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

[Avira]

To anyone who knows me, I'm sure it will not come as a surprise that I will be voting ban.

This tier will not be dead in the water by keeping GF. It's been dead to me for a while, but on the off-chance that we ban tera blast, I could see new pathways for meta development to open up. If we ever reach a stable meta, I would encourage exploration of banning moves like electro shot so that our tiering philosophy can keep up with new avenues of powercreep. A little off-topic, but all this to say that this suspect test isn't that important in the long run imo. I just don't see the tier changing all that much after a successful ban. I'm still running helmet lando-t, I'm still running hazards, still gonna slap tera fairy somewhere, still need speed control, etc.

We have more interesting questions to answer as a community, so let's just send this guy to the barbershop and move on.

I realize I have no clout in the community, so maybe I'll receive some pushback for posting this given you're a popular member of the community, but I believe Smogon's tiering philosophy is fine as is and has served Smogon very well over the years and does not need updating.

I believe moves should only be banned when they would clearly be a problem on the majority of fully-evolved Pokemon with 480+ BST that get them, such as Last Respects, which was banned even in Ubers as a testament to how stupid its design is once Basculegion was released, or when there are a lot of abusers of a move that encourage a degenerate strategy, such as Baton Pass, which is also banned in Ubers.

Last Respects was extremely non-interactive in that either you switch-in an immunity or a very bulky resist or be faster than the Last Respects user or you get blown out of the water due to how ridiculous the power of that move is in the endgame with it gaining BP for every one of your ally Pokemon that have fainted (with even revived Pokemon getting KOed counting).

Baton Pass was really dumb 'cause of shit like Espeon preventing most regular counterplay from working aside from straight up OHKOing what comes out on the field, which was a problem given Baton Passers could also pass defense boots. With no surprise, as the power level of the Ubers tier increased, even Ubers, which tries to have as much legal as possible, also banned Baton Pass starting in Gen 7.

While it is a very powerful move, Electro Shot might've only appeared broken 'cause of Archaludon's high bulk that synergized with its Ability, Stamina, its high offensive potential, its ability to Terastalize into a different type to avoid easy revenge kills, and its natural typing being very useful on Rain teams. Something with lower BST, particularly lower Defense and Special Defense, wouldn't necessarily be broken, and a mid-speed Pokemon with 110 Base Speed with no way of boosting Speed and a mediocre defensive typing wouldn't necessarily be broken either since it'd be easy to revenge kill. Everything in Archaludon's kit contributed to it being broken, not just Electro Shot, so I don't believe the sample size is large enough to form a solid conclusion that it is broken despite its effectiveness as a move.

Rage Fist is also not great on something without naturally high bulk on both ends, Bulk Up (or another move that boosts one of the Defense stats as well as an offensive stat), and the ability to disrupt counterplay with Taunt.

Glaive Rush may be the best 120 Base Power Dragon-type move that ever existed, but that likely isn't broken either with Baxcalibur's brokenness being 'cause of its very high Base Attack, high natural bulk, Scale Shot, Swords Dance, and Ice/Dragon/Ground coverage being all it needed along with the Defense boost from Snow.

Many other signature moves this generation are also not uniquely broken with a mon being broken 'cause most of its kit combined, such as Ogerpon-Hearthflame (Base Ogerpon and the Cornerstone form are nowhere near broken) and Ursaluna-Bloodmoon (mostly 'cause of its ability to Terastalize into a different type).

I believe the way Smogon has approached tiering is ideal even though I would personally prefer that Tera be outright banned, and so I am adamant that Smogon's tiering philosophy doesn't need to be changed. If/when this topic is brought up towards the end of SV's life as the current generation, I will probably request for PR access to defend Smogon's tiering philosophy. Maybe my request won't be approved, but at least I will have tried.

 

[Srn]

I realize I have no clout in the community, so maybe I'll receive some pushback for posting this given you're a popular member of the community, but I believe Smogon's tiering philosophy is fine as is and has served Smogon very well over the years and does not need updating.

