Salamence is Uber.

[Karpi]

Hi my team is ninjask/electivire/charizard/umbreon/weavile/alakazam and I don't think salamence is uber at all

...

There are a surprising number of people like that at the bottom of the ladder... This became especially apparent when I made a joke alternate account to ladder with team rocket's anime pokemon. Needless to say most of the "free salamence" crowd lost to seviper under trick room

 

[PK Gaming]

1. Lots of changes. I expect to see the standard ladder to heavily mirror the suspect ladder (but not completely, because of the many noobs that infest the ladder) basically, expect to see Heatran become the top OU pokemon, and a massive rise in grass types, as well as more physical sweepers.

2. No, and the thread title is pretty annoying. Stall won't *take over* OU, as seen with the suspect ladder. It's still going to have trouble with the likes of mixape and mixnite (who incidently was a better stall breaker IMO because of the much superior super power)

3. Lots of grass types, and physical sweepers (Lucario and CO) will have a lot easier time sweeping. Breloom in particular is going to explode in usage.

4. I'm fine with it. Clear, concise and simple, and everybody had a chance to enter the council, so if you're complaining about the outcome you should have signed up for the council. I don't buy that the council members were picked before hand. (not even in the slightest)

5. Fine. It's a powerful threat there and it's nice speed means it can troll Rayquaza and potentially muck up Palkia. Still, it isn't going to be "that" good and it's usually going to be a Rayquaza's dance partner, or Rayquaza's counters lure, making slightly predictable. It's still got nothing on Garchomp. can't touch that epic base 102 speed.

6.Scizor for one, and his steel types friends. Dragon Stab was THAT good.

7.Well, if the suspect ladder is any indication to go by, LOTS of things will change. (possible appearance of Sceptile, Lanturn and Uxie in OU?) Hopefully we have noobs to stabilize things.

8. Absolutely! Gen 5 is just around the corner so Salamence fans can always use him in OU next gen. (what are the chances of him being Uber AGAIN?!?)

9. Uh...

10. Not a single pokemon.

 

[shrang]

http://www.smogon.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2832127&postcount=10

Oh lord, MoP's paragraph was epic. Anyway, for everyone pissed off at the "lack of free speech" and crap like that, you can view the log of the IRC session there.

Ok, time to finally answer the OP's questions:

1. Surprisingly, I can't see all that much change. Yes, the slower physical attackers (eg Heracross) will see more light due to no Mence Intimidating them. Grass Pokemon will see more usage, but I doubt that's because of Salamence's ban (Apart from Breloom) but more due to Latias' ban than anything. If you really hated Mence, you should have just carried HP Ice on your Shaymin or Celebi or whatever.

2. No. Never have and never will be in DPP (Or conversely, always have and always will be)

3. See Q1

4. I think I've made my point clear in my previous posts

5. Salamence does fine, much better than a lot of people make him out to be (He was #25 in Ubers the month Theorymon first introduced him, higher than Kingdra and Manaphy and heaps of other underrated Ubers).

6. Probably Scizor, maybe Ice Sharders like Mamoswine and Weavile (Who didn't have much usage anyway). Yes Dragonite is still roaming around, but +1 LO Extremespeed will make him harder than Mence to revenge using Ice Sharders.

7. Shaymin, although I believe that would be more due to the fact that Latias was banned than anything (It takes time for people to recognise how awesome she is). Heracross may just avoid dropping with Mence's banning.

8. I don't give a crap, really

9. This is the same as Q4, why have asked it again??

10. Hopefully, none. Reasoning is in MoP paragraph.

 

[imapedarsag]

With Salamence gone, people will look at sweepers that could fill it's role. The biggest one that pops in mind is Gyarados. They both have Intimidate and DD, but Salamence is just faster. Shaymin and Breloom will also become more popular acting as Gyarados's Electric sponges and eliminating Gyarados threats. In short, Gyarados is the new Salamence.

