Garchomp is Uber Now...

[Kabigon]

What do you think? Should Garchomp be considered Uber?


Personally I say yes although the yes is really just an opinion.

Garchomp is probably the most overused Pokemon in the world and everyone and their cousin Jim Bob has one. It's base stat's are monstrous.

HP
108
- 357 420 -
Atk
130
266 296 359 394
Def
95
203 226 289 317
SpA
80
176 196 259 284
SpD
85
185 206 269 295
Spe
102
216 240 303 333

Sorry, too lazy to type. But it's stat's are not bad at all and the Sand Veil ability makes it pretty broken. Many people talk about how easy it is to counter (which in retrospect it is) but they usually go up against someone who does not know how to battle. I mean, with the Sand Veil ability, the easiness level drops about 20%. What makes it worse is is that it has one of the deadliest Mixed Sweeper's in the game (not really but just trying to make a point) and is pretty deadly.

Read this counter article from Smogon, or at least the first few paragraphs.

Since the definition of a Garchomp counter is "a Pokemon that can switch into Garchomp and pose an immediate threat", the Swords Dancer moveset is literally uncounterable with Outrage and Yache Berry. No Pokemon can safely switch into Garchomp's powerful STAB attacks and threaten it before it is 2HKOd at worst except for a faster Lugia with almost maximum HP, Reflect and Roost/Recover. Even the majority of Pokemon with super effective Ice-type moves cannot outspeed and OHKO Garchomp. Some exceptions are a Choice Band Weavile with Ice Punch, Starmie, Gengar and Deoxys-S, which all fail to work as counters since Weavile will not switch in without taking huge amounts of damage and the other three can not OHKO Garchomp due to its Yache Berry. Because of this fact, beating Garchomp will often require at least two Pokemon that can handle its attacks or outspeed it. The best and most common way of dealing with Garchomp is by using a bulky pokemon to eliminate its Yache Berry while it sets up, sacrificing something, luring it into Outrage so it can't switch out and then using a revenge killer to finish the job when Garchomp is not near maximum HP. There are many options for revenge killers, namely any faster Pokemon with a strong STAB Dragon attack or STAB Ice attack but most of these rely on Choice Scarf to do so. For example, Choice Scarf Dragonite can OHKO Garchomp with an Outrage of its own, as can Choice Scarf Abomasnow's Blizzard.

Of course, any counter or revenge killer has to worry about Sand Veil. With the virtually omnipresent Sand Stream activating Garchomp's trait, every move has only an 80% chance of connecting which makes any potential counter even less reliable.

Any Ice Beam user, without STAB, needs at least 269 Special Attack to have a guaranteed OHKO on a min HP, min Special Defense Garchomp, unless Garchomp is holding a Life Orb (in which case you need 243 Special Attack if it has used an attack once, or a mere 216 Special Attack if it has attacked twice). With that in mind, Slowbro and Suicune can counter most of these sets. Starmie can switch in and OHKO the first set while it Swords Dances, and is bulky enough to shrug off an unboosted Earthquake. Outrage with Swords Dance will severely damage Suicune and Slowbro (residual damage means they lose) when Garchomp is Jolly, but allows your opponent to switch in something like Weavile or Starmie and OHKO your defenseless Garchomp. Cresselia can also switch in, set up Reflect, and threaten a kill or severely damage with Ice Beam.

So long as they don't have a decent amount (~20%) of residual damage, Hippowdon and Donphan counter the Choice Band set. Hippowdon gets special mention, because it can easily Slack Off the damage it receives and switch in every time. Slowbro can do the same but it will be 2HKOed about 50% of the time against an Adamant Choice Band Garchomp if Sandstorm is in play. As far as the Choice Scarf set goes, Skarmory completely stops it as long as it is kept out of the way of Fire Blasts; other Steels are similar, but need to avoid Earthquake as well. Cresselia is an excellent counter for all sets, but shares the residual damage problem thanks to a lack of a reliable recovery move—its best bet is Rest / Sleep Talk for beating Garchomp. Celebi is another good choice. It needs Hidden Power Ice to do damage fast enough to some sets, but if it's locked into Earthquake, Celebi is pretty safe, and despite being weak to it, Celebi doesn't take much from Fire Blast. Fire Fang and Dragon Claw do not scare Celebi away, even from the Choice Bander. Celebi also has the defenses to mispredict a couple of times against something like Choice Band Outrage or Chain Chomp, as it can safely Recover later.

