I haven't seen anyone saying that Lanturn and Stunfisk are useless/obscure/niche outside of stopping Magneton. Lanturn has been an effective support/pivot mon for a while before we got Magneton, and Stunfisk's viability as a hazard setter has been increased with Seismitoad gone.
Maybe you weren't looking hard enough? I'll post some for you. Wholeheartedly agree about Lanturn+Stunfisk.
About time, magneton polarizes the metagame in an unfavorable fashion with niche mons like stunfisk becoming popular just for acting as one of its hardest checks. These are just my preliminary thoughts however, we'll see if the ladder changes anything.
Didn't have to go farther than the second post to find one. Maybe their view has changed because it was their preliminary thoughts?
Just gonna pitch in some thoughts:
The only non-obscure Magneton counter is Lanturn (and Quagsire if no HP Grass); the likes of Stunfisk, Specially Defensive Torterra, and Specially Defensive Vileplume are all purely by-products of the Magneton meta, because these Pokemon really aren't very useful outside of responding to Magneton.
- Stunfisk is pretty mediocre outside of handling specially inclined Electric-types (and this would exclude Lanturn and Rotom-F) and some mono-Flying attackers (Fletchinder and bulky Scyther), as its resistances and offensive presence are too little to make up for the bothersome weaknesses that other Stealth Rockers such as Rhydon, Carracosta, and even Piloswine share.
- Specially Defensive Vileplume doesn't wall much outside...yeah you get the picture. Most special attackers in the tier can bypass SpD Plume easily, plus Plume's ability to combat physical attackers (most notably Fighting-types) and make use of Effect Spore would be directly compromised if it goes SpD over Def.
There's promoting creativity, and then there's stunting the meta by forcing people to use mediocre and lesser Pokemon / sets just to respond to it.
This was conveniently posted just a few hours after your post saying you've never seen anyone say this,
Jim E. Russler.
To Punchshroom: Stunfisk may be a by-product of the Magneton meta, but it fits in very well. Like Jim E. Russler said, it's viability rose with Seismitoad leaving, and its typing and insane bulk allow it to almost always get rocks, and typically it can take out a frail pokemon, or at the very least leave something paralyzed with static
About vileplume. You're right about spd contradicting effect spore, but other than that I don't see what youre saying. It still walls a plethora of things. It still walls Gurdurr, now walls Cacturne, Lilligant, even wins vs other Vileplume. It now checks mixed samurott much better, tanking 2 Ice beams, and pretty much any other water type with ice coverage. Sure it can't get past something like a STAB Fire Blast, but you can't expect phys def to take a STAB Flare Blitz, can you? How can special attackers still get past it, I guess is what I'm asking.
Here's a great replay of Spd Vileplume in action:
http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/nususpecttest-237132977
Not going to defend spd Torterra becaude I've personally never used it, and I don't like to theorymon.
First and foremost, people are running Stunfisk now. The only time I ever saw Stunfisk before the recent drops was in very, very low ladder when I was first starting a new alt or testing a team. The other two aforementioned checks, Lanturn and Torterra, are good mons in their own right, and worthy of consideration on most team archetypes without Magneton Volt Switching everywhere, but Stunfisk is just bad outside of checking Magneton (which it can't even reliably do because of Evio Magnet Rise) and resisting Flying which often runs coverage to beat it anyway (EQ Archeops, Facade from Swellow, and Scyther can just U-Turn out). Any mon that encourages the use of Stunfisk is, in my opinion, wholly unhealthy for the tier. For me, it's not that Magneton is downright broken as each is either slow enough to be taken out or not very powerful, it's just that Magneton restricts you so much in teambuilding that it can't be conducive to a healthy metagame.
Perfect example of what I was talking about. Somebody using this as their argument as to why Magneton should be banned. To this I'd say your only viable point is Magnet Rise Mag, but even then thats pretty rare. How can you say any flying type beats Stunfisk?
252 Atk Archeops Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 168+ Def Stunfisk: 202-238 (47.8 - 56.3%) -- 30.5% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
In return 0 SpA Stunfisk Discharge vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Archeops: 204-242 (70.1 - 83.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
puts it in defeatist range so eq cant kill you next time, and stunfisk wins
252 Atk Guts Swellow Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 168+ Def Stunfisk: 225-265 (53.3 - 62.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
in return 0 SpA Stunfisk Discharge vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Swellow: 252-296 (96.5 - 113.4%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
swellow dies after either rocks or burn, stunfisk wins
Would scyther really want to risk a scalds chance of static to get this much damage: 252 Atk Scyther U-turn vs. 252 HP / 168+ Def Stunfisk: 90-106 (21.3 - 25.1%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery? Not to mention stunfisk gets free rocks on Scyther so if it uturns its taking 50 when it comes back in.