Pokémon Greninja

[Emmerlaus]

Im only a amateur when playing Pokemon... (spo dont be too harsh) but should Greninja have a set when teamed with Zoroark?

Greninja could be a awesome revenge killer combined with him. Zoroark know Flamethrower, dark move and the like.

Greninja: Surf, U-turn, Ice Beam, Extrasensory (OR Spikes)

Zoroark (Anti-lead set): Taunt, Flamethrower (deal with steel type), U-Turn, Night Daze

======

So, is this team of shadows fit very well together or what?

I really want a Zoroark set to complete Greninja :)

 

[Percussionist]

My thoughts are that you forgot to give Breloom Life Orb OR Technician in that calc! It's exactly the same strength as Scizor's BP.

252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom Mach Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Starmie: 390-460 (136.84 - 161.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Anyway, it's obvious that Greninja can't take priority when in the wrong type, Dark Pulse leaves you in a similar bind. That's what teammates are for, after all. Greninja operates best later in the match, once you've worn down anything that can check him. If you see powerful priority on the opposing team, play appropriately!

You are correct, I did forget Life Orb on Breloom. The bad thing about that situation is if Greninja were to be in a state of neutral typing against priority, he has a way of appropriately dealing with most priority mons (Hydro Pump-Infernape, HP Fire-Scizor, Luke Breloom). In effect, you'd have to carry two mons on your team to accomplish that one role of removing priority abusers. That said, how is that you find partners for a Pokemon who's typing is so inconsistent? In theory, I would think that Greninja's best teammates would be ones who can either a)deal with priority, or b) deal with specially bulky Pokemon.

 

[VCrowe]

I believe this was mentioned previously in this thread, but Ice Beam is a terribly scary move for Protean Greninja to use. While offering great coverage, and being one of few moves with significant power, it leaves him as an Ice type on the switch. This leads Greninja to being easily revenged after the KO by sending in a mon with a super effective priority. Given that both Bullet Punch and Mach Punch are relatively common in the metagame (eh vacuum wave), it's not hard to take out Greninja. I assume this is a given in most of these situations, but I ran a few calcs of common priority users against Ice Greninja.

252 Adamant Life Orb Scizor Bullet Punch vs. 4/0 Timid Greninja : 136.4% - 160.1%
252 Adamant Life Orb Lucario Bullet Punch vs. 4/0 Timid Greninja : 81.8% - 96.5%
252 Adamant Life Orb Infernape Mach Punch vs. 4/0 Timid Greninja : 77.6% - 92.3%
252 Adamant Breloom Mach Punch vs. 4/0 Timid Greninja : 69.9% - 82.5%
252 Adamant Life Orb Conkeldurr Mach Punch vs. 4/0 Timid Greninja : 90.2% - 107%

Granted that the option to not use Life Orb/Adamant exists, but this is the reality that Greninja could be facing when stuck in Ice typing. While not all are clean OHKOs, the damage is significant enough to restrain Greninja from using Life Orb for very long afterwards. Assuming rocks are in play, and assuming Ice Beam was used the previous turn, even the lowest calc (Breloom's min roll Mach Punch) only allows Greninja to use one more attack before fainting. Thoughts?

My thoughts are that you forgot to give Breloom Life Orb OR Technician in that calc! It's exactly the same strength as Scizor's BP.

252+ Atk Life Orb Technician Breloom Mach Punch vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Starmie: 390-460 (136.84 - 161.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Anyway, it's obvious that Greninja can't take priority when in the wrong type, Dark Pulse leaves you in a similar bind. That's what teammates are for, after all. Greninja operates best later in the match, once you've worn down anything that can check him. If you see powerful priority on the opposing team, play appropriately!

I agree, priority users are Greninja's worst nightmare, hence the reason why he should always switch out on them. I also think that Greninja operates best as a late game cleaner, especially since I run a very hazard heavy team. Ultimately, Greninja is similair to Gengar, that is, it's a glass cannon.

