Argument: Psychic Blissey is as good as a Dazzling Gleam one
To whoever thinks that Psychic Blissey is sub-par or got frustrated when they evolved one:
Psychic is actually a good move for Blissey due to the amazingly high difficulty to dodge.
Everyone knows that Psychic is hard to dodge. But how hard it is? Let me tell you the following: (These are some of my experiences after dealing with many many Blisseys)
1) Cannot be dodged if you launch the following charge moves right after Blissey's quick move (it will hit before your charge move completely cools down):
Dynamic Punch, Dragon Pulse, Outrage, Crunch, and every one-bar move except Close Combat, Stone Edge, and Thunder;
2) Cannot be dodged if you launch one more (added to the attacking buffer) of the following quick moves after the text of Psychic:
Dragon Tail, Zen Headbutt (and of course Confusion), Fire Spin, Counter (yes), actually any quick move with CD >= 0.9s.
Therefore, to dodge Psychic 100% with relatively slow moves mon, you need some skills including prejudging and timing.
BTW, my Psychic Blissey has won more battles than my DG Blissey, and the former is only 2712CP while the latter is 3100+CP and joined my defender team earlier.
Answers
Battles won is an outrageous stat and seems pretty faulty tbh. The only people that can't beat a 2700 Blissey is a trainer under level 29. I'm not even sure how accurate that stat even is. One time I placed a Snorlax in a gym to have 2 battles won under it whatever that meant?
Also I believe DG> Physic due to the frequency and the damage of the move. DG isn't slow by any stretch of the imagination. I suppose the only charge move easy to dodge is Hyper Beam from her.
Not stopping the DB/DC Dragonites or bite tyranitar though )
Also, if attacking Blissey with tyranitar/egg man/kazam or espeon (all excellent choices), then psychic would do NVE anyway. In that case, taking the full hit is not tragic, as it is a 100 power move and is only 1 bar.
For all other cases like the machamp, new DT dragonites and FS/OH flareon, I do tend to agree. Psychic will be the most annoying to dodge, though DG is a very close second.
DG wins. No arguments here. Bow if Psychic is a 2 bar move again, I would reconsider. I'm not biased whatsoever. I don't even own one. Still lacks a good IV Chansey to evolve. My wife has 1 though. When we are out hunting gyms, I always allow her to take the 1st open spot then I'll prestige it. Do take note I do use my highest CP Pokémons when fighting a Blissey and I prefer to fight a Psychic one than a DG Blissey.
Psychic is a good defensive move due to the short and early dodge window, but I still prefer DG. When playing against psychic, I know I have a plethora of time to spam attacks without attempting to dodge while it is charging. And yes getting hit by it sucks. But, DG, although easy to dodge, is a 2bar move, which allows the AI to fire off more, and by doing so, forcing the attacker to dodge more frequently which consumes even more time. In this scenario, I favor time consumption over damage output. Blissey requires a relatively large amount of time to take down, and adding on more time due to dodging (with DG) just extends the battles, and in some scenarios may* lead to a timeout. For that reason, I prefer DG > psychic
I usually attack Blissey with 3 pokemon:
1. Tyranitar B/SE
2. Dragonite DB/DC
3. Exeggutor ExS/ Solar beam
I usually don't care if psychic hits actually. I will try to dodge it for sure, but I "look out" for it a little less. I don't think I have ever lost or timed out to a psychic blissey.
DG is different. Its a 2 bar move and fires out more frequently. It does SE damage to my Tyranitar and D9. I use these 2 because their damage output is fast and cooldowns are low so I dodge the DG easily.
Eggy not as susceptible to DG but its less tanky so I try to dodge too.
Problem is I'm always looking out hard for the DG, sometimes pausing because I thought it was about to fire off. So I tend to take more time and my eggy has definitely timed out a couple of times against the really high CP blisseys.
In summary, I think DG is better. Don't care too much if psychic hits the tyranitar or D9.
DG > Psychic > HB.
It makes no sense to me that HB Blisseys are rated "B" for defense here, and psychic Blisseys are rated "D," even though psychic is acknowledged as "hardest to dodge." That probably is an indication that the ratings rely too much on simulation data, and not enough on practical real-world considerations.
Dodging wise, I think everyone agrees Psychic is harder to dodge than DG, but how much harder? That will differ vs different players as I imagine factors like playing styles, network lag will come into play. At first I had trouble dodging psychic because i often over-spammed my attacks as to miss the dodge window, once I got a hang of Psychic timing, I can dodge Psychic much more easily now.
So for me, the slightly higher success rate of dodging DG than Psychic dosen't nearly compensate for the sub-par total damage of Psychic. Being one-bar move, Psychic requires less often dodging than DG. Also DG has better type coverage against Blissey's main counters.
All things considered, DG is better. Qualitatively, borrowing jargons(valor) of the professor, if DG is rated amazing, psychic can be rated strong(vs inexperienced) or decent(vs experienced)
