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Greninja Discussion

Discussion in '6th Gen' started by Minedreigon, Nov 30, 2014.

  1. Minedreigon

    Minedreigon A monument to all your sins


    As you may already know, Greninja is a top tier Pokemon in the Overused tier, and for a multitude of reasons. It's good speed tier, how easily it picks up free kills vs nearly all offensive teams, it's nuts coverage and it's ability to have STAB on every single move are all contributing factors.

    Greninja has changed ever so slightly in ORAS. While there are more checks to it due to some of the new Mega Pokemon, Greninja now has Gunk Shot and Low Kick, which not only makes Greninja have an even deadlier movepool, but also limits his switch-ins even further. Old switch-ins like Azumarill and Clefable are no longer able to stop this monster, meaning Greninja matches up extremely well against Balanced, and can easily tear up Stall once Tenta and Chansey are inevitably worn down.

    Pokemon Online, at time of posting, is already suspect testing Greninja, and Smogon is likely to follow in it's footsteps. When arguing about Greninja being banned, please do not act as if it's checks stop it from being broken, as this does not effect the main arguments that people use when trying to convince people that it is broken.

    Greninja is a very important Pokemon in the Overused metagame and I feel like it is a necessity to discuss it.

    UPDATE: Pokemon Online has banned Greninja.

    UPDATE 2: Smogon is now officially suspecting Greninja. Feel free to discuss the possiblity of a Greninja ban.

    UPDATE 3: Greninja is banned from Smogon. THANK GOD
    Last edited: Jan 12, 2015
  2. halodeoxys

    halodeoxys wanna see me run to that mountain and back

    Yeah, I think this vote is going to be pretty close. What makes Greninja so threatening is how it has practically zero switchins thanks to Protean giving it infinite STAB attacks to go alongside its excellent movepool for the metagame. Alongside its staple Hydro Pump/Ice Beam/Gunk Shot set it can run a final move depending on its team. Keldeo/Venusaur a problem? Extrasensory. Metagross/Jirachi? Dark Pulse. Ferrothorn? Hidden Power Fire. Low Kick can even be used over Hydro Pump to take out Chansey. Greninja's very high speed of 122 lets it outspeed most of the metagame, making it a good revenge killer against pokemon like Terrakion or Latios.

    Greninja isn't invincible though. Its still pretty frail, and the life orb recoil sure doesn't help. Greninja is very subject to scarfers and faster megas such as Aerodactyl and Manectric, which ORAS only added to the list with Lopunny, Sceptile, and Beedrill.

    I personally am still unsure where I stand on this debate, but either way I think it's going to be a pretty heated debate, buuuuut maybe not quite on the level of the Aegislash subject which just barely made the majority vote required to send it to ubers.
  3. Recon

    Recon 11001101011101010100

    I have a feeling we're gonna see more Physical or Mixed Greninjas as a result of recent changes.

    Sure its base Special Attack is higher and it has a pretty good special movepool to boot, but I feel that its new physical movepool just makes it a better physical attacker now.

    Two things Greninja's special side lacks is a priority move and a stat-boosting move. Shadow Sneak and Power-up Punch cover these nicely. Trust me when I say you don't want to eat a Mach Punch, Bullet Punch, or Vacuum Wave in the face. Other good options on Greninja include U-turn, Waterfall, Ice Punch, Gunk Shot, and Low Kick.

    In the end, Greninja's diversity is what allows it to be such a threat. You don't know what kind you're going up against until it throws the first Power-up punch
  4. XXD17

    XXD17 Draco rex

    Is low kick only there for chansey coverage? I ask because I run gunk shot, waterfall, u-turn and shadow sneak....I can't find a reason to use low kick since gunk shot is already there to prevent toxic stall from chansey (The thunder wave variant seems pretty rare)...also, I know it's not saying much but prankster klefki can cripple greninja and not get OHKO'd...once you cut down it's speed, it should be easy to take care of...
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2014
  5. Mye

    Mye Someone has to win..

