Announcement np: SV OU Suspect Process, Round 11 - We Didn't Start the Fire

[tigers jaw]

hello, hi.

i’m quickly posting to say that balance is not necessarily present when there is somewhat equal viability between the three main styles of teams. the line between said styles is inexact at best, and when it comes to assessing whether any single element is banworthy, rather than focus on preservation of this triangle, focus on the aspects of the element in question - whether there is reasonable counterplay, whether it is overwhelmingly strong, etc. - in other words, whether the element itself is balanced.

not to say people haven’t been doing so - just that such invocations are of no consequence when it comes to determining if something is banworthy.

“stall, bo, and ho will not be equally represented” in no way maps on to or is relevant to “gouging fire is/isn’t banworthy”. it’s just not a good lense through which to view tiering. it tells us nothing of whether or not any element of the metagame is in itself balanced.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

“stall, bo, and ho will not be equally represented” in no way maps on to or is relevant to “gouging fire is/isn’t banworthy”. it’s just not a good lense through which to view tiering.

true, but at the same time, if a certain playstyle is being made significantly less viable or heavily strained by the presence of a mon, that's a problem. not every playstyle has to be equally represented, but every playstyle should at least be usable

 

[tigers jaw]

true, but at the same time, if a certain playstyle is being made significantly less viable or heavily strained by the presence of a mon, that's a problem. not every playstyle has to be equally represented, but every playstyle should at least be usable

why is it a problem? oftentimes in metas, certain play styles are generally lower-risk to use than others.

it’s been a while since i went over the tiering policy, but i'm pretty sure people realised that this attitude was nonsense to begin with, and it was removed from tiering framework.

 

[pika pal]

Notice how the ban side is coming with opinions. I said excessive bans may lead to stale meta with precedent as an example, but foresight must appear to those with 0 insight and logic as fear mongering since brain unable to imagine 2 steps ahead. Please bring statistical arguments because the burden of proof rests on the ban crowd, convince me with its excessive win rate or usage that its presence in the tier is overwhelming.

Is the quantity that qualifies for "excessive" bans and the nature of a "stale" meta not itself an opinion or subjective? Many people consider the current tier very match-up fishy because the extreme number of threats that require significant teambuilding strain makes it borderline impossible to build teams that reliably counterplay an opposing team without prior knowledge of things like Teras and Sets (Ex: I have two Gouging Fire responses like Dondozo + Landorus-Therian, but keeping both healthy until I determine which is more important itself leads to plays that are sub-optimal against the rest of the team such that them beating GF doesn't prevent my losing the game to them).

Despite the variety, one could argue the experience to be stale because they see several games as determined by who they're put against rather than how they play against them. Burden of Proof rests on the ban crowd for the sake of convincing you, but not necessarily for the vote to remove it from the tier. The only "burden" of proof they have in that case is proving their own Reqs to count their vote, and discussion here is to potentially sway others to vote the same if they can. You're asking for statistical evidence that Gouging Fire is being used and winning disproportionately much, but one of the points you reference multiple times, even in passing, is a GF ban potentially pushing us to a boring Boots Spam meta that is equally rooted in prediction (even if GF goes, too many things exist from DLC2 to reliably repeat the DLC1 meta you drew comparisons to).

I'm not even entirely clear how GF prevents this from happening when it's one of the biggest beneficiaries of Hazards due to its frequent usage as an "in once and go for it" win condition with most of its Set-up Sets, meaning it doesn't contend with Hazards often but several answers will have to watch for that chip damage putting them in range if they have to switch around or simply needing multiple members to put counterplay into action. The Hazard spam in general also comes down to the massive imbalance in Removal:Setter ratios, something I also brought up in old Gholdengo discussions: it'd take a lot more than the addition or removal of one Pokemon to outright change the Hazard Meta of Gen 9, even if some can capitalize on or dampen it a good deal individually such as Defog Corviknight in Ghold's absence. I don't doubt there's a logic behind your assertion of this, but I don't quite feel you've made a strong case of how Gouging Fire keeps the Meta from turning to Boots Balance (at a negatively centralizing level), especially since your main citation is breaking Unaware Dondozo teams, when GF sets that break through Dozo are less practical use than shows of "this is the power level we're looking at" and offense has more than its share of other options that exploit the Fish like Ogerpon-W (pending Suspect but it is still here), Meowscarada, Raging Bolt, Hexpult (Dozo doesn't save itself by sleeping), etc. that came up in earlier posts. The comparisons to Volcarona and Zamazenta (Gambit is more sketchy a mon) also feels off because Volc has very little Tera variety nowadays (to the point many think it would drop off the Radar without Tera Blast to use it for Coverage) while Zamazenta is a Physical Blanket check that punishes poorly played Offense but isn't really an effective win condition into most structures like GF is capable of being.

I also think it's misaimed to point to win rate or usage as if the Pokemon lacking those at a particular threshold is an absence of evidence for it being broken or unhealthy in the tier, the most damning counterargument there being how several Pokemon that were definitely not healthy in the tier (whether prior or at present) fell to UU levels of usage such as Espathra, Baxcalibur during Chien-Pao's tenure, or Pre-DLC Roaring Moon. You make comparisons to Sneasler, Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, and Baxcalibur, but an important distinction to make there is that 2 of those were Quickbans, not suspects (meaning there was considered no reasonable debate for them to remain in OU) and while BM went to Suspect, it had 9/117 DNB votes out of all those qualified (5/76 at the time the result was "locked" in), ~93% Ban vote that I think has only ever been beaten by Shaymin-S to Ubers. All of these were much more blatantly BROKEN as opposed to simply unhealthy presences, it's akin to comparing the MvP of a High School Football team against the Top 5 Teams in the Superbowl.

 

[tigers jaw]

winrate & usage is also incredibly flawed indicator of brokenness - what if a pokémon’s subpar winrate is due to it’s overcentralising presence in the tier? as in, teams are overpreparing for them to such an extent that a subpar winrate is to be expected? this sort of dynamic is itself also deeply problematic for any element to contribute to.

this line of argumentation still skirts around the edges of whether or not something is banworthy in itself or not. there have been instances of pokémon being placed around A on the viability rankings, yet being considered broken. there have been instances where elements such as king’s rock have seen mediocre usage, yet deemed uncompetitive & thusly banned. same goes for sand veil in g8 - chomp+hippo/tar wasn’t even that good, nor was it in peak usage, yet sand veil was banned. it’s just not a good argument.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

How is having to guess goug tera different from having to guess volc tera/val tera, or the aforementioned threats? Just because volc and val can be more easily offensively checked?

…yes. that's… that's kind of the whole difference. gouging is unreasonably hard to offensively check and to defensively check and that's what makes it more broken than something like volc or valiant

Reread this sentence to urself and replace GF w volc, zama, or gambit.

we're not talking about those right now, we're talking about gouging fire. whether or not those other things are broken doesn't enter into it

A well built team should have a fighting chance vs the top threats in the meta, I stand on that.

sure, but gouging all too often beats said well-built teams anyway because it's running a different broken set than the broken set you're expecting. it's like spicy kyurem

Here are some statistics on gouging:
View attachment 611865
.......Sitting at an astounding 50% wr and fighting primarina and weavile for usage in the top 20.

…presented without context or explanation as to why this is relevant. the only times usage statistics should be entering into the picture is if they're abnormally high or the winrate is anomalously large, and that should be used as supporting evidence of something being broken or overcentralizing. an average winrate and usage doesn't automatically disqualify something from being broken

But professor, what about none-tour usage? The masses are suffering!
View attachment 611866
Here are the 1500 stats making up 50% of the ladder games. Gouging usage is relatively high but still healthy. In fact, the higher up you look on the ladder, the more checks emerge over gouging such as zama and glim. Below are 1695 and 1800 stats, putting this usage at about the top 5% of ladder games. These players use more glim, zama, and still preserve the usage of other mons already ahead of goug that check it, such as lando/bolt. Notice how dozo usage even creeps up the higher you go, and goug usage goes down the higher you go.

View attachment 611867View attachment 611870

same issue, usage stats don't enter into it and citing them is disingenuous

It is clear at this point this is one of those noob check mons. The higher the skill level, the lower this mon's usage and winrate. It is time to look inward and consider why such an easy wincon is farming you so effortlessly. This is similar to when gambit was winning every game in the earlier sv games and people considered it broken, even so far as to discuss a ban.

you think everyone besides the top 10 players is a noob. not even top 10 is safe, i saw you call mimikyu stardust a noob once. hell, storm zone supports this ban so you're implying he's a noob. why should we take you seriously when you say things like this?

i'm not even going to bother covering the rest of your argument because you're not gonna be convinced and i'm not trying to convince you. i'm just pointing out some of the most glaring flaws so that more sensible users won't be swayed by bad arguments just because the person making them has trophies under his name, which is an increasingly common and increasingly frustrating phenomenon on the forums

 

[Srn]

Lets address this. U named possible fire zama and gambit as arguments against gouge when those 2 with the appropriate tera also benefit the user while forcing the opponent to keep multiple checks in the back, preserving the fairy vs fire for steel/fire zama and the pult vs tusk for anti fire/fairy gambit. How is having to guess goug tera different from having to guess volc tera/val tera, or the aforementioned threats? Just because volc and val can be more easily offensively checked?

Reread this sentence to urself and replace GF w volc, zama, or gambit. Thank you for substantiating my original argument for me:
'Why does this matter? Well it's a very important difference in information. The GF user knows if they have the wrong tera and whether or not they have a 6-0 matchup, but the opponent does not. Even with a bad matchup, if you preserve your GF reasonably well, you can consistently force your opponent to keep multiple pokemon healthy enough to handle the worst case scenario, which is much more difficult than what the GF user has to do. Even with the wrong tera, you are at an advantage simply because of how versatile and oppressive the pokemon is.'

