The First Smogon Council - Salamence

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...I must say, I understand why people disagree about Mence being moved up into Ubers, but remember something: It's not only about if he's too good for OU. It's about creating the fairest, best possible metagame for people to enjoy.

Now, some people are citing that there's a load of stall on the ladders -- this is absolutely true, but chances are that this is old stall players coming out of the woodwork to take advantage of people who aren't as in practice facing stall (since MEnce made stall that much less popular to play and harder to play for those who aren't top tier stall players like IPL), and I would bet in a few days or weeks it'll die down quite a bit. This meta is surprisingly balanced and fun for me. I get to experiment with a lot of new novelties, sets, and team combos I would have though impossible in the "Mence" meta: RestTalk Gyarados on a mainly offense team? Fucker's IMPOSSIBLE to take down with screens.

Oh. And Shaymin.
But just as the new "stall" hype dies down so too will the "novelties" you mentioned. Inevitably most people will stick with what gets the job done - which tends to be the some of the best pokes around. The absence of salamence is not creating a new metagame, I think. What you're enjoying is some breathing room to experiment?

Not sure. Either way, I hope Salamence remains OU!
 
The trouble with decrying the possibility of a Mence ban as a slippery slope is that while Mence slipped under the radar for the massive wave of Suspect testing already done for DPPt, his power level HAS been a majour topic ever since DP's launch off and on - but for a long time he was somewhat humbled by the absurd power of Garchomp in Standard... and even after Garchomp left, Latias jumped in to effectively fill Chomp's spot.

This'll be the first time since DP's release that Mence is again the "top dog" of the Dragons, so it's now relevant again to question his power level. Is it 9000? Under? Or even... over?! Lol

But in any case there doesn't seem to be a valid argument AGAINST testing Mence other than slippery slope so more power to the crew making this test happen!

Also, as a fun point: isn't it neat how this time around we're effectively "testing" Mence by NOT using him?

Finally I would love to hear people's thoughts on what it would be like to do this same test on another very game-defining pink blob... It's been brought up before but she CAN be argued to fall under the defensive characteristic... Except that her very presence precludes even the possibility of a Special-dominated metagame so she CAN'T break the Defensive characteristic of a metagame she's already in. I really hope that makes sense to at least one other person, lol
 
...I must say, I understand why people disagree about Mence being moved up into Ubers, but remember something: It's not only about if he's too good for OU. It's about creating the fairest, best possible metagame for people to enjoy.
I'm just not seeing how the shrinking of an already laughably small OU metagame is really good let alone fair for anyone in the long run. You know theirs an saying that history doesn't change, it only repeats and the Pokemon metagame is no different as we see these trends continuously happen for months now with troublesome Pokemon getting moved in an out of tiers either being of limited use for one and too strong for the other. Personally IMO I think the metagame is really killing itself due to the fact that with NFE factored in where using less than 18% of 254 usable Pokemon in these games, so from my prospective the metagame was doomed from he start due to limitations. So I'm sorry to say but I've quickly given up on the OU metagame as quickly as I got into it because I can see no positive future for it as all signs seem to point to it dying a miserable death if it follows the path its on now.

 
I've been testing out DD dragonite with extreme speed to make up for the lower base speed it has compared to some of the more popular scarfers, with one DD and life orb it can no longer be revenged killed by weavile and choiced flygon assuming you are not locked into outrage.

I do feel a big difference playing with dragonite though, the speed does let me down at times but I do feel the difference in their defensive stats when I'm playing, I feel alot more comfortable switching into attacks like fireblast and surf with drag compared to sala.
 
The problem with Dragonite, is it suffers from Moveslot syndrome sort of, you can pack ES to make up for lower speed, and Outrage is a given, but then you have to choose between EQ or Fire Punch (or Blast if you want but idk why). Aqua Tail is also a viable choice. iirc it also gets thunderpunch and a plethora of other attacking moves. Its just hard to pick sometimes. Maybe I'm just so used to Mence having perfect coverage with its DD set. idk

also, has anyone noticed how common Staraptor is? I have seen not a bunch, but enough to make me go :O. I thought it was worth noting for a couple reasons 1. I <3 Staraptor 2. Why? Doesn't Gyara do a better job as an intimidator?
 

