Stratos
Banned deucer.
most of the time anything has damp rock it's going to be a suicide lead, and that tier still has lively hail, so often it's made completely useless.
either way a turn timer to win is a real pain.
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np: OU Suspect Testing Round 5 - Sandstorm (Excadrill/Thundurus Banned)
- Thread starter JabbaTheGriffin
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either way a turn timer to win is a real pain.
if no one answers to your post the first time it clearly means that it was a post that has no beneficial basis at all. conditional bans are simply the worst types of ban (i.e swift swim + drizzle) and should stop being mentioned cause they fucking suck shit to the equivalent of folgorio.
also ban latios
I agree fully tbh. We need to change our ways asap, and just stick to banning Pokemon as much as possible. If there's a problem with rain, then we should either ban Politoed or ban some Pokemon with Swift Swim, just imo.
This isn't about buffing Drizzle, it's about cleaning up a policy and removing unnecesarry casualties in the ban. The question raised by the Aldaron Proposal is simple. Why should we ban pokemon that are broken for the sake of a handful that are? It doesn't make sense considering how we didn't ban Speed Boost+Blaziken in OU or Drought+Victini in UU. We normally ban the broken element in question except in OU where it seems we ban anything that keeps weathers out of Ubers.
If it's broken, or promotes too much centralization, then we don't vote the swift swimmer in testing back into OU. I understand having a debate while theorymonning but what makes us so afraid to even try to see if pokemon are OU viable and blanket-banned out of fear for Kingdra. The Swift Swimmers aren't broken, about 3 of them are and if think it's too centralizing then we don't vote the swift swimmer back into OU. I understand wanting to stick with the AP but I see too often people are flat out refusing to even see if the other side has any merit.
Blaze Blaziken allows Sun teams to compete on an even setting with the other weathers. So, if a complex ban (SB+Blaziken) preserves a balance of power (thus letting diversity flourish) then why do we see a reason to not accept it?
Save the flames, I'm not serious but Straw Manning (a new verb) illuminates the flaw in certain logic. Drizzle isn't going Uber folks, it's been suspect for a while and it's not going. We've already established we're preserving Weather Wars and we can at least try to add real diversity by seeing whether or not Swift Swim pokemon not named Kingdra/Kabutops/Ludicolo are broken and what was the real issue behind Round 2 Rain.
Can't the unexpected ScarfTar come in on a Thundurus thunderbolt and Stone Edge it? ANyway, can't T-tar and Starmie work mindgames against Thundurus? I know THundurus can be really problematic but I don't think it deserves the boot, Jolteon is still a good pokemon to use against it (although whether Jolteon is good or not is pretty debatable) and keep in mind mixed sets usually lose out on some SpA. Hammer Arm is also a pretty bad attack due to the lowering of speed and you can easily use an opportunity to set up against it. Brick Break is really weak and you need max attack. HP fighting means you'll lose out on Ice, and then Focus Blast should almost NEVER be considered as a pro for a pokemon, it's pretty risky.
All in all I just don't think Thundurus has enough going for it to get a ban because each set has some sort of counter and keep in mind you'll probably not want to run both T-wave and NP because then T-tar can tear you to shreds. 100% accurate Thunder should also not be considered due to the prevalence of ground types and weather changers.
I really don't think anything needs to go this round, I believe it's safe to say the OU metagame is fine as is until more DW pokemon get released, Or a new threat pops up (possibly Landorus hmm?)
This is just all my opinion of course, so feel free to disagree but please don't be much of an ass about it.
All in all I just don't think Thundurus has enough going for it to get a ban because each set has some sort of counter and keep in mind you'll probably not want to run both T-wave and NP because then T-tar can tear you to shreds. 100% accurate Thunder should also not be considered due to the prevalence of ground types and weather changers.
I really don't think anything needs to go this round, I believe it's safe to say the OU metagame is fine as is until more DW pokemon get released, Or a new threat pops up (possibly Landorus hmm?)
This is just all my opinion of course, so feel free to disagree but please don't be much of an ass about it.
Stratos
Banned deucer.
I know it isn't about buffing Drizzle, but when you let a swift swimmer on a drizzle team, that's a necessary side effect.
As to the second part of your post, Swift Swim isn't broken and Drizzle isn't broken, but Swift Swim + Drizzle was. We addressed the problem at hand.
I said earlier in the thread that your side did have merit, so you know, welp.
