Are Hidden Abilities always better?

[GhostFingers]

Pokemon with Hidden Abilities seem to be very desirable, but why?

Is it to do with their rarity? As we know, rarity is valuable. Just look at the desirability of shinies for the prime example. The manner in which HAs have been distributed certainly makes them rarer than those with regular Abilities, although breeding and global trading have helped bridge that gap amongst most trainers. Also, they have been a feature since the last Gen, so transporting up also makes for easier distribution of more species.

Some abilities are available exclusively as HAs, like Flare Boost and Analytic. Does that rarity factor into the desirability too? I tend to favour exclusive moves/abilities unless they really are terrible.

On the subject of battling itself, many HAs seem to have been given to pokemon as upgrades, and i believe that was the original intent (although it could just as easily have been giving us more options therefore we would be more able to find one we like).

Supporting this theory we have the likes of Politoed and Ninetales who, even after the weather nerfs of Gen VI still retain much more utility and desirability than their regular counterparts. However, there are those that cannot make use of their HAs that well if at all; Jellicent being the example i can think of most clearly considering i have caught a couple in B2. For those that are unfamiliar, Jellicent's regular abilities are Water Absorb and Cursed Body (good in their own right) but its HA is Damp. An underwhelming ability right from its introduction, but what makes this worse is that Jellicent is naturally immune to Explosion moves due to its Ghost-typing, meaning disabling Explosions usefully is incredibly rare.

Somewhere in the middle of this argument is the likes of Golurk. Iron Fist works well with its large movepool of punching moves, but No Guard doesn't hurt giving it both accuracy with power. (I won't even talk about the details of Klutz.)

The other factor to consider is collectability. This is somewhat tied to the rarity thing above. There are some of us who like to "catch 'em all", some who go further with Living Dexes, and those who even go so far to try and collect a HA Living Dex and/or a shiny Living Dex. And forget about a HA shiny pokemon, it's just so improbable it really can't happen without hacking.

So, HAs. Are they always necessarily better than regular abilities? And why / why not? Don't forget to include examples of your favourite HAs.

 

[Jimmy 3 People 0]

The fact that Damp is a Hidden Ability confirms that no, they are not always better.

 

[Krash]

I don't particularly think so. Nobody in their right mind would use a Hidden Ability Inner Focus Umbreon over a Synchronize one, for example.

Other examples:

Delibird. Both its HA and one of its regular abilities do the same thing: Prevent sleep. Why two??

Pyroar. While Unnerve can shut down Sitrus berry users, and Rivalry has the potential to increase all bp's by 25%, Moxie just raises it upon KO-ing another poke. The ability is effectively useless at the start of battle.

Snorlax. Rest+ Chesto berry. That's the best recovery Snorlax has. Gluttony is pretty much useless for it. Thick Fat offers protection for two pretty hard hitters. Yes, I know people don't use Chesto on Snorlax, ofting for Leftovers or Assault Vest, but a hidden ability that is less than useless in battle is just stupid.

Durant. Truant. It makes Slaking a burden to work with, and having it as a hidden ability (of all things) on a pretty decent wall-breaker is embarrassing. People who have a HA Durant never brag about it.

Rare doesn't always mean better.


My favourites?

Technician on Breloom, Unaware on Clefable, and so much more that seem to break the way battles happened in Gen 1 and Gen 2.

 

[PaulTheProtist]

Abomasnow will tell you firsthand that not all hidden abilities are better. Snow Warning is much better than Soundproof.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

Pyroar. While Unnerve can shut down Sitrus berry users, and Rivalry has the potential to increase all bp's by 25%, Moxie just raises it upon KO-ing another poke. The ability is effectively useless at the start of battle.

While I'd agree with the other examples, you quoted, I think Moxie is by far the best ability available here. Unnerve serves very little point, since berries are limited in their use anyway, and while Rivalry can be useful for a power boost (admittedly a minor one), it can also make you weaker. Moxie is excellent for keeping up momentum after getting a KO, and can be a great help in sweeping an opposing team. One of the most useful abilities to date, I would argue.

