Why did whirlwind and roar sometimes fail in gen 3?

Question

These moves (Used by the lairon and hariyama on victory road in emulated sapphire) should always work, since the level requirement wasn't added yet, but they sometimes fail for no discernable reason. why?

Answer 1

Generation 3 uses both levels and randomness to decide whether whirlwind fails. Pokemon DB is wrong.

If the user's level is less than the target's, the chance of failure is now calculated slightly differently. Given the terms T for the target's level, U for the user's level, and X for a random integer from 0 to 255, a term R can be calculated where R = FLOOR( ( T + U ) * X / 256 ) + 1. If R is less than or equal to T/4, Whirlwind fails. The chance of Whirlwind failing can generally be approximated by ( T / 4 + 1 ) / ( T + U ); the chance of failing may diverge moderately from that approximation for low values of T and U.

source

Comments

great, thanks!

Answer 2

Ruby/Sapphire calculates the fail chance of roar and whirlwind by what level the Pokemon is and what level the target is.
https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Roar_(move) This is what the site says "Given the terms T for the target's level, U for the user's level, and X for a random integer from 0 to 255, a term R can be calculated where R = FLOOR( ( T + U ) * X / 256 ) + 1. If R is less than or equal to T/4, Roar fails. The chance of Roar failing can generally be approximated by ( T / 4 + 1 ) / ( T + U ); the true chance of failing may diverge moderately from that approximation for low values of T and U."

Also, please dont talk about the same topic on 2 posts, especially when staff closes it.

Comments

They're technically different topics. One was "why did whirlwind fail?" and the other was "why did whirlwind succeed?".

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Sorry, but I don't understand any of this.