I must disagree with moving donphan down. Donphan is the worst rapid spinner in ou no doubt, but Donphan is actually the best rapid spinner in sun team.. Donphan resist SR, brings SR to the table and can rapid spin, something that sun teams need. Donphan isn't great, but certainly isn't D-rank material.
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OU The OU Viability Ranking thread
- Thread starter PK Gaming
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Honestly, I think that Hitmontop is a better spinner for sun teams than Donphan is. With Intimidate, he can stop things like Tyranitar and Terrakion. Not to mention that Hitmontop has guaranteed spins with Foresight (don't mention Odor Sleuth. You know no one puts that on Donphan because he has no room for it). Donphan compounds sun teams' common weakness to Water and Ice type attacks, whereas Hitmontop doesn't. In fact, I've never really understood what is so great about Donphan on sun teams. I suppose he condenses Rapid Spinner, Stealth Rocker, and dragon killer into one role, but he just doesn't have the ability to actually fulfill all of those roles reliably. It's far too much pressure on the little tire-elephant. And it's too bad, because I love Donphan as a Pokémon :( Donphan for D rank.
Thgat reminds me, hitmontop has not been placed in a tier yet.
Out of the ones you mentioned only Salamence has moxie. Salamence does not posses Gyarados bulk and resistance to bullet punch and neutrality to ice shard. Its much harder to revenge kill. Nothing has Gyardos combination of bulk, solid coverage, moxie, dragon dance and water stab.
Its immune to mach punch and extremespeed and can play around sucker punch with substitute + disable. Mamoswine cant ohko it with ice shard. This leaves Scizor as the only solid priority answer to it. So no, its not stopped by any priority. If anything, Gengar itself stops priority. Its not walled by tentacruel. Disable scald and watch as its forced to switch. It also freaking blocks tentacruel rapid spin. If anything, Gengar walls tentacruel. Tyranitar cant even dream of taking Gengar head on without choice scarf due to the threat of focus blast. Again Scizor is the only solid pursuit answer to it.
Its only niche is spinblocking? It WALLS Keldeo. The S-Rank monster that can wreck teams with rain boosted water moves. It walls Scizor completely and can shutdown tyranitar with will-o-wisp if its not running speed evs. No, its not pursuit weak at all. Its also not weak to electric like gyarados. Theres a huge diference between a 2x weakness and a 4x weakness.
The reason it uses physical sets is cause it has BETTER physical moves. Close Combat and Extremespeed nuff said. Please dont say ''ghost types can easily come in on it''. Dont imply that there are more than 2 ghost types in OU. Lucario can easily predict the obvious Jellicent/Gengar switch in and KO them with Crunch. If it lacks crunch it can still ko gengar with ice punch leaving only Jellicent as a hard stop to it. Also what intimidate users? You mean Landorus-T and who else? Moxie is infitely better on Salamence and Gyarados. Intimidate variants of them are infinitely easier to stop with other members of the team. Also the classic prankster argument. Tell me one prankster user that is actually OU, or in other words, that is actually relevant to this discussion.
We both agree with tentacruel so moving on.
Gliscor typically runs a toxic staller set. So any levitate/flying user that inst immune to poison will simply be stalled. It has protect so it will never be statused before toxic orb takes effect unless you lol switch it in a status. Neither Skarm or Ferro have poison heal, an actual existent speed and earthquake to punish steels and poisons that try to switch in toxic.
Its immune to mach punch and extremespeed and can play around sucker punch with substitute + disable. Mamoswine cant ohko it with ice shard. This leaves Scizor as the only solid priority answer to it. So no, its not stopped by any priority. If anything, Gengar itself stops priority. Its not walled by tentacruel. Disable scald and watch as its forced to switch. It also freaking blocks tentacruel rapid spin. If anything, Gengar walls tentacruel. Tyranitar cant even dream of taking Gengar head on without choice scarf due to the threat of focus blast. Again Scizor is the only solid pursuit answer to it.
Its only niche is spinblocking? It WALLS Keldeo. The S-Rank monster that can wreck teams with rain boosted water moves. It walls Scizor completely and can shutdown tyranitar with will-o-wisp if its not running speed evs. No, its not pursuit weak at all. Its also not weak to electric like gyarados. Theres a huge diference between a 2x weakness and a 4x weakness.
