Pokémon Abilities That Are Strictly Better Than Others!

0:00 - Intro
0:52 - Guts
1:20 - Water Bubble
1:50 - Magic Guard
2:06 - Purifying Salt
2:37 - Tough Claws
2:57 - Steely Spirit
3:16 - Power Spot
3:33 - Clear Body
3:58 - Soul-Heart
4:17 - Huge Power/Pure Power
4:45 - Speed Boost
5:07 - Teraform Zero
5:37 - Orichalcum Pulse
6:01 - Hadron Engine
6:14 - Mind's Eye
6:32 - Toxic Chain
6:50 - Outro

[@AllBladesCut]

Abilities before: user cannot be burned Abilities now: user cannot be burned and moves with burn chance give +2 to attack and sets up sunny day while also automatic burning the attacker back.

[@TrulyAtrocious]

And this ability is stuck on either the most dogshit niche typing 430 bst mon or a legendary

[@byzantine5761]

Ironically enough, Baxcalibur's signature ability Thermal Exchange makes it get an attack boost from fire type moves AND it is unaffected by burns from, say, Will-O-Wisp

[@EinSilverRose]

New Abilities being either worthless or actually good but stuck to a weak mon is just frustrating. But then we also get stuff like Bloodmoon Ursaluna who definitely needed better Scrappy on top of having a 160 base STAB move but Tinkaton needed to have no base attack because it has Mold Breaker and a 160 steel move.

[@venomgaming7014]

As one: *profuse perspiration*

[@BroccolusPrime1511]

Abilities in the future: user cannot be burned and moves with burn will make the pokemon come down to the opponent's house and beat the shit out of them after turning their game off

[@attilaszanto2275]

If Water Bubble gets ignored (for example by Mold Breaker), and the wielder gets burned, Water Bubble will cure the burn. It also heals burn when a pokémon gains this ability by Skill Swap, Entrainment etc.

[@juanokug4]

Water bubble really built better jfc

[@kyouhei7731]

Wtf? It's broken as hell.

[@peco595]

​@kyouhei7731 It's broken, but fortunately it's tied to a Pokémon that isn't

[@kyouhei7731]

@@peco595 at least it's decent in VGC.

[@NathanCotrill]

Mycelium might makes it so you can use spore on vital spirit pokemon. They instantly wake up so are asleep for 0 full turns

[@imp4209]

Water bubble also has the effect of Heatproof which is to halve fire type damage

[@rotem6033]

Water Bubble insane fr

[@Moss_Dude]

come to think of it, thick fat is a direct upgrade to heatproof

[@porgeporgeporge]

Heatproof also halves burn damage now! …which is still worse than Water Bubble’s burn immunity haha

[@funkymonkey7252]

too bad its on araquanid lol

[@5eoddities765]

If you further think about it, Flash Fire and Well-Baked Body are direct upgrades to Heatproof cause they negate all fire moves and you get a boost in a stat if targeted by one

[@dylanbullock9364]

Mind's Eye also has the effect of the ability Scrappy.

[@eljtru]

Scrappy also prevents attack drops from intimidate which mind's eye does not, so scrappy is not a subset of mind's eye

[@christiancinnabars1402]

@eljtru That was a buff to Scrappy in Gen 8, so technically Mind's Eye has Gen 4 - 7 Scrappy in it, but not current Scrappy.

[@TaLeng2023]

​@@eljtrumaybe they can make Mind's Eye protect from SATK drops instead?

[@Waiter1986]

@@TaLeng2023dear god no more buffs to ursaluna 💀💀💀

[@Psychomaniac14]

@@TaLeng2023 no, it's already strong enough

[@MishKoz]

Iron Fist seemed so cool when it first existed, and it just sounds a lot cooler than Tough Claws. Then you realize that there are only a handful (haha) of punching moves, whereas there are about half a billion contact moves. So clearly Iron Fist must have a way bigger boost if it works on way less moves right...? Right??

[@santiagolloret3445]

Should be 1.5

[@Blackoutdmc]

I thought it was 1.5. Guess not. Feel like they could make it stronger 1.2 is pretty low.

[@Drakorre]

Considering that the elemental punches only have 75 BP Fuck It DOUBLE THE DMG

[@kylekite9806]

@@Drakorreledian would be too powerful

[@eustaquiokum4617]

​@@Drakorre252+ Atk Choice Band Iron Fist Tera Fighting Ledian Drain Punch (150 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 602-710 (85.5 - 100.8%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO LET'S GOOOO +6.3% CHANCE, LEDIAN IS COOKING, WE'RE SO BACK!

[@mjdxp5688]

Poison Heal is strictly better than Immunity because it turns Poison into a beneficial status condition that heals you. You could technically make the case that you might rather have Immunity because if you're badly poisoned with Poison Heal and you lose Poison Heal from something like Entrainment or Skill Swap, you'll take whatever poison damage you would have taken from being badly poisoned if you didn't have Poison Heal, which would likely be a lot if you've been stalling with the Poison Heal healing for a long time.

