Pokemon Pokopia All Ditto Abilities — How to Unlock Every Skill & Transformation

Ditto has 14 distinct abilities in Pokemon Pokopia, and every single one changes how you interact with the world. From your first Water Gun spray to the game-breaking freedom of Magnet Rise in the postgame, Ditto’s skill set is the backbone of everything you do — building, exploring, terraforming, and traversing water, air, and mountains.

The trick is that Pokopia does not hand you these abilities on a set schedule. Each one comes from befriending a specific Pokemon and completing their request. Miss the right Pokemon or skip their request chain, and you will be stuck without tools that make the entire game smoother. This guide covers all 14 abilities in unlock order, the Pokemon that teach them, the controls for each skill, and the food upgrades that make several of them stronger.

If you want the broader overview of Ditto’s role in the story and the transformation system, our Ditto guide covers the narrative side. This article focuses specifically on the mechanical skill unlocks.

How Ditto Abilities Work

Ditto learns abilities by copying Pokemon who demonstrate them. The process always follows the same loop: befriend a Pokemon, complete their Important Request, and watch them perform the ability. Ditto absorbs the move and can use it from that point forward.

Abilities split into two categories:

Active skills (8 total): These go on your skill wheel, accessed by pressing L. You can swap between them freely, and each one consumes PP (the blue energy bar) when used.

Context-sensitive skills (6 total): These activate automatically based on your situation. Press R to jump, R again in midair to Glide (once unlocked), B near water to Surf. You do not need to select these from a wheel — they just work when the conditions are right.

PP is the universal resource for all abilities. Every move drains your blue bar at different rates. When PP runs out, Ditto gets tired and cannot use any moves until you recover. Eat berries, cooked food, or rest at a Pokemon Center to refill. The PP energy system guide has a full breakdown of recovery methods and PP management.

Complete Ability List — All 14 Skills

Here is every Ditto ability in the approximate order you unlock them during a normal playthrough:

The unlock order can vary slightly depending on which Pokemon you befriend first, but the general flow follows story progression. Early abilities (Water Gun through Bulldoze) come from common Pokemon in the first region. Mid-game abilities require Pokemon from later areas. Magnet Rise is always last because it requires postgame access.

Water Gun — Your First Ability

Water Gun is the ability that teaches you how the entire system works. Very early in the story, you find an unconscious Squirtle on your island. After helping Squirtle recover, it demonstrates Water Gun, and Ditto copies the move.

What it does: Fires a stream of water in a straight line. The stream can water plants, fill small pools, clean dirty terrain, and push lightweight objects. It also activates certain water-powered mechanisms in the environment.

Practical uses: Water Gun becomes your go-to tool for farming. Every crop needs water, and until you build sprinkler systems, Water Gun is the only reliable way to keep your fields alive. It also clears dust and debris from excavation sites, revealing hidden items.

Food upgrade: Soup. Cooking and eating Soup extends Water Gun’s range significantly. The upgraded stream reaches nearly twice as far, which makes watering large farm plots much faster. Check our cooking recipes guide for the Soup recipe.

PP cost: Low. Water Gun is designed to be used frequently without draining your energy bar too quickly.

Leafage — Revitalizing the Land

Leafage comes from befriending Chikorita, typically your second major ability unlock. Where Water Gun interacts with water and objects, Leafage works on the ground itself.

What it does: Targets barren or damaged terrain and restores it to lush grassland. Leafage can also accelerate plant growth and revive wilted crops. The ability transforms dead blocks into living terrain, which directly raises your Grass Environment Level.

Practical uses: Leafage is essential for early habitat building. When you first start creating Grass-type habitats, manually placing grass blocks is slow. Leafage lets you sweep across a barren area and convert it to greenery in seconds. It also revives trees and flowers that have died due to neglect.

Why it matters for the Pokedex: Since Grass-type habitats attract a large chunk of the Pokedex (especially Kanto and Johto species), Leafage directly accelerates your Pokemon collection speed. The faster you can build quality Grass zones, the sooner those Pokemon show up.

Rock Smash and Bulldoze — Terrain Manipulation

Rock Smash and Bulldoze are your core terraforming pair in the early-to-mid game.

Rock Smash (from Geodude): Breaks rocks, stone blocks, and certain terrain obstacles. Every region has rock formations blocking paths, hiding caves, and covering resources. Rock Smash clears them. It also works on placed blocks, so if you make a building mistake, Rock Smash is your undo button.

Food upgrade: Hamburger Steak. Eating Hamburger Steak boosts Rock Smash power, letting you break harder materials and clear larger rock formations in fewer hits.

Bulldoze (from Diglett): Flattens terrain by lowering blocks. If Rock Smash removes blocks entirely, Bulldoze pushes them down. This is critical for creating flat building platforms, leveling hills, and carving paths through raised terrain. Our Bulldoze guide covers advanced techniques for efficient terrain flattening.

Together, Rock Smash and Bulldoze handle most of your early terraforming needs. You will use both of them constantly until Rollout becomes available and outclasses them for speed.

