The answer to the question asked most often in battle: will this hit be enough? Set up both sides — level, nature, IVs, EVs, held item, Ability, weather and terrain — and you will see a damage range, because the game rolls on every hit and a single number would be a lie. Critical hits are calculated separately.
Volt Tackle Electric
On a critical hit: 162–190 damage (105.9–124.2%), a guaranteed KO. Critical hits deal ×1.5 since Generation VI.
Recoil: the attacker loses 36–42 HP — one third of the damage dealt, which is 32.7–38.2% of its 110 HP. After 3 such hits it faints without any help from the opponent.
The attacker's max HP is calculated from the "HP IV" field on its side, with no training: only the defender has an HP EV field in the form.
Poziom obu stron
Weather and terrain
Both change damage before the first hit lands. Terrain only affects grounded Pokémon — a Flying-type gets neither a boost nor a penalty from it.
Abilities
Only the Abilities this Pokémon actually has are available. Some of them do not change damage — you can select them, but the result stays the same, just as in the games. Full overview in the abilities that change damage guide.
Nature, IVs and EVs
These three things determine the stats of an individual Pokémon. Nature raises one stat by 10% and lowers another by the same amount, IVs are innate potential (0–31), EVs are what the Pokémon has trained (up to 252 in one stat). The default values describe an untrained baseline. More in the IVs, EVs and natures guide.
An IV of 31 is what most Pokémon bred for battle have. EVs are usually split 252 into two stats — the rest is wasted, because the total cannot exceed 510.
Pikachu's attacks
59 damaging moves, ranked by how much they will deal to this particular opponent — not by raw power.
| Attack | Type | Cat. | Power | Damage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volt Tackle | Electric | Physical | 120 | 108–127 |
| Zap Cannon | Electric | Special | 120 | 94–111 |
| Thunder | Electric | Special | 110 | 87–102 |
| Wild Charge | Electric | Physical | 90 | 82–96 |
| Thunderbolt | Electric | Special | 90 | 72–85 |
| Thunder Punch | Electric | Physical | 75 | 69–81 |
| Discharge | Electric | Special | 80 | 64–76 |
| Spark | Electric | Physical | 65 | 60–71 |
| Rising Voltage | Electric | Special | 70 | 57–67 |
| Volt Switch | Electric | Special | 70 | 57–67 |
| Shock Wave | Electric | Special | 60 | 49–58 |
| Surf | Water | Special | 90 | 48–56 |
| Electroweb | Electric | Special | 55 | 46–54 |
| Charge Beam | Electric | Special | 50 | 42–50 |
| Rollout | Rock | Physical | 30 | 41–48 |
| Skull Bash | Normal | Physical | 130 | 38–45 |
| Double Edge | Normal | Physical | 120 | 36–42 |
| Mega Kick | Normal | Physical | 120 | 36–42 |
| Thunder Shock | Electric | Special | 40 | 35–41 |
| Take Down | Normal | Physical | 90 | 27–32 |
What the calculator does not account for
The formula from Generation V onward:
damage = ((2 × level ÷ 5 + 2) × power × A ÷ D) ÷ 50 + 2, multiplied by STAB, type effectiveness and a random factor of 0.85–1.00.
We account for: both sides' natures, IVs and EVs, critical hits (separately, ×1.5), held items, weather and terrain, and both sides' Abilities. Items and Abilities enter the formula at different points — Choice Band, Huge Power and Fur Coat on the stat, Life Orb and Thick Fat on the final damage, and Adaptability on STAB itself — because that is how they work in the games. Terrain only counts for grounded Pokémon, and Abilities decide who is grounded: Levitate lifts Rotom even though it is not a Flying type.
Moves with their own field rule get that rule applied separately rather than just the general boost: Rising Voltage doubles its power, Terrain Pulse and Weather Ball change type and power, Solar Beam weakens outside harsh sunlight, and Grassy Terrain halves Earthquake, Bulldoze and Magnitude.
Abilities that depend on move properties are included: Iron Fist boosts punching moves, Tough Claws boosts contact moves, Bulletproof blocks ball and bomb moves, and Soundproof blocks sound-based moves. Each move's properties are listed on its own page, in the "Move properties" section.
Of the Abilities, we leave out Sharpness and Wind Rider — the "slicing" and "wind" move properties arrived in Generation IX and are not in our dataset, and we do not guess them from move names. Intimidate lowers Attack by one stage, so you can reproduce it with the Attack stage field.
Abilities that depend on how the turn plays out are each handled differently. Marvel Scale is actually checked, because the defender's status condition is a form field. Analytic (moving last) and Stakeout (the target has just switched in) get a number with an assumption shown next to the result — the calculator works out a single hit, not a whole turn, so it cannot check this itself.
Multi-strike moves (Bullet Seed, Arm Thrust and the like) are shown as a range from the lowest roll of a single hit to the highest roll of the maximum number of hits. Values in between do occur in the games, but without a probability distribution they cannot be stated honestly — so the range is wider than any single real value. HP costs and gains (recoil, drain, Life Orb, Shell Bell) are calculated per hit and have their own note about it.
Of the status conditions, only a burn counts on its own: poison and sleep do not change damage, and paralysis affects Speed, which this formula does not use. Other conditions affect the result only when something else asks about them — Facade and Guts on the attacker, Hex and Barb Barrage on the defender, and also Marvel Scale.
For screens, we leave out Facade (it doubles in power when the user has a status condition and since Generation VI ignores the burn penalty) as well as Brick Break and Psychic Fangs, which break screens instead of being reduced by them.
Air Balloon is calculated as it is before the first hit, while the balloon still keeps the Pokémon afloat. We do not account for the move lock from Choice Band or for end-of-turn weather damage. The result answers the question "is this attack enough?" — it is not a replacement for a full battle simulator.
Want to calculate the stats of a specific Pokémon with its nature and EVs? Use the stat calculator.