Weather Abilities (but mostly Drizzle)

Aldaron

Aldaron

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Hi, I'm Aldaron. I'm a guy who really enjoys actually playing Pokemon. I don't armchair-qb pokemon policy; I play and prioritize the health of the game I play as much as possible.

Just figured I should give you guys an introduction, in case some of you don't know me.

Can we acknowledge, as a community, that exceptions to the rule occur, and if they are declared as exceptions, you cannot debate against proposals that are exceptions and use "bad precedent" or "slippery slope" as a tool for debate.

Inconsistent is one; we banned it mostly for how it turned every game purely into luck. This doesn't mean that we're going to actively go after removing all instances of probability management in the game; Inconsistent was an exception to the rule (regarding luck inducing Abilities, as in we aren't considering banning Super Luck or Snow Cloak or items like Razor Fang).

Can we please declare weather-inducing abilities as exceptions to the rule as well? People are seriously just spouting "simplicity of ruleset" and "slippery slope / bad precedent" for weather abilities, and it is confusing me because weather abilities are literally nothing like the majority of other abilities. Weather abilities affect a MUCH HIGHER number of variables than mostly individualistic based abilities.

Can we stop dealing with weather-inducing "abilities" as though they are the same as other abilities, or even moves / Pokemon? Weather inducing abilities affect such a large number of variables that dealing with them with "simplicity" in mind is silly.

I'm going to go on Drizzle now because that is the current issue at hand in this stage.

Right now, the majority of people believe Drizzle is broken because of never-ending rain turns and Swift Swim (Manaphy is one as well).

People who want to ban Drizzle only are removing an entire set of strategies from the metagame and making it much less diverse (no standard rain stall, no water pokemon heavy teams, sand dominant) and probably just making stuff powerful in the Sand later suspects (Dory / Landlos already are, but they would for sure be banned and Terakion would probably be considered).

People who want to ban Swift Swim are drastically lowering the usage of various Pokemon from the metagame when they could be used with Rain Dance.

Ignoring philosophical concerns like "simplicity of rulesets," the third thing would be...to ban Drizzle + Swift Swim.

This allows us to:

a.) Keep Drizzle as a strategy and keep our metagame diverse on a macro level
b.) Keep Swift Swim as a strategy for teams with Rain Dance
c.) Keep Rain Pokemon in usage.
d.) Keep Sand in check and prevent us from absolutely banning Dory / Landlos / probably banning Terakion

The only arguments presented so far against a Drizzle + Swift Swim ban on the same team are simplicity of ruleset, slippery slope, and Drizzle is broken even without Swift Swim.

However, we entirely ignore simplicity and slippery slope arguments IF we simply declare weather abilities as exceptions. No need to worry about "now we can propose Latios is only broken with Latias on the team" or something like that. Just say that abilities that affect some subjectively determined high number of variables in the metagame are exceptions to the rule. I think any of us can see how auto weather abilities affect a far larger number of variables than Intimidate or even entire individual Pokemon themselves.

So, if we can say weather abilities are an exception and make stuff "complicated" (though that is bullshit anyway since the baseline for "simplicity" is something we have subjectively determined), the only argument for not just doing a Drizzle + Swift Swim on the same team ban is that Drizzle itself is broken without Swift Swim...to which I reply, ok that might be the case, but let's first test Drizzle + Swift Swim, then get to Drizzle by itself.

So what are we going to do as a community. Are we really going to assume Drizzle is the same as other abilities / pokemon / moves and shoot down a proposal for a "complicated" ban without acknowledging that weather inducing abilities are exceptions to the rule?

Or can we finally stop prioritizing philosophical theory and simplicity of rulesets over the actual health and diversity (in strategy) of the metagame and try to ban Drizzle + Swift Swim on the same teams and keep our metagame diverse, keep Sand checked, and test to see if Drizzle by itself is broken?
 
I agree 100%. All this slippery slope stuff is bullshit. How about exercising some common sense? Obviously we're not going to say "Go ahead and use Kyogre, but your other five Pokemon have to be Magikarp". Anyone who proposes that this will turn into a slippery slope is obviously lacking in common sense.

Rain is also pretty necessary in the metagame; Sand is really good / dominant as it is WITH Drizzle, and I shudder to think what Landlos / Terakion / Doryuuzu could be WITHOUT any major weather threat to change the weather.

I don't see why we have to do things the old way.

