Blaziken

[EvilMario]

Burunkeru is easily one of the best foreseeable counters to the new Mixed Blaziken set proposed. With Careful nature, and 0 HP / 252 SpDef investment, she takes 39.9% - 46.9% from a Super Effective Hidden Power. 0 Def investment means Stone Edge cuts a nasty 45.2% - 53.4%, while full 252 Def investment with no HPs, pulls it down to 33.4% - 39.6%.

But even with minimum HP investment, Burunkeru can Recover off damage, and watch Life Orb sap Blaziken's life. This is an obvious situation where Swords Dance would come in very handy, because Flare Blitz and Stone Edge both become OHKOs. Swords Dance may not be as popular as the mixed sweeper, but Swords Dance cleans up late game like little else, with Flare Blitz / Hi Jump Kick / Thunderpunch.

It really depends, Scarfers switching into a mixed Blaziken are going to have a hole punched in them, where they can stop Blaziken from Swords Dancing. Likewise, walls that might stop Mixed Blaziken (like the before mentioned Burunkeru), will have a world of trouble against Swords Dances power.

Of course, nothing is stopping Swords Dance Blaziken from punching holes in its switches in immediately either. The smart move early on is to use one of his STAB moves to start hitting his counters hard, and giving you an idea about what to expect.

 

[Santa_Clauz]

I really depends, Scarfers switching into a mixed Blaziken are going to have a hole punched in them, where they can stop Blaziken from Swords Dancing. Likewise, walls that might stop Mixed Blaziken (like the before mentioned Burunkeru), will have a world of trouble against Swords Dances power.

One last thing actually, this is exactly what might make blaziken a top tier threat, unpredictability, will you get smacked with special or physical attacks, is it mixed, is it capable of boosting? It's like a mence that gets faster every turn, there will be no one completely solid counter.

 

[GLS]

One last thing actually, this is exactly what might make blaziken a top tier threat, unpredictability, will you get smacked with special or physical attacks, is it mixed, is it capable of boosting? It's like a mence that gets faster every turn, there will be no one completely solid counter.

Extremespeed users, especially Dragonite will be able to counter 99% of the time regardless of set really, but not a whole lot else will. Blaziken will be very scary.

 

[Lee]

The mixed set will never die to priority because he can just switch out. Granted, the SD set can do the same but you'll have to sacrifice your hard-earned boosts and rest assured that a good opponent won't let Blaziken set up on them twice.

You guys are making it sound like the pure physical set has to Swords Dance turn 1... nope. Does Lucario usually Swords Dance the first time it comes out? Hell no. You always want to scout your opponent's check or counter and get in a nice hit, then once you know it's been weakened you can hit them hard. All these Scarfers you're mentioning won't like Stone Edge or Hi Jump Kick on the switch. If you brought in something like Celebi to resist Hi Jump Kick, then Blaziken will have +1 Speed, and you obviously can no longer revenge kill it since it will have +2 Speed at the end of that turn. I'm not saying a physical set is better, but who says you have to set up? You're still doing 46.4% - 55% to 252 HP / 168 Def Impish Hippowdon with unboosted Hi Jump Kick, one of the most physically defensive Pokemon in the game.

(thank you for giving a good reply)

This would be the ideal way to use SDBlaziken, yes. But it is asking for a lot of smart play and prediction. You need to get Blaziken in (hard enough in itself), then pick the right move to hit the switch which is dependant on you having scouted the opponents team and 'guessing right.' Lets assume you get everything right, you come back in later and manage to get off a SD and sweep. Sounds like you deserve to win if you managed all that. And your opponent didn't play particularly well either for losing their check and then allowing Blaziken to boost without doing anything in the meanwhile. It also looks as though a huge horde of other Pokemon could have swept in those circumstances whilst generally being more helpful to the team at the same time (Garchomp, Salamence etc). The mix set doesn't really need all this excellent play and prediction. Like I showed in the OP, most of the time you can just lead with a STAB move and get fantastic results.