I think hidden abilities are not often better. Even those which are useful are often more of a niche purpose, such as serperior's Contrary, which writes off some of your otherwise great boosting moves like Calm Mind, and Coil, instead restricting you to a deadly Leaf Storm - it gives much more outright power, at the cost of practicality and flexibility. In this trail of thought, even abilities which appear directly more use still have their downsides. Ninetales' Drought for example can actually be a hindrance, if the enemy team can also take good advantage of the sunlight, and manage to get the advantage over you in this regard. Or if they just stop you from using your weather effect to any extent, you'd have been better off with another ability, so your team isn't crippled by the loss of its desired conditions. The same can be said for Politoed's Drizzle.

Then there are some hidden abilities which are unquestionably better. Espeon, for example. Magic Bounce simply improves on Synchronise in nearly every way - the only thing it falls behind on is reflecting statuses caused as secondary effects, which are less likely to matter than direct status moves anyway.

So overall, no, hidden abilities are not always better than their regular counterparts. Something I find is that a hidden ability will often be more powerful, but more specialised towards a particular approach. And then there are also those which are straight up worse - altaria's Cloud Nine, for example, I'm sure we all agree is weaker than Natural Cure. I personally don't see much collectibility in hidden abilities - I'd rather just have whatever's better, but I can understand why their rarity may appeal to some.

 

[HumanDawn]

Durant. Truant. It makes Slaking a burden to work with, and having it as a hidden ability (of all things) on a pretty decent wall-breaker is embarrassing. People who have a HA Durant never brag about it.

Give Durant Entrainment and you can pretty much screw the AI in the Single Battles the Battle Maison has. That's how I beat it easily.

 

[Kirby4ever]

I don't think anyone in the right mind would give Ferrothorn a HA, Anticipation. Anticipation isn't really going to do anything in the battle, and nothing to help Ferrothorn. Iron barbs damages the opponent that makes a contacting move onto Ferrothorn, this can cause a ton of damage on mega Kang.

 

[CynthiaLover]

Yes and no. Some, like Traunt Durant, Gluttony Swalot, and the 3 Sinnoh Starters, have terrible/mediocre Hidden Abilities, while others, like Huge Power Diggersby, Moxie Mightyena, Protean Greninja, are good. Hidden Abilities are bit of a double-edged sword: some are useful, others are not. Sometimes a Pokemon's regular abilities are better than their Hidden ones, which makes me wonder what GF was thinking with some of them. Sure, they do fit a "theme" in a sense (Swalot are gluttonous and Empoleon don't like their prides bruised), but generally speaking, they're not that great. Again, sometimes their regular abilities are far greater than their Hidden ones. So yes and no: some are good and some are not.

 

[Rainami]

 

[Sakuraa]

I don't think so, though I personally don't care that much about abilities in general. I rarely regard one ability as being "better" than another. Different people have different preferences for what they want.

 

[Zeb]

No, HAs aren't always better. Krookodile is a good example: Moxie and Intimidate are two great abilities, Anger Point isn't. There's lots of other examples, but I don't see the point listing them when it's pretty simple that lots of HAs are better and lots of HAs aren't.

It would have been nice for every HA to be better (or at least to improve "worse" Pokemon that needed a good ability) but sadly not the case.

Abomasnow will tell you firsthand that not all hidden abilities are better. Snow Warning is much better than Soundproof.

Soundproof is actually a decent ability now that Pixilate Hyper Voice is a thing. It also allows it to dodge random Bug Buzz and the like. If you're going to Mega Evolve Abomasnow then it's going to gain Snow Warning anyway, so might as well have the regular Aboma with Soundproof before you go Mega.

While I'd agree with the other examples, you quoted, I think Moxie is by far the best ability available here. Unnerve serves very little point, since berries are limited in their use anyway, and while Rivalry can be useful for a power boost (admittedly a minor one), it can also make you weaker. Moxie is excellent for keeping up momentum after getting a KO, and can be a great help in sweeping an opposing team. One of the most useful abilities to date, I would argue.

