Mega-Salamence: considering a quick ban (Don't ask for the thread to be closed!)

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A Quick Ban seems reasonable to me. We've had more than enough time to get a feel for Mega Mence on the ORAS OU ladder and it's quite obviously broken. It's versatile, with regular DD, SubDD, Mixed, and Special sets all begin things it can run. It has the bulk to set up on most mons especially after an Intimidate, and after a DD boost and it's almost impossible to revenge kill, the fact that it doesn't care about most priority because of it's bulk doesn't help.

Jin White said it well, Mega Mence gives a huge advantage to the player that's using it. Any team running Mega Mence is just simply better than any team not running it.

Mence needs to go. And the sooner the better.
 
A legend says someone at Game Freak remembered the fun he had running Garchomp and Salamence in the same team during Gen IV and thought it could be a great idea if something like them returned. I've obviously made this up, but it's not too farfetched given what Mega-Salamence can do.

Apart from saying that a quick-ban sounds a little soft for Mega-Salamence, I think there are three main culprits in this: Sub + Great defenses letting it set up on almost everything it wants to, 120 base Speed being just above the things that may have had a chance to revenge kill it and, last but not least, Aerilate Return. Seriously, I think it would have been even more manageable if it had kept either Intimidate or Moxie - a 132 BP STAB move with no immunities nor negative side effects is insane, and coupled with everything else I mentioned...

Its enormous movepool is just the icing on the cake. Even if it didn't have that special movepool I would still agree with a quick-ban.
 

silver97

GUNDELEROS WE DO THE PATTO DI SANGUE
Mega mence is definitely too much for the ou environment and it needs to go.
It can setup on like 80% of the pokemon, easily put a sub, recover damage and break the opponent defenses without effort. I've seen a lot of team overprepared for this thing (i mean you know there is a problem when people start spamming scarf ninja or band weavile) that finished steamrolled by mence at the first occasion. It's overcentralized af and yeah, just broken. Quickban it
 
It is a bit upsetting to see it happen, but I could pretty much call this thing being broken since before we knew its stats. I knew if they upped his speed enough he'd be ridiculous. But they took it to a whole other level. This isn't Blastoise, they weren't gonna waste 20 points on a useless stat, no. They beefed this fucker up. 'Mence came outa gamefreak headquarters swole as fuck. I won't say much, if anything, that hasn't been said but I'll add to the air of the playerbase.

It's broken. Intimidate on top of boosted defenses (with pretty damn good 95 hp bulk on top of 130 def, with 90 spDef, only backed by 120 speed and 145/120 attack stats), access to DD, ability to stop status from preventing sweep, and aerilate boost making his most reliable move essentially 200 power - 100 accuracy, no downsides (and neutral coverage on most types, only resisted by 3 types, with coverage options allowing him to cover these types (namely eq, fire blast, hydro pump and pretty much any coverage type you want to slap on him), reliable recovery, etc etc etc, he should just be quickbanned. But if a suspect happens, whatever I'll just vote ban.

Edit: He honestly just eats the tier alive, he's way too overcentralizing, and with one boost under his belt, good luck.
 
Quickban imo. I'm fed up bringing teams without OP pokemon, just to be swept by Mega Salamence all the time. Comes in, Sub, DD and proceeds to sweep. And with access to a very wide movepool with move like Double Edge, Earthquake, Fire Blast (which also hits hard with 120 SpAtk), and the 120 Spe at +1, AND 130 Def and 90 SpDef, its hard to stop after it has begun sweeping. So Quickban seems more than common sense to me.
 
* - * That's right .... Given the primary ability intimidate would enjoy a quiet setup before all, already matched with a high speed of 120 bp and an equally high base atk 145, and defense with a monstrous 130 after the mega. T-T but joking? since the revelation of the stats and abilities of Mega Salamence already saw the tremendous mg suck, stuff like ehmmmm .... All teams with Weavile or Mamoswine not? For revengekill this crap ... I mean a centralization of the metagame absurd .... I agree with the ban of this monster. Quick ban it.
 
Incredibly broken. All he needs is a substitute or a dragondance and your team is finished. He has the bulk to take a hit while setting up as well, which makes him much worse. Other than priority, his move pool has about every good coverage move one could want, coming off from attack and special attack that is pretty much ridiculous. What checks one set cannot cover the next. Quickban please.
 
