Why Abilities Are Close to Everything - The Regigigas Theorem

foreign here is another false swipe gaming theorem this time centered around everyone's favorite terrible legendary Regigigas and its defining trait which is again that it's terrible just why is this so bad you ask because of its ability abilities are wondrous things in the world of competitive Pokemon they can sit to the side uselessly like Skarmory and gen 3 they can be a solid feature of an already good Pokemon or they can be so impactful they more or less create a Pokemon's viability by themselves and of course they can drag an otherwise good Pokemon into uselessness a la Regigigas today we're going over Pokemon that were defined in large part or nearly entirely by their excellent abilities if not necessarily make or break level they'd at the very least be quite different without them so let's dive right into the Regigigas theorem named for Regigigas the Terrible but first give yourself the internet protection ability because this video is sponsored by surfsharkvpn surfshark is an app and browser extension that allows you to place your computer or phone virtually in any country as if you're actually there surfstrike has over 3 200 plus servers in 65 countries and surf shark being a VPN of course encrypts your data to keep you safe so you can rest easy when having to use public Wi-Fi in fact it can even help you use your programs that these Wi-Fi's might block whenever I travel I don't like bringing my editing PC it's way too big so I usually use a remote desktop app to control it on the go sometimes Hotel internet blocks my remote desktop app for reasons but thanks to Surf shark I can bypass this block and get back to working on the go and as always surfshark allows you to unlock region lock content by connecting to a server in a different country now you can supercharge your choice of streaming services and get even more content so if you want a six VPN and also support the channel to help us produce more content get an exclusive surf shark deal by entering a pro bowl called fall swipe or clicking the link in the description below and get surf shark VPN for an extra three months for free passive damage is one of the most defining powerful shaping forces and competitive Pokemon it's so powerful because pretty much every Pokemon is affected in some way and this is huge in keeping some of the most dangerous Pokemon in the game in check think of how Mighty Pokemon like Arceus normal Kyogre and Darkrai powerful though they may be will take a not insignificant 12 and a half percent hit from each switch into Stealth Rock to say nothing of spikes and or toxic spikes burn poison leech seed and Sandstorm with just Stealth Rock in the picture your attack which hits these Pokemon for 90 or so has a chance to KO them outright whereas before you'd be out of luck barring a lucky critical hit passive damage is so strong and so easy to take advantage of many teams are built entirely around abusing it and even teams that are all out offensive don't exactly skimp on the passive damage either after all what do hyper offense teams do before they start sending out their Sluggers they set up Stealth Rock of course with this in mind it should be no surprise that an ability which ignores the effects of passive damage would be powerful but the stratospheric high rights to which Magic Guard has propelled its most well-known users clefable reuniclist and Alakazam three of the four fully evolved Pokemon with the ability demonstrates just how incredible it is and how much we take passive damage for granted in dealing with other Pokemon because when we aren't able to chip the magic guarders then we're not damaging at all and that results in them being among the scariest Pokemon in the game having had their bands called for on a number of occasions across many meta games before clefable and Alakazam had magic guards they weren't much of a big deal but after receiving it they rocketed it into the pantheon of elite Pokemon it makes sense that we are so reliant on passive damage after all preparing for many individual Pokemon simultaneously is quite difficult but the magic guarders completely throw such ideas out the window and force you to engage with them directly to make matters even worse most counters to Magic Guard Pokemon are themselves vulnerable to hazards which make it incredibly easy for magic guarders to outlast their answers and this often leads the best answer being to duel the opposing magic garter with your old magic guarder as a result several Generations became began to evolve entirely around Magic Guard with teams of strategies revolving around cramming as many Magikarp Pokemon as they could onto their team Gen 5 OU has even seen people using duotian and Kadabra just to have another version of their fully evolved forms that's absolutely ridiculous meanwhile Gen 4 clefable without almost any resists at all courtesy of still being a normal type became one of the most defining forces in OU eclipsing Blissey through its unmatched resilience which allowed it to last throughout a game better to the extent that it didn't matter it wasn't anywhere near Blissey in terms of bulk he even found a niche in the insanely powerful Gen 4 Ubers for this same reason just because it ignored the spikes and toxic spikes littering the tier the four fully evolved magic garter sigilith isn't quite at the level of the others not being as strong or bulky and the added weaknesses of its dual typing can be annoying but that's only as far as OU is concerned it has been a force for many generations in the lower tiers so long as passive damage is key and barring some serious fundamental changes to the game of Pokemon it always will be then Magic Guard will be one of the most elite abilities in the game being the most significant driving part of the role of