Jan 12, 2015, 03:34 AM (This post was last modified: Jan 12, 2015, 03:36 AM by tygaa2.)
(Jan 11, 2015, 11:02 PM)Rogue Wrote: Yeah I was using my level 30 Greninja and used surf in a doubles match against 2 level 50 Vaporeons with Water Absorb and OHKO'd both along with the trainer. They might have had a happiness down nature.
Jan 12, 2015, 05:22 AM (This post was last modified: Jan 12, 2015, 05:24 AM by Black117.)
I actually got the chance to participate in the suspect test, got th reps, and yes, voted to ban Greninja in the end. I'm probably gonna repeat the same things as Rouge and Naitre said but here goes.
Greninja was, IMO the best revenge killer in the OU tier because of its amazing, yet trollish speed tier, wide coverage it gets, offensive capability with protean (btw this can actually work defensively to take hits if needed), and the surprisingly sheer unpredictability. Before the demo data mine leak and ORAS release, most smogon ou tiered players agreed Greninja was somewhat of a low S-tier mon but can be managable. Greninja had its checks and counters in AV Azu, Clefable, Ferrothorn (lacking HP Fire), M-Venusaur (lacking extrasensory), Sylveon, Chansey, Keldeo, Empoleon, AV Conkeldurr, etc. With ORAS Greninja received both gunk shot and (dk if people mention this) low kick which were unexpected godsends to the frog. Basically gunk shot nukes every fairy in the game while doing almost around half to would be counters like Conk, Keldeo, Chansey, etc. Low kick basically allows Greg to beat down its "new counters" in Empoleon and Chansey while not forgoing hydro miss (water stab) to kick T-tar and Ferrothorn hard. I know you guys are probably wondering these are physical attacks and Greg is know for being a special attacker primarily, but mixed Greninjas was the best Greninja set before ban.
This sample Greninja hits all its would be counter hard (for a 2hko), while still capable of revenge killing most weaken pokemon after stealth rock damage. Notice how there are four moveslots in the last set, honestly Greninja can already 2hko most pokemon with the combination of gunk shot, low kick, and ice beam. This goes to show how powerful Greninja in tandem with protean and can pressure balance, and bulky offensive teams. Best part is Greg can still work around attacks tailored for its teammates to provide counter-measures against its counters. I'll include a damage calculations below:
Damage Calculations with stealth rocks in play
Gunk Shot Calculations (244 Atk life orb, Keep in mind these pokemon risk being poison which will take away 1/8 of their health
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 248 HP / 216+ Def Rotom-W: 144-172 (47.5 - 56.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 0 Def Conkeldurr: 214-253 (51.6 - 61.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 270-320 (42 - 49.8%) -- 89.5% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 240 HP / 0 Def Azumarill: 491-580 (122.4 - 144.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 244 HP / 252+ Def Sylveon: 385-455 (98.2 - 116%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
-1 244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Manectric: 164-192 (58.3 - 68.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Keldeo: 222-263 (68.7 - 81.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Lopunny: 214-253 (78.9 - 93.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Clefable: 359-424 (91.1 - 107.6%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 232 HP / 0 Def Mega Venusaur: 172-203 (47.9 - 56.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Mega Altaria: 276-328 (77.9 - 92.6%) -- 31.3% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Celebi: 296-351 (73.2 - 86.8%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
244 Atk Life Orb Greninja Gunk Shot vs. 96 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 204-242 (55.8 - 66.3%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
Ice Beam Calcs (assuming 12 SpA life orb)
12 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 8 SpD Landorus-T: 624-738 (163.3 - 193.1%) -- guaranteed OHKO
12 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Mega Pinsir: 283-338 (104.4 - 124.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
12 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Pidgeot: 315-374 (102.2 - 121.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
12 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 0 SpD Mega Latias: 187-221 (51.3 - 60.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
12 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Assault Vest (just for Lols) Garchomp: 395-473 (110.6 - 132.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
12 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 120 SpD Amoonguss: 273-322 (63.1 - 74.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Black Sludge recovery
12 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Thundurus: 315-374 (105.3 - 125%) -- guaranteed OHKO
12 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 0 HP / 4 SpD Latios: 242-289 (80.9 - 96.6%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
12 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Ice Beam vs. 252 HP / 4 SpD Chesnaught: 330-393 (86.8 - 103.4%) -- 18.8% chance to OHKO
Low Kick Calcs
244 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Tyranitar: 551-655 (136.7 - 162.5%) -- guaranteed OHKO
244 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 252 HP / 88+ Def Ferrothorn: 229-273 (65 - 77.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery
244 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (100 BP) vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mega Charizard X: 156-185 (52.5 - 62.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
