np: Doubles OU Stage 3 - Hate to Love You - SKYMIN HAS BEEN BANNED

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So I've been taking a look at this Belly Drum Azumarill drama and would like to present my personal thoughts on this "issue". Also this is practically going to be an essay so prepare yourselves.

First off, I would like to say that I am very unhappy to see players getting bashed for using Jirachi and Belly Drum Azumarill. As a top player, you are supposed to utilize the tools given to you to get the win. Thus, if something is really good, you should probably be taking advantage of it. I see it as the utmost disrespect when people discredit a player because they used "a broken combo" or whatever you want to call it. The player has as much to do with a win as his/her team does, so people really need to just back off when it comes to these types of accusations.

Anyways, getting to the actual point of this post, let's go back to that Salamence-Mega suspect. The original one. Yeah. Many of you may very well remember that many people argued that Jirachi + Salamence-Mega was OP. Curiously enough, now people are saying Jirachi + Azumarill is OP. It is my opinion that the fact Jirachi is key in both of these arguments is no coincidence. In my opinion, it is somewhat natural for us to look at Salamencite or Azumarill and say: "Wow, that thing just swept an entire team. That's broken as hell". But if you really look into things more, you start to realize that the thing floating next to them is a lot more crucial then you originally thought. Now I'm not saying Salamence-Mega and Azumarill aren't plenty solid on their own, as they definitely are. But if you look at them without Jirachi in the picture, they don't seem quite as daunting. So with this, I will get into my arguments as to why I think Jirachi is the problem here, and Salamence-Mega and Azumarill (though an argument for Azumarill still has some concrete arguments of its own) aren't.

Let's look as some of the arguments presented when it comes to Salamencite:
  1. Mega Salamence hits too hard to switch into safely
  2. Moves that threaten Mega Salamence are offset by redirection
  3. The metagame is balanced; so why change it? (this is my favorite argument btw)
  4. Trick Room is all over the place with Mega Salamence around, and this is bad
  5. Its too fast and you can't OHKO it
There are probably many more arguments but I think these five seem to be the most reoccurring. I am not including Jirachi + Salamence as an argument because for reasons previously mentioned, that argument is not about Salamence on its own.

Argument 1:
Alright, so Salamence-Mega hits things like a nuke apparently. There aren't relevant switch ins. Firstly, the move deemed "too hard hitting" is Double-Edge. However, Double-Edge deals recoil to Salamence as well. While many people argue that you can just Roost or use Return, note that Roost highly implies that you can't attack Salamence, as if something (Jirachi) is stopping you. Additionally, its something to note that Return doesn't hit as hard as Double-Edge would. Lets look at some fairly relevant switch ins (and yes Scarf Lando-T is not a switch in) :

252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Diancie: 108-128 (44.6 - 52.8%) -- 27.3% chance to 2HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Aegislash-Shield: 83-98 (25.6 - 30.2%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 32 Def Zapdos: 130-153 (33.8 - 39.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 244 HP / 104 Def Thundurus: 138-162 (38.3 - 45%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Rotom-W: 111-131 (36.5 - 43%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Mega Metagross: 83-98 (27.4 - 32.4%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 150-177 (33.7 - 39.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 16+ Def Suicune: 187-222 (46.2 - 54.9%) -- 64.5% chance to 2HKO

Say hello to already popular picks that aren't 2HKOed (bar Diancie-Mega who isn't very bulky to begin with). A lot of them also can do a lot back, which brings us to the next argument.


Argument 2:
Oh, they have Rage Powder and/or Follow Me. Well that's a bit of an issue... but how so is this an argument for Salamence? Redirection can highly support a set-up Pokemon of any kind (such as PuP Khan or BDrum Azu). It sounds to me that people arguing this are pointing at a redirection Pokemon and saying "see? Salamence is OP!". So the redirection Pokemon has nothing to do with it? My personal take is this argument is exactly the argument you should be using when suspecting Jirachi, not Salamence. When looking at redirection, most mons with access to it don't exactly have stellar bulk, and many share weaknesses with Salamence-Mega. Except for Jirachi, who resists EVERY weakness of Salamence and has 100/100/100 defenses. Hell, Rage Powder (hello Amoonguss) can even be ignored completely with Safety Goggles. This is a compelling argument for Jirachi being an issue and imo should be treated as such rather than a reason to ban Salamencite.

