Garchomp and Sand Veil Discussion

[complete legitimacy]

Here again to say that I am not in favor of the complex-ban of "Sand Veil+Sand Stream", but AM in favor of the complex ban of "Sand Veil+THE THINGS THAT ARE BROKEN WITH IT". Why this is such a hard thing to wrap our minds around? KurashiDragon put it well with his Magic Guard example, so everybody think about that.

We've already done what you've proposed. Its name is Garchomp. There's no need to make a complex ban just to save one Pokemon from going to Ubers. Otherwise we'd see Speed Boost + Blaziken and Sand Rush + Excadrill. We don't. The post you linked here is pretty simple too. It falls into the same category as the examples I just listed above. If Dragonite is broken with Magic Guard but nothing else with Magic Guard is broken, ban Dragonite. Simple as that.

Also, with a Sand Veil+Sand Stream ban, you're buffing rain even more than BW2 already did. People are talking about banning rain in the suspect thread at this moment, so do you all really want to take away something that lets sand attempt to face rain? Or are all your hearts set on banning rain next?

My proposal isn't banning what is broken, it's simply banning what is uncompetitive. It's similar to Moody, where it makes every game a crapshoot, but not truly "broken." Also, if that were to buff rain even more, which I highly doubt, then if rain was broken then it would be banned. You say "Why is this such a hard thing to wrap our minds around?", but there is literally no benefit other than nerfing an otherwise broken Pokemon, when it is extremely bad for policy and precedent.

 

[Pocket]

TL;DR: In discussing whether or not Sand Veil should be banned (or the extent to which the Evasion Clause should be extended), we much acknowledge that different players have different expectations about how much luck should affect the metagame. Instead of discussing whether or not it is "broken", perhaps we should discuss whether or not Sand Veil is, as an ability considered unto itself, a source of an unreasonable amount of luck.We should endeavour to reach some clear consensus as a community about how much luck is appropriate.

Thank you for your post, but I believe that we're past discussing whether or not Sand Veil is reasonable or unreasonable amount of luck. Apparently the OU council had deemed that Sand Veil hax is unreasonable, and that's why we have Garchomp being suspect tested right now.

So the purpose of this thread is discussing Garchomp's impact in the OU suspect metagame, NOT whether Sand Veil is reasonable / unreasonable amount of luck. OU council members plz correct me if my assumption is wrong.

I also support complex banning Sandstorm + Sand Veil - nerfing the viability of Pokemon like Cacturne is ridiculous. As complete legitimacy has so eloquently put remove the cancer; nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Pocket]

This is also not the place to talk about Snow Cloak - also Aldaron has addressed the Snow Cloak issue already

Just to clarify, I support suspecting Sand Veil because I think Sand Veil is potentially broken. I do not think Snow Cloak is potentially broken. They do similar, not the same, things. One boosts evasion in Sand, and one boosts evasions in Hail. Sand teams, in general, are far more effective than Hail teams, and this shouldn't be ignored.

So issues about complex banning ability + pokemon combinations and snow cloak as well are unfounded; I'm simply suspecting Sand Veil as a whole.

 

[Lavos]

Just finished battling in the practice tour. Got all the way to finals, too. Anyways, almost every team I played had a Garchomp, but none of them did particularly well in changing the course of the battle. The most commonly used set was Scarf, and it was a good scarfer, but not super-great. It basically does the same job as Landorus with a slight disadvantage because it can't U-Turn. The other set I saw, SD Chomp, also performed poorly, considering it was easily revenge-killed by half the Pokemon on my team.

I know it's early, but I would conclude from what I experienced today that Garchomp deserves to be OU again.

 

[Ambicrow3]

After playing in the tournament today, I can honestly say, though Garchomp is a fan favorite, it isn't that used. I played and got to the quarter-finals(gg lavos spawn) and I didn't see a single team that utilized garchomp, but they had counters to them. I find that the introduction to Rough Skin Garchomp will only change teams in sligt ways, and add another bulky dragon, since the only real "bulky" dragon at the moment(in my opinion) is dragonite(and kyreum?). So, all in all,it's just a bulky set-up dragon, who can't do much as it used to when it's stats were once considered "good".


~PS Sorry for so many quotations.

