np: XY UU Stage 1 - Reload [Salamence: BL | Next: DROPS!!!]

[Bluwing]

So ive played a bit around with dragon dance Salamence and I have to say it's incredibly good, it can set up on so many things with intimidate and while it's speed is great you can easely grab two dragon dance's and then have enough speed to outspeed mienshao. I'll post the set ive used here so everyone can either discuss it if they want or come with different ev spreads, movesets etc.

Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Evs: 176 HP / 252 Atk / 80 Spd
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance

This set works extremely well in the meta due to it's amazing typing, bulk and sweeping potential. This set is made to easely grad dd boosts, thats why it's got such a bulky spread, and with it's incredible base 135 atk stat and great coverage in only two moves hitting basically anything in uu for neutral damage. The ev spread is made to outspeed mienshao and all other common scarfers under base 105 speed at +2, rest is put in atk and hp for more bulk and power. The moveset is quite standard where as dragon claw is obviously for stab, and earthquake for plain coverage and makes a great combination. Substitute is there to block status and grab easy dd's against either more defensive mons or mons that are choiced to a move you resist or simply just forced out, dragon dance is for obvious reasons to boost mence's already sky high attack to amazing hights, and mid game late game +2 is really only what you need anyway, it outspeeds everything and nearly everything is 2hko'd.

 

[cacturne]

As much as I hate to derail something as come to my attention that its pretty interesting and potentially unhealthy

Should be mentioned that magneton is still doing the exact same thing magnezone was doing (volt switching way too hard)
the only trade off being a minor defense loss, which is made more minor by the fact ton can out-speed Blastoise with only 68 EV's rather than 148.

I wouldn't be bringing it up if magneton wasn't still doing crazy stuff like killing sp.def hippo if it has anything less than 92% HP on the switch in and doing nearly as much damage on v-switches as magnezone did. Obviously its not nearly as crazy as zone was but I still think it deserves some attention since there are barely enough things to stop its crazy powerful volt switches and the few things that do are floored by how powerful those boosted HP grasses are. Hippo is probably the only one that has a chance on the second switch in, I know ya'll are gonna say mega ampharos or something like that but you don't realize that you need to stop it from VSing to have a chance to kill it, otherwise its just going to dent your party and keep switching in threatening things that fail to give them a chance to heal just like magnezone did and just like magnezone is a perfect switch in to florges which is as popular as ever, should be noted that evolite sets also work well as baiting the popular magnezone clone and can net some free damage in the process, but is not as bad as those specs+anal volt switches.

Ive personally watched battles with people using magneton and I believe is is very easily beaten and worn down by specially defensive mew. Now I say this because not only can mew come in and tank the hit, but it is an extremely viable pokemon outside of taking these hits and can cripple or do well against the other mons that come in. Now you also say that when ton volt switches it brings in mons to break your defensive cores and beat your zone counters but to that I say that prediction starts to play a role in this as well as your other teammates carrying good enough defensive synergy as a wall core to switch in and take hits from each others checks and counters. Mew can also burn magenton and recover off all the damages its doing effectively stalling it out. In my book that makes mew a pretty good check to eviolite magneton since it could also knock off its eviolite.

 

[cacturne]

So ive played a bit around with dragon dance Salamence and I have to say it's incredibly good, it can set up on so many things with intimidate and while it's speed is great you can easely grab two dragon dance's and then have enough speed to outspeed mienshao. I'll post the set ive used here so everyone can either discuss it if they want or come with different ev spreads, movesets etc.

Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
Evs: 176 HP / 252 Atk / 80 Spd
Nature: Adamant (+Atk, -SAtk)
- Dragon Claw
- Earthquake
- Substitute
- Dragon Dance

This set works extremely well in the meta due to it's amazing typing, bulk and sweeping potential. This set is made to easely grad dd boosts, thats why it's got such a bulky spread, and with it's incredible base 135 atk stat and great coverage in only two moves hitting basically anything in uu for neutral damage. The ev spread is made to outspeed mienshao and all other common scarfers under base 105 speed at +2, rest is put in atk and hp for more bulk and power. The moveset is quite standard where as dragon claw is obviously for stab, and earthquake for plain coverage and makes a great combination. Substitute is there to block status and grab easy dd's against either more defensive mons or mons that are choiced to a move you resist or simply just forced out, dragon dance is for obvious reasons to boost mence's already sky high attack to amazing hights, and mid game late game +2 is really only what you need anyway, it outspeeds everything and nearly everything is 2hko'd.

