Hey everyone, I made a lot of mistakes in this video, especially ones that could impact an entry's potential ranking, and I appreciate the corrections made by all of you in the comments, so I'd like to correct them here. 19 - For Arena trap/Illuminate/No Guard, these are actually great for shiny hunting when you are intentionally trying to encounter wild Pokémon, more so than I thought. I would bump these up quite a few ranks, maybe to rank 10. 18 - For Immunity, you could also get poisoned if your ability gets changed or nullified in battle, giving its outside of battle effect a little more of a use. 9 - For Sticky Hold/Suction Cups, they do not decrease the time it takes for a bite to occur, but rather the overall chance that a bite will occur at all. Bulbapedia does in fact have these numbers by the way, which vary by generation, it was just not on the page for Sticky Hold or Suction Cups, rather on the fishing section. 6 - For Static and Magnet Pull, these abilities have been in effect since Pokémon Emerald, while the others had the effect added in Sword and Shield. Lightning Rod also has a different effect in Pokémon Emerald which was having the Pokénav Match Call functions twice as often as normal, so this should have been an additional separate entry lower on the list. 4 - In gen 4, when Cute Charm forces a Pokémon to be a certain gender, it does so by changing its personality value to one of the 25 possible values that correspond with the gender that is forced. Depending on the player's trainer ID and secret ID, this can increase or decrease the odds of a Pokémon that can be either male or female (so all male, all female, and gender unknown Pokémon are unaffected) to as low as 0.004% to as high as 21.34%. While I don't feel that this changes the ability's ranking, it is still very interesting. 3 - In Ruby/Sapphire and FireRed/LeafGreen, Pickup did not change what items were picked up based on level, so the only items that were able to be picked up were some of the highest level items for later generations. These items included things like rare candies, nuggets, ultra balls, revives, and full restores, so I think this version of Pickup should be ranked higher than Synchronize. 2 - For Synchronize, its outside of battle effect still has use even in a game that has nature mints (Sword and Shield had both) due to the way the FIWAM (Figy, Iapapa, Wiki, Aguav, Mago) berries work. Nature mints do not technically change a Pokémon's nature; they make it so that a Pokémon's stats are distributed to be the same as if they had the nature of the mint. Thus, their original nature remains unchanged. The FIWAM berries confuse the holder if they are a certain nature, and this nature corresponds with the original nature of the Pokémon, which Synchronize can change but the nature mints cannot. 1 - For Flame Body/Magma Armor/Steam Engine, the numbers for steps in egg cycles are incorrect. The correct numbers are 256 for gens 2, 3, and 7, 255 for gen 4 and BDSP, 257 in gens 5 and 6, and 128 in gens 8 and 9. If you have any other corrections, please add them in a reply and I will add them to this pinned comment. I want to edit this list to make it more accurate and am open to having my mind changed!
In Gen 7 SOS Battles, there are separate rates for if a pokemon calls for help, and if the call for help is answered. No ability affects call rate, but if a pokemon with Intimidate, Unnerve, or Pressure is on the field, call *answer* rate is increased by 20% (multiplicative, not additive). This is obviously great for SOS chaining, as waiting out calls can get annoying. Also in regards to Gen 7 SOS Battles: Synchronize still affects the odds of a wild pokemon having a specific nature, but, due to an oversight or coding error, the game checks and applies the nature of the pokemon initially leading the battle...whether it was your Synchronize mon or not. So if you only have 1 Synchronize mon and don't want to go hunting for specific natures, you can just lead with a different pokemon with the desired nature and switch in your Synchronize mon once you've got the chain high enough. (But don't forget to have a new pokemon be called *after* you send out the Synchronize mon, or else it won't have the chance to apply at all.) Can you tell I've been replaying Ultra Sun? 😅
If you're going by the best game for the ability, you're underrating Pick up. In Ruby and Sapphire Pick up only had the highest level item table, meaning you would get items like PP Ups and Rare Candies from level 2 Zigzagoons.
Or in Pokémon XD getting Ultra Balls WAY earlier than you're intended to get them, I had that happen to me, iirc I got my first Ultra Ball before entering the Shadow Pokémon Lab, which happens before you can normally obtain one.
Pickup does actually work in Ruby & Sapphire and Firered & Leafgreen, and is absurdly better in those games because Emerald added the level requirement for some items! If ranking these abilities by their peak, I think that should boost it at least a little for sure
For Pokemon Firered or Leafgreen, I love using Meowth with pickup ability, and never evolving him, of course. Moves 1 - cut 2 - flash 3 - thief 4 - payday That make a very utilitarian pokemon !
exactly! when he was going through the criteria for ranking and said "how good the ability's effect is at doing what it does" I immediately thought he put that in specifically for illuminate-like abilities since they could be seen as a negative a lot of the time.
Totally agreed, when you are looking for 10k encounters on full odds in gen III and IV, it can SIGNIFICANTLY reduce time between battles and save your thumbs lol. I would definitely say I use it more than most of the abilities on this list.
@@389OpiEGens 7/8 don’t have the sweet scent effect. Still, think it deserves a higher ranking since it’s useful for shiny hunting, something people care about. As for speed, I actually don’t know, maybe with White Flute + encounter increase would be faster than Sweet Scent?
20:35 Nature Mints were introduced in Gen 8 when Synchronize still had its effect, so that's not why it was removed. All abilities which effect wild encounters were removed in Gen 9 because Pokémon are generated when the area loads, not at the start of battle. The sandwich powers get around this because picnics force the area to reload.
The overworld encounters in Gen 8 are also determined before the battle starts, while being effected by the abilities. They simply decided to remove them in SV.
I am aware that nature mints were added in Gen 9 when Synchronize was still in effect outside of battle, but I was more so saying that even if they were in effect, nature mints would still essentially make them useless.
@@YOM2_UBi was about to say... It would be the most lazy development apologism excuse possible. Shinies aren't tied to IVs and nature anymore, gen 1 is long gone. There's nothing they can't selectively reroll on the fly as the battle starts (or ball hits the target in legends). Gen 9 just feels worse on so many levels.
@x_bell1142 I would actually argue that synchronize and a few other abilities are more useful than you gave them credit for because in a regular playthrough basically none of these ever matter. But in nuzlocks and other randomized limited resources rulesets they get used much more. You even made an argument for farming xp. When does anyone farm levels on wild encounters? You just suicide onto the elite 4 for the last few levels you need to beat them. Unless you're playing with extra rules you chose. So you care much more about encounters' rates, levels, typing, ect.
A notable piece of mechanical information about how the "if the pokemon in the first slot has this ability" abilities is that they can be KO'd and the ability will still work as intended. This can be super useful if you're grinding held items (1st slot: KO'd pokemon w/ compound eyes, 2nd slot: pokemon with thief), or other cases where the pokemon with the useful ability may not be the one you want to send into battle.
