Moves & TMs

Every pokémon has a move bank: everything it has ever learned. Up to 4 moves from the bank are active and join the battle. This page explains how the bank works, how moves become hunting power, and how TMs change the story.

The move bank

Maximum of 4 active moves per pokémon.
Every pokémon is born with its species kit: the first offensive moves the species knows. That kit starts in the bank.
New moves arrive by leveling up, by TM or by evolution. As it levels, a pokémon learns up to 4 moves from its own species list on its own, in the order their levels come. Those are the first 4 and no more: the best moves on the list, the ones that open near the end, still come from TMs. The moves panel shows which one is next and at what level it arrives.
A move that came from leveling up is free to activate the first time. After that it costs like any other move in the bank, so think twice before turning it off.
Nothing is ever forgotten. A move that leaves the active set goes to the bank with its rarity and seals intact. Losing investment is a thing of the past.
Storing and reordering is free. Activating a move from the bank costs gold. The price grows with the pokémon's level: about 210 gold at level 1, 400 at level 25, 600 at level 50 and 1,000 at level 100. Activating at the moment you learn it (via TM or evolution) is free, so the slot choice when teaching is worth real money.
Some species are quirky on purpose, just like the classics: Abra only knows Teleport, Ditto only Transform, Magikarp can barely fight. That's the charm.
Egg moves are born straight into the hatchling's bank.

Evolving offers one new move

When a pokémon evolves, it keeps the moves it already had (TM moves and egg moves included). The new part comes differently: the new form offers one move, drawn from its own moves that your pokémon doesn't know yet. The draw is fixed per individual: the same pokémon evolving into the same form always gets the same offer.

You decide the offer's fate before evolving:

Learn it into a free slot, if the set has fewer than 4 moves.
Swap it for a current move of your choice. The move that leaves goes to the bank with its rarity and seals. Reactivating it later costs gold, so the choice still matters, but nothing is lost.
Don't learn it. The set stays untouched.

The evolution offer is the only free move of a pokémon's life after its birth kit. And evolving preserves the whole bank: the old form's moves stay with it, even ones the new form could never learn.

Check the move's level before swapping. Every move has a level from which it joins the fight, and the offer can be a move above your pokémon's current level. The screen warns you ("only at Lv 33", for example) and marks in yellow, in the final set, the moves that won't be used yet. Taking a locked move in place of one that works today leaves your pokémon with fewer moves on the hunt until it levels up.

Nothing is decided silently: if there's something to gain or lose, the choice is yours.

Single-target vs area (AoE)

Every move is single-target or area (waves, storms, quakes and the like). The Range column in the Movedex tells you which is which, move by move: 49 area moves today. The more area moves in your set, the more enemies you group per cast in crowded regions, at a small focus cost on your single-target moves. See the effect in the damage model.

The splash hits the target and whoever is near it in the wave, so how much it pays off depends on the pack being tight or spread out.

The splash does not hit the whole pack equally. The target you aimed at takes full damage. The others take 80% of it, and that value drops with the distance to the aimed target: whoever sits at the edge of the reach takes 64%. That is why an area move pays more when the pack is tight.

The Shards seal works on both sides. It widens the reach (at the top of it the move covers the whole wave) and it makes the splash stronger: the splash starts at 84% with a Common seal and reaches 95% with a Divine one, instead of the usual 80%. At the edge of the reach, that 95% splash is worth 76%.

Moves that heal

Some moves give life back to your pokémon:

Drain: they hit the enemy and recover part of the damage dealt as health. The share grows with the strength of the line: Absorb returns 25%, the mid-tier ones (Mega Drain, Drain Punch, Leech Life) return 50%, and the strong ones (Giga Drain, Draining Kiss, Dream Eater) return 75%.
Pure healing: support moves like Recover and Rest only restore health, with no damage.
The Vampiric Seal (lifesteal) stacks on top of a move's drain, it does not replace it: a Giga Drain with the seal heals its 75% plus the seal bonus.

Moves that disrupt: confusion

Some moves leave the target confused for a few seconds (about 5). While confused, every time it goes to attack there is a chance (about 1 in 3) that it fumbles and hits itself instead of landing the blow, wasting that move. The self-damage is based on its own strength.

