Why Salamence Deserves a Suspect Test

[Earthworm]

Again, if some condition is actually capable of being set up consistently against most teams in the metagame, then it's a common battle condition. What is the critical difference that makes it so that we need to change the wording? You need to explain the reasoning behind your statement (something you haven't done on why we need to change it) since I don't see a real difference other than common battling condition being a much larger set and the other being a subset of such.

Well I figured that maybe if only one 'uncommon' type of team can manipulate what's otherwise 'common' then it wouldn't be a 'common battle condition'. If you think the characteristic can be applied to that then I guess it's fine, but clarity would be helpful to the people trying to figure it out.

If the metagame CAN shift to stop the Pokemon from sweeping through a significant portion of teams, can you really say that it's uber? You don't immediately try to satisfy the OC/DC/SC, you try it out in the metagame for an extended period of time, and see how well the suspect can actually play in the metagame.

The entire point of testing the Pokemon is to see if the metagame is capable of adjusting to the Pokemon or not. If we find that such a change is difficult/impossible/etc, then the Pokemon remains banned, etc. If something remains centralizing, then that's an argument that a signficant portion of the metagame is unable to deal with the threat, if argued properly.

Well that's fair enough. I was just concerned that the metagame might change so significantly that we might be blinded by the new one or something and become unable to justify it with the current set of characteristics.

Cool, one example under a very specific situation where the only assurance I get is "very good odds"...

How many examples do I need to give to justify giving it a suspect test? This is an example where you can finish off a team with a viable and common strategy. Both of these Pokémon are very common in the metagame, and from experience, Salamence is absolutely the hardest Pokémon in the OU metagame to switch into. As long as you are playing someone decent and not a random that always picks the Super Effective move, you are always at a huge risk doing anything against a Salamence with an unknown moveset if it gets that free turn. If you switch to a Pokémon you want to sacrifice and it Dragon Dances then you're suddenly stuck in a situation where you are probably going to lose the Pokémon you're sacrificing, the Pokémon you use to force it to Outrage against (if it even has Outrage over Dragon Claw..), and half of the HP of the Pokémon you use to finish it off with. I have been in this situation many times and I know from experience that it is by far the most risky Pokémon to try to play around. It hits way too hard to make mistakes against. No other Pokémon in the metagame can make holes in a team like Salamence can, and I feel that allows it to have at least a good shot at achieving the Offensive Characteristic. I'm hoping that gives it what it needs to become a suspect.

I'm not interested in "countering examples", that's irrelevant and I leave that to others. You're missing the point of why I keep posting here. I'm not saying "Mence isn't a suspect are you joking", I'm saying "Your arguments really need to be fleshed out before anyone sane would consider them valid"

I'm trying, thanks for your help!

Suspects are decided not because "we feel like it" but on solid theorymon. There needs to be significant evidence that the removal of the suspect would lead to a more "improved game"

How am I meant to get evidence that a removal of Salamence improves the game without testing it? What makes any one person's theorymon any more solid than someone else's, assuming both are well thought out? I feel that Salamence's status is also influenced by how Stage 3-3 goes, which just complicates things further. If an improved game is decided by making more things viable, then I feel it would (at least slightly) lessen the need for having Stealth Rock used early in the game, reduce the need for Scizor to be everywhere, and generally allow more Pokémon to be used due to the decrease in necessity of having Scizor. Lessening Stealth Rock's presence makes leads more varied and makes Pokémon with Rock weakness more viable. Maybe I'm assuming too much with this, but they seem to be logical steps that the metagame would take with Salamence's removal.

The characteristics is a framework that you can use to make the argument. That is all they are, it is something that needs to be considered in every argument specifically because one of the characteristics are always involved on every Pokemon.

Ok, hopefully everyone can see that Salamence has a good chance of meeting the offensive one based on the posts in this thread.

Nearly every argument given on Stark or elsewhere is a listing of traits and "what it can do", but fails to go beyond that in "why that matters in the game". Why does it matter? Why can't you tell us if it's so significant? How does Salamence hurt the game (see first point), and see how reachzero approached them (although he didn't quite finish but that's okay). No one cares how much damage mence can do or how fast it is or how hard it is if you can't tell anyone how exactly it damages the game.

You fail to show me how strong salamence is since all you're telling me is what it can do. What does this mean? How dangeroous is this? How do teams normally deal with it and how does this affect competitive play, and in what way?

