Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Oh man, this topic has been up for how long, a few hours, and it's already tl;dr. Anyway. I really think Latias is a massive, massive victim. Why?? She got voted OU however many tests, and we have the anti-Latias camp go "But she's broken". She had 4 tests with overwhelming evidence to say she was OU. Her first test was 17-4 OU, 3-1 had 61-23 OU, 3-2 was 100-27, 3-3 finally started picking up, having her at 18-12 OU. I mean, if we were trying a criminal, this would be a total farce. She had 4 tests where she was overwhelmingly OU, another test where she was still OU, and the other 2 saying she was Uber. It seems blatantly unjust that she should get 2 Uber votes and be voted Uber when she had 5 saying she's OU. We're basically prosecuting the same guy for 5 times, each time he's innocent, and then we have twice where (Forgive me) in which the jury was quite skewed and she's automatically guilty?? You think about it. I would say she needs at least 3 more tests confirming her to be Uber to at least justify that she is Uber (5 Uber votes vs 5 OU ones)
I feel the need to respond to this post. Latias was voted OU simply because the Specs set wasn't made standard. I mean think about it. Shortly after Latias was allowed into the OU metagame there wasn't anything really wrong with this pokemon. It had it's counters (Ttar, CBlax, Blissey) It's checks (Scizor + any scarf user) It was your run of the mill top tier OU pokemon. The specs set changed that however.
Back then, when people were running CM sets and what not, a simple switch into Ttar dealt with Latias soundly. Blissey also walled it to hell and back (unless it was the CM Refresh set, but that set lacks healing) Personally, I never had any problems beating Latias when it was the CM sweeper set.
When the Specs set became standard, that's when Latias was overwhelmingly powerful. Suddenly Ttar wasn't a good enough *counter* as Specs Surf 2HKO. (I think that's when scarf Ttar was made for that reason...) That set (in my opinion) broke Latias.
Futhermore, base 100 does a lot for Salamence. Assuming the standard DD set (204 Speed EVs), Dragonite is still outsped by a lot of stuff, namely Scarftran, Scarf 100s, Scarf Rotom-A, and Scarf base 90s. No competient player would let you get 2 DDs in order to outspeed base 100s with a Choice Scarf. This allows for a wide veriaty of Pokemon to revenge kill Dragonite. Meanwhile, with Salamence, you're forced to use a Scarf Pokemon with base 100+ (and even then it Speed ties), or Scizor/Mamoswine/Weavile.
All of those Pokemon you listed to revenge kill +1DDnite would just as easily revenge kill Salamence. Especially MixMence who has the frickin' "super coverage."
dragonite is just shit compared to mence, we have to agree with this. but still, like i said on page 1, imo salamence's just the most dangerous sweeper, but not uber.
I PM'd Jumpan earlier to make sure that there would be a topic for input of non-council members and couldn't have been more relieved when he said there would be. I'm feeling very hopeful about this new system though there have been drivel posts and circular arguements (ie every mention of slippery slope and Ubers lite mentioned).
I wanted to bring in some calcs into the equation so there are less arguments about what happens when Mence is gone (which should be saved for when the new suspect ladder is officially up) because I feel like we are jumping the gun.