whichever Pokemon is lucky enough to have it it can be difficult to maintain Health in the face of all the damage flying at you over the course of a battle whether direct or indirect even Pokemon blessed with recovery moves still have to spend a turn using them which can be exploitable it can mean a free turn for the opponent as the recovery move is forced as opposed to using a more threatening move or switching oneself with regenerator you get a whopping one third of your health back just for switching out regenerator is fantastic to massage the pressure from entry Hazard even the Stealth Rock weak tornado styrion actually gains Health switching into rocks for instance and if they aren't being pressured by hazards made more and more possible over generations with increased defog distribution and then heavy duty boots then regen Pokemon becomes some of the most famously unkillable Pokemon around they are so excellent because the freedom afforded them by regenerator makes playing against them much more constricting the most common example of Pokemon like Slowbro will switch into a physical attacker like Dragonite and take around 30 or so Dragonite will run away as Slowbro will pressure the switch in with scald or Scout with teleport or use Thunder Wave or whatever it wants to do because that 30 it took will be completely healed off when it switches out contrast this with a defensive Pokemon without regenerator if it switched in and took 30 from a threat and checked it's soon be in range to where it would have to take a turn to heal itself as opposed to pressuring the opponent in return somehow and thereby giving them room to apply pressure instead not slow bro though it will switch into that physical attacker again and again and again and it will not get worn down to the point of needing to heal and if that sounds too good to be true consider the incredible longevity of the tank growth of Lucas and assault vascularian Slowking who don't even use recovery moves yet are famous for their longevity and resilience in the face of threatening opposing attacks the other example of amazing Freedom afforded by regenerator is that these Pokemon can stay in even on threats that will hit them for huge damage because they're going to heal so much of it anyway the most well-known example of this is toxipex and its propensity for staying in on stabbed earthquakes from Landers steering and Garchomp a Pokemon without regenerator wouldn't dream of staying in in such scenarios unless it was going to heal itself on the same turn and even that would need a good reason but with regenerator toxipex can afford to eat the big hit from earthquake and threaten them in return with sculpt or toxic or what have you then it'll switch out get some more Health back come back in and switch once more and it's in great health once again this makes playing against toxic's utterly nightmarish not just because of its longevity but because you can't assume it'll switch out with real certainty since it very well could stay in and that makes switching out an even easier move for the PEX user since the opponent is so pressured into trying to get as much damage on it as possible to try and counteract the insanity of its regenerator Antics finally while we're generator is mostly known for making Pokemon like alomamola and slow King into defensive Behemoth its potential for enabling offensive threats is off the charts too tornado's theory was banned from Gen 5 OU because regenerator allowed it to switch in seemingly endlessly to break down opposing teams with Spec's hurricanes even with this shift to a more supporting roles in Gen 6 and Beyond it still often shows its capacity to actually threaten the opponent and that's the because it can stick around to batter away at them over and over the end shell has also shown great aptitude for this mostly known for its talents in the lower tiers but having had several ferocious showings in Gen 5 OU as well these two are particularly nasty because they're so good at using U-turn which goes hand in hand with regenerator an ability that becomes the defining force of each Pokemon that has it have we mentioned that Reggie gigas is terrible yet because if we haven't well Regigigas is terrible this video is the Regigigas theorem but seeing as we have a video dedicated to how bad Reggie gigas was actually as well as its spiritual twin slacking there is no need to once again dwell on the self-evident specifics for how horrendous such abilities are they are completely crippling leaving no viability for their users whatsoever and even the lowest tiers despite their incredible stat spreads they're stronger and faster than Rayquaza with some nice bulk to boot especially gigas who is an excellent hit taker but they're among the worst Pokemon in the game talk about make or break if you gave these Pokemon non-abilities like illuminate they'd be superb and if you gave their abilities to Arceus Arceus would drop to untiered [Music] Moody is the definition of overpowered it doesn't just remove player interaction and leave games to chance it leads them to chance that is overwhelmingly in favor of the Moody user the random stat boosting can be fished for repeatedly via substitute and protect until as was demonstrated repeatedly even beedu foot sweep teams and Ubers yes that's right consult how good was babero actually for more information if it breaks beautiful well that's the power of abilities for you foreign ergard is an obvious monstrosity of an ability designed only for a Pokemon with literally one HP the fact shadendra has actually had niches before most famously Walling Kyogre and Gen 4 Ubers is Testament to how ridiculously good only being damaged by super effective moves is of course shade ninja is a terrible Pokemon in spite of this as bug ghost means it's got plenty of weaknesses so most teams will