The answer to the ultimate question: Blissey or Chansey?

[MMII]

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I wanted to know whether I should use Blissey or Chansey on my OU team. I asked around and searched popular fourms and, although I decided to use Blissey, I wasn't completely satisfied with my answer and decided to make a more in-depth comparision myself.(Plus, I was looking for an excuse to Chansey as I prefer true-blue Gen Is over Gen IIs line extensions) I am providing my comparison below to help those qlso unsure of which to pick. By the way, I haven't played on PO since last Summer. So as far as popular choices are concerned I may be inaccurate as I'm sure the Excadrill and Thunderous ban has changed the metagame.

Wish: Blissey does pass bigger wishs than Chansey due to her higher total HP. However, the difference in total HP is only a mere 10 Hp (Blissey has 714 and Chansey has 704) meaning Blissey's wish heals only 5 more than Chansey's. Another thing to note is that Blissey misses a turn of Leftovers heal when she switches out to pass a Wish.

Special Attacks: Blissey can use them, Chansey can't. However, with only a 75 base Special Attack, it's not always advisable. (I remember reading somewhere that Blissey's Flamethrower 3HKOs a Ferrothorn with Leftovers)

Trick/Knock-off: Due to Chansey's dependence on Eviolite, she is more vulnerable to these two moves than Blissey. All the same, being tricked a Choice item will severely hurt Blissey.The difference between the two being that Chansey is left with lower defences than Blissey. Chansey's and Blissey's base defences are:
HP: Chansey - 250, Blissey - 255
Defence: Chansey - 5, Blissey - 10
Special Defence: Chansey - 105, Blissey - 135

As far as non-Choice tricks are concerned, there are only two OU viable sets: TrickOrb Reuniclus and Trick Iron Ball Metagross. The former doesn't need trick to counter Blisssey and Chansey while the latter isn't very common and often runs Hammer Arm.

Knock-off leaves a more noticable difference as the loss of Eviolite for Chansey is like a permenant -1 stage in both defence and special defence, whereas Blissey's loss of Leftovers is like taking Sandstorm damage. However, Knock-off is a rare more that tends to only show up on non-rain Tentacruel. The move itself is fairly useless in OU due to the rarity of Eviolite which is its most rewarding target.

Bulk or Leftovers: the key difference between the two is Blissey's Leftovers vs Chansey's extra bulk. To compare the two I calculated the damage Chansey takes from attacks and the damage Blissey takes after two turns of Leftovers heal. The first turn for the turn of the attack and the second for a Protect stall. The results showed that the gap btween the two is a curve that is in Blissey's favor with weaker attacks and grows more and more in Chansey's favor as the attack power increases. Here are some of my calculations for physical attacks against Blissey and Chansey.

There are a few things worth knowing before reading the calculations. I like to be pessimistic when I Theorymon so I only calculated for the maximum damage Blissey and Chansey would take. If you want to know the minimum damage just multiply the maximum by 0,85. This may provide, however, a result that is inaccuate by one HP as I rounded down all of the results to have exactly the amount of damage you would receive in a real battle. The percentages are calculated based on that damage with there being a cut-off after two decimal places.(I didn't round them I just stopped writing them)

I didn't do very many calculations for special attacks as I figured the difference would be insignificant due to the massive special bulk of Blissey and Chansey. All the same, here are a few.

Sandstorm: Many feel that the popularity of Sandstorm in OU makes Blissey the better choice. However, this is not entirely true. Sandstorm does benefit Blissey (at least, benefit in the comparison) by reducing the amount of damage Blissey and Chansey can take thus slightly altering the curve in Blissey's favor. However, the gaps remain the same as Chansey receives as much damage from Sandstorm as Blissey heals from Leftovers with the change being that Chansey loses more instead of Blissey healing more. This change does provide an advantage to Chansey. Blissey has the opportunity to ause its Leftovers in non-Sandstorm enviroments by spamming Protect. However, Sandstorm removes this advantage and gives Chansey the chance to reduce the gap between the two by offering the choice to not use Protect and thus spare Chansey a turn of Sandstorm damage. (which is the same as canceling one of Blissey's Leftovers heal)

Pursuit: An odd point for Chansey that I have yet to point out is being Pursuited while switching out. Blissey suffers in these situations as she doesn't get any Leftovers heal to deal with the damage due to her no longer being present. Chansey, on the other hand, maintains every bit of her Eviolite bulk and can even escape extra Sandstorm damage. However, Pursuit is a rare move that you will probably only see on CB Scizors or CB Tyranitars.

