Hi guys, Gengod here, formerly known as Maniaclyrasist, (yes a name change was long overdue I know).
Anyways, I’ve been around since early ADV so I’ve seen my fair share of trends and bans and I was actually one of the members of Smogon to get the ball rolling around 08-09 with initial discussion of suspect tests with regards to the Lati twins without Soul Dew. Haven’t been too active outside of casual laddering to keep up with the meta but I intend to get back into it for Sun and Moon, both on Showdown as well as VGC but anyways….enough about me.
I’m here to bring you another controversial thread, about a topic that has been rehashed over and over throughout the last few years here on Smogon without any real conclusion… and that is the possible banning of Stealth Rock.
Now, I’m making this thread based on the general assumption that Stealth Rock will not be nerfed in Gen 7. It could be, considering the already revealed nerfs of moves like Thunder Wave, Paralysis and Confusion as a whole. However, since we have no idea whether it will be nerfed or not, or if Gen 7 will bring about any other changes that lessen the overall strength of the move so I felt this was a good time to discuss the move, before we all get enveloped in that Gen 7 fever.
With that out of the way lets get into it…
I’ve taken the time to read through most of the Stealth Rock ban related threads here on Smogon and below I’ve listed the primary reasons for both keeping the move around as well as banning it, well the ones that made some kind of sense anyway…
So for the pro-ban side we pretty much have the following:
• Highly skewed risk vs reward
• Disproportionate limitations based solely on typing
• Restricts and limits team building more than any other factor and as a whole the overall metagame
And on the anti-ban side we have:
• Keeps otherwise broken Pokemon in check
• The move has counterplay in moves/abilities such as Rapid Spin, Defog, Magic Guard
• “The Slippery Slope Argument”
• Focus Sash
In trying to look at this from an objective perspective it seems like the pro-ban side’s reasoning here is pretty much inarguable at this point whereas the anti-ban camp seems to be dabbling a bit more in subjective theory and a lot of arguments from that side have generally boiled down to a “what do we want from the metagame” conversation.
With that said, it’s hard not to invoke some degree of subjectivity as everyone has their own ideal metagame, however, taking a step back and trying to look at Stealth Rock in a vacuum you gotta think to yourself at some point…this move is pretty absurd. Imagine if any other move with the same attributes was released limiting masses of Pokemon competitively as arbitrarily as Stealth Rock does and on top of that doing as much as it does both offensively and defensively while basically forcing you to use it or be at a significant disadvantage to your opponent simply because of that alone.
I can’t see that going over too well with most of the community now, especially when people already complain about stuff like Scald and Prio T-Wave.
Stealth Rock’s power and influence is ridiculous bar none and with Sun and Moon fast approaching I feel it would be wrong to not at least get some discussion going on a possible outright ban of Stealth Rock with the start of the new metagame, again assuming Sun and Moon doesn’t nerf the move in some way.
In addition I have another question for the conservative or unsure ones out there leaning towards the anti-ban side. Would you be opposed to starting the new generation without it? We already have enough years of experience/data playing with the move and Sun and Moon looks to be quite the refresher in terms of how the game will be played. It would be a great time to test a Stealth Rock-less start to the meta and see how it plays out.
Anyways, I’ve been around since early ADV so I’ve seen my fair share of trends and bans and I was actually one of the members of Smogon to get the ball rolling around 08-09 with initial discussion of suspect tests with regards to the Lati twins without Soul Dew. Haven’t been too active outside of casual laddering to keep up with the meta but I intend to get back into it for Sun and Moon, both on Showdown as well as VGC but anyways….enough about me.
I’m here to bring you another controversial thread, about a topic that has been rehashed over and over throughout the last few years here on Smogon without any real conclusion… and that is the possible banning of Stealth Rock.
Now, I’m making this thread based on the general assumption that Stealth Rock will not be nerfed in Gen 7. It could be, considering the already revealed nerfs of moves like Thunder Wave, Paralysis and Confusion as a whole. However, since we have no idea whether it will be nerfed or not, or if Gen 7 will bring about any other changes that lessen the overall strength of the move so I felt this was a good time to discuss the move, before we all get enveloped in that Gen 7 fever.
With that out of the way lets get into it…
I’ve taken the time to read through most of the Stealth Rock ban related threads here on Smogon and below I’ve listed the primary reasons for both keeping the move around as well as banning it, well the ones that made some kind of sense anyway…
So for the pro-ban side we pretty much have the following:
• Highly skewed risk vs reward
• Disproportionate limitations based solely on typing
• Restricts and limits team building more than any other factor and as a whole the overall metagame
And on the anti-ban side we have:
• Keeps otherwise broken Pokemon in check
• The move has counterplay in moves/abilities such as Rapid Spin, Defog, Magic Guard
• “The Slippery Slope Argument”
• Focus Sash
In trying to look at this from an objective perspective it seems like the pro-ban side’s reasoning here is pretty much inarguable at this point whereas the anti-ban camp seems to be dabbling a bit more in subjective theory and a lot of arguments from that side have generally boiled down to a “what do we want from the metagame” conversation.
With that said, it’s hard not to invoke some degree of subjectivity as everyone has their own ideal metagame, however, taking a step back and trying to look at Stealth Rock in a vacuum you gotta think to yourself at some point…this move is pretty absurd. Imagine if any other move with the same attributes was released limiting masses of Pokemon competitively as arbitrarily as Stealth Rock does and on top of that doing as much as it does both offensively and defensively while basically forcing you to use it or be at a significant disadvantage to your opponent simply because of that alone.
I can’t see that going over too well with most of the community now, especially when people already complain about stuff like Scald and Prio T-Wave.
Stealth Rock’s power and influence is ridiculous bar none and with Sun and Moon fast approaching I feel it would be wrong to not at least get some discussion going on a possible outright ban of Stealth Rock with the start of the new metagame, again assuming Sun and Moon doesn’t nerf the move in some way.
In addition I have another question for the conservative or unsure ones out there leaning towards the anti-ban side. Would you be opposed to starting the new generation without it? We already have enough years of experience/data playing with the move and Sun and Moon looks to be quite the refresher in terms of how the game will be played. It would be a great time to test a Stealth Rock-less start to the meta and see how it plays out.
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