Rollout — The Game-Changing Terraforming Skill

Rollout is the single most important ability for anyone serious about building and habitat creation. Learned from Graveler, this move turns Ditto into a rolling boulder that barrels through terrain blocks at high speed.

What it does: Ditto transforms into a rock ball and rolls forward, smashing through blocks in its path. Unlike Rock Smash (which targets individual blocks), Rollout plows through entire lines of terrain. You can clear a row of 20 blocks in the time Rock Smash takes to break 3.

Why everyone talks about Rollout: Before Rollout, shaping terrain is painfully slow. After Rollout, you can carve out basement levels, flatten hills, dig tunnels, and reshape entire sections of your island in minutes. It is the difference between spending an hour on a building project and spending ten minutes.

Practical techniques: Roll in straight lines to carve corridors. Roll along hillsides to strip layers cleanly. Combine with Bulldoze for precision — use Rollout for bulk removal, then Bulldoze to smooth the edges. For large-scale habitat builds, Rollout is your primary tool.

PP cost: Moderate. Rollout drains more PP than Rock Smash, so make sure you have food or berries ready for extended terraforming sessions.

The building guide goes deeper into how Rollout fits into advanced construction workflows.

Ember and Thunderbolt — Elemental Utilities

These two abilities round out the active skill wheel with elemental functions.

Ember (from Charmander): Produces fire. Ember lights campfires, torches, and furnaces. It melts ice blocks in cold regions, clears frozen paths, and activates fire-based mechanisms. For habitat building, Ember creates the warm conditions that Fire-type Pokemon need. Placing lit objects and using Ember on terrain blocks raises the Fire Environment Level.

Thunderbolt (from Pikachu): Generates electricity. Thunderbolt powers machines, activates electric fences (for habitat boundaries), lights up dark areas, and starts generators. Electric-type habitats rely on powered objects, so Thunderbolt is necessary for attracting Pokemon like Magnemite, Voltorb, and Pikachu itself.

Both abilities have niche but important roles. You will not use them as constantly as Water Gun or Rollout, but when you need fire or electricity, nothing else substitutes.

Strength — Moving the Unmovable

Strength comes from completing Machamp’s request. It lets Ditto push large boulders, heavy blocks, and objects that no other ability can move.

What it does: Approach a large obstacle, activate Strength, and Ditto pushes it in the direction you are facing. Boulders slide until they hit another solid object or fall into a gap.

Puzzle and progression uses: Multiple regions have boulder puzzles that block access to new areas, hidden caves, and legendary Pokemon encounters. Strength is the key to solving these puzzles. Some are straightforward push-and-slide problems. Others require specific sequences to open paths.

Building uses: Strength moves pre-placed large decorative blocks that cannot be picked up normally. If you find a giant rock in the middle of your ideal building site, Strength relocates it without destroying it.

PP cost: Low per use, but Strength only works on specific interactable objects. You cannot use it on regular terrain — that is what Rock Smash and Rollout are for.

Glide — Taking to the Skies

Glide is a context-sensitive ability learned from Dragonite. Once unlocked, it fundamentally changes how you explore.

How to use it: Press R to jump. While in the air, press R again. Ditto transforms into a gliding form and descends slowly, covering significant horizontal distance. You can steer mid-glide, adjust altitude slightly, and land wherever you choose.

Unlock requirement: Befriend Dragonite and complete its Important Request. Dragonite is a late-game Pokemon found in elevated regions, so Glide is not available until you have progressed well into the story.

Why it matters: Before Glide, getting down from high terrain means either finding a path or falling (and taking fall damage). After Glide, every high point becomes a launch pad. You can survey your island from above, reach distant areas quickly, and spot Pokemon habitats from a bird’s-eye perspective.

Exploration synergy: Glide pairs perfectly with the Skylands region. The floating islands that make up Skylands are designed around gliding between platforms. Without Glide, navigation there is extremely tedious. With it, the region opens up completely.

Surf and Dive — Water Mastery

Water traversal unlocks in two stages.

Swim (from Squirtle): Basic surface movement in shallow water. You get this early alongside Water Gun. Swim lets you cross ponds and rivers but cannot handle deep ocean water or strong currents.

Surf (from Lapras): Full open-water traversal. Surf lets Ditto ride across deep water at speed, crossing oceans and reaching water-locked islands. Lapras is a mid-game befriend that opens up every coastal area on the map.

Dive (from Gyarados): Underwater exploration. While Surfing, press B to dive below the surface. Dive reveals underwater caves, sunken objects, and aquatic Pokemon habitats that are invisible from above. Gyarados is a challenging befriend with high Water Environment Level requirements.

The progression from Swim to Surf to Dive mirrors your island development. Early game, you handle puddles. Mid-game, you cross oceans. Late game, you explore what is underneath them.

Magnet Rise — The Ultimate Endgame Ability

Magnet Rise is the final ability you unlock, learned from Magnemite in the postgame. It is not just another tool — it completely redefines how you interact with Pokopia.

