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Is there any kind of safe switch in for this thing?
I just feel like the only way I can deal w/ it is to sack something off and then bring in a revenge killer.
Is there any kind of safe switch in for this thing?
I just feel like the only way I can deal w/ it is to sack something off and then bring in a revenge killer.
Is there any kind of safe switch in for this thing?
I just feel like the only way I can deal w/ it is to sack something off and then bring in a revenge killer.
Scouting for his movesets is often the best thing to do. If you know it lacks a certain move, you can often deal with it much easier. If you don't know his moveset, the only 100% sure answer is Porygon2, but as seen in some replays, under high offensive pressure it doesn't have many options to Recover so after a few switches-in it is often defeated. Depending on the set there are more answers than only Porygon2 like Alomomola, Empoleon, Tentacruel, Chansey, Cresselia or Jirachi.
This Pokemon alone has lowered by ladder rating astronomically. You can say "it's your fault for not packing a Greninja check", but then you have to realize that my offense team has no room for Porygon2 or RestTalk Gyarados. Its coverage is absolutely insane, and you can also say "oh, it always gets walled by something" but the point is you don't know WHAT. I'm honestly tired of Greninja at this point, just because I always have to play this little game where I record each and every one of Greninja's moves. Whereas some think of it like "Greninja's always walled by something", I think of it as "you don't know what that Greninja's going to kill today". Because if there's a Greninja on the field, it always kills something. Whether it screws over your Ferrothorn with an unrevealed HP Fire, screws over your Empoleon with Low Kick...all Greninja does is screw over teams.
Like the above posts have mentioned, there's no safe switch-ins. No, I'm not using Porygon2 to handle a SINGLE mon. No, I'm not spamming Protect just so I can figure out a SINGLE MOVESET. In my opinion, at least, OU simply is not fun / enjoyable with this Pokemon running around. I don't want to run a specific check for it. I don't want to scout. I want to play. Look at Aegislash's ban. I had an easier time taking that out than Greninja. And of course, that really depends on the team, but I'd argue that Aegis has more checks / counters than Greninja. You could burn Aegislash, use dark-types, heck, Greninja itself. All that you really needed for Aegislash is prediction. The thing is, with Aegis, if it's in blade form, you know it's going to go to its shield form, and vice versa. It used to be relatively simple. But with Greninja, if you predict wrong (which is VERY hard because it gets...let's see, Water, Ice, Grass, Fire, Poison, Fighting, Dark, and Psychic-type coverage), your Pokemon dies. There's literally no Pokemon that resists all of those types. Neither Porygon2 nor Gyarados resist all of them. How are we supposed to know what opposing Greninja are running, though? Out of those 8 STAB moves, how are we supposed to build healthy teams when there's a Pokemon with over EIGHT STABs?
Its Sp. Attack isn't great. It really shouldn't be as good as it is. But the Life Orb and Protean...they effectively give ninja a base 179 SpA stat. Greninja was manageable prior to ORAS. We had Azumarill. Clefable. Chansey. All checks. But not anymore. Gunk Shot murders the first two, and Low Kick slowly destroys Chansey. The only things that outspeed Greninja, bar scarfers, are Talonflame, Mega Manectric, Mega Sceptile, Mega Beedrill. That's it. These are the only things that outspeed Greninja, and almost ALL of them are megas. And let me just mention in advance that if I am coming off as rude by ranting about this Pokemon, my apologies. Below is a list of calcs using a spread Jukain posted on the WIP Greninja analysis (Naive, 40 Atk / 216 SpA / 252 Spe).
I'm going to run some calcs of Greninja against everything that it can outspeed, from S rank to B rank.