[@itstomis]

Don't you also take the bonus damage from Venoshock/Hex if you're poisoned with Poison Heal? So not strictly better, just better ~99.9% of the time.

[@kenshiro8984]

@@itstomis poison heal also immediately deals late turns bad poison damage if you're badly poisoned for a few turns someone takes your ability away (via things like simple beam and worry seed)

[@ultimaterecoil1136]

@@itstomisrealistically that’s honestly the main use case of poison these days. With the recover nerf and how strong breakers are these day’s stalling isn’t really a thing so much anymore. Walls run attacking options so it’s less stall and more akin to gen 2 or 3 offense ( aka offense with longevity and bulk) so it’s b

[@swegdoge]

poison heal and being poisoned means you cant be afflicted with the other statuses

[@mekaniklboltmb4880]

Swords dance/substitue gliscor with poison heal was goated in gen 7

[@dvdv4270]

I wouldn’t really consider that air lock and cloud nine are worse than terraform zero, not because of the idea that terrain can be useful (in fact let’s assume that you do want to remove terrain AND weather at the same time) but rather because terraform zero can only be activated once per match similar to supersweet syrup.

[@iliya1933]

Agreed. You get rid of it once, and then you can’t again. Not to mention that the only Pokemon with the ability Teraform Zero is one you have to terastallize if you want to use the ability, which limits the utility of the rest of your team.

[@x_bell1142]

Correct, I realized that right after uploading this video

[@frozenherolp9077]

Another important thing is: Terraform Zero REMOVES Weather and Terrain, Air lock and Cloud Nine not. They only remove the effect of the Weather.

[@sidhaarthnair8368]

Delta stream almost does the same thing plus removes weaknesses of flying types

[@mangouschase]

Supersweet syrup and i assume other abilities like intimidate, that act upon entry, also proc again upon skill swapping (malamar into contrary hydrapple)

[@giovannipellegrino878]

Poisoning the opponent is better than badly poisoning them if they only stay on the field for 1 or 2 turns, so one could day that toxic chain is better than poison touch, but not strictly better

[@anannoyingweeb359]

Didnt get the reason. Isnt bad poison straight up more dmg?

[@someguy4571]

Bad poison starts off weaker then normal poison, but will begin building up more damage as the Pokémon stays on the field. This however resets if they swap out. This means normal poison would sometimes be preferred over badly poison on a Pokémon that constantly switch out (u turn users)

[@rivenamelia8325]

​@anannoyingweeb359 toxic poison has increasing damage over time buy the first turn is 6% and 2nd turn is 12% 3rd turn is 18%. Regular poison is always 12% so over the course of 2 turns toxic poison would only do a total of 18% where regular poison would do 24% On the 3rd turn toxic poison and regualar posion both have the same total damage of 36% -Poison 12% x3 turns = 36% -toxic 6% +12% +18% = 36% After turn 3 toxic poison is more damage as it then takes 24% at end of turn Turn 4 toxic would be 60% total where regular poison is 48% total

[@anannoyingweeb359]

@@someguy4571 Ty so much And thats is why they toxic walls right? Cause then they cant wall properly (stay over a long time)

[@kubomagico8853]

Toxic chain is better when you consider poison touch needs contact moves while toxic chain can be used with any damaging moves

[@JaceOKami]

small additions for fun's sake: 2:06 Comatose is also a strict upgrade from those as it does the same thing as Purifying Salt, but instead of halving Ghost Typr damage allows you to freely use Sleep Talk at will. 6:14 Might as well add Scrappy to that list because that's what Mind's Eye is combining for abilities.

[@cat8506]

i was thinking about comatose too but there are niche cases where comatose causes moves like wake-up-slap to deal double damage and also dream eater and bad dreams work on it. you also can't use rest with comatose. so it's a small drawback but it's not quite as effective as purifying salt

[@EpicEvan5]

Scrappy also makes the user immune to intimidate, mind’s eye doesn’t

[@asierx7047]

If Komala was not a normal-type, it would take doubled Hex damage as well

[@turtersvongenbu]

Comatose allows moves like Dream Eater and Nightmare hit Pokemon with the ability. Darkrai's Bad Dreams ability also will trigger. Pokemon with this ability also are unable to use rest. This downside means it cannot be considered a strict upgrade from other status negation abilities.

[@turtersvongenbu]

@@asierx7047 Its type can be altered mid battle or it can be given a Ring Target, allowing this to happen. It is unlikely to occur, but still a drawback on the ability.

[@alexhaupt2134]

I think Early Bird is worth a mention. It reduces the number of turns a Pokemon sleeps, instead of outright preventing it from falling asleep

[@wedding2710]

Doesn't that enhance Rest instead of making it unusable?

