Care to share how you deal with him? Or do you just not get high enough on the ladder to encounter him?
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Salamence Theorymonning
- Thread starter SJCrew
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Care to share how you deal with him? Or do you just not get high enough on the ladder to encounter him?
I have no problems with it either.
I run a Dual Screen Latias on my team. This is a prime example of how I deal with Mence;
Set up Reflect as opponent switches to Mence. Switch in Swampert as Mence proceeds to Outrage, or DD.
Outrage does less than 50%. Mence either switches out or stays in. Either way, it's going to end up with 50% of its HP chopped off due to SR damage, or dead when I use Ice Beam. (this isn't counting the fact that I run Sandstorm also, so that's an additional ~20% of damage for two turns?).
Preach.
Playing in any metagame, but OU in particular requires you to think long and hard about the extant threats when crafting your team. Since entry hazards are everywhere, you'll probably want a rapid spinner. Likewise, if you're setting up entry hazards, a spin-blocker is advisable. Those are just things most teams will pack.
Counters for specific pokemon are a little tricksier since you usually don't know beforehand exactly what kind of moveset they're packing. It doesn't mean you don't think about how you're going to deal with various pokemon if they show up. That's part of the skill involved in competitive battling. Building a team to take all comers. Salamence is pretty freaking rock. So's Scizor. So's TTar. When you build a team are you honestly saying that you don't think: what will I do against pokemon "x"?
Devil's Advocate here: Salamence may not have any hard counters but nor does anything else, really. It's fast and powerful and the greatest argument for it's banishment from the OU tier is that unlike some pokemon, Salamence can be a threat to every team. When you build a team, there are some pokemon you know won't be an issue to deal with, so you don't bother packing pokemon specifically to deal with them if they show up. With Salamence, owing to his great stats, fantastic movepool and unpredictable sets, that's not a luxury you can really afford.
Salamence is really freaking popular and can be very hard to deal with. So's Blissey. We gonna ban her too? Now, I know Blissey's a hell of a lot easier to deal with than Salamence, but even so, with prediction a nice counter and a little luck, you can bring a sally down. The whole POINT of the OU metagame is that it's a fluid thing. Someone comes up with an awesome set and so it catches on and more people start using it, so now teams have to start packing a counter to this set, and it changes the dynamic of the game.
Old sets that were once great become unplayable with time. As people develop counter sets, the original pokemon get left behind. The fact that there's no truly reliable counter to Salamence doesn't mean there won't be in the future.Who knows what impact B&W will have on the metagame, but until something as radical as that is bound to be shakes everything up, I suggest we all put down our banhammers.
Look at the top 20 OU pokemon and tell me most teams don't run at least 3 of them. OU is a large pool from which to draw a team but we keep seeing the same faces over and over. Because they're good. Because they win. We don't ban them for being too good, we find ways to beat them. Run new combos, employ a specific counter. Try new stuff until it works. Latias was too good, but fresh off the heels of that we need to cool our jets and not rush into another Uberfication, where one isn't warranted.
Theres 4 problems with this:
1)No ones gonna switch mence into a latias
2)You'd be a fool to switch latias into mence (unless its on a predected eq/fire blast, your screwed if its a dd version or if it draco meteors)
3)Latias is banned
4)Ds latias lets stall spike stack like crazy on your ass. An effective poke deals with both stall and offensive. So unless your running a team of all levitators/flying types, that latias fails to be an effective poke.
Amen
Eric, I think you're just playing some horrible players because there's really no good reason to switch Mence in on Latias. Dual Screening isn't a great way to counter it either because most of the Pokemon Salamence commonly switches in on, such as Gliscor, Lucario, non-scarfed Heatran, and walls with low special defense, either don't have or don't normally carry those moves. Plus, Classic Mixmence has Brick Break to shatter those barriers, and subsequently Draco Meteor the shit out of your incoming wall (Brick Break into Draco Meteor is pretty much a guaranteed kill on your incoming Swampert, btw).
@ ultimatellama: You're speaking way too generally here and not focusing on the main issue of Salamence being especially hard to counter, above all other OUs. I've outlined plenty of reasoning as to what makes it unique in regards to other mixed sweepers or other versatile and generally unpredictable Pokemon.
Salamence's movepool is decent, but it really only needs a handful of moves to achieve perfect coverage, and it has both the stats and typing to 2HKO the entire metagame. Regardless of what set a Pokemon like Infernape runs, I'm still going to feel pretty confident switching in Suicune or Vaporeon to take it out, since it's not strong enough to break them right away, doesn't get a lot of opportunities to switch in, and hardly finds time to set up. Salamence doesn't have those problems because the threat of Intimidate and its bulk, and a powerful/super effective move coming your way forces a lot of switches, which I can use for either a free DD or Draco Meteor.
