GARCHOMP Tier Discussion Thread

Should Garchomp be tested out of OU? (Please read thread before voting.)

  • Yes, it should be tested and maybe moved to Uber.

    Votes: 41 56.9%
  • No, it can Easily be countered.

    Votes: 31 43.1%

  • Total voters
    72
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.
With everyone here complaining about Sand Veil, it makes you wonder why most leads have Hypnosis and many sweepers carry Stone Edge. Hell, the Standard Blissey set on Smogon analysis lists friggen sing for crying out loud.

actively choosing and using a move that has less than perfect accuracy is very different from using a pokemon that can take passive advantage of its trait. you don't see people drawing a comparison between mean look and shadow tag, do you?

anyway it's tough to quantitatively determine whether or not garchomp is actually overcentralizing the metagame because, while ice beam is the second most popular move in the game and ice shard/punch are popular too, that has a lot to do with the ever-popular salamence as well. i'm leaning towards keeping it in standard if only because i can't help but thinking we are striving a little too adamantly for this perfect game where we do away with "everything" in pokemon that entails luck.

it's kind of a slippery slope but i would rather actually complete our tests on actual suspects before considering what current standard pokemon may be too strong for standard. a concrete and valid example is how dx-s can stop the revenge killing and/or sweeping of garchomp...maybe this is a better answer than just banning garchomp or brightpowder
 
Garchomp is a complete anal bitch to fight in the sandstorm, but it is not unbeatable.

Although banning Garchomp would make my life much easier, I don't support it.


Whoever decided to give Garchomp Sand Veil is a real asshole.
 
Garchomp is a complete anal bitch to fight in the sandstorm, but it is not unbeatable.

Although banning Garchomp would make my life much easier, I don't support it.


Whoever decided to give Garchomp Sand Veil is a real asshole.

I agree.They should have given it rough skin or intimidate.
 
If Garchomp was truly uber, then it would have been banned when the metagame originated (on shoddy) many months ago.

Your argument isn't much better than the first post you quoted. How can this even hold true when two "established" Ubers (Deoxys-S and Wobbuffet) are in the process of being tested (Deoxys is already OU), yet, shoddy's super genius didn't allow them when the "metagame originated"? Is this a one-way highway, where pokemon can only go from Ubers to OU and not the otherway around?

I think that there's a lot of fear in banning an already established pokemon. The process of letting in a pokemon that no one plays with (for practically sake, I'm talking about Wobb and Deoxys) is a million times easier than getting people to stop using with a pokemon that everyone plays with.
 
Eh, usually I use a ScarfGengar to get rid of Garchomp.

However, what you're "somewhat" proposing was something Hipmonlee wanted to do a long time ago. He wanted to ban Pokemon of Base Stats of 600 or over, which would mean excluding Slaking and Regigigas, these Pokemon would be banned:

- Wobbuffet (for the sake that he is Uber at the moment)
- Arceus
- Mewtwo
- Lugia
- Ho-oh
- Rayquaza
- Dialga
- Palkia
- Giratina
- Kyogre
- Groudon
- Dragonite
- Mew
- Tyranitar
- Celebi
- Salamence
- Metagross
- Latios
- Latias
- Deoxys (All forms)
- Jirachi
- Garchomp
- Heatran
- Cresselia
- Manaphy
- Darkrai
- Shaymin

I'm pretty sure he went for the legendary birds and such too, but I'm not going to search all day for the dreaded topic. I think he wanted at the bar most Base 580s moved up to Ubers as well. Still, would you agree to this list?

Anyways, just looking at this at the moment, notice what very usable Pokemon that many use in OU are just being considered "Uber". We have all the Dragons excluding 3 of them (Kingdra, Flygon, and Altaria), Metagross (a useful Dragon resists), Heatran (Common Flash Fire reciever), Cresselia, Jirachi... the list goes on. And this list is pretty ridiculous, just like this discussion on banning Garchomp to OU because "he is unstoppable with those high base stats and extreme movepool!", when you don't make any argument whatsoever about Dragonite and Salamence (as far as I've seen).

The reasons? They may seem vague, but it's reasonable enough. Many OU Pokemon have "no counters" to begin with. Is it hard to stop a Swords Dancing Garchomp? Yes, as actually it's one of the hardest hitting Pokemon. But what about Lucario with Hidden Power Ice, how easy is he stopped? How about Sub + Calm Mind Mismagius? Etc, etc... The point is, is that many Pokemon are hard to stop in the first place, yet you attempt to adapt to that weakness, even if it means to use prediction. I always see this a lot: when a player loses to Infernape / Tyranitar / etc, they want to say "Pokemon X is impossible to stop, I want to make it Uber!" when really they're perhaps the bigger idiots because they cannot accept the fact that they are weak to it or don't know how to handle the situation correctly. It's sad really...

