You thought Chi-Yu was bad? Gouging Fire is gonna make you wish Chi-Yu was on the unban slate. A Fire/Dragon MONSTER that eats stall for breakfast and bulky offense for lunch, with a healthy snack of yummy cheese stick (Gholdengo).
You're essentially looking at Hisui-Arcanine with one extra point in speed for offense (H-Arc is115/90, Gouging is 115/91), but with access to Dragon Dance/Scale Shot and Dragon STAB instead of Rock STAB. Truly nothing wants to switch in on this. Because Protosynthesis activates in Sunlight, you're effectively putting a Choice Band on it every switch it gets (provided you can set sun, historically not a huge ask but if Terapagos sticks around any longer than three days it might be difficult). Here's just a dumb calc that will make your head spin:
+1 252 Atk Choice Band Tera Fire Arcanine-Hisui Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ting-Lu in Sun: 498-588 (96.8 - 114.3%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
The plus one might be wrong due to how Protosynthesis would calculate since Gouging isn't in the builder yet, but you get the point. It's gonna hurt. And that's just the raw power of Band. Don't even get me started on DD sets. DD, Flare Blitz, Outrage, Filler. It will pretty much always want to Tera-Fire, because if Chi-Yu taught us anything, bigger numbers make for easier knockouts.
However where Gouging Fire goes from absolutely world breaking to downright unfair is its defense and stallbreaking potential. 101/121/93 bulk with a new Protect that burns on contact is frankly, a little absurd. It won't always fit Burning Bulwark into its sets, but it synergizes so perfectly with the new Temper Flare (double damage if prior move failed) that even sets with minimal investment are going to cause problems on purpose. The set can be DD/ScaleShot, Bulwark, Morning Sun (because of course it also got sustain), Temper Flare with lefties or boots for one of the most unholy stallbreakers this side of Gliscor. Get this thing under sun and it's gonna be EVERYONES problem.
What makes it all the sweeter is the partners that were quite literally tailor-made for it. Walking Wake and Gouging Fire must have been soul-mates in a previous life. Are you really gonna trust changing the weather when Wake has a billion options to kill every weather team out there? It demolishes Sand, works perfectly in Rain, and then Flip Turns to Gouging for Snow. It doesn't even have to switch in Sun, it can just Hydro Steam! Raging Bolt I doubt is going to have the same impact- the statline is just not there (why for the love of Arceus is your attack stat base 73? why is your signature move
not just Sun Thunder?)- but being able to have a Water-Fire-Electric core under the Sun is insane. And this is before adding other Sun mons into the mix. The return of Venusaur makes the core Water-Fire-Grass-Electric, which is both easy to pilot and fun to use. Great Tusk is still, well, Great. Roaring Moon got unbanned. If Raging Bolt winds up being trash (likely) you can just pivot to using Sandy Shocks at zero downside. Torkoal being a requirement isn't even that big of an issue seeing as that saves your team a ton in the role compression and ultility departments.
The bottom line is, I'm excited to see how this metagame develops, as well as excited to see just how fast Gouging Fire gets banned. I will feel sad, however. Because Gamefreak knocked it out of the park with the Paradox Beasts. They look just as great as they play! If only every mon was like this.