Sneasler, a mon which you acknowledge is clear cut broken, was also a mon that could pick its counterplay by deciding between tera dark, ghost, and flying sets. So how is having to guess sneasler tera different from having to guess volcarona/ival tera? I think you got it right, the difference is that volcarona/ival can be more easily checked. The raw stats make a big difference here, but idt I can give you a clear set of criteria that draws the line between mons like sneasler/gf and volcarona/ival, and it would be irrelevant even if I could.

Ik professor ctc is hungry for math and facts but what ultimately matters is that the players who achieve reqs will cast their votes based on their own vibes and subjective feelings. That holds true for your next arguments.

A well built team should have a fighting chance vs the top threats in the meta, I stand on that. Here are some statistics on gouging:
View attachment 611865
.......Sitting at an astounding 50% wr and fighting primarina and weavile for usage in the top 20. But professor, what about none-tour usage? The masses are suffering!
View attachment 611866
Here are the 1500 stats making up 50% of the ladder games. Gouging usage is relatively high but still healthy. In fact, the higher up you look on the ladder, the more checks emerge over gouging such as zama and glim. Below are 1695 and 1800 stats, putting this usage at about the top 5% of ladder games. These players use more glim, zama, and still preserve the usage of other mons already ahead of goug that check it, such as lando/bolt. Notice how dozo usage even creeps up the higher you go, and goug usage goes down the higher you go.

View attachment 611867View attachment 611870
It is clear at this point this is one of those noob check mons. The higher the skill level, the lower this mon's usage and winrate. It is time to look inward and consider why such an easy wincon is farming you so effortlessly. This is similar to when gambit was winning every game in the earlier sv games and people considered it broken, even so far as to discuss a ban. I am not saying this mon doesnt potentially need to be looked at, as I put it at the highest on my list of on the radar mons. It is on par with gambit, volc and zama in terms of its ability to take over games, with slightly more offensive bias whereas dog has more defensive bias. Regardless, we have barely stepped into post nerf rain meta and do not know the full extent of the ramifications. Teams are getting bulkier, poorly structured anti offense that sits around doing nothing get punished by gouge.

Archaludon was banned with a strong 75% majority, and here is its overall SPL stats:
| 34 | Archaludon | 16 | 5.71% | 56.25% |
It was banned from week 5 onwards, so lets ignore usage and focus on winrate: 56.25% is not close to the overwhelming 70% winrates that mons like sneasler and ursabm had. Clearly, a pokemon does not need to be that good in order to get banned from OU. Your standards for brokenness that a pokemon should reach in order to be banned are much higher than the standards of the voterbase.

The usage of archaludon and rain altogether took a massive drop after week 1 of SPL, but this doesn't change the fact that rain was still so oppressive that bridge got banned by a clear 75% majority weeks after rain's dominant week 1 showing. A pokemon does not need to constantly be getting high winrates and high usage to warrant a ban. The voterbase is going to consider more subjective opinions as well, like how healthy they think the mon is, how easy it is to prep for, what upsides it provides for the metagame health, etc.

I digress, back to addressing your points:
All true, but shaky at best, and usually puts you at a disadvantage. It's not really easy to fit encore which is faster than dd GF onto a team lol, fairy teras are a valuable resource that you need to check other threats (like grass tera for waterpon or ghost for zama, etc) and blowing that on a GF that hasn't tera'd can put you at a disadvantage. This GF set can literally beat dondozo and clodsire so it's straining unaware, it's immune to burns in base form and it's not easy to fit in status users that can check GF. The durability of phazers like ting lu, zama, and less viable ones like dragon tail dnite or roar tusk/moltres are generally lower than GF and can be outlasted, which is an issue seeing as you're only putting off the problem, not taking care of it.

This entire argument is baseless as you call my points shaky, when 'not really easy to fit encore', 'not really easy to fit status', and 'not really easy to keep things in the back alive' are your only points then you come across just as ignorant.

That's fair, I just think arguments like "status, unaware, and phazing check x" are really fake and paper thin lol. Same also applied to sneasler, same would apply to chien pao if we throw in "hazards." Vague and amorphous "hazards, status, and phazing" can annoy many broken pokemon like chi-yu and is never good enough to keep a mon in a tier.

'The availability of toxic is also limited' when gliscor usage beyond eclipses gouge usage at every level of OU played shows that gouging usage is even more limited.

This is ignoring the low usage of toxic on gliscor itself, for reasons I stated in my post. You can see in Gen9 ou 1825 stats for gliscor here

That toxic is only being brought on 53% of gliscors.
Going by overall SPL usage, toxic gliscor has been brought 14 times, while gliscor overall has been brought 44 times. 14/44 = a mere 31%, and I think this aligns with my analysis of gliscor: the metagame is becoming more and more unfriendly to toxic gliscor, despite GF developing into more and more of a problem. This is why my point of "it's not easy to fit status (toxic)" is far from baseless or ignorant.

'We dont keep brokens to check brokens. We didn't keep archaludon to check waterpon, and even though waterpon is better now, it would be stupid to go back and unban bridge to check waterpon.'
This is either willful ignorance or you are just slow, arch was banned because of the no drawback +1 per turn move as strong as stab draco that allows it to freely spam vs every non unaware mon in history. If i want arch unbanned for its body, I would still want electro shot to stay gone because it is the move that broke the mon. Look at the usage stats, ep landorus is doing the Lebron Miami run rn in ou boasting high usage and high winrate. Alongside it, the other 2 grounds tusk and scor are both top tier in usage. Among other things, tanky traders like bolt, kyurem, and the aforementioned encore users like val, or red card users like glim, in addition to stall staples such as garg and alo all do a good job of curbing this mon. Btw, most of these checks and counters that are 'hard to fit' on a team have way higher usage across the board than gouge, and the disparity only worsens the higher the ELO.

Where did I disagree that arch was banned due to electro shot in rain? Unsure why I am being called willfully ignorant or slow here. I didn't post in arch suspect thread but yeah, arch under rain clicking funny move was what broke it.
All the counterplay listed is insufficient to check GF alone. If I slap EP lando-t on my offense and call it a day my ass is getting blasted bc lando-t is the frontline response to 15 different mons and rarely makes it to the endgame healthy enough to handle GF. The rest would be repeating my first post.

Going by gen9ou 1825 stats from February, GF is sitting at #20 in usage at 10.5%, while the bulky grounds that are easy to wear down or often set up fodder for breaking swipe are at higher usage (Tusk at #2, Lando-T at #10, Gliscor at #11) while the sturdier, real counterplay to bulky dd sets are MUCH lower usage (alo at #32, garg at #45, skeledirge #48, etc).

I think it's always going to be the case that multiple checks and counters (you know, 5+ mons) are going to have higher combined usage than a single threat...Unless you were trying to say that most of GF's counterplay individually have higher usage than it? Which I would also disagree with.

'Idk why you draw an arbitrary line in the sand between rain/sun and suicide lead/veil/webs as if weather is not cheese and the other stuff is. It can all be cheesy, it's all still viable, GF is not preserving some intricate harmony that is holding off the threat of "boring boots spam balance." I think you are injecting your own opinions on what kind of metagame is good here, which is fine, you're definitely entitled to your vote and your views. But let's not act like this is some objective best meta that we must all strive for. The votes will speak and determine what direction the meta takes, and it's up to voters to adjust or keep going.'

I do not draw the arbitrary line as to what kind of ho is cheese. I have always championed diversity and never wanted a limited metagame. I said in multiple posts that a healthy meta needs ho and stall in it to form a checks and balances system and force good team building.

I've spoken in the past about why I dislike this outlook but lemme say it again. I think this checks and balances system is just creating a MU fish meta. If I bring stall and my opponent brought rain, why is it a good thing that my opponent got "punished for cheese" or whatever? If I bring stall again and my opponent brings glowking BO this time, why is it a good thing that I got "punished for stall"? Are these massive advantages/disadvantages on team preview ok because of some imaginary ecosystem where they beat each other RPS style? I fail to see why this is a good thing. I would much rather have my games decided by skill and not team matchup, and I reject the checks and balances system of MU fishing that you seem to think would lead to a healthy meta. I want every teamstyle to have a solid shot at beating every other teamstyle, not stall>HO>glowking BO>stall where the >'s are super firm.

The zap lu gk samu boots spam meta proved that once you limit the amount of none boots progress makers in the meta, a certain saturation will be achieved to min-max. Gouge is one of those key non-boots progress makers, punished by a well built hazard/status system and rewarded when it is allowed to be greedy.

I dont even think GF is the best example for this, considering the bulky dd swipe set is the most problematic, and the most common item on those sets is in fact boots. Sure you can run cloak and necessitate removal, or run band and necessitate sun, but I see GF as a boots progress maker primarily.

Ofc i will have no idea what meta we WILL get, but using past data I can extrapolate what meta we MIGHT get once a few dominoes fall in place, which is what I am actively trying to prevent. Rain's demise is so drastic that we have had no time for other experimentation with the style, perhaps it will bounce back and become yet another form of offensive check to gouge. TDK used a rain team and did quite well, we just need to let people experiment and for the meta to adjust for itself before all the rushed bans. Lastly, nowhere did I state what style is good for the meta or what style is bad for the meta, boring is referring to the absence of alternatives due to minmaxing or a lack of power in the meta, making boots the default best style with knock hazards as progress makers since nothing kills anything.
Banning gouge and later possibly oger may very well be the downfall of the non-boots progress makers, reducing the meta diversity drastically. Once max boots balance takes hold there will be even fewer offensive ways to make progress because hazards already discourages ho and certain mons like pult, zama, gambit and co on boots spam are opporessive to fat as well.

