Complex Question

[Emposan]

Hello guys, I've got quite a long and complex question that I would like to ask.

 

SO a friend of mine and I was running some tests with priorithy moves earlier this evening. My theory was that a Gengar with the move sucker punch using black glasses (20% dmg boost to dark moves) would deal more damage than a technician (50% dmg boost to moves lower than 60 atk power) scizor using bullet punch together with the item metal coat (20% dmg boost to steel moves). Due to my calculations Gengar's sucker punch would reach 96 atk power and scizor's bullet punch 72 atk power.

 

Gengar's sucker punch : 80 atk power (base) x 1.2 (black glasses) => 96 attack power

Scizor's bullet punch : 40 atk power (base) x 1.5 (technician ability) x 1.2 (metal coat) => 72 attack power

 

Now to the testing session. We used both Gengar and Scizor on the same pokemon which was neutral to both moves and with no buff moves. The pokemon we used was a Garchomp with approximately equal def and spdef. Scizor's base atk was 390 and Gengar's base spatk was 360. The result of the test was that Scizor dealed about 50% hp dmg on Garchomp and Gengar only dealed 15%, even when Gengar's move sucker punch had clearly higher attack power.

 

So after this tl;dr I am simply wondering, why did Gengar dmg so poorly compared to Scizor even tho he had higher attack power on his move?

[Hmsesthetic]

Because the base stats are not the same. Gengar has poow Atk while Scizor has a high one. There is a reason why Gengar is played Special Attack and not Attack.

[Emposan]

You are right, I missunderstood sucker punch to be a spatk move while its actually physical. So if I would have exchanged Gengar for a Honchcrow for example then sucker punch might have been damaging more?

[Hmsesthetic]

https://pokemonshowdown.com/damagecalc/

 

The easiest way to check.

[Tro11z]

Also technician doubles the attack of bullet punch and bullet punch would get stab from scizor and sucker punch wouldn't from gengar.

[Hmsesthetic]

208390 Also technician doubles the attack of bullet punch and bullet punch would get stab from scizor and sucker punch wouldn't from gengar.

+50%, not doubles. So Bullet punch becomes a 60 Base power move.

[Tro11z]

208396

208390 Also technician doubles the attack of bullet punch and bullet punch would get stab from scizor and sucker punch wouldn't from gengar.

+50%, not doubles. So Bullet punch becomes a 60 Base power move.

oh hey just checked. Have had that wrong for years. Welp.

[Hmsesthetic]

208399

208396

208390 Also technician doubles the attack of bullet punch and bullet punch would get stab from scizor and sucker punch wouldn't from gengar.

+50%, not doubles. So Bullet punch becomes a 60 Base power move.

oh hey just checked. Have had that wrong for years. Welp.

It's a fairly common mistake and most of the time irrelevant because you never calc the damage yourself but use a calculator.

[Starlight]

Yeah, besides sucker punch relying on gengar's crappy attack stat, there's also the fact that bullet punch gains STAB as scizor is a steel-type.

[Windypuff]

--Moved to proper place--