The First Smogon Council - Salamence

[shrang]

I don't really consider Vaporeon a check to all of Mence's sets when it gets 2HKO by 0+ outrage, and gets owned by Draco Meteor + Outrage.

You're describing a counter. Vaporeon wins against MixMence if you can get him in safely at a decent amount of HP.

Oh and cape, I'm not oblivious to Cresselia having big problems in the OU metagame. However, if Mence is such a big problem, I see no reason why people won't use it. The metagame has shifted away from "A counters B" to "B can be defeated if I do this". This is one of the reasons why Cresselia isn't used any more. Picture something like Suicune, who may lose to MixMence if you predict incorrectly, but otherwise quite a decent check to Mence. Meanwhile, Suicune can do a sweep, tank, phaze and is in general more useful than Cresselia. So why should I use Cresselia, when I can use Suicune and do what Cresselia does ~70% of the time and do other stuff at the same time?? Yes, I might lose to Mence 30% of the time, but that 30% isn't that bad, and losing to Mence doesn't mean you lose the game anyway (So probably 10% of the time, I may lose because I lost to Mence). On the flip side, if I run Cresselia, I can beat Mence >95% of the time, but have reduced efficacy everywhere else. If I really wanted to counter Mence (And Ape, Gyara, Dragonite,etc), I'd use Cresselia. If I want to more than just counter threats and do something with my team, I wouldn't. I'll go back to the Tentacruel example. NP MixApe was a beast back in those days, so much that it brought Tentacruel out of UU. I'm aware that Tenta can support in other ways as well, but the biggest reason was to counter Ape (Forretress can do exactly the same thing Tentacruel does apart from countering Ape). Infernape was one of the biggest threats. Now, if we look at Mence, if he was such a big threat, there is no reason why we can't go into our stash of UUs and BLs and pull out Cresselia or Regirock or whatever. It says more about Mence more than anything.

 

[TheValkyries]

OU = Shit

I'm not saying that, nor is it implied. I'm saying OU = OU. Cresselia is not OU, and therefore should not be mentioned in OU discussion.

Oh and cape, I'm not oblivious to Cresselia having big problems in the OU metagame. However, if Mence is such a big problem, I see no reason why people won't use it. The metagame has shifted away from "A counters B" to "B can be defeated if I do this". This is one of the reasons why Cresselia isn't used any more. Picture something like Suicune, who may lose to MixMence if you predict incorrectly, but otherwise quite a decent check to Mence. Meanwhile, Suicune can do a sweep, tank, phaze and is in general more useful than Cresselia. So why should I use Cresselia, when I can use Suicune and do what Cresselia does ~70% of the time and do other stuff at the same time?? Yes, I might lose to Mence 30% of the time, but that 30% isn't that bad, and losing to Mence doesn't mean you lose the game anyway (So probably 10% of the time, I may lose because I lost to Mence). On the flip side, if I run Cresselia, I can beat Mence >95% of the time, but have reduced efficacy everywhere else. If I really wanted to counter Mence (And Ape, Gyara, Dragonite,etc), I'd use Cresselia. If I want to more than just counter threats and do something with my team, I wouldn't. I'll go back to the Tentacruel example. NP MixApe was a beast back in those days, so much that it brought Tentacruel out of UU. I'm aware that Tenta can support in other ways as well, but the biggest reason was to counter Ape (Forretress can do exactly the same thing Tentacruel does apart from countering Ape). Infernape was one of the biggest threats. Now, if we look at Mence, if he was such a big threat, there is no reason why we can't go into our stash of UUs and BLs and pull out Cresselia or Regirock or whatever. It says more about Mence more than anything.

I refer to what I've said before.

No, it's rather an indication of how bad the counters are, and is also a commentary on how every single team carries two to three checks to Mence, so the counters aren't needed.

Who needs to use Cresselia when they can carry a Suicune and a Scizor on their team. Really, that's all you need to stop Mence. You switch the Suicune in on Mence and play from there. Suicune will counter the Mence almost 80% of the time. And for the one time that it doesn't (Draco Meteor on the switch in) Mence has the choice of either being forced out again to take more SR damage or Outrage Cune for the kill. If he outrages, Scizor can come in and make quick work of Mence.