Moxie is a good ability in general, but not on Pyroar, as it has a bad Attack stat and doesn't really use physical moves, so Moxie is useless on it unless you're running some gimmicky set. Unnerve is far better just for the chance it to has to completely stop random berries your opponent may be using (even better in VGC where Sitrus is so common).

 

[Isaac Gravity]

They're not always better no. Some are really handy others.... Err well, yeah! Rare hunting is a thing for many.

Battle-wise, it's ultimately about what you want in a monster, really.

 

[Stratelier]

Durant. Truant. It makes Slaking a burden to work with, and having it as a hidden ability (of all things) on a pretty decent wall-breaker is embarrassing. People who have a HA Durant never brag about it.

Except (as HumanDawn noted) Durant gets Entrainment for free, meaning you can infect your foes with it on turn 1. It is kind of like Yawn in the regard that it almost guarantees they'll switch out the next turn to avoid its effect.

And Damp Jellicent does retain some value in doubles/triples by preventing selfdestructs across the entire field.

 

[Almonds]

Not always. Milotic is way better with Marvel Scale (defensively) or Competitive (offensively). Cute Charm is a difficult ability to make use of when not all attacks make contact.

For Aggron, Rock Head or Sturdy is better than Heavy Metal since getting heavier doesn't have much advantages. Rock Head is the more useful one since you can use moves like Head Smash and Double Edge without recoil.

Metagross has Light Metal for its HA but that's a waste of an HA since Metagross is already heavy enough and Clear Body is way better since it protects stats from dropping.

Rampardos is useless with Sheer Force when Mold Breaker is way better (mostlu against Levitate users)

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Light Metal Metagross. The funny/sad thing is that even halved Metagross's weight is still in the 120BP Low Kick range, so it gets literally nothing from the ability.

EDIT: Oh, didn't see last post.

 

[HyruleAlpha]

I don't think the Hidden Ability is always better. Go with the Ability that works best with the Pokémon, or compliments your team.

 

[jackatlasred]

The hidden abilities are better most of the time, but not always.

As for durant, having truant is an alright thing. It has the move entrainment, which switches the ability of the pokemon to that of yours. Good strategy when he's on his last pokemon or to have a switch.

 

[Steel_Justice]

The demand is probably for the rare factor like with Tyrunt and Amaura or the possibility of a new playstyle for a Pokemon.

While most HAs make the pokemon better (Greninja, Talonflame, Dragonite etc) lots are better with their standard abilities (Tyranitar, Starmie, Ferrothorn) and of course since Mega evolutions have set abilities you can often just stick to a standard ability to make things easier for yourself.

 

[Krash]

The downside is that Ability capsules can only switch between common abilities. It doesn't offer you the option to switch OUT of a sub-par HA. I learned that lesson the hard way after EV training my Umbreon.

 

[Silverwynde]

It truly depends on the Hidden Ability.

Bisharp is a good example of this: its HA is Pressure, which is a decent Ability but nowhere near as useful as Defiant. If given the choice between the two, I'd take a Defiant Bisharp over its HA sibling any day.

Somewhere in the middle of this argument is the likes of Golurk. Iron Fist works well with its large movepool of punching moves, but No Guard doesn't hurt giving it both accuracy with power. (I won't even talk about the details of Klutz.)

A No Guard Golurk is great if you want to run with Dynamic Punch. But you have to be ready for Hypnosis and everything else. While playing B2 my Golett was a Rash Dream Worlder and he was quite the little killer, even with a less than stellar Nature.

And I can't help but think that GF is planning something with all those Klutz Automatons. You watch: we'll get a Mega Golurk and the ones with No Guard and Iron Fist will keep their Abilities. The ones that have Klutz will get Levitate or something like that. I mean, that would be the perfect way for GF to troll us.