According to the Teamforce RMT bot (a nifty little program I found somewhere on site) the most common switch ins to Salamence are
Porygon2
Cresselia
Flygon
Skarmory
Latias
Lastias is banned, and therefore irrelevant and there are plenty of other things that should be brought up (like the oft mentioned Mamoswine/Weavile)
MixMence vs Counters/Checks/Revenge Killers
Life Orb Salamence Draco Meteor
vs. Shed Shell Skarmory : 58.1% - 68.3%
vs. Choice Scarf Flygon : 231.1% - 272.8%
vs. Choice Scarf Jirachi : 39.9% - 47.4%
vs. Leftovers Porygon2 : 81.3% - 95.7%
vs. Leftovers Cresselia : 52.3% - 61.7%
vs. Choice Band Weavile : 113.7% - 134.4%
vs. Choice Band Mamoswine : 121.3% - 142.9%
vs. Choice Band Scizor : 50.7% - 60.1%
vs. Leftovers Suicune : 63.4% - 75%
vs. Leftovers Swampert : 78.2% - 92.3%
vs. Life Orb Starmie : 126.3% - 149.2%
vs. Choice Scarf Heatran : 47.4% - 55.7%
Life Orb Salamence Fire Blast
vs. Shed Shell Skarmory : 132.9% - 156.9%
vs. Choice Scarf Flygon : 33.1% - 39.1%
vs. Choice Scarf Jirachi : 92% - 108.6%
vs. Leftovers Porygon2 : 46.5% - 54.8%
vs. Leftovers Cresselia : 30% - 35.4%
vs. Choice Band Weavile : 130.6% - 154%
vs. Choice Band Mamoswine : 139.1% - 164%
vs. Choice Band Scizor : 233.2% - 275.2%
vs. Leftovers Suicune : 18.1% - 21.5%
vs. Leftovers Swampert : 22.3% - 26.5%
vs. Life Orb Starmie : 36.3% - 42.7%
vs. Choice Scarf Heatran : 0% - 0%
Life Orb Salamence Brick Break
vs. Shed Shell Skarmory : 16.5% - 19.5%
vs. Choice Scarf Flygon : 36.4% - 43%
vs. Choice Scarf Jirachi : 24.9% - 29.6%
vs. Leftovers Porygon2 : 38.5% - 45.5%
vs. Leftovers Cresselia : 6.3% - 7.7%
vs. Choice Band Weavile : 178.7% - 210.3%
vs. Choice Band Mamoswine : 59.8% - 70.9%
vs. Choice Band Scizor : 26.2% - 30.9%
vs. Leftovers Suicune : 14.9% - 17.6%
vs. Leftovers Swampert : 17.6% - 20.8%
vs. Life Orb Starmie : 19.8% - 23.3%
vs. Choice Scarf Heatran : 53.3% - 63.2%
Dragon Dancing Salamence
Life Orb Salamence Outrage
vs. Shed Shell Skarmory : 23.1% - 27.2%
vs. Choice Scarf Flygon : 206.6% - 243%
vs. Choice Scarf Jirachi : 35.7% - 42.4%
vs. Leftovers Cresselia : 37.2% - 43.9%
vs. Choice Band Weavile : 126.1% - 148.8%
vs. Choice Band Mamoswine : 85.9% - 101.4%
vs. Choice Band Scizor : 37.6% - 44.6%
vs. Leftovers Suicune : 41.8% - 49.3%
vs. Leftovers Swampert : 49.3% - 58.2%
vs. Life Orb Starmie : 113.4% - 134%
vs. Choice Scarf Heatran : 38.1% - 44.6%
Life Orb Salamence Earthquake
vs. Shed Shell Skarmory : 0% - 0%
vs. Choice Scarf Flygon : 0% - 0%
vs. Choice Scarf Jirachi : 79.8% - 94.2%
vs. Leftovers Cresselia : 0% - 0%
vs. Choice Band Weavile : 70.1% - 82.8%
vs. Choice Band Mamoswine : 47.9% - 56.5%
vs. Choice Band Scizor : 42% - 49.6%
vs. Leftovers Suicune : 23.3% - 27.5%
vs. Leftovers Swampert : 27.5% - 32.4%
vs. Life Orb Starmie : 63% - 74.4%
Life Orb Salamence Fire Blast
vs. Shed Shell Skarmory : 100% - 118%
vs. Choice Scarf Flygon : 24.5% - 29.1%
vs. Choice Scarf Jirachi : 68.7% - 80.9%
vs. Leftovers Porygon2 : 34.8% - 40.9%
vs. Leftovers Cresselia : 22.5% - 26.6%
vs. Choice Band Weavile : 98.3% - 116.2%
vs. Choice Band Mamoswine : 104.2% - 123%
vs. Choice Band Scizor : 173.8% - 205.2%
vs. Leftovers Suicune : 13.6% - 16.1%
vs. Leftovers Swampert : 16.8% - 19.8%
vs. Life Orb Starmie : 27.1% - 32.1%
vs. Choice Scarf Heatran : 0% - 0%
vs. Choice Scarf Heatran : 169.7% - 200.6%
After a Dragon Dance
Life Orb Salamence +1 Outrage
vs. Shed Shell Skarmory : 34.4% - 40.7%
vs. Choice Scarf Flygon : 308.6% - 363.6%
vs. Choice Scarf Jirachi : 53.7% - 63.2%
