np: ORAS UU Stage 7.2 - Asteroid

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UU is suspecting Salamence. It fits on every playstyle, excelling at its role - whether that is as a fat Defogger, a mixed Wallbreaker, or a DD sweeper. Between Intimidate and Moxie, it can pick between checking physical attackers better and finding more set-up opportunities or cleaning up more effectively. Its coverage causes it to have few reliable answers, often forcing one to play around it with complex set-ups such as baiting it into Outrage to revenge-killing it with a fairy. While it offers much to teambuilding, it also places a heavy constraint on it, leading to this suspect test.

Salamence will not be allowed during this test.

The suspect test will have an N value of 20 and a COIL requirement of 2650. It will last 2 weeks from the date this thread is posted.

You can calculate the number of games required using this formula:

N=20.0/log2(40*GXE/2650)

song: Kyuss - Asteroid
 
just based on the suspect ladder, theres a lot more stall than i thought there would be which is annoying >:[

On salamence:
Imo its bulky defog set is actually rather easy to wear down when you take into account its susceptible to random toxics and burns from entei. while less common, its fire blast pp can be easily stalled out and then its setup bait for something like cobalion.

For its DD sets i feel like a set with DD, Dclaw/outrage, earthquake and roost/fireblast/iron tail can pretty much 6-0 any team given the right coverage

Wall breaking LO special is especially good at KOing or severely weakening traditional checks and just walls in general

overall this thing just has so many sets that I'm leaning towards ban based on logic, but purely based on personal preference i would like mence to stay lol. this ones gonna be a tough one to decide on lol
 

PDC

street spirit fade out
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ask smogon community to not shitpost :toast:
what a response

anyway, i cannot say i am very experienced in uu; in fact i have only been really playing it the past few days due to the upcoming slam. the little experience i do have in uu might affect the validity of this post, but i managed to do well enough on the ladder to at least get an idea of how the metagame is with salamence included and the absence of it.

i think salamence has the same intrinsic qualities as it did in dpp: a comfortable speed tier with outpaces a solid amount of pokemon, great offenses mixed with a rather flexible movepool, decent defenses and typing, and a set up move which allows it to outpace the most common scarfers like hydreigon. it also has the ability to be an "unknown" set which greatly affects what types of pokemon can switch into it comfortably. the route that DD takes is far different than the route that mixmence takes, and a physical wall expecting a dd on the switch may instead take a draco meteor or fire blast.

a lot of the "counters" to salamence are reminiscent of its days in dpp as well. real fat water types, bronzong, and residual stealth rock damage. the problem with the foremost 2 pokemon, cune and vaporeon (i assume), are that they are forced to carry ice beam to essentially shut salamence down for good, which is quite annoying considering how valuable a slot is on these 2 pokemon. suicune will have to give up sleep talk if it is defensive, and vaporeon will have to give up heal bell. bronzong has always been an "eh" check as as far as i can tell it isn't exactly a great pokemon in uu in the first place, and it takes quite a bit for a mixed fire blast. cresselia is probably the best check to salamence as far as real fat mons go, considering mence isn't putting a huge dent in it and cress can either twave, mblast, or ice beam in return.

salamence seems to retain every aspect which made it broken in dpp, no definite counters, only hard checks due to it's ability to run a myriad of sets and use this unpredictability to seriously put a dent in most teams.
 

Tace

beat goes on
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I think salamance should be banned from uu because offense mence it threatens almost every offensive team in uu. It forces teambuilders in uu to run florges or sylveon which are salamance's only checks in uu.
 
The game is changing. And Salamence, I feel, is going to act as a weather vane in regards to which direction this tier will be heading to in the future. Power creep has been ratcheting up for years now, and UU has felt the weight of it as much as anyone. Looking purely on paper, I can see why Salamence has to leave. There are just too many threats right now, and there is simply no way to prepare for all of them. Salamence contributes to this. Guess wrong between MixMence and DD and your answer could lose 60%, or worse.

So kick these guys out, right? Keep paring a way at the edges until we can get back into the old days, when you could just switch in your "answer" to a certain Pokemon and breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe.

Yeah, we could ban Mence, suspect others like Hydra, and generally keep working down until we have our ideal metagame, where you have threats, and their counters(or "Hard Checks" lol). The question is, such a thing even possible? Is there actually a core of Pokemon in our tier that would lead to this type of metagame? Borderline is now the largest it's been since it was it's own playable tier. Undoubtedly, Gen 7's BL will be even larger. How far are we willing to search for something that may not even be there anymore?

Back in DPP, even a top threat like Venusaur had pokemon you could by and large switch in an answer without much, in any risk. For every enemy mon there was a mon you could add to your team to by and large neutralize it. The edge case that was Heracross was even banned at the final hour, just to maintain this delicate balance the tiering leaders felt they had achieved. GenIV UU is by and large looked upon favorably, as a metagame that has acheived near perfect balance. As we have progressed through the years since then, it seems as if that is still the gold standard that these bans are trying to work forward. It has led to ever-widening banlists, and various horrors like the UU Council, the UU Senate(lol) and the Kokoloko plan. What it hasn't led to, however, is a DPP-esque "perfectly balanced" metagame.

It is looking more and more that such a thing is no longer possible. The era of Pokemon having counters is largely over. Movepools are too wide, and stats have climbed too high for that to be a viable strategy any more. The focus should now switch to counterplay. A broken pokemon has no counterplay, not "no counters". "You can't switch in safely" should not be a valid reason for a ban. These type of bans haven't gotten us anywhere in a long while.

No more blocks of damage calcs. You want something banned, we need replays and examples of where worse players consistently beat better battlers due to this broken mon. Otherwise, if the better player still wins, what's the issue?