Blu i threw that set on my dual screens team after you gave me the spread and all i can say is that mon is fking amazing and has surprising bulk to set up and sweep

 

[Shiny Minun]

Ive personally watched battles with people using magneton and I believe is is very easily beaten and worn down by specially defensive mew. Now I say this because not only can mew come in and tank the hit, but it is an extremely viable pokemon outside of taking these hits and can cripple or do well against the other mons that come in. Now you also say that when ton volt switches it brings in mons to break your defensive cores and beat your zone counters but to that I say that prediction starts to play a role in this as well as your other teammates carrying good enough defensive synergy as a wall core to switch in and take hits from each others checks and counters. Mew can also burn magenton and recover off all the damages its doing effectively stalling it out. In my book that makes mew a pretty good check to eviolite magneton since it could also knock off its eviolite.

my problem with this is that mew is still taking a huge 41% from spec+anal VS on the switch in and now something more threatening to mew comes out, maybe houndoom? Victini? or the other things that are extremely threatening to special def mew that also happen to be super common. Which is why I argued, stopping volt switch is very important to dealing with magnezone and now magneton, it gets a lot of free synergy and unlike other volt switchers in the tier, the few things willing to switch into VS are chipped away or toppled by its other moves. Being able to deal with magneton is as irrelivent as dealing with magnezone was, since it just switches out and keeps swapping on things that are relatively bulky and resist it but doing 30~50% anyway because of the crazy boosts.

 

[cacturne]

my problem with this is that mew is still taking a huge 41% from spec+anal VS on the switch in and now something more threatening to mew comes out, maybe houndoom? Victini? or the other things that are extremely threatening to special def mew that also happen to be super common. Which is why I argued, stopping volt switch is very important to dealing with magnezone and now magneton, it gets a lot of free synergy and unlike other volt switchers in the tier, the few things willing to switch into VS are chipped away or toppled by its other moves. Being able to deal with magneton is as irrelivent as dealing with magnezone was, since it just switches out and keeps swapping on things that are relatively bulky and resist it but doing 30~50% anyway because of the crazy boosts.

my argument there goes back to the need for prediction in pokemon and also carrying a wall core with the synergy to handle each others checks and counters. i know the teammates argument sounds kind of weaksauce but every team should have checks to shit like mdoom anyway otherwise your not getting very far lol

 

[kokoloko]

magneton isn't broken because magnezone wasn't broken. they both suffer the same flaws--Garbo speed, vulnerability to the mere existence of a ground type on the opposing team, and vulnerability to protect and spikes.

I stand by my opinion that the council made a mistake rebanning magnezone.

anyway let's kill that discussion right now cause I'm far more interested in the Mence discussion.

just so you guys know the vote is 2-2 atm and the council will have a result by the end of the month.

also a sidenote, I got a sneak peek at the June drops and OH MY LORD UU IS GONNA RULE.

 

[cacturne]

magneton isn't broken because magnezone wasn't broken. they both suffer the same flaws--Garbo speed, vulnerability to the mere existence of a ground type on the opposing team, and vulnerability to protect and spikes.

I stand by my opinion that the council made a mistake rebanning magnezone.

anyway let's kill that discussion right now cause I'm far more interested in the Mence discussion.

just so you guys know the vote is 2-2 atm and the council will have a result by the end of the month.

also a sidenote, I got a sneak peek at the June drops and OH MY LORD UU IS GONNA RULE.

koko care to share any of these uu drops? honestly luke and volc coming to play scares me but im excited to see some drops :]

 

[Kyuzeth]

Don't take it offensively dude. Just posting my opiniom. The only problem i find with this set is that Salamence should be the one getting defog support, not the one providing it. It is a total waste of Salamence's coverage and power imho.