Another huge concern with the SD set is you're using Flare Blitz as your answer to a lot of threats. If you OHKO a Gliscor with a Life Orb Flare Blitz you've just lost 148 HP. Add in 12.5% for Stealth Rock and you're sitting on about 40% of your health. If Sandstorm is in play that's gonna be 28%. Right now any priority attack on the game is going to end your sweep. If you use Blaze Kick you miss some important KO's and then you have the same accuracy issues that GLS raised with the mixed set.

Don't get me wrong, I see merit in the set but I see a lot more merit in the mixed set and was starting to feel like I was the only one with everybody hyping the SD set like it was the second coming of Garchomp. Perhaps they'll compliment each other perfectly in the way that DDMence and MixMence did and serve the purpose of making the other set more dangerous through the element of unpredictability.

 

[EvilMario]

Extremespeed users, especially Dragonite will be able to counter 99% of the time regardless of set really, but not a whole lot else will. Blaziken will be very scary.

Dragonite is only a 'Counter' to the sets that setup.

Against the mixed sweeper, 252 HP / 0 Def, Neutral nature Dragonite eats Stone Edge for 68.4% - 80.8%. So very few Dragonite run that much HP. But maybe this new metagame will change that.

More interesting.. Dragonite's 252 Adamant (non-boosted) Extreme Speed does 43.5% - 51.5%. And 56.5% - 66.8% with Life Orb. And 65.4% - 77.1% with Choice Band. This is all against a 0 HP / 0 Def, Rash Blaziken.

Dragonite playing a very dangerous game switching into Blaziken. Any of Blaziken's STAB moves, followed by a Stone Edge ends Dragonite, leaving Blaziken with a few more turns to rampage. But if Dragonite does go max/max Bold, with Roost, he can hope to stall out Blaziken with his own Life Orb.

 

[GLS]

Dragonite is only a 'Counter' to the sets that setup.

Against the mixed sweeper, 252 HP / 0 Def, Neutral nature Dragonite eats Stone Edge for 68.4% - 80.8%. So very few Dragonite run that much HP. But maybe this new metagame will change that.

More interesting.. Dragonite's 252 Adamant (non-boosted) Extreme Speed does 43.5% - 51.5%. And 56.5% - 66.8% with Life Orb. And 65.4% - 77.1% with Choice Band. This is all against a 0 HP / 0 Def, Rash Blaziken.

Dragonite playing a very dangerous game switching into Blaziken. Any of Blaziken's STAB moves, followed by a Stone Edge ends Dragonite, leaving Blaziken with a few more turns to rampage. But if Dragonite does go max/max Bold, with Roost, he can hope to stall out Blaziken with his own Life Orb.

Assuming you can't breed DW abilities and Miracle Scale (I believe it's called, correct me if I'm wrong) and ES are incompatible, you'd need to have some excellent scouting and/or prediction to know to use Stone Edge for a potential Dragonite switch in.

Also Dragonite could just straight up revenge kill instead of coming into an attack since it won't care if you get an extra speed boost.

 

[doomvendingmachine]

In regards to a couple people out there, thunderpunch looks to be incompatible with speed boost, as it is not in blazikens gen 5 moveset.

 

[Elfam]

hmm... no one showing any love for a claw sharpen set? even on a mixed set it would help all the moves you keep talking talking about... most of which have bad accuracy that you need to hit or your opponent will kill the relatively frail blaziken... i could be wrong but an accuracy boost gives a third more accuracy so anything with 75 or above accuracy gains perfect accuracy(and no accidental hjk misses) which give blaziken the greatest possible longevity, but he loses a little power to the sd set and doesnt have the guaranteed speed a protect set would have but could save u from depending on stone edge which misses painfully often(yes 1/5 is really painful).