11:45 there's also how ghost types as a whole have this ability, so you can also just choose between having a very specific pokemon on the team for this trait, just using a smoke ball, or just using a ghost type. now, what we really need is a ghost type with run away so we can give it a smoke ball lol
To be fair, ghost pokemon didn't gain that feature until gen 6, so from RSE through B2W2, you either needed the ability, or a Smoke Ball. Also, Gimmighoul Roaming Form (which can only be caught in Pokemon GO, but can be transferred to SV by using HOME) is a ghost type with Run Away as its only ability.
I wanna start a drinking game for Pokémon videos. Take a shot every time you hear that a feature was removed. Guaranteed to severely lower your life expectancy.
@@ZoofyZoof Pikaclones, Kanto remakes, animation and model recycling, and the fact that the core mechanics of pokemon have been unchanged for almost 30 years show that Game Freak has no issue with reusing things.
@@georgejpg Yeah, that... that doesn't disprove anything I said. In fact, those are the words of GameFreak employees themselves. They remove mechanics because they want to constantly introduce new and unique ones each generation.
@@georgejpgThree out of the five things you said aren't even "game mechanics". Heck I can argue Pikaclone isn't a game mechanic either, it is a design trend. And if you mean "core mechanics have been unchanged", then either you are ignoring Megas, Agile/Strong style, Tera etc. Or you mean the basic battle system in which yes? That is how Pokemon is Pokemon and not any other RPG? Not to mention that actually has had some changes like the Gen 4 physical/special split and both Gen 2 & Gen 6 introducing new types and adjusting the Type Chart as a result so while it is a game mechanic, you're wrong with saying it hasn't changed.
Static and Magnet Pull have their out of battle effects since emerald In Gen 4 Cute Charm sets 25 personality values that you will see 66% of the time. Depending on your Trainer ID and Secret ID, certain personality values are always shiny. You can get a set of IDs that guarantees 8 of the personality values will be shiny. This can boost your shiny rate for pokemon with multiple genders to 21%
During Gen IV I used Static to lure Shinx and Mereep for EV training. Also in HGSS, I discovered that Steelix in Cliff Cave give HUGE tom of EXP. I often employed Magnemite(faint) to raise my team there.
Run Away for its credit is typically availably way earlier than a smoke ball. However, Ghosts also all have the ability innately so it’s even worse in that situation. To make matters even worse, most run away Pokémon tend to have way better alternatives too lol
It's true that a lot of them wouldn't work anymore with the different encounter method, but I feel like they could've tried to adapt it somewhat!! The sandwiches proved they can boost specific spawn rates, so I bet they could've messed with that too, saving at least a half dozen of these. Super luck could help with the random items you pick up as well! I really hope they bring these back, they're a super nice detail
I think for ones like intimidate, if there's a way they could have reduced the chance a pokemon will notice/persue you in the overworld, that would have been really cool
I'm using Illuminate in BDSP while fishing to guarantee that I get a bite Also, the worst is without a doubt Lightning Rod's original effect. In Emerald it made it so that you'd receive calls on your PokéNav twice as often
I think an interesting buff for Ball Fetch, as far as in-battle, would be to make it act like a Lightning Rod / Storm Drain for ball, bomb and bullet moves, and have it grant +1 to Speed upon being hit by one.
arena trap and the others can be really good for shiny hunting and completing the pokedex since some pokemon have really low encounter rates. Immunity, swarm, hyper cutter are literally useless while arena trap has a fairly decent use and should be placed in #7 IMO
In a nuzlocke, abilities like Magnet Pull and Static are phenomenal. When you mix them with encounter routing and level repelling methods, you can massively affect the odds of getting a pokemon you like.
Cute Charm Shiny - Normally, a Pokémon is given random PID. But... In Gen 4, any Cute Charmed Pokémon will only get one of in a set of 25 PIDs, with Gender and Gender Ratio affecting which set of 25 is used. PID affects Gender, Natures, Abilities, Characteristic, Spinda's Spots, Wurple Evolution, and Shiny (and more!). Actually Shiny is determined by a combination of the Pokémon's PID, and the Trainers ID number and SID. So if your ID no and SID are within a certain combinations, some of Shiny PIDs possible will be the exact same ones that a Cute Charm will summon. (It's unconfirmed, but I think a Male Cute Charm/Female Target Hardy Dunsparce caught in Gen 4, will almost always will be 3 segment.)
The info for egg cycles is incorrect for some generations: Eggs weren't even in gen 1, gen 5 wasn't mentioned but it is 257 steps, and gen 7 is actually 256 steps.
Illuminate is actually a huge saving grace for shiny hunting. Random encounters can be a pain and are super slow, but before SV some pokemon could only be hunted with random encounters. It saves a lot of time in safari zone hunts in particular, but one specific use case I’ve experienced is in hunting for a shiny minior in Ultra Sun via random encounter. Still one of my favorite hunts I’ve ever done. I phased twice on a cleffa and beldum but illuminate made it bearable
I think the ability synchronise still has a good reason to exist, especially now that nature mints exist, and I'm saying that from a gen9 competitive standpoint. Besides oran and sitrus, there are berries that heal for 33%, but confuse the Pokemon if they have a specific nature. And the main issue with these berries is that they check the *original nature* of the Pokemon. So if you give one of your "now adamant nature" Pokemon a figi berry for example, and it ate that berry during the battle, it would still confuse that Pokemon, if that Pokemon was timid/modest/etc when it was initially caught.
Cute Charm is number 1 for shiny hunters in gen 4. What you need is a little bit of RNG manipulation (which is easy to do) at the start of the game to get certain values for your trainer ID’s. If you succeed then a cute charm pokemon will make any wild pokemon have something around a 1/5 chance to be shiny.
As an avid shiny hunter, him putting illuminate and Co. last on the list under three abilities that are absolutely, undeniably useless irked me lmao. Illuminate is the single BEST ability for shunting, with synchronize and cute charm being the only ones that come close (but not quite)
I know the Cute Charm ability in Gen 4 has been addressed, but I just wanted to mention a couple things. In the earlier gens, RNG manipulation was much easier. In Gen 4 it was mostly based on the DS Clock and Date. You could easily (within a few tries) manipulate your Trainer ID and Secret ID so that for the rest of the game, if you have a Cute Charm pokemon in the lead of your party (Male or Female depending on how you set up the IDs), you can find shinies like they were normal in the game.
17:37 Cute Charm in Gen 4 sets a Pokemon's personality value to one of a small few preset values, I forget how many exactly but I think its about 15 per gender. The way this works with shiny Pokemon is that, since we know the small amount of preset personality values, certain trainer IDs have a higher (or lower, unfortunately) chance of lining up with those personality values to produces shinies. This is the most simple way to explain how Cute Charm works and why it effects shinies.
15:02 for Static, it has had this effect since Emerald, not just SwSh/BDSP. Idk if this also applies to the other related abilities, but it’s definitely incorrect for Static
Meowth and Persian became one of my favorite mons for post game thanks to pickup and payday, over the couse of you going arround capturing every mon and doing every battle the money and items add up
I didn't realize how many abilities had effects outside of battle! Great video! (I do mean this even if this looks like an autogenerated response. Comments and algorithm being what they are. 9/10)
one thing to note about suction cups/sticky hold is that it's great for chain fishing, a feature that was present in gen vi and gen viii. gen vi chain fishing guaranteed better shiny odds, while gen viii guaranteed better brillant pokémon chances. (brillant pokémon was the yellow aura that sometimes popped up for the overworld mons, higher levels, 2-3 perfect ivs, one egg move, and i believe it too has a higher shiny chance the more fish youre able to chain) not sure if this was ever present in gen vii though!