The power Salamence has is enough to separate it from pretty much every other sweeper. Every Pokémon that resists its main STAB is weak to one of its other moves, and taking neutral damage is almost out of the question, just as it was for Garchomp. This means it cannot be handled safely defensively, which makes it hard to play around and very dangerous for a defensive type of team. I can't say for certain whether removing Salamence will balance the game out more, but I feel confident that testing it is worthwhile to at least gain perspective. Salamence practically forces offensive teams to use priority and Scarf Pokémon with more than 100 base speed in order to handle the DD variant with a reasonable amount of safety, I have found. Maybe it's a flaw in my playing style, so I would have to ask other people whether they have found it a necessity during their own team building. This causes a significant restriction on team building which is almost solely needed to beat something which might not even be used, which I feel is (or at least could be) negative for the metagame. That alone wouldn't be enough, but the combination of all these things should be.

The threat Salamence poses when it first appears sometimes seems ridiculous, because you have no idea what it will do except based on what you already have out, and if you guess wrong, it's more than likely that you lose a Pokémon or sometimes even the match. I think this is bad for the game because not only does this situation come up quite often with Salamence (and usually not with other Pokémon), but it means emphasis is placed less on other parts of the game where players earn an advantage through 'skill' and more on this one turn where it's sometimes arguably a guessing game. Luckily, the Standard ladder mostly has brainless players who will just use whatever is Super Effective or something else that's easy to 'read', so there isn't much of a problem (which also leads to people thinking Salamence is easier to deal with than it might actually be in the hands of someone good...). However, in matches against good players, it can be very risky to make any possible move against a Salamence. This happens with other Pokémon too, but with nowhere near the consistency that it does when facing Salamence, because of the lack of Pokémon that can afford to come in on Salamence and survive the most powerful move Salamence can throw at it. I feel this is bad for the game, but I understand if some people disagree here because it is possible to 'get into the mind of your opponent' and understand that unless they think 'this' then they will do 'that', which is completely accepted and is a good part of the game.

The counter arguments DO matter, yes they can be applied for any Uber, but the point you and phil have yet to argue the significance of Mence in play and how it affects a significant portion of the teams and players in the metagame. All you say is "It can do this" "it can do that"... so what? I can hype up any random Pokemon too! The point is that if you dont show significance or if you dont show exactly how it's damaging to the game without a solid theory of how the game is played you're going to draw yourself into a slew of counterarguments and you'll be too busy answering them instead of actually juicing up your arguments (which is inefficient and another "mistake" phil made)

Complete the frigging arguments please, no one cares if it is so fast and hard to revenge kill and it has so much power behind it, they're all fluffy words with no real significance behind them until you are able to define what they mean in terms of the game. Unless of course game is literally "the person who uses Salamence wins" or "this is all that matters in the game, nothing else even matters" and what not, it's a very one dimensional shallow set of traits that don't mean anything unless you piece it together with the game.

The reason why I refuse to give a complete argument on either side is because defining the game and the direction of the game is not my business, but the players (which the players apparently can't put into words).

Ok, thanks for your input. Tell me if you think I have failed to do that with this post and my last one.

edit: Ok, the effect Salamence basically has is that it forces the opponent into guessing what it is going to use and what they should do about it to a degree that no other Pokémon currently in the metagame does. This is because of its versatility and high power, which makes it very dangerous to face. Salamence also forces teams to prepare pretty much just for it in the case of Offensive teams, because if they can't outspeed it with priority or a very fast Choice Scarf user, then they will take a severe beating from a Dragon Danced Salamence. In the current metagame, there are a number of ways to give Salamence the turn it needs, and sometimes it only needs the threat of setting up to dish out KOs (it is very capable of attacking and KOing before setting up). Additionally, it poses a huge threat to every type of team, including defensive teams that have no reliable way of handling it and are often forced to 'play around it' through risky prediction, or else sacrifice half of their team to take it down. It sometimes even forces defensive teams into using a fast Pokémon like Scarf Jirachi to ensure they have a good chance if something goes wrong. I think this is an undesirable restriction for the metagame to force, because it often means that teams must use one of a few Pokémon on their team to ensure they don't get swept. Salamence affects team building, battling, and the metagame itself hugely, and the combination of its power, speed, typing, and versatility is unmatched by anything else in OU. I have tried to summarise everything that I can think of that matters and tried to draw conclusions so hopefully it is enough to at least make people seriously consider Salamence being a suspect. I'm not saying that it is uber, but it's definitely a powerhouse that deserves testing from my perspective.

 

[mtr]

Salamence practically forces offensive teams to use priority and Scarf Pokémon with more than 100 base speed in order to handle the DD variant with a reasonable amount of safety, I have found. Maybe it's a flaw in my playing style, so I would have to ask other people whether they have found it a necessity during their own team building.

Not a flaw in your playing style by any means. If you don't want to give setup opportunities to Salamence, you need to use a full team of non-Choiced Pokemon above base 100 Speed, aka Azelf, Gengar, Infernape, Starmie, Jolteon, Latias, etc, which would look a lot like Stathakis' now-archived team. The problem is that such teams find it difficult to compete in the metagame due to being defeated by a simple Scizor+Latias combination, the latter of whom is a Suspect herself. Not to mention the trouble of dealing with Blissey, and a gaping weakness to Dragon Dance Tyranitar (setup on Jolteon/maybe Azelf or whatever and sweep) means that such teams simply won't cut it any more.

Salamence has no safe switch-ins, and almost guarantees the death of one Pokemon and a good setup opportunity for another (Scizor in Bullet Punch is obviously a very punishable move, along with Latias in Draco Meteor, Starmie in Ice Beam, Gengar in HP Ice, etc.) The alternative is trying to wall DDMence, but then MixMence becomes a problem, as it can defeat those same walls (Hippowdon/Swampert/Cresselia/Porygon2/etc).

If not under OC, it can set up opportunities for other sweepers relatively reliably, thus making it a candidate under SC.

 

[Philip7086]

This is the issue. If you were trying to start a discussion on why Mence deserves a test, you wouldn't use such "strong language", so to speak. Your title is literally a "proposal" of why you think mence needs a test, and you are nominating him on the first post of your thread. The point is that no matter how much damage control you're trying to do now it's obvious what you are trying to do so please cut me some slack....

Eh? Why am I not supposed to use such "strong language" when trying to start a discussion on why Mence deserves a test? Obviously I'm not going to come in saying "What do you guys think of Mence?" without attempting to give some reasoning behind why I think the topic should be discussed at all in the first place. I was declaring my stance, while also providing a jumping point for discussion with calcs.. I'm not sure why that's such an impossible concept. I agree, though, I should have made my real points clearer, which I think I did in my posts that followed. Anyways, I don't want to talk about this anymore in this topic, because it does not really progress the topic at hand (what's done is done), and I have already taken a personal note of it, so I know how to improve on that in the future.

The point is that in order to make something a suspect, you need to show us why it is a suspect, or how its removal will benefit competitive play, or what it does to competitive play now. Because in the end if you can do that, you can show how it does that under the characteristics, because the characteristics are derived off the game's winning conditions.

I have already talked about how Mence affects competitive play (in particular, team building). Obviously what I was implying with that post, was that without Mence, people will have a lot more freedom when building teams, which improves the metagame. Currently, Mence places a severe limitation on team building, and therefore holds the metagame back from the vast potential it could have in Mence's absence. Such a limitation proves that a significant portion of the metagame cannot deal with this threat. If the possibility of such a more expansive and balanced metagame does not merit a test, then I don't know what does.

I'm not too sure where the rest of your response is going - it's literally "just fluff" to me since you just answer back with rhetoric rather than actual arguments. That's great you're trying to justify your arguments, but that doesnt stop my criticism from applying since in the end you're not connecting the dots and putting together a coherent argument. Like really what is this

How can you say things like SR doesn't matter? SR definitely affects mence, unless it somehow got easier to rapid spin since the advent of Rotom or something I really don't see how you're arguing why SR isn't relevant. Or maybe assuming that the rest of the metagame is just incapable of damaging mence through roost or something... I don't know where you're going with this really :P

Nowhere did I say that SR doesn't matter; I said I don't like to assume SR when discussing a Pokemon's tiering status (see: Ho-oh). The fact of the matter is, when the most common leads are suicide leads, it is very easy to get a spin off (Rotom gets owned by Starmie, and there's always a Foresight Spin if you really want to ensure it) and guarantee no more SR for the rest of the match, making Mence even more ridiculous. When a threat almost literally requires you to ensure SR is on the field, or you get swept, something is wrong. This is exactly why people don't want to even test Ho-oh, even though it only effectively has 50% health if SR is up. I don't really understand what you are referring to with the "fluff" in my posts, but can you please tell me what you mean on IRC or something (again, I would rather minimize all the "how-to-debate" posts in this topic, but I still appreciate you helping improve the quality of my posts).

