Pokémon Moves: Physical, Special, Status and Everything Else

Four moves, not one more. That is everything a Pokémon takes into battle, and it is what makes every single choice weigh so heavily. Behind a plain move name sit a category, a power value, an accuracy rating, PP and a priority — five pieces of information that on their own explain why a duel swings one way rather than the other.

Contents

• Physical, special, status: three families
• Before the fourth generation, type decided everything
• Power, STAB and the same-type bonus
• Accuracy: the number that loses matches
• PP: a resource you can run dry
• Priority: going first, or deliberately last
• Critical hits: rare, but decisive
• Effectiveness, resistance, immunity: reading the multipliers
• Status moves: winning without attacking
• Building a moveset: four slots, nothing wasted
• Reading a move in five numbers
• Frequently Asked Questions

Physical, special, status: three families

Every move falls into three categories. Physical moves pit the user's Attack against the target's Defense; special moves match Special Attack against Special Defense.

The third family, the status moves, deals no damage at all: it changes stats, inflicts a status condition, sets up a terrain or protects. It is the largest category, and by far the most underrated by players in a hurry.

One simple rule helps you guess the category of an offensive move: physical moves usually involve contact — a punch, a bite, a tackle — while special moves act at a distance, through breath, beams or waves.

This distinction shapes the way a team is built. A physical wall like Skarmory takes close-quarters hits very well but stays vulnerable to beams, whereas Alakazam shows exactly the opposite profile.

Before the fourth generation, type decided everything

Up to the third generation, a move had no category of its own: its type was what classified it. Steel, Fighting, Bug, Normal, Poison, Rock, Ground, Ghost and Flying were physical; Dragon, Water, Electric, Fire, Ice, Grass, Psychic and Dark were special.

The result sometimes bordered on the absurd. A Dark-type Bite ran off Special Attack, and Dragon Claw did the same even though it is literally a swipe of the claws. Dozens of Pokémon came out lopsided, unable to make use of their best stat.

The fourth generation, with Diamond and Pearl, cleared the slate by assigning a category to each move, case by case. It is probably the deepest rule change in the whole series, and it reshuffled the competitive hierarchy overnight.

Power, STAB and the same-type bonus

The power listed is only a starting point. It is first multiplied by 1.5 if the move shares a type with its user: that is the famous STAB, the same-type attack bonus, present since the first generation.

A 100-power Earthquake used by Donphan, a Ground type, therefore counts as a 150-power move. A dual-type Pokémon, like Charizard, enjoys the bonus on two families of attacks at once.

A few Abilities push the dial further. Adaptability raises that bonus from 50% to 100%: a Crabhammer from Crawdaunt then climbs from 100 to 200 effective power.

🖱️ Adaptability taking Crawdaunt's Crabhammer from 100 to 200 is the kind of math you'd rather check twice than once: our Pokémon mouse pads are made for the corner of your desk where you run those multiplications again.

Since Scarlet and Violet, Terastallization has added another layer: the bonus rises to ×2 if the Tera type matches one of the original types, and stays at ×1.5 otherwise, while keeping the STAB of the original types.

Accuracy: the number that loses matches

Accuracy is expressed as a percentage and is measured against the target's evasion. A move at 70% misses one time in three — an eternity when the game is decided in two turns, which explains the poor reputation of the most devastating attacks.

A handful of moves escape this calculation entirely: Swift and Aerial Ace always hit, no matter what. At the other end, a move like Thunder pays for its power with an accuracy that collapses outside of rain.

The picture gets more complicated with two-turn moves. Solar Beam charges before it strikes, Hyper Beam forces a recharge afterwards; either way, you hand your opponent a full turn.

💡 Solar Beam has to charge for a full turn before it strikes, and a pitch-dark bedroom gives nobody that kind of time: on your nightstand, a Pokémon lamp or night light switches on at the first touch.

PP: a resource you can run dry

Every move comes with a set number of uses, its PP, which runs from 1 PP for Sketch and 5 for the most devastating moves, up to 40 for the most harmless ones. Once they hit zero, the Pokémon is reduced to Struggle, which also hurts the user.

Two items raise that ceiling. PP Up can be used up to three times on the same move and adds a fifth of the starting total each time; PP Max covers the whole distance in one go. A move with 5 PP thus ends up at 8.

A whole family of strategies lives off this limit: draining the opponent's PP with defensive Pokémon, the well-known tactic called "stall". It takes considerable patience, but it wins battles while almost never attacking.

Priority: going first, or deliberately last

It is not always the faster Pokémon that strikes first. Every move carries a priority value, from −7 to +5 for the vast majority of them, and a higher priority always goes first, whatever the Speed.

The regulars on the battlefield are Quick Attack, Aqua Jet, Ice Shard and Shadow Sneak at priority +1, Extreme Speed and Feint at +2, Fake Out at +3. Protection moves such as Protect and Detect climb to +4, and Helping Hand tops out at +5.

Negative priorities are just as useful. Counter and Mirror Coat wait for the hit to send it back, at −5; Revenge and Avalanche strike harder after being hit, at −4; and Trick Room, at −7, is always set up last.

