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after actually playing (still no reqs #fucktheladder) for a while and reading other people's points i'd like to say that mence is a huge powerhouse (contrary to my previous post) mainly because there are really only 3 things that take out jirachi before mence sets up anything at all, those being heatran (not even an OHKO), bisharp (only one use is to take out mence and rachi, after that it's dead thanks to the other 2 mence/rachi checks flyin around), and lando-i (ohko with life orb only, dies to one hit of boosted mence, cant switch in to mence) and the rest can really just kinda suck a dick due to either intimidate from mence or mence just flat out KOs it.
so let's say we do a complex ban of jirachi+salamencite. why not?
well, here's why.
list of mence+amoonguss checks gogogogogogogogogo
...
ok maybe like tran can 2 hit break subs on mence and get an ohko on amoonguss but loses to eq mence and is p much setup bait for mence tbh.
rachi+salamencite is just recognized as the best method for mence to boost or sub up or both (@_@) so ultimately if you ban that you'd have to complex ban redirection+salamencite to keep it in the game which is flat out ridiculous.
after redirection overall mence is either like behind a sub and +1/+2 or mence has just kod half your team (or both) and even with a few mence checks it's still a bit overwhelming.
Since I have got reqs and been watching/playing in some room tours I want to summarize some of my thoughts about the Suspect Test....
1. Mence-Steel: Mence Rachi isnt the true issue. It is Mence + Steel. Mences 4 weaknesses of Dragon, Fairy, Ice, Rock are all resisted by Steel typing. This is something that a lot of people have overlooked initially as the reason Jirachi is so great in terms of synergy with Mega-Mence is because of its steel typing contribution, and absolutely nothing from its psychic typing. If Mence is threathened by a super effective attack you have the ability to simply switch in a steel type to take the blow for you. This means you dont even have to run Jirachi with mence for synergy other than for follow me support, since there are a great number of competent steel types such as Heatran, Aegislash, and Ferrothorn which make building with Mega Mence that much easier.
2. Overcompensating Checks: You can run a bunch of checks to help deal with mence but the issue is as Miridy mentioned: "but by doing so you need to use too much resources and you may end up having trouble" with the other threats that are on the same team as mence. A prime example of this is shrop05's infamous Bunny Mence team that has devastated a couple of the Room tours that have been conducted (Kill One M-Mence? Well here is a second. Oh you killed that? Try this Belly Drum Azu). Its wallbreaking ability to just make holes in an opposing team so its partners can clean up or vice-versa is what makes it so potent. If you are trying to run a bunch of checks on the order of 3+ just for Mega Salamence like some people have been suggesting then there is definitely a problem as its creating a very unhealthy dynamic in terms of teambuilding. The idea is that people should be able to build successful teams without overcompensating for one specific threat.
3. Mence vs Kang: About the Mence vs Kang argument, I dont really wanna regurgitate much that has been previously said other than specifically mentioning that Mence just offers a lot more to Team Synergy thanks to the resists/immunities offered by the Dragon/Flying Typing unlike Kang. But quite honestly I dont think we really should be wasting too much time comparing the two wallbreakers of mence and kang since they are quite functionally different in the tools they provide to a team. We should really just be focusing on Mence right now.
4. VGC vs DOU: As a person that is a part of both the VGC and Doubles OU community I find it quite useful being able to see it from both lights and understand where each is coming from. Stratos could not have summed it up any better that at the end of the day this is Doubles OU. So no matter where you come from there are a lot of key differences that you need to get adjusted to in this tier, in particular vs VGC. Mence is very functionally different in both, as in VGC generally mence is run with 2+ attacks for the versatility of 4v4 matchups, while in Doubles OU you can get away with running mono-attacking mence thanks to the utility of having a full 6 member team to support it and get the job done. While I dont want to say switching is not done much in VGC, more accurately the fact is that switching in a 4v4 setting is a lot more punishable than 6v6 as getting heavily damaged or losing 1/4 mons as opposed to 1/6 mons is a very big deal. This is what puts a damper on Mega-Mence in VGC especially if its stuck on a bad matchup. In Doubles OU even if you are in a bad matchup, by switching and allowing yourself taking significant damage on 1 mon there are still a lot more mons left to help create a win condition to help mence come in on favorable matchups and switch back out if threatened.
5. Small Sample Size: Finally after reading through and listening to what a lot of people who got reqs have said about their ladder experiences, I am estimating that most of the people who got Reqs have encountered Mega-Mence in a ballpark of like 10% or less of their ladder battles. I definitely feel like this is not enough to properly make a clear judgement about Mega Mence without also playing off the ladder against serious Mence teams such as amongst doubles room players, room tours, and in the upcoming suspect tour. (Shoutouts to Arcticblast for starting it up)
I was Pro-Ban at the beginning of the suspect test and after evaluating the changes that Mega-Salamence provides to the metagame, I am still Pro-Ban.
Just finished reqs and i feel like MegaMence should remain banned, Its very hard to revenge kill with intimidate lowering the attack of Physical attackers who threatening it and is an extremely bulky mon with the stats of 95/130/90 wish even let it live some super effective moves like keldeos icy wind( if still a spread move), weavials icy shard, and rock slide from the likes of Tyranitar, Landorus-T, and Terrakion.
Megamence is also quite strong on the Offensive side wielding a staggering 145 and has Access to DD which can be used along side with Follow me Jirachi to get a relative safe DD as Jirachi resist all of mences weaknesses.
With those thoughts in Mind my vote will be Pro-Ban
Hey guys, i'm posting my thoughts about Mega-Salamence after getting my reqs.
First of all, i want to mention that i've never really played this tier seriously until now. therefore, i have a just a little experience in Doubles. I hope i could write something credible though. So i'll start with the facts that put Salamence above all the metagame and finish with something more subjective.
- Versatility : Sala can attack on both spectrums: physical and special. His physical movesets may include strong offensive moves like return, double-edge and facade but also potent support moves like dragon dance or substitute. salamence doesn't lack any coverage as he learns strong non-stab moves like earthquake, fire fang and stone edge. The special side is also well-stocked with a main stab spread move, hyper voice, and another interesting spread move that fits really well on salamence: heat wave. This versatility means you must scout the eventual movepool of salamence to be able to kill it, but you can't even protect or switch-in safely because of an eventual dragon dance or sub... It is noteworthy that no matter what the chosen movepool is, salamence potentially never lacks any coverage. physically, earthquake hits steel, rock and electric mons; specially, heat wave hits steel, and it even learns hydro pump for rocks...
- Stats: a 120 speed base stats which allow salamence to outspeed almost all the metagame (it doesn't surpass shaymin-sky and talonflame but what would they do against it anyway). 145 base stats atk is just enormous... plus he has aerilate. Likewise, great bulk for an offensive pokemon and solid special atk.
- independence : Salamence is that kind of poke which doesn't need a lot of support to be effective. He is easily able to prepare the ground himself. indeed intimidate, dropping all the opponents offers a free way to set up. Moreover, salamence is perfectly able to tank, attack and boost by himself. Bringing some support just makes salamence even more dangerous, and as it has been said, the core jirachi-salamence is extremely easy to use and hard to deal with.
So i will finish by adding something a bit more personal. i've always found the doubles metagame funny and strategically both interesting and unique, and battling with that type of broken pokemon clearly (or at least for me lol) removes these wonderful qualities i can find in doubles.
With that in mind, my vote is going to be ban, and i hope to continue to be able to play this amazing metagame i've always loved.
After getting the reqs using a Trick Room team, I would still like to keep MegaMence banned. Although any trick room user would rather see a megamence than a kangaskhan on the other side, mence is still just too good. Even with trick room i still have trouble getting a ko on it, when used properly, especially with a good partner (looking at you jirachi). Overall, it has too much power, bulk, and sweeping potential to be allowed to rampage in doubles OU
I see a lot of support for keeping Megamence banned but I thought I'd share my own experiences.
One of the key factors that you look for in determining whether or not a pokemon is broken is metagame centralization. Is this pokemon without many checks and counters? Does this pokemon appear on every team and force players to carry the one or two pokemon that check it on their team?
Let's start with the first one. "Is this pokemon without many checks and counters.?" In my experience the answer is No. I'll list a few checks and counters below.
Talonflame. While priority brave bird cannot KO a full health salamence, if it's down to ~50% health you will get the KO. Salamence has no usable priority moves to stop this, so by showing talonflame you force your opponent to either Protect, switch, or lose the dragon.
Thunder Wave/Will-o-wisp. Prankster is very common in doubles, and if you manage to burn (physical only, special/mixed mences get away with it) or paralyze the salamence, it's death fodder that you can hit with your slow, bulky attacker while speedmon nails some other threat.
Trick Room. Mega salamence's amazing speed means it moves last against a trick room team, unless they also happened to bring something like max speed aerodactyl or a jolteon. Similar to the thunderwave case, a salamence that moves last is death fodder.
Choice Scarfers. As long as you don't let it set up (if you do, that's entirely on you), most choice scarf users will outspeed Megamence. From there, they can hit it with draco meteor, ice beam, hidden power, or whatever they've got. Salamence is usually invested in speed and offense, so it's initially appealing bulk isn't enhanced by the EVs.
Bulk and relatiation. I'd like to bring the spotlight over to Mega Diancie, Mega Gardevoir, and Togekiss. Mega diancie is (from what I've seen) more prevalent than megamence in the suspect ladder. In addition, it resists/is immune to both of salamence's STAB moves. The common set of firemove, normalmove, dragonmove, and protect/dd is completely resisted by Diancie (watch out for EQ though). Mega Gardevoir has the special defense to tank a special attack from salamence and return with its own KO'ing mov. Sylveon can do this too, but risks being victim to double-target. Togekiss is quite bulky and can survive a hit from salamence, then dent it with whatever fairy move it has.
And the second bit. "Does this pokemon appear on every team?" The short answer is No. During my ascension of the suspect ladder I came across something like four (maybe?) salamences in total. It rarely appeared on opponents' teams and when it did? It was taken down with relative ease. I used some combination of the above tactics like ice beam and thunderwave, salamence dropped like a fly. For the most part it's still about outplaying your opponent, Salemence hasn't changed that.
