Suspect Discussion: "Hail"

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Bughouse

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It's a great Klinklang for dealing with Snover, Glaceon, and Escavalier. Not so much Walrein lol... Klinklang never beats a set-up Walrein. There's this thing called Roar. Surf hurts too. Super Fang. Even Blizzard wears me down to the point Klinklang becomes less useful and my team relied on it so much to deal with other Hail threats too.

Regardless, my team shouldn't have been doing well against Hail Stall. It did fine against Hail Offense, which is less threatening IMO (and why Snow Warning doesn't deserve the boot) and, in my laddering, more common. If I had faced Hail Stall every match, I'd have had a 60-40 record at best. And I'm a good player. I disagree that the other Ice Body abusers are nearly as threatening as Walrein simply due to the lower bulk and less advantageous typing (yes, even factoring in their speed.) I suppose Dewgong could be a similar issue, though I've never faced one. All in all, I can support a complex ban, I guess. But anything that limits Hail Offense is going too far. BlizzSpam really isn't too problematic.
 

Pocket

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Walrein is ridiculous indeed, even a conservative guy like me will admit to that x0. From my playing RU since Hail was dropped, I haven't seen anything else about Hail that screams broken, though. Banning Walrein imo would resolve the Hail problem sufficiently, but I wouldn't mind a complex clause of Snow Warning + Ice Body, either. I still stand that banning Hail is removing more than necessary from RU. I'd rather test Hail without Walrein / Ice Body mons first before making the final decision on Hail. We aren't in a rush to finalize the RU tier, which is pretty much complete and wont see any more new drops from UU to shake the tier anymore. We should avoid drawing any hasty conclusions
 
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My 2 cents:
Hail is not seen as usable in OU due to Politoed and Tyranitar running amock, but in RU, where there is no Auto Weather outside of Hail, it can really show what it is made of.
While Snover itself isnt great, the support it provides in immense.While being Fodder, it can also dent things with Blizzard, SubSeed decently, and bring the snowstorm to battle permanently.
Things that benefit from hail are Ice Types that can now spam Blizzard to kill everything, Ice Body users such as Stallrein and Glaceon, and others that enjoy the opponent not having Leftovers anymore.
If there is one big Downside to Hail, it's the predictableness. A hail team almost always uses some of the following: Snover, 1 or 2 Ice Types, Escavilier, Slowking, Druddigon, some sort of Spinner, and Stallrein. Thus, a team can prepare for these pretty well.
The only thing i consider 'broken' about hail is Walrein. I would rather Suspect Walrein, but as it is hail, My thought is that Hail would stay.
 

Mack the Knife

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After using hail a ton, I can say it's very powerful but not undefeatable. At least offensive. Maybe we should ban Walrein? Glaceon and Rotom-F are strong, but not invincible.
 
Okay so I finally decided to stop being lazy and get reqs and after playing countless games against both Hail offense and Hail stall I have formed the opinion that something needs to change, I'm not sure whether the solution is to ban Hail completely or to just ban Hail+Ice Body but I'm leaning towards a Hail+Ice Body ban. I would also like to highlight something August said in the NP which pretty much sums up how toxic Walrein and Hail+Ice Body in general is to the tier.


this is how I described it yesterday: an offensive team with 5 pokemon that murder walrein (lets say... Rotom-c / Gallade / Galvantula / Kabutops / Entei for shits and giggles) and 1 pokemon that gives Walrein a free sub (Druddigon, Defensive Slowking, Spiritomb to name a few) WILL STILL LOSE TO WALREIN IF IT GETS A SUB. I am 100% sure that I have the most experience with hail and walrein than anyone else who posted here so I can freely say that Walrein will easily beat that team with just 1 opportunity for a sub. Anything without Leftovers can be stalled out from behind a sub. Walrein can stall out 2 full pokemon from 100% health with ONLY HAIL. this doesn't take into account recoil moves, toxic spikes, stealth rock, and life orb. just by itself it can kill 2 pokemon without leftovers. this is what makes hail so ridiculously dangerous and this is what you're not seeing.
This is exactly why it has got to go, I'm sure some people will try to argue that no other Ice Body abuser has the bulk of Walrein but the general consensus is the same, you give [insert Ice Body Pokemon here] a free Sub you probably lose at least 2 Pokemon and if Toxic Spikes are up you definitely lost unless you have something like Clefable.

The lack of viable offensive Poison types really only buffs Hail stall even further, the only two that come to mind are Drapion who really isn't great in the metagame and Scolipede who doesn't even get enough usage to be RU.
 
