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Garchomp and this Metagame

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1: Would your teams change dramatically if Garchomp never existed and if so, how?
Of course, then I'm statisfied with only Bronzong for taking physical hits. Now I think that I always need some physical back up with the fear of Garchomp.
2: Do you find yourself preparing for Garchomp more than other Pokemon when team building?
Yes
3: Do you have more than one way of dealing with Garchomp on your teams or do you have exactly 1 counter or 1 way of dealing with it?
Most of the times one 'counter' for example Skarmory or Celebi (yeah right, like there is a true counter) and something that can revenge kill Garchomp
4: Does Garchomp impact the popularity of certain sets or Pokemon?
Yes with Garchomp being so popular, things that are capable of stopping it will also be more popular. Gliscor, Cresselia etc.
5: Do you think there is any other Pokemon nearly as threatening or centralizing in the metagame as Garchomp.
Gyarados
 
Thought I'd put in my own opinion.

1: Would your teams change dramatically if Garchomp never existed and if so, how?

Not all of my teams would change. My current ones seem fine as I carry steel types, Ice Shard and/or Scarf pokemon that carry an Ice attack (Adamant Scarf Aerodactyl is amazing :naughty:). Though I probably would still use these measures even if Garchomp was banned due to the possibility of Scarfed Salamence.

2: Do you find yourself preparing for Garchomp more than other Pokemon when team building?

Only somewhat. Garchomp is easily countered by revenge kill and Bronzong/Metagross. I prepare more for breaking walls than sweepers like Garchomp, and then I factor in the threat of these sweepers into my team's movesets.

3: Do you have more than one way of dealing with Garchomp on your teams or do you have exactly 1 counter or 1 way of dealing with it?

As I said before, my current 2 favorite teams (Raikou-support, and Scarf Aerodactyl/Sandstorm) use Raikou's fast HP Ice or Metagross to take Outrage (Raikou teams) or use Aero's high speed with Scarf to Ice Fang revenge kill Garchomp.

4: Does Garchomp impact the popularity of certain sets or Pokemon?

To a degree. Garchomp makes several pokemon carry HP Ice instead of more preferable types, but again, Salamence makes this a reason as well. Garchomp also makes steel types (especially Bronzong and Skarmory, both immune to EQ) much more appealing. Neither of the two pokemon utterly make other pokemon useless like Blissey, who shuts down a large number of special sweepers or forces them to carry the tricky Focus Punch/Blast. Blissey alone, IMO, makes fighting moves that much more appealing.

5: Do you think there is any other Pokemon nearly as threatening or centralizing in the metagame as Garchomp.

Tyranitar, Hippowdon, Abomasnow (spelling?) and Blissey come to mind. The first 3 create more residual damage in the form of weather, reducing the effectiveness of Reveral/Flail, Endeavor, Focus Sash and making a low-health berry (like Salac) riskier. Blissey, as I've stated, makes many possible excellent special sweepers near impossible to use due to her special walling ability. Garchomp is indeed threatening, but I'd put him on par with Gengar and Infernape. He's one of the most threatening, but I'm not sure if I'd say he's centralizing as the before pokemon mentoined already.
 
1: Would my team change dramatically if Garchomp never existed, and if so, how?

Other than having to use Salamence as my physical sweeper, no.

2: Do I find myself preparing for Garchomp more than anybody else when teambuilding?

Yes, I commonly think about Garchomp when I'm making a team.

3: Do I have more than one way of dealing with Garchomp on my team or do I have a single way of dealing with it?

I have Skarmory to take Outrage. Gengar and Starmie both carry Ice Attacks to hit Chomp with. I can also use my own Garchomp to kill them provided they are not scarfed.

4: Does Garchomp impact the popularity of certain moves or Pokemon?

Yes. With Chomp being so used, people put Ice attacks on 2-3 members of their teams, and put a bulky steel-type somewhere on their teams. Weavile and Mamoswine useage will also rise because of Garchomp.

5: Do I think that there is something that is as threatening or centralizing in the metagame as Garchomp?

Tyranitar and Gyarados. T-tar creates residual damage in Sand Stream, which renders Focus Sash useless and makes using pinch berries much riskier than it already is. CB T-tar has very few safe switchins, and most of his counters get waxed by Ice Beam. He is also quite bulky, requiring around 610 Attack to OHKO it with a non-STAB Earthquake, assuming 252 HP EV's. Gyarados is another centralizing force in today's metagame. The only good switchins into a Gyarados Waterfall are Water-types, and most of those need Thunderbolt or HP Electric to hurt it decently. Gyarados can set up with more impunity than Chomp thanks to Taunt, making phazing useless aginst it.
 
