We have already said that using niche stuff that don't check anything else isn't making Rayquaza any less broken. You can run all sort of mons that check it and then you lose to every other threat in the meta such as MGar and MMX.
Not only is this completely false, the reasoning is also laughable, basically you are saying that if A counters/checks B then A should be higher ranked than B. So by your logic Yveltal should be ranked higher than NDM in Ubers, Skarmory higher than Lando-T in OU, and Arceus-Electric higher than MegaRay in BH.
Can you read? First the calcs are legit so actually calc the stuff before saying stuff like this. Also it literally says +1 there???? You thinking that the calcs are wrong is proof that you have not played the meta very frequently (as anyone who has used or faced ray should know the rough damage Imposter takes).
To make this not a one-liner that might get deleted, I thought I would talk about the thing after Ray, which is Shed (I think Species Clause should be quick implemented, personally prefer a limit of 2 but 1 is perfectly ok too, as long as it goes through). The main part of Shed I will analyze is the impact it has on teambuilding.
Defensive Restrictions.
Due to Endeavor, every team usually must have a Ghost-type to not lose a mon every time Shed comes in. The two problems with this is that Ghost-type Pokemon are generally difficult to improof, and there aren't a lot of these Ghost-type mons, and even they lose to Shedinja often, despite being immune to Endeavor. Here we will take a look at the useable Ghosts in the meta and how they deal with Shed (Excluding Shed itself).
The go-to Ghost for most teams thanks to its general high viability and role compression.
Common sets: Prankster, Magic Bounce, Poison Heal, RegenVest.
- Prankster Tina can only threaten Shedinja with the subpar Will-O-Wisp or Poison Fang (maybe Rocks but they can just go to the mandatory Bouncer), while having a big 4MSS due to only having 2 free moveslots and one of them is typically Core. In addition, Shed just sets free rocks.
- Magic Bounce Tina prevents Shed from setting rocks which is nice, however it again struggles to fit a move to threaten Shed. Due to already wanting to run Dual STAB, Recovery, and Defog, it also has big 4MSS. The only decent move it can run to threaten Shed is Poison Fang, as Will-O-Wisp is extremely suboptimal on MB. Scald can work but is even more niche.
- Poison Heal Tina has passive recovery which is useful for negating stuff like hazards chip such as from the rocks from Shed it cannot prevent. It does have the option of running Will-O-Wisp as a very solid move to threaten Shed. This set also has the advantage of being Imposter-proof if it is running Shield over Recovery.
- RegenVest Tina has Regenerator which can also shrug off some chip damage. However it is also free rocks (Rapid Spin is not good at all) for Shed, and is even more Imposter-bait. It can fit a move to threaten Shed such as Poison Fang thanks to not running Recovery freeing up a slot.
This is the second most splashable Ghost (which definitely says something about the number of good ghosts). Its also the most viable offensive ghost.
Common sets: Normalize, Shell Smash, Mold Breaker, Choice Adapt.
Note that basically all Gengar sets lack recovery so they get chipped down with U-turn, hazards, and even Pursuit. In addition, they are all free Rocks.
- Normalize Gengar's problem is that it cannot threaten Shed at all before it Entrains it. This means that even if it catches Shed on the double Shed gets a free turn.
- Shell Smash Gengar cannot threaten Shedinja (LOL) outside of Sludge Bomb Poison which some don't even run (they just run Sword). Imagine being an offensive Ghost hard walled by Shed while it chips you down with 10 million U-turns.
- Mold Breaker Gengar is a nice answer to Shed and is even one of the more reliable answers if it runs Pursuit. However running Mold Breaker means you can't run something else and running Pursuit means you forgo either Sword or Sludge.
- Choice Adapt carry Moongeist which directly threatens Shed but you can be predicted to get locked into Moongeist. The drawback of Geist over Judg of being not imposter-proof is also annoying sometimes.
