Volt Switch and U-Turn from slower mons provide great switch opportunities for Pokemon like greninja. Plus, Gren is more effective against balance teams where its vast coverage can help rip the opposing team to shreds. It quite easily switches in on uninvested or resisted attacks from weaker mons, which is another place where it can cause problems.
Greninja's obviously isn't a wall nor is it being banned for such. But can you really say it's extreme frailty and wear n' tear aspect doesn't pur the utmost of pressure on the user? You predict wrong, you lose could lose your Greninja's or your foe could capitalize on your mistake and bring in aowerful setup mon. If you predict right you dont't even necessarily win the battle. Greninja in general is only as good as its user's prediction skill. And if I recall correctly I thought chimp was on the fence, not necessarily pro no ban
Ninja is not powerful?? I'm not sure where this is coming from. Even though it's special attack isn't overwhelming the fact that it gets stab on everything means it hits hard regardless, and it's amazing coverage means it can bop any of its common switch-ins for large amounts of damage.
Sure life orb recoil wears it down but predicting wrong with greninja is such a hard thing to do. It's not choice locked obviously, and its speed means all of its switch-ins have to be able to tank TWO hits in order to force it out. Nothing scarfed or naturally faster wants to switch in, and when you have as good coverage as greninja your switch in that took the first assault has a good chance of dying to the second hit. Sure there will always be things that can take the ninja's hits, but greninja will always adapt to the metagame. When certain pokes that can tank the more commonly used move choices on greninja rise in popularity, the frog can just adjust its moveset to the current meta trends.
It gets STAB on everything, which means Greninja hits much harder than its stats would lead you to believe. And only one-shotting if it's super-effective is meaningless, since Greninja isn't going to stay in against something it can't OHKO.
When is this Scarfer going to find an opportunity to switch in? And as said before, no half-decent Greninja user will leave it in against something it can't OHKO.
On the other hand a greatly overlooked pivot into greninja is rain rest U-Turn manaphy. It offers a safe and reliable way to get your scarfer or revenge killer or pursuit user in without damage. A spread with 248hp and equal defenses takes 37% or less from everything except HP Grass. Credit to Branflakes325 for pointing out this mon to me.
he said in one of his vids he is more on the fence rn but thinks that it shouldnt be banned right now. 4mss is the biggest arg iirc. i'm saying that "predicting around" shouldnt be used as a counterarg
Um, greninjas lack of bulk puts little to no stress on the user once they get it in (see u-turn and volt switch). The person with gren has little to no reason to predict. Let's look at gren vs a core of Azumarill and Heatran, which is a fairly common example in the OU meta. If greninja is in vs either mon and gren has low kick + gunk (two of the more common moves) the gren user has ZERO reason to predict. If Azu is out, gunk is the best play. If Tran is out, Low Kick is the best play. It puts overwhelming levels of stress on the opponent and forces the opp to play perfectly (which can't really happen) as the gren user loses nothing by making the safe play and forcing the opponent's pokemon to take extra hazard damage / residual.
I definitely get what you're saying but if you're a person who considers greninja less of an uber and more of a top tier challenge to begrudgingly adapt to, then a set being obscure or niche doesn't matter because fuck it it works. I think some of the obscurity comes from the fact that hardly anyone would ever think to run u-turn on it and it's definitely a creative idea. I remember way back when no one even know what the fuck alomamola was then one day someone made a thread and within a week it became a stall staple -- such a case really was an example of something being obscure and initially doubted but somehow worked anyway and manaphy is it's own example of "bulky water" that has no reason to be tied to its tail glow set: you can use it like a vaporeon or a rotom or a suicune completely equally well.
You said something like "there were only arguments like this, so I am going to react to them".
Okay, so I am going to explain you. Every Pokemon has STAB moves. Those are his most powerful moves (in most cases I guess). Those hits hard. But Greninja has low Sp.Atk. However, it doesnt matter so much with LO and Protean. On the other side, there is the fact, that with his "former STABS" he doesn't hit any harder than with other moves. And that is his weak point.
