The Dragons are Raging - Outrage Discussion

[MythTrainerInfinity]

I've been listening to quite a few users complain about Salamence and a number of them are calling for it to be Uber. With the amount of checks there are for it, it does not feel right. I don't think people would really consider Salamence for Ubers if Outrage was banned.

So, I wanted to propose something different. What if we tested Outrage as a Suspect move?

Suspect Reasonings:

1. Promotes Reliance on luck: After Outrage ends, the game can heavily rely on luck. Let's say if a Salamence with two DD kills something with Outrage and becomes confused.

Next turn: Opponent sends out Jirachi. Now you know you can easily dispatch it with a quick Earthquake, but there's a 50% chance that you will not. Selecting Earthquake would then take little to no skill to execute, but more of relying on hax.

2. It might be a centralizing move: Salamence ranks third in the usage stats of November (most Salamence (54.1%) had Outrage in Novemeber) and Outrage was one of the main reasons that people consider Garchomp to be Uber.

3. Unique power: We all know it is a base 120 move with only one resistance, Steel. After one or two Dragon Dances this move can pretty much OHKO or 2HKO something that doesn't resist it. Does that take much skill to do? Not really.

Reasons to not be a Suspect:

1. Huge drawbacks: It takes time to properly setup and is punishable.

Once something is knocked out you can easily revenge kill it (ice Shard, etc.)

2. Paper counters: Most viable users of Outrage have a 4x Ice weakness and that is quite easy to exploit. Porygon2 is very easy to send in and Intimidate Salamence right back and scaring it out with a potential Ice Beam.

3. Unreliable: You don't know if it will be a two or three turn Outrage. As a result you might not be able to be as effective with it as you could possibly be.

I know there are more reasons for both sides, but I would love to see this discussion evolve a bit before more gets added to this and like the SR thread there is a poll. However, I would ask that you would provide your analytical reasonings why you would choose either or.

 

[PerfectBlue]

idk, tbh, I don't see how outrage is overpowered enough to be banned, all teams have would have a steel regardless, don't see the move as centralizing. Spamming outrage will get u no where...

ya it's strong, but hardly OP. Salamence definitely isn't uber regardless

Not to mention, outrage leaves u easy to revenge kill.

 

[Endeby]

all teams have would have a steel regardless,

Remember that this is the main reason why everyone use one or even two steel types in their teams, just wanted to point it out. Will post more thoughts later.

 

[Deck Knight]

Outrage Salamence = Giga Impact Slaking.

Giga Impact Slaking is legal and GI is not up for a ban just because you are pretty much guaranteed a kill with it's best user.

Yes, there are some differences, like Outrage being usable the turn after a KO, but the fact is the move is highly punishable, doesn't allow switching out, and makes the user revenge kill fodder.

Garchomp was never Uber because of Outrage specifically. It was more Swords Yachechomp + Sand Veil hax. In fact, I'm fairly certain said Yachechomp used Dragon Claw, whereas Outrage was more of a staple on the Scarf and Band sets.

DD Outrage Dragonite has roughly equal attack, the same stats, and has had the strategy long before Platinum tutors, yet it did not cause much complaint.

 

[Boingo]

I get the feeling this "naming suspects" thing is getting a little bit out of hand...

I support your stance on Stealth Rock, but this is a bit silly IMO. So no, I don't believe Outrage needs to be "tested".

 

[Corrupted]

This is going to get way too complicated. I understand the discussion, but I really don't see it happening. The reason Chomp was banned was SD + Outrage. Next thing will be Close Combat and so on.

 

[panamaxis]

You've got this the wrong way IMO, Outrage will never be a suspect. If its so damn good the pokemon that work well with the move outrage will be suspects, not the move itself.

 

[reachzero]

From Smogon's philosophy, Quoted from smogon.com/philosophy (which should be required reading for all Smogonites):

Smogon attempts to avoid bans as much as possible—only when it becomes very apparent that a Pokémon is far too powerful to be in line with a balanced metagame is it banished permanently from the standard arena.

