Is it just me or is protean greninja actually Too overpowered??

[Aloha]

Spoiler

So, With E16 I have been able to battle other trainers and every now and then I stumble with this little annoying brat.. Sometimes I get to win, but a lot of other times it just wrecks a good part of my team and it feels kind of unfair...

 

I wanted to know what's your opinion on protean greninja whether or not I have reasons to feel annoyed.. I know that "There are ways to beat greninja".. I just wonder if it isn't on the same level of pokemon like gengar or gyarados, that were axed for being too strong... Sometimes I get the feeling that the only reason greninja wasn't axed like other mons is because it is a starter.

 

In the end, it all comes down to this.. Do you agree that greninja is on the same level as a gengar or a gyarados? or do you think that gengar and gyarados are more over powered than protean greninja is?

 

 

 

[Dreamy]

I picked froakie as my starter, and yea protean greninja is a fast, versatile attacker, not once has he swept/dominated in any major fights, so to me he seems strong, but balanced. also his level up movepool isn't that great, so it takes a fairly long time for him to actually get good. frogadier especially felt quite weak while I had him. Gyarados especially is a lot stronger. Moxie is an incredibly powerful ability and gyarados also has great speed boosting with d-dance. krookadile and honchkrow are more limited because of their lack of speed boosting, but my friend has been sweeping many tough fights with sticky web galvantula + moxie honchkrow. gengar just has excellent special attack and speed with a good movepool and decent defensive typing, but should probably be included back into the game around where we currently are. greninja is a bit faster than gengar but has noticeably less power behind his attacks.

Edited December 17, 2016 by DreamblitzX

[brianwee2012]

I feel that greninja isnt that OP, even being EV trained and wielding a life orb, it sometimes struggles to do decent damage even with surf/dark pulse on Neutral targets, (IE e16's new gym leader), Although Protean gives it STAB on its moves, helps it dodge certain attacks sometimes, but it isnt all that great, esp against tougher opponents, who are tougher than gren.  They just have to tank a hit and will deal enough damage to greninja to wreck it.  Also, greninja in competitive is still in OU, which is in the same tier as gengar, but IF opponents just have enough priority, greninja still is hard to sweep a team. Also in reborn, some weaker pokes are slightly buffed to make use of the field effects which will still not make greninja that much of an OP threat.  Also Greninja is a starter, so in that sense, it is on the same level as the other starters.

[DemICE]

It hits hard, but not so hard. but its squishy.  

And its real strength is his STAB coverage.   But its STAB attacks are usually weaker than the STAB attacks of other offensive mons.

It's okay-ish

[Frozenwolf94]

In my opinion, Greninja is balanced in that yes protean gives it STAB for it's moves and gives it immunity to other types of moves, Greninja is not a very bulky Pokémon and can't take hits very well. And it's move pool is very limited where it really gets some decent moves, like smack down, water shuriken, night slash, extrasensory and hydro pump but most of those moves, except smack down, are learned from middle to late game after it evolves. Trust me, because of the limited move pool I barely used my froakie/frogadier in most of the gym/boss fights till I reached Shelly in my current run manly because none of the moves my Frogadier had did not help much in the tangrowth fights. So Greninja is a strong Pokémon with protean but if your fighting an opponent that is a little bit more bulky or faster then Greninja and has a strong attack then Greninja will get punished and take a really hard hit and may be knocked out in a flashed.    

[Razkar]

Imo Gyarardos is waaaaaay more powerful that the frog!

 

Being honest i did a run where i use E10 to have him early game and finish the game was just too easy. Set up a Dragon-dance and with Moxie he just can take almost every single gym leader alone. I deleted this savefile, Gyarardos just took the fun away from the game ^^'

[Firebane]

Greninja is the most fun starter imo simple due to its versatility, however I don't think the frog is overpowered or even the best starter mainly due to the fact that in important battles where we have field effects and such which are basically a secondary or additional stab, Greninja will still take a lot of damage even switching to a type resistant to an attack because it's super frail. I do believe Blaziken and maybe even Serperior are better starters, though Serperior takes a lot of levels to show its true power (basically when you have leaf storm).

