What are the best movesets for salamence? How is this beast most effectively used? Help!

Bluestrike

i USED to have a salamence like this until i replaced it with slaking:

Nature: Modest
Item: Life Orb
Moveset:

Earthquake
Fire Blast
Dragon Claw
Rest

well, either adamant OR modest works good but its always good to be able to add special attacks to his set, so i trained a modest salamence in attack(252) sp attack(126), HP(126) and 6 in speed. rest is a good move to have because of life orb(in my opinion) but can always be replaced by another attack, maybe a special attack to make more use of the modest nature.

hope i helped some.

Depends on what kind of role you want it to be

{Salamence} @ Focus Sash/Leftovers

Adamant/Jolly. 252 Attack 252 speed 6 hp

Dragon Dance
Earthquake
Dragonclaw
Stone edge

Standard set.

{Salamence} @ Choice Specs/Focus Sash/Leftovers

Modest. 252 Special Attk 252 Speed 6 Hp.

Draco Meteor/Dragonpulse
Hydro Pump
Flame thrower
HP Ice/Dragonpulse

Standard, if you don't like breeding for IV's go with Dragon pulse on the last slot and Draco meteor for the first

{Salamence} @ Life orb/Leftovers/Focus sash/Choice Scarf

Naive. 252 Speed 129 Special Attack 129 Attack -OR- 252 Attack 129 Special Attack 129 Speed

Draco Meteor
Earthquake
Dragonclaw/Flamethrower
Stone edge/Dragon dance

Mixed Sweeper. Scarf with second EV spread and no Dragondance. Dragondance with DClaw, EQ and Draco meteor.

I guess this a little old school but...

@Choice Band
Nature:Hasty
Ev:Att & Speed Max
Ab:Intimidate
-Dragon Claw
-Earthquake
-Stone Edge
-Fire Blast/Draco Meteor/Thunder Fang/Fire Fang



I think it would be better if you put Roost instead of Rest...

o.o I'm pretty sure it doesn't get Belly Drum. If it did, this thing would be entirely broken, what with having better attack than the best drummer in the game (Charizard) AND only have a 2x weakness to Rock. Tell me; how do you get Salamence w/Belly Drum? I'm nearly certain that you can't do it...

On the DDance set, consider using Fire Blast; increasing your Attack might tempt Skarm out, and then you can hammer it with a blast, before finishing it off with a boosted Dragon Claw. I wouldn't advise Focus Sash though. It seems a bit daft to think that you'd keep Salamence out against things that it would die in one hit. I know that's the POINT of Focus Sash, but it seems a waste when he could be doing other things with his time, such as Life Orb or Yache Berry (which then doesn't fear Srock ruining the fun)

Salamence is my fave. use fire fang to kill his ice weakness. use outrage for dragon weakness. use birck break for rock weakness. choose any other choice of move. use anti confusion berry (forgot what its called). Use adamant nature with macho brace because it already has a good speed. Better if you ev train it.

1. How many ice pokemon do you see in competetive play? Two. Weavile, and Regice. How many pokes do you see with ice beam/punch/fang? Too many is the answer.

2. Salamence doesnt get outrage.

3.Brick break takes out ice just as much as fire fang (not that you would use either).

4.Macho brace does EVs, not attack stat... It would just cut Mence's speed in half.

5. And pokemon are ALWAYS better if you EV train them.

Sorry, i was so much in perfecting my poke team i should have realized to think 2 steps ahead. sorry again if it caused any inconvinience

The only Fang that is a worth using is Thunder...
And that's on Choice Band Set,and only for a little more coverage...
Brick Break is Ok...since it can OHKO ... If you really want to use Choice Band...
I would recommend a JOLLY nature...Because i will never forget a battle that i was winning(2-1)
I send my Banded and he was using a jolly Banded ...
He Flinched my metagross to death(With ROCK SLIDE!!! ) and i sended my Adamant and he beat him to death too...
that's when i learn that a little more speed is never too much...

But you can see this site too...
It's really helpful...
Click Here...
It think have posted in some places already but,whatever...

modest@choice band

hyper beam
hydro pump
flamethrower
dragon pulse

YEAH SALAMENCE IS TEH BESST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More seriously, I have done this bit of necromancy to inform you of how you could use Salamence for defensive purposes.

Check out:

@ Sash/Yache/Lefties/Ganlon/Apicot
Impish
Intimidate
252 Def 252 Sp. Def 6 Att
~Captivate
~Roost
~Protect/Sub
~D-rush/claw

Defense is no problem with Intimidate, Impish and 252 EVs, as well as Roost protecting him from Rocks. Captivate helps Sp. Def, although you will have to watch out for the gender. Roost is an annoyance to those that get Mence on the smallest sliver of HP. Protect works with Lefties, sub works with the berries. The last move is so that you can actually do something when you've finished all this .

flying/ghost- flamethrower
other- earthquake

snorlax DOES get fissure as an egg move. and it gets it on XD too.

salamence is really awesome and now that it has heaps more great physical options (dragon claw, crunch, fangs, zen headbutt, etc) its hard to pick a moveset, but also very unpredictable. and with its good sp atk stat, you can put a special move even on an adamant/jolly salamence and still do a LOT of damage to most physical walls. it even has a good choice of special moves - fire blast for skarm/forretress, hydro pump for rhyperior etc, and draco meteor for a good strong mostly-neutral attack.

personally my favourite is the life orb set. jolly with dragon claw, earthquake, stone edge, fire blast.

im also planning on breeding for a dragon dancer. adamant, with dragon claw, earthquake, stone edge. and also a specs mence with draco meteor, hydro pump, fire blast, and maybe a good hidden power (but probably just dragon pulse/claw).

hope you have fun with your salamence

EDIT: after reading smogon's page (thanks bushin) it looks like hidden power on specs mence isnt such a brilliant idea..... yay

Yeah...imagine my face when i seen that after breeding half a month(on emerald) to get one with hidden power electric 57...that would be something like this...
Salamence was my favorite on R/S/E...
i have three of them...

A Bander ...Tanla
A Specsmence ...Kailena
and a MixMence ...Marishka

If you didn't figured out,they are all girls...
And they still hits hard...
Ops...
Almost forgot my Dragon Dancer,Shiryuu...this one is male...
About snorlax...
What pokémon that learns fissure can breed with she?

Don't want to put you down but,i didn't liked this salamence very much...
first if you would want to max something on Evs that would be HP...then you would split between the defenses giving special defense a little more than physical...since he got intimidate...

He still suffer from the curse of the dragons...(...ICE...) so...
even if you use captivate that would be a OHKO,or maybe 2HKO...against someone using Ice Beam...
Roost only help if you can attack first...i don't think that would be easy since you got no speed evs...

and since he got only for 4 evs on attack and a defensive nature he won't sweep nothing either...
if you really want tank take something else...

Plz don't waste a excellent offensive designed dragon like this on a defensive role...

It's a long road:

with fissure has to breeds with who breeds with and then breed with

Well...
I really wanted to breed a smeargle w/ it.....oh well...

modest@choice band

hyrdo pump
flamethrower
dragon pulse
hyper beam

Heres the set I use


Salamence with Life Orb
Rash Nature(+Sp.Atk,-Sp.Def)
EVs:112Atk/144Spd/252Sp.Atk
.Roost
.Brick Break
.Fire Blast
.Dragon Claw/Draco Meteor

this set is designed to break walls,and Wall combos,and Roost makes up for the Life Orb Recoil.