Three most commonly used Salamence / Dragonite sets:
Salamence @ Life Orb
~Draco Meteor
~Earthquake
~Fire Blast
~Outrage
84 ATK / 216 SpA / 208 Spe
(Mild or Naiive)
VS:
Dragonite @ Life Orb
~Draco Meteor
~Superpower
~Fire Blast
~Thunderbolt / Roost
112 Atk / 200 SpA / 196 Spe
(Rash)
(Salamence is used with max Speed sometimes, out of ATK)
Each have their perks. Dragonite is better at wall-breaking, and Salamence is better at general attacking with this set. Why?:
1) Dragonite gets Superpower to OHKO Blissey. This is a major point, since Salamence needs to use the combo of Draco Meteor + Outrage to KO it - so Salamence will be locked in and easily KOd by a Steel type. Smaller points are that Dragonite's Superpower OHKOs Heatran and Tyranitar.
2) Salamence's base SpA is higher than Dragonites. Salamence can hit most switch-ins harder with Draco Meteor than Dragonite.
3) Dragonite learns Thunderbolt, which is easily better than Salamence's Hydro Pump. Thunderbolt maims bulky Waters, mainly Suicune (Thunderbolt + Draco Meteor KOs, although watch out for Offensive Cune outspeednig and KOing with Ice Beam), whereas Salamence would have to resort to Draco Meteor + Outrage (see #1). Roost is listed as an option beside it, but with Life Orb eating up your HP and a -SpD nature you will rarely have time to use it.
4) Salamence's Speed; Salamence is far less easily revenge killed.
Salamence is often paired up with Infernape, for they two alone can crack open every wall in OU if they use the correct move while still proving a sweeping threat on their own. Both usually die incredibly fast, so there's safety in numbers.
On the other hand, Dragonite can usually do that alone while being much less of a threat than Salamence (nearly equal ATK, Dragonite has lower SpA, Dragonite has lower Spe).
Really, it depends if you want wall-breakers who can stand a chance against hyperoffensive teams, or a wall-breaker with more flexibility with your team.
[Dragonite is entirely outclassed by Salamence using a Dragon Dance all-out set, so I won't list that. Fire Punch alone is your main selling point.]
[The last set, Bulky DDNite, is entirely done by RaikouLover in his Dragonite discussion thread :).]
Set: Bulky DD Dragonite
Dragonite (M) @ Life Orb
Ability: Inner Focus
EVs: 224 HP/88 Atk/196 Spd
Adamant nature (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Dragon Dance
- Roost
Now, this set yields the following stats:
379 / 358 / 226 / 212 / 236 / 245
I really have to prove my point on this one, because Salamence can run a similar set. Now, the concept of Bulky DD Salamence is that it can double as a sweeper and sort of defensive wall with an obligation of countering Lucario via Intimidate. Since Dragonite has to run a Jolly nature to have a shot at duplicating that, just remove him of that resonsibility and call this a straight up sweeper. The main benefit of this set is that it IS bulkier than Salamence. Intimidate is only active factor making Salamence seem bulkier than Dragonite at times. However, since this set is designed on setting up 2 Dragon Dances in the late-game (which is not hard by any stretch of the imagination), speed becomes a non issue, and Dragonite's higher natural physical bulk leaves him less susceptible to revenge kills by Scizor, and higher special bulk makes setting up on special attackers a viable tactic. Having played both Bulky DD Dragonite and Bulky DD Salamence extensively, I found that they both have their perks but if the objective is setting up a sweep, Dragonite actually does so because it no longer has that walling responsiblity, and has natural bulk after it nabs the first kill.
This is not outclassed by Salamence. Why?
If Salamence uses a Jolly nature to counter Lucario, it loses the attack power. However, if it were to attempt to duplicate this Dragonite's attack and defenses starting with defense, it would have to run this EV spread:
192 HP / 120 Def / 160 SpD / 36 Spe
This yields the following stats:
379 / 336 / 226 / 230 / 236 / 245
Reaches the same stats, but loses 22 points in attack! Starting from attack, it would look like this:
192 HP / 88 Atk / 120 Def / 80 SpD / 36 Spe
Yields:
379 / 358 / 226 / 230 / 216 / 245
Loses 20 points of Special Defense. So, give this set a try!