I don't feel I need to reply to your whole post because you didn't really bring up anything that counteracts what I say. All you are saying is that there is luck involved. Anything can wear brightpowder and have the same effect -- let's not even take into account that there's always the chances of critical hits, additional effects (freezing). You're almost as likely to crit or freeze as you are to miss Garchomp.

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No, Garchomp doesn't guarantee a kill every match. If Garchomp takes out a counter it will usually be crippled itself. Yes it can do a lot of damage to any pokemon in the game, but there are tons of pokemon that can do that. Everything seems to be resting on the idea of a counter and that's what makes it non-uber. But, truly, there is no definition for Uber in the first place and while we like to make distinctions between overpowered pokemon and less powerful ones -- there is no clear line here between Garchomp and the rest of OU.
Yes there is. Just look at the usage statistics.
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Again, pointing to the usage statistics doesn't mean anything. Blissey was on top of the usage statistics for how long? And by how much?

You cannot compare Garchomp to Blissey, regardless of what the usage statistics may be telling you. One is a wall, one is an offensive powerhouse. One wrong move, or one miss, against Blissey is not going to drastically alter the game the way it will against Garchomp.

Blissey is a de-centralizing force, if anything. Without it, Alakazam, Raikou, Azelf, non Sub-Punch Gengar, Specsmence, etc. would tear through the metagame like nothing. Blissey is the reason special sweepers with vast movepools, such as these, are not totally overpowered.
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What? One wrong move or one miss against any of the top sweepers in the game means the game will be drastically altered (and I'm talking about Hypnosis, Stone edge, etc. for misses). That said, Garchomp is no different. While there is a chance of a miss it usually isn't going to drastically affect who is going to win. Key word being usually. Keep in mind that Pokemon is largely a game of odds to begin with and even though there is a small chance of missing Garchomp it doesn't make him overpowered.

I am starting to think that you don't understand what overcentralization is. Blissey is, mostly, the entire reason that our metagame is predominantly physical. I won't even go into RSE. Garchomp on the other hand really shouldn't affect the game as much as people say. My team would barely change at all if Garchomp wasn't around. Whereas if Blissey wasn't around teams would change drastically.

Unpredictability is also something that is, to me, far more dangerous. As long as you know what Garchomp is doing, although there might not be a 100% counter, you can at least play around it. The same can't be said for something you don't know the set to.
 
I know I'm not bold voting, but something has to be said about all this "OMG GYARADOS" bandwagon jive.

Porygon2 is a 100% Gyarados counter if both pokemon are at full health, since a +1 Waterfall (two Dragon Dances, since Gyarados has been Intimidated) does only enough to 2HKO, while Porygon2 OHKOs with anything and has Recover.
 
Caelum said:
1: Would your teams change dramatically if Garchomp never existed and if so, how?
2: Do you find yourself preparing for Garchomp more than other Pokemon when team building?
3: Do you have more than one way of dealing with Garchomp on your teams or do you have exactly 1 counter or 1 way of dealing with it?
4: Does Garchomp impact the popularity of certain sets or Pokemon?
5: Do you think there is any other Pokemon nearly as threatening or centralizing in the metagame as Garchomp.
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1.no, not really.

2.well kinda, i run a Garchomp now so basically it a counter for another garchomp.

3.not not just 1 way i have about 2-3 ways to dealing with garchomp.

4.yes it does Garchomp is big mean and scary. on top of that it has good stats people are drawn to garchomp.

5.yes there are other pokemon just as threatning. for Example lets say you start off with a Yanmega with Maxout Sp.Atk and Speed in both IV's and EV's, foucusSash'd is a pain after 1 speed boost and thats not hard to pull off with Protect/Detect. oh yeah and HP-Ice
 
CLegacyM said:
So what if it flinches? It's essentially the same argument being made for missing Garchomp.
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I'm not arguing that.

Alright, so it's not a 100% counter. It's a "better-than-average" counter.

I see where you're going with that, though, and I agree: a small amount of luck is not reason enough to decry something in Pokemon. Pokemon is made on instances of high probability, is it not?
 
@CLegacy-- if anything, saying "blissey was more over centralizing in advanced than garchomp is now" means nothing, as Advanced and DP are completely different games.

The main reason we are having all these tier debates going on is because we are just realizing that we were treating DP as a continuation of advanced-- which we shouldn't have.
 
SIGH...

