How often did you use Abilities with field effects when playing Pokémon?

[Sweet Serenity]

Certain Pokémon Abilities had effects that work outside of battle. For instance, Flame Body and Steam Engine helps you hatch eggs quicker beyond battle, but I'm sure you knew that. However, you might not have known that other Abilities also had field effects when the Pokémon with the Ability was the lead Pokémon in your party. For instance, "Cute Charm" helped you find Pokémon of the opposite gender easier. "Intimidate" increased the chances of you encountering only the highest level Pokémon in the area. "Infiltrator" decreased the rate of encountering wild Pokémon, similar to Repel. The Ability "Stench" also had the exact same effect. Countless others existed as well. However, a lot of them don't work anymore in Scarlet and Violet because of the changes regarding in-game mechanics and how Pokémon are encountered these days.

Did you ever make use of these?

 

[Alex_Among_Foxes]

I honestly had no idea this existed until just now! (except the Flame Body one, that's a must for me lol)
I wish this was more clear in game (or I was less blind, whichever) because some of these effects are really helpful!

 

[Devalue]

During a playthrough: Flame Body (faster egg hatching), Super Luck (item farming once or twice), and Pickup. Might have briefly thought about Synchronize and encounter-reducing abilities.

Post-game:
- Flame Body. Always finds something to hatch eggs, usually Talonflame.
- Compound Eyes. Bred 5 physical Galvantulas purely for item farming in Ultra Sun. (Always remembers that ability effect before Super Luck.)
- Pickup. Also bred 5 (maybe 6) Dedennes to farm Sun and Moon Stones.
- Sticky Hold. For holding onto the stupid rod without all the misses. Not common. Still happened a few times on purpose for some reason.
- Synchronize. Not common. Probably for some legendary...once. Acquired good natures via breeding.

 

[Adam Levine]

Flame Body? All the time.

I remember encountering Eelektrik over and over again in Black 2 and I didn't know why until I realized I had a Static Ampharos as my lead. This is pretty much the only time I've used an ability like this, which is a shame because I've heard SwSh did this for other abilities too.

also i had no idea steam engine did that what

 

[Palamon]

I definitely abused the Flame Body ability for egg hatching back in the day. Other than that, if abilities had effects I am definitely unaware and just use without knowing, I guess.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

When I played Pokémon Y, I used Cute Charm quite often. I used a female Wigglytuff to help me catch a male Litleo easier, which has an 87.5% female to 12.5% male ratio. This Ability as a field effect definitely made finding male Litleo much easier, which allowed me to get a male Pyroar much easier than normal. I used the same method in Pokémon Ultra Sun as well, but with a male Wigglytuff to catch female Salandit easier in the area near the Fire-type trial, which has a 87.5% male to 12.5% female ratio. I also used Intimidate in Pokémon Y as well to catch Lapras. Although I did receive a Lapras as a gift in the game, I wanted to catch my own, so I knew that Lapras had only a 1% spawn rate on Route 12, but also knew its encounter level would always be 27. 27 is the highest level that Pokémon could be encountered when surfing on Route 12. Thus, when I used a Pokémon with Intimidate as my lead when surfing, I encountered another Lapras much quicker and caught it. Other than that, I've used Flame Body and Steam Engine like everybody else to hatch eggs. In Pokémon Y, I used my Moltres that I chased all around the map before catching to hatch eggs with its Flame Body ability. In Pokémon Sword, I always used Magmortar for this purpose, and in Pokémon Violet, I currently use Coalossal's Steam Engine.

 

[Squirtkipfan01]

I only knew about flame body with eggs and thats it. There being more multi use abilities is news to me

 

[ReKoil]

I've used:
-Flame Body/Steam Engine; for hatching eggs it's pretty much a must if you're hatching a lot of them.
-I used Super Luck in BDSP to acquire the rarer trade evo items that are found on wild mons, such as the Electirizer.
-Useful for fishing: Suction Cups/Sticky Hold as you get Pokemon biting the fishing line more often.

I know about Pickup, but I've never purposely put a mon on my team just to acquire items through pickup.
Same thing with Honey Gather.

 

[Sweet Serenity]

During a playthrough: Flame Body (faster egg hatching), Super Luck (item farming once or twice), and Pickup. Might have briefly thought about Synchronize and encounter-reducing abilities.

Post-game:
- Flame Body. Always finds something to hatch eggs, usually Talonflame.
- Compound Eyes. Bred 5 physical Galvantulas purely for item farming in Ultra Sun. (Always remembers that ability effect before Super Luck.)
- Pickup. Also bred 5 (maybe 6) Dedennes to farm Sun and Moon Stones.
- Sticky Hold. For holding onto the stupid rod without all the misses. Not common. Still happened a few times on purpose for some reason.
- Synchronize. Not common. Probably for some legendary...once. Acquired good natures via breeding.

