Competitive Battling Discussion Of The Week 8

PG24

PG24

<Pride> I'm my wildest fantasy
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WE BE BRINGING IT BACK! (so please do make it active)

palkia dialga clash said:
As I'm sure we all know competitive battling has just entered the 5th generation. A new generation comes new players. With new players comes new chances to join in on the fun that is competitive battling. This thread is help interest people to join competitive battling and in general get the already competitive people to comment a bit more about the metagame, their preferences, gimmicks, styles, etc.

bacon did this before and I would like to do this again. It should give us new opportunities to post are thoughts about the metagame in it's current state and other subjects of competitive battling. This thread each week will have a subject about the metagame or a subject of preference. An example is What team style to you play and why? This question gives us a bit background on why you play this style and why you like it so much.

This gives us some new ideas and maybe even some new things we can try out on. I will try to put this thread up every week and it should be up every week if I get to it (which I will). I want good discussion in this thread. If you don't then your not really contributing to the thread. Expand why you use that play style or why you use this gimmick of what you think about the current metagame. The 5th Generation metagame to be exact.

Now without further ado, here's the weekly subject for this week.
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What are your opinions on weather's impact on the current metagame? Do you think weather itself is broken, do you think the Pokemon that abuse it are broken, or are there any other things you think about weather?

Godspeed, gentlemen!
 
I kinda like Weather Wars. I will say that I would like it more if it were really Weather Wars. Hail and Sun are pretty inferior to Rain and Sand, imo, so at this point it's just Sand and Rain wars. Weather itself isn't broken, because it's not good without the abusers. The abusers... well, I don't think they're broken, just overcentralizing.
But overcentralizing isn't broken, period. But tbh, I like how you have to play differently based on your opponent's weather. Should you just play yours up before you lose it? Or do you play conservatively, waiting to eliminate their weather before you try to fully abuse your's? It's interesting.
 
I agree with 6-D, it really does add something different to the meta, which sucks right now anyways. Banning Rain, Sand, Hail, or Sun, will just make the meta less interesting IMO. Although some abilities make weather just too good like Swift Swim and *AH-HEM* Sand Rush. Other than that, I like weather in it's entirety, especially Rain. ;) Although I'm sad to see a lack of variety these days, Weather rules, and the only thing that can beat weather is weather. So everyone winds up using it. :/ Hopefully we can see some more creative teams and strategies in the future.
And thanks for bringing this back, TDL!
 
I really havent had a problem with weather teams. I guess it just isn't as noticible now that there are many ways to access weather. With all the new abilities to certain pokmon, a player can summone any kind of weather they feel like. Ninetails- Sun. Abamosnow- Hail and so on. I guess it just depends on the situaition if it effects a battle that much, but other than that I think it's just a common thing these days.
 
The weather itself is is fine. However, I think with perma sun and rain, as well as gen 5 pokes, we have 3 mons that are nearly impossible to stop:Excadrill, Kingdra, and Venusaur. Excadrill with Sand Rush in sand outspeeds everything and with huge attack OHKOs a lot. Kingdra similarly gets huge speed, and can just switch in, spam Draco Meteor, switch out, and repeat. Venusaur just sleep powders your counter/check (if any) sets up a growth as you switch or stay sleeping, then they solarbeam/hp fire everything to death. Swift Swim+Drizzle is banned so we don't have to worry about Kingdra, Heatran is a perfect counter to any Venusaur not carrying Earthquake, which for some reason none do (with growth boosting attack as well, its a perfectly legitimate move) but there really is no sure-fire counter to excadrill. (well, I think speed boost blaziken could check it, but that's banned now). I guess scarf golduck with cloud nine checks it, but that's about it. And who wants to run scarf GOLDUCK??? It's totally useless against everything else. Garchimp was banned last gen because a slot of every team needed to be devoted solely to stopping it or you got swept, so if everyone has to devote a slot of their team to scarf golduck to stop excadrill (that or run a weather team themself, which 90% of people do), I think it's reached uber.
 