 

[J-man]

With Salamence gone, people will look at sweepers that could fill it's role. The biggest one that pops in mind is Gyarados. They both have Intimidate and DD, but Salamence is just faster. Shaymin and Breloom will also become more popular acting as Gyarados's Electric sponges and eliminating Gyarados threats. In short, Gyarados is the new Salamence.

you can begin countdown to "gyrados is uber" now. -_- anyways... the uber argument seemed very stale, almost as if it was an instinct to say such an argument. MoP has a big point "there". those are my two cents in what i think was a ban happy moment to get rid of yet another another dragon. if it's required to fill out the questionare, i'll fill it out later because restrictions right now will net me a double post.

 

[Alan]

1.How will salamence's removal effect the metagame?

Fighting-types will become more common so will gwf cores. just look at suspect usage to get an idea really.

2.Will stall be a dominant force?

probably not. its not that hard to break stall. just bring a really powerful wallbreaker or something. it will probably have a breif spike in usage because people will fap with mence gone and whatnot. everything will resume the way it is now after a while im sure.

3.What pokemon stand out as a pokemon that thrives without salamence?

off the top of my head i would say infernape, breloom and dragonite

4.What did you think of the process for salamence removal? (after about post 270 the mod said you cant answer this question)

I was fine with it. People complained about the other test so apparently nobody can ever be pleased. Tried something new, I'm not going to complain. Yeah, yeah after post 270 i know.

5.How does Salamence do in ubers?

It was already good in ubers, it will most likely remain the same.

6.What pokemon will see a decrease in use?
Tyranitar and Scizor will probably drop off, rest should remain about the same.

7. What pokemon might come from UU to OU as a result of Salamence's banning?
Idk, I don't really pay attention to UU all that much, I would say maybe lanturn but thats all i can think of.

8. Do you think this was a good time to ban Salamence?

No answer really, from what I have heard, it was planned to be tested, depending on the Latias vote, so it was fine. Latias just took for fucking ever to decide.

9. Why or why wasn't Salamence a good candidate for ubers?

I think it was fine. It was a powerful sweeper and a good wallbreaker. It was probably innevtable.

10. Who should be the next candidate for Ubers if you would choose?

Nada. Gen 5 is too close. Lets start NU testing! ^____^


I missed the vote. I really wish I could have been on IRC during this time but alas, vacation limits my computer time. :( I really didn't care which way it went. I dont really use mence so i figured with it gone its just one less threat. also i hate mac keyboards, they are so fucking small.

 

[Chou Toshio]

For myself, I was strongly in the pro-OU camp.

That said, I don't actually use Salamence much. I mean, I have before-- but at some point I stopped putting it on my teams. Not even thinking about it explicitly, but I never had a job I needed it to do, never had a need of the resistances it carries (mostly because of Rotom A), and never wanted to deal with its SR weak. Overall, it's been a long time since I thought Salamence was "the best pick for this slot," in regards to a given team.

That said, I did enjoy mence's presence in the metagame. What it accomplished, the pace that it presented. When using Salamence, it very rarely was a pokemon that netted me advantage. However, by going off like a bomb, mixmence really sped games up. It forced both sides to fight while seriously estimating risks and forced both sides to learn to deal with non-ideal circumstances. It played a big role in making 4th gen the enjoyable fast-paced meta that has gained so much popularity.

The point is not really about stall. As I have mentioned, Mence's overall utility meant it was more popular than mixnite could ever be, because it's not just for beating stall. Even with more popularity, nite will never bring the same pace and danger that the mence added to the meta.

Well, all that said, again it's just one pokemon. Big whoop, time to move on.

 

[Spenstar]

*sighs* as much as I love Nite, booting Mense to Ubers doesn't feel right to me. IMO, the OU metagame is ABOUT pokemon like Salamence, and sending him to Ubers just destroys that image. I'm hoping he gets another shot in BW for OU (with Chomp as well)

 

[SJCrew]

you can begin countdown to "gyrados is uber" now. -_- anyways... the uber argument seemed very stale, almost as if it was an instinct to say such an argument

This probably isn't the dumbest post in the thread, but you're a pretty convenient example of why the Smogon Council has such a small pool of experienced battlers.

