No Guard (Ability)

No Guard ノーガード
No Guard
Flavor text
Generation IV
Ensures the Pokémon and its foe's attacks land.DPPt
Ensures both Pokémon's and foe's attacks land.HGSS
Generation V
Ensures attacks by or against the Pokémon land.
Generation VI
Ensures attacks by or against the Pokémon land.
Generation VII
The Pokémon employs no-guard tactics to ensure incoming and outgoing attacks always land.
Generation VIII
The Pokémon employs no-guard tactics to ensure incoming and outgoing attacks always land.
Generation IX
The Pokémon employs no-guard tactics to ensure incoming and outgoing attacks always land.

No Guard (Japanese: ノーガード No Guard) is an Ability introduced in Generation IV. Prior to Generation V, it was the signature Ability of Machop's evolutionary line.

Effect

In battle

All moves used by or against a Pokémon with this Ability cannot miss. It also allows Pokémon to be hit during the semi-invulnerable turn of Fly, Bounce, Dive, Dig, Shadow Force, Sky Drop, and Phantom Force. It does not bypass type immunities.

A Tatsugiri hidden inside a Dondozo's mouth via the Commander Ability is immune to the effects of No Guard.

In Diamond and Pearl, a Pokémon with No Guard can successfully hit a Pokémon that has used Protect or Detect, but only if it uses a move with less than 100% accuracy. The lower the initial accuracy of the move, the higher its chance of breaking through Protect or Detect. Thus, when used against Protect or Detect, moves that never miss (such as Swift and Aerial Ace) will always be blocked. One-hit knockout moves are exempted from this behavior and will be protected against. This battle mechanic was a bug, and was fixed in Platinum so that most moves are blocked by Protect and Detect.

Outside of battle

Outside of battle, if a Pokémon with No Guard is in the first place in the party (even if fainted), the wild Pokémon encounter rate increases by 100%. It shares this property with Arena Trap and Illuminate.

Generation VIII

In Pokémon Sword and Shield, this Ability only affects the rate at which random encounters happen.

Generation IX

In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, this Ability has no effect outside of battle.

Pokémon with No Guard

# Pokémon Types First Ability Second Ability Hidden Ability
0018   Pidgeot
Mega Pidgeot
Normal Flying No Guard None None
0066   Machop
Fighting Fighting Guts No GuardGen IV+ Steadfast
0067   Machoke
Fighting Fighting Guts No GuardGen IV+ Steadfast
0068   Machamp
Fighting Fighting Guts No GuardGen IV+ Steadfast
0588   Karrablast
Bug Bug Swarm Shed Skin No Guard
0622   Golett
Ground Ghost Iron Fist Klutz No Guard
0623   Golurk
Ground Ghost Iron Fist Klutz No Guard
0679   Honedge
Steel Ghost No Guard None None
0680   Doublade
Steel Ghost No Guard None None
0745   Lycanroc
Midnight Form
Rock Rock Keen Eye Vital Spirit No Guard
Please note that abilities marked with a superscript are only available in the stated generation or later.
  • For Generation III and IV games, ignore Hidden Abilities.

In other games

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series

In the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers series, No Guard causes the Pokémon to ignore both harmful and beneficial modifications to accuracy and evasiveness for both the target and itself. This prevents the Pokémon's own Concentrator and Clutch Performer IQ skills from working.

Pokémon UNITE

In Pokémon UNITE, No Guard is Honedge's and Doublade's Ability. It increases the damage dealt and received by the user. After evolving into Aegislash, it becomes Stance Change.

Description

Games Description
MDTD Allows Pokémon to ignore stat modifications to accuracy and evasion.
MDS Allows Pokémon to ignore stat modifications to accuracy and evasiveness.
BSL めいちゅうと かいひの だんかいを むしする
MDGtI Unavailable
SMD The hit rate of moves and attacks won't be lowered even if accuracy is lowered or evasiveness is boosted! It has the same effects on you as on your enemies. Abilities that boost evasiveness have no effects, either.
MDRTDX When changes to the Pokémon's and its target's accuracy or evasiveness make it more difficult for attacks to land, those changes go away so that the Pokémon can have a fair fight.


Trivia

  • A Pokémon with No Guard can use one-hit knockout moves without missing. This may be a cause of several measures preventing Machop's evolutionary line from having the combination of No Guard and Fissure, which it can learn in Generation I. Although Machop's line can retain the move Fissure when transferred to Generation VII and Pokémon Sword and Shield, it can only have the Hidden Ability Steadfast, as Poké Transporter assigns the Hidden Ability to all Pokémon transferred from Virtual Console. Despite the introduction of the Ability Capsule and Ability Patch, they were restricted from changing a Hidden Ability to a standard Ability until Generation IX. If Machop's line appears in a future game with the Ability Patch, Pokémon HOME will not carry over Fissure to those games, but the combination of No Guard and Fissure will become possible in Sword and Shield only.

In other languages

Language Title
Chinese Cantonese 無防守 Mòuh Fòhngsáu
無防禦 Mòuh Fòhngyuh *
Mandarin 無防守 / 无防守 Wú Fángshǒu *
無防禦 Wú Fángyù *
  French Annule Garde
  German Schildlos
  Italian Nullodifesa
  Korean 노가드 No Guard
  Brazilian Portuguese Indefeso
  Spanish Indefenso
  Turkish Korumasızlık


  This article is part of Project Moves and Abilities, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on two related aspects of the Pokémon games.