Why are we arguing for Pinsir vs Salamence? Salamence will always be better, which is why it's in the 'viable megas' section. Moving Pinsir up to 'niche' doesn't affect Salamence's placement, and Pinsir's niche has been explained itt. Instead, why not look at the things currently in 'niche' and use the criteria those got in with to move Pinsir up. I'm not going to go into it too much, but I at least see Pinsir being more niche than Steelix (or Medicham even though it isn't even legal yet lol), yet it's grouped with things like Pidgeot, Absol, and Blastoise.
True, but what niche does it have over mence? Dragon dance performs the same role for mence as swords dance foes for pinsir
I think the point 4lexander3 made about SD vs DD is a good one which got interpretted wrong by dogknees. One turn of SD allows jolly Pinsir to do more damage with Return than adamant Salamence can with Double-Edge after a DD:
+2 252 Atk Aerilate Mega Pinsir Return vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 153-180 (71.1 - 83.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
+1 252+ Atk Aerilate Mega Salamence Double-Edge vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Hippowdon: 141-166 (65.5 - 77.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
(Hippo chosen as example, neither want to fight it tbh)
So as far as wallbreaking goes, Pinsir outclasses Salamence which I think gives it a legitimate niche in the metagame.
While this is a niche not being 4x weak to ice, you become 4x weak to rocks in the process which makes you even more pressured by stealth rock, which is everywhere now. Mence at the very least can roost and hold some longevity, something which pinsir can't do at all. In addition to this, you're easily checked by common scarf pokemon that run rock coverage, notably garchomp / landorus / excadrill. Mence at +1 can beat all these threats, outspeed garchomp to ohko and living stone edge from lando as well as rock slide from excadrill. So i wouldn't really see this as much of a niche when the typing actually makes things even worse for pinsir
this seems like an unfair criticism, and please don't try and overstate the prevalence of stealth rock. Of the top 13 Pokemon that have stealth rock in their usage stats, not a single one has it over 55% usage.
As for the rocks weakness, why is this applied to Pinsir and its 'niche' but doesn't cripple Charizard or Volcarona? Both of which are premier threats in the meta.
That's nice, but mence can still hit everything that pinsir does, even without close combat
252 Atk Mega Pinsir Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Tyranitar: 212-252 (102.4 - 121.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
This is a legit niche over Mence, who cannot OHKO Ttar and gets KOed back by Ice Beam.
+2 252 Atk Mega Pinsir Close Combat vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Ferrothorn: 186-220 (102.7 - 121.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
one turn of setup = dead Ferro, Salamence cannot do the same after one DD.
Not to mention Celesteela and Skamory, two Pokemon DD Mence hates seeing but CC Pinsir can hit hard.
Mfw your biggest point only works when the threats are weakened... probably a situation which won't happen much
Huh? Blaziken often hits stuff with Flare Blitz, which gives enough recoil on its own (not to mention Life Orb) for Pinsir to KO with Quick Attack. Volc hates Stealth Rock. Getting residual damage on stuff for your cleaner to finish off is a major wincon in a lot of battles, so I don't see how that works against Pinsir.
Both Blaziken and Volcarona are pretty much only brought in to check stuff, so it's extremely difficult to weaken them.
Uh no, they're brought as the main sweepers in their teams. All teams have a physdef and/or SpDef tank for things like this, that get chip damage on them, which Pinsir (or any other Pokemon) then cleans up.
You'd need hazards of some sort to bring out pinsir's niche it feels like.
I disagree with this, however you could say the same thing for a lot of the megas. For example, Mawile (and Steelix) needs Trick Room to function properly, yet it's in the 'Viable' section. Yeah Mawile can do some damage outside of TR, but Pinsir can also hurt stuff without rocks. Even if Pinsir does need rocks (it doesnt), the majority of offensive teams / teams that feature a set up sweeper have a rocks setter just to break sashes anyway.
Honestly, I don't know how this turned into such a big thing. tl;dr: Pinsir has a
niche and should be moved up. This isn't the VR thread where we're saying how good that niche is lol.