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Garchomp, the most broken pokemon in OU.
- Thread starter xcfrisco
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Yes, they too have versatile movesets. However, that isn't the thing that makes Garchomp Uber. The reason why Garchomp should be Uber (if we see it from that perspective, I personally don't have an opinion on this matter) is because it does not only have a lot of different movesets, but Garchomp itself is a beast. All pokemon that you mentioned before can be walled, and all can be countered very easily. But Garchomp can't. It is not the versatility that would make him Uber, but the combination of versatility with power.
That was just a general reason that makes Garchomp stronger.
Actually, Blissey isn't that game-changing. There are quite a lot of other Pokemon that can fulfill almost the exact same role, Blissey just does it more efficient than others. If Blissey were to become Uber, people would just start using comparable Pokemon. This isn't the case with Garchomp.
I agree here. However, most people carrying Icebeam either get OHKOd by Garchomp (while being outsped), don't OHKO him while he 2HKOs them (and potentially gets a speedboost, to make things worse), or deal so little damage that Garchomp can set up on the Ice beam.
What is there to test? When you look at the statistics, what will tell you that Garchomp is Uber?
If there were a way to test this objectively, I'd agree with you. But there isn't. No one has even proposed a set of statistics to watch that would indicate Garchomp's Uber status. Once some test is agreed upon, then we can begin testing.
Salamence? Walled? It gets higher Atk and Sp. Atk than Garchomp and an equally versatile movepool to boot. Throw in Salamence's massive Sp. Attack, and the few physical walls that can solidly counter various Garchomp sets fail under the might of Specsmence.
Assuming 20% hax are part of an argument here (Hi Sand Veil), Tyranitar can 2-hit KO all of its counters with CB Crunch, as there is a 20% chance that Swampert's Defense will drop on the switch in. Then of course comes Boah.
Very few pokemon counter MixApe. The few that do (Gyarados, Tentacruel, etc. etc.) are demolished by CB Infernape (Thunderpunch, Earthquake, Stone Edge).
If we give the same set of assumptions to those pokemon as we are to Garchomp, they are just as unwallable.
That is a ridiculous basis in my opinion.
If we were 8-year olds playing at recess, then fun is an issue. On a site such as this one, though, I don't see why how much fun something is matters. Bliss and Skarm are far from "fun", but they are strong. Personally, I enjoy the tactics surrounding stall teams *points to name*, but many other people don't consider a Skarm/Bliss/Hippo/Cruel/Spiritomb/Celebi team very "fun". The fact is, though, that I play to win, and I expect the same of every single person I play against on Shoddy.
replace fun with varied. Of course, that's just as hard to measure, because the top 50 will still be the top 50. The only way to really test Garchomp is to analyze battles with and without him including. Obviously, to get a large enough sample size would take a huge amount of effort.
It's been tested since DP came out.
Why is fun not an issue anymore? Do you have some basis for needing to win that isn't just having fun?
Like DT said, first you'd need some form of criteria before you could reliably test it.
Why would you expect that? Winning is just a means to an end in Pokemon; why else would you be playing except to have fun? If there were cash prizes involved, or if it was a major tournament I could understand your determination to win, but in a casual one on one battle I would much rather have fun. Sure, you might have fun winning, but don't mistake winning for enjoying yourself. It's a video game; if it wasn't fun, nobody would play.
Like winning, variety is just a means to an end. Look at the extremes: a very fun game with little variety and an extremely varied game with little fun. Which would you rather play?
I would rather play the game where I had more fun.
Define 'having fun' in Pokemon
I think this is the question that must be ultimately answered. Unfortunately, as you have put forth... we cannot test "fun".
Ultimately, as we add and remove pokemon from the metagame, we are no longer playing the game, but instead, making a new game closer to some ideal that Nintendo didn't create for us. As such, we are no longer pokemon players, but (meta)game designers. Therefore, our primary motivation should be fun.
Aye, theres the rub.
I would say being able to win while using a variety of Pokemon, without any standing out over the others.
I would guess yours would be the most high stakes metagame possible (just speculating).
