Is Steel Beam viable in competitive?

Steel Beam is a special steel type attack that does 160 damage but deals recoil by 50% what Pokemon are viable using it and is it even viable in comp.?

Pleaselog inorregisterto add a comment.

In the early Gen 8 OU metagame, suicide Stealth Rock lead Excadrill used it to stop Defoggers from removing its hazards. It wasn’t used to do damage, it was used for the recoil itself. Right now, it doesn’t see major viable use except on Magnezone. Steel is more of a defensive type, so losing 50% of a Pokemon’s HP is usually unwelcome in most cases. Most dual-type offensive steels like Magearna usually don’t use Steel type moves at all since there are much better options (Steel is a pretty bad offensive type, with only 3 types super-effective against it and 4 types which resist it, all of which are common in the metagame). Lets say a Magearna did for some reason run Steel Beam. However, that would basically be asking Heatran, Magearna, Assault Vest Melmetal, Excadrill, Corviknight, Cinderace, Slowbro, and Toxapex to switch in. One wrong prediction with Steel Beam and you’re pretty much screwed.

themodernage’s answer is good as always, but it’s a bit incomplete.

Steel Beam is a very bad move as a whole for competitive. If it has relative recoil (like in the case of Flare Blitz), it would’ve been tolerable. But 50% maximum HP is too much of a gamble, even with the high base power. Currently, Steel Beam is a move which is not a premier choice on usual builds, but it still has a few users.

Hope it helped.