Hi! This may very well be my last big post on the gen 6 VR, but I do have some very long stuff to go over, the first of which is the lower ranks. In case you weren't aware, the council has wanted to revamp the lower ranks for a while. They're just all over the place on splashability and effectiveness, some of the higher stuff is kinda shit and some of the lower stuff isn't that bad at all. This is what I'd do with them, relevant users
False. and
Anty said this list looked pretty good for the most part, but I think it's worth bringing the discussion here as well.
Keep in mind with these ranks that I'm envisioning B- as the decent mon cutoff. C+ is for mons that have a defined niche so you get more usage out of them but the niche itself is just kind of mediocre so you don't end up using it a lot outside of specific teams (think avalugg or ampharos). C is for mons that have that niche but the it's too small to fit on much of anything without very strict support (Seaking, Munchlax). C- are gimmicks that at least have some kind of explored use (Swoobat, Torkoal). D is only fitting on one kind of team, probably structured around it, and fails to do much of anything
C+ to B-: Fairly self explanatory mons that I'm not going too in depth over, they've seen a lot more use than stuff like Mightyena. Servine is just a solid mon that might be a rank or two higher if Muk wasn't around and Krokorok's CB set has gotten some well deserved hype for being actually good at Pursuit and relatively strong. Bronzor... could definitely be B rank but I'm gonna leave it here for simplicity. I would be lying if I didn't say I'm an arrogant asshole who says about half the teams that use this thing really shouldn't, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work just fine in the correct build.
B- to C+: All of these mons are just hard to use right now. Armaldo was cool when offensive resist berry spin could do some damage but it has some hard 4mss leaving it struggling to hit something all the time (spin/edge/x-scissor/eq/knock/toxic) and it's not hard to chip or find checks. Gourgeist-Small can be legit threatening and it's the most iffy drop but I can't seem to justify a Grass-type that is poor at checking Water-types, Leafeon, or really much of anything right now. It's reliant on then getting in and doing enough damage which it won't always, especially vs Clef/Duo. Sawsbuck is just a dedicated gimmick, it's like Leafeon but trades being incredibly splashable for gimmicks. And 2xthetap has found every worthwhile gimmick but ultimately you can't use this mon without solid team support and some surprise factor. Trevenant is complete ass whenever I see it and could drop lower but probably needs more exploration. Electabuzz is something I've defended for a long time, but we're finally at the point where the bulk doesn't make up for the useful immunities Zebstrika/Trode carry, not to mention extra power/speed. Just hard to fit on teams once again.
C+ to C: Just faces too much competition as a suicide lead to be relevant and the offensive Spiker, while unique, isn't fast or strong or bulky and has to always force switches to lay down anything. Not unusable, but how often do you find yourself wanting a massively sub-par Rotom-F just for the somewhat unreliable Spikes? There's been some good experimentation with this that could save it but I'd want to see a lot more.
C to C-: Butterfree was a shit sweeper before you remembered it's almost completely countered by Mr. Mime (Shadow Ball = no Psychic = nice Muk). You just can't expect it to do much of anything. Dual powder lead is hot tho. Dusclops is the only mon here I have absolutely no experience with, but I don't think anyone else does either. Cro is weak and there's lots of checks to those types of mons right now anyway thanks to how scary clef/duo/muk/ursa??? are, knock off is more plentiful than every, I'm the only person bad enough to run a team with zero burn absorbers.
C- to D: This is just really bad and being harder to use than Torkoal is an achievement. It just can't do anything.
e: forgot to do carbink, it's just not a mon I've ever considered putting on a team if I wasn't explicitly going to build around it. Crobink has fallen so far since XY ;_;
Separate from those noms, the area between B+ and A- is a little fuzzy imo. Some of A- is kinda shit right now, some of B+ is pretty solid. I'm not sure if it's my own personal bias in hating certain A- mons in the meta (and these are mons I've tried to use, not judged randomly) but this mostly just comes from some of these mons really suffering or improving because of the bulky/muk and clef/stallbreaker meta trends. Oh and false and anty didn't agree with these (well didn't see them, they might agree anyway)
A- to B+: Regice isn't terribly threatening right now, unlike Rotom-F it doesn't have the tools to annoy the specially bulky things running around so it's bad vs stall and unlike Rotom-F it's really slow and can't run Scarf so it's not great vs offense (RP isn't hard to check). The more balanced squads it used to be so nice against have started running Bronzor/SpD Clef/Muk a lot so they're not even much better than stall. I think I saw Charge Beam do a bit of work once but that's about it. I'd banish this mon to somewhere around Ninjask or Murkrow if I could.
Swanna is a lot better imo as Hurricane has nice immediate power behind it, but its bulk leaves so much to be desired. It doesn't come off well trying to switch into much more than Monferno and the defensive Defoggers and rocks weak+LO means that you can't continually spam attacks on the incoming spdef thing. There's just a point where both of these mons stopped showing up in anyone's teams, and above all they're hard to fit in a meta where you increasingly need even the offensive mons to fit some kind of defensive role or check some specific threat, which these don't do well.
to A-
to B+: Basic swap here. Gabite fits newly important meta niches by being a solid check to Golem/Monferno/Muk and the fastest rocker for offense, while Relicanth is a Water that doesn't check the main Fire-types or provide an Electric-immunity. And RP kinda blows. I only had any fun with this using CB, but wow there's a lot of other wall breakers competing with it (like Floatzel and Basculin and Kingler!). Gabite is useful, Relicanth is not.
B+ to A-: Politoed is quite good in both a defensive and offensive role, funny how the best Water immunity is nice in a meta where almost every offensive team has some kind of Water-type. Wacan Mirror Coat, Rindo, and Specs are all things I've enjoyed other than the more standard standard tank/phys def/scarf, there's a good amount of customizability that goes into this. It'd be one of the lower things in the rank, but it's earned its place.
Beheeyem is a cool mon but anything I can say is 1. Irrelevant since other people have hyped it up so much and 2. Overshadowed by people who think it should be in A or A+. This just needs more time and reflection imo, I've left thoughts in discord about why I think it's bullshit but I think there is a ton more people could and should be doing to adapt to it. It's anti-meta, enough to push it into A-, but there's always the possibility that people stop using Bronzor+Vullaby and thinking they're safe against Psychics (not that Pig can't beat that core either :s). I don't think it needs to be quite so high but it still has a high enough threat level regardless of how it's really not all that easy to fit on teams that aren't explicitly hoping that blanket checks that can't consistently beat everything you want them to are sufficient to wall everything.