I'm a little bit confused on what to think about this guy. It can pass through almost every counter/check with the correct set and get free boost most of the times.
Physically defensive Heatran and Rhyperior should take hard damage from Hydro Pump, Rotom-W can't do something more than Will-O-Wisp/Thunder Wave (easily avoided by Refresh or Substitute), so does Zapdos (who doesn't even have Will-O-Wisp). It can deal with the burns running Fecade and annihilate everything who dares to face it. It's bulk alongside with a good boost move is just broken.

I can think on Mega Aggron to face him, but even with Filter and EVs in SpD Fire Blast should cause insane damage. Also, Mega Aggron looses STAB on its rock type attacks, so that Stone Edge can't OHKO it.

As I read down below, you could make 2 tiers: one for a Suspect Test and one with the quick ban to see which of them works better. Just give the players to think a little bit on how to stop this ridiculously strong beast, don't let panic blind you n.n
 
Everyone has already brought up the reasons for why M-Salamence is borked, and quickbanning makes a lot of sense from a policy perspective.

My only reservation, OU Council, is waiting until European folks get their copies of the game. I agree on quickbanning it, but I don't think it needs to happen with full immediacy. I know this is easy to argue against from a policy perspective but ORAS OU wasn't a tier until yesterday--and I feel like our policy should reflect cartridge play in an inclusive as possible way.

A suspect test for Sallymence would be a complete waste of resources when mons like Greninja are much, much more borderline and deserving of inspection. This isn't the time or place for that discussion, really, but fuck greninja lmao

Quickban, but wait until Europe gets their games imo
 

Mr.378

The Iron Man of Ubers
is a Tiering Contributor Alumnus
I don't like being hasty on issues like this, but this time it is warranted. Mega Salamence is ridiculous and should be sent to ubers as quickly as possible. Any variants of the Dragon Dance set can sweep the tier and play around its already limited checks and counters. What it can't beat with its DD sets it can with its underrated special and mixed sets which hit very hard and don't even need boosts do nuke the tier. Overall it is very strong and should be banned. I wish I could say more, but I don't think that is needed as most people already understand how amazingly strong this this is.
 
Every good book has a final chapter. Mega salamence had enough time to be used on ps for the satisfaction of fan boys (such as myself) but it is now time to get serious. THis thing is without a doubt broken and it's for multiple reasons. First off it lies in an amazing speed tier with an astonishing 120 base speed. That allows it to speed tie with base 105s with an adamant nature which is nothing to scoff at. Secondly it's attack status is ridiculously high. Many people, especially if inexperienced, would say it only got +10 in attack but a 145 attack coupled with aerilate and amazing stab moves in the form of double edge and return hits much harder than it sounds. For example, double edge hits harder than mega rayquaza's dragon ascent (if it does not hold an item) and that is a base 120 move from a 180 attack stat. A jolly mega mence posseses the ability to one shot latias with double edge. Then it has a boosting move in the form of dragon dance so then very moment a dragon dance is used on a Mon it can setup on, there is nothing faster than it and almost nothing takes a hit. In this sandwich a brokeness you have the meat which is its massive defense. It has a 130 defense boost plus intimidate before it megas which in theory gives it a mega slowbro calibre defense. That makes it able to set up in the face of even physical ice types (provided they don't have ice shard to hit with afterwards which they normally do, just theorising). lando-t is usually an excellent check to physical attackers but not mence. Mence uses it as setup bait. The best thing about this monster is none of those things however, but rather it's incredible unpredictability. Mence can also run specoal sets and mixed sets. It also can even run defensive variants if you please. It posses the ability to beat almost every mon in the meta 1v1 and it truly deserves the quick ban. There are several other reasons i could name but this post would never end end lol. Goodbye mence <3 ill enjoy you in ubers
 
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As I read down below, you could make 2 tiers: one for a Suspect Test and one with the quick ban to see which of them works better. Just give the players to think a little bit on how to stop this ridiculously strong beast, don't let panic blind you n.n
Honestly, I think it's less about learning how to counter/check Megamence, the real issue at hand is trying to determine how the much meta will revolve around Megamence if it is allowed to stay. We've already had a taste of how it might be with the ORAS OU ladder, and I just can't see it being anything other than a stale meta.

