pkmnlab

Shadow Ball

Ghost · Special · 30 Pokémon in Reg M-B
Ghost
Shadow Ball
TypeGhost
CategorySpecial
Base power80
Accuracy100%
PP15
Priority0
PokémonTypes Its usageCarries it
Sinistcha 26.1% 15.8% Sylveon 17.5% 0.7% Gholdengo 9.2% 99.1% Mega Gengar 5.1% 97.5% Mega Froslass 3.7% 92.3% Chandelure 1.6% 95% Aegislash 0.82% 21.6% Rotom-Heat 0.80% 2% Dragapult 0.73% 27.2% Typhlosion-Hisui 0.73% 97% Zoroark-Hisui 0.68% 52.3% Hatterene 0.67% 4.7% Drampa 0.48% 8.6% Basculegion-F 0.36% 94.1% Ninetales 0.32% 3.8% Mega Sableye 0.29% 4.9% Mega Alakazam 0.24% 16% Jolteon 0.23% 7.6% Reuniclus 0.22% 10.9% Cofagrigus 0.21% 65.3% Glaceon 0.16% 12% Rotom-Frost 0.13% 5% Skeledirge 0.11% 81.5% Espeon 0.10% 23.1%

What it does

Has a 20% chance to lower the target's Special Defense by 1 stage.

At 80 base power it is the 21st strongest of the 40 damaging special moves that appear in this format.

Who carrys it

30 of the 282 Pokémon measured on the Regulation M-B ladder carry Shadow Ball. The one that matters most is Sinistcha, which is on 26.1% of teams and carrys it on 15.8% of its sets. The full list is above, ordered by how much of the format each one is.

What it hits

As a Ghost move it is super effective against Ghost and Psychic, resisted by Dark, and does nothing at all to Normal. 3 other Ghost moves appear in this format: Shadow Sneak, Phantom Force, Poltergeist.

Who could and does not

96 Pokémon legal in this regulation can learn Shadow Ball at all, against the 30 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 Basculegion, Whimsicott, Sneasler, Farigiraf, Annihilape and Ceruledge — each of them measured on the ladder, each of them leaving this move on the shelf.

How concentrated it is

Across the ladder, Shadow Ball accounts for an expected 0.26 of the six slots on an average team, which makes it the 21st most-brought of the 126 moves this format runs. 16% of that comes from Sinistcha alone, so it is spread across the field rather than propped up by one Pokémon. Its carriers are mostly Ghost (15), Fire (6) and Psychic (5).

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.