Misc.:Blissey does have a few extra bonuses not already discussed to be taken in consideration. As already mentioned, Blissey has a little more HP than Chansey. This means she has an extra 10 HP to help her with her first attack and also means that any recovery that leaves her with over 704 HP isn't lost until she has 714 HP. This small bit of extra bulk also lets her heal 5 HP more when she Wishs or Softboils. Lastly, Blissey can snag an extra Leftovers heal when their opponent chooses to not inflict damage but instead switch out, boost, Protect, etc. Whether or not these small bonuses help to close the gap between Chansey and Blissey is fairly situational. For example, the 5 HP bigger Wish gratification won't help much if it's 5 HP over 714, means that you can't calculate 15 extra HP in your comparison as the larger heal can't benefit you over 10 extra HP. The extra Leftovers heal also has to suffer from the fact that it is dependent upon the play-style of your opponent and isn't a factor when Sandstorm is present.

One last final note for those considering Chansey. You can choose to give her 248 HP EVs instead of the standard 252 to leave her with 703 maximum HP. This does have the disadvantage of decreasing her Wish and Softboil heals by 1 HP and leaving her short an HP when taking her first hit or healing back to full health, however there are a few benefits. 703 isnt perfectly divisible by 16 whereas 704 is. This means that with 703 maximum HP, Chansey only takes 43 damage from Sandstorm instead of 44 as damage is always rounded down. this also reduces entry hazard and status damage by 1 HP.

 

[King Serperior]

Although I never use any pink blobs except Ditto and P2, I find that Blissey is the most dangerous and decidedly more useful.

Why? The HP, Sp.Def, and Sp.Atk combine together to spread ruin.

Now, I may be a bit biased as my teams are primarily Special based. Chansey is easily walled by any ghost type that can produce a sub.

Sub/Split Gengar walls Chansey to no end as Chansey relies on Siesmic Toss and Toxic for damage. This allows the said Gengar to kill it off.

Blissey, on the other hand, can run BoltBeam (Shadow Ball is worst), Protect, and Wish. Gengar has a harder time setting up a sub.

Anyone else have this issue? Or have made this observation?

 

[LS of ACO]

I pretty much have to agree with King Serperior. Even though special attacks other than flamethrower are apparently pretty rarely seen these days, just the threat of them makes Blissey worth a lot more in general. Flamethrower itself is also a huge load off my mind, since random junk like Gengar can't set up a sub against you. That may be slightly outdated thinking on my part, since subpunch Gengar is from like nine metagames ago and I think subsplit Gengar can actually beat Blissey anyway, but it just feels safer to me. Chansey can pretty much only have surprises on the defensive side (and I guess Counter, but Counter is lame.) Blissey can have offensive surprises too, which goes a long way towards making it less helpless.

The sandstorm thing that the initial post brings up is also a really big point for me. All of those damage calculations start going the other way after enough turns of residual damage. Saying that does kind of beg for hurr durr use clefable then if residual damage is so critical, though, so maybe I'm wrong.

 

[MMII]

Running a special attack means losing an attack slot. Like I pointed out 75 base SpA isn't high enough to be dropping the ability to fully heal with a Wish pass, actually kill something with Toxic, or the generally superior Seismic Toss. In my first post I also mention something I read somewhere else that highlights the general uselessness of Special attacks on Blissey. " (I remember reading somewhere that Blissey's Flamethrower 3HKOs a Ferrothorn with Leftovers)"

As for Sandstorm damage comment, I must have miss spoken as it was supposed to be a point in favor of Chansey as the difference between Chansey and Blissey in Sandstorm is the same difference between the two without.

