Mega-Salamence: considering a quick ban (Don't ask for the thread to be closed!)

[Soul Fly]

OK Fuck it I give up. Trying continuously for the past 2 days. I finally know why Game Freak made Aegislash. Pity it's not usable in the tier anymore, and that thing still probably has trouble tanking a +1 earthquake.

Mega-Salamence is like having Rayquaza in OU. Except Mega-Salamence is actually better than regular Rayquaza with Life Orb (except priority, made up by that obscene speed 95 v/s 120). That's how good it is. We'd have an easier time countering rayquaza, I kid you not.

I retract my earlier prudence. Quick Ban his ass.

 

[TheEnder]

That's not quite right, instead if means that you need to be careful about the timing and placing the checks in/out of the field. (which is exactly what high level pokemon has always been) For example, if you currently have something out that is setup fodder for mence but kills whatever is in front of you, then you need to think twice before simply killing it. It'd probably be better to switch to something that can not only deal with what's on the field but can also threaten/prevent salamence. Voltturn would be the best move to have in this case. This is a very common situation for every sweeper in the game. It is easier for defensive teams to do because they usually have pokemon that wall/check/counter multiple things (whatever the opponent has on the field) and can also attack or cripple mence (depending on set)

With this logic, you would have to constantly not kill your opponents Pokemon with something that gets set up on by Mence, which is completely illogical itself, seeing as how you won't always be able to directly switch your Mence snawer into the battlefield to kill off your opponents Pokemon. Running Volt-Turn doesn't solve the problem with Mence, either. Yes, in an perfect emample, where your opponent has two Pokemon left, and you kill off the one that is not Mence, then go to your Mence check, and take on Mence, this would work. However, if you are going to send in your Mence check every time you use Volt-Turn, it is going to get worn down extremely quickly. Not to mention, your opponent might also have a Pokemon to take advantage of Mence's chekcs, which would put you at an immediate disadvantage.

But that's exactly what I'm trying to refute, because everything that works well against mence is also very useful against thinks like kyurem, latios, pinsir, garchomp, talonflame, landorus, basically anything that shares a common typing and plenty of other random things (i.e. skarm will beat scizors and excadrills too). Not only that, but having tools like prankster or just a flat wall on your team are useful in a large variety of situations as well. For example, having both thundurus and skarmory on your team isn't a bad place to start at all (even if mence was banned) and then just build around it. It seems to be a balanced approach. A more offensive team could use thundurus/greninja/weavile, which are all very good against the whole meta at large. Running mence checks doesnt make you weak against other stuff -if the team is well built!-

You actually make a decent point here, which is that some Mence checks are viable, but if you need to run the combination of multiple checks on every team, there is something wrong. Not only does it slow down the evolution of the metagame, but it would make it extremely boring to play, facing the same cores of checks and "counters" to one Pokemon. Like Albacore said, using multiple checks to Mence leaves you open to so many othre things. For one, look at stall teams. Due to the high amount of threats that has to be takes core of, stall teams needs one Pokemon to check as many threats as possible. Thus, running three Pokemon just to take care of Mence and its various sets isn't even an option, as it would open up so many other holes. This is the concept of overcentralizing, becuase even though some checks are viable, it doesn't mean Mence isn't banworthy. If you take a look at Mawile, both Heatran and Landuros-T were completely viable, and common as well, and Mega Mawile was still banned. The reasoning was that it was so dangerous you had to ruhn these checks on every team, making it a stale and unhealthy metagame.

Every pokemon running sub or boosting moves does the same thing -_- it's not skill-less to actually manufacture the situation in the first place where you actually freely get in on something and have a chance to set up. It is HARD to do. Between double switches, voltturn, priority, surprise/gimmick sets, what have you, getting setup doesn't just magically happen every single time.

Almost every single high level replay ever since 4th gen has always come down to complete guesses or predictions or luck at the end (should I attack them while they boost? or should i switch to a soft check while they attack me? should I attack while he tries to substitute? or should I status while he tries to roost?)

Every high level game right now, just as before, is going to come down to the same sorts of thing. Should I toxic it while it roosts? What if it subs? What if it isn't a bulky set at all and I can just 1hko it? This applies to every threatening sweeper out there. Almost every good game between offensive teams has always been decided in the final turns where someone guesses wrong (think prankster taunt twave thundurus vs the entire meta, a few months ago, where everything is speed ties and guessing their final move) More offensive teams have to get the guesses right more often whereas bulkier teams often an afford a few more mistakes.

Like I just said, you won't always be able to have your Mence check in when Mence comes in; it's simply impossible, as in between hazards, trapping, and other answers, you will be worn down. I also want to quote ginganinja here:

Be careful of the "Prediction argument". IT GOES BOTH WAYS. Really clever posters will use the risk reward prediction argument, which is a good one. If you want a breakdown about it, im sure many experienced players will be able to tell you, but the point is, you don't have godlike prediction skills, so i don't want to see posts like "I will go to Heatran on a play rough, then go to Gengar on a Focus Punch, then use Substitute on the Sucker Punch and then use Will-o-Wisp on a second Sucker Punch. You are not clairvoyant, nor is your opponent, so don't pretend otherwise.

