Mad respect to you for committing to this and doing such a great job - the rankings in this video were all really fair. I will point out though that Flower Veil is actually not doubles exclusive, and does not just prevent stat drops. It prevents the stat drops and status conditions of itself and allies, if they are grass type. Since none of its users are grass type though, this almost never comes up unless you do some Forest's Curse shenanigans or tera grass. Super situational, but if you want the list to be as accurate as possible, I figured I'd point it out. Keep up the good work, and I can't wait for parts 2 and 3!
At that point give it accelerator. So it keeps the "getting going as time passes" gimmick, but instead of starting out nerfed and then getting better, it starts out good and becomes broken
Why? Normal moves are pretty darn good. We got protect, basically every setup move, hyper beam (wait nevermind forget about that one), extreme speed, fake out and a lot more. Why do you think tera ghost is so popular?
@@timonobel615normalize changes non-normal moves into normal moves, which is kinda bad, as it makes you worthless against ghosts, bad vs rock and steel and it makes you generally worse as an offensive mon
@timonobel615 those moves aren't good because they're normal. They're just good moves regardless of type. Making all moves normal sucks it's probs bottom 5 abilities
I can easily see Seviper getting merciless because of its rivalry with Zangoose. Zangoose aims to either become immune to Seviper's poison with Immunity or to benefit from being poisoned with toxic boost. Merciless would thematically counter toxic boost zangoose by dealing 1.5x more damage to it. Venoshock would become an even bigger nuke against poisoned pokemon. In practice though, Seviper doesn't outspeed Zangoose and Zangoose can blow it up easily with Facade but Seviper can benefit from merciless against other slower pokemon. If it was up to me, I would buff Seviper's speed to 85 and also raise its attack by 10 (to 110) and special attack by 15 (to 115).
2:28 i would argue that slow start is better than truant, because truant is basically useless in doubles where every Pokemon uses protect regularly, and if the Slow Start user was a special attacker, the ability would make them slower, but not weaker, making them an excellent trick room sweeper.
100%, slow start Pokemon can use status moves at mostly the same effectiveness, where truant mons can only use half the status moves, + the fact truant can be nullified by moves that while not THAT common in singles, is UBIQUITOUS with doubles, and doesn't go away, means truant is DEFINITELY worse
If Truant’s odd-numbered turns were the slack off turns, it would definitely be the worst. But Slaking at least has the ability to hit a Choice Band Earthquake or something else with its one turn and then pivot out. Basically, it has no offensive presence from turn 2. A Slow Start user has no offensive presence from turn 1, which means your Regigigas is pigeonholed into playing utility. I originally had the same thought as you, but when I thought about it more, I’d rather play around Truant than Slow Start.
30:30 I'm pretty sure Oranguru has telepathy at a regular ability since fun fact, Oranguru and Passimian actually had their hidden abilities unobtainable at the start of gen 7 due to them being unable to allies of the same species in SOS battles for whatever reason and I think they first got access to their HA from an event at some point in gen 7
8:10 other people have probably mentioned it but fake out is very common in VGC, so steadfast boosting speed when flinched can be quite useful, still very niche but I think it should be a few spots up at least, not one of the worst abilities by far
Heya Matt, great video! If you do a follow up list revisited, I'd argue Ice Body should be a little higher, since even though it's rarely used competitive, it was the main reason Baxcalibur got banned from OU, due to how unkillable it got behind veil on snow. Also, I recommend watching PokeaimMD's video on Zarude BL knights, and maybe you can reconsider Leaf Guard's place on the list. It's definetly not great, but is more applicable than Healer overall
Slow start isnt a signature ability anymore since varoom has it as its hidden ability also anticipation is useless in actual vgc because its open team sheets so you already know what moves the opponent has i can confirm costar is really good
In Gen IV Cherrim could change into its sunshine form without the ability. Since Gen V, the ability is responsible so if it is suppressed then Cherrim will change back to Overcast form. I am not 100% sure of this but was mainly going off of Bulbapedia which is usually pretty accurate (but not always so this could be wrong) bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Flower_Gift_(Ability)
@@MattBudYT I wasn't actually aware of this, since the difference between Cherrim being hard-coded to change in the sun, and doing so due to the ability is such a subtle difference that would be almost impossible to notice for a normal person. The fact that the form-change was bugged like this makes me convinced that the implementation was a mistake, and that they meant to raise Special attack instead of Attack, since that makes so much more sense. I still feel like the video could be worded a little better, because it sounds almost as if Gen 4 Cherrim doesn't transform in the sun, when I think it's more accurate to say that the form-change used to be hard-coded, but since gen 5 is tied to the ability.
I appreciate the work this took great job i only have one problem specifically in the rules. signature moves make sense to keep separate but i feel general abilitys would be more interesting to rank if its considered outside of the mon that lear it. Otherwise no notes amazing work
Golisopods ability is not as bad as you think. It makes Golisopod a bulky pivot allowing it to switch out without using U-Turn, an eject item, or switching. it can take a hit and switch in a frail attacker. You can also heal it above activation range whether it be through leftovers, a berry, or wish/healing wish. It also allows you to more easily get first impressions off.
Palossand DOES have niche from Water Compaction. In doubles, give amnesia and shore up, have Greninja use water shuriken on it. Now it's got super boosted defenses and can heal itself.
Cloud nine a hard one to rank because it can often be completely useless, as if the Pokemon has no ability at all, but it can also make Golduck viable in ubers.
One thing I will say is that in formats where you have a BST cap, The form in the team builder is what counts against that cap so you can use regular and stellar terapgos at the cost of the cute forms BST. Same logic applies for Wishiwashi, But no one uses it because it’s bad.
Slow Start would be a pretty okay ability on a Mon Like Reuniclus. The lower speed would help with outspeeding other Reuniclus in Trick Room and the lower attack reduces damage fromm Foulplay and confusion.
Funnily enough, I’m in the process of making the exact same video idea😂 Mine is focused entirely on VGC and has different criteria so it’ll be interesting to see how they differ
I appreciate the effort that went into this, great video! But the ranking criteria make no sense bc an average mon with merciless (for example) would make it a much higher ranking ability.
By that I meant the average mon that would have access and actually has it. So Merciless really just has Toxapex representing. Abilities like Guts or Intimidate have much bigger sample sizes which makes ranking them easier as we can see how much it improves the mon itself instead of just a powerful mon having an OK ability but boosting its perception.
