Why Salamence Deserves a Suspect Test

[Philip7086]

With the release of Platinum came a brand new toy for Salamence to play with: Outrage. Fortunately for Mence, this happened right as the Order of Operations were being decided, allowing it to slip under the radar, hiding behind the likes of Garchomp and Skymin… until now. I would hereby like to nominate Salamence as a suspect, under the Offensive and Support Characteristics.

Offensive Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it is capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame with little effort.

To start it off, a typical Salamence set consists of Outrage, Earthquake, and Fire Blast, according to X-Act’s November statistics. These three moves alone provide Salamence with perfect coverage, hitting every Pokemon with either a minimum of 100 base power super effective move, or a 120 base power STAB attack. These are backed by his insane base 135 and 110 Attack and Special Attack stats, which are often boosted even further by Life Orb. To top it all off, Salamence has access to Dragon Dance, which combined with its base 100 Speed allows it to outpace every non-scarfed Pokemon in the OU metagame.

Those four moves combined create the set that qualifies Salamence as a suspect under the Offensive Characteristic. The particular set is:

Salamence @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Spe / 4SpA
Naughty nature (+Atk, -SpD)
-Dragon Dance
-Outrage
-Earthquake
-Fire Blast

This set produces some impressive damage outputs:

Fire Blast vs. 252/0 Neutral SpD Skarmory
257 Atk vs 176 Def & 334 HP (120 Base Power): 328 - 386 (98.20% - 115.57%) (Always a OHKO after SR and Leftovers)

Fire Blast vs. 252/92 +SpD Bronzong (Levitate)
257 Atk vs 320 Def & 338 HP (120 Base Power): 180 - 212 (53.25% - 62.72%) (Always a 2HKO)

Outrage vs. 252/252 +Def Cresselia
405 Atk vs 372 Def & 444 HP (120 Base Power): 183 - 216 (41.22% - 48.65%) (70% chance of 2HKOing after SR and Sanstorm)

Outrage vs. 252/252 +Def Gyarados
405 Atk vs 282 Def & 394 HP (120 Base Power): 240 - 283 (60.91% - 71.83%)

Outrage vs. 252/252 +Def Hippowdon
405 Atk vs 368 Def & 420 HP (120 Base Power): 184 - 217 (43.81% - 51.67%) (7% chance of 2HKOing after SR and Leftovers)

+1 Outrage vs. 252/40 +Def Gliscor
607 Atk vs 325 Def & 354 HP (120 Base Power): 313 - 370 (88.42% - 104.52%) (Always a OHKO after SR)

+1 Outrage vs. 252/252 +Def Rotom-A
607 Atk vs 344 Def & 304 HP (120 Base Power): 295 - 348 (97.04% - 114.47%) (Always a OHKO after SR)

+1 Outrage vs. 252/252 +Def Blissey
607 Atk vs 130 Def & 714 HP (120 Base Power): 781 - 919 (109.38% - 128.71%) (Always a OHKO)

+1 Outrage vs. 252/252 +Def Swampert
607 Atk vs 306 Def & 404 HP (120 Base Power): 331 - 391 (81.93% - 96.78%) (20% chance of OHKOing after SR)

+1 Earthquake vs. 240/160 +Def Jirachi
607 Atk vs 303 Def & 401 HP (100 Base Power): 374 - 442 (93.27% - 110.22%) (92% chance of OHKOing after SR)

As you can see, with “little effort” (minimal prior damage to some defensive threats), Salamence is capable of sweeping through all of the biggest defensive threats currently in OU. With its ability to outpace every Pokemon in OU after one Dragon Dance, this obviously means that it can also easily sweep through the more fragile threats of OU as well.

Support Characteristic
A Pokémon is uber if, in common battle conditions, it can consistently set up a situation in which it makes it substantially easier for other pokemon to sweep.

The fact that Salamence boasts incredible stats in Attack, Special Attack, and Speed, allows him to dent plenty of threats in the OU metagame, with no setup required. Doing so makes it hard for any defensive Pokemon to maintain their health, making it vastly easier for other Pokemon to sweep. With the ability to heal off all damage using Roost, Salamence is able to consistently set up these situations in any match.

The set that demonstrates Salamence’s prowess under the Support Characteristic the most is:

Salamence @ Life Orb
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 84 Atk / 216 SpA / 208 Spe
Mild nature (+SpA, -Def)
-Draco Meteor
-Fire Blast
-Outrage / Brick Break
-Roost

Let the wall-breaking commence:

Fire Blast vs. 252/252 Neutral SpD Skarmory
341 Atk vs 239 Def & 334 HP (120 Base Power): 318 - 376 (95.21% - 112.57%) (Always OHKOs after SR)

Fire Blast vs. 240/76 Neutral SpD Jirachi
341 Atk vs 255 Def & 401 HP (120 Base Power): 298 - 352 (74.31% - 87.78%)

Fire Blast vs. 252/92 +SpD Bronzong (Levitate)
341 Atk vs 320 Def & 338 HP (120 Base Power): 238 - 282 (70.41% - 83.43%)

Draco Meteor vs. 252/4 Neutral SpD Swampert
341 Atk vs 217 Def & 404 HP (140 Base Power): 306 - 361 (75.74% - 89.36%)

Draco Meteor vs. 252/4 Neutral SpD Cresselia
341 Atk vs 297 Def & 444 HP (140 Base Power): 226 - 267 (50.90% - 60.14%)

Draco Meteor vs. 252/4 Neutral SpD Hippowdon
341 Atk vs 181 Def & 420 HP (140 Base Power): 367 - 433 (87.38% - 103.10%) (53% chance of OHKOing after SR)

Draco Meteor vs. 188/0 Neutral SpD Vaporeon
341 Atk vs 226 Def & 448 HP (140 Base Power): 295 - 348 (65.85% - 77.68%)

Draco Meteor vs. 252/0 Neutral SpD Gliscor
341 Atk vs 186 Def & 354 HP (140 Base Power): 358 - 423 (101.13% - 119.49%)

Draco Meteor vs. 252/0 Neutral SpD Gyarados
341 Atk vs 236 Def & 394 HP (140 Base Power): 282 - 333 (71.57% - 84.52%) (66% chance of OHKOing after SR)

Outrage vs. 252/252 +Def Blissey
327 Atk vs 130 Def & 714 HP (120 Base Power): 421 - 496 (58.96% - 69.47%) (Always a 2HKO)

Brick Break vs. 252/0 Neutral Def Heatran
327 Atk vs 248 Def & 386 HP (75 Base Power): 186 - 220 (48.19% - 56.99%) (Always a 2HKO)

With Intimidate, its resistances to Fighting, Water, Fire, Grass, and Bug type attacks, and immunity to Ground type attacks, Salamence can find many opportunities to come in and dish out big damage, be it against defensive or offensive teams. He can then easily Roost off his Life Orb and SR damage, allowing him to come in multiple times throughout the match and do it all over again too. Because of this, Salamence has the ability to make it substantially easier for other Pokemon to sweep with relatively little effort.

On top of the two sets listed above, Salamence has many other completely viable sets that can destroy many common OU teams. The physically bulky DD Roost set can easily set up on common “checks” to Salamence, such as Scizor, and sweep teams clean. The Choice Band set allows Salamence to just blast through things, 2HKOing some Pokemon even through their Dragon resist with Outrage. It takes multiple Pokemon on one team to check every Salamence set (which you must do, if you plan on having a successful team, seeing as each set is relatively common). Even if you do carry multiple checks for every Mence variant, a wrong initial switch can, and often will, cost you a Pokemon or more. There is absolutely no safe initial switch-in for Mence, and you just have to hope you guess right. Because of all these reasons, Salamence needs to be tested as a suspect for sake of having a balanced OU metagame.

If we decide to make Salamence a suspect, we also need to decide when and how he will be tested. I propose that we do this after the current stage of testing is complete. That way, we can be sure that Mence will be tested in the true OU metagame. There is also the question of whether or not we should create a separate ladder for testing Mence, which I leave up to debate. On one hand, most of us already know first-hand what Mence is capable of, and are qualified to vote based off of the standard ladder. On the other hand, it might be beneficial to expose ourselves to a Salamence-less metagame, to give us a reference point.

Discuss.

 

[Flashstorm1]

I've actually been a big proponent for the testing of Salamence as a suspect for a while. Salamence has shown to be one of, if not already, the most feared Pokémon in the current OU metagame. It's versatility is ridiculous, and it's lack of safe switch-ins makes it tough to beat indeed.

I'm actually going to go further indepth as to why I think Salamence should be considered for suspect in a later edit, but for now, I'd like to propose how we should go about testing Salamence. The way I see it, we have two options: 1) Use the suspect ladder to test a metagame without Salamence in it, similar to the way we did for Garchomp in Stage 2, and see how its absence affects the metagame, or 2) Test Salamence in the suspect ladder without the presence of any other current suspects (i.e. Latias) and see how the removal of the suspects affects Salamence's presence in the OU/Suspect metagame.

