np: BW OU Suspect Testing Round 6 - Enter Sandman

[PK Gaming]

Shelling out 25% of your HP every turn is a huge negative cost to the player. Sand Veil strategies also have huge downside potential, as if a player relies on Substitute to get Sand Veil hax, there's an 80% chance every turn that the only thing that happens that turn is the Sand Veil user losing 25% of its health.

It's not much of a disadvantage. Substitute is a good move on Garchomp, since a good deal of offensive teams rely on faster checks (the Latis, Genesect) or checks to its choiced set to take it out. Garchomp strong in this aspect it's typing allows it to switch into a ton of Pokemon, and easily force them out. Unlike most Substitute users, Garchomp resists Stealth Rock, and can recover a good deal of HP lost from Substitute with Leftovers. Don't sell me that Bright Powder schlock, it's a crutch. (A good one, but a crutch!)

It's a set designed to kick ass from the get go, with the option of having sand veil hax kick in. I think you're under the impression that Sand Veil Garchomp users MUST spam Substitute and waste away at their HP reserves to win. Good players do not do this (some of them do, but I digress haha). They play it like lategame sweeper, coming out when things have been weakened, setting up a sub when it gets the chance and going from there. It's already difficult to deal with Garchomp's that do this already, but when you have to consider Sand Veil, you accept the fact that there's a very real chance of you losing and there's nothing you can about it. Unless you run Skarmory on all of your teams that is.

Yeah, I probably should have made that more clear. Back in Gen IV, there were no real checks to Chomp that I know of besides Skarm, but now it's better. Apparently. I wasn't into the meta until a bit before BW2. I, personally, think Garchomp is OP no matter what. It's really the only thing that I think signifies a "Power Creep"; the average BST are staying about the same for all non-legend (I know there's a difference between legend and Uber, I'm just pointing it out) Pokemon, and the legends make sense (gods of time and space vs three sorta rare birds).

That's not really the way to think. Testing has shown that BW2 is filled with fast enough / sturdy enough checks that Rough Skin Garchomps doesn't need to be banned.

 

[alamaster]

I've been using Yache chomp and boy is it beastly (and I haven't had any sand veil hax to help me either). Sub has always been a fantastic move, especially on Chomp, but I like having Fire Fang in its place for added coverage, otherwise there's a number of pokemon that can wall you (namely Skarm, Bronzong, Forry to an extent). I'll probably test out Sub eventually, but for now its all about coverage.

(Pk, your sig is weak to hail + heatran :> )

 

[BKC]

DetroitLolcat, we're not "playing favorites" with Garchomp as you're saying. Sand Veil is what's really at fault here, and Garchomp happens to be the most common abuser of it, but he's certainly not the only one. If we do what you suggest and ban Chomp but keep Sand Veil, we'll have a repeat of what happened in BW1 -- Sand Veil Acrobatics Gliscor will take its place as a Sand Veil abuser and continue to rob people of games they should've won. Don't give me any "Gliscor isn't as threatening as Garchomp with SV" bullshit because that's absolutely un-true and it'd show that you're missing the whole point.

Sand Veil as a whole is what needs to go, not Garchomp.

 

[PK Gaming]

I've been using Yache chomp and boy is it beastly (and I haven't had any sand veil hax to help me either). Sub has always been a fantastic move, especially on Chomp, but I like having Fire Fang in its place for added coverage, otherwise there's a number of pokemon that can wall you (namely Skarm, Bronzong, Forry to an extent). I'll probably test out Sub eventually, but for now its all about coverage.

(Pk, your sig is weak to hail + heatran :> )

Have you been using Yache Chomp correctly? By which I mean, tweaking your stats so that your SpD stat is higher than your Def stat. Otherwise, Yache chomp is vulnerable to Genesect, since +1 Ice beam can break through Yache.

(note: It sounds stupid, but it's ridiculously useful in practice. A certain ranked player is abusing it, and kicking ass with it.)

