You seem to forgot that general playerbase thoughts on GF was 2.5
(I think Sylveon used cm was trolling but idk)
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(I think Sylveon used cm was trolling but idk)
No, it was 3.5, still well within usual suspect test range.You seem to forgot that general playerbase thoughts on GF was 2.5
j0nathan
formerly trainer_j0nathan
That's a lie. It got a 3,5.You seem to forgot that general playerbase thoughts on GF was 2.5
Yo just stopping by to follow up on my gouging argument in my survey post in the metagame discussion and why im voting ban but first: -
Link to post for reference: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...rchaludon-is-now-banned.3732644/post-10010770
Everything i said about gouging there is a justification to its strain on the metagame, but lets go a little more in depth shall we: -
First off, the fear of the meta becoming boots spam came from lack of tools to break in dlc1, now we have more tools, we have kyurem, which was proven to be fine, we have raging bolt, volcarona isnt foolishly quickbanned anymore, we retained wellspring from dlc1 which is balanced by all means i will explain that in a later post, we retained gambit , tera ice axel weavile, cornerstone, roaring moon, etc, keeping these balanced pokemon will prevent a defense/balance dominated metagame, the defensive aspect of tera keeps them at bay, but gouging fire is a cancer that needs to be deleted, dondozos no longer counter it because breaking swipe sets rose, the booster speed DD swipe set is broken too as it sets up and cant be encored after a dd, booster attack in sun, booster speed band in sun , all these sets + hazards to account for, they have only 1 hard counter, which is boots alomomola, which is a big problem, so on the contrary, its actually forcing the bulky meta, because nearly every team is packing dozo garg alomomola skeledirge, gliscor, and slowking galar to reset the sun since its so ridiculous in sun, all teams, they have atleast 3 defensive gouging fire checks, we cant keep this pokemon, no other threat forces a bulky metagame with boots alo gking gliscor, this is the only one i believe should get banned, its just gotta go.
Secondly, we can't use winrates or statistics to argue its fate, because people are focused on hard countering gouging fire on every single team, with the same things, which gets repetitive, so of course it wouldnt have as solid of a winrate as archaludon, i bet if you ask every spl/ost player how hard they prep for gouging fire, they would tell u they put 3-4 checks or alomomola, notice i say checks because its only hard counter to every set is alomomola, and theres no other threat in the metagame rn that forces u to "guess the set right or lose" more than gouging fire, and if we are using winrates, say somebody brings ceruledge or moltres to spl, when sneasler was allowed, every team was grassy terrain, and they end up going 100% winrate, we can't say ban moltres or ceruledge based on that obviously, so the argument using winrates doesnt hold up well if its the main focus people are so obviously counterteaming.
Thirdly, its out damaging chi yu in the sun as stated in my post linked above in metagame discussion, while having a high set versatility, being able to function as a setup mon as bulky as curse garganacl, or even curse dozo if it decides to go booster defense dd swipe, which ive seen on high ladder, so we have so many explosive factors here, the first factor we have is the fear of if its gonna be offensive with +speed, offensive with +attack, or defensive, and if u guess this wrong even with most well built teams, its gonna force enough progress to where the gouging fire user is almost in an unlosable position, the second factor is which tera its gonna use, because say you prepped for tera fairy AND tera poison, if u expect a tera fairy and u send gliscor, and u click toxic on dd, that second dd could be game ending, because u have to switch the gliscor out, and i only say that because gouging fire has a tendency to be somewhat managable after 1 boost, but crosses the border to almost impossible after the second boost, and theres very few pokemon ive seen achieve this, like chien pao, dd bax and maybe archaludon, just to name a few, the third factor is the typing, fire/dragon is an amazing typing, usually, to halt the onslaught of physical attackers one of the main go-tos is to burn it, but gouging fire's base type is fire/dragon, so it doesnt need to tera into a fire type to avoid burns, which immediately put one of the forms of physical spam counterplay up in smokes, when adding this factor on top of the others and what we already know about gouging fire, it makes this pokemon even more oppressive than terapagos or chien pao ever was.
For my fourth point, i would argue that the metagame would refrain from defensive cores after this ban due to gouging forcing them as stated in the first point, and now with the dozens and dozens of offensive team comps now opened up with the disposal of gouging fire, the metagame would become more diverse with a world of variance, which is the healthy direction we want, many many matchups, that are never impossible once tera is here theres no such thing as a matchup loss in a diverse meta game, i cannot stress enough how balanced and healthy this mechanic is, and i stand on that with my whole life. So heres a list of positives and negatives:
Positives: more diverse meta, with less defensive structures(aka less alomomola less dozo), and more offense , balancing out all the styles gouging fire restricted, one less heavy strain/restriction in the builder, faster metagame growth(that gouging stunted)
The one negative: a check to a few physical attackers
This one negative can honestly be replaced, we have more than enough defensive AND offensive stuff to check everything outside of gouging.
Concluding this point with 3 keywords to a balanced metagame: diversity, variance, and versatility.
For my fifth and final point, it makes cheesy gimmick styles really stupid, this was one of the last straws for me, lets look at webs first, no hate towards vkhss whatsoever, hes a friend of mine, but webs is a cheese playstyle that should never amount to more consistency than the dominating playstyles in the metagame like BO, HO, and balance, but with webs, you nullify other booster mons, by taking away their speed boost, so now gouging can afford to run bulk + adamant + dd and its a sweeper than can hard counter cinderace and setup on it, so if it court changes, it lets you DD twice, with a booster attack boost, and being bulky lets u either use swipe, or other sets to break past counters, so as u can see, this pokemon single handedly solved every other problem of sticky webs, gholdengo with balloon stops the rest of the webs problems but we aint talking about goldblocks today, lets look at the other playstyle, yes it was some weeks ago but now and then i tested it here and there, sun semi trickroom, it DOMINATED the ladder, it did not lose a single game, if you have a regular sun, but tr hatt + band +atk goug, (can be run with specs tork and even could use cress to make it full trick room), it has no answers, its making trickroom viable, granted luna is the other viable user, but gouging makes it 2 which validates trick room even more, because u get the power, the bulk AND the ability to outspeed even if its for 5 turns and that is a little ridiculous if u ask me, when is enough really enough, when is it going too far, im all for keeping EVERY SINGLE OTHER POKEMON in this tier except for gouging fire, this one's gotta go im sorry.
I will conclude this post by saying banning gouging fire will have a net positive impact on the metagame, and will not only accelerate the growth of the metagame, but single handedly balance it, allowing it to evolve into a goated state, allowing for tons of variance, and versatility across all styles =).
Link to post for reference: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threa...rchaludon-is-now-banned.3732644/post-10010770
Everything i said about gouging there is a justification to its strain on the metagame, but lets go a little more in depth shall we: -
First off, the fear of the meta becoming boots spam came from lack of tools to break in dlc1, now we have more tools, we have kyurem, which was proven to be fine, we have raging bolt, volcarona isnt foolishly quickbanned anymore, we retained wellspring from dlc1 which is balanced by all means i will explain that in a later post, we retained gambit , tera ice axel weavile, cornerstone, roaring moon, etc, keeping these balanced pokemon will prevent a defense/balance dominated metagame, the defensive aspect of tera keeps them at bay, but gouging fire is a cancer that needs to be deleted, dondozos no longer counter it because breaking swipe sets rose, the booster speed DD swipe set is broken too as it sets up and cant be encored after a dd, booster attack in sun, booster speed band in sun , all these sets + hazards to account for, they have only 1 hard counter, which is boots alomomola, which is a big problem, so on the contrary, its actually forcing the bulky meta, because nearly every team is packing dozo garg alomomola skeledirge, gliscor, and slowking galar to reset the sun since its so ridiculous in sun, all teams, they have atleast 3 defensive gouging fire checks, we cant keep this pokemon, no other threat forces a bulky metagame with boots alo gking gliscor, this is the only one i believe should get banned, its just gotta go.
