Pokémon/Competitive battling/The Basics: Difference between revisions

Now, we will talk about the stats of each Pokémon. There are six in total: HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed. Pokémon attacks are split into three types: Physical, Special, and ???. Seriously, Nintendo classifies the third type as ???. For the sake of simplicity, we will only focus on the first two types. The damage moves that deal Physical damage, which are Normal, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Bug, Rock, Ghost, and Steel, are determined by a) the power of the attack, and b) your Attack stat. How much damage you take from a Physical move is determined by your Defense stat. So far simple, right? If you have a low Attack, then you will have trouble dealing a lot of damage with Physical moves; if you have a low Defense, you will have trouble surviving Physical moves; and vice-versa. The other type (besides Physical) is Special. The damage moves that deal Special damage, which are Fire, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice, Psychic, Dragon, and Dark, are determined by a) the power of the attack, and b) your Special Attack stat. How much damage you take from Special move is determined by your Special Defense stat. Again, very simple. We now take the Pokémon Alakzam as an example. Alakazam has a very low Attack and very high Special Attack. With the information that you were provided above, it is best to give Alakazam a Special attack, such a Confusion (type: Psychic), rather than giving it a Physical attack, such a Dig (type: Ground). Now, you know to find Special Attacks for Alakazam and not Physical Attacks.

I mentioned "the power of the attack," so what is it? An attack has four characteristics: a) power, b) accuracy, c) type, and d) special effects. Let's take the move Ice Punch. Ice Punch's characteristics are a) 75 base power, b) 100% accuracy, c) type: Ice, and d) has a 10% change of inflicting the status Freeze to the opponent. Now, what does 75 base power mean? For a rough explanation, base power shows the strength of an attack originally. Once again, let's take Alazakam as an example. Mega Punch (type: Normal) has a base power of 85. However, if you look at your Alakazam's stats, you will once again see that its Special Attack is most likely more than double its Attack. In this case, even though Mega Punch has a higher base power than Ice Punch, it is a Physical Attack so it will deal less damage than Ice Punch if Alakazam uses them.

I mentioned "base power," so what is it? Base power is the power that is officially given to us. Several things can change this. First, there is something called Same Type Attack Bonus, or in short, STAB. If the type of the move you are uses matches (one of) the type of the Pokémon using it, then the attack receives a 1.5x move bonus. Confusion's base power is 50, but if used Alakazam (Confusion's type is Psychic, Alakazam's type is Psychic), then Confusion's power will be: 50 x 1.5 = 75 power. Second, there are Type Alignment Advantages. Third, there moves that temporarily raise a type's power. Fourth, there are items that temporarily raise a type's power when attached. And finally, there are Abilities that raises a type's power under special conditions. We will attack about all of these later.

We have gone over Attack, Defense, Special Attack, and Special Defense. Now, it's time for Speed. Speed is not complicated at all, since for most cases, the Pokémon with the higher Speed moves first. In case of a tie, it will be a  

While we keep talking about Pokémon stats, we need to remember that they are quite random. If then, how do we compare Pokémon if your Zapdos' Attack is more than mine? There is a system called Base Stats. Base Stats are values to compare stats easier. For example, your level 10 Charmander might have a higher Attack than a level 10 Bulbasaur, but a level 10 Charmander could in theory have a lower Attack than Bulbasaur also. When we check base stats, Charmander's Base Attack stat is 52, and Bulbasaur's Base Attack stat is 49. This means that most of the time, Charmander will have a higher Attack than Bulbasaur but not all of the time. Another use is to compare stats within a Pokémon. Alakazam's Base Attack stat is 50, and its Base Special Attack stat is 135. What this means is that even if Alakazam uses a Physical Attack that has a power which doubles a Special Attack, the Special Attack would still deal more damage because its Base Special Attack stat is more than twice its Base Attack stat. Yes, Fire Punch (damage: 75) will deal more damage than Hyper Beam (damage: 150) coming from Alakazam. I cannot list the system  

While we're on the subject, it is important to keep an eye on your move's Power Point (PP). Every move has PPs that determine how many times you can use that move. When a move's PP reaches zero, you cannot use that move anymore. When all four of your moves' PPs reach zero, then you will use a move called Struggle, a low-damage move that will hit all Pokémon and you will even take damage from this move.