(My sig would destroy your hypothetical hail team. They have all their moves, maxed out evs in every stat, and have a 1.5 boost to all stats. They win games. All of them)

 

[Danger Mouse]

PK Gaming, what on earth is your avatar?
More on topic, the great (or terrible) thing about SV Chomp is the fact that he punishes users of less than 100% accurate moves. Good luck hitting chomp with hydro pump, or god forbid, focus blast. It's just so easy to abuse because you don't have to do anything to abuse it aside from getting sand up. It's one thing if you're trying to take down chomp with draco meteor - that has less than 100% accuracy, so it's just the luck of the draw if it misses. Sand veil, however, guarantees that you CAN'T be assured a revenge kill on chomp.

 

[GatoDelFuego]

PK Gaming, what on earth is your avatar?

It's from gravity falls, a surprisingly good show.

What I really dislike sand veil is that it allows your opponent to make the choice of the moves you've selected. You can chose surf over hydro pump, with the assumption it should hit, but the opponent with sand veil instead decides to take that choice away from you and give you a hydro pump. It would be akin to you choosing hydro pump and other 80% chance moves, and then your opponent has an ability that powers them all down by 20%

 

[tehy]

You know, i've never really been sure of chomp's brokenness. I mean, on the one hand, he does about 50% at plus two to skarm with fire fang. On the other hand...he does about 50% at plus two to skarm with fire fang. He's like DDNite. (Yes, i am aware of the differences.)

On the one hand, chomp isn't THAT hard to deal with. On the other hand, i don't want him in my damn metagame. So...idk.


Also, sand veil acroscor can be just about hard-walled by skarmory, while garchomp cannot. That's the main difference here. Same pretty much goes for cacturne, it's better at getting past skarm but other stuff can still beast it pretty hard.

 

[Zacchaeus]

Calcs for Garchomp, Gliscor, Cacturne against Skarmory

252 +2 Atk Garchomp Fire Fang vs 252 HP/252 Def Skarmory (+Def) : 48.5% - 57.49%
0 SpAtk Garchomp Fire Blast vs 252 HP/0 SpDef Skarmory: 57.49% - 68.26%

252 +2 Atk Flying Gem Gliscor (+Atk) Acrobatics vs 252 HP/252 Def Skarmory (+Def) : 40.42% - 47.6%
252 +2 Atk Gliscor (+Atk) Thunder Fang vs 252 HP/252 Def Skarmory (+Def) : 43.11% - 50.9%
252 +2 Atk Gliscor (+Atk) Stone Edge vs 252 HP/252 Def Skarmory (+Def) : 32.93% - 38.92%

252 +2 Atk Cacturne (+Atk) Drain Punch vs 252 HP/252 Def Skarmory (+Def) : 28.14% - 33.23%
252 +2 Atk Cacturne (+Atk) ThunderPunch vs 252 HP/252 Def Skarmory (+Def) : 56.29% - 66.47%

Each of them has a way to beat Skarmory but obviously Garchomp is practically the only one to ever use those specific attacks it gets to check Skarmory. I've never used Thunder Fang Gliscor and Earthquake outdamages it against grounded Water-types like Politoed, but it could have some very specific use in dealing with Pokémon like Skarmory and Gyarados, although it's still quite gimmicky. Cacturne's ThunderPunch would allow it to hit Flying-types but it would be occupying a much needed moveslot where Substitute would likely go

 

[alamaster]

Have you been using Yache Chomp correctly? By which I mean, tweaking your stats so that your SpD stat is higher than your Def stat. Otherwise, Yache chomp is vulnerable to Genesect, since +1 Ice beam can break through Yache.

(note: It sounds stupid, but it's ridiculously useful in practice. A certain ranked player is abusing it, and kicking ass with it.)

(My sig would destroy your hypothetical hail team. They have all their moves, maxed out evs in every stat, and have a 1.5 boost to all stats. They win games. All of them)

Ah I did not know that, I usually just switch out and let spikes/sr eat up Genesect's health, but that'd help a ton! Thanks dude.

(Perhaps we should solve this in a duel someday, your sig team vs my godlike hypothetical hail team o: )

 

[tehy]

Zach, i'm discussing actual sets that are actually used. The flying gem does do good damage, but it's a one-time deal and once it's gone, it's gone. Thunder/fire fang can do good damage to skarmory from gliscor, but no one uses them realistically.
I was really thinking of subpunch cacturne, but while it can do better damage to skarmory with such sets, other pokemon do MUCH better against it. Bottom line, they are way easier to hard-wall than garchomp, so the hax is less dangerous.

