With Garchomp Now in Uber....

[Bogmire]

Even if you do not agree with me, mark my words - Gamefreak is not going to let this uppity little Pseudo-Legendary get away into the tier it does not belong to. Count on it.

I honestly don't think gamefreak gives a shit about what tier an unofficial pokemon website puts it into. And I don't understand what being a legendary or "pseudo legendary" has to do with any of this.

 

[DDyarados]

I've never had any trouble with any Chomps. I cannot for the life of me understand what all the fuss is about.

Yes, because YOU never had any problems with it personally, it shouldn't be banned.

Sand Veil makes no difference to the argument, you cannot factor luck into a mathematical formulae, or it would turn into trial and error.

Uh, yeah...I still remember that time when I kept trying to whirlwind away a garchomp with skarm, but whirlwind kept missing, until chomp snapped out of confusion and fire fanged me. (It was locked into outrage. :/)

The only competitively viable pokemon with less versatility than Chomp is Wobbuffet. Chomp can only use physical moves, and its item can be discovered VERY easily.

So what if everyone uses it? That says more about the person than the pokemon. Other pokemon can sweep teams too, you know.

Except not every poke could sweep as well as Chompy..as has been discussed many a time.

There are, in my opinion, ways to determine an Uber. Raw stats (BST 670+, excluding Slaking and Regigigas). Mew is up there because it is so versatile, you never know what it will do next. Celebi, Heatran and the Pseudo-Legendaries have huge weaknesses to common attacking types. Jirachi and Land Forme have pitiful movepools. Deoxys has highly unbalanced stats, so it is up there. Darkrai and Manaphy are both versatile and have moves that concur with their abilities (Dark Void and Bad Dreams, Rest and Hydration). The Lati twins are versatile offensively and defensively and have the Soul Dew to cement their place. Cresselia is overshadowed by psychic brethren that do what it does better. Finally, Wobbufffet is there because it does not function ordinarily, it is more a one-off tool. It is not a sweeper, nor a tank, nor a utility, nor a revenge killer, it is just a blue blob that can take a troublesome pokemon down with it, like Azelf.

Very disorganized thought process here...you jump from uber pokes to OU pokes and sometimes mix up your arguments for why a poke is uber or OU...And Cresselia is OU because it is OU material, not because it wouldn't do well in ubers.

Even if you do not agree with me, mark my words - Gamefreak is not going to let this uppity little Pseudo-Legendary get away into the tier it does not belong to. Count on it.

What does legendary or pseudo-legendary status have to do with anything?

 

[Kira]

So you played a lot of bad players? That is your basis for it not being uber?

Look if you took down a Garchomp with a Keckleon your opponent was either locked into Outrage, or a total idiot. In the hands of a good player Garchomp can easily sweep a team and the opposing player can do practically nothing about it. Even Ice Attacks fail to KO and you pretty much need at least two priority/scarfed ice users on your team. This is assuming they are using the Yache set which is the best set.

Oh and I dislike how you are acting as if you know so much more about Pokemon than the top players on Smogon. The people that helped to shape the metagame since Red/Blue/Yellow voted on Garchomp and deemed it uber.

 

[nyczxjay]

Ok, I don't get why we're arguing about this again. Garchomp has been put into ubers, that's a fact so deal with it and move on. I'm a personal fan of Garchomp myself and was disappointed when it got bumped to ubers but whining about it now isn't going to do anything. And I have to admit that without Garchomp, it really does open up new possibilities.

And just because Garchomp can be stopped doesn't mean that it shouldn't be in ubers. Everything can be stopped. I've personally never been swept by a Garchomp before. The reason why it's uber is because teams were overcentralize around taking out Garchomp and didn't leave much room for new things and strategies because taking out Garchomp in a battle was so important. Garchomp also contributed to the ever-common SS team with Tyranitar and Garchomp on every single one of them. Yea, that's not overcentralization. <_<

I don't really get what you're trying to do here bugmaniacbob, are you trying to convince people to put Garchomp back into OU or something?

 

[Bogmire]

Look, I can only voice my opinions, and maybe give examples. But do not suggest I don't know what Garchomp can do. I once defeated one with a KECLEON, and that would lower any Dragon's position on my 'worry list'. Sorry, you're just not convincing enough.

yeah, and once I defeated Darkrai with scarf Primape, does that make Darkrai UU now or something? what are you trying to prove.

