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Ability Tiering Thread and General Ability Discussion (Final Check)

Here goes nothing. And @forestflamerunner, kudos to you for letting the community even attempt something like this. Thanks.

Shield Dust: Change Tier
Klutz: Do Not Change Tier
Normalize: Abstain
Rain Dish: Change Tier
Ice Body: Change Tier
Defiant: Change Tier
Effect Spore: Change Tier
Reckless: Change Tier
Rock Head: Do Not Change Tier
Hustle: Change Tier
Snow Cloak: Change Tier
Suction Cups: Change Tier
Unburden: Change Tier
Wonder Skin: Change Tier
Insomnia: Do Not Change Tier
Vital Spirit: Do Not Change Tier

Can`t wait for a Suction Cups sweeper. (Faze this Skarmory!!)
 
I've added insomnia and Vital Spirit to the ballot. Please adjust your votes accordingly.

@ Melvni

In an earlier point in this thread i beleive the topic of insomnia creeped up. At that time i basically went through the usage stats, found every poke in ou that used a sleep move and multiplied that. by how often the pokemon was used, yeilding me the result that 1 in 24 pokemon used in OU used sleep moves. You can go back and track this down if you want. I still feel like Insomnia isn't as useful as people beleive it to be. I run espeon on my current ou team, which has magic mirror which can provide the same function as insomnia plus some. However, while my opponents were a bit more careful when using sleep moves, they still were able to put one of my mons to sleep like 70% of the time because at the end of the day, espeon is just one mon out of six, and the other six could all be hit with spore or sleep powder or whatever. It is the same reason why having espeon or xatu doesnt shield you from stealth rock or spikes: there are still five other pokes that spikes and rocks can be put up against. No one has perfect prediction, and you have to recognize that just because one poke is immune to sleep, that definitely doesnt protect your whole team from the status. If we want to put it in terms of pure probability, 1 in 4 teams will have a sleep move. You have six pokes on your team. If one of gour pokes is put to sleep on insomnia will take effect 1/24 times. This is obviously a drastic oversimplification, but i trust you understand what im saying about insomnia. The ability will save one of your pokes from sleep. Not your whole team.
 
I never said it did. I don't really feel that strongly either way regarding the ability, but I just felt like it's better than you were making it out to be (though I probably expressed that in a bit more long-winded of a way than necessary; you've probably noticed I have a tendency to do that). Sure it doesn't protect the team from sleep, but being immune to sleep is more useful than just being able to be switched in on predicted sleep moves. Personally, I'd prefer that to being immune to stat drops from your opponents moves for instance (Clear Body and White Smoke, both B Tier), as those are far less common by my estimation. I guess you could say the same about the other status blocking abilities, but I don't feel like it's worth it to have that discussion at this moment (maybe some other time, maybe never; as I said, I don't feel that strongly on the issue).

By the way, thanks for telling me where that stat came from. It sounds like a pretty good estimate, and it makes a lot more sense now.

Also, why are we voting on Reckless? It's already in B Tier.
 
Shield Dust: Change Tier

Same reasons as alexwolf's. Bye hax barring critical hits, Charge Beam boost, recoil , freeze and 100% secondary effects like Fake Out.
It's like having Inner Focus and Magma Armor at the same time besides more beneficial effects.

Klutz: Change Tier:

Because:
 B Tier- Abilities that are good but not as good as A Tier abilities either because they require a more customized movepool and stat spread to be effective, are more specialized in purpose or effect, or are have affects that are just flat out inferior to the affects of A or S Tier Abilities

However, this ability could be hindering if it is the only ability of the Pokemon, it is a strange case.

Normalize: Change Tier

Aside of paralyzing Grounds with Thunder Wave and using Ice Beam/Thunderbolt/the like.. like a normal special STAB but being walled by Rocks, Steels and Ghosts, not much useful.D Tier, this ability is awful.If at least could poison Poison and Steel Pokemon...

Rain Dish: Change Tier

This is a special case, without Drizzle in the tier, it is D Tier, considering rain, B Tier, because in this thread we are considering that the Pokemon has the movepool/stats... to make profit of the ability.

Ice Body: Change Tier

Well, Hail is a hindering weather to the majority of Pokemon, but the owner of this ability could heal itself while the foe is receiving hail damage. Sure in the current OU metagame Rain Dish is better because even not using weather, statistically Rain Teams are a lot more common and it is easy to take the foe's weather in its profit but, thinking if Hail was the only weather in X tier, in this could be useful(Regice in DW NU if Snow Warning is allowed, for example)

Defiant: Do Not Change Tier.

An ability only useful against Intimidate and Seed Flare most of the time and they are not that commonand moves like 20% to lower something and not reliable even that.Intimidators are not going to appear against to provide a +1 boost and Intimidate only activates once, so it is impossible to use it to activate the ability, bar maybe in the case of double switch.
C Tier, because statistically is more useful than a lot of abilities in D Tier.