12:29 aria break actually sucks because the way the game is coded, the 4/3 boosts from the aura become 3/4 boosts, so it’s only 25% less damage than 33% less damage.
12:40 not that it particularly changes anything, but rivalry haxorus saw play in Gen 5 vgc to counter the always male genies. Once people knew about it though everyone started to run female Pokemon when possible
Oh brother. You’re insane. Cant wait to see something that I’m actually going to be surprised in the ranking. Ok, I’m adding onto this comment as it goes on. 1. I think that Truant should be below Slow Start, as you can just protect stall the Slaking/Slakoth/Durant I guess. 2. Mycelium Might should be lower, since there’s nearly no plus side to it, unlike Mimicry (kind of) 3. Tera Shift should just go into negative tier, since you literally can’t do anything with it. 4. Normalize should be lower since you can’t have any coverage on Delcatty with it 5. Plus and Minus should be lower, they’re too situational and useless in singles. Also no one is bringing both Plusle and Minun to a battle, and if you are, you are Lacey and using Volt Abosrb + Lightning Rod + Discharge 6. I think that Ice Body should be lower since most of the time ice types (or Seel) won’t be getting the hail up with enough time to actually use it. Though I guess it could be used for the next pokemon, like using Chilly Reception (yeah I haven’t though of that move for a while) and switch into an Ice Body pokemon Just got to the part where you blamed Magnus for any complaints. MAGNUS HOW COULD YOU 7. Receiver and Power of Alchemy may be powerful to have, but it’s not useful in singles so I think it should stay in that tier but lower 8. Anger Point isn’t the most reliable ability to have, so same thing as above, same tier but a bit lower because of how unreliable it is 9. No idea where it is, but Air Lock should be about Cloud Nine, but not much since they have the same effect only one appears in Rayquaza’s abilities. 10. Soundproof should be a bit higher since you see Parting Shot and hyper voice quite a bit in doubles
Plus and Minus are redeemed slightly by being abilities that are also given to Klinklang, Dedenne, Ampharos, Manectric, and Toxtricity. Toxtricity and Klinklang would make a decent pair if they ever wound up in the same game, for example; Klinklang can support Toxtricity with Electric Terrain or Gear Up, directly boosting Toxtricity’s Sp. Atk without using its turn in addition to the Minus. Gear Up is letting Toxtricity is put out a +2-equivalent spread damage STAB Overdrive (or Hyper Voice) in turn 1, activating Throat Spray for a +3-equivalent next turn. It requires some setup, but Plus/Minus support could turn Toxtricity into Typhlosion-Hisui At Home, which is menacing in the right formats. It’s not meta-defining, but it’s not quite Run Away, either
I would argue that Stall is worse than Defeatist. Speed is just such a critical aspect of Pokémon, so a mon with Stall is going to struggle. By contrast, a Pokémon with Defeatist can be completely unaffected if it’s fast enough, and by the time it activates, it’s probably almost dead anyway.
Justified is borderline broken in doubles imo, I can’t even BEGIN to tell you how many beat up x justified teams I’ve seen completely max out the justified user’s attack and allow them to completely sweep the opposing team. It’s madness, and it can be annoyingly hard to play around lmao
I wish this video has the abilities compared in a vacuum not for each mon. Also snow cloak and sand veil are both viabole strategies in doubles when used with bright powder, and have won some tournaments as well. overall great video tho
I would argue that Truant is the worst ability and way more crippling than Slow Start is. Also quickly mentioning the visual of the Useless tier at 6:41 showed Tera Shell and not Tera Shift.
At least you can still do Giga-Impact+choice scarf (or similar) strats with Truant which hits full force and is likely to Oneshot a fair amount of Pokémon. Slow Start just doesn't get anything done at all.
I don’t get why there’s so many abilities that are split up for no reason. Like at least with detect and protect there’s counter play for imprison. But why does rayquaza need air lock? Is it too good to hang out with altaria?
I feel like Steadfast should be listed higher. Fake Out is one of the best and most used move in a VGC team, along with other damaging moves like Rock Slide. Most mons that get Steadfast are not incredibly fast, meaning they could easily benefit from the extra speed buff next turn.
Another thing that makes Water Compaction terrible is that Water is one of the most Special-sided types in the game. Why would you even want to boost your Defense?
I believe the math for aura break still gives fairy aura and dark aura a boost. So I think it should be lower. take this with a grain of salt, as i may be misremembering
Slow Start would actually be good on a slow special attacker. Makes sure you "outspeed" in trick room and reduces damage from foul play and confusion. It's only bad because it's on a "fast" physical attacker.
@@guildmasterri5995yeah, but special attack isn't touched, so if you are a slow special attacker the ability is barely a factor at all in your viability
@@guildmasterri5995 That's good on a special attacker. They already want 0 in attack IVs. Slow Start just protects them further from niche interactions.
id say truant is worse than slow start because it gets fully countered by protect and even if your attack and speed is halfed given 2 turns thats the same damage it also goes away after 5 turns and in the turns you would lose from truant you could use setup moves too
I feel like there’s two abilities that should be higher. Mycelium Might should absolutely be higher simply because Gholdengo exists. Being the top Pokemon right now in doubles and having an ability that prevents status is amazing, but with Mycelium Might ignoring the ability all you need to do to immobilise the top Pokemon is survive a hit, which a minus special defense, 0 IV and 0EV Toedscruel survives from a plus special attack 31 IV and 252 EV Tera Steel Gholdengo when in doubles, and I think being able to put Gholdengo to sleep is enough to put it up to at least the niche group. The other is Scrappy, simply because WolfeyVGC used it in the early era of ScaVi and got Top 1 with a Dondozo + Tatsugiri team that had Scrappy Flamigo on to get Dondozo’s boost by having the Tatsugiri faint and not the Dondozo, and a Belly Drum Cetitan as a back up when Dondozo + Tatsugiri wasn’t a good option.
@@Pokemon_Scientist I can see arguments for Mycelium Might being a bit higher over never used abilities. Scrappy wasn’t in this video though so idk what you mean there?
18:49 hear me out, I know you’re more of a singles player, but in doubles like VGC, Frisk is literally USELESS due to open team sheets being available. Granted, it will be better in double battles that don’t have open team sheets but hey, just thought I’d point it out
i think Rivalry isn't as bad as it seems. If you know which Pokemon you are going up against, or in competitive you know which Pokemon are meta. (for example, the forces of nature always being male) You can purposely use a Rivalry pokemon to deal extra damage.
