hello buddies, i think it's worth giving a good look-over of the ranks since it's been a little stagnant and our meta is shifting a lil
s rank should, in my eyes, contain:
- salazzle
- sharpedo
- registeel
these pokemon are the axis mons of their playstyles and perform there roles in far too consistent a capacity to be considered
just really good, i feel. salazzle i think goes just a hair above the rest, given it remains the most consistent outside its "target match-ups", but really they're all just great now.
salazzle is, more than anything else rn, a defining speed benchmark for balances to account for, and between pertinent status immunity and the ability to tech itself feasibly to the situation at hand (rn assuming for fire / poison / grass coverage @ z poison, but techs such as dragon pulse and z fire [among others] get explored and exhibit their own prowess) makes it singularly the most threatening offensive pokemon in this tier. the bonus of being resilient to conventional scarfers "ideal" locks, ex: forcing shaymin / rose to lock ground coverage, coupled with its ability to punch through sharpedo's tect, adds to its overbearing nature in a way idt most folks really give it credit most times, since that totally adds a new dimension to what it does for offense.
registeel i feel is also kinda a given having shown just how consistent it is in tour application. loose checks the bulk of the tier, has the capacity to beat 95% of removal in a vacuum via protox, and its passivity is really not hard to cover w/the resources available to it. even more demonstrable shortcomings, such as the ones presented w/salazzle, have shown themselves to be adapted soundly (ex: two rupl finals games seeing eq registeel utilized to effect). to have this pokemon ranked lower than doublade feels somewhat deaf to the pace taken up by the tier at this time.
as for zoroark, i certainly recognize the potency of it, and in theory it is the most likely pokemon to overturn a game when operated properly (great example
here, all the cred in the world to sam i yam b.c i think he pulled off that bluff beautifully). however, i do not feel it quite encroaches upon s rank territory, because what really puts it over rn is that hypothetical advantage, the ability to bluff and pull off angles like that in a way i personally do not feel can be quantified. to put to words why idt it's quite that good, for one i feel that since the departures of our most iconic win conditions, zoroark's validity as a mover and a shaker for sweepers has decreased significantly; while yes, it can certainly be run in such a way that pushes a gatr check or what have you, i do not feel it is in any way as damning as specs zoro pulsing a p.def gligar or tricking a taunt umb once was, more a quick example. furthermore, with the overall speed of the tier seeing a minor up-tick, zoroark has begun to see slightly less game-per-game versatility, be it as an aoa or booster. it's certainly still good, but in my eyes it just isn't s material.
and as one last thing that really stuck out to me, since i'm not great w/these threads and will never pretend otherwise, comfey is absolutely not a rank material. nifty pokemon with a very unique niche to it, but it cannot perform it's role w/o either notable support or severe restrictions cast upon it by the meta it sits in. having to dead registeel's lefties to get off the ground is brvtal, and while you can somewhat bypass this w/stuff like rh chesnaught, you're catching the worst of synthesis restrictions b.c you're generally instigating taunt cycles to do so. the amount of boosts you need to get real traction via 50 bp stab is also fairly problematic to an 8 pp recovery pairing, no matter what the rate of draining kiss recovery is. v.unique mon, but ultimately one i would see more as a b+, maybe low a-.