BSS Bulky Dragon Dance Gouging Fire

[Theorymon]

Splitting this off from the rest of the analysis because this set has a disgusting cluster of item and EV options, so this will help get the rest of it out faster lol

[SET]
name: Bulky Dragon Dance
move 1: Dragon Dance
move 2: Breaking Swipe / Dragon Claw
move 3: Heat Crash / Flare Blitz
move 4: Morning Sun
item: Leftovers / Booster Energy / Rocky Helmet
tera type: Fairy / Water / Fire
ability: Protosynthesis
nature: Impish / Jolly / Careful
evs: 244 HP / 4 Atk / 44 Def / 4 SpD / 212 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* Gouging Fire's incredible dual STAB coverage and good defensive stats make running a bulky Dragon Dance set a great choice!

* **Breaking Swipe VS. Dragon Claw**: Dragon Claw is the more reliable late-game cleaning attack, but Breaking Swipe eases Gouging Fire's setup against physical threats.

* ** Heat Crash VS. Flare Blitz**: Gouging Fire is heavy enough for Heat Crash to be just as powerful as Flare Blitz against several lightweight targets, such as Flutter Mane and Gholdengo. However, common, heavy foes like Ursaluna-B and Ting-Lu will only take 40 Base Power of damage from it, which can justify Flare Blitz's recoil for some teams. [Checking our damage calculator can help decide if Heat Crash or Flare Blitz is better for your team!](https://calc.pokemonshowdown.com/)

Tera Types
========

* **Tera Dependency - Medium**: While Gouging Fire's typing isn't bad defensively, its common weaknesses to Ground- and Dragon-type attacks mean Terastallization will greatly increase its setup opportunities.

* **Fairy** Tera Fairy is a fantastic defensive choice, fending off Dragon-type attacks that can break through Gouging Fire and making it a great option against Urshifu-S.

* **Water**: Tera Water vastly eases the matchup against Urshifu-R, which can bypass Breaking Swipe with Surging Strikes otherwise. It also makes dealing with Chien-Pao easier.

* **Fire**: Fire isn't an impressive defensive choice beyond the useful Fairy resistance and losing the Dragon weakness, but the power boost still makes it worth considering.

* **Grass**: Tera Grass is awkward against opposing Fire-types and Tera Flying Landorus-T, but the Ground resistance and Spore immunity do give it a niche.

EV Spreads
========

* **Minimum Speed EVs**: Gouging Fire's EV spreads are fairly customizable, but usually it's best to have at least 212 Speed EVs with a neutral nature or 116 EVs with a Jolly nature. This ensures that Gouging Fire outspeeds Iron Bundle, Flutter Mane, and Chien-Pao after one use of Dragon Dance. If the rare Dragapult is a special concern, 252 Speed EVs with a neutral nature or 148 Speed EVs with Jolly can be run to outspeed that after Dragon Dance.

Physically Defensive Spreads
========

* **244 HP / 4 Atk / 44 Def / 4 SpD / 212 Spe Impish**: This spread avoids a 2HKO from Timid Flutter Mane's Moonblast and Choice Scarf Urshifu-R's Surging Strikes.

* **108 HP / 188 Def / 212 Spe Impish**: This spread is the second most physically defensive spread possible with the given Speed, sacrificing some special bulk to have about an 85% chance of avoiding a 2HKO from Jolly Choice Band Chien-Pao's Icicle Crash with Leftovers recovery. The HP investment is worth it over making Gouging Fire slightly more physically bulky for some extra cushioning against special attacking threats, such as surviving Choice Specs Gholdengo's Shadow Ball after Stealth Rock damage.

Specially Defensive Spreads
========

* All of these spreads avoid a 2HKO from Flutter Mane that lack Choice Specs, provided Stealth Rock is off the field.

* **188 HP / 204 SpD / 116 Spe Jolly** or **188 HP / 108 SpD / 212 Spe Careful**: These identical spreads usually allow Gouging Fire to survive Blood Moon followed by Vacuum Wave from Modest Ursaluna-B when taking Stealth Rock damage and Leftovers recovery into account.

