for a single Pokemon who is broken in said playstyle, by it's own merits. This is on the level of the Lugia/Giratina for OU and Blaziken+Speed Boost arguments. I disagreed with your previous posts, but at least those were respectable. I even agree with the rest of your post except the stuff about Gen 4, which is only cause I wasn't around Smogon to know about it and so hold no opinion. This, however, stood out for me to not make any sense at all.
Instead of just saying that Froslass isn't broken and Hail just is so that you can just say Hail should be removed, why don't you get to the top of the ladder with a Froslass-less Hail team and post logs of it in action, destroying other top teams without much trouble? That would certainly give more weight to your opinions than just saying what how you think it is (hint: it may not be, but you won't really know until you test it).
In fact, just in general, afaik I haven't seen too many logs or even calcs "proving" any suspects broken on any suspect thread since the Moody "Bidoof sweeps", which I find disturbing. Sure, you seen it while on the ladder / used it on the ladder a lot and from what you saw, it was broken. If it convinced you that it is broken, then you might want to post it on the relevant suspect thread, as it's easier to show someone something is broken than to just say it is. Just saying.
I'm quoting this because, and I try not to mean any offense but I probably will give it, but this is one of the most ridiculous things I've read in the entirety of every suspect testing thread this gen. This is literally saying that you want to destroy an entire playstyle for a single Pokemon who is broken in said playstyle, by it's own merits. This is on the level of the Lugia/Giratina for OU and Blaziken+Speed Boost arguments. I disagreed with your previous posts, but at least those were respectable. I even agree with the rest of your post except the stuff about Gen 4, which is only cause I wasn't around Smogon to know about it and so hold no opinion. This, however, stood out for me to not make any sense at all
When you get sick, do you not try and get better? Or do you keep fixing it as it goes along? Keep a pack of tissues and cough candies with you for weeks on end until hopefully it fixes itself? If you see a fire, do you not try and put it out? Or do you just keep moving stuff away as it gets bigger, hoping it just goes out on its own?
Targeting something that is only made broken by something else means that the something else is broken. That's how it's been for the past 2 gens and I don't understand what's changed to make us completely disregard that. It gets the Pokemon that is/are making the metagame so terrible out. Froslass is NOT that Pokemon. We all know that. It's just that for some reason hail is all of the sudden super important, more important than the validity of the suspect test altogether. "We can't ban an entire playstyle (PS sorry sun teams, we don't like you as much) can we?"...yes we can. If it's the aspect of the metagame that is causing the trouble then we need to target that cause. Why didn't we just ban Victini and other sun sweepers? Because those are the symptoms of a broken condition caused by drought. All of the sudden with hail, everyone wants Froslass to take the fall.
So no, I don't take offense. I just hope your fine with accepting that you seem to loop "ridiculous" and "valid" in the same group.
Ninja_13 said:
Instead of just saying that Froslass isn't broken and Hail just is so that you can just say Hail should be removed, why don't you get to the top of the ladder with a Froslass-less Hail team and post logs of it in action, destroying other top teams without much trouble? That would certainly give more weight to your opinions than just saying what how you think it is (hint: it may not be, but you won't really know until you test it).
In fact, just in general, afaik I haven't seen too many logs or even calcs "proving" any suspects broken on any suspect thread since the Moody "Bidoof sweeps", which I find disturbing. Sure, you seen it while on the ladder / used it on the ladder a lot and from what you saw, it was broken. If it convinced you that it is broken, then you might want to post it on the relevant suspect thread, as it's easier to show someone something is broken than to just say it is. Just saying.
You're not very familiar with suspect threads I guess, but posting logs is unfortunately a waste of time. "The guy you played sucked". "You rolled max dmg there, hax!" "You cherry picked those logs!!" If someone disagrees with you, they will find a way to make your logs invalid. Doesn't matter how much of a story they tell.
And there are more important things for me to do then go on the ladder with a Froslass-less hail team just for people to say "well the people you played sucked" or "you must have had easy match ups".