I believe moves should only be banned when they would clearly be a problem on the majority of fully-evolved Pokemon with 480+ BST that get them, such as Last Respects, which was banned even in Ubers as a testament to how stupid its design is once Basculegion was released, or when there are a lot of abusers of a move that encourage a degenerate strategy, such as Baton Pass, which is also banned in Ubers.

Last Respects was extremely non-interactive in that either you switch-in an immunity or a very bulky resist or be faster than the Last Respects user or you get blown out of the water due to how ridiculous the power of that move is in the endgame with it gaining BP for every one of your ally Pokemon that have fainted (with even revived Pokemon getting KOed counting).

Baton Pass was really dumb 'cause of shit like Espeon preventing most regular counterplay from working aside from straight up OHKOing what comes out on the field, which was a problem given Baton Passers could also pass defense boots. With no surprise, as the power level of the Ubers tier increased, even Ubers, which tries to have as much legal as possible, also banned Baton Pass starting in Gen 7.

While it is a very powerful move, Electro Shot might've only appeared broken 'cause of Archaludon's high bulk that synergized with its Ability, Stamina, its high offensive potential, its ability to Terastalize into a different type to avoid easy revenge kills, and its natural typing being very useful on Rain teams. Something with lower BST, particularly lower Defense and Special Defense, wouldn't necessarily be broken, and a mid-speed Pokemon with 110 Base Speed with no way of boosting Speed and a mediocre defensive typing wouldn't necessarily be broken either since it'd be easy to revenge kill. Everything in Archaludon's kit contributed to it being broken, not just Electro Shot, so I don't believe the sample size is large enough to form a solid conclusion that it is broken despite its effectiveness as a move.

Rage Fist is also not great on something without naturally high bulk on both ends, Bulk Up (or another move that boosts one of the Defense stats as well as an offensive stat), and the ability to disrupt counterplay with Taunt.

Glaive Rush may be the best 120 Base Power Dragon-type move that ever existed, but that likely isn't broken either with Baxcalibur's brokenness being 'cause of its very high Base Attack, high natural bulk, Scale Shot, Swords Dance, and Ice/Dragon/Ground coverage being all it needed along with the Defense Boost from Snow.

Many other signature moves this generation are also not uniquely broken with a mon being broken 'cause most of its kit combined, such as Ogerpon-Hearthflame (Base Ogerpon and the Cornerstone form are nowhere near broken) and Ursaluna-Bloodmoon (mostly 'cause of its ability to Terastalize into a different type).

I believe the way Smogon has approached tiering is ideal even though I would personally prefer that Tera be outright banned, and so I am adamant that Smogon's tiering philosophy doesn't need to be changed. If/when this topic is brought up towards the end of SV's life as the current generation, I will probably request for PR access to defend Smogon's tiering philosophy. Maybe my request won't be approved, but at least I will have tried.

This is a reasonable stance to take. I personally disagree about Electro Shot, if you've tried sets with eshot and sets without, it is abundantly clear what a difference that eshot makes. I think you're right about rage fist (primeape's fine), glaive rush, etc and ultimately there's room for debate about eshot too. Whether or not we ban eshot would be decided by a suspect test, with the community navigating that room for debate. I don't wanna go back and forth any longer on this topic though, as this is the GF suspect thread, and we're off topic. Thanks for replying.

 

[Stallbrotonator]

Regarding the current Suspect Test for Gouging Fire, it's clear that there have been changes over the past few months. But the question to ask is whether it is still manageable today? There are many arguments BUT also some counter-arguments. Last time, I agreed with those who voted « not be banned » but now I find myself more in agreement with those who want to ban Gouging Fire. In my opinion, the first Suspect Test might have come a bit too early. If it had been conducted a month later, some people's opinions might have been different.

By the way, for those who frequently join these discussion threads whenever there's a Suspect Test, don't hesitate to share Showdown replays they can often be helpful!

