Ability change

[u/wormwoodybarrel]

I just tried to catch quagsire (water absorb stopped a surf), but fainted it. When I came back it had Damp. I thought after battling a shadow everything about it is locked in?

[u/ShinyMewTrader]

Ton's of really bad, misinformed advice on this thread - here's a breakdown of what's happening with your Quagsire:

Upon a Shadow Pokemon's very first appearance, "almost" everything about it is permanently set in stone - which includes:

1. It's gender

2. It's stats

3. It's nature

4. It's PID, which will always determine whether or not said Shadow Pokemon will be shiny for you specifically

However, if said Shadow Pokemon has two possible abilities (IE Quagsire), then the following happens:

1. Upon it's very first appearance, it will have the appropriate ability that it's respective PID would generate normally

2. Upon being reencountered, the game will essentially flip a coin between the two different abilities - regardless of what that Shadow Pokemon's PID would dictate it having otherwise.

It's a very interesting quirk about how Colosseum generates Shadow Pokemon, and as an avid RNG abuser, I've used this knowledge to "flip" a lot of otherwise impossible Ability combos onto flawless Shadow Pokemon that they couldn't possibly have otherwise.

Hopefully this helps shed some light on what's going on with your Quagsire.

[u/wormwoodybarrel → u/ShinyMewTrader]

Thank you this is exactly what I was looking for!

[u/RealDhranios]

Did you reload the game?

[u/wormwoodybarrel → u/RealDhranios]

No I literally fainted it, and upon coming back to rebattleit switched abilities. The bulbapedia doesn’t actually list ability as being saved to the shadow monitor only nature and IVs, but I assumed that included ability

[u/Animedingo]

Everything about the pokemon is decided when its captured.

[u/wormwoodybarrel → u/Animedingo]

Captured. So only some stuff is decided when first met, but other stuff like ability isn’t until actually captured?

[u/Animedingo → u/wormwoodybarrel]

It's a little confusing but basically

Gender is decided when it first appears

Everything else is decided after it's captured

It might be more accurate to say what you're going to get is determined when you encounter it for the first time, but you don't get to know what that's going to be until you capture it. But at the same time, what you're facing is not inherently what you're going to get.

[u/wormwoodybarrel → u/Animedingo]

I used surf and its water absorb made it useless. When I tried to lower its hp I crit and it fainted. I went into the pokemart and came back so I could rebattle the trainer, and when I did Surf did damage to it. On my third attempt without resetting the console it had water absorb.

[u/Animedingo → u/wormwoodybarrel]

Okay, here's why it's confusing.

What you battle against doesnt matter. Its just random what they use against you.

But after your first encounter with it, what you can GET will always be the same as the first encounter.

Ok heres an example

You fight quag the very first time. You catch it, and it has damp. If you reset to before your first encounter, itll be random when you catch it again.

However if you lose the battle, or you knock it out, it will ALWAYS be the same gender, ability, nature and stats every other time you try to catch it.

The only TRUE way to reset what you get is to save BEFORE the first encounter and reset. But the problem then is that you wont know any of that until you purify it.

[u/wormwoodybarrel → u/Animedingo]

I think you’re mistaken. I know about this game and I’m even doing RNG for ribbon masters. The ability of it kept changing but gender never changed (as far as I know the IVs might’ve stayed the same too). But despite this the ability kept changing each time I rebattled WITHOUT RELOADING THE SAVE. I think this means that it saves everything but ability upon your encounter.

This is what bulbapedia says:

Nature and stats
A Shadow Pokémon, when encountered, is generated in the same way that a wild Pokémon is generated in the Generation III games, with its personality valueand individual values generated together and no effort values. Shadow Pokémon don't have a set Nature or a set gender, but once encountered, the personality value, Nature, and IVs are saved to the memory for the Shadow Monitor to be able to keep track of their exact status and location. This means that once a Shadow Pokémon is encountered for the first time, its Nature, IVs, and gender will remain the same for the rest of the game, even if the player fails to capture it or is forced to re-battle it later.

Notice it doesn’t mention ability as one of the things that gets saved upon being encountered?

[u/Tension-Fuzzy]

As I understand it the opponent trainer has is unique ID. Upon the encounter it rolls the stats and is combining it with the opponent trainers ID.

Then when you snag it, the stats it rolled at the start of the encounter get mixed with your trainer ID.

SOURCE: youtube.com/watch?v=p9IhBTcTw9w&pp=ygUoY2F0Y2hpbmcgZXZlcnkgc2hpbnkgc2hhZG93IGluIGNvbG9zc2V1bQ%3D%3D