I respect your opinion, peace. My way of playing this Salamence is to have a Pokémon U-turn into a hazard setter before they can set up SR, after which Salamence decimates the threat and Defogs the Rocks and other shit off the field. I know Flygon's got Levitate and the Rock resistance that arguably make it a more usable Defogger, but it's mainly the surprise element here that many people don't expect. It's worked in my favor a lot.
By the way, I still do use DDMence and it's fucking destructive. I'm currently trying to experiment with other mixed sets...

 

[Shy Glizzy]

"It should stay because it checks potentially broken things" is a Genesect-tier argument, and we all saw how that worked out. If it's broken, it should be banned, end of story. I personally think that 98 speed isn't as debilitating as people make it out to be, and that having to run a specific mon in order to not start out on your back foot whenever you face one is absurd. Also, more people should be running Specs. You miss out on revenging Victini, but in return get cool things like OHKOing Nidoqueen and Shaymin with a layer a SR, and turning Dark Pulse from a 3HKO to a 2HKO on Mega Amphy and Swampert.

Magneton isn't broken lol. The mere existence of a ground type on the opposing team makes choiced mag a liability, and it's slow as balls, so the opposing team has to eat a strong as fuck V-Create/Sacred Fire/Flare Blitz almost every time it gets a kill.

Mismagius is really good. I'm partial to SubCM, who comes in on Florges and boosts in it's face. It get's really dangerous surprisngly fast. Sub is also allows it to beat sucker punchers like Honchkrow and Toxicroak.

As far as Salamence goes, I don't really see many problems with it. I mainly see DD and MixMence, with a few Hone Claws sets. I really find the sentiment of "just play around it" really annoying, but that's really the best way to describe facing it. SR weak, absolutely fucked over by all types of status, hates priority, etc. Most well made teams naturally carry a check or two without specifically accounting for it(though you should absolutely account for it). UU I say.

 

[Stef0w]

Im not too worried about Volcarona, once Diancie is released, its going to do rock solid in UU (pun completly intended).

 

[Bluwing]

Guys get back to topic, as koko said he wants a discussion around Salamence this is because we need to get as much information around it so it's easier to find out if it's broken or not. I think there should be much more stricter rules to post in this thread as people always tend to change subjects, and that makes everything a mess. It's much easier to discuss one pokemon at a time instead of 3-4, this will also improve the quality of posts in the thread as there won't be like 5 people discussing different pokemon in between, and it will also make the thread much more fun to read.

Edit: Got a replay of how destructive Salamence can be.

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-124193225

 

[Timpsu]

I remember someone talking at some point that the OU dropouts would be going to BL with other untested Pokemon, is it true or will the Pokemon be judged individually?

 

[FlareBlitz]

Just wanted to let you all know that Ferroseed is still a BAMF:

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/uu-124199601

 

[UU ALL DAY]

magneton isn't broken because magnezone wasn't broken. they both suffer the same flaws--Garbo speed, vulnerability to the mere existence of a ground type on the opposing team, and vulnerability to protect and spikes.

I stand by my opinion that the council made a mistake rebanning magnezone.

anyway let's kill that discussion right now cause I'm far more interested in the Mence discussion.

just so you guys know the vote is 2-2 atm and the council will have a result by the end of the month.

also a sidenote, I got a sneak peek at the June drops and OH MY LORD UU IS GONNA RULE.

Any chance you're gonna let us get a hint on what's gonna get banned and what's dropping :]?

I think hippo isn't, if usage keeps down in Ou

 

[Sleepless]

also a sidenote, I got a sneak peek at the June drops and OH MY LORD UU IS GONNA RULE.

I just wanted to submit my guesses. Beyond the obvious three (Lucario, Goodra and Volc) I predict Blissey, Alakazam, Maybe Ape and Manaphy coming back to BL and hopefully - Togekiss!

 

[Talpr0ne]

I just wanted to submit my guesses. Beyond the obvious three (Lucario, Goodra and Volc) I predict Blissey, Alakazam, Maybe Ape and Manaphy coming back to BL and hopefully - Togekiss!

