the point of SR/hazards is to punish a large amount of switching though !
To be fair all forms of spikes can be avoided by levitate and flying types plus poison pkmn csn switch in and absorb them which requires no turn to waste. Im fine eith spikes since less pkmn learn it much less use it effectively in bsttle plus to maximize it’s use requires 2-3 turns to set up vs taking them out in 1 or no turns. Rocks are 1 and done. Still as easy and dumb as they are I do use them csuse I like stall and they work for me.
Yes, because at the very least you can bring in your defogger without taking damage from spikes/toxic spikes. Or bring in a pokemon with Air Balloonas it’s held item or a pokemon with the levitate ability.
If anything toxic spikes are really well balanced in that you can bring in a steel pokemon (who doesn’t run at least one steel or poison type?) that is immune to poison and rapid spin it away (I know they let you do it this gen. Did they let you do it last gen too?), or bring in a poison type to soak them up.
With Stealth Rocks you just have to deal with it, and then from that little bit of guranteed damage you take to switch in your rapid spinner/deffoger a variety a hard hitting pokemon can OHKO from that 76-94% range if they outspeed you, denying you the chance to get the rocks off the field.
Next gen I hope that SR gets removed if you switch in a rock type, and sticky web gets removed if you switch in a bug type :x
Anyway, can’t wait til they put the old ubers back into ubers. In the meantime, Gravity Landorus gonna wreck everything. (Rotom, Thundurus, Skarmory, Talonflame, Gengar, etc get hit super effective dohohoho)
SR getting removed by a rock type would greatly buff rock types in general, i would welcome this entirely if ttar wasn’t already a monster
i haven’t fought a lando-I yet, i see a lot of lando-Ts though and they’re great offensive pivots
thunderus-I hasn’t been a big deal for me but i do run blissey so that could skew my view a bit
i still don’t know why they don’t just give up and ban deoxys, all of them, they’re way too good at either setting up hazards or sweeping, just give up and admit that deoxys will always be uber
I would like it if Stealth Rock was set to a specific number of switches as well… Not only would that balance it out, it would add a new level a strategy to the game when it came to playing with/around SR.
I love stealth rock in general, the 50% is a big thing for some pokes but hey this game is not meant for balance.
It’s good for offense if they’re gonna try to switch often to reduce my attacks, need em to take more residual damage.
blisseys still a massive pain. i run mostly special attacks atm, rip. when they ban up some genies i’ll be able to run some more random crap though, so hope that day comes soon.
I see. I respectfully disagree, however, that they are too strong because they a “one and done” entry hazard. Looking at rock typing, it does extra damage to four types, half to three, and normal to all others. In comparison, Spikes 1 do the same damage to all types minus flying and non-grounded Pokemon, but have the added benefit that they will always do full damage to Pokemon they affect. I suppose it could be argued that Stealth Rocks do too much damage compared to Spikes 1, and maybe a slight damage nerf could be a good thing. However, I can’t really agree with any other kind of nerf like SR doing extra damage to Pokemon weak against rock typing, as it would cause issues with other Pokemon being a bit too strong like it’s been argued before.
That said, I still think the move is fine in its current form. Just my two cents though.
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-73698348
hue hue hue hue hue hue hue
i was experimenting with empoleon sets and didnt have scald at that time LOL
If anyone wants to try a team I just whipped up later on showdown let me know. I’m rusty but all this talking made me realize i have yet to battle anyone this gen. Until i can regain my old mons in XY showdown will do
thank you @phantasy to showing me gravity landorus-I, i have never used it before and i completely forgot about it
holy fuck is that thing OP
At work will be off at 12 so after that I’m down
i believe gravity also lowers everyone’s evasion so focus blast is more reliable. my coverage atm is earth power / focus blast (hits ice/normal/dark) / sludge wave (most importantly hitting grass which resists ground, also hits fairy) if he could learn fire blast or flamethrower it’d be a wrap since it hits both grass and bug which are the only things that resist ground (outside of the immunities)
Forgot to mention 12am PST. In the mood to battle. Will be home around then
it does, i currently run psychic which has helped with conkeldurr and gengar (without relying on gravity), his special movepool is seriously lacking
but on the other hand, he is broke already so i don’t think we need him to have more options
(…I’d apologize about bringing up Stealth Rock–doubtless again in this thread–at all…only I readily admit that I’m a tremendous asshole and thus have been greatly amused by po pimpus bashing his head against the intellectual equivalent of a Dual Screen setup. This isn’t a jab at Mood4Food77 or especially at Spirit Juice–it’s more a Brick Break–since I understand what they were getting at and understand why Spirit Juice got upset even if po pimpus is generally too nice to have been that condescending intentionally; I just don’t agree with most of the Dynamic Devil’s Advocate Duo’s arguments for reasons I’ll touch on below.
I will, however, apologize for depressing Saitsu. That was not my intention.