TLDR: This is Melee, not Smash 4. Act accordingly.
 

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Random French guy comment, forgive me if my english is not perfect..

To my mind Salamence is a really strong and interresting Pokemon since he's in UU. He's versatile of course but can be handle pretty well :

• Offensive / Defensive Defog don't like burn or poison.. neither the Stealth Rock which prevent him to be a free everytime.
• DD mence need to choose Fire Blast or Iron Tail (without the first one, he can't beat Forretress, Archeodong.. even Doublade, and without Iron Tail, Florges laught a lot on him).

The main problem of Salamence is that he can destroy offensive team but he is actually the "base" of offensive team / HO. I don't understand very well why Salamence deserve a suspect now ? The metagame didn't change that much, he's not stronger than before.. so.. yeah I'm confused.

We all know that the ban of Salamence will cause more and more suspect because the Metagame needs it.. that's gonna break the balance. Salamence is a incredible Pokemon.. yeah, that's why he's "S rank". But the Metagame has adapted to this Pokemon a while ago, to my mind he has enough check / counters (can't beat Semi-Stall / Stall etc..).
 
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Aberforth

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Ubers Leader
The game is changing. And Salamence, I feel, is going to act as a weather vane in regards to which direction this tier will be heading to in the future. Power creep has been ratcheting up for years now, and UU has felt the weight of it as much as anyone. Looking purely on paper, I can see why Salamence has to leave. There are just too many threats right now, and there is simply no way to prepare for all of them. Salamence contributes to this. Guess wrong between MixMence and DD and your answer could lose 60%, or worse.

So kick these guys out, right? Keep paring a way at the edges until we can get back into the old days, when you could just switch in your "answer" to a certain Pokemon and breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe.

Yeah, we could ban Mence, suspect others like Hydra, and generally keep working down until we have our ideal metagame, where you have threats, and their counters(or "Hard Checks" lol). The question is, such a thing even possible? Is there actually a core of Pokemon in our tier that would lead to this type of metagame? Borderline is now the largest it's been since it was it's own playable tier. Undoubtedly, Gen 7's BL will be even larger. How far are we willing to search for something that may not even be there anymore?

Back in DPP, even a top threat like Venusaur had pokemon you could by and large switch in an answer without much, in any risk. For every enemy mon there was a mon you could add to your team to by and large neutralize it. The edge case that was Heracross was even banned at the final hour, just to maintain this delicate balance the tiering leaders felt they had achieved. GenIV UU is by and large looked upon favorably, as a metagame that has acheived near perfect balance. As we have progressed through the years since then, it seems as if that is still the gold standard that these bans are trying to work forward. It has led to ever-widening banlists, and various horrors like the UU Council, the UU Senate(lol) and the Kokoloko plan. What it hasn't led to, however, is a DPP-esque "perfectly balanced" metagame.

It is looking more and more that such a thing is no longer possible. The era of Pokemon having counters is largely over. Movepools are too wide, and stats have climbed too high for that to be a viable strategy any more. The focus should now switch to counterplay. A broken pokemon has no counterplay, not "no counters". "You can't switch in safely" should not be a valid reason for a ban. These type of bans haven't gotten us anywhere in a long while.

No more blocks of damage calcs. You want something banned, we need replays and examples of where worse players consistently beat better battlers due to this broken mon. Otherwise, if the better player still wins, what's the issue?



TLDR: This is Melee, not Smash 4. Act accordingly.
I mean, speaking like PDC as someone who isn't particularly good at UU, several things in this post annoy me somewhat. First of all, the Kokoloko plan was a bad thing? Again, as at best a casual observer of UU, Kokoloko's UU seemed pretty damn great, and had a reputation of being one of the best metagames in 6th gen, creating a good metagame quickly and then retesting potentially non-broken elements to get the best possible tier.

As for tiering as a general, there's no change that you're on about. It is about little counterplay and not no counters. If it was the latter, why would people have let Crawdaunt into the tier? But, while no counters does not necessarily mean that there is little counterplay, having available counters is a sign of some counterplay (although the extent of which this is the case is debatable as to whether or not it is enough), so people discussing whether or not there are counters is actually relevant to the discussion and you should not dismiss it out of hand.

As for BL getting too large, so what? There are a number of broken things that need to be banned to create a healthy tier. I dont see you being overly upset over OU banning double what UU have to make a healthy tier. And while one of those formats deals with banning the Rayquazas and the Mega Kangaskhans of the world while the other bans the Terrakions and Togekisses, the principle is the same in that it does not matter if you ban numerous broken things, because they are broken, and we dont like having a broken checks broken metagame. It is not like there is a great mix in what is banned from UU, everything that is banned is incredibly offensive with very little counterplay and would not make the tier healthy if it were to be reintroduced. But more importantly, that is all irrelevant. The size of BL should not impact UU's tiering one bit, because they have no effect on the metagame in which you are trying to decide if something is broken or not.

Now moving back a little, if something has No Counterplay, it is likely already banned or being used in OU because it's that good. No counterplay is a huge extreme, hell even stuff like Mega Hera and Terrakion had counterplay. The important part is determining if the counterplay that is available to the player is enough for something to be considered healthy or otherwise. I'm not going to say if that is or is not the case for Salamence, I dont know the tier well enough. But implying that something has to have no counterplay in order to be banworthy is as ludicrous as saying something that has no counters needs to be banned. And you cant switch in safely is a valid aspect of a ban argument when combined with the other aspects of a suspect (you cant switch in safely, it outspeeds most of the tier and can come in repeatedly, while the counterplay to this is limited and easy to exploit, for example). It isn't something to be a reason on its own, of course, but implying that it is irrelevant information is dishonest.

