Stealth Rock: The Most Harmful Move In The Metagame

[jrrrrrrr]

Stealth Rock is wildly popular, its a great move. That doesn't make it broken. I personally think that suicide leads are nothing more than mere annoyances and I am usually extremely happy when my opponent wants to waste Azelf's amazing atk and speed stats on it =\

No well built team is going to lose just because Stealth Rock is on the field. No pokemon magically becomes unstoppable because of Stealth Rock (now that Garchomp is gone, at least). The move may be the most influential move in the metagame but I don't see how it is overpowering in any way. Obviously Zapdos, Salamence, Gyarados and Skymin agree with me too, since they seem to be doing pretty well despite their weaks to SR.

Labeling something as a suspect just because it is popular isn't the way to go, that just turns this board into a witch hunt. I say we stop looking for problems that aren't there and focus on things that actually matter (like keeping Skymin OU and moving Lati@s down :( )

 

[Yagami Light]

I just want to say that the uncommon use of Spikes is EXACTLY because Stealth Rock is so prevalent. If Stealth Rock is banned, Spikes usage will obviously rise... making Focus Sash balanced.

I'd like to point this out again just so everyone sees. Stealth Rock obviously dominates Spikes, and to a lesser extent Toxic spikes, just because of how many good Pokemon get it and the fact that it does not require commitment. In DP, you generally do get free turns that are perfect opportunities to set up this highly offensive, highly defensive, highly whatever move. There's really not much of a reason to NOT use this move if you want to win. What that sort of reasoning implies for the metagame, however, is a different thing.

It deserves a test, as do most questionable things. This has been a rare Light post. (get it? Light-post with the post and the light and the...)

 

[X-Act]

Uh, nope. Spikes is uncommon exactly because there aren't many useful spikers within the metagame, while anything and everything can learn Stealth Rock.

Then explain to me why quite a number of ADV teams had a Spiker, even though it had even less Pokemon that learned it to choose from? And even a good number of GSC teams had a Spiker, even though you couldn't stack three layers of Spikes at that time!

 

[Tangerine]

Then explain to me why quite a number of ADV teams had a Spiker, even though it had even less Pokemon that learned it to choose from? And even a good number of GSC teams had a Spiker, even though you couldn't stack three layers of Spikes at that time!

I haven't played ADV enough to answer to you, but I would presume it had to do with how common SkarmBliss was, and how Skarmory really has nothing to do but lay layers of Spikes down.

D/P hardly "requires" Spikes and doing so really just limits your options. The only feasible spikers are... Skarmory, Forry, "Roserade", "Froslass", which is just laughable really. I don't think they're related at all in D/P - banning SR will not result in a significant rise in Spike usage.

 

[X-Act]

D/P hardly "requires" Spikes and doing so really just limits your options. The only feasible spikers are... Skarmory, Forry, "Roserade", "Froslass", which is just laughable really. I don't think they're related at all in D/P - banning SR will not result in a significant rise in Spike usage.

Well, you would require Spikes (or Toxic Spikes, or Sandstorm, or Hail) if Focus Sash becomes too much to handle without Stealth Rock, wouldn't you? Focus Sash, as you say, is kinda kept in check by Stealth Rock. If Stealth Rock is banned, I bet Spikes would increase in usage to keep Focus Sash in check.

Though Sandstorm is already pretty popular so I don't know if the "Focus Sash becoming too much to handle without Stealth Rock" theory is even correct, come to think of it.

 

[Hipmonlee]

The proportion of Advance teams with Spikes is way way less than DP teams with Stealth Rock.

Basically in Advance you had 3 options for spikers: Skarm, Forry or Cloyster. Uhh.. Yeah, spikes was probably used slightly more in advance than dp, but not really all that much more..

Have a nice day.

 

[Tangerine]

Well, you would require Spikes (or Toxic Spikes, or Sandstorm, or Hail) if Focus Sash becomes too much to handle without Stealth Rock, wouldn't you? Focus Sash, as you say, is kinda kept in check by Stealth Rock. If Stealth Rock is banned, I bet Spikes would increase in usage to keep Focus Sash in check.

In that case, it would be a case *for* keeping SR around, since obviously forcing people to use one of four pokemon to deal with Sashers is probably going to be much more breaking than something lame like Articuno somehow becoming usable now.

 

[Jumpman16]

Skarmory and Forretress won't have much of a problem getting Spikes/Toxic Spikes down because of Shed Shell, and even if Tyranitar, Hippowdon and Abomasnow weren't viable pokemon in their own respective right (#9, #37 and #65), this is actually the idea behind a prospective SR ban—to see if there can be adjustment without "overcentralization". I am aware that Sand Stream takes effect after a turn and still allows one more attack than normal, but it must also be noted that the only OU pokemon immune to both Spikes and Sandstream are Skarmory, Bronzong, Aerodactyl and Gliscor. Flygon may see more usage but whatever. Nintendo/Gamefreak may have added the very powerful Focus Sash to the game, but they also added two very OU viable pokemon with permanent weather perhaps to keep this in check, as much as the reason they may have added Stealth Rock.

