You're right, Ice Shard as the lone argument is trash. So let's look at everything else.Using the argument like ''Ice Shard'' exist is complete senceless, Ice Shard does exist in UU no shit but does it make Salamence less viable ? No. You can simply just pair it up with a Pokemon that can take on these Pokemons easily.
- Can't really switch into most bulky waters. It's a grass type that can't even absorb Scalds safely due to it having to run physical attacks, and even then risks getting blown apart by an Ice Beam. And if you didn't notice, there's a lot of those.
- Tangrowth is just a better defensive mon. Torterra has a bit better special bulk, but its offset by its typing(as mentioned above), as well as giving up Regenerator. Even offensively, Tangrowth has a lot more options, such as Leaf Storm and Knock Off.
- It's speed tier isn't going to help much. Even if you run Max Jolly, you're beat by Adamant Mega-Pert outside of rain, and of course neutral gets beat by base 60s like Empoleon and P2. Am I getting redundant with "Ice coverage destroys Torterra" yet?
Yeah, Wood Hammer hurts like hell behind 109 Atk. Sure, Rock Polish lets you outspeed most of the tier if you set it up(Still beat by Ada MShark at +1, lol). But it's not worth tiering it.