As much as I can remember, Stage 3 doesn't have a concrete rating requirement but is more focused on the amount of Suspect EXP you have for each suspect, for those who were curious.
Deluge, I appreciate your support in the crusade to free Garchomp, but you don't necessarily have to 6-0 someone to sweep them. Clean-up duty against three or four weakened members in late-game is "sweep-worthy" material. That said, all my experiences have been that it largely just trades and only sweeps those 1-in-50 battles that Sand Veil activates like crazy. (20% chance to sweep is a large exaggeration overall, that's an infrequent best-case scenario.) Garchomp certainly isn't special with regard to largely forcing a trade of pokémon. :/
[response against other pokemon]
This was never really a real argument, more just a "hey other pokemon are really dangerous too," so I'm just correcting some points here.
--- Kingdra's base SpA may be "only" 95 but that's a big enough improvement over Garchomp's paltry 80 and it's usually packing Life Orb like all its other Dragon Dancing buddies; its Draco Meteor still wrecks things like Gyarados trying to Intimidate it down, who's not exactly a slouch defensively. Don't forget that rain also powers up Kingdra's Water attacks 50% and Waterfall, if they're using it, can flinch. Kingdra is also effective being specially-based, it's just more commonly played on the physical side because Meteor and Hydro Pump more effectively cover the Special side on a physical set than Waterfall/Outrage do vice-versa.
Kingdra can set up rain stand-alone as well, considering that using Rain Dance is +2 Speed and also an effective +1 on its primary STAB. Hey, that's as good as DD. :P It just functions better if you can save Kingdra the setup time and have something else use it.
--- Machamp can Ice Punch, though Dynamicpunch might be the better option anyway if you suspect a Yache Berry. (It has a
weak priority move too, if anyone cares.) Even so, DP does ~43% on average with absolutely zero Attack investment, which can easily be turned into a 2HKO with minor residual damage, such as one layer of Spikes or landing a weak U-Turn on it but it's mostly irrelevant anyway. Once Garchomp is confused, it's playing 50/50 with Machamp because +2 confusion damage is huge. Maybe you cut your losses and switch out then, knowing Machamp has taken more damage at this point and is slow, but that possibly loses you a lot of momentum, racks up unnecessary entry hazard damage and other stuff.
If you're up for Machamp, LoveDestiny, how about Scarf Abomasnow? It nullifies Sand Stream (and therefore Sand Veil), outspeeds and OHKOs Garchomp even through Yache Berry, and even checks the other two suspects very well. It's pretty much a hard counter to Manaphy (removes rain, resists Water and isn't weak to Ice/Grass) and does a decent job on Latias as well since it's somewhat bulky. Just watch out for that SR weakness and HP Fire Latias. :o
--- Mamoswine's Ice Shard does more damage than Scizor's Bullet Punch. Jolly LO Mamo does about the same as CB Scizor (~55%) but CB puts it at ~65% and the more common Adamant puts it closer to 75%, even through Yache Berry. Obviously, it's an OHKO with heavy overkill against non-Yache Garchomp. Not all Garchomp carry Yache Berry! Even non-Choice sets may be carrying Salac or Haban Berries instead.
So basically every team should carry Skarmory, a toxic spiker and a reflect user to beat Garchomp if I'm getting it right. Well, then I think that team may also be able to beat Groudon.
I thought about that when I was making that first post on the subject. Yeah, it does sound kinda silly to talk about generic things that work against, well, every pokémon, Uber or not. But let's put things into perspective. Let's take Groudon since that's who you mentioned. It's as physically bulky as Rhyperior stat-wise with a lack of physical weaknesses reminiscient of Skarmory. It still has Lucario-level Speed with similar special bulkiness to Garchomp and higher Attack than all of them. Ah, the wonders of a 670 BST. :P No exploitable 4x weakness, either. And then Drought, nevermind what it can do for teammates, essentially erases Groudon's Water weakness and gives it STAB-level Fire attacks. (It learns Overheat too!)
But just in general, Ubers hit a lot harder and they take hits much better
at the same time. The major Ubers (Mewtwo and friends) have an extra
160 total stat points to work with (140 for Kyogre and Groudon). They also tend to be much more versatile due to insanely large, viable movepools. That's all pretty obvious stuff... that's why they're Uber. Garchomp has little versatility, though it is effective in its element nonetheless, and it isn't significantly stronger nor more bulky than many of its OU friends, especially fellow 600 BST pokémon. Groudon doesn't have all that much versatility either, though it does support better, but it's as bulky as the bulkiest of OU pokémon and still hits harder than even OU's strongest attackers.
If anything, Tyranitar is a bigger problem than Garchomp. Sand Stream is the most metagame-defining thing in OU, besides
maybe Stealth Rock. It makes the weather recovery moves not viable in OU, which is a big blow to things like Cresselia and Roserade. It works in tandem with the generally overpowered Dragon attacks (and SR!) to force the metagame to be Steel-centric, who are also immune to Sandstorm (and resist SR!). With the automatic SpD boost to Rock-types in Sandstorm, T-Tar effectively operates at a greater-than-600 BST, much like the big ubers. And, of course, Sand Stream is also Garchomp's biggest enabler. :P Sand Veil is useless without Sand Stream backing it up. The same applies to Hippowdon in most aspects, as Sand Stream is really the major focus here, though it lacks the "effective >600 BST" and general offensive capability of Tyranitar.
inb4freerayquaza
That's the problem with Garchomp. People say stuff like 'Hey, I have little trouble with Chomp, it's [insert name] I have problems with!' but the reason why is that most people just base their entire team around beating it, and then getting swept by something like Heatran because they've got a team full of Steels.
Nothing suggests the team that I posted (or at least mentioned piecemeal) is overprepared for Garchomp to the point I'm extremely weak to random stupid shit. All I did was take my Stage 3-1 team and replace Skymin with Breloom, which doesn't work very well and I would use to cover my CM
Latias weakness if and when I bother to fix it. Yet, I've had absolutely no issue facing it down if you've read my previous posts.
I've got only one pokémon bulky enough to take a +2 hit from it (Swampert) and only one pokémon faster than it (Latias), plus Scizor's strong priority. I'm using neither of the support moves which most effectively deal with it, Reflect and Toxic Spikes. I'm not using either of Garchomp's best counters, Skarmory or Bronzong. Most of the time it gets away with no more than trading with Swampert, or I get Latias in on an Earthquake, or I can chip it low enough with Rotom/Jirachi for Scizor to keep it at bay the rest of the match. Most teams are going to have more responses to Garchomp than I do. Heavily offensive teams will have multiple pokémon to outspeed it, more priority, Scarf users. Half a stall team is gonna be made up of really bulky pokémon that very effectively tank Garchomp's attacks. (Suicune, defensive Gyarados, Skarmory, etc.) Plenty of other people use Spikes or Toxic Spikes. Some people use resist berries, of which Shuca Berry is probably the most common and also the most surprising and effective against Garchomp. Most can even use their own Garchomp to Speed tie as a last resort, or just as a ballsy move in general, but I don't have one!
Most people just aren't as good as I am. :P Kinda funny seeing this post come from someone named
MixMence, too.