    I'm thinking we may see water shuriken on more sets with greninja getting a decent physical movepool from the move tutors. Although it has better overall water type moves (like hydro pump), water shuriken allows it to break subs while still doing damage, and combined with u turn and shadow sneak allows it to confuse the opponent into oblivion. Do I think it should be banned from OU? Possibly. On the other hand with things like kecleon getting their HA's I'm thinking we could see a shift that'll ultimately have more things in the meta which can either do greninja's job better or ruin it entirely.
  6. XXD17

    XXD17 Draco rex

    I actually originally ran water shuriken on a POP set in XY...I found it to be kinda weak hitting even after a boost (base 15 damage isn't amazing unless you are running king's rock and want to rely on the flinch) being only really effective against t-flame...That's why I think shadow sneak is the only reliable priority since it allows you to easily avoid mach punches from breloom and conk...
  7. Mr. Reloaded

    Mr. Reloaded An enigma

    To casuals or battle spot only players a Greninja ban is going to be the second most controversial ban of Gen 6, but to people like us who actually play OU a ban would seem reasonable.

    For starters Gunk Shot beats every fairy that used to be able to check it Azumarill, Clefable ect.
    Protean giving stab on every move is problemmatic as it gives it a godly offensive boost.

    Don't get the wrong idea it does have checks in Thundurus and scarfed users but actually countering it is kinda impossible because of a combination of the new move tutor moves, HP Fire/Grass, Extrasensory ect. It's an incredibly good mon.

    But is it broken?... To be honest it kinda is, but we'll just have to wait and see when its suspect test has been announced.

    But I've got the strongest feeling the votes are going to be half and half.
  8. Snorby

    Snorby Snorby

    Pure physical Greninja is pretty bad. Mixed Greninja is ideal. The only two physical moves worth running are Gunk Shot and Low Kick. Gren is much too frail to be using power up punch, and it wants to hit as hard as possible so it doesnt have to take hits.

    Even with Low Kick, Chansey still beats Greninja. It is more useful for taking things like Kube, Tar (can live Hpump in sand), Tran (Spec def sets can live Hpump), Empoleon, and it also lets you have a way around ferrothorn that doesnt force you to resort to HP Fire.

    Water Shuriken, to be frank, is incredibly weak. Even if it gets 5 hits when Greninja is running 252 attack EVs and Life Orb, it only does 52% max to your average support Tyranitar (who is taking SE damage here) after leftovers. At minimum, 5 hits is doing more like 42%. Greninja is more than fast enough without priority, and honestly, it's not going to be that useful in the long run. Things like Talonflame, Dragonite, and Weavile outpace it with their priority, while Breloom isnt taking much from it in the first place. It's a pretty silly waste of a moveslot imo. Also, just looking at raw stats, Kecleon has no place in OU, Protean or otherwise. It is miles away from outclassing a top-tier S Rank threat such as Greninja.

    Tentacruel, Rotom-W, and Porygon2 can all counter Greninja with the right EVs, even spikes variants. A well EV'd P2 can beat Greninja that run both Hydro Pump and Low Kick (two most effective moves against P2) even after Stealth Rock and 2 layers of spikes. Tentacruel, on the other hand, can spin away spikes Greninja lays with ease, and if EV'd correctly doesn't care about Extrasensory in the slightest.

    Saying Greninja has no counters is just plain wrong.

    Also, there's more than Thundurus (which is actually a terrible check because it has to sacrifice itself to do any good) and Scarfers that can check Greninja. I'm thinking of Klefki, Sand Rush Excadrill with Sand Stream support, Talonflame, Mega Sceptile, Mega Beedrill, Mega Metagross (lives 1 Dark Pulse), and Mega Lopunny. There are likely more that I'm drawing a blank on, but this is to name just a few.

    I'll make a full post on my stance on Greninja at a later time, but for now I just wanted to address some misconceptions being thrown around n.n
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2014
  9. Recon

    Recon 11001101011101010100

    Really? You're even discounting U-turn and Shadow Sneak (the latter is a gray area). They provide some good utility that I like on Greninja. There's a check? U-turn out of there and switch something in. I would honestly take U-turn over Low Kick any day.

