SM OU Salamence + Lele Balance

[TTrevor]

Hello everybody, After using other people's team in this meta for awhile, and experimenting with what I liked, I wanted to make my own team based around one of my favorite threats, flyinium z salamence. I am open to any and all suggestions as long as it keeps this salamence on the team. Please give your oppinion,

Salamence @ Flyinium Z
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Jolly Nature
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Fly
- Dragon Dance

This set can finish cleaning up a lot of teams once it is weakened enough. Dragon claw is for general stab and dragon hitting many things hard and neuteral. I also have the earthquake in order to hit threats like heatran and metagross (assuming it ain't banned yet) where they resist my two stabs. Supersonic skystrike is a general nuke that is fun and super effective twords a lot of teams.

Scizor-Mega @ Scizorite
Ability: Technician
EVs: 248 HP / 12 Atk / 140 Def / 100 SpD / 8 Spe
Impish Nature
- U-turn
- Bullet Punch
- Roost
- Defog

I always like to get my mega and my z mover right away when building a team. Since my go to in metagross is in suspect right now (and most likely banned) I went with scizor. Scizor does give me another 4x weakness, however that u-turn and bullet punch stab helps out alot. This is a more bulky spread with roost and defog in order to get rid of rocks for mence and heal itself. Overall this has been very effective and a great teammate.

Rotom-Wash @ Leftovers
Ability: Levitate
EVs: 252 HP / 220 Def / 36 Spe
Bold Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Volt Switch
- Hydro Pump
- Will-O-Wisp
- Pain Split

Another bulky pivot to help with scizor in rotom. Rotom gives me a volt-turn core and a solid will-o user to cripple physical threats. Volt switch and hydro pump are standard and pain split for recovery.

Tapu Lele @ Choice Scarf
Ability: Psychic Surge
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
IVs: 0 Atk
- Psychic
- Moonblast
- Shadow Ball
- Hidden Power [Fire]

After putting two very good physical attackers on the team, I wanted something fast and special to wallbreak and help mence clean up. I went with a scarfed lele. We all know how good scarfed psychic is, and the moveset explains itself. Helps me beat things like greninja and venusaur while also being able to force switches and letting me double.

Tangrowth @ Assault Vest
Ability: Regenerator
EVs: 252 HP / 160 Def / 96 SpD
Relaxed Nature
- Leaf Storm
- Knock Off
- Earthquake
- Hidden Power [Ice]

I put tangrowth here to give me a solid regenerator and AV user to help switch in to pokemon like lele and greninja. This also gives me a physical check to many pokemon. Moveset works very well giving me a knock user and a pokemon to use hp ice and beat landorus. The bulk helps me pivot and pairs very well with rotom

Mamoswine @ Focus Sash
Ability: Thick Fat
EVs: 252 Atk / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Earthquake
- Icicle Crash
- Ice Shard
- Stealth Rock

I noticed right after making tangrowth that I didn't have a sr setter. The most common sr setter is landorus, however with 1 4x ice weakness already I didn't want to get 6-0'd by mamoswine. So I put on a standard focus sash sometimes lead mamoswine. It gives me much needed priority and helps deal with landorus which I struggled with originally.

I hope you like the team, please leave suggestions




Full team import- https://hastebin.com/lodetiyeho.diff

 

[Gross Sweep]

Hey TTrevor really cool team, Salamence is a powerful mon I'm excited to see being used. While I do really like the team there are a few issues I'd like to address. Those issues being the inability to take on threats like Volcarona, having trouble with bulky steels, and having almost no way to win a stall match up. Throughout my rate I plan on fixing these issues, among others, while keeping the central goal of sweeping with Salamence intact - hopefully giving you a great team to take on the ladder with.

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This change of Magnezone>M-Scizor I feel will really benefit your team. It gives your team a more reliable way of taking on threats like Ferrothorn, Skarmory, and Celesteela who hinder a Salamence sweep, and can be tough for you to break having to solely rely on scarf Tapu Lele's HP Fire which can be exploited easily. The Move Set I'm suggesting is Thunderbolt / Volt Switch / Flash Cannon / HP Fire with the EV Spread: 112 Hp / 252 SpA / 144 Spe Modest Nature, Magnet Pull ability, and with the item Assault Vest. Thunderbolt and Flash Cannon provides you with strong double stabs, Volt Switch gives you the option to gain momentum on predicted switches vs things like bulky waters, and HP Fire gives Magnezone a method for easily removing annoying steels who are trapped by Magnet Pull. Assault vest is to provide additional bulk helping you soft check threats like Ash Greninja and opposing Tapu Lele who can be a tad annoying. The EV spread allows Magnezone to hit as hard as possible, speed creep the common 16 Spe M-Scizor so you can remove it with HP Fire before it U-Turns out, and maximizes bulk with leftover EVs. Overall, I feel this change will really help the team moving forward as it makes Salamence sweeps much more doable.

