[HGSS] Salamence Retest

Discussion in 'Past Gens Discussion' started by IFM, May 23, 2012.

  1. The_Messiah

    The_Messiah New Member

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    As someone who started playing pokemon competitevly during the time that both Latias and Salamence were both OU, i can safely say that the metagame was much better with both rather than just mence. Latias was pretty powerful only having few walls such as blissey and ttar walling it, but as long as people ran scarftar it wasnt rly a big issue. Salamence wasnt a huge threat either due to Latias running round and there wasnt rly much oppurtinity to set up with it. As soon as Latias left, the metagame was ruined with nothing in OU checking mixmence and dd life orb mence after 1 dd. Bulky dd mence easily sett up +2's/3's and ppl had to resort to using bad pokes like mespirit and scarf starmie etc, and then even after mence was banned infernape and starmie were also quite broken with near no checks in the game. I would say bring Latias back, to be honest, because thats what i considered the best metagame, but if you want a more origional metagame without people always carrying a ttar and blissey and people being more imaginitive then ban mence and latias.
     
  2. The_Messiah

    The_Messiah New Member

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    Also the people who are saying a team of only dragons and steels was broken and that every1 used it clearly have no idea what there even talking about and i doubt ever even played 4th gen. People almost always had balanced teams of different types and those who didnt usually had weak unstable teams that were weak to either offensive or stall and certain pokes. If any1 was stupid enough to run a team of dragons and steels then there entire team would pretty much get swept by mixape with hp ice, one of the most commonly used pokemon in the game, and the scarf dragons such as flygon are easy as hell to wall.
     
  3. Harlot

    Harlot i look like the pope

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    ape and starmie aren't broken and have never been broken wtf

    are you sure you played ou at all in the last year and a half because i srsly doubt it
     
  4. shrapn3l

    shrapn3l Member

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    ape also doesn't beat 3x dragon 3x steal teams because latias and mence and hazards wearing it down and bulletpunch/scarf everywhere. ape is barely around in that meta, or at least gets MUCH less play than it does now.
     
  5. The_Messiah

    The_Messiah New Member

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    Maybe i just have a different idea of what broken is but in my opinion pokemon that nothing can safely switch into is broken to me. Infernape destroys stall and even the things people think check it it can 2hko on the switch, aka hippowdon and swampert with grass knot, even gyrados with a t-punch even though its rare, starmie gets hit hard by u turn + they get switch advantage. There is practically no safe switch in. Even starmie 2hkos most OU pokes except for blissey which it can trick a choice item and cripple for the rest of the game, and yes i did play out the last year and i know these pokes were broken cus i used them and they raped everything.
     
  6. The_Messiah

    The_Messiah New Member

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    How anyone can say this is truly beyond me. For a start, LATIAS ISNT EVEN OU, secondly, ape outspeeds and ohkos mence so how the hell does it wear it down? thirdly, bullet punch dosnt even do a lot to infernape considering the type resistance and ape can retaliate with a fire move to ohko. The only correct thing you said was the scarf pokes which you can easily have a safe switch into to send ape back in later. Ape is not barely around in the meta since it is great against the most popular playstyle which is stall and is a popular poke overall. Hazards wont wear it down since its easy to get a spin off with starmie and you can use a expert belt as a alternative to life orb for more survivability.
     
  7. Xdevo

    Xdevo Phrasing Super Moderator Tour Director Super Moderator Tour Director

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    Infernape and Starmie are good Pokemon nothing more. Infernape has absolutely no bulk to take attacks (something that both Latias and Salamence had), Infernape can't take on the 7 pokemon that beat it without losing massive coverage. Starmie has issues with anything Specially bulky, the Trick sets see no usage, and it isn't the bulkiest either.




    Latias was OU for decent period of time, so anyone who had ever played with her knows this. Infernape's usage was much lower before Latias was banned. Infernape can only KO Salamence with Hidden Power Ice (which Infernape only runs for Salamence and isn't even good on most sets) or Stone Edge. Neither move was used commonly in the Latias Metagame. Infernape takes 252 Atk Choice Band Technician Scizor (+Atk) Bullet Punch vs 4 HP/0 Def Infernape: 36.39% - 42.86% from Bullet Punch, which combined with LO recoil, possible SS, CC def drops and any attacks it may take upon switching in, Bullet Punch is pretty much a death sentence for Infernape. Especially considering the fact that Scizor's BP is one of the weaker attacks on a 3steel3drag team.

