mehmeh1
Not thinking twice!
Abilities were introduced in gen 3 as a way to make each pokemon species and individual a bit more unique by giving them some special effect just for them, and obviously, the anime followed suit and also used them, but I've noticed that, at least in ash's team they've been used less and less since like BW, for example, look at pikachu's static, it was used quite a few times in AG and DP, but only like once in BW (vs garbodor) and never again since. Then there's his XY team, where goodra's hydration was used prominently when he was around, but then there's talonflame's flame body, which was never used in battle, we don't know noivern or hawlucha's abilities, and ash-greninja's bond phenomenon wasn't treated as an ability (heck, we didn't even know it was an ability until the SM demo, I remember theories that he had protean back in 2016). Now in SM it's even worse, where NONE of ash's team's abilities have even been shown/used.