My main gripe with Skarmory is just how passive it is. It's not so much the really low damage ouptut that's a problem (although not being able to 2HKO Kyu-B with an SE STAB, or 2HKO MZam is pretty annoying), but a general lack of a safe, spammable moves which makes it pretty easy to take advantage of and prevents it from outlasting its checks. Like, if you compare it to stuff like Ferrothorn or Heatran it's nowhere near as annoying for certain teams to deal with since it doesn't have that one spammable move that can just easily cripple its checks, I find it a more like Hippowdon in the sense that it's a sitting duck in a lot of situations, and there just isn't anything this easy to take advantage of in A+, no matter how good the utility it provides is.
Sylveon is pretty terrible tbh, in a metagame where fairies are so prepared for Specs is just not good, Cleric's even worse, really the only set worth running is CM+BP and even then it suffers competition. Should drop.
Dragalge I'm hesistant to move down since I find TSpikes to be really good and Dragalge to be a great user of them, and it also has a really good typing which lets it check a bunch of dangerous stuff and is actually quite strong, however it is really team-specific and doesn't fit that well outside of a specific team build so I guess it could drop.
Amoonguss can probably move to B for being pretty good on stall and, unlike other B rank stallmons Chansey and Quagsire, actually fitting on other playstyles like sand. Also it's one of the better answers to Serperior so there's that too.
Scizor I'm kinda neutral on but slightly leaning towards it moving up. It is definitely way more splashable than anything in B rank, but it's really not that great at what it does. Kinda the opposite of most B+ ranks honestly, which are typically really good at their jobs but only fit on certain teams or fall completely flat against certain matchups.
Band is defenitely its best set and can wear down usual Scizor checks pretty well while providing really valuable resistsances for more offensive teams, but it's really easy to wear down in return and cannot consistently check Fairies, meaining it only really works as a Fairy check on offensive teams that can prevent said Fairies from switching in repeatidely. There are still other sets like Lefties and LO SD though, they aren't as good but can work on certain teams which prefer to run another Mega than Scizor and they aren't too bad at what they do. I'm not sold on this thing, but I do think it's better than pretty much everything in B rank currently, and I can see it in the same rank as stuff like Diggersby (do people still use this thing?) and Mamoswine.
I can't really see Manetcric move up on the basis that it isn't really consistent against multiple playstyles, it can put in a huge amout of work vs a lot of offensive teams, but it can also really struggle vs bulkier builds and it's not necessarily a safe Pokemon to use, or one that can really outclast its checks that easily. Sure, you can run Toxic to cripple bulky Grounds that wall you, in fact it's a pretty good option on it, but the loss of a powerful STAB really hurts a lot of the time. The rise in usage of CM Raikou doesn't really help its case either. I find it more comparable to MGardevoir than, say, MLopunny or MZam when it comes to how much threat it poses to different types of teams, and although it has added defensive utility when compared to these Pokemon, it's more easily forced out and thus needs to find a lot more opportunities to come in, which really compromises its ability to check things.
Anyway, a couple of days ago I was kinda throwing around ideas for potential moves with the rest of the team, mostly based on theorymon. One I can back up with actual experience now that I've used it is Mega Aggron for C rank (possibly C+?)
Now obviously this isn't an amazing Pokemon or anything, but I feel like C- is being very unfair to it, I really don't think it should be ranked below Mega Latios or Mega Absol for instance (which should probably drop anyway tbh). I won't deny that it faces serious competition from the vastly superior Mega Scizor and Mega Metagross, but it has a handful of advatages over both of them, unlike Metagross it has a Drak neutrality, and can thus counter Weavile and Bisharp, and unlike Scizor, it can eat up Fire coverage from Latis / Clefable / Altaria , enabling it to switch into them more easily. It also has much, much higher phys def which enables it to more easily take on dangerous stuff like Azumarill, Talonflame if running Rock Slide, heck it can even 1v1 Adamant LO Sand Rush Excadrill withut any defense EVs, that's how ridiculously bulky it is. Obviously, it's pretty much never going to be at full so that probably isn't happening, and the lack of recovery outside of Rest is a pretty big problem (if it got Slack Off it would be up in the A ranks probably lol), but the fact that it can 1v1 a pretty impressive portion of a tier makes it surpsingly good, not on balance or stall but rather on offense.
