>>36244274Mence is better, even despite Garchomp's more unique typing. Mence has two useful abilities as opposed to rough skin and sand veil. Although Garchomp is easier to slot onto a team and beats mence due to outspeeding and hitting with dragon STAB, mence has recieved meaningful buffs as opposed to garchomp mostly having to work with what made it good in Gen 4. Mence also was a little less predictable, with mixed mence rearing its head numerous times.
Garchomp also loses points for having such a bad mega evolution. Its speed was one of its most attractive features, slightly outpacing the standard 100 speed gang(such as Salamence), but then it gets reduced to 90 with a crappy weather based ability that only works on three move types in the generation where sand stream got nerfed following weather wars. Even when it was used, people just opted for Tyranitar and Excadrill instead of megachomp. You know your mega is pathetic when it loses to itself sans mega evolution. Mega Mence is among the best megas due to gaining the best possible way to use its mostly untapped flying STAB, being able to get off an intimidate before mega evolving, and being such an offensive monster even when GF restricted its boosts mostly to its defenses compared to other megas.
Design wise, also have to give it to mence. Garchomp is trying hard to be cool, and it pulls it off on its own merits, but it's overdesigned by comparison. It has elements of sharks, dinosaurs, dragons, and a jet plane. Salamence is the first Dragon type to go more traditional, inspired by european dragons and contrasing nicely with the chinese dragon inspired Rayquaza from the same games.
