Speed stat plays a very critical role in weather conditions as well. In a situation where both the opposing pokemons have weather activating abilities; the slower pokemon's ability will override the weather conditions induced by the faster one's ability. Slow and steady surely wins the weather race!
On the other hand, if it's being used for setting up weather conditions and other hazards, it's best to have the conditions activated from the next turn to give the upcoming sweeper maximum number of turns to capitalize.
I'm going to assume "next turn" means at the start of the next turn (if it's at the end I think it's fairly clear that now is better).
Pros of next turn:
- Lasts a turn longer.
- Extends a weather you've already set up (depending on how it's coded).
Pros of now:
- Blanks your opponent's weather on the turn you switch in.
- Works on the first turn of the game/a post-KO switch.
Blanking weather is only strong if weather is strong, but back in gen 5 we used that feature a lot to make Solar Beam a risky move to use on Sun teams until after the weather war has been won.
Maybe I've missed something? But I think "now" comes out ahead here for weather-themed teams, and "later" might come out better if you've just got a simple combo like Hippowdon + Excadrill because the extra turn matters more than the immediacy?
EDIT: Actually, for that Hippo+Drill combo, I guess "end of next turn" is better again, post-KO you can send in Hippo, switch to Drill and then get 5/8 full turns under sandstorm.
Thanks for the quick responses, and otuwitter I never knew that, that's very interesting to know.
So to clarify if it changed weather next turn, it would be at the start of the next turn, as if the pokemon moved first and used a weather move themselves.
But what Outwitter brought, is a really interesting potential con of the ability changing weather on turn start
Since the ability doesn't work like a move, i.e taking speed into account, then its possible that if a weather move was used same turn by a faster opponent, it would immediately cancel out, before the user could even take advantage of it. XD
That's the case for either option too, but more so if its next turn start.
Soon as the text plays alerting the opponent the strat would just be to swap to a faster pokemon with a weather move, and boom canceled.
Personally I'm leaning more towards it working immediately.
But I hadn't thought of changing the code to extend the weather if the effect was used again.
It would be useful sure, but would it be too powerful? and to narrow the scope a bit, I'm proposing this an ability change for castform.
essentially turning weather ball, into something like a stronger hidden power.