I dislike the implication here that "max boots balance" is some endpoint of meta development. Ik that we settled into zap/glowking/ting lu BO towards the end of the home meta and DLC 1 meta, but it's not 100% certain that it would have stayed that way. We didn't get to find out because dlc kept dropping, but we're finally in the home stretch where we can take our time and be relatively certain that meta development won't get reset by content drops.

There are some crucial differences between home/dlc1 and dlc2 meta which make it unlikely that we will reach zap/king/lu BO again. Gliscor as a whole suppressed that playstyle, and we have new tools to pressure gliscor and account for it in the builder like sub serp and skarm. It's also way easier for gliscor to check zapdos than it is to check raging bolt, and we all know which one is in charge rn.

This is all just speculation on how the meta will develop though, I would overall encourage voters to not be afraid of some potential metagame that may or may not last which may or may not be due to a GF ban here.

Now these things may or may not happen, but from where I stand gouge is not in immediate need of a ban.
Over 7 weeks being out of top 10 usage in spl while having the very ironic 50% wr alongside the showdown usage stats for feb reveal that this mon is clearly not immediately broken. The illusion of its opressiveness is in that the games you lose vs it feels like you couldn't do much, similar to a gambit beatdown or a zama beatdown under the right circumstances, also anyone remember what volc used to do?
I am voting DNB not because I think this mon CAN'T BE or ISN'T bordering on being broken, but its role in the ecosystem is so essential that I would rather let it live and observe it further. It is much easier to not ban a mon than to ban it then go whelp we were wrong like was the case with volc last meta and roaring moon before sneasler.
If the mon was truly broken, I would like to see statistical proof like what I provided here showing its absurd winrate and usage. Afterall, when ursa and sneas were banned they had near 70% wr and usage.
I urge the public to hold off on a decision that can shift the metagame drastically again, not two weeks after an already major metagame shift NOT TWO MONTHS into a new meta.

I am not trying to attack everyone and their views, but put forth some statistics and we can debate them. I really don't want to revisit the on-paper mu it has vs the rest of the meta if every pro ban post is going to continue to attack my original arguments on the basis of theorymon, cuz again, I can theory w u all day. Come with stats and we will discuss how this near borderline top 15-20 usage and 50% win rate mon is breaking the metagame apart.

Again, I want to move forward amicably. I want nothing but a diverse and healthy meta with no overwhelming oppressive threats and no dominant archetype being minmaxed undermining variety and creativity. I simply do not see how the stats in comp or ladder support the notion that gouge is even on the same level as the previously banned threats ursa, sneas, and bax.

Give gouge a chance and let the meta settle. If the winrate and usage skyrocket and settle at an exorbitant amount (high 60s), then yes, you are all proven right and us DNB voters are proven wrong. However, if we ban this mon before things have had a chance to settle down, we may not get the clearest picture. I am a champion of diversity and creativity and hate oppressive cheese just as much as the next person. I am on the people's side here, I just see certain future paths unfolding that may be different from others. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Can we let gouge sort itself out in the next couple weeks before the ripple of rain's nerf has even spread throughout the metagame?

I've addressed the usage/winrate statistics and the "ecosystem", so let's address the "we should wait and see" argument. I think the council has not been overusing surveys so far, I think they are coming out at a reasonable pace. So when the qualified responders (QRs) give back quickban numbers (4.1/5) on GF, what do you expect council to do? Do you want them to ignore the community and do nothing? I think it's very reasonable to put out a survey, see what the playerbase thinks, and act accordingly. That's exactly what happened: QRs did not want to wait for the meta to settle. They voted 4s and 5s on GF because they want it gone now. You can disagree, but I think you're in the minority.

TLDR: I think voting DNB on this mon until it proves statistically to be overwhelming for the meta is a better idea. Perhaps this suspect should have been conducted 2 weeks further out.

srn's post is valid and I respect your opinion, but can the ban side provide an inkling of statistical support, a crumb perhaps.
btw the dude below linked a goug sweep due to 2 tox misses when it woulda been one of the dudes in the back that should have swept if toxic landed, if anything that replay is a counter argument for gouge's brokeness since tera poison was better there but u cant always have the right set!

the scale shot niche set winning I can show u 10 replay equivalents with other niche sets, sub dd pressure kyurem being a prominently spammed one that given the correct metagame composition can seem just as broken as the top threats.

Bring me facts and not feelings, lets have a conversation. Looking at spl statistics, dnite is literally higher usage and higher winrate, and can boast the same advantages in set versatility + tera utility. Please just let the meta settle before getting ban happy, If gouge is banned then it is the most benign mon ever to be banned with such a short amount of exposure to the meta. You cannot convince me gouge is on the same level of broken as ursa, sneas, or bax.
Cheers, happy voting DNB if you believe in math and science

To finish up: we don't need to wait for statistical proof, we didn't wait for arch and that turned out fine.
Ultimately, it is the feelings of the voterbase and not hard facts that will decide how they vote. I can't really provide the facts you're looking for, and they wouldn't be of consequence if I could.
The QRs did not want the meta to settle, they are ban happy and that has to be respected. The numbers speak for themselves. GF does not need to be on the same level of broken as ursabm, sneas, or bax to be banned.
Cheers.

 

[DaddyBuzzwole]

Ultimately, it is the feelings of the voterbase and not hard facts that will decide how they vote.

you're acting like gouging fire being broken isn't the hardest fact we've had this year

 

[quacc]

As a ladder-exclusive player, I really don't know what Gouging Fire does in tournament play, but I have a damn good idea of what it does in the 1900+ range.

I'd like to start with mentioning some of what Gouging Fire brings to the table, both the good and the bad.

Good	Bad
Makes sun better	Set variance requires widely different counterplay and, therefore, has large amounts of builder pressure
Solid check to lots of mons	Sets up incredibly easy with great bulk, immunity to burn, and reliable recovery
Can switch into scald decently	Great amount of bulk makes it difficult to revenge kill after boosts

Let's start with the good.

Gouging Fire is a solid tool on sun, being a good abuser and can help break structures. However, I don't really see sun on the ladder all that much, maybe there is some sort of structure that hasn't been figured out yet that is actually really good, but sun feels nonexistent, especially with the fact that sun lost one of its major targets this time around, rain. Yes, sun does beat rain with tons of dragons such as Raging Bolt. Looking at the usage stats, yeah, it really did fall off a cliff as shown below:

Keep in mind that rain was only banned about half way through the month, otherwise Barraskewda would have dropped. I'd say that sun only hits around 6% usage in total solely because of its heavy beginning-of-month usage (well, not that heavy, but it had a lot more usage beginning of the month I'd say). For now, I'd say sun is not that relevant at the moment. Hell, it sees even less usage in the 1825+ data:

I hope this can show that sun is even less relevant than it seems from the other usage data that encompasses a more casual 1695+ elo.

Gouging Fire also checks a lot of mons, which I will list as follows:
From here, we can see that Gouging Fire brings good defensive utility, but I would say that a lot of these mons are starting to dwindle in usage due to the fact that balance is being discovered to not be as good as it once was in the beginning of DLC 2, specifically Meowscarada and Weavile, and then Serperior fell off because it's just mid cheese (and, honestly, getting glared by a Serperior sucks). Hell, look at Meowscarda for a second, let's see how its usage is panning out to be:

Less than Blissey. A mon that is used exclusively on stall and is unviable literally everywhere else. Hell, if usage was based on just the 1825+ range, Meowscarada would be UU:

And this compares to its initial usage when balance was all the rage, where it was top 15:

Gouging Fire is really good against these balance structures that Meowscarada and Weavile are found on, but said balance structures are somewhat struggling at the moment. At this point, yes, progress makers are good, but at some point is it not overkill? There can be breakers to balance, absolutely, but there shouldn't be this much of a variety of them, especially when an option like Gouging Fire is just way too easy to use with its ease of setting up. Gouging does check Volcarona, which is pretty nice for the tier, but it won't change Volcarona's viability that much considering it already relies on tera with stuff like tera blast ground to blast past would-be answers, as well as the fact that mons like Ting-Lu and Slowking-Galar cover this role to a solid extent. Offense is where it can get annoying to deal with, but you can still use mons like Dragapult, Roaring Moon for sets lacking bug buzz, Raging Bolt (forces tera blast ground like previously mentioned), and even Dragonite. Waterpon, in my opinion, would still be just as broken/same viability for similar reasons, with lots of dragon types and the fact that it still can break past counters with relative ease.

Gouging Fire is actually one of the few physical attackers that switch into scald, but I find this to be a sort of edge thing to focus on when a lot of special attackers, such as Primarina (sub custap is really good at this), can mimic this trait and the fact that scald gets really owned by mons like Waterpon already leaves this trait at fringe at best. Plus, the best scald user, Alomomola, can always pivot out and try to go into another answer, but this is where I can still confidently say this mon is broken, in that it restricts teambuilding in unnatural ways.

There's a reason why I personally find lots of balances to be struggling in a ladder setting, so much to the point that I actually find stall to be better on the ladder right now! Why is that?

