The article is kinda short, so I got this done quickly. I'm considering making this multigenerational, in which case I would need someone to post the priorities from D/P.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Move Priority
The one exception is Sleep Talk. Sleep talk has a priority of 0, and thus if you Sleep Talk Whirlwind, for example, you can go before a slower Pokemon using, say, Tackle. The only exception I know of is Focus Punch. Focus Punch cannot be chosen by Sleep Talk. If your only moves are Sleep Talk and Focus Punch, Sleep Talk fails. I've heard that in-game, if Sleep Talk chooses Focus Punch, it says it fails, unlike on Netbattle, where Focus Punch simply cannot be chosen.
Unlike in GSC, it is the faster phazer that phazes. In GSC, a Pokemon had to go last for phazing to work, so if a Tyranitar with 1 Curse and a Tyranitar with no Curses both used Roar, the non-Cursed Tyranitar would go first, and Roar would fail, and then the Cursed Tyranitar would go, and phaze out the other Tyranitar. In Advance, however, the faster phazer uses Roar / Whirlwind, sending the enemy away, thus giving them no chance to try and Roar / Whirlwind you.
Revenge gets boosted damage from Focus Punch, and does not interrupt it, making it the only attack that cannot interrupt Focus Punch.
End-of-turn effects
If something has a priority of 4, it always goes before a 5. If it has a 2, it's always after a 1, etc. However, for a faster Pokemon, their things within a 4, for example, will all go before a slower Pokemon's 4s. So Deoxys-E's Pinch Berry will activate before Shuckle's Ingrain, but Quagsire's Leftovers will be before their own Burn damage. This means that if one Pokemon were to have all these things happening at once, it would happen in the order listed. But if two Pokemon of differing speeds were to have all these happening, faster Pokemon gets all the 1 effects, then the slower Pokemon, faster Pokemon gets all the 2 effects, then the slower one, etc.
"How does all this matter?" you ask. I'll try and point out anything that actually makes a difference.
I. Move Priority
Most of the time, the order in which Pokémon execute their moves is based on the Speed of the Pokémon involved; the Pokémon with the higher Speed goes first, and if there is a tie, the moving order is randomly determined. However, some moves have special effects that alter the typical moving order, making certain moves always go before or after others. These special effects are called priority modifiers, and these are the priority modifiers for all moves:
Quick Claw is an item that gives the holder a 23.75% chance of moving before the opponent, but it isn't without its own provisos. Quick Claw, like Speed, only affects move order if both Pokémon select attacks with the same priority modifier; this means that a Pokémon holding Quick Claw and using Revenge will never go before a Pokémon using Quick Attack or ExtremeSpeed.
Sleep Talk, Metronome, and Assist are moves that select other moves, and are given exceptional mention because they do special things to the priority modifier of moves in that they set the priority of the selected move to +0. If Pokémon A and Pokémon B are battling, and Pokémon A is faster, and Pokémon A uses Sleep Talk and selects Roar while Pokémon B uses a generic +0 priority move, Pokémon A will execute Roar immediately even though its given priority modifier is -5, removing Pokémon B from the field before it can attack.
Revenge's power is boosted by Focus Punch and Revenge does not interrupt Focus Punch; it is the only offensive move that does so.
While it is technically not a priority, switching occurs before all attacks except Pursuit. If Pursuit is used on a switching Pokémon, it is executed before the switching.
II. End-of-Turn Effects
Many things may occur at the end of turns, after all attacks have been executed, including healing from Wish, damage from weather effects, and damage from status effects. These also have a specific order.
Most of the time, end-of-turn effect priority is simply a matter of which message is displayed first, but it occasionally does make a difference. Assuming that sandstorm is active and a Pokémon that is vulnerable to sandstorm is holding Leftovers and has less than 6.25% health remaining, it would faint, because the sandstorm damage would go before the Leftovers healing and cause the Pokémon to faint before the latter effect could occur. However, if said Pokémon had Wish healing pending for that turn, it would be safe, because Wish would go before sandstorm and add 50% to its health bar, so it is no longer susceptible to being knocked out by the weather.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Move Priority
- +6 Helping Hand
- +5 Snatch, Magic Coat
- +4 Follow Me
- +3 Focus Punch (charge)
- +2 Protect, Detect, Endure
- +1 Quick Attack, Mach Punch, Extremespeed, Fake Out
- *0 Sleep Talk, Everything else
- -1 Vital Throw
- -2 Focus Punch
- -3 Revenge
- -4 Counter, Mirror Coat
- -5 Roar, Whirlwind
The one exception is Sleep Talk. Sleep talk has a priority of 0, and thus if you Sleep Talk Whirlwind, for example, you can go before a slower Pokemon using, say, Tackle. The only exception I know of is Focus Punch. Focus Punch cannot be chosen by Sleep Talk. If your only moves are Sleep Talk and Focus Punch, Sleep Talk fails. I've heard that in-game, if Sleep Talk chooses Focus Punch, it says it fails, unlike on Netbattle, where Focus Punch simply cannot be chosen.
Unlike in GSC, it is the faster phazer that phazes. In GSC, a Pokemon had to go last for phazing to work, so if a Tyranitar with 1 Curse and a Tyranitar with no Curses both used Roar, the non-Cursed Tyranitar would go first, and Roar would fail, and then the Cursed Tyranitar would go, and phaze out the other Tyranitar. In Advance, however, the faster phazer uses Roar / Whirlwind, sending the enemy away, thus giving them no chance to try and Roar / Whirlwind you.
