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.
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 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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.)
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
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.
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
3:28 no guard machop when doing a professor oak's challenge in dppt. The less time I have to spend running around for encounters pre-roark, the better. Also when doing full odds random encounter shiny hunting
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.
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)
@ 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.
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
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!
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’d give a shoutout to Sticky Hold & Suction Cups starting in Generation 6 because of the introduction of consecutive fishing and its increased shiny odds. If you fish in the same route repeatedly, your odds of encountering a shiny increase *dramatically.* It’s very easy to do, and your chain will only break if you leave the area or fail to catch something. Those abilities let you get a bite every time in Gen 6, making them a game changer.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
The Pickup item lists sometimes vary significantly even in specific games within a single generation. Ruby/Sapphire, Emerald and FRLG all had very different Pickup items.
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.
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 😂
I use Arena Trap + Repels to hunt roaming legendaries. With a high level and Repels, the legendaries will be your only encounter and it will keep the legendary from running away when you encounter it (this doesn't work on flying types). It's really good in the Jhoto remakes to catch the legendary dogs.
Forgot to mention the Pokemon Go ones, Spacial Rend and Roar of Time. Spacial rend doubles the distance you can catch pokes roar of time freezes your buff timers
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.
@@MISTAKEWASMADE4live honestly that depends what game the pokeradar is in. base diamond pearl and platinum its bad, x and y its decent and bdsp ironically has a pretty good pokeradar in my opinion. sure it breaks chains easier but the ability to go to edge patches and the grass always being on the screen instead of only a few seconds is a really good change
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.
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.
For the Cute charm shiny hunting deal... it's because of how the game's determine a pokemon is shiny by looking at your Trainer ID, secret ID and the pokemon's personality value. From how I understand it... if your Trainer ID and secret ID are extremely similar, by locking in the personality value with the cute charm ability... you can make the odds of the game deciding "That shall be a shiny" go CRAZY high. Like, 1 in 8 or 1 in 4 odds high..... Sure, you have to do a lot of soft resetting (and some complicated knowhow) to get the required IDs... but soft resetting and metontious tasks are something shiny hunters have to dose a lot of anyway. So to do it ONCE for the IDs and not have to bother with it nearly as much for... well, EVERY pokemon you want to shiny hunt (in that Gen 4 game) and can be affected by cute charm. That can add up to a LOT of time saved.
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
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
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
11:44 And so do Poke Dolls, which isn't even a held item, freeing up that slot. They can only be used one but their purpose, especially in Gen 8 onward, is fairly niche.
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!
In gen 7 wild pokemon are more likely to call for help in battle if your pokemon has the ability intimidate, pressure or unnerve. I know its an in-battle effect but it kinda has the same vibes as ball fetch, and that particular effect isn't outlined in the abilities' description nor in any other generations.
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 another way to get poison on a Pokemon with Immunity, which is overwriting or Suppressing the ability and then ending the battle. I had a White 2 run where my Zangoose got poisoned because I used Shadow Claw on Ghetsis' Cofagrigus, turning his ability into Mummy, and then got Toxic'd. Of course, out-of-battle Poison damage isn't in Gen V and Cofagrigus isn't in Gen IV, but Gastro Acid exists in Gen IV, so that's an option. Still really niche, though. Wouldn't bump it up at all.
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.
15:03 - This is incorrect. This has been a strategy for Shiny hunting since Gen IV, at least. I've used Static and Magnet Pull many times in Platinum to great effect whilst Shiny hunting. I've been using Static to help chain Shinx by tradition almost every New Year for around the last decade or so, at least.
