np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 6 - Enter Sandman

[tehy]

Stall is threatened at all by all versions of garchomp, because skarmory can take half of its life and phaze it, which makes it really hard to wall it again, especially if it whirlwinds in something that forces it out. Now, you can predict the second SD, and i have. But that doesn't mean it's not threatening.

And since when does rain stall run skarmory? Another reason that why would you ever run aqua tail over fire fang... unless you provide rain yourself. You now get ferro as a check, and you only beat skarmory and bronzong harder, and only if it's in rain.

And if you need any kind of cred, i've used skarm basically since the start of BW.

 

[dragonuser]

Don't forget that Garchomp also learns Fire Blast as well. I had a lot of success using a Yache Berry SD set with Swords Dance / Outrage, Dragon Claw / Earthquake / Fire Blast. This set had a very easy time tearing apart any Stall teams I faced, with the one exception being Rain Stall with Skarmory. When paired with Sand this set was very difficult for Stall to beat, because if they missed their phasing move once it was usually game. I just wanted to note that stall does have to worry about Garchomp, and Sand Veil can even make their checks to Garchomp a risky and unreliable solution.

 

[Ghostbone]

Stall isn't threatened at all by any version of Garchomp, because Skarmory wals it hardcore. Even YacheChomp, or SD + 3 attacks as I prefer to call it, is not a guaranteed 2HKO on Skarmory, doing between 48.5% - 57.49% per hit. If it's Chomp v. Rain Stall, then obviously Skarm's not going to be threatened by Fire Fang at all (another case for using Aqua Tail imo). I don't know what SD Chomp really threatens, to be honest...every team I've ever made has some way or another of handling it. No reason for the Rough Skin version to not be OU. Sand Veil, of course, is a much different story.

Some calcs that might interest you.
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Fire Fang vs 252 HP/252 Def Skarmory: 63.47% - 74.25%
That's an easy 2HKO, unless Skarmory is in rain obviously, but if Garchomp is being run on a sand/sun team....
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Fire Fang vs 252 HP/252 Def Skarmory: 94.61% - 110.78% (in sun)
Yea, ouch.

252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Aqua Tail vs 252 HP/252 Def Skarmory: 64.97% - 76.65% (in rain)
Rain stall skarmory can't handle chomp either... (I've been running Chomp on a rain team and it does wonders with Pseudo-STAB aqua tail)

252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Outrage vs 252 HP/252 Def Skarmory: 43.11% - 50.9%
That's a possible 2HKO after stealth rocks btw.

So we have the sturdiest physical wall in the game easily falling to chomp, great counter? (skarmory normally runs 232 def anyway, so it's taking the attacks slightly worse than that).
Forretress gets easily 2HKO'd by +2 EQ while failing to do anything significant back.
0 SpAtk Forretress Hidden Power Ice vs 4 HP/0 SpDef Garchomp: 43.58% - 51.4%
92 SpAtk Forretress Hidden Power Ice vs 4 HP/0 SpDef Garchomp: 50.28% - 59.22%
That's a lot of wasted EVs to get the 2HKO >.>

252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Earthquake vs 252 HP/88 Def Ferrothorn: 81.25% - 95.45%
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Fire Fang vs 252 HP/88 Def Ferrothorn: 140.91% - 165.91%
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Earthquake vs 252 HP/252 Def Ferrothorn: 71.88% - 84.38%
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Fire Fang vs 252 HP/252 Def Ferrothorn: 125% - 147.73%

Ferrothorn isn't at all taking on chomp either, specially defensive sets lose even worse.
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Earthquake vs 252 HP/4 Def Ferrothorn: 95.45% - 111.93%


Even if you succeed in getting chomp to get himself locked into outrage....

252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Outrage vs 252 HP/4 Def Heatran: 62.44% - 73.58%
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Outrage vs 252 HP/4 Def Jirachi: 62.87% - 74.01%
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Outrage vs 252 HP/88 Def Ferrothorn: 48.58% - 57.1%
(likely 2HKO after rocks.....assumign ferro is completely healthy)
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Outrage vs 252 HP/252 Def Ferrothorn: 43.18% - 50.85%
Takes it the best, but has no reliable recovery......


