Most Useless abilities.

Inspired from the most useless moves threads, what do you think is the most useless ability?

Hard mode: No abilities that hinder the Pokemon. i.e. Defeatist, Slow Start, Klutz, and Truant.

Zorogami said:

Hard Mode: I would have to go with Damp. Its only useful in certain circumstances, and doesnt give the user that much of an advantage.

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Doesn't help that one of the Pokémon that gets it is COMPLETELY IMMUNE to Selfdestruct and Explosion. >_> Instead you could just switch it in and on those moves and have them lose a Pokémon for nothing.

To name one myself, Pressure isn't really good, because draining 2 PP isn't very helpful, especially not in-game. Even competitively, it's only really useful against foes with big 5 PP moves or such, but you see it in uber battles so much.

I'll just pick my favorite example: Fan Rotom with Levitate is probably the most useless Pokemon and ability combination out there.

Run Away. You Pokemon like Rattata that actually get a good ability in Guts, but then it's coupled with the useless Run Away. Rattata's already fast to begin with.

Easy mode: Defeatist. Out of all the hindering abilities, most of them have some niche benefit in very particular situations. For example, Truant Durant is fun to use Entrainment on your opponent (not an amazing strategy considering your opponent can switch out, but if the opponent's final Pokemon is a powerhouse it's a lifesaver).
Klutz can be useful on a Pokemon with Fling holding a Flame Orb or Toxic Orb. The orb not activating gives you time to wait for the right opponent to Fling it onto. But Defeatist has absolutely positive use in any situation.

Hard Mode:

Any of the pinch abilities (e.g. Blaze, Overgrow, Torrent, Swarm). At the point where your HP is low enough for the ability to activate, you're pretty much on your last legs and it'll probably only take one more hit to KO you, so you barely get time to enjoy the boost in your attacks.

Frisk. If you've been doing competitive battling long enough, you can usually figure out what item your opponent is holding fairly easily. And even if you can't, it's still a waste of an ability since knowing what item your opponent has doesn't give you much of a competitive edge.

Heavy Metal. The only reason this would be useful would be to power up Heavy Slam. An ability that only powers up one move isn't that useful, imo, and it increases the damage caused by Low Kick and Grass Knot. The cons outweigh the single pro.

Illuminate. Besides the fact that it has no effect outside of battle, Arena Trap does the exact same thing and has an effect in battle.

Oblivious. I don't think anyone in their right mind would use Attract in a competitive battle.

Zen Mode. Same as the pinch abilities. By the time it activates it's useless because you're already about to die.

I do wish that Illuminate had a use in battle. Decrease opponent's accuracy (seems most logical)? At least something.

Sopheria said:

Hard Mode:

Any of the pinch abilities (e.g. Blaze, Overgrow, Torrent, Swarm). At the point where your HP is low enough for the ability to activate, you're pretty much on your last legs and it'll probably only take one more hit to KO you, so you barely get time to enjoy the boost in your attacks.

Frisk. If you've been doing competitive battling long enough, you can usually figure out what item your opponent is holding fairly easily. And even if you can't, it's still a waste of an ability since knowing what item your opponent has doesn't give you much of a competitive edge.

Heavy Metal. The only reason this would be useful would be to power up Heavy Slam. An ability that only powers up one move isn't that useful, imo, and it increases the damage caused by Low Kick and Grass Knot. The cons outweigh the single pro.

Illuminate. Besides the fact that it has no effect outside of battle, Arena Trap does the exact same thing and has an effect in battle.

Oblivious. I don't think anyone in their right mind would use Attract in a competitive battle.

Zen Mode. Same as the pinch abilities. By the time it activates it's useless because you're already about to die.

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1. Oblivious got buffed in X/Y to make the user immune to Taunt. That's a big improvement if you ask me.

2. Frisk is useful to let the user scout for potential Mega Evolutions (take note that some Pokemon are viable without their Mega forms, like Scizor and Gyarados); some Pokemon can run a wide variety of sets, so you can be alerted if the opponent is a revenge killer with Choice Scarf for instance.

