Pokémon Garganacl


Garganacl

Type:
Rock
Stats: 100 / 100 / 130 / 45 / 90 / 35 (500 BST)

Abilities:
Purifying Salt / Sturdy / Clear Body (HA)

Purifying Salt: This pokemon is immune to status conditions. The ability also halves the damage taken from Ghost-type moves.

Full Movepool:
Level-Up:
[00] Hammer Arm [learns it upon evolving]
[00] Block
[00] Tackle
[00] Wide Guard
[00] Harden
[00] Rock Blast
[05] Rock Throw
[07] Mud Shot
[10] Rock Tomb
[13] Rock Polish
[16] Headbutt
[24] Salt Cure
[30] Recover
[34] Rock Slide
[40] Stealth Rock
[44] Heavy Slam
[49] Earthquake
[54] Stone Edge
[60] Explosion
TM Moveset:
[TM001] Take Down
[TM007] Protect
[TM025] Facade
[TM028] Bulldoze
[TM035] Mud Shot
[TM036] Rock Tomb
[TM043] Fling
[TM046] Avalanche
[TM047] Endure
[TM049] Sunny Day
[TM050] Rain Dance
[TM051] Sandstorm
[TM055] Dig
[[TM058] Brick Break
[TM059] Zen Headbutt
[TM066] Body Slam
[TM067] Fire Punch
[TM068] Thunder Punch
[TM069] Ice Punch
[TM070] Sleep Talk
[TM076] Rock Blast
[TM084] Stomping Tantrum
[TM085] Rest
[TM086] Rock Slide
[TM089] Body Press
[TM093] Flash Cannon
[TM099] Iron Head
[TM101] Power Gem
[TM103] Substitute
[TM104] Iron Defense
[TM116] Stealth Rock
[TM121] Heavy Slam
[TM130] Helping Hand
[TM133] Earth Power
[TM149] Earthquake
[TM150] Stone Edge
[TM152] Giga Impact
[TM163] Hyper Beam
[TM171] Tera Blast
Egg Moves:
  • Fissure
  • Curse
  • Ancient Power
  • Power Gem


Notable Moves:
  • Stone Edge
  • Earthquake
  • Body Press
  • Recover
  • Stealth Rock
  • Iron Head
  • Salt Cure

Salt Cure - Physical [no contact] | 15 PP (max 24) | 40 BP | 100% acc | Damages the opponent for 1/8th of their max HP, or 1/4th if the target is a Steel- or Water-type.

Pros:
  • Solid defensive stats at 100/130/90, which let Garganacl live a good variety of hits. Combined with Recover, it can prove a solid defensive threat by itself.
  • A good ability in Purifying Salt, which makes it unable to be statused and lets it act as a potential counter to Ghost-types such as Dragapult or Skeledirge [+Flutter Mane and Houndstone prior to their bans].
  • Though Mono-Rock is not an amazing defensive type by any means, it lets it check mons like Volcarona [mostly] and Skeledirge. It also means it can take advantage of Sandstorm to get the extra special defense boost
  • Salt Cure lets Garganacl beat Steel-types like Corviknight, a trait much appreciated for a Stealth Rocker. This also ensures it is not completely passive as the move can let it spread heavy chip damage. Best of all, the effect persists even if Garganacl switches out.
Cons:
  • 35 base speed means it will move last most of the time. This means it can easily be taken advantage of by faster, more powerful threats.
  • Mono-Rock as a defensive typing gives it nasty weaknesses to common attacking types such as Grass, Water, and Fighting.

Terastallize Potential?:
  • Probably not worth Terastallizing due to its defensive nature; you’re much better Tera’ing an offensive mon.
  • If you absolutely must, however, Tera Steel or Tera Poison can work in a few situations. You could also Tera Flying or Tera Ghost as well.

Sample Sets:

Defensive Stealth Rock
Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Careful Nature
-Stealth Rock
- Recover
- Body Press
- Salt Cure

A simple defensive Stealth Rocker build. Body Press ensures Garganacl is not completely passive, and Salt Cure lets it deal with mons like Corviknight.

Overall Potential?:
Garganacl is a decent mon overall. Prior to the Flutter Mane/Houndstone bans it proved a solid check to them, and even now it's proven itself quite decent. Even though Tyranitar may end up being better overall, Garganacl is quite decent in its own right.

It may not be OU-level in the long term but I think it could end up seeing use in a lower tier. Immunity to status and a free ghost resist courtesy of Purifying Salt, great defenses, a move that lets it threaten Water- and Steel-types - what’s not to love about this guy?

