Ability Guide for AAA: Offensive Edition

By UT and Osake. Released: 2022/06/28.
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Ability Guide for AAA: Offensive Edition art

Art by Daylight.

Introduction

Almost Any Ability (AAA) is an Other Metagame where Pokémon can have the ability of your choice! With over 150 abilities to choose from, it can be hard to know where to start. In the first part of our two-part series, we will highlight some of the better offensive abilities, why they are good, and common sets they work well on. We will also briefly touch on some abilities that seem good, but are often underwhelming.

The Abilities

Adaptability

Adaptability is one of the strongest offensive abilities in standard play, turning Crawdaunt and Porygon-Z into fearsome wallbreakers despite mediocre stats or typings. In AAA, it's a powerful tool for Pokémon with naturally strong STAB moves and good coverage.

In AAA, it is normally given to wallbreakers that enjoy firing off strong STAB attacks, especially with a Choice item. The best users of Adaptability have typings with good neutral coverage like Rock, Fighting, and Dark; since Adaptability offers no damage amplification for coverage moves, it's generally not optimal on attackers that need them to beat common walls. Good users include Zygarde-10%, Terrakion, Mamoswine, and Tapu Koko. Choice Band Terrakion stands out for its ability to 2HKO virtually every wall; Dauntless Shield Mew and Hippowdon are the closest things it has to safe switch-ins, as even Intimidate Corviknight fails to switch in if Stealth Rock is up.

Sample Set

Terrakion

Triage

Comfey's signature ability, Triage, provides insane +3 priority to all healing moves. Significantly, this includes draining moves such as Draining Kiss and Horn Leech, allowing those moves to out-prioritize virtually all other attacks, even Extreme Speed. While draining moves typically have low Base Power, there are numerous Pokémon that have high attacking stats and dangerous setup moves to offset this; Tapu Bulu, Tapu Lele, and Togekiss are prime examples of such threats. Thanks to the absurd priority, traditional setup counterplay such as Choice Scarf, other priority moves, and even Prankster Haze fail to reliably stop them. Since these threats are often using draining moves, they are also hard to wear down and can typically run Life Orb for damage amplification with minimal downside.

While Triage is insanely threatening to unprepared teams, it is far from a perfect ability. Since all of the common Triage sweepers only have one draining move of a commonly resisted type, a faster Pokémon that resists that move can threaten them out. Additionally, Psychic Terrain and the less common Dazzling and Queenly Majesty completely shut down Triage moves. Lastly, Triage does not offer any damage amplification and relies on weak moves, meaning that it can be difficult to sweep without multiple boosts or heavily weakened foes.

Sample Set

Togekiss

Terrain Surge Abilities

While Terrains now only offer a 1.3x damage boost, Terrain Surge abilities (except Misty Surge) are still very useful tools on a wide range of Pokémon and teams by providing damage amplification, useful interactions with moves and teammates, and occasional ability activation. A 1.3x boost is on par with most offensive abilities. They make up for only applying to one type with their useful secondary effects that can extend to team support. Psychic Surge and Grassy Surge are common abilities, and Electric Surge is viable but niche.

Grassy Terrain provides passive recovery and weakens Earthquake. This recovery can be beneficial to teammates, especially Heatran, which lacks recovery and fears Earthquake. The reduced power of Earthquake can help patch up a team-wide Ground weakness, though it can also hinder teammates with Earthquake. The biggest benefit of Grassy Terrain is activating Grassy Glide, turning it into a 70 Base Power priority move. This allows Zarude and Dhelmise, in particular, to be powerful revenge killers.

Psychic Surge, on the contrary, shuts down priority entirely. All grounded Pokémon become immune to priority in Psychic Terrain, allowing you to shore up a Triage or other priority weakness. Even if your Psychic Surge user cannot check the opposing priority user, it can set up the Terrain to give an ally an easier time. Additionally, Psychic Terrain increases the power of Expanding Force, making it a drawback-free 120 Base Power STAB move. Choice Scarf Azelf is the poster child of Psychic Surge in AAA, as it possesses amazing Speed, immunity to priority, and an extremely powerful Expanding Force.

Electric Surge, while viable, is generally seen on more dedicated archetypes due to it enabling Surge Surfer users. Rising Voltage has its Base Power doubled in Electric Terrain, offering a very powerful STAB move that can even 2HKO Blissey, but Ground-types and Volt Absorb are much more common than Dark-types, making it less reliable than Expanding Force. Additionally, Electric Terrain blocking sleep is much less valuable than passive recovery or immunity to priority, especially since AAA has Sleep Moves Clause.