I guess what I don't understand is the camp that is looking for a complex ban. The discussion around auto Hail seems to center on Walrein and Glaceon. But, they aren't broken without hail. In Specs Glaceon's case, its Blizzard's ridiculous power that is the problem, not Ice Body. Sure, banning Ice Body takes care of both Pokemon, as well as other Ice Body stallers, but slapping on Jynx or Rotom-F works just as well for Hail Offense because Blizzard is so spammable.

I guess my main point is that Snover is the real problem. Snover's ability breaks Walrein and Glaceon. They are not a problem unless they are under permanent hail. In my eyes, that makes Snover broken under the support characteristic, because it makes two Pokemon broken (and in some people's eyes more than that). I support banning Snow Warning for that reason.
 
Glaceon has been getting so much attention because its performance as a hail abuser in comparison to others such as Jynx and Rotom-F. The strengths of Glaceon including versatility and power have already been discussed at length, so I'm going to discuss why Glaceon is more broken than the other two.

While Jynx has a nice base 95 speed, it is outpaced by a few common threats in RU's offensive metagame. Running a Scarf on Modest Jynx gives it about the same power as Timid Glaceon, but hinders its ability to pick off threats early in a match and get away with it. RU is full of priority attackers and pursuit trappers that give Jynx a lot of trouble, while not doing much to stop Glaceon (except for Hitmonchan's Mach Punch). Scarf Glaceon outspeeds Timid/Jolly Sceptile, which leaves only other scarfers, Aerodactyl, Swellow and Accelgor as its competition. If Jynx wants to take full advantage of its speed to compete against other scarfers, it needs to run a timid nature which makes its attacks much more manageable. I believe the life orb and sub nasty sets are the ones that warrant the most attention, because they're incredibly powerful as well as decently fast with Lovely Kiss. Considering Jynx's base 95 speed, it shouldn't be able to get more than 1 or 2 kills unless your prediction is perfect or you have eliminated all of Jynx's checks. This pretty much sounds like any other offensive setup-sweeper or LO pokemon in RU, and Jynx's only advantages from hail are the residual damage and Blizzard. Not too significant imo.

Rotom-F's claim to fame is its awesome dual stab as well as its immunity to Spikes. I believe most Rotom-F run Timid nature whether or not they are scarfed, so the power behind Blizzard is significantly weaker than that of Glaceon. Scarf Rotom-F is hurt by its loss in power, and even though it is still a powerful threat it cannot take full advantage of its dual stab without good prediction. Constant volt switching can be difficult with Rotom-F's SR weakness and lack of Ice Body, eventually wearing him down to priority KO range. Therefore, I fail to see how scarf Rotom-F distinguishes itself from other powerful attackers in the tier besides having a hail niche and a great dual stab. It's basically a more powerful but SR-weak version of Rotom-C that needs hail to function at its best ability. I've never seen a Rotom-F on a team without Snover.

There's also the LO subsplit Rotom-F set, which I believe is the more threatening of the two common sets. Even though it lacks the utility of Scarf Rotom-F, it can be a huge standalone threat that is difficult to stop when it gets a sub up. I have not had much experience using or facing this set, so I can't really speak from experience about its strengths or weaknesses. Expert belt sets are nice for bluffing choice, but seem easy to revenge kill. Haven't encountered this many times either.

imo Rotom-F and Jynx are simply inferior to Glaceon in terms of raw power and versatility. A complex ban eliminates Glaceon's insane power from the hail metagame altogether, while taking away Walrein's most broken aspects. I see this as a good thing.
 
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atomicllamas

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Branflakes325 said:
Running a Scarf on Modest Jynx gives it about the same power as Timid Glaceon, but hinders its ability to pick off threats early in a match and get away with it.
Except that modest scarf Jynx is still way faster than timid scarf Glaceon meaning that it has the ability to pick off more faster frail threats initially, for example, some of those other scarfers, Aerodactyl, Swellow, and Accelgor. While timid Jynx blizzard doesn't hit as hard as Glaceon's, it's not that huge of a deal, as Glaceon's power is often overkill. Jynx also has usable coverage with higher base power, meaning that (for example) Jynx's psychic is hitting harder than Glaceon's shadow ball, while Jynx's Focus Blast/Energy Ball/Grass Knot or whatever is hitting at least as hard as HP ground. Sucker Punch is probably the most common priority in RU, fortunately for Jynx, she has a sleep inducing move to avoid the punch, and is one of the best users of substitute in the tier so it isn't that huge of a deal. Jynx is the NU suspect, but she is honestly just as good (if not better) in RU.

