Ability Bridge

[Level 51]

Approved by Arcticblast (POGS FTW)

Ability Bridge
feel free to suggest a better name!

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In a similar vein to most of The_Eevee_General's metagames, Ability Bridge is another custom metagame where not a lot has changed. Despite its name, abilities remain the same, as do typings... the only thing that changes is moves, and according to a single simple rule:

As long as a Pokemon runs a certain ability, it can use all moves known by all other Pokemon capable of running the same ability.

Specific rules:

• Pokemon may only carry moves from one ability, and only if they run that ability.

For example, you can have a Sharpedo with Outrage (Rough Skin, Garchomp), as long as its ability is Rough Skin, or a Sharpedo with Hi Jump Kick (Speed Boost, Blaziken) if it runs Speed Boost. You cannot have a Speed Boost Sharpedo with Outrage.

• Pressure and Shadow Tag cannot be used as "Bridges". News: Levitate is also banned from bridging.

For example, you cannot have a Wobbuffet with Trick or Reflect by virtue of Gothitelle's moveset.

• Smeargle's moveset consists only of Sketch, Captivate, Sleep Talk, Spore, False Swipe, Odor Sleuth, and Mean Look.

No Gear Grind Scizor.

• Unreleased abilities cannot be used as bridges on either side.

For example, Volcarona does not get any of Heatran's moves even though they both have Flame Body (it's unreleased on Heatran though!).

• You do not need the corresponding Pokemon on your team in order to use the moves from that Pokemon.

For example, you do not need a Cinccino on your team in order to give your Cloyster Bullet Seed.

• Previously illegal move combinations remain illegal unless one (or more) incompatible move(s) become(s) available through Ability Bridges.

For example, Iron Fist Infernape can now run Focus Punch (idk why you'd do that anyway) thanks to Conkeldurr; however, Heatran still has to be Quiet in order to run Eruption (Typhlosion also gets it, but Flash Fire is unreleased on Typhlosion).

• Moves from banned Pokemon are allowed.

For example, Politoed can get Water Spout and Thunder from Kyogre.

• You cannot bridge from pre-evolutions; however, you can have moves from them

For example, you cannot have a Thunderbolt Breloom (Quick Feet Jolteon/Shroomish), but you can have one with Spore.

Interesting new moves

Speed Boost Sharpedo: Hi Jump Kick, Flare Blitz, ThunderPunch (Blaziken), U-turn, Double Edge (Yanmega)...
Technician Scizor: Spore (Breloom), Bulldoze, Earthquake (Hitmontop), Wake-Up Slap (Cinccino)...
Own Tempo Lilligant: Spore (Smeargle), Psychic, Surf, Ice Beam, Fire Blast, Nasty Plot (Slowking)...
Guts Ursaring: Fake Out (Hariyama), Megahorn (Heracross), Sucker Punch (Raticate)...
zzz I'm really unimaginative and I can't think of any more...

 

[Spinda]

Erm.. Dragon Dance Landorus-T? ( Salamence/Gyarados )
Spore Gliscor? ( Breloom )
Nasty Plot Jolteon? ( Thundurus-T )
Nasty Plot + Rock Polish Keldeo? ( Lucario and Terrakion )
Lovely Kiss Toxicroak? ( Jynx )
Rapid Spin Skarmory? ( Forretress )
Water Spout Politoed? ( Kyogre )
Focus Blast Latios? ( Gengar )

Am I having the right idea with this?

 

[Lasagne]

...
Lovely Kiss Toxicroak? ( Jynx )
...

might as well steal spore from parasect instead

 

[Sewa]

SD/CC/E-speed/Flare Blitz Terrakion?

Slack Off Amoonguss makes it even more annoying now.

Forretress gets Roost now.

Gyarados has DD/Waterfall/Close Combat/Brave Bird... and the same for Landorus-T.

Cresselia and Rotom formes get Roost too.

Scald/Roost/Heal Bell/Filler Cresselia seems scary.

