3rd Gen Abilities!

New abilities were introduced in Ruby and Sapphire which allowed various in-battle effects, such as Static causing paralysis on contact or Intimidate lowering the opponent's Attack stat. And some had effects outside of battle, like Pickup which allowed your Pokemon to sometimes find items. So how did you feel about this new, big change to the series? What were some of your favorite abilities (gen III introduced abilities only!)? Which did you find useless?

I liked it. Pokémon like Koffing and Gastly finally were immune to ground, which made sense because they were floating Pokémon. I really liked Pickup because I used to like to Rare Candy farm. I also liked abilities like Water Absorb, because they were so handy. Abilities like Illuminate were really annoying, they just didn't do anything good.

It was definitely a welcome change. I mean, it's pretty much the only reason I tend to play FRLG over the original Gen I games. As for favorites, as much as I don't understand why it exists, Pure Power (Meditite/cham's ability) is stupidly good, maybe even OP.

I liked abilities quite a bit. Not only did it allow more strategy, allot of them had nice overworld effects as well. Like Pickup and Swarm, I liked most of the overworld effects. But, one ability that is absolutely useless is Soundproof.

There are little to no sound moves that actually give you a problem in Gen 3, other than sing. But, if sing didn't exist, this ability would be 100% useless. Ah, well.

Oh, another favorite would be Shed Skin. That's amazingly useful.

The inclusion of abilities was a great addition to the games, as it added another piece of strategy to battling. Pickup (although I would tend to forget about collecting the item) and Compoundeyes were probably my two favorite abilities, especially using the latter with Butterfree and Stun Spore/Poisonpowder/Sleep Powder. My two least favorite, though, had to be Shadow Tag and Arena Trap. I didn't use repels as much as I should've back in the 3rd gen, and I would always be lucky enough to run into dozens of Trapinch if I went into the Route 111 desert.

I think this was a great move for Pokemon, though when going back to older games, I have to remind myself that it's okay to attack Electric types with physical moves cause it's pre-Static haha.

Anyway, my favorite ability introduced in gen III is Cute Charm, followed by Pickup. Cute Charm is awesome cause I'm cute, so naturally I like the ability with "cute" in the name. Pickup is fun for Rare Candy farming, though it only really works in RS. Gotta love it being broken!

These abilites were a turn in the right direction, for they added more ideas to strategies (e.g. you could switch out Magneton into a Weezing to dodge Earthquake, for example). Abilities were long needed, and Gen 3 answered, basically. Levitate, Compoundeyes, Guts..all good to me. Static to get parahax, Shadow Tag (the whole reason as to why Wobbuffet was Uber for 2 gens)...a lot of good abilities came in Gen 3. The only ones useless in my opinion were Illuminate and Soundproof. The only moves you should use Soundproof for were Hyper Voice and Sing (and in Gen 4, Bug Buzz).

Abilities added a lot more of fun to the series, even though there're still some things remaining, which don't make sence. Like Magnemite which can fly due to it's magnetism. But even though it can fly it doesn't have the ability Levitate.

They are cool, but it would be even cooler if they gave every Pokemon at least two abilities at once. That'd add some more need for strategies.

Arena Trap, Shadow Tag and Static are quite annoying, though xD

I loved the introduction of abilities, it changed the battling scene drastically and gave some new uses for well-loved Pokemon that were once terrible. I found most of them handy to use, but I think Illuminate is probably the worst now that Stench (its opposite) got a new effect in 5th Generation.

Run Away and later Stall in 4th Gen were also among the ones I found bad. But I loved how most abilities had good effects. My faves included Pickup (no wonder I loved using Linoone in Ruby), Water/Volt Absorb, Levitate, Compoundeyes, Synchronize and the ones that give a power boost such as Swarm/Blaze/Overgrow/Torrent.

Arena trap/shadow tag were always frustrating against wild Pokemon...I loved using poison point as well as rough skin, little damaging things like that always annoyed my friends when I battled them! Wonder guard used to annoy me, but I soon realised it was easily dealt with.

i liked being able to attract Pikachu and Mawile using Magnet Pull and Static ahaha made catching them so much easier

I really enjoyed the fact that Pokemon could have their own abilities. One of the most useful for me is of course Pickup. In R/S/E I grinded my Pokemon while having team full of Zigzagoons in my team. I also enjoy starter abilities and those abilities that make you immune to some conditions. I found Pressure really useless.

Abilities were one of the better changes ever made. They made some effects that helped Pokemons that were poor and also turned battles into something more strategic. Thanks them some sense was put due reality reasons, as Koffing with Immune ability because it floats, so ground moves were no longer able to hit it. I liked most of them.

I have to admit that some abilities are useless, though. Any ability that has is activated only out-of-battles are useless for me once that abilities are supposed to help the Pokemon while battling. These abilities may be useful in-game, but competitively they are not. Some examples of useless abilities: Illuminate, Truant, Runaway e Stench.