Uh no. Absol survives Signal Beam
79.4% - 94.1%
lol whoops
dead w/spikes
29.5% - 34.9%
2HKO on average with SR, guaranteed with Spikes. Also, you have absolutely no chance if it's packing HP Figthing (I didn't, but a lot of players did, especially on Sub CM).
If Spikes aren't down in either situation, both Pokemon would be left with less than 10% after they attack, which means they die if I switch to something else to take the attack. Cresselia is decently fast for a wall and has instant recovery, so she can still come back in and recover to wall the rest of your team, which is pretty much GG if Absol or Houndoom were the best you can do. It's funny how neither of them OHKO before being hopelessly crippled too.
So I better congratulate myself, since I managed to use 6 Pokemon that Cresselia couldn't just walk in and set up on. Apparently I can't do this for Milotic though.
No you didn't, you just told me that you're trying really, really hard to stop Cresselia with two Pokemon that die incredibly easy to residual damage, and two that can stop it from setting up but don't actually beat it. The reason I place so much emphasis on "conventional" methods such as
attacking and
KOing the Pokemon in front of you is because they're the only surefire ways to beat it. From where I stand Scyther is the only Pokemon that can do that and it's 4x weak to SR, so it's not going to last long if Donphan can't keep those rocks at bay.
Donphan can't Roar if it's the last Pokemon, can still be worn down by attacking, and furthermore, it can't deal substantial damage to it. Cresselia is very much capable of setting up on Swellow because it doesn't even 3HKO in its dreams, and can only U-turn out to Scyther. Cresselia doesn't even need to set up to beat these guys, as it will naturally outlast them by attacking/recovering and letting SR do most of the work. And we're talking about
an entire team geared toward beating Cresselia.
There are quite a few others, Froslass for example (or any Spiker). DS Uxie with any Pokemon not named Toxicroak. Rhyperior. The list goes on.
That's not even a good list, lol. You're listing support Pokemon that can set up on a lot of things, but don't actually beat Cress. Froslass can't set up Spikes because it's too busy Taunting and being hit by +1 Psychics. Even if it could miraculously get more than one layer up, it wouldn't matter because Spikes fail to stop the biggest threat to your team, which is Cresselia itself.
As for Uxie, it Dual Screens while I basically get to spam CM and the only way it could force me out is by sacrificing itself with Mememto. Great, so you suicided one Pokemon and sent in another just to have a chance of forcing Cresselia out. And that's balanced how?
To begin with, in order for your examples to work to work, the setup Pokemon has to be able to set up (Froslass has to sacrifice a turn to Taunt, then keep using Pain Split to keep it from dying to +1 Psychic), then the incoming sweeper has to be able to threaten Cresselia out and subsequently sweep. That doesn't take into account the fact that the sweeper could be checked/countered by something completely different and Cresselia, who is still very much alive, can come in on something else and promptly set up. The entire reason we banned Cresselia in the first place is because no matter how many times you tried to force her out, she simply would not fucking die (Defensive Characteristic) and could easily abuse her defenses to open a setup opportunity and sweep (Offensive Characteristic).
I'm merely pointing out that if Cresselia is banned for reasons like these, then it would only make sense for Milotic to be banned. This isn't as hypocritical as the Raikou situation (I would certainly say Raikou was a much better sweeper than Cresselia), but if you consider Cresselia's defensive characteristic nominations (few as they were), Milotic makes just as much sense (more in my opinion) to ban as well.
Are you
seriously not noticing the difference between Milotic or Raikou taking a strong physical hit and Cresselia taking a strong physical hit, or are you pretending to ignore it for the sake of the argument? Milotic is not being banned because it doesn't take hits nearly as well as Cresselia, has more solid counters (I can name six or seven as opposed to Cresselia's two or three), and has no stat boosting moves to threaten the entire team as well as the sweepers it forces out.
Basically, Cresselia has Calm Mind and better defenses, and Milotic doesn't, which was the entire reason she was banned to begin with. Once Milotic ups that physical defense and gets CM, let me know so I can don my pitchfork and help boot her out of the tier as well.