EDIT: @ Below
mostly agree with you. I disagree about the second point but it definitely makes sense.
Froslass was broken last gen because it made stuff like Moltres, Scyther, and Swellow way too good.
Drought was broken because it made a ton of stuff way too good (Fire-types, Chlorophyll abusers).
Right now Abomasnow makes Froslass way too good. I can certainly see the consistency of banning it instead of Froslass.
However, that's not the only way to look at it:
Froslass was banned because it was a smaller ban than getting rid of Moltres, Scyther, and Swellow.
Drought was banned because it was a smaller ban than trying to get rid of every over-the-top sun abuser.
This is obviously more subjective, but I don't think it's completely invalid. If your view is that the combination of things is broken rather than one underlying cause, then you are basically left with the responsibility of making those subjective decisions. I know that at least in the latter case this argument was made, and I know people were gunning for Moltres in gen4 UU, so it's not like this is unheard of. However, because there's not really an obvious "smaller ban" here (I guess it would lean towards Froslass), the issue becomes a massive shitstorm.
I'd rather get rid of Snow Cloak but saying that here is kind of beating a dead horse at this point.
Alright I have the green light to go ahead and move forward. I can't provide answers for long-term solutions, but for the time being I'm going to institute some quick fixes to get UU up and rolling again. I'm pretty sure maestro's method of tiering provides the most accurate/best UU list so I plan on having that instituted and the tier lists updated.
Before that, it seems like the general consensus among UU players is that hail, or some part of hail, is broken in the current metagame. So, I'd like to open discussion (well...MORE discussion) on the merits of banning Snow Warning, Froslass, or Abomasnow from UU. I'll make my decision in a couple days and then we'll get the ball rolling on new UU (complete with a new thread!)
When you get sick, do you not try and get better? Or do you keep fixing it as it goes along? Keep a pack of tissues and cough candies with you for weeks on end until hopefully it fixes itself? If you see a fire, do you not try and put it out? Or do you just keep moving stuff away as it gets bigger, hoping it just goes out on its own?
Targeting something that is only made broken by something else means that the something else is broken. That's how it's been for the past 2 gens and I don't understand what's changed to make us completely disregard that. It gets the Pokemon that is/are making the metagame so terrible out. Froslass is NOT that Pokemon. We all know that. It's just that for some reason hail is all of the sudden super important, more important than the validity of the suspect test altogether. "We can't ban an entire playstyle (PS sorry sun teams, we don't like you as much) can we?"...yes we can. If it's the aspect of the metagame that is causing the trouble then we need to target that cause. Why didn't we just ban Victini and other sun sweepers? Because those are the symptoms of a broken condition caused by drought. All of the sudden with hail, everyone wants Froslass to take the fall.
So no, I don't take offense. I just hope your fine with accepting that you seem to loop "ridiculous" and "valid" in the same group.
fyi, that first comparison falls flat on me, as I haven't been sick (in the way that i would need tissues and cough drops for, at the very least) for as long as I can remember, and if I was I would in fact do so because it usually does go away. Irrelevant, but there ya go.
The bolded above assumes that one or the other is broken, which (until I have proof otherwise) is not the case. The combination of the two is what is broken, which is why so many people are interested in breaking that combination through complex bans.
What policy was in the past has no bearing on what policy should be now. That's why we even have suspect testing now, unlike back in Gen 1 (if I'm not mistaken, I'm afraid I wasn't around smogon back then).
The reason Hail is considered more important is because, as far as been seen, the only problem with it is Froslass atm (as Kyurem was broken regardless). Playstyle > 1 Pokemon. Sun is in a different position, as it broke many pokemon. Note, however, that I never said that I agreed with the banning of Sun anyways, as I really believe that Playstyle > many Pokemon > 1 Pokemon. I do, however, recognize the validity of the opposing arguments when they make sense.