vs. Leftovers Porygon2 : 54.8% - 65% (+0)
vs. Leftovers Cresselia : 55.4% - 65.1%
vs. Choice Band Weavile : 189% - 222.7%
vs. Choice Band Mamoswine : 128.8% - 151.5%
vs. Choice Band Scizor : 56.6% - 66.5%
vs. Leftovers Suicune : 63.1% - 74.3%
vs. Leftovers Swampert : 73.8% - 87.1%
vs. Life Orb Starmie : 169.5% - 199.6%
vs. Choice Scarf Heatran : 56.7% - 66.9%
Life Orb Salamence +1 Earthquake
vs. Shed Shell Skarmory : 0% - 0%
vs. Choice Scarf Flygon : 0% - 0%
vs. Choice Scarf Jirachi : 119.1% - 140.7%
vs. Leftovers Porygon2 : 30.5% - 36.1% (+0)
vs. Leftovers Cresselia : 0% - 0%
vs. Choice Band Weavile : 105.2% - 124.1%
vs. Choice Band Mamoswine : 71.5% - 84.2%
vs. Choice Band Scizor : 62.4% - 74.1%
vs. Leftovers Suicune : 34.9% - 41.3%
vs. Leftovers Swampert : 41.1% - 48.5%
vs. Life Orb Starmie : 94.3% - 111.1%
vs. Choice Scarf Heatran : 252.6% - 298.5%
Salamence (Defensively)
vs. Shed Shell Skarmory Brave Bird : 42.6% - 50.2%
vs. Choice Scarf Flygon Outrage : 118.4% - 140.2%
vs. Choice Scarf Jirachi Iron Head : 39.9% - 47.1%
vs. Leftovers Porygon2 Ice Beam : 120.8% - 142.6%
vs. Leftovers Cresselia Ice Beam : 88.2% - 103.9%
vs. Choice Band Weavile Ice Shard : 135.3% - 160.7%
vs. Choice Band Mamoswine Ice Shard : 142.6% - 170.4%
vs. Choice Band Scizor Bullet Punch : 58.9% - 69.2%
vs. Leftovers Suicune Ice Beam : 101.5% - 119.6%
vs. Leftovers Swampert Ice Beam : 96.7% - 114.8%
vs. Life Orb Starmie Ice Beam : 182.5% - 215.1%
vs. Choice Scarf Heatran Fire Blast : 39.6% - 46.8%
So against the MixMence set it seems your best shot at stopping it is by using a Support Cresselia who can even be KO'd by a Draco Meteor if it has switched into a Fire Blast after taking SR damage twice. However without a speed boost it is more easily revenge killed (which means it killed something already) or can simply switch out (though stealth rock damage is nasty)
DDMence is a little more easily checked, but it is harder to revenge kill. At +1 base 100 scarfers like Jirachi and Flygon have to risk a tie with it which could kill a team who uses them as their sole Salamence check. Porygon2 has an easier time switching into these attacks, and can still recover off the damage and fire off a traced intimidate back at Salamence.
Most everything can be 2HKO'd by BOTH variations of Mence and without carefully playing around a competent opponent WILL do just that. Sorry for all the calcs, just wanted to say that while Salamence's power lies in versatility it is beyond deadly even when you know the set, especially if you switch in to the wrong move.
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
Not quite. Salamence is actually decent in Ubers. After SR damage, a +1 LO DDMence OHKO's/2HKO's Mewtwo, Mew, Rayquaza, Palkia (half the time, given Scarf Palkia's popularity), Darkrai, Kyogre, Dialga, Shaymin-S, Giratina/Gira-O, Ho-oh, and possibly Lugia.
I don't really play on Shoddy, and as such, my input shouldn't really be regarded as reasonable. However, it seems to me as though the players in general don't want to have to sacrifice for a win.
Though I don't agree with the fact that Garchomp was banned (simply because I'm an idiotic biased person who feels that Pokémon who aren't legendaries shouldn't be), it had much more of a reason to ban it than Pokémon like Salamence do. Irritatingly fast with a dangerous set of STAB moves, extraordinarily bulky, an immunity to Sandstorm and a resistance to Stealth Rock, and an Ability that can make a potential kill wasted.
