that case with life orb is not a glitch
but i still think crawdaunt/sharpedo/feraligator are all three good on their own ways and playable at least till bl
Oh no, I believe it was a glitch within the black/white games. I doubt that they'd actually give a stronger boost to all Encourage moves than what Band/Specs would give with Life Orb and still be able to switch. 1.3X1.3 is much bigger than a stab/rain, Adaptability, etc boost size. Since the online simulator copies the mechanics of the game, it let that happen although I don't think the Life Orb recoilless was intentional by the creators.
Especially from Nidoking and Feraligator, probably the two best and strongest Encourage abusers (and maybe Crimigan).
Actually, Feraligator finally has yet another thing to definite it from Gyrados. Swords Dance, Encourage, and Super Power (for Nattorei) as well as Crunch (Burungeru) make it an excellent Pokemon for OU. It is pretty hard to ohko (except Specs Draco Meteors, but very few avoid being killed by those) and only has a 2x Electric weakness. Encourage Ice Punch smacks Dragons and it can also run Agility to make it really fast.
Sharpedo is okay but it can't take a hit at all really except for a resisted Bullet Punch which still is an easy 2 hit ko (and unless it's in Rain, Sharpedo will lose). It can do the Protect thing for Speed boost but then it gives a free switch in to anything that takes Water/Dark and has high special defesne (Nattorei) or a faster Choice Scarfer. Sharpedo's main clame to fame is really Speed Boost and then being able to Aqua Jet Blaziken and Doryuzu and ko Latios with Crunch. But without a boost unless it's hitting supereffectively/has Rain, Sharpedo is kind of weak to anything that is faster/resists Water Dark and the horrid Mach Punch weakness kills it. The best Sharpedo set I can think of is Hydro Pump/Icebeam/Aqua Jet/Crunch with max SAtk and +SAtk nature so it can scare something out, get a speed boost, and rip through BL ubers Shaymin, Darkrai, Latios as well as things like Doryuzu (2 hit ko with Aqua Jet).