 

[PK Gaming]

Just finished battling in the practice tour. Got all the way to finals, too. Anyways, almost every team I played had a Garchomp, but none of them did particularly well in changing the course of the battle. The most commonly used set was Scarf, and it was a good scarfer, but not super-great. It basically does the same job as Landorus with a slight disadvantage because it can't U-Turn. The other set I saw, SD Chomp, also performed poorly, considering it was easily revenge-killed by half the Pokemon on my team.

I know it's early, but I would conclude from what I experienced today that Garchomp deserves to be OU again.

Agreed!

Garchomp's presence in the OU metagame is great... it actually makes the metagame, "better". It's a nice check to volturn, its a strong Jirachi check (saved my ass) and it's just a cool customer. Rough Skin is a pretty sweet ability on it (i like wearing down genesects ok)

I'm currently sing CB because it hits like a 10 ton truck, people don't see it coming and nothing outside of Skarmory (which needs to watch out for the occasional rain boosted aqua tail in the rain!) is safe.

<3 Chomp.

 

[Emeral]

Garchomp is a good pokemon but no decent. Choice scarf Garchomp is usefull to revenge kill common threats such as Tornadus/Thundurus-T, Genesect or Dnite but many pokemon can wall this set easily. It has a lot of counters and I don't find it to powerfull for OU. Pokemon such as Ferrothorn, Hippowdon, Skarmory, Gliscor and Lando-T can switch without problem against Scarfchomp. There are other pokemon like Mamoswine or breelom which will cause to garchomp hudge dammage with their powerfull priority move.
The second moveset is the Swords dancer. It's most of the time played with yachee berry or leftovers and it s very good cleaner in late game. Although it is easily stoppable because of its speed not enough high, this moveset can be decent against stall teams if the bronzong, Hippowdon or skarmory has fainted. It's why this pokemon is so interesting and very pleasant to play.

After this practice tour, I conclude that garchomp is a good pokemon but not enough powerfull to be banned from OU.

Edit: waw sorry I pushed 3 times send button...

 

[badabing]

Scarf is one of chomps best contributions to the metagame, and I'd hardly call it a slightly disadvantaged scarflando. I mean uturn is obviously huge on rkiller such as these for the switch momentum, picking off weakened mons without locking in, etc. (and the spikes immunity makes it a lot more maneuverable). But uh chomps dual stab with outrage gives it way more lategame sweeping potential than lando whose lone earthquake is often just exploitable rather than being a tool to sweep due to the myriad ground immunes of ou. Not ony that, chomp makes a better catchall rkiller as well, covering pretty much everything lando does, while also stuffing things like latias and bulky nite, and fitting on to a wider variety of teams since it doesn't rely on sand. Honestly I would expect chomp to easily be one of the top scarfers in ou.

 

[Pocket]

Deleted all posts talking about Snow Cloak, Complex bans, etc - they have NOTHING to do with the topic of this discussion thread.

pro-tip 1: We're NOT lumping Snow Cloak with Sand Veil, just how we treated Chlorophyll / Sand Rush differently from Swift Swim.

pro-tip 2: We're only banning Sand Veil, thus Garchomp was dropped down, since it was largely banned b/c of this ability. The OU council people deemed activated Sand Veil as undesirable to this metagame; thus the ban. Speed Boost or Sand Rush are NOT undesirable abilities; Blaziken and Excadrill were deemed OP pokemon, thus they were banned. End of story.

Expect infractions for idiots who still don't get it and submit the same dumb posts I just deleted.

Discuss about Garchomp's multiple niches or impact in the OU suspect meta.
Discuss about Garchomp's best sets and supporting Garchomp
Discuss creative use of Garchomp
Discuss about Garchomp

 

[Alice]

There's a small niche for rough skin regarding sub-chomp, and that's it can break dragonite's multiscale while tanking a hit with sub, and KO'ing back in return without any kind of hassle :P

 

[UltiMario]

Might want to test stuff before making claims because I'm like 90% sure Rough Skin doesn't activate when Chomp has a sub up. That's how it works in-game, at least.

