The First Smogon Council - Salamence

[baboon 101]

Is it just me, or does everyone from the pro-uber side seem to think that everyone who uses Mixmence chooses their move through a random number generator?

"Is he going to use earthquake or draco meteor here? What about flamethrower?"

The implication that is always made here is that prediction is impossible on the part of the person on the other end of a Salamence attack. The fact that Salamence has perfect type coverage does not make him an Uber, to demonstrate this point, I will compare him to another Pokemon that is not being considered for Uberhood.

The thing is, you have access to more information about your team than your opponent does, and if you take into account the limited information that your opponent has, prediction with a Salamence works just like any other Pokemon.

Of course it's hard to switch in without taking damage, but the same could be said about Gengar. Just like Salamence, he has the ability to 2HKO everything in the metagame, and just like Salamence, he can be hard to switch into for this reason.

Between Gengar's Shadow Ball and Focus blast, nothing in the game resists Gengar's moves, factor in his explosion, and even Blissey has a chance to be OHKOed depending on her build.

Nothing can switch in on Gengar and hope to survive 2 of his hits if they come in on the wrong move. But switching can be made safe because people can (and do) predict what move Gengar will use. If you predict a focus blast, you can switch in your own Ghost. If you predict a Shadow ball, you can switch in a Blissey or a Steel-Type.

Of course, just like with Salamence, your opponent can predict your prediction and you will sometimes find your Gengar counter dead.

And sometimes you have no remaining pokemon that will take the predicted move twice, and you must sacrafice the pokemon you have out in order to successfully counter Gengar. The fact that you must do this from time to time does not make Gengar an Uber, and it doesn't make Salamence an Uber either.

In the same way as not much can take 2 shadow balls, 2 focus blasts, or an explosion from gengar, not much can take 2 Draco Meteors, 2 Fire Blasts, or a DD outrage from a Salamence.

The fact that a Pokemon occasionally forces Sacrafices or can be hard to predict does not make them Uber.

 

[Shizzle]

@baboon101, you can't exactly include explosion for gengar, I mean its killing the user >.>

Also Gengar is a pure special sweeper, and cannot use any other physical attack well other than explosion. This means that it can be walled rather well by many pokemon, of course depending on the set, and his sets are fairly obvious from the get go. I will name the obvious counter, Blissey, but then you also have others like the less viable Umbreon and whatnot, the thing is, Focus Blast has 70 accuracy, and to be honest is a terrible move in that respect. Then lets look at his mediocre defenses, 60 HP / 60 Def / 75 SpD, even further lowered by -Def or SpD nature if you are using Explosion. Gengar cannot take any neutral hit while carrying Life Orb, 1 neutral hit + SR + LO recoil is nearly always the end of gengar.

Gengar =/= Salamence by a LONG SHOT. Should I also mention that Salamence can reach higher Atk than Gengar can SpA, as well as Salamence having an extremely usable 110 SpA..

 

[remlabmez]

@baboon101, you can't exactly include explosion for gengar, I mean its killing the user >.>

Also Gengar is a pure special sweeper, and cannot use any other physical attack well other than explosion. This means that it can be walled rather well by many pokemon, of course depending on the set, and his sets are fairly obvious from the get go. I will name the obvious counter, Blissey, but then you also have others like the less viable Umbreon and whatnot, the thing is, Focus Blast has 70 accuracy, and to be honest is a terrible move in that respect. Then lets look at his mediocre defenses, 60 HP / 60 Def / 75 SpD, even further lowered by -Def or SpD nature if you are using Explosion. Gengar cannot take any neutral hit while carrying Life Orb, 1 neutral hit + SR + LO recoil is nearly always the end of gengar.

Gengar =/= Salamence by a LONG SHOT. Should I also mention that Salamence can reach higher Atk than Gengar can SpA, as well as Salamence having an extremely usable 110 SpA..

wrong, blissey doesnt counter sub pain split gengar, and dont tell me this pokemon isnt common, I actually like the gengar comparison to mence, it makes sense to me from experience in battling. Whenever gengar comes in on my celebi I always have to sac it because I dont want gengar getting a sub up because its a bitch to switch into. I have also been a victim of a my ttar dying to focus blast on switching in.