The points are the following which "I obviously haven't made clear enough in other Stark Mountain posts over and over again... which no one has read apparently

• Suspects are decided not because "we feel like it" but on solid theorymon. There needs to be significant evidence that the removal of the suspect would lead to a more "improved game"
• The characteristics is a framework that you can use to make the argument. That is all they are, it is something that needs to be considered in every argument specifically because one of the characteristics are always involved on every Pokemon.
• Nearly every argument given on Stark or elsewhere is a listing of traits and "what it can do", but fails to go beyond that in "why that matters in the game". Why does it matter? Why can't you tell us if it's so significant? How does Salamence hurt the game (see first point), and see how reachzero approached them (although he didn't quite finish but that's okay). No one cares how much damage mence can do or how fast it is or how hard it is if you can't tell anyone how exactly it damages the game.
• You fail to show me how strong salamence is since all you're telling me is what it can do. What does this mean? How dangeroous is this? How do teams normally deal with it and how does this affect competitive play, and in what way?
• The counter arguments DO matter, yes they can be applied for any Uber, but the point you and phil have yet to argue the significance of Mence in play and how it affects a significant portion of the teams and players in the metagame. All you say is "It can do this" "it can do that"... so what? I can hype up any random Pokemon too! The point is that if you dont show significance or if you dont show exactly how it's damaging to the game without a solid theory of how the game is played you're going to draw yourself into a slew of counterarguments and you'll be too busy answering them instead of actually juicing up your arguments (which is inefficient and another "mistake" phil made)
• Complete the frigging arguments please, no one cares if it is so fast and hard to revenge kill and it has so much power behind it, they're all fluffy words with no real significance behind them until you are able to define what they mean in terms of the game. Unless of course game is literally "the person who uses Salamence wins" or "this is all that matters in the game, nothing else even matters" and what not, it's a very one dimensional shallow set of traits that don't mean anything unless you piece it together with the game.
• The reason why I refuse to give a complete argument on either side is because defining the game and the direction of the game is not my business, but the players (which the players apparently can't put into words).

After you posted this, I sat down for a good while to try and think of how to make the type of argument you are saying we need to make for Salamence. In the end, I just realized that it is nearly impossible to theorymon Salamence in the way that you want us to. As I have already discussed in my posts, Salamence is just too damn versatile, making any theorymon attempt end up being a CYOA with a thousand different endings. The discussion we had in #Stark where someone asked what the Mence user would do if it had a blind switch in against Skarm, and knew nothing about his opponent's team is a perfect example of what I mean here. Just one simple scenario produced dozens of responses from different users. When one of the underlying factors backing Mence's suspect status is how unpredictable (yet effective in every set) he is, it is impossible to give a solid theorymon argument without writing a 1000 page novel. I think that is why so many experienced battlers have come out in support for this test, but have failed to provide the type of argument that you want; we all just know from ridiculous amounts of hours of first-hand experience how detrimental Mence is to the metagame. It is not something that can be summarized so easily, like Garchomp, who can be effectively theorymon'd with just one set.

The best concise argument I can muster up for Salamence is, he really does place a huge limitation when you want to build a team that can actually win consistently. Yes, I have been creative with teams (my current team has 5 members that will always be able to OHKO or Phaze Salamence, ensuring that it can never get a DD, and a Latias, who can outspeed and kill should Mence have killed one of my Pokemon instead of trying to DD) to soften the blow from Salamences. But that is just ridiculous to force people to take such measures. Basically, every choice item Pokemon is currently a liability for Salamence to come in, get a free set up, and sweep teams clean. Every team without a Ghost is a liability for a Rapid Spinner to clear the way for Salamence with ease. Every team without a Shed Shell steel, or one who cannot beat Magnezone is a liability of losing their only resistance to Outrage, allowing for a uninterrupted 2-3 turn killing spree for Mence. Any team with a Pokemon who cannot hit Mence with a status attack, or do much damage to it, has a good chance of getting swept by Mence. There are absolutely NO other Pokemon like this in OU! So you have Pokemon that let Lucario/Tyranitar/Gyarados set up a SD/DD, big deal, they can all be beaten by other Pokemon with ease. So you have a Pokemon that allows Infernape to set up a Nasty Plot, big deal, you don't need a 100+ base Speed Scarf Pokemon to outspeed and kill. This is the characteristic that sets Salamence apart from all other offensive threats in the game, and why he negatively affects the metagame.

While most of this is somewhat valid, the last part puzzles me the most. Why are you assuming that it's Salamence's fault for you being unable to adapt to the possibility that your "offensively paced team" is a bad team now that Salamence has Outrage?

Actually, I have adapted to Mence (see above). What I'm trying to argue is that in order to "adapt" to Mence, you lose out on so many otherwise viable Pokemon, and have to succumb to such a limited style of battling, that we are currently playing in an inferior metagame to one without Mence.

 

[Flashstorm1]

Well, like I promised, I'll share my argument on why I think Salamence should be made a suspect and we'll see how it goes from there.

From my experience with Salamence, there are a few traits that are somewhat exclusive to it that allows it to pose such an immediate threat to the OU metagame. In order to support my argument, I have decided to list out said traits and explain why each warrants Salamence being tested.

