Template talk:Ability/head

Update

Could someone please add a column for the Mega Evolution ability? And here as well? オリジナル TheOriginalOne 13:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

We're going to update all of the templates around the same time so we can keep track of everything more efficiently. --Pokemaster 97 20:22, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Generation differences subpages

Shouldn't this template be divided into generations? Because as it is now, it's super confusing and messy, and handling accuracy by adding a note at the footer of each ability table in the articles makes it very confusing to determine what's true or not for a given game.

With this in mind, I came up with something like the learnsets template for showing 100% accurate tables for each generation, which would be much better and orderly. Something like this could go in the main article for a given ability:

Generation VII

Other generations:
III - IV - V - VI

Pokémon	Types		First Ability	Second Ability	Hidden Ability
Gloom	Grass	Poison	Chlorophyll	None	Stench
Grimer	Poison		Poison	Stench	Sticky Hold	Poison Touch
Muk	Poison		Poison	Stench	Sticky Hold	Poison Touch
Stunky	Poison	Dark	Stench	Aftermath	Keen Eye
Skuntank	Poison	Dark	Stench	Aftermath	Keen Eye
Trubbish	Poison		Poison	Stench	Sticky Hold	Aftermath
Garbodor	Poison		Poison	Stench	Weak Armor	Aftermath

And this other can go in the subpages (this one can be used for both Gen III and IV):

Generation IV

Other generations:
III - V - VI - VII

Pokémon	Types		First Ability	Second Ability
Shellder	Water		Water	Shell Armor	Skill Link	None
Cloyster	Water	Ice	Shell Armor	Skill Link	None
Krabby	Water		Water	Hyper Cutter	Shell Armor	None
Kingler	Water		Water	Hyper Cutter	Shell Armor	None
Lapras	Water	Ice	Water Absorb	Shell Armor	None
Omanyte	Rock	Water	Swift Swim	Shell Armor	None
Omastar	Rock	Water	Swift Swim	Shell Armor	None

Take into account that this is just a proof of concept, so of course there'll be things that need to be corrected. hfc 2X 01:19, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

That's actually an interesting idea. I hadn't given this specific issue much thought, but now that I think about it, it can get pretty confusing.

I do think we should tackle this somehow, and having separete tables (when necessary) may just work. However, I don't think there would be enough content for each single subpage, and many of them would end up being redundant.

I would suggest we instead have all tables on the ability page itself, but only show the most recent one by default and have the others hidden under a hide/show button (it's not really necessary to hide them, I just think it would keep the page easier to read). We would also only need to add more tables if there was enough change between generatios to justify it. For example, if no Pokémon had changes to their abilities from one generation to the next (or if all that happened was that Pokémon from the new generation now have the ability), or if they only had a hidden ability added from gen IV to gen V, a single table could easily cover these two generations. Suic (talk) 14:41, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Intro.	#	Pokémon	T #1	T #2	Ability	Hidden Ability
I	094	Gengar	Ghost	Poison	Levitate^III-VI Cursed Body^VII+	None
I	145	Zapdos	Electric	Flying	Pressure	~~Lightningrod~~^V Static^VI+
II	241	Miltank	Normal		Thick Fat Scrappy^IV+	Sap Sipper
II	242	Blissey	Normal		Natural Cure Serene Grace	Healer
III	278	Wingull	Water	Flying	Keen Eye Hydration^VII+	Rain Dish
III	279	Pelipper	Water	Flying	Keen Eye Drizzle^VII+	Rain Dish
V	550	Basculin (Red-Striped Form)	Water		Reckless Adaptability	Mold Breaker
V	550	Basculin (Blue-Striped Form)	Water		Rock Head* Adaptability	Mold Breaker
Abilities were introduced in Generation III, Hidden Abilities were introduced in Generation V. ~~Crossed out~~ abilities are no longer possible for this Pokémon and were never available.

I don't think making many tables is neccessery, there aren't that many changes for it. I put all the special cases I am aware of above and think this table is much more intuitive than what is it currently.--Rocket Grunt (Report To Me) 16:35, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

The problem is not simply that an ability stops being available to a certain Pokémon. New generations often added new possible abilities to many Pokémon without removing those that were already available. Most of these times the abilities added were introduced in the new generation in question, but some of them are eventually from an earlier generation. There are many other like Miltank that received a new ability from generation III to IV. The overall problem is that it's not immediately evident when one of the abilities of a Pokémon shouldn't be considered for a certain generation. Suic (talk) 23:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

That's alreday solved in my example, I've put Wingull and Pelipper to make it more obvious.--Rocket Grunt (Report To Me) 10:46, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that your example could solve it, but it kind of bothered me that a large amount of Pokémon would need these notes. But I guess that's fine, any solution would have it's advantages and disadvantages, and yours is more compact in the end.

What I still think should be different, though, is the table itself. We could easily keep it pretty much the same as what we have now, with a "first" and "second" ability column, but each cell would be able to have more than just one line when necessary, and the abilities in each line would be able to have a note that indicated in which generations it is available. Suic (talk) 00:02, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

I think all we really need is a notes column... The main three columns can tell the most recent info (adding some simple sups for new second/Hidden Abilities where there wasn't one before), and notes can tell everything else. Tiddlywinks (talk) 00:34, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

I have no problem with keeping regular abilities in two columns, it's rather important here to keep them aprat for cases like evolution and transfering to the next generation so it's easier to decude in what cases it changes (like when Cubone evolves into Alolan Marowak the ability Rock Head changes into Cursed Body, but Battle Armor changes into Rock Head). Also, there are already few pages (like this one [1]]) that would use template for generation sups.--Rocket Grunt (Report To Me) 10:02, 8 July 2020 (UTC)