Is unnerve a useful ability?

Question

I see it used on mewtwo over pressure, but all it seems to do is not let them eat berries, which you rarely find in singles. In doubles it makes more sense, but is it that good in either format?

Comments

I feel like in doubles it could be good but idk I'll hafta research it a bit.

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Unnerve is better for the occasional 2x effective damage reducing berries as the effects of Pressure will rarely ever be noticed when it is on an offensive Pokemon like Mewtwo.

Answer 1

Ah how I love Pikalytics :3

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I'm going to be honest here... not really.

Let's start with doubles, shall we?

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Using stats from Series 6 Battle Stadium Doubles teams with I believe an ELO of 1760+, you won't be seeing Unnerve a lot. Here are the most common Unnerve Pokemon and their ability usage stats:

Corviknight -

Monthly Usage
98k

Usage Percent
13%

Monthly Rank
#11

Mirror Armor 99.674%
Pressure 0.269%
Unnerve 0.056%

Haxorus -

Monthly Usage
8k

Usage Percent
0%

Monthly Rank
#123

Mold Breaker 86.253%
Unnerve 13.574%
Rivalry 0.173%

Galvantula -

Monthly Usage
1k

Usage Percent
0%

Monthly Rank
#192

Compound Eyes 99.094%
Unnerve 0.906%

Persian -

Monthly Usage
301k

Usage Percent
0%

Monthly Rank
#223

Unnerve 94.453%
Technician 5.526%
Limber 0.021%

Bewear -

Monthly Usage
536k

Usage Percent
0%

Monthly Rank
#240

Fluffy 99.968%
Unnerve 0.032%
Klutz 0.000%

Ok so as you can see, Unnerve is outclassed on all of these Pokemon except Persian, which is a very, very rare sight in VGC (plus Alolan Persian greatly outclasses it in the format).

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As for the best teams in OU...

Corviknight -

Monthly Usage
402k

Usage Percent
20%

Monthly Rank
#7

Pressure 97.746%
Mirror Armor 2.191%
Unnerve 0.063%

Tyranitar -

Monthly Usage
239k

Usage Percent
12%

Monthly Rank
#17

Sand Stream 99.952%
Unnerve 0.048%

Haxorus -

Monthly Usage
70k

Usage Percent
1%

Monthly Rank
#79

Mold Breaker 96.679%
Rivalry 3.097%
Unnerve 0.224%

Bewear -

Monthly Usage
9k

Usage Percent
0%

Monthly Rank
#100

Fluffy 100.000%
Unnerve 0.000%
Klutz 0.000%

Galvantula -

Monthly Usage
36k

Usage Percent
0%

Monthly Rank
#111

Compound Eyes 90.585%
Swarm 8.827%
Unnerve 0.588%

Surprise! Unnerve is worse in singles!!!

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Now, I'll explain why I think Unnerve is very uncommon in both formats.

• The Pokemon that get Unnerve aren't very good or common themselves.

  • Pokemon such as Persian and Galavntula just aren't that good. While you can't deny that Tyranitar and Corviknight are great Pokemon, the rest of the Unnerve lineup is quite the opposite.

• Unnerve is usually outclassed by a Pokemon's other abilities.

  • Abilities like Pressure (OU), Mirror Armor (VGC), Fluffy, Compound Eyes, and Sand Stream are just better and more useful than Unnerve, so it is rarely thought about due to being highly outclassed.

• Unnerve is very situational.

  • Berries, especially in singles, are rare. While Koko used to run a Shuca Berry, that was an exception. I do get that damage-reducing berries are very common in doubles formats, but it's still fairly situational.

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So, while Unnerve can be useful, it's very uncommon for the reasons stated above.

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Source 1, Source 2

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Hope this helps! :)

Comments

huh surprising, thought it would be like off the charts in doubles, but then again all the other abilities for pokemon who have it are better. Thanks anyway

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No problem! I actually expected it to be much more popular in doubles as well, but I guess not lol

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Why are you using Pikalytics instead of Smogon for OU statistics?

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I don't see why not. :)

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I just thought Smogon's statistics about Smogon's battle simulator might be more accurate than someone else's statistics about Smogon's battle simulator.

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True, and pikalytics is a bit late. It still shows cinderace usage in ou lasttime I checked

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I'm fairly certain that Unnerve is very uncommon in OU even if stats on Pikalytics are slightly out of date.

Answer 2

Sometimes. In battles, other people sometimes use some berries to reduce super-effective damage or to restore health. Unnerve doesn't let other Pokemons use berries, so if you want to be sure the opponent doesn't, for example use Outrage and use a Lum Berry to recover from confusion. It's not useful when people use more popular items like Life Orbs for damage, or Leftovers to recover from recoil. In all, Unnerve isn't a bad ability but sometimes it's useless for Pokemon without berries.

I hope I helped!