Secondly, we can't use winrates or statistics to argue its fate, because people are focused on hard countering gouging fire on every single team, with the same things, which gets repetitive, so of course it wouldnt have as solid of a winrate as archaludon, i bet if you ask every spl/ost player how hard they prep for gouging fire, they would tell u they put 3-4 checks or alomomola, notice i say checks because its only hard counter to every set is alomomola, and theres no other threat in the metagame rn that forces u to "guess the set right or lose" more than gouging fire, and if we are using winrates, say somebody brings ceruledge or moltres to spl, when sneasler was allowed, every team was grassy terrain, and they end up going 100% winrate, we can't say ban moltres or ceruledge based on that obviously, so the argument using winrates doesnt hold up well if its the main focus people are so obviously counterteaming.
Thirdly, its out damaging chi yu in the sun as stated in my post linked above in metagame discussion, while having a high set versatility, being able to function as a setup mon as bulky as curse garganacl, or even curse dozo if it decides to go booster defense dd swipe, which ive seen on high ladder, so we have so many explosive factors here, the first factor we have is the fear of if its gonna be offensive with +speed, offensive with +attack, or defensive, and if u guess this wrong even with most well built teams, its gonna force enough progress to where the gouging fire user is almost in an unlosable position, the second factor is which tera its gonna use, because say you prepped for tera fairy AND tera poison, if u expect a tera fairy and u send gliscor, and u click toxic on dd, that second dd could be game ending, because u have to switch the gliscor out, and i only say that because gouging fire has a tendency to be somewhat managable after 1 boost, but crosses the border to almost impossible after the second boost, and theres very few pokemon ive seen achieve this, like chien pao, dd bax and maybe archaludon, just to name a few, the third factor is the typing, fire/dragon is an amazing typing, usually, to halt the onslaught of physical attackers one of the main go-tos is to burn it, but gouging fire's base type is fire/dragon, so it doesnt need to tera into a fire type to avoid burns, which immediately put one of the forms of physical spam counterplay up in smokes, when adding this factor on top of the others and what we already know about gouging fire, it makes this pokemon even more oppressive than terapagos or chien pao ever was.
For my fourth point, i would argue that the metagame would refrain from defensive cores after this ban due to gouging forcing them as stated in the first point, and now with the dozens and dozens of offensive team comps now opened up with the disposal of gouging fire, the metagame would become more diverse with a world of variance, which is the healthy direction we want, many many matchups, that are never impossible once tera is here theres no such thing as a matchup loss in a diverse meta game, i cannot stress enough how balanced and healthy this mechanic is, and i stand on that with my whole life. So heres a list of positives and negatives:
Positives: more diverse meta, with less defensive structures(aka less alomomola less dozo), and more offense , balancing out all the styles gouging fire restricted, one less heavy strain/restriction in the builder, faster metagame growth(that gouging stunted)
The one negative: a check to a few physical attackers
This one negative can honestly be replaced, we have more than enough defensive AND offensive stuff to check everything outside of gouging.
Concluding this point with 3 keywords to a balanced metagame: diversity, variance, and versatility.
For my fifth and final point, it makes cheesy gimmick styles really stupid, this was one of the last straws for me, lets look at webs first, no hate towards vkhss whatsoever, hes a friend of mine, but webs is a cheese playstyle that should never amount to more consistency than the dominating playstyles in the metagame like BO, HO, and balance, but with webs, you nullify other booster mons, by taking away their speed boost, so now gouging can afford to run bulk + adamant + dd and its a sweeper than can hard counter cinderace and setup on it, so if it court changes, it lets you DD twice, with a booster attack boost, and being bulky lets u either use swipe, or other sets to break past counters, so as u can see, this pokemon single handedly solved every other problem of sticky webs, gholdengo with balloon stops the rest of the webs problems but we aint talking about goldblocks today, lets look at the other playstyle, yes it was some weeks ago but now and then i tested it here and there, sun semi trickroom, it DOMINATED the ladder, it did not lose a single game, if you have a regular sun, but tr hatt + band +atk goug, (can be run with specs tork and even could use cress to make it full trick room), it has no answers, its making trickroom viable, granted luna is the other viable user, but gouging makes it 2 which validates trick room even more, because u get the power, the bulk AND the ability to outspeed even if its for 5 turns and that is a little ridiculous if u ask me, when is enough really enough, when is it going too far, im all for keeping EVERY SINGLE OTHER POKEMON in this tier except for gouging fire, this one's gotta go im sorry.
I will conclude this post by saying banning gouging fire will have a net positive impact on the metagame, and will not only accelerate the growth of the metagame, but single handedly balance it, allowing it to evolve into a goated state, allowing for tons of variance, and versatility across all styles =).
Goated post by SZ.
I want to expand further on the winrate debacle.
BKC made a great video about the misuse of winrate as an argument.
The video can be summed up as “Don’t use winrate out of context”
Why does something have a high/low winrate? Instead of focusing solely on winrate, it is best to focus on the actual games being played. What is it doing in those games? This goes for the ban and dnb side too btw. Winrate gets complicated when we see a Gouging Fire on both teams.
I wanna bring up an example that shuts this winrate argument down, another Dragon type notorious for 2HKOing bulky resists, Dracovish. During SS’s early meta, Dracovish was a hot topic amongst the playerbase, but throughout the tournament scene, Vish was had low winrates and low usage. Did it mean it was balanced? 90% of the playerbase still wanted it gone and was banned so no.
Players were loading up on Toad/Corv/Clef balances, Baneful Pex, or random Water Absorb mons because that was the only way to actually deal with Dracovish. So players felt it wasn’t worth bringing the fish since every team was built to deal with it. Ofc, the degree that G-Fire warps the meta is not on the same league as Dracovish, but G-Fire warps the meta in a different way than it.
Between bulky DD, Offensive DD, CB, it’s difficult to handle without fitting 3 checks and limiting the amount of times Sun is up. People also should make use of the other broken set, Sub-DD Bswipe Tera Grass. It destroys the possibility of using Mola and Garg to check it and still shits on Gliscor, Dozo, etc. G-Fire might honestly become more problematic as time goes on considering the billions of options it has.
I want to expand further on the winrate debacle.
BKC made a great video about the misuse of winrate as an argument.
The video can be summed up as “Don’t use winrate out of context”
Why does something have a high/low winrate? Instead of focusing solely on winrate, it is best to focus on the actual games being played. What is it doing in those games? This goes for the ban and dnb side too btw. Winrate gets complicated when we see a Gouging Fire on both teams.
I wanna bring up an example that shuts this winrate argument down, another Dragon type notorious for 2HKOing bulky resists, Dracovish. During SS’s early meta, Dracovish was a hot topic amongst the playerbase, but throughout the tournament scene, Vish was had low winrates and low usage. Did it mean it was balanced? 90% of the playerbase still wanted it gone and was banned so no.
Players were loading up on Toad/Corv/Clef balances, Baneful Pex, or random Water Absorb mons because that was the only way to actually deal with Dracovish. So players felt it wasn’t worth bringing the fish since every team was built to deal with it. Ofc, the degree that G-Fire warps the meta is not on the same league as Dracovish, but G-Fire warps the meta in a different way than it.
Between bulky DD, Offensive DD, CB, it’s difficult to handle without fitting 3 checks and limiting the amount of times Sun is up. People also should make use of the other broken set, Sub-DD Bswipe Tera Grass. It destroys the possibility of using Mola and Garg to check it and still shits on Gliscor, Dozo, etc. G-Fire might honestly become more problematic as time goes on considering the billions of options it has.