Misty Terrain is generally unviable. It offers no damage amplification and no useful unique move (Misty Explosion has no niche), and the team support (immunity to status) is nice, but not worth an ability slot. It should not be run competitively.

Sample Sets

Dhelmise
  • Dhelmise @ Life Orb
  • Ability: Grassy Surge
  • EVs: 252 Atk / 4 Def / 252 Spe
  • Adamant Nature
  • - Grassy Glide
  • - Poltergeist
  • - Power Whip
  • - Swords Dance
Azelf
  • Azelf @ Choice Scarf
  • Ability: Psychic Surge
  • EVs: 252 SpA / 4 SpD / 252 Spe
  • Timid Nature
  • - Expanding Force
  • - U-turn
  • - Psyshock
  • - Trick

Tinted Lens

Historically, Tinted Lens is a very uncommon ability only available on weaker Pokémon like Noctowl and Sigilyph. However, the ability itself is quite strong; many common walls rely on their resistances to check wallbreakers.

In AAA, powerful attackers can use the ability with Choice Band or Choice Specs to blow away walls that resist their STAB attacks. A perfect example of that is Heracross, which becomes able to 2HKO Fairy- and Poison-types like Tapu Fini and Toxapex with Close Combat. However, physical Tinted Lens wallbreakers often struggle to break through Intimidate and Dauntless Shield walls, and special attackers are often stopped by Blissey, as those switch-ins rely more on their defensive stats. For example, Dauntless Shield Hippowdon is already neutral to Close Combat, so Tinted Lens doesn't give any benefit. Thus, wallbreakers usually prefer damage amplification abilities such as Adaptability and Tough Claws unless they have heavily flawed STAB coverage and lack good coverage options.

Sample Set

Heracross

Tough Claws

Tough Claws is very rare in standard play, with only three fully evolved Pokémon. Its effect is a little unusual, as it boosts contact moves, which means certain physical moves–such as Stone Edge–are not boosted; however, it is one of the better abilities to amplify physical coverage moves.

Tough Claws makes a decent alternative to Tinted Lens and Adaptability, as it combines the additional power of Adaptability with the potential to break through foes that resist STAB moves. It's usually seen with Swords Dance and more rarely with Choice Band. Since the vast majority of contact moves are physical, it's best on attackers like Zarude, which appreciates the extra damage on Close Combat and U-turn. Tough Claws is a good ability, but it is often the second-best ability for wallbreakers like Galarian Zapdos, Terrakion, and Genesect; if you are considering Tough Claws, make sure you know why you are choosing it.

Sample Set

Zarude

Sheer Force

Sheer Force is comparable to Tough Claws, as it boosts certain, mostly special, attacks by 1.3x. In standard play, Sheer Force allows Nidoking to be a force in OU despite mediocre stats and is a large factor in why Landorus is banned.

Since a wide range of special attacks have secondary effects, and Tinted Lens is less useful on special attackers due to Blissey, Sheer Force is often the damage amplification ability of choice for special wallbreakers. Sheer Force also has the unusual quirk of negating Life Orb recoil, allowing for a cumulative 1.69x damage amplification. It is a great ability for special attackers with wide movepools, as they can freely switch moves and hit a wide range of targets One of the strongest examples is Tapu Lele, which can even 2HKO Blissey with Focus Blast.

Sample Set

Tapu Lele

Magic Guard

Magic Guard is one of the strongest abilities in the game despite its poor distribution. The fact that it avoids entry hazards, one of the best ways to wear down the opposite team, is already huge, but ignoring poison, burn, and Life Orb damage makes Magic Guard powerful and versatile.

Magic Guard has a wide range of users in AAA thanks to the myriad of benefits it offers. Fast pivots such as Tapu Koko and Cinderace enjoy the ability to ignore entry hazards and freely run Life Orb. Attackers that want to rely on recoil moves such as Talonflame, Galarian Zapdos, and Genesect can do so freely. As you can see, Magic Guard often functionally acts as a damage amplification ability despite not technically being one. Pokémon that fear chip damage and Stealth Rock such as Volcarona and Talonflame are given increased longevity. Magic Guard can also be run on bulkier setup Pokémon like Cosmic Power Mew and Calm Mind Latias to invalidate Toxic. The best users of Magic Guard are Pokémon that can enjoy several of these benefits, and none take better advantage of Magic Guard than Talonflame; it gets to ignore recoil, Life Orb, poison, Stealth Rock, and Rocky Helmet. This gives Talonflame great longevity and surprising power, and it can even be hard to account for when building despite its lackluster Attack. There is virtually no Pokémon that would not benefit from Magic Guard; the only question is, is there an ability they would enjoy more?