EDIT: Two OU ladders is unnecessary imo.
 

p2

Banned deucer.
Well this was invevitable
Mega Salamence is incredibly versatile and powerful, with Intimidate premega and massive physical bulk after mega which can force a lot of switches for a free DD. It has all the coverage it needs and can effectively run physical, special and mixed sets and is fast enough to outrun nearly every revenge killer especially at +1, hell even Thundurus gets screwed over by the Sub set since it doesn't get an opportunity to cripple Mence with Twave. The only Scarfers that can take it on are Greninja and Noivern, but if getting to the point where Scarf Noivern and Greninja are actually a thing isn't extremely overcentralising, I don't know what is.

This is definitely the most broken thing since Mega Kanga, and I'm pretty sure we all knew this as soon as the stats were leaked. There is literally no reason for it to stay in OU, quick ban it
 
I'll try and keep this short(er):

The trouble with Mega Salamence is not with any one set per se, it's with all the lot of them. There's almost no way to prepare for what set the Salamence is running: Physical, Special, Mixed, Dragon Dance, Substitute-mono or even Facade. There are about four things that can switch in to most Salamences, and those are Porygon2, Cresselia, Rotom-W and Skarmory (if Salamence is a special attacker, the last two aren't going to stick around either). This makes it ridiculously easy to set up on even the most hard-cased attackers like Landorus-T, Keldeo and Charizard, outpace almost the entire game after one boost, and also force teams to run dedicated checks and counters (Weavile / Mamoswine / unholy Scarf Greninja become almost mandatory) making Salamence highly centralizing and very anti-meta right now. All in all, the thing is the greatest destabilizer to OU since Mega Kangaskhan, maybe even worse. Having 'perfect' stats, remarkable coverage, reliable recovery and an incredibly advantageous ability only compounds the issue.

I do not say that leaving Salamence unbanned will destroy OU; I however also agree that it has an unwholesome effect on the metagame right now. Waiting and watching for a short period, maybe even conduct an extemely early suspect test with a separate ladder, will allow us to gauge how Mega Salamence affects the OU environment, how it adapts to it and how it would be without it. Unfortunately, we have here a problem worse even that Aegislash or Mawile, one that has just too many mathematical possibilities to prepare for, and one which is too easy to exploit. Had the Pokemon in question not had such unpredictable diversity, I would have recommended an analysis, but as things stand right now, Quick Ban before it burns down the cities.
 

leremyju

Banned deucer.
Quick ban is most realistic. You gave it a huge boost in bulk, on top of a speed boost, on top of a flicking aerialate. Takes bird spam to a whole level. I've seen a team of weavile, magnezone, AND rhyperior. There are checks to sub roost dd, but what about mixed? What about special? Discussion seems mostly on the sub roost dd or refresh set, but the fact that it runs so much other stuff makes it even more unpredictable. Also, it is definitely over centralizing the meta. I loved mence, but time to say goodbye.
 
I think Mega Salamence should be quickbanned. As much as I like that thing and would like to have nice moments with it in the OU tier, facts are facts. It is honestly not fun to see such an overcentralizing and dominant Mega in a tier like OU. It's difficult to deal with, as it got the increased bulk and on top of it all: access to Aerilate + Return/Frustration/Double-Edge/Hyper Voice with STAB. This together with Base 145 Attack and Base 120 Speed provides an enourmous lethality that shouldn't be laughed at.

Unboosted Return will do solid damage to anything that doesnt resist it basically, regardless of wheter it is boosted or not. A solid movepool is something it also have, covering all that is needed if you make room for it. But it doesn't even need that. There is so many ways you can run Mega-Salamence and it is a real struggle to deal with when it is on the opposing players team. It is kinda unpredictable how your opponent run their Mega Salamence, and with regular Salamence with access to Intimidate, which lowers the opposing Pokemons attack, it even furhter increase its bulk and it can take out certain physical attackers out of the game, forcing a switch and setting up behind Sub or set up a Dragon Dance.

All in all, it is just getting hard to see a healthy OU-tier with Mega Salamence present. I think it should go to make the tier a more enjoyable experience for most players. It is too strong to remain in the tier, and there is no point in holding back a ban when it is breaking some of the competetiveness with the game, and also destroying the whole point of getting to explore and play with the new megas and the new meta.
 
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I think we definitely need a quick-ban for this monster.
I have played around 25-30 ORAS OU games when it was the months special and the regular ladder today for around 10 games.
I have been swept multiple times by the RoostSubDD set, and I have swept myself with it too. This monster is very broken and in my opinion needs a quick-ban right now!

