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 by varying amounts.
Damage modification
- Main article: Damage modification
The damage that a move does varies heavily by the stats of the Pokémon as well as by certain items.
Stats can be adjusted using in-battle stat enhancers, such as X Attack and X Defend, or moves, such as Swords Dance or Acid Armor.
The type of an attack can also be a factor. Certain types of attacks are either "super effective" or "not very effective" against a Pokémon of another type. A full table of these effectiveness variables is given in the type chart.
Many held items and Berries can increase or decrease damage inflicted. For example, the NeverMeltIce will boost Ice-type moves by 20% in Generation III onward, but only by 10% in Generation II.
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 formula
The damage dealt when a Pokémon uses a damaging move depends on its Attack or Special Attack stat, the opponent's corresponding Defense or Special Defense stat, and the move's base damage. In addition, the various factors of damage modification will also affect the damage dealt.
The damage formula is the following:
- 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. Some moves like Psystrike use stats other than what moves of this category would usually use (in case of Psystrike, it uses Special Attack and Defense).
- Base is the base damage of the attack.
- Modifier is calculated as follows:
- 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 in Generations I-V, 1.5 for a critical hit in Generation VI, and 1 otherwise.
- other counts for things like held items, Abilities, field advantages, and whether the battle is a Double Battle or Triple Battle or not.
- rand is a random number from 0.85 to 1.00.
The result is rounded down as remainders are not kept. It is possible to do zero damage [1].
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.
We then plug Modifier into the rest of the formula:
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.
We insert the stats and Modifier in the formula and get:
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.
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