farranpoison: still prefer regular Sableye to Mega Sab, bulky Calm Minders are a dime a dozen. The only thing Mega Sab really has over them is an immunity to Taunt?
What I wanted to post:
I have not beaten E4 yet and have not had a chance to play on the ladder yet, but I have been thinking about various ways to check Megamence. I saw
Mega Aggron mentioned somewhere and I agree that it has the correct distribution of stats to at least handle itself vs Mence. I know Cress is thrown around but Aggron can reliably check boosted physical variants. Special variants are 50-50 and depend on largely on when you came onto the field but Aggron is no better than the traditional revenge killer vs special variants. Of course, this is an illustration of how versatile Megamence is, how checks for one set don't necessarily do well against the other
and why I think it's Mence's versatility, not outward offensive prowess, that makes it broken as fuck
First of all, this is what Aggron will expect to take. Please note that this is the random onsite spread that I used that is tailored for lv100 play, but I elected to use it because it is somewhat close to the balanced defenses that you will see in the typical Battle Spot spread. The nature I used on Mence's side is Naive and yes I did modify BST in the damage calc to account for Megamence.
+1 252 Atk Salamence Earthquake vs. 252 HP / 16+ Def Filter Mega Aggron: 60-72 (33.8 - 40.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
0 SpA Salamence Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 240 SpD Filter Mega Aggron: 67-81 (37.8 - 45.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO
+1 252 Atk Aerilate Salamence Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 16+ Def Mega Aggron: 47-56 (26.5 - 31.6%) -- guaranteed 4HKO
The thing to take away is that any Salamence lacking Fire Blast will autolose against Mega Aggron. Before someone tells me "hey, no battler worth their salt will run Fire Blast-less Mence", take this as a lesson that a) there is a very good reason to run Naive Mence over Adamant/Jolly, b) no need to run Outrage because Thrash/Double-Edge 2HKOs Rotom-W but lots of people will miss the fact that DDMence suffers from massive 4mss, and c) you will win very reliably against low ladder heroes who lazily throw together teams of goodstuffs who do not run Naive. Additionally, Salamence cannot set up on Aggron unless it is severely weakened.
In return, Aggron can outright kill Salamence or cripple with Twave and hope to whittle it to death (which is what makes life easier against bulky DD Megamence), which isn't a off prospect because of a combination of paralysis, Fire Blast's accuracy, and possible Iron Head flinches if you so happen to run it. Although yes, Aggron needs Ice Punch and yes, Intimidate weakens you, it does not detract from defensive investment:
-1 0 Atk Mega Aggron Ice Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Salamence: 84-100 (49.1 - 58.4%) -- 96.5% chance to 2HKO
0 Atk Mega Aggron Ice Punch vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Salamence: 124-148 (72.5 - 86.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
Both 2HKOs but even when Intimidated, Megamence can expect to take a lot of damage from Aggron with no attack investment.
The main draw over Cress is that Aggron can win against a boosted Megamence, provided it does not have enough SpA investment to 2HKO with Fire Blast. Remember that Cress does take a lot from boosted STAB (+1 252 Atk Aerilate Salamence Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Cresselia: 118-139 (51.9 - 61.2%) -- 94.9% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery) so I think that Mega Aggron should warrant consideration. Cress makes a much better check to purely special variants, whereas Aggron is 2HKO'd by Fire Blast and makes a much shakier check to those variants.
Mega Aggron itself is very bulky and isn't a niche addition to a team (cough Sableye), so I hope you guys will consider experimenting with it.