Ash-Greninja vs Protean Greninja?

Question

Yeah.... who is more competetively viable in OU? Also if I should use Protean, Specs or Scarf?

Greninja-Ash (M) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Battle Bond
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid Nature
- Scald
- Dark Pulse
- Water Shuriken
- U-turn

or

Greninja @ Choice Specs / Choice Scarf
Ability: Protean
EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
Timid / Modest Nature
- Scald
- Dark Pulse
- Ice Beam
- U-turn

Comments

Protean seems better with a spikes set honestly

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You have to have intense skill for protean Greninjas. But Ash Greninja is pretty easy to master (in my opinion). Honestly,  I think they're both good.

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i recommend battle bond with no you turn since if you faint it wont count so u-turn is pointless

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This question is really kind of hard by Pokebase standards. You might get a better answer by asking here. https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/simple-questions-simple-answers-thread-read-the-op-before-posting-a-thread.3587186/

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It's not particularly hard, just outline the differences between them and what situations they're good in. The only reason I haven't done it is because I'm lazy.

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Well then the people on Smogon are less lazy.

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Yeah, this one is kind of tough to answer. For me, I don't think the answer is "which set is better", rather I believe that both abilities give Greninja interesting playstyles that could spell disaster for an opponent that guesses wrong. Greninja's unpredictability is one of its biggest strengths, and it's moreso what role you want to perform with Greninja, at least in my opinion.

Answer 1

Ash Greninja is better of the sets in the question. Overall Ash Greninja easily competes with most legendaries. You can also give it a Z-Crystal to get Guarentee Ohkos and the guarantee battle bond effect.

Also take off U-Turn. Replace it with Ice beam to get OHKOs on Dragon types easily.
Also you don’t need 2 water type attacks. Replace one of them with Grass knot.

Why would you use U-turn anyways it’s physical category and ur using 252 Spa and 252 speed Ivs.

Comments

OP wasn't asking for moveset advice, but I'll say this anyway:
U-Turn is not used to deal damage -- at least not primarily. Its main utility is allowing you see the opponent's switch (or their entire play if you move second), and then switch out yourself all in the same turn. Greninja forces a lot of switches, so using U-Turn to see what their response is allows you to safely send in another counter and potentially capitalise. It is popular even on special sets for this reason. The fact it's a physical Bug attack is mostly redundant.
Water Shuriken is used because it has +1 priority and allows Greninja to outspeed boosted opponents as a fallback. There's enough difference between times you'd use a primary Water STAB and when you'd use Water Shuriken to justify having them both.

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I get the point about U-turn and Water shuriken and I think those are all good,  it’s just that I’ve personally found ice beam more useful that water shuriken because Greninja is already fast and Ice beam destroys dragon types. Also U-turn personally feels like a waste of a turn. Having another typed move for more diversity is more important( As it can give type advantage over so many other Pokémon).

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U-Turn is more useful if your strategy involves needing to scout what your opponent may do next, or what moves it has. U-Turn is usually used by people who's Team is about pressuring the opponent and predicting good switch-ins to set up. Of course, not everyone plays like this, and therefore won't all use U-Turn, but I can see U-Turn having more merit that Aqua Shuriken, even, but that is because of the way I play. :P

U-Turn is also phenomenal on choice item Pokémon, as they generally need to switch out anyways. I'd say that choice Pokémon perform better if they can use U-Turn, Volt Switch, or Parting Shot. :P

Choice Specs is used on Ash Greninja to help secure a KO and KO more bulkier Pokémon in General. It is more reliable than a Z-Move because it can be attempted multiple times and isn't wasting a Z-move slot on a Pokémon that doesn't really need it. :P

Suggesting Ice Beam and Grass Knot as moves are kind of redundant. Grass Knot isn't that good in OU (as STAB Scald will always do more Damage) and Ice Beam isn't necessary unless you plan to fight Grass Types. I'd suggest Extrasensory, Hidden Power Fire, Hydro Pump, and Dark Pulse before Grass Knot. :P

