Like many others I find it a shame the end result we got, and it definitely feels far from the last we will be hearing about Gouging, but unfortunately all we can do from here is move on. Glad to see people are sharing their thoughts here, more than usual, so at the very least there is a positive in community involvement to gain from this suspect. A small bright side. Anyways, I wanted to take a lil time to respond to some stuff and give my OWN takes on things going forward. I know a lot of people wanted council to post or whatever, but I'm just giving my personal two cents as per usual.
No, what I really want to point out is, from my point of view,
"Gouging suspect resulted in no ban" ≠ "there was no change in the metagame, we are doomed to play this shit tier until gen 10" and I feel like there's a few people that have a hard time separating those 2 ideas. My point being, while there may not have been any direct change in the "game" part, at least the way we see the tier as a whole (the "meta") has been altered for a significant group of capable players, who if presented with another survey might now rank gouging lower that they originally did (myself included). My point being that, I do think that this suspect was extremly useful for the growth of the metagame. Not only was it the most logical choice from the survey's answers, but it sparked critical thinking , which for me would be the most important part of suspects, because one which wouldn't induce any wouldn't be any different from a "slow quickban". Gouging isn't a problem for everyone, now imo we should just move on to the next mon.
Also I've heard a lot of people say that we had to ban it if we wanted council to make more decisions, which I think is just not true lol. They're not some children that would sulk at the community because we're "undecisive", it's a group of many well thought people that I'm sure can adapt to whatever happens and will end up getting it right.
As much of a doomer as I can find myself being, I do agree with Frao's general statement here; this meta is not "doomed". After what feels like an unsuccessful suspect it just becomes more apparent than ever that we need to continue taking action with certain pokemon going forward. I don't fully agree that people would vote Gouging much lower upon a revisit since the dnb ratio was quite small, but regardless there is a future for this metagame to work toward, and I really feel like SV's potential is high so long as the community follows up on opportunities to change the metagame when presented them. Aside from that, like others have said in this thread, this tiers power level is insanely high and a lot of pokemon feel like they need to be cut down; one remains standing but there is many others to go, and Gouging can always be revisited if it continues to appear problematic as the tier changes down the line. TL;DR is I think the outcome sucks but the tier is far from dead, as council most we can give is quicker tests and as a community most you can do is put in the effort to get reqs and cast your vote.
Sorry bro but to dismiss Arch as a 1-trick pony who can only T-wave and set rocks seems unfortunate, to say the least. As stated above, it has so many tools to be so much more. Scarf is very legit and can clutch some surprise KO's. AV Arch is a meme but when it uses Mirror Coat vs your Moonblast or Draco Meteor, only your opponent will be laughing. Most of all Stamina is just too good on a mon with 9 resistances and only 2 weaknesses.
Also such narrow minded thinking is why so many struggle to qualify for reqs vs unpredictability of ladder.
P.S. There's a reason why it's banned in OU
I don't think Boomps post was about dismissing Archaludon's other sets, but moreso the "problematic" aspects people mentioned being almost solely on its defensive sets. The versatility of defensive being hard to kill, being a reliable rocker and either having hard to wall coverage or twave/roar utility was the main things mentioned about it. Set versatility can obviously make a "broken' mon more broken, but in Archaludons case its very much just an added luxury and not "scarf and av are also so broken !!!"
Also it being banned in OU is a very pointless throwaway line, idt I need to explain to anyone why assault vest tera fairy electro shot spamming rain-wallbreaker Archaludon is not even remotely close to the same as the Archaludon we are dealing with, lol.
On the topic of Archaludon...
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this pokemon has been in the radar since before the survey has been posted but council just like to act as if its a current fever dream by the community, it has insane bulk, insane utility and overall its in the best types too. i think it should be suspected in the very least
I am quite tired of debunking this nonsense. I looked through the monotype discord, the forums, the council chat, and the whopping 9 whole (not even all qualified mind you) votes mentioning Archaludon. This pokemon has not been on any radar since before the suspect, and if it was it was between jerks/communities keeping it to themselves. Council cannot see into every private space, or keep track of every throwaway whisper of a broken pokemon in the showdown chats. If people want to keep their takes behind closed doors, that is fine, but do not act like others are delusional for not knowing. Post on the forums and discuss if you really think something should be tested.
Doesn't really track with the numbers. The qualified pool of players in the survey (e.g. the pool of players from where suspect voters are far more likely to be pulled from) felt stronger about tiering action on Gouging than did the general playerbase, which also felt pretty strong. This isn't really a case of newer players agitating for a ban no one seriously thought was an issue. Gouging was voted most problematic among both the general and qualified groups by a decent distance.
