Pokemon whose standard ability is more useful than its hidden ability

[Hocus_Pokemon]

Pokemon whose standard ability is more useful than its hidden ability?

Metagross:
Clear Body is obviously more useful than Light Metal!

Medicham:
Pure Power makes Medicham a formidable opponent. Telepathy is useful in doubles, but Medicham can't do much damage to the opposing team without Pure Power.

I wouldn't waste my time looking for any of these Pokemon with hidden ability!

Let's continue the list. 🙂

 

[Nah]

-Paras/Parasect: Their HA is Damp, and while preventing opposing Pokemon from using Explosion and the like is cute, Effect Spore and Dry Skin are going to be more useful in more situations than that.

-Yanma/Yanmega: Few opponents in-game use held items, so Frisk is mostly useless there (and for the few that do, it never changes, so once you see for the first time that Leon's Charizard in the Battle Tower has a Charti Berry, you know it'll always have that). In competitive, knowing what item your opponent's Pokemon is holding is useful, but Frisk only triggers when the Pokemon with the ability enters battle. It's also hard to argue that it's better than stuff like Speed Boost and Tinted Lens, both of which are good abilities.

-Bronzor/Bronzong: The only weight related move they get as far as I know is Heavy Slam, so there's no real point in using Heavy Metal, and Gyro Ball works well as physical Steel STAB for it. Especially when Heatproof and Levitate each basically negate one of its type weaknesses.

-Sandile/Krokorok/Krookodile: The Attack boost provided by Anger Point is huge, but nearly impossible to safely activate when you want it to in singles, and still not easy in doubles. Intimidate and Moxie are just more consistently useful and much easier to use.

 

[Sheep]

manectric's hidden ability being minus seems largely useless. I'd much rather have static for in-game/story single battles or lightning rod for doubles. :(

 

[Hocus_Pokemon]

manectric's hidden ability being minus seems largely useless. I'd much rather have static for in-game/story single battles or lightning rod for doubles. :(

Plus and Minus are useful in doubles given the right strategy 🙂

-Paras/Parasect: Their HA is Damp, and while preventing opposing Pokemon from using Explosion and the like is cute, Effect Spore and Dry Skin are going to be more useful in more situations than that.

That reminds me that Kingdra also has Damp as HA. Swift Swim and Sniper are both more useful than it. 🙂

 

[tzujm33]

Before Gen 8 Levitate on Gengar was more useful than cursed body since Gengar doesnt like to take a hit.

 

[RadEmpoleon]

Azumarill's Sap Sipper may seem helpful because it negates one of its weaknesses and raises its attack, but the immediate power boost with Huge Power is much more consistent.

My boi Empoleon sadly doesn't benefit from Defiant because it's a better special attacker than physical attacker.

 

[Hocus_Pokemon]

Azumarill's Sap Sipper may seem helpful because it negates one of its weaknesses and raises its attack, but the immediate power boost with Huge Power is much more consistent.

My boi Empoleon sadly doesn't benefit from Defiant because it's a better special attacker than physical attacker.

Depends on the situation. Having Huge Power instead of Sap Sipper allows it to be hit by Grass type moves. 🙂

 

[Ace Trainer Slash]

Mr. Rime's Tangled Feet, it already has Screen Cleaner, which removes all screens on both sides, but if you're not running them, it can be very useful. Tangled Feet is very, very situational, raising evasion I think if it gets confused?

 

[Brendino]

While I guess Tinted Lens is okay on Butterfree, I always like mine to have status moves like Sleep Powder, so Compound Eyes is waaaay more useful to me.

 

[Ace Trainer Slash]

Oh. I forgot about Primarina's Liquid Voice, it's kinda good, but it depends on what your team is, Torrent is usually nice though for more water damage.

 

[Hocus_Pokemon]

Speaking of starters, Delphox line's HA Magician is less useful than Blaze. Why would you want Delphox to steal its opponent's held item which might be useless to Delphox itself? Too much favoritism in Game Freak, eh? They gave the Cinderace line Libero as HA but just Magician for Delphox?!?

Though in situations where Delphox consumed its held item already with the opponent holding a useful item like Life Orb, Magician could be useful.