And just for fun
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Outrage vs 252 HP/252 Def Tangrowth: 77.48% - 91.58%
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Outrage vs 252 HP/252 Def Slowbro: 87.06% - 102.79%
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Aqua Tail vs 252 HP/252 Def Hippowdon: 78.1% - 91.9%
252 +2 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Earthquake vs 252 HP/252 Def Hippowdon: 65% - 76.43%


So basically, stall has nothing that can take a hit from chomp, that's just plain to see.

 

[FrostFire]

I was reading through the comments of Skarmory V. Garchomp, and felt the need to chime in. This is mainly because of the whole, 'Garchomp can 2HKO Skarm with +2 Fire Fang/ rain-boosted Aqua tail (w/e)'. But thing is guys, I have never seen a Garchomp that runs SD + 3 Attacks. And I ladder a lot. I mean, maybe I was just ridiculously (lucky?), but I never saw it. I saw a lot of Scarf Chomp. I saw a lot of Sub SD Chomp (with no Fire Fang, for obvious reasons). But never some kind of Swords Dance, D-Claw/Outrage, Earthquake, Fire Fang set. I just don't think you guys are doing Skarmory justice; I mean, maybe it's just by some random fluke that I haven't seen an SD + 3 Attacks Chomp. But, if Skarmory hard-walls Chomp's most common sets, then surely you can't say that 'Stall can't handle Garchomp'. (I feel particularly annoyed by this comment, seeing as I made voting reqs using a semi-stall team, so I know that this claim is just silly).

Hm.

 

[Ghostbone]

Skarm can handle one variant of chomp (which by far is the most common but whatever).
It can't handle another....and neither can anything else. I don't see the problem in stating that stall can't handle chomp when one perfectly viable and effective set wrecks it.

 

[Myzozoa]

I was reading through the comments of Skarmory V. Garchomp, and felt the need to chime in. This is mainly because of the whole, 'Garchomp can 2HKO Skarm with +2 Fire Fang/ rain-boosted Aqua tail (w/e)'. But thing is guys, I have never seen a Garchomp that runs SD + 3 Attacks. And I ladder a lot. I mean, maybe I was just ridiculously (lucky?), but I never saw it. I saw a lot of Scarf Chomp. I saw a lot of Sub SD Chomp (with no Fire Fang, for obvious reasons). But never some kind of Swords Dance, D-Claw/Outrage, Earthquake, Fire Fang set. I just don't think you guys are doing Skarmory justice; I mean, maybe it's just by some random fluke that I haven't seen an SD + 3 Attacks Chomp. But, if Skarmory hard-walls Chomp's most common sets, then surely you can't say that 'Stall can't handle Garchomp'. (I feel particularly annoyed by this comment, seeing as I made voting reqs using a semi-stall team, so I know that this claim is just silly).

Hm.

Basically this, there is what is possible for a pokemon to do, and then what a pokemon actually does. Chomp basically never has a life orb from what I've seen, and if it does then there it's actually easier to manage than yache or haban. Sure, stall might not be able to handle chomp, but if that's the case you better start banning the laundry list of pokemon that stall has even more trouble with. It is 'accepted' these days that stall teams should have revenge killers, and every common revenge killer except cb scizor manages LO chomp just fine.

 

[yee]

A lot of BW2 threats, like Garchomp, can almost guarantee taking out one member of a stall team if they go all-out offensive. Haxorus, Thund-T, and Terrakion are actually better at doing this. They're all really good at beating you if you give them free turns, and if they run a specialized set, but in Garchomp's case Yache SD is most universally useful which a tough stall can deal with rather easily on its own. It'll have to eat a Toxic / Leech Seed / Ice move / WoW trying to set up unless they make a risky prediction to double it in on Heatran or something, in which case you can still easily check with stuff like Glisc / Quag or Whirlwind with Skarm if you need to. Tangrowth isn't even 2HKOed at +2 if it doesn't have Outrage so you can seed it and then go to Quag / Skarm or start HP Iceing. If it tries to lead against Heatran it's not going to do lasting damage anyway if you have walls.

Life Orb sets will mostly run through stall so if you're worried someone would run that (it's only needed for wallbreaking and is less useful against offense by far, which is way more common) you can just hold off on sending out Tran for a bit and begin your game plan with things that can prevent Chomp from setting up, until you have T spikes or have worn it down. It might be a longer game but you're running a stall team. You might have to lose one pokemon to take out another but it is a pokemon game.

