Average damage that a move would deal

[X-Act]

I have made the following chart, showing the average percentage damage that a move would deal if dealt by a Pokemon having 300 Attack or Special Attack and no STAB. I took the type chart and Pokemon statistics into account: (NOTE: THIS IS WITHOUT TAKING POKEMON USAGES INTO ACCOUNT! Check out this post to see the version that takes Pokemon usages into account.)

Move                  Average Percentage
----------------------------------------
Explosion             172.09%
Selfdestruct          137.67%
Head Smash             78.47%
Eruption (max)         67.04%
Overheat               62.57%
Focus Punch            62.46%
Water Spout (max)      59.04%
Brave Bird             55.73%
Leaf Storm             55.09%
Flare Blitz            54.16%
Fire Blast             53.63%
Magma Storm            53.63%
Avalanche (max)        53.30%
Blizzard               52.45%
Stone Edge             52.31%
Volt Tackle            52.01%
Psycho Boost           51.70%
Draco Meteor           51.61%
Brine (max)            51.16%
Focus Blast            50.89%
Thunder                50.84%
Close Combat           49.97%
Superpower             49.97%
Facade (max)           48.18%
Hydro Pump             47.23%
Seed Flare             47.22%
SolarBeam              47.22%
Megahorn               47.06%
Power Whip             46.29%
Wood Hammer            46.29%
Outrage                45.39%
Sacred Fire            45.14%
Aeroblast              45.06%
Last Resort            44.74%
Heat Wave              44.69%
Gyro Ball (max)        42.77%
Shadow Force           42.57%
Flamethrower           42.46%
Doom Desire            41.72%
Cross Chop             41.64%
DynamicPunch           41.64%
Hammer Arm             41.64%
Hi Jump Kick           41.64%
Gunk Shot              41.55%
Ice Beam               41.52%
Double-edge            41.30%
Thunderbolt            40.25%
Rock Slide             39.23%
Blaze Kick             38.37%
Aura Sphere            38.16%
Dragon Rush            37.83%
Bonemerang             37.56%
Earthquake             37.56%
Surf                   37.39%
Drill Peck             37.16%
Lava Plume             35.75%
Power Gem              35.42%
Hidden Power Rock      35.42%
Petal Dance            35.42%
Sky Uppercut           35.40%
Iron Tail              35.34%
Meteor Mash            35.34%
Attack Order           35.29%
Aqua Tail              35.16%
Crabhammer             35.16%
Return                 35.11%
Leaf Blade             34.72%
Bug Buzz               34.37%
Earth Power            34.03%
Discharge              33.89%
Fire Punch             33.85%
Air Slash              33.79%
Ice Punch              33.31%
Psychic                33.23%
Dragon Pulse           33.17%
Crunch                 32.87%
Sucker Punch           32.87%
Thunderpunch           32.50%
Dark Pulse             31.89%
Hidden Power Flying    31.54%
Energy Ball            31.48%
X-Scissor              31.37%
Hidden Power Fire      31.28%
Waterfall              31.25%
Brick Break            31.23%
Seed Bomb              30.86%
Hidden Power Ice       30.59%
Zen Headbutt           30.46%
Ancientpower           30.36%
Dragon Claw            30.26%
Hyper Voice            29.98%
Sludge Bomb            29.81%
Hidden Power Fighting  29.68%
Hidden Power Electric  29.66%
Extrasensory           29.54%
Fire Fang              29.34%
Body Slam              29.25%
Ice Fang               28.87%
Night Slash            28.76%
Signal Beam            28.64%
Iron Head              28.27%
Spark                  28.17%
Thunder Fang           28.17%
Hidden Power Dark      27.91%
Aerial Ace             27.87%
Flash Cannon           27.82%
Poison Jab             27.70%
Hidden Power Water     27.55%
Hidden Power Grass     27.55%
Extremespeed           27.53%
U-turn                 27.45%
Shadow Ball            27.40%
Chatter                27.03%
Hidden Power Bug       26.73%
Tri Attack             26.65%
Psycho Cut             26.65%
Hidden Power Ground    26.47%
Luster Purge           25.85%
Mist Ball              25.85%
Hidden Power Psychic   25.85%
Crush Claw             25.81%
Hidden Power Dragon    25.80%
Shock Wave             25.42%
Shadow Claw            24.83%
Bite                   24.65%
Faint Attack           24.65%
Hidden Power Steel     24.34%
Cross Poison           24.24%
Hidden Power Ghost     23.97%
Magical Leaf           23.61%
Hidden Power Poison    23.19%
Needle Arm             23.15%
Silver Wind            22.91%
Shadow Punch           21.28%
Magnet Bomb            21.21%
Charge Beam            21.18%
Ominous Wind           20.55%
Swift                  19.99%
Ice Shard              17.77%
Poison Fang            17.31%
Vacuum Wave            16.96%
Mach Punch             16.66%
Pursuit (staying in)   16.43%
Aqua Jet               15.63%
Shadow Sneak           14.19%
Bullet Punch           14.14%
Fake Out               13.77%
Quick Attack           13.77%