 

[Finchinator]

Either today or in the immediate future

Tiering survey probably tomorrow or the next day — sorry for delay, caught COVID and tied up with other stuff that have strict deadlines.

All people need to know is Goiging was well >4, Kyurem between 3.5-4, Tera Blast and Gambit around 3, and a few other things in 2s. Will make formal post later this week though I promise.

 

[cozymushroomguy]

Tiering survey probably tomorrow or the next day — sorry for delay, caught COVID and tied up with other stuff that have strict deadlines.

All people need to know is Goiging was well >4, Kyurem between 3.5-4, Tera Blast and Gambit around 3, and a few other things in 2s. Will make formal post later this week though I promise.

Feel better

 

[Avira]

I'm nervous that low turnout will prevent Gouging Fire from getting banned. By the looks of it, this suspect might have fewer than 100 (or not much more than a 100) voters. People might be assuming that Gouging Fire will be banned and not bothering to get reqs.

 

[Heatranator]

I'm nervous that low turnout will prevent Gouging Fire from getting banned. By the looks of it, this suspect might have fewer than 100 (or not much more than a 100) voters. People might be assuming that Gouging Fire will be banned and not bothering to get reqs.

I don't think this is really the case. There are so far 70ish voters on the identification thread, and there are still a few days left until it closes (I am close to getting reqs, prob only need 10-15 more games), so I'm guessing there might be 100 when it closes (70 voters is still a large amount). It seems like most top players I have seen view gouging as a banworthy threat, though of course, lots of people don't speak in this thread who get reqs. We shall see if it gets banned, but the same was said about volcarona, and look what happened to the matchup moth.

 

[Alternator]

Given that Gouging is viewed as much more of a problem among the top players than it seems to be among players at large, I'd expect that the more people who earn reqs, the less support there will be for a ban.

Gouging barely made the top 20 in usage for August, so it's just not that common for a generic skilled player to have to deal with. Higher usage at very high ladder, yes; a bigger problem for players that are designing optimal teams, yes; an omnipresent threat that crushes the wider tier in its grasp, no.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

I'm nervous that low turnout will prevent Gouging Fire from getting banned. By the looks of it, this suspect might have fewer than 100 (or not much more than a 100) voters. People might be assuming that Gouging Fire will be banned and not bothering to get reqs.

Given that Gouging is viewed as much more of a problem among the top players than it seems to be among players at large, I'd expect that the more people who earn reqs, the less support there will be for a ban.

Gouging barely made the top 20 in usage for August, so it's just not that common for a generic skilled player to have to deal with. Higher usage at very high ladder, yes; a bigger problem for players that are designing optimal teams, yes; an omnipresent threat that crushes the wider tier in its grasp, no.

i dunno guys, out of the 27 people who have posted in this thread, exactly five of them have expressed dnb sentiments and only two of those have outright said "i'm voting dnb" without the caveat of "but i might change my mind later". almost everyone else has voiced some sort of opinion that gouging fire is problematic at least. now of course we need to take this with a grain of salt because there are plenty of posters who aren't voting and voters who aren't posting, but if we were to use this thread as a very loose indicator of public opinion, the community at large seems to be very heavily pro-ban right now, at all skill levels. but we need to keep up that momentum if we want this effort to succeed. have confidence, but don't get cocky

 

[Earthflax]

it ends up with a winrate of 50% because all the losing teams also brought one.

Gouging Fire had an 11% usage rate during WCOP. Statistically, 1 in every 100 WCOP SV matches had a Gouging Fire mirror. There were 2 Gouging Fire mirrors in the first round of OLT Swiss, out of about 50 games. This is information I found in legitimately 2 minutes. Why do you keep harping on this hypothetical? How is this applicable at all?

(and there are also other, more complicated factors i won't go into).

Please do.