Agree
 
Yeah I agree with this, and the same could be done to Doryuzuu and sand by limiting it to Sand Strenght if you have a Sand Stream user in your team, which I believe would remove it's "brokenness". Better than banning weather / Pokemon for sure.
 
I have to thoroughly object to this for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is that making any ruleset on the implication that a specific move or strategy either "should be OU" or "should be viable" or anything else like that is ridiculous. Playing favorites like that is a bad decision here, since no ability should be "special" and have rules tailored around preventing it from being banned. That applies to both Drizzle AND Swift Swim.
 
I agree with this. Drizzle has been a problem for a long time, but its removal would result in Sand teams dominating. This course of action helps balance the metagame while keeping the metagame diverse. I completely agree with Bluewind's method of balancing Doryuuzu.

It wouldn't hurt to at least test this.
 
I'm not sure about this. I got fed up of seeing tyranitar in almost every battle and politoed in every other battle, but i still think swift swimmers could be walled to some extent without manaphy (statused, burungeru, yawn/roar empoleon, nattorei ...). Manaphy in rain destroys everything slower than it, making bulky pokemon useless against rain.

I'd also like to note that sand in general and sun teams designed to do do so win over rain.

But if the idea is not whether rain is broken w/o manaphy but rather if it came to it, would it be ok to ban swift swimmers and drizzle together, then i'd be ok, but after careful consideration of course.

By the way, on the server I am Salamandra.
 
^lol. Seriously, I have to agree, though. Slippery slope is a logical fallacy, and it's funny that it keeps being used.

My personal criterion for simplicity has always been to have one "subject" per "statement", so in that regard I would disagree with this. When I rebutted ensoriki on the suspect topic when he brought it up, I explained that this (in essence) is why people would be opposed to it. However, considering Drizzle IS such a weird and unprecedented case, I think that there's nothing all that wrong with having two subjects in this particular statement, provided it has a lot of support, which apparently it has.
 
Seven Deadly Sins said:
I have to thoroughly object to this for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is that making any ruleset on the implication that a specific move or strategy either "should be OU" or "should be viable" or anything else like that is ridiculous. Playing favorites like that is a bad decision here, since no ability should be "special" and have rules tailored around preventing it from being banned. That applies to both Drizzle AND Swift Swim.
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This is precisely my only issue with doing this. A complicated ban is usually tailored to keeping multiple things within the metagame without outright banning them, but I don't think we should take a stand that adopts certain abilities "deserving" to be OU.

EDIT: Sorry if I amn't supposed to be posting here, I got posting rights with the LC suspect test and amn't sure if I can post or not, but I felt this point needed to be stressed.
 
capefeather said:
^lol. Seriously, I have to agree, though. Slippery slope is a logical fallacy, and it's funny that it keeps being used.
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I'd like to ignore my intuition for a moment and allow myself the opportunity to have you or someone else explain to me exactly how the slippery slope argument (be it pertaining to Aldaron's suggestion or otherwise) is a logical fallacy. I can't help but feel like the phrase "logical fallacy" is being tossed around as a label for anyone to deem any reality deemed unfavourable to their particular argument these days, but I'd prefer to be proven wrong before I go in and explain why I think this notion is silly.
 
Well, slippery slope doesn't generally constitute a fallacy, so I'll apologize for the blanket statement. However, I (and I'm guessing Aldaron and RBG as well) have been referring to arguments in the manner of "a precedent from something like banning a combination would justify more "ridiculous" rules like allowing Ubers at lower levels", i.e. the kind of argument that ignores/downplays the possibility of a middle ground. There ARE legit ways to employ slippery-slope-type arguments, but "use Kyogre but your other Pokémon have to be Magikarp" is just dumb.
 
I appreciate the appropriate explanation.

That said, while the implementation of ability combination bans or clauses wouldn't justify more ridiculous examples that could be given, it certainly wouldn't stop people from attempting to perpetuate it once we've opened the door to the possibility. That's my primary issue with this idea. This path demands mature responsibility when concerning suspect policy, and I seriously don't think the pool of suspect voters really have that.

That's all I have to really say about it, myself.
 
I agree Ulevo, which is why I want to label Weather inducing abilities as exceptions.

We won't even have to worry about mature handling.

Can we at least agree that weather inducing abilities are FAR more complex and affect many more variables than normal abilities?

I feel like if we can set that down solidly we can move towards an agreement.
 
