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Ability Tiering Thread and General Ability Discussion (Final Check)

But note how as you said, some crazy Blissey person may want normalize Blissey. Not all pokemon use their stab moves. But on the flip side litterally nothing ever wants Truant or slow start, entertainment or not. I really think if normalize goes F tier, we really need to change what F tier means, something like keen eye or tangeled feet then also needs to be F tier.
 
Well Thunder Waving Ground types isn't all it lets you do. I mentioned leech seed already, but it also lets you Spore, Stun Spore, and Sleep Powder things with Sap Sipper. Under the current D Tier definition, I'd say that fits. I'd say if you have one of those moves and you have at least one more non-completely detrimental ability, the ability is going to be useful a rare amount of the time and not harmful since you would only really run it on sets that don't need STAB or other types of attacks.

That being said, I wouldn't have any problem if we want to change D and F Tier to something like:
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. While these abilities may be useless most of the time, at the very least they aren't worse than not having abilities outside of the rare cases when they do something positive.
F Tier- abilities that truly have no competitive purpose in single battles or are downright detrimental to the Pokémon outside of very rare cases.

...though there's probably a better way to phrase that.
 
I am going to change my vote for Suction Cups, I voted it too quickly, but I was a bit in a hurry, A tier, inmunity to pseudo-haze is godly, any setup mon could apreciate it, even defensive mons with Barrier/Amnesia/Cosmic Power. Defensive pokes inmune to pseudo-haze, thus, to take hazard damage from Roar/Whirlwind/Dragon Tail for things like Skarmory.

About Normalize, there is a set of Skitty in LC, which uses Sucker Punch with this ability for to gain STAB and Thunder Wave for to paralyze grounds and Foresight, but being walled by Rocks, Steels and does nothing to Ghosts if it has Fake out instead of Foresight and even it has to lose 1 precious turn for to Foresight. But I think this ability is D Tier, there are few Pokemon which could use it decently and even, it has big drawbacks and almost every mon prefers another ability.
 
Lol guys still thinking that Normalize is D tier. Let me put it this way... Nothing else except from a very few Normal pokes would want this ability. This ability is detrimental to like 9/10 of the pokes. If you can't get why, simply pick every OU, UU, and RU poke and check for yourselves. Even the best of OU mons would end up in RU or in NU due to this ''D Tier'' ability. Just think for a moment and tell me in which tier Normalize Dragonite would be. Or Normalize Terrakion. Or pretty much everything. It still seems very weird to me that you fail to notice something so obvious, but whatever...
 
I changed the phrasing for F tier abilities to say that they either useless or would hurt most pokemon if they get them. Probably a more accurate definItion because i guess someone could bend any ability to give it a Positive use if u want to
 
Shield Dust will be moved to A tier, while Rain Dish, Ice Body, Defiant, Effect Spore, Rock Head, Hustle, SSnow Cloak, Suction Cups, Unburden, and Wonderskin will all be moved to B tier. Normalize received a tie, where 3 said move to D tier, 3 said move to F tier. Because of the tie, I decided to move it to D tier, because that is closer to where the ability was originally placed.

Now, I also mentioned earlier that I wanted to have a sort of “Final Check Phase” after we finish up with F tier so that we can touch up on any thing we might have missed while also giving newcomers to this thread the chance to provide their opinions on the Higher Tiered abilities and their placements. This phase will have the same three phases as all the “Tier” phases, such as nomination and discussion, Voting, and retiering, but with a few twists in the nomination phase. First off, I will require that TWO people must nominate an ability for it to be slated. This is because I anticipate a lot more nominations and I don’t want the ballot to get too bloated. Anyways, if you can’t find one additional person that also thinks an ability is misplaced, its probably not going to be voted to a new tier. Second, Klutz and Normalize will automatically be slated in this phase because they received a tie vote in the C tier voting and Retiering phases respectively, and I feel that we should try to get a definitive placement for these abilities. If there are any other abilities that get a tie vote during the D and F tier votings, they will automatically slated in the Final Check Phase as well. Also, this phase’s nomination phase will last two weeks in anticipation of a larger volume of nominations and discussions.
Finally, the following abilities cannot be nominated: Prankster, Contrary, Sand Force, Mold Breaker, Turboblaze, Teravolt, Moxie, Magnet Pull, Quick Feet, Sturdy, Magic Guard, Speed Boost, Harvest, Compound Eyes, No Guard, Marvel Scale, Multitype, Static, Flame Body, Leaf Guard, Bad Dreams, Shield Dust, Insomnia, Vital Spirit, Rain Dish, Ice Body, Defiant, Effect Spore, Rock Head, Hustle, Snow Cloak, Suction Cups, Unburden, Wonderskin, and whatever abilities we end up voting on in the D and F tier voting phases. My rationale for disallowing these abilities during the final check phase is that this phase is more to “touch Up” the tier list, not completely do it again. If these abilities were allowed to be nominated, then I feel most of them would be and we would just be going back over our steps. I trust that we got these abilities right the first time, so now all we should worry sbout are abilities we might have missed.
So that’s my plan for the final check phase. Let me know if there are any questions/suggestions.

