Through the Fire and Flames - Gouging Fire Suspect

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Felucia

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Following recent metagame discussion and the community survey held this week, Gouging Fire is being suspect tested! Gouging Fire is widely considered to be the best Pokémon in the metagame, pairing its strong Dragon typing with Fire to gain resistance against Fairy types and effectiveness against Steel types that would normally be effective Dragon type answers. Protosynthesis and Booster Energy give Gouging Fire the ability to dish out a lot of damage that a portion of the meta cannot withstand. More defensive sets like Assault Vest, Haban Berry, or bulky Booster Energy can cover for matchups that would normally be able to survive a hit and OHKO, but now lack the damage to do so. Lastly, even Primarina and Ursaluna, Pokémon that should have the absolute advantage in typing, aren't safe. Recently, a defensive Noble Roar set has been gaining popularity to deal with Primarina, and Sub/Reversal has seen some success in 1v1PL to beat Ursaluna.

This isn't to say Gouging Fire is entirely unbeatable, although it has several sets, good typing, and a very strong stat spread, it can only beat so many things with one set, and specific sets do have their weaknesses. Ursaluna has the upper hand against most other sets despite being able to lose to Reversal, and if you're running Reversal that means you're unable to run the Noble Roar set that beats Primarina, or Haban Berry to beat Dragon types. Gouging also generally struggles against hard hitting ground types like Landorus and Garchomp, or Pokémon that increase their defense or lower Gouging's attack, like Hisuian Goodra, Ogerpon-Wellspring and Pecharunt.

What do you think? Is Gouging Fire the epitome of power and unhealthy flexibility, or is it a healthy cornerstone of the SV metagame? Post any thoughts you might have about Gouging Fire on this thread or the 1v1 Metagame discussion thread!

In order to become a qualified voter, make an account with the prefix 1goug and achieve 2850 COIL on the 1v1 ladder.
Click this link when you achieve requirements and DO NOT ladder until a moderator has verified your account.
The deadline is Monday September 9th at 09:59am UTC.
We will also have suspect tours that will be announced at a later date within this thread so stay tuned!
 
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