Are moves belonging to Uber Pokèmon allowed?
For example, are Thunder Politoed (from Kyogre) and Sacred Fire Mienshao (from Ho-Oh) allowed? Crap, I'm an idiot >_>

 

[TalkTakesTime]

A couple of interesting things here.

• Weather sweepers gain a few nice boosts, such as Quiver Dance/Weather Ball on all Chlorophyll mons (Lilligant/Victreebel respectively), and SD and/or Rapid Spin Stoutland (Sandslash).
• Chandelure gets Shell Smash if using Flame Body (Magcargo)! It also could get Quiver Dance.
• Nasty Plot Latios (Mismagius)
• Recover (or Roost)/Will-o/Foul Play Cresselia
• Ice Beam Thundurus-T is a lot better than HP Ice (Lanturn)
• Rotom formes all get reliable recovery with Roost or Recover from Lati@s
• Jirachi gets a few interesting moves, such as Roost/Aura Sphere/Nasty Plot (Togekiss), Close Combat (Meloetta), Seed Flare/Earth Power (Shaymin-S), Ice Beam/Heal Bell (Chansey/Blissey) etc
• Shell Smash Cincinno (Cloyster). I imagine it's too fragile to set up though
• Coil/Roost Gyarados (Arbok/Salamence respectively). Also gets Extremespeed and Flare Blitz from Intimidate as well !_! Dunno how well it'd abuse the acc boost from Coil (lolthunder)
• Roost and (T)Spikes Landorus-T (Salamence/Qwilfish)
• Secret Sword or Aura Sphere Virizion (Keldeo/Lucario)

That'll do for the moment in terms of ideas, but I'll have a further look at some point in the near future

 

[Mr Omgness]

Interesting setup options:

Shell Smash: Sawk, Kabutops, Vaporeon, Accelgor, Floatzel, Chandelure, Volcarona, Magmortar, Ludicolo, Kingdra, Magnezone

Quiver Dance: Galvantula, Yanmega, Sigilyph, Slowbro/Slowking (no Regenerator though), Arcanine, Salamence, Tyranitar, Houndoom, Chandelure,

Chloromobbers are best off running Growth anyway to boost up fast so I dont think QD is as good for them, they dont really need the Speed boost anyway.

Tail Glow: Accelgor, Vaporeon, Tornadus, Starmie

Shift Gear: Metagross, Regirock

Dragon Dance: Sawk, Pinsir, Aerodactyl, Darmanitan, Braviary, Kingler, Nidoking, Landorus, Landorus-T, Infernape, Crobat, Lucario, Mienshao, Samurott, Arcanine, Krookodile, Staraptor, Stoutland, Tauros, Heracross, Kabutops, Floatzel, Cacturne, Flareon, Azelf, Eelektross, Flygon

Same story for Chloromobbers as with Quiver Dance.

Guts DD Heracross, yiss!

Also, imo it's better to just ignore Smeargle for this meta.

 

[Arcticblast]

Rapid Spin Celebi and Shell Smash Volcarona. Where is your god now?

Perhaps Levitate ought to be barred from bridging as well - it's really common and really dangerous in the hands of Lati@s. Stealth Rock, Earth Power, U-turn, Fire Blast, Volt Switch, Will-o-Wisp... Hydreigon was seen crying in a corner somewhere.

 

[Level 51]

Come to think of it, Levitate leaves us with stuff like Nasty Plot / Calm Mind Gengar with an assortment of new moves including Psyshock, Ice Beam, Earth Power, Surf, Draco Meteor, Fire Blast, Volt Switch, Overheat, Hydro Pump, Leaf Storm, Air Slash, Blizzard... yeah maybe we may want to ban it.

 

[SpartanMalice]

Keldeo gets Absol's fantastic movepool along with Nasty Plot from Lucario. This will be amazing.

