Why use psyshock over psychic?

It hits defense?

>>28623232
Because it hits special defensive walls harder

>>28623232
Chansey and other Special Defensive walls.

>>28623232
Hit Specially Defensive Pokemon.

>>28623232
For use in hitting pokemon with high special defense

Deals higher damage to blobs, kills Tentacruel, generally hits things that would ever want to switch into Starmie harder. For the Pokemon in OU who are weak do it, there's virtually no difference (same number of hits to KO).

types who are weak to psychic do not tend to have high DEF and psyshock is better against blobs

>>28623232

Same reason I run Flamethrower on my Slowking.

>tfw I won a match in Showdown because of it and the guy raged at me for having the audacity to run Flamethrower on Slowking

>>28624786
You run Flamethrower on Slowking to deal with Chansey?

>>28624786
Isn't Flamethrower/Fire Blast pretty common on the Slows?

>>28624811

No, it's to deal with odd threats better than my psychic attack.

I also run Psyshock on it, though.

>>28624813

I'm not sure, but the guy wasn't expecting it, for sure. Also, my Slowking can take all the special hits with Assault Vest.

>hyper offense Slowking w/ Assault Vest and Regenerator

>>28623232
Running Psyshock is almost like being a mixed attacker, but you don't have to put EVs into both attacks at the cost of defense.

>>28624811
Psyshock doesn't really "deal with Chansey" it just costs Chansey more before you switch

>>28625023
Forcing it into Recover or facing more damage after SR is already costly the blob.

The Chansey user has to be very ballsy to use status after eating a timid lo analytic Psyshock in the switch in.

>>28624488
Eh I'd think most fighting and poison types have defense higher than special defense

>>28625089
Choose File isn't working for some reason but no, the average poison type has better spd than def.

>>28625089
Not really in enough cases to matter. There's Conk.. and Conk. Mega Hera is 2HKO by either option and is actually weaker to physical when switching in non-mega.

>>28624813
>>28624851
Fire Blast is very common on them on PS. Flamethrower I'm yet to see.

just finished crunching some numbers

Poison's average defense stat over all mono- and dual-type pokemon is 64.1. Comparatively, poison's average special defense stat is 67.2

Fighting's average defense stat over all mono- and dual-type pokemon is 73.3. Similarly, fighting's average special defense stat is 72.1.

So for Poison-types, it matters slightly that you use Psyshock in order to maximize damage done in the long run, but for Fighting it's statistically insignificant/borders on favoring using Psychic. As other people have said, though, no one in their right mind is just going to let your Latios/Alakazam/Starmie/Gardevoir go to town on their Toxicroak; Psychic-types have the highest average special attack stat at 91.6 so based on the law of large numbers, it's more beneficial on average to switch in either a Dark-type mon, a bulky Steel- and/or Psychic-type mon, or a mon with exceptionally high special defense (Chansey/Blissey are the two that jump to most people's minds).

So what does game theory say you, as the original Psychic-type user should do? Well, you either have coverage for potential switch-ins and go for the mindgames, or you do them one better and let them switch in their big bad special wall and (because of empirical data on Game Freak's design theory we know that special walls tend to have relatively poor physical defense) you just use Psyshock instead. Sure, you're losing 10 BP, but because of how damage is calculated, as long as the ratio of the defending mon's defense to special defense is greater than 9/8 (the reduced form of the ratio of the BP of Psychic to the BP of Psyshock), it will always be more beneficial to use Psyshock instead.

Sorry for the math autism at the end there; I'm on break from some homework and with 30mg of Adderall freshly coursing through me I just went to town on this post. Hope it was informative and not too redundant!

>>28623232
Scales off Special Attack, hits phsyically

>>28626296
>as long as the ratio of the defending mon's defense to special defense is greater than 9/8

should be "special defense to defense"; sorry about that.

>if ratio of the defending mon's special defense to defense is greater than 9/8, use Psyshock

the poison spd avg would be several points lower if dragalge didn't exist