>>31043254I'm parroting nothing, because I don't even talk to the people who would agree with me since I hate circlejerks and groupthink. If I look like I'm "parroting" anything, it's because these are arguments that have been brought up before, and likely for good reasons.
Stealth rocks is considered so important to viability that any team not using it isn't viable. That is a fact. You lose too much by not using it and gain nothing. A person can play without it, but they are only handicapping themselves and this does not mean a team without SR is viable compared to one with it. A person can play with Pichu in SSBM, but that doesn't mean Pichu is a viable pick in any tournament. You know that argument isn't logical, why did you waste your time like that?
Fire types, bugs, ice, and anything else with a rock weakness is handicapped in competitive play, not because they're weak to rock but because they're weak to stealth rocks. A person can use them if they really want to, they can base their team around removing rocks to get away with using them, but in the end they're still using a handicapped pokemon and handicapping their team for its sake. That doesn't make stealth rocks fair, it makes the other player either insanely dedicated or insanely masochistic.
Rain isn't centralizing because you can override it by sending out your own weather pokemon. This isn't even an apples and oranges comparison, because both of those are at least still round. There's only one stealth rock, there aren't other moves that replace stealth rock with a different flavored version that allows for other strategies, it's just SR punishing you for not using SR teams.
I'll grant that SR isn't as bad as it used to be. It's still bad, though.
The fact is that Ho-oh was considered at all, and that this consideration was based on its SR weakness. It didn't stick, but it's an example of just how important SR was that they'd even think of it.
Protect isn't a meta, why even try that?
