Suspect Discussion: "Hail"

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I mistyped when I said "anything that is faster", I meant "anything that is faster that can do over 75% - hazard damage +12.5% to it", assuming a 1v1 situation. (I know, it's really assuming a lot, I'm just trying to point out that so many of these "what checks/counters Walrein?" discussions assume that Walrein has already gotten a free turn to set up a sub, which isn't fair).
What even does that? The amount of Pokemon that don't do that is HUGE, which is why it's assumed that Walrein has a sub up. The point is that it is so incredibly easy for Walrein to set up a Substitute, and almost nothing can beat it after that. This is the whole point of like half the posts in here.

Not going to bother responding to the rest of the posts because it just drives me nuts and "forfeiting to not have to deal with Walrein" is absolutely ridiculous and irrelevant. Can you just sum up your thoughts on hail / Walrein / Ice Body's brokenness? I think people are just looking at the fluff in your posts and finding stuff that is wrong or has nothing to do with the discussion.
 

KM

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What even does that? The amount of Pokemon that don't do that is HUGE, which is why it's assumed that Walrein has a sub up. The point is that it is so incredibly easy for Walrein to set up a Substitute, and almost nothing can beat it after that. This is the whole point of like half the posts in here.

Not going to bother responding to the rest of the posts because it just drives me nuts and "forfeiting to not have to deal with Walrein" is absolutely ridiculous and irrelevant. Can you just sum up your thoughts on hail / Walrein / Ice Body's brokenness? I think people are just looking at the fluff in your posts and finding stuff that is wrong or has nothing to do with the discussion.
Yeah, I'd be happy to sum up my points and stop writing "fluff" in my posts.

My point overall is the following - there are plenty of counters to Walrein, and I have systematically gone through most of the ones I think are viable and reasonable. However, whenever I try and point out anything that could be a counter to Walrein, it is consistently shot down with circumstantial evidence or just refusal to consider certain ideas

Examples that have been responses to my posts-

- forcing people to run manual weather to counter hail is ridiculous
- forcing a NFE poke to not run eviolite in order to counter Walrein is ridiculous
- you can't bring up manual rain because it doesn't have any usage
- you can't use that set because it doesn't have any usage
- that's not a counter because when Stealth Rocks and 3 layers of spikes are up and I have a spinner and you don't have a spinblocker I can 3HKO with surf

It is because of these responses that my frustration consistently comes out in these posts - I'm seriously not trying to do anything more than suggest possible counters for Walrein, but people always focus on immediately shutting the ideas down rather than considering them. It's ironic, because last page a couple of posts were deleted because they systematically dissected a post and shut down every point in it in a rude manner - and the post concerned was in favour of hail. It just reflects my overall sentiment towards this thread - the majority of people posting on it are extremely biased against hail, and that bias is what forces them to, as you say, "look at the fluff in my post and find stuff that is wrong", rather than actually focusing on possibilities for countering Walrein.

So, onto my actual stance.

In the majority of games, Walrein seems broken. This is because it can take out half a team if it sets up successfully or catches a player on a misprediction, it can sub-tect stall for a long time, and really annoy the opponent. I would go so far as to say that in an average game it probably takes out 2-3 pokemon just by itself. There are definitely actual hard counters to them - we have been able to agree on a couple during this thread, although their relative viability outside of countering Walrein has been a matter of contention. (SpD Magneton, RestTalk Spiritomb, Cinccino, Escav...). I believe there are far more viable counters, but I won't get into that again because it's gotten me into enough trouble as it is.

At the same time, I believe that when people look at the surface value of how broken Walrein is, they don't consider the tremendous amount of support needed to make Walrein-centred teams work. In order to be successful, Walrein needs quite a lot of things to function. (Please note that discussing hazards here is relevant because we're not talking about 1v1 check/counter situations)

- A grounded poison is a must, or at least a rapid spinner, although spins can be blocked.
- If running roar Walrein, a couple of layers of hazards and/or Toxic Spikes are important to keep it from being walled by lefties pokes who don't take much from Blizzard/have reliable recovery
- If running toxic Walrein, certain Steel, poison, and fast substitute pokemon must be accounted for
- You absolutely need a Snover, which is pretty limiting for teambuilding
- You need to get rid of any possible weather-inducing pokes and keep Snover around if you do suspect manual weather

At the end of the day, it is because of these limitations that Walrein doesn't always work, and it is because of those limitations that I believe it isn't broken. If any one of these conditions is gone, you could very easily find yourself with a useless Walrein - for example, a Walrein in Rain is practically useless, a Toxiced walrein is absolutely useless, etc, etc. And, usually, even if your team doesn't prepare for Walrein in the slightest, there's always at least one thing that can either force it out or PP Stall it to the point where its use is very diminished against your other pokemon. (e.g. if all you have that mildly counters it is like, a gallade who can drain punch when it subs to stay at a high amount of health). I think this is especially the case for stall teams, which can often find a way to just out-stall Walrein, even if it does cost them a poke or two. Admittedly, hyper-offensive teams have a harder time dealing with Walrein, but at the same time I believe that the true counters to Walrein fit better on those types of teams anyway.

In conclusion, I believe that the majority of sentiment against letting Walrein stay in RU is purely because it's annoying, and when it works, it really works. It's a lot easier to just throw your hands up and say something is broken and needs to go than figuring out a way to deal with it. Although its counters are not abundant, it is completely shut down if a certain highly regulated set of conditions is not in play, and I believe it often appears much more deadly than it actually is due to the fact that is often the central win condition of those types of teams. Due to the recent spotlight shone on hail teams in the form of the suspect test, hail has been revitalized, as well as a surge of sentiment against a playstyle that has been quietly existing for months purely because of its increased usage.
 

KM

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Oh right lol i got a little carried away hehe.

I don't think Walrein is broken, I don't think Ice Body is broken, and I don't think hail is broken.

That said, I'm sure most people don't agree with me so if I had to choose, I'd like to just see an ice body ban with Snow cloak becoming a useless ability.

Re: Slowking, I feel like Slowking is deserving of its spot in the top 5 because of the sheer amount of roles it can excel in (defensive, offensive, specs, TR sweeper...). It's used a lot in higher tiers over Slowbro purely because of its access to Dragon Tail, so that says something as well. Regenerator is just the awesome icing on the cake. It performs well on almost every team, especially when paired with other Regenerator pokes, imo.
 

GlassGlaceon

My heart has now been set on love
I wish I would've gotten reqs so i could stop hail from getting banned, which is just retarded. People don't see the good aspects of some hail stoppers in RU and completely forget about the crap that counters/scares it out. 2 other pokes that haven't been mentioned as defensive counters are poliwrath and clefable. Poliwrath takes blizzards like a champ, rests off any toxic, and circle throws walrein. (only has a chance of breaking sub but meh, walrein can't do jack to it if it fails) Lanturn, which I run with t-bolt (becuz I prefer it over volt switch( breaks walrein, and it has heal bell to kill off the toxic. All-in-all, we focus too much on hail's ups, and not it's downsides. #1 Most hail abusers are ice type. #2 ice is weak to fighting/rock/SR. #3 there are an abundance of viable fighting types in RU. #4 Hariyama has thick fat :I. Now combine that with entry hazards, magneton, and the other counters listed previously, and tell me that there isn't SOME balance to hail
 
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