There are some things in this post that I would like to address since I feel they don't align with the tiering philosophy and the metagame.So I have gotten reqs a few mins ago and I will say I am currently Do Not Ban as I feel the ban side has failed to sufficiently sway me towards their side and I'll explain my thought processes regarding Gouging Fire.
Going into this suspect, I, like many others in the community, thought Gouging was a banworthy pokemon (make a note of how I'm not describing Gouging as "broken", which seems to be a very synonymous term with a banworthy pokemon) and was ready to vote ban ban ban. However, the dnb side came out of the woodworks. Arguments claiming "gouging is a non issue, x is. Or y is more "broken" than gouging". I am not here to tell you Baxcalibur or Archaludon are the biggest issues on Dragon, whether or not I believe it or not is irrelevant at this time. I'm here to evaluate Gouging on its own merit, rather than think about any other potential "brokens".
The reason why I do not believe Gouging to be banworthy is that I do not find it too much to handle in this tier. You could claim that I am prepared for it so that's proof of centralisation but is Gouging really the individual driving force behind the domination of Dragon? I do not believe this to be the case. I think back to before DLC2 and Dragon was not the top dog. DLC2 comes out, what do we get? We get, which is irrelevant to Dragon. We got
, which is frankly a mediocre option on Dragon, we got
, which was a Hoodra upgrade and we got
, the subject of our suspect. We also got pokemon back like the Latis and Kyurem. Half of these additions suddenly elevated the type to dominating ladder, dominating tournaments. You have to acknowledge Dragon's power was already quite high with mons like
,
,
,
but gaining two pokemon that helped the type defensively which Dragon was lacking, is what I believe caused Dragon to get high. Gouging Fire's neutrality to Fairy + Archaludon's neutrality to Ice, Dragon and Fairy covered all of Dragon's weaknesses and when you're a type that has only 2 resistances (immunities) included, vs some of our underpowered types, yes, Dragon will dominate.
One major thing for me as well is that Gouging isn't even an unhealthy pokemon on Fire teams, its other typing people fail to mention when talking about it. Some rate Fire somewhat highly but I think it's like a high B type so nothing too bad, but it's not like super duper good imo. Evaluate our banlist and exclude any boxart legendary/obvious bans, how many dual-typed pokemon are banned because they were too strong/broken/unhealthy on just one of their types? The answer is an astounding zero. Gouging's best sets are defensive setup sets and Fire cannot run them as efficiently as they can on Dragon because the support is just worse on Fire, it lacks proper bulky pokemon and its offensive teammates are certainly weaker than the behemoths Dragon has to offer.
The burden of proof is not on the dnb side to suggest whether the mon is banworthy or not because we are not the ones attempting to change the status quo as per Tiering Policy but I, myself have stated that it's a mon I don't find myself prepping for or worrying about because Gouging is not the "strongest" pokemon on Dragon. What needs to change is reducing Dragon's offensive capabilities, not its defensive capabilities and while you're probably wondering "Gouging is offensive it sets up DD", Gouging is not a problem if it only has 1 or even 2 DDs. If you're prepping for Dragon in general, you will have counterplay to stop DD mons in general, not just specifically Gouging, whether that's Whirlwindor
, Twaving it or using Dragons of your own because in the mirror, it is just spamming Draco Meteor and such.
All in all, it's seeming like Gouging might be banned or it will incredibly close. If Gouging doesn't get banned, I'm hoping we have a contingency plan in place and the council should understand our next steps of action. If Gouging does get banned, it's a shame because we're losing a mon that wasn't the problem but in the future, I hope it will be retested when our tier gets rid of the mons it should've been rid of all this time.
There have been many dual typed Pokemon that were banned just because they were too much on one out of their two types. Being broken on one type does not mean it is healthy for the metagame, after all in teambuilding there are always teammates that won't support the Pokemon in question as well as others do. In a Monotype sense, this can correlate to the Pokemon available to the different types a Pokemon is on. This is the same reason we don't do type bans, or in a tiering viewpoint banning a Pokemon from being paired with certain teammates instead of banning it altogether. It's super bad for legitimacy, because if this was done in any other tier (banning Mega Sableye from being paired with any Pokemon on stall teams) this would not fly at all and was a huge step forward in Monotype becoming a legitimate official metagame. The main takeaway is that a Pokemon being broken on one playstyle or type means it is still broken within the entire scope of the tier.
Multiple examples of this can be seen in Pokemon such as Mega Medicham, Aegislash, and even items such as Terrain Extender. For context, these Pokemon were all topics that were considered broken in the metagame at some point in time because they were too strong for a singular type despite not providing as much harm to the metagame on another type. Mega Medicham in ORAS and SM was primarily looked at because it was too strong on Psychic teams, while Fighting in ORAS and SM Monotype was hardly good even with such as powerful Pokemon at its arsenal. Aegislash was considered too good on Steel teams in all generations, and despite not being as prevalent and threatening on Ghost the team support it provided to Steel was a completely valid reason for it to be tested and banned. Terrain Extender is probably the textbook example of an aspect of the metagame being banned because of the support it gave to a singular type because it is pretty much nuked in SM because of Electric teams, while it doesn't have a huge influence on any other type that uses terrain.
