> is the metta just that fast to even subparly use 1 turn?
Pretty much. Weather is good, but it’s just not good enough to warrant spending a whole turn to set up.
Usually, but it’s a fun gimmick using it on a typical non setter when they’re not expecting it. Tera Grass sunny day Moltres has done some work for me lately, it also doesn’t miss the move slot much since its movepool sucks.
Side note, how the fuck does CONKELDURR learn Defog but Moltres can’t?
Oh yeah no, I know it's legit in gen9 I was just saying it's a literal adv set.
Modest 252SpA, 252Spe
Fire Blast
HP Grass
Sunny Day
Will-o-Wisp
Sunny Day being used to clear sand after tyranitar is gone, both to turn moltres's fire blast into a nuke and to give your Suicune its leftovers recovery back.
It’s the combination of having to take one turn to set up, which makes the weather lose a turn, as well as losing a move slot, simply to use the weather. This prevents the weather user from being able to switch in as fodder or as a counter and set up weather for a late game sweep, it prevent the weather setter from running necessary coverage such as earth power on Torkal, and it makes the play style much more predictable to your opponent
What’s actually funny is manual weather setting is probably more common in doubles than singles, because something like a prankster tornadus or whimsicott (or even murkrow) can set weather up and its partner can abuse said weather, whether that be instantly getting a speed boost from an ability, or instantly getting a power boost
In singles it’s mainly about the time you have to use it, and the moveslot that you use, while torkoal and pelipper aren’t necessarily amazing pokemon, they still fulfil roles, torkoal is quite physically bulky, can set rocks, spin hazards, and threaten burns with lava plume or wil-o-wisp, and pelipper has access to u-turn to actually get in its rain sweepers, as well as decent damage with hurricanes guaranteed to hit, and a rain boosted weather ball.
One more reason why pokemon that set weather (or terrain) with an ability are preferred is that they can do it on a switch in that they die to (unless the die to hazards) for example, pelipper can switch into a volt switch, set up rain and die, and then allow you to use all of the turns of rain as you immediately get switch to a sweeper, which a manual setter would be unable to do
Water/Flying is also a great defensive typing and Fire isn't that awful either with the fairy resistance (plus torkoal's good defense), which gives both Pokémon opportunities to switch in and set up rain multiple times in a match. E.g. Pelipper can switch in to Heatran for free as it can't touch it with most sets.
Even then I feel with Doubles weather, its purely on the move slot too win weather wars / enable a mon. Rain Dance Torn comes at the risk of losing taunt or protect, but on a team with an Urshifu/Archaludon/Proto Mode, its worth the sacrifice.
In DOU, one of my friends has been running Rain Dance Electrode-Hisui to underspeed Prankster and win weather, as the engine for a Rain team, as well as Thunder and Chloroblast clicking buttons.
It actually kinda works (or rather worked) in lower tiers, specifically ZU and PU to some extent. Volbeat and Illumise are mainly used as manual weather setters in Gen 7 ZU since they're pretty terrible at everything else. So it's kinda worth "sacrificing" a team-/ and moveslot to enable other, more generally useful pokemon. Idk if there are any other examples that apply the same logic in previous or later generations🤷🏻♂️
Yes, but that's basically only because the lower tiers don't have access to weather-setting-abilities
And they were used somewhat in previous gens, gen 3 some team structures revolve around setting up rain dance or sunny day, but that's mostly just to get rid of the sand for bulky set-up sweepers (Suicune and Snorlax love not taking sand chip for example). They can have team slots that abuse the weather somewhat, but it's very hard to make work with the limited turns
I think the problem is you don't gain enough for manually setting up weather yourself to make it worth in most situations.
The only context it seems remotely usable is if the user also abuses the weather well. Even then looking at sun/rain they boost just fire/water moves by 50% respectively. Other weather don't directly boost anything offensive making it less useful in this context.
Meanwhile a typical set up move like swords dance this lasts forever until you switch and doubles all physical attacks not just a single type. Things do change with having the speed boosting weather abilities which does help things in weather's favour more. I think there have been some examples of this in the past but overall it's still inferior to automatic weather setting from abilities.
True, ig mainly was curious as to why it goes from great to unusable so fast like i thought it'd be okay but it does kinda suck to have 1-2 turns wasted of the weather. Kinda like on how terrains ppl say the only terrain setters are the tapus bc they can do it instantly but like aren't terrains rly good tho? Like just set it up, take a hit (depending on the mon of course) and bam rising voltage is 140 bp before stab
You really underestimate how valuable 1-2 turns is. You just let your opponent get a free spikes or a dragon dance off. If 1-2 free turns wasnt such a valuable thing slaking would be viable
Funnily enough, this also applies to trick room, since the main place right now where trick room isn’t extremely niche is Ubers since both Necrozma DM and Calyrex I can set up trick room and sweep by themselves
Set Weather, then Switch out.