Though gengar isnt as good as mence, I can see what the point being made is.

 

[shrang]

I see a lot of people are still taking a very theoretical point of view when debating this topic, like "Salamence has 135 Atk, 110 SpA, Draco Meteor and Outrage, and so therefore he can 2HKO every Pokemon in the metagame." However, you should actually take Salamence out and play with it and find it's actually not as easy as it seems on paper. You will see that Mence vs Gengar or Mence vs Infernape and Mence vs Nite arguments aren't actually moot, because if you actually try playing with Mence, or play against it, it isn't much different. I've mentioned it before, CB Scizor has swept my team more times than DD Mence, while it isn't much scarier facing off against a Salamence than facing off against a Gengar, for example.

PS Communism works in theory - Don't take this literally and actually compare Mence to communism, but I think the point is clear - Theoretical Mence =/= Mence in practice

 

[Shizzle]

wrong, blissey doesnt counter sub pain split gengar, and dont tell me this pokemon isnt common, I actually like the gengar comparison to mence, it makes sense to me from experience in battling. Whenever gengar comes in on my celebi I always have to sac it because I dont want gengar getting a sub up because its a bitch to switch into. I have also been a victim of a my ttar dying to focus blast on switching in.

Though gengar isnt as good as mence, I can see what the point being made is.

I beg to differ. Any half decent person using Blissey will know exactly what type of Gengar it is after it uses a Sub/Attacks. Its blatantly obvious when Gengar is going to use Pain Split, and Blissey being slower, can easily just use Softboiled while Gengar does this. Not to mention Blissey can switch out >.>, knowing exactly what move Gengar is going to use..

EDIT:shrang, if you are getting swept by CB Scizor, something is definitely wrong with your team, unless the sweep was set up properly, Scizor is easily walled by any half decent pokemon which resists its primary STAB Bullet Punch, including Zapdos, Heatran, Jirachi, Gyarados and many many more, there is a long list of pokemon that can counter Scizor..

 

[shrang]

No there's nothing wrong with my team and I know what counters CB Scizor. It's just, you know when all your Pokemon have been taken to about 20% he can pretty much just pick them all off. It still remains that Scizor has swept me more than Mence, even though it's not "Scizor comes out, I lose".

EDIT: Oh,

I beg to differ. Any half decent person using Blissey will know exactly what type of Gengar it is after it uses a Sub/Attacks. Its blatantly obvious when Gengar is going to use Pain Split, and Blissey being slower, can easily just use Softboiled while Gengar does this. Not to mention Blissey can switch out >.>, knowing exactly what move Gengar is going to use..

You do realise if Blissey has switched out, technically Gengar won right?? Pain Split also has more PP than Softboiled, so Blissey would lose eventually.

 

[remlabmez]

I beg to differ. Any half decent person using Blissey will know exactly what type of Gengar it is after it uses a Sub/Attacks. Its blatantly obvious when Gengar is going to use Pain Split, and Blissey being slower, can easily just use Softboiled while Gengar does this. Not to mention Blissey can switch out >.>, knowing exactly what move Gengar is going to use..

EDIT:shrang, if you are getting swept by CB Scizor, something is definitely wrong with your team, unless the sweep was set up properly, Scizor is easily walled by any half decent pokemon which resists its primary STAB Bullet Punch, including Zapdos, Heatran, Jirachi, Gyarados and many many more, there is a long list of pokemon that can counter Scizor..

blissey switching out of gengar means its no longer a counter, that leaves you with 5 other pokemon to choose from that are common in the OU metagame to counter it now..yeah we can play theorymon all day but I'm not

lolz i missed the part where you said its obvious what the gengar is when it subs, no its not..its either running explosion/pain split/hp fire / whatever the hell it wants, I don't know about you but I dont like saccing a pokemon like scizor just to find out its set, because I never use blissey on any of my teams (omg battling experience? and not theorymon wtf?????)

Also when people post about mence and stuff can people use this format from now on?

Suspect name: phil LIKES MEN - top 50 on leaderboard(also someone else using the team im using is higher than me on LB), I have some clue what im talking about

 

[Shizzle]

Then as I did say, that doesn't exactly apply to you. Anything with priority moves could, not to mention SR bringing them down even further.

