Gen 6 ORAS Ubers Viability Ranking Thread

[BKC]

I had a hand in creating the fearsome forret aero team that sweep wielded in spl which led to him getting made fun of by scrubs like steeljackal so I'll give mega aero some support!

how it came to be

you might remember dice's relatively gimmicky greninja + sash aero team from late xy. I thought it was a really cool way to overload the plethora of slow bulky teams with hazards while denying opposing ones along with defogs from everyone's favorite arceus forms trapped by goth, shoutout melee "who is jay-z" mewtwo. dice's team did not have a mega, so making aero one was really an incredible flash of brilliance on my part. its incredible frailty in its regular form makes people forget that all things considered the mega is pretty tanky. it survives xern moonblast!

anyway come oras I was experimenting with greg + aero again (and other sr dudes... like taunt ttar... thanks donkey) and custap had just been released when I mentioned it to the great princess brii her(?)self. he wanted to try forret over greg, so we did and it rocked.

however without aero, forret's (or greg/scolipede if you roll that way) efforts would go to waste. here are some important mons in the metagame that aero is amazing against.

- mega mence. against a hyper offensive hazards team the dder should not have any breathing room whatsoever, and cannot lead off in search of an immediate sweep because while you usually lead with the spiker, unless it's greninja aero can just as easily lead and shut it down (!!!) with its typing, bulk and taunt (stab se rock slide, while not doing much after intimidate and the mega defense boost, doesn't hurt either, especially with that flinch rate). anyway the more concerning and quite common megamence variant is the defogger - bulkier and gets rid of the hazards the team is based on. "not in my backyard," says aero. rocks go up, they stay up, and mence itself is pressured when later dealing with pdon/ekiller.

- ho-oh. this bird is ridiculous, and spiker + aero is a beautiful way of shitting on its life. either you can lead the spiker and get a layer (or two if sacred fire doesn't burn unless you're forret in which case you explode) before bringing in aero and getting your rocks that are almost guaranteed to be permanent, or you can lead aero to scare it off, get sr first and try to load on spikes later if you'd rather do it that way (you probably wouldn't unless it's greninja since otherwise you aren't getting em up and preventing the defog, but the point is you can play it how you want, and can just abuse the obvious defogger switch with a double switch or explosion in forret's case).

- ekiller. ridiculous in every way, but aero walls the shit out of it and prevents (further) setup (or recover if it's one of those). generally aero doesn't live long enough for it to be checking it too much but it prevents it from coming in early game and putting pressure on you.

- primal groudon. I'm sure aero can be eved to live stone edge, its offensive investment is not its selling point. you get sr, prevent any setup from one of the most prominent early setup dudes in the tier (sr, rp [+sd]), and might even drop an eq on it.

phew that was a lot and might've been more suited for a general metagame discussion thread but I guess my pride for mega aero just spilled out heh. sableye is definitely a lamer though and aero's not something you throw on any team or even a half decent amount of teams. but yeah B- rank is definitely cool.

other things that look cool: alomomola hippowdon (these 2 together with rocky helmets could be nasty) and the unholy trinity of ice types, iceceus mamoswine and by extension.. weavile? stab knock off and pursuit! blazing speed and taunt! What's Not To Like am I right fellas

personally I think you guys are a little harsh on mega kanga and I can't speak highly enough about how good aegislash can be. shame about heatran going from a top mon to unranked lol

 

[Reffrey]

I'd like to nominate Kyurem-White> B to B+. The blazing dragon can be pretty nasty when equipped with scarf or specs. Unlike other choice users it has ice beam, which is a great stab that has few resists. If it were not for kyogre then I would advocate for this thing to be in A-. But with scarf it outspeeds pretty much all other dragons in the tier except for +1 spe mega salamence, scarf palkia, and the speed tie with +1 speed rayquaza. It's also a difficult mon to switch into since ice beam pretty much 2hkos anything that doesn't resist it. It can check darkrai by outspeeding and OHKOing it with scarf draco meteor. It's at least better than zekrom. Kyurem-w also has impressive bulk, and with 104 hp evs it can survive a diamond storm or a moonblast from mega diancie. Oddly all of the best uber teams that I have use a kyurem-w. It is often best used at the beginning or end of a battle, since it kills many leads, and makes a great clean up sweeper. I am willing to post damage calcs and replays that show kyurem's power. :) My main ubers team, btw, used a kyurem-white and peaked at a 1576 rating, which is decent. One person also used a substitute set on me and it was pretty good.