For the purposes of testing Salamence, I'd support going with the first option instead of the second for a few reasons. Players already have experience with Salamence in the OU ladder, so testing it in the suspect ladder would likely not change much as it'd still be the same metagame. Additionally, if Latias were removed during said Salamence test, wouldn't that mean one less Salamence check as well? Latias wielding a Choice Scarf will always outspeed Salamence while Latias can switch into Mixed Salamence's Fire Blast or Earthquake and force it out. Just my two cents.

To sum up, I am in full support for the testing of Salamence on the suspect ladder. The most appropriate time to test it would probably be after Stage 3-3 has completed, depending on its results.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

Everyone that's ever seen me rant on #stark knows I completely agree with the sentiments of this topic.

How to go about testing him is obviously the problem (well less of a problem and more of a 'what makes sense' scenario). After 3-3 if Manaphy remains Uber I'd like to say we can go as far as immediately holding a vote on Mence. If Manaphy falls OU then we definitely at least have to wait a month before we can do any voting and then the issue is suspect ladder or no suspect ladder? I'll wait until the current suspect results to even voice my opinion on that issue.

 

[Seven Deadly Sins]

Posting to agree with Jabba entirely.

 

[reachzero]

Without going as far as to say "Salamence ought to be Uber", I definitely agree that Salamence is on a par with the other Pokemon that have been Suspects, and yes, better than Latias. As such, I believe that it would be perfectly appropriate for Salamence to be a Suspect in its own right. In terms of method of testing, I believe that JabbaTheGriffin's proposal sounds reasonable. I realize that Salamence has been something of a taboo subject considering that is has been OU for as long as anyone can remember, but the addition of Outrage (in Platinum, of course) really does make an enormous difference from how strong Salamence was even as recently as Diamond/Pearl. The fact that Scizor is #1 (by a large margin) despite being only a "good" Pokemon says quite a bit about the threat level of Dragon Dance Salamence in particular.

 

[lati0s]

1) Use the suspect ladder to test a metagame without Salamence in it, similar to the way we did for Garchomp in Stage 2, and see how its absence affects the metagame,

This is a really terrible option in my opinion, observing the metagame without a pokemon cant really tell you anything but if it was affecting the metagame a lot, but large effect on the metagme=/= broken

As for salamence itself I really don't see it as a suspect, when teambuilding I don't consider it any larger a threat than most other things but it never seems to cause me any problems. The calcs in the OP are nice but no more impressive than the ones I could give you for SD luke or other sweeper/wallbreakers.

 

[MetaNite]

This is a really terrible option in my opinion, observing the metagame without a pokemon cant really tell you anything but if it was affecting the metagame a lot, but large effect on the metagme=/= broken

As for salamence itself I really don't see it as a suspect, when teambuilding I don't consider it any larger a threat than most other things but it never seems to cause me any problems. The calcs in the OP are nice but no more impressive than the ones I could give you for SD luke or other sweeper/wallbreakers.

There isn't unfortunately, any definitive way to test Salamence for being Uber beyond just playing with it. The reason Salamence is so deadly, and definitely deserves to be a suspect more than say Swords Dance Lucario, is its nearly boundless versatility. You have to worry about Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, Dragon Dance, et cetera. When building a team, you normally do not consider anything bar Swords Dance Lucario, or Dragon Dance Gyarados, as they often have very similar counters. Choice Specs Aura Sphere will not be beating Gliscor, while RestTalk Gyarados still isn't getting past Rotom-A. Salamence on the other hand, is not so simple to counter. Swampert does beat Dragon Dance Salamence, but fails to defeat MixMence. Blissey can make a decent switch into MixMence as it often uses Draco Meteor on the switch, but you would never ever bring Blissey in on Dragon Dance Salamence. Salamence being almost consistently the #2 Pokemon on the ladder should exemplify it being "superior" in a few ways to other sweepers. I certainly am in full support of "testing" Salamence for Ubers.

 

[haunter]

Yes, I think we should test Mence as our next suspect. When looking at the current OU RMTs you notice that most of them are "Mence weak". For the reasons that MetaNite expalined: versatility, typing, learnset, etcetera, there is no safe switch into Salamence and most of the time you need to sacrifice a Pokemon and then revenge kill it with things like Scizor (hoping it's locked into outrage) or the uncommon Pokemon with ice shard. Mix mence is almost guaranteed to kill at least one of your Pokemon, so is DD Mence. Being weak to SR and taking damage from sandstorm makes it a little easier to revenge kill than Garchomp, but I still support testing it for ubers.

As for the method of testing: I see no reasons to not use the suspect ladder with Salamence as the suspect. We've had Latias in OU for an year now, but we're still testing her on the suspect ladder during stage 3.3, the same concept can be applied to Salamence, with the only difference being that we've considered it OU for way longer.

 

[Tangerine]

Obviously it's clear that in practice no one knows how to use the characteristics of uber like they were intended to. They are not something you appeal to, they are something you show, clearly, that they meet. No Pokemon meet the requirement just because someone posts some damage calculations and magically say "so see? little effort"

Obviously in such a simplistic appeal to the offense characteristic such an argument may hold, although it still doesn't show "significance". The point is that DDMence exactly isn't staying in the field forever - it's switching out the second it uses the "wrong move", switching out with SR damage, life orb recoil, the everpresent sandstorm, etc. There are many barriers that "hold" Salamence to a sweep a lot more than, say, Garchomp. What you have literally done is that "If Salamence uses the right moves at the right switch in it is going to beat this wall". Guess what, so can... Magmortar. So can *insert Pokemon here*. If mence uses DD against Hippo, it's going to die the next turn or run away (bar that Ice Fang miss or something), if Mence uses Outrage or DD against Bronzong, mence is "leaving", etc etc.

That's why Damage Calc based arguments are inherently terrible since they seem to take this simplistic route of ignoring everything else or even worse, assuming everything else. The opening arguments are terrible in that regard. Same thing with Support, really, especially with Meteor Calcs. They're rather simplistic in that approach to the point where this is literally "another random arguing this in Stark Mountain" or something.

Yes, I think we should test Mence as our next suspect. When looking at the current OU RMTs you notice that most of them are "Mence weak". For the reasons that MetaNite expalined: versatility, typing, learnset, etcetera, there is no safe switch into Salamence and most of the time you need to sacrifice a Pokemon and then revenge kill it with things like Scizor (hoping it's locked into outrage) or the uncommon Pokemon with ice shard. Mix mence is almost guaranteed to kill at least one of your Pokemon, so is DD Mence. Being weak to SR and taking damage from sandstorm makes it a little easier to revenge kill than Garchomp, but I still support testing it for ubers.

Yeah like in Early DP every team was "Gyara weak", every team was "Hera weak" every team was "Rhyperior weak", every team was "walled by Gliscor" or blah blah blah. You're going to have to do better than that instead of citing some subjective criterions that no one has even bothered defining to show "its too much" or whatever

MetaNite is "close" but he just states some traits rather than finishing the argument. Okay, so frigging what Salamence can do a lot of things? Don't say "it's not so simple to counter", that counts for a lot of Pokemon. So what makes mence so unique, why is this specifically about mence? Secondly, do you forget that after it uses Meteor it's forced out, if it uses Outrage, it's dead the next turn, and the other two moves only works if it hits your "proper switch in"? What kind of arguments are you guys seriously making that doesn't even consider such basic counterpoints that people in Stark Mountain mention all the time?

 

[haunter]

Yeah like in Early DP every team was "Gyara weak", every team was "Hera weak" every team was "Rhyperior weak", every team was "walled by Gliscor" or blah blah blah. You're going to have to do better than that instead of citing some subjective criterions that no one has even bothered defining to show "its too much" or whatever

Tangerine I don't really get what you're talking about. Firsty, I don't have to do anything, I'm not arguing that Salamence is uber by any mean, I'm just saying that I'd support this suspect test as I've always thought that Salamence could fit the offensive characteristic, and lots of people who play competitively think the same.

And obviously your examples are completely out of place, as all of the Pokemon you mentioned have some counters. Gyra is countered by Vaporeon and Celebi to name a few (and they used to counter Gyarados even in early D\P); Rhyperior is walled by Hippowdon, Swampert, Gliscor, and SD variants are too slow to sweep effectively, not to mention that its terrible defensive typing and mediocre special defence make it extremely easy to revenge kill; Heracross needs a scarf to compensate its only average speed and Gliscor is probably the exact definition of a Heracross counter. Teams walled by Gliscor??? I really hope that you're joking here, as almost every special attacker in the game can cause it troubles given its mediocre SpD.

My argument to test (note that I'm not saying to ban!) Salamence as a suspect is its ability to hit hard from both the sides of the attacking spectrum and its unpredictability, that combined with access to stab dragon attacks, intimidate, and a wide learnset; and I don't think that anyone in their right mind may find something wrong with that. Maybe you should get back into competitive battling before calling people out with such inappropriate arguments.

 

[Tangerine]

The point is that there needs to be (or supposed to be anyway), solid theorymon before we even consider adding a suspect. Your statement that

My argument to test (note that I'm not saying to ban!) Salamence as a suspect is its ability to hit hard from both the sides of the attacking spectrum and its unpredictability, that combined with access to stab dragon attack, intimidate, and a wide learnset

is sort of meaningless since this is literally just traits. How the hell does this affect competitive Pokemon? What's the theory behind why the metagame would become more competitive without Salamence? There is literally no justification other than "hi lets look at this trait" or "every team in RMT is mence weak!"(MAYBE the fact that every team is "mence weak" is a signal that the way people RMT is FLAWED but hey what do i know since I haven't played pokemon in 18 months right?)

Also why does that mean we test it? Isn't the fact that we have played with it give us enough justification to argue the characteristics? Why, then, is it "too much" asking the OP to give a good argument on how it even comes close to justifying it, when everyone is misusing it and appealing to it without really thinking about it?

And obviously your examples are completely out of place, as all of the Pokemon you mentioned have some counters. Gyra is countered by Vaporeon and Celebi to name a few (and they used to counter Gyarados even in early D\P); Rhyperior is walled by Hippowdon, Swampert, Gliscor, and SD variants are too slow to sweep effectively, not to mention that its terrible defensive typing and mediocre special defence make it extremely easy to revenge kill; Heracross needs a scarf to compensate its only average speed and Gliscor is probably the exact definition of a Heracross counter. Teams walled by Gliscor??? I really hope that you're joking here, as almost every special attacker in the game can cause it troubles given its mediocre SpD.

You're missing the point. I brought them out to specifically mention that "everyone being weak to mence in RMT forum" isn't a reason why we should "consider testing mence", period. maybe if you attempted to clarify and back up your "every team is mence weak" is a valid reason for anything since clearly there is life after mence gets a DD, or at best Mence can get maybe a kill or maybe more if the person is intelligent enough... they can even set up a sweep or something. isn't that unheard of? That's called playing Pokemon

Maybe you should get back into competitive battling before calling people out with such inappropriate arguments.

or maybe you need to get some theory behind what you do instead of joining everyone else with their mindless flailing of incomplete arguments and stop pretending playing Pokemon actually matters since Pokemon is a super simplistic game and it's rather insulting to say that I can't say your arguments are silly/flawed because i haven't played pokemon or something.... lol

 

[Philip7086]

It seems some people think I was making "damage calc based arguments," which was not my intention, so let me clarify. I posted damage calculations to highlight the output potential that Mence has. What sets Mence apart from other threats in OU, is a combination of things, which I thought I mentioned, but it seems I was not clear enough about it in the OP.

First of all, Pokemon like Magmortar might be able to break walls with perfect prediction, but they cannot also sweep through offensive teams like Salamence can; they lack the speed and bulk that Salamence packs which enables him to do so. The reason I felt those damage calcs were appropriate, was because I already stated that Mence will outspeed every other Pokemon in OU (unless scarfed) after a DD, and if he can do that much damage to the sturdiest walls, then he can obviously sweep through offensive teams as well.

Of course, you can't just look at each set one-dimensionally. There are a lot of things that come into play when dealing with Salamence. Keep in mind that until you know the exact Mence set, you are in dire threat of being swept clean. The fact that each set is competitively viable and extremely potent is what separates Mence from any other Pokemon. One wrong initial switch, and that can cost you the entire match. To top it all off, every Mence "check" can be beaten by a certain Mence variant. Sure, other Pokemon can create sets that can eliminate normal "counters" to them, but they lose a lot of potential by doing so (See: Agility HP Ice Lucario). Mence, on the other hand, has sets that beat his regular counters, which do not take away from his overall destructive potential.

I also heard mention of wrong move choices on Salamence's part forcing him to switch out, taking away from his sweeping capability, due to SR + LO + SS damage. Ignoring the fact that I don't like to assume things like SR when discussing a Pokemon's tiering status, this method of dealing with Mence only applies to variants that do not carry Roost. On top of this, let's not forget the Mence user's ability to use Rapid Spin, or trap the only resisting type to Outrage with Magnezone and kill them. I think taking such precautions on a well-thought-out Salamence team requires "little effort" to say the least, and allows Salamence to be "capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame."

 

[reachzero]

I feel that people have not really thought through "how is Salamence different from Lucario, Magmortar, etc.?" When we talk about "preparing for Salamence" it is qualitatively different from preparing for "obviously OU" threats like Lucario, Gyarados and Heatran. The reason is twofold.

1. Salamence is immediately threatening to a degree that most OU sweepers are not. If the immediate response to Salamence is wrong, the opposing player will likely lose a Pokemon immediately. This is especially true in the case of "MixMence" sets, that is, sets that have Draco Meteor. This puts heavy pressure on the opposing player to switch. The fact that Salamence has base 100 speed means that there is a very large pool of Pokemon that it threatens with a very low level of risk--and unlike, say, Jirachi, it is virtually impossible to wall. Switching against Salamence is almost a necessity (especially, though not exclusively, for stall and semi-stall teams), yet switching is never safe. Most importantly, the threat of MixMence gives Dragon Dance Salamence chances to stat up that it would likely not otherwise get--for example, Skarmory will almost always switch out the the first time it sees Salamence, since most players will not risk losing Skarmory to a Fire Blast (of course, the Salamence user can always choose to Fire Blast Skarmory later if he/she needs to anyway).

2. Salamence is incredibly difficult to revenge kill without specific priority moves.
Again, base 100 speed is a major factor, but the real back-breaker is Dragon Dance. MixMence is at least moderated in its effectiveness by the fact that it is fairly easy to revenge kill and can even be switched into with the help of a little prediction (though that is risky, of course). Once Salamence gets a Dragon Dance, however, the list of options becomes very short. The most common (and effective) option is to use Scizor or Mamoswine to revenge kill Salamence with their powerful priority moves. Yes, I realize that Weavile can do so as well, but Weavile has difficulties in the present metagame unrelated to Salamence (and did before Scizor obtained Bullet Punch....). While this is admittedly effective, both Pokemon are relatively easy to lure out and easily walled. Scizor in particular can be virtually 100% dealt with using Magnezone. Yes, Scizor does hurt Salamence's effectiveness somewhat, but not as much as, say, Blissey affects Latios' effectiveness. One Pokemon is not sufficient in itself to keep any other in a lower tier, particularly one that is relatively easy to remove. Of course, the second method of revenging Salamence would be to use a Choice Scarfed revenge killer, yet the list of potential OU revenge killers of over base 100 speed is short--Jolteon, Azelf, Starmie, Gengar, Latias, Infernape. Yes, some of these are commonly used with a Choice Scarf (Gengar and Latias, once in a while Azelf or Infernape), yet all have clear weaknesses as revenge killers, such as being easily walled and severely hurt by Pursuit. Choice Scarfed revenge killers tend to be a poor response for Dragon Dance Salamence. The third method is to use a bulky water such as Swampert or Suicune to survive a +1 Outrage and KO back with Ice Beam; the downside is that neither can be switched safely straight into Salamence (because of the possibility of Draco Meteor), yet if the bulky water is coming in to revenge kill, the player is sacrificing most of a second Pokemon's health just to kill Salamence, which seems to me somewhat excessive.

All of this is not to say that Salamence should necessarily be Uber. Each of the above methods works "enough" to not make Salamence an automatic win for its user. However, I believe that this provides enough evidence that Salamence is unusually difficult to deal with by OU standards that it merits status as a Suspect.

 

[lilyhollow]

I don't think Salamence has shown any evidence of "brokenness," however undefined that term may be. I do think that the metagame could significantly benefit from its absence.

I don't really know whether that means I should or shouldn't agree that Salamence is Suspect material, but there you have it. If having evidence of "brokenness" is what qualifies a Pokemon as "Suspect," Salamence isn't a Suspect, but if "benefiting the metagame upon removal" is the qualifier, Reachzero has laid out pretty clearly why Salamence should obviously become one. My issue is in deciding between the two qualifiers, because as far as I'm concerned, even though they're both subjective, they aren't one and the same, and neither is really "encouraged" over the other (or rather, the "definition of 'Suspect'" seems to indicate one thing, while the amount of evidence required seems to indicate the other).

 

[LoveDensity]

I agree that Salamence should be the next suspect. Although Stealth Rock and Life Orb recoil sets it back, it is definitely one of the hardest Pokemon to prepare and to play against. With one single move: Dragon Dance or Draco Meteor, it can change the outcome of the entire game. If you play against it wrong for even one turn, it will be prove hazardous. DD Outrage OHKOs and 2OHKOs almost everything in the metagame except popular choices like Forrey and Physical Defensive Skarm. Even then, Skarm and Forrey can be beat with Flamethrower or Fire Blast which forces it to switch and allow others to take damage. Mixmence is a beast that can dent lot of things when played correctly (which is not hard).

