Choice Items take away the whole point of Protean.
-
Check out the relaunch of our general collection, with classic designs and new ones by our very own Pissog!
-
Welcome to Smogon! Take a moment to read the Introduction to Smogon for a run-down on everything Smogon, and make sure you take some time to read the global rules.
Pokémon Greninja
- Thread starter Hypercut
- Start date
- Status
I wouldn't agree with this when it goes to Choice Scarf set. Protean on Choice Scarf is actually great, because it allows you to hit harder than normally you would be able thanks to it which is technically like free Specs power on all your moves. Also Greninja is good scarfer because of Pursuit resistance (for example something like Scarf Latios would kill for) and as long as hits are not really heavy, he can handle switches on some resisted hits like Ghost, Water or Dark. Also his great speed means that you'll outspeed technically everything. Heck, you may afford to invest a bit of EVs in HP to increase your bulk a bit as you have really high speed to work with with Scarf.
Although I agree with this statement when it goes to Specs set. I think Greninja really appreciates the ability to switch moves around if you want him to use for wallbreaking/sweeping instead of revenge killing like in case of Scarf.
Last edited:
No it doesn't. Protean gives you 50% extra power on every move. It still does this even if you can't change moves. That's like saying Choice items take away the whole point of Download etc.
I like it, but a lot of people like to use Choice Scarf with max speed, so Greninja with a Choice Scarf and Modest might not be the best. I'd say try Choice Specs and max speed or max special maybe, idk. You won't outspeed with either though, but Specs gives you more power I suppose.
Yeah, you'd really have to watch out for scarfed Terrakion or anything base speed 108 or faster that's scarfed. At least Modest Scarf Greninja outspeeds ScarfChomp and all of those base 100 scarf users.
A scarf set is terrible...the only Choice set that could be decent is a Choice Specs set, and you need U-Turn on that as well. Everything else is just mediocre, most Choice sets are just plain bad.
Last edited:
Scarf Greninja is a very viable set, simply because with its wide variety of moves it can revenge kill pretty much anything. It outspeeds +2 Cloyster and pretty much every Scarfer and every other +1 Speed booster. Scarf Noivern is also decent for this reason, and I actually prefer Scarf Noivern for being able to outspeed +2 Dragonite. But Greninja works really well because it hits hard thanks to Protean.
I was wondering about Life Orb Greninja, as that thing can outrun anything on a timid nature, has the coverage to send stuff flying with a Protean boost, plus he can set up spikes by coming in on something that cant touch him. Is LO Greninja worth it?
Yes. Life Orb attacker is unequivocally his best set.
Thanks, I've been running him on Showdown, for some reason he's been flattened easily. Thoughts?
Greninja is best against offense teams. Unless they're extremely bulky it's very hard for him to NOT at least 2HKO offensive Pokemon. Trying to KO Blissey is going to bring you nothing but disappointment.
Has anyone tried Greninja on a sun or hail team (either with HP Fire for an effective 135 power fire move - essentially an Overheat that doesn't lower SAtk, or perfect accuracy Blizzard for a 165 power ice move)? I can see him working well in one with U-Turn, especially when after the sun goes down he can fall back on STAB Hydro Pumps. I guess considering the length of this thread this has already been covered at some point?
A Physical Attacker is simply not as good as the Special Attacker. Compare Greninja's Physical moveset to his Special moveset, and you'll find that his Special moves are way better.
This might have been mentioned before in which case I apologize (32 pages to check though, ugh) but I've used Hidden Power Grass on Greninja to great effect. It hits Rotom-W for solid damage as most of them are physically defensive nowadays (on PO at least). It also lets you resist both its STAB moves the turn after. The ability to turn a poor matchup against the most commonly used pokemon in OU into a great one is definitely worth the moveslot imo. And hey, you kill random Gastrodons for what it's worth.
252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 205-244 (67.4 - 80.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Rotom-W: 151-179 (49.6 - 58.8%) -- 65.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
I use it over U-turn on the standard Hydro Pump/Dark Pulse/Ice Beam/U-turn set.
252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 205-244 (67.4 - 80.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Rotom-W: 151-179 (49.6 - 58.8%) -- 65.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
I use it over U-turn on the standard Hydro Pump/Dark Pulse/Ice Beam/U-turn set.
Well, the thing is that you get Grass Knot, which hits most of the Water-types inn OU except for Rotom-Wash better. IMO, the best Hidden Power is Fire, and Greninja is a great user of that move, due to Protean and his high speed.
