Salamence is Uber.

[ParadoxFtw]

This is usually true, but it's not the right question. The issue is the gap between the best option and the other options.

OK valid point.
However TTars Dragon Dancing abilities are just as capable as mence with MUCH better bulk, and an immunity. As are his hole punching abilities. The only thing that seperates them is speed. Which is fixed with priority handling Mence, on that not, why do people complain about having to use priority or a bulky water for Mence, both of those are very viable with or without Mence.

Mence is also predictable. The first time they come in it's either Dragon Dance or Draco Meteor, unless you've shown then Scizor or Heatran then you shouldn't be swithcing them in anyway. It may be hard to counter but it also doesn't counter anything, unless it comes in on a grass/ground movec or a bulky waters Surf/Hydro Pump, then it has 0 survivability especially with SR and LO taking 35% away for a switch in plus the ever prevalent SS so it in a fashion works as a revenge killer that has to be revenged. Even with Roost that is hard to work around. I am not trying to insult anybody BTW. I am merely voicing my opinion on the matter.

/Rant

And on the tiering process.... I think it was decent. It didn't take all of yesterday to do and it still allowed to public to (try to) participate. No matter what decision they came to on how to tier it, mass vote, council, suspect test like Lati. Some group of people will be unhappy. You can't please everyone and I also think this is a product of Pokemons luck factor like team match ups, even hax plays a part (I'm not using this as an excuse for Mence) like a crucial miss with Stone Edge or Fireblast.

 

[Shizzle]

OK valid point.
However TTars Dragon Dancing abilities are just as capable as mence with MUCH better bulk, and an immunity. As are his hole punching abilities. The only thing that seperates them is speed. Which is fixed with priority handling Mence, on that not, why do people complain about having to use priority or a bulky water for Mence, both of those are very viable with or without Mence.

Mence is also predictable. The first time they come in it's either Dragon Dance or Draco Meteor, unless you've shown then Scizor or Heatran then you shouldn't be swithcing them in anyway. It may be hard to counter but it also doesn't counter anything, unless it comes in on a grass move a bulky waters Surf/Hydro Pump, then it has 0 survivability especially with SR and LO taking 35% away for a switch in plus the ever prevalent SS. Even with Roost that is hard to work around. I am not trying to insult anybody BTW. I am merely voicing my opinion on the matter.

/Rant

And on the tiering process.... I think it was decent. It didn't take all of yesterday to do and it still allowed to public to (try to) participate. No matter what decision they came to on how to tier it, mass vote, council, suspect test like Lati. Some group of people will be unhappy. You can't please everyone and I also think this is a product of Pokemons luck factor like team match ups, even hax plays a part (I'm not using this as an excuse for Mence) like a crucial miss with Stone Edge or Fireblast.

DD Tyranitar? Not only is it easily beaten by CS pokemon [Jirachi/Flygon], but walls such as Swampert/Gliscor/Skarmory deal with it rather well.

Salamence is not predictable, sure its either running Dragon Dance or MixMence, but do you not see how guessing wrongly can quite easily cost you the match. You go to Scizor, if he hits Earthquake or Fire Blast, Scizor can get owned, Heatran also gets owned by Earthquake, and they both require Choice Scarf/Band to beat Salamence anyway, not to mention Dragon Dance Salamence could of Dragon Danced on your switch to Heatran...Its like a 50/50 chance someone picking the set right, its a whole new ball game when you realise that nothing can switch in safely to even the MixMence set by itself.

 

[ParadoxFtw]

Salamence is played around alot easier than many people here would like to believe, even though all the proof is just theroymon. Like Bronong can easily come in on MixedM's Dracos or Outrage and then laugh at Mence. Cress counters but doesn't do anything else and is pursuit fun. Porygon2 was a good counter/check to the DD set. But whatever as none of this matters now.

I do see how one mis play can cost you the game, and maybe not even a mis play at that I also see how Mence was somewhat broken (somewhat because of how subjective it is). BUT I just don't see how going from a Salamence/Steel/Water meta to Heatran/Breloom-Celebi/Water is any better. Sure you have "variety" but all we really did is shift the focus point of the Meta.