[@Moss_Dude]

@@wedding2710 Maybe, but I think rest might work differently from normal sleep, since the number of turns is always the same

[@owenblount7334]

@@wedding2710yes it becomes a betterish wish

[@julianh.5372]

​@@Moss_Dudeit cuts rest turns to one

[@BananaR777]

Which would work better on slower pokemon

[@smokeyjoseph1790]

Iron fist actually needs a buff to 1.5

[@shishsuke]

Or they just need to give Iron fist boost to Close Combat. I was shocked when I found out it doesn't get it

[@smokeyjoseph1790]

@@shishsuke close combat just means to fight close it doesn't always include punching, also buffing it would have balance issues.

[@shishsuke]

@@smokeyjoseph1790 it's animation in pretty much every gen shows punching though

[@smokeyjoseph1790]

@@shishsuke ik understand, it just simplifies it for game freak and in Japan is has different meaning.

[@user-qm4mb7ct3d]

​@@shishsukeI was surprised that plasma fists weren't included in punch-based moves despite punch meaning an attack with a fist and plasma fists is an attack with electrified... fists

[@ImFangzBro]

There's a minor issue with Steelworker and Steely Spirit. Steelworker increases the relevant attacking stat by 50% when a Steel move is used. Steely Spirit affects move power. There is precisely one minor effect this has- rounding. Since Steelworker multiplies the stat, not the power, rounding in damage calculations occurs in different situations than Steely Spirit. It's a minor difference, but it's not 100% strictly better. It's like, 99.99% strictly better. I only bring this up to share trivia, though. I don't think this is gonna make much of a difference. And if it does, we probably wouldn't be able to tell.

[@x_bell1142]

This is a very interesting point that I plan to address if I decide to make a part 2. I’ll be sure to credit you!

[@donnovanash2334]

Kinda how fluffy halves damage, not doubles defense? Not sure if the rounding error affects it differently or not, but it’s the closest interaction I can think of to this

[@AIDcyt]

Heatproof is nearly a subset of Thick Fat (it also halves burn damage) Heatproof is a subset of Water Bubble Magnet Pull is a subset of Shadow Tag (unless it's a steel type tera Shadow Tag user) (outside of battle it is different) Arena Trap is nearly a subset of Shadow Tag (only difference being the fact it can trap Shadow Tag users) As One is the superset of either Chilling Neigh or Grim Neigh, along with Unnerve Fur Coat is the superset of Marvel Scale and Grass Pelt Mycelial Might is a worse Mold Breaker and its clones Immunity is a subset of Pastel Veil Suction Cups is a subset of Guard Dog Water Veil is a subset of Thermal Exchange There are more that are subsets, but not for all game modes (e.g. Cotton Down)

[@NotAnElk]

Fluffy halves damage from contact moves, whereas Fur Coat halves damage from physical moves. So Fluffy will reduce damage from stuff like Draining Kiss and Grass Knot whereas Fur Coat won't, making it different.

[@bruh_moment]

Doesn’t arena trap not affect non-grounded pokemon?

[@teeweezeven]

Okay I looked this up and Magnet pull increases the chance of encountering steel type Pokemon in the wild to 50%

[@teeweezeven]

Also, doesn't Fur Coat only half damage from physical moves, while the other abilities boost defense? You may think this is the same, but body press exists.

[@AIDcyt]

@@NotAnElktrue

[@cullenhutchison6528]

Before gen 9, Iron Fist was strictly worse than Tough Claws. However, this is not the case anymore after the addition of the Punching Glove item, which boosts the power of punching moves by 1.1x and prevents them from making contact. Therefore, while holding a Punching Glove, the power multiplier for punching moves is only 1.1x for Pokémon with Tough Claws but is 1.32x for Pokémon with Iron Fist. Not only is 1.32x greater than the standard boost from Tough Claws, but not making contact can be beneficial such as when attacking into Flame Body or a Rocky Helmet. The Punching Glove is a rather niche item, but still creates scenarios where a Pokémon would rather have Iron Fist than Tough Claws.

[@King_Ben_IV]

I pretty sure this video was only looking at the effect of the ability in isolation

[@cullenhutchison6528]

@@King_Ben_IV It's hard to say since there isn't anything else similar to compare it to.

[@scarletempress2652]

@@King_Ben_IVNo this is 100% something that would have been brought up if they knew about it

[@mikec4390]

That may be the case, but the tough claws user could always just use life orb. There's no reason to intentionally use an item that will weaken your attacks like that, like punching glove on a tough claws user. Since either mon can use the life orb as well, the punching glove example is essentially moot, because if factoring in items to the equation, there's no reason not to just slap on the strongest ones to each, cancelling each other out.

[@cullenhutchison6528]

@@mikec4390 The idea is that you may not want to make contact (in case of Flame Body, Rocky Helmet, etc.), so Punching Glove could be desirable over the extra damage (and recoil drawback) of Life Orb. A niche situation, sure, and unlikely to be planned for in competitive teambuilding, but it does exist. This is pretty much the only situation where items make a difference when comparing abilities though.