Also Jiggly-Ninja, a Donphan with Ice Shard barely 2HKOs a Garchomp IIRC, but it is still a valid point. No one uses him anymore though, oddly enough. Rare to see.

Eh, further going on, I do hate his ability and the whole "Evasion breaking clause", since it's basically acting like a Double Team or two. I want to tear the person who gave Gamefreak that idea.
 
actively choosing and using a move that has less than perfect accuracy is very different from using a pokemon that can take passive advantage of its trait. you don't see people drawing a comparison between mean look and shadow tag, do you?

anyway it's tough to quantitatively determine whether or not garchomp is actually overcentralizing the metagame because, while ice beam is the second most popular move in the game and ice shard/punch are popular too, that has a lot to do with the ever-popular salamence as well. i'm leaning towards keeping it in standard if only because i can't help but thinking we are striving a little too adamantly for this perfect game where we do away with "everything" in pokemon that entails luck.

it's kind of a slippery slope but i would rather actually complete our tests on actual suspects before considering what current standard pokemon may be too strong for standard. a concrete and valid example is how dx-s can stop the revenge killing and/or sweeping of garchomp...maybe this is a better answer than just banning garchomp or brightpowder

Jump, remember that even without BrightPowder, Garchomp can pass with 4/5 attacks as 20% evasion rate is pretty good. Stacking that on top of the many moves that we use that already only have 70-85% accuracy, such as Hypnosis to Fire Blast, etc... It is pretty good. Not to mention that its defensive stats are above average of the other sweepers.

If Garchomp holds Yache Berry, and slightly changes its EV spread to a tad bit more defensive, it sure can eat a lot of ice users as well.
 
And this list is pretty ridiculous, just like this discussion on banning Garchomp to OU because "he is unstoppable with those high base stats and extreme movepool!", when you don't make any argument whatsoever about Dragonite and Salamence (as far as I've seen).

I don't see how Hipmonlee's proposal is anymore ridiculous than having Ubers and OU be a separate metagame. We have a "botched" version of pokemon as it is, I mean, look at all the clauses we have just to make pokemon competively playable.

I consider Dragonite a really crappy Salamence. He's not a team player at all, it's much harder for him to get in than Salamence. Basically, you need a whole team to revolve around Nite if you want to have a shot at sweeping with him. His speed is also very mediocre and absolutely needs that turn of set-up because his speeds sucks.

Salamence is arguably just as versatile as Garchomp but I think the key difference is that Salamence doesn't get +20% evasion for free in a near ubiquitous envrioment.

Additionally, Stealth Rock really really helps in dealing death blows to those monsters and really hampers there switching in ability.

These are just a few of the bigger examples I have as to why Garchomp (whose benefits have already been stated) is more gamebreaking than either of the previous two.
 
I agree.They should have given it rough skin or intimidate.

Uhh... say what?

Life Orb Garchomp Outrage vs Bulky Chomp (252 Def Impish) w/ Intimidate: 79.55% - 93.56%

Friggen Garchomp will always survive an Adamant Garchomp LO Outrage after Intimidate. Rough Skin makes sense, but Intimidate is a huge boost to defenses. With a weakness only to dragon and ice (predictable weaknesses), Garchomp would become a premier tank. Remember... that is super-effective damage on that Outrage.

Sand Veil has nothing on Intimidate.

actively choosing and using a move that has less than perfect accuracy is very different from using a pokemon that can take passive advantage of its trait. you don't see people drawing a comparison between mean look and shadow tag, do you?

Yes, however, that is not what I wish to compare.

Stone Edge has a 20% chance of missing. Hypnosis is a 30% chance of missing. Yet, Stone Edge is one of the most common attacks in the metagame, while Hypnosis is so powerful that we have clauses restricting it's use. Even then, with its restricted use, Hypnosis is a very common attack used on a great many Pokemon.

20% and 30% accuracy loss isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be. That was my point.
 
Xcfrisco, the point is is that if he wants to consider Garchomp as Uber, then why not throw them all out? That's how I see that he is stating this. Though I can't say his reasons are "the best", since there is more to Garchomp than just Swords Dance and Scarf.