You're not very familiar with suspect threads I guess, but posting logs is unfortunately a waste of time. "The guy you played sucked". "You rolled max dmg there, hax!" "You cherry picked those logs!!" If someone disagrees with you, they will find a way to make your logs invalid. Doesn't matter how much of a story they tell.
And there are more important things for me to do then go on the ladder with a Froslass-less hail team just for people to say "well the people you played sucked" or "you must have had easy match ups".
EDIT: @ Below
mostly agree with you. I disagree about the second point but it definitely makes sense.
Because reading all 5 OU ones, as well as both of these ones and the first 2 LC ones means I'm not at all familiar with them lol.
Anyways, if something is broken there should be plenty of evidence of such. iirc, the one bidoof sweep log wasn't played very well against by the opponent either, but it made an effect by showing how broken Moody is. Now, Froslass/Hail isn't/wouldn't be as broken as Moody, but that's where you choose quantity over quality.
There will always be people who nitpick your evidence; people nitpick everything, and you don't have to try to convince those people of anything. But there are others who will take it as it is, use it to cement what they already know, and maybe sway their positions. I guess if every single voter is that kind of nitpicker then it'd be a bit useless, but it can't hurt to try.
Also, if you can't get evidence of easily beating high-level teams using a Froslass-less hail team, then maybe the "Hail is broken" mentality should be reconsidered, or at least held off until Froslass is banned and more people can try it themselves. Unlike a broken Pokemon, who can be over-prepared for by using specific checks, I'd think it'd be less likely to be able to prepare for a broken playstyle without creating a team specifically against it or using it yourself, and if it's getting to that point, nitpicking shouldn't really be able to invalidate it.
Before that, it seems like the general consensus among UU players is that hail, or some part of hail, is broken in the current metagame. So, I'd like to open discussion (well...MORE discussion) on the merits of banning Snow Warning, Froslass, or Abomasnow from UU. I'll make my decision in a couple days and then we'll get the ball rolling on new UU (complete with a new thread!)
Banning Froslass;
+No more Froslass Hax
-Froslass only broken in hail due to snow cloak, banned an innocent pokemon
-Mamoswine still rampages with uncompetitive misses
Banning Snow Warning;
+No more Miss Hax
+Froslass out of and in Hail is unbroken and viable
-Froslass is soft banned until her dw ability comes out
-One irrelevant pokemon to UU (beartic with less than 0% usage) can not be used until dw ability comes out.
Banning Abomasnow;
+Hail is nerfed slightly with their teams forced to use Snover
-Miss Hax still rampages
The way I see it, the main problem people have with hail is missing attacks against froslass. A ban on Abomasnow solves realistically nothing, as snover still gets weather up and there are no other auto weathers in UU. There are people for banning froslass, but mamo is here for a bit, and froslass out of hail is definately unbroken, only good. (not to mention it does something no other pokemon in the game can, so is a very niche pokemon on many teams, some non weathers even) A ban on snow cloak removes the directly broken problem, which is the complaints about missing attacks against froslass (and mamo to an extent). Another point I did not bring up is blizspam, but personally, people who bitch about blizspam are idiots. Blizspam is no different from spamming any other move, such as i dont know, dragon attacks, which are much better in typing and usually power. If people are so lazy they can't take a simple precaution as to have protection against ONE single attack type that is very obvious in hail, they deserve to lose.
Whatever causes Froslass to be broken would be the thing we ban. Just saying. Doesn't matter if we knock out a play style if it's the thing that's at fault.
Your logic goes against the line of logic the suspect process has been using... Sand is what broke Garchomp, so why didn't we ban Sandstream? Froslass has a special niche outside of Hail with its high Speed, Spike-Stacking and spinblocking? Garchomp has a niche outside of sand, too, with its trollish 102 Spd, amazing bulk, dual Dragon + Ground STAB, etc. We still banned Garchomp anyways, because it was broken in Sand.
