The First Smogon Council - Salamence

[squishynz]

I see many people upset over the frequent use of Ape, Dragonite, Flygon and Lucario.

Can i throw something into the pot here? Agility + Petaya / Agility + 3 attacks Empoleon. I Haven't run any calcs on how much it can take. But assuming you can get an agi up you can sweep quite well with hydro pump and ice beam.

 

[Korali]

I see many people upset over the frequent use of Ape, Dragonite, Flygon and Lucario.

Can i throw something into the pot here? Agility + Petaya / Agility + 3 attacks Empoleon. I Haven't run any calcs on how much it can take. But assuming you can get an agi up you can sweep quite well with hydro pump and ice beam.

Surf is a more reliable choice on SubPetaya Empoleon. Whilst Hydro Pump can 1HKO the bulkier Pokemon, the innaccuracy is something you need to think about. One missed move and your sweep is all over.

 

[squishynz]

It seems like a potential time for the penguin to really step into the game now. Sure it's no powerhouse but has all the coverage it needs and speed (in the form of agility) to be quite a threat in this metagame. Going to make a team around him sometime this week and see

 

[JakeS]

I really didn't want to be the "slippery slope" guy, but if Salamence is Uber then we're going to be asked to do suspect tests for Dragonite(just a slower Salamence) or Machamp(Payback kills Rotom, Rest takes care of the Burn, troll everything else) or something else nothing can seem to counter safely. Hell, Rotom-a could 2HKO me with its great type coverage, Trick me, or Burn me, and if I guess wrong one of my Pokemon becomes crippled, making me vulnerable to another sweeper or losing one of my major attackers... sounds pretty annoying, doesn't it?

If we are really going to say that "it's unacceptable to have Pokemon with only checks and 50% counters but not have 100% safe counters that can come in all day", even though we've accepted that "countering is an outdated term" for a while now, then we're going to have many more suspects. Why not just let things be...

This.

Mence is good. Damn good. But there's no sense in banning it because it has no specific "counters," only checks. It's unpredictable, but it can still be dealt with. That's part of what makes the current OU metagame fun for me, that ever present wonder of whether or not Mence will be packed on the opponent's team.

Salamence makes OU more fun and more stable. Its wall-breaking and sweeping capabilities prevent stall from dominating and allow for a heavier offensive core, an attribute that is much appreciated considering stall is the more popular choice of gameplay.

 

[Sphyxius]

Has anyone considered the fact that Salamence can actually function in the uber tier pretty well? I dunno if anyone on here ever does any uber laddering, but I do and I never see Dragonites, but I see Salamences sometimes.

 

[JonTheRed]

Has anyone considered the fact that Salamence can actually function in the uber tier pretty well? I dunno if anyone on here ever does any uber laddering, but I do and I never see Dragonites, but I see Salamences sometimes.

It's power in OU, not power in Ubers, that determines Uber status.

 

[ungulateman]

Seeing as I now have personal experience with actually playing competitive Pokemon, I'm going to give my contribution.

Salamence is not the unbeatable behmoth people make it out to be. While I have seen few DDmences, the many Mixmences I have faced either lock themselves into an Outrage and get revenge killed by my Flygon (just about any Dragon with a Scarf can revenge kill Mixmence) or switch in on my Gyarados and die from Stone Edge. DDmence is only threatening to me if I don't have SR and it beats the speed tie with my Flygon (which is +Spe, so Adamant Mence can't sweep my team unless Flygon is down). Does it guarantee a KO? No, although I will often use a weakened Pokemon as death fodder so Flygon can come in safely.

The only dangerous Mence set for me is one I faced which relied on Vaporeon to pass it Aqua Ring and Acid Armor boosts, and that is not exactly a common threat. I'm more worried about Breloom than any Mence set.

 

[TheValkyries]

However, I find the comparison between Salamence and the queen in chess very interesting. The queen has no "counters" in the sense in which we're using the word. Only the knight can threaten the queen without putting itself directly in her firing range. The queen is thus a very big deal at face value. However, the queen is not broken. In fact, the queen serves to help in clearing up the board before pieces get too locked up. Additionally, basic defenses against the queen are readily available; pawn walls are effective even against the queen, limiting her safe options. The queen adds to the competitive depth of the game. Now, it is definitely arguable whether Salamence achieves the same role, but nonetheless, if Salamence is broken, it's not just because the opponent automatically risks losing a Pokémon to it.