Herein lies the problem though. Mence bottlenecks team building to the point that if you want to make it useless, you can only do so by sacrificing two slots on your team, and even then, Mence still has the capability to blast a hole in your team. And even if you only want to check it, you need to carry one of 6 pokemon, just to make sure you perfectly minimize losses. That should be a red flag warning that a pokemon is broken.

But no matter how broken Mence may or may not be, he can't make bad pokemon good. Tentacruel has always been a good pokemon, he was just outclassed by Forretress for spinngin and Spike laying and by better special walls such as Blissey, and that's what kept him UU. When Infernape rose to power, Blissey simply could not wall him, so Tentacruel was no longer outclassed, and could therefore settle into its nice little OU niche. Cresselia and Regirock, on the other hand, are not UU or BL because they are outclassed, but more because they simply cannot handle the OU meta. Does that mean all of UU cannot handle OU? Not remotely.

I'm pretty sure you all mean that DD Mence runs full speed to tie with Jirachi.

Co-Evolution.

DD Salamence rose to prominence, and ran as much speed as it had too. Soon people adapted to the new threat by running base 100 Scarfers with just enough speed to do away with Mence. Mence, responds by running more speed of his own, and the Scarfers upped their speed back, etc. The two keep upping their speed to get the jump on one another, until eventually they're both at Max speed.

 

[shrang]

I'm not saying that, nor is it implied. I'm saying OU = OU. Cresselia is not OU, and therefore should not be mentioned in OU discussion.

Of course OU=OU, but discounting OU Pokemon for the OU metagame is stupid, especially when they have potential.

Also, I don't see why you need two checks for Mence. If you can beat Mence with Suicune 80% of the time, I see no reason to patch up the 20% with Scizor (Although, Suicune and Scizor have reasonable synergy together, so there's no reason to not them together).

 

[TheValkyries]

Also, I don't see why you need two checks for Mence. If you can beat Mence with Suicune 80% of the time, I see no reason to patch up the 20% with Scizor (Although, Suicune and Scizor have reasonable synergy together, so there's no reason to not them together).

So what do you do for the other 20%, watch MixMence flatten your team with no Dragon resists as he spams Outrage? You need the Bulky Water to force the Outrage and you need the Steel to finish the job. And if not a Steel at least a MixMence check.

 

[shrang]

MixMence won't flatten your team. It might kill something, but it won't sweep you. Anyway, even if Mence wasn't around, you'd be sure bulky Waters and Steels would be on a team in some sort of combination anyway, so basically, Mence is most likely to be stopped by a common motif in normal teams anyway. My point was if it is impractical to patch up the 20% weakness, don't bother with it.

 

[capefeather]

Even if Salamence is broken, if a "counter" doesn't fit into the metagame, it won't be practical at all. Granted, Cresselia is probably not as bad as Scarf Suicune or Icicle Spear Cloyster or w/e, but when it comes down to resorting to an impractical Pokémon to prevent a sweeper from running through your team, there's a problem. Salamence isn't even used most of the time; evidently it takes a lot of persuasion to make "most people" use a specific Pokémon, whether or not it's broken.

 

[TheValkyries]

you'd be sure bulky Waters and Steels would be on a team in some sort of combination anyway

Suspect usage says otherwise. The only Steels in the top 50 of OU that went up in usage were Heatran, Jirachi, and Forretress. Forretress rose the most at six spots, Heatran by three, and Jirachi moved only one. Meanwhile, both Scizor and Bronzong dropped six spots, Skarmory dropped two, Metagross three, with Lucario and Empoleon both staying the same.

Like it or not, Mence is forcing the Bulky Water and Steel combo to remain prevalent rather than the F/W/G cores seen in Suspect.

 

[Aeroblacktyl]

Bronzong is irrelevent.
Scizor and Skarmory dropped down more so because of lack of Latias than lack of Salamence.
And for whatever reason no one likes to use Metagross anymore.

 

[Game Freak201]

I guess I'll have to reiterate the point that one must be careful when using usage statistics as evidence. Some of these changes may be occurring due to Latias' ban. Besides, who uses Bronzong to check Salamence when it's used to support teams with Dual Screens most of the time? I also wonder why everyone hates Metagross. I really like using AgiliGross under screens.