 

[Murkglow]

Then again its not like Flamethrower (or Ice Beam, Thunderbolt, Shadowball, ect...) is safe either. Instead of being set up bait for Gengar, Flamethrower Blissey is set-up bait for Heatran (insert any number of standard resists for any of the other moves here). And sure you could say that Blissey is unpredicable as to what exactly she is fitted with but the thing is its not like a surprise hit from Blissey is really going to do all that much to things not 4x weak to whatever the move is. Seismic Toss might be weak to Gengar or Jellicent but it does hit alot of other things just fine and for respectable damage so to me Blissey's higher SAtk doesn't mean too much.

I'm also a much bigger fan of Chansey's Uber's Spread (HP 4 / Def 252 / SDef 252 Calm) which gives her a massive boost since all that SDef investment is just amplified by Evolite. We're talking 103 Sdef over a similarly invested Blissey and 138 more then an uninvested Chansey. It's not as good at taking physical hits as a bold max hp chansey but then its also not terrible.

 

[PK Gaming]

Nice thread, I found it to be enlightening. I don't usually use the pink blobs, but when I do I usually go with Chansey.

I appreciate the hard work you put it into to it!

 

[Lady Alex]

Whether your best decision is to use Chansey or Blissey relies on if you are using rain or sun and if you struggle immensely with gengar. You should never be running chansey outside of rain or sun, since the many occasions where you are going to run into sand are going to severely limit her utility.

Honestly, I don't even care to let chansey stay in on gengar. She can PP stall sub-disable variants pretty well (granted, I have a ghost to switch in on focus blasts when softboiled gets disabled. Pain split variants certainly have more leverage against her, but they can occasionally be PP stalled out of focus blast as well.

As far as passing wishes goes, blissey's extra HP is pretty unimportant. I know that you mentioned how situational it is, but I would like to stress that it's a completely insignificant factor when determining whether or not you're going to use chansey or blissey.

Another thing chansey has going for her in rain or sun is her ability to sponge physical hits, which allows her to stall out many of these threats that blissey is helpless against if they've been toxiced.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Ive used both extensively because I am lazy and like easy answers.

First off is sandstorm, if you have it than you can't run Chansey unless you like taking extra damage, which you shouldn't. You could probably run Chansey on a non-weather team since most sandstorm teams don't focus on special sweeping, but for the ones that do you will have a hard time, so Blissey still is something to consider. Because of that I would only suggest using Chansey on a rain or sun team.

Having a special attack is also a big one, but not nearly as big as leftovers. Flamethrower makes it a lot easier to deal with volt-turn, Ferrothorn, and Skarmory, but most notably Gengar, which Chansey can't touch.

The overall leftovers health arguement is kinda silly since Chansey and Blissey are in the moment special walls, Blissey having more health 5 turns down the road isn't going to help you. The extra physical bulk is nice too against Dugtrio and other weak attackers.

So basically use Chansey on a rain or sun team unless you really need something for steels or Gengar. On non weather teams its generally a toss up between better bulk, how weak you are to special sweepers in the sand, and use of flamethrower. And on a sand or hail team, you need Blissey.

 

[Zacchaeus]

In my opinion:

Chansey is better with Softboiled so less stall capabilities, plus no Leftovers to cancel weather damage

Blissey has higher SpA but slightly less bulk, and Wish works very well with Leftovers

Is it really that complicated?

Edit @ Murkglow: Sorry I had a moment there

 

[Murkglow]

Ummm why is "access to Wish" listed under Blissey as if it was an advantage unique to her? Chansey does Wish just fine too...

 

[FrostFire]

Ummm why is "access to Wish" listed under Blissey as if it was an advantage unique to her? Chansey does Wish just fine too...

I think the reason for this is the combination of Wish + Protect + Leftovers recovery. See, when Chansey wants to heal, it'll use Wish and then 'waste' a turn Protecting to make sure it gets it's Wish. However, Blissey has the opportunity to abuse the Wish set more, as it can spam Protect (after Wish, and generally speaking too) to gain back small amounts of health with Leftovers.

