Blizzard Chansey

[magic9mushroom]

I've been toying with sticking Blizzard on Chansey of late.

As far as I can see, the pros and cons are these:

+ 2HKO Victreebel
+ guaranteed 3HKO on Egg
+ high chance of 3HKO on Tauros
+ high chance of OHKO on Dragonite
- can miss vs. Rhydon/Golem
- less PP for freeze wars

What are your opinions?

[jorgen]

My opinion is that I wouldn't really use it. Chansey likes being able to play the frz war, and normally relies on Counter/Twave to mess with Normals. I guess extra damage on Egg/Grounds to avoid being Exploded on/2HKOed while para'd would be pretty nice, though.

[magic9mushroom]

It likes to be able to, but it hardly needs that to be effective. You can have a Chansey without an Ice move at all and still have it be effective (SToss/Reflect/TWave/Softboiled).

Thing about Normals is that I often find myself facing down Tauros with fresh Chansey in the endgame. I can TWave it, sure, but I'll often have nothing else I can switch into it, and Blizzard means I can wear it down a little more.

[jorgen]

Fair enough, although I see it more as a question of general effectiveness. Ice Beam simultaneously gives you coverage to punish the majority of the metagame while dissuading other Chansey from just switching in to stall you out. SToss and Blizz sets punish obstinate offensive pushes a bit harder, but are left at a bit of a disadvantage in a pure Chansey stall war.

[magic9mushroom]

Yeah, if you're planning on freeze wars then Ice Beam all the way, but some playstyles prefer to paralyse opposing Chansey and thus freeze wars are less relevant.

(My Withdraw Slowbro team, for instance, prefers Chansey to be paralysed so Slowbro will outspeed it. Offense based on Snorlax or Rhydon also loves a paralysed Chansey.)

[Isa]

My main issue with Chansey Blizzard is that you need to make the damage output matter. 3HKO on Tauros may look nice, but in a fresh 1v1 you're likely to paralyze him and get ~27% from an Ice Beam, which is enough to make him fall in two hits from a STAB special attack, and the extra 10% damage dealt is mostly irrelevant. Chansey isn't meant for killing things outright, it's a team player.
edit: to take this further, Blizzard doesn't turn any 2HKOs to OHKOs on Tauros except Articuno Blizzard and Gengar Explosion - and both require very high if not max rolls.

And with Blizzard you "lose" the Chansey ditto. Even if you get the freeze (despite having lower odds to do so), your PP will be so drained that you're soon rendered useless by Exeggutor or even hard walled by a Ground type.

[Dexter]

I think any combination of ice beam/thunderbolt/blizzard/fire blast can work for chansey's attacking slot, even ice beam + blizzard has merits. You don't need to do the standard thunderbolt/ice beam

[magic9mushroom]

Dec 12, 2013 14:35:03 GMT -8 Dexter said:

fire blast can work for chansey's attacking slot

For what, Rest Jynx? I'm all for trolling Dre, but that might be a bit overspecialised, don't you think?

[Isa]

While I'd personally never use Fire Blast, it scares physicals a lot. A 25,5% chance to cripple any physical Pokémon without Rest is superb.

[jorgen]

The idea is normally to just paralyze them though. I guess Fire is handy for Lax, who doesn't mind para too much, although personally I'd still rather take the sure thing and just Twave it instead of praying for burns.

Standards are standards for a reason. You can say you don't need to use standard ice beam/tbolt Chansey to be successful, and I'm all for going against the grain, but really, that standard set is going to be the most consistently useful Chansey set out there and you should really have a good reason for departing from it.

[magic9mushroom]

Dec 15, 2013 2:10:58 GMT -8 Isa said:

While I'd personally never use Fire Blast, it scares physicals a lot. A 25,5% chance to cripple any physical Pokémon without Rest is superb.

But Chansey can't afford to gamble against physicals the way it can against specials. If it doesn't land the burn, you've thrown one of the best Pokemon in RBY down the drain for nothing.

[Isa]

Compare switching in on a predicted Fire Blast/Ice Beam. Even though freezing is more deadly, the burn has a higher chance of happening and is almost as potent versus Tauros, non-Rest Lax etc.

[magic9mushroom]

Dec 16, 2013 16:27:15 GMT -8 Isa said:

Compare switching in on a predicted Fire Blast/Ice Beam. Even though freezing is more deadly, the burn has a higher chance of happening and is almost as potent versus Tauros, non-Rest Lax etc.

Sure, but paralysis from Thunder Wave has a much higher chance of happening (99.6%) than either.

[Isa]

You wouldn't want to paralyze in every scenario though. Especially Snorlax would hate a burn more than paralysis, assuming no Rest.

[magic9mushroom]

Dec 17, 2013 3:45:47 GMT -8 Isa said:

You wouldn't want to paralyze in every scenario though. Especially Snorlax would hate a burn more than paralysis, assuming no Rest.

Yeah, but you still wouldn't keep Chansey in on Snorlax to try for a burn. You might keep Chansey in on Snorlax to Thunder Wave it.

[Isa]

Snorlax might stay away from switching in just to avoid getting burned though. Across two turns you have close to 50% of being burned, before you can do anything to hit Chansey, and you're likely to lose 50% of your HP as well.

I'm not trying to convince you FBlast should be the standard, I'm just listing the merits.

[magic9mushroom]

Dec 17, 2013 4:01:25 GMT -8 Isa said:

Snorlax might stay away from switching in just to avoid getting burned though. Across two turns you have close to 50% of being burned, before you can do anything to hit Chansey, and you're likely to lose 50% of your HP as well.

I'm not trying to convince you FBlast should be the standard, I'm just listing the merits.

Meh. I'll agree it poses a threat from the Blastee's point of view, the issue is that the Blaster usually has better options (ie, if Snorlax is coming in, switch in ReflectZam or Rhylem/Gengar (depending on its coverage) or any of the bulky Ices; if it's already in, either get out or get in a quick Thunder Wave).