Protection

A protected Pokémon is unaffected by moves of a certain class during that turn. Many protection moves protect against all damaging moves.
This effect may be described as "evades all attacks" or "negates all damage".
==List of protection moves==
===Moves that protect only the user===
All of these moves protect the user from damaging moves, and some also protect it from status moves. With the sole exception of the Max Move , they're all .
They (plus ) have a growing chance of failure if used consecutively. This applies across moves: if a Pokémon uses and then Endure, Endure may fail.
Move	Type 	Category	Priority	Accuracy 	Generation 	Scope	Other
 	+4 	—% 	VII 	All moves 	Contact moves confer on the attacker 	 	
 	+4 	—% 	IX 	Physical and special moves	Contact moves confer on the attacker 	 	
 	+4Has +2 priority in Generation II. Has +3 priority in Generations III and IV.	—% 	II 	All moves 	 	 	
 	+4 	—% 	VI 	Physical and special moves	Contact moves lower the attacker's stat by 1 stageIn Generations VI and VII, the attacker's Attack is lowered by 2 stages	 	
 	+4 	—% 	VIII 	All moves 	Fully protects from Max Moves and from , , , , , , , and 	 	
 	+4 	—% 	VIII 	Physical and special moves	Contact moves lower the attacker's stat by 2 stages 	 	
 	+4 	—% 	II 	All moves 	 	 	
 	+4 	—% 	IX 	Physical and special moves	Contact moves lower the attacker's stat by 1 stage 	 	
 	+4 	—% 	VI 	All moves 	Contact moves damage the attacker for 1/8 of its maximum HP 	 	
===Moves that protect the user's side of the field===
These moves protect the user as well as its allies, either only from non-damaging moves or with restrictive conditions.
Since Generation VI, the success of these moves is not tied to any other move—a notable distinction from the moves that protect only the user. However, and do affect the failure chances of the moves listed in the section above. In Generation V only, Quick Guard and Wide Guard also had to pass the same failure check as protection moves that protect only the user.
Move	Type	Category	Priority	Accuracy 	Generation 	Scope	Other
 	+3 	—% 	VI 	Status moves 	Does not protect from entry hazard moves, , ,	 	
 	0 	—% 	VI 	Physical and special moves 	Only works on first turn 	 	
 	+3 	—% 	V 	Priority moves 	 	 	
 	+3 	—% 	V 	All moves that target multiple PokémonIn Generations V and VI, it only protects against damaging moves that target multiple Pokémon	 	 	
==Mechanics==
Protection fundamentally grants a turn of invulnerability from moves used directly by other Pokémon. It does not affect damage done at the end of a turn, such as , , , , seeding, binding, , , , or ; or the countdown of or .
 deal damage to Pokémon through protection. , , , and deal full damage through protection. All other damaging Z-Moves, Max Moves, and G-Max Moves are partially protected and deal 1/4 of their original damage. , like , will deal full damage and remove the effects of protection.
The Ability allows all contact moves to bypass protection moves.
The Max Move behaves differently than other protection moves. Only Feint, G-Max One Blow, and G-Max Rapid Flow will deal damage through Max Guard, but no move will remove its protection effect. Max Guard also protects the user from some other moves that regular protection does not.
In only, due to a bug, if an attack is given perfect accuracy through the effect of a move (such as ), the weather (such as under hail), or an Ability (like ), it ignores protection with inverted accuracy. One-hit knockout moves are unaffected by this bug and will not hit through protection. This bug was fixed in .
In Generation VI, protection would not activate for moves that the user was immune to. Primarily, this meant that and 's negative effects would not activate.
===Unprotectable moves===
The moves marked with a ✔ below are not affected by most protection moves.
 and are not affected by this list. Mat Block has no exceptions aside from , and Crafty Shield protects against all status moves except those the user uses on itself, , , and entry hazards.
Max Guard also protects against a few moves below that other protection moves do not: , , , , , , , , and .
																																																																																																																																																																																																																																																																																		
																																																																																																																																																																																																																																																																																		
===Moves that break protection===
These moves will deal damage through any protection move and will lift their protection, with the sole exception of Max Guard. Even if one of these moves makes contact, it will not suffer the negative effect of moves like .
Move	Type	Category	Priority	Accuracy 	Generation	Notes
 	+2 	100% 	IV 	In Generation IV, Feint will fail if the target did not use a protection moveDoes damage through , but does not lift its effects	 	
 	0 	—% 	VI 	Lowers user's 	 	
 	0 	—% 	VI 	 	 	
 	0 	100% 	VI 	Two-turn move 	 	
 	0 	100% 	IV 	Two-turn move 	 	
===Failure chances===
Each time a move in the first column in the table below is successfully used without other moves used in between, the subsequent success rate for any of the moves in the second column drops.
Moves that decrease success rate	Moves that check success rate
 	Generation V only:
From Generation II to Generation V, the success rate halves each time. Since Generation VI, the success rate is modified by thirds each timeProtect | XY | Smogon Strategy Pokedex (so after two successful uses, the success rate is 1/9).
In Generation IV only, the success rate will never drop below 12.5%; Generation III was intended to behave the same, but a bug causes the rate to follow an erratic sequence after the fourth successful use.
If a protection move is broken or bypassed, or an item is used on the turn after a protection move, the success rate will not be reset.
====Generation II====
In Generation II, the failure check is implemented by comparing a threshold value to a random number (0 to 254), and if the random number is greater than the threshold, the move fails.Crystal protection failure check in pret disassembly on GitHub The threshold starts at 255 and is halved (with the remainder discarded) once for each time a protection move has been used consecutively (so halved once if they've been used twice). This means that the first use will always succeed (the random number cannot be greater than 255), while the ninth and later uses will always have a 1/255 chance to succeed (the threshold will be 0, so the only way to succeed is if the random number is also 0).