Branflakes325 said:
Considering Jynx's base 95 speed, it shouldn't be able to get more than 1 or 2 kills unless your prediction is perfect or you have eliminated all of Jynx's checks.
Yes, and some people would argue that this is broken, Jynx's ability to force a two for one consistently (in hail) makes it a huge threat, especially since a sleep is essentially a kill in BW.

Scarf Rotom-F in Hail is arguably (if not definitely) the best late game cleaner in RU, especially with hazard support, as hail prevents all leftover recovery attempts, meaning that almost all counters to Rotom-F will be worn down late game. Rotom-F also has 50/107 defenses, meaning that bar a STAB mach punch, Rotom-F is going to survive your priority attack. Sub-Split Rotom-F is also really freaking good, and even sub-wisp Rotom-F is usable.

imo Rotom-F and Jynx are simply inferior to Glaceon in terms of raw power and versatility.
Ehh, Glaceon has three "types" of sets it can run, while rotom-F has two "types" and Jynx has either three or four "types" of sets it can run, they are all equally versatile, and they are powerful in different ways.
 
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breh

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I guess what I don't understand is the camp that is looking for a complex ban. The discussion around auto Hail seems to center on Walrein and Glaceon. But, they aren't broken without hail. In Specs Glaceon's case, its Blizzard's ridiculous power that is the problem, not Ice Body. Sure, banning Ice Body takes care of both Pokemon, as well as other Ice Body stallers, but slapping on Jynx or Rotom-F works just as well for Hail Offense because Blizzard is so spammable.

I guess my main point is that Snover is the real problem. Snover's ability breaks Walrein and Glaceon. They are not a problem unless they are under permanent hail. In my eyes, that makes Snover broken under the support characteristic, because it makes two Pokemon broken (and in some people's eyes more than that). I support banning Snow Warning for that reason.
If you complex ban Hail and Ice Body, then Hail remains as a playstyle (albeit a weakened one), increasing diversity in the tier.
 

Bughouse

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You do however make Glaceon basically worthless, though. Unless you've ever seen Glaceon on a non-hail team, of course. I haven't. (This of course still happens if you ban Snow Warning alone, not only if the complex ban happens.)

What I question is why we are in such a hurry to fix a metagame that likely doesn't need such a big removal to be more equitable. I think allowing Hail to remain as an offensive playstyle is totally a good thing, while Hail Stall needs something to be banned for sure.

The key question to consider before we go through with a complex ban is this: Can Hail Offense continue to be a viable strategy without Glaceon? Are Jynx and Rotom-F enough?

If this is not the case, supporting a complex ban for the sake of neutering Hail Stall must take into account the impact on Glaceon and Hail Offense too.
 
As someone who has played RU hail stall teams to death, I really don't think they're that good. Walrein is great for sure if you can get him behind a sub with a decent amount of health left, but providing the proper support is really hard with only 6 team slots. Snover is of course mandatory, but is otherwise a waste of a Pokemon, and Quilfish is going to be present 90% of the time. From there, you want a Stealth Rock user, a Rapid Spinner, a spin blocker, a cleric, defensive Polywrath/Hariyama for sleep absorbing and phasing, a second Hail abuser so you don't feel stupid for putting Snover on your team, and a Dark type so Sigilyph does not shut you down completely, and you have to do all this without compounding your weaknesses to Fighting, Rock, and Electric. Stall is all about having an answer for whatever your opponent throws at you, and that just isn't possible in this case.

Really, Walrein isn't even common enough to be RU, so I don't see why he would need to be suspected. It's possible that he's just much better than most players think, but until he becomes more popular, he's not in a position to affect much about the meta-game.
 
I believe that a lot of people don't use Walrein simply due to the tedious nature of the strategy. Even though its extremely effective, it doesn't appeal to me at all. I would get no satisfaction from beating someone with sub/protect Walrein in a 50+ turn match. In other words, its usage doesn't reflect its broken capabilities.
 
