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Even without phys/spec split, sand veil was a broken ability when tyranitar, and to a lesser extent hippowdon, were one of the most common pokemon around. Without sand veil, it would probably be manageable, it's only other reliable coverage move than EQ is stone edge, which is prone to missing. It'd probably use poison jab more or something niche like shadow claw along with swords dance. Losing out on that fire and dragon STAB for coverage really hurts it. What held salamance back in advance was it's somewhat limited coverage, even with an attack stat higher than garchomps and access to dragon dance, it was super manageable.