Wow, you must be very good player. You are basically saying your opponent will predict everything you do and you will predict nothing and lose. Maybe it is not about Greninja being Ban-worthy. Maybe it is about you being bad.
252+ Atk Choice Band Huge Power Azumarill Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Celebi: 384-454 (95 - 112.3%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
Well it does. Someone said that Greninja is as strong as Deoxys-A, I proved him it is a lie, since Deoxys hit twice as hard. The frail argument work on Deoxys A too.
It doesn't hit harder with Hydro Pump than Torrent Greninja. That's why Protean is good for all moves BUT your former STABS.
Not going to comment on the rest of your post but this part is completely false. The fact that there are Pokémon that can hit harder than Greninja with their STAB moves doesn't mean anything in regards to Greninja's utility and role in the current metagame. Ninja's life orb Hydro Pumps still hit reasonably hard any neutral target and, given its large movepool, it can carry the appropriate move to hit for super effective damage any Pokémon that resists Water attacks. While it's true that it can't use more than 3 coverage moves on each set, you're still risking hard whenever you switch in your Water resistance until you figure out what's the exact set it's running. The fact that Ninja got Poison and Fighting coverage in ORAS only exacerbated the problem.
What planet you are on when you say that Mega Kangaskhan is irrelevant in Ubers?
Greninja isn't necessarily that vulnerable to status - it can use Spikes, HP Fire, Grass Knot and Gunk Shot to fend off most attempts at causing status problems. It's correct that you'll need to predict that status, but there's that.
I would like to respond to this comment. Firstly, I would like to clarify that Greninja does NOT have 4 MoveSlot Syndrome (4MSS), as Greninja does not need four specific moves to make it effective. The two new moves gained in ORAS, Gunk Shot and Low Kick are adequate to give Greninja the coverage that it needs to check its XY Checks, being fairies such as Clefable and Empoleon. The other two can be adapted to the team to 'fill in the gaps' in its team, so to speak.
On 1825 Glicko ladder
Check it's X/Y checks? Don't you mean counter? Also yes Greninja does have 4MMS. Gunk shot and Low kick do give it it's needed coverage moves, however, there are still pokemon that can get around those moves. The last two moves are the moves that greninja will use to get past those counters, such as HP Fire, hydro pump, ice beam, dark pulse, and extrasensory. However, with only two moves available, that means greninja has to pick carefully and get a team that can aid it. Therefore, Greninja needs team suppport (not a ridicoulous amount, but it needs a good deal of it) in order to be successful. The team has to compensate it's 4MMS. Is that a characteristic of a Uber/broken pokemon? Also, that doesn't mean your opponent can analyze the team and figure out for themselves what moves Greninja will carry. Of course, if they have a bad matchup then they're screwed, but Greninja doesn't lack in the Checks and counters department like many of the other Ubers. Also, just because it's predictable, that doesn't mean it will still not force out greninja. Breloom can play mind games with greninja by sporing or seeding it's switch or going straight for the KO. Loppuny can set up a sub on the switch or fake out greninja and then just go for the KO. Conkeldurr is still threatening to greninja and will still force it to switch regardless. Scarfed Lando can just U-turn and deal lots of damage to it, while also lowering it's attack stat. Yes Greninja is denting the enemies team (and it better be), but any pokemon should do that regardless. Competitve battling isn't about counters anymore, it's about checks and prediction. And also, yes fanbase doesn't change whether or not greninja is overpowered, but it will influence the vote. People really like greninja, so their is going to be a very strong bias among the voters. I promise you, greninja wasn't put in the new Smash Bros. just because he was a strong pokemon. The bias amongst fans will influence the vote. How much? i don't know. And as for mindgames, I would respectively disagree. The pressure is equal amongst both opponents and their is never a safe choice for the player using Greninja or the one fighting it. It promotes risk and analytical skills amongst the player to determine what the best and worst choices are. And also, status from several of these mons can be predictable; but once again, predictable doesn't always mean it's going to allow Greninja to beat them. Klefki can still paralyze greninja or anything else on it's team that isn't immune to it, and if it's a dual screener, then it can set up a screen, making greninja's life a lot harder. Greninja may not have many counters, but a pokemon with no counters doesn't instantly warrant a ban (i.e hydreigon from Gen. V).