If you're going to argue that a properly played stall team loses to Chomp you have to at least mention the things like SD Haxorus / NP Thund-T that it really does have no hope against.

 

[Iconic]

the voting thread is now up!

i think that all badged members have posting access to the Blind Voting forum, so if you're unbadged, you have to join the "Blind Voting Access" group here. just request to join the usergroup (ONLY IF YOU HAVE QUALIFIED TO VOTE), and i will approve you

edit from voting thread: Also if you have voted in four BW Suspect Tests, you are eligible for the Tiering Contributor badge. Please PM me with links to all of your BW votes (even if it exceeds 4), and I will process them all.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

I like the multiple voting options. It seems the council took an interest in the different types of bans, both complex and blanket, that were discussed.

 

[MMII]

Should we ignore the possible team mates a Chomp team can use? I honestly don't know if we should or not since it isn't part of Garchomp himself and we could just end up be arguing team A vs team B. At the same time, people are sure to be using said combo(s) so how can we ignore it? Are trappers exceptions since they just take half decent play to do their job?

Anyways, the guy I want to bring up is Magnezone. Commonly seen paired with dragons to take out steels like Skarmory. Garchomp may just seem to be another dragon but let's not forget that it can easily muscle past stuff like Hippowdon without a Yache Berry (refer to this post for calcs: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4405065&postcount=285) or locking itself into Outrage thanks to SD and a cool second STAB option in the form of EQ. Sure you can still check it with stuff like Tangrowth or Quagsire but, as with SD + 3 attacks, who really uses them? (usage stats may be cool things to have, don't know if they do them for suspect ladder though) I've seen people go as far as using Mew or Cresselia to deal with Garchomp, more than Tangrowth actually. If this is going to be stall in a Garchomp metagame, I'm don't think I'm going to be welcoming him back. (Skarm really needs his Leftovers so I don't see Shed Shell as a good option. If anything, it shows just how deep we would have to dig to deal with Garchomp)


Garchomp is very different from those other wallbreakers. He's faster, (except for Terrakion who doesn't outspeed anything special that Garchomp doesn't, besides other Garchomp.) much bulkier, has a SR resistance (except for Terrakion), and has viable coverage moves to get around its usual counters (Without having to sacrifice other coverage moves to do so, too).

 

[Tressed]

Should we ignore the possible team mates a Chomp team can use? I honestly don't know if we should or not since it isn't part of Garchomp himself and we could just end up be arguing team A vs team B. At the same time, people are sure to be using said combo(s) so how can we ignore it? Are trappers exceptions since they just take half decent play to do their job?

Anyways, the guy I want to bring up is Magnezone. Commonly seen paired with dragons to take out steels like Skarmory. Garchomp may just seem to be another dragon but let's not forget that it can easily muscle past stuff like Hippowdon without a Yache Berry (refer to this post for calcs: http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4405065&postcount=285) or locking itself into Outrage thanks to SD and a cool second STAB option in the form of EQ. Sure you can still check it with stuff like Tangrowth or Quagsire but, as with SD + 3 attacks, who really uses them? (usage stats may be cool things to have, don't know if they do them for suspect ladder though) I've seen people go as far as using Mew or Cresselia to deal with Garchomp, more than Tangrowth actually. If this is going to be stall in a Garchomp metagame, I'm don't think I'm going to be welcoming him back. (Skarm really needs his Leftovers so I don't see Shed Shell as a good option. If anything, it shows just how deep we would have to dig to deal with Garchomp)

I think teammates are rather irrelevant when judging if something is broken or not. We could theoretically make the same argument to most Pokemon who are only really walled by a single Pokemon, such as Haxorus. (I know, I know, bad example, but you get the point.) It only really gets walled by Skarmory, and maybe Forretress? But both can be wiped out by Magnezone as well. That doesn't make Haxorus any more dangerous to stall, because Magnezone is a conpletely different Pokemon that stall should have ways to deal with.
That being said, I don't play stall, personally, so I have no real experience walling Garchomp, so I might be looking at things from the wrong angle.