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 can help from EV training in early gens, put a exp share on your EV needing Pokémon, and have your no guard Pokémon beat up on the good EV yielding encounters. It’s a subtle advantage, but it’s something in sone limited situations where a macho brace is somehow not possible
Doesn't super count since this was a romhack but, I have used No Guard to boost my encounter rates before in a x y romhack where you can find legendaries as wild pokemon at a rate of 1% Their level was set higher than any other wild pokemon so you could repel trick to guarantee getting them, but even with that trick without my no guard mon to help it was taking multiple minutes even with speedup to encounter anything I know it's a matter of luck but it saved me a lot of time when I was going back through to get everything for dex completion
I use Illuminate in my emerald nuzlockes when I get the chance since it is great for grinding up new members, espescially when I randomize trainer battles and don't want to risk a wobbuffet before you're ready
I use illuminate for all of my wild shiny hunts, I wouldn’t say the effect is even negative when playing casually, because the ability has limited distribution, the Pokémon who do have it usually have another ability, and you can just not have them lead or use repels
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.
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 😭
Illuminate has come in useful for me in platinum specifically a number of times while looking for pokemon with low encounter rates (while doing the repel trick mostly). It's not the most useful ability for sure but when you're trying to fill up your pokedex it can make encounters go by a lot faster particularly when you're getting unlucky with sparse encounters
As a gen 3 shiny hunter my list would be #1 Illuminate (Speeds up encounter rate per hour greatly, goated) #2 Flame Body/Maga Armor (Increases speed of egg hunts, goated) #3 Sticky Hold/Suction Cups (Speeds up fishing encounters and have the ability to prevent certain escapes, goated) #4 Run Away (Running away naturally is faster but its good when shiny hunting Arena Trap Pokémon.) #5 Magnet Pull (Great if you're hunting a metal Pokémon where there are not just metal types) #6 Static (Great if you're hunting an electric Pokémon where there are not just electric types) #7 Cute Charm (Extremely situational) #8 Intimidate/Keen Eye (Extremely situational) #9 Synchronize (Only good if you're hoping for a specific nature, but useless in aiding your shiny hunt itself) #10 Arena Trap (Slower than Illuminate. Worse than Suction cups aswell.) #11 Hustle/Pressure/Vital Spirit (Could've been situational but unreliable due to only activating 50% of the time) #12 Pickup (Normally god tier but useless for shiny hunting) #13 Compound Eyes (Useless for shiny hunting) #14 Immunity (Prevents poions, useless) #15 Swarm (Hearing more cries, useless) #16 Lightning Rod (More PokéNav, useless) #17 Hyper Cutter (Anti-shiny hunting lol) #18 Stench, White Smoke (Counter intuitive for shiny hunting) #19 Sand Veil (Counter intuitive for shiny hunting) Shoutout to Damp, great anti Self-Destruct ability. Useless to me because it didn't exist or didn't have an outside of battle effect in gen 3: No Guard, Serene Grace, Super Luck, Honey Gather, Snow Cloak, Ball Fetch, Infiltrator, Quick Feet, Flash Fire, Harvest, Storm Drain, Steam engine,
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.
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.
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.
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.
ngl pretty good if u want to rematch the gym leaders faster
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
Me catching a Mightyena
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 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.
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 !
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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
5:45 woooo! Hyper cutter mentioned, almost completely useless but kinda cool?
True
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.
Thanks for pointing this out - I just added some new info for this in a pinned comment
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
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.
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.
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
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
3:28 no guard machop when doing a professor oak's challenge in dppt. The less time I have to spend running around for encounters pre-roark, the better. Also when doing full odds random encounter shiny hunting
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
Great video! ❤️
Thanks!
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)
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.
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
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!
nice vid. the immunity condition made me lol
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
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
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
I’d give a shoutout to Sticky Hold & Suction Cups starting in Generation 6 because of the introduction of consecutive fishing and its increased shiny odds. If you fish in the same route repeatedly, your odds of encountering a shiny increase *dramatically.* It’s very easy to do, and your chain will only break if you leave the area or fail to catch something. Those abilities let you get a bite every time in Gen 6, making them a game changer.
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.
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
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
thought for sure Pickup was gonna get number 1, it's ridiculously useful
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.
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.
The Pickup item lists sometimes vary significantly even in specific games within a single generation. Ruby/Sapphire, Emerald and FRLG all had very different Pickup items.
