Sometimes a Pokemon uses Substitute, but I use an attack, and it just takes the damage! Meanwhile, some other times, it just completely fades away before I can set up! Am I missing something or doing something wrong?
By decreasing its HP by 25% (rounded down) of its maximum HP, the user creates a substitute with 1 HP more than the amount of HP lost by the user. If the user's current HP is less than 25% (rounded down) of its maximum HP, Substitute fails.
Source
Say your Pokemon had 100 HP, and made a substitute. The substitute would have 26 HP. The more HP a Pokemon has, the more durable its substitute is, and the more hits you can take. Sometimes they fade immediately because it doesn't have enough HP.
Hope I helped!
It just depends if you could do 1/4 of the opponents hp. A sub doll is 1/4 of the users hp, so if I did say like 13% damage. It wouldn't destroy the sub doll because its not enough. Say I did 45%. Than the doll would fade away and I can freely attack them. Source:experience
