We can’t blame you if you stopped playing Pokemon GO for a while, but we wouldn’t call ourselves surprised either if you’re playing the game once again, thanks to the new Thanksgiving update. Many Pokemon had gotten buffed through the update, and many had also gotten nerfed, and you may also have noticed that Stardust and XP are both doubled as part of Niantic’s Thanksgiving celebration for Pokemon GO players. But the one addition everyone seems to be talking about is the arrival of Ditto. This purple, blob-like Pokemon has become the one pocket monster everyone wants to catch, though it won’t be as easy to catch it as it would be to catch Pidgeys, Rattatas, or even Poliwags and Eevees or other Pokemon that may be common in your specific part of the world.
What’s the deal with Ditto anyway? What makes this Pokemon so special, and what can it do that other Pokemon cannot? But most of all, how do you catch Ditto? We’ve got all your Ditto questions answered in this new Pokemon GO strategy guide, our first in a good long while, and one that centers exclusively on this interesting new addition to the Pokedex.
1. How To Use Ditto
Before we talk about the catching process, let’s talk about Ditto and its special power. Truth be told, it looks cuter than it looks intimidating, what with that light purple blob-like appearance. CP isn’t anything to write home about either – based on what we’ve seen so far, it never seems to go above the 500 mark. But everything changes when you field Ditto in a gym battle.
Once sent to a gym to do battle with another player’s Pokemon, Ditto lives up to its name by impersonating the rival Pokemon. That means taking the other Pokemon’s appearance, special abilities, and even its base CP; that means Ditto won’t get the exact same CP as the Pokemon it’s facing, but will track accordingly based on its own CP curve. That should allow you a fairly even matchup against your opponent, even if it happens to be a 3,000-CP Gyarados or Dragonite.
When defending itself in the gym, Ditto has just one move, the Struggle move, though it’s only going to use that move when defending against other Dittos. Again, it might not sound like much, but it seems to work pretty well.
2. The Unusual Process Of Catching Ditto
Normally, you can add Pokemon to your collection by tapping on a wild Pokemon and doing battle with it, throwing PokeBalls its way in hopes of making the catch. You’ve also got egg hatching – may it be 2km, 5km, or 10km eggs, they all help you add to your collection, at the very least giving you a duplicate of a Pokemon you already have, with some bonus Stardust and Candy to boot. But when it comes to catching Ditto, neither of those methods apply in their traditional form.
That’s because Ditto will appear as another Pokemon, again doing what it does best by impersonating other pocket monsters. Usually, this would be a Pidgey or Rattata, so if you’ve sworn off these ubiquitous creatures because they’re virtually everywhere and ever-so-common, you might want to try catching them again. After doing battle with the ostensible Pokemon in question and catching it, you’ll then see the “Oh?” animation, the very same one you see when one of your eggs is ready to hatch. That means Ditto is yours, and registered to the Pokedex if it happens to be your first such catch.
3. What’s Next After The Catch?
After you get Ditto by catching the Pokemon it’s impersonating, you’ll get three Ditto candy, some Stardust, and the option to add Ditto as your buddy, to the tune of one candy per 3km walked. As a reminder, don’t be put off by the low CP rating, and feel confident to add Ditto to your list of gym battle mainstays.
4. Overview Of Ditto’s Moves
Ditto has only two moves – Transform and Struggle – and it’s always the same for each Ditto you catch. Transform is more like a stock ability, the ability that allows Ditto to turn itself into a replica of the Pokemon it’s facing, but with the same base CP and its own CP Curve. It will then stay as the Pokemon it’s impersonating unless you or your opponent runs away. Also, that transformation ability remains even if it’s defending, as it will then impersonate the attacking player’s Pokemon.
You can hold down on your device’s screen to use the Struggle ability, which comes in handy against another Ditto, though this only does a small amount of damage compared to other special abilities.
5. Can You Get Ditto Through Egg Hatching?
At the moment, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Nobody has reported 2km, 5km, or 10km eggs yielding any Dittos once hatched, though there’s always the possibility Niantic will make Ditto available via egg hatching at some point in the future.