OU Why Salamence deserves a suspect test

Jirachee

Jirachee

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It's been what, 11 years?

A lot of time has flowed since the last time Salamence was used in a DPP OU game. The metagame has seen a lot of change and innovation since it was banned. And quite frankly, I think it hasn't been kind to it at all.

First of all: Latias was reintroduced in OU with great success. It's been a positive influence on a lot of playstyles; and people haven't had to change too much to adapt to the strong and fast Draco Meteor that was so feared.
  • The Latias re-introduction being a resounding success proves that it's feasible to re-test anything we want, as centralizing as it can be. I don't believe anyone would think Salamence is more centralizing than Latias.
  • Latias is a natural enemy of Salamence that was removed from the tier before Salamence was banned. It's faster, kills any set in one shot, and isn't SR weak like Salamence is. Choice Scarf sets can also revenge kill Salamence's feared DD sets.
  • I believe that Salamence would also have a positive influence on the metagame. There are a lot of threats that offer an equivalent level of power to Salamence in the current metagame. A threat such as Breloom would have one more enemy to deal with and perhaps be more tame. Jirachi wouldn't serve as a one-stop answer to any Dragon type threat anymore because it doesn't fare too well against Salamence. Salamence can fit on a lot of different playstyles; HO loves the DD sets; balanced teams can use Mixed, Specs, and even CB sets; and I'm sure Stall teams would love to run FatMence once in a while.
Second: The metagame has evolved to take advantage of Salamence's biggest flaws in the past decade. Balanced teams are more resilient to chip damage than ever, and thus Salamence is always going to be on a short timer trying to deal the most damage before fainting.
  • A lot of Salamence's set rely on Life Orb to be as strong as it needs to be to KO most things. As we all know, relying on Life Orb in a metagame where permanent sand and Stealth Rock are up from about turn 5 onwards in basically every game is far from ideal. Add to that Salamence's Stealth Rock weakness, and you've got a short-lived yet dangerous threat.
    • We've all faced MixNite; most balanced teams are technically "weak" to MixNite because it can KO everything in 2 hits, but it usually falls short after a KO because of all the chip damage it's taking. Do we really have any reason to believe MixMence would behave any differently? I don't think so. Yes it's better because of the Speed, but it's also missing Superpower which is important to KO Clefable, Tyranitar, and other such things.
  • DD sets can seem scary and will probably require more adaptation than the Mixed sets, but quite frankly are they that different from DDNite? Dragonite is pretty good but it's no world beater. Salamence has a few tricks Dragonite can't do, like Speed tying the base 100 scarfers and outspeeding Scarf Rotom, but it's still as reliant on Outrage as Dragonite is. Plus, since it's lacking Fire Punch, it has to pack Fire Blast which will do considerably less damage against things like Bronzong.
  • Salamence still has a lot of enemies running around the meta; like Starmie, Swampert, Latias, Gengar, Bronzong, etc. that will all be ready to deal with it if it's dropped back in. Old foes such as Scizor might also regain popularity given they're only a few things away from relevance.
Thoughts? I'd love to have the opinions of both old and new players as I think we should strive to re-examine one of the most controversial bans in competitive Pokemon.
 
this is my opinion of why Salamence does not deserve a suspect.
-Trait, typing: resistances to grass, fire, fighting, water attacks, immunity to ground type attacks, access to roost(fast recovery to heal off from SR and sand damages), - all these incredible things, let mence to find many opportunities to come in during different phases of the matches and hit hard every type of team.
- Team Building limitation and support: even if you bring some specific checks for every mence sets, a wrong choice/switch in will cost you one mon or more - this in term of support makes it "easier" for other mon to sweep with a bit of support.(DDmons, Lucario etc)
- Access to DD and movepool:
It boasts his already incredibly offensive stats (135/110) and thanks it's base 100 speed outspeed every non scarfed mon in the metagame(it's not easy as it seems to revenge kill Mence if not with specific mons/set)
Last but not least, the incredible movepool; a common mence set consists of
- meteor/blast/eq
- outrage/fireblast/eq
often bosted by life orb; a perfect coverage - capable to hit incredible hard every mon and common checks in the metagame.
Do we really want something which does a huge limitation on team building how it was with dugtrio?
We could seriously risk to centralize the metagame, by start building every team that forces player to find measure to beat mence.
I honestly think after the dug ban and the re-introduction of Latias in the metagame, the tier found his balance and let's be honest on saying that Latias in term of "impact" cannot be compared with Mence.
 