Stealth Rock is usually on the field in a lot of matches. But w/o it on the field, Salamence is real, I mean real hard to take down. People use things like Scizor, Latias, Starmie, Swampert, and Mamoswine to take it down. But Scizor needs to come in safely on a dragon attack or on revenge to stop Mence. W/o SR on the field, it needs a 2ohko to stop Mence, but that is hard to achieve w/o getting screwed up later. Scizor is forced to Bullet Punch most of the time because of the threat Mence presents. It can be pretty predictable and it would not be hard to switch in a Magnezone, Metagross, Gyarados, or Empoleon to kill it or set up on it. If Mence switches in with 100% health, you have yourself a big problem. Scizor doesn't like to switch into LO Draco Meteor or a Dragon Dance if you know that Mence will not be at Bullet Punch OHKO range. It will ultimately be forced to switch out and you allow your other Pokemon to take more damage. Latias is a good check to Mence, but doesnt like to switch into a LO Draco Meteor like Starmie, Swampert, and Mamoswine.

Although I am playing Pokemon no longer, I still believe that good can come out of a Salamence suspect test that will benefit players who still play and future players who will come to play the game. When I was playing, I adapted to Salamence being in the metagame, so I did not really consider it to Uber. But the underlying factor that I did not consider is that it has Uber characteristics that must be tested in a game w/o it. If its ban to Uber drives the metagame to remain or be more fun and competitive, it is a good thing is it not? Things do not have to be fair to make a better metagame. But who is to say Salamence remaining in OU is fair thats drives the current metagame to be a better one. Salamence needs to be tested to see if the metagame fares well w/o it, as it is clearly the hardest Pokemon to beat in OU.

 

[Havak]

Despite me agreeing with basically everything you say in the first post, as it's true, my experiences with Salamence are often lacklustre from both sides. When I use it, I never seem to dominate an opponent with it, and when I play against it, it never seems to give me too much grief. However, that's just my experience with it, as I felt the same about Garchomp and the majority of others clearly did not (although that was a bit different with Sand Veil being a big factor and more games coming down to speed ties).

I'm still for 'testing' Salamence though, anything more we can learn is always a bonus and works towards improving the competitive game. It's not as if we're 'holding much up' by testing more, is it? I think testing Salamence is fair and I'm all for it. Maybe some views will be changed, although I think playing a ladder without Salamence is a good idea. Maybe Salamence is one of the few things preventing stall from completely dominating the game to the point where there's little point using anything else? Testing is the way to find this out.. I don't see why learning even more isn't a good thing, unless someone has a more valid reason to not do this?

 

[Articanus]

I agree with Salamence being the next suspect. However, I would like to go with the motion that we do this like the original garchomp vote: where we have a suspect ladder without Mence.

People have lightly touched on the subject(Chou, Blame Game) about how Salamence would effect the metagame should it be removed. Well, I think that we need to have a small idea of what this metagame looks like before we go sending him off to ubers. For all we know he might be the "necessary evil" of 4th Gen, keeping stall in check to help keep everything in balance. Or maybe his removal will balance stall and offense's power: who knows, but to actually test what said metagame looks without him.

 

[Jumpman16]

i undeleted the three posts in the middle as i felt that they were insightful and not even close to the sort of "inflammatory" that would warrant their deletion.

for the record, guys...tangerine essentially created the final characteristics of uber. if anyone is allowed to argue that they are not being honored in a specific instance, it's him (even though anyone is allowed to argue this, as they are at the very crux of pokemon policy). and for the record, i pretty much agree with him when he states that citing damage calculations not only on the doorstep of 2010, not only here in PR (where you would expect posters to be able to form better arguments), but when salamence has been in standard since the very beginning (and over a year with outrage) is really kind of pathetic. we all know what salamence is capable of. the point is whether or not he is actually doing that.

now, i personally wish i watched enough battles to be able to see firsthand why salamence is suspect worthy. or maybe i have, and that's why i personally don't buy it. ("for the record", the majority of my actual competitive platinum experience has come with a salamence on my team, ~30 battles or so.) maybe tangerine and i are missing something when we feel that 'DDMence exactly isn't staying in the field forever - it's switching out the second it uses the "wrong move", switching out with SR damage, life orb recoil, the everpresent sandstorm, etc.', and that 'after it uses Meteor it's forced out, if it uses Outrage, it's dead the next turn, and the other two moves only works if it hits your "proper switch in"'. he's not saying that salamence isn't a suspect. he's saying that the arguments and points raised in this thread so far aren't very convincing, as they very well should be considering the eternity that salamence has been used in competitive play.

i'm sure of one thing—it's funny that some of the people in this thread who so direly want to test salamence are the same people who don't want to test the necessity of clauses. yet these people are unable to give concrete, practical reasons as to why salamence should be tested in spite of how long it's been in play, while somehow being able to assume that evasion and ohkos are definitely broken without any experience with them at all. it seems that many of us are indeed as "ban happy" as other communities feel we are.

anyway, i don't like to make the "slippery slope" argument, but if salamence were to be banned, i wonder how much more fearsome scizor, a pokemon whose runaway #1 usage is greater than blissey or garchomp's ever was, would be with one of its top checks banned. i don't think it's much of a stretch to imagine an eventual "Why Scizor Deserves a Suspect Test" thread in that event, and i'm not sure all of us realize that.

 

[Philip7086]

and for the record, i pretty much agree with him when he states that citing damage calculations not only on the doorstep of 2010, not only here in PR (where you would expect posters to be able to form better arguments), but when salamence has been in standard since the very beginning (and over a year with outrage) is really kind of pathetic.

I tried to clear this up already in my second post, and have talked to Tangerine about it on IRC as well. The only reason I listed some damage calcs in the OP (though admittedly, I may have gone a little overboard with the amount I posted) was to create a jumping point for the discussion of Mence as a suspect. They are in no way the key points I was trying to make in my OP, but rather something for people to reference and keep in mind when talking about Mence throughout the topic.

now, i personally wish i watched enough battles to be able to see firsthand why salamence is suspect worthy. or maybe i have, and that's why i personally don't buy it. ("for the record", the majority of my actual competitive platinum experience has come with a salamence on my team, ~30 battles or so.) maybe tangerine and i are missing something when we feel that 'DDMence exactly isn't staying in the field forever - it's switching out the second it uses the "wrong move", switching out with SR damage, life orb recoil, the everpresent sandstorm, etc.', and that 'after it uses Meteor it's forced out, if it uses Outrage, it's dead the next turn, and the other two moves only works if it hits your "proper switch in"'. he's not saying that salamence isn't a suspect. he's saying that the arguments and points raised in this thread so far aren't very convincing, as they very well should be considering the eternity that salamence has been used in competitive play.

I'm not trying to take away from either of your credibility here, as I only have the highest respect for the two of you, but I really wish that you both have been active competitive battlers in the last year, so that you would know the pain one has to go through when building a team, keeping Mence in mind. First of all, you need a Pokemon who can ideally outspeed and OHKO a +1 Mence. This is obviously to come in and force Mence to either die or switch out, should you make a bad switch and let something die. There are no Pokemon who are naturally faster than Mence after +1, as I have stated already in the OP, so you either need a fast scarfer, or a really strong priority attack. The number of options you have are severely limited in this regard (unless you want to bank your revenge killing on a speed tie with the base 100's, and even then, most are either trap bait or SR weak, which makes for very poor choice item Pokemon). Either that or you need a CB Scizor (who also requires that Mence takes SR and two LO recoil damages to guarantee a kill with Bullet Punch), or an Ice Shard user. Let's not forget how easy it is to take advantage of a Pokemon being locked into an attack to set another Pokemon up to sweep (support characteristic?). Versus DD variants, you can always try to sacrifice something to get Mence locked in on Outrage, so that a steel type can revenge kill (keep in mind, even most steel types need to be in decent health to survive a +1 LO Outrage), but what if Mence isn't using Outrage? +1 LO Dragon Claw still hurts hard, and I have seen many people rely on this as their strategy, just to get swept clean by a Dragon Claw Mence. Because of this, you now also need something sturdy enough to survive a +1 LO Dragon Claw, EQ, and Fire Blast, who can OHKO in return. You have a few more options for this (bulky waters with Ice Beam come to mind), but it is very hard to find a spot on an offensively paced team for such a Pokemon.

