np: Doubles Stage 3.5 — Mama Said Knock You Out

[Stratos]

It's no more powerful some other common attackers in the tier (it's tied with garchomp and Terrekion), it has a bad defensive typing, it has a really awkward spread tier, and it's beaten by some common mons in the tier.

Calcs

Many mons in he tier nearly get an OHKO, and they miss it by such a small margin that almost any prior damage will result in a KO. All of how calcs are from either faster mons or mons that can live a hit.
252 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 348-411 (83.6 - 98.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 520-614 (125 - 147.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Landorus-T Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 316-376 (75.9 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Mega Manectric Thunder vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ho-Oh: 254-302 (61 - 72.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

im not switching in any of those first 3 on ho-oh, because 1) theyre neutral to brave bird and 2) sacred fire has a 50% chance to burn them. manectric can switch in once, the second time it switches in it dies, and oh yes, ho-oh can just switch out and get fucking regenerator healing.

ho-oh is one of the best pokemon in doubles ubers. even if oras wasn't coming out in 27 days i would not be in favor of testing it.

 

[realiti]

It's no more powerful some other common attackers in the tier (it's tied with garchomp and Terrekion), it has a bad defensive typing, it has a really awkward spread tier, and it's beaten by some common mons in the tier.

Calcs

Many mons in he tier nearly get an OHKO, and they miss it by such a small margin that almost any prior damage will result in a KO. All of how calcs are from either faster mons or mons that can live a hit.
252 Atk Life Orb Garchomp Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 348-411 (83.6 - 98.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Life Orb Terrakion Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 520-614 (125 - 147.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Landorus-T Rock Slide vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Ho-Oh: 316-376 (75.9 - 90.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Mega Manectric Thunder vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Ho-Oh: 254-302 (61 - 72.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

And these calcs are about the strongest attacks on Ho-Oh... Regenerator too...

 

[qsns]

can we just ban swagger already
it's just beyond dumb

i can give actual reasons if you want me to but i dont think any decent player in their right mind would disagree

edit: pre argument
if someone brings up the safeswag argument against this, can you tell me the last time you've seen that used/work? it's basically theorymonning lol it's really not used outside of lower ladder players, so it's really not big of a deal at all that it's collateral damage.

 

[Hashtag]

I hate to change the subject right after Quickscope's post, but i'm sure both of our points will be addressed.

Throughout the course of XY, various people have come to this thread to nominate various ubers for suspect testing, and they have all been shut down, as there is a clear divide between current roster of ubers, and the currently viable mons. All the ubers have been thought to be incredibly over powered.

Now ORAS is coming. It brings a couple new event legends, several move expansions via tutors, and a nice list of new mega evolutions. Of the new megas, one immediately caught my eye. Mega Salamence.

This is a dragon/flying pokemon whose base stats have been revealed to be 95/145/130/120/90/120, and its ability is aerilate. in addition to great physical defense, it has the ability intimidate pre-mega. this is the ability that has helped Landorus-T become the best pokemon in the game. 120 Speed is another thing you might notice. this is an incredible speed tier, and it allows salamence to beat any other dragon 1-v-1, unless they have a choice scarf. It has a marvelous physical attack, that is boosted to astronomical levels, when you factor in its ability, which gives its normal moves STAB, flying type, and a 30% boost. this boost is incredible, when applied to double edge, which already has 120 base power.However, Salamence can also run special attacks, in a special or mixed set. 120 Special attack isn't bad at all, and it gets Aerilate hyper voices, as well as great coverage moves in hydro pump, fire blast, and draco meteor.

Essentially, mega salamence has it all: bulk, speed, and attacking power. And intimidate. thus i would like to recommend that we ban it, and many of you will think that we shouldn't ban it. This is perfectly fine, and you are entitled to your opinion... But do you remember when i talked about the XY Uber nominations for unbanning?

Allow me to introduce you to my friend, regular Rayquaza. Rayquaza is a Dragon/Flying pokemon just like mega salamence. Although its stats arent quite on par, with 105/150/90/150/90/95 Base stats. this poor dragon has much less bulk than salamence mega, and a more situational ability. another important thing to note is that it only has 95 Speed, which ties with the ever-slow kyurem black.

