If you could make your own ability...

[doombotmecha]

Baffle: basically the Special intimidate suggested earlier. held by strange pokemon like elgyem and stunfisk

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

Extra Blubber: This Pokémon's special defense stat is doubled. (Probably Seel only)

What about Wailord?

[mde2001]

Miracle guard- any 4x weaknesses are changed to resistances (this would be kind of broken- especially on gastrodon)

Firm Mind- immune to confusion and infatuation

[zimvader42]

Hypnotic - if the foe uses a contact move on this pokemon, there's a 20% chance of it getting confused, and a 10% chance of it falling asleep. A "worsened" version of effect spore, in a way. For mons like malamar, hypno, spinda.... if they could have more than 3 abilities.

Pride - if the user is statused, its special attack is boosted by 50%. The special counterpart to Guts. I thought a mon that uses special powers would be prideful enough to convince itself into being stronger after the shameful fact the enemy got to burn or poison you in battle. Dunno, something like that. There's also a special version of marvel scale but dunno what to call it yet. It has to start by the letter P or Q, tho. Just because.

Light Guard - if the foe uses a special attack on this pokemon, it receives damage, much like iron barbs but for special moves. A pokemon who got this ability would be intended to have bad physical defense so that it would be possible to take it by the physical side to prevent the ability's damage.

Swordmaster - powers up cut, blade and slash moves (psycho cut, leaf blade, air slash, etc.) by 50%, much like technician does for moves under 60 bp.

Stamina - eliminates recharge turn of moves like hyper beam, rock wrecker, roar of time, etc.. Has no effect on moves like fly or dive however, that's a different kind of move entirely. Intended to be given to a normal type with access to hyper beam and giga impact, so that it can use those powerful moves without recharge, but without being broken, as is still normal type, not super effective on anything, and can't hit ghosts.

Solar charge - the pokémon gradually recovers HP in sunlight.

Etc.

[Raviel the Phantom]

Renewal: Regains 1/20th of their Maximum Health at the end of each turn (Built in Leftovers)

Grand Entrance: Immune to all entry hazards.

Great Mind: Doubles Special Attack stat

[SonOfRed]

anxious: moves that require 2 turns now require one (this could also mean recharge if it's not too OP)

[NickCrash]

how would that work against Skill-Link Pokemon?

Minimalist: multi-hit moves only hit once

Skill-Link: Multi-hit moves always hit maximum number of times...

what would take priority? (priority based on the pokemons speed? based on 'when it was swapped in'?)

Would Mega-Heracross attack five times with Rockblast or just once, against a Minimalist?

I suppose in this case the maximum number of times becomes: ONE.

edit0: --- Skepticist: Halves damage taken from Dragon and Fairy moves.

edit1: --- Dragonborn: Increase Crit chance by one stage when hit by a Water,Fire,Grass,Electric move

[Deleted User]

Diamond Plated: Halves Damage taken from Rock and Steel moves.

[laggless01]

I think Palkia should get an ability around its ability to distort space. Something like, being able to choose to: a) attack or b ) "switch around positions", with that I mean moves that were targeted to a mon get targeted to the "new mon on this position". (you can drop the choice idea if you want, and make it happen both). Giving Dialga something that inverts all priorities (inversing Prankster, Gale Wings etc...) would be fun, too.

Other interesting abilities imo:

Fair Play - User's offensive stats change depending on the situation. (If you have less mons left than the opponent, your Atk, SpA and Spe double. If the opposite, they halve. If equal, status (PAR, FRZ...) and boosts of the current mons determine the stat. If everything levels, your stats don't change.)

Cheat - Moves by the user gain a random additional effect (status, (harsh?) stat drop. The effect always has to be able to be applied).

Insanity - Moves randomly change in power between 0.5x-5x their strength, but the holder takes 'life-orb'-damage every turn.

Iron Will - Confusion and Infatuation (Maybe flinch too) have no effect. (Would be cool on an Empoleon, I think.) (If flinch too, make Inner Focus so that those mons always hit Focus Punch...)

Refraction - "Light"-moves aimed on this pokemon do no damage, and decrease the accuracy of the attacker by one stage (like Flash). (It's a variant of what I've read in this thread.) Is also immune to the effect of other mons' Refraction.