    Expert Belt Starmie can't do the entire point of LO Spinning Starmie which is to OHKO Rotom on the switch.
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2012
  8. shrapn3l

    shrapn3l Member

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    3x steel 3x dragon teams were much more viable when latias WAS OU, and in that environment, latias, which is the best check infernape has ever had, is on an incredible number of teams. that's what i meant. additionally, prio and scarfers are everywhere in order to combat ddmence. stealth rock is of the utmost importance, also because of salamence. sandstorm is even more ubiquitous because scarf ttar is the best answer to latias. many people beat infernape NOW (as in the metagame without mence or latias) by playing around its attacks and letting it kill itself, or by revenge killing it. that's also pretty easy to do in the latias/mence metagame, but you have the added luxury of using latias against it to wall pretty much anything infernape has. also consider the fact that starmie's most common set when mence is around is probably the scarfer to revenge kill ddmence because mence is just that good.
     
  9. Halsey

    Halsey Wildstar

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    I'm going to bump this because it is needed.

    What is going to happen with Salamence retest?
     
  10. pokemon0078

    pokemon0078 Member

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    I'm pretty sure it just stopped.
     
  11. shrapn3l

    shrapn3l Member

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    salamence is still allowed on the DPOU ladder though so someone should fix that if it's no loner being tested...
     
  12. george182

    george182 Active Member

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    I think the general opinion is that Salamence should remain banned.

    But ignoring opinions, this test period has to be considered inconclusive Salamence is barely used on the ladder, its been allowed for this whole month and is currently 29th on the usage list, which is not the top5 that Salamence should and has been used in. Salamence hasn't been used enough for people to properly test and more importantly, its not been faced enough to be properly discussed, with such a low usage it also hasn't been used enough to affect the metagame.

    Also consider that during most suspects tests, the pokemon in question usually receives an abnormally large amount of useage as people want to test it, which clearly hasn't happened.
     
    Last edited: Jun 21, 2012
  13. Conflict

    Conflict Member

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    Lol half the people writing here didnt even play back when Latias/Mence where allowed (i.e. i know tomahawk9 only really got the hang of dpp ou after both these behemoths were banned around ~2010).

    Let me make a few things clear: Latias and Mence were NOT broken in DPP OU, people were just tired of having to pack a counter for them.
    Literally noone used SDef-Tran, SDef-Jirachi, SDef-CBTar (who was VERY good and underrated) - essentially many people ignored a good amount of Checks.
    Latias was banned after like 5 Tests inwhom it was voted OU 4 times and Uber 1(!!!!) time. The DPP OU bansystem highly encouraged one to ban something because Pokemon received several tests until voted uber even when they were voted with a huge majority OU in the previous round.

    Specslatias wasnt even the best Latias-set because it depended heavily on perfect/proper prediction. And 'prediction' is basically 'guessing'. Not to mention that simple cores of 2 Mons could easily outmaneuver Specslatias (SDef-Skarm + phys. def. vaporeon for example). The best Latias-Set was probably the LO/EBelt-Set with Roost.

    Mence had no good 100%-counters but Mence had to live through SR/LO-DMG/SS-DMG and damage he received when switching in. You beat Mence with clever switching, outspeeding or using of of his Checks coupled with SR (Swampert, SDef-Skarm, Gyarados).
    In the same vein Infernape has no 100%-counters for every one of his sets (Gyarados comes close but SD+SE or HP[Ele] destroy him still).
    You could prepare for both of these Dragons like you can prapare for other dangerous sweepers in todays metagame like Lucario, Infernape, Starmie (LO-Starmie 2hkoed btw the whole metagame besides Blissey, Snorlax and stuff like SDef-Jirachi/Celebi/Gastrodon which noone used for some reason).

    And what some posters here implied that all teams back then were 3Drags+3Steels is simply WRONG.
    That wasnt the case. Definitely not. Thats just overexxagerating things. There were like 2 Mons that werent used much back then that now see some play. Shaymin and Zapdos. And both were still used to some extent (Twash used Shaymin realy succesfully in Latias/Mence era and won Kind-of-bigger-Deal tournament - an Elite-tournament - on Smogon with it, Zapdos was still Top 30 Mon).
    A often used formula was for example: bulky water, dragon (mence/latias), rotom-w/h, steel, leadmon+filler

    Latias and Mence werent that sought after due to their offensive capabilities but due to their defensive typing and their ability to check various big threats of the metagame. Yes they could act as a sweeper/cleaner etc but you picked them mostly for their amazing resistances coupled with their utility (able to 'break' stall aka Mence). Not to mention that Salamence almost never could break Stall on its own.