Edit:

Bronzong is one of the few pokemon that is a guaranteed check to Mence, so that is actually VERY relevant. Scizor usage went down a grand total of 2% in OU with Latias gone. It probably should've gone down more, but that can only account for another 2-3%. The 8% drop we see in Suspect is by no means accounted for. I don't know how you're attributing Skarmory to Latias, since Latias would wreck Skarmory six ways from Sunday, so technically his usage should be going up with Latias's disappearance, not down. And I agree with you on Metagross, his drop has no relevance whatsoever.

You do know that Bronzong is rarely ever used to check Mence since he does a much better job of supporting. In normal situations, your typical DS Bronzong will only kill off a Salamence with Explosion.

 

[TheValkyries]

Bronzong is irrelevent.
Scizor and Skarmory dropped down more so because of lack of Latias than lack of Salamence.
And for whatever reason no one likes to use Metagross anymore.

Bronzong is one of the few pokemon that is a guaranteed check to Mence, so that is actually VERY relevant. Scizor usage went down a grand total of 2% in OU with Latias gone. The 8% drop we see in Suspect is by no means accounted for. I don't know how you're attributing Skarmory to Latias, since Latias would wreck Skarmory six ways from Sunday, so technically his usage should be going up with Latias's disappearance, not down. And I agree with you on Metagross, his drop has no relevance whatsoever.

 

[Efemera]

Bronzong falls to two Fire Blasts (59.8% - 70.4% with MixMence, 72.25% chance of hitting with both) and the standard wall set doesn't do enough to 1hko with Gyro Ball, even after LO recoil and SR. It's a good check, but as mentioned Bronzong has better things to do than check Salamence.

If Salamence doesn't dance, it almost always throws either a Fire Blast or Draco Meteor on the switch-in (not exactly a blind prediction once you've seen a good portion of your opponent's team - and you should before using mence), so it's not exactly safe.

 

[TheValkyries]

Bronzong falls to two Fire Blasts (59.8% - 70.4% with MixMence, 72.25% chance of hitting with both) and the standard wall set doesn't do enough to 1hko with Gyro Ball, even after LO recoil and SR. It's a good check, but as mentioned Bronzong has better things to do than check Salamence.

If Salamence doesn't dance, it almost always throws either a Fire Blast or Draco Meteor on the switch-in (not exactly a blind prediction once you've seen a good portion of your opponent's team - and you should before using mence), so it's not exactly safe.

I said check instead of counter for a reason. If Bronzong could take two Fire Blasts and live to fight another day then he'd be a counter. Otherwise he can switch in on 4 of Mence's 5 moves and come out on top, or he can be brought in to revenge.

 

[shrang]

Suspect usage says otherwise. The only Steels in the top 50 of OU that went up in usage were Heatran, Jirachi, and Forretress. Forretress rose the most at six spots, Heatran by three, and Jirachi moved only one. Meanwhile, both Scizor and Bronzong dropped six spots, Skarmory dropped two, Metagross three, with Lucario and Empoleon both staying the same.

Like it or not, Mence is forcing the Bulky Water and Steel combo to remain prevalent rather than the F/W/G cores seen in Suspect.

More like the Heatran/bulky Water/Grass core. Wait, that still looks like a bulky Water + Steel core to me.

Even if Salamence is broken, if a "counter" doesn't fit into the metagame, it won't be practical at all. Granted, Cresselia is probably not as bad as Scarf Suicune or Icicle Spear Cloyster or w/e, but when it comes down to resorting to an impractical Pokémon to prevent a sweeper from running through your team, there's a problem. Salamence isn't even used most of the time; evidently it takes a lot of persuasion to make "most people" use a specific Pokémon, whether or not it's broken.

Cresselia is not impractical. Yes, she faces big problems, but she isn't as bad as people are making her out to be. She is an overwhelming BL, after all, it's not like using her severely cripples your team in any way.

 

[Bilaterus]

A couple of things that have been on my mind. These are rough thoughts, which I hope are innovative and provoke some fruitful discussion. They are probably extremely jumbled so I apologise in advance for the messiness and incoherence of my arguments (I sound like a noob :s)

Theorymon and practice claims that Mence severely punishes mispredictions (resulting in guaranteed kills/sweeps). On the other hand, further practice claims that the damage isn't significant (often killing fodder and failing to sweep), and that Mence does have exploitable weaknesses. Thus we get nowhere. What we need is more solid indicators of a Pokemon's power, which the current characteristics do not address effectively. I don't mean to denounce the effort behind them of course, but I think we need to take more steps in that direction.

Warning: extremely long…

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Garchomp and Latias caused massive centralisation, but more specifically, centralisation to overspecialised checks such as the scarf-cress earlier mentioned. And they still destroyed things. I think that a characteristic of an Uber is centralisation to checks and counters which still fail to prevent it from succeeding, and which weaken the team against other threats. Scizor is not overpowered since its checks are very viable, such as Heatran and Rotom, and if Scizor usage rises, these Pokemon would rise as well, balancing it. In the case of Salamence, if we do see a rise in things like Cress (overspecialised counters) which still fail, then that strongly points to Uber. Currently, things like Scizor and Jirachi can switch in on most of its moves and kill it, while being effective in the game, which doesn't point to Salamence being Uber. He fits in.

Another perspective is liability. By throwing Specs Latias onto your team, you incurred very little risk to yourself (proportionately to how well you play it of course) and you would be almost assured to destroy stuff, since it is bulky and has good typing which allows for plenty of opportunities to switch in. It is a similar case for Garchomp. They both made a significant number of Pokemon unviable, due to their capability if they were given free turns. I think that a characteristic of an Uber is a low proportion of liability to capability, while significantly increasing the liability of many other Pokemon or play styles. (i.e. ease of use). This takes into consideration the way Pokemon like Gallade in UU could dismantle stall. Pokemon like Weavile are strong and can do a lot of damage to the Meta, but it grants opposing Scizor free U-Turns, which is very unfavourable for the user’s team. Salamence does have opportunities to come in via Earthquake, etc. but at most it nets one kill due to its vulnerability to passive damage, priority, etc. Mence does not have the bulk/typing of Latias or Garchomp, which means if the user doesn't play well with it, it will die while being underwhelming.

Many Pokemon nominated for the Support characteristic is due to the argument that it always blows apart one Pokemon, allowing something else to sweep. Basically, they mean that the Pokemon is highly consistent at KOing other stuff. While killing 1 Pokemon can arguably be expected of every Pokemon in a team, this isn't necessarily true. Suicide leads are expected to lay down rocks, which consistently do damage, and a Pokemon is often considered successful if it weakens several Pokemon without killing any. Deoxys-S was capable of throwing down layer on layer of Spikes, which heavily weaken a team that hadn’t centralised around preventing it/being unaffected by it. Also, Sweeping is a poor indication of power, because there are so many other factors that contribute to it, but if a Pokemon can consistently do a significant amount of damage to an opposing team (which ties in to liability), over the level of other Pokemon, it is overpowered. I think that a characteristic of an Uber is the capability to consistently contribute significantly to the defeat of the opponent. This ties in with the first point I made. Ninjask is not broken since it isn’t consistent enough when it comes to contributing to the opponent’s defeat. Salamence's effectiveness in a battle also depends on what Pokemon your opponent has, and when it comes out, since if it comes out early, it will kill something *useless* or *maybe* cripple a useful Pokemon.

The surprise factor and versatility is not an argument for Uber. In the case of Mence, pro-Ubers say that Mence can wipe out anything with two equally effective sets. Latias and Garchomp were banned because of one particular set’s effectiveness, so by the same reasoning, Salamence should be judged accordingly. Neither of its sets are broken individually, and even put together you don’t need to over prepare your team for them since most of its checks are standard anyway. Some of the methods of dealing with Mence involve Choice users (Heatran, Scizor, Jirachi), which is risky for the opponent’s team. Other strategies involve abusing the weaknesses of its Dragon attacks (lock-in and –2 SpA) to set up, which is risky for the Mence user’s team. It can’t afford to switch out in many cases as passive damage reduces it to “gentle breeze KO” health (or it can’t due to Outrage), so these strategies are often successful. This inconsistency means that Salamence isn’t Uber as there is a substantial risk involved by using him, and he doesn’t always perform.

What I have written here has got me swinging towards an OU decision personally, even though I originally thought that Mence was Uber. My stance is that it is on a different level to other Pokes, but it isn’t Uber-level.

tl;dr version

a characteristic of an Uber is centralisation to checks and counters which still fail to prevent it from succeeding, and which weaken the team against other threats.

a characteristic of an Uber is the capability to consistently contribute significantly to the defeat of the opponent.

a characteristic of an Uber is a low proportion of liability to capability, while significantly increasing the liability of many other Pokemon or play styles.

The surprise factor and versatility is not an argument for Uber.

I’m just glad I was able to write this stuff down. Thoughts?

 

[Shizzle]

Garchomp didn't have a viable SpA set, its SpA was only 80, which meant that Draco Meteor/Fire Blast didn't exactly blow apart Special Walls, Salamence however has higher Attack and 30 higher base SpA. Need I say more on this point? Salamence has to be judged on 2 sets, because these 2 sets are very different. (There are much more "broken" things with Garchomp, which we all should already know, and thats why it is Uber)

Latias is similar, in that it can only use SpA moves, Choice Specs or Calm Mind, you can always expect/predict a Special move or Set up move, not the case with Salamence, as it could hit you Physically, Specially, or even set up.

 

[MrIndigo]

The surprise factor and versatility is not an argument for Uber.

It's not it's own clause, but it is an argument and is relevant to the discussion. The versatility/surprise (especially when multiple builds of the same pokemon are all near-equally useful, and have entirely different checks) contribute to the effectiveness of the pokemon under the other clauses.

 

[Chou Toshio]

The thing is that pokemon have become predictable because the metagame has developed a lot. Everyone knows that overall SD Luke has been the most successful set. Everyone knows that LO has become Gengar's.

. . . but, at the beginning of DP, there was a lot more unsettled ground, and people weren't so dead certain that set A was "the best." Pokemon like Gengar and Lucario were just as, if not more unpredictable than Salamence . . . I mean, people thought blissey had to be calm so it could live in a meta with Aura Sphere Luke . . . yeah . . .

That is why no one expected counters for everything, nor thought anything of Salamence having no safe counters or being unpredictable . . . It was and IS acceptable for a pokemon to have no counters. People thought stall would be impossible in 4th gen-- now people cry out to protect stall more vehemently than saving wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.

. . . everything was unpredictable! The point is that while the metagame has become more stagnated around him, salamence has only retained some uncounterability and some unpredictability. Salamence has 2 viable sets. At the beginning of DP, he was thought to have 5 or 7 that were viable, with everyone thinking Specs, CB, CS, Mix (special or Physical or fast), DD, Bulky/Toxic and others all being good sets.

How is it that NOW you guys think you can argue that its unpredictability is a problem? You guys have just all gotten too comfortable playing in a stagnated metagame where sets are really predictable-- and then you blame that predictability on salamence, one of the few pokemon still forcing unpredictable headgames, of all things!

It's ridiculous!

 

[shrang]

Garchomp didn't have a viable SpA set, its SpA was only 80, which meant that Draco Meteor/Fire Blast didn't exactly blow apart Special Walls, Salamence however has higher Attack and 30 higher base SpA. Need I say more on this point? Salamence has to be judged on 2 sets, because these 2 sets are very different. (There are much more "broken" things with Garchomp, which we all should already know, and thats why it is Uber)

Garchomp didn't need the SpA, although Mixed Garchomp was quite effective at times. While Mence is being judged on 2 sets (Even then, it's quite unlikely Mence would be banned under the Offensive Characteristic), Chomp only needed one, and that one set pretty much raped a metagame that was revolved around to counter it, the thing was like tuberculosis. If you want a centralisation argument, Chomp centralised the metagame to a much, much bigger extent than Salamence did. Mence, however, is not completely dominating a metagame, and even though the metagame may be slightly centralised. The chances of a Mence sweep these days are much, much smaller than those of a Chomp sweep back in DP.

 

[Shizzle]

I was merely pointing out that Garchomp could have minor problems with foes such as Skarmory, but yes it raped basically everything else.

 

[Chou Toshio]

So, no one is going to be awake now (I'm living on a much different time zone than most of you), but I've put quite a bit of time in putting this video together-- you guys can argue about it (or not) and I'll read your comments tomorrow morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IANp49aBAdc

Think of this as one more log, but better animated and with commentary. Later

 

[ungulateman]

So, no one is going to be awake now (I'm living on a much different time zone than most of you), but I've put quite a bit of time in putting this video together-- you guys can argue about it (or not) and I'll read your comments tomorrow morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IANp49aBAdc

Think of this as one more log, but better animated and with commentary. Later

Ironically, this was posted only half an hour before I came on.

Your video was interesting, but I'm very neutral over testing Salamence.