Dragonite actually can play as a BETTER Salamence since he has one key move that Salamence doesn't: Outrage (Actually two: Fire Punch, which is stronger than Fire Fang). He also may have a weaker defense (after factoring Intimidate), but Dragonite has a stronger Special Defense stat, as well as a more dominating Defense stat (not including Intimidate). Of course I'd use Yache Berry just to get a free Dance, but usually if you can get two Dances in you can tear apart teams that don't have a reliable resist, and there's always Fire Blast / Fire Punch and Earthquake to take care of that. Salamence only has Dragon Claw going for him, and usually I like using Salamence as a Mix-Mence anyways.

It's just, I guess, I'm sick of seeing all the threads about "BL-Uber" and the sort.
 
Uhh... say what?

Life Orb Garchomp Outrage vs Bulky Chomp (252 Def Impish) w/ Intimidate: 79.55% - 93.56%

Friggen Garchomp will always survive an Adamant Garchomp LO Outrage after Intimidate. Rough Skin makes sense, but Intimidate is a huge boost to defenses. With a weakness only to dragon and ice (predictable weaknesses), Garchomp would become a premier tank. Remember... that is super-effective damage on that Outrage.

Sand Veil has nothing on Intimidate.



Yes, however, that is not what I wish to compare.

Stone Edge has a 20% chance of missing. Hypnosis is a 30% chance of missing. Yet, Stone Edge is one of the most common attacks in the metagame, while Hypnosis is so powerful that we have clauses restricting it's use. Even then, with its restricted use, Hypnosis is a very common attack used on a great many Pokemon.

20% and 30% accuracy loss isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be. That was my point.

Now you stack that 20% and 30% accuracy loss on top of Sand Veil, making them 60% or 50%, as accurate as a Zap Cannon... Like that's OKAY?
 
dragontamer i think you're missing the point.

take stone edge as an example. you and your opponent both have a single pokemon left. your remaining pokemon is a choice banded tyranitar at 15% health, while your opponent is left with only a 40% blissey. you're obviously not going to use stone edge in this situation because 20% of the time you will lose, so you use crunch. people carry risky moves for the high payoff they have, but in clutch situation they're obviously going to use the 100% move.

the problem i have with garchomp is that you're almost forced to carry a "garchomp" counter (usually more than one actually). in adv you could make do with carrying general counters like bulky waters and you'd cover a group of threats.
 
Eh, usually I use a ScarfGengar to get rid of Garchomp.

However, what you're "somewhat" proposing was something Hipmonlee wanted to do a long time ago. He wanted to ban Pokemon of Base Stats of 600 or over, which would mean excluding Slaking and Regigigas, these Pokemon would be banned:

- Wobbuffet (for the sake that he is Uber at the moment)
- Arceus
- Mewtwo
- Lugia
- Ho-oh
- Rayquaza
- Dialga
- Palkia
- Giratina
- Kyogre
- Groudon
- Dragonite
- Mew
- Tyranitar
- Celebi
- Salamence
- Metagross
- Latios
- Latias
- Deoxys (All forms)
- Jirachi
- Garchomp
- Heatran
- Cresselia
- Manaphy
- Darkrai
- Shaymin

I'm pretty sure he went for the legendary birds and such too, but I'm not going to search all day for the dreaded topic. I think he wanted at the bar most Base 580s moved up to Ubers as well. Still, would you agree to this list?

Anyways, just looking at this at the moment, notice what very usable Pokemon that many use in OU are just being considered "Uber". We have all the Dragons excluding 3 of them (Kingdra, Flygon, and Altaria), Metagross (a useful Dragon resists), Heatran (Common Flash Fire reciever), Cresselia, Jirachi... the list goes on. And this list is pretty ridiculous, just like this discussion on banning Garchomp to OU because "he is unstoppable with those high base stats and extreme movepool!", when you don't make any argument whatsoever about Dragonite and Salamence (as far as I've seen).

The reasons? They may seem vague, but it's reasonable enough. Many OU Pokemon have "no counters" to begin with. Is it hard to stop a Swords Dancing Garchomp? Yes, as actually it's one of the hardest hitting Pokemon. But what about Lucario with Hidden Power Ice, how easy is he stopped? How about Sub + Calm Mind Mismagius? Etc, etc... The point is, is that many Pokemon are hard to stop in the first place, yet you attempt to adapt to that weakness, even if it means to use prediction. I always see this a lot: when a player loses to Infernape / Tyranitar / etc, they want to say "Pokemon X is impossible to stop, I want to make it Uber!" when really they're perhaps the bigger idiots because they cannot accept the fact that they are weak to it or don't know how to handle the situation correctly. It's sad really...

Also Jiggly-Ninja, a Donphan with Ice Shard barely 2HKOs a Garchomp IIRC, but it is still a valid point. No one uses him anymore though, oddly enough. Rare to see.