The two aren't consistent. Either people changed their minds (perfectly fair), people weren't motivated to actually complete the suspect for whatever reason (probably assuming other people would do the work to get Gouging banned), or people who weren't pro-ban (one puzzling thing I saw was people voting DNB because there are "bigger problems in the tier") were motivated in sufficient enough numbers to have GF stay.
Just wanted to reply to this and agree with Dragapults first paragraph, in response to some people saying we either suspected the wrong pokemon or that the survey isn't accurate to playerbase opinion. The qualified voters wanted this. I also want to echo the second paragraph's portion mentioning how people weren't voting off the assumption Gouging would just get banned; this type of thinking I've seen often in every suspect in every tier. Like I mentioned in an earlier part of this post, as a community you all really need to work towards the metagame you are wanting to play. As for the "bigger problems in the tier", I will lightly touch on that later in this post. Probably.
Also curious how 2/3 "qualifying questions" on the survey were based on forum tour performance. In reality it's the "ladder heroes" that qualify for reqs and contribute to tiering.
I don't really know what this post is trying to say. Tour performance is often considered the highest level so naturally questions regarding those will qualify a user over general playerbase, and most of said tournament players did get reqs. Beyond that, the "ladder heroes" were given a question as well, about whether or not they were in the current top 50. If you have any other suggestions on how to gauge qualified players, please do go ahead and post them.
I believe we, as a community, has simply gotten used to the power creep this generation and this is the reason why we have so many controversial threats running around in the metagame. You might tell me "Oh TTK, you voted dnb on Gouging Fire so can you talk?" and I'll say this, Gouging was not the necessary first step to reaching the ideal metagame. Maybe I'm too hung up on the process but I'm not the only person that believed that Gouging was not the suspect we needed to have.
This post is mainly is just lay down my stance on the pokemon in the metagame I would like to just have gone. Some of these issues may not be addressed for quite a while but I'd rather just get this off my chest.
To follow TTK's post. I would have put Flutter Mane in the "should be quickbanned mon" list. I would also add Heat Rock and Icy Rock for more equity here but I can understand than the last one doesn't really benefit as much as the 3 others to teams.
For Ogerpons, I want to make a difference between Hearthflame (fire) and Wellspring (water). The first one is helped by his ability mold breaker allowing it in sun to click Ivy Cudgel against whatever especially Heatran but it has 25% chance of 0HKO at +2 (240hp/252+def) Archaludon. The mon is very complicated to handle. The Water one is THE physical attacker of water type helping a lot in mirors and I think it's less an issue.
For the borderline list, as I have written in the survey, Zamazenta. Espathra is not really healthy neither if you don't have a dark mon. Also Gouging Fire ban should be around here as the meta would be drastically different than the actual one without Baxcalibur and without Heat Rock.
Also some mons that needs to be looked at are Raging Bolt, Kyurem and Spectrier. They are not an issue right now but can become one very quickly. And I think there are more that I cannot remember as I did seriously the survey with the actual list of available options.
I do not agree about sleep clause, I think paralysis is more unfair and unbalanced as sleeping policy put you in a position of one and only one sleep fodder while your whole team could be paralyzed.
For the council part of TTK's post. I would say that if you do not want to participate in the suspect for any reason, at least give an opinion about the pokemon and/or the metagame more often so the playerbase will know what you think. Also, survey policy cannot rule the tier as in OU they did not put Archaludon as very problematic in their survey but it has been ban (they also have poor tiering decision looking at Gliscor suspect, ban and unban).
Next step would probably be to suspect Archaludon or Baxcalibur (yes, him again). DLC2 represented the biggest metagame shift since the release of gen9 metagame, and for this reason I believe that the argument that "bax just recently got suspected" should not be used for this particular scenario. I understand it might controversial to have two suspect tests in the same Pokemon within such short time frame, but the environments are completely different. I will also be giving some thoughts in other Pokemon which may be problematic (please note that I'm not necessarily supporting a ban in every mon, but the general issues that I have with how these elements interact with competitiveness of gen9monotype).
This is the part where we talk about specific mons, and this is also the part where I am very very much not talking for anyone on council but myself.
