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Giga Drain

Grass · Special · 15 Pokémon in Reg M-B
Grass
Giga Drain
TypeGrass
CategorySpecial
Base power75
Accuracy100%
PP10
Priority0

What it does

The user recovers 1/2 the HP lost by the target, rounded half up. If Big Root is held by the user, the HP recovered is 1.3x normal, rounded half down.

At 75 base power it is the 31st strongest of the 40 damaging special moves that appear in this format.

Who carrys it

15 of the 282 Pokémon measured on the Regulation M-B ladder carry Giga Drain. The one that matters most is Mega Floette, which is on 15.0% of teams and carrys it on 0.2% of its sets. The full list is above, ordered by how much of the format each one is.

What it hits

As a Grass move it is super effective against Ground, Rock and Water, resisted by Bug, Dragon, Fire, Flying, Grass, Poison and Steel. 7 other Grass moves appear in this format: Solar Beam, Sleep Powder, Leaf Storm, Energy Ball, Leech Seed, Grass Knot and others.

Who could and does not

47 Pokémon legal in this regulation can learn Giga Drain at all, against the 15 that actually bring it. The gap is the interesting number: it is the set of Pokémon that have the option and decline it. The most-played of those are Sinistcha, Whimsicott, Sableye, Vivillon, Meowscarada and Tsareena — each of them measured on the ladder, each of them leaving this move on the shelf.

How concentrated it is

Across the ladder, Giga Drain accounts for an expected 0.08 of the six slots on an average team, which makes it the 60th most-brought of the 126 moves this format runs. 0% of that comes from Mega Floette alone, so it is spread across the field rather than propped up by one Pokémon. Its carriers are mostly Grass (11), Poison (4) and Dragon (3).

Where these numbers come from

Usage is Smogon's published statistics for the Regulation M-B VGC ladder, and the description is the one shipped in the Pokémon Showdown data set. Both are regenerated on every build rather than written by hand, so this page follows the format instead of trailing it. Take any of it to the team builder or the damage calculator.