And I have no fear for Kingdra, I understand your stance. I know that if an element is broken we ban it to Ubers. But /my/ stance is that having ANY swift swimmer on a Drizzle team is more likely than not to upset the fragile balance that is weather, and we'd just end up banning all of them. Or at least, all of the ones that are on the "decent swiftswim" list from a page or so back. And then we're stuck with eleven pretty crappy Pokemon in the Uber tier wondering what the hell happened, when we could instead let people still use them while maintaining a non-broken meta.
That's a common "slippery slope" argument. Very common, and it applies when people are trying to get Blaze Blaziken back and people go "What about Garchomp without EQ?" But I don't think that combo bans and nerfs are that hard to keep separate. A nerf involves what you can put on a Pokemon. A combo ban is what you can put on a team. It requires no separate tierings or usage stats for the same Pokemon (Which, as I can understand it, is the main reason people don't like that idea.) Kingdra is always UU. Politoed is always OU. Put them together and you have to play in the Uber tier. Think of it like putting Soul Dew on a Dunsparce back in the days of gen IV (pretty meh example at best, I know, but I couldn't think of anything better.)
What?
It's not like if rain gets too overpowered, we all suddenly panic and randomly ban every single rain abuser. If the "fragile" balance is "upset", then simply the top 2-3 abusers will go. There's no reason to go,
"Oh no, rain is overpowered, BAN EVERYTHING THAT HAS SWIFT SWIM! EVEN MAGIKARP! THEY SWIM TOO FAST FOR MY MIND TO COMPREHEND SO JUST BAN THEM ALL BEFORE MY MIND EXPLODES"
Stratos
Banned deucer.
it's people like you that make smogon no fun. please start being a more respectful debater. did you read the sentence /immediately following?/
When we get to a metagame where there are no suspects, then bam, mission accomplished, Pokemon is fun again and we can stop complaining. What you are suggesting is that immediately upon reaching this homeostasis, we ruin it to satisfy your curiosity.
Which is where 99% of these "bring shit down from Ubers" arguments fall apart: they fail to justify themselves with tangible benefits. When you want something down from Ubers, you don't just guilt trip the dissenting community for not wanting to do it and expect that your superior logic will cause us to see the light. JT's been doing that for the past three suspect threads and nobody bought it. You give us the brasstacks. For instance, why do we want to put more power behind the most powerful weather effect in OU? Why do we care enough about Swift Swim Luvdisc and Lumineon to bring them back to the tier?
The answer right now is that we don't. Even if you tell us Luvdisc is not broken and that we don't know whether or not something like Floatzel is broken, that's no incentive to take the risk and disrupt the balance, or furthermore, complicate the ruleset to include Swift Swimmers that are not broken. For one, that's going to take time. Months and months and months of time, for something relatively unimportant that has no real argumentative basis besides the moral equivalent of "innocent until proven guilty."
You said yourself Drizzle was broken earlier and I agreed with you. Now you're telling me, for some inane reason, that you want to test each and every individual Swift Swimmer under Drizzle to see if they're broken. On what planet does this make sense? You're not even giving yourself a reason for wanting this, other than sheer, oddly misplaced curiosity that won't benefit anyone in the long run but you and the few other people who want to sweep with Qwilfish for a day to to prove a point.
Drizzle, as it is, is very dominant in this metagame, and considered by a lot of people to be broken. In the event that it isn't banned, this problem will not absolve, but rather exacerbate; even if we reduce our list of Swift Swimmers to Qwilfish and Seismitoad, they're inevitably going to give the players something to complain about. And once again, if Drizzle, as it is, leaves OU, then this issue becomes entirely irrelevant. Either way, there are less than zero tangible benefits to your proposal; the only way this can go is down. We're going to bitch for another few months about how even the outclassed/theoretically bad Swift Swimmers are on every team and establishing dominance when we could have left the Swift Swim chapter closed on something we decided a long time ago.
Sounds good to me actually. All you need is the overwhelming support of the voting populace who wanted these Pokemon banned in the first place. Just make sure you get around to explicitly describing a reason for us wanting to do this at all.
Yes, and I already responded to that general argument on the top post of this page.
Basically, Ludicolo and Kabutops were borderline OU during the testing phase, so it's ridiculous to assume that any of the inferior Swift Swimmers would certainly be banned.
And my mentioning of Magikarp was a joking hyperbole, if you were referring to that, but that wasn't the focus of what I was saying. Still, assuming we'd certainly ban Carracosta or other "realistic" examples is hardly any less ridiculous.
