Now see, your argument is really fundamentally flawed. You're trying to defend it but all the points that you make are basically the reasons that it's not ranked at all. Let me put it this way:That's why I've been referring to Kricketune as a higher skill-index/higher risk higher reward ninjask. You NEED to set up situations for the Krick to get a Fell Stinger. It's highly reliant on having team support to work, ie a Twave user (like the togetic i run with it) but if you can consistently set up situations for it to get that first kill, it becomes stronger than Ninjask in a lot of situations.
I feel like D really isn't a stretch given the fact that it CAN work.
(Also, I'll get some replays to throw in tomorrow, I wrote this on a school-owned chromebook that I can't access showdown on.)
edit: i forgot to address the Pinsir/Primeape claims (although i did more or less address them but not directtly)
basically, the idea behind why you would use this over those two is
1) if you find it more fun like I do (because whether people like it or not, having fun IS a factor and if everyone only ran the best option pokemon would just inherently suck)
2) if you need a SUPER hard sweeper that you're willing to build a team around
3) you want to use something that's not as common so people don't know what it does and you can score some surprise KO's
tbh the reason i personally think this deserves to be D tier is the philosiphy that not being the best option doesn't mean it's unviable. Using Smash Bros. Melee as an example, Fox is clear cut the best character in the game according to most people, but nobody's going to say every other character is unviable because of that
1.) Fun is not a way to determine viability, at all. Sure, it is much more fun to use gimmicks like Scarf Fell Stinger Kricketune, but you're never winning games unless you play against complete noobs, or you get lucky somewhere along the line, and that's the whole point of ranking stuff in the first place, if we didn't rank by how good something actually is, there would be no point to ranking them at all.
2.) The fact that you mention that you need to set it up in order to win does apply to basically every Pokémon out there, but it requires so much support to set up that it's not even worth the time or effort to set up, unless you're hard memeing the ladder and you want to fsr. No good or decent player will ever really fall for this, and I mean never.
3.) It's uncommon for a good reason: there's no real niche to get out of it. The only niche it COULD possibly ever try to actually pull off viably is outdone by other inherently also garbage Pokémon, sadly (Well, Masquerain isn't actually unviable, it's a perfectly viable webs setter but hopefully you get what I'm trying to get at). I'd rather use Masquerain for webs, Pinsir if I really want a more powerful Bug-type, or just really any other Bug-type in all honesty.
And you're not even mentioning a majority of the support needed to absolutely pull off such a high risk low reward gimmick. You absolutely need to kill any and all resists, any and all physically defensive Pokémon that are not weak to bug, a shitton of hazards, among other things. I'll stop there because there's absolutely 0 need to keep this going in all honesty, it has no real niche and that's the end of that.
To drive discussion away from that, some of the other discussion points:
Bronzor C to C+: Agree, won't touch too much on it cause everyone else has already said what needs to be said about it, great role compression for more defensive teams with its good bulk + typing and passivity making it perfect for those teams.
Tangela C- to C: Have not really seen a lot of Tangela in all honesty, so I have no opinion whatsoever on this.
Metang C- to C: Agree, this is basically the more offensive version of Bronzor which makes it better for more bulky offensive teams that can't afford to have a super passive mon.
Silvally D to UR: Disagree, SD + STAB Z-Explosion is definitely a niche, a stupidly small one, but it's an actual niche nevertheless which makes it stand out from other Normal-types that it competes with.
Poliwrath B- to B: Kinda iffy on this too, not because I haven't seen it like Tangela, but because I feel like it has merits to both move it up and not move it up. It definitely does have uses both with Water Absorb and Swift Swim, where Water Absorb does let it provide more balanced/bulky offense teams with a Water-immunity which could be crucial, while Swift Swim can be useful and helpful on rain when used to help either weaken opposing teams for its other Swift Swim abusers to take advantage of or for cleaning up for itself, and having access to moves like Vacuum Wave help it a bit too. However, it's kinda easy to wear down, especially in a meta where checks like Mesprit, Jynx, Archeops, and others are really common. Also it's fairly slow which does not help with how easy it can be to wear down.
Clefairy B to B+: Agree, Clefairy is one of a few small checks to some of the most prominent special wallbreakers in the tier like Alolan-Eggy and Drampa. This role compression alone is often enough for teams to consider. Its immunity to hazards in a meta where hazards are king is also very appealing, and it can still act as a soft check to Fighting-types if it really has to. Faces competition from other things but overall it's a fairly strong contender for B+ imo.
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