Indeed, comparing Salamence to a Queen in chess is an adequate comparison, and the same comparison can be made to other powerful pokemon (SD Lucario, Tyranitar, AgiliGross, etc). But here's the problem. Putting a Salamence onto the field is like turning one of your pawns into a second Queen. You force the opponent to make a decision on which Queen they must worry about. If they choose wrong, the other queen will decimate them. No other "Queen" in this metagame can say that.

 

[Efemera]

I really didn't want to be the "slippery slope" guy, but if Salamence is Uber then we're going to be asked to do suspect tests for Dragonite(just a slower Salamence, and still faster than every wall, with some useful extra moves like Superpower, Thunderbolt, and Extremespeed) or Machamp(Payback kills Rotom, Rest takes care of the Burn, trolls everything else with 100% confusion and solid power, while healing repeatedly) or something else nothing can seem to counter safely. Hell, Rotom-a could 2HKO me with its great type coverage, Trick me, or Burn me, and if I guess wrong one of my Pokemon becomes crippled, making me vulnerable to another sweeper or losing one of my major attackers... sounds pretty annoying, doesn't it?

If we are really going to say that "it's unacceptable to have Pokemon with only checks and 50% counters but not have 100% safe counters that can come in all day", even though we've accepted that "countering is an outdated term" for a while now, then we're going to have many more suspects. Why not just let things be...

PS: It was pretty funny when I heard that Salamence ruins Stall this generation. Ever watched a top-of-the-ladder battle...

A terrible argument. If we have to keep banning Pokemon, then Pokemon is a bad competitive game. I don't think that's the case. So far, I haven't seen one "the Next Salamence" nomination that is nearly as effective as Salamence. There have been PAGES of discussion about why Salamence is FAR more dangerous than Dragonite. Machamp? What the fuck is so dangerous about Machamp? It has few hard counters but it's easy to check because it can't outspeed a stationary object and is only modestly bulky. Rotom-A? Tyranitar destroys it. Umbreon doesn't mind anything but Trick, reflects status back on Rotom, and/or takes it out with Payback. Rotom-A only has 105 SpA and isn't 2hkoing anything significantly defensive. None of the Pokemon can do even close to what Salamence can, even in the absence of Salamence. Try again.

 

[remlabmez]

A terrible argument. If we have to keep banning Pokemon, then Pokemon is a bad competitive game. I don't think that's the case. So far, I haven't seen one "the Next Salamence" nomination that is nearly as effective as Salamence. There have been PAGES of discussion about why Salamence is FAR more dangerous than Dragonite. Machamp? What the fuck is so dangerous about Machamp? It has few hard counters but it's easy to check because it can't outspeed a stationary object and is only modestly bulky. Rotom-A? Tyranitar destroys it. Umbreon doesn't mind anything but Trick, reflects status back on Rotom, and/or takes it out with Payback. Rotom-A only has 105 SpA and isn't 2hkoing anything significantly defensive. None of the Pokemon can do even close to what Salamence can, even in the absence of Salamence. Try again.

Meh tbh, pokemon isnt a good competitive game in the first place, a little off topic I know, but too much of a luck factor for me to ever take it as a serious competitive game, and we dont know the next big sweeper people are going to cry about if mence gets banned, only time can tell that....plus 5th gen on the horizon anyways

 

[Flashstorm1]

In addition to what Rem said, I personally find a metagame without Salamence a lot more fun than one which includes it. Who the hell wants to constantly worry about a Pokemon that can 2hko, at worst, pretty much everything with near perfect coverage?