After using both, TBH, I find that the difference between Blissey and Chansey is small enough that you can't choose *wrong*. It's just that one may be slightly more optimal than the other on certain teams, or under certain circumstances.

 

[Murkglow]

See, when Chansey wants to heal, it'll use Wish and then 'waste' a turn Protecting to make sure it gets it's Wish.

Chansey doesn't bother healing herself with Wish, she just uses Softboiled in place of Protect. That doesn't stop her from running Wish nor does it take up any more move slots then Wish + Protect would. Also having Softboiled isn't necessarily a bad thing, sometimes you just can't wait the extra turn for Wish to activate (gives enemies multiple free turns to set up plus things like status and weather can make it harder to find time to heal when you need 2 turns to do it in). Of course Protect has its own advantages but still...

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

Ive used wish + protect on Chansey and had very little problems with it even on a nonweather team. All you had to be sure is to stay out of that 12% zone of health and sandstorm, which is easier because of it's bulk, and your fine.

 

[Cinccino]

How many Blissey runs Flamethrower? I see none as Seismic Toss is almost always better for her. Ferro can Leech Seed and gain huge HP while taking Flamethrower (or cmon, switch). That bit of attacking capability shouldn't even be considered when choosing this blobs.

 

[Byrn Dragonstone]

You also forgot to mention Hazards as they absolutely destroy Chansey. Stealth rock takes a good 12% of your health every time that you switch, making passing that wish rather hard sometimes wheras comperatively speaking Blissey only takes ~6% from Stealth Rock thanks to it beaing able to heal some damage off with leftovers. So just for some numbers:

Number of Turns switched in: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Damage Taken: Blissey: 6% 12% 18% 24% 30%
Chansey: 12% 24% 36% 48% 60%

As you can see Chansey takes a lot more damage as the match wears on thanks to the hazards that have been put up. After only 4 switchins it has take nearly 50% of it health just due to SR damage. Not something that is really helpful when you are meant to switch in and sponge attacks.

 

[Murkglow]

And how much extra damage is Blissey taking from those sponged attacks when it switches in? If it's not 6% or less then Chansey is still doing better even with the hazards.

 

[Byrn Dragonstone]

And how much extra damage is Blissey taking from those sponged attacks when it switches in? If it's not 6% or less then Chansey is still doing better in that situation.

After the first attack the damage difference is highly in favor of Blissey. The second switchin deals 12% more damage to Chansey then to Blissey. The 3rd deals 18% more and so on and so forth. and you can't just rely on wish/protect to heal you (In which case Blissey again gains more Health) because you would be wasting a turn to heal.

 

[Murkglow]

and you can't just rely on wish/protect to heal you (In which case Blissey again gains more Health) because you would be wasting a turn to heal.

Why would I when I can just softboiled and do it in one turn?

After the first attack the damage difference is highly in favor of Blissey. The second switchin deals 12% more damage to Chansey then to Blissey. The 3rd deals 18% more and so on and so forth.

And again, how much more damage are the Attacks doing to Blissey? That's the part you're not dealing with. Yes if all they are doing is switching into stealth rock without getting hit Blissey will be able to do it longer, so what? That situation is ignoring the whole reason why Chansey would be used, to take less on the hit that is incoming. If Chansey takes 30% on the hit (after SR) and Blissey takes 50% (after SR) then the exchange was 14% in Chansey's favor after leftovers (8% if we allow double lefties). In this case the damage difference is in favor of Chansey and grows with each hit too... Of course those were just random numbers I pulled out of nowhere but it still shows the point (and you're welcome to use real calcs if you feel like it). Just listing SR damage doesn't really show much of the picture.

