Combat

Combat in Pokémon isn't a tremendously difficult affair to wrap your head around; it's a variation on the age-old RPG standard of whacking the other guy while he whacks you, until one of you falls to the ground. In Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, though, you have six full Pokémon to use in battle, which will often give you the edge against your enemies. In order to increase the likelihood of defeating your foes, though, you'll need to get used to the concept of enemy types.

Using Attacks

Each Pokémon will have a variety of moves that it can learn. When you capture a Pokémon, it will always have a couple of moves already learned, with one of them usually consisting of some kind of attack. As you fight your opponents and earn experience, your Pokémon will gain levels and learn new attacks and special moves, as well.

In combat, you'll be able to select any of the moves that your Pokémon currently knows and use them. Early on in the game, you'll want to stick to straight attacks; there are plenty of tricky moves that increase your Pokémon's stats or decrease those of your opponents, but for the most part, you can simply attack away until your enemies faint, secure in the knowledge that any damage you take can be corrected with a quick trip to a Pokémon Center.

As you move on in the game, your Pokémon will learn new skills. You can only learn four skills at a time, though, so if start learning enough skills, you'll eventually want to start having your Pokémon forget older skills in favor of the newer skills that pop up. Forgotten skills aren't forgotten permanently, though; you will eventually be able to use the Move Relearner to relearn forgotten skills, or learn skills that you didn't learn when your Pokémon levelled up.

Using Types

Each Pokémon will have one or two types assigned to it. Some Pokémon are fire monsters, some are electrical monsters, some are steel monsters, and so on. These types will help you know what kind of enemy Pokémon they're going to be strong against and which they're going to be weak against. Every Pokémon type has a few weaknesses and strengths; if you match your Pokémon against the enemy Pokémon properly, you'll often be able to defeat your foe in one hit!

When you use an attack of a proper type against an enemy, you'll deal double damage to it. For instance, Grass-type enemies are weak to Fire-type attacks, so they'll take twice the normal damage when hit with a Fire attack. Enemies also have defensive strengths, though. That same Grass-type enemy will only take half the normal damage from a Water-type attack, for instance. Some types of Pokémon are completely immune to some types of attack. If you use a Fight attack against a Ghost-type enemy, for example, you can expect to deal no damage at all.

GameFAQ.com user AnimeJet put together a helpful chart displaying the various strengths and weaknesses of the Pokémon types. When you’re fighting a specific type of Pokémon, find its type on the upper section of the chart, then follow the line below it down until you find a circle. Follow the circle’s line to the left and you should find a Pokémon type that is strong against your foe. Note that it is sometimes difficult to tell what kind of Pokémon you’re fighting if you don’t have them in your Pokedex; some educated guesswork based on their features may be required! A new Pokémon with flames coming from its body is almost certainly a Fire-type Pokémon, for instance.

Note that the offensive strengths and defensive strengths of a monster aren't always perfectly aligned. For example, an Ice attack will deal double damage to a Grass monster, but a Grass attack will deal normal damage to an Ice monster (instead of the half damage that you might expect). However, that Grass attack will also deal double damage to a Ground-type enemy, and the Ground-type attacks that they're likely to use in return will only deal half damage to the Grass-monster. Exploiting both the offensive and defensive strengths of your Pokémon in battle will help you conquer the competition.

« Previous PageNext: More Combat »