Makin' it Rain: UU Rain discussion

[SJCrew]

The problem with Phione is that it offers no useful resistances for your Rain sweepers and gets forced out by exactly the same things, making it fairly redundant. If Raikou comes in on you, you don't get to Uturn, you're forced to switch to a Raikou counter. Same thing with Venusaur or Sceptile.

But hey you know what else can Uturn and absorb status? Uxie. Yeah, you should really use that.

 

[macle]

I'm just wondering what is so different about rain this round of play? No one has nominated damp rock or any rain sweepers as suspects yet.

 

[Demoness]

I'm just wondering what is so different about rain this round of play? No one has nominated damp rock or any rain sweepers as suspects yet.

Everyones trying to get rid of Frosslass and Raikou. Dugtrio and Moltress too but Fross is most likely Screwed this round

 

[Veritas]

I'm just wondering what is so different about rain this round of play? No one has nominated damp rock or any rain sweepers as suspects yet.

There's always been something else in the picture that people aim their problems at. Now that other threats are gone, rain dance is starting to be recognized as a fantastic strategy, which is hard to break with damp rock extending the period so much.

 

[Synre]

Though it's more like the other way around - people are annoyed by different offensive suspects right now so rain is getting ignored.

That said, it's really not all that effective relative to other strategies right now, so I'm glad to see it isn't creating another silly vote - though I'd love to know how many players got to the upper reqs using rain... I have a sneaking suspicion the answer is "0"

 

[yond]

Though it's more like the other way around - people are annoyed by different offensive suspects right now so rain is getting ignored.

That said, it's really not all that effective relative to other strategies right now, so I'm glad to see it isn't creating another silly vote - though I'd love to know how many players got to the upper reqs using rain... I have a sneaking suspicion the answer is "0"

i can't say i fully used rain to get upper requirements, but from say a 1450 cre on i used rain dance to meet the requirements. I still find it to be the best way to play in the UU metagame. Albeit its not as easy to just throw together some swift swimmers and a few supporters and sweep consistently now, if you know how to play rain dance right it is still destrucitve.

 

[SJCrew]

Albeit its not as easy to just throw together some swift swimmers and a few supporters and sweep consistently now

If that's the case, then I'm really not seeing why it's hailed as broken. My heavy offense teams, would get trumped by it, of course, but I've made balance teams that have inadvertently handled rain dance teams without much problem. You can come in on the supporters, get free subs off of them, get free kills off the sweepers, etc. You can make it hell for them if you have priority too or a bunch of bulky offensive Pokemon that can put the hurt on them without giving them a chance to get SD in. It's really dangerous, yes, but I wouldn't say broken is in the picture right now.

 

[yond]

If that's the case, then I'm really not seeing why it's hailed as broken. My heavy offense teams, would get trumped by it, of course, but I've made balance teams that have inadvertently handled rain dance without much problem. It's really dangerous, yes, but I wouldn't say broken is in the picture right now.

Thats my case. I don't think rain dance is broken, there are numerous checks and counters to it that stop its momentum and just about all players know how to play it nowadays. What i was saying in that quote is that its not so easy that anyone can do it.

edit: another thing i wouldn't mind discussing is spike staking in rain dance. I have been using Froslass as my lead for a while now on my rain dance team and i can definitely say that it helps so much against key pokemon like slowbro, milotic, and registeel who are restricted to the number of times they can switch in on kabutops's waterfalls or omastars surfs because of it.

 

[Anachronism]

I think that something can be considered to be broken both if it is completely unstoppable or if it shifts the metagame considerably simply based on its presence. The stallish metagame we are in exists in no small part due to the destructiveness of rain teams against standard offense. It is nearly necessary to include defensive mons in a team both because of the power of some of the walls in the tier, but also because of the power of the offense. Milotic is a good example of this. near-broken generic walls are the only things powerful enough to beat some of the better offensive mons.

