HGSS Is Stealth Rock banworthy in DPP 1U?

From this thread.

So the question is, do you think that Stealth Rock is sufficiently broken, and that removing it increases diversity enough, that it ought to be banned? I recommend testing the metagame out in the new frontiers tournament, to inform your opinion on this.

 

no, rocksless dpp turns into a stallfest. i promise that subroost moltres that burns 8 stone edge pp to break its subs is not fun to play against. offense and balance needs rocks to function.

 

Agree with nails

Also, generally Tspikes would be helpful versus stall however they generally have Starmie + Hard Rotom Counter or even just a poison type.

Also, without rocks, nape literally ravages most teams


Meta would be be so saturated with stall and nape it would ruin everything

 

to add onto that point, every flying type gets access to roost as compensation for taking sr damage. having access to recovery is a really significant thing. flying types without rocks around are very strong.

 

sand is everywhere in adv, sub morning sun moltres would be really really nice if ttar had any other ability. rock slide also has more pp (16 vs 8) so the only thing you're pp stalling with pressure is pert hydro pump. i actually had a discussion less than an hour ago about what adv moltres would be like with a tar ban and it sounds p cool on paper.

rock blast doesn't exist in dpp ou, taunt users all get fried by fire stab (except gyarados who instead gets owned by wisp), encore doesn't exist in dpp and none of the users can switch into moltres anyways. technically you can't touch heatran but unless it has hp electric/roar the only thing it can do is throw fire blasts at your subs (you only get 4 thanks to pressure) and toxic/explode/earth power on your roost. if he has taunt i guess he wins off pp though. hp ground would be enough to get around that anyways.

dpp becomes way less fun without rocks, basically. it's been tried before and it's an ok novelty but it's not that good.

 

The only pro of no rocks is that it means Gyara / Nite / Zap / Bat are better checks to the semi-broken Nape and Loom because they're not losing 25% of their health upon switch-in.

Not really - Ape doesn't take oh so much from Rocks to set it back (and Spikes / TSpikes still exist to screw with him), while again it makes Flyers much shakier checks to him (without rocks offensive variants can usually switch in ok, but with rocks they need to be fairly jacked in bulk - keep in mind that flyers are fairly common despite rocks!).

This is another problem of mine though - without rocks it becomes harder to keep down certain things. For example Gyarados is fairly bulky but a lot of the time he gets only one chance to sweep because Rocks chipped off a quarter of his health. With no rocks? Suddenly he can come in on certain mons that can't touch him (like Choiced Flygon locked into EQ), scout the counter, and double out for free. Dragonite's Mixed set no longer needs Roost as much because it isn't taking that guaranteed 25% from stealth rock, making it a lot more deadly with ESpeed. Zapdos can dance in and out with U-Turn, constantly bringing in Breloom on the TTar / Swampert / Hippo trying to check it. Hell even Crobat becomes a lot more dangerous, its bulky enough to live a few things, Roost back up and start threatening with Super Fang. I think the problem with Stealth Rock is similar to some other badly planned interventions across history: it solves the problem of fighters being jackasses (as well as U-Turn forcing switches and wearing down things - keep in mind all you BAN-screamers that this applies to the Turners and actually affects them a lot more), but at the same time makes a few other things (see above) borderline impossible to handle. I'd be willing to try it out just to see but to actually use it for the main tier? Probably not.

As for bans, just get rid of Nape and I'll be fine . Iron Head Jirachi is pretty gay (it can take back lost games in a heartbeat of off just flinch hax), but I don't want to get rid of the mon itself.....

 

Just curious, how much do people think hail would improve, would articuno and regice improve, would yanmega and vespiquen improve? Would Glaceon be viable (I think I heard about good people using it before)?

Also, if there's few signups / large backlash (i.e. what we have now not getting more positive for SR) then I'll cancel the test and we'll just do a latias suspect.

 

stealth rock is so ridiculously overpowered that it is required on literally every team. it gets more usage than gsc snorlax for christs sake. it makes already insanely strong pokemon even harder to deal with. i could take it or leave it but id prefer a ban

 

You're comparing apples and oranges in comparing a move to a Pokemon (though even there I'll note that non-Snorlax teams in GSC are largely fun teams; if you look at ranked stats that 95% goes to 98%+). If you want to compare it to something in GSC, compare it to Spikes or RestTalk (essentially all teams run a RestTalker and general wisdom is that all good teams run Spikes - full Baton Pass is an exception to both but is very rare).

 

I think, point is that GSC Lax and DPP SR are verry near 100% usage in both cases. Obviously you can't really compare Stealth Rock with much else which is why it's so hard to agree on whether it ought to be banned or not. I thought it was worth discussing it in DPP since 1 I had seen other players of the tier bring it up 2 it is incredibly powerful lacking counterplay 3 I thought that removing it might increase tier diversity (or might not, I don't know). Within our philosophy towards banning things, SR is pretty borderline and player opinion is all that it comes down to, i.e. their judgement on whether it increases diversity sufficiently / is too brokenly strong. There's a good case for both sides so it's worth testing it imo, unless one side in this thread gets clear backlash (there's been a fair bit, but BKC [autumn leaves], a really top DPP player has more or less come out for it so for now I think it's worth keeping this open and continuing with new frontiers.