Blissey is a decentralizing force. If Blissey didn't exist, how would you handle Gengar, Azelf, Alakazam, Porygon-Z, Heatran, Togekiss, Yanmega, Riakou and Specsmence? You wouldn't. You'd get swept by them, unless you used Cradily on a sandstorm team, Probopass in sandstorm, Shuckle in sandstorm, or Regice or something. You'd need to have multiple special walls to handle all the special threats. With Blissey, only a choice few have a chance at getting past her, and they sacrifice type coverage to make a "gimmicky" set so they can beat her.

Yes, Blissey centralizes the game somewhat (although it dropped down to 8th place in just one month, so it's not that popular anymore) but it is a necessary evil, keeping back the massive tide of powered up special attackers. In ADV, you could get away with not having Blissey because there was no Choice Specs or Nasty Plot available. Nowadays, you need it or you have to rely on revenge killing or smart switching.


Garchomp on the otherhand, centralizes the game, but no good comes of it. As a matter of fact, Garchomp forces you to use up a few team slots rather than freeing some up, as Blissey does. You pretty much need a slow sturdy Ice Beamer, to remove the Yache Berry, and a steel to absorb outrages, and a faster revenge killer. Even then, you can lose to it somehow, my team has all of these things, and I still get swept by Garchomp every few games.

You guys have to stop comparing Salamence, Blissey and Gyarados to Garchomp. They aren't even remotely in the same league as Garchomp.

Gyarados has Waterfall as a STAB move (120 power, oh my!), a Stealth Rock weakness, isn't immune to Sandstorm, and has considerably lower damage output than Garchomp. Even with a Dragon Dance, Outrage hits harder than Waterfall does, and Garchomp hasn't even wasted a turn yet. Also, Gyarados' STAB get's walled by waters, grassers and dragons, and some pokemon are even immune to it. Only steels resist Outrage.

Salamence is also weak to Stealth Rock, lacks Outrage, has no STAB on Earthquake, and is slower than Garchomp. While his type coverage is impressive, Dragon Dance just doesn't bring enough power to allow Salamence to plow through it's counters. Garchomp can just swords dance, and with his doubled attack, mow down any walls in his way. As a matter of fact, if both parties have a boost, Jolly Garchomp hits 1.77 times harder than Adamant Salamence. Dragon Dance isn't required on Garchomp; anything faster can't switch in safely, and as for revenge killing, good luck, Garchomp's Yache Berry saves it pretty much every time.


Blissey... I don't see how this relates to Garchomp at all, Blissey's usage is hardly half of Garchomp's, they have vastly different roles, and if Blissey is sweeping your team, you probably have no idea how to play. Stop comparing the two, this isn't ADV anymore, so if Blissey overcentralized then, it doesn't matter anymore, because this is a way different game now. Things have changed.




I'm serious, how can you people ignore the facts? Garchomp's usage climbs every single month, there's no counters for it, and yet we still have people posting ridiculous stuff like "Ice Beam > CHOMP" and "Gyarados is more better than Garchomp".

There has never been a pokemon allowed in OU that is more powerful than Garchomp. If it was an event pokemon or a legendary, it would be banned by now, and you all know it. It happened to Manaphy, because he had no counters, right? Manaphy has less speed and offense than Garchomp does, and considerably worse type coverage. There is also no "physical blissey" to stop Garchomp like there is for Manaphy.
 
CLegacyM said:
I am starting to think that you don't understand what overcentralization is. Blissey is, mostly, the entire reason that our metagame is predominantly physical.
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I'm starting to think you don't understand the concept of a necessary evil. Ban Blissey, and see how long you last against Alakazam, Gengar, Azelf, and the like. You may say they're not abused now, but that's because even if a specific team does not carry Blissey, there is still the threat that the team will, causing people to not use a team of 6 special attackers.

You cannot compare being Sand Veil haxed to using Stone Edge and having it miss. A player went into the battle consciously choosing to use Stone Edge, and knowing there is a chance of it missing. If they didn't want the chance to miss, they'd use a different move. Ice Punch to hit Flying-types, perhaps. Sand Veil is completely beyond the control of the player, short of using Abomasnow.
 
i wouldnt necessarily say that blissey is why the game is mostly physical. i would personally argue that most of the pokemon with better movepools/typing/stats are physically oriented.

