Is Steel Beam viable in competitive?

Question

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.?

Comments

Yes, but only for breakers and leads. Especially pokemon with a bit more limited movepool like magnezone or duraludon. The other mons it might be seen on is lead exacadrill. It has sash to gaurentee rocks, than steel beams to knock itself out so the opponent cant defog or rapid spin immeaditely. Other than that, most mons dont use it, and flash cannon or gyro ball/heavy slam/iron head is better

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Can it be used like belly drum with even hp and sitrus berries?

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I'm pretty sure Magnezone is the only viable steel beam user. I don't think there are any good steel Pokemon with high enough special attack and speed to use whatever Sitrus berry strategy that the Boi person was suggesting. You'll probably get a better answer by asking here: https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/simple-questions-simple-answers-thread.3656259/

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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.

• Suicide Leads: Probably the second-best example on the list. Suicide leads are Pokémon which are supposed to set up hazards and prevent the opponent from removing them. This is best achieved by a recoil move, or a self-KO move, such as Explosion. These moves are used for the intense damage for the chip, but mostly for the free pivot turn that the user gets. This prevents most hazard controllers from using Defog or Rapid Spin.
  This brings us to the Pokémon which used to run Steel Beam + hazards: Excadrill. Its usage in OU has fallen off as a whole, and it doesn't run Steel Beam in any other tier, too. Rock Tomb, usually, provides for better utility in the higher tiers such as AG and Ubers, where Yveltal and Ho-Oh are common Defog users. But in the last quarter of 2021, Steel Beam Excadrill was a good enough choice in SS OU, as outspeeding most Defog users and killing yourself on them gave the users' team immense momentum, as well as preventing hazard removal. It isn't used anymore now, because of newer Offences taking the metagame by storm.

• Niche Steel-types: Around the last quarter of 2020, Steel Beam was common on some niche Steel-types such as Magnezone and Aegislash. These Pokémon didn't use the move for benefitting from its recoil as such, it was for certain matchups where, along with Choice Specs, you could very well force a lot of switches and be a premier threat. Sets like this were common sights. They usually resorted to other STABs to dish extremely high damage, but when the situation called for it, Steel Beam was an extremely strong option, too. You could use Steel Beam when your HP was very low as a suicide move, too.

• The Loser's Game: In this Other Metagame, you win by losing! That is to say, the win condition is changed from knocking out all of your opponent's Pokemon to winning by knocking all of yours out first. Moves such as Memento are banned, so the Pokémon have to resort to Steel Beam, Black Sludge and other moves and items which drain away from your HP. In this metagame, Steel Beam is one of the best moves available, which can easily propel you to a win. Even a sample features Steel Beam spam, which is arguably the best method to win in The Loser's Game.
  In this replay, Steel Beam helped Lectrys to get the win condition and, eventually, win. Recoil is very useful here, and so Steel Beam's usage is truly justified.

Hope it helped.