What it does: Ditto levitates and can fly freely in all directions — up, down, forward, backward. While flying, you can place blocks at any height and absorb blocks directly in front of you. There is no height limit, no terrain restriction, and no need to build scaffolding.

Why it changes everything: Before Magnet Rise, building tall structures requires stacking blocks as stairs, climbing up, placing blocks, and repeating. It is functional but slow. Magnet Rise lets you fly to the exact spot where you want a block and place it. Complex architecture that took hours now takes minutes.

Block absorption: While hovering, face a block and absorb it into your inventory without needing Rock Smash. This makes editing existing builds non-destructive — you pull blocks out cleanly instead of smashing them.

Postgame unlock: Magnet Rise requires completing specific postgame content with Magnemite. You will not access this until after the main story concludes and you have progressed into the endgame restoration phase. The wait is worth it. Every player who reaches Magnet Rise describes it as the moment Pokopia truly opens up.

PP cost: High. Magnet Rise drains PP faster than any other ability. Stock up on high-quality cooked food before extended flying sessions. The PP drain is the only real limitation on what is otherwise the most powerful tool in the game.

Food Upgrades for Ditto Abilities

Four abilities have direct food upgrades that improve their performance. Cooking the right dishes and eating them before using the corresponding ability gives you a temporary power boost.

Food upgrades are temporary buffs that last for a set duration after eating. They do not permanently change the ability. Keep a stock of upgrade foods in your inventory so you can buff up before big projects.

The cooking recipes guide lists every recipe and ingredient source. Soup and Hamburger Steak are the two most commonly used upgrades because Water Gun and Rock Smash see the most daily use.

PP Management for Ability Users

Every ability drains PP, and running dry in the middle of a project or exploration run is frustrating. Here are the key PP management habits:

Carry berries constantly. Berries are the most accessible PP recovery item. Pick them from bushes across your island and keep 10-20 in your inventory at all times.

Cook high-PP food. Cooked meals restore more PP than raw berries. Prioritize cooking when you plan to do heavy terraforming or long exploration sessions.

Build Pokemon Centers near work sites. Resting at a Pokemon Center fully restores PP. If you are doing a massive building project, place a Pokemon Center nearby so you can recharge without running back to town. See the Pokemon Center rebuild guide for placement strategies.

Pace your ability use. Rollout and Magnet Rise drain PP fastest. Alternate between heavy PP abilities and lighter ones (Water Gun, Leafage) to extend your working time.

Watch the blue bar. The PP bar is always visible on screen. Get in the habit of checking it before starting a Rollout run or Magnet Rise flight. Running out mid-air with Magnet Rise drops you immediately, which can result in fall damage.

Optimal Ability Unlock Order

While the unlock order is mostly dictated by story progression, you can prioritize certain Pokemon friendships to get the most impactful abilities earlier.

Priority 1: Water Gun and Leafage. These come naturally through the story. Do not skip the Squirtle and Chikorita request chains.

Priority 2: Rock Smash and Bulldoze. Geodude and Diglett are common early Pokemon. Befriend them as soon as their habitats are viable.

Priority 3: Rollout. Rush Graveler’s friendship. The jump in terraforming speed is enormous and affects everything you do from that point forward.

Priority 4: Surf. Lapras opens up water travel and doubles your accessible map area. Target this as soon as you reach mid-game.

Priority 5: Glide. Dragonite is late-game, but Glide transforms exploration. Push for it as soon as the region where Dragonite appears becomes available.

Priority 6: Magnet Rise. This is postgame-locked, so you cannot rush it beyond completing the main story. But it should be your first postgame objective.

The remaining abilities (Ember, Thunderbolt, Strength, Swim, Dive) are important but less transformative. They tend to unlock naturally as you work through the story without needing to be specifically targeted.

FAQ

How many Ditto abilities are in Pokemon Pokopia? There are 14 total Ditto abilities — 8 on the active skill wheel and 6 context-sensitive skills like Jump, Surf, and Glide.

What is the first Ditto ability you unlock? Water Gun is the first ability, learned from encountering an unconscious Squirtle early in the story.

How do you unlock Rollout in Pokopia? Complete the request for Graveler. Rollout lets Ditto barrel through terrain blocks, making it essential for fast terraforming.

What is the last ability Ditto learns? Magnet Rise, learned from Magnemite in the postgame. It allows you to fly vertically and place/absorb blocks freely.

Can you upgrade Ditto abilities with food? Yes! Four skills have food upgrades: Soup extends Water Gun range, Hamburger Steak boosts Rock Smash power, and more.

What happens when Ditto runs out of PP? Ditto gets tired and can’t use moves. Recover PP by eating berries, cooked food, or resting at a Pokemon Center.

How do you unlock Glide? Befriend and complete the request for Dragonite. Press R to jump, then R again to transform and glide.

What is the best Ditto ability for building? Magnet Rise is the best building ability — it lets you fly, place blocks at any height, and absorb blocks directly in front of you.