Would we want a Stealth Rock suspect test? [Read #196]

For the record, I'm against banning stealth rock right now simply because I agree that there isn't enough time yet in B/W2. You also have to consider that stealth rock's mechanics could be changed in X/Y. It seems pointless to ban something when the next gen is so close and we dont know what will happen to said suspect. That said, there is one argument against a suspect test that I'd like to dismiss.

Only moltres/Yanmega are affected by SR:

This actually isn't true, though they are the most obvious cases. Fire/Flying/bug/ice. Those are the types most affected by stealth rock and any Pokemon from those types can go down a tier just because of stealth rock. Moltres, victini, Darmanitan, Arcanine, and the event Entei are the major examples of Fire types that may go up a tier if stealth rock weren't around. As for ice types, Kyurem-b, (I know it's OU already but think of how much more powerful it would be if Stealth Rock weren't around. It might be suspect worthy) Kyurem, (It's normal forme) Weavile, Frosslass, Abamasnow, and Walrein (maybe). For Flying types, Staraptor, Honchcrow, Crobat, Zapdos, and Togekiss. Admitedly, I dont have very many for bug except Yanmega, maybe Galvantula, and maybe Heracross.

Those were just off the top of my head mind you. If we did ban stealth rock right now 3 pokemon would have be called suspect worthy right now (Dragonite, Volcarona, Kyurem-B.) but 18 different pokemon would have a shot at being OU. That's not even mentioning ALL the pokemon that dont have a chance at becoming OU but are held back at going up tier of their own or pokemon that can actually tank some big threats in OU but are held back by that 12% every time they switch in.

We dont know what kind of metagame a stealth rock less metagame is. We do know that there are pokemon that are being held back simply because of stealth rock. We may not have time to ban stealth rock before Gen 6 comes around but consider this. If gen 6 comes around and stealth rock is still what it is now, it'll become the gen 6 metagame as well.

I'm in favour of a ban now, predominantly because it seems very unlikely that its mechanics will be altered in Gen 6, and at least suspecting it now both potentially improves the playability of this meta for people who want to revisit it, and sets a good precedent. Let's be honest, when gen 6 hits a SR suspect is going to be the furthest thing from everyone's minds.

No suspect test, I'd rather attack the actual problems with the OU metagame. Banning SR isn't going to fix it anymore than keeping it.

Now this is totally theorymoning, but I feel like banning Stealth Rock would create a very sash-y metagame. Flying types and levitators would now have no passive damage except sand and hail to worry about, and that passive damage could be prevented by using a rain or sun team, so they could carry sashes and essentially have two lives the way Alakazam does. It would turn Flying into possibly the best type overnight. I think that there has to be some entry hazard that hits Flying types, and although Stealth Rock makes a lot of Pokemon unviable, I feel like it does create a more balanced metagame.

I think just making a playlist on showdown where stealth rock is banned would be the best option. Just collect data and experience, no pressure, just an experiment to see how the metagame is effected.

KurashiDragon said:

For the record, I'm against banning stealth rock right now simply because I agree that there isn't enough time yet in B/W2. You also have to consider that stealth rock's mechanics could be changed in X/Y. It seems pointless to ban something when the next gen is so close and we dont know what will happen to said suspect. That said, there is one argument against a suspect test that I'd like to dismiss.

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The ban would only be for BW2. It would be the same as Chomp and friends being Uber in DPP and OU in BW2.

Really good discussion here, thanks for everyone focusing on the suspecting viability as opposed to brokenness. The poll has hovered around what is essentially 50.5% "pro-test" and 49.5% "anti-test." Another issue people keep raising is the possibility of simply an OM where SR is banned. Perhaps we could start off with dnite and volc banned, since there is (close to) universal consensus they would be broken. I'd love a moderator perspective on this proposal.

Just want to briefly mention the sash issue. If SR were banned, first of all spikes would probably increase in use, which I see as good for a couple of reasons. They take more skill to set up than SR since they need three layers for maximum damage, they can be played around (flying/levitator), and their setters are far rarer and frankly worse than SR's. all of this introduces much more of an element of skill into the hazard game. Nevertheless, my guess is that spikes will have a huge surge in popularity on a no-SR ladder, so essentially you have the same situation as the current with regards to sashers: they have to be early game, assisted by a spinner, or have magic guard. The only major difference is that flying types and levitators now can use sash without worry, which IMO shouldn't have too major of an impact. And honestly, more sashes will just decrease the effectiveness of HO and maybe give defensive playing a nice boost.