Honestly, most of the OU arguments are weak and have very little argumentative basis besides "I'm lower than 1300 CRE" or "It's definitely OU, keep it or you'll have to ban everything". They've been countered soundly many times over, yet "2HKOing the entire metagame with very little prediction", or "killing indiscriminately" doesn't seem to garner much in the way of solid responses. That's really all you can do with monster offenses, perfect coverage, and a nearly-unresisted STAB. So why do the arguments need to have any variety if the foundation is already solid and virtually uncontested?

 

[Curtains]

MoP:

Salamence is powerful yes, and Salamence does have an easier time switching in on some Pokemon where as it's similar offensive partners such as Infernape and Dragonite arguably can't. However, what everyone is missing is the IMPACT that Salamence has on the metagame. You've all played OU and Suspect with and without Salamence. When you play Suspect, you never have to worry about Salamence, but the second you accidentally didn't change the dropdown to Suspect and face a Salamence, you literally think, "Oh fucking shit." Do you ever get that feeling while playing OU? Now look at the metagames in each ladder. How is suspect not stale and bland? Everyone uses the exact same thing. Absolutely the same. It feels like RBY how there's only 12 useable poke. I can build a random bullshit team based on this criteria: Pick fire poke (Infernape/Heatran), pick bulky water (Suicune/Gyarados/Vaporeon/Swampert), pick ghost (Gengar/Rotom-w), random lead Poke, pick grass poke (Celebi/Shaymin) and one of the Dragons. Every single team is like that. There is no variety in this metagame. I mean most of you play UU right? Isn't UU right now at it's peak? UU right now is what OU is right now. There is no overly powerful threat, no one thing to surround your entire team around to stop a la Raikou for UU and Latias for OU. You actually have to play. You do not autopilot battles. Execution is part of Pokemon. You want to ban Salamence because you're lazy. You don't want to think about the risks thoroughly. You don't want to play the game of Pokemon, you just want to be able to counter everything and have a solid switch in into each and every threat, which isn't even possible. And Salamence is the scapegoat for it all. Salamence hits hard and sets up other users. Guess what, so does Infernape, Tyranitar, Gengar, Dragonite, Kingdra, etc etc etc. They all have easy switch in's on stuff as well. They will take down a single Poke such as Mence does, yet Mence takes all the blame? There is no logical reason why Mence should be considered uber other than "i want pokemon to be easier.' Absolutely none at all. Salamence doesn't make the game 'unfun.' It isn't based on 20% luck of outright winning. It's all about risk and reward. So what Salamence fires off Draco Meteor? That's a cost you might have to pay having a -2 spatk Pokemon in to something they set up on. So what if it Outraged? By the time you bring out Mence and try to pull off a sweep, they might still have an Agility Empoleon or Metagross in the wings and hell you might get swept. You have to play Pokemon by eliminating threats WITH YOUR POKEMON, not with BANS. This time, we literally are going to ban 'the next powerful thing.'

Give this guy a badge or something,real talk this is the realest thing ive read on this site. I love you Mop. The standard metagame is boring as hell now. Ive actually played more chess (13 game win streak) than i have ever before because the game is just a huge tug of war fest now. But its what everyone wanted. I cant wait for Black and White.

 

[Red G]

When i saw the original discussion, moving mence to ubers I did not care about. Either way, gen 5 is coming and pretty soon gen 4 shoddy will be played much less. However, I'm glad to see my 2nd fave poke dragonite has a reason to be used now, and with one less threat to prepare for it makes team building a bit easier for now (HP ice on most pokes? Not anymore). It makes the metagame more surprising, which is one of my favorite qualities of UU. You never know what pokes come out there, now with Mence gone maybe some BL pokes will rise to OU (gallade, etc.)