Also the D Tier Discussion and Nomination phase will now begin and last 5 days. Remember to put your nominations in bold and have fun.
 
I would like to nominate Anticipation, Toxic Boost, Super Luck, and Gluttony.

Anticipation could have many uses. For example, Scolipede usually either carries Rock Slide or Earthquake. If Moltres had Anticipation, it would know if the Scolipede could outspeed and OHKO, or instead be forced out. Another example is Scizor, as it would know if something like Latios had HP fire. I know, Technician is better, but that's not the point. C-tier

Toxic Boost is basically a clone of Flare Boost, which is C-tier already.

Critical hits are annoying already even with their low chance; imagine if an OU poke had Super Luck in combination with something like Night Slash. It would go back to the old RBY days, when crits were everywhere. C-tier

With the release of BW2, the pinch berries have been released, making Gluttony a LOT better. Archeops with Salac or Liechi berry would be a tremendous threat with Acrobatics (remember, no defeatist) and would probably go uber quickly. Other pokes would appreciate this as well; Linoone really stands out with the Belly Drum/Salac Berry/Return combo. B-tier
 
I support fully Toxic Boost and Gluttony, both can have much use, in fact I think toxic boost should jump right up to B tier with its brother flare boost.

Overgrow

This should just be C tier honestly with swarm, torrent, and blaze. The only argument I can see against it is grass is a worse offensive type, which is pretty silly.

Soundproof

Being immune to sounds may not appear to be that great of an ability at the surface, but roar is a critical enemy of baton pass teams, for them a pokemon immune to roar is a godsend. Doubt this? People in OU have topped the ladder with Mr. Mime because of soundproof. Definitely a useful ability.

Hyper Cutter

In essence Hyper Cutter is white smoke and clear body for only for attack, which I should note like I did with defiant, is the only stat lowering around really.

Other abilties I think we should discuss:
-Angerpoint: feel that hax abilties should probably stay in D tier, however the possibility to increase your attack instantly to +6 just from a crit is a leg above battle armor and sniper
-Overcoat: being immune to weather is a pretty big deal, maybe on my Cleric Blissey/Chansey I might even want overcoat on it to prevent sand damage, not a bad ability at all
 
I am going to put this project on pause for a while. Most peoples attention (mine included) are more focused on other things going on with the arrival of a bunch of new pokes and dream world mons. I will let the dust settle some before resuming this project.
 
Im ok with that, I don't see why we can't have some casual discussion in the meantime though.

Im actually interested in how these abilities for all there new pokemon would line up with this list, for example Amoongus shot up.
 
I am going to put this project on pause for a while. Most peoples attention (mine included) are more focused on other things going on with the arrival of a bunch of new pokes and dream world mons. I will let the dust settle some before resuming this project.

I was thinking the same before entering in this topic. I agree too, in fact I forgot to come back more because of the same.

However, meanwhile I think we can still talking about.
 
Overgrow

This should just be C tier honestly with swarm, torrent, and blaze. The only argument I can see against it is grass is a worse offensive type, which is pretty silly.

Why do you find this argument silly?


About Anticipation it's important to stand out the fact that it doesn't tell nothing about a super efective hidden power.

I find Gluttony not that useful because priority moves and Scarf pokémon are everywhere.

I agree with Scarfwynaut Overcoat could be useful in tiers where sand/hail are common.
 
Well if someone else agrees, wynaut.

Nominating Overcoat

Grass may have overall pretty bad coverage, but that doesn't mean its bad, look at Breloom, Shaymin, and Venusaur. The diference between it and its brother abilities does not justify a tier difference, this difference is smaller than even ice body and rain dish for example.

Gluttony gets pretty used on Linoone for example, a really shitty pokemon otherwise, Linoone still is meh after +6 but its nothing to turn your nose to imagine if something actually good got gluttony + belly drum.
 
Ok i hope that everybody got the "OMG" new stuff out of their system. Its been a pretty exciting and hectic couple of weeks since BW2 came out. However i feel like its high time we resumed this project. The D tier discussion will now resume and will last another five days.
 