[@megastar54000]

Technically toxic boost could be worse than guts on a special attacker because guts boosts attack and toxic boost increases bp of moves, other than that this was an amazing video :)

[@EpicEvan5]

@@Slipstream317 Yeah, although toxic boost is still better than guts on a special attacker. Because toxic boost boosts the bp of physical moves, and guts boosts the attack stat itself, toxic boost is better since you take less confusion and foul play damage

[@Emolga_Enjoyer]

@@EpicEvan5the only issue is that only zangoose gets it and its a physical attacker, otherwise yeah, thats fair

But Toxic Boost applies only to physical moves.

[@lory3771]

@@Slipstream317Flare Boost only works if the user is burned, while Guts works with any status. Not quite the same

[@Ehing113]

@i think what the original comment was implying is that if you arent using physical attacks you want a very low attack stat(because of foul play and confusion). So guts would backfire on a special attacker while toxic boost would do nothing, making toxic boost better

[@FlygonkingVGC]

5:32 it only deletes the weather and terrain. U can reset it after and if u switch out it doesn’t activate again

[@x_bell1142]

Literally realized that right as I was uploading this video, so I was expecting this comment 😂

[@EpicEvan5]

Lol I was about to comment the same thing. Also air lock and cloud nine nullify the effects of weather, but the weather is still secretly there, it comes back when the cloud nine user switches out. But teraform zero gets rid of it completely

[@zumberburg6527]

Im surprised you didn't mention Thermal Exchange, which is just an upgrade to water veil.

[@x_bell1142]

True I forgot that one, that will be in part 2!

[@daffafazli536]

I'm surprised no one mentions Mirror Armor being better than both Clear Body and White Smoke, which bounces off stat drops to the opponent, effectively preventing stat drops + dropping your opponent's stat

[@asierx7047]

It's not _strictly_ better, since Defiant/Competitive/Contrary mons can use stat-dropping moves to bounce the stat drop back at themselves and boost up

[@JohnDoe-yp3zv]

Interestingly, where others may see abilities that obsolete other abilities, I see a means to balance Pokémon somewhat. Speed Boost and Steadfast are the perfect example. Speed Boost is an absolutely busted ability. It's why, for a time, the only Pokémon that got it were Yanma and Ninjask, rather low-tier bug Pokémon. That only changed with the introduction of hidden abilities, where it ended up on better Pokémon (looking at you, Blaziken). Meanwhile, Steadfast is introduced as an ability for the much stronger Lucario, giving it a speed-boosting ability without giving it a speed boost every turn. Also, if you want to be technical, Poison Heal is a sort-of upgrade to Immunity. Immunity makes it so that you can't get poisoned. Poison Heal means that you heal instead of take damage when poisoned, and being poisoned means you can't be affected by other statuses. The only reason I call it a sort-of upgrade and not a strict upgrade is that if the ability is removed and you are poisoned to heal then you are now actually getting poisoned.

[@Will-qm5ym]

Insomnia and vital spirit Pokémon will make up immediately if put to sleep by a mold breaker mon or mycelium might, which means it has one very small niche over purifying salt.

[@Nmoment-uv6jc]

5:33 teraform zero only activates when the user (terapagos) terastalizes, while air lock/cloud nine stay active always if the pokemon is on the fiel. It is not a strict upgrade.

[@mickkelley3776]

Not sure if this would count, but Vital Spirit not only prevents the user from sleeping, it also increases the chance of encountering high-level Pokémon in the games with random encounters. Meanwhile Insomnia only prevents sleep with no drawbacks. I say this may not count because the drawback of Vital Spirit is exclusively out-of-battle and you're only covering the in-battle effects, but I thought I'd bring it up just in case.

[@blehrg8638]

For iron fist, if youre using the punching glove item it actually does have a niche over tough claws, as it stacks with punching gloves while tough claws does not due to punching glove preventing punch type moves from making contact. (Same deal with protective pads iirc as well)EDIT: Apparently protective pads work differently than punching glove, so tough claws DOES work with that but not punching glove

[@AIDcyt]

A Hitmonchan's Punching Glove Ice Punch will deal more damage if it had Tough Claws instead of Iron Fist

[@kyouhei7731]

I saw someone in smogon said that protective pad doesn't prevent tough claw from boosting damage. I will check the damage to see if it's true

[@AIDcyt]

@@kyouhei7731 using the damage calculator confirms it

[@blehrg8638]

@@AIDcyt Yes, but it makes contact, which is a downside sometimes due to rough skin/rocky helmet/static/flame body/etc, and punching glove/protective pads protect you from any negative contact things while still stacking with iron fist while tough claws doesn't

[@blehrg8638]

@@kyouhei7731 You're right here, it's just punching glove for some reason, I thought it worked for both but apparently it's just punching glove for whatever reason, punching glove prevents contact while protective pads protect against negative effects from you using contact moves

[@sagacious03]

Very nice analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

[@TaIathar]

Great video. Great editing. Informational, educational, and straight to the point. Looking forward to a part 2 (or more?)

[@rifttogo7108]

Intrepid Sword and Dauntless Shield are strictly worse versions of Embody Aspect on Hearthflame Ogerpon and Cornerstone Ogerpon respectively. Whereas Intrepid Sword and Dauntless Shield can only activate once per battle as of their nerfs in Gen 9, Embody Aspect activates everytime Ogerpon enters battle.

[@pancake1683]

Not really, since it requires Ogerpon to be terastalized to use it. Could be considered a negative

[@AwakenX1nfinity]

@@pancake1683 Note that It's not factoring in what pokemon gets the ability, because in that case air lock would probably be better then teraform zero

[@kimseokwin5534]

@@AwakenX1nfinityAir lock is better if the weather setter switch out since it permanently activate

[@AwakenX1nfinity]

@@kimseokwin5534 oh, I see

[@DiegoNoSubject]

For all the status blocking abilities, arent they strictly worse than Comatose too?

[@alchemistbr4095]

Only in some cases, because moves like nightmare and wake-up slap and the ability bad dreams exist

[@benjaminsurrette3034]

i’m pretty sure but could be wrong that comatose is still affected by flame body and effect spore etc. and idk if the others are immune or not

[@BramLastname]

​@@benjaminsurrette3034comatose makes you immune to nonvolatile status conditions

[@BramLastname]

It does fit the subset A of set B rule, But it's not strictly better due to being treated as asleep having negatives associated with its upsides.

[@benjaminsurrette3034]

@@BramLastname so like if it hits a volcarona for example it’s not gonna get burned right? i play random on pokémon showdown a lot and i’ve had some interesting instances where i’ll get burned by hitting a pokémon w flame body but i don’t remember if it was komala or another pokémon that has a status immune ability so sorry if that’s hella vague

[@sleepier9433]

Mirror armor is also a strictly better version of clear body and white smoke because it can reflect the stat decrease instead of just nullifying it

[@Skullhawk13]

Contrary

[@plazmurr]

Defiant, Competitive, Parting Shot doesn't fail to switch the user out

[@edwardgreene2884]

Love the graphics, well done

[@AlphaTheDivine]

when talking about grim neigh being worse than soul heart, while it could be seen as a copout answer i would also mention that it, chilling neigh, moxie, and unnerve are all worse than the respective forms of as one which combine the effects of grim/chilling neigh and unnerve

[@xian2themax]

Chilling neigh could be not always better than unnerve because of foul play, which is actually a significant consideration for a Pokémon weak to dark but with high defense

[@cat8506]

Fur coat doubles physical defence, whilst fluffy halves the damage of contact moves and doubles the damage of fire type moves

[@fawaazimam2314]

draining kiss, grass knot etc. , there are special contact moves, just not many of them.

[@cat8506]

@@fawaazimam2314 suction cups and guard dog

[@fawaazimam2314]

@@cat8506 what?

[@cat8506]

@@fawaazimam2314 multiscale and tera shell

[@Ledonail]

you could argue about the cases when poison is better than badly poison for the last one, but I'll concede it to you. Thought about Scrappy for Mind's Eye before realizing Scrappy prevents intimidate. Cool video, you did a great job

[@blakdeth]

Delta stream also negates weather but has the added effect of negating weaknesses of the flying type. Parentel bond, when it was initially released, could be seen as the same as attack doubling abilities, but it also would double special moves, and since it hits twice it has double the chance to crit, and counters sturdy/focus sash

[@andleepfarooqui7874]

Also power-up punch makes you go +2.. though pup mostly fell out of favor for higher bp fighting coverage, it was still an option in vgc2015 and vgc2014.

[@moosebones2000]

Delta stream doesn't actually suppress weather, It sets a unique weather condition called strong winds. This is also not strictly an upgrade because your opponent could be a flying type you want to hit super effectively. Parental Bond never doubled attack, it originally made you do 1.5x damage. So it was a better Gorilla tactics.

[@rushalias8511]

​@moosebones2000 delta stream is also ironically shut down by air lock. Funny how regular Rayquaza ability still says no to even his mega form ability

[@blakdeth]

@@moosebones2000 it was nerfed in gen 7 to where the second hit was half power. But it gen 6 it just hit twice.

[@andleepfarooqui7874]

@@moosebones2000 not strictly better, parental bond takes double damage from rough skin/iron barbs/rocky helmet which helped with the difficult task of managing mega kanga in 2014..

[@nerddwarf]

Heatproof = Pokémon takes 0.5× damage from Fire-type attacks Thick Fat = Pokémon takes 0.5× damage from Fire-type or Ice-type attacks

[@Archualudon]

Thick Fat doesn't half Burn Damage

[@robertm5110]

As a math major, I very much appreciated the A subset of B example

[@MegaFidough]

another great video!

[@rachelahern2780]

Earth eater being levitate but better: *am i a joke to you*

[@FerociousLinoone]

No, because Levitate also gives you immunity to other grounded effects, such as Spikes or being able to use Rest in Electric Terrain

[@TropicalPenguin24]

Very nice video! I'd point out that being strictly better is conditional though, for example: you'd hate to have Speed Boost when trick room is up/Huge Power when confused; Pokémon with Purifying Salt can't use Rest.

