Skills and field abilities

Two systems make your lead Pokémon useful outside battle. Pokémon Skills are upgrades you buy with Skill Points earned by resetting a level 100 Pokémon. Field abilities change which wild Pokémon you meet while that Pokémon is first in your party.

Pokémon Skills live on the Skills tab of each Pokémon’s card. The Skills button in the top-right panel is something else: it holds your mining and crafting skills.

The Skills tab: reset a level 100 Pokémon for Skill Points and spend them on upgrades.

At a glance

• Skill Points: reset a level 100 Pokémon to level 1. Up to 4 resets, 10 Skill Points in total.
• Where: the Skills tab of the Pokémon’s card; the Lv chip on the Pokémon’s picture opens it too.
• Skills work: only while the Pokémon is first in your party, except the Move Bank.
• Field abilities: work from the first party slot, even if that Pokémon has fainted.

Pokémon Skills

Skills are quality-of-life upgrades for one Pokémon. They do not make it stronger in battle.

Earning Skill Points

A level 100 Pokémon can be reset to level 1. Each reset gives it Skill Points, and each reset gives more than the last:

Reset	Skill Points earned	Total
1st	1	1
2nd	2	3
3rd	3	6
4th	4	10

The 4th reset is the last. A reset keeps the Pokémon’s IVs, EVs, nature and moves, but it levels more slowly afterwards; see Experience and levelling.

Resetting and upgrading

1. Open its card. Click the Pokémon in your party to open its card.
2. Go to Skills. Open the Skills tab, or click the Lv chip that shows its level. The tab shows your Skill Points, your resets (for example 3 / 4) and a row for each skill.
3. Reset at level 100. Press Reset and confirm. The line under the header says how many Skill Points the reset gives.
4. Upgrade a skill. Find the skill’s row: it shows the skill’s level and what it does now and at the next level. Press Upgrade and confirm. Every skill level costs 1 Skill Point; a skill at its top level shows Max.

Skills the Pokémon cannot learn are grouped at the bottom with the ability they need, for example Sync rates, which need Synchronize.

The skills

Skill	Levels	What each level does
Move Bank	8	Adds 1 Move Bank slot. To swap a stored move back in, click a move in the Moves tab, pick the stored move and press Replace. One Pokémon can switch between a PvP set and False Swipe for catching, for example.
HP Refresh	5	After each wild battle that you don’t lose, restores part of the Pokémon’s HP: +20% per level.
PP Refresh	5	After each wild battle that you don’t lose, restores part of each move’s PP: +10% per level.
Common & Uncommon, Rare, Very Rare, Ultra Rare and Legendary Rarity Sync Rate	2 each	Each level makes Synchronize work more often on wild Pokémon of that rarity. Only for Pokémon with Synchronize.
Item Drop Rate Boost	10	Each level makes wild Pokémon drop items more often. Only for Pokémon with Pickup, Compound Eyes, Pickpocket, Magician or Sticky Hold.

Clicking a move in the Moves tab opens the Move Bank, with its stored moves ready to swap in.

Except for the Move Bank, a skill only works while its Pokémon is first in your party. HP and PP Refresh also need it to be standing at the end of the battle.

Both Refresh skills restore a percentage of what the Pokémon has left, not of its maximum. So they work best on a lightly hurt lead, and they never refill a move that has run out of PP.

Popular builds

• Item farmer: a Pickpocket Sneasel or Weavile, or another fast Pokémon with one of the drop abilities, with most points in Item Drop Rate Boost and the rest in PP Refresh.
• Nature hunter: a Synchronize Pokémon with points in the Sync Rate skills for the rarities you hunt. For example Ralts, Kirlia, Gardevoir, the Abra line, Natu, Xatu, Munna, Musharna, Elgyem, Espeon or Umbreon.

Field abilities

These abilities work outside battle as long as the Pokémon is first in your party, even if it has fainted. You can lead with a fainted Synchronize Pokémon and battle with the second one.

Effect	Abilities
Pokémon you catch are more likely to have the same nature as your lead. The chance is higher for rarer Pokémon, and Membership, the crew perk and the Sync Rate skills raise it further.	Synchronize
Electric-type Pokémon appear more often.	Static, Lightning Rod
Steel-type Pokémon appear more often.	Magnet Pull
Fire-type Pokémon appear more often.	Flash Fire
Grass-type Pokémon appear more often.	Harvest
Water-type Pokémon appear more often.	Storm Drain

Type abilities work within a rarity

They don’t make wild Pokémon appear more often overall. A Rare Electric type turns up more often among the map’s Rare Pokémon, but Rare Pokémon as a whole appear just as often as before.

Related pages

Stats, IVs, EVs and naturesWhat each nature raises and lowers.

Shiny huntingPair Synchronize with a Shiny Tracker to hunt a shiny with the right nature.

Wild dropsWhat Item Drop Rate Boost helps you farm.

Experience and levellingHow much experience each level takes after a reset.

Credits

Based on Pokemon skills and Outside of Battle Abilities on the PBO forums. Rewritten and checked against the game on 1 October 2026.