Why do people sometimes use items such as Blackglasses over another item such as Life Orb in Competitive Battling?

For example, Blackglasses isn’t really that good of an item competitvely. However, when I was looking atthese usage stats for high ladder Gen 8 UU and looking at Bisharp’s usage,the item used on most Bisharp was Blackglasses. Why is that? Is Bisharp better off with a Life Orb? Are there any other Pokemon that use an item such as Blackglasses over an item like Life Orb?

Pleaselog inorregisterto add a comment.

Here is one way of looking at this. To start, the reason Life Orb is chosen over items like Black Glasses is for some combination of these reasons:

So, the reason Black Glasses is chosen over Life Orb in rare cases is because the above reasons are less applicable to the Pokemon in question. In the case of Bisharp:

None of this is to say that youhaveto use Black Glasses, either. If your team has ways to hit the targets that pressure Bisharp into using a more conservative item, then you might end up running LO anyway.

E: Yes, there are other situations where you might choose a 20% boost item instead of LO. One example is Bulk Up Urshifu, which is designed to stay in play for a long time (because it’s attempting a sweep) and will potentially run into similar obstacles as Bisharp (e.g. bulky Pokemon that want to chip it down). I can’t think of any examples where a 20% boost item is the unanimousbestoption for a particular set, but there might be one in a format I’m not familiar with (esp. doubles/VGC).

A Pokemon could use a specific type enhancing move like Blackglasses instead of Life Orb because you don’t take recoil. Bisharp already has a massive attack stat, and it usually runs Swords Dance as well. Therefore you could use Blackglasses instead of Life Orb so you don’t take recoil.

Another reason to use it would be as sumwun said to bluff another item, such as a choice item.

Some Pokemon (not Bisharp in UU) use type boosting items or expert belts to bluff a choice item. Life orb displays a message each time the holder attacks, so you can’t bluff an item by holding a life orb.commented 3 hours ago by sumwunedited 2 hours ago by sumwun

Of course, my reasonings don’t only apply to Bisharp, they could apply to most competitive Pokemon

Hope I could help!