• Our software update is now concluded. You will need to reset your password to log in. In order to do this, you will have to click "Log in" in the top right corner and then "Forgot your password?".
  • Welcome to PokéCommunity! Register now and join one of the best fan communities on the 'net to talk Pokémon and more! We are not affiliated with The Pokémon Company or Nintendo.
    Register

If Stealth Rock was banned...

shdwdrake8

12
Posts
12
Years
  • Seen Oct 26, 2011
I'm gonna come out and say it... I think Stealth Rock is the worst thing to ever happen to the Pokemon series. Making certain types inherently more useless because of one super easy to set up move and only offering a single move (Rapid Spin) that few Pokemon carry and is otherwise pretty useless as the only counter is stupid. Favorite pokemon Charizard? Too bad, x4 weakness to Stealth Rock and the otherwise perfectly viable Pokemon now is almost utterly countered by a widely usable noob TM move.

/rant

Question for discussion: If a competitive league or tournament banned the use of Stealth Rock (Spikes/Toxic Spikes still okay, mostly type-neutral anyway), would there be certain Poke's that would be gamebreakingly powerful? I mean, the big ones that are super countered by it are guys like Charizard (still OU at best w/o SR, plenty of people with good rock moves to counter it), Ho-oh (still uber, still plenty of rock moves), maybe the new bug/fire moth guy...? Rapid Spinners will still be useful because of Spikes/Toxic Spikes. Entry hazards are still worth Whirlwind/Roar abusing. Anyways, I could go on but I think I've got enough here for discussion.

tl:dr - I hate Stealth Rock, would the competitive scene be that bad w/o it? Would any pokes be unbearably OP w/o Stealth Rock to stop them? Discuss.
 

Ho-Oh

used Sacred Fire!
35,992
Posts
18
Years
  • Age 31
  • Seen Jul 1, 2023
Volcarona would probably become officially broken if SR didn't exist, because without that 50% decrease of HP, yeaaah nearly impossible to beat, since hey people are already complaining about Volcarona even with SR.

SR is annoying but it's a way to stop the overpowered ones from becoming too overpowered tbh (and can be useful too, for example: multiscale nite - unless they have a spinner on your team then yeah as long as you have a faster Pokemon w/ ice or something, nite can be taken out really easily).
 

shdwdrake8

12
Posts
12
Years
  • Seen Oct 26, 2011
Yeah, I could see Volc being OP w/o SR. I wonder though if some of these other OP pokemon being subdued by SR couldn't be subdued by other pokes that are currently subdued by SR... Did that make any sense? Yeah, MS Dragonite is rough, but if there was no Stealth Rock, wouldn't we see more Ice Pokemon as a result?

Also, from Smogon...
Even though Volcarona has great Special Attack and great STAB moves, there are some Pokemon in OU that resist both of them and that can KO the moth in return. Gyarados, Dragonite, Salamence, Heatran, and Terrakion are the most important ones, and they can all give troubles to Volcarona in return.
Click to expand...

It goes on to mention Rain teams as well. Also, even without Stealth Rock, a x4 weakness to Rock moves is a big hurdle to overcome.

I should say I haven't really done much competitive battling but I've researched it for a few years now off and on. Not saying that there wouldn't be new and serious threats without SR, but would anyone be gamebreaking? I'll keep the Volcano Moth on my list to consider in this hypothetical scenario. =)

Anything else?
 

SuperKirbyFan

Weedle trainer
98
Posts
12
Years
Well I know one thing for sure, more people would use both Focus Sashes and Sturdy if SR didn't exist.
 

shdwdrake8

12
Posts
12
Years
  • Seen Oct 26, 2011
Even with Sandstorm, Hail, Spikes, and Toxic Spikes? Maybe it'd be good to see abilities/items like Sturdy and Focus Sash w/o nub-rock! Lol... good point though, Kirby!
 
Vrai

Vrai

can you feel my heart?
2,896
Posts
15
Years
  • Age 29
  • Seen Oct 24, 2022
I don't imagine the meta would change much, with SR. Flying-/Bug-/Fire-types obviously would become more viable and some of the dedicated leads like Deoxys-S and Crustle would probably fall in usage since Spikes & Toxic Spikes only can hit so much. Cool things like Eviolite Scyther might pop up.

All in all, it's just another metagame without SR. Some things would become better, other things would become worse. The same goes for removing any aspect of the game, including Pokemon, moves, items, etc. I do wish you'd stop referring to SR as a "noob" move, as it clearly has developed into a strong part of the metagame and clearly its usage leads to success. I'd refer to other things as "noob" moves, such as Hyper Beam/Blast Burn etc and things like 4 Water-type moves on one 'mon, etc. SR is a perfectly viable move and when you're discussing something, throwing around biased terms like that doesn't make me want to believe your argument any more than if you didn't use it. ;(
 
Last edited:

shdwdrake8

12
Posts
12
Years
  • Seen Oct 26, 2011
Fair enough. My usage of the term "noob" for SR was intended to reflect the disparity between these things: ease of use (set and forget, no duration), number of pokes that can learn it (68ish fully evolved pokes at my count), and crazy effectiveness vs the difficulty it takes to get rid of (if my count is right 19 fully evolved pokes learn Rapid Spin and a ghost counters almost all of them).

