The point was that Swift Swim + Drizzle when played competitively (a fair assumption to make unless you want to criticise tiering) was making the team as a whole broken. Would you argue that Politoed alone was broken? How about Kingdra or Kabutops or Ludicolo? The issue here is that individually these Pokemon aren't broken, but when you have that combination of Drizzle and a multitude of Swift Swimmers you have a team that is broken.
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On Banning Abilities and Ability Combinations
- Thread starter TheValkyries
- Start date
No, it didn't. Under Swift Swim, Kingdra was broken, and possibly Ludicolo and Kabutops as well. It's as much a matter of individual Pokemon as any other ban. Back in Round 1, if you were to build your team around a Deoxys-N sweep, it wouldn't be your team that was broken, it would still be Deoxys-N.
No different from any other bans. And given that this generation has reached a point of clear stability so quickly, I think there's a very high chance that most of those Pokemon will not be an issue. It could take three rounds of testing, or it could just take a single round where we ban Kingdra, either in combination with Drizzle or entirely, and find ourselves with a completely stable metagame without any more bans, where Ludicolo, Kabutops, and Quilfish are top OU threats but very much reasonable for teams to deal with, and where others such as Omastar and Floatzel are also OU-viable, being permitted due to their not being broken, and being viable due to not being overshadowed by Kingdra.
What cannot be ignored is that Swift Swim users are not equal, and they cannot be treated as such. Kingdra has the best offensive typing in the game, and defensive typing resulting in only the one weakness that matters to it least. It has the highest BST of all Swift Swim users by 41 points, and those stats are distributed extremely well, resulting in no weaknesses whatsoever stat-wise and enough offensive versatility to do hack through just about anything. It is by far the most dangerous Swift Swim user, and its sheer power and even the threat from its presence makes anything on a team with it a drastically bigger threat. The problem is not Swift Swim, it's not Drizzle, and it isn't th combination of Swift Swim + Drizzle. It's Kingdra. Whether that problem is Kingdra itself or Kingdra + Drizzle is for PR to decide, but Kingdra needs to be addressed directly.
Ludicolo and Kabutops should be set up as Suspects - either entirely or only in Drizzle, whichever PR decides. That way, whether they turn out to be broken without Kingdra or not, we can find out our answer in a single round. We shouldn't expect anything else to be a concern. We've seen no evidence for any Swift Swim user other than those three being a Suspect in the slightest, so we shouldn't proceed with the assumption that they will be.
And no, the current system does not work. We are restricting the usage of Pokemon when we have no evidence to support them being broken. For some of those Pokemon, we are quite confident that they are indeed not broken. For others, we are aware that they are OU-viable. This has never happened before. The reason it happened is a good one - to test whether or not Drizzle would be broken without its top Swift Swim sweepers, and we have found that it is not. However, to continue with this as a permanent solution would be an unacceptable violation of Smogon's philosophy to avoid bans as much as possible and to only apply them to Pokemon for which a ban is necessary.
There are solutions to this problem, and they are not ones that are unreasonable to implement. There is no reason for Smogon not to change its focus with the bans from the decidedly not broken combination to individual Pokemon.
Individually, Kingdra in Drizzle is absolutely broken as a sweeper. If Ludicolo and Kabutops can lead to a broken team, it is because they too are individually either broken as sweepers or as offensive support for other sweepers, but that remains to be determined.
It's not like the suspect testing system explodes when we have more than 3 suspects, y'know. I don't see why having to test 3-4 pokemon is "too much" in the least; we've already had twice as many pokes become suspects so far.
Except we now have to put effort into which Ability + Ability combinations could possibly be banned or allowed, thus this thread.
I always cheered when people had a Kingdra because it literally can't do anything to Nattorei at all :/ but that could be considered overcentralization.
What made Drizzle + Swift Swim broken in my opinion was the multitude of Swift Swimmers. You would finally KO Ludicolo, and then Kingdra comes out. And then Kabutops. It comes to the point where you can't carry enough counters/checks to actually beat them.