Mario With Lasers

Self-proclaimed NERFED king
is a Forum Moderator Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnus
We shouldn't even be discussing this here but what have you I feel I need to explain this to some people.

That's easy. All we have to do is exactly the same as every other Pokemon site does: leech info off of Serebii. Seriously, those guys get the lowdown on everything first.
No, we don't need Serebii, there are other people able to hack the game themselves. The real problem, though, is knowing exactly what each move does and such. Serebii's Pokédex doesn't tell us that (Gyro Ball's formula, in example). Just so you know, we discovered the Sp. Def boost for Rock-types under Sandstorm 1-2 weeks before the American version came out. We were in the dark about it for a full semester. Imagine if something like that happened this time again.

This is exactly what I was saying not long after coming back and becoming more acquainted with how DPPt competitive battling worked. It just seems like a never ending cycle of fail, threats get banned, old threats that where cowering before out of fear rise up and everyone starts claiming they have to go out of there way to deal with it a few months later. All the while OU Pokemon and the players themselves seem to keep any chance of things from lower tiers move up in order to keep the metagame from going stale. So I ask, how long is it before where wondering if Pokemon X is now suspect with only Y and Z remaining? Hopefully by then V's metagame has been properly broken in.
Garchomp got banned. We had 1-2 months of a "peaceful" metagame. Motherfucking Platinum came out. Skymin was quickly banned. Latias came down. Shit ensued, now she's banned. Now, on to Salamence.

I see no cycle of fail here. What I see is a apparently balanced metagame which were extinct due to Platinum being released and an until-then Uber coming down. And Mence was not tested until then because people only started suspecting him after Platinum (read: Outrage), and we already had a full list of Suspects to test. Now that they are all out of the way, we got to Mence. We'll only have the chance of having something akin to UU/old DP OU if Salamence is banned. Am I saying it will be completely balanced with no more Suspects? No. But that metagame has more chance of that than one with Mence. Which doesn't mean the Mence one is completely unbearable, though.

Oh, and what Tagrineth said.
 
I've only read the last four posts on here so if I stepped out of line I apologize. (Two posts were posted while I was writing this.)

Tangrineth:
Oh, how I agree and disagree at the same time. The slippery slope argument is a failure and it's a widely recognized fallacy. The underlying accusation seems to be that the Smogon Tiering Contributors (for some reason) don't know what they're doing. The massive irony here is that the Tiering Contributors were selected precisely based on battling skill and experience, which lead them to see how an actually well-played Specs Latias, DD Salamence, SD Garchomp, etc. play.

My disagreement here stems from your implication that the Salamence test makes it somehow more OK to consider Blissey, who is decidedly not broken at all. I'm not sure whether you follow the Policy Review forum, but this test is part of a new, more streamlined tiering process that aims to cut down on time spent on testing Suspects. When we keep considering other suspects because it *might* make a better metagame, it goes completely against the goal of this process and it just isn't worth it.

Spike Razzor:
Um... Maybe the removal of Salamence will make more Pokémon viable? Just a thought. Your rambling redundancies and run-ons made the post hard to read, but from what I've read:

The metagame will always centralize around its most powerful threats. We as end users, who play with the Pokémon as they are given to us, cannot do anything to change this fact. You think that this somehow makes the metagame "bad"? I'm not sure at all what you want the community to do, so I cannot comment further on this.
 
I'm just not seeing how the shrinking of an already laughably small OU metagame is really good let alone fair for anyone in the long run. You know theirs an saying that history doesn't change, it only repeats and the Pokemon metagame is no different as we see these trends continuously happen for months now with troublesome Pokemon getting moved in an out of tiers either being of limited use for one and too strong for the other. Personally IMO I think the metagame is really killing itself due to the fact that with NFE factored in where using less than 18% of 254 usable Pokemon in these games, so from my prospective the metagame was doomed from he start due to limitations. So I'm sorry to say but I've quickly given up on the OU metagame as quickly as I got into it because I can see no positive future for it as all signs seem to point to it dying a miserable death if it follows the path its on now.
Holy crap, dude, it's just Salamence people are worried about, because he's basically the fastest and strongest mixed attacker we allow in OU at the moment. And just because something's not OU doesn't mean it's unusable--I find plenty of uses for things like Clefable and Crobat in standard battles, and some niche tactics like weather teams require Pokemon that are UU or even NU to round out (Walrein's still NU, right?). The thing is, it was hard to use a whole lot of any tactic with Salamence all up in your business most of the time.