Venusaur is certainly defeatable. I've never struggled to defeat one. I think it might be more of an issue with how you build your teams. Here's a brief list of Pokemon who should beat Venusaur: Tornadus, Infernape, Hydreigon, Haxorus, Salamence, Gengar, Rotom-H, Cobalion, Latios, and Latias.

Kingdra is a litter bigger threat than Venusaur, but it still is stoppable. Jellicent is an excellent example of a Pokemon who should beat Kingdra. While Kingdra isn't that fragile, repeated hits and entry hazard damage from switching out take it out fairly easily. Ferrathorn is another Pokemon that should always beat Kingdra since Kingdra virtually never carries HP Fire since it wouldn't make sense due to using it in the rain.

Excadrill is the hardest to beat out of the three due to its massive Attack stat. Your best bet for getting rid of it is using bulky Pokemon that know water and fighting moves since Excadrill frequently holds Air Balloon. Suicune is a great Pokemon to use if your team is Excadrill weak due to its high defenses. Swampert is alright it facing Excadrill, but it isn't as good as some of the other water Pokemon this generation. Ferrathorn once again is a great Pokemon to use if your team has trouble with this Pokemon. It can't OHKO it, but it definitely will be able to pop the balloon so most of your other Pokemon should be able to finish it off. Skarmory can only phase it out with Whirlwind, though sometimes that is needed if the opponent gets in a Swords Dance.

All three can be made a lot easier by just switching to a different weather either via an ability or using a move. Excadrill is the only one of those who still can pose a large threat without a weather to support it.
 
The only commonly used one out of the counters to excadrill is ferrothorn, which doesn't actually counter it. The rest pretty much have no use against anything but excadrill. Also, how does cobalion counter venusaur? Venusaur runs HP fire, does it not?
 
Kingdra isn't really much of a threat, it's so slow IMO. If unfortunately you run Politoed and your opponent has Kingdra just run Ferrothorn, which is great on rain anyways. Excadrill is a pain, because Adamant Life Orb Frustration at +2 Attack does like 70% to Gliscor, otherwise a decent counter. Skarmory seems to be a bit underrated, but it can phaze Excadrill and set up Spikes on it.

I'm all for banning auto-weather (or abilities that rely on it), it makes Pokemon so boring. In DPP there was so much more skill in the meta, and there was a but more variation among good teams. Banning Sand Rush and Chlorophyll would spice up and decentralize the game.
 
I don't think Venusaur is that great at all. If it uses Sleep Powder and Growth, it only gets two moves (which are ususally HP Fire and Solar Beam/Power Whip), making it easily checkable by any Fire or Dragon Poke. If it doesn't use Sleep Powder, it's harder to find an opportunity to use Growth. Plus it's pretty easy to take out with Priority, despite resisting Mach Punch and Aqua Jet. The fact that it's the best Sun sweeper is the reason I think Sun isn't very good.

Kingdra can't do anything to bulky Waters. Plus, if it gets a kill, you can revenge it pretty easily with, well, most things. On the Special Side, Kingdra is helpless after a Draco Meteor, giving you a free turn to set up with something. On the Physical Side, even a +1 Kingdra is outsped by any Scarfer with over 85 base Speed and a neutral Nature (Kingdra usually runs Adamant). And Kingdra doesn't even usually run Max Speed.

Excadrill is imo, the easiest countered of the three. Balloon Magnezone, Ferrothorn (who isn't the greatest counter but whatever), Gliscor, Azumarill, Conkeldurr, and Infernape (who can only revenge) can all come in on a Sword Dance or after a kill and take Excadrill out. Excadrill's problem is that it gets little useful coverage outside of QuakeSlide, and that's just not good enough this gen.
 
Hyperbeem said:
I'm all for banning auto-weather (or abilities that rely on it), it makes Pokemon so boring.
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I actually think the opposite. I don't know if I'd play anymore if auto-weather was banned, as it loses its appeal to me, and makes Pokemon so boring. Losing weather would harm Gen.5's diversity; we wouldn't have things like Toxicroak or Venusaur in OU. Having weather in this metagame creates a sense of accomplishment for the newer battlers that know that weather is good. If they beat weather teams, they know that they've assembled a good team.