I'll adjust my word usage but I just hate how it seems that any decision I make in Pokemon is now based on that one move. Also kind of wondering if I'm alone in this boat. As far as the things you called noob... Hyper Beam and the other similar moves have an inherent drawback. Stealth Rock has nothing of the sort.

Anyways, not going to get off-topic in my own thread. Sorry for bashing SR in a less-than intellectual way. A different meta-game I'm okay with, but I wanted help seeing what new imbalances might pop-up in said meta.

Skarmory would indeed see a buff and it is already pretty good as is. I would love to see Evolite-Scyther more! Lol. Thanks for your input.
 
Vrai

Vrai

can you feel my heart?
2,896
Posts
15
Years
  • Age 29
  • Seen Oct 24, 2022
Yeah. SR is indeed a very centralizing move and a metagame without it would be incredibly different. XD

Multiscale Dragonite and Volcarona would probably be at the forefront of those imbalances that might pop up. Because SR wouldn't exist, the only way to break Nite's Multiscale without directly attacking it would be through weather, which is just healed off by Lefties anyway. I'd imagine Dragonite would be the image of suspect testing in an SR-less meta. Volcarona would also be incredibly powerful, especially considering the fact that one of the best (and few) ways of dealing with it is Roaring it away with SR up. Gyarados and Salamence would also return as top tier threats, although Gyarados still has its issues with Ferrothorn (who would no longer need to be concerned about the fact that it can't run SR/Spikes/Leech Seed all at once). Spinners would probably be significantly less important, although still moderately useful for breaking stall. Dunno how well stall would fair, though I think it'd turn out okay. Stall always adapts. I'd imagine that Toxic Spikes would become the most common entry hazard, as the brokenness of Volcarona would lead to widespread usage of it and T-spikes breaking most of Volcarona's counters (save Heatran?). Toxic Spikes also hit the vast majority of the OU metagame and especially help when trying to win the weather war. SR-weak spinners such as Cryogonal would actually have some kind of niche, although Ice is still a terrible defensive typing. In general, Tentacruel would still probably be the favored Rapid Spinner since it absorbs Toxic Spikes anyway.

Ninetales and Drought teams in general would be significantly more powerful, as other weather teams would lack the tools (read: SR) to force easy entry hazard damage on the Fire-types that are incredibly common with Drought. Tyranitar would probably see less usage as a lead and more as a phazer/CBer, since the lack of SR kinda messes with its initial set-up abilities. Likewise, Abomasnow and friends will have less to worry about although Ice is still an awful defensive typing (though blizzspam is still awesome). Cloyster also would probably experience a boost in usage, though terrible SpD still is terrible. Archeops gets a special note since SR no longer forces it to drop into Defeatist range, although I still don't think it'd make ~too~ much of an impact since it's so frail and drops easy to priority anyway.

Another important difference is that many, many Pokemon rely on that 12.5% damage from SR to guarantee or potentially create OHKOs or 2HKOs, so the lack of SR could actually influence what EV spreads are used on 'mons. Whether it'd be a bulkier spread to prevent those KOs or a stronger set to force them I have no idea, but it'd affect the metagame anyway. And yup, that's about all I can think of at 1 am. I think my grammar and general typing skills are starting to fail me so I'm probably going to head off to bed anyway. XD
 

shdwdrake8

12
Posts
12
Years
  • Seen Oct 26, 2011
Now that is the exact type of information/analysis I was looking for. I have a lot to think about then on my opinions on the awesomeness or not-awesomeness of a SR-less meta. Thanks for your time and thought... and yeah, I sympathize with the deterioration of metal capacity as time gets late. I was modifying user privileges of someone on another forum and after I got everything finally perfect... I hit "Delete User" and confirmed it thinking I was finalizing my changes... lol.
 
Perriechu

Perriechu

i make this look easy tik-tik boom like gasoline-y
4,079
Posts
14
Years
Agreeing with others when they say that Volcarona, MS Dragonite and Fire/Bug/Flying types in general. If it was gone it would be certainly a lot easier to play and not having to worry about entry hazards is a nice thing. Usually to get OHKO on things they generally need to take SR damage, so without it, more Pokemon could be surviving bigger hits making the metagame more challenging that just relying on SR and then a powerful blow.

yeah post is short. school/sleep etc.
 

shdwdrake8

12
Posts
12
Years
  • Seen Oct 26, 2011
Thanks for the input, Dragon. You make the prospect of banning SR sound really fun, lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top