Blaziken (Agility SubPetaya)

[cosmicexplorer]

This set is one I have used well for a few weeks now. It does very well against stall, and Agility allows it to wreck offensive teams as well. Before you read it, know that I hate Focus Blast with a passion, but it is necessary for this set.

http://smogon.com/dp/pokemon/blaziken

changes in bold blue

[SET]
name: Agility SubPetaya
move 1: Agility
move 2: Substitute
move 3: Fire Blast
move 4: Baton Pass/Focus Blast
item: Petaya Berry
ability: Blaze
nature: Modest
EVs: 140 HP / 4 Def / 252 SpA / 112 Spe

why this set deserves to be on-site:
-OHKOs almost all of UU
-2HKOs even pokemon that resist its attacks
-Agility allows it to get past faster checks like Alakazam
-Breaks through Blaziken's normal checks
-Can setup a sweep with Baton Pass
-Provides great power to break down walls and just wreck stuff in general
-Uses Baton Pass, a move not usually seen on Blaziken

additional comments:
-Gravity is a great idea with this set. It is easily put up by common UU pokemon, and greatly helps this set to kill stuff without dying from a miss.
-Life Orb can also be used to be able to put Blaziken out more than once in a match, but it doesn't give the same power boost that Petaya Berry does and kills Blaziken quickly, especially if it's in Blaze range to begin with.
-Flamethrower can be used over Fire Blast, but then Focus Blast should probably be replaced by Vacuum Wave (to stop death by priority) or Superpower to provide some physical muscle.

Teammates:
-SR is necessary to secure the 2HKO it needs on Altaria.
-A physically defensive will-o-wisp or reflect user helps against opposing priority tremendously, crippling threats like Absol, Azumarill, and Hitmontop that otherwise deal huge damage with their priority moves and end Blaziken's sweep..
-A Rock Polish Rhyperior works well with this set, boosting its speed to deal with fast offensive pokemon and can use its huge attack to destroy what's left of the opponent's team.
-A Nasty Plot Mismagius or Houndoom takes advantage of the holes Blaziken produces in walls and destroys those walls and then the rest of the team, once their Special Defense is destroyed.
-A CB Azumarill can be used to wear down walls on the physical side, complementing Blaziken's very powerful special attacks.
-BaitLix can destroy Milotic and other bulky waters that can stop this set
-If Baton Pass is used, Octillery makes a fine Agility recipient, alongside basically anything that threatens bulky waters

Counters
-Slowking takes less than 40% from a Blaze+Petaya boosted Fire Blast and OHKOs with Surf.
-Milotic takes about 60% from a boosted Fire Blast and 40% from a nonboosted one, so it can take a hit and OHKO with Surf
-Any priority user can revenge kill Blaziken, especially once it's gotten into Blaze range. This means that Arcanine, Hitmontop, Absol, and Azumarill can all immediately stop its sweep. Because of this, a will-o-wisp or reflect user is very useful to weaken attacks of said counters. A physical wall like Tangrowth can wall these threats but for Arcanine, which can be disposed of by Azumarill or a bulky ground type like Donphan.

Overall, I think this is a great set, but the accuracy of Fire Blast/Focus Blast really lets Blaziken down in the long run, especially against offensive teams where missing an attack means instant death. I've used this set with great success, and I believe that it is good enough and important enough to be uploaded to the site. I'd really appreciate any help with this, or your opinion of whether it is worth putting up at all. Thanks in advance.

 

[Super Mario Bro]

I think slashing HP Grass with Focus Blast could be a good idea, as it is able to OHKO Rhyperior and deal heavy damage to Slowbro without having to worry about Focus Blast's lackluster accuracy.

 

[Lee]

This used to be in the Blaziken analysis (I should know, I put it there), but Baton Pass was a slash alongside Focus Blast so that you're efforts aren't wasted by the inevitable Milotic switch. It was either a casualty of the QC purge or was removed in a recent update, I'm not sure which but it was obviously found to be unsuitable for whatever reason.