@remlabmez, not all generic counters can counter every set....Blissey doesn't need to switch out, its just its a complete stalemate if it doesn't >.> And it can still easily switch into any of its moves regardless, Blissey is still a counter, the only argument around this is the SubPunching set, and don't try your luck with that either.

 

[Heartgold]

What the fuck is it with all these numbers, 'oh salamence can reach 405 attacks, 350 special attack'

Nice lets ban pokemon like slaking, T-tar, metagross. Numbers mean jack shit! How does mence impact the metagame, what changes are we seeing without it and is mence too powerful for OU?

I do not believe mence is uber,It doesn't sweep with ease and nor does it lasts that long in a field considering all the factors on the battle ground, alright it may punch holes through a team speaking of mixmence , so can infernape,lucario, gengar etc.. and allow others to sweep with ease after.
I still believe SR is the what hampers mence, If you force it to switch or if it predicts you wrongly, its runs into another 25% SR along with SS running and LO recoil on top. It's no garchomp where it can kill something, ahh switch out and come back in and kill another without its health chipping fast and no priority move to stop and taking on a bulky water/any other pokemon one v one not fearing icebeam whatsoever.

 

[Shizzle]

What the fuck is it with all these numbers, 'oh salamence can reach 405 attacks, 350 special attack'

Nice lets ban pokemon like slaking, T-tar, metagross. Numbers mean jack shit! How does mence impact the metagame, what changes are we seeing without it and is mence too powerful for OU?

I do not believe mence is uber,It doesn't sweep with ease and nor does it lasts that long in a field considering all the factors on the battle ground, alright it may punch holes through a team speaking of mixmence , so can with infernape,lucario, gengar etc.. and allow others to sweep with ease after.
I still believe SR is the what hampers mence, If you force it to switch or if it predicts you wrongly, its runs into another 25% SR along with SS running and LO recoil on top. It's no garchomp where it can kill something, ahh switch out and come back in and kill another without its health chipping fast and no priority move to stop and taking a bulky water/any other pokemon one v one not fearing icebeam whatsoever.

Its people like you who are completely fucking over this thread, HIS STATS ARE ONLY PART OF THE ARGUMENT FOR HIM BECOMING UBER, READ THE OTHER FUCKING POSTS BEFORE POSTING SHIT LIKE THIS. This is the reason there are so many goddamn irrelevant posts in this thread. If you are going to post something like this, its a good idea to read/scan the other pages.

I swear nearly every post here is just 'you can't say Salamence is Uber just based on his stats', LOOK AT THE OTHER POSTS.

EDIT: we have even compared Infernape specifically to MixMence....

 

[Heartgold]

Its people like you who are completely fucking over this thread, HIS STATS ARE ONLY PART OF THE ARGUMENT FOR HIM BECOMING UBER, READ THE OTHER FUCKING POSTS BEFORE POSTING SHIT LIKE THIS. This is the reason there are so many goddamn irrelevant posts in this thread. If you are going to post something like this, its a good idea to read/scan the other pages.

I swear nearly every post here is just 'you can't say Salamence is Uber just based on his stats', LOOK AT THE OTHER POSTS.

For your information I've been reading alot of posts in this thread, its fucking people like you on the pro uber 'omg mence's stats' IMO poor teams structure LOL I've never had trouble with mence, how about you people start building your team properly. I do not believe mence's stats are too powerful at all, they are balanced out along with its weaknesses it has. So what made mence uber, gaining outrage in platinum? Hell outrage is what makes mence inviting its own death, surely mence doesn't want to trap itself in outrage an get itself killed. It's the most pathetic excuses I've heard of sending mence to ubers.

Why didn't you pro ubers name mence suspect when d/p was released, if DM is so powerful along with its stats, this really begs the questions. I for one don't see how mence gaining outrage in platinum made it uber, i see it as one of mence's trapped killer moves and rather use BB over it. Also Didn't mence have perfect coverage in the classicmix set back in d/p, why not complain then?

The only irrelevant post here is yours, so fucking stop picking on other people opinions, i shall post what ever i wish to here.