 

[TheMrBassdude]

Personally, I'm still leaning towards Claw Sharpen. Run that, HJK, Blaze Kick (or Flare Blitz) and Stone Edge, and you get good coverage, the ability to get Super Effective (or neutral HJK) hits on almost all of its counters, and you don't have to worry about missing on Edge or killing yourself with HJK. Honestly, it seems to me the best way to go. I don't wanna do the calcs, but i can't see a +1 LO HJK being something many things are gonna wanna take, even if it doesn't OHKO

 

[GLS]

I really like the Claw Sharpen set myself. When it comes down to it I'll try both the SD and the CS sets and see which I like more since both are likely to be very viable and up to personal preference.

I'll actually be putting Blaziken on my sun team since he's one of those rare pokes that can both take advantage of the sun by getting boosted stab fire attacks as well as not being 100% reliant on the weather being up for him to function.

 

[EvilMario]

Assuming you can't breed DW abilities and Miracle Scale (I believe it's called, correct me if I'm wrong) and ES are incompatible, you'd need to have some excellent scouting and/or prediction to know to use Stone Edge for a potential Dragonite switch in.

Also Dragonite could just straight up revenge kill instead of coming into an attack since it won't care if you get an extra speed boost.

No, the magic of Blaziken is you hit the switch in hard with either of your STAB moves, and finish them off with the appropriate move the turn after. Dragonite can't OHKO Blaziken with Extreme Speed, not even close (see numbers above).

If Dragonte is going to be used as a revenge killer, that's fine, but you have many options in that case (Scarf users, other priority, Pokemon that can take a hit like Slowbro). And Blaziken is thus unlikely to stay in.

Multi-Scale, until we know the exact damage calculations for it, is a shaky answer at best. If it does incredibly cut down damage, say, making Hi Jump Kick / Fire Blast / Flare Blitz do well under 20%, then Dragonite will surely make a decent check.

Until then, STAB move followed by Stone Edge (yes, while eating an Extreme Speed) does Nite in.

 

[Elfam]

see i like the sun team thing... i want a mix set with cs fire blast solarbeam and hjk. and it would be sweet but everyone and their mom is going to use shanderaa if they have heard of it, but im not sure how well you can some of the before mentioned pokemon(esp hippowdon) so i feel like the standard will be stone edge

blaziken is regardlessly going to be sweet but you need the +2 speed to take care of the scarfers so the most dangerous turn is after the switch in. i feel like blaze needs to hit the switch, id go with hjk to try to get them to protect next turn or switch to a ghost hoping for an convient quantity of recoil while i cs, but the important part is to try and buy blaziken the 2 turns he needs to own.

 

[Spenstar]

A Claw Sharpen set and HJK and Blaze Kick/Flare Blitz go hand-in-hand. Rock Slide is awesome for that flinch chance, synergy with Speed Boost. For the item, I may be wrong about Aiming Mark, but if it's non-consumable, use it. The loss in power from not having LO is worth it people! Now ghosts won't automatically kill you, like that one guy with Shadow Tag.

On a side note, this feels like something out of the "Best Abilities on the Worst Pokemon" article on the Smog, where it says "who should get it". I know you didn't mention Blaziken there, but it is still awesome! Blaziken is my personal favorite Pokemon ever, and this is just a blessing!

But somehow I doubt he'll make it to OU. Maybe if we did a "4th Gen only environment" as one guy proposed. Compared to the huge attack stats we're getting this gen, 120/110 offensive stats aren't really going to cut it...

 

[GLS]

People need to stop comparing attack stats to attack stats and start comparing attack stats to defense stats. Cause those are the ones that matter. If Blaziken and Ononokuso both score OHKOs on things, does it really matter that one of their attack stats is 27 points higher?

 

[Lee]

Claw Sharpen sucks. It has all the drawbacks of Swords Dance but none of that omgwtfbbq power.