How about you actually use relevant analogies, rather than some irrelevant flashlight w/o a battery / being sick / subtracting 5 from a diff # nonsense if you want to be taken seriously.
I agree with Ninja_13. If Froslass is the only intolerable factor of Hail, remove Froslass to make Hail tolerable.
Heysup said:
And keeping hail around....diversifying the metagame? Seriously?
Yes, think about it. With Froslass gone, Hail is manageable / more on par with non-hail teams. In the other hand, people have the option to play Hail if they want to. Removing playstyles is only centering the metagame around a smaller number of threats, hence the centralization.
JABBATHEBOSS! Thanks for getting UU back up and running.
Hail teams are broken right now. Idiots can spam hail and top the ladder. Despite being so formulaic, simply spamming blizzard is hard for a well-built team (i.e. a team that is also good against non-weather) to overcome. I'm pretty sure the UU community as a whole accepts that something needs to change.
Froslass does not contribute to hail teams as much as hype would suggest. It has horrible typing and stats that dont let it switch in safely to any relevant UU threats except for choiced fighting attacks. It isn't a reliable switch into any common rapid spin users. It doesn't even have will-o-wisp, one of the most threatening moves most ghosts can use. The combination of sub and snow cloak is annoying, and throwing twave into the mix can let any random idiot pull a win out of his ass, but "it's annoying and i missed a couple of times" isn't a valid reason to ban. It is usually guaranteed 2-3 layers of spikes, but it is generally less effective at keeping spikes up than sturdy spikers who don't have ghost typing. Deoxys-D and Roserade both threaten opposing spinners much more than Froslass does, and aren't shut down by pursuit.
Having used Froslass outside of hail, it is horribly underwhelming as a spiker and a spinblocker. Not even close to broken.
Less appreciated hail abusers, like Rotom-F and Walrein, are what make hail broken. SubSplit Rotom-F is one of the top threats in UU, but usage stats don't reflect this. With hail generally shitting on Chansey, Rotom-F is really only bothered by Snorlax. Unless you have a Snorlax or Chansey, something will die when Rotom-F comes in. Walrein is a pokemon that can pull off both offensive and defensive sets very effectively and is a true terror for any team that doesn't manage hazards perfectly to face. Mamoswine is already a very threatening offensive force, but letting it abuse snow cloak turns it into a beast. Simply spamming blizzard with powerful ice types can easily break through even well-prepared teams as users like August have shown. Abomasnow itself is a top special wall and subseeder. If it gets a free turn to set up a substitute, the stupid tree is very hard to brake. Lots of fire types that would otherwise present a problem to hail have their only form of recovery (morning sun) rendered useless.
All of these elements combine to make hail teams simply superior to non-hail. If you had to play a UU game for your life, every person would use a hail team.
Considering the above, I would be in favor of banning either Snow Warning or Abomasnow, but I would be opposed to a Froslass ban.
Hail teams are broken right now. Idiots can spam hail and top the ladder. Despite being so formulaic, simply spamming blizzard is hard for a well-built team (i.e. a team that is also good against non-weather) to overcome. I'm pretty sure the UU community as a whole accepts that something needs to change.
If the bolded part is true, isn't it not really that good of an idea to give reqs to the people at the top of the ladder this round? Because "idiots" would be given the right to vote in suspect tests. Or is the system changed now?
Banning Abomasnow does nothing, and I'd rather not ban Snow Warning all together, as it seems a bit unnecessary. And even though I still believe that hail is not broken, we have to decide between Froslass and Snow Warning for a ban somewhere. Now even though we never see Froslass outside of hail, I think we should theorymon a bit about how it performs outside of a hailstorm.
With the eviolite out, Snover isn't so useless. It's still pretty bad, but it's much better since last gen, and I believe that it will just replace all of the Abomasnows out there.