Weather isn't too good for Gen.5's metagame. Weather is Gen.5's metagame. Look at this stuff we've been given for weather (Sand Rush, Drizzle, Drought, Sand Power, etc). It's extremely foolish to not run weather.
 
A weather meta is the absolute lack of diversity. It's rain vs. sandstorm with all rain teams running at least 2-3 of the same Pokemon, and same with sandstorm. When you factor in that these two must played by at least 50% of players (or at least ones with a good amount of wins) we get a huge lack of diversity. I'm glad they banned Drizzle + Swift Swim, Rain teams went from like 60% of all teams to 10-20%. Unfortunately, it just made sandstorm teams huge. If Sand Steam + Sand Rush is banned I think we can get some real diversity, with a scattering of weather, but also trick room, baton pass, and lots of just general teams that are different. Granted, there will always be the meta, and there will always be overused stuff, but at least it won't be include golduck, lickilicky, and altaria and you win 90% of your matches.
 
I really don't like weather. Your team is forced to run T-Tar, Politoed, or Ninetales (and to a lesser extent Hippowdon and Abomasnow) just to be able to counter other weather. People like me who enjoy the novelty of having a trick room team, are ruined constantly by weather, being overrun by 4x damage. If you loooky here http://stats.pokemon-online.eu/Wifi/index.html you can see that weather is overcentralizing the whole meta. I can safely say that at least 7 out of 10 pokemon in the top 10 are great abusers of weather, and if you don't run weather, prepare to get dominated by extremely high damage, passive damage, and huge Sp.Defense boosts. I guess it's what the creators wanted, but I would love to have an entirely seperate tier with no weather.
 
I'm of the opinion that some weather is good and some is bad. Sand and Hail I have never seen problems with, but Sun and Rain I really don't like. It just seems that with Sun and Rain, you're forced to play every single game a specific way, and you're forced to commit suicide just to try and keep your weather guy alive. Rain I especially don't like, because i'd like to point out that in Rain, there's no way to safely get your weather directly in. Tyranitar or Politoed can freely switch into Ninetales, and Politoed can, to an extent switch into Tyranitar. There's literally no safe switch into Specs Politoed, as a Specs Hydro Pump in Rain just decimates anything not named Blissey, Chansey, and Ferrothorn (all of whom are weak to Focus Blast.) I also don't like how specific pokemon literally CAN'T be used now because they can't perform in weather. We've seen pokemon like Jolteon, Zapdos, and Hippowdon, all of whom were easily top OU pokemon last generation, lose ground this generation. Jolteon and Zapdos are UU, while Hippowdon BARELY retains OU status, simply because they are all weak to some kind of weather. I think we'd have a much more balanced metagame without drizzle and drought, because it just seems that with it, everybody uses some combination of the same 10 pokemon.
 
Skarmory, Gliscor, Tangrowth, Tangela, Rotom W, Celebi (If no x-sciz), Ferro, and many more all wall Excadrill like a pro.

You dont have to worry about kingdra, with SS+Rain banned.

Venusaur isnt that powerful. Speed sweepers are the least of the issues with rain.

Things like rain dish, water boost, hydration, fire x.5, hurricane 100, thunder 100, and others are what break rain.
 
Personally, I hate it. The same Pokemon are used every match. It's not necessarily that they're broken, but more of it gets boring the play the same team and constantly having to have one of the Pokemon to fight off the most common ones. There's ways around it obviously, but it's just not as fun and "free" as fourth gen. Variety is non-existent. Creativity is gone. Lately I've been trying to make more creative teams, and in fact just made one today. It's been fairing excellent, but I keep facing the same teams over and over with it. Weather isn't broken, to me it's just annoying. Both sandstorm and rain. I liked fourth generation mucho better where you could have a ton more freedom in your team. You still can, but everyone just keeps using the same Pokemon over and over. Why? Because they form great combos. Jellicent + Nattorei is just....amazing. There's tons of combos like that, and so those Pokemon are always used that way. That's why when you usually see Nattorei, there's probably something else like Politoed or Jellicent. I used to not mind weather when it wasn't too common in fourth generation, but now that it's on every (literally every) team, it's just flat out annoying.
 
