Being able to still rely on faster resists allows for wiggle room in battle and the builder. For Wellspring, there aren't really faster resists beyond Serperior and Dragapult, the latter is so shaky a switch in as all is one crit on a full health Pult from Ivy Cudgel and it can't come in again.
Ehh.... Doesn't Rillaboom basically function the same way with Grassy Glide? It's not faster but it is speed control.
And if you are going to mention Dragapult, should you not also look into other faster dragon in Roaring Moon, which has slightly lower defense but significantly higher base 105 HP? Both still die to play Rough without Tera, but still. Not usually a bulky team mon, but sometimes you will see it on semi-stall or whatnot.
I'll also point something else out, but there is a great amount of exaggeration about speed tiers and insinuating that 110 isn't fast. It's not as fast as it would've been in past gens, but it is a good middle range speed tier. And for Wellspring, it can still accomplish something against frailer offense as those will still have at least one slower mon than it. Compared to Hoopa which is deadweight into those teams.
110 is basically like the old 100 speed tier. It's not fast or slow. You're not fast unless you exceed it. We also have a whole expanded boosted speed tier in addition to the unboosted one. All thanks to BE. It's not exaggerating. I tried a Psychic Terrain team where D-Speed and speed booster Valiant were my forms of speed control and it wasn't nearly fast enough.
Aside from base form Ogerpon, which gets a very handy speed boost, none of the other forms are fast for any sort of offensive team in gen 9. There are 11 mons just in OU that outspeed Wellspring. You could make nearly two teams of entirely different mons before you got to it. This before we even get to Booster Energy, a rare Choice Scarf set like on Enamorous, and Weather speed boosts. Every team that isn't stall is running priority because you can't not do that with all the threat saturation. Frailer offenses should be outspeeding Wellspring
a lot.
Hoopa is not necesarrily dead weight into offense, either. AV Hoopa-U is really good at forcing progress since it has good special defense.
Difference is D-Speed when leaning into offenses makes it better into offense while not being as good into defense, unless you run NP but there wil always be some coverage concession when running that set.
I said I wasn't trying to turn this into an argument about D-Speed, but I'll use an example set to demonstrate what I meant by an actually fast wall breaker.
Deoxys-Speed @ Life Orb
Ability: Pressure
Tera Type: Dark
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 SpA / 4 Spe
Naive Nature
- Psycho Boost
- Ice Beam
- Knock Off
- Superpower
I have tested this set extensively. It's not just good against offensive teams. It's even good into stall. The main things in this tier that switch into this are the metal birds (mostly Corv because Skarm doesn't love Ice Beam with its low SpDef) and fairy special walls (Mostly Prim and Hatt) with Clefable being highly conditional on the set and being at higher health. Also, Gouging Fire can be ok depending on the set.
Where it struggles is that it is fairly easily revenge killed. Even though it outspeeds the entire unboosted metagame including +speed nature Pult, we still have a whole boosted metagame to contend with. Like it cannot be understated just how screwed the gen 9 speed tiers are.
And I know you are going to try and argue why Waterpon is more problematic or whatever, but that's never been my point. It's that wallbreakers can be fast. Faster than Waterpon and still hard to switch into. I don't buy this as a reason that will gain much traction in an actual suspect.
People actually did adapt to GF and while it places some strain on building, it's tolerable right now and if anything would get easier to handle as other overbearing mons are banned. Again, Kyurem dodging the ban doesn't mean Wellspring should. The standards for a ban aren't higher, people just can't agree on what is and isn't the most broken.
Most of this is your opinion stated as if it was fact. Yes, the tier decided we could adapt well enough to Gouging Fire. Personally, I disagreed. Doesn't matter. The voters decided. But the same community also voted to not ban Kyurem. So you saying Kyurem being broken doesn't mean... Nah. Kyurem being broken is your opinion. We chose to keep that one. Just like Gouging Fire being broken is my opinion and we chose to keep that one.
The problem both Gouging Fire and Kyurem have in common is they are absolutely brutal to switch into. This apparently isn't a deciding factor for getting banned. So if you think you are going to be able to get Wellspring banned under that logic, well, I'm skeptical because we have already seen that not play out twice recently.
And if people can't agree on what is broken, then that by default is going to make the criteria for bans go up. My point is the burden of proof is going to be on the pro-ban crowd. I simply don't believe just saying it's hard to switch into is going to cut it for a majority of voters needed to get that ban.
"110 base speed is not even fast in gen 9" is another very surface level analysis masquerading as a justification, as you yourself admitted most Pokémon you want on non-HO do not cross this margin and in fact the only Pokémon that do are either very niche (Maushold, Serperior, Torn-T) have significant disadvantages (Meowscarada, Darkrai) have a lot of other ground to cover on teams (pult weav zama, pult being the only very reliable answer, 90% of the time,) or rely on an intact booster energy.
Nah. 11 mons just in OU outspeed Wellspring before BE, Choice Scarf, or weather. We have a lot of priority. And it's not just HO. Offense and balance will generally want to run pokemon that are faster than Ogerpon as a matter of course. Ogerpon isn't actually fast enough for any meaningful speed control. Only stall or other slow bulky teams wouldn't rely on speed control like that. So it's a matchup issue, but not a speed based one.
Regarding booster energy, ogerpon excels at punching unpluggable holes in teams early in games, when booster doesn't always want to be spent, or winning with minimal effort lategame - it's not as though forcing out booster users is extraordinary difficult.
This is hardly unique to Wellspring. If you aren't putting pressure on the opponent, you are probably losing unless you are playing stall. So many things punch holes in teams, too.
if you are complaining about how "high" the standard to ban is why are you choosing to be a part of that. Choosing to die on the hill of "actually speed in and of itself isn't what makes a Pokémon broken" in pursuit of some contrarian "principle" and "logic" rather than just acknowledge the suffocating effect this Pokémon has on the tier helps nobody
First of all, the burden of proof is on the ban crowd. So if you want to get an actual ban, you need to meet that standard. You may have a strong ban opinion on this, but you will need to be more objective if you want to convince others.
And it's not about being a contrarian. Speed tiers in gen 9 are genuinely a different beast. I don't know if you just play stall or slower teams, but any sort of offensive team is going to need major speed control. Wellspring isn't fast enough to do that and it cannot make up for it with items. The speed point is just genuinely bad.
The hard to switch into point is true, but harder to accept when other hard to switch into mons like Kyurem and Gouging Fire recently avoided the ban. Regardless of what you personally believe with each of those mons, it is objectively true that they are all hard to switch into. You're going to need more than that to make a ban case gain real traction in an actual suspect.