Gouging Fire requires a lot to cover. Dondozo beats the vast majority of sets, but needs help with stuff like toxic Gliscor, which loses to tera poison, so you will need something else to beat the tera poison set. Garganacl balances do the best, with cloak variants being able to be knocked by Garganacl's best partner in my opinion, Great Tusk. However, Great Tusk struggles to fit knock off in a meta where it really wants ice spinner and often awkwardly compresses with rocks being run over knock off. This can leave for a really weird pressure in terms of building where you need to fit another bulky knocker, which Gliscor is best at, stacking some major weaknesses in a way that Garganacl balances don't necessarily want to do. Alomomola is similar in that it can beat all but cloak sets with chilling water, but it is really awkward when we look at ladder usage:

On the ladder, chilling water is often not that great of a slot in general, losing out on so much that you get from scald while still getting farmed by Waterpon. As a result, it sees low usage and I personally cannot consider it a feasible answer to Gouging Fire. This leaves us with stall structures, which do so much because stall is able to use Dondozo for most sets, Gliscor to force the tera, and Alomomola to burn fish it. The more you need to rely on defensive answers, and the more you need of them to reliably beat as many sets as possible, you do in fact get these stall structures, which limits variety. The decline of balance makes stall even easier to run and perform well with, giving us these usage stats at high ladder:

Outscoring another balance staple, Skarmory. Forcing these stallish structures on fat balance can make it hard to justify running it over stall in general, a major symptom of builder pressure and something that we saw due to a lot of balances in HOME, where Baxcalibur made lots of good balances have to run Dondozo to reliably beat it, which made it arguably broken even in HOME.

This is furthered by the fact that Gouging Fire cannot be slowed by burns before tera, a common counterplay to strong physical attackers such as Kingambit. This means that you have to actually use defensive walls to beat it defensively, but that really just comes down to Dondozo. Banning Gouging Fire frees up diversity and allows for a more diverse balance meta to follow, where lots can be viable.

Setting up easily also does not help its case, where it can be a lot harder to actually stop it. When something is harder to set up with, such as Roaring Moon, it is a lot easier to deny the value it can get in a game. Gouging Fire does not face these issues as often, making it a very oppressive offensive force against lots of teams. Therefore, I would say that Gouging Fire needs a ban,
but honestly, I might use Entei over Gouging Fire. Entei, while not being able to pull the dragon dance breaking swipe shenanigans, is able to leverage its good movepool to great success. With access to moves such as sacred fire, extreme speed, earthquake, and v-create, Entei can hit the tier hard with immediate power if equipped with a choice band. Alternatively, swagger with a mirror herb can be used to set up and provide even more power to sweep the game. Inner focus makes Gouging Fire immune to intimidate from Landorus-Therian and flinches from dark pulse, making it harder to slow down. Alternatively, pressure can be used to pp stall Dondozo just like breaking swipe Gouging Fire. They're both just as good. Overall, Gouging Fire doesn't need to be banned.

 

[Mikegengsta]

Also, if a ban results in a shit meta, that is alright because we can then ban the thing that is problematic next.

While I respect whether GF goes or not because it should be based on a healthier meta, banning something out of the tier to preemptively know that another ban is around the corner seems incorrect.

If GF gets banned, people should have an enjoyable meta correct? People will stop complaining right? I doubt it. Give it a week and another pokemon will be in the comment section being overstated repeatedly just to drive fear into others. And there lies the problem right there. We shouldn’t be acting like.. “Oh well we banned GF and we have a shit meta. Time to ban the next thing.” It should be, “I think I made a mistake.” Then the next ban shouldn’t happen at all. Just knowing beforehand what will happen when GF or any pokemon leaves and knowing the ripple effect before a ban seems outrageous to me.

If this was the mindset that everyone seems to have, you will always settle for a shit meta regardless if GF is banned or not.

 

[Heatranator]

While I respect whether GF goes or not, banning something out of the tier to preemptively know that another ban is coming is quite degenerate.

That wasn't my point. It was that we shouldn't go "lets not ban x mon because y mon might become broken" is not good thinking, because you are ignoring the fact that x mon is still broken. We should ban things when they are broken and if something else becomes broken, then we ban that thing. Sometimes thats how the metagame is, and we shouldn't be scared to ban something because we believe something else might be banned after it is gone. If that is the case, then the mon that becomes broken was broken in the first place because removing one mon from the meta shouldn't make that mon so banworthy.

 

[Mikegengsta]

That wasn't my point. It was that we shouldn't go "lets not ban x mon because y mon might become broken" is not good thinking, because you are ignoring the fact that x mon is still broken. We should ban things when they are broken and if something else becomes broken, then we ban that thing. Sometimes thats how the metagame is, and we shouldn't be scared to ban something because we believe something else might be banned after it is gone. If that is the case, then the mon that becomes broken was broken in the first place because removing one mon from the meta shouldn't make that mon so banworthy.

No, I agree with you. If something is broken then yes it needs to go. I’m just afraid to see a repeat of banning something that didn’t deserve to go but went anyways but it’s possible it could happen again. I’m not saying GF is a mistake to ban but I meant afterwards. However, I apologize for taking your message out of context and interpreting it incorrectly. Just that last bit kinda got me on edge. My bad.

 

[Heatranator]

No, I agree with you. If something is broken then yes it needs to go. I’m just afraid to see a repeat of banning something that didn’t deserve to go but went anyways but it’s possible it could happen again. I’m not saying GF is a mistake to ban but I meant afterwards. However, I apologize for taking your message out of context. Just that one part kinda got me on edge.

It's alright, it happens to all of us. I do admit it isn't the best thing to see something banned for something else to pop up, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. We have seen this happen with gliscor in DLC1 where banning it actually made the meta much worse as meow+ting+zap(+glowking I belive) dominated the meta. If worst comes to worst, we can unban something if it turns out it to not be broken and we made a mistake. We have time on our side, we can make mistakes cause we have 2-3 years of SV.

 

[Moyashi]

I’m just afraid to see a repeat of banning something that didn’t deserve to go but went anyways but it’s possible it could happen again.

The sole case of this was Volcarona pre DLC and that was more improper process (qb over suspect) rather than whether it was broken or not.

And what's "again"? Aside from the Volc case, there hasn't been a mon that didn't deserve to go but went anyways.

 

[N ™]

To give my two cents, I intend to vote ban on gouging fire; I agree with the principle that a Pokémon shouldn't be able to handpick its checks this much, and there are two main points I'm seeing in most posts against a ban that I seriously disagree with:

1. "Gouging fire can't run everything it needs to get around its checks on one set"

There's a key difference between team building and actually playing the same way there is between theory and practice, and to me team building is a much bigger part of the game and a more important skill to have, so building issues should be weighed more imo: while in any given game gouging fire isn't going to beat everything on the opposing team, while building you'll have to account for every variant and have at the very least a clear plan around them; I think the Schrödinger cat meme is so effective in this community because the game behaves much the same as quantum physics, as in to you you're facing every set at once until confirmed otherwise. With its extreme set versatility, this means a lot of playstyles (basically anything with a pace short of ho) are forced into very specific structures, many prior posts have already cleared how and why that's the case, which not only severely limits their viability, but is also just frustrating to deal with (I speak as a balance player).

2. "Banning gouging fire is only going to give space to the next most broken thing"

If the status quo has an issue, you have to start somewhere to fix it. "Broken checks broken" has become a little bit of a buzzword recently as more and more people toss it around on twitter to justify the ban of any mon they don't like facing, but it's important to understand where the principle comes from and why it's been looked at negatively for such a long time, since I feel like I'm seeing more and more people shift their opinion towards a liking of it. Personally, I see relying on the natural progression of the metagame to fix its issues as downright lazy: if there's a problem, fix it, regardless of what's to come. If the next best thing becomes broken, ban that too. If there's a core mechanic causing this cycle to never end, take action on that mechanic cough cough. Eventually we're bound to end up in a more competitive state than the starting one if we address the issues directly, which is the point if tiering action and the reason it exists entirely. It's also important to notice how on paper a higher power level doesn't mean much as long as power creep hits both offense and defense just as much, but in practice it creates enormous offensive saturation: we have some key mons that you have to account for in team building outside of OU like garganacl or deoxys-speed just because there is so much stuff to use that they don't all get the usage they deserve. Waterpon, zama, kingambit, raging bolt, valiant, boulder, I could keep going: these are all perfectly viable mons and threats you have to play carefully around each game you see them. This provides great variety... for hyper offense; any bulkier playstyle is less worried about how to break and more about how to not be broken, which is a serious struggle with so many things to account for leading to an ho-stall meta, hindering both building and gameplay as there's many less actually viable strategies, and the fact that the best ones are also the most linear to play doesn't make it much better.

TLDR: too many viable offensive mons means less viable teamstyles and strategies, and broken checks broken leads exactly to this offensive oversaturation.

The mark of a healthy meta is a variety of viable playstyles having just as much control as each other in any given matchup, and to me it's clear how gouging fire hinders this.

 

[CreamyGlasses]

My personal thoughts is to lean on what CTC said. For better or worse, the metagame is only about three weeks old. To pretend that we fully understand the entropy point of where this current metagame is going, and how gouging fire may be a keystone in said meta is a pointless argument I'd argue you can't know just by the sheer novelty of what we are dealing with. Such an argument holds true for basically every suspect that's happened during SV, so by itself it is not a concrete DNB argument, and to be completely honest I believe gouging fire, given more time, will emerge to be even more problematic than right now if given time. However, I bring this up point to emphasize the ways in which suspects have been conducted for the past year or so. They come only two or three weeks after the last two or three week suspect concluded, giving a turnaround time of... maybe six weeks? This causes some concerns for me, along the lines of what CTC said.