The 4th Generation upped the general level of offense without doing much to counteract it in the way of defense, especially when Platinum came out. Pokémon that once had a good way to stop them are now capable of countering others.
I'll stop my foolish rant now, but it just seems silly to me that something like Salamence will be banned, simply because people want a counter for every single Pokémon.
I agree with the above post. Salamence is predictable. It takes exactly one switch (to Scizor, and since most people are using Scizor anyway, it's not a big deal) to determine how to kill Salamence. You do realize that Scizor's Banded BP + Rocks + LO damage = Salamence is dead.
If the Mence is a mixer, you can still beat it, because, again, it's carrying a LO. That means it takes 10% per attack, + 25% from Rocks. That means you only have to give 65% damage after one Salamence attack. That's manageable.
The problem is everyone wants to 6-0. A win is a win is a win. I'll gladly sacrifice that DNite you came in on in exchange for being able to T-Wave your Mence with my Jirachi, Celebi, or Cresselia. If your a Dancer, then the Draco Meteor that my DNite carries will rape you up when you expect a switch. Again, a win is a win is a win. And winning takes sacrifice. So suck it up.
"It kills at least one pokemon a game" is not a good argument to ban something. 75 other pokemon would have to be banned in this case, and the slippery slope goes into effect. Also, you need six kills to win a game. Actually, you'd have to ban 493 pokemon, because six pokemon average one kill a game in every battle that is won.
"It has no hard counters" doesn't work either. 75 other pokemon. Also, in my experience, salamence gets revenge killed like no other. It gets locked into outrage and then dies, or it uses dm and gets pursuited hard enough for sr to kill it, it uses dd and gets killed by ice shard or bullet punch, etc etc. It should be noted that the team I usually run contains bronzong, weavile, vaporeon and scarf rotom, a combination that is capable of dealing with salamence fairly easily. Scizor has bullet punch and pursuit and resists dragon; weavile has pursuit and a stab priority ice move. "Oh, but you have to sac something to kill it!". Big frickin' deal. I sac stuff all the time. It's part of the game.
"It's too versatile." It's incredibly versatile, but so are 75 other pokemon.
"If you mispredict, you're dead". 75. Other. Pokemon.
That being said, the nature of the suspect test basically prevents the slippery slope from happening. The next garchomp/salamence will be revealed (most likely dragonite, who is even more versatile and arguably more bulky, but doesn't have the offensive stat spread to be as dominant). Anyway, the point is that the suspect test will reveal the next dominant pokemon and the voters will act accordingly.
I'm glad Latias is gone. It wasn't really a problem for me because i use weavile alot, but there is no way to check for soul dew on wifi and people abuse that fact like you wouldn't believe.
I could honestly say the exact same thing about Mewtwo, and I'd have backed it up just as well.
Also, it's kind of humorous how now that we're considering making Salamence a suspect, Dragonite can suddenly do everything Salamence can do just as well. Heck, he can even do more.
@Everyone using "this will lead to banning everything" arguments...
UU. There is an incredible level of versatility there right now, and the opinion of many is that no Pokemon are broken. Sure, many are powerful and annoying, but they can be neutered quite reliably. The best teams don't try to counter everything, but make other teams counter them. Eventually, I am sure that a similar Meta will emerge from OU, and if it doesn't, I'm pretty sure everybody would realise.
Also, congrats if your team is "resistant" to Mence. Your team is one of the MINORITY which can prevent a Mence sweep or rampage. Now look at the MAJORITY which struggles, despite having months to try to adapt.
I agree with the arguments that people are putting Mence first, goal second (which indicates a level of power itself). Salamence is OVERcentralising, IMO. Also agreeing that both of Mence's sets are effective and important. The problem with Agility Luke etc. is that they then fail to do their job effectively, whereas both Mence sets destroy things, another differentiating factor to Infernape, Lucario, etc.
And, importantly I think, it is not a liabilty if put on a team. DDNite just killed a switch-in with Superpower? yay-CRAP a Gyara. Weavile on your team? Congrats! You're giving a free switch-in to 1/3 teams with Scizor on it! Both of Mence's most effective sets threaten significant damage on everything while switching moves, so good luck setting up on it.