If you can sometimes predict what Mence is going to do, and you don't lose to it, then that doesn't mean it's a reliable way of dealing with Mence. Like, if your opponent gets a prediction right, you straight up lose. If you Toxic when it Subs, or Roosts as you attack, then you are the one sitting in a worsened position, so this is pretty much a completely irrenlevant argument.

Porygon is being drawn up by multiple forces, not just salamence. It's good against greninja, slowbro, all kinds of things. It has been common on stall teams for months before. But stall wasn't popular due to heracross and gardeoivoir and other things like that.

All the HP Ice things are used by electric types and boltbeam has always been a thing, it's even more important now.

It is centralizing but debating whether it's normalcentralizing or actually overcentralizing just sounds exhausting.

"-... debating whether it's normalcentralizing or actually overcentralizing just sounds exhausting." Then why are you still here ?_? Anyways, if you want to see Porygon-2 on every team, from stall to HO, then go ahead, continue agruing for Mence to stay in the tier. Seriously, if you can't tell that Mence is overcentralizing by now, I think you need to upper your knowledge about the current metagame.

It's only banworthy if nothing will ever drop from ubers. If things slowly start to drop in for research and OU gets a massive power creep in general (regardless of its effects on stall) then things should just wait until then. In such a situation, you could have 2 random salamence checks (like greninja and rotom) on your team and they would also be useful and fare very well against the entire theoretical OU. And you'd win against some mence teams and lose against others.

Well, simply put, we don't bring down other broken things from ubers, just to handle a currently broken thing in OU. This is incredibly illogical, as it would worsen the problems the metagame has, as we have another broken Pokemon to deal with on every team. "Let's bring Deoxys-Attack down to OU, so we can have a way of OHKOing Mence." No.

 

[Wargreymon]

You don't have to bring anything down to deal with salamence!

He is already counterable, people have been using their choice of checks, and it's a vastly variable situation where (of course) different sets have their own counters. But some pokemon really do counter all sets. He is a defining force at the moment because offensive teams don't really have any better mega to be using except possibly metagross or lati@s.

I'm not saying "We need ubers to deal with salamence!!" -- What I AM saying (for pages at this point) is

The term "broken" is being used completely too loosely at this point. Maybe you could just call it "adequately powerful for the modern xy oras ou tier"

By 4th gen standards? Ok, they're broken. But at this point there's some unsalvageable aspect of ye olde 6v6 singles and whatever you think broken or overpowered actually means might be an exxageration.

Please just stop. Your arguments have been countered (unlike salamence) over and over again by various different people, and every time you just refuse to listen or are actually incapable of understanding. Mega Salamence is potentially the most busted and broken piece of crap we as a community have ever seen and defending it so vigorously with bad arguments is not going to convince anyone otherwise. It's not like it matters anyway because it's definitely going to be banned, but at this point you're wasting your own time and the time of others by fighting a very lost cause.

 

[TheEnder]

It's only banworthy if nothing will ever drop from ubers.

You don't have to bring anything down to deal with salamence!

He is already counterable, people have been using their choice of checks, and it's a vastly variable situation where (of course) different sets have their own counters. But some pokemon really do counter all sets. He is a defining force at the moment because offensive teams don't really have any better mega to be using except possibly metagross or lati@s. I'm not saying "We need ubers to deal with salamence!!" -- What I AM saying (for pages at this point) is that the term "broken" is being used completely too loosely at this point. Maybe you could just call it "adequately powerful for the modern xy oras ou tier"

 

[Blizzy]

You don't have to bring anything down to deal with salamence!

He is already counterable, people have been using their choice of checks, and it's a vastly variable situation where (of course) different sets have their own counters. But some pokemon really do counter all sets.

Name one?? Actually, no, name two legit OU counters since you seem to be implying that multiple pokemon are a hard counter to him. Even Ubers are having problems with him.
M8, Mister Spock would be having an aneurysm by now if he had to read through all your conflicting logic.

Anyway, this beast is nigh-unstoppable unless you specifically craft a team around him (which is probably going to leave you considerably weaker to mence-less teams) which as far as I'm aware is the definition of overcentralising. Quickban Mence!

 

[Jukain]

56k let me make something very clear: we will NOT be dropping Ubers to balance the metagame or increase the power level. This is a mediocre way of balancing the tier. At this point OU has a somewhat set power level where all these devastating cover legends and such are banned. That is the starting point for and the basis of the metagame. We're not going drop a Pokemon like, say, Lugia just because that would make other threats easier to handle. We're not even going to drop a Pokemon like Aegislash or Mega Mawile because these Pokemon were deemed to have an unhealthy, polarizing effect on the tier. It's taking a step backwards to bring them back because both of these Pokemon were notorious for halting the development of the metagame, as they dictated many trends and common playstyles on their own. Aegislash and Mega Mawile are probably more broken relative to the tier than some of the bans we made in BW and what I will say is that, to this day, many people still don't think BW is balanced. Retesting Pokemon of this power level does no good for the tier.