Granted, Rayquaza can hold an item, whereas Salamence Mega cannot. but that is where the list of things Rayquaza has going for it over salamence ends. I feel that it is pretty safe to say that Rayquaza is outclassed by Salamence Mega.
Now you are probably asking, "Hashtag, are you suggesting that we unban the demon-god, Rayquaza???" to that, my answer is "No, my dear Watson." But, i do believe that anyone who believes that salamence mega should stay in the ORAS doubles metagame should be arguing to unban Rayquaza, as it is cleanly outclassed. This is something that i do not see happening as of yet, but if anyone disagrees with my suggestion of banning salamence mega, I should expect a post from them on why we should unban Rayquaza, as there is no reason to have the better of two mons, but ban the weaker.

All right, That was a long post. Kudos to you if you read the whole thing, you deserve a cookie.

 

[qwerts]

can we just ban swagger already
it's just beyond dumb

i can give actual reasons if you want me to but i dont think any decent player in their right mind would disagree

edit: pre argument
if someone brings up the safeswag argument against this, can you tell me the last time you've seen that used/work? it's basically theorymonning lol it's really not used outside of lower ladder players, so it's really not big of a deal at all that it's collateral damage.

When have you really seen a good player in a tour bring swagger, its basically only on the ladder and trains teams so it'd be a waste of time to do anything about it. It's not even that common on the ladder.

 

[Haruno]

I hate to change the subject right after Quickscope's post, but i'm sure both of our points will be addressed.

Throughout the course of XY, various people have come to this thread to nominate various ubers for suspect testing, and they have all been shut down, as there is a clear divide between current roster of ubers, and the currently viable mons. All the ubers have been thought to be incredibly over powered.

Now ORAS is coming. It brings a couple new event legends, several move expansions via tutors, and a nice list of new mega evolutions. Of the new megas, one immediately caught my eye. Mega Salamence.

This is a dragon/flying pokemon whose base stats have been revealed to be 95/145/130/120/90/120, and its ability is aerilate. in addition to great physical defense, it has the ability intimidate pre-mega. this is the ability that has helped Landorus-T become the best pokemon in the game. 120 Speed is another thing you might notice. this is an incredible speed tier, and it allows salamence to beat any other dragon 1-v-1, unless they have a choice scarf. It has a marvelous physical attack, that is boosted to astronomical levels, when you factor in its ability, which gives its normal moves STAB, flying type, and a 30% boost. this boost is incredible, when applied to double edge, which already has 120 base power.However, Salamence can also run special attacks, in a special or mixed set. 120 Special attack isn't bad at all, and it gets Aerilate hyper voices, as well as great coverage moves in hydro pump, fire blast, and draco meteor.

Essentially, mega salamence has it all: bulk, speed, and attacking power. And intimidate. thus i would like to recommend that we ban it, and many of you will think that we shouldn't ban it.

Are you fucking kidding me. Ray has better resistances (neutrality to rock, elec and only 2x weak to ice beam). Ray doesn't care for weather while also boasting an incredible speed tier and even putting that aside, it hits far harder than mence since for one, aerilate double edge is the only move mence has that comes close to Ray, and 145/120 offenses look like shit compared to 180/180 and in addition Ray has a far better move pool with access to vcreate/dragonsascent and Draco meteor allowing it to shit all over the tier. In addition to the fact that it beats any and all weather singlehandedly just lol.

 

[Hashtag]

haruno im not talking about mega ray

 

[Stratos]

I hate to change the subject right after Quickscope's post, but i'm sure both of our points will be addressed.

Throughout the course of XY, various people have come to this thread to nominate various ubers for suspect testing, and they have all been shut down, as there is a clear divide between current roster of ubers, and the currently viable mons. All the ubers have been thought to be incredibly over powered.

Now ORAS is coming. It brings a couple new event legends, several move expansions via tutors, and a nice list of new mega evolutions. Of the new megas, one immediately caught my eye. Mega Salamence.

This is a dragon/flying pokemon whose base stats have been revealed to be 95/145/130/120/90/120, and its ability is aerilate. in addition to great physical defense, it has the ability intimidate pre-mega. this is the ability that has helped Landorus-T become the best pokemon in the game. 120 Speed is another thing you might notice. this is an incredible speed tier, and it allows salamence to beat any other dragon 1-v-1, unless they have a choice scarf. It has a marvelous physical attack, that is boosted to astronomical levels, when you factor in its ability, which gives its normal moves STAB, flying type, and a 30% boost. this boost is incredible, when applied to double edge, which already has 120 base power.However, Salamence can also run special attacks, in a special or mixed set. 120 Special attack isn't bad at all, and it gets Aerilate hyper voices, as well as great coverage moves in hydro pump, fire blast, and draco meteor.