 

[S0L1D G0LD]

Im only a amateur when playing Pokemon... (spo dont be too harsh) but should Greninja have a set when teamed with Zoroark?

Greninja could be a awesome revenge killer combined with him. Zoroark know Flamethrower, dark move and the like.

Greninja: Surf, U-turn, Ice Beam, Extrasensory (OR Spikes)

Zoroark (Anti-lead set): Taunt, Flamethrower (deal with steel type), U-Turn, Night Daze

======

So, is this team of shadows fit very well together or what?

I really want a Zoroark set to complete Greninja :)

I too love Zoroark. Protip, use dark pulse > night daze on Zoroark, that way if not getting the protean message doesn't give it away, you won't lose the mind games because of the fact that greninja can learn and commonly uses dark pulse. Oh, and hydro pump on greninja.

 

[VanillaThunderbolt]

Not sure if it was mentioned anywhere but I use a fairly annoying Protean set that revolves around Greninja becoming a type to resist its weaknesses.

Using Grass Knot to resist Electric and Grass, and my extremely lucky HP Poison to resist Fairy Fighting and Bug. May breed Spikes now that I'm see it's an option.

Also I love Water Shuriken having a 10-41% flinch rate with King's Rock and priority. Very luck oriented but hilarious when pulled off.

 

[Punchshroom]

Resisting the opponent's attacks while doing damage is nice and all, but make sure you punish your opponent while doing so, especially considering Greninja doesn't have the defenses to take even resisted attacks forever. Hidden Power Poison really?

 

[Magicfire]

Like Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, and Grass Knot aren't doing enough to Togekiss, Azumarill, and Mawile. The best Hidden Power is probably Fire.

 

[VCrowe]

Like Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, and Grass Knot aren't doing enough to Togekiss, Azumarill, and Mawile. The best Hidden Power is probably Fire.

Ultimately the choice between HP Fire and HP Ghost will boil down to what you want/need to cover. HP Fire is all around the better option, however HP Ghost allows you to play mind games with fighting types and has a higher BP than Shadow Sneak.

 

[Punchshroom]

Ultimately the choice between HP Fire and HP Ghost will boil down to what you want/need to cover. HP Fire is all around the better option, however HP Ghost allows you to play mind games with fighting types and has a higher BP than Shadow Sneak.

You do realize Greninja has Extrasensory right? Why play mind games when you can threaten a KO right back? Lucario might be the exception, but HP Ghost won't help Greninja against that.

 

[VCrowe]

You do realize Greninja has Extrasensory right? Why play mind games when you can threaten a KO right back? Lucario might be the exception, but HP Ghost won't help Greninja against that.

Because HP Ghost on a predicted HJK from Mega Blaziken is a hilarious way to make your opponent KO themselves. It also allows him to spinblock, which alot of members were raving about in earlier posts. This means HP Ghost is a blessing for my hazard heavy team.... unless my opponent has Defog of course.

 

[Punchshroom]

Because HP Ghost on a predicted HJK from Mega Blaziken is a hilarious way to make your opponent KO themselves. It also allows him to spinblock, which alot of members were raving about in earlier posts. This means HP Ghost is a blessing for my hazard heavy team.... unless my opponent has Defog of course.

Because Mega Blaziken would totally allow itself to be outsped by Greninja without Protecting beforehand. If you have a chance to outspeed Mega Blaziken, why not just drown it?

Edit: I also noticed this bit about spinblocking. As discussed many times earlier, Greninja should have little trouble preventing a spin with its great coverage and a spinblocker teammate. Expanding on its coverage can also KO some Defoggers as well.

 

[Bravadorado]

Thing is, this post clearly links to a BW article, not an XY one. Why would anyone bring up Gen V into a Gen VI thing is beyond me, though. Furthermore, I don't recall seeing Blaziken in any of out preliminary banlists for XY.

VCrowe said "Unless it's changed since this" ergo your argument about it being a B/W article has already been accounted for and is invalid.