 

[Aquamentus]

Don't get me wrong, I hope we don't have to start banning this that and the other thing too, and I wouldn't suggest those Pokemon are broken, as their large speed/power differences make them less of an immediate threat. I'm just saying, someone else (read: randoms) might based on what we've said about Salamence and lack of counters. As usual, no one pays attention to me until I say something they can pick apart and say is stupid, which is why I have to post so carefully around here... my point was that those Pokemon do not have hard counters in OU either, despite lacking speed/power. For example, Rotom could burn your Tyranitar just as easily as Salamence could Earthquake/Fire Blast your incoming Steel. Unless Tyranitar is coming in after something fainted... Meanwhile, Machamp doesn't have counters that people actually use in OU (stall teams with Spiritomb I guess...), but can they deal with it anyway, which was my point; we deal with Pokemon without hard counters all the time. Albeit, not powerful and fairly fast Pokemon without hard counters that have Dragon Dance. Apparently one guaranteed KO/crippling is a big deal if Salamence is responsible for it.

I didn't say those guys were comparable to Salamence, do you guys need to immediately attack me when I actually agree with you anyway? So predatory, I swear...


I don't really feel super-strongly either way on Salamence's tiering. If anything, I'm annoyed that we have to choose which half of Smogon to piss off.

 

[kokoloko]

People really have to stop comparing Salamence to other pokemon, there is no comparison to be made. Dragonite? slow as shit. Machamp? Although I do believe the game would be much, much better off without people relying on confusion, he comes nowhere near Salamence in terms of how dangerous he is. Someone mentioned Rotom-A, you gotta be fucking kidding me. How can you even compare Rotom-fucking-A to motherfucking Salamence?

And I don't know who compared Salamence to the Queen, in chess, but that is probably one of the worse analogies you can make. Pokemon can never, ever, EVER, be compared to chess - they are two completely different games. Chess is a game of perfect information while Pokemon is not. When you see the Queen you know what it can do and you can prepare for it easily by setting up traps and/or obstacles. When you see Salamence you have no fucking clue what it's going to do. Go ahead, take a guess and be wrong 50% of the time. Its not fun to have to tiptoe around the fucker every single time you see him; what makes it worse is that even if you take every precaution in the world, you're still going to lose a pokemon - no matter what. No other pokemon in the game can do that and that's an indisputable fact.

 

[shrang]

I am really annoyed at all this "50% getting the right prediction crap". While yes, in theory and moveset, you have 50% of switching in the right Pokemon (Even though stuff like Skarm has 75% chance of a correct switch-in), in practice, it doesn't work that way. I think it was SubVersion who was saying "learn to predict" earlier. Let's have a few example. You just killed Scizor with your Choice Scarf Magnezone (Your opponent is made obvious to this) with HP Fire. In comes Salamence. Now, would you switch to Swampert to get nailed by Draco Meteor here?? No. You know that with a very great possibility that Mence is going to fire off Draco Meteor or Dragon Dance here, since your opponent knows you can't do crap to it. So why on Earth would we be spamming Fire Blast or Earthquake. In that kind of situation, you know what its going to use. So why not switch in, say Jirachi?? Another situation. You have a 50% Choice Banded Metagross (Just want to make sure its OHKOable) in, and you just killed something with Meteor Mash, and got an Attack boost (Kind of irrelevant, I just want to make sure Mence is going to die), and in comes Mence. What do you think it would do?? Unless your opponent is either i) An idiot or ii) Taking a massive risk, he would use Earthquake or Fire Blast, because he would die to Meteor Mash if he predicts incorrectly. The pressure is on the Mence user here, not you. So what do you do?? Switch to Suicune, or Swampert or whatever.

These are just some theorymon'd examples, I know, but illustrates that the person using Salamence has to predict equally as much you to try and win. Mence does not ease prediction or make the game any cheaper than without it.

 

[kokoloko]

Let's have a few example. You just killed Scizor with your Choice Scarf Magnezone (Your opponent is made obvious to this) with HP Fire. In comes Salamence. Now, would you switch to Swampert to get nailed by Draco Meteor here?? No. You know that with a very great possibility that Mence is going to fire off Draco Meteor or Dragon Dance here, since your opponent knows you can't do crap to it. So why on Earth would we be spamming Fire Blast or Earthquake. In that kind of situation, you know what its going to use. So why not switch in, say Jirachi??

Sure I'll switch in Jirachi and have a 50% chance of taking a DD LO Earthquake to the face and die. You're proving my point here - I guarantee you can't think up even one 100% safe switch-in in your own scenario. Besides maybe Cresselia who probably had gotten owned by the Scizor you just killed with Magnezone.