 

[kd24]

i was completely unimpressed by garchomp today. i think every team carried it and i dont know if it was from over preparation or just how the metagame has adapted but nearly every game i saw had chomp just ... be a non-threat. scarf sets were pretty much the most common from what i saw, but in this day and age, there are too many threats like landorus that you need to worry about covering to just up and forget about garchomp. genesect was on almost every team that wasnt sun and it really fucks up chomp with ice beam. theres a certain relief players have when they know they wont miss their important attacks vs chomp and what i saw ended up happening was chomp just got walled by teams, or simply another offensive mon in the war to beat their 6. i definitely wasnt seeing anyone trying to "plan a win" with chomp.

i did see some bad players though who apparently thought switching your only steel-type into chomp right away is a good idea and i was glad they got punished for it. other than that tho...yeah, times have changed.

 

[Tobes]

We all know ladder scores don't mean shit but I got to #3 on the suspect ladder earlier today so I figure I'm sort of obliged to give my insights now. I'm yet another person who thinks Garchomp is completely fine in the OU environment; I even think its presence is healthy for the metagame, checking an assortment of threats with Choice Scarf or VoltTurn with Rough Skin. I haven't felt it was overpowering in the slightest when I was using it or when it was used against me. It's an excellent Pokemon, but that's "it", oxymoronic as that might sound. It doesn't create skill imbalances and fits perfectly into the metagame. "OU" sums it up perfectly.

 

[Prinz]

Garchomp...yea, it is a very broken pokemon for a series of reasons which I'ill explain:
1) What are your switch ins to garchomp? Skarmory? Bronzong? If yes, skarmory takes 43.1% - 50.9% from outrage of life orb garchomp at +2 and 62.9% - 731.3% from fire fang (always at +2) and with what affects garchomp? Brave bird is a 31.3% - 37.2% and facilitates the 2HKO, lol. Whirlwind? Garchomp takes only 6,25% from Stealth Rock. It isn't salamence.
Sassy Bronzong Max/Max another lolcounter takes 53.8% - 63.3% from outrage and 78.1% - 92.3% from fire fang. It can hit garchomp with hp ice but it's a 53.6% - 63.7% without Yache Berry and 26.8% - 31.8% with.
2) Also, garchomp is a good Pokemon (as mentioned above) in any kind of team. In a sunny team it has a strong fire fang, in a rain it has aqua tail (and a immunity to Electric).
In short, with or without Garchomp should remain in the uber tier (high speed, versatility, monstrous bulk for a sweeper about the same bulk as Swampert, excellent stabs, the ability to boost its already sky high attack), but let's see.

EDIT: Ok, now it's more correct, I wrote everything very quickly.

 

[Bl1tzkri3g]

I haven't tried either Scarfchomp or SD chomp because everyone on the suspect ladder is going to have a counter and two checks, so both would be pretty easily stopped. Instead, i ran Rocky Helmet Chomp with Rocks, and i have to say, it was excellent. Chomp's often overlooked bulk, which is superior to Swampert's, allows it to tank hits, deal chip damage with rough skin, and then hit hard with Garchomp's infamous attack power, even uninvested. Here's the set i used:

@ Rocky Helmet
Trait: Rough Skin
Nature: Careful (+SpD, -SpD)
Evs: 252 Hp/ 124 Def/ 116 SpD/ 20 Spe

• Stealth Rock
• Dragon Tail
• Earthquake
• Fire Fang

The Ev's balance his defenses, with 20 Ev's in speed to reach 245 to speed creep every poke who sits at 244 to outspeed Tar. I may give him more of a Physical slant so he can tank hits better and have more oppertunities to rack up rough skin damage. Rocks are rocks, if you have them somewhere else on your team you don't need them, but Chomp forces enough switches to get a lot of oppertunities to set them. Dragon Tail is for phasing, and racks up more residual damage with rocks. Earthquake is STAB, even uninvested chomp hits hard. Fire Fang cause i run this in sun, and the coverage is nice; you can change it to whatever you want, maybe Aqua Tail in rain, or Rest if you have cleric support.

 

[EonX]

I think the problem facing Garchomp now is it can't rely on Sand Veil to create a miss. Right now, I've noticed a glaring problem for Garchomp; its stats. Now, before you bash me, let me elaborate. Take a look at Garchomp's stats. Sure, there's no "weak" stat except for maybe its base 80 Special Attack, but when you have a base 130 Attack stat, that doesn't really matter. However, there is also no truly specialized stat which leads to it pretty much getting outclassed at everything it would want to do.