Landorus-T: Do you really need a calc for Greninja's Ice Beam? literally no chance of living
Latios: 216 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Latios: 291-346 (96.3 - 114.5%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
Mega Metagross: 216 SpA Life Orb Greninja Dark Pulse vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Assault Vest Metagross: 174-205 (57.8 - 68.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (meta has a 37% chance to ohko pure dark-type ninja w/meteor mash)
Thundurus: 216 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Thundurus: 382-452 (127.7 - 151.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO (thund can cripple with twave but ninja ohkos it back)
Mega Altaria: 40 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Altaria: 307-367 (86.7 - 103.6%) -- 25% chance to OHKO
Azumarill: 40 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 228 HP / 0 Def Azumarill: 406-478 (102 - 120.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Bisharp: 216 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Hidden Power Fire vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Bisharp: 283-335 (104 - 123.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
Mega Charizard X: 40 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 153-181 (51.5 - 60.9%) -- guaranteed 2HKO (zard x does a decent job at breaking greninja after it moves. but only decent)
Clefable: 40 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 296-351 (75.1 - 89%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
Eh, I'm tired of calcing now. But it kills Mega Gallade with Gunk Shot (12.5% chance w/no sr), Mega Gardevoir with Gunk Shot (100% chance w/o sr), Gengar with Dark Pulse (100%, no sr), 2hkos mega gyara with gunk shot but OHKOs it with the rare Grass Knot, obv kills Heatran w/hydro pump but also with low kick, obliterates keld w/extrasensory, obliterates regular lando w/ice beam, same with latias, lop can kill it thx to higher speed, ninja kills pinsir with hp fire or ice beam, kills mega scizor with hp fire, slowbro with grass knot / dark pulse (6.3% chance), and kills talonflame with hydro pump if for some dumb reason it doesn't brave bird
Now take a look at those calcs. You'll notice something. Only Heatran and Talonflame require Greninja to have Hydro Pump to be able to check them (not even for Heatran, if it runs low kick gg...and tflame can priority brave bird it). The rest of the S and A rank are dismantled by Gunk Shot, Ice Beam, Dark Pulse, and HP Fire. Greninja doesn't even need a water-type move to be able to sweep teams. As a matter of fact, it probably shouldn't carry a water move if any of its teammates have water support - as it can then free up space on its moveset for something like HP Fire or Grass Knot.
wat. don't count his item, you could do that for every poke. the only major difference is stab on all his coverage ( and a real nice speed tier).
Greninja was manageable prior to ORAS. We had Azumarill. Clefable. Chansey. All checks. But not anymore. Gunk Shot murders the first two, and Low Kick slowly destroys Chansey. The only things that outspeed Greninja, bar scarfers, are Talonflame, Mega Manectric, Mega Sceptile, Mega Beedrill. That's it. These are the only things that outspeed Greninja, and almost ALL of them are megas. And let me just mention in advance that if I am coming off as rude by ranting about this Pokemon, my apologies. Below is a list of calcs using a spread Jukain posted on the WIP Greninja analysis (Naive, 40 Atk / 216 SpA / 252 Spe).
those aren't the only mons faster. aero, weavile, noivern, mega lopunny, and priority users (like adamant t-flame). then there are scarfers, which you barred (essentially every team has one)
Now take a look at those calcs. You'll notice something. Only Heatran and Talonflame require Greninja to have Hydro Pump to be able to check them (not even for Heatran, if it runs low kick gg...and tflame can priority brave bird it). The rest of the S and A rank are dismantled by Gunk Shot, Ice Beam, Dark Pulse, and HP Fire. Greninja doesn't even need a water-type move to be able to sweep teams. As a matter of fact, it probably shouldn't carry a water move if any of its teammates have water support - as it can then free up space on its moveset for something like HP Fire or Grass Knot.
ehhhh i personally am not seeing how him not needing water stab is worth a point against him. that's like his whole thing. he gets stab on everything, therefore he does not need his natural stabs, necessarily.
wat. don't count his item, you could do that for every poke. the only major difference is stab on all his coverage ( and a real nice speed tier).
those aren't the only mons faster. aero, weavile, noivern, and priority users (like adamant t-flame). then there are scarfers, which you barred (essentially every team has one)
ehhhh i personally am not seeing how him not needing water stab is worth a point against him. that's like his whole thing. he gets stab on everything, therefore he does not need his natural stabs, necessarily.