 

[Requiem[9]]

I've only played on the Suspect ladder a bit after a long hiatus (the last time I played, Thunderus was still legal), but I think the situation with Sand Veil Garchomp is largely the same as it was last time: neither Sand Veil nor Garchomp is particularly broken on their own, but the metagame has so many absurd threats that it's almost impossible to take the measures necessary to mitigate them. I've been playing with a few fairly cookie-cutter balance teams to learn the metagame and I crushed almost every Garchomp team I played; when your team is fairly bulky and you have defensive as well as offensive checks, you can afford a few misses, and it's not hard to wear a typical sand team down with hazards. I've even managed to get somewhat high on the ladder because my teams are so good against Garchomp, because that's what most people seem to be playing. But the teams at the top of the ladder that I've played aren't Garchomp teams; they're hyper offense, and I actually just cannot win against them. With setup sweepers like Cloyster, support pokemon like Wobbuffet, and cleaners like Tornadus-T and Terrakion, it seems to me like offense is the only realistic playstyle since every good hyper offensive team has so many ways to just destroy you if you allow them any momentum. You can't check all the threats defensively, so you have to check them offensively; you have to take momentum from the very start and never let Cloyster get a free turn, let Terrakion switch in on your Heatran, let Wobbuffet Encore profitably, etc. This is where Sand Veil Garchomp gets to be a problem, since offensive teams are largely so fragile that games will almost always come down to a Garchomp miss if one happens. Banning Thunderus and Excadrill did a lot to alleviate this, and Sand Veil Garchomp definitely isn't as miserable as the last time it was legal. However, the new Therian forms are arguably even more problematic for balance teams and if this is how the metagame is going to end up, I think that either Sand Veil and Snow Cloak need to go or pokemon need to be banned to make balance is a more viable strategy. Garchomp is definitely the poster boy, but, as others have noted, pokemon like Gliscor and Mamoswine aren't exactly weak. My analysis is obviously a bit exaggerated for effect, but I don't think it's very far from the truth.

I'm against Sand Veil and Snow Cloak in principle and just getting rid of them is by far the nicer solution, so I think it's probably the better course of action.

 

[PK Gaming]

Ah I did not know that, I usually just switch out and let spikes/sr eat up Genesect's health, but that'd help a ton! Thanks dude.

(Perhaps we should solve this in a duel someday, your sig team vs my godlike hypothetical hail team o: )

Garchomp (M) @ Yache Berry
Trait: Sand Veil
Shiny: Fuck No
EVs: 252 Spd / 252 Atk / 4 HP
Jolly Nature
IVs: 10 Def
- Swords Dance
- Earthquake
- Outrage / Dragon Claw
- Fire Fang

No need dude, I had the hypothetical battle in my mind. I won, but it was a close match.

:happybrain:

 

[Limitless]

Rank 13 | 1884 Rating | 2559 Provisional Rating | 7-0

Is it just me or is this rating requirement way too low... Obviously deviation puts a notch in it, but the fact that I can get the rating requirement in about seven games is kind of retarded.

 

[PDC]

Not sure about that LL, but apparently it varied for me a little. I went around 9-0 and barely got above 1700. I think it depends a little on the people you play. This also occurs in the OU ladder as well. Notice how most people above and below you have all player more games. That is straneg though.

 

[PttP]

I just want you all to know that you probably shouldnt use pk's garchomp advice about lowering ivs because it lowers overall bulk significantly, around like 13% iirc. All that for the oppurtunity to survive a genect ice beam at full health doesnt sound very reasonable

yes i did just rip off heist

 

[PK Gaming]

Well this is just for SD Yache chomp, I wouldn't suggest lowering it's defenses otherwise. It sounds stupid as hell, but lowering your defenses to deal with a METAGAME defining Pokemon seems important to me. I've seen it win games you know!!! If your using Garchomp exclusively as a lategame sweeper, it shouldn't be taking too much damage (outside of hazards anyway).

