np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 13 - Through the Fire and Flames

[Finchinator]

Hello everyone, the OU tiering council has decided to test Gouging Fire!

Gouging Fire has been one of the strongest Pokemon in SV OU since being released with DLC2! It was previously suspected in March here in what can only be described as a thread of all time, but half a year later and Gouging Fire's role in the metagame has evolved significantly. Before people who were pro-ban say "I told you so" or people who were anti-ban get all defensive, let's take a deep dive into Gouging Fire in the metagame and notice how much has truly shifted.

SV OU has been adapting with some of the most consistent and effective players being versatile, active, and open-minded while more stagnant players have struggled. Gouging Fire is a testament to this: the Breaking Swipes variant picked apart counterplay, but then people began running more durable counterplay and timely Tera Fairy to dwarf it. After a few months, we now have an even wider array of Gouging Fire sets that lack consistent counterplay, pushing it back into suspect territory after receiving overwhelming support recently on the forums and in a survey of OLT qualifiers, which will have results posted later this week. For reference, Gouging Fire is at approximately 4.5 / 5 on the survey so far, which would be the highest of any suspect this generation. This suspect will be used to determine if players who get voting requirements believe Gouging Fire has sufficient counterplay in the metagame or not factoring in all possibilities.

There is a variety of Gouging Fire sets in SV OU, but before the Breaking Swipes DD variant and the Sun Choice Band set were focused on. After some growth, Booster Energy sets have taken the conversation by storm. Other sets like bulkier DD and all-out breaking variants on Sun are still strong, but the mix between them and Booster Energy sets, which are far from predictable, proves troublesome. Gouging Fire has run Booster Energy to make it very strong, improving its attack to be strong even without a DD, alongside a number of offensive and defensive Tera options. Poison, Ghost, and Fairy are all great defensive options while the latter can even be parlayed with Tera Blast to demolish Zamazenta, Great Tusk, Ting Lu, and others while Ground or either STAB can allow for it to become a timely wrecking ball. Obviously certain Pokemon can limit Gouging Fire such as Dondozo if it is not Tera Dragon, Toxic Gliscor if it is not Tera Poison, Iron Defense + Roar Zamazenta if it is not Tera Fairy/Ghost, set-up Garganacl if it is not Covert Cloak or timely Tera Ground/Dragon, etc., but almost every check or counter comes with a very realistic contingency that is challenging to account for.

Perhaps counterplay in the conventional sense is no longer applicable to a metagame with such power creep offensively and defensively, especially when compounded with Tera. However, many prominent Pokemon do not pack such an immediate punch and permit teams to run multiple soft-checks to cover the spectrum of possibilities. Zamazenta is able to circumvent most individual counterplay with the right Tera and moves, but it is very possible for a team to be two or three deep on possible checks, thus making it a more competitive fight in some instances. You may have Tera Dark Crunch for Gholdengo or Slowking-Galar, but miss out on Heavy Slam for Clefable and Iron Valiant, Substitute for status, or Roar for various boosting wars -- the point is that you are oftentimes able to escape trouble without derailing all of your resources if you get ahead of things and are sufficiently prepared. Some still view this as a problem, and that is fair, but some would also argue that Gouging Fire takes this dynamic to a greater extreme than anything else in the tier due to how punishing it can be initially and the snowball potential. If you lack something like Dondozo and get the initial sequence wrong, it can very easily be game over!

Conversely, many people pointed out last suspect how much of a resource hog Gouging Fire can be and how many potential checks there are to it, often leading to game states where users committing to a Gouging Fire line end up cornered. It is true that Gouging Fire uses Tera a dispraportionate amount of the time when trying to sweep or even play defensive stopper on specific builds. In addition, you can find multiple checks to every individual variant of Gouging Fire within the metagame. The main questions here are if the counterplay overall is sufficient and numerous to make gameplay strategic, teambuilding varied, and the metagame competitively stimulaiting.

At this moment the tiering council believes Gouging Fire is strong enough that another suspect test was appropriate. This is not an outright declaration it is banworthy and survey results are far from binding; as we saw last time around, having a suspect run its course as the tier continues to evolve is vital as sentiments can change over time! With this said, there is understandably a lot of discussion of Gouging Fire and how it has evolved to power past certain forms of counterplay. We could see the metagame adapt to its varied offensive profile or we could see it continue to rage through the metagame.

Never hesitate to reach out to me with any questions on the suspect process and be on the look out for survey results later this week!

• Reading this is mandatory for participating in the suspect test!!! The voting requirements are a minimum GXE of 80 with at least 50 games played. In addition, you may play 1 less game for every 0.2 GXE you have above 80 GXE, down to a minimum of 30 games at a GXE of 84. Also, needing more than 50 games to reach 80 GXE will suffice.

minimum games needed

GXE	minimum games
80	50
80.2	49
80.4	48
80.6	47
80.8	46
81	45
81.2	44
81.4	43
81.6	42
81.8	41
82	40
82.2	39
82.4	38
82.6	37
82.8	36
83	35
83.2	34
83.4	33
83.6	32
83.8	31
84	30

• You must signup with a newly registered account on Pokemon Showdown! that begins with the appropriate prefix for the suspect test. For this suspect test, the prefix will be OUGP. For example, I might signup with the ladder account OUGP Finch.
• Laddering with an account that impersonates, mocks, or insults another Smogon user or breaks Pokemon Showdown! rules may be disqualified from voting and infracted. Moderator discretion will be applied here. If there is any doubt or hesitance when making the alt, just pick another name. There are infinite possibilities and we have had trouble for this repeatedly. If you wish to participate in the suspect, you should be able to exhibit decent enough judgement here. We will not be lenient.
• We will be using the regular OU ladder for this suspect test. We will not be creating a new Suspect Ladder. At the beginning of every battle, there will be an announcement denoting the ongoing suspect with a link to this thread.
• The suspect being tested, Gouging Fire, will be allowed on the ladder.
• Any form of voting manipulation will result in swift and severe punishment. You are more than welcome to state your argument to as many people as you so please, but do not use any kind of underhanded tactics to get a result you desire. Bribery, blackmail, or any other type of tactic used to sway votes will be handled and sanctioned.
• Do not attempt to cheat the ladder. We will know if you did not actually achieve voting requisites, so don't do it. Harsh sanctions will be applied.
• Unlike previous tests, we will be posting the voting identification thread immediately after this thread. Your voting requisites will be confirmed by a Council member or OU moderator, to which we will edit in confirmation. Please avoid getting more games before getting confirmed.
• The suspect test will be lasting until Friday, September 6th at 10:59 PM (GMT-4), and then we will put up the voting thread in the Blind Voting subforum.

This thread will be open to allow all users to share their thoughts on this suspect test and discuss with one another their thoughts. However, this thread will be strictly moderated, moreso than the average OU forum thread. Our moderators will apply discretion as to what is appropriate. You are not allowed to post about other potential suspects or bans. Please read and keep in mind the following before posting:

• No unhelpful one liners nor uninformed posts;
• No discussion on other potential suspects -- if you wish to discuss another Pokemon, we encourage you to do so in the metagame discussion thread, but this thread is strictly to discuss if Gouging Fire is banworthy or not;
• No discussion on the suspect process -- this includes testing Gouging Fire vs other potential suspects;
• You are required to make respectful posts;
• You are required to read this thread before posting.
• Failure to follow these simple guidelines will result in your post being deleted and infracted without any prior warning.
• Please also take a moment to read over some suggestions from the OU Council and the OU Moderation team for posting in this thread; adhering these will help out our time moderating the thread and present your arguments better and more educated.
  • Do not argue because it's your favorite Pokemon. This should be common sense, but please don't do this, because we will delete posts like this.
  • You do not need a boatload of experience to have an informed opinion, but please try to minimize the theorymon aspect and use your experiences watching and playing. Playing some on the ladder before posting is plenty if you're concerned about this.
  • Do not flame, belittle, or be disrespectful to users in this thread. While not everyone will read this post in its entirety nor will everyone have an informed opinion, please be sure not to be disrespectful. If there's an issue, bring it up to a moderator.
  • Do not use the argument of broken checking broken. Should your argument rest on your opinion that banning the Pokemon or mechanic being tested in this suspect test will make a Pokemon or mechanic broken, overpowered, and/or uncompetitive; don't. If something needs to be banned because of the result this suspect, then so be it.
  • This thread is not to voice complaints about the suspect process or decisions of the council. While we are more than open to hearing complaints that may arise, this isn't the place for it. I suggest you message the OU Council, PM our Tier Leaders, Finchinator and Ruft, or make a post in Senior Staff requests, should you have a badge.

