"Nerf Greninja Plz...for Smash at Least"


(VGC) Greninja - Attack (Mixed/Special) 2 Options

• Offensive Pokemon: Given Greninja's offensive capabilities, Pokemon who are generally fast or just blatantly powerful enough to deal chip damage so the ninja frog can clean up are appreciated.  Pokemon like Garchomp, Mega Kangakhan, Thundurus, Zapdos, Sylveon, Mega Salamence, etc are great partners given they can help initiate and maintain offensive pressure. Both Thundurus and Zapdos are able to supply speed control with Thunder Wave/Tailwind to ensure they and Greninja will outspeed targets. Fake Out users like Mega Kangaskhan, Raichu, Scrafty, etc can guarantee a flinch on a target while Greninja can go after a key target. Sylveon and Mega Salamence are great offensive and switch in partners in case Greninja wants to get out of the battlefield. Additionally both Sylveon and Mega Salamence are hard counters for Fighting types since they can KO most of them with powerful Aerilate and Pixilate attacks.
  
  
• Spread Damage Dealers: Pokemon who can deal strong spread damage are key partners for Greninja given it cannot KO targets 100% of the time. Practically the same thing I've mentioned about earlier about some partners but Greninja typically want to be at the driver seat initiating the offense pressure and not at the receiving end. Those like Garchomp, Landorus-T, Sylveon, Mega Gardevoir, Mega Salamence, Mega Charizard Y, Heatran, and a host of others who can deal strong spread damage can ensure enough chip damage so the opposing target hopefully doesn't take any of Greninja's Protean hits.
  
  
• Redirection + Helping Hand Support: Pretty much any Pokemon who can support Greninja with redirection (Follow Me/Rage Powder and Helping Hand boost work fine. Redirection is somewhat self-explanatory given Greninja is rather frail and just about any strong neutral hit in the format can potentially KO Greninja. Pokemon like Amoonguss, Clefable, Clefairy, Togekiss, and Volcarona can redirect attacks away from Greninja as it continues to break down the opposing team. There are numerous Helping Hand users (Sylveon, Gothitelle, Cresselia, Politoed, etc) who can power up Greninja's Protean hit enough to KO specific targets. For instance, LO Grass Knot from Protean Greninja can get the surprise KOs on standard Milotic and Suicune while Hidden Power Ground can with the boosts can KO 4 HP Shuca Berry Heatran 81.3% of the time. Speed control is appreciated so Greninja can ensure it and its ally are the fast on the field, but don't use this Pokemon with a full Trick Room without any others who can function in a fast mode.
  
  
  

• Priority: In short, Greninja doesn't enough taking priority hits given its rather low defensive stats and the use of Life Orb will hinder it down. Pokemon like Talonflame, Breloom, Infernape, Conkeldurr, etc can surely KO Greninja provided none of these Pokemon receive and attack drop from like Intimidate.
  
  
• Opposing Speed Control : Any form of speed control against an opposing Greninja will slow both its speed and offensive pressure enough so any Pokemon can KO it with a strong neutral hit. Pokemon like Suicune, Zapdos, Milotic, Thundurus, Cresselia, Rotom-W, etc all have some form of speed control (Tailwind, Thunder Wave, Icy Wind, Electroweb, Trick Room), though most of them have to be careful with possibly a potential super effective hit coming from Greninja. Trick Room is probably the most effective since usually Pokemon like Cresselia is able to take any of Greninja's attacks even from a Dark Pulse so that another TR ally can effectively deal with the ninja frog.
  
  
• Fighting types: Given that Greninja will usually carry either Ice Beam, Protect, or Dark Pulse means that most Fighting Pokemon can exploit the use of Protean and retaliate with a super effective hit. Pokemon like Breloom, Conkeldurr, Infernape, Lucario, Hitmontop, etc can take out Greninja with a Mach Punch. However be weary of switch most of these Pokemon in as Greninja surely has some form of coverage (Ice Beam, Scald, Extrasensory [rare]) to beat these Fighting types.
  
  
• Brute Force Offense: This is pretty much self explanatory but basically most of the common VGC Pokemon are able to apply immediate offensive pressure against Greninja given how frail it is. Pokemon like Mega Kangaskhan, Mega Gardevoir, Sylveon, Charizard Y, Aegislash, Thundurus, Terrakion,  etc are able capable of knocking out Greninja in one hit provided they're able to get off the attack. Greninja has an overall defensive stats of 72/67/71 so practically most of the strongest attackers in the VGC format can KO the Kalos starter provided it can take the hit.
  
  
• Redirection: Since most of Greninja's attacks are single target, Pokemon with Follow Me/Rage powder (Amoonguss, Clefable, Volcarona, Togekiss) are able to redirect attacks away from key targets Greninja would love to faint immediately. However this come at the cost that the Greninja user can just simply target the redirection based Pokemon with a super effective attack.
  

• Rock Slide - Rock coverage with the 30% chance to flinch on either target. A Naive Greninja without no investment can actually faint a standard 252 HP / 4 Def Charizard Y with Rock Slide provided it hits
  
• Blizzard - Used this attack with a Choice Scarf Abomasnow since it can easily threaten the common Double Genie core in addition to having 100% accuracy.
  
• Extrasensory - Coverage option in case Fighting and Poison types are somewhat problematic for the team.
  
• Hidden Power - Pretty much referring to the "other" Hidden Power types like Rock, Electric, Flying, Fire, etc since Greninja can change to any type in the game bar Fairy.
  
• Icy Wind - A base 55 Ice type move which drops both the opposing Pokemon's speed by about one stage.
  
• Toxic Spikes or Spikes - Because if Aaron "Cybertron" Zheng lost to Toxic Spikes Greninja at the International Challenge, then its good enough  kappa jk don't use hazards in VGC
  

• Expert Belt - A replacement for Life Orb in case the 10% recoil isn't suitable and want just the 1.2x boost against super effective targets only.
  
• Focus Sash - Allows Greninja to take one hit from a target and live on 1 HP (assuming the opponent doesn't double target).
  

(Oct 13, 2015, 10:03 AM)RebornFX Wrote: Brilliant write up, really detailed and I love that you go into how Greninja is intended to be used. I just wish his usage was a bit higher

And btw, you might want to check your paragraph on Bulky pokemon in 'Threats' :P