Finally, you need replays and examples where worse players beat better ones. A few things I find really wrong with this bit, so lets go through it. First of all, how do you objectively determine how good a player is? What if that player was just having an off day, or was trying out a new team and hadn't prepared as well for Salamence as he needed to? How big must the difference between the two players be for the replay to be valid? What if there was a big misplay somewhere in the game that effected the result, or does it have to be 100% because of Salamence?

Now that's just why I dont like the whole worse vs better thing, but my real problem with that part is that you're mixing up broken and uncompetitive. Uncompetitive things can clearly demonstrate 'worse' players beating 'better' players, but broken does not need to do this. The best players can be the best at abusing a broken pokemon and at playing around it with the remainder of their team. Ubers is filled with broken pokemon, but there are clearly best players in the tier who will almost never find themselves losing to a 'broken' pokemon because they are the most capable of using and playing around it. That doesn't mean those pokemon are any less broken, it just means that the players are good. A similar principle applies here. If I were to be playing against Teal6 or someone with a team where I can use any one BL mon and he could only use UU mons, I would still say he would come out on top, because he is the better player and will be able to play around my threats more effectively. That doesn't mean that whatever BL mon I chose isn't broken, it just means he's a good player. The issue is where the Broken pokemon is an unhealthy influence on the metagame and as a result makes it so that teambuilding and playing choices are limited to an extreme that wouldn't be present without the broken pokemon in the metagame. Where you draw the line on this is subjective, obviously, and if you feel Salamence does not cross that line, that's fine. But it does not need to be uncompetitive to be broken.
 
It is irritating to have to write 10 billion words to prove something I feel intuitively. I'll try to avoid doing it.

Salamence is my my used ORAS UU mon for a good reason. The variance of its moveset, incredible ability(well, both), sick ass typing and negligible counterplay has made it one of the two kings of UU for over a year now. I don't even use the set most other "top players" use (ftr, knowing how they all like to build and play, you will most commonly see LO Special Salamence w/ Defog, with a bulky variant being the 2nd most popular). I use the noobtastic straight fucking HO one all the time because playing against it is a nightmare for most people.

Counterplay doesn't exist almost flatout. To be "safe" against Mence you need Ice Shard, that's realistically it (and a decently strong shard at that, no Donphan). This thing sets up on so much it is outrageous, and with Moxie can spiral a game out of control in a turn.

I was talking with TonyFlygon yesterday about teambuilding and he asked if I had anything in mind I wanted to build around. As I'm dipping my feet into the water building-wise again, I want to stick to my basics. That means one thing - "I want a DDer". Why? Because DD mons can win a game on a single turn. They literally force opponents to play a completely different style so as to not give a single free turn. I LOVE that single free turn - but I also think it's abusable, and kind of unfair. Comparing my enjoyment playing in ADV vs ORAS UU, the former is far kinder with a single-turn misplay. That's how a metagame should be - if you fuck up one turn, you can realistically still pull it back. ORAS UU with Mence is almost TOO punishing for a single turn fuckup, and I can't count the number of times I've taken advantage of it.

Simple things like "I can NP with Nape vs Suicune because if they stay in to Scald I setup a DD and win" make the game too unforgiving, too matchup based and too unfun to play when you are on the receiving end of it. Your counterplay options shouldn't be "keep Mamoswine alive at all costs" or "run P2 and never let it get below like, 70%" but those are the things you need to reliably check just my one version of Mence.

Salamence's ability to flip a game around in one turn is not only broken in its own right, but it also enables offense teams to run even more wild. I can setup other threats incredibly freely knowing that the counter to one particular setup mon is just bait for Mence. This theory was the basis of my most successful UU team, a team that went on to have notable victories at a high level even after being shared to the very players it faced. I've done almost every UU suspect using that team regardless of the meta's current conditions and the success of it hinged almost ENTIRELY on Salamence. That's broken.

Whims shouldn't be a near-requirement to make sure you don't get bombarded by offense, btw.

Final thought is that Sylveon is almost a nonentity for DD Mence's viability. You play against Sylveon exactly the same way you play against Florges, and any proper DD Mence team has considerations for Florges. The real tier-change that fucked up Mence's viability was Zapdos leaving. Zapdos was a mon that resisted Salamence's two coverage moves and took nothing from FB - essentially, it FORCED the Mence user to Outrage and from then it could be picked off. The fact that this was acceptable as a main counterplay to a mon is outrageous, btw - having to bait, sack and revenge is a bit on the silly side.

I'll miss you Mence but you must go.



edit: Oh, also, Shy Glizzy you're kind of wrong.. ORAS UU was as close to perfect a metagame I've ever played about a year ago - Koko's version was the best idea by far and if given the choice I'd go back to it in a heartbeat even if I was never allowed to influence a vote again.
 
I've always been a humongous critic of Kokoloko's tiering method. Although his method allowed UU to reach a near balanced metagame at the end of Gen VI's life, a lot of the bans came as an extremely subjective selection from a very small group of people. The foremost argument is that it removes the community aspect of the tiering process. If the community feels like it isn't making an impact on the metagame he or she is playing, what's the point in participating. From my active time all throughout XY and ORAS UU, I felt like the people who started in XY UU ended up maining a different tier (which all in all isn't a bad thing). Many of the bans hinged on theorymon (X-mon theoretically could be broken) and thus are locked away for no reason (i.e. Haxorus and Mega-Doom). The speed at which each threat was banned did not give the tier enough time to adapt or see if any potential checks or counters to said Pokemon could arise. I understand that many of the Pokemon currently in BL in reality all have extremely restrictive qualities that would make UU not enjoyable, but having a bit of natural evolution of the metagame prior to bannings would be nice.