Should you have any questions about the suspect test, feel free to message the OU Council. And if you have any questions about the moderation of this thread, feel free to message the OU Forum Leaders. I am tagging dhelmise and Marty to let them know about this, too.

Keep in mind that our suspect tests are decided by the community; anyone who rightfully achieves voting requisites is allowed to vote. The outcome is up to you.

 

[Finchinator]

Locking for 24 hours to let everyone collect their thoughts!

 

[Finchinator]

For reference, Gouging Fire was sitting at around a 4.5/5 on the recent tiering survey sent out to OLT qualifiers. Kyurem was between 3.5 and 4. There was also more Gouging Fire support throughout the tiering council, which is most important in these decisions. This is also alluded to in the OP, but I wanted to clarify it for the dozen people who ping'd me within 5 minutes.

Have a nice day! Thread will be open in 24h for public posting.

 

[TPP]

Thread is open now, don't make me and the others close it before the test is over. Thanks and glhf

 

[Magcargo]

Yeah, so I'm probably gonna still vote ban on Gouging Fire if I get reqs like last time, but my feelings towards the Pokemon has largely subsided. Tera Fire CB in sun is still ridiculous & I do find it unfair that any Pokemon in the tier has this level of power, but it is attached to sun which is one of the most difficult playstyles to make consistently work imo. Despite its ridiculous numbers, i feel Sun needs an advantage with a pokemon like Gouging to remain competitive (and even then Sun doesn't always use Gouging because of key defensive synergy issues). I've tried incorporating Gouging into more "regular teams" and find it difficult to slot outside of HO. Most teams don't like tacking on the additional Ground weaknesses given how difficult Tusk can be to switch into and Gouging's defensive utility and offensive power are rather lacking on "standardish teams due to its mediocre typing giving it only a few massively positive MUs & its Stabs having big drawbacks (Outrage locking itself in, Flare Blitz Recoil, Heat Crash inconsistent Power, etc.). I truly find Gouging to excel on HO, where it is indeed quite powerful, but I don't find it to be entirely flawless. Breaking Swipe set is a bit of an MU fish since it certanly can cook in some MUs, but takes quite a bit of time to get going + is a bit MU dependent / Tera reliant in its effectiveness since it can struggle vs certain Pokemon such as Dirge, certain Dozo variants, Fairy Garg, etc. Tera Fairy Blast Attack booster is probably the best set for Gouging itself to sweep since this set has good coverage, doesn't need to lock iinto Outrage, and can use Fairy blast to own most of its "checks" such as Ting-Lu or Tusk, but this set is fairly Tera reliant and has a few awkward MUs such as into Moltres, Dozo, certain Tera Water Pokemon like Lando-T, Ting, Garg, etc. Tera Dragon Outrage with Booster attack is probably the best "general" set imo since this set is incredibly effective at breaking down Ground-types such as Lando-T, Gliscor, Ting-Lu, etc. without Tera, making it much easier for Kingambit to sweep later. That said, I find this sets own sweeping potential to be a bit lackluster due to its reliant on Outrage, espicially given that most teams have a pocket Tera Fairy mon to somewhat keep gouging in check, usually Garganacl, sometimes one of the Grounds. Its more of a hole-puncher, akin to Roaring Moon.

Personally, in terms of "ease of use" I find Gouging somewhat difficult to use since its reliant on Booster + has awkward STABs + is weak to rocks. I typically find it most effective as a hole puncher given these traits, which it is quite good at. Since the previous suspect, both Gargnacl and Lando-T have skyrocketed in usage, and while Gouging can defeat them, it typically has to exhaust a massive amount of resources between booster, possible Tera, and moveslots. Compared to the typical "easy to win with Pokemon" such as Zamazenta, Kingambit, Darkrai, Garganacl, and SD Gliscor, I feel that Gouging comparatively isn't as rewarding for the resources it needs to expend.

Another point of contention is whether or not the resources necessary to beat Gouging Fire really restrict teambuilding all that much. I personally think they do, but that's because I prefer to use more low tier / heat Pokemon whenever I build. There are a lot of Pokemon that can annoy Gouging Fire such as Great Tusk, Landorus-T, Ting-Lu, Moltres, Garganacl, Zamazenta, Gliscor, etc. Many teams run multiple of these Pokemon. While Gouging can potentially beat all of these Pokemon with Tera, many of them also have powerful Tera options against it, whether it be Tera Fairy or Water on many of them, which also isn't necessarily going to be a "waste of a Tera" as these options would likely be effective against other Pokemon on the opponent's team such as Roaring Moon, Walking Wake, Kingambit (situationally), Zamazenta, etc. Water or Fairy Tera being common on these Pokemon also leads to 50/50 situations, which are potentially bad for these Pokemon, but can similarly make it hard for gouging to safely click its optimal buttons. I do find that it can be overwhelming to check Gouging Fire in addition to other Pokemon such as Kingambit, but frankly "checking Pokemon in addition to KG" can feel overwhelming with many other Pokemon such as Roaring Moon, which is not a common target to request for a suspect test (yet anyways).

I have heard claims that Gouging is also extremely versatile, which I am not entirely sure of. To my knowledge the main moveset alterations it runs are Dragon Tail for Dragon STAB to halt opposing phazing and Substitute to stop Salt Cure, Toxic, and Tickle+ a truckload of Tera-types. The additional Tera types I feel are par for the course in SV, and I do believe there is notable opportunity cost in running Dragon Tail and Substitute, be it a lack of additional coverage against key targets such as Primarina, or more shaky MUs into Pokemon such as offensive Great Tusk.

I do not think Gouging Fire being banned will change the metagame all that much apart from Gholdengo, Iron Crown, and Scizor getting slightly better + a handleful of other Pokemon such as Tinkaton and Ogerpon-C being more reliable as Encore users. It will be nice to not run Dogshit tickle on Alomomola, and balance will get slightly better but HO's effectiveness will likely remain roughly the same. I feel most teams running Gouging Fire will simply swap to Dragonite or Roaring Moon and be about as effective, if not more effective. Still the minute changes to improve Iron Crown, Meowscarada and Scizor's viability will be appreciated, as I do enjoy using those Pokemon.

I still want Gouging Fire banned because it is bulky as shit + difficult to stop setting up, while also limiting several Pokemon I enjoy using such as Tinkaton, Iron Crown, and Scizor, but I am curious from hearing from the OLT players why Gouging Fire is uniquely broken compared to other threats such as Dragonite (which similarly can be tailor made to select its counters by running different items like Dice, Cloak, different moves like Scale Shot, Fire Punch, Ice Spinner, etc.) and what benefits its ban will have on the metagame. I'd also like to ask top players who voted DNB in the last test what exactly changed for gouging to make it more OP. I feel Gouging's brokenness is more clear to top players than me.

 

[Finchinator]

I intend to vote ban on Gouging Fire.

The initial test felt like the Breaking Swipes set was on trial, which rightfully remained unbanned as the tier responded to it. However, we have seen the set mix of Gouging Fire evolve. It can use a number of defensive and offensive Tera options and move choices alongside DD Booster Energy to handpick what checks/counters it.

DD Tera Blast Fairy can eliminate Tusk and Zama, Tera Poison stops Toxic variants, DD Ground EQ covers a handful of things, and then classic offensive approaches like Tera Dragon nuke or Tera Fairy/Ghost defensively can do well, too.

Choice sets on Sun are strong and isolate games around resource management, but aren’t broken. Classic Breaking Swipes sets don’t surface nearly as much as they used to. And random Covert Cloak or bulky Leftovers sets are fine, but standalone don’t cause trouble.

But when you combine these options with the potent and carried Booster Energy DD sets, you really find there’s not much reliable counterplay — it’s not like many teams can afford a wrong turn or sequence against something so strong, too. I’ll go in depth on each possible check/counter in a later post, but happy we are suspecting it again with the tier failing to adapt to Gouging Fire this time around.