And at MM, even though I agree that there are other pressing problems, SR is still a huge one in my mind. And hey, just because there are worse things doesn't mean we shouldn't look at banning this while we have the chance.

That's not what I meant. Suspecting SR isn't addressing the actual problems with the metagame, it's just messing with some irrelevant yet important support move to try to shuffle our hand away and hope we get something better to work with. Even assuming it was banned, there would obviously be more suspect testing and balancing to do and it would be all those bans/tests that actually advance things. (potentially) We can do the exact same thing with what we have right now. Heck, we could even mess with weather as it is much more closely related to what is perverting the metagame than SR is. (not saying I'm pro-ban or anything of the sort) This just seems more a distraction than an actual solution.

I forsee a SR-less game being centered around Spikes, Toxic Spikes and Flying-types. Most ADV players would argue that SR was introduced in the first place to reduce the power of the flying-types that dominated ADV (Chaos and Reyscarface pointed this out in the last Smogcast.) People are arguing that the lack of SR will bring back type diversity, but I think it will reduce it.

People are arguing that Moltres would be good without SR? Come on, it wasn't great in ADV, and that was back when 90 base speed was actually decent, 125 SpAtt was godly, and water attacks weren't as dominant. I know it gets Hurricane now, but it's just too slow to be that good.

ElectivireRocks said:

I'd like to see a metagame without SR after all these years of theorymoning.
I don't care whether SR is banned or not, I just want to have the answers to questions such as:

-Will Volcarona and Dragonite be broken?
-Will sun and hail teams see more use?
-Will UU and below SR-weak pokemon such as Yanmega be viable in OU?
-Will Focus Sash abusers centralize the metagame or will they miss the boost from Life Orb?

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I think a sr free environment might easily pave the way for shadowtag chandy when its released straight to ubers.

However,I 100% think yamega would flourish in a sr free world. Yanmegas flying/bug stabs hit prominent pokes hard like keldeo and celebi.

I think while sr isnt broken, it may be healthy for the meta to get some new breath. Of. Air and let certain diamonds shine.

I would suggest multiscale dnite be suspected if sr is banned otherwise every team would require a dragon slayer like weavile mamoswine or choice scarf pokes like terrakion and salamence

Yeah I'm curious about how Yanmega would do without SRs. don't think it'd be broken on Blaziken's levels but it would be pretty good.

Well, it seems that there's around enough support for at least a tourney sans Stealth Rock. All we have is theorymonning, but we can get good, hard results if we take a look and actually put this into effect, if only for a standalone tourney to test it out. I think it'd be cool to take a look at.

Honestly

Who cares bout Yanmega, Charizard, Moltres!
(all of them have Roost btw)

If they are not OU this is not only for SR

and current metagame has already its dangerous threats so, why do you want to add more? Just cuz it's funny seeing Moltres (or something like this) keeping space in OU? It won't happen, whenever SR are banned or not.

And this ban should increase Sandstorm teams (to prevent stinky focus sash users), it should increase also sun teams that can be finally usable almost as rains

Do you wanna really see a total-weather incentred metagame? Is it not enough at the moment?

If you really want to suspect something, try to think about Drizzle and Drought (I'm not totally pro-ban but pro-suspect), talking about real competitive factors I think matchup ruins the metagame more than Stealth Rock that penalizes ALL, dealing some damage (more or less it's not so important, it's a sort of "Pokèmon natural selection", and it helps offensive playstyles as it nerfs them)

Theorymon can't be based by desire of playing with certain pokemons (Play Pokèmon Ranger for this, dudes) or certain playstyles, but with competitive factors, and in order to see what it's real broken

SR may be broken atm as far as Spikes will be in a future without SR. Wanna ban them later? And later also Focus Sash? Let's play with 6 Magikarp, but without Bounce cuz it's too broken (fatality miss or para) then!

Actually, Moltres has a pretty good shot at OU without SR.

Checks and counters some big threats, has U-Turn, Fire Blast, and Hurricane. One of the few offensive mons that work very well both in Sun and Rain. Solid Scarfer, only a tad on the slow side.

Yeah that's right but in a metagame dominated by >100 Base speed (often scarfed) it should have short life

anyway this is a SR suspect discussion not a Moltres discussion :x

Prague Kick said:

Honestly

Who cares bout Yanmega, Charizard, Moltres!
(all of them have Roost btw)

If they are not OU this is not only for SR

and current metagame has already its dangerous threats so, why do you want to add more? Just cuz it's funny seeing Moltres (or something like this) keeping space in OU? It won't happen, whenever SR are banned or not.