 

[Shizzle]

Firstly Cresselia isn't exactly a viable option as such, it has no reliable recovery move [weather], and loses to 2 of the top 3 used pokemon, Scizor and Tyranitar. Bronzong can't take 2 Fire Blasts either [taking 70%+ damage], and having only one really good check is kind of...centralising.

One move CAN cost you the game when dealing with Salamence, reason being as mentioned earlier, nothing can switch into Salamence safely at all and take less than 50% damage, so if you expect DDMence, and you switch to your Gyarados/Porygon2/Something and take a Draco Meteor, your dead, losing a healthy pokemon, but also your Physical Wall.

 

[ParadoxFtw]

I totally agree all I'm saying is Mence Era > What we have now and he isn't impossible to deal with without losing half your team. imo

 

[Gazooki]

So Mence went up, which was obviously going to happen right from the start. Every single suspect has been banned, even if it took over a year to actually get round to it like they did with Latias. Now, the big question is, who's next? Heatran?

Personally I'm hoping Kingdra, I've never liked the damn thing. It's only got one weakness (which is now not as easy to exploit with two of the best dragons out of the way), great STABs, is pretty much unstoppable in Rain, can easily set up, and even without rain it can wreck teams.

Sure, I'm not the one who should be saying what should be suspect, and most of you will think that the above points are either inaccurate or not good enough to make it suspect, but then again it seems like it doesn't take much to make a suspect. Also I just really hate Kingdra, and even if it never comes close to being a suspect this generation, I hope it gets boosted massively in B/W just so I can finally wave goodbye to it.

 

[Shizzle]

Probably nothing for ages, its not like smogon is going ban happy, only 3 actual pokemon have been moved from OU to Uber IIRC, Garchomp, Latias and Salamence [post 4th gen release]. Honestly there isn't much that is that powerful in the metagame now, doubt we will see any changes till 5th gen

 

[ken [old]]

Even if salamence was centralizing it had its checks in other forms such as priority users and residual damage. With its banning one other poke will become the top dog and will that mean that its to centralizing. If some one brings up rayquaza and its residual damage they need to shup the f*** up because 150 base on attk and spattk along with the strongest priority move make him an almost unstoppable force.

 

[Sheshi]

I'm just going to put this out there, but no matter who you ban or allow, there will always be some degree of centralization.

What I'm trying to say is we can expect that the metagame will centralize around SOMETHING. No matter how hard anyone tries, something will pop up, says 'look at me, I'm great!' Then everyone uses it. For a few months, this dude will be the most commonly used Pokemon before someone comes up with a counter for it, then its useage drops. Then a counter for the counter is found and then useage for that drops. Eventually, we're going to find ourselves back where we started.

 

[Terminator]

But now that Salamence is gone people will start complaining about Heatran or Breloom or Tyranitar or something else like SUicune being too centralizing (ok maybe not Tran). So once they get tested, and voted on the cycle will repeat again, and again until all we have is Ubers and UU.

This is a form of the slippery slope argument. For more information, read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

And just to make sure this post is not completely off topic: I am still surprised to see that a lot of people aren't used Shaymin. I mean, in the last metagame, Shaymin had to have a hard choice of picking Hidden Power Fire or Hidden Power Ice, and Hidden Power Ice was usually the superior option for obvious reasons, though it left Shaymin utterly walled by Skarmory. Now, Shaymin can finally utilize Hidden Power Fire on its Life Orb set, making it an even more potent threat. However, Shaymin was quite powerful in the last metagame, but even after the ban of Salamence, it STILL hasn't catched on?

 

[Human]

This is a form of the slippery slope argument. For more information, read here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope

And just to make sure this post is not completely off topic: I am still surprised to see that a lot of people aren't used Shaymin. I mean, in the last metagame, Shaymin had to have a hard choice of picking Hidden Power Fire or Hidden Power Ice, and Hidden Power Ice was usually the superior option for obvious reasons, though it left Shaymin utterly walled by Skarmory. Now, Shaymin can finally utilize Hidden Power Fire on its Life Orb set, making it an even more potent threat. However, Shaymin was quite powerful in the last metagame, but even after the ban of Salamence, it STILL hasn't catched on?