Eh, further going on, I do hate his ability and the whole "Evasion breaking clause", since it's basically acting like a Double Team or two. I want to tear the person who gave Gamefreak that idea.

Thus, this ability makes him a bit too good for OU, stacking on top of his great base stats that he already has.

Deoxy-S is not Uber anymore.

Wobbuffet is Uber without 580+ Stats.

Entei has 580 base stats, but he sucks.

Slaking's base stat total is 670, and he's not legendary, but there's always the negative side, Truant.

However, Garchomp has GREAT stats, but as well as even BETTER Ability.

He is of course, not impossible to stop, but almost requires an Ice Sharder on any team if you want to have any chance against it, if it's not holding Yache Berry or if you don't miss.
 
Stone Edge has a 20% chance of missing. Hypnosis is a 30% chance of missing. Yet, Stone Edge is one of the most common attacks in the metagame, while Hypnosis is so powerful that we have clauses restricting it's use. Even then, with its restricted use, Hypnosis is a very common attack used on a great many Pokemon.

20% and 30% accuracy loss isn't as big a deal as people make it out to be. That was my point.

Yet, unless you have a No Guard Machamp, there is always a risk/reward scenario when opting to choose a less accurate move over one with more accuracy.

There is no risk with Garchomp, +20% evasion for free (practically) is all reward baby :(
 
I don't see how Hipmonlee's proposal is anymore ridiculous than having Ubers and OU be a separate metagame. We have a "botched" version of pokemon as it is, I mean, look at all the clauses we have just to make pokemon competively playable.

I consider Dragonite a really crappy Salamence. He's not a team player at all, it's much harder for him to get in than Salamence. Basically, you need a whole team to revolve around Nite if you want to have a shot at sweeping with him. His speed is also very mediocre and absolutely needs that turn of set-up because his speeds sucks.

Salamence is arguably just as versatile as Garchomp but I think the key difference is that Salamence doesn't get +20% evasion for free in a near ubiquitous envrioment.

Additionally, Stealth Rock really really helps in dealing death blows to those monsters and really hampers there switching in ability.

These are just a few of the bigger examples I have as to why Garchomp (whose benefits have already been stated) is more gamebreaking than either of the previous two.

You're missing probably the most important reason why Garchomp sees a lot more use than Salamence - it's simply because Garchomp's attacks are that much more powerful. Salamence's strongest physical attack (discounting Dragon Rush) has a total power of 120. Garchomp's strongest has a total power of 180 (and it also has the 150 EQ to hit a lot of things with). 120 vs 180 is a massive difference, though all the other factors undoubtedly contribute to Chomp's power.
 
1059860 said:
Wobbuffet is Uber without 580+ Stats.

Entei has 580 base stats, but he sucks.

Slaking's base stat total is 670, and he's not legendary, but there's always the negative side, Truant.
Colonel M said:
He wanted to ban Pokemon of Base Stats of 600 or over, which would mean excluding Slaking and Regigigas, these Pokemon would be banned:

- Wobbuffet (for the sake that he is Uber at the moment)
- Arceus
- Mewtwo
- Lugia
- Ho-oh
- Rayquaza
- Dialga
- Palkia
- Giratina
- Kyogre
- Groudon
- Dragonite
- Mew
- Tyranitar
- Celebi
- Salamence
- Metagross
- Latios
- Latias
- Deoxys (All forms) (Back in the day)
- Jirachi
- Garchomp
- Heatran
- Cresselia
- Manaphy
- Darkrai
- Shaymin

I'm pretty sure he went for the legendary birds and such too, but I'm not going to search all day for the dreaded topic. I think he wanted at the bar most Base 580s moved up to Ubers as well. Still, would you agree to this list?
Excluding Wobbuffet and Deoxys-S, you basically repeated what I said already. Deoxys-S was Uber BACK THEN. This list wasn't in the present tense.
 
You're missing probably the most important reason why Garchomp sees a lot more use than Salamence - it's simply because Garchomp's attacks are that much more powerful. Salamence's strongest physical attack (discounting Dragon Rush) has a total power of 120. Garchomp's strongest has a total power of 180 (and it also has the 150 EQ to hit a lot of things with).

I included this in my last "catch-all" sentence. Numerous reasons have already been posted in this thread as to why Garchomp is good, including what you said. Its common knowledge that Garchomp's STAB's are amazing. I was just pointing why the two other pokemon aren't as good.