Scizor's movepool is kinda bad and it's easy to scare out, so despite its #1 spot on usage rankings, it's no big deal. Salamence, on the other hand, can and will kill at least one of your Pokemon, guaranteed, as you try to find out what its set is. You have to carry multiple counters to Salamence because its different sets require completely different counters, and not being able to counter any one variant of Salamence means that you will lose.
 
Holy crap, dude, it's just Salamence people are worried about, because he's basically the fastest and strongest mixed attacker we allow in OU at the moment. And just because something's not OU doesn't mean it's unusable--I find plenty of uses for things like Clefable and Crobat in standard battles, and some niche tactics like weather teams require Pokemon that are UU or even NU to round out (Walrein's still NU, right?). The thing is, it was hard to use a whole lot of any tactic with Salamence all up in your business most of the time.

Scizor's movepool is kinda bad and it's easy to scare out, so despite its #1 spot on usage rankings, it's no big deal. Salamence, on the other hand, can and will kill at least one of your Pokemon, guaranteed, as you try to find out what its set is. You have to carry multiple counters to Salamence because its different sets require completely different counters, and not being able to counter any one variant of Salamence means that you will lose.
Not technically true...A team that looks like of Machamp,SpecsJolt,Gengar /w HP Ice, Mixape, Starmie wouldn't lose a single member if the opponent is DD or Mixmence, whilst also not being able to counter either set with any member. (scarf is obviously a different matter, 6-0 incoming). Also, you only have to carry a counter to DDMence which aren't all that hard to get, you can't counter Mixmence so whats the point in trying, you just check it.
 
also, has anyone noticed how common Staraptor is? I have seen not a bunch, but enough to make me go :O. I thought it was worth noting for a couple reasons 1. I <3 Staraptor 2. Why? Doesn't Gyara do a better job as an intimidator?
I've seen a few, yeah. To be honest, Staraptor can do some decent damage to many teams right off the bat. It gains near-perfect coverage with Brave Bird/Close Combat alone (think Air Slash/Aura Sphere Togekiss here), and Return lets it hit Zapdos neutrally as well.

Honestly, the resistances to flying include Rock, Steel, and Electric...and that's it. The OU rock types are devastated by CC, Electrics tend to have low defense (save Zapdos, who is blasted by Stealth Rock), and Steels are hit Neutrally or worse.

I remember Staraptor occasionally used Roost down in UU...so I don't see why it couldn't do the same in OU. Haven't seen too much use of that though.

Gyarados is better as an actual sweeper using DD, while Staraptor I find is better off hitting hard off the bat with its high-powered moves.
 
This whole thread makes me skeptical of this "Council" suspect process. The players that devote the most time to this metagame are the ones that like it best, and they will vote Salamence banned. Their opinions will NOT reflect the entire Smogon community and there's something really wrong about that.

Mark my words, the relative unknowns selected for the council will be the most fervent supporters of Salamence being banned.
I don't know where you're getting the idea that a council would be any worse bias-wise than the normal process.
Voting rights are determined by experience with suspect. If you like the suspect meta, chances are you are going to have more experience with the suspect(or lack there of) than someone who doesn't like the meta. Thats the way it's been with every recent suspect test.
I don't see how the council version of the suspect test has any more predisposition to bias than than the non council version of the suspect test.
What your pointing out would be more of a flaw with manner of qualifying voters itself, but the idea is that battlers with the most experience will have the most educated opinion about whether or not a suspect is uber (bl in the case of uu).
If you want to see opinions that reflect all of smogon, start a thread/poll in stark.
Thank you for the idea about the stark poll. And I would say that this Suspect Test biases players against Mence because it is a test of Mence where Mence is not included. So those players most accustomed to life without Mence will be the ones who get to vote.

Let's face it, people play metagames they like. I went on the Suspect ladder yesterday and I didn't like it. The games were altogether too slow, and nearly every team I saw was stall/semi-stall. With Mence gone, everyone was using slower, bulkier pokes, and Brelooms were popping up everywhere. As a result, I doubt I'll put in the time to make a great Suspect team, and will spend my time on the standard ladder. The players that love the absence of Salamence will be those that replace their standard laddering with Suspect and will then become voters, banning Salamence even if a majority of the community would prefer it stay OU.