The reason it uses physical sets is cause it has BETTER physical moves. Close Combat and Extremespeed nuff said. Please dont say ''ghost types can easily come in on it''. Dont imply that there are more than 2 ghost types in OU. Lucario can easily predict the obvious Jellicent/Gengar switch in and KO them with Crunch. If it lacks crunch it can still ko gengar with ice punch leaving only Jellicent as a hard stop to it. Also what intimidate users? You mean Landorus-T and who else? Moxie is infitely better on Salamence and Gyarados. Intimidate variants of them are infinitely easier to stop with other members of the team. Also the classic prankster argument. Tell me one prankster user that is actually OU, or in other words, that is actually relevant to this discussion.
We both agree with tentacruel so moving on.
Gliscor typically runs a toxic staller set. So any levitate/flying user that inst immune to poison will simply be stalled. It has protect so it will never be statused before toxic orb takes effect unless you lol switch it in a status. Neither Skarm or Ferro have poison heal, an actual existent speed and earthquake to punish steels and poisons that try to switch in toxic.
Rotom-H: C-Rank
SR weakness, rain, that is all. Rotom-H has an amazing typing regardless and excellent stats to abuse it. Seriously, this was like the only Genesect counter in the past and walls a majority of other deadly pokemon especially the scizor of doom. Rotom-H = C-Rank. Not like there is an opposing side.
Mamoswine: A-Rank
This thing is boss. Almost every team is weak to the this death bear. No dragon-type can take an Ice Shard except for Dragonite who takes 52% damage through Multiscale! People underestimate this thing. Not only that, but it has surprisingly good usage hitting #16 on February stats. Icicle Crash can flinch as well and the gimmicky Bulldoze helps to. SR can also be set-up. Now look at the definition for A-Rank.
A Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can sweep or wall significant portions of the metagame, but require some support or have some flaws that prevents them from doing this consistently. Supporting Pokemon in this rank may give opponents free turns or cannot create free turns easily themselves, but can still do their job most of the time.
Mamoswine can sweep weakened teams especiallyy since this thing smashes every OU team you can think of. Thick Fat also makes it bulky which is nice. No Sr weakness, o.O. Revenge a dragon-type, easy. Sweep and crush sand teams and hyper-offense in seconds. Check. Mamoswine for A-Rank. No free turn are easily created because almost nothing can set up on this thing. Rotom-W is probably the only counter for this thing but is risked being flinched to death with icicle Crash if it is slower or if Mamoswine is running the Choice Scarf set.
SR weakness, rain, that is all. Rotom-H has an amazing typing regardless and excellent stats to abuse it. Seriously, this was like the only Genesect counter in the past and walls a majority of other deadly pokemon especially the scizor of doom. Rotom-H = C-Rank. Not like there is an opposing side.
Mamoswine: A-Rank
This thing is boss. Almost every team is weak to the this death bear. No dragon-type can take an Ice Shard except for Dragonite who takes 52% damage through Multiscale! People underestimate this thing. Not only that, but it has surprisingly good usage hitting #16 on February stats. Icicle Crash can flinch as well and the gimmicky Bulldoze helps to. SR can also be set-up. Now look at the definition for A-Rank.
A Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can sweep or wall significant portions of the metagame, but require some support or have some flaws that prevents them from doing this consistently. Supporting Pokemon in this rank may give opponents free turns or cannot create free turns easily themselves, but can still do their job most of the time.
Mamoswine can sweep weakened teams especiallyy since this thing smashes every OU team you can think of. Thick Fat also makes it bulky which is nice. No Sr weakness, o.O. Revenge a dragon-type, easy. Sweep and crush sand teams and hyper-offense in seconds. Check. Mamoswine for A-Rank. No free turn are easily created because almost nothing can set up on this thing. Rotom-W is probably the only counter for this thing but is risked being flinched to death with icicle Crash if it is slower or if Mamoswine is running the Choice Scarf set.
I would like to nomiate hitmontop for C-Rank. Hitmontop is the most effective rapid spinner for sun teams. Thanks to intimidate, hitmontop can check tyranitar and some terrakion. Access to forsight allows it spin against spinblockers like sableye, Jellicent and gengar and priority sucker punch allows it to dent a few of these spinblockers as well as bulky psychic types such as gothitelle. Hitmontop's 50/95/110 defenses allow it to take decently powerful hits, but the lack of reliable recovery hampers its staying power. It also can run a technician set, but it is outclssed by breloom.
C Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can be effective given the right support, but either have crippling flaws that prevent them from consistently executing their strategy or are typically inferior to Pokemon in the above ranks.