-Maurits
 
Everyone is jumping the gun here.

Obviously salamence is just completely wrecking OU as it stands but we don't have pokemon like aegislash and mawile to fuck it up. Wouldn't a DD/sub mono attacking mence be set up bait for a bulky mawile? Wouldn't kangaskhan fake outs and sucker punches help kill it off? Wouldn't deoxys-s or genesect help fuck up its partner in crime greninja? Couldn't a blaziken actually keep mence out if it started getting boosted up on its own?

Note: the above are extremist examples but I hope it gets the point across

I'm not advocating a willy-nilly "drop everything to OU!!" but there's been no word on the subject at all. Salamence would clearly not be an overcentralizing factor if literally everything (or even a few cherry picked things) were back in OU to fuck with it -- usage would be much more spread out.

Quick banning salamence has unforeseeable consequences. Maybe by now the playerbase is just "used" to the arcadey nuke pokemon like lucario and mence and mawhile. Were they all overpowered uber pieces of shit? Maybe, in the past, but if gamefreak is just going to keep pumping out pokemon like this it might be time to reevaluate what actually constitutes "broken" -- are you really going to ban 33% of megas that come out?

Maybe aegislash will be retested in the future -- but salamence is already quickbanned, so he's not around forcing it in to chunk returns and earthquakes all the time, and then aegis ends up being OP again because it's not getting beat down enough.

It's obviously a council/community decision but I think quickbanning is the wrong choice for the time being and resources could be better spent figuring out exactly wtf is happening to pokemon as we know it and maybe "if everything is overpowered then nothing is overpowered". At least get things straight first and spend some time on self reflection figuring out your own philosophy on 6v6 singles.

If nothing is ever going to drop down and nothing will ever be retested then just ban it and move on. But I think that's a really short sighted and conservative option.
 
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Syberia

[custom user title]
is a Smogon Media Contributor Alumnus
I wish it wasn't the case, as Salamence is a Pokemon I really like, but Megamence is broken enough to warrant a quickban, imo. Especially with Intimidate, it has a guaranteed chance of set up against a lot of things that can't touch it, even Stone Edges or Rock Slides from the likes of Excadrill and Landorus-T, and once it gets even a single Dragon Dance, it's likely game over without Ice Shard somewhere on your team. The "counters" to the Sub/DD det, arguably its most powerful, are easily worn down by entry hazards and the rest of your team, and all but Skarmory do not enjoy switching into multiple returns. Megamence is just so easy to set up that it's going to happen at some point in a match, and once it does, it's as close to an auto-win button as there is these days.

Even without a Dragon Dance, Mega Salamence can be an excellent revenge killer or sweeper, as it outspeeds the vast majority of OU unboosted and can fire off a STAB Return that is stronger than Outrage, enjoys phenomenal neutral coverage, and has absolutely zero drawbacks.
 
Everyone is jumping the gun here.

Obviously salamence is just completely wrecking OU as it stands but we don't have pokemon like aegislash and mawile to fuck it up. Wouldn't a DD/sub mono attacking mence be set up bait for a bulky mawile? Wouldn't kangaskhan fake outs and sucker punches help kill it off? Wouldn't deoxys-s or genesect help fuck up its partner in crime greninja? Couldn't a blaziken actually keep mence out if it started getting boosted up on its own?

Note: the above are extremist examples but I hope it gets the point across

I'm not advocating a willy-nilly "drop everything to OU!!" but there's been no word on the subject at all. Salamence would clearly not be an overcentralizing factor if literally everything (or even a few cherry picked things) were back in OU to fuck with it -- usage would be much more spread out.

Quick banning salamence has unforeseeable consequences. Maybe by now the playerbase is just "used" to the arcadey nuke pokemon like lucario and mence and mawhile. Were they all overpowered uber pieces of shit? Maybe, in the past, but if gamefreak is just going to keep pumping out pokemon like this it might be time to reevaluate what actually constitutes "broken" -- are you really going to ban 33% of megas that come out?

Maybe aegislash will be retested in the future -- but salamence is already quickbanned, so he's not around forcing it in to chunk returns and earthquakes all the time, and then aegis ends up being OP again because it's not getting beat down enough.