* **116 HP / 52 Atk / 4 Def / 220 SpD / 116 Jolly** or **116 HP / 52 Atk / 4 Def / 124 SpD / 212 Spe Careful**: These identical spreads sacrifice some overall bulk to get an Attack boost from Protosynthesis, which can be helpful against sun teams or when using Booster Energy.

* **252 HP / 108 SpD / 148 Spe Jolly**: This spread gives Gouging Fire a Speed boost with Protosynthesis, which is especially helpful for outspeeding Booster Energy Flutter Mane after a Dragon Dance.

Items
========

* **Leftovers**: Leftovers is best for easing Gouging Fire's setup, especially when paired with Breaking Swipe.

* **Booster Energy**: Booster Energy can be used with the specialized EV spreads above to boost a specific stat once.

* **Rocky Helmet**: When using physically defensive spreads or Breaking Swipe, Rocky Helmet is an effective passive damage dealer against threats like Dragonite and Choice Scarf Urshifu-R.

* **Clear Amulet**: Clear Amulet prevents Landorus-T and Incineroar from obstructing Gouging Fire with Intimidate cycling.

* **Heavy-Duty Boots**: While not as cripplingly weak to Stealth Rock as something like Volcarona, Heavy-Duty Boots lets Gouging Fire check threats more consistently overall.

* **Covert Cloak**: Covert Cloak makes losing to Garganacl far less likely and prevents dreaded flinch scenarios from Chien-Pao and Chi-Yu.

[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/theorymon.29010/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/derpysux.528485/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/butch-hardnight.265677/
Grammar checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/autumn.384270/

 

[Theorymon]

Got this ready for a QC check! I tried to organize the EV spreads the best I could, there might be more of them too lol. Butch Hardnight if you're around, the EVs maybe could use some fine-tuning!

 

[DerpySuX]

Bro wrote a fuckin novel on this things EVs

overall looks good, I’d wait for Jamie to make sure the EV spreads are good before putting this in the GP queue but consider the rest of this approved

 

[Butch Hardnight]

you're not wasting any stats so i think it's fine

 

[Theorymon]

Sweet, this is now ready for a GP check!

GP Team

 

[thelandlordsmm]

116 HP / 52 Atk / 4 Def / 132 SpD / 212 Spe Careful*
This has too many EVs. Need to take 8 away from sp def.

 

[Theorymon]

116 HP / 52 Atk / 4 Def / 132 SpD / 212 Spe Careful*
This has too many EVs. Need to take 8 away from sp def.

Haha good catch. In case it wasn't obvious, Jolly was the nature I used on the Switch (since Jolly has more useful sets than Careful overall), so I must have hit the SpD button in the damage calc 2 extra times when trying to see if Careful had an identical or better spread!

 

[sunny004]

Wow you've been waiting for a while on this one too. Here's another amcheck
add remove comment

amcheck

Splitting this off from the rest of the analysis because this set has a disgusting cluster of item and EV options, so this will help get the rest of it out faster lol

[SET]
name: Bulky Dragon Dance
move 1: Dragon Dance
move 2: Breaking Swipe / Dragon Claw
move 3: Heat Crash / Flare Blitz
move 4: Morning Sun
item: Leftovers / Booster Energy / Rocky Helmet
tera type: Fairy / Water / Fire
ability: Protosynthesis
nature: Impish / Jolly / Careful
evs: 244 HP / 4 Atk / 44 Def / 4 SpD / 212 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* Gouging Fire's incredible dual STAB coverage and good defensive stats makes make running a bulky Dragon Dance set a great choice!

* **Breaking Swipe VS. Dragon Claw**: Dragon Claw is the more reliable late-game cleaning attack, but Breaking Swipe eases Gouging Fire's set-up against physical threats.

* ** Heat Crash VS. Flare Blitz**: Gouging Fire is heavy enough for Heat Crash to be just as powerful as Flare Blitz against several light-weight targets, such as Flutter Mane and Gholdengo. However, common, heavy foes like Ursaluna-B and Ting-Lu will only take 40 BP of damage from it, which can justify Flare Blitz's recoil for some teams. Checking our damage calculator can help decide if Heat Crash or Flare Blitz is better for your team!