 

[tehy]

I think teammates are rather irrelevant when judging if something is broken or not. We could theoretically make the same argument to most Pokemon who are only really walled by a single Pokemon, such as Haxorus. (I know, I know, bad example, but you get the point.) It only really gets walled by Skarmory, and maybe Forretress? But both can be wiped out by Magnezone as well. That doesn't make Haxorus any more dangerous to stall, because Magnezone is a conpletely different Pokemon that stall should have ways to deal with.
That being said, I don't play stall, personally, so I have no real experience walling Garchomp, so I might be looking at things from the wrong angle.

Mostly true, but in the case of trappers, you can't just switch out to another pokemon. Most of the named counters to chomp can easily be trapped and disposed of if they lack shed shell, bronzong might come out on top heavily weakened but it has trouble healing, so that's not great anyhow.

And haxorus is much easier to revenge in general. And that DOES make it more dangerous to stall.

 

[melvni]

So, I don't have the right to vote on Garchomp and Sand Veil's fate, but I noticed that one of the options on the list is to ban all evasion abilities under evasion clause. I'm just wondering if such an extension of the clause would be applied retroactively to past gen tiers, as, if it did, it would effectively soft ban ADV and DPP Cacturne, ADV and DPP Sandslash, DPP Glaceon, and DPP Froslass (along with DPP Garchomp in Ubers if the clause extension applies there). I know that it a lot of people didn't want to do Sand Veil + Sand Stream because it was only had the advantage of saving two moves on one Pokemon's NU sets, but I'd hate to see at least four or five Pokemon across two generations banned if it wasn't necessary.

Not saying that it's not something that could be the right call anyway (and I'll admit few people probably still play those gens), but I'd much rather just see Sand Veil and Snow Cloak banned outright or Evasion Clause changed to something like Fifth Gen Evasion Clause + or something.

Also if we're banning evasion abilities under Evasion Clause we should totally ban Tangled Feet too. /not serious, I know it sucks

Edit: @Below I appreciate that. I wasn't aware whether changes to the meanings of Clauses that applied across generations were affected if they were changed. The only difference between just banning the two abilities as uncompetitive and banning them under Evasion Clause is the potential for fallout across previous gen tiers, which if what you are saying is true isn't a problem.

Also, I'm really not seeing how a post like this would have made more sense in the previous gen subforums (unless you were reading it as a potential start to a discussion about banning Sand Veil and Snow Cloak there too, which wasn't my intention). I was trying to point out that (though this might have been a mistaken view of the situation) a change to the evasion clause would affect previous generations if cross generational clauses worked like I thought they did, which would seem relevant if they did work that way.

 

[Schpoonman]

That sounds horribly over-complicated and definitely isn't the factor. Any older generations have their full clauses listed on their respective pages, and won't be influenced by decisions in the here and now.

This is the 5th Gen board; there are subforums for talking about older generations.

 

[MMII]

I think teammates are rather irrelevant when judging if something is broken or not. We could theoretically make the same argument to most Pokemon who are only really walled by a single Pokemon, such as Haxorus. (I know, I know, bad example, but you get the point.) It only really gets walled by Skarmory, and maybe Forretress? But both can be wiped out by Magnezone as well. That doesn't make Haxorus any more dangerous to stall, because Magnezone is a conpletely different Pokemon that stall should have ways to deal with.
That being said, I don't play stall, personally, so I have no real experience walling Garchomp, so I might be looking at things from the wrong angle.

Mostly true, but in the case of trappers, you can't just switch out to another pokemon. Most of the named counters to chomp can easily be trapped and disposed of if they lack shed shell, bronzong might come out on top heavily weakened but it has trouble healing, so that's not great anyhow.

And haxorus is much easier to revenge in general. And that DOES make it more dangerous to stall.

Yeah, this is why I wasn't sure and wanted to ask. (Fun Fact: SpecsZone outruns and 2HKOs Bronzong with HP Fire while avoiding a OHKO from EQ)






Garchomp is different from Haxorus in that it has STAB EQ, which makes a big difference. It lets him function as a Wall Breaker with just SD and 252 attack EVs without having to lock him into an Outrage. This lets him be much more flexible than Haxorus both in set design and actual play. If you really wanted to you could build a SDHaxorus like set and have similar results, although you will have a slight chance to miss out on some guaranteed OHKOs. Don't forget that Garchomp has all the coverage moves it needs to get past stuff like Skarmory all by itself, it just chooses not to most of the time.