Oh, and kyurem-w is one of the only pokemon that can ohko lugia. Turboblaze is a nice ability that allows kyurem to ohko users of sturdy and multiscale. Fusion flare easily ohkos forretress, and can be used to deal tons of damage to steel types, even without specs. Earth power ohkos diancie and sometimes ohkos primal-groudon. Focus blast 2hkos blissey.

 

[Didoy75]

I'd like to nominate Kyurem-White> B to B+. The blazing dragon can be pretty nasty when equipped with scarf or specs. Unlike other choice users it has ice beam, which is a great stab that has few resists. If it were not for kyogre then I would advocate for this thing to be in A-. But with scarf it outspeeds pretty much all other dragons in the tier except for +1 spe mega salamence, scarf palkia, and the speed tie with +1 speed rayquaza. It's also a difficult mon to switch into since ice beam pretty much 2hkos anything that doesn't resist it. It can check darkrai by outspeeding and OHKOing it with scarf draco meteor. It's at least better than zekrom. Kyurem-w also has impressive bulk, and with 104 hp evs it can survive a diamond storm or a moonblast from mega diancie. Oddly all of the best uber teams that I have use a kyurem-w. It is often best used at the beginning or end of a battle, since it kills many leads, and makes a great clean up sweeper. I am willing to post damage calcs and replays that show kyurem's power. :) My main ubers team, btw, used a kyurem-white and peaked at a 1576 rating, which is decent. One person also used a substitute set on me and it was pretty good.

I was that person and I'm supporting the nomination.
Kyurem has an incredibly large movepool and is hard to switch in on.
170 BS of SpA is incredibly high.
Choice sets are decents as already said and the Sub set I use won me many games.

 

[QueenOfHax]

Yep, Kyu-W is really good in this metagame thanks to Primal Groudon. They have excellent synergy together since they check/counter each other's checks/counters (Groudon takes care of Xerneas, Primal Kyogre and Ho-oh, while Kyu-W takes care of Lugia, Giratina, Groundceus and so on). Primal Groudon is also directly responsible for the decline of every type that resists ice, making Kyu-W's STAB Ice Beam incredibly safe and spammable. Only a grand total of 3 pokemon under S- and A- ranks resist ice (Primal Kyogre, Scizor and Klefki), all easily checked by P.Don (and the steel types can still be bopped by Fusion Flare anyways).
It is imperative to have good hazard control when using Kyu-W though, since its annoying SR weakness coupled with vulnerability to the other hazards is arguably its only real flaw for a pokemon designed as a Choice Specs/Scarf user.
It's at the very least B+ rank worthy in my opinion.

 

[dice]

not really convinced by the kyurem-w nom....

like... what does it even do? idk u can list its cool calcs and shit.. however not only is it ridiculously hard to justify on a team due to its terrible defensive typing, but it seems to be more of a matchup based poke. if u run a scarf set and ur against a balance / stallish squad with a half dece check like arcwater / spdef ogre / w/e then you're not gonna be doing much. u have to lock urself into a scarf fusion flare to touch the omnipresent klefki... meh

if u run specs / lo and ur matched up against ho, ur just gonna be outsped by lati@s / excadrill / darkrai / cm arc etc and ur not even gonna do much. this poke just seems to exacerbate weaknesses in balanced teams while being inferior to other options on offensive teams. i would keep it at like c+ or low b

 

[tehy]

To be honest, i'd like to say that I was using Donkey's stall team to ladder and got totally rekt by Kyurem-W

since then i've kinda abandoned donkeystall since it has problems against other stall teams and is just ridiculously passive, but yeah, stall has huge problems with kyu-b, more than any other mon i'd argue apart from maybe Rayquaza

 

[Freeroamer]

To be honest, i'd like to say that I was using Donkey's stall team to ladder and got totally rekt by Kyurem-W

since then i've kinda abandoned donkeystall since it has problems against other stall teams and is just ridiculously passive, but yeah, stall has huge problems with kyu-b, more than any other mon i'd argue apart from maybe Rayquaza

I've used donkey stall and other stall teams and not had huge issues with Kyurem to be totally honest, keeping your Arceus forme healthy and racking up residual damage on it via hazards and status generally keeps it from being too much of a threat. Sorry if that sounds really general, but I've honestly not had much problem with it.