 

About Gengar and Gyarados I'm not sure tbh, we're already kinda far into the game and we do have access to a lot of strong mons so I'm a little surprised as well that those 2 are still not obtainable, maybe there's an some sort of event planned for those 2 who knows.

[Farnsworth]

I disagree with people comparing Gyarados with Greninja and saying the former is outright stronger. That is a totally unfair comparison because both pokemon fill very different roles in a team. Greninja is not meant to be a sweeper, it doesn't have the offenses to do it and doesn't carry any boosting moves. It is meant to be a glue, covering anything that your team is weak against, due to its sheer amount of versatility with protean. Also lets not forget that its entire movepool isn't available yet, we are still missing key attacks like ice beam and gunk shot which helps its coverage a lot. Greninja is only supposed to hit hard against things that it has a super effective move, of course it can't sweep an entire team. Also, although it is currently OU in Smogon tiers, it will very soon be banned back to Uber, much like Aegislash. Its sheer amount of versatility and the fact that it can have something to hit almost every pokemon really hard makes Greninja an amazing pokemon, if not the best currently available water type.

 

And all of that is discounting the battle bond ability that it gets in gen 7, with that it will probably become one of the most terrifying sweepers in the game with its ludicrous speed and power. You just need to know how to use it and most importantly when to use it. That being said I do agree that it isn't overpowered due to its mediocre level up movepool, making it not very good in the mid-game. However, once you reach more to the end game it becomes a much much better pokemon.

[Noir]

2 hours ago, Farnsworth said:

 Greninja is not meant to be a sweeper, it doesn't have the offenses to do it and doesn't carry any boosting moves. It is meant to be a glue, covering anything that your team is weak against, due to its sheer amount of versatility with protean. Greninja is only supposed to hit hard against things that it has a super effective move, of course it can't sweep an entire team. Also, although it is currently OU in Smogon tiers, it will very soon be banned back to Uber, much like Aegislash.

 

Pardon me, but Greninja can be debated a sweeper of sorts. It doesn't need boosting moves to sweep, that's what made it so powerful; it has coverage for everything and can 2HKO everything in the game while maintaining momentum with U-Turn if it wants even if it lacked coverage, which made it very difficult to handle without priority or a Choice Scarf, making all playstyles difficult. In fact the only factor that made Greninja subsequently broken and banned was its access to Gunk Shot to handle Fairies, Greninja also isn't "a glue", as adds to little defensive synergy on a team apart from the fact that you could switch in on Psychic; for reference, "covering everything your team is weak against" would allude to having a very reliable switch in for almost every relevant metagame threat in game, which Greninja obviously cannot do given how squishy it is. Greninja can reliably cover offense, but cannot do so on the defensive spectrum. Even then, "can't sweep an entire team on its own" isn't a consensus for a Pokemon being not broken.

 

Also, Protean Greninja will not be banned to Ubers any soon considering it is not used enough to have a major consensus. It is used less than 1/3rd of the time one would use Greninja-Ash, which debatably has a fair bit more redeeming qualities than Protean does; even then, with things like (currently) Toxapex, Primarina and Celesteela being suitable checks if not counters and the fast paced meta comprising of things like Pheromosa and the like (in part with Tapu Lele being part of why Greninja would be good, as it buffs Extrasensory for Greninja to handle Toxapex and negates priority moves for it) there are many other things that are of concern to the currently new meta (which takes time to adapt) and Pokemon that are more "broken" and contribute to Greninja's success. Also, don't contradict yourself by mentioning how Gyarados shouldn't be compared to Greninja and subsequently comparing Greninja to Aegislash in the sense that they will be soon be banned to Ubers much like back in the XY meta. Those two things are worlds apart in what they do and how impactful they were/are in the metagame. 