It is not "very apparent" that any presently OU dragon is "far too powerful". That this is even being suggested is laughable, and further suggests that what is really "unbalanced" is our competitive community....I should mention, by way that "promoting reliance on luck" is NOT a valid reason for banning a pokemon or a move. See the quote above, or my post in the voting thread in PR. If all these annoyed voters were so concerned with Salamence being a Suspect and "overcentralizing", Donphan would be a lot higher than #49 what with it's awesome physical defense and Ice Shard.

 

[Sudo]

This discussion is really just focusing on Salamence's Outrage usage with the way you are phrasing your argument. I don't see Outrage as being over powering on the other dragons in OU (let alone the other pokemon that get it). Exactly what is the purpose of testing Outrage? To create a more viable, decentralized metagame? I don't see how possibly removing Outrage will benefit the metagame in any way. If removing Outrage doesn't promote a better metagame, I don't see why we should waste our time testing this.

As for the reasons it could be listed as a suspect; for one, it doesn't look like we're trying to achieve as little luck as possible in the OU environment. If that was the case, Thunderwave, flinch, etc. would have been removed by now without question. Since the luck attributed to Outrage is largely a hindrance to the Outrage user, I don't see how that could be such a problem.

It might be a centralizing move? I don't understand how this could actually be a valid argument. When you say Outrage could be a centralized move, do you mean Outrage is heavily used out of the available OU movepool, or that its presence limits the number of viable pokemon in OU? If the former is the case, only the dragons actually use Outrage competitively (you could also argue Sceptile but meh), and despite being such a great (possibly game breaking) move, a little more than half of all Salamences actually use it. More Salamence actually carry a non STAB move despite the ability to use Outrage (69% used Earthquake), so I think that really says something about Outrage's potential in actual battle. Outrage usage on Salamence is nowhere near as centralized as Scizor's Bullet Punch usage (can you say 93.8%?).

You can argue that most moves are overpowered with a couple of boosted attack stages. That really doesn't prove much in this argument, however; we're talking about how Outrage could possibly be broken, but the only instance that could occur is in Salamence's case. I don't think a move should be banned simply because one pokemon can abuse it - on many other pokemon Outrage is essentially useless. Since the argument for testing Outrage is so correlated with Salamence, I get the impression that this is an incognito statement for testing Salamence.

 

[Twisted Kneebar]

Wow, MTI it seems that when you dont like something you put up a thread of why its broken i mean seriously this is just silly

 

[Matthew]

What is the point of this thread?

It seems now that Smogon has started to (un)ban things people just want to test every little nit pick they have about then game.

OH MY LORD! CLOSE COMBAT/STEALTH ROCKS/A BIG MEAN DRAGON MAKES MY POKEMON FAINT A LOT! THIS IS BROKEN AND NEEDS TO BE TESTED.

Very VERY few things are broken in this game. I still say Shaymin-S is alright in OU since every team did not carry it. The only thing deemed "broken" was Garchomp was because he was without a doubt the best sweeper in the game. Every (respectable players) team had one on and it gaurenteed at least 1-2 kills. How can you pass that up?

Deoxy-s made the game a coin flip on who can set up screens faster/rocks faster so they can set up their sweepers faster.

Those a broken. Not because "it forces you to have a counter."

 

[Jibaku]

I'm sorry but this is getting ridiculous.

Smogon attempts to avoid bans as much as possible—only when it becomes very apparent that a Pokémon is far too powerful to be in line with a balanced metagame is it banished permanently from the standard arena.

Enough evidence as it seems prove that Outrage is not broken enough to be labeled as a suspect. If we continue this trend people will start doing things like trying to ban Magnezone because it traps Steels and reduces the amount of Pokemon being able to take Dragon moves, or the like. I mean, let's think of the newcomers. They already have to deal with why DT and OHKO are generally banned (and the fact that the banning can be controversial already), but now when you get into things like Outrage, Close Combat and Bullet Punch Scizor being banned, it gets ridiculous and the game becomes significantly less enjoyable

Locking this.