 

[sanjay120]

The first thing I thought when I saw Kecleon countering a Garchomp stuck into Outrage was 'That won't work, it has Color Change'.

But yeah, Chomp is Uber now. I guess you could battle on Youtube if you really wanted to use it in OU again.

 

[sanjay120]

So your opponent switched a Garchomp into a Kecleon that they did not know the set of? Sounds like an idiot to me.

 

[Kietharr]

I've never had any trouble with any Chomps. I cannot for the life of me understand what all the fuss is about.

Sand Veil makes no difference to the argument, you cannot factor luck into a mathematical formulae, or it would turn into trial and error.
You can't, which is why it's another thing leading him to be overpowered. There is a 12.5% or so chance that your counter (revenge killer really) will not work if your enemy has a Tyranitar or Hippwodon. So that's a 12.5% chance that all of your team preparation was worthless and you will get swept/crippled right away. No other threat has that going for it.

The only competitively viable pokemon with less versatility than Chomp is Wobbuffet. Chomp can only use physical moves, and its item can be discovered VERY easily.
See: Chainchomp. Garchomp can very successfully run mixed sets, and since when has having a mediocre second attack stat made something any less powerful? Is mewtwo OU now because his attack stat is crappy compared to his Sp. atk?

So what if everyone uses it? That says more about the person than the pokemon. Other pokemon can sweep teams too, you know.
Yes, but no other pokemon swept teams like Garchomp. It was on nearly 70% of ALL Standards teams at its peak. You can say so what, but overcentralization is something that is always cited as something that defines an uber. When more teams than not are running a pokemon and all teams are carrying multiple counters, you know there are issues.

There are, in my opinion, ways to determine an Uber. Raw stats (BST 670+, excluding Slaking and Regigigas). Mew is up there because it is so versatile, you never know what it will do next. Celebi, Heatran and the Pseudo-Legendaries have huge weaknesses to common attacking types. Jirachi and Land Forme have pitiful movepools. Deoxys has highly unbalanced stats, so it is up there. Darkrai and Manaphy are both versatile and have moves that concur with their abilities (Dark Void and Bad Dreams, Rest and Hydration). The Lati twins are versatile offensively and defensively and have the Soul Dew to cement their place. Cresselia is overshadowed by psychic brethren that do what it does better. Finally, Wobbufffet is there because it does not function ordinarily, it is more a one-off tool. It is not a sweeper, nor a tank, nor a utility, nor a revenge killer, it is just a blue blob that can take a troublesome pokemon down with it, like Azelf.
Rayquaza has huge weaknesses to common attacking types AND has mediocre speed, it should be OU. Seriously, you can't make arguments like that, most of the ubers have weaknesses to common attacking types. BSTs mean nothing, look at the Regis, Entei, Raikou, hell even Articuno, they're all 600BST and hardly ever used. There are a huge number of factors that decide how strong a pokemon is. Garchomp is an example of a case where the majority of factors are working in his favor.

Even if you do not agree with me, mark my words - Gamefreak is not going to let this uppity little Pseudo-Legendary get away into the tier it does not belong to. Count on it.
This here shows that you know absolutely nothing about how tiers in general function. Smogon's tier system is NOT some binding document that determines how all of the tournaments out there work, in fact most of the official tournaments ignore the majority of our ban lists, and most clauses. Gamefreak has zero control of our tier system, and we have zero control over anything they do, we simply react to what they create in order to create a balanced game. You may choose to abide by Smogon's tiers, or you may choose not to. Nobody is forcing you to do anything here.

Also, there's nothing inherently not-uber about the base 600 dragons/metagross, you can't even use the irrelevant argument that Garchomp doesn't do well in ubers, because he does. Even in ubers the only thing that can really reliably switch in on SDchomp is Lugia. He's not the monster he was in OU but he's no waste of a slot either.

I honestly hope this was a troll because this basically repeated half of the same worn out arguments that the majority of pro-chompers gave up on long ago. The Garchomp vote was made entirely by competent and current players, some of them from as far back as competitive RBY or GSC with some coming into the picture only a few months before the vote and catching on quickly. You can argue all you want, but please don't act like this was some sort of decision made by noobs who can't fight Garchomp, they obviously did a lot of beating Garchomps to get as high on the ladder as they did.