Moving on to the most common treatment to handle redirection: spread moves. Now most players will say things like "Rock Slide, EQ, and Heat Wave are basically the common spread moves and Salamence handles those like a champ". But we are missing Pixilate Hyper Voice, which absolutely wrecks Mence. There are also two other spread moves that do work, but aren't used as much: Blizzard and Icy Wind. Blizzard not being as common makes some sense, as it takes a fair amount of dedication to utilize. However, Icy Wind is a great move. Sure you don't take Sally out in one hit in most cases, but it will usually get a 2HKO and it weakens one of Sally's strongest assets: speed. Let's look as some Icy Wind calcs:

0 SpA Cresselia Icy Wind vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 104-124 (31.3 - 37.3%) -- 76.9% chance to 3HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Keldeo Icy Wind vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 255-302 (76.8 - 90.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Gengar Icy Wind vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 196-232 (59 - 69.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
0 SpA Politoed Icy Wind vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 120-144 (36.1 - 43.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Icy Wind vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Salamence: 328-390 (98.7 - 117.4%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO (a bit irrelevant, but its pretty funny you have to admit)

So you do a solid amount of damage to Salamence, while ignoring redirection and slowing him down (or negating boosts to speed from DDance). My general point here is there are spread moves that can do solid damage to Mega Mence. Sure, right now they aren't super common, but they aren't that much of a commitment either (Pixilate Hyper Voice is already a common thing, and Icy Wind provides speed control, a key part of Doubles). This is probably where our next argument comes in.


Arguments #3 and #4
We're happy with the metagame, are we? I don't see how this is a good argument in any way, but ok good for you, you like the metagame. I think a problem here is that people fear change. I can't really do much about this opinion, but it is worth noting a few things. First off, this argument tends to come from people who are fresh off laddering. You know, where there's maybe a suspect going on leading to massive exaggeration and compensation to deal with Mence? The fact of the matter is that not as much changes with Salamence as you think it does. People start using Trick Room Blizzard because "oh it beats Mence". Well you know what it doesn't beat? A completely normal Mega Khan or Diancie team. This is something that suspect tests can bring about where people see "Salamence" and decide "let's CT Salamence". It often gives off the appearance of Salamence completely centralizing the meta. But what is really going on is ladder players see something that is specially allowed and decide to try to take advantage of this by cheesing people who use Salamencite for extra wins. As I've explained for previous arguments, small and simple changes like putting Icy Wind on a team for speed control or using Megas that threaten Sally like Gardevoir and Metagross a little more is what actually needs to occur. You don't have to spam Abomasnow to compensate for one new Mega added to the cast. I think many people look at the ladder and assume such, but I assure you this is not the actual case.

This leads into the simple answer for the next argument. Trick Room. This is a perfectly fine style of team to use. Seeing it is not bad or indicative of Sally being broken in any way. It exists with or without Salamence around, because it is a method of speed control that offsets other methods of speed control. Now we've covered the whole idea of "having" to use TR to beat Mence, which is 100% false. Other methods exist and aren't nearly as drastic.


Argument #5
I mean at this point we've covered the speed issue. Speed control. Use it. End of story. As far as OHKOes go there are many. Some avoid redirection but most don't. Once again, this comes full circle to my point. This argument assumes a lot about redirection (specifically Jirachi) being around. This is an argument better used to ban Jirachi. Another thing to note is that Kangaskhan-Mega also can be hard to OHKO (especially with something like Jirachi), but we clearly haven't banned it. I think we need to look at this for what it is: a more subtle threat that imo we blamed Salamencite for when the actual issue is Jirachi.


In summary, I think its about time we let Salamencite back in and take a look at Jirachi instead. We've had two tries at this, both kept it banned. Despite this, I am quite positive that Salamencite is perfectly fine given it takes the Mega slot (over Khan as well), and Jirachi, the main argument for it being banned, has proven to be the subject of even more problems, leading me to believe Jirachi is what we need to look at in this case.
 