Steadfast said:
Personally, I hate it. The same Pokemon are used every match. It's not necessarily that they're broken, but more of it gets boring the play the same team and constantly having to have one of the Pokemon to fight off the most common ones. There's ways around it obviously, but it's just not as fun and "free" as fourth gen. Variety is non-existent. Creativity is gone. Lately I've been trying to make more creative teams, and in fact just made one today. It's been fairing excellent, but I keep facing the same teams over and over with it. Weather isn't broken, to me it's just annoying. Both sandstorm and rain. I liked fourth generation mucho better where you could have a ton more freedom in your team. You still can, but everyone just keeps using the same Pokemon over and over. Why? Because they form great combos. Jellicent + Nattorei is just....amazing. There's tons of combos like that, and so those Pokemon are always used that way. That's why when you usually see Nattorei, there's probably something else like Politoed or Jellicent. I used to not mind weather when it wasn't too common in fourth generation, but now that it's on every (literally every) team, it's just flat out annoying.
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I agree with this post in entirety - especially the no creativity and variety aspect. As most other competitive battlers know on PB, I have just started getting into Black and White competitive battling, and I'm already bored. In the span of my first five matches, four of my opponents used Politoed (therefore, I saw four Rain teams). In no way am I trying to say weather teams are broken, but you certainly do have to account for the threats used on weather teams, and it's just no fun.
 
That's just it. There was such a huge power creep in Gen 5 that combos that could be considered pretty good in a gen 4-like environment are not used simply because they don't have the sheer damage output or massive speed to keep up with the weather metagame. However, to effectively prevent weather from-overcentralizing the metagame, either the weather creaters would have to be banned, or over a dozen abusers would have to be banned. I think they should split OU in two- Upper OverUsed, or UOU, and Lower OverUsed, or LOU. Upper Overused would contain all those weather mons and weather abusers as well as stuff like Lastios and Garchomp and Drizzle + Swift Swim due to the fact it will be a weather only meta and therefore have massive damage output. Meanwhile, almost all other previously OU and maybe some better UU pokemon will be put in LOU, which would be an environment full of many comboes and no overcentralized pokemon. In short, LOU would be for people who want to experiment and have fun facing many teams while UOU would be for people who can't stand to lose their overpowered weather teams.
 
While I had just started playing Black and White yesterday, I had been lurking around and watching over the metagame as it developed. Obviously, weather was a hot topic. Before I actually had played, I had believed that those who were complaining about things like Drizzle just needed to suck it up and deal with it, and I did not think that Rain was broken without the SS abusers around.

However, in practice, I echo many of the thoughts that were posted by Steadfast and CCloud. It seems that I always encounter just a select few Pokemon in just about every match, and almost all of these teams are weather. Things like Politoed, Ferrothorn, Gliscor, Tyranitar, etc. are just everywhere, and matches get boring quick when you fight the same mons over and over and over again. What's worse is that even if you try to break away from the weather metagame, you often find yourself a bit of a disadvantage when compared to weather teams. In other words, in order to actually be competitive, you are going to find you'll probably end up needing/using a weather starter, just for the sheer advantages it gives you. And by that point you are just continuing the trend...

While it's certainly debatable if weather (Sand and Rain/abusers) is actually broken, it certainly does make for a less diverse metagame, and as such, is not quite as enjoyable as last generation.
 
I agree with like the last few posts are so. All I'm seeing is either a combination of Thundurus, Politoed, Ferro, or T-Tar and Excadrill. That's only to mention the most common ones. Starmie, Tornadus, Dragonite, Toxicroak, and Landorus, Ferrothorn, Gliscor, Jirachi respectively are just way too common in my opinion. It's not broken, but repeating what everyone said weather = less diverse metgame.
 
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