Blaze Blaziken vs Speed Boost Blaziken

[Ice Warrior Astral]

Every time I'm using one of my mono type teams on PO I see someone using Speed Boost Blaziken on most mono fire or fighting teams.I ask myself why?Blaze Blazikens are rarely seen in battles.Since Blaziken got its DW ability Blaze has become redundant.I run a mono fire team myself and I use Blaziken.A BLAZE Blaziken. So why do some use Speed Boost over Blaze?I don't get it.Blaze is just as good as Speed Boost,so why not use Blaze?

[Fantom]

Blaze is just as good as speed boost .... u're funny , with the right items and EVs speed boost is way stronger than blaze

[Jerry]

And... with all the different types of moves, you might as well end up with a battle where you didn't use Blaze at all, while you would have made use of speed Boost a lot more (as it activates every end of turn, instead of activating on specific events)

[St. Jimmy]

Speed boost is a much better and more useful ability than blaze, it's just a fact.  After only one turn, Blaziken is almost guarrenteed to be faster than it's oppenent, and with the right moves ans stats, it'll be able to take out its oppenents easily.  Where as blaze doesn't really add to much to Blaziken, it's practically useless by most standards.

[Noah_Road]

Without sppedboost, Blaziken is entirely outclassed by Infernape. There really isn't much to discuss about this.

[Yukimenoko]

I see speedboost more useful, blaziken is a pretty strong pokemon, and blaze only works at hp lower than 25%
Speedboost makes sure blaziken can outrun alot of pokémon.

[Ice Warrior Astral]

The Blaziken I use has Flame Charge And Bulk Up.I'm now starting to see what you think about this.Speed Boost beats Blaze hands down.When I started battling on PO in April I have started to lose interest in battling.No one shows a bit of originality in their teams.One person asked me "Would you rather be a bog standard winner or a creative loser?"I rather be beaten by those who understands true strength than false.Just call me Ash on this one.Just find my poem and read it.I don't like over powering my opponents I want them have a fair battle.

[Yukimenoko]

I always feel statisfied when I beat a competitive team with simply my own favourite chosen team, even when it doesn't happen often. I'm not a good competitive battler, because I mainly suck at setting up teams. However when I got my team ready each of my pokémon have their tricks into winning.

I was already impressed when I defeated two level 100 legendary pokemon with my 65+ team. ~

However we're going a tad off-topic, this is about blazikens best ability to have.

[Silver]

The Blaziken I use has Flame Charge And Bulk Up.I'm now starting to see what you think about this.Speed Boost beats Blaze hands down.When I started battling on PO in April I have started to lose interest in battling.No one shows a bit of originality in their teams.One person asked me "Would you rather be a bog standard winner or a creative loser?"I rather be beaten by those who understands true strength than false.Just call me Ash on this one.Just find my poem and read it.I don't like over powering my opponents I want them have a fair battle.

This is pretty much the same as saying "Thats the best weapon in the shop, but choosing it isn't very creative, so I'm going to take the one that gives you a lower stat boost, just because I think everyone else is going to buy it, and that's unoriginal.

Why purposely handicap yourself? Its not like you gain anything out of it.
Now, copying a party off of smogon or something is stupid, and anyone that does is pathetic. But if you happen to make a build, completely on your own, maybe think of it while having a conversation about parties, thats fine. You didn't purposely go and find something to tell you what to do. But if you find something, and you know it is clearly better than what you have, why are you going to be stupid enough to not take advantage of that just because someone else realised it was good before you?

Thats not a valid reason to not do something.

[Level5Pidgey]

Blaziken is frail so he gets OHKOd by most hits anyway. Blaze isn't *that* useful.

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Anyway, the "strong vs. creative" argument is an interesting one.

A lot of people like to make more creative teams because it requires more strategy and thinking - they wish to give themselves a bit of a handicap to make the game more surprising. Also, the element of surprise can help a tad - it's not like a lot of people carry dedicated counters to Dustox, right?
Honestly I don't mind having a weaker team if it makes the battle less mind-numbingly stale.

Similarly people get annoyed when others use cookie-cutter teams, as, again - it makes the battle boring as hell. I stopped playing OU because I was annoyed at just seeing Blissey, Scizor, TTar, Infernape every single damn battle.
There's a reason why RU is currently many battler's favourite tier in Gen V - there's just so much variety, and with a number of new moves, dream world abilities  and items - the tier actually has some awesome threats. Also UU is currently messed up.

This is partially why we're balancing in PU - not just so people can use their favourites, but so the game has some variety during tournaments.
Not much use in holding tournaments if every player has the same cookie cutter team.
It also gives players incentive to train more Pokemon rather than just the usual OUs - to discover each Pokemon's new potential.

[Aquashin]

if you want a Blaziken with Speed Boost to have +1 on speed right on the start, you just need to put Protect on him, then add Fire Punch, High Jump Kick and Earthquake, and put a Air Ballon on it, everytime i used it like this, works perfectly, u use protect on the first turn and you automaticly have +1 Speed Stat, that can turn tables all arround.

[Noah_Road]

Fire punch over something like Flare Blitz? I can understand the want for a STAB move that doesn't have recoil but the BP difference is usually what makes many 2HKOs into OHKOs.

[Aquashin]

if you want to make your Blaziken with Flare Blitz you can, but its better that you have HP to when you use High Jump Kick, if it misses, its a problem.

[Noah_Road]

Very true. The accuracy boost with HJK is nice but I still don't like the 10% of losing a big chunk of HP then being hit by an incomming attack.

[Bing]

I'll say one thing.  I was told that hitmontop would make my fighting team better.  I said screw that, hitmontop sucks.  I only use what I like and that's it.  Though I will say that as far as battling goes, speed boost beats blaze by a mile.  If you like blaziken you shouldn't have a problem using speed boost, because it makes a pokemon you like better.

And yes cookie cutter teams piss me off to no end.  Screw Jirachi!