Damage
Damage modification is a system of multipliers used to change the damage dealt in a battle. These modifiers affect how the damage is calculated by multiplying the move's base power in various ways. These modifiers range from doubling to halving and even negating the damage done.
Type effectiveness
Since each move has an elemental type, its effectiveness is largely determined by the targeted Pokémon's type. Moves can have regular effectiveness or be super effective, not very effective, or not effective at all. The effectiveness of types against one another has varied among generations, see this page for its Generation I iteration and this page for the current model.
Super effective
- "Super effective" redirects here. For the webcomic, see Super Effective (webcomic).
When a move is super effective, it inflicts double the damage it would normally do. For example, a move like Megahorn used against a Template:Type2 Pokémon will be super effective because Template:Type2 moves are super effective against Psychic-types. This effect can stack up; for example, a Pokémon that is Rock/Ground and is hit by a Template:Type2 move like Surf will be damaged four times as much by the move as a Template:Type2 Pokémon would be, because both Rock and Ground Pokémon are weak to Water moves.
Not very effective
When a move is not very effective, it deals half of the damage it would normally do. This works exactly like super effective moves, and can stack up. For example, a Steel/Rock Pokémon will be damaged by a quarter of the amount by a Template:Type2 move. Likewise, a Normal/Flying Pokémon hit by a Template:Type2 move will be damaged normally, as the super-effectiveness of Fighting against Normal is canceled out by the not-very-effectiveness of Fighting against Flying.
Not effective
When a move is not effective, it does not damage the Pokémon at all and that Pokémon is "immune" to that type. This immunity includes status moves of that type. For example, Template:Type2 moves like Thunderbolt will have no affect on a Template:Type2 Pokémon such as Sandshrew. Likewise, using the move Thunder Wave will prove useless and yields a "It does not affect Sandshrew" (whereas a Confuse Ray that simply missed yields "It did not affect Sandshrew"). Certain types are immune to specific moves, such as Template:Type2 Pokémon being immune to Leech Seed.
Critical hit
A move will sometimes inflict a critical hit against another Pokémon. This will double the damage done after type effectiveness calculations occur, leading to the possibility of a doubly-super effective move that gets a critical hit to do eight times as much damage as normal. Pokémon with the Sniper ability will triple the damage done during a critical hit rather than double it. Regular moves have a 6.25% chance of scoring a critical hit, but some moves have increased critical hit rates.
The chance of causing a critical hit can be modified by using moves or items that increase the critical hit level.
| Level | Percentage | Moves |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6.25% | Regular moves. |
| 2 | 12.5% | Moves with an increased critical hit rate: Slash, Stone Edge etc. or regular moves in combination with Super Luck or with the Razor Claw or Scope Lens held. |
| 3 | 25% | Regular moves used by Farfetch'd and Chansey with the Stick and Lucky Punch held, respectively, or in combination with Super Luck and with the Razor Claw or Scope Lens held. |
| 4 | 33.3% | Moves with an increased critical hit rate used by Farfetch'd and Chansey with the Stick and Lucky Punch held. |
| 5 | 50% | Moves with an increased critical hit rate used in combination with Super Luck and Focus Energy or Dire Hit. |
| 6 | 100% | Mountain Storm and Ice Breath. |
Scope Lens and Razor Claw both add 1 level. Super Luck also adds 1 level. The Stick adds 2 levels for Farfetch'd, the Lucky Punch adds 2 levels for Chansey, and Focus Energy and Dire Hit add 2 levels to any Pokémon.
When a move scores a critical hit, damage is calculated based on either the modified or unmodified attack and defense stats, whichever is more advantageous to the attacker. For example, an attacker who has used Swords Dance and then makes a critical hit will get the benefit of the increased Attack, while one affected by Charm will use its normal Attack score. Another example would be if a team had Light Screen or Reflect on it and the attacker scored a critical on the team with the certain wall; the defense added by the wall would then be ignored, and the attacker would do double damage. In Generation I, critical hits always ignore stat modifiers, even if this is disadvantageous to the attacker.
Mountain Storm and Ice Breath will always result in a critical hit.
Same-type attack bonus
- Main article: Same-type attack bonus
A move used by a Pokémon that is of the same type as the move itself will do 150% of its normal damage, such as a Template:Type2 move used by a Fire-type Pokémon. Dual-typed Pokémon will receive this bonus for both of their types, and a Pokémon whose type can change in-battle will receive the bonus for whatever type they are when they make the move.
Weather
- Main article: Weather conditions
Template:Type2 and Template:Type2 moves' damage will be modified by rain and sunshine. If Rain Dance causes a downpour, Water-type moves will do 50% more damage and Fire-type moves will do 50% less damage. If Sunny Day causes harsh sunlight, Fire-type moves will do 50% more damage and Water-type moves will do 50% less damage.