    Ir may be not ideal, but Physical Greninja is a good niche pick, as it catches most people off guard.
  10. Snorby

    Snorby Snorby

    U-turn is a waste of a moveslot because greninja loses precious coverage to gain only a small amount of utility. Any check worth using to beat Greninja is going to be outspeeding through priority, a scarf, sand rush, or just outright being faster, so U-Turn isn't really good for that. Also, it doesnt do that much damage and makes gren even frailer by costing it 10% of its health thanks to Life Orb. Shadow Sneak used to be ok when Conkeldurr was running around trying to Mach Punch Gren, but Conk is dead in the meta, so it has little to no use. It doesn't really matter if something is a surprising choice or not, that wont make it better by default. Just because Alakazam has the elemental punches and no one expects them doesnt mean it's good to run Fire Punch on it to catch Scizor by surprise, for example.
  11. Rocxidi

    Rocxidi ס₪₪₪§€ΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞΞ7

    He means purely physical, which is garbo. You can run U,Turn, Ice Punch, Gunk Shot, and Low Kick, only to get walled by things like Skarmory and such. Sure, you no longer need to split EV's between Attack and Special Attack, but with Intimidate all over the tier and physical walls like Rotom, this set fails to accomplish much. I even tried Band for the extra "oomph," which wasn't enough. You're better off using a Pokemon like Diggersby, because Greninja's special prowess is what makes it so good.
  12. Mye

    Mye Someone has to win..

    You're trolling, right? Despite having lower physical attack (which is only 8 points less) and a less than ideal movepool, physical greninja actually counters much of the common switch ins people will send out to tank its attacks. Acrobatics (with STAB and the right item) OHKO's or deals heavy damage to pretty much any grass type that dares to switch in, especially things like mega-venusaur who only take neutral from ice beam. Low kick allows greninja to deal massive damage to certain special walls (like blissey or porygon2, who if someone wants to do calcs, I'm pretty sure take way more damage than any special move it throws at them). Even rock tomb deserves a special mention as with it, you can 2hko certain faster threats who'd otherwise be able to switch in and kill you instantly.

    Gonna save my whole kecleon discussion for when they do a potw with it. You're definitely wrong though. On trick room teams, kecleon does what greninja does only better thanks to trick and a more powerful priority in sucker punch.
  13. KillerDraco

    KillerDraco The Enforcer Staff Member Super Mod

    And that's why Greninja adapted and carried Extrasensory to adapt to Mega Venusaur, given it could lure it in and 2HKO it. Also, considering that Flying Gem is still not legal, there's no good item to carry that would make Acrobatics worthwhile. To emphasize:

    252 Atk Protean Greninja Acrobatics (110 BP) vs. 232 HP / 0 Def Mega Venusaur: 242-288 (67.4 - 80.2%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

    Which means your other attacks lose power since Greninja relies heavily on Life Orb.

    In comparison:

    252 SpA Life Orb Protean Greninja Extrasensory vs. 232 HP / 4 SpD Mega Venusaur: 244-291 (67.9 - 81%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

    And you get the Life Orb boost for the rest of your attacks as well.

    Blissey is a non-factor. It got booted down to UU months ago after everyone and their brother started using Chansey for its superior bulk.

    Chansey takes more damage from Low Kick (low chance to 2HKO), while Porygon2 potentially takes more if it's running a specially defensive set (Hydro Pump does more on physically defensive Porygon2 though), but it's still only a 3HKO.

    252 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (60 BP) vs. 4 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 273-322 (42.5 - 50.1%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO
    252 Atk Life Orb Protean Greninja Low Kick (60 BP) vs. 252 HP / 4 Def Eviolite Porygon2: 151-179 (40.3 - 47.8%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

    However, that's the thing; Greninja has already adapted to carrying Low Kick on a mixed set to deal with some would-be counters. There's no reason to go fully physical when the mixed set does the same thing already.