 

You can't really compare a move to a single pokemon, SR gets really nice distribution and there's no reason not to use a move that gets chip damage on everything that switches in. Snorlax is meanwhile a single pokemon that despite its centralising aspects has remained fair to use in the tier, meaning that it's not broken (maybe it is, I don't play much GSC), or at least that people can tolerate it. SR is nowhere near as centralising as Lax, it's a single moveslot that can help support a sweeper or wear down a dangerous threat.

Okay, the absence of SR makes Loom and Nape a lot easier to deal with now that their checks don't have to lose a quarter of their health just for switching in only to watch them dance out for free. Great! The problem is that, as said earlier, it makes all of Zap+Gyara+Nite borderline impossible to deal with as now they are in the position of come in for free, put a huge dent in check, and dance out to something that handles it. Even with the Smogon metagame (SR legal) in use, user badabing, who's pretty highly regarded when it comes to DPP, said of Gyarados that 'I can't think of anything else that has as much of a chance to put a hole in or outright win any game' - do we really want to be making this monster more powerful? What about Zapdos, who comfortably U-Turns (or BPs) out of all its checks into Breloom who proceeds to abuse them? (I personally think Loom wouldn't be oh so troubled by SR gone as it can still get free entry from a newly empowered Zap and Sleep whatever comes in next, before setting up all over it). I don't think so. SR makes Nape and Loom really hard to deal with (ironically the loss of this chip damage on Nape which can be crucial if you're trying to stall it out and Loom's partners becoming overpowered af would mean that despite being individually less gamebreaking both fighters would still be just as threatening overall), but equally it keeps a lot of tough things (as well as mindless U-Turn spam) in check and I really don't think it should be cast aside.

In regards to the other proposal on the table (#FreeLatias), blatant no (as for the other Dragon, I can think of no better way to break the tier that banning SR and freeing Mence). I feel like the problem with Latias is that it would undisputedly be the top dog (top notch coverage, killer speed tier and solid offensive stats make it a threat, while simultaneously it hard checks Fighters / Grasses / Zapdos / Specially Offensive Waters and more, and of course it gives everyone another reason to run Heatran / Tyranitar / Jirachi, as if they needed one). I think we're all ignoring the possibility that Latias dropping (similarly to banning SR) could replace all our current problems with even worse ones, and I think that our current problems are fine (Loom is borderline manageable, Nape isn't but that's why we ban it, as well as Iron Head on Jirachi to keep it from breaking games, everything else is balanced atm). I feel like we should just get rid of what we know is broken rather than trying to dramatically shake up the tier because we want to see a certain mon (that was banned 6 years ago) back. Just my two cents worth.

Tldr: Keep SR, it checks two things for each thing it makes slightly harder to deal with.
When people offer you the chance to use a Latias, just say no.
Ban Infernape and IHead Jirachi.

 

Well I know that BKC and Jirachee have been testing Latias and talking about that.

Thread for those not aware: Gen 4 - Smogon Premier League: DPP OU Discussion | Smogon Forums

 

remaining in the tier does not make something not broken.

sr has more impact on every tier it's in than snorlax does gsc lol are you for real??!?!?!?!

there's also no rocks digging into the counters of these supposedly horridly overpowered flyers.

u-turn spam is a LOT less threatening without rocks digging into the pokemon switching around and eating the hit before being forced back out. if zap gon ape zor jira want to dink away with those weak hits then that's fine, I'll switch around on those all day.

latias dp tour was lovely, it wasn't op at all, great metagame presence. at least imo. mence is busted though ye

I personally don't think iron head jirachi would be broken without sr

 

So far the new frontiers tournament has received a paltry three signups. I think unless there's a surprise amount of signups tomorrow, it might be best to just leave up the discussion thread for a couple of weeks, expect players to play test games versus eachother, and then hold a vote in a couple of weeks. Any objections? Tagging everyone who's posted in either this thread or the signup thread. slurmz~ jacob. ThrashNinjax Nails autumn leaves Enigami magic9mushroom

 

I don't play DPP, so I neither object nor support and would abstain from any vote. I just posted because I didn't think comparing an entry hazard with a Pokemon made sense, and because I have played the generation being used in the comparison.

 

i don't care about dpp formats outside of smogon tiers and will not be playtesting a sr ban metagame.

 

The way that the ban criteria is worded makes it really subjective and hard to judge in this case. All banning SR would do is change the metagame drastically. What effect that would have on diversity is totally unpredictable. A lot of the top players are pretty tired of the current metagame so it seems appealing.

I don't think it is reasonable to make assertions that certain Pokemon would be "too strong" in a SR-less metagame. Far too much would change to make that kind of analysis. Of course you can reasonably say that Pokemon weak to Rock are going to get stronger, but it doesn't mean Moltres is suddenly going to be overpowered, just that it is going to be stronger. It would take an incredible amount of foresight to be able to identify the strongest strategies without first extensively playing the tier with such a core element removed. Even being successful initially (such as in a test environment or a tournament with different rules) doesn't mean much because people haven't had time to adapt to the strategies that you employ.

 

The suspect meta is playable on Showdown! under the What If section. Spread the word, and play and test there!