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One of the main issues 11 years ago was not just Mence’s power level; it was the versatility. Mixed and DD being the primary sets have completely different switch-ins, checks, revenge killers. Choosing the wrong countermeasure was often fatal. Furthermore, unlike with cousin Dragonite, Scarfed Jirachi and Flygon can only muster a speed tie. There were also Band, Specs, Defensive DD, and Defensive utility, all highly potent in their own right.

I think the primary difference between comparing a Latias test to a Mence test really is that versatility. Latias has a few safe switch-ins for all sets (Tyranitar, Jirachi, Scizor, Metagross, Blissey). And she can be pursuited. Mence just does not have that kind of counterplay. Nothing is safe from all Mence sets.
 
Salamence does not need a re-test. First of all the DPP Metagame is better than it has ever been and truly balanced and enjoyable. Almost everyone you talk to would agree on that, including some former long-time DPP-haters. That alone is reason enough if we're being honest, but having played during the Salamence-era I can provide you with different reasons too.

The biggest change Salamence would bring to the metagame is actually making offensive teams less consistent. What tools does offense have to handle Dragon Dance Salamence?
  1. Scarfers are limited to Infernape, Latias and Azelf, 2 of which are trappable and a third which is incredibly prone to chip damage and actually provides a free turn for Salamence, if it is locked in the wrong move.
  2. Priority in the form of Scizor (trappable), Weavile (really bad and also SR Weak), Dragonite (SR Weak), Lucario (Technically trappable by scarfzone), Mamoswine (very difficult to fit anyway). Bar the Ice Shards, none of these k.o. after rocks, so you'll have to find a way to get chip damage, which can go south real quick, especially if you turn out guessing that it's a mixed set.
  3. Trying to force an outrage through either a sack or a prediction. Your steels need to be at decent health for that, you need to get a prediction right and lose a potentially very valuable mon and half of your steels health. Best case scenario. If they lure out one of your steels with Latias beforehand and chip it significantly or even managed to trap it, then you're boned.
  4. Put a fat, momentum-losing Pokemon on the team and hope you don't need to switch it in prior to that (thinking Swampert for example).

In almost all of these situations Salamence will have gotten a kill before you're able to exersize your Counterplay. That's without accounting for the fact that Salamence could just be Mixed and you guessed wrong. The mons that are faster than Salamence and viable in DPP OU are: Latias, Starmie, Infernape, Gengar (and Raikou, Jolteon, Aerodactyl and Froslass, if you want to include niche shit). None of which can switch into Draco Meteor. There's Jirachi and Flygon, which speedtie but that's literally a 50/50 and requires them to be +speed or Salamence to be neutral speed (which Salamence can run, if it wants to put more pressure on defensive teams rather than offensive, but mixed with +speed is what truly wrecks offensive teams.) So your revenge killing options are limited to mons that cannot switch into Draco or Jirachi (potential speedtie), which dies to any of the other moves that mixed runs. Mons that offense can run and that can reliably switch into Salamence and take it out: 0. Which would be fine, if Salamence didn't also have prime speed tier. Salamence does what mixed Flygon does against offensive teams, except with mixed Dragonites Power.

The Salamence to Dragonite comparison is understated in OP. Salamence has better offensive stats and if you dedicate it to breaking defensive teams, it actually matters when you compare Salamence to Dragonite. Some significant calcs vs defensive teams for example:
252+ SpA Life Orb Salamence Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Skarmory: 298-352 (89.2 - 105.3%) -- 37.5% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Life Orb Dragonite Fire Blast vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Skarmory: 282-332 (84.4 - 99.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ SpA Life Orb Salamence Draco Meteor vs. 240 HP / 52 SpD Swampert: 298-352 (74.3 - 87.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Dragonite Draco Meteor vs. 240 HP / 52 SpD Swampert: 280-331 (69.8 - 82.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
(One Flygon U-Turn with SR Up and Salamence can k.o. while Dragonite can't for example)