 

[ausma]

I had a previous stance on Gouging Fire, favoring the idea of not banning it due to a natural set of checks available in the tier that are already innately good, and how it was able to be kept on a leash throughout the game, especially with the near omnipresence of Thunder Wave and Encore. To an extent, I still feel this way. I think Choice Band and Breaking Swipe are both able to be held down, provided that you have contingency plans on your team that you should naturally have anyway in the wake of Pokemon like Zamazenta and Kingambit. I think it's rather telling, in this regard, that Gouging Fire alone does not propel any one Pokemon into a higher caliber of viability (barring the cheesy shit like Dachsbun). Landorus-T, Zamazenta, and Great Tusk would all still be just as good with or without Gouging Fire, and in this regard, I do (did, I suppose) view it as less pertinent compared to Kyurem.

When initially testing it, Breaking Swipe sets were the ones that were mostly evaluated, and I do think we made the right choice in this regard since, to be honest, Breaking Swipe variants are just kind of bad. They require too many resources to get to the extent of which is necessary for it to fully sweep, and it does require disruptive walls with access to phazing or status to be dispatched. I think they can be good under the right conditions, but the reality is that it's a matchup fish, and even in good matchups, needs to be piloted rather precisely as to not drain its resources (namely Morning Sun PP). The primary niche of Breaking Swipe, imo, is the defensive utility that comes with investing bulk into your Gouging Fire and Breaking Swipe being a good setup response. As a win condition, it is really inconsistent.

Choice Band hasn't really gotten worse or better, I think; it's a strong oonga boonga set that is weak to Stealth Rock and has an awkward Speed tier prone to revenge killing.

Back then, I thought if there was a set to break it, it would be offensive Dragon Dance. Well, now that I've gotten around to actually using it with the right Tera type and moves, Gouging Fire is, in fact, broken by offensive Dragon Dance. Breaking Swipe sets try too hard to win the war of attrition; even without bulk investment, Gouging Fire still has the typing and innate bulk to set up across several turns and remain consistently healthy with Morning Sun. Across these sets, there are a lot of scary permutations that all only require a couple of turns and some basic, easily achievable conditions to be filled. Of them all, though, I find Tera Dragon to be the most broken. Tera Dragon is interesting because it leans into the STAB type that is generally less spammable compared to its Fire-type STAB, but its utility is two fold. Not only does it boost Dragon Claw's damage output into the realm of consistency, but also sheds problematic neutralities (Water, mainly) and weaknesses granted by the Fire-type. This allows it to easily stack Dragon Dance boosts while also letting its Dragon-type STAB truly deal out the hurt. This is also big because it addresses the key issue behind Heat Crash, which is its unfortunate matchup into Great Tusk; with Tera Dragon, Heat Crash is almost always a 100 or 120 BP secondary STAB that blows up pretty much all Fairy- and Steel-types not named Primarina. With an Attack boost from Booster Energy and an Adamant nature (which it can afford), Gouging Fire only really needs two Dragon Dances to call a game curtains into most structures. With its bulk, access to Tera, and recovery, this is absolutely no issue to attain. I've been using this team that uses Red Card Glimmora to force pressure into Primarina and Zamazenta structures that would otherwise create some problems for a Gouging Fire end-game. It features Ogerpon and Scarf Landorus-T to help position Gouging Fire while also laying additional offensive pressure into Zamazenta and Great Tusk to make Gouging Fire near impossible to stop in the long run. I've also been using this Sun team that makes use of Air Balloon to leverage Tera Dragon variants further and features offensive Cinderace that appreciates the Sun boost to pressure Great Tusk, Landorus-T, Primarina, and Zamazenta while flipping back hazards for Gouging Fire and Ninetales.

However it doesn't end at that. There are variants that make use of other really crazy tools that do shift how you would respond to it. Defense Booster Energy for one, but also Earthquake with Tera Ground to deny Thunder Wave, Tera Fairy Tera Blast (wowie), etc. The reality is that it only needs one or two additional turns of leverage, and all of these sets, including the aforementioned Tera Dragon, are all able to find it with ease since Gouging Fire's innate defensive profile is fucking nuts and difficult to overpower without contingencies in Encore/status and such, which are not really feasible against offensive Dragon Dance with Tera to leverage it further. To be clear, though, I think Gouging Fire pretty much needs Morning Sun to reach truly broken heights, as otherwise, it can be overwhelmed with a combination of standard offense and priority. However, this in tandem with its other set variants are just kind of stupid to check when considering how much offensive saturation is amidst the rest of the tier.

As it is right now, I intend to vote to ban it. I think removing offensive saturation where we can is good when the cons heavily outweigh the pros, and because of Gouging Fire's offensive setup variants taking the reigns, its defensive utility is superceded by offensive setup having the perfect mix of bulk, typing, and longevity to leverage the turns it needs to become too stupid to stop.

 

[Avira]

I'd also like to ask top players who voted DNB in the last test what exactly changed for gouging to make it more OP. I feel Gouging's brokenness is more clear to top players than me.

Yeah, I fully believe that Gouging Fire should be banned, but there is a disconnect between top players and people on the lower end of the high ladder, so if you top players want Gouging Fire banned, you have to explain what makes Gouging Fire broken as often and succintly as you can.

 

[Magcargo]

Yeah so after laddering with gouging for the suspect (which is the longest I've used it), here are my conclusions:

• Gouging was indeed inconsistent, not too disimilar to other Pokemon such as Kyurem,. Either it's lebron james and sweeps early on or is struggling to make progress against annoying Pokemon like Great Tusk, Tera Water Lando-T, Moltres, DONDOZO (this mon is cancer), Garg, Mola, etc.
• Gouging basically has one shot to make its impact with booster energy sets. It can be preserved, but I find that it is usually used as a sack after losing that initial booster punch
• Tera Fairy >>>>>> Tera Dragon. Tera Fairy Tera Blast gives gouging both more setup opportunities by letting it force 50/50s onto the likes of Dragapult, Raging Bolt (important since Tera Dragon struggles against this mon + it can open up gambit later) & a more reliable STAB Move than outrage that also doesn't make contact, which is useful against helmet users. Tera Fairy blast will be hitting most of the targets gouging needs to hit with it like Great Tusk, Ting-Lu, and Kyurem. Sucker Punch resistance is also nice.
• I do think Gouging Fire's effectiveness is significantly boosted by Tera because Tera allows it to setup against many of its counters. Lando-T is usually a decent check, but Tera Fairy lets gouging set up against it and delete it with heat crash. Even without Tera, Gouging Fire's natural bulk lets it easily set up in many 1v1 MUs against Ogerpon-W for example.
• Even if Gouging Fire is significantly damaged, most Priority will not severly dent it. Because of this, it is able to cheese out an extra KO depending on whether the opp is able to revenge KO it or not.
• While Gouging Fire isn't an amazing hard counter to anything, its bulky does give it far too much leeway in what its allowed to setup on. In a raw 1v1, Gouging Fire will just about win against Darkrai, Ogerpon-W, Samurott-H, Manaphy, and Primarina. What's more troubling is that Gouging Fire outspeeds every Encore user after DD (barring Tera Grass Ogerpon which Gouging beats anyways.) This makes it more difficult to play around Gouging Fire compared to other Pokemon such as Kingambit or Raging Bolt. Scarfers can't exactly revenge kill Gouging Fire either because its just so damn bulky.
• While Gouging Fire is strong, I noticed that bulky and balance teams didn't really care for it all that much because they often packed many of its counters like Garganacl, Moltres, Dondozo, and Tickle Alomomola, which Gouging Fire often couldn't overcome. It does feel like the presence of many of these Pokemon, such as Garganacl and Dodozo, completely neutralizes Gouging since its threat level is tied to booster energy. Its mainly bulky offense and HO that will sturggle with gouging fire, though these styles have decentish checks in Lando-T and Great Tusk to stave it off for a while. Gouging can get past both, but I found that it needs to tera to do so, which gives you less leeway with a kingambit endgame. Other match-ups like Primarina and Zamazenta were annoying.