Nice Post, but even though i'm not getting reqs for voting, I would also like to comment on this matter. First of all, I would like to agree on the topic of banning Gouging Fire. It has been a major thorn in the fairness of the meta and a player's enjoyment of competitive as well. I myself have been on many occasions on the receiving end of a return sweep with no counter to boast at that time. The only time I escaped was thanks to a lucky paralysis on a +3 Gouging and RKOing it with a Specs Kyurem EP.
Secondly, I would like to appreciate your feed on why Gouging as a whole was an epidemic of chaos. At one point, being a person who could not clearly read the room at hand, I doubted this claim of "Ban Gouging". But after barely escaping a situation myself (the one stated above),my view on this idea changed, with me fully understanding why it should be.
Thirdly, this is coming from a viewpoint of a casual HO/BO enjoyer, although i did not struggle against it with HO, i did fully when using BO. The reason why is, since BO overall to maintain its structure usually struggles to build for a few stuff, often utilising Tera as a counter-measure. This is just an opinion coming from my side as a player who never really peaked past 1700s.
Lastly for the positive note, I would like to say that I'm 100% appreciating your words!
Now, onto my opinion on the last statement (Storm Zone and other who see this, please take this with a grain of salt if you disagree with this, this is just coming from someone who's had this opinion for a while.). Although you can argue that the meta would be a better on as a whole w/o Gouging, there's still another, but maybe smaller, problem to address. The other elephant in the room, Walking Wake.
When you said about this having a net positive impact on the meta, is a slight overstatement. With Wake around, the problem of sun being an overall annoying weather to face still continues. Even if you removed Gouging, the other piece of the puzzle is also a major threat. Although you could argue that the aforementioned, so called "answers" can block Wake, it still presents these arguments:
244 SpA Choice Specs Walking Wake Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Alomomola: 571-673 (106.9 - 126%) -- guaranteed OHKO
244 SpA Choice Specs Tera Water Walking Wake Hydro Steam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Alomomola: 235-277 (44 - 51.8%) -- 13.3% chance to 2HKO
244 SpA Choice Specs Tera Water Walking Wake Draco Meteor vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Dondozo: 435-513 (86.3 - 101.7%) -- 12.5% chance to OHKO
244 SpA Choice Specs Tera Water Walking Wake Hydro Steam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Dondozo: 179-211 (35.5 - 41.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
And even though you may present the ever-mentioned and easier answer "Iron Valiant or any fairy in existence", it can turn to something which i can sum up in 4 letters: T E R A.
Choose your pick: Fast-Cooling Water for the Summer Heat or Fresh Instant Fairy Popsicle.
Finally, I would like to conclude this post by saying that this is merely an opinion from my side that i had wanted to present all this time along with a post on this matter that i can follow with a suitable argument. I would like to once again like to say that I fully respect your opinion, just wanted to present mine too along with another small but kind of minor pressing problem.
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Got the reqs, with 29-1. No Gouging Fire has defeated me, despite which every time a Sun Protosynthesis Attack Band Tera Fire appeared, I had to sack 2 Mons vs it and only won those battles because I was extremely well prepared vs the rest of Sun threats except Lilligant (which should be used more and with better sets than the ones I saw).
Even having won all battles vs Gouging Fire I am voting Ban, it restricts teambuilding way too much and its way too versatile at the same (although I consider the Breaking Swipe set to be pretty bad and totally balanced on its own).
Many Mons need to be banned to nerf Sun and Offense in general. Maybe Gouging Fire is not even the most broken out of them, but it works as a first step and the meta will improve with its Ban. Nothing more to add to the argument other Pro-Ban players have already expressed, have a good Eeveening.
Even having won all battles vs Gouging Fire I am voting Ban, it restricts teambuilding way too much and its way too versatile at the same (although I consider the Breaking Swipe set to be pretty bad and totally balanced on its own).
Many Mons need to be banned to nerf Sun and Offense in general. Maybe Gouging Fire is not even the most broken out of them, but it works as a first step and the meta will improve with its Ban. Nothing more to add to the argument other Pro-Ban players have already expressed, have a good Eeveening.
Imo, I don’t think it’s broken. Its most “busted sets” rely a lot on sun (which is a flawed, high risk high reward play style to begin with), and it does have some 4MSS. It’s very good, but not banworthy to me.
I meant suspected. Misspoke, myb.
But still, imo the best set atm is definitely the defensive one, tbh I don’t even care about Sun Gouging (not at this point but ye) when I’m building lol
I'd been thinking about making a post about this, but this said it a lot better than I ever could have. When I see people post something like "I'm voting Do Not Ban, this was the wrong choice", it gives off this aura of superiority. It suggests that everyone else is wrong, and they're right, and that -- most crucially -- when they get their choice of suspect, they're certain people won't pull the same stunt they did!
If you think more bans are needed, the last thing you should be doing is taking a principled anti-ban stance in hopes of getting your way later.
I am 100% voting for the ban, i've been wanting a ban since it was introduced, such a goated mon bro
ddance with protosynthesis as well as being a fire type and a good movepool, you're just asking to get banned. imagine this thing in ubers with groudon and koraidon bruh
ddance with protosynthesis as well as being a fire type and a good movepool, you're just asking to get banned. imagine this thing in ubers with groudon and koraidon bruh
Will be voting Ban.
Every time I see this mon on the ladder it feels like fighting a final boss. I seldom lose matches vs. it, but it usually comes at the cost of me throwing out multiple mons to keep up with it. The main issue that pushes it over the edge for me is its usage of Morning Sun. If the only thing to worry about for its Breaking Swipe set was Dragon Dance + Flare Blitz, I wouldn't consider it problematic, but giving a mon with 105/121/93 bulk (more physical bulk than Skarm btw) the ability to maintain longevity on the field through the use of Morning Sun often makes it difficult to force out. This is without factoring that it can boost that amazing bulk even higher through Protosynthesis to easily stomach what would be SE attacks. Its offensive profile is also very solid, with its STAB combination only being resisted by a grand total of 2 mons in OU. While I haven't found the Choice Bands sets as amazing due to their linearity + weakness to rocks, they still do indirectly make the Breaking Swipe sets stronger by making you contemplate if its even worth initially switching in an "answer" on GF because of Raging Fury's potential to 2HKO resists under the right conditions.
I find that with these factors in mind, it's not really a mon that feels absurd to me, but it's still not great for the tier because of how overly demanding it can be. The few good defensive traits it has with its Dragon/Fire typing aren't enough to offset the otherwise unhealthy aspects that it brings into the meta and I believe OU would benefit from its absence.
Every time I see this mon on the ladder it feels like fighting a final boss. I seldom lose matches vs. it, but it usually comes at the cost of me throwing out multiple mons to keep up with it. The main issue that pushes it over the edge for me is its usage of Morning Sun. If the only thing to worry about for its Breaking Swipe set was Dragon Dance + Flare Blitz, I wouldn't consider it problematic, but giving a mon with 105/121/93 bulk (more physical bulk than Skarm btw) the ability to maintain longevity on the field through the use of Morning Sun often makes it difficult to force out. This is without factoring that it can boost that amazing bulk even higher through Protosynthesis to easily stomach what would be SE attacks. Its offensive profile is also very solid, with its STAB combination only being resisted by a grand total of 2 mons in OU. While I haven't found the Choice Bands sets as amazing due to their linearity + weakness to rocks, they still do indirectly make the Breaking Swipe sets stronger by making you contemplate if its even worth initially switching in an "answer" on GF because of Raging Fury's potential to 2HKO resists under the right conditions.
I find that with these factors in mind, it's not really a mon that feels absurd to me, but it's still not great for the tier because of how overly demanding it can be. The few good defensive traits it has with its Dragon/Fire typing aren't enough to offset the otherwise unhealthy aspects that it brings into the meta and I believe OU would benefit from its absence.
