Politoed

Politoed's resistance to Fire and ability to induce rain allow it to switch into Heat Wave from Heatran and Mega Charizard Y, which is basically the only edge that rain has over sand and sun: the typing advantage. Politoed is mostly viable as a bulky rain setter, as its 90 / 75 / 100 bulk allows it to survive many hits, and rain's power boost to Scald lets Politoed fully invest EVs into its defenses without losing out on too much power. Outside of being bulky and having Drizzle, it usually fits no other role than supporting. A big downside to Politoed is the fact that it is dead weight in a lot of matchups. Rain teams are always hyper offense, and Politoed does not fit the mold of a hyper offense Pokemon. Even though it is a viable support Pokemon with Helping Hand and Encore, it doesn't offer offensive pressure like Ludicolo and Mega Swampert do. Rain struggles to match the power of many other weather archetypes, which have an easier time maintaining momentum because of the offensive pressure that Mega Charizard Y and Tyranitar can impose on the field. Politoed itself, however, struggles to match the utility or power of other Water-types such as Rotom-W and Keldeo, respectively. Additionally, Politoed gets beaten by the numerous Electric- and Grass-types in the metagame such as Rotom-W and Ferrothorn, and Water- and Grass-types can take advantage of Politoed as well because it cannot threaten them. However, although Water-, Electric-, and Grass-types beat it, they absolutely hate switching into Politoed because rain-boosted Scald is a decently powerful move with a high burn chance. This is especially annoying for Pokemon such as Amoonguss and Ferrothorn because being burned means they will not be able to keep their utility during the game, as well as Ferrothorn losing out on damage.

While Politoed is a decent support Pokemon, it can also run a Choice Specs set that can deal tons of damage, even though you'll trade all its utility away for it. Choice Specs Politoed essentially converts Politoed into both a weather setter and a respectable attacker. Because rain often makes Politoed's partner very threatening, having a slower but still hard-hitting Politoed creates a two-on-two situation rather than allowing your opponent to essentially ignore Politoed. That said, Choice Specs Politoed has its strengths but also its weaknesses, such as being unable to switch moves, lacking Speed, and having less bulk.