Should Starter Pokémon's hidden abilities be their default abilities?

[Ronnie]

It's been a tradition since Gen 3 for the starters to have their basic abilities of STAB boosts with 1/3 (or less) of their health. Would it be better to forsake that tradition and make their hidden abilities be their default ones? It would make the starters more interesting to use during in-game playthroughs. Although I wonder what their new hidden abilities would be if they made that change?

[Sasori]

Normally I would say yes. The blaze/torrent/grass boost abilities are among the most boring abilities in the game.They only activate at low health and it never really feels like they get the boost. Meanwhile the hidden abilities of starters are often nice tools to play around with. At the very least they aren't nearly as boring.

The exception would probably be Protean. Such a completely insane skill would make the starter choice much less of a choice.

[Light Strategist]

6 minutes ago, Sasori said:

Normally I would say yes. The blaze/torrent/grass boost abilities are among the most boring abilities in the game.They only activate at low health and it never really feels like they get the boost.

I'm fairly sure that the reason is for those come-from-behind wins that are commonly depicted in the anime. Typically, the anime tends to avoid the usage of those abiliities but has done so to illustrate a similar point. The user is being pushed to the limit and can't afford to lose the battle, so it digs deep to find its inner strength and pull through with the win.

That said, I think that there should be an item that allows a Pokémon to swap between a Normal Ability and its Hidden Ability. It could be called a Secret Capsule or something.

[JSND Alter Dragon Boner]

Honestly, no. The ability serves for a perfect middle line between being useful enough if you know what you are doing while being a simple ability

 

If anything the proper change is to just buff them - make it activate at 50% HP and lower instead and its much more reasonable to activate without really being broken

 

And of course making them always activate is out of question, thats literally more broken than Protean

Edited August 11, 2018 by JSND Alter Dragon Boner

[Nym]

35 minutes ago, Sasori said:

The exception would probably be Protean. Such a completely insane skill would make the starter choice much less of a choice.

*cough* Blaziken's speed boost *cough*

But to be honest, even if some of the hidden ability aren't as broken as those two, that would still be overkill.

[Regalia]

The starters would be insanely lopsided. There isn't supposed to be one clear winner out of the starters outside of the story. Each starter is catered towards specific strengths and , imo, are supposed to balance each other out. Like Froakie is fast, Delphox hits hard (on the special side specifically), and Chespin is a hard-hitting tank. If these starters got their hidden abilities, Froakie would edge out immensely with STAB 100% of the time. 

I am all for having an item that lets you switch from regular ability to hidden ability, but only in post-game. 

[DisobeyedCargo]

 I’d be all on board for it if not for stuff like speed boost and protean 

 

but having started with speed boost and protean would make them insanely lopsided and unbalanced. all three should balance eachother with no clear winner in the base game

and an item like a secret capsule should exist but only in postgame. 

Basically I 2nd everything @Regalia said 

[Re: The weirdo.]

lol yeah. the starters suck otherwise because they effectively have a situational, weak, and not particularly versatile ability. they dont need BS like speed boost to be actually useful long term. hell, they could give them all sorts of great abilities, like compound eyes for the grass to create an effective dust-scatterer, they could give storm drain to the water to make an ACTUAL come from behind switch in, they could give the fire one sheer force to power through enemies with stuff like flame blitz.

god the possibility of a long term starter could actually happen if the dumbass blaze abilities were dropped.

[Landmaster]

No, because the point of the Starters is to be more or less balanced with each other. Literally everyone would choose Froakie and Torchic if they got their HAs by default which ruins the purpose of even putting so much of a focus on choosing your starter if one is gonna be so much better than another one~

[Fryer]

Maybe if the starters receive a new ability in there final stage, then sure.

[Shadow Mir]

No. Not when we have broken crap like Protean and Speed Boost.