To me, and to everyone sane, the usage stats for Gouging Fire are not, and potentially never will/would be, that impressive. It's difficult for a mon to become prominent usage-wise in Gen 9 if it does not exert significant offensive pressure with sufficient defensive utility (or vice versa). Gouging Fire does this to an extent with its typing profile but it certainly lacks in comparison to the juggernauts of the tier. What is increasingly apparent with regard to Gouging Fire is how the movepool variation can completely skew its counterplay. Take WCOP meta, where despite Gouging Fire's low usage and winrate in tour we started seeing Dragon Tail Gouging Fire out of tour to some success (though, somewhat ironically, it went completely unrevealed when it was brought in WCOP finals due to the other brokens of the tier winning before it could). Before that it was Breaking Swipe, and moving into the OLT meta we've started seeing Tera Blast. This is not to mention the perennial SunBand and offensive DD sets that rarely ever do nothing. Historically (and, in CG, especially when dumbshit Tera Blast sets come into play) these mons get banned, and with the state that it is in right now, Gouging Fire does not look to be an exception. It needs no mention that we are tiering for now and not for 6 months ago or for whenever Tera Blast finally earns the spotlight, but with that said Gouging Fire very obviously deserves a ban.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Why do you keep harping on this hypothetical? How is this applicable at all?

the hypothetical was a thought experiment meant to dispel the notion that brokenness is somehow intrinsically tied to high winrate, and that tournament winrate is an unreliable statistic that shouldn't be brought up in tiering arguments (unless it's anomalously high)

Please do.

the largest other factor we have to take into account is the small sample size of tournaments, even the "big" ones, compared to the amount of data it takes to actually start forming a full and complete picture of things. that makes data like winrates susceptible to being affected by rng, strings of overwhelmingly good or bad matchups, overpreparation or underpreparation for a certain threat, and so on. if there were winrate statistics for ladder, with its much larger amount of data points, we could use the 1825+ winrate stats as a more reliable form of data, though it still wouldn't be able to indicate when something is broken due to matchup fishing and high amount of set diversity, like… well, gouging fire

 

[Stads]

Got reqs, but I'm very unsure how to vote. Not that it matters, but Gouging Fire was a total non-factor during the reqs run. And why would it be? It's a difficult mon to position, but immensely powerful in the right circumstances that top SV builders and players can take advantage of. The line "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." from Finch has been wandering around in my head for the past week. This might be just my relative newness on the scene, but with tera making things contextually broken and/or contextually totally fine, I find it quite difficult to understand what exactly makes something banworthy.

Does Gouging Fire overly restrict teambuilding? It definitely is a factor, being a physical attacker naturally immune to burn (Sorry, Moltres), with good boosting options and a movepool just deep enough to keep one's opponent uneasy. There were 4 items above 10% usage last month, 10 moves above 10% usage, 6 tera types above 5% usage. The bulkier sets with Morning Sun are excellent at boosting in front of many bulky staples, with further options to dominate the boosting war with Breaking Swipe or phase the opponent with Dragon Tail. The Booster Attack sets can overwhelm teams very quickly, coupled with the various tera types Gouging Fire can leverage to flip certain matchups. Shoutout in particular to OldSpiceMike and their Tera Dragon Gouging Fire team, this was very instructive at showing how adaptable Gouging Fire is at overcoming its checks.

All this said, I think contextual answers to Gouging Fire are fairly reasonable to slot. Landorus-Therian is ubiquitous and can annoy GFire with ground STAB and helmet chip, Ting-Lu takes laughable damage from Heat Crash and can Earthquake it back, Alomomola can use Tickle or Chilling Water to stop a sweep, Zama and Garg are pretty decent in the 1v1. Gouging Fire has techs to beat any of these, but not all of them at once. Is it broken for Gouging Fire to be able to pick and choose what answers it actually has? Well, maybe. But as Finch alluded to, that's sort of just par for the course in SV. Maybe Gouging Fire is a couple ticks over a vague threshold of reasonableness, maybe it isn't. I personally find it really hard to tell how Gouging Fire's power and flexibility compares to that of Kyurem (probably broken?), Darkrai (probably not broken?), and Zamazenta (definitely not broken). In any case, I don't think anyone can say that either a Gouging Fire ban or a DNB would be a particularly unfair result.