Another point on metagame centralization. You'd expect salamence to be extremely common if it were broken. Everyone would use it. However I have found that Mega Kang and Char-Y still make up the vast majority of megas. I'd probably put forth a vote for Unban
but theres a lot you need to learn as a new player that you simply will not learn on the ladder. the first is that unlike in VGC, you have to pay legitimate consideration to switchins. It's not enough to say checks exist to something like Mega Mence if nothing can switch in safely. A typical VGC game might have one to two switches on each side, a typical doubles ou game can have ten to fifteen. all setup sweepers, mega mence included, benefit immensely from this; you can typically stop setup in vgc from team preview as long as you have a lead to beat it, but in doubles you more or less have to take into account a free turn that mega mence will get by coming in on things it can beat—this isnt hard because it beats a hell of a lot, and since it boosts speed it's impossible to check offensively so u cant let it set up at all. The only way to stop it from setting up is basically to play chicken with it and leave in things it ohkoes in the hopes you can cripple it if it goes for setup.
the second is that the ladder is utter garbage and will teach you nothing. frankly im not even sure why we do ladder reqs anymore. if you want to learn how the mence meta really plays you have to challenge people in the doubles ou room
it may not feel like it right now because to you mence meta is new and fresh, but the metagame is far more centralized with mence than without. The reason the high ladder uses only ten pokemon is that ladder kiddies are shitty players who suck shit and don't know shit; sylveon, thundurus, and heatran arent even top 10 pokemon (sylveon not even remotely) but theyre like three of the five most common on the high ladder because good players dont use the ladder. In reality, the metagame as of now is spectacular because there is no one top threat—the same thing that made late era dpp so great. there's a balance of power between the ~10 top threats, and even if most teams have some of these threats there's lots of room for innovation with lower-ranked pokemon. I'd say there are probably 60-100 viable Pokemon in DOU right now and im not even a creative builder.
Mence fucks this up by becoming the top threat. Metagames centralized around a single pokemon are garbage. Shit like Milotic and Sableye seeing use may seem like "fun innovation" at first but you will quickly come around to viewing it as "stupid bullshit" when it gets old and it will get old, we had to deal with this shit for three months and it got super old, and i dont want to have to go on the fucking ladder again when that happens so i can vote to re-ban it.
---
So let's talk about Salamence vs Kangaskhan. I said Laga's post was retarded and I damn well stand by that. Salamence is broken on its own merits, not because it's similar to kangaskhan and you can't check both. There are two main things Mence has over Kang: Speed and resists.
One of the best ways to beat Kang is to outspeed it. Here's a list of tier 2 or higher Pokemon that outspeed and check Kang which get outsped and checked by (aqua tail / double edge) Mence: Keldeo Mega-Diancie Terrakion Talonflame Gengar Blaziken Lando-I; and of course if you let Mega Mence use DD then you get to add literally every pokemon that beats Kang by outspeeding it, including Lando-T, Darkrai, Mega Gengar, Skymin, and more.
That's another thing about Kang vs Mence. It's so much less scary to let Kangaskhan set up than it is Mence. I mean don't get me fucking wrong, +2 Kangaskhan is scary, but it still gets beaten by all its offensive checks just as easily. Because of this, when Kangaskhan comes in, you don't have to immediately go into panic mode. It's not the right play for every situation but it's usually perfectly reasonable to just keep playin ur game and then once Kang gets a KO you get a free switch to something that can force it out. If Mega Mence sets up, all of its faster checks turn into sac fodder. Typically it's better to use fast checks than bulky checks for things because fast checks are able to do it multiple times, whereas bulky checks usually cripple themselves in order to do their job. Not to mention most of mence's bulky checks just get bopped by Jirachi support (standard cune icy wind is a fucking 3hko guys stop saying that icy wind is a counter to mencerachi). Because of all of this it's entirely 100% vital that you do not let Mence set up, like, ever. Which leads to the shitty gameplay I outlined in this post.
The second thing is resists. Simply put Kang has no ability to play defense. If ur pokemon can do a thing, it can do said thing to Kang. Because of this, Kangaskhan doesn't have an easy time switching in or setting up; it typically has to come in after a KO and usually takes a big chunk if it tries to set up without support. However, Mence does have Pokemon that it 100% beats, which means that it can actually come in and set up on its own without too much difficulty. This gives it the ability to actually attempt setups multiple times throughout the match, which means that you can force your opponent into the shitty sac-something game that i described in my post i linked.
The other thing that mence having actual resists does is heavily shape the metagame. If you lose hard to mence, you become much worse. The only Pokemon that really loses hard to Kanga is Cress; every other pokemon can either cripple it with status or bonk it with a powerful STAB move if it tries to set up. Sure pokemon with better Kang matchups become better, and pokemon with terrible Kang matchups become worse, but there are so few pokemon with truly terrible Kang matchups that it's not a big deal.
Also like the only solid Mence switchin is Thundurus and i am 1000000% not in favor of any metagame shift which drastically increases the viability of that annoying pos pokemon.
I accept that you probably have way more tournament experience etc. etc.
And I know we all like to bash the ladder as "garbage". I mean like the other day I ran into focus sash talonflame with brave bird. We all know ladder is garbage.
DESPITE that, I don't think that you nullifying the whole point of a "suspect ladder" by saying "ladder is garbage" is legitimate. The second paragraph of your post essentially asks us to trust your assessment of a mence meta, destroying the purpose of a suspect ladder: to assess whether or not the mon is overcentralizing or not, for ourselves, and therefore decide our votes. You say that x, y, and z will happen is mence is unbanned but we clearly see that that hasn't happened on the ladder.
And while there are a lot of top threats, which is beautiful, the megas are pretty stale. You've got kang, kang, kang, and kang, and more kang. Sure there's some slow trick room megas, diancie, and some zard y, some mega venu, but we need new viable megas. In your own viability rankings, you placed only 3 megas in tier 1.
I see a lot of support for keeping Megamence banned but I thought I'd share my own experiences.
One of the key factors that you look for in determining whether or not a pokemon is broken is metagame centralization. Is this pokemon without many checks and counters? Does this pokemon appear on every team and force players to carry the one or two pokemon that check it on their team?
Let's start with the first one. "Is this pokemon without many checks and counters.?" In my experience the answer is No. I'll list a few checks and counters below.
Talonflame. While priority brave bird cannot KO a full health salamence, if it's down to ~50% health you will get the KO. Salamence has no usable priority moves to stop this, so by showing talonflame you force your opponent to either Protect, switch, or lose the dragon.
Thunder Wave/Will-o-wisp. Prankster is very common in doubles, and if you manage to burn (physical only, special/mixed mences get away with it) or paralyze the salamence, it's death fodder that you can hit with your slow, bulky attacker while speedmon nails some other threat.
Trick Room. Mega salamence's amazing speed means it moves last against a trick room team, unless they also happened to bring something like max speed aerodactyl or a jolteon. Similar to the thunderwave case, a salamence that moves last is death fodder.
Choice Scarfers. As long as you don't let it set up (if you do, that's entirely on you), most choice scarf users will outspeed Megamence. From there, they can hit it with draco meteor, ice beam, hidden power, or whatever they've got. Salamence is usually invested in speed and offense, so it's initially appealing bulk isn't enhanced by the EVs.
Bulk and relatiation. I'd like to bring the spotlight over to Mega Diancie, Mega Gardevoir, and Togekiss. Mega diancie is (from what I've seen) more prevalent than megamence in the suspect ladder. In addition, it resists/is immune to both of salamence's STAB moves. The common set of firemove, normalmove, dragonmove, and protect/dd is completely resisted by Diancie (watch out for EQ though). Mega Gardevoir has the special defense to tank a special attack from salamence and return with its own KO'ing mov. Sylveon can do this too, but risks being victim to double-target. Togekiss is quite bulky and can survive a hit from salamence, then dent it with whatever fairy move it has.
And the second bit. "Does this pokemon appear on every team?" The short answer is No. During my ascension of the suspect ladder I came across something like four (maybe?) salamences in total. It rarely appeared on opponents' teams and when it did? It was taken down with relative ease. I used some combination of the above tactics like ice beam and thunderwave, salamence dropped like a fly. For the most part it's still about outplaying your opponent, Salemence hasn't changed that.
Another point on metagame centralization. You'd expect salamence to be extremely common if it were broken. Everyone would use it. However I have found that Mega Kang and Char-Y still make up the vast majority of megas. I'd probably put forth a vote for Unban
Is this Pokemon without many checks and counters? No, but the fact that you can support Salamence so easily it's fucking ridiculous, it's more so about the fact that you have a jirachi on the field that redirects all damage, and in fact i think even goggles and grass-types aren't affected by it
talonflame? yeah cool, it does a ton of damage but your opponent will throw jirachi on the field and use follow me, giving salamence a free opportunity to set up, and even better - ohko the talon
trick room is a good way to stop salamence, but the thing is that when you build around trick room, your whole team is about trick room. imo we shouldn't be limited to certain playstyles which we maybe don't want, just because of one pokemon
Choice Scarfers. As long as you don't let it set up (if you do, that's entirely on you)
lol
also why are people constantly brining up the subject of "mega-diancie", mega-diancie simply isn't viable as a salamence check, it's incredibly shaky and there are already a million calcs made about how diancies get ohkod by salamences. you're gonna get killed by +1 earthquake, and you'll be outsped too, and your moonblast will get redirected by jirachi and diamond storm won't kill, especially not if you run the bulky salamence
And the second bit. "Does this pokemon appear on every team?" The short answer is No. During my ascension of the suspect ladder I came across something like four (maybe?) salamences in total. It rarely appeared on opponents' teams and when it did? It was taken down with relative ease. I used some combination of the above tactics like ice beam and thunderwave, salamence dropped like a fly. For the most part it's still about outplaying your opponent, Salemence hasn't changed that.
uh hello you're talking about the ladder here, they use spindanine there, disquake etc and most people on the ladder don't even know there's a suspect test going on LOL
Talonflame. While priority brave bird cannot KO a full health salamence, if it's down to ~50% health you will get the KO. Salamence has no usable priority moves to stop this, so by showing talonflame you force your opponent to either Protect, switch, or lose the dragon.
Congratulations, talonflame ko's things which are in range of being ko'd... clearly this is a sign that Mence isn't broken.
Thunder Wave/Will-o-wisp. Prankster is very common in doubles, and if you manage to burn (physical only, special/mixed mences get away with it) or paralyze the salamence, it's death fodder that you can hit with your slow, bulky attacker while speedmon nails some other threat.
Are fast physical attackers susceptible to speed control and burns? This one user at Smogon University thinks he's found the secret to slowing down offensive powerhouses. Find out more here.
Trick Room. Mega salamence's amazing speed means it moves last against a trick room team, unless they also happened to bring something like max speed aerodactyl or a jolteon. Similar to the thunderwave case, a salamence that moves last is death fodder.
no, no it's not death fodder. admittedly Trick Room becomes a lot better in the Mence meta, but again, it's bulky as shit and can take a hit or two. also again, fast pokemon are susceptible to speed control, being broken doesn't mean the mon has no flaws, it just means its benefits vastly outweigh its flaws.
