#132: Ditto

Ok, settle in for a long one here... Wait, Ditto comes before Eevee and its endless evolutions... Well, here we go with Ditto.

Ditto is an amorphous purple mass (blue if you get the shiny) that takes on normal-typing to start with and the rather basic stat array of 48 in everything. It's commonly found with the ability limber, which prevents it from being paralysed, but from time to time, it gets the ability imposter, which basically does what its move does.

Well, hello there...

You read that right, it gets one move: transform. Ditto is there to copy the appearance of the foe, and in doing so, it copies the form, moves (but only granting 5PP on each), stats, mega evolution and weight. Where imposter falls down is that it only copies the Pokemon directly opposite in multi-battles (no change if there is nothing directly opposite) whilst transform works to copy all adjacent Pokemon. The other issues that arise: craft shield blocks this, as do substitutes and Pokemon with illusion.

There's very little to say in terms of battling here, but the main uses for Ditto are in breeding, where you can breed natures and IVs down to offspring from most other Pokemon, even Manaphy, the generation 4 legendary (which actually gives Phione). Most Pokemon can breed with a Ditto, the list that can't basically covers legendaries, and Pokemon of mono-gendered species like Kangaskhan can only breed by breeding with a Ditto. Using an everstone on the Ditto will increase the chance of the Ditto's nature being passed on, whilst destiny knot can cause more IVs to be passed on to the successor.

Ditto is far from an easy battler, but is a great utility Pokemon for sticking in a daycare with another lonely little Pokemon, stick on some Barry White, and then walk around with the resulting egg.

(All artwork presented by Ken Sugimori, taken from the Bulbapedia image archives)