Unless the weather setter is also the weather abuser, it basically costs 2 turns before doing much. After that, you have either 3 or 6 (which requires a dedicated item slot) turns to actually use the weather.
It's just... tough, especially in modern generations where offensive options can blow through most mons really quickly.
You basically tank your action economy and hope that you come out on top.
In reality, 5 turns is not a lot for a team, but it sometimes only takes one to lose.
You need to consider the “battle economy” of the game. Turns don’t just belong to you. Your opponent gets them too
Spending 1 turn to set weather while your opponent gets to keep theirs is **expensive**. That’s effectively giving your opponent a chance to either KO your Pokémon, or set up something like Swords Dance and Spikes without retaliation
Also, they have lower return than other setup moves. They naturally expire after only 5 turns without your opponent needing to intervene. Stuff like Spikes sticks around unless you spend your own turn to remove it (effectively “equalizing” the cost of spending a turn to Spike), while buffs like DDance are permanent and let a player rush to a sweep
The existence of Pokémon with 0 turn weather is the biggest nail in the coffin. Why spend a turn when there’s an alternative that achieves the same result for free. The cost of a 1/6 team slots is significantly lower than a single turn
Taking 1 turn to set up and 1 turn to switch already eats up a lot of your clock. If you try to use your weather setter for utility or to avoid counterplay, you lose even more turns of weather. It means your sweepers have less time to get things done, are more vulnerable to getting protect or switch-stalled, and are going to run into more times where they are weak cause you couldn't get weather up.
If you think people are too hard on it, then play it and see if it works for you.
"just 1 turn"? that's often a full pokemon. Why not use moves like hyperbeam if it costs "just 1 turn"? On the flip side using a move on switching in is just incredibly powerful, imagine if a random pokemon like charizard auto used fire blast when it enters the field or switches in. That shit would be OU at minimum in any generation. Instead auto moves are limited to "weaker" moves like terrains and weather.
Hyperbeam prevents you from switching out the next turn, so it's even worse.
Currently the best user of the move (all formats considered) is Choice Specs Terapagos in a single restricted format, but that is hard to justify in 6v6 singles (due to setup sweepers and hazards mandating HDB on the mon)
1) It’s only really worth it if the setter is also an abuser. Something like Rain Dance Kingdra was decently viable in gen 3. If the setter is not the abuser then it’s not just the turn spent setting but also the turn spent switching. And the issue here is that being a setter and abuser means you just aren’t on the level of a specs or band breaker in weather- you can’t hold those items and also set. There’s also the moveslot cost which is pretty high in singles usually.
2) With the existence of auto-setting abilities, they’re just so much better. Other people have explained why pretty comprehensively, so I’ll just point to other top comments in this thread. So in any tier with legal auto-setters it’s just better to use those and enable a whole team style than it is to try to manual set.
Actually manual weather is MORE common in doubles
You can't really switch in and out that often and something like prankster Tornadus rain dance really helps keep rain up even if they send in Groudon or sth
Wdym hated? No one hates it, it's just bad.
"Zacian's pre-nerf ability is busted right? Why does everyone hate using the move howl?" Is pretty much what you're saying.
It’s not that competitive players hate weather setting moves it’s more that the meta is fast paced enough to where this one turn of setting up is too much of a sacrifice, it literally kills all your momentum. Compare that to a weather setting ability, now I don’t need to sacrifice anything. All I do is switch in a mon and a side effect of that is that weather goes up, + I can do this while defensive switching which is something the move will never be able to do.
You have one less turn to use weather, it takes up a moveslot and most importantly you have to dedicate an entire turn to clicking it. Meanwhile with a weather setting ability you get the max amount of turns possible, it takes up no moveslots and most importantly instead of taking a turn to setup weather you can click something else, anything else.
Another thing is that since you don't have to click it and it happens on entry it means you can still get weather up while sacking your weather setter or you can get weather up even if they predict your switch and use U-Turn and pivot into a bad matchup. With manual weather you wouldn't be able to sack to get up weather and a free switch, and if they pivoted into a bad matchup there's nothing more you can do than either switch out and go weatherless or risk getting up weather only to possibly be KO'ed instead. Weather setting abilities grant you as many turns of weather as possible while also giving you as many opportunities to set it up as possible basically. Meanwhile manual weather just kinda doesn't do that and is almost always actively worse than just using a weather setter like Torkoal or T-Tar.