I question why we moved away from the traditional suspect tests, where the suspect was actually being tested. We invented SEXP just so that we could make sure the voters actually played with and against the suspect, and now it's out the window.
 
I'm just not seeing how the shrinking of an already laughably small OU metagame is really good let alone fair for anyone in the long run. You know theirs an saying that history doesn't change, it only repeats and the Pokemon metagame is no different as we see these trends continuously happen for months now with troublesome Pokemon getting moved in an out of tiers either being of limited use for one and too strong for the other. Personally IMO I think the metagame is really killing itself due to the fact that with NFE factored in where using less than 18% of 254 usable Pokemon in these games, so from my prospective the metagame was doomed from he start due to limitations. So I'm sorry to say but I've quickly given up on the OU metagame as quickly as I got into it because I can see no positive future for it as all signs seem to point to it dying a miserable death if it follows the path its on now.
Salamence and Latias are reasons OU is laughably small. Many more Pokémon are viable and used in a metagame without them. Just from watching and making a team for suspect, I've noticed a lot more Pokémon abound in suspect than before. OU is quite centralised, yes, but suspect seems better (though I'll have to keep reporting back as I play). Why not play before judging?

The aim isn't to shrink the metagame, by the way -- it's to balance it. If we can arrive at equilibrium, where no Pokémon stand out as broken, removals won't be necessary, and OU should be a lot more playable.
 
I'm just not seeing how the shrinking of an already laughably small OU metagame is really good let alone fair for anyone in the long run. You know theirs an saying that history doesn't change, it only repeats and the Pokemon metagame is no different as we see these trends continuously happen for months now with troublesome Pokemon getting moved in an out of tiers either being of limited use for one and too strong for the other. Personally IMO I think the metagame is really killing itself due to the fact that with NFE factored in where using less than 18% of 254 usable Pokemon in these games, so from my prospective the metagame was doomed from he start due to limitations. So I'm sorry to say but I've quickly given up on the OU metagame as quickly as I got into it because I can see no positive future for it as all signs seem to point to it dying a miserable death if it follows the path its on now.
I think that you're overreacting. Perhaps you should take a look at the statistics that DougJustDoug puts up every month from time to time. The metagame IS rather homogenized, yes, but the way you think of it, it's dying slowly and steadily and declines from an already ridiculously hopeless point. That is not the case. The game is always changing. Pokemon get removed from OU all the time, but that doesn't mean that it's dying. Perhaps greater variety would be appreciated, but with Latias and Salamence gone, we've seen that. Pokemon that before were not even viable in the game are making a comeback. Hopefully, this will open doors for Pokemon that were previously OU to come back, like Dugtrio, Alakazam, and Milotic, or even get some new arrivals *cough* Shaymin *cough*. This is a balancing process, and it isn't even going on the standard ladder, just the suspect ladder, which is weighted considerably less in terms of prestige. If the game on the balancing ladder is liked by the general public, changes will carry over. If not, they won't. Simple as that. Relax.
 
This is from a page back but...

This whole thread makes me skeptical of this "Council" suspect process. The players that devote the most time to this metagame are the ones that like it best, and they will vote Salamence banned. Their opinions will NOT reflect the entire Smogon community and there's something really wrong about that.

Mark my words, the relative unknowns selected for the council will be the most fervent supporters of Salamence being banned.
I don't see why you figure those selected will be a bunch of "unknowns". Considering the fact that they wish to see our standard and suspect records, as well as our achievements in tournaments, tells me that the most knowledgable players will be in charge.

As for "they like this metagame best", I think you are entirely offbase. Being able to make decisions regarding Pokemon tiers is a huge honor that I think many people would love to have, which is why so many play on suspect.
 
I've seen a few, yeah. To be honest, Staraptor can do some decent damage to many teams right off the bat. It gains near-perfect coverage with Brave Bird/Close Combat alone (think Air Slash/Aura Sphere Togekiss here), and Return lets it hit Zapdos neutrally as well.

