Mega Venusaur is definetely a great mon rn, but I disagree with it moving up to A+ for the reasons listed. Grass/Poison is decent coverage, but it still will get walled by many mons, like Klefki and Heatran, unless u run HP Fire or EQ, respectively. Also, Amoonguss gives it competition for a moveslot as it doesn't fill the Mega slot, and while it doesn't have as much of an offensive presence as Mega Venu, it has Regenerator to live longer, SPORE, and as stated earlier, doesn't fill up a mega slot so the team can use other Megas. While Mega Venusaur checks a shitton of mons, sometimes it can do too much in a match and be worn down from repeated switchins, especially if it gets burned from Scald from stuff like Keldeo. Overall, Mega Venusaur is a great mon most definetely, but I can't really see it moving up with it's problems.
getting walled by klefki and heatran? the fact that it can run viable options to actually beat these threats (eq and hp fire) is something it has over amoonguss. and besides, sometimes the switch is so obvious that a well seasoned player can pull a double switch to get the advantage or synthesis/leech seed on the switch. and even then, venusaur's job is to check top tier threats with its bulk, typing and STABs.
and like i said, every mon is walled by something.clefable is hard walled by heatran and venusaur, maybe we should move that down because that's such a big problem. maybe we should keldeo down because bulkly grasses are rising. or how about charizard x because it can't struggles breaking through slowbro, heatran (w/o eq) or defensive landorus t.
venusaur gets sleep powder so i mean the whole spore thing isn't exactly a huge thing amoonguss has above it. venusaur has thick fat, more bulk and offensive presence which are very nice advantages. thick fat means it can actually take keldeo, hp ice thundurus, and overheat mega manectric more reliably. belly drum azumarill can beat amoonguss with knock off, but it can't beat venusaur due to its generally higher speed (unless its jolly...but i mean....). venusaur does have more options meaning that it does have ways of getting around or annoying its checks (namely eq and knock off and a more powerful hp fire). the higher bulk also helps in many places as well with many top tier threats getting hard-walled by this mon. these advantages overweigh the negatives of costing a mega slot.
scald burns are annoying to anyone not named magic guard clefable, conkeldurr/heracross or celebi/starmie. amoonguss' lesser bulk + chip damage can allow many mons to overpower it. tangrowth doesnt really like a weakened earthquake and knock off. no one exactly loves chip damage.
First of all, it's about as splashable as you can get, not just becuase of Defog, but also because it combines a ton of useful resistances with great offensive prowess, it can weaken or lure a bunch of Pokemon, it can seriously damage teams without needing much support, and most of its checks are straightforward to deal with and have pretty viable checks of their own, so you rarely have to accomodate for it by changing your team round when you want to use it. It's one of the most common Pokemon in OU for a very good reason, and when you compare it to Lando-T or Keldeo it actually suffers less competition for its role, or rather, less viable competition : Keldeo has to compete with Azumarill and Manaphy for the role of offensive Water while Lando-T is very simplar to garchomp in what it does, and all 3 of these are pretty dominant threats. Meanwhile, Latios has Latias and Starmie, both of which are generally worse options. My point is, if you want to use sompething like Latios, you're almost always going to use Latios, and that's something that's less true of Lando-T and Keldeo.
The biggest problem with Latios, and the most convincing argument against it moving to S rank, is the prevalence of Pursuit. And yes, the fact that Latios can just be useless vs certain teams defenitely sucks, especially if we're looking for consistency. However, it's not like Pursuit has no counterplay at all, you can use the opportunity to get a free setup or hazards up. Pursuit users are either easily taken advantage of (TTar, Metagross) or have a lot of trouble actually switching into and trapping Latios (Weavile, Bisharp), so there's always a way around it. Also, Pursuit trappers can't actually prevent Latios from Defogging, so it's not completely useless and can still help you win a battle even if it gets trapped.
In fact, Defog almost guarantees that Latios is going to at least be able to do something in a battle. And if you ignore teams with Pursuit trappers, Latios can put in work pretty consistently in general. Like Keldeo, many teams have multiple checks to it, but like Keldeo, it's still able to put in work against teams that are prepared for it. And unlike Keldeo, and even Lando-T and Toprn-T to a lesser extent, it can threaten multiple types of teams at once.
Keldeo can threaten offensive teams with a Scarf and bulkier teams with Specs or SubCM, but it kinda has to choose : Specs and SubCM aren't very good against most offensive teams due to Keldeo's underwhelming speed tier, while Scarf just falls flat on its face vs any bulky team (aka any team with a Clefable on it).
Lando-T sorta has the same problem where Dual Dance and offensive SR setter sets struggle vs offense due to their limited defensive capabilities, but defensive and scarf sets are too easy to switch into and wear down to really be hard for bulky teams to handle.
Heck, even Torn-T has to choose between screwing over bulky teams with LO+Taunt or actually switching into offensive threats with AV. But Latios only really has to choose one set, becuase it only needs one set, one that can switch in on offensive threats and put offensive teams in a tricky situation due to the pretty low number of Dragon resist that actually work on offense, and which can come in multiple times against bulkier teams and chip away at its checks until they can no longer handle it.
Latios doesn't really have to make compromises bewteen threatening team type A and team type B becuase it can do both at once; yes, it has to choose between HP Fire, Roost and EQ sometimes, but none of these are really necessary in order to be effective against a certain team, they just make it easier. And even if Latios faces a team with 3-4 checks to it, it can always fall back on Defog, much like Lando-T can fall back on SR, Keldeo on burning stuff, or Torn-T on its pivoting capabilities.
Latios is something you'll rarely regret using, and that's what makes it S rank worthy more than anything.