3. The pinch abilities are useful, IMO; they're better than nothing. Some Pokemon, such as Simisage and Empoleon, purposefully get themselves down to that range with Substitute so that can fire off powerful STABs at 33% health or less.

Anyway, as for me, Grass Pelt is rather useless. Almost no one uses Grassy Terrain.

Sopheria said:

Any of the pinch abilities (e.g. Blaze, Overgrow, Torrent, Swarm). At the point where your HP is low enough for the ability to activate, you're pretty much on your last legs and it'll probably only take one more hit to KO you, so you barely get time to enjoy the boost in your attacks.

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The pinch abilities are extremely useful. If you happen to be on your last legs and you strike with a move of your type, you're more than likely taking the opponent down and carving a hole in whatever comes out next. That depends entirely on what move you use, of course, and it's not the best to be easy pickins if someone happens to have a good priority move to take you out, but they're not useless by any stretch.

Anyway, I'm going to go with my least-favorite ability in the entirety of the game: Normalize. Literally the only useful thing it does is to let you hit Ground-types with Thunder Wave, and at what cost? Everything you have is now Normal-type- if your opponent throws out a Ghost, Rock, or Steel-type, you're done. When I first discovered it, I literally said "Welp, you've pretty much murdered any minuscule hopes anyone had of using the Skitty line."

I would say Pressure. If you're not using this Pokémon for stalling purposes, then you pretty much have no need for it. d: Personally, though, I really dislike Moxie. It's fun to use it yourself, but when you go up against a Pokémon with this ability, it could be quite difficult. If they manage to take one of your Pokémon down, somehow, their Attack would instantly get raised, enabling them to start sweeping.

Fan Rotom with Levitate; I mean it's already part of flying-type and rottom surely immune to ground-type attacks. It's pretty much useless and should replace some other abilities.

Normalize; This ability will be ruined when facing Ghost-type as fully immune to it, also against Rock/Steel isn't much effective either. Aerilate goes second and may not be useful against Electric and above said type. I would say Pixilate, but Pixilate only poison and steel resist it. oh I mention refrigerate goes to this spot because water/steel or fire type isn't much damage done by it.

Anticipation; Beaten by Forewarn and it doesn't tell you which opponent's move is super effective or 1hitkiller.

Weak Armor; Two things to say about this ability:
1. It bit helpful, by giving speed boost and allowing to attack much quicker.
2. The danger of being hit by a powerful or super-effective physical moves or even a priority moves A LOT then you'll goner.

Defeatist: Just when your HP is below 50%, your offense stats will drop. BIG WHOOP!

Here's my picks for worst abilities ever, aside from those handicapping ones.

Illuminate: As others have mentioned, its only real effect is doubling wild encounters. I really do hope they can give it a secondary effect or something next generation.

Normalize: Its only gimmick is using Thunder Wave on a Ground-type, but if you're facing Rock, Steel or Ghost-types you're nothing but screwed because they get barely damaged by Normal attacks.

Levitate: Only if it's Fan Rotom though, it's redundant with its Flying-type.

Damp: As said earlier, Explosion/Self-Destruct isn't used much competitively plus we have Jellicent already being immune to those moves due to being Ghost-type.

Grass Pelt: It's an exclusive ability for the Skiddo line but it's too situational to be effective because the line can't even learn Grassy Terrain, meaning they'll need help from a teammate just to put it up.

Weak Armor: I know a speed boost can be useful, but costing your defense for it can be very bad. And why the heck did they give this ability to Mandibuzz, who is very defensive in nature? Troll Freak of course.

Anticipation: All it does is just warn you against opponents knowing Explosion, Self-Destruct or a move that's super effective against you. Nothing that useful at all in my opinion.

Plus and Minus only work with eachother which is stupid enough. Klutz is another one.
Also Defeatist, Weak armor..etc.

A personal top ten list of the absolute worst abilities, summarized.