Shaymin was
| 21 | Shaymin | 3661 | 11.49 | in the Suspect Tier
So what do you mean it still hasn't caught on? Also the Slippery Slope argument will not work as the OU Tier is determined by usage. If absolutely everyone began using a Baton Pass team with Magikarp as a main component wouldn't Magikarp become OU? Of course it will, because it is used in the standard play. The tier list will probably change quite dramatically soon.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Perhaps rather than "what to ban next," the issue at hand is what goes unchecked without Salamence?

Not much, because it's defensive abilities were such that you couldn't just slap it on a team to be a check to throw into the the headlights of this or that pokemon's attacks, but . . . it did help in checking somethings.

The biggest one I can think of is Breloom. While Breloom's coverage is so crappy that I cannot even think of it really being a problem pokemon, nailing it with intimidate before it got up substitute was HUGE in terms of checking it. That's a big difference compared to say, checking it with Zapdos or Dragonite. Gyarados is now the lone user of Initimidate in OU, which is really kind of annoying.

In Breloom's case, Rotom-A can defeat it pretty easily even behind a substitute. Rotom-A is one of the most popular pokemon, and frankly-- I can't think of a reason why you wouldn't want a Rotom-A on your team!? But then, you shouldn't have to carry any 1 specific pokemon for anything.

. . . but why wouldn't you use Rotom-A? srsly, it's just that good . . . lol . . .

Salamence wasn't a 100% counter to everything, but being Intimidate-Using-Death-Fodder you could throw in to sack AND weaken the enemy definitely helped keep some insane physical sweepers from walking over teams.


The more interesting thing is for a lot of pokemon, the choice about their tertiary (or perhaps secondary for some) move comes into question.

HP Ice or HP Grass/Electric/Fire? The eternal question for some pokemon has now been put to rest.

Granted, Zapdos and Jolteon, who did huge damage to Salamence with STAB Thunderbolt, were/are more concerned with HP Ice for defeating Grass pokemon. But, considering Zapdos has Heat Wave and Jolteon has Shadow Ball (and Celebi is the only truly popular grass type, while Breloom takes huge damage from Shadow Ball anyway) . . .

As for Infernape for instance, some have come out and said that Dragonite is a big enough threat that running HP Ice still makes sense over Thunder Punch, but that judgement seems kinda iffy to me. It's true that a +1 Dragonite can be harder to stop than a +1 Gyarados, but additionally Infernape's eternal issue with Tentacruel could be (somewhat) solved as long you are willing to deal with the Barney on steroids. Of course Physical nape avoids all these issues, but then you have to rely on the worst move in the game (lol, stone edge).

HP Ice Celebi/Shaymin is now even more worthless for all those who went out of their way to RNG one. lol (even with Mence around, I say HP Fire is better).

Gengar hasn't used HP Ice popularly ever since Garchomp disappeared from the scene, but no doubt now that if it were to use an HP, fire is better.

Anyway, food for thought on those tertiary move decisions.

 

[ken [old]]

Perhaps rather than "what to ban next," the issue at hand is what goes unchecked without Salamence?

Not much, because it's defensive abilities were such that you couldn't just slap it on a team to be a check to throw into the the headlights of this or that pokemon's attacks, but . . . it did help in checking somethings.

Thank you this is exactly what i was trying to say. without salamence alot of things are left unchecked. No one could have said it better.

 

[Chou Toshio]

Rotom-A is hardly a Breloom counter. Breloom is faster than Defensive Rotom-A and can sleep it. Meanwhile, it doesn't have recovery, so will be worn down and eventually KOd (Seed Bomb 3HKOs).

Ok, first of all, I never said it was a breloom counter, the word "counter" is all but useless for modern battling. I said check.

Second of all, in the unfortunate event you allowed breloom to switch into something slower than it, it's going to sleep anything, which means there are (plausible) no counters. When discussing breloom, obviously we are consider what to switch in after it has already slept something.

It can switch in as breloom substitutes and spam shadow ball. If you absolutely needed a better breloom check, you could always use some more EVs to put it over Breloom's max adamant speed as well.

With breloom, you only have to deal with its full power once in a battle. Once sleep clause is activated, it's no where near as scary.

 

[Ice-eyes]

The simple solution to Breloom is 'don't use a bulky water that it's slower than'. I was trying out a Scarf Heatran + Breloom team in Suspect and the combo worked pretty well - Breloom can easily switch in on Blissey and bulky Water-types.