So this is a lot of rambling but while I will vote ban on Gouging Fire, I don't find it to be extremely overpowered as I once did. If Booster Energy or maybe Terastalization (kinda unsure on this since some of Gouging's best checks are tera Fairy Pokemon like Raging Bolt and Garganacl) were banned, I could see Gouging fit fine into OU. Given that Gouging Fire can be a bit inconsistent (at least compared to Zama, Garg or Gliscor), I still don't think it's ban will have a massive possitive effect on the tier, but the catalog of Pokemon its departure would buff (Ogerpon, Meowscarada, Weavile, Iron Crown) is quite nice and could open up some more interesting structures.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Before people who were pro-ban say "I told you so"

i told you so

ok, but in all seriousness, we gotta talk about this fuckin' thing again. most of my gripes from the last suspect still apply here, but i'll reiterate the points that have remained relevant and update them with new information:

• offensive ddance is a stupidly strong wincon. it was always a strong wincon but the advent of tera blast has turned it from regular strong to just stupid. tera dragon outrage is also absurdly powerful—it doesn't quite have the damage output of banded tera fire raging fury in the sun, but with a +1 from dragon dance and the proto boost it comes close enough for most purposes, and with a heaping helping of extra speed to boot
• sun band, while more of an endangered species than it used to be, is still a big fat delete button for whatever's in front of you. even though it requires resources and positioning, it needs less of it than i'm comfortable with. this was the set that carried me to my personal ladder peak (just barely short of 1800s), which was how i discovered how few brain cells you need to operate it. protoatk and protospeed both appreciate the same partners but have precious little overlap between their counterplay, so it's not quite as telegraphed on preview as it looks
• bulkier sets are also around, though considerably rarer than the last time we danced this dance. they get a shout-out for being annoyingly hard to kill and still dealing a fuckton of damage. the things people are using to (try to) answer the other gouging sets can have a very hard time with these
• the overlap between counterplay for all these sets, and variations of them, is dismayingly low. based on the 1695 stats pages for the last couple months, almost nothing is beating gouging fire consistently enough in high-mid-and-above ladder to show up on the "checks and counters" list. i went into this more in detail in the ou discord last week and brought up other factors that could potentially be contributing to this, but the fact that not a single mon had a winning interaction with gouging more than ~50% of the time in july is concerning. this may or may not change when the august stats are published because it's old data and olt happened, but i think it's very much worth a mention [edit: august stats are out now and it still has nothing listed in "checks and counters", meaning that no individual mon has had a winning interaction with gouging fire more than 50% of the time for two entire months]
• if it gets banned i'll probably have some sort of wacky entertaining reaction and you can screenshot it and farm reddit upvotes

 

[Bold School]

Based on what I have gathered from the OU forum, there has been a lot of talk on Tera Dragon, Tera Blast, and even Tera Ground sets. When I asked, there was one other set that was mentioned: DD and Dragon Tail/Roar.

I wanted to emphasize that one a bit since I feel like it hasn't been talk about as much. This set is pretty good at countering a lot of conventional cheks. Stuff that uses defensive boosts like Zama or Dozo can be phased out, forcing them back to neutral and possibly taking chip if they want to come back in. Forcing out a different mon than the one the opposing player originally wanted to use to counter GF also puts them in a bind. If Gouging can use this opportunity to get up another DD, this can be really dangerous. After even one DD, it can outspeed like every Encore mon besides BE speed Iron Valiant. Alternatively, you can get extra chip by attacking as the opponent is forced to either switch again or face Gouging with a mon that they initially didn't plan to.

Before someone brings it up, Zama can do something like this in a way that I don't believe is problematic. But the sets that run phasing and setup are typically ID/BP with limited coverage, and even moreso on the limited coverage if they carry Roar. It's a lot easier for player to switch in a counter like Sinistea or Moltres over and over against Zama than it would be to switch in something for Gouging Fire, which has more dangerous coverage and wallbreaking potential. The sheer offensive threat level of GF just gives you a lot less breathing room.

Another issue I wanted to point out relates to the more broad problem (Don't worry, I'll bring this back to GF) of speed boosting setup sweepers in gen 9. It's just really easy to snowball with the tools many of these mons get. Volc was a menace with Quiver Dance, Tera, and the variant coverage. It was banned multiple times for its sweeping potential. Now the main speed boosting setup move left for OU mons is Dragon Dance. While there are some other mons that can use BE speed with non speed boosting setup like Iron Valiant or Iron Crown, I don't think they have quite the same danger level as QD or DD can bring.

If you look at all the DD mons rated OU, we have 6: Dragapult, Dragonite, Gouging Fire, Kyurem, Roaring Moon, and Walking Wake. Excluding Wake, which is a pure special attacker mostly used on sun teams, all of those mons are great. And all 5 of them can at least utilize viable sets with DD. Set variance can make DD sets always a threat, even if that isn't the only or even primary way they tend to operate. Tera allows you to change type to ensure you get off at least one in most cases. If you force a switch, which is quite likely due to the offensive presence of many of these mons, you will often get 2 DD's off. Booster Energy further accelerates the tempo by about a turn, giving you extra speed or power.

But only Gouging Fire and Roaring Moon get to combine all of Tera, DD, and BE. Furthermore, only Gouging Fire does this with what is essentially Ubers level bulk. I think the level of extreme bulk is rather outrageous for a mon that has that kind of wallbreaking and sweeping potential. A decently played GF is basically guaranteed to get up 1-2 DD's off at some point.

I think it's rather telling, in this regard, that Gouging Fire alone does not propel any one Pokemon into a higher caliber of viability (barring the cheesy shit like Dachsbun). Landorus-T, Zamazenta, and Great Tusk would all still be just as good with or without Gouging Fire, and in this regard, I do (did, I suppose) view it as less pertinent compared to Kyurem.

Slight nitpick, but I believe Lando-T was actually falling off in viability until its revival. Was it not around the Gouging Fire suspect that people started incorporating those Taunt/Earth Power sets? This isn't necesarrily to say that players still wouldn't find T useful now, especially because it is in most gens. However, I seem to remember Gouging Fire being at least partly responsible for that. And maybe more like mostly responsible.

While many seemed to view the changes in team structure and "meta innovations" that came from the first Gouging Fire suspect as positive, I don't think it can be disputed that this mon has warped the tier for better or worse.

 

[JTD783]

It's been a long time since I've posted on the forums but the Gouging Fire suspect part 2 caught my interest. Here are my thoughts.

GF is really good, obviously, and arguably better than ever. Offensive DD has been on the rise and against a lot of BO/offense builds I look at the opponent's team, think about how it handles GF after a DD + Proto boost, and think "Damn, he's kind of cooked." However, it's manageable even with all the good sets bouncing around in ladder and tours. Even going just off the list of mons with OU usage, my opinion is that the tier can handle it. It doesn't have the telltale sign of excessive metagame warping when people have to use some low tier booty cheeks mon to stop it. Here are some common and solid mons I love spamming on teams that keep it at bay.

Hide

Great Tusk @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Ice Spinner
- Bulk Up

Roaring Moon @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Flying / Ground
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Knock Off
- Acrobatics
- Earthquake

I'm a big fan of this core on offense builds. Booster DD Roaring Moon really likes the way Great Tusk can soften up bulky Waters and Grounds and threaten Garganacl, not to mention the hazard removal, enabling it to go crazy late-game and really just providing a "Yeah he loses to this lmao" situation. But for this context, it gives offense a good way of handling a variety of GF sets. Obviously Great Tusk scares out both offensive and defensive DD sets, or forces a tera. Tera Fairy is annoying; the opponent's success rides on DDing as Great Tusk comes in, hoping I already burned my own tera, then going for +1 Proto Attack Tera Blast, which admittedly can OHKO if Adamant. Assuming tera is intact, Proto Speed Great Tusk outruns Adamant +1 GF so it can get a couple EQs off before Roaring Moon comes in to revenge kill. If it ends up being some banded tera Fire set or some sun option then it once again gets revenge-killed. Reasonable counterplay against a mon that only has one chance to make the most of its Booster Energy.

Hide

Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Earth Power
- U-turn
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock

Slowking-Galar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Anything tbh
EVs: 252 HP / 16 Def / 240 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Future Sight
- Sludge Bomb
- Thunder Wave
- Chilly Reception

A bulky offense / balance duo that are as reliable as they are annoying. That is to say, very. Physically bulky pivot + specially bulky pivot my beloved. Obviously they blanket-check a ton of the meta and the mons that have a good matchup against the core, like Ogrepon-Wellspring, Darkrai, and Corviknight, dislike being put into the U-Turn / Chilly Reception cycle. When played right, GF is hardly a problem either. Now obviously, if GF is banded tera Fire or on sun then one of these mons is dead but any decent team will be able to revenge kill. As for DD sets, the response basically comes down to whether GF is Proto Attack. If so, Landorus-Therian has to take one (read: an assload of damage) for the team as it switches in on the DD. It will live anything from full short of +1 Proto Attack Adamant Flare Blitz and even in that case it gets good chip with recoil and Rocky Helmet. Shouldn't be too hard to revenge kill from there. Defensive sets can 1v1 with tera but Glowking can just come in and Thunder Wave or cripple its recovery by setting up snow. Once again, manageable.