We must remember that our aim is to arrive at the most competitive game possible, and accept that it may be the case that, of the four yes/no possibilites of "SR and Focus Sash", "no SR and yes Focus Sash" may make for a better competitive metagame than the current "yes SR and yes Focus Sash". Obviously this begs the question "what makes one metagame better than another?" which can briefly be answered with a "removing only those pokemon, moves and items that do not promote as competitive a metagame as we would have without their inclusion" (whch, when you think about it, is part of the reason I felt Stage 3 would be necessary). To get back to SR specifically, sure, pokes like Salamence and Skymin will have an easier time coming in, but the fact that every other pokemon is now not necessarily going to be "2HKOed with SR support" is reason enough to consider testing this, as far as I'm concerned.

I also feel as though I should make clear that this would be a test, just like anything else, and even if initially banned, it would be retested again in Stage 3. If those of you are adamantly opposed to testing something that's likely a legitimate Suspect because it may eventually be voted uber "incorrectly", that says more about inherent problems with our current Rating/Deviation Voting process than the move itself (and also a lack of faith that your opinion that SR is not uber will be widely held by your peers if you are indeed "correct").

 

[Tangerine]

If it is in the scope of the Suspect Test to pretty much radically change the game by removing what had been the defining aspect of the DS generation, then yes, SR should be a "suspect".

But honestly, I think at that point it would just be a different game altogether. SR is perfectly viable competitively - why not just make another permanent SR-Less OU Metagame and support both? The idea that Smogon supports "one" OU metagame is sort of the big reason why I disagreed we should even call SR a suspect. One of the criticisms is that whatever OU metagame Smogon supports becomes *the* standard metagame, and I think testing SR will be one of those moves that will cause a split within competitive Pokemon, which isn't very healthy in the long run, particularly because the metagame with or without SR should balance out in the end anyway (or at least, be a playable metagame). This is why I believe we should only intervene when something is broken - or else it has the potential to cause these splits. This will just stress the competitive community in the long run ~_~

Whatever happened to the Stop the Rocks tournament? Did anything come out of it?

 

[gorm]

i agree with tangerine. sr is a much broader factor in the metagame than a single pokemon, and that we need a stronger definition of overcentralize, which is probably best achieved through testing of pokemon.

i have no problem with banning moves (we have a couple banned already through vestigial theorymon, not that i disagree with them!) but i fell that removing sr will produce such an abrupt metagame shift that it won't really provide us with any useful data, and if it does somehow make a whole lotta mons more viable, what do we do with pretty much any of the data we've accumulated (the ou list, chomp/deoe to ubers, metagame analyses, sets etc?)

i feel like it's logistically a bad idea and whether it "measurably centralizes" or not, it's not worth the effort at this point in our testing methods.

this is actually the idea behind a prospective SR ban—to see if there can be adjustment without "overcentralization"

this is all well and good but it can be applied to any single metagame aspect. i just don't feel like now is sr's time.

 

[Brawley]

Whatever happened to the Stop the Rocks tournament? Did anything come out of it?

I'm gonna read all the logs and stuff over this break and post what I think, and if anyone wants some logs send a pm my way. Seemed like most of the time people used a spiker/tspiker lead, 1+ sr weak poke, looks the same as the metagame back then, as people were too scared to use moltres/articuno/what ever in a tourney environment. Nothing really seemed too broken, but then again most people used chomp over mence. :/

 

[X-Act]

The number of useful Rapid Spin users is negligible as well... yet people use them to counter Stealth Rock.

 

[Aldaron]

Information regarding the "average damage per battle" due to Stealth Rock might be useful for a base here.

Gaming philosophies aside, I think having some in depth statistics on Stealth Rock specifically might be advantageous for some perspective.

Right now I really have no idea if Stealth Rock "does" a lot besides my theorymon (getting ohkos and 2hkos with Lucario / Salamence, checking Gyarados, negating Focus Sash)

I mean, I'm kind of on the fence here leaning towards no need to ban, but that might change if say Stealth Rock is doing close to 200% damage per battle or something. I mean, 200% (obviously an accumulation) off of one move that has limited options for removal _might_ just change my perspective on this.

And then something like 50% might not.

It might also be helpful to find out the damage outputs of all the moves so that we would have some sort of calibration capabilities. Damage outputs in terms of absolutes and number of times used per battle "averages"

If Earthquake is doing 200% per battle but is used 5 times per battle, I'll look at Stealth Rock's 100% per battle (but only once used, obviously) differently.