 

[shrang]

Funnily enough, the posts I see where people actually compare Salamence to other Pokemon like Infernape and Dragonite specifically focus on their stat differences. So we have stuff like "Salamence is not only Uber because of his stats", then you see "Why is Salamence better than Dragonite??" "Oh, better stat distribution", and not enough on if that stat distribution REALLY matters or not, whether in theory or in practise.

Anyway remlab: I like how you want to post credentials by posting leaderboard positions, but don't do that, you'll just make someone who might post up a very good point only to be ignored because they haven't got a leaderboard spot (Which isn't hard to get as long as you whore the ladder).

 

[Shizzle]

If you had been reading this thread, you would not have posted:

What the fuck is it with all these numbers, 'oh salamence can reach 405 attacks, 350 special attack'

You singled out a single argument and said it was not enough to make him Uber, of course this is true, but there are other things that have been brought up, which you like some others here, completely disregard.

Hmm lets look at Outrage, its 180 Base power, insanely powerful? Yes, over powered? Probably, but its not making Salamence uber anytime soon, until you look at it like this. Only a single type resists his STAB right? A single type, that type takes Super Effective damage from EQ and Fire Blast, and thanks to Salamence's HIGH OFFENSIVE STATS, they are going to die. The thing is, nothing can safely switch into any Salamence without taking huge damage, and the thing you want to counter him is going to take HEAVY damage. Im not writing anymore, as currently I am just rewriting what me and others have written numerous times in this thread.

@shrang, because thats what sets Salamence and Dragonite apart, that speed gap is huge. And the amount of things which CAN revenge kill vs things that can't makes a huge difference, as well as bulky/fast walls that outspeed Dragonite can come in and avoid 2HKOs.

Infernape if you can't tell, lacks severely in offensive stats, it has lower Atk and SpA than Salamence, and its movepool does not quite match Salamence's. Infernape's offensive sets usually have to specialise in one stat, usually SpA because using a 100% mixed set means even specialised [like SpD Wall/Def Wall] can tank his hits. I mean when you think about it, Salamence is only really using EQ/FireBlast when they are Super effective [or in KO range], you could say his moveset is 200 BP [EQ] / 180 [Outrage] / 210 [Draco Meteor] / 240 [Fire Blast].

 

[twash]

Cresselia counters the mixed set.

And anyway, your listing characteristics of Salamence, not why it is broken. Saying he can be offensive and defensive has nothing to do with it being uber, right Wob???

Also, you can use logic to determine which kind of Salamence is coming in. If your 70% Rotom is in and a Salamence comes in, no idiot is going to Dragon Dance on a fucking Rotom unless it has DD Lum (which isn't very threatening). Therefore, you can conclude that it is in fact Mixmence. Get the point?

Also, Dragon Dance Salamence is countered by Swampert with Ice Beam... it always loses to it what the fuck???

Name the last time you Outraged blindly with DDMence at +0...?

Firstly, why don't you use some of that logic you're suggesting we use to look at the example you gave. You say if Salamence is coming in on Rotom then it's almost certainly MixMence, but that's a pretty hasty statement. Because it's silly to leave Rotom in on MixMence so you're likely to switch which would pave the way if it was DDMence. It's called feigning, and it's not exactly unpopular in pokemon.

Next of all, you seem to consistently be willing to tell us that Cresselia is a counter to MixMence but also say that Swampert counters Salamence because, essentially, nobody blind Outrages at +0. Well maybe you need to take a look at Cresselia, because nobody really uses her because she sucks. A bit like blind Outraging sucks. You seem to be willing to use a "common sense" attitude to taking down DDMence with Swampert, try it with Cresselia because she's nowhere near as good as people make out.

I see a lot of people are still taking a very theoretical point of view when debating this topic, like "Salamence has 135 Atk, 110 SpA, Draco Meteor and Outrage, and so therefore he can 2HKO every Pokemon in the metagame." However, you should actually take Salamence out and play with it and find it's actually not as easy as it seems on paper. You will see that Mence vs Gengar or Mence vs Infernape and Mence vs Nite arguments aren't actually moot, because if you actually try playing with Mence, or play against it, it isn't much different. I've mentioned it before, CB Scizor has swept my team more times than DD Mence, while it isn't much scarier facing off against a Salamence than facing off against a Gengar, for example.