Effect Spore: Change Tier

B Tier, considering that the user is not slow and cannot learn Sleep moves, like Parasect in the 3rd gen, going to Spore a foe and Effect Spore poisons it before.

Reckless: Change Tier
B Tier.

Rock Head: Change Tier
B Tier.

Hustle: Change Tier
Same reasons as alexwolf's.

Snow Cloak: Change Tier

Hail is a viable weather as Sandstream is so, to the same tier.

Suction Cups: Change Tier
Same reasons as alexwolf's.

Unburden: Change Tier
Same reasons as alexwolf's.

Wonder Skin: Change Tier
Same reasons as alexwolf's.

Vital Spirit: Change Tier

Tier above. This is always useful, except in the case the least useless Pokemon of the team has it and it is wanted to put it to sleep.

Insomnia: Change Tier

Tier above too.
 
Someones probably already said this, but why not have a doubles tier to show that although these abilities are useless in normal singles play, in Doubles and Triples they are viable and actually quite good?
 
Alright, here we go. I'll do a quick summary at the end.

Shield Dust: Change Tier
Klutz: Change Tier
Normalize: Change Tier
Rain Dish: Change Tier
Ice Body: Change Tier
Defiant: Change Tier
Effect Spore: Change Tier
Reckless: do not change tier because it's already in B-tier silly!
Rock Head: Change Tier
Hustle: Change Tier
Snow Cloak: Change Tier
Suction Cups: Change Tier
Unburden: Change Tier
Wonder Skin: Change Tier
Insomnia: Do Not Change Tier
Vital Spirit: Do Not Change Tier


Alright, for the more controversial ones... Klutz needs to be in D tier. I don't care if you can do wacky toxic orb trick hi-jinx or whatever, it also means you can't use leftovers, choice items, life orb, lum berry, or any other items for that matter. Being able to trick a Toxic or Flame orb to an opponent is not worth that even a little bit.

Normalize: I think the people wanting to keep this in C-tier are forgetting that it leaves you with NO coverage moves. Being able to Thunder Wave Ground types is cool and all, but also remember that you LOSE the ability to Thunder Wave GHOST types now. Also, NO COVERAGE MOVES AT ALL. I cannot stress this enough!

Ice Body and rain dish deserve B-tier because that extra 6.25% a turn, combined with leftovers, opens up the possibility of endlessly spamming protect and substitute and becoming invincible. The reason Ice Body, despite requiring hail, also gets this instead of just Rain Dish is because unlike rain, Hail damages most opponents, meaning Pokemon with Ice Body can defeat Pokemon by just being on the field! Sure hail might not be the the best weather, but the potential for Pokemon to abuse this ability is huge.

Rock Head I want to become B-tier because of the massive difference it makes to the survival and power of so many Pokemon. A lot of Pokemon get powerful recoil moves and they benefit immensely from not taking ridiculous amounts of recoil from them, especially since these moves frequently have no other drawbacks. It does require that the Pokemon have these moves, which is why it's B instead of A, but it's much better than most C-tier abilities.

I was actually the one who originally brought up Insomnia and Vital Spirit, way before we started the voting process, back when we were fixing the glaring flaws. Since then however, I've changed my opinion for some of the reasons forrestflamerunner brought up (but not others). Primarily, the fact that it doesn't give enough of an advantage against common sleep users is the main reason why I think it should remain in C-tier.

The others have been sufficiently explained I think, so I'll let them be for now.
 
Shield Dust: Change Tier
Klutz: Do Not Change Tier
Normalize: Change Tier
Rain Dish: Change Tier
Ice Body: Do Not Change Tier
Defiant: Change Tier
Effect Spore: Change Tier
Rock Head: Change Tier
Hustle: Change Tier
Snow Cloak: Change Tier
Suction Cups: Change Tier
Unburden: Change Tier
Insomnia: Change Tier
Vital Spirit: Change Tier
Wonder Skin: Change Tier

Also melvni described very nicely why Insomnia and Vital Spirit are useful abilities. Another way to see if these abilities are B-tier worthy, is to just compare them to some other B-tier abilities. As melvni said, i would pick Insomnia over Clear Body most of the times. Or Bad Dreams. So if Insomnia is better that the worse B-tier abilities, then it deserves to be in the B tier right?
 
Asek said:
Someones probably already said this, but why not have a doubles tier to show that although these abilities are useless in normal singles play, in Doubles and Triples they are viable and actually quite good?
Click to expand...
A couple of people tried that early in the thread, it was mostly ignored. Unfortunately, I don't think there's much doubles interest in the OU forum.
 
