Skill Link (Ability)

Skill Link	スキルリンク
	Skill Link
Flavor text Generation III Currently unknown Generation IV Increases the frequency of multi-strike moves. Generation V Increases the frequency of multi-strike moves. Generation VI Increases the number of times multi-strike moves hit. Generation VII Currently unknown Generation VIII Currently unknown Generation IX Currently unknown

Skill Link (Japanese: スキルリンク Skill Link) is an Ability introduced in Generation IV. Six Pokémon can have this Ability. Prior to Generation V, it was the signature Ability of Shellder and Cloyster.

Effect

In battle

Generation III-IV

Skill Link causes multi-strike moves to always strike their maximum number of times. See multi-strike moves for a full list of multi-strike moves. This Ability does not affect moves with a fixed number of strikes like Double Kick.

Generation V

If the Ability is lost in the middle of move (such as via Mummy), the user will still hit maximum number of times this turn. Additionally, Ability now affects Triple Kick - which used by Pokémon with this Ability will have one accuracy check for all hits, rather than separate one for each hit.

Affected moves

Move Type Cat. Pow. Acc. Max strikes Learned* Arm Thrust  Fighting  Physical 15 100% 5 Barrage  Normal  Physical 15 85% 5 Bone Rush  Ground  Physical 25 90% 5 Bullet Seed  Grass  Physical 25 100% 5 Comet Punch  Normal  Physical 18 85% 5 DoubleSlap  Normal  Physical 15 85% 5 Fury Attack  Normal  Physical 15 85% 5 Fury Swipes  Normal  Physical 18 80% 5 Icicle Spear  Ice  Physical 25 100% 5 Pin Missile  Bug  Physical 14 85% 5 Rock Blast  Rock  Physical 25 90% 5 Spike Cannon  Normal  Physical 20 100% 5 Tail Slap  Normal  Physical 25 85% 5 Triple Kick*  Fighting  Physical 10 90% 10

Outside of battle

Skill Link has no effect outside of battle.

Pokémon with Skill Link

#	Pokémon		Types		First Ability	Second Ability	Hidden Ability
0090		Shellder	Water		Water	Shell Armor	Skill Link	Overcoat
0091		Cloyster	Water	Ice	Shell Armor	Skill Link	Overcoat
0190		Aipom	Normal		Normal	Run Away	Pickup	Skill Link
0214		Heracross	Bug	Fighting	Skill Link	None	None
0424		Ambipom	Normal		Normal	Technician	Pickup	Skill Link
0572		Minccino	Normal		Normal	Cute Charm	Technician	Skill Link
0573		Cinccino	Normal		Normal	Cute Charm	Technician	Skill Link
Please note that Abilities marked with a superscript are only available in the stated generation or later. For Generation III and IV games, ignore Hidden Abilities.

Trivia

• Via STAB, Cloyster, Minccino, and Cinccino can achieve a power of 187.5 with Icicle Spear and Tail Slap respectively.
• If a Pokémon with this ability holds a King's Rock or Razor Claw and uses a move that can hit five times (such as Tail Slap or Icicle Spear), the target has a 40.951% chance of flinching, due to each hit having its own chance to flinch the target.

In other languages

Language Title Mandarin Chinese 連續攻擊 Liánxù Gōngjí French Multi-Coups German Wertelink Italian Abillegame Korean 스킬링크 Skill Link Portuguese Ligação de Habilidade Spanish Encadenado

This article is part of Project Moves and Abilities, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on two related aspects of the Pokémon games.