Tera Types
========

* **Tera Dependency - Medium**: While Gouging Fire's typing isn't bad defensively, its common weaknesses to Ground- (add hyphen) and Dragon-type attacks means mean Terastallization will greatly increase its set-up opportunities.

* **Fairy** Tera Fairy is a fantastic defensive choice, fending off Dragon-type attacks that can break through Gouging Fire, and making it a great option against Urshifu-S.

* **Water**: Tera Water vastly eases the match-up against Urshifu-R, who can bypass Breaking Swipe with Surging Strikes otherwise. It also makes dealing with Chien-Pao easier.

* **Fire**: Fire isn't an impressive defensive choice beyond the useful Fairy resistance and losing the Dragon weakness, but the power boost still makes it worth considering.

* **Grass**: Tera Grass is awkward against opposing Fire-types and Tera Flying Landorus-T, but the Ground resistance and Spore immunity does do give it a niche.

EV Spreads
========

* **Minimum Speed EVs**: Gouging Fire's EV spreads are fairly customizable, but usually its it's best to have at least 212 Speed EVs with a neutral nature (RC) or 116 EVs with a Jolly nature. This ensures that Gouging Fire outspeeds Iron Bundle, Flutter Mane, and Chein-Pao after one use of Dragon Dance. If the rare Dragapult is a special concern, 252 Speed EVs with a neutral nature or 148 Speed EVs with Jolly can be run to outspeed that after Dragon Dance.

Physically Defensive Spreads
========

* **244 HP / 4 Atk / 44 Def / 4 SpD / 212 Spe Impish**: This spread avoids a 2HKO from Timid Flutter Mane's Moonblast and Choice Scarf Urshifu-R's Surging Strikes.

* **108 HP / 188 Def / 212 Spe Impish**: This spread sacrifices some special bulk to have about a an 85% chance of avoiding a 2HKO from Jolly Choice Band Chien-Pao's Icicle Crash with Leftovers recovery.

Specially Defensive Spreads
========

* All of these spreads avoid a 2HKO from Flutter Mane that lack Choice Specs, provided Stealth Rock is off the field.

* **188 HP / 204 SpD / 116 Spe Jolly** or **188 HP / 108 SpD / 212 Spe Careful**: These identical spreads usually allow Gouging Fire to survive Blood Moon followed by Vacuum Wave from Modest Ursaluna-B when taking Stealth Rock damage and Leftovers recovery into account.

* **116 HP / 52 Atk / 4 Def / 220 SpD / 116 Jolly** or **116 HP / 52 Atk / 4 Def / 124 SpD / 212 Spe Careful**: These identical spreads sacrifices sacrifice some overall bulk to get an Attack boost from Protosynthesis, which can be helpful against Sun teams or when using Booster Energy.

* **252 HP / 108 SpD / 148 Spe Jolly**: This spread gives Gouging Fire a Speed Boost boost with Protosynthesis, which is especially helpful for outspeeding Booster Energy Flutter Mane after a Dragon Dance.

Items
========

* **Leftovers**: Leftovers is best for easing Gouging Fire's set-up, especially when paired with Breaking Swipe.

* **Booster Energy**: Booster Energy can be used with the specialized EV spreads above to boost a specific stat once.

* **Rocky Helmet**: When using physically defensive spreads or Breaking Swipe, Rocky Helmet is an effective passive damage dealer against threats like Dragonite and Choice Scarf Urshifu-R.

* **Clear Amulet**: Clear Amulet prevents Landorus-T and Incineroar from obstructing Gouging Fire with Intimidate cycling.

* **Heavy-Duty Boots**: While not as cripplingly weak to Stealth Rock as something like Volcarona, Heavy-Duty Boots lets Gouging Fire check threats more consistently overall (remove hyphen).

* **Covert Cloak**: Covert Cloak makes losing to Garganacl far less likely, and prevents dreaded flinch scenarios from Chien-Pao and Chi-Yu.

