'Mence- Chomp Counter?

Boa1891

Ninja Researcher
is a Researcher Alumnus
Well, I put my mind to thinking up a chomp counter for about 5 minutes, and here it is.

My first thought was: It has to fly. Easy enough. Instantly counters EQ.
It has to take physical hits with balls, somehow. Preferably not weak to dragon, ground, or fire. Lol.
It has to be able to take a Fire Blast/Fire Fang with balls.

That covers almost anything standard on a Garchomp. Oh, and it NEEDS to outspeed chomp.

Introducing...


Salamence
@Choice Scarf
Naughty Nature
100HP/156ATK/252DEF
Draco Meteor
Dragon Claw/Dragon Rush
Fire Fang
Earthquake/Brick Break/Crunch

This can switch into any unboosted 'Chomp attack except for Meteor, outspeed (unless it's scarfed), and OHKO.
These numbers all assume 252 EVs and a positive nature for whichever attacking stat he's using. Obviously as he's switching in, Intimidate is accounted for.

Unboosted:
Dragon claw: 50.28% - 58.99%
Outrage: 74.72% - 87.92%
Earthquake: 0.00%-0.00% (lol)
EQ in Gravity: 30.90% - 36.52% (Double lol)
Fire Fang: 6.74% - 8.15% (LOLLLL)
Fire Blast: 17.70% - 20.79%

Draco Meteor: 123.60% - 145.22%
Meteor (0 SpAtk EVs): 93.82% - 110.39%

A few more calculations:
Standard Choice Band Chomp
Claw: 74.72% - 87.92%
Outrage: 111.24% - 130.90%
Stone Edge: 62.08% - 73.03%
Crunch: 25.00% - 29.21%
Fire Fang: 10.11% - 12.08%

Swords Dancer (1SD)
Dragon Claw: 111.24% - 130.90%
Fire Fang: 15.17% - 17.70%
Fire Fang, 3SDs: 30.06% - 35.39% (lolololol)

Return hit will be Draco Meteor (only way to OHKO with these defensive EVs)
101.96% - 119.89%
Obviously, this isn't sure-fire. With only 90% accuracy, and 72% in sandstorm.

The Attack/HP EVs can be changed around (in fact, I'd like advice on that), and the moveset can be toyed with. I want Constructive Criticism. I haven't tested this (thus, "thought about it for five minutes"), so it's also just theory.

You could also make a revenge killing 'Mence. I mean, he has 5 more base attack than chomp and can reach the same speed as standard scarf chomp (with 240 EVs- Outspeed standard revenge chomp with 244!).
 
I've tried this before [as well as a defensive garchomp] but this doesn't really work well since most garchomps are the outrage/scarf varient which you can't outspeed, and will 2hko you.

EDIT: This can work at countering other things though..
 
I would give it 24 speed evs to outspeed base 115s like Azelf. His defence wouldn't take much of a hit by it since claw and stone edge are still 2HKOs.
 
Firstly...it seems somewhat overspecialized. You have a fairly good chance of beating Chomp, but what use is it for other pokemon? It's got decent speed (though it doesn't beat base 120's) but is a bit lacking in power. It's durability is also somewhat wasted, as it's weak to SR and doesn't have any means of healing outside of wish.

Also, there's always the chance that a Garchomp could either Outrage/Draco Meteor on the switch, killing you. ScarfChomp outspeeds this and 2HKO's with Dragon Claw. Also, you do have to account for those annoying subbing varities. After it makes a move behind the sub, the opponent can see that Salamence outspeeds you and the surprise is ruined (not to mention your Draco Meteor is weakened from striking the sub, so he can probably afford to swords-dance/sub again until you're too weakened to pose a threat. Not sure on the calculations for this, but at the very least I'm guessing Garchomp isn't OHKO'd by a -2 Draco Meteor, and either way he knows you're packing Scarf). Finally, there's the chance that the opponent might think "He's switching Salamence into Garchomp? What the hell? There's gotta be some trick he's gonna use." and switch out to something else.

Overall...it just seems like you're turning a pokemon with a lot of power and potential into a somewhat unreliable counter for another pokemon.
 
I've tried scarf mence and flygon as mence/garchomp counters and had some success.

The best thing you can do is to have this Salamence follow a steel type (Metagross is potentially the best because he lures out ground attacks). Later in the battle, they could use prediction, but earlier, they won't know your packing salamence so they will likely use fireblast/earthquake on metagross, making Mence's switch in easy (and with Draco Meteor, hopefully means you can either kill them back or get a nice advantage by putting some serious pain in on their switch in). Also, later in the battle, you'll know exactly what kind of Chomp they're running, which should help you in using this against it.

Overall...it just seems like you're turning a pokemon with a lot of power and potential into a somewhat unreliable counter for another pokemon.
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Yeah, but the difference between good players and great players can be that while one just follows the standard sets, the other tries to anticipate what he'll be facing. This set is an example of the later type of thinking, and if Salamence is the best for the job, than using him like this could be a good idea regardless of what he's capable outside of this.

Personally, I have no practice with this spread . . . since I wasn't using Mence as a "counter" perse, but just using it to get early game advtage by combining it with Metagross as I mentioned-- so I maxed out it's special attack to inflict the most pain on whatever the switched in from Garchomp. Without the defensive evs though, it really wasn't a counter.
 
I think it's pretty safe to say that if you're weak to a Pokemon's oft-used STAB move you really cannot be called a counter to said Pokemon. Sure you can "survive" but you are relying on the element of surprise -not to mention Garchomp not having Choice Scarf- to kill it.
 
actually, i use a sub-defensive scarf mence, but only combined with aggron. they seem to cover eachother's weakness quite well, and ice punch on aggron comes in handy.
 