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Stratos

Banned deucer.
no salamence is fucking gay it has nothing to do with jirachi u get in a position where u can DD and ur opponent has to basically sack whatevers in to a Dedge/Return to prevent u from getting a DD or its gG because ur +1/+1 and nothing outspeeds u and everything dies i HATE this fucking "mence+jirachi" meme that was never the case in reality

edit: that being said im fine with a rachi suspect as my previous posts suggest
 
no salamence is fucking gay it has nothing to do with jirachi u get in a position where u can DD and ur opponent has to basically sack whatevers in to a Dedge/Return to prevent u from getting a DD or its gG because ur +1/+1 and nothing outspeeds u and everything dies i HATE this fucking "mence+jirachi" meme that was never the case in reality

edit: that being said im fine with a rachi suspect as my previous posts suggest
So between priority, speed control, things that +1 Sally can't OHKO, and burns you are saying redirection has no relevance to why these may not work as well as they should?

I posted knowing many people will not agree with me, but there is A LOT of evidence indicating Jirachi boosts Mence from "top threat to be prepared for" to "unstoppable menace". To simply say "no" heavily dismisses everything I have been taking my time to look into. Additionally, I specifically looked over the Salamencite suspect thread when presenting my arguments and this "meme" was everywhere. Very established players cemented Sally + Rachi as a large argument to why Salamence-Mega was an issue.

One of my arguments discussed the concept of a changing metagame, which isn't bad. Having to adapt to changes is a perfectly fine and natural process in a metagame. It also takes time to do. I feel many people don't want to have to bother to deal with changes and discussion, but doing so is our duty as a community. If you don't want this, you don't have to participate.

That being said, calling something "gay" and "broken" isn't even an argument, it is just plain and simple ignorance. I am fine with actual arguments and issues people want to discuss. But what you are doing is simply diverting attention from statements and arguments I put thought and evidence into, while actually doing nothing to help with the discussion.

All I am asking is for you to let me argue for my opinion without bashing me for not agreeing with you.
 
I don't understand why the two has to be done together. Double suspects are bad and it never works. Especially with 2 Pokemon that just flip the metagame just by existing. Only double suspects that 'work' are when there are more than 1 thing that just needs to leave the meta ASAP regardless of what happens, to the point that suspecting 1 and the other doesn't do anything other than waste everyone's time. It might be OK to consider a Jirachi suspect, and if it changes the metagame to a point that a Salamencite unban could be warranted, then it might be considered. But doing both at the same time is just recipe for disaster.

As stratos said, a Jirachi suspect isn't as horrible idea as unbanning salamencite along with it is. There's not much supporting evidence to show that Salamencite would be balanced in a non-Jirachi metagame.
My arguments aren't that we should do both at the same time, so sorry if I was misleading there (I can definitely see why you would think that). My general opinion is the Jirachi is broken and Salamencite isn't, but I agree doing both simultaneously would be very pushy. What I am proposing is that we first suspect Rachi, and assuming it were to get banned, I feel unbanning Salamencite should definitely be the next suspect afterwards (and is very considerable to say the least). The main purpose of my post was to point out that I feel Salamencite was banned for reasons that Jirachi should be getting banned instead.

tl;dr (for my original post) Jirachi is definitely the biggest suspect right now (behind Mega Kang yet again); and I feel Jirachi has a lot to do with Salamencite's ban, so I want people to consider that Salamence-Mega dropping is imo a perfectly fine idea IF Jirachi isn't around. I feel many people just fear Salamence-Mega because of its power and I want to point out that it is more manageable than people give it credit for, especially without Jirachi around.
 

Bughouse

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Okay just to quickly touch on nollan's lat note he mentioned, there is 0 reason to suspect Kang. That's basically all that needs to be said.

More importantly, there is also no reason in my opinion to suspect jirachi. I personally do not feel that things should just be banned from the flagship doubles tier (not counting VGC) unless they have serious negative impacts on the tier. As of currently the negative impacts of jirachi on the tier that I can count are making mons like diancie and azumarill better than they already were (not unbeatable by any means whatsoever) and pushing mega-mence, which could possibly have previously been argued as not broken, into ubers. Jirachi has plenty of checks, many of which are some of the most common mons in the meta, and carries essentially no offensive presence unless it's against diancie or sylveon. Yes, it takes two hits to kill it from a good number of mons, but, once again, we are playing a meta with two opposing mons. So once again I return to the idea that you have to build with these kinds of things in mind. Sure azu is always going to run right through you if your team just loses to a couple aqua jets and you have no jirachi checks except a fire mon. Rather than praying for it to just go away, put some effort into building teams that actually account for the current meta.

