Aldaron's proposal: Alternatives?

[Thorhammer]

My previous thread showed that people as a whole are not satisfied with Aldaron's proposal. While it might be difficult to find an option that's everyone's first choice, we can at least try to figure out what option would be satisfying to most people. So please vote for all of the above options that you would be satisfied with - not just your first choice.

While this thread has a different purpose from my previous thread, I can understand if some moderators might find the purposes similar enough that only one thread is necessary. If that is the case, and they feel that they must lock one of the two threads, I request that the previous thread be locked so that discussion can be redirected here. However, I hope this does not have to happen.

As for my own views, I, personally, am fine with any of the options that involve individual abusers being addressed rather than a single solution being applied to all of them. I believe this will eliminate the problem without harming any other strategies, and it is the most in line with past decisions. While I feel that some methods of going about this are better than others, I feel that they all are enough.

What solutions would satisfy you, and why?

Hopefully through this we can find a solution that would at least satisfy most people.

 

[Virizion]

I say ban certain Pokemon with Drizzle, but don't ban the ability as a whole.

 

[baddjordan]

The problem with Drizzle is that Drizzle is superior against all other weathers. Aside from Swift Swim, Ferrothorn and Dragonite under rain are very hard to kill and the Thunder/Hurricane spammers are overpowered imo. I can't see Drizzle lasting for the entire gen 5 metagame.

 

[Benlisted]

Good job with this poll, its a better one than I would've designed myself. I voted for the top 3 options, for reference. Just need to wait for more votes, and hopefully a representative voter pool. It's unfortunate you can't put two polls in one thread, but in terms of whether people deem this to be necessary now, the first option should suffice.

 

[yond]

The problem with Drizzle is that Drizzle is superior against all other weathers. Aside from Swift Swim, Ferrothorn and Dragonite under rain are very hard to kill and the Thunder/Hurricane spammers are overpowered imo. I can't see Drizzle lasting for the entire gen 5 metagame.

this pretty much sums up the reason drizzle is broken. Simply put, Drizzle makes it to easy to win and overpowers all other offensive teams even without swift swim.

 

[LightningLord2]

I vote for an entire ban of Drizzle because it is the most straightforward ban possible.

 

[Arc Tech]

I would like to say that while I voted for ban perm weather entirely (among other options), I think hail should be an exception because... It's hail. It needs a perk over the other weathers. Let permanence be that.

 

[theangryscientist]

said it before and it's worth saying again: just get rid of drizzle

 

[Elite_Trainer_U]

I think people in this community are too quick to jump to the conclusion that anythng that is powerful is broken. The reason that weather is dominating the metagame is because it's powerful and easier to win with. You can't blame people for trying to win and the easiest way to do that is weather. If we start nerfing drizzle, then people will go to sand and then we'll start nerfing drizzle, and then we'd have a metagame completely dominated by sun (because I doubt sun is going to get banned). That would make the metagame even less balanced than it is already. To prevent this there are only three options, ban ALL weather (which I oppose), nerf ALL weather (like that's gonna happen), or don't ban anything weather related (ding ding ding we have a winner)!

 

[Lightning Tiger]

Options 1 & 4 are the only ones that id ever support, i do not want to see any swift swimmers being banned because of drizzle, id rather them just not be allowed to be used with drizzle on the same team. Yes it is a "complex" ban, but i don't care, we are all big boys and girls we can handle it (its not even that complex).

If it comes to that id just ban drizzle or even just ban politoed.

 

[Sajak]

Ban individual broken Pokemon outright (I would rather not limit it to just Swift Swimmers, but Option 3).

 

[macle]

I'd rather ban 1 pokemon than ban 3+ so ban drizzle..

 

[Lightning Tiger]

Options 4 & 6 are so similar.

 

[Sajak]

Options 4 & 6 are so similar.

The more I think about it, I'm pretty sure they are exactly the same.

EDIT: Nevermind, I figured it out. :P

 

[cantab]

The existing ban is OK for now I think.

Don't ban Swift Swim outright, most of its users aren't broken even with Drizzle.

Banning the Swift Swim users could be justified. Even if they're only broken under Drizzle, Drizzle's the easiest thing in the world to set up, requiring zero turns. In Gen 4 we took into account the impact of SR when considering brokenness, and that takes a turn to set up. (Although, Drizzle can also be removed in one turn (a switch), whereas rocks take two turns (a switch then Rapid Spin) to remove.)

Don't ban specific Pokemon with Drizzle, that just makes things more complicated.

Banning the Swift Swim abusers only with Swift Swim makes the most sense of all I think. (I've been formulating ideas for why banning eg Swift Swim Kingdra is not like banning Outrage Salamence, and may post them soon.) We've had a principle that "we do what's simple", but perhaps we should also try to take actions that are targeted. Don't take options away from players as side-effects of what needs to be banned.

Don't ban Swift Swim abusers only with SwSw and Drizzle, way too complicated.

Don't ban Drizzle altogether, or ban perma-weather altogether. It appears to me that the natural tendency of the BW metagame is for weather in general to be dominant. Stall wars were dominant in GSC, SkarmBliss and RestTalk weren't banned. If rain is overpowered reducing that is appropriate, but banning Drizzle outright removes a response to other weathers, and banning all perma-weather is too big a change I think.

 

[Glen ^^]

Don't ban anything.

But since people likes witch hunting then banning a single Pokemon could do it. Yeah, Kingdra.

 

[Nails]

Voted for 1, 3, and 7. They are the simplest options. I point to the fact that a ton of people thought we only banned speed boost blaziken as why we shouldn't do complex banning. I spoke out very vocally in PR when aldaron originally proposed it, and I still think it was a horrible idea. Complex bans are a cop out for those who don't want to put in effort to fix the problem.

