>>11828730Hmm, yes.
What uses Shell Smash in OU that's not Cloyster?
Magic Guard existed in Gen. IV, and the only thing that got it in Gen. V that mattered was Alakazam.
Steel types have always been everywhere and HP Fire has always been common for shit like Scizor, Skarmory and Forretress.
Breloom was MORE common before than it is now.
Weather wasn't the ONLY factor, Terrakion and Thundurus can go fuck themselves and I don't know what the fuck GF was smoking when they decided shit like Salamence needed Moxie, but if you think weather had nothing to do with the power creep you're simply wrong. Even Thundurus wouldn't be such a problem if it didn't have a 120 BP STAB move with zero drawbacks in the rain.
Losing a single turn in Gen. V's metagame costs you SO much more than losing a turn in previous games did. Simply leading with the wrong Pokemon and having to switch can easily lose you the game now, this was such a huge problem before. The extreme hyper-offense the metagame revolves around now is due in large part to the advent of weather outside Ubers. You didn't have shit like Excadrill or Kingdra automatically getting +2 speed and/or double STAB on their attacks before (which is why Drizzle/Swim and Excadrill were banned, because they're too centralizing.)