I am of the firm belief that stall teams should carry ResTalk Gyara this format - it checks Breloom and a whole host of other scary stuff (Infernape, Heatran, Shaymin etc).

 

[ShedinjaGod]

i could understand that salamence became uber all because of his amazing stats, but i think he should become OU again. i mean cmon! there are still great comebacks for a salamence, right?! its basically like attempting to make a dragonite become the leader. now it appears as though dragonite is the only dragon that is not uber

 

[Red G]

i could understand that salamence became uber all because of his amazing stats, but i think he should become OU again. i mean cmon! there are still great comebacks for a salamence, right?! its basically like attempting to make a dragonite become the leader. now it appears as though dragonite is the only dragon that is not uber

Kingdra is OU and altaria is UU, so there are still dragons out there. They just aren't as good and almighty like mence is.

 

[Little Green Yoda]

I am of the firm belief that stall teams should carry ResTalk Gyara this format - it checks Breloom and a whole host of other scary stuff (Infernape, Heatran, Shaymin etc).

I love Rest-talk Gyara as much as the next guy but like Chou said, the removal of Mence means less HP Ice filling up movesets. HP Elec and Thunderpunch is going to be more popular on Heatran/Infernape to deal with Gyara.

252/252 Careful Gyara takes ~30-35% damage from a Timid 252 Shaymin Seed Flare before SR so I'm not exactly sure how much that would check Shaymin who doesn't give a damn about Intimidate. Throw in the fact that Shaymin would be faster and that Gyara can't really threaten Shaymin outside of Bounce...

 

[Star Flare]

now it appears as though dragonite is the only dragon that is not uber

^Flygon? Kingdra? Altaria (lol)?

1.How will salamence's removal effect the metagame?

I really think people are overestimating how much this will affect OU, possibly because I was pro-OU for mence in the first place. It was undoubtedly the most powerful and threatening pokemon in the tier, but it's still only a single pokemon. Judging by suspect shaymin may become OU (which is nice, love that hedgehog). Infernape usage should shoot up, as just about everyone said. I'm not liking this whole FWG core thing that's going on though.

2.Will stall be a dominant force?

Hell no. I keep seeing people get all excited about this, but I don't get why. Stall has a million other problems thanks to the physical special split, and ridiculous power of sweepers this gen thanks to items like lie orb. Stall has had one issue removed, but a whole host of others are preventing it from ever becoming a dominant force.

3.What pokemon stand out as a pokemon that thrives without salamence?

Um...well, my SD lucario just got a nice buff. :) Everyone's talking about breloom too, though he was already a great choice before. Swampert is probably happy now he doesn't have to fear draco meteors.

4.What did you think of the process for salamence removal? (after about post 270 the mod said you cant answer this question)

I won't answer then. >.>

5.How does Salamence do in ubers?

No idea, I don't play ubers. I've read he can be a good partner for rayquaza thanks to his speed, but it looks like that's all he's good for, so it'd become predictable I guess? in which case he'll probably fade into obscurity.

6.What pokemon will see a decrease in use?

Salamence. >.>

Um... I can't think of anything. Oh, I guess weavile sucks even more now though. One less thing to revenge kill.

7. What pokemon might come from UU to OU as a result of Salamence's banning?

Shaymin apparently, though he's BL. Nothing else I can think of right now.

8. Do you think this was a good time to ban Salamence?

No time is a good time to ban him! I want him back. :(

But, in all seriousness, it should've happened ages ago if it had to happen at all. With Gen V right around the corner I don't see the point of banning him now.

9. Why or why wasn't Salamence a good candidate for ubers?

It's a tough one, I'll admit. 135 attack, 110 special attack, Dragon Dance sets and Draco Meteor sets are all very threatening. And intimidate. There are definite strong arguments for his uberness. I think the most important point to consider is however that no one (good) ever dedicated entire pokemon to countering mence. It didn't have a detrimental effect on the metagame IMO. But hey, I'm not in charge, and at the end of the day it's not a big deal.

10. Who should be the next candidate for Ubers if you would choose?

Ugh, no one. Ubers should be a last resort for pokemon who are truly too overpowered for OU, like garchomp and to a lesser extent latias. Nothing currently is uber, and I sincerely hope nothing else gets voted uber for the forseeable future.