244 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Kyurem-B: 408-484 (104.3 - 123.7%) -- guaranteed OHKO
244 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (60 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Excadrill: 307-367 (84.8 - 101.3%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
244 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Mega Metagross: 144-172 (47.8 - 57.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock
244 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (120 BP) vs. 248 HP / 0 Def Heatran: 390-460 (101.2 - 119.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO
244 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (60 BP) vs. 0 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 273-322 (42.5 - 50.2%) -- 93.8% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock
Honestly my favorite calculations are against offensive M-Venusaur and M-Metagross since it goes to show you the power of protean as an powerful offensive ability. Ice beam kill gets most of the relevant kos, gunk shot hits most things in ou hard, and low kick can do sizable damage and can ohko threats like T-tar and Heatran (while not relying on hydro miss). In short, Greninja has very few counters that can switch into any moves and most of the time Greg will be doing damage to itself from life orb and stealth rocks. Players need to have a designated counters or checks to at least beat Greninja but problem is you still have the rest of its team to worry about. Thing is these counter, checks and noteably random scarfers can be scouted and stopped by the opposing team if necessary. Once the opposing team is weaken, Geninja can just come in when given the chance, and clean up from there. I don't think Greninja is broken on the scale of some notable bans like M-Lucario and Blaziken but it just became so centralizing because of its trait in the 6v6 single metagame which was why I voted ban.
Jan 12, 2015, 07:26 AM (This post was last modified: Jan 12, 2015, 07:28 AM by tygaa2.)
Greninjas counters are Priority moves and Choice Scarfed Pokemon! I would say talon flame would be a good job for this but smogon banned it too lol. The point I'm trying to make is when you constantly ban Pokemon that are not legendary [low base stats] it creates a domino effect and now you have to start banning everything because with each ban you make, you eliminate some other Pokemons counter. Its hard to make a good team that can take on the meta, but its much easier for smogon to just ban the threats
Primal Kyogre is a legend with a base stat of 770! Kyogre WILL NOT go down in one hit, even if its a super effective one so its hard for that to relate that to a Greninja ban. Thats 350 More base stat points than Greninja... that makes a huge difference. mega evolutions that make Pokemon much stronger are only increases of 100 base stats and you see how much that increases a Pokemons strength
edit: yet again no disrespect to smogon or those who play it
(Jan 12, 2015, 07:26 AM)tygaa2 Wrote: Greninjas counters are Priority moves and Choice Scarfed Pokemon! I would say talon flame would be a good job for this but smogon banned it too lol. The point I'm trying to make is when you constantly ban Pokemon that are not legendary [low base stats] it creates a domino effect and now you have to start banning everything because with each ban you make, you eliminate some other Pokemons counter. Its hard to make a good team that can take on the meta, but its much easier for smogon to just ban the threats
Primal Kyogre is a legend with a base stat of 770! Kyogre WILL NOT go down in one hit, even if its a super effective one so its hard for that to relate that to a Greninja ban. Thats 350 More base stat points than Greninja... that makes a huge difference. mega evolutions that make Pokemon much stronger are only increases of 100 base stats and you see how much that increases a Pokemons strength
edit: yet again no disrespect to smogon or those who play it
Completely agree. Every time a Pokémon is banned by Smogon, another Pokémon eventually rises and takes it's place before it too gets banned. Where does it stop? The problem when you tier Pokémon like Smogon does, there's always going to be a select few within the tier that excel more than others.
I think some of you are missing the point. It wasn't banned to Ubers simply because "we couldn't find anything to beat it." We know that Guts Conkeldurr can almost OHKO with a mach punch before it changes typing. We know that Talonflame can OHKO it. Once again, thats not the problem.
Lets say I lead with Greninja and you lead with Conkeldurr. I know you're going to try and mach punch me, so I safely switch out into my tornadus. I take little damage, I out speed with this as well, and I'm now going to OHKO your Conkeldurr who threatened my Greninja.
Or different story. You lead with Talonflame and I lead with Greninja. I know you'll OHKO, so I switch out into Heatran. You literally can't touch my Heatran so lets say you switch out. I predict your switch and lay down stealth rocks. Now your Talonflame is almost useless thanks to the rocks. Even if you stay in and put up something like a swords dance, I'm running ancient power to OHKO your Talonflame.
Does that make more sense? It's not just the pokemon. It's how easy I can build around it. The small checks and counters you could list, all could easily be reverse countered by my other 5 Pokemon. There's no point in you having a counter for something, if I can counter your counter with ease. Because once I take out that 1-2 checks on your team, my Greninja is free to run wild.