So, I made sure to catch a Delta Grimer with Sap Sipper as its ability – cool pokemon, with Minimize. It just leveled up to Delta Muk. I saved the game, and then noticed that its ability had changed to Regurgitation! There goes my grass-immune ground type. Regurgitation looks like a cool ability, but I really liked Sap Sipper. The wiki says that Delta Muk can have Sap Sipper, so I’m confused. Why did the ability change? Do all Delta Muks automatically change to Regurgitation?
Also, is there any way to change it back? I’ve heard of ability capsules; will I be able to get one any time soon (I’m not too far past the second gym)? Anybody think Regurgitation is actually better than Sap Sipper on Delta Muk? (I’m sad; I’m now thinking of replacing Delta Muk with Swampert, and I liked the idea of using Delta pokemon since you can’t get them in other games.)
You can get an ability capsule in Shade Forest near Hekate Town. It’s the town right before the town with the 6th gym.
Basically when capturing a Pokémon that is listed to only have one ability (ignoring their Hidden Ability), the Pokémon is still assigned an ability number of either 0 or 1, where 0 normally corresponds to a Pokémon’s primary ability and 1 corresponds to the second ability. For a Pokémon like Delta Grimer this doesn’t really have any impact as the ability will always be Sap Sipper either way.
But the problem then arises of what happens when it evolves. Delta Muk has two abilities instead of one, meaning that if the Delta Grimer’s ability number was 0 then the ability remains Sap Sipper. But if the Delta Grimer’s ability number was 1 then the ability becomes Regurgitation.
The chance of getting either ability upon evolving is effectively 50/50 because there’s an equal chance that the Delta Grimer’s ability number was set to 0 or 1 when it was captured, but this number obviously won’t be known until it evolves.
As Decho said, an Ability Capsule will change its ability back to Sap Sipper. You can find one in Helios City before being able to purchase them in Murk Forest.
Thanks for that answer – that makes perfect sense. I appreciate it.