Salamence's ability to run many versatile yet equally as effective sets makes it one of the most difficult Pokemon to switch into in OU.
If anything, I believe this trait is the one that immediately separates Salamence from any other Pokémon in OU. Upon seeing an opposing Salamence for the first time, it is impossible to tell what set it is running. If you switch in the wrong counter to the set, then you are likely going to lose a Pokémon. No other Pokémon in OU can claim this. Using Philip's example here... sure, Pokémon like Lucario can run Hidden Power Ice to beat Gliscor, but Lucario does not pose the same immediate threat that the Swords Dance set does unless it uses a set consisting of Swords Dance / Close Combat / Hidden Power Ice / Crunch, but any good player can immediately see the problem with that set. Simply put, you can expect these type of Pokémon to be countered (by the same Pokemon) a great majority of the time regardless of the set they run. The one thing you need to remember about Salamence is that all of its sets are capable of posing an immediate threat and each set is countered by different Pokemon. For example, let's say you switched in Blissey expecting to take a Draco Meteor but the Salamence ended up being a Dragon Dance variant instead, so now did you not only switch in a worthless Pokemon against the set, but you essentially gave Salamence another turn to set up. By this point, I'd go as far as to say that "you are screwed", as no one Pokemon in OU will be surviving two consecutive +2 Outrages. In another scenario, what if you switch in Latias expecting Salamence to set up Dragon Dance and lure it into Outrage but in fact turns out to be a MixMence variant? (Perhaps not the best example, but you get the point.) Salamence just KOed another Pokemon with little to no effort on its part. Surely, any Pokemon that is uncounterable to this extent warrants testing.

Another thing that Earthworm pointed out, and that I'd like to focus on myself, is that Salamence carries super effective attacks for all of the Pokemon that resist Dragon. This means that not only do you have to worry about the set Salamence is running, but you are sure have to hope that you don't switch into the wrong attack. From my perspective, Salamence poses such a threat to the OU metagame that each team will have at least one Steel-type. If you send it Salamence in the early stages of the game, in a scenario where you will likely force a switch and the opponent hasn't revealed a Steel-type, you can expect that the opponent will send in said Steel-type to take the incoming Dragon-type attack. The main thing to remember here is that Dragon is only walled by one type: Steel. This, in turn, means that there are very few Pokemon that are not Steels which can switch into Salamence. You may be asking, "So what if Salamence carries a super effective move that hits Steel-types? The same could be said about any sweeper. It's called prediction." To an extent, it is a form of prediction, but you have to remember that the player switching into Salamence has but little to no choice to play predictably. As said earlier before, any Pokemon that doesn't resist Draco Meteor or Outrage will most likely suffer a 2HKO at worst. Even so, let's recall that Pokemon like Lucario can theoretically beat any of its counters by running a super effective attack, but by doing so, they leave themselves vulnerable to another Pokemon. Sure, Lucario can run Close Combat / Ice Punch / Crunch / Stone Edge, but it sure as hell not going to pose an immediate threat in the way Salamence does since you have to predict perfectly anyways, considering there are various Pokemon with different typing that can wall Lucario.

Now, I'll focus on why this trait causes such a problem for the OU metagame, or rather, how it affects it. In order to properly beat Salamence completely, you need to consider all of the sets that it can run and then pack a check to each. This places a heavy restriction on the team bulding aspects of the metagame, as it is nearly impossible to prepare for all of the possible sets that Salamence can run. From one my own experiences, I used Choice Band Scizor as my check to Salamence, but I ended up getting swept by a physically bulky variant that could not be beaten by Choice Band Scizor. You can even bring this up into battling aspects too. How do you know which Pokemon you need to save for Salamence anyways, even if you are prepared for all of the sets it can run? Simply put, it's nearly, if not completely, impossible in the current OU metagame. Let's consider that each player did in fact take the extra precautions to check all of the Salamence variants in OU. Doing so simply leaves the player's team vulnerable to other threats because they had to place so much emphasis to counter said Pokemon. This applies to both offensive and stall teams. If an offensive team is required (and don't forget, they likely are) to use Choice Band Scizor or Choice Scarf Jirachi just to prevent themselves from getting swept by Salamence, then how hard is it to simply use something like a Magnezone and Gengar to take advantage of the response that Salamence required to be dealt with? On a stall team, what if you had to sacrifice Gyarados to get that extra Intimidate so something like Swampert wouldn't faint to Outrage? Great, now you are likely going to get swept by Lucario. I believe it is this kind of approach that should make Salamence at least be considered under the support clause, because by these very exact examples, it has been clearly demonstrated that Salamence requires such very specific methods to be dealt with that it isn't difficult to pack a Pokemon with similar counters and sweep with little difficulty. And this is consistent too, because Steel-types are the only ones which can switch into Draco Meteor or Outrage reliably.

