Understanding Pokémon Contact Moves: How Direct Attacks Influence Battles

🤜 Contact Moves Overview

Contact Moves are a category of Physical and Special moves in Pokémon games that require the user to physically touch the target. This can trigger and interacts with various abilities, items, and secondary effects. The "contact" property is fixed for each move and does not change during the battle.

The majority of Physical moves are contact moves, but some, like Earthquake or Stone Edge, are not. A few Special moves are also contact moves (e.g. Grass Knot). Moves that cause the user to "recoil" or "crash" (e.g., Take Down, High Jump Kick) are usually contact moves, but not all contact moves cause recoil.

🎯 Contact Move Strategy

The contact property of a move adds a layer of gameplay to attacks in Pokémon battles, forcing players to consider the opponent's abilities and held items when attacking with contact moves.

🪖 Deterrence and Punishment: Abilities like Rough Skin (e.g., Garchomp) and Iron Barbs (e.g., Ferrothorn) or the item Rocky Helmet punish the use of contact moves by dealing passive damage back to the attacker. This can force an opponent to use less optimal non-contact moves or risk fainting from residual damage.
⚡🔥☠️ Status Infliction: Abilities such as Static (Paralysis), Poison Point (Poison), and Flame Body (Burn) have a chance to inflict a status condition on the attacker upon being hit by a contact move, turning a defensive Pokémon into a threat.
🛡️ Defensive Utility: Moves like King's Shield (Aegislash) provide a powerful defensive utility, not only protecting the user but also lowering attack of an opponent that chooses to attack with a contact move.
🍃 Strategic Evasion: Pokémon with non-contact offensive options, e.g. moves like Earthquake, Focus Blast, or Scald (or those with the ability Long Reach), can bypass these defensive punishments entirely, making them valuable against "punishing" walls.

For example, if an attacker uses a contact move like Close Combat on a Ferrothorn holding a Rocky Helmet and with the ability Iron Barbs: The attacker will take 1/8 max HP damage from Iron Barbs and 1/6 max HP damage from Rocky Helmet. This significant passive damage can quickly lead to a KO, even if the Close Combat deals heavy damage.

☠️ Offensive Abilities: The ability Poison Touch (Generation V onwards) is the offensive counterpart, giving the user a 30% chance to poison the target with any contact move, turning the contact property into an offensive tool.
🍃 Bypassing Contact: Using the ability Long Reach (e.g. Decidueye) changes all the user's moves to be treated as non-contact, providing the freedom to use high-power contact moves without the disadvantages of contact moves.

🕰️ The History of Contact Moves in Pokémon

The "contact" property has been a core mechanic to Pokémon moves since Gen III. However, its strategic depth significantly expanded as more abilities and items were introduced to interact with it.

Generation III (Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald) - Contact Mechanic Introduced

⚡☠🔥️ Abilities like Static (Pikachu, Electabuzz), Flame Body (Magby, Slugma) and Poison Point (Qwilfish) were introduced, giving a chance to inflict status on an opponent using a contact move.
💀 Rough Skin (Carvanha, Sharpedo) was introduced, which damages the attacker upon being hit by a contact move. This cemented the "punishing wall" strategy.

Generation V (Black, White, Black 2, White 2) - New Contact Abilities

🪖 The item Rocky Helmet was introduced, which deals damage when the holder is hit by a contact move. This item became a staple for defensive Pokémon, regardless of their ability, further raising the risk of using contact moves.
💀 Iron Barbs (Ferrothorn) was introduced as another ability that deals passive damage upon contact, stacking with Rocky Helmet for massive residual damage.
☠️ Poison Touch (Grimer, Seismitoad) was introduced, an offensive contact ability that has a chance to poison the target.

Generation VI (X, Y) - King's Shield

🛡️ The move King's Shield was introduced, which has a powerful contact-specific penalty (lowering the attacker's Attack stat).

Generation VII (Sun, Moon) - Long Reach

🍃 Long Reach (Decidueye) was introduced, allowing a Pokémon to completely ignore all contact-based effects, providing a direct counter to all contact-punishing strategies.