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With many players' casual playthroughs of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet ending, attention can often turn to the competitive metagame the titles provide. Debatably, these titles are some of the most competitive-focused games across the franchise, with many new creatures viable and a bevy of new items.
One of the many cornerstones to structuring an excellent competitive team is having a solid grasp on Hidden Abilities. These are passive effects on every creature that cannot be found on any wild Pokemon. You have to go through some steps to achieve this different passive effect.
Thankfully, it is much easier to find Pokemon with Hidden Abilities in these new titles. Ability Patches, which give creatures their Hidden Ability, can be easily found through Tera Raid Battles. Players can also use Encounter Power sandwiches and luck to find special Pokemon with these effects.
What are the best Hidden Abilities in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and Who to get them for
Fluffy Houndstone
With Houndstone carving a niche as a late-game sweeper, thanks to its signature attack dealing scaling damage for every ally knocked out of battle, having high defensive stats is very important for it to succeed. While its Sand Rush ability is pretty good, Hidden Ability Fluffy gives it 50% bonus Defense at the cost of being weak to Fire-type attacks.
Moxie Quaquaval
One of the most oppressive strategies in the Pokemon metagame is snowballing. Common in other competitive games, snowballing is a strategy that revolves around exponentially powering up to defeat opponents. Moxie raises Quaquavel's Attack stat every time it knocks out an opponent, allowing it to snowball a battle quickly.
Prankster Grafaiai
Priority plays a massive role in Pokemon's battle system. Though the Speed stat mainly determines it, moves like Quick Attack and Protect have particular priority values that allow them to be used first. Grafaiai's Hidden Ability Prankster gives this priority value to all its status moves, like Light Screen and Sunny Day.
Speed Boost Espathra
The Speed Boost Hidden Ability for Espathra is one of the easiest to get value out of. At the end of every turn, Espathra receives a boost to its Speed stat. Use Protect on the first turn to get a free boost, then attack with Espathra's signature move Lumina Crash. This attack does solid damage and lowers the opponent's Special Defense, as repeated use deals more damage.
Moody Scovillain
An ability so good it got Bidoof and Bibarel banned back in generation five, Moody makes a comeback on the franchise's first Grass and Fire-type Pokemon. With this ability, Scovillain gains a random sharp boost in one stat. In exchange, other stats are chosen randomly to be lowered by only one stage. With enough Protect stalling, Scovillain can get the stats to snowball, making it a great choice.
Filter Revavroom
As many experienced battlers will know, Steel typing is the best defensive type in the franchise. With Revavroom only being weak to Fire and Ground-type attacks, having an ability that weakens super-effective moves makes Revavroom an even more dangerous sweeper.
Technician Maushold
Players who are invested in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet's competitive battling community will already be aware of the massive threat of Technician Maushold. With Hidden Ability passively increasing the base damage of moves under 60 base power, this attack dramatically increases the potency of its signature move, Population Bomb.
Iron Fist Pawmot
Being an Electric and Fighting-type, Pawmot gets extraordinary value from this ability. Though some niche attacks may not seem like they get a boost from this ability, Pawmot's most potent attacks, Thunder Punch, Close Combat, and Mach Punch, all receive boosts from this ability giving it another layer of power boosts on top of the same-type attack bonus.
Costar Flamigo
An outstanding ability in double battles, Costar helps keep the momentum up when Flamigo switches in when an ally has already set up their stat boosts. This is also the signature Hidden Ability of Flamigo, a Pokemon with an already high base Attack making it a great late-game sweeper.
Unaware Skeledirge
Skeledirge's Hidden Ability can shut down a carrying set-up sweeper thanks to Unaware's effects. When a user with Unaware hits a target, it completely ignores changes in the opponent's Attack stats from boosting moves and ignoring changes in Defense. This sadly also applies to such changes in the user.
While these are only a few of all the creatures in Scarlet and Violet with Hidden Abilities, players should not be swayed from experimenting with whatever build they wish. After all, the fun of building a team in any Pokemon game comes from experimentation.