 

 

To get back into Topic, the limitations of Reborn are more limiting in terms of the options to counter Greninja more than Greninja's lack of coverage itself. I'm not sure how Greninja would function in Rain when combined with Politoed because well, 50% boost to Water types makes the "walled by Fairies" issue a void thing. The lack of access to a Choice Scarf does make it difficult to revenge kill Greninja, and I would call it broken if a "Reborn meta" were to be made, simply because the limited amount of viable special walls we possess (though the access to Toxic boosts the viability of walls like Blissey and Umbreon) and lack of viable revenge killers above 122 Speed. Lacking Ice type coverage for Grass types is void because Protean Greninja can just turn into a Dark/Psychic type and prey on the weaknesses of occasional Grass types that are deemed "good" like Venusaur and Breloom, and with a Life Orb has enough damage output to kill things like Serperior and Sceptile. It would limit one to rely on a Pokemon such as Umbreon and Blissey with Toxic, or more gimmicky things like Florges or Mantine to handle it, or something like Snorlax and Azumarill, and to a much less helpful extent Goodra, the former four of which aren't things one would commonly use on a run. This is also forgetting the fact that Greninja can also run a Hidden Power of choice to deal with Azumarill/Mantine if they become common, so people can just adapt.

 

TTl;dr Greninja is kind of broken in Reborn and limits you to running very specific things to take a hit from it, and we lack the viable fast stuff to revenge it anyway

 

Edited December 17, 2016 by Noir

[Farnsworth]

8 minutes ago, Noir said:

 

Pardon me, but Greninja can be debated a sweeper of sorts. It doesn't need boosting moves to sweep, that's what made it so powerful; it has coverage for everything and can 2HKO everything in the game while maintaining momentum with U-Turn if it wants even if it lacked coverage, which made it very difficult to handle without priority or a Choice Scarf, making all playstyles difficult. In fact the only factor that made Greninja subsequently broken and banned was its access to Gunk Shot to handle Fairies, Greninja also isn't "a glue", as adds to little defensive synergy on a team apart from the fact that you could switch in on Psychic; for reference, "covering everything your team is weak against" would allude to having a very reliable switch in for almost every relevant metagame threat in game, which Greninja obviously cannot do given how squishy it is. Greninja can reliably cover offense, but cannot do so on the defensive spectrum. Even then, "can't sweep an entire team on its own" isn't a consensus for a Pokemon being not broken.

 

Also, Protean Greninja will not be banned to Ubers any soon considering it is not used enough to have a major consensus. It is used less than 1/3rd of the time one would use Greninja-Ash, which debatably has a fair bit more redeeming qualities than Protean does; even then, with things like (currently) Toxapex, Primarina and Celesteela being suitable checks if not counters and the fast paced meta comprising of things like Pheromosa and the like (in part with Tapu Lele being part of why Greninja would be good, as it buffs Extrasensory for Greninja to handle Toxapex and negates priority moves for it) there are many other things that are of concern to the currently new meta (which takes time to adapt) and Pokemon that are more "broken" and contribute to Greninja's success. Also, don't contradict yourself by mentioning how Gyarados shouldn't be compared to Greninja and subsequently comparing Greninja to Aegislash in the sense that they will be soon be banned to Ubers much like back in the XY meta. Those two things are worlds apart in what they do and how impactful they were/are in the metagame. 

 

 

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To get back into Topic, the limitations of Reborn are more limiting in terms of the options to counter Greninja more than Greninja's lack of coverage itself. I'm not sure how Greninja would function in Rain when combined with Politoed because well, 50% boost to Water types makes the "walled by Fairies" issue a void thing. The lack of access to a Choice Scarf does make it difficult to revenge kill Greninja, and I would call it broken if a "Reborn meta" were to be made, simply because the limited amount of viable special walls we possess (though the access to Toxic boosts the viability of walls like Blissey and Umbreon) and lack of viable revenge killers above 122 Speed. Lacking Ice type coverage for Grass types is void because Protean Greninja can just turn into a Dark/Psychic type and prey on the weaknesses of occasional Grass types that are deemed "good" like Venusaur and Breloom, and with a Life Orb has enough damage output to kill things like Serperior and Sceptile. It would limit one to rely on a Pokemon such as Umbreon and Blissey with Toxic, or more gimmicky things like Florges or Mantine to handle it, or something like Snorlax,  the former two of which aren't things one would commonly use on a run.