BTW this is not targeted at nollan, it's a general statement.
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
You know, I just had a general question I wanted to ask right here:

I'm fully aware that things that are deeply broken in singles are fine here. That said, if something is as broken in doubles (say, broken = 75) as would be necessary to ban it in singles, would it be banned in doubles?

And yes to reiterate I know that broken means different things here and there and there isn't exactly an objective, numerical way to measure 'broken'. Still, I'd like an answer if anyone has one.
 

sforz

[22:14] sforz: i love memes
You know, I just had a general question I wanted to ask right here:

I'm fully aware that things that are deeply broken in singles are fine here. That said, if something is as broken in doubles (say, broken = 75) as would be necessary to ban it in singles, would it be banned in doubles?

And yes to reiterate I know that broken means different things here and there and there isn't exactly an objective, numerical way to measure 'broken'. Still, I'd like an answer if anyone has one.
what does this mean, things are banned when they are broken

you can't quantify brokenness in numbers

lol?
 

ryo yamada2001

ryo yamada2001
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i appreciate the time youve put in that essay Nollan, but you just named up every argument with the same answer that everyone has heard a million times by now.

I agree with Skiddo entirely, there are plenty of checks to Jirachi, and it isn't broken at all. Ofcourse your teams are going to lose to Follow Me spam if you don't prepare (well) enough for it.

However, my problem with your post is that you sound like we should suspect Jirachi just so we can return Salamencite in the tier, which would an awkwardly forced metagame shift for no reason other than wanting Salamencite back
 

Arcticblast

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We've tested Mence twice and it was voted broken both times, we're not bringing it back (as much as I would enjoy Mence meta)

Jirachi suspect almost definitely happening, depending on how long it takes to figure out a suspect system (no we're not doing power rankings fuck everyone who likes that system)

we forgot to test Kang last year but we still have time to do it twice this year!!!!!!
 
I guess I'll weigh in because I think my opinion may hold some sway around here
  • Mega Salamence isn't broken. It just is not. If you want an essay from me you can ask me on PS or something. That being said, it's not getting unbanned at this point (thanks for that one guys!) so we might as well drop it.
  • Jirachi is not broken, it's just super annoying when you pair it up with Azumarill but that's it. If we suspect Jirachi we come really close to crossing the line of actually playing competitive Pokemon vs making a tier that may be more enjoyable/easier for less experienced players.
  • If we suspect anything we really should try to not have it be a community vote because as much as everyone wants to be super happy and working together and blah blah blah I don't want the tier to get Fd up when all you have to do to get ladder reqs is beat teams with Malamar & Ambipom for a couple of hours
 
Quick disclaimer: I saw Arctic's post but I still want to discuss this briefly; am fine without a suspect on Mence and am aware it isn't happening currently and respect that. Consider this post my final comment on the matter. For now.

I personally do not have enough experience with Jirachi to be able to simply declare it broken or not at this time, but I feel the original Salamencite suspect test was very lacking when it came to how it got presented. I am aware many people were under pressure at the time from well known Doubles players who were quick to deem Salamence "broken" despite it just barely being released. Many of the arguments for banning it were things like "it's stats are godlike" and had little substance to them. The first suspect was timed very poorly and Salamencite should have had more time in the meta before we labeled it. And I feel this label has never left Salamencite even today.

Admittedly, my true opinion is that we should let it back in so we can really get enough time to see how the meta would turn out. Clearly I don't have enough support for this to happen. My hope is that someday I will, because Mega Mence deserves much more of a chance than it actually got. I personally think Doubles needs a different suspecting format than Singles because of the lack of an easy way to define "broken" in comparison to Singles, where something that is too good tends to be much more easy to see. This isn't the time or place for such a discussion, however.

This is to say that I feel suspects in the current form for Doubles are carried too much by "whether or not people like them" rather than "whether or not they are too powerful".
 