[@andrewrobinson8542]

There's a few you forgot. Flash Fire, Well-Baked Body, and Water Bubble are all strictly better than Heatproof. As One is strictly better than the Neigh abilities. Several other abilities are worse versions of Pure/Huge power beyond the two you mentioned, though you probably realized that and just cut them to avoid bloating the video.

[@andrewrobinson8542]

And Thick Fat is *also* better Heatproof. Damn Heatproof is ass.

[@julianh.5372]

​@@andrewrobinson8542Actually no, with the exception of water bubble, if you're will o wisped (mold breaker) or burned by seconds effect, Heatproof halves the damage per turn still. That's a niche, though minimal

[@ladyakkyn]

​@@julianh.5372 Not to mention how Weakness Policy can't proc off of Flash Fire. You'd think it's niche, and it is, but Heatproof WP Bronzong was my best way for my Steel team to stave off Cinderace in Gen 8 Monotype because Heatran didn't exist yet.

[@plazmurr]

Heatproof halves burn damage, so Flash Fire and Well baked Body are not strictly worse than them since you can be burned by Scald/Steam Eruption/ Matcha Gotcha Thermal Exchange on the other hand is better than Heatproof For the pure power thing, there's not many abilities that raw increase ur attack so the only 2 real examples are Embody Aspect Hearthflame and Intrepid sword

[@bokaytrebuchet]

immediately thought of it as a subset and then u described it as so right after so that was probably pretty on the nose, also i think scrappy would also be a component of bloodmoon’s ability, unless bloodmoons doesnt block attack drops like scrappy does (but only in some gens? i think)

[@BramLastname]

Yeah they buffed scrappy, Which somewhat justifies Mind's Eye having a secondary effect, Tho I don't think it needed it.

[@GentleVGC]

Unsure if this has already been mentioned, but Teraform Zero isn't the same type of effect as cloud nine or air lock. while cloud nine and airlock both nullify weather, its a temporary effect and the weather isn't gone so much as suppressed similar to Neutralizing Gas. when a cloud nine pokemon leaves the field, the weather resumes.Teraform Zero differs there because it actually fully removes the weather and terrain effects, even after terapagos leaves the field. It is also only a single-use ability that cannot be activated more than once per battle, similar to dipplin and hydrapple's supersweet syrup. Both interact with weather, but do different things and its fair to say that cloud nine/ air lock have tangible benefits over teraform zero, since teraform zero does not stop your opponent from re-setting the weather or terrain through moves or simply switching around.

[@ArchetypeGotoh]

Gargasalt is such a clever name. They somehow managed to find a way to put the chemical symbol for NaCl into each of their names in a totally seamless way, i love if

[@attilaszanto2275]

Stellar form Terapagos has Teraform Zero. Terastal form has Tera Shell.

[@x_bell1142]

Correct!

[@morecrafty247]

Niche for steadfast: since you speed increases during the turn instead of the end it changes the math on speed moves like gyro/electro ball and moves that care about stat changes like psych up, burning jealousy, punishment (not sure if that last one still exists)

[@matt4kz]

Defiant could maybe be a proper subset of hyper cutter as well because there are no moves iirc that power attack by more than 2 stages, so you can never have your attack lowered as it will always be raised back up to even at worst

[@dream_weaver6207]

Thermal exchange also prevents burn and raises attack upon being hit by a fire type move. Also, assuming that you don't want to take damage, well baked body and flash fire are both better than heatproof

[@tarunyadav3567]

Heatproof halves burn damage per turn. So no they are not

[@dream_weaver6207]

@@tarunyadav3567 okay technically you can get burned from non-fire moves

[@balancemaster55]

Guts also works with sleep, can allow you to use sleep talk ursurang and hit hard.

[@Ehing113]

Cool video. Im not sure its fair to call toxic chain strictly better than poison touch though, since regular poisoning does more front loaded damage than toxic. Especially in singles formats where people switch a lot, an argument can be made that regular poison is situationally better

[@HunnyDoo]

Hey loved the vid, I'm not complaining, but what was the point of showing that soul heart correction for 1 millisecond? If it's not up long enough to read then it might as well be left out.

[@lynkz1210]

If you wanted to use punching gloves, its a great synergy with iron fist, but turns off tough claws. Its got a nice niche.

[@nurethecharizard5384]

you also have drizzle and primordial sea and for drought, you can also mention desolate land. I'd say they're also classified as strictly less as you may actually want to use fire type or water type moves respectively.

[@mikeleddyphoto]

Perfect thumbnail lmfao

[@theoraexplora]

Pretty sure Purifying Salt doesn't prevent status CONDITIONS, it just protects from status MOVES. So you can still get burned by Scald, confused by Dizzy Punch, paralysed by Nuzzle, etc

[@Pythagoras180]

No, you're thinking of Good as Gold.

[@Owenbot3000]

Drought and Desolate Land Drizzle and Primoridial Sea Basically rain and harsh sunlights effect of reducing damage of water or fire type moves but better

[@alexkilgore]

If you wanna get super technical, steadfast boosting speed immediately will change the damage you take from gyro ball and electro ball in the same turn in doubles.