On the subject of using Kyurem, I have to agree with Dice in that whatever set you use tends to perform well vs certain kinds of teams, but is very much deadweight against others. I was also disappointed with how few things it can check, for a mon with what is really a pretty poor Speed tier, opportunities to bring it in are virtually non-existent thanks to awful defensive typing and hazards weakness, and this just means you're often left trying to build for it's failings while it doesn't really give enough reward to justify that level of support. It's fine where it is, most certainly doesn't need a raise.

 

[QueenOfHax]

not really convinced by the kyurem-w nom....

like... what does it even do? idk u can list its cool calcs and shit.. however not only is it ridiculously hard to justify on a team due to its terrible defensive typing, but it seems to be more of a matchup based poke. if u run a scarf set and ur against a balance / stallish squad with a half dece check like arcwater / spdef ogre / w/e then you're not gonna be doing much. u have to lock urself into a scarf fusion flare to touch the omnipresent klefki... meh

Its defensive type isn't "terrible", let's not throw hyperboles around. Fighting is very uncommon in ubers right now, Steel and Dragon are almost always STAB and can only revenge kill, leaving only Fairy and Rock (mainly for the SR weakness more than rock-type moves) as the only troublesome ones. And the resistances are still useful. It's still better than atrocious typings like Mewtwo's mono-psychic that's for sure.

if u run specs / lo and ur matched up against ho, ur just gonna be outsped by lati@s / excadrill / darkrai / cm arc etc and ur not even gonna do much. this poke just seems to exacerbate weaknesses in balanced teams while being inferior to other options on offensive teams. i would keep it at like c+ or low b

Depending on the set you run you're going to have to use different team mates to make the most of it. You say that Scarf performs worse against stall, but of course if you run Scarf then your Kyu-W was designed to be a revenge killer/cleaner and you should pair it with a wallbreaker such as SD Groudon. On the other hand, if you run Specs then Kyu-W is the wallbreaker, and you should pair it with a sweeper such as RP Groudon. And of course Sub is still perfectly viable and can be useful against any playstyle. Your opponent can't guess this from team preview, and Kyu-W is a notoriously hard pokemon to switch into, giving you a big advantage.

 

[dice]

scarf kyurem lacks the benefits that ~good~ scarfers have in a way to switch out (see: genesect, jirachi zekrom)

i mean u can argue ~hyperbole~ all u want, but the fact that i have never seen or been able to make a solid team ft this mon which speaks wonders for its viability imo-- esp after spl

 

[Fireburn]

The present metagame actually does struggle to find switch-ins for Kyurem-W, the only really common Ice resists are Klefki (Flare/EP kills it), Arceus-Water (who is 2hkoed by Modest Draco from Scarf sets with SR down, LO sets can do ~80%), and Primal Kyogre (who never runs sdef in oras) and the heavily Ground/Dragon/frail HO infested metagame makes Scarf a solid cleaner against most teams. I've been using it some and it definitely isn't bad, it does have polarizing matchups but if it gets a favorable one (Scarf tends to do better vs everything that isn't full stall) it will put in work. LO Kyurem-W is also a great stallbreaker right now, most stalls atm opt for Clefable over Blissey who is 2HKOed by Ice Beam. It's not a worldbeater or anything but Mid B is fine for it imo, B+ is a little high since it's still held back by mediocre defensive typing.

I also removed Heatran from the list as multiple people have agreed that it sucks.

 

[Reffrey]

scarf kyurem lacks the benefits that ~good~ scarfers have in a way to switch out (see: genesect, jirachi zekrom)

i mean u can argue ~hyperbole~ all u want, but the fact that i have never seen or been able to make a solid team ft this mon which speaks wonders for its viability imo-- esp after spl

Have u not battled dracomaster fate? He's a great player who recently topped the ladder with a team that has kyurem-w. I'm not sure if he plays spl, but he's certainly spl worthy and I'm pretty sure that he can beat some spl players.