Absolute worst
10. Heavy Metal: This ability is more of a hindrance than anything, as most of the users are weak to low kick or grass knot. And powering up heavy slam isn't very helpful anyway, since steel typing is very poor coverage, and there are better abilities for aggron.
9. Run Away: Out of all ingame non-competitive abilities, this is the only one that failed. Battle Pyramid proves this. I try to escape with a Run Away pokemon: Can't Escape. Dead. Battle pyramid's wild pokemon has like an invisible quick claw; has status moves, and can prevent you from escaping, even with your fastest pokemon. Run away wouldn't be on this list if it did what it was supposed to do, but it failed miserably as an ability, which is complete ********.
8. Normalize: An ability that completely removes type coverage. Ghost types, especially with shadow tag, will screw you over. And delcatty, a pretty terrible pokemon, gets this ability. The ONLY gimmick this has is making ground types affected by thunder wave. And I heard it got slightly better in future gens.
7. Weak Armor: Another ability that fails. It requires a turn to work, and agility, dragon dance, quiver dance, automize, and most glaringly Shell Smash, makes this ability look really dumb.
6. Stall: One of the rarest, and most forgettable filler abilities. It really feels tacked on, and can only work with payback... but it makes any attack have negative priority, and is used by only one relatively weak pokemon. Think of the ability as lagging tail.
5. Tangled Feet: What could've been a troll ability fails as one. For it to work, you have to be confused. So at best, the 20% evasion lasts 5 turns max. At worst, 1 turn. And if you hurt yourself, and the enemy attacks, 80% chance of being hit. Very poor tradeoff. Sand Veil and Snow cloak, or even brightpowder is better.
4. Defeatist: The first of the crippling abilities. However, out of all of them, it is the least bad, since it doesn't take effect immediately. But on archeops, which is outclassed by aerodactyl, who doesn't have this ability, deserves a low spot on the list.
3. Truant: A crippling ability worst than defeatist, since it is somewhat immediate, but not as bad as the later ones. Slaking is still usable, with choice band and prediction, and entrainment durant can troll the battle simulators. But I would take defeatist slaking over truant anyday. Substitute users or protect users will destroy poor slaking. And poor slakoth is stuck with this horrendous ability, and its 1st stage stats are still crappy compared to many other 1st stage pokemon.
2. Slow Start: This stupid ability cripples the pokemon immediately, and lasts until five turns. Against any competent player, the victim won't last five turns. Worst is that its on a Legendary, made worse by the fact that there is are 2 legendaries with base 660+ stats without the crippling ability, that are still not considered overpowered. Slow start makes Regigiggas unusable for sweeping, and can only play support, which is outclassed by non-legendaries. Slaking and Archeops would much rather prefer their own terrible abilities, rather than slow start. Regigiggas the worst legendary in the series, putting it on the same tier as luvdisc.
1. ZEN MODE: Surprised that there is an ability that's worse than slow start? This ability failed because in order for it to work, you need to have darmanitan at less than 50%. Because of the 50% decrease, any bulk from zen mode darmanitan is erased, and it loses its speed. This pokemon is completely unusable because of the requirements for this ability to work. Even slow start wouldn't hurt the blue darmanitan considering high special attack stats, low speed, great bulk. What's worse is that this ability could've been cool like imposter or illusion, but instead of working immediately, it requires darmanitan to have less than 50% hp. This is far worse than defeatist, since it does a similar thing, only instead of halving the physical attack and special attack, it quarters its attack and speed down to nothing, and gives useless defenses due to the low HP. Consider this, Archeops, Slaking, and Regiggigas have competitive movesets. Zen Mode Darmanitan does not. Thats how worthless Zen Mode is.

Some mentions:
Klutz is useful for lopunny, for tricking choice items, toxic orbs, iron balls, lagging tails, etc. And believe me, its really annoying to be tricked a choice item.
Illuminate can be useful in places like the safari zone, or places with rare encounters. So the ability isn't useless. Unlike Run Away, where the one place it could've worked, didn't work.