Spare Charger - Moves with "recharge" become moves with "charge-up". (Poor name, I know.)

Exhaustor - Launches "charge-up" moves in one turn, but has to recharge the next turn. (the opposite of above)

[IntSys]

Dark Horse - User's stats get multiplied based on how late in the battle it's sent out. Formula: Multiplier = 1 + (TurnCount/80). Note that the Turn Count stops accumulating once the Pokemon's sent out.

Desperate - User's moves gain a 1.5x Boost if they're low on PP. (Low as in the PP counter becomes yellow)

Fatigue - User's Attack and Special Attack stats get halved after using a move with BP of 95 or higher.

Suppressor - User only loses half of its Max HP after using Self-Destruct or Explosion, but the moves only have 0.75x their original BP.

Communism - All HP Recoveries on the field (Including move and item recoveries) are divided evenly to both sides.

Advantageous - Moves double in power against opponents under 50% HP. Stacks with Brine's boost.

Piercing Blow - Critical hit against opponents behind Substitutes, Reflect, Light Screen and Barrier.

Determination - User gets 2x Boosts on all stats when all moves have 0 PP.

[Deleted User]

Fair Play - User's offensive stats change depending on the situation. (If you have less mons left than the opponent, your Atk, SpA and Spe double. If the opposite, they halve. If equal, status (PAR, FRZ...) and boosts of the current mons determine the stat. If everything levels, your stats don't change.)

Cheat - Moves by the user gain a random additional effect (status, (harsh?) stat drop. The effect always has to be able to be applied).

Insanity - Moves randomly change in power between 0.5x-5x their strength, but the holder takes 'life-orb'-damage every turn.

Dark Horse - User's stats get multiplied based on how late in the battle it's sent out. Formula: Multiplier = 1 + (TurnCount/80). Note that the Turn Count stops accumulating once the Pokemon's sent out.

Desperate - User's moves gain a 1.5x Boost if they're low on PP. (Low as in the PP counter becomes yellow)

Piercing Blow - Critical hit against opponents behind Substitutes, Reflect, Light Screen and Barrier. *****

All of these are incredibly OP.

**** Piercing Blow: Does this mean it hit through substitute?

[IntSys]

Piercing Blow: Yeah. I guess it's kinda OP. Maybe I should make it so it only works if it's a Super Effective hit.

Desperate: Well, it isn't that OP as low PP moves often have below average accuracy to work with. And, unless the user's a tank, it's unlikely for it to run low on PP.

Dark Horse: The Pokemon that gets this ability probably has to have low stats for this to be fair enough.

[Ironbound]

How about some less powerful abilities? They're still useful, in their own way...

Sand Body: sort of a mix of Ice Body and Dry Skin. Grants immunity to Rock type attacks, which instead Heal 25% of health, and consequently also immune to SR damage. Heals HP each turn in Sand, loses HP in Rain and Hail (not in Sun, though, that makes no sense) and increases weakness to Water moves.

Trembler: lowers attack when hit by a Dark move, but raises Speed by two stages. Reverse Justified, in a way, and also similar to Rattled, but still a bit different.

Bipolar: Doubles special attack if a Pokemon with Plus is present anywhere on the field, and halves it if one with Minus is present.

[Ice Cream Sand Witch]

Weird Dreams: A Pokemon will become confused if it uses Dream Eater on this Pokemon. May also extend to immunity from Nightmare and Darkrai's ability

[Alex]

Clean Slate: If this Pokémon is KO'd, at the end of the turn all stat boosts and drops on the field will be cleared. Note: Activates after Moxie but before Speed Boost and Moody.

Irresistible: Attract and Captivate will always work if used by this Pokémon. Opponents with Rivalry will have the negative effect regardless of gender.

High Density: Causes the Gravity field effect to activate upon a successful switch in.

Mystic Veil: As long as this Pokémon is on the field, passive damage is halved for allies.

[zimvader42]

Willpower - doubles the pokémon's special attack. A special counterpart of huge power/pure power. Pretty standard.