Choice Scarfers. As long as you don't let it set up (if you do, that's entirely on you), most choice scarf users will outspeed Megamence. From there, they can hit it with draco meteor, ice beam, hidden power, or whatever they've got. Salamence is usually invested in speed and offense, so it's initially appealing bulk isn't enhanced by the EVs.
ah yes, but one of the most important things that have been brought up in this discussion was mences favourite partner in crime: manaka jirachi. yes, this little bugger will readily take all of those, and in that time, mence user presses dragon dance and then destroys that sweet little counter or whatever partner it has because congrats, you're now locked into a move that does jack to jirachi because you were scared to death of mence.
Bulk and relatiation. I'd like to bring the spotlight over to Mega Diancie, Mega Gardevoir, and Togekiss. Mega diancie is (from what I've seen) more prevalent than megamence in the suspect ladder. In addition, it resists/is immune to both of salamence's STAB moves. The common set of firemove, normalmove, dragonmove, and protect/dd is completely resisted by Diancie (watch out for EQ though). Mega Gardevoir has the special defense to tank a special attack from salamence and return with its own KO'ing mov. Sylveon can do this too, but risks being victim to double-target. Togekiss is quite bulky and can survive a hit from salamence, then dent it with whatever fairy move it has.
cant switch in.
cant switch in.
can switch in but doesnt do anything unless gleam.
and sylveon most definitely cant switch in.
admittedly, all of them can deal with mence if they have redirection as well, but manaka beats all of them.
And the second bit. "Does this pokemon appear on every team?" The short answer is No. During my ascension of the suspect ladder I came across something like four (maybe?) salamences in total. It rarely appeared on opponents' teams and when it did? It was taken down with relative ease. I used some combination of the above tactics like ice beam and thunderwave, salamence dropped like a fly. For the most part it's still about outplaying your opponent, Salemence hasn't changed that.
Another point on metagame centralization. You'd expect salamence to be extremely common if it were broken. Everyone would use it. However I have found that Mega Kang and Char-Y still make up the vast majority of megas. I'd probably put forth a vote for Unban
ah yes, 3 mons that aren't almost top 10 listed in the top. garchomp at 15 because who fucking knows, dragonite is clearly a top 30 mon, and i guess greninja not being top 5 is an improvement, and lastly meowstic because we're beyond quality control at this point. meanwhile we have hydreigon just barely beating out meowstic and diancie (easily top 5 mon imo) at number 43.
usage doesnt reflect anything other than ladder heroes spamming kang + sylv cheese to curbstomp all the new players on a daily basis.
After playing the ladder to reach reqs (and then some), and having read the posts here, I would now like to post my thoughts on Mega-Mence. Wall of text incoming in 3, 2, 1...
Offensive Presence/Versatility
Salamence can OHKO many neutral mons at +0, with Flying-STAB alone, and at +1 OHKOs even more, with most "checks" being 2HKOed. Salamence is also versatile in that strong coverage options such as Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, and EQ can be used to great effect due to Salamence's excellent 145/120 offensive base stats.
Salamence sits at a great speed tier (120), which gives it the jump on the common and powerful base 110s such as Mega Metagross, Latios and Mega Diancie; and slower threats such as Kang, Char-Y and the Swords of Justics. Only a few relevant mons outspeed Mence, such as Skymin, Deoxys and Choice Scarfed Landorus-T. This means that at +1 Salamence will nearly always move first, and can also avoid clutch flinches from Scarf Lando-T Rock Slides.
Salamence can run other variations of the DD set, with either coverage moves, Roost or even Substitute; all options being effective in their own right. It can also run full attacking sets, in the form of physical, mixed, or fully special. If running a bulkier EV spread, Salamence can live a wide range of attacks, even a 4x effective Ice Beam from Suciune or Cresselia. Salamence's naturally high speed and attack, both being further boosted by DD, allow it to use EVs to further increase its great staying power.
Defensive Prescence
Salamence has extremely good bulk for an offensive mon, particularly on the physical side with its tremendous base 130 defense and solid base 95 HP, in conjunction with the pre-mega Intimidate. This vital characteristic further overpowers the DD sets, as it means the (obviously physical) priority attacks which threaten Mence are softened immensely. This immense bulk means that after Intimidate, even a STAB Weavile Ice Shard can't 2HKO:
-1 252 Atk Weavile Ice Shard vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 132-160 (39.7 - 48.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO.
Team Support
In a much less broken way Salamence can support team members with Intimidate, and is also a Ground-type immunity for EQ users. On the other hand, Salamence's 4 weaknesses (Ice, Fairy, Rock and Dragon), are all easily covered by other team members, with Steel-type alone resisting all these types.
Jirachi, as well as covering all of Salamence's weaknesses is a shining star in showing how Follow Me support further causes Salamence to be so nerve-racking and near-impossibly difficult to play against. Jirachi resists all of Salamences weaknesses (while Mence in return takes care of two of Rachi's), and can also use other support moves such as Icy Wind to help it assist Mence.
Clefable/Celfairy and Togekiss are other options which have good type synergy with Mence, and can support it through the use of Follow Me. They however, are inferior to Jirachi due to their movepool, stats, and not as effective typing for covering Mence's weaknesses.
Salamence does not need to worry much about spread moves, as it can shrug off Rock Slides if needed due to its powerful combination of bulk + Intimidate. It also resists Muddy Water/Surf and Heat Wave, while being immune to Earthquake. Mence can also beat Hyper Voice (Sylveon/Gardevoir) either by itself by OKHOing at +1, or through Jirachi's Iron Head.
Wide Guard users, such as Aegislash and Swampert can also be used to a lesser extent to prevent Rock Slide flinches and block Icy Winds. Blocking Icy Winds can be important, as they both hurt Salamence greatly, and can prevent a sweep.
Effect on Battles
Players can often make very different moves if the foe has a Salamence, even if it is not physically on the field. Situations can occur where it is better not to KO and opposing Pokemon so that Salamence can not get a free set-up turn to sweep. Players may be forced to preserve their Mence check, or risk being totally unable to beat it.
Salamence can also become a very predictable target for a status move or double attack, allowing the Mence player to Protect or switch appropriately to gain momentum. This is due to the extremely offensive pressure Salamence holds, to an extent which no other Pokemon in Doubles OU has.
Checks/Counters
Thundurus is the best, and only true counter to Mega Salamence. Priority T-Wave can stop sweeps, while HP Ice does good damage, although never OKHOing from bulky Thundo, and it resists Salamence's primary STAB attacks. Thundo can also Taunt Follow Me users, further impairing Mence.
Mega Diancie is said to be a check, yet it struggles greatly against the Rachi-Mence core and also dies to a +0 EQ from 252 attack Jolly EQ 44% of the time (94% from Adamant). +1 Double Edge from said set also does ~80% minimum, meaning chip damage can secure the KO.
Lando-T is probably the most common check, however Rock Slide does 37% max after an Intimidate, and it is always OKHOed by a +1 Frustration.
Mega Metagross and Jirachi take Salamence's STAB attacks well, but can be hit hard by coverage. Remarkably, Metagross can OHKO with a +0 Ice Punch.
Lastly, Milotic is the check that Salamence arguably struggles the most against, but it is OKHOed by a +1 Return as well. Milotic can notably hit Mence through Follow Me by the use of Icy Wind.
Effect on Meta/
Centralization
The rise of Milotic to counter Mence (although partially from Lando-T) is a prime example of the centralising force Mega-Salamence exerts on the meta. Milotic is a niche Pokemon at best, doing well in only select match-ups; but is made far more effective in the Mence metagame.
Mence also effectively eliminates the viability of Pokemon such as Amoonguss; and reduces it for Pokemon such as Skymin, Keldeo, and Venusaur. Most now good teams will carry multiple checks to Mence, and in particular answers to the Rachi-Mence core.
Alright I waited till the end of the suspect to see if someone would post something revolutionary on why mence shouldn't be banned and frankly I'm not impressed. Since it's the unban side trying to change the status quo I'll address each and every one of their arguments and why they're incredibly flawed and thus shouldn't be used as valid reasoning (There are a shit ton of ban posts that are flawed as well, but they're not the ones aiming to change the status quo so I'll ignore them for now.)
I'm honestly surprised to see everyone just saying "ban" day one. The point of the suspect is to put Salamencite in the meta for an extended period of time, then decide what we think. One day will hardly provide the experience necessary to determine if Sally is too strong or not. If you just want to get your post in for voting, never touch this thread again, and then shamelessly vote "ban", then I won't stop you. However, I plan to discuss the metagame and actually consider the possibility of Salamence-Mega being allowed in the metagame.
I must say the ladder is currently using something like 5 Salamence checks per team, making it very hard for me to really gather info when it comes to Salamence. That being said, I will talk about what I have seen so far, though I definitely do not have a final decision at this point in time.
I used a pretty fast and simple team today (will probably play with a couple other teams during the suspect), will post the general ideas around it and you can feel free to use it yourselves:
The general idea for this team was Salamence + Bisharp. I knew a lot of Icy Wind users would be gaining use since it beats the obvious Salamence-Mega + redirection. Bisharp is a great choice for discouraging Icy Wind since Defiant would give Bisharp a free +2 attack boost, making it incredibly threatening. Heatran was next up as it helped beat Ice-types, specifically Abomasnow. Zapdos provided an answer to Water-types like Suicune and Keldeo who would probably be the more common users of Icy Wind. Keldeo is basically the pick for helping beat Kangaskhan teams, and Amoonguss just kinda got slapped on for redirection, an easier rain matchup, and the FWG core. I don't really want to dawdle on about the team since it's really straightforward, so let's keep it at that and move on.
Some of the more reliable strategic checks I've seen include Thunder Wave, Trick Room, Icy Wind, WoW + Intimidate (bcuz apparently this works on everything with physical moves), and hail teams. Some more detailed sets that can handle Salamence to some extent include Scarf Zapdos (Thundy-T not as much bcuz +1 Return does a ton), Mega Diancie, Ferrothorn (dat recoil), and the standard Jirachi set (w/ Icy Wind and Follow Me). I also find that its defense is very lackluster specially, meaning anything faster w/ HP Ice will threaten it without Follow Me support. Rain and sun teams are taking advantage of this with things like Ludicolo and HP Ice Venusaur. Venusaur + Charizard in particular do a real clean job beating the infamous Jirachi + Salamence core, since bulkier Charizards can take Returns (not Double-Edges however, which is why I run it on my Sally). I really do emphasize that Icy Wind, an already good move, beats Rachi + Sally pretty cleanly (my Icy Wind Keldeo did a pretty good job in Sally + Rachi matchups). Gardevoir-Mega with redirection is also something I have seen which has its merits against Salamence.
Overall, I'd say there is a lot of potential for beating Salamence thus far, leading me to believe not banning it is a legitimate possibility to consider, at least for now. It also stands that its coverage has limits (especially if you run Sub for WoW or TWave) and even after a Dragon Dance there are pokemon that can beat it 1 vs 1 (such as Suicune, Rotom-W (assuming no Sub to some extent), Zapdos, HP Ice Rotom-H, defensive Ice Beam Cress, etc).
Also special Mence Hyper Voice is pretty underwhelming, jsyk (and it kinda struggles vs Heatran unless Hydro I guess).
-EDIT-
Here are a few replays that got saved (almost forgot about them): G1 (nice example of Sally + rain here; definitely could have beat me) G2 (Fangame gives no shites about Sally; TR showing it can give Sally issues) G3 (Rachi + Mence loses this one w/ some lackluster plays) G4 (Rachi + Mence rematch I lose; definitely could've had it if not for the parahax revenge preventing Tran Heat Wave and then Sally EQ and then the Protect Keldeo semi-choke and then the Protect Heatran choke (rip me I suck ;-;)) G5 (cool Mega Gard team that almost bops me with Raikou) G6 (win over HailRoom tho opponent could have played better)
Honestly as much respect as I have for you Nollan, your arguments are quite flawed, since your team struggles against mence and yet you claim to beat it with a combination of like zapdos + keldeo + your own mence. Zapdos falls under the category of getting anus'd by rachi, while keldeo as a mence check is a laughable notion in its entirety and the fact that you cite keldeo being able to beat mence with icy wind as your main method of winning against ladder is dubious since mence easily ohko's keldeo with its stab move and outspeeds it as well so it's very hard for me to consider keldeo a usable answer. Zapdos itself is fucked by rachi so no need for further mention there. And although mence can somewhat "check" itself I don't see how a mon beating itself is a valid argument since that falls under the whole "Mence is broken because your opp can use it to!"
Now as for your whole zard + vena dismantling mence + rachi, I find it weird that you would mention that when you yourself state that it only beats return variants (and that's a skethcy notion in itself + assumes rachi isn't goggles) and that you run double edge instead SPECIFICALLY so this doesn't happen. So I question why you would bother bringing it up when you yourself admit that it doesn't work. Also mega gard is a terrible answer to mence since if mence is getting hit by a hyper voice then the opposing player is clearly doing something wrong since switching is a metagame trend according to our leader stratoast. Overall, I'm unsure on why you claim mence isn't broken when your team + checks are unable to beat mence by your own admission.
Excadrill @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Mold Breaker
EVs: 16 HP / 252 Atk / 240 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Rock Slide
- Iron Head
- Drill Run
I decided to try the idea nollan posted about mega garde + redirection and mizus idea about excadrill being good in this meta and put them in a team. Sub garde sounded nice as a sleep check and to take advantage of the switches it forces. I thought tailwind was a good idea to patch up gardes middling speed. Talonflame and excadrill have good synergy so talonflame was added. I used suicune as my next tailwind user for a fwg core and i remembered kylecoles suicune from the last mence test. I finally added aegislash to beat jirachi and aid vs salamence and diancie. Wide guard is also very useful.
this was a replay vs the dubs room sample team (not the ladder). It shows the team working quite nicely.
Take the team for a spin, suggest improvements. I think this is a good example of a way to beat salamence + partners effectively while functioning well and not being dedicated to countering it
I don't see how the team you listed is good, for starters, you used a shit ton of things dedicated to beat mence (ice beam suicune, scarf exca, gard) with only one of them (ice beam suicune) being semi viable and even then, it's a huge downgrade over icy wind/snarl and this is before mentioning how the standard rachi + mence core beats your whole team 1v1 unless the mence has something unrealistic like you have both gard behind a sub + exca out. This is disregarding the fact that you outright are powerless and cannot beat mence if it gets a single turn of set up.
Now due to how your supposed "not countering" mence which involved throwing on three mons dedicated to beating it that are normally not used, you also happen to be much weaker to other threats such as kangaskhan, metagross, etc. This is a good example of overcentralization and restricting teambuilding so I don't see what you're on when you say it's easier to beat in practice while showing a team that is clearly unable to do that.
Just got my reqs yesterday using a very borked team that was passed to me by my friend GRAND EMPRESS.
Some of the wins that I got on the way to reqs was using an old Charizard Y team that I built, but most of the games was played with this team. From what I gather in the 5 losses that I picked up, the things that gave me trouble were mainly Icy Wind paired with a Pokemon that threatened my potential switch-ins. A well supported Substitute Kyurem-Black team also gave me issues and was one of the losses.
As for whether to ban or not ban, still thinking about it and will see what other people have to say. I think it's easier to beat in practice than on paper, but that's just what I think.
I got his permission to post this team, so feel free to use it, change the EV spreads, change the nicknames (like I did), whatever to your heart's content:
Same problem as the previous post, I don't see how you can say, "easier to beat mence in practice than on paper." when the team you provided has absolutely zero answers to mence bar fucking raichu of all things (probably a garbage mon, I wouldn't know) where the rest of your team is completely powerless against it or relying on something sketchy to beat it (tran getting burns, mence not having redirectors to avoid rachi's twave, mence not having redirectors to beat raichu lol, and azu being able to get a play rough off when it's slower)
I'm sure that there are people that are going to be saying this post is bad because "hurrdurr you just said everything everyone else said" and i really want to get this off:
thanks qsns
Now lets start out, why is this thing retested? bc someone just hopped on the council and being one of the supporters of "unban mence" for a long time and i don't know why bc this thing is broken lmaoooo but okay lets go
The first thing the council should ask themselves "is this retest going to help the metagame in a positive way?" and i don't know if they actually asked them, because the answer is obvious: no. There is literally not a single way how this retest improves the metagame at all and i'm going to break it down. Again; this is like I'm restating everything that has been said in the past; because there is literally nothing else I can say.
couldn't find a good mence sprite rofl Story about the fucking cheap-ass free-wins mon aka salamence and how the retest fucked up the meta
Lets start out with something from a different thread, and something from a different perspective, coming from a highly intelligent player who actually does know what he's doing unlike many of the people here
I got this quote out of the recent DOU players of the week (check it out this week is with stratos!)
just read through that quote; it states that singles is more diverse than doubles. and that's true in some ways. In singles there are a lot more viable megas and tier 1 pokemon, and Pocket thinks that there is a lot more innovation to be found within this metagame
Now lets look at the main viable mega pokemon in doubles;
charizard-y, diancie, kanga, and metagross
you can call this metagame centralized already, especially looking at which megas are viable in singles; (these are all S/A tier pokemon from the viability rankings from OU so don't get mad if I got something wrong)
altaria, metagross, charizard-x, diancie, gyarados, lopunny, sableye, scizor, alakazam, chari-y, garde, latias, manectric, venusaur, aerodactyl, pinsir and slowbro
you could say that the OU viability rankings are very top heavy, and the thing is with singles is that you can just get boned by a single pokemon, as you simply cannot prepare for everything the singles meta has to offer, which is easier in doubles.
doubles meta centralized? indefinitely. there is a grand total of 4 viable megas, and there aren't just all that many pokemon in tier 1. now what does the salamence retest do to this meta?
+1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Charizard Y: 475-561 (159.9 - 188.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO rekt
+1 252+ Atk Mega Salamence Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Diancie: 360-424 (149.3 - 175.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO rekt
+1 252+ Atk Mega Salamence Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0- Def Mega Metagross: 306-360 (101.6 - 119.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO at a normal nature i don't think it gets ohko'd all the time
+1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 387-456 (109.9 - 129.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO rekt
okay maybe these calculations look a bit too scary, as it just bones everything in the meta, as well as outspeed most things with a dragon dance up, which isn't difficult to do. also this is assuming that your salamence is running earthquake, which it should. I can't understand that there are people that still just run 1 attack because Return+Earthquake+DDance+Protect or even Roost is solid as fuck already, I've seen people using rock slide but ppl are doing that just for the flinches and earthquake is much better, even though it doesn't really work with jirachi on the field together. the thing I want to show with these calcs is that it's ridiculous that Salamence can simply just destroy all four of the (so-called) overcentralizing megas. and what do they against it?
252 SpA Mega Charizard Y Heat Wave vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence in Sun: 148-175 (44.5 - 52.7%) -- 25% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Mega Charizard Y Overheat vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence in Sun: 222-261 (66.8 - 78.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Tough Claws Mega Metagross Meteor Mash vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 169-201 (50.9 - 60.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
48 SpA Mega Diancie Moonblast vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 348-410 (104.8 - 123.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO ayy actually good
252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 213-252 (64.1 - 75.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Okay so what you might be thinking right here is;
ayy these calcs are actually good, I can fuck up a Salamence with Diancie easily!
ahaha no
what i've been showing you is the wrong salamence calcs;
252 hp / 44+ atk / 212 spe is still okay and is the set used by one of the sample teams here, and i'm pretty sure that there are people that run way more bulk and there are people that just run 252+ atk/252 spe, I love running the doubles 252 set because it's easy to just destroy teams with it, the only thing that fucks you up is like icy wind cress
even though:
0 SpA Cresselia Icy Wind vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 136-164 (40.9 - 49.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 240 HP / 12 Def Cresselia: 219-258 (49.6 - 58.5%) -- 98.4% chance to 2HKO
Statistics about (Mega)-Salamence
Typing: Dragon/Flying
it's weak to other dragon moves which are basically non-existant in the doubles metagame unless you count kyube's dragon claw or people using dragonite, which you probably shouldn't
fairy, there are 2 pokemon that use this the most often; gardevoir and sylveon, both are probably going to die at even seeing salamence, or even jirachi. the thing is that their hyper voice doesn't get stopped by follow me which is a very nice attribute. there are people that are running sylveon TR now just to beat the fuck out of mence
rock, the infamous rock slide exists, but is there anything else that really does this
ice, probably the most common hidden power, and it's a fairly common attacking typing as well, which is incredibly good, especially in this meta as you fuck up not only mence but also shaymin-sky and landorus-therian, two great pokemon in this meta. Mega-Evolution: Aerilate
lol, this makes it just so much easier for salamence to fuck up your opponents, if you run return or double edge you can kill such a big portion of the metagame, the only things you don't hit effectively is zapdos and thundurus. now zapdos is less relevant but thundurus is actually a nice mence beater with HP Ice
if jirachi didn't exist Pre-Mega Evolution: Intimidate
Intimidate is one of the most important abilities in this game as you can simply beat many physical attackers with it, Salamence legit gets one of the better abilities in the game, as you can beat both physical attackers on the field of your opponent, which is great. Most teams are built by guidelines and a lot of people even include a Intimidater on these guidelines; Salamence fits this role. Bulk
95/130/90
yo this thing isn't frail, it doesn't get fucked up by physical attacks which is ridiculous
252+ Atk Landorus-T Rock Slide vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 116-138 (34.9 - 41.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
like yo, it just kinda checks one of the best physical attackers of the meta like yo what the fuck man
252+ Atk Landorus-T Rock Slide vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 116-138 (34.9 - 41.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
208 Atk Mega Diancie Diamond Storm vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 222-264 (66.8 - 79.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 213-252 (64.1 - 75.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
The 3 most relevant physical attackers of the metagame can't even OHKO Salamence, and this is not even the bulky set (which people like to run more often nowadays). So basically keep in mind everything will 2HKO like 50% of the time bc I cba to do bulky calcs rn.
Now when you send in Salamence before it's mega-evolution, it even gets the Intimidate off.
-1 252+ Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 141-168 (42.4 - 50.6%) -- 1.6% chance to 2HKO
-1 208 Atk Mega Diancie Diamond Storm vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 150-176 (45.1 - 53%) -- 28.9% chance to 2HKO
-1 252+ Atk Landorus-T Rock Slide vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 78-92 (23.4 - 27.7%) -- 74.5% chance to 4HKO
On the physically defensive side you'll have definitely less trouble than on the specially defensive side, considering you have a lot less special bulk. That being said:
Physical Strength
The thing is that every Normal moves turns into a Flying move and gets x1.3 power, that means you have a quite lot of relevant moves that Salamence can use;
- Return or Frustration
- Double-Edge
- Aqua Tail
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Facade
- Fire Fang
- Rock Slide
- Stone Edge
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 184 Def Amoonguss: 548-648 (126.8 - 150%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 252 Def Amoonguss: 510-602 (118 - 139.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Mega Salamence Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 136-162 (41.9 - 50%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Charizard Y: 318-375 (107 - 126.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 80 Def Cresselia: 207-244 (46.6 - 54.9%) -- 66.4% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Mega Salamence Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Diancie: 180-212 (74.6 - 87.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 259-306 (73.5 - 86.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
-1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 44 HP / 0 Def Landorus-T: 187-222 (56.6 - 67.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-W: 122-144 (40.1 - 47.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Shaymin-S: 656-774 (192.3 - 226.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
That is the Return/Earthquake set which is in my opinion still the best set. Considering it's so easy to support Mega-Salamence you could even go as far as adding a +1 Mega-Salamence to each calculation, because you're basically guaranteed to get at least one Dragon Dance off, unless something goes really really wrong. Special Strength
Yes, even at a 120 base Special Attack you could go on to become a Special attacker. It's not recommendable though and I like the idea of even going mixed Salamence, but it's probably just best to go fully physical. One of the positive sides of Special Salamence is that you don't even need Dragon Dance, and can fill it up for a better move such as Roost, or even more coverage. Here are some relevant moves that Salamence carries as a special attacker:
Check it out for yourself. It gets outsped by quite some relevant threats in the metagame such as Terrakion, Raikou, Icy Wind Keldeo and Latios. Support
It's ridiculously easy to support Salamence.
Now I've come to part where I realized I didn't explain it quite well enough. Mega-Salamence is on it's own...well, maybe not entirely broken. It would still be the normal day's Kangaskhan. Mega-Salamence's base stats are crazy and he has a great ability, as well as an okay typing and it has a great pre-mega-evolution ability in Intimidate. Maybe Mega-Salamence would be healthy in this current metagame...
Unless Jirachi didn't exist..
Salamence would have trouble to set up a Dragon Dance if it wasn't for Jirachi's Follow Me support. However, considering Jirachi lives everything that hits Salamence effectively, it's going to be much easier for Salamence to just get to +1. At +1 Mega-Salamence has basically no trouble for anything in this metagame as you blast through it with Return and Earthquake. Easy wins. Now how exactly does this make the metagame better?
Another problem is that Jirachi is pretty bulky. It is able to survive a lot of hits and it has great durability unless you hit it effectively. Again, ice moves? Redirected by Follow Me. Rock moves? Same. Fairy moves? Same. Dragon moves? Same. Also, Jirachi is Ground weak, let's Earthquake! Yeah but Salamence can fly.
If that isn't enough, Jirachi can support for very annoying paralyzes and flinches as extra bonus. It's really known for that, but I just wanted to make clear that Thunder Wave and Iron Head is one of the most annoying strategies ever. How does this improve the goddamn metagame?
It doesn't allow for more creativity as you close most doors for building teams, most teamstyles are gone, bulky offense? Why run it if you get 2HKOd by Mence anyway, isn't it just better to run Hyper Offense? Indefinitely.
And everyone saying Hail finally became good, is that the whole point of this suspect test? To get a new good playstyle, which barely even works? Or Trick Room. Basically if you want to beat Salamence on a whole playstyle, these two (and Rain), are the most viable. And the weathers might not even be that viable at all.
Viability Ranks
Aegislash
252+ Atk Mega Salamence Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 136-162 (41.9 - 50%) -- 0.4% chance to 2HKO
252+ SpA Aegislash-Blade Shadow Ball vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 175-207 (52.7 - 62.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
You KO it before they KO you. Nonetheless, nice try checking Mence.
Amoonguss
+1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 184 Def Amoonguss: 824-972 (190.7 - 225%) -- guaranteed OHKO
boned
Mega-Charizard-Y
+1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Charizard Y: 475-561 (159.9 - 188.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Cresselia
+1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 80 Def Cresselia: 309-364 (69.5 - 81.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
well you lose if Cress has Icy Wind or Ice Beam and gets Trick Room up, but you still do a whole lot of damage
Mega-Diancie
+1 252+ Atk Mega Salamence Earthquake vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Diancie: 270-318 (112 - 131.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
now okay I gotta say, you just get straight up OHKOd by moonblast if you don't have a DD up or don't run the bulky set
Mega-Kangaskhan
+1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Kangaskhan: 387-456 (109.9 - 129.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Keldeo
+1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 24 HP / 0 Def Keldeo: 848-998 (257.7 - 303.3%) -- guaranteed OHKO
i know this is the wrong set but you get the idea, you don't get straight up OHKOd if you don't have a dd and keldeo icy winds but it still does a lot
Landorus-Therian
252+ Atk Landorus-T Rock Slide vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Salamence: 116-138 (34.9 - 41.5%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 44 HP / 0 Def Landorus-T: 282-333 (85.4 - 100.9%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
by then your opponent loses unless he flinches you with rock slide
Rotom-Wash
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-W: 122-144 (40.1 - 47.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
136 SpA Rotom-W Thunderbolt vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 127-150 (38.2 - 45.1%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
im pretty sure rotom-w runs less SpA but you get the deal, you'll still kill it first
Now I'm kinda done with this post, I've provided enough calculations, and stuff so
tl;dr Mega-Mence is very easy to support and from that point can set up a Dragon Dance to sweep through teams.
[22:21] Shaian: maaan if i made that and it didnt get hella likes i'd prolly quit
also nido is bae
I appreciate the notion of trying to make mence seem more powerful than it is to try and make people want to ban it, and I would normally not call someone out, but your post is strictly reliant on a tl;dr to try and seem passable while the bulk of your post is simply incorrect or incomprehensible. Not to mention that you cherry picked the fuck out of the viability ranking by ignoring a huge amount of tier 1/,5 mons while providing some essentially non obvious calcs such as OMG KELDEO IS OHKO'D BY MEGA MENCE'S STAB. I mostly dislike how you try to misread readers (you're not the only proban person that says this) but you're probably the one with the most amount of credibility (due solely to having a post that's far too long to completely break apart without going ballistic)
ban: "too easy to sweep" "does too much dmges" "too strong" "centralizes"
no-ban: "I didn't face any teams" "mence wasn't hard to deal with"
imo, mence definitely has weaknesses that are exploitable, it's harder to set up than say kang PuP but more rewarding for that setup
A dumb part of the game that I've seen happen a lot is the part where both jirachi and mence are out, and you have to pick one and the game basically becomes a 50/50
Still, I'm voting a no-ban
*copypaste the 20 essays already written on the topic*
I feel there's still insufficient proof that mence is op as is, and there are definitely checks to mence/rachi, otherwise everyone would just lead the two of them and sweep the game. Mence has to like come in late, and it requires delicate play the enable yourself to set it up, and even more delicate play to be able to sweep.
In comparison to kang, I think that having mence makes your team more fragile in comparison, mence is definitely weaker than kang in terms of bulk, kang also gets fake out and priority sucker punch, and a +2 pup.
Here's why I think mence isn't op:
1) Kang return does more than mence return, and kang return has about equal typing spread (they are both resisted by rock/steel, ghost/electric is the diff in terms of resistance, flying gets coverage on grass (relevant for amoonguss), bug (ok no one cares about this), and fighting (pretty relevant))
2) Kang gets fake out. Pretty huge
3) Kang is WAY less fragile, it doesn't have a 4x weak to one of the more common secondary moves (ice beam, hp ice). Seeing as how everyone and their mother is running icy wind, this is also very relevant
4) Mence commonly only runs 1 or 2 offense moves (eq and return), which limits its options severely. What does it do vs rotomwash? Kang gets return, pup, and sucker punch.
Seriously, mence isn't just "send it in with jirachi, get a free ddance because jirachi obviously has infinite bulk, and in this hypothetical situation, mence can magically sweep the whole team"
Mence teams' win conditions are much more fragile and easier to disrupt.
Why are you comparing mega mence to kanga? Kanga being broken and mence being broken are two completely seperate things with essentially no correlation between the two. Now I don't get what you're saying because you're wrong on multiple points and again cherry picking things to make your arguments seem better while ignoring the other side. Since you conveniently summed up 4 points, I'll entertain you by mentioning each one of the problems with them.
1. 252 Atk Parental Bond Mega Kangaskhan Return vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Arceus: 207-244 (54.3 - 64%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Arceus: 201-237 (52.7 - 62.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
While that may be technically true, in terms of pure damage they do similar amounts that it can be stated that their respective stabs do similar amounts (only difference is like 3% power diff which is negligible). Kangaskhan also has more problems spamming return than mence does due to their different speed tiers and kanga is often forced to rely on the unreliable sucker punch to beat threats whereas mence can attack them outright (this also kanga to function with opp having speed control but w/e this comparison is retarded anyways).
2. Mence has intimidate + significantly higher bulk + resistances, so what the fuck is your point? All of the things mence has over kanga are huge and the fact that you're downplaying them so badly makes me question your knowledge in the tier.
3. I don't see how being way less "fragile" is a factor when 95/130/90 with intimidate and 105/100/100 are both absolutely stellar bulk wise and they're both far more durable than the entirety of the tier bar like cresselia wtf. Not to mention the typical redirection or whatnot.
4. Who cares if mence is unable to touch washtom? I don't see how mence actually having checks and being unable to beat something is too relevant whereas if it has the ability to outright dismantle any of its check singlehandedly, it wouldn't be suspected and just stay banned in the first place (on a side note, washtom is powerless against mizu's mence which is exceedingly common just fyi)
Honestly I feel you're just trying to use kanga (arguably broken seeing as how it was suspected twice already) to try and throw consistent straw mans to try and make your arguments seem better when ultimately all you're doing is avoiding the mence issue as a whole since you failed to actually adress mence strengths in your post and capitalized on its weaknesses.
i think Mega-Salamance is not ban worthy. To me it is on the same "level" as Mega-Kangaskhan as an offensive threat. Mega-Salamance has a very common attacking weaknesses. if you allow the dragon dance ones to set up then yes you have a problem, but that is the same as any sweeper. who wants to face a +2 anything? so far running my own Salamance team the biggest counter/check as a team that i have found is is trick room, it has the bulk and attacking power to defeat Salamance and other speedy offensive threats.
From my 70ish battles on the suspect test ladder (just got my coil) I feel as if Mega-Salamance is not broken. its a very powerful and versatile threat that does have some checks. What it lacks is a pure counter, you can throw an ice beam on any pokemon and call it a day but this is not that effective. If you lack at least one or two solid checks it can wreck you pretty bad mid to late match. However, in preparing to just counter Mega-Salamance opens the floor up for other pokemon to put in a solid amount of work against most teams. I pretty much ran a hyper offensive team the whole time with a Mega-Salamance steel dragon and fairy core and the most threatening teams where weather, mainly sand teams that also carried Salamance and trick room. Most of the time that my Salamance died early in a game (or at all) was from an unsuspecting super effective attack. Doubles is a very offensive based metagame right now. It pretty much has two sides, bulky strong attackers and fast strong attackers. Salamance happens to fit in between these two and can effectively with just one or two sets 2hko or 1hko 90% of the meta. I was all unban at the beginning of the suspect test however, i am leaning more to the middle now. I guess my decision will be made after a few more people have got their coil and presented their side of the argument. But Salamance was super fun to use, many different sets and ev spreads you can use.
I don't get you at all. Saying mence has common weaknesses isn't really valid when they're as follows.
Fairy: Literally worthless since mence outspeeds and ohko's all its users and a mence user has to be on fucking drugs or something if they let mence take a pixilate hyper voice freely. Not to mention the only moonblast user Diancie is bopped by rachi so it's not really a factor.
Rock: Rock slide does jack shit 252+ Atk Landorus-T Rock Slide vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Salamence: 116-138 (35 - 41.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
probably the strongest rock slide user in the tier and even that doesn't even 2hko and this is before factoring intimidate or bulk investment. Rachi fucks over stone edge and this is before the whole stone edge hitting factor! Wow so good at stopping mence.
Dragon: Every dragon bar garbage like noivern is outsped and either severely dented or ohko'd. Throw on the fact that rachi anuses them all and you'll realize that dragon weakness isn't that big of a deal.
Ice: Ice beam = fucked by rachi. Icy wind is piss weak with the only viable users (bulky waters essentially) not even managing to 2hko due to how weak it is. The alternative is blizzspam but that's sketchy in and out of itself so I'll ignore that.
Not to mention by your own admission, mence is dying to random ass hp ice users which just goes to show how unhealthy/overcentralizing it is for the metagame since if random mons are forced to rely on hp ice for just mence essentially, then it's clearly not healthy. I also don't get how mence being able to ohko or pretty much 2hko the whole tier with just its stab is considered healthy seeing as how there are minimal resists for its main stab and even resists are hit like a fucking truck bar like king donner.
Ok from my 70-80ish battles on the suspect ladder In my opinion I believe that Mega-Salemence is not broken.It may be a powerful threat that can pull of many things from bulky sub DD, it can run a special set or just the plain max max DD but it does have checks. From what Ive seen there isnt a full counter but there are quite a few checks out there, but putting Ice Beam on half of the team doesnt count. If you dont have mons like Aegi and Heatran who can tank up the Frustrations while still dealing out damage Mence may just run through your team late game with no trouble. With that though while preparing for Mega opens up a wide variety of mons that could be used that arent as used now (such as mega Mawile who could do quite a lot in TR).
With that I ran a more of a fast paced team that my good friend on PS Majore D' Mawile made and I used it to ladder from about I was halfway done with my coil. It used a special based Mega Mence with Hyper Voice and Fire Blast. In quite a lot of the battles the mence died or was crippled enough so that it couldn't do much pretty early in that battle or just getting straight off snipped by an unexpected Ice move that would normally bring it down to 25 or so % (and freeze with the amount of luck I've had on that ladder) and then just sit in the back for most of that battle only coming out for death fodder or when I had Rachi already in. For the team that I was using Trick Room was probably the hardest type of team to face as almost all of my team were just straight up fast attackers
Doubles is already an extremely offensive tier with most of the mons being bulky attackers or fast attackers and mence fits in pretty well here with it being able to fit in both of those rolls just depending on the spread that you use. At the start of the suspect I was leaning more towards to the keep it banned but now that I've actually been able to use it and see what it can do I'm more leaning to no ban and I think its no where near as broken as everyone thinks it just adds another thing to have checks for (we already have like 4 of those mons). In the end Salamence was extremely fun to use with the many different sets it can pull off.
Man it's hard to see why a mon is broken when you're running a suboptimal set, that's like saying kyogre won't be broken if I'm running non blue orb kyogre with like avalanche/waterfall/dive/solarbeam. We're not trying to keep mence banned based on its special set (though it's semi viable) but rather choose to ban it on whether or not its main set (dd + stab + two filler moves) is too much for the metagame given the proper support/opportunities.
yes mence is a huge powerhouse and a major threat. yes he has great synergy with jirachi. however there are definitely sets that beat him
speed control: icy wind users get huge mileage on mence for the speed control and the 4x weakness to ice. I don't run trick room teams, but I'm sure mence doesn't fair well against TR. Also, running taunt against raichi prevents redirects, as well as preventing DD and substitute from mence.
another very important "check", Bisharp and milotic get a free attack boost from intimidate, and while +1 bisharp can't do much to mence, it can take on jirachi, and boosted milotic can OHKO salamence and survive unboosted attacks: +2 0 SpA Milotic Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0- SpD Mega Salamence: 628-740 (189.7 - 223.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
additionally, weavile can outspeed and OHKO mence with ice punch. Run prankster taunt mon with milotic or weavile, easy counter specifically for mence as well as threaten jirachi
252 Atk Weavile Ice Punch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Salamence: 372-436 (112.3 - 131.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
life orb weavile can potentially OHKO jirachi:
252 Atk Life Orb Weavile Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 68 Def Jirachi: 367-432 (90.8 - 106.9%) -- 43.8% chance to OHKO
yes, these two do not fair particularly well against the rest of the meta, and are in fact usually not used, there are definitely things that can be done to mence that make it less than unstoppable. Cripple with will-o-wisp, take away 1/4 health with stealth rock and discourage switching, taunt usage, priority moves, and speed control.
I know that these are just a couple examples of low tier threats that become more viable against specific meta threats, but a more reasonable example is heatran + Cress, heatwave icy wind. Another would be landy-i + diancie, earth power diamond storm (earth power can ohko jirachi, guaranteed ko with diamond storm hit. As for mence, diancie could fair better, but 2hko isn't bad 208 Atk Diancie Diamond Storm vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Salamence: 210-248 (63.4 - 74.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO)
people are smart, I think the current meta is stale and could use some shaking up. There are untapped mons that have more use than people would expect. I think allowing mence in the meta will foster growth and diversification of the meta instead of stagnation of viable and unviable mons.
tl;dr, mence has checks and balances that are fairly easy to implement into the meta and should be allowed.
I am very very confused.
Where is the intimidate boost coming from? Since without them, milotic is utterly worthless (and walled by rachi because it's weak as balls) whereas bisharp outright loses to mence 1v1 so uh u wot mate? I don't see why you're calling them checks when they're unable to do anything in general.
I don't see why you say mence is healthy because it forces the usage of unviable shit like weavile (it actually doesn't force people to run it) and claim to say that mence is alright in the metagame due to that fact.... Like that makes zero sense at all since if anything that just shows how restricting it is on teambuilding and how broken mence is as a whole.
I see a lot of support for keeping Megamence banned but I thought I'd share my own experiences.
One of the key factors that you look for in determining whether or not a pokemon is broken is metagame centralization. Is this pokemon without many checks and counters? Does this pokemon appear on every team and force players to carry the one or two pokemon that check it on their team?
Let's start with the first one. "Is this pokemon without many checks and counters.?" In my experience the answer is No. I'll list a few checks and counters below.
Talonflame. While priority brave bird cannot KO a full health salamence, if it's down to ~50% health you will get the KO. Salamence has no usable priority moves to stop this, so by showing talonflame you force your opponent to either Protect, switch, or lose the dragon.
Thunder Wave/Will-o-wisp. Prankster is very common in doubles, and if you manage to burn (physical only, special/mixed mences get away with it) or paralyze the salamence, it's death fodder that you can hit with your slow, bulky attacker while speedmon nails some other threat.
Trick Room. Mega salamence's amazing speed means it moves last against a trick room team, unless they also happened to bring something like max speed aerodactyl or a jolteon. Similar to the thunderwave case, a salamence that moves last is death fodder.
Choice Scarfers. As long as you don't let it set up (if you do, that's entirely on you), most choice scarf users will outspeed Megamence. From there, they can hit it with draco meteor, ice beam, hidden power, or whatever they've got. Salamence is usually invested in speed and offense, so it's initially appealing bulk isn't enhanced by the EVs.
