It took me a long while to gather my thoughts properly, so I am rather late in posting this. Most of the things that I want to say have already been said, so I'll try to keep it short. Let me preface this by clarifying that I went into this suspect with the mentality of "it's not broken unless proven otherwise"; despite my prior knowledge of what Staraptor has been capable of, I decided to keep an open mind and go into this test assuming it is a perfectly normal element of the tier. I would only be observing how it functions and operates, and then come to a conclusion based on its performance in the current metagame.Staraptor is undoubtedly very strong. It becomes a great revenge killer if equipped with a Choice Scarf, and a fearsome wallbreaker when equipped with a Choice Band. Both of these sets have flaws, as several people have highlighted before me, yet they still perform absurdly well. The question of whether or not they perform too well has been plaguing me. Whenever I played and Staraptor put in a lot of work, I asked myself: is my opponent playing well? Is his team prepared for Staraptor? If not, was his team prepared for the meta without Staraptor? If so, can it be tweaked to adjust for Staraptor?Usually, the answer to these questions was that my opponent had not been playing well. A lot of teams had Staraptor countermeasures, but they weren't used properly. If the team was unprepared for Staraptor, it was oftentimes - not always - also unprepared for a meta without Raptor. And a good team could usually be tweaked to deal with the bird. Seldom have I found myself in a situation where Staraptor was the true reason my opponent was losing. On top of that, when I wasn't playing well, Staraptor was usually unable to reverse the situation for me. It has been very good, but it has not exhibited any trait that would make me call it outright broken.I found myself trading Staraptor for 1 KO and 50% damage on another Pokemon a lot. However, to bring Staraptor in, I also often had to sack something myself, so this was a rather fair trade in my opinion. By pairing Staraptor with a VoltTurn core, or just U-turn users in general, I managed to find Staraptor more opportunities to put in work. However, the amount of work it put did not vary by a lot, and if it exceeded my expectations, a misplay of some sort was involved.A combination that seemed rather hard to stop was Staraptor + Healing Wish Latias. Life Orb Latias was able to put in a large amount of work by itself, and could Healing Wish Staraptor back up once it is worn down. Some of the common answers to Latias, such as Scizor, could drop to Hidden Power Fire and gave my opponent one less way of revenge killing Staraptor. Of course, since Hidden Power Fire is so common on Latias, one should always carry other answers to it, but those sometimes had to be expended early on. That being said, the Staraptor + Healing Wish combination is by no means impossible to defeat, and it does not automatically win games; rather, I think I learned that a wallbreaker / revenge killer + Healing Wish can be incredibly potent. It's not like this is complete news to me, as the combination of HW Mola + Specs Hydra + Scarf Ape has showed me last gen , but I was surprised by how effective HW was, and I am looking forward to further experimenting with Healing Wish in the near future.Anyhow, back to Staraptor. I don't think many people have talked about its moves outside of Brave Bird yet, and I can see why. I sometimes click U-turn, but I am usually better off just dealing a lot of damage to an incoming Pokemon. I rarely ever click Close Combat. It may be good coverage that occasionally comes in handy, but it usually is too risky to use. A lot of people have been running different moves in the last slot. I have tried Double-edge, and not once used it. I have tried Quick Attack, and it had some situational uses on Staraptor's Choice Band set, but it wasn't that great. I also tried Tailwind to support a teammate in case I had to sack Staraptor, but I was usually better off just clicking Brave Bird. I have been meaning to try Sleep Talk, since Staraptor seems like an okay switch-in to Amoonguss, but I have not gotten around to that yet, and I don't believe it would change much. The last moveslot on Staraptor's sets is rather customizable, but I feel it does not offer much. Staraptor still functions well without it, though.In closing, Staraptor may be a one trick pony, but it is a very effective one at that. It is incredibly hard to handle, but I do believe it is not unstoppable. It has many great qualities, but there are noticable flaws. I had a hard time reaching a conclusion on this suspect, but I do believe I finally have one.Now, on to other things! I did not forget posting about the results of Research Week, but wanted to bundle it with my thoughts on that bird we're suspecting, and it took me longer to accomplish that than I intiially thought. Last week, Choice Band Swampert, SD Z-Explosion Silvally and Choice Specs Ribombee have been tested, and I wish to present the results my researchers have found!Let's start with Swampert. Usually, one would use it as a defensive pivot and Stealth Rock setter. It offers some cool coverage, but that is usually foregone in favor of Roar to prevent set-up while racking up hazard damage. However, with a Choice Band, it turned out to be unexpectedly fierce. A great defensive typing, great bulk and good coverage allowed it to punch holes into a good part of the meta, either by virtue of being unexpectedly strong or luring something with coverage. Despite being "unexpectedly strong", its 110 base Attack did hold it back a bit, and it struggled to 2HKO some of the bulkier physical walls such as Slowbro. A similar Pokemon that would usually be better to use in most cases would be Rhyperior, which is a lot stronger. Granted, Rhyperior has a different typing, but it still offers a lot defensively. If Swampert performed as well as it did, it makes me curious as to what Rhyperior could do.The Silvally set being tested was gifted to me by the cute user Pearl , and as he promised me, it was good. After a Swords Dance boost, Z-Explosion could KO a large many threats, and sturdier ones often dropped to a Return right after, or the following actual Explosion. Sometimes, Scizors would attempt to wall it, only to get KOed by Flame Charge. On top of that, using Flame Charge allowed Silvally to outspeed every unboosted threat in the entire metagame, and made it that much more threatening unless the opponent had a faster Choice Scarf user. This set was very straight-forward, but incredibly effective.The surprise of the week has to be Choice Specs Ribombee. Many people had written it off as too frail to work, and its power was called into question. However, while it was not the greatest wallbreaker, its amazing Speed tier coupled with a decent offensive typing allowed it to run through many offensive teams. Some Pokemon, such as Empoleon or Scizor, were problematic for Ribombee, but pairing it with Magneton fixed those issues. Amoonguss also seemed threatening at first, but Psychic is a clean 2HKO on common variations of Amoonguss, so Ribombee could even weaken or take out this Pokemon for a teammate.Overall, all Pokemon this week operated at least somewhat well, and I want to thank all my researchers for participating. I want to give a special shoutout to Ov3r Ac3 , as his pastebin of Ribombee calcs gave me some interesting insight into how this Pokemon operates, and what support works best with it. Keep on rocking!edit: just edited a tiny bit in the second paragraph after I was fighting the forums for 5 minutes because I suck at using BB code, apparently.