The number of tier influencers (a.k.a. the council) and the voting benchmarks needed to unban a Pokemon were also too high for a metagame vote (66.67% supermajority with 12 council members). But kokoloko's time is passed, and the method can certainly be a useful tool if the tier leaders refine it for the next generation.

To be honest, I would've much rather see Hydreigon get a suspect, but Salamence seems to be a bigger pressing issue. DD Salamence has very little counterplay since it sits in a speed tier that allows it to be only RK'd by itself at the moment.
 
The game is changing. And Salamence, I feel, is going to act as a weather vane in regards to which direction this tier will be heading to in the future. Power creep has been ratcheting up for years now, and UU has felt the weight of it as much as anyone. Looking purely on paper, I can see why Salamence has to leave. There are just too many threats right now, and there is simply no way to prepare for all of them. Salamence contributes to this. Guess wrong between MixMence and DD and your answer could lose 60%, or worse.

So kick these guys out, right? Keep paring a way at the edges until we can get back into the old days, when you could just switch in your "answer" to a certain Pokemon and breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe.

Yeah, we could ban Mence, suspect others like Hydra, and generally keep working down until we have our ideal metagame, where you have threats, and their counters(or "Hard Checks" lol). The question is, such a thing even possible? Is there actually a core of Pokemon in our tier that would lead to this type of metagame? Borderline is now the largest it's been since it was it's own playable tier. Undoubtedly, Gen 7's BL will be even larger. How far are we willing to search for something that may not even be there anymore?

Back in DPP, even a top threat like Venusaur had pokemon you could by and large switch in an answer without much, in any risk. For every enemy mon there was a mon you could add to your team to by and large neutralize it. The edge case that was Heracross was even banned at the final hour, just to maintain this delicate balance the tiering leaders felt they had achieved. GenIV UU is by and large looked upon favorably, as a metagame that has acheived near perfect balance. As we have progressed through the years since then, it seems as if that is still the gold standard that these bans are trying to work forward. It has led to ever-widening banlists, and various horrors like the UU Council, the UU Senate(lol) and the Kokoloko plan. What it hasn't led to, however, is a DPP-esque "perfectly balanced" metagame.

It is looking more and more that such a thing is no longer possible. The era of Pokemon having counters is largely over. Movepools are too wide, and stats have climbed too high for that to be a viable strategy any more. The focus should now switch to counterplay. A broken pokemon has no counterplay, not "no counters". "You can't switch in safely" should not be a valid reason for a ban. These type of bans haven't gotten us anywhere in a long while.

No more blocks of damage calcs. You want something banned, we need replays and examples of where worse players consistently beat better battlers due to this broken mon. Otherwise, if the better player still wins, what's the issue?



TLDR: This is Melee, not Smash 4. Act accordingly.
Honestly, Having a large BL isn't a problem. If you look down BL you will find Pokemon that are broken in the current ORAS UU metagame. You will find Alakazam that was just banned for having few counters in UU and the tiers below, Mega Alakazam which can do the LO Alakazam set but better, Mega Hera and Thundy-T which UU would have next to no switch ins to and in the case of Thundy a dual dance set destroys the entire tier. Victini which with its versatiity could kill every mon in the tier in theory and we only have Milotic, Suicune and Vapo to switch in on V-create from LO or Band. Terrakion which can ohko or 2hko most of the tier while outspeeding it etc. What I am trying to say here is things are made BL because they are broken in the UU tier, no other reasons which is why a large BL is healthy for the UU metagame as it keeps the broken mons out of UU.

Now onto the topic of Salamence, With its versatility in its sets and its raw power it can deal with every mon in the UU tier barring like a +5 defence CurseLax or Cresselia when it is at +2 attack or for mixed/special there is +3 Spdef CroCune but that is about it. Even though I am a huge fan of Salamence and I will be sad to see it go, Salamence has to be banned from ORAS UU.
 
Tbh, I think the potency of Salamence's dragon dance sets are being exaggerated here. It's true that once they set up, they have tremendous power, but it's not as if there's 0 counter play against these sets.
Whimsi can encore it, Mamo can one-shot it with ice shard after rocks, things like shuca empoleon and coballion (if not running fire blast) can take +1 earthquakes and hit it with ice beam/stone edge, mega pert forces it to outrage, mega Aggron/suicune can take a hit and phase it out, Sableye burns it, if mence isn't running steel coverage sylv and forges can easily take it out, etc. Hell, basic offensive pressure from things like m-sceptile and aero forces it out. The thing is, Salamence can't run Dragon Dance/Fire Blast/Earthquake/Dragon Claw/Outrage/Iron Tail/Roost on one set.
If it could, I could see it being broken, but as it stands, where mence is easily worn down, susceptible to status, taunt/encore bait, and has checks that are common on multiple play-styles, I would advocate for not banning mence.
 
I'm yet to start my run on the suspect ladder, but I'm starting later. Figured I'd add my 2 cents.

Tbh, I think the potency of Salamence's dragon dance sets are being exaggerated here. It's true that once they set up, they have tremendous power, but it's not as if there's 0 counter play against these sets.
Whimsi can encore it, Mamo can one-shot it with ice shard after rocks, things like shuca empoleon and coballion (if not running fire blast) can take +1 earthquakes and hit it with ice beam/stone edge, mega pert forces it to outrage, mega Aggron/suicune can take a hit and phase it out, Sableye burns it, if mence isn't running steel coverage sylv and forges can easily take it out, etc. Hell, basic offensive pressure from things like m-sceptile and aero forces it out. The thing is, Salamence can't run Dragon Dance/Fire Blast/Earthquake/Dragon Claw/Outrage/Iron Tail/Roost on one set.
If it could, I could see it being broken, but as it stands, where mence is easily worn down, susceptible to status, taunt/encore bait, and has checks that are common on multiple play-styles, I would advocate for not banning mence.
I don't want to come off as rude, but what exactly was the point of your post? Everyone knows how to deal with a Salamence, and part of the problem is that you need to run at least 1 or 2 of the things you mentioned to not get killed by the Dragon-type.