I naturally agree that Mega Salamence should be quickbanned and I won't rehash the arguments of others, but Albacore it's one heck of a stretch to call Mega Salamence uncompetitive. It's belligerently broken, but uncompetitive is taking it too far. In any case 56k you are making a lot of sweeping statements itt that have been refuted with evidence, yet you continue to make them. For example, the fact that Mega Salamence has all these viable checks and counters. Porygon2 was used the equivalent of never in XY OU for a reason. Specialized Pokemon like HP Ice Zapdos, Rhyperior, and Ice Beam Slowbros (btw that's the counter list) are more evidence towards the fact that Mega Salamence should be banned than anything else, as they don't see use or see very little use without it in the tier (this is in regards to tailoring sets directly for it). As TheEnder illustrated, you've even contradicted yourself by stating that we need Ubers to deal with Mence effectively and then that we don't need Ubers. The fact that you're stepping over yourself just proves that your argument wasn't that strong in the first place, as you have to adapt core points in order to attempt a decent response.

 

[Ropeburn]

Mega Salamence is way too much for this tier to handle. I understand giving it the benefit of the doubt, but this thing is a walking bag of centralization. If we had just quick banned it around the start of the meta, then we would have a few months experience to start weeding out obvious problems, but it's really hard to do that without the god of destruction ripping teams in half. This has pretty much destroyed any progress that could have been made, because when it will be banned the metagame is going to completely change.

Everyone has their own sense of the word broken, but I don't think any competent player (e.g. anyone but 56k) wants to play a metagame that is literally a black hole surrounding Salamence. Like, it was fun using this thing the first week of the ORAS beta because it was just so ridiculous how bullshit it was, but now it's just getting miserable that all teams consist of 5 mega salamence checks and mega salamence. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but I was really looking forward to trying out some of the new megas and seeing what effect they had on the tier, but I pretty much auto-lose if I'm not ready for a fucking Rayquaza. No, scratch that, this thing is better than Rayquaza, because at least Ray doesn't have a flying STAB aerialate Hyper Voice and Return, roost, and intimidate.

I apologize if this comes off as rude or pissy, but I'm just really frustrated with the ORAS metagame right now, and Mega Salamence just amplifies the problems.

 

[Of Moose & Men]

I was required to carry TWO checks to mega Mence if I wanted to get anywhere on the ladder, because mega mence was capable of getting past Zapdos in some instances. . .
You mean to tell me that's not Broken? 1/3 of my team is dedicated to dealing with mega mence. Not because my team is weak to mega mence, but because ALL teams are weak to mega mence, so, you HAVE to bring a check or one of the two counters that exist.

 

[heritage]

Alright, I think this discussion is over. 10 pages of unanimous quick ban has said enough. There has literally been nobody, well nobody competent anyways, who wants this thing to stay in OU. Please just end this discussion now, there's no point in continuing it. It needs to be quick banned.

 

[Elveman]

Okay
I won't say anything new, but Mega Mence just ruins the meta right now. It is a good sweeper, wall breaker, revenge killer. So good that it's almost impossible to revenge kill. It hampers the ability of opponent to predict (for example, even if Ninja could have Gunk Shot, if it is being used as Mega Mence check, you can easily swap Mence for Sylveon), it makes offensive Megas just outclassed (why use Medicham when you can put Salamence and tear apart this meta?), makes some defensive Megas less viable (Venusaur). I used all-out attacking Mence a lot. Nothing survives! All these "counters" to SubDD set or to DD+3 attacks set were annihilated by Draco Meteor followed by Double-Edge. There are many teams that just have something like Thundy+Weavile just for one mon. They're ou viable of course but it's just like "Congratulations! You now have 2 less teamslots for your already "unique" team!" and these checks don't even work sometimes!
I'm European. I want healthy non-ruined meta. Please quickban this monster before European release

 

[Wargreymon]

A theoretical OU meta with mence, khan, blaziken, luke, and deoxys wouldn't be some retarded shit fest.

WHAT?
WHAAAAAAAAT?
Seriously can you actually explain this more because I really don't understand how you arrived at this conclusion. I'm not even being condescending here, I am genuinely curious. How can you actually say that and be serious?

 

[SketchUp]

A theoretical OU meta with mence, khan, blaziken, luke, and deoxys wouldn't be some retarded shit fest.

It would, I don't think the beginning of XY OU were Deoxys-N, Mega Luke, Blaziken and Mega-Gengar were still allowed was a very fun metagame. The OU Metagame had problems dealing with Blaziken, it had problems dealing with Mega Kangaskhan and it is having problems at the moment with Mega Salamence. How in the world could the OU Metagame handle all the threats at once?

