Shield Dust (Ability)

Shield Dust りんぷん
Scales
Flavor text
Generation III
Prevents added effects.
Generation IV
Blocks the added effects of attacks taken.
Generation V
Blocks the added effects of attacks taken.
Generation VI
Blocks the additional effects of attacks taken.
Generation VII
This Pokémon's dust blocks the additional effects of attacks taken.
Generation VIII
This Pokémon's dust blocks the additional effects of attacks taken.
Generation IX
Protective dust shields the Pokémon from the additional effects of moves.

Shield Dust (Japanese: りんぷん Scales) is an Ability introduced in Generation III.

Effect

In battle

Pokémon with Shield Dust are unaffected by the additional effects of other Pokémon's damaging moves, including additional effects provided by Poison Touch, Toxic Chain, Stench, King's Rock, and Razor Fang. For example, a Pokémon with Shield Dust cannot be frozen by Blizzard or made to flinch by Fake Out.

Shield Dust has no effect on status moves (such as Thunder Wave or Leech Seed) or Max Moves.

Shield Dust prevents a Pokémon's burn being cured by Sparkling Aria if it is the only target of the attack (even in battles such as Double Battles, as long as there are no other targets of Sparkling Aria); however, if the attack has multiple targets, all targets will be cured on burn even if they have Shield Dust. (Wake-Up Slap and Smelling Salts, which also cure status conditions, are not considered to have additional effects and thus are not affected by Shield Dust.) This behavior is unique to Sparkling Aria—for example, Shield Dust prevents a Pokémon from being paralyzed by Discharge regardless of the number of targets.

Outside of battle

Shield Dust has no effect outside of battle.

Pokémon with Shield Dust

# Pokémon Types First Ability Second Ability Hidden Ability
0010   Caterpie
Bug Bug Shield Dust None Run Away
0013   Weedle
Bug Poison Shield Dust None Run Away
0049   Venomoth
Bug Poison Shield Dust Tinted LensGen IV+ Wonder Skin
0265   Wurmple
Bug Bug Shield Dust None Run Away
0269   Dustox
Bug Poison Shield Dust None Compound Eyes
0664   Scatterbug
Bug Bug Shield Dust Compound Eyes Friend Guard
0666   Vivillon
Bug Flying Shield Dust Compound Eyes Friend Guard
0742   Cutiefly
Bug Fairy Honey Gather Shield Dust Sweet Veil
0743   Ribombee
Bug Fairy Honey Gather Shield Dust Sweet Veil
0872   Snom
Ice Bug Shield Dust None Ice Scales
0873   Frosmoth
Ice Bug Shield Dust None Ice Scales
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.

In other games

Description

Games Description
MDRB Blocks the added effects of moves.
MDTDS Blocks the added effects from any moves that hit the Pokémon.
BSL わざの ついかこうかを うけない
MDGtI Unavailable
SMD It blocks additional effects when the Pokémon is hit by an attacking move!
MDRTDX This Ability blocks additional effects when the Pokémon is hit by an attacking move.


In the manga

Pokémon Adventures

Trivia

  • Shield Dust effectively prevents the Pokémon from being frozen in battle by any Pokémon (except those with Mold Breaker or one of its variants), as the Freeze status ailment is always caused as a secondary effect of an opponent's move, and the status cannot be passed to another Pokémon via Baton Pass or Synchronize.
    • Similarly, Shield Dust prevents the Pokémon from flinching as it is always caused as a secondary effect of an opponent's move.
  • Every Pokémon that can have Shield Dust as an ability is Bug-type.
    • Shield Dust is replaced with Shed Skin for the middle stage of every three-stage evolution line that has it. Notably, these middle stage Pokémon are all based on cocoons or (in Spewpa’s case) cased larvae.

In other languages

Language Title
Chinese Cantonese 鱗粉 Lèuhnfán
Mandarin 鱗粉 / 鳞粉 Línfěn
  French Écran Poudre
  German Puderabwehr
  Italian Polvoscudo
  Korean 인분 Inbun
  Russian Пылевой Щит Pylevoy Shchit
  Spanish Polvo Escudo
  Vietnamese Lớp Vảy Bụi


  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.