Competitive Pokemon History - Ditto Quiz

Answer: 48

48 base stats across the board are, to put it mildly, really bad. This means that Ditto was outsped by everything relevant and OHKOed by a stiff breeze, giving it no room to shine in any capacity. The only way Ditto could contribute anything meaningful to a game in any tier was if the opponent switched their Pokemon out, allowing Ditto to use Transform without taking any damage.

The problem with that is that nothing in the entire meta, standard play or UU, would feel threatened enough by a Ditto to the point where they'd actually feel inclined to use up a turn switching out. Simply put, Ditto's ability to take a single hit was nonexistent, and because even slow behemoths like Golem and Rhydon outsped it, Ditto was utter garbage in its debut generation. Even in UnderUsed, which was somewhat of a joke tier at the time, Ditto was still completely terrible.

Answer: Breeding

When paired with a non-legendary Pokemon at the in-game Day Care, Ditto will be able to constantly make eggs with the other Pokemon, granting the trainer a level 1 Pokemon at the other parent's lowest evolved form. This gave Ditto tremendous utility off the battlefield, able to assist the trainer in effortlessly creating teams by just hitting a few buttons.

Answer: Metal Powder

Metal Powder grants Ditto a +1 to both its Defense and Special Defense stats, a boost which is retained even after Transforming. Still, this is a paltry patchup for Ditto in the competitive scene; it was still completely terrible, and may yet have been the most useless fully evolved Pokemon in the game.

In the early going of the second generation meta, newer players looking for ways to combat the omnipresent Snorlax sometimes sought Ditto's services for the job. After using Curse, Snorlax's speed would drop to become slower than Ditto's. So, if Ditto could switch in on the set up turn or come in for free otherwise, it would be able to Transform and reveal the opposing Snorlax's moveset to the trainer then and there. Clearly, there were far more efficient ways to discover Snorlax's moveset than this. Though discovering its moveset was valuable, it wasn't generally worth essentially being down an entire Pokemon after learning that information since Ditto stood no chance at actually defeating Snorlax 1-on-1. Additionally, even when its moveset is discovered, second generation Snorlax was by no means easy to deal with, meaning that the opportunity cost was nowhere close to worth it.

Despite that miniscule, bite sized, nonexistent niche, Ditto was still absolutely abysmal on the battlefield. Clearly, it wasn't worth using in standard play. UnderUsed was also far above Ditto's shoulders, and even the new NeverUsed tier totally overwhelmed Ditto. Simply put, Ditto was a novel, funny choice in competitive play that should only ever see use on joke teams. Or maybe when facing your six year old brother.

Answer: The introduction of natures

Because Pokemon had to have the correct natures to be useful, Ditto was more useful than ever before. Simply put, it is a lot faster to eventually breed the correct nature via breeding than it is tracking down where a certain wild Pokemon spawns and starting encounters over and over again.

This is also cheaper on trainers' wallets; you only need to spend 1,000 poke dollars to breed Ditto and another Pokemon, and you can do that infinitely. Meanwhile, five Poke Balls cost that much, and you are never going to consistently get the nature you want off of only five Poke Balls considering how many natures there are in the game. Again, trainers gamewide sought Ditto obsessively, eager to start constructing their teams.

Answer: Destiny Knot

While breeding for the correct nature was fairly straightforward, IVs on a Pokemon were a whole different beast. With 32 total values across six base stats, the likelihood of getting all six stats to reach 32 was astronomically unlikely to happen once, let alone twice, three times, and so on.

However, if the trainer was lucky enough to achieve it once, they could hand the Pokemon in question a Destiny Knot, breed it with a Ditto, and it would be 100% guaranteed to retain anywhere from 3-6 of the parent Pokemon's IVs.

This means you've got a 20% chance of obtaining a perfect IVed Pokemon, which are far better odds than doing it the traditional way. If one could get their hands on a Ditto with six perfect IVs, they could use this to eventually breed the perfect team full of six-IVed Pokemon.

As such, Ditto became far more useful than ever- silently crafting entire teams behind the scenes.

Answer: Imposter

With Imposter, Ditto would instantly transform into the opposing Pokemon upon switching in, and would no longer have to spend a turn using Transform in order to do so. Such a small change had such massive impact on Ditto, as this let it copy a setup sweeper's boost and, in conjunction with a Choice Scarf, turn their boosts against them and their entire team. The mere presence of a Ditto on someone's team would just about invalidate any attempts from the opponent to try to use boosting moves, such as Swords Dance and Nasty Plot, with the hopes of making any serious progress.