[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/theorymon.29010/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/derpysux.528485/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/butch-hardnight.265677/

 

[autumn]

1/1 GP Team done

Hide

[SET]
name: Bulky Dragon Dance
move 1: Dragon Dance
move 2: Breaking Swipe / Dragon Claw
move 3: Heat Crash / Flare Blitz
move 4: Morning Sun
item: Leftovers / Booster Energy / Rocky Helmet
tera type: Fairy / Water / Fire
ability: Protosynthesis
nature: Impish / Jolly / Careful
evs: 244 HP / 4 Atk / 44 Def / 4 SpD / 212 Spe

[SET COMMENTS]

* Gouging Fire's incredible dual STAB coverage and good defensive stats makes make running a bulky Dragon Dance set a great choice!

* **Breaking Swipe VS. Dragon Claw**: Dragon Claw is the more reliable late-game cleaning attack, but Breaking Swipe eases Gouging Fire's set-up setup against physical threats.

* ** Heat Crash VS. Flare Blitz**: Gouging Fire is heavy enough for Heat Crash to be just as powerful as Flare Blitz against several light-weight lightweight targets, such as Flutter Mane and Gholdengo. However, common, heavy foes like Ursaluna-B and Ting-Lu will only take 40 BP Base Power of damage from it, which can justify Flare Blitz's recoil for some teams. Checking our damage calculator can help decide if Heat Crash or Flare Blitz is better for your team!

Tera Types
========

* **Tera Dependency - Medium**: While Gouging Fire's typing isn't bad defensively, its common weaknesses to Ground- (add hyphen) and Dragon-type attacks means mean Terastallization will greatly increase its set-up setup opportunities.

* **Fairy** Tera Fairy is a fantastic defensive choice, fending off Dragon-type attacks that can break through Gouging Fire (RC) and making it a great option against Urshifu-S.

* **Water**: Tera Water vastly eases the match-up matchup against Urshifu-R, who which can bypass Breaking Swipe with Surging Strikes otherwise. It also makes dealing with Chien-Pao easier.

* **Fire**: Fire isn't an impressive defensive choice beyond the useful Fairy resistance and losing the Dragon weakness, but the power boost still makes it worth considering.

* **Grass**: Tera Grass is awkward against opposing Fire-types and Tera Flying Landorus-T, but the Ground resistance and Spore immunity does do give it a niche.

EV Spreads
========

* **Minimum Speed EVs**: Gouging Fire's EV spreads are fairly customizable, but usually its it's best to have at least 212 Speed EVs with a neutral nature (RC) or 116 EVs with a Jolly nature. This ensures that Gouging Fire outspeeds Iron Bundle, Flutter Mane, and Chein-Pao Chien-Pao after one use of Dragon Dance. If the rare Dragapult is a special concern, 252 Speed EVs with a neutral nature or 148 Speed EVs with Jolly can be run to outspeed that after Dragon Dance.

Physically Defensive Spreads
========

* **244 HP / 4 Atk / 44 Def / 4 SpD / 212 Spe Impish**: This spread avoids a 2HKO from Timid Flutter Mane's Moonblast and Choice Scarf Urshifu-R's Surging Strikes.

* **108 HP / 188 Def / 212 Spe Impish**: This spread sacrifices some special bulk to have about a an 85% chance of avoiding a 2HKO from Jolly Choice Band Chien-Pao's Icicle Crash with Leftovers recovery. (if this isn't guaranteed why not max def?)

Specially Defensive Spreads
========

* All of these spreads avoid a 2HKO from Flutter Mane that lack Choice Specs, provided Stealth Rock is off the field.

* **188 HP / 204 SpD / 116 Spe Jolly** or **188 HP / 108 SpD / 212 Spe Careful**: These identical spreads usually allow Gouging Fire to survive Blood Moon followed by Vacuum Wave from Modest Ursaluna-B when taking Stealth Rock damage and Leftovers recovery into account.

* **116 HP / 52 Atk / 4 Def / 220 SpD / 116 Jolly** or **116 HP / 52 Atk / 4 Def / 124 SpD / 212 Spe Careful**: These identical spreads sacrifices sacrifice some overall bulk to get an Attack boost from Protosynthesis, which can be helpful against Sun sun teams or when using Booster Energy.

