The First Smogon Council - Salamence

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Only one counter?

Try everything that learns an ice type move in the game, even Blissey.

Almost every special sweeper in the game has at least one viable BoltBeam set, and on the physical side, there is still Weavile, Gyrados (ice fang and outrage) and Tyranitar, just to name three obvious ones.

I'm not defending Salamence because I want to keep him on my team, in fact I hate him and don't use him. He has swept me many a time due to mispredictions on my part or allowing all of his counters to die to early, but I don't look forward to a metagame without him.
By that definition anything with a 4x weakness is completely useless. Blissey is 1hkoed by +1 Outrage and should not be switching in on Salamence except to absorb a Fire Blast or Draco Meteor, because it will get destroyed by Outrage. You cannot counter a Pokemon if you can't switch in on it.

Salamence has one counter, and it's Cresselia, which is ironically not very viable in the OU environment as long as Salamence is in it.
 
Magnezone is a reliable way to counter Scizor. Scizor also doesn't have the bulk that Salamence has, and can be dealt with in many ways. Two earthquakes from anything that has a bit of attacking oomph behind it is usually enough to down Scizor. Most Magnezone are EV'd to outspeed an Adamant Scizor anyways, so your point that Scizor can be Superpowered is moot.

Point being is that Salamence has only one such reliable check/counter, unlike Scizor, who's frail 70 Base HP is it's downfall.
You just contradicted yourself. When switching in, Magnezone fears U-Turn or Superpower, but you know it doesn't work that way, we can't predict everything, same goes for Salamence. As for revenge killing, yes, it's arguably the best Scizor revenge killer, but Salamence can be easily revenged too. And... "who's frail 70 Base HP is it's downfall". Are you kidding? Scizor is way more durable than Salamence. Bug / Steel is an awesome typing, no SR weakness, better defences and its most popular set doesn't depend on Life Orb. You could say something like "Scizor is utterly walled by Zapdos and Rotom", which is a pretty valid argument. Not saying Scizor is Uber, because it's definitely OU, just pointing out some flaws.
 
You could say the same for Scizor. You can talk all you want about HP fire on Gengar or Magnezone, but sacraficing that speed IV on Gengar can be suicidal and Magnezone, despite its physical bulk, falls so easily to Earthquake or Close Combat or even Superpower from the scizor it was built to counter. Packing a few fire moves is almost mandatory just because of Scizor, even other steel types such as Metagross and Heatran have a ground weakness, and even Bronzong does not really have all the defenses that he is so often hyped up to have. Without Scizor, teams could be perfectly viable without a fire move.

Does that make scizor uber? No. It makes him an integral part of the game which teams must be flexible enough to handle. Same thing with salamence.
But Scizor is not as difficult to keep in line. Any player can predict an ideal situation where a CB Scizor will use BP and bring in Magnezone. While Scizor is locked into BP, Magnezone can either Sub or Attack (although it won't work on Scizors that lack Choice items).

Mence pretty much is a ridiculous Poke to deal with. DDMence rips teams apart: if he sweeps a whole team, then the opposing player loses the match. Even if he doesn't sweep the whole team, there's going to be at least 1 dead Poke and many more weakened Pokes that won't be sticking around for their niches for very long. MixMence is a gigantic wall-breaker and opens up holes for teammates that can easily take advantage of the situation via set-up or easy pick-off kills.

Salamence also lacks pure counters for EVERY set he runs. There wouldn't be this argument if EVERY Salamence could be countered 100% by some Pokemon. There are situational Pokemon that can check Mence, but a true counter must be able to either force Salamence out and repeatedly switch into it or kill it without taking a significant chunk of damage from ANY of its moves. Dragon STAB in 2 fantastic moves (Outrage/Draco Meteor) hits every Pokemon neutrally but Steel types. Throw in EQ and Fire Blast, and every Steel type is hit not neutrally, but for SE damage. That means Mence is near impossible to counter.

And the argument that you can just stop Mence before it does anything? MixMence is used as a Poke that deals ridiculous chunks of damage to walls that will hinder other Pokemon. If it kills a wall, it's done more good for the team than expected. If it kills more, that's an MVP job.