 

[SHUCKLE MAN]

So you played a lot of bad players? That is your basis for it not being uber?

Look if you took down a Garchomp with a Keckleon your opponent was either locked into Outrage, or a total idiot. In the hands of a good player Garchomp can easily sweep a team and the opposing player can do practically nothing about it. Even Ice Attacks fail to KO and you pretty much need at least two priority/scarfed ice users on your team. This is assuming they are using the Yache set which is the best set.

Oh and I dislike how you are acting as if you know so much more about Pokemon than the top players on Smogon. The people that helped to shape the metagame since Red/Blue/Yellow voted on Garchomp and deemed it uber.

If the Garchomp was locked into an Outrage it would beat the Keckleon anyway, because of Colour Change (Keckleon would change to the Dragon-type, and then be weak to Outrage).

The Garchomp was most likely already frozen when the Keckleon was sent out.

 

[Mekkah]

This is a lot of senseless arguing about Garchomp's uber status in a thread that isn't about that. Get back on-topic.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Again, not what the topic is supposed to be about (since Garchomp was always usable in Uber as are all pokemon).

As to the state of the metagame, I'd say it's a bit irritating that all the top sweepers cover each other's weaknesses well, and thus can be easily incorporated in to the same team. While those who rise to the top are those who can motivate (as always), it is irritating to see Shaymin/Salamence/Heatran/Scizor/Zapdos usually on the same team nearly every game.

I have people ice beam my heatran with suicune before I've even revealed having salamence or shaymin on my team.

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

As to the state of the metagame, I'd say it's a bit irritating that all the top sweepers cover each other's weaknesses well, and thus can be easily incorporated in to the same team. While those who rise to the top are those who can motivate (as always), it is irritating to see Shaymin/Salamence/Heatran/Scizor/Zapdos usually on the same team nearly every game.

I personally love facing those kinds of teams as they are so easily worn down by Stealth Rock and generally hate paralysis. I mean none of those Pokemon you mentioned are particularly comfortable switching into one of the Rotoms for example, particularly Rotom-H who can demolish Scizor and Shaymin-S with Overheat. And none of them are like Garchomp in that you often have to sacrifice something just to wear them down for the kill. All of them are relatively easy to deal with through smart switching and prediction, and they all get worn down very quickly, at least in my experience.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Lemmi, I'd say that's only true of the standard sets. All these pokemon wouldn't be used if they weren't potent, and there are a myriad of ways to utilize them for the most part. I also run such a team, but I try to keep my sets varied enough from the norm to make a difference on their "counters." I can't say how many times the opponents have cursed to see zapdos 2hko'd by modest seed flare for instance (as some zapdos are, especially with SR up). It may be true that Rotom is hard to switch into, but it's not the easiest thing to switch in either. If it comes into aforementioned seed flare for instance. Heatran and Tyranitar both beat it 1-1 for the most part as well, and predicting shadowball is not that hard. Actually, outside of thunderwave it really can't do anything to tyranitar. Even HP fighting isn't all that intimidating without a boost. CS heatran is not the only set effective in the metagame either. With shuka berry, heatran can survive timid shaymi's earth power for instance. On the subject of heatran and ttar, these scarf-timid-ran's are almost funny. Earthpower deals all of 30% to a defensively-minded tyranitar. haha

 

[Lemmiwinks MkII]

It may be true that Rotom is hard to switch into, but it's not the easiest thing to switch in either.

I'd personally attest to the contrary, its typing is simply phenomenal and now with improved defenses allows for so many effortless switches into many common OU Pokemon. At the very least it makes an excellent scout for uncommon and unpredictable sets.

Actually, outside of thunderwave it really can't do anything to tyranitar.

Will-o-wisp + possibly Reflect says otherwise.

I should stop here as obviously we don't want to get into an endless pbpwm debate here. What I am saying is that the kind of team you're currently hyping is to me nothing more than just a phase in the metagame that can be exploited rather easily, which I have been able to do so with reasonable success so far.