I don't really want to go into a whole thing about this pokemon, but of the 14 DNB voters, some brought up Archaludon as a potential broken. This still comes off as a very vocal minority opinion, and analyzing the ban of this mon itself just doesn't sit right with me. This pokemon is not the game-ender Gouging and Baxcalibur are, and as far as defensive capabilities went, even Gouging's were extemely phenomenal. Do I think Archaludon is one of, if not the most useful pokemon on dragon? I do. Do I think banning it would magically make teams with Gouging + Baxcalibur not oppressive? Absolutely not. To echo the words of a lot of people against Gouging Fire's ban, Archaludon is not "the right pokemon to suspect right now". It will not fix the metagame, it will just force dragon builds to maybe commit to being ever so slightly more offensively oriented after the loss of a defensive glue, while still having a chokehold on the tier. Also funny enough, Archaludon is one of the nicest checks to both Gouging and Baxcalibur, so I definitely think banning it would suck in that regard. This is definitely something revisit after the tier has developed further (preferably via bans).
This is likely the ideal pokemon to move onto next in terms of action. It was one of the other pokemon mentioned in DNB arguments, but unlike Archaludon was mentioned plenty beforehand on the survey. The 'dragon is oppressive" issue still shines through for most people I'd imagine, and suspecting dragons arguably greatest wall-breaker seems like the way to go. I won't go into what makes Baxcalibur busted here, I think we've all heard it plenty.
I agree with all of these aforementioned threats being too much (to no ones surprise). Obviously there is an order to things, and going forward I would hope we pump out constant surveys regarding these pokemon, and I would hope the community really thinks hard about their priorities in regards to what should be tested first, so we avoid having "this is the wrong pokemon to suspect" mentioned for the 100th time. All of these pokemon contribute to the power creep of the tier, being limited in defensive counterplay and extremely tough to beat out offensively as well due to their many tools (priority, bulk, speed, strong team support). But this is all talk for way later down the line.
These two have felt strange in current meta; I found them extremely broken in DLC1 and then not so much in DLC2, but the more I play other types I think its moreso a matter of them struggling vs dragon and fire (yes Wellspring is rough into fire). Any other type I loaded into these pokemon was hell. They are extemely versatile in their ability to break defensive answers, like Wellspring running taunt to beat most dnites/gyarados', or running superpower for Archaludon. Hearthflame replaces set versatility with sun boosted cudgels being unwallable, and ontop of that these 2 are hard to kill without actively running moves just for them (Xscissor Drill, sludge wave Gren, Life orb Valiant, etc). Regardless, I think they aren't high priority right now, but definitely something to touch on later especially if we reach a point where dragon is no longer meta-warping.
has been mentioned here and there; beyond it just not having many people vouching against it, psychics extremely low usage, and that low usage not often including an espathra, I cannot in full honesty say this is something that needs action anytime soon. I do find speed boost + stored power an inherently broken/uncompetitive combo, but it still needs some results.
and
have also been brought. As mentioned by I believe Mushamu in the suspect thread, the only thing holding Fire back is dragon. Into every other matchup fire does feel quite overbearing, so removing heat rock could be a viable step. Limits fires ability to endlessly click raging fury through every type, limits its speed control options, and limits Ogerpon's ability to just obliterate every defensive answer (it still can but, there is better odds to live now). Icy rock I would only include out of a desire to be consistent and say "ban all weather rocks", but beyond that ice hasn't been anything noteworthy enough to seriously suggest this.
Sleep hasn't been an active hinderance to the meta and if anything give trash types like grass and poison some tools to work with, so for now I'd argue it brings something of value to the metagame, however small, and is worth keeping until further notice of it being a problem.
In any case, agreements or disagreements aside, it would be nice if this many people keep posting in this thread going forward. It will help build understanding of others takes on the meta, and as we understand opposing sides better I think common ground will be easier to achieve for future suspects. Heres to hoping our next test is a smooth ban. For now I leave you all with this.
Gouging Fire @ Heavy-Duty Boots
Ability: Protosynthesis
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 132 SpD / 124 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Flare Blitz
- Breaking Swipe
- Dragon Dance
- Morning Sun
Broken, trust.
oh look they're only fighting types), Kingambit will just reverse sweep and we've all seen this in action. Being forced to play these 50 50 dumbass interactions with status moves so you stop Kingambit from killing your offensive threats that lack status so they aren't OHKOd in the late game. It's mind boggling how we just accept this as perfectly fine. Like why am I punished for playing the game, using my defensive threats to take hits for my offensive pokemon, then they just keep Gambit alive for most of the game in the back and Gambit is like "It's time to setup because I'm not going to die in one hit then OHKO everything with Sucker."
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