Salamence (Double phazer) [QC (0/3)]

[puking_rainbows]

[SET]
name: Double phazer
move 1: Rest
move 2: Sleep Talk
move 3: Dragon Tail
move 4: Roar
item: Lefovers
ability: Intimidate
nature: Jolly
evs: 252 HP / 4 Def / 252 Spd


Why this deserves to be on-site:

• Since the addition of Salamence in the OU metagame, no set has been made which use the phazing capabilities of Salamence.
• Very useful set and versatile which can show its full potential in stall teams.
• Not easy to wear down, as it constantly is recovering with Rest and phazing the foe. That allows you to get your enemy desperate.
• Can cripple other pokemon and phaze pokemon who like to set up.

Additional comments:

• Jolly nature and max EVs in speed in order to be able to outspeed most of the base 100 Speed pokemon that are not scarfed.
• This set can be emulated on Mew too, since it can learn the same attacks. The only difference is the lack of Intimidate (Mew gets the nice ability of Synchronize) and it loses the weakness to Ice and Rock. Notably to say, mew has slightly better defences as Salamence.
• Intimidate helps you survive physical hits better.
• Rest and Sleep Talk is a way of recovery and lets you cure yourself of status changes (poison, burn...)
• Thanks to Sleep Talk, you get a chance of 66.67% to hit with either Roar of Dragon Tail, which is a STAB.
• The strategy to use with this pokemon is to serve as a surprise element and to wear the opponent down little by little, letting your fast revengekillers do the rest of the job.
• This set relies a little on luck as you still have a low probability to get Rest while Sleep Talking.

Teammates and counters:

• It obviously needs teammates who can put Stealth Rock and Spikes up and who can survive Ice and Steel moves, types of attacks Salamence fears. This set works best combined with Ferrothorn and Heatran.
• A spinblocker is almost a requirement as the effectiveness of tjis set depends on the durability of Stealth Rock and Spikes/Toxic Spikes layers on the field.
• This set hates Taunt, although if taunted it can still cause serious damage to the foe with Dragon Tail.
• As happens with the more current versions of Salamence in the metagame, Salamence suffers from fast steels, such as Choice Band Scizor, and bulky pokemon who can stand most of its attacks. Salamence also suffers from priority move users and Stealth Rock, although the latter isn't as important because of the recovery.

 

[blarajan]

Ehhh doesn't Dragonite do this better? With Multi-Scale and its better bulk.

Edit: Never mind.

 

[alexwolf]

Ehhh doesn't Dragonite do this better? With Multi-Scale and its better bulk.

Sleep Talk is illegal with Multiscale.

 

[Vein]

Why would you run Jolly? I understand that you might get first on your Roar or Dragon Tail while Sleep Talking, but you won't get much speed anyway due to the EV spread unless you want to outspeed some particular poke. I suggest Careful nature instead to help you tank most special attacks.

EDIT: Thought 252 Spd as 252 special defense. You don't need this 252 Speed since Roar and DT has negative priority when not sleeping so you won't maximize this spread. You can spread the EVs between Def and Special Def depending on what you want to tank and a Careful nature.

 

[-Tsunami-]

I'm pretty skeptical about this set's effectiveness. I understand the point of this set, but 100 base Speed honestly is not that much in this generation's OU metagame. Not to mention, with this current spread, Salamence only has 394 / 196 / 196 defenses, which can be especially problematic considering the high amount of Pokemon with Rock- or Ice-type moves. Salamence's Stealth Rock weakness only makes this more problematic; not to mention, Salamence cannot Recover its health when it's sleeping, and since the Sleep counter rests this generation, it makes it difficult to heal up. Sandstorm can also negate Leftovers recovery, making this set even less effective. It may work at first when the opponent has no idea you have RestTalk with a phazing move, but after one use, this set becomes much easier to deal with.You also (obviously) have no control over what gets switched in, meaning that oftentimes, you will be immediately forced to switch out at the sight of a Pokemon such as Landorus or Terrakion. This set seems like a gimmick at best.

 

[puking_rainbows]

You're right. This set needs a bit of prediction and a some support to get it well. As Vein pointed out, defences can be increased with a new ev spread and a new nature. Another thing I would like to comment is that, as you mentioned, the surprise factor is important in this moveset as not many people would expect a Salamence with two phazing moves, so the first times of use would be effective, but the more it is utilized the more it decreases its effectiveness.

Thank you very much for your opinion.

 

[danilo]

Dragonite out classes the hell out of this thing. I understand that this is supposed to be a fast phazer but as ShakeitUp mentioned, this thing is not bulky. Dragonite seems like it's always the better option.

 

[asterat]

Dragonite out classes the hell out of this thing. I understand that this is supposed to be a fast phazer but as ShakeitUp mentioned, this thing is not bulky. Dragonite seems like it's always the better option.

agreed,also put intrait

 

[puking_rainbows]

If more evs are invested in defense or special defense and the nature is change it would gain more bulk. But would that be enough bulk? It's understandable that Salamence can't stand ice moves, so whenever a pokemon is about to hit him with one of those it should be changed into a steel pokemon or something like that. As harsha2014 pointed out, it would greatly benefit from paralysis support.

 

[danilo]

Any kind of bulky Salamence isn't really viable since they're always going to be outclassed by Dragonite, who has a better ability and tons of bulk. Dragonite is like the only exception of useful wall that is weak to Stealth Rock. Not to mention the fact that there are a ton of mons with faster super-effective rock/ice/dragon type moves. It's going to be hard to justify using this over Dragonite.

 

[Delko]

@Sir, that's not true, Salamence has Intimidate and Wish so it's not outclassed by Dragonite at all.