 

[Firebird101]

WHAT?
WHAAAAAAAAT?
Seriously can you actually explain this more because I really don't understand how you arrived at this conclusion. I'm not even being condescending here, I am genuinely curious. How can you actually say that and be serious?

Apparently 56k doesn't seem to understand that mon having too much offensive potential can have bad effect on the metagame. Which is actually kinda curious cause they are usually the ones that people generally want to get rid of the most and it's the support and defensive mons that cause the most controversy.

 

[Burt Racecar]

This is how pokemon has always worked since team preview. You don't give free switch ins to things that threaten you.

Except it's almost impossible not to give Megamence a chance to switch in. With pre-mega intimidate and improved bulk in mega form, megamence can set up with phenomenal ease.

Furthermore, bringing banned pokemon back down is very retroactive, sooner or later something will get banned and then one by one they'll all return to ubers. By this method we'll reach the desirable meta just in time for Gen 7 to be released.

 

[Clone]

theoretical OU meta with mence, khan, blaziken, luke, and deoxys wouldn't be some retarded shit fest. It'd be almost exactly like is is now -- fast and deceptively fun. You can deal with about half the mence sets out there as it stands right now. In a more open OU tier you'd still be able to "deal with" half the stuff out there, but the idea of "check" would be broadened just to "status or ohkos or helps me set up on it later" and it'd focus much more narrowly on the capabilities of your megamon of choice. Stall would not be destroyed either, stall would evolve into something like "clear a set up for my megaslowbro or megasabeley" or something along those lines.

So basically you want to bring every Pokémon that was deemed broken back into OU to theoretically check another broken mon, and so that all these broken mons check the other broken mons while simultaneously pushing everything else into obscurity. Ok.

But you wanna know something cool? Like really, really cool? You can do this already! You can already play with all the broken shit! It's called Ubers!!!

 

[Siggu]

A theoretical OU meta with mence, khan, blaziken, luke, and deoxys wouldn't be some retarded shit fest. It'd be almost exactly like is is now -- fast and deceptively fun.

We get it, you like an extremely offensive metagame. But that's not the ideal metagame.

 

[Of Moose & Men]

A theoretical OU meta with mence, khan, blaziken, luke, and deoxys wouldn't be some retarded shit fest.

Lol, yes, let's bring Bulky Kanga back, because 2 Seismic Tosses weren't enough to 2hko most of the meta game that weren't Gengar.

I think it's about time this came to an end. I'm sure we can all agree this thing needs to get booted, and if the 2 of you that can't come to an agreement, then in the words of Reggie, "What's wrong with you?".

 

[Srn]

This is how pokemon has always worked since team preview. You don't give free switch ins to things that threaten you. It doesn't go just for mence, but things like greninja as well. Sometimes it's better to just make awkward double switches or sacrifice what you can and preserve the checks you actually need, to reorder things and get the right pokemon in. If you get worn down too early then it's because a double switch went awry or because your team has mistakes or because you got haxxed or any multitude of reasons beyond just saying "it was far too easy for the mence player to get that done"

Ya see, its quite fucking difficult to NOT give mmence free switch-ins. Like, it can literally outstall stone edges from max attack lando-t. It can set up on a garchomp with intimidate. You literally need an ice move on every one of your pokemon in order to NOT give mmence a free switch-in.
Bulk is another reason why this thing is disgusting, it can switch into and set up on so much shit there's nothing even offense can do. It is indeed just too fucking easy for the mmence player.

A very large amount of revenge killers, soft checks, hard checks, and counters are legit OU material. You aren't using them strictly because mence is around. That is one part of it, but you were actually unknowingly already using them to begin with because any random selection of OU mons has pretty decent answers to mence without any thought at all (because that random selection of OU mons was already geared towards dealing with flying spam and dragon spam beforehand). You won't be weak to anything except extremely niche teams like trick room or something and even then you'll have answers because you have 6 top OU mons.

So you're telling me a team that I used in XY should be able to handle mmence perfectly fine because mmence is handled by pokemon that were already being used anyway. Give me a replay of you not being raped anally with a decent xy team facing mmence and I"ll believe you.

At this point there's some unsalvageable aspect of ye olde 6v6 singles ... broken or overpowered ... exaggeration."




Power creep, new mechanics, stronger moves, at some breaking point (probably now) it will be impossible to ever create a satisfactory singles metagame that adheres to all the old ideas like "counters" and "competitiveness" and "win condition" and "checks" and instead everyone should take a step back and completely reexamine what has been created. It's not as simple as saying "clearly this was designed for VGC". It was designed for all formats.

Even in gen5 by then it was generally agreed that plenty of pokemon without any counters at all will be free to go through the OU tier, because at that point having a counter for everything just didnt matter anymore (it's not gen3 anymore!). And 2 generations later, now, not only has the idea of counter been eroded even more but at this point even checking things is becoming straining.