Also, yes, Gravity lowers evasion by like 20+% unless that’s changed too.)
My biggest problem with Stealth Rock isn’t really that it hits everything, hits some things (really) harder than others or even that it’s basically effortless to set-up.
No, my chief problems with Stealth Rock are threefold in nature. It’s that a) stays around forever despite being one-turn set-up, b) Gamefreak hasn’t really been giving out nearly as many things to deal with it as it should on, especially things that can actually get rid of Stealth Rock & not die for it, and c) that’s it an extremely lazy way for Gamefreak to “balance” their own fucking egregious mistakes. That’s part of why I compared it to Hidden Power, which at least costs stats in exchange and is still dependent on SpA and typing for effectiveness, given Hidden Power was an obvious stopgap measure to the opening up of the typing chart in Gen II. Stealth Rock is a far lazier attempt to give people the illusion of competence with an easy button that’s all-purpose against everything but like three Pokemon and that helps to “break” stall way more often than it promotes it. Because, you know, offense totally needed “help” despite the fact that Skarmbliss was already being dealt with regularly towards the end of Gen III and would have ran into a bunch more problems even without Stealth Rock in Gen IV.
Which is okay, I guess*, because apparently people love hyper-offense, which is why we were given all these frankly ludicrous levels of offense when Gen V brought non-legendary gods stat-wise and moves-wise even before infinite weather stupidity factored into everything. It’s like they jumped the Sharpedo as soon as they made Arceus and went “oh shit! We have nothing to put in Gen V! Quick! Give random 120+ stats to every other new Pokemon!”
Sure, Volcarona, Multi-Scale Dragonite, Charizard W[hatever] and such may supposedly run roughshod over everyone if Stealth Rock mysteriously “vanished”, but there’s really no reason that Gamefreak a) had to make them so stupid strong in the first place with SR as basically mandatory to stave them off and b) couldn’t slightly “adjust” them to actually deal with their level of bullshit. Even if they were/are strong enough to not have any real counter to them in singles without Stealth Rock literally floating around everywhere, it’s not an excuse for Stealth Rock being as idiotic as it currently is as White Shadow already said.
That said, I am completely aware that Stealth Rock, like Hidden Power, isn’t going anywhere. Even as much as it annoys me, I don’t want Stealth Rock completely gone–not “really” anyway. I don’t think anyone “really” does, at least anyone who has realistic expectations.
It’s just…why is it an unrealistic expectation to expect Gamefreak to fix something that more than a few people obviously and quite vocally think and have shown is a problem in terms of effort and saturation? Especially when Gamefreak doesn’t have to put that much effort into fixing it regardless of what solution it takes, even if it’s only adding more moves or abilities or type affinities to deal with Stealth Rock?
They seriously can’t make at least Gravity get rid of SR when the whole point of Gravity is to bring flying and floating things to the ground? That’s literally all I’m asking for presently even though more would still probably be needed–and welcomed–to make Stealth Rock not a de facto mandatory move that you can just set and forget 99% of the time. It would at least be a start and show some more actual effort being done on Gamefreak’s part rather than a continual of their slapping more and more shiny, pretty bows on egregiously broken shit like Gen V did.
Then again, this is the same company that only gave Poison a bone and only realized that Steel and Dragon are/were almost as obnoxious as RBY Psychic type after more than a decade. So, if anything, it’s a sign that Gamefreak is staffed by Slowbros and Slakings, meaning we may eventually get a less stupid form of Stealth Rock. Eventually.
I’m just not going to hold my breath, especially for them to stop fucking over Ice type, lest I suffocate. [/rant I held off on yesterday]
(*Please note this sarcasm.)
This is me we’re talking about here. Of course I have time.
Okay. I see. I’ll look into these. Thanks to you both.
TL;DR - The biggest problem with Stealth Rock isn’t the sometimes obscene damage it does; it’s that it’s so fucking lazy as to be basically braindead, even with the addition of the Magic Bounce ability. Even if it’s supposedly single-handedly holding back a legion of Rock-weak murder machines, the current level of effortlessness to use it is really not worth that level of equally lazy “balance” (IMO), especially when it tends to hurt bunch more things that might otherwise be viable more.
I see your point, The Damned, but I think it’s kind of unrealistic to expect competitive Pokemon to be balanced, or more specifically, SMARTLY balanced. Game Freak’s target audience is obviously not competitive players, but probably the vast majority of players that play through the game, beat the Elite Four/Champion, and maybe collect every Pokemon. I know they have tried to throw the competitive scene a bone or two here and there by adjusting abilities, but I think we all know a majority of their time invested into the game is just making a fun game for players that don’t theorycraft/play competitively. It’s kind of like if you play ArcSystemWorks fighting games but expect the company to appeal to the US console scene by doing a simultaneous arcade and console release for their games. It’s unfortunate and unfair… but that’s life. :sad: