Salamence - The Metagame Menace

To play devil's advocate, beware of overhyping Salamence. People are probably trying their hardest to counter Garchomp, a Pokemon who has much more power behind his physical sets and is even harder to find a safe switch for with just one standard moveset. Ice Pebble is on a lot of teams, and Salamence will get killed easily with it as he is taking 25% from Stealth Rock every time, not to mention Sand Stream damage. He will have trouble coming in when nobody wants to give free switch-ins to the Landshark.

Also, there's been two Salamence discussions in the past. The one Phuquoph posted, and Misty's 2k thread (from a week ago lol get it).
 
Choice Glasses Draco Meteor is really the only thing being hyped about Salamence. In general, all it's other movesets are being somewhat overlooked.

I think it'll end up like Metagross. Overlooked initially for newer alternatives, but it'll be back to cause havoc when people remember how much of a beast it is.
 
Using Protect won't do shit to stop Salamence. Draco Meteor will do a chunk of damage to anything it hits -Steels resist it but only Metagross has anything you could call decent Special Defense. But there are a lot of faster pokes out there that can get the drop on it with HP Ice/Ice Punch, whn you consider Salamence will never use AScarf. I look forward to using it though, with prediction to keep it away from Ice attacks this thing WILL rip teams apart.
 
Only Metagross has decent special defense? You're forgetting Empoleon, Registeel, Jirachi, Bronzong, Heatran, and the comedy Bastiodon and Probopass options. All of those have higher special defense than Metagross. Even Magnezone ties Metagross in special defense.
 
Why wouldn't protect stop Mence, even just a little bit. That one turn can provide you with enough information to counter that specific Mence, so unless that Mence carries some crazy, off the hook move set, I'm sure Protect can be of much use when it comes to dealing with Salamence.
 
Why isn't Dragon Pulse in the special movepool options? By the way, here are some calculations for CGMence, just for reference, assuming max Special Attack:
Water Pokemon:
Draco Meteor on 394 HP/286 Special Defense Milotic: 71-83%
Draco Meteor on 404 HP/216 Special Defense Swampert: 91-100%
Draco Meteor on 404 HP/266 Special Defense Suicune: 74-87%
Draco Meteor on 394 HP/196 Special Defense Slowbro: 100%
Draco Meteor on 394 HP/236 Special Defense Gyarados: 85-100%
Draco Meteor on 320 HP/206 Special Defense Starmie: 100%
Draco Meteor on 404 HP/236 Special Defense Manaphy: 83-98%
Notice how all seven popular waters are killed by two Draco Meteors accounting for the reduced power on the second Meteor, and how all of them are 2HKOed by Dragon Pulse, as well, so only Starmie and extremely fast Manaphy can switch in safely.

Special Walls:
Draco Meteor on 704 HP/306 Special Defense Blissey: 37-43%
Draco Meteor on 501 HP/320 Special Defense Snorlax: 50-58%
Draco Meteor on 364 HP/479 Special Defense Regice: 46-54%
Draco Meteor on 444 HP/394 Special Defense Cresselia: 45-54%
Even Blissey gets a meaty chunk of HP taken away by Draco Meteor. Other than Blissey, I tended to make the Special Defense numbers average to high.

Miscellania:
Flamethrower on 334 HP/176 Special Defense Weezing: 61-72%
Draco Meteor on 334 HP/176 Special Defense Skarmory: 67-79%
These are things that might switch in suspecting a physical set, and I chose attacks that would do minimal damage for each for the calculations.

As can be seen, most things in standards are clobbered by CGMence, and anything weak to one of its attacks has essentially no chance of survival.
 
Earthquake does slightly more damage, but it's still a 3HKO on maxed out Rhyperior. Hydro Pump might be a good idea in CB Salamence's last slot as it 2HKOs Rhyperior and the other sturdy Ground types like Donphan and Hippowdon. I'd rather 2HKO them than be able to hit Skarm and Bronzong with Fire Blast.
 
CBed Dragon Claw on Rhyperior with 394 Def: 133-157
Cbed Earthquake on Rhyperior with 394 Def: 148-172...

Because Hard Rock just kills the effekt of Choice Band.....
 
How would a Mixmence work?

Salamence (M) @ Life Orb
Trait: Intimidate
Naughty Nature ( +Atk, -SDef)
EVs: Max Speed with enough to OHKO Rhyperior with Hydro Pump/2HKO Kabarudon with Hydro Pump, rest in Attack.
-Dragon Claw
-Hydro Pump
-Fire Blast
-Earthquake/Roost/Stone Edge
 
EVs would probably just be max attack + naughty with max speed. Also, I would make sure to have Roost, because oh boy would Stealth Rock + Life Orb + Sandstorm rip into your HP.
 