It's obviously a council/community decision but I think quickbanning is the wrong choice for the time being and resources could be better spent figuring out exactly wtf is happening to pokemon as we know it and maybe "if everything is overpowered then nothing is overpowered". At least get things straight first and spend some time on self reflection figuring out your own philosophy on 6v6 singles.

If nothing is ever going to drop down and nothing will ever be retested then just ban it and move on. But I think that's a really short sighted and conservative option.
A broken and over centralized pokemon doesn't fix another, bring those things back and you will get wins by team preview alone.

Bans are also done to allow other team archetypes to have some viability. Not to have whatever pokemon you consider it's cool at the moment.

I'll tell you what GF has in mind for pokemon. VGC doubles.
 
Looks like this is pretty darn unanimous, and I'm not surprised. Everything about Mega Salamence is just too good. Its BST is already higher than most Ubers, it's got a great defensive ability pre-mega and one of the best offensive abilities in the game post-mega, and it's got a movepool big enough to lend itself to multiple viable sets. It's basically got everything it could possibly want, putting it head and shoulders above every other ORAS mega if not every other Pokemon in the OU tier. Quickban.
 
you don't even need to play very much to see that mega mence is just way too good for OU fantastic bulk with access to intimidate pre mega to buffer it further makes it dangerous enough if it didn't get a speed increase but since it's mega gives it 120 speed it outpaces most of the unboosted metagame with seriously threatening options that require drastically different checks and counters to what sets it could run which makes it unpredictable in the bad way were you guess wrong you are almost ensured to lose against it or be weaken to the point it's other team members will clean house.

i support a quick ban but won't mind a actual test if such happens i know i'll be using it in uber eventually once i get done using the new uber forms from oras.
 
When mence is trying to force something out to set up a sub, I don't let it, I will attack it no matter what with, let it die, then come in with Greninja or Mamo. Love using Mence, and surprisingly don't mind facing it, but I do see why people hate it. If Mega Kanga, Lucario, Gengar and Mawile got banned, this HAS to get banned. They were no where near as good as Mence, IMO.
 

toshimelonhead

Honey Badger don't care.
is a Tiering Contributor
Everyone is jumping the gun here.

Obviously salamence is just completely wrecking OU as it stands but we don't have pokemon like aegislash and mawile to fuck it up. Wouldn't a DD/sub mono attacking mence be set up bait for a bulky mawile? Wouldn't kangaskhan fake outs and sucker punches help kill it off? Wouldn't deoxys-s or genesect help fuck up its partner in crime greninja? Couldn't a blaziken actually keep mence out if it started getting boosted up on its own?

Note: the above are extremist examples but I hope it gets the point across

I'm not advocating a willy-nilly "drop everything to OU!!" but there's been no word on the subject at all. Salamence would clearly not be an overcentralizing factor if literally everything (or even a few cherry picked things) were back in OU to fuck with it -- usage would be much more spread out.

Quick banning salamence has unforeseeable consequences. Maybe by now the playerbase is just "used" to the arcadey nuke pokemon like lucario and mence and mawhile. Were they all overpowered uber pieces of shit? Maybe, in the past, but if gamefreak is just going to keep pumping out pokemon like this it might be time to reevaluate what actually constitutes "broken" -- are you really going to ban 33% of megas that come out?

Maybe aegislash will be retested in the future -- but salamence is already quickbanned, so he's not around forcing it in to chunk returns and earthquakes all the time, and then aegis ends up being OP again because it's not getting beat down enough.

It's obviously a council/community decision but I think quickbanning is the wrong choice for the time being and resources could be better spent figuring out exactly wtf is happening to pokemon as we know it and maybe "if everything is overpowered then nothing is overpowered". At least get things straight first and spend some time on self reflection figuring out your own philosophy on 6v6 singles.

If nothing is ever going to drop down and nothing will ever be retested then just ban it and move on. But I think that's a really short sighted and conservative option.
I really don't see how dropping Aegislash or Mega Mawile would keep Mence from not being broken. Neither really stops the DD 3 attacks set and Fire Blast probably OHKOs both of them.

To put it another way, you could drop Aegislash, Mega Mawile, Genesect, both Deoxys forms, Mega Lucario, and Mega Blaziken, and Salamence would still be the best mon in the tier. Only Mega Kanga, Mega Blaziken, and Mega Gengar are on Mence's level, imo.
 
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