@ ultimatellama: You're speaking way too generally here and not focusing on the main issue of Salamence being especially hard to counter, above all other OUs. I've outlined plenty of reasoning as to what makes it unique in regards to other mixed sweepers or other versatile and generally unpredictable Pokemon.
Salamence's movepool is decent, but it really only needs a handful of moves to achieve perfect coverage, and it has both the stats and typing to 2HKO the entire metagame. Regardless of what set a Pokemon like Infernape runs, I'm still going to feel pretty confident switching in Suicune or Vaporeon to take it out, since it's not strong enough to break them right away, doesn't get a lot of opportunities to switch in, and hardly finds time to set up. Salamence doesn't have those problems because the threat of Intimidate and its bulk, and a powerful/super effective move coming your way forces a lot of switches, which I can use for either a free DD or Draco Meteor.
Got an aero lead that sets up rocks and prevent the imminent salamence to come. Then most of my team isn't OHKOed by any salamence, I carry some thunder waves(blissey / bulky haxkiss - modest - 252 hp - 68 def - 188 sdef) or Ice Beam on suicune (404 hp/120 def/40 speed/96 sp def, + sp.def nature), and if this isn't a mix mence then explosion on foretress kos. By the way my blissey is max def / max HP and bold. The only pokémon it can switch in after a KO safely are foretress (if this is a mixmence) and magnezone, if against foretress it means flamethrower so i may as well switch on my ice beam / surf / cm / rest suicune, or blissey with twave, and if against magnezone either EQ/Flamethrower are coming, so then I tend to switch to togekiss (with twave after) or suicune, or if I try my luck and predict a flamethrower to blissey. Of course if the guy with salemence outpredicts me well then one pokemon goes down, but that's the same with every pokémon. And I'm sure other teams counter salamence just as well, but anyway that was to respond at that comment of yours which offended me !!
people are saying mence isn't broken because it can be easily revenged - theres this cool new thing called switching. Even with stealth rock, life orb and sandstorm, mence still gets in 3 attacks. And if you have something bulky enough to take 2 of mences attacks, then you lose at least 2 pokemon. Then mence dies to life orb recoil and sandstorm, and your revenger is useless, so if your opponet has mence and knows how to use him, your playing 3.5 : 5.
And what do people think will happen to the standard ladder and suspect ladder? On standard, expect to see a drop in scizor and tyranitar. Although tyranitar is good without choice scarf, his usage will still go down, since players no longer need him and can replace him with something else. Salamence will take over #2, and mence and scizor will be the closest they've ever been since scizor took #1. Scizor isn't that good as a standalone pokemon, he's only so good cause he's antimetagame. And with things like gengar starting to carry sub (and doing 70% with focus blast, and scizor takes a lot of entry hazard damge) and since latias is gone, things like heatran and gyrados will rise, so scizor will have even less use. Eventually, if mence isn't banned, he will take over #1 just barely, then scizor will rise.
As for suspect, I predict even less scizors since he can't revenge dragonite. Dragonite and kindra will fight over most used ddancer, until scarflygon usage rises and they both fall in leue of gyrados. Then scarfgon will carry t-punch and he will drop as well. With the dragon dancers gone, infernape will rise. but As guyrados falls, and with mence gone, SD lucario will rise, causing a rise in scarfrotom and scarfrachi and a drop in infernape. Then t-wave gyra will rise, since he can t-wave them so they can't revenge him and jirachi causes easy set up.
And what do people think will happen to the standard ladder and suspect ladder? On standard, expect to see a drop in scizor and tyranitar. Although tyranitar is good without choice scarf, his usage will still go down, since players no longer need him and can replace him with something else. Salamence will take over #2, and mence and scizor will be the closest they've ever been since scizor took #1. Scizor isn't that good as a standalone pokemon, he's only so good cause he's antimetagame. And with things like gengar starting to carry sub (and doing 70% with focus blast, and scizor takes a lot of entry hazard damge) and since latias is gone, things like heatran and gyrados will rise, so scizor will have even less use. Eventually, if mence isn't banned, he will take over #1 just barely, then scizor will rise.
As for suspect, I predict even less scizors since he can't revenge dragonite. Dragonite and kindra will fight over most used ddancer, until scarflygon usage rises and they both fall in leue of gyrados. Then scarfgon will carry t-punch and he will drop as well. With the dragon dancers gone, infernape will rise. but As guyrados falls, and with mence gone, SD lucario will rise, causing a rise in scarfrotom and scarfrachi and a drop in infernape. Then t-wave gyra will rise, since he can t-wave them so they can't revenge him and jirachi causes easy set up.