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U-Turn and Water Shuriken are amazing tools for any Greninja, heck, any choice user in general to utilize. U-Turn gives your team tons of momentum along with the fact that Greninja easily forces switches just by getting on the field safely, and Water Shuriken is a great fallback to Pokemon that outspeed it. Grass coverage isn't that great either compared to Greninja's other coverage moves, the only new target I can think of is Rotom Wash. It's true that Ice Beam is great for hitting a lot of threats in the meta like Garchomp and Landorus-T, but that's ultimately a coverage choice, and other Pokemon can make use of their wide coverage to great effect, too. Stretching out Greninja's coverage too wide leaves it a little too one-dimensional and leaves it prone to being revenge killed or walled if locked into the wrong move. U-Turn and Water Shuriken makes it more than "generic special attacker with great stats and movepool" as it gives it good utility and more versatility in what it can do. Sure, you might see a defensively weak team giving you the opportunity to run through their team without ever seeing something Greninja needs to Water Shuriken to kill, while on the inverse you might face a hyper offensive team unafraid of seeing a Greninja, and U-Turning might sentence your switch to death with the right prediction, but the sheer use and utility of those moves more than makes up for not necessarily being attacking moves.

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Imagine that you're using Greninja when the opponent is using Landorus. The opponent has Ferrothorn and Toxapex, which can both switch into a water or ice attack that you use. If you use U-turn, then you can switch your best check into the opponent's Ferrothorn or Toxapex immediately after the opponent switches, so you can attack them on the next turn. If you let them switch into an ice beam, then you need to spend the next turn switching your Greninja.

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I’m just saying, if we’re playing the “imagine” game. The opponent has Garchomp, Salamence-M, Tyranitar or any other Dragon type, and you OHKO it with Ice beam. The reason for Ice beam is to get the Battle Bond effect easily.

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Why would the opponent let you ice beam his/her/its ice weak Pokemon, especially when they know you'll activate battle bond?

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Ice beam is not usually on Greninja. And they don’t know if it’ll be a BB Greninja.

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Some Greninja sets will opt to run Ice Beam, and generally speaking you'd have a better move against Pokemon like Tyranitar or Landorus-T, while Pokemon like Garchomp still take neutral damage from your Water STAB. If the opponent guesses they'd have an Ice Beam, they'd just switch into their sponge like Toxapex or Ferrothorn. If you had U-Turn, you could easily switch in something to dispatch of the newly sent in wall, meanwhile without U-Turn you'd have to spend a turn switching while the wall gets a free turn to throw out status.

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Now that I think about it, when the opponent might switch into a wall, Greninja should be using spikes. U-turn gives you one free turn (which might not matter at all, given that wasting free turns is part of a wall's job), while an additional layer of spikes will continue punishing the opponent throughout the battle. Also hydro pump provides more coverage than ice beam, grass knot, or scald. Use hydro pump.
@Fizz Less than 12% of Ash Greninjas know U-turn. You should probably check the usage stats before saying something is popular. https://www.smogon.com/stats/2019-03/moveset/gen7ou-1825.txt

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No even better, Hydro pump but with water Z crystal. Any Z crystal can , if used correctly, guarantee Ash Greninja a free OHKO and activation of its immense power.

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@sumwun I did, actually. OP also mentioned standard form Greninja on which U-Turn is used 47% of the time, so I think I'm fair enough in saying it's popular.

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The entire point of this is question is about Ash Greninjas moveset. I’m trying to suggest ways to activate its BB.

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If you replace choice specs with Waterium Z, then Greninja is weaker after battle bond activates. The whole purpose of battle bond is to make Greninja stronger, so not using choice specs kind of defeats that purpose.

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Fair enough. I just don’t like locking my Greninja into the selected moves and I feel like it’s kinda hard to activate BB sometimes without Z moves