So I guess, I'm requesting an additional component to the statistics.

I don't think we should make this a suspect without viewing them first.

 

[obi]

I'd rather do 100% damage to one Pokemon than 120% damage spread equally over six. I'd rather do 100% damage in one turn than 120% damage spread over several. If you do 100% damage in one turn, you have OHKOed the opposing Pokemon. You can do 1000% damage to a Pokemon over several turns without actually lowering their HP (Blissey stalling out with Softboiled and Wish).

 

[Aldaron]

I just gave arbitrary examples of what we might get.

I just want the statistics so we can have this discussion, lol.

 

[Jumpman16]

If it is in the scope of the Suspect Test to pretty much radically change the game by removing what had been the defining aspect of the DS generation, then yes, SR should be a 'suspect'.

But honestly, I think at that point it would just be a different game altogether. SR is perfectly viable competitively - why not just make another permanent SR-Less OU Metagame and support both? The idea that Smogon supports 'one' OU metagame is sort of the big reason why I disagreed we should even call SR a suspect. One of the criticisms is that whatever OU metagame Smogon supports becomes *the* standard metagame, and I think testing SR will be one of those moves that will cause a split within competitive Pokemon, which isn't very healthy in the long run, particularly because the metagame with or without SR should balance out in the end anyway (or at least, be a playable metagame). This is why I believe we should only intervene when something is broken - or else it has the potential to cause these splits. This will just stress the competitive community in the long run ~_~

Whatever happened to the Stop the Rocks tournament? Did anything come out of it?

I think that all of the Suspects that we are testing are going to stress the community, and in fact that we have gotten the "easier ones" out of the way first. I suspect Double Team to be a much more controversial move to test, but that it would only divide the community if it were actually given an OU Stage 2 tag, which means that it is not as broken in Platinum as we may have assumed. Again, to fear that testing Stealth Rock will cause a divide in the community is at once to assume that it will actually be banned if and when we test it, as there should be no such lingering divide if it's determined that Salamence and Gyarados become virtually uncounterable without SR or whatever.

We must realize that yes, it will be hard to decide what to do with a Suspect Move if it isn't obvious, but this difficulty shouldn't be the reason we don't test.

 

[Tangerine]

I think that all of the Suspects that we are testing are going to stress the community, and in fact that we have gotten the "easier ones" out of the way first. I suspect Double Team to be a much more controversial move to test, but that it would only divide the community if it were actually given an OU Stage 2 tag, which means that it is not as broken in Platinum as we may have assumed. Again, to fear that testing Stealth Rock will cause a divide in the community is at once to assume that it will actually be banned if and when we test it, as there should be no such lingering divide if it's determined that Salamence and Gyarados become virtually uncounterable without SR or whatever.

We must realize that yes, it will be hard to decide what to do with a Suspect Move if it isn't obvious, but this difficulty shouldn't be the reason we don't test.

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.

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.

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.

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

What's with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality? Why are we just fixing the problems with the metagame and not also finding ways to make it better? Are you that resistant to change? Are you that willing to "settle" on one metagame?

Just asking.

 

[Tangerine]

What's with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality? Why are we just fixing the problems with the metagame and not also finding ways to make it better? Are you that resistant to change? Are you that willing to "settle" on one metagame?

Just asking.

Did you not read what I have posted or something? Stop using stupid strawmen to try to justify your "point" which does not even apply here. I'm not "resistant" to change, I just think we should play the game rather than trying to make a different game out of it. if you aren't just going to ignore other people's "view" and just try to villainize it with that kind of strawman.

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

Well I, for one, don't want to just "play the game." I want to find a better one. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to find a better one. The idea of "minimizing rules" doesn't gel with that.

Is there an ideal metagame? Hell no. Should that stop me from looking for a more desirable metagame?

Hell no.

 

[Tangerine]

Well I, for one, don't want to just "play the game." I want to find a better one. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to find a better one. The idea of "minimizing rules" doesn't gel with that.

Is there an ideal metagame? Hell no. Should that stop me from looking for a more desirable metagame?

Hell no.

Except things like that is the exact reason why people will split off and create their own metagames. Splintering the community and having them play literally different games is not a very healthy thing for the competitive community in general.

Meaning that anything that is up for test must have a solid reason why we are testing it. We can test ubers since they have never been tested before, same with whatever else. But banning something that has been integrated within the game when it's perfectly fine just because you think it might lead to a better metagame is the exact same thing I'm talking about - turning pokemon into a game that you want rather than what it is.

