The meta has adapted well enough to Steelix that its other sets don't really help to maintain the presence it once had. With the introduction of Specs Mesprit and ever-so-slightly increasing amount of Heat Wave Xatus, Steelix's niche as a Psychic check is weakening, and its matchup against most of the mons it usually checks tends to be one coverage move on the switch away from becoming shaky. While Steelix's resists are undeniably solid, Steelix noticeably suffers from a combination of lopsided bulk, average power, and lack of reliable recovery, so in a good amount of cases, Steelix can end up taking a sizeable amount of damage by the time it 1v1s the mons it checks. Steelix is hardly a troublesome Pokemon to switch into; in fact the bulky set is quite notorious for losing momentum despite the supposed power of its STABs (EQ and Heavy Slam), to the point where people have pondered the use of specially offensive Sheer Force Steelix just to not be walled as easily, at the cost of longevity and some bulk. Bronzor becoming relevant means that Steelix has a contender for a spot in bulkier teams as well.
Talked about this before already, but Miltank has come a pretty long way. Its pseudo-resistances via its abilities have become really valuable, especially coming from a bulky Pokemon, with reliable recovery at that. It can fend off a good amount of dangerous mons depending on its moveset, and its utility movepool is near unmatched. I haven't really seen much out of Curse Scrappy Miltank these days, but I can't imagine that doing anything to hurt its standing. Also it has access to not one, but two forms of yellow magic in the form of Thunder Wave and Body Slam, which makes it broken
As nice as this mon is at holepunching, I don't feel it offers enough consistency to rise above the C Ranks. For starters, Chatot is not that fast for something so absurdly frail; missing out on the base 95 Speed tier sucks. It has a hard enough time entering battle, and it has its Stealth Rock weakness to contend with. tmacbalanced, you said something about Chatot 2HKOing the entire tier bar Cradily, but that requires more prediction than Swellow since it has neither Scrappy nor the Speed tier to get away with spamming attacks as often, and the teams that prepare against Swellow are usually well-insured enough against Chatot anyway, usually via the kinds of fast Pokemon that Swellow threatens in the first place; it's a rather similar vein on why something like Zangoose isn't ripping up the tier more than weaker Normal-types in Tauros and Kangaskhan. Setup Chatter Chatot on the other hand suffers from limited coverage, since deviating away from SubNP will reduce its chances of actually setting up.
It's pretty well established that Machoke is overshadowed by the majority of NU-relevant Fighting-types, but I guess as a standalone Fighting-type it's not that bad, so I'm indifferent on whether it rises to C / C+ or not. Honestly Machoke kind of gives me vibes about Sand (effective in a vacuum, but overshadowed in the big picture), though its niche, aka bulk + guaranteed DynamicPunch, is pretty consistent enough for it to distinguish itself.
Not a whole lot has actually changed for Electrode, but I can agree with the the rise to C if only because I figured C- was a tad too low for Electrode in the first place. Soundproof, its sheer Speed, and STAB Volt Switch to slightly make up for its inability to OHKO offensive mons is fairly decent. Also it has Taunt which can help disrupt things like lead Cheops / Mesprit, if not prevent the likes of Lilligant and Mega Audino from doing whatever they want.
Yeah Ima just echo my thoughts that other have said already about Manectric not having much over Rotom and EVire; it doesn't have the resists to make use of Volt Switch as much as Rotom does, and EVire's access to things like Earthquake for Lanturn + Mortar and even Ice Punch for Sliggoo + Altaria means Manectric doesn't have much of a place in this meta. Missing out on the base 110s is also a huge bummer, unlike Electrode, Raichu (ties at least), and even Zebstrika. Manetric's niche at this point is Switcheroo, as well as having the best overall power-to-speed ratio of its Volt Switch and its Fire coverage, but that just sounds really specific for the meta atm.
With defensive teams on the rise, Cryogonal may just be able to get a better lease in life again, since its teammates are more capable of covering its glaring flaws. Cryo is still one of the more capable Rapid Spinners in the tier due to its longevity and good matchup against most Ghosts. With defensive teams greatly lessening the need for Cryogonal to fend for itself, Cryo is free to run other support moves, such as Knock Off, Haze, and Reflect, to help its team, with Reflect serving the additional purpose of saving Cryo from Pursuit. Cryo can serve as a backup Ice resist as well, fending off Specs Aurorus, Piloswine, and non-physical Grass STAB Abomasnow.
There was little discussion / rebuttal about this last time, though I don't know if it was drowned out by pointless discussion or accusations, so I thought I'd bring it up again. As I've discussed previously, Super Fang is an absolutely beautiful move to screw with pretty much every defensive Freeze-Dry resist in the tier without needing to predict & sacrifice itself, and outside of that, it still has the decently fast Freeze-Dry and Explosion to do some damage. Meanwhile it has other moves such as Taunt, Spikes, and Ice Shard to give it variable utility and not make it a one-trick pony. By no means is it good, but these niches can be C- worthy imo.
Considering Quag left and came back on such short notice, I doubt its standing in the meta would be influenced by too much, and this was where Quag was before it rose anyway, so I don't see much harm in giving it this preliminary ranking. Because stall has been thriving since the last time Quag was in NU, you'd think that'd automatically make Quag more viable. However, I'm of the opinion that Gastrodon is simply overshadowing Quagsire a lot right now (though it already was prior), especially since Gastrodon finds its place on teams other than stall, by virtue of its more well-rounded stats and self-sufficiency.
The big reason is that Clear Smog Gastrodon already deals with everything Quagsire does, except Clear Smog also deals with Stored Power users that Quagsire falls flat against, plus Gastrodon has an easier time against SD Zard since its Scald cleanly 2HKOes Zard while Quag's has no chance to: this means Gastrodon can deal with a wider variety of setup sweepers than Quagsire can, despite Quag's ability. The only real relevant mons I can think of that Quag's Unaware is better than Gastrodon's Clear Smog against are Klinklang and SubSD Bouffalant, but Gastrodon eats the former for breakfast anyway, and the latter is easily dealt with via a teammate, particularly Ghosts. Quagsire's only real merit over Gastrodon at this point is having the free moveslot over Gastro's Clear Smog, but it only has a handful of options even remotely worth considering. There's Toxic, but Gastrodon can usually suffice by simply aiming for Scald burns to cripple its switch-ins (especially those immune to Toxic) and having a teammate take over from there, so Toxic seems far more like filler than being a necessity, unless you really hate SubToxic Mantine I guess. So Quagsire's niche, imo, boils down to being able to use Curse while being able to check opposing setup sweepers at the same time (although WispZard can still give Curse Quag trouble, embarrassingly enough), which isn't a bad niche by any means since it can act as a wincon for stall, but for the most part doesn't seem worth trading over the relative consistency of Gastrodon.
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