Hide

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 244 HP / 36 Def / 228 SpD
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Protect
- Spikes

Alomomola @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Scald
- Flip Turn
- Protect
- Wish

And now for the fat core. These are basically as good of GF answers as the meta can offer. Unless you really want lots of room to breathe, then exchange or add Dondozo somewhere. Like the core above, they check a lot of the meta and have decent pivoting capability, but exchange some damage potential for being hard as hell to kill. Aside from when we consider the glaring Kyurem allergy, but run Blissey or it's a skill issue. For any opponent who brings GF, it's not that "he's kind of cooked," he just straight up is when using most sets. Offensive DD isn't a fan of Gliscor, which tanks anything from full short of +1 Proto Attack Adamant Flare Blitz even without pumping much into defense EVs. So you come in on the DD, Toxic it, then Protect, then go Alomomola. If it's one of those other sets that just tries to punch deep into the team then Alomomola should handle it. The only potential issue is the old DD Breaking Swipe set, but if that ever gets inside with tera Poison then any player using a fat balance or stall team should have a different means of stopping it from ether of these.

To summarize, there are a variety of good mons with good sets that can check most GF sets on their own. It's not necessary to use suboptimal mons or sets to beat it and it certainly doesn't invalidate any playstyles. While they do need to be kept somewhat healthy, that isn't unreasonable, especially since GF itself tends to have longevity issues. I don't believe it's so centralizing or powerful that its presence in OU is unjustifiable.

And yes, memes aside, these are my genuine thoughts.

Slight nitpick, but I believe Lando-T was actually falling off in viability until its revival. Was it not around the Gouging Fire suspect that people started incorporating those Taunt/Earth Power sets? This isn't necesarrily to say that players still wouldn't find T useful now, especially because it is in most gens. However, I seem to remember Gouging Fire being at least partly responsible for that. And maybe more like mostly responsible.

GF was definitely a factor in this development but one of fast Taunt Lando's best assets is shutting down Glimmora leads. It outspeeds, denies hazards, and doesn't activate Toxic Debris by using Earth Power. Earth Power is also nice against physdef Tusk. This would still be a very solid set even if GF didn't exist.

AK Fair enough. In my experience these have been enough to check Gouging Fire, but that's anecdotal and from a mediocre ladder player. As for the longevity issues, it's that (1) Booster Energy sets can't keep coming in over the course of a game with the same effectiveness, and (2) any sets lacking HDB get worn down quickly by all hazards. Not exactly a longevity issue but it's not completely free either.

 

[Akalli]

Feels good to be back on earth a little bit, Gouging Fire has always been broken and hopefully this time we can have a fair suspect that will be not be swayed by some garbage smogpolitics or whatever this was. This should be a pretty easy ban but then again it should’ve been a pretty easy ban back then so who knows?

People need to realize that we're not suspecting one or two sets but Gouging as the whole. There's just no counterplay to this thing aside from sending your ground type and praying that it'll work out or you have the right defensive tera in the back. Anyone who's been watching OLT ladder has seen how people react when Gouging Fire gets sent out, it's time to start guessing! Literally nobody knows what to do and you just end up losing like half your team. Just wanna put the emphasis that Gouging Fire IS a broken mon and it's just not trends, and we need to treat this suspect as such.

Hide

Great Tusk @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 248 HP / 4 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Rapid Spin
- Earthquake
- Ice Spinner
- Bulk Up

Roaring Moon @ Booster Energy
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Flying / Ground
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Dance
- Knock Off
- Acrobatics
- Earthquake

Wanna respond to every counterplay you listed in your post because some of it is pretty insane and makes me wonder if we're even playing the same game honestly, and I really don't want anyone to believe this is counterplay so yeah. Tusk scaring out Gouging in this actual meta is a fever dream and never works, you just get tera dragon'd on and lose 80% while not even doing half with +1 Earthquake. People like Vert have also been using Booster ATK Jolly which is very viable being able to tie/outspeed most landos, outspeed pult at +1, most deoxys, just beats booster tusk even easily and outspeeds scarf ghold while not suffering a consequent loss of power. Why is Roaring Moon even there? It gets OHKO'd by any move atk gouging wants to go for and if it's not boosted on it just gets terad on worse case scenario. And kids also shouldn't be allowed to watch what Terablast Fairy does to this core.

Hide

Landorus-Therian @ Rocky Helmet
Ability: Intimidate
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Earth Power
- U-turn
- Taunt
- Stealth Rock

Slowking-Galar @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Anything tbh
EVs: 252 HP / 16 Def / 240 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe
Sassy Nature
- Future Sight
- Sludge Bomb
- Thunder Wave
- Chilly Reception

This one is actually even more funny than the last two because this core is probably the biggest GF enabler there is. If you switch Landorus on dragon dance from booster atk, all that will happen is Gouging will Tera on Landorus while getting another dd, meaning you can't taunt, earth power does less than 35 so unless you have another thing in the back that can handle a +1/Booster ATK +2 Speed with 60% (which i'd love to know if it exists) or even full life if you've decided to taunt. You mention recoil but that becomes irrelevant as Heat Crash is way better than Flare Blitz is atm because people have realized Outrage or terablast fairy deal with tusk way better than it does and tusk was the only drawback of heat crash pretty much. Slowking has no business being there honestly, will drop to any move from booster atk. It's just gonna beat the outdated bs sets that are just bad atm.

Hide

Gliscor @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 244 HP / 36 Def / 228 SpD
Careful Nature
- Earthquake
- Toxic
- Protect
- Spikes

Alomomola @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Regenerator
Tera Type: Flying
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
IVs: 0 Spe
Relaxed Nature
- Scald
- Flip Turn
- Protect
- Wish

And now for the fat core. These are basically as good of GF answers as the meta can offer. Unless you really want lots of room to breathe, then exchange or add Dondozo somewhere. Like the core above, they check a lot of the meta and have decent pivoting capability, but exchange some damage potential for being hard as hell to kill. Aside from when we consider the glaring Kyurem allergy, but run Blissey or it's a skill issue. For any opponent who brings GF, it's not that "he's kind of cooked," he just straight up is when using most sets. Offensive DD isn't a fan of Gliscor, which tanks anything from full short of +1 Proto Attack Adamant Flare Blitz even without pumping much into defense EVs. So you come in on the DD, Toxic it, then Protect, then go Alomomola. If it's one of those other sets that just tries to punch deep into the team then Alomomola should handle it. The only potential issue is the old DD Breaking Swipe set, but if that ever gets inside with tera Poison then any player using a fat balance or stall team should have a different means of stopping it from ether of these.

Once again, no. Any +atk set will oblirate this in half. Gouging comes in on Mola, clicks dragon dance, you flip turn into gliscor, which needs to be at full health to avoid being in range of +1 Heat Crash/Blitz and just die to tera dragon (which is the most common set I remind and oblirates all 3 of your so called Gouging stopper cores) or even TFire. No idea why this particular Mola is even mentionned, Gouging will never tera on mola so to have a chance at burning it with scald it will left at 5% after Gouging tera'd on something else, this also confirms me a disconnect with you and current trends, as tickle/chilling water aren't even mentionned which are like maybe the most reliable way to deal with Gouging but even then you still need to time your clicking right and can get outplayed, and hf if you face the one covert gouging, but it's not even needed there.

but yeah, to tldr it, none of the cores you mentionned even come close to being good at what they're supposed to do in this case stopping Gouging Fire, I don't know what elo you play at but your cores might be good at stopping low elo sub optimal played Gouging Fires but certainly not the good sets. Either way we're not even at the most egrogious part;

It's not necessary to use suboptimal mons or sets to beat it and it certainly doesn't invalidate any playstyles. While they do need to be kept somewhat healthy, that isn't unreasonable, especially since GF itself tends to have longevity issues.

Gouging literally invalidates EVERY playstyle LOL, from stall to balance to ho it can literally do it all, and it's not necessary to use suboptimal mons or sets to beat it more like it literally isn't possible. What longevity issues? This just feels like sayin anything.


