Gouging Fire is perplexing, so let’s chat about it.
I believe that, as a Pokemon, Gouging Fire brings some very compelling traits to the table that are without a doubt beneficial to the tier. Its defensive utility cannot be understated; its superb bulk, resistance profile, and great synergy with Tera are extremely valuable in checking Pokemon like Kingambit, most Volcarona, Roaring Moon, and a laundry list’s worth of physical Pokemon in general in a single slot. Most valuably however is that it balances this highly coveted defensive value with excellent and flexible offense. Its threatening offensive STABs/solid base Attack can do work into a vast majority of physical threats in the tier, and it has Dragon Dance to weaponize its elite blend of offense and defense and slot naturally onto offensive structures and provide them with highly coveted defensive utility. To top it off, it can’t be burnt either.
To me, the question really comes down to
if it takes more than it gives. There is a reason it is being suspected after all; it has shown to have asinine firepower on the right compositions and can snowball using its great defensive profile in tandem with Tera to leverage sweeps. So, in this post, I’d like to break down its main suspect-worthy sets (defensive is completely fine lol), discuss checks, and then have a discussion about its overall effect on the tier.
Choice Band
Out the rip, I have to say it: Choiced sets are flashy but far from broken. A vulnerability to hazards, reliance on Sun, and leverage from opposing Tera greatly complicates usage of the Fire-type STAB that is easy to click on paper. Once it loses that spammable click, the opportunity cost of using your Tera just for power rears its ugly head. Sun thrives off of using its Tera for aggressive purposes, however most grant some degree of defensive utility to leverage future wallbreaking. Roaring Moon commonly runs Tera Steel with its Choice Band set, bolstering its Iron Head into Fairy-type Pokemon, but also uses it to get the jump on coveted targets by flipping around its weaknesses, namely to Moonblast. Walking Wake is the most famous example, using Tera Water to make Hydro Steam near unwallable, but also shedding its Dragon-type to drop weaknesses and more reliably handle Fairy- and opposing Dragon-type Pokemon 1v1. Unlike Gouging Fire however it does not have a Stealth Rock weakness and it actually gets to 1v1 most things it can’t as a result of the weakness changing.
For Gouging Fire, the defensive changes don’t matter as much and maintain its core issues. In practice, its Stealth Rock weakness undercuts its bulk hard, and it maintains its inherent vulnerabilities into Pokemon it wants to use its Tera to beat like Great Tusk or Landorus-T. This means that in practice it winds up mostly taking trades and/or being forced out, complicating re-entry. On the other hand, this style of Tera for Pokemon like Walking Wake tend to force an advantage more easily and attain 1v1s that can be beneficial for itself in the long term, which it can afford due to its lack of a Stealth Rock weakness. While it’s still an excellent wallbreaker, it can be reacted to more feasibly thanks to most checks being maintained post-Tera and it having its bulk cut into more often than other users. To make matters worse, it has to often sacrifice potential firepower (no pun intended) to improve matchups into offense through Proto Speed or preserve Tera for more efficient purposes. It is good but I believe your average defensive backbone that consist near always of Fire-type resistant Pokemon, revenge killers, and/or additional Fire-resistant Tera have the ability to handle it pretty handily.
Bulky Dragon Dance
This one is the weird one. This set requires Gouging Fire to take advantage of its bulk and typing in a bit of a weird way that I haven't really understood the ripple effects of, and its relationship with Tera complicates this further by essentially forcing most Pokemon to contest with its bulk more directly, but then a vulnerability to Burn opens. I’ve seen some truly nuts EV spreads for this Pokemon, especially on Breaking Swipe variants, and it really demonstrates how much of an elite balance of offense and defense it possesses as much as it can be difficult to evaluate in the vacuum of its other sets. I think this is probably Gouging Fire’s “best” set as it fits on many structures, possesses the blend of offense and defense that balances thrive from, and can beat a lot of things 1v1 to snowball. Is it the most
broken? There is a difference, and that’s why we need to evaluate counterplay.