Hitmontop fits this description perfectly. It can be effective with proper support, but the lack of reliable recovery means that it cannot consistently preform its duty.
I would like to nomiate hitmontop for C-Rank. Hitmontop is the most effective rapid spinner for sun teams. Thanks to intimidate, hitmontop can check tyranitar and some terrakion. Access to forsight allows it spin against spinblockers like sableye, Jellicent and gengar and priority sucker punch allows it to dent a few of these spinblockers as well as bulky psychic types such as gothitelle. Hitmontop's 50/95/110 defenses allow it to take decently powerful hits, but the lack of reliable recovery hampers its staying power. It also can run a technician set, but it is outclssed by breloom.
C Rank: Reserved for Pokemon who can be effective given the right support, but either have crippling flaws that prevent them from consistently executing their strategy or are typically inferior to Pokemon in the above ranks.
Hitmontop fits this description perfectly. It can be effective with proper support, but the lack of reliable recovery means that it cannot consistently preform its duty.
Seconded! I could say the same argument again, but instead I think I'll just quote my earlier post.
So yeah, Hitmontop for C Rank!
I really feel like the quality for C-Rank is getting to be too low. Every UU Pokemon is being put in there when in reality, a lot of them aren't strong enough to abuse their so-called "niche" that keeps being proposed.
Also, why hasn't Skarmory been bumped up to A-rank yet? And possibly Jellicent?
Also, why hasn't Skarmory been bumped up to A-rank yet? And possibly Jellicent?
Look, there isn't really any reason why you should use Hitmontop. Foresight? Donphan does that, too, since Odor Sleuth is the exact same thing, and its not like Hitmontop doesn't have the same moveslot problem Donphan does. Terrakion check? It can switch into Terrakion once or twice if its lucky (Banded CC has a 31% chance to 2HKO after Intimidate. That, but bluntly, sucks). The rest of the meta isn't exactly kind to it, either. The only thing it has going for it is Rapid Spin.
Gyarados... I honestly haven't seen much of it recently, so a lot of what I'm about to say will be theorymon. There's no doubt that Gyarados is one of the most underrated threats out there. It can most definitely wreck teams with the proper support. The question is really how much support does it need to be effective. Gyarados is sorta stuck on Rain teams, since Politoed does quite a lot for it, being able to remove sand and hail that would chip away at Gyarados, while at the same time boosting its main STAB. Then you need something to spin for it, which pretty much leaves you with either Starmie or Tentacruel (or Forretress, if you're ballsy enough to run that in rain). Lots of similar typing there. After that, you need something that can handle Ferrothorn, which beats basically everything I've mentioned up until this point.
And at this point you've got 4/6 members of your team supporting Gyarados. I just think that Gyarados needs more support than some other options. Not saying its bad, but that it does need quite a bit of support, and therefore is difficult to fit into a team.
Actually defensive Gyarados is pretty good for Hail teams since they something to take Fire Blast and Close Combat.
I don't see how it can set up on Ferrothorn though. The only way I can see that is if a teammate burned Ferrothorn (Scald!), making Ferrothorn unable to break Gyarados's subs.
I don't see how it can set up on Ferrothorn though. The only way I can see that is if a teammate burned Ferrothorn (Scald!), making Ferrothorn unable to break Gyarados's subs.
Just noticed that Gyarados can go mixed with Fire Blast if used on a Hail team to destroy steels friends.
Anyways, Gyarados has potential to be A-Rank. It can run the Choice Scarf set similiarly to Salamence or a deadly Bulky Band set. Not only that but the SubDD set and DD set can sweep entire teams. It even has awesome defenses plus typing to check a numerous amount of threats. And also, it got one of the best abilites in the game, actually two! Gyarados should not be underestimated and is worthy to be A-Rank. It fits the definition perfectly.
Anyways, Gyarados has potential to be A-Rank. It can run the Choice Scarf set similiarly to Salamence or a deadly Bulky Band set. Not only that but the SubDD set and DD set can sweep entire teams. It even has awesome defenses plus typing to check a numerous amount of threats. And also, it got one of the best abilites in the game, actually two! Gyarados should not be underestimated and is worthy to be A-Rank. It fits the definition perfectly.
