Stealth Rock: The Most Harmful Move In The Metagame

[CardsOfTheHeart]

It's not that I know absolutely nothing about the game. I know the "technical" side of the game. It's battling competitively that I haven't experienced enough success in. I have trouble building an original team that addresses enough of the threats that D/P presents; that doesn't motivate me to battle as much as I should.

Keep in mind: I've only battled at a competitive level for ONE YEAR. Not everyone can learn the competitive game in that length of time, especially if they don't battle on a regular basis. (College takes up a lot of my time.)

Besides, I don't think I was badged for my battle prowess and understanding of the competitive game. IIRC, I was badged because I was generally helpful to everyone in Stark and created a useful tool in my Pokemon Resource, which I should get back to working on once my semester is over since I've been trying to revamp it.

 

[Tangerine]

It's not that I know absolutely nothing about the game. I know the "technical" side of the game. It's battling competitively that I haven't experienced enough success in. I have trouble building an original team that addresses enough of the threats that D/P presents; that doesn't motivate me to battle as much as I should.

What good are knowing axioms in Mathematics if you can't apply them to form theorems? So you know all the axioms, but "knowing" them means nothing if you don't understand what they mean. You know the technical aspects, then "so fucking what" would my answer to you. They don't mean anything if you can't apply them in reality.

Keep in mind: I've only battled at a competitive level for ONE YEAR. Not everyone can learn the competitive game in that length of time, especially if they don't battle on a regular basis. (College takes up a lot of my time.)

Why does it matter if you battled at a competitive level for One year? What does this have to do with anything?

FYI I didn't play this game competitively probably until late April of this year and I seemed to do decently!

Besides, I don't think I was badged for my battle prowess and understanding of the competitive game. IIRC, I was badged because I was generally helpful to everyone in Stark and created a useful tool in my Pokemon Resource, which I should get back to working on once my semester is over since I've been trying to revamp it.

Again, what does this have to do with anything? My point was - PR is opened for badged users, particularly because it is believed that badged users have the sensibility to stay quiet on issues they're not familiar with.

Obviously none of the evidence you presented make your case stronger, then "why" is the question I would ask.

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

I thought my experience, though limited, gave me enough information to form an opinion on the matter. Obviously this was not the case. I ended up making the mistake of forming the basis for my opinion after forming my opinion. ><

I'm going to drop the matter. Sorry to put you through so much trouble, Tangerine. :(

 

[maddog]

Stealth Rock does have a huge impact on the metagame, but I believe its impact is positive on the metagame, not negative. Stealth Rock does help keep some threats in check, such as Gyarados, Zapdos and Salamence. Granted, these are all used alot, but if Stealth Rock was removed those three might have such a big impact on the game that it would cause overcentralization. But, in the case of things like Shaymin-S, Stealth Rock allows it to beat past its counters with the Choice Specs set, and considering most of its counters are weak to Stealth Rock, it makes the set extremely hard to stop.

I don't see any harm in testing Stealth Rock. I do think its the best move in the game, but I think its presence is necessary in order to keep a somewhat balanced metagame. The only way that suspection could be proved is through testing, and after Shaymin-S voting is done, I think testing Stealth Rock should be a consideration.

 

[gorm]

testing everything is "a consideration", we just need a decent reason to test it which we don't have for sr apart from another stark thread full of metagame predictions and theorymon ~_~
i think we have alot of work ahead of us before we start talking about sr.

 

[Syberia]

I don't see any harm in testing Stealth Rock. I do think its the best move in the game, but I think its presence is necessary in order to keep a somewhat balanced metagame. The only way that suspection could be proved is through testing, and after Shaymin-S voting is done, I think testing Stealth Rock should be a consideration.

On that same token, though, Stealth Rock largely keeps Skymin in check as well, not just its counters.

I also "do not see any harm in testing it," in fact I don't have an opinion one way or the other at this point.

 

[Jumpman16]

I apologize because I really should have made my point clearer.