And this ban should increase Sandstorm teams (to prevent stinky focus sash users), it should increase also sun teams that can be finally usable almost as rains

Do you wanna really see a total-weather incentred metagame? Is it not enough at the moment?

If you really want to suspect something, try to think about Drizzle and Drought (I'm not totally pro-ban but pro-suspect), talking about real competitive factors I think matchup ruins the metagame more than Stealth Rock that penalizes ALL, dealing some damage (more or less it's not so important, it's a sort of "Pokèmon natural selection", and it helps offensive playstyles as it nerfs them)

Theorymon can't be based by desire of playing with certain pokemons (Play Pokèmon Ranger for this, dudes) or certain playstyles, but with competitive factors, and in order to see what it's real broken

SR may be broken atm as far as Spikes will be in a future without SR. Wanna ban them later? And later also Focus Sash? Let's play with 6 Magikarp, but without Bounce cuz it's too broken (fatality miss or para) then!

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In one post you've managed to go against everything Smogon stands for so props for that. We ban things that are broken, that's that. When Tornadus-T and Genesect were banned, we didn't take into account that it could possibly make other Pokemon broken. We didn't say "Oh, but Celebi could be broken" or "Keldeo might be broken now". They were voted as broken and therefore banned.

Besides, are you actually saying that the likes of Yanmega and Moltres are in those lower tiers for reasons besides Stealth Rock? So you're still saying they will always be UU or RU? That's an incredibly naive thing to say. These are otherwise great Pokemon. Applying your logic, Volcarona would be no better without Stealth Rock. Nobody wants to see Moltres or Yanmega in OU because they like them. They want them there because that's where they deserve to be.

SR was introduced specifically for flying types, and was made rock type because some things are immune to electric (a ground type would be even more mandatory than it is now, while thundurus-T and landorus / gliscor don't care either way). It's not ice type likely because it would send the dragons to UU (they are supposed to be a powerful type and being 4x weak to stealth ice would neuter them too much). Rock type, while also hurting fire, bug and ice types, was the best choice to hurt flyers.

- ice types suck regardless, as they are weak to mach punch / bullet punch as well as fire attacks

- fire types are weak to water (everywhere) and ground (everywhere), so SR is not their biggest problem

- bug types admittedly might see more use as a defensive type due to fighting/ground resist, but most bugs don't exactly have defensive stats as it is. the best bugs are good with or without SR (think volc, scizor, forretress)

people say that things were alright in 3rd gen (before SR) but then they forget about choice specs / scarf, air balloon (makes you immune to spikes / tspikes until broken), and various high-powered moves that didn't exist in 3rd gen (close combat, draco meteor, stone edge, 120BP outrage, etc).

lastly, without SR you can bet that all 3 genies would have been banned by now

ciaranroy said:

Besides, are you actually saying that the likes of Yanmega and Moltres are in those lower tiers for reasons besides Stealth Rock? So you're still saying they will always be UU or RU? That's an incredibly naive thing to say. These are otherwise great Pokemon. Applying your logic, Volcarona would be no better without Stealth Rock. Nobody wants to see Moltres or Yanmega in OU because they like them. They want them there because that's where they deserve to be.

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You actually think stealth rock is the sole reason why these mons arent ou? Shitty typing, average speed, no boosting moves for their offenses, horrible limited movepools, moltres is completely outclassed by volcarona other than the sub roost set which zapdos can probably do better anyway etc. The reason volcarona manages to be ou despite its 4x rock weakness and shitty typing is because of a combination of movepool and stats (quiver dance + fiery dance + 135 sp atk). Neither of these low tier mons can boast that.

ciaranroy said:

Besides, are you actually saying that the likes of Yanmega and Moltres are in those lower tiers for reasons besides Stealth Rock? So you're still saying they will always be UU or RU? That's an incredibly naive thing to say. These are otherwise great Pokemon. Applying your logic, Volcarona would be no better without Stealth Rock. Nobody wants to see Moltres or Yanmega in OU because they like them. They want them there because that's where they deserve to be.

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I'm glad you think that Moltres/Yanmega "deserve" to be OU, but that's subjective and banning SR just to allow something that "deserves" to be OU it's spot in OU is also completely against what Smogon stands for.