Yeah, I think banning Abomasnow and maybe Froslass would probably be the best course of action for now. I would personally like to keep Hail as a weather effect for the moment, just as an extra playstyle. Having to run Snover nerfs it quite badly already, it would be good to see how the playstyle goes having to run dead weight just having to get its main weather up. If hail is truly intrinsically broken, then just get rid of Snover as well.
With interest in the whole potential Abomasnow ban (as unlikely as it sounds) I tried to think up a good set for snover in the PO teambuilder. Surprisingly, I found that with eviolite, snover has bulk 99% equal to abomasnow's (and I'm comparing max hp snover w/ balanced defenses vs balanced defenses aboma with some hp ev's left) So snover can take a hit as well as aboma essentially, but theres a few bad things he loses. First, he loses out on leftovers for the eviolite bulk, so its harder to stay alive with a subseed set. Also, he's not strong enough to spam blizzard. So, banning aboma would be a pretty effective nerf on hail teams IMO. I'd actually be kind of for the idea if it werent for aboma having no viability for survival in OU, because if you give UU hail teams the equivilant of OU sun's starter, it becomes a much simpler task of killing him off and having a pokemon with sunny day, rain dance, or sandstorm in your party to fix the weather situation. Not that much of a deal, I used to run a froslass with hail in OU to shut down weather, and it served me fine. I could see something similar in UU, even a mon to abuse its weather move so it wouldnt be useless, like rain dance kindra. Has anyone tried this? It sounds pretty cool actually.
Abomasnow is a good pokemon in it's own right, which probably makes hail teams inherently better than they should be. Building a team around Abomasnow simply works. However, Froslass also plays such a crucial role as a spinblocker/spiker/annoyer that I am not convinced that hail teams would function nearly as well as thay do now if Froslass goes away. I'd feel a lot better if we take the conservative approach and ban Froslass (and maybe Abomasnow as well) rather than a Snow Warning ban. A complete ban on hail is not necessary for the metagame because it looks like balance can be restored to the Force with a maximum of 2 pokemon bans, which in my book is less damaging than a ban on an entire set of teams (hail teams). If this turns out to be false and hail is still the terror of the meta, THEN I would say to ban Snow Warning and bring back Froslass. I have little doubt that a Snow Warning ban would fix the current problem, but I am not convinced that that is the wisest course of action to take.
Oh, looks like its "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" arguments all over again...
Ban Froslass if it makes you feel any better, but there is no reason to talk about Abomasnow (gets ****wrecked by 7 weaknesses anyways) or Snow warning without even mentioning Sandstream Hippopotas... Come on?
Mamo will probably be OU soon anyways, so what Ice types are actually left for hail to use after that, apart from Stallrein?
Oh and how did this even come up before acupressure?
Alright I have the green light to go ahead and move forward. I can't provide answers for long-term solutions, but for the time being I'm going to institute some quick fixes to get UU up and rolling again. I'm pretty sure maestro's method of tiering provides the most accurate/best UU list so I plan on having that instituted and the tier lists updated.
Before that, it seems like the general consensus among UU players is that hail, or some part of hail, is broken in the current metagame. So, I'd like to open discussion (well...MORE discussion) on the merits of banning Snow Warning, Froslass, or Abomasnow from UU. I'll make my decision in a couple days and then we'll get the ball rolling on new UU (complete with a new thread!)
Is it really necessary to further talk about this? We've had like 2 months to do it.
Snow Warning / Abomasnow:
It removes the entire playstyle, because that's what many people have deemed broken. It follows the logic that we ban a cause not a symptom. It's hard to even prove that any specific Hail Pokemon is broken besides Froslass who is mostly just uncompetitive due to misses. If we just ban Abomasnow, we can test it to see if hail is manageable and then ban Hail altogether by banning Snover after. Kind of like a safety net.
Snow Cloak:
Snow Cloak is an evasion ability which is naturally uncompetitive. IF we remove it, we'll not have any "hax" problems like we did before. The thing with hail is that your "foolproof" strategy would be dwindled down to very low success rates simply because of misses.