 

[bobbyvaporeon]

Weather has improved a lot.
Sand gets Tyranitar with Whirlwind, Slack Off, and Yawn.
Stoutland got incredible buffs: Swords Dance, Earthquake, Stone Edge, X-Scissor, and Rapid Spin (almost Scrappy Spin :( )
Next, Vaporeon is Manaphy mini, with Tail Glow and Calm mind, while Tentacruel got Leech Seed and Roost.
Sun didn't get much, but Ninetails got some goodies like Stealth Rock, thunder wave, and Eruption. StallRein got Wish/Roost, which makes it even more annoying.

 

[SpartanMalice]

Vaporeon's a better Manaphy IMO. Better HP and SpA means it can run a bulky tail glow set and do it better than Manaphy.

 

[Snaquaza]

Vaporeon's a better Manaphy IMO. Better HP and SpA means it can run a bulky tail glow set and do it better than Manaphy.

Low speed and defense will let it be killed way easier tho

 

[SpartanMalice]

With Full HP investment and possibly Bold nature it can take about the same amount of damage Snaq. Here's an example:

252+ Atk Choice Band Scizor Superpower vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 215-254 (63.04 - 74.48%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Scizor Superpower vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Vaporeon: 295-348 (63.57 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Even without Bold - which doesn't change much as it has higher SpA at 110, Modest takes only slightly more damage, and it's better at taking special hits than Manaphy as 130/95 > 100/100.

 

[nimbosa]

chloro + weather ball venusaur is finally legal. chlorophyll users also get earth power from sunflora.
solar power charizard gets earth power, leaf storm, and giga drain from sunflora. and morning sun, for what it's worth.
ninetales gets thunder wave, stealth rock, earth power, and eruption from groudon.
leafeon is now the proud owner of a movepool that doesn't suck, courtesy of sawsbuck and shiftry.

forretress gets roost. i can tell you from STABmons experience that forry is amazing with a recovery move. you could also ditch sturdy for overcoat and get u-turn as well as roost, but while u-turn is fun it's not worth sacrificing sturdy.
donphan also gets roost. and spikes. and toxic spikes.
completing the trio of sturdy users giving each other awesome shit, skarmory can now use rapid spin. (and toxic spikes.)

defensive tyranitar really enjoys hippowdon's slack off.

all regenerator mons get spore. slowbro/slowking, reuniclus, meinshao, tangrowth. amoonguss gets recover and more than two viable attacking moves.

magezone gets earth power from probopass:

252+ SpA Magnezone Earth Power vs. 248 HP / 252+ SpD Heatran: 300-356 (77.92 - 92.46%) -- 31.25% chance to OHKO after Stealth Rock

that's with a scarf. specs is always a ohko on heatran no matter what, even with timid (though you don't need timid to outspeed min-speed heatrans), but then magnezone loses to offensive heatrans that invest in speed.

looks really really interesting, i'm definitely gonna try this out.

 

[Snaquaza]

With Full HP investment and possibly Bold nature it can take about the same amount of damage Snaq. Here's an example:

252+ Atk Choice Band Scizor Superpower vs. 0 HP / 0 Def Manaphy: 215-254 (63.04 - 74.48%) -- guaranteed 2HKO
252+ Atk Choice Band Scizor Superpower vs. 252 HP / 4+ Def Vaporeon: 295-348 (63.57 - 75%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Even without Bold - which doesn't change much as it has higher SpA at 110, Modest takes only slightly more damage, and it's better at taking special hits than Manaphy as 130/95 > 100/100.

This means you lose EV's to put in Special Attack, Speed or Special Defense and Manaphy can also run that spread if it wants to

 

[SpartanMalice]

True, but anyway I doubt if Manaphy if will be allowed as it's an uber already. Possible unban ? Maybe not. Anyway, you don't lose EVs for SpA with 252 HP 4 Def, as you can still run 252 SpA. That's only if you run 252 Def as well which is probably better with Calm Mind.

Common Tail Glow Manaphy doesn't run 252 HP is what I'm saying Snaq, but if that's the case then it will outclass it I suppose. Also whether they both invest in SDef or not, Vaporeon will always be bulkier than Manaphy at 104864 Special Bulk as opposed to 95344 Special Bulk (this is counting Min SpD).

