Pokemon Natures

What is a Nature?

The Nature of a pokemon affects the Pokemon's stats. Most natures increase 1 stat by 10% and in return, decrease another stat by 10%. Here's a list of the natures below. The Plus sign means
that Stat increases by 10%, the Minus sign means that stat decreases by 10%.

Attack Boosting Natures:
-Lonely: +Attack, -Defense
-Brave: +Attack, -Speed
-Adamant: +Attack, -Special Attack
-Naughty: +Attack, -Special Defense

Defence Boosting Natures:
-Bold: +Defense, -Attack
-Relaxed: +Defense, -Speed
-Impish: +Defense, -Special Attack
-Lax: +Defense, -Special Defense

Speed Boosting Natures:
-Timid: +Speed, -Attack
-Hasty: +Speed, -Defense
-Jolly: +Speed, -Special Attack
Naive: +Speed, -Special Defense

Special Attack Boosting Natures:
-Modest: +Special Attack, -Attack
-Mild: +Special Attack, -Defense
-Quiet: +Special Attack, -Speed
-Rash: +Special Attack, -Special Defense

Special Defence Boosting Natures:
-Calm: +Special Defense, -Attack
-Gentle: +Special Defense, -Defense
-Sassy: +Special Defense, -Speed
-Careful: +Special Defense, -Special Attack

The Natures that DON'T affect any Stat are: Hardy,
Docile, Serious, Bashful, and Quirky.

Now you may be wondering about how much natures affect stats. You may think that 10% difference isn't too much but sometimes it can mean the difference between a OHKO and a 2KO on your opponent's pokemon or even on your own pokemon! Also, the 10% increase/decrease applies when you are EV training.

Example: Lets take Gyarados, normally a physical sweeper, who's greatest asset is its huge attack stat. Assuming it has an IV of 31, but no EVs in attack, its attack stat will be as follows:
- if its nature is Hardy (neutral nature not affecting any stats) its attack will be 286.
- if its nature is Modest (decreasing attack) its attack stat will now only be 257.
- if its nature is Adamant (increasing attack) its attack stat will now be 314.

Now you may be wondering what stat to lower in favour of the stat you wish to increase... This is where you must look at what stat you don't need. For example, since Gyarados is a physical sweeper, it will usually be using physical moves and not special moves. So in this case, you can go for an Adamant nature (+Attack, -Special Attack) since you don't need its Special Attack stat.

I hope this guide helps with what nature to choose for your pokemon. If you have any questions or want me to explain Natures further, please reply to this topic.

is it a difference between winning or loosing and ,but cant for example if the nature is - speed use 10 carbos's 2 make it balanced

professer.bonzo wrote:is it a difference between winning or loosing and ,but cant for example if the nature is - speed use 10 carbos's 2 make it balanced

Natures can often mean the difference between winning and losing, especially in the current battling metagame. Actually, speed is one of the stats which can make the difference when you're using a sweeper.

For example, lets take a look at Garchomp. Usually a physical sweeper, it will be using its speed and attack stats rather than its special attack stat. Now, I'll try and show how natures can effect it's stats. In all calculations, I will be assuming 31 IVs in the relevant stats (I will be writing Part II of the Breeding guide soon which will explain IVs in more detail). By the way, it was Garchomp's strange base speed stat which contributed significantly towards placing it in the 'Uber' tier at many places. But, thats another story which I won't explain at the moment.

Okay, the four natures I'm going to use in my example include:

1 - Adamant (+attack, -special attack) <-- The attack-boosting nature for many physical sweepers;

2 - Jolly (+speed, -special attack) <-- The speed-boosting nature for many physical sweepers;

3 - Serious (neutral nature +/- no stat) <-- A neutral nature (which I'm using to show for demonstration as it normally wouldn't be the choice of nature for any pokemon...); and

4 - Brave (-speed, +attack) <-- a speed lowering nature (which I'm using to show Bonzo what happens when you lower the speed of a sweeper).

So, those are the natures which I'm going to base my calculations on. For all examples below, I'll be using an EV spread of 252 EVs in attack, 252 EVs in speed and 0 EVs in special attack (and all other stats).

1 - Adamant:
Attack: 394
Special attack: 176
Speed: 303

2 - Jolly:
Attack: 359
Special attack: 176
Speed: 333

3 - Serious:
Attack: 359
Special attack: 196
Speed: 303

4 - Brave:
Attack: 394
Special attack: 196
Speed: 272

Okay, from those stats, we can see that the Brave natures one (the -speed nature), has 31 points less speed than the neutral speed Adamant and Serious ones, and 61 speed points less than the Jolly one (+speed nature). The Brave one may have more special attack, but on a physical sweeper, you usually will not be using special attack!

Now, imagine both you and your opponent each have a Garchomp. With their most powerful physical dragon-type move, Outrage, Garchomps have the power to OHKO other Garchomps.


- Question: Therefore, which nature Garchomp out of the 4 natures listed above (adamant, jolly, serious or brave) would you prefer to have (bearing in mind that the faster pokemon moves first and gets the OHKO on the other)?

- Answer: The Jolly one would be best in this situation since it has the speed boosting nature. Although the Jolly one has less attack than the attack-boosting natures, Adamant and Brave, it has far more speed and therefore has a better chance of moving first and OHKOing the other Garchomp.


Out of the three remaining natures (adamant, serious and brave), you can see that for a physical sweeper, Adamant would now be the best. Serious loses out on attack, and brave loses out on speed when compared to Adamant. Although Serious and Brave have more special attack, we have already seen that the physical sweeper rarely uses this stat.

As we can see, the idea of a nature is to promote a Pokemon's strengths in favour of a stat which isn't needed. For example, say we have physical wall which uses some physical moves, such as Forretress, it would make sense to use a defence-boosting nature. Since it uses physical moves, and not special moves, we could use an Impish nature which is +defence, -sp.atk.

Another example, say we have a special sweeper, such as Gengar. We know that special sweepers need their speed and special attack, but not their attack. Therefore, we could use a sp.atk-boosting nature or a speed-boosting nature. Since we don't need attack, we could use either Modest (+sp.atk, -attack) or Timid (+speed, -attack).

I know this post is long and sorta confusing, but I hope it helps explain the function of natures. If you need any more help, post below and I'll try to explain some more.

wats n uber thx for anwsering my first question by the way

professer.bonzo wrote:wats n uber thx for anwsering my first question by the way

Every pokemon is given a placement in a particular 'Tier'. In total, there are 6 tiers: Uber, Overused (OU), Borderline (BL), Underused (UU), Neverused (NU) and Not Fully Evolved (NFE).

Click HERE to go to Bulbapedia's Tier Page where you'll find more information on each of the tiers. You will also find some more information as to why Garchomp is placed in the Uber tier.

In competitive battling, most forums and sites use Smogon's Tiers which can be viewed by clicking HERE.

Let me know if you have any other questions - I can usually help! lol!