I believe that a lot of people don't use Walrein simply due to the tedious nature of the strategy. Even though its extremely effective, it doesn't appeal to me at all. I would get no satisfaction from beating someone with sub/protect Walrein in a 50+ turn match. In other words, its usage doesn't reflect its broken capabilities.
While it's true that usage is not a perfect correlation for quality, for reasons like what you mentioned (though I find stall the most interesting strategy to play), it is when dealing with what does and does not centralize the meta-game. When it comes to suspect discussions for OU, it focuses on threats that as so common and so effective that most competitive teams are forced to run multiple checks or highly dedicated counters just to deal with them. Walrein is nothing like that. You can spend days playing RU and never see him, and when you do, he is shut down by quite a few things that are far more common. Hence the the need to build a team around him, and the difficulties that brings.
 
Not that usage has anything to do with brokeness or should affect suspect decisions, but Walrein pretty much needing Hail (stall) support really contribute to him not being used a whole lot. Slowking doesn't currently top the usage stats because he's "broken", but rather because he can play a lot of different roles effectively. Let's also never forget that most of the ladder don't know anything about the hail stall shenanigans, or simply refuse to use it because stalling is "cheap" (lol).

I agree with that August quote in New Breed's post. Walrein and other Ice Body users are ridiculous behind sub+protect. Even moreso if you have some toxic going on.
 
Not that usage has anything to do with brokeness or should affect suspect decisions, but Walrein pretty much needing Hail (stall) support really contribute to him not being used a whole lot. Slowking doesn't currently top the usage stats because he's "broken", but rather because he can play a lot of different roles effectively. Let's also never forget that most of the ladder don't know anything about the hail stall shenanigans, or simply refuse to use it because stalling is "cheap" (lol).

I agree with that August quote in New Breed's post. Walrein and other Ice Body users are ridiculous behind sub+protect. Even moreso if you have some toxic going on.
A Pokemon can certainly be heavily used without being broken, but I cannot see a Pokemon as broken if it is not heavily used, in the context of a competitive meta-game. That's just my view on it.

What August posted looks scary at first, but from my experience, it is almost never that easy to get Walrein set up vs. a skilled player. For one, it is extremely hard to fit a rapid spinner on a Hail stall team because Cyrogonal and Kabutops are defensive liabilities even without compounding your weaknesses to Rock+Fighting and Electric+Fighting, respectively, and don't add much to the team outside of it. The other spinners are not even worth considering, as they can't get past the common spin blockers on their own, and a stall team won't have anyone to do it for them. This means he often has to setup after taking Stealth Rock damage at a minimum, or have Clefable pass him a wish on the way in. And then once he is in, a lot of stuff can stop him or out-stall him even from behind a sub, like sleep-talk abusers (Polywrath/Hariyama/Spiritomb are the best), Magic Guard users, stuff with Rock Blast, almost anything with Taunt, ect. Walrein is more something you bring out late in the match after some key threats have been taken out and the rest of the opponents team has been worn down. The few times I've taken out close to a whole team with him, it was vs. someone who was either really poorly prepared, or who had the means to win but didn't know how to do it, which is not surprising given how rare he is to face.
 

atomicllamas

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GreatEclipse said:
Really, Walrein isn't even common enough to be RU, so I don't see why he would need to be suspected. It's possible that he's just much better than most players think, but until he becomes more popular, he's not in a position to affect much about the meta-game.
Not to be mean, but this just shows how little you know about the process of suspecting. For example, Landorous was recently banned in OU, but in June its usage was only number 26 in the tier (about where Infernape was), and Keldeo, who is very likely the next suspect was sitting at number 15. Now you may not know this, but when Gothitelle was banned by UU to BL, it was actually in the NU tier, and seeing less than two percent usage (in UU). As Andeby's post pointed out, usage and brokenness do not at all correlate, and the suggestion that we should consider usage when we are suspecting something is as absurd as it is stupid. If something is broken, it is broken, regardless of whether it is used very often (think Genesect in OU) or almost never (Gothitelle in UU).

GreatEclipse said:
You can spend days playing RU and never see him, and when you do, he is shut down by quite a few things that are far more common. Hence the the need to build a team around him, and the difficulties that brings.
Sure, one on one Walrein is shut down by a few things in RU (if by few, you mean like 4) but if you carry one thing on your team that your Walrein can set up on, you pretty much lose 2 mons no matter what (unless you carry a steel-type rest talker, which is a ridiculous, or Clefable). And in RU it has plenty of opportunities to set up, such as Moltres, Cryogonal, Slowking, and Uxie (off the top of my head). I suggest you read all of the discussion in this thread a little more carefully, as I'm pretty sure every poster, even those against a ban on hail, agree that Walrein is broken.

GreatEclipse said:
A Pokemon can certainly be heavily used without being broken, but I cannot see a Pokemon as broken if it is not heavily used, in the context of a competitive meta-game. That's just my view on it.
Your view is wrong.
 