252+ SpA Life Orb Salamence Fire Blast vs. 240 HP / 76 SpD Jirachi: 308-364 (76.8 - 90.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252+ SpA Life Orb Dragonite Fire Blast vs. 240 HP / 76 SpD Jirachi: 288-340 (71.8 - 84.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Top one is arguably the most important one, because if you switch skarm in thinking it is Dragon Dance and it dies to Fire Blast you've got no chance to recover it, whereas with the Dragonite Fire Blast you can at least Roost up on a potentially choice locked mon or keep a sack.
But again, the main difference lies in how these sets perform against offensive teams. Granted, it needs + satk to outperform Dragonite damage calcs, but if it wants to break down defensive teams it can afford that and still outrun many many offense staples that Dragonite can't (Gyarados, Suicune, Timid Heatran, Empoleon, Rotom-A and more, all of which you can pivot into certain Dragonite moves and then outspeed to force it out).
The DD sets also don't compare. Dragonite is reliably revenge-killed by scarf Rotom-A, which imo is the biggest difference. On top of that Dragonite does not have Intimidate, which makes finding turns to set up actually harder. Small calc for comparison:

252 Atk Tyranitar Crunch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Dragonite: 139-165 (43 - 51%) -- 52.3% chance to 2HKO after sandstorm damage
-1 252 Atk Tyranitar Crunch vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Salamence: 108-127 (32.6 - 38.3%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after sandstorm damage


You're restricting teambuilding for offense, by forcing it to run more limited scarfers (Rotom-A is not good enough as a revenge-killer for example, but it's one of the best scarfers that offense can have due to typing and the availability of trick), by forcing it to run bad mons or mons that fit only specific structures (Weavile and Mamoswine for example) and by demanding specific counterplay. All of the changes that offense would need to adapt to Salamence (afromentioned mons and faster but worse scarfers) on top of necessary +Speed natures on mons like Flygon, Jirachi and Infernape, all of which makes offense in general worse against bulky teams. A match-up that offense already struggles with, tipping the scales out of balance. We don't need offense to be less consistent and more Rock-Paper-Scissors. It's an unnecessary change.
 
Jirachee said:
DD sets can seem scary and will probably require more adaptation than the Mixed sets, but quite frankly are they that different from DDNite?
Click to expand...
Yes. The only scarfer that can outspeed DD mence is Latias, which has become significantly less reliable in a metagame without Dugtrio, having significant issues with Tyranitar and being very quick to wear down, relying on draco meteor, etc. Hyperoffense is a very strong style right now and I think stacking DD Salamence with Pokemon like Gyarados, Tyranitar, Metagross, and even Dragonite would be nothing short of ridiculous.

I'd say during the dug meta where we really needed something powerful to address cheese, you could have maybe made the argument for mence to be tested, but definitely not now. I'd even say that the metagame back then was less favorable to mence than now, where we've had significant optimizations to several different styles. DPP is in a really chaotically balanced, but good spot. Salamence would only serve to add another ridiculous threat to address in the teambuilder. I think the op loses credibility because it doesn't address the potential drawbacks of a mence suspect while also making strong assumptions about what mence has to run. Salamence has insane versatility, and has flexible slots especially with the help of trappers.

Edit: Salamence will not be suspected, but discussion can continue here if anyone sees fit.
 
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it’s too much IMO. Versatility + it’s DD set probably being the most destructive DDer in the entire tier, especially in terms of speed.

Puts even more reliance on the pursuit weak scarfers which are easy to remove already + Scarf Ape which isn’t amazing or anything.

But it is a new metagame compared to a decade back. We can theorymon all we want, but it may be different in practice. Trying to be open minded here (as a Mence fan).

I’d be down for a tournament in which Mence is allowed. Probably the next big thing after a suspect. We’ve had them in the past and will show how he fits currently in the meta.
 
Icegod777 said:
To be fair, salamance can be revenge killed pretty easily, here are some examples:

Offensive Latias
HP Ice Infernape
CB Scizor
Weavile

And of course it still has trouble with bulky waters
Click to expand...

It is not so easy. Latias and CB Scizor are easily to trap (Scizor doesn’t even OHKO after rocks). HP Ice Scarf Ape is just bad. Weavile can be outlasted since they both are rocks weak but Mence has reliable recovery.

Regarding bulky waters, yes they may check DD but all of them are 2HKOed by any combination of Life Orb / Band / Specs with Draco & Outrage. If you guess wrong, they just flat out die.
 
