With the first part of the Pokopia DLC on the way, I thought I’d make an article with some helpful tips. Whether you’re new to the game or have played it for hours on end, I hope this article is a huge help in creating amazing new islands. If you’ve played Pokopia, then you know that each Pokémon has an ability that can be used to improve your quality of life on your island. While all of these abilities are incredibly useful, they are not created equal. Some are far more useful than others, and from my personal experience working on multiple cloud islands, I wanted to share what I personally think the best of the best would be.

5. Trade

Trade is the ability Pokémon have to set up stores when you have them set up on the island. They have a range of items to sell that you can use any item towards buying them. It’s a great way to get useful items that you might not have recipes to craft them with, or get rid of excess blocks you’ve accumulated while working around the island.

4. Engineer

Engineer is an ability exclusive to Tinkaton in the game and is an upgraded version of the build skill. Build is a skill required to construct any pre-fabricated home that you can purchase and use your Pokemon to put together. For homes and repairing the Pokemon Center, these builds will be completed the following day. However, with Engineer, these massive buildings that can house up to four Pokemon can be done in an hour. Whether you want only pre-fab homes, or a combination of them and original creations, Engineer saves you a massive amount of time in building homes for your Pokemon. In addition, it also gives you the ability to use metal ingots to convert them to Tinkagears. These items make things like lifts and elevators, which are a huge help in getting your Pokemon around areas that are normally impossible for them to reach.

3. Burn

Burn is an ability exclusive to fire-type Pokemon, and out of all the abilities that change resources into crafting material, this one is by far the best. Using a furnace, you can turn ore into ingots and sand/ash into glass. Glass is useful for a lot of projects, but ingots are some of the most valuable items in the game. Metal ingots are used in a ton of crafting recipes, and Pokemetal ingots are vital for some of the most important items. If you need generators for your island, amazing decorations, or need to use a printer to make items you don’t have recipes for yourself, you need Pokemetal. Burning is the only way to take the ore and convert it into what they need to be to create all of these amazing items. In addition to that, it can light campfires to make Pokemon habitats, and they can take clay and convert it to brick. I just wish they could do that as fast as the ore.

2. Litter

I absolutely love this ability in Pokopia. Litter is a skill found in many Pokemon where they automatically will leave crafting material around their home throughout the day. Resource management is very key for this game, as they do run out, and rather quickly for big projects. At some point, your island won’t have them in excess, and litter is a great way to replenish your items with no effort at all. You simply go to their homes and take them as you see them scattered around. I actually created an entire apartment building for Pokemon with this skill and collect several items all in one go.

1. Dream Island

Dream Island is an ability exclusive to Drifloon and is insanely useful.  As I said before, resources are limited, and sometimes you need a lot of them at once. While litter is handy for getting more, it only gives you so much. That’s where Dream Islands come in, as you can go to a Pokedoll and Drifloon will take you to a Dream Island where you can farm the entire island for materials. Each island lasts 24 hours and resets the following day, so take anything and everything you see. You can get hundreds of a needed item in one day with ease. If you’re lucky, you can even run into one of four legendary Pokémon to bring back with you.