+1 LO HJK vs 252/252+ Suicune = 63% - 74%
+2 LO HJK vs 252/252+ Suicune = 84% - 99% (80% chance to OHKO after SR)

Just gonna save myself the time of running a few dozen more calculations and just say that +1 HJK misses out on OHKO's against Swampert, Vaporeon, Manaphy, Milotic, Hippowdon, Donphan etc whereas +2 OHKO's them all. You're trading that for what, an accuracy boost on a move that's already 90% accurate? Sure, Stone Edge could benefit from the boost but is it really worth dropping from 678 Atk all the way down to 508?

 

[TheMrBassdude]

Claw Sharpen sucks. It has all the drawbacks of Swords Dance but none of that omgwtfbbq power.

+1 LO HJK vs 252/252+ Suicune = 63% - 74%
+2 LO HJK vs 252/252+ Suicune = 84% - 99% (80% chance to OHKO after SR)

Just gonna save myself the time of running a few dozen more calculations and just say that +1 HJK misses out on OHKO's against Swampert, Vaporeon, Manaphy, Milotic, Hippowdon, Donphan etc whereas +2 OHKO's them all. You're trading that for what, an accuracy boost on a move that's already 90% accurate? Sure, Stone Edge could benefit from the boost but is it really worth dropping from 678 Atk all the way down to 508?

We're also assuming that Blaziken is coming in with its counter(s) still intact. What if you save 'Ken for late, after you've taken out it's counters? And, again, there's still switching out. I like the Sharpen set, personally. It might not score the OHKO, but neither will you have the chance of killing yourself on a missed HJK, and I think if you can keep 'Ken out long enough then you'll prefer the extra accuracy

 

[Elfam]

ahh the numbers make a compelling arguement but i feel like yes stone edge needs it... plus assuming blaziken is simply a late game sweeper where you have at least dented the bulk waters(adding in stealth rocks twice puts them at 75%) so what im understanding is you need to draw out water types ahead of time to damage them with just about any attack... 70% average attacks on a bulky water should be enough to finish off an entire team. blaziken shouldnt be used willynilly. you have to know what its counters are that the opponent has and weaken them a smidge

 

[Lee]

Nope, not buying it.

What if you save 'Ken for late, after you've taken out it's counters?

Why should I go through all that trouble of eliminating Bulky Waters so I can sweep with Claw Sharpen Blaziken when I can just use Swords Dance Blaziken and obliterate those Bulky Waters regardless of their remaining health? Seems like you're just making life difficult for yourself.

It might not score the OHKO, but neither will you have the chance of killing yourself on a missed HJK,

Wide Lens Swords Dance Blaziken has a higher damage output than Life Orb Claw Sharpen Blaziken while also boasting a 99% accurate Hi Jump Kick and an 88% accurate Stone Edge. He also, crucially, doesn't lose 10% of his health every turn.

 

[TheMrBassdude]

Nope, not buying it.



Why should I go through all that trouble of eliminating Bulky Waters so I can sweep with Claw Sharpen Blaziken when I can just use Swords Dance Blaziken and obliterate those Bulky Waters regardless of their remaining health? Seems like you're just making life difficult for yourself.



Wide Lens Swords Dance Blaziken has a higher damage output than Life Orb Claw Sharpen Blaziken while also boasting a 99% accurate Hi Jump Kick and an 88% accurate Stone Edge. He also, crucially, doesn't lose 10% of his health every turn.

Huh. figuring that +1 and Life Orb would be more powerful was the whole reason I ruled out Wide Lens initially. If the +2 is still stronger, I'll def. be running that lol

 

[Elfam]

Nope, not buying it.



Why should I go through all that trouble of eliminating Bulky Waters so I can sweep with Claw Sharpen Blaziken when I can just use Swords Dance Blaziken and obliterate those Bulky Waters regardless of their remaining health? Seems like you're just making life difficult for yourself.