11/21/22: Changed around a few things, namely adding Tera Flying/Tera Ghost as options.
 
Last edited:
I like my set up sets, so here's a tank set:
Cursed and Cured
Ability: Purifying Salt
Item: Leftovers
Nature: Careful
EVs: (HP 252) (Defense 4) (Special Defense 252)

Moves:
Curse
Recover
Stone Edge/Rock Slide
Earthquake

Set Details:
Start setting up a few Curse to boost your attack and defense, heal off damage with Recover when needed, and then decimate with your STAB of choice and Earthquake. Put all EVs into HP and Sp. Defense since Curse already gives you more than enough physical defense. Leftovers gives you more survivability, and Purifying Salt gives you the unique guarantee your set up attempts will not be thwarted by the attack drop of burns, the death clock of Toxic, the annoyance of paralysis, or the debilitation of sleep.
 
Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 228 SpD
Careful Nature
- Body Press
- Salt Cure
- Recover
- Heavy Slam

This is the Garganacl set I've been using to great success. It walls all the ghosts in the tier fairly effectively and doesn't lose to water or steel types with salt cure + recover. Tera fire walls all the common flutter mane sets and ohkos with heavy slam. In the event of Tera normal Flutter, body press is a 95% chance to ohko.
 
Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Fire
EVs: 252 HP / 28 Def / 228 SpD
Careful Nature
- Body Press
- Salt Cure
- Recover
- Heavy Slam

This is the Garganacl set I've been using to great success. It walls all the ghosts in the tier fairly effectively and doesn't lose to water or steel types with salt cure + recover. Tera fire walls all the common flutter mane sets and ohkos with heavy slam. In the event of Tera normal Flutter, body press is a 95% chance to ohko.
Have you found Salt Cure useful? Or is it mostly a gimmick you could do better with Curse/Body Press?
 
(was told to post this here) In my opinion, Out of all the pokemon added to Scarlet and Violet, Garganacl is often the most overlooked. While it does get somewhat outclassed by Ting-lu. Garganacl can reliably work as an early-game lead, a great choice again Glimmora, Palafin, and even Great Tusk. With a monstrous base 130 defense and access to an incredible ability in Purifying Salt Garganacl can check teams that are heavy with physical attackers, it can end up being a great choice to remove hard-hitting pokemon for an easy late-game clean-up. Its signature move Salt Clear allows for easy chip damage, even against threats it would ordinarily get 2HKO'd by such as Iron Bundle, Skeledirge, and Chi-Yu. And huge damage against really its only wall in Corviknight(besides itself).

Its main check would probably be Gholdengo, as it's truly so versatile with its Trick choice scarf and even not trick sets. And technician Breloom with bullet seed can reliably kill it(unless the opponent is stupid enough to go for spore).

My only suggestion is to not waste EV's on spd it's not worth it and you should always handle it as a physical defender

Strengths

Godly defense and pretty good hp stat
Fairly good attack stat
Access to great moves such as curse, iron defense, salt cure, and more
Tera water gives it good defensive typing however does give it a huge special defensive weakness in electric, ghost tera type could be better, as to be fair any move that isn't doing super effective hits against this pokemon isn't really doing anything lol.

Weaknesses

Special attackers such asChi-yu

A passive pokemon in a more HO suited meta

low special bulk(but a high hp stat more than makes up for this imo, being able to tank a +spe flutter main moonblast)

Shallow movepool that forces you into a specific kind of playstyle.

In conclusion, Garganacl, while often overlooked, can serve as an amazing physical wall, after one iron defense even blocking super effective hits like close combat from great tusk(given that you terastalize into a neutral type). Unlike what some may say, terastalizing is worth it 80-85% of the time. All in all an A tier defensive pokemon.

Example sets:

Cursed Purification

Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 252 Def / 4 SpD
Impish Nature
- Curse
- Earthquake
- Recover
- Body Press
 
Have you found Salt Cure useful? Or is it mostly a gimmick you could do better with Curse/Body Press?
I think salt cure is an extremely powerful option in Garganacl's kit to consider when making any set for it. The ability to punish water and steel switch ins with a 1/4th chip on a 100% accurate move is extremely potent especially when it persists as you switch out compared to alternatives. Definitely lends itself very well to Garganacls defensive role in chipping out Pokémon that would normally like sitting on it.
 