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I don't think I will have time to get reqs sadly. However, if I did, I would vote BAN.
For me, I think Gouging is a little too much. High power is nice. High power, with fantastic bulk is even nicer. High power, with fantastic bulk and healing starts edging into the realms of broken. 2 shotting the strongest phys def wall, or stalling it out is fairly insane (The latter is hilarious btw)
Fire/Dragon is an unusual typing to deal with, mainly cause its a powerful dragon and fire type that isn't fully checked by their individual best checks, as Fairies aren't SE against it, and really don't like the power of a Flare Blitz/Heat Crash/Raging Fire, while the tankier waters into it can't burn or hit it super effectively. The ground types that usually threaten fires either don't because of the breaking swipe sets, or are OHKOed by the banded set. If its scared out by said Ground, it usually has a solid Ground (And Rock) check. And for Rock types, they have to deal with the option of EQ over the dragon STAB. I find what it can do on par (Or over the top of) Volcarona, who is a mon I find to be too overwhelming (with or without Tera). Sometimes Gouging's set of choice is obvious (Who isn't running the funny Band nuke on sun), but, often times, getting the set wrong can lead to devastating consequences.
Also, people forget: this isn't Gouging in a vacuum. Issues and weaknesses are easily patched out by allies. And the biggest issue for Gouging counters is that, as they come in, they take the damage from hazards, chip and whatnot, and the good answers need to be kept healthy, otherwise, they can't counter it, and even checking it becomes rough. Take the, now infamous, Breaking Swipe Gouging Fire BO, and how it all helps break down the common checks for Fire to make it easier to clean up the rest of the game. Between Rocks, Valiant revenge kills, Dragapult stuff and chip from Slowking and Great Tusk, it ends up really rough. And, even when down, Kingambit then mops up the dregs of the opponent's team. That's just one example. Take a standard Sun variant, with the CB gouging. It reminds me a lot of old Gen 6 Bird Spam, by overwhelming the standard checks, or variants of balanced teams with DD EQ or booster energy.
Overall, I find it just has that too much power, bulk and versatility that pushes into broken. As cool as the mon is, it has to be a ban from me.
For me, I think Gouging is a little too much. High power is nice. High power, with fantastic bulk is even nicer. High power, with fantastic bulk and healing starts edging into the realms of broken. 2 shotting the strongest phys def wall, or stalling it out is fairly insane (The latter is hilarious btw)
Fire/Dragon is an unusual typing to deal with, mainly cause its a powerful dragon and fire type that isn't fully checked by their individual best checks, as Fairies aren't SE against it, and really don't like the power of a Flare Blitz/Heat Crash/Raging Fire, while the tankier waters into it can't burn or hit it super effectively. The ground types that usually threaten fires either don't because of the breaking swipe sets, or are OHKOed by the banded set. If its scared out by said Ground, it usually has a solid Ground (And Rock) check. And for Rock types, they have to deal with the option of EQ over the dragon STAB. I find what it can do on par (Or over the top of) Volcarona, who is a mon I find to be too overwhelming (with or without Tera). Sometimes Gouging's set of choice is obvious (Who isn't running the funny Band nuke on sun), but, often times, getting the set wrong can lead to devastating consequences.
Also, people forget: this isn't Gouging in a vacuum. Issues and weaknesses are easily patched out by allies. And the biggest issue for Gouging counters is that, as they come in, they take the damage from hazards, chip and whatnot, and the good answers need to be kept healthy, otherwise, they can't counter it, and even checking it becomes rough. Take the, now infamous, Breaking Swipe Gouging Fire BO, and how it all helps break down the common checks for Fire to make it easier to clean up the rest of the game. Between Rocks, Valiant revenge kills, Dragapult stuff and chip from Slowking and Great Tusk, it ends up really rough. And, even when down, Kingambit then mops up the dregs of the opponent's team. That's just one example. Take a standard Sun variant, with the CB gouging. It reminds me a lot of old Gen 6 Bird Spam, by overwhelming the standard checks, or variants of balanced teams with DD EQ or booster energy.
Overall, I find it just has that too much power, bulk and versatility that pushes into broken. As cool as the mon is, it has to be a ban from me.
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ah so the meta has settled after a week and we can now see where gouge has landed.
hmmm still 50% win rate and fringe usage after 8 weeks of spl. but wait, perhaps the players in spl are too high level and always prepare for gouge, right? also what is this sample size anyways, thousands of games get played every day!
How about ost statiscs too? wow, perfectly balanced! im not even gonna address the insolent replies to my statistics posts, once i saw opinions come my way with 0 numbers i already scrolled past and accepted your surrender @ the likes of Srn and such.
It is increasingly obvious that once people catch onto the 2 possible sets of gouge, aka tanky swipe setup or immediate power, they now know how to deal with the mon better. So many posts say ah i had no issue with it during reqs but I am still voting ban because it's restrictive to teambuilding. Dude, have a mind of your own, form your own opinions please I urge you to calcify your vertebrae.
People always say ah this guy always feels so hard to play vs i always lose mons to it but think for one second, aren't some mons inherently like this for certain mus? dragonite vs offense feels like you need to commit 2 mons or tera to beat it, and sd gliscor or weavile for a boots fat team also feels incredibly oppressive. The worst part is people admitting that they have trouble with the mon but still usually end up winning. You know why that is the case? CUZ THE SHIT IS NOT BROKEN. If that was an ursaluna or baxcalibur that you fucked around against, most of the time the game ends right there. Gouge has inherent weaknesses yet to be fully understood or explored, the knowledge of how to play vs each possible variant of gouge has not been inoculated into the general player base yet, but it takes but a few weeks of learning to understand how manageable this mon is in terms of playing and building vs it. How many mons restrict building like gouge but arent mentioned by the ban crowd? bolt literally ranks higher in usage and winrate across all skill levels, meaning the average tour player and ladder player both win more frequently by using this mon, but somehow the dragon with only lu treads bliss and clod as reliable switchins isnt restrictive on teambuilding?
We can see a clear shift toward boots meta currently, as webs being spammed (and being meta) is a telltale sign that boots meta is about to come. This has happened again and again, fat and ho get punished by webs and cind balance/boots spam come in to save the day by being good vs all the extreme styles. This exact cycle has already happened in past sv, giving rise to perhaps the most iconic og sv team in dozo tail cind boots fat. Everything i predicted is coming true, boots becoming meta, gouge becoming easier to handle, and hazards taking over setup as the main damage/progress condition forcing boots to now make it about raw damage again. It is a cycle that always happens and is the reason that metas are not stagnant, but constantly shifting. Give it another week or two and all will see just how gouge has completely fallen off and become a naturalized part of ou, forever prepared for and feared but never going above and beyond a normal and fair winrate/usage rate.
Enough about your personal anecdotes about this mon sweeping you, I truly lament the sorrows of lesser astute players. However, the macro environment reveals through statistics that gouge is not having its way in ou, nor has it ever. If a fringe top 20 usage mon with 50% winrate mon across all skill levels is being deemed too broken for the meta, then let democracy falter, for the people have become too stupid to govern themselves. God bless us all
EDIT: I will be addressing stormzone's post, a friend and player i respect
"First off, the fear of the meta becoming boots spam came from lack of tools to break in dlc1, now we have more tools, we have kyurem, which was proven to be fine, we have raging bolt, volcarona isnt foolishly quickbanned anymore, we retained wellspring from dlc1 which is balanced by all means i will explain that in a later post, we retained gambit , tera ice axel weavile, cornerstone, roaring moon, etc, keeping these balanced pokemon will prevent a defense/balance dominated metagame, the defensive aspect of tera keeps them at bay, but gouging fire is a cancer that needs to be deleted, dondozos no longer counter it because breaking swipe sets rose, the booster speed DD swipe set is broken too as it sets up and cant be encored after a dd, booster attack in sun, booster speed band in sun , all these sets + hazards to account for, they have only 1 hard counter, which is boots alomomola, which is a big problem, so on the contrary, its actually forcing the bulky meta, because nearly every team is packing dozo garg alomomola skeledirge, gliscor, and slowking galar to reset the sun since its so ridiculous in sun, all teams, they have atleast 3 defensive gouging fire checks, we cant keep this pokemon, no other threat forces a bulky metagame with boots alo gking gliscor, this is the only one i believe should get banned, its just gotta go."