While I don't think Salamence should be reintroduced I think its presence would have a couple of upsides. Mixmence is forced to use brick break over superpower which makes blissey more valuable and clefable would fall a bit: blissey can eat a draco then switch to another member or even softboiled if you are cheeky/know salamence is eq roost. Salamences presence would also make teams more resilient to Physical Jirachi (tankpert +less knock offs + more steels ) which is one of our main issues in the current metagame. Regarding DDmence, Im pretty sure It used to favor naughty over jolly/naive. The benchmark to outspeed it is restrictive but doable and if it runs jolly it loses power to kill stuff.
I would be down to play a salamence tournament, to see if the guessing games for DD/mixed and jolly/adamant are too much.
 
Icegod777 said:
To be fair, salamance can be revenge killed pretty easily, here are some examples:

Offensive Latias
HP Ice Infernape
CB Scizor
Weavile

And of course it still has trouble with bulky waters
Click to expand...
that is a bruh moment.... DD mence does not have problems with bulky waters.... scarf lati -> trapped by scarf tar, scarf hp ice ape even if it kills mence smth like lucario just fucks it over, CB scizor trapped by zone.... esp unrevealed zone BP'ing into a magnezone is just asking for a "get fucked" moment. Weavile is rocks weak, bad in the meta in general, and just it is easy to take advantage of a banded weavile. Bulky waters get outraged into oblivion
 
RaikouLover said:
It is not so easy. Latias and CB Scizor are easily to trap (Scizor doesn’t even OHKO after rocks). HP Ice Scarf Ape is just bad. Weavile can be outlasted since they both are rocks weak but Mence has reliable recovery.

Regarding bulky waters, yes they may check DD but all of them are 2HKOed by any combination of Life Orb / Band / Specs with Draco & Outrage. If you guess wrong, they just flat out die.
Click to expand...

Sorry I meant to say that scizor's cb bullet punch kos after rocks and lo damage but i guess my opinion about mence's counters was wrong, sorry for the hassle.
 
HydreigonTheChild said:
that is a bruh moment.... DD mence does not have problems with bulky waters.... scarf lati -> trapped by scarf tar, scarf hp ice ape even if it kills mence smth like lucario just fucks it over, CB scizor trapped by zone.... esp unrevealed zone BP'ing into a magnezone is just asking for a "get fucked" moment. Weavile is rocks weak, bad in the meta in general, and just it is easy to take advantage of a banded weavile. Bulky waters get outraged into oblivion
Click to expand...
Oh I guess I was wrong about that, sorry
 
I think that a Salamence suspect would lead to basically nowhere, as it still retains the same qualities that made it of such high concern years ago. Mainly, the ability to run many versatile sets that all have about the same amount of effectiveness makes it pretty much impossible to come in on. It is nigh impossible to distinguish DD and MixMence sets upon first seeing it, and if you send out the wrong counter, you just lost a Pokemon. A classic example used by numerous other people before - You switch a Blissey in on a Mence, hoping it is Mixed. However, it clicks Dragon Dance, and not only have you sacked your Blissey, but you have also given Mence a free setup opportunity.

Another issue is that, unlike other versatile Pokemon, you need to acknowledge all Mence variants and have a Pokemon to check each of them, which heavily restricts the teambuilder in a way that not many other Pokemon can claim. The worst part about this is that you never know which Pokemon you have to bring out on Salamence. This makes it impossible to check properly.

I also believe that the chip argument is not a very good one. If you know you are using Salamence, it isn't hard to pack hazard removal. Also, how does this chip prevent Mence from setting up or just destroying targets for a teammate to abuse later? It is not stopping it from clicking Dragon Dance or Dragon STAB or whatever, and you can run Roost to alleviate this issue anyways. Overall, I don't think Mence would be a healthy addition to the tier, and I would rather keep it banned.
 
It has been mentioned but to further differentiate Salamence from Nite besides Speed (which is a significant difference) it also has Intimidate which can force a lot of switches even on Pokemon that check it. My Scizor doesn't fear Dragonite switching in on it, but an attack drop from Intimidate may force me to switch, allowing it a free turn of setup.

It isn't apples for apples but look at all the switches Salamence forces in ADV. Now put that in a metagame with Stealth Rocks, Spikes, and Toxic Spikes.

He can do things Dragonite cannot even when running the same sets, like force switches and outspeed many Scarfers after one boost.

On the other hand, I welcome Salamence because I love Scarf Raikou so much, and Salamence would force things like Jolly Scarf Flygon to be used again, which Raikou outspeeds with a Rash nature. People didn't know about that back in the day and were shocked to lose the 1v1.
 
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