How would you rank the best Abilities?

We needed a place to organize this and Jump and other badgeholders gave it the ok.

We aren't rating the abilities by what Pokemon get them, just which ones are the most powerful. Availability should not influence it.

Current list but will definitely change:

1 wonderguard - blocking attacks from killing you is just devestating.

2 magic guard - although blocking attacks is better, blocking status and indirect damage is almost as good

3 pure power / huge power - doubling your attack at the cost of nothing is just incredible

4 Drizzle - rain is so beneficial for so much and it helps with so many moves.

5 shadow tag - You can trap almost everything that doesnt hold shed shell. Gamechanging ability.

6 arena trap - More pokemon can escape from Arena Trap but trapping Pokemon is ridiculous.

7 tinted lens - jump reminded me how dangerous this is. Seriously, turning nve hits into neutral hits? Are you kidding me?

8 Levitate - This gives you an immunity to spikes and toxic spikes but it also gives you an immunity to ground as well. Its like giving you the best part about being a flying type without actually having the horrid typing.

9 poison heal - Restoring 12.5% of your health while preventing status is just amazing, no matter how you look at it.

10 simple - doubling stat boosts will make anything scary. A Swords Dance will have 2/3 the power of a regular belly drum which is a very good number.

11 Sandstream - im biased by raising rock defense x1.5 and decreasing the accuracy of blizzard WHILE causing damage (6%) for no fee everything is great.


more to come later
 

Great Sage

Banned deucer.
Shadow Tag and Arena Trap should probably be higher up than they are; trapping the opponent and giving no leeway for switching is really powerful.
 

jrrrrrrr

wubwubwub
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I don't think immunity is #15...that seems way too high while things like SHED SKIN exist, and the fact that two types are already immune to poison. This makes me think that poison immunity isn't really as good as you think
 
to havak: no, me, jump, jrrrrrr, rbg, and great sage are just trying to order the abilities. Feel free to add to the list.

Its hard trying to think what outdos what. Levitate is also a great ability that I need to add to the list and Shed Skin is definitely a good one.
 

Jumpman16

np: Michael Jackson - "Mon in the Mirror" (DW mix)
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just wanted to post preemptively to "ok" this thread; it's harmless and i think us badgeholders should have a thread to have some non-policy related fun without having "the peons" (lol phuq) mess up our fun.

explaining and defending your ranking is the whole fun in the thread, dont just number them and not post anything else!!!

also suggest a few ones that may not be up there etc
 

jrrrrrrr

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Well if we're going to suggest things, I would go with:

Guts
Rough Skin
Blaze/Torrent/Overgrow
Flash Fire
Volt Absorb/Water Absorb
Motor Drive

SHED SKIN
 
Going to redo the list but I will need a lot of help. Ill give my reasons for them as well.

edit: I would like to argue Rough Skin. Take into consideration that it must be a contact move and that it only does 12.5%, it is easy to get around and when it does hit, it really doesn't matter much.

I would also like to put up Flash Fire for consideration.
 

Havak

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Okay.

Wonder Guard and Magic Guard are probably top 2 for sure, so I don't see that changing.

Shadow Tag is devastating, so definately third, with Arena Trap maybe fourth.

I think Drizzle is a lot more destructive really, so I'd probably even give that fifth spot, though it wouldn't surprise me if it ended up higher.

I can't believe Trace isn't on the list, and Immunity so high seems a little strange. Natural Cure is definately better, and so is Serene Grace IMO. As is Intimidate.

1. Wonder Guard
2. Magic Guard
3. Shadow Tag
4. Arena Trap
5. Drizzle
6. Trace
7. Poison Heal
8. Drought
9. Levitate
10. Flash Fire / Water Absorb / Volt Absorb

I'd probably say that was my idea of a top 10, but I'd have trouble weighing up the rest.
 
havak, where is pure/huge power on your list? If anything, I'd probably put those higher than Magic Guard. Double attack is HUGE, absurdly so if the Pokemon using it actually has a decent attack stat to begin with.

At the very least, it should be above Trace/Poison Heal/Flash Fire, etc. Trace is helpful, but not even slightly gamebreaking, which abilities like Huge Power, Magic Guard, Drizzle, etc definitely are.
 
