Flawed reasoning concerning defenders

The more I look at the general advice on-line, the stronger my feelings of consternation.


People just doesn't seem to understand that defence is the worst stat of them all.


A common misconception is that Effective HP has the same value if it's the same number.

Effective HP?

Well, the defence stat shaves off some of the incoming damage, so let's look at two hypothetical pokemon. One comes with a lot of stamina, and for that reason lots of real HP. The other comes with very high defence, and for that reason will take less damage.

For the sake of simplicity we'll assume both take one minute to knock out given the same attacker and no type bonuses against either defender. In other terms, they both have 200 Effective HP (and the number 200 is just grabbed out of thin air for this example).

The high stamina one comes with 180 real HP, but due to damage reduction it stays alive as if it had 200 HP and zero defence.

The high defence one comes with 120 real HP, but it reduces a lot of damage, enough to stay alive as if it had 200 HP with zero defence.


So both are equally good?

No. Not a chance. No way.


Remember the article with a short, short, short description concerning energy gain?

Charge attacks are powered up one point for every two damage taken. Not damage reduced -- taken.

And defenders receive twice the HP, so every pokemon you place in a gym will recharge those attacks with up to the number of HP they have listed (fine, they'll be knocked out if they lose the last one).

Take a look at those two fictive defenders. One will be able to fire off charge attacks worth 180 energy from taking damage only. The one with high defence has access to 120 energy. The difference is little more than a two bar attack extra.

You'll want to dodge that one, and you still take 25% damage. Dodging in itself costs a little time, so you're stuck in combat for a tiny bit longer with the high stamina pokemon.

With three bar attacks the difference is huge (in our example almost two extra attacks). This is the reason high stamina defenders seem to spew out those attacks all the time.


So repeat after me: Defence is the worst stat and a high stamina defender is always better than an "equal" high defence one.