Breakpoints Explained
So the next Legendary Raid Boss has been announced, and you want to power up your Pokemon so you don't have to rely on other people carrying you to successfully beat Raids.
But powering up all the way to Level 40 is expensive, and you might not have the Stardust to bring 6 Pokemon to Level 40. You could power up randomly, but that's actually very inefficient in terms of spending resources to get better performance out of your Pokemon.
Pokemon Go uses a floor function in its damage formula (Advanced: Damage Formula).
When you power up a Pokemon, its Attack stat increases, which means it should do more damage with its moves - right?
In theory, you'd be right. However, the Floor function means that if a move would do 1.80 damage, it will be rounded down to 1 damage. If you power up a Pokemon and its move would now do 1.91 damage, that move will remain at 1 damage.
If you power up again, and now your Pokemon would do 2.01 damage, the actual damage of that move will jump from 1 to 2.
The levels at which the actual damage of the move increases are called breakpoints.
Breakpoints change depending on the matchup. A 15 Attack IV Dragon Tail Dragonite's final breakpoint against Giratina-Origin, with a Best Friend, is at Level 35. Against another Raid Boss, the final breakpoint for Dragonite may not necessarily be at Level 35. Against Latios, for example, Dragonite's final breakpoint is at Level 37.5.
Breakpoints vary based on a number of factors:
- The Base Attack of the attacking species
- The Base Defense of the defending species
- The moveset of the attacker
- The current Weather condition in-game
- The highest level of Friendship you have in the Raid
- The Attack IV of the attacker
For example, here's a table showing some breakpoints for a 15 Attack IV Dragon Tail/Outrage Dragonite, against a Giratina-Origin Raid Boss, with a Best Friend Bonus:
| Level | Dragon Tail Damage | Damage per Second | Number of Trainers Needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 24 | 19 | 23.8 (84.5%) | 2.31 |
| 27 | 20 | 25.2 (89.3%) | 2.18 |
| 29.5 | 21 | 26.3 (93.4%) | 2.09 |
| 35 | 22 | 27.7 (98.2%) | 1.99 |
But how important is it to hit these breakpoints?
Giratina-Origin can be defeated with only 2 trainers. At Level 29.5, Dragonite is not strong enough to carry its own weight in a duo - the number of trainers needed is just over 2 (2.09).
Once Dragonite hits its final breakpoint at Level 35, it becomes strong enough to duo Giratina. The increase in Dragon Tail's damage from 21 to 22 increases its performance enough to become duo-viable.
The table above shows breakpoints for a Dragonite with a 15 Attack IV. As a general rule of thumb, for every IV lower than 15, you will need to power up one additional time to reach a given breakpoint.
To illustrate this rule, here's a table showing Dragonite's final breakpoint against Giratina-Origin at various Attack IVs:
| Level | Attack IV | Damage |
|---|---|---|
| 35 | 15 | 21 -> 22 |
| 35.5 | 14 | 21 -> 22 |
| 36 | 13 | 21 -> 22 |
| 36.5 | 12 | 21 -> 22 |
| 37 | 11 | 21 -> 22 |
| 37.5 | 10 | 21 -> 22 |
A Dragonite with a 15 Attack IV will do 22 damage per Dragon Tail against Giratina-Origin at Level 35.
A Dragonite with a 14 Attack IV needs to be powered up one additional time, to Level 35.5, for its Dragon Tail to do 22 damage.
A Dragonite with a 13 Attack IV needs to be powered up two additional times to Level 36 for its Dragon Tail to do 22 damage, and so on.
In addition to offensive breakpoints, where your Pokemon's Fast Move does 1 additional damage, there are defensive breakpoints, where your Pokemon receives 1 less damage from the Raid Boss' Fast Move.
Defensive breakpoints are generally less important than offensive breakpoints. However, there are specific scenarios where hitting a defensive breakpoint allows your Pokemon to survive a cycle of X Fast Moves + 1 Charge Move, which can be crucial to successfully completing some Raids.
For example, Dialga with Iron Head or Thunder can be defeated with only 2 trainers in Cloudy Weather fairly easily. Draco Meteor Dialga, however, is much more difficult to duo.
Here's a table showing the damage dealt to Machamp by a single Dragon Breath from Dialga:
There's a single defensive breakpoint at Level 40, where each Dragon Breath deals 6 damage instead of 7, that is only reachable by a Machamp with a perfect Defense IV.
Now a bit of math:
- A 15 HP IV Machamp has 175 HP at Level 40.
- Dialga's Draco Meteor will do exactly 150 damage to a 15 Defense IV Level 40 Machamp (Advanced: Damage Formula).
- One Dragon Breath from Dialga will do exactly 6 damage to a 15 Defense IV Level 40 Machamp.
- Four Dragon Breaths and one Draco Meteor will do 174 damage, leaving Machamp with exactly 1 HP.
Surviving the Draco Meteor is critical, as it allows Machamp to convert the energy gained into one extra Dynamic Punch. Over the course of a 300-second fight, this is a lot of extra damage that can easily be the difference between winning or timing out.