Ok, some good arguments here. Ok about max def gourgeist super, it's not super common though, isn't doing anything to something coming in since all it does is synthesis and zangoose isn't killing either since knock off loses power after the first shot so you might as well add it to your counters in the next paragraph (and def drop chance + crit chance is still over 25% chance to happen which isn't bad). Ok too about the suicide vs garbo, still ursaring has a huge chance of coming out alive against weezing.
However, when you say ursaring losing it's advantage over goose if it switches on a weak attack because it's bulk then disappears... Well it just used it's bulk effectively, that's the point of bulk: tanking attacks.
For the last bit, you say zanz can use his speed to activate it's orb, well ursaring can use his bulk, better coverage and he's not even slow anyway.
Volt-turn being better with zanz is just completely absurd and comes back to the usual bulk vs speed debate in which case ursaring wins again becuase some voltturners are quite fast (in fact quite a lot).
If Gourgeist switches into the Dark move, it has a higher chance of getting 2HKOed by Knock Off than Crunch (in fact I am pretty sure Geist survives 2 of Ursa's Crunches after Lefties); if Geist does not switch into the Dark move, Ursaring does not fare any better against Gourgeist than Zangoose does since Leech Seed + Lefties combined with Synthesis spam puts Ursaring on the backfoot pretty quickly. Also trying to justify Ursa's bulk by switching into attacks doesn't seem like an advantage to me (preferably this should be avoided), it's more a desperate effort of trying to salvage Ursaring's statistical pros, and unlike Ursa's bulk, Zangoose's Speed doesn't dwindle as time goes on. I mentioned Zangoose being paired with VoltTurn better since there are indeed slow users, but not only that Zangoose can also prey on a greater number of double switches since it outspeeds more Pokemon.
Takes longer to beat pretty much means doesn't beat when you're that frail, I'd add rhydon too.
OK about ferro, zanz has a big cahnce of dying facing it too though considering 2 contacts, 2 toxic turns and a def drop.
Rhydon is an opponent that Zangoose can easily overcome with mild prediction: if Rhydon switches into any non-Normal move (Knock Off / Close Combat), it gets taken out by the subsequent CC. I mentioned Costa since this doesn't apply to it. As for Ferroseed, at least Zangoose can KO it in the first place, while Ursaring getting hardwalled by Ferro means it won't get any work done on the rest of Ferro's teammates.
252 Atk Guts Ursaring Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Ferroseed: 87-103 (29.7 - 35.2%) -- 22.8% chance to 3HKO
252 Atk Guts Ursaring Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Ferroseed: 84-99 (28.7 - 33.9%) -- 1.4% chance to 3HKO
That's a definition of a
hard counter if I've ever seen one. Zangoose already claims to 2HKO pretty much the whole meta, with even its hardest counters in Mawile and Carbink being 3HKOed by Close Combat or simply softened up with Zangoose's own Knock Off; both don't even commonly carry recovery, so they can only stop Goose's rampage for so long. Ursaring on the other hand trades matchups against offense for a few marginal benefits against a handful of mons Goose doesn't just steamroll in one hit....and you're telling me Ursa still has the chance to get hardwalled, unlike Zangoose? At least Zangoose isn't as hardwalled by the mons it doesn't beat with EQ + Seed Bomb coverage as Ursaring is hardwalled by Ferroseed.
And on the subject of contact damage, I'm just going to address the biggest issue I have with the arguments so far: Garbodor's advantage over Zangoose is
greatly exaggerated. There are two outcomes of Goose vs Garbo:
Worst case scenario (contact move + contact move): 100 - [16 - 6] - [16 - 25 - 12] = ~25%
Best case scenario (Knock Off + contact move): 100 - [16 - 6] - [25 - 12] = ~41%
Both scenarios result in a dead Garbo and a still very alive Zangoose. How would this be considered an unfavorable trade in Zangoose's case? Sure Goose is near dead, but it still KOed Garbodor and has a couple of attacks left in it that pack a punch, so its short time left on the field can still be enough for Goose to leave more of its marks thanks to its speed and priority. And this is assuming Garbodor is healthy enough to take two hits from Zangoose in the first place since Adamant Facade has a miniscule chance to outright OHKO (which leaves Zangoose at a very manageable ~53%). I don't see Ursaring's luxury in avoiding this extra damage to be worth giving up Goose's various advantages. If Ursaring OHKOes Garbodor with Earthquake this would be a different story, but it doesn't (does less than Facade), so Ursa still has to play around the fact that the Garbo player may just save it to bait the damage on Ursaring later. Which means Ursaring still has to predict correctly if it wants to come out on top of Garbo with more health than Zangoose would; even the reward-risk ratio is heavily skewed against Ursaring's favor: predicting correctly means Ursa gets like a couple of extra turns at most to live, but predicting incorrectly means you'd pretty much be better off using a Zangoose in the first place. And since Zangoose still ends up trading favorably with Garbodor in the end, why go through that trouble of trying to marginally improve the Garbodor matchup when it still requires pinpoint prediction just to work out (there is also the possibility of offensive Garbodor which can punish Ursa before it fires off its EQ)?