Revenge gets boosted damage from Focus Punch, and does not interrupt it, making it the only attack that cannot interrupt Focus Punch.
End-of-turn effects
- 1.0 Reflect wears off
- 1.1 Light Screen wears off
- 1.2 Safeguard fades
- 2.0 Wish
- 3.0 Hail, Sandstorm, Rain, Sunlight
- 4.0 Shed Skin
- 4.1 Ingrain
- 4.2 Leftovers
- 4.3 Curse (from a Ghost)
- 4.4 Leech Seed
- 4.5 Burn, Poison
- 4.6 Wrap
- 4.7 Pinch Berry
- 5.0 Doom Desire, Future Sight
- 6.0 Yawn
If something has a priority of 4, it always goes before a 5. If it has a 2, it's always after a 1, etc. However, for a faster Pokemon, their things within a 4, for example, will all go before a slower Pokemon's 4s. So Deoxys-E's Pinch Berry will activate before Shuckle's Ingrain, but Quagsire's Leftovers will be before their own Burn damage. This means that if one Pokemon were to have all these things happening at once, it would happen in the order listed. But if two Pokemon of differing speeds were to have all these happening, faster Pokemon gets all the 1 effects, then the slower Pokemon, faster Pokemon gets all the 2 effects, then the slower one, etc.
"How does all this matter?" you ask. I'll try and point out anything that actually makes a difference.
- You can save yourself from Sandstorm damage with Wish. A Pokemon with 1% health remaining at the end of a turn normally will die to sandstorm next turn. If Wish activates that turn, however, they will survive.
- Reflect and Light Screen lower damage from Doom Desire and Future Sight. If you are relying on their defensive boosts to survive, and they end that turn, you could die.
- Ingrain saves you from burn and poison 100% of the time, assuming you have Leftovers.
I. Move Priority
Most of the time, the order in which Pokémon execute their moves is based on the Speed of the Pokémon involved; the Pokémon with the higher Speed goes first, and if there is a tie, the moving order is randomly determined. However, some moves have special effects that alter the typical moving order, making certain moves always go before or after others. These special effects are called priority modifiers, and these are the priority modifiers for all moves:
- +6 Helping Hand
- +5 Snatch, Magic Coat
- +4 Follow Me
- +3 Focus Punch charge-up
- +2 Protect, Detect, Endure
- +1 Quick Attack, Mach Punch, ExtremeSpeed, Fake Out
- +0 Sleep Talk, Metronome, Assist, every move not noted here
- -1 Vital Throw
- -2 Focus Punch attack
- -3 Revenge
- -4 Counter, Mirror Coat
- -5 Roar, Whirlwind
Quick Claw is an item that gives the holder a 23.75% chance of moving before the opponent, but it isn't without its own provisos. Quick Claw, like Speed, only affects move order if both Pokémon select attacks with the same priority modifier; this means that a Pokémon holding Quick Claw and using Revenge will never go before a Pokémon using Quick Attack or ExtremeSpeed.
Sleep Talk, Metronome, and Assist are moves that select other moves, and are given exceptional mention because they do special things to the priority modifier of moves in that they set the priority of the selected move to +0. If Pokémon A and Pokémon B are battling, and Pokémon A is faster, and Pokémon A uses Sleep Talk and selects Roar while Pokémon B uses a generic +0 priority move, Pokémon A will execute Roar immediately even though its given priority modifier is -5, removing Pokémon B from the field before it can attack.
Revenge's power is boosted by Focus Punch and Revenge does not interrupt Focus Punch; it is the only offensive move that does so.
While it is technically not a priority, switching occurs before all attacks except Pursuit. If Pursuit is used on a switching Pokémon, it is executed before the switching.
II. End-of-Turn Effects
Many things may occur at the end of turns, after all attacks have been executed, including healing from Wish, damage from weather effects, and damage from status effects. These also have a specific order.
- 1.0 Reflect wears off
- 1.1 Light Screen wears off
- 1.2 Safeguard wears off
- 2.0 Wish healing occurs
- 3.0 Weather signals appear, and sandstorm and hail damage occur
- 4.0 Shed Skin removes status
- 4.1 Ingrain healing occurs
- 4.2 Leftovers healing occurs
- 4.3 Ghost Curse damage occurs
- 4.4 Leech Seed damage and healing occurs
- 4.5 Burn and poison damage occurs
- 4.6 Wrap, Whirlpool, Sand Tomb, Clamp, Fire Spin, and Bind damage occurs
- 4.7 Liechi, Ganlon, Salac, Petaya, Apicot, Lansat, and Starf Berries' effects occur
- 5.0 Doom Desire and Future Sight damage occurs
- 6.0 Yawn's sleep occurs
Most of the time, end-of-turn effect priority is simply a matter of which message is displayed first, but it occasionally does make a difference. Assuming that sandstorm is active and a Pokémon that is vulnerable to sandstorm is holding Leftovers and has less than 6.25% health remaining, it would faint, because the sandstorm damage would go before the Leftovers healing and cause the Pokémon to faint before the latter effect could occur. However, if said Pokémon had Wish healing pending for that turn, it would be safe, because Wish would go before sandstorm and add 50% to its health bar, so it is no longer susceptible to being knocked out by the weather.