You do have a point, don't get me wrong, but despite Greninja's obvious flaws (bad bulk, rekt by priority, etc), as the S-rank description says on the ORAS OU Viability ranking thread, Greninja performs one role extremely well - how to put this...cleaning up? Greninja's use has low risk involved and high reward exerted. If you pick the right STABs, most namely Gunk Shot (which is now 100% necessary for Greninja to smash through would-be checks), Greninja can plow right through anything that doesn't outspeed it...bar Porygon2 and RestTalk Gyarados. And a few other things. Greninja has very frew flaws (bad bulk, rekt by priority, not too much else) that are patched up by numerous positive traits. Not just that, but Greninja rapidly changes type, which can be both good and bad for it. For one, it can strategically use Hidden Power Fire on a predicted grass-type move so that it now resists it. Likewise, if Greninja predicts wrong, it'll get its face smashed in by whatever hits it.
I´ve been using Greninja as a sweeper for a while now as well as a spike one and this move-set is what I think is the best move-set for it;
Greninja@Expert belt
Protean/Naive
EV´s: 252Spd/252SAtk/4HP
Spikes
Scald/Hydro pump
HP Steel/Gunk shot
U-turn
This is by far one of my mostly effective leads. I can set up spikes if nothing dangerous is around, hit it hard with scald/hydro pump or with HP/Gunk shot or just switch with U-turn. Spikes work surprisingly well on Greninja and is pretty simple to set up on a switch. Depending on how you play, the obvious water type moves are scald and hydro pump. I personally run scald because of the useful burn that cripples so many Pokemon. Next up is HP or gunk shot. I used to run HP but it seems like gunk shot is more effective, as long as it does not miss... The reason I have naive on this thing is because having timid would make U-turn worse. You can use hasty as well.
I enjoy using Expert Belt Greninja because it can't be Life Orb stalled, but I don't think the Spikes set is the best set when combined with Expert Belt. The set I often use with Expert Belt is:
There are like 15 OU pokemon that doesn't give the Expert Belt boost, which is pretty much, but they either already kill Greninja depending on the set (Tentacruel, Gyarados, Talonflame) or lose anyways (Skarmory, Gardevoir)
I can see that this is not the most optimal set, especially not against offense, but against stall you get the Expert Belt boost on everything except Tentacruel, Sableye and Skarmory and stall teams can't Life Orb stall you with recovery or regenerator spam.
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For the Spikes set, which I only use on 1 of my teams, I use this set
The 3 coverage moves really depends on your teammates. If your team likes Grass Knot + Hydro Pump + Gunk Shot better, go for that. This set can hit many other leads like Heatran, Landorus-T and Mamoswine pretty hard and either force them out and prevent their hazards, or kill them.
Greninja is oppressively good- (perhaps not as much as MegaMence,) but what do you expect to be done? Seriously, it's obvious that Gren and Landorus-T are too good for the tier, but what happens when they're gone? Mega Gallade meta? Is that any more fun? Or what if Protean is gone? Would Torrent Gren still be viable for it's speed and flexible movepool?
We won't ban Protean Greninja just because it makes Greninja good. Otherwise Blaze Blaziken would be allowed because without Speed Boost it's not OP.
I think Greninja and Mega Sableye are the 2 biggest threats at the moment. The metagame is very prepared for it (scarfers everywhere for greninja, empoleon is a thing, tentacruel may become OU by usage and skill swap on azelfs and cresselia for the mega sableye) and still these 2 wreck everything.