 

 

Tl;dr Greninja is kind of broken in Reborn and limits you to running very specific things to take a hit from it, and we lack the viable fast stuff to revenge it anyway

 

 

 

First of you misunderstood my post, I was never making a comment on how Greninja functions in the Smogon tiers or competitively. Nor was I comparing it to Aegislash, I was just using it as an example to show that the tier a pokemon falls in does not reflect how good it is in-game (sorry if that wasn't clear enough). I'm not a competitive battler, nor will I pretend I am, so I can't really comment whether or not Greninja is broken in the meta game at the moment.

 

As for Greninja being a sweeper, I disagree, it might be a late game sweeper, but not a full on one. Keep in mind that I'm making these claims in the context of Reborn and not Smogon or competitive. A sweeper is a pokemon that is meant to kill off your opponents entire team or at least a good portion of it, Greninja can only kill the pokemon that it can hit for SE damage. I meant it is a 'glue' in the sense that it can most likely kill any pokemon that your team has trouble with, often covering some gaping holes in your team's offensive presence. I never said anything about it giving your team defensive synergy, don't put words in my mouth. 

 

I meant it isn't broken if you the player use it, due to it being a pretty mediocre pokemon in the mid-game because of it's bad level up moveset. When it's a Frogadier you only have access to moves like Smack Down, Round and Water Pulse which is very very bad. In late game I agree that Greninja is very strong, but still it might find trouble getting past a few things. However, if you meant that it is broken if trainers use it, I agree completely. The fact that this thing is very fast and can hit a lot of things for SE makes it very difficult to deal with. You can never know what type it can become and even then you still have to tank a (most likely) SE hit. The only reliable way to deal with it is with priority or like I mentioned tanking the hit and then KOing it.

[Noir]

1 minute ago, Farnsworth said:

 

First of you misunderstood my post, I was never making a comment on how Greninja functions in the Smogon tiers or competitively. Nor was I comparing it to Aegislash, I was just using it as an example to show that the tier a pokemon falls in does not reflect how good it is in-game (sorry if that wasn't clear enough). I'm not a competitive battler, nor will I pretend I am, so I can't really comment whether or not Greninja is broken in the meta game at the moment.

 

As for Greninja being a sweeper, I disagree, it might be a late game sweeper, but not a full on one. Keep in mind that I'm making these claims in the context of Reborn and not Smogon or competitive. A sweeper is a pokemon that is meant to kill off your opponents entire team or at least a good portion of it, Greninja can only kill the pokemon that it can hit for SE damage. I meant it is a 'glue' in the sense that it can most likely kill any pokemon that your team has trouble with, often covering some gaping holes in your team's offensive presence. I never said anything about it giving your team defensive synergy, don't put words in my mouth. 

 

I meant it isn't broken if you the player use it, due to it being a pretty mediocre pokemon in the mid-game because of it's bad level up moveset. When it's a Frogadier you only have access to moves like Smack Down, Round and Water Pulse which is very very bad. In late game I agree that Greninja is very strong, but still it might find trouble getting past a few things. However, if you meant that it is broken if trainers use it, I agree completely. The fact that this thing is very fast and can hit a lot of things for SE makes it very difficult to deal with. You can never know what type it can become and even then you still have to tank a (most likely) SE hit. The only reliable way to deal with it is with priority or like I mentioned tanking the hit and then KOing it.

I mean, the given context of the thread above alludes to the discussion of Greninja being used by players in the newly implemented online battling system which is where the creator of the thread referred to in his voice about Greninja being broken, so I'm not sure why it's usefulness in game has any relevance to this discussion in the first place. 

 

"As for Greninja being a sweeper, I disagree, it might be a late game sweeper, but not a full on one."

 

26 minutes ago, Noir said:

Even then, "can't sweep an entire team on its own" isn't a consensus for a Pokemon being not broken.

 

  Hide contents

 

What's the difference between it being able to sweep late game and it being a full on one with its role as a sweeper? It can win you the game and "beat the opponent's team by KOing all Pokemon offensively" with the right criteria, which is the baseline for the word's definition to begin with.

 

 

 

[Farnsworth]

3 minutes ago, Noir said:

I mean, the given context of the thread above alludes to the discussion of Greninja being used by players in the newly implemented online battling system which is where the creator of the thread referred to in his voice about Greninja being broken, so I'm not sure why it's usefulness in game has any relevance to this discussion in the first place. 

 

"As for Greninja being a sweeper, I disagree, it might be a late game sweeper, but not a full on one."

 

What's the difference between it being able to sweep late game and it being a full on one with its role as a sweeper? It can win you the game and "beat the opponent's team by KOing all Pokemon offensively" with the right criteria, which is the baseline for the word's definition to begin with.

 

 

 

 

Sorry about that, I didn't realize the topic was about the online battling system (my bad).

 

I think it's just a difference in how we understand the 'sweeper' term. I understand it being a pokemon that once it set ups it can literally kill everything in your opponents team, or just a pokemon strong enough to outright kill everything (like M-Rayray). To me a 'late-game sweeper' is a pokemon that can kill every pokemon in your opponents team, once the things that usually wall it are dealt with (which in Greninja's case most of the time 1-3 pokemon in your opponent's team can counter or check it).

[Noir]

2 minutes ago, Farnsworth said:

 

 

I think it's just a difference in how we understand the 'sweeper' term. I understand it being a pokemon that once it set ups it can literally kill everything in your opponents team, or just a pokemon strong enough to outright kill everything (like M-Rayray). To me a 'late-game sweeper' is a pokemon that can kill every pokemon in your opponents team, once the things that usually wall it are dealt with (which in Greninja's case most of the time 1-3 pokemon in your opponent's team can counter or check it).

 

I mean, these "once it sets up it can literally kill everything in your opponent's team" sweepers usually also have "checks" and "counters", and for such Pokemon to successfully sweep, those Pokemon need to be removed. That said, it doesn't matter how a Pokemon "sweeps", as it can do so with one similar criteria which is to have all checks and counters removed. That's how "sweeping" works.

[Farnsworth]

1 minute ago, Noir said:

 

I mean, these "once it sets up it can literally kill everything in your opponent's team" sweepers usually also have "checks" and "counters", and for such Pokemon to successfully sweep, those Pokemon need to be removed. That said, it doesn't matter how a Pokemon "sweeps", as it can do so with one similar criteria which is to have all checks and counters removed. That's how "sweeping" works.

 

You are actually right, Greninja can be a sweeper, but it usually requires more help then other sweepers like Gyarados or Dragonite (after they get a boost). But that isn't Greninja's primary function (at least not in-game), it is meant to take out things your team couldn't otherwise handle, due to its versatility. I see it more as a revenge killer than a sweeper, tbh.

[Ironbound]

Are we actually debating this.

Is this what I am really seeing.

 

I am not using question marks because it's obvious that if Smogon, in all its debating, decided as a majority and in a scenario where there are more 700~ mons eligible for OU play, that Greninja, Protean or otherwise, is too good to be allowed and is detrimental to team building or standard play...

 

That means that in Reborn, especially given the scarcity of good mons and moves, Greninja (which still manages to get excellent moves despite the lack of most standard TMs or tutor moves as yet) is very clearly too good to be allowable.

 

For the record, Greninja fulfills the defined roles of a Sweeper, a Hazards Lead, a Suicide Lead, a revenge killer and a Pivot. In fact, Greninja can fulfill the role of anything that is not defensive. With the help of even half the usual size of a battle team, Greninja in the hands of even a mediocre battler can be devastating to the point where even skilled players may not be able to withstand its use. This argument seems to me to be pointless. I suggest that some of the participants go to Smogon's website and spend half an hour looking through the archives on Greninja before attempting to base points; what one may feel is generally superseded by what is a fact. I also suggest re-reading what Smogon, and standard competitive play, defines as a Sweeper, a Check and a Counter.

 

I don't see what else can be meaningfully stated.

[Farnsworth]

15 minutes ago, Viridescent 2.0 said:

Are we actually debating this.

Is this what I am really seeing.

 

I am not using question marks because it's obvious that if Smogon, in all its debating, decided as a majority and in a scenario where there are more 700~ mons eligible for OU play, that Greninja, Protean or otherwise, is too good to be allowed and is detrimental to team building or standard play...