All of this just to stop one Pokemon? Let's be honest, there are no other threats in OU that require such ridiculous planning for. And even taking such precautions, you still aren't guaranteed to beat Mence, because a good Mence user will be able to easily bait and eliminate a lot of the Pokemon who can "stop" it. This is extremely easy to do, considering how few Pokemon actually threaten a Mence sweep. Let's also not forget that the only type to resist Dragon attacks can be trapped with Magnezone. It is because of all these factors that Salamence deserves to be tested. No other Pokemon in OU has such an effect.

i'm sure of one thing—it's funny that some of the people in this thread who so direly want to test salamence are the same people who don't want to test the necessity of clauses. yet these people are unable to give concrete, practical reasons as to why salamence should be tested in spite of how long it's been in play, while somehow being able to assume that evasion and ohkos are definitely broken without any experience with them at all. it seems that many of us are indeed as "ban happy" as other communities feel we are.

So this was obviously directed at me, in case anyone was wondering. Just to clarify, I made it clear in the clause thread that the main reason I was against testing those clauses was because at the time, they were going to be given priority over testing Manaphy in 3-3. I remembered Jumpman mentioning something about the release of Gen 5 on IRC, which led me to believe that there was a time constraint to all of these tests. With that in mind, I was trying to create an argument against testing the clauses, for the sake of testing what I believe to be more important: Pokemon tiering. Anyways, perhaps I am personally more "ban happy" than others, just as there are those on the other end of the spectrum as well. All I am trying to do is push for what I believe to be the most balanced metagame possible, so of course my opinions on "balance" (be them ban happy or not) will weigh in on my expressed views. As for my arguments on Mence, I feel like I have outlined decent reasoning as to why I think he should be suspect. I also feel like people are looking at the damage calcs I posted in the OP, and ignoring the rest of what I said. Since then, I have tried to elaborate more, but if that's not convincing, then I hope others can convey what I apparently cannot.

anyway, i don't like to make the "slippery slope" argument, but if salamence were to be banned, i wonder how much more fearsome scizor, a pokemon whose runaway #1 usage is greater than blissey or garchomp's ever was, would be with one of its top checks banned. i don't think it's much of a stretch to imagine an eventual "Why Scizor Deserves a Suspect Test" thread in that event, and i'm not sure all of us realize that.

As far as I know, Salamence has never been considered to be a "top check" for Scizor. In fact, Scizor is considered to be one of the top checks for Salamence. I am actually under the belief that with Mence gone, Scizor usage will drop, seeing as a lot of people just slap CB Scizor on their team for a "Mence check" (in quotes, because it's a poor Mence check IMO). That said, your point about a slippery slope, should Mence be gone is a valid one. If that is a concern, then perhaps we should do as some have suggested, and provide a Salamence-less suspect ladder for testing purposes. We are already familiar with a metagame which has Mence in it, so maybe we should try one without Mence, to see if his absence will throw off the balance of things, or possibly create a "slippery slope" environment, where something else becomes too dominating.

 

[JabbaTheGriffin]

I don't see where the slippery slope comes in. If we simply consider the best Pokemon in OU to be Suspect until voted otherwise, we in turn have a sound testing system with no potential for a slippery slope. Now of course if we operate under this philosophy it can get a bit subjective at times. But for the time being I'm sure we can all agree (most of us rather) that Salamence is currently the best Pokemon in OU and therefore it just makes sense to hold a suspect test for it.

 

[Tangerine]

It seems some people think I was making "damage calc based arguments," which was not my intention, so let me clarify. I posted damage calculations to highlight the output potential that Mence has. What sets Mence apart from other threats in OU, is a combination of things, which I thought I mentioned, but it seems I was not clear enough about it in the OP.

I tried to clear this up already in my second post, and have talked to Tangerine about it on IRC as well. The only reason I listed some damage calcs in the OP (though admittedly, I may have gone a little overboard with the amount I posted) was to create a jumping point for the discussion of Mence as a suspect. They are in no way the key points I was trying to make in my OP, but rather something for people to reference and keep in mind when talking about Mence throughout the topic.

This is the issue. If you were trying to start a discussion on why Mence deserves a test, you wouldn't use such "strong language", so to speak. Your title is literally a "proposal" of why you think mence needs a test, and you are nominating him on the first post of your thread. The point is that no matter how much damage control you're trying to do now it's obvious what you are trying to do so please cut me some slack....

First of all, Pokemon like Magmortar might be able to break walls with perfect prediction, but they cannot also sweep through offensive teams like Salamence can; they lack the speed and bulk that Salamence packs which enables him to do so. The reason I felt those damage calcs were appropriate, was because I already stated that Mence will outspeed every other Pokemon in OU (unless scarfed) after a DD, and if he can do that much damage to the sturdiest walls, then he can obviously sweep through offensive teams as well.

That implies that Mence needs a DD, which means he needs to get a free turn (and while Mence DDs, the opposing switch in "for free" too!). Really, is this enough? You act like "Mence gets a DD" is some sort of "Win" button - but you realize that there's a lot of possibilities that you haven't covered with any of your posts.

The point is that in order to make something a suspect, you need to show us why it is a suspect, or how its removal will benefit competitive play, or what it does to competitive play now. Because in the end if you can do that, you can show how it does that under the characteristics, because the characteristics are derived off the game's winning conditions.

I'm not too sure where the rest of your response is going - it's literally "just fluff" to me since you just answer back with rhetoric rather than actual arguments. That's great you're trying to justify your arguments, but that doesnt stop my criticism from applying since in the end you're not connecting the dots and putting together a coherent argument. Like really what is this

I also heard mention of wrong move choices on Salamence's part forcing him to switch out, taking away from his sweeping capability, due to SR + LO + SS damage. Ignoring the fact that I don't like to assume things like SR when discussing a Pokemon's tiering status, this method of dealing with Mence only applies to variants that do not carry Roost. On top of this, let's not forget the Mence user's ability to use Rapid Spin, or trap the only resisting type to Outrage with Magnezone and kill them. I think taking such precautions on a well-thought-out Salamence team requires "little effort" to say the least, and allows Salamence to be "capable of sweeping through a significant portion of teams in the metagame."

How can you say things like SR doesn't matter? SR definitely affects mence, unless it somehow got easier to rapid spin since the advent of Rotom or something I really don't see how you're arguing why SR isn't relevant. Or maybe assuming that the rest of the metagame is just incapable of damaging mence through roost or something... I don't know where you're going with this really :P

reachzero's post is a good starting point, and is a good informal argument (informal since it's not really that concrete but the everyone can see the points he's trying to make and why the points matter). LoveDestiny also touched upon one of the points, but doesn't really "finish it". How can you apply these points to the OC? It's not difficult as people are saying it is or all the people saying "LOL MAYBE YOU MISSED SOMETHING WHEN YOU MADE THE CHARACTERISTICS", i just claim that people aren't creative enough with how to apply them and show that the Pokemon meets them.

I'm not trying to take away from either of your credibility here, as I only have the highest respect for the two of you, but I really wish that you both have been active competitive battlers in the last year, so that you would know the pain one has to go through when building a team, keeping Mence in mind.

Be more creative? Why is that the only way you can deal with mence? why not explode on it, why not make sure it can never set up, why not make sure it takes a beating whenever it switches in, etc etc? These are all common counterarguments that you will hear on Stark Mountain and you don't answer them at all.

 

[Earthworm]

First I want to say that after thinking about it for a while, maybe I do have some problems with the characteristics. I am aware that a lot of thought was put into them and all, and I think I was even partially responsible for some of it during a discussion on IRC from a long time ago (where I said something about common battle conditions), but I think that there are some things that could be addressed or worded better at least.

Common battle conditions sound like a good idea, but I really think they aren't. Battle conditions are entirely manipulable by teams and moves, and a team which changes the conditions to favour a suspect doesn't seem to be accounted for by the characteristic. Therefore I propose a change from 'common battle conditions' to 'battle conditions which can be set up against most teams in the metagame consistently'. I think it better covers the effect that teams can have with regard to supporting a potential suspect.

The other issue might not really be an issue, but it occurred to me so I thought I would bring it up. The 'metagame' is mentioned in the characteristics, and if I interpreted it correctly, it refers to the metagame in which the suspect is contained. If I understand the concept, metagames are metagames because they evolve and change to suit what is being used as a dominant strategy at some point in time. Theoretically, if we were to throw some arbitrarily chosen Uber Pokémon into OU, the metagame would evolve and change around that Pokémon -- the players and their teams would adapt to playing against and beating the new threat, then people would work out strategies to counter those, and so on. This brings me to my point about the characteristic. If the metagame shifts enough to stop the Pokémon from 'sweeping through a significant portion of teams', is that Pokémon no longer Uber under the characteristics? I know that it's encouraged for people to twist the characteristics to fit their arguments (or at least that's how I've interpreted some posts and suggestions), but where does centralisation or whatever other effect I am describing fit into all of these? Keep in mind that this is purely theoretical and I have no idea whether it could actually happen, it just seemed to be unaddressed by the characteristics. If this is one thing that isn't covered, then there could be others too, which is at least a little worrying.

Since I think Salamence does deserve to be a suspect, I will address Tangerine's last post and continue the argument.