I'll be voting ban, this is the best opportunity to remove blatant overpowered offensive saturation and we definitely shouldn't pass up on it.

 

[Magcargo]

Gouging literally invalidates EVERY playstyle LOL, from stall to balance to ho it can literally do it all, and it's not necessary to use suboptimal mons or sets to beat it more like it literally isn't possible. What longevity issues? This just feels like sayin anything.

Which gouging set invalidates stall? Is it just the Tera Fire CB set in sun?

My guess is that the Tera Dragon Set can do alright vs Stall if it runs Dragon Tail since Gouging Fire can DD on Dozo -> Dragon Tail it a couple times, then go for the big hits with Outrage to dismantle stall, but I haven't seen this scenario play out.

 

[658Greninja]

After a long grind, and some tilting, I finally pushed my lazy ass to get reqs. Anyways, as of rn, I intend to vote DNB. Most of the posts on the thread are Pro-Ban, so I’m gonna provide arguments on the DNB side.


This sounds like blasphemy from someone who in the last suspect test wanted Gouging Fire outta the tier, but the direction the meta has been going for months now has changed my stance.

The meta has a ton of physically bulky presences. Zamazenta, Landorus, Alomomola, Moltres, Gliscor, Great Tusk, Physdef Garganacl, Sinistcha, Zapdos, Dondozo, Corviknight, Skarmory, etc. Even niche stuff like Galarweezing, Pecharunt, Toxapex, and Mandibuzz. Most teams will have 2 or even 3 of these mons on a team. This isn’t a matter of Gfire centralizing the metagame, that’s to be expected when there’s so many powerful physical threats roaming around like Kingambit, Waterpon, Dragonite, and Roaring Moon.

Gouging Fire’s ease of setting up and its set variety is not to be ignored. Tera Ground EQ, 2 Attacks Morning Sun, Tera Dragon Outrage, Tera Fairy Blast, Boots, Breaking Swipe, etc. But I want to ask.

What makes Gouging Fire different from the other DD sweepers we have rn?


Roaring Moon is a very similar mon to Gouging. Both of them are used as battering rams to force dmg or kills, enabling their physically-oriented partners (usually Kingambit). Roaring Moon also has a much better speed tier and more spammable STAB move in Knock Off which also removes items. R-Moon during OLT was seen using different sets like the standard Tera Flying Three Attacks, DD Taunt, Roost, Sub, Tera Ground, Tera Ghost, etc.


Dragonite has the same framework as a bulky DD sweeper, but Dragonite is even more varied. You could be facing the standard set, DD Roost, Tera Blast, CB, and more infamously, Encore. The fact it has this move makes scouting or checking Dragonite more conspicuous than Gouging Fire. Clicking Recover, Protect, Iron Defense, etc risks you getting packed.


Not gonna compare Gouging Fire to Kyurem since I find Kyurem broken.


What G-Fire does have over them is better natural bulk and a burn immunity. G-Fire can set up on Moltres, Alomomola and Cinderace while having no risk of being burnt, however that has gotten less impressive as the meta progresses. Moltres often runs Roar now cause of how common Tera Fire is which also removes G-Fire’s Proto boost. This is without mentioning the possibility of Scorching Sands which 3HKO all but the tankiest G-Fire variants. Mola runs Chilling Water and Tickle now to PP stall Dragon Dancers such as G-Fire.

With rocks, this mon’s obscene 105/121/93 bulk gets undercut by Rocks putting it at 75% and without the Proto boost, G-Fire’s 115 Atk hits like a wet noodle compared to the 130+ Atk demons we have running around in the tier.

Breaking Swipe sets are so prepped that they end up being inconsistent and too slow to sweep. CB sets in Sun are MU fishes that even the Balance/Stall teams its trying to fish are prepared for. So really, its just the Booster sets you have to worry about which can be pressured by offensive teams via Helmet chip, rocks, priority, Encore Val, Booster Moth, etc. For defensive teams, they pack Mola, Gliscor, Helmet Tusk/Lando/Ting, Roar Molt, Roar Zama, Dozo, Garg, etc.

Yes G-Fire could break through with Tera, but needing to Tera is more of a drawback in practice than on paper. Sometimes you are forced to Tera to deal with a threat, or you’re put in a dilemma if you Tera X, then suddenly Y becomes a threat to your team. This is also nothing special in Gen 9. Zama can Tera Fire to beat Moltres, Kingambit runs Tera Ghost for Body Pressers, Raging Bolt runs Fairy/Bug/Flying to 1v1 Ground types, Iron Valiant can Tera Dark Knock Glowking.

Gouging Fire is an amazing Pokemon that made a comeback in recent memory, but it doesn’t strike me as oppressive considering Dragonite has an eerily similar amount of set unpredictability and bulk thanks to Multiscale, but it never gets brought up as a potential suspect, so I never got why G-Fire warrants this. It’s an overreaction to Gouging Fire that people will eventually get used to accounting for like with Darkrai, like with Waterpon, like with Zamazenta.

I’m happy to hear from the Pro-Ban side, feel free to explain otherwise.

As long as no drama is sparked this time, we’re vibing.

I’m gonna be taking a break from mons. The ladder is dead as hell rn and the games I end up getting are usually Stall, Webs, or random cheese teams. I’ve never felt more bored with playing Showdown. Also, school is coming up for me, so I’ll be busy with irl stuff. Expect me to be less active on the forums.

 

[Eeveeto]

Got the reqs for second time on this Mon. This time I actually lost some battles vs teams that had Gouging Fire, though even if I didn,t (my team is worse than the one of the previous Suspect, Restalk Serperior ended up not being as good as I expected it to be), my opinion wouldn,t have changed: I will vote ban. Too many sets, too many Tera options, its a Mon that benefits from Sun, has Booster Energy, benefits from Grassy Terrain too (can use Seed) and overall is too strong and with too much bulk (+recovery + boosting option) for an offensive Mon. I would have prefered a Waterpon Suspect (or the unrealistic Gholdengo one, but I am aware this is not happening), but Gouger being one of the many Mons I want gone from the Meta, means I vote Ban even with it not being the most broken Mon in my opinion. The meta can adapt (and already does) to Gouging Fire, but the meta would eventually adapt to Kyogre too if it were to touch OU, adapting is something we do when we can,t change a bad situation, this Suspect is an oportunity for a change for the better. Not much more to add, other pro-Ban guys can write the Bible with more detailed arguments instead of me, have a nice Eeveening.

 

[RS25802580]

After a long grind, and some tilting, I finally pushed my lazy ass to get reqs. Anyways, as of rn, I intend to vote DNB. Most of the posts on the thread are Pro-Ban, so I’m gonna provide arguments on the DNB side.


This sounds like blasphemy from someone who in the last suspect test wanted Gouging Fire outta the tier, but the direction the meta has been going for months now has changed my stance.

The meta has a ton of physically bulky presences. Zamazenta, Landorus, Alomomola, Moltres, Gliscor, Great Tusk, Physdef Garganacl, Sinistcha, Zapdos, Dondozo, Corviknight, Skarmory, etc. Even niche stuff like Galarweezing, Pecharunt, Toxapex, and Mandibuzz. Most teams will have 2 or even 3 of these mons on a team. This isn’t a matter of Gfire centralizing the metagame, that’s to be expected when there’s so many powerful physical threats roaming around like Kingambit, Waterpon, Dragonite, and Roaring Moon.

Gouging Fire’s ease of setting up and its set variety is not to be ignored. Tera Ground EQ, 2 Attacks Morning Sun, Tera Dragon Outrage, Tera Fairy Blast, Boots, Breaking Swipe, etc. But I want to ask.

What makes Gouging Fire different from the other DD sweepers we have rn?


Roaring Moon is a very similar mon to Gouging. Both of them are used as battering rams to force dmg or kills, enabling their physically-oriented partners (usually Kingambit). Roaring Moon also has a much better speed tier and more spammable STAB move in Knock Off which also removes items. R-Moon during OLT was seen using different sets like the standard Tera Flying Three Attacks, DD Taunt, Roost, Sub, Tera Ground, Tera Ghost, etc.


Dragonite has the same framework as a bulky DD sweeper, but Dragonite is even more varied. You could be facing the standard set, DD Roost, Tera Blast, CB, and more infamously, Encore. The fact it has this move makes scouting or checking Dragonite more conspicuous than Gouging Fire. Clicking Recover, Protect, Iron Defense, etc risks you getting packed.