Honestly, the resistances to flying include Rock, Steel, and Electric...and that's it. The OU rock types are devastated by CC, Electrics tend to have low defense (save Zapdos, who is blasted by Stealth Rock), and Steels are hit Neutrally or worse.

I remember Staraptor occasionally used Roost down in UU...so I don't see why it couldn't do the same in OU. Haven't seen too much use of that though.

Gyarados is better as an actual sweeper using DD, while Staraptor I find is better off hitting hard off the bat with its high-powered moves.
The main problem Staraptor has is Rotom, what with its immunity to Close Combat and Return, plus its resistance to Brave Bird. Other than that, Staraptor works great with a Choice Band/Scarf, and could turn out to be a nasty surprise for all those Breloom running around.
 
Removing all sweepers (Garchomp, Latias, Salamence) as an attempt to balance the meta-game is a flawed idea. There is a reason Metternich did not remove France from the map.
 
I suppose only time will tell.

The people that want mence gone the most will be the first to jump into this, but as things progress we'll probably hear more input.

I don't have the experience to play part in this, so I'll take to the sidelines for now.

What I would like to say though is that with Latias having only JUST been moved to ubers and 5th gen around the corner it might be a good idea to let things settle down before bringing out the ban hammer.

Like it or not, a balanced meta will never be achieved. There always has been and always will be a few overwhelming threats that keep UU's UU. Also the OU's that have moved down to UU aren't really that comparable, they can still be used; but once something goes uber it's stuck there.

He will probably go uber, and then people are going to realize how badly Dragonite is underestimated and quickly grow frustrated with his abundance and the growing amount of stall and brelooms.
 
Removing all sweepers (Garchomp, Latias, Salamence) as an attempt to balance the meta-game is a flawed idea. There is a reason Metternich did not remove France from the map.
Are you mentally ill? I'm pretty sure that those are not the only sweepers in the game. I'll try a list to convince you.

Jolteon
Infernape
Gengar
Azelf
Dragonite
Metagross
Gliscor
Lucario
Jirachi
Gyarados

All of them are in no danger of being banned and why? Because the meta game is fun while they're around. We're not banning sweepers, we're banning pokemon that take the fun out of the game (the fact that they're all sweepers is just a coincidence).
 
This whole thread makes me skeptical of this "Council" suspect process. The players that devote the most time to this metagame are the ones that like it best, and they will vote Salamence banned. Their opinions will NOT reflect the entire Smogon community and there's something really wrong about that.

Mark my words, the relative unknowns selected for the council will be the most fervent supporters of Salamence being banned.
I don't see why you figure those selected will be a bunch of "unknowns". Considering the fact that they wish to see our standard and suspect records, as well as our achievements in tournaments, tells me that the most knowledgable players will be in charge.
I had meant that the lesser-known players that make it into the Suspect Vote will be the ones most in favor of the ban. I had not meant to say that the Voters will be all unknowns.

Suppose the test brings some players out of UU, perhaps to try a FWG core. If one of these players were to make it to the vote, they would certainly prefer Salamence banned. Maybe UU players will even have an advantage in the Suspect Test, as they are used to a more stallish metagame and a proliferation of Grass-types.
 

SJCrew

Believer, going on a journey...
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I had meant that the lesser-known players that make it into the Suspect Vote will be the ones most in favor of the ban. I had not meant to say that the Voters will be all unknowns.
While I do agree that choosing people the community trusts in order to make a well-informed decision holds some weight, there are plenty of other experienced players whose input could prove to be valuable to the tiering process that not exactly everyone has heard of. That's why we're not the ones deciding who gets in, but the higher ups are.

The way I see it, if you have a pretty good rating on the Suspect ladder and know how to type an impressive paragraph or two, you should at least have a say in this.

and a proliferation of Grass-types.
...

I think I just had one of the most wicked team ideas ever.
 
But just as the new "stall" hype dies down so too will the "novelties" you mentioned. Inevitably most people will stick with what gets the job done - which tends to be the some of the best pokes around. The absence of salamence is not creating a new metagame, I think. What you're enjoying is some breathing room to experiment?