This is the second best defensive Ghost, not even going to talk about how this mon is so trash that it checks basically nothing. Oh and its bigger Imposter-bait than Giratina because Imposter has bigger bulk and Aegislash has 0 offensive presence. It cannot even use one move (PFang) to threaten both Shed and Imp.
Common sets: Prankster, Flash Fire.
- Prankster has basically no room for any move to threaten Shed because as a suboptimal mon unlike Giratina it already needs an extra utility move apart from Haze such as Encore, Topsy, or DBond. Free rocks too. Can't even usually fit Rocks because if its only U-turn its passive af and if its Spectral it has 0 momentum.
- Flash Fire is better at checking Shed because it can run Wisp and Defog viably but if you are already not doing as good because you are running this set, like why aren't you another Steel that isn't actually Imposter bait. This set is worse than Prankster because it just gets 2HKOed by a lot of stuff.
The above are the common Ghosts, there is a big usage drop here. Not basing the good sets on usage because now the used sets aren't very good.
This is like the next most used Ghost, using 1760 stats at
49th. The big advantage of this mon is that it underspeeds Shed, so that Shed cannot just do whatever and slow pivot out. Unfortunately isn't as viable as the above Ghosts and also is neutral to U-turn. Imposter also has big bulk.
Common sets: Poison Heal, Magic Bounce, Fur Coat.
- Poison Heal is usually Imposter-proof which is nice, and carries Will-O-Wisp regularly which threatens Shed. Also has the passive recovery to mitigate U-turn and hazards chip. Is free rocks though and doesn't carry removal.
- Magic Bounce prevents Rocks from going up which is nice. Pretty noticeable Imposter-bait and has the same problems as Giratina with fitting moves that are good and force out shed.
- Fur Coat is like Magic Bounce but it takes less from U-turn but it doesn't prevent Rocks.
The next offensive Ghost.
Common set: Tough Claws.
- Tough Claws runs Sunsteel Strike which threatens out Shed but first is that this mon isn't that great and also has similar problems with Choice Gar.
+
The next offensive Ghosts.
Common sets: IDK.
- Can run Photon along with Judg to be Imposter-proof and still threaten Shed. Also can run Moongeist as well. Neutrality to U-turn sucks. Also the big question is why are you running these in the first place???
+
These aren't Ghosts but these can run Sand Stream pretty viably which instakills Shed. Problem is you are at 1 HP if you hard switched and doesn't work very well if they U-turn (great if they go for rocks though). Sand also has the cool thing of boosting offensive mons SpD like Aero and Diancie.
- Sand TTar is probably its best set rn and apart from killing Shed it also gives amazing extra bulk which allows it to survive some really crazy stuff such as not getting 2HKOed by SF EP MMY. Sand also chips offensive mons down which is cool too.
- Sand Nihi is much more rare but is a solid Diancie Xern Gar and Ray check. Problem is it generally wants Levitate.
There are other stuff that can switch into Endeavor and live ESpeed but those are just kinda bad because your mon is crippled and cannot do anything while still leaving the Shed perfectly healthy (it even gets free rocks because all of these mons cannot run MB and still live I believe).
Conclusion:
Basically there aren't very good switch-ins to Shed at all as you either let it get free Rocks and/or slow pivot and/or you cannot threaten it without forgoing some useful move.
Offensive Restrictions:
There are a couple of ways to deal with Shed as an offensive mon. Moldy Moves, Moldy, Status moves, Status/Passive damage inducing moves, and hazards.
Moldy Moves:
Sungeist Geyser is the most straight forward way of dealing with Shed on offensive mons. The main problem with running these moves (apart from not allowing you to use your own Shed to improof) is that they don't offer much coverage usually. In addition they are commonly run on Choiced sets, which are obviously exploitable seeing unless they are STAB they are generally weak. The PP is also annoying.
