Let's discuss
Azurill.
Azurill is currently banned as a donor due to one thing, and one thing only: Its ability Huge Power. Makes sense, right?
Well, when you have such an amazing offensive ability, you obviously need a good physical movepool to complement it. What does Azurill get?
Waterfall
Knock Off
Return/Frustration
Double-Edge
Iron Tail
Natural Gift
Bounce
Yup, that's it. The fact I had to list Natural Gift as a "good physical move" shows how bad Azurill's physical movepool is. But that's not all. Azurill is missing two key moves that make its evolutions unmanageable:
Aqua Jet and
Belly Drum. This means that not only does it not have any priority, but it also has zero way to boost its physical Attack: not even status z-moves can help it.
However, once I started to investigate further and create some potential example sets, I found a few mons that could be problematic if they were to inherit from Azurill.
Ambipom @ Life Orb / Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Double-Edge
- Return
- Knock Off
- Iron Tail
Weavile @ Life Orb / Choice Band
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Return
- Double-Edge
- Iron Tail
Greninja (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Huge Power
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Knock Off
- Waterfall
- Return
- Iron Tail
These pokemon gain a large amount of Attack thanks to HP and have some strong STABs in spite of the mediocre coverage, as well as being very fast. Despite this, these Pokemon are not impossible to check. Due to their frailty, they can be checked by faster threats like Mega Alakazam, Tapu Koko, Aerodactyl, Mega Beedrill and Mega Lopunny, as well as Espeeders like Bewear and Mega Pinsir. In addition, they can be checked defensively by Mega Aggron (It's good, trust me), Ferrothorn, Persian-A Buzzwole and Registeel. Weavile and Greninja can be specifically defensively checked by Suicune, Toxapex and Tapu Fini, while Ambipom can be checked by Celesteela, Dhelmise and Mega Mawile, as well as having to predict switch-ins from Scarf Chandelure.
Finally, as stunning as it may seem, unbanning Azurill as a donor could actually have some healthy effects on the meta. Right now, there is a lot of frustration and controversy surrounding stall in the meta, and unbanning Azurill could make that playstyle much easier to handle while not completely invalidating it, for as shown earlier, it still has checks like Persian-A inheritors and Celesteela.
At risk of getting I flamed and berated I encourage people to discuss this further. Could Azurill work as a donor in Inheritance without being broken? Could it help solve some issues in the metagame?