The question of which Pokemon are best in Pokemon Pokopia is really a question about Specialties, the passive jobs your residents perform. Getting that distinction right is the whole game: your moves come from befriending Pokemon, but your labour comes from housing them.
Moves Versus Specialties
Ditto’s moves are what you use. Cut, Rock Smash, Dig, Dive, Surf, Strength and the rest are taught to you by Pokemon you befriend, and they clear terrain.
Specialties are jobs. A resident with the right specialty processes materials, gathers loose items, powers machines or waters plants while you are off doing something else.
Note that Rock Smash and Dig are moves, not specialties, which is a distinction several guides blur.
The Specialties Worth Staffing First
Bulldoze clears soft terrain and is required to rebuild Pokemon Centers and to relocate or demolish buildings. Onix is the first one you get, with Makuhita and Hariyama also qualifying. Our house moving guide covers why you need it.
Burn turns clay into bricks, sand into glass, and lights the Bread Oven. Charmander and Torchic are the accessible options, and you want more than one so batches run in parallel.
Chop converts Small Logs into lumber at five to one. Scyther, Scizor, Pinsir and Heracross.
Gather automatically collects loose items into community storage. Machop and Aipom. This is the specialty that makes every passive farm actually work, because without it you are still picking things up by hand.
Litter drops materials passively in its habitat, including vine rope and honey. Bellsprout, Combee, Cacturne and Mareep. Pair Litter with Gather and you have a farm that runs itself.
Water waters plants, cleans mud and performs Rain Dance, which is the fastest way to raise humidity. Squirtle, Shellos, Gastrodon and Slowpoke.
Search finds buried items, relics and fossils, and is required for the Dowsing Machine to work at all. Pidgey is the easy early pick.
Crush runs the Concrete Mixer. Onix, Steelix, Geodude, Golem, Conkeldurr.
Recycle turns Wastepaper into paper. Trubbish is the first.
Others worth knowing: Explode (Voltorb, Electrode) destroys rock blocks, Generate (Mareep, Pawmi) powers machines, Fly and Teleport enable fast travel to a Pokemon, Build and Engineer handle construction, and Grow (Bulbasaur) helps plants along. A few are exclusive: DJ is Rotom only, Transform is Ditto, and Dream Island is Drifloon, which is why befriending Drifloon unlocks the whole Dream Islands system.
A Note on Tier Lists
Ranked lists of specialties exist and they disagree with each other, which tells you they are editorial opinion rather than game data. One common ranking puts Search, Storage and DJ at the top for a following companion, with the farming set of Grow, Burn, Gather, Water and Generate just below. Another leads with Drifloon for Dream Island access.
Both are defensible. Build toward the materials you are actually short of rather than toward someone’s tier list.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a move and a specialty?
Moves are abilities Ditto learns and you use. Specialties are passive jobs resident Pokemon perform on their own.
Which specialty should I get first?
Bulldoze, since it gates rebuilding Pokemon Centers, followed by Burn and Chop for materials.
How do I automate resource collection?
Pair a Litter specialty Pokemon with a Gather specialty Pokemon assigned to a Community Box.
Can Pokemon have more than one specialty?
Each species has its own specialty listed in the Pokedex, which is what you plan habitats around.