- Sungeist Geyser as STAB is generally really good as they are pretty strong already. However there aren't a lot of mons that run these as STAB moves. Excluding Moongeist (Ghosts are already covered) you have Kartana and sometimes NDM using Sunsteel and MMX, MMY, Deo-A, and sometimes NDM using Photon. For the special Psychics they sometimes don't even run Photon in favour of Psystrike, Psycho Boost, or Psychic for SF.
- Photon Geyser is never used outside of STAB as it has horrendous offensive coverage.
- Sunsteel Strike notably has no immunities which is nice for setup and it also is the go-to physical Moldy. However Steel is not a great offensive typing at all as it has common resistances like Steel Water Fire and doesn't hit a lot of targets super effectively, only hitting Rocks and Fairies such as Xerneas, Mega Audino, and Mega Tyranitar which aren't the best defensive mons anyways (Xern is lol, Mega Dino isn't usually used as a check to strong offensive mons, and TTar is better hit with Fighting or Ground moves usually). The only good coverage Sunsteel gives is on Dark types with setup to hit Fairies (and ofc Shed).
- Moongeist Beam is also not great coverage despite Ghost types great coverage. Only hitting Psychic and Ghosts types isn't fantastic, as despite these types being fairly common the only time this coverage is valued is on MMX and maybe MMY as the best way to hit fat Psychics and Aegi. Giratina is so fat it doesn't even care too much about unSTAB Moongeist. An immunity and being resisted by Dark isn't great at all. Rayquaza doesn't even want to use this half the time on Specs if it wasn't for Shed, and Triage only uses it to smack Unawares (which are bad) (and shed).
Moldy:
Mold Breaker is often not as useful on offensive mons because Unaware and FC are getting much worse (MGar Moldy isn't great rn and is only really good at killing Shed). In fact apart from Gengar no other common offensive mon commonly runs Moldy.
Status Moves:
Status Moves aren't very good on offensive mons as they want as much coverage as possible. Generally the only time you will see these moves is on PH mons like MMX and Primal Kyogre. Xerneas doesn't even run Status Moves that damage Shed usually. MMX runs Wisp sometimes which is good but MMX is already not letting Shed in usually. Primal Kyogre rarely runs Leech Seed but offensive PH Ogre isn't usually letting Shed in either so...
Status/Passive damage inducing moves:
The common moves in this category are Scald, Magma Storm, Blue Flare, maybe Steam Eruption (Sludge Bomb is basically only used by Gar). Scald offensively only used on PH Ogre and honestly Scald PH Ogre is kinda weak and imo Spout is better. Magma Storm is a useful move as nice coverage and guaranteed kill shed but its lower base power compared to Flare and Shaky accuracy is annoying. Blue Flare has a very low chance of proccing and magma is usually better (fire isn't even that great of coverage rn). Steam Eruption is hardly ever used and is only on Specs Ogre or Palkia which are both very very rare.
Hazards:
Probably the best way to remove Shed, as it prevents it from ever coming in once they are up. Offensive mons are usually the only way to get hazards up against Shed teams anyways because of the strong hazard control. The problem with hazards is it takes up a moveslot and is also more difficult to improof. In addition many offensive mons cannot even get hazards up against shed teams or will get them removed (not to mention that the hazard setting mon usually cannot break the team and will rely on a teammate). For reference the setters are PH mons (all usually threaten shed anyways), PDon, Tech MMX, Diancie, and miscellaneous choiced mons.
Conclusion:
Offensively its difficult to fit moves to threaten shed and generally offensive mons either forgo another coverage move or rely on hazards up, which is kind of difficult to maintain against shed teams. Furthermore the mons that can fit an offensive mons are often choice locked and will rely on predictions (which are removed if the shed team runs regenvest).
TLDR:
Shed is very restrictive on teambuilding as it not only forces every team to run certain mons but it also heavily impacts what moves offensive mons run which are often in comparison sub optimal. Basically suspect shed asap after ray.
