Pokémon Abilities: What They Do and How to Get Them

One passive power, one per Pokémon, and sometimes an entire strategy turned on its head: Abilities are probably the quietest and most decisive mechanic in the series. They arrived in the third generation, where the French games called them 'capacités spéciales', and they set the weather, block a move, double a Speed stat or speed up the hatching of an Egg. There are now more than three hundred of them, plus a secret third slot reserved for the rarest of them.

Contents

• One passive power, one per Pokémon
• Three hundred and ten Abilities, and the generation that invented them
• When an Ability activates
• Hidden Abilities, the third slot
• How to get a Hidden Ability, generation by generation
• Ability Capsule and Ability Patch: changing an Ability
• Abilities that work outside battle
• Abilities that changed the way we play
• The games where Abilities don't exist
• Abilities in ten key facts
• Frequently Asked Questions

One passive power, one per Pokémon

An Ability is a permanent, automatic effect, introduced with the third generation, where the French games named it 'capacité spéciale' before renaming it 'talent' in Pokémon X and Y. Unlike moves, it is never used on purpose: it works entirely on its own as soon as its conditions are met.

A species can offer several Abilities, but any given individual carries only one at a time. Some are even reserved for a single evolutionary family, and are then called a signature Ability, on the model of signature moves.

How can you tell which one a Pokémon has before catching it? There is a famous observation trick. Use Leer on a Tentacool in the wild: if its Defense drops, it has Liquid Ooze; if the move fails, it is Clear Body, the Ability that blocks every stat drop.

Three hundred and ten Abilities, and the generation that invented them

The catalog has grown without a pause: the series now counts 310 Abilities. The third generation, which launched the concept, is still by far the most generous, with 76 Abilities in one go.

At the other end of the scale, the sixth generation is the stingiest: Pokémon X and Y brought only 24, and Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire three more, for 27 across the whole generation. The ninth, for its part, added forty counting its two expansions, and the battle game Pokémon Champions four more.

One Ability stands apart: Cacophony, coded in the third generation but never given to a single Pokémon, then removed outright in the following generation. It therefore appears in no serious count, and no one has ever seen it trigger in battle.

Another design curiosity: all the Abilities introduced in the eighth generation were signature Abilities, or were at the time of their debut. Sword and Shield chose to hand out unique powers rather than broaden the shared options.

When an Ability activates

The trigger timings have been codified ever since Ruby and Sapphire. Some Abilities act when the Pokémon is sent out, like Intimidate, which lowers the opponent's Attack, or Drizzle, which starts the rain. Others work between turns, as Speed Boost does.

☔ Drizzle summons rain the moment its Pokémon is sent out, without a single turn of setup. You, on the other hand, have no Ability to stop the downpour, just one of our Pokémon jackets folded at the bottom of your bag.

Others still are permanent, like Oblivious, or fire at the moment of attacking, as Truant does by forcing the Pokémon to loaf around every other turn. Some react only to the opponent's attacks, like Static and its contact paralysis.

The rest depends on context: on remaining HP for Blaze, on the weather for Chlorophyll, even on the outcome of the battle for Pickup. A single word, 'Ability', therefore covers very different kinds of logic, which is why you can play for years without mastering every last subtlety.

Lastly, two mechanics can reshuffle the deck: the move Skill Swap trades Abilities between the two battlers, and the Ability Trace copies the opponent's. Only one exception resists everything: Wonder Guard, the Ability of Shedinja, cannot be obtained by any means other than Trace.

Hidden Abilities, the third slot

Introduced in the fifth generation, the Hidden Ability is an Ability that a species does not have through the normal routes of capture. Technically it fills a third slot, separate from the two regular Abilities, and it is kept when the Pokémon evolves.

Some Abilities, in fact, exist only as Hidden Abilities: there is no other way to run into them. That is exactly what gave these specimens their trade value on community platforms, right from Black and White.

One caveat, though: not every Pokémon has one. Flygon is the textbook example: it has Levitate and nothing else, and no item will ever change that.

The seventh generation even added another layer, since a few Pokémon have, on top of their Hidden Ability, a special Ability. Greninja with Battle Bond and Rockruff with Own Tempo are the two cases, and in the game's code these variants are actually implemented as separate species.

How to get a Hidden Ability, generation by generation

Each generation came up with its own source. In the fifth, Hidden Abilities were dug up in the Hidden Grottoes, via Pokémon Dream Radar, by trading with Yancy and Curtis, or on the much-missed Pokémon Dream World, now shut down.

The sixth generation opened three new doors: horde encounters, the Friend Safari and the DexNav. The seventh added SOS Battles, where the allies a wild Pokémon calls for help eventually turn up with their Hidden Ability after enough calls.

The eighth generation made Max Raid Battles the main source, with one decisive advantage: these Abilities can be passed down by breeding. The ninth took up the same principle with Tera Raid Battles at five or six stars.

The Indigo Disk added an unexpected lead: wild Terastallized Pokémon of the Stellar type can carry their Hidden Ability too. Enough to turn a tedious hunt into a simple attentive stroll.

Ability Capsule and Ability Patch: changing an Ability

Two items are now all it takes to settle the question. The Ability Capsule, introduced in the sixth generation, swaps a Pokémon's Ability for the other regular Ability of its species, when there is one, and never touches the Hidden Ability.

The Ability Patch, which arrived with The Crown Tundra, does exactly what the Capsule refuses to do: it switches the Pokémon over to its Hidden Ability. Unsurprisingly, it has no effect on a species that does not have one.