DDMence is pulled in the late game, where "counters" are severely weakened or fainted, so that Salamence can successfully set up DD and go wreak havoc with Outrage. Usually, Magnezone would be used to trap Steels, and other Pokes would be used to defeat other said checks that were revealed. A Spinner would also be used, meaning the Ghost of the opposing team would be gone, as SR is hindering to Mence's sweep.

Mence can be used to open up holes for the sweepers on the team, or he can be the sweeper on the team that uses Pokemon that open holes. Basically, he plays two roles and has two insane sets that wreak massive amounts of damage on most OU Pokemon.

Preparing for Mence requires multiple checks to be successful. If your only Mence check dies to a misprediction (that's a loose term: I should just say coin toss: heads, you guess right, tails, your check dies), then a loss is evident. Using multiple Pokemon on one single team for one single Pokemon is pretty centralized.

Salamence's teammate stats are also very intriguing. In Mence's Top 20 team partners in April, 18 of them are in the Top 20, and the other 2 teammates are 21 and 22 (excluding Mence), and 15 of them were in the Top 16 (again, the other Poke being Mence). The other two Top 20 Pokemon (Breloom and Gliscor) were 21st and 25th most used with Mence, respectively. Basically, you have the Top 20 with Mence, and the lowest one Pokemon goes is Gliscor, who is Mence's 25th most common teammate. There are 49 Pokemon in the OU Metagame (including all 5 Rotom-A forms). Gliscor is right in the middle then. If that doesn't scream centralization, I don't know what else could.

Long story short, Mence should be Uber.
 
Scizor is way more durable than Salamence
lol

You're forgetting Scizor's base 70 HP which makes him much more frail than Mence.



Let's be honest here. Let's look past the "what if he or she predicted the wrong move and so and so move to counter Salamence." bullshit.

Name three Pokemon who can switch in to Salamence, not get murdered, and can kill it or scare it into switching. If Salamence has a move that can kill it, it doesn't count. ALL PREDICTION AND MINDGAMES ASIDE, IF HE HAS A MOVE THAN CAN INJURE IT BADLY, IT DOES NOT COUNT AS A COUNTER.

Name me three. I'll even get you started, Cressellia.

K, you got two now. Go.
 
lol

You're forgetting Scizor's base 70 HP which makes him much more frail than Mence.



Let's be honest here. Let's look past the "what if he or she predicted the wrong move and so and so move to counter Salamence." bullshit.

Name three Pokemon who can switch in to Salamence, not get murdered, and can kill it or scare it into switching. If Salamence has a move that can kill it, it doesn't count. ALL PREDICTION AND MINDGAMES ASIDE, IF HE HAS A MOVE THAN CAN INJURE IT BADLY, IT DOES NOT COUNT AS A COUNTER.

Name me three. I'll even get you started, Cressellia.

K, you got two now. Go.
Actually, 70/100 physical defenses are better than 95/80 (although not with Intimidate), people tend to run max or near max HP EVs on Scizor (and none on Mence), and Bug/Steel is better defensive typing than Dragon/Flying.

It's already been established that Salamence should be handled via checks, not counters, anyway.
 
lol

You're forgetting Scizor's base 70 HP which makes him much more frail than Mence.



Let's be honest here. Let's look past the "what if he or she predicted the wrong move and so and so move to counter Salamence." bullshit.

Name three Pokemon who can switch in to Salamence, not get murdered, and can kill it or scare it into switching. If Salamence has a move that can kill it, it doesn't count. ALL PREDICTION AND MINDGAMES ASIDE, IF HE HAS A MOVE THAN CAN INJURE IT BADLY, IT DOES NOT COUNT AS A COUNTER.

Name me three. I'll even get you started, Cressellia.

K, you got two now. Go.
If you're insisting on that bullshit (Scizor is more frail than Salamence), it's not worth discussing anything with you. But I might as well name a very nice check: Choice Scarf Porygon2, can switch in, take a Draco Meteor / Outrage / Brick Break and kill it right away with Ice Beam. Remember: Porygon2 has Intimidate against Salamence.
 
Sorry if I missed something, this is a hella long thread and I'm not about to read the entire thing, but what makes Weavile a "dead horse?"