It's not like we're going to stop suspect testing Thunderous and other actual problematic rain abusers just by letting Qwilfish in. I don't see why people keep assuming that letting non-threats into OU is somehow going to prevent us from removing actual broken Drizzle threats from OU at the same time.
Something I want to ask. I understand that Smogon want to have a stable metagame relatively fast ? So, if it is no suspect, this would mean that the meta is pretty stable.
So, why bring back swsw back ? Not only, it's gonna increase the numbers of broken things under drizzle (so overpower drizzle team) but also lengthen the suspect test. Is it that vital to test every swift swimmers to make the suspect test longer ?
At the end, we ban a bunch of pokemon just for the sake to stop the aldaron proposal and follow a rule. Or Drizzle may be banned the first round where the swift swimmers are released at "full power", because people became sick of Drizzle because of that.
Now I find Drizzle menageable now. Either we ban it, either we let it like it is now. No need to add something to it.
So, why bring back swsw back ? Not only, it's gonna increase the numbers of broken things under drizzle (so overpower drizzle team) but also lengthen the suspect test. Is it that vital to test every swift swimmers to make the suspect test longer ?
At the end, we ban a bunch of pokemon just for the sake to stop the aldaron proposal and follow a rule. Or Drizzle may be banned the first round where the swift swimmers are released at "full power", because people became sick of Drizzle because of that.
Now I find Drizzle menageable now. Either we ban it, either we let it like it is now. No need to add something to it.
Do you really think Luvdisc, Beartic, and Armaldo will ruin balance in the metagame? Keep in mind you've already flip-flopped on the Floatzel argument (shown below)
Tangible benefits? 1)Increased variety in the metagame and 2)a return to banning broken elements in the metagame instead of nerfing, or what used to be called standard procedure. 3)No precedent for ridiculous combo bans (SB+Blaziken) and 4)removing an emergency measure that by that time will have served its purpose.
I'm not guilt tripping anybody and the community's not dissenting the opinion, you're dissenting it while everybody else is debating it. I pointed out how some people, like you, refuse to entertain the fact that somebody who disagrees with you might have a point where as others (like Pwnemon) actually debate our ideas for what they're worth.
I'm not JT, if Rain is the most powerful weather effect then why is Sand used twice as often, and Swift Swim Luvdisc and Lumineon aren't broken, never went through a proper test, and were banned because Kingdra and two buddies were too powerful. We don't care about strands of data, we care about following and enacting policy that gets to the root of the problem instead of a blanket ban over a general characteristic that some broken pokemon have.
Didn't you say...
And you said my argument was falling apart.
Months? I'm pretty sure we don't need a month to see if Lumineon is broken. And the ruleset wouldn't be complicated at all. We would have Suspects, and decide from there. We pick the swift swimmers we know to be overpowered and test the immediate threats, the rest can come in. Some will need testing, Gorebyss/Huntail/possibly Ludicolo or Kabutops on their own, but I'm pretty sure we know Kingdra can be autobanned and some aren't broken at all.
Stop twisting my words. I said individual. You're adding in each and every, which I didn't say at all. And even though Drizzle is broken, it's not as if it's getting banned anytime soon or getting any substantial boost from having Beartic in OU. Let Swift Swimmers down that wouldn't break OU, that was my plan.
You're just ranting here...
A lot of people think Excadrill's broken, what's your point?
It would at that hypothetical, imaginary point.
I proved this statement wrong earlier
Establishing dominance? Don't tell me your team is Luvdisc weak.
I don't remember the vote on Luvdisc, do you?
I did, others have elaborated on it, and you decided to ignore it and rant while other people who share your side of the debate decided to contribute coherent and logical input into the discussion.
QFT.
Drizzle + SwSw was the worst thing we could have done in hindsight. We didn't nerf Sand or Sun to see if they were manageable under the nerf, as we have with Drizzle. Instead, we banned the threats that were most powerful under them (Garchomp, Blaziken).
If Drizzle's banning results in all four weathers going (which is something I highly doubt will happen), then so be it.
To be clear, my purpose is not "lol Lumineon isn't broken under Drizzle so we need to test each individual one." Rather, it's about time we assessed Drizzle as it is and took appropriate action as we have with other suspects.
Stratos
Banned deucer.
Okay, since the entire argument basically boils down to this paragraph, I'm just going to respond to these, if you don't mind.
3) I already responded to this earlier, and you can go back and read the whole thing on the previous page, but the shorthand form is Teambuilding bans are not the same as Pokemonbuilding bans.
