"/u/paanvaannd's Ditto Mechanics Guide"

#PokemonGO: General NotesHello, travelers!Two days ago, I posted a summary of Ditto mechanics that I've been continually updating from the first minutes since Ditto was encountered. However, I've been getting notifications from Reddit that my comment was running over the 10,000 character limit imposed on comments, so I have decided to migrate this guide to its own post. I still have a lot of things to add to this post and I will be updating this instead of the original comment.Concerning the Ditto disguise frequency data that I have been collecting: we have over 1,300 reports! I believe that this is enough data at the moment, and I will get to analyzing it soon. After that, I will release the raw data to the community as well as my interpretation of it. Should my interpretation be flawed, the data will be publicly available for others to analyze and to correct me.Thank you for reading this guide! I hope it will be helpful to TSR's community :+)Personal Observation and Reflection on Battling a Gym with DittoI just tested out Ditto in a Gym. It immediately transformed into an Arcanine (the Pokémon I was battling) before I tapped the screen to dodge/attack.This mechanic presents a balance for Transform. The opponent attacks twice at the beginning of a fight as your Ditto transforms in the meanwhile, meaning you automatically take damage upon starting the battle. That being said, one could prevent this by switching in their Ditto rather than starting off with it.What We Know about Ditto Thus Far:Ditto transforms from Pokémon caught in the wildmost accounts of Dittos-in-disguise are from common Pokémon (i.e. those that hatch from 2km eggs and their evolutions)Ditto's reveal happens after a capture but before the score card that shows after every captureDitto immediately transforms into the opposing Pokémon in a Gym battle, without waiting for the trainer to tap the screen to dodge/attackDitto's Quick Move and Charge Move change to that of the Pokémon that Ditto has transformed intoDitto's type transforms into the type of the Pokémon it is mimickingDitto can be kept as a Buddy; it takes 3km for Ditto to find a Ditto Candyyou can catch multiple Dittosa Ditto-in-disguise running away does not display as a Ditto in the Journalbadges displayed above a Pokémon as soon as the encounter is initiated (i.e. Silver Poison Badge, Gold Flying Badge, etc.) reflect the badges relevant to the Ditto-disguise, not Ditto itself (i.e. the Normal Badge)disguised Dittos can be found from Incense spawnsdisguised Ditto can be found at lured PokéStopsDitto does not transform into a new Pokémon once its opponent switches out of battlethe species that Ditto is disguised as registers on the Pokémon Go Plus, not Ditto itself (so if you've never caught a Ditto before and encounter a Ditto disguised as something you have caught, the Pokémon Go Plus will light up Green instead of the usual Yellow for un-caught Pokémon)you can catch Ditto from the Pokémon Go Plus devicethe Sightings list will report Ditto as the species it is disguised as; therefore, Sighting listings can actually be Dittos in disguiseDitto spawns sync across the server, so all players catching the same Pokémon disguised as a Ditto will have the Pokémon transform into a Dittothe Pokédex will not register Ditto as "Seen" if a trainer runs from a disguised Dittoa Ditto v. Ditto battle will result in neither Pokémon harming the other until Struggle, Ditto's Charge Move, is charged, at which point it can cause damage to the opposing Dittothe IVs and Level of Ditto are the same as the IVs and Level of the Pokémon that Ditto disguises itself asexample: a Level 13 Rattata with an IV spread of 13/10/14 will transform into a Ditto of the same Level and same IVs if that Rattata was a disguised Dittoa Ditto transforming into another Pokémon will result in Ditto adopting the base ATK and DEF of the opposing Pokémon but retaining the original HP and IVs of the Dittoa trainer joining a Gym battle will see Ditto transform into and stay as the Pokémon that the Ditto first encountersDitto will register as "Seen" if a Ditto-in-disguise flees from a Pokémon Go Plus device encounterWhat We Need to Test Further:whether any Pokémon can be a Ditto-in-disguisewe have reports of some that are from uncommon (Mankey, Ekans, etc.) and rare (Lapras, Snorlax, etc.) Pokémon transforming into Ditto, but for concrete proof here is a call for video proofwhether the Pokédex will register Ditto as "Seen" if a disguised Ditto flees from a trainerreports stating that the Pokédex does register fled Ditto as "Seen" in the Pokédex: report one, report two, more reports coming soon...reports stating that the Pokédex does not register fled Ditto as "Seen" in the Pokédex: more reports coming soon...the seen-in-a-Gym hypothesis may account for the conflicting accounts; if a trainer passes by a Gym within their interaction radius, the Pokédex of that trainer registers any unseen Pokémon as "Seen"switch-in Transform (i.e. if Ditto switches out of a Pokémon battle against one species and switches back in against another species, whether it will use Transform again or stay as the initial species)whether Ditto prefers to disguise itself as one/a few specific speciesas stated in the general notes section at the top of this post, I have collected over 1,300 responses from the community about this and will be releasing the raw data soon for the community to interpretwhether or not Ditto nests existthis report seems to indicate that there may be Ditto spawn points, but further testing is required to make sure that Ditto adheres to at least one of the nest spawn mechanics before moving this to the confirmed Ditto mechanics sectionwhether badges relevant to the Ditto-disguise affect the catch rate of Dittoas cited above, apparently a Ditto will display the badges relevant for its disguise instead of the Normal Badge that an un-transformed Ditto should display, so the question is which of the badge boosts (i.e. the Normal Badge or the ones relevant to the Ditto disguise) affect the catch rate of Dittowhether Ditto spawn rates correlate to some pattern (e.g. geographic features, special days, holiday seasons, etc.)whether Ditto can hatch from an Egg (and, if so, what the distance is)if Ditto is not the first Pokémon fought in a Gym battle while two or more trainers are battling the Gym, which trainer's Pokémon Ditto will transform into given that both are present simultaneouslyif a trainer has never seen the Pokémon that Ditto is disguised as and catches the Ditto, whether the Pokédex will register the species that Ditto disguised itself as in the Pokédexwhether Gym prestige is calculated based off of the transformed or untransformed CP of Dittothis comment claims that prestige is calculated based off of the transformed CP of Ditto as opposed to the original CPwhether the capture and flee rate of Ditto is dependent on the Pokémon that Ditto is disguised as (i.e. whether Ditto "adopts" the capture rate of the Pokémon that it is disguised as)there are a lot of comments stating that, anecdotally, Ditto are harder to catch than the Pokémon that it is disguised as; at the same time, the two Ditto that I have captured were easier to catch than the Pokeemon they were disguised as, so more data is needed to inform this questionNote: I will be continually updating this as I find more confirmation of Ditto mechanics. Will be cleaning up this comment to keep it nice and concise, and all sources will be cited.e: proof of Ditto via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2fWmvW6