Sheer Force (ability)

Effect

Sheer Force increases the power of moves that have beneficial secondary effects by 30%, but removes those additional effects.

Beneficial effects are defined as those that are positive for the user, such as:

• Causing a status condition on the opponent (e.g. Thunderbolt)
• Reducing the opponent's stats (e.g. Crunch)
• Increasing the user's stats (e.g. AncientPower)

Non-beneficial effects, that Sheer Force will not activate for, include:

• Recoil damage (e.g. Double-Edge)
• Lowering the user's stats (e.g. Superpower)

For example, Flamethrower normally has a 10% chance to burn the opponent. With Sheer Force, Flamethrower's base power is boosted from 95 to 124, but it will never cause a burn.

Note that if a move has an advantageous and disadvantageous side-effect, Sheer Force still boosts the move but only the advantageous effect is removed. For example, Flare Blitz may cause a burn but also has recoil damage. A Pokemon with Sheer Force using the move would gain the power increase and still receive recoil damage, but it would never cause a burn.

If the user is holding a Life Orb and uses an attack that activates Sheer Force, it will not receive the 10% damage from Life Orb, but it gets boosts from both Life Orb and Sheer Force (total of 69% base power increase).

Here are the 129 moves that increase in power under Sheer Force, listed alphabetically:

Game descriptions