Greetings ladies and gentlemen, we are in an interesting time for the general Pokemon community. This is a time when several Pokemon and clauses are under investigation by the public as a whole. The goal? To decide what is broken and should be removed, and what does not influence the metagame drastically and we decide should stay. What has not been done before is the banning of broken MOVES. Never before have we deemed any particular move too powerful to merit removal from competitive play. This is all about to change. I bring you the most broken move in the entire metagame: Stealth Rock.
Now you may be wondering what exactly makes Stealth rock worse than its counterpart, Spikes, the answer is very simple ad consists of two parts. The first: No Pokemon is immune to Stealth Rock damage besides Magic Guard Clefable. Yes, every single Pokemon in the game takes damage from it, big or small. This ruins several strategies, including Focus Sash, Sub to Berry, and others. The second point has to do with something much greater, something with will take an entire paragraph to discuss: It does so much damage to Pokemon weak to rock that it ruins variability in the metagame.
The following types are weak to rock: Bug, Fire, Ice, Flying. Some of the better types in the game take 25% from a switch in after the rocks have been laid, and guess what? It only takes one turn to lay them down. These rocks have no counter besides Rapid Spinning, a risky endeavor and a rather pointless one, considering it only takes one turn to set up. Regular spikes have no affect on Pokemon who fly or levitate, take 3 whole turns to put up and deal equal damage to everyone. Toxic spikes are even more limited in who they affect, as they don’t do anything to Grounded poisons (Who in fact remove them), Steels, Immunity Pokemon and everything spikes doesn’t affect. Stealth Rock only has one Pokemon immune to it, and it’s not even an OU Pokemon. Stealth rock reduced variability by a bucketful. When was the last time you saw a Fire type regularly in OU? Or an Ice type outside of Hail teams (Who are still forced to carry a spinner, sometimes two, because of the sheer magnitude of SR’s effect)? Some of the game’s top Pokemon like Salamence are in fact decimated by this move. It is probably not ridiculous to wager that Salamence and Dragonite usage are lower than Garchomp just because Garchomp shrugs off SR with pitiful damage and Salamence and Dragonite take 25% whopping percent. Articuno (Who is one of the game’s better Garchomp counters) takes 50% from it, and so does Moltres (A very solid Lucario counter). Good Pokemon like Yanmega are relegated to lead roles simply because taking 50% off your health is such gigantic a price to pay. Regice, one of the best Special walls of last gen, is no longer used nearly as much! Why? Because Stealth Rock makes it lose a ton of HP on switch in!
Stealth Rocks also reduce the only real counter to Spikes and themselves. Armaldo, Cloyster and Torkoal, all good spinners, are barely used since it’s a crappy spinner who takes 25% on switch in. People argue that some Pokemon overcentralize, well, this move does more than they do. It highly prevents people from using several strategies, countless Pokemon, is easier to set up than it is to bring Wobbuffet in, and to top it off has virtually no decent counters in the metagame. Without this move the metagame would be more diverse with more usuable pokemon! Broken or not? You decide.
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I myself believe it should be banned for the reasons stated above
credit to Light for writing up this article.
Now you may be wondering what exactly makes Stealth rock worse than its counterpart, Spikes, the answer is very simple ad consists of two parts. The first: No Pokemon is immune to Stealth Rock damage besides Magic Guard Clefable. Yes, every single Pokemon in the game takes damage from it, big or small. This ruins several strategies, including Focus Sash, Sub to Berry, and others. The second point has to do with something much greater, something with will take an entire paragraph to discuss: It does so much damage to Pokemon weak to rock that it ruins variability in the metagame.
The following types are weak to rock: Bug, Fire, Ice, Flying. Some of the better types in the game take 25% from a switch in after the rocks have been laid, and guess what? It only takes one turn to lay them down. These rocks have no counter besides Rapid Spinning, a risky endeavor and a rather pointless one, considering it only takes one turn to set up. Regular spikes have no affect on Pokemon who fly or levitate, take 3 whole turns to put up and deal equal damage to everyone. Toxic spikes are even more limited in who they affect, as they don’t do anything to Grounded poisons (Who in fact remove them), Steels, Immunity Pokemon and everything spikes doesn’t affect. Stealth Rock only has one Pokemon immune to it, and it’s not even an OU Pokemon. Stealth rock reduced variability by a bucketful. When was the last time you saw a Fire type regularly in OU? Or an Ice type outside of Hail teams (Who are still forced to carry a spinner, sometimes two, because of the sheer magnitude of SR’s effect)? Some of the game’s top Pokemon like Salamence are in fact decimated by this move. It is probably not ridiculous to wager that Salamence and Dragonite usage are lower than Garchomp just because Garchomp shrugs off SR with pitiful damage and Salamence and Dragonite take 25% whopping percent. Articuno (Who is one of the game’s better Garchomp counters) takes 50% from it, and so does Moltres (A very solid Lucario counter). Good Pokemon like Yanmega are relegated to lead roles simply because taking 50% off your health is such gigantic a price to pay. Regice, one of the best Special walls of last gen, is no longer used nearly as much! Why? Because Stealth Rock makes it lose a ton of HP on switch in!
Stealth Rocks also reduce the only real counter to Spikes and themselves. Armaldo, Cloyster and Torkoal, all good spinners, are barely used since it’s a crappy spinner who takes 25% on switch in. People argue that some Pokemon overcentralize, well, this move does more than they do. It highly prevents people from using several strategies, countless Pokemon, is easier to set up than it is to bring Wobbuffet in, and to top it off has virtually no decent counters in the metagame. Without this move the metagame would be more diverse with more usuable pokemon! Broken or not? You decide.
_____________
I myself believe it should be banned for the reasons stated above
credit to Light for writing up this article.