Even if gouge does not singlehandedly stop a boots meta, how does this relate to it being broken? boots mola is a role compressor that thanks to flip turn has become glowking like in terms of utility and glue-nature, saying this is like saying glowking is being forced on every team because of special attackers YES MF THATS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR META BRO, the best pivot glues are popularized and slapped on most pivot based teams, nobody complained about glowking usage being sky high? if it wasnt for oger in the meta there would hardly be a reason not to use alo pivot, not because it is the only counter to gouge but because it is one of the best pivots in the game who happens to also neuter gouge.
"Secondly, we can't use winrates or statistics to argue its fate, because people are focused on hard countering gouging fire on every single team, with the same things, which gets repetitive, so of course it wouldnt have as solid of a winrate as archaludon, i bet if you ask every spl/ost player how hard they prep for gouging fire, they would tell u they put 3-4 checks or alomomola, notice i say checks because its only hard counter to every set is alomomola, and theres no other threat in the metagame rn that forces u to "guess the set right or lose" more than gouging fire, and if we are using winrates, say somebody brings ceruledge or moltres to spl, when sneasler was allowed, every team was grassy terrain, and they end up going 100% winrate, we can't say ban moltres or ceruledge based on that obviously, so the argument using winrates doesnt hold up well if its the main focus people are so obviously counterteaming."
Come on bro how can you argue this with a straight face. Winrates and usage on a mass scale from all elo levels and since release (endured all meta shifts) dont paint enough of a picture with the fringe top 20 usage and 50% winrate? you are saying every team has to put 3/4 checks to gouge but what about kyurem who has literally 3 switchins in the meta: glowking, clef, bliss, isnt it more centralizing? what about bolt who has 4 switchins? Mons with setup sets you cant prepare for? oh you mean roaring moon and gambit? What sets gouge apart from those mons that every spl player, ladder player, and ost player just has to hardcore counterteam gouging since the day it released, causing the 50% winrate? Are all players prescient and predicted that gouge is broken hence its winrate would be through the roof, therefore have been building counterteams since the beginning of its release to keep its winrate at a fair 50%? Can the ban crowd PLEASE listen to your own arguments.
"Thirdly, its out damaging chi yu in the sun as stated in my post linked above in metagame discussion, while having a high set versatility, being able to function as a setup mon as bulky as curse garganacl, or even curse dozo if it decides to go booster defense dd swipe, which ive seen on high ladder, so we have so many explosive factors here, the first factor we have is the fear of if its gonna be offensive with +speed, offensive with +attack, or defensive, and if u guess this wrong even with most well built teams, its gonna force enough progress to where the gouging fire user is almost in an unlosable position, the second factor is which tera its gonna use, because say you prepped for tera fairy AND tera poison, if u expect a tera fairy and u send gliscor, and u click toxic on dd, that second dd could be game ending, because u have to switch the gliscor out, and i only say that because gouging fire has a tendency to be somewhat managable after 1 boost, but crosses the border to almost impossible after the second boost, and theres very few pokemon ive seen achieve this, like chien pao, dd bax and maybe archaludon, just to name a few, the third factor is the typing, fire/dragon is an amazing typing, usually, to halt the onslaught of physical attackers one of the main go-tos is to burn it, but gouging fire's base type is fire/dragon, so it doesnt need to tera into a fire type to avoid burns, which immediately put one of the forms of physical spam counterplay up in smokes, when adding this factor on top of the others and what we already know about gouging fire, it makes this pokemon even more oppressive than terapagos or chien pao ever was."
First of all it does not outdamage chiyu in sun and a simple calc will show you this.
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Gouging Fire Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Shuckle in Sun: 276-325 (113.1 - 133.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Shuckle in Sun: 343-405 (140.5 - 165.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
I can make the same argument for tera water wake +spa booster which forces the historical goat special wall to burn tera. remember when wake was thought to be broken for a week and then people got acclimated? yea we are in the middle of that event, LIVE, with gouging fire. Not being able to prepare for the tech tera after a setup? sure sounds like val or gambit to me! Im sorry when is the ban crowd going to pinpoint a specific trait unique to gouge that makes it broken unlike other mons?
"For my fourth point, i would argue that the metagame would refrain from defensive cores after this ban due to gouging forcing them as stated in the first point, and now with the dozens and dozens of offensive team comps now opened up with the disposal of gouging fire, the metagame would become more diverse with a world of variance, which is the healthy direction we want, many many matchups, that are never impossible once tera is here theres no such thing as a matchup loss in a diverse meta game, i cannot stress enough how balanced and healthy this mechanic is, and i stand on that with my whole life. So heres a list of positives and negatives:"
this is where you are wrong. The meta never shifts into ho variance dominance, it infact always goes bulkier to establish the most minmaxed versions of setup wincon, hazard wincon, and boots teams to outlast both wincons. If hazard wincon becomes the dominant archetype over the early meta spam of setup wincon spam, spearheaded by my triple dark team, then boots teams will rise to match that. There is no guarantee that with the omission of an offensive threat that operates on all 3 of those team types, it will actually increase diversity. No, in fact, teams will be more min/maxed to handle other sweepers who may not have the unique breaking characteristics of gouge. Gouge forces u to make a choice: either my team has to be fat enough to outlast this tanky guy designed to outlast the outlast mons, or my team has to pressure this mon which fails to sweep sufficiently fast. This in fact stop lazy teambuilding where a lot of unaware mons and wisp spam/flame body are rewarded. More status absorption is better, as scor, bolt, and gouge are keepng molt and zap from coming in and fishing vs everybody.
I will double down on this prediction and say that I guarantee you the meta goes fatter if gouge leaves.
"For my fifth and final point, it makes cheesy gimmick styles really stupid, this was one of the last straws for me, lets look at webs first, no hate towards vkhss whatsoever, hes a friend of mine, but webs is a cheese playstyle that should never amount to more consistency than the dominating playstyles in the metagame like BO, HO, and balance, but with webs, you nullify other booster mons, by taking away their speed boost, so now gouging can afford to run bulk + adamant + dd and its a sweeper than can hard counter cinderace and setup on it, so if it court changes, it lets you DD twice, with a booster attack boost, and being bulky lets u either use swipe, or other sets to break past counters, so as u can see, this pokemon single handedly solved every other problem of sticky webs, gholdengo with balloon stops the rest of the webs problems but we aint talking about goldblocks today, lets look at the other playstyle, yes it was some weeks ago but now and then i tested it here and there, sun semi trickroom, it DOMINATED the ladder, it did not lose a single game, if you have a regular sun, but tr hatt + band +atk goug, (can be run with specs tork and even could use cress to make it full trick room), it has no answers, its making trickroom viable, granted luna is the other viable user, but gouging makes it 2 which validates trick room even more, because u get the power, the bulk AND the ability to outspeed even if its for 5 turns and that is a little ridiculous if u ask me, when is enough really enough, when is it going too far, im all for keeping EVERY SINGLE OTHER POKEMON in this tier except for gouging fire, this one's gotta go im sorry."
if this team/these styles were so powerful, you and vkhss should have brought them and won all your tournament games. However, this is not the case. Something feeling overwhelmingly powerful on ladder is one thing, but you have to consider winrate. Any team can top ladder, teams with many flaws have topped ladder, you personally top ladder with all kinds of bullshit. This is simply a fruitless argument because i can make the exact same case for how cheap and skilless zama is on webs.