Here is also how much, on average, a 300 Attack or Special Attack Pokemon would deal if it used an unstabbed 80-power move of the type listed: (NOTE: THIS IS WITHOUT TAKING POKEMON USAGES INTO ACCOUNT! Check out this post to see the version that takes Pokemon usages into account.)

Move Type          Average Percentage
-------------------------------------
Physical Rock      41.85%
Special Rock       40.48%
Physical Flying    37.16%
Physical Fire      36.11%
Special Flying     36.05%
Special Fire       35.75%
Physical Ice       35.53%
Special Ice        34.97%
Physical Electric  34.67%
Special Fighting   33.92%
Special Electric   33.89%
Physical Fighting  33.31%
Physical Dark      32.87%
Special Dark       31.89%
Special Water      31.49%
Special Grass      31.48%
Physical Bug       31.37%
Physical Water     31.25%
Physical Grass     30.86%
Special Bug        30.55%
Physical Psychic   30.46%
Physical Dragon    30.26%
Special Ground     30.25%
Physical Ground    30.05%
Special Psychic    29.54%
Special Dragon     29.49%
Physical Ghost     28.38%
Physical Steel     28.27%
Special Steel      27.82%
Physical Poison    27.70%
Physical Normal    27.53%
Special Ghost      27.40%
Special Normal     26.65%
Special Poison     26.50%

As far as unstabbed moves goes, Rock moves are the best. Fire, Flying and Ice moves are also top-notch.

Poison, Normal, Steel and Ghost unstabbed moves are the worst you can use. Hidden Power Rock does more damage on average than Meteor Mash!

This might have been stating the obvious, but now it's official, since it has been proven mathematically. :) So enjoy.

[Deck Knight]

Questions:

1. Did you take accuracy into account for average damage (e.g. Fire Blast vs. Flare Blitz)

2. Is this based on OU or all pokemon? OU has so many Steels (+Hippowdon +Garchomp +Lucario) as to make chucking rock attacks out randomly pointless.

3. How did you calculate a percentage without taking into account an opponent's defense?

4. In what manner would this chart be useful? More HP Rock use?

[kd24]

Good Job X-Act. Deck Knight, what it does is just prove that certain types are awful and some types are really good. As you can see and as X-Act stated, the chart shows how bad Posion, Normal, Steel, and Ghost are as attacking types.

[darkie]

He didn't take accuracy into account; Fire Blast and Magma Storm have the same percentage, yet with different accuracies.

[Deck Knight]

Originally Posted by Fat KinglerDude24

Good Job X-Act. Deck Knight, what it does is just prove that certain types are awful and some types are really good. As you can see and as X-Act stated, the chart shows how bad Posion, Normal, Steel, and Ghost are as attacking types.

X-Act did do a great job, but the reason I asked was because I wanted to get more into application. For instance, if this was ALL pokemon than Ghost moves suck because of the 80-something normal types immune to it. The only Normal types in OU are Blissey, Snorlax, and PorygonZ. Granted there's a few Steels and Darks in there as well, but there are also Psychics and other Ghosts.

Then again if it were that weighted down you probably woulsn't see Fire moves so high with the insane number of water types, but then Fire gets to pool 4 other types for SE damage.

Poison and Steel didn't really suprise me. The only real suprise was ghost, seeing as how "Shadow Break" was all the rage in ADV and still in DP.

[Olie]

wow, this is great. Rock at the top? good to know.

[ExoM7]

Good work! A nice reference...Although I agree with Deck Knight, there's still some further calculations to use to actually make it practical to build a moveset around.

[Mormino3]

Well I see Pursuit (w/out switching) but will you be adding Pursuit + Switching?

[darkie]

SK8R9, it's the same as Crunch and Sucker Punch.

[X-Act]

Originally Posted by Fat Deck Knight

Questions:

1. Did you take accuracy into account for average damage (e.g. Fire Blast vs. Flare Blitz)

No. You can multiply them manually if you want to cater for accuracy, though.