This was supper interesting! I don’t pay too much attention to Pokémon ability outside of battle so actually learning what they did makes me want a Pokémon with pick up for my emerald play through!
I used the ability “run away” for like 1 hour in my most recent White 2 play through with Eevee before evolving it and switching to a smoke ball. I felt so big brain using it 😂
Synchro is the best Ability with overworld effects because if your Synchro Pokémon has any neutral Nature (Shy, Docile, Hard Working, Quirky, or Serious) being put in the leader slot, any wild Pokémon you meet would get a Nature match. The neutral Natures give the Pokémon a balanced stat growth, and it is willing to eat any Kinomi flavor without getting confused.
I think Intimidate/Keen Eye could also help in the sense that they not only help you control how many encounters you get into, but also what levels they are, which can be helpful for level grinding since you’re more likely to encounter Pokemon near your leader’s level and are just overall less likely to encounter anything if you’re overleveled for the current area. Could also help with narrowing down what encounters you can get in the area like Repels do. Blocking every Pokemon below your leader’s level means you can have a leader below the Pokemon you want to see and above the others in the area. Intimidate/Keen Eye may be able to do something similar, just with a wider range of levels. Don’t think any of that would be enough to warrant a change in ranking, but they are reasons someone may prefer them to Stench and the other abilities that just reduce all encounters.
Diamond/Pearl's iterations of No Guard, Illuminate, and Arena Trap inherited the boosted fishing chances meant for Suction Cups/Sticky Hold. This glitch is also present in v. 1.0 BDSP as well.
Static made the best moment in Nintentubing history Chuggaconroy finding a bajilion Magnemite and Elekid, not realising his Elekid was attracting every electric type in the complex.
Never thought about that, that's actually a genuinely good use. I added some corrections to the pinned comment and looking back at it, I would bump up those abilities a few spots
Great video, completely agree with this ranking. I guess if we needed to be technical if the enemy trainer used gastro acid or skill swap with their last pokemon and then used toxic, immunity would also have some value
i see that you've been told how helpful illuminate is for shiny hunting, but a much less obvious one that helps is hustle / pressure / vital spirit, which when combined with repels lets you completely change the appearance rates of certain pokemon on some routes. as an example, i hunted yanma in the platinum great marsh, and with hustle i was able to boost its encounter rate from 25% by default to 50% with the right level repel and all the way up to 81% with hustle. not nearly as widely useful as illuminate and rarely as big of an effect as static and magnet pull but it can be really helpful sometimes! the serene grace effect is actually really nice for gathering a lot of fossils in hgss, since that's how you get them in that game. super niche but it's really helpful for that one specific use sticky hold and suction cups are also bugged to not work in platinum and bdsp. it's just all sinnoh games where it doesn't work
Torchick and 5x zigzagoon with pick up was my first playthrough. So much fun. Also used hypercutter a lot in emerald. Had a mission of destroying all tall grass I saw.
Intimidate/keen eye can be used to hunt certain Pokémon unlike white smoke,stench,etc. if you want a Pokémon with the highest level in that area, you can have a Pokémon higher than the rest, but lower than the desired mon. In generation4 I used this to get the lv 100 magikarp.
For compound eyes, another useful target of this ability is Magnemite for its Metal Coat in HeartGold/SoulSilver, as the first garanteed Metal Coat is found on the ship to Vermillion City, after beating Lance. Magnemite can be found on the route west of Ecruteek City, meaning you can get a Scizor or Steelix before fighting Morty
Don't agree with all the rankings - for one, type-boosting abilities would rank in second or first for me because of its shiny hunting utility - but greatly enjoyed this longer video from you :D
I've used illuminate to boost the encounter rate many times, and pokemon with immunity can be poisoned if their ability is disabled in battle, making it far easier to achieve than you suggest.
You missed one small detail - Lightning Rod in Emerald only has the additional effect outside battle that it doubles the rate at which trainers call you on the Pokénav.
Nature mints don't make Synchronize's out of battle ability necessarily useless. For one thing, you don't have to go out of your way to obtain the correct mint, just find the pokemon with the correct nature. But the other is a fun fact i learned more recently, the original nature of a pokemon still matters in very specific instances. The mint does not change the actual nature the pokemon has, but sets the adjusted stats to the new nature. This means that certain berries, when eaten by pokemon with the wrong nature can still inflict the confusion condition.
1st thing I do during an Emerald playthrough after getting my starter and some Pokeballs is find a Zigzagoon with Pickup. solves early game money issues and Zigzagoon can learn almost all the HMs.
Addition to honey: in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum it can be used to cover honey trees. Realistically all this adds is saving you $100 from buying it from the honey man, maybe a no cash challenge?.
The sad thing is that Poison Heal didn't negate the HP drain when walking, so if you wanted to use a Toxic Orb Poison Heal Breloom you'd be dealing with constant HP drain even when in battle Breloom gets healed. Now that would actually have been a practical use for Immunity's out of battle effect, it makes so sense either to boot. Also Suction Cups from my experience in gen7 (completing the Ultra Sun dex) pretty much guaranteed that I'd get a bite, this made fishing less of a chore. Particularly for getting Gorebyss and Huntail without trading by slaughtering Clamperl. Pickup was surprisingly useful for me in Pokémon XD, there wasn't any level requirements so my Tediura picked up an Ultra Ball before the Shadow Pokémon Lab, which happens VERY early into the game. I might be wrong about this since it's been a while but I'm pretty sure that I couldn't buy Great Balls at the time in-game, that or you only get access to them at that time. Flame Body is a godsend, no arguing that it isn't the best, made the ungodly amount of breeding that I did late 2023 and early 2024 such much more manageable.
Not a correction, but suction cups was pivotal in shiny hunting in X and Y, with what they called "Fish-chaining" I loved that method, but it also made shiny hunting a bit too easy lol
@ That's not how code works. You cannot copy and paste code DS code in a different language and in a different engine and have it work. That's not how this works and is the dumbest thing I've seen in a long fucking while. They didn't copy and paste the code for Ocarina of Time 3D yet glitches from the original are still in it, because they deliberately put them there. Developers tend to do that with remakes meant to be faithful. Just stop lying about games to make them look worse, please. If you want to criticize BDSP, criticize it, I have no issue with that. But lying about them literally copying and pasting the code of a DS game from 2007 to make the Switch remake is so unbelievably ignorant of all things code it's laughable, and the fact people feel the need to lie about it in the first place is honestly pathetic. Stop believing everything you read online without question and maybe learn to code instead or something.
I'm pretty sure Arena Trap, Illuminate, and No Guard are very useful for shiny hunting as well. I don't know for sure since I shiny hunt in Legends and S/V, but it seems very beneficial to increase your number of encounters to maximize your chances.
