08. Garchomp

Dragon / Ground · Rough Skin (100%) · A+ tier, 10.04% usage (2026-04) · 108/130/95/80/85/102 · the format’s premier offensive Stealth Rock lead that doubles as a Loaded-Dice Scale Shot snowball in the same slot.

Format role

Garchomp is offense’s one-card answer to “I need a Stealth Rock setter that is also a threat.” Ground/Dragon STAB off base 130 Atk hits the entire Steel/Electric/Rock backbone for huge numbers, base 102 Speed sits just above the unboosted-base-100 crowd, and 108/95 is fat enough to eat a hit and click Stealth Rock turn one — then Swords Dance later in the same game. The block says ability is 100% Rough Skin (Sand Veil is dead weight here), so every Garchomp punishes contact. Garchomp leans into its multi-hit identity: Scale Shot + Loaded Dice is the strongest way to break Multiscale, Sash, and Sturdy while raising its own Speed — which is exactly why Dragonium Z (33.6%) and Loaded Dice (24.9%) are its two most-used items. It is not a wall and not a pivot: it is hazards-or-pressure turn one and a snowballing physical breaker from turn two.

Sets

SD Loaded Dice (cleaner) — the headline build

Garchomp @ Loaded Dice (24.9%)
Ability: Rough Skin (100%)
Nature: Jolly  |  EVs: 0 / 252 / 0 / 0 / 4 / 252  (54.8% — the dominant spread)
- Swords Dance        (60.3%)
- Scale Shot          (33.3%)
- Earthquake          (99.5%)
- Fire Fang           (11.9%)  / Stone Edge (9.5%)

After one Swords Dance, Scale Shot at +2 with Loaded Dice (locked to 4–5 hits, +1 Speed after firing) is the breaker; EQ is the spam button into grounded Steels; Fire Fang is the dedicated Skarmory/Corviknight answer (Stone Edge for Flying-types you’d rather hit neutral). This is the set an aggressive offense builds into.

Stealth Rock lead / utility

Garchomp @ Rocky Helmet (19.5%) / Leftovers (12.4%)
Ability: Rough Skin (100%)
Nature: Jolly  |  EVs: 0 / 252 / 0 / 0 / 4 / 252  (54.8%)
- Stealth Rock        (62.4%)
- Earthquake          (99.5%)
- Dragon Tail         (21.0%)  / Spikes (14.2%) / Toxic (21.3%)
- Fire Fang           (11.9%)  / Stone Edge (9.5%)

Rough Skin + Rocky Helmet punishes contact revenge attempts for 1/8 + 1/6 each. Dragon Tail phazes setup and racks hazard chip; Spikes turns it into a two-layer-hazard lead; Toxic wears down the bulky Grounds that switch in. Note the spreads list is dominated by the offensive 0/252/0/0/4/252 (54.8%); the genuinely bulky spreads (Careful 252/0/0/0/200/56 4.8%, Impish 252/0/208/0/48/0 2.8%) are a small minority.

Choice Scarf (revenge / glue)

Garchomp @ Choice Scarf (5.8%)
Ability: Rough Skin (100%)
Nature: Jolly  |  EVs: 0 / 252 / 0 / 0 / 4 / 252
- Earthquake          (99.5%)
- Scale Shot          (33.3%)  / Outrage (33.3%)
- Stone Edge          (9.5%)
- Fire Fang           (11.9%)

Scarf Jolly hits 499 Speed, outrunning the entire base-110 Scarf tier (525 is base-110+; Scarf Chomp loses that race but wins every non-Scarf-110 matchup) and the whole +1 base-100 crowd on the EQ click. Revenge tool for Dragonite, Kyurem, weakened Tapu Lele, and the offensive mirror.

Dragonium-Z (33.6% item) is the most-used item in the data, almost always paired with Outrage (Devastating Drake, 190 BP one-time) or Scale Shot as a single immediate nuke off the SD/EQ chassis. It costs your one team Z-slot for one big hit; on aggressive offense the repeatable Loaded Dice cleaner usually does more, but Z is the legal pick when you specifically need to delete one wall once.

Legality note: every viable Garchomp set here is item-and-ability legal. Its power ceiling is Loaded Dice Scale Shot (or the one-time Dragonium-Z nuke).

