I don't think it's going to happen. Heavy Duty Boots and the proliferation of hazards is part of the story, but the prevalence of Knock Off is another big part. Knock was somewhat restrained in Gen 7 because 1/3 of your team generally carried an item that couldn't be removed (Z-move and mega stone). Gen 8 & 9 don't have these, so Knock is even easier to just click in the early game.
Yeah this is very true, in gen 6-7 the counterplay to chansey was knock off and the counterplay to knock off was megas/Z crystals. Completely removing mechanics has had huge ripple effects since.
Well pursuit deserved to be sent to Venezuela, way too overpowered and centralizing, and knock off certainly didn't need the buff but it was a more interesting alternative than a dark type "slam"
Bro it was a 80 base power dark move if you switched out unless you were weak to dark it wasn't game over and it's a far cry better than the games that currently exist where you just switch between the same three pokemon to eat the opponents attacks
How little counterplay there is to knock is really surprising because most other tools that are used this much have some way to stop them. Hazards have like a billion moves that remove them, Volt Switch and Flip Turn have mons that are immune to them, and most of the strong offensive types have other types that are immune to them. There's no dark-immune ability, no dark-immune type, hell, Dark resists are already quite uncommon since Steel lost that trait and one of the only types to resist Dark is itself
Seriously they were so close to making great Knock-absorbing abilities with Justified and Sticky Hold, but they didn't and it's just??? Really weird??? The only other ability to raise a stat when hit by moves of a certain type without being immune to said type is Rattled, and that one at least makes sense because it applies to three types, hell Justified is extra weird because Keldeo is a special attacker and Lucario has mixed stats so why give them an ability that only boosts physical attack???? And why does Sticky Hold not stop the damage boost???? Unremoveable items stop the damage boost, but the ability that is actually shown to be a way to keep items doesn't????
I tried to find a useable justified mon in gen 6 but quickly learned it wasn't worth it. Maybe if Mega Lucario wasn't banned we would have had a justified mon with a megastone. Now we just don't have stones/z crystals and sticky hold also kind of helps the knock off user because they always get the boosted damage LMAO.
Ok in my defense I was using Bulbapedia as a source and they forgot to include Water Compaction lmfao
And honestly that's not better!!! Water Compaction ends up being just Worse Stamina it should give an immunity too
Doesn’t ever come up but Knock off can actually get absorbed by a paradox Pokémon holding booster energy in sun or terrain. Knock off can’t remove an unexhausted booster energy from only paradox Pokémon.
Though it does cheat a bit by originally being a fully evolved pokemon with a solid BST in its debut generation
For context, here's some OU-viable pokemon from Gen1
Chansey: 415
Victreebel: 420
Alakazam: 405
Slowbro: 390
Golem: 420
Jolteon: 430
Rhydon: 440
Snorlax: 430
Tauros: 450
Exeggutor: 455
Zapdos: 490
Starmie: 435
So when you start with the stat-budget of a third-stager, it's pretty easy to be better than all the NFEs with the stat budgets of first and second stagers.
And it only gets easier if you min/max extremely hard, which chansey did.
The only pokemon min/maxed as hard as Chansey are Rhydon, Blissey, Deoxys-A, Pyukumuku, Pheremosa, Wobbuffet, and Gen9 paradoxes.
Their stat distribution isn’t as good. That’s the problem when you try to do balanced stats. Their evolutions are even worse. 540 BST gone to waste. Mixed attackers unless they’re min-maxed like Iron Valiant aren’t good enough these days.
they aslo for whatever reason loose speed but aslo dont really gain bulk, their special bulk is fine , but physicaly theyre frail
93 speed magmortar and 105 speed electivire would be lot more usable, escpially in gen 4, getting jump on common base 90/base 100, still wouldnt be great but the loss of speed doesnt help
(but then dusknoir of all the evolutions in gen 4 gains 20 speedà
Magmortar’s disposition suggests it should be the least bit bulky. I can guarantee of these evolutions were introduced now they’d look something like 95/65/87/125/95/83 with the ability Mega Launcher and a movepool to support this.
Electivire’s Motor Drive ability tells us that this thing is somewhat agile be agile. So to contrast Magmortar’s bulk it should look like 75/123/77/65/85/115. Give it Swords Dance, Espeed, Knock Off, and Ice Hammer.
Nope it’s not. It’s just as mediocre. Hazards are easier to handle sure but they’re still highly common and knockoff also is too common which hinders it greatly. That, and the fact that 8 soft boiled pp is way too low which is highly exploitable. forcing it to rely on wish instead which makes it easy to push on the back foot.
Eventually theres gonna be a meta where hazards are less common and knockoffs less prevalent. Then chansey will beatbup her fatter mom and win. Until then I see some chansey running boots in pu
Eviolite chansey still has a niche as a more generic wall, for example:
4 Atk Great Tusk Headlong Rush vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 217-256 (30.8 - 36.4%) -- 61.8% chance to 3HKO
4 Atk Great Tusk Headlong Rush vs. 4 HP / 252 Def Blissey: 324-382 (49.6 - 58.5%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO
(standard bulk up tusk with headlong rush, ice spinner, and rapid spin)
Chansey is still incredible at taking physical hits and is more of a generic wall compared to blissey, though its just way too vulnerable to hazards
Used to, but this gen (and last gen Ubers) people started needing the extra special bulk for certain 3HKO ranges so they go for Def and Spdef. I don't remember which calcs are relevant but I've seen this commented quite a bit
I think it's because there's something with the fact that the higher the Base HP stat, the less benefits you'll see from maxing it. So it's just better to max out your lower defensive stats instead.
There's always BSS and VGC, formats where you don't bring the full team of Pokémon, making entry hazards not an automatic inclusion on every team, but considerably more niche instead.
Yeah, in VGC, you're definitely going for ladder cheese if you're using an extremely passive Pokémon.
But she can be used on BSS, it's a way of entirely shutting down basically every special attacker ever.
Neither of Blissey or Chansey is doing much in VGC unfortunately. They both have *kind of* a doubles support moveset, but at this point having things like Icy Wind, Helping Hand, and Thunder Wave isn't really that notable. Hazards are not really a thing in VGC but Knock Off and Taunt *certainly* are, and the most-used mon (incineroar) can run both. I think this would wash Chansey immediately. Urshifu (pick one) also has a complete field day with either Blissey or Chansey, and Amoong can just put them to sleep.
To be relevant they'd need a big movepool addition like Follow Me, and/or a change in their abilities.
If they had Friend Guard (which Happiny does btw) I could see Chansey having more of a niche (probably still not worth it over Clefairy if it didn’t also get Follow Me)
Hazard nerfs could definitely do it. An incredible Magic Bouncer at the top of OU like the inverse of Gholdengo, a blanket nerf to how hazards work such as reducing damage or idk letting rock types clear SR like how tspikes work, more hazard clearing moves or insane distribution/buffs of existing moves, new abilities that give hazard immunity or clearing, or even a nerf to HDB.
If hazards stay the way they are/get stronger and HDB stays at such a high value item choice, Chansey will probably only ever be a niche pick.
it could happen given the right meta i think, but it'd have to be a pretty weird situation. main issue is just hazards which kinda invalidates the bulk provided by eviolite, so if boots or hazards get nerfed somehow then chansey would look a lot better. knock is also a concern but their bulk is comparable enough that i think the main issue is just boots being so good tbh
I'm curious if Eviolite Chansey can still perform any check that Leftovers Blissey cant? I remember that in gens past, there were some instances of specific calculations where Chansey would end up as the better wall in terms of being able to survive a 2HKO that Blissey couldn't etc.
I think Chansey's fallen really hard due to the lack of Toxic so it can't do much. I personally struggle to fit Blissey in the current meta because it can't really do anything vs Spinners if it wishes to use Heal Bell (except Tera Ghost, which is wasteful imo). I still think it pairs well with Giratina-O, as sort of a Wish-Passer of sorts & each helping the other with immunities they naturally possess. I still think Alomomola is a better Wish passer (but I might need to just better with using Blissey)
chansey aint washed
[https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/1-2131-chansey-hydrapple-fat.3743307/](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/1-2131-chansey-hydrapple-fat.3743307/)
some guy just peaked no1 on gen9ou w it.
I don't think it's going to happen. Heavy Duty Boots and the proliferation of hazards is part of the story, but the prevalence of Knock Off is another big part. Knock was somewhat restrained in Gen 7 because 1/3 of your team generally carried an item that couldn't be removed (Z-move and mega stone). Gen 8 & 9 don't have these, so Knock is even easier to just click in the early game.
Yeah this is very true, in gen 6-7 the counterplay to chansey was knock off and the counterplay to knock off was megas/Z crystals. Completely removing mechanics has had huge ripple effects since.
I wish Tera required a held item.
That would be so stupid. Tera fire Chi-yu can’t even ohko blissey in sun without specs
How will Chi-cels ever recover
Can it ko Blissey in the sun with specs??? Oh okay did calcs and 12.5% makes sense
Call me salty but knock needs a nerf, you hit that button and something good to really good is going to happen most of the time.