So the individual pokemon aren't even broken. If Kingdra was the only viable Swift Swimmer allowed, then it wouldn't be broken (actually, debatable). If Ludicolo was the only one, then it wouldn't be broken. If Kabutops was the only Swift Swimmer allowed, we'd have almost the same case as with Doryuuzu in which it is checked by Mach Punch and even Aqua Jet (in rain) users. So the question becomes with banning multiple pokemon in this instance: are we banning because the pokemon is broken, or just to keep the other pokemon OU?
Specs Kingdra can beat Ferrothorn.
It remains to be seen whether or not that will hold true without Kingdra. Even if it does, as I said, all that means is that individual Pokemon are broken by virtue of offensive support. Now, there might be an issue if that offensive support cannot be attributed to just one Pokemon. If Kingdra (or Kingdra + Drizzle) is banned, and it turns out that Drizzle teams that run Ludicolo but not Kabutops are not broken, and Drizzle teams that run Kabutops but not Ludicolo are not broken, but Drizzle teams that run both Ludicolo and Kabutops are broken, then we will have to find a way to deal with that, but banning Drizzle + Swift Swim would still not be an ideal solution. However, it's important to bear in mind that that scenario requires three situations to be agreed upon as true, and as not even one of them has been tested yet, we should not assume that it will be the case. If not, it's entirely possible that it might hold true for a pair or more of Pokemon other than Ludicolo and Kabutops, but again, no other Swift Swim user has made anywhere close to the same presence in OU as those three, so we cannot assume that that will be the case and the odds are that it will not be the case.
I believe that abilities should not be banned.
I'm not going to go into intense detail, but I'd rather see pokemon with cirtain abilities ranked as different things; sure, swift-swim Ludicolo might be a decent guy in the rain, but Drizzle+Rain Dish Ludicolo is something I like running, and seeing it banned because 'Drizzletoed + Ludicolo is broken' due to something I'm not even running would be really bothersome.
I know this isn't the case, last I knew it was just "swift-swim + drizzle = banned", which I guess is okay, as most of the lesser-strength swift swimmers probably still wouldn't see a huge increase in usage anyway, I think. Point is, I'm always a much bigger fan of situational bans, than trying to over-simplify and ban a whole pokemon just because of one abused attribute.
I know this isn't the case, last I knew it was just "swift-swim + drizzle = banned", which I guess is okay, as most of the lesser-strength swift swimmers probably still wouldn't see a huge increase in usage anyway, I think. Point is, I'm always a much bigger fan of situational bans, than trying to over-simplify and ban a whole pokemon just because of one abused attribute.
Drizzle + Swift Swim, as a combination, is no more overpowered than Drought + Chlorophyll or Sand Stream + Sand Rush. The difference is in the Pokemon that get Swift Swim, being mostly Water-types - powerful Water-types. But that is not an aspect of the ability or ability combination, just an aspect of the Pokemon. Swift Swim Armaldo is no more broken than Chlorophyll Lilligant. And even when the Pokemon is Water-type, it isn't always an issue. Swift Swim Luvdisc isn't any more broken than Chlorophyll Vileplume. The issue is only when the Pokemon with the ability has the stats, typing, and movepool to abuse it - in other words, when the entire Pokemon is broken. Drizzle + Swift Swim is, alone, not an issue in the slightest.
see this is why gamefreak treats us badly as far as changes
all this complaining about abilities, gamefreak decides to think outside the freaking box for once and everyone whines about it.
this is probably the last time we'll get a gift like dream world abilities because its not being appreciated. and its a shame
all this complaining about abilities, gamefreak decides to think outside the freaking box for once and everyone whines about it.
this is probably the last time we'll get a gift like dream world abilities because its not being appreciated. and its a shame
Irrelevant and false, both on multiple levels.
Why don't people just learn how to beat these combinations rather than crying about it like babies?
Carry a weather changer on your own team if you're so scared of rain, and something that can knock out Politoed and/or make use of drizzle itself. Overcentrilisation be darned, it's just like carrying a spinner to deal with stealth rock.
I vote never.
Carry a weather changer on your own team if you're so scared of rain, and something that can knock out Politoed and/or make use of drizzle itself. Overcentrilisation be darned, it's just like carrying a spinner to deal with stealth rock.