Not gonna compare Gouging Fire to Kyurem since I find Kyurem broken.


What G-Fire does have over them is better natural bulk and a burn immunity. G-Fire can set up on Moltres, Alomomola and Cinderace while having no risk of being burnt, however that has gotten less impressive as the meta progresses. Moltres often runs Roar now cause of how common Tera Fire is which also removes G-Fire’s Proto boost. This is without mentioning the possibility of Scorching Sands which 3HKO all but the tankiest G-Fire variants. Mola runs Chilling Water and Tickle now to PP stall Dragon Dancers such as G-Fire.

With rocks, this mon’s obscene 105/121/93 bulk gets undercut by Rocks putting it at 75% and without the Proto boost, G-Fire’s 115 Atk hits like a wet noodle compared to the 130+ Atk demons we have running around in the tier.

Breaking Swipe sets are so prepped that they end up being inconsistent and too slow to sweep. CB sets in Sun are MU fishes that even the Balance/Stall teams its trying to fish are prepared for. So really, its just the Booster sets you have to worry about which can be pressured by offensive teams via Helmet chip, rocks, priority, Encore Val, Booster Moth, etc. For defensive teams, they pack Mola, Gliscor, Helmet Tusk/Lando/Ting, Roar Molt, Roar Zama, Dozo, Garg, etc.

Yes G-Fire could break through with Tera, but needing to Tera is more of a drawback in practice than on paper. Sometimes you are forced to Tera to deal with a threat, or you’re put in a dilemma if you Tera X, then suddenly Y becomes a threat to your team. This is also nothing special in Gen 9. Zama can Tera Fire to beat Moltres, Kingambit runs Tera Ghost for Body Pressers, Raging Bolt runs Fairy/Bug/Flying to 1v1 Ground types, Iron Valiant can Tera Dark Knock Glowking.

Gouging Fire is an amazing Pokemon that made a comeback in recent memory, but it doesn’t strike me as oppressive considering Dragonite has an eerily similar amount of set unpredictability and bulk thanks to Multiscale, but it never gets brought up as a potential suspect, so I never got why G-Fire warrants this. It’s an overreaction to Gouging Fire that people will eventually get used to accounting for like with Darkrai, like with Waterpon, like with Zamazenta.

I’m happy to hear from the Pro-Ban side, feel free to explain otherwise.

As long as no drama is sparked this time, we’re vibing.

I’m gonna be taking a break from mons. The ladder is dead as hell rn and the games I end up getting are usually Stall, Webs, or random cheese teams. I’ve never felt more bored with playing Showdown. Also, school is coming up for me, so I’ll be busy with irl stuff. Expect me to be less active on the forums.

For one, as you’ve mentioned, the burn immunity is pretty huge. Moltres is one of the most splashable and commonly used checks to physical attackers. Gouging Fire sets up on Moltres, Dragonite and Roaring Moon get burned.

Compared to Roaring Moon, which seems to be falling off lately, Gouging Fire has immese physical bulk which awards more setup opportunities.

Compared to Dragonite, Gouging Fire has a strong secondary Fire STAB in Flare Blitz/Raging Fury/Heat Crash. This, combined with a potential booster energy, makes Gouging Fire far more immediately threatening than Dragonite and offers a much better matchup against the prominent Steels and Fairies in the tier. Adamant Gouging Fire also outpaces Zama at +1, while Adamant Dragonite can’t.

For these reasons, Moon and Dragonite don’t really seem comparable to Gouging Fire. In practice, this is demonstrated by Gouging Fire being much more problematic than either mon.

 

[veti]

Got reqs, I will be voting Ban.

Gouging Fire's combination of bulk and power set it apart from most sweepers, Kingambit and Zamazenta are the other notable sweepers with these traits but Gouging lacks the Sucker Punch drawbacks of Kingambit and ID Zama's overreliance on Body Press in a tier where Ghost types and Tera Ghost are excellent while also providing much less value to the tier.

Nothing truly counters Gouging Fire outside of Dondozo, with Moltres forced to roar and often forced to swap out after due to how much damage Gouging puts on it, all the Grounds losing to common and good moves or Tera, and the #1 physical check Zamazenta losing the 1v1 if swapping in, Zamazenta can roar but this doesn't actually kill Gouging while Zamazenta takes massive damage compromising its ability to check Gouging and friends later on.

Priority is very unreliable into Gouging, Sucker Punch thuds into healthy Gouging and Tera Fairy variants, Rillaboom and Bolt need tera to be forced to even have a chance (and still can't revenge tera dragon or ground in bolts case unless its low), Espeed is reliable for the most part but sucks on the chance that Gouging runs Tera Ghost (although most do not so espeed is fine). Booster Energy Encore Iron Valiant can lock it into DD, but Moth struggles to remove Gouging Fire unless its a certain tera type or Iron Moth Teras itself. As for the other booster speed mons, Tusk is a good check to non-tb Gouging and Treads thuds into pretty much any Tera.

I also do not believe Gouging Fire is at all necessary to keep anything in check. I've seen arguments that its neccesary to punish greedy SkarmTingWeav balances, but mons like Kyurem, Ogerpon, Darkrai, Gholdengo, and Samurott can also punish greedy balances while offensive teams have other bulky mons to serve as a backbone such as Tusk, Gambit, Zama, Lando, and Ghold.

Overall, the lack of unique benefits for the tier combined with the fishing and strain it adds make it an easy ban for me.

 

[TMTito]

Gouging Fire suspect, my beloved

We've been here before but the meta feels different enough to revisit this.

Gouging Fire is a tremendously bulky dancer that while somewhat predictable, maybe it's not predictable enough.

Some key points I consider relevant about this pokémon's sets:

• Offensive Booster Energy is arguably the strongest set at the moment. I was eager to try that GFairy HO as soon as I saw it, and that set gave birth to one of my own favorite teams. It's fun to use because it's good, and it's problematic because it's good. In order to properly deal with it, you need significant defenses or speed in your team, as it's very likely to lure some major pokémon such as Zamazenta, Ting Lu or Great Tusk. While this would be fine on its own as you could easily have two of the above in the same team, the issue lies in the massive damage it'll cause anyway, often forcing you to use up a third pokémon to revenge kill it - and boy Gouging Fire is bulky. It is REALLY bulky even without investment. The resource loss slowly adds up to the point where some other threat can become a win condition, usually fast pokémon like Iron Valiant, Dragonite, Kingambit, Raging Bolt or Zamazenta. Being able to overload defensive structures is healthy, being forced into bad positioning is not.
• Breaking Swipe DD allows you to eat PP from things such as Dondozo, Garganacl (provided you have a Covert Cloak), Gliscor and Alomomola (to an extent), greatly reducing the wallbreaking burden of pokémon such as Kingambit, Ogerpon-Wellspring and Roaring Moon, while also being able to clinch certain matchups (Tera ghost for Zamazenta, tera Poison for Gliscor, tera fairy for momentum).
• Sun Band is a subject of mixed opinions from other relevant players. Thankfully it's not as relevant to this second suspect, but I'll reiterate my opinion that even with the resource management issue, 120bp choice-boosted fire STAB in sun is absolutely unfair and if sun was a more prominent archetype, teams would adjust to this much more, further evidencing the teambuilder constraint Gouging Fire produces.

Therefore, I will vote Ban again, as I believe SV OU would be a better tier without Gouging Fire in it.

 

[cozymushroomguy]

Hi everyone! I am new here, and I have very limited knowledge on competive Pokemon. Even though that is the case my love for Pokemon has been strong since Ruby and Sapphire. I play OU tier without any OU MONS. Meganium is my favorite starter because I know it's not optimal but it makes me think outside of the box. I just have to say, I personally feel that newer Pokemon and newer games slowly start to give me the ick. I personally feel that there isn't a lot of skill in OU or even ATG. Everyone ALLLLL the time wants to spam mythicals, legendaries, and paradoxes. It's seriously no fun. I AM BANNING to vote gouging fire. It just one shits everything. I also want to mention that I personally think if it does end up staying maybe making it the only usable paradox on the team. Even when you do finally take it out, it's wiped all your team and you can't recover. I think S&V will be my last Pokemon game and most likely will be the last time I play showdown or anything competive. All I see is legendaries and the like. Where are the strats? Even though I'm in lower tiers. I swear I have people telling me that I've provided them with a challenge more than other OU players they face. I almost want to make YouTube videos on just my personal experience with Pokemon as a franchise. Sorry for the long message but GF should be banned. It's way to powerful, whether sun or not. It can tera to cover it's weaknesses, dragon dance gives it too tier speed on already good speed it has, and like I mentioned before even when you do take it down half of your team has been wiped.