Is it just me misremembering or wasn’t klutz at point didn’t let you hold items at all. Like this video is the first time I am learning klutz still lets you hold an item but takes away the affects
IMO truant is much worse than slow start, slow start is only temporary and you can stall it out with protect/sub. And also, slow start still lets you PLAY THE GAME, Truant making you skip every other turn is so detrimental and gives your opponent so much time to setup, especially in doubles where missing a turn hurts even more compared to singles.
i would just like to add that frisk is useless in oficial VGC tournaments because they're open sheet tournaments, meaning that you know all of the foe's items, attacks and abilities, so it is kinda useless on these
Delcatty actually choosing to run it over other higher ranked abilities means it has enough merit to not be grouped in with the negatives. It isn’t great, but definitely has positive effects boosting attacks and making them STAB. But the coverage loss definitely sucks.
I think cute charm and rivalry should be next to each other since they have the same activation criteria and id rather do more damage than the chance of not getting hit. Unless the users make them that far apart.
Remember that rivalry also has a huge downside while cute charm, if it doesn't activate, doesn't actively hamper the user. That distinction imo makes cute charm better.
No, Cute Charm and Rivalry are quite different from each other. The only thing that they have in common is that they depend on gender, and in Cute Charm's case, that is due to the infatuation caused by the Ability, not the Ability itself.
i think truant should be considered worse than slow start. there are mons where having slow start wouldnt even matter (for example, chansey). whereas truant cripples every mon in every situation. i know this is a nitpick
It is called Klutz, not Clumsy, and he praised it because it enables Pokémon to issue bad items to others without experiencing the detriments themselves.
@@Isaiah-i1l Klutz users themselves make use of the ability with trick/switcheroo to make the ability useful. Truant Pokemon need an ally pokemon to skill swap it onto themselves, where it is still detrimental to the now skill swapped user. The difference is one can be useful while Truant is never useful for a pokemon to have (crippling another pokemon with the ability does not make it useful)
Emergency exit is so close to being interesting but the fact that it switches Golisopod out immediately instead of at the end of the turn takes it from an ability with a ton of potential to a crippling weakness. I understand why they went the way they did though. Same thing with color change. An easy fix is to change kecleons type before its hit. Since most but not all types resist themselves this would be a great but balanced ability. Instead its just useless and exploitable most of the time. I would probably move sand veil and snow cloak up they are honestly very solid abilities on sand and snow teams plus they have synergy with stuff like blizzard and bright powder. I’d definitely have it above something like suction cups. Probably around 10-15 spots higher. Unnerve is also pretty solid in doubles given how common berries are. I’d say its probably on par if not slightly better than telepathy. God I hate wugtrio. Why did they give it gooey when it can’t take an attack. Straight to ZU Nice video though
putting truant above slow start is crazy? sure, you get weakened stats for five turns which sucks, but thats nowhere near just completely missing half of your turns, effectively halving your damage and health if you're not one shotting shit.
Normalize is WAY too low. It really is only bad because Delcatty is unusable. On a good normal type, a 20% boost would be super good. Evaluating the ability in a vacuum, it would be super strong on other pokemon.
I think that truant is worse than slow start because if you are a trick room special attacker you want slow start. I guess aince it is a signature ability it's ranking makes sense
I disagree on placing Defeatist above Truant. Undoubtedly Truant sets you back, but I think that Slaking is more capable of pulling its own weight than Archeops is. Archeops' low defenses (65 each) see that Defeatist activates too easily. Truant does have the benefit of allowing the Pokémon to disregard recharge because it will loaf around anyway (meaning that Slaking is built for Hyper Beam and especially Giga Impact), although that can also be spun as requiring a recharge after every move. Truant is easy to counter with Protect and its ilk, admittedly, but Slaking can learn Taunt to put those moves out of commission (unfortunately, it cannot learn Feint and related moves as well). Also, I have never played competitive, but how often do people run Slaking with a Rocky Helmet? I do not think highly of Anticipation, Forewarn, or Frisk, although I do agree that Frisk is the most useful of the three. I like Abilities that have an active effect, not ones that just tell you what to expect. Why did Earthquake not work on the Meowscarada at 25:11? Was it holding an Air Balloon? I see that most Ability twins/triplets are together, but seeing as you placed Gooey above Tangling Hair because Goodra benefits from it more than Fake Dugtrio (I hate that mechanic and refer to fake, false, spurious, or bogus regional variants by contrast with their real, true, genuine, or actual counterparts instead), I assume that Cotton Down is even higher because it benefits Eldegoss even more. (EDIT: I forgot that Cotton Down lowers the Speed of all other Pokémon, not just the attacker, so of course it goes above Gooey and Tangling Hair.) Is there a similar reason as to the separation of Cloud Nine and Air Lock? I do not get why everybody touts Normalize on the grounds that it can facilitate using Thunder Wave on a Ground-type Pokémon. You can paralyze a Ground-type Pokémon with Stun Spore or Glare. Normalize is never worth it, and the power boost that it gained in Generation VII does not help. Cute Charm and Wonder Skin are both far more worthwhile for Skitty and Delcatty, although I prefer Cute Charm myself. Finally, what would you all think of an Ability that turned into a random Ability upon entering the battle and reset upon leaving? (If the Ability activated upon leaving, like Natural Cure or Regenerator, then it would activate before resetting. Also, it would not be able to turn into itself, Abilities that facilitate form changes, Abilities designed to work with specific Pokémon, or Illusion [because the illusion would be spoiled by the Pokémon appearing as itself before the Ability changed].)
slaking would also be more capable of pulling its own weight than archeops if neither of them had an ability. it's not that defeatist is worse than truant, it's that slaking is all around better than archeops.
I doubt that he would put it that high. It does not help that Shedinja is a gimmick Pokémon and has five weaknesses, most or all of which are very common.