I put a Weavile on my team way back when you needed to have one to counter Garchomp, and though his use has changed and though he is dead without Starmie's rapid spin support, Weavile has not ceased to be a useful pokemon. I know the short answer to the decline in usage is bullet punch, but the weakness to a handful of pokemon, no matter how common, does not lessen the usefullness of pokemon such as Celebi, Heracross, Magnezone, and even Dear Old Salamence.

Without dragons in the game (neither Dragonite nor Flygon is really fit to take this spot) you are going to see massive changes, boltbeam will be replaced by something like bolt-psychic or bolt-other filler. High School dropout rates will increase to nearly 80%, An area the size of Texas will break off from Antarctica, and abortion will become mandatory. Don't ban salamence, the world depends on it.
 
If you're insisting on that bullshit (Scizor is more frail than Salamence), it's not worth discussing anything with you. But I might as well name a very nice check: Choice Scarf Porygon2, can switch in, take a Draco Meteor / Outrage / Brick Break / Outrage and kill it right away with Ice Beam. Renember: Porygon2 has Intimidate against Salamence.
Porygon2 can't outrun Salamence even with a Choice Scarf unless it runs max Speed EVs.
 
ChouToshio's post has been one of the few posts in this thread that have actually made a solid argument for Salamence being OU. Residual damage does hurt Salamence greatly, usually allowing it to switch in only 2-3 times. However, I think there's a hole in that argument that wasn't sufficiently addressed. Salamence isn't Flygon. It doesn't need many switch-ins to do its job. So although switching it in is a risky move, it at once seizes control of the board (continuing your chess analogy here). Now, I'm not a pro at Pokemon by any means, but I did make it to over 1400 on the ladder pre-Latias ban, so I think I'm at least decent at the game. The assumption that a lot of people are making is that the player using Salamence will just switch it in on any resisted attack and attempt to set up or grab a quick kill. This is anything but the truth. I rarely, if at all, see good players bringing Salamence in on Turn 4. Salamence's go-to switch-ins and revenge killers are easily lured out by other threats. Like you said, Scarfed Flygon isn't going to be hidden in the last slot, because it's built to scout and revenge kill throughout the game. Salamence isn't going to be brought out while that's around (unless you anticipate it switching in and fire off a Draco Meteor). When Salamence does come out, it has precisely the effect of a Queen in chess. Suddenly, it becomes the center of attention. Nothing else in OU has that kind of presence. I don't think it's exactly balanced to have a Pokemon like that in the metagame.

I would also like to add that the game doesn't end when you kill Salamence. A lot of posters have repeated again and again that even if you switch in a bulky Pokemon predicting MixMence and let it get off a DD, that you can revenge kill it by forcing it to Outrage. Ice Shard users, Scizor, Scarfed Flygon something else bulky enough to take a +1 Outrage and 1hko with Stone Edge or Ice Beam. I'd like to point out that every almost single one of these commonly used revenge killers gives another Pokemon a free turn. So you switched in Weavile and got rid of Salamence with Ice Shard. Good for you. Now Gyarados has a free turn to DD, or Metagross has a free turn to Agility, or you also lost you revenge killer in addition to what you lost to Salamence. How many Pokemon carry a Choice Scarf just to revenge Salamence? How many of those Pokemon are going to be locked into a resisted move after they revenge it?
But by the same token, Salamence having that kind of presence doesn't make that presence broken by default. As Chou pointed out, Mence often has a single opportunity to sweep, and it failing to do so means that the significant effort of your team to meet those conditions have all been wasted (I'm referring to the Dancer here, I'll get MixMence later).

And if Salamence is indeed the deadliest threat in OU as you imply, revenging it is ALWAYS the best course of action - who cares if Gyara sets up DD or Meta uses Agility, as long as Salamence (the most dangerous one) has been taken down.

