Saw something and felt the need to respond bc it was misguided.
I don't have an issue with Drifloon, yes it is a powerful Pokemon I have run a baton pass stokepile, a calm sweeping set, and several more but it is not to the point of being broken. Looking at Mienfoo, it can run several set and each set has it own counters, and you can quite easily loss one or two pokemom two it, and I have had a Drifloon 6, 0 several times but this against inexperienced players, or players new to little cup. If a team is built well it can easily deal will most Pokemon including the big dangers from Fletchling to Pawniard, less common ones like Drifloon and Wailmer. Yes a have been swept by a water spout Wailmer.
If you are worried about recycle, berry juice that is what knock off is for most LC teams should have it
I don't think you really understand that Drifloon lives every burnt Knock Off but those of Guts users (when itemless), and usually the Drifloon user is smart enough to play around Knock Off unless it's from say Abra or Tentacool or something. But even then it's not likely that the Knock off will do anything since they love to sub down until they eat bj and then you're stuck.
It's very slightly comparable to Mienfoo; this would be an apt comparison if Toxic Mienfoo (the 10th most viable set, right behind Force Palm!) could weaken Special Attackers or something too. Mienfoo doesn't have passive recovery unless it switches out, and it also doesn't do passive damage--Toxic withstanding. These two things missing from Mienfoo means that it is hardly similar to Drifloon, as those are extremely powerful things by themselves and even better when combined. Mienfoo is a great pokemon just like Drifloon, but Drifloon can outspeed literally everything besides Deerling in sun while safeguarding against crits, status, and knock offs. Drifloon isn't really prone to being worn down unless you slap Toxic on something it likes to switch into or you get a lucky Scald burn, while Mienfoo is much more vulnerable. Mienfoo switches into a lot of things, and thus hates poison damage even if it heals it off. It reduces Mienfoo's recovery by about 1/4th-1/3, while Drifloon only cares so much with being whittles basically an 1/8. [Math is slightly guesstimated bc they run lots of HP numbers]. Again to the fault of the comparison, Mienfoo can't both sub up/heal while doing damage (burn) to the opponent to put them into kill range, making it unable to support itself. Nor can Mienfoo abuse a set up set and reliably sweep. Drifloon also has the added ability to switch out and come back in later to start its thing all over again, which sucks even if you have heal bell.
I don't think the issue is Drifloon doesn't have counters, no. Even Murkrow and Meditite had counters (one true counter in the care of krow), though these were mostly nonviable or generally meh outside of beating these two. Instead I think the issue is that Drifloon makes every team have a dedicated counter that really can't beat it and any other sweeper. Drifloon also has the annoying ability to compress roles that a team doesn't really always need but nevertheless makes them better--it can always be a wincon and you barely need to buld around it for it to have success. I realize some may discredit the suspect because Drifloon is able to stall and be annoying, which isn't really a broken trait, yet it does more than that and has more of an impact on games than being just a fat annoying balloon. Drifloon is able to somewhat offensively support the top 15 sweepers and cleaners, while also supporting itself. It works towards making 2 winconditions be set very frequently [if two winconditions are present on the team]. Every team has its faults, but Drifloon is able to emphasize and abuse these pretty much unlike any other legal member of LC. The only other things that are comparable with this ability are Abra who can sometimes have the magic set that kills your entire team (not really though, try using some fast mons or priority! or your opponent has a really bad set/your balance team is awful) or Magnemite who can screw over pretty much every check with HP grass and correct prediction, but these two require more thought to produce similar yet still lesser results--and not to mention pretty good luck on the correct moveset--and are less constant at attacking a flaw.
If your team is slightly weak to birds, hope you don't play Fletch + Floon. If you have 2 checkw to Snivy you can't really let one get burnt. If you rely on Ponyta for Pawniard and Drifloon, you better hope they aren't Scarf Pawn or you get lucky with Flame Body. If you're using Chinchou to patch a Mag or Water weakness, hope that Magnemite/Corphish and Drifloon aren't used together. Granted, all of this is matchup based and therefore isn't omnipresent, but Drifloon is sadly plentiful while all these pokemon are only slightly less so (unless you're on the ladder, where Drifloon gets an average of 2 KOes a game but has a usage stat that's lower than several B ranks). Not to mention in many LCPL matches, a Drifloon has soloed like 3-4 pokemon for a clutch win. What else besides cleaners can regularly be a last mon and clean up against such a number?
I don't have yet to find something that even half way mirrors Drifloon's situation other than Ponyta / lol Eggy / lol Phantump / Swirlix / DceaKrow / even more barely Fletchling but these are all very critically different than Drifloon. It would be best to generally avoid comparing pokemon to Drifloon, as all this does is poorly reflect the situation. If you can make a strong case as to why pokemon x and floon are the same, then do it, but in this unlikely event feel free to do so.
I'll make more planned posts on my thoughts of Floon later bc I'm not sure if it's broken or just irksome (obviously I lean to one side though), but please don't argue that pokemon who are only similar in that they heal and some people dislike them are similar enough that they aren't broken.
