Khans ability can also do it in as well best example being rocky helmet ferrothorn which was getting common on the sim pre ban. If you have a properly built team and have status as well as a spinblocker your good. Especially Gengar my Gengar set now Eats Megakhans Infestation/sub/disable/Thunderbolt nummy
rotom is bulky, but he’s not megasaur bulky, rotom is 3HKO’d by strong neutral hits (sometimes even 2HKO’d), he also can only be bulky on one spectrum at a time and his offense is only good if you invest in it, he also lacks reliable recovery
he’s pretty balanced the way he’s made, he can do a lot of things but he can’t do them all at once, that being said, he checks a fuckton of things and is one of the few pokemon who can handle the most powerful mega pokemon, you play a guessing game whenever you switch into him
he’s not overcentralizing as there are a buttload of pokemon who counter him, many of whome are very reliable pokes, like megavenusaur, AV conkeldurr, gastrodon, any specially defensive grass type, pink blobs, lati@s, etc (although, a lot of these have to worry about trick sets)
his usage is starting to go down while AV conkeldurr’s usage rises though (he’s going to jump into the top 5 pokemon next month, this thing is a monster)
I’m not really surprised that Staraptor got doomed to Borderline again. He’s like a good version of Farfetch’d: he obviously pooped in someone’s coffee creamer at Smogon.
As for Rotom-W–and now even the thread title is about it–and it being everywhere, it’s mostly what white shadow pointed out. Grass types, despite the buff to their defensive capabilities via being immune to Spore and other powder moves now, are still surprisingly rare outside in OU usage. The only ones that see any OU use with regularity seem to be Mega Venusaur, Ferrothorn, Breloom, Trevenant, Gourgeist-S and somewhat Whimsicott, who doesn’t even have attacking Grass moves half of the time, especially now that it’s Fairy and gets Moonblast. All of these save for Whimsicott and the few Trevenants with Natural Cure dislike being burned and Mega Venusaur and Gourgeist-S are the only ones who tend to be attacking on the special side with Grass to begin with, so…
Toxic Orb Poison Heal Breloom would be a good switch into any Rotom-W if Breloom’s Special Defense weren’t so crappy; on top of that, I’ve seen more Spore Sword Dance Technician Brelooms than anything else and they don’t want to switch or get hit by a burn. Roserade could probably take Rotom-W, especially since Roserade likes Choice Specs or Choice Scarf and gets Natural Cure…but I’ve only seen three or four of those in the past month. Even Roserade has to worry about trying to switch into Rotom-W to check it only to get hit by stupid fucking Volt Switch and having the Washing Machine switch to something else for free.
So, yeah, as white shadow pointed out, the real chief problem with Rotom-W is mostly that it gets access to Volt Switch since Volt Switch and U-Turn are dumb moves in general. While the former can at least be blocked by Ground types or Volt Absorb users or even Lightning Rod users, the first group is naturally weak to STAB Hydro Pump and tend to not like being burned on top of having STAB that doesn’t touch Rotom-W without Mold Breaker (or Gravity). The latter two groups aren’t much better off due to mostly being made up of Electric pokemon that tend to be far frailer than Rotom-W and don’t like taking even an “only” neutral STAB Hydro Pump.
If none of the Rotom forms got Volt Switch, then Rotom-W would still be good and possibly still the best Rotom form but it wouldn’t be nearly as obnoxious as it currently is.
Being only 3HKO’d instead of 2HKO’d is quite significant. Otherwise Rotom-W wouldn’t be one of the few pokemon that can actually still get away with using Rest without Sleep Talk or Heal Bell support in this generation, even with all the hyper-offense available. That’s…rather telling.
We all seem to agree that Mega Venusaur is pretty obnoxious in its own right, so let’s not pretend like that isn’t itself a problem that you need an obnoxious pokemon to deal with an obnoxious pokemon. AV Conkledurr and AV Goodra are legitimate counters to Rotom-W a lot of the time, but have to worry about the now nigh-ubiquitous Knock Off when Rotom-W inevitably Volt Switches out like a coward. Gastrodon and other Water/Ground types with Water Absorb or Storm Drain, much as I like them, aren’t doing shit to Chesto Rest Rotom-W, which unfortunately is the most common Rotom-W; it’s basically a stalemate at best in that case. Pink fatasses “beat it” in as much as Rotom-W’s not ever doing anything to be able to kill them unless it Tricks them; they tend to more or less lose to Rest or even Pain Split though since they can’t really kill it either with Seismic Toss.
The Double Dragons I can’t speak on, though they do seem to worry about Trick significantly less than most of the above in my opinion, akin to Roserade. But…yeah. That’s like only half a dozen to a dozen pokemon despite how common Rotom-W is, with half of those “counters” getting fucked over hard by Trick or having to worry about Rotom-W just switching out on the switch-in via Volt Switch or not being able to actually K.O. the Rest set. That’s also rather telling, even if it just tells us the obvious that Rotom-W is really good.
I’m not going to bother argue about whether something is “balanced” or “overcentralizing” since those words are almost pointless as everyone tends to have a different opinion on such things. All I know is that all this Rotom-W talk just makes me want to use Bea Arthur Roserade even more now.
If it only got volt turn or trick then it would be easier to manage. Having both plus burn just make one have to have a way to counter. I can kill those Appliances no problem now that i have a team I’m hapoy with.
grass types are rare because fire and flying types are everywhere, especially when a lot of them are crazy strong (the mega zards, mega pinsir, talonflame, volcarona especially)
mega venusaur has thick fat so he essentially doesn’t have a fire weakness, but he has this absolutely amazing bulk to back him up unlike most grass types that aren’t ferrothorn (pretty sure the only other grass type you would need to worry about in OU)
grass types were never a really strong type and those that were in OU had something ridiculous about them
