Entry Hazards

Entry Hazards are Pokemon techniques that damage Pokemon when they switch into battle. There are three types of entry hazards, each hitting certain types of Pokemon and each having a specific maximum number of layers. These are Stealth Rock, Spikes, and Toxic Spikes.

Stealth Rock is pretty useful for teams, for residual damange and is the best defense against teams running Focus Sash (not that Focus Sash is used for anything besides a lead). Stealth Rock will do damage based on how weak a Pokemon is to Rock-type attacks.

4x Resistance: 3.125% (1/32) Damage
2x Resistance: 6.25% (1/16) Damage
1x Neutrality: 12.5% (1/8) Damage
2x Weakness: 25% (1/4) Damage
4x Weakness: 50% (1/2) Damage

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Spikes are set up in three layers, and damage all Pokemon that can be hurt by ground type moves, which is to say all Pokemon that aren't Flying-type or have the abilities Levitate or Magic Guard. Depending on how many layers of Spikes get set up, they will do different amounts of damage to opponents switching in.

1 layer: 12.5% (1/8) Damage
2 layers: 18.75% (3/16) Damage
3 layers: 25% (1/4) Damage

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Toxic Spikes are a slightly different form of entry hazard that induce a certain status ailment depending on how many layers are set up.

1 layers: Poison (steady 1/8th damage per turn)
2 layers: Bad Poison (1/16 * # of turns in play)

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Now, here comes the discussion: What do you personally think of Entry Hazards? What sort of Entry Hazards do you normally use for your competitive, or in-game strategy? How do these entry hazards help your personal favourite strategy in battle?

The Defog buff last gen basically made Spikes and T-Spikes for the most part obsolete. This was one of the most annoying changes in my opinion and removed a huge strategy of the game for both offense and stall. Spikes and Toxic Spikes punished poor plays on your opponents part which allowed you to set them up. The mechanic change of Defog also removed the skillful predictions of Ghost vs Spinner plays of past generations. Now all you have to do to rectify your awful plays or being out predicted is click Defog and due to its rather wide distribution its very easy to do so. To highlight my point SR, Spikes and T-Spikes take 6 turns to set up when stacked together. It takes one turn (Defog) to remove that, this is very unfairly heavily slanted in the Defoggers favor imo. Mega Sableye (Magic Bounce) also compounds this issue, however i dont feel as much.

Stealth Rock is essentially mandatory still however as it only takes one turn to set up which counterbalances the fact it also takes one turn to remove and having it is better than not as it keeps some threatening pokes in check and helps every style.

I also liked Future Sight and Doom Desire last gen in semi stall (Future Sight AssVest Slowking + Grass + DD Wisp Roost MegaZard X was a sexy core ok), if you double switch alot it can allow for free turns of set ups and cripple counters. I guess you could class that as an entry hazard. :P

You forgot Sticky Web.

Might have more to say later but I think I'll just leave it at liking Hazards. They add an interesting layer to the meta and while hazard removal is now much more widespread I don't think they've been nerfed that much really since your opponent still has to use a turn removing them and can often sustain noteworthy damage when switching in.

Rocks is, as DA said, mandatory and is by far the best hazard. I think that toxic spikes isn't as bad now as he feels though since it can still poison some threats that are likely to need to come in and any poisoning is the opposite of good. Stick Web would probably be more prominent than it is if it was more widely spread so better mon could access it. Overall I think the worst of the hazards is Spikes since it does minimal damage without stacking and is easily removed by defoggers that threaten its best setters.

Entry hazards are necessary. Rocks prevent mons such as Charizard( all forms ) , Volcarona , and other flying type mons from becoming too prominent of threats. To explain this reasoning i want to bring up that without rocks Volcarona could potentially set up on anything at almost anytime with Quiver Dance and become really hard to deal with. Charizard is in a similar boat except arguably worse as Charizard X ( before mega evolving ) can afford to 1v1 lando that lacks stone edge or rock slide and act as a pivot to it in order force switches. Also more than likely more bulkier forms of Zard X (after mega-evolving) and Tapu bulu cores will return to the metagame which at that point the only real form of dealing with it is through spikes ( assuming under this theory they exist) but that is only if it decides to Mega evolve or under the effects of gravity. Charizard Y becomes so much more threatening as every team will be required to run Toxapex or something similar due to Zard getting focus blast to out Tyranitar and Heatran and roost to heal off any other damage it would sustain from anything else. also these mons do get good teamates especially with rocks removed so outing mons such as Koko would not be as hard to do. I could also mention that Dragonite would likely be really good as there would be no way to break multiscale preemptively allowing more "free" dragon dances throughout the game or just simply being a pivot. With rocks being a thing it forces any player using mons weak to rocks to play much more conservatively and calculated to outset the 49% or 24% damage that would be taken from rocks upon switching in which adds a new dynamic to the game itself with use of rapid spin and defog to join this.

Spikes are also needed for very much the same way as rocks except for different types of mons. Spikes ( at three or two layers) can put pressure on many defensive teams such as stall and a lack of spikes ( and/or rocks) would make stall a much more powerful playstyle as Mega-sableye would not need to be used and a player could opt for something else. And while the lack of hazards may weaken stall somewhat they could just resort to Toxic stalling or pressure stalling or just simply waiting out the game just chipping down. I suppose this would also make Hoopa a very dangerous mon for stall to deal with but with that extra mon that Sableye frees up, i am certain that it could be dealt with. Spikes also work as means to pressure steel types something in which rocks do not.

I am going to put T-Spikes in the same boat as Spikes with the added benefit of wearing down Non-poison/steel defensive cores. T-spikes have the added mechanic of dissappearing when a poison type mon is sent out on them which in my opinion balances them out more.

Webs, while i dislike the way it was handled in USUM i see it as interesting and somewhat necessary albeit the least necessary hazard of the four as an option to in theory further add strategy to the game. It allows Heavy Offense to obtain a newer playstyle but that is really about all it really benefits in the long run in my honest opinion.