Actually Water Absorb does kind of suck on Cacturne because Cacturne is a terrible switch to most Water-types and it doesn't do well against most of them 1 on 1. Most of them can outspeed and OHKO Cacturne with their super effective move. There are only a few situations where Water Absorb is useful: a) being able to Sucker Punch Samurott without being hit by Aqua Jet b) switch into a Water-type attack then switch right back out to get some health and c) for not getting fucked over by the occasional Scald from Frillish / Alomomola. I'd rather use Bullet Seed and/or Encore than Water Absorb. However, the loss of these two moves isn't that bad for Cacturne; it will make it slightly worse, but not that much. Cacturne is perfectly fine without those two moves. I'm speaking from plenty of experience here.
Anyways, I'm personally enjoying the Garchomp meta so far. Right now I'm using an offensive Stealth Rock set of Stealth Rock / Outrage / Earthquake / Fire Blast @ Life Orb on a sun team. It's pretty good and performs exactly like I want it to be. The team I'm using in the Garchomp playtest is actually pretty Garchomp weak itself but I've little trouble with it so far. Garchamp is a bit underwelming but it's still the fantastic Pokemon it always was.
Anyways, I'm personally enjoying the Garchomp meta so far. Right now I'm using an offensive Stealth Rock set of Stealth Rock / Outrage / Earthquake / Fire Blast @ Life Orb on a sun team. It's pretty good and performs exactly like I want it to be. The team I'm using in the Garchomp playtest is actually pretty Garchomp weak itself but I've little trouble with it so far. Garchamp is a bit underwelming but it's still the fantastic Pokemon it always was.