There are several notable OU pokemon capable of taking a +1 attack and retaliating. Calcs assume 364 Attack at +1 with a LO:

Outrage vs. 252 / 252 Relaxed Swampert: (73.76% - 87.13%)
Outrage vs. 252 / 252 Bold Suicune: (63.12% - 74.26%)
Outrage vs. 252 / 228 Calm Cresselia: (62.16% - 73.20%)
Outrage vs. 252 / 168 Impish Hippowdon: (63.10% - 74.52%)
Outrage vs. 252 / 220 Bold Celebi: (70.54% - 83.17%)
Outrage vs. 252 / 252 Impish Donphan: (64.06% - 75.26%)
+0 Outrage vs. 252 / 252 Impish Gyara: (55.08% - 64.97%)
Outrage vs. 252 / 220 Bold Shaymin: (70.54% - 83.17%)
Outrage vs. 252 / 252 Bold Slowbro: (66.50% - 78.43%)
Fire Blast vs. 212 / 44 Impish Torterra: (70.57% - 83.07%)
Earthquake vs. 252 / 0 Careful Regirock: (64.84% - 76.37%)

I excluded the steels for obvious reasons. All of these pokemon do have their merits, however:

-Swampert: We all know what it does. It is often seen in the lead position however, and lack of recovery hurts it. Still a nice check though.

-Suicune: Max / Max Suicune is almost always seen running a Cro set, but nobody ever thinks to just forgo Calm Mind and give it Ice Beam. If it comes in on Draco Meteor, you survive with about a third of your health (which you can Rest later). The thing is, now you know that Mence has to Outrage to secure the kill. Free switch to a steel.

-Cresselia: Some people say it is useless, but in all honestly I disagree. It can spread paralysis around your enemy's team as well as provide screen support, which is never useless. Her equal defenses allow her to take on both MixMence and DDMence, either paralyzing it or going for the kill with Ice Beam. Scizor and Tyranitar are around? You know they're coming out to harass her, so just Thunder Wave / double switch to an advantage.

-Hippowdon: The only drawback is that it sets up Sand, though that further weakens Mence so it evens out. It can set up rocks, has instant recovery, and its awesome defense helps it check other top threats such as Tyranitar and Metagross.

-Celebi: Everyone has all but forgotten about the onion in its defensive form, which is annoying to face and equally as difficult to take down. Recover keeps her at full health throughout the match, and HP Ice disposes of Mence when she needs it. Yeah it takes alot of damage, but it is pretty speedy and has Lefties and Recover to restore its health when it gets the chance.

-Donphan: Rarely shows its face around OU anymore, but it still has its uses. If it switches in on a DD, it gets to Ice Shard Mence before taking a hit, then Ice Shard again for the kill. And if you are running Donphan, odds are it is spinning, which helps out with removing rocks.

-Gyarados: It's a stretch, but it can switch in and Roar Mence out in a pinch if it has to. Temporary solution at best, but Mence will come back in with about 28% later on (1 round of LO, 2 hits of Stealth rock, and 2 hits of sand), effectively crippling it.

-Shaymin: An alternative to Celebi, if you dislike Pursuit ruining your fun. Natural Rest helps it with recovery.

-Slowbro: Has been all but forgotten. Reliable recovery, great defenses, and Ice Beam put DDMence in its place. It can also deal with Gyarados, Metagross, Heatran, and other threats.

-Torterra: Rarely seen, but the defensive set can take a hit and strike back with Stone Edge. Aside from Mence, it can cover threats like HP Ice-less Jolteon, Tyranitar, Metagross, Jirachi, and more.

-Regirock: I'm really unsure as to why this isn't used more. It's uninvested defense is still sky-high, and it has access to great support moves like Thunder Wave and Stealth Rock. It benefits from the omnipresent sand, and can check certain threats (Tyranitar, Heatran, Jolteon, Flygon).

I realize this list contains some unorthodox pokemon but why should your options be restricted to those in OU? Nearly all of these checks can also take a Draco Meteor from Mixmence (the best options to do so being those with Recovery, obviously). Additionally, they essentially force Salamence to use Outrage to secure the kill, which is when you go to the steel. Dealing with Mence is really a matter of forcing it to choose between Outraging or dying, which gives you some leeway when it comes to deciding your next switch-in.