 

[brokenwings]

Don't know if this has been nominated yet, but what are people's opinions of Mence in S+? It's probably the best offensive mon in the tier, has virtually no switch-ins with stealth rock up while at the same time being incredibly hard to check if it gets to set up, which it gets a ton of chances to do with intimidate and its ridiculous natural bulk. It barely even has checks, let alone counters that aren't extremely specialized. I really think it should just be S+ at this point, it puts an absolutely ridiculous amount of pressure on teambuilding and playing. I could probably ramble about this some more if needed, but I wanted to try and gauge opinions first.

 

[Minority]

We had this discussion in the Ubers room. My only objection for it not being in S+ is that it is both less spamable than Primal Groudon and carries an inherent opportunity because it uses a mega. Yes, it is the best mega in the tier, however compare to the cost of using Primal Groudon which is virtually nothing (you give up being able to use Groudon). Mega Mence gives up the ability to use Mega Gengar, Mega Mewtwo, Mega Diancie, Mega Scizor, Mega Sableye, etc. which is still a cost even though Mence is as good as it is.

If you look at it from an offensive perspective, I consider Mega Mence to be a significantly greater offensive threat when compared to P Don. It is very easy to setup, becomes both very strong and very fast in a single turn (Groudon takes two turns to accomplish this), makes room for Roost on an offensive set because of how fantastic Aerilate + EQ coverage is (you don't even need EQ lol), virtually impossible to revenge kill because of base 120 Speed at +1 and natural bulk tanks priority well, and so on. Only like 3 viable mons in the tier can take any attack at +1 and OHKO in return, and if they have prior damage Mence goes right through them.

With that wall of text over, it comes down to what we value more in the viability ranking, the ease of fitting it on a team or its ability to threaten the tier. Yes, Mence is very easy to fit on a team, that is why it is already S rank, but does it fit as easily as Primal Groudon? I think that is the most relevant question.

 

[ApplepieFTW]

mence, while really really good, sadly isnt quit on par with pdon. by virtue of being a mega, it will always have some opportunity cost. in mence's it's pretty low because it's by far the best mega, but it does limit you in some ways. pdon is a 'necessity' on 90% of teams (exceptions are full stall and some sand builds I guess) because there is very little reason to not run it. most teams lacking pdon are worse off without it, because it's just such a good mon. setting rocks+having next to no switch-ins, being an excellent xerneas check, sweeping frailer/weakened teams with rock polish or demolishing everything slower (and faster if it can live a hit) with sd, you know what it does. running mence on a team is much less needed, because it's very possible your team doesnt really need it, even though it is a deadly mon.

I'm clearly not trying to argue that mence isnt fantastic, it's just not a necessity like pdon is because it isnt as good as pdon, and also because it has a slight bit of opportunity cost (more than pdon for sure). so @ above, pdon is much more easy to fit on teams, pdon and mence are on different levels in that regard. keep mence in s-mid

 

[Hack]

I agree w/ dice, kyurem-w is a mon that can look pretty appealing in the sense that it can maybe clean a couple of teams here and there but the fact is that it's still just a scarfer- and a prediction reliant one too. Scarfers are generally not the best things out there these days. The number of set up sweepers that you can revenge are few (think rp don, xern, ekiller, mence) which means scarfers in general lost a big part of their niche from the glory days in bw2.

Its defensive typing is indeed terrible because it grants no noteworthy resistances (have fun vs kyogre really), weakness to SR, and being affected by all other hazards as well. I wouldn't go as far as calling LO/specs Kyurem-W great wallbreakers because against a defensive team with a draco sponge, all it takes it one drop and you are forced to retreat. The hazard weakness and LO racks up too and in the end I don't think you will be doing that much- there are way more reliable ways to break stuff. On top of that, it is somewhat pursuitable by the omnipresent, especially after dropping a draco.

So back to scarf, which is probably the "best" set. The problem here is that you aren't as strong vs HO as you want it to be. It can not revenge kill anything on those teams aside Darkrai, which is still an issue to switch into directly. To cover the stall weakness this set has, you probably need to cover up with some wallbreakers that leaves you weaker to HO and complicates its match up reliance further. I'd like to see a good team with Kyurem-W before I settle on rank but right now there is no evidence that supports a raise.

 

[AM]

The whole opportunity cost thing in regards to megas only goes so far if it is being established that the mega in question is considered the best in the tier for a mega slot. It is in a similar light to m-aero in UU and a similar light to m-steelix back in NU when it was still allowed before its ban. The choice of a mega comes at an opportunity cost in a sense but as you start taking into consideration that the mega you are speaking of reduces the viability of using other megas and even mons then opportunity cost for that mega becomes less of a concern to the point it may even be moot. This isnt to say m-mence should fall under S+ but this is to establish that you have to look at those that occupy the S rank and make the decision to say, "yes this mon far exceeds the current criteria of what we have for S right now." I think those are some more important concerns that should be looked at rather than just using primal groudon as your sole argument.

 

[Mr.378]

This is honestly something that I've been meaning to post about for a while now. I honestly believe that Mega-Salamence should be raised to S+. It is just incredible in every way and warps the meta more then any mon with the exception of primal-groudon, who to be honest is probably on par with Mega Salamence. The fact is that is not only absurdly powerful like the other two mons in S, but it also has a massive degree of splash ability that they do not have. It is not just an absurd sweeper that can wipe most of the metagame with ease, but also one of the strongest defensive pokemon in the tier. 95/145 physical bulk with intimidate is amazing, better then most pure physical walls and it usually isn't one. It is one of the few pokemon that can both sweep and wall a significant number of threats with one set. It doesn't even have to run the standard DD set as it has the defensive set to capitalize on its great defensive capabilities and be a defogger for the team. Going back to it's main set, the DD sweeper, for one linear set it has a lot of flexibility in what it can do and what checks it. It can run EQ to wreck most common switch ins to its stab, it can run refresh to ruin any attempts at statusing it, it can run sub to check status in am ore limited way while allowing for great offensive positions and the list goes on.

I feel as if Primal-Groudon is as good as it is because it is splashable. By that too I feel as if Mega Salamence is just about as equally splashable. The only thing that keeps it from being that way is that it takes up a mega slot which to me has never been that great a cost. On the contrary I feel as if Mega Salamence hurts other megas with its presence more then the other way around. It is significantly better then all of them and they are really only used when an important niche they offer is needed. Mega Salamence on the other hand has so many niches it really needs no justification for its use. It easily has the most offensive power of the megas and it is up with the best if not the best defensive mega too. Thus because of its great splashability, power, and versitility I feel as if Mega Salamence deserves S+ Rank alongside Primal-Groudon.

Sorry if this seems disjointed or if I was a bit vague but I feel as if this should happen.

 

[Reffrey]

I agree w/ dice, kyurem-w is a mon that can look pretty appealing in the sense that it can maybe clean a couple of teams here and there but the fact is that it's still just a scarfer- and a prediction reliant one too. Scarfers are generally not the best things out there these days. The number of set up sweepers that you can revenge are few (think rp don, xern, ekiller, mence) which means scarfers in general lost a big part of their niche from the glory days in bw2.

Its defensive typing is indeed terrible because it grants no noteworthy resistances (have fun vs kyogre really), weakness to SR, and being affected by all other hazards as well. I wouldn't go as far as calling LO/specs Kyurem-W great wallbreakers because against a defensive team with a draco sponge, all it takes it one drop and you are forced to retreat. The hazard weakness and LO racks up too and in the end I don't think you will be doing that much- there are way more reliable ways to break stuff. On top of that, it is somewhat pursuitable by the omnipresent, especially after dropping a draco.

So back to scarf, which is probably the "best" set. The problem here is that you aren't as strong vs HO as you want it to be. It can not revenge kill anything on those teams aside Darkrai, which is still an issue to switch into directly. To cover the stall weakness this set has, you probably need to cover up with some wallbreakers that leaves you weaker to HO and complicates its match up reliance further. I'd like to see a good team with Kyurem-W before I settle on rank but right now there is no evidence that supports a raise.

Correction: There is evidence to support a raise

Here are some players with solid teams that contain kyurem-w: Me, Didoy, Sunny ORAS, Dracomaster Fate

Here are some replays: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-219388152 (me vs some guy. Kyurem cleaned up nicely)

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-219221547 me vs pillowpokemon. Kyurem won me this game by taking out half of pillow's team.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-219568914 rarecandydrugger vs dracomaster fate. Both are good players who have topped the ladder. Dracomaster uses a kyurem-w.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-217764088 me vs didoy. The team that I was using was one of my worst ones, and didoy's sub kyurem owned it.