I use Illuminate Shiinotic to shiny hunt in tall grass in swsh. Doesn’t increase the rates hugely but over a few hundred encounters it adds up a bit. But it’s more about the Spore that the Illuminate lol.
Illuminate os super useful when you want to find wild Pokémon with a repel strategy. It takes less steps to find them. And this is especially useful in shiny hunts.
There's a use for arena trap for catching pokemon but it's super niche. If you are trying to catch a roaming suicune in fire red/leaf green, arena trap will prevent it fleeing. That is the only roaming legendary that doesn't learn roar, or have levitate, or is a flying type. It's just in that game that suicune roams and doesn't learn roar. Also, to use arena trap you would need to use a ground type vs suicune.
That would be the inside battle effect of arena trap though, and since it's the same as how it would function during a trainer or online competitive battle, that would not count.
I figured if you were counting run away as out of battle, this is basically its inverse. Instead of you always being able to escape, the other pokemon can't (with exceptions).
I'd have to argue that Arena Trap (and the other double encounter rate abilities) should not be in last place at all. I'm a grinder. I grind my Pokémon. I hate going into important battles and struggling with my Pokémon evenly matched with the opponent's, or even just slightly stronger. I like being over-leveled. But the amount of times I've run around in a cave or tall grass not encountering anything for more than 20 seconds is insanity. I've even gone more than a minute without encounters. EDIT: I never used these abilities for their out-of-battle effects. I'd always just run around fully vanilla with whatever Pokémon I was grinding. DOUBLE EDIT: Didn't know about Hustle/Pressure/Vital Spirit's out-of-battle effect. TRIPLE EDIT: Also didn't know about Intimidate/Keen Eye/Infiltrator/Stench/White Smoke/Quick Feet's out-of-battle effect, so it's entirely possible that my lead Pokémon at the time of those extended periods without encounters may have had one of those abilities. However, the rules of statistics state that those extended periods without encounters could all have still been vanilla. Insert Pikachu shocked face meme. Not to turn a complete 180 from all the above, but.... HOW AM I ONLY JUST NOW FINDING OUT THAT CUT AND HYPER CUTTER COULD CLEAR AWAY TALL GRASS???
In gen 5 a pokemon with the ability stench being in your party will grant the player a masterball by farting into the speaker. Please update the pinned comment to accomidate this underappreciated effect.
This is so incredibly niche but maybe someone else has done something similar to this, in FR/LG in the Safari Zone area 3 I believe, chancey is a 4% encounter rate. You don’t want to waste steps as to maximize chancey encounters so you use a level 26 illuminate Pokémon to only see certain encounters. So illuminate does have SOME use despite how niche 😭
Cute charm glitch outclasses everything in gen 4. That Sinnoh, Johto and Kanto mons with genders. Its basically a 1/3 change to encounter a wild shiny.
Essentially, if you have a certain Trainer ID and Secret ID, Cute Charm can make your Shiny Rate 1/20, or out right impossible, it's not something you can easily control without constantly restarting your save tho so i don't think it should affect its ranking.
Hey everyone, I made a lot of mistakes in this video, especially ones that could impact an entry's potential ranking, and I appreciate the corrections made by all of you in the comments, so I'd like to correct them here.
19 - For Arena trap/Illuminate/No Guard, these are actually great for shiny hunting when you are intentionally trying to encounter wild Pokémon, more so than I thought. I would bump these up quite a few ranks, maybe to rank 10.
18 - For Immunity, you could also get poisoned if your ability gets changed or nullified in battle, giving its outside of battle effect a little more of a use.
9 - For Sticky Hold/Suction Cups, they do not decrease the time it takes for a bite to occur, but rather the overall chance that a bite will occur at all. Bulbapedia does in fact have these numbers by the way, which vary by generation, it was just not on the page for Sticky Hold or Suction Cups, rather on the fishing section.
6 - For Static and Magnet Pull, these abilities have been in effect since Pokémon Emerald, while the others had the effect added in Sword and Shield. Lightning Rod also has a different effect in Pokémon Emerald which was having the Pokénav Match Call functions twice as often as normal, so this should have been an additional separate entry lower on the list.
4 - In gen 4, when Cute Charm forces a Pokémon to be a certain gender, it does so by changing its personality value to one of the 25 possible values that correspond with the gender that is forced. Depending on the player's trainer ID and secret ID, this can increase or decrease the odds of a Pokémon that can be either male or female (so all male, all female, and gender unknown Pokémon are unaffected) to as low as 0.004% to as high as 21.34%. While I don't feel that this changes the ability's ranking, it is still very interesting.
3 - In Ruby/Sapphire and FireRed/LeafGreen, Pickup did not change what items were picked up based on level, so the only items that were able to be picked up were some of the highest level items for later generations. These items included things like rare candies, nuggets, ultra balls, revives, and full restores, so I think this version of Pickup should be ranked higher than Synchronize.
2 - For Synchronize, its outside of battle effect still has use even in a game that has nature mints (Sword and Shield had both) due to the way the FIWAM (Figy, Iapapa, Wiki, Aguav, Mago) berries work. Nature mints do not technically change a Pokémon's nature; they make it so that a Pokémon's stats are distributed to be the same as if they had the nature of the mint. Thus, their original nature remains unchanged. The FIWAM berries confuse the holder if they are a certain nature, and this nature corresponds with the original nature of the Pokémon, which Synchronize can change but the nature mints cannot.
1 - For Flame Body/Magma Armor/Steam Engine, the numbers for steps in egg cycles are incorrect. The correct numbers are 256 for gens 2, 3, and 7, 255 for gen 4 and BDSP, 257 in gens 5 and 6, and 128 in gens 8 and 9.
If you have any other corrections, please add them in a reply and I will add them to this pinned comment. I want to edit this list to make it more accurate and am open to having my mind changed!
Can we get Out Of Combat moves next?
In Gen 7 SOS Battles, there are separate rates for if a pokemon calls for help, and if the call for help is answered. No ability affects call rate, but if a pokemon with Intimidate, Unnerve, or Pressure is on the field, call *answer* rate is increased by 20% (multiplicative, not additive). This is obviously great for SOS chaining, as waiting out calls can get annoying.
Also in regards to Gen 7 SOS Battles: Synchronize still affects the odds of a wild pokemon having a specific nature, but, due to an oversight or coding error, the game checks and applies the nature of the pokemon initially leading the battle...whether it was your Synchronize mon or not. So if you only have 1 Synchronize mon and don't want to go hunting for specific natures, you can just lead with a different pokemon with the desired nature and switch in your Synchronize mon once you've got the chain high enough. (But don't forget to have a new pokemon be called *after* you send out the Synchronize mon, or else it won't have the chance to apply at all.)
Can you tell I've been replaying Ultra Sun? 😅
Good response to being corrected.
appreciate the transparency and open-mindedness! :)
static and magnet pull were ranked 6 on here, not 8 btw, good video though
If you're going by the best game for the ability, you're underrating Pick up. In Ruby and Sapphire Pick up only had the highest level item table, meaning you would get items like PP Ups and Rare Candies from level 2 Zigzagoons.
