Salamence Theorymonning

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Sebastian said:
You don't need prediction nor a sacrifice to bring Salamence in on a Skarmory or a Gliscor, two very effective pokémon, both with high usage, which can't do shit to Salamence, are slower and get OHKOed by it. Salamence also comes with impunity in half of Scarf TTar's (which usage is as high as Mence's) moveset (Pursuit and Superpower/EQ).

Bringin Mence to the field is not hard at all and does not require any sacrifice.
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Yes, but what SubVersion is saying is that you need your prediction to get your "guaranteed kill", which putting it that way, is hardly guaranteed.

Also stealth rock is not a counter argument, why? Because if SR keeps salamene out of Uber, then why HO OH still in uber. I know HO-OH stats are insain. But if you think about it, she has the same attack and sp.atk as salamence, and she has an even worse SR weakness. She is also slower than salamence, and does not have a decent set up move and is therfore more predictable.
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True, but SR must still be taken into account. You cannot deny Stealth Rock makes Mence about 5x easier to handle.
I know HO-OH stats are insane
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You pretty much answered your own question there. Ho-oh is so much bulkier than Mence, and can easily be twice as bulky if it gets a burn on you with Sacred Fire (physically), while we don't even need to talk about her special bulk. The bulk also allows it to more easily negate damage from SR with Roost. Also, unlike Mence, Ho-oh doesn't need to resort to using its Special Attack, since Sacred Fire/Brave Bird/EQ does well enough already, while Mence pretty much needs Fire Blast or Flamethrower to get past Skarm and Draco Meteor to get past stuff like Swampert (Outrage is way too risky to use at times). Ho-oh is much more predictable, yes, but it doesn't make her any less Uber. Wobbuffet is probably the most predictable Pokemon on the face of the Earth, and he's Uber. Unpredictability does not make a Pokemon Uber.
 
shrang said:
Yes, but what SubVersion is saying is that you need your prediction to get your "guaranteed kill", which putting it that way, is hardly guaranteed.
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Unpredictability does not make a Pokemon Uber.
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If you have a team of 6 mons all guaranteed at least one KO, then you win automatically. If Salamence is guaranteed at least one KO more than 2/3 of the time, then Mence is likely to get more KOs often. Or just put a hole in your opponent's defense and clear the way for another sweeper. That's the offense and support characteristics. As for unpredictability: it just enhances mence's sweeping/support abilities. So I'm actually pro-banning Mence right now. I might change back if I find something new, but...
 
Will the suspect ladder be with Salamence or without it?

As we speak I do not believe mence is uber, no doubt he is the most dangeous OU pokemon up to date, is it poweful? IMO yes, what's the most single key reason mence has stayed this long for OU? Stealth rock, if this wasn't introduced back in d/p, I'd have been the first to point salamence towards uber. you can not deny SR, it is on field, it is salamence's key enemy, on top of that for mence to punch out more power it requires a lifeorb, more often SS is running, its the recoil that's setting mence back. Outrage is awful if you get outpredicted to a steel switch, easy spikes for skarmory, heatran to HP ice for kill, scizor BP...it's about salamence trying to out predict you, one wrong move can cost as its health sinks fast. If it switches out great, making it more easier to kill the next time it switches in.


^ This, I could have not said the same thing about garchomp, garchomp could switch in and out all day as it wished and sweep at its own will.
 
Umm, sorry for asking this, but why wasnt Salamence Uber in the RSE era, if there was no Stealth Rock, sorry but my first gen was gen 4
 
Sy123 said:
Umm, sorry for asking this, but why wasnt Salamence Uber in the RSE era, if there was no Stealth Rock, sorry but my first gen was gen 4
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BinarySolo said:
^Not to mention nothing outsped it after a DD, no strong priority either. How the hell did people handle Mence in RSE?
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Okay for those of you who haven't played games before 4th gen, there was no special/physical split. On the DD set, mence didn't have access to his stab dragon type move which was a special type move back in 3rd gen, not to mention he had no access to his high power dragon type moves which are making it quite fearsome these day, i.e outrage and draco meteor.
 
Personally, I always found Mence harder to deal with than Latias. Latias was fairly easy to counter, since it required minimal prediction; you knew it was almost always either going to CM, trick, or hit you hard with a special attack. Mence, however, is nigh on impossible to counter as unlike Latias it is extremely versatile, since it can hit from both sides of the attacking spectrum, and is so unpredictable. And while unpredictability doesn't make something uber, it certainly makes a pokemon of Salamence's nature more difficult to handle. While Salamence was most likely to run either DD or MixMence sets, there was still the possibility of the odd specs set, or the odd bulky set, which can really throw a curve ball. To this end, I normally sacrifice 2 pokemon upon encountering Salamence: one to find out what set it is, another to try and counter the said Mence. If this is late-game, the number can easily reach 3 or 4. I don't know if this counts as "sweeping through a significant portion" of my team as defined by the uber criteria- since such things are subjective- but it certainly feels like it. And even if Mence hasn't swept your team, it will leave you weakened enough for another poke such as SD scizor or DD Ttar to come in and clean up.

So, Salamence fills not just one of the uber criteria, but two; offence and support.
 
i'm halfway from both sides ,and i'll show why, but first:

the DD sets can be dealt by heavy stall teams since they usually carry walls and phazers and can outstall (sorry for that) mence, even then, if it is the last poke you still need some sort of revenger killer to outspeed it and KO it before it gather enough boosts, believe me i learned from the hard way.

the mixed sets are a bit tricker cause... they don't have what could be called counter. Even so that doesnt mean to much since it can be dealt by different ways. As stated before, new mixed mence dies to passive damage ,priority moves, faster pokes and etc. And as things are now that's a effective way to deal with it, maybe the only one.