Fishin already noted pretty much everything that's wrong with this. You lose to Chain Chomp (who usually leads with Draco Meteor), Scarf Chomp and usually CB Chomp (although you can revenge kill it). Scarf Gyarados would be better at this, since he's only weak to Stone Edge which hardly any Garchomp carry.
 
One other thing I may point out, is that Stealth Rock (blah, blah, it's not uncommon) could be on the field which would pretty much cause you to faint to CB Dragon Claw or unboosted outrage (which usually means scarf which will outspeed you).
 
I may have Mesprit on the brain since I was trying to catch it in Diamond since Thursday (I think), but I don't see how Mesprit doesn't do a worse job at countering Chomp. Against a Chomp with no setup, the only attack Mesprit can't switch into is a LO Adamant 252 Crunch (2HKO)*, but it can switch into anything else (watch for the boosted Crunch, though) and OHKO with a reliable attack in Ice Beam.

I second most everyone else's criticisms on this "over-specialized" Chomp counter.

*Chain Chomp would need a +SpAtk nature to have a reasonable chance of a 2HKO with Draco Meteor.
 
Fishin said:
Firstly...it seems somewhat overspecialized. You have a fairly good chance of beating Chomp, but what use is it for other pokemon? It's got decent speed (though it doesn't beat base 120's) but is a bit lacking in power. It's durability is also somewhat wasted, as it's weak to SR and doesn't have any means of healing outside of wish.

Also, there's always the chance that a Garchomp could either Outrage/Draco Meteor on the switch, killing you. ScarfChomp outspeeds this and 2HKO's with Dragon Claw. Also, you do have to account for those annoying subbing varities. After it makes a move behind the sub, the opponent can see that Salamence outspeeds you and the surprise is ruined (not to mention your Draco Meteor is weakened from striking the sub, so he can probably afford to swords-dance/sub again until you're too weakened to pose a threat. Not sure on the calculations for this, but at the very least I'm guessing Garchomp isn't OHKO'd by a -2 Draco Meteor, and either way he knows you're packing Scarf). Finally, there's the chance that the opponent might think "He's switching Salamence into Garchomp? What the hell? There's gotta be some trick he's gonna use." and switch out to something else.

Overall...it just seems like you're turning a pokemon with a lot of power and potential into a somewhat unreliable counter for another pokemon.
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Really, everything I wanted to say is in this quotebox
 
I like how everyone overlooked this.
You could also make a revenge killing 'Mence. I mean, he has 5 more base attack than chomp and can reach the same speed as standard scarf chomp (with 240 EVs- Outspeed standard revenge chomp with 244!).
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I'd love to bring Salamence in after revenge-chomp kills me and outspeed/OHKO it. I would be ecstatic, in fact.

It's an idea in progress, really. Thanks for the input. I don't have the time to redo this topic now, but I'll make a full set based on revenge killing I s'pose.
 
But a lot of Scarfchomp max out speed anyway to outspeed other scarfchomp. If you're slower then after Intimidate, Scarfchomp's Outrage does 73 - 86%, very painful at the best and if SR is up a near guaranteed OHKO.

I know it's easy to try to argue that Outrage is the worst case scenario but frankly it's not.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone using Scarfchomp. If you KO something with EQ then you're obviously never staying in on Mence, ever, so that's irrelevant. Same if you're locked into a fire move.

That basically only leaves Dragon attacks. If my opp switches a Salamence into a Scarfchomp that he knows is locked into a Dragon attack, then either it's his last poke, he's trying to Intimidate juggle me, or he has some nasty trick up his sleeve (like here).

But I mean.. it's almost insulting for you to think that, in a battle between two competent battlers, one would leave a 405 speed Garchomp in when his opp brings in Salamence. You would only do that if you thought your opp was a complete fucktard.

So yeah.. either your opp switches Chomp out and you're left using a Mixmence that lacks any real power, or your opp can't switch because he's locked into Outrage, but he'll probably OHKO you anyway. I just don't see this working.

EDIT: This is arguing against this Mence ever being able to "revenge kill", if that wasn't obvious enough already.
 
By definition Salamence will never be a Garchomp counter, and in theory it is indeed somewhat of an insult to think, like DMFG said, that a competent battler would not suspect a Scarf if Salamence ever were to voluntarily be in on Garchomp. Any of you are free to try it out though, as by now there is no reason not to test ideas like this out before posting about them.
 
I suppose it could work, if you stretch your imagination a little. However, even with Intimidate and 252 Def EVs, it will still take some good damage from an Outrage or Stone Edge, especially coming from a Choice Bander. Then, they'll do what you're supposed to do when someone sends out something unorthodox -- they switch. (Which could be a great cue for Dragon Dance).
 
chain chomp could catch you with draco metor and seriously damage it, if not OHKO it. I think you established that it was to counter physical garchomp, but keep that in mind.
 
I like how everyone overlooked this.
You could also make a revenge killing 'Mence. I mean, he has 5 more base attack than chomp and can reach the same speed as standard scarf chomp (with 240 EVs- Outspeed standard revenge chomp with 244!).
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

It's not really an "also" case. Salamence simply does not counter Garchomp, it can revenge kill it.
 
Jolly Scarfcham with Ice Punch does the trick, but it can't switch in very well. There's also the dumb Natural Gift Dugtrio set. Regardless, anything with an Ice attack that can take a hit (Cresselia?) will work. This isn't so hard to figure out.
 
The best chomp counter is undoubtedly specs dugtrio with hp ice, however I'm not sure if you could switch it into any of garchomps attack, maybe fire fang possibly on a non-CB set

EDIT: bleh I forgot about dumb scarfchomp. Hp ice tangrowth could work very well
 
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