That's what pokemon has just flat become. Sometimes you can't even check things now. You could ban 10 top oras OUs and there'd still be both expected and unexpected things that cream through otherwise viable teams pretty easily.

Feeling somehow entitled to be able to freely check many things is completely backwards. You CAN check the things that you feel are most threatening. But you have to be picky about it.

No there won't. The argument that we have so much more pokemon so we can't check everything also works the other way around; we have so much more pokemon to check the new shit. Besides, even if what you said was true, it certainly doesn't mean that we just stop banning OP pokemon and accept a stupid metagame.
Because there are so many new pokemon, we can split them into NEW TIERS and be able to reduce the pool of pokemon a given person has to handle. Sure, there may be some random mon from lower tiers that turns out to be anti-meta, but there will always be those around. Ultimately, by reducing the number of pokemon one has to prepare for by dividing the game up into tiers, we can kind of bypass the issue you bring up.

You can check SOME things, but the whole point of modern pokemon, now, oras ou, isn't to check/counter as much as you can. It's to build a team around a mega. Pick the most powerful mega you can and do everything you can to support it. Think of a few things that could stop it, then just go. It is almost purely offensive in nature.

This is completely wrong lol, stall has gained an incredibly powerful tool in mega sableye and its very possible to have two checks or a counter to nearly everything in the game with a perfectly viable stall team. Yes, I agree that you build around a mega, but not all megas are built to kill. Some megas like mega altaria, mega venu, mega audino, and mega sableye are made to be able to tank hits with their typing, ability, and moves.
You can and usually will be able to check almost every relevant pokemon in the tier with a good team, we ban pokemon to make this possible.

Megamence represents a default power standard that pokemon just has been warped to by now. It's not a thoughtful chess game like gen2 and it's not a weather game like gen5. It's an offensive arcadey beat-em-up boost first or lose type of game. It is still competitive!! It goes all the way back to the first paragraph I wrote in this post: don't give free switches to things that threaten you.

I can just tell you've never played a decent stall team, have you...

The type of competition that you're having is not "compete to see who has more checks" -- the competition is "set up with my mega" and the only reason "set up with my mega" has so commonly become just "set up with my mence" is because so many things are (at this point, very questionably) in ubers because for some reason gen4 is the gold standard and you're purposelessly trying to recreate it.

A theoretical OU meta with mence, khan, blaziken, luke, and deoxys wouldn't be some retarded shit fest. It'd be almost exactly like is is now -- fast and deceptively fun. You can deal with about half the mence sets out there as it stands right now. In a more open OU tier you'd still be able to "deal with" half the stuff out there, but the idea of "check" would be broadened just to "status or ohkos or helps me set up on it later" and it'd focus much more narrowly on the capabilities of your megamon of choice. Stall would not be destroyed either, stall would evolve into something like "clear a set up for my megaslowbro or megasabeley" or something along those lines.

How in the fucking hell is stall supposed to adapt to deoxys, mega lucario, mega kangaskhan, mega mence and mega blaziken all in one tier are you high???

 

[Norne]

OK as a forum user I'm really feed up with this. For more than 3 pages people have argued with the same guy that keeps posting illogical fallacies and unreasonable, not to mention weak; arguments about why he thinks MSalamence isn't worth a ban, to the point of even insulting several respected top players opinions and questioning the very reason of team building for laddering purposes, and even questions the previous bans with for most where based on the community opinion on those pokemon and their potential ability to promote lazy team building or outright overcentralize the game.

Just ignore him and this thread would be fine.

Sorry if I'm being offensive but this come and go to a single opinion vs the majority is making me sick.

Back to the main argument, if we discard 3 pages of random derailed arguments we still hold about 8 good pages of people in the smogon community that not only ladder, but found Msalamence toxic to the metagame and as overcentralizing as a blackmore in team building as it can get. Salvage the pride and sanity this community has left. Block this thread, evaluate the post go through some voting process and either quick ban or do a suspect test on this thing, which in my opinion is a waste of resources, but if the council thinks is the way to go I won't argue with their decision. Just put an end to this nonsensical rambling.

 

[AM]

56k

A theoretical OU meta with mence, khan, blaziken, luke, and deoxys wouldn't be some retarded shit fest.

The problem with this statement, is that those who were around didn't have to use the word "theoretical" because they were there and can attest that this meta was indeed "some retarded shit fest." From what I can tell you have extremely limited experience with M-Mence as your argument earlier was "I never used M-Mence but if never gave me trouble with my M-Slowbro." So in all honesty I don't know how you can be so confident with your reasoning based on wild assumptions.

I think that if you bunched them all up together and reavulated, again, from the beginning, you'd come to much different results in an ubers tier list than currently exists. It's not a step back at all. Things would still be banned but it'd be greatly different from what we have now. At the moment mence is completely isolated from everything else and is free to dominate because his support teammates don't have to give a fuck at all about being fodder for other things like lucario and such.