My favorite thing about the hindering abilities is people often say “imagine if they didn’t have those abilities they’d be so good” No they wouldn’t. Regigias without slow start would be a generic restricted who would see zero usages in VGC and Ubers Slaking would have a bst of 500 and be ass Toedscruel would not have spore But interestingly, all these mons (except maybe slaking) ARE usable if paired with weezing In others words it’s low key the hindering abilities that give them any usage
@@GravityIsFalling interesting perspective. Then we have a mon like Palafin that has that crazy BST AND signature move and it’s pretty bonkers even with essentially “a hindering ability”
I think you are seeing their game design in a backwards sense. They are given the cool tools first most of the time and THEN have detrimental flaws to balance it out. No toadscool isnt good because it has mycelium might it is half decent because it has spore but as a game balancing decision was given -ve priority. IF we get rid of the ability then the pokemon would be good. You cannot just take an ability away and assessing how good a pokemon would be without it WHILE also removing the cause of the ability. Slakings truant was clearly made in consideration of how strong it was and removing that aspect would make slaking a beast. Regigigas nowadays is outclassed but still an amazing pokemon as shown by neutralising gas weezing teams in SwSh etc. your ways of assessing pokemon viability is flawed.
@@GravityIsFalling palafin isn't dogshit in vgc. it's periodically seen some pretty good use, tho it's often outclassed by other pokémon, like urshifu-rapid strikes.
Nah slow start is easily the best of the "bad" abilities, imagine if a slow special attacker got slow start, then it could actually take advantage of it in tr, the other ones are bad no matter how you spin it (also side note: varoom gets slow start now, so regigigas can't even say it has a signature ability anymore lol)
Keyword: imagine. People forget that 5 turns in competitive pokemon is alot and leaves alot of time for set up. Passiveness makes the pokemon worse and it is too taxxing on any pokemon trying to survive 5 turns. You cannot factor special attackers because there are none and the others are not immediately bad while slow start is instantly debilitating. Defiant gives breathing room to do damage fast before it activates, truant can be played around with switches and doesnt force entire movesets working around survival
Truant is 100% worse than slow start, slow start pokemon can use status moves every turn, and it eventually goes away, truant pokemon get completely nullified if all the pokemon of your opponents field have protect, which is most situations in doubles, its like playing with a shedinija except instead of winning the game if you succeed you get to use your 4th Pokemon
Truant def isnt worse than slow start to someone who plays singles, like he said in the beginning, especially since also like he said in the video, entrainment durant exists
Also regigigas alone is not enough to win a battle in vgc and having a bunch if status moves like protect and sub and toxic etc limits your attacking options so when a slightly defensive pokemon switches in you have nothing to use against it. They are relative in how bad they are and there is no guaranteed right or wrong option.
Can’t wait for the spinda pattern ranking
Including shinies?
Top 8,000,000,000+ Spinda patterns and their shinies
That will be fun
Um well actually there's an unlimited amount of different patterns Spinda could be so the video would be never ending. You're so stupid!!
Lockstin & Gnoggin did exactly that with several other PokéTubers on April Fools' Day in 2020.
Mad respect to you for committing to this and doing such a great job - the rankings in this video were all really fair. I will point out though that Flower Veil is actually not doubles exclusive, and does not just prevent stat drops. It prevents the stat drops and status conditions of itself and allies, if they are grass type. Since none of its users are grass type though, this almost never comes up unless you do some Forest's Curse shenanigans or tera grass. Super situational, but if you want the list to be as accurate as possible, I figured I'd point it out. Keep up the good work, and I can't wait for parts 2 and 3!
X_bell ❤🗣️
Appreciate the comment and feedback! Love your content bud!
Catch me breaking the competitive scene with my totally legal Ball Fetch Regigigas
At that point give it accelerator. So it keeps the "getting going as time passes" gimmick, but instead of starting out nerfed and then getting better, it starts out good and becomes broken
@@unaffectedbycardeffects9152 hell no
@@elliotash2154 Koraidon says you're a coward and this is fair
I know Ball Fetch is completely useless competitively but I still think it's pretty useful when catching. One reusable quick ball is all it takes.
It's also great if you want a certain Pokémon in a limited or rare ball, since they won't be wasted if the capture fails.
Another perfectly timed upload to listen to my drive home, as always
LETS GOOO (can't wait to see what ranking Intimidate gets)
3:47 THATS ME!!!
20:25 THATS ME AGAIN!!!
You're my favourite nuzlocke/___Team's youtuber
Normalize should have been in the mostly negative tier. Being forced to run exclusively normal type moves is awful and not EVER worth the tradeoff.
Why? Normal moves are pretty darn good. We got protect, basically every setup move, hyper beam (wait nevermind forget about that one), extreme speed, fake out and a lot more. Why do you think tera ghost is so popular?
@@timonobel615normalize changes non-normal moves into normal moves, which is kinda bad, as it makes you worthless against ghosts, bad vs rock and steel and it makes you generally worse as an offensive mon
@timonobel615 those moves aren't good because they're normal. They're just good moves regardless of type. Making all moves normal sucks it's probs bottom 5 abilities
It has the slight niche of boosting damage by 20% of all Normal move. Still a terrible ability, but a damage boost is a damage boost.
The dedication is insane. Props to you.
Merciless should absolutely be given to more poison types.
I can easily see Seviper getting merciless because of its rivalry with Zangoose. Zangoose aims to either become immune to Seviper's poison with Immunity or to benefit from being poisoned with toxic boost. Merciless would thematically counter toxic boost zangoose by dealing 1.5x more damage to it. Venoshock would become an even bigger nuke against poisoned pokemon. In practice though, Seviper doesn't outspeed Zangoose and Zangoose can blow it up easily with Facade but Seviper can benefit from merciless against other slower pokemon. If it was up to me, I would buff Seviper's speed to 85 and also raise its attack by 10 (to 110) and special attack by 15 (to 115).
Nidoking seems like a very merciless mon, give it to him, Game Freak, you cowards 😂😂
@@ChristOnABike05 I think Nidoking would prefer sheer force, but it would be excellent on Nidoqueen.
@misteral9045 Oh, I dunno... pair it with Toxic Spikes and it'll crit everything. Slap a Choice Scarf and an Adamant nature on it and it would SHRED 😅
@ChristOnABike05 Aww c'mon, The King already has enough tools, show The Queen some love.
2:28 i would argue that slow start is better than truant, because truant is basically useless in doubles where every Pokemon uses protect regularly, and if the Slow Start user was a special attacker, the ability would make them slower, but not weaker, making them an excellent trick room sweeper.