The simple answer is i forgot. However, it shouldnt make any difference one way or another as long as no one decides to be a troll. In regards to why i never made a tier list for doubles, it is mostly because i never play doubles and any list i make will be theorymonnes out ass. If you want to create a doubles tier list, there was a rough outline for one somewhere on the first page. You can take that(with the original authors permission) and post that in VGC and do your tiering stuff there. I am unfortunately completely useless in any doubles tiering endeavor
 
Shield Dust: 8 change Tier, 0 Do not Change Tier
Klutz: 4 Change Tier, 4 Do Not Change
Normalize: 7 Change Tier, 1 Abstain
Rain Dish: 8 Change Tier, 0 Do Not Change Tier
Ice Body: 5 Change Tier, 3 Do Not Change Tier
Defiant: 7 Change Tier, 1 Do Not Change Tier
Effect Spore: 8 Change Tier
Rock Head: 4 Change Tier, 2 Do Not Change Tier, 2 Abstain
Hustle:7 Change Tier, 1 Do not Change Tier
Snow Cloak: 7 Change Tier, 1 Do Not Change Tier
Suction Cups: 8 Change Tier
Unburden:7 Change Tier, 1 Abstain
Wonder Skin: 7 Change Tier, 1 Do Not Change Tier
Insomnia: 3 Change Tier, 4 Do Not Change Tier, 1 Abstain
Vital Spirit: 3 Change Tier, 4 Do Not Change Tier, 1 Abstain

We will now vote on where to place Shield Dust Normalize, Rain Dish, Ice Body, Defiant, Effect Spore, Rock Head, Hustle, SSnow Cloak, Suction Cups, Unburden, and Wonderskin. Your votes should be in bold and look like this for each ability:

Move (insert ability) to _______ Tier.

This period will last 24 Hours. Have fu
n.
Note that Klutz will not be moved because it did not get a majority, while I didn’t tally up the votes for reckless because its already in B tier (my bad).
 
Move Shield Dust to A tier
Move Normalize to F tier
Move Rain Dish to B tier
Move Ice Body to B tier
Move Defiant to B tier
Move Effect Spore to B tier
Move Rock Head to B tier
Move Hustle to B tier
Move Snow Cloak to B tier
Move Suction Cups to B tier
Move Unburden to B tier
Move Wonderskin to B tier
 
Move Shield Dust to B tier
Move Normalize to D tier
Move Rain Dish to B tier
Move Ice Body to B tier
Move Defiant to B tier
Move Effect Spore to B tier
Move Rock Head to B tier
Move Hustle to B tier
Move Snow Cloak to B tier
Move Suction Cups to B tier
Move Unburden to B tier
Move Wonderskin to B tier

Thanks Alexwolf for the template lol.
 
Move Shield Dust to A tier
Move Normalize to D tier
Move Rain Dish to B tier
Move Ice Body to B tier
Keep Defiant in C tier. If it is not possible, move to B tier.
Move Effect Spore to B tier
Move Rock Head to B tier
Move Hustle to A tier
Move Snow Cloak to B tier
Move Suction Cups to A tier
Move Unburden to B tier
Move Wonderskin to B tier
 
Move Shield Dust to A tier
Move Normalize to D tier
Move Rain Dish to B tier
Move Ice Body to B tier
Move Defiant to B tier
Move Effect Spore to B tier
Move Rock Head to B tier
Move Hustle to B tier
Move Snow Cloak to B tier
Move Suction Cups to B tier
Move Unburden to B tier
Move Wonderskin to A tier
 
Can anyone give me a decent explanation why they're not voting Normalize into the F tier? I feel like it would take pretty much any Pokemon in OU and make it worthless; it's DEFINITELY worse than Color Change.
 
VaporeonIce said:
Can anyone give me a decent explanation why they're not voting Normalize into the F tier? I feel like it would take pretty much any Pokemon in OU and make it worthless; it's DEFINITELY worse than Color Change.
Click to expand...

It has some uses, like hitting thunder wave on ground types. If it has any positive uses, no matter how stupid, its D tier, just look at keen eye, when was the last time you saw an accuracy drop? (for me one year ago) F tier is for literally nothing or bad abilties, clearly normalize isn't that.

And I bet color change is going to be voted on in F tier, don't use it as an example as an F tier ability.
 
By that logic, Truant is D tier, because it combines with Entrainment. It's not that Normalize only has one use; it's that Normalize only has one use and using it makes you completely terrible at doing anything else. That description matches Normalize as well as it matches Truant, IMO. If Deoxys-A or Darkrai had Normalize, I wouldn't use them in RU, and I might not even use them in NU. That's how horrible it is.

Normal-type, guys. Normal-type. All of your attacking moves are resisted by Rock and Steel, and they probably don't have base powers much higher than Return anyway (and EVERYTHING gets Return). Ghost-types are immune to literally ALL of your moves (except entry hazards, I guess). This ability should go die.