Beating Salamence, for the most part, requires a priority move or a Scarfed Pokémon with base Speed greater than 100.
This argument is mainly geared towards the Dragon Dance set, as it is the only one you absolutely cannot beat without outspeeding it (excluding it being stuck on Outrage of course) on an offense team. From my experience with both using and facing Salamence, the only reliable way I have seen people beat Salamence is by using Choice Band Scizor or using a faster Choice Scarf revenge killer such as Latias or Starmie. Now, I bring up this important point because there is a serious flaw with the way people prepare for the Dragon Dance set. Each of the noted Pokemon is easily trapped by two common Pokemon on the OU ladder: Magnezone, in the case of Scizor, and Tyranitar, in the case of each of the listed Scarfers. Now, I realize that the argument of "that is just good team planning" will come up, but as stated in the previous argument, what choice do you really have if you require Scizor and said Scarfer to prevent yourself from getting completely swept by Salamence?

I believe that requiring such necessities to deal with just ONE Pokemon is not healthy for the environment of the OU metagame. To begin with, any player using an offense team will be required to run either a priority user (Scizor or Lucario) and/or a faster Choice Scarfer, as stated before. This restricts the team building aspects of the metagame. I'm sure you could argue that Scizor has other uses outside of checking Salamence, which I know for a fact does, but why should anyone be required to run it if they are to stand a chance against Salamence? I'm not necessarily saying that Salamence should be banned, but it should probably be tested at the very least to see how it's removal affects the metagame. Granted, since Salamence's checks are so few, and that everything that resists Salamence's Dragon-type attack of choice is hit super effective by either Earthquake or Fire Blast (both common moves on Salamence's sets), it should be considered for suspect anyways.

As I'm sure all of you are aware, stall teams have different ways of handling Salamence, mainly wearing it down with residual damage (see below) and forcing it to be stuck on Outrage to either KO or simply focus on phazing it out. However, after talking to popular stall users such as Earthworm, I've found that most of them have argued that handling Salamence requires perfect prediction. In order to prove this, let's use a common example of a situation of a stall team going up against Salamence. Let's suppose that it comes in on Skarmory to nab a free Dragon Dance (unknown to the stall player). Since the stall player is also aware that given Salamence's versatility, it might also use Fire Blast or Draco Meteor, the stall player has little but to no choice to switch. At this point, the Salamence is at +1 while if the stall player has anything but Swampert out, they run a risk of mispredicting. A regular stall player will switch back to Skarmory to take the Outrage, but what if Salamence sets up yet again? The point here is that Salamence poses such an immediate threat to its counters (or rather, Pokemon that resist Dragon-type attacks) that it is nearly difficult to beat without perfect prediction. Clearly, no other Pokemon in OU demands this much precaution, as supported by the example given in the previous argument.

The "residual damage" argument: Why it is not a reliable way to check Salamence.
Before I go indepth here, I would like to point out something in the characteristics defined for Uber that demonstrate why this argument is ineffective. The characteristics currently define "common battle conditions", but such wording is not specific towards either the Pokemon itself or the metagame. We can all agree that Stealth Rock is a common condition. However, a player using Salamence is (or should be) aware of this, and thus, they will carry a way to prevent or eliminate Stealth Rock. Could anyone explain how this is not a common battle condition relevant to Salamence? If Stealth Rock is so present in the metagame, then I could also argue that preventing Stealth Rock to begin with in a team focused around Salamence would be as much of a present condition. This is further made worse by something that Philip7086 pointed out, namely that teams place so much emphasis in getting Stealth Rock down the first turn that it isn't difficult to get rid of later in the match. A regular player is not aware of whether the opponent has a Salamence or not, so why would they put the extra effort in keeping their Stealth Rock user alive? Additionally, why should every player have to run a Ghost to prevent Stealth Rock from being spun away? I will agree that Stealth Rock has other uses than simply wearing down Salamence, but that point is irrelevant. Even so, let's suppose the player doesn't carry a Rapid Spinner or a fast Taunter... then what?

I find that what the opposing team is assuming here is that Stealth Rock is a be all, end all check to Salamence, but this is further from the truth. Could anyone explain how Stealth Rock actually prevents Salamence from setting up or ripping apart through teams before being taken out? Scizor cannot safely switch in to revenge kill Salamence regardless of whether Stealth Rock is present or not, so you are still going to lose at least one Pokemon. Stealth Rock doesn't prevent Salamence from firing Draco Meteors or setting up Dragon Dance. The same could be said about other forms of residual damage (i.e. Sandstorm), as it neither prevents Salamence from attacking or simply setting up. Another thing that I could stand to mention is that the residual damage argument means nothing if the Salamence has Roost. Sure, as Tangerine said, Salamence still risks getting hit while it recovers, but I could just as easily say that Roost shouldn't be used unless you are forcing a switch anyways.