Besides that, I believe that drizzle is broken anyways.

Good thread

edit: I have to reply to this post

I think people in this community are too quick to jump to the conclusion that anythng that is powerful is broken. The reason that weather is dominating the metagame is because it's powerful and easier to win with. You can't blame people for trying to win and the easiest way to do that is weather. If we start nerfing drizzle, then people will go to sand and then we'll start nerfing drizzle, and then we'd have a metagame completely dominated by sun (because I doubt sun is going to get banned). That would make the metagame even less balanced than it is already. To prevent this there are only three options, ban ALL weather (which I oppose), nerf ALL weather (like that's gonna happen), or don't ban anything weather related (ding ding ding we have a winner)!

We don't blame people for using powerful stuff. That's what suspect testing is about. If something is powerful and easy to win with, enough people will see that on the ladder and decide to ban it. If rain and sand got nerfed and the metagame was completely dominated by sun, you bet your ass we'd ban it, because if it dominates a meta, then it's definitely broken.

 

[opkil]

I voted ban permanent weather.

Teams can still abuse weather in their teams, but they have to set it up, ala RoomMoves. Sandstorm teams can set up reliably with overlooked Pokemon like Accelgor, and Rain teams can set up with sturdy Pokes.

@Weather Rock and @Escape Button would be interesting when you want to set up weather repeatedly.

Permanent Weather became over-centralising in this Gen due to new Sandstorm abusers(Excadrill), Rain Abusers becoming more prominent in OU(Kingdra), Sun Abusers(Chlorophyll Pokes), and sometimes, hail abusers(LOLjk)

The big key word being over-centralising? PermaWeather is over-centralising.
Cheers.

 

[Rising_Dusk]

I voted for: "Ban individual broken Swift Swim sweepers"

I think this is one of the most important things we should do. We, as a website, need to stop beating around the bush and just take out the sweepers that make rain utterly unbearable in the game. Having played this past round (and still currently) a lot, I've found that rain is a very enjoyable and healthy part of the BW game that I don't want to see go away. The viability of a lot of very cool Pokemon like Hydration Vaporeon, Dry Skin Toxicroak, and more has really been fun for me as a player. I agree, though, Aldaron's proposal was good for its time. We need to move on now and identify what about rain makes it so tough to handle. I would hate to see Drizzle go, but at the same time, I'd hate to have to deal with Kabutops, Ludicolo, Kingdra, and the like again. To me, the answer is clear: get rid of the broken Swift Swim Pokemon.

The reason I don't support a Swift Swim ability ban is because many Pokemon don't have an alternative ability. And while it might be hilarious to pseudo-ban Magikarp, Feebas, Luvdisc, Floatzel, and friends, I think it is an unacceptable solution.

This is a good thread. Thanks for it.

 

[xMistyx]

I voted for: "Ban individual broken Swift Swim sweepers"

I think this is one of the most important things we should do. We, as a website, need to stop beating around the bush and just take out the sweepers that make rain utterly unbearable in the game. Having played this past round (and still currently) a lot, I've found that rain is a very enjoyable and healthy part of the BW game that I don't want to see go away. The viability of a lot of very cool Pokemon like Hydration Vaporeon, Dry Skin Toxicroak, and more has really been fun for me as a player. I agree, though, Aldaron's proposal was good for its time. We need to move on now and identify what about rain makes it so tough to handle. I would hate to see Drizzle go, but at the same time, I'd hate to have to deal with Kabutops, Ludicolo, and the like again. To me, the answer is clear: get rid of the broken Swift Swim Pokemon.

The reason I don't support a Swift Swim ability ban is because many Pokemon don't have an alternative ability. And while it might be hilarious to pseudo-ban Magikarp, Feebas, Luvdisc, Floatzel, and friends, I think it is an unacceptable solution.

This is a good thread. Thanks for it.

This.
Definitely the most positive post yet. I agree whole heartedly as I would also hate to see drizzle as an ability banned. With the amount of pokemon still viable with constant rain running around it would certainly be a shame to see them go to waste.

 

[Fake Sketch]

I think rain is pretty much broken still because FERROTHORN+RAIN, nuff said. But Id leave it as it is.

 

[Disposable Puppets]

I agree with Rising Dusk, banning only the pokemon that are broken under rain is the right way to go. Although if we just simply kept Aldaron's proposal in place, I wouldn't have a problem with that either

 

[10fore]

I only voted for option 3.

Banning the broken pokemon is the solution. When rain offense was broken, we saw a problem. Rather than fix it, the whole smogon community tried to convince itself that the problem was something else.

The complex bans are ridiculous. Instead of rules to ban broken pokemon, we're making exceptions to be able to use weaker versions of them, which is crazy to me.

Kingdra is a badass pokemon. He's got
the best offensive typing in the game
a very solid defensive typing with one weakness that is rarely seen outside of STAB
nice mixed offenses, and the ability to take a couple hits
the best offensive ability in the game
Good physical and special STAB moves

I think Kingdra should be Uber because of all of those things. Drizzle helps, but drizzle is just like any other weather. Would it be broken without swift swim? No, but swift swim is part of most Kingdra, just as much as his stats, just as much as his movepool, just as much as his sprites.


People just keep drawing ridiculous distinctions between rain sweepers and other pokemon. Stop it. Broken rain sweepers are just like any other broken pokemon. Test them.

 

[Texas Cloverleaf]

Aw crap, voted for the wrong option. Could a qualified user please change my vote from "Dont ban anything" to "Continue banning Drizzle Swim"? thanks in advance.

Any arguments I would make regarding my decison have already been covered many times in Thorhammers other thread and in the various Suspect testing Threads.

 

[peadawg14]

Voted to ban all permanent weather.