If you're using a mixed Life Orb set, you need Brick Break for Blissey as Dragon Claw isn't a guaranteed 2HKO.

Hydro Pump handles Rocks, Fire Blast takes Steels and Brick Break hits some of them hard too, so you don't need Earthquake. You're only losing your ability to super effective Electrics really and they all take decent damage from Dragon Pulse, or in Magnezone's case Fire Blast/Brick Break. Dragon Pulse hurts Swampert more than Claw. Stone Edge sounds good for Gyarados though.

I'd go with Brick Break, Fire Blast, Dragon Pulse then either Hydro Pump or Roost.
 
I don't see the point of Dragon Pulse on a mixed Salamence, since Hydro Pump has the same power after STAB, and Salamence's Attack is higher than it's Special Attack.

Brick Break/Fire Blast/Dragon Claw/Hydro Pump sounds good though.
 
D-Pulse is actually 90 base so after STAB, it's 135 (compared to 120 power in Hydro Pump). Its accuracy and PP are also superior to that of Hydro Pump FWIW.
 
Oh, I thought Dragon Pulse was just a special Dragon Claw.

My point still stands, though. DP and DC both do almost the exact same damage to Swampert, and DC does more to Milotic and Cresselia.

EDIT: I used a 252 HP / 128 Def / 0 SDef Swampert for the damage calculation. EVs may vary.
 
Salamence is currently being overhyped in my honest opinion. People should worry less about switching things into it rather than just having your Pokemon survive its attacks. Salamence is weak to Stealth Rock and vulnerable to Sandstorm and thus its CB and CS versions will require Wish/Healing Wish/Lunar Dance support. It should, therefore, be rather easy to predict when it comes in for its second and future times. Salamence is powerful, but it shouldn't be too difficult to EV your own Pokemon to just barely take its attacks.
 
Yeah, that's the thing about using CS/CB mence. Most teams get SR up early and first switch in for mence costs him 25%. Then, there's sandstorm, and even if you dont have it up, after you figure out the set for mence you can predict to kill it.
 
Against the CB versions that's easy to do, but not much can survive two hits from the special version. There's only a few things you can EV to survive since most of it's counters don't need anything specific or unorthodox to take hits from it.

Stealth Rock and Sandstorm are definite concerns and should be considered if you're using it, fortunately it operates well under Rain and to a slightly lesser extent (only in terms of it's ability to take Heatran), Sun. Wish support from Jirachi, Blissey and possibly Vaporeon in some cases, will help. I can't think of any other Wish passers that it works well with, Togekiss won't work too well obviously. Jolteon? Leafeon? Maybe.
 
The one thing I dont like about Specsmence is how tiny its special moveset is. You have dracometeor/dragon pulse, flamethrower/fire blast, hydro pump and hidden power, if youre lucky enough to get a HP type that doesnt suck/are playing on competitor. If choice specs existed in rse, this thing wouldve been even more of a monster.

If playing ingame, you dont really have a move to replace hidden power with if youre unlucky, unless you use dragon pulse AND draco meteor (dont laugh yet) which might not be a bad idea considering draco meteor has only 5PP.
 
He doesn't need anything outside of Draco Meteor, Dragon Pulse, Flamethrower/Fire Blast or Hydro Pump, which is the usual set for him when using Choice Specs. Hidden Power is pretty unnecessary. Sure, Grass Knot and Thunderbolt would've been nice but a Draco Meteor would still do more damage than Grass Knot to Milotic and Suicune. It can also OHKO Swampert and Dragon Pulse also 2HKOs.
 
D_Force said:
If playing ingame, you dont really have a move to replace hidden power with if youre unlucky, unless you use dragon pulse AND draco meteor (dont laugh yet) which might not be a bad idea considering draco meteor has only 5PP.
Click to expand...
Draco Meteor and Dragon Pulse have been on the standard for a long time now. Jump went and posted a fairly large post on the "why" but the gist of it is: Draco Meteor hits hard, Dragon Pulse sweeps.
 