100%, slow start Pokemon can use status moves at mostly the same effectiveness, where truant mons can only use half the status moves, + the fact truant can be nullified by moves that while not THAT common in singles, is UBIQUITOUS with doubles, and doesn't go away, means truant is DEFINITELY worse
No pokemon that gets Slow Start is a special attacker, so that point holds no value
The only mon forced to use slow start is a physichal attacker
If Truant’s odd-numbered turns were the slack off turns, it would definitely be the worst. But Slaking at least has the ability to hit a Choice Band Earthquake or something else with its one turn and then pivot out. Basically, it has no offensive presence from turn 2. A Slow Start user has no offensive presence from turn 1, which means your Regigigas is pigeonholed into playing utility. I originally had the same thought as you, but when I thought about it more, I’d rather play around Truant than Slow Start.
And only pokemon that gets Wonder Guard is a 1HP Bug type. Doesn't mean Wonder Guard isn't busted
30:30 I'm pretty sure Oranguru has telepathy at a regular ability since fun fact, Oranguru and Passimian actually had their hidden abilities unobtainable at the start of gen 7 due to them being unable to allies of the same species in SOS battles for whatever reason and I think they first got access to their HA from an event at some point in gen 7
@@aronspiker72 true I missed Oranguru, it has it as its 2nd ability.
8:15 I actually had this happen in a battle. An absol flinched my gallade which made it faster which then lead to it sweeping the rest of the team.
8:10 other people have probably mentioned it but fake out is very common in VGC, so steadfast boosting speed when flinched can be quite useful, still very niche but I think it should be a few spots up at least, not one of the worst abilities by far
Me when I matt on my bud.
Swampert getting Damp as its Hidden Ability in Generation 5 where Explosion was nerfed might be the most unfortunate gift for a Hidden Ability.
Heya Matt, great video! If you do a follow up list revisited, I'd argue Ice Body should be a little higher, since even though it's rarely used competitive, it was the main reason Baxcalibur got banned from OU, due to how unkillable it got behind veil on snow. Also, I recommend watching PokeaimMD's video on Zarude BL knights, and maybe you can reconsider Leaf Guard's place on the list. It's definetly not great, but is more applicable than Healer overall
When you pulled that joke with Intimidate at #265 I was about to throw hands. Well done my man 😂😂😂
That intimidate jumpscare after supersweet syrup almost had me closing the video 💀
Slow start isnt a signature ability anymore since varoom has it as its hidden ability also anticipation is useless in actual vgc because its open team sheets so you already know what moves the opponent has i can confirm costar is really good
woooo, that's what i've been waiting for!
Excited for every feebas tile combination ranked
This video is one for the archives
39:50
I'm not sure what you mean by "since gen 5" when talking about Flower Gift changing Cherrim's form. It's ALWAYS had that effect.
In Gen IV Cherrim could change into its sunshine form without the ability. Since Gen V, the ability is responsible so if it is suppressed then Cherrim will change back to Overcast form.
I am not 100% sure of this but was mainly going off of Bulbapedia which is usually pretty accurate (but not always so this could be wrong)
bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Flower_Gift_(Ability)
@@MattBudYT I wasn't actually aware of this, since the difference between Cherrim being hard-coded to change in the sun, and doing so due to the ability is such a subtle difference that would be almost impossible to notice for a normal person.
The fact that the form-change was bugged like this makes me convinced that the implementation was a mistake, and that they meant to raise Special attack instead of Attack, since that makes so much more sense.
I still feel like the video could be worded a little better, because it sounds almost as if Gen 4 Cherrim doesn't transform in the sun, when I think it's more accurate to say that the form-change used to be hard-coded, but since gen 5 is tied to the ability.
I almost had a heart attack when I saw Intimidate on 265th, good one.
Also give my boy Glaceon Slush Rush, Gamefreak. And my life is yours.
Incin being the signature rep of Intimidate makes me laugh since it's either them or Lando-T that are notorious on spamming such tactics.
I appreciate the work this took great job i only have one problem specifically in the rules. signature moves make sense to keep separate but i feel general abilitys would be more interesting to rank if its considered outside of the mon that lear it. Otherwise no notes amazing work
Golisopods ability is not as bad as you think. It makes Golisopod a bulky pivot allowing it to switch out without using U-Turn, an eject item, or switching. it can take a hit and switch in a frail attacker. You can also heal it above activation range whether it be through leftovers, a berry, or wish/healing wish. It also allows you to more easily get first impressions off.
Palossand DOES have niche from Water Compaction. In doubles, give amnesia and shore up, have Greninja use water shuriken on it. Now it's got super boosted defenses and can heal itself.
Before Sharpness, I used a Steadfast Gallade as an answer to Fake Out Pokémon. No one likes a Close Combat that always came first.
Costar has to be way higher swarm should be lower
19:05 you know what else is massive?
35:50 excadrille in gen 5 and 6 use sand force to a scary success being the ability that drove it into relevance.
Cloud nine a hard one to rank because it can often be completely useless, as if the Pokemon has no ability at all, but it can also make Golduck viable in ubers.
i'd argue that truant is worse than slow start since it can be walled altogether by protect: a move already used by just about every pokemon
One thing I will say is that in formats where you have a BST cap, The form in the team builder is what counts against that cap so you can use regular and stellar terapgos at the cost of the cute forms BST. Same logic applies for Wishiwashi, But no one uses it because it’s bad.
Slow Start would be a pretty okay ability on a Mon Like Reuniclus. The lower speed would help with outspeeding other Reuniclus in Trick Room and the lower attack reduces damage fromm Foulplay and confusion.
It's kinda wild that propeller tail and stalwart are above costar. Slept on doubles sweeping ability! Think of the belly drum strats with that!
Funnily enough, I’m in the process of making the exact same video idea😂 Mine is focused entirely on VGC and has different criteria so it’ll be interesting to see how they differ
I appreciate the effort that went into this, great video! But the ranking criteria make no sense bc an average mon with merciless (for example) would make it a much higher ranking ability.
By that I meant the average mon that would have access and actually has it. So Merciless really just has Toxapex representing. Abilities like Guts or Intimidate have much bigger sample sizes which makes ranking them easier as we can see how much it improves the mon itself instead of just a powerful mon having an OK ability but boosting its perception.
12:29 aria break actually sucks because the way the game is coded, the 4/3 boosts from the aura become 3/4 boosts, so it’s only 25% less damage than 33% less damage.