Compared to its more explosive counterparts, it has more stringent requirements to safely snowball, and even when the conditions are ripe it needs a lot of turns to get going. And when I say a lot, I mean a Lot. Because it has to combine minimal offensive invest with a low BP stab just to find even more turns to heal and click Dragon Dance, and only have one decently threatening move for the last slot, I’ve found that it’s actually rather straight forward to shut down. Bulky phasers, Knock Off, Taunt, status, and Encore deny this set, and all of these options permeate greatly in the metagame and can be executed even by some Pokemon that this set should theoretically 1v1 as a result of its turn consuming nature. Opposing Tera also amplifies this problem. If Breaking Swipe can’t be used into a Tera Fairy Kingambit for instance, it has the potential to lose the 1v1 if it hasn’t gotten enough Dragon Dance turns up. Skarmory with Tera can effortlessly phase it out. As one last example, Great Tusk is also theoretically 1v1’d, but this set’s war of attrition gameplan falters hard without Leftovers to help sustain it over a long period of time. Encore is also everywhere, including on Pokemon like Hisuian Samurott (which also runs Knock Off regularly), Iron Valiant (also runs Knock Off), or Hawlucha.
I think this set is gassed up in the way it is mostly because it has some scary credentials, but ultimately sets that require longer gameplans and can be contained for a decent bit can and usually are well-adapted to (barring Gen 8 Kyurem lmao). I’m not trying to say this set is bad, but more that its best forms of counterplay exist fairly organically as is in the metagame, and the more turns you need, the more leverage the opponent has to react and win the war of attrition with the right tools. In exchange, it brings many teams the balance of offense and defense that Gouging Fire excels at while taking good advantage of Dragon Dance to offer a win condition. I think this set is fine, and shares organic checks with Choice Band that often run the aforementioned types of moves.
Offensive Dragon Dance
This is the set I’d probably call the closest to broken, since it offers generally less breathing room as a result of its more promptly threatening nature and has more volatile set options. With Booster Energy, Heavy-Duty Boots, or Air Balloon alongside two of Dragon STAB, coverage (Tera Blast or Earthquake), or Healing. This can be pretty frustrating to deal with at times and does demand more respect on average.
However as a result of it aiming to berserk in a more direct manner, it winds up folding to reactive counterplay a bit more easily. Again, Pokemon like Great Tusk or Landorus-T do well in barring its setup for the most part pre-Tera (Air Balloon does better into them especially if they’re chipped already), and Rocky Helmet is more problematic as its reduced bulk makes damage stick in a more meaningful way. This makes Landorus-T in particular a pretty excellent blanket check; Rocky Helmet and Intimidate are serious hurdles that limit how often it can find that game winning position. Unlike Bulky Dragon Dance, there are the more demanding variables of Unaware and bulky Water-type Pokemon, the latter of which Tera can easily provide teams in a pinch.
Again, there’s a generally overlapping set of checks. Even if they range in effectiveness across the sets, all of the Pokemon have an option one way or another that reliably give them leverage into this set and force at most a trade if utilized haphazardly.
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In conclusion, I hope this post gives you a bit more of an insight into the nature of Gouging Fire’s effects in-game and across the builder. I believe the fact that so many blanket checks exist for Gouging Fire that can overlap to check it and several other Pokemon make it a fairly manageable threat that provides more than it takes.
Additionally, just as Tera can be an excellent tool for it, your own Tera can make just as big of a potential difference in providing that extra option to keep it in check. While threat saturation is a big variable and Gouging Fire undoubtedly contributes to it with its ability to force a potential Tera or effectively chip down walls for another dangerous sweeper, I personally don’t think Gouging Fire is the correct choice to ban in the context of threat saturation due to a combination of its otherwise healthy qualities and the fact that its checklist is far more manageable and even organically good in this metagame regardless. I think if we suspect anything else that Gouging Fire’s presence may even skew even closer toward positive.
With all of this in mind, I believe overall that Gouging Fire should
not be banned.
