Answer these together
bold = fat shizzle
he could put early pressure on an unprepared team, but 99,9% of the time your right and he is an awful lead.
Obviously
Well good you agree so far
like above maybe you can catch an opponent of guard, but thats unlikely.
He can break teams rather well, and people are often forced to sacrifice pokemon, only the really bulky walls can take a hit, and either killed the next turn, so basically ruined. Sweepers cant take any hit really. Not to mention if you do go for a Mixed wall, uncertain on his set, he could still OHKO you, or deal huge damage, or even DD. Yes as a general thing he won't be good early game, but his good typing/flying means he can switch in, and dish out huge damage, while OHKOing lots of things, although this quality is shared by lots of OU Wall Breakers.
I actually happen to think Early game happens to be
the best opportunity to use Salamence (definitely this is true for mixmence) because of his flexible wall breaking abilities. Despite this, I merely did have to point out it is the period when the opponent has the most options and the most unknown options to deal with mence. I still think the earlier the better with mence, but that's just my opinion.
he can switch on many defensive pokemon lacking se moves or choiced eq/resisted attacks thanks to intimidate and a great typing.
that dont means you can switch him in on any poke, but as a skilled player it isnt too hard creating a situation where he can switch in without getting screwed.
I disagree. There are little match ups where something can switch into something without fear/prediction. Unfortunately Salamence does not exactly meet this at all. His typing means he is immune/resists 5 types [including the popular Ground/Water], all of which are extremely common. He can switch into walls NE attacks decently, his defences are actually decent when compared to other mixed sweepers, with 95 / 80 / 80, whereas just for some comparison, Infernape's defences are 76 / 71 / 71, while having significantly worse typing, meaning that he himself has many problems when switching in.
dd mence maybe just can setup on your death fodder if it lacks a move to finish mence.
Ok, time to address these three points together. First, keep in mind I'm not saying you cannot predict your way into switching into a resisted attack, however, there is no pokemon with no means of hurting mence, whether that be with
either status or attacking moves. I said "without danger" to it, not without dying. Let's look at a list of OU pokemon:
Aerodactyl
Stone Edge
Azelf
Psychic, Explosion
Blissey
Thunder Wave, Toxic, Ice beam
Breloom
Spore, Stone Edge, heck, even Focus Punch
Bronzong
Gyro Ball, Explosion
Celebi
Thunder Wave
Dragonite
lol
Dusknoir
Ice Punch
Electivire
Ice Punch, Thunderbolt
Empoleon
Ice Beam, if it sets up to sweep Surf/H-Pump will smash through mence
Flygon
lol
Forretress
Explosion, lol
Gengar
Shadow Ball
Gliscor
Ice Fang, Stone Edge
Gyarados
Ice Fang, Stone Edge, Bounce
Heatran
Dragon Pulse, HP Ice, Explosion, even Fire Blast is impressive
Heracross
Stone Edge
Hippowdon
Roar, Stone Edge, Ice Fang
Infernape
HP Ice, Stone Edge, STAB attacks still hurt
Jirachi
Ice Punch, Iron Head, Psychic, Thunder Wave . . .
Jolteon
STAB thunderbolt hits fine, otherwise HP Ice
Kingdra
lol
Lucario
Extreme Speed, Swords Dance (to x-speed), Ice Punch, Mence cannot set up on this.
Machamp
Stone Edge, Ice Punch, heck even Dynamic Punch
Magnezone
STAB thunderbolt, HP Ice, Explosion
Mamoswine
lol
Metagross
Meteor Mash, Explosion, Ice Punch
Ninjask
it can out-setup you. Well, ok not really but this thing is pretty nOOb regardless
Roserade
Mostly a lead so not really applicable imo . . . Sleep Powder/HP Ice still possible
Rotom-A
WoW, STAB electric, STAB ghost, thunderwave
Salamence
lol
Scizor
Bullet Punch anyone?