The problem with that argument is the rabbit trail we go on when you say that since a majority of teams can not counter it, we should ban it? Should we ban anything a majority of teams can not counter? Of course not. Salamence's broken or not broken state hinges entire on the question of whether he can be effectively countered without building entirely to counter him. And he can be, so therefore he is not broken.
I'm not an incredibly avid battler but from what I've seen Salamence is pretty much the most hard hitting pokemon in the tier.
The stats and typing are one thing, but the movepool is really what breaks it in my opinion. His STAB is only resisted by steel types, and he has not only 2, but all 3 types of attacks that are SE against steel, and is able to run 2 of them easily on a set while still leaving room for a STAB + DD, another STAB, or a recovery move.
The shoddy server statistics show that Salamence runs a Naive nature 43.8% of the time, max speed 74.3% of the time, max attack 30.4% of the time (and between 252 and 200 EVs in attack 20.1% of the time), 17.7% max spa with 21.1% between 252 and 200 EVs.
He also runs HP evs only about 14.7% of the time, defense 6.9% and spdef so low that it shows up as 0%, meaning that he's nearly always an offensive set.
His most common moves are:
EQ 80%
Outrage 60.2%
Dragon Dance 51.6%
Fire Blast 46.9%
Draco Meteor 42.1%
Roost 25.5%
Flamethrower 23.6%
Dragon Claw 20.8%
This means that Salamence is nearly always maxed out on speed, meaning that his scarfed counters only have a 50/50 shot at revenging after a DD.
And the moves tell the whole story.. Mence pretty much always carries a Dragon, fire and ground move with one other (usually DD for setup or DM for hitting on the other side of the spectrum). He also runs roost sometimes, and flamethrower / dragon claw are just the weaker but more reliable versions of fire blast and outrage.
Basically mence isn't really all that unpredictable -- it's about 50% chance of DD, 35% of Mixmence (assuming that 7% of the DM sets are also the specs sets with Hydro Pump which is ran 7% of the time), and 15% of other. The reason people call this "unpredictable" is that the difference between the two sets is actually pretty huge and predicting one over the other can cost you the game if you guess wrong. I'd just say that he's overpowered.
Also to those saying that smogoners have become banhappy -- perhaps you are correct to some degree, but unlike Latias (who was one of Mence's biggest checks), Mence isn't really a check for a lot of sweepers (though intimidate does help). Banning him isn't going to send the metagame spiraling into an overcentralization over a pokemon that he counters. It will most likely balance the metagame out if anything.
Those are just my 2 cents, if you disagree that's fine, but it's not up to me or you, it's going to be up to the council.
I agree with the above post. Salamence is predictable. It takes exactly one switch (to Scizor, and since most people are using Scizor anyway, it's not a big deal) to determine how to kill Salamence. You do realize that Scizor's Banded BP + Rocks + LO damage = Salamence is dead.
If the Mence is a mixer, you can still beat it, because, again, it's carrying a LO. That means it takes 10% per attack, + 25% from Rocks. That means you only have to give 65% damage after one Salamence attack. That's manageable.
Predictable my ass. You literally have a 50/50% chance of your Salamence counter actually *beating* mence.
It's been mentioned Time and time again that Scizor is NOT a good counter. Your plan involves sacrificing Scizor JUST to put Salamence in KO ranges for LO. What if Salamence is a:
I feel the need to respond to this post. Latias was voted OU simply because the Specs set wasn't made standard. I mean think about it. Shortly after Latias was allowed into the OU metagame there wasn't anything really wrong with this pokemon. It had it's counters (Ttar, CBlax, Blissey) It's checks (Scizor + any scarf user) It was your run of the mill top tier OU pokemon. The specs set changed that however.
Back then, when people were running CM sets and what not, a simple switch into Ttar dealt with Latias soundly. Blissey also walled it to hell and back (unless it was the CM Refresh set, but that set lacks healing) Personally, I never had any problems beating Latias when it was the CM sweeper set.
When the Specs set became standard, that's when Latias was overwhelmingly powerful. Suddenly Ttar wasn't a good enough *counter* as Specs Surf 2HKO. (I think that's when scarf Ttar was made for that reason...) That set (in my opinion) broke Latias.