Though you overexxagerate it, "Uber drift" is to my mind a real threat, and one the testing team need to beware of. In the case of Salamence - it's a bigger threat without Latias around. What does Salamence really threaten badly, and if Mence goes, does it end up being next in line for Uber status.
You must have either been playing a team centered around countering Mence, a lot of low-ranking players or friendly Wifi matches not to have a problem with it, as many top players still perceive it as an extremely potent threat no matter what team you run, as its combination of power, bulk, speed, and coverage are simply too much to dismiss as a non-factor. As I've said before, most of beating Mence hinges on good prediction, which isn't exactly something either player has total control over.
I don't see why so many people clamor to have Salamence in Ubers. It would do absolutely terrible in Ubers, but yes I am aware that Ubers status is determined by power in OU, not Ubers. Regardless, everyone talks about it like it's some deity of the OU world, and it can not be countered in any way shape or form. I completely disagree, I do not think it's not counterable in the least. There is always a way to phaze or take it out altogether if you design your team to do so. Salamence might wreck a team if it's completely unprepared, but making it able to counter a Salamence is not difficult. I've seen so many more sweeps and entire breakdowns of teams by Scizor and Gyarados, which seem much more threatening to me than Salamence
This is the main reason why mence is so deadly. Summed up one sentence. You just don't know if you can switch in, and if you guess incorrectly, you lose your scarfer to a ridiculous DM. I can't tell you have many times a salamence has stepped in with a prime chance to DD, and then KOs/cripples my scarfer, switching out, and wrecking later.
Salamence being banned to Ubers will make the metagame change a lot.
And why on Earth is Latias being banned to Ubers also?
I disagree with both of these decisions very strongly, but eh, I digress.
Sorry if i offended you i was just asking (since most players on the lower end of the ladder dont use mence/dont know how to use him well). And i meant high enough to encounter him not counter him.
See thats the problem, no good mence user would use a fire move against forteress since it switches out 99% of the time in fear of its life. I would use draco meteor or brick break to screw with the rest of your team. Then maybe next time use the super effective move. It literaly turns into a guessing game and with every wrong guess you lose a poke.
Umm no its not. Lucario predects gliscor and uses ice punch. That means it is walled by something else (no crunch=ghosts, no cc=lol, no extremespeed=faster poke, no sd=cant ko bulky walls like suicune). Salamence can use 2 different sets to beat its counters and not lose out on ANY coverage or effectiveness. Nothing else in ou can claim that (except maybe dragonite but his speed is his downfall).
Not to mention with Intimidate, and Roost, it can become more of an issue because your opponent might not even have a threat to even take it down. Listen, Salamence is overpowered and almost anything you throw at it will get destroyed, not to mention that it has one of the most biggest movepools in the metagame as well, and 'Mence's movepools are hard hitting moves; the majority are 100 BP; not just STAB moves but moves that give 'Mence great coverage.. Fire Blast, Hydro Pump, Earthquake, Aqua Tail.. Salamence even gets Aqua Tail.. rofl Salamence is the biggest threat in OU, and even possible threats to Salamence can be destroyed.
Give me one thing that could switch into either of them and either outspeed and ko or take a second attack. Now of those, how many of them can stop latias or mence from just switching out and coming back later to do it again.
And don't even say scarftar for latias. If it switches into specs surf, it only wins 50% of the time since it has to predict pursuit or crunch. Or it could be sublatias ---> setup anything that resists tyranitar.
I haven't really played since the Garchomp era, but I picked back up about 2 months ago. From what I played with Latias in the metagame, it was indeed a bit to strong. It had versatility, and you were forced to run Blissey(couldn't beat it if it had refresh/trick) or Scarftar. I'm glad the change was made.
As for Mence, I think the one thing that makes it scary is the versatility it has had in the metagame. When D/P were first announced everyone was scared of SpecsMence 2HKOing everything in the metagame not named Blissey/Empoleon. When Blissey was trouncing Mence, Mixmence came along and still packed a lot of the power specs had, but gave it the power of breaking walls. When it received Outrage from move tutors it switched back to DD and scares everything with Outrage. Salamence's testing has been a long time coming, and I'm eager to await the results of the test.