Not to be mean, but this just shows how little you know about the process of suspecting. For example, Landorous was recently banned in OU, but in June its usage was only number 26 in the tier (about where Infernape was), and Keldeo, who is very likely the next suspect was sitting at number 15. Now you may not know this, but when Gothitelle was banned by UU to BL, it was actually in the NU tier, and seeing less than two percent usage (in UU). As Andeby's post pointed out, usage and brokenness do not at all correlate, and the suggestion that we should consider usage when we are suspecting something is as absurd as it is stupid. If something is broken, it is broken, regardless of whether it is used very often (think Genesect in OU) or almost never (Gothitelle in UU).
I did not know how things were done in the past, but it still does not make sense to me. When I build a team, I think first about responding to the most common stuff, and try to deal with the less common stuff when it arises. If a majority of people want to ban something for some other reason, I'm fine with that. I'm just giving what strikes me as a really obvious counter-argument.

Sure, one on one Walrein is shut down by a few things in RU (if by few, you mean like 4) but if you carry one thing on your team that your Walrein can set up on, you pretty much lose 2 mons no matter what (unless you carry a steel-type rest talker, which is a ridiculous, or Clefable). And in RU it has plenty of opportunities to set up, such as Moltres, Cryogonal, Slowking, and Uxie (off the top of my head). I suggest you read all of the discussion in this thread a little more carefully, as I'm pretty sure every poster, even those against a ban on hail, agree that Walrein is broken.
It's way more than 4 things that Walrein has to worry about. CM Spiritomb and Sigilyph can easily defeat an entire Hail Stall team on their own, and vs. hyper offense, it's really hard to find the time to even get him in safely and then set up a sub.
 

Texas Cloverleaf

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Slightly relevant to the above, I did a math project on the correlation between usage and banning on Smogon about 18 months back and found that there was less than a 30% correlation coefficient between the two variables. That's to say usage has and should have almost no impact on ones decision to vote on a suspect. This also happens to be common practice among most voters.

For me the choice is simple, I think hail is too much for the tier and that we should not be banning Pokemon that are individually no where close to broken for the sake of saving hail, something which may or may not restrict diversity in the tier. The previous time hail was up for suspect in Ru, way back in round 3, there was no talk of complex banning and I believe that to be the appropriate response in this case as well.
 

chimpact

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Just because walrein is weak to rocks doesn't mean you have to run a rapid spinner on your team. you don't really need a spinner if you make the rest of your team resilient to stealth rock. There are multiple viable magic guard pokemon that synergize well with hail. In addition (if you happen to have it) Ice body balances out the hazard damage with leftovers in 2 turns like a regular pokemon.

You can't just think of things in a vacuum; there are other factors you have to consider.

Hail doesn't seem to broken to me, but it is a bit overcentralizing. The argument of running a weather move as the 4th moveslot on the pokemon seems ridiculous. It's similar to running rapid spin, but hail isn't on every team like rocks are. And the reason why most people even run rapid spin is to support your team (preserve sashes, sturdy, not let moltres die to stealth rock), but the reason why you would run a weather move would be to stop your opponent from abusing their strategy. I don't know if what I said came out clearly, but you should be trying to win, not try to stop your opponent from winning if that makes sense.)
 
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For me the choice is simple, I think hail is too much for the tier and that we should not be banning Pokemon that are individually no where close to broken for the sake of saving hail, something which may or may not restrict diversity in the tier. The previous time hail was up for suspect in Ru, way back in round 3, there was no talk of complex banning and I believe that to be the appropriate response in this case as well.
A complex ban does not ban the two "broken" pokemon Walrein and Glaceon from the tier. Thick fat Walrein is still very viable in hail as an offensive blizz-spammer with useful resistances and bulk. Glaceon is a more difficult case though, as it seems to be on the edge between broken and just-very-powerful in hail. However, Glaceon's ability run a sub/protect Ice Body set arguably makes it broken, similar to how other pokemon have been suspect tested and banned because of particular sets.

I get the impression that complex bans are considered silly and detrimental to the metagame, and should only be implemented if absolutely necessary. Any particular reason for this?

edit: @chimpact - Weather moves don't have to be for the sole purpose of removing hail. I realized that having a weather move just for hail removal is a bit silly, but there are viable sets that involve Sunny Day or Rain Dance to enhance the specific pokemon using it and/or its teammates. i.e. Rain Dance Ludicolo and Sunny Day Moltres with solar beam. Obviously these kinds of sets can't be thrown onto any team, but they're individually very good for removing hail without it essentially being a rapid spin-like move.
 