 

[MMII]

Thank you everybody for your comments. I am seeing alot of Blissey wins in Sandstorm related comments so I will try to explain my point with an example.
Pokemon A and B both have 10 HP. Pokemon A and B are hit with the exact same attack. Pokemon A takes 5 damage while Pokemon B takes only 2. However Pokemon A has Leftovers and heals 2 HP bringing the final total to 7 remaining HP versus Pokemon B's 8. The final difference is 1 HP. Now I am going to change the situation to one of Sandstorm. Pokemon A loses 5 HP and B 2. This leaves A with 5 and B with 8 remaining HP. Now Pokemon A takes 2 damage from Sandstorm but heals 2 from Leftovers, Pokemon B just takes 2. This leaves Pokemon A with 5 HP and Pokemon B with 6 remaining HP. The final difference is still 1. This also applies to hazards and any other passive damage that deals equal amounts to both. Myth busted.

Thank you Cincinno for your remark on Special attacks, this is exactly the same view point I had on the issue. All the same, if you want to use special attacks go with Blissey, otherwise Chansey outclasses her in my opinion.

As for the Wish passing being dubbed "situational", I only said it that way to try to remain objective. I agree that 5 HP is nothing to be taken into large consideration. At the same time, Blissey and Chansey are already so close together that you might as well go ahead and be picky about every HP. As for the comment saying the Wish is Blissey exclusive, could you point it out to me where it is?

 

[Murkglow]

As for the comment saying the Wish is Blissey exclusive, could you point it out to me where it is?

Do you mean my comment here?

Ummm why is "access to Wish" listed under Blissey as if it was an advantage unique to her? Chansey does Wish just fine too...

That was in response to Zacchaeus's inital post which originally implied that Wish was an advantage of Blissey's.

 

[malomyotismon]

I prefer blissey mainly for the use of an elemental move, it's nice not to be walled by genegar and pals and actually being able to hurt steels and leafties recovery is always nice.

 

[alexwolf]

My 3 comments about the matter.

First if you are not using sun or rain, use Blissey, as Lefties recovery is pretty damn important.

Second your choice should depend on the pace of your team. If your team is fast paced, Chansey is a better choice, because it takes hits better in short term, while if your team is more slow and stallish, Blissey is better, as she will be staying a lot in, and thus gaining a lot of Lefties healing, which means that she is going to take hits better in long term.

Finally i think that the ability that Blissey has to use special attacks, Flamethrower/Fire Blast especially, is pretty important, because it really helps in taking on these Volt-Turn teams that are everywhere.

 

[Stratos]

Byrn is actually underplaying Blissey's superiority at WishPassing. Say a Blissey and a Chansey come in on Rocks to pass a wish. After two turns, the switch-in and the Wish, it's like Blissey never came in on Rocks. However, after two turns for Chansey, its situation is not improved. Residual damage adds up much faster, and when you WishPass, you often never get to taste the fruits of your own healing. As such the Leftovers recovery is vital for WishPassing.

Oh, and Byrn, SR actually deals 1/8 of health on switch, or exactly 12.5 which we just round to twelve. Nintendo always works in fractions, never percents

 

[Nyktos]

Thank you everybody for your comments. I am seeing alot of Blissey wins in Sandstorm related comments so I will try to explain my point with an example.
Pokemon A and B both have 10 HP. Pokemon A and B are hit with the exact same attack. Pokemon A takes 5 damage while Pokemon B takes only 2. However Pokemon A has Leftovers and heals 2 HP bringing the final total to 7 remaining HP versus Pokemon B's 8. The final difference is 1 HP. Now I am going to change the situation to one of Sandstorm. Pokemon A loses 5 HP and B 2. This leaves A with 5 and B with 8 remaining HP. Now Pokemon A takes 2 damage from Sandstorm but heals 2 from Leftovers, Pokemon B just takes 2. This leaves Pokemon A with 5 HP and Pokemon B with 6 remaining HP. The final difference is still 1. This also applies to hazards and any other passive damage that deals equal amounts to both. Myth busted.

On turns where the opponent switches or uses a non-damaging move (or you use Protect), it's the difference between your health staying constant and you losing health.

 

[lmitchell0012]

The only thing I would consider using either of them for is wishpassing. However, in my opinion jirachi does a much better job at this. Jirachi is actually able to do a significant amount of damage to it's opponents and is much more difficult to counter (in my opinion) than blissey/chansey because of it's unpredictability.