So, you want to run Band Garchomp. Ok, it'll hit like a truck, but Haxorus will hit significantly harder with base 147 Attack. What's that? Garchomp's faster? Ok, then there's Dragonite with base 134 Attack and ESpeed to double as a revenge killer.

So, you want to run a boosting set with SD. Sorry to say that you really need to boost your Speed in this metagame to sweep. Dragonite has DD. Salamence has DD. Even Haxorus has DD. All have sufficient Attack after a boost to sweep and only Scarfers and priority users revenge them. With Garchomp, you double your Attack. That's great...too bad a Specs Latios just came in and naturally outspeeds every other Dragon in the tier. If you had used DD, you could outspeed it. But Garchomp doesn't have DD. Oh, you want to combine SD with Sub? Dragonite still competes with you thanks to its SubDD set where it also packs recovery and Multiscale.

Ok, surely Scarf Garchomp isn't outclassed, right? It isn't Pursuit bait like Latios and has base 102 Speed. Sure, it's faster than every Dragon besides Lati@s, but it also doesn't have Moxie like Salamence does. Salamence is fast enough to be an effective Scarfer and it's much more effective at cleaning up late-game thanks to Moxie. Then there's Landorus-I in the Sand who has stronger Earthquakes to clean up with and a base 101 Speed to outrun boosted base 100s, a feat Garchomp prides itself on. Seems to me that Ground typing of Garchomp's is betraying it.

Wait, wait, wait. What about defensive Garchomp? Well, Dragonite takes Special hits better and also has Dragon Tail to trump Garchomp. That beautiful sub-typing of Ground that gives Garchomp great dual STABs now betrays it since Landorus-T can take physical hits more easily thanks to Intimidate and it has a better typing to take physical hits. Lando-T even has SR if that's what you want to use defensive Chomp for. Sure, Garchomp has Speed over both, but Dnite runs T-Wave on its defensive sets while Lando-T doesn't care about being outsped by physical attackers since Intimidate will force most them out anyway.

Can Garchomp perform all of these roles effectively? Yes, of course it can. The problem is, it's kind of like the Dragon type version of Mew now. Sure, it can do Band, boosting, Scarf, and defensive, but in every case, there's something that has more specialized stats and ability for that role. All of this combines to make it a very good Poke, but not a game-breaking one as its stats don't allow it to specialize in anything when compared to its fellow Dragons (and Ground types for that matter)

 

[kd24]

you might get blasted for that but i agree with almost everything you just said. however i do think band chomps way better than haxorus and i dont think defensive chomp is outclassed by dnite (they are 2 totally different kinds of defensive play), but other than that, a ton of stuff improved this gen like scarfmence because of moxie, and i dont really fear chomp as the best pokemon anymore, especially when it has no luck factor going for it. like i said, its kind of just another sweeper or pokemon that you have to contend with and i think it has some serious flaws, not the something where you go well fuck im proly going to lose if this guys good/lucky.

 

[Fantom0]

I think you've really got to look at how Garchomp performs in terms of the metagame - its Ground/Dragon typing allow it to take on Sun and Sand really well; Salamence and Dragonite have trouble taking on Sun between Sun boosted attacks and their weakness to Stealth Rock, and a lot of popular sand abusers (like Landorus in particular) carry Stone Edge (and outspeed in the case of Landorus-I) to hit them with. Of course, the counter to this is that Garchomp is hit by Earthquake and has no recovery, but this brings me to an important point, which is that maybe Garchomp cannot be compared to other Dragons/Landorus, since it has that unique Ground/Dragon typing, it has that 102 base speed, but it also has comparatively middling stats and no recovery. You just can't say that Garchomp is a Salamence or Dragonite rival.

 

[G-Von]

Looking at Garchomp along with the rest of the dragon-type pokemon, I have come to a conclusion that Rough Skin Garchomp is still bordering on being broken. I have noticed a few people have given its movepool a positive review saying things like it matches up with him very well and things along those lines. I am here to disagree with that.