As for Mence, I think the one thing that makes it scary is the versatility it has had in the metagame. When D/P were first announced everyone was scared of SpecsMence 2HKOing everything in the metagame not named Blissey/Empoleon. When Blissey was trouncing Mence, Mixmence came along and still packed a lot of the power specs had, but gave it the power of breaking walls. When it received Outrage from move tutors it switched back to DD and scares everything with Outrage. Salamence's testing has been a long time coming, and I'm eager to await the results of the test.
Sure, the ones making these decisions won't let this happen, but it will happen at least somewhat. so say salamence goes, then say scizor and ttar go as well. The ones making these decisions will then think "oh man, we've gone to far, lets redo this whole process." so they move sally and co back to OU. pretty soon they're going to say "Oh man salamence is too cheap to be OU", and when THAT happens we will have a vicious cycle.
Also, why is the whole metagame based on a small group of people? Sure, they may have done suspect testing, and are the "best" battlers, but that doesn't mean the rest of the population doesn't understand whats going on in the metagame. With that said, it is true that this speeds of up process, and a way of weeding out the "illiterate" is necessary, but where is the rush? And why weed out so many?
Also, Arceus is banned, is it not?
I'd also like to voice my support both for introducing the council and testing Salamence.
As far as Salamence goes, I think there's more to it than 'Nothing has hard counters; Salamence is no exception.' Sure, things like Lucario, Infernape and others can be very dangerous and there are no Pokemon that can reliably switch in and beat any of the sets one of them could be carrying, but there are certain Pokemon that you can switch in and be somewhat confident of keeping the most common sets in check without having to specialise to a foolish extent.
To the best of my knowledge, this is not true of Salamence. Both the mixed and Dragon Dance sets will hit your Pokemon very hard. These sets are dangerous to any Pokemon availaible in the OU tier. Salamence doesn't have to run an unexpected move to catch you off-guard, it doesn't have to variate from the norm; it is strong enough to massively dent whatever it wants anyway. This is the key difference between Salamence and other top OU threats: other Pokemon might be able to beat any other Pokemon if they have the right set for the right one but Salamence does not have this issue. Either of it's two main sets are threatening to most everything and that is what puts it a cut above all else.
You might be able to scare it away once, but that only keeps the problem at bay for so long. It can and does remove health from your team in huge chunks at a time, and Roost can easily keep it going for turns on end. With Intimidate and great resistances, switching it in is not nearly as hard as some people claim. Eventually, Salamence can be revenge killed; strong or Super Effective priority attacks can ground it, as can certain Choice Scarf Pokemon. However, when you eventually do drop Salamence's HP to 0 it's job is usually done.
As far as Salamence goes, I think there's more to it than 'Nothing has hard counters; Salamence is no exception.' Sure, things like Lucario, Infernape and others can be very dangerous and there are no Pokemon that can reliably switch in and beat any of the sets one of them could be carrying, but there are certain Pokemon that you can switch in and be somewhat confident of keeping the most common sets in check without having to specialise to a foolish extent.
To the best of my knowledge, this is not true of Salamence. Both the mixed and Dragon Dance sets will hit your Pokemon very hard. These sets are dangerous to any Pokemon availaible in the OU tier. Salamence doesn't have to run an unexpected move to catch you off-guard, it doesn't have to variate from the norm; it is strong enough to massively dent whatever it wants anyway. This is the key difference between Salamence and other top OU threats: other Pokemon might be able to beat any other Pokemon if they have the right set for the right one but Salamence does not have this issue. Either of it's two main sets are threatening to most everything and that is what puts it a cut above all else.
You might be able to scare it away once, but that only keeps the problem at bay for so long. It can and does remove health from your team in huge chunks at a time, and Roost can easily keep it going for turns on end. With Intimidate and great resistances, switching it in is not nearly as hard as some people claim. Eventually, Salamence can be revenge killed; strong or Super Effective priority attacks can ground it, as can certain Choice Scarf Pokemon. However, when you eventually do drop Salamence's HP to 0 it's job is usually done.
if you look at the uber tier, about 50% of the pokemon outspeed it. Arceus, Darkrai, Shaymin, the list goes on...
I have never had problems with mence, ever. And it would appear that most people wouldnt have a problem with mine if it doesnt get a DD. I could always kill a latias with a sucker punch off my Cacturne, but I still hated it, and its stats were clearly Uber. And the last thing we need in Ubers is another fkn dragon type. Jirachi's Serene Grace and high base speed let it force luck and sweep even on resisted hits. And it has an insane amount of bulk. These pokemon can't hold up on their own, which seems to be what decides if it's Uber or not. But its always a team effort. Heatran has 11 resistances and just 3 weaknesses, all 3 of which are easily countered. Ground? Please. if youre stupid enough to stay in on a ground type move then grats. Grass/Water/Flying Pokemon soak up its weaknesses. So if you're not a horrible team builder then you've succesfully kept your Heatran alive. All these pokemon can also easily hold their own in Ubers, and even OU teams beat Ubers, and UU pokemon beat Ubers. Sure there are some that dont have the stats to make it to the Uber battlefield, but they were designed as Legendary pokemon and have stats that are pretty darn good.