While this may seem like Ditto became a world beater with its shiny new toy, there were still some problems that tamed it somewhat. The first is that Ditto, more than any other Pokémon in the game, was extremely matchup reliant; it would be absolutely worthless against stall teams, as these teams packed the defensive backbone while lacking in offenses to truly benefit Ditto from doing much against them. The fact that Ditto was constantly Choice-locked into a move with 5 PP meant that stall teams would effortlessly PP stall a Ditto all the time. Additionally, bulky Calm Mind users, such as Reuniclus, Cresselia, and the God of Pokémon in Arceus, were able to stave off Ditto's revenge killing attempt, as they were bulky enough to be able to handle what was essentially an unboosted variant of themselves, stalling Ditto out of its 5 PP and continuing to boost uninterrupted. This was not helped by the fact that Ditto could not copy Arceus' Judgment type due to the fact it was not holding a Plate, meaning Ditto could only flail at Arceus with weak, non STAB Judgments.

This matchup reliance prevented Ditto from seeing enough usage to be in a usage based tier higher than NeverUsed. However, Ditto was viable in every tier in the game, even Ubers, due to how it could flip entire games around against a greedy setup sweeper, along with how easy it was to throw onto a team. This was by far the most optimistic its chances on the battlefield were in the entirety of its otherwise miserable existence.

Answer: If Ditto attempted to use it on the God of Pokemon, Arceus.

Zoroark's signature ability, Disguise, allows it to take the form of another Pokemon on its team. If Ditto comes in on Zoroark, whether or not its Disguise has been broken, Imposter will fail and Ditto will be unable to do anything to Zoroark at all. Worse yet, Transform will also fail, meaning Ditto will be able to do literally nothing at all to Zoroark, making Zoroark one of few Nasty Plot boosters who can afford to pay no regard to Ditto at all.

Ditto will also encounter issues with Substitute users, as both Imposter and Transform will also fail against a Pokemon behind a Substitute.

Finally, if a Ditto is switched in against another Ditto, both trainers will encounter the rather amusing instance where neither of their Pokemon can actually do anything to the other at all. Once the Dittos run out of Transform PP, a Struggle war will ensue. In fact, trainers using Ditto are encouraged to tweak their EVs and nature to become speed-reducing, as the slowest of the two Dittos will actually win this Struggle war due to being the last to suffer Struggle's 1/4th recoil damage. Since Ditto will completely copy whatever it Transforms into, minimizing its speed as much as possible does nothing to hinder it from actually doing its job, meaning one may as well minimize its speed just in case this situation occurs.

Answer: PartiallyUsed

Don't let Ditto's official status as a low tier Pokemon fool you; it was once again viable in every tier in the game, including the daunting Uber tier. Its dynamic was pretty much the exact same in whatever tier it was being used in: stick around in the back of the trainer's team, as a means of defending against the trainer's Pokemon getting taken advantage of and set up on by a sweeper, while being total deadweight against defensive teams. Once again, because of Ditto's matchup reliance, it did not see enough usage to be in a higher tier than PU. Of course, it's hard to argue that Ditto was by any means overpowered in any tier, seeing as how its one and only function, while a very useful one, could essentially be boiled down to punishing a remarkably stupid, perhaps inexperienced, trainer's setup sweeping efforts.

Answer: Everstone

When Ditto holds an Everstone, its nature is automatically passed down to the egg Pokemon. This advantage also extends to its breeding partner, meaning a Ditto with an Adamant nature could hold an Everstone, while a 6 IVed Salamence could hold a Destiny Knot- and voila, a few eggs later, you've got yourself a 6 IVed, optimal natured Bagon, ready to be groomed for competitive use!

Answer: When copying a Dynamaxed Pokemon, Ditto is no longer Choice locked into its moves until the effect wears off

Imposter allows Ditto to copy a Dynamaxed Pokemon, revenge killing them just as it had for three generations now. Additionally, while Dynamaxed, Ditto is no longer constrained by the Choice Scarf's locking effects, meaning Ditto can switch between moves while Dynamaxed, allowing it to afford itself more boosts and possibly better field conditions, before returning to normal and proceeding to clean up with its Choice Scarf. Still, Ditto was matchup reliant. Though stall teams lost many important tools coming over from the seventh generation, Ditto still fails to make a meaningful impact against these teams for the same reasons it has never been good against them, even with Imposter. Additionally, top tiered threats such as Hydreigon frequently run Substitute specifically with Ditto in mind. Hydreigon also commonly sports Dark Pulse and Flash Cannon as its only two attacking moves, meaning Ditto could not actually hit Hydreigon too, too hard even if it did manage to copy its boosts.

A Hydreigon with Roost can therefore stall out Ditto's 5 PP before returning to its sweeping efforts. Substitute Gyarados with Waterfall + Bounce works in essentially the same way, as Ditto will have a hard time beating it even if it manages to copy Gyarados.