Simplicity of ruleset really needs more support. Banning pokemon x but making it legal with only y was shot down last gen for good reason, because it's way more complicated and subjective. We didn't ban draco meteor and dd on salamence so we could keep using fatmence, we just banned the pokemon. Same with shadow tag and wynaut. We have precedent, so why aren't we just banning politoed, dory, and landlos? It's a much simpler solution to a problem that doesn't require a complicated answer. Thinking inside the box isn't necessarily a bad thing.
 
NailsOU said:
Simplicity of ruleset really needs more support. Banning pokemon x but making it legal with only y was shot down last gen for good reason, because it's way more complicated and subjective. We didn't ban draco meteor and dd on salamence so we could keep using fatmence, we just banned the pokemon. Same with shadow tag and wynaut. We have precedent, so why aren't we just banning politoed, dory, and landlos? It's a much simpler solution to a problem that doesn't require a complicated answer. Thinking inside the box isn't necessarily a bad thing.
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What else could have been done with Wobbuffet and Wynaut last gen?
 
I agree on the fact that weather inducing abilities should be considered as exceptions but I'm not sure about "complicated" banning. I think we should institute a testing period with this policy before we make a final decision.
 
SDS said it fairly well. Making a special rule, an exception, playing favorites because we have some preconceved notions about what Pokemon and strategies should or should not be OU, should not be done unless there is no other realistic option. In this case there are several. We can simply ban those Pokemon which are overpowered under rain, or ban Politoed. Dismissing simplicity of ruleset as an argument is not so easily done. Having a simplified ruleset makes the game much easier to get into, this is inarguable. Having these extra rules may, in your opinion, without any evidence presented, improve the game in some unknown way when compared to using simple bans to remove problematic Pokemon. You cannot also dismiss the fact that making a special case for something which does not absolutely need it will dramatically change players and policymakers attitude in suspect discussions. Even if we never make another exception (and we will, you can count on it. Dory+Sandstream? Of course. Shand+Shadow Tag? Lets a Pokemon stay in the metagame by limiting it, rather than accepting that it is broken as a whole. Why not?), the idea of adding another complex ban will come up repeatedly in every single suspect discussion, and we will have no objective way to say why many of them are inherently worse than this. It will at the very least distract the discussions hugely. Introducing complex bans would be severely detrimental to the long term health of Pokemon as a competitive game.
 
If this is tested, it should probably be tested with all the weathers so that another one doesn't become dominant, say Drought+Chlorophyll. Sandstorm+Sand Throw can already stand on its own even with Drizzle around, and most, if not all, would agree that it will be broken without Drizzle. If we limit one weather in this way, we need to limit the others as well to avoid the lesser used weather (Drought+Chlorophyll) taking the place as the new dominant strategy, which will not give us accurate results due to the new strategy being broken. How hard is it to open a ladder solely to test this out? No final decision should be made until this is tested, but I support the idea of testing this.
 
eric the espeon said:
SDS said it fairly well. Making a special rule, an exception, playing favorites because we have some preconceved notions about what Pokemon and strategies should or should not be OU, should not be done unless there is no other realistic option. In this case there are several. We can simply ban those Pokemon which are overpowered under rain, or ban Politoed. Dismissing simplicity of ruleset as an argument is not so easily done. Having a simplified ruleset makes the game much easier to get into, this is inarguable. Having these extra rules may, in your opinion, without any evidence presented, improve the game in some unknown way when compared to using simple bans to remove problematic Pokemon. You cannot also dismiss the fact that making a special case for something which does not absolutely need it will dramatically change players and policymakers attitude in suspect discussions. Even if we never make another exception (and we will, you can count on it. Dory+Sandstream? Of course. Shand+Shadow Tag? Lets a Pokemon stay in the metagame by limiting it, rather than accepting that it is broken as a whole. Why not?), the idea of adding another complex ban will come up repeatedly in every single suspect discussion, and we will have no objective way to say why many of them are inherently worse than this. It will at the very least distract the discussions hugely. Introducing complex bans would be severely detrimental to the long term health of Pokemon as a competitive game.
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I'd rather not be restrained by arguments on how far human stupidity will take us if we open new ways. I like to think better of humans =/

Of course, a ban like that is not to be done lightly and has, it and its implications, to be considered carefully, but if it comes as the best solution for the metagame (personnally i'm against it for now), i don't want to be restrained by those arguments. I mean, i don't want a factor that's totally not game-related hampering the progress of the metagame, whether it is for this precise ban or future bans.