Very.

 

[ginganinja]

I am not really sure what that battle proved. He had a poor team and was running a very poor Salamence set (Aerial Ace wtf). Its kinda annoying since it does not really prove that Salamence is not uber. Take the example of a Kyogre in OU. I can play poorly with it but guess what its definatly an Uber pokemon.

I have stated I have not really made up my mind about whether its Uber or not but that Video did not convince me in anyway that Salamence is not Uber. Sorry!

I still appeciate the effort you put into making the video though.

Have a Nice Day!

 

[Stylish Interval]

I am not really sure what that battle proved. He had a poor team and was running a very poor Salamence set (Aerial Ace wtf). Its kinda annoying since it does not really prove that Salamence is not uber. Take the example of a Kyogre in OU. I can play poorly with it but guess what its definatly an Uber pokemon.

His opponent didn't really play Mence poorly since it was only in for 2 turns (Three but why count the last one). You wouldn't have known it was a poor Salamence set anyway if he hadn't used Aerial Ace and Chou had finished it, and you would have assumed it was a Standard DD Salamence. What the video showed was when Salamence came in and how Chou didn't have to switch in a counter or check right away because it was unnecessary - he had a plan - whereas most people probably would switch right away, not thinking ahead. That's what I got anyway.

 

[mtr]

Garchomp was Uber because even if you knew its exact set, it could still deal amazing damage to a team, fulfilling the offensive characteristic of consistently being able to sweep or deal extensive damage. Also, there was no inverse relationship between Garchomp's predictability or its effectiveness: you could know its exact set (SD Yache back in DP) and it would still potentially rape you.

In comparison, Salamence has 2 main sets (no one's complaining about BulkyMence or Choicers), both with quite different viable switch-ins: DDMence might be countered by Hippowdon, RTGyara, Cresselia, etc, but MixMence blows through all of them. As for MixMence...it has few checks besides smart switching, maybe Scarf Jirachi or a Scarfer able to take a Draco Meteor. Salamence turns a game into a 50-50 crapshoot.

And don't tell me how you can divine the Salamence set from looking at the opponent's team or when he brings out Salamence. DDMence is almost as effective a wallbreaker as MixMence, and both sets succeed at cracking holes in an enemy team midgame. Sure, if he's bringing out the Salamence set late in the game, it's probably a DDMence, but maybe he's just trying to lure a setup for another sweeper, like Metagross or Empoleon.

I don't think this is enough to make it Uber simply because since Latias is gone, a lot of base 100+ Pokemon are more viable, thus making Salamence's life harder.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I am not really sure what that battle proved. He had a poor team and was running a very poor Salamence set (Aerial Ace wtf). Its kinda annoying since it does not really prove that Salamence is not uber. Take the example of a Kyogre in OU. I can play poorly with it but guess what its definatly an Uber pokemon.

The fact that you think 1 battle could possibly prove anything either way already tells me you have the wrong mind set about it-- one battle could never prove anything. I am simply using it to illustrate my general opinion about Salamence.

Also, Salamence was not poorly played. As I discussed in my video, (and as posted right after you), Salamence had a choice between Fire Blast or DD, either being potentially better depending on what I chose to do.

If I chose to try shuffling around, revealing pokemon I really needed in order to try and counter mence without losing anything, DD would be better.

If I just played ballsy with my Skarm go to blow him out, Fire Blast is better.

He picked the wrong one, but that doesn't mean that he played Salamence badly. Salamence users will lose the prediction war, and when they do it well be costly as demonstrated. What is more important, is that simply my play style had Salamence beat no matter what it did, and ultimately there was NO way to use Salamence to salvage that battle.

This is because while it can punch holes in teams (like kill Skarm for instance) and cause the game to pick up speed, Salamence has a hard time netting advantage (instead of just breaking even), so it can't really turn the battle around. It's not accomplishing anything spectacular.

In this particular battle, there was no way from start to finish for mence to have been used effectively no matter how the other side used it. This is not the only battle where mence will find itself in that very situation (when the opponent is skilled and used to seeing mence).

You'll also note that I have no Scizor, and timid Suicune is no check at all to Mixmence-- my entire team is built to create a Flygon sweep. That doesn't change the fact that I've never had an issue with Salamence, nor feel compelled to use it myself. It's just one more of those OU pokemon out there.