12:40 not that it particularly changes anything, but rivalry haxorus saw play in Gen 5 vgc to counter the always male genies. Once people knew about it though everyone started to run female Pokemon when possible
I'm genuinely surprised to see klutz be so high on the list
Oh brother. You’re insane. Cant wait to see something that I’m actually going to be surprised in the ranking. Ok, I’m adding onto this comment as it goes on.
1. I think that Truant should be below Slow Start, as you can just protect stall the Slaking/Slakoth/Durant I guess.
2. Mycelium Might should be lower, since there’s nearly no plus side to it, unlike Mimicry (kind of)
3. Tera Shift should just go into negative tier, since you literally can’t do anything with it.
4. Normalize should be lower since you can’t have any coverage on Delcatty with it
5. Plus and Minus should be lower, they’re too situational and useless in singles. Also no one is bringing both Plusle and Minun to a battle, and if you are, you are Lacey and using Volt Abosrb + Lightning Rod + Discharge
6. I think that Ice Body should be lower since most of the time ice types (or Seel) won’t be getting the hail up with enough time to actually use it. Though I guess it could be used for the next pokemon, like using Chilly Reception (yeah I haven’t though of that move for a while) and switch into an Ice Body pokemon
Just got to the part where you blamed Magnus for any complaints. MAGNUS HOW COULD YOU
7. Receiver and Power of Alchemy may be powerful to have, but it’s not useful in singles so I think it should stay in that tier but lower
8. Anger Point isn’t the most reliable ability to have, so same thing as above, same tier but a bit lower because of how unreliable it is
9. No idea where it is, but Air Lock should be about Cloud Nine, but not much since they have the same effect only one appears in Rayquaza’s abilities.
10. Soundproof should be a bit higher since you see Parting Shot and hyper voice quite a bit in doubles
I’m gonna add anything I didn’t know into this reply
1. I didn’t know that Pickup could pickup items in battle
Plus and Minus are redeemed slightly by being abilities that are also given to Klinklang, Dedenne, Ampharos, Manectric, and Toxtricity. Toxtricity and Klinklang would make a decent pair if they ever wound up in the same game, for example; Klinklang can support Toxtricity with Electric Terrain or Gear Up, directly boosting Toxtricity’s Sp. Atk without using its turn in addition to the Minus. Gear Up is letting Toxtricity is put out a +2-equivalent spread damage STAB Overdrive (or Hyper Voice) in turn 1, activating Throat Spray for a +3-equivalent next turn. It requires some setup, but Plus/Minus support could turn Toxtricity into Typhlosion-Hisui At Home, which is menacing in the right formats. It’s not meta-defining, but it’s not quite Run Away, either
@@Marblegamingmaster It can only do so in Generation V and onward. Have you played since then?
Yeah I play modern pokemon, I just never use pickup in competitive
mycelium might does have a plus side to it? it's got the mold breaker effect.
He DID IT, the sick bastard actually did it 😮❤
So far, so good 👍
38:00 Shouldn’t Justified be place a little higher? There is the Beat Up combo to raise your attack by 5 stages in one turn
I would argue that Stall is worse than Defeatist. Speed is just such a critical aspect of Pokémon, so a mon with Stall is going to struggle. By contrast, a Pokémon with Defeatist can be completely unaffected if it’s fast enough, and by the time it activates, it’s probably almost dead anyway.
The question is, can there be any ability on First Place other then Wonder Guard?
Normalize deserves more praise due to entrainment ghost type with trapping setup sweeping
Justified is borderline broken in doubles imo, I can’t even BEGIN to tell you how many beat up x justified teams I’ve seen completely max out the justified user’s attack and allow them to completely sweep the opposing team. It’s madness, and it can be annoyingly hard to play around lmao
I wish this video has the abilities compared in a vacuum not for each mon. Also snow cloak and sand veil are both viabole strategies in doubles when used with bright powder, and have won some tournaments as well. overall great video tho
Wait, damp prevents mind blown but not chloroblast? I thought those were literally the same except for typing and learners
I would argue that Truant is the worst ability and way more crippling than Slow Start is. Also quickly mentioning the visual of the Useless tier at 6:41 showed Tera Shell and not Tera Shift.
At least you can still do Giga-Impact+choice scarf (or similar) strats with Truant which hits full force and is likely to Oneshot a fair amount of Pokémon.
Slow Start just doesn't get anything done at all.
I don’t get why there’s so many abilities that are split up for no reason. Like at least with detect and protect there’s counter play for imprison. But why does rayquaza need air lock? Is it too good to hang out with altaria?
6:45 You wrote Tera shell instead of Tera shift.
I feel like Steadfast should be listed higher. Fake Out is one of the best and most used move in a VGC team, along with other damaging moves like Rock Slide. Most mons that get Steadfast are not incredibly fast, meaning they could easily benefit from the extra speed buff next turn.
What about mythical pokemon abilities
Another thing that makes Water Compaction terrible is that Water is one of the most Special-sided types in the game. Why would you even want to boost your Defense?
Nice ur videos r actually accurate lets see abt this one
@@KanderUdon let me know
Stall is situationally pretty useful in VGC. I would definitely put it higher
Who is using Stall Sableye over prankster?
I believe the math for aura break still gives fairy aura and dark aura a boost. So I think it should be lower.
take this with a grain of salt, as i may be misremembering
I believe Dark/Fairy Aura give a +33% boost to their respective types, but Aura Break will “reverse” the boosts to make it -25% instead
Yep the aura boosts is a x1.3 boost or 4/3 boost so aura break reverses it and makes the damage /1.3 or a 3/4 boost
I'm so prepared for him to somehow put like, delta stream over wonder guard or something
Slow Start would actually be good on a slow special attacker.
Makes sure you "outspeed" in trick room and reduces damage from foul play and confusion.
It's only bad because it's on a "fast" physical attacker.
It also halves the attack
@@guildmasterri5995yeah, but special attack isn't touched, so if you are a slow special attacker the ability is barely a factor at all in your viability
@@guildmasterri5995 That's good on a special attacker. They already want 0 in attack IVs. Slow Start just protects them further from niche interactions.