Yup, this thing actually serves as an neat tank on offensive teams. It can check really dangerous things for offense such as Altaria, Weavile, Bisharp, Azumarill, kinda Torn-T too. All the while, it provides SR support (which can be really hard to fit on offense), and since it can force out a lot of the tier it's actually quite good at getting them up. It can also run TWave Support, though it has a hard time fitting it since you probably want Heavy Slam / EQ / Rock Slide. Also hits pretty damn hard with max offensive investement.
It kinda reminds me of AV Conkeldurr in the sense that it's a slow anti-offense tank, except it trades a mega slot, priority, a main STAB which gives it its health back and Guts with significantly higher bulk combined with Filter, making it a lot harder to check if healthy and enabling it to 1v1 a wider range of threats, a much better defensive typing which lets it switch into a higher number of dangerous Pokemon, and an actual support movepool.
It still has a lot of pretty crippling flaws like its terrible speed combined with lack of priority making it a tad passive even for something that hits this hard, and that combined with its lack of recovery makes it unable to check more than one thing per team : it kinda has to pick and choose what it wants to kill since it'll only really be able to get rid of one thing per battle. It's also pretty useless against balanced or stall teams since it just doesn't hit hard enough to break walls, so it's exclusively an anti-offense tool. But still, it can pretty much go ahead and kill what it wants to when facing offense.
It's not a great set by any means, but it's good enough to make it C rank imo, and when you also take into account more defensive sets which can run Toxic to cripple bulky Pokemon and Rest to consistently wall things, bascially being able to bypass the offensive set's 2 main flaws, overall it definitely seems like solid C rank material to me.
Couple of replays showcasing what it can do : http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-290971874 http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-290973663 http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-290988550, I had a bunch more successes with it than that but forgot to save them, btw the reason Heavy Slam did so little to that Kyu-B on the 2nd replay is that it only has 40 BP vs it, so Iron Head is better vs that and a couple of things like TTar and Hippowdon as well, Heavy Slam does much more damage to stuff like Azumarill though so it's a matter of personal preference.
Sylveon is pretty terrible tbh, in a metagame where fairies are so prepared for Specs is just not good, Cleric's even worse, really the only set worth running is CM+BP and even then it suffers competition. Should drop.
Dragalge I'm hesistant to move down since I find TSpikes to be really good and Dragalge to be a great user of them, and it also has a really good typing which lets it check a bunch of dangerous stuff and is actually quite strong, however it is really team-specific and doesn't fit that well outside of a specific team build so I guess it could drop.
Amoonguss can probably move to B for being pretty good on stall and, unlike other B rank stallmons Chansey and Quagsire, actually fitting on other playstyles like sand. Also it's one of the better answers to Serperior so there's that too.
Scizor I'm kinda neutral on but slightly leaning towards it moving up. It is definitely way more splashable than anything in B rank, but it's really not that great at what it does. Kinda the opposite of most B+ ranks honestly, which are typically really good at their jobs but only fit on certain teams or fall completely flat against certain matchups.
Band is defenitely its best set and can wear down usual Scizor checks pretty well while providing really valuable resistsances for more offensive teams, but it's really easy to wear down in return and cannot consistently check Fairies, meaining it only really works as a Fairy check on offensive teams that can prevent said Fairies from switching in repeatidely. There are still other sets like Lefties and LO SD though, they aren't as good but can work on certain teams which prefer to run another Mega than Scizor and they aren't too bad at what they do. I'm not sold on this thing, but I do think it's better than pretty much everything in B rank currently, and I can see it in the same rank as stuff like Diggersby (do people still use this thing?) and Mamoswine.
