Alright, so after doing about half my reqs, I still believe serp is not broken. I said I would make a big post about why I believe serp should not be banned, and I,will be repeating previous points I have said earlier. It seems the fate of the snake is already sealed, so I don't know how much this will do.
1.Serperiors abilities have very low pp
With both his defining attack move and his recovery having only 8pp ,serp is very prone to getting stalled out. If you have a switch in, it becomes ridiculously easy to check k serp, because the player will have to risk wasting a precious Leaf Storm to try and hit the switch in , or use an inferior coverage mive, and do pitable damage. With the addition of all the mons with pressure roaming around the tier, and the prevalence of sand and other weather that hampers serperiors recovery, it's not hard to slowly chip away at serps resources
2. Serperior is very prone to being worn down
This comes in conjunction with my previous point, because synthesis is only 8 pp, and Gigs drain isn't even considered reliable recovery. While stealth rock isn't very potent on it, spikes and t spikes do a number on this pokemon, and it's Reliance on either substitute for defensive sets, or LO recoil for offensive, makes it very hard to switch in with the appropriate pressure before killing itself or simply not being able to come in due to hazard pressure.
3. 75 base spattk is weak
Yes, serp will invest in its special attack, making it stronger. Yes, leaf storm will kinda counterbalance this weakness, but the big thing about this is that when it uses a lower bp, non stab coverage move, it's going to be doing almost nothing to dedicated walls and stops. I often find it has a difficult time wearing down its checks and stuff just because even a lo d-pulse doesn't do any significant damage to most things.
4. Serperior has a serious case of 4mss
Basically, sometimes I feel like people like to think this is serps most common set when making their arguments (not all the time)
Serperior @ Life Orb
Ability: Contrary
Shiny: Yes
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Dragon Pulse
- Taunt
- Synthesis
- Glare
- Hidden Power Fire
- Substitute
- Hidden Power ice
- Giga Drain
Serp can't run all of these moves guys, and has different checks and counters and destroys different styles depending on the set. Serp really isn't that unpredictable either. It pretty much almost always carries leaf storm+coverage move, and the other ones won't punish you for scouting them bar glare.
5. The argument for simply glaring a switchin is weak, and can be applied to many different sweepers.
So, a guy responded to my previous post about this, so Ill be responding a bit to that, but more restating what I previously said. Basically, you can't call a switch in obsolete and useless once it switches into status. By that logic, we should ban florges and blissey because "it uses toxic and cripples switch ins for the rest of the game." Chances are, after a Mon gets paralyzed, it's still at least a bit useful. And even if it isnt, it can switch in again and again, no matter what status it has. Plus stall, serps biggest victim, almost always have a cleric of some kind. In addition, many sweepers in uu, namely absol, pz, and alakazam can all learn thunder wave and paralyze their switchins. If paralysis is so good, why don't they start running it and paralyzing their checks? You may be thinking by this point "But glare can paralyze ground and electric types." Well, no one is gonna switch in an electric or ground type into serp so yeah.
I think I'm gonna stop now, and maybe add a bit later, while bracing myself for no ban hate.
Tl;dr While I see the pro bans side to the argument, I believe banning is not necessarily the answer to serps many flaws.