Overwrite - status conditions can be replaced. Basically, a mon with this ability is able to burn a pokemon that is poisoned, replacing the poison status by the burn status. In case someone wonders, no, this is not "the mon gets both poisoned and burned at the same time"; the target goes from being poisoned to burned. Overwrite only affects status moves that inflict status conditions (w-o-w, thunder wave, glare, poison gas, toxic, etc.), but has no effect on attacking moves that cause a status condition as a secondary effect. Also, it will not allow to put a status condition over a target that is naturally immune to it (i.e. you cannot thunderwave a poisoned electric type).

Although it can do all that, the ability's main intention is to put huge pressure over tanky mons that rely on rest, since this allows to overwrite their sleep status with, say, poison.

Quartz Guard - boosts SpD of a pokémon suffering a status condition. The ability I wanted to start by Q the other day lol, and special counterpart of marvel scale. Basically, SpD goes up by 50% under status. Intented for a rock type.

Gunslinger - 50% boost to ball and bomb moves. I was kinda sad that mega launcher only boosted pulse moves, so made this. Ball and bomb moves are the moves the ability bulletproof protects against, so I thought, hey! let's make the opposite of that! The spoiler contains ALL the moves considered ball and bomb by bulbapedia:

Acid Spray, Aura Sphere, Barrage, Bullet Seed, Egg Bomb, Electro Ball, Energy Ball, Focus Blast, Gyro Ball, Ice Ball, Magnet Bomb, Mist Ball, Mud Bomb, Octazooka, Rock Wrecker, Searing Shot, Seed Bomb, Shadow Ball, Sludge Bomb, Weather Ball and Zap Canon.

Intended for a mon obviously related to guns in some way, that would get some but not all of these moves.

Wind Vane - boosts speed when hit by a flying-type move. A signature ability for a mon of mine based on a dandelion. Basically it makes the user immune to flying type moves and boosts speed when hit by one. Like motor drive.

etc.

[laggless01]

All of these are incredibly OP.

Well, not really.

Fair Play would really suck when roaming the overworld, because how many times do you have less mons than the opponent? It only gives an advantage when you're getting a beating (and adjusts if the situation changes in your favour).

Cheat was something I wanted on a frailer, fast mon. That way, you kinda need to rely on those added effects more.

Insanity needed something extra, indeed. I should've added that the target of its attacks is random each turn (making its capabilities restricted to singles). And having an Overheat hitting half damage, life orb-like damage and cutting your stats at the same time would really suck, for example. The delta might need a little work to make it more balanced, but the entire point of it is that you should be terrified of a possible massive hit out of nowhere...But the mon takes 10% damage every turn no matter what to balance it out...

A Desperate Trump Card, though...that could get ugly. Maybe combined with a slightly higher chance to miss at that point, it could be balanced...but moves that get that low in battle indeed have low pp and imperfect accuracy already, so that would mean 4 harder hits have a chance to occur (for an 80% hit chance) 41% of the time, if you live that long...

[SonOfRed]

This one requires changing how attract works in double battles but here we go.

Passion: Attack is doubled when attracted to the teammate adjacent to it.

[Ironbound]

I remember how Sand Veil and Snow Cloak were outlawed in DPPt OU...why not have an equivalent for other weather too?

Vapour Cloud: Boosts evasion in Rain and Heavy Rain by 25%.

Heat Haze: Boosts evasion in Sun and Intense Sun by 25%.

[NickCrash]

I remember how Sand Veil and Snow Cloak were outlawed in DPPt OU... why not have an equivalent for other weather too?

Vapour Cloud: Boosts evasion in Rain and Heavy Rain by 25%.

Heat Haze: Boosts evasion in Sun and Intense Sun by 25%.

They are still banned. No evasion abilities are allowed in any tier bar ubers.

[Ironbound]

Really? I think Sand Veil and Snow Cloak are allowed in OU now, since weather abuse is restricted to only 8 turns max, and there are a lot of priority mons and fast mons in general. The days of SubSalac Veilchomp's viability are long gone.

I just tried to validate a Sand Veil Garchomp for OU on Showdown, and it allowed it, any I don't recall the mention of them being re-banned. In fact, I remember Smogon unbanning them on grounds of no-longer-borked-ness. In any case, if they are banned, it just goes to show that I never used that strategy in all these years after the DPPt ban, so I have no clue about them.