I've used:
-Flame Body/Steam Engine; for hatching eggs it's pretty much a must if you're hatching a lot of them.
-I used Super Luck in BDSP to acquire the rarer trade evo items that are found on wild mons, such as the Electirizer.
-Useful for fishing: Suction Cups/Sticky Hold as you get Pokemon biting the fishing line more often.

I know about Pickup, but I've never purposely put a mon on my team just to acquire items through pickup.
Same thing with Honey Gather.

I like this a lot. You two are very resourceful when playing. 😊

 

[Sheep]

The egg-hatching ones are still important for me, but I feel like I fell out of using others a lot more over time - partly because certain things became a lot easier. I used to use Synchronize to find Pokémon with specific natures but nowadays don't anymore (don't think it even works in gen 9) because items to change your nature are super accessible.

Pickup is incredible for playthroughs of old gens though - especially RSE where you can get a Zigzagoon with one early on!

 

[Maserati777]

I use Flame Body when hatching eggs.
Sticky Hold/Suction Cups for fish chaining.

I'm using Cute Charm in the Friend Safari to hunt for a female shiny Combee

 

[Amore]

Went to go catch a Gimmighoul on Violet and found out Synchronize (ugh, American spelling) was removed…tragic. I decided when I started playing again in 2020 that I'd get every legendary with a good nature and IVs once. Although that's turned out to be once per generation. Even with the 3 guaranteed IVs and 100% effective Synchronize in Gen 8 it could still be a chore, and now you're telling me I have to go back to the dark days of Gen III when I didn't know about it?! Really don't understand that change (most others between generations I can get with, but not this).

Other than that, only really Flame Body / Magma Armor / Steam Engine. Often forget about others such as Intimidate - I'll go out to capture something in Sinnoh with my Luxray as a lead, get really frustrated at how long its taking.

Not the same thing, but I periodically remember about Sweet Scent and use it in Safari Zone in games that have it. Real money saver!

 

[Devalue]

Went to go catch a Gimmighoul on Violet and found out Synchronize (ugh, American spelling) was removed…tragic. I decided when I started playing again in 2020 that I'd get every legendary with a good nature and IVs once. Although that's turned out to be once per generation. Even with the 3 guaranteed IVs and 100% effective Synchronize in Gen 8 it could still be a chore, and now you're telling me I have to go back to the dark days of Gen III when I didn't know about it?! Really don't understand that change (most others between generations I can get with, but not this).

Sells nature mints for 20000 at Chansey Supply. Set up shop in Cascarrafa, Levincia, Mesagoza, and Montenevera. Changes natures very easily.

May have changed Synchronize due to the new spawn mechanics. Probably calculates stats the moment you see it. (Bases this on seeing shinies in the overworld.) Runs into this potential problem of either:

1. Leads with a Synchronize Pokemon with a Brave nature. Spawns a bunch of Brave Pokemon. Switches to a different lead. Retains the Brave nature.
2. Leads with some random Pokemon. Swaps to your Synchronize Pokemon with a Brave nature. Encounters a random nature Pokemon.

 

[Janp]

I've used Flame Body quite a lot, when I was breeding in Gens VI and VII. I like using Compound Eyes. Fainted Butterfree in the lead and something with Thief on the second place in the party. Name a more iconic duo. Pickup saved my Wynaut Solo Nuzlocke run. I farmed hundreds of Ethers and Elixirs to have better control of my PP in that run.

Other than that, I'm not really taking an advantage of field abilities. I sometimes remember Intimidate or Cute Charm, but barely have a use for them.

 

[Amore]

Sells nature mints for 20000 at Chansey Supply. Set up shop in Cascarrafa, Levincia, Mesagoza, and Montenevera. Changes natures very easily.

May have changed Synchronize due to the new spawn mechanics. Probably calculates stats the moment you see it. (Bases this on seeing shinies in the overworld.) Runs into this potential problem of either:

1. Leads with a Synchronize Pokemon with a Brave nature. Spawns a bunch of Brave Pokemon. Switches to a different lead. Retains the Brave nature.
2. Leads with some random Pokemon. Swaps to your Synchronize Pokemon with a Brave nature. Encounters a random nature Pokemon.

That's actually a valid point. Guess I'll have to get used to Mints…ah well, means I can settle for just flinging my one Luxury Ball and resetting until I can capture it!

But yeah, given the way the whole Picnic Shiny Hunting method works, I guess Synchronize would mess it up. I mean, it doesn't have to - could calculate the shiny value at spawn, and the nature, stats etc. at the point of encounter (like the Red Gyarados, Black Haxorus, and Blue Ponyta). But given the way the Crown Tundra legendaries where you'd have to enter and exit a building to reset them, I think you're right about how they've chosen to do it.