To sum it up, I don't get why people make a big deal out of the Stealth Rock weakness when it doesn't mean that much when you think about it. Stealth Rock does not prevent Salamence from setting up or attacking (i.e. you're going to lose a Pokemon most of the time anyways), some Salamence even carry Roost, and preventing Stealth Rock isn't that difficult in today's metagame anyways. As I recall, Tangerine argued that getting SR back up was easy as well, but Stealth Rock is very rarely ever used on anything but the lead, and with the advent of suicide leads, it isn't very difficult to spot the problem.

Now, how does this argument affect the metagame? First of all, you have to consider that getting Stealth Rock is so vitality important in today's metagame that people will usually focus on setting it up the first turn, only to get screwed by a Rapid Spinner later in the match. Additionally, it restricts people's team building options to include leads such as Azelf and Metagross. Now, I'm not arguing that any of these leads are bad, as they are actually pretty decent, but why should any one Pokemon make getting Stealth Rock getting set up so vitally important? I've experimented with using Stealth Rock on Pokemon outside of the lead position, and it is extremely difficult to get it up, considering the offensive nature of the metagame won't give you many chances to do so.

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Now, I'd like to make one point clear: I don't believe that any single one of these traits makes Salamence worthy of a suspect test, but rather a combination of all three of them. When you analyze the adverse effects that Salamence causes on the metagame, given it's difficulty to effectively counter and ability to rip through teams with little trouble on it's part, and the fact that no one other Pokemon comes close to necessating such dire preparations in both the team building and battling aspects of OU, you really have to question whether Salamence should be allowed to remain in the tier or not. Truly, Salamence should be tested.

That is all.

 

[haunter]

I'm posting this for Zarator because he doesn't have PR posting privileges, he has an interesting point about Salamence:

It is my impression that, in order to ban a Pokémon, it is necessary to have an underlying theory, capable to define the metagame we play in - what is good for it, and what is bad for it. My intention is to show you a theory which, if accepted, would confirm Salamence's status of only suspect of OU at the moment.

We have, long time ago, abandoned the idea of counter. It became apparent, in fact, that a lot of Pokémon have the ability to use a certain move to get around of their would be counters, but yet manage to not reach brokenness. The theory which replaced this one revolves around the idea of checks, i.e. Pokémon able to stop threats with a certain degree of reliability (if we had to express this reliability in percentage, we could add that a 100% check is a counter, but I digress). However, this definition was not satisfying. A lot of clearly Uber Pokémon like Rayquaza, in fact, had checks in OU, yet we weren't considering them for Standard. So, we came up with the Portrait of a Uber, and the clauses which now all of us know.
However, I think that even the clauses are not an entirely satisfying theory, and the unability to resolve Salamence's conundrum is, in my opinion, the most apparent example of this. Hence why I decided to come up with a new theory which, in my opinion, will cover more cases - or at least, the ones clauses are unable to do accurately.
My theory is based upon the observation that not all the movesets on a Pokémon have the same viability. Even if it is difficult to quantify this (X-Act may be able to do it, I don't know), at an intuitive level we can aknowledge that, for example, although it can get past Blissey, Gengar's SubPunch set is generally a bit inferior to the Standard:

"Although this set can be dangerous, it doesn't have the raw power that the standard set has" (Gengar's strategydex analysis, about the SubPunch set)

It may seem an off-topic point, but, on the contrary, it is crucial to understand my theory. Indeed, I postulate that, in order to meet OU status (but the same reasoning could be applied to any tier, really), a Pokémon must respect the necessary condition (keep in mind that this is a necessary condition, not a sufficient one) of having a reliable check to any given set, and it should not be able to get around said checks without lowering its overall efficiency.
We are approaching the core of the problem. Salamence, in fact, like a lot of other OU Pokémon like Infernape, Gengar and Lucario, has no counters in the strict sense of the word. However, while the three aforementioned Pokémon has to resort to "inferior options" in order to get past their most reliable checks, Salamence has not this problem. Within the limits of just two sets, Dragon Dance and Mixed, he can annihilate every reliable check, given the right move. Not only that, but the few checks left have one of the following weaknesses:
1) They can be trapped by Magnezone (ex: Scizor)
2) They can be easily Pursuited (ex: Latias)
3) They fail against the majority of the metagame (ex: Cresselia)

The main benefit of this theory is that it does not question the status of currently Uber Pokémon. Remember that I defined this clause necessary but not sufficient. What does it mean? In short, if you meet this clause, then you are Uber (or at least suspect-worthy), if you don't meet this clause, nothing can be said about you status on the bases of this theory (which is why I feel this theory is a complement to the existing Uber clauses rahter than a replacement).