2. Is this based on OU or all pokemon? OU has so many Steels (+Hippowdon +Garchomp +Lucario) as to make chucking rock attacks out randomly pointless.

It's based on May's usage statistics, so yeah, Hippowdon, Garchomp and Lucario's usage ARE taken into account. Rock moves are still top-notch, though.

3. How did you calculate a percentage without taking into account an opponent's defense?

I took into account every Pokemon's defenses and HP. The only assumption I made was having 0 EVs. It might be slightly impractical, but everyone uses different defensive EVs anyway, so I went for the 'fairest' option.

4. In what manner would this chart be useful? More HP Rock use?

It shows which attacking types are better. Actually it proves what we knew all along.

[RaikouLover]

In reviewing this, I'm not putting much faith into it TBH. While this is useful information somewhat, there are ways it can be a bit skewed. I refuse to believe that some of the moves of equal power are so much "worse" than overs. Let me explain the discrepancies:

Flamethrower... 95 BP, Fire <-- a strong, good elemental attack... on the listed at 42.46%

Surf... 95 BP, Water <--- same thing as flamethrower.. 37.39%

Aura Sphere... 90 BP, Fighting <--- Great fighting attack.. 38.16%

Dragon Pulse... 90 BP, Dragon <--- another great "elemental" attack... 33.17%

Rock Slide... 75 BP, Rock <---- decent move I guess, extremely weak power wise.... 39.23%

Ok, so when I look at these 5 attacks I and try to analyze them here is what I get.

Flamethrower - Flamethrower is a solid fire attack no doubt, and is always mine of choice. However, it is so much higher than all of its other elemental counterparts. Why? Steel types... main reason. Fire hits a ton of shit super-effective. However, Flamethrower shouldn't be nearly as high above the other attacks I listed when you take into account that every team has a bulky water, and a lot of pokemon resist fire threw abilities such as flash fire and thick fat. I don't know if this was directly included in the initial calculations, but this seems to be too much damage as I find Flamethrower doing mediocre damage at best during the course of a battle because of reasons I already stated.

Surf - probably the best of the elemental attacks IMO. Why? It's not about what you hit super effective, which is what I think is a misconception in the pokemon community. It's about neutrality. Water is one of the best if not THE best attacking type IMO because of its great neutrality. The only thing immune is Water Absorb, hence why we see Gyarados, Swampert, and Crocune making such a living on one attack. So why the hell is this so low? Well, its not hitting much super effective, and mostly bulky waters are using it. But look what happens when you put it on a Sweeper... Have fun switching into Kingdra's Surf in the rain...

Aura Sphere - I love this move. But we go back to my neutrality argument. Aura Sphere is weaker in base power, but higher in damage than Surf. Why? Again, Fighting hits a ton of shit super effective. But I fail to see how it is more USEFUL than surf, when it is played usually on a Choice Pokemon, and Ghosts get free switch ins. Also take into account the enormous amount of Flying pokemon in the game, and poison's emergence of popularity.

Dragon Pulse - Dragon Pulse is the cornerstone of my neutrality point. Dragon Pulse literally doesn't hit shit for SE damage, but only 1 type in the game resists it... 1 fucking type. Although this type is common in OU, I believe the statistics were using all pokemon to determine this, and steel actually isn't as common in the pokemon body. Dragon Pulse is gonna hit shit, and hit it good. That is why this system is flawed.

Rock Slide - are you serious? How the hell does this outdamage Aura Sphere, Surf, and Dragon Pulse??? How? Well, by X-Acts formula, Rock types have VERY high attacking stats, hence why the rock moves are so high on the list. Rock is a fairly decent attacking type, but neutrality is not its forte. Hits a lotta shit Super Effective, also hits a lotta shit Not Very Effective, but wins on this chart. Slap rock slide on all your pokemon and see how it does.... :-(

[garo]

excelent job X-act
well as roikou lover said im surprised that dragon attacks are that low on the chart, i mean outrage is in 31 place with 45%, maybe the usage statistics of steel types decreased its percentage but the same way garchomp usage may raise dragon power, i think that dragon attacks are better than the showed.

[X-Act]

To RaikouLover: I'm afraid you misunderstood my chart.

This didn't use any Pokemon's attacking stats at all. It only used Pokemon's defensive stats, typing and usage. So Rock moves are not the best because their users have high attacking stats. As I said, I'm assuming that everything here has 300 in both attacking stats and no STAB. What I'm saying is: if EVERY Pokemon had 300 Atk and 300 SpA, Flamethrower would deal more damage than Surf on average. If Kingdra uses Surf under the rain, it's going to deal some severe damage, because its attack stat, combining STAB, Rain and everything together, is much greater than 300!