So, with a lack of any particularly strong personal conviction, I think I'm leaning ban. This is because I'll readily admit I'm not the best pokemon player, and trust that if Gouging Fire got an exceptionally high survey result among the OLT Swiss qualified players - 32 of the best at SV - their collective judgment is likely sound. I'll be keeping an eye out for the full survey results if they are posted, as well as any persuasive arguments either on this thread or on this server. Good luck to everyone on the reqs grind!

 

[abdu Latrish]

From all the bans from houndstone and flutter mane to now gouging fire, gouging fire is quite annoying and immediately so I wanna ban gouging fire, between it’s ridiculous defense and reliable recovery in morning sun I can tell this thing can set up all the dragon dances it could ever want

 

[DetectiveDaikon]

Given that Gouging is viewed as much more of a problem among the top players than it seems to be among players at large, I'd expect that the more people who earn reqs, the less support there will be for a ban.

Gouging barely made the top 20 in usage for August, so it's just not that common for a generic skilled player to have to deal with. Higher usage at very high ladder, yes; a bigger problem for players that are designing optimal teams, yes; an omnipresent threat that crushes the wider tier in its grasp, no.

Yea, if thats the case if Gouging's usage might not be as high as expected. This reminds me of how Mega Gyarados was treated from Gen 6 to Gen 7—it was often underutilized despite fluctuating between BL and OU, ultimately sticking in OU but without significant usage and other mons had this issue. Nowadays, it struggles to find a place in NatDex due to the influence of Terastallization. Returning to the main topic, Gouging’s offensive presence would have likely pushed me to advocate for a ban if its base attack stat and speed were much higher. The Heat Crash argument is debatable due to weight thing, and the recoil damage with Blitz isn't appealing if you're trying to go for a sweep and your chipped down by priority or helmet. It's interesting that it wasn’t given Sacred Fire as a move option since its basically Entei

I said this prior, along the lines, I'd say if it gets banned, and I think the votes are probably enough, cause its probably just me and the other guy that are DnB, then the Tera ban probably comes into discussion afterward cause I think the Tera argument is always coming towards the end of the statement to ban a mon and it puts it on the radar

 

[cozymushroomguy]

Do you think Kyurem was suspected too early back in January before it was more apparent how cracked it was? I ask because it seems like it could be a similar situation with Gouging Fire here where top players are very aware of its potential but it doesn’t have an established presence on the ladder yet.

I agree. I know I said it yesterday but I'm pretty sure a mod deleted it. I was wondering why can't legendaries mythicals and the like have their own tier?? It's really hard to go against these mons when they use their energy booster items, or scarf. You can't do anything and it makes the game very unenjoyable. The fact that raging bolt has thunderclap and can set up calm mind, what can you do with it? Can a mod or someone answer why it is they can't have their own tier?

 

[Finchinator]

I agree. I know I said it yesterday but I'm pretty sure a mod deleted it. I was wondering why can't legendaries mythicals and the like have their own tier?? It's really hard to go against these mons when they use their energy booster items, or scarf. You can't do anything and it makes the game very unenjoyable. The fact that raging bolt has thunderclap and can set up calm mind, what can you do with it? Can a mod or someone answer why it is they can't have their own tier?

Ubers is where banned Pokemon go. Not all legendaries are strong and not all non-legendaries are balanced. If you do not grasp this concept, post here with further questions as to not derail this thread.

And anyone saying the initial Kyurem suspect was not proper is on some crazy revisionist history kick, but I digress -- let's refocus to Gouging Fire.

 

[awyp]

I'm up randomly at 3 AM so I'll give my 2 cents. I haven't really played a lot of Gen 9 recently but based on my suspect requirements and watching a bunch of OLT matches, Gouging Fire is still piece of shit mon that should've been banned 6 months ago. Nothing much has changed and I still hold the same opinion: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...we-didnt-start-the-fire.3738132/post-10026710

Still a lot of the things I mentioned hold truth outside the Booster set becoming one of the best sets currently out there, especially for those quick 5 minute HO type of teams.