EDIT: Aside from checking Mence and playing around it, it is very difficult for DDMence to sweep without considerable support. Magnezone is almost mandatory for Scizor and ScarfJirachi, as well as a wallbreaker to soften the things that can withstand an attack here and there. Not to mention that it still often ends up banking all of its success on winning a speed tie against Jirachi, Flygon, and others. The support required is too much for the DD set to be considered Uber, IMO - if anything, it is closer to fulfilling the support characteristic with the Mixed sets.
 
Salamence's teammate stats are also very intriguing. In Mence's Top 20 team partners in April, 18 of them are in the Top 20, and the other 2 teammates are 21 and 22 (excluding Mence), and 15 of them were in the Top 16 (again, the other Poke being Mence). If that doesn't scream centralization, I don't know what else could.
Not necessarily. Suppose Pokémon X just happens to do equally well on every kind of team. Its teammates would reflect the usage stats, but X isn't doing any of the pushing. Hell, X could be terrible.

Not that Mence is or isn't uber. Just not for that reason.
 
Not necessarily. Suppose Pokémon X just happens to do equally well on every kind of team. Its teammates would reflect the usage stats, but X isn't doing any of the pushing. Hell, X could be terrible.

Not that Mence is or isn't uber. Just not for that reason.
I understand what you mean: there are some Pokemon that are at the top because they do their jobs well.

There are leads in its Top 20, but Scizor, TTar, and Heatran, the Top 3 excluding Salamence, are the Top 3 teammates of Mence in that order. Mence's usefulness does bring up some other Pokemon to fame (although some like Azelf already have it due to their effective niche roles as leads). Breloom and Machamp, however, are helped tremendously by Mence's team-shredding capabilities, as are other sweepers such as DDGyara, SDScizor, DDTar, Infernape, CMJirachi, and AgiliGross. Both Mences open up opportunities for all kinds of Pokemon that, although are very good, are made that much better with Mence roaming around.
 

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The physical/special split combined with Dragon being only resisted by steels who all get checked by Fire Blast/Earthquake means every single attack that Salamence unleashes hits with a 1.5 Stab Modifier on the weaker spectrum of defense, or a 2x/4x Super effective modifier. Hence, unless you're Cresselia or Lugia, you won't be able to take the switch in hit and the next hit.
 
Porygon2 can't outrun Salamence even with a Choice Scarf unless it runs max Speed EVs.
Max HP/Speed Bold Scarf Porygon2 survives everything Salamence can throw at it and outspeeds and OHKOs Mence 100% of the time with Ice Beam, SR isn't even needed. You won't outspeed it if it DDs in the switch in, but by Tracing Intimidate, you are guaranteed to survive a +0 LO Outrage.

Not to mention Scarf P2 isn't that useless later, since it does have Trick to cripple stuff and a pretty good support movepool.

EDIT:
The same could be said about Scarf Cresselia too, though it does need SR to OHKO and has no reliable recovery (it IS bulkier, though).
 
Nearly all of these checks can also take a Draco Meteor from Mixmence (the best options to do so being those with Recovery, obviously).
You make some convincing calcs. Now let me show you mine.

Draco Meteor vs. 252 / 0 Relaxed Swampert: (71.3%-83.9%)
DM vs. 252 / 0 Bold Suicune: (57.4% - 67.8%)
DM vs. 252 / 88 Impish Hippowdon: (72.9%-85.7%)
DM vs. 252 / 0 Bold Celebi: (64.9%-76.5%)
Fire Blast vs. 252 / 0 Bold Celebi: (73.8%-87.1%)
-2 Fire Blast vs. 252 / 0 Bold Celebi: (37.1%-44.1%)
DM vs. 252 / 0 Impish Donphan: 1HKO
DM vs. 252 / 0 Impish Gyara: (66.5%-78.4%)
DM vs. 252 / 0 Bold Shaymin: (64.9%-76.5%)
DM vs. 252 / 4 Bold Slowbro: (79.4%-93.9%)
DM vs. 212 / 0 Impish Torterra: (78.1%-92.2%)
+0 Fire Blast vs. 212 / 0 Impish Torterra: (89.1%-105.2%)
DM vs. 252 / 220 Careful Regirock: (53.6%-62.9%)

The only one of those Pokemon that can take SR damage and switch into Draco Meteor and live a follow up Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, or Earthquake is Suicune, and only if it gets lucky (i.e. Salamence gets a very low hit). Those Pokemon can handle DDMence, but not MixMence.