 

That means that in Reborn, especially given the scarcity of good mons and moves, Greninja (which still manages to get excellent moves despite the lack of most standard TMs or tutor moves as yet) is very clearly too good to be allowable.

 

For the record, Greninja fulfills the defined roles of a Sweeper, a Hazards Lead, a Suicide Lead, a revenge killer and a Pivot. In fact, Greninja can fulfill the role of anything that is not defensive. With the help of even half the usual size of a battle team, Greninja in the hands of even a mediocre battler can be devastating to the point where even skilled players may not be able to withstand its use. This argument seems to me to be pointless. I suggest that some of the participants go to Smogon's website and spend half an hour looking through the archives on Greninja before attempting to base points; what one may feel is generally superseded by what is a fact. I also suggest re-reading what Smogon, and standard competitive play, defines as a Sweeper, a Check and a Counter.

 

I don't see what else can be meaningfully stated.

 

I think the issue is that a lot of people understood it as Greninja being broken in-game, not in the online battling (and I was one of them). Online this thing is utterly broken, but in-game it very bad in the mid-game while its still a Frogadier and only becomes strong when it gets access to its stronger moves like Dark Pulse, Extrasensory, Grass Knot, Surf, etc. Also the sweeper thing was my bad, I apologize for it.

[Aloha]

I quoted everyone. so hence the following spoiler

 

Spoiler

15 hours ago, DreamblitzX said:

I picked froakie as my starter, and yea protean greninja is a fast, versatile attacker, not once has he swept/dominated in any major fights, so to me he seems strong, but balanced. also his level up movepool isn't that great, so it takes a fairly long time for him to actually get good. frogadier especially felt quite weak while I had him. Gyarados especially is a lot stronger. Moxie is an incredibly powerful ability and gyarados also has great speed boosting with d-dance. krookadile and honchkrow are more limited because of their lack of speed boosting, but my friend has been sweeping many tough fights with sticky web galvantula + moxie honchkrow. gengar just has excellent special attack and speed with a good movepool and decent defensive typing, but should probably be included back into the game around where we currently are. greninja is a bit faster than gengar but has noticeably less power behind his attacks.

15 hours ago, brianwee2012 said:

I feel that greninja isnt that OP, even being EV trained and wielding a life orb, it sometimes struggles to do decent damage even with surf/dark pulse on Neutral targets, (IE e16's new gym leader), Although Protean gives it STAB on its moves, helps it dodge certain attacks sometimes, but it isnt all that great, esp against tougher opponents, who are tougher than gren.  They just have to tank a hit and will deal enough damage to greninja to wreck it.  Also, greninja in competitive is still in OU, which is in the same tier as gengar, but IF opponents just have enough priority, greninja still is hard to sweep a team. Also in reborn, some weaker pokes are slightly buffed to make use of the field effects which will still not make greninja that much of an OP threat.  Also Greninja is a starter, so in that sense, it is on the same level as the other starters.

11 hours ago, DemICE said:

It hits hard, but not so hard. but its squishy.  

And its real strength is his STAB coverage.   But its STAB attacks are usually weaker than the STAB attacks of other offensive mons.

It's okay-ish

10 hours ago, Frozenwolf94 said:

In my opinion, Greninja is balanced in that yes protean gives it STAB for it's moves and gives it immunity to other types of moves, Greninja is not a very bulky Pokémon and can't take hits very well. And it's move pool is very limited where it really gets some decent moves, like smack down, water shuriken, night slash, extrasensory and hydro pump but most of those moves, except smack down, are learned from middle to late game after it evolves. Trust me, because of the limited move pool I barely used my froakie/frogadier in most of the gym/boss fights till I reached Shelly in my current run manly because none of the moves my Frogadier had did not help much in the tangrowth fights. So Greninja is a strong Pokémon with protean but if your fighting an opponent that is a little bit more bulky or faster then Greninja and has a strong attack then Greninja will get punished and take a really hard hit and may be knocked out in a flashed.    

