Will this kind of battle ever end?

Question

Your Zigzagoon that only knows Normal-type moves is battling with a wild Gastly that only knows Ghost-type moves. You don't have any other Pokemon to switch out Zigzagoon with. You don't even have any Pokeballs. (I don't know why you don't have any Pokeballs but it is just for this situation) Will this battle ever end?

Comments

Why did this question get downvoted? I'm going to upvote; this is a legitimate question.

Answer 1

Yes, it would end, because eventually one Pokémon would be forced to Struggle.

Struggle deals typeless damage, meaning it can hit Ghost-types, and takes a quarter of the users HP when used. So, whoever runs out of PP for their moves first loses the fight unless some magical crits happens.

However, prior to Gen 2 Struggle dealt Normal-type damage, so I don't know how it would play out in that scenario.

Comments

Thanks! I was just really curious because I was in a battle like that once and didn't really think about it. My solution was to catch the gastly.

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Haha yeah, that's the best solution. Gastly are awesome.

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Other battles where one doesn't stand a chance over the other are Ground v Flying, (Electric v Ground), Fighting v Ghost, Poison v Steel, (Psychic v Dark), and (Dragon v Fairy). The verses battles in (parentheses) are battles where one REALLY doesn't stand a chance due to that one being weak to the other as well as the other being immune to the one.