However, it is likely that normal Blaziken may drop down to OU. There are many reasons for this, namely powerful/bulky fairies and more priority threats (Phys. Greninja, Azumarill, Talonflame, etc). Also, Ubers has gotten a lot more dangerous for Blaziken with the new threats such as Xerneas and MegaMewtwo, not to mention that Defog is a scary thing for it because now it has to contend much more with Ho-Oh. It is my opinion that Blaziken may fall back to OU, while MegaBlaziken possibly winds up in Ubers. I could be wrong, but there is potential for it.

Anyway, lets end this discussion here as it has nothing to do with Greninja.

Also, lets stop posting sets for Greninjas that use Protean defensively, it's simply not a good option. If you need to resist an attack, you are better of switching out due to how weak Greninjas defenses are. Do not use him for spin blocking, use a spinblocker for spinblocking if you must, because they do it a hell of a lot better (Not to mention Blastoise is just going to murder you). Greninja's main viable sets are a special sweeper, a spikes lead, and a physical priority revenge killer (For dealing with Blaziken, Talonflame, Gengar, etc. however, Azumarill probably does this better than Greninja).

Anyway, I have a few questions regarding our frog pal:
How hard does U-turn hit Tyranitar in sand with Assault Vest? How hard does Grass Knot/Hydro Pump hit the same Tyranitar?
What are the major reasons for taking Grass Knot over U-Turn? Could it be a good option for destroying bulky Water or Water/Ground mons?
VCrowe, you said you put 100 Atk EVs in for certain threats, and yet most of them were only 2HKOs. How many of those EVs could you remove and put into SpA/Spe (4 in Spe, to outspeed Dugtrio/Alakazam) while still retaining 2HKOs on the majority of threats weak to U-Turn?
If you were to use Dark Pulse over U-Turn, how would HP Fire work on Celebi? And what additional threats could you take out?
How much does running a Focus Sash hurt his ability to OHKO and 2HKO? Is that loss worth it in order to kill revenge priority users such as Scizor, Infernape, Breloom, Lucario? How many of those targets could Greninja OHKO without LO?

Thanks in advance.

 

[SomeDrunkRockLee]

Why have 4 SpDef instead of 4 HP? And Ice isn't that bad of a type to get.

The problem is that that set is mostly based on abusing the resistances granted by protean, and well, ice has, um, the least resistances in the game. Plus all those nasty fire, fighting, rock and steel weaknesses.

As for four special defense, it's because for a while I was actually running banded, and I was often not taking any other damage than from switching into battle; it allows nine switch ins rather than eight since it mods for odd hp stat... which is just a good idea in general, in the off chance that you only take passive damage.

I agree, priority users are Greninja's worst nightmare, hence the reason why he should always switch out on them. I also think that Greninja operates best as a late game cleaner, especially since I run a very hazard heavy team. Ultimately, Greninja is similair to Gengar, that is, it's a glass cannon.

Although it should also be noted that greninja outspeeds breloom and can get off a priority shadow sneak and become a ghost type before mach punch. This would allow you to outspeed and ice beam on the next turn for the KO. Generally, though, it's far too risky in case they predict the shadow sneak and go for a spore/seed bomb, so you're generally better off just getting out.

 

[VCrowe]

My apologies people, I didn't mean to bring the discussion off track. Don't get me wrong, I also think Greninja should never be played defensively, I was just stating his options. As for what SomeDrunkRockLee said, I wouldn't attempt a Shadow Sneak on Breloom, because if they go for the Seed Bomb instead, then your done for. Also, HP Fire (in my opinion) should always be used on a Greninja set, however considering how difficult it is to breed for is why I stated the usefulness of HP Ghost.

But I think it's at a point where we're all in agreement that Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, U Turn, and HP Fire/Grass Knot provide the best coverage.