Essentially, mega salamence has it all: bulk, speed, and attacking power. And intimidate. thus i would like to recommend that we ban it, and many of you will think that we shouldn't ban it. This is perfectly fine, and you are entitled to your opinion... But do you remember when i talked about the XY Uber nominations for unbanning?

Allow me to introduce you to my friend, regular Rayquaza. Rayquaza is a Dragon/Flying pokemon just like mega salamence. Although its stats arent quite on par, with 105/150/90/150/90/95 Base stats. this poor dragon has much less bulk than salamence mega, and a more situational ability. another important thing to note is that it only has 95 Speed, which ties with the ever-slow kyurem black.

Granted, Rayquaza can hold an item, whereas Salamence Mega cannot. but that is where the list of things Rayquaza has going for it over salamence ends. I feel that it is pretty safe to say that Rayquaza is outclassed by Salamence Mega.
Now you are probably asking, "Hashtag, are you suggesting that we unban the demon-god, Rayquaza???" to that, my answer is "No, my dear Watson." But, i do believe that anyone who believes that salamence mega should stay in the ORAS doubles metagame should be arguing to unban Rayquaza, as it is cleanly outclassed. This is something that i do not see happening as of yet, but if anyone disagrees with my suggestion of banning salamence mega, I should expect a post from them on why we should unban Rayquaza, as there is no reason to have the better of two mons, but ban the weaker.

All right, That was a long post. Kudos to you if you read the whole thing, you deserve a cookie.

this is dishonest bullshit. you're stating that we need to ban mence, then throwing in an argument of mence vs ray, and saying that if we can't satisfactorily prove that we need to free rayquaza or that rayquaza is better than mence then that's proof we need to ban mence. unfortunately for you, at least one person here has taken a class on logic and rhetoric, so i'm going to call this out for the dishonest bullshit it is.

i'm not even addressing the actual argument about banning mence. I don't know if we should ban mencite because the oras meta comes out in three weeks. but what i do know is that no matter what, a pokemon's banworthiness is judged on its own merits, not on its merits comparative to some other pokemon. i don't need to argue whether we should free rayquaza or whether rayquaza is better than mence, i need to argue whether we should ban mence. maybe we should address freeing rayquaza at some later date (doubtful lol), but it seems obvious to most that the first order of business when ORAS comes out is going to be a discussion on mence, and i want to say that i will be sorely disappointed if anyone tries to re-frame the anti-ban argument into this indefensible strawman when the actual suspect discussion comes around.

edit: so i'm clear, the problem with hashtag's post (the premise 'if rayquaza is worse than mence and rayquaza is banned, mence should be banned' seems valid) is the way he cleverly shifts the burden of proof. Now I either have to convince you through pure theorymon that Rayquaza (which youve never played with) would be better than Mence (whose power you have seen firsthand)—even if this is a position i hold (which i do), i'm going to have a tough time of this due to availability bias—or I have to convince you to free Rayquaza (which, even if it was worse than mence—it's not—the burden of proof always rests on the one changing the status quo). The burden of proof should lie on the one advocating a ban, not the one in favor of the status quo. even assuming i'm able to convince everyone that ray is better than mence, that was just a bunch of wasted time where we weren't discussing the relevant issue of do we ban mence?

 

[Victorious B.I.G.]

Suspect Kanga yn

 

[SpaceBass]

I second Benjas statement

 

[Fangame10]

Suspect Kanga yn

as much as I dislike kanga the thing has been tested multiple times and there are numerous ways around (ie: Kyle's ferrothorn set) wil-o-wisp, Rock and steel types, intimidate, quick guard, Terrakion...We've already tested it out 2 times and banning it before ORAS is not a good idea as we've yet to fully see this mon preform in this new meta aside from a few custom battles...I mean srsly people need to stop complaining about M kang

 

[Victorious B.I.G.]

as much as I dislike kanga the thing has been tested multiple times and there are numerous ways around (ie: Kyle's ferrothorn set) wil-o-wisp, Rock and steel types, intimidate, quick guard, Terrakion...We've already tested it out 2 times and banning it before ORAS is not a good idea as we've yet to fully see this mon preform in this new meta aside from a few custom battles...I mean srsly people need to stop complaining about M kang

Thanks for addressing my super srs post about Mega Kangaskhan ruining the metagame.