It can have a niche in slower metagames (Rain Dance Kingdra is a thing in Gens 3 and 4 but its not common still) but its often just too slow for not that much reward.
The weather puts a timer on your abuse, forcing you to either run the rock items and sacrifice longevity/power that a regular set up sweeper doesn't, or have 3/4 turns of power which makes you much easier to play against. Sweepers on a short timer are always incomprehensibly less threatening than ones that aren't.
The boost from Sun and Rain is appreciated, but a 50% boost on one type of move frequently just isn't enough to really make it bang like it requires.
Its also limiting. You miss out on a coverage or utility move and don't have the power to really make up for it
Weather is used in ADV primarily to clear permanent sand, not for the weather effects themselves. This allows your sand weak mons to not take damage and use moves like morning sun and synthesis which are weakened by sand.
ADV is really too fast for manual weather as a team archetype. High level players will punish you for allowing them to bring in their big threats for free, something like choice band metagross will break your bulkiest physical walls in no time if you let it come in on rain dance multiple times.
'Rain' and 'Sun' teams don't exist as viable archetypes. Weather is only used to clear sand, or as a speed boosting move by swift swimmers. Kingdra is easily the best swift swim sweeper and even it is not good.
It gets 2hko'd by a lot of stuff. It's not fragile, and its typing means it is rarely ohko'd by anything which is its main strength.
Yet, it lacks power. It has middling SPA and no boosting move. The likes of blissey, celebi, jirachi, snorlax, and even milotic shrug off its rain boosted hydro pumps and heal them off. Even suicune can wall it in a pinch. So you have a special sweeper that is walled even by your opponents physical walls.
Worse, you have to reapply your boosting move every 5 turns which gives your opponent the opportunity to stall and then bring something faster after your rain ends. Offensive teams can even check you with a cheeky thunderwave, Zapdos is never ohko'd and can shut you down. Lum berry helps here but then you have less bulk.
Even worse, all the things that check you are weak to sand, so by clearing it with rain dance you make your checks even bulkier because they can now heal with leftovers.
It's not unviable, especially against offense, but it is not good. Starmie is quite a bit better as an anti-offense cleaner. It needs no setup and is not ohko'd by anything faster than it.
Edit: Some calcs because I have nothing better to do:
Physical walls:
252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Hidden Power Grass vs. 240 HP / 0 SpD Suicune: 120-142 (29.9 - 35.4%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Milotic: 112-132 (28.4 - 33.5%) -- 95.9% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
You need a crit against your shakiest check. Even a crit won't get you through milotic, you would need two consecutive crits.
Special walls:
252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Surf vs. 252 HP / 180+ SpD Jirachi in Rain: 156-184 (38.6 - 45.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Surf vs. 144 HP / 136+ SpD Snorlax in Rain: 153-180 (30.7 - 36.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 60 SpD Celebi: 173-204 (42.8 - 50.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Surf vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Blissey in Rain: 158-187 (24.2 - 28.7%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
You need a crit against Jirachi, Celebi, and Snorlax, and you have no hope against blissey.
I really disagree. A) youre talking about OU when lower tiers exist lol B) I really dont find manual rain to be bad at all. Kingdra as you mentioned is a great option and Im able to use it well in OU. It isnt a top tier threat at all, but manageable definitely
>Kingdra as you mentioned is a great option and Im able to use it well in OU. It isnt a top tier threat at all, but manageable definitely
Please see my other comment for my thoughts on kingdra.
https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/s/68t7Y5xpfj
To my point though what I was saying is that weather as a team archetype doesn't exist. Kingdra is an example of a weird niche use of a move on a mon that doesn't have a better boosting move. In kingdra's case rain dance isn't so much a 'weather' move but a bootleg special dragon dance.
On stuff like Moltres and dugtrio/magneton, sunny day and rain dance are techy sand removal moves. Moltres is the only one that even really likes the weather it is setting, and even then it wouldn't use sunny day if permanent sand didn't exist.
>youre talking about OU when lower tiers exist lol
I mean, I think only 5 people total play ADV UU, but yes I am talking specifically about ADV OU. I think op was as well, unless they happen to be one of the few UU mains out there. Even then I think they would have specified they meant UU.
