Varying Attack Power?

[Johnny_Nevori]

Ok, so I noticed while playing Reborn that every attack varies on the dmg amount (even set amount moves like Sonic Boom).

It started when I faced a Voltorb at the same lvl as my Frogadier with 46 HP, it used sonic boom and only did 18 dmg leaving it with only 28 HP, then the second turn it did the same move and killed my Pokemon.

I thought maybe i missed something and that i was wrong but it happened with 2 other Pokemon.

One of them was Minun which used Chargebeam on my Joltik with 41 HP that did normal dmg of 20(no Crit or SE) and then did the same move on the second turn again normal dmg but this time it did 21 instead of 20 which KO'd my Pokemon.

The 3rd one was a wild Poochyena which was 1 lvl lower than my Igglybuff and it 2 shot it with Bite which was "Not Very Effective".

 

Maybe I'm just seeing things wrong or maybe my game is glitching but it just doesn't seem normal to me.

 

Any advice/help? or is this normal?

 

Also Sorry if this is the wrong location or has already been addressed before.

[Kenneth]

Maybe irrelevant, but it has something to do with IVs? There are a few differences, regarding even and odd values, specifically concerning HP. Maybe it's not the damage that was changed, but rather, it was rounded down, due to HP value coincidentally falling in that category?

 

In smogon and other places, there is a whole analysis, regarding HP training and the reason for 248ev training invested in the stat, instead of the regular 252.

[Johnny_Nevori]

Thats actually very interesting, I'll have to check that out.

 

Thanks.

[CaptainMetal]

Are you sure it was Sonic Boom? Cause that attack is meant to always do exactly 20 Damage. The damage of an attack that doesn't have a fixed value always has some variance, sometimes you get a low roll, sometimes a high roll. For further info I suggest reading this article on the damage calculation: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Damage

[LilyX]

58 minutes ago, Johnny_Nevori said:

Ok, so I noticed while playing Reborn that every attack varies on the dmg amount (even set amount moves like Sonic Boom).

It started when I faced a Voltorb at the same lvl as my Frogadier with 46 HP, it used sonic boom and only did 18 dmg leaving it with only 28 HP, then the second turn it did the same move and killed my Pokemon.

I thought maybe i missed something and that i was wrong but it happened with 2 other Pokemon.

One of them was Minun which used Chargebeam on my Joltik with 41 HP that did normal dmg of 20(no Crit or SE) and then did the same move on the second turn again normal dmg but this time it did 21 instead of 20 which KO'd my Pokemon.

The 3rd one was a wild Poochyena which was 1 lvl lower than my Igglybuff and it 2 shot it with Bite which was "Not Very Effective".

 

Maybe I'm just seeing things wrong or maybe my game is glitching but it just doesn't seem normal to me.

 

Any advice/help? or is this normal?

 

Also Sorry if this is the wrong location or has already been addressed before.

Okay, these are different scenarios.

 

- Sonic Boom always does exactly 20 hp damage (unless playing with rainbow field effect). This damage is not affected by the Pokemon's stats. As such, EVs and IVs and natures don't matter. -> If Sonic Boom did indeed do 18 damage, then a) there's something wrong with the move or b) you misremember. Try to replicate it and if it happens again, you can report it as error.

 

- Other attacks like the Charge Beam which don't inflict fixed damage, inflict damage in a certain range. There are 16 damage rolls whenever a Pokemon uses one of those attacks, all of them being equally likely.

Example: If a LV 40 Minun attacks a LV 40 Joltik with Charge Beam (and if there EVs are 0 - don't worry about this part), then these are the possible damage amounts: (16, 16, 16, 16, 17, 17, 17, 17, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 18, 19). As you can see, the damage ranges from 16 - 19, with 18 being the most common. 

(https://calc.pokemonshowdown.com/ this is the tool I used to calculate the damage)

 

- Lasty, I don't quite have enough information on the Poochyena / Igglybuff situation, but I know that Bite is NEVER able to 2hko Igglybuff if the Igglybuff is one level higher than the Poochyena. Maybe the Igglybuff's stats had been dropped before the Bite?

 

 

 

 

[Edo]

About the Voltorb situation, what I can think of is that:

 

1. Sometimes, when a pokemon is damaged, the HP bar lags a little at the last HPs that go down. For example, at first it looks like it stops at 28 HP, but 1-2 seconds later it jumps to 26 HP. Maybe you didn't notice because you thought it stopped at 28 HP and looked away.

 

2. Voltorb can have the ability Aftermath, which deals 25% damage to the attacker if its defeated by a physical move. If you hit the Voltorb with a physical move, after it hit you with 2 Sonic Booms, which would leave you with 6 HP, then Aftermath would deal another 11 or 12 HP damage (don't know if it's rounded up or down) and kill your Frogadier.

 

3. When playing while the game is sped up, game animations can sometimes become less smooth, which would increase the chance of the HP bar lagging. Also, messages during battle will disappear so fast that it's easy to miss something. The message of Aftermath activating might have appeared, but disappeared too fast for you to notice, making it look like the extra damage was caused by that Sonic Boom.

[Johnny_Nevori]

Ok, so I retried the Voltorb battle and Edo was right on their #1 option, It was a lag in the animation.

Quote

1. Sometimes, when a pokemon is damaged, the HP bar lags a little at the last HPs that go down. For example, at first it looks like it stops at 28 HP, but 1-2 seconds later it jumps to 26 HP. Maybe you didn't notice because you thought it stopped at 28 HP and looked away.

 

For the Igglybuff I figured out that it's IV for def is 1 and no EVs so that might be why, but I'm just not sure.

It happens a lot actually in this game, I'm either getting 1-2 shot by everything that is either 1 lvl lower than me or equal, but the same is inverse as well I end up 1-2 shot everything if I'm equal or 1 lvl higher. IDK maybe I'm just crazy and not noticing the right stuff lol 

 

As for the ChargeBeam I figured out that it ups the users Sp. Attack, so that is probably why it happened. But that is a great tool for calculations, Thanks LilyX

 

Thank you all for the help I really appreciate It.