Stop comparing Darkrai to other Special Attackers in the tier with "similar stats" because there is one crucial tool that Darkrai has that they basically don't.
Nasty Plot.
One of the most broken moves in the game, and I am not kidding. The reason Nasty Plot has shit distribution (you can go check), is because it is a very broken setup move, and most Special Attackers are balanced around not being able to boost with Swords Dance or Dragon Dance like Physical Attackers.
With Physical Attackers you have things like the moves giving you recoil, lowering your stats, Intimidate!!!!, Flame Body / Static and more.
The Physical Attacker is almost always balanced around two things: The fact that it can setup easier with Swords Dance or Dragon Dance etc., and that it can then be checked by other means.
Special Attacks are inherently harder to check with the moves rarely having downsides beyond "low BP" which are usually made up for by their secondary effects with promote spamming. Shadow Ball defense drops, Scald burns, Discharge paralysis. While there are some Physical Attacks with hax (ie. Rock Slide), usually they aren't a big problem.
Essentially, most Special Attackers are balanced around not being able to boost twice in the same turn. Calm Mind for a lot of Pokemon is boosting a useless stat, even at +1 SpDef Iron Valiant is dying to most Special Attacks, so it's like fucking SWSH Zamazenta-C boosting with *Howl*. Enamorus as well, though the SpDef is a bit more useful it'd much more rather to get 2 boosts in one turn and just destroy the tier.
Walking Wake with Nasty Plot would have been a Quickban and that shouldn't even be a controversial statement. Protosynthesis speed -> giving it +2 -> now it can spam? Absurd.
Nasty Plot is unironically one of the most broken moves in the game solely because of how Special Attackers are designed. Does this mean I'm saying getting Nasty Plot makes a Pokemon broken? God fucking no lol. But if I took any OU Special Attacker in most tiers and gave it Nasty Plot it'd probably get banned like, within the month.
It's a very, very, very, very, very big jump in power to boost twice in one turn rather than one boost.
People keep saying "Pokemon is more complicated than calcs, look at how much easier it will be to check it in practice!"
I'm gonna level with you: Shit is almost always more broken than the calcs say. Almost always. You can go through most Ubers that not literally Groudon and say "this is managable in the tier", because guess what?
They are technically. Fuck, the way Ubers deal with Zacian-C is literally Skeledirge, which is a fine Pokemon in OU. Ting-Lu is one of the best Pokemon in Ubers and checks basically everything, and does the same shit.
OU is not a playground we have monsters. If you threw down Urshifu Dark into the tier, it'd make it demonstrably worse but it wouldn't be "uncheckable". Swords Dance? Lol Iron Valiant outspeeds and kills with Moonblast / Encores the last move. It even quad resists Wicked Blow. Max PhysDef Clefable can take a hit from Band and see what it's doing. We have several good Regenerator Pokemon which made up of Balance cores trying to PP Stall Wicked Blow in Gen 8, now they just have to pivot into their Super-Effective faster Pokemon when it Swords Dances or Dondozo.
Offense teams? Should already be ready for powerful Sucker Punches, Kingambit is technically more powerful in that regard.
etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
Things are not usually "less broken in practice" they are usually more broken in practice. And the only argument seems to be "calcs don't matter just close your eyes" + "4MSS" which honestly isn't even an upside, it would just make the tier less consistent.
Power creep makes the game worse by making less and less Pokemon viable creating a less diverse metagame, and the way to fight power creep is to reverse it, not unban more Pokemon in the guise of "the power creep has made it fine".
Anywho, doesn't really matter what I say at this point. I'm ready for people to go AV Pex on the Nasty Plot and get flinched down before being able to do anything.
All in Pokémon Scarlet & Violet DLC Expansion Pack 2 :tm: