Salamander's Pit - Salamence-centered team.

[Silent Storm]

Salamander's Inferno


--------
| | | | | | |

____________________________________

Change-Log

• The team has received a massive overhaul.
  
• Changed the spread for Latias and am currently testing Thunderbolt.
• Trying a new Heatran set, considering Will-O-Wisp over Taunt.
  
• Changed the spread for Bulky Mence.
  
• Fire Blast is now being considered over Magma Storm
  
• Iron Head is now on Jirachi to help handle the big three better, helps with Latias now.
• Testing new moves and spreads.
  

____________________________________


Introduction

Gonna be honest, I didn't plan on revisiting this team cause it honestly flopped for me. Vashta once said that this team was special hyper offence gone wrong among others things. The team itself is pretty generic, considering my attempts at being innovative. The team works in dealing with most of the threats in the current game and Bulky Mence imo is better suited for this team. If all else fails I still have Latias to pick apart everything once Blissey dies, though the amount of special attacker is annoying for me as I like having a balance. If I were to change one member it would be Latias, not because its "cheap" or "gay" or "spammy" but its because I have spammed her on almost all my teams and its getting quite annoying, also not sure about cune either. Right now this is my main team as it has the most win records to date (been playing with it the most lol) and has a lot of my favs in it (I have a lot of favs :¬/).

Main issues I have encountered:

• Once Jirachi is gone the team is rather slow, but I guess being bulky is a good trade off.
• The big three rip this team to shreads once Jirachi is gone.
• Not liking Latias on this team too much, despite it being good I have spammed it to death. =/
• Too much special attackers, and Suicune takes too long to set up. =/

Main highlights of the team:

• The team has a lot of resistances, does not care about Stealth Rock.
• This team consists of various favourites of mine while trying to use not so common sets.
• The team owns now. =)

Other notes (Misc):

• Salamence being bulky helps deal with stall better (as the old set died too fast).
• Every single player on this team does not mind toxic spikes, only Suicune minds but it can rest it off, huge plus against stall teams
• So far the core is three steels and two dragons, as I already have a triple dragon team I am considering getting rid of Latias or something else and keeping the main core three steels and one dragon.

In-Depth Look

|
A Human FireBall (Heatran) @ Shuca Berry
Ability: Flash Fire
EVs: 6 HP | 252 SAtk | 252 Spe
Nature: Timid (+Spe, -Atk)

• - Will-O-Wisp
• - Earth Power
• - Fire Blast
• - Stealth Rock

Set Analysis

Heatran is a pretty cool lead when it comes to being able to do something to the majority of leads out there. With his useful resistances he has no issues setting up rocks. The set is borrowed from YoshiThePirate and Philip and has been very successful for me. Magma Storm deals with the likes of Azelf once they taunt my lead or something while Taunt lures Gyarados in for him to be useless as he can't set up, slower leads also fall prey to Heatran's set as taunt stops their stealth rock which is huge for Salamence even though he has roost. What lured me to Heatran over Metagross in this build was the amount of resists he has. Heatran having Flash Fire is huge when I have three steel types, all of which are weak to fire, and when coupled with Magnezone and Salamence, not a lot of Pokemon are touching me any time soon. Looking at the team, I have two Pokemon weak to fire and ground, wile Salamence and Latias cover those weaknesses very well, they won't last long. At the very least, Heatran covers the fire weakness while covering physical attackers from Will-O-Wisp Pokemon like Dusknoir and Rotom-h.

---

|
YourMum (Suicune) @ Leftovers
Ability: Pressure
EVs: 120 HP | 172 SAtk | 216 Spe
Nature: Timid (+Spe, -Atk)

• - Surf
• - Calm Mind
• - Hidden Power [Electric]
  
• - Ice Beam

Set Analysis

Crocune, the pokemon that was in my old build has made his return to my team as being the bulky water to compliment my core and handle Blissey. To be honest, I would prefer it if something else be here but I just prefer Crocune as its has been very successful for me and is a pain to get rid of once Vaporeon is outta the way. I had Rotom-h over this but the forum I normally frequent banned him for some insane reason, so I sometimes interchange them. Standard offensive cune was also used as it provided me with more coverage but sr among other thins made me go cro. Me and Skynet have been experimenting with other cune sets as Crocune is just too annoying to use. on Skynet's version of team he has been using offensive Suicune over Crocune. In my opinion, I believe this offensive cune with leftovers is more suited for the team than Crocune. As I mentioned before, despite being immune to status I hate setting with crocune, its tedious and the coverage is horrible. The only problem I would have with the switch to this set is the fact that toxic spikes dicks him over, but the trade off imo is worth it, as I am hitting things I normally wouldn't be able to hit with Crocune.

---

|
Crimson Ninja (Jirachi) @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Serene Grace
EVs: 6 HP | 252 Atk | 252 Spe
Nature: Jolly (+Atk, -SAtk)

• - Ice Punch
• - Iron Head
• - Trick
• - Thunderpunch

Set Analysis

Choice Scarf Jirachi has been placed over Scizor as being the pokemon to handle dragons as well as Gyarados. I orginally had CB Scizor in this spot for scouting and handling Salamence but CS Rachi just did the job better than cor at what I want to accomplish. While Zen Headbutt could be enough for Blissey and co I have decided to add Trick to the set to further screw up stuff that could potentially wall me. Jirachi acts as my fail safe Pokemon against the big three, Tyranitar, Salamence & Gyarados as all three can rip me to shreads if I don't have rachi. Rachi, like Heatran, has a nice amount of resists and immunity to toxic spikes meaning he also won't be leaving any time soon.

---

|
Under the same sky <3 (Latias) @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 148 HP | 108 SAtk | 252 Spe
Nature: Timid (+SAtk, -Atk)

• - Calm Mind
• - Surf
• - Recover
• - Dragon Pulse

Set Analysis

CM Latias makes her way onto my team as being the first boss monster once Blissey has been taken out of the game. After one CM boost Scizor and friends are gonna have a hard time coming in on +1 surfs and dragon pulse gives me good stab to screw over Salamence among other dragons lacking a speed boost. To be honest I tried avoiding Latias as I have already used Salamence, Heatran, Scizor and Latias on the same team, unfortunately this Latias has helped me a ton in getting nape and is overall a great Pokemon with nice synergy with the rest of my team. LO+3 attacks has been used in the past and while good was either too slow or too weak to do anything significant without spikes support.

---

|
An Ugly son of a : ¬ | =( (Magnezone) @ Leftovers
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 42 HP | 252 SAtk | 216 Spe
Nature: Naive (+Spe, -SDef)

• - Thunderbolt
• - Substitute
• - Hidden Power [Grass]
• - Explosion

Set Analysis

Magnezone is Salamence's main supporting partner for this team. Scizor is a mjaor threat to Salamence's sweeping power and having him removed from the game rather easily is HUGE. Magnezone not only supports Salamence but can potentially support Latias by exploding on Blisseys and Snorlaxes that are major threats to Latias's sweeping power. As many people expect Magnezone to hold scarf they stick shed shell on their steel types then switch into something that can take thunderbolt or hidden power fire, because of this I felt it better I run substitute giving me a shield against whatever comes while I recover off any damage from stealth rock with leftovers. I feel HP Grass is out of place here as I already have a steel type that can hit Swampert with it so I interchange with hp fire, while both have their merits I have been finding HP Grass to be better as some people save Swampert of cursing rather than leading and not much on my team can hit pert if Heatran dies.

---

|
Dragon Caesar >=) (Salamence) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 214 HP | 40 Atk | 176 Def | 80 Spe
Nature: Jolly (+Spe, -SAtk)

• - Dragon Claw
• - Roost
• - Earthquake
• - Dragon Dance

Set Analysis

I was originally using the bulky spread from the analysis but I saw a new spread in a rmt so I decided to try this out and I was pleased with the results (credits or course go to Philip and Yoshi). Bulky Mence has got be one of the best sets I have used. While he doesn't have the coverage of MixMence and DD Mence, he can take hits, has similar coverage, can lure in steel types and stuff them over thanks to Dragon Claw and Roost and not care about status at all. This is a slight variantion of the set that can be found on the analysis. In my opinion what made me not like bulkymence was the fact that it focused too much on hp and def, with this set all the evs have been nicely distributed plus the evs in attack and speed has made me

General Strategy

While I haven't used this team as much as I should I have a pretty rough idea on how it works in battle. The game starts out with Heatran either launching Magma Storm on lead Zelf or Taunting slower leads before using Stealth Rock. Because of his bulk and access to Shuca Berry I am pretty confident that he can withstand a hit from virtually common leads not named Swampert and atleast get rocks up for my pokemon to abuse. After rocks is up and Heatran is still alive I switch him out as saving him for incoming Gyarados and friends is nice if I have Will-O-Wisp (if not I switch out anyway). Once Heatran is safely out of the way I, most of the time, switch into to Latias and attempt an early sweep, hopefully luring their dedicated special wall out so I can either smash it with Thunderbolt or switch into to Suicune and stall it out with resttalk. As I stated before, Gyarados, Salamence and Tyranitar, to me considered the big three can all have their way with my team and rape it, which is where Jirachi comes in. Jirachi with Thunderpunch, Ice Punch and Iron Head hit all of these threats for super effective damage and can haxstall Salamence with Iron Head, in a way, it is set up bait for them but that doesn't matter as he can just come in and take them out if they are standard (bulky for Gyarados, Naughty for Salamence etc, don't know how well I am screwed by naive and max speed mence and gyara).

The crux of this team has got to be the MagnaMence combo. In the first build, SalaTran was used over this combo because I felt magnezone was too slow to help this team significantly, further testing proved that Heatran was better suited for the role of leading and setting up rocks while Magnezone can trap and defeat steel types easier than anything. Mid way into the game I attempt to lure out their steel types with Jirachi and Latias for Magnezone to kill. Salamence being bulky does nto really care about these pokemon as he can set up on then and use Earthquake to kill the weak ones but at the end of the day, its always better to rape them indefinably with a member that not only compliments mence offensive, but can do the job he can easier leaving Mence to set up and ram through the opposing team (plus Salamence loses to Bronzong and Skarmory). I send in Salamence when a good half of the opposing team is battered or weakened, with his bulk and intimidate he should have no issues setting up with multiple dances and running through the team with claw and quake, using roost as a form of recovery.

[Silent Storm]

Threat list goes here.

[Dormin]

Hey.

I took a look at it, and at first glance I can see a few easy changes you can make. First off, your threat list pretty much shows that anything that can outspeed your team is a problem. To fix stuff like this, I suggest a Scarf Jirachi lead. With trick, you can screw over stuff like Suicune and if you put Fire Punch over U-turn then you can have an effective counter to Lucario even if you trick away the scarf. Also helps against Empoleon.

With this change, I would suggest that you mess with Heatran. Instead of a scarf, why not try a SubToxic Heatran or a Sub+3 attack Heatran (Fire Blast, Earth Power, HP Grass, etc.). Both of these sets help wear down bulky water types that might prevent Salamence from sweeping late game. Or, you could put a Magnezone over Heatran to eliminate Scizor, who could also end your Salamence's sweep. This would also pave the way for a Latias sweep as well.

On Celebi, I think you could do a lot more with that Earth Power moveslot. I suggest that you use either HP Fire or U-turn. With HP Fire, you can effectively lure in and eliminate Scizor (if you keep Heatran, which I suggest). However, a clean OHKO requires some SpAtk investment. For now I would suggest an EV spread of 252 HP, 220 Def, and 36 Spe with a Bold nature, and try to weaken Scizor first. With U-turn, you can scout the switch and potentially trap Scizor (with Magnezone) or get a free turn on a Heatran switch in to spin away rocks with Starmie.

Speaking of Starmie, I would test Expert Belt over Leftovers. With Expert Belt you will deal a hell of a lot more damage to Tyranitar with Hydro Pump, and give your Thunderbolt a lot more bite. Run some calculations.

Looks good!

[Silent Storm]

Thanks for the quick response I will be sure to try these new ideas out, bit iffy about the lead Jirachi though.

Yeah do believe Earth Power is not needed and I also see the benefits of using U-Turn (scouting is nice) but I generally beleive HP Fire is btter due to his ability to hit Scizor who takes neutral damage from EP, I will replace Earth Power.

Expert Belt on Starmie also has its merits but I feel Lefties is better suited for the spread, I guess I am gonna have to spend a day battling even harder while testing your suggestions.

I also hate Magnezone, don't know why so he is out of the question, I have foundLO Heatran to be decent but have never tried Substitue on him.

[LuistheNinja]

I like the fact that your descriptions are nice, narrative, explicit and easy to understand ^_^ I'm very glad atleast someone does that on the forums (not saying no one does but alot of people dont).

Anyways, moving to the team I've seen alot of them focusing on Salamence and I don't blame anyone for using it since its a wonderful pokemon. However, I think you have fulfilled a good team sicne you cover most of DD Mence's threats most notably Ice Shard users (Mamoswine, Weavile, Donphan).

The team is so well structured in my opinion that there are few changes that I suggest and are minor. First of all, I find Recover as a "filler" in your Latias moveset, not sure if you use it that much but I would personally change it for Grass Knot which can handle Swampert easily and not only him but Tyranitar (im doubting a little due to Thunderbolt's presence in the team)

While looking through your threat list I noticed you highlited Suicune and even tho I love it Suicune really is a pin in the ass. To solve this and other problems I recommend a CS Magnezone I think your team benefits from it.

Magnezone @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Magnet Pull
EVs: 4 HP/ 252 SpA/ 252Spd
Nature: Timid
- Flash Cannon
- Thunderbolt
- Hidden Power [Fire]
- Discharge/Explotion
It still covers what Heatran's main purpose was: getting Steel types out of Salamence's way. And I think that Magnezone does a better job due to the Magnet Pull abiltiy. The moveset seems to suit nice since it deals with things like Suicune while keeping the double dragon synergy that you stated since the begining and it also becomes a Scizor counter and with enough prediction it can handle Breloom.

Hope this helps!

Oh! before I forget...if you do run the Magnezone I do not recommend Explotion since having 2 pokemons with Explotion is NEVER a good idea I just mentioned it because I had nothing to fill the last slot.

Nature: Timid

[AfroThunderRule]

Not much of a team rater but why does your Celebi have only 484 EVs?

Also, very weak to Ice, bug and Ghost/Dark. I also see Scizor to be a big problem with your team since your Celebi doesn't have HP Fire on it and doesn't mind the T-Waves from Celebi. And, having a Rapid Spinner in your team isn't a necessary. Sure 25% of your health is taking off but Salamence doesn't mind that all too much and Starmie is really hurting your team IMO which the common weakness it shares with Latias/Celebi with its type Phychic.

[Silent Storm]

@LuistheNinja - Thanks for the compliments, yeah it took me a while to construct this whole RMT lol.

Hmm seeing as two people have suggested Magnezone over Heatran I guess I should try him out, he does combo well with Salamence offensively and can take care of steel types better, I will try it out and report back once I am done.

Recover is on Latias so she can survive for a very long time, there have been moments where Recover has saved my ass which enabled Laias to kill
a specific Pokemon I needed to kill, if anything I will replace Thunderbolt with Grass Knot as the only reason Thunderbolt was included was for Gyarados to have one less thing to set up on.

@ AfroThunderRule - The EVs are from the analysis, probably a mistake on their part but I am changing it soon so no worries there. Yeah Scizor can be a problem but Heatran handles him to an extent and I had HP Fire on Celebi but got rid of it for Earth Power as I was trying new things, I miss HP Fire so I am going to switch back indefinably.

Edit - I have tested Magnezone in some battles on different ladders, yeah he seems to solve some of the problems I have been having, going to type up a new description for him now.

I would also like to try Heatran as a lead, as it stands I have three Fire weak Pokemon, with Heatran as my lead I can still have fire immunity plus being able to do the the things Metagross does (excluding priority).

[iKitsune]

Sorry I've taken ages to get back to you on this one and thanks for the PM.

First off i would like to say congratulations on a beautifully presented RMT, I'm beginning to look forward to your teams every once in a while.


This team although appearing straightforward and standard in its goals is actually trying to promote a sweep of something that will be extremely difficult to pull off. Although Salamence is undeniably threatening, it is actually, i think you will find rather frail and less succesful then one might think its offensive prowess may imply. Im not suggesting you change the whole premise of the team but i am suggesting that this Salamence is probably not best suited as the focus of the team. I would prefer to see this salamence variant on a more offensive team or perhaps a mixmence to perform hit and run assaults. Forgive me if i'm wrong about Salamence's success.

I would like you to consider changing Salamence to a physically bulky variant, lets face it if someone spams physical fighting moves against this team from a random CBer like Hera or Ape or worse Machamp rears its ugly head you are in a lot of trouble. Salamence, taking advantage of its above average defenses and intimidate makes an excellent response to these threats.The only slight downside to this change is that you lose out against Skarmory with shed shell but other than that you should be fine.

This is the set:

Salamence@ Leftovers
Jolly
252hp/180def/76spe

DD
Roost
Dragon Claw
EQ

This set provides mence with the longevity it needs to sweep (Scizor does a hell of a lot less and of course you can always roost off the damage) as well as making it a superb switch in to fighting types (which this team needs, desperately). Crucially this set does not lock you into outrage so you dont get confused and picked off in the helpless state. Good Luke check although you dont really need one.

With this change you can also change Magnezone to a sub zone i think you will find that this set is far better suited to the metagame and is actually a dangerous offensive threat in comparison to Scarf variation that is often set up bait. I would definitely consider this change too.

Anyway good luck with the team not really much else i can think of.

[Silent Storm]

Thanks for the rate.

Yeah for some time now I have been considering using a more defensive Salamence, at the time I felt the set I am currently using was better due to histype coverage, but now he is not really doing as well as before.

What I have also considered doing is going for a more physically specialized Salamence with Dragon Claw over Outrage and Roost, imo this would allow me to get rid of Starmie as I am not liking Starmie atm but then there is the issue of finding a new member as I am currently stuck with this team atm.

I have though considered Tentacruel over Starmie, he can rapid spin also plus he can knock off and use toxic spikes, but I am going to have to test that change.

On another nte Latias with Timid is performing better than expected.

[animenagai]

Decent team, though there are some things in your descriptions that make me think twice.

First of all, why is out of the question to explode on a hippow lead? Hippow leads almost always mean that the opponent is either running stall or just isn't very good (hippow on a balanced team = yuck). If you can explode on the hippow (surprise him by exploding on the first turn), you just eliminated thier DDmence counter. Gross isn't gonna do too much against stall with rotom running around.

On the celebi set, I think you'll be much better off running the tinkerbell set (modest LO). It's all in the analysis. Leaf storm OHKO's flygon on the switch, which is pretty priceless on this team. I don't really see what you'll be missing out on with a switch like this, so I would change it ASAP.

Finally, I know you're running salamence, but you never really need a rapid spinner on an offensive team like this. You have enough resistances so mence doesn't need to come out till late game, so one SR isn't so bad. I wouldn't mind seeing a scarfed heatran or something like that in starmie's place, as starmie is pursuit weak and often gets wrecked against offence. If you do that, you can think about running a sub-rise maggy with HP fire instead to help you kill those steels better. If not, then I would personally give starmie HP fire > rapid spin to lure that scizor.

[Silent Storm]

Haha funny thing the first draft of this team was using tinkerbell, but then I thought the team would benefit greatly from having a more defensive Celebi, it worked to an extent but yeah I am missing the extra power.

I have noticed though I have way too many special attackers for my liking, with Starmie gone I would probably be able to balance it this out with another water Pokemon, unfortunatly this is where I get stuck.

[animenagai]

You can always run suicune over starmie. Crocune beats bliss one on one.

[joshe]

This is a great team. I don't have much to say here except a few points and a second "conscience" on your team. I think a Crocune (as nagai just pointed out) would slot nicely over Starmie. Therefore you can change Celebi to a Tinkerbell, and go with all physical mence since you have over 3/4ths of the team that can take care of Skarmory (and to a lesser extent, brongzong, althought its not nearly as common as skarm). You could run roost over fire blast, along with an adamant (or jolly?) nature with 252 atk/4 def/252 spe. With roost you won't need rapid spin support, and Latias counters infernape anyway, making me think more and more that starmie is dead weight on this team. You could even put a lum berry on mence to help it get an extra Dragon Dance or to help save it from a ruined sweep.

Also with Crocune, you get to beat Blissey one on one (it'll take a while lol), possibly allowing latias to do a bit more damage to your opponents team than without a good way to beat blissey (Salamence or Metagross would have to take care of it, and metagross is more than likely dead, and you don't want to waste mence on beating blissey).

Sorry if this wasn't much help, although I hope I did a bit of thinking for you :DD

Good Luck with the team :)

[Silent Storm]

Well after some wifi games and battles on other ladders, I have come to a decision that Starmie is the weak link here, I tried the defensive Salamence and imo, I prefer the raw power from adamant and max speed.

I am torn though, I have been giving LO Suicune a try and I like the coverage he has but Crocune has recovery and ofcourse the chance of beating Blissey one-on-one (considering my team consists mainly of special attackers, I don't know.

But yeah the changes are so far doing ok for me, especially tinkerbell, but I have also considered Scizor as a potential member of the team over Celebi.

[Futility]

As you said, your Metagross lead can't kill off Ninjask, and with no priority moves on your team, Ninjask is going to pass at least Speed, if not attack, onto a sweeper and then it's simply gg for you. Since you also have the priority of making sure Stealth Rocks don't reach the field, since that's going to cause the most trouble for your Salamence, an Aerodactyl would probably serve as a better lead.

Aerodactyl @ Focus Sash
Nature: Jolly
EV's: 4 HP / 252 ATK / 252 Spe
Moves:
-Taunt
-Stealth Rock
-Earthquake
-Rock Slide/Stone Edge

Standard Lead 'Dactyl. Now you can laugh and (quite literally) make fun of Ninjask as it can't do anything on this pokemon. With taunt, your opposing lead is going to have a hard time getting up Stealth Rocks, which would be most pleasant for your Salamence.

[Silent Storm]

Bullet Punch on Metagross is now a primary option so I don't need to worry about that anymore.

[Batmansub]

Hey I'm not trying to be judgmental or anything but I don't remember Suicune ever having the ability natural cure.