This is the issue. If you were trying to start a discussion on why Mence deserves a test, you wouldn't use such "strong language", so to speak. Your title is literally a "proposal" of why you think mence needs a test, and you are nominating him on the first post of your thread. The point is that no matter how much damage control you're trying to do now it's obvious what you are trying to do so please cut me some slack....

I am confused about what Phil did wrong. Is he supposed to remain neutral or start to argue his belief that Salamence has a good shot of reaching Suspect / Uber status by showing how strong it is? Sorry if I'm being ignorant here.

That implies that Mence needs a DD, which means he needs to get a free turn (and while Mence DDs, the opposing switch in "for free" too!). Really, is this enough? You act like "Mence gets a DD" is some sort of "Win" button - but you realize that there's a lot of possibilities that you haven't covered with any of your posts.

He has given damage calculations of how powerful Salamence becomes after a DD. After talking to him about in on IRC, he gave an example setup where Salamence can be given a free turn in a given situation: using Trick with a Choice Scarf Jirachi has very good odds of luring out the free turn that Salamence may need to sweep the remainder of a team. I am not exactly sure how I can hope to prove that this is a common battle condition or whatever without writing a book, but you can say that Jirachi will get in safely, and is capable of threatening things out without much hassle. After that, you can Trick something that comes in to use a (hopefully Super Effective) move against Jirachi to stop it from doing further damage to their team. At this point, if you think Salamence is capable of sweeping the rest of the team you are opposing, you can sacrifice Jirachi to bring in Salamence and get that free turn which wins the game for you.

That argument will obviously be countered with 'but it applies to everything that can set up'. Well, nothing else has Salamence's combination of Speed, the ability to attack from both sides very effectively, and perfect coverage with very powerful moves. There is no Salamence counter (which can be said about a few Pokémon in the OU metagame), and Salamence has sets which teams would have to concentrate on so much to be able to handle them safely that Salamence's teammates would be able to rip through the team / checks with minor difficulty. This is hopefully the effect that you are looking for when you are looking for something to be worthy of suspect status. If it's not, then I don't know how far I have to go to prove it to you.

It's obvious that Salamence can't deal with the whole OU metagame by itself, but with the right support it's very tough to deal with. Not only that, but it has a plethora of completely viable sets, some of which will sweep through teams that only prepare for one of the more common ones. For example, if a team only counters a DD Salamence with Scizor, it will probably have severe casualties when it faces a Leftovers DD variant or a bulky Roost variant. I have observed this myself, and it's not just theorymon. A very common teammate for Salamence is Magnezone which traps Scizor, who is often around for the setup sweepers that would otherwise have enough speed to rip through a lot of recent offensive teams without a problem in the first place. CM Latias can't beat Scizor consistently without lowering its speed stat by one important point to run Hidden Power Fire, DD Tyranitar must sacrifice its item, but Salamence can stick to one of its standard setup sets and often cause Scizor to sacrifice itself, or wait until a Salamence has taken enough damage before taking it down. I don't know about everyone else, but there isn't much doubt in my mind that it is not hard for a team to set up common battle conditions where Scizor is out of the way, or Stealth Rock isn't up, if it concentrates its efforts on these. Philip has already mentioned Salamence's ability to sweep through a majority of teams if it sets up and the practically-required-checks have been removed, which is what the characteristic applies to.

The point is that in order to make something a suspect, you need to show us why it is a suspect, or how its removal will benefit competitive play, or what it does to competitive play now.

Well that's nice but I don't see how we are failing to show you why by telling you how strong Salamence is.

Because in the end if you can do that, you can show how it does that under the characteristics, because the characteristics are derived off the game's winning conditions.

Then hopefully we will be able to satisfy this requirement with your guidance and other people who can see what is being done wrong, since I don't think that any arguments presented in this thread are blatantly incorrect. Perhaps they're just missing something?

I'm not too sure where the rest of your response is going - it's literally "just fluff" to me since you just answer back with rhetoric rather than actual arguments. That's great you're trying to justify your arguments, but that doesnt stop my criticism from applying since in the end you're not connecting the dots and putting together a coherent argument. Like really what is this

<quote>

How can you say things like SR doesn't matter? SR definitely affects mence, unless it somehow got easier to rapid spin since the advent of Rotom or something I really don't see how you're arguing why SR isn't relevant. Or maybe assuming that the rest of the metagame is just incapable of damaging mence through roost or something... I don't know where you're going with this really :P

It's true that Stealth Rock does matter, but it isn't impossible to stop Stealth Rock going up or to remove it. There are many leads that are often used with the purpose of stopping Stealth Rock from either going up in the first place or removing it. For example, leading with a Choice Scarf Trick Starmie that has Rapid Spin in another slot has a good chance of ensuring that Stealth Rock doesn't hang around if it even goes up in the first place. Aerodactyl is faster than every SR user other than itself, and there are a lot of potential options for Scarf Sleep Pokémon. Life Orb Rapid Spin Starmie is actually not always a bad choice and actually sees usage because of its ability to threaten Rotom-A and remove Stealth Rock for Salamence (and the rest of the team, but Salamence benefits especially). If a team can set up this situation with some consistently, does it count as a common battle condition? Maybe you were just prompting this! Obviously Salamence must time its Roosts correctly if they are going to pay off, the same way every other Pokémon must time their set up or recovery properly. If the opponent can keep the pressure up then that's good for them, they could probably do it to a number of Pokémon we consider Uber as well.

Also, instead of telling us 'this is good' 'this is not finished' 'this is just a starting point for some undisclosed reason', could you please ask the questions that we need to answer to 'connect the dots'?

reachzero's post is a good starting point, and is a good informal argument (informal since it's not really that concrete but the everyone can see the points he's trying to make and why the points matter). LoveDestiny also touched upon one of the points, but doesn't really "finish it". How can you apply these points to the OC? It's not difficult as people are saying it is or all the people saying "LOL MAYBE YOU MISSED SOMETHING WHEN YOU MADE THE CHARACTERISTICS", i just claim that people aren't creative enough with how to apply them and show that the Pokemon meets them.

I have hopefully outlined why Salamence appears to achieve the characteristic from my perspective, but I am probably not the most coherent argument maker either so tell me if I haven't and what is lacking, please. As for the characteristics, maybe it is not the lack of creativity but the lack of clarity as to how they can be applied. I think we have the capability to be more clear and it's not our job to make this a puzzle. We could have more examples of unusual arguments that fit the characteristics, etc.

Be more creative? Why is that the only way you can deal with mence? why not explode on it, why not make sure it can never set up, why not make sure it takes a beating whenever it switches in, etc etc? These are all common counterarguments that you will hear on Stark Mountain and you don't answer them at all.

You can say these things about any Uber Pokémon, why are you arguing these? But I will answer anyway. The reason why it is very difficult to deal with Salamence without outspeeding it or hitting it with priority moves is that it has a lot of power behind its attacks once it sets up and before it sets up. The Explosion situation you suggested can apply to anything and is very situational from game to game. If the Salamence user knows they will sweep and they know that their opponent's Pokémon might explode, it is their responsibility to set up the winning set up turn for Salamence on a turn where either they know it can't be prevented or where they correctly predict. Alternatively, they can use the threat of a Salamence sweep to put them in a winning position from some other Pokémon. Making sure a Pokémon can never set up is often costly, and involves sacrifice. Since Salamence is fast, leaving something which Salamence could outright KO if you leave in is a risk. If that Pokémon is needed for another Pokémon, then you have to use your judgement to work out what's the best move. It isn't such a difficult concept, and perhaps Philip thought you would know this and not bother asking. This is a Policy Review thread after all!

 

[Tangerine]

Common battle conditions sound like a good idea, but I really think they aren't. Battle conditions are entirely manipulable by teams and moves, and a team which changes the conditions to favour a suspect doesn't seem to be accounted for by the characteristic. Therefore I propose a change from 'common battle conditions' to 'battle conditions which can be set up against most teams in the metagame consistently'. I think it better covers the effect that teams can have with regard to supporting a potential suspect.

Again, if some condition is actually capable of being set up consistently against most teams in the metagame, then it's a common battle condition. What is the critical difference that makes it so that we need to change the wording? You need to explain the reasoning behind your statement (something you haven't done on why we need to change it) since I don't see a real difference other than common battling condition being a much larger set and the other being a subset of such.

The other issue might not really be an issue, but it occurred to me so I thought I would bring it up. The 'metagame' is mentioned in the characteristics, and if I interpreted it correctly, it refers to the metagame in which the suspect is contained. If I understand the concept, metagames are metagames because they evolve and change to suit what is being used as a dominant strategy at some point in time. Theoretically, if we were to throw some arbitrarily chosen Uber Pokémon into OU, the metagame would evolve and change around that Pokémon -- the players and their teams would adapt to playing against and beating the new threat, then people would work out strategies to counter those, and so on. This brings me to my point about the characteristic. If the metagame shifts enough to stop the Pokémon from 'sweeping through a significant portion of teams', is that Pokémon no longer Uber under the characteristics? I know that it's encouraged for people to twist the characteristics to fit their arguments (or at least that's how I've interpreted some posts and suggestions), but where does centralisation or whatever other effect I am describing fit into all of these? Keep in mind that this is purely theoretical and I have no idea whether it could actually happen, it just seemed to be unaddressed by the characteristics. If this is one thing that isn't covered, then there could be others too, which is at least a little worrying.