All in all, even the ban side's best arguments and strongest players fail to substantiate that gouge is deserving of a ban.
Welcoming all debaters, lets tussle
2nd EDIT: let me address this video being pulled up:
let me quote a comment in the video:
this is why the snorlax 50% winrate crowd is in shambles cuz in order for bkc's argument to apply here, there needs to be either a small sample size like the one he listed in the spl dpp pool of around a few hundred games, or if soemthing like gsc snorlax has overwhelming usage to the point where it is a mirror every game, forcing 50% wr. In this case however, I have provided overwhelming macro statistics in 2 tours (SPL, OST), and the general ladder usage. My sample size is in the thousands, if not encompassing all of dlc2 usage in any meaningful way ever. It is false equivalency to post this video responding to my well thought out argument and also bringing into the equation motherfuckin dracovish among all things. Lets see dracovish overall stats on ladder and in tours from release to ban, and imma tell u it wasnt no barely top 20 usage/50% winrate.
Please, for the love of debate, let the ban crowd hit me with something cerebral. I just wanna feel something
3RD EDIT:
Ironic that storm just damn near 6-0d a generic gouge ho thanks to his knowledge of the meta mons and his ability to craft a team which handles common threats from oger, gouge, to lando.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-752917
rain is underexplored. sand is underexplored. so many things check this thing if you synergize well. Storm had a pivot core of regenerator tanks, thus affording him the luxury of a sand core stacking weaknesses. rotom to top it off for a surefire tusk check thanks to pain split combating knock off which used to be a death sentence, strong breaker last. Incorporates concepts from as long ago as sm, but checks all common metagame threats on offense, while being able to hit hard back via specs val with the bonus of a free opportunity to bring in tar on glowking. This is beautiful teambuilding and if one can simply take the time to explore and enjoy the game they love, they will be able to innovate and find creative solutions to meta problems, contributing to the progression of the metagame. End the team paste meta, bring back innovation! Shoutout to my bro Storm Zone for providing me this replay to make such a compelling case for ingenuity triumphing over standard meta bullshit.
hmmm still 50% win rate and fringe usage after 8 weeks of spl. but wait, perhaps the players in spl are too high level and always prepare for gouge, right? also what is this sample size anyways, thousands of games get played every day!
How about ost statiscs too? wow, perfectly balanced! im not even gonna address the insolent replies to my statistics posts, once i saw opinions come my way with 0 numbers i already scrolled past and accepted your surrender @ the likes of Srn and such.
It is increasingly obvious that once people catch onto the 2 possible sets of gouge, aka tanky swipe setup or immediate power, they now know how to deal with the mon better. So many posts say ah i had no issue with it during reqs but I am still voting ban because it's restrictive to teambuilding. Dude, have a mind of your own, form your own opinions please I urge you to calcify your vertebrae.
People always say ah this guy always feels so hard to play vs i always lose mons to it but think for one second, aren't some mons inherently like this for certain mus? dragonite vs offense feels like you need to commit 2 mons or tera to beat it, and sd gliscor or weavile for a boots fat team also feels incredibly oppressive. The worst part is people admitting that they have trouble with the mon but still usually end up winning. You know why that is the case? CUZ THE SHIT IS NOT BROKEN. If that was an ursaluna or baxcalibur that you fucked around against, most of the time the game ends right there. Gouge has inherent weaknesses yet to be fully understood or explored, the knowledge of how to play vs each possible variant of gouge has not been inoculated into the general player base yet, but it takes but a few weeks of learning to understand how manageable this mon is in terms of playing and building vs it. How many mons restrict building like gouge but arent mentioned by the ban crowd? bolt literally ranks higher in usage and winrate across all skill levels, meaning the average tour player and ladder player both win more frequently by using this mon, but somehow the dragon with only lu treads bliss and clod as reliable switchins isnt restrictive on teambuilding?
We can see a clear shift toward boots meta currently, as webs being spammed (and being meta) is a telltale sign that boots meta is about to come. This has happened again and again, fat and ho get punished by webs and cind balance/boots spam come in to save the day by being good vs all the extreme styles. This exact cycle has already happened in past sv, giving rise to perhaps the most iconic og sv team in dozo tail cind boots fat. Everything i predicted is coming true, boots becoming meta, gouge becoming easier to handle, and hazards taking over setup as the main damage/progress condition forcing boots to now make it about raw damage again. It is a cycle that always happens and is the reason that metas are not stagnant, but constantly shifting. Give it another week or two and all will see just how gouge has completely fallen off and become a naturalized part of ou, forever prepared for and feared but never going above and beyond a normal and fair winrate/usage rate.
Enough about your personal anecdotes about this mon sweeping you, I truly lament the sorrows of lesser astute players. However, the macro environment reveals through statistics that gouge is not having its way in ou, nor has it ever. If a fringe top 20 usage mon with 50% winrate mon across all skill levels is being deemed too broken for the meta, then let democracy falter, for the people have become too stupid to govern themselves. God bless us all
EDIT: I will be addressing stormzone's post, a friend and player i respect
"First off, the fear of the meta becoming boots spam came from lack of tools to break in dlc1, now we have more tools, we have kyurem, which was proven to be fine, we have raging bolt, volcarona isnt foolishly quickbanned anymore, we retained wellspring from dlc1 which is balanced by all means i will explain that in a later post, we retained gambit , tera ice axel weavile, cornerstone, roaring moon, etc, keeping these balanced pokemon will prevent a defense/balance dominated metagame, the defensive aspect of tera keeps them at bay, but gouging fire is a cancer that needs to be deleted, dondozos no longer counter it because breaking swipe sets rose, the booster speed DD swipe set is broken too as it sets up and cant be encored after a dd, booster attack in sun, booster speed band in sun , all these sets + hazards to account for, they have only 1 hard counter, which is boots alomomola, which is a big problem, so on the contrary, its actually forcing the bulky meta, because nearly every team is packing dozo garg alomomola skeledirge, gliscor, and slowking galar to reset the sun since its so ridiculous in sun, all teams, they have atleast 3 defensive gouging fire checks, we cant keep this pokemon, no other threat forces a bulky metagame with boots alo gking gliscor, this is the only one i believe should get banned, its just gotta go."
Even if gouge does not singlehandedly stop a boots meta, how does this relate to it being broken? boots mola is a role compressor that thanks to flip turn has become glowking like in terms of utility and glue-nature, saying this is like saying glowking is being forced on every team because of special attackers YES MF THATS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR META BRO, the best pivot glues are popularized and slapped on most pivot based teams, nobody complained about glowking usage being sky high? if it wasnt for oger in the meta there would hardly be a reason not to use alo pivot, not because it is the only counter to gouge but because it is one of the best pivots in the game who happens to also neuter gouge.
"Secondly, we can't use winrates or statistics to argue its fate, because people are focused on hard countering gouging fire on every single team, with the same things, which gets repetitive, so of course it wouldnt have as solid of a winrate as archaludon, i bet if you ask every spl/ost player how hard they prep for gouging fire, they would tell u they put 3-4 checks or alomomola, notice i say checks because its only hard counter to every set is alomomola, and theres no other threat in the metagame rn that forces u to "guess the set right or lose" more than gouging fire, and if we are using winrates, say somebody brings ceruledge or moltres to spl, when sneasler was allowed, every team was grassy terrain, and they end up going 100% winrate, we can't say ban moltres or ceruledge based on that obviously, so the argument using winrates doesnt hold up well if its the main focus people are so obviously counterteaming."