Landorus-Therian may be a centralizing force, but is not overpowered. It has a niche in intimidate that helps him against Talonflame, Sand Rush Excadrill and Mega Lopunny, but it is no way a broken pokemon (I don't even agree with it being S rank) It is just easy to just put on your team and it will do work every game, just like Azumarill in late XY
I feel at this point I should address the "we should just just ban Protean" thing because it's a point that's been brought up in *every* *single* *discussion* involving *every**single**suspect* Pokemon ever. Most of the forum regulars (and regular lurkers, like myself :D) have heard the counter-argument a hundred times, but exactly because of that most people don't actually bother saying it aloud anymore. (it should probably be codified so next time someone asks we can just link them.) So this is for those who haven't heard it yet:
Protean Greninja, like Speed Boost Blaziken, Kings Shield Aegislash and all the Pokemon who got one or two really really good moves/abilities that kind of made them broken, have always brought up the "instead of banning X, ban aspect X has" debate. The reasons for this are obvious; it lets people still play with the Pokemon, since Blaze Blaziken is obviously not a threat.
But the point is: people in competitive battling will use the strongest available set for a Pokemon. That's how we function. You use the best moves and abilities available. Where that argument ends up is with ideas like "Kyogre without Surf, Scald, Hydro Pump and any water move over base whatever isn't broken and should be used in OU", and reasonably so. (Okay that's about as untrue as it gets, but whatever.) The point is, ANY Uber, suitably restricted, can be OU viable.
Want an example? Kyurem Black. It really didn't get the movepool it rightly deserves and because of that it is actually balanced in OU. But the *second* it gets that strong physical Ice move, the policy here will be to ban it based on the sets it uses best, which WILL be broken, and not to pretend nothing happened, even if we lose our precious kyubey. Otherwise you have a massively dissonant meta where half of everything is playing with one hand tied behind its back, and balancing will be an absolutely horrible task (e.g. Is Mewtwo still OU-worthy even if we give it Psywave? How about Confusion? But what about Deoxys, how can it compete with the new and improved Mewtwo? etc, etc). And you can't really argue against it with that policy change.
tl;dr we judge a Pokemon at its max potential, not its minimum. In Greninja's case, this means banning Protean is not an option (and anyway, Protean isn't broken on Kecleon.)
We're not banning protean, we don't make complex bans for certain pokemon, we just ban abilities. For example, we DID ban moody to nerf smeargle, octillery, glalie, bibarel, and, Lol, bidoof.. as the ability itself was broken. In blaziken's case, speed boost isn't necessarily broken on ninjask, yanma, or the like.. even it's pre-evolutions are not bad at all with it, so the simple answer was just rid blaziken since only he abuses it. Arguably, when baton pass was a problem scolipede was also a candidate people were asking to ban.. but we never came to that point.
In greninja's case, well.. if we look in the corner of the deep box of unviable pokemon way way down at the bottom.. we see a face known as kecleon who in x/y got protean as his hidden ability.. is kecleon broken because of protean? No, it's just greninja.. so to save kecleon from sucking even more just to nerf something that is still really overwhelming without protean (still fast and versatile as fuck) the solution is just bye bye smogon frog.
I hope Greninja gets suspected at some point. Even without Protean it would still be decent, I guess, but nowhere near as centralizing as before. Without STABs, it can no longer secure a OHKO on Ferrothorn with HP Fire, it can't OHKO any form of Azumarill with Gunk Shot from full health anymore...the STABs just make it really good. And I know this isn't the Landorus-T thread, but it's not super-amazingly good like Greninja is. Lando can do Scarf + Defensive, so it can fulfill a bunch of roles, but I wouldn't say it's the best mon in OU.
I´ve been using Greninja as a sweeper for a while now as well as a spike one and this move-set is what I think is the best move-set for it;
Greninja@Expert belt
Protean/Naive
EV´s: 252Spd/252SAtk/4HP
Spikes
Scald/Hydro pump
HP Steel/Gunk shot
U-turn
This is by far one of my mostly effective leads. I can set up spikes if nothing dangerous is around, hit it hard with scald/hydro pump or with HP/Gunk shot or just switch with U-turn. Spikes work surprisingly well on Greninja and is pretty simple to set up on a switch. Depending on how you play, the obvious water type moves are scald and hydro pump. I personally run scald because of the useful burn that cripples so many Pokemon. Next up is HP or gunk shot. I used to run HP but it seems like gunk shot is more effective, as long as it does not miss... The reason I have naive on this thing is because having timid would make U-turn worse. You can use hasty as well.