[NickCrash]

At no point were evasion-boosting abilities allowed. The teambuilder does not forbid the making of the team. If you were still allowed to play, perhaps the tier was automatically set to Ubers or it was a Custom game. Evasion has nothing to do with speed, even if a pokemon receives stack benefit if it has both. Imagine how absurd the metagame would be if any team had a minimize muk with black sludge. Rage, hate and more rage.

As far as campaign is concerned, it is true that some weather archetypes are more equal than others (hehe...).

[Ironbound]

Well, I stand corrected, then. Even though I distinctly set Sand Veil Garchomp to 'Validate for OU' and PS allowed me. I suppose it hardly matters since I agree with you about the worthlessness of that strategy, and even were it allowed, and even if I was the type of person to continue using that stuff, I wouldn't see a point in using it in temp weather.

However, the premise of inventing abilities still holds, I think. Let's have more ideas:

Sacred Light: Allows Psychic attacks and moves to hit Dark types.

Cursed Bite: Allows Poison attacks and moves (including Toxic) to hit Steel types.

I suppose these could be signature abilities for some kind of mythical or legendary Pokemon. But there ought to be a way for Poison and Electric types to hit Steel and Ground types, respectively, as at least Miracle Eye exists for Psychic types.

All the physicists out there, tell me a scientific way to justify a move or an ability that enables electric moves to hit ground types!

Edited April 5, 2016 by Viridescent

[laggless01]

I suppose these could be signature abilities for some kind of mythical or legendary Pokemon. But there ought to be a way for Poison and Electric types to hit Steel and Ground types, respectively, as at least Miracle Eye exists for Psychic types.

All the physicists out there, tell me a scientific way to justify a move or an ability that enables electric moves to hit ground types!

About poison hitting steel, that probably works better in a move. I think acid-based ones (like Acid spray) should hit super effectively imo. But that's for another thread...

Can not justify the electric argument, man. I know that lightning metamorphs some of the ground it hits in a tree-like fashion (due to the heat generated), but it isn't strong enough to base an hitting-ability on it, at least to how damaging the lightning itself is.

Other ideas for an ability:

Mach Monster - Priority attacks create sonic booms (a second flying-type hit at the same time).

Twister - Dance-moves are strengthened, but twice in a row causes confusion. (e.g. Petal dance always confuses after two turns, but if not by fatigue, and a berry cured it, the move goes on with its effect)

Resonance - strengthens other mon's Sound-based moves (Imagine an Exploud's Boomburst next to such a mon, but taking one from an opposing Exploud while having that ability...ouch.)

Vengeful - increases offense after taking a super-effective hit (+1 Atk and SpA)

Overfocus - Increases accuracy drastically, but targets only one mon/place (decide which would be better)

[Cepheus]

I've made a 'primal' Hail weather with Ice Age - now it's Sandstorms turn to get a primal version!

Dust Devil

Creates a local heavy sandstorm.

Same properties as a normal Sandstorm

(1/16 HP damage to non Ground, Rock and Steel types, Sp.Def x1.5 for Rock-Types, Weatherball becomes Rock-type, Weather-Recovery moves only heal by 1/4, Sand-ability users are immune to the damage)

In addition to those effects, Dust Devil passively reduces the accuracy of all non- Rock, Ground and Steel types by one stage while it is active (reverts to normal when it is lifted)

Dust Devil grants a x1.5 boost to Ground type Attacks and the x1.5 boost to SP.Def also applies to Steel-types.

Dust Devil also grants a x1.5 boost to Speed for all Ground, Rock and Steel types (like a passive, less effective Sand Rush [since there are only 6 Pokemon in total that actually have Sand Rush])

Dust Devil reduces the the strength of Grass, Fire and Water moves by x0.5.

Dust Devil cannot be lifted with another weather move or an inferior weather ability - it stays in effect as long as the Pokemon using it is in battle.

Dust Devil is lifted once the using Pokemon is returned, defeated, canceled by the use of another primal-weather, or the ability of the using Pokemon is overwritten (e.g. through the use of Entrainment)

Dust Devil cannot be negated by Mold Breaker, however the effects are negated if a Pokemon with Air Lock or Cloud Nine is active in Battle - the weather however stays active and the effects will resume once this Pokemon leaves the battle

Possible users:

Primal Registeel

Primal Regirock

Mega Nidoking/Nidoqueen

Mega Flygon