6th Gen Trick Room ability

[Sirfetch’d]

As it is some abilities already seem TOO good like whether abilities and magic guard. I also get the feeling that a pokemon that gets an ability like that would probably compensate largely from some other aspect to attempt and keep it from being too strong.

Yeah, but remember that if this was an ability, it would affect the entire team and the opponents team, not just the Pokemon carrying the ability.

 

[Tim09]

Yeah, but remember that if this was an ability, it would affect the entire team and the opponents team, not just the Pokemon carrying the ability.

Indeed. It could be weaker than caterpie (195 base stats!!!) but still be potentially OP just cause it's presence sets up a trick room. I don't think OP abilities are the direction they should be taking even if they are interesting though. I'm quite surprised that weather abilities actually happened as hidden abilities for non-legendary pokes.

 

[François2]

I don't know about a Trick Room ability being broken, but the potential to over-centralise battling is certainly there. It would be "safe" to use the slowest stuff possible, or run something that can counter Trick Room (if such a thing comes into existence). It would completely change the look of competitive battling.

However, is that actually a bad thing? As much as one pokémon / ability / move forcing the game to move around it sounds ludicrous, in reality all this would do is make people more inclined to run slower pokémon. It has potential to centralise in the same way needing to be fast centralises now, and I never really see people complaining about teams needing to either be fast or have priority moves.

I mean, considering Stealth Rock (a move that renders multiple types of pokémon unfavourable to unplayable) is legal, I'm not sure an ability that swaps the direction of speed wars would be too bad.

 

[Boilurn]

Interesting idea, but because Trick Room is quite a common move, having it as an ability would be too much of a gamebreaker and should be banned competitively. Pokemon with a huge offensive stat such as Rampardos and Chandelure would probably rise to the Uber tier if another Pokemon happened to have an ability like this. Maybe there should be an ability which activates the effects of Wonder Room and/or Magic Room, since these moves aren't seen too much. It would certainly make the game more interesting with the swapped defenses and the negation of items.