Come on bro how can you argue this with a straight face. Winrates and usage on a mass scale from all elo levels and since release (endured all meta shifts) dont paint enough of a picture with the fringe top 20 usage and 50% winrate? you are saying every team has to put 3/4 checks to gouge but what about kyurem who has literally 3 switchins in the meta: glowking, clef, bliss, isnt it more centralizing? what about bolt who has 4 switchins? Mons with setup sets you cant prepare for? oh you mean roaring moon and gambit? What sets gouge apart from those mons that every spl player, ladder player, and ost player just has to hardcore counterteam gouging since the day it released, causing the 50% winrate? Are all players prescient and predicted that gouge is broken hence its winrate would be through the roof, therefore have been building counterteams since the beginning of its release to keep its winrate at a fair 50%? Can the ban crowd PLEASE listen to your own arguments.
"Thirdly, its out damaging chi yu in the sun as stated in my post linked above in metagame discussion, while having a high set versatility, being able to function as a setup mon as bulky as curse garganacl, or even curse dozo if it decides to go booster defense dd swipe, which ive seen on high ladder, so we have so many explosive factors here, the first factor we have is the fear of if its gonna be offensive with +speed, offensive with +attack, or defensive, and if u guess this wrong even with most well built teams, its gonna force enough progress to where the gouging fire user is almost in an unlosable position, the second factor is which tera its gonna use, because say you prepped for tera fairy AND tera poison, if u expect a tera fairy and u send gliscor, and u click toxic on dd, that second dd could be game ending, because u have to switch the gliscor out, and i only say that because gouging fire has a tendency to be somewhat managable after 1 boost, but crosses the border to almost impossible after the second boost, and theres very few pokemon ive seen achieve this, like chien pao, dd bax and maybe archaludon, just to name a few, the third factor is the typing, fire/dragon is an amazing typing, usually, to halt the onslaught of physical attackers one of the main go-tos is to burn it, but gouging fire's base type is fire/dragon, so it doesnt need to tera into a fire type to avoid burns, which immediately put one of the forms of physical spam counterplay up in smokes, when adding this factor on top of the others and what we already know about gouging fire, it makes this pokemon even more oppressive than terapagos or chien pao ever was."
First of all it does not outdamage chiyu in sun and a simple calc will show you this.
252+ Atk Choice Band Protosynthesis Gouging Fire Flare Blitz vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Shuckle in Sun: 276-325 (113.1 - 133.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ SpA Choice Specs Beads of Ruin Chi-Yu Overheat vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Shuckle in Sun: 343-405 (140.5 - 165.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
I can make the same argument for tera water wake +spa booster which forces the historical goat special wall to burn tera. remember when wake was thought to be broken for a week and then people got acclimated? yea we are in the middle of that event, LIVE, with gouging fire. Not being able to prepare for the tech tera after a setup? sure sounds like val or gambit to me! Im sorry when is the ban crowd going to pinpoint a specific trait unique to gouge that makes it broken unlike other mons?
"For my fourth point, i would argue that the metagame would refrain from defensive cores after this ban due to gouging forcing them as stated in the first point, and now with the dozens and dozens of offensive team comps now opened up with the disposal of gouging fire, the metagame would become more diverse with a world of variance, which is the healthy direction we want, many many matchups, that are never impossible once tera is here theres no such thing as a matchup loss in a diverse meta game, i cannot stress enough how balanced and healthy this mechanic is, and i stand on that with my whole life. So heres a list of positives and negatives:"
this is where you are wrong. The meta never shifts into ho variance dominance, it infact always goes bulkier to establish the most minmaxed versions of setup wincon, hazard wincon, and boots teams to outlast both wincons. If hazard wincon becomes the dominant archetype over the early meta spam of setup wincon spam, spearheaded by my triple dark team, then boots teams will rise to match that. There is no guarantee that with the omission of an offensive threat that operates on all 3 of those team types, it will actually increase diversity. No, in fact, teams will be more min/maxed to handle other sweepers who may not have the unique breaking characteristics of gouge. Gouge forces u to make a choice: either my team has to be fat enough to outlast this tanky guy designed to outlast the outlast mons, or my team has to pressure this mon which fails to sweep sufficiently fast. This in fact stop lazy teambuilding where a lot of unaware mons and wisp spam/flame body are rewarded. More status absorption is better, as scor, bolt, and gouge are keepng molt and zap from coming in and fishing vs everybody.
I will double down on this prediction and say that I guarantee you the meta goes fatter if gouge leaves.
"For my fifth and final point, it makes cheesy gimmick styles really stupid, this was one of the last straws for me, lets look at webs first, no hate towards vkhss whatsoever, hes a friend of mine, but webs is a cheese playstyle that should never amount to more consistency than the dominating playstyles in the metagame like BO, HO, and balance, but with webs, you nullify other booster mons, by taking away their speed boost, so now gouging can afford to run bulk + adamant + dd and its a sweeper than can hard counter cinderace and setup on it, so if it court changes, it lets you DD twice, with a booster attack boost, and being bulky lets u either use swipe, or other sets to break past counters, so as u can see, this pokemon single handedly solved every other problem of sticky webs, gholdengo with balloon stops the rest of the webs problems but we aint talking about goldblocks today, lets look at the other playstyle, yes it was some weeks ago but now and then i tested it here and there, sun semi trickroom, it DOMINATED the ladder, it did not lose a single game, if you have a regular sun, but tr hatt + band +atk goug, (can be run with specs tork and even could use cress to make it full trick room), it has no answers, its making trickroom viable, granted luna is the other viable user, but gouging makes it 2 which validates trick room even more, because u get the power, the bulk AND the ability to outspeed even if its for 5 turns and that is a little ridiculous if u ask me, when is enough really enough, when is it going too far, im all for keeping EVERY SINGLE OTHER POKEMON in this tier except for gouging fire, this one's gotta go im sorry."
if this team/these styles were so powerful, you and vkhss should have brought them and won all your tournament games. However, this is not the case. Something feeling overwhelmingly powerful on ladder is one thing, but you have to consider winrate. Any team can top ladder, teams with many flaws have topped ladder, you personally top ladder with all kinds of bullshit. This is simply a fruitless argument because i can make the exact same case for how cheap and skilless zama is on webs.
All in all, even the ban side's best arguments and strongest players fail to substantiate that gouge is deserving of a ban.
Welcoming all debaters, lets tussle
2nd EDIT: let me address this video being pulled up:
let me quote a comment in the video:
this is why the snorlax 50% winrate crowd is in shambles cuz in order for bkc's argument to apply here, there needs to be either a small sample size like the one he listed in the spl dpp pool of around a few hundred games, or if soemthing like gsc snorlax has overwhelming usage to the point where it is a mirror every game, forcing 50% wr. In this case however, I have provided overwhelming macro statistics in 2 tours (SPL, OST), and the general ladder usage. My sample size is in the thousands, if not encompassing all of dlc2 usage in any meaningful way ever. It is false equivalency to post this video responding to my well thought out argument and also bringing into the equation motherfuckin dracovish among all things. Lets see dracovish overall stats on ladder and in tours from release to ban, and imma tell u it wasnt no barely top 20 usage/50% winrate.
Please, for the love of debate, let the ban crowd hit me with something cerebral. I just wanna feel something
3RD EDIT:
Ironic that storm just damn near 6-0d a generic gouge ho thanks to his knowledge of the meta mons and his ability to craft a team which handles common threats from oger, gouge, to lando.
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/smogtours-gen9ou-752917
rain is underexplored. sand is underexplored. so many things check this thing if you synergize well. Storm had a pivot core of regenerator tanks, thus affording him the luxury of a sand core stacking weaknesses. rotom to top it off for a surefire tusk check thanks to pain split combating knock off which used to be a death sentence, strong breaker last. Incorporates concepts from as long ago as sm, but checks all common metagame threats on offense, while being able to hit hard back via specs val with the bonus of a free opportunity to bring in tar on glowking. This is beautiful teambuilding and if one can simply take the time to explore and enjoy the game they love, they will be able to innovate and find creative solutions to meta problems, contributing to the progression of the metagame. End the team paste meta, bring back innovation! Shoutout to my bro Storm Zone for providing me this replay to make such a compelling case for ingenuity triumphing over standard meta bullshit.