 

[faf]

Skarmory and Mandibuzz easily comes to mind, Weak Armor is decent if it were a set-up Pokemon but these two are much better without it.

And I guess on topic on Tinted Lens, Sigilyph gets it as HA but Magic Guard's more consistent.

 

[Pendraflare]

I'd say Flame Body for Volcarona over Swarm. Flame Body can save you on the off-chance you switch into a contact move. Swarm isn't bad, but it's situational.

 

[Hocus_Pokemon]

And no one's mentioning Durant's HA Truant 😂 But it can be useful since Durant can learn Entrainment 😂

 

[Wuzzy]

Pretty much any mon with Telepathy as their HA (except Musharna and maybe Orbeetle could benefit from it but, Frisk I feel is better generally in VGC since all mons must have different held items). The Tapus giving up the Terrain Surge abilities, Wobbuffet giving up Shadow Tag, Medicham giving up Pure Power, Gardevoir giving up Trace, etc. is just a bad trade off.

Meganium is better off with Overgrow since it's going to be used more often than Leaf Guard

Manectric/Ampharos/Dedenne are better off using Static/Cheek Pouch than Plus/Minus

Also the infamous Stall Sableye, Sableye is better off with Prankster (Sableye doesn't even have access to like Entrainment, Roleplay, or Skill Swap to pull off cheese strats anyways) zzz

 

[Hocus_Pokemon]

Pretty much any mon with Telepathy as their HA (except Musharna and maybe Orbeetle could benefit from it but, Frisk I feel is better generally in VGC since all mons must have different held items). The Tapus giving up the Terrain Surge abilities, Wobbuffet giving up Shadow Tag, Medicham giving up Pure Power, Gardevoir giving up Trace, etc. is just a bad trade off.

Meganium is better off with Overgrow since it's going to be used more often than Leaf Guard

Manectric/Ampharos/Dedenne are better off using Static/Cheek Pouch than Plus/Minus

Also the infamous Stall Sableye, Sableye is better off with Prankster (Sableye doesn't even have access to like Entrainment, Roleplay, or Skill Swap to pull off cheese strats anyways)

Prankster is Sableye's HA

 

[Nah]

And no one's mentioning Durant's HA Truant 😂 But it can be useful since Durant can learn Entrainment 😂

I forgot about that one lol

reminds me of the one time I did use Entrainment Truant Durant in the Battle Subway

 

[VisionofMilotic]

Milotic was the first that came to mind. Cute Charm isn't a terrible ability, but it depends on you first taking some physical damage since the opponent has to make contact with you. Milotic may not survive that. It's defense isn't great. It is also dependent on the pokemon being the opposite gender as you, it does not work if the opponent is the same gender or genderless. Even if you meet both of these requirements the ability still only has a 30% chance of activating, so around the chances of hitting a sheer cold. Say you do get hit by an enemy pokemon, they use a move that makes contact as opposed to a special move, and you manage not to die from it, they also just so happen to be of the opposite gender of you, and you score that rare 30% chance of your ability activating, successfully infatuating your opponent... you need some more luck because the chances of them being immobilized is still only 50/50 each turn iirc. At least with abilities like flame body once your opponent is burned you have a guaranteed attack drop and residual damage every turn to rely on. Here there is no certainty that your opponent will be immobilized with love, they could get attracted but never be immobilized, and not lose any turns.

Marvel Scale is a much more reliable ability to form a strategy around with rest talk. While competitive is a little situational as it is best on an anti-intimidate team, it's not leaving nearly as much to chance as cute charm, and when it does activate you can sweep teams. It's better to have a Milotic with a maxed out special attack, than it is to hope your opponent might get immobilized.

If you would really want to try immobilization tactics on your foe then just use attract since Milotic learns it. That way you'll at least make sure oppents get an infatuation status on them, and do it without having to take damage.

 

[Hocus_Pokemon]

I forgot about that one lol

reminds me of the one time I did use Entrainment Truant Durant in the Battle Subway

Quite useless because Durant still can't attack twice in a row after using Entrainment. Much better if it can learn Skill Swap.

 

[colours]

this is debatable and i suppose there's some use for it but imo huge power > sap sipper on azumarill. sap sipper isn't bad i don't think, but you do give up quite a lot of power compared to azu's normal huge power ability.