I don't think that's a big assumption to make at all. If the greninja is protean but hasn't revealed it yet, it's common for fini to switch in, and it's a generally good play to click gunk as lando won't switch into greninja, so steel type switchins are all you really need to worry about. I don't know why you're bringing up extrasensory, as gunk shot is standard on protean gren and is all it needs to hit fini.
Your analysis of my char-landot comparison only says that fini is even less reliable in checking an unknown ninja than landot is in checking an unknown zard.
You say gunk shot isn't even likely to come, that's plain false. Especially if a hazard is down already. Even if the ninja goes for the neutral play and clicks ice beam, fini has to switch out immediately or get KOd by gunk, and didn't get to defog.
"You don't want your defogger to be weak to rocks. That's just counter productive. "
You missed what I said. Zapdos is unaffected by spikes. One layer of spikes and rocks is about the same damage as one round of SR to a SR weak mon, and spikes are literally everywhere in this meta. If you're saying zapdos is a bad defogger cause it's SR weak, that's a whole other thing. I don't want to move the conversation away from fini too much.
Checking 'status effects' isn't a thing. My question is, with fini's lack of recovery, what all can it check consistently throughout a match? Mind you if it ever wants to defog it has to either eat a hit or allow a free switch. It's passivity and the ease with which it's worn down lead me to support a drop. It's defensive friends in A- (skarm, mvenu, msab, amoong, clef) are all much more difficult to wear down and perform the defensive role far better. Fini i suppose its just unfortunately one of the few viable defoggers.
Checking status effects is totally a thing. Fini is great for switching into will o wisps and toxics and thunder waves, which is pretty huge when there's stuff like stall that has a status move pretty much on every poke. Finding switch ins for all of those can difficult, and Fini alleviates that issue.
As for reliable recovery, it's not like this makes it just a one time check. It can come in on plenty of stuff consistently throughout the match (read: Ash-Gren) because resisted hits do all of nothing to it and sometimes are even completely absorbed by leftovers. Lack of reliable recovery does not immediately invalidate a defensive mon. Celesteela, Magearna, Heatran, and even defensive Lando still function plenty well without it, and those are all higher ranked than its defensive friends in A-.
I brought up extrasensory because, like I said, it's the only other common move Gren carries that isn't resisted by Fini, so it's the only move besides Gunk Shot that even remotely harms Fini, which means Fini can usually switch in safely at least once to scout whether or not it's Ash, because in the current meta 2 steels are pretty much on every good team, which means gunk shot is not exactly the best move to throw around carelessly, especially due to its accuracy (or lack there of). So no, saying gunk shot is unlikely to come is plain false. If Gren forces something out, chances are it'll go for spikes because hazards are the best and even if Fini does come in it can always just gunk shot it on the next turn. It's overwhelmingly the safe, smart play in most situations, because once again Gunk Shot is unreliable.
My analysis of the char-gren/lando-fini comparison was that it's a terrible comparison. Lando should never switch into an unknown zard, because it preferably should already know what it is, because CharY only has a few effective and synergetic teammates and thus should be relatively easy to see coming. And even then, if it can't tell, it's a terrible idea to switch because you're then still facing a speed boosted CharX (if they're smart, un-mega-evolved too so they don't have to worry about EQ) or you're dead because Fire Blast kills everything.
I didn't miss what you said about Zapdos, I just didn't mention it because it's ridiculous. Zapdos isn't the worse defogger, but it's a waste of Zapdos if you're running defog on it because then it can't run roost + 3. Also without hp ice, which it drops to run defog, it loses to Lando T and Spikes Gren (gren uses spikes, is immune to discharge afterwards, then follows up with ice beam to KO Zapdos). Also an immunity to spikes doesn't make up for SR weakness, because 1 spike and neutral SR is still less than SR weakness.
Edit: Nihilego shouldn't rise. It can't break through almost any steel types and with 2 on every team that's kind of an issue. It also really only runs the scarf set.
Also the comparisons to its fellow B+ brethren fall short. Serperior, Gyarados, and Scolipede are all doing pretty well in the meta, with serperior gaining traction after the mosa ban and gyarados being the best physical sweeper rn and scolipede being the face of the pretty viable bp archetype. Sure, Gyara and Scoli only do one thing, but so does Nihilego and unlike nihilego they're pretty much the only ones that can do what they do (because moxie salamence is ew).
As for A- comparisons, Amoonguss isn't particularly notable in the meta right now, Mega Pinsir only sees good use on HO and hates the lack of viable hazard removers, and Mega Venu suffers from Mosa's ban. They're kind of at the bottom of A-.
Nihilego does scarfing great and I love it for that, but A- for a steel and ground allergic scarfer is too much.