🩹 The Ability Patch switches a Pokémon to its Hidden Ability, something the Ability Capsule refuses to do; the only patch you'll ever stick on anything ends up on your pencil case or your bedroom door, and you pick it from our Pokémon stickers.

In Scarlet and Violet, Ability Patches are obtained in the rarest raids, as well as from the Item Printer in the League Club Room at Blueberry Academy. A real quality-of-life revolution: what once took dozens of trades now comes down to a single consumable item.

Abilities that work outside battle

Since Pokémon Emerald, some Abilities also act in the field, and those effects are worth their weight in gold to breeders. Flame Body and Magma Armor halve the number of steps needed to hatch the Eggs in your party, an effect that does not stack, so there is no point lining up two of them.

Putting the right Pokémon at the head of your party also changes encounters. From Sword and Shield onward, Synchronize guaranteed that the wild Pokémon would share the Nature of the lead Pokémon, where it had been only a one-in-two chance ever since Emerald, but the Ability has had no field effect at all since Scarlet and Violet. Illuminate and No Guard double the encounter rate, while White Smoke and Infiltrator halve it.

Others play on the nature of the loot. Compound Eyes and Super Luck sharply raise the odds that a wild Pokémon is holding an item, while Magnet Pull and Storm Drain attract Steel- and Water-type Pokémon respectively, wherever the location allows it.

Abilities that changed the way we play

Some Abilities define a Pokémon all on their own. Shedinja owes everything to Wonder Guard, which lets only super effective moves through: a single hit point, but near-total immunity. Kecleon and Castform likewise rest on a power that belongs to them alone.

Others redrew strategy outright. The Abilities that set the weather the moment their bearer enters, namely Drought, Drizzle and Snow Warning, gave rise to entire teams built around permanent weather, with Chlorophyll or Slush Rush as their speed engines.

The ninth generation pushed the idea further still with Protosynthesis and Quark Drive, the Abilities of the Paradox Pokémon, or with Embody Aspect, which works only on a Terastallized Ogerpon. The Ability is no longer a bonus: it has become the heart of the character.

A last word on the twisted cases, the kind that regional forms love: Sand Veil and Snow Cloak have exactly the same effect, but one activates in a sandstorm and the other in hail. Changing region sometimes means changing the weather, not the logic.

⛄ Snow Cloak waits for hail and Sand Veil for a sandstorm before kicking in; your own trigger condition is more like the first cold evening, and that's when one of our Pokémon throw blankets takes it from here.

The games where Abilities don't exist

Only three titles are the exception: the twin releases of Let's Go, Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon Legends: Z-A. In these titles, Abilities are simply absent from the battle system.

That removal forced the developers to improvise a few workarounds. In Legends: Arceus, Cherrim in its Sunshine Form received a base stat change to replace Flower Gift, and Regigigas was given a special status condition in place of Slow Start.

Spin-offs, for their part, sometimes take the opposite line. In the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, every Pokémon has both of its species' Abilities at once, and they also serve for exploring: Damp, on Psyduck, defuses explosive traps. Which leads to a few delicious conflicts: the game's Riolu has Inner Focus, which keeps it from flinching, making its second Ability, Steadfast, perfectly useless.

Abilities in ten key facts

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is an Ability in Pokémon?
  It is a passive power, introduced in the third generation, where the French games named it 'capacité spéciale' before renaming it 'talent' in Pokémon X and Y. It acts automatically in battle, and sometimes in the field, without the player having to use it. A species can offer several Abilities, but a given Pokémon carries only one at a time.
• How many Abilities are there?
  310 in total, not counting Cacophony, an Ability coded in the third generation but never given to a single Pokémon, then removed in the very next generation. The third generation introduced the most, with 76; the sixth the fewest, with 27 counting Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire.
• What is a Hidden Ability and how do you get one?
  It's an Ability a species doesn't have from an ordinary catch, introduced in Generation V and stored in a third slot. Depending on the game, you get it from Hidden Grottoes, horde encounters, the Friend Safari, SOS Battles, Max Raid Battles, five- and six-star Tera Raid Battles, or from Stellar-type Terastallized wild Pokémon in The Indigo Disk. The Ability Patch also lets you assign it directly.
• What's the difference between the Ability Capsule and the Ability Patch?
  The Ability Capsule, introduced in Generation VI, switches a Pokémon from one of its species' regular Abilities to the other, without ever touching the Hidden Ability. The Ability Patch, introduced with The Crown Tundra, replaces the Ability with the Hidden Ability — and has no effect on a species that doesn't have one, such as Flygon.
• Are Abilities useful outside of battle?
  Yes, ever since Pokémon Emerald. Flame Body and Magma Armor halve the number of steps needed to hatch Eggs, and the effect doesn't stack. Placed at the head of your party, Synchronize guaranteed from Sword and Shield onward that the wild Pokémon would share its holder's Nature, before losing every overworld effect in Scarlet and Violet; Illuminate and No Guard double the encounter rate, White Smoke and Infiltrator halve it, and both Compound Eyes and Super Luck raise the odds that a wild Pokémon is holding an item.
• Are there any Pokémon games without Abilities?
  Yes, three: Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!, Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon Legends: Z-A. Abilities are absent from the battle system in these games. Legends: Arceus made up for it on a case-by-case basis, with a base stat change for Sunshine Form Cherrim in place of Flower Gift, and a special status applied to Regigigas in place of Slow Start.

In short

You can go through an entire adventure without paying them any attention, then find out in an online battle that a single word on a Pokémon's summary decides everything. That's the whole beauty of Abilities: invisible most of the time, and absolutely decisive the rest of the time.