You just posted this while I was typing and your hypothesis has no real justification. Bringing something back that was banned is literally taking a step back lol it says it right there simply by saying words like "go back", "bring down", "reevaluate banned mons". The metas with all this broken stuff had no diversity what so ever. It was literally the same teams over and over again. It was the same hyper offensive teams, the same stall teams, etc. You basically won or lost from team preview or won based on the guesswork that is involved, which btw, isn't healthy either so a game solely based on guesswork shouldn't be used as a legitimate argument. This was not a healthy meta at all and it's been made abundantly clear you 1. haven't played any of these metas against competent teams and players to form a solid reasoning 2. do not understand what contributes something being broken, unhealthy, over-centralizing, or all of the above. I won't bother to respond to anymore of your posts as some are trying real hard to explain it to you but please do not act like you're some sort of messiah when it comes to prediction, team-building, practical battle scenarios, and meta-game knowledge. At this point there isn't much to argue about.

 

[wolfenstein]

I think that if you bunched them all up together and reavulated, again, from the beginning, you'd come to much different results in an ubers tier list than currently exists. It's not a step back at all. Things would still be banned but it'd be greatly different from what we have now. At the moment mence is completely isolated from everything else and is free to dominate because his support teammates don't have to give a fuck at all about being fodder for other things like lucario and such.

What are you even saying? Are you implying some of the ubers should come back to OU? that's very ignorant. You literally have that exact meta in ubers itself, why even bring it to OU? The fact of the matter is, even if you ban some broken things and leave others here, they are going to be just as centralizing as a meta full of ubers, even if there are only one, two or three of them, it leaves the rest of the OU meta as fodder and blatant mediocrity. We've all seen (well the people that have been around for all the broken stuff) how OU pokemon fare against Ubers - not very well at all. It will literally be a meta of uber pokemon only and then the rest of the OU mons being mediocre to the point where they aren't even used. Bringing an ubers mon to OU to balance out another ubers mon like mence doesn't make it any less broken, it just adds another thing that's broken. Like fighting fire with fire, it only causes more chaos, so banning is the only answer. Just accept that.

 

[trikx_insane]

56k to be honest, you seem like some Mega-Salamence fanboy, and you just want it to stay in the tier because you like this mon' and you're happy it's going to be free from BL.

You're being 100% FORCED to bring Mega-Mence Counters/Checks, or else you're shitted on by Mega-Mence teams always. Saying "your team is bad because it doesn't have a mega mence counter, n00b! ahahah" is the most retarded arguement. That's basically the definition of constricting team-building and over centralization. Don't tell me you never said that, because I can quote you.

Then you say "A theoretical OU meta with mence, khan, blaziken, luke, and deoxys wouldn't be some retarded shit fest." which is completely false and the most stupidest thing I've ever heard as well. You're telling me, first, if I don't have Mega-Mence counters my team sucks, but then if, theoretically, the mons' you stated would be in this tier, and then my team gets shitted by all of these mons', you're gonna tell me my team sucks because I don't have counters for those? Theoretically, I would always have to bring counters/checks always for Mega-Mence, khan, luke, etc. or else my team sucks apparently.

"A very large amount of revenge killers, soft checks, hard checks, and counters are legit OU material. You aren't using them strictly because mence is around. That is one part of it, but you were actually unknowingly already using them to begin with because any random selection of OU mons has pretty decent answers to mence without any thought at all"

Sure the checks and counters are 'legit OU Material' but saying we aren't using these because Mega-Mence is around, is completely false or we're "unknowingly" choosing Pokemon that can check/counter Mega-Mence is also false. I can't even make a team, without finishing it and saying, "does my team get shitted on Mega-Mence?". When you build teams, you build around a certain Pokemon or Core or Archetype. You don't build a fucking team, saying, "does my team counter Mega-Mence?" "does it get shitted on by Mega-Mence?" We shouldn't have to be asking these questions to ourselves when making a team. You may make the same case about certain teams and other Pokemon as well, but Mega-Mence forces you to use specific checks and counters for Mega Mence itself or else you 100% lose. It's that fact that, I have to run specific moves/mons' just for it, it's not just any type, it's one specific type. It's basically ruining team-building by wasting moveslots, forcing you to run Pokemon that can check and counter it. I shouldn't have to be running HP Ice Scarf Lando-T, or HP Ice Zapdos, or HP Ice Rotom-W just to break a fucking sub from Mega-Mence, that also wastes a move-slot for something I can use more completely viable like Knock Off/Super for Lando or Defog on Zapdos and T-Bolt on Rotom-W, etc. Oh, and not mention, going to my previous response, since I'm running checks and counters for Mega-Mence, and that if my team can get obliterated by Pokemon X, then qualifies as my team "terrible" right? I think, the proper term is Mega-Mence is overcentralizing. In the X/Y OU Tier, I can make a team that can handle at least 90% of the tier, with this bullshit in the ORAS OU, the teams I make can handle at least 40% of the tier because of how stupid this is.