Recall the arch suspect. Hot off a sleep ban, the playerbase quickly rallied to ban arch because the first really dominant teamstyle post-ban, rain, came out swinging with insane pickrates and winrates. We really only saw one style of structure (the big five + filler), and before anybody could really stew a counter, or an adaptation, everybody collectively decided arch was broken. Now, I'm not saying arch or rain wasn't broken, or that the a counter to archaladon rain would've come about given more time, but what I am asking is: do all these fast sequential bans not make you feel like we are leaving a potentially balanced metagame on the table?

And every time somebody clamors for a ban because the metagame is too offensive and tera flippy, I think: of course we always get the hyper offensive tera flip metagames over and over again. HO is always dominant at the start of a new metagame, and we are creating new metagames every month. I understand the reason the playerbase is moving so fast is that the perception of the meta is that it's broken and needs a ton of bans to be fixed, but does nobody else feel like CTC does, that we are leaving good metagames on the table, and just banning a broken will just enable something else to become more broken?

And after we ban all these new strong threats from DLC2, what's stopping gliscor spikes balance, or just ghold spikes balance from reemerging and giving us back the DLC1 metagame everybody so dearly hated?

This entire post is whataboutism. It should not change your opinions really. It's just some food for thought.

 

[Vaporwavvve]

Tiering question, how much does the council care about keeping the meta accessible to new/mid level players? Obviously bans should not be dictating by what low ladder players find difficult (Every stall mon would be out of the tier in a day) but when the meta requires a very high degree of skill to be successful is that an issue?

I ask because a lot of CTCs arguments often cite skill as a problem, not the pokemon. Sometimes I agree, other times I think he’s too good to understand why something is broken, like someone who’s good at math telling you “just think about it”.

 

[CTC]

Is the quantity that qualifies for "excessive" bans and the nature of a "stale" meta not itself an opinion or subjective? Many people consider the current tier very match-up fishy because the extreme number of threats that require significant teambuilding strain makes it borderline impossible to build teams that reliably counterplay an opposing team without prior knowledge of things like Teras and Sets (Ex: I have two Gouging Fire responses like Dondozo + Landorus-Therian, but keeping both healthy until I determine which is more important itself leads to plays that are sub-optimal against the rest of the team such that them beating GF doesn't prevent my losing the game to them).

Despite the variety, one could argue the experience to be stale because they see several games as determined by who they're put against rather than how they play against them. Burden of Proof rests on the ban crowd for the sake of convincing you, but not necessarily for the vote to remove it from the tier. The only "burden" of proof they have in that case is proving their own Reqs to count their vote, and discussion here is to potentially sway others to vote the same if they can. You're asking for statistical evidence that Gouging Fire is being used and winning disproportionately much, but one of the points you reference multiple times, even in passing, is a GF ban potentially pushing us to a boring Boots Spam meta that is equally rooted in prediction (even if GF goes, too many things exist from DLC2 to reliably repeat the DLC1 meta you drew comparisons to).

I'm not even entirely clear how GF prevents this from happening when it's one of the biggest beneficiaries of Hazards due to its frequent usage as an "in once and go for it" win condition with most of its Set-up Sets, meaning it doesn't contend with Hazards often but several answers will have to watch for that chip damage putting them in range if they have to switch around or simply needing multiple members to put counterplay into action. The Hazard spam in general also comes down to the massive imbalance in Removal:Setter ratios, something I also brought up in old Gholdengo discussions: it'd take a lot more than the addition or removal of one Pokemon to outright change the Hazard Meta of Gen 9, even if some can capitalize on or dampen it a good deal individually such as Defog Corviknight in Ghold's absence. I don't doubt there's a logic behind your assertion of this, but I don't quite feel you've made a strong case of how Gouging Fire keeps the Meta from turning to Boots Balance (at a negatively centralizing level), especially since your main citation is breaking Unaware Dondozo teams, when GF sets that break through Dozo are less practical use than shows of "this is the power level we're looking at" and offense has more than its share of other options that exploit the Fish like Ogerpon-W (pending Suspect but it is still here), Meowscarada, Raging Bolt, Hexpult (Dozo doesn't save itself by sleeping), etc. that came up in earlier posts. The comparisons to Volcarona and Zamazenta (Gambit is more sketchy a mon) also feels off because Volc has very little Tera variety nowadays (to the point many think it would drop off the Radar without Tera Blast to use it for Coverage) while Zamazenta is a Physical Blanket check that punishes poorly played Offense but isn't really an effective win condition into most structures like GF is capable of being.

I also think it's misaimed to point to win rate or usage as if the Pokemon lacking those at a particular threshold is an absence of evidence for it being broken or unhealthy in the tier, the most damning counterargument there being how several Pokemon that were definitely not healthy in the tier (whether prior or at present) fell to UU levels of usage such as Espathra, Baxcalibur during Chien-Pao's tenure, or Pre-DLC Roaring Moon. You make comparisons to Sneasler, Ursaluna-Bloodmoon, and Baxcalibur, but an important distinction to make there is that 2 of those were Quickbans, not suspects (meaning there was considered no reasonable debate for them to remain in OU) and while BM went to Suspect, it had 9/117 DNB votes out of all those qualified (5/76 at the time the result was "locked" in), ~93% Ban vote that I think has only ever been beaten by Shaymin-S to Ubers. All of these were much more blatantly BROKEN as opposed to simply unhealthy presences, it's akin to comparing the MvP of a High School Football team against the Top 5 Teams in the Superbowl.

yea win rate and usage are subjective measures of a mon’s brokenness while your conjecture is a better and more objective gauge haha this is the sign of a poster that knows what theyr talking about surely

I know the ban crowd can make reqs and just vote so no need to prove anything to anyone, then why have a discussion? Just let things settle and not fight for what you believe in, why support the claim with statistics or put up an argument right? Such defeatist attitude. I am offering you convincing statistics while you are coming with ‘one can argue’ arguments to once again avoid having to bring up your own statistical support. Wtf did you even offer to the debate besides regurgitate the garbage that dudes already put forth which I addressed?
Lastly, equating the low usage of espathra and bax before they were discovered to be broken is like me arguing that gouge usage during the rain meta was limited, yea no shit Sherlock this is before they discovered that the environment was conducive to the mon being broken. The brokens got qb’d and sent off with a skewed ban/dnb ratio? That’s literally my argument, and that how close the debate is on gouge makes it clearly and obviously not as broken as the aforementioned threats. Bax has more muscle and arguably better coverage with prio, sneas has free speed, and ursa has more muscle and coverage, as for espathra like come on. I am comparing the mvp of the highschool team (gouge) to pat mahomes and them (bax sneas ursa espathra) to show that it is indeed not in their league, so why are you making my point for me and pretending like you have made a counter point?
I stg some of you users supporting the ban have no basic logical and reasoning skills and just be saying whatever. Please ban side I urge you come with some facts and not feelings, and support your own argument instead of unintentionally bolstering mine with your insolence.

 

[pika pal]

My point was not that I was bringing anything objective myself. I was pointing out that your descriptors for an undesireable meta were themselves rooted in opinion (i.e. what quantity of bans is "excessive"), which makes belittling the pro-ban player group for coming with opinions hypocritical as a tone to take on the discussion. As far as "why have a discussion," my statement was because you fixated so hard on not being convinced by the arguments made by the pro-ban side for reasons I noted to sound rather hypocritical, when it's not their responsibility to convince you, at most being something they might argue in the interest of swaying overall opinion. Many of my "one can argue" points were in turn because if I am offered opinionated, subjective, or speculative arguments ("Gouging Fire's Removal will lead to an unenjoyable Meta"), then I don't see why such positions are off the table for my response. Besides that, the necessary point to keep Gouging Fire is to prove it is acceptable in the current Meta, not to appeal to a post-removal meta being bad (which, true or not, doesn't address if the current one is good or bad).

The statistics you offer are not "convincing" since while the numbers are themselves true data, multiple responses have pointed out that threats can have unhealthy effects or be overbearing without achieving excessive win rates or usage. The usage rates posted don't provide full context to be an argument in and of themselves. Similarly my citation of the low-usage Ban targets was because they were mons for whom very little changed about how they played to be unhealthy, and Espathra/Baxcalibur stick out for me (as they seem to for you) because the environment has little effect on what makes them busted: Espathra was a match-up Fish with easy Stored Power building and Tera while Baxcalibur simply does not have Defensive Counterplay by numbers, regardless of what cores are popular on Stall or Balance. This was not me making the comparison to Gouging Fire's own playstyle, but to say that usage does not objectively reflect if a Pokemon is an overpowered or negative presence on the tier.

My Football analogy was poorly put, no argument there, because I did not consider that it failed to illustrate that Gouging Fire is still leagues above its peers despite not being in the same ballpark as the more hyperbolic comparison.

Frankly less than your arguments, the condescending and belittling tone being taken by these responses is doing much more damage to the anti-ban position than good. Even if your points are correct as you take them to be, insulting the intelligence of those not sharing your position inevitably will not make them accept or amiably engage with what you are saying. The closing sentences are particularly arrogant and give an air of not wanting to convince other people so much as assert superiority by being correct. I won't make any grandiose "I'm done responding" closer as is common, but the opinionated/non-objective conclusions you come to (even from numerical/statistical data) strike me as only half the reason responses have been combative rather than discussion on your posts.