I can't really see Manetcric move up on the basis that it isn't really consistent against multiple playstyles, it can put in a huge amout of work vs a lot of offensive teams, but it can also really struggle vs bulkier builds and it's not necessarily a safe Pokemon to use, or one that can really outclast its checks that easily. Sure, you can run Toxic to cripple bulky Grounds that wall you, in fact it's a pretty good option on it, but the loss of a powerful STAB really hurts a lot of the time. The rise in usage of CM Raikou doesn't really help its case either. I find it more comparable to MGardevoir than, say, MLopunny or MZam when it comes to how much threat it poses to different types of teams, and although it has added defensive utility when compared to these Pokemon, it's more easily forced out and thus needs to find a lot more opportunities to come in, which really compromises its ability to check things.
Anyway, a couple of days ago I was kinda throwing around ideas for potential moves with the rest of the team, mostly based on theorymon. One I can back up with actual experience now that I've used it is Mega Aggron for C rank (possibly C+?)
Now obviously this isn't an amazing Pokemon or anything, but I feel like C- is being very unfair to it, I really don't think it should be ranked below Mega Latios or Mega Absol for instance (which should probably drop anyway tbh). I won't deny that it faces serious competition from the vastly superior Mega Scizor and Mega Metagross, but it has a handful of advatages over both of them, unlike Metagross it has a Drak neutrality, and can thus counter Weavile and Bisharp, and unlike Scizor, it can eat up Fire coverage from Latis / Clefable / Altaria , enabling it to switch into them more easily. It also has much, much higher phys def which enables it to more easily take on dangerous stuff like Azumarill, Talonflame if running Rock Slide, heck it can even 1v1 Adamant LO Sand Rush Excadrill withut any defense EVs, that's how ridiculously bulky it is. Obviously, it's pretty much never going to be at full so that probably isn't happening, and the lack of recovery outside of Rest is a pretty big problem (if it got Slack Off it would be up in the A ranks probably lol), but the fact that it can 1v1 a pretty impressive portion of a tier makes it surpsingly good, not on balance or stall but rather on offense.
Yup, this thing actually serves as an neat tank on offensive teams. It can check really dangerous things for offense such as Altaria, Weavile, Bisharp, Azumarill, kinda Torn-T too. All the while, it provides SR support (which can be really hard to fit on offense), and since it can force out a lot of the tier it's actually quite good at getting them up. It can also run TWave Support, though it has a hard time fitting it since you probably want Heavy Slam / EQ / Rock Slide. Also hits pretty damn hard with max offensive investement.
It kinda reminds me of AV Conkeldurr in the sense that it's a slow anti-offense tank, except it trades a mega slot, priority, a main STAB which gives it its health back and Guts with significantly higher bulk combined with Filter, making it a lot harder to check if healthy and enabling it to 1v1 a wider range of threats, a much better defensive typing which lets it switch into a higher number of dangerous Pokemon, and an actual support movepool.
It still has a lot of pretty crippling flaws like its terrible speed combined with lack of priority making it a tad passive even for something that hits this hard, and that combined with its lack of recovery makes it unable to check more than one thing per team : it kinda has to pick and choose what it wants to kill since it'll only really be able to get rid of one thing per battle. It's also pretty useless against balanced or stall teams since it just doesn't hit hard enough to break walls, so it's exclusively an anti-offense tool. But still, it can pretty much go ahead and kill what it wants to when facing offense.
It's not a great set by any means, but it's good enough to make it C rank imo, and when you also take into account more defensive sets which can run Toxic to cripple bulky Pokemon and Rest to consistently wall things, bascially being able to bypass the offensive set's 2 main flaws, overall it definitely seems like solid C rank material to me.
Couple of replays showcasing what it can do : http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-290971874 http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-290973663 http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ou-290988550, I had a bunch more successes with it than that but forgot to save them, btw the reason Heavy Slam did so little to that Kyu-B on the 2nd replay is that it only has 40 BP vs it, so Iron Head is better vs that and a couple of things like TTar and Hippowdon as well, Heavy Slam does much more damage to stuff like Azumarill though so it's a matter of personal preference.
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