What it does

The set you build into on offense is the SD Loaded Dice cleaner; the rest are support shells. The sequencing is the whole point: lead, eat a hit (108/95 bulk plus Rough Skin chip means most physical leads regret contacting it), drop Stealth Rock, then pivot the same Garchomp into a sweep later by clicking Swords Dance on a forced switch. Loaded Dice removes the variance from Scale Shot — it is always 4–5 hits, so it cracks Multiscale Dragonite, Focus Sash leads, and Sturdy in one turn, while the post-Scale-Shot +1 Speed lets a previously-checked Chomp outrun its own counterplay. EQ is the bread-and-butter STAB that 2HKOs most of the tier; Fire Fang is the single most important coverage move because it is Garchomp’s only answer to the Steel/Flying physical walls (Skarmory, Corviknight) that otherwise hard-wall both STABs.

Key interactions to internalize: it is immune to Electric, not Ground — Earthquake still hits Garchomp neutrally — so it pivots into Electrics but does not ignore standard Ground coverage. It does not appreciate Good as Gold Gholdengo — Toxic fails, but Dragon Tail is a damaging move and still connects if Gholdengo is not behind Substitute, so against Ghold you should usually click Earthquake once Air Balloon is gone. It is pressured by Future Sight chip from Slowking-Galar: a Future Sight landing as you set up turns a clean +2 sweep into a trade. And it has zero recovery — every Rocky Helmet, Rough Skin, and Future Sight tick is permanent, so on offense you commit it to a job and spend it.

Load-bearing calcs

All computed with _research/dmgcalc.py (level-100 engine); ranges are min–max roll.

+2 Jolly EQ vs 252/0 Gholdengo: 680–804 (179.9%–212.7%) [guaranteed OHKO] (super-effective — Ground hits Steel; Adamant 746–882). A boosted Garchomp that gets in on Gholdengo cleanly OHKOes it — your offense’s cleanest answer to the format’s #2 mon, provided Ghold has clicked an attack (not sat behind Good as Gold utility).
+2 Jolly Scale Shot (5 hits, Loaded Dice) vs 252/252+ Landorus-T: 320–380 (83.8%–99.5%) [2HKO] (Adamant max-Atk upper bound is 350–420, 91.6%–109.9%, a high-roll OHKO). The physically-bulkiest common Ground answer is not a safe switch into a boosted Chomp; the recommended Jolly set heavily chunks it but only 2HKOs — it does not high-roll OHKO, so Lando-T survives one boosted Scale Shot.
Choice Scarf Jolly EQ vs 0 HP Tapu Lele: 208–246 (74.0%–87.5%) [2HKO]. Scarf Chomp at 499 Speed revenges a Lele that has taken any prior chip — clean math for closing on the terrain breaker.
Jolly EQ vs 0/0 Kingambit: 282–332 (82.7%–97.4%) [2HKO]. Unboosted Chomp does not OHKO a fresh Kingambit, and Sucker Punch trades back — respect Supreme Overlord; boost first or bring a different revenger.
+2 Adamant Fire Fang vs 252/252+ Skarmory: 178–210 (53.3%–62.9%) [2HKO] and +2 Adamant Fire Fang vs 252/252+ Corviknight: 216–256 (54.0%–64.0%) [2HKO]. Even at +2, Fire Fang only 2HKOs the max-defense Steel/Flying walls — they Roost/phaze/Defog back, so Fire Fang pressures but does not break them alone.
Specs Tapu Lele Moonblast vs 0 HP Garchomp: 582–686 (162.6%–191.6%) [OHKO] and Ogerpon-W Ivy Cudgel (+Wellspring Mask) vs 0 HP Garchomp: 213–252 (59.7%–70.6%) [2HKO]. Garchomp is paper to its two biggest offensive checks; never leave it in on a healthy Fairy or Ogerpon-Wellspring.

Checks & counters

The block’s Checks & Counters table lists only Iron Valiant (matchup-weight 58.1; 23.1% KOed / 55.2% switched out) as the single tracked answer — i.e. nothing in the data reliably walls Garchomp; it gets revenged. The rest below is grounded in type logic + the calcs above.

HARD (true counters):

Alomomola — Regenerator + Wish + huge HP eats every attack, Scald-burns the physical set, and never falls to chip. Garchomp cannot touch it without a special-attacking partner.
Skarmory / Corviknight — Steel/Flying resists/walls both STABs; Fire Fang only 2HKOs at +2 (calcs above) while they Roost, Whirlwind, and Defog your Rocks.
Unaware / bulky Ground-Water walls — Clodsire is actually Ground-weak (Poison/Ground) and Gastrodon takes Earthquake neutrally, so they are not Ground immunities; they only work as answers when their spread, Unaware/recovery, and team support let them stomach the hit and punish Scale Shot. True hard stops are the Flying/Levitate Steels unless Garchomp carries the right coverage.