Celebi and Cresselia are two of the above counters that can switch into Chain Chomp without risking death next turn. Togekiss and Zapdos can take Draco Meteor and Fire Blast with a lot of Special Defense investment; just watch out for Stealth Rock damage and Roost it off in time. Mantine does the same, but Mantine isn't a very good Pokémon otherwise. Repeated smart switching can wear out Draco Meteor's power (and PP) and Garchomp's HP (due to Life Orb); you're playing with fire though. If Stealth Rock is not up the damage output decreases somewhat.

Most teams will want at least one bulky Steel-type specifically to take on Outrage from Choice Band or Swords Dance + Life Orb Garchomp. That is a powerful enough attack to do serious damage to even its counters if they don't resist it. For example, Choice Band Outrage from Adamant Garchomp does 207-244 damage (49.3-58.1%) to 252 HP / 252 Def Impish Hippowdon. Even Jolly Garchomp has a slight chance to 2HKO Hippowdon.

Now, why take special precautions just to guarantee a kill on Garchomp? It's ridiculous.

But on the plus side, most of you battle savvy people will now have more interesting battles. But anyways, just vote in the poll and discuss.

 

[Jetx]

Garchomp is pretty ridiculous, but I don't think it should be banned to Uber... Know what my counter to most Garchomp is? Jumpluff. I'm not gonna explain, but you have to be a little more creative sometimes. When you see Garchomp, you're probably going to lose one pokémon, but every team has weaknesses; Garchomp just happens to be hard to prepare for.

Actually I don't have any good arguments here. I'm just going to hold back and see what others say.

 

[Vyraura]

I support only because he's so common. It makes for less creativity on other people's teams.

 

[Icalasari]

I don't think so. It, in my opinion, would not do well in Ubers, at least not as well as Tyrannitar, and so should stay in OU

Garchomp:

+Strong and Fast
+Can take out other Dragon Types quickly
-Dragon types run rampant
-Even WITH Yache Berry, Ice Type attacks still run rampant enough to take it out fast
-Sand Storm is not rampant

Tyrannitar

+Immune to Psychic
+Can tear through the Psychic types
+Fighting type moves do not run rampant in Uber
+Under the right circumstances, it can even eliminate Drought and Drizzle
+Sand Stream boosts its special defense by 50%
-Drought gives Groudon a HUGE advantage
-Drizzle gives Kyogre a HUGE advantage

EDIT: Even though I am with the Heck No! crowd, erm... Where is the I don't care? option? After all, some people may care so little that it doesn't matter whether Garchomp is or is not Uber

 

[surskitty]

um actually garchomp is significantly better than tyranitar. tyranitar doesn't have sand veil and tyranitar is also slow as fuck but not slow enough to go like FUCK YEAH TRICK ROOM.

Tyranitar is raped by pretty much anything with Close Combat. Yachechomp is raped by... pretty much nothing. ALSO Tyranitar's SpDef sucks ass even with Sandstorm boost and anyway its huge weaknesses are physical. As in they don't care about Sandstorm.


also what the fuck sandstream is everywhere. Tyranitar and Hippowdon. BOTH ARE USED A HELL OF A LOT frequently with garchomp.

 

[Kabigon]

um actually garchomp is significantly better than tyranitar. tyranitar doesn't have sand veil and tyranitar is also slow as fuck but not slow enough to go like FUCK YEAH TRICK ROOM.

Tyranitar is raped by pretty much anything with Close Combat. Yachechomp is raped by... pretty much nothing. ALSO Tyranitar's SpDef sucks ass even with Sandstorm boost and anyway its huge weaknesses are physical. As in they don't care about Sandstorm.


also what the fuck sandstream is everywhere. Tyranitar and Hippowdon. BOTH ARE USED A HELL OF A LOT frequently with garchomp.

That's what I mean. It's so uncreative. If there is a Hippowdon then you can guarantee there is a Garchomp.

