Glossary: Critical Hit

A critical hit is something that can happen whenever a Pokémon uses a damaging move against another Pokémon. By default, there is a small, random chance that the move will inflict a critical hit and deal extra damage—1.5× its usual damage in Generation VI onward, or 2× damage in Generation V and earlier. Critical hits are also in several spin-off games and may follow different rules than the main series games; the majority of this entry is about how critical hits work in the main series games.

Critical hits ignore any positive stat modifiers and several damage reduction effects on the target Pokémon, such as Defense stages, Special Defense stages, and effects like Reflect or Light Screen. Critical hits also ignore any negative stat modifiers on the user of the move, such as Attack stages, Special Attack stages, or the effects of being Burned.

It’s important to remember that (except in Generation I) critical hits take only the helpful modifiers and ignore the bad modifiers, so if you land a critical hit on a Pokémon that has -2 Defense stages, it will still count that lowered Defense when calculating damage, but if your Pokémon has -1 Attack when it gets the critical hit, it will ignore that for the critical hit’s damage. Similarly, if you have +1 Attack and your target has +2 Defense, only the +1 Attack is applied; the +2 Defense is counted as 0 stages.

Chances of a Critical Hit

The chance that a damaging move will be a critical hit varies by Generation. There are also modifiers that can increase the chance of inflicting a critical hit, and these modifiers change by Generation as well. For example, moves like Focus Energy or items like the Razor Claw both increase the critical hit modifier, similar to how moves like Defense Curl raise a Pokémon’s stats by stages.

Some moves have a higher critical hit chance, such as Slash or Night Slash, and in most Generations these add to that critical hit modifier and are coupled with the other effects that raise that modifier.

Generation I

The first Generation of Pokémon games are quite different as far as critical hits go. Rather than being entirely random, their chance is based on the Pokémon’s base Speed stat. The higher the Pokémon’s base Speed stat, the higher the chance of inflicting a critical hit.

Critical hits in this Generation ignore all stat modifiers, both negative and positive, on both Pokémon, meaning it is possible for critical hits in this Generation to do less damage than normal hits if the user’s stats are raised or the enemy’s stats are lowered.

Additionally, effects that are meant to increase the chance of critical hits for the duration of the battle—the move Focus Energy and the item Dire Hit—do not work as intended and instead substantially reduce the chance of inflicting a critical hit, reducing the chance to just 25% of the base chance. Moves with a higher critical hit %, such as Slash, still function as intended.

Generation II

Critical hits in this Generation now use the critical hit modifiers to determine the chance of landing a critical hit and are no longer based on the Pokémon’s base Speed stat. However, similar to Generation I, critical hits in this Generation also ignore all stat modifiers, both negative and positive, on both Pokémon, so critical hits can do less damage than normal hits if the user’s stats are raised or the target’s stats are lowered.

Other Things That Affect Critical Hits

Abilities

• Sniper increases the damage that critical hits inflict. In Generation III–V, it increases the damage from 2× to 3×; in Generation VI+, it increases the damage from 1.5× to 2.25×.