It's really fat, like bro. It has magnificent stat breakdowns for something that has 590 BST, it's like perfect as a physical sweeper.

I won't really get into it, but Gouging Fire isn't the reason why I think the meta has gone to shit, there's a lot more things that should get looked at. Cool it gets banned, the meta gets marginally better.

The defensive utility of Gouging Fire more than it's offensive prowess is something that is underrated. It can take hits for days, and just rest up with Morning Sun. I think Gouging Fire was underexplored back in March we didn't really see all the new sets we see now with various different types of tera and Dragon Tail sets. I do believe by just playing the meta you can see that GF is extremely restricting. Depending on the playstyles I think you can see varying differences of Gouging Fire taking over, the Booster set in my opinion cleans most HO builds if not prepped with an Encore user. Tera Poison Breaking Swipes is great against stall, as well as CB Sun. The mon itself is very much like a swiss army knife and you can pick and choose how you want to use it. I would dive deeper but there's not much else to say that wasn't echo'd on this thread or my previous suspect post 6 months ago.

 

[CooolTrainer]

I agree. I know I said it yesterday but I'm pretty sure a mod deleted it. I was wondering why can't legendaries mythicals and the like have their own tier?? It's really hard to go against these mons when they use their energy booster items, or scarf. You can't do anything and it makes the game very unenjoyable. The fact that raging bolt has thunderclap and can set up calm mind, what can you do with it? Can a mod or someone answer why it is they can't have their own tier?

my point isn’t so much about legendaries, just about why Gouging Fire doesn’t have a huge ladder presence right now and why top players believe it’s so deserving of tiering action. Quite frankly you’re in the wrong place if you think legendary pokemon need their own tier lol

And Finchinator apologies, I deleted my post. Wasn’t my intention to side track or criticize.

 

[waffle04]

Gouging Fire is a wierd pokemon. It blew up initially with breaking swipe sets, counterplay got developed and it healthily dodged the ban, spent the next few months as a decent cleaner/breaker that could be managed the same way any other physical threat could be, and then blew up again with OLT.

Strictly from a ladder player's perspective? This pokemon is completely fine. There's nothing unique required to check it when building a team for ladder. While it's bulky, it can never leverage its bulk for defensive utility thanks to lacking notable physical resistances and taking 25% from rocks on booster energy sets, and not being strong or fast enough to immediately threatening the sweep with boots sets based on the spread. It's absolutely match-up fishy and doesn't offer the ability to blanket check physical attackers the same way volcarona did to special attackers. But, there's a catch.

When you take into account tournament games where you prepare a team for a single game, or in OLT's case, prepare a team to snipe someone else, that's where this firey protoceratops rears it's ugly head. It has the ability to customize its stat spread to an unbelievable amount thanks to very close stats. It can activate booster attack, defense, special defense or speed based on the spread and intended purpose and match-up. It's also naturally very, very bulky with 105/121/93 bulk that ensures that it's never ohko'd attacks unless they're strong super-effective attacks like lando eq or kyurem draco. Hell, offensive gouge is only a roll for adamant waterpon to kill, admittedly in waterpon's favor, and bulky gets 3hko'd. Mind you this is on a set-up sweeper that doesn't resist the attack. It's moveset is also extremely customizable but, not as much as volcarona, which is to its benefit. You're still picking and choosing checks but it's not nearly as pigeonholed into what it can and can't beat. Obviously, this leaves the general checks to be more effective but that's where tera blast and outrage come in. Tera blast + whatever tera type, typically fairy to beat tusk + zama and stuff like flying, ice and water also have their own benefits on paper, it's running lets it exploit its bulk to the fullest while having a non-contact stab attack to bypass helmet chip and static para or flame body burn. Tera dragon outrage is also something noteworthy since it brute forces its way through physical checks thanks to all the modifiers. This allows it to 2hko dozo after rocks or make it a roll, albeit a poor one, to 2hko from full. The biggest issue with these two sets is that neither is stopped by the same checks, which allows for the gouging player to exploit that as the game progress while the opposing player has no real idea on what it is.