If the metagame CAN shift to stop the Pokemon from sweeping through a significant portion of teams, can you really say that it's uber? You don't immediately try to satisfy the OC/DC/SC, you try it out in the metagame for an extended period of time, and see how well the suspect can actually play in the metagame.

The entire point of testing the Pokemon is to see if the metagame is capable of adjusting to the Pokemon or not. If we find that such a change is difficult/impossible/etc, then the Pokemon remains banned, etc. If something remains centralizing, then that's an argument that a signficant portion of the metagame is unable to deal with the threat, if argued properly.

I am confused about what Phil did wrong. Is he supposed to remain neutral or start to argue his belief that Salamence has a good shot of reaching Suspect / Uber status by showing how strong it is? Sorry if I'm being ignorant here.

I'm just calling Phil out because he claimed that "he only made the calculations to start a discussion and not ncessarily his beliefs or his arguments" but the OP just shows that he was actually making a (bad) argument.

He has given damage calculations of how powerful Salamence becomes after a DD. After talking to him about in on IRC, he gave an example setup where Salamence can be given a free turn in a given situation: using Trick with a Choice Scarf Jirachi has very good odds of luring out the free turn that Salamence may need to sweep the remainder of a team. I am not exactly sure how I can hope to prove that this is a common battle condition or whatever without writing a book, but you can say that Jirachi will get in safely, and is capable of threatening things out without much hassle. After that, you can Trick something that comes in to use a (hopefully Super Effective) move against Jirachi to stop it from doing further damage to their team. At this point, if you think Salamence is capable of sweeping the rest of the team you are opposing, you can sacrifice Jirachi to bring in Salamence and get that free turn which wins the game for you.

Cool, one example under a very specific situation where the only assurance I get is "very good odds"...

That argument will obviously be countered with 'but it applies to everything that can set up'. Well, nothing else has Salamence's combination of Speed, the ability to attack from both sides very effectively, and perfect coverage with very powerful moves. There is no Salamence counter (which can be said about a few Pokémon in the OU metagame), and Salamence has sets which teams would have to concentrate on so much to be able to handle them safely that Salamence's teammates would be able to rip through the team / checks with minor difficulty. This is hopefully the effect that you are looking for when you are looking for something to be worthy of suspect status. If it's not, then I don't know how far I have to go to prove it to you.


It's obvious that Salamence can't deal with the whole OU metagame by itself, but with the right support it's very tough to deal with. Not only that, but it has a plethora of completely viable sets, some of which will sweep through teams that only prepare for one of the more common ones. For example, if a team only counters a DD Salamence with Scizor, it will probably have severe casualties when it faces a Leftovers DD variant or a bulky Roost variant. I have observed this myself, and it's not just theorymon. A very common teammate for Salamence is Magnezone which traps Scizor, who is often around for the setup sweepers that would otherwise have enough speed to rip through a lot of recent offensive teams without a problem in the first place. CM Latias can't beat Scizor consistently without lowering its speed stat by one important point to run Hidden Power Fire, DD Tyranitar must sacrifice its item, but Salamence can stick to one of its standard setup sets and often cause Scizor to sacrifice itself, or wait until a Salamence has taken enough damage before taking it down. I don't know about everyone else, but there isn't much doubt in my mind that it is not hard for a team to set up common battle conditions where Scizor is out of the way, or Stealth Rock isn't up, if it concentrates its efforts on these. Philip has already mentioned Salamence's ability to sweep through a majority of teams if it sets up and the practically-required-checks have been removed, which is what the characteristic applies to.

I'm not interested in "countering examples", that's irrelevant and I leave that to others. You're missing the point of why I keep posting here. I'm not saying "Mence isn't a suspect are you joking", I'm saying "Your arguments really need to be fleshed out before anyone sane would consider them valid"

The points are the following which "I obviously haven't made clear enough in other Stark Mountain posts over and over again... which no one has read apparently

• Suspects are decided not because "we feel like it" but on solid theorymon. There needs to be significant evidence that the removal of the suspect would lead to a more "improved game"
• The characteristics is a framework that you can use to make the argument. That is all they are, it is something that needs to be considered in every argument specifically because one of the characteristics are always involved on every Pokemon.
• Nearly every argument given on Stark or elsewhere is a listing of traits and "what it can do", but fails to go beyond that in "why that matters in the game". Why does it matter? Why can't you tell us if it's so significant? How does Salamence hurt the game (see first point), and see how reachzero approached them (although he didn't quite finish but that's okay). No one cares how much damage mence can do or how fast it is or how hard it is if you can't tell anyone how exactly it damages the game.
• You fail to show me how strong salamence is since all you're telling me is what it can do. What does this mean? How dangeroous is this? How do teams normally deal with it and how does this affect competitive play, and in what way?
• The counter arguments DO matter, yes they can be applied for any Uber, but the point you and phil have yet to argue the significance of Mence in play and how it affects a significant portion of the teams and players in the metagame. All you say is "It can do this" "it can do that"... so what? I can hype up any random Pokemon too! The point is that if you dont show significance or if you dont show exactly how it's damaging to the game without a solid theory of how the game is played you're going to draw yourself into a slew of counterarguments and you'll be too busy answering them instead of actually juicing up your arguments (which is inefficient and another "mistake" phil made)
• Complete the frigging arguments please, no one cares if it is so fast and hard to revenge kill and it has so much power behind it, they're all fluffy words with no real significance behind them until you are able to define what they mean in terms of the game. Unless of course game is literally "the person who uses Salamence wins" or "this is all that matters in the game, nothing else even matters" and what not, it's a very one dimensional shallow set of traits that don't mean anything unless you piece it together with the game.
• The reason why I refuse to give a complete argument on either side is because defining the game and the direction of the game is not my business, but the players (which the players apparently can't put into words).

 

[Jumpman16]

I tried to clear this up already in my second post, and have talked to Tangerine about it on IRC as well. The only reason I listed some damage calcs in the OP (though admittedly, I may have gone a little overboard with the amount I posted) was to create a jumping point for the discussion of Mence as a suspect. They are in no way the key points I was trying to make in my OP, but rather something for people to reference and keep in mind when talking about Mence throughout the topic.

I'm not trying to take away from either of your credibility here, as I only have the highest respect for the two of you, but I really wish that you both have been active competitive battlers in the last year, so that you would know the pain one has to go through when building a team, keeping Mence in mind. First of all, you need a Pokemon who can ideally outspeed and OHKO a +1 Mence. This is obviously to come in and force Mence to either die or switch out, should you make a bad switch and let something die. There are no Pokemon who are naturally faster than Mence after +1, as I have stated already in the OP, so you either need a fast scarfer, or a really strong priority attack. The number of options you have are severely limited in this regard (unless you want to bank your revenge killing on a speed tie with the base 100's, and even then, most are either trap bait or SR weak, which makes for very poor choice item Pokemon). Either that or you need a CB Scizor (who also requires that Mence takes SR and two LO recoil damages to guarantee a kill with Bullet Punch), or an Ice Shard user. Let's not forget how easy it is to take advantage of a Pokemon being locked into an attack to set another Pokemon up to sweep (support characteristic?). Versus DD variants, you can always try to sacrifice something to get Mence locked in on Outrage, so that a steel type can revenge kill (keep in mind, even most steel types need to be in decent health to survive a +1 LO Outrage), but what if Mence isn't using Outrage? +1 LO Dragon Claw still hurts hard, and I have seen many people rely on this as their strategy, just to get swept clean by a Dragon Claw Mence. Because of this, you now also need something sturdy enough to survive a +1 LO Dragon Claw, EQ, and Fire Blast, who can OHKO in return. You have a few more options for this (bulky waters with Ice Beam come to mind), but it is very hard to find a spot on an offensively paced team for such a Pokemon.

While most of this is somewhat valid, the last part puzzles me the most. Why are you assuming that it's Salamence's fault for you being unable to adapt to the possibility that your "offensively paced team" is a bad team now that Salamence has Outrage? Hip tried to make this argument with Deoxys-S last year by repeatedly appealing to his personal preference of using offensive teams, and I will maintain forever that this is a very selfish way of thinking about competitive pokemon. (And DXS was ultimately pushed over the uber edge on the strength of its Dual Screen set, not just its fast boltbeam superpower mixed set.) This is exactly what I mean when I say that you guys are sometimes every bit as ban happy as you are accused of by others.