Abilities
- Main article: Ability
Abilities come in a wide variety, and have various effects on damage modification. These affects range from increasing and decreasing the power of moves of a specific type, granting immunities, and even changing the power of moves affected by other damage modifiers. These abilities include:
- Blaze, Overgrow, Torrent and Swarm increase the power of Template:Type2, Template:Type2, Template:Type2 and Template:Type2 moves by 50% when the user's HP falls below 33%, respectively.
- Thick Fat decreases the damage dealt to the user by opponents' Fire-type and Ice-type moves by 50%. Heatproof decreases the damage dealt to the user by opponents' Fire-type moves by 50%.
- Levitate provides immunity to Template:Type2 moves, and Soundproof provides immunity to sound-based moves.
- Volt Absorb and Water Absorb grant immunity to Template:Type2 and Template:Type2 moves respectively, healing the user's HP by 25% instead.
- Dry Skin works in part like Water Absorb, healing the user when hit with a Template:Type2 move, but it also heals the user by 6.25% each turn during rain. However, it also causes the Pokémon to receive additional damage from Template:Type2 attacks and receive 6.25% (of its HP stat) damage during sunshine.
- Flash Fire negates the effect of opponents' Fire-type moves and instead increases the power of the ability's user's own Fire-type attacks. Similarly, Motor Drive negates the effect of opponents' Electric-type moves and instead causes the ability's user's Speed to increase. These abilities include status moves like Will-O-Wisp and Thunder Wave.
- Mold Breaker removes all ability-based immunities to the user's moves.
- Scrappy removes Template:Type2 Pokémon's immunity to the Template:Type2 and Template:Type2 moves of the user.
- Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream and Snow Warning cause permanent rain, sunshine, sandstorm, and hail respectively.
- Adaptability increases the STAB multiplier for moves of the same type as the user from 1.5x to 2x.
- Hustle boosts the Atk stat of the user by 50%.
- Pure Power and Huge Power both double the user's Atk stat.
- Technician increases the power of the user's moves with base power 60 or less by 50%.
- Super Luck increases the user's critical hit ratio.
- Battle Armor and Shell Armor prevent critical hits being dealt to the user.
- Sniper increases the critical hit damage multiplier from 2x to 3x.
- Tinted Lens doubles the power of the user's moves that are not very effective.
- Solid Rock and Filter each reduce the power of super effective moves on the ability's user by one third.
- Wonder Guard reduces the power of the opponent's damaging attacks that are not super effective to zero.
Items
- See also: Type-enhancing item
Some held items increase the power of an attack by a small percentage. Most of these items boost attacks only of a certain type by 20%. Some items can also modify damage by boosting the attacker's offensive stats or the victim's defensive stats. Some berries also weaken an opponent's super effective move.
Other held items that modify damage include:
- Muscle Band boosts physical moves by 10%
- Wise Glasses boost special moves by 10%
- Expert Belt boosts super-effective attacks by 20%
- Life Orb boosts the power of all attacks by 30% (at a cost of 10% HP per damaging move used)
- Metronome boosts the power of moves used repeatedly
Other
A number of other variables can affect the amount of damage caused by an attack.
- If the attacker is burned and their ability is not Guts, their physical damage will be decreased by half.
- In a double battle, moves that hit multiple targets do 75% of the damage they do in one-on-one battles.
- Reflect and Light Screen decrease opponents' physical and special attacks, respectively, by 50% in a one-on-one battle and 33% in a double battle.
Randomization adjustment
Every time a regular attack is executed, the actual damage caused is adjusted by a random multiplier - an integer percentage between 85% and 100%.
In the game's mechanics, the random modifier does not have uniform probability for all percentages between 85 and 100. This is because the computer will generate a random number from 217 to 255 (217 is about 85.09% of 255), and then divide it by 2.55, to get the random number from 85 to 100 that the computer will divide by 100 to get the final percentage.
As a result, the odd numbers from 85 to 89 and the even numbers from 90 to 98 have a 7.69% (3 in 39) probability of being chosen, while the even numbers from 86 to 88 and the odd numbers from 91 to 99 have a 5.13% (2 in 39) probability of being chosen. The number 100, the least probable number, has a mere 2.56% (1 in 39) chance of being chosen.
In Generation I and Generation II, there was no percentage. There was only a random number generated from 217 to 255, which was divided by 255 to get the final multiplier.
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 circumstances explained above 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.
- 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, 1 otherwise. For Pokémon with Sniper, it is 3 for a critical hit.
- 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.
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.