@@mantisr818 yes but unfortunately they have given that to only attackers so far and one is a one stage 😔
Good list
id say truant is worse than slow start because it gets fully countered by protect and even if your attack and speed is halfed given 2 turns thats the same damage it also goes away after 5 turns and in the turns you would lose from truant you could use setup moves too
I feel like there’s two abilities that should be higher. Mycelium Might should absolutely be higher simply because Gholdengo exists. Being the top Pokemon right now in doubles and having an ability that prevents status is amazing, but with Mycelium Might ignoring the ability all you need to do to immobilise the top Pokemon is survive a hit, which a minus special defense, 0 IV and 0EV Toedscruel survives from a plus special attack 31 IV and 252 EV Tera Steel Gholdengo when in doubles, and I think being able to put Gholdengo to sleep is enough to put it up to at least the niche group.
The other is Scrappy, simply because WolfeyVGC used it in the early era of ScaVi and got Top 1 with a Dondozo + Tatsugiri team that had Scrappy Flamigo on to get Dondozo’s boost by having the Tatsugiri faint and not the Dondozo, and a Belly Drum Cetitan as a back up when Dondozo + Tatsugiri wasn’t a good option.
@@Pokemon_Scientist I can see arguments for Mycelium Might being a bit higher over never used abilities.
Scrappy wasn’t in this video though so idk what you mean there?
@@MattBudYTI meant Costar lol
I wonder if Stall could work on a very tanky metal burster.
Doesn’t Sableye get Metal Burst? I know Sableye isn’t too bulky but hey, it exists
@@Slimeonian Yes, Sableye can learn Metal Burst through breeding since Generation V. The father must be a Bisharp or Kingambit.
The top 3 are Prankster, Infiltrator, and Chlorophyll. If you do not agree I will rearrange your furniture. 🐑
Infiltrator? Why. The whimsicott agenda?
Dont infiltrate my home
Prankster yes, but Chlorophyll is dependent on if you have a sun team and Infiltrator very rarely ever comes into play
Aaannd…I just realized those are Whimsicott’s abilities 😅
Swift swim is better than Chlorophyll because rain is better than sun.
18:49 hear me out, I know you’re more of a singles player, but in doubles like VGC, Frisk is literally USELESS due to open team sheets being available. Granted, it will be better in double battles that don’t have open team sheets but hey, just thought I’d point it out
@@Slimeonian yeah it is more geared towards singles play and non-open team sheets. Doesn’t make sense to run it if you have the cheat sheet
i think Rivalry isn't as bad as it seems.
If you know which Pokemon you are going up against, or in competitive you know which Pokemon are meta. (for example, the forces of nature always being male)
You can purposely use a Rivalry pokemon to deal extra damage.
Is it just me misremembering or wasn’t klutz at point didn’t let you hold items at all. Like this video is the first time I am learning klutz still lets you hold an item but takes away the affects
No, Klutz always allowed holding items, just not using them.
IMO truant is much worse than slow start, slow start is only temporary and you can stall it out with protect/sub. And also, slow start still lets you PLAY THE GAME, Truant making you skip every other turn is so detrimental and gives your opponent so much time to setup, especially in doubles where missing a turn hurts even more compared to singles.
i would just like to add that frisk is useless in oficial VGC tournaments because they're open sheet tournaments, meaning that you know all of the foe's items, attacks and abilities, so it is kinda useless on these
I feel like Stall is worse than Defeatist. Stall will get you killed before attacking, Defeatist at least lets you get an attack off first.
I wonder where pressure went. Surely it’s not that good of an ability…right?
How could you not mention the fact that soundproof is banned in Gen 3 OU?
Hustle that high... That hurts to see as a randbats lover
Poke-aye-mon
What about the ability Normalize? Shouldn't that count as a negative ability?
Delcatty actually choosing to run it over other higher ranked abilities means it has enough merit to not be grouped in with the negatives. It isn’t great, but definitely has positive effects boosting attacks and making them STAB. But the coverage loss definitely sucks.
@@MattBudYT Yeah, you're right, and thank you so much for responding to my comment!
@@Benbre08 thanks for commenting bud! Appreciate you clicking my video
@ no problem man, the thumbnail looks clean, the title as well, and I can’t wait for part two and three!
I think cute charm and rivalry should be next to each other since they have the same activation criteria and id rather do more damage than the chance of not getting hit. Unless the users make them that far apart.
Mate look at the cute charm users and the other abilities they have
Remember that rivalry also has a huge downside while cute charm, if it doesn't activate, doesn't actively hamper the user. That distinction imo makes cute charm better.
No, Cute Charm and Rivalry are quite different from each other. The only thing that they have in common is that they depend on gender, and in Cute Charm's case, that is due to the infatuation caused by the Ability, not the Ability itself.
how is klutz not at the bottom
i think truant should be considered worse than slow start. there are mons where having slow start wouldnt even matter (for example, chansey). whereas truant cripples every mon in every situation. i know this is a nitpick
Isn’t clumsy just also a bad ability? (The one where you can’t have items)
It is called Klutz, not Clumsy, and he praised it because it enables Pokémon to issue bad items to others without experiencing the detriments themselves.
33:20
Well someone’s gotta be straight cause god knows competitive players ain’t
You say that klutz can be combined with trick, but you don't say that truant can be skill swaped
@@Isaiah-i1l Klutz users themselves make use of the ability with trick/switcheroo to make the ability useful. Truant Pokemon need an ally pokemon to skill swap it onto themselves, where it is still detrimental to the now skill swapped user.
The difference is one can be useful while Truant is never useful for a pokemon to have (crippling another pokemon with the ability does not make it useful)
31:50 and even WHAT???
Emergency exit is so close to being interesting but the fact that it switches Golisopod out immediately instead of at the end of the turn takes it from an ability with a ton of potential to a crippling weakness. I understand why they went the way they did though.
Same thing with color change. An easy fix is to change kecleons type before its hit. Since most but not all types resist themselves this would be a great but balanced ability. Instead its just useless and exploitable most of the time.
I would probably move sand veil and snow cloak up they are honestly very solid abilities on sand and snow teams plus they have synergy with stuff like blizzard and bright powder. I’d definitely have it above something like suction cups. Probably around 10-15 spots higher.
Unnerve is also pretty solid in doubles given how common berries are. I’d say its probably on par if not slightly better than telepathy.
God I hate wugtrio. Why did they give it gooey when it can’t take an attack. Straight to ZU
Nice video though
As a doubles player I would have put plus and minus alot lower also sand veil and snow cloak should be way higher
putting truant above slow start is crazy? sure, you get weakened stats for five turns which sucks, but thats nowhere near just completely missing half of your turns, effectively halving your damage and health if you're not one shotting shit.