Also, I have been thinking about a rain team that abuses dugtrio's ability to wear down Registeel, Blissey, Raikou, Scarftom, and other would-be rain counters to allow for some of the more powerful special rain sweepers to go to town. The initial power of the special sweepers is substantially more than that of the physical ones, however they are also slower, and the premier special walls aren't weak to water like the premier physical ones. There is also the no stat boosting moves problem. It could work though.

 

[PK Gaming]

I think that something can be considered to be broken both if it is completely unstoppable or if it shifts the metagame considerably simply based on its presence. The stallish metagame we are in exists in no small part due to the destructiveness of rain teams against standard offense. It is nearly necessary to include defensive mons in a team both because of the power of some of the walls in the tier, but also because of the power of the offense. Milotic is a good example of this. near-broken generic walls are the only things powerful enough to beat some of the better offensive mons.

Also, I have been thinking about a rain team that abuses dugtrio's ability to wear down Registeel, Blissey, Raikou, Scarftom, and other would-be rain counters to allow for some of the more powerful special rain sweepers to go to town. The initial power of the special sweepers is substantially more than that of the physical ones, however they are also slower, and the premier special walls aren't weak to water like the premier physical ones. There is also the no stat boosting moves problem. It could work though.

I actually disagree. The special sweepers STILL have counters outside of that. A support Venusaur can easily take most of their assaults due to the special rainer's (Luddicolo*, Gorebyss and Omastar) having to rely on Ice beam, which isn't that STABed. Worse still, it's isn't boosted by the rain. Erm... how does Dugtrio trap Rotom? It has levitate.

If you want to abuse rain, physical sweepers are the way to go in my opinion. The special sweepers punch holes through teams while the physical clean up.

 

[shrang]

I think that something can be considered to be broken both if it is completely unstoppable or if it shifts the metagame considerably simply based on its presence.

I have to say that I disagree with the bolded section. There are plenty of Pokemon who shifts a metagame aren't considered to be broken at all. Scizor, Tyranitar and Blissey are all perfect examples of this (Scizor forces pretty much every special attacker to carry a fire move, usually HP Fire, both Tyranitar and Scizor limits the viability of Ghosts and Psychics, Blissey pretty much limits the viability of special attackers to a select few, those who can either Sub (Ghost or 101HP)+Boost, Cleric+Recover+Boost, Explode, go mixed or Trick). I've said this before in the megathread, that metagame shifting and centralising is only one effect of a possible broken Pokemon, and that alone is not enough to deem if something is broken. If a Pokemon is indeed broken, it would generally be too powerful even when the metagame has centralised around it (eg Garchomp, even after centralising the metagame, can still use stuff like Yache Berry and Sand Veil to get past its checks and continue sweeping).

 

[ZandgaiaX]

Nobody ever noted that most suspects are:

A)Sweepers/Stall breakers
B)Usually Psychical

Thought of this one when I checked the pokémonlist on smogon (UU list) and I noticed that there are not that many pokemon with high att. stats whilst there are alot of high sp.att. pokemon.

Is it just me or what?

 

[yond]

Moltres and Raikou are the two offensive suspects and they are both specially based sweepers....

 

[Alexa888]

It is a long way away, but 13th June will see Raikou get Weather Ball, and effective 100 Base Power Water attack. It will also free up Raikou to run another Hidden Power type, say Ice, meaning Grasses will have trouble standing up to it. It will be intersting to see what effect that event has on UU

 

[Delko]

Venusaur can still take HP ice with his amazing special defenses. The support versions only take 36.3% - 42.9% from it.

 

[Guthrie_Govan]

There is one move called Calm Mind...

 

[Safiliwen]

Clam anyone?

There is also the use of CLoyster to take into consideration here as so far he is the only poke on my team to effectivley take a venesaur down with Ice Shard works pretty well for me unless of course said Venesaur runs Sub that's when he poses a problem to a RD team especially when you can't run toxic spikes on him, while spikes are still viable the Sub will just wear you down. Just my two cents.