naturally have no shortage of moves to hit it super effectively and is also o-code by Stealth Rock spikes toxic spikes toxic leech seed willowist and Sandstorm well hail too but that's at least rare still no matter what it does like equip heavy duty boots for hazards in gen 8 should ninja is always going to have a million ways to bypass its insane ability it also doesn't help that it is very slow and not particularly powerful either so it's not exactly pressuring the opponent in return [Music] zoroark's illusion is an ability so powerful it brought team preview into existence without it the game of Pokemon would become an ontological nightmare you'd almost never know if you're facing the Zoroark right from turn one with Team preview it becomes much more manageable so not to say it can't snow be pulled off the only reason it doesn't tend to work out much is because Zoroark is not a very impressive Pokemon in its own right the fact Zoroark has ever had any Niche at all is because of the Absurd possibilities offered by pretending to be another Pokemon [Music] in generation 5 Superior was a good and new Pokemon but nothing more than that it's terrific speed and interesting support move pull alongside deceptively solid natural ball wasn't nearly enough to compensate for his lackluster special attack in Generation 6 however it received the ability that changed everything for it contrary reverses every would-be stat change if a contrary Pokemon gets intimidated instead of -1 attack against plus one attack if a contrary Pokemon uses combine it actually drops its special attack and defense by one instead of boosting them what this meant for Superior in particular is that it could now freely unleash its strongest move leaf storm and instead of the usual harsh special attack drop of two stages it would gain plus two special attack instead basically its strongest move also turned into nasty plot plus being able to launch such a high base power move to help compensate for superiors initially low special attack against the many water types that threatened and after just that one boost it became utterly terrifying possessing the brutal capacity to snowball out of control incredible quickly as a plus two leaf storm hit incredibly hard and would bring Superior to plus four in the process making Superior even nastier to deal with was its aforementioned support mufo it especially love paralyzing his checks with glare and had all sorts of other useful tools like knock off taunt leash seed and ingen 7 default however it was all thanks to contrary which allowed Superior to basically have a grass type combination of nasty plot and Draco meteor becoming one of the most freely spammable and dangerous attacks around as a bonus contrary even allowed Superior to punish opposing the fog since the move ordinarily drops the opponent's Invasion but against click to move at your own Peril the last thing you want to do is to start missing accurate moves on a Pokemon that needs only one turn to run away with the entire game now contrary won't automatically fix all of the Pokemon's issues but it sure helps for example Spinda is going to be terrible almost no matter what and charcoal isn't going to get much use out of it but Malamar and laurentis have etched out solid places for themselves in the lower tiers with the ability using it to turn super power from a strong move lacking in flammability through its attack and defense dropping into basically gaining a ball cup with each use they also love being physical attackers who actually welcome being intimidated overall though contrary is by and large the superior show foreign abilities that strengthen their users tend to be responsible for some of the most vicious Pokemon around and there is no shortage of them from sheer force Landorus to download Genesect to adaptability crawdon to many others so we'll focus on two examples the most extreme and the most recent the former can be seen in the case of azumero and metuchamp whose access to the attack doubling huge and pure power catapult them from pitifully weak to some of the most monstrous Pokemon around packing attack stats well over 400. even Mega metacham which famously one hit chaos seemingly everything in his path six times over wouldn't be anything impressive without pure power nor would the similarly powerful Mega Mawile for that matter which was so overbearing upon its debut in Generation 6 that it got sent to Ubers with a non-stab sucker punch that out damaged arceus's stab extreme speed if Sucker Punch hadn't had its power nerfed into subsequent generation it's not unlikely Mega Mawile would have been banned again early generation 9 was also characterized by similar abilities which wound up sending Ubers they didn't power themselves up but rather lowered the defensive stats of the opponent which had the identical effect of making their hits incredibly difficult to withstand finally to Circle back to extremity and Overkill galarians are manitan's Guerrilla tactics took an already strong Pokemon and made its power laughably over the top clearly game freak forgot about the balancing factor of Distributing these abilities somewhere down the line and now here's our honorable mention section these are abilities that don't fully make the Pokemon but are very important we take levitate for granted but it really is one of the most astonishingly good abilities in the game as gaining and Immunity to earthquake spikes toxic spikes and sticky web is absurdly good it is basically receiving one of the best traits of flying types without having to take on their weaknesses Pokemon like the ladies and rodent wash wouldn't become unviable or anything of sort if they were to lose levitate especially since they'd probably gain a decent ability to replace it but they'd be very very different both of these Pokemon are ferocious