In order to say we are playing Pokemon competitively, we are trying to minimize limitations that we stick on the game so that we are playing Pokemon, not "competitive Pokemon according to Smogon". The point is that with Stealth Rock, it comes down the matter of preference - mostly because I think most of us agree that Stealth Rock does not break the metagame. If you're saying "Stealth Rock makes certain Pokemon less usable", but that's true for nearly every Pokemon in general - every thing has some sort of centralization effect. This means that this "suspect" isn't a suspect but more of a "preference" question.

The truth is that we already *are* playing "competitive Pokemon according to Smogon". This fact is underlined by our decision to ban Garchomp from our server's Standard Ladder. When you remember this, you remember that we are indeed willing to make things more competitive for our metagame, and that not everyone is going to agree with us.

We should never ban because we prefer an option, but only ban because it is the only option. The reason many ubers are "suspects" right now is because they were banned and now we are willing to "test" them within the metagame to see if they really are uber or not. In the meanwhile, I'm pretty sure at this point that anyone who calls Stealth Rock broken in OU has no idea what they're talking about - because the metagame is perfectly viable with SR. This means that we are in the end banning based on preference, which is why SR has the potential to be damaging and has the probability to "split" the metagame, so to speak.

I understand what you're saying and it's a good point, but I think that when we test OHKO moves we'll run into the same dilemma. Both SR and OHKO are easy to whore because they can be used with little to no drawback, but both sides can use them and they don't necessarily assure either battler victory, especially not if the metagame is cognizant of the move in question and therefore prepared for it.

We are trying to minimize rules, so why are we even considering something that is not broken and comes down to preference? We are trying to play Pokemon, not the game of Pokemon according to user X. The game is there the player to master - it's not going to water itself down so the player is more comfortable.

A lot of things can be chalked up to the preference thing, namely Species Clause. We would mainly be aiming to determine whether the game is more competitive with SR or without, as we would with Species Clause or OHKOs. I think that the only thing we should prefer is to play the most competitive game possible.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Since this seems to have and is causing a lot of discussion I've been wondering a couple things...

Will Stealth Rock be tested as a suspect? If so, when?

One of the things I am concerned about (if we do test it) is should we test this before sorting out UU? It is currently theorymon, but it has the potential to affect the placing of some pokémon during that test (ex. Articuno and Glaceon). Or... Should we wait until later to test out SR and adjust tiers accordingly then?

Edit: Since I don't really use SR...

Stealth Rock does have a huge impact on the metagame, but I believe its impact is positive on the metagame, not negative. Stealth Rock does help keep some threats in check, such as Gyarados, Zapdos and Salamence. Granted, these are all used alot, but if Stealth Rock was removed those three might have such a big impact on the game that it would cause overcentralization. But, in the case of things like Shaymin-S, Stealth Rock allows it to beat past its counters with the Choice Specs set, and considering most of its counters are weak to Stealth Rock, it makes the set extremely hard to stop.

Personally, I haven't had too much trouble defeating those because their weaknesses are so easy to exploit. I cannot speak on the behalf of others and possible metagame shifts in the future though.

I think we might see something like a rush to use them akin to how Skymin was first received when it became a suspect. I would give a metagame without SR a bit of time to stablize and then our opinions would be more concrete.

 

[Tleilax]

Up until recently, despite my opinion that SR is healthy for the metagame, I was up for a test, simply to put the matter to rest. However, the Skymin vote has made me reconsider. Many people seem to be voting for Skymin to be Uber simply because they don't like it. Some even admited that they didn't even try to accomodate for it, they simply hit the requirements so they could vote it Uber as fast as they could. I fear it would be even worse with a SR vote. People would vote against it simply because they don't like it, which is not good for the metagame. There needs to be more to a vote than "it annoys you", or "you have trouble with it". Part of the competetive aspect of the game is that, despite the large amount of strategies available, there will always be forces you have to account for. Part of growing as a player is being able to build a team that not only accounts for the metagame trends, but can succeed against them. Not everything can be viable. There will always be strategies that don't work. In this case, it's SR that helps determine these strategies. I don't think it would look good on Smogon to put a move up for test simply because people don't like to work around something in the game.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Text.

Hmm.

This is true, but we didn't have too much trouble in the Deoxy-s and Garchomp testing and (most) people seemed to give better reasons why they stood for whatever.