Confusion cannot knock out on its own: a confused pokémon never faints from its own hit, at worst it is left on its last sliver of health.
It works both ways: you can confuse enemies, and enemies with these moves can confuse your team.
Always-confuse moves: Supersonic, Confuse Ray, Sweet Kiss, Teeter Dance. Moves that deal damage and sometimes confuse: Dynamic Punch (always), Dizzy Punch and Water Pulse (sometimes), Confusion (rare).

Great for holding a dangerous enemy: while it is confused, a good share of its blows turn into damage on itself instead of on your team.

Support moves: what each one does

A support move is a move that deals no damage. Each move's card, in game, describes its exact effect. Effects work everywhere you fight: hunts, boss rooms, raids, the Arena and the Tournament. The possible effects:

Slow: the enemy walks and acts more slowly for a few seconds.
Speed: your pokémon walks faster for a few seconds. Agility gives 50% more for 10 seconds; Tailwind, 40% for 10 seconds.
Dodge: a chance to avoid an enemy hit entirely. Double Team gives 20% for 8 seconds; Minimize, 25% for 8 seconds. Foresight and Miracle Eye remove the enemy's dodge and also lower its Defense (or Sp. Def).
Shield: absorbs damage before your health. Protect holds 30% of max health for 5 seconds; Detect, 25% for 5 seconds; Substitute, 25% until the shield breaks. Poison and burn slip under the shield.
Protection: Magic Coat makes you immune to poison, burn, slow and confusion for 8 seconds. Safeguard and Mist give the same protection to the whole team.
Team effects: Tailwind now speeds up the whole team by 40% for 10 seconds. Baton Pass hands the user's raised stats to the ally with the least health.
Perish Song: the song drains 3% health per second, for 6 seconds, from every enemy, but also from the singer. A gamble of a move.
Enemy control: Taunt provokes every enemy for 6 seconds and they can only attack the taunter, your team's tank. Torment and Spite tire the enemy out: it attacks 35% slower for 8 seconds. Heal Block stops the enemy from recovering health for 10 seconds. Gastro Acid wipes the enemy's raised stats. Roar and Whirlwind knock the enemy 3 tiles back, and it wastes time walking in again.
The specials: Metronome turns into a surprise damage move, with power between 20 and 120 and a random element. Sketch repeats the last damaging move your pokémon received.
Poison and burn: drain a fraction of the enemy's health per second.
Stat up or down: changes Attack, Defense, Sp. Atk or Sp. Def by up to 2 points. This kind of effect lasts until the end of the fight.
Confusion and healing, covered in their own sections on this page.

Some highlights, with the numbers that apply today:

Sleep moves (Hypnosis, Sing, Sleep Powder, Lovely Kiss, Yawn) do not put the enemy to sleep: they apply the strongest slow in the game, 60% slower for 8 seconds. Hypnosis and Sing land 80% of the time; Sleep Powder and Lovely Kiss, 90%. Yawn always lands, but with a 50% slow.
Cotton Spore and Scary Face make the enemy 50% slower for 8 seconds. Spider Web binds at 40% for 8 seconds. Hail and Sandstorm give a 20% slow for 6 seconds.
Leech Seed poisons for 1% of health per second over 12 seconds. Toxic Spikes drains 1.2% for 10 seconds. Nightmare burns 1.5% for 10 seconds.
Protect, Detect and Reflect raise your Defense by 2 points. Light Screen and Charge raise Sp. Def. Stockpile and Magnetic Flux raise both defenses by 1 point. Focus Energy raises Attack, and Rain Dance and Sunny Day raise your pokémon's Sp. Atk.
Sand Attack, Smokescreen and Kinesis lower the enemy's Attack. Mud Sport lowers Sp. Atk, and Venom Drench lowers both.
Guard Split steals defense: raises yours and drops the enemy's.
Joining the healing squad: Aqua Ring, Swallow, Healing Wish, Grassy Terrain, Aromatherapy, Heal Bell and Refresh.