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i have to wonder why you're still here when you constantly express this unbridled contempt for the rest of the playerbase, the suspect process, the council, and democracy. you use statistics disingenuously (for example, winrate percentage is actually meaningless but you act like it's some sort of anti-ban silver bullet), you claim opinions as fact and facts as opinions, and every time someone backs you into a corner in an argument you deflect to "nyah nyah i'm better than you" or just straight-up hate speech. you're not the second coming of christ just because you can click buttons better than everyone else and you should stop acting like it. maybe the next suspect after gouging fire should be of you
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Rude and disingenuous. Saying a mon is restrictive to teambuilding is a more than valid reason to wish a mon was banned.
Where is Ribombee in those screenshots of those golden numbers you keep harping on as the truth? If webs meta is really being spammed right now, why is it not in the top 25 already? Yes, boots are good, but that may be just simply because hazards in general are insanely valuable this gen due to meta forces such as Ghold and a lack of reliable ways to remove hazards.
I'm not going to go over the whataboutism in your response to Storm Zone as we're currently testing Gouging Fire, not Kyurem, Walking Wake, Raging Bolt, IVal or Kingambit. If an aspect of those mons are deemed broken by the playerbase/council, then they will be addressed in a future suspect.
Keep making your weird, insulting posts, though. Definitely a good way to keep up your good faith with the general playerbase.
nah, he doesn't have to worry about that, he can just hide behind his trophies. if you're good enough at the game you can be as immature and contemptuous as you like and still get likes from multiple council members on a post that says democracy is bad. you can even call the entire pro-ban side the r-slur without any consequences at all!
the world truly is your oyster when you get to that skill level
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Posting as a moderator, but not on behalf of the entire team, to strongly advise CTC and DaddyBuzzwole just stop interacting.
I do not agree with CTC's overall opinion (and I plan on making another larger post on Gouging Fire later), but there are plenty of good points in his post.
Trying to nitpick his tone when your own tone is just as bad (arguably worse recently) doesn't do anything but derail the thread. Yes, part of the fault lies on him and I specifically warned him earlier in this thread due to some issues with word choice, but there is nothing wrong with being bluntly honest with how you feel and perceive things. Personal insults are not ok and certain wording is not either (and this is covered in the basic forum rules), but dissecting arguments and assigning negative weight to things is perfectly fine. He does not have to hold the same values as you or the next guy.
I do not agree with CTC's overall opinion (and I plan on making another larger post on Gouging Fire later), but there are plenty of good points in his post.
Trying to nitpick his tone when your own tone is just as bad (arguably worse recently) doesn't do anything but derail the thread. Yes, part of the fault lies on him and I specifically warned him earlier in this thread due to some issues with word choice, but there is nothing wrong with being bluntly honest with how you feel and perceive things. Personal insults are not ok and certain wording is not either (and this is covered in the basic forum rules), but dissecting arguments and assigning negative weight to things is perfectly fine. He does not have to hold the same values as you or the next guy.
To a large extent, yes.
Also contrary to Rekless_Zombie's accusations, I am in no way an enemy of the general player base and do not want any of us to suffer the consequences of stale and unfun meta. After all, the goal is to have fun playing this game. I reciprocated with appropriate sarcasm and vitriol to the bad faith arguments arguing for the sake of arguing; posts with already made up minds about banning gouge substantiated with either willfully ignorant reasoning or lack thereof altogether.
The truth is like a zamazenta, set it free and it will defend itself.
I am simply a messenger hoping to bring light to the matter with statistical evidence and my personal analysis based on logic, hoping to keep the metagame fun and balanced as possible. I may know things and see things the average player doesn't but would be happy to break things down humbly, so long as we discuss on a matter of fact basis. Am I always right? Nobody is. However, given how large of a role I played in participating and shaping meta trends from SV release to now, I can say with confidence that south of Vert himself I am the single biggest influence on the meta, therefore giving me a level of authority to speak on the meta and how it should develop. Ultimately, ebbs and flows of the metagame follow predictable patterns, and I am doing my best to paint a clear picture of what I think would happen in the future (gouge will naturalize into ou just like gambit, pult, za and others before it which were considered borderline broken), and that the real brokens will be revealed through time (bax, ursa, sneas). If gouge truly is broken, surely we would be able to tell? If everyone in the thread is claiming that they keep beating gouge then how is this mon an issue? On the flipside, if everyone in the thread arguing for ban keeps losing TO this mon, who keeps losing WITH it to keep the winrate at 50% across all elo levels with thousands of games as the sample? Something does not add up. I agree with certain posts that my tone can be a little less condescending, but addressing these unreasonable posts subconsciously makes me think they are trolling/arguing in bad faith so I cannot help throwing a little extra mustard on there, but I will stick to fairplay with no ad hominem from here on as Finchinator suggested. At the end of the day, internally I am just a kid like any other kid in this thread trying to enjoy his favorite game. I am no different from a 1400 player in here nor will I shame anyone for being at any skill level as long as we can discuss on a logical basis. However, I will do everything in my power to fight for what I believe is right.
Apologies to anyone offended, this is how I communicate. Will do my best to keep the debate fun and friendly ay?
i'm sure this isn't what you meant by him holding different values, but i don't feel very comfortable sharing the space with someone whose values include "slurs are ok to say" and "democracy is bad when it doesn't go my way". of course my tone is gonna be combative and i'm gonna have personal issues with the guy when i, someone on the spectrum, get called the same ableist slur that i've had to deal with my whole life. that's not the kind of thing i can just take sitting down. neither is anti-democratic sentiment; that needs to be nipped in the bud whenever it rears its head in order for democracy to keep being a thing. but the message has been received, i'll go back to playful banter instead
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No, using any form of ableist slur is never, ever ok on the forums (or in general, in my strong personal opinion). I don’t have as much to say on “democracy” as I feel it is greatly misused and misapplied in discussions like these + Smogon isn’t a perfect or true democracy either, but I do think we all agree some democratic elements to the process is good.
My point is that you and another player may play the same tier and come to vastly different conclusions. Those type of values.
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I do not think CTC wants to attack you or tear you down so much as he feels strongly. I understand why you feel that way though and your feelings are perfectly valid, but I don’t think how you responded was particularly fair or good either. I think it’s best you both move on from discussing specifically with each other because of that.
fair enough. but this does raise an interesting point: are we playing the same tier? ctc exists on a completely different level than virtually all the other players in ou. the meta is fundamentally different on his level from how it is on my level, or the average level, or even high ladder. top players, by nature, can adapt to anything, which can make it a lot more difficult for them to realize when something is broken because they can outskill even something that takes no skill to use. so is his experience really representative of what the tier is? or is it the equivalent of "how can you be homeless, just buy a house"? is "real ou" what happens at the absolute peak level of gameplay, or is it what happens at the level where the majority of skilled people play? my personal belief is that it's the latter
I mean suspects are specifically intended to cater to more competent and high level players. This is why they are decided by the council and dictated by reqs that realistically most posters in this thread will not get (while a lot of top players will even argue that reqs are already too easy).
I do think that there are good players (even many who get reqs) who don’t get tiering or not as strong players who do get tiering, but there is certainly a correlation and the current reqs are pretty tame as a general competency bar. This isn’t to say you or anyone else falls into any particular category of course.
So maybe you’re not playing the same metagame, but there is one metagame we are focusing on here and, to put it bluntly, that is done by design. I know that’s not the most friendly answer or necessarily what you want to here, but it is worth noting.
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