An effective strategy no doubt, but far from an ESS situation with respect to the metagame, a situation we were getting dangerously close to with Garchomp and its constant rise in the usage statistics month after month. Then again, stats for the upcoming months may prove me wrong.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I'm far from saying that the offensive style is invincible (or even the best), but it is certainly effective, especially in the hands of a skilled player.

Also I'd have to say that without any reliable recovery move or even painsplit, the rotom forms are also easy to wear down in my experience.

Then again I'm one of those players who has been all-offense even before these new offensive pokemon came out.

If anything, I'd say none of these sweeper is so brainlessly destructive as garchomp was, and take a lot more skill to utilize well. Particularly salamence, who is always being compared to garchomp, has to time his offensive carefully.

 

[Darkmalice]

Garchomp is irreplacable

The closest Garchomp replacement is Salamance or Dragonite, with Dragon Claw or Outrage (probably the latter), Earthquake and DD instead of SD. But they both share a SR weakness and require DD to be able to outspeed the many base 100 speeds pkmn. So they need to repeately switch, slowly wearing them down from SR. Also, they lack Garchomp's defences (excluding intimidate, though Dragonite is better from the special spectrum) and Sand Veil can completely screw up a counter chance.

Otherwise, Gyarados, who suffers the same speed and SR problem, and he does not become as threatening as quickly as Garchomp due to SD. But his 4x electric weakness is harder to expose than the ice weakness. Gyara is probably the best replacement, but he functions differently. Also, he can't swap in on Blissey easily due to Thunderwave (but Blissey cant swap in on him either).
But the main thing separating Gyara and Chomp is that Chomp counters got defeated due to the Yache Berry.
Vaporeon swaps in on Chomp. Chomp uses SD.
Chomp uses Earthquake, Vaporeon loses 64% Hlth (this Vaporeon has max Hlth and Def.) Vaporeon uses Ice Beam, Chomp loses 60% Hlth, Yache Berry works.
Chomp uses Earthquake, Vaporeon dies.
However, Gyara can't 2HKO counters like Vaporeon (or even 3HKO) after a DD, whilst he gets 2HKOed by HP Electric, with or without a Berry.

Oh, and by the way, the only true OU Chomp counter is a Choice Slaking who, with correct EVs, does not get 2HKOed by SD Earthquake (Outrage is untested) and can OHKO back with Ice Punch, Ice Beam or Giga Impact. But Chomp just swaps out, and Truant hinders Slaking the next time he is needed for Chomp. If there are others, someone please tell me.

 

[Bogmire]

Oh, and by the way, the only true OU Chomp counter is a Choice Slaking who, with correct EVs, does not get 2HKOed by SD Earthquake (Outrage is untested) and can OHKO back with Ice Punch, Ice Beam or Giga Impact. But Chomp just swaps out, and Truant hinders Slaking the next time he is needed for Chomp. If there are others, someone please tell me.

Here's another true OU chomp counter

Suicune@Choice Scarf
Bold
128 hp/100 def/208 spA/68 spe
-Ice Beam
-filler
-filler
-filler

It will always beat yachechomp and survives a +2 Adamant Outrage 97% of the time. It has no problem against CB, scarf, chainchomp, or LO SD chomp. The only chomp variant it loses to is subsalac but those are very rare from my experience.

 

[stormtrooper]

until you miss a few ice beam thanks to sand veil

 

[Bogmire]

until you miss a few ice beam thanks to sand veil

Tyranitar does fuck up scarfcune, not only sand veil but because sand stream recoil gives garchomp a higher chance of KOing with SD outrage.

 

[Chou Toshio]

wtf bogmire? Who cares whether or not suicune can counter yachechomp? Besides, why use Suicune when you can use Lugia? This isn't a tier about Ubers anyway (as implied by the OP subject).

If you don't have anything worthwhile to say about the OU metagame now, then your posts are just spam. >>

 

[RaikouLover]

I personally miss Garchomp A LOT. I am finding it increasingly difficult to find a reliable thunderwave absorber. Swampert is about the best ground pokemon to choose from now, but even he slows down the pace of my usual up-tempo teams. *Cracks knuckles* guess I have to start giving Flygon a look... it can outrage now meh..