That's what this is all about: playtesting. Ultimately the people who will decide Salamence's tiering are the ones who have had tons of playtesting and experience. Aeolus and Jump will unequivocally be looking for that, so don't worry about Salamence's tiering "on paper".

Infernape is nowhere near as threatening as Salamence, and in my experiences nor is Gengar. CB Scizor isn't "threatening", just annoying because of U-turn. Dragonite is extremely threatening yes, but the fact is that we are testing Salamence and not Dragonite. Dragonite is pretty much outclassed by Salamence and there is barely any reason to use Dragonite over Salamence in standard at the moment - which is why Salamence is being considered as a suspect now and Dragonite isn't. People are saying that Dragonite is outclassed, not that it isn't broken. Who knows about Dragonite? I sure don't, because I don't have enough experience because I tend to use the superior Salamence.

 

[remlabmez]

Funnily enough, the posts I see where people actually compare Salamence to other Pokemon like Infernape and Dragonite specifically focus on their stat differences. So we have stuff like "Salamence is not only Uber because of his stats", then you see "Why is Salamence better than Dragonite??" "Oh, better stat distribution", and not enough on if that stat distribution REALLY matters or not, whether in theory or in practise.

Anyway remlab: I like how you want to post credentials by posting leaderboard positions, but don't do that, you'll just make someone who might post up a very good point only to be ignored because they haven't got a leaderboard spot (Which isn't hard to get as long as you whore the ladder).

the people who decide on mence (council) have to have credentials in suspect and standard ladder as said in the original post

 

[Heartgold]

If you had been reading this thread, you would not have posted:

You singled out a single argument and said it was not enough to make him Uber, of course this is true, but there are other things that have been brought up, which you like some others here, completely disregard.

Hmm lets look at Outrage, its 180 Base power, insanely powerful? Yes, over powered? Probably, but its not making Salamence uber anytime soon, until you look at it like this. Only a single type resists his STAB right? A single type, that type takes Super Effective damage from EQ and Fire Blast, and thanks to Salamence's HIGH OFFENSIVE STATS, they are going to die. The thing is, nothing can safely switch into any Salamence without taking huge damage, and the thing you want to counter him is going to take HEAVY damage. Im not writing anymore, as currently I am just rewriting what me and others have written numerous times in this thread.

The thing is, if mence opts for outrage, it will trap itself in it and thus giving ur opponent the opportunity of killing mence, I rather perfer to BB or DC so you can switch mence out of a threat and allow it to come back another time to fire off more DM or other effective moves. It's the outrage argument which I disagree with sending mence to uber coz of it.
I believe outrage makes mence more deadly to itself and allows the opponent to get rid of mence. At best it you may trade one for one pokemon, any other pokemon can go out there and get a kill for you too.

 

[Shizzle]

The thing is, if mence opts for outrage, it will trap itself in it and thus giving ur opponent the opportunity of killing mence, I rather perfer to BB or DC so you can switch mence out of a threat and allow it to come back another time to fire off more DM or other effective moves. It's the outrage argument which I disagree with sending mence to uber coz of it.
I believe outrage makes mence more deadly to itself and allowes the opponent to get rid of mence. At best it you may trade one for one pokemon, any other pokemon can go out there and get a kill for you too.

The only time people are going to blindly spam outrage on the first turn is when its obvious a team doesn't have a steel counter, or the steel counter is in KO range.

When Salamence usually comes out, it will use one of its 3 other attacks, keep in mind how powerful Draco Meteor is, that it allows for Fire Blast/EQ to finish of the steel pokemon without much effort, even with the -2 SpA, unless they are Steel SpD walls that are immune to EQ [SpD Skarmory]. So now that your 'steel type' pokemon is dead, he can freely spam outrage unless you have a priority move/faster pokemon. Keep in mind that Salamence can easily switch out when you bring in your Scarfed/Banded Scizor or whatever, allowing him an easy sort of free switch. >.>, having CS/CB pokemon as the main checks to a pokemon is kind of strange, although there are pokemon that can switch in, but not on an attack, only a free switch.

