Contest Rain Dance vs. Sunny Day

[Ranger Jack Walker]

vs.

Or rather, Rain Dance Teams vs. Sunny Day teams.

Which do you prefer?

Which is more useful?

Personally, I like Sunny Day teams more. Thats because I like things like Shiftry, Tropius, stc who go from mediocre to down right deadly under the sun.

However, Rain Dance teams work much better. I speak from experience and I'm sure others will agree with me that Rain Dance Teams are better overall in battling.

 

[Ivysaur]

Rain Dance. Kyogre is a fucking beast because of it.

 

[Tsuness]

I prefer hail and sandstorm myself, but between the two, I find Rain Dance more useful. Though when fighting someone who uses Sunny Day, I won't hesitate to fire off solar beams or some fire type moves too ;D

 

[ShinyFlareon]

Rain Dance teams are generally more PRACTICAL, but Sunny Day teams are just fucking awesome.

 

[Buizelfan!]

Rain Dance + Thunder = Win!

 

[winstein]

Rain Dance is bound to be useful, due to the fact that Water Pokemon generally benefit from weather with their powered Water attacks, and Pokemon whom are weak to Fire will find the damage less punishing. Water-types generally learns Ice attacks, and thus, Grass-types aren't even able to ward them off. There are also some interesting Swift Swimmers and Dry Skinners (Parasect and Toxicroak), and they are usually Water-types. The only non-Water that I see got Swift Swim is the Polar Bear Pokemon. Let's not forget Hydration's drawback-free effect in Rain, of course. Added to the fact that Politoed is a capable Pokemon (good bulk) that can set up Rain, and it's probably a very stable playstyle.

Sunny Day, on the other hand, doesn't have any Chlorophyll Pokemon that benefits from a Fire attack, because they don't get STAB off it, and more importantly, they are hit hard by Fire attacks themselves. Fire Pokemon doesn't have a means to increase Speed in the sun, but they are still threatening in the Sun, especially when Water attacks are not as effective anymore. The Sun has perks, thankfully. Any weather recovery move becomes a benefit, since it heals more. Also, Solarbeam, a very strong Grass move that even Fire-types can learn is basically a free attack. Perhaps the most important aspect of Sun is any Pokemon that learns Growth. This is because Growth gets a huge benefit in the Sun. One use in the sun, and your Pokemon gets a huge boost in both Attack stats. Mixed attackers like Tangrowth and Shiftry would love this move because they have Chlorophyll and good Attack stats. Fast and Powerful Fire-types like Blaziken (Speed Boost) and Heatran (Choice Scarf) would benefit from the sun to provide powerful Fire attacks. Ninetails is not a bad provider of sunlight, since she is not weak to Water attacks and can use free Solarbeams right off the bat.

However, both weather teams have the same common enemy: Sandstorm. The only two users of Sandstorm are not only competitively viable, but also not too broken that they are ban-worthy. This means, a sandstorm team would have the option to carry two Sand Stream users to ruin the fun of either one, but carrying two legit Drought users is not viable (Vulpix is certainly not going to stand on her own), and there's only one legit Drizzle user. Basically they are outnumbered. Fortunately, Water and Grass moves are a bane to the users, and Sun has Tangrowth for example as an obstacle (unless Tyranitar happens to be a Special variety), and Rain has plenty of Water users to dampen the sandstorm initiators.

That said, I prefer Sun, because they have all the fun Grass Pokemon to play with: Mixed Tangrowth, Go Ahead/Butterfly Dance Doredia, offensive Mebukijika, mixed Victreebel, Special Exeggcutor for example, not to mention that to me, it's a very unique playstyle compared to Rain.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Pride]

Sunny Day. One turn-Solar Beam ftw.

 

[Magmortar123]

I prefer sunny day

 

[Envoy]

What Winstein said is pretty much the gist of it.

Rain teams are generally better as they are more offensive and the Swift Swimmers are Pokemon whose STAB benefits from rain.

Sun teams aren't as strong but are much more versatile as the benefiting types are two (Grass and Fire) instead of one (as well as at least one Ground type). This effectively doubles the amount of options you have for a team.

That said, I'm picking sun. I love the likes of Kyogre and Kingdra to death, but most of my favorite weather abusing Pokemon are sun users and I just can't help it. Grass types are my favorite type and watching them go from mediocre to downright deadly with the sun is a beautiful thing to watch (especially since, even in the sun, they're still highly underrated). I mean, when you got sun abusers like Jumpluff, Shiftry, Exeggutor, Vileplume, Bellossom, Victreebel, Leafeon, Tangrowth, Tropius, Sunflora and now Venusaur and Meganium, not to mention every Fire type in existence (of special note: Ninetales, Blaziken and Houndoom), you really can't see why anyone would not choose sunlight.

Interestingly enough, I like Kyogre more than Groudon though.

 

[Zwampert]

Rain Dance. It helps me a lot when I have a pokemon that knows Thunder.

 

[EpicScizor]

I like rain dance teams, they are so cool and in my mind, much more useful. Toxicroak in a Rain Dance team is freaking awesome.

 

[rbogey]

A lot of Grass Pokemon are centered around sunlight, which doesn't seem too practical because of Fire moves becoming stronger in sunlight. There isn't a problem like that for Rain Dance, unless you want to count Thunder used against a Water Pokemon.

 

[Ranger Jack Walker]

@winstein Armaldo got Swift Swim through the Dream World.

 

[winstein]

@winstein Armaldo got Swift Swim through the Dream World.

Oh yeah! Thanks for the reminder.

 

[Ghost]

Rain Dance, because I can use Thunder easily, and speed up my slow Water-types.

 

[IslandWalker]

Rain Dance, because you used Tommy as the example. I like it because I use more water-types than Fire. I hardly EVER use fire.

 

[Envoy]

Rain Dance, because you used Tommy as the example. I like it because I use more water-types than Fire. I hardly EVER use fire.

Sunny Day is actually better suited for Grass types since they get all of the weather affected abilities (and Synthesis and Growth). Fire types are just the icing.

 

[Ranger Jack Walker]

Sunny Day also harms Grass Types by making easier to kill by Fire.

 

[Joeshie]

Electrode --> Raindance --> Jolteon --> Thunder --> Ludicolo --> Swiftswim. Raindance. Yes.

 

[Envoy]

Drizzle Politoed --> Jolteon --> Thunder --> Ludicolo --> Swiftswim. Raindance. Yes.

Fixed.