This comment made me think Pickup was rated low, not in top 3.
3rd is fair because the other two abilities are necessities for competitive building.
Pickup didnt give earthquake in ruby/sapphire
tms were added to the loot table in Emerald, and rare candies are a 5% chance, pretty weak compared to most games high level loot
Or in Pokémon XD getting Ultra Balls WAY earlier than you're intended to get them, I had that happen to me, iirc I got my first Ultra Ball before entering the Shadow Pokémon Lab, which happens before you can normally obtain one.
You missed one:
Lightning Rod increases the chance of getting called with the PokeNav in Emerald
True, I did forget that one - just added it to the pinned comment
So basically it gets sent down near the bottom
Z tier.
This is the only list where anyone will ever unironically assert that Quick Feet is better than Intimidate
True
The shared power metagame on smogon has quick feet banned but intimidate is pretty bad because of how many abilities punish it
@@itsyaboychipsahoy.7989 oops you have 1 intimidate mon so every time you switch my competitive/defiant mon just gets stronger
Me catching a Mightyena
Pickup does actually work in Ruby & Sapphire and Firered & Leafgreen, and is absurdly better in those games because Emerald added the level requirement for some items! If ranking these abilities by their peak, I think that should boost it at least a little for sure
Plus it's just such a fun ability to have on one of your playthrough 'mons! Got a lot of nice items early-game in swsh with my Galarian Zigzagoon
FRLG nerfed Pickup quite a bit, RSE allowed to grad Full Restores and Proteins in the early game while FRLG gives you Berries.
@jesuisunstroopwafel FRLG also gives you infinite Hidden Power TMs, which is still pretty solid albeit not as broken
Thanks for the correction, just added this info to a pinned comment
For Pokemon Firered or Leafgreen, I love using Meowth with pickup ability, and never evolving him, of course.
Moves
1 - cut
2 - flash
3 - thief
4 - payday
That make a very utilitarian pokemon !
Illuminate and friends are great for shiny hunting wild encounters!
exactly! when he was going through the criteria for ranking and said "how good the ability's effect is at doing what it does" I immediately thought he put that in specifically for illuminate-like abilities since they could be seen as a negative a lot of the time.
Totally agreed, when you are looking for 10k encounters on full odds in gen III and IV, it can SIGNIFICANTLY reduce time between battles and save your thumbs lol. I would definitely say I use it more than most of the abilities on this list.
Isn't it faster to just use sweet scent
@@389OpiEGens 7/8 don’t have the sweet scent effect. Still, think it deserves a higher ranking since it’s useful for shiny hunting, something people care about. As for speed, I actually don’t know, maybe with White Flute + encounter increase would be faster than Sweet Scent?
And suction cups/sticky hold is good for chain fishing in gen 6
20:35 Nature Mints were introduced in Gen 8 when Synchronize still had its effect, so that's not why it was removed. All abilities which effect wild encounters were removed in Gen 9 because Pokémon are generated when the area loads, not at the start of battle. The sandwich powers get around this because picnics force the area to reload.
The overworld encounters in Gen 8 are also determined before the battle starts, while being effected by the abilities. They simply decided to remove them in SV.
I am aware that nature mints were added in Gen 9 when Synchronize was still in effect outside of battle, but I was more so saying that even if they were in effect, nature mints would still essentially make them useless.
@@YOM2_UBi was about to say... It would be the most lazy development apologism excuse possible.
Shinies aren't tied to IVs and nature anymore, gen 1 is long gone. There's nothing they can't selectively reroll on the fly as the battle starts (or ball hits the target in legends).
Gen 9 just feels worse on so many levels.
@x_bell1142 I would actually argue that synchronize and a few other abilities are more useful than you gave them credit for because in a regular playthrough basically none of these ever matter.
But in nuzlocks and other randomized limited resources rulesets they get used much more. You even made an argument for farming xp. When does anyone farm levels on wild encounters? You just suicide onto the elite 4 for the last few levels you need to beat them. Unless you're playing with extra rules you chose.
So you care much more about encounters' rates, levels, typing, ect.
@@x_bell1142Pretty sure that the confusion berries factor in the ORIGINAL NATURE, it’s wild but technically gives synchronize a use case
A notable piece of mechanical information about how the "if the pokemon in the first slot has this ability" abilities is that they can be KO'd and the ability will still work as intended. This can be super useful if you're grinding held items (1st slot: KO'd pokemon w/ compound eyes, 2nd slot: pokemon with thief), or other cases where the pokemon with the useful ability may not be the one you want to send into battle.
True
Gen 8 try not to remove cool and quirky efects challenge: impossible
Can't have type-boosting abilities hampering our precious sandwich mechanics after all...
me when in a removing content for no reason contest and my opponent is game freak:
You have sandwiches now...
True
They removed half the features and the game is still an unplayble buggy mess
11:45 there's also how ghost types as a whole have this ability, so you can also just choose between having a very specific pokemon on the team for this trait, just using a smoke ball, or just using a ghost type. now, what we really need is a ghost type with run away so we can give it a smoke ball lol
To be fair, ghost pokemon didn't gain that feature until gen 6, so from RSE through B2W2, you either needed the ability, or a Smoke Ball.
Also, Gimmighoul Roaming Form (which can only be caught in Pokemon GO, but can be transferred to SV by using HOME) is a ghost type with Run Away as its only ability.
True
I wanna start a drinking game for Pokémon videos.
Take a shot every time you hear that a feature was removed.
Guaranteed to severely lower your life expectancy.
They remove features because they want to keep the games fresh and introduce new mechanics. They do not like reusing things.
@@ZoofyZoof Pikaclones, Kanto remakes, animation and model recycling, and the fact that the core mechanics of pokemon have been unchanged for almost 30 years show that Game Freak has no issue with reusing things.
@@georgejpg Yeah, that... that doesn't disprove anything I said. In fact, those are the words of GameFreak employees themselves. They remove mechanics because they want to constantly introduce new and unique ones each generation.
@@ZoofyZoof Judge people by their actions, not their words. Game Freak are serial recyclers, and haven't innovated at all for decades.
@@georgejpgThree out of the five things you said aren't even "game mechanics".
Heck I can argue Pikaclone isn't a game mechanic either, it is a design trend.
And if you mean "core mechanics have been unchanged", then either you are ignoring Megas, Agile/Strong style, Tera etc. Or you mean the basic battle system in which yes? That is how Pokemon is Pokemon and not any other RPG? Not to mention that actually has had some changes like the Gen 4 physical/special split and both Gen 2 & Gen 6 introducing new types and adjusting the Type Chart as a result so while it is a game mechanic, you're wrong with saying it hasn't changed.
Static and Magnet Pull have their out of battle effects since emerald
In Gen 4 Cute Charm sets 25 personality values that you will see 66% of the time. Depending on your Trainer ID and Secret ID, certain personality values are always shiny. You can get a set of IDs that guarantees 8 of the personality values will be shiny. This can boost your shiny rate for pokemon with multiple genders to 21%
Thanks for the correction, just added this info to a pinned comment
During Gen IV I used Static to lure Shinx and Mereep for EV training. Also in HGSS, I discovered that Steelix in Cliff Cave give HUGE tom of EXP. I often employed Magnemite(faint) to raise my team there.