 

[Laurel]

can we just ban swagger already
it's just beyond dumb

i can give actual reasons if you want me to but i dont think any decent player in their right mind would disagree

edit: pre argument
if someone brings up the safeswag argument against this, can you tell me the last time you've seen that used/work? it's basically theorymonning lol it's really not used outside of lower ladder players, so it's really not big of a deal at all that it's collateral damage.

No. In Doubles Swagger actually has practical use, and while Swagger spam is stupid I disagree with the thought of a suspect.

 

[Victorious B.I.G.]

No. In Doubles Swagger actually has practical use, and while Swagger spam is stupid I disagree with the thought of a suspect.

Swagger has about as much "practical use" as toxic.

 

[Level 51]

Swagger has about as much "practical use" as toxic.

YOU GUYS JUST WATCH.

 

[Joim]

Swagger has about as much "practical use" as toxic.

Uh... no? You can fuck up special attackers, you can increase a teammate's Attack under Safeguard (or Own Tempo mon)... we saw in past SPL how useful it actually is lol.

 

[Victorious B.I.G.]

Uh... no? You can fuck up special attackers, you can increase a teammate's Attack under Safeguard (or Own Tempo mon)... we saw in past SPL how useful it actually is lol.

True, I forgot about increasing the attack of Own Tempo mons. Physical Ludicolo and Slowbro are so OP!

EDIT: You can also fuck up special attackers with Protect, if relying on 50/50s is your kind of thing

 

[Joim]

Your attempt at sarcasm is pretty pauper given you're ignoring the point of the post and only addressing a special case that's in brackets because, you know, it's a goddamn special case that's being used as an example that is valid for all of the Doubles metagames.

 

[Victorious B.I.G.]

Your attempt at sarcasm is pretty pauper given you're ignoring the point of the post and only addressing a special case that's in brackets because, you know, it's a goddamn special case that's being used as an example that is valid for all of the Doubles metagames.

Ok, my bad for being sarcastic, but do you actually think that own tempo + swagger is viable?
EDIT: after rereading what you said, there's a more important question than this "special case". All of the uses for swagger that you suggested are known as gimmicks, which are frowned upon by most of the doubles community. Your suggesting swagger has uses besides relying on the 50/50 of confusion is like saying people use rock slide as a coverage move, and not for the flinch chance.

 

[shaian]

Swagger under Safeguard, Swagger with Lum / Persim Berry are the main strategies that, in my opinion, help give the move a niche in doubles. I disagree with calling them gimmicks, because it's simply using a teammate to support another one (and the former could very well work under Trick Room). While I do agree that using the move against your opponent is annoying, that's about as far as I'm inclined to go. Suspecting swagger just because you don't like it is the dumbest reason for a suspect, and either way, all you've said on the issue is "it forces 50/50's" and shown attitude.

 

[Fangame10]

True, I forgot about increasing the attack of Own Tempo mons. Physical Ludicolo and Slowbro are so OP!

EDIT: You can also fuck up special attackers with Protect, if relying on 50/50s is your kind of thing

ya know I think Ludicolo + Gothitelle flatter in TR w/ shadow tag is pretty viable

edit: flatter is the special version of swagger

 

[Bughouse]

I've viably used SafeSwag with Mega Kanga in DUbers and I imagine it would work just fine in regular Dubs too. Gimmicks are strategies that only succeed when they can be carried fully to completion (i.e. wonder guard air balloon eelektross), but when they do succeed are incredibly difficult to stop. SafeSwag is not that. Safeguard is viable on its own. And secondly even after something like Mega Kanga gets +2 (which it can do itself with PuP) it is not unstoppable.

Swagger is also less destructive in doubles than it is in singles because 1) you can only swagger one opponent per turn, leaving the other free to attack and potentially remove the Swagger user, 2) the prevalence of Protect, 3) the ease of switching given the lack of hazards, and 4) the higher usage of Taunt.