1) I hate to break this to you but any even bottom OU material SwSwimmer is going to break the balance of the metagame, it's so fragile. That means that only pieces of crap such as Beartic and Luvdisc are going to get through your testing period, and these won't be OU Pokemon. Maybe they could shine in UU, but whoops, they don't have drizzle.
Long story short: Anything worth going through tests in the OU meta, are going to break the OU meta.
4) God damn it people need to stop calling Aldaron's Proposal an "emergency measure." If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
2) The thing is, drizzle isn't broken and SwSw pokemon aren't broken, it's the combination of the two that is. As I explained earlier, if you can solve the problem most directly via complex banning, then why shouldn't you. The only reason not to is people who think that complex banning will lead to single-pokemon nerfing, and I've addressed that in the past as well.
EDIT: @ IcyMan: Aldaron's Proposal wasn't "the worst thing we could have done at the time." In essence, it's banning Kabutops, Kingdra, etc. which were the suspects most broken under drizzle. But since they weren't even close to OU outside of drizzle (Even Kingdra is UU) we banned the combo instead of the Pokemon, to, as Nkuleko said, increase diversity.
Neither camp is wrong. Yes, Aldaron's Proposal is not truly justified without testing individual swift swimmers. More importantly, however, the latest suspect test has revealed a roughly 50-50 split between the supporters and opponents of Drizzle. I think this discussion about Swift Swimmers would be more appropriate after either of the following conditions are met:
A) Drizzle will most probably be voted as a Suspect this round. In this case Drizzle would be voted again. I believe that if the votes represented a supermajority for Do NOT Ban, we can start discussing about Swift Swimmers.
B) Drizzle did not receive enough nominations to even be voted upon.
So I personally would not suggest bringing back Swift Swimmers this round (or the next round if neither of the conditions above were met). Drizzle is just too controversial at the moment, and Aldaron's Proposal is maintaining the calm as best as it could.
A) Drizzle will most probably be voted as a Suspect this round. In this case Drizzle would be voted again. I believe that if the votes represented a supermajority for Do NOT Ban, we can start discussing about Swift Swimmers.
B) Drizzle did not receive enough nominations to even be voted upon.
So I personally would not suggest bringing back Swift Swimmers this round (or the next round if neither of the conditions above were met). Drizzle is just too controversial at the moment, and Aldaron's Proposal is maintaining the calm as best as it could.
QFT. Get rid of Drizzle once and for all, and stop this stupid argument about the complex ban.
Just a little point:
We ban Drizzle+SwSw (Drizzle Limit)
We ban Blaziken (Really powerful threat in Sun)
We ban Garchomp (Really powerful threat in Sand)
Now we see that the situation is the same.
Drizzle comes near to a simple majority, hoping that the next time, the ban are evident (go super majority !), then we remain with a lot of cholorophiller, powerfull fire attack, "weak" water attack and Excadrill. I hope you reach the point.
We're slowly go to a non-weather meta, so why not just ban all the major EVIDENT threats now ? Simply ban Drizzle for the 5 round then you can give a chance of a meta dominated by sun & sand, then you wanna go to ban both (for the sand you just ban Excadrill and, maybe Landorus).
We ban Drizzle+SwSw (Drizzle Limit)
We ban Blaziken (Really powerful threat in Sun)
We ban Garchomp (Really powerful threat in Sand)
Now we see that the situation is the same.
Drizzle comes near to a simple majority, hoping that the next time, the ban are evident (go super majority !), then we remain with a lot of cholorophiller, powerfull fire attack, "weak" water attack and Excadrill. I hope you reach the point.
We're slowly go to a non-weather meta, so why not just ban all the major EVIDENT threats now ? Simply ban Drizzle for the 5 round then you can give a chance of a meta dominated by sun & sand, then you wanna go to ban both (for the sand you just ban Excadrill and, maybe Landorus).
To be very honest, I don't see what banning sun would do. So it makes Victini and co stronger? Sun and Sand are able to balance each other out, which is more than what can be said for Drizzle, which is clearly the most powerful weather, with or without the complex ban.
I really don't get statements like:drizzle is definitely the most broken weather...
Tyranitar is the number one used poke in ou right now!
Is this showing to us that rain is broken???
Then why is Politoed number 14 in usage?
Why tyranitar is used twice as much as politoed?
Do you know why?
Because sand teams are much more versatile and consistent!They are good even when sand is down!
Drizzle teams are very good when rain is up but when it is not they are in a huge disadvantage!