 

[farranpoison]

It depends, yeah Greninja can take hits about as well as a wet piece of tissue but Protean can save it if you predict well. In the Breloom example, I've faced ones where I knew they'd Spore, thinking I'd switch, and I use Grass Knot to become immune to Spore and then Ice Beam to KO. But yes, it's not a surefire thing. But it does keep the opponent on their toes.

 

[Magicfire]

Could someone run calculations for ExtremeSpeed from Dragonite? Thanks in advance.

Anyway, Grass Knot isn't doing too much damage without investment in Attack on a more Special Set. I would go for Dark Pulse for coverage on Steel Types and if you want to slaughter Starmie and other Pokemon weak to Dark. Ice Beam is needed for crucial coverage, and U-Turn isn't really needed all the time.

 

[S0L1D G0LD]

Could someone run calculations for ExtremeSpeed from Dragonite? Thanks in advance.

Anyway, Grass Knot isn't doing too much damage without investment in Attack on a more Special Set. I would go for Dark Pulse for coverage on Steel Types and if you want to slaughter Starmie and other Pokemon weak to Dark. Ice Beam is needed for crucial coverage, and U-Turn isn't really needed all the time.

252+ Atk Dragonite ExtremeSpeed vs. 0 HP / 0- Def (custom): 152-179 (53.33 - 62.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

252+ Atk Choice Band Dragonite ExtremeSpeed vs. 0 HP / 0- Def (custom): 226-267 (79.29 - 93.68%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

There ya go pal.

252 SpA (custom) Ice Beam vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 178-210 (54.93 - 64.81%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Needs stealth rock or a bit of prior damage to ko back, though. And life orb recoil would murder it.

 

[Bravadorado]

Anyway, Grass Knot isn't doing too much damage without investment in Attack on a more Special Set. I would go for Dark Pulse for coverage on Steel Types and if you want to slaughter Starmie and other Pokemon weak to Dark. Ice Beam is needed for crucial coverage, and U-Turn isn't really needed all the time.

Grass Knot is a special move and is based on weight... Steel is resistant to Dark and you have HP Fire or Hydro Pump for that... U-turn can murder Starmie and other Pokemon weak to dark.

 

[farranpoison]

Could someone run calculations for ExtremeSpeed from Dragonite? Thanks in advance.

Anyway, Grass Knot isn't doing too much damage without investment in Attack on a more Special Set. I would go for Dark Pulse for coverage on Steel Types and if you want to slaughter Starmie and other Pokemon weak to Dark. Ice Beam is needed for crucial coverage, and U-Turn isn't really needed all the time.

Grass Knot is a special attack? I'm not sure why you would need to invest in Attack.

 

[Bravadorado]

252 SpA (custom) Ice Beam vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 178-210 (54.93 - 64.81%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Did you forget to add STAB and LO onto that? On a 4HP Dnite w/ Multiscale Icebeam OHKO's and then some.

I'm getting: 252+ SpA Life Orb (custom) Ice Beam vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 377-447 (116.35 - 137.96%) -- guaranteed OHKO

 

[S0L1D G0LD]

Did you forget to add STAB and LO onto that? On a 4HP Dnite w/ Multiscale Icebeam OHKO's and then some.

I'm getting: 252+ SpA Life Orb (custom) Ice Beam vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Multiscale Dragonite: 377-447 (116.35 - 137.96%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Yes, I forgot stab, but wasn't gong to use life orb.

 

[DarkKami]

So I'm totally new to the forums, but I'm curious:

How viable would Naive be on Greninja?

 

[S0L1D G0LD]

So I'm totally new to the forums, but I'm curious:

How viable would Naive be on Greninja?

Less then Hasty, but more then arguably everything else.

 

[Darredevil98]

Is HP steel any good on greninja?

 

[DarkKami]

Less then Hasty, but more then arguably everything else.

Thanks for the response! I was thinking that with Naive, he would be vulnerable to Thunderbolt or other special attacks (which I think are more common than physical with those types), while Hasty would be arguably better for him.