We won't ban Protean Greninja just because it makes Greninja good. Otherwise Blaze Blaziken would be allowed because without Speed Boost it's not OP.
I think Greninja and Mega Sableye are the 2 biggest threats at the moment. The metagame is very prepared for it (scarfers everywhere for greninja, empoleon is a thing, tentacruel may become OU by usage and skill swap on azelfs and cresselia for the mega sableye) and still these 2 wreck everything.
Landorus-Therian may be a centralizing force, but is not overpowered. It has a niche in intimidate that helps him against Talonflame, Sand Rush Excadrill and Mega Lopunny, but it is no way a broken pokemon (I don't even agree with it being S rank) It is just easy to just put on your team and it will do work every game, just like Azumarill in late XY
I think you missed my point. Which is that the banhammer wouldn't solve the meta problem- whether or not we consider the Therian Lando minutia etc. Gren is overpowered, but something always is because removing one overpowered thing opens up the void for the next best thing to skew the balance in a different way.
I think you missed my point. Which is that the banhammer wouldn't solve the meta problem- whether or not we consider the Therian Lando minutia etc. Gren is overpowered, but something always is because removing one overpowered thing opens up the void for the next best thing to skew the balance in a different way.
That only applies assuming every pokemon is stronger than the one before it by a significant degree, which (fortunately!) isn't the case - we're looking for that point where the overall usability of the Pokemon in the tier plateau and there aren't any significant outliers. With Greninja, if we were to suspect and then send it packing, the next thing to be considered worth suspecting would have to be something that Greninja somehow kept in check, or that Pokemon commonly used to check Greninja (and were therefore more common than they might otherwise be) did instead, since there's nothing else that stands out at the moment. Which... isn't really the case? Greninja puts pressure on team building, definitely, but there's few Pokemon that have *specifically* lost a lot of viability because of it being around (compare: Aegislash and Starmie) and fewer still are remotely close to being suspected.
Lando-T is just really, really, really good glue. Most of the non-mega OU top-tier mons are at this point just really really good glue :| Although you could argue that even if it's not broken, it's overcentralising perhaps - good luck arguing that without referencing the usage stats. That's a separate discussion and doesn't belong here tho :O
Can we not bring up Slippery Slope fallacies, please? It's called a fallacy for a reason, especially since this specific recurring argument tends to conveniently ignore proving that the subject in question isn't actually broken.
So greninja is to offense as kyuB is to stall. It's one of the best comparisons I can make - both are pokemon that are particularly effective against certain playstyle and it's usually very costly, probably saccing something, to learn it's moveset or get a check in when you have that matchup. Meanwhile the ninja can't quite break stall teams and kyub just unfortunately gets outsped and killed by rocks against fast offense teams. This gives me the horrible idea to just use both on the same team lol. Sticky web is also getting horribly underrated on this page. Yes of course it has ups and downs, but it's far from just a gimmick and has way more uses than its given credit for.
Based off my own experiences playing Hyper Offense, HO actually doesn't really care much about ninja as much as regular offense does. This is because most HO has either plenty of sashed or prio users, and sacking pokemon is the only game plan. Ninja is a nightmare for balance though.
Can we not bring up Slippery Slope fallacies, please? It's called a fallacy for a reason, especially since this specific recurring argument tends to conveniently ignore proving that the subject in question isn't actually broken.
I may be misinterpreting your statement, but I believe Greninja to...not be broken, per se, but a small bit below that. Thin defenses hold it back considerably. You could say the same for its Protean ability, meaning that it can always be walled by something, but the thing is, the opposing team won't know what. I don't think any actually decent player would care if Greninja left, except if their team had it and required it for some reason. Greninja isn't the best Pokemon ever, but it's arguably the best mon in OU right now next to Landorus-T. It just does its job so darn well, that it's unpleasant to play against.