In a vacuum, like how you've approached the thought of Salamence not being broken, then sure there isn't an issue with Salamence. There are capable revenge-killers, Prankster users, and walls that can slow or stymie a sweep. But when you consider that Pokémon like Suicune, Florges, or a full-HP Porygon2 are also being used to check and or counter threats commonly paired with Salamence, the argument that those tanks and walls are sufficient becomes moot. You're constricted into situations similar to those teal6 mentions: you must keep Mamoswine alive at all costs, you can't let Porygon2 slip below 70%, you must run a combination of Florges/Sylveon, Suicune, etc. Salamence has a bottleneck effect on the UU metagame. It might not be an overly massive effect, but it's noticeable. You must take specific steps in order to keep yourself from getting swept.

A great example is that you mentioned Shuca Empoleon and Cobalion. That's Salamence's (and Mamoswine's) effect on the metagame. You can't run conventional Pokémon to beat all of the powerful threats in UU, and are instead forced into niche checks.

Whoever brought up the notion of Power Creep is absolutely correct. Today's metagame is ridiculously more powerful than those previous. Yesterday's threats acquire new and better coverage moves, subtle stat boosts, and items that make them all the more powerful. It was necessary in order to keep older Pokémon capable of competing against the stronger Pokémon introduced today. At the same time, defensive threats haven't progressed as fast. Eviolite, Assault Vest, and similar stat buffs help but they pale in comparison to how offence has progressed.

It's not that Salamence is inherently broken; if this was the case we'd have seen it banned a long time ago. It's the addition of more offensive elements into UU than defensive ones that have made Salamence an issue. It pairs ridiculously well with a lot of relevant offensive threats thanks to great type synergy and that they break walls for each other. Salamence is an exceptionally versatile threat, which doesn't help it's case, but I don't agree with versatility equalling suspect, let alone broken. See Mew in BW. Don't put the focus here on Salamence's ability to run multiple viable sets. Instead focus on what it brings to the table in terms of offence. It's ferocity, coverage, and fear-inducing "I must play this way so I don't lose" effect on the opposition's mentality.

Also don't be a wiseass and claim "but Mazz, you're saying that offensive synergy is broken so what about these threats?". Nothing outside of like, NP Ape (maybe) or a well-played SD Lucario, capitalizes on offensive synergy the same way Salamence does. In the time you see it from team preview to the turn it comes out, it's all you've focused on as a player. I'm quite guilty of it myself. Salamence is a relevant enough threat that I'll literally stop giving a shit about whatever else my opponent has until I know for a fact that Salamence isn't a threat to my team anymore.

Tl;Dr banning Alakazam and suspecting Salamence is a step in the right direction. Bringing the offensive level of UU down to a more reasonable standard should be desired, not opposed.
 

pokemonisfun

Banned deucer.
I am not convinced Salamence needs a ban under the logic "it can flip games in one turn" or "UU has too many offensive threats". Because Salamence has many viable UU counters, generally requires anti SR support and cannot use its best STAB moves without severe drawbacks I do not think it should be banned.

The most broken Salamence set seems to be the DD set but Salamence can run very threatening mixed and special sets too. Sadly for Salamence they are all countered by common Pokemon that can fit on balance and stall: Milotic, P2, Umbreon, Cresselia, and IB Suicune. Having such a wide list of near foolproof counters suggests to me that Salamence's ability to win games by itself is exaggerated. Additionally these are just the Pokemon that counter Salamence by itself - with a combination of say Fairy + Suicune, which has been mentioned before, Salamence is very hard pressed to sweep or do major damage.

The requirement of anti SR support occurs not because a 75% Salamence is easy to kill, but because Salamence finds it very uncomfortable to switch around with SR up. It cannot for instance predict a Leaf Storm and use its otherwise good defensive typing to switch into Roserade the way Hydreigon often can, without taking too large amounts of damage. Indeed despite Salamence's good defenses it cannot really counter any offensive threat at all with SR up unlike Hydreigon which switches into Chandelure and Houndoom.

On this note Salamence is not a bad Defogger itself, although it loses to the scariest setter Mamoswine. The problem with defensive Salamence is it's not a very reliable counter to attackers you would like to counter such as Cobalion (Flinch or Stone Edge) and Chandelure (boosted Shadow Balls and sets with Burn). Also it can be Pursuit trapped surprisingly, a problem with double switches when SR is up.

We all know Outrage and Draco Meteor have very bad drawbacks, particularly Outrage, so all I will say is to reiterate a point: Salamence has a very hard time beating a combination of bulky Pokemon + Fairies. This is made all the more true since its other STAB comes at a fairly low 80 bp.

The idea that UU has a lot offensive pressure has not really been addressed in this post, but I would just say Salamence is not a big enough culprit to ban. I would suggest Celebi which, for those of you who said in your posts are concerned about stall, actually has no counters because it can Baton Pass NP and SD, as well as use both to sweep itself. And it really does change games in one turn as it can pass to say Yanmega - check your team builder now, how many of you can deal with +2 Speed Boost Yanmega? I bet that small list will narrow even further when I ask how many can deal with +2 Speed Boost Sharpedo too. It's a problem because Celebi's bulk means it can set up reliably against all but the most offensive teams, the only issue is that the receiver doesn't get killed instantly.
 