In the first comments people were like: "if there is no solid counter the it is uber-be", this statment is like "meh" since, the new uber add ,latias, had some counters into the OU so this argument doesn't seen so productive.

To summarize, what i've been trying to say is, if mixed sets are done by unorthodox ways it doesn't mean it is broken, we should not be looking for the:" to kill a poke, we need something to always switch on it", no, that's just looking for the easiest way around and maybe some pokes need another thing.

In the other hand i agree that having to give up to a poke or switch guaranting a free turn to DD just to see what's salamence would do, then something is not right... to effectilly deal with new mixed mence we would need something bulk, that resist most of the atacks,is faster and carrying a super-effective move, and we all know that this doesn't exist... yet.

so any more opinions?
 
I do agree that Mence is uber, it is extemely hard, if not impossible, to take down without losing some pokes if in the hands of a good player. I don't often have problems with it as my Zong could usually come in and 2HKO it without dying. In retrospect though, the only reason for this was that I made my Zong just to be able to do exactly that, which I think outlines how much of a threat Mence is. Sure Latias overcentralized the metagame, but IMO Mence was lurking in the shadows during that time, and now that Latias, Mence's rival is gone, Mence will likely rise to take control and threaten everything with its overpowered stab attacks. Not only that, but another problem I often ran into was that naturally, when threatened Mence could always just switch out and come back later when it's checks are out of play. With Latias, you could usually just pursuit it away with scarftar (which was quite the overreaction, IMO). Another important thing to recognize is that Mence is immediately more threatening than Latias ever was, being able to dish out significantly more damage physically, and the same amount specially as Latias could, AND it has intimidate! I say bring Latias back, and send Mence in it's place.

EDIT: what I was trying to get across is that Mence was always more of a threat than Lati ever was, and if we're going to go off an ban Lati, Mence should naturally go as well.
 
Why can't we just ban Latias and Salamence for both being broken? The FUK DRAGON tournament demonstrated a more balanced metagame (and the suspect ladder will too) than the metagame with Latias.
 
I can usually determine what set Salamecne is running based on what Pokemon it switched in on. If it switches in on Swampert, then I know it must be mixed and I can go to Blissey for the predicted Draco Meteor and Skarmory can come in on the predicted Earthquake/Outrage. With -2 SpAtk, it can't do a whole lot to Skarmory, so it usually switches out. When it comes back in, it only has 40% health (provided Stealth Rock is up, which I try to always make sure it is in the beginning of the game), which makes it much easier to deal with. Also, if I ever get a double KO at any point in the game, I usually go straight for something like Mamoswine because my opponent will usually send in Salamence and I can force it back out immediately. At one point, I tried to use a Trick Iron Ball Bronzong at one point to stop Salamence but I found that I still wasn't able to outspeed it with things like Swampert, after a DD. I was going to try to use Lagging Tail, so Salamence would always go last, but Shoddy doesn't have it.

Granted, trying to take down a Salamence that has Roost or when SR isn't up is a pain and may classify him as Uber. I guess we'll have to wait for the Suspect ladder to ban it and see if that metagame is more balanced.
 
[rant]
If this thread had feelings, it would have had a heart attack by now. The amount of people using flawed arguments (from both sides) is just mindblowing, and even the good arguments aren't effectively being counter-argued. A productive discussion is impossible with all this spam. I come back to this thread after 1 day and I get 1 page of good points mixed in with 4 pages of people still using the term "Counter" and "Mence" in the same sentence.

Hopefully the council can get somewhere without having to counter-argue "Ooh Samamene wud be bad in Ubers he has to stae" over and over again.
[/rant]
 
I would just like to say that I don't think Salamence is Uber. It is the most dangerous OU, but someone has to be top dog. I can usually tell what set mence is running by what they come in on. If it comes in on a wall, like Hippowdon or Swampert, its going to Draco Meteor. DDmences are more of a pain for me, because they can boost their speed, and don't weaken themselves when they attack, but I also find that in that case, a solid physical wall like Hippowdon or Suicune can take the hit and pHaze them out. Will you look at that? Its already at 40 percent. 34, if sandstorm. Personally,I find Lucario to be a better sweeper because he is practically immune to residual damage.

Also, as far as revenge killers go, I want to mention that there are a lot of pokemon that are faster and potentially one shot with Hidden Power Ice. Infernape and Gengar are some of the most common, but one of the pokemon I've been having a lot of fun with is Sceptile. He also outspeeds every water type in the game and lays the pain on them with Leaf Storm or Grass knot.
 
I hope there are people out there that realize that if mence goes, some other poke will just be on the block next. Lets just say as an example infernape takes a huge rise. Its move pool is as vast as mence. Its faster at the cost of a little power. Breaks walls in the same way mence usually does. Where does it stop?

There is also a written article I like to turn to at these times. About playing to win and the psychological aspect of it. A very interesting read.

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html#comment8209963
 
So many Sirlin links...

I don't think that slippery slope argument works. Look at current UU - it's taken a while, and there are a lot of pokes now in BL, but we've finally got to a balanced metagame. Also, Infernape can't be compared to Mence - it's much easier to wall, it doesn't have the same raw power to pull off true destruction on both sides, and it doesn't have the bulk or resistances/immunities that Mence packs.
 
Now that this thread is open for business there's really no need for this one to stay open.

This doesn't mean 'move all the theorymonning' over to the Council thread though! Opinions posted in there should be based on playtesting.
 
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