Another situation. You have a 50% Choice Banded Metagross (Just want to make sure its OHKOable) in, and you just killed something with Meteor Mash, and got an Attack boost (Kind of irrelevant, I just want to make sure Mence is going to die), and in comes Mence. What do you think it would do?? Unless your opponent is either i) An idiot or ii) Taking a massive risk, he would use Earthquake or Fire Blast, because he would die to Meteor Mash if he predicts incorrectly. The pressure is on the Mence user here, not you. So what do you do?? Switch to Suicune, or Swampert or whatever.

Okay, switch those guys in to take the first hit, live, then take a Draco Meteor to the head and die.

In both scenarios you gave, you end up losing. You're proving my point.

Try again, but don't get your hopes up - Salamence has no safe switch-ins.

 

[Hcapt]

I found a guide to bans that most video game communities use.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html

 

[Aquamentus]

Salamence has no safe switch-ins.

Haven't we already established that it has no 100% safe switch-ins? That's not a quality unique to Salamence (though it is probably the best of that group) and it doesn't mean it's unstoppable either. That's what I just tried to point out earlier. If anything, you backed me up on that point by saying Machamp isn't a serious threat despite not having OU counters, only checks and things that outspeed it. Apparently that's good enough if the Pokemon in question is slow.

 

[shrang]

Sure I'll switch in Jirachi and have a 50% chance of taking a DD LO Earthquake to the face and die. You're proving my point here - I guarantee you can't think up even one 100% safe switch-in in your own scenario. Besides maybe Cresselia who probably had gotten owned by the Scizor you just killed with Magnezone.

And why, if I see Jirachi would I let Jirachi die to EQ?? Why don't I switch to Swampert to take the EQ, then go to Magnezone on the Outrage and cripple the hell out of Salamence?? I would be happily sacrifice Magnezone to kill Mence.

Okay, switch those guys in to take the first hit, live, then take a Draco Meteor to the head and die.

In both scenarios you gave, you end up losing. You're proving my point.

Try again, but don't get your hopes up - Salamence has no safe switch-ins.

Again, why would I let Suicune or Swampert take Draco Meteor (And Suicune can also survive an EQ and Draco Meteor), and I go back to Metagross, sac it while Mence loses 16% and then go to like ScarfTar or something?? You can say "Well I can predict that and go Fire Blast right??" Well, that prove my point of Mence user is not free of prediction, it needs to predict just as much as any other Pokemon.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

Hey guys can we cut the circumstantial bullshit. Also I'd just like to note the simple fact that these kind of insane prediction (guessing) wars are necessary every time mence makes its first entrance into the game should say something in and of itself. Let's not get into "well i'd do this and they'd do this" since it gets us nowhere.

 

[kokoloko]

Haven't we already established that it has no 100% safe switch-ins? That's not a quality unique to Salamence (though it is probably the best of that group) and it doesn't mean it's unstoppable either. That's what I just tried to point out earlier. If anything, you backed me up on that point by saying Machamp isn't a serious threat despite not having OU counters, only checks and things that outspeed it. Apparently that's good enough if the Pokemon in question is slow.

I didn't say Machamp had no OU counters. And I never said he isn't a serious threat, I hate the fucker, and any dumbass who relies on confusion, with a passion.

The problem is that it actually is a quality unique to Salamence. Rotom-A has Heatran who will always beat it (bar the wash form, I'll give you that). Switching Tyranitar directly into it has always been considered reckless and stupid, considering Will-O-Wisp is seen extremely commonly on Rotom-A. Machamp actually does have safe "OU" switch-ins - Celebi is one of them. You only have a 50% chance of hitting yourself on the first turn, every subsequent turn you have less of a chance since you can snap out of it and Recover in its face and/or set up a Reflect. Besides playing around Machamp is a hell of a lot easier than playing around Mence.

And why, if I see Jirachi would I let Jirachi die to EQ?? Why don't I switch to Swampert to take the EQ, then go to Magnezone on the Outrage and cripple the hell out of Salamence?? I would be happily sacrifice Magnezone to kill Mence.

By then, I've done my job, I damaged Swampert, killed Magnezone and revelaled Jirachi. You're proving my point - you have to sacrifice something to Salamence everytime you see it - always.