I agree with Immunity not deserving this spot, or anywhere near it. Immunity to one type of status, often considered one of the least lethal, simply shouldn't be considered as helpful as, for example, being "negative" immune to something (Volt Absorb, Water Absorb, etc), or even Natural Cure, which works for all status as long as you switch.

I agree with Wonder Guard on #1 and Magic Guard on #2 though.

EDIT: I never liked Trace. The best possible abilities on this list are also on somewhat rare Pokemon that are shitty for anything other than that trait (Dugtrio, Azumarill, Medicham, Shedinja, Clefable...they only have one redeeming feature max).

EDIT 2: Also agreeing with having fun in IS :)
 

Havak

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Hmm actually, yeh I'd agree on Pure Power and Huge Power, though IMO should be listed in one spot but I'd only rank them about 5th at best I think...
 

Caelum

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I generally don't like these topics since it's so hard to reach a consensus but it sounds like fun so I'm in. At least it's not in Stark where the topic would be a shitfest in 2 hours.

So far I actually agree with the list for the most part.

Serene Grace should be up there. The ability to abuse secondary effects has screwed all of us one time or another and I think we all know how awesome of an ability this is. Same with Trace. Tracing other awesome abilities is arguably one of the better abilities. That should be somewhere up there in my opinion. I also just wondering about Anger Point? Setting aside that you may not survive the critical hit, in theory at least, it could be pretty powerful.


If this were a cool list Mulitype would be up there :p.
 

obi

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Keep in mind that Tinted Lens is only superior to Pure Power / Huge Power for special attacks. For physical attacks, Pure Power always doubles your Attack, while Tinted Lens only doubles damage for NVE attacks.

Simple Swords Dance is * 3 Attack. Pure Power Swords Dance is * 4 (and you can use Swords Dance two more times).

I don't think Poison Heal deserves to be anywhere near the top. You have to either rely on them Poisoning you or use up your item slot and ability slot to essentially get double the healing of Leftovers and status immunity (but you only get that after you've been in a turn, so no switching into status right off the bat).

Speed Boost seems cool.
 
Anger Point is really shaky because of 3 reasons.

1. You need the opponent to get the critical hit
2. You need to survive the critical hit
3. If you dont have a salac berry or some sort of priority move, you will probably die the next turn.

Trace is something im iffy about. Its helpful for Arena Trap, Huge Power, ect. but the fact is that if you are coming in on traits like that, you might be setting yourself up for defeat. If you were allowed to pick what ability you wanted it would always be number 1 but since its forced to be what you come in on, you either A. bring it in on something you dont want to only to get the trait or B. bring it in on a good ability but the opponent (with good ability) ends up taking you out. Or of course C. you win and keep the good ability.

I would rank Trace in the top 20, maybe top 15, definitely not top 10.
 
I can sort of see your point since it's really hard to rank abilities straight-out without any other guidelines. When you compare the value of Magic Guard to, say, Pure Power on several different OU Pokemon (let's say Garchomp, Gengar, Gyarados, Lucario, and Blissey), it's completely dependent on the Pokemon. There's not really a good way to objectively determine which is better, unless you just decide which is a better choice on all the Pokemon in OU or something like that.

I do feel there's a real division between the top-tier abilities (Wonder Guard, Magic Guard, Pure/Huge Power, Shadow Tag/Arena Trap, Drizzle, and possibly Drought) and the "good but not awesome" (Poison Heal, Levitate, Trace, Intimidate, Flash Fire) ones, though. Drought seems to be somewhat underrated; like Drizzle, it powers up all moves of a single type by 50%, which is pretty big when you realize that your Heatran automatically has a Flash Fire boost. It's less useful than Drizzle overall since none of the Pokemon that get a speed boost from Sun are capable of using STAB Fire type attacks (though, again, this is where abilities become hard to qualify; is one ability worse than another because less Pokemon that get a power boost from it exist?) and Solarbeam is much less useful than Thunder if another weather changer comes in, but as an ability it's still up there.
 
I think the best way to describe what we are doing is we are assuming every Pokemon has the same typing and stats and just ranking the ability.
 

chaos

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None of this in Inside Scoop, I am fundamentally against badgeholders separating from the "peons"... it might lead to shit like people only talking in #insidescoop and not even coming to #smogon... wait, that already happens. Fuck your clique, and fuck especially the people who go to #fluodome and #insidescoop and not #smogon.
 

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