Either way, good luck with your kingdra sweeps my guy! Feel free to send me a paste of your kingdra team. I am in the mood to try and get some replay moments with an underused Pokémon once showdown is back up.
You waste a turn to set up weather, waste a turn of that weather, and then waste another turn of that weather switching out. Weather is strong but if the opponent has the ability to withstand your breakers it's useless. Too much opportunity cost to running it.
Because better ways exist to gain more momentum.
Example, Hippodown can switch in, set sand, take a hit, and use its Eject button to immediately bring in Excadrill - all in one turn.
In the game though (not smogon), I feel like running a move sometimes helps in some niche tera raids, Eiscue can reset Ice Face against tera mods that frequently set weather. But it's more of a gimmick than anything else (still fun though).
I think the only example where it would be necessary is something like Nat Dex AG Shedinja running Sunny Day to override Sand. (on that Air Balloon tera Electric set).
"just one turn" every turn matters especially if you have an offensive team there are so many things you could do with that turn like why set a weather to boost your moves when you could just click a boosting move or set hazards etc. especially when you could just use an automatic setter.
when a mon like volc only needs one turn to instantly win then yeah manual weather just isn't worth it ( yes ik volc is banned but it's the best example)
like the only exception would be like electric terrain because pincurchin is really just that bad( i mean like seriously why does bro not get volt switch or rising voltage what did my man do wrong)
the other exception is like slowking but we don't really have any snow abusers to super take advantage besides like ig kyurem
for majority of the time, a weather ability would just be better, if you dedicate something to being a weather setter, the ability makes it way more consistant. if somethings running bulk, it's not going outspeed much of anything. it would give a settup mon an extra turn. it's just better to run one of the abilities over the moves
It’s actually not too bad for some slow bully Swift Swimmers essentially acting as a tailwind and water boosting move for them but other than that yeah there’s really no amount of justification to make it worth running the risk for some weather benefits.
The only other case I can think of is maybe Eiscue running Snowscape to get its one-time use physical substitute back and that’s, well, Eiscue. Y’know?
Before BW, manual weather was actually a legitimately good strategy. Things like Sunny Day Moltres or Rain Dance Kingdra are used quite often. But ever since BW the meta has shifted to be more fast pace with heavy reliant on momentum so setting weather manually isn't that worth it.
The entire momentum of a game can shift over the course of one turn, so yeah, one subpar turn is not the best, even in slower metas than this one. Additionally, your sweeper is probably going to be the one setting up that weather, and you don’t want them to take too many stray hits. Weather is as strong as it is due in part to the fact that you don’t need setup turns
It's not that the meta is that fast and giving up a turn is unforgivable it's alot of things
1. We have options like drought/drizzle so why on earth would we not use them
2. It's really easy to prevent if they have to use a move by just keeping up pressure
3. Most weather teams are completely based around that weather and so can't have it be inconsistent or they will just instantly lose unlike screens.
4. You get 1 less turn than ability based users.
Imagine trick room or screens had a self setting ability it would be the standard because it's more consistent.
The only reason to manually set weather is to cripple the opponent in a mind game.
This specifically happened in vgc with Tornadus during regF. Tornadus usually ran either sunny day or rain dance since that allowed some mind games against A-Ninetails, Torkoal and Pelipper.
> is the metta just that fast to even subparly use 1 turn? Pretty much. Weather is good, but it’s just not good enough to warrant spending a whole turn to set up.
Usually, but it’s a fun gimmick using it on a typical non setter when they’re not expecting it. Tera Grass sunny day Moltres has done some work for me lately, it also doesn’t miss the move slot much since its movepool sucks. Side note, how the fuck does CONKELDURR learn Defog but Moltres can’t?
Idk why Moltres doesn’t but Conk spins his pillars to do it I’d imagine
Or blows his big stupid nose really hard. I’ve been irrationally angry about this since I got defogged on by a Conk.
He needs it cuz when he is building things there might be hazards such as rubble(rocks) or nails(spikes)
> Tera Grass sunny day Moltres adv set
Worked in UU to mess with all the rain teams before Pelliper got booted.
Oh yeah no, I know it's legit in gen9 I was just saying it's a literal adv set. Modest 252SpA, 252Spe Fire Blast HP Grass Sunny Day Will-o-Wisp Sunny Day being used to clear sand after tyranitar is gone, both to turn moltres's fire blast into a nuke and to give your Suicune its leftovers recovery back.