The D Tier voting period will now begin and will last 2 Days. You may vote to Change Tier, Do Not Change Tier, or Abstain. Remember to Bold Your Votes. The Slated Abilities are as follows: Anticipation, Overgrow, Soundproof, Hyper Cutter, Overcoat, Toxic Boost, Super Luck, and Gluttony. GL and have fun voting!

my votes

Anticipation: Change tier
Overgrow: Change Tier
Soundproof: Change Tier
Hyper Cutter: Do Not Change Tier
Overcoat: Do Not Change Tier
Toxic Boost: Do Not Change Tier
Super Luck: Do Not Change Tier
Gluttony: Change Tier
 
Anticipation: Change Tier.
Overgrow: Change Tier
Soundproof: Abstain
Hyper Cutter: Do Not Change Tier
Overcoat: Change Tier
Toxic Boost: Change Tier
Super Luck: Change Tier
Gluttony: Change Tier
 
Anticipation: Change Tier.
Overgrow: Change Tier
Soundproof: Change Tier
Hyper Cutter: Do Not Change Tier
Overcoat: Change Tier
Toxic Boost: Change Tier
Super Luck: Do not change tier
Gluttony: Change Tier
 
Anticipation: Abstain
Overgrow: Change Tier
Soundproof: Change Tier
Hyper Cutter: Change Tier
Overcoat: Change Tier
Toxic Boost: Change Tier
Super Luck: Do not change tier
Gluttony: Change Tier
 
Anticipation: 3 Change Tier, 1 Abstain
Overgrow: 4 Change Tier
Soundprooof:3 Change Tier, 1 Abstain
Hyper Cutter:1 Change Tier, 3 Do Not Change Tier
Overcoat: 3 Change Tier, 1 Do Not Change Tier
Toxic Boost: 3 Change Tier, 1 Do Not Change Tier
Super Luck: 1 Change Tier, 3 Do Not Change Tier
Gluttony: 4 Change Tier

We will now vote on where to move Anticipation, Overgrow, Soundproof, Overcoat, Toxic Boost, and Gluttony.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 fun.

My Votes

Move Anticipation to C tier.
Move Overgrow to C tier.
Move Soundproof to C tier.
Move Overcoat to C tier.
Move Toxic Boost to C tier.
Move Gluttony to C tier


Couple reasons I feel like Toxic Boost is worse than Flame Boost. for starters, statistically burns are the most common status in the metagame, paralysis is second, and toxic is third. i don't remember exactly how much more popular burns are than poison, but I do know that it is the most popular by a fair margin. Second, there are significantly more pokemon that spread burns than there are pokemon that spread poison. this means that a pokemon with flame boost is more likely to have a "random ability activation" than is a pokemon with Toxic Boost.

Next, xonsider that a pokemon with the Toxic Boost activated will be unable to set up in any capacity. the poison damage gets worse and worse every turn, meaning that Toxic will eventually get to the point where it will remove all of the pokemons HP if it stays in long enough, even if said pokemon has a recovery option. Flame Boost does not have this problem, which allows pokemon that use flare boost to still be viable sweepers, something that can't be said about Toxic Boost. Those two factors, in my opinion makes Toxic Boost significantly worse than Flare Boost, enough so that they should be in different tiers.
 
Move Anticipation to C tier.
Move Overgrow to C tier.
Move Soundproof to B tier.
Move Overcoat to C tier.
Move Toxic Boost to B tier.
Move Gluttony to C tier.


-Again I think Toxic Boost should be right up there with flare boost.
-Soundproof is a pretty need niche option for baton pass, a pokemon with the right movepool has been shown to make use of it, I think B tier.
-Im not sure about overcoat, it may be B tier worthy, but immunity to hail and sandstorm isn't that big.

FYI
, you missed Gluttony on the votes list.
 
Move Anticipation to C tier.
Move Overgrow to C tier.
Move Soundproof to C tier.
Move Overcoat to C tier.
Move Toxic Boost to B tier.
Move Gluttony to C tier.


Mostly the same as Scarfwynaut, except for Soundproof which I feel just doesn't provide the same level of effectiveness that other B tier abilities do. It only really makes you immune to roar and perish song, which seems great and all until you realize that 90% of the phazing done this generation is with whirlwind or dragon tail, making it fairly useless most of the time. Sure it's useful when it does come up but it comes up so rarely that you'd rather have virtually any other B tier ability over it.
 
Move Anticipation to C tier:
If this ability warned about superefective Hidden Power..., at least isn't useless 95% of the time like Oblivious or Big Pecks.
What the hell, even this ability only works when the Pokemon with the ability enters to the field and no more, like Intimidate.
If I could, I would vote Abstain, maybe a bit "useful" when something decent got it and it wouldn't have a better ability or the most probable, when it would be upgraded.