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I actually agree with GreatEclipse's statement that it is difficult to see how something is broken without it being in high usage. That part isn't wrong by any means. But you really need to dig a bit deeper. Your experience on the ladder may not represent the true metagame at all. Even the usage statistics may be misleading due to the sheer amount of new and casual players outnumbering the experienced ones. This is why things like Infernape rank high on the OU statistics every month, even though it is well known that it's not that great.

This is why we have the 1850 stats, which better represent the high level metagame. Just looking at Snover's position on the overall stats for last month:

| Rank | Pokemon | Usage % | Raw | % | Real | % |

| 52 | Snover | 4.85798% | 4686 | 3.905% | 4543 | 4.614% |
And on the 1850 stats:

| Rank | Pokemon | Usage % | Raw | % | Real | % |
| 18 | Snover | 9.73918% | 4686 | 3.905% | 4543 | 4.614% |
It's apparent that Snover (and by extension, hail) isn't used very much overall, ranking 52nd out of 57 in the tier, but for those who have made the 1850 glicko cutoff, it was actually 18th most used. From this, we can infer that there is something good about hail, as Snover's usage rank skyrocketed after eliminating the lesser skilled players from the stats. This really doesn't say anything about whether it's broken or not though. It just shows that those who use Snover were more likely to be successful with it than most other mons.

Of course the stats don't have to mean that hail is OP, it could just be that higher level players are more predisposed to building hail teams than your average joe, possibly because it requires more knowledge of the metagame than building any old team. There could be many confounding variables that lead us to our current 1850 stats that we'll never really know. And this is why we're having this suspect discussion in the first place.

And of course, the usage stats could mean nothing at all. Texas Cloverleaf hit it on the nail saying that usage should have no impact on your stance in this suspect test. I'm still undecided myself, but I've been following this thread closely to be swayed one way or another.

[unrelated] and after atomicllamas mentioned ou's recent ban... brb salty about the outcome
 

KM

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There are some important things that you guys are all missing about Hail, and more importantly Walrein (or dewgong or whatever, don't even get me started there because just no.)

First of all, it's worth noting that when a counter to Walrein comes in (e.g. Escavalier), there really is nothing Walrein can do against it. Sure, it might be able to hit it with a weak surf, but then it's forced to switch out after its sub is gone, take 25-50% damage from hazards on re-entry and lose a lot of momentum. The fact remains that if one of Walrein's counters is present, or even a threat, Walrein can't safely or comfortably set up. Sure, it can roar it out, but your sub will be down, and if you roar something like a Rotom-C in you're screwed.

Finally, I'd like to address the notion that "running a move to counter hail shows how broken it is".

.
..
...

Hail is a playstyle.
You know what else is a playstyle?
SR/Spike Stacking.
There's this move called oh what was it I forgot now gosh mmm it removes hazards or something ugh its on the tip of my tongue oh right Rapid Spin.

You have 24 moves on your pokemon. Sacrificing one of those moves to basically guarantee a win against a playstyle that 5% of the metagame uses that is apparentally so broken shouldn't be an issue. People are willing to run coverage moves on pokemon for the pure sake of hitting 2 things in a tier. That's a whole moveslot they're dedicating to get rid of something - see basically any set that runs Hidden Power (Raikou and Zapdos in UU, running HP Ice/HP Grass to deal with Flygon/Gligar and Swampert/Rhyperior respectively). And yet, you guys are saying that expecting people to run one move to completely screw over the entire playstyle is unfair or broken?

The underlying problem here isn't that hail is broken, it's that people haven't accounted for it. In a mostly hail-less environment, RU players have been able to get away without having a distinct hail counter on their teams, and when they teambuild, they haven't taken it into account. Rain teams are pretty prevalent in RU, no? And you'll get completely swept by a Rain team if you lack the proper counters, right? It's the same thing - you can't call something broken just because it forces you to take notice of its existence and attempt to create a counter to it before you go out and start laddering.

I'd like to point to UU, where hail gets a couple of other fun toys to play with and is completely balanced in the metagame. Rain Dance Kingdra and Empoleon are run partly because they're good pokemon in their own right, but also because they're amazing counters to hail. I've also seen random Rain Dance/Sunny Day Bronzongs/Sableyes that completely caught my hail team off guard. And unlike UU, where you get the very powerful Abomasnow as a means to reliably re-set up Hail (if it doesn't die early), RU is forced to rely on the undeniably weaker Snover.