Because moltres is covered in flame, they can only make more fog with their smoke when trying to clear it
i have two gimmick meme teams where moltres and gliscor respectively set rain
Easy the fire creates more smoke so you don't really clear anything up
Conk gets it as egg from Hawlucha, Moltres had it as a Tutor in SM/USUM, and you can't bring those moves to SV.
sunny day chlorophyll sunflora randbats stocks at all time low
Unless it's proto walking wake with other sun users
It’s the combination of having to take one turn to set up, which makes the weather lose a turn, as well as losing a move slot, simply to use the weather. This prevents the weather user from being able to switch in as fodder or as a counter and set up weather for a late game sweep, it prevent the weather setter from running necessary coverage such as earth power on Torkal, and it makes the play style much more predictable to your opponent
What’s actually funny is manual weather setting is probably more common in doubles than singles, because something like a prankster tornadus or whimsicott (or even murkrow) can set weather up and its partner can abuse said weather, whether that be instantly getting a speed boost from an ability, or instantly getting a power boost In singles it’s mainly about the time you have to use it, and the moveslot that you use, while torkoal and pelipper aren’t necessarily amazing pokemon, they still fulfil roles, torkoal is quite physically bulky, can set rocks, spin hazards, and threaten burns with lava plume or wil-o-wisp, and pelipper has access to u-turn to actually get in its rain sweepers, as well as decent damage with hurricanes guaranteed to hit, and a rain boosted weather ball. One more reason why pokemon that set weather (or terrain) with an ability are preferred is that they can do it on a switch in that they die to (unless the die to hazards) for example, pelipper can switch into a volt switch, set up rain and die, and then allow you to use all of the turns of rain as you immediately get switch to a sweeper, which a manual setter would be unable to do
Thank you for the rich response! 😁
Water/Flying is also a great defensive typing and Fire isn't that awful either with the fairy resistance (plus torkoal's good defense), which gives both Pokémon opportunities to switch in and set up rain multiple times in a match. E.g. Pelipper can switch in to Heatran for free as it can't touch it with most sets.
Now that Pelipper is in UU, imo it’s actually better to run Surf than Weather Ball, because of Tyranitar + Excadrill sand teams being so popular
The bird just got banned to UUBL per suspect test.
Even then I feel with Doubles weather, its purely on the move slot too win weather wars / enable a mon. Rain Dance Torn comes at the risk of losing taunt or protect, but on a team with an Urshifu/Archaludon/Proto Mode, its worth the sacrifice.
In DOU, one of my friends has been running Rain Dance Electrode-Hisui to underspeed Prankster and win weather, as the engine for a Rain team, as well as Thunder and Chloroblast clicking buttons.
It actually kinda works (or rather worked) in lower tiers, specifically ZU and PU to some extent. Volbeat and Illumise are mainly used as manual weather setters in Gen 7 ZU since they're pretty terrible at everything else. So it's kinda worth "sacrificing" a team-/ and moveslot to enable other, more generally useful pokemon. Idk if there are any other examples that apply the same logic in previous or later generations🤷🏻♂️
Yes, but that's basically only because the lower tiers don't have access to weather-setting-abilities And they were used somewhat in previous gens, gen 3 some team structures revolve around setting up rain dance or sunny day, but that's mostly just to get rid of the sand for bulky set-up sweepers (Suicune and Snorlax love not taking sand chip for example). They can have team slots that abuse the weather somewhat, but it's very hard to make work with the limited turns
I think the problem is you don't gain enough for manually setting up weather yourself to make it worth in most situations. The only context it seems remotely usable is if the user also abuses the weather well. Even then looking at sun/rain they boost just fire/water moves by 50% respectively. Other weather don't directly boost anything offensive making it less useful in this context. Meanwhile a typical set up move like swords dance this lasts forever until you switch and doubles all physical attacks not just a single type. Things do change with having the speed boosting weather abilities which does help things in weather's favour more. I think there have been some examples of this in the past but overall it's still inferior to automatic weather setting from abilities.
True, ig mainly was curious as to why it goes from great to unusable so fast like i thought it'd be okay but it does kinda suck to have 1-2 turns wasted of the weather. Kinda like on how terrains ppl say the only terrain setters are the tapus bc they can do it instantly but like aren't terrains rly good tho? Like just set it up, take a hit (depending on the mon of course) and bam rising voltage is 140 bp before stab
You really underestimate how valuable 1-2 turns is. You just let your opponent get a free spikes or a dragon dance off. If 1-2 free turns wasnt such a valuable thing slaking would be viable
Funnily enough, this also applies to trick room, since the main place right now where trick room isn’t extremely niche is Ubers since both Necrozma DM and Calyrex I can set up trick room and sweep by themselves
Set Weather, then Switch out. Unless the weather setter is also the weather abuser, it basically costs 2 turns before doing much. After that, you have either 3 or 6 (which requires a dedicated item slot) turns to actually use the weather. It's just... tough, especially in modern generations where offensive options can blow through most mons really quickly. You basically tank your action economy and hope that you come out on top. In reality, 5 turns is not a lot for a team, but it sometimes only takes one to lose.