 

[lucky333]

I will be voting ban on this mon and I won't change my mind this time. Everyone has already listed the points of why Gouge is unhealthy. Stupid amount of set variety combined with power, bulk and the ability to snowball with DD+tera forcing you into a guessing game which set or tera type it is, where guessing wrong means it either punches a huge hole into your team to the point where you wont recover or it snowballs out of control. I wanna address two points

"Gouge is inconsistent"
First of all, you have to understand that being a sweeper in general is just inherently being inconsistent. If a sweeper could fulfill its role of ending games consistently, it would be quickban worthy. You shouldn't be asking a sweeper to be consistent.

Lets take some banned mons as example like Volcarona. Volcarona was often hailed as the MU Moth. Why? Cause it could either 6-0 your team with the right set or it could just be there and do nothing. But your opponent doesn't know that, so he had to guess which set it is and be careful to not let his mons get too weakened for other breakers and sweepers(Thats another thing. Don't view Gouge in a vacuum. There are still other threats out there.) Sounds familiar? Except Gouge has more raw initial power so you gotta be careful about playing aggressively against him if you have a key mon out. Depending on the MU your win condition will always change and yes Gouge will sometimes end up not sweeping things but that doesn't mean it still isn't problematic. Sometimes you can even "sweep" with defensive mons too if the MU allows it.

What you should be asking is, how many resources can I give up and how many is reasonable? You also have to factor in the "scout" in your resources since you don't know the set. And in my opinion, this mon demands too many resources to be reasonable thanks to it bulk and ability to boost speed+ tera blanking stuff like status or SE attacks, making revenge killing this mon difficult.

"Dragonite"
Comparing Dragonite to Gouge is comparing apples and oranges. DD Nite is never breaking through fat teams EVER. Glis, Corv, Dozo, Lu, Skarm,MolTres, Mola ect... Unless the team is significantly weakened of course but if that is the case, we might as well compare Gouge with just about every DDer in existence including shit like Altaria. It is mainly an anti offense mon that can check and beat a big variety of offensive structures not only through the threat of DD+e-speed but through other useful utility moves like D-tail or encore. Nite is more comparable to Zama if anything. Offense still has plenty of tools deal with nite btw like Gambit+Tera, Tusk, Zama, Lando with rock moves, Tera Ghost in general, Ghost Ival, balloon Ghold ect.... as long as you can keep these mons reasonably healthy

Gouge though: Gouge just punches holes through offensive and defensive teams alike while sporting stupidly high bulk and a burn immunity giving you not as many outs. See the list of mons I listed above? Yeah out of all of them only Dozo reliably beats this monster. The rest gets 2shot by this guy at the very least at +1 and the right tera type which he doesnt even need for the majority of the mons in the list. The best core to beat Outrage Tera Dragon Gouge is really curse Dozo(to discourage Gouge from boosting endlessly) + threatning fairy type like encore Val or fairy Garg. And on that note, DD+D-tail can also mess with mons that rely on phazing or boosting alongside you so you gotta scout for that too. Both Gouge and Nite have some Tera variety but I would argue Gouges tera variety is a lot wider and more dangerous for guessing not only the wrong set but the wrong tera type as well.

Also
Nites viable tera types are Normal, Fairy, (edit: Flying), Fire(for these scale shot sets) and occasionally tera dragon if you really wanna stretch it.

Gouge: Dragon, Fairy, Fire, Ghost, Poison, Ground

The variation that beats each tera type is much bigger in the Gouge section when it is for the Nite section

Btw this is only the tip of the iceberg of Gouge innovation. I fought Redemption on the ladder earlier and he had a bulky DD tera bug Gouge to set up on unsuspecting grounds I assume. If I didn't have a scarf Cinderace on my team, I don't know what I would have done.

 

[viivian]

got reqs last night and i once again intend on voting ban on gouging fire. this pokemon's defensive counterplay is insanely limited and the amount of different viable tera types it can run only further compounds the issue of defensive teams struggling to reliably answer it. tera dragon is of course its strongest set and is the main reason why i think gouging fire should be banned, but tera fairy and ground are both incredibly strong options as well and can melt anything that could act as an emergency check to tera dragon variants. its bulk and typing also makes setting up stupidly easy even without tera, so it's not even like it has a hard time getting going either. there's genuinely not much to say about this pokemon that hasn't already been said, it's just a ridiculously broken pokemon that has long overstayed its welcome

though one thing that i do want to touch on is the argument that gouging fire will simply be replaced by other dragons like roaring moon and dragonite, which i find to be complete nonsense since neither of these pokemon have all of the traits that make gouging fire so oppressive. roaring moon is substantially easier to pick off and has trouble choosing between coverage for kingambit and utility to shut down fat, whereas dragonite is much slower and necessitates tera so it doesn't hit like a wet noodle. neither of these pokemon are anywhere near as threatening on a game-to-game basis as gouging fire is, hence why i believe this argument is very flawed

 

[CaptainSC]

Out of the sheer hatred I have for this fat bastard I decided to skip out on doing hw due on the next day JUST to do my reqs and give out the fattest fuck you to this mon.

IMO with this mon everything starts and ends with the Offensive DD set. because that set in itself has SO many variations. tera dragon? sure, tera ground? sure, tera fairy? sure why not. but it gets SO MUCH worse

Offensve DD in SUN with boots so that you don't start every sweep at 75% WHILE getting that all important proto boost AND more often than not get 2 separate tries to break a team since you can just set up sun again should be ILLEGAL.

I actually got 6-0ed by this fat fuck on sun with the tera ground set. since under sun prim's surf actually does about half and you can actually SET UP ON IT WITH CRACKED OUT MORNING SUN WHILE. BEING. TERA. GROUND. and usually for the offensive team I had the best answer was to use lando to put up an intimidate and pivot into prim essentially trade with it. however, with the cracked sun set it almost becomes impossible to beat for most offensive teams. with it's bulk + cracked out recovery it can even out-heal moltres scorching sands.

I know there's opportunity cost for running this set instead of the usual CB sun however, that set only improves the stall match up. this set under sun is actually fucking unfair even with glow-kings running around because all it really needs is 1 turn to set up and glowking gets blown away with +1 EQs. and it's not that hard to generate that turn at a consistent basis. But what makes this set even more demonic is that it's consistently able to leverage it's bulk to generate 2 turns to set up.

Anyways, I just wanted to rant about DD gouge since I hate this mon. I voted ban on the previous suspect and I will most DEFINITELY vote ban again.

 

[thunderbug]

Gouge takes advantage of almost every single stupid and (borderline) broken thing this gen has to offer from protosynthesis/quark drive, set up sweepers that somehow simultaneously have the attack stats for HO and bulk that would be good enough to run on stall, to forcing your opponent to spin the tera wheel and see where it lands and if your check is actually a check or if you just lost because you picked the wrong one sorry better luck next time, to the sheer adaptability of the mon to whatever people cobble together to try and handle it.

Please do not focus entirely on whatever the set of the day is because by the time this suspect is even done tera dragon outrage will be a thing of the past for whatever new stupidity it decides to roll up with only for the player base to adjust to that and get ambushed by tera dragon again or one of its 17 other variants its ran of DD alone

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Please do not focus entirely on whatever the set of the day is because by the time this suspect is even done tera dragon outrage will be a thing of the past for whatever new stupidity it decides to roll up with only for the player base to adjust to that and get ambushed by tera dragon again or one of its 17 other variants its ran of DD alone

i dunno, last suspect i brought up the possibility of new broken gouging sets arising in the future and i was told:

You can’t tier out of fear for the future with different sets and brokenness arising then. We are looking at the current sets and the current tier. If anything your point about it being underexplored is reason to preserve it and look into it again in the future.

I implore people to not try and read too far into the logic in the above post and instead take a look at the current tier regardless of what side you are on in this and future suspects.

so even though what i was warning about was exactly what ended up happening (as usual—people should really start listening when i warn about things because my track record is quite good), it's not an applicable argument here. let's make our arguments based on the present, where gouging fire is broken, and the past, where it was also broken