Ice beam deals (63.12 - 74.3%) to that variant of Garchomp and does 336-396 (93.85 - 110.61%) to regular Yache Chomp, which goes against using Yache chomp in the first place... Right? Right???

 

[Danger Mouse]

Well this is just for SD Yache chomp, I wouldn't suggest lowering it's defenses otherwise. It sounds stupid as hell, but lowering your defenses to deal with a METAGAME defining Pokemon seems important to me. I've seen it win games you know!!! If your using Garchomp exclusively as a lategame sweeper, it shouldn't be taking too much damage (outside of hazards anyway).

Ice beam deals (63.12 - 74.3%) to that variant of Garchomp and does 336-396 (93.85 - 110.61%) to regular Yache Chomp, which goes against using Yache chomp in the first place... Right? Right???

No, dude, I totally get what you mean. It's not at all common to tweak the defensive stats of a pokemon to avoid giving it the offensive boost it wants, and yache chomp is no exception. I was dumb enough to run a -def nature (rather than lowering iv's) and chomp still was able to tank a close combat from terrakion (to be fair, it wasn't choiced or boosted, but still not bad for a -def nature).

 

[tehy]

I just want you all to know that you probably shouldnt use pk's garchomp advice about lowering ivs because it lowers overall bulk significantly, around like 13% iirc. All that for the oppurtunity to survive a genect ice beam at full health doesnt sound very reasonable

yes i did just rip off heist

I just want you all to know that you probably shouldn't take everyone's advice about using yache berry over leftovers because it lowers overall bulk significanty, around like 6% a turn iirc. All that for the opportunity to survive an ice beam at full health doesn't sound very reasonable

yes i did just rip off ballabrown


Face it, yachechomp in the first place is still kind of nichey. Yes, i'm aware that it's really good and all. But since so many people use scarfed genesect to check chomp now, that might actually be worth it. Honestly, IMO yache only really makes you better against, like...starmie, and maybe scarftoed. Kyurem formes are probably KO'ing you anyhow, and i don't think there are many really great ice beam users. I guess HP ice from scarfed thundurus, too.

 

[Shurtugal]

Hm?

With Garchomp, I don't know what I exactly think. You see, EDIT: WITHOUT (forgot out in with) sand veil, it is way more manageable. However, a lot of people are saying that it isn't that fast. 102 is the definition of speed creep (next to 121 for Torn-T), and it is still a force to be reckoned with. I agree that it can be great on a sun team, but with Aqua Tail its just as good on rain. Chomp completely destroys most sand teams who can't out speed it with most of their sweepers except for the great Stout, but normal typing sucks in OU. It's superpower isn't that great either, js. Anyways - back to chomp - I agree that without sand veil that I can see it getting through suspect round. However, it can still punish stall, its Fire Fang / Fire Blast / Aqua Tail rip through Skarm though and Aqua Tail hits a lot of things in sand. In sun, it can hit sand hard with sun boosted, +2 Fire Fang's to Skarm and Landos. It easily can hurt stall, yache berry and its godsend bulk still make it hard to KO. Most of the things that counter / out speed it are in rain -___-. Latios is always a counter, but I don't see him much around this metagame for some reason :S not to mention that scarf chomp is still a nice way to handle the faster threats, although +0 Outrage isn't that powerful. I'm on and off about it, for certain get rid of sand veil for chomp though.


Sand Veil Ban: Why ruin it for Gliscor? Gliscor isn't broken with sand veil, just annoying. Sand Veil only makes chomp broken. I find sand veil on Gliscor easily comparable to serene grace on Jirachi. Annoying, frustrating, and not broken enough to ban. Since serene grace "controls" the hax just like sand veil "controls" the miss rate, I don't say how one can say that about sand veil itself since it was mentioned before. Which is complete bull shit on Scors part, since it isn't broken with it. Chomp, however, turns sand veil into a weapon of brokenness. I still think that banning sand veil as a whole is not the way to go.


Either ban chomp or ban sand veil chomp, its still very powerful and 102 is still speed creep, just not as much as before.