Volcarona is going to be booted before it even gets the chance to being used, probably Lucario as well. They just are too much for UU to handle. Goodra is probably going to be mediocre even in UU if Salamence stays. The latter just does the whole Bulky Dragon thing better thanks to Intimidate and added Ground, Bug and Fighting resistances, as well as an actual support movepool and being actually threatening offensively. However if Salamence gets the boot i can see Goodra being decent.
About the most uncertain ones, Blissey is going to be perfectly fine, considering that UU was able to handle the superior Chansey a while back. Alakazam and Infernape are certainly going to be shaking forces, but probably not that bad; the Alakazite would probably the main issue. Lol at manaphy. Togekiss is the one that I'm looking forward the most, since Florges is going to have serious competition if it drops, something it never had before, besides Aromatisse to some extent, but even it is not in the same league as Florges.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

Imo Goodra would have a lot of potential to be pretty solid in UU. It has some pretty stupid special bulk and a solid offensive presence for a tank along with a wide offensive movepool. Its stupid special bulk would do it a lot of favors in UU, and it's so bulky that it can take a Hydreigon's Draco Meteor and live to tell the tale. With that much bulk, Goodra would basically wreck Mega Houndoom, Roserade, Celebi, Chandelure, and basically every special attacker in UU. It has two really awesome abilities, Sap Sipper gives it a stronger Dragon Tail and allows it to eat Roserade alive, and Gooey punishes physical attackers which somewhat compensates for its lack of physical bulk. I'd love to use Goodra if/when it drops, and I will probably love it as a special tank.

Volcarona and Lucario will be crazy in UU, they would be the top boosting sweepers of the tier, keep your eyes out for these.

If Infernape falls I will use it on basically all of my teams, I think it will do really well here. It has good offensive stats, high Speed, and incredible coverage, making it a great wallbreaker to use. It will be able to do a lot of damage to opposing teams, and it would do fantastically against stall as there are few safe switch-ins to Infernape for stall, and it would be really good. It's not bad against offense either, since its high Speed and good power allow it to do quite a bit of damage. Having boosting moves is nice too. Overall Infernape would be great as a versatile offensive threat in UU.

Alakazam would be great, its high Speed and good power would make it a strong revenge killer and in general a good Pokemon. Mega Alakazam would be scary because of ridiculous power and Speed as well as Trace, the Mega Stone might go BL. This thing should prove a solid mon in UU.

Manaphy would probably go back to BL until its retest turn comes; let's see what happens; will the meta have shifted enough for this thing to be balanced? (probably not but let's see).

If Togekiss drops I will throw a fit because that thing will be extremely broken; paraflinch is really annoying and Togekiss is really bulky and has reliable recovery. Between Paraflinch, Roost, and Heal Bell, this thing would own everything and in general just never die. It eats Hydreigon, Krookodile, Heracross, Mienshao, and a ton of others alive because of this, and Nasty Plot is also viable for extra destruction. It's got incredible resistances, and along with its bulk it will be impossible to defeat, I would think this thing would be so broken it will warp teambuilding to the point where it would be banworthy (It was crazy powerful in BW UU, for the record).

Just my thoughts.

 

[Stef0w]

Aaaand this is what happens when you mention the drops, way too early.

Anyway I really dont find salamence to be that broken, it hates status like the plague, is SR weak, and ice is still far more common than fairy.

 

[UU ALL DAY]

Volcarona is going to be booted before it even gets the chance to being used, probably Lucario as well. They just are too much for UU to handle. Goodra is probably going to be mediocre even in UU if Salamence stays. The latter just does the whole Bulky Dragon thing better thanks to Intimidate and added Ground, Bug and Fighting resistances, as well as an actual support movepool and being actually threatening offensively. However if Salamence gets the boot i can see Goodra being decent.
About the most uncertain ones, Blissey is going to be perfectly fine, considering that UU was able to handle the superior Chansey a while back. Alakazam and Infernape are certainly going to be shaking forces, but probably not that bad; the Alakazite would probably the main issue. Lol at manaphy. Togekiss is the one that I'm looking forward the most, since Florges is going to have serious competition if it drops, something it never had before, besides Aromatisse to some extent, but even it is not in the same league as Florges.

I remember talking to koko on showdown and he said Luc suffers from 4mss in order to sweep teams. Of course, this is just theorymon

 

[kokoloko]

nah I said nasty plot luke suffers 4MSS, but who cares it'll be Garbo.

SD will be just fine.

seriously tho, talk about Mence or ima start infracting.