Alright, now that I'll be voting for this, time I should throw my two cents in.

I've been in UU for a VERY long time now, I've primarily used one major team setup for a long time now. Back when I made the team, I made it to revolve around and counter some of the biggest threats in the tier at the time; particular BD Slurpuff, Mega Sharpedo, Crocune, Mega Pidgeot and Scarfmence. While these threats have come and gone with time (I don't see much of BD slurpuff anymore these days in particular and Bird Jeezus is banned, but Sharpedo are very common and Crocune I see about every other match, but I digress), mence has not only remained a constant threat, but the switchup between DD Lum Berry, DD life orb, scarfmence, and fatmence have made counterplay for him a lot more tricky. I've never personally had a problem with mence since whenever I see it in the team preview, its becomes my priority to keep my counter to him healthy and ready (for my primary team, that would be mamoswine and/or whimsicott, but my other teams now include the likes of sableye, obamasnow, etc.), but I think therein lies the problem. Even though I've personally never had a problem with mence because I always had a plan to take it out, the fact that every team I make has a specific mence-counter/check clearly shows how centralizing it is to the game.

These last few days with Mence gone, I've noticed the game being a lot less...stressful? What I mean is there's no longer any pressuring feeling of "Oh fuck, its mence, I gotta play this guy right or I'm turbo-boned". More variety in mons' played is popping back out and it's generally more fun that way. While I never really thought mence was "broken" (I've used DD Lum mence and Fat mence on a couple of my infrequently used teams, and have had both successes and failures), he is undoubtly an over-centralizing threat to the game.

I'll wait and see what other arguments pop up before making my final decision, but at this point I'm leaning towards ban. My only worry is that (like i've seen many times in both UU and OU) this will cause a trickle down effect such that as soon as mence goes, another threat will take his place and we'll be back right back at square one. That's not a reason to keep mence, per se, but a precaution nonetheless

Happy battling, bros
 
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Hi all, I'm one of these lurkers that's actually been playing OU and UU on/off since DPP.
I'm in the middle, leaning towards pro-ban, but just slightly.

I have a suggestion: could there be a showcase tour where half of the top UU players use a mence team, and the other half doesn't?
('top' relative to tour wins, glicko, forum activity, council etc.)

Or alternatively, it'd be great if experienced players could share multiple replays showing how mence was their win con.

I just feel that for S/A+ offensively focused mons, the discussions are just too paper/theory based.
To-ban or no-ban evidence would be very strong, via replays between players that know all the possibilities the metagame holds, and how to think many turns ahead.

My two cents
 

Manipulative

Camila <3
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At first I was a bit skeptical about this suspect due to how much Mence has to offer for the tier. It fits really well in literally every playstyle and significantly eases part of teambuilding with how much role compression it provides. Though, after playing through the suspect ladder, reading through posts, and giving it some more thought, I've come to agree with having to ban Mence.

The set that calls for a ban the most is its DD set, and as already said, often having to bait it into an Outrage and sac something before revenge killing it with a resist is ridiculous. It's really unfortunate, to say the least, that this is really one of the best ways to dealing with DD Mence. Otherwise, you'll want to be carrying things like Shuca Empoleon or Mamoswine on most teams. Just carrying Whimsicott is so soft of an answer and far from ideal, since you'll have to either risk switching in on an Iron Tail when you want to Encore the DD or go through with the whole sac something to Outrage and revenge plan. Not to mention that Whimsicott has had a considerable drop in usage ever since Sylveon entered the tier anyway. A +1 Salamence is able to pick up OHKOs on a really good portion of the tier, while being able to take a hit doesn't necessarily mean you're able to beat it either. This, along with finding as many setup opportunities as it does, means that DD Mence puts too much pressure on the tier. I don't think that this was always a problem, but just about every metagame change for a while now has pushed UU towards Offense and further away from Balance or Stall. Zapdos, the only drop that this doesn't apply to, has left the tier.

Having the luxury of turning to a Specially Offensive set adds on to the problem here. Many of the counters to the DD set get blown back by Special sets and vice versa. There aren't too many good options for Balance or Stall teams that are able to switch into and deal with both of these sets. It's pretty much limited to the options that pif mentioned in his post: Milotic, P2, Umbreon, Cresselia, and IB Suicune. Let's take a look at these. The first thing that I want to point out is that all of these mons have gotten worse over time, with the exception of Cresselia. Some of these mons are also often not that easy to fit on teams. Milotic was receiving some hype during SPL and part of UUPL, but Sylveon, Celebi, and Conkeldurr have all hindered its viability. P2 isn't nearly as good as it was about a year ago and struggles with the drops as well. Umbreon and Suicune have also gotten hindered by all three of the drops. They also aren't too solid at countering Mence. A standard Umbreon set takes a ton of damage from Lum DD Mence's +1 Outrage and has a less than 20% chance of OHKOing it back with Foul Play if Mence is at full health. Now if that was a Life Orb that Mence was carrying rather than a Lum Berry, then Umbreon is most likely dying to the +1 Outrage + Rocks. IB Suicune is pretty rare and has to pass up on either CM, Roar, or Sleep Talk, but even if you are to use it, you're forced to click Rest upon switching into LO Draco + Rocks, likely leading to free turns for your opponent. Even CM Cresselia, which has gotten better in this meta, can be a bit shaky against LO DD Mence. Unless Cress is carrying Ice Beam or TWave (both being redundant on a CM set), it'll get 2HKOed by +1 Outrage without necessarily stopping it (Moonblast + 2 Rounds of LO Recoil does a max of 72%). This isn't to say that LO is really common on DD Mence or anything, but it's something to take into account. The point is, any answer to both DD and Specially Offensive Mence has either generally gotten worse in the tier, has been shaky as an answer to begin with, or both.