Of course, its almost impossible to reconcile these two views, so we have a dilemma.
I was actually going to make another thread about this, but since we're discussing fun and overpowered pokemon, I might as well say it here.
Basically it's about the reason I stopped playing Pokemon: it no longer became fun for me. Why? Because of the imbalance. The way it seems to me is, if your team doesn't consist of 6 of the 30 or 40 most used pokemon, then you stand no chance of winning because those pokemon are just better than all the others.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having certain pokemon being stronger than others. But the balance certainly could have been better. Why is it that 90% of teams use Blissey? Because there are no other reliable special walls. Why does every team need to be built with stopping Garchomp in mind? Because it runs over your whole team if you don't devote that much energy to stopping it. No non-legendary pokemon should be that strong. So for me, an environment where Garchomp is always lurking around the corner isn't fun, because Garchomp restricts my team choice that much further.
But I haven't given up on pokemon just yet. What I'm trying to do now is concoct a team that can handle a lot of the OU threats, but more importantly, consists of pokemon that I like, and not just the common counters. If I fail at this then I may just leave the game to the "Pokemon is serious business" crowd.
Maybe I'm complaining to the wrong group of people here. But I just wanted to get that off my chest.
Bull fucking crap! Teams can work just fine without OU whoring. I've raped OU teams with Beedrill, Pachrisu, Xatu, Onix, and Butterfree simply because teams rarely are able to deal with things that they haven't seen 1,000 times before.
OUs are the best, no denying that. But once a poke becomes OU EVERY competetive team has a way to stop it.
About Garchomp... Not too bad... out predict or revenge kill... blah blah blah...
I want to know what pokemon you think are "comparable" to blissey in it's abilities as a special wall 0_O. I can think of ONE that is a lot worse than Blissey at special walling...
More on topic, I agree with BH basically. Out-predict or revenge kill him. I run Slowbro on a lot of teams among other things that can help against Chompy, and I rarely have a huge problem with it.
It depends on the player. :/
Now let me ask you, what if I busted out a super AR and cloned YOU (down to all the pkmn knowledge and experience), then had your clone pick out 6 OUs to fight your beedril and onix.
Who do you think would win?
Maybe you should be a little more fair... I mean 6 OU vs. 2 NU pokemon? Come on... at least make it so that one side isn't outnumbered by the other. Make it a 6 on 6 rather than a 6 on 2...
If you can win with NU pokemon in OU, more power to you, but no one is going to slot 5-6 NUs (even with sash, lol gimmicks) and expect to win consistently. OU pokemon are overused for a reason. They simply have more overall power/effectiveness than their UU/BL/(lol)NU friends. They can be outdone in niche positions, which is where a lot of UU/BL pokes come in, and the occasional NU, but overall, they are obviously better. (Yes, I'm aware tentacruel is OU while not being terribly great except in his niche, he's the exception, not the rule).
I would win.
OUs are clearly better then NUs. But BL and even UU have a fairly decent shot at fighting OUs. I have more trouble vs UUs and BLs because their standards are not plastered in every RMT. Its harder to counter something if you don't know what it does.
OUs are popular by definition. They are not inherently more powerful than BLs. UUs are debated to be less powerful than OUs, but only in the UU environment (to retain balance).
For example... Walrein is a UU pokemon who can thrive in an OU environment. Why? Because Abomasnow is OU. With proper support, he can hold his own in an OU environment.
Popularity =/= Power. OU == Popularity.
Further, UU pokemon == less powerful than BLs in the UU metagame. Not necessarily less powerful in OU. UU is a different metagame where Ice isn't as whored as in OU. It is where the top physical walls like Steelix roam free, while the vast majority of Sp. Walls are left alone in OU. Hell, Grumpig, Hypno, and Noctowl are among the best UU's got in Sp. Walling.
It is a different environment in UU, even if the metagame isn't fully developed yet. You can't just compare UU pokemon to BLs in an OU environment... many UU pokemon were brought down because of the interesting aspects in BL. Swellow for example was only brought down because Rock/Steel pokemon like Aggron and Probopass are common walls in UU.
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