 

[cosmicexplorer]

Slowbro is already 2HKOed, and losing the ability to OHKO Arcanine could prove deadly, since if Blaziken hits it on the switch, it has a good chance to OHKO even without rocks, stopping the Extremespeed that could easily stop its sweep; without Focus Blast, Blaziken can't OHKO Arcanine, Absol, and have a ~50% chance to OHKO Hitmontop. It does give coverage on Azumarill, but Focus Blast has a higher chance to OHKO. Focus Blast does a good job of killing the priority users switching in to stop Blaziken's sweep. However, as this set is meant to break through walls, having the more reliable hit does help a lot, even if it's a bit less powerful than a STAB Focus Blast (Milotic and Blastoise are hit harder with it). I'll slash it in as a mention to stop stall teams, which typically don't pack priority but for Arcanine.

EDIT: This Blaziken 2HKOs Milotic with Focus Blast or HP Grass once Petaya's been activated, and Blaziken outspeeds non-offensive variants. So if Blaziken Subs first turn it goes in, then it can beat it if it has Focus Blast. However, HP Grass doesn't 2HKO if Milotic switches in immediately. So Focus Blast lets it beat Milo if it hits once before Petaya's activated and once after, although Milo does stop Blaze from getting an Agility. Baton Pass does help, though, to be able to pass speed easily to Venusaur or some other pokemon that threatens Milo, and possibly setup a sweep. However, Focus Blast's accuracy can ruin this, as can a Milotic variant with full speed EVs. If this set was removed, however, then there must be a reason, as you stated before, so if someone finds a bad defect in this set, besides Slowking walling it, I'll stop trying to get it uploaded.

 

[Bluewind]

The high amount of priority in UU, the broad existance of things like Milotic, Slowking, Altaria, Blastoise and Moltres who can take a hit (you won't have both Sub and Petaya boost, unless your opponent misplays) and KO it back, added to the difficulty of setting it up and the underwhelming speed (this really should pack more speed, as it's getting outsped by things like scarf Rotom at the moment) lead me to believe that was the reason. Long story short, it's very inconsistent.

 

[cosmicexplorer]

Well, I never found any difficulty setting it up, but now that I think of it, it's not going to work. My CRE is 1134, so please forgive me for not experiencing these problems you see. This set is meant to break walls and KO offensive pokemon, and it can only do that with Agility and the Petaya boost. The only way this could work is if it's taken out lategame, and more accurate moves should be used for that, as the lower power wouldn't matter; Blaziken would only need to break weakened walls. I guess I've never played against players who don't misplay their check, so I wouldn't know how well this works out. If you think this change in confidence in this set is sudden, it's only because I never thought about how I would actually play it before I used it. Now that I do, I realize how this set wouldn't work out. Thanks for showing me that. I'd like a mod to lock this thread, as it doesn't work well enough to be put on-site.

 

[Bluewind]

Hey calm down man, just because I'm not very fond of this set, it doesn't mean others won't be. I really think you should wait a little bit and get to know their opinions before requesting lockdown, as you have heard the opinion of a single person only, who's not even on QC.

 

[ck49]

I ran this set (but with baton pass over focus blast) a while back and it works wonders with octillary, since milotic (or scarf moltres if you haven't gotten up rocks) is always the first switch in. As such it spams surf, which is an easy BP in for octillary. scarftres is a counter, and hates rocks.

 

[Heysup]

I tested this for the recent QC check, and the excess of priority and Milotic made this set impossible to pull off.

 

[breh]

IVs: 30 HP
EVs: 192 HP / 252 SpA / 64 Spe

I lol'd; change it to 188 HP and 4 def for a free stat point.

Anyway, as coolking said, maybe try BP? Seems viable, but I don't know.

 

[Erazor]

I used this set for a while recently... and it was inconsistent, to say the least. I ran Flamethrower/Focus Blast, since you do not want BOTH your STABs having <100 accuracy. When it set up, it was great... but the game was won by that time anyway. On the other hand, if it doesn't get time to set up, it's mostly dead weight on the team - it doesn't pack the power that SD or MixKen does, nor does it have any bulk to speak of.
Not to mention that there's too much effing priority in UU.