A couple of interesting things here.

• Recover (or Roost)/Will-o/Foul Play Cresselia - Cress also gets Refresh which is useful for mitigating it's worst enemy: status.
  
• Rotom formes all get reliable recovery with Roost or Recover from Lati@s - Likewise the Latis get tons of special moves from them as well, such as fire moves from Heat.
  
• Coil/Roost Gyarados (Arbok/Salamence respectively). Also gets Extremespeed and Flare Blitz from Intimidate as well !_! Dunno how well it'd abuse the acc boost from Coil (lolthunder) - Stone Edge and Aqua Tail. Lando-T can abuse this as well with it's stronger Stone Edge and good overall bulk and typing. Both of them can also use support moves like Toxic better.

 

[asterat]

cosmic stored power reuniclus could be a good tank. Also lots of initidate power. (DD/spikes/roost/brave bird on landorus -t)

 

[juleocesar]

Amazing Metagame! Another good idea to consider are pokemons that can abuse hustle, as they get dragon dance (zweilous), extremespeed (togekiss), flare blitz (darumaka), Waterfall (Remoraid), and Swords Dance (Raticate), and some other useful moves...

 

[TalkTakesTime]

True, but anyway I doubt if Manaphy if will be allowed as it's an uber already. Possible unban ? Maybe not. Anyway, you don't lose EVs for SpA with 252 HP 4 Def, as you can still run 252 SpA. That's only if you run 252 Def as well which is probably better with Calm Mind.

It won't be unbanned yet I don't imagine, but moves still transfer over abilities from banned mons, so Hydration Vaporeon can use all of Hydration Manaphy's moves, hence Tail Glow being allowed. I think they were just comparing relative bulk, not whether Vaporeon is directly inferior.

Escavalier finally gets U-Turn and Roost (Scizor w/ Swarm or Mandibuzz w/ Overcoat), as well as Trick Room (Reuniclus w/ Overcoat), Bullet Punch (Scizor w/ Swarm), Fighting-type moves (plus Stone Edge and EQ) (Heracross w/ Swarm), Sucker Punch (Galvantula w/ Swarm), both kinds of Spikes (Scolipede w/ Swarm), Flare Blitz (Volcarona w/ Swarm), and a bunch of other random support moves such as TWave, Will-O, screens etc. Something with such a normally tiny movepool really enjoys this ability to break things that have walled it while retaining a good ability (most things come from Swarm). It has mostly been kept in the lower tiers due to its horrific movepool, so it will potentially have a chance to shine here, although I suspect it will still suffer from an inferiority complex to Scizor.

Espeon gets some nice things like U-Turn and Roost from Xatu, finally giving it reliable recovery.

Heatran gets Nasty Plot from Houndoom and Agility from Rapidash, which could make for some interesting set up sweepers.

Defiant Tornadus gets Swords Dance and Close Combat, as well as Brave Bird, Roost (it goes to Normal-type when it uses Roost I believe), and Sucker Punch (from Bisharp and Braviary). Prankster gets TWave, Roost, Encore, Copycat, and some other interesting things (Murkrow, Liepard, and Riolu respectively).

 

[EV]

Prankster gets TWave, Roost, Encore, Copycat, and some other interesting things (Murkrow, Liepard, and Riolu respectively).

Oh no! Prankster Copycat Roar/Whirlwind Tornadus.

 

[TalkTakesTime]

Oh no! Prankster Copycat Roar/Whirlwind Tornadus.

If only it got better bulk. It'll be very hard to break the chain without using priority above +1 though. Thankfully Rapid Spin could be a bit more widespread, so it shouldn't be too bad, but it'll no doubt be a more frustrating Riolu. Gets recovery too, so that could be a giant pain in the ass. I checked the sim code just to make sure that Roost Tornadus worked correctly, which it does, so lgi Prankster Tornadus.

 

[Deoxymoron]

Eruption Chandelure sounds fun.