One rule in your favor: wild enemies and bosses use dodge, shield, fatigue and taunt at half the strength your pokémon get. The full effect the card describes is yours.

Today every support move does something, with a single exception: Splash does nothing. Truly nothing. It is tradition, and its card says so with pride.

Move quality → DPS

Your moveset quality is measured by simulating a sustained combat rotation and comparing its damage per second (DPS) against the median pokémon of the same level. Moves come out at a pace of about one every 2 seconds, and each cast's damage grows with the move's power and your pokémon's level.

Default rotation: the game always casts the highest-power move that is already unlocked and off cooldown; it idles if everything is recharging. With no usable move at all, the pokémon drops to an emergency move, Struggle (power 50, 12 second cooldown), the classic desperation move.

The wand really commands the rotation. The move config (the 🪄 button on the hunt screen) changes this real rotation, not just the visuals:

Priority: among off-cooldown moves, the lowest number wins (1 = used first), replacing the power-greedy pick. Prioritizing a weak move lowers your kills/h, being in charge has consequences.
Min enemies: only applies to area moves. A move held for more enemies than the stage sends out at once stays out of the rotation (it contributes no DPS there). The wave grows with the stage: 1 up to stage 5, 2 up to 9, 3 from there on; the stage boss always comes alone. If the config empties the whole rotation, it is ignored, the pokémon is never left without a move.
Unconfigured moves enter after configured ones, in the usual greedy order.

The quality multiplier is your rotation DPS divided by the median DPS at that level, clamped between 0.5 and 1.8. If data is missing for the calc, the result is neutral (1.0), a species is never penalized for missing data.

TM (Technical Machine) system

Every teachable move has a TM: the catalog holds 363 moves. Each TM teaches one specific move (e.g. "TM: Flamethrower"), is single-use, and comes from hunt chests, rewards or the Market. TMs are never sold by NPC shops.
A TM teaches into the bank. When using it you choose: activate it into a slot right away (free, and the move that leaves stays in the bank) or just learn it and keep it stored.
Every species has its own TM list. A pokémon can learn the TMs its species actually learns, plus any TM of its own type, plus the moves on its own level-up list. A Wailord will not learn Flamethrower. When teaching, anyone who can't appears greyed out with a ✕, and the TM is not spent.
A TM that adds nothing is refused. If the pokémon already knows the move at equal or higher rarity and the TM brings no new seal, the game warns you and the item is not spent.
The TM's rarity becomes the move's rarity (the 8-rarity ladder from Tiers and seals). Rarity never goes backwards: teaching a weaker TM on top erases nothing, and seals infused into the TM add to the move's own.
A taught move works right away, as long as the species does not learn it on its own. A TM or egg move for a move that is outside the species' level-up list asks for no level: once it is in the set, it is used in battle.
If the species does learn that move by levelling up, the TM does not skip that level. A Charmeleon at Lv 20 taught the Flamethrower TM keeps the move in its set, but only uses it at Lv 34, because that is when Charmeleon learns Flamethrower on its own. The teaching screen says so up front: it shows the move's level and a yellow warning while it is still locked. Read that warning before spending the TM.
Splash has a TM. It does nothing, and the card says so proudly. A collectible.

Where TMs come from

Hunt chests: every chest can carry a TM, including the common one. Chances per chest rarity: common 1.5%, rare 3.5%, epic 4.5%, legendary 6%, arena 5.5% and champion 6.5%. The move drawn follows the chest's element, and stronger moves are rarer pulls.
Hunt chests deliver TMs up to Epic rarity. Prismatic and above only exist through raids and fusion: 9 identical TMs become 1 of the next rarity, at the Lab. With 363 moves in the catalog, lining up 9 of the same by yourself is rare. The real path is the Market: more TMs dropping worldwide means more supply to buy.
TM Chest: a reward item that draws one TM from the whole catalog (up to Epic). Shows up in prizes, events and special shops.
Market and trades: the sheet of any pokémon for sale shows its active moves, its whole bank and everything it can still learn, and the showcase can be filtered by "knows move X".

See the full move list in the Movedex.