What really annoys me about this conversation is how much of it is focused on people talking about hail's strengths. Hail has so many giant weaknesses - e.g. the only type that really benefits from it being up (ice) is weak to 4 types including Rock, anything else on your team that isn't ice will also suffer the 6.25% per turn, Ice is only resistant to itself so strong things can have a field day and build up an insane amount of momentum, etc., etc.

In conclusion, I think you guys need to take a step back and look at the arguments you're presenting and then ask yourself if you're saying why hail is broken, or merely just highlighting its strengths as a viable playstyle. If anything, this suspect test is good merely because it increases the usage and discussion of hail - which should hopefully force people to start running counters to it rather than adopting the quick-fix technique of a ban.
 

SilentVerse

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There are some important things that you guys are all missing about Hail, and more importantly Walrein (or dewgong or whatever, don't even get me started there because just no.)

First of all, it's worth noting that when a counter to Walrein comes in (e.g. Escavalier), there really is nothing Walrein can do against it. Sure, it might be able to hit it with a weak surf, but then it's forced to switch out after its sub is gone, take 25-50% damage from hazards on re-entry and lose a lot of momentum. The fact remains that if one of Walrein's counters is present, or even a threat, Walrein can't safely or comfortably set up. Sure, it can roar it out, but your sub will be down, and if you roar something like a Rotom-C in you're screwed.
Uhh, not really? Walrein's Surf 3HKOes Escavalier the majority of the time after rocks. If it's banded, you can even pp stall that out of whatever move it's using in desperate situations (Iron Head, Megahorn) as well lol, which forces it out and means you just severely crippled one of your opponent's best answers to hail. Not to mention that the stuff that actually beats Roar Walrein with a Substitute up are few and far between. Furthermore, if Walrein is still somehow forced out, that isn't even that much of a problem when you consider just how ridiculously easy it is for it to get up a Substitute, even with Stealth Rock up, simply due to its absurd bulk.

Finally, I'd like to address the notion that "running a move to counter hail shows how broken it is".

.
..
...

Hail is a playstyle.
You know what else is a playstyle?
SR/Spike Stacking.
There's this move called oh what was it I forgot now gosh mmm it removes hazards or something ugh its on the tip of my tongue oh right Rapid Spin.

You have 24 moves on your pokemon. Sacrificing one of those moves to basically guarantee a win against a playstyle that 5% of the metagame uses that is apparentally so broken shouldn't be an issue. People are willing to run coverage moves on pokemon for the pure sake of hitting 2 things in a tier. That's a whole moveslot they're dedicating to get rid of something - see basically any set that runs Hidden Power (Raikou and Zapdos in UU, running HP Ice/HP Grass to deal with Flygon/Gligar and Swampert/Rhyperior respectively). And yet, you guys are saying that expecting people to run one move to completely screw over the entire playstyle is unfair or broken?
Except...like Rapid Spin, using a weather move doesn't necessarily mean you auto-win vs hail either. Snover itself is not great, yeah, but it's perfectly capable of surviving a decent amount of time throughout the match if you're actually willing to not sac it (I generally don't even like saccing Snover first turns anymore, since it's actually super useful as death fodder or providing a somewhat decent switch-in to Rotom-C). Furthermore, like spikestacking offense when hazards are spun away, hail is not completely useless with its weather gone. Hail only tends to run one or two actual abusers of hail; the rest of the team are regular Pokemon like Slowking / Golurk / Escavalier capable of checking things that give Hail issues. Because of this, hail can actually still survive decently well without perma hail on these Pokemon (and it's not like stuff like Rotom-F, Glaceon, and Walrein are entirely useless without hail either), even though it's obviously not ideal.

The underlying problem here isn't that hail is broken, it's that people haven't accounted for it. In a mostly hail-less environment, RU players have been able to get away without having a distinct hail counter on their teams, and when they teambuild, they haven't taken it into account. Rain teams are pretty prevalent in RU, no? And you'll get completely swept by a Rain team if you lack the proper counters, right? It's the same thing - you can't call something broken just because it forces you to take notice of its existence and attempt to create a counter to it before you go out and start laddering.