Take a closer look at its physical movepool. It is filled with nothing but Dragon and Ground attacks. Some may say that is all he needs, however, it could realistically be much better. It cannot learn Fire Punch and it's best fire move is Fire Fang. Fire Fang, before a SD boost, is a 3HKO on Ferrothorn after leftovers. It is a stronger option against any pokemon that is 4X weak to it, Skarmory, and most Bronzong. That is pretty good, but I think another pokemon on a team should be better suited for those threats.

Lets take a look at his fighting moves. Brick Break. It literally hits 2 OU-viable pokemon harder than his 2 STAB attacks, which are Tyranitar and Bisharp. Bisharp isn't around that much at all and there are many other ways to deal with T-tar. I'm convinced GF didn't want Garchomp to learn Superpower through the Move Tutor simply because they did not want it to be overpowered. Talking about GF not wanting Garchomp to be overpowered, I guess they gave him two left feet since he can't learn Dragon Dance. Garchomp would be Uber with Dragon Dance and any ability aside from Truant.

In the end, I feel as though it is Garchomp's less-than-sufficient movepool keeps him not broken instead of saying "taking Sand Veil out and putting Rough Skin in makes Garchomp not broken".

 

[Kibago]

I've done some suspect (rating of 1660) and Garchomp without SV is "potent but not broken" to face. his speed just isn't what it used to be. use Scarfchomp and you lose a ton of power (he's weak by the standards of a game with Moxiemence) and STILL get outsped by multiple semi-common Scarfers. if you use ANYTHING except Scarf, most teams should have multiple pokemon who can outrace you without needing to alter their existing movesets at all.

Sand Veil used to turn Substitute into a "click this repeatedly, have a decent chance at auto-win" button. now there isn't even that much you can Sub on - not any differently than any other potent attacker, anyway.

in short, he's now really good but not centralizing. he reminds me of Salamence - people know it's a quality pokemon, but how many choose to guarantee themselves a check with an Ice Shard Mamoswine? he's just 'a' threat on the list.

(and i love two-stage bans that increase viability. being 2-stage is not a valid criticism in itself. making a successful pokemon team requires the examination of natures, EVs, tier/threat lists, hidden power types, damage calculations, common speeds...is "you can't put Sand Veil on your Garchomp" really that 'complex?' is that too much to learn/remember?)

 

[Wizarus]

I think the problem facing Garchomp now is it can't rely on Sand Veil to create a miss. Right now, I've noticed a glaring problem for Garchomp; its stats. Now, before you bash me, let me elaborate. Take a look at Garchomp's stats. Sure, there's no "weak" stat except for maybe its base 80 Special Attack, but when you have a base 130 Attack stat, that doesn't really matter. However, there is also no truly specialized stat which leads to it pretty much getting outclassed at everything it would want to do.

So, you want to run Band Garchomp. Ok, it'll hit like a truck, but Haxorus will hit significantly harder with base 147 Attack. What's that? Garchomp's faster? Ok, then there's Dragonite with base 134 Attack and ESpeed to double as a revenge killer.

So, you want to run a boosting set with SD. Sorry to say that you really need to boost your Speed in this metagame to sweep. Dragonite has DD. Salamence has DD. Even Haxorus has DD. All have sufficient Attack after a boost to sweep and only Scarfers and priority users revenge them. With Garchomp, you double your Attack. That's great...too bad a Specs Latios just came in and naturally outspeeds every other Dragon in the tier. If you had used DD, you could outspeed it. But Garchomp doesn't have DD. Oh, you want to combine SD with Sub? Dragonite still competes with you thanks to its SubDD set where it also packs recovery and Multiscale.

Ok, surely Scarf Garchomp isn't outclassed, right? It isn't Pursuit bait like Latios and has base 102 Speed. Sure, it's faster than every Dragon besides Lati@s, but it also doesn't have Moxie like Salamence does. Salamence is fast enough to be an effective Scarfer and it's much more effective at cleaning up late-game thanks to Moxie. Then there's Landorus-I in the Sand who has stronger Earthquakes to clean up with and a base 101 Speed to outrun boosted base 100s, a feat Garchomp prides itself on. Seems to me that Ground typing of Garchomp's is betraying it.