Run Away for its credit is typically availably way earlier than a smoke ball. However, Ghosts also all have the ability innately so it’s even worse in that situation. To make matters even worse, most run away Pokémon tend to have way better alternatives too lol
Scarlet and Violet removing most of these effects was a mistake
alot of them just wouldnt work
Due to the way that wild battles now work in the overworld, a lot of them wouldn't really make sense to have
It's true that a lot of them wouldn't work anymore with the different encounter method, but I feel like they could've tried to adapt it somewhat!! The sandwiches proved they can boost specific spawn rates, so I bet they could've messed with that too, saving at least a half dozen of these. Super luck could help with the random items you pick up as well! I really hope they bring these back, they're a super nice detail
I think for ones like intimidate, if there's a way they could have reduced the chance a pokemon will notice/persue you in the overworld, that would have been really cool
I'm using Illuminate in BDSP while fishing to guarantee that I get a bite
Also, the worst is without a doubt Lightning Rod's original effect. In Emerald it made it so that you'd receive calls on your PokéNav twice as often
I definitely missed that when doing the research for this video, so thanks for pointing that out - just added that to a pinned comment
In what world is Swarm not the worst/most useless out of battle effect?
@@VassiliniaOne where Lightning Rod's original effect exists clearly
I think an interesting buff for Ball Fetch, as far as in-battle, would be to make it act like a Lightning Rod / Storm Drain for ball, bomb and bullet moves, and have it grant +1 to Speed upon being hit by one.
So better bulletproof?
That could be cool
arena trap and the others can be really good for shiny hunting and completing the pokedex since some pokemon have really low encounter rates. Immunity, swarm, hyper cutter are literally useless while arena trap has a fairly decent use and should be placed in #7 IMO
Good point, you and some others have convinced me. I added a pinned comment making this correction.
In a nuzlocke, abilities like Magnet Pull and Static are phenomenal. When you mix them with encounter routing and level repelling methods, you can massively affect the odds of getting a pokemon you like.
5:45 woooo! Hyper cutter mentioned, almost completely useless but kinda cool?
True
My wifi cut out when you mentioned internet issues haha
I honestly didn't know they removed most OoB effects in SV
a lot of them were removed because they switched the way in which wild encounters worked.
How on earth have you commented one month ago on a five day old video lol
Cute Charm Shiny - Normally, a Pokémon is given random PID.
But... In Gen 4, any Cute Charmed Pokémon will only get one of in a set of 25 PIDs, with Gender and Gender Ratio affecting which set of 25 is used. PID affects Gender, Natures, Abilities, Characteristic, Spinda's Spots, Wurple Evolution, and Shiny (and more!). Actually Shiny is determined by a combination of the Pokémon's PID, and the Trainers ID number and SID. So if your ID no and SID are within a certain combinations, some of Shiny PIDs possible will be the exact same ones that a Cute Charm will summon.
(It's unconfirmed, but I think a Male Cute Charm/Female Target Hardy Dunsparce caught in Gen 4, will almost always will be 3 segment.)
Thanks for the explanation - just added this to a pinned comment
The info for egg cycles is incorrect for some generations: Eggs weren't even in gen 1, gen 5 wasn't mentioned but it is 257 steps, and gen 7 is actually 256 steps.
Thanks for pointing that out - I just added the correct info to a pinned comment
Illuminate is actually a huge saving grace for shiny hunting. Random encounters can be a pain and are super slow, but before SV some pokemon could only be hunted with random encounters. It saves a lot of time in safari zone hunts in particular, but one specific use case I’ve experienced is in hunting for a shiny minior in Ultra Sun via random encounter. Still one of my favorite hunts I’ve ever done. I phased twice on a cleffa and beldum but illuminate made it bearable
I think the ability synchronise still has a good reason to exist, especially now that nature mints exist, and I'm saying that from a gen9 competitive standpoint.
Besides oran and sitrus, there are berries that heal for 33%, but confuse the Pokemon if they have a specific nature. And the main issue with these berries is that they check the *original nature* of the Pokemon.
So if you give one of your "now adamant nature" Pokemon a figi berry for example, and it ate that berry during the battle, it would still confuse that Pokemon, if that Pokemon was timid/modest/etc when it was initially caught.
True, I didn't think of that
nice vid. the immunity condition made me lol
Thanks
Great video! ❤️
Thanks!
3:28 erm shiny hunt maybe?
Why did you say erm
@@omnirox-re3wobecause ☝️🤓
Erm Pokeradar better?
Cute Charm is number 1 for shiny hunters in gen 4. What you need is a little bit of RNG manipulation (which is easy to do) at the start of the game to get certain values for your trainer ID’s. If you succeed then a cute charm pokemon will make any wild pokemon have something around a 1/5 chance to be shiny.
As an avid shiny hunter, him putting illuminate and Co. last on the list under three abilities that are absolutely, undeniably useless irked me lmao. Illuminate is the single BEST ability for shunting, with synchronize and cute charm being the only ones that come close (but not quite)
I change my mind - you and some others have convinced me
thought for sure Pickup was gonna get number 1, it's ridiculously useful
I know the Cute Charm ability in Gen 4 has been addressed, but I just wanted to mention a couple things.
In the earlier gens, RNG manipulation was much easier. In Gen 4 it was mostly based on the DS Clock and Date. You could easily (within a few tries) manipulate your Trainer ID and Secret ID so that for the rest of the game, if you have a Cute Charm pokemon in the lead of your party (Male or Female depending on how you set up the IDs), you can find shinies like they were normal in the game.
Wonderful and original idea for a ranking. Love your videos! 💙
Thanks!
17:37 Cute Charm in Gen 4 sets a Pokemon's personality value to one of a small few preset values, I forget how many exactly but I think its about 15 per gender. The way this works with shiny Pokemon is that, since we know the small amount of preset personality values, certain trainer IDs have a higher (or lower, unfortunately) chance of lining up with those personality values to produces shinies. This is the most simple way to explain how Cute Charm works and why it effects shinies.
Thanks for pointing this out - I just added some new info for this in a pinned comment
Actually, Ball Fetch is #1 because it's hilarious
It is rather humorous of an ability
15:02 for Static, it has had this effect since Emerald, not just SwSh/BDSP. Idk if this also applies to the other related abilities, but it’s definitely incorrect for Static
same for magnet pull
Thanks for pointing that out - just added this and other corrections to the pinned comment
Meowth and Persian became one of my favorite mons for post game thanks to pickup and payday, over the couse of you going arround capturing every mon and doing every battle the money and items add up
True! Maybe I should make a video on that too
Learning this has elevated my appreciation for pokémon
I didn't realize how many abilities had effects outside of battle! Great video! (I do mean this even if this looks like an autogenerated response. Comments and algorithm being what they are. 9/10)
one thing to note about suction cups/sticky hold is that it's great for chain fishing, a feature that was present in gen vi and gen viii.
gen vi chain fishing guaranteed better shiny odds, while gen viii guaranteed better brillant pokémon chances. (brillant pokémon was the yellow aura that sometimes popped up for the overworld mons, higher levels, 2-3 perfect ivs, one egg move, and i believe it too has a higher shiny chance the more fish youre able to chain)
not sure if this was ever present in gen vii though!