"It's not as simple as saying "clearly this was designed for VGC". It was designed for all formats."

Absolutely the most absurd thing I have ever, ever heard. There are certain Pokemon that work in certain formats and certain pokemon that don't work. If it was "designed for all formats", every single Pokemon, should be viable in every format and work efficiently within the format. You're gonna tell me Pachirisu is viable in Singles? No. It isn't. And please don't give me the excuse, "oh well it's a baby pokemon". It has no evolution, and that it's, meaning it's the most powerful stage of that mon'. So don't give me that bullshit reasoning. You're gonna tell Mega-Banette is completely viable for VGC? No. Because no one fucking uses it, because it sucks. Saying Pokemon are created for all formats to be perfectly balanced and for the Pokemon to be complete viable in every format is completely stupid. You seriously think GF create mons' to balance every format and make the mon' viable in every format? Are they seriously going to say, "does this pokemon work well in triples/rotations/inverse/singles and doubles?

Seriously, just Quick-Ban. That way I can stop listening and reading cancerous responses about why it shouldn't be quick-banned

Edit: Seriously, if you're desirable meta-game is for all Megas to be allowed, play BattleSpot. No one is forcing you to play by Smogon Rules. I'm 100% sure there is a BattleSpot Ladder on PS. And what's even better, BattleSpot is on ORAS, the game itself! There is even a BattleSpot forum here! the more you know...:O

 

[TheEnder]

This is how pokemon has always worked since team preview. You don't give free switch ins to things that threaten you. It doesn't go just for mence, but things like greninja as well. Sometimes it's better to just make awkward double switches or sacrifice what you can and preserve the checks you actually need, to reorder things and get the right pokemon in. If you get worn down too early then it's because a double switch went awry or because your team has mistakes or because you got haxxed or any multitude of reasons beyond just saying "it was far too easy for the mence player to get that done"

A very large amount of revenge killers, soft checks, hard checks, and counters are legit OU material. You aren't using them strictly because mence is around. That is one part of it, but you were actually unknowingly already using them to begin with because any random selection of OU mons has pretty decent answers to mence without any thought at all (because that random selection of OU mons was already geared towards dealing with flying spam and dragon spam beforehand). You won't be weak to anything except extremely niche teams like trick room or something and even then you'll have answers because you have 6 top OU mons.

Okay, so you want a metagame where you have to bring a team consisting of multiple answers to Mega Salamence on every team, all of whom can learn Vol Switch or U-Turn, and in additon doesn't lose to other viable Pokemon or pressure from entry hazards and double switching? Sadly, this doesn't exist, becuase there is no checks capable of doing this. In theory your arguments might work, but in practice, there is no chance. I'm repeating myself here, but whatever; it is straight up impossible not to give Mence a free switch-in, whether you like it or not. It is completely irellevant if you use Volt-Turn, or if you pull doubles back and forth to try to hinder it. Sooner, or later, you will have to kill an opposing Pokemon with a non-Mence check, or your opponent can even sack something to get a free switch. Double switching, buddy, isn't a relible way to handle a threat, and it is no way we're deeming something not broken becuase of it.

As for your second paragraph, you're telling me that I could bring a normal XY team and not get beaten by Mence. Amazing, problem of the world, right? Your argument is straight up false. The most common Salamence set, which is Substitute + DD, beats every single team not packing multiple checks to it. Yeah, go ahead and bring a Skarmory with Whirlwind, like that solves the problem. All your opponent has to do is save Mence for last, and it basically auto-wins, as your only answer is incapable of doing anything to it. Please don't come here with wrong statements, it doesn't work.

Power creep, new mechanics, stronger moves, at some breaking point (probably now) it will be impossible to ever create a satisfactory singles metagame that adheres to all the old ideas like "counters" and "competitiveness" and "win condition" and "checks" and instead everyone should take a step back and completely reexamine what has been created. It's not as simple as saying "clearly this was designed for VGC". It was designed for all formats.

Even in gen5 by then it was generally agreed that plenty of pokemon without any counters at all will be free to go through the OU tier, because at that point having a counter for everything just didnt matter anymore (it's not gen3 anymore!). And 2 generations later, now, not only has the idea of counter been eroded even more but at this point even checking things is becoming straining.

That's what pokemon has just flat become. Sometimes you can't even check things now. You could ban 10 top oras OUs and there'd still be both expected and unexpected things that cream through otherwise viable teams pretty easily.

Feeling somehow entitled to be able to freely check many things is completely backwards. You CAN check the things that you feel are most threatening. But you have to be picky about it.

You can check SOME things, but the whole point of modern pokemon, now, oras ou, isn't to check/counter as much as you can. It's to build a team around a mega. Pick the most powerful mega you can and do everything you can to support it. Think of a few things that could stop it, then just go. It is almost purely offensive in nature.