I disagree. I feel like B-rank is fine for Gyarados. It has the same exact abilities as Salamence, who completely outclasses it in every way offensively. Its base 80 speed is very slow in todays metagame and allows many scarfers to outspeed it even after a DD. Also, using Bounce as its main flying type STAB move is no where near the term "phenomenal". It is a very risky move that really shouldn't be ran. It being weak to Volt Switch also hinders it. Defensively, it has some merit, but being SR-weak with no reliable recovery really hurts it, too.
You and I are going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Hitmontop, in my opinion, is much better than Donphan as an OU spinner. Donphan tries to do too much (set up Rocks, spin, kill dragons, etc.) for something that is so easily killed due to his piss-poor special defense; it's weakness to Water, Ice, and Grass type attacks; as well as its mediocre attack (when uninvested). Also, please don't even try to say that Donphan uses Odor Sleuth. Donphan's moveset is Earthquake / Stealth Rock / Ice Shard / Rapid Spin. I mean, look at this month's usage stats:
Odor Sleuth isn't even mentioned as an option. That's because, like I said, Donphan tries to do too much as it is. Adding Odor Sleuth to its moveset makes this problem even worse. Plus, Hitmontop gets great moves like Close Combat, Mach Punch, Fake Out, Bullet Punch, Sucker Punch, etc. which are all great options for taking out certain threats to your team. I still think the lack of Water/Ice/Grass weakness is enough to make him a better choice than Donphan on Sun teams.
Gyarados should stay on B-rank. It's huge weakness to Electric attacks is horrifying as it is very easy to take advantage of, specially when some dedicated VoltTurn teams are still alive. Really, Gyarados is easy to counter as an offensive sweeper and Salamence hugely outclasses it in this regard as a Moxie sweeper. However, Gyarados does a great job as an special wall, specially when Sheer Force Landorus and Keldeo are as popular as ever.
Is it great as a wall? Yes, but that isn't enough to deserve an A-rank.
Is it great as a wall? Yes, but that isn't enough to deserve an A-rank.
Most people are talking about Gyarados' very prominent 4X Electric weakness, and that's fair. ANY 4X weakness is huge.
But Electric attacks aren't THAT common, not anymore. What's much bigger is his base 79 Defense and his weakness to Rock attacks. Terrakion has a virtually guaranteed revenge kill with Rock Slide or Stone Edge. Any variation of Dragon Dance is OHKOd by Jolly Rock Slide after Rocks, and Gyarados must be Timid and at +2 to outrun Scarf Terrakion, so unless you make some boss predictions and hit it with Waterfall on the switch, you're not only shut down by some very common walls, but by a great deal of offensive checks.
But Electric attacks aren't THAT common, not anymore. What's much bigger is his base 79 Defense and his weakness to Rock attacks. Terrakion has a virtually guaranteed revenge kill with Rock Slide or Stone Edge. Any variation of Dragon Dance is OHKOd by Jolly Rock Slide after Rocks, and Gyarados must be Timid and at +2 to outrun Scarf Terrakion, so unless you make some boss predictions and hit it with Waterfall on the switch, you're not only shut down by some very common walls, but by a great deal of offensive checks.
I propose Dragonite be dropped to B rank.
The first and most significant reason for this is weather. All four types of weather have a negative effect on offensive Dragonite. Rain gives it a harder time against defensive Steel types such as Ferrothorn/Jirachi, allowing them to set up. Sun prevents it from sweeping due to Chlorophyll threats such as Venusaur stopping it (assuming Multiscale is broken). Sandstorm and Hail both break Multiscale, which along with Extremespeed and being slightly bulkier is it's advantage over the faster, and much more capable of a sweep due to Moxie, Salamence.
The second reason for this it off course it's Stealth Rock weakness, which requires Dragonite to have support in the form of Rapid Spin.
The third reason is better choices. As previously mentioned, Salamence is much more capable of sweeping the current metagame, whether it is a Choice Scarf set or a Dragon Dance set due to it's speed in addition to Moxie. Garchomp is another better option. Resistance to Stealth Rock, base 130 Attack, access to Swords Dance and it's base 102 speed allows it to sweep a significant portion of the current metagame, something Dragonite cannot do.
The first and most significant reason for this is weather. All four types of weather have a negative effect on offensive Dragonite. Rain gives it a harder time against defensive Steel types such as Ferrothorn/Jirachi, allowing them to set up. Sun prevents it from sweeping due to Chlorophyll threats such as Venusaur stopping it (assuming Multiscale is broken). Sandstorm and Hail both break Multiscale, which along with Extremespeed and being slightly bulkier is it's advantage over the faster, and much more capable of a sweep due to Moxie, Salamence.