Banning Snow Cloak + Hail would be more ideal since no Pokemon would get "innocently" banned at all.
Froslass:
Personally, I don't see how this ban would solve anything. Hail can still get easy Spikes, can still abuse Snow Cloak, and can still rip your face off with powerful STAB Blizzards. The reasoning is that Froslass is without a doubt the most effective abuser of Hail.
fyi, that first comparison falls flat on me, as I haven't been sick (in the way that i would need tissues and cough drops for, at the very least) for as long as I can remember, and if I was I would in fact do so because it usually does go away. Irrelevant, but there ya go.
The bolded above assumes that one or the other is broken, which (until I have proof otherwise) is not the case. The combination of the two is what is broken, which is why so many people are interested in breaking that combination through complex bans.
You purposely tried to miss the point of my analogies, and not that I'm surprised, but that's kind of not helping your case.
"Proof". There is not ever going to be any hard proof that anything is broken ever. It's majorly subjective to ones experience and interpretation of the words in question (which, since last gen, have not been defined). Combo ban for me is ideal but off the table since I acknowledge that Froslass is the "main" problem with hail (but no where near the only one). However, banning Froslass as a whole is not ideal because we are then doing something detrimental to the metagame.
Ninja_13 said:
What policy was in the past has no bearing on what policy should be now. That's why we even have suspect testing now, unlike back in Gen 1 (if I'm not mistaken, I'm afraid I wasn't around smogon back then).
This isn't that complicated. If there is a policy change then there is a policy change. If there is no policy change, there is no policy change. Not complicated. Suspect tests were added because the other methods were simply not working out. The view on banning the cause instead of the symptom were to avoid multiple / inaccurate bans and banning the true problem.
Ninja_13 said:
The reason Hail is considered more important is because, as far as been seen, the only problem with it is Froslass atm (as Kyurem was broken regardless). Playstyle > 1 Pokemon. Sun is in a different position, as it broke many pokemon. Note, however, that I never said that I agreed with the banning of Sun anyways, as I really believe that Playstyle > many Pokemon > 1 Pokemon. I do, however, recognize the validity of the opposing arguments when they make sense.
Do you honestly think that Froslass is the only problem? The thread is riddled with Rotom-F complaints, Abomasnow complaints, generic Snow Cloak complaints.
Not to mention the inevitable flaw in your argument even if your claim about Froslass was true. Have you not considered that maybe offense relies on Froslass to Spike and Spinblock in one slot? Do you realize how valuable that extra slot is to offense? Without it, spike offense is basically "not worth running". Judging by stats, it's about as "common" (though, not at the top of the ladder) as hail. So why would hail still be more important.
If your premise is false, you're argument is invalid. If your premise is true, your argument is still invalid.
To top it all off, you think that your opinion should outweigh the precedent of banning in the gen 5 UU metagame.
Ninja_13 said:
Anyways, if something is broken there should be plenty of evidence of such. iirc, the one bidoof sweep log wasn't played very well against by the opponent either, but it made an effect by showing how broken Moody is. Now, Froslass/Hail isn't/wouldn't be as broken as Moody, but that's where you choose quantity over quality.
There will always be people who nitpick your evidence; people nitpick everything, and you don't have to try to convince those people of anything. But there are others who will take it as it is, use it to cement what they already know, and maybe sway their positions. I guess if every single voter is that kind of nitpicker then it'd be a bit useless, but it can't hurt to try.
Just because something is broken, doesn't mean it has one specific point in which it's obvious that it's broken. "oh hey man on turn #24 Froslass was totally broken, I agree". It's a long strain of every battle. The amount of logs you need to make anything even relevant is absurd.
Even so, I would consider going on the ladder to get logs if it was at the beginning of the test but it's two months in and people's views are already in cement. If not, a log isn't going to change it. It probably shouldn't change it, people have had long enough to play. Only changes in perspective and reasoning can sway someone's opinion like that at this stage.