If I may, I think in 4th gen the Japanese metagame was something like Random battle (choose 3 among 6) except you weren't allowed base 480+ pokemon with nasty plot or swords dance, that sounds like a complicated ban but they didn't add plenty of other rulesets.
 
hm, the way I see it, we know that simpler is better. We know that less arbitrary is better. The degree and importance can be argued, but I'm confident that the basic principle should be familiar to all PR posters. If you disagree with these, please say and I will explain the advantages of both. We can also agree that centralization or extreme dominance of a particular element of the game is harmful to the game (in most people's opinion, which is why we have ubers for those who don't mind or prefer broken Pokemon), though again the degree of tolerance to these can be debated. When deciding how to achieve balance we have an almost unlimited range of options. The are millions of variations of restrictions, bans and clauses which we could well impose on the game, and may well improve it more than a simple ban. However, these complex rules may be worse for the metagame than a simple ban, they may make it less competitively interesting as well as simply more complex. Since there is no evidence presented suggesting why a complex ruleset would actually improve the metagame more than a simple one, we should go with the option which has actual backing. The burden of proof that a complex ban is "better" than another lies with those supporting a complex ban, since there is direct logic showing several disadvantages. And don't try to argue that keeping more Pokemon in a specific metagame in itself is a good thing in itself, when you remove one Pokemon something else moves up. The reason we don't have necessary bans is to avoid an arbitrary banlist, so that we have something to aim for rather than drifting.
 
This thread and the suspect thread have caused me to reconsider what I think about the whole affair. I'm not really certain of any of the options, though I've leaned toward one or another over the past weeks. The two MAIN stances seem to be "try to preserve Drizzle" or "just ban Drizzle and face whatever the consequence is".

On one hand, there are the issues of consistency and perhaps unnecessary complication and arbitrariness of the ruleset. As people have said, there is an inherent ugliness in imposing a "complicated" rule in which we have to fit more than one "subject" into a "statement", which causes people to question the ruleset's legitimacy and perhaps even be discouraged from joining in. Additionally, at the end of the day, a "Pokémon species-forme" is merely an index number subjected to a stat-generating function, just as an "ability" is merely an index number, and both are part, not the entirety, of the overall "Pokémon" that sits inside a Poké Ball. The reasons we primarily ban "Pokémon species-formes" are (or at least ought to be) pragmatic in nature; we determine that the best (well, I suppose that's rather vague, but still) way to prevent Yache Berry Garchomp from destroying Gen IV teams is to ban the use of National Dex #445 (Garchomp). Index numbers should not otherwise get special treatment, because index numbers aren't broken - entire Pokémon are.

On the other hand, we're not really talking about the ability itself here. We're talking about a permanent weather effect. Unlike a "Pokémon", permanent rain does not faint - that is, it doesn't disappear for good, never to return, unless the opponent faints the source AND replaces the condition. Additionally, it is pretty clear that banning Drizzle would cause drastic, unpredictable shifts in the Standard environment. Maybe this could just be dismissed as fear of change, but now people are getting more accustomed to the idea of this environment being close to the "default", the determination of "default" being the entire reason that an initial banlist was set up in the first place!

I would like to say that whichever road we choose should be done with utmost care. It's easy to say that Drizzle affects most, if not all, of a team using it as well as the opposing team. It's harder to say the same of a Pokémon like Garchomp, because the effects are indirect. Drizzle's effects aren't automatically greater than effects from a Pokémon species-forme or an item or a move. In the same vein, though, it's easy to see that keeping Drizzle around might lead to a cascade of bans, but it's harder to see that banning Drizzle might do the same thing due to indirect impacts. Then again, none of this may happen for either of the options. All I know is that this is not an undertaking to be taken lightly.
 
To me, the annoying thing about this is that we could implement a complicated restriction, and as a result, still not have a good metagame solution.

What if Rain teams simply die without being able to use Manaphy/Swift Swimmers on the same team as Politoed? Then we'd still be left with an overly-powered Dory Metagame, and no better for it. Despite all the negatives of trying something like this, we could force the complicated restriction on the meta, and as a result, face a situation of having to change it all over again.

This does not seem ideal to me-- the great thing about simple restrictions/bans, is that should they turn out bad/useless, they're easy to revert and move on.
 
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