I continue to suspect that many of you are inherently averse to adapting, and that this is the reason there is so much opposition to changes in competitive pokemon that either must happen (new Generations, Move Tutors with generations) or could happen (lifting of Evasion, OHKO and Species Clauses). There are better arguments than "pokemon kills style of play" or "pokemon beats pokemon with move but i cant fit pokemon on team". Surgo's three-year-old treatise continues to ring true for me:

"DP will change the status quo. There are so many new pokemon, and so many old pokemon, and pokemon both new and old that are capable of kicking your ass in many different ways. Salamence comes to mind, as does Infernape."

So when Surgo stresses that, because of this, we need to remember to have a unified strategy and need to stop thinking about countering specific threats, I'm not sure we're all remembering to do this. I'm not saying that Salamence couldn't still be a Suspect, so don't get insulted by some phantom implication by me that you're all bad team builders or bad players. I'm saying that you need to make arguments that show that Salamence is possibly uber (e.g. a Suspect) because it thwarts your efforts of teambuilding and executing strategies "even" when you have it in mind ("even" in quotes because it should definitely be in mind when teambuilding and strategizing).

All of this just to stop one Pokemon? Let's be honest, there are no other threats in OU that require such ridiculous planning for. And even taking such precautions, you still aren't guaranteed to beat Mence, because a good Mence user will be able to easily bait and eliminate a lot of the Pokemon who can "stop" it. This is extremely easy to do, considering how few Pokemon actually threaten a Mence sweep. Let's also not forget that the only type to resist Dragon attacks can be trapped with Magnezone. It is because of all these factors that Salamence deserves to be tested. No other Pokemon in OU has such an effect.

This is better, but I still don't think this differentiates Mence that much from the myriad other threats we've had to deal with for three years. Also, more specifically, if Scizor manages to not get trapped and killed by Magnezone (Scizor was used with Duggy and Zone, two pokemon that can trap and eliminate Enemy Zone, between 8.04 and 11.49% of the time), then it will be able to OHKO this mid- to endgame DD LO Salamence threat with BP virtually everytime if you consider SR and sand to be common. Scizor does a minimum of 58.97% to 4HP/min Salamence, which will have at most 2HP after one turn each of SR, Sand and LO recoil assuming it takes no other damage. I suppose this is theorymon but it's simple give-and-take—it doesn't seem to me that Salamence can be LO, 252/252 Atk/Spe and be able to sweep the metagame that so commonly has SR and sand as assumptions.

So this was obviously directed at me, in case anyone was wondering. Just to clarify, I made it clear in the clause thread that the main reason I was against testing those clauses was because at the time, they were going to be given priority over testing Manaphy in 3-3. I remembered Jumpman mentioning something about the release of Gen 5 on IRC, which led me to believe that there was a time constraint to all of these tests. With that in mind, I was trying to create an argument against testing the clauses, for the sake of testing what I believe to be more important: Pokemon tiering. Anyways, perhaps I am personally more "ban happy" than others, just as there are those on the other end of the spectrum as well. All I am trying to do is push for what I believe to be the most balanced metagame possible, so of course my opinions on "balance" (be them ban happy or not) will weigh in on my expressed views. As for my arguments on Mence, I feel like I have outlined decent reasoning as to why I think he should be suspect. I also feel like people are looking at the damage calcs I posted in the OP, and ignoring the rest of what I said. Since then, I have tried to elaborate more, but if that's not convincing, then I hope others can convey what I apparently cannot.

It was directed at reachzero and Haunter too (I checked this before I posted), as well as many of the other posters I have reason to believe feel the same way. And there is a definitely time constraint, anyone who thinks we have forever to keep testing Gen 4 is going to be surprised when Gen 5 is likely announced this coming summer. As the longest faciliator of these tests, I have had this in mind forever, and have striven to test the most important things and as quickly as possible from the beginning (which is why I was very, very annoyed that Colin's proposal, however "right for the metagame", delayed our process a completely avoidable three weeks when the issue should have been addressed months ago).

Finally, I don't think anyone should be "ban happy" as this kind of goes against the spirit of the whole test. We indeed do start each game with as few bans as possible, or "shoulve have", so in that respect, anyone who seems to be the opposite of ban happy is arguably considering the game the way it should be (and always should have been).

As far as I know, Salamence has never been considered to be a "top check" for Scizor. In fact, Scizor is considered to be one of the top checks for Salamence. I am actually under the belief that with Mence gone, Scizor usage will drop, seeing as a lot of people just slap CB Scizor on their team for a "Mence check" (in quotes, because it's a poor Mence check IMO). That said, your point about a slippery slope, should Mence be gone is a valid one. If that is a concern, then perhaps we should do as some have suggested, and provide a Salamence-less suspect ladder for testing purposes. We are already familiar with a metagame which has Mence in it, so maybe we should try one without Mence, to see if his absence will throw off the balance of things, or possibly create a "slippery slope" environment, where something else becomes too dominating.

By default, Salamence's #2 (technically #3 if you count original Rotom but whatever) presence checks Scizor, being a faster pokemon that can ohko it (70% of the time Sala carries a fire move). This is even without considering the effecits of Intimidate, and the fact that only LO Scizor (used less than ¼ of the time) is able to do anything to Salamence's revenge attempts. By virtue of Bullet Punch, Scizor checks basically the entire metagame—which has been argued is the reason its usage is so high in the first place—so it checking Salamence is kind of a non-issue. And even if Salamence's absence does result in Scizor's usage dropping...so what? Is this what we are striving for? To curb Scizor's usage?

And if we test Salamence, we're obviously going to do it the same way we tested Garchomp. We're not having a repeat of the Skymin debacle.

 

[haunter]

It was directed at reachzero and Haunter too (I checked this before I posted), as well as many of the other posters I have reason to believe feel the same way. And there is a definitely time constraint, anyone who thinks we have forever to keep testing Gen 4 is going to be surprised when Gen 5 is likely announced this coming summer. As the longest faciliator of these tests, I have had this in mind forever, and have striven to test the most important things and as quickly as possible from the beginning (which is why I was very, very annoyed that Colin's proposal, however "right for the metagame", delayed our process a completely avoidable three weeks when the issue should have been addressed months ago).

Yes, I admit that I'm a bit (well, maybe not exactly a bit) biased towards testing Evasion and OHKO clause, but it's just because I believe that they would make the game more luck based. Anyway, I'm not stupid, and since I couldn't make a compelling argument about not testing them I said:

Species Clause
Evasion Clause
OHKO Clause

I see really no chance for Evasion and OHKO and I already hate the idea of a hax-based suspect metagame, but yeah, let's test them if we have to.

The point is that there needs to be (or supposed to be anyway), solid theorymon before we even consider adding a suspect.

If you like theorymon, then Philip and reachzero have provided plenty of valid arguments. In general I don't like theorymon, and I like to make reference to facts. It's a fact that Salamence has no safe switch ins. It's a fact that in most cases you need to sacrifice a Pokemon to Salamence in order to revenge kill it. It's a fact that there are really a few Pokemon capable of comfortably revenge killing Salamence (I'm referring to DD Mence here). On the other hand, it's a fact that Mence loses 25% of its HP at every switch in "in common battle conditions". It's a fact that the previous point, combined with sandstorm damage and life orb recoil, usually make it last not exactly long. Given these facts, in my humble opinion, we might consider it as a suspect.

What's the theory behind why the metagame would become more competitive without Salamence? There is literally no justification other than "hi lets look at this trait" or "every team in RMT is mence weak!"(MAYBE the fact that every team is "mence weak" is a signal that the way people RMT is FLAWED but hey what do i know since I haven't played pokemon in 18 months right?)

I've never claimed that without Mence the metagame would become more competitive, those are your words, not mine. I just think that Mence could fit the offensive characteristic.

You're missing the point. I brought them out to specifically mention that "everyone being weak to mence in RMT forum" isn't a reason why we should "consider testing mence", period. maybe if you attempted to clarify and back up your "every team is mence weak" is a valid reason for anything since clearly there is life after mence gets a DD, or at best Mence can get maybe a kill or maybe more if the person is intelligent enough... they can even set up a sweep or something. isn't that unheard of? That's called playing Pokemon

The reference to RMTs was just a personal note that I wanted to add to this discussion as, as most of the people on these boards know, I spend a fair amount of my time moderating the RMT forum. I've never claimed that Salamence is unstoppable but, you know, according to some people who posted in the various stage 3 threads in stark mountain, even Latios (myself included), Skymin, Garchomp could be comfortably stopped...

or maybe you need to get some theory behind what you do instead of joining everyone else with their mindless flailing of incomplete arguments and stop pretending playing Pokemon actually matters since Pokemon is a super simplistic game and it's rather insulting to say that I can't say your arguments are silly/flawed because i haven't played pokemon or something.... lol

See above, I generally don't like theorymon, and I didn't mean to insult anyone. I just wanted to express my honest opinion, but apparently one needs to motivate anything to avoid being called out by you :(