If you don't run blissey then you don't exactly have a safe switch in for any pokemon against one of specs latias moves.
While scizor's get 2hkod by incoming surf / tbolt it's pointless the pokemons just to over powered.
Alright I just thought I'd get my two cents in. I've been looking at this thread all the time and I gotta say that pro-ban has it right.
First off let me say this. Dragonite and Salamence have very distinct qualities about them that unfortionatally makes Salamence a much better choice in several regards. Namely intimidate which dragonite wish it has because Salamence can force most of what it switches into.
The second is more speed to make DDmence a monster to counter. With that 100 base speed it can outspeed even more of the metagame which pretty much forces you to put on a based 100 speed scarf in order to counter. Now I know some people have been saying that a simple ice shard will do away with ddmence but let me ask you a few simple questions. What if its a bulky varient to resist ice shard which it can? What if it attacks instead of dds? What if it switches out? The answers. Bulky varients get up a dd then kill you off. Yes even Focus sash's under stealth rock. (No more weavile boo hoo.) If it chooses to attack first, your in some kinda trouble. Unless the person was stupid in deciding to use outrage in lew of draco meteor, sala will just switch out and your supposed counter will be at sevearly low damage to a ko. If it does the double switch your opponent will know its counter and the team will adjust accordingly. These are a no win situations. From what I can guess the only situation where you can actually win is if the person is stupid enough to stay in on that ice shard and get koed for it cause they think that Salamence is stupidly bulky and takes 0% damage from all ice attacks. It's a freaking mixed mence not a bulky ddnite nimrod.
Next up I've seen people say this a thousand times and originally even I thought that this wasn't true. "Scizor is not a counter to sala." To pretty much anybody who doesn't have some form of knowledge in this aspect Most sala's will be carrying some form of fire move to deal with the scizor that comes against it.
The job of salamence is to kill stuff with the mix mence set which it does almost 100% of the time. That's what pro banners are getting at. The job of ddmence is to set up and sweep which it does very well. It can take out most of the metagame with those two sets alone. Not to mention it has other sets, Intimidate, speed at 100 base and just plain popularity. When Gamefreak knows they made a mistake with a pokemon (Dragonite) and decide its time to make a clone that's better in the most major aspects you can expect they'll do it and do it right. I'm gonna fucking hate them for it but I'm 1 gen to late to hound them with any complaints.
Now then lets get on with the con ban. (I don't know what it's actually called but I think I'm right) I honostly can't agree with you on any of your arguements. You're not baseing your arguments from any fact that apply to the majority of players out there. "My team has never had problems with mence." "My team is designed to play against mence." You're not looking at the big picture here. "My team has never had problems with mence." You people have probably never faced a good mence player before. Everyone lower than 1400 is either not playing at all or is just begining and doesn't know what they're getting into. "My team is designed to play against mence." Are you crazy. You designed your team to go against one pokemon. Not only does that say just how powerful Salamence really is but it also says you suck so much at designing teams it's funny. Just playing against one pokemon successfully doesn't mean your gonna do good in the ladder. In fact it means just the opposite. Other teams are just gonna wipe the floor with you cause you weren't thinking about any other pokes besides salamence. What about the other 9 tops. They're there and they're looking at your team an laughing at the take it down with impunity.
Anyway, I'm just giving my two cents while reiterating again what pro banners have said this entire thread and never seems to get crammed into that walnut you call a head. If I made any mistakes just tell me. I already know I don't have grammer lessons past 8th grade stop telling me this crap.
BTW I don't particularly care if it get's banned or not. I would like it though cause it'd mean my best friend dragonite has the chance it hasn't had sense the 2nd gen games to show its stuff.
if salamence gets banned whats gonna be the next broken pokemon. Gyarados? Tyranitar? Rotom? Scizor? DRAGONITE???
None of them. No pokemon in OU is even close to as deadly as salamence. Its not like when we ban salamence theres gonna be a new pokemon with 130 attack 110 special attack and 100 speed with 2 Stabs over 120 Base Power that hit 16/17 types at least neutral with 2 other supporting moves over 100 Base Power that give it perfect coverage.
Sacrificing a pokemon in order to kill one of theirs does not make their pokemon broken. It's part of the game. No team can counter every offensive threat.