Megamence represents a default power standard that pokemon just has been warped to by now. It's not a thoughtful chess game like gen2 and it's not a weather game like gen5. It's an offensive arcadey beat-em-up boost first or lose type of game. It is still competitive!! It goes all the way back to the first paragraph I wrote in this post: don't give free switches to things that threaten you.

The type of competition that you're having is not "compete to see who has more checks" -- the competition is "set up with my mega" and the only reason "set up with my mega" has so commonly become just "set up with my mence" is because so many things are (at this point, very questionably) in ubers because for some reason gen4 is the gold standard and you're purposelessly trying to recreate it.

A theoretical OU meta with mence, khan, blaziken, luke, and deoxys wouldn't be some retarded shit fest. It'd be almost exactly like is is now -- fast and deceptively fun. You can deal with about half the mence sets out there as it stands right now. In a more open OU tier you'd still be able to "deal with" half the stuff out there, but the idea of "check" would be broadened just to "status or ohkos or helps me set up on it later" and it'd focus much more narrowly on the capabilities of your megamon of choice. Stall would not be destroyed either, stall would evolve into something like "clear a set up for my megaslowbro or megasabeley" or something along those lines.

Hide

I honestly don't know if you're trolling by now. I totally agree with Norne, and I'm getting fed up with you're badly backed arguments standing opposed to straight facts. When you come here and say that a metagame with some of the most powerful Pokemon in the entire game would fit in a currently pretty well-balanced tier apart from some Pokemon, I can't really take you seriously, I'm sorry. However, I will answer to one of your points; not having counters does not deem something broken, and having counters does not deem something now broken. Take Kyurem-B, for example. Nothing comes in on it, whatsoever, as it has access to a plethora of coverage moves. However, it is easily taken care of with revnge killers, due to its Speed, and it is also weak to SR. Mence might seem similar, but is in fact the straight opposite; it is one of the hardest Pokemon to revenge kill, due to its great Speed and bulk. I won't go anymore in-depth here, and I won't reply to your comments here in the future. I'm not feeding the troll anymore.

 

[TheTabKey]

But if that really is the case then there is nothing else that would be on his level. If OU will not slowly evolve back into just pure offense with stuff like luke then there is nothing to be on the same offensive level as mence and no reason for offence to build different type of teams. I said before that if nothing will drop out of ubers then mence should be banned. But I think that is a very conservative option.

Implying that you want a purely Hyper Offense-Based Tier (...or something like that? your posts don't make much sense)? Sorry, but that's not the way a metagame works. None of the tiers are designed to be purely one playstyle. Sure, one playstyle may reign supreme for a time but that's why things get banned (aka the tier gets balanced). So that every playstyle is viable and can develop. Mega Salamence is making the tier far too offensive, because the only way to beat such an overpowered offensive-based pokemon (which, as said before, he can choose to run a multitude of sets, ranging from hyper offense to even support and bulky) is with other extremely offensive Pokemon.

He is unhealthy for the tier because he is forcing everyone to run hyper offense-based teams, and even still destroying those. His only would-be counters or checks are destroyed by him. As you said, if we don't add offensive counters to OU to balance him (which, to an extent would work BUT WE CAN ONLY HAVE 1 MEGA PER TEAM SO IDK WHY YOU'RE MENTIONING OTHER MEGAS???), then he should be banned. Again, implying that OU should completely change to Hyper Offense simply because you enjoy using Mega Salamence.

Damn, BL is gonna be it's own tier soon enough if things go the way you want them. Have fun testing, UU!

 

[Argue]

Honestly, just initiate the quick ban already. M-mence is very centralizing.

Teams now consist of weaviles, skarm, mzone, mamo cores just to handle the game.

What kind of meta is that? Not fun at all. It was so so sad too, people were using aim's team he showcased on YouTube to quickly ladder to the top. That's how much of an exploit there is.

M-mence exploits everything and gets easy wins. He destroys everything in the OU tier with ease. Always has guaranteed OHKOs and 2 ohkos.

His defense is superior and does not die to his weakness with eases. He's very durable.

All the priority moves that exist do NOTHING to him.

I was upset I used pixelate hyper voice with sylveon on him, I got a low row, he lived. He then attacks me OHKOing me with return. I send out azu to revenge kill and he still lives! He had 24% and it only did like 16%.

I know it resists but still he's just too much to deal with, because once my answers to him are dead, he reigns supreme in sweeping the whole team.

He's an excellent wall breaker too, so versatile, running either special or physical or both! It was challenging to ladder on the beta stage of ORAS because every team ran that thing and it was an automatic loss half the time because he's just too powerful.

Honestly, suspect test shouldn't even be considered! We already experienced the power for a month more or less! It's obvious that thing needs to be sent to hell lol.

Right now the meta is redundant because everyone uses that thing for an auto W. Please make this meta fun and quick ban so we can finally have a fair competitve meta.

Honestly if that thing stays, it's like bringing a knife to a gun fight, there's no chance against that abomination.

Conclusion: Please quick ban