Wide Lens Swords Dance Blaziken has a higher damage output than Life Orb Claw Sharpen Blaziken while also boasting a 99% accurate Hi Jump Kick and an 88% accurate Stone Edge. He also, crucially, doesn't lose 10% of his health every turn.

totally missed seeing that... hell of a lot better than a straight up cs set it is true but only if you choose to have only a physical attacker. life orb still helpful for running a mixed set but from the look of the numbers it seems fairly unnecessary... hmm lee ur making a beleiver out of me blaziken seems to want sd to unleash massive destruction

 

[Santa_Clauz]

We're also assuming that Blaziken is coming in with its counter(s) still intact. What if you save 'Ken for late, after you've taken out it's counters? And, again, there's still switching out. I like the Sharpen set, personally. It might not score the OHKO, but neither will you have the chance of killing yourself on a missed HJK, and I think if you can keep 'Ken out long enough then you'll prefer the extra accuracy

Two things. First, ANY pokemon with reasonable offensive stats and a boosting move can sweep after you remove its counters, the truely great sweeepers require little to no setup outside of getting a turn to use the boosting move, and maybe damaging one opposing mon. Secondly, You may not kill yourself with HJK, but you just killed yourself by not getting the OHKO. A sweeper either works by OHKOing everything that shows its head, or by doing moderate amounts of damage while refusing to die. Blaziken has pretty much paper defenses, he is not taking any hits from a bulky water or ground.

A Claw Sharpen set and HJK and Blaze Kick/Flare Blitz go hand-in-hand. Rock Slide is awesome for that flinch chance, synergy with Speed Boost. For the item, I may be wrong about Aiming Mark, but if it's non-consumable, use it. The loss in power from not having LO is worth it people! Now ghosts won't automatically kill you, like that one guy with Shadow Tag.

People need to learn to read, Aiming Mark has been mentioned in 1001 other threads and everytime, someone sensible has said, 'that's not how it works'. Aiming mark allows the pokemon holding it TO BE HIT by all attacks it's normally immune too, not really a great thing.

People need to stop comparing attack stats to attack stats and start comparing attack stats to defense stats. Cause those are the ones that matter. If Blaziken and Ononokuso both score OHKOs on things, does it really matter that one of their attack stats is 27 points higher?

Yes, yes, exactly, people need to learn that attack scores are subjective and dependent on the stats around it. For example, Infernape's offensive stats are not great, 104 Att/SpA is nice but nothing to write home about compared to Blaziken's 120/110 (his overheat is as powerful as a Mence meteor) and now better speed. This doesn't stop Infernape being a top tier threat. The first thing I find myself saying about most Gen V pokemon is, "holyshitwtfbbq 147 Att... 97 Spe, bit slow... absolutely paper defences. Dies to Scizor's BP. Next, repeat." From what I have seen, there is no mence of Gen V who takes it almost as well as it dishes it out, with the possible exception of Doryuuzu, that thing is fucking terrifying.

Yes Trollfreak has been going through a powercreep phase, but remember how Rhyperior ellicited cries of BROKEN as soon as its stats were released? How well did that work out huh? :naughty:

 

[TheMrBassdude]

Two things. First, ANY pokemon with reasonable offensive stats and a boosting move can sweep after you remove its counters, the truely great sweeepers require little to no setup outside of getting a turn to use the boosting move, and maybe damaging one opposing mon. Secondly, You may not kill yourself with HJK, but you just killed yourself by not getting the OHKO. A sweeper either works by OHKOing everything that shows its head, or by doing moderate amounts of damage while refusing to die. Blaziken has pretty much paper defenses, he is not taking any hits from a bulky water or ground.



People need to learn to read, Aiming Mark has been mentioned in 1001 other threads and everytime, someone sensible has said, 'that's not how it works'. Aiming mark allows the pokemon holding it TO BE HIT by all attacks it's normally immune too, not really a great thing.



Yes, yes, exactly, people need to learn that attack scores are subjective and dependent on the stats around it. For example, Infernape's offensive stats are not great, 104 Att/SpA is nice but nothing to write home about compared to Blaziken's 120/110 (his overheat is as powerful as a Mence meteor) and now better speed. This doesn't stop Infernape being a top tier threat. The first thing I find myself saying about most Gen V pokemon is, "holyshitwtfbbq 147 Att... 97 Spe, bit slow... absolutely paper defences. Dies to Scizor's BP. Next, repeat." From what I have seen, there is no mence of Gen V who takes it almost as well as it dishes it out, with the possible exception of Doryuuzu, that thing is fucking terrifying.