I vote never.
I agree. An Abomasnow or SpDefensive TTar could work off the top of my head, or you COULD just bring your own Kingdra/whatever to fend off Rain teams to an extent.
Also, on that Stealth Rock point, I bet most people voting for ability bans wouldn't say that SR is "overcentralizing" when you must bring a Rapid Spinner to use certain Pokémon effectively, while it honestly is overcentralizing..
I don't think Drizzle + SwSw should be banned; I think, as previous posters have hinted at, that you should be allowed to use only one of either Kabutops or Ludicolo, but not both. All other SwSw'ers bar Kingdra would be allowed.
That's honestly worth considering, if the tests indicate that it would be a justified and effective solution.
I disagree on one point, however. Stealth Rock is effective, but it can be played around without having to remove it, so to call it overcentralizing would be inaccurate. But even if making it almost a requirement for each team to carry a weather changer is overcentralizing, it's not a problem; it simply shifts the focus of the metagame. The important distinction here is that rather than being centralized on one strategy, one solution, it's centralized on a group of solutions which lead to greatly varying strategies. If every team had to be a Drought team, that would be boring, but if every team has to either be a Drought team, a Drizzle team, a Sandstorm team, a Hail team, or a team with anti-weather measures, that's not boring.
So what you're saying is (I think), that weather being overcentralizing is a GOOD thing since it allows for interesting strategies to be executed, showing how an individual player deals with certain types of weather.
Indeed I am.
Or, rather, I'm saying that weather wars being centralizing is a good thing. A group of varied but related strategies being centralizing is a good thing; a single strategy or Pokemon (or a few nearly identical strategies or Pokemon) being overwhelmingly centralizing is a bad thing.
Seeing the meta in the period of SwSw compared to current period, i can say the metagame gains an extremely great thing in banning SwSw. Now people dont just spam SwSw and its not like rain has fallen.
Back then many says rain sucks without SwSw but some said it wont. Im more in the latter side, with water type having things like Starmie which dont really need Sw due to high speed, Water being all round superior offensive AND defensive type, Politoed doesnt sucks(at least if not compared to Ttar yeah) and finally back at the time, people havent realized the threats rain hide that is outclassed by SwSw namely the double genie Strategy
Now if we see the current metagame, rain still become the most common teams and we can say rain IS the metagame in g5. This show me how SwSw is really uneeded in rain tbh
Back then many says rain sucks without SwSw but some said it wont. Im more in the latter side, with water type having things like Starmie which dont really need Sw due to high speed, Water being all round superior offensive AND defensive type, Politoed doesnt sucks(at least if not compared to Ttar yeah) and finally back at the time, people havent realized the threats rain hide that is outclassed by SwSw namely the double genie Strategy
Now if we see the current metagame, rain still become the most common teams and we can say rain IS the metagame in g5. This show me how SwSw is really uneeded in rain tbh
Okay, I see where you're coming from - Some pokemon suck. It could be possible to have a Drizz/swsw team with a bunch of otherwise useless pokemon could make a team that's not too powerful, but just the right amount of power for you.
However, this goes against the concept of simplicity. Drizzle/SwiftSwim is the first complex ban, and for that reason alone I already don't like it. I think that an even further complex ban "You can have drizzle and swift swim, but you can't have these three pokemon" is complex enough to alienate a fair amount of people who want to start getting into it for its arbitrariness. The change you're proposing is significantly too nitpicky to really be taken seriously.
If it was me, the choice would be between letting drizzle and swiftswim work with no restrictions, or simply banning the use of either that ability -or- kabutops/omastar/seadra entirely. A middle ground is too complicated for a ruleset that should be able to be explained as easily as possible.
I'm not proposing a ban of Kingdra + Drizzle + Swift Swim; I'm proposing a ban of Kingdra + Drizzle. (And Ludicolo + Drizzle, and Kabutops + Drizzle.)