Successful turns	Threshold	Success rate
0 	255 	100%
1 	127 	50.2%
2 	63 	25.1%
3 	31 	12.5%
4 	15 	6.3%
5 	7 	3.1%
6 	3 	1.6%
7 	1 	0.8%
8 	0 	0.4%
====Generation III–IV====
In Generations and , the failure check is implemented by comparing a threshold value to a random number (0 to 65535), and if the random number is greater than the threshold, the move fails. The threshold value is taken from an explicitly defined table which starts with 65535, and subsequent values are equal to the previous value halved (with the remainder ignored). The table only has four values, meaning the success rate is meant to have a lower bound.
Two bugs affect the failure check prior to Generation IV. In Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire only, the wrong comparison is made, so protection moves also fail if the threshold value equals the random value,RS protection bug (wrong comparison) in pret decompilation on GitHub meaning a protection move has a 1/65536 chance (0.001%) of failing on the first use (and the chance of failing in subsequent turns is also greater); this was fixed in Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen.FRLG protection correct comparison in pret decompilation on GitHub In all Generation III games, the number of protection uses is incremented with no regard for the limits of the table,RS unbounded protection rate in pret decompilation on GitHubFRLG unbounded protection rate in pret decompilation on GitHubEm unbounded protection rate in pret decompilation on GitHub resulting in erratic values being retrieved after four successful turns; in Generation IV, this was fixed to prevent the counter from incrementing beyond the table's size.HGSS properly bounded protection rate in pret decompilation on GitHub
Successful turns	Threshold 	Success rate
0 	65535 	100%
1 	32767 	50%
2 	16383 	25%
3+ 	8191 	12.5%
4+ 	Erratic values	Erratic values
====Generation V====
In Generation V, the failure check is implemented by rolling a 32 bit value, and if the result is less than or equal to the threshold, it would pass. If the move is used in succession, (or with other protective moves), the success rate is halved until the 8th success. At 9+ successive turns, rather than the chance of success being halved, it only succeeds if the value rolled is 0x00000000, making all attempts above turn 9 effectively a 1 / 2^{32} (1/4294967295) chance of success.https://github.com/smogon/pokemon-showdown/commit/8f6313a70525a5f6adbba068c2d702c50f6d8373https://web.archive.org/web/20130412143628/http://www.upokecenter.com/dex/?lang=en&move=182
Successful turns	Threshold 	Success rate
1 	0xFFFFFFFF	100%
2 	0x7FFFFFFF	50%
3 	0x3FFFFFFF	25%
4 	0x1FFFFFFF	12.5%
5 	0x0FFFFFFF	6.25%
6 	0x07FFFFFF	3.125%
7 	0x03FFFFFF	1.5625%
8 	0x01FFFFFF	0.78125%
9+ 	0x00000000	0.000000023283064%
====Generation VI====
In Generation VI, the failure check is implemented by picking a random number with a range of X (so that there are X values: 0 to X-1) and if the random number is 0, the move succeeds. X is taken from an explicitly defined table which starts with 1, and subsequent values are equal to the previous value multiplied by 3.AJ Ringer on Twitter: "Protect is a 1/3^(min(protect_counter, 6)) chance for success in 6th gen. From DllBattle.cro." The table only has seven values, giving the success rate a lower bound of approximately 0.1%. In general, the success rate is 1/3^T, where T is the number of successful turns a protection move has been used.
Successful turns	Range	Success rate
0 	1 	100%
1 	3 	33.3%
2 	9 	11.1%
3 	27 	3.7%
4 	81 	1.2%
5 	243 	0.4%
6 	729 	0.1%
==In the spin-off games==
===Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series===
In , , and , protections moves last for multiple turns. In , this was changed to only a single turn, like the core series games.
==In animation==
===Pokémon the Series===
====Gallery====
Viola Surskit Protect.png| being used by Viola's 
Tyson Sceptile Detect.png| being used by 's 
Cliff Mienfoo Quick Guard.png| being used by 's 
Sophocles Togedemaru Spiky Shield.png| being used by Sophocles's Togedemaru
Sawyer Aegislash Kings Shield.png| being used by Sawyer's 
Lance Gyarados Max Guard.png| being used by Lance's Gyarados
===Pokémon Horizons: The Series===
====Gallery====
Pagogo Protect.png| being used by Liko's , Pagogo
Ann Dewott Detect.png| being used by Ann's 
Geeta Glimmora Spiky Shield.png| being used by Geeta's 
Sidian Garganacl Wide Guard.png| being used by Sidian's 
Lucius Gouging Fire Burning Bulwark.png| being used by Lucius's Gouging Fire
==In the manga==
===Pokémon Adventures===
====Gallery====
Silver Sneasel Protect.png| being used by Silver's Sneasel
Platinum Empoleon Aqua Jet.png| being used by The Battle Castle's 
Marisso Spiky Shield.png| being used by 's , Marisso
Celosia Aegislash King Shield Adventures.png| being used by Celosia's 
Croaky Mat Block.png| being used by 's , Croaky
Nessa Toxapex Baneful Bunker Adventures 1.png| being used by Nessa's 
Obstagoon Obstruct Adventures.png| being used by a wild 
Henry Fanguru Max Guard.png| being used by 's , Fanguru
==Notes==
==References==
Category:Terminology
Category:Game mechanics
it:Invulnerabilità