 

[Jibaku]

I don't quite agree with Salamence for S+ due to its splashability. If it should be S+, it'd be due to the fact that it exploits Ubers' longstanding weakness to Flying type attacks, and it has the Speed and set up ability to abuse it. I don't necessarily agree with that either but I'll let more experienced Mence players talk about that.

It's simply nowhere as splashable as PDon since it doesn't provide as much defensive benefit that Groudon does. It doesn't have Groudon's wide array of resistances and it's bulk is not that high once it can no longer combo Intimidate + mega. Thinking about it, the number of things Salamence can swap in on are relatively small and it's somewhat shaky at it (notable ones being: PDon to an extent, Ekiller to some extent, Ho-Oh to some extent). I'd argue that fitting Salamence in can be difficult at times because it's lacking the ability to reliably counter certain offensive threats. Certain bulky offensive Pokemon like PDon (stops Kyogre, really punishes Steel-types and smashed the viability of 2 Electric mons), Ho-Oh (stops most CM Arceus formes and is an absurdly powerful pivot with Rocks removed), and Lati@s (Stops kyogre and does an okay job checking PDon) have more defined checking prowess that makes them easier to fit in than Salamence. And of course, this is ignoring the fact that Salamence takes up the mega slot.

 

[Hack]

Correction: There is evidence to support a raise

Here are some players with solid teams that contain kyurem-w: Me, Didoy, Sunny ORAS, Dracomaster Fate

Here are some replays: http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-219388152 (me vs some guy. Kyurem cleaned up nicely)

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-219221547 me vs pillowpokemon. Kyurem won me this game by taking out half of pillow's team.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-219568914 rarecandydrugger vs dracomaster fate. Both are good players who have topped the ladder. Dracomaster uses a kyurem-w.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/ubers-217764088 me vs didoy. The team that I was using was one of my worst ones, and didoy's sub kyurem owned it.

g1 yeah vs a team with 3 ice weaks and no resist you can safely spam ice beam. Go figure.

g2 am i supposed to take a game with block mew and donphan to consider the competitive viability of a mon seriously? are you trolling?

g3 that game shows how prediction reliant kyurem-w is more than anything. After a unsuccessful attempt at removing klefki with fusion flare, your opponent had to risk a big prediction with an actual meh reward. What's kyurem-w gonna accomplish over something like exca on that team? I'll tell you what it doesn't accomplish: freeing up an arceus for something more useful on offense, secondary xerneas check, rapid spin (further freeing opions), secondary ekiller check (although his team didn't really have one to begin with).

g4 i saw a blissey and how was kyurem-w going to pull off anything vs that team? oh yeah you miss a toxic as it switches in on a blissey (gr8 play absolutely fantastic from the kyurem-w user) and proceed to choke away half your team with a combination of shit plays, focus blast never missing and some hax. The replay more or less shows partially why mence and pdon are so powerful but hell no that it shows any sign of kyurem-w being something I'd actually consider for a serious team.

Don't troll me if you are going to validate your point with replays.

 

[Kyuzeth]

Gonna join in on the debate around Mega Salamence.

I believe Mega Salamence is worthy of S+. This thing puts SO much strain on many team builds and is pretty difficult to deal with because of its naturally high offensive power, speed and titanic physical bulk after base form Intimidate. Speaking of which, the threat of Intimidate in combination with Mega Salamence's 95/130 physical bulk is enough to force a ton of switches, so players can bluff the Mega Evolution and switch to something else in order to Mega Evolve at a better moment in the match. It's just painfully easy to take advantage of. The next trait is its great offensive power: even before setting up, Mega Salamence can dish out Aerilate-boosted Returns (198 BP) and Double-Edges (234 BP), especially the latter of which can hit like a truck; Earthquake is all it needs in terms of coverage, but since Return reaches nearly the same level of power and Double-Edges outpowers SE Earthquake, you can easily drop it in favor of a different move, should you have ways of dealing with Pokémon resisting Flying. Adding up to its sheer offensive presence is its base 120 Speed stat, making it the fastest Dragon Dancer in the game. It's due to this combination of Speed and bulk that Mega Salamence is pretty adaptable in terms of EV spreads, ranging from Jolly DD, Adamant DD with 48 HP or even Impish bulky DD.

