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Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (BDSP)

How to Get Hidden Abilities

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Pokemon BDSP Hidden Abilities

Get Pokemon with Hidden Abilities by trading or breeding in Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (BDSP). Read on to learn the chance of breeding Hidden Abilities, the best Hidden Abilities, and for Hidden Abilities explained!

How to Get Hidden Abilities

How to Get Hidden Abilities in BDSP
  1. Use an Ability Patch
  2. Poke Radar Chaining
  3. Ramanas Park
  4. Trade
  5. Breeding

Use an Ability Patch

Ability Patch ImageAbility Patch

The Ability Patch is an Item available in the Battle Tower, a post-game area, for 200 BP. This item will allow players to change a Pokemon's Ability to a Hidden Ability.

The Ability Capsule a similar item, only allows Pokemon to change between non-Hidden Abilities. The Ability Patch allows Pokemon to change to a Hidden Ability for the first time, making breeding competitive-ready Pokemon significantly easier. However, the steep price of 200 BP means you'll need to have your Battle Tower strategy on point if you want an Ability Patch.

Battle Tower Guide

Uses of Ability Patch

Ability Patch Ability Capsule
Ability 1 → Ability 2 X
Ability 2 → Ability 1 X
Ability → Hidden Ability X
Hidden Ability → Ability X X

Legend: X = No; ◯ = Yes

Can a Pokemon's Original Ability be Restored?

Ability Patch cannot switch a Pokemon's Hidden Ability to its regular Ability. There are no ways to change it and is permanently stuck to the Pokemon.

How to Get BP (Battle Points)

Poke Radar Chaining

Pokemon BDSP Poke Radar Hidden Ability

When using the Poke Radar, there's a chance that a grass patch will have a stronger shake with larger blades of grass coming out of it. The Pokemon encountered in these grass patches are Poke Radar Pokemon with Hidden Abilities.

This type of grass shake is quite rare and when encountering Pokemon in this type of grass, your chances of encountering a Pokemon with its Hidden Ability is still about 30x better than basic odds of encountering Shiny Pokemon.

Pokemon Encounter Odds
Shiny Pokemon
(Basic Odds)
1/4096
Pokemon with Hidden Ability
(via Poke Radar)
Approx. 30x better than Basic Shiny Odds

How to Use the Poke Radar

Ramanas Park

Registeel.png

Ramanas Park has Legendaries you can catch and all these Pokemon have their Hidden Abilities instead of their regular one. Previously, you can only get Legendaries like these in events.

Ramanas Park All Legendary Pokemon

Trading

Pokemon BDSP Trading

You can get a Pokemon with a Hidden Ability via trade with another player. This is the easiest method of getting a Pokemon with Hidden Ability, as you can guarantee beforehand whether the Pokemon you're receiving already has a Hidden Ability or not.

If you have a Pokemon with a Hidden Ability, many players will be willing to trade with you.

Pokemon Trading Board

Check if the trade Pokemon received has a Hidden Ability

Take note that before agreeing to a trade, you can check to see the stats of the Pokemon which you will receive. Make sure the Pokemon you're receiving has the Hidden Ability you're expecting!

How to Trade Locally and Online

Breeding

Pokemon BDSP Solaceon Town

When you already have a Pokemon with Hidden Ability, you can pass the Hidden Ability to its offspring by breeding it at the Nursery in Solaceon Town.

How to Breed Pokemon

Chance of Breeding Hidden Abilities

Breeding Between Two Different Species

Hidden Ability Inheritance
Pokemon BDSP GoldeenGoldeen
(Male, Ability doesn't matter.)
These two can produce a Magikarp egg with a Hidden Ability. Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
( Female, with Hidden Ability)
Pokemon BDSP GoldeenGoldeen
(Female, Ability doesn't matter.)
These two cannot produce a Magikarp egg with a Hidden Ability.
They will only produce Goldeen Eggs.
Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
( Male, with Hidden Ability)

If the Pokemon with the Hidden Ability is female, its offspring will be the same Pokemon, so it has a chance of inheriting the Hidden Ability.

