Weather Teams - Always Limited?

Hippo

The Weather...
Its been around since G/S/C (maybe?) and its sticking around. Some pokemon have abilities to help them in the weather, and whole teams can be based around it.

The most common of these teams is by far Sand Storm. It hurts all non ground/rock/steel pokes, and now it gives rock types a 1.5x boost in spec. def. Controlling the weather is now more important than it ever has been. Not only can the weather hinder your pokemon, constantly whittling away at their HP, it can now boost your opponents spec def.

This brings us to the discussion...

Do we need pokemon with Drizzle/Drought abilities that aren't uber?
Kyogre and Groundon's special ability...
We have Tyranitar making sand storm teams possible (and common) but Rain/Sun are severely limited because they only last 5 turns. (Or 8 with the new items, but that requires you to have that one item).
Do we need pokemon with the Drizzle/Drought ability? Now, only sandstorm can be permanent, but I think we need a change.

Rain Dance and Sun teams are really limited. Swift Swim and Chlororphyl pokes aren't used for their abilities, they're just too limited because the weather is limited.

Rain and Sun teams would offer a counter to sand storm teams. Though the weather wouldn't cause damage (which is a big plus) or boost defense (which is a big plus) it can add damage and weaken damage, and also give pokemon the speed boost they always needed.

Should we see new weather pokemon for Rain/Sun? What do you guys think?

We can't quite design pokes, but if GF were to ask what we wanted... =P
 
Yeah, I was confused as to why GF introduced two new non-legendaries with damaging weather effects, yet Sunny Day/Rain Dance is apparently too uber even with the boosts given to Sandstorm/Hail (sp.def boost/100% Blizzard yay).
 
If we can have a Golduck with the same ability as a Rayquaza... I don't see why we can't have weaker pokemon with the same abilities as Kyorge/Groudon.

=\ That's kinda annoying.
 
I don't see Rain dance or sunny day teams being limited or less powerful than sandstorm at all. A lot of non-water pokemon can learn Surf/Water Moves + Thunder, and do some cool stuff with them. Dragonite, Blissey, Many Psychic Pokemon, Gengar, etc. can all Thunder. Blissey can hax the hell out of Water Pulse + Thunder, Draggy can Surf, Mence can dish out a deadly hydro Pump, etc. The opportunites are there, and would actually make the team more balanced than those boring Sandtream(storm) teams. Fire Pokemon and Grass get less versatility with Sunny Day, but they get more powerful moves (What happened to Overheat?).
 
If you make a non-uber with Drought/Drizzle, guess what happens? Rain Dance is already one of the strongest strategies there is (Well, in double battles) and now that there is a physical reasonably powerful water move with flinch chance, Blissey can't feel all that safe anymore 'bout switching in on stuff like Kingdra. Pokes like Ludicolo, Kingdra, Omastar, Relicanth and such become HUGE threats in the rain. Needing a setup turn is only fair.
 
Sunnyday, yes it would be a good idea.

Rain Dance? NO.

Reason being is the sheer volume of water pokemon and Rain Dance beneficial effects not always limited to only water types would be overwhelming and overcentralize the game.

However Fire types could do with a massive boost from a natural non-00ber Drought user. Mainly because they are horribly underpowered, they're meant to be sweepers but can barely even fufill that role very well. They die to the most common attacks in the game (Ground, Water, Rock) theres hardly any decent ones to speak of outside of legendaries and starters.

Even for grass types, sunnyday isn't necessarily a blessing. Sunnyday is a massive double edged sword for them. On one hand they get wonderful status removal or speed boosts. On the other they've condemned themselves to instant death from any non-STAB fire attack.
 
Saying "theres hardly any decent ones to speak of outside of legendaries and starters" is essentially saying "they all suck...apart from the ones that don't". What's wrong with the majority of good Fire types being legends and starters? Charizard, Moltres, Blaziken, Infernape and Heatran are certainly not underpowered. Yes, I know - two of them get boned by Stealth Rock. Fire types as a whole are one of the most improved types this generation, with the exception of Flareon.

If there were non-uber auto-Sun and Rain Pokemon, you'd have to have both, not one or the other. Otherwise Water types would get screwed by auto-Sun and Fire types by auto-Rain.
 
I don't know about you but even using a L1 Groudon/Kyogre on NetBattle and tuning the rest of your team to the weather makes it really, really powerful. With DP's addition of Choice Specs, Manaphy, Life Orb and many other stuff to make Special attacks more threatening than ever, I really would not want this.

They've got you Hot/Wet Rock now anyway, which prolongs the effects at least.
 
Sure we need non uber weather types .Of course the whole game will be centered around the weather and who takes controls the weather, but game is already centered around t-tar ,so having the choice Teams centered around sandstorm (ground, steel, rock),Drizzle (water,electric)Drought (Fire,Grass) Hail (Ice) would probably lead more pokes in use which is better i guess.

