finished How to hunt specific Abilities: Guide for Newbies!

[Bhimoso]

I actually made myself the bet to actually do this guide for newbies and get it done before tomorrow. I wanted to cover this topic because it feels dumb, but there's actually a lot of ways to make the process easier. I'm going to post most of the information borrowed from my other guide:

 

 

Welcome to hunting abilities and how to make your life easier avoiding capturing any unnecessary pokemon!

 

There are hundreds of abilities in Pokemon, almost thousands. A lot of pokemon share abilities: Metagross, Registeel and Tentacruel share Clear Body. This ability prevents them from having their stats lowered by an opponent move or ability. Sentret and Rattata share Run Away which allows them to always run away from battles, Nidoking and Feraligatr share Sheer Force... you get the point. There's a lot of abilities in pokemon, all pokemon come with atleast one ability, some with two, some with three.

 

But, what is an ability? An Ability is an inherent power all pokemon have. All pokemon have an ability. Some of them only have one (Gastly with Levitate), others only have two (Bulbasaur with Overgrow and Chlorophyll) and sometimes they have three (Bronzong with Heatproof, Levitate and Heavy Metal). All pokemon come with an ability when captured. If a pokemon only has one ability, it will always have that one. There's no going around it. If a pokemon has two abilities, it will have these two, and if a pokemon has three, then three. Some abilities are more useful than others.

 

The ability Levitate, for example, makes a pokemon immune to Ground Type attacks. Lightningrod does the same to Electric moves, but also increases your Spatk by one stage after being hit by one. Flash Fire does the same but for Fire Types. Volt Absorb and Water Absorb make a pokemon immune to Electric, Motor Drive does the same... you see the point. Some abilities are insanely good because they help out a lot of pokemon to defend against their weakness. Some abilities make them immune to certain status (Limber, Immunity, Own Tempo, Insomnia).

 

However, there are also some abilities that are completely useless. Truant is an ability that makes you only be able to attack once every two turns (you attack, you do nothing, you attack, you do nothing, you attack, you do nothing), Illuminate literally does NOTHING in battle, and so on. There are really broken abilities like Sturdy or Mold Breaker, and there are stupid abilities that you wonder how they even exist. So, how are we going to hunt for the right ability for our pokemon? Well, we need to study which of the abilities can our pokemon have, and which one helps it better. For example, Guts in Rattata is way better than Run Away, Levitate is way better in Bronzong than Heatproof, Lightningrod is way better than Static in Pikachu. Search and look at what each ability in your pokemon can do and choose which one you want to use.

 

So, how do we hunt for abilities? The first thing we have to do is investigate what abilities the pokemon has.

It can be either simple and perfectly easy (Gastly, for example, only has one ability. Thus, we don't need to worry. It will always have the same ability), a bit hard (one ability and one ha) and a nightmare (two abilities + ha). If a pokemon only has one ability, it will always have it (it can change when it evolves though, Gastly's Levitate becomes Cursed Body on Gengar.) However, if we're trying to hunt anything else, we will have to check if it's a normal ability or a hidden ability. If it's a normal ability, we have to check if the pokemon has two, or just one.

 

One single ability. 100% chance!

 

One ability and a hidden ability. 95% chance and 5% chance!

 

Two abilities and a hidden ability. 47.5% chance for both and 5% chance for the last one.

 

Then, we factor in the chances. The normal chances of finding a Hidden Ability pokemon are just a measly 5% of the times you'll encounter the pokemon. Thus, if the pokemon has just one more normal ability, it will have a 95 % of having the normal ability and a 5% of having its hidden one. If it has two normal abilities and a hidden one, each normal ability will have a 47.5% chance, and the hidden one will still have a 5% chance of appearing. You can check the abilities of each pokemon in the pokedex. The normal abilities will be found in the first two slots in a blue font, while their hidden ability is found on an orange font.

 

Then, how do we increase our chances? Well, we can purchase a Black Medallion (or BMS) from the Coin Shop for just 40 Coins so that for the next 72 hours we use the item, we will have a 25% chance of finding a hidden ability on any wild pokemon we find. However, this is bad if we actually want to hunt the normal ability of a pokemon, since we will decrease the normal abilities' chance to get a higher chance of hunting a hidden ability. We can buy a Coin Capsule from other players to purchase a Black Medallion or we can also donate to the game to keep it going

 

Premium Coin Shop.