Wait, wait, wait. What about defensive Garchomp? Well, Dragonite takes Special hits better and also has Dragon Tail to trump Garchomp. That beautiful sub-typing of Ground that gives Garchomp great dual STABs now betrays it since Landorus-T can take physical hits more easily thanks to Intimidate and it has a better typing to take physical hits. Lando-T even has SR if that's what you want to use defensive Chomp for. Sure, Garchomp has Speed over both, but Dnite runs T-Wave on its defensive sets while Lando-T doesn't care about being outsped by physical attackers since Intimidate will force most them out anyway.

Can Garchomp perform all of these roles effectively? Yes, of course it can. The problem is, it's kind of like the Dragon type version of Mew now. Sure, it can do Band, boosting, Scarf, and defensive, but in every case, there's something that has more specialized stats and ability for that role. All of this combines to make it a very good Poke, but not a game-breaking one as its stats don't allow it to specialize in anything when compared to its fellow Dragons (and Ground types for that matter)

Choice Scarf Chomp isn't outclassed at all. It gets better neutral coverage then Landorus(having STAB Outrage/Dragon Claw with the option of STAB Earthquake is SO much better late-game), and doesn't rely on speed ties to outspeed Volcanora, Legend 100s, opposing Mence/Landorus, and Thundurus-T. It's not SR weak like Mence - it resists SR. Its also bulkier then both of them.

Adamant 252/252 Focus Sash Mamoswine's Ice Shard vs 4/0 Garchomp - (84.91 - 100.55%) -- 43.75% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

 

[EonX]

I think you've really got to look at how Garchomp performs in terms of the metagame - its Ground/Dragon typing allow it to take on Sun and Sand really well; Salamence and Dragonite have trouble taking on Sun between Sun boosted attacks and their weakness to Stealth Rock, and a lot of popular sand abusers (like Landorus in particular) carry Stone Edge (and outspeed in the case of Landorus-I) to hit them with. Of course, the counter to this is that Garchomp is hit by Earthquake and has no recovery, but this brings me to an important point, which is that maybe Garchomp cannot be compared to other Dragons/Landorus, since it has that unique Ground/Dragon typing, it has that 102 base speed, but it also has comparatively middling stats and no recovery. You just can't say that Garchomp is a Salamence or Dragonite rival.

I'll give you the lack of SR weakness as that can be kind of big. However, I kind of do view Garchomp's main rivals as physical Dragons (Salamence, Dragonite, and Haxorus) since all 4 can run band, 3 can run Scarf, and all 4 can effectively use boosting moves. They generally compete for similar roles. Yes, Garchomp has that great Ground/Dragon typing that gives it great STABs. I'm not taking that away from it (I'd question my own sanity if I did tbh) however that is also a double-edged sword. It's now hit neutrally by Water moves, meaning it has an effective Water weakness in Rain. Fighting is one of the more common offensive types in the tier and Garchomp is hit neutrally by them. Haxorus is hit neutrally as well, but its pure Dragon typing still lets it resist Water. Chomp also lacks the specialized stats and abilities of each as all 3 have a better ability on average than Garchomp. Dragonite has Multiscale. Yes, SR screws it up, but you have Roost to reactivate it should you choose to run Roost. With Multiscale, Dnite doesn't need a Yache Berry to survive Ice moves like Garchomp does. Dnite has ESpeed to make up for its lower Speed and a slightly higher base Attack stat than Garchomp. Their defenses are very comparable. Dnite has 91 / 95 / 100 defenses while Chomp has 108 / 95 / 85 defenses. With Multiscale, Dragonite makes better use of that bulk than Chomp can on average.

Then there's Salamence. Salamence is basically the best Dragon type Scarfer thanks to its ability, Moxie. Garchomp doesn't have this awesome ability and which side of the spectrum does Salamence hit on with its Scarf set? That's right, the physical end, the same end as Garchomp. Salamence has a much higher Special Attack that allows it to do much, much more with Fire Blast than Chomp can hope to do. Ergo, Salamence has the more balanced stats and better ability for a Scarfer. Sure, it can't outspeed Lando-I like Chomp can, but you should have an answer to faster Scarfers when using Salamence anyway.