[@yuujin8194]

Mind's Eye also completely contains the ability Scrappy which allows the user's normal and fighting type moves to hit ghost types for neutral damage!

[@GravityIsFalling]

Scrappy is immune to intimidate, minds eye isn’t It’s amazing how few people know this

[@Ehing113]

@@GravityIsFallingthats because scrappy has been in the game for a while and only had the intimidate part added recently. People who played older gens may not have noticed the change

[@GeorgeDCowley]

5:05 Unless something proceeds to use Gyro Ball on you, in which case Speed Boost can still be better, since it won't boost you until after it hits. 7:00 Also, it fully removes it, rather than negating its effects. 6:00 Worth mentioning that the boost is negated when the weather/terrain ends, so switching into pre-existing sun can be crippling.

[@rajkanishu]

I love these videos not just for their contents but also for the comments, the vast majority of people tries to come up with other examples and 99% of them are wrong lol

[@vongolashodaime1975]

Desolate Land works as an upgrade to drought as well, Primordial Sea for drizzle and Delta Stream for Cloud Nine/ Air Lock.

[@Archualudon]

Only an upgrade for P-Groudon and P-Kyogre, you can't really run Sun or Rain teams if you use those Pokémon as weather setters because it only lasts if the Pokémon is on the field

[@vongolashodaime1975]

@@Archualudon I'm not saying they are more viable than this or that, I'm just saying they are better versions of other abilities.

[@lifeislife91]

@@vongolashodaime1975 You are right that they are better but the video is discussing "strictly better" abilities which implies that there is no situation where the ability can be worse. In the case of Primordial Sea, it is worse than Drizzle in a situation where Kyogre is switched out or fainted, which makes it not strictly better than drizzle and not fitting for the video

[@ChompDude]

If you wanted to buff toxic boost or make it unique maybe it could be changed so that it removes poison during the next attack and that attack gets a temporary boost.

[@eliottmartin4494]

scrappy is also a subset of mind's eye, as scrappy allow its userto hit ghost type with normal and fighting move for neutral damage

[@thecaininstinct]

Purifying Salt has the technical downside of disabling Rest, which only Insomnia/Vital Spirit do of the abilities listed. In a similar vein, Comatose also grants complete immunity to all non-volatile status conditions -- which also disables Rest. It has one more unique downside, which is that it doubles damage taken from Hex/Wake-up-Slap, but that's arguably even more fringe than the Rest thing.

[@tvarisen]

worth mentioning that guts works with sleep + sleep talk as well, not just poison/burn/paralysis. interestingly enough, facade does not get the power boost, so youd almost never see it aside from something like ursaring in gen 9 randbats on smogon since almost every guts mon runs facade

[@Emperor_Sintas]

Ik not sure but do pure power and huge power not take a different position in damage calculation, wich would aaffect the damge output by just a bit?

[@byzantine5761]

Baxcalibur's signature ability Thermal Exchange is also strictly better than Water Veil as not only is Baxcalibur immune to being burned, it also gets an attack boost from fire type moves

[@Greatbabyred]

Wow, I'm pretty sure I participated in that thread. Everything really comes full circle

[@VirtualVirtuoso101]

Truant/entrainment choice scarf Durant is awesome in battle facilities when combined with a substitute/baton pass mon and skill link/shell smash Cloyster

[@Muriuki34]

On the subject of Drought (and Drizzle), the signature abilities of Primal Groudon and Kyogre, respectively, are straight upgrades. The turn count is removed, the weather condition cannot be replaced by another (unless it is the opposing signature ability), and they nullify moves of their opposing type altogether. Similarly, Airlock and Cloud Nine are strictly inferior to Mega Rayquaza's Delta Stream, which nullifies weather conditions, and cancels out the weaknesses of the Flying type, converting them to neutral damage instead

[@ZXBoyki]

2:35 Comatose also does the same thing as Purifying Salt, but doesnt have any halved from ghost moves.

[@teslobo]

Air lock and cloud nine are technically not proper subsets of teraform zero due to them having different activation conditions. If you switch terapagos out and back in, teraform zero will not activate - it only activates on terastalisation.

[@StilleStadhouder]

Steadfast might not be worse if some effect like perish song or weather would happen to the mon later under trick room due to it, with speed boost only triggering later, after such an effect has already happened.

[@Leangreen69]

I want to see magma armor have a similar effect as well baked body, triggered by a water move instead.

[@julianh.5372]

TECHNICALLY there is a niche where Iron Fist is better than Tough Claws, assuming that punching moves are being used obviously. That niche is when a pokemon is holding the protective pads or punching glove items. Avoiding contect damage or affects through item use negates the tough claws boost, where as iron fist would still gain a power increase.

[@donnovanash2334]

Technically, comatose is right alongside purifying salt, as it prevents you from being statuses in a roundabout way

[@tymunster]

Ability held by 200 Pokémon is a worse version of Skrunkleguff's signature Ability Do Everything, which does everything.