Not sure. Either way, I hope Salamence remains OU!
This is true, but the dust clears and a whole host of different Pokes that were useless or mediocre when Mence was around (seeing as Mence was a catalyst for high Scizor usage along with Latias and faster Tars, who will also die down without Mence and Latias) will probably be able to show their faces around OU again. Like Heracross, who no longer fears being outspeed by an Intimidater can now function a bit easier. Shaymin has an easier time in OU as well. I can't help but think the number of things that will be found freshly viable due to this experimentation phase will make the stale, boring metagame that much more fun. Just my opinion, of course. Ideally Mence, one pokemon, leaving OU will allow more Pokemon to enter OU. This means that, ideally, the OU metagame expands, not shrinks.

The slippery slope thing is nonsense. Seriously, dumbest argument I've ever heard. It's fun to insult peoples' intelligence, huh? There have been people saying since before Latias was even OU that Mence was broken and too good for the metagame, but this huge number of recent tests has distracted people from the more important Pokemon to test, Mence. Now that we're finally testing it people are grasping at straws to keep us from doing so. Slippery slope my ass. It's more like peple who just want to maintain the status quo versus people who want to see if it's actually good for the metagame.

@Zelrio: Latias was removed under the support category. The set determined to be broken was it's specs set -- I.E a hole-puncher, not a sweeper. And Dragons aren't the only damn sweepers in the game. :/
 
This is true, but the dust clears and a whole host of different Pokes that were useless or mediocre when Mence was around (seeing as Mence was a catalyst for high Scizor usage along with Latias and faster Tars, who will also die down without Mence and Latias) will probably be able to show their faces around OU again. Like Heracross, who no longer fears being outspeed by an Intimidater can now function a bit easier. Shaymin has an easier time in OU as well. I can't help but think the number of things that will be found freshly viable due to this experimentation phase will make the stale, boring metagame that much more fun. Just my opinion, of course. Ideally Mence, one pokemon, leaving OU will allow more Pokemon to enter OU. This means that, ideally, the OU metagame expands, not shrinks.

The slippery slope thing is nonsense. Seriously, dumbest argument I've ever heard. It's fun to insult peoples' intelligence, huh? There have been people saying since before Latias was even OU that Mence was broken and too good for the metagame, but this huge number of recent tests has distracted people from the more important Pokemon to test, Mence. Now that we're finally testing it people are grasping at straws to keep us from doing so. Slippery slope my ass. It's more like peple who just want to maintain the status quo versus people who want to see if it's actually good for the metagame.

@Zelrio: Latias was removed under the support category. The set determined to be broken was it's specs set -- I.E a hole-puncher, not a sweeper. And Dragons aren't the only damn sweepers in the game. :/
An interesting point. What exactly do you mean by "status quo" here? The current state of the meta game is obviously one quite a few people are upset about. Do you think that it's mainly the Salamence users that are against it becoming uber?

I think it's also important to realize that although the removal of Salamence may open the doors for a few new Pokemon (Heracross and Shaymin to name a few), it will close the door for other Pokes as well. As you noted earlier Scizor usage (and other steel types) increased because of Salamence's power, but Pokemon such as Magnezone or Jirachi that were often paired with Mence for synergy (Magnezone of course filled the role of taking out steels to open the gates for a Mence sweep) may decrease or even fall out of favor completely. All in all, removing Mence might have a chance of making the metagame smaller - although to be honest I doubt that.
 
Ok. So I've played a few matches on the ladder, and I have to say, this metagame is a vast improvement over the current OU metagame that I heavily despise.

Since I left, I've noticed that there has been a massive increase of Grass-types, namely Celebi and Shaymin (although I'm assuming this has more to do with Latias being gone). I'm also seen more offensive teams being used effectively, because like Reach said, a slot doesn't have to be dedicated to solely revenge killing Salamence anymore.

And that's about it for now...
 
Okay,I am just throwing this out there but,Mence cannot go to ubers just because he gets a kill every match.What about scarf tar with Pursuit?

Also,alot of Pokemon are more unpredictable than Mence.Look at T-tar, he has lots of sets and you can never be too sure which set he is running.You could switch in Scizor/Skarm just to get outsped and hit by a Fire blast.
 
Why does anyone think mence is broken? More often than not it dies, (sorry; "faints") from life orb, sandstorm, stealth rock, and normal damage. I've NEVER, EVER, EVER been sweeped by a salamence. I've never even lost more than one pokemon against it!
 
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