I also think the team you run has a huge effect on your opinion. Like I said earlier, my team has absolutely no problem with salamence, so the "it's dominant" comments are completely lost on me. However, Jirachi has always given my team problems, so i've always wondered when that little shit is going to be banned. The point is that we're all biased, and noone has played a salaless game yet.
Above poster, you don't actually expect people to take you seriously do you? Petty insults and childish name-calling backed up by non-facts aren't going to win you any support.
The problem with that argument is the rabbit trail we go on when you say that since a majority of teams can not counter it, we should ban it? Should we ban anything a majority of teams can not counter? Of course not. Salamence's broken or not broken state hinges entire on the question of whether he can be effectively countered without building entirely to counter him. And he can be, so therefore he is not broken.
Yup, we should. If you still disagree, take it up with Jump, creator of the Uber Characteristics (well one of the creators).
If you build effectively to counter him, you are not playing OU as it has no counters. See Gengar. [/nitpick of word "counter"]
It is impractical to build entirely against checking him, and it is difficult to stop him without doing so despite the Metagame having time to adapt to him. The minority that can check it are usually overspecialised such that they are exposed to other threats.
Also agreeing with KurashiDragon.
@Rai: good for you. Your team is clearly immune to Mence. Your argument is extremely beneficial to the Pro-noBan group. Oh Wait. Seriously, could you go into some more detail about how you have "no problems with Mence", while not being weak to other threats?
Battle logs might be nice, but they didn't do much when they were used in the UU RD discussion so.
@Chomper the Sharptooth
Impressive list, but there's 1 small error under DD LO Salamence Fire Blast (Heatran is listed twice, the latter of which has a very high % )
@Chomper the Sharptooth
Impressive list, but there's 1 small error under DD LO Salamence Fire Blast (Heatran is listed twice, the latter of which has a very high % )
Sorry about that, I tried to finish all of it in one period, I'm not actually sure what that percentage was for, and I noticed that I forgot to put Porygon2's damage from -1 attacks (which I'll fix eventually). XD
As of right now I am very pro banning of Salamence. The arguements against him seem to be strong while most of what I see for anti banning is slippery slope and 'better metagame with him'. I won't say anything for certain until the suspect ladder opens up but my initial feelings are very por ban.
You guys do realize that anything with Sp. Def invested counters Gengar because it can only really fire off its weak 80 BP Shadow Balls, right? As a matter of fact, I've been using Shadow Ball Blissey as of late to make sure Gengar has absolutely no chance of screwing with my team. And guess what? 100% counter. You can't even compare that shit to Mence.
The only way you're getting screwed by Gengar is if your offensive core is, quite literally, Infernape/Mence/Lucario. If you don't run any special walls with a move that actually hits him (Bliss with just Seismic Toss is more of a liability these days, people), it's your fault and you don't get to claim Gengar "doesn't have any solid counters".
Sacrificing a pokemon in order to kill one of theirs does not make their pokemon broken. It's part of the game. No team can counter every offensive threat.
I also think the team you run has a huge effect on your opinion. Like I said earlier, my team has absolutely no problem with salamence, so the "it's dominant" comments are completely lost on me. However, Jirachi has always given my team problems, so i've always wondered when that little shit is going to be banned. The point is that we're all biased, and noone has played a salaless game yet.
The point is that, there is NO SAFE SWITCH IN. All its supposed counters are 2HKO'd by some combination of its attacks. Its not about revenge killing or not, yes that is part of the game, and no not every team can counter every offensive threat. However, when the only way to kill a pokemon is by revenge killing shouldn't that ring a bell saying "something is up".
Jirachi is completely different than Salamence. It doesn't have near the power, has no way to outpace its threats aside from running a scarf set or getting a baton pass. Its choice sets are easily countered by the common choice pokemon. Yes Jirachi is annoying, but its counters and checks are so plentiful its not uber material by a longshot.
You guys do realize that anything with Sp. Def invested counters Gengar because it can only really fire off its weak 80 BP Shadow Balls, right? As a matter of fact, I've been using Shadow Ball Blissey as of late to make sure Gengar has absolutely no chance of screwing with my team. And guess what? 100% counter. You can't even compare that shit to Mence.