Excuse me for complaining, but I think I'll hold off on OU battling until Greninja's gone. Scouting's not really my thing, so...yeah.
Based off my own experiences playing Hyper Offense, HO actually doesn't really care much about ninja as much as regular offense does. This is because most HO has either plenty of sashed or prio users, and sacking pokemon is the only game plan. Ninja is a nightmare for balance though.
Um, what? HO runs like 1 sash mon, and it's the suicide SR lead. You are also forced to sack every time Greninja comes in plus Scarfers/Priority are extremely obvious, so it can just switch out and come wreck destruction later.
I may be misinterpreting your statement, but I believe Greninja to...not be broken, per se, but a small bit below that. Thin defenses hold it back considerably. You could say the same for its Protean ability, meaning that it can always be walled by something, but the thing is, the opposing team won't know what. I don't think any actually decent player would care if Greninja left, except if their team had it and required it for some reason. Greninja isn't the best Pokemon ever, but it's arguably the best mon in OU right now next to Landorus-T. It just does its job so darn well, that it's unpleasant to play against.
Excuse me for complaining, but I think I'll hold off on OU battling until Greninja's gone. Scouting's not really my thing, so...yeah.
Regardless of Greninja's broken-ness, the specific slippery slope argument of "if you ban it something else will take its place" is a recurring one that needs to stop being used because it's quite frankly stupid.
Um, what? HO runs like 1 sash mon, and it's the suicide SR lead. You are also forced to sack every time Greninja comes in plus Scarfers/Priority are extremely obvious, so it can just switch out and come wreck destruction later.
Obviously depends on the team but sashed pokemon are common on HO. I'm also not defending gren, just pointing out that balance has more issues with this monster.
Um, what? HO runs like 1 sash mon, and it's the suicide SR lead. You are also forced to sack every time Greninja comes in plus Scarfers/Priority are extremely obvious, so it can just switch out and come wreck destruction later.
And that's what gets me. To take out Greninja, one of your Pokemon generally must pay the ultimate price. Unless you're running Mega Sceptile or something like that, which has to be one of the best checks (can't switch in to save its life, but if given a free switch ninja dies)...unless ninja is running an oddball Choice Scarf set, which unfortunately is a lot more common on the ladder than I'd like to admit.
Obviously depends on the team but sashed pokemon are common on HO. I'm also not defending gren, just pointing out that balance has more issues with this monster.
Sashes are ruined by residual damage or SR; I don't know what kind of shitty HO teams you run that have more than one that can work consistently while finding time to Defog and somehow not lose important momentum. Sash leads have been nerfed anyway because of Mega Diancie, Mega Sableye, and Mega Lopunny.
Sashes are ruined by residual damage or SR; I don't know what kind of shitty HO teams you run that have more than one that can work consistently while finding time to Defog and somehow not lose important momentum. Sash leads have been nerfed anyway because of Mega Diancie and Mega Sableye.
I actually don't run more than one sash, but I know there are teams that do. Anyways, do you have a counter-argument related to greninja, or are we just discussing HO teams now?
Can we not bring up Slippery Slope fallacies, please? It's called a fallacy for a reason, especially since this specific recurring argument tends to conveniently ignore proving that the subject in question isn't actually broken.
The slippery slope argument isn't fallacious if the result is obvious to all parties involved (something else that's staple in the meta becomes the next overpowered centerpiece of this discussion.) See also, gen4 Salamence after Garchomp got the axe. Slippery slope is a fallacy, when it's used for baseless caution- my point is more that the aftermath of banning Gren won't have the desired effect, the same way that most bannings don't have the effects that most people who complain are looking for.
(EDIT): The major argument people use for banning Gren is that it makes the meta too offensively skewed, but even with it banned, common allstars like Talonflame, Azumarill and Bisharp are going to force the offensive meta in a direct sense, and mons like Ferrothorn, in an indirect way. What do we blame then?