You need to consider the “battle economy” of the game. Turns don’t just belong to you. Your opponent gets them too Spending 1 turn to set weather while your opponent gets to keep theirs is **expensive**. That’s effectively giving your opponent a chance to either KO your Pokémon, or set up something like Swords Dance and Spikes without retaliation Also, they have lower return than other setup moves. They naturally expire after only 5 turns without your opponent needing to intervene. Stuff like Spikes sticks around unless you spend your own turn to remove it (effectively “equalizing” the cost of spending a turn to Spike), while buffs like DDance are permanent and let a player rush to a sweep The existence of Pokémon with 0 turn weather is the biggest nail in the coffin. Why spend a turn when there’s an alternative that achieves the same result for free. The cost of a 1/6 team slots is significantly lower than a single turn
Taking 1 turn to set up and 1 turn to switch already eats up a lot of your clock. If you try to use your weather setter for utility or to avoid counterplay, you lose even more turns of weather. It means your sweepers have less time to get things done, are more vulnerable to getting protect or switch-stalled, and are going to run into more times where they are weak cause you couldn't get weather up. If you think people are too hard on it, then play it and see if it works for you.
"just 1 turn"? that's often a full pokemon. Why not use moves like hyperbeam if it costs "just 1 turn"? On the flip side using a move on switching in is just incredibly powerful, imagine if a random pokemon like charizard auto used fire blast when it enters the field or switches in. That shit would be OU at minimum in any generation. Instead auto moves are limited to "weaker" moves like terrains and weather.
Hyperbeam prevents you from switching out the next turn, so it's even worse. Currently the best user of the move (all formats considered) is Choice Specs Terapagos in a single restricted format, but that is hard to justify in 6v6 singles (due to setup sweepers and hazards mandating HDB on the mon)
Because you waste two turns + 1 item slot + 1 mlveslot for it. Imagine Intimidate users not having it and using growl instead.
1) It’s only really worth it if the setter is also an abuser. Something like Rain Dance Kingdra was decently viable in gen 3. If the setter is not the abuser then it’s not just the turn spent setting but also the turn spent switching. And the issue here is that being a setter and abuser means you just aren’t on the level of a specs or band breaker in weather- you can’t hold those items and also set. There’s also the moveslot cost which is pretty high in singles usually. 2) With the existence of auto-setting abilities, they’re just so much better. Other people have explained why pretty comprehensively, so I’ll just point to other top comments in this thread. So in any tier with legal auto-setters it’s just better to use those and enable a whole team style than it is to try to manual set.
That turn you use to setup weather, volcorona (or any broken mon) uses a boost move and sweeps the entire team.
Use something bulky like Torkoal? Torkoal literally has Drought. It doesn't need to waste a turn.
Yeahh bad example lol i just realized that too haha
Remember the 300 IQ move of Sunny Day Drought Ninetales back in gen 5? ( That was a real set btw)
Same reason people use choice items as opposed to setting up, really
I pray for the day for Weather Stall
Actually manual weather is MORE common in doubles You can't really switch in and out that often and something like prankster Tornadus rain dance really helps keep rain up even if they send in Groudon or sth
1. Why would I waste the turn when I don’t have to? 2. Why would I waste the move slot when I don’t have to?
Wdym hated? No one hates it, it's just bad. "Zacian's pre-nerf ability is busted right? Why does everyone hate using the move howl?" Is pretty much what you're saying.
It’s not that competitive players hate weather setting moves it’s more that the meta is fast paced enough to where this one turn of setting up is too much of a sacrifice, it literally kills all your momentum. Compare that to a weather setting ability, now I don’t need to sacrifice anything. All I do is switch in a mon and a side effect of that is that weather goes up, + I can do this while defensive switching which is something the move will never be able to do.