Next up, stating that Mega Salamence has little to no defensive contribution to its team is simply false. Its Dragon/Flying-type and good bulk make it an excellent team glue that helps many great Pokémon in Ubers. It pairs rather easily with these Pokémon and some of them (especially PDon, Arc-N, Keys and Dialga) can do a lot in return for Mega Salamence, like covering up the dragon's weaknesses or giving it other means of support (SR, Screens, revenge-killing/wallbreaking...) while attaining great type synergy throughout. It's a pretty viable Defogger thanks to its bulk, Speed, phazing and status-spreading capacities. All in all, it may not have the monstrous defensive utility that Primal Groudon possesses, but Mega Salamence has its own ways of contributing to its team defensively. Different, but no less valuable ways.

Moving on, I completely agree with AM's statement regarding a Mega Evolution's opportunity cost. Yes, there is a degree of opportunity cost in using Mega Salamence, but it is the ultimate Mega Evolution in Ubers. It is in a similar vein as Mega Aerodactyl in UU, Mega Steelix in RU and Mega Metagross in OU, in that it's such a great Mega that it discourages the use of other Mega Evolutions, just because it has such a shitload of things to offer. The closest thing that gives it opportunity cost is Mega Gengar, an entirely different Pokémon altogether, making any argument of opportunity cost rather moot. An argument that I've often used regarding Megas is that Mega Evolutions are chosen depending on what the team requires. Due to how vastly different Mega Gengar and Mega Salamence are, they can't quite be compared and an argument for opportunity cost is rather misplaced in their case.

As a last point, again addressed by AM; when I compare Mega Salamence to its fellow S-Rankers, namely Xerneas and Arceus-Normal, I feel like it generally has more to offer than either. Both are massive offensive threats (Arceus-Normal with just Extreme Killer and Xerneas with its multiple sets), like Mega Salamence, but I don't feel they quite compare when put on one line. I consider the dragon to be more on par with Primal Groudon overall, so it should be in the same ranking.

Mega Salamence for S+.

 

[Freeroamer]

Gonna join in on the debate around Mega Salamence.

Next up, stating that Mega Salamence has little to no defensive contribution to its team is simply false. Its Dragon/Flying-type and good bulk make it an excellent team glue that helps many great Pokémon in Ubers. It pairs rather easily with these Pokémon and some of them (especially PDon, Arc-N, Keys and Dialga) can do a lot in return for Mega Salamence, like covering up the dragon's weaknesses or giving it other means of support (SR, Screens, revenge-killing/wallbreaking...) while attaining great type synergy throughout. It's a pretty viable Defogger thanks to its bulk, Speed, phazing and status-spreading capacities. All in all, it may not have the monstrous defensive utility that Primal Groudon possesses, but Mega Salamence has its own ways of contributing to its team defensively. Different, but no less valuable ways.

Erm just wanted to point out that it was never stated that it had no defensive contribution to give, more so that it doesn't really hard counter anything, there's quite a few situations where it can lose to the pokemon that you'd like it to be able to beat. Jibaku said it perfectly when he emphasised the phrase "to some extent" when describing how well it switches into some of the common threats it's used to check such as ekiller, Primal Groudon and Ho-oh. Put simply unless you're running Hyper Offense you're still going to have to run a secondary check to these threats, meaning it's defensive contribution wasn't actually as great as it appears on paper. I agree it's a fantastic mega, but S+ Rank was made to show how simply splashable how Primal Groudon was in having literally 0 opportunity cost and being able to cockblock half the tier, thus moulding the tier around itself. While Salamence is similar, I don't believe it does it to the same extent.

 

[Firebird Maniac]

No other mon can achieve the degree of efficiency in combining roles as PDon.

It combines a check to both Kyogre and Xerneas into one (nothing else can boast of doing this), oh and it sets Rocks, and yeah it has great general physical bulk, and it's not completely passive and can hurt things with its attacks.

We haven't begun talking about sweeping sets with SD/RP.

This is why it's S+ IMO: its splashability has reached a point of "when in doubt, run PDon".

I don't think the same can be said of Mega Salamence, or in fact any other mon.