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
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 😂
I use Arena Trap + Repels to hunt roaming legendaries. With a high level and Repels, the legendaries will be your only encounter and it will keep the legendary from running away when you encounter it (this doesn't work on flying types). It's really good in the Jhoto remakes to catch the legendary dogs.
Forgot to mention the Pokemon Go ones, Spacial Rend and Roar of Time.
Spacial rend doubles the distance you can catch pokes
roar of time freezes your buff timers
Pokémon Go is a spinoff and Spacial Rend and Roar of Time are moves, not abilities.
What held items could be used outside of battle?
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.
11:30 i actually used a runaway ratata to lead my party when exploring some places in very early game HGSS
17:56 Pickup is also a Source of Bottle Caps in SV
3:28 erm shiny hunt maybe?
Why did you say erm
@@omnirox-re3wobecause ☝️🤓
Erm Pokeradar better?
That's huge garbage.
@@MISTAKEWASMADE4live honestly that depends what game the pokeradar is in. base diamond pearl and platinum its bad, x and y its decent and bdsp ironically has a pretty good pokeradar in my opinion. sure it breaks chains easier but the ability to go to edge patches and the grass always being on the screen instead of only a few seconds is a really good change
Wonderful and original idea for a ranking. Love your videos! 💙
Thanks!
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
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.
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.
Actually, Ball Fetch is #1 because it's hilarious
It is rather humorous of an ability
3:32 Not me but i was watching a streamer use a No Guard Machamp to shiny hunt sneasel
For the Cute charm shiny hunting deal... it's because of how the game's determine a pokemon is shiny by looking at your Trainer ID, secret ID and the pokemon's personality value.
From how I understand it... if your Trainer ID and secret ID are extremely similar, by locking in the personality value with the cute charm ability... you can make the odds of the game deciding "That shall be a shiny" go CRAZY high. Like, 1 in 8 or 1 in 4 odds high.....
Sure, you have to do a lot of soft resetting (and some complicated knowhow) to get the required IDs... but soft resetting and metontious tasks are something shiny hunters have to dose a lot of anyway.
So to do it ONCE for the IDs and not have to bother with it nearly as much for... well, EVERY pokemon you want to shiny hunt (in that Gen 4 game) and can be affected by cute charm. That can add up to a LOT of time saved.
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
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
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
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
11:44 And so do Poke Dolls, which isn't even a held item, freeing up that slot. They can only be used one but their purpose, especially in Gen 8 onward, is fairly niche.
Learning this has elevated my appreciation for pokémon
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!
Illuminate is nice when combined with the repel trick. Useful for shiny hunting a specific target
In gen 7 wild pokemon are more likely to call for help in battle if your pokemon has the ability intimidate, pressure or unnerve. I know its an in-battle effect but it kinda has the same vibes as ball fetch, and that particular effect isn't outlined in the abilities' description nor in any other generations.
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 another way to get poison on a Pokemon with Immunity, which is overwriting or Suppressing the ability and then ending the battle. I had a White 2 run where my Zangoose got poisoned because I used Shadow Claw on Ghetsis' Cofagrigus, turning his ability into Mummy, and then got Toxic'd. Of course, out-of-battle Poison damage isn't in Gen V and Cofagrigus isn't in Gen IV, but Gastro Acid exists in Gen IV, so that's an option.
Still really niche, though. Wouldn't bump it up at all.
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.
5:34 I’m pretty sure it was for finding roamers and they dropped it because it didn’t pan out
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
good video as usual :)
Thanks!
15:03 - This is incorrect. This has been a strategy for Shiny hunting since Gen IV, at least. I've used Static and Magnet Pull many times in Platinum to great effect whilst Shiny hunting. I've been using Static to help chain Shinx by tradition almost every New Year for around the last decade or so, at least.
