Pokémon Abilities That Are Strictly Better Than Others!

Abilities before: user cannot be burned Abilities now: user cannot be burned and moves with burn chance give +2 to attack and sets up sunny day while also automatic burning the attacker back.

If Water Bubble gets ignored (for example by Mold Breaker), and the wielder gets burned, Water Bubble will cure the burn. It also heals burn when a pokémon gains this ability by Skill Swap, Entrainment etc.

Water bubble also has the effect of Heatproof which is to halve fire type damage

Iron Fist seemed so cool when it first existed, and it just sounds a lot cooler than Tough Claws. Then you realize that there are only a handful (haha) of punching moves, whereas there are about half a billion contact moves. So clearly Iron Fist must have a way bigger boost if it works on way less moves right...? Right??

Mind's Eye also has the effect of the ability Scrappy.

Poison Heal is strictly better than Immunity because it turns Poison into a beneficial status condition that heals you. You could technically make the case that you might rather have Immunity because if you're badly poisoned with Poison Heal and you lose Poison Heal from something like Entrainment or Skill Swap, you'll take whatever poison damage you would have taken from being badly poisoned if you didn't have Poison Heal, which would likely be a lot if you've been stalling with the Poison Heal healing for a long time.

I wouldn’t really consider that air lock and cloud nine are worse than terraform zero, not because of the idea that terrain can be useful (in fact let’s assume that you do want to remove terrain AND weather at the same time) but rather because terraform zero can only be activated once per match similar to supersweet syrup.

Poisoning the opponent is better than badly poisoning them if they only stay on the field for 1 or 2 turns, so one could day that toxic chain is better than poison touch, but not strictly better

small additions for fun's sake: 2:06 Comatose is also a strict upgrade from those as it does the same thing as Purifying Salt, but instead of halving Ghost Typr damage allows you to freely use Sleep Talk at will. 6:14 Might as well add Scrappy to that list because that's what Mind's Eye is combining for abilities.

There's a minor issue with Steelworker and Steely Spirit. Steelworker increases the relevant attacking stat by 50% when a Steel move is used. Steely Spirit affects move power. There is precisely one minor effect this has- rounding. Since Steelworker multiplies the stat, not the power, rounding in damage calculations occurs in different situations than Steely Spirit. It's a minor difference, but it's not 100% strictly better. It's like, 99.99% strictly better. I only bring this up to share trivia, though. I don't think this is gonna make much of a difference. And if it does, we probably wouldn't be able to tell.

Iron fist actually needs a buff to 1.5

I think Early Bird is worth a mention. It reduces the number of turns a Pokemon sleeps, instead of outright preventing it from falling asleep

Heatproof is nearly a subset of Thick Fat (it also halves burn damage) Heatproof is a subset of Water Bubble Magnet Pull is a subset of Shadow Tag (unless it's a steel type tera Shadow Tag user) (outside of battle it is different) Arena Trap is nearly a subset of Shadow Tag (only difference being the fact it can trap Shadow Tag users) As One is the superset of either Chilling Neigh or Grim Neigh, along with Unnerve Fur Coat is the superset of Marvel Scale and Grass Pelt Mycelial Might is a worse Mold Breaker and its clones Immunity is a subset of Pastel Veil Suction Cups is a subset of Guard Dog Water Veil is a subset of Thermal Exchange There are more that are subsets, but not for all game modes (e.g. Cotton Down)

Technically toxic boost could be worse than guts on a special attacker because guts boosts attack and toxic boost increases bp of moves, other than that this was an amazing video :)

5:32 it only deletes the weather and terrain. U can reset it after and if u switch out it doesn’t activate again

I'm surprised no one mentions Mirror Armor being better than both Clear Body and White Smoke, which bounces off stat drops to the opponent, effectively preventing stat drops + dropping your opponent's stat

Im surprised you didn't mention Thermal Exchange, which is just an upgrade to water veil.

Interestingly, where others may see abilities that obsolete other abilities, I see a means to balance Pokémon somewhat. Speed Boost and Steadfast are the perfect example. Speed Boost is an absolutely busted ability. It's why, for a time, the only Pokémon that got it were Yanma and Ninjask, rather low-tier bug Pokémon. That only changed with the introduction of hidden abilities, where it ended up on better Pokémon (looking at you, Blaziken). Meanwhile, Steadfast is introduced as an ability for the much stronger Lucario, giving it a speed-boosting ability without giving it a speed boost every turn. Also, if you want to be technical, Poison Heal is a sort-of upgrade to Immunity. Immunity makes it so that you can't get poisoned. Poison Heal means that you heal instead of take damage when poisoned, and being poisoned means you can't be affected by other statuses. The only reason I call it a sort-of upgrade and not a strict upgrade is that if the ability is removed and you are poisoned to heal then you are now actually getting poisoned.

Insomnia and vital spirit Pokémon will make up immediately if put to sleep by a mold breaker mon or mycelium might, which means it has one very small niche over purifying salt.

Very nice analysis video! Thanks for uploading!