Combat

Combat runs in real time, not in turns. Every hit in the game — hunting, delves and duels alike — goes through the one formula below, so what you read here is what the server does.

The damage formula

Attack is the attacker's Attack for a physical move and Sp. Attack for a special one; Defense is the defender's matching stat.

ratio  = (Attack ÷ Defense) ^ 0.5
base   = floor((2 × Level ÷ 5 + 2) × Power × ratio ÷ 50 + 2)
damage = round(base × STAB × Type × Random × 0.34)

Attack: Your effective Attack or Sp. Attack, after IVs, quality, nature and stages.
Defense: The defender's matching defensive stat, computed the same way.
Power: The move's base power, listed on every move's row in the Moves page.
STAB: Same-type attack bonus — applied when the move's type is one of the attacker's own.
Type: Type effectiveness against the defender's type or types.
Random: A small random roll, rolled fresh on every single hit.

The exponent 0.5 on the ratio is the part most people miss: your Attack does not enter the formula directly, its ratio against the defender's Defense does — and that ratio is square-rooted. Doubling your Attack does not double your damage.

What your Attack is actually worth

Hyper Beam (power 150), thrown by a level 50 attacker at a defender with 100 Defense, before any type bonus. Only the attacking stat changes down the table.

Attack	Damage	vs. reference
60	17	×0.71
80	19	×0.79
100	21	×0.88
130	24	×1
160	27	×1.13
200	30	×1.25

Notice the shape: the damage climbs, but far more slowly than the stat does. Because of the 0.5 exponent, multiplying your Attack by four is what it takes to double the damage — which is why type matchups and stacking a buff usually beat chasing raw Attack.

…and what the defender's Defense does

The same hit at 130 Attack, with the defender's Defense swept instead.

Defense	Damage	vs. reference
60	31	×1.29
80	27	×1.13
100	24	×1
130	21	×0.88
160	19	×0.79
200	17	×0.71

What multiplies the result

These stack on top of the number the formula produced — 24 for the reference hit above. They are where the big swings live.

Modifier	Multiplier	When it applies
STAB	×1.5	The move's type is also one of the attacker's types.
Type effectiveness	×0 · ×0.25 · ×0.5 · ×1 · ×2 · ×4	From the type chart. A dual-typed defender multiplies both of its types, which is where 4× and 0.25× come from.
Critical hit	×1.5	About 6% of hits, higher on high-crit moves. A crit also ignores the attacker's own negative stages and the defender's positive ones.
Burn	×0.5	A burned attacker deals half damage with physical moves. Special moves are unaffected.
Random roll	×0.85–1.00	Rolled per hit, so the same move on the same target varies a little. The tables above use the average roll.

A hit that connects always deals at least 1 damage; only a 0× type immunity deals none.

Buffs and debuffs (stat stages)

Moves like Swords Dance and Growl move a stat between −6 and +6 stages. The middle column is what happens to the stat; the right-hand column is what happens to your damage — and they are not the same number, because the stat only reaches damage through the square-rooted ratio.

Stage	Stat becomes	Your damage becomes
+6	×4	×2
+5	×3.5	×1.87
+4	×3	×1.73
+3	×2.5	×1.58
+2	×2	×1.41
+1	×1.5	×1.22
0	×1	×1
-1	×0.67	×0.82
-2	×0.5	×0.71
-3	×0.4	×0.63
-4	×0.33	×0.58
-5	×0.29	×0.53
-6	×0.25	×0.5

So a maxed +6 buff is worth double damage, not quadruple. Stages wear off after a while and reset when the pocket monster leaves the fight.

Where your stats come from

Base is the species' own value, from its Pokédex entry. There are no EVs in PokeAFK — training is not a stat system here.

HP   = floor(((2 × Base + IV) × 0.66 + 450) × Level ÷ 100) + Level + 10
Stat = floor((2 × Base + IV) × Level ÷ 100) + 5

IVs: 0 to 31 per stat, rolled when the pocket monster is caught and fixed for life.
Quality: Scales every stat together, from ×0.9 at the worst roll to ×1.1 at the best.
Nature: Raises one stat by 10% and lowers another by 10%. Five of the 25 natures are neutral. HP is never affected.

For example: a base stat of 100 with that stat's IV at its maximum of 31, at level 50, gives 120 — before quality and nature.

Speed, cooldowns and damage over time

Speed does not enter the damage formula at all. It buys you casts: using any move triggers a global cooldown that locks all of your moves, and Speed shortens it.

Speed	Global cooldown
0	1.00s
75	0.94s
150	0.88s
225	0.81s
300	0.75s
400	0.75s

Each move also has its own cooldown on top of that, listed on the Moves page. Since damage per second is what actually kills things, a cheap fast move often beats a slow heavy one.