Salamence, dragonite, garchomp, metagross and tyranitar, the 600 BST pokemon that arent legendary are all physically oriented. likewise, pokemon with amazing stabs and great abilities seem to be physically oriented as well such as machamp, heracross and gyarados.

there is not a single special sweeper that is as powerful and as bulky as any of the 5 mentioned above physical sweepers. gengar, alakazam, azelf are all very good sweepers, but cannot take a hit worth shit, which makes them usually less effective that the base 600 pokemon.

another reasons i feel the game is physically oriented is there are more physical attacks then special attacks. how often is a physical pokemon hindered by bad movepool (other than entei ond flareon who would not be that great anyways). electrics suck as raikou and zapdos have some of the best stat distributions in the game but cannot sweep very effectively because of lackluster movepools. raikou found itself in BL while zapdos is forced into a BP pr defenseive role most of the time.

so what im trying to say is, stop bitching about blissey. the game is so physically oriented because of external factors nowadays that even with all the phsical walls circulating phyisical attackers are still MORE EFFECTIVE. it will continue to stay this way until a dragon dance for special attack is introduced.
 
overall, unfair bulk such that many ice beams will not ohko, paired with arguably the best offensive pair of stabs currently in the game (there is no fire dragon with eq or ghost fighting with stone edge), paired with swords dance, great speed/offense AND sand veil thrown on top is just getting annoying to deal with. yache chomp more and more seems to only have revenge killers.


curt i remember you getting bored of pokemon for the very reason that "it seemed impossible to make a winning tea without garchomp" maybe you've discovered otherwise lately but i know i remmeber you saying those exact words.
 
Best offensive STAB is Mamoswine, sorry. X) It unfortunately suffers from the lack of any good physical Ice attacks but that doesn't change the type combo itself from being completely awesome. If there was a Special version of Mamoswine that learned Earth Power and Ice Beam, hoo boy...

yache chomp more and more seems to only have revenge killers.

Well hell, so do Yache Salamence/Dragonite or Wacan Gyarados to some extent. :/ They're all a bunch of offensive juggernauts that still manage impressive defenses (for a heavy attacker) due to their high base stat total. You can plop a berry onto any of them to protect their 4x weakness and expect kills, not just Garchomp.

skiddle said:
SIGH...

Blissey is a decentralizing force. If Blissey didn't exist, how would you handle [pkmn]
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Handle it like Garchomp, Machamp, Gyarados, Metagross, T-Tar, Dragonite, Heracross, Breloom. There's no shortage of strong physical threats in the game, how would it be oh-so-gamebreaking to let loose the heavy special attackers any more than their physical counterparts already run amok? Finally, the defensive metagame would be forced to leave the all-252/Bold/Impish + Blissey mentality behind. A defensive centralization (Blissey) is no better than an offensive centralization (e.g. Garchomp), it just doesn't smack people in the face as blatantly.

I'm tired of Dragon Dance getting marginalized and having Garchomp's "I'm only two base faster" Speed being thrown in every naysayer's face over and over and over... Of course Garchomp hits harder with Swords Dance. He also gets finished off by Starmie, Infernape, Gengar, non-Ice Shard Weavile, you name it. Likewise, Salamence and Dragonite don't have to worry about them but may not buff Attack enough to kill mid-range defenders that Garchomp can OHKO. If anything, I'd argue DD is superior because it's easier to get away with DDing twice than it is SDing twice, putting yourself at the same Attack power with nigh-unbeatable Speed.

Sand Veil hax aside, Garchomp will generally die in 2-3 hits like the rest of his high-stat brethren. He'll take one or two hits just setting up and generally lose most of his health right there, then you're basically banking on your opponent not having anything left that's faster or can take the hit to finish the job. The italicized snippet is obviously important and just goes back to what I've been saying the entire time; Sand Veil is the only thing that separates Garchomp from the rest of his hard-hitting brethren.

Manaphy has much better type coverage, Garchomp relies on the sheer power of neutral Dragon to bully through things. (Less Speed is hardly an issue since, as I pointed out previously, the only pokémon that outspeeds the 299 crowd and not also Garchomp, is Garchomp itself.) Not only does Manaphy attack a generally weaker SpDef stat but double damage from its fairly strong type coverage more than bridges the power gap against nearly half its targets. It lacks type weaknesses to exploit unlike Garchomp. It's not susceptible to Burn. Special walls that may get in its way are more easily trapped and kill by Dugtrio/Pursuit than the physical walls that strike back at Garchomp. Even beyond that, with Rain Dance support, Manaphy becomes immune to status and its Surf rivals Garchomp's Outrage in power.

In other news, with this whole "lol Garchomp wins with one-turn setup [even though it really doesn't]" I should point out that Wobbuffet consistently guarantees a free turn if the opponent doesn't submit to having itself outright killed by Counter/MC. Fuck Wobbuffet.