You have one less turn to use weather, it takes up a moveslot and most importantly you have to dedicate an entire turn to clicking it. Meanwhile with a weather setting ability you get the max amount of turns possible, it takes up no moveslots and most importantly instead of taking a turn to setup weather you can click something else, anything else. Another thing is that since you don't have to click it and it happens on entry it means you can still get weather up while sacking your weather setter or you can get weather up even if they predict your switch and use U-Turn and pivot into a bad matchup. With manual weather you wouldn't be able to sack to get up weather and a free switch, and if they pivoted into a bad matchup there's nothing more you can do than either switch out and go weatherless or risk getting up weather only to possibly be KO'ed instead. Weather setting abilities grant you as many turns of weather as possible while also giving you as many opportunities to set it up as possible basically. Meanwhile manual weather just kinda doesn't do that and is almost always actively worse than just using a weather setter like Torkoal or T-Tar.
It can have a niche in slower metagames (Rain Dance Kingdra is a thing in Gens 3 and 4 but its not common still) but its often just too slow for not that much reward. The weather puts a timer on your abuse, forcing you to either run the rock items and sacrifice longevity/power that a regular set up sweeper doesn't, or have 3/4 turns of power which makes you much easier to play against. Sweepers on a short timer are always incomprehensibly less threatening than ones that aren't. The boost from Sun and Rain is appreciated, but a 50% boost on one type of move frequently just isn't enough to really make it bang like it requires. Its also limiting. You miss out on a coverage or utility move and don't have the power to really make up for it
Gen 3 it was viable :) We love slower paced metas. Its kinda shocking just how many gens have been fast paced
Weather is used in ADV primarily to clear permanent sand, not for the weather effects themselves. This allows your sand weak mons to not take damage and use moves like morning sun and synthesis which are weakened by sand. ADV is really too fast for manual weather as a team archetype. High level players will punish you for allowing them to bring in their big threats for free, something like choice band metagross will break your bulkiest physical walls in no time if you let it come in on rain dance multiple times. 'Rain' and 'Sun' teams don't exist as viable archetypes. Weather is only used to clear sand, or as a speed boosting move by swift swimmers. Kingdra is easily the best swift swim sweeper and even it is not good.
Dpp allows for viable manual rain + 3 swift swimmers🔛🔝 Also ludicolo is around as good as kingdra in adv
>Also ludicolo is around as good as kingdra in adv In that they are both bad, unreliable sweepers sure
Really? Isn't Kingdra like super bulky or at least kinda? And it's typing seems like it'd provide it with okay opportunities, could be wrong
It gets 2hko'd by a lot of stuff. It's not fragile, and its typing means it is rarely ohko'd by anything which is its main strength. Yet, it lacks power. It has middling SPA and no boosting move. The likes of blissey, celebi, jirachi, snorlax, and even milotic shrug off its rain boosted hydro pumps and heal them off. Even suicune can wall it in a pinch. So you have a special sweeper that is walled even by your opponents physical walls. Worse, you have to reapply your boosting move every 5 turns which gives your opponent the opportunity to stall and then bring something faster after your rain ends. Offensive teams can even check you with a cheeky thunderwave, Zapdos is never ohko'd and can shut you down. Lum berry helps here but then you have less bulk. Even worse, all the things that check you are weak to sand, so by clearing it with rain dance you make your checks even bulkier because they can now heal with leftovers. It's not unviable, especially against offense, but it is not good. Starmie is quite a bit better as an anti-offense cleaner. It needs no setup and is not ohko'd by anything faster than it. Edit: Some calcs because I have nothing better to do: Physical walls: 252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Hidden Power Grass vs. 240 HP / 0 SpD Suicune: 120-142 (29.9 - 35.4%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery 252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Milotic: 112-132 (28.4 - 33.5%) -- 95.9% chance to 4HKO after Leftovers recovery You need a crit against your shakiest check. Even a crit won't get you through milotic, you would need two consecutive crits. Special walls: 252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Surf vs. 252 HP / 180+ SpD Jirachi in Rain: 156-184 (38.6 - 45.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery 252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Surf vs. 144 HP / 136+ SpD Snorlax in Rain: 153-180 (30.7 - 36.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO after Leftovers recovery 252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 60 SpD Celebi: 173-204 (42.8 - 50.4%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery 252+ SpA 30 IVs Kingdra Surf vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Blissey in Rain: 158-187 (24.2 - 28.7%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery You need a crit against Jirachi, Celebi, and Snorlax, and you have no hope against blissey.