 

[CTC]

apologies for the attitude i thought these posts were troll attempts but i had failed to consider the affect gouge has had on the average player. it may seem oppressive and difficult to navigate around since bulky setup is the epitome of no skill and easy to win with. I wanted to make the argument to hold out for longer and observe the meta, rather than banning something that is not outright overpowered. Think back to a point in sv meta where gambit and tusk usage were both at or higher than 40% iirc, if we had banned gambit prematurely then the meta surely would not have progressed to the point where gambit counters are aplenty on teams, be it trick choice, encore, fighting types, helmet, phaze, unaware or any combination. I am making the argument to observe it in ou for a bit longer to see if it's really that overpowered. If we can gather usage + wr% statistics for the general populous of the ladder and show that gouge is already an outlier, then yes I would support the ban argument as well. Until then, I urge the voters to hold off on prematurely banning this mon that is essential to the meta ecosystem. We gotta give people time to test and develop new ideas. The teamsharing age has ruined creativity to an extent and allows for easy copy pasting: my week 2 triple dark team is still being used a month and a half later. I think given gouge's mediocre presence and winrate in spl, a tournament where you know for certain the most broken shit possible is being used, we should hold off on such a quick execution of gouging. I was for sneas ban, I was for ursa ban, I was on the fence about bax ban but came around. But this time, this time it feels different. Gouge is innocent. Free my dog

 

[ant4456]

Here is the truth of the situation. This Gouging Fire Suspect is one of the few actually, arguably proactive tests we've had all generation.

Most Suspect Tests that CTC mentioned as good, are just Pokemon that obviously got out of hand and instantly destroyed the already awful meta, and once culled, we just returned to the already unpopular status quo.

We aren't in a "new" meta. We are in the same meta we were before Rain HO meta, minus one Pokemon, and the status quo is essentially the same.

All we have been doing is culling threats that immediately break the already bad metagame even further, returning to the status quo, and then seeing another come out. This is one of the few Suspects where it feels like we are actually pushing to make some progress at a better meta without a Bloodmoon/Bax/Sneasler very obvious broken situation, and now of course we are saying that's bad I guess?

And honestly, to be fair, that isn't even that true either. Even this test isn't say, a Gholdengo, Kingambit, etc. that has a major impact on the tier. It also got over a 4/5 on the survey. But to say that this mon is not justified because you are comparing it to fucking Bloodmoon is crazy.

I cannot stress this enough: Bloodmoon is not the fucking standard for a broken Pokemon. Pokemon like those are things that'd be quickbanned if not for optics with surveys and whatnot. We are actually resistant to doing actual suspects on Pokemon that actually would majorly impact the tier. And now we aren't even allowed to cull the results of the awful meta?

Innocent after proven guilty? Just keep waiting and waiting for new high tier counters in the smaller than USUM dex to come up? Yeah right LMAO

 

[CTC]

Sneasler, a mon which you acknowledge is clear cut broken, was also a mon that could pick its counterplay by deciding between tera dark, ghost, and flying sets. So how is having to guess sneasler tera different from having to guess volcarona/ival tera? I think you got it right, the difference is that volcarona/ival can be more easily checked. The raw stats make a big difference here, but idt I can give you a clear set of criteria that draws the line between mons like sneasler/gf and volcarona/ival, and it would be irrelevant even if I could.

Ik professor ctc is hungry for math and facts but what ultimately matters is that the players who achieve reqs will cast their votes based on their own vibes and subjective feelings. That holds true for your next arguments.

Archaludon was banned with a strong 75% majority, and here is its overall SPL stats:
| 34 | Archaludon | 16 | 5.71% | 56.25% |
It was banned from week 5 onwards, so lets ignore usage and focus on winrate: 56.25% is not close to the overwhelming 70% winrates that mons like sneasler and ursabm had. Clearly, a pokemon does not need to be that good in order to get banned from OU. Your standards for brokenness that a pokemon should reach in order to be banned are much higher than the standards of the voterbase.

The usage of archaludon and rain altogether took a massive drop after week 1 of SPL, but this doesn't change the fact that rain was still so oppressive that bridge got banned by a clear 75% majority weeks after rain's dominant week 1 showing. A pokemon does not need to constantly be getting high winrates and high usage to warrant a ban. The voterbase is going to consider more subjective opinions as well, like how healthy they think the mon is, how easy it is to prep for, what upsides it provides for the metagame health, etc.


That's fair, I just think arguments like "status, unaware, and phazing check x" are really fake and paper thin lol. Same also applied to sneasler, same would apply to chien pao if we throw in "hazards." Vague and amorphous "hazards, status, and phazing" can annoy many broken pokemon like chi-yu and is never good enough to keep a mon in a tier.


This is ignoring the low usage of toxic on gliscor itself, for reasons I stated in my post. You can see in Gen9 ou 1825 stats for gliscor here
View attachment 611936
That toxic is only being brought on 53% of gliscors.
Going by overall SPL usage, toxic gliscor has been brought 14 times, while gliscor overall has been brought 44 times. 14/44 = a mere 31%, and I think this aligns with my analysis of gliscor: the metagame is becoming more and more unfriendly to toxic gliscor, despite GF developing into more and more of a problem. This is why my point of "it's not easy to fit status (toxic)" is far from baseless or ignorant.

Where did I disagree that arch was banned due to electro shot in rain? Unsure why I am being called willfully ignorant or slow here. I didn't post in arch suspect thread but yeah, arch under rain clicking funny move was what broke it.
All the counterplay listed is insufficient to check GF alone. If I slap EP lando-t on my offense and call it a day my ass is getting blasted bc lando-t is the frontline response to 15 different mons and rarely makes it to the endgame healthy enough to handle GF. The rest would be repeating my first post.

Going by gen9ou 1825 stats from February, GF is sitting at #20 in usage at 10.5%, while the bulky grounds that are easy to wear down or often set up fodder for breaking swipe are at higher usage (Tusk at #2, Lando-T at #10, Gliscor at #11) while the sturdier, real counterplay to bulky dd sets are MUCH lower usage (alo at #32, garg at #45, skeledirge #48, etc).

I think it's always going to be the case that multiple checks and counters (you know, 5+ mons) are going to have higher combined usage than a single threat...Unless you were trying to say that most of GF's counterplay individually have higher usage than it? Which I would also disagree with.


I've spoken in the past about why I dislike this outlook but lemme say it again. I think this checks and balances system is just creating a MU fish meta. If I bring stall and my opponent brought rain, why is it a good thing that my opponent got "punished for cheese" or whatever? If I bring stall again and my opponent brings glowking BO this time, why is it a good thing that I got "punished for stall"? Are these massive advantages/disadvantages on team preview ok because of some imaginary ecosystem where they beat each other RPS style? I fail to see why this is a good thing. I would much rather have my games decided by skill and not team matchup, and I reject the checks and balances system of MU fishing that you seem to think would lead to a healthy meta. I want every teamstyle to have a solid shot at beating every other teamstyle, not stall>HO>glowking BO>stall where the >'s are super firm.


I dont even think GF is the best example for this, considering the bulky dd swipe set is the most problematic, and the most common item on those sets is in fact boots. Sure you can run cloak and necessitate removal, or run band and necessitate sun, but I see GF as a boots progress maker primarily.

I dislike the implication here that "max boots balance" is some endpoint of meta development. Ik that we settled into zap/glowking/ting lu BO towards the end of the home meta and DLC 1 meta, but it's not 100% certain that it would have stayed that way. We didn't get to find out because dlc kept dropping, but we're finally in the home stretch where we can take our time and be relatively certain that meta development won't get reset by content drops.

There are some crucial differences between home/dlc1 and dlc2 meta which make it unlikely that we will reach zap/king/lu BO again. Gliscor as a whole suppressed that playstyle, and we have new tools to pressure gliscor and account for it in the builder like sub serp and skarm. It's also way easier for gliscor to check zapdos than it is to check raging bolt, and we all know which one is in charge rn.

This is all just speculation on how the meta will develop though, I would overall encourage voters to not be afraid of some potential metagame that may or may not last which may or may not be due to a GF ban here.

I've addressed the usage/winrate statistics and the "ecosystem", so let's address the "we should wait and see" argument. I think the council has not been overusing surveys so far, I think they are coming out at a reasonable pace. So when the qualified responders (QRs) give back quickban numbers (4.1/5) on GF, what do you expect council to do? Do you want them to ignore the community and do nothing? I think it's very reasonable to put out a survey, see what the playerbase thinks, and act accordingly. That's exactly what happened: QRs did not want to wait for the meta to settle. They voted 4s and 5s on GF because they want it gone now. You can disagree, but I think you're in the minority.


To finish up: we don't need to wait for statistical proof, we didn't wait for arch and that turned out fine.
Ultimately, it is the feelings of the voterbase and not hard facts that will decide how they vote. I can't really provide the facts you're looking for, and they wouldn't be of consequence if I could.
The QRs did not want the meta to settle, they are ban happy and that has to be respected. The numbers speak for themselves. GF does not need to be on the same level of broken as ursabm, sneas, or bax to be banned.
Cheers.

Ik professor ctc is hungry for math and facts but what ultimately matters is that the players who achieve reqs will cast their votes based on their own vibes and subjective feelings. That holds true for your next arguments.

"Archaludon was banned with a strong 75% majority, and here is its overall SPL stats:
| 34 | Archaludon | 16 | 5.71% | 56.25% |
It was banned from week 5 onwards, so lets ignore usage and focus on winrate: 56.25% is not close to the overwhelming 70% winrates that mons like sneasler and ursabm had. Clearly, a pokemon does not need to be that good in order to get banned from OU. Your standards for brokenness that a pokemon should reach in order to be banned are much higher than the standards of the voterbase.