Now to Haxorus. It's arguably better with Choice sets than Chomp is since it has an ability that actually makes a difference. It has Mold Breaker. What does this mean? That same Rotom-W, or Gengar, or Bronzong that is forcing Garchomp to use Outrage or switch out instead of using EQ can't do the same thing to Haxorus. With Mold Breaker, Haxorus bypasses these Levitate users with EQ, meaning he can't get revenge killed by Ice Shard users or priority users in general as easily as Chomp can. Sure, Chomp gets STAB on EQ. That's great. You're still forced into Outrage against Levitate users and Skarmory still walls you to hell and back. Speaking of Skarm, Dnite, Mence, and Haxorus all have ways to bypass it. Dnite and Mence have the Special Attack stat to run Fire Blast while Haxorus has the raw power with rain boosted Aqua Tail to get past. (Band set only for the latter)

Finally, there's the boosting issue. Mence, Dnite, and Haxorus all get Dragon Dance. This means that they are boosting physical attackers. Chomp gets Swords Dance. This means that he's a boosting physical attacker. Unlikes the other 3, Chomp can't boost his Speed without a Scarf, meaning its sweep will get cut short much more easily than the other 3. Even your argument with Landorus-I revenging Dnite and Mence with Stone Edge isn't fully true since Dragonite can easily use ESpeed to bypass the faster threat and take it out should it be weakened enough. Like with ScarfMence, you should have ways to eliminate faster threats if you want to sweep with DD Dragonite.

Salamence and Dragonite are perfectly viable Pokemon to compare Garchomp to. All 3 are primarily physical attackers and generally want to do similar things, thus meaning that they compete for the same team slots. Of course Chomp is a good Poke. Yes, you need to prepare for it. Yes, it's powerful. But if you prepare efficiently for other physical Dragons, you'll be ready for Garchomp.

Edit @ above: Sash Mamo... LO Mamo is generally more common in my experience. Jolly LO Mamo does 100.55% - 118.43% to the same Scarf Garchomp. So, more bulk or not, Chomp still gets OHKOed by the most common Mamo set. The rest is valid, but don't forget Lando-I gets a boost to Stone Edge in Sand. EdgeQuake is a fine combo to have available to you as a Scarfer.

 

[PK Gaming]

I think the problem facing Garchomp now is it can't rely on Sand Veil to create a miss. Right now, I've noticed a glaring problem for Garchomp; its stats. Now, before you bash me, let me elaborate. Take a look at Garchomp's stats. Sure, there's no "weak" stat except for maybe its base 80 Special Attack, but when you have a base 130 Attack stat, that doesn't really matter. However, there is also no truly specialized stat which leads to it pretty much getting outclassed at everything it would want to do.

I disagree. Garchomp is unique in that it has incredible offensive stats (130 atk / 102 speed) but fantastic defensive stats as well (108 / 95 / 80). It's actually the bulkiest Dragon-type in the tier, outside of abilities/typing/etc. The fact that it can act as an offensive juggernaut and survive pretty ANY neutral hit in the game are some of the reasons to use Garchomp.

So, you want to run Band Garchomp. Ok, it'll hit like a truck, but Haxorus will hit significantly harder with base 147 Attack. What's that? Garchomp's faster? Ok, then there's Dragonite with base 134 Attack and ESpeed to double as a revenge killer.

I don't like how you're oversimplifying things. There are loads of reason why you would want to use CB Garchomp over CB Haxorus / Dragonite. To be specific, higher speed, better bulk and a significantly better offensive & defensive typing over the former and lack of SR weak (chomp can switch in multiple times) / higher speed / better secondary STAB over the latter. It's also t-wave immune so things like Ferrothorn can't render it useless. I'd say the decision to use any of the CB dragons is mainly team dependant but... I actually consider CB Garchomp to be better than Haxorus on average.

So, you want to run a boosting set with SD. Sorry to say that you really need to boost your Speed in this metagame to sweep. Dragonite has DD. Salamence has DD. Even Haxorus has DD. All have sufficient Attack after a boost to sweep and only Scarfers and priority users revenge them. With Garchomp, you double your Attack. That's great...too bad a Specs Latios just came in and naturally outspeeds every other Dragon in the tier. If you had used DD, you could outspeed it. But Garchomp doesn't have DD. Oh, you want to combine SD with Sub? Dragonite still competes with you thanks to its SubDD set where it also packs recovery and Multiscale.