Move Overgrow to C tier.

Grass has worse neutral/superefective coverage than Water and Fire, because that, this ability is, in general, worse. But this ability could be useful and isn't useless 95% of the time.When having a boosted STAB move, its better that the type has the better coverage.

Move Soundproof to B tier.

Pretty underrated ability. Except by Perish Song(and other moves almost never used, barring Sing(and lol Relic Song))But even, Dragon Tail is too weak against Substitutes not done by Deoxys-A and about frail sweepers, the last thing that they are going to do is using a -1 priority move instead of smashing with sheer force.

Move Overcoat to B tier.

In metagames when SandStorm/Hail is common and when the pokemon hasn't a better ability, it's pretty good(Saying it when I used Mandibuzz on an OU hail team and it was cool that her Lefties's weren't nullified)

Move Toxic Boost to C tier.

Guts's poor man, at least it's usable with Toxic Orb or if the mon doesn't have a better ability.

Move Gluttony to C tier.

It has its uses, also called Pinch berries, but there are few Pokes that can use this ability well, mainly powerful and fast sweepers, such as the elemental monkies and Linoone.
 
anticipation, soundproof, overcoat, toxic boost, and gluttony will all be moved to C tier. Toxic boost and soundproof received a tie, so we will revisit them in the "final check phase". In the meantime, its time to move on to F tier discussion. This phase will last 5 days as usual and remember to put your nominations in bold. Happy posting!
 
FYI, burns are worse than toxic because your put on an exact 8 turn timer even without other damage. Only after 3 turns does poison damage get more than burn damage (1/8 + 1/8 + 1/8 = 3/8 vs 1/16 + 1/8 + 3/16 = 3/8), usually something with toxic orb doesn't stay in that long. Conkeldurr is a special exception to the burn orb vs toxic orb rule because it can heal with drain punch.

Nominating Stall


Now I know what your thinking, Scarfwynaut why in the world would you even want to move last. There are a few niche scenarios which I as ironically, a stall player, have noticed that are helpful if one moves last. For example I often find my Forretress going toe to toe with Ferrothorn in order to get hazards on the field. Unfortunantly Ferrothorn is always slower unless they invest in speed (which hilariously they do), so they get leech seed or rocks up after I spin, if Forretress could be slower that would be great. Obviously sturdy is much better of an ability, but if I had to choose between lets say keen eye, and stall, I would definitely use stall on Forretress. Moving last also enables slower volt switches and switching in general to aid in scouting and gaining momentum ironically. It also enables 100 power paybacks, although there is a toss up there with also always successful focus punches vs you. It really comes down to "if it has any good use" its D tier, and clearly it has the tiniest good use.

Other abilities I think may merit discussion (not noming yet):
-Color Change: At the moment I can't think of a pokemon that would actually prefer it, if anyone can thing of a pokemon that would love this ability at all, in any tier, please bring it up.
-Plus + Minus: It really comes down to that once in a blue moon scenario I think again, why would you not want a +1 special attack? Although this is one hell of a blue moon, you would probably run into people using flash and sand attack making keen eye more useful far more than this.
-Zen Mode: Again we really have no idea what this would do to other pokemon, turning them into Darmanitan-Z is the current form. I guess maybe something like farfetch'd may like that lol. But really I think this should be put into a Limbo tier or something, because we have no idea, we can't even speculate like multitype.
 
Well, really any pokemon with any form of recovery be it giga drain, drain punch, or softboiled, would seriously prefer burns to strong poison. the only thing that i can imagine a person may want to stay in 3 turns at a time would be a scout. everything else has a good chance of hanging around, and all those mons would certainly prefer burns to toxic poison. Furthermore, the whole entire premise of switching out after entry hazards raises another problem entirely. Entry hazards would quickly take their toll on a pokemon relying on toxic boost. You, as a stall player, should know how devistating constant switches can be. at the very least, the option of staying in over 4 turns would be really useful. But that is neither here nor there. The D tier voting is done, and we aren't really gonna address Toxic Boost, normalize, and company for another week.

On to stall. Yes, your forretress might appreciate stall against ferrothorn. one pokemon... That's one pokemon appreciating an ability in one chance encounter, while that same ability would wreck the whole idea of dragon dancing up, choice scarf users, most revenge killers, and many other team roles. To overlook all the harm stall would do to so many pokemon seems kinda silly. Most Ou pokemon would be wrecked by this ability, there is no denying it. even walls like tentacruel would hate this ability, because despite being walls, they do rely on outspeeding certain threats in order work more effectively.
 
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