The thing that was absent this month for Skymin voting was a Suspect ladder and many of the arguments was a bunch of theorymon of "what ifs". With a Suspect ladder we eliminate many of those "what ifs" and it does take significant effort to get the required deviation.

 

[ToF]

I feel that the Stealth Rock controversy is a central issue to the way we perceive the metagame now. I personally would like for it to be tested ASAP, probably even before the next suspects (Lati@s and Manaphy if I'm not mistaken). Reason for this is because Stealth Rock impacts not just the OU tier, but all tiers, and the restructuring of these tiers is only going to be meaningful if we implement the test on whether to ban SR or not. Usage statistics will definitely be swayed on the continuation or banning of SR, so I'd just like to input my voice for an immediate test.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

I feel that the Stealth Rock controversy is a central issue to the way we perceive the metagame now. I personally would like for it to be tested ASAP, probably even before the next suspects (Lati@s and Manaphy if I'm not mistaken). Reason for this is because Stealth Rock impacts not just the OU tier, but all tiers, and the restructuring of these tiers is only going to be meaningful if we implement the test on whether to ban SR or not. Usage statistics will definitely be swayed on the continuation or banning of SR, so I'd just like to input my voice for an immediate test.

Well I too would love to see it tested ASAP, but I haven't noticed a solid "let's do this" from the staff because I am not sure anyone knows exactly how to apporach a test of this kind. If it did get banned in an OU test would it be banned in Ubers and Underused too?

Another thing is people have been looking forward to a Lati test for quite some time now and I don't know how many want to keep putting that on hold.

I would suggest to run two suspect ladders at the same time, but they might significantly affect the other. Anyone have any ideas how to approach this?

 

[Mekkah]

I changed my mind on Stealth Rock testing. From theorymon, it seems like a different metagame altogether, where we're objective unable to say if any of the two is better.

Also, in my opinion, not making SR a suspect means we can scrap Ho-oh off the list (I don't think there's anyone who thinks Ho-oh is a suspect when it isn't risking losing half its health?), which lowers the workload we have to do. It also makes the UU reset a lot easier to manage. For example, Articuno's position of BL/UU might change depending on whether SR is available or not, so we wouldn't be able to put those tests at the same time.

 

[Tleilax]

If we do a SR suspect test, it's imperative that we define what exactly we are looking for. People in this community have very strong opinions about SR. It's often either a complete bane of competitive battling or the only thing keeping it in line. If there is to be a test in the future, it needs to be established that the grounds for banning it would have to be more than simply "Woo I can use my favorite Moltres now!". There needs to be some criteria laid out for it. Since SR is much more subjective than many of our other suspects so far, it requires much more strictness in it's testing. We don't want a repeat of the Skymin vote.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Hmm I suppose we could compare the centralization of a Suspect ladder and a normal ladder. It should be fairly obvious with the usage statistics what the difference would be and people could build their votes on that.

Another thing that I would suggest would be to test it for two months instead of one (if it got tested) because I would expect the results in the first month of testing to be possibly radically different than the second month because people would be testing all sorts of things. The second month's stats would be most likely be settled compared to the first and that metagame would have had time to develop.

I'm not sure how much further this discussion can go without at least being certain that this will be tested. So, does anyone know will this be tested? If so is there any idea when?

 

[reachzero]

I feel that the Stealth Rock question has remained hanging in the air unresolved for a long time now, and I'm continually surprised that people keep posting in the "More Thoughts on Stealth Rock" thread in Stark, seeing as the same arguments go around and around in circles and never seem to go anywhere. The fact that these arguments are both circular and persistent suggests to me that testing is the only way to put the subject to bed, yet testing Stealth Rock would be a project of massive scale, perhaps larger than the whole Suspect testing process as a whole. It would require us to do at least two Stage Threes, among other things, and most likely add and subtract Suspects. Not only that, but waiting for the metagame to adjust to a change as large as subtracting Stealth Rock would take quite a while. Are we really willing to devote 3-6 months or so to testing Stealth Rock? Are we going to keep having these same circular arguments if we do not? I think we need to make up our mind how we would test before we can really decide whether or not we should. That way everyone would know the time factor and seriousness involved, and we could adjust our argumentation accordingly.