Now, a while back, I said I wasn't sure about what the standards for S rank from now on. But now, after thianking about Latios for a while and comparing it to other S rank nominees, as well as A+ ranks in general, I have a pretty clear idea of it, and this final point I want to make about Latios will lead into that, so buckle up.
Okay, so the main reason Latios is so splashable is becuase, alongside its offensive power, it's also capable of supporting its team and switching into things. Granted it's not great defensively, it has trouble switching in on Keldeo more than once for example. But you can say the same thing about Keldeo and Bisharp or Weavile, after all, Knock Off + +2 Sucker Punch and Knock Off+Icicle Crash+Icicle Crash can all KO Keldeo. Same goes for offensive Lando-T variants (particularly Scarf) and LO Torn-T. But the fact that something as threatening offensively as these 4 can switch into such powerful threats is pretty remarkable in the first place.
And to me, that's what the difference bewteen A+ rank and S rank should be. In A+, you have the best offensive threats like Weavile and MLop and MZam, and the best defensive and supportive threats like Heatran and Ferrothorn. What puts a Pokemon above that and in S rank territory is not just excelling offensively, but also being capable defensively / supportively within the same moveset, or vice-versa (and of course, this has to be relative to the metagame, and whether or not said offensive/defensive capabilities are actually effective/useful in it). Torn-T and Lando-T's offensive sets, Keldeo, and yes, Latios, all fit these criteria, what with being very powerful offensive threats with greater defensive capabilities than your Bisharps and your Excadrills.
you make some good points but i have my gripes with latios which ill lay out.
first off, its resistances. we have fighting (can't really abuse this esp. if you're running hasty), fire (helpful against zard y and heatran), water (you have to face a 50-50 with azu's play rough and knock off, and ice coverage from keldeo and manaphy. scald burns + life orb its also kind of problematic), grass, electric (most electrics run hp ice which it doesn't sponge as well, thundurus has the potential knock off, and ofc thunder wave), and psychic (jirachi sometimes runs body slam or u-turn, hoopa switches in rather easily, other psychics like alakazam run shadow ball). plus we have immunities to ground (its a rather shaky switch since lando has uturn and knock off, garchomp has dragon moves and toxic, and gliscor carries knock off. many pokemon it resists can potentially cripple it with paralysis or burn chip damage or have coverage moves that can do a number on it.
secondly, while eq, hp fire, surf, grass knot, thunderbolt, hp fighting and such offer it many ways to get around its checks, it suffers from extreme four moveslot syndrome in order to do so.. in order to effectively run a lure move, you have to give up psyshock, defog or roost which are all very important moves to have. forgoing roost forgoes its longetivity meaning that scald burns, chip damage, stealth rocks and life orb hurt it much more. forgoing defog hurts its splashability a bit. forgoing psyshock is the least detrimental, but not being able to smash through special walls and fairies still hurts it. and not being able to smash through keldeo without resorting to draco meteor can still be hurtful. draco meteor is a strong nuke move, but steel types like jirachi, scizor, metagross, and heatran are very splashable and can easily switch and either heal (in the case of jirachi or scizor), set up rocks or swords dance, or pursuit trap it after draco's nasty side effect. fairies are still very much abundant and if you forgo psyshock for a lure move, latios' effectiveness will hurt a bit.
last but not least, dark spam and pursuit. bisharp's presence hinders how the opportunities can defog and most variants can switch in, and force it into a 50-50. so it isnt a 100% reliable defogger on that matter. manytrappers can switch into draco and leave it helpless. losing latios means losing its offensive capabilities as well. sure, latios can run moves to smack these guys in the face, but it has to forgo an important move to do so.
and i dont ever regret using latios? yea....i could say the same for every for almost every mon in A right now that has served me well.
many of the qualities like luring do have detriments that balance the positives. pursuit trappers being very abundant, the fact that it is very easy to take advantage of a latios after it has draco meteor'ed (this is a bigger problem in scarfed sets), the fact that steel types are very splashable and common (and the fact that to beat these mons, it has to forgo another important move) make it more of an A+ mon.
This also means that Torn-T should be S more for its LO set than anything, and that Lando-T's defensive set (great defensively+deals pretty solid damage) and dual dance set (legitimately terrifying offensively+can switch into a few things) are the sets that make it S rank. Which makes sense to me at least, since those are definitely the sets I've had most success with.
tornadus-t shouldn't deserve S for its inconsistency. i read posts supporting its rise that even admit that it does cost matches. i mentioned before, if you play pokemon, you play to win. there will be a time when you have to hit hurricane (against 2 good players, this can come down to a 1v1). and if it misses, tornadus t has failed. a pokemon in S should be reliable and consistent. its coverage, longetivity from regenerator, and pivoting abilities are balanced out by its unreliability. for this reason, its more A+ than S
And finally, Azumarill should be S rank. It's excellent offensively and well above-average defensively for an offensive Pokemon, so it easily fits my criteria for S rank. It absolutely thrives in an offensive metagame like this, not just becuase of how hard it is for offense to handle, but also becuase of how easily it fits on offensive teams, due to the fact that it checks a bunch of huge threats to offense. It's as good as if not better than Keldeo imo, mostly becuase of how important priority is for offense nowadays.
i second this. in fact, i think azu deserves S more than keldeo does. its defensive typing is better while still being able to check dark types. can lure steels with superpower and annoy switchins with knock off with its customizable 4th moveslot. priority is nice. hits hard with banded sets. and the possibility of a belly drum set is a very scary thought. very splashable. offers a ton with its power and priority offensively and its typing defensively and offensively. wallbreaking and tanky assault vest sets means it is very splashable. i agree move to S.