    One of the reasons for banning Latias/Mence was that they centralized the Metagame and forced one to use Mons like Scizor and Ttar to check them. Funny thing is Ttar peaked at like 19% Usage or something like that when these two were allowed. After both were banned we see Heatran getting up to 30-40% usage which indicates that the Metagame NOW is even MORE centralized than back then. But funnily enough usage only speaks FOR bans but can never be used to argue AGAINST them.

    With what credibility do i speak? Well ive talked with several top DPP players that generally agree with my thoughts (Latias/Mence not broken, just annoying and people were tired to have to prepare for them). Ive also made Smogon Tour finals in Season 9 (top 8) when both mence and Latias were allowed.

    Thats a short overview why Latias/Mence are not broken just really dangerous and maybe the top two DPP pokes (see: Snorlax in GSC; Tauros in RBY; Ttar in ADV) - there will always be one 'top' poke no matter what.
     
  14. george182

    george182 Active Member

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    I respect you as a battler and you have a great knowledge of pokemon, but I disagree with a lot of the things you're saying.

    A lot of people where and this was the whole purpose of having a test period, so we weren't just theorymoning...

    SDef-Jirachi is terrible offensively and the calm mind set can achieve similar results while posing a much stronger offensive threat. SDef-T-tar is good, but out-speeding is such a valuable asset in pokemon, which is why most people preferred Scarf-Tar. SDef-Tran wasn't used because scarf tran was the preferred check to both Mence and Latias

    Not really true though, Latias had the fastest and joint most powerful Draco meteor in Dp OU and specs Latias was so good because you can just bring Latias in on it's many resistances, take basically no damage due to it's huge bulk and then fire off choice specs Dracco meteors. The main/only coverage move was Surf, and you're bringing in Latias so often (because it's so easy) that you're going to win the prediction battle at some point. Some people also used Thunderbolt, but that was more for utility than coverage. Specs Latias could also sweep with Dragon Pulse very easily once steels had been worn down or removed. Expert Belt was always silly because Latias' main move was a dragon attack, which is all about the huge neutral coverage and not SE attacks. Surprise should be used as an aid, not something to rely on (E-Belt is 100% reliant on surprise, which is unreliable).

    Infernape cannot switch in as easily, it takes huge damage from resisted attacks and doesn't have intimidate, it also needs more than 3 moves to destroy the entire metagame (Mix mence didn't). Infernape also can be countered by common pokemon once you know the set as it cannot have a set of Sword dance, Nasty Plot, Close combat, Focus Blast, Overheat, Flare Blitz, Grass Knot, Hp Ice, Thunderpunch, Stone edge, U-turn, Fire Blast etc. so it can't actually beat everything at once. You're missing the point about mence anyway, the main threat is not the fact it's so hard to check, it's the huge threat of both the Dragon Dance set and the mix mence set, both which require completely different ways to handle and you have no way of knowing what you're up against, you often have to sack a pokemon in order to just find out how to check Salamence.

    A lot of teams where 3Drag 3Steel though... It was over-centralised around that. Your forumla is also debatable as it was hugely advised to have at least 2 steels on an offensive team at the time.

    In pokemon a good defence makes a great offence. Defensive synergy allows you to be more offensive as you can keep switching, allowing you to keep bringing in threats. Therefore being able to switch in easily also helps make a pokemon broken. Both of these pokemon could switch in very easily.


    Heatran's not really centralised though is it. It has so many different sets and is used on completely different styles of teams in completely different ways. It's basically a different pokemon when it's on a stall team. Also Salamece hugely encouraged teams to get stealth rocks up on turn 1 with your lead, that isn't as important anymore and Heatran is easily the best option for an offensive team to set up stealth rocks outside the lead position. Heatran's high useage has nothing to do with over-centralisation of the metagame.


    The top DPP players voted Salamence and Latias uber...

    Let's unban Kyogre then... because there will always be a top poke... #stupidlogic. We try to balance a metagame to the best it can be.