 

[Icalasari]

um actually garchomp is significantly better than tyranitar. tyranitar doesn't have sand veil and tyranitar is also slow as fuck but not slow enough to go like FUCK YEAH TRICK ROOM.

Tyranitar is raped by pretty much anything with Close Combat. Yachechomp is raped by... pretty much nothing. ALSO Tyranitar's SpDef sucks ass even with Sandstorm boost and anyway its huge weaknesses are physical. As in they don't care about Sandstorm.


also what the fuck sandstream is everywhere. Tyranitar and Hippowdon. BOTH ARE USED A HELL OF A LOT frequently with garchomp.

I meant not rampant in Ubers. And is Close Combat used in Ubers that often (if at all)?

The points I was trying to bring up were in respect to the Uber tier

 

[surskitty]

Things get sent to ubers if they're overpowered in normal play. Not everything in ubers is useful in ubers.

 

[Ether's Bane]

No. Focus Sash Weavile slaughters Garchomp.

 

[PichuK]

Okay. A Pokemon that can turn a 2-5 into a 2-0 on an almost regular basis is not strong enough to be sent to ubers, simply because one single variation of one single Pokemon can kill it.

It is /extremely/ hard to make a FS Weavile actually work, especially versus Garchomp when there is usually a Sandstorm up that breaks the sash, and because of SR. Without a rapid spinner, fs weavile is kinda lame and if it's leading, then it could potentially get killed before garchomp is even revealed.

Weavile cannot switch in safely to Garchomp unless it is SD-ing, and then has to work with the probable Sand Veil hax that can completely screw you over.

In general, having to have two members of your team specifically to counter /one single pokemon/ is stupid.

 

[Jetx]

The points I was trying to bring up were in respect to the Uber tier

That's not how it works. Uber is a banlist, not a tier, people just play it like it is one. It doesn't matter how well it does in Ubers; Ninjask works well in Ubers too, should we ban that?

 

[nastypass]

ATTN DOUCHEBAGS SAYING 'DDD: he sucks in ubers though'

uber is a fucking /ban/ tier, not something you just dump in because it'll do well there

jesus christ you guys read the goddamn smogon threads for the love of din

 

[surskitty]

you know what else isn't used in ubers?

wynaut.

you know what's banned from normal play?

wynaut.

 

[nastypass]

(actually wynaut isn't banned it just isn't used

ever)

 

[Icalasari]

I still don't like this...

Might have to do with the fact that I spent several months breeding then training a fucking Garchomp, only to have it be useless now >.<

 

[Espeon]

Well, Garchomp is the bane of any non-Garchomp user. It just goes through smashing the opponent's team. It's unfair to leave it in the OU tier as it's clearly above OU standards, even if it is slightly below uber-tier standards.

Cry me a river, Garchomp supporters. :/

 

[Kabigon]

Why does everyone consider Ubers as a tier? Isn't a ban list? And who even plays in Ubers anyway?

 

[Exdeath]

Lots of people play in Ubers and consider it a tier in its own right. Just because Smogon officially considers it a faux tier doesn't mean it is one.

 

[Negrek]

And indeed, quite a number of people on Smogon itself play ubers. There's even a ladder specifically for it on Shoddy.

I've never played it myself (excluding JAA, which merely allowed a wide range of pokémon considered uber), but it looks sort of fun in a crazy kind of way.

 

[.GoreTuzk]

They ruined all the fun for Garchomp, it's too weak and just a misfit in the Uber metagame. It was too broke for OU: the guy's got defenses and HP good enough for an excelent UU wall and an attacking power combined with movepool and typing that makes every OU sweeper sweat to compete with. Taking off a few Speed points would probably leave it in OU, I wish it had 90 Speed instead of 102...

[EDIT] - Just noticed the posts above: the Uber metagame is completely different from the rest, like UU is different from OU too. If you're interested in seeing it as a tier and not as a "ban list" read this. I like playing in Uber because it's playing in full-power, while in OU I'm limiting my team to certain criteria. You work much better with weather effects like rain and sunlight because of Groudon and Kyogre and take advantage of them with pokémon like Manaphy, it's a new experience.