Last edited:
252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Grass Knot (20 BP) vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Rotom-W: 70-86 (23 - 28.2%) -- possible 5HKO after Leftovers recovery
252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Grass Knot (60 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Azumarill: 265-312 (65.5 - 77.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Hidden Power Grass vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Azumarill: 265-312 (65.5 - 77.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Grass Knot (60 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Greninja: 289-343 (101 - 119.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
252 SpA Life Orb Greninja Hidden Power Grass vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Greninja: 289-343 (101 - 119.9%) -- guaranteed OHKO
It does pitiful damage against the most used, and definitely the most important Water-type, Rotom-W. The second two most used, Greninja and Azumarill actually take the same damage from either HP Grass or Grass Knot. The only relevant Water-type that gets hit significantly harder by Grass Knot would be Gyarados. Which is still definitely not worth giving the 2HKO against Rotom-W up for sure. I may have missed your point, but I fail to see how Grass Knot is better than HP Grass, even if you're sacrificing HP Fire. And even then, I doubt that people would run both HP Fire and Grass Knot on the same set, as that would mean sacrificing Dark Pulse or Ice Beam which are too important to give up for hitting a limited amount of pokes with HP Fire.
Rotom-W is the ONLY Pokemon that Hidden Power Grass explicitly outdamages Grass Knot for super-effective damage that's relevant in OU. With Hydro Pump's nerf a max power Grass Knot is Greninja's strongest move. It's tempting to run Hidden Power Grass, I understand the desire, but there's a universal loss of damage AND coverage. It's not worth it, let one of your five teammates take care of Rotom.
The thing about Choice sets is that you take away Greninja's fantastic coverage and lock it into one move. Choice sets waste Greninja's potential.
These are some of Grass Knot's Base Powers against some of the most common Grass-weak Pokemon in OU.
Gastrodon:60
Cloyster: 100
Keldeo: 60
Vaporeon: 60
Gyarados: 120
Jellicent:100
Hippowdon: 120
The only thing that Grass Knot doesn't hit harder is Rotom-Wash. Hidden Power Fire is the best HP, and probably the only one you should be using.
Last edited:
Grass Knot only outdamages HP Grass against Cloyster, Gyarados, Jellicent and Hippowdon. Funny that you bring those up, as aside from Gyarados they all lose to Greninja either way. Rotom-W is the #1 most used pokemon amongst better players, I'd consider it much more valuable to hit that harder than to hit Gyarados harder.
HP Fire and HP Grass have different uses. Fire lets you beat Ferrothorn, Grass lets you beat Rotom-W. Neither one is better than the other as both only have limited coverage.
Still don't see your point.
Rotom-W is the only Pokemon that Grass Knot does less damage to, and it is much better to have a move that either hits everything else the same or is stronger against everything else, and to also have Hidden Power Fire to destroy Pokemon like Genesect, Scizor, and Ferrothorn. Half the reason Rotom-W is so popular right now is because it can check or counter many of the new, popular Pokemon, including Talonflame and Greninja.
Quite frankly, Rotom-W is the only pokemon you need to outdamage. All the other pokes you mentioned are hit just as hard by HP Grass or flatout lose to Greninja either way (I mean Hippowdon, really? If you wanted to make me laugh then you succeeded :x)
Again, Rotom-W is the most relevant pokemon in OU right now and I can keep repeating this ad nauseam until you see this. Imagine a situation where your opponent leads with Rotom-W against your Greninja. Would you rather have HP Grass, or Grass Knot/HP Fire in that situation, keeping in mind the calcs above? The fact that you can get a favorable matchup in such a common situation as that one is more than enough reason to use HP Grass over Grass Knot.
On that note, your argument that Rotom-W is commonly used as a Greninja check further proves my point that catching it with HP Grass is very beneficial.
Um...if I thought that my opponent was going to lead with Rotom-Wash then I wouldn't go with Greninja, perhaps something like Breloom?
My argument is that with Hidden Power Grass, you not only lose coverage, but you hit everything besides Rotom-Wash the same or harder. There are other Pokemon that can beat Rotom-Wash with ease, and I suggest dropping Hidden Power Grass for Hidden Power Fire, U-Turn, or another coverage move. This is getting rather pointless, and you fail to see my argument even after explaining it through multiple posts.
There's also other pokemon that can handle Scizor and Ferrothorn with ease, so that's not an argument to run HP Fire. Considering that Rotom-W has almost as much usage as Ferrothorn and Scizor combined, I'd rather hit Rotom-W hard than the latter two (personal preference!). Genesect is actually more likely to knock you out with Scarfed U-turn, so I would never use HP Fire for Genesect, but that's less important here. The point is, neither Hidden Power is better than the other unlike what you try to claim. Both have their specific uses and are both just as viable. But if you don't have any valid arguments left, I'm happy to end this discussion here.
Doesn't Dark Pulse net a guaranteed 2HKO after stealth rock against defensive rotom? Doesn't scarf rotom OHKO you with practically any electric attack? I guess it could be used against assault vest rotom. I don't see the point of using HP grass just to defeat one set of one pokemon, when you can use U-turn to keep momentum after a revenge kill or HP fire to defeat ferrothorn and scizor.
- Status