You cannot compare being Sand Veil haxed to using Stone Edge and having it miss. A player went into the battle consciously choosing to use Stone Edge, and knowing there is a chance of it missing. If they didn't want the chance to miss, they'd use a different move. Ice Punch to hit Flying-types, perhaps. Sand Veil is completely beyond the control of the player, short of using Abomasnow.
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While I agree that it's not a comparable situation, for one because Sand Veil is completely passive, it's not really fair to put the onus on the Stone Edge user. We're not talking Flamethrower vs. Fire Blast here, there is no viable, more accurate alternative to Stone Edge. (Rock Slide finds little use outside of Aerodactyl, who can use the flinch to great effect, and even it's still not 100% accurate.)

Sand Stream is more overpowered than Sand Veil, BTW, ban T-Tar and Hippowdon instead of Garchomp. :P And poor Abomasnow too.
 
Best offensive STAB is Mamoswine, sorry.
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except garchomp isnt shut the hell down by anything like mamo who is shut down by the most common lead in todays metagame!

Well hell, so do Yache Salamence/Dragonite or Wacan Gyarados to some extent. :/ They're all a bunch of offensive juggernauts that still manage impressive defenses (for a heavy attacker) due to their high base stat total. You can plop a berry onto any of them to protect their 4x weakness and expect kills, not just Garchomp.
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i almost wanna agree but chomp isnt weak to sr, has sandstorm immune and sand veil and has better hp sdef than all of them (and so can tank ice beams/hp ices better than mence can tank ice beams/hp ices or gyara can tank thunderbolts/hp electrics).

i guess you could say " what about ts" right back at me but surely you'll agree sr is more prevalent and my previous para is more relevant more often.
 
1v1 Garchomp is shut down by Bronzong just as much. :P At any rate, this isn't about the actual pokémon utilizing them so much as type combinations themselves. I believe Levitate Bronzong is the absolutely only resistor of Ground/Ice, bar Magnet Rise, not to mention the amazing type coverage that hits SE on a whole lot of pokémon. Ground/Dragon is also dual resisted by Skarmory and Dragon has absolutely no type coverage to speak of, it just relies on not being resisted by anything.

SR and especially Sandstorm immunity aren't a huge deal if you're setting up any of those pokémon for heavy offense like that, the only thing they can really do is make it easier to 2HKO the other guys. (All of them are already 2HKOed some of the time anyway, especially against their 4x weakness. Salamence and Gyarados offer Intimidate to decrease damage switching into physical blows and all three of them switch in more easily than Garchomp anyway.)

Doesn't really matter that Garchomp can "tank" Ice Beam (Tbolt for Gyarados) better, it dies in two hits anyway. And I'll respond to the Toxic Spikes bits only because you brought it up, but Poison/Toxic damage is much easier to stall for than Sandstorm damage.
 
As mentioned through IRC, this reminds me an awful lot of the Curselax discussions of GSC. Never banned it either, though... *shrug*
 
1v1 maybe (chainchomp beats it), but bronzong shuts down any mamo, switching into it freely and always coming out the winner unlike chomp.
the rest of your post is mostly theorymony
Dragon has absolutely no type coverage to speak of, it just relies on not being resisted by anything.
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you make it sound like dragon stab and base 130 attack is whatever despite outrage/draco metoer being pretty devastating moves.

all three of them switch in more easily than Garchomp anyway.
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id rather be eq neutral than sr weak to be honest

i dunno mre it sounds like you're trivializing garchomp despite his obscene usage rate.
 
Gormenghast said:
curt i remember you getting bored of pokemon for the very reason that "it seemed impossible to make a winning tea without garchomp" maybe you've discovered otherwise lately but i know i remmeber you saying those exact words.
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I fully agree with this statement and it is one of the reasons I've decided to not play as much competitively anymore.
 
I don't have time right now for a full post, but I definitely never said that. I've always been in favor of using other pokemon over Garchomp as I think they are better.
 
I agree, I recently threw Garchomp into one of my teams... I have never seen a pokemon get 2-6 kills every match before, it's obscene.


Now I know why I never got so high in the ladder ever before... you can't do it without a powerhouse like Garchomp.




Also, you people arguing Blissey isn't neccessary; how many of you want to have to pack multiple special walls? You need three walls to handle most physical threats, and Blissey handles most special ones, so that leaves you with to sweepers... remove blissey and you'll either have a team full of walls, or Alakazam and Gengar will sweep you.
 
Mr.E said:
In other news, with this whole "lol Garchomp wins with one-turn setup [even though it really doesn't]" I should point out that Wobbuffet consistently guarantees a free turn if the opponent doesn't submit to having itself outright killed by Counter/MC. Fuck Wobbuffet.
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Wobbuffet is no longer allowed in OU.
 
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