The usage of archaludon and rain altogether took a massive drop after week 1 of SPL, but this doesn't change the fact that rain was still so oppressive that bridge got banned by a clear 75% majority weeks after rain's dominant week 1 showing. A pokemon does not need to constantly be getting high winrates and high usage to warrant a ban. The voterbase is going to consider more subjective opinions as well, like how healthy they think the mon is, how easy it is to prep for, what upsides it provides for the metagame health, etc."


Let me address this, once again you are making my argument for me. Arch had a ridic winrate out the gate and rain was a dominant 6-1 or 7-1 in the first week. Then, because we didnt ban arch immediately and let the meta figure out some counterplay, its winrate averaged out to stellar, but not broken, at 56% w a decent sample size. This gradual decline only happened because we let the meta settle and let players adapt to the seemingly overwhelming presence that is arch. Now lets look at the reasons it was banned. Even though its winrate was steadily declining toward a fair 50% and that the meta deemed rain predictable, the mon is standalone a trade monster. It only loses to two mons basically, lu/clod, while other mons all lose the trade because of how oppressive and limiting electro shot is. If u wanna use cherrypicked stats, show arch w1 stats vs sneas/ursa w1 stats and it will reveal a lot more similarities. Again I did not say arch is the same level of broken as sneas and ursa which deserved qb, it is more in line w bax who is a debatable ban but more towards the deserving side. You can literally not name more than 2 switchins for this mon, clod and lu, which makes this mon actually restrictive on building and playing.

In our case, gouge has a myriad switchins/counters and does not pose nearly the same offensive threat as arch, unless on sun, which we established is underpowered. The usage of gouge only saw massive rise because of rain's decline, so if we wait a little longer, perhaps we will see similar 'massive drops in usage' that nerfed archaludon! Also, if your argument is that archaludon wasnt even that broken and it got banned anyways, let me inform you: sometimes the ban crowd is wrong! ever thought about that? Even though arch had a non-overwhelming winrate, its switchins are few and far between, creating very real limitations to building and playing, which is actually why it was banned. Gouge, however, is not nearly as egregious, and we haven't even solved the meta yet so why the rush?

Next:
"All the counterplay listed is insufficient to check GF alone. If I slap EP lando-t on my offense and call it a day my ass is getting blasted bc lando-t is the frontline response to 15 different mons and rarely makes it to the endgame healthy enough to handle GF. The rest would be repeating my first post.
Going by gen9ou 1825 stats from February, GF is sitting at #20 in usage at 10.5%, while the bulky grounds that are easy to wear down or often set up fodder for breaking swipe are at higher usage (Tusk at #2, Lando-T at #10, Gliscor at #11) while the sturdier, real counterplay to bulky dd sets are MUCH lower usage (alo at #32, garg at #45, skeledirge #48, etc)."

> when the 56% win rate lando which does good chip and can taunt while also being top 10 usage is not enough for the fringe top 20 usage setup mon
so what is it man, you want to pack a 100% counter to everything on every team? i need sticky barb clef to tank roaring moon now right, and the oldest glue in the meta lando t is all of a sudden 'overwhelmed' and 'not enought to check everything' when it had to check the entirety of the physical meta from zard x to kartana for a decade is making me chuckle.

Further:
"That's fair, I just think arguments like "status, unaware, and phazing check x" are really fake and paper thin lol. Same also applied to sneasler, same would apply to chien pao if we throw in "hazards." Vague and amorphous "hazards, status, and phazing" can annoy many broken pokemon like chi-yu and is never good enough to keep a mon in a tier."

So you agree with me that arbitary arguing of how a mon does or doesnt have counters is not pertinent unless we dive deeper and show statistics? which i have shown: 50% winrate and modest usage

In addition:
"I've spoken in the past about why I dislike this outlook but lemme say it again. I think this checks and balances system is just creating a MU fish meta. If I bring stall and my opponent brought rain, why is it a good thing that my opponent got "punished for cheese" or whatever? If I bring stall again and my opponent brings glowking BO this time, why is it a good thing that I got "punished for stall"? Are these massive advantages/disadvantages on team preview ok because of some imaginary ecosystem where they beat each other RPS style? I fail to see why this is a good thing. I would much rather have my games decided by skill and not team matchup, and I reject the checks and balances system of MU fishing that you seem to think would lead to a healthy meta. I want every teamstyle to have a solid shot at beating every other teamstyle, not stall>HO>glowking BO>stall where the >'s are super firm."

Nobody says each style has to auto beat or auto lose to another style, the minmaxers just love to maximize each style. New stalls are innovated every day to combat bo, such as max hazards sd ghost scor which can pack up max boots teams. Ho w the right mana/oger set also dismantles stall, which is why oger is so prevalent on offenses. There is no destined and guaranteed a>b>c>a in this cycle, this is merely your own assumptions. Sure, certain styles inherently have a slightly better mu vs others, but this is where techs and innovations come in to make up for inherent shortcomings. This is why in a diverse meta, every style can thrive and every style can tech to beat the other styles that would normally have an edge vs it. Following your argument, if you dont want to have someone 'punished for cheese', you imply everyone should use one honest style of team right? so homogenization of the tier into a boots centric balance would solve the mu fish issue? 'yea lets solve the issue of personal differences by reducing the diversity of the population!' ass argument

Next:
'I dislike the implication here that "max boots balance" is some endpoint of meta development. Ik that we settled into zap/glowking/ting lu BO towards the end of the home meta and DLC 1 meta, but it's not 100% certain that it would have stayed that way. We didn't get to find out because dlc kept dropping, but we're finally in the home stretch where we can take our time and be relatively certain that meta development won't get reset by content drops.
There are some crucial differences between home/dlc1 and dlc2 meta which make it unlikely that we will reach zap/king/lu BO again. Gliscor as a whole suppressed that playstyle, and we have new tools to pressure gliscor and account for it in the builder like sub serp and skarm. It's also way easier for gliscor to check zapdos than it is to check raging bolt, and we all know which one is in charge rn.'

you are simplifying my prediction of the future. I am saying a gouge ban will decrease the diversity of the meta and may ultimately lead to the saturation of one overwhelming playstyle, which is likely and has already happened before. Saying gliscor is the end all be all to boots spam is ironic since scor is in fact one of the proponents and cores of boots spam.

Second to last:
'I've addressed the usage/winrate statistics and the "ecosystem", so let's address the "we should wait and see" argument. I think the council has not been overusing surveys so far, I think they are coming out at a reasonable pace. So when the qualified responders (QRs) give back quickban numbers (4.1/5) on GF, what do you expect council to do? Do you want them to ignore the community and do nothing? I think it's very reasonable to put out a survey, see what the playerbase thinks, and act accordingly. That's exactly what happened: QRs did not want to wait for the meta to settle. They voted 4s and 5s on GF because they want it gone now. You can disagree, but I think you're in the minority.'

no you have not addressed the usage and winrate statistics in any meaningful way. You have not demonstrated that gouge's usage or winrate are beyond acceptable at all levels of ladder. All you did was bring up arch usage and winrate for a few weeks and prove my point that time will let the meta solve even the most broken threats.
To address the tiering surveys: who says the council has not been overusing the surveys? you are giving just as many unqualified opinions with every point you try to make. Who are the qualified responders? reqs are easier than ever to acquire, and under this ban happy regime it is easier than ever to grind for a day and make the voting reqs. As i said in a previous post, gouging usage and winrate decreases as elo increases, which means I know this is a mon that plagues the lower elo crowd and feels cheap and oppressive. However, the macro picture fails to show its true overwhelming presence in the meta because it simply does not win that much. Sure, the games where you lose vs it feels like there was nothing you can do, but there are games where the wrong set feels utterly useless, and moreso if you would let the people explore new counters to it such as rain and a resurgence of toxapex, for example, which shuts down every single set.
This brings me to the point of the sleep ban. Spore ban made amoong useless, making glim and gking the only poison types viable in the tier. Since amoong was the only non muk poison that could stand up to gking, pex became an unintended victim since it is bad vs both of those poisons. This is what i'm talking about when i say ramifications of one ban can ripple into the meta, affecting multiple future decisions. If pex was not at such all time atrocious usage, or if there can possibly be anything in the tier to deter gking being spammed with no remorse, then surely gouging would not have become this big of an issue. We are unnecessarily changing the meta in ways that we cant predict the ramifications, who would have thought the sleep ban would make gking the only usable poison in the entire meta and cause gouge to be broken? certainly not council! (i predicted this however)

I digress, but back to ur so called QR's that voted: like i said, gouging is a bigger problem the lower elo you are. I am indeed in the minority because I am relatively knowledgable as a tour player/affiliate. However, this does not mean that I am wrong and you guys are right. You cannot make the argument that you guys are arguing for the right thing then end with 'well we are the majority and we voted this way anyway' and strongarm democracy. Sure, I am in the minority here, but I will take my stand and make my points heard no matter if theres 1 person on my side or a thousand.

Finally:
'To finish up: we don't need to wait for statistical proof, we didn't wait for arch and that turned out fine.
Ultimately, it is the feelings of the voterbase and not hard facts that will decide how they vote. I can't really provide the facts you're looking for, and they wouldn't be of consequence if I could.
The QRs did not want the meta to settle, they are ban happy and that has to be respected. The numbers speak for themselves. GF does not need to be on the same level of broken as ursabm, sneas, or bax to be banned.
Cheers.'

you dont need to wait for statistical proof because it is not on your side. You cannot both try to play fair and also argue 'yea we have more people to vote on our side' and try to win this argument. ultimately, you may have a couple confounded voters who are confused and just as vulnerable as you in the face of gouging, panicking with no idea how to gameplan around it, but you still know that none of you can provide the DNB side with any coherent argument or statistical support showing that gouge is overly broken.