I'd like to point to UU, where hail gets a couple of other fun toys to play with and is completely balanced in the metagame. Rain Dance Kingdra and Empoleon are run partly because they're good pokemon in their own right, but also because they're amazing counters to hail. I've also seen random Rain Dance/Sunny Day Bronzongs/Sableyes that completely caught my hail team off guard. And unlike UU, where you get the very powerful Abomasnow as a means to reliably re-set up Hail (if it doesn't die early), RU is forced to rely on the undeniably weaker Snover.

What really annoys me about this conversation is how much of it is focused on people talking about hail's strengths. Hail has so many giant weaknesses - e.g. the only type that really benefits from it being up (ice) is weak to 4 types including Rock, anything else on your team that isn't ice will also suffer the 6.25% per turn, Ice is only resistant to itself so strong things can have a field day and build up an insane amount of momentum, etc., etc.

In conclusion, I think you guys need to take a step back and look at the arguments you're presenting and then ask yourself if you're saying why hail is broken, or merely just highlighting its strengths as a viable playstyle. If anything, this suspect test is good merely because it increases the usage and discussion of hail - which should hopefully force people to start running counters to it rather than adopting the quick-fix technique of a ban.
Uhh, just so you know, Rain is hardly prevalent in RU; it has like, 1% usage at best rofl. Imo, the thing that makes hail (and especially stuff like Walrein) broken is that you can prepare for it well enough, but unless you go through almost ridiculous lengths to ensure you're not hail weak (like using 6 mons that give Walrein no chance of set up, or running 4 Pokemon resistant to Blizzard), you're still going to find that you're going to have issues against someone who actually knows how to play Hail, simply because, like stated earlier in this thread, if Walrein sets up, you're probably going to lose at least a Pokemon in trying to beat it, probably more in fact due to just how strong it is. In a similar vein, hail offense is equally strong, because the stuff that can actually take Blizzards repeatedly (Slowking, Cryogonal) are so easy to remove with a little support. And that's really the thing about hail; people ARE running counters to it, and they ARE trying to deal with it, but it's still incredibly difficult to deal with as a whole, simply because of those two aforementioned factors. There's no denying that hail has some big flaws, such as having to use Snover and having a lot of weaknesses to certain types, but they're not overly difficult to deal with with good teambuilding. And once well-built, it becomes devastatingly powerful between its residual damage, 100% accurate STAB Blizzards, and ability to outstall huge portions of the metagame between Substitute + Protect, and that's why so many people are calling for a ban of some sort.
 
Because I know I've been ninja'd (thank you new replies bar) I'll just point out one thing.

Finally, I'd like to address the notion that "running a move to counter hail shows how broken it is".

.
..
...

Hail is a playstyle.
You know what else is a playstyle?
SR/Spike Stacking.
There's this move called oh what was it I forgot now gosh mmm it removes hazards or something ugh its on the tip of my tongue oh right Rapid Spin.

You have 24 moves on your pokemon. Sacrificing one of those moves to basically guarantee a win against a playstyle that 5% of the metagame uses that is apparentally so broken shouldn't be an issue. People are willing to run coverage moves on pokemon for the pure sake of hitting 2 things in a tier. That's a whole moveslot they're dedicating to get rid of something - see basically any set that runs Hidden Power (Raikou and Zapdos in UU, running HP Ice/HP Grass to deal with Flygon/Gligar and Swampert/Rhyperior respectively). And yet, you guys are saying that expecting people to run one move to completely screw over the entire playstyle is unfair or broken?
I honestly don't understand what this is even trying to say, but I'll try to asses it. Running something like Rain Dance is a lot different than running Hidden Power Ice or Grass. Hidden Power is used on Raikou because what the heck else are you going to use on SubCM or something? Hidden Power Ice is used alongside Thunderbolt because it grants nearly perfect neutral coverage, Hidden Power Grass is used in order to hit some checks harder but still do damage on the Hidden Power Ice stuff.

Rapid Spin is a lot different than a random weather move too because Rapid Spin is helpful for supporting your teammates that are weak to Stealth Rock or get quickly worn down. Rapid Spin is not only used for dealing with spikestacking teams.

Rain Dance or Sunny Day accomplishes absolutely nothing on most Pokemon and it is a moveslot that is dead weight otherwise, or can actually cripple your other teammates. Assuming that running Hidden Power on a Pokemon that already has almost no movepool or running Rapid Spin is akin to running a weather move on anything else makes little to no sense.

Also nothing on a Rain team is going to indefinitely attempt to stall you out with Substitute + Protect. The only Rain Dish user I can think of is Ludicolo, but here's the thing - Rain doesn't last forever unlike hail. Rain also isn't remotely common, as Silentverse mentioned.
 
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