 

[NGC-2024]

Has anyone every tried a "Bulky" CB Floatzel in the rain?

(HP and Attack.)
I have it on one of my Rain teams and it seems to do pretty well. No set up, hard hitter once something takes out the Bulky Water

 

[shrang]

I have to say, if you've survived the initial onslaught, Taunt-Nasty Plot Mismagius with Thunderbolt completely wrecks a Rain team. Hopefully, bring it in Turn 8 or something (As long as it's not Kabutops). Taunt the Uxie or something like that (If Registeel is the Rain inducer, Taunt it and go to Moltres and proceed to rape) and NP up in their face, then proceed to sweep.

 

[YaM]

I have to say, if you've survived the initial onslaught, Taunt-Nasty Plot Mismagius with Thunderbolt completely wrecks a Rain team. Hopefully, bring it in Turn 8 or something (As long as it's not Kabutops). Taunt the Uxie or something like that (If Registeel is the Rain inducer, Taunt it and go to Moltres and proceed to rape) and NP up in their face, then proceed to sweep.

You still don't outspeed Ambipom though =P and make sure you outspeed max Speed Uxie... had a few bulky Missies fail to outspeed on the Taunt haha.

 

[shrang]

For some reason, I see a lot of people sac their Ambipom at the start so their sweeper can come in safely. People are using Ambipom just like Electrode these days, which probably shouldn't be happening, since Ambi can easily come in and revenge certain dangerous threats when it's not Raining.

 

[dbcb]

might be good to bump this so people can read and see if they are actually providing anything new to the discussion...

 

[Banedon]

I'm curious what people think of rain's relation with (super) heavy offense. Is it possible to put together a team of 6 out-and-out sweepers and still beat rain? I'm inclined to think no, because by the end of the first six turns of rain more than half your team would be dead. You can't OHKO the second rain set-upper since it'll be some bulky Pokemon like Uxie or Registeel, and after that you can't outspeed the rain sweepers or survive their attacks. In fact surviving the first six turns of rain looks quite difficult as well.

Perhaps it's just me, but since my teams generally have several bulky Pokemon I have less problems with rain. Or then again, maybe teams of 6 sweepers just doesn't work.

 

[shrang]

I'm curious what people think of rain's relation with (super) heavy offense. Is it possible to put together a team of 6 out-and-out sweepers and still beat rain? I'm inclined to think no, because by the end of the first six turns of rain more than half your team would be dead. You can't OHKO the second rain set-upper since it'll be some bulky Pokemon like Uxie or Registeel, and after that you can't outspeed the rain sweepers or survive their attacks. In fact surviving the first six turns of rain looks quite difficult as well.

Perhaps it's just me, but since my teams generally have several bulky Pokemon I have less problems with rain. Or then again, maybe teams of 6 sweepers just doesn't work.

I have, but it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to pull off though. This was during Raikou period, so yeah. The team I used was Lead Duggy/LO Moltres/SD Kabutops/Yache RP Torterra/Shuca CM Raikou/LO Electrode. Yes, it would look like Rain teams would completely massacre this team, but most of the time, they didn't, may be because the rain players sucked, or just might be because I'm awesome myself :naughty:

 

[Meru]

I have, but it wasn't the easiest thing in the world to pull off though. This was during Raikou period, so yeah. The team I used was Lead Duggy/LO Moltres/SD Kabutops/Yache RP Torterra/Shuca CM Raikou/LO Electrode. Yes, it would look like Rain teams would completely massacre this team, but most of the time, they didn't, may be because the rain players sucked, or just might be because I'm awesome myself :naughty:

You're running a team with a the fastest STAB electric in the game, one of the rain sweepers themselves, a resist berry Torterra, and Raikou, and you're saying it's surprising that you won a lot of games against rain? Give me a break.

I myself am running Heavy Offense and I have Swift Swim max speed Kabutops, Scarf Rotom, and Venusaur to help push the game in my favor but against an experienced rain opponent, they're not enough.