 

[ninja_kitty143]

But now that Salamence is gone people will start complaining about Heatran or Breloom or Tyranitar or something else like SUicune being too centralizing (ok maybe not Tran). So once they get tested, and voted on the cycle will repeat again, and again until all we have is Ubers and UU.

Now, the big question is, who's next? Heatran?

I'm just going to put this out there, but no matter who you ban or allow, there will always be some degree of centralization.

^^These. There is a reason it's called the OVERUSED tier - Pokemon in it are OVERUSED, i.e., SALAMENCE. At the rate Smogon's tier listings are going, it's basically going to become a shitfest until Gen. 5's release. By now I've given up on Smogon tiers. I can just see my entire team being bumped to Uber; Latias, now Salamence, next it will Heatran, then Celebi...

 

[Sargatanas]

Anything in the same level as Salamence can kill it if it is an Ice Type and it knows Ice Shard. I fail to see Dragons uber due to their fear of snow. :D

 

[mtr]

Anything in the same level as Salamence can kill it if it is an Ice Type and it knows Ice Shard. I fail to see Dragons uber due to their fear of snow. :D

The main problem with this argument is that the main Ice Shard users, Weavile/Mamoswine/Donphan, aren't good enough in OU to warrant usage. Policy regarding Ubers is conducted on the basis of standard metagame conditions, which do not include Weavile/Mamoswine/Donphan.

Also, all 3 of them get destroyed by MixMence.

 

[Sargatanas]

I have more wins due to many Salamence users using my Mamoswine/Garchomp. Salamence is powerful but far from being invincible. I hope your banz doesn't disrupt anybodies team.

 

[Stylish Interval]

I guess I'll answer these questions to pass the time.

1.How will salamence's removal effect the metagame?

It probably won't affect it that much. It'll make it easier to switch a lot in, but Latias was the one that changed the Suspect meta in my eyes, not Salamence. I'm guessing that games will be played for a bit longer, and maybe a few more wall Pokemon will show their faces, but that's all I can think of.

2.Will stall be a dominant force?

It will be in the hands of Stall players. Probably, people will try and play stall in this new meta and end up giving up on it just because it won't be as easy as they thought. Salamence wasn't the only threat to Stall after all.

3.What pokemon stand out as a pokemon that thrives without salamence?

Um....none. What did Salamence actually stop? I guess a few Pokemon don't have to fear Intimidate, but once something set up, it would usually be able to defeat Salamence. I guess more Pokemon like Swampert will come out of the woodworks and base 100s will have an easier time, but I don't think they'll *thrive*

6.What pokemon will see a decrease in use?

A lot of people are saying Scizor will, and I'm sure it will, but I don't know how far it will drop. Still finds time to come in on everything it did before and U-turn to give momentum. Still can revenge kill a lot of things. Still can be a potent threat. I'm guessing that Scizor will drop a lot early on but people will start to realize it's still good and it will come back up. Not quite to the point it's at, but it will at least be top 5 after a month or two. I guess the speculation is that Heatran can beat Scizor so Scizor won't be there, but Scizor opens with U-turn usually anyway, which can help you set up easier.

7. What pokemon might come from UU to OU as a result of Salamence's banning?

I can't think of any that were in UU because of Salamence, so I'd say none will.

8. Do you think this was a good time to ban Salamence?

Would a more optimal time have been a while ago? I don't see why there is a correct time for banning. You just do it and move on. I'm sure there will be one final test before we solidify Gen 4 tiering.

10. Who should be the next candidate for Ubers if you would choose?

Kingdra is the only other Pokemon in OU close enough to Uber to be tested in my opinion, but I wouldn't want it to be tested. Out of speculation, nothing seems to be broken or too powerful in this meta so I doubt the Council will want to test anything (if that is how it's done). Probably Salamence will be re-tested and that is it.

 

[mtr]

Shaymin will definitely be OU, probably in the Top 20. Latias was really the only thing keeping it out, and when it was gone, people were pretty sure its usage would rise. Now that Salamence is also gone, it's gonna skyrocket. Many people dislike using Celebi because it's a defensively oriented Pokemon, and doesn't have access to the devastating Seed Flare.