Max HP/Speed Bold Scarf Porygon2 survives everything Salamence can throw at it and outspeeds and OHKOs Mence 100% of the time with Ice Beam, SR isn't even needed. You won't outspeed it if it DDs in the switch in, but by Tracing Intimidate, you are guaranteed to survive a +0 LO Outrage.

Not to mention Scarf P2 isn't that useless later, since it does have Trick to cripple stuff and a pretty good support movepool.
That sounds pretty gimmicky considering all the Porygon2 sets include heavy investment in Defense EVs, but I suppose it would surprise the hell out of a MixMence. After being knocked down to less than 10%, that is.
 
jvl101993: Right. And we'll probably see all of that when we compare suspect stats with OU stats next month. If the metagame is way different one could argue that Salamence is too centralizing.


As for the theorymon, SubVersion brought up a good point two pages ago: you must predict wrong to get swept, and you have the resources to turn it into more than a 50% guess. If you predict wrong, just in general, you should lose. If you predict right, you should survive. That's the nature of predicting in Pokémon.

I think a better argument against Mence is that the whole game hinges on this one prediction. If I outplay you all game long but misguess which Mence you're using, and therefore lose, well, that's weird! Even if Mence doesn't twist the metagame around his finger, he's still the decider in every battle, which is overcentralizing in its own way.

Of course, the pro-ubers will have to show that the picture I just painted is actually true.
 
That sounds pretty gimmicky considering all the Porygon2 sets include heavy investment in Defense EVs, but I suppose it would surprise the hell out of a MixMence. After being knocked down to less than 10%, that is.
Well, yeah, it does take shitloads of damage, but it has Recover. Cresselia takes far less (depending on your preference of EVs, even less than 50%), but can't recover properly later outside of Rest.

Still, I'm not saying they aren't gimmicky, they seriously are and I doubt they have any other significant uses. But they do work wonderfully for that single purpose (countering any Salamence set).

EDIT:
Studying the possibilities of the Cresselia set, it doesn't seem so bad. Honestly.
Cresselia @ Choice Scarf
Levitate | Bold/Calm
252 HP/196 Def or 196 Sp. Def/60 Speed
~ Ice Beam
~ Trick
~ Lunar Dance/Moonlight
~ Psychic

- Outspeeds Mence and Infernape (331 speed), survives everything they can throw at you, OHKOs both with Ice Beam and Psychic respectively.
- The choice of EVs/Nature depends if you want to take better hits from either spectrum. I'd go with Defense for hurr obvious Scizor and Tyranitar bait, but the Sp. Def variant is a monster at taking MixMence's Meteors and Nape's FBs.
- Trick cripples shit that think of setting up on you.
- A fast Lunar Dance sounds really cool! I mean, think about it!
- Moonlight is unreliable, but an option nonetheless.

So? Any thoughts on this?
 
You make some convincing calcs. Now let me show you mine.

Draco Meteor vs. 252 / 0 Relaxed Swampert: (71.3%-83.9%)
DM vs. 252 / 0 Bold Suicune: (57.4% - 67.8%)
DM vs. 252 / 88 Impish Hippowdon: (72.9%-85.7%)
DM vs. 252 / 0 Bold Celebi: (64.9%-76.5%)
Fire Blast vs. 252 / 0 Bold Celebi: (73.8%-87.1%)
-2 Fire Blast vs. 252 / 0 Bold Celebi: (37.1%-44.1%)
DM vs. 252 / 0 Impish Donphan: 1HKO
DM vs. 252 / 0 Impish Gyara: (66.5%-78.4%)
DM vs. 252 / 0 Bold Shaymin: (64.9%-76.5%)
DM vs. 252 / 4 Bold Slowbro: (79.4%-93.9%)
DM vs. 212 / 0 Impish Torterra: (78.1%-92.2%)
+0 Fire Blast vs. 212 / 0 Impish Torterra: (89.1%-105.2%)
DM vs. 252 / 220 Careful Regirock: (53.6%-62.9%)

The only one of those Pokemon that can take SR damage and switch into Draco Meteor and live a follow up Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, or Earthquake is Suicune, and only if it gets lucky (i.e. Salamence gets a very low hit). Those Pokemon can handle DDMence, but not MixMence.
The thing is, why would they need to? I'll tackle these one at a time.