Ernesto edit: You realize you brought the subject up yourself, right? Something about you reap what you sow...

 

[cacturne]

Well umm going off of that I guess I'll say something. Bluwing's bulky DD mence is like the next coming of jesus literally that thing is amazing. Also my experience with lum DD has been alright where i find scarf and band to be rather eh sets. I have no experience using mixmence but it looks good enough on paper.

 

[UU ALL DAY]

I find Specially Defensive Hippo with WW is a pretty decent check to Mence, granted it has to be at full. I am on the fence. I can see why it's broken, but I do find the competing dragons equally viable and good, so I'm not so sure if it should go.

 

[Nysyr]

Honestly Yache is just superior to lum berry in the meta as it stands since you will likely avoid clicking outrage till later with immunities running around.

 

[Bluwing]

With Salamence I think there will be a lot of arguments because it's a really good mon, but it's kinda hard to see if it's broken or not. While mence is extremely versatile and can run a lot off different sets to huge success it does suffer from 4MSS, it's weak to rocks and it can't spam it's strongest move before fairies are gone, and also because off the 4MSS it will nearly all the time be walled by something. Tho these flaws seems small and can be played around I do agree with that, but one of the hugest boons for mence is that it can't spam outrage as much it wants to, while having that nasty 4MSS. I do have to say that mence fits nicely in uu atm, but I think that will change if it stays because it hasn't been used enough yet, just like with Hydreigon which was found not even close to broken when tested I have to say that I do not agree with that now, but it took a while for hydrei to find it's max potential, and I think mence is just about the same. I'm not saying that mence is out right broken, but it has the potential to be and therefore I think it can become unhealthy for the metagame if it stays.

 

[Jaguar360]

A set I have personally loved using on Salamence is a mixed-offensive Defogger. Due to DD being the set most people expect to see, it catches many by surprise and hits hard on both fronts thanks to LO.

Defog MixMence
M1: Draco Meteor
M2: Fire Blast
M3: Iron Tail
M4: Defog
Ability: Intimidate
Item: Life Orb
EVs: 64 Atk/192 SAtk/252 Spe
Nature: Naive/Hasty

Lures in physical walls like Mega Aggron and Chesnaught, obliterates them with Fire Blast. Draco Meteor is nice and spammable, while Iron Tail scores a neat 2HKO on Florges. Defog's the ace of the set, as Salamence isn't typically used as a Defogger, so it brings an unpleasant surprise to hazard stackers. Forretress is chanceless, as Fire Blast OHKOes with some prior damage and then Salamence can just Defog hazards off.

Having used Defog before Salamence's first ban, I agree with you that Salamence can be a good defogger. However, this desperately needs roost; you shouldn't really be worrying about taking out Florges on this set and should leave it to your other team members. Unfortunately, I don't have that team anymore, but I can try to reproduce what I had:
Salamence @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 216 Spd / 252 SAtk / 40 HP
Modest Nature
- Roost
- Draco Meteor
- Fire Blast
- Defog

Also, you could say that Defog Salamence is outclassed by Flygon since it is resistant to Stealth Rock, but Salamence hits harder (with special or physical sets), has higher bulk and Intimidate. Flygon is still a better Defogger, but Sal has somewhat of a niche.

I've been loving the Salamence sets I've been using recently though. Salamence is an awesome mixed attacker with great potential to sweep and these sets use that to its advantage.
Salamence @ Lum Berry
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 224 Atk / 32 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature
- Earthquake
- Fire Blast
- Hydro Pump
- Dragon Claw
This set wallbreaks and can sweep with Moxie late-game if faster threats that can beat it are removed. Lum Berry obviously prevents status from doing its job and lets it switch into stuff better.

Salamence @ Lum Berry
Ability: Moxie
EVs: 104 Atk / 152 SAtk / 252 Spd
Naive Nature
- Fire Blast
- Dragon Dance
- Earthquake
- Dragon Claw
Then this set is dedicated to sweeping with Dragon Dance, foregoing Hydro Pump/Crunch coverage for a boosting move. Simple as that. I'm honestly not sure why I made the EVs that way since I didn't do any calcs so don't ask. If anyone can give me a better spread I'll be happy to borrow it.