I will note that despite it seeming like tera is what is currently pushing gouging fire over the edge, I think it's actually just tera blast. Tera giving it a useful defensive type to set-up vs checks is nice but fire move + pick 2 of recovery/dragon move/eq/bulwark is still plenty exploitable, especially if tera is burned. Tera blast on the other hand, gives it both a strong secondary or tertiary stab that avoids contact punishment, patches up coverage issues, and also flips the type match-up on activation. This means that typically checks can be bypassed by virtue of having a coverage move that can't realistically be prepared for, which is whatever on ladder since you'll never cover everything and losing to surprise move is fairly common even in older gens but a death sentence for tournament settings where you lose any chance of outplaying a bad match-up by virtue of being able to pack a silver bullet that has zero drawback in that game and cannot be played around like other surprise moves once revealed. Even the match-up moth required more breaking because of how many sturdy checks it has that can exploit it if tera is burned early, it hasn't been used or if its popped against it like skeledirge, ting-lu, blissey, bulky dragons, garganacl, primarina and heatran. Gouging has all of dondozo, which can either be beat or be forced to run a suboptimal tera type, great tusk, which gets t-blasted, lando-t, which gets brute forced, garg if it's tera fairy, zamazenta and ting-lu.

I don't think gouging fire as a pokemon is necessarily broken or even that unhealthy given I pretty much only play on ladder but, playing through OLT and watching the games has made it abundantly clear that the way it can exploit tera blast sets it apart from other banned abusers like volcarona and espathra or legal abusers like kyurem, dragapult, landorus-t and raging bolt since it allows it to bypass typically counterplay in a way that's far more egregious than the others. None of those previously mentioned pokemon are checked by things like helmet, static, rough skin or flame body post-tera so utilizing that aspect was never a consideration when slotting in checks and counters like it is with gouging fire. I think that unless some insane development happens that leads to more reliable counterplay to the unpredictable, I will be voting Ban unless tera blast gets the boot before the suspect ends.

 

[Finchinator]

tera blast gets the boot before the suspect ends

This is not happening, btw. If Tera Blast goes, it will be done via separate, community suspect at a later date.

 

[waffle04]

This is not happening, btw. If Tera Blast goes, it will be done via separate, community suspect at a later date.

I know, it's always focus on the test at hand and test something else at a later date if it arises as a problem. I'm just hoping that this doesn't end up like gems in gen 5 where after trying to solve latent issues of the metagame it gets banned 10 years down the line and solves some major issues.

 

[Finchinator]

I know, it's always focus on the test at hand and test something else at a later date if it arises as a problem. I'm just hoping that this doesn't end up like gems in gen 5 where after trying to solve latent issues of the metagame it gets banned 10 years down the line and solves some major issues.

Keep in mind tiering during generation 5 as a current generation was very different with less community feedback and arguably tone-deaf leadership, causing some awkward ripples and a ton of revisions post-generation. Do not think we are going to ever approach that extensive territory in modern generations.

 

[Joycap]

This is going to be my only thought on Gouging Fire (note: I'd abstain if by some miracle I got reqs, I already noted in my improvement post this gen and meta has kinda gone over my head in a lot of ways), but imma say it anyway:

I know, it's always focus on the test at hand and test something else at a later date if it arises as a problem. I'm just hoping that this doesn't end up like gems in gen 5 where after trying to solve latent issues of the metagame it gets banned 10 years down the line and solves some major issues.

Keep in mind tiering during generation 5 as a current generation was very different with less community feedback and arguably tone-deaf leadership, causing some awkward ripples and a ton of revisions post-generation. Do not think we are going to ever approach that extensive territory in modern generations.

