Why does ditto have attack power?

Question

When he transforms he gets the opponet's stats so why does he have attack/SpAttack power?

Comments

GREAT Q! Attack maybe because of Struggle, but Special Attack?

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Yeah..like wobbuffet has sp.attack and attack, but it's not necessary

Answer 1

Well yeah, lots of Pokemon have unnecessary stats (Sableye's Speed at times, Wobbuffet's Attack stats, etc), but the game needs these stats, so it can make the proper calculations for any situation.

Think of it like this, if Nintendo decided to completely omit Shedinja's Defense Stats, it'd seem normal. However, if a Pokemon like Arbok used Leer or Screech, the calculation would have no variable, and the whole game would likely idle, then crash.

These stats are there to simply keep the game coding in perfect line. =]

Answer 2

Nice one narwhals. Also, what about moves that switch stats around? That probably plays an important role in not just giving them a stat of 1.

Edit: I forgot about this. Transformed Pokemon use their own stats when they land a critical hit.

Comments

Oh yes! You said that in a different question.

Answer 3

There are 2 reasons for Ditto's Attack stat.

1) It uses it's stat when it lands a critical hit, meaning that they won't be much more powerful than the original move (if used on a strong Pokemon).

2) If you are in a Ditto vs. Ditto/Mew fight, when Transform runs out of PP, you use Struggle. That has a power of 50, and hurts the user, bringing in it's stats.