I consider I've already answered that, if Ursaring has made 2 kills, I consider it's done it's job and used it's advantages overzangoose . I disagree about the revenge killig point since as I said, mons that outspeed or have priority (to which zanz practically instantly dies) are usualy more common than mons that outspeed and kill ursaring (sawk and primeape being the only ones to have SE stab and outspeed, others will take shaky LO damage on innacurate moves or be choice locked).
Zangoose can very easily pull off 2 kills as well. I also feel like you're exaggerating Zangoose's vulnerability to priority; most priority users only get like one hit off that rarely deals over 40% before they get instantly slaughtered, and Goose can even stave off the strongest priority move in Sucker Punch with its own Quick Attack. The priority move it has to worry about would be Mach Punch, but Ursa has trouble against that regardless. While Goose does take more damage from weaker priority attacks, the fact that it evades the stronger one in Sucker Punch means that Goose's matchup against priority isn't really that much worse than Ursaring's.
If you consider ursaring crunches twice, you got to consider zangoose knocks off twice.
Switching around ursaring is an effective way of taking off 19% of it's hp at the cost of a full health mon yeah.
Um, I never said anything about them using their moves twice, just
once. The latter scenario is applicable to Zangoose as well, except Goose is even harder to pivot around due to its stronger and safer attacks, most notably Knock Off which cripples things by default anyway.
Talking about priority as if it was the answer to everything is kind of ironic when you say things can switch on bear if he goes for the wrong coverage move since everything can switch in on a quick attack. Piloswine can do very good against zangoose considering there's like 10 other scenarios in which ice shard practically kills him. Let's not forget what I talked about earlier too, what are you doing using an unboosted knock off unless it's for killing off something that's very weakend, gourgeist will not be dying to you and all other ghosts outspeed you so you weren't aiming them either which means the thing that switched out to piloswine probably would have killed you if it stayed in (same goes for rhydon, ferroseed and all other eviolite users you consider knocking off on the switch).
252+ Atk Piloswine Ice Shard vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Zangoose: 91-108 (31.7 - 37.6%)
I don't know about you but that damage alone is nowhere near enough to stop a Zangoose from clearing out a chunk of your team regardless. Piloswine doesn't even make a good initial check since it gets 2HKOed even if Zangoose wasn't Toxic Boosted on the first hit. And no, throwing out unboosted Knock Offs that don't KO the opponent is a horrible way to lead off with a Zangoose; if Goose is using any unboosted attack it had better KO the foe, and between Goose's decently fast Dark + Fighting coverage it isn't very hard to pull that off to get the Toxic orb off unscathed.
When did a good player become a good player by telling himself «if all goes well»? 2 Turns is probably 2 kills vs one for your opponent so good. Switching in on scald once or twice is enough too.
I don't think you can say zangoose has an easier time activating it's orb since it comes once again down to speed vs coverage and bulk.
What you say about match-ups is practically coming out of a fariy tale, Offense has loads of ways of revenge killing both threats and 55 jolly is not slow at all. Offense will extremly often use slower garbo, slower toad, rhydon, golurk, eggy and plenty of things slower than ursaring for him to shine, if not, the guy probably has 0 def invesment and is wrecked by sneasel or anything with a scarf.
"If all goes well" implies things are going smoothly, like using Scyther without SR on your side or something. Having Ursaring take damage before even attacking sounds more like a desperation move than a plan if anything, because newsflash, Ursaring of all things isn't the kind of mon to be in a position to take hits, especially when accounting its dwindling health (like who gives a damn if ex: Dodrio is bulkier than Swellow?). And I don't see how the '2 turns = 2 kills' thing doesn't translate toward Zangoose as well. Indeed, offense has its ways around both Goose and Ursaring but at least Goose isn't completely helpless. Jolly base 55 may be just enough to outrun walls, but as far as offensive mons go that is just about as slow as it gets (aside from neutral base 55s). The slower Pokemon Ursaring preys on is still very applicable to Zangoose, except the list extends to more offensive Pokemon such as Samurott, Magmortar, neutral Sawk / Mesprit / Rotom-S, etc. and even the likes of offensive Seismitoad and Garbodor which are on the rise, so even Ursaring may not be able to nab them without eating a big hit first, while Zangoose avoids all of these issues.