I already stated a few of my own experiences with Salamence, and losing a pokemon to it if you kill it can often cripple the opponents team. As they have just lost a wall break or physical sweeper, they may have lost a Scizor counter, a Blissey counter, a Skarmory counter. Its wide array of uses can often be your downfall, as relying heavily on it to counter these pokemon will land you in hot water.
Peopl on here seem to have different ideas as to what makes a pokemon broken in a certain tier - no counters, stats, movepools. But Salamence is not hard to kill! Making the right choice to counter it can scare it away, and with SR up it will have to come in and lose another 25%. Why dont we ban TTar too, it has amazing stats, an amazing movepool, and DDance, and isnt OHKO'd by Infernapes Mach punch, while SMance IS OHKO'd by any ice move basically. Its movepool is a good thing, moves are moves and there is not a tier for them. just having alot of moves shouldnt make a pokemon Uber. And ive already stated that its defensive stats aren't good enough to take alot of hits.
I'll tell you that all this controversy alone about Salamence has been a deciding factor in me taking it off my team. Because if it's as cheap as you all claim i would'nt want to be the same as the ppl i hated using Latias. IMO this is going to be alot harder of a vote than Latias. Sorry if my ideas seem incohesive or incomplete, I often get lost in my own words. And i have no intention of offending anyone or having 'the wrong mindset'. Im just voicing my opinion - they said it matter :P
I love how people whine about Mix Mence having no hard counters except Cresselia, when pokemon like Machamp... has hard counters, but nobody uses them. (Spiritomb, Dusknoir, Slowbro.)
Anyways, I don't feel like arguing why Mence should be OU, because I said my arguments in the previous thread. If I must say them, I will, and I will defend myself if need be.
Anyways, I don't feel like arguing why Mence should be OU, because I said my arguments in the previous thread. If I must say them, I will, and I will defend myself if need be.
So far, I haven't read a single argument from the people arguing that "Salamence is OU" besides that they don't have problems with it. The rest of us would like to know what kind of team you're running. Sure, Salamence can be countered once you know what kind of set it's running. Mixed sets are usually beaten by steels like Scizor and Jirachi. DD sets are beaten by bulky Pokemon and Ice Shard carriers. Problem is, by the time you figure out what you need to counter it, you've usually already lost a Pokemon. Salamence has a lot of bulk thanks to Intimidate and is extremely easy to switch in.
As for revenging it, you only get to do that once Salamence has already killed something, and even then it can just switch out unless it's locked into an Outrage.
As for revenging it, you only get to do that once Salamence has already killed something, and even then it can just switch out unless it's locked into an Outrage.
This is exactly what im trying to say. People just think duurrr durrrr i has weavile it sux. Nope. You sac something to bring weavile in. Weavile takes 25% from rocks. You switch to skarm on a choice band ice shard and put up a layer of spikes. Weavile will now dye faster then mence, espiecelly if mence has roost or spin support. A team of skarm - life orb starmie for anti-ghost spinning and throwing the game open early game - mence lure (i like agility luke with hp:ice) - aerodactyl lead for quick rocks - mence - cleaner for when mence eventually dies is extremely effective. Salamence can be used with bulky pokemon to take hits for him, since he alone prvodes enough offense for a whole team
Yeah, because scizor doing 50%, less to bulky mence, and taking over 50% from a resisted switchin - thats a great way to beat it.
Can we please make a rule against people saying that mence isn't broken because it can be revenged? It's a dumb argument. It's easy to switch, and most of these revengers lack the power to do anything else and become setup bait.
P.S. I find one of mences best sets is sub. Since most people have to sac something when he comes in, sub on the switch and ko the switchin. Now watch as they're "revenge killer" breaks the sub and goes down.
And even if this "revenge killer" argument breaks the offensive charactersitic, mence easily takes down at least one pokemon a game, usually more. Whats more, he can take down just about any pokemon he wants. Support characteristic.
lol, wtf, where were all of you Latias-to-Ubers supporters a few weeks/months ago? All of you need to start voicing your [intelligent] opinions more, so things aren't such a "controversy" like 3-5 was. It's like you all came out of hiding once Latias got banned... which is just backwards -__-.
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