There's tone deaf (don't make me soapbox...), and then there's turning around to the G5 Gem Ban going "wait, you're telling me that nobody, for around 10 years, out of the *literal millions of players*, out of billions of human beings on this big wet rock we call 'Earth', that nobody hopped on cartridge one day, and said 'hang about, Gem boosts in relation to multi-hit moves don't actually work this way'?". Same goes for GFire here - and I say this as an in-and-out lurker: I heard all this hype around Breaking Swipe and defensive sets, and thought "so wait... you're telling ME that this thing, with a Dragon/Fire typing associated with Offensive mons, and 115 base attack, predicated on an ability boosted by *sun* - saw *less use* of offensive sets (Band/DD etc.) during it's first suspect, than these defensive sets w/ Breaking Swipe, a move with admittedly reasonable distribution, but what 99% of *nothing else* uses at a competitive level?". I get that this thing also has 121 base defence and Morning Sun, but I always took that more as just 'natural bulk this thing happens to have' (similar to how in G7/G8, people would sort of forget that Kartana has a similar defence stat (although admittedly poultry HP and no Sp.Def to actually back that up)), and not something that people would deliberately prioritise the bulkiest sets with.

Anyway that's my dumb single thought for this entire suspect plz don't hurt me

 

[FayaWizard]

This is going to be my only thought on Gouging Fire (note: I'd abstain if by some miracle I got reqs, I already noted in my improvement post this gen and meta has kinda gone over my head in a lot of ways), but imma say it anyway:




There's tone deaf (don't make me soapbox...), and then there's turning around to the G5 Gem Ban going "wait, you're telling me that nobody, for around 10 years, out of the *literal millions of players*, out of billions of human beings on this big wet rock we call 'Earth', that nobody hopped on cartridge one day, and said 'hang about, Gem boosts in relation to multi-hit moves don't actually work this way'?". Same goes for GFire here - and I say this as an in-and-out lurker: I heard all this hype around Breaking Swipe and defensive sets, and thought "so wait... you're telling ME that this thing, with a Dragon/Fire typing associated with Offensive mons, and 115 base attack, predicated on an ability boosted by *sun* - saw *less use* of offensive sets (Band/DD etc.) during it's first suspect, than these defensive sets w/ Breaking Swipe, a move with admittedly reasonable distribution, but what 99% of *nothing else* uses at a competitive level?". I get that this thing also has 121 base defence and Morning Sun, but I always took that more as just 'natural bulk this thing happens to have' (similar to how in G7/G8, people would sort of forget that Kartana has a similar defence stat (although admittedly poultry HP and no Sp.Def to actually back that up)), and not something that people would deliberately prioritise the bulkiest sets with.

Anyway that's my dumb single thought for this entire suspect plz don't hurt me View attachment 666393

I'm sorry, what is this post trying to say? If it's criticizing how people prioritized the Bulky Breaking Swipe set during the first suspect, that was because it was the set that launched Gouging into the suspect discussion in the first place, as it had just dropped and people hadn't adapted to it yet.

Anyways to give my own thoughts on Gouging Fire, I think it's pretty similar to Volcarona in the sense that it really only has one "set", that being Dragon Dance, but just like Volcarona, Dragon Dance has like 8 different looks each with its own checks and counters. I don't see the benefits of keeping Gouging Fire in the tier, nor do I think the fear mongering about how "the tier will become spikes stacking balance" is correct. Preventing change in the metagame because you are afraid of some nebulous future is wrong, and even if it does come true, we can simply suspect the culprit behind it and continue to push the tier forward.

 

[waffle04]

Keep in mind tiering during generation 5 as a current generation was very different with less community feedback and arguably tone-deaf leadership, causing some awkward ripples and a ton of revisions post-generation. Do not think we are going to ever approach that extensive territory in modern generations.

Not necessarily saying it will happen nor was it intended as a slight towards tier leadership. That's been great with very high openness and engagement. If anything does happen I would attribute it to the high power level paired with the most stringent resource management and highly dynamic turns that make it more hostile. Since this is ultimately straying off topic, has anyone tried stone edge or an anti-bird tera blast to wholly bypass any risk of a sweep getting cut short?