That said there are some abilities I don't think get their fair credit. This is a list of a few abilities I think can be a lot more helpful then people really give them credit for. For the most part, this isn't gonna be the most hax abilities in fiction or anything since most people if you explained what "transduality" is would agree it's pretty busted. These are abilities that are fairly common that a lot of people seem to just glance over when they see it in a character's profile when in reality it can be pretty relevant.
5: Supernatural Senses:
Supernatural senses is something I've been quick to point out for a while. I think people a lot of the time don't think of enhanced senses (normal human senses stronger then normal) as particularly strong because it seems irrelevant when fighting someone who stronger who is just going to punch your character in the face. While this is a fair critique, it's a bit of an unfair comparison. While enhanced senses is not a universally applicable power, when it does come in handy it is often a complete game-changer. Having sufficiently advanced sight or hearing can completely nullify most stealth. Supernatural senses, ie senses outside the normal 5 we possess are even better as they often given crazy abilities like being able to sense people in other dimension or sense if someone is malicious which not only gives the same benefit but also counters manipulators or inter-dimensional pop in etc. and can't be overwhelmed by sensory input (bright flashes of light, extremely loud sounds, etc.) Even in a fight against another character without this, supernatural senses depending on range can be very helpful by allowing a lot more effective range game, basically giving constant information on where the opponent is. If you have cosmic level senses and your opponent doesn't you can stay at planetary range and ping them with attacks before zipping somewhere else, and they'll have to fire blindly the whole time. In my Takofanes vs Onaga fight one of the biggest advantages Onaga had is that while both could travel between dimensions Takofanes couldn't see into other dimensions while Onaga's draconic eyes could, meaning that Onaga could essentially always ambush Takofanes from any dimension while Takofanes was fighting blind the entire time. Having information on your opponent I think is general an underrated abilities as it gives the character the foresight to go into their most optimal options.
4: Illusions:
Illusions always seem to be treated as a lesser form of mind hax, and to be fair you can't ignore durability like you can with brainwashing. It would be cheating to say "illusions advanced enough can act like time manipulation by making it seem like seconds pass when years are or pain manipulation by making your opponent think they are experiencing the greatest pain they can imagine". But even a low level of illusion can be really helpful actually. Same way information can be very helpful, it can also be very helpful for your opponent to have misinformation. Duplication is an almost hax ability giving you the option to act multiple times in the time you would normally once and illusions can essentially act as a defensive form of duplication, creating a lot of "yous" that can each act defensive in different ways. Illusions are really strong because they not only can basically divide your opponents chance of hitting you by a fraction but because most illusions are a general all purpose ability that can be fitted in after the effect to whatever is effective against the particular opponent. A manipulator with illusions is much stronger then the sum of their parts, since they can fit the illusions very well to exploit enemy weaknesses. Half of the time illusions aren't even a form of mind affecting ability, and can't be resisted without supernatural senses. Illusion can downright ignore the resistance to brainwashing sometimes and if so they're basically as strong as a character's motivations are. Illusions are strong enough that in my Sailor Pluto vs Yuuko Ichihara fight, Yuuko won using it by convincing Setsuna to use her time stop, killing herself to protect who she thought was Chibiusa and Hotaru. While Illusions is more humble then her older sibling brainwashing, unable to ignore durability, in a battle between equals she can certainly pull her weight due to the sheer versatility of her effect and her ability to bolster a meager defense by literally a factor.
3: Portal Creation:
Teleportation is my favorite ability and just like illusions is seen as the lesser equivalent to brainwashing, I think portal creation it seen as basically the lesser version of teleportation. That said Portal Creation is not just helpful in it's own way, it actually can do some things teleportation only sometimes can. Portal Creation much like Teleportation provides an effectively infinite speed between two points. It's a bit slower to use then Teleportation but it can be used as an impromptu defense by opening it between self and attack for attack to be transported away. It can even be used as a form of offense, either creating a portal inside an enemy tearing them up or portaling them into space/deep underwater/some remote dimension or it can be used to hypothetically hit an opponent with their own attack with clever positioning of portals. Chell from Portal literally has nothing but a limited portal creation and she defeated rogue super AI with it. Portal Creation is honestly probably one of the strongest common usages of space manipulation, as Portal Creation in essence is saying that one space is actually a different point of space regardless of their distance meaning that so long as both fighters exist in space, Portal Creation has a whole host of post usages to the characters and their abilities.
2: Sleep Inducing:
Mind Hax and Soul Hax are very common forms of hax that are well known but Sleep Inducing renders an opponent pretty much just as vulnerable in most cases and is resisted way less often. Given that Sleep Inducing is basically directing affecting an opponent's state of consciousness it could essentially affect any entity that has one. Sometimes even spiritual and conceptual entities are presented as needing to sleep. Off the top of my head this would work on Wedding Peach spirits and Hetalia conceptuals. So long as you can do anything to a character, putting them to sleep means they are pretty much helpless and some characters get massively weaker when sleeping like pretty much character with activated defense like Ki Users from Dragon Ball or Saints from Saint Seiya. Half the time it seems like characters with Sleep Manipulation also has Dream Manipulation so they can kill them in their sleep and unless a character just doesn't sleep or resists this, there's no counter to that.
1: Telekinesis
I have seen this power overlooked a lot despite it's incredible power. See a lot of characters, a LOT of characters rely or at least use sometime weapon. A lot of times characters literally rely on one weapon for all their abilities and if someone telekinetically took them away the character would be defenseless. Green Lantern I think is like the strongest member of the original 7 JLA members and he would get hard countered by a strong enough telekinetic. Telekinesis is ridiculously strong in some matchups. However even outside those matchups Telekinesis is still really strong. Most characters in fiction even if they are very strong still only have the mass of a normal person or maybe a bit beyond that. Telekinetics can do all kinds of wacky things even with relatively normal telekinesis if they were realistically allow to apply that force; holding opponents in place so they can't do anything that requires any physical motion, throwing opponents into space, holding them underwater or under a lot of pressure, ripping off their limbs, putting pressure on their eyes; the weakest parts of their bodies to blind them etc. Some telekinetics can even cause their opponent to just explode from the inside with telekinesis. Telekinesis is a power that is fairly strong at a low tier, and yet doesn't really get powercrept even when you start getting into the cosmics. Any physical attack your opponent uses; telekinetically thrown away; basically an attack deflection or attack reflection for any attack with matter or energy. The only counter to Telekinesis is not being physical and not relying on physical attacks and or being literally so massive that the telekinesis can't be applied. Telekinesis is number 1 not just because it's really strong, not just because it's really versatile and not just because people completely overlook it so often when talking about a character's abilities but because the combination of all these traits. Telekinesis is a power that can end a good number of fights by itself yet it seen as a neat perk.
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