* **252 HP / 108 SpD / 148 Spe Jolly**: This spread gives Gouging Fire a Speed Boost boost with Protosynthesis, which is especially helpful for outspeeding Booster Energy Flutter Mane after a Dragon Dance.

Items
========

* **Leftovers**: Leftovers is best for easing Gouging Fire's set-up setup, especially when paired with Breaking Swipe.

* **Booster Energy**: Booster Energy can be used with the specialized EV spreads above to boost a specific stat once.

* **Rocky Helmet**: When using physically defensive spreads or Breaking Swipe, Rocky Helmet is an effective passive damage dealer against threats like Dragonite and Choice Scarf Urshifu-R.

* **Clear Amulet**: Clear Amulet prevents Landorus-T and Incineroar from obstructing Gouging Fire with Intimidate cycling.

* **Heavy-Duty Boots**: While not as cripplingly weak to Stealth Rock as something like Volcarona, Heavy-Duty Boots lets Gouging Fire check threats more consistently overall (remove hyphen).

* **Covert Cloak**: Covert Cloak makes losing to Garganacl far less likely (RC) and prevents dreaded flinch scenarios from Chien-Pao and Chi-Yu.

[CREDITS]
Written by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/theorymon.29010/
Quality checked by:
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/derpysux.528485/
https://www.smogon.com/forums/members/butch-hardnight.265677/

notes for amcheck

eases Gouging Fire's set-up

greatly increase its set-up opportunities

easing Gouging Fire's set-up

When setup is being used as a noun or as part of a compound noun, spell it as setup and not set-up (After setup, Pichu is practically unstoppable / Pichu has access to several great setup moves). When it is being used an adjective meaning "having set up", spell it as either set-up or set up as appropriate (A fully set-up Pichu mows through teams with little effort / His Pichu was not fully set up yet). The verb form, to set up, is spelled as such (Mewtwo can set up on Pichu). Here, you're talking about the noun (easing its setup).

40 BP

Abbreviations should always be written out, so its 40 Base Power (Base Power is always capitalised too).

Tera Fairy is a fantastic defensive choice, fending off Dragon-type attacks that can break through Gouging Fire, and making it a great option against Urshifu-S.

Commas before and / but / or should only be used when both clauses are independent (it makes sense on its own as a full sentence without the other part). Here, "Tera Fairy is a fantastic defensive choice, fending off Dragon-type attacks that can break through Gouging Fire" does make sense on its own, but "Making it a great option against Urshifu-S" does not.

Tera Water vastly eases the match-up against Urshifu-R, who can bypass Breaking Swipe

'Who' is never used to refer to Pokemon because they're not people. Use 'which' or 'that' - whichever is correct.

Sun teams

Weathers )sun, rain, sand, snow) are never capitalised.

Covert Cloak makes losing to Garganacl far less likely, and prevents dreaded flinch scenarios from Chien-Pao and Chi-Yu.

Only one clause is independent here. "Covert Cloak makes losing to Garganacl far less likely" makes sense on its own, but "prevents dreaded flinch scenarios from Chien-Pao and Chi-Yu" does not.

 

[Theorymon]

Got this one done too, making Gouging Fire totally complete!

As for that physically defensive EV spread: in this case, it's actually the 2nd most physically bulky spread you can have on Gouging Fire with that really important Speed tier. The one with the most physical bulk, 52 HP / 244 Defense / 212 Spe with Impish, only improves the odds of avoiding a 2HKO from Jolly CB Icicle Crash from Chien-Pao to 14.5%, and with a much more severe drop in special bulk.

When I was including this spread, I was thinking about stuff like how the increased HP flips the OHKO chances from Tera Water Iron Bundle after Stealth Rock from 50% to 37.5%, or how Specs Flutter Mane goes from 68.8% chance to KO after SR vs 43.8% chance of the same with the increased HP investment. There's a TON of examples like that, so for the analysis I added the most striking example: the HP investment avoids a OHKO from Choice Specs Gholdengo after Stealth Rock! I also now mention that its the second most physically defensive spread possible for that speed tier, and why its worth sacrificing a bit of special bulk for the much bigger boost to special bulk in comparison.