Also is steel affected by hail ?Either way we need better ice types and other type is help by hail.
 
Rain Dance teams are all made of water types, with water moves. Sunny Day teams can fire powerful STABed Solar Beams and Fire Blasts at you, so it's harder to absorb hits.
A Drought non-uber Pokemon would be a lot more broken IMO.
 
Hmm, what´s the addition with hail, somewhat superpowerful glacia blizzard with 100% acc, and it´s ability, damaging non ice pokes, is there more addition? I can´t remember anyone gets speedboost, and the one that might regain HP that I can recall is Snorunt, how many options is there to a hailteam (I just wan´t some more examples)
 
The whole point to Rain Dance/Sunny Day teams is to NOT be so reliant on the weather. Just consider it a "boost" for most of your team, and not a "winning strategy" (well, in single battles at least).

Same thing with Sandstorm. If you load up your whole team with Rock types just to get that 1.5x Sp.Def boost, you will, most likely, fail hard.
 
Glen ^^ said:
Rain Dance teams are all made of water types, with water moves. Sunny Day teams can fire powerful STABed Solar Beams and Fire Blasts at you, so it's harder to absorb hits.
A Drought non-uber Pokemon would be a lot more broken IMO.
Click to expand...

Rain Dance makes Thunder 100% accurate, making it actually better than Solarbeam, as it has the same power with 30% paralysis chance, and less of a downside if they switch the weather as you use it.

Read this thread for my views on the matter.
http://www.smogon.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20037
In short, I'm in favor of unbanning everything temporarily. If something is found to be broken in that environment, then, and only then, should it be banned. Starting with an arbitrary "OU" tier and then introducing Pokemon to test for brokenness is like starting with the UU tier and deciding Dragonite is broken because it destroys everything there, then introducing some of Dragonite's counters, but deciding they, too, are too powerful, and then introducing something that is countered by Dragonite and counters those counters, but that, too, is broken, because each time you introduced them singularly.
 
Forgot about Thunder... but I don't know how many Pokes could use it correctly on a Rain Dance team. Raikou, Zapdos, and Lanturn I think.
_________
Oh, I remember that topic.
I agree with you, we shouldn't ban something without first trying it and see how it affects the metagame.
 
I'm personally kind of annoyed that they made an auto-weather for Sandstorm and Hail, but still not for Rain Dance and Sunny Day. Sure, there are plenty more effects that come with the latter two, but those teams get completely wrecked/hindered by a switch-in from Tyranitar that screws up the weather. And since Tyranitar is oh-so popular, I believe that they ARE permanently hindered simply because of the auto-weather change.
 
It is so unfair how Hail and Sandstrom get the weather ablities but not sunny day and rain dance. It would add more excitement to battles.
 
Yoshi King said:
I'm personally kind of annoyed that they made an auto-weather for Sandstorm and Hail, but still not for Rain Dance and Sunny Day. Sure, there are plenty more effects that come with the latter two, but those teams get completely wrecked/hindered by a switch-in from Tyranitar that screws up the weather. And since Tyranitar is oh-so popular, I believe that they ARE permanently hindered simply because of the auto-weather change.
Click to expand...

If a Rain/Sun team gets wrecked just at the sight of Tyranitar, that team must have been made by somebody without much team-building experience. Remember: boost, not full-proof winning strategy.

And Tyranitar seriously doesn't seem too popular this generation. Rhyperior is seeing much more use.
 
Rain Dance and Sunny Day are far from equal.

Rain Dance has the advantage that pokes whose STAB move benefit from RD's 50% boost (i.e., water types) typically are the ones with Swift Swim to benefit from the double speed. Thus they receive a double boost.

Sunny day on the other hand - the pokes that benefit from the Fire attack boost do not have Chlorophyll, and the only pokes with Cholorophyll have at very best a BP70 hidden power to benefit from Sunny Day.

As for other factors... Thunders 100% acc in Rain is far superior as even if T-tar comes in, it only reduces the acc to 50%. Whereas T-tar coming in on someone using Solarbeam almost always results in the death of the Solarbeam user (being forced to charge a BP 60 attack, with no chance of stopping or switching out).

Sunny Day needs to get a few more perks IMO, and this should take priority over a Drought non-uber.
 
If you want a Non-Uber Drought or Drizzle pokemon, do some calcs on STAB Hydro Pumps or Fire Blasts with weather up and Life Orb or Choice Specs. A team full of 400+speed attacking monsters in 1v1 OU? That's just too much power for that environment.
 