Normalize is WAY too low. It really is only bad because Delcatty is unusable. On a good normal type, a 20% boost would be super good. Evaluating the ability in a vacuum, it would be super strong on other pokemon.
I think that truant is worse than slow start because if you are a trick room special attacker you want slow start. I guess aince it is a signature ability it's ranking makes sense
I don't know, the fact that it resets the 5 turn count if you swap out is so offensive that it should somehow go lower
@@if7723I think its bigger offense is that it was in a game that didn't have abilities
I think you forgot to rank Huge Power
ngl i feel like you put normalize way too low considering the 20% boost for any move is way better than abilities above like kluz early bird or healer
I disagree on placing Defeatist above Truant. Undoubtedly Truant sets you back, but I think that Slaking is more capable of pulling its own weight than Archeops is. Archeops' low defenses (65 each) see that Defeatist activates too easily. Truant does have the benefit of allowing the Pokémon to disregard recharge because it will loaf around anyway (meaning that Slaking is built for Hyper Beam and especially Giga Impact), although that can also be spun as requiring a recharge after every move. Truant is easy to counter with Protect and its ilk, admittedly, but Slaking can learn Taunt to put those moves out of commission (unfortunately, it cannot learn Feint and related moves as well). Also, I have never played competitive, but how often do people run Slaking with a Rocky Helmet?
I do not think highly of Anticipation, Forewarn, or Frisk, although I do agree that Frisk is the most useful of the three. I like Abilities that have an active effect, not ones that just tell you what to expect.
Why did Earthquake not work on the Meowscarada at 25:11? Was it holding an Air Balloon?
I see that most Ability twins/triplets are together, but seeing as you placed Gooey above Tangling Hair because Goodra benefits from it more than Fake Dugtrio (I hate that mechanic and refer to fake, false, spurious, or bogus regional variants by contrast with their real, true, genuine, or actual counterparts instead), I assume that Cotton Down is even higher because it benefits Eldegoss even more. (EDIT: I forgot that Cotton Down lowers the Speed of all other Pokémon, not just the attacker, so of course it goes above Gooey and Tangling Hair.) Is there a similar reason as to the separation of Cloud Nine and Air Lock?
I do not get why everybody touts Normalize on the grounds that it can facilitate using Thunder Wave on a Ground-type Pokémon. You can paralyze a Ground-type Pokémon with Stun Spore or Glare. Normalize is never worth it, and the power boost that it gained in Generation VII does not help. Cute Charm and Wonder Skin are both far more worthwhile for Skitty and Delcatty, although I prefer Cute Charm myself.
Finally, what would you all think of an Ability that turned into a random Ability upon entering the battle and reset upon leaving? (If the Ability activated upon leaving, like Natural Cure or Regenerator, then it would activate before resetting. Also, it would not be able to turn into itself, Abilities that facilitate form changes, Abilities designed to work with specific Pokémon, or Illusion [because the illusion would be spoiled by the Pokémon appearing as itself before the Ability changed].)
slaking would also be more capable of pulling its own weight than archeops if neither of them had an ability. it's not that defeatist is worse than truant, it's that slaking is all around better than archeops.
I’m guessing Wonder Guard is the best??
I doubt that he would put it that high. It does not help that Shedinja is a gimmick Pokémon and has five weaknesses, most or all of which are very common.
Ok but if you considered VGC, Frisk would fall down 100 spots cus… open team sheet
My favorite thing about the hindering abilities is people often say “imagine if they didn’t have those abilities they’d be so good”
No they wouldn’t. Regigias without slow start would be a generic restricted who would see zero usages in VGC and Ubers
Slaking would have a bst of 500 and be ass
Toedscruel would not have spore
But interestingly, all these mons (except maybe slaking) ARE usable if paired with weezing
In others words it’s low key the hindering abilities that give them any usage
@@GravityIsFalling interesting perspective. Then we have a mon like Palafin that has that crazy BST AND signature move and it’s pretty bonkers even with essentially “a hindering ability”
@@MattBudYT
…that’s because your talking exclusively about singles but palafin is very obviously designed for VGC where it’s dogshit
Here is the thing, Regigigas is not a restricted legendary, you can use him in any team in VGC.
I think you are seeing their game design in a backwards sense. They are given the cool tools first most of the time and THEN have detrimental flaws to balance it out. No toadscool isnt good because it has mycelium might it is half decent because it has spore but as a game balancing decision was given -ve priority. IF we get rid of the ability then the pokemon would be good. You cannot just take an ability away and assessing how good a pokemon would be without it WHILE also removing the cause of the ability. Slakings truant was clearly made in consideration of how strong it was and removing that aspect would make slaking a beast. Regigigas nowadays is outclassed but still an amazing pokemon as shown by neutralising gas weezing teams in SwSh etc. your ways of assessing pokemon viability is flawed.
@@GravityIsFalling palafin isn't dogshit in vgc. it's periodically seen some pretty good use, tho it's often outclassed by other pokémon, like urshifu-rapid strikes.
Where is klutz?
@@pseudonym834 watch the video and you will see it😅
Nah slow start is easily the best of the "bad" abilities, imagine if a slow special attacker got slow start, then it could actually take advantage of it in tr, the other ones are bad no matter how you spin it (also side note: varoom gets slow start now, so regigigas can't even say it has a signature ability anymore lol)
Keyword: imagine. People forget that 5 turns in competitive pokemon is alot and leaves alot of time for set up. Passiveness makes the pokemon worse and it is too taxxing on any pokemon trying to survive 5 turns. You cannot factor special attackers because there are none and the others are not immediately bad while slow start is instantly debilitating. Defiant gives breathing room to do damage fast before it activates, truant can be played around with switches and doesnt force entire movesets working around survival
Truant is 100% worse than slow start, slow start pokemon can use status moves every turn, and it eventually goes away, truant pokemon get completely nullified if all the pokemon of your opponents field have protect, which is most situations in doubles, its like playing with a shedinija except instead of winning the game if you succeed you get to use your 4th Pokemon
Truant def isnt worse than slow start to someone who plays singles, like he said in the beginning, especially since also like he said in the video, entrainment durant exists
Also regigigas alone is not enough to win a battle in vgc and having a bunch if status moves like protect and sub and toxic etc limits your attacking options so when a slightly defensive pokemon switches in you have nothing to use against it. They are relative in how bad they are and there is no guaranteed right or wrong option.