Your logic goes against the line of logic the suspect process has been using... Sand is what broke Garchomp, so why didn't we ban Sandstream? Froslass has a special niche outside of Hail with its high Speed, Spike-Stacking and spinblocking? Garchomp has a niche outside of sand, too, with its trollish 102 Spd, amazing bulk, dual Dragon + Ground STAB, etc. We still banned Garchomp anyways, because it was broken in Sand.
For the ~9th time this thread, Garchomp was much more prominent of a threat than Froslass was. There was no debate as to the culprit in that case. This case is different because there is a change in the cause of the broken metagame, it it's hail.
Pocket said:
How about you actually use relevant analogies, rather than some irrelevant flashlight w/o a battery / being sick / subtracting 5 from a diff # nonsense if you want to be taken seriously.
I agree with Ninja_13. If Froslass is the only intolerable factor of Hail, remove Froslass to make Hail tolerable.
It's unfortunate that you think you can dismiss relevant analogies (note: they are analogies for illustration, not proof) by saying "irrelevant" without any reasoning. It's also unfortunate that you think Froslass is the only intolerable factor of hail when there have been god knows how many pages of top players thinking otherwise. My concern is not whether you take me seriously (you ought to), it's more that we make the right decisions and don't follow the flawed logic you're suggesting. I don't understand the hostility either, but I guess it makes me feel at home in the UU metagame thread. All in all, unfortunate.
Pocket said:
Yes, think about it. With Froslass gone, Hail is manageable / more on par with non-hail teams. In the other hand, people have the option to play Hail if they want to. Removing playstyles is only centering the metagame around a smaller number of threats, hence the centralization.
I'm really confused as to how you know that Froslass makes hail the perfect balance between manageable and amazing so that the game will not be centralized for it AND that it will still be usable after Froslass was gone. Obviously I'm more inclined to predict that the former is going to be true, but with all of your arguments for Froslass being the "only problem" (quoted from many posts, including Ninja_13's that you agreed with) to preserve hail, doesn't the possibility of the second option kind of make this whole idea counter-productive in the first place?
Not that this is a valid argument either way, since we should only be banning what's broken, it seems like your idea of what should happen is based on a false premise altogether - at least from this perspective.
I apologize for the hostility, Heysup. I am just really really surprised how you can't make the connection between Froslass's case vs Garchomp's case, which are identical. Plus, you never really elaborated on the "brokenness" of Hail. You simply stated that Froslass is broken in Hail, so we should ban Hail, which is the flow of logic I'm opposed (If it didn't go through with Garchomp's case, how can it possibly go through Froslass's case?).
Not until Snunch provided CONCRETE EXAMPLES about other cases of Hail being broken did I realize that banning Hail has any credibility. Your reasoning about banning Hail to keep Froslass is a terrible justification for banning Hail. So if Snunch's evidence is indeed true, then yes, my premise that Froslass is the only thing broken in Hail would be inaccurate.
Heysup said:
Snow Warning / Abomasnow:
It removes the entire playstyle, because that's what many people have deemed broken. It follows the logic that we ban a cause not a symptom. It's hard to even prove that any specific Hail Pokemon is broken besides Froslass who is mostly just uncompetitive due to misses. If we just ban Abomasnow, we can test it to see if hail is manageable and then ban Hail altogether by banning Snover after. Kind of like a safety net.
How would banning Abomasnow test if Hail is manageable, if we still have the main culprit for Hail abuse, Froslass, in the game?? You even stated in that paragraph that Froslass is the only proven case of a broken Hail abuser.
At the very least, we should ban Abomasnow first and try out Snover hail before we ban the playstyle entirely. Soundproof Abomasnow will not be relevant to the metagame anyway, so nothing of value will be lost, and we may find that Hail is a usable but not overpowered weather when it's forced to run Snover. I personally think Froslass is what makes people want to ban Hail, and that it wouldn't be broken without her ability to abuse Snow Cloak, but I admit I haven't played much in the past couple of months, and the fact that Mamoswine is still UU somewhat weakens the argument that banning Froslass would solve all our problems. Therefore, if Hail turns out to be broken even with Snover in place of Abomasnow, then maybe Snow Warning needs to go. But we should at least try banning Abomasnow first; simply banning Snow Warning right off the bat seems both hasty and lazy.