I need a Choice Scarfer!!!!!!! I seriously can't find a good one since Garchomp was the best one in the game! Heatran sucks, then Typhlosion, Salamence, Dragonite, Magmortar... all weak to stealth rock ughhhhhhhhhhh

 

[Darkmalice]

Tyranitar does fuck up scarfcune, not only sand veil but because sand stream recoil gives garchomp a higher chance of KOing with SD outrage.

Suicune would swap in as Garchomp uses SD, and with its speed, it would outrun Chomp before it uses its +2 Outrage. So Suicune should still be fine against Chomp as long as Ice Beam doesnt miss. Scarf Vaporeon might work too.

However, it is a little sad to see a Bulky water forgo Leftovers for a scarf, almost ruining its role as a wall.


And I am aware that the above is off topic. Here's something on topic, Heatran is so much more common now.

 

[Kietharr]

I personally miss Garchomp A LOT. I am finding it increasingly difficult to find a reliable thunderwave absorber. Swampert is about the best ground pokemon to choose from now, but even he slows down the pace of my usual up-tempo teams. *Cracks knuckles* guess I have to start giving Flygon a look... it can outrage now meh..

I need a Choice Scarfer!!!!!!! I seriously can't find a good one since Garchomp was the best one in the game! Heatran sucks, then Typhlosion, Salamence, Dragonite, Magmortar... all weak to stealth rock ughhhhhhhhhhh

1) Try CBlax, he's what I use as a twave absorber. He doesn't give a shit about his speed though the hax can be annoying, and pursuit + huge special defense/HP lets him really fuck up or trap a lot of common Twavers, like celebi. He's also a great anti-Gengar weapon, as he's immune to shadow ball and will OHKO with pursuit should gengar try to escape. Only explosion/focus punch variants can really threaten him. Same goes for Azelf and the majority of the speedy psychic types out there.

2) Gengar and Heatran are both better scarfers than Chomp ever was imo. Gengar has more immunities to get in on and Heatran has a lot of nice x4 resists to abuse.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I personally miss Garchomp A LOT. I am finding it increasingly difficult to find a reliable thunderwave absorber. Swampert is about the best ground pokemon to choose from now, but even he slows down the pace of my usual up-tempo teams. *Cracks knuckles* guess I have to start giving Flygon a look... it can outrage now meh..

I need a Choice Scarfer!!!!!!! I seriously can't find a good one since Garchomp was the best one in the game! Heatran sucks, then Typhlosion, Salamence, Dragonite, Magmortar... all weak to stealth rock ughhhhhhhhhhh

Going to quote this here if only because it hits the nail on the head. The current ground types are just so . . . bad at absorbing t-waves. Especially considering the T-Wavers-- let's see Swampert or Mamoswine switch into Celebi. lol I've opted for flygon because he can at least U-Turn and smack celebi hard, but it's hardly a solution. As for snorlax, I really despise taking the t-wave and facing the chance of t-wave hax, if only because shit that t-waves also likes to recover stall until you get fully paralyzed. ugh

On the note of Celebi (or heal bell users in general), I've been playing around with using heal bell/aeromatherapy, and it seems a lot more profitable now with EVERYTHING trying to use t-wave and will-o-wisp. Hypnosis may be basically gone, but status is more fervant than ever. Probably in large thanks to rotom and hax from heatran.

@Raikoulover-- how about Medicham? lol

 

[RaikouLover]

Medicham... EWWWWWWWW. He can't come in on anything. I miss Garchomp for being able to bounce Thunderbolts of my Water pokemon (which I have on every team).

2) Gengar and Heatran are both better scarfers than Chomp ever was imo. Gengar has more immunities to get in on and Heatran has a lot of nice x4 resists to abuse.

Fuck no. Gengar is decent as a scarfer now thanks to Trick, but in D/P he was nothing but Pursuit bait. The only appeal was outspeeding Deoxys-E.

Heatran is just atrocious as a scarfer. The only use is stopping Lucario (which you can find another person to use). Heatran is walled tooo easily and is massive set-up bait (Hi Kingdra, Hi HP Ice resist, Hi flying pokemon).

What did Garchomp have that these didn't? Dragon STAB only resisted by 1 type meaning a lot less things can set up (Lucario is 2HKOed by Outrage anyway!), the massive surprise factor since other chomps were all Yache, and a good check against itself and every other dragon in the game.