If the Pokemon with the Hidden Ability is male, its offspring will be the same Pokemon species as the female breeding partner, so there won't be a chance of it inheriting the Hidden Ability, since Hidden Abilities differ between species.

Breeding Between the Same Species

Hidden Ability Inheritance
Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
(Male, with Hidden Ability)
These two can produce a Magikarp egg with a Hidden Ability. Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
( Female, with Hidden Ability)
Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
(Male, with Regular Ability)
These two can produce a Magikarp egg with a Hidden Ability. Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
( Female, with Hidden Ability)
Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
(Male, with Hidden Ability)
These two cannot produce a Magikarp egg with a Hidden Ability. Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
( Female, with Regular Ability)
Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
(Male, with Regular Ability)
These two cannot produce a Magikarp egg with a Hidden Ability. Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
( Female, with Regular Ability)

Keep in mind that when breeding Pokemon of the same species, the female parent should have the Hidden Ability. If only the male parent has the Hidden Ability, there is no chance for their offspring to be born with a Hidden Ability.

We recommend breeding the Male Parent with the Hidden Ability with a Ditto instead, for the offspring to have a chance to have the Hidden Ability.

Breeding with Ditto

Hidden Ability Inheritance
Pokemon BDSP DittoDitto
(Ability doesn't matter.)
These two can produce a Magikarp egg with a Hidden Ability. Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
( Male, with Hidden Ability)
Pokemon BDSP DittoDitto
(Ability doesn't matter.)
These two can produce a Magikarp egg with a Hidden Ability. Pokemon BDSP MagikarpMagikarp
( Female, with Hidden Ability)

Male Pokemon can only pass their Hidden Ability by breeding with Ditto, since the Ditto Egg Group doesn't produce an offspring Ditto and can breed with most Pokemon.

Ditto Location

Best Hidden Abilities

Pokemon Hidden Ability Effect
Pokemon BDSP ClefableClefable Unaware Ignores any stat changes in the Pokemon.
Pokemon BDSP GliscorGliscor Poison Heal Replenishes HP when Pokemon is poisoned.
Pokemon BDSP GarchompGarchomp Rough Skin Inflicts damage to the attacker on contact.
Pokemon BDSP InfernapeInfernape Iron Fist Boosts the power of punching moves.
Pokemon BDSP ToxicroakToxicroak Poison Touch May poison targets when a Pokemon makes contact.

What are Hidden Abilities?

Rare Abilities Not Found in Wild Pokemon

Hidden Abilities are rare abilities available to most Pokemon. Hidden Abilities function the same way as other Abilities, but Pokemon normally caught in the wild will never have them. Hidden Abilities were first introduced in the Generation 5 games, Pokemon Black and White.

Pokemon BDSP Related Guides

Pokemon BDSP Training and Breeding

Training and Breeding

Training and Breeding Guides
How to Breed Pokemon and Hatch Eggs Nature and IV Breeding Guide
How to Level Up Fast How to EV Train Fast
How to Reroll for Best Nature and IVs How to Increase IVs
Pokerus Effects Shiny Hunting Guide
How to Learn Egg Moves How to Change a Pokemon's Nature
How to Check EVs How to Check Pokemon IVs
How to Hatch Eggs Faster How to Get Hidden Abilities
How to Catch High IV Pokemon How to Increase Friendship

Comment

2 Anonymous Anonymous almost 4 years

False!

1 Kunaki Kunaki almost 4 years

After testing myself while trying to change the ball of an HA swinub, I found out that that last point about same species breeding is actually wrong. Just like any other situations, the odds of the HA passing down are... about the same as with ditto. This was done with a male swinub with a standard ability in a quickball and a female HA swinub in a repeat ball and I still managed to get a HA swinub in a quick ball after all.

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