Swampert: Takes about the same amount from MixMence DM as it would from DDMence's +1 Outrage. In both cases, Mence is left crippled, whether that be an unfavorably low Sp.A or by being KOd with Ice Beam. If you want to save Pert as death fodder you can - the lowered SpA will allow the steel of your choice to come in and end Mence's sweep right there.

Suicune: Will never be KOd by DM + Earthquake, which means the only think Mence can do here is Outrage. Bring in Metagross / Jirachi and call it a day.

Hippowdon: You know Salamence isn't going to lock itself into Outrage, so use an Earthquake resist to take it down. Or, just use a pokemon that doesn't take that much damage from an unboosted 310 Atk LO Earthquake (there are plenty). Also note that Hippowdon is prevalent on stall teams, which often have Skarmory or Forretress as a backup, meaning that if you got rocks up, you haven't lost too much.

Celebi: Is rarely OHKOd by any attack, meaning that Mence takes 2 rounds of LO instead of the usual one, and that translates into an easier revenge kill. I get the whole "but then it has done its job" argument but really, if you are trading Celebi for Salamence then it is a fair trade. Not to mention that MixMence often leads off with DM instead of FB (and hardly ever with EQ), so bringing in a steel is often the best move here. Heatran in particular makes a nice switchin, and is often seen alongside Celebi. You'll note that I'm acknowledging that it isn't Mence vs. 1 pokemon, it is Mence vs. a possibility of 6. It has to predict perfectly to score these crucial KOs, while I have to predict what the most likely attack is and switch accordingly aka Mence has to predict Heatran, while Heatran only has to avoid Earthquake.

Gyara and Donphan: Touche. Here, they should only be brought in if Mence is revealed late-game, signaling a DDer. ResTalk Gyara (often found on stall and balance) is often paired with some type of special sponge, which would be the better choice. I'm not saying that you should always switch Blissey into Mence but, given that Mence does not typically select Outrage as its first attack, it may in fact be your best choice against a mid-game Mence.

Shaymin and Slowbro: Shaymin will always survive the ordeal, and can come back in later on a bulky water or ground to Natural Rest the damage. Slowbro is crippled indeed...maybe I should look into Slowking?

Torterra and Regirock: Torterra is 2HKOd, which means 2 rounds of LO for you. Regirock takes relatively little damage from either of the two sets, making it a decent candidate as a primary switchin. Also, Tyranitar is a common partner for Mence, so it is quite likely that sand will be up and running, lessening the damage it takes.

The point holds true that switch-ins differ for each set. I could say the same for Infernape, Jirachi, or Tyranitar.

It is interesting that Salamence is firing off Draco Meteors free of all consequences. Taking Stealth Rock + LO recoil and ending up at -2 is far from an ideal situation, and in some cases it takes two hits to finally KO the opponent. This leaves Mence vulnerable to faster threats, such as ScarfTran or LO Starmie. And since the set up for the support characteristic is Modern Mixmence and not Classic MixMence (which can use Roost to mitigate passive damage), it is not coming in and wreaking havoc again.

EDIT: To keep this from being pure theorymon, I'm just pointing out that I have no qualms with using these pokemon on the suspect ladder. Swampert, for example, has been working out just fine for me, though I've been playing a bit with the older 252 / 212 / 44 SpA spread I used to run and it is giving me some good results. Donphan and Torterra aren't seeing too much use what with all the Shaymin/Starmie running around by my own Celebi works well with the defensive spread, and is great for taking on Breloom and Machamp if I can score a Leech Seed. I find that most of my changes have been to EV spreads rather than actual pokemon.
 
Well, yeah, it does take shitloads of damage, but it has Recover. Cresselia takes far less (depending on your preference of EVs, even less than 50%), but can't recover properly later outside of Rest.

Still, I'm not saying they aren't gimmicky, they seriously are and I doubt they have any other significant uses. But they do work wonderfully for that single purpose (countering any Salamence set).