While I'll be voting to ban Mence, I'll miss all of its good qualities as well. Hazard removal in UU has been pretty bad after Zapdos left and only gets worse with another one of our best removers getting kicked out. We'll probably be seeing either Tentacruel, Empoleon, or Forretress on every team with hazard removal. Having a staple when building any playstyle and taking so much pressure off of the rest of the team was great too. It's unfortunate that Mence has to go, but it should still be interesting to see how the tier progresses without it.
 

Double01

Hate it or love it the under dog's on top
So I have a problem with this suspect test. I started to playing UU to prepare a bit for UU open and I might as well get reqs while I'm playing vs ladder. But how am I supposed to know whether Salamence is ban worthy if I've literally never played against it. I think it was a poor choice to have the suspect ladder not have salamence in it considering I and others I'm sure have never actually played with or against Salamence. So basically I'm voting on a mon Ive never personally experienced which makes it seem like this suspect req is quite flawed. I mean obviously I'll read others opinions and make my judgement on more experienced players opinions, but comon this suspect requirement seems silly. This suspect requirement really only allows players who are new to UU a view on the meta without Mence. I guess you can make the argument that people should have prior knowledge of Salamence but I think thats a poor assumption to make.

Just my two cents and doesn't really add to the discussion of the pokemon so feel free to remove it if deemed inappropriate for the thread.
 

Kink

it's a thug life ¨̮
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So I have a problem with this suspect test. I started to playing UU to prepare a bit for UU open and I might as well get reqs while I'm playing vs ladder. But how am I supposed to know whether Salamence is ban worthy if I've literally never played against it. I think it was a poor choice to have the suspect ladder not have salamence in it considering I and others I'm sure have never actually played with or against Salamence. So basically I'm voting on a mon Ive never personally experienced which makes it seem like this suspect req is quite flawed. I mean obviously I'll read others opinions and make my judgement on more experienced players opinions, but comon this suspect requirement seems silly. This suspect requirement really only allows players who are new to UU a view on the meta without Mence. I guess you can make the argument that people should have prior knowledge of Salamence but I think thats a poor assumption to make.

Just my two cents and doesn't really add to the discussion of the pokemon so feel free to remove it if deemed inappropriate for the thread.
The suspect isn't meant for new players who have never touched the tier before, it's meant for those that understood Salamence's presence and are interested in seeing if a mence-free meta can solve the ongoing problem of "BO: Might is Right". This being said, if you're a good player and you get the requirements, and have a reasonable opinion to share if based with solid evidence, then I absolutely encourage you to continue battling and working towards the requirements. However, at the end of the day it's important to realize that (UU) suspect tests generally cater to the tier's community, not the unknown individual.

On a side note, I don't know about you guys, but I'm incredibly on the fence about this one. I played against 2-3 Mamoswine's as opposed to 5-6 in 30+ games. Hydreigon seems to be even more of a glue with Mence gone, at least in the games I've played. I don't know if that means that mence should stay, or that mence + hydrei are a combo problem, or even that hydrei alone will be the correct suspect to pursue.

Arguably, I tend to echo others when looking at mons like Celebi. It seems to be just as potent and versatile as Salamence and Hydreigon. I admit I tend to settle for a compromise when making personal tiering choices. Part of the reason I argued for Zam to stay, was because Zam, Hydrei, Mence, and Celebi all fit the same super-powered tier I'd grown accustom to, and it seems that in order to fix it all of those mons need to be addressed and reviewed for us to have any chance in regaining the tier balance we had just a year ago.

Hopefully near the end of the suspect I'll have something more substantial to offer. I admit I was more interested in having people think deeper about this tier's position rather than any clear argument towards a decision. We all have some big choices to make in the coming months to decide how ORAS UU will finalize itself.
 
The suspect isn't meant for new players who have never touched the tier before, it's meant for those that understood Salamence's presence and are interested in seeing if a mence-free meta can solve the ongoing problem of "BO: Might is Right". This being said, if you're a good player and you get the requirements, and have a reasonable opinion to share if based with solid evidence, then I absolutely encourage you to continue battling and working towards the requirements. However, at the end of the day it's important to realize that (UU) suspect tests generally cater to the tier's community, not the unknown individual.

On a side note, I don't know about you guys, but I'm incredibly on the fence about this one. I played against 2-3 Mamoswine's as opposed to 5-6 in 30+ games. Hydreigon seems to be even more of a glue with Mence gone, at least in the games I've played. I don't know if that means that mence should stay, or that mence + hydrei are a combo problem, or even that hydrei alone will be the correct suspect to pursue.

Arguably, I tend to echo others when looking at mons like Celebi. It seems to be just as potent and versatile as Salamence and Hydreigon. I admit I tend to settle for a compromise when making personal tiering choices. Part of the reason I argued for Zam to stay, was because Zam, Hydrei, Mence, and Celebi all fit the same super-powered tier I'd grown accustom to, and it seems that in order to fix it all of those mons need to be addressed and reviewed for us to have any chance in regaining the tier balance we had just a year ago.

Hopefully near the end of the suspect I'll have something more substantial to offer. I admit I was more interested in having people think deeper about this tier's position rather than any clear argument towards a decision. We all have some big choices to make in the coming months to decide how ORAS UU will finalize itself.
You have so much experience you know the top tier suspects candidates in UU and you know the suspecting wont end.. Hy not speed up the process and make suspect with all thos god tier pokemons you mentioned and balance the tier in weeks instead of months. Or at least make it a triple pokemon suspect. Salamence/Heidregon/Celebi/Sylveon maybe?
 