 

[Heartgold]

The only time people are going to blindly spam outrage on the first turn is when its obvious a team doesn't have a steel counter, or the steel counter is in KO range.

When Salamence usually comes out, it will use one of its 3 other attacks, keep in mind how powerful Draco Meteor is, that it allows for Fire Blast/EQ to finish of the steel pokemon without much effort, even with the -2 SpA, unless they are Steel SpD walls that are immune to EQ [SpD Skarmory]. So now that your 'steel type' pokemon is dead, he can freely spam outrage unless you have a priority move/faster pokemon. Keep in mind that Salamence can easily switch out when you bring in your Scarfed/Banded Scizor or whatever, allowing him an easy sort of free switch. >.>, having CS/CB pokemon as the main checks to a pokemon is kind of strange, although there are pokemon that can switch in, but not on an attack, only a free switch.

In most circumstances, mence would want to fire of DM and followed by outrage to get its kill. Once it has outrage it is stuck, It'd be quite unfortunate if your opponent doesn't have a priority user or scarfer/faster pokemon to get rid of mence. Mence would be such a pain obviously in those state of affairs xD

 

[Shizzle]

Whats DC? I assume you mean Draco Meteor >.>
As I said before, saying CS/CB pokemon as a way to kill a pokemon isn't that strong an argument, now your opponent as a free switch in, knowing EXACTLY what move you will be using, or basically just forcing a switch, a turn many set up/sub sweepers/stallers enjoy :)

 

[Heartgold]

Whats DC? I assume you mean Draco Meteor >.>
As I said before, saying CS/CB pokemon as a way to kill a pokemon isn't that strong an argument, now your opponent as a free switch in, knowing EXACTLY what move you will be using, or basically just forcing a switch, a turn many set up/sub sweepers/stallers enjoy :)

haha course I meant DM, damn typo >_>

I respect your opinion about the setup bait, however I don't see it as a bad thing as a good player you should keep counters for such threats, I see it as no difference of scizor BP'ing gengar etc.. to death and bringing out another pokemon to setup =]

 

[Shizzle]

Scizor BPing Gengar is different. Gengar's carrying HP Fire will rarely use such a move on a possible switch, and rather go with its STAB, Shadow Ball, which Scizor resists and can OHKO back with Bullet Punch, even able to feign CB and use Swords Dance because the usage of HP Fire is only 28.5%, not that scary >.>, Focus Blast only has 70 accuracy, and rarely will be used on the switch, and Thunderbolt doesn't hurt Scizor as opposed to a Salamence EQ, and the obvious CB Scizor as no one brings in a non CB Scizor onto a 60%+ HP Salamence, because basically all Salamence carry Fire Blast.

Although you do o understand the basic idea [just used a wrong example] about CS/CB revenge killing, which is all that matters on this point.

 

[Heartgold]

There's no doubt CS/CB revenge killing does bring out bait problems, I don't see it as a problem either, that's just my stand. I thought we were talking about mence stuck in outrage, I personally'd never swich in scizor against mence if its not. lol

 

[Shizzle]

There's no doubt CS/CB revenge killing does bring out bait problems, I don't see it as a problem either, that's just my stand. I thought we were talking about mence stuck in outrage, I personally'd never swich in scizor against mence if its not. lol

Which not only brings up the mentioned bait issue as you just said, but by this stage you are already 1-2 pokemon down just from Salamence.

 

[Heartgold]

Which not only brings up the mentioned bait issue as you just said, but by this stage you are already 1-2 pokemon down just from Salamence.

I don't know about you,Mence hasn't taken out more than one of my pokemon ever, maybe two are really rare times. Different team structures i suppose. From my playing view I'm seeing at most a 1 for 1 trade and a possible bait issue, if any. Doesn't seem too bad.

 

[Shizzle]

Outrage is not needed for the first kill, Draco Meteor + Fire Blast/EQ does fine, and that also means he isn't always going to use Outrage right afterwards. Maybe your team was created so that Salamence is easily handled by your team, that could be why you don't fear it, but thats centralising the metagame, and still an argument for uber status.