Sample Set

Talonflame

Primal Weathers

Primal Groudon and Kyogre aren't in SS, but their abilities are fair game in AAA. Desolate Land and Primordial Sea offer several significant advantages to their users: 50% damage amplification on what is usually their main STAB move, immunity to Water- or Fire-type attacks, and activating secondary effects like reduced charge turns or improved accuracy. Consider Desolate Land Heatran, one of the premiere weather users in AAA: its Water-type weakness is now an immunity, Magma Storm gets 50% stronger, and it can fire off Solar Beam to eliminate Water-types like Swampert. Primordial Sea Zapdos has perfectly accurate Hurricane and Thunder, as well as Weather Ball. Barraskewda is the most notable physical user of Primordial Sea, enjoying 50% damage amplification on Liquidation, Flip Turn, and Aqua Jet. Primordial Sea in particular can even have a defensive niche; for example, it allows Tapu Koko to reliably check Talonflame.

The increased distribution of Weather Ball this generation makes weather users even better. One of the best checks to Desolate Land or Primordial Sea is its counterpart, as it flips boosted attacks into immunities and cuts out all of the useful secondary effects. Weather Ball can bypass this tactic, as it just switches typing and is still boosted. A great example of this is Primordial Sea Primarina, which normally would not be able to touch Desolate Land Heatran but now can hit it with a 100 Base Power, sun-boosted Fire-type move.

Sample set

Zapdos

Aerilate, Galvanize, Pixilate, and Refrigerate

This group of abilities (often referred to as -ate abilities) was largely introduced to give STAB moves to Pokémon forme changes without having to completely revamp their movepools. They typically function similarly in AAA. In general, -ate abilities are not as good as other offensive abilities due to their smaller boost of 1.2x and the fact they only boost one move type, but there are some important exceptions to be aware of.

Aerilate can give Flying-type STAB moves to attackers that lack them, most notably Landorus-T. Its Ground / Flying typing provides excellent coverage, and Body Slam is an adequate move for Aerilate. It can further amplify damage through Swords Dance and use Explosion to even OHKO Corviknight after Swords Dance.

Pixilate is generally uncommon, but has seen a recent resurgence with the rediscovery of Pixilate Facade Tapu Koko. Outside of Tapu Koko, Pixilate is rare and generally only seen on attackers looking to boost Extreme Speed; Refrigerate is similarly rare, especially since Ice-types are uncommon in AAA.

Galvanize is the exception to using -ate abilities to gain access to STAB moves, and is most typically found on lure sets. Several dangerous attackers such as Garchomp and Landorus-T have a difficult time breaking through common physical walls such as Corviknight, Tapu Fini, and Toxapex. All of these walls share a weakness to Electric-type moves, meaning a Galvanize set can flip the matchup.

Sample Set

Tapu Koko

Beginner Trap Abilities

These are abilities that sound good on paper, and new players often attempt to use; however, for reasons we will explain shortly, they are generally poor abilities and should not be used.

Moxie/Beast Boost/Soul Heart/As One

These are commonly referred to as the snowball abilities. Gaining an Attack or Speed boost on every KO sounds nice, but the opportunity cost to running them in AAA is high. Snowball abilities offer no benefit until that first KO, which is often harder to achieve due to the abundance of Regenerator, Intimidate, and Magic Guard. Additionally, even if you get that KO, revenge killers are common and powerful in AAA, and you may not be able to stay in and use your boost. The abilities we already covered, like Adaptability, Tinted Lens, and Sheer Force, offer much more consistent and reliable methods of boosting damage.

Swift Swim/Chlorophyll/other weather-activated abilities

Weather-based abilities, particularly Swift Swim and Chlorophyll, seem very strong. However, they are severely limited by the prevalence of Desolate Land and Primordial Sea, which override Drizzle and Drought and neuter the users. Priority is also much more abundant, bypassing the Speed boost. Additionally, they generally require a dedicated weather setter on your team, which is a high cost to pay for an inconsistent strategy. While these abilities are powerful in certain matchups, the cost to running them and inconsistency of their performance leave them generally outclassed.

Get out there!

Now that you have a general sense of what the good offensive abilities are in AAA, it's time to start playing! We have an abundance of resources to help you out, like our Viability Rankings and Setpedia, our good cores thread, and up-to-date sample teams! Also feel free to come to the OM room and ask questions, and keep a look out for part two, where we will cover common defensive abilities!

HTML by Ryota Mitarai.
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