This was supper interesting! I don’t pay too much attention to Pokémon ability outside of battle so actually learning what they did makes me want a Pokémon with pick up for my emerald play through!
Thanks!
I immediately knew what #1 would be, but the rest of the vid was fun to watch and i largely agree
Thanks
I used the ability “run away” for like 1 hour in my most recent White 2 play through with Eevee before evolving it and switching to a smoke ball. I felt so big brain using it 😂
Synchro is the best Ability with overworld effects because if your Synchro Pokémon has any neutral Nature (Shy, Docile, Hard Working, Quirky, or Serious) being put in the leader slot, any wild Pokémon you meet would get a Nature match. The neutral Natures give the Pokémon a balanced stat growth, and it is willing to eat any Kinomi flavor without getting confused.
Great video
Here's a reminder that u make great content. Thanks
Thanks!
good video as usual :)
Thanks!
So instead of reworking the abilities, they just removed it in S/V?
No wonder why those games feel so empty.
illuminate is the only ability whose effect was exclusively overworld-related and they DID rework it, it's now identical to keen eye
There's nothing to rework them into. it doesn't even make sense what you could do with them.
yeah the problem with Pokémon S/V was that snow cloak no longer reduce wild encounters in 2 routes of the games
A lot of them wouldn't make sense to have due to the different way in which you encounter wild Pokémon
I think Intimidate/Keen Eye could also help in the sense that they not only help you control how many encounters you get into, but also what levels they are, which can be helpful for level grinding since you’re more likely to encounter Pokemon near your leader’s level and are just overall less likely to encounter anything if you’re overleveled for the current area.
Could also help with narrowing down what encounters you can get in the area like Repels do. Blocking every Pokemon below your leader’s level means you can have a leader below the Pokemon you want to see and above the others in the area. Intimidate/Keen Eye may be able to do something similar, just with a wider range of levels.
Don’t think any of that would be enough to warrant a change in ranking, but they are reasons someone may prefer them to Stench and the other abilities that just reduce all encounters.
Cute charm increased shiny chance is actually absurdly high and is used as the best method to find shinies in any game , period.
Diamond/Pearl's iterations of No Guard, Illuminate, and Arena Trap inherited the boosted fishing chances meant for Suction Cups/Sticky Hold. This glitch is also present in v. 1.0 BDSP as well.
Munchlax mentioned; good video.
Thanks
Love ur vids man keep up the good work
It’s funny to me how the Swarm example of no internet and cry memorization applies to me. I’ve never felt so seen and yet so called out
i love watching your videos
Thanks!
11:30 i actually used a runaway ratata to lead my party when exploring some places in very early game HGSS
Static made the best moment in Nintentubing history
Chuggaconroy finding a bajilion Magnemite and Elekid, not realising his Elekid was attracting every electric type in the complex.
I would like to see that
Pickup did work Pre emerald, and there’s an important distinction between the Emerald version of Pickup & the pickup from the earlier Gen 3 games.
Thanks for pointing that out. I just added this and some other corrections to the pinned comment
Arena Trap and its family are extremely useful when paired with Repels, and are almost essential when hunting certain Shinies
Never thought about that, that's actually a genuinely good use. I added some corrections to the pinned comment and looking back at it, I would bump up those abilities a few spots
Great video, completely agree with this ranking. I guess if we needed to be technical if the enemy trainer used gastro acid or skill swap with their last pokemon and then used toxic, immunity would also have some value
True, thanks for pointing that out. I just added that and some other corrections to the pinned comment
i see that you've been told how helpful illuminate is for shiny hunting, but a much less obvious one that helps is hustle / pressure / vital spirit, which when combined with repels lets you completely change the appearance rates of certain pokemon on some routes. as an example, i hunted yanma in the platinum great marsh, and with hustle i was able to boost its encounter rate from 25% by default to 50% with the right level repel and all the way up to 81% with hustle. not nearly as widely useful as illuminate and rarely as big of an effect as static and magnet pull but it can be really helpful sometimes!
the serene grace effect is actually really nice for gathering a lot of fossils in hgss, since that's how you get them in that game. super niche but it's really helpful for that one specific use
sticky hold and suction cups are also bugged to not work in platinum and bdsp. it's just all sinnoh games where it doesn't work
One thing that wasn't mentioned is that magnet pull is absolutely insane in nuzlockes, and to my knowledge it's worked for way longer than gen 7
Torchick and 5x zigzagoon with pick up was my first playthrough. So much fun.
Also used hypercutter a lot in emerald. Had a mission of destroying all tall grass I saw.
Illuminate is nice when combined with the repel trick. Useful for shiny hunting a specific target
Take one shot every time he says "this first had an effect in Pokemon Emerald"
Take two when he says "this effect was removed in Scarlet and Violet"
That's just about all of them
Intimidate/keen eye can be used to hunt certain Pokémon unlike white smoke,stench,etc. if you want a Pokémon with the highest level in that area, you can have a Pokémon higher than the rest, but lower than the desired mon. In generation4 I used this to get the lv 100 magikarp.
Lightningrod apparently also boosts your radio signal in HGSS.
For compound eyes, another useful target of this ability is Magnemite for its Metal Coat in HeartGold/SoulSilver, as the first garanteed Metal Coat is found on the ship to Vermillion City, after beating Lance. Magnemite can be found on the route west of Ecruteek City, meaning you can get a Scizor or Steelix before fighting Morty
Don't agree with all the rankings - for one, type-boosting abilities would rank in second or first for me because of its shiny hunting utility - but greatly enjoyed this longer video from you :D
Thanks
I have personally found Cute Charm to be dramatically useful in my playthroughs because of my pension for breeding.
I've used illuminate to boost the encounter rate many times, and pokemon with immunity can be poisoned if their ability is disabled in battle, making it far easier to achieve than you suggest.
Thanks for pointing that out - I just added that info to the pinned comment
You missed one small detail - Lightning Rod in Emerald only has the additional effect outside battle that it doubles the rate at which trainers call you on the Pokénav.
Thanks for pointing that out - I added this and other missed information to the pinned comment
Nature mints don't make Synchronize's out of battle ability necessarily useless. For one thing, you don't have to go out of your way to obtain the correct mint, just find the pokemon with the correct nature. But the other is a fun fact i learned more recently, the original nature of a pokemon still matters in very specific instances. The mint does not change the actual nature the pokemon has, but sets the adjusted stats to the new nature. This means that certain berries, when eaten by pokemon with the wrong nature can still inflict the confusion condition.
Thanks for pointing that out - just added a correction to the pinned comment
Arena trap should be rated in its own as it also prevents the wild pokemon from running away.
I enjoyed the video
1st thing I do during an Emerald playthrough after getting my starter and some Pokeballs is find a Zigzagoon with Pickup. solves early game money issues and Zigzagoon can learn almost all the HMs.