physical attackers with great typing offensively and defensively as well as excellent priority but it's their abilities that really Elevate them to the highest level with defiant providing a plus to attack bonus upon a stat drop Bishop basically gets a free storage dance if the opponent uses the fog and drops this evasion which is an amazing way to punish Hazard removal furthermore it can't be punished by intimidate since it will initially go to minus one attack but it will then get plus two effectively meaning intimidate gives it a plus one attack boost with Supreme Overlord boosting its attack for each of his teammates that's fainted King Gambit creates similar win-win situations insanely strong as they may make their users the downside of choice band inspect is not just that they force a lock of one move but that they can be scouted safely with protect which also tends to allow the protect users to rack up some leftovers recovery with unseen fists or Shifu blast past any use of protect making its already terrifying Choice band set nearly riskless it's a monster of a Pokemon either way but unseen fist really pushes it over the edge thank you field conditions are some of the most defining aspects of competitive Pokemon and while some of them like trick room are quite good they're also hurt by the necessity of manual setup abilities that bring these conditions with them upon entry are thus incredibly useful PS we're still waiting for the trick room ability and the gravity one too competitive Pokemon especially singles is built around switching it's part of what differentiates it from in-game where your opponent will never run away from a bad matchup and just lets themselves get ko'd trappy moves can sometimes work but seeing as the opponent can switch on the turn you use it you can't guarantee you'll get the target you want that's why trapping a billion are so powerful they force that exact situation they enable some of the most terrifying offense around dragon types for example become even more monstrous than they already are when steel types like Skarmory are taken out of the picture by Magnuson and Zone steel killing is a rather tame example considering how wider reach of Arena trap at Shadow tag is so fundamentally overpowered the abilities have been banned in their entirety across multiple Generations ever since Tyranitar and and sand redefined the shape and pace of the OU metagame in gen 3 as did Groudon and Kyogre and Uber's weather-inducing abilities have been an enormous part of the competitive landscape even when their effects ceased to be permanent in Generation 6 they continue to be incredibly important weather is so powerful that many Pokemon and teams are willing to take a turn to set it up manually but when you have the option to do so automatically just by switching in that makes things much easier whether it's supporting teammates all a Politoed or using the weather for its own benefits all a mega Charizard Y or a mix of both a la Tyranitar weather is so effective even generally less valuable Pokemon like nine tails will find a niche if they can set it up psychic surge electric surge grassy surge Misty search terrains actually existed as far back as Generation 6 but they could only be summoned manually which made using them awkward as they weren't quite impactful enough to Warrant a move slot and a turn of use well unless you were into gimmicky's xerneaset one of the top who's unleash them in gen 7 though they changed the entire game providing some of the best team support around obviously it helps out the tapus are amazing Pokemon but even weaker Pokemon like in DDF and pinchurchin have found legitimate niches for their terrain setting capabilities in conclusion abilities are among the most defining forces in competitive Pokemon they are so strong they can often shape the entirety of a Pokemon's Niche but once mentioned in this video are the standouts but consider how even Elite Pokemon that aren't defined fully by their ability still rely on it heavily just imagine if heat ran lost flash fire or ferrothorne lost iron barbs whenever something is Elite especially to the point of being suspect or bandworthy odds are its ability plays at least some role in it even magina's soul heart makes it more difficult to answer for example but Above All Else remember an ability is what led to beat of sweeping teams and Ubers and to Regigigas King of the mighty Golems not doing a single thing and being well terrible in singles anyways did you see what happened in VGC when they paired it with a Pokemon that could remove its stupid ability it instantly saw use thanks for watching everyone and as always if you liked the video and you want to see more be sure to subscribe to full swipe gaming for more weekly Pokemon content and in the comments I want to know what you think about our list were there any abilities you thought we should talked about whatever it is let me know in the comments also thank you so much to our patrons for continuing support of our videos and thank you to everyone else watching as well foreign follow my crew on these social media platforms and that's all I got see you next time everyone

Channel: False Swipe Gaming

Views: 549,845

Keywords: Pokemon, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Red, Pokemon Blue, Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Gold, Pokemon Silver, Pokemon Crystal, Pokemon Ruby, Pokemon Sapphire, Pokemon Emerald, Pokemon Diamond, Pokemon Pearl, Pokemon Platinum, Pokemon Black, Pokemon White, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, Pokemon Ultra Sun, Pokemon Ultra Moon, Pokemon Sword, Pokemon Shield, Competitive Pokemon, Smogon, VGC, False Swipe Gaming, Pokemon Scarlet, Regigigas, Slaking, Pokemon Violet

Id: rAmLSmYwuH4

Length: 20min 40sec (1240 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023