>>29834997I'm going to have to disagree and say that Stealth Rock does need a bit of a nerf; indeed, my idea for a nerf is substantially smaller than some others I've seen, simply because it addresses the two major problems that make Stealth Rock irritating to me and others who share my opinion. Those are:
1.) It makes any combination of the four types weak to it (Fire, Ice, Flying, Bug) extremely hard to play thanks to losing half its health for the enemy's one turn of setup, regardless of the individual viability of the Pokémon in question.
2.) Stealth Rocks only having one layer, unlike the other two damaging entry hazard types, makes it possible to run on offensive Pokémon, but also makes the hazard nigh-impossible to remove if used by a Pokémon that can stick around long enough to set it up multiple times.
The solution to both of these problems is simple: make it a two-layer hazard that fails to stack weaknesses with only one layer. This means Pokémon like Volcarona and Delibird could come in and only take 25% when the first layer of Stealth Rocks came up; but on the flip side, Pokémon like Excadrill and Lucario would take 6.25%, rather than half that. The hazard is still fairly strong on teams that don't take the time to set up both layers, but saves the immense strength for the second turn, and makes removing the stronger version of the hazard more of a setback.
But, I know I can't convince everyone that this metagame-defining move needs a little tweaking to make competitive healthy; just try to imagine how the meta would change with Spikes working like Stealth Rock does now; but using the Ground-type to calculate damage (as opposed to the Rock-type).