so only 1 out of every 8 Greninja actually runs Low Kick. This is very reassuring because it really shows what we should actually be scared of.On 1825 Glicko ladder
http://www.smogon.com/stats/2014-11/moveset/ou-1825.txt
According to the usage stats it doesn't even have checks and counters
You should remember these usage stats are from November. These only apply from the release of ORAS untill 31. November (around 10 days) The metagame still needed to develop [even though the oras ou ladder was already around for over 1 month] and after more and more people started using pokemon like Chansey and Empoleon, the usage of Low Kick rose. The usage of Low Kick will probably be a lot higher in the december statistics. Even the most used set of Ice Beam, Dark Pulse, Gunk Shot and Hydro Pump has the ability to punch holes in balanced teams as even pokemon like Rotom-W and Ferrothorn can't come in very often, even when it lacks HP Grass or HP Fire / Low Kick.
What is defined as 4MSS? By definition, 4MSS means that something essentially requires more than four moves to do its job. Defensive Eeveelutions are a good example - they'd love to have all of Wish, Protect, Baton Pass for slow switches, Heal Bell and an attacking move, but they can't and have to drop either Baton Pass or Protect (usually Baton Pass), which makes them less effective overall (still useful, but not as useful as they would be otherwise). This is a very good analogy that Steel With It made and this aptly sums it up. Gren doesn't suffer from this.
This statement is actually false. This would only be the case if you are building a team around Gren. However, one rarely ever builds around Gren. If anything, it's the opposite. Greninja uses its offensive option to patch the team's issues.
Support wise, it falls under the characteristic of an Uber worthy mon. If Gren just had Protean and basic coverages, it wouldn't be such an issue. But the thing now is that Gren has not only Protean but flawless coverage coupled with an amazing speed tier. This allows it force it's checks out because you will always be in the "Does he carry this? Does he carry that". The problem with this results in heavy restrictions on team building. You are either forced to pack Scarfers on a more passively oriented team to not be broken down by Gren. Or you are forced to pack Passive mons on a more offensively oriented team to check Gren. And even when you "check" Gren, unless you are born with the ability to read minds, you can't 100% get Gren's moveset. This in itself makes your checks shaky because there is no standard Gren set that Gren will run. They have the flexibility of choice.
There is no reason for Gren to stay in for any of these scenarios. I don't understand why you would bring them up. If you want to use prediction as an argument, it will always work both ways. If he predicts your to spore, he Ice Beams. If he predicts you to seed/mach then, he switches. This is a really invalid statement.
So how is this a Greninja is not ban worthy argument? Blaziken was a fan favorite as well. Let's take a look at where he is now.
This is very true. However, in the case of Greninja, it is different for the sole fact that he has an insane speed tier. The speed tier means that he has more flexibility in his choices whereas the opponent is in a back foot. Let's say you switch in Scizor or Ferro, expecting a Gunk Shot. And you get it right. Does that mean you an stay in and dish something back out at him? No. Because he still has the possibility of running Low Kick or HP Fire. The thing about him is that he has that godly unboosted speed tier that gives him strong pivoting potential and ability. And with that speed, he is backed up by Protean Life Orb boosted coverages. That itself, eases a lot of pressure on the Gren user because he now has the momentum. You see where I am getting at?
Why on earth would anyone let their Gren obviously get statused. The thing about Gren, is that it has the capability of masking what it truly aims to do (like a ninja) and with that insane speed tier, it allows him to be an amazing momentum grabbing mon since the mere sight of him on the opposing team will cause you to play your Gren checks carefully. And once your Gren checks are worn down, Gren's job becomes either much more easier or completed.
Gren is more comparable to Deoxys-S imo. If Hydreigon had 123 base speed, believe me when I say it WILL get the ban.
I'm on my phone now, so forgive my poor formatting.
Come on now.