I apologize for the hostility, Heysup. I am just really really surprised how you can't make the connection between Froslass's case vs Garchomp's case, which are identical.
Stop ignoring my repeated points. You have read them in this thread at least 5 times.
They are not identical (besides the obvious fact that they are not the same Pokemon). Reasoning for this is in these posts that were responding SPECIFICALLY to you:
Pocket, you're misunderstanding or not listening to them.
I've talked to quite a few people and Garchomp was not being banned purely for Sand Veil, it's because of its overall power even without Sand Veil....then with Sand Veil added on it's pushed over the top. Last gen we had a very similar situation with Froslass. It was really fucking great at everything it did, almost too good. With hail around it just pushed it over the edge. However this gen, Froslass is NOT as good. Garchomp of Gen 5 and Froslass of Gen 4 makes a more realistic comparison, but Gen 5 Froslass does not belong with those two examples. There is unanimous agreement that Froslass is not broken, too good, or even "great" out of hail.
Just because X occurred and Y happened, doesn't mean if A occurs, Y will happen also.
That is an illogical conclusion since it isn't an analogous scenario. Hail is very different from sand. Froslass is very different from Garchomp. And most importantly UU is very very very different from OU. There is no UU Gliscor for Hail coefficient. There is no UU Cacturne for Hail coefficient. I'd prefer if we kept this irrelevant garchomp comparison out of the UU thread because it's only going to induce silly arguments that don't matter.
I think I've made my point - there are many others though with my conversation with Alexwolf.
Pocket said:
Plus, you never really elaborated on the "brokenness" of Hail. You simply stated that Froslass is broken in Hail, so we should ban Hail, which is the flow of logic I'm opposed (If it didn't go through with Garchomp's case, how can it possibly go through Froslass's case?).
Not until Snunch provided CONCRETE EXAMPLES about other cases of Hail being broken did I realize that banning Hail has any credibility. Your reasoning about banning Hail to keep Froslass is a terrible justification for banning Hail. So if Snunch's evidence is indeed true, then yes, my premise that Froslass is the only thing broken in Hail would be inaccurate.
I have said reasoning for this too, and Snunch / PK Gaming had said it a LONG time ago as well. I don't ignore what other people say, you shouldn't either. If you want me to refresh your memory it has to do with Rotom F, canceling out leftovers, and powerful Pokemon to abuse hail with. I don't feel the need to further show examples of things you're suggesting did not happen, for your sake. You know they're there, just use the advance search button.
Pocket said:
How would banning Abomasnow test if Hail is manageable, if we still have the main culprit for Hail abuse, Froslass, in the game?? You even stated in that paragraph that Froslass is the only proven case of a broken Hail abuser.
No I didn't say that anywhere. I said that Froslass was the "main" offender on a hail team, which is mostly true - it would have been more accurate if I said "one of the main offenders" - that is no where near the extreme you stated.
Anyway if it wasn't obvious enough, Abomasnow -> Snover is a hail nerf, so we'd see if Hail is actually as "manageable" as people think it is with Snover. If it's still broken then we ban Snow Warning without any relevant consequences.
EDIT: Snow Warning + Hail is still on the table I'm assuming, right Jabba?
Part of the point of not banning Obama is so that we don't do pointless bans. Yes, Obama is good. He's not great, and Hail won't be much different with it gone. If we ban Obama and somehow find that Hail is magically now managable, then that'd be great, but is also quite unlikely. This is why I agree that we ban Snow Cloak+Snow Warning and call it a test period. It's short, sweet, keeps Hail AND Lass in the meta and has the least likelyhood of a pointless ban.
