Damage: Difference between revisions

Damage is the name for the affliction caused when a Pokémon uses an offensive move against the foe. It cuts down the foe's Hit Points.

The amount of damage depends on the category of the move and the stats of the Pokémon. Some moves, such as Grass Knot or Night Shade, depend on other factors. There are also one-hit KO moves like Sheer Cold that will do the maximum amount of damage and knock the opponent out in one hit.

Damage modification

Main article: Damage modification

The damage a move will inflict varies according to the attacker's Attack or Special Attack stats and the defender's Defense or Special Defense. Inflicted damage can be adjusted with in-battle stat enhancers, such as X Attack and X Defend, or moves, such as Swords Dance or Acid Armor.

Damage can also vary according to the user or target's type, with moves either scoring super effective or not very effective hits. Some moves may not do damage at all. For example, when a Template:Type2 move is used on a Template:Type2 Pokémon, it will do 2x damage, while the reverse (a Template:Type2 move used on a Template:Type2 Pokémon) will do ½x damage. If a move is either super effective or not very effective against both types of a dual-typed Pokémon, it will do either 4x damage or ¼x damage.

Some moves have an increased probability of landing critical hits, which multiplies the damage inflicted by 2x.

Many held items and berries can increase or decrease damage inflicted. For example, the NeverMeltIce will boost Template:Type2 moves by 20% in Generation III and Generation IV, but only by 10% in Generation II.

Damage formula

The damage dealt when a Pokémon uses a damaging move depends on its Attack or Special Attack-stat, the opponent's corresponding Defense-stat, the move's base damage. In addition, various circumstances, such as type-weaknesses, STAB, will intensify or weaken the damage of the move. Things such as held items that increase the power of moves (Such as a Type-enhancing item, a Life Orb, Plates, atc.) and those that weaken the damage of moves (Such as the Shuca Berry or Occa Berry) need also be considered. A Critical-hit will double the damage taken by the opponent much like a Super-effective hit would.

The damage formula is the following:

File:DamageCalc.png

• Level is the level of the attacking Pokémon.
• Attack and Defense are the working Attack and Defense stats of the attacking and defending Pokémon, respectively. If the attack is Special, the Special Attack and Special Defense stats are used instead.
• Base is the base damage of the attack.
• Modifier is calculated as follows:

File:ModifierCalc.png

• STAB is the same-type attack bonus - this is equal to 1.5 if the attack is of the same type as the user, and 1 if otherwise.
• Type is the type effectiveness. This can be either 0, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, or 4 depending on the type of attack and the type of the defending Pokémon.
• Critical is 2 for a critical hit, 1 otherwise.
• other counts for things like held items, field advantages, and whether the battle is a double battle or not.
• rand is a random number from 0.85 to 1.00.

The result is rounded down unless it is less than 1, in which case it's rounded up to 1. All damaging moves always do at least 1 damage if they hit.

Example

Imagine a level 75 Glaceon that has the following stats:

HP: 201
Attack: 123
Defense: 181

It uses the move Ice Fang (Ice, physical, base damage 65) against a level 78 Garchomp:

HP: 270
Attack: 210
Defense: 163

Garchomp is Dragon/Ground, so it has a double weakness to Ice. Thus, modifier = 4. Additionally, Glaceon receives a STAB-bonus, so stabbonus = 1.5. We insert the relevant values and stats in the parameters of damage and get:

File:Damageformula-example.png

Depending on luck, Glaceon will do damage in the range 170-200 HP. Despite Garchomp's double weakness to Ice, Glaceon's Ice Fang will not defeat it in a single hit.

Links

• The Complete Damage Formula (courtesy of Smogon)

This game-related article is part of Project Games, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon games.