    Well, duh. Greninja is a fast Pokemon while Kecleon is slow. Greninja suffers under Trick Room, while Kecleon can thrive under it. Though the underlying problem is that Trick Room teams in general are bad due to the ease in stopping Trick Room; heck, due to the WORST priority in the game at -7, you can actually Roar/Whirlwind/etc. to stop Trick Room from being set up, among numerous other things (taunt, sleep, outright killing, etc). Plus, Trick Room has a short duration and you'll always have to switch out and waste a turn. Kecleon is also walled by a lot more things than Greninja, completely screwed by Will-o-Wisp, and in general is just bad. Also, it's had access to its HA for a LONG time now (remember, it became legal in XY thanks to the Friend Safari), and Kecleon has never come anywhere close to OU. Being slow, one-dimensional, and having bad physical bulk does it no favors. Even if Greninja does get banned in the upcoming suspect test, which is not a guarantee, Kecleon will not benefit in any way because people don't think "Oh, I need a Protean user", they think "I need something that's fast and hits hard with a lot of coverage", and that's what Greninja does. Protean is certainly a contributing factor to this, given it gives it a permanent STAB boost, but if Greninja does go, people won't turn to Kecleon just because it has Protean.
  14. Snorby

    Snorby Snorby

    Couldn't have said it better myself, though I'd like to also point out that even without factoring in life orb, Extrasensory does more raw damage to standard defensive megasaur than Acrobatics does.
  15. Eaglehawk

    Eaglehawk Banned

    The Greninja set you all should be using is this one:

    Greninja@Life Orb
    Trait: Protean
    EVs: 40 Att / 215 SpAtk / 252 Spe
    Nature: Naive
    - Ice Beam
    - Dark Pulse
    - Low Kick / Extrasensory
    - Gunk Shot

    This set singlehandedly has no surefire counters to it simply because of its versatility. Things that can switch into the Extrasensory set get murked by Low Kick (i.e. TTar and Ferro) and things that can switch into Low Kick get murked by Extrasensory (i.e. MegaVenusaur). Rather difficult to check, nearly impossible to safely counter. I'm still on the fence regarding its brokenness since it looks broken on paper but I've heard from top ladder players that Greninja is manageable. No matter how manageable, there is no doubt that Greninja is absolutely a centralizing figure in the OverUsed metagame.
  16. Aeon™

    Aeon™ Rock Ultimate

    Personally I think a better set is

    Greninja@Life Orb
    Trait: Protean
    EVs: 40 Att / 215 SpAtk / 252 Spe OR 4 Def / 252 SpA / 252 Spe (for if you don't have gunk shot or low kick)
    Nature: Naive
    - Hydro Pump / Ice Beam / Gunk Shot / Low Kick / HP Fire / Extrasensory / Dark Pulse / Low Kick

    Because they are all extremely useful attacks depending on what your team needs to whack hard and fast. Though I do recommend definitely having pump and beam.
  17. Snorby

    Snorby Snorby

    Tentacruel w/ some Sdef, P2, and Rotom-W w/ some Sdef can all beat this set, regardless of its use of Extrasensory/Low Kick. Chansey also beats this 100%. Also, all the checks I listed earlier still apply to this set.

    Hpump is actually rather useless since its best use was hitting stuff like Clefable hard and Gunk Shot takes care of that. HP Fire is only useful for nailing MScizor (Ferro loses to Low Kick), which isnt super common anymore.
  18. Clone™

    Clone™ Ded

    I just want to say that I'm the first person to have actually posted that set, so I can say I created the "OP" Mon of ORAS =]

    On a more serious note, Chansey, Porygon2, and Bulky Mega Scizor wall that set for days, so saying he has no counters is kinda ignorant.
  19. Eaglehawk

    Eaglehawk Banned

    I mean, there is the odd case of HP Fire Greninja every once in a while, bue ehh.

    Now I acknowledge I was being a bit ignorant by ignoring Chansey and Pory2. However, both of them can be dealt with by Greninja's typical teammates.
  20. Snorby

    Snorby Snorby

    The teammate argument is just silly. Any pokemon in OU can be seen as having no counters if you support it well. For instance, Mega Pinsir has no counters if you run it with Magnezone for Skarmory and then add in something to put pressure on Zapdos and maybe Rotom-W. Azumarill has no counters if paired with Magnezone for Skarmory and Latias for Megasaur/Amoonguss. I could go on, but I'm sure you get my point.

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