Skarmory
Whirlwind, Brave Bird
Smeargle
sets up alongside you, can Explosion/Destiny Bond
Snorlax
stab normal works fine
Starmie
Ice Beam
Suicune
Ice Beam, Roar
Swampert
Ice Beam, Roar
Tentacruel
Ice Beam, Sludge Bomb
Togekiss
Thunderwave, STAB Flying
Tyranitar
lol
Umbreon
Kinda sucks to be totally honest . . . why is this OU?
Vaporeon
Ice Beam, Toxic, Roar
Weavile
lol
Zapdos
STAB T-bolt hits hard, HP Ice
What am I getting at? The point is that very few pokemon in OU have NO way of getting at mence. Unlike something like Vaporeon or Skarmory that has a host of opportunities to switch in and setup, Salamence cannot switch into any pokemon in OU without at least the risk of running into a move that can seriously hurt or maim it.
There are almost no pokemon in OU mence can just switch in and recklessly start DD'ing up on.
This means
almost any fodder is good fodder against mence, because if you choose to leave that forretress in on mence, he cannot just dd up against it-- he has to answer that possible explosion and f-blast first (or die to explosion). If you choose to leave that 20% poisoned suicune in on Mence, he has to kill it off if he doesn't want to be beam'd to death.
I will admit there are a few questionable ones in here (lol umbreon), but frankly most of them are kinda . . . well, crappy overall and I would be careful how I use them anyway.
Locked choice attacks are good of course, but then mence is far from the only pokemon who can take advantage of those relatively rare openings.
I would also respond to shizzle that mence takes a significant amount of damage from even resisted attacks from OU pokemon, especially when considering SR and potential STAB on said water, fighting and fire moves. If you are using Naive, you are in even bigger trouble.
but why would you switch mence in if you get no payoff?
The point is that finding an opportunity to make a payoff is not so simple. It's definitely doable, but it's not a walk in the park either if you want to find just the right timing.
Responding to "-If he waits too long to come in, he could find himself completely useless on the wrong end of the opponent's late game Empoleon, Flygon, Metagross or Lucario sweep." You guys wrote:
but that applys to every pokemon not just mence and its more the players fault not mences.
Lets not suddenly assume all these pokemon have set up, thats not exactly the best way to compare anything. Salamence requires no set up, these pokemon should be looked at in the same way..Empoleon and Metagross get OHKOd by EQ/Fire Blast respectively, LO Adamant 252 Atk Metagross does less than 40% with BP, and Lucario Adamant 252 Atk LO does less than 50% with extremespeed. Assuming they have set up is....
But you guys are missing the point and taking it out of context. The context is that you are looking for an opportunity to bring mence in. This means that
mence's teammates are currently out, not mence.
You know very well that the pokemon I mentioned are all very successful at finding opportunities to setup late game. Unlike mence, they are successful setup sweepers not because of coverage, but because there are enemies they wall outright well enough to setup on easily late game.
If that were not the case, those setup strategies would not be so popular. Heck, Flygon doesn't even need a turn for setup-- he just needs his teammates to weaken everything he can't OHKO (and mence can be OHKO'd so it's no insurance there).
Point is that having a mence in the back has no relevance to the Metagross coming in after a death and Agility'ing up on your TTar. If Mence waits too long to find an opportunity to start its own offense, the other side could start one that makes mence meaningless.
Yes this is an issue pertenant to just about the majority of pokemon, but it is still another timing issue (simply one more timing issue amongst the others listed) that mence faces, and I was simply bringing up Mence's issue with timing.
Again, Mence has to be careful of its timing because it is SR weak and does have fewer opportunities to try and make good on its team slot.
Uhg, that took a lot of time and effort so I'd appreciate it if you guys appreciate this response a little. I don't mean to be critical Shizzle, but it's not easy to reformat to post to respond to posts bolded inside the previous quote. I try to avoid responding in that manner as courtesy to the other party.