Overall, it's good enough for Other Options, but that's it, I think.

edit: run enough EVs to Outspeed Scarf Rotom. That's 224 speed, which is 112 EVs with a Modest nature.

 

[NightShadow]

Since this is such a magnet for Milotic, why not use BaitLix as a partner?

 

[cosmicexplorer]

OK guys, I want to say that I'm sorry that I blew this off so quickly, and I'm sorry that I didn't respond earlier. I have a fever right now, and I'm not the most patient person even when I'm not sick. So please forgive me for quitting so early, and I'll try to see what I can do to make this set viable. Here's what I'll do:

@Erazor: Thanks, I changed the EVs to outspeed Scarf Rotom. Now, as for Flamethrower>Fire Blast, I think that Fire Blast is more important than Focus Blast, as it's more accurate and gets the Blaze boost. As for bulky waters switching in, suggestions have already been given to fix that, e.g. BaitLix or Baton Passing to Octillery or something else that can combat bulky waters switching in.

@NightShadow: That's a great idea. You'll notice I mentioned it above and edited it into teammates.

@Breludicolo: I fail, and thanks for pointing that out. I changed the EVs.

@coolking49: That's a great idea, and I think that is much better than the original set, due to its low accuracy and priority running rampant. I think that should probably even be before Focus Blast. Blaziken can kill stuff with Fire Blast if it's able to setup or it can just Baton Pass to something that likes having a speed boost.

 

[Diesel]

I actually used an identical set when I was testing for my Octillery analysis. I ran it with Baton Pass (duh), and found it surprisingly decent. It lures out bulky Waters SO consistently that you're practically guaranteed to get to +1/+2 and be able to Baton Pass. Octillery made a good recipient, but stuff like Ampharos, Magneton, Toxicroak, and even Milotic or Venusaur could make a decent recipient.

That being said, the (rather severe) downside is that Blaziken is pretty much complete deadweight after in Baton Passes unless you're facing a team of Sunfloras. If Milotic has Haze, which wasn't too popular when I tested it, she can just wait for your Petaya boost (after the second Sub it'll be somewhat obvious) then lol at you. And if your recipient doesn't do something spectacular you've pretty much wasted a Pokemon (or two).

I guess if it was my decision I would say it should get a solid paragraph in OO. Right now BP has a mention, but I think it deserves a bit more credit than it has been given, and this set in particular should be mentioned. I didn't try it with Focus Blast.

 

[Rolf]

I'm actually having pretty much the opposite reaction than most of the other testers. I started playing around with this set on an Agility sweeper based team that I had made a couple weeks ago and had enormous success with Blaziken as a late-game cleaner. More offensively-inclined teams have absolutely no problems luring out the opponents Milotic/Azumarill due to the general utility bulky waters have. Sometimes I would be down 5-1 on a semi-weakened team then come in with Blaziken and sweep easily. Personally, I've had more success just using Agility and then letting an opponents priority / attack put me into Petaya range.

For reference: standard Milotic Surf vs SubPetaya Blaziken: 82.1% - 97%. Just enough to stick you into Blaze if you can manage to keep SR off of the field.

 

[cosmicexplorer]

@Rolf: That's a much better idea than I ever had about this set. Were you using this set with Focus Blast?

@Diesel: Blaziken can still use Agility to sweep, and and a STABed, 120 BP move, heightened by Blaze, will still deal excellent damage to anything but Milotic or Chansey. Also, if the Baton Pass recipient isn't wrecked by Haze, then the opposing team will be noticeably weakened by the time the BP recipient is KOed.

 

[Darkamber8828]

Dammit Diesel, I thought I had an original idea coming through...T.T

-To help break through Slowking, Knock Off or Toxic can be used over Agility

Wait, what? Knock Off? Toxic? On an Agility Sweeper?

 

[cosmicexplorer]

EPIC BRAINFART. I actually don't know what I was thinking. It's not there anymore.

 

[ToF]

i thought i rejected this, but guess not. with the inability to get past its most common counter in milotic, i don't see why this set should even be considered to be honest. sorry, definite no from me. plus with the amounts of priority in uu, definitely difficult to pull off successfully.

 

[Eo Ut Mortus]

Two rejections; moving.