Edit: I completely agree, Tangerine, yet more than half of the Smogonites polled thought that Stealth Rock was worth testing. If we don't test, we'll have to buckle down for a lot of controversy.

 

[Tangerine]

I think the best way to put this subject to rest is to pretty much just tell them "We're not testing a Stealth Rock ban". I think you point out why there really isnt a point of testing it - it will take a long time to fully adjust to the lack of SR which just implies that the presence of SR leads to a completely different metagame.

I think it is important to note that most suspects are things that were banned to begin with and we are testing them because they were never tested seriously before. SR on the other hand has shown no signs of it ever being "broken" other than "it makes Pokemon X unusable" which I think is a rather silly argument overall, and I think most people just want a "test for the sake of a test" and I honestly think Smogon has bigger things on its plate to worry about

 

[QibingZero]

I'm inclined to agree with Tangerine here, and that's part of the reason why I decided to make a somewhat lengthy recent post in the aforementioned Stark thread. Simply, I don't see anything leading me to believe that a SR-free metagame would actually be any less 'broken' than the current metagame, and the amount of time it would take us to likely reach that very same decision could be better used for other testing. Testing which is both more 'important' and reasonable.

Of course, that's not the best argument for purism's sake (and this is one of the few times you'll see me taking the realist approach over the idealist), but at some point decisions like this have to be made. I don't think I'm going out on a limb saying that close to the same number of people are going to be upset over suspects like Skymin as well. That's why I have voiced the opinion that a strict clarification of Smogon's official philosophy is needed as much as the testing itself. Quite a few members (and I'm not discluding myself from this) are going to have to come to terms with the fact they disagree with the base philosophy, not just on 'OU or Uber'.

 

[MythTrainerInfinity]

Its a controversial move that will not stop being discussed until we test it. With a large number of people calling for a test, would it be right to just flat out ignore them? I wouldn't think so.

In December the top 9 leads all have access to use SR (although rarely seen on Tyranitar).

1.| Azelf | Move | Stealth Rock | 53.0 |
3.| Aerodactyl | Move | Stealth Rock | 78.8 |
etc.

Everything could be considered a "different metagame" when we involve each suspect.

I know its difficult to make a decision one way or another because we lack statistics in a non-SR environment, but shouldn't that be another reason to test it? Then we can say for certain that it would be beneficial to the metagame or not.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Yes it would be right to ignore them. Like I said in the other thread, if there was a public outcry to ban Unown, it would be laughed out of the park. Public Outcry is no excuse for testing something that isn't broken, and to act like it is would be an absolutely terrible idea.

Tangerine is right here. There's absolutely no reason to test SR, and if "the public" doesn't like it, too bad. It's not their decision. Furthermore, Pokemon is pretty much the only competitive game where the general public has ANY say in the balance. When it comes right down to it, all competitive gaming is ruled through a meritocracy, where only the most talented and intelligent members of the community have a view. And that's how it should be. I'm reminded of a quote from Men in Black.

Edwards: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

The majority of people are not fit to determine what's best for a competitive metagame, which is why it's a miracle that the Suspect Test is even taking place. For Brawl, the majority of decisions occur in SBR, a private invitation-only forum. For a game like DotA, which is a fan-made game using the Warcraft 3 engine, decisions are made by the developers and largely ignore the input of all but the top players, who "cast their vote" by winning top tourneys abusing the most powerful strategies. And of course, games like World of Warcraft have absolutely zero input from the fans, though this is more because the developers are inherently invested in the game and are available to make balance changes as they see fit.

On the flip side, unilateral decisions like Colin unbanning Deoxys-E and Wobbuffet for no reason other than he felt like it (and most recently, the introduction of six VERY controversial Pokemon into UU by Maniaclyrasist) is not the way to go about things, and I understand the need to prevent that. But when you have a major battling community run by a number of very smart people, all of which have shown through various means that they are capable of making these decisions, the "public" should thank their lucky stars that these people trust them enough to make ANY semblance of a decision, especially after the most recent fiasco with Shaymin-S has shown that the public really lacks the knowhow to create an informed decision.