Checkmater

It’s just us kittens left, and the rain is coming
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I guess I'll weigh in because I think my opinion may hold some sway around here
  • Mega Salamence isn't broken. It just is not. If you want an essay from me you can ask me on PS or something. That being said, it's not getting unbanned at this point (thanks for that one guys!) so we might as well drop it.
You literally can't just Fermat's Last Theorem this thread like this. Like, there are no size limits, there's no reason NOT to post this marvelous proof/essay of yours and it's counter-productive to contest that's it's not broken without backing up what you're saying. Personally I also think Mega Mence should be given more of an opportunity to be viewed as broken/not but if you have some argument, there's no reason NOT to share it? Idc if you have to quote previous posts or outline what you feel is unaddressed, you should do that. Doing it in PS chat (as you're doing right now as Colbrushie asks you for it) literally makes no sense. That discussion can just as easily happen right here in this thread, where it will be recorded, quotable, and visible.
 
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Bughouse

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rofling about how high and mighty people who want mence freed (read: KyleCole) are acting (read: like an asshat) and how they've made it sound like omg all you have to do is beat ladder ppl then you get to vote and so it was a bunch of idiots voting ban.

Reminder of how it wasn't banned by a bunch of idiots...

Notable people who voted ban and/or to keep banned (and tbh I cut off a few people I'd call notable - including myself kek - but I don't want people to argue over the list):
Stratos, Mizuhime, Laga, Memoric, Totem, kamikaze17, deoxys speed, qsns, Haruno, shaian, finally, Hashtag, Lolk, atomicllamas, Aurarayquaza

Notable people who voted no ban and/or to unban:
Arcticblast, Level 51, KyleCole, Audiosurfer, xzern (who btw later flipped in the retest), checkmater75, makiri
 

Funbot28

Banned deucer.
Idk, if we can suspect Kanghaskhan three times, then why not Mega Mence. Especially that a lot of people have been considering it for an unban.
#megainequality
 

Idyll

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We never suspected Mega Kangaskhan thrice and I'm pretty sure we're not going to suspect Mega Salamence for the third time either. As it is, the metagame's already quite fun and stable so unless we suspect (and ban) something else like Jirachi, there's not much change happening in DOU in the future until Sun and Moon arrives fam.

:heart:
 
Also doesn't Volcanion come out in like two weeks? I doubt it will drastically change the meta, but we might as well put all of our attention towards it's impact, at least for a few months (especially when it seems to be the biggest dick to Jirachi).
 
Volcanion seems pretty solid actually.
Water/Fire Coverage is super good offensively, and while not as good as Fire/Steel defensively, still pretty good, and i could see this thing giving heatran a ton of competition. Like heatran it can hit basically anything that isnt a dragon or water type pretty hard

Volcanion @ leftovers
Ability: Water Absorb
EVs: ??? HP / 252 SpA / ??? Spe
Modest Nature
- Steam Eruption
- Heat Wave/Fire Blast
- Substitute
- Protect

Its slow, (Bisharp/Breloom tier), pretty bulky on the physical side (lives a diancie diamond storm and lando earthquake for example) and has great coverage in its two stab moves, which makes me think a substitute set would be good. Its got the same base 130 Spa as heatran so i could see it running heat wave like heatran, but fire blast lets you do stuff like:

252+ SpA Volcanion Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 84 SpD Amoonguss: 428-506 (99 - 117.1%) -- 93.8% chance to OHKO

Its cons when compared to heatran are mostly the lack of special bulk and heatrans awesome steel secondary typing defensively. This makes me think it will take more of an offensive bruiser approach than a win condition, as so much more stuff hits it neutrally than hits heatran, which is why i slashed fire blast.

252+ SpA Life Orb Hydreigon Draco Meteor vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Volcanion: 321-380 (106.2 - 125.8%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Its matchups vs tier 1 are also excellent, it destroys aegi, amoonguss, zard, heatran, can beat diancie, lando, talon (BB is a 2hko), kang and only has a strongly unfavorable matchup with keldeo.

The main thing i'm struggling with is how much to invest in speed vs hp. Because its so slow i think you may actually just want to invest mostly in hp rather than at best get speed ties with sharp or breloom. Also holy shit steam eruption is a good god damn move. Its an accurate hydro pump with a burn chance.
 

Bughouse

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Volcanion was briefly live on PS back in the early days of ORAS. It's pretty cool. A somewhat better Heatran imo. Not being jack shit useless against rain teams is a big buff, as is the Burn threat upon switchin. Being weaker to Dragons and less amazing vs Sun though are definitely tradeoffs.
 
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