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 can help from EV training in early gens, put a exp share on your EV needing Pokémon, and have your no guard Pokémon beat up on the good EV yielding encounters. It’s a subtle advantage, but it’s something in sone limited situations where a macho brace is somehow not possible
Illuminate I’ve used for shiny hunting
Doesn't super count since this was a romhack but, I have used No Guard to boost my encounter rates before in a x y romhack where you can find legendaries as wild pokemon at a rate of 1%
Their level was set higher than any other wild pokemon so you could repel trick to guarantee getting them, but even with that trick without my no guard mon to help it was taking multiple minutes even with speedup to encounter anything
I know it's a matter of luck but it saved me a lot of time when I was going back through to get everything for dex completion
Arena trap, Illuminate and No guard is relevant for gen 3 shiny hunting with the repel trick especially for mons with a low encounter rate.
Love ur vids man keep up the good work
I use Illuminate in my emerald nuzlockes when I get the chance since it is great for grinding up new members, espescially when I randomize trainer battles and don't want to risk a wobbuffet before you're ready
Here's a reminder that u make great content. Thanks
Thanks!
I use illuminate for all of my wild shiny hunts, I wouldn’t say the effect is even negative when playing casually, because the ability has limited distribution, the Pokémon who do have it usually have another ability, and you can just not have them lead or use repels
The only benefit I can think of for Intimidate over abilities like quick feet is to do a poor approximation of a repel manip
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.
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!
I immediately knew what #1 would be, but the rest of the vid was fun to watch and i largely agree
Thanks
Illuminate has come in useful for me in platinum specifically a number of times while looking for pokemon with low encounter rates (while doing the repel trick mostly). It's not the most useful ability for sure but when you're trying to fill up your pokedex it can make encounters go by a lot faster particularly when you're getting unlucky with sparse encounters
Magnet pull works in B2W2 so the comment on which games they work was wrong here
Thanks for pointing that out, I just added a pinned comment for some corrections
As a gen 3 shiny hunter my list would be
#1 Illuminate (Speeds up encounter rate per hour greatly, goated)
#2 Flame Body/Maga Armor (Increases speed of egg hunts, goated)
#3 Sticky Hold/Suction Cups (Speeds up fishing encounters and have the ability to prevent certain escapes, goated)
#4 Run Away (Running away naturally is faster but its good when shiny hunting Arena Trap Pokémon.)
#5 Magnet Pull (Great if you're hunting a metal Pokémon where there are not just metal types)
#6 Static (Great if you're hunting an electric Pokémon where there are not just electric types)
#7 Cute Charm (Extremely situational)
#8 Intimidate/Keen Eye (Extremely situational)
#9 Synchronize (Only good if you're hoping for a specific nature, but useless in aiding your shiny hunt itself)
#10 Arena Trap (Slower than Illuminate. Worse than Suction cups aswell.)
#11 Hustle/Pressure/Vital Spirit (Could've been situational but unreliable due to only activating 50% of the time)
#12 Pickup (Normally god tier but useless for shiny hunting)
#13 Compound Eyes (Useless for shiny hunting)
#14 Immunity (Prevents poions, useless)
#15 Swarm (Hearing more cries, useless)
#16 Lightning Rod (More PokéNav, useless)
#17 Hyper Cutter (Anti-shiny hunting lol)
#18 Stench, White Smoke (Counter intuitive for shiny hunting)
#19 Sand Veil (Counter intuitive for shiny hunting)
Shoutout to Damp, great anti Self-Destruct ability.
Useless to me because it didn't exist or didn't have an outside of battle effect in gen 3:
No Guard, Serene Grace, Super Luck, Honey Gather, Snow Cloak, Ball Fetch, Infiltrator, Quick Feet, Flash Fire, Harvest, Storm Drain, Steam engine,
Illuminate's useful when doing a Nuzzlocke in older games and have to grind-train a new team of pokemon.
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
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.
I mean swarm could help with roaming encounters if you don’t know where the legendary is right?
Perhaps
My favourite combo is Compound Eyes on a fainted 1st party member and a Frisk ability using Thief to get wild hold items and another with Pickup.
Smart!
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