8 hours ago, Razkar said:

Imo Gyarardos is waaaaaay more powerful that the frog!

 

Being honest i did a run where i use E10 to have him early game and finish the game was just too easy. Set up a Dragon-dance and with Moxie he just can take almost every single gym leader alone. I deleted this savefile, Gyarardos just took the fun away from the game ^^'

8 hours ago, Firebane said:

Greninja is the most fun starter imo simple due to its versatility, however I don't think the frog is overpowered or even the best starter mainly due to the fact that in important battles where we have field effects and such which are basically a secondary or additional stab, Greninja will still take a lot of damage even switching to a type resistant to an attack because it's super frail. I do believe Blaziken and maybe even Serperior are better starters, though Serperior takes a lot of levels to show its true power (basically when you have leaf storm).

 

About Gengar and Gyarados I'm not sure tbh, we're already kinda far into the game and we do have access to a lot of strong mons so I'm a little surprised as well that those 2 are still not obtainable, maybe there's an some sort of event planned for those 2 who knows.

7 hours ago, Farnsworth said:

I disagree with people comparing Gyarados with Greninja and saying the former is outright stronger. That is a totally unfair comparison because both pokemon fill very different roles in a team. Greninja is not meant to be a sweeper, it doesn't have the offenses to do it and doesn't carry any boosting moves. It is meant to be a glue, covering anything that your team is weak against, due to its sheer amount of versatility with protean. Also lets not forget that its entire movepool isn't available yet, we are still missing key attacks like ice beam and gunk shot which helps its coverage a lot. Greninja is only supposed to hit hard against things that it has a super effective move, of course it can't sweep an entire team. Also, although it is currently OU in Smogon tiers, it will very soon be banned back to Uber, much like Aegislash. Its sheer amount of versatility and the fact that it can have something to hit almost every pokemon really hard makes Greninja an amazing pokemon, if not the best currently available water type.

 

And all of that is discounting the battle bond ability that it gets in gen 7, with that it will probably become one of the most terrifying sweepers in the game with its ludicrous speed and power. You just need to know how to use it and most importantly when to use it. That being said I do agree that it isn't overpowered due to its mediocre level up movepool, making it not very good in the mid-game. However, once you reach more to the end game it becomes a much much better pokemon.

4 hours ago, Noir said:

 

Pardon me, but Greninja can be debated a sweeper of sorts. It doesn't need boosting moves to sweep, that's what made it so powerful; it has coverage for everything and can 2HKO everything in the game while maintaining momentum with U-Turn if it wants even if it lacked coverage, which made it very difficult to handle without priority or a Choice Scarf, making all playstyles difficult. In fact the only factor that made Greninja subsequently broken and banned was its access to Gunk Shot to handle Fairies, Greninja also isn't "a glue", as adds to little defensive synergy on a team apart from the fact that you could switch in on Psychic; for reference, "covering everything your team is weak against" would allude to having a very reliable switch in for almost every relevant metagame threat in game, which Greninja obviously cannot do given how squishy it is. Greninja can reliably cover offense, but cannot do so on the defensive spectrum. Even then, "can't sweep an entire team on its own" isn't a consensus for a Pokemon being not broken.

 

Also, Protean Greninja will not be banned to Ubers any soon considering it is not used enough to have a major consensus. It is used less than 1/3rd of the time one would use Greninja-Ash, which debatably has a fair bit more redeeming qualities than Protean does; even then, with things like (currently) Toxapex, Primarina and Celesteela being suitable checks if not counters and the fast paced meta comprising of things like Pheromosa and the like (in part with Tapu Lele being part of why Greninja would be good, as it buffs Extrasensory for Greninja to handle Toxapex and negates priority moves for it) there are many other things that are of concern to the currently new meta (which takes time to adapt) and Pokemon that are more "broken" and contribute to Greninja's success. Also, don't contradict yourself by mentioning how Gyarados shouldn't be compared to Greninja and subsequently comparing Greninja to Aegislash in the sense that they will be soon be banned to Ubers much like back in the XY meta. Those two things are worlds apart in what they do and how impactful they were/are in the metagame. 