 

[QueenOfHax]

g1 yeah vs a team with 3 ice weaks and no resist you can safely spam ice beam. Go figure.

g2 am i supposed to take a game with block mew and donphan to consider the competitive viability of a mon seriously? are you trolling?

g3 that game shows how prediction reliant kyurem-w is more than anything. After a unsuccessful attempt at removing klefki with fusion flare, your opponent had to risk a big prediction with an actual meh reward. What's kyurem-w gonna accomplish over something like exca on that team? I'll tell you what it doesn't accomplish: freeing up an arceus for something more useful on offense, secondary xerneas check, rapid spin (further freeing opions), secondary ekiller check (although his team didn't really have one to begin with).

g4 i saw a blissey and how was kyurem-w going to pull off anything vs that team? oh yeah you miss a toxic as it switches in on a blissey (gr8 play absolutely fantastic from the kyurem-w user) and proceed to choke away half your team with a combination of shit plays, focus blast never missing and some hax. The replay more or less shows partially why mence and pdon are so powerful but hell no that it shows any sign of kyurem-w being something I'd actually consider for a serious team.

Don't troll me if you are going to validate your point with replays.

There was absolutely nothring wrong about replay 1. If anything it shows how offensively powerful Ice is in ubers right now, because most teams are naturally weak to it.

Replay 2 doesn't count, I'll give you that.

Nothing wrong about replay 3 either. That Fusion Flare wasn't a "unsucessful attempt at rmeoving Klefki" since it managed to force a switch (the opponent probably thought it was non-choiced) and did quite a bit of damage to Mega Kanga. Then it destroyed Arceus-Rock with Draco Meteor, destroyed P-Don with Ice Beam and by the time Klefki was left it didn't really matter anymore since the game was basically won.

With that said, when Kyu-W switched into Blissey Reffrey could have expected a Heal Bell after the opposing wallceus got Toxic'd and since Blissey is the main reason besides Tyranitar you'd even run Focus Blast on Kyu-W, there was nothing wrong about it. Oh and 2 Focus Blasts msised by the way, so don't outright lie to us like we didn't watch. The replay shows why PDon and Mega Mence appreciate Kyu-W's support so much, as it has been pointed out.

Also stop comparing Kyu-W with Excadrill. Exca has 88 base speed for starters, Kyu-W has 95 which is an important benchmark in ubers since it outspeeds all the base 90's and speed ties with Rayquaza. Secondly are we comparing a physical attacker to a special attacker? Seriously? Thidly Ground STAB is nowhere near as good as Ice STAB and Steel has worse neutral coverage than Dragon.

Seriously this is degenerating into a "glass half full/half empty" fallacy fest and you're trolling just as hard for acting like Kyu-W is deadweight and ignoring its qualities.

 

[Magis4Life]

The whole opportunity cost thing in regards to megas only goes so far if it is being established that the mega in question is considered the best in the tier for a mega slot. It is in a similar light to m-aero in UU and a similar light to m-steelix back in NU when it was still allowed before its ban. The choice of a mega comes at an opportunity cost in a sense but as you start taking into consideration that the mega you are speaking of reduces the viability of using other megas and even mons then opportunity cost for that mega becomes less of a concern to the point it may even be moot. This isnt to say m-mence should fall under S+ but this is to establish that you have to look at those that occupy the S rank and make the decision to say, "yes this mon far exceeds the current criteria of what we have for S right now." I think those are some more important concerns that should be looked at rather than just using primal groudon as your sole argument.

I see what you're saying, but I would argue that comparison to Pdon is also just as significant, as I would argue that Pdon even when compared to a monster like m-mence is a far more meta-defining presence to where i think it should be the only S+ rank. There are two things that especially stand out to me in Pdon that no other threat can compare to. The first is ofc the fact that its splashability is unrivaled (it virtually fits on any team/team archetype, something that mence can't necessarily do as well for reasons previously noted). The second thing that from what I see reinforces the first to an extent is the also unrivaled role compression Pdon brings in a metagame where role compression is especially important with overcentralizing threats left and right. Part of what makes Pdon a monster and so splashable is the multitude of things it can do and the efficiency it does it. It can check both kyogre and xerneassimultaneouly and is in fact one of the best checks to both threats while also providing support for the team in stealth rocks or sweep, and soft check most of the metagame while effectively nerfing quite a few otherwise solid mons like certain arceus formes and the like. It can serve so many roles for a team with high efficacy, something that again mence doesn't boast in comparison.