Of course, this is the precise reason we are *voting* - because your ideal metagame isn't the ideal metagame of other players. Your idea of paradise is another's idea of hell. That's why we're "voting" so we get a "general" idea. I believe that this subjectivity should be kept at a minimum for that exact reason that it is subjective. Things that are suspect that are already within the game should only be something that is game breaking, not something that *is* the game.

You aren't really bringing up anything new, and I recommend not rehashing arguments that belongs more in Stark and backing it up more with actual reason more than preference.

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

Just keep in mind that most of those who have voted in the Stark Poll want to test Stealth Rock. If the community wants it tested, then we have to take that into account when we make the decision.

 

[Tangerine]

Just keep in mind that most of those who have voted in the Stark Poll want to test Stealth Rock. If the community wants it tested, then we have to take that into account when we make the decision.

When did we ever care about "polls" in Stark Mountain where people who have no idea what they are doing can vote on it? Democracy is only considered valid when the users are well educated.

And if this is your "reason" it should be tested I find it absolutely laughable that you think that this is even remotely convincing.

 

[CardsOfTheHeart]

I've stated time and time again in the Stark thread that I'm only interested in seeing the results of a Stealth Rock test. I don't care if it gets tested or not. How can I be expected to form a constructive, persuasive argument if I don't care enough about the issue? The only time I would want Stealth Rock to be tested is when there is nothing to test because I do not want to settle on one metagame.

How the hell do you verify opinions??? Oh wait, you can't. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and no one's is correct.

If this is indicating anything, it's that I need to battle more often. I would love to try and get good at this, but I can't build a team to save my life and I'm constantly held back by all of the random elements in the game. (because sound decision-making means nothing to the RNG ><) I would like to be an influential voice on the metagame, but apparently nothing else wants me to be...

(sigh)

I apologize for derailng the thread. I had to get that off my chest.

In any case, I agree with everything Jumpman has said in this thread and, apparently, don't have the ability to add anything to it. I believe that Stealth Rock should be a suspect.

P.S. I'm waiting for Game Freak to lower the cap on Stealth Rock's damage to 25% because I blame them for creating a move with so much more damage potential than Spikes. I'm not holding my breath, though.

 

[Tangerine]

I've stated time and time again in the Stark thread that I'm only interested in seeing the results of a Stealth Rock test. I don't care if it gets tested or not. How can I be expected to form a constructive, persuasive argument if I don't care enough about the issue? The only time I would want Stealth Rock to be tested is when there is nothing to test because I do not want to settle on one metagame.

How the hell do you verify opinions??? Oh wait, you can't. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and no one's is correct.

1) If you don't care enough, this probably means you haven't put in enough thought into the issue at all. This probably means that your reasoning is personal, rather than rational, which is exactly what we are not looking for. This is akin to wanting Deoxys E banned because "It is a form of Deoxys". It is a personal opinion, rather than rational.

2) Opinions can be justified. In fact, defending your opinion on the basis "well it's my opinion" and not being able to back it up is just opening yourself up for ridicule. "Everyone is entitled to their opinion as long as their opinion isn't an ignorant one". Suppose that you are talking to someone, let's call him X, and X starts to bash Jumpman. Upon hearing it out, you ask him, "do you even know who Jumpman is?" and the user tells you "no, i have no idea who he is but I felt like bashing him". Are you going to take his opinion seriously? Opinions need to be backed up, and well thought out, and then "everyone is entitled to their own opinion".

3) If you're interested in seeing the results of a Stealth Rock test, there are logs from a tournament just waiting to be analyzed.

If this is indicating anything, it's that I need to battle more often. I would love to try and get good at this, but I can't build a team to save my life and I'm constantly held back by all of the random elements in the game. (because sound decision-making means nothing to the RNG ><) I would like to be an influential voice on the metagame, but apparently nothing else wants me to be...

So you are admitting that you don't understand how to play Pokemon, or you haven't fully grasped the game yet, but you are attempting to be an "influential voice on the metagame".

Do you understand how ridiculous this sounds? How is anyone supposed to take you seriously (aka "influential") if you don't even know about the game you are trying to influence? How are you supposed to be an influence in something you don't understand? Do you see the danger in this?

P.S. I'm waiting for Game Freak to lower the cap on Stealth Rock's damage to 25% because I blame them for creating a move with so much more damage potential than Spikes. I'm not holding my breath, though.

But it doesn't stop you from making posts like this. you admit that you don't understand the game, but you are literally wishing Game Freak would make a change to the game, and your reasoning is "it does more damage than spikes".

This is exactly the kinds of opinions that are absolutely not needed in this entire process. This is why Jumpman and I had to literally wave through the bold voting process and pick out votes, and the exact reason why we set a cap on who can actually vote in the process. Just because you have a badge that doesn't mean that you should voice your opinion within this process. You should voice your opinion if you first, understand the game, second, understand the process. You undermined both, which is very disappointing.