With that said:

Move Shield Dust to B tier
Move Normalize to F tier
Move Rain Dish to B tier
Move Ice Body to B tier
Move Defiant to B tier
Move Effect Spore to B tier
Move Rock Head to B tier
Move Hustle to B tier
Move Snow Cloak to B tier
Move Suction Cups to B tier
Move Unburden to B tier
Move Wonder Skin to B tier

It's a B tier bonanza! That said, I WANT Shield Dust to be A tier, I really do, because it's a very cool ability, and it's unfortunate that nothing that gets it gains any real benefit from it. But it's just not powerful enough. I'm actually on the fence about Wonder Skin, because I think it COULD be A tier, but I think we'd need to see it in action to really know. As of right now, I don't see it as powerful enough for the A tier, but it may be more game-breaking than I'm giving it credit for. Unfortunately, we may never know, as the atrocious Delcatty is the only Pokemon that gets it.
 
VaporeonIce said:
By that logic, Truant is D tier, because it combines with Entrainment. It's not that Normalize only has one use; it's that Normalize only has one use and using it makes you completely terrible at doing anything else. That description matches Normalize as well as it matches Truant, IMO. If Deoxys-A or Darkrai had Normalize, I wouldn't use them in RU, and I might not even use them in NU. That's how horrible it is.

Normal-type, guys. Normal-type. All of your attacking moves are resisted by Rock and Steel, and they probably don't have base powers much higher than Return anyway (and EVERYTHING gets Return). Ghost-types are immune to literally ALL of your moves (except entry hazards, I guess). This ability should go die.
Click to expand...
Yeah you are right. Changing it right now...
 
There is a stark difference between an ability having a shitty use, and passing on a terrible ability to something else to cripple it, but the entertainment logic every F tier ability has a use.
 
Scarfwynaut said:
There is a stark difference between an ability having a shitty use, and passing on a terrible ability to something else to cripple it, but the entertainment logic every F tier ability has a use.
Click to expand...
ScarfWynaut he is right. Every single poke is screwed by this ability, as he cant have coverage and STAB. It makes sense if you think about it. It is maybe even worse than Slow Start...
 
Move Shield Dust to A tier
Move Normalize to F tier
Move Rain Dish to B tier
Move Ice Body to B tier
Move Defiant to B tier
Move Effect Spore to B tier
Move Rock Head to B tier
Move Hustle to B tier
Move Snow Cloak to B tier
Move Suction Cups to B tier
Move Unburden to B tier
Move Wonderskin to A tier

Im with vaporeonice on this one. Normalize is more harm than good on basically everything. Being able to paralyze ground types pales in comparison to being unable to touch ghosts and being unable to use any coverage moves moves of any kind. Few if any pokemon would want this ability. Oh yeah, plus no stab if your not normal type. F tier
 
D Tier- abilities which are so rarely useful that the Pokémon might as well not have one most of the time, but these abilities may come in handy once in a blue moon.
F Tier- abilities that truly have no competitive purpose in single battles or are downright detrimental to the Pokémon.

Normalize has a few niche uses but they are so rare that you'd probably be just as benefited most of the time as if you didn't have an ability (the fact you'd be worse off with it a lot of the time notwithstanding), but occasionally (you could say once in a blue moon) you are going to get a use out of it.

Normalize does have a competitive purpose in single battles (thunder waving grounds, leech seeding sap sippers, etc.) and is not fully detrimental to the Pokemon that have it (it has the benefits mentioned earlier).

If it should be in F Tier, then the D and F Tier definitions should be updated a bit. I would actually kind off agree with that, since even abilities like Truant and Slow Start are useful potentially for PP Stalling and Special Attacking or Supporting on Trick Room Teams (though I could actually see the rationale for moving the latter up to D, since it would be solely beneficial in that case).
 
Color change would be useful against stuff like crocune, but most of the time it hurts your cause. Similarly normalize will help you paralyze landorus if that is of paramount importance to you, but other than that, the ability significantly restricts your oPtions. Slapping normalize onto any one of OU's pokes hold blissey would severely detract from those poke's viability. I'd like to see anyone use infernape with no stab and no coverage. I know the tier definitions are still a little ambiguous. I have been trying to clean them up to the best of my ability. If someone can come up with more concise definitions for me for D and F tiers to remove any perceived ambiguity, i'd appreciate those before we moved on to the D tier discussion. I had planned to house all those abilities that are often times detrimental in F tier along with those that have no competitive use, while D tier would be those that have very little use. Feel free to disagree but that was my goal when creating the tier definitions. With that being said, i must admit that i am having serious second thoughts about klutz, but theres no going back and changing my vote now. However under my plan for the "full tier check phase" we can always come back to it. I will flesh this idea out tomorrow for u guys so you will know how it will work.
 
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