Granted, I'm new at shoddy, so don't go bitchin' me.

 

[Baldafor]

I think the primary argument I would use at this point to say that Salamence is uber is exactly what MoP said.

Salamence had such a huge impact on the metagame that removing it literally changes it completely. It doesn't matter whether you like the new metagame or not. Look at how DIFFERENT it is with one pokemon gone!

You can argue all day that Salamence shouldn't be uber, but look at the suspect ladder, especially later on after the Latias effect wore off, and see how different it is without Salamence.

Any single pokmeon that has that big of an impact on the metagame doesn't deserve to be there. The game shouldn't be Salamence centered like it was. Remember Garchomp, and the rise of ScarfCune? No, never again.

 

[SJCrew]

Not sure I follow the overcentralize = ban mindset, but...

Salamence had such a huge impact on the metagame that removing it literally changes it completely. It doesn't matter whether you like the new metagame or not. Look at how DIFFERENT it is with one pokemon gone!

You can argue all day that Salamence shouldn't be uber, but look at the suspect ladder, especially later on after the Latias effect wore off, and see how different it is without Salamence.

I can at least agree with this. Once we removed all of UU's "Salamences", it became a much more balanced metagame, with no strong notion of a ban in sight. Same as in that metagame, it will open up more opportunities for people to test the fun little gimmicks that didn't work otherwise, so expect to see some more of that before there's any sort of foothold on what work now that OU's indisputable king has been dethroned.

 

[goofball]

When did scarfcune ever rise...muchless got used...by anybody?

 

[mtr]

Seeing as ScarfCune was a solid SDYache counter, I'm guessing that someone had to use it. Then again, I didn't play DP, so whatever.

 

[Chou Toshio]

*sighs* as much as I love Nite, booting Mense to Ubers doesn't feel right to me. IMO, the OU metagame is ABOUT pokemon like Salamence, and sending him to Ubers just destroys that image. I'm hoping he gets another shot in BW for OU (with Chomp as well)

Sadly, I can sympathize a lot with this post. Without real "power" and "danger" mixed into OU, it sort of feels like a sorta-amped-up UU.

We can now start talking about Dragonite, OU's Dragon (just like Altaria is UU's). lol

Only saying that because Flygon plays kinda like a ground pokemon carrying a good second STAB and Kingdra feels like a Water pokemon carrying a good second STAB.

I really want to say that "taking out one poke really doesn't matter," and in terms of gameplay-- I feel it really doesn't. The differences people "perceive" are somewhat "just in their heads," and somewhat exaggerated. To me, the game the difference between having and not havind pokemon x is trivial enough that we should go ahead and rely on a more efficient Council-Based system.

That said, even if I don't agree Salamence was OU's King, I do think it was OU's poster boy. In terms of Flavor, OU just kinda lost its image of Bad-Ass.

 

[SJCrew]

Sadly, I can sympathize a lot with this post. Without real "power" and "danger" mixed into OU, it sort of feels like a sorta-amped-up UU.

Regardless of how annoyed I am with all of the gimmick-testing UU newbies, I think this is actually a good thing for the metagame. No one Pokemon should cause such an imbalance that the player is automatically at a disadvantage upon facing it and not having one in tow themselves. Pokemon should be about strategy and team building, not having 2-3 Mence "counters".

 

[Chou Toshio]

Simply stated, many would argue that's far from what OU was about. But there's no point in re-visiting that line of discussion.

 

[TheValkyries]

In terms of Flavor, OU just kinda lost its image of Bad-Ass.