For posterity I'm going to post this again, again much of it's eventually going in our Salamence writeup (this was originally aimed at Phuquoph in an early RMT of his):


When is AG Mence going to come in on Gyarados and not force it to switch? Only if it both did not Dragon Dance and it does not have Ice Fang. Take a look:

Adamant, 383 Attack Gyarados's Dragon Danced, Intimidated Ice Fang (normal attack) on a 332HP/196Def (4EVs/min) Salamence: 111-131%
Adamant, 383 Attack Gyarados's Dragon Danced, Intimidated Stone Edge (normal attack) on a 332HP/196Def (4EVs/min) Salamence: 85-100%


It is mere serendipity that the Adamant 341 Attack that grants the "magic stat point" (skipping from 339 to 341 with 4EVs for those of you who don't know what I mean by that), does, minimum, 99% with Ice Fang to the same Salamence, but that obviously doesn't matter since you are going to die over 92% of the time (taking into account Ice Fang's 95% accuracy) if you stay in on this relatively "weak" Adamant Gyarados. If it does not have Ice Fang, there is no way it's staying in on a Salamence that just switched into it, even if it DDed on the Salamence switch, because it is Intimidated. I guess you can bank on an opponent staying in to Stone Edge, which won't very likely KO unless you've taken previous damage, but I obviously wouldn't count on Salamence winning this battle in general.

In the only two Gyarados vs. Salamence battles that matter, due to the nature of "CBed" pokemon , it is using its AGed Meteoric Swarm, at full power, or its AGed Dragon Pulse in place of the hypothetical HP Electric. If it isn't clear to you why these are the only two scenarios that matter, listen closely — assuming Gyarados is at max or near-max HP:

If Salamence is locked into Hydro Pump, it is switching out.
If Salamence is locked into Flamethrower, it is switching out.
If Salamence is locked into a Meteoric Swarm (that's lowered its SpA to 262) it is switching out.

Otherwise, it is simple:

Modest, 350 Special Attack Salamence using an AGed Meteoric Swarm against 336HP/236SpD (fair/min): 100-117%

That's the spread I used in Advance, and, while I don't expect many people to go much lower than this, I likewise don't expect too many people to use the much bulkier Gyarados I would in DP, but I'll post those numbers too:

Modest, 350 Special Attack Salamence using an AGed Meteoric Swarm against 384HP/236SpD (near-max/min): 87-103%

I don't like Gyarados's chances. The other scenario is with Dragon Pulse, and here are those numbers:


Modest, 350 Special Attack Salamence using an AGed Meteoric Swarm against 336HP/236SpD (fair/min): 64-76%
Modest, 350 Special Attack Salamence using an AGed Dragon Pulse against 384HP/236SpD (near-max/min): 56-66%

You might be thinking I left out, in the heads-up two Gyarados vs. Salamence battle, the possibility you're locked into Dragon Pulse, which obviously doesn't OHKO. But that doesn't matter, and this is why — assuming Gyarados is at max or near-max HP:

If Salamence is locked into HP Electric, Gyarados knows you have HP Electric, and is dead, or is never, ever coming in.
If Salamence is locked into Dragon Pulse, either Gyarados is at, maximum, (assuming my bulky spread) 50% (assuming Leftovers recovery), and will be 2HKOed, or Salamence just killed a pokemon and is switching.
If Salamence is locked into Dragon Pulse, it does not have HP Electric, as they are mutually exclusive on a (good) AG set. I mention this to remind you that Gyararos can't both know you have HP Electric and still come in, and that, by the same token, know you have Dragon Pulse and feel threatened by the possibility of HP Electric.
If Salamence is not locked into anything, it will likely OHKO Gyarados with Meteoric Swarm.


I hope that's clear, as I've spent quite a bit of time laying out why it doesn't really make sense to have HP Electic on AG Mence. The only reason to have it is if you fear Gyarados form ever, ever coming in. And are you using HP Electric regularly to keep Gyarados from coming in if you kill something with it? I don't think so — besides the fact that your Starmie keeps Gyarados at bay especially with Wish Support, consider the other side of the coin. If you use HP Electric, and your opponent has figured out you have Adherence Glasses (which is about as likely, assuming an observant opponent, as you knowing they have a Gyarados that warrants your use of HP Electric in the first place), you are basically begging them to send in DP's most hyped pokemon in Gablias. You can switch to Starmie now, I guess, if you're so confident Gabby won't predict you and use EQ/DC instead of SD, (or possibly Sub) but shouldn't you already be using Starmie to stave off Gyarados threats in the first place, without necessitating the use of HP Electric on AG Mence.

Despite my tone and the volume of this insight, I'm not trying to strong-arm anyone into accepting things just because "I, the mighty Jumpman16," posted them. The numbers, though, literally speak for themselves.
 
I wonder if Wish could be passed via breeding? It probably can't but I wonder if anyone checked it out. I think WishMence has a chance at becoming popular to some extent.
 
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