[@brunocustodio4845]

6:14 Scrappy could also be included as a lesser version of Mind's Eye because all it does is enabling Normal and Fighting type moves to hit Ghost mons

[@mamelouk]

Nah coz Scrappy also makes you immune to Inimidate unlike Mind's Eye. This ability was buffed in gen8 along a few others because they wanted to prevent Intimidate spam (didn't really worked tbh).

[@serx4994]

6:30 Mind's eye is a combination of Illuminate/Keen Eye with Scrappy without the immunity to intimidate

[@FoxNotCube-jt4yv]

About full metal body... It's worst, then mirror armor - Corviknight ability. Not only he is prevent stats been lowered - it's reflect it. Sorry for mistakes, english isn't my natural language)

[@swop6750]

i feel like as one should have been on the list and there could be something like "moves that do the same as abilities", for example, mean look is worst then shadow trap because you waste a turn with mean look

[@rinharriet]

I'd say steadfast is the worse version of inner focus since they both have something to do with flinching but inner focus makes it so you don't flinch ever and ignores intimidate

[@xian2themax]

Unnerve and As One(spectrier), you get the same effect and a special attack boost which is really never a negative

cool content. Keeo doing :)

[@ToxicAtom]

One thing I've noticed that a lot of these "strictly better" abilities are on pokemon that are either weaker overall than the "worse" counterpart, or are on legendary or otherwise special pokemon, where the ability being stronger is justified by the pokemon being special in some way and intended to be better than a more "normal" pokemon.

[@substitutedoll5224]

fur coat is basically just fluffy without the fire weakness and it also covers physical moves that don't make contact such as earthquake

[@erich_ika]

i think you should mention other abilities even if they don't fit and explain why, like Levitate and Earth Eater

[@bronsolo6941]

Minds eye also combines what you mentioned with Scrappy

[@AbhijayPaul]

Lousy Three is a perfect name

[@june9914]

The volatile status condition immunities are also worse versions of Comatose, which provides immunity, with the only real downside being you can’t use rest

[@magmangle]

heatproof < well-baked body heatproof halves the damage of any fire moves, but well-baked body grants immunity to fire type moves as well as buffing your defense. same goes for flash fire being better than heatproof, as it is also an immunity to fire moves while also buffing your own fire attacks.

[@NM_Mattuz]

Mind's eye is a combination of the abilities you mentioned and scrappy. also when i heard drought I thought immediately of desolate land which has better sun sooo...

[@LucyRoseLuna]

I love how most of these are signature abilities of newer gen pokemon. good example of power creep

[@greydonmccall9680]

Fluffy vs Fur Coat I believe because one does not grant a fire weakness. Also the whole rain dish/water absorb/storm drain/ dry skin thing same with the electric ones but none are strictly better than one another so

[@RedDragonForce2]

@ 1:59 What Pokémon has Magic Guard with a recoil move and can do damage on par or greater than Rock Head users?

[@Ehing113]

I mean thats kinda the point of the video. The abilities are being looked at in a vacuum. What huge power mon hits harder than guts boosted conkeldur?

[@ravensoott]

2:33 good to remember that comatose is essentially the same thing in this case

[@enderyu]

Comatose makes it vulnerable to Dream eater, Nightmare, Bad dreams and Hex

[@Bladius_]

Gotta say, I don't mind these new abilities that do a bunch of things, where the pokémon is designed around it. I'm a big araquanid enjoyer, and it's ability makes it a very good mixed attacker (rare in modern gens due to "wasting" evs) but it's limited to basically just using water moves. It's a cool design and it's stats are clearly balanced around the ability.

[@reggiewright3702]

In Gen 5 overcoat only prevented weather damage making in strictly worse than magic guard, which ofc prevents all indirect damage, including weather. I was very sad when i found a shiny solosis in my childhood BW save only to find out that it had the worse of the 2 abilities when in could get either overcoat or magic guard. This was remedied starting gen 6 when overcoat also gained the ability to prevent powder moves (most notably spore)

[@porgeporgeporge]

Shield Dust is strictly better than Magma Armor (setting aside out-of-battle effects) because freezing can only be achieved with a secondary effect. The same used to be true of Inner Focus, before it got buffed so that it also protects against Intimidate

[@SJrad]

Then theres some that are mostly better but not strictly, such as desolate land for drought and primordial sea for drizzle. The one downside of those two moves is that it goes away immediately when the primals are swapped out of fainted, where as normal sun and rain may can last a couple of turns when the Pokemon swaps or faints.

[@mattcanters]

It would be interesting to include some context for why some of these might be better/worse versions of others. While some do just seem arbitrary, others are signature abilities designed to help with balance or to make legendaries feel more powerful.

[@misterzygarde6431]

It’d be so cool if we had more Pokemon like the Gligar line where upon evolving, their ability is upgraded to a better form. Like if Chimchar and Monferno had Iron Fist as their hidden abilities but upon evolving into Infernape, it gets Tough Claws (Or a clone of it that has a fitting name for Infernape) Or if Dhelmise got a Mega and it got Steely Spirit