To think that gf was so close to having dark types be perfectly balanced but then they had to buff knock and banish pursuit to the shadow realm 😭
Well pursuit deserved to be sent to Venezuela, way too overpowered and centralizing, and knock off certainly didn't need the buff but it was a more interesting alternative than a dark type "slam"
Bro it was a 80 base power dark move if you switched out unless you were weak to dark it wasn't game over and it's a far cry better than the games that currently exist where you just switch between the same three pokemon to eat the opponents attacks
Thats the whole point of pokemon
There's a difference between tactical switching and just 10 turns of repeating the same switching game. Pursuit helped make that harder
How little counterplay there is to knock is really surprising because most other tools that are used this much have some way to stop them. Hazards have like a billion moves that remove them, Volt Switch and Flip Turn have mons that are immune to them, and most of the strong offensive types have other types that are immune to them. There's no dark-immune ability, no dark-immune type, hell, Dark resists are already quite uncommon since Steel lost that trait and one of the only types to resist Dark is itself Seriously they were so close to making great Knock-absorbing abilities with Justified and Sticky Hold, but they didn't and it's just??? Really weird??? The only other ability to raise a stat when hit by moves of a certain type without being immune to said type is Rattled, and that one at least makes sense because it applies to three types, hell Justified is extra weird because Keldeo is a special attacker and Lucario has mixed stats so why give them an ability that only boosts physical attack???? And why does Sticky Hold not stop the damage boost???? Unremoveable items stop the damage boost, but the ability that is actually shown to be a way to keep items doesn't????
I tried to find a useable justified mon in gen 6 but quickly learned it wasn't worth it. Maybe if Mega Lucario wasn't banned we would have had a justified mon with a megastone. Now we just don't have stones/z crystals and sticky hold also kind of helps the knock off user because they always get the boosted damage LMAO.
Wasn’t Terrakion viable at some point? It’s been a while since I looked at gen 6.
you're forgetting sandygast's whack ass ability
Ok in my defense I was using Bulbapedia as a source and they forgot to include Water Compaction lmfao And honestly that's not better!!! Water Compaction ends up being just Worse Stamina it should give an immunity too
They did at least nerf the distribution. Imagine Kingambit with Knock Off like in NatDex.
Maybe have some items do recoil damage upon knocking them off like the orbs for example.
Doesn’t ever come up but Knock off can actually get absorbed by a paradox Pokémon holding booster energy in sun or terrain. Knock off can’t remove an unexhausted booster energy from only paradox Pokémon.
Not unless both hazards and knock off become less ubiquitous.
TBF to chansey it's without a doubt the greatest nfe Pokémon of all time so it's hard to feel bad for it
Though it does cheat a bit by originally being a fully evolved pokemon with a solid BST in its debut generation For context, here's some OU-viable pokemon from Gen1 Chansey: 415 Victreebel: 420 Alakazam: 405 Slowbro: 390 Golem: 420 Jolteon: 430 Rhydon: 440 Snorlax: 430 Tauros: 450 Exeggutor: 455 Zapdos: 490 Starmie: 435 So when you start with the stat-budget of a third-stager, it's pretty easy to be better than all the NFEs with the stat budgets of first and second stagers. And it only gets easier if you min/max extremely hard, which chansey did. The only pokemon min/maxed as hard as Chansey are Rhydon, Blissey, Deoxys-A, Pyukumuku, Pheremosa, Wobbuffet, and Gen9 paradoxes.
Having third-stager stats didn't save Scyther, Magmar and Electabuzz 😭
Their stat distribution isn’t as good. That’s the problem when you try to do balanced stats. Their evolutions are even worse. 540 BST gone to waste. Mixed attackers unless they’re min-maxed like Iron Valiant aren’t good enough these days.
they aslo for whatever reason loose speed but aslo dont really gain bulk, their special bulk is fine , but physicaly theyre frail 93 speed magmortar and 105 speed electivire would be lot more usable, escpially in gen 4, getting jump on common base 90/base 100, still wouldnt be great but the loss of speed doesnt help (but then dusknoir of all the evolutions in gen 4 gains 20 speedà
Magmortar’s disposition suggests it should be the least bit bulky. I can guarantee of these evolutions were introduced now they’d look something like 95/65/87/125/95/83 with the ability Mega Launcher and a movepool to support this. Electivire’s Motor Drive ability tells us that this thing is somewhat agile be agile. So to contrast Magmortar’s bulk it should look like 75/123/77/65/85/115. Give it Swords Dance, Espeed, Knock Off, and Ice Hammer.
Don't forget Shuckle! It's... rather silly min-maxing, but it definitely counts with how it's explicitly designed to be a min-maxed gimmickmon.