Great attitude for debate here, 'i cant win the argument so imma just get me and mine to outnumber you'
truly typical of the American voter mentality
Cheers back to you for the effort

 

[CTC]

As a ladder-exclusive player, I really don't know what Gouging Fire does in tournament play, but I have a damn good idea of what it does in the 1900+ range.

I'd like to start with mentioning some of what Gouging Fire brings to the table, both the good and the bad.

Good	Bad
Makes sun better	Set variance requires widely different counterplay and, therefore, has large amounts of builder pressure
Solid check to lots of mons	Sets up incredibly easy with great bulk, immunity to burn, and reliable recovery
Can switch into scald decently	Great amount of bulk makes it difficult to revenge kill after boosts

Let's start with the good.

Gouging Fire is a solid tool on sun, being a good abuser and can help break structures. However, I don't really see sun on the ladder all that much, maybe there is some sort of structure that hasn't been figured out yet that is actually really good, but sun feels nonexistent, especially with the fact that sun lost one of its major targets this time around, rain. Yes, sun does beat rain with tons of dragons such as Raging Bolt. Looking at the usage stats, yeah, it really did fall off a cliff as shown below:
View attachment 611958
Keep in mind that rain was only banned about half way through the month, otherwise Barraskewda would have dropped. I'd say that sun only hits around 6% usage in total solely because of its heavy beginning-of-month usage (well, not that heavy, but it had a lot more usage beginning of the month I'd say). For now, I'd say sun is not that relevant at the moment. Hell, it sees even less usage in the 1825+ data:
View attachment 611963
I hope this can show that sun is even less relevant than it seems from the other usage data that encompasses a more casual 1695+ elo.

Gouging Fire also checks a lot of mons, which I will list as follows:
From here, we can see that Gouging Fire brings good defensive utility, but I would say that a lot of these mons are starting to dwindle in usage due to the fact that balance is being discovered to not be as good as it once was in the beginning of DLC 2, specifically Meowscarada and Weavile, and then Serperior fell off because it's just mid cheese (and, honestly, getting glared by a Serperior sucks). Hell, look at Meowscarda for a second, let's see how its usage is panning out to be:
View attachment 611962
Less than Blissey. A mon that is used exclusively on stall and is unviable literally everywhere else. Hell, if usage was based on just the 1825+ range, Meowscarada would be UU:
View attachment 611964
And this compares to its initial usage when balance was all the rage, where it was top 15:
View attachment 611967
Gouging Fire is really good against these balance structures that Meowscarada and Weavile are found on, but said balance structures are somewhat struggling at the moment. At this point, yes, progress makers are good, but at some point is it not overkill? There can be breakers to balance, absolutely, but there shouldn't be this much of a variety of them, especially when an option like Gouging Fire is just way too easy to use with its ease of setting up. Gouging does check Volcarona, which is pretty nice for the tier, but it won't change Volcarona's viability that much considering it already relies on tera with stuff like tera blast ground to blast past would-be answers, as well as the fact that mons like Ting-Lu and Slowking-Galar cover this role to a solid extent. Offense is where it can get annoying to deal with, but you can still use mons like Dragapult, Roaring Moon for sets lacking bug buzz, Raging Bolt (forces tera blast ground like previously mentioned), and even Dragonite. Waterpon, in my opinion, would still be just as broken/same viability for similar reasons, with lots of dragon types and the fact that it still can break past counters with relative ease.

Gouging Fire is actually one of the few physical attackers that switch into scald, but I find this to be a sort of edge thing to focus on when a lot of special attackers, such as Primarina (sub custap is really good at this), can mimic this trait and the fact that scald gets really owned by mons like Waterpon already leaves this trait at fringe at best. Plus, the best scald user, Alomomola, can always pivot out and try to go into another answer, but this is where I can still confidently say this mon is broken, in that it restricts teambuilding in unnatural ways.

There's a reason why I personally find lots of balances to be struggling in a ladder setting, so much to the point that I actually find stall to be better on the ladder right now! Why is that?

Gouging Fire requires a lot to cover. Dondozo beats the vast majority of sets, but needs help with stuff like toxic Gliscor, which loses to tera poison, so you will need something else to beat the tera poison set. Garganacl balances do the best, with cloak variants being able to be knocked by Garganacl's best partner in my opinion, Great Tusk. However, Great Tusk struggles to fit knock off in a meta where it really wants ice spinner and often awkwardly compresses with rocks being run over knock off. This can leave for a really weird pressure in terms of building where you need to fit another bulky knocker, which Gliscor is best at, stacking some major weaknesses in a way that Garganacl balances don't necessarily want to do. Alomomola is similar in that it can beat all but cloak sets with chilling water, but it is really awkward when we look at ladder usage:
View attachment 611972
On the ladder, chilling water is often not that great of a slot in general, losing out on so much that you get from scald while still getting farmed by Waterpon. As a result, it sees low usage and I personally cannot consider it a feasible answer to Gouging Fire. This leaves us with stall structures, which do so much because stall is able to use Dondozo for most sets, Gliscor to force the tera, and Alomomola to burn fish it. The more you need to rely on defensive answers, and the more you need of them to reliably beat as many sets as possible, you do in fact get these stall structures, which limits variety. The decline of balance makes stall even easier to run and perform well with, giving us these usage stats at high ladder:
View attachment 611973
Outscoring another balance staple, Skarmory. Forcing these stallish structures on fat balance can make it hard to justify running it over stall in general, a major symptom of builder pressure and something that we saw due to a lot of balances in HOME, where Baxcalibur made lots of good balances have to run Dondozo to reliably beat it, which made it arguably broken even in HOME.

This is furthered by the fact that Gouging Fire cannot be slowed by burns before tera, a common counterplay to strong physical attackers such as Kingambit. This means that you have to actually use defensive walls to beat it defensively, but that really just comes down to Dondozo. Banning Gouging Fire frees up diversity and allows for a more diverse balance meta to follow, where lots can be viable.

Setting up easily also does not help its case, where it can be a lot harder to actually stop it. When something is harder to set up with, such as Roaring Moon, it is a lot easier to deny the value it can get in a game. Gouging Fire does not face these issues as often, making it a very oppressive offensive force against lots of teams. Therefore, I would say that Gouging Fire needs a ban,
but honestly, I might use Entei over Gouging Fire. Entei, while not being able to pull the dragon dance breaking swipe shenanigans, is able to leverage its good movepool to great success. With access to moves such as sacred fire, extreme speed, earthquake, and v-create, Entei can hit the tier hard with immediate power if equipped with a choice band. Alternatively, swagger with a mirror herb can be used to set up and provide even more power to sweep the game. Inner focus makes Gouging Fire immune to intimidate from Landorus-Therian and flinches from dark pulse, making it harder to slow down. Alternatively, pressure can be used to pp stall Dondozo just like breaking swipe Gouging Fire. They're both just as good. Overall, Gouging Fire doesn't need to be banned.

You are arguing that because gouge who is present on teams from ho to balance, to even fat, deters the boots spammers which dominate balance, that it actually IMPEDES diversity, and that the boots saturated meta after its eventual ban would be MORE diverse, is that right?

This period of boots balance being not ideal is also part of the boom and bust, boots balance cannot be defaulted to as the best style in every meta, which it largely has been. The one meta where it is seemingly slightly underpowered, everyone's crying about all the other styles suddenly having a chance vs max boots jerk off into last mon gambit wincon? you listed a bunch of random statistics but how do these translate to gouge being broken? Is this idea that gouge is an oppressive force vs a lot of teams and deters versatility a matter of fact or did you pull it out of somewhere?
Dude posted a whole lot to say even less than Srn did, at least bro was wrong and deliberate, you basically offered 0 outside of your opinons.
Carry on then

 

[Heatranator]

One thing I have seen the anti-ban crowds say is that we just need to wait to let the metagame adapt. And let me say, that is completely wrong, the metagame has been given time to adapt and gouging has been proven to be broken. This suspect thread started on 4th March and the vote will occur on probably 16th March which is one day after voting requirements end. I would say that we go further back to February 29th to when the survey came out. That's about 2 weeks of discussion and three weeks of metagame adaption.
Let's compare this to the arch ban. The suspect thread for that started on 6th February and ended on 18th February. The survey occured on 21st January. We had two weeks to discuss its impact in the thread and we had about 5 weeks to let the metagame evolve. Since the arch ban, we have had 3 weeks for the metagame to adapt, which is longer than what the metagame adpations to arch had, which was ultimately banned.
Even further back to before DLC, with the Chien-Pao suspect. The survey released on Jan 24th, while the suspect thread started on Jan 30th and ended on February 12th with its ban. That's about 2 weeks for discussion in the thread and 3 weeks to see the metagame evolve.
Now, arch was released in a time where lots of things were released into the meta, so things were being tested, as you stated. Conversly, this is a meta where the last ban only majorly affected one playstyle, of course not having to account for rain was great, but that was one playstyle that was abusing it, unlike something like gouging which features on a larger playstyle.
This suspect length is equivalent to the chien-pao suspect, which resulted in a ban. People have adapted to gouging and I believe adaption occurs quite quickly in a meta. Of course, new adaptions can happen, but those are fringe cases that ultimately do not affect how broken a mon is.

 

[N ™]

To add onto the "wait for the meta to adapt" counterargument, even if adaptations are made, that doesn't mean the mon will have any less of a negative impact on the tier. If counterplay is discovered in the form of a structure that reliably handles gouging fire, that will just lead to playstyles being forced into that structure; adaptation doesn't necessarily remove strain on team building, which is the main issue at hand in most cases including this one