Sulo

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National Dex Leader
I've tried this Pokemon in National Dex OU and I've garnered some pretty good results. I don't think Stealth Rock sets are that good personally (in NDOU; things could be wildly different here in SVOU); the set I've been using is this:

Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 244 SpD / 12 Spe
Careful Nature
- Salt Cure
- Iron Defense
- Body Press
- Recover

Salt Cure is already an amazing move, letting it rack on chip damage against bulky Steel- and Water-types like Toxapex and Corviknight. It still retains solid chip damage against the entirety of the metagame without the boost, however. I think Iron Defense is particularly solid on it as it can't be burnt or poisoned, which is a major draw of the set compared to other potential Iron Defense + Body Press users like Avalugg and Corviknight. A Fairy Tera type allows it to bait the likes of Great Tusk and other Pokemon of their nature, setting up on them with ease and steamrolling with its improved defensive typing. The EVs allow Garganacl to outspeed Toxapex and Pokemon that would Speed creep it. It's a fine Ghost-resistant Pokemon, even better as such considering that Flutter Mane is gone and it can't pressure it with its secondary STAB, leaving behind other Ghost-types like Skeledirge and Annihilape that are practically stone-walled after you Tera. This could potentially be solid in SVOU as well. Good Pokemon, IMO.
 
I've tried this Pokemon in National Dex OU and I've garnered some pretty good results. I don't think Stealth Rock sets are that good personally (in NDOU; things could be wildly different here in SVOU); the set I've been using is this:

Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 244 SpD / 12 Spe
Careful Nature
- Salt Cure
- Iron Defense
- Body Press
- Recover

Salt Cure is already an amazing move, letting it rack on chip damage against bulky Steel- and Water-types like Toxapex and Corviknight. It still retains solid chip damage against the entirety of the metagame without the boost, however. I think Iron Defense is particularly solid on it as it can't be burnt or poisoned, which is a major draw of the set compared to other potential Iron Defense + Body Press users like Avalugg and Corviknight. A Fairy Tera type allows it to bait the likes of Great Tusk and other Pokemon of their nature, setting up on them with ease and steamrolling with its improved defensive typing. The EVs allow Garganacl to outspeed Toxapex and Pokemon that would Speed creep it. It's a fine Ghost-resistant Pokemon, even better as such considering that Flutter Mane is gone and it can't pressure it with its secondary STAB, leaving behind other Ghost-types like Skeledirge and Annihilape that are practically stone-walled after you Tera. This could potentially be solid in SVOU as well. Good Pokemon, IMO.
What is the 12 speed for?
 
I think Tera-Ghost is legitimately fantastic on Garg by virtue of being able to completely flip its weaknesses around. There may be an argument for Tera-Fighting on an Iron Defense (or Curse) set, too, for those beefy STAB Body Presses; it gains a fair amount of weaknesses including to some prominent special attackers, but it resists Dark to catch a ballsy Chi-Yu sleeping on it. Garg is one of the few defensive mons I can justify using Tera on because it just becomes that unreasonable to deal with.

No Garg set should ever be caught without Salt Cure; this move is incredible and makes it infuriatingly hard to switch in against.
 
Tera Ghost Nacl is imo just the best defensive Spin-blocker ngl, and Salt Cure also annoys Corviknight a lot for trying to Defog on it.

Not to mention it completely walls Tusk and Treads after it’s item has been knocked off.
 
I've tried this Pokemon in National Dex OU and I've garnered some pretty good results. I don't think Stealth Rock sets are that good personally (in NDOU; things could be wildly different here in SVOU); the set I've been using is this:

Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Fairy
EVs: 252 HP / 244 SpD / 12 Spe
Careful Nature
- Salt Cure
- Iron Defense
- Body Press
- Recover

