How Trainers choose their actions
Your opponent chooses a move, item or switch using the battle as it stands at the start of the turn. The Trainer cannot see the action you are about to choose.
If you switch Pokémon, use an item or attack first, the Trainer does not change that turn’s choice in response. The Trainer can use what happened when choosing on the next turn. It can still happen to pick a move that works well against your choice.
Trainer Pokémon also spend PP when they use moves. If they have no usable moves left, they use Struggle. These are battle rules for this game, alongside the fixes below.
Stats and accuracy
The original games had some surprising results when battle stats changed. Here is what happens now.
Badge boosts
In the original games, a stat change could add a Badge bonus again and again. Here, each earned bonus applies once. The Boulder, Thunder, Soul and Volcano Badges raise Attack, Speed, Defense and Special respectively by one eighth, rounded down. Badge bonuses do not apply in battles against other players.
Burn, paralysis and stat changes
Burn halves Attack and paralysis quarters Speed. Changing another stat does not repeat those penalties or make them disappear. Curing a condition keeps your other battle stat changes in place. Rage raises the user’s Attack, not its opponent’s.
Focus Energy and critical hits
Focus Energy used to lower the chance of a critical hit. It now multiplies that chance by four, up to a guaranteed critical hit.
The one-in-256 miss
A move at full accuracy no longer misses because of the original one-in-256 error. A move can still miss if accuracy or evasion has changed, or if its target is out of reach.
Rage and Thrash accuracy
Their accuracy is checked afresh on each attack. It does not keep getting worse just because the move continues over several turns.
Damage and protective screens
Reflect and Light Screen no longer cause huge damage when a defensive stat is very high. A damaging move that hits and is not blocked by an immunity deals at least one HP of damage. Confusion self-damage is not reduced by the opponent’s Reflect.
Ghost moves and type messages
Ghost attacks are super effective against Psychic Pokémon. When a Pokémon has two types, the effectiveness message reflects their combined effect instead of only the last type.
Stat limits and Psywave
Battle stats stay within their limits, even when a stat is lowered from a very high value. If a two-step stat change fails at the limit, it does not leave a partial change behind. Psywave at level 1 no longer leaves the battle stuck.
Moves and status
Toxic and Leech Seed
Toxic no longer makes Leech Seed’s damage grow. Curing poison clears Toxic’s counter, and Leech Seed can only restore HP that was actually taken. Its effects stop when the affected Pokémon faints.
Body Slam
Body Slam can now paralyze a Normal-type Pokémon. It still has its usual chance to paralyze and cannot replace a condition such as sleep or poison.
Counter
Counter uses a qualifying Normal or Fighting hit received from the opponent on the current turn. It no longer uses old damage, a Potion, recoil or a move that was only highlighted.
Bide
Bide counts direct damage from the opponent instead of repeating old damage. Its stored damage clears when either Pokémon faints and no longer wraps around at a large total.
Sleep, freezing and recharge
Sleep moves must hit and cannot replace another major status, including during recharge. Missing a trapping move no longer removes Hyper Beam’s recharge. A Pokémon that thaws waits until the next turn to choose a move, and freezing or curing a freeze with Haze clears the related stuck recharge state.
Sleep also counts down normally after trapping. In player battles, a sleeping or frozen Pokémon cannot change the turn order with a move it cannot use.
Healing and PP items
Recover, Softboiled and Rest no longer fail because of certain HP values when their normal conditions are met. A Max Ether is not spent on a move that is already at full PP, including PP added with PP Up. A Max Elixer is not spent when all moves are full. When a Trainer uses Full Heal, the battle display clears the old status too.
Substitute and copied moves
Creating and breaking a Substitute
Substitute cannot use the last of its user’s HP. A doll breaks as soon as its HP reaches zero, including when an attack deals exactly enough damage.
Protection and attack effects
A Substitute blocks major status conditions, secondary status and stat effects, and HP-draining moves. Breaking a doll no longer cancels recoil, self-destruction, Pay Day or the remaining hits of a multi-hit move. Hyper Beam still skips recharge when it breaks a Substitute.
Confusion and a missed jump kick hurt their user instead of damaging the opposing doll.
Transform and Mimic
Transform checks whether its target is out of reach with Dig or Fly before copying it. Learning a move no longer removes temporary Transform or Mimic copies during the battle. Copied moves keep the right PP, including when Metronome or Mirror Move calls a move.
PP-restoring items cannot be used on the active Pokémon while it is transformed. The item is not spent, and you can still use it on a teammate.
After a battle
Learning moves
If one EXP award takes a Pokémon through several levels, it can learn moves from every level it reaches. The original games could skip the levels in between. A level-one EXP calculation error that could cause an unexpected jump in levels is also fixed.
An evolution that needs a stone no longer starts by accident after a battle. It requires the right stone instead.
Fainting and battle messages
A Pokémon that faints does not keep taking or showing later status damage. If both sides go down and you lose, the game resolves the loss before playing a victory cue. Healing an opponent no longer makes the recall message praise damage that was not dealt. Pokémon pictures also keep their full shape during slide animations.
Catching Pokémon
In the original games, a Great Ball could sometimes have a better catch chance than an Ultra Ball. Here, under the same conditions, an Ultra Ball is at least as likely to catch the Pokémon as a Great Ball, and a Great Ball is at least as likely as a Poké Ball.
Lower HP and status conditions can still help. See the catching guide for the next steps.