Some other examples of this include:
- Weather rocks (Smooth, Icy, Damp) are banned in Monotype formats because they're too good on one type to handle despite being available to the entire tier
- Latios being banned from BW because it made Psychic too strong while Dragon still suffered because of its susceptibility to weaknesses and hazards
- Chien-pao was looked at in early SV because of the influence it had on Dark while Ice was mediocre at best
- In the days where the Mega Evolution rule was flawed in ORAS, Mega Charizard X was banned because of its presence on Flying and was only recently freed when the Mega Evolution rule was corrected. This took place under a tiering philosophy that was flawed as Mega Evolutions being on a type that broke the same type clause but the main point still stands as it was considered broken after being looked at on a singular type (Mega Charizard X is now chilling on Fire)
- Mega Sableye is banned from ORAS Monotype because of the support it gave Dark with Tyranitar and Mandibuzz
In the end there has actually been a lot of things that were removed from the metagame just because they were too broken on one type. Hypothetically even if Gouging Fire was awful on Fire it is completely legit to ban it from the tier just because of its presence on Dragon.
The point in nerfing Dragon because of its offensive capabilities is definitely interesting, but I personally disagree with this due to how the type is in past generations.The burden of proof is not on the dnb side to suggest whether the mon is banworthy or not because we are not the ones attempting to change the status quo as per Tiering Policy but I, myself have stated that it's a mon I don't find myself prepping for or worrying about because Gouging is not the "strongest" pokemon on Dragon. What needs to change is reducing Dragon's offensive capabilities, not its defensive capabilities and while you're probably wondering "Gouging is offensive it sets up DD", Gouging is not a problem if it only has 1 or even 2 DDs. If you're prepping for Dragon in general, you will have counterplay to stop DD mons in general, not just specifically Gouging, whether that's Whirlwind
Dragon was notoriously a pretty cookie cutter offense type in past generations with the main takeaway from it being the fact that it lacked a good defensive backbone. This, alongside the lack of Heavy Duty Boots made it actually pretty hard to use it consistently up until SV hit. Nothing has really changed from its arsenal of offensive Pokemon too, like maybe Dragapult and Baxcalibur got added but the main issue of it being god awful defensively got solved with newer additions like Archaludon, Hisuian Goodra, and Gouging Fire, arguably being the main reason why it's now a top type. For reference, in past generations you didn't have good walls that could switch into the types Dragon is weak to since they all either lacked consistent recovery (Dragalge and Archaludon) or took Stealth Rock damage (Mega Altaria), a role that Gouging Fire now fulfills excellently. Dragon being mediocre because of the lack of good defensive synergy shows in its tournament usage in MPL where it fails to do anything notable in the generations up until SS and SV where it started gaining more sturdy defensive assets.
Preparing for Dragon offensively is actually one of the main ways that you could beat it in past generations because of the fact that it was just incredibly weak to super effective coverage, one of the main things that held it back tremendously as an offensive type. Yeah having 600 BST Pokemon are awesome on paper, but when you load into Moonblast / Ice Beam / Dragon Pulse and have to sack a Pokemon every other turn, things aren't so great for it in tournament play. Banning Gouging Fire would absolutely nerf Dragon to the point where it is healthy and balanced because you remove a key component for its consistency in the tier right now which is a Pokemon that walls its weaknesses and has access to reliable recovery. This is what really makes the type shine; you could remove other offensive Pokemon or defensive Pokemon but none would really tackle the issue as well as just removing Gouging Fire itself from the tier. Neither of Dragapult, Kyurem, Roaring Moon, or Latios are really unhealthy for the metagame; the closest thing to unhealthy next to Gouging Fire would be Baxcailbur but it's not the time to discuss it since it already had its moment on the chopping block. Archaludon and Hisuian Goodra do a lot for the type but neither have reliable recovery and are forced into running Leftovers which is a huge setback in a tier that's dominated by hazards.
I feel like the only reason why Gouging Fire is not problematic on Fire teams right now is literally just because Gouging Fire Dragon exists. It's great against virtually anything in the metagame especially given that Fire has access to sun and fuels its Protosynthesis. Specifically, it's awesome as a secondary Water neutrality and a Dragon answer. I don't see why you would run defensive Dragon Dance on Fire given that it doesn't need Gouging Fire's typing as much as Dragon does since Dragon is more bulky offense, but sets like offensive Dragon Dance, Morning Sun + 3 attacks, Choice Scarf, and Choice Band are all very effective combined with the sun boost. I guess you can experiment with some defensive Roar stuff but I digress. There are some calculations that show how incredibly strong offensive Gouging Fire is under sun. For example OHKOing Gliscor after Stealth Rock and 2HKOing Mandibuzz is nothing to laugh at given how bulky these Pokemon are.
Personally the main thing I've had to consider when loading Gouging Fire on Fire is the offchance that I will load into Gouging Fire Dragon. Otherwise it's pretty much fair game since you match up well against the rest of the metagame. Hearthflame Mask Ogerpon and Gouging Fire both do really well into Fire's weaknesses and both serve as reliable wincons. Gouging Fire in particular is really good at emergency checking things like Greninja and beating Dragon while being able to set up late game and wallbreak. The bottom line is it's unfair to call Fire an underwhelming type with Gouging Fire as it would be pretty great if only Dragon couldn't use it too. Ironically, Gouging Fire is the only Dragon Dance user that you can't check reliably with Fire outside of some niche Skeledirge stuff because Fire usually relies on burning them to get past them or using Fairy coverage on Hearthflame Mask Ogerpon, both of which Gouging Fire doesn't really care about. Hitting it with an extremely strong attack (Ivy Cudgel in sun against Baxcalibur for example) would work, but nothing is really strong enough to break through Gouging Fire's bulk with the best examples being random Earth Power users that fail to 2HKO it. With this being said, looking at Gouging Fire's impact on Fire proves the point even more that it is a constricting Pokemon in the current metagame and is why I personally feel strongly about it going.
At the end of the day it's completely okay to feel that Gouging Fire shouldn't be banned in the tier, but I wanted to reiterate some of the reasons why I feel that your argument has a lot of inconsistencies in your post in terms of the Monotype tiering philosophy and when looking at the how the tier is structured.
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