Some more fun facts:
250 SpAtk (= uninvested base 107) is needed to OHKO Garchomp after SR with Ice Beam
400 Atk (= uninvested base 182) is needed to OHKO Garchomp after SR with Ice Fang
339 SpAtk (= about uninvested base 152) is needed to OHKO Garchomp after SR with HP Ice
347 Atk (= about uninvested base 156) is needed to OHKO Garchomp after SR with Ice Punch
(This is assuming 0/0/0 Defense EVs, and all attacks don't have STAB)

This set 2HKOs everything after SR except Quagsire

Garchomp @ Dragon Fang
252 Atk/ 4 Def/ 252 Spd Jolly
-Dragon Claw
-Earthquake
-Fire Fang
-Swords Dance

 

[malomyotismon]

Yeah, this is why I wasn't sure and wanted to ask. (Fun Fact: SpecsZone outruns and 2HKOs Bronzong with HP Fire while avoiding a OHKO from EQ)






Garchomp is different from Haxorus in that it has STAB EQ, which makes a big difference. It lets him function as a Wall Breaker with just SD and 252 attack EVs without having to lock him into an Outrage. This lets him be much more flexible than Haxorus both in set design and actual play. If you really wanted to you could build a SDHaxorus like set and have similar results, although you will have a slight chance to miss out on some guaranteed OHKOs. Don't forget that Garchomp has all the coverage moves it needs to get past stuff like Skarmory all by itself, it just chooses not to most of the time.


Some more fun facts:
250 SpAtk (= uninvested base 107) is needed to OHKO Garchomp after SR with Ice Beam
400 Atk (= uninvested base 182) is needed to OHKO Garchomp after SR with Ice Fang
339 SpAtk (= about uninvested base 152) is needed to OHKO Garchomp after SR with HP Ice
347 Atk (= about uninvested base 156) is needed to OHKO Garchomp after SR with Ice Punch
(This is assuming 0/0/0 Defense EVs, and all attacks don't have STAB)

This set 2HKOs everything after SR except Quagsire

Garchomp @ Dragon Fang
252 Atk/ 4 Def/ 252 Spd Jolly
-Dragon Claw
-Earthquake
-Fire Fang
-Swords Dance

still walled my the same things haxy is is tbh, fire fang is so weak even against skarmory only fortress and ferro care about it and niether really cares about it in the rain despite the weakness that attack power is just so pitiful, haxy has the advantage of no quad weakness to ice, the only real reason garchomp is the better sword dancer is because of his speed.

 

[Huntofthelion]

I disagree with Garchomp only being better because of his speed, he's a lot bulkier and has an immunity to electricity which gives him a lot more chances to set up. You sacrifice a little bit of power for all of that, but Garchomp is typically going to be able to be a better team player since he can actually switch in on attacks and can stop one half of a volt-turn chain. Even though he's not going to run bulky sets his natural bulk lets him set up on a lot more and it makes him harder to wear down. He also has that resistance to Stealth Rock which might not seem like a lot but every little bit of health helps, especially if you aim to use him as a hit and run threat until you get a clear path to victory for a sword dance sweep. The speed is a big thing no question, outrunning base 100s as opposed to being slower then them is huge, and if Garchomp drops being able to speed tie other Garchomps is going to be a big positive for picking Garchomp over Haxorus. But just crediting him with speed is selling him very short.

Also to the point about factoring in trappers into something being broken; I don't really think that matters in this case because you could argue for most of the dragons getting the same advantages that Garchomp gets once steel-types are gone. At least with Garchomp you don't have to worry about it boosting it's speed and ruining your shot at revenging it.

 

[Bologo]

Just a question. While I totally supported Sand Veil and Snow Cloak being banned, since they're banned under Evasion Clause (which is in effect in all tiers), does that mean they're banned in ubers as well?

 

[Bossness]

Just a question. While I totally supported Sand Veil and Snow Cloak being banned, since they're banned under Evasion Clause (which is in effect in all tiers), does that mean they're banned in ubers as well?

Since Evasion Clause exists in ubers, the answer to your question would be yes. It will be interesting to see how clause testing affects ubers.