Again, why would I let Suicune or Swampert take Draco Meteor (And Suicune can also survive an EQ and Draco Meteor), and I go back to Metagross, sac it while Mence loses 16% and then go to like ScarfTar or something?? You can say "Well I can predict that and go Fire Blast right??" Well, that prove my point of Mence user is not free of prediction, it needs to predict just as much as any other Pokemon.

Offensive Suicune can't even survive Fire Blast + Draco Meteor from Classic MixMence while Crocune has a slight chance of getting KO'd by EQ + Draco Meteor after SR. Besides, in this scenario you're once again sacrificing something to Salamence.

This is exactly my point, it doesnt matter what you do, you have to always lose a pokemon to him, and that's just not right. Yeah, sacrifice is part of the game - problem is, forced sacrifice shouldn't be. If your team is underprepared for other threats thats your fault, the thing with Mence is, you can't even prepare - even if you have a full team at 100% each, Mence will do a number on it.

Hey guys can we cut the circumstantial bullshit. Also I'd just like to note the simple fact that these kind of insane prediction (guessing) wars are necessary every time mence makes its first entrance into the game should say something in and of itself. Let's not get into "well i'd do this and they'd do this" since it gets us nowhere.

This is exactly my point.

 

[LunaOrangeCrush]

Salamence's true power isn't due to any single set but because of his versitility. Switching a Swampert or Scarf user in on the Dragon Dance can send Salamence running, but what if he uses Draco Meteor instead? Now you're down one Pokemon and might lose even more if you don't have anything that can absorb Draco Meteor. Alternatively, if you switch a Blissey or something in to take a Draco Meteor, Salamence might Dragon Dance instead and start tearing up your team.

Granted Salamence can be outpredicted 50% of the time, the other 50% he is bringing one or more Pokemon with him guaranteed. And even if you do predict correctly, Salamence just has to switch out and come back in when its counter is out of the way. The residual damage sucks, but Mence will still have enough health to take someone with him when used by a smart player.

Overall, I see Salamence as being too big of a threat, to the point where the metagame is centralizing towards Salamence, its teammates, and its checks/counters. Mence should go to Ubers so we can obtain a much more balanced metagame (and so my Swampert doesn't have to eat as many Draco Meteors :naughty:).

 

[Ericcc]

My old OU team didn't have much problems with Salamence. No, I didn't have to "sacrifice" anything usually because it lost 31.25% of its HP due to SR and Sandstorm every time it switched in. Swampert could survive a Draco Meteor (usually) or an Outrage on the switch in (I ran Dual Screens), then proceed to OHKO with Ice Beam.

But honestly, from all the opinions of people on this thread, I think I can safely say that Salamence will be joining the Uber tier very soon.
But who even cares? Gen 5 is coming out in September in Japan, so the tiers are going to have to be thought through again, and who knows, they might come out with "The Perfect Salamence Counter", like a Steel/Flying type with Flash Fire (I know this will never happen, just hypothetically). I say just stop arguing about it and put Mence into Ubers so people could see what the metagame is like without him, just for a change. I mean, we only have about three months until September, so I say to hell with it all, and put Mence in Ubers for the fun of it.

Phew.

 

[SJCrew]

Eric, again, no one cares if you overprepare for Salamence. >_> And something I find funny about that scenario is that a while ago (and just now) I did the calcs on a Brick Break into Draco Meteor - an almost guaranteed KO. Classic Mixmence fucks up your screens and kills your Swampert, leaving you nothing to show for your 3-turn setup.

But I digress. New Mixmence is more the culprit than anything, though I wouldn't really put that caliber of devastation past any variant.

 

[Anachronism]