Oddly, Pokémon with Magic Guard and Poison Heal still took poison damage outside of battle.
That is odd
It's funny that Serene Grace has an out-of-battle combo with Rock Smash, a move that has a 50% secondary effect
It is rather humorous
the fact that run away doesn't allow switching out against mean look or arena trap feels like a missed opportunity
Agreed, it could have actually had some practical use in battle
Listening to cries with swarm could also hekonyou find roaming legendaries
Arena Trap/Illuminate/No Guard could be useful if you're looking for a rarer pokémon and wanna increase encounters since it might show up faster
Addition to honey: in Diamond/Pearl/Platinum it can be used to cover honey trees. Realistically all this adds is saving you $100 from buying it from the honey man, maybe a no cash challenge?.
True
The sad thing is that Poison Heal didn't negate the HP drain when walking, so if you wanted to use a Toxic Orb Poison Heal Breloom you'd be dealing with constant HP drain even when in battle Breloom gets healed. Now that would actually have been a practical use for Immunity's out of battle effect, it makes so sense either to boot.
Also Suction Cups from my experience in gen7 (completing the Ultra Sun dex) pretty much guaranteed that I'd get a bite, this made fishing less of a chore. Particularly for getting Gorebyss and Huntail without trading by slaughtering Clamperl.
Pickup was surprisingly useful for me in Pokémon XD, there wasn't any level requirements so my Tediura picked up an Ultra Ball before the Shadow Pokémon Lab, which happens VERY early into the game. I might be wrong about this since it's been a while but I'm pretty sure that I couldn't buy Great Balls at the time in-game, that or you only get access to them at that time.
Flame Body is a godsend, no arguing that it isn't the best, made the ungodly amount of breeding that I did late 2023 and early 2024 such much more manageable.
Not a correction, but suction cups was pivotal in shiny hunting in X and Y, with what they called "Fish-chaining" I loved that method, but it also made shiny hunting a bit too easy lol
17:56 Pickup is also a Source of Bottle Caps in SV
BDSP are such faithful remakes, that Sticky Hold & Suction Cups have their outside of battle effects, due to programming error, just like the og DP.
That's because they literally just copypasted the code
Interesting
@@spiritbaki108No they didn't, stop saying that.
@@RenSako Not the whole code, but whole parts of the code were copied and pasted. That's why even gliches from diamond and pearl remain
@ That's not how code works. You cannot copy and paste code DS code in a different language and in a different engine and have it work. That's not how this works and is the dumbest thing I've seen in a long fucking while.
They didn't copy and paste the code for Ocarina of Time 3D yet glitches from the original are still in it, because they deliberately put them there. Developers tend to do that with remakes meant to be faithful.
Just stop lying about games to make them look worse, please. If you want to criticize BDSP, criticize it, I have no issue with that. But lying about them literally copying and pasting the code of a DS game from 2007 to make the Switch remake is so unbelievably ignorant of all things code it's laughable, and the fact people feel the need to lie about it in the first place is honestly pathetic. Stop believing everything you read online without question and maybe learn to code instead or something.
I'm pretty sure Arena Trap, Illuminate, and No Guard are very useful for shiny hunting as well. I don't know for sure since I shiny hunt in Legends and S/V, but it seems very beneficial to increase your number of encounters to maximize your chances.
No Guard also has the same function as Suction Cups when fishing so is more useful
I use Illuminate Shiinotic to shiny hunt in tall grass in swsh. Doesn’t increase the rates hugely but over a few hundred encounters it adds up a bit. But it’s more about the Spore that the Illuminate lol.
Illuminate os super useful when you want to find wild Pokémon with a repel strategy. It takes less steps to find them. And this is especially useful in shiny hunts.
There's a use for arena trap for catching pokemon but it's super niche. If you are trying to catch a roaming suicune in fire red/leaf green, arena trap will prevent it fleeing. That is the only roaming legendary that doesn't learn roar, or have levitate, or is a flying type. It's just in that game that suicune roams and doesn't learn roar. Also, to use arena trap you would need to use a ground type vs suicune.
That would be the inside battle effect of arena trap though, and since it's the same as how it would function during a trainer or online competitive battle, that would not count.
I figured if you were counting run away as out of battle, this is basically its inverse. Instead of you always being able to escape, the other pokemon can't (with exceptions).
no guard is super useful for fishing since it guarantees an encounter in certain games.
Illuminate I’ve used for shiny hunting
I'd have to argue that Arena Trap (and the other double encounter rate abilities) should not be in last place at all. I'm a grinder. I grind my Pokémon. I hate going into important battles and struggling with my Pokémon evenly matched with the opponent's, or even just slightly stronger. I like being over-leveled. But the amount of times I've run around in a cave or tall grass not encountering anything for more than 20 seconds is insanity. I've even gone more than a minute without encounters.
EDIT: I never used these abilities for their out-of-battle effects. I'd always just run around fully vanilla with whatever Pokémon I was grinding.
DOUBLE EDIT: Didn't know about Hustle/Pressure/Vital Spirit's out-of-battle effect.
TRIPLE EDIT: Also didn't know about Intimidate/Keen Eye/Infiltrator/Stench/White Smoke/Quick Feet's out-of-battle effect, so it's entirely possible that my lead Pokémon at the time of those extended periods without encounters may have had one of those abilities. However, the rules of statistics state that those extended periods without encounters could all have still been vanilla.
Insert Pikachu shocked face meme. Not to turn a complete 180 from all the above, but.... HOW AM I ONLY JUST NOW FINDING OUT THAT CUT AND HYPER CUTTER COULD CLEAR AWAY TALL GRASS???
I changed my mind on those, read the pinned comment
Compound eyes is really useful for getting 6 lucky eggs in Oras from wild pelliper
In gen 5 a pokemon with the ability stench being in your party will grant the player a masterball by farting into the speaker. Please update the pinned comment to accomidate this underappreciated effect.
This is so incredibly niche but maybe someone else has done something similar to this, in FR/LG in the Safari Zone area 3 I believe, chancey is a 4% encounter rate. You don’t want to waste steps as to maximize chancey encounters so you use a level 26 illuminate Pokémon to only see certain encounters. So illuminate does have SOME use despite how niche 😭
You and the others have convinced me, I would bump it up a few ranks
@ unique video idea though and you had a pretty thorough analysis/follow up in the comments. You earned a sub from me broski
@@brokeboyjohnn Thanks!
Cute charm glitch outclasses everything in gen 4. That Sinnoh, Johto and Kanto mons with genders. Its basically a 1/3 change to encounter a wild shiny.
For the increased encounter abilities, they are great for shiny hunting. In emerald I use it to find dittos to breed with.
Essentially, if you have a certain Trainer ID and Secret ID, Cute Charm can make your Shiny Rate 1/20, or out right impossible, it's not something you can easily control without constantly restarting your save tho so i don't think it should affect its ranking.
Thanks for pointing that out - I just added this and some other additional info to the pinned comment.
Arena trap and the others saw a spike in popularity in gen 6, they made shiny hunting in friend safari much faster