EDIT:
Studying the possibilities of the Cresselia set, it doesn't seem so bad. Honestly.
Cresselia @ Choice Scarf
Levitate | Bold/Calm
252 HP/196 Def or 196 Sp. Def/60 Speed
~ Ice Beam
~ Trick
~ Lunar Dance/Moonlight
~ Psychic

- Outspeeds Mence and Infernape (331 speed), survives everything they can throw at you, OHKOs both with Ice Beam and Psychic respectively.
- The choice of EVs/Nature depends if you want to take better hits from either spectrum. I'd go with Defense for hurr obvious Scizor and Tyranitar bait, but the Sp. Def variant is a monster at taking MixMence's Meteors and Nape's FBs.
- Trick cripples shit that think of setting up on you.
- A fast Lunar Dance sounds really cool! I mean, think about it!
- Moonlight is unreliable, but an option nonetheless.

So? Any thoughts on this?
Seems good, and not that gimmicky since it's useful for a couple of things, not just Mence. I'll test it out on the standard ladder and post my results later.
 
I really don't like the comparison between Salamence and Garchomp. Garchomp is a bulky sweeper. Its weaknesses are patched using a type-resist berry, so that it can survive an attack from the opponent's best answer and keep sweeping. Salamence is a fast sweeper. It sweeps by outspeeding its opponents so that it doesn't have to take an attack. Salamence and Garchomp are different Pokémon, and one is not "1000 times better" than another.

However, I find the comparison between Salamence and the queen in chess very interesting. The queen has no "counters" in the sense in which we're using the word. Only the knight can threaten the queen without putting itself directly in her firing range. The queen is thus a very big deal at face value. However, the queen is not broken. In fact, the queen serves to help in clearing up the board before pieces get too locked up. Additionally, basic defenses against the queen are readily available; pawn walls are effective even against the queen, limiting her safe options. The queen adds to the competitive depth of the game. Now, it is definitely arguable whether Salamence achieves the same role, but nonetheless, if Salamence is broken, it's not just because the opponent automatically risks losing a Pokémon to it.
 

PK Gaming

Persona 5
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My biggest problem with Salamence is that it's got the best of both worlds. I mean it's physical counters fear Draco Meteor and the special's fear physical. Godamnit Gamefreak pick one.


PS: (If the pokemon specifics ban do go underway Mence needs to lose Draco Meteor)
 
Good ridance Latias, you destroyed my teams in the past and now you are gone for a while (hopefully a long while). No offense to those that loved the red dragon.
 
I personally am not liking this new metagame. It's even slower than it originally was due to the prevalence of stall teams. Things like Infernape, Metagross, and Lucario can rip teams to shreds.

It's understandable as to why Latias was banned, but Salamence should stay in. Otherwise, get ready for an even more stall oriented game than ever, and half of OU becoming even more unbalanced, Infernape and Lucario in particular.

Surprised about the lack of Jirachi, though.

EDIT: Screw what I said about Jirachi, where the hell is Gliscor?
 

remlabmez

@dacopboss
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnusis a Past WCoP Champion
Most other Pokemon have a good option of counters to use or ways to deal with sweepers. Salamence has only two instances I can think of, and one of them is unreliable. Cresslellia beats Salamence, and Scizor fears getting toasted.

No other sweeper has the defensive capability and the offensive scaryness of Salamence.
you must have missed the part where i said checks and counters, you cant counter everything in this metagame, so some things must be checked, and mop already stated how DD mence is counterable, mixmence is a little different but its not like it cant be checked

edit: I know this is kind of lame but I am going to ignore suggestions of people who are unproven in battling, either show me you are competent with some suspect ladder ratings or past achievements, theorymon is pretty lol to me
 
The chess/Pokémon analogy fails because you can only choose the default pieces. If you could pick between 400 interesting and exciting pieces that would never see the light of day as long as the queen's there, you'd rethink allowing the queen.
 
What's preventing you from using those 400 other pieces? Your entire team doesn't need to be dedicated to killing Salamence. Scarfed Pokemon are a solid way to check Mence, or atleast revenge it. Such as Scarf Gengar.
 
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