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I realized Mamoswine was really to get rocks on the team, but I feel this team has a bigger issue - Speed. The team has an over reliance on Salamence being the fastest mon on the team forcing it to come in and revenge kill more often than it would like as it's the teams primary win condition late game, so I feel the change of Garchomp>Mamoswine will greatly help with this. The Move Set I'm suggesting is Earthquake / Rock Slide / Fire Blast / Dragon Claw with the EV Spread 252 Att / 4 SpA / 252 Spe Naive Nature, Rough Skin ability, and the item Choice Scarf. The EV's maximize Garchomp's speed and Att with the rest of the Ev's going to SpA to help Fire Blast a tad. Rock Slide gives the team a way of easily taking on big threats like Volcarona and Mega Charizard - Y who are extremely annoying to your team - it also let's you easily revenge M-Pinsir. Earthquake and Dragon Claw were chosen since they are strong stabs, and Fire Blast was chosen to help with bulky Steels and offensive grass types like Kartana and Tapu Bulu. Looking back on the original issues with the team I really like this swap as it helps with steels, Volcarona, and gives the team some much needed speed.

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With Mamoswine being removed the need for a Stealth Rock user was created, and I feel Ferrothorn fills this role nicely which is why I'm suggesting the change of Ferrothorn>Tangrowth. It has the same ability as Tangrowth to check most Electrics, and serve as a decent Ash Greninja check. The Move Set I'm suggesting is Stealth Rock / Gyro Ball / Leech Seed / Thunder Wave with the EV Spread: 248 Hp / 88 Def / 172 SpDef Relaxed Nature, Iron Barbs ability, and the item Chople Berry. The EV Spread is standard allowing Ferrothorn to take on Manaphy lacking HP Fire avoiding the 2hko from +3 Ice Beam, with the rest of the EV's in Def to maximize Bulk. Stealth Rocks were an obvious choice as we removed them from the Mamoswine slot, Gyro Ball is a great stab allowing Ferrothorn to hit threats like Mamoswine, Tapu Bulu, and Nihilego. Thunder Wave is used to slow down threats, this works especially well when used with the Chople Berry as Ferrothorn can tank a fighting move from threats like M-Medicham, Gengar, and Tapu Bulu and Thunder Wave crippling them for the rest of the match. M-Medicham is an especially large threat but Thunder Wave from Chople Ferrothorn combined with offensive pressure from Garchomp, Tapu Lele, and Salamence should be able to keep it in check. Leech seed was then added for a way to gain passive recovery since this set lacks the common Leftovers. Overall, Ferrothorn is a great addition providing the team with Stealth Rocks, Speed Control, and great general utility.

I really like the idea of a core centered around Salamence + Tapu Lele (especially with Magnezone completing the Dragon Fairy Steel core), so I don't want to remove it, however, I would like to change its set since the team now has a different scarfer in Garchomp. The Move Set I'm suggesting is Psyshock / Moonblast / HP Fire / Taunt with the EV Spread: 252 SpA / 4 SpDef / 252 Spe Timid Nature, Psychic Surge ability, and the item Shed Shell. This Move Set provides double stabs, HP Fire for coverage, and Taunt to help break stall. The main goal of this set is to give the team a reliable way of beating stall, which it does extremely well. Also the Shed Shell allows it to avoid being trapped by Dugtrio giving you a breaker who isn't easily removed. The set is pretty self explanatory, and should help the team with breaking down fatter teams making it easier to set a Salamence sweep up.

Rotom-W is another great mon that I really like on your team, but I'd like to suggest a more mixed defensive spread allowing you to better take on threats like Greninja while still retaining enough physical bulk to take on Landorus-T. The EV Spread is 248 Hp / 144 Def / 116 SpDef Calm Nature, with a change in item to Sitrus Berry. The SpDef combined with the Sitrus Berry lets Rotom-W better check special threats like Greninja, while still retaining enough physical bulk to reliably check physical threats like Landorus-T and M-Pinsir. This change is small, but I feel it will be very fruitful in helping your team take on threats.

Click Here for Import​

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Anyway, that's all I had rating wise. I really enjoyed working on this rate, and I hope you like your team. I feel the central goal of sweeping with Salamence is still very prevalent in the new version, while also having the added ability to better take on opposing threats. If you have any more questions or concerns feel free to let me know in the thread or PMs, and have a great time with the team.

 

[Ktütverde]

Nice team TTrevor but the way you show it isn't really going to attract people. First use some pictures (it takes 5 mins) some colours maybe, a big title and you'll see much more people will be interested in reading and analyzing your build. It's an interesting pseudo dragmag build I wouldn't have glanced at without cool Gross Sweep post.