Pokedots Actually my Carbink got wrecked by an Iron Head Stoutland at one point :P
On Samurott, I am mixed about its place in A+. On one hand, there are now
more offensive checks / responses to Samurott, namely Sceptile, Lilligant, Rotom, Lanturn, Electivire, Ferroseed, and Cryogonal. On the other hand, the unpredictability factor it had in Gen 5 (that made it undoubtedly S Rank) has not faltered, and it remains one of the the most punishing Pokemon to face if one mispredicts its set.
The special set makes for one of, if not the strongest unboosted Water attacker in the tier (LO Hydro Pump is stronger than CB Adaptability Basculin Waterfall), which is incredibly scary given that the majority of Water-types in the tier, such as Gatr, Shell Smashers, and Ludicolo tend to present a window of opportunity to be attacked as they set up. Holding a niche as one of the most powerful off-the-bat Water attackers is already pretty decent, but arguably Samurott's most dangerous trait is its versatility.
Good mixed stats means that special Samurott can feasibly run a physical move and still be potent with it, and it can easily afford it since its 3 move coverage is already very sufficient. It can make use of
Aqua Jet, which one may recognize as the biggest reason why Costa is above Barbaracle in rankings, since it allows it to threaten faster Pokemon, most notably Fires, Archeops, and Cryogonal. It also has some really powerful physical options in
Megahorn and Superpower, the former of which skewers Jynx, Ludicolo, and overconfident Quiver Dance Lilligants, while the latter can land a nasty surprise KO on Audino after it tanks a Hydro Pump, as well as doing solid damage to Ferroseed on the switch, putting it in range of a Hydro Pump + Superpower KO. To top it all off, it has
Taunt as well as
Knock Off, which makes wallbreaking that much easier for it. This alone makes Samurott very tricky to switch into for almost anything in the tier, and makes it very hard to determine that one tech move without being majorly damaged/crippled unless one makes some exceptional luring plays, which can be a risk in itself.
Samurott is also
fairly bulky, and few weaknesses make it harder to KO than most heavy-hitters. It is slow, but still fast enough to outspeed almost all walls in the tier, and unlike powerful wallbreakers such as Archeops and Magmortar, it is notably harder for them to wear down without taking substantial damage, and again unlike the aforementioned two, weak hit-and-run attacks only do so well against Samurott until it activates
Torrent, which bolters its Water attacks to a whole new level and becomes a nightmare for slower teams. Faster teams, on the other hand, often cannot OHKO Samurott with most of their attackers, and can find themselves on the receiving on of a brutally powerful Hydro Pump, which can obliterate most attackers. This is more of a personal favorite of mine, but I have enjoyed
Substitute on Samurott, which greatly makes up for its speed against offensive teams. It can be used in two ways: Sub + Lefties for better longevity to waste most bulky cores (including Poliwrath and Ferroseed), or SubSalac to make most offensive teams shit their pants from speedy Torrent Surfs.
Then just when you think you've sufficiently prepared for all variants of special Samurott, out pops a goddamn
physical Samurott that has you scrambling for your traditional Gatr response, but it's too late because you just let it get a second Swords Dance, or hit your switch-in with a free +2 boosted move. While it is overall less effective than Gatr as a whole due to marginally inferior stats and movepool, this Rott
capitalizes on the sheer threat level of its special sets to be effective (and mind you, it
is good at that): you have no reason to believe that Rott is physical off the bat, since you might let your physical Water counter get clobbered by special Samurott for no reason at all. Then when Rott reveals itself, you realize that you can no longer deal with SD Rott, since most Gatr counters only handle Gatr when Gatr is not at +4 before they switch in, or if they don't get hit on the switch with a +2 attack. In other words,
the surprise factor can ocassionally make SD Rott even more dangerous than Gatr.
The meta has adapted better to Rott compared to Gen 5, but dropping from S Rank to A- or lower is pretty absurd since Rott isn't nerfed
that hard. Samurott's offensive versatility is right up there with Slurpuff's, in that they can hit so very hard from either side of the spectrum. That said, still torn between A+ and A.