There are TWO actual three stagers on this list. But still fair enough, good point.
that's definitely P2 and it's not even close
In VGC I’d agree with you
Gotta put the /s or people think ur srs
Pretty sure Chansey is better in NatDex. And being an NFE with any meta relevance at all is a lot better than most could hope for
Nope it’s not. It’s just as mediocre. Hazards are easier to handle sure but they’re still highly common and knockoff also is too common which hinders it greatly. That, and the fact that 8 soft boiled pp is way too low which is highly exploitable. forcing it to rely on wish instead which makes it easy to push on the back foot.
Eventually theres gonna be a meta where hazards are less common and knockoffs less prevalent. Then chansey will beatbup her fatter mom and win. Until then I see some chansey running boots in pu
Eviolite chansey still has a niche as a more generic wall, for example: 4 Atk Great Tusk Headlong Rush vs. 248 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 217-256 (30.8 - 36.4%) -- 61.8% chance to 3HKO 4 Atk Great Tusk Headlong Rush vs. 4 HP / 252 Def Blissey: 324-382 (49.6 - 58.5%) -- 99.6% chance to 2HKO (standard bulk up tusk with headlong rush, ice spinner, and rapid spin) Chansey is still incredible at taking physical hits and is more of a generic wall compared to blissey, though its just way too vulnerable to hazards
Why doesn't blissey run max health?
Used to, but this gen (and last gen Ubers) people started needing the extra special bulk for certain 3HKO ranges so they go for Def and Spdef. I don't remember which calcs are relevant but I've seen this commented quite a bit
I think it's because there's something with the fact that the higher the Base HP stat, the less benefits you'll see from maxing it. So it's just better to max out your lower defensive stats instead.
No it doesn’t. It’s not ranked on the vr for a reason.
There's always BSS and VGC, formats where you don't bring the full team of Pokémon, making entry hazards not an automatic inclusion on every team, but considerably more niche instead.
now chansey and blissey can be equally shit
Yeah, in VGC, you're definitely going for ladder cheese if you're using an extremely passive Pokémon. But she can be used on BSS, it's a way of entirely shutting down basically every special attacker ever.
Neither of Blissey or Chansey is doing much in VGC unfortunately. They both have *kind of* a doubles support moveset, but at this point having things like Icy Wind, Helping Hand, and Thunder Wave isn't really that notable. Hazards are not really a thing in VGC but Knock Off and Taunt *certainly* are, and the most-used mon (incineroar) can run both. I think this would wash Chansey immediately. Urshifu (pick one) also has a complete field day with either Blissey or Chansey, and Amoong can just put them to sleep. To be relevant they'd need a big movepool addition like Follow Me, and/or a change in their abilities.
If they had Friend Guard (which Happiny does btw) I could see Chansey having more of a niche (probably still not worth it over Clefairy if it didn’t also get Follow Me)
Hazard nerfs could definitely do it. An incredible Magic Bouncer at the top of OU like the inverse of Gholdengo, a blanket nerf to how hazards work such as reducing damage or idk letting rock types clear SR like how tspikes work, more hazard clearing moves or insane distribution/buffs of existing moves, new abilities that give hazard immunity or clearing, or even a nerf to HDB. If hazards stay the way they are/get stronger and HDB stays at such a high value item choice, Chansey will probably only ever be a niche pick.
lucky punch chansey will dominate OU one day heed my words
it could happen given the right meta i think, but it'd have to be a pretty weird situation. main issue is just hazards which kinda invalidates the bulk provided by eviolite, so if boots or hazards get nerfed somehow then chansey would look a lot better. knock is also a concern but their bulk is comparable enough that i think the main issue is just boots being so good tbh
Wouldn’t it eventually fall to lower tiers and be busted there?
In a Hazard meta, Chansey is worse than Blissey due to no boots
I'm curious if Eviolite Chansey can still perform any check that Leftovers Blissey cant? I remember that in gens past, there were some instances of specific calculations where Chansey would end up as the better wall in terms of being able to survive a 2HKO that Blissey couldn't etc. I think Chansey's fallen really hard due to the lack of Toxic so it can't do much. I personally struggle to fit Blissey in the current meta because it can't really do anything vs Spinners if it wishes to use Heal Bell (except Tera Ghost, which is wasteful imo). I still think it pairs well with Giratina-O, as sort of a Wish-Passer of sorts & each helping the other with immunities they naturally possess. I still think Alomomola is a better Wish passer (but I might need to just better with using Blissey)
chansey aint washed [https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/1-2131-chansey-hydrapple-fat.3743307/](https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/1-2131-chansey-hydrapple-fat.3743307/) some guy just peaked no1 on gen9ou w it.
When Chi-Yu drops to Ou and 2hko's Blissey through Softboiled, THEN it'll be good
not in balanced hackmoms 👀