I want to make clear one last thing. Some of you may accuse me of having conjured an "ad hoc" theory. While understandable, this is a misleading conception. I'm sure someone probably said it before me in this place, but let me explain. We are not discovering theories here. There are no theories at the base of the game which we find and discover through collection of empirical evidence, much like a scientist does not simply observe a phenomenon and then comes up with a theory in order to describe it. We are the ones who create the theories, the ones who enforce them into the environment (whether it is Pokémon or the nature is irrelevant), and the ones who control them. A theory can never be true. But it can be confuted. And eventually come up with a better theory (i.e. able to explain more cases). This is the way we make progress in Pokémon knowledge, just like in any other subject. So do not ask me if my theory is true, because I cannot say "yes". I can, however, say that, as much as I controlled it, I haven't confuted it yet, and this is why I think it may be a good theory.

Thank you for your attention.

 

[Tangerine]

I'm going to say this for the last time.

The Uber Characteristics is a framework, not a theory. It simply provides the how to focus whatever theories you as a user can have into an argument - in the end, you are applying your theory to reach the conclusion stated by the Uber Characteristics.

zarator's argument is literally "Salamence has checks, but his checks aren't reliable for whatever reason", and that statement isn't backed up well enough at all to be anywhere near convincing to say that "Salamence meets offense characteristics because there are no reliable checks even with standard conditions in the standard metagame" and his argument doesn't accomplish that at all.

EDIT: Finally, his theory isn't well backed up either - he is defining what an "uber" is without telling us WHY, which doesn't accomplish anything.

 

[mtr]

It is difficult to argue that Salamence merits a test on the basis of the Offensive Characteristic, as Salamence rarely ends up sweeping in common metagame conditions. However, it is exceedingly easy for Salamence to score at least one KO, since the Dragon Dance and mixed sets have vastly different switch-ins, and a mispredict (from Doug's latest stats, its practically a coin toss what set you will face) means death. Not to mention that even if you correctly predict what set you are facing (ie: bringing Hippowdon in against the Dragon Dancer) the end result is that your wall is crippled, sitting at around 30% health. Revenge-killing Salamence is also fraught with problems: even without Magnezone, Bullet Punch on Scizor is a very punishable move, allowing dangerous dudes like Gyarados, Heatran, Infernape, etc a setup opportunity. Not to mention that the problems that using > base 100 Speed scarfers (Starmie, Gengar, Latias, etc) is that they suffer against much of the metagame: Scizor, Latias, Tyranitar, and Blissey are ubiquitous, and being locked into an Ice-move means certain death at the hands of Scizor and Tyranitar. Thus, due to its ability to score a KO fairly easily (opening up the door for other team members) and frequently provide setup opportunities for its team, Salamence is potentially Uber under the Support Characteristic, because it can reliably set up a situation that makes it easier for other Pokemon to sweep.

Now I'll argue why this argument cannot be applied to a number of other Pokemon.

Infernape: Unless Infernape U-turns on the first move (which is a different matter entirely), it is defeated by Latias, even if it uses HP Ice on its first turn. Other Pokemon, such as Gyarados and even Salamence can set up on it if it lacks the necessary moves (Stone Edge or HP Ice) to take them down.

Tyranitar:The Choice user often finds itself being setup bait for dudes like Lucario and other Steels. The Dragon Dancer does not have the stallbreaking potential of Salamence, as Hippowdon and Swampert have a far better chance of handling it than they do Salamence. Boah is only any good against stall teams, and not very useful against other styles.

Lucario: The Swords Dancer is far easier to check than the Dragon Dancer. Things like Gliscor, Zapdos, and Gyarados, among others, all handle it easily. Getting a faster Scarfer, or indeed Pokemon, provided it has a Normal-resist, isn't hard. Things like Scarftran, Gengar, Rotom-S, or even ScarfTar come to mind. Lucario's other sets, such as the Specs user, don't see much use, and really aren't too useful, since checks such as Gliscor, Zapdos, Gengar, and Rotom-S are viable against the Specs user given that it Aura Spheres the first turn, which in most circumstances is the expected move. If it doesn't, well, Shadow Ball first turn has a number of problems of its own, and it still won't handle Gliscor, Zapdos, Scarftran, ScarfTar, etc. This doesn't take into account Blissey, either.

All three of these Pokemon, among others, simply cannot sweep or allow others to sweep as well as Salamence in current metagame conditions. This is another reason why Salamence warrants a test, while these Pokemon don't.