>>53668784>muh statsHGSS Flygon is widely recognized as a high tier threat, not because of its stats, but because it has STAB outrage and draco to compliment U-turn in a meta where every dragon of its speed tier was banned including Latias. Offensively, Flygon was outclassed in gen 3 and the gap only grew wider in DP where it found a home in UU for half the generation.
>"But it's OU in gen 3"Keyword "offensively". Flygon is good in gen 3 because it easily switches into rock/ground coverage to pivot. Instead of competing with Salamence, it competes with its bulkier and more versatile rival, Claydol.
Let's look at another mediocre dragon in DP, physical Salamence. It's no secret that Salamence has 600 BST and strong offensive stat distribution, which attracted a lot of attention when it got physical dragon claw to convert off a dragon dance. The harsh reality was that physical Mence was easily stonewalled by Hippowdon, Gyarados if Mence ran fire blast over stone edge, and Skarmory/Tangrowth if Mence ran the reverse which was quite common back in the day. This was because dragon claw wasn't anywhere near as powerful as outrage. It's rival, Garchomp, did learn outrage, and the difference in damage output when using its dragon STAB without even using swords dance was night and day (and was later banned for multiple reasons other than its busted dragon STAB). As a result, Mence was forced to run specs for Draco Meteor spam, fire blast, and hydro pump for Heatran. You all know the story in Platinum and HGSS. It spammed outrage and draco until it got banned.
Do I need to mention how the Lati twins without draco become extremely easy to check because you're not preparing for two sets which are practically two entirely different pokemon? Well I mentioned it anyway.
The DS era would have been completely different without draco and buffed outrage. The only dragon that would have been banned to uber would have been gen 4 Garchomp.
