Do super-effective hits double damage or power?

Question

Weaknesses and resistances are always displayed as 1/4x, 1/2, 2x, or 4x. What is multiplied? The power of the move or the damage done?

Comments

Damage and power are the same thing, are they not?

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No? The damage calculation takes into account things like level, stats, power, crits, defense, and types. I was wondering because it would be a heck of a lot easier to predict how much damage would be done if it just doubled the power of the move.

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Damage calculation formula literally has this identifiable. Super effectiveness is a multiplier to the result without it, meaning the end result (whatever neutral damage) multiplied by super effectiveness. If Super effectiveness multiplied power, it would be next to power, not the last part of the formula.

Sorry, I had to rant, I am a math geek :P

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b144/graceofbaal/damageformula.jpg

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lol I suppose I could’ve just checked the damage calculation formula. @Stakatacool if you make that an answer I’ll select it as best.

Answer 1

Yes, it applies to the “Damage value”. :P

Super Effectiveness is applied in chain of Multiplication at the end of damage calculation but due to the Communitive property of Multiplication, it doesn’t actually matter what order these operations occur in, so if you consider all damage calculation beforehand the “Damage”, it and other things such as Same Type Attack Boost and Burn damage decrease happen simultaneously. In fact, all similar multipliers are applied at this time: none of them are applied to power. Type Advantage is applied nearly the same way in every generation, too.

Would it matter if it was applied to Power Directly? Yes, though the difference isn’t too significant in normal gameplay, it would be different enough to change KO thresholds in competitive formats. Damage values would be different since there is addition that occurs after this multiplication to power but before the spot Type Effectiveness would happen.

Source, EXP

Hope I Helped!

Comments

Damage is sometimes also affected by the way Pokemon games do rounding.

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Yeah, but that doesn’t change that it is basically a x2 to the end result. If the game rounds down the final value by less than 1, it was either already going to do so before TA is applied or does so because of an uneven multiplier or error from the way floating point numbers are stored on computers.

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If the damage is an odd number at some point and there's a 0.5 or 1.5 multiplier (like STAB) along with the super effective multiplier, then the order of operations and rounding could affect the result.

Answer 2

252 SpA Abomasnow Hidden Power
Fire vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Abomasnow: 240-284 (74.7 - 88.4%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

Changed the Opponent Abomasnow's type from Ice/Grass to Ice. So Abomasnow will be ×2 to HP Fir.

252 SpA Abomasnow Hidden Power Fire vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Abomasnow: 120-142 (37.3 - 44.2%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after hail damage

74.7 / 2 = 37.35 or 37.3
88.4 / 2= 44.2
120 × 2 = 240
142 × 2 = 284

Super Effective hits double the damage.

If I double the power of HP Fire to 120, then

252 SpA Abomasnow Hidden Power Fire vs. 0 HP / 0 SpD Abomasnow: 476-560 (148.2 - 174.4%) -- guaranteed OHKO

Comments

The second calculation looks like you doubled the power AND the damage.

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Who told you that? Most of my sources say it's double.

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Bro super-effective hits deal double the damage, not *1.6. This is so obvious that any Pokemon player who knows this is, well, dumb.