 

Black Medallion: consumable item, lasts 72 hours.

 

Icon to show Black Medallion's effects are active.

 

It's time to hunt pokemon!

 

So, where do we start? We first check what pokemon we want to hunt. I'm going to check for Spearow, for example. I want to hunt a Sniper Spearow.

 

Since Spearow only has two abilities (a normal one and his hidden ability), we have a 95% chance of finding a Keen Eye Spearow and a 5% chance of finding a Sniper Spearow. That's a bit low! If we had a Black Medallion active, we could use it to have a better chance of finding one.

 

We can find out if a pokemon has a certain ability using the Role Play move. Role Play is a move learned by Kadabra upon level-up that, when used, will show what ability the opposing pokemon has. We can use this move to know what ability the pokemon has. If the wild pokemon does not have the ability we want, we can simply flee and find another one.

 

Kadabra with the move Role Play.

 

After using Role Play, we find out that Rattata's ability was Guts.

 

The other easy option to use is to get a pokemon with the Trace ability. Ralts and his evolutionary line have this ability. Once a Trace pokemon is switched into battle, he will copy the opponent's ability. Ralts is really hard to find and this ability is his HA. Thus, I suggest you just get any Abra, evolve it into Kadabra and learn this move.

(Thanks to Atdhe, Trickypork, 700ruoham and Dorota for showing their Trace pokemon since my client was bugged)

 

 

 

What if we're so poor we can't even capture these? We'll use our brain with no resources!

 

How do we know if Spearow has the Keen Eye ability? If we study both abilities, we only have one way to discern one from the other: if he has Keen Eye, he will not have his precision lowered when we use Flash or a precision lowering move against him. Thus, we just have to use Flash against him to know he has Keen Eye.

 

 

This Spearow has Keen Eye, as you can see in the picture. Thus, we can't lower its accuracy with Flash. We instantly know that he does not have the ability Sniper.

 

Mmm... I feel like capturing a Diglett with Arena Trap. How can I find out what ability it has? Well, we know that Arena Trap will prevent us from fleeing. Thus, we just need to know that if we try to escape, he won't let us. Thus, it will be Arena Trap!

 

 

We can flee from this one. Thus, it doesn't have Arena Trap.

 

We can't* run away from this one. Thus, this Diglett has Arena Trap.

 

Man... I really want a Sturdy Geodude. I guess I should try and get one. We know Sturdy protects him from being KO'd in a single move. Thus, we know that, if we are able to KO it with a single move, it didn't have Sturdy. Thus, we didn't want it anyway.

 

 

I hit him extremely hard and he did not faint. We also get the pop up message.

 

Mmm... I feel like getting a Clear Body Tentacool. That ability prevents stat lowering by the opponent. Thus, I'll use an Intimidate pokemon to know if it has Clear Body!

 

 

Clear Body will prevent Intimidate from working.

 

This one doesn't have it.

 

No pop up message appears after this. This means Tentacool DOES have Clear Body. Same happens with Krabby Hyper Cutter.

 

I hope with this guide you've understood how to calculate the probabilities of each ability, how to check a pokemon's abilities (or use bulbapedia for it), how to find out what ability they have, what tools can you use, and how to find them out without any tools: just using intelligence. I hope it helps you newbies too!

 

(Ignore the part below, it's bugged and I can't fix it) 

 

Potato.

Edited November 21, 2020 by Bhimoso

[Bhimoso]

Just finished two guides in the span of five hours. I can now say I'm satisfied and happy I could also tackle this one for any newbies who need it :)

 

I'll consider doing one on Natures too. I just don't know if that one is really worth it, though.

[Euripides]

Just finished two guides in the span of five hours. I can now say I'm satisfied and happy I could also tackle this one for any newbies who need it :)

 

I'll consider doing one on Natures too. I just don't know if that one is really worth it, though.

 

Would be a waste of time since you wrote about it in the other guide.

[Bhimoso]

Would be a waste of time since you wrote about it in the other guide.

Yeah, IMO there's no real point in focusing on that for a guide anymore.

[Bhimoso]

Guide fixed too.