 

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To get back into Topic, the limitations of Reborn are more limiting in terms of the options to counter Greninja more than Greninja's lack of coverage itself. I'm not sure how Greninja would function in Rain when combined with Politoed because well, 50% boost to Water types makes the "walled by Fairies" issue a void thing. The lack of access to a Choice Scarf does make it difficult to revenge kill Greninja, and I would call it broken if a "Reborn meta" were to be made, simply because the limited amount of viable special walls we possess (though the access to Toxic boosts the viability of walls like Blissey and Umbreon) and lack of viable revenge killers above 122 Speed. Lacking Ice type coverage for Grass types is void because Protean Greninja can just turn into a Dark/Psychic type and prey on the weaknesses of occasional Grass types that are deemed "good" like Venusaur and Breloom, and with a Life Orb has enough damage output to kill things like Serperior and Sceptile. It would limit one to rely on a Pokemon such as Umbreon and Blissey with Toxic, or more gimmicky things like Florges or Mantine to handle it, or something like Snorlax and Azumarill, and to a much less helpful extent Goodra, the former four of which aren't things one would commonly use on a run. This is also forgetting the fact that Greninja can also run a Hidden Power of choice to deal with Azumarill/Mantine if they become common, so people can just adapt.

 

TTl;dr Greninja is kind of broken in Reborn and limits you to running very specific things to take a hit from it, and we lack the viable fast stuff to revenge it anyway

 

4 hours ago, Viridescent 2.0 said:

Are we actually debating this.

Is this what I am really seeing.

 

I am not using question marks because it's obvious that if Smogon, in all its debating, decided as a majority and in a scenario where there are more 700~ mons eligible for OU play, that Greninja, Protean or otherwise, is too good to be allowed and is detrimental to team building or standard play...

 

That means that in Reborn, especially given the scarcity of good mons and moves, Greninja (which still manages to get excellent moves despite the lack of most standard TMs or tutor moves as yet) is very clearly too good to be allowable.

 

For the record, Greninja fulfills the defined roles of a Sweeper, a Hazards Lead, a Suicide Lead, a revenge killer and a Pivot. In fact, Greninja can fulfill the role of anything that is not defensive. With the help of even half the usual size of a battle team, Greninja in the hands of even a mediocre battler can be devastating to the point where even skilled players may not be able to withstand its use. This argument seems to me to be pointless. I suggest that some of the participants go to Smogon's website and spend half an hour looking through the archives on Greninja before attempting to base points; what one may feel is generally superseded by what is a fact. I also suggest re-reading what Smogon, and standard competitive play, defines as a Sweeper, a Check and a Counter.

 

I don't see what else can be meaningfully stated.

 

 

 

As it was mentioned before, I'm not questioning it's role in the actual game since what you said its true (about having him as your starter while advancing through the story of the mid and early game). I'm specifically talking about facing a Lvl 100 protean greninja with a full moveset in an online random matchup.. It just feels unfair, given the other limitations placed on those same battles.

 

 

[DemICE]

I was talking about online. not ingame.    I am battling online from the first day of community release so let me have some solid feedback on this. 

Everything i said still stands as my opinion.

[Firebane]

39 minutes ago, Aloha said:

I quoted everyone. so hence the following spoiler

 

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As it was mentioned before, I'm not questioning it's role in the actual game since what you said its true (about having him as your starter while advancing through the story of the mid and early game). I'm specifically talking about facing a Lvl 100 protean greninja with a full moveset in an online random matchup.. It just feels unfair, given the other limitations placed on those same battles.

 

 

 

Oh forgive me, still not used to this whole online side of reborn yet and I'll prob never be since I'm not that much interested in it :p. Ignore what I said then.

[Dreamy]

3 hours ago, Aloha said:

I quoted everyone. so hence the following spoiler

 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

As it was mentioned before, I'm not questioning it's role in the actual game since what you said its true (about having him as your starter while advancing through the story of the mid and early game). I'm specifically talking about facing a Lvl 100 protean greninja with a full moveset in an online random matchup.. It just feels unfair, given the other limitations placed on those same battles.

 

 

Ok yea I was talking about In game so I guess ignore me too XD