SOFT (checks / revenge):

Iron Valiant — the block’s #1 listed answer: faster, OHKOs back with Moonblast/Close Combat, and revenges chipped Chomp; it switches in only on a read (55% of its appearances are switch-outs, so it checks, not walls).
Landorus-Therian — checks the unboosted set with Intimidate but, per calc, is a coinflip into +2; a true soft check, not a wall.
Slowking-Galar — Future Sight chip + special bulk pressures the no-recovery body; trades rather than walls.
Tapu Lele and any healthy Fairy/Ice — revenge it outright (Moonblast 582–686 OHKOs from full; the 4× Ice weakness means a single Ice Shard / Ice Beam from full ends it). Ogerpon-Wellspring outspeeds too but Ivy Cudgel only 2HKOs (213–252 from full), so it revenges a chipped Chomp rather than OHKOing from full.
Faster Scarfers / priority — Dragonite Extreme Speed and Kingambit Sucker Punch revenge a chipped Chomp before it sets up.

★ Offense angle

This is an engine mon for fast, aggressive offense, and the playstyle is “lead, chip, then snowball.” On your build, run the SD Loaded Dice set and treat Stealth Rock not as a chore but as a turn-one threat: opponents who switch to their Ground/Steel answer eat a free Swords Dance, and now you are a +1-Speed, +2-Atk Scale Shot user that high-rolls through much of their wall list. The 4–5-hit Scale Shot is your anti-cheese button — it is the format’s best way to delete Multiscale Dragonite, Sturdy leads, and Focus Sash setup sweepers in a single turn, which is exactly what an offense team wants out of a lead.

Hazard pressure is the multiplier: pair Stealth Rock Chomp with a spinblocker so the opponent’s forced switches into your Chomp also bank chip. Because Garchomp is Electric-immune and only neutrally hit by Earthquake, it is a free pivot into grounded Electrics and a pressure piece into the Steel/Iron-types your wallbreakers hate, generating momentum for the rest of the team. The revenge math matters too — keep a Choice Scarf Chomp in mind as glue when your build lacks speed control: 499 Speed cleanly outpaces the +1 base-100 tier and revenges weakened Lele, Kyurem, and the Dragonite/Chomp mirror on the EQ click.

How your offense breaks a defensive Garchomp lead: it has no recovery and is 4× Ice / 2× Dragon / 2× Fairy. A Specs Tapu Lele Moonblast or any Ice-coverage breaker OHKOs it from full (calcs above), and Rocky Helmet / Rough Skin only matter if you make contact — click special attacks or non-contact moves (your own Lando-T’s EQ, Ogerpon’s Ivy Cudgel) and Garchomp’s defensive utility collapses fast.

Top teammates & cores

From the 2026-04 block’s top-10: Gholdengo 30.7%, Terapagos 29.8%, Zamazenta 22.4%, Zapdos 20.9%, Alomomola 20.7%, Kingambit 18.0%, Iron Valiant 17.4%, Tapu Lele 16.9%, Ogerpon-Wellspring 15.3%, Tornadus-Therian 14.4%.

Garchomp + Gholdengo (30.7%) — the hazards-and-spinblock backbone. Chomp sets Stealth Rock (and optionally Spikes); Gholdengo’s Ghost typing + Good as Gold keeps your hazards up and the opponent’s removal off the board, so every forced switch into your Garchomp banks compounding chip. Gholdengo also baits in the Grounds that Chomp’s EQ punishes, and Chomp’s Ground STAB patches Ghold’s own Ground weakness — a clean two-way cover. See common cores for partner options.
Garchomp + Kingambit (18.0%) — the offensive double-physical core. Kingambit’s Sucker Punch + Supreme Overlord cleans up the faster, frailer mons (Fairies, Lele, Iron Valiant) that revenge Garchomp, while Garchomp’s EQ pressures the Steels and Fire-types Kingambit fears. Late-game, a field chipped by Chomp’s hazards + Scale Shot trades sets up a near-unwallable Kingambit endgame.

Also high-usage and supportive: Zamazenta (22.4%) and Tapu Lele (16.9%) are the breakers that crack the Alomomola/Steel-Flying walls Garchomp is hard-walled by, Zapdos (20.9%) is the Volt-Switch/Defog pivot that brings Chomp in safely, and Terapagos (29.8%) is the bulky breaker glue that lets Chomp stay aggressive without being the team’s only win condition.