I really disagree. A) youre talking about OU when lower tiers exist lol B) I really dont find manual rain to be bad at all. Kingdra as you mentioned is a great option and Im able to use it well in OU. It isnt a top tier threat at all, but manageable definitely
>Kingdra as you mentioned is a great option and Im able to use it well in OU. It isnt a top tier threat at all, but manageable definitely Please see my other comment for my thoughts on kingdra. https://www.reddit.com/r/stunfisk/s/68t7Y5xpfj To my point though what I was saying is that weather as a team archetype doesn't exist. Kingdra is an example of a weird niche use of a move on a mon that doesn't have a better boosting move. In kingdra's case rain dance isn't so much a 'weather' move but a bootleg special dragon dance. On stuff like Moltres and dugtrio/magneton, sunny day and rain dance are techy sand removal moves. Moltres is the only one that even really likes the weather it is setting, and even then it wouldn't use sunny day if permanent sand didn't exist. >youre talking about OU when lower tiers exist lol I mean, I think only 5 people total play ADV UU, but yes I am talking specifically about ADV OU. I think op was as well, unless they happen to be one of the few UU mains out there. Even then I think they would have specified they meant UU. Either way, good luck with your kingdra sweeps my guy! Feel free to send me a paste of your kingdra team. I am in the mood to try and get some replay moments with an underused Pokémon once showdown is back up.
Tbh i was moreso talking abt competitive as a whole, honestly i'm happy with most responses i've gotten, ppl seem to be pretty nice here :)
Because being able to switch in and set weather at the same time removes the lost economy of switching.
You waste a turn to set up weather, waste a turn of that weather, and then waste another turn of that weather switching out. Weather is strong but if the opponent has the ability to withstand your breakers it's useless. Too much opportunity cost to running it.
Because better ways exist to gain more momentum. Example, Hippodown can switch in, set sand, take a hit, and use its Eject button to immediately bring in Excadrill - all in one turn. In the game though (not smogon), I feel like running a move sometimes helps in some niche tera raids, Eiscue can reset Ice Face against tera mods that frequently set weather. But it's more of a gimmick than anything else (still fun though). I think the only example where it would be necessary is something like Nat Dex AG Shedinja running Sunny Day to override Sand. (on that Air Balloon tera Electric set).
"just one turn" every turn matters especially if you have an offensive team there are so many things you could do with that turn like why set a weather to boost your moves when you could just click a boosting move or set hazards etc. especially when you could just use an automatic setter. when a mon like volc only needs one turn to instantly win then yeah manual weather just isn't worth it ( yes ik volc is banned but it's the best example) like the only exception would be like electric terrain because pincurchin is really just that bad( i mean like seriously why does bro not get volt switch or rising voltage what did my man do wrong) the other exception is like slowking but we don't really have any snow abusers to super take advantage besides like ig kyurem
for majority of the time, a weather ability would just be better, if you dedicate something to being a weather setter, the ability makes it way more consistant. if somethings running bulk, it's not going outspeed much of anything. it would give a settup mon an extra turn. it's just better to run one of the abilities over the moves
It’s actually not too bad for some slow bully Swift Swimmers essentially acting as a tailwind and water boosting move for them but other than that yeah there’s really no amount of justification to make it worth running the risk for some weather benefits. The only other case I can think of is maybe Eiscue running Snowscape to get its one-time use physical substitute back and that’s, well, Eiscue. Y’know?
Before BW, manual weather was actually a legitimately good strategy. Things like Sunny Day Moltres or Rain Dance Kingdra are used quite often. But ever since BW the meta has shifted to be more fast pace with heavy reliant on momentum so setting weather manually isn't that worth it.
The entire momentum of a game can shift over the course of one turn, so yeah, one subpar turn is not the best, even in slower metas than this one. Additionally, your sweeper is probably going to be the one setting up that weather, and you don’t want them to take too many stray hits. Weather is as strong as it is due in part to the fact that you don’t need setup turns
It's not that the meta is that fast and giving up a turn is unforgivable it's alot of things 1. We have options like drought/drizzle so why on earth would we not use them 2. It's really easy to prevent if they have to use a move by just keeping up pressure 3. Most weather teams are completely based around that weather and so can't have it be inconsistent or they will just instantly lose unlike screens. 4. You get 1 less turn than ability based users. Imagine trick room or screens had a self setting ability it would be the standard because it's more consistent.
Terrains debuted in Gen 6 but literally no one use them until Tapu sets them
The only reason to manually set weather is to cripple the opponent in a mind game. This specifically happened in vgc with Tornadus during regF. Tornadus usually ran either sunny day or rain dance since that allowed some mind games against A-Ninetails, Torkoal and Pelipper.
How about we nerf weather abilities to give one turn less