 

[PK Gaming]

I just want you all to know that you probably shouldn't take everyone's advice about using yache berry over leftovers because it lowers overall bulk significanty, around like 6% a turn iirc. All that for the opportunity to survive an ice beam at full health doesn't sound very reasonable

yes i did just rip off ballabrown


Face it, yachechomp in the first place is still kind of nichey. Yes, i'm aware that it's really good and all. But since so many people use scarfed genesect to check chomp now, that might actually be worth it. Honestly, IMO yache only really makes you better against, like...starmie, and maybe scarftoed. Kyurem formes are probably KO'ing you anyhow, and i don't think there are many really great ice beam users. I guess HP ice from scarfed thundurus, too.

It's an entirely different set. I'm not advocating using it over leftovers, but it's useful for teams that want a special trump card; something that'll give the edge over the 18 million Genesect users that plague OU. Is Yache chomp the HOTTEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD? Probably not, but if you want a little spice to add to your team, then I can think of nothing better on Garchomp.

 

[Stratos]

After a conversation with yee i had on the ladder, i've had a change of heart when it comes to Sand Veil.

See, everyone seems to think that Sand Veil is some "bs hax" strategy, or that it's unfair that your opponent gets to "power down your moves 20%," and those arguments have never convinced me. Sand Veil is a legitimate strategy, I always said - it's not hax abuse, it's someone's method of ensuring a sweep, and it works consistently enough to not be counted as any different than Scald or ParaFlinch. And I still hold these beliefs.

What changed my opinion on Sand Veil in that discussion with yee was that i heard the first legitimate argument i'd ever heard against the ability, and I could think of no rebuttal. That's that, as a strategy and not just some unfair thing baw, it's actually, honestly, broken. Not uncompetitive, overpowering, in the traditional sense. It gives the user a 67.2% chance for a Swords Dance, and a 59% chance for a Swords Dance behind a Substitute. Once the mon is set up, it doesn't become much easier to stop, either - every pokemon that tries to revenge the Sand Veil user becomes either set up bait, or, more likely, just toast. After, all, 59% chance to still be behind a sub after you kill the first mon. Sand Veil is really broken because once the ball is rolling, it's too hard to stop, and thus i think it deserves a ban.

 

[pharaohcalvin]

Well that is logical in a way, it is just, who else besides Garchomp can abuse that well? Gliscor is annoying, but not overpowering in the slightest.

 

[tehy]

Yeah, i have to agree on this point. Standard sets (I.E. ones that don't specifically break one wall and suck horribly) of gliscor/cacturne aren't able to break skarm, as i said above, and so on and so forth.

Sand veil abuse really is just about BS luck. It's not like crits, which at least check bulky boosters, or misses on inaccurate moves. It's about the RNG taking control of the game. Since most people rely on fast checks or skarm's whirlwind for chomp, a miss on either is basically GG. (If no hazards are down, skarm has lefties, and low rolls/no burns or flinches, skarm can survive one miss. Then it'll probably die.)

 

[Zowayix]

Well that is logical in a way, it is just, who else besides Garchomp can abuse that well? Gliscor is annoying, but not overpowering in the slightest.

Brightpowder is annoying, but not overpowering in the slightest. Brightpowder is banned.

There's a difference between broken and uncompetitive. Broken means that if you're not using it, you've already lost (Kyogre allowed in OU). Uncompetitive means that it tends to be a negative contributor to a match (Brightpowder, Moody, Double Team).

Moody/Double Team/etc. were banned, not because they provided an unfair advantage to the player using them, but because they turned a match into nearly a complete crapshoot. I see Sand Veil in the same way.

And on a side note, for those people arguing that a Sand Veil ban would unnecessarily nerf Cacturne, Sandslash, Gabite, etc. in the lower tiers, we've had bans before that only covered a limited set of tiers. Why not only ban Sand Veil in OU?

 

[PK Gaming]

Well that is logical in a way, it is just, who else besides Garchomp can abuse that well? Gliscor is annoying, but not overpowering in the slightest.

SubSD Gliscor dominated WCOP, where it's presence decided the majority of the matches it was in. Like BKC mentioned earlier, it's being eschewed for chomp because Garchomp is better, for now at least. Banning Garchomp as a whole would just make these players gravitate towards Gliscor, it wouldn't fix the problem at hand here; Sand Veil.

If you're not running Skarmory you're fucked. Not fun.