Zarator, the facts you are laying out are true, but:
-"It has two equally viable sets"
-"It has no completely reliable switch ins"
Those are true-- but honestly, so what? Neither of those sounds remotely convincing, especially in the context of the DP metagame.
It has multiple viable sets-- I mean really? REALLY?? When Latias is running around with specs, scarf, calm mind, wish support, screens, etc., Or Jirachi is running around with scarf, or faking a scarf while carrying a berry, etc. etc. Realistically speaking, there are pokemon with much more diverse movesets than Salamence in the metagae.
Jirachi and Latias are absolutely not on the same boat of Salamence. The former does not have the same destructive power of Salamence. Sure, it has a move to screw up almost every one of his possible counters, however it has much more reliable checks. Swampert, for example, can withstand almost everything Jirachi dishes out bar Grass Knot, boosted Psychic and Trick. It is not a counter, but it has a good degree of reliability - much more than anything could boast against Salamence. The same can be said for Latias, when you have Blissey, Scizor and Tyranitar able to check almost all of her sets.
You people keep thinking as if we are blaming Salamence for the fact that it has a diverse movepool, where certainly we aren't - heck, even Dragonite has a richer movepool than big brother Mence. The great feat of Salamence is not diversity. It is, rather, the ability to screw the entire tier with just two movesets - DD Mence, and Mixmence. There is anything which can switch into both the movesets with even remotely the same reliability of the checks I mentioned for Jirachi, Latias, Gyarados, Infernape and so on. If you guess the wrong of the two movesets (essentially a coinflip), most times you put yourself at a huge disadvantage - you cannot even let the Pokémon in game to scout the set, because if it is a Dragon Dance variant and said Pokémon cannot block the setup you are fucked anyway (unless you have a Scizor, but we have said countless times how easy is to get rid of Scizor).
It has no completely reliable switch ins. Again-- so what? You are avoiding wording it this way but what you are saying is: There's nothing that near-perfectly counters Salamence. Why are you avoiding saying it this way? Because it is wide common sense that "counters" are considered an out-dated way of thinking/judging pokemon in 4th gen.
Do you know why it's such a bad argument?
Yes Gengar is stopped in its tracks by blissey. Yes, Gyarados is screwed by Vaporeon or Celebi, Infernape by Latias, Lucario by Gliscor, and Tyranitar isn't getting far with Machamp around.
But guess what? Not every team is going to have a Blissey, a Vaporeon, a Latias, Gliscor and a Machamp. Besides, if I were to do that, I got nothing to counter threat z right now.
Again, don't try this. I know perfectly well that the notion of counter is a surpassed one. Besides, you really cannot say Blissey is a counter to Latias or Swampert is a counter to Jirachi. But there is a great difference between "X Pokémon has no counters" (which, as you said, is perfectly acceptable in this metagame) and "X Pokémon has no reliable checks and beating it most times is a coinflip" (which is beyond what any other Pokémon in OU can boast). I mean, sure, most times you limit yourself to check threats rather than counter them. However, when the only ways to check a threat offensively imply using a Magnezone bait (Scizor), a Pursuit bait (Scarf Gengar, Scarf Latias) or, even worse, hoping into a Speed tie (Scarf Jirachi, Scarf Flygon), whereas defensive and/or stallish teams have almost no hope, there is something wrong. Besides, all this need for scarfers just to check a threat reminds me a lot of how, in Ubers, you cannot leave home without a Scarfer. Sure, I know this last fact hasn't strictly anything to do with Salamence's tier status, but it is nonetheless interesting.
The notion of there being "no realiable counter" is pointless when every team is going to have to deal with threats through checks anyway, because it's impossible to carry the "reliable counter" to everything. :/ That's the whole reason why the "counters" methodology was thrown out the window. Not to mention that just because there is a perfect counter doesn't mean it's necessarily good (or good for your team). What's the point in having a P-2 to counter Gyara if it can't do anything to the rest of your opponent's team and ends up set up fodder for dd ttar? How much use is Vappy going to be if they set Breloom up on it every time you use it to counter Gyara?
I won't commenting on this part, since what I said before shall suffice. Also, that's the reason why I do not accept "Cresselia" as an acceptable answer to Salamence.
This game isn't played by using 1 pokemon against the metagame-- it's played by 1 team versus 1 team. On a given team, I might not have a perfect counter to Salamence, but if I also don't have one for Suicune, Machamp or ScarfJirachi-- guess what, beating those pokes is going to be more or less just as tough. Latias might always beat Mixape, but if I don't have a Latias on my team, that really doesn't do me any good when I'm staring down the raging monkey.
Again, the threats you have pointed out are much more easy to check, or even counter, than Salamence. The wrong fact is that, whereas you have viable answers to these Pokémon, you have none for Salamence.
The point is that in order to win, you're going to have to beat pokemon without counters, but with innovation, smart play, and luck-- Salamence is no different in that way than any other pokemon you can't include a counter for. Sure Salamence is a threat to every team-- but then so are many other pokemon, and the way a person builds a team could result in it having even bigger problems against other things, like Suicune, Jolteon or Flygon. You just can't make it impervious to everything.
The point is, if I wanted to make a team impervious to Tyranitar, or Latias, or Gyarados, or Jolteon, or Suicune, or "what the hell", while still having a viable team in my hands (although with his weaknesses), I could. The same thing, with Salamence, is nigh impossible. Having multiple scarfers on the team makes you weak not just to a single Pokémon, but to an entire playing style (aka stall). Hoping on Scizor to reliably check Salamence is an illusion too. The fact that, despite the fact that you prepare for him, Salamence can still fuck you up, reminds me less of Infernape, Gengar and co. and more or Garchomp. I'm not saying Salamence = Garchomp, but rather than, like Garchomp, making a viable Salamence-proof team in this metagame is completely impossible, and at the moment, Salamence is the only Pokémon in the tier to boast such a feat. Hence why, at the moment, Salamence is probably the only Pokémon in the tier to warrant a test.