More importantly than there being no counters to both the DD and Mixed sets is that there aren't any real counters to either. Both sets have that same Fire/Ground/Dragon type coverage that threatens everything in the game with a 2hko. Rotom may have something that can hurt nearly everything, but it isn't nearly as threatening. You don't have to worry about your Blissey or Tyranitar being 2hkod by Rotom, do you? You don't have to worry about your Machamp or Hitmontop or whatever being 2hkod by Tyranitar. Gengar and Lucario are the only remotely comparable pokemon in Standard to Salamence in that they both have multiple viable sets, excellent type coverage, and good resists. However, Lucario and Gengar are both much more frail and they have other issues to worry about, like having to use Focus Blast or Ice Punch/Stone Edge for coverage purposes or having a Pursuit weakness. Both of them have solid counters to what would in a vacuum be the best set (Gliscor/Salamence [lol] and Blissey/Scizor), and so they are forced to adapt to beat these natural counters. Mence has none of these problems. The only paper counter is Cresselia, which is terrible in the current metagame due to the lack of solid recovery in sand. Mence may have Stealth Rock to worry about (while the other two are essentially immune to one type of hazard), but Mence also has not one, but 2 reliable healing moves to compensate (yes, I suppose Wish is viable) while Lucario has nothing but rest and Gengar has the unreliable (though still good) Pain Split. For what it is worth Mence also doesn't take spikes damage unlike Lucario. For these reasons Salamence is offensively in a class of its own.

Another thing that differentiates Mence from the other 2 on the "Big 3" list is that it actually counters things. As has been mentioned, Mence ironically is one of the better Lucario counters available, while Lucario can only help revenge kill and Gengar has to hope that it has Switched in on the correct attack or it just dies (and Lucario is the only Offensive threat it has any real ability to counter on 3/4 moves), and even then it relies on shitty Focus Blast.

The Offensive and Defensive characteristics are too intangible and vague. We don't have a way to reliably define what constitutes enough of a portion of the metagame and how much damage it will do in a match. We don't have the correct statistics to reliably use them to decide quantitatively if a pokemon is Uber. I believe that we need an "Average Damage per match" statistic before these characteristics are of any value at all.

So, where does this leave us? We are forced to test a metagame without Mence to determine if the metagame is better off without him. It is very difficult to deny that Mence nearly always deserved a spot over other sweepers on Offense (I would say to a greater extent than Skarmory or Blissey on stall.) While it has helped make the metagame less stallish than it would normally, it also severely limits Offensive teams. When building offense it is rather obvious that Salamence is an excellent sweeper that also patches up any Lucario problems a team might have. When Mence is given a slot the team nearly builds itself afterwards. So, we have to ask ourselves, what is better? A metagame with more boring offense or a metagame with more stall and more varied offense? Honestly I think that I would enjoy the second metagame, because the power of Mence has caused people to become strategically lazy. People just throw a Mence onto a team and write off the stall matchup instead of taking the time to build a team that has real synergy. Now, I suppose that the same could be said about Breloom, Gengar, Lucario, Infernape, etc. regarding the stall matchup, but the differences between these pokemon and Mence have already been noted.

The best option is to ban Mence and once again reward good players for making good teams not just in tournaments but also on the ladder.

EDIT: Infernape probably deserves a spot in that top tier with Latias gone. Forgive my exclusion.

 

[SubVersion]

Hey guys can we cut the circumstantial bullshit. Also I'd just like to note the simple fact that these kind of insane prediction (guessing) wars are necessary every time mence makes its first entrance into the game should say something in and of itself. Let's not get into "well i'd do this and they'd do this" since it gets us nowhere.

I agree that the back-and-forth theorymonning isn't the best way to phrase this particular argument, but the point is a valid one: The Pokemon that Salamence switches in on tells you quite a lot about what it can do. You can determine if it can afford to set up against you or if it has to go straight for the kill, you can narrow down its most likely move choices, you can weigh up the threat of a DD and choose to safeguard yourself against it if necessary. Even the stage of the battle in which Salamence appears can often indicate its set. Hell, if all else fails just assume that it's a DDMence and you'll be right most of the time. You'll never be making a blind switch, and Salamence will almost never have the freedom to use a truly random, unpredictable move.

I think a lot of people forget that both of the common sets pack moves of exactly the same attacking types - Dragon, Ground and Fire. You might not be able to switch in a Pokemon that can take every move on both sets, but since Salamence can only use one move at a time - and is killing itself in the process - you really don't have to.

(And for what it's worth, Jabba, I find it really disingenuous that you're not only equating an educated guess (a prediction) with just "a guess" as though there is no difference at all between a near-certainty and a complete shot in the dark, but also implying that a Pokemon's ability to reliably force predictions "say something in and of itself" about that Pokemon's brokenness - as though prediction isn't fundamentally important to the health of every competitive game ever played.)