The second reason for this it off course it's Stealth Rock weakness, which requires Dragonite to have support in the form of Rapid Spin.
The third reason is better choices. As previously mentioned, Salamence is much more capable of sweeping the current metagame, whether it is a Choice Scarf set or a Dragon Dance set due to it's speed in addition to Moxie. Garchomp is another better option. Resistance to Stealth Rock, base 130 Attack, access to Swords Dance and it's base 102 speed allows it to sweep a significant portion of the current metagame, something Dragonite cannot do.
Nah, Fire Blast Gyarados stinks on Hail. I'd only consider it on a Drought team, but then it weakens Waterfall, meaning you'll have to stick for Bounce for your STAB (or Return if you don't want the risk of Bounce).
RestTalk Gyarados actually checks a lot of Steels anyway (Scizor, Heatran, Jirachi, etc. provided the latter 2 don't use an electric move).
TIMID Gyarados? Please tell you meant Jolly.
Yeah the Rock weakness is a bigger deal than the Electric weakness, he's mediocre speed means even he's easily revenge killed. Thankfully, as Waterfall/Bounce have great coverage, he can run Substitute along with DD to help to make it harder to be revenge killed. Sub also makes using Bounce a lot safer.
Overall, I feel Salamence is better as a Moxie sweeper, but Gyarados has his niches. B-Rank is good enough for me.
I wouldnt say dragonite is a b-tier pokemon. Kyurem and dragonite are two different pokemon in the first place, kyurem is weak to mach punch and bullet punch for example, and has a different typing. Not to mention it doesnt have dragon dance and its phisical movepool sucks. To be honest i dont even understand your comparison with special dragons like latios and dragonite, they are just diffrent.
As for haxorus, garchomp and salamence, you are wrong. Haxorus is bad, it is outclassed by dragonite because it doesnt have multiscale to get a free dragon dance, it doesnt have extremespeed to kill scarfers, it has a bad typing in comparison with dragonite and less bulk. The same can be said for dragon dance salamence by the way, 100 base speed is still not enough to outspeed keldeo and terrakion, so the speed doesnt really matter. Salamence has less bulk and less chance to setup a dragon dance, thats why its utility is p much being a better scarfer than others dragon. Garchomp maybe has the bulk but it doesnt have extremespeed and dragon dance, honestly i would only use it with stealth rock, all the other sets are pretty much outclassed by other things.
Why would i use cb dragonite in the first place? to send it out in the first turn to force my opponent to sac something to break its multiscale, then use it later to revenge kill stuff with extreme speed if needed (cb nite pretty much has the same bp of bullet punch scizor)
Yeah, I dunno why anyone tries to use Donphan as a revenge killer. Its too weak to try going uninvested against them, its a much better idea to just use it as a Rapid Spinner and leave it at that.
The great moves that you list really aren't that great for it. Close Combat is a really bad move for a defensive pokemon, and Hitmontop isn't hitting hard with it off an uninvested attack stat. The other moves have their uses, but then Hitmontop runs into the same problem that Donphan does; it needs those moveslots for other things, one for Rapid Spin, one for Foresight, one for Close Combat (or whatever STAB you want to use), and the last one can go to Toxic, Rest, Stone Edge, or any of the moves you listed. What's more, Hitmontop basically needs Toxic in order to stand any chance against Jellicent, as otherwise Jellicent will be able to sit in front of it and whittle it down with Scald while healing with Recover. The things you listed are good on the Technitop set, which is almost never used due to overlaps with other Pokemon (Breloom).
I dunno, every time I've tried to use Hitmontop, I end up wishing I was using something else. It seems like more trouble than its worth most of the time.
Conkeldurr is def. better than it was a little while ago because Torn-T isn't freaking everywhere. He's too slow to bulk up, so that set is out. However his SubPunch and status orb sets can deal tremendous amounts of damage, and sponging Conkeldurr's hits isn't precisely easy.
I'd say he's right where he should be, but I could see him in low B-rank.
Jirachi is one of the best and most versatile pokemon in the meta. It fills so many roles, it functions amazingly as a wall/tank, being able to sponge even powerful draco meteors. It can support the team amazingly, by setting up Stealth Rocks, spreading paralyses, and giving wishes and lunar dances. It works as an amazing choice scarfer, with its amazing set of coverage moves, revenge killing a large portion of the metagame, and being able to flinch things to death. Serene Grace is also one of the best abilities in the game. It works brilliantly as a set up sweeper because of its decent speed, fantastic natural bulk, great typing and a movepool that couldn't be better allowing it to hit potentially every mon for SE damage.