Yes Trollfreak has been going through a powercreep phase, but remember how Rhyperior ellicited cries of BROKEN as soon as its stats were released? How well did that work out huh? :naughty:

I understand how a sweeper works, thank you. And I suppose the reason I'm pushing for an effective Blaze is because I've always loved the Pokemon. That being said, if the only things truly threatening Wide Lens Blaze are the bulky waters, it still makes sense to knock them out beforehand, if at all possible. Not required, but always helpful

 

[Santa_Clauz]

I understand how a sweeper works, thank you. And I suppose the reason I'm pushing for an effective Blaze is because I've always loved the Pokemon. That being said, if the only things truly threatening Wide Lens Blaze are the bulky waters, it still makes sense to knock them out beforehand, if at all possible. Not required, but always helpful

Then why are you advocating the removal of LO or SD, bulky walls threaten a blaziken without it, but they don't threaten MixKen or SD LO Ken. Mixken uses it's movepool to circumnavigate the problem, and SD Ken just muscles its way though all my a very small number of pokemon. Also, if you cannot OHKO them with blaziken, you are forcing yourself to dedicate more team slots to lure and beat them to help a sweep that may not even work.

This is very similar to a NPape set, which is beaten by the following pokemon in the Gen IV OU metagame: Gengar, Azelf, Starmie, Tentacruel, Flygon and Nite. Most of these do it by dint of outspeeding, so Blaziken renders them invalid, therfore most of what we need to worry about is Nite, as Tentacruel needs MAX HP/Def to take a +2 HJK or stone edge. Nite is easily eliminated by a +2 Stone edge, but be still fear ES, so we need to find a way around that. Also, can someone run a calc of +2 stone edge vs starmie?

I too love Blaziken, he has been my favourite pokemon since I first got him in RSE, so that is why I am pushing his most effective sets.

 

[TheMrBassdude]

Then why are you advocating the removal of LO or SD, bulky walls threaten a blaziken without it, but they don't threaten MixKen or SD LO Ken. Mixken uses it's movepool to circumnavigate the problem, and SD Ken just muscles its way though all my a very small number of pokemon. Also, if you cannot OHKO them with blaziken, you are forcing yourself to dedicate more team slots to lure and beat them to help a sweep that may not even work.

This is very similar to a NPape set, which is beaten by the following pokemon in the Gen IV OU metagame: Gengar, Azelf, Starmie, Tentacruel, Flygon and Nite. Most of these do it by dint of outspeeding, so Blaziken renders them invalid, therfore most of what we need to worry about is Nite, as Tentacruel needs MAX HP/Def to take a +2 HJK or stone edge. Nite is easily eliminated by a +2 Stone edge, but be still fear ES, so we need to find a way around that. Also, can someone run a calc of +2 stone edge vs starmie?

I too love Blaziken, he has been my favourite pokemon since I first got him in RSE, so that is why I am pushing his most effective sets.

Fair enough. To me, the accuracy of Stone Edge to beat it's counters made a set without an accuracy boost undesireable. When I found out that a +2 with Wide Lens does more damage than a +1 with Life Orb, I changed my mind. I'm advocating for Swords Dance now. As for mix... I dunno, I've just never liked running mix sets, I guess

 

[Elfam]

make sure u remember the fact that the tiers will be dramatically reshaped and i feel like some uber pokemon are necessary to prepare for.honestly the sd set seems to have the overwhelming force necessary to finish off an opponent, but i dont know how hed fair against the newer pokemon(still dont know the walling potential)

but i feel like blaze could greatly appreciate an electric ally for bulky water or jaroda(i think this guy will be beastly with leaf storm)