Just putting it out there, but special Combusken can bowl over Rhydon with Focus Blast. If anything the best counters to Combusken are Fire + Fighting resistant Haze Pokemon, like Qwilfish, Dragalge, Mantine, and Lampent.Rhydon for A
With players abusing Combusken left and right in both tournaments and the ladder, Rhydon stands as its best counter.
By that extension Rhydon does not stop the strategy any better than the Haze Pokemon; Rhydon has to predict whether Combusken will pass to Xatu or a bulkier teammate like Feraligatr. The Haze Pokemon at least can ruin the Combusken player's momentum by removing their boosts so that their recipients are not immediately dangerous. The fact that they have access to Haze and can hit Combusken for decent damage means they are not setup fodder for Combusken at all.
I have yet to see a special combusken, and if you were to run a special variant that would mean you lost to other things. Combusken has 4 moves, and rhydon can beat combusken given its most common 4 moves, which makes it a counter (or at least a check). Given combusken's prominence and Rhydon's ability to stop it, along with its general usefulness against the rest of the tier, I completely support it being moved up.
Special Combusken will likely be prominent in a more offensive meta, and you can easily say that Swords Dance Combusken can lose to things Bulk Up Combusken does not, but that does not make it any less potent or effective at its job (P.S. Swords Dance Combusken can do some serious damage to Rhydon as well). Rhydon is good yes, but it is susceptible to most special attacks in the tier and has no recovery, which likely does not push it higher than A- atm.
Shiftry's gone? When did that happen? :x
Nothing really justifies itself as S Rank with Shiftry gone, as the NU metagame seems to be relatively balanced. I feel that Feraligatr does become a tad stronger, as one of HO's good checks to it is gone, but I don't think its S.
it moved up to RU in usage this month.
It doesn't have the speed to be an efficient mixed attacker, more likely than not you're going to get rekt by any faster se attacker
252+ Atk Life Orb Samurott Megahorn vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Vileplume: 125-148 (35.3 - 41.8%) -- 84% chance to 3HKO after Black Sludge recovery
Doesn't really matter since samurott has significantly lower defenses + is pretty slow and already vulnerable in the first place
Yeah, sure fast and strong SE attacks are gonna do a lot of damage. That doesn't detract from his ability as a mixed attacker and is frankly besides the point if you're talking about offensive prowess. Some of those calcs are just pointless, yeah of course Evire is gonna KO a Samurott, and a Gatr too (assuming the same spread as you've got there)...
My point is that there are a variety of pokemon available that easily get rid of samurott. If you want some examples of decent (not amazing but noteworthy) non se damage on samurott, here you go:
The point was, you're responding to a post about its effectiveness as a mixed attacker with calcs that show big damage on it. I agree with you that it's not better than Gatr and should be ranked below it, but don't dismiss its ability to hit hard both specially and physically because it takes hits ~10% worse than Gatr (holding spread constant). Plus the majority of those calcs don't include mons that sit between Gatr and Samu's speed, nullifying the speed argument if you're gonna use those (not saying that I need any more calcs)
Being a specially based mixed attacker is really Samurott's main niche in the meta atm, it has crazy powerful coverage that hits much of the tier for a lot of damage. However, that is really Samurott's most (arguably only) notable niche over Gatr, since it is overall inferior as a Swords Dancer. Megahorn does not strike the most common Grass-type in the tier, Vileplume, for too much damage, whereas Feraligatr's Ice Punch nails it nicely. Ice Punch also has better coverage on notable NU Water resists, such as Dragalge and Gourgeist, that Megahorn does not, meaning Samurott's coverage is less effective than Gatr's. Finally, the bulk difference is more significant than the HP difference between the two: Feraligatr actually takes hits better than Samurott from both ends.
Samurott actually beats Gourgeist thanks to Knock Off and that is another thing that sets it apart from Feraligatr and, as Megahorn is way more powerful than gatr's Return (which is the move it should run 90% of the time) on neutral targets I feel like Samurott is a fair competitor even regarding the SD set.
I feel that Sawk should be kept at A-. It is the tier's strongest wallbreaker, and with Mold Breaker, still has the powerful niche it did last gen of OHKOing every SR user regardless of Sturdy. While an increase in Speed Tiers and HO didn't help it, and it is rather reliant on Choice Items, which makes it vulnerable to the likes of Granbull and Slurpuff, I feel its sheer power and utility gives it enough leeway to justify a A- ranking.Sawk to B+
It might be just me but Sawk really has trouble preforming well lately. Without a band it doesn't have enough power to break the walls it's supposed to, it misses out on a bunch of 2hko's that it would otherwise have gotten and it's outclassed as a scarfer thanks to pretty much every other common user being faster than it. If using band it does have it easier breaking walls, but it's checked by pretty much every faster pokemon in the entire meta. Not to mention the reliance on choice items makes it even easier to get a check in on the proper resisted move as well.
It might 2hko the entire metagame except Granbull, but more often than not it kills one thing then get revenge killed. It isn't helped by decent-at-best bulk that really doesn't allow it to switch into anything except walls and even then it has to be careful because even most walls can manage to take a fairly decent chunk out of its health on a switch in unless it's a resisted attack.
As for Spiritomb for S, I don't like it for a couple of reasons. First of all it is complete st up fodder for a bunch of bulky attackers, not notably Gurdurr and Combusken. Secondly most of Spiritomb's checks and counters stays mostly the same regardless of set (defensive Granbull always counters, Scrappy Pangoro checks etc.) and lastly while less important is the fact it can't do everything. It might destroy offensive teams if it runs one set, but then it's not so effective versus defensive and such.