This. I find OU was far more fun with Mence in it, rather than without. If I went purely by a desire for a more ideal metagame (by my standards at least), I'd keep a few pokemon like Mence who possess a degree of brokenness, just to keep things interesting and fun. That being said, I'm forced to remember that it's not about fun. It's about being absolutely fair, and rewarding the best players. It's not about being lazy and not wanting to face him (as some seem to think), it's about how Mence shifts the game into his favor the instant he comes into the field. It's about the fact that through his brokenness, he raised lesser players to a level of play they would otherwise not be a part of, and that's damaging to competitive play, no matter what game it is.

 

[Pancham]

We can now start talking about Dragonite, OU's Dragon (just like Altaria is UU's).

Uhm, no. Flygon WILL be used more than Dragonite. Sorry to tell yah. Proof: June Suspect usage. (Flygon's #7, Dragonite's #9.)

 

[akarias]

A lot of top tier teams didn't carry mence, and didn't run 2-3 counters...You definately weren't at a disadvantage by not carrying mence. The main teams I bothered taking to 1400+ (not that it's great...just not terrible either) didn't carry mence and only shuckle and scizor could have been considered "mence counters". Anything over 100 spe is a solid check to mixmence, and can't really be set up on.

Last thing I'll say is similar to what MoP said. While teambuilding is my favorite part of shoddy (why I bother try pushing teams to 1400+), one of the few main fun parts of actually playing the game is having a really solid (to me) gambit poke that did not have set "counters" but was like a revolver: you only get 6 shots so you gotta make them count. Now it's all about the double switching again, which is alright, but much less intense and fun.

 

[MrIndigo]

This. I find OU was far more fun with Mence in it, rather than without. If I went purely by a desire for a more ideal metagame (by my standards at least), I'd keep a few pokemon like Mence who possess a degree of brokenness, just to keep things interesting and fun. That being said, I'm forced to remember that it's not about fun. It's about being absolutely fair, and rewarding the best players. It's not about being lazy and not wanting to face him (as some seem to think), it's about how Mence shifts the game into his favor the instant he comes into the field. It's about the fact that through his brokenness, he raised lesser players to a level of play they would otherwise not be a part of, and that's damaging to competitive play, no matter what game it is.

It is about fun, actually. It's just that what's fun for some people is not fun for other people. Monitoring a competitive game with banlists etc. is always about maximising fun for the maximum number of people (within certain limits). The sole purpose of ANY house rule applied to a game is for maximising fun.

Competitive gaming is generally regarded as more fun when skill is rewarded. Pokemon like Salamance centralise the metagame and restrict the ability for skill to win out over the random factor or single minor mistakes can completely invert the game. A weaker player could, for instance, be losing to a strong player, who is outplaying his opponent on every play. Then, he makes one minor misprediction on a switch, and suddenly Salamence is in and rips a hole in his team outright; this is the pivotal moment in the battle despite it only being a minor mistake and he outplayed his opponent in every other sense.

A metagame that hinges simply on whether or not a single pokemon gets in is no more fun than flipping a coin or rolling a die. It marginalises skilled play and teambuilding.

 

[Lucalibur]

the word fun can be argued. some persons think its fun to stall others to death, others like me think its nice to make others suffer and be a massive jerk on whatever time they want. the point is that salamence overcentralized the metagame thus breaking the balance. i would rather play a metagame that most pokemons are viable then a metagame where 1 pokemon boss around everyone else and force people to run 2/3 pokemons just for him.

 

[SJCrew]

The sole purpose of ANY house rule applied to a game is for maximising fun.

Not over here. Smogon is primarily about promoting competition, not fun. Fun is way too subjective to truly measure, but healthy competition is something that can effectively be monitored and enforced. That's why it's called the "Competitive Pokemon Community" rather than the "Pokemon Wifi Community".

 

[MrIndigo]

Not over here. Smogon is primarily about promoting competition, not fun. Fun is way too subjective to truly measure, but healthy competition is something that can effectively be monitored and enforced. That's why it's called the "Competitive Pokemon Community" rather than the "Pokemon Wifi Community".

Why do people play games competitively, especially here where no prizes are offered?

They play for the fun that comes with competition.