Two Abilities bend the rule: Prankster gives +1 to every status move used by the Pokémon that has it, and Gale Wings does the same for Flying-type moves when the Pokémon's HP is full.

Critical hits: rare, but decisive

A critical hit ignores the user's stat drops and the target's stat boosts, then multiplies the damage by 1.5. The multiplier was ×2 up to the fifth generation: the sixth toned it down considerably.

The base rate today is 4.17%, or one chance in 24. It was one chance in 16 from the second to the sixth generation, which made critical hits far more frequent than they are now.

That rate can be manipulated: high-critical-hit-ratio moves, dedicated items and Abilities such as Sniper, which multiplies critical damage by a further 1.5, turn a lottery into a genuine game plan.

Effectiveness, resistance, immunity: reading the multipliers

Once the power has been calculated, the type chart delivers its verdict. A super effective attack doubles the damage, a not very effective attack halves it, and an immunity cancels it completely.

You have to read these numbers the right way round, because this is the most common mistake. Resisting means taking less damage: a Pokémon with a double resistance to a type takes only a quarter of the damage, which is to say it lasts four times as long against that attack.

Conversely, a double weakness multiplies the damage by four. Golem, both Rock and Ground, therefore takes four times the damage from a Water or Grass attack: the textbook case of double vulnerability.

These multipliers apply after power and STAB, never before. Picking the right type is therefore almost always worth more than superior raw power, and that is what makes a moveset's coverage so important.

🚿 A Water-type move deals four times the damage to Golem because it's both Rock and Ground; the only water you ever take a hit from is in the shower, and that's where a Pokémon bathrobe takes it from here.

Status moves: winning without attacking

Status moves appear on no power ranking, and yet they decide matches. Swords Dance doubles Attack, Rest restores all HP, Protect buys a turn, and a single Thunder Wave can neutralize a faster opponent.

They also serve to set the stage: weather, terrain, entry hazards. They are the route to most status conditions, and they remain the only category that no Defense stat can reduce.

Their limit lies in how easily they are shut down: Taunt blocks them outright for several turns, and Dark types ignore the ones Prankster has sped up. A team that bets on status alone soon finds itself silenced.

Building a moveset: four slots, nothing wasted

The unwritten rule fits in a single sentence: two coverage moves, one attack of the Pokémon's own type, one utility move. That utility slot can be healing, a stat boost, a protection move or a status condition, but it is almost always what separates a good team from a pile of raw damage.

You also need to avoid redundancy: two moves of the same type among the four slots are only worth it if one is physical and the other special, or if their secondary effects differ clearly.

Finally, the category has to follow the stat. Giving a special move to a Pokémon built for Attack means halving its damage for nothing in return — a far more costly mistake than a poor type choice. The keenest fans carry these calculations over to a game of Pokémon cards, where the same instincts apply.

Reading a move in five numbers

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the difference between a physical move and a special move?
  A physical move pits the user's Attack against the target's Defense, while a special move pits Special Attack against Special Defense. As a rule, physical moves involve contact and special moves act at a distance.
• Since when has a move's category been independent of its type?
  Since the fourth generation and Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. Before that, nine types were always physical (Steel, Fighting, Bug, Normal, Poison, Rock, Ground, Ghost, Flying) and eight always special (Dragon, Water, Electric, Fire, Ice, Grass, Psychic, Dark).
• What is STAB?
  It is the same-type attack bonus: a move whose type matches its user's has its power multiplied by 1.5. The Adaptability Ability raises that bonus to 2, and so does Terastallization when the Tera type matches one of the original types.
• What does resisting a type mean?
  Resisting means taking a hit better: a not very effective attack deals only half damage, and a Pokémon with a double resistance to a type takes only a quarter of it. A double weakness does the opposite and multiplies the damage by four.
• Which moves always strike first?
  The ones with positive priority, such as Quick Attack, Aqua Jet, Ice Shard and Shadow Sneak at +1, Extreme Speed and Feint at +2, Fake Out at +3, Protect and Detect at +4, or Helping Hand at +5. At equal priority, Speed breaks the tie.
• What are the odds of a critical hit?
  About 4.17%, or a 1 in 24 chance, compared with 1 in 16 from the second to the sixth generation. A critical hit has multiplied damage by 1.5 since the sixth generation, compared with 2 before that.
• Can you increase a move's PP?
  Yes. PP Up can be used up to three times and adds a fifth of the original total each time, while PP Max applies the whole bonus at once. A move with 5 PP therefore tops out at 8 PP.

In short

A move is never just a name followed by a number. It is a category that picks which stat is used, an accuracy that sets the risk, PP that limit how often it can be used and a priority that decides the order. Add these parameters together and you get a move's true value, often very far from its listed power.

The habit that pays off most is also the simplest one: match the category to the best stat of your Pokémon, then round it out with a status tool. The rest, from critical hits to priority and type bonuses, rewards anyone who takes the time to read a move's entry all the way through.