Bulk and relatiation. I'd like to bring the spotlight over to Mega Diancie, Mega Gardevoir, and Togekiss. Mega diancie is (from what I've seen) more prevalent than megamence in the suspect ladder. In addition, it resists/is immune to both of salamence's STAB moves. The common set of firemove, normalmove, dragonmove, and protect/dd is completely resisted by Diancie (watch out for EQ though). Mega Gardevoir has the special defense to tank a special attack from salamence and return with its own KO'ing mov. Sylveon can do this too, but risks being victim to double-target. Togekiss is quite bulky and can survive a hit from salamence, then dent it with whatever fairy move it has.
And the second bit. "Does this pokemon appear on every team?" The short answer is No. During my ascension of the suspect ladder I came across something like four (maybe?) salamences in total. It rarely appeared on opponents' teams and when it did? It was taken down with relative ease. I used some combination of the above tactics like ice beam and thunderwave, salamence dropped like a fly. For the most part it's still about outplaying your opponent, Salemence hasn't changed that.
Another point on metagame centralization. You'd expect salamence to be extremely common if it were broken. Everyone would use it. However I have found that Mega Kang and Char-Y still make up the vast majority of megas. I'd probably put forth a vote for Unban
1. Where are you getting your criteria? A large amount of your ban criteria has never been stated and unless it has, it shouldn't be used for your un/ban mentality.
First off you discuss centralization which implies banworthyness, but how is this the case when you have mons like mega kanga, trick room, rain, sun, etc that you ABSOLUTELY MUST prepare for or you will lose if your opp brings them and/or have a garbage team. That would be centralization since this is referring to threats that you absolutely must prepare for or you will lose. This is considered acceptable as a whole by the doubles community so I don't see why the whole centralization bullshit is even valid.
Literally everything has checks and counters (bar mega rayquaza) but it's to the extent/obscurity/viability of these supposed checks/counters that determines if a mon is broken or not. And even if they do have it, that doesn't necessarily mean it's not broken (see lando-i in ou which had very prominent checks and even two counters but was broken to such a degree that even those checks/counters did not stop it from getting a super majority ban)
Now let's point out the supposed checks/counters you listed.
Talonflame: 252+ Atk Choice Band Talonflame Brave Bird vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Salamence: 186-220 (56.1 - 66.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Talonflame: 310-366 (104.3 - 123.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO
This is the absolute strongest thing doable for talon, if talon opts for something like life orb/sharp beak/goggles then it does literally nothing and this is before factoring in bulk investment and potential intimidate both of which are key factors to consider. The fact that talon struggles immensely at beating mence lets me question the validity of even calling it a check to mence (if you said wisp talon I would be more lenient but you ignored that so w/e).
Status: Redirection says gg. Not to mention it's not like a mence user will just let you freely burn/paralyze it (and if they do then they're a poor player as a whole) and this isn't even factoring in that mence commonly carries substitute which puts a hard stop to status! So status as a whole isn't reliable to check mence (or threats as a whole in the tier)
Trick room: K imma switch out. Bye. There's nothing keeping the mence in play and it can easily switch out to one of the other 4/5 mons on your team that can handle trick room. I don't see how this affects mence too much besides temporarily hindering it, not to mention that with the addition of such a powerful attacker, trick room is far harder to get off without its user being heavily dented in the process if not outright ko'd before setting up so trickroom being an answer is sketchy at best.
Choice scarf: The fact that mence can viably run a speed boosting move and outspeed all but the fastest shit in the tier shows how this isn't reliable, in fact most checks to mence should be able to handle it at +1 and not the other way around. Not to mention that choice users are easily scouted out and can be played around which makes it very hard to say they're anything but a soft check and even then the only real scarf user I can think of that stops mence is like greninja lol.
Bulk/retaliation: Yay I'm going to let my mence get hit by some SE spread move that completely wrecks it. With your examples being suboptimal since gard is destroyed, sylv doesn't even need to be double targetted since mence outright ohko's and outspeeds it, togekiss never runs a fairy move since dazzling gleam sucks ass. The only real answer you listed was diancie and even then you admitted can be bypassed by eq (this is before even factoring in jirachi!) which shows how this boils down to your opp letting mence get hit by some super powerful stab move which any competent player wouldnt.
Ultimately, I believe I addressed every unban mence post made and I'm not really convinced on how mence is healthy for the tier as a whole since these arguments aren't good and rarely even mention anything reliable to beating mence 1v1 much less beating mence with rachi support. So unless someone posts something amazing within the last day or so, I don't see how anyone can vote for an unban that isn't due to their own bias and/or fuck smogon mentality.
So I started laddering out of sheer boredom, and while I faced more Gastrodon than Megamence on the ladder, I had enough good games and reached reqs so I figured I might as well vote. I'm gonna be first to admit that my average ladder game was getting flinched four times and missing a fire blast and diamond storm to lose to a mostly singles UU team though, so excuse me if I'm the guy who comes into a random tier just for the suspect test and rehashes points already made. Salamence is just warping the meta to the point where, although I didn't find it unenjoyable at first, there really wasn't too much variation and I started to get really fed up towards the end of my reqs. You can't really run a bunch of free teams as you need 5 members who can hit mence (and most have to handle Jirachi too) in some way. When I ran trick room, I had to have stuff to hit mence on the field at all times or I was dead. My friend passed me this balance team (inb4 post below me is slate's) where 5/6 members could hit Mence super effectively and most handled Jirachi too. I never had an issue with Mence, but that's because how well the teams could handle it. It's no fun being restricted to the same stuff, and even then Mence was still stupidly obnoxious, although not broken as long as your team was the same things to hit mence every time. Even then it's still this monster mega with great STAB and 120 speed that you have to play very carefully around. I'm voting ban and getting off this goddamn ladder (seriously, I'd rather ban hax than mence)
I'd like to preface the following statements by saying that I'm relatively new to doubles and VGC; I have been playing VGC off and on for a while (not diligently) and got into doubles as of a week or so ago when doubles seasonal started. While I'm not a terrible player by any means, I'm afraid that my opinions and arguments aren't going to be developed since I mostly play singles, so apologies in advance if you see anything that may be undeveloped or illogical.
Throughout the process of getting reqs (44 games) I saw a total of 3 mences. Now, for the majority of my time spent on the ladder I faced stuff like flash parasect + Geomancy Smeargle, but the important thing to note is that of those three mences, only one was actually built and played well- one was on a team built around Round and thus was played extremely poorly, I honestly don't remember the other, just that it didn't cause any particular issues, probably because of improper team support. The final mence, however, was what gave me actual issues. Now, personally I am pro-ban on mence, and for reasons other than its sheer power and bulk (because I personally believe that in a tier like doubles quoting sheer statistics doesn't work, or at least not in any effect like it does in singles.) What I can, and will, speak about is overcentralization, a topic that has been discussed over and over again in this thread because, honestly, it's the most dominant factor that Mega Salamence possesses.
The speed, power, bulk and versatility that megamence possesses polarizes the tier to no end. With proper team support (jirachi), you're either forced to: a) choose a perfect lead matchup so that you can immediately force out both mence and rachi, which is easier said than done, b) pack a strong spread move, namely blizzard from aboma (which requires TR), Hyper Voice from Sylveon or Mega Gardevoir (this assumes you have something faster to kill rachi or force it out first. oh yeah, and you also have to live a STAB Return / Edge from Mence which, to a gardevoir, means death almost immediately), or a very strong Rock Slide (considering the calc above for Landorus-T's -1 Rock Slide, you have to hit it really hard because intimidate + 95/130 physical bulk is no joke, of course.) finally, there's c) crippling it with Thundurus-I, which is the most reliable option since it can't be Follow Me'd by Jirachi. Running Thundurus-I on every team obviously won't happen, though, and I've found that the best teams in this metagame are simply measured by how well they can check Mence while also checking everything else- however, they will always be weaker in the way of checking the "general meta" because of how much effort that has to be put in to try to check Salamence. When a pokemon is so good that it completely polarizes the meta, I honestly don't see how it can be seen as a good thing or an asset to the metagame as a whole.
Edit: One thing I forgot to mention up above is the presence of Icy Wind, allowing pokemon like Cresselia, Milotic and Suicune to check Salamence better than I said above. Obviously, Jirachi + Mence isn't a completely perfect pairing, but Jirachi isn't the only team support Salamence gets- and it's not like Salamence can't switch out in the somewhat uncommon situations that it does feel truly threatened.
A lot of people (Stratos) seem to emphasize Mega Salamence's speed as the primary factor of how it's so OP.
People are going to have a lot of trouble controlling Salamence's speed while Thundurus is on every team.
Pokemon faster than Kangaskhan that can do damages != suspect test material.
Also apparently nothing in the game resists Flying moves.
holy fuck i hate this ladder everyone used tr because they were uber scared of mence and no one actually used it
that's kind of the funny thing about mence: people start running all these mad set-ups just to deal with it; the annoying thing was that they were almost all the same conceptually: semi-tr, boring fairy spam, and so on and so on and so forth. obviously ladder is not always the best indicator of how a mence meta would go especially since we're bringing down an Uber so it's expected to be a serious cut above Doubles OU instead of something among mortals, but when you're like me and you didn't see a single weather team that wasn't a shitty pledge gimmick on your way up you kinda start thinking "okay maybe there's something wrong here oh wait maybe it's the pokemon we introduced a week or so ago". what's that buzzword spell? i think it started with an o and had centralization at some point toward the end.
so you know what i think? i think the problem that's going to happen with mence unbanned now is meta stagnation in a negative direction: i.e. if it's unbanned the meta just shifts to accommodate it as opposed to being a new toy that, like any other mon, has a reasonable cost/benefit runtime and you can afford to use a pokemon not named mega mence -- therefore you are either running mega mence or trying to counter it. or both. not fun zzz
when i last voted i went for no ban because I felt mence was still a relatively untested force in the meta and that reliance on redirection would make it an unsteady sweeper -- similar to how mega kang does not just autowin games magically. it's been proven now that mence is effective without jirachi and instead complements similar offense while having stellar defense for a sweeper that edges out mkang. you've all seen the calcs and i'm not about to bore you with even more magical numbers or some other set that just avoids KO thresholds because you've all seen those. we get it, m-mence is a truck made of adamantium, but the question is whether it drives well in this meta or not -- where has that gotten us? a lot more calcs and proof that it works well outside of the original "redirect and set-up" strategy that we touted at first -- worse off than we were before.
before, i was pretty set that it wasn't bad and maybe needed a bit of exploration. i'm sad that the retest ended up being like this because i really like m-mence, but it's had its chance. voting ban if i get the opportunity, ripip.