Jirachi for S rank.
Jirachi for S rank.
Holy shit yes I meant Jolly. I do not know where that came from. Yikes.
But one of the points I was trying to make is that Gyarados' base speed holds him back too much to sweep effectively. Bounce is not a good STAB move to rely on, but using Stone Edge opens you up to Ferrorthorn and Return to Jellicent. B-rank is where he should stay.
Dragonite for B-Rank!? I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
I strongly disagree with this. Dragonite is one of the most terrifying pokemon to face in the metagame, and for good reason. Multiscale makes it incredibly difficult to OHKO and virtually guarantees a turn of set up. This is critical to it's success, because once it gets a boost it's difficult to stop it's rampage due to that invincibility facto it has with Multiscale.
Now about the more specific arguments... lets see here...
Weather: All four weathers are bad for Dragonite? Funny, I seem to recall Dragonite being an excellent choice for Rain teams for it's unique ability to spam Thunder and Hurricane at the same time.Even with a standard DD set Fire Punch will hurt Ferrothorn at +1. How is Sun bad for Dragonite? Last I checked it often ran Fire Punch, which gets boosted by Sun. Plus it resists Fire and Grass, probably the defining offensive types for Sun. Sand and Hail can neuter Multiscale (assuming it doesn't have Leftovers), but they don't really affect it much other than that. Honestly, I thought that being a bulky dragon made you GOOD against weather, not weak to it. Heck, Garchomp is pretty vulnerable to Rain teams due to his Ground type, but he's being advocated for S-Rank.
Stealth Rocks: Oh, guess we should probably bring Salamence and Kyurem-B down too. This hurts Dragonite, but the same can be said for a lot of pokemon.
Outclassed by other Dragons: Nah, not really. It's one of the best Dragon Dancers thanks to Multiscale and it's fantastic movepool. (It has priority. Seriously, not many dragons have that.) Really the only special sets used are the Rain sets, which have the unique niche of having Thunder and STAB Hurricane on the same pokemon. Also people, if you want to really exploit Dragonite's potential with Multiscale, give the SubDD set a try. It laughs at Ferrothorn and other common walls and abuses Multiscale to the fullest. Seriously, that set alone has a ton of destructive potential in a way that can't be replicated by any other pokemon.
Bottom line, keep Dragonite in A-Rank.
I strongly disagree with this. Dragonite is one of the most terrifying pokemon to face in the metagame, and for good reason. Multiscale makes it incredibly difficult to OHKO and virtually guarantees a turn of set up. This is critical to it's success, because once it gets a boost it's difficult to stop it's rampage due to that invincibility facto it has with Multiscale.
Now about the more specific arguments... lets see here...
Weather: All four weathers are bad for Dragonite? Funny, I seem to recall Dragonite being an excellent choice for Rain teams for it's unique ability to spam Thunder and Hurricane at the same time.Even with a standard DD set Fire Punch will hurt Ferrothorn at +1. How is Sun bad for Dragonite? Last I checked it often ran Fire Punch, which gets boosted by Sun. Plus it resists Fire and Grass, probably the defining offensive types for Sun. Sand and Hail can neuter Multiscale (assuming it doesn't have Leftovers), but they don't really affect it much other than that. Honestly, I thought that being a bulky dragon made you GOOD against weather, not weak to it. Heck, Garchomp is pretty vulnerable to Rain teams due to his Ground type, but he's being advocated for S-Rank.
Stealth Rocks: Oh, guess we should probably bring Salamence and Kyurem-B down too. This hurts Dragonite, but the same can be said for a lot of pokemon.
Outclassed by other Dragons: Nah, not really. It's one of the best Dragon Dancers thanks to Multiscale and it's fantastic movepool. (It has priority. Seriously, not many dragons have that.) Really the only special sets used are the Rain sets, which have the unique niche of having Thunder and STAB Hurricane on the same pokemon. Also people, if you want to really exploit Dragonite's potential with Multiscale, give the SubDD set a try. It laughs at Ferrothorn and other common walls and abuses Multiscale to the fullest. Seriously, that set alone has a ton of destructive potential in a way that can't be replicated by any other pokemon.
Bottom line, keep Dragonite in A-Rank.
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