Oh my god Mienshao gets spore

Levitate is ridiculous. Imagine Latios with Hydro Pump, Overheat and Leaf Storm. Cresselia, Bronzong and Azelf will get Rapid Spin.

This is gonna be so much fun and I am going to abuse the shit out of rain

 

[ogasian]

Lati@s now gets Aura Sphere from Gira-O.
Tornadus now gets Sucker Punch.
There are too many Spore mons.
Espeon gets roost.
Rotom W can. Iw fuck with Thorn with Overheat.
Garchomp gets Aqua Jet to destroy Swine
Kyube gets Bolt SrikE

 

[TalkTakesTime]

Lati@s now gets Aura Sphere from Gira-O.
Tornadus now gets Sucker Punch.
There are too many Spore mons.
Espeon gets roost.
Rotom W can. Iw fuck with Thorn with Overheat.
Garchomp gets Aqua Jet to destroy Swine
Kyube gets Bolt SrikE

Most of those have been brought up already, but Chomp with Aqua Jet is an interesting idea. The problem with it is that outside rain it's incredibly weak; +2 Jolly Chomper has less than a 50% chance to OHKO Mamoswine after SR and 3 layers of Spikes. With LO it's not as bad, OHKOing ~80% of the time after SR and 1 layer of Spikes, but in order for SD Chomp to use Aqua Jet it has to drop something else, leaving it walled by things such as Skarmory again. Band Chomp can almost afford a moveslot for it, but getting locked into such a weak non-STAB move loses a significant amount of momentum, gives the opponent the ability to switch to something that can take it incredibly easily, and also doing low damage to Mamoswine.

252 Atk Choice Band Garchomp Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mamoswine: 158-186 (43.76 - 51.52%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Stealth Rock

A significant amount of prior damage is needed for Aqua Jet to do anything useful, so it's probably more trouble than it's worth.

 

[SpartanMalice]

Sheer Force looks interesting. The Nidos have an extensive movepool, as do Tauros and Rampardos. If it wasn't banned, Landorus would appreciate the special moves, but as for now Darmanitan will appreciate the addiiton of physical moves - Waterfall being one of them, funnily enough.

Haxorus gets an usable CC for replacing Superpower, it doesnt care much about defenses anyway and it wont have to lower it's Attack or rely on Low Kick anymore. It also gets: X-Scissor and... Quick Attack? (Pinsir), Elemental Punches (Sawk), Earthquake, Stone Edge (Pretty much all the other Mold Breaker mons, with Excadrill and Ramp it also gets Iron Head, but without STAB thats not worth much), Head Smash (Rampardos), Crunch, Waterfall and Aqua Jet (Basculin) and last but not least an always critting move, Storm Throw (Throh). Looks pretty useful so far, possibly on DD.

Hax deals with the aforementioned Mamo better too:

+2 252+ Atk Life Orb Haxorus Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mamoswine: 328-387 (90.85 - 107.2%) -- guaranteed OHKO after Stealth Rock

+2 252+ Atk Water Gem Haxorus Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mamoswine: 378-446 (104.7 - 123.54%) -- guaranteed OHKO

I know no one would normally use Water Gem, but hey Hax uses Fighting gem, so why not ? Though LO's still better in that case. Anyway I tested Water Gem with Adamant Chomp and it can't KO while Hax can:

+2 252+ Atk Water Gem Garchomp Aqua Jet vs. 0 HP / 4 Def Mamoswine: 344-406 (95.29 - 112.46%) -- 68.75% chance to OHKO

(Hax can also run near unresisted Dragon/Fighting coverage to get rid of annoying steels like Skarm who would wall Garchomp and take little damage from Aqua Jet, but its gonna hurt with +2 Close Combat)

Edit: Hmm. This is weird, according to Honko Snow Cloak Mamo is KO'd by Jolly Chomp while Thick Fat isn't (notice I'm not using sash). But Thick Fat should reduce only Fire and Ice damage, not water damage. This is weird.