Multiple suspects at the same time very rarely works. The more practical approach is to do them individual in order to study and truly understand their affect on the metagame. Otherwise you typically end up suspecting (and potentially bannng) blindly. Removing threats slowly let's the metagame adapt.

For example, maybe something that handles either Celebi or Sylveon rather effectively, but Hydreigon or Salamance pressure it to the point where using it leaves you at a disadvantage. I don't have a specific example, but if you lump threats in the same boat then remove them, you miss out on situations where that could happen.

The only time suspecting (and even banning) multiple threats simultaneously works is in the early stages of a metagame where a bunch of ridiculous threats exist. See early xy tiering process.

Another reason why this doesn't work is that a lot of premier threats enter UU throughout the course of a metagame. The 60-some odd Pokémon listed as UU didn't show up all at once. Some rose from lower tiers, some drop from OU, and some are new releases. We can't suspect what could be a threat since such a process would be impractical.

Bonus side effect of stretching suspect tests out: you keep interest in the tier. The metagame never really has a chance to grow stale and you keep the userbase engaged with tests.
 
Just going to post my two cents but I think it's curious how all that I've seen of the ladder so far has been completely different to the non-suspect ladder. Whimsicott and cobalion aren't everywhere for starters nor is empoleon and to be honest, pre suspect I think I could barely make an offensive team that didn't include whimsicott or stone edge cobalion to be honest. It feels nice that necessary glue mons aren't as necessary any more and more diversity is allowed particularly on offense; have been seeing a lot of webs recently for example.

But I do think Salamence is too good for UU to be honest. My main problem being DD (though I think a case can be made for the sheer amount that bulky LO Defog mence blanket checks) and that unlike other wallbreakers/sweepers in the tier, it's always going to do at least 50% to any team pretty much regardless of what mons you have unless you outpredict your opponent or you have late game mons to sac and ice shard. DD mence is more of a threat to offensive and defensive teams any other set up sweeper with the same set. I think this is really what pushes it over the limit and what clearly distinguishes it as a cut above all the rest.
 

YABO

King Turt
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I've played somewhere around 100-125 games on the ladder so far with a bunch of teams, new and old and I've definitely noticed a few things. Firstly, in response to the changes that spuds mentioned, you're going to see webs half the time when laddering anyways, either some weird galvantula aggron relic, some team 6-0d by sceptile if you spin, or that one team that I think Kushalos built with banded Krook. Lacking a true opinion about mence and its impact on the tier I'm instead deciding to share some of the things I've enjoyed using since its potentially temporary removal from UU. The primary benefactor that I've used is Sub DD Gyarados. The reasoning behind this is that Salamence was the only intimidate user not weak to water moves that Gyarados threatens out. This makes it significantly harder for teams that aren't prepared for Gyarados to play around it, usually resorting to encore with Whimsicott or flat out attacking it in order to limit its turns. In addition, something I've found rather convenient is that Sylveon hits through substitute. While this may seem beneficial to the Sylveon user, it can be manipulated to be an advantage for the Gyarados. For example, say that a teams only remaining response to Gyarados is a Sylveon at 80% that's been Knocked Off alongside an Entei with ExtremeSpeed. Because Sylveon can't break your sub, even at 1% you remain safe from Entei who could normally revenge you from roughly 50%. Some other pokemon that I've had fun messing around with are Lucario, Sub SD Cobalion, Weezing, and Bronzong. Strangely, I think Mence's removal helps Bronzong despite Hydreigon becoming the easy replacement on most teams. Simply put, you can "safely" switch into Hydreigon after setting rocks whereas Mence will either chunk you with Fire Blast or Defog on you continuously. Sub SD Cobalion naturally benefits from Salamence's removal as it was one of the premier answers to it normally seen on Stall teams. If you sub on the Sableye switch it's often curtains for an unprepared stall team. Lucario similarly benefits although still faces a lot of issues due to Cresselia's resurgence in the tier. Anyways, UU sans Mence has definitely opened up a couple new slots to be used on more balanced and even offensive builds which is nice and a great continuation to this suspect run.
 
I've been around since the Zygarde meta and this is imo the suspect that I think is the most up in the air in terms of ban vs. no ban. Salamence is undoubtedly one of the top threats in the current UU meta; a vast move pool and access to 2 great abilities in Intimidate and Moxie allow it to pull off various sets to great success (the most controversial being a dragon dance variant). We all know how scary it is after a DD, but scary doesn't mean broken. While it can be argued that the unpredictable nature of Salamence can often limit a number of pokemon's abilities to counter play; it's still true that no set Mence can run is without a fair list of perfectly viable checks & counters. Actually a lot of Mence counters are tier staples like Cresselia, Mamoswine, Shuca berry Empoleon, and fairies like Florges and now Sylveon. Honestly my experience in this UU suspect wasn't all that different from when Mence was playable bar less P2's and more Hydreigon running around. Also fighting types got a boost as Mence is one of the better answers to a lot of them.

Added to this is the limitations Salamence faces: weakness to rocks, difficulty setting up and non spammable stab (Outrage) which can open up free turns for opposing steels and fairies to take advantage of; this in turn limits Mence's opportunities to sweep, and can leave the user in difficult situations where perfect play is necessary in order to make any impact on the match. The problem lies in that the tier has so many other threats that need to be accounted for as well, and it's possible to get overwhelmed. The question is how do we as a community fix this and is Mence one of the main problems?

The more supportive sets I think are great in UU and give all playstyles much needed hazard control and resists. Because of that I'm leaning more towards the no ban side but I understand the reason it is being suspected and wouldn't object to it being banned.
 
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