If such a complex ban is permitted, those are the best options for ensuring that we ban what is broken and not what is not. If it's not permitted, then I agree that banning Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Kabutops entirely is preferable to the current ban of Drizzle + Swift Swim. The only issue is other Swift Swim users. We have no idea how broken or not broken they might not be in Drizzle, and while I think banning the big three would be acceptable, banning five or ten of them would be a bit more questionable. so we need to test out those Pokemon, at least on the Suspect ladder, and see exactly what Pokemon are broken with Drizzle so we can come up with a way to deal with them.
Yes, it is more broken.
Do you see Fire-type Cholrophill users? Who benifit from a 2nd STAB bonus?
Do you see Excadrill getting a bonus STAB on Earthquake?
Hell, do you see Ice types getting a bonus STAB at all under Hail?
Because that's part of Drizzle, and went a long way to breaking Swift Swim Water-types. Ludicolo, Kabutops and Kingdra would be far less threatening if instead of hitting at 200% power, they were hitting at 150%, with their water-type attacks. That's 25% less power. It's like ripping a Life Orb off them.
And that's assumeing the x1.5 boost from rain isn't compound with STAB. If it is, then the Swift Swimmers hit at 225% power with their water type attacks.
Also, you must remember, that the Swift Swimmers are a lot more varied than the other abusers. This allows you to make a rather balanced team with Swift Swim abusers. You cannot do this with Cholrophill, and there aren't even enough Sand Rushers to manage that.
The boost is also part of Drought. The capability to abuse that boost with STAB is not part of Drizzle; it's part of Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Kabutops.
And yes, it's a compound boost, and therefore 225%. Not that it changes the capability to get more use out of it than the same boost from Drought is the ability of the abusers, not the weather.
You can make a balanced team with Kingdra, Ludicolo, and Kabutops. There is at present not the slightest bit of concrete evidence to suggest that the same thing might be possible on the level of being broken with other Swift Swim Pokemon.
I voted when it breaks more than one Pokemon, but I admit it is a good question.
The only things I'm glad are gone are the ones that involve Evasion, such as Double Team, Acupressure and Moody. Everything else I don't care too much about.
As long as you don't touch my EspyDit combo. :p
The only things I'm glad are gone are the ones that involve Evasion, such as Double Team, Acupressure and Moody. Everything else I don't care too much about.
As long as you don't touch my EspyDit combo. :p
Correction: That boost is a part of every water pokemon with swift-swim. Which leaves Beartic and Armaldo as the ones who do not benefeit from that.
No fire-type pokemon gets chlorophyll, so that bonus is reduced.
The problem is, again, that the more convoluted and complex the bans get, the more difficult it is to initiate new players into the metagame and the community. In that regards, I believe that it is simpler and more effective to make a more accessible and understandable ban (Drizzle + SwSw teams are banned because they're too good) versus (Drizzle is fine as long as you don't have X, Y, or Z). This is simply a matter of opinion.
This seems to be boiling down to a somewhat arbitrary choice of whether we should ban a Pokemon as a whole for any broken aspect (ie Kingdra, Ludicolo bans), banning a pokemon+breaking ability (Kingdra/Ludi+Drizzle), banning a combination of breaking abilities (Drizzle+SwSw). Technically the broken thing, as Thorhammer says, is Kingdra+Swift Swim+Drizzle along with maybe a dozen more Swift Swimmers in Kingdra's place having the same treatment, but I think most of us agree that's getting ridiculous.
It just boils down to what we don't mind sacrificing - lots of lesser Swift Swimmers, certain pokemon on Rain with non SwSw abilities, or the pokemon as a whole to keep things simple. This is pretty much a matter of opinion, so its unlikely a consensus will be reached in this thread. I for instance would not mind the results of either of the two complex bans, but see that having a single SwSw+Drizzle ban is simpler and therefore more desirable to me. Others will disagree.
It just boils down to what we don't mind sacrificing - lots of lesser Swift Swimmers, certain pokemon on Rain with non SwSw abilities, or the pokemon as a whole to keep things simple. This is pretty much a matter of opinion, so its unlikely a consensus will be reached in this thread. I for instance would not mind the results of either of the two complex bans, but see that having a single SwSw+Drizzle ban is simpler and therefore more desirable to me. Others will disagree.