Drop to C-
There are a couple of reasons to use Bouffalant: access to Sap Sipper, being a Normal-type with Swords Dance, and bulk. Already Sawsbuck gives Bouffalant a huge run for its money by occupying the two aforementioned niches, as well as having additional advantages such as Speed, Grass STAB, and even Baton Pass if it so wishes. So is Bouffalant's bulk worth it? Simply put, Bouffalant's lack of Speed, workable resists, and reliable recovery means its bulk is only short-term, especially if you're intending to run something like Choice Band Head Charge on this, meaning it won't be able to weather attacks for too long. SD Bouffalant's coverage isn't particularly impressive either, and it still struggles against a variety of bulky Pokemon such as Gourgeist, Weezing, Bronzor, Levitating Ghosts, etc. Other factors include Bouffalant only really stopping Lilligant and Ferroseed among the relevant Grass-types, as the others can either cripple it or do major damage that it can't shrug off, as well as the fact that nearly any team that is properly insured against the current offensive Normal-type monsters, such as Tauros, Kangaskhan, and Zangoose, shouldn't struggle too much with this.
Rise to C+
Physically defensive Altaria can be pretty cute in this meta: it's able to fend off a wide variety of threats like Shiftry, pretty much every Fire-type (including SD Zard), Gurdurr, SD Samurott, Malamar, Musharna, Gastrodon, etc. due to a combination of its defensive typing, Roost, and Haze. However, its SR weakness can put a noticeable damper in its ability to wall threats (particularly the Fire-types), its offensive presence outside of Toxic is pretty poor, and its congested moveset for effectively dealing with those aforementioned threats leaves it little room for any other nifty moves it might want to use, like Heal Bell or Perish Song and whatnot, so C+ seems more appropriate imo.
Stay in C-
I feel like Solrock's niche of being a Fire, Normal, and Flying check with reliable recovery hasn't really improved since its inception on the VR. I mean it fends off AV Magmortar, Kangaskhan, and Swellow nicely enough, but Specs Pyroar can cleanly 2HKO Solrock with HP Grass after SR, SD Zard can force an annoying stalemate as it Roost stalls your burned uninvested Stone Edges, Archeops flat out 2HKOes with Stone Edge, and even its Ground immunity is somewhat undermined by the fact that +2
Jolly Rhydon's Stone Edge OHKOes Solrock. Solrock is also sort of a victim of the presence of other bulky threats: Mega Audino and Rhydon have steered roughly a fifth of Tauros to run Steel coverage, and Malamar's presence means that Bug coverage such as Rhydon's Megahorn, Mesprit's Signal Beam, and even Archeops's U-turn have to be taken into account. Having a ton of weaknesses, including to Pursuit, is annoying too. The best thing I can say about Solrock is that it can be tricky to dodge its Will-O-Wisps, although status absorbers / clerics or a timely Xatu switch-in have pretty much nothing to fear from Solrock. Sometimes I feel a more mixed defensive variant of Lunatone can wall what Solrock does a little more safely, albeit at the obvious cost of Wisp.
On the fence; leaning on staying B+
Piloswine is definitely a contender for A-. It has a brilliant STAB combination which can be a massive pain to switch into, is one of the few solid Ice checks in the tier, is bulky, and has access to Stealth Rock and Ice Shard, so it has some strong utility going for it. However, the big problem I have with Piloswine is that its poor Speed, zero recovery, and overall few resists means it can have a tricky time actually entering the field to start putting in work. While it has all those good qualities, it can be easy to forget that setting up Stealth Rock
and threatening stuff with its STAB combo with the Speed it has can be a pretty tall ask at times. Most of the time Piloswine is delegated to soft-checking most frailer attackers, namely threatening the OHKO on Pokemon that 2HKO it, so there's not too much mons that Pilo can afford to switch in on. Should the opponent have a solid Piloswine check, such as Gastrodon, Mega Audino, Weezing, Pelipper, etc., Piloswine's presence can become really diminished as a result.
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UR to C-;
C- to UR
No I'm not going crazy again. This time I decided to actually investigate what makes Freeze-Dry + Explosion so appealing, and lemme just preface this by saying I've gained more respect for you guys by tolerating
putting up with this bullshit Pokemon. After slogging through the ladder, I decided to give Glalie, the mon I kept bringing up as the closest comparison to Vanilluxe, a go, and they're more or less functionally identical as I expected. (Note: these replays aren't particularly stellar, but I was trying to get relevant matches using these bad Ice-types so
you do it if you ain't happy with them)
In these games, Glalie fulfills the criteria of being able to lure out Magmortar and Explode on it, as well as being a Freeze-Dry user with a better Speed tier than Abomasnow to outrun things like SubToxic Mantine, Samurott, and...erm...pre-Sand Rush Sandslash (not that it actually got to threaten the Sand team, but still). Heck, Glalie's Speed tier is better since it can at worst speedtie with base 80s like Mesprit and Kabutops (especially in Game 3).
Yes, I know Glalie is nowhere near as strong as Vanilluxe, and you may already be pulling calcs like Vanilluxe 2HKOing Steelix and Garbodor while Glalie cannot. However, you're not really intending to use Vanilluxe against 1v1 neutral matchups in the first place. Besides, if you're telling me that you'd use Vanilluxe
in this day and age for its power and not primarily for its luring purposes, you a damn liar. No, you're using it for the above-average Speed tier Freeze-Dry plus Explosion to get rid of checks, which Glalie has pretty sufficient power for as is. Nevertheless, long gone are the days when Vanilluxe can simply blow up on an Ice check and call it a day, because more and more Ice checks are popping up / becoming more relevant today that can tank the Explosion, including the aforementioned Piloswine. Glalie, on the other hand, is more equipped to deal with those rising Ice checks in addition to the ones it lures already, with Super Fang being especially notable for that. Even Spikes can be considered for Glalie to have some lasting presence before it inevitably bites it, and gives it some added versatility & utility.
Glalie @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus / Ice Body
EVs: 4 Atk / 252 SpA / 252 Spe
Naive Nature
- Freeze-Dry
- Explosion
- Super Fang
- Taunt / Spikes / Ice Shard
vs Hariyama: Explosion does 68 - 80.1%, liable to die after a Super Fang, and is still majorly crippled even without taking the Fang beforehand.
vs Magmortar: Explosion does 87.9 - 103.5% to Modest variants, 97% min against Mild ones. Mild Mortars are instantly in KO range after switching into Freeze-Dry.
vs Grumpig: Explosion does 86.2 - 101.5% to 80 HP offensive variants, deals 75.2 - 89% to SpD variants.
vs Piloswine: Super Fang + Explode puts it between 11.4% to 4.3% (death after SR), ensuring it's not checking anything after that.
vs Bronzor: Super Fang + Taunt keeps it low.
vs Miltank: Super Fang -> Taunt -> Explode puts Miltank roughly between 27-33%.
vs MAudino: Super Fang -> Taunt -> Explode puts MAudino down to at most 20%, assuming it's physically defensive, meaning SpD variants risk taking even more.
Tl;dr: Since you're using Vanilluxe for basically the sole purpose of luring out bulky Ice checks, why not use a mon that can effectively lure a greater number of, if not all, bulky Ice checks, with less risk and prediction required (Super Fang is much safer to thrown out than an immediate Explosion since you still weaken the checks)? There's not a whole lot Vanilluxe can really accomplish that Glalie can't to some extent.