So pls stop saying that drizzle is the strongest weather!
It is sand which is more used and dominates in the top of the ladder...!
Tyranitar is the number one used poke in ou right now!
Is this showing to us that rain is broken???
Then why is Politoed number 14 in usage?
Why tyranitar is used twice as much as politoed?
Do you know why?
Because sand teams are much more versatile and consistent!They are good even when sand is down!
Drizzle teams are very good when rain is up but when it is not they are in a huge disadvantage!
So pls stop saying that drizzle is the strongest weather!
It is sand which is more used and dominates in the top of the ladder...!
Yeah, Azule, i'm with you.
IDK if Drought can be a sort of "new drizzle" but is evident that drizzle is near broken now and Drought & Excadrill need a test after the (hopefully) drizzle ban.
@alexwolf: the difference between rain and sand is that one power up a lot of pokemons that are good even without it (Drizzle) and one is more powerfull if the weather is up (Sand storm).
In conclusion, Politoed now is a sort of anti-weather (or anti-SS), Rotom-W is powerful even without drizzle support and Starmie too. Excadrill without sand sucks the most of the time, Landorus can be more versatile but is not paired to the immediate power of Excadrill.
IDK if Drought can be a sort of "new drizzle" but is evident that drizzle is near broken now and Drought & Excadrill need a test after the (hopefully) drizzle ban.
@alexwolf: the difference between rain and sand is that one power up a lot of pokemons that are good even without it (Drizzle) and one is more powerfull if the weather is up (Sand storm).
In conclusion, Politoed now is a sort of anti-weather (or anti-SS), Rotom-W is powerful even without drizzle support and Starmie too. Excadrill without sand sucks the most of the time, Landorus can be more versatile but is not paired to the immediate power of Excadrill.
Because Sun had one broken abuser (which was broken outside of Sun anyways) and Sand had one broken abuser (which was still borderline in every other weather) as well. You can eventually count Excadrill.
What about Drizzle? There is dozen of broken/near broken Swift Swimmers. Banning one-two Pokemon =/= banning dozen of Pokemon.
There's no point in comparing Sun to Rain. Rain > other weathers.
Because Tyranitar would still be awesome even with Unnerve. Politoed can't dispose of Ferrothorn e.g. Also, Aldaron's Proposal limits use of Rain teams. It's showing that Rain, even with gigantic nerf, is still perfectly usable.
You're contradicting yourself. Rain IS the strongest weather. However that doesn't mean that Rain teams are the strongest teams.
Your point? The number of broken pokemon under a particular condition shouldn't entirely dictate the path we take. Should it be a factor? Yes. The only factor? No.
There are a dozen broken Swift Swimmers? Ban all 12. Thundurus becomes a huge problem under rain? Ban it. Not to mention that this operates under the assumption that all 12 Swift Swimmers are indeed broken. I would argue that Kingdra is the only "obviously" broken one, and that the others can have cases made for them.
...Or, you could just ban Politoed due to Drizzle being the common factor among all said threats (note that I didn't say DrizzleToed - I said Politoed as a whole), which would be a 1-pokemon ban. Likewise, if Sand Veil were broken on each and every pokemon that had it, we would have banned Sand Veil (and as such banned every pokemon that had it as its sole ability unless/if they received an alternate). We could also have banned Sand Stream.
As it stands, we aren't playing a metagame of Drizzle vs. Drought vs. Sand. We are playing Drought vs. Sand vs. Drizzle v0.5. And I'm willing to bet that if the paranoia surrounding the subsequent banning of other weathers weren't a factor, we would have banned Drizzle.
I don't understand this concept of "nerfing" a playstyle... By your logic, banning Garchomp and Blaziken effectively nerfed Sand and Drought Teams, so your argument doesn't really work.
Aldaron's Proposal is actually doing the same exact thing as banning Garchomp & Blaziken - getting rid of the most powerful threat (Swift Swim under Rain) under a particular weather. Unlike Sand and Sun, where we can pin point an individual Pokemon, there are multiple Pokemon that are arguably overwhelming with Swift Swim. We could either then ban individual Swift Swimmers, which would take some time and would need support. Or we could stick with Aldaron's Proposal, which has in essence banned the most powerful threat of rain. Either solution ultimately achieve the same thing with variations in casualties. Banning Drizzle would have the most casualties of all, which is why we are so reluctant in taking that drastic step. Imagine Banning Sandstream because of Garchomp, Excadrill, and Landorus.
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