You're right though. I was gonna say something on how Dragon/Flying has nothing on Dragon/Ground for STAB, not to mention that Garchomp gets the best Dragon/Ground moves in the game. I didn't want to make my post too tl;dr
 
Dragon/Ground is also much better than Dragon/Flying for one big reason:

Immunity to Thunder Wave.

I personally don't care if Garchomp goes or stays, but the fact that he's immune to Thunder Wave is a big factor in his sweeping ability. Just take that into consideration.
 
I still agree that Dragon / Ground is a scary combination. It's not quite as excellent as Dragon / Fire since it's resisted only by Heatran, but Dragon / Ground is only resisted by Skarmory and Bronzong... that's two Pokemon. Wow. Actually when I used Garchomp, I always used Swords Dance / Outrage / Earthquake / Fire Fang. Suprisingly I always went Adamant and used Life Orb, though I guess I'd slap a Yache Berry on the occassion of a "full-sweeper team".

It's wierd too though that Flygon gets the best STABs on the SPECIAL SIDE for Dragons. Earth Power and Draco Meteor. Hmph, if onlY Flygon was semi-useful, sadly he isn't though. He has some uses over some Dragons, but he always seems generally outclassed by Garchomp in all ways other than coming in on Earthquakes AND Thunder Waves.
 
It's wierd too though that Flygon gets the best STABs on the SPECIAL SIDE for Dragons. Earth Power and Draco Meteor. Hmph, if onlY Flygon was semi-useful, sadly he isn't though. He has some uses over some Dragons, but he always seems generally outclassed by Garchomp in all ways other than coming in on Earthquakes AND Thunder Waves.

Flygon usage would go up ten-fold if it wasn't for Garchomp. Why use an inferior pokemon when you have something as amazing and gamebreaking as Garchomp.

**Off-topic, Flygon needs Dragon Dance worse than Farfetch'd needs and evolution.
 
Bah. Garchomp isn't so bad. Anything faster with decent special attack and Ice Beam can take it down. Sand Veil is a pain, but a lot of pokemon is luck.

I used my crappy Shoddy team of NU pokes that laid waste to Garchomps. Relicanth, Pachirisu, Xatu, Shedinja, Tentacruel, and Onix made a many Garchomps my bitch.


Garchomp is no worse then Salamence. At least with Garchomps you know where they stand and know what to switch to.

Also Bold Cresselia. Unless i'm mistaken, Outrage is a 3HKO. Bronzong is decent too, although Fire Attacks are annoying.
 
Actually i beleive he is not really broken. A bulky water such as suicune or slowbro can take him down. Celebi makes an excellent counter, even in SS

in a recent battle i faced one and i let it SD, then came in with celebi and he did 57% with dragn claw, and i koed with hp ice.

I think with bright powder he is fucking annoying, brightpowder should be banned on him.
 
#1) A lot of Chomps are Scarfed. If not, they're most likely SD, which Skarm can wall effectively, unless it happens to be carrying Fire Blast, but most SD Chomps don't.

#2) Oh please, there are plenty of faster Pokemon and plenty more Ice Sharders.

#3) Hai Skarm.

#4) Bronzong can take repeated Fire Blast hits and there's always a chance of it missing. It also gives stuff like Heatran a free turn to switch in and HP Ice it.

#5) What about Ice Beam?

#6) A lot of people ban "hax items", making the sandstorm+Bright Powder point null. That leaves it open to Ice Shard from Weavile, one of the most common Pokes in the game. No sane person would leave in Garchomp against Weavile, meaning it either gets owned by Pursuit or gets raped by Ice Shard.

#7) Most carry a Scarf anyways.

#8) 99.9% of Dragonites carry Lum berries, and most Salamence are not EV'd to outspeed much. Most Mence are Specs.

It's not too broken, and it's not all that hard to counter.
 
Also Bold Cresselia. Unless i'm mistaken, Outrage is a 3HKO. Bronzong is decent too, although Fire Attacks are annoying.

Bold Cresselia would be nice if it didn't have such garbage typing and had a recovery move that doesn't suck when garchomp has +20% evasion.

If the two above things were true, I would put Cresselia on all my teams (lol, it would probably be Uber)

If Cresselia is Bold, there's no way a healthy Garchomp is getting OHKO'd, which means Cresselia loses before Chomp does.
 
please excuse my double post

in a recent battle i faced one and i let it SD, then came in with celebi and he did 57% with dragn claw, and i koed with hp ice.

If it was CB, Crunch would've 2HKO'd you.


To all the #'s where you say move beats Garchomp, please add "but only 80%" of the time. Also, it would be nice if you put the stat requirements for healthy garchomp to get OHKO'd by said Ice moves. Ice beam is 266 SpAtt minimum
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top