Damage

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, and the move's base damage. In addition, various circumstances, explained in the damage modification article, will also affect the damage dealt.

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, Type = 4. Additionally, Glaceon, being an Ice-type, receives STAB, so STAB = 1.5.

File:ModifierCalcExample.png

We then plug Modifier into the rest of the formula:

File:DamageCalcExample1.png

File:DamageCalcExample2.png

So 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.

Garchomp is up next. Garchomp gets a critical hit (Critical = 2) on Earthquake, a physical Ground move with 100 base damage. With its Ice type, Glaceon is neither weak nor resistant to Garchomp's attack, so Type = 1. Garchomp is Dragon/Ground, so it receives STAB, making STAB = 1.5. Say that Garchomp is also holding an Earth Plate, which powers up Ground-type moves by 20%. Then Other = 1.2.

File:ModifierCalcExample2.png

We insert the stats and Modifier in the formula and get:

File:DamageCalcExample3.png

File:DamageCalcExample4.png

We see that Garchomp's attack will do anywhere from 241 to 284 damage, which is more than enough to take the Glaceon out in one hit.

Links

• The Complete Damage Formula (courtesy of Smogon University)

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