Does the surprise factor count for something?
Absolutely disgusting.
It doesn't necessarily defeat Protean's purpose. You still hit like a truck on something. Sure you can't switch moves, but the move you do use effectively has 2x power with Specs/Band damage plus Protean pseudo-STAB (however, if you use Scarf Greninja, you're high). Also, he said he was testing it in Pre-Pokebank stages, he's not saying it's good now. It does have a surprise factor, but overall, Special Greninja is so much better. There's really no argument.
I think Grass Knot is better than HP Grass since it strikes a much heavier hit on targets such as Mega Gyarados, Suicune and Slowbro, not to mention Ttar, Terrakion and Hippowdon while still hitting Azumarill for the same damage as HP Grass. Rotom-W is 2HKOed by Extrasensory anyway unless specially defensive, which is suboptimal this gen and mostly used by people who run the default spread of Showdown(hence they should be easier to beat because they are new to the game). HP Fire is nice tho.
It has Return, a powerfull and reliable move. Physical Greninja should always spam Return unless it's coverage moves are better in this situation.
Stop. Just stop. When the only good move you have is RETURN, then there's a problem.
I didn't said that Physical Greninja should be used, I said that if it's used, it should run Return, because it is it's best move and has good neutral coverage with Waterfall and Night Slash and that it should be used if you can't hit something for SE damage with your other moves.
Ok, maybe Physical isn't THAT BAD.
It can also 2HKO Mega Venosaur with Extrasensory
What? That fight was either rigged or crap. What self-respecting non-Mega Stone Aerodactyl is slow enough to get beat by a Greninja? Don't get me started on the crappy set on that Zygarde.
I use a variant of this set and pair it with Bisharp, and it actually works pretty well!
While specs are perfectly viable I think the ability to switch moves and take advantage of its great coverage and protean is better for greninja, so life orb is generally preferred.
But Protean is sometimes a double edged sword if the other player predicts correctly right.
Specs Greninja does not make Protean pointless because Protean powers up Greninja's coverage moves as well, so spamming one move isn't entirely useless.
