Game Freak gets rid of abilities in Gen 7

[MonsterMon64]

Hypothetically speaking, of course. Will Slaking and Regigigas finally live up to their names? Are Mega Evolutions more redundant than before? Does your bro rise higher as a result, or slide lower? Discuss, if you'd like.

[froggy25]

If they were to get rid of Abilities, they'd nerf Regigigas / Slaking.

And more importantly that would be removing one of the most interesting aspects of the game, so I highly doubt they'd remove Abilities anytime soon.

[Richard and Blaziken]

Aye, in agreement with the above poster that removing abilities would be a horrible decision. Abilities can often make or break a Pokemon, and occasionally are more important than the Pokemon itself (looking at you, Politoed).

[MonsterMon64]

Aye, in agreement with the above poster that removing abilities would be a horrible decision. Abilities can often make or break a Pokemon, and occasionally are more important than the Pokemon itself (looking at you, Politoed).

This is actually what spurred me to make this topic. I thought to myself, "How many Pokemon are only good and/or used for their ability?" Can you really call it a good Pokemon if the ability is all it has for it? Get rid of a Pokemon's ability, and what makes or breaks it is is its stats, typing, and movepool. Talonflame and Greninja don't strike me as things people would use (as) much if they didn't have Gale Wings and Protean, respectively.

As for the point of this topic, I was just toying with the idea of what would happen if Game Freak really did decide to remove abilities altogether--and I agree, it's a pretty bad idea, especially considering how many Pokemon are built around their ability (Aegislash, to name one noteworthy 'mon) Just the same, I was hoping someone would humor me on the subject.

[Richard and Blaziken]

You just need to look back to the first 2 generations, especially generation 2. The Pokemon were built specifically on stats and the best Pokemon were based on their stats and typing... which led to a generation where defensive Pokemon ruled the metagame. Games would last hundreds of turns, and no one had any fun.

As for whether or not a Pokemon with a good ability is a good Pokemon... that's up for debate, I'd think, and varies on a case-by-case basis. It would be an interesting metagame, for sure.

[Delicious_Scout]

You just need to look back to the first 2 generations, especially generation 2. The Pokemon were built specifically on stats and the best Pokemon were based on their stats and typing... which led to a generation where defensive Pokemon ruled the metagame. Games would last hundreds of turns, and no one had any fun.

As for whether or not a Pokemon with a good ability is a good Pokemon... that's up for debate, I'd think, and varies on a case-by-case basis. It would be an interesting metagame, for sure.

Curse you, Richard! (Get it?)

You are only removing one parameter of this Regression Equation. Still, we have to deal with exclusive moves, items, hazards and Übers.


...

To whom I am trying to fool? I just want Archeops to be overkill. And... *laughs* start again with Infernape vs. Blaziken.

*waits for the rant*

[the bread dragon]

a metagame with no abilities would be so cool actually lol
would rid us of the talonflames >:D

[froggy25]

which led to a generation where defensive Pokemon ruled the metagame. Games would last hundreds of turns, and no one had any fun.

Actually, gen II can be an aggressive metagame when a skilled player use a offensive team (BDLax, Marowak, Growth Vaporeon, Explosion users...)

[Richard and Blaziken]

While I don't discount that, generally these Pokemon get beaten by the defensive Pokemon of the tier. Skarmory doesn't care about Marowak, Toxic Roar Suicune cripples Vaporeon and forces it to lose the Growth boosts, while Raikou can threaten a 2HKO with Thunderbolt and Rest off the damage. BDLax is the only one I'll legitimately give you - Skarmory can put an emergency stop to it, but only if Snorlax has Lovely Kissed something else on the team.

Gen 2 can be an aggressive metagame... but usually only if the defensive player is making bad choices. Defense almost always comes out on top of attacking because there aren't enough good attackers in GSC. It has the absolute worst metagame of any generation in my opinion, and I doubt anything could convince me otherwise.

[froggy25]

Nope nope nope. I have played GSC for a while and I can tell you that it is simply not the case.

There's a very interesting read by borat that can be found here :
https://www.smogon.com/gs/articles/gsc_guide_part1

[Richard and Blaziken]

While I have read that article once long ago, and it is fantastic, stall teams still tend to win from what I've seen. I will say this though: I haven't watched or played a ton of competitive GSC because I am not a masochist, and I just don't find it to be fun.

I'm probably wrong about offense existing in GSC and being a viable option, so I'll retract my statement on it not being an option, but GSC's metagame is still dominated by stall (dominant as in, that is the most common thing you'll be facing). I'm not going to say any more than that because I'd be talking about what I've read, since I don't have any interest in playing the GSC metagame.

...Sorry Paul, I think we hijacked your topic, so I'm gonna stop now since I've said my piece. xD

[MonsterMon64]

No worries, I got something interesting out of the derail =P Though I guess it does raise the question: given all the new Pokemon and moves since Gen II, how viable would other strategies be? Would some moves previously useless have some use, be it to buff stall or enhance offensive teams? I know there are quite a few new field moves I haven't really kept up with in Gen 6 alone, not sure how much of a difference those'd make though.

Also, there were no Double/Triple/Rotation battles in the first two games, so I wonder how people would have to build around the lack of abilities in those cases. No Levitate makes a lot of Pokemon Earthquake bait, heh.

[Spriter]

Considering all the new stuff, it would certainly not become a Gen 2 again. Too many offensive monsters for that, if I'm honest.

[SaRo|Rapidash]

....I'd feel sorry for Shedinja xD

But tbh, there's no reason it would go to stall without abilities, in fact I'd say the opposite. Some of the best walls NEED their ability to even be considered (Gliscor, for example) and many more love their ability (Blissey, Landorus, Mega Venusaur). I know the same could be said for offensive mon, but there's still a fair few powerhouses that don't need their ability (Hydreigon wouldn't care that much, nor would Conkeldurr particularly (yeah, guts is nice, but not essential to the AV set))

Although, if you wanted to know what it'd be like, I believe showdowns custom battles allow you to have no abilities, so it would be possible to battle someone using that to see how it'd end up.