Competitive Battling Discussion Of The Week 8

Yep, yep. Everybody's right. Weather isnt broken, it's just the best force in the game. Well, Sand and Rain are. But imo, things should be banned if they're too good. Overcentralization is a part of the game, and I think it's basically just something we all have to deal with.
But then again, thinking about a weather-less game... oh man. The thing about many of the abusers is that they would be good without the weather. That's not true for stuff like Venusaur and Toxicroak, but really, Landorus would still be great without Sand Power, because it has good stats and movepool.
I was thinking I kinda like the game, but then I went on YouTube and watched some late DPP-era battles, and now I'm with ya'll. No weather would just make the game more fun.
 
I just want to point out that +4 LO Adamant Excadrill Frustration KOs Gliscor. Ferrothorn can't really do anything to prevent Excadrill from setting up. Skarmory is as close to a hard counter as it gets, but if it is Paralyzed, Excadrill has a decent shot there as well.

Politoed is a pain, but Blissey can easily take a Specs Focus Blast. Specs Politoed is still pretty devastating regardless. Thundurus is a monster, Thunder 2HKOs Ferrothorn at +2, Focus Blast 2HKOs Blissey, Quagsire, and Gastrodon at +2 (Unaware Quagsire). HP Ice decimates every Dragon not named Latias. It resists Bullet Punch and Mach Punch, and has a base speed of 111. Okay, this Pokemon may be Uber anyways, but do we really want Rain on top of that? Rain gives it excellent partners in Rotom-W, Politoed, and Scizor, which clean up on it's "counters". Really, all that can beat this monster reliably are even faster Pokemon that can KO it.

If you can't beat them... Join them.
 
Hyperbeem said:
If you can't beat them... Join them
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And that right there is exactly the problem that I and many others have been talking about. It's almost required you use a weather starter AND a couple of that weather's abusers...it's ridiculous. What is the end result? You end up seeing the same groups of mons in almost every single battle. To boot, in order to handle opposing weather, you'll find it very beneficial/necessary to run some of the exact same mons, including Politoed/Tyranitar...and as more people see it necessary to run these guys on their team, the more you see them pop up in battle...and then the vicious cycle just keeps repeating itself.

Fun fact: On Smogon, someone calculated that weather was seen in 70-71% of battles in May 2011. And this was before Politoed skyrocketed from 14th to 4th place in usage, so it's an even higher percentage now.
 
I absolutely hate the weather wars. It's pretty much the main reason I don't play much anymore. Rain and Sand barely balance each other as it is. And there sun is too add in some extra annoyance. If I'm not running rain, I'm virtually forced to run Tyranitar, and vice versa. I know it's not the most in depth post, but since i haven't been playing too much, I don't have much to say :). Needless to say, I am in full support of an auto weather ban!
 
Specs Politoed leads are crazy. That Hydro Pump is just so strong. There is quite possibly no safe switch-ins to something like that, unless you get some bulky waters like Suicune. I recall even Blissey taking quite the chunk from that. I don't know, I just started playing B/W. For the most part, it's fun. But most of the teams I face are weather, with little to no difference between each one.

Rain will be rain. It's powerful, fast, and easy to use. It was the first team I tried out in B/W and it destroyed for the most part. It can be played around, but if two equally good players are battling each other, the one with the rain team is going to beat the one without weather. It's hard to go out of your way to support the core of your team when you have to cover the huge threat of rain. It takes the fun out of team-building when you have to implement a counter for rain. To be honest, there isn't even a clear-cut counter for it. You just have to play well around it.

With that said, I'm kind of undecided on whether it should be banned. It seems extremely overplayed, but I'm not sure if it's overpowered. I would enjoy a metagame without weather a lot more I think. I agree with Hyperbeem though, if you can't beat them, join them. Until a decision is made, if you want to win, you'll need to use the best things out there.
 
Can't we just ban weather abilities and get rid of this nonsense?
 
Personally i dont find weather conditions to cause much of a problem, and venusaur is no problem at all with the right pokemon, infernape is a good choice against venusaur, along with blaziken and weavile.
 
pokepro said:
Personally i don't find weather conditions to cause much of a problem, and venusaur is no problem at all with the right pokemon, infernape is a good choice against venusaur, along with blaziken and weavile.
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All of these Pokemon are outsped by venusaur in sun, and Weavile is OHKOed by Hidden Power Fire, which pretty much all venusaur run.
 
pokepro said:
Personally i don't find weather conditions to cause much of a problem, and venusaur is no problem at all with the right pokemon, infernape is a good choice against venusaur, along with blaziken and weavile.
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Ummmm... yeah no. Infernape and Blaziken won't be outspeeding Venusaur. And Weavile can only hit with Ice Shard, which won't be OHKOing unless Weavile is banded (lol).
 
In my opinion, weather is harmful because it destroys balance in the game. It has become clear to me now that having auto weather abilities in OU just causes everyone to start using the same pokemon. In gen 4, weather was tolerable, but the introduction of drizzletoad and droughtails as well as sand force/rush forced players to either surrender or get pummeled. I would love to log onto PO and go a single half-hour session without having to fight a bunch of Tyranitars and ninetales.
 
I personally have never had a problem with weather, but it has gotten extremely annoying how uncreative people are getting. If you run anti weather on the PO server, you get get to 1300 easily. It's that easy. Auto rain I can tolerate, people are getting creative with Lapras and Gyarados, which i like. Sun is a bit less, and Sand is just horrible. Every single SS team is Ttar/Drill/Ferrothorn/Rotom W or Virizion/Landorus or Terrakion/Filler. I pretty much reflect everything Steadfast said.
 
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