Salt Cure is already an amazing move, letting it rack on chip damage against bulky Steel- and Water-types like Toxapex and Corviknight. It still retains solid chip damage against the entirety of the metagame without the boost, however. I think Iron Defense is particularly solid on it as it can't be burnt or poisoned, which is a major draw of the set compared to other potential Iron Defense + Body Press users like Avalugg and Corviknight. A Fairy Tera type allows it to bait the likes of Great Tusk and other Pokemon of their nature, setting up on them with ease and steamrolling with its improved defensive typing. The EVs allow Garganacl to outspeed Toxapex and Pokemon that would Speed creep it. It's a fine Ghost-resistant Pokemon, even better as such considering that Flutter Mane is gone and it can't pressure it with its secondary STAB, leaving behind other Ghost-types like Skeledirge and Annihilape that are practically stone-walled after you Tera. This could potentially be solid in SVOU as well. Good Pokemon, IMO.
I've been using this set lately and I have to say that it is absolutely amazing. The only big difference being that I prefer the flying tera type rather than the fairy one. It allows Garganacl to remove ALL his rock weaknesses (contrary to the fairy type which has a common steel weakness with the rock type) in addition to transform his grass and fighting weaknesses into resistances and his ground weakness into an immunity. Well-used this basically gives nacl a free turn, and often even two since the foe has to switch out lacking coverage moves, which is more than enough to freely set up and start dishing damage. This tera type also allows to beat gholdengo 1 on 1 since nothing 2HKO anymore. And in general, salt cure is amazing on this set, and not only against steel or water type but everything remotely defensive that could take the body press, 12% by turn stacks really fast and 25% is just broken. And even really powerful STAB supereffective moves fails to KO it at full, while you can destroy the rock and ice types that dished the move with a +2 BP.
No, really this set has very little weaknesses and you don't need much support if any (toxic spikes would be appreciated tho) to beat at least half of the team if not completely 6-0 your foes.
 
I think salt cure is an extremely powerful option in Garganacl's kit to consider when making any set for it. The ability to punish water and steel switch ins with a 1/4th chip on a 100% accurate move is extremely potent especially when it persists as you switch out compared to alternatives. Definitely lends itself very well to Garganacls defensive role in chipping out Pokémon that would normally like sitting on it.
I think you're right. Corviknight in particular doesn't want this in his day.
 
I think salt cure is an extremely powerful option in Garganacl's kit to consider when making any set for it. The ability to punish water and steel switch ins with a 1/4th chip on a 100% accurate move is extremely potent especially when it persists as you switch out compared to alternatives. Definitely lends itself very well to Garganacls defensive role in chipping out Pokémon that would normally like sitting on it.
Would Garganacl fit well with Clodsire? Thinking of adding it to my team but feel like I have too many defensive Pokemon with Clodsire and Skeledirge already pretty slow and the focus for my Tera type.
 
I'm curious about wether I should use Body Press or Heavy Slam. So far I've only used Heavy Slam and it has saved me a few times in dire situations as a surprise move, but the damage output isn't great most of the time which makes my Garganacl very passive, forcing me to spam Salt Cure with zero attack EV investiment. Speaking of which, has anyone tried an offensive set yet?
 
Would Garganacl fit well with Clodsire? Thinking of adding it to my team but feel like I have too many defensive Pokemon with Clodsire and Skeledirge already pretty slow and the focus for my Tera type.
You can make a whole team with defensive Pokémon if you wanna play stall, it’s a legit archetype! Many people will hate you for it but it is 100 percent an option so go nuts
 
I used to run this thing full HP and SPD+ with an AV and it made for a very good switch against Flutter Mane (always OHKO with no investment heavy slam), sadly its not as good since the ban, still works against chi-yu but cant properly function as your special tank with iron bundle being popular.
 

Sulo

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National Dex Leader
Is there

Is there any benefit from 8 speed EV vs 12 speed EV? I don’t mind cutting 4 away for sp def but just wondering on your take with 12 on the first set.
It's really just insurance so you can 100% outspeed Toxapex and other Pokemon that want to as well. Though, if that isn't an issue, you can at worst go 4 Speed EVs to hit 107 (no Speed Toxapex is 106). 8/12 Speed EVs just mean you're faster than Pokemon like a potential 4/8 Speed EV Dondozo or something of that nature.
 
Here's what I've been running on the lower ladder:

Garganacl @ Leftovers
Ability: Purifying Salt
Tera Type: Water
EVs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpD
Impish Nature
- Salt Cure
- Body Press
- Iron Defense
- Recover

The part that I haven't seen elsewhere is Terra Water, which gives it the ability to defensively handle the water and steel types that salt cure offensively deals with. This thing keeps coming through for me against the non-taunt Palafins, Iron Treads, Great Tusks, Kingambits, etc. that think they have you covered. It may be specific to my team structure or to the low ladder, but consider trying it.

I did mess around with Stealth Rock and Block for a few days, but the opportunity cost from Iron Defense + Body Press lost me some games so I don't think I'll turn back.
 

viet noa

eating neopronoun pizza at little xe/xyrs
is a Pre-Contributor
apparently garganacl has been in consideration for appearing on the radar. what's made it a potentially problematic mon in the meta?
 
Ive seen a few videos about how easy it is to become unreasonable. Double Screens being set up alongside it using Iron Defence and Recover makes it incredibly hard to hurt for anything outside of a crit.
 

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