Hello user Zubat perhaps if you care so much (I mean apparently we need Jesus!) you would actually ladder to keep it, or if that was too much effort you could have joined the live suspect tour. 5 wins and you'd have had reqs.
But since you don't seem to have any interest in doing so, criticizing a tier leader, who btw had no obligation to retest this mon and is not nearly as one-sided ban as you seem to think he is, is a bit rich.
I'm not gonna tell you to "lurk" because I know you're plenty good. But I am gonna tell you to post more thoughtfully.
I really think this test is a waste of time because the result has been already decided since the beginning. People are saying "yo salamence is broken BAN" since day 1 and nobody is even "testing". i think Kanga is way more broken than Salamence for a couple of simple reasons. first of all this is doubles you can't judge a mon based on it's base stats but on how easily you can create a good team around it and kanga fits almost in every team while Salamence needs at least rachi + an ice and rock resist. Salamence needs at least to dragon dance once to actually do something not to mention intimidate. Simple counters to salamence are thundurus, milotic suicune cresselia i don't really see why salamence is such a terror to everyone.
Jirachi is both a Rock-, and Ice-type resist in the first place. Also, having resists to these typings isn't unique to just Salamence teams, I don't think there are many teams which don't have at least one Pokemon that can switch into these.
Check here for two teams that were successful without using Jirachi.
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Kangaskhan: 364-430 (103.4 - 122.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO.
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-W: 143-168 (47 - 55.2%) -- 73.4% chance to 2HKO
252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 212 HP / 128 Def Thundurus: 172-203 (48.8 - 57.6%) -- 96.1% chance to 2HKO
lol
Even if this isn't a particularly common set your accusation is inaccurate, Jolly Return is still doing like 70% to Kangaskhan.
Cresselia - Consistently wins, usually relatively unscathed, fuck Icy Wind Cresselia
Thundurus - Comes out on top but takes a fuckton of damage (bulky thund doesn't OHKO with HP Ice, non bulky takes more than 50% from Jolly Return and actually loses with Follow Me support)
Milotic - Loses to Follow Me support, can't win with even a small amount of chip damage. Blizzard isn't even a guaranteed OHKO without Modest and has imperfect accuracy.
Suicune - Better than Milotic, but pretty much the same.
I agree people should not really have come into the test with a 100% ban mentality but eh, can't shatter preconceived notions so easily.
I really think this test is a waste of time because the result has been already decided since the beginning. People are saying "yo salamence is broken BAN" since day 1 and nobody is even "testing".
Alright, people have been testing, hence the reqs of either playing ladder or winning a suspect tour, so this point is kinda moot. Dont really feel too much need to elaborate further here.
i think Kanga is way more broken than Salamence for a couple of simple reasons. first of all this is doubles you can't judge a mon based on it's base stats but on how easily you can create a good team around it and kanga fits almost in every team while Salamence needs at least rachi + an ice and rock resist.
Um no? All you need to be prepared for Kangaskhan is offensive pressure on your team + a ghost, steel, or fighting type. Viable mons that fall under this category are Aegislash, Terrakion, Keldeo, Will o Wisp Gengar, Heatran, Ferrothorn, Jirachi, and others. The viable checks for Mence include Hp Ice Zapdos, Thundurus, Rotom (which is 2hkod after a dd boost) and like suicune. Which is pretty limiting in regards to team building. Also Salamence is even easier to fit into teams than kang because it has a really good typing with a bunch of resistances to common attacking types like ground, fire, water, and fighting. Also, because mence has so few checks, its even easier to pair it with stuff that can beat all of its checks i.e. Excadrill, Jirachi, or whatever.
Again, no it doesnt. Mence easily Kos or 2hkos anything that doesnt resist its flying stab except for really bulky stuff like suicune and cress. I'd post calcs and the like proving this, but all of them have kinda already been done.
During the first test i used Edge/ATail/DD/Protect mence and probably only DD'd in one third of games, most of the time I just OHKOed shit from +0 with double edge and got like 3 kills a match
I used a VGC team, with item clause in effect. I didn't change a thing, EVs or otherwise.
The ladder sucks. The voting qualification method sucks. For a group of people attempting to test Salamence, I saw 1 other Salamence in about 40 battles. I used Salamence and I didn't even need it, the rest of my team was enough to win a majority of my games. I think people are lazy team builders in Smogon Doubles, the only time I ever saw anyone even attempt to counter Salamence was with Mega Gardevoir and Jirachi. Even then though, Salamence was not a Pokemon that single handily carried games. Is it a good Pokemon? Yes. Is it broken? Fuck no. When I can run through teams with just Tyranitar and Excadrill who gives a fuck what Salamence is doing? Not a single person I ran into was abusing Salamence in any way. Why does this ladder exist if no one is trying to show Salamence is broken, instead everyone just gets to qualifications, spouts some damage calculations, then throws it back in ban prison. Surprise guys strong Pokemon is strong! You motherfuckers are dumb for banning it in the first place and everyone is going to continue their lazy ways and not actually test something here.
I was using Salamence, I ran into plenty of teams that inherently were prepared for Salamence without doing anything special. Not wanting Thundurus in a metagame is an absolutely asinine reason to keep Salamence banned. Oh no guys we are forced to use Electric types to beat a Flying type! I think you guys are lazy and weak. The list of Pokemon that easily deal with Salamence and even Salamence + redirection is plentiful. You have nearly every Electric type, Landorus has a good time, Mega Gardevoir is actually a huge issue, last time you guys didn't even have Diance yet (or didn't use it), Heatran and most Steels are fine, things that are faster like Weavile/Shaymin/Darkrai can force free switches, hell I had trouble with a Kyruem. What I'm saying is, stop being lazy teambuilders and innovate. Quit sticking to the same mold over and over, use something that actually deals with your metagame instead of crying so much. The stuff in this post still rings true. Salamence is being used in VGC right now where we have access to fewer counters and fewer Pokemon on a team to even beat it, yet it is not even being compared to Kangaskhan of VGC 2014 at all. Why isn't the VGC Salamence outcry so huge? Because it isn't broken. We have access to a lot of the same tools to protect Salamence (other than Rachi), and even fewer to beat it being 4v4. Because it isn't broken and the player base understands what steps need to be taken to beat a Pokemon without causing your team to be weak to a million other things.
Salamence should've never been banned and I won't hold my breath for it to be unbanned. If you guys want to make some actual progress on your metagame you need to look at actual anti-competitive Pokemon like Shaymin where the counterplay is don't get flinched.
makiri, I'm a bit confused on your reasoning and I was wondering if you could elaborate on one thing. At the beginning of your post, you said that "the ladder sucks" (I agree) and said that the "voting qualification method sucks." Yet, you based your reasoning off of ladder matches. Did you ever get to go up against some more competent players using salamence? Honestly I'm just a little curious. Also, how would you change the suspecting process?
The general idea here is that you have those very powerful physical moves but also a Flying-type spread option as well, making redirection for less useful against Mence (especially if you are using Aqua Tail and thus don't have the spread Earthquake). As Stratos mentioned, Dragon Dance doesn't see a lot of use since Salamence is already great without boosts.
Honestly as much respect as I have for you Nollan, your arguments are quite flawed, since your team struggles against mence and yet you claim to beat it with a combination of like zapdos + keldeo + your own mence. Zapdos falls under the category of getting anus'd by rachi, while keldeo as a mence check is a laughable notion in its entirety and the fact that you cite keldeo being able to beat mence with icy wind as your main method of winning against ladder is dubious since mence easily ohko's keldeo with its stab move and outspeeds it as well so it's very hard for me to consider keldeo a usable answer. Zapdos itself is fucked by rachi so no need for further mention there. And although mence can somewhat "check" itself I don't see how a mon beating itself is a valid argument since that falls under the whole "Mence is broken because your opp can use it to!"
I don't recall making any argument that "mence isn't broken" in that post. The point of that post was to show some of the ideas and options I have seen having some success, and to point out people shouldn't just come to conclusions so quickly. I also never said my team countered Salamence; the point of that team was to use it. That being said, I definitely did not feel like I struggled that significantly against Mence with that team at all (+1 EQ also OHKOs Diancie-Mega and redirection shuts it down pretty well as a brief reply to Bughouse's old post).
That being said, I personally do not think we should keep Salamence-Mega banned. Yes, it hits very hard and can sweep through teams, but honestly threats like Kangaskhan (and Eruption Heatran) can claim similar accomplishments. I would say Salamence is a bit stronger offensively due to its better STAB attacks, but the methods you can use to counter it (Trick Room, Icy Wind, Hyper Voice Sylveon or Gardevoir, Intimidate / WoW, to some extent physically defensive Thundurus and Diancie-Mega) are already solid options for a team to begin with. I've found that HailRoom is basically a hard counter to most Salamence teams, which is imo a good thing, since that strategy hasn't seen much usage this generation. I mean if you were to simply look at the tier 1 pokemon you'd see that Salamence has some difficulties with Diancie, Rotom-W, Cresselia, Landorus-T and Aegislash. That's more or less 50% of the best pokemon without it even there. Not to mention Kangaskhan could use an Ice Punch set (not common though it could become common with Sally in the meta).
I do notice the big difference in Jirachi existing in this metagame and pairing with Salamence very well, but from my experiences playing against it, it hasn't felt "broken" or "overcentralizing" (if I had a dollar for every time someone used that word in this thread, I might be a millionaire) at all, merely a good core that I need to be prepared for. Yes, the metagame is quite different with Salamence in it, but I have found it perfectly manageable (and I like Salamence being around to discourage constantly using the Grass-types that are on more or less 100% of teams; I feel like it discourages using FWG cores on every team and actually beings diversity into the metagame).
So apparently I have to post in order to get reqs. Here we go:
Mega Mence finds itself at an incredible position in the Doubles metagame. This is due to the fact that supporting it is extremely simple (don't need to look much further than redirection tactics). As already mentioned, Jirachi is the perfect partner for redirection as its defensive capabilities complement Mega Mence's weaknesses very well. In my 33 games of getting reqs, I used a core I found in some thread (DD Mega Altaria + Redirection Jirachi) which worked wonders. This core emulates what Mega Mence tries to achieve except with the major difference being that Mega Mence is better than Mega Altaria in almost every way.
I disagree with the notion that the presence of Mega Mence will give way to more creative and diverse teams because the result of easy support coupled with insane offensive capabilities leads to an unstable tier that scrambles to find effective cores simply to beat it. This would do the opposite of promote diversity and ultimately it would restrict creativity in teambuilding and heighten matchup dependency.