I agree, but not for the reasons you listed. Dragon's can't run boosting sets as well as they used to because of Genesect. Haxorus' Dragon Dance set is garbage in BW2. Dragonite's is ok, but nowhere near as good as it used to, Salamence is still solid. Swords Dance Garchomp is fine, it pretty much destroys every single wall in the tier outside of Skarmory, which is goddamn amazing when you take into account how less prevalent Skarmory is (though when chomp gets unbanned it'll probably shoot back up into usage). There's no point in comparing DD to SD because they do different things.

Ok, surely Scarf Garchomp isn't outclassed, right? It isn't Pursuit bait like Latios and has base 102 Speed. Sure, it's faster than every Dragon besides Lati@s, but it also doesn't have Moxie like Salamence does. Salamence is fast enough to be an effective Scarfer and it's much more effective at cleaning up late-game thanks to Moxie. Then there's Landorus-I in the Sand who has stronger Earthquakes to clean up with and a base 101 Speed to outrun boosted base 100s, a feat Garchomp prides itself on. Seems to me that Ground typing of Garchomp's is betraying it.

Scarf Garchomp is good because of that fact it can outspeed Scarf Salamence / Landorus (as well Genesect) and act as a check for most of the tier. It's a better revenge killer than Salamence because it can switch into battle multiple times, whereas Mence is a better cleaner.

Wait, wait, wait. What about defensive Garchomp? Well, Dragonite takes Special hits better and also has Dragon Tail to trump Garchomp. That beautiful sub-typing of Ground that gives Garchomp great dual STABs now betrays it since Landorus-T can take physical hits more easily thanks to Intimidate and it has a better typing to take physical hits. Lando-T even has SR if that's what you want to use defensive Chomp for. Sure, Garchomp has Speed over both, but Dnite runs T-Wave on its defensive sets while Lando-T doesn't care about being outsped by physical attackers since Intimidate will force most them out anyway.

Again, apples to oranges. The Pokemon you listed aren't comparable to Garchomp, and they do different things. Tank chomp is actually pretty freaking sweet, and it can really mess up physical contact users if its running a Rocky Helm.

Can Garchomp perform all of these roles effectively? Yes, of course it can. The problem is, it's kind of like the Dragon type version of Mew now. Sure, it can do Band, boosting, Scarf, and defensive, but in every case, there's something that has more specialized stats and ability for that role. All of this combines to make it a very good Poke, but not a game-breaking one as its stats don't allow it to specialize in anything when compared to its fellow Dragons (and Ground types for that matter)

Garchomp isn't as much of a generalist as you make him out to be. He's still capable of doing "everything" well. He known as the "king of all dragons" in DPP / early BW for a reason.

 

[NATdude]

An important thing to remember is that Garchomp is being let back into OU to not be over-centralized. Carrying 4-5 ice type attacks and 2 physical walls won't let you properly judge whether or not chomp is OU material.

That being said, I feel like chomp is viable in OU. He resist no priority moves, many new pokemon out speed and ca OHKO or 2HKO Chomp while taking very little damage in return. Even Ferrothorn walls chomp if it doesn't have Fire Blast/ Fire Fang.

 

[Pocket]

From what I've seen in the OU suspect ladder, Garchomp is pretty ordinary - nothing particularly stands out from other lethal physical Sweepers like Terrakion, Salamence, and Dragonite. BW OU has done well in preparing us with the behemoth that is Garchomp.

Rather than broken, I believe Garchomp is an overall positive influence in the current OU meta. Garchomp's ability to fill so many roles fantastically makes it a top dog in OU. It's certainly a big asset to heavy offensive teams, where they like to double / triple up on their offenses.

Garchomp & Terrakion seems like a powerful offensive core. Garchomp can either wallbreak with SD or CB, while Terrakion can revenge kill with Scarf or clean up with a Rock Polish set. Or they can swap roles - CB or SubSD Terrakion can wallbreak while Garchomp can clean up with either Scarf or SubSalac.

What I find interesting is why people are so reluctant in coupling Swords Dance with Outrage on Garchomp. It's like they are convinced that STAB EQ is a replacement for Outrage, and that's so far from the truth. I've seen so many SD Garchomps fail because it can't hit hard enough with Dragon Claw / EQ. Outrage is great mid-game for wall-breaking purposes, as well as for late-game sweeping purposes. In short, Outrage is just as effective on Garchomp as in other dragons, and to not use it is a waste of Garchomp's potential imo.