And you really have no basis to claim that SR-weak mon's will shoot up in usage. Moltres, which a decent mon, is still a slow pokemon weak to one of the most common types, and even though it works "well" in drizzle, it doesn't especially love it. Yanmega is also decent, but again, there is no real basis for it become OU without some facts to back it.

But I deviate from the original discussion. SR is not broken in my opinion, because it simply doesn't centralize the metagame to the point where it is unplayable. You might disagree, but a Dragonite guaranteed intact Multiscale in non-Sandstorm conditions is also arguably just as centralizing, as having a Dragonite counter almost becomes a necessity.

Again though, that is theorymonning, and not really a good basis for the defense of stealth rocks. The main point that was made that solidified me onto the Anti-Ban side was simply that weather was easily more centralizing and yet we have done very little to remove that from the metagame, instead taking paltry steps that haven't done all that much. In addition, while not being the easiest to build around, SR aren't permanent, and they aren't guaranteed. Running a spinner/magic bouncer is not uncommon, and many aren't entirely used for spinning (for instance I often run non-Rapid Spin Starmie sets). The Pro-Ban side hasn't really put up much a definitive argument besides theorymonning.

I did vote that we do not need to suspect SR, but I suppose a ladder with no SR would not be a huge deal to try out, and give the Pro Ban side an actual basis for their argument. It would also end this horrid theorymonning that is going on, and give the community some facts.

I would say to test it even if it doesn't get banned this gen. It would be really helpful to see if no stealth rocks pros and cons against with stealth rocks pros and cons. If it does prove uncompetitive and we don't have time to ban it. We just simply make it one of the first suspects next gen.

The anti-SR test arguments coming up are the same tired old shit that's been countered a hundred times in this thread and the older one. As far as I'm concerned, they don't deserve to be answered. If people have genuine concerns about carrying out a SR suspect, voice them, otherwise please shut up.

Remember that your fear that SR might actually get banned is not a serious reason to argue against a suspect test when you can see that a serious number of forumites support one. If you're so sure of your position, back the test so you can prove us wrong.

George Eliot said:

The anti-SR test arguments coming up are the same tired old shit that's been countered a hundred times in this thread and the older one. As far as I'm concerned, they don't deserve to be answered. If people have genuine concerns about carrying out a SR suspect, voice them, otherwise please shut up.

Remember that your fear that SR might actually get banned is not a serious reason to argue against a suspect test when you can see that a serious number of forumites support one. If you're so sure of your position, back the test so you can prove us wrong.

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The problem with this whole "let's test it just to be sure" mentality is that we have, as Melee Mewtwo pointed out, bigger fish to fry in OU right now. A suspect would be a complete waste of time because there are only two possible outcomes:

1) Stealth Rock doesn't get banned and we wasted out last suspect test on something that wasn't broken.

2) Stealth Rock is found to be broken and is banned. The resulting metagame is absolute chaos (you CAN'T deny that the metagame would be fucked for a while, considering how influential Stealth Rock is), and we don't have enough time to balance it/suspect broken things without Stealth Rock.

I bet if we did this poll with a fifth option that said "wait until Gen VI to talk about banning SR," that would be the most chosen answer, by far. I have no problem with suspecting Stealth Rock, just not right now. I wouldn't be opposed to someone creating a Rock-less ladder either, but I feel like we should save the actual suspect test for when we can actually allow the meta to balance out, which it won't do in only a few months.

Mmm the meta definitely would be in chaos following a SR ban. I don't know, I'm definitely not planning on revisiting 5th gen once 6th is released, so I don't care particularly for putting in huge amounts of effort now to improve it. The issue is that like I said earlier, no one is going to put SR up for suspect right after 6th gen is released - they'll want to play with the new toys. I just feel that if we don't take a step towards a SR ban now, we'll be having this same conversation in 3-4 years.

In my opinion, nobody can predict what the metagame will be after SR ban. I think a SR suspect test is the best solution, not because SR are broken (They are essential for the metagame) but I'm just curious to see what the metagame will become.

I want to see what type of Pokémon will be used to counter sun teams.
I want to see if spikes are going to be everywhere.
I want to see variety in this new metagame during the suspect test.

So, if a SR suspect begin, I hope it will be too long to see all the possibilities. Because the metagame will changed, and it will find a new balanced :-)

Personally, I would think that a usage of hail teams will greatly increase if/when SR is banned. Not only are most serious hail abusers weak to it, but also it's a viable playstyle without it.

Without something ripping it apart simply by switching it in, Hail would definitely see some love again.