Lot stuff of in this thread

1.Two pokes have auto sandstorm t-tar and the hippo.Meaning to get the extra sandstorm boost to turn Rhyperior into turn monster you have use one or other.Plus Garchomp trait only actives with sandstorm,so guess who have you to use.Dragon Dance,Taunt,Physical Crunch,etc....T-Tar is just as popular as before ,maybe even more.

2.Drought makes solar beam to 1 turn,increase boost fire attacks,increase morning sun and synthesis and cuts down water damage which helps fire and ground pokes.Plus they are couple of pokes which benefit because of their trait but Fire poke with Chlorophyll would be nice.

3.Please stop acting like kyorge and groundon aren't around.Yes they are two pokes with the traits, we just choose to ban them.

4.Try making a good hail team;Abomasnow ,Then one of these pokes Frolass/ Glaceon/regice/articuno/Lapras/weavile, Clefable, Golduck,Rayquazza and random poke.The best poke can't be use cause it uber,2 pokes are average,and Ice pokes have the same weakness make hard to use on the same team.We need better ice types.Hint Hint Nintendo/Gamefreak/Shigeru Ohmori Ice/Dragon, Ice/steel, Ice/Psychic please.
 
Either way before any other weather gets upgrades Hail should be boosted to be abit more useful period.

Also Rain Dance has superiority over Sunnyday for the most part.

-17 fire types vs 49 water
-One is not only weak but also non-effective on the other, thats lopsided.
-Solarbeam is easily countered.

Maybe if they actually brought more diverse fire types in then it could be re-discussed.
 
Basically, Rain Dance is indeed more powerful than Sunny Day. Here are the pokemon that generally benefit from Rain Dance:

Water, Electric, Steel, Ice, Grass(sort of). Rain Dance cuts the power of fire attacks on most of these types on pokemon, and give Electrics a better STAB move.

Steel types usually have low SD so they have to be wary of getting pwned by Surf, but just chuck on something like Lapras that craps all over most other water types (and can Thunder to boot) and you're set. Lapras' only real problem is Lanturn, who gets owned by Quags, which gets owned by Lapras... Bah.

In any event, Sunny Day is a double-edged sword most of the time, as boosted Flamethrowers nuke a lot of crap that likes the water reduction damage, and Solarbeam is even worse. Moreover, a lot more scary stuff switches in on Flamethrower as opposed to Surf. Gabby, Rhyperior, and Mence and three examples that can wreak havoc if you don't have the right corresponding move to address them.
 
Luck said:
4.Try making a good hail team;Abomasnow ,Then one of these pokes Frolass/ Glaceon/regice/articuno/Lapras/weavile, Clefable, Golduck,Rayquazza and random poke.The best poke can't be use cause it uber,2 pokes are average,and Ice pokes have the same weakness make hard to use on the same team.We need better ice types.Hint Hint Nintendo/Gamefreak/Shigeru Ohmori Ice/Dragon, Ice/steel, Ice/Psychic please.
Click to expand...

Ice/Psychic would be no better than Froslass's Ice/Ghost. Ghost and Psychic are both hit SE by Ghost and Dark, while Psychic has no important resistances/immunities.

I think they should make an Ice/Rock, just for the humor of it being the only 2 types that Steel hits SE.

Anyway, as people said, Sunny Day and Hail need something added first. Solarbeam isn't any good if they switch in any other weather effects, or switch to Skarmory, Heatran, etc. Chlorophyl pokemon aren't fire, so they have no STAB fire moves to take advantage of from Sunny Day.

Hail isn't any good, because you need Ice types. Ice is one of the worst types to be, and unlike Sandstorm they have no really special reasons to use them
 
porygon3 said:
Ice/Psychic would be no better than Froslass's Ice/Ghost. Ghost and Psychic are both hit SE by Ghost and Dark, while Psychic has no important resistances/immunities.

I think they should make an Ice/Rock, just for the humor of it being the only 2 types that Steel hits SE.

Anyway, as people said, Sunny Day and Hail need something added first. Solarbeam isn't any good if they switch in any other weather effects, or switch to Skarmory, Heatran, etc. Chlorophyl pokemon aren't fire, so they have no STAB fire moves to take advantage of from Sunny Day.

Hail isn't any good, because you need Ice types. Ice is one of the worst types to be, and unlike Sandstorm they have no really special reasons to use them
Click to expand...

I know ice/psychic would get any advantage but game makers have a track record making psychics have good stats.

IMO Drought and Drizzle are fairly even balance,You just need more and better fire types and Grass types take advantage of drought trait.
 
Drizzle > Drought. A rain dance team can be more competitive beacause practically anything can learn thunder, which becomes possibly the best damaging attack in the game (hmm 120 BP, Aura sphere accruacy, 30% para AND 10 PP...) The only thing that resists Thunderdance is grass and no one uses them.
 
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