In the end I think for all the differences, B is not exagerated at all. Yeah zangoose is better at sweeping but I haven't seen that thing sweep more than 2 mons since 2013. On the other hand, zangoose's bulk is so bad if you miss your prediction just once, it's over for him (against any playstyle), not ursaring, on the wallbreaking point, he simply IS better because he can come in on walls often more than once and actually kill them without dying himself. If something is bugging you on the opposing team and doesn't OHKO ursaring, the bear can probably take it out at the cost of his life or else he'll kill something else for free. If he's not late game sweeping, zangoose can only kill what's slower and has to have previously activated it's orb because he can't tank a hit. Yeah you've brought some good points, but I don't think they're enough to get ursaring to something lower than B rank when zangoose is A-.
Meanwhile, I haven't seen an Ursaring KO anything faster than it after KOing a slower mon, while Zangoose not only KOes the slower mon but gets nice chip damage on the faster threat as well. Ursaring may be able to switch in on
certain walls (certainly not even most of them), but it doesn't even do a good job at that since it can do so like once, twice if lucky. Zangoose's bulk may be bad, but mispredicts with Zangoose really aren't as punishing as they would seem (the aforementioned Garbodor calc being the best example), and Goose can usually still get away with it with speed and priority. The other bolded sentence gives off the impression that you'd directly switch Ursaring into a weaker attacker and try to nuke the foe, but since that means taking damage alongside the building Toxic damage, that would imply
Ursaring is under even greater pressure from mispredicting since it won't get another chance; if I'm mistaken about the context and you simply meant that you'd send Ursaring in as a revenge killer, then Zangoose performs that role just as well, if not better, for obvious reasons.
Now don't get me wrong, I acknowledge Ursaring's individual strengths as a Pokemon, but it still doesn't have worthwhile, if not consistent advantages over Zangoose that would warrant significant usage. Ursaring's additional coverage moves are nice, but are more of a luxury than an outright necessity for the wallbreaking role, since Ursaring doesn't really KO much of anything that Zangoose can't outright. The greater bulk can only be made use of for so long before it fades away, and more often than not doesn't even end up mattering. It really seems more on par with the likes of Dodrio, Kadabra, Mr. Mime, Beheeyem, Audino, even Simisear (D Rank :/) etc. as overall decent / solid Pokemon that unfortunately are outshined by their competition which are generally more useful. Even Primeape, one of the tier's only solid offensive Fighting-types, sits in B- due to Sawk being far more effective as a whole.
Players who find themselves pressured by Guts Ursaring are most likely also pressured by Zangoose, but teams vulnerable to Zangoose aren't necessarily prone to Guts Ursaring since there are a decent number of Pokemon that fall between Goose's and Ursa's speed tier; from most of the teams I've seen so far, these Pokes such as Mesprit, Sawk, Magmortar, Samurott, Ludicolo, Klinklang, etc. are common enough that you can expect to see at least one of them, if not two, on a team, and from my experience, being able to cleave through these numerous threats without getting sniped down certainly beats Ursa's (dubious) ability to tank their hits. If Ursaring was to be bumped in Rank (I'm still not all for it imo, but a case can be made for Ursa since Quick Feet alone is what placed it in C to begin with), the bare maximum of
C+ is all I can see it going.
Edit:
Some flawed logic here. We all know the superior coverage set is normal + fight + dark coverage and you would call ferroseed a hard counter?
It just dies to CC if its guts and then what? What's great about Ursaring is that it can force so many 50/50 situations thanks to its variety of sets and coverage.
BTW, just for future reference, there is no hard counter to ursaring. In fact, they all just die to a +2 facade / coverage move. If anyone does have a serious counter to Ursa that can deal with it in every situation, its non existent.
In case you didn't pay attention to the argument, Sweet Jesus is nominating Ursaring for a raise based on a particular moveset involving Earthquake and Seed Bomb. If Ursaring attempts to deviate from this moveset by fitting other coverage moves such as Close Combat, it would share too much similiarity with Zangoose and risk getting overshadowed further, which would weaken Ursa's remaining niche and provide even less reason to use Ursa over Zangoose. However, said moveset that gives Guts Ursa its niche over Zangoose has a hard counter in Ferroseed, while Zangoose's regular set has no (or not as) hard counters in comparison. It is already tricky enough to dig up reasons to justify using Guts Ursaring over Zangoose, and when Ursa has a hard counter while Zangoose does not, it's not helping Ursaring's case.