What I'm saying is... if I were to put Flamethrower and Surf on the same Pokemon that doesn't get STAB on both of them (say Dragonite), Flamethrower would deal more damage on average than Surf. We already knew this... but now it's kinda confirmed mathematically that this is true. As another example, if I were to put Dragon Pulse and HP Rock on Arcanine, say, HP Rock would deal more damage than Dragon Pulse on average (surprisingly, maybe).

[Chou Toshio]

I'm not surprised by Dragon's low performance. Except for it's nuetrality to ghost, steel and super on dragon, it's basically the same thing as normal. Only thing is that the one's using dragon have it as STAB from ridiculously powerful offensive stats (which aren't taken into account here) with REALLY high base power.

RL points out that the chart doesn't work like real battle, but this data is probably correct along x-act's assumptions. There's just no way to take intelligent switching into the equation. Hence why "switching" is sometimes called "the best move in the game."

[garo]

Originally Posted by Fat ChouToshio

I'm not surprised by Dragon's low performance. Except for it's nuetrality to ghost, steel and super on dragon, it's basically the same thing as normal.

dragon is neutral to ghost and rock, effective against dragons and resisted by steel, with dragon attacks having one less resistance and no immunities are fairly better than normal type.

[animenagai]

i understand that this is applying a bit of fuzzy logic to competitive battling, but that also gives us a good overview with the exercise :). you're the man x-act. this informations should be useful as long as people don't take things too shallowly. this will definitely help my team building.

[Anti]

dammm this is awesome, I always knew there was a reason I feared Aero and DD Tar so much ...though the former was due to how much it used to rape one of my teams in advance...

Sweet job Mr. X.

[tentaintcool]

I'm quite surprised about Flying's position on the chart, i'd have never thought it would be above Fire and Ice.

Great work, X-Act.

[Spaniard]

I thank you for putting effort on this subject. However, I can't see how this applies in real battling.

Sure it's clear what this chart means, however, when playing you will be predicting, but also your oponent can determine which moves you're likely to use.

What I mean is that while brave bird will deal around 56% average damage in theory, your foe will work to bring in something that takes it like nothing. Maybe this could be helpful to determine which are the best sets for some sweepers. However I'm pretty sure that standard movesets adjust quite well to this chart.

The problem is that while theory studies every scenario, reality is far from being random and there are some things that shouldn't happen, since it's your job to take as little damage as possible.

See you.

[Great Sage]

How did you decide on the defensive stats? Did you just use the most common ones for each Pokemon (like 176 for Lucario, 226 for Garchomp) or did you do something else?

[darkie]

Great Sage,

The only assumption I made was having 0 EVs.

[FBABY]

I think that people are underestimating this chart's worth. With a little tweaking you could get some really nice percentages out of this.

Great job X-Act

[X-Act]

Originally Posted by Fat Spaniard

The problem is that while theory studies every scenario, reality is far from being random and there are some things that shouldn't happen, since it's your job to take as little damage as possible.

And it's also your job to deal as much damage as possible.

It is true that your opponent will try to limit the damage, but it is also true that sometimes you outpredict your opponent and you manage to deal more than the average damage. On average, however, a normal player is sometimes outpredicted and sometimes outpredicts the opponent. In that case, the average dealt (not in one game, in a large number of games) will be that (assuming 300 attacking stat). The only problem is that some moves are learned by only a few Pokemon while others are learned by a lot.

That is why I think that Fire Blast and Stone Edge are among the best moves in the game - they are TMs that are learned by a good number of Pokemon, and they are also high in the list. Brave Bird, while being excellent, suffers from the fact that it is learned by only a few Pokemon.

Speaking of this, I can find exactly the average damage that each move can deal by taking every Pokemon using it (and the amount of times that Pokemon is used) into account. If I did that, I'm sure that moves like Head Smash and Brave Bird would end up quite low in the list, while moves like Fire Blast would end up quite high.

[Angel Diva]

As far as unstabbed moves goes, Rock moves are the best

Hmmm...this just might make me consider using Power Gem on Grumpig and Persian.

[X-Act]

Well, Power Gem isn't that high on the list due to having only 70 power. However, it's the best 70-power move. Also, this chart works for OU, since I used the OU Pokemon usages. I'd make one for UU if I had UU Pokemon usages. (I still think Rock would be the best in UU, actually.)