Tbh, I don't get the point of 2 phazing moves, or even why you would use Rest on Salamence when it has the arguable better Roost and the aformentioned Wish. Not to mention the SR-weakness and the new sleep mechanics screwing this set over.

 

[puking_rainbows]

It doesn' really get screwed over by the game mechanics because of Sleep Talk, which can ensure a hit with either Roar or Dragon Tail. There are two phazing moves to increase the probability of phazing the foe by the aforemetioned attack. Why Rest? Because by the use of Sleep Talk, the negative priority of Roar is "skipped".

 

[BTzz]

This set is forced out by way to many threats (Terrakion, Landorus, Latios, Virizon, Scizor, Mamoswine etc) to be effective. This is were the new sleep mechanics will really bite, as once you're forced out, you'll end up will a useless sleeping mence that will have to switch into SR without being able to heal right away. On top of this, Mence's weakness to Stealth Rock and average bulk make it very difficult to even switch in. Also, the main selling point of this set (0 priority phazing) is completely luck based, making this set even harder to use.

 

[danilo]

@Sir, that's not true, Salamence has Intimidate and Wish so it's not outclassed by Dragonite at all.

The only thing that Salamence has over Dragonite is Wish. Although Intimidate is an excellent ability, I think we can agree that Multiscale is better by a decent margin. Dragonite's bulk, movepool, and ability outclass Salamence in pretty much every aspect.

Oh, and the point of using two phasing moves is to almost ensure that you'll sleep talk a phasing move(about 67% of the time).

 

[Pocket]

Brizznetz, the new sleep mechanics doesn't affect this set, because the opponent would be constantly forced out by phazing moves (unless it selects Rest), allowing Salamence to finish its sleep counter. The odds of phazing is not really out of your hands, since 66% of the time, Salamence would be selecting Dragon Tail / Roar, which are good odds imo.

Intimidate vs MultiScale both have their perks, neither one outclassing the other. Multiscale is only useful when Dragonite is at full-health, which makes it extremely dependent on Rapid Spin support. Salamence can buffer physical moves every time it switches in. Plus, the effect of Intimidate lingers until the opponent switches out, not like Dragonite's MultiScale.

I think this set looks good on paper, but some evidence through battle logs may be necessary for it to be on-site material.

 

[Delko]

What Brizznetz meant is that this Salamence set is gonna be asleep almost the entire battle, which prevents it from Rest'ing up again.
The only reason there is a Rest Gyarados set is because it has no other recover moves, Salamence does have them, making it redundant to run a Rest set.
I'm not saying this set is terrible, Salamence just has better defensive sets. On the other hand, an Aerodactyl variant with this moveset outclasses it too.

 

[danilo]

Delko/Brizznet pretty much summed it up. A set that is 100% luck based is not good(with Jirachi being the only example). Oh and rainbows, your set is missing an ability.

 

[puking_rainbows]

Ups, sorry. Just added it. It was obviously Intimidate, but it was necessary to put it in.
I tried this set and it worked fine with me. Maybe, as someone pointed out earlier, it would be optimized by some changes on the nature and ev spread, but yes... it somewhat depends on "luck", if you want to call it that way, although the probability of getting Roar or Dragon Tail with Sleep Talk is somewhat high and it's a must to have some other pokemon supporting Salamence.

 

[doughboy]

Imagine a "wall" using a phazing move with less accuracy than Focus Blast with no reliable recovery and a weakness to SR.

This sums up this Salamence set. There are better options to get around the lower priority of Roar/Dragon Tail.

 

[Vein]

The problem with this set is this has to be proven to be effective.

The only viable resttalker in OU right now is Gyarados and Milotic (Milotic is the best due to Marvel Scale). Unlike these two, Salamence is weak to three of the most common move types in the game - Ice, Rock and Dragon. Meanwhile, Milotic in particular, is weak only to Electric (which is carried by few OU pokes) and Grass (which only Celebi and Ferrothorn carries). And even given these, only STAB/boosted Thunder and Leafstorm can OHKO due to Milo's great bulk. Salamence won't tank any of its weakness like Milotic can do. That's why there are doubts in this sets.

Btw, suggest to add Spinblockers as your required teammates since you need to sustain those rocks and spikes to be effective.

 

[puking_rainbows]

Just added it. Thanks for the advice, Vein.

 

[Sour]

Pretty sure I saw this on the Youtubers channel Dangerous36M a few months back but here's the Mence in action for those wondering how effective it is.
Skip to 02:30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa21x3Pg_WQ

 

[danilo]

I don't know if using a youtube video is going to convince that the qc members that this set is at least decent. everyone has made a strong case for why this set isn't good(mediocre defensive typing, asleep for most of the battle, weakness to stealth rock, actually has access to a good recovery move, 66% chance of phasing isn't very high, etc).

 

[Camisado]

It doesn' really get screwed over by the game mechanics because of Sleep Talk, which can ensure a hit with either Roar or Dragon Tail. There are two phazing moves to increase the probability of phazing the foe by the aforemetioned attack. Why Rest? Because by the use of Sleep Talk, the negative priority of Roar is "skipped".

When you say ensure, you mean 62.7%right?

 

[SOMALIA]

@The kid who posted the video, no offense but the opponent can't play...

Tested this...it doesn't work, simple as. You are just set up fodder when you are awake and asleep, yes you got two phaze moves but what if the opponent manages to substitute or set up whilst you get the wrong move whilst asleep. Mence just cannot really take the majority of attacks from common Pokemon and its weakness to Stealth Rock doesn't help. You get the most common hazard set-upers being able to easily set up as they wish while you have to rest (Once opponents see that the MENCE got rest, they just set up or leech seed, forcing you to switch etc). Sorry but this set's negatives far outweigh anything it can contribute to any team.