GBL Box / Guides / What a breakpoint is
What a breakpoint is — where a
move gains one more damage
In Pokémon GO battles, nudging your Attack value up a fraction can make the same move land one more point of damage. That threshold is a breakpoint, and it decides whether moving an IV or a level is worth it.
Why a threshold exists at all
Damage is worked out like this.
The floor in the middle is the whole story. Attack can rise without the floored result changing, and the damage stays exactly where it was. Then at one particular point it steps up by 1. It climbs in stairs, not a slope, which is why we talk about a threshold.
Worked example: Feraligatr's Shadow Claw
Against a Feraligatr with a Defense value of 118.88, using Shadow Claw (power 6, neutral, no STAB):
| Your Attack value | Shadow Claw damage |
|---|---|
| 121.90 | 4 |
| 121.92 | 4 |
| 121.93 | 5 |
| 121.95 | 5 |
| 122.47 | 5 |
Great League, ordinary individuals.
The threshold is Attack 121.93. There is 0.01 between 121.92 and 121.93, and the damage splits 4 against 5.
One point compounds
One point per hit sounds like nothing, but you throw fast moves over and over in a battle. Counting how long it takes to bring down an opponent with 126 HP using fast moves alone:
| Damage per hit | Hits to take it down |
|---|---|
| 4 | 32 |
| 5 | 26 |
Fast moves only. A real battle also has charged moves and shields.
Six hits apart. An individual sitting just under the threshold and one sitting just over it are not the same speed against that opponent.
Higher rank often means sitting under the threshold
GBL rank comes from the product of Attack, Defense, and HP, which leans toward bulk. Pushing rank up favours a lower Attack IV, so the higher-ranked an individual is, the smaller its Attack value tends to be.
The result is that an individual which is ahead on rank can fail to clear a threshold that a lower-ranked one clears. Judge by rank alone and that difference stays invisible.
How to check it in GBL Box
Pick an opponent and a move, and the breakpoint search shows every step where damage rises as the attacker's level moves. You can also work the other way: give it the damage you need, and it finds the IV combinations that reach it.
Related
Values are calculated with the same formulas the app uses (DamageCalc).