Sniper (Ability)

Sniper	スナイパー
	Sniper
Flavor text Generation IV Powers up moves if they become critical hits. Generation V Powers up moves if they become critical hits. Generation VI Powers up moves if they become critical hits. Generation VII Powers up moves if they become critical hits when attacking. Generation VIII Powers up moves if they become critical hits when attacking. Generation IX If the Pokémon's attack lands a critical hit, the attack is powered up even further.

Sniper (Japanese: スナイパー Sniper) is an Ability introduced in Generation IV.

Effect

In battle

Sniper increases critical hit damage by 50%.

Generation IV

Critical hits will do 3× damage instead of 2× damage. Sniper cannot be activated by Beat Up.

Generation V

Sniper can now be activated by Beat Up. Additionally, rather than changing the critical hit multiplier directly, Sniper now doubles the damage dealt by a move that deals a critical hit, applied last to damage as part of the "final" modifiers that get applied to the damage, resulting in virtually the same effect.

Generation VI onward

Critical hits will now effectively do only 2.25× damage, as a result of the critical hit multiplier being lowered to 1.5×.

Outside of battle

Sniper has no effect outside of battle.

Pokémon with Sniper

#	Pokémon	Types		First Ability	Second Ability	Hidden Ability
	Beedrill	Bug	Poison	Swarm	None	Sniper
	Spearow	Normal	Flying	Keen Eye	None	Sniper
	Fearow	Normal	Flying	Keen Eye	None	Sniper
	Horsea	Water		Water	Swift Swim	Sniper	Damp
	Seadra	Water		Water	Poison Point	Sniper	Damp
	Spinarak	Bug	Poison	Swarm	Insomnia	Sniper
	Ariados	Bug	Poison	Swarm	Insomnia	Sniper
	Remoraid	Water		Water	Hustle	Sniper	Moody
	Octillery	Water		Water	Suction Cups	Sniper	Moody
	Kingdra	Water	Dragon	Swift Swim	Sniper	Damp
	Skorupi	Poison	Bug	Battle Armor	Sniper	Keen Eye
	Drapion	Poison	Dark	Battle Armor	Sniper	Keen Eye
	Binacle	Rock	Water	Sniper	Tough Claws	Pickpocket
	Barbaracle	Rock	Water	Sniper	Tough Claws	Pickpocket
	Sobble	Water		Water	Torrent	None	Sniper
	Drizzile	Water		Water	Torrent	None	Sniper
	Inteleon	Water		Water	Torrent	None	Sniper
Please note that this is only 100% accurate to Generation IX games. For Generation III games, ignore Abilities introduced in Generation IV or later and Hidden Abilities. For Generation IV games, ignore Hidden Abilities. For Generation V games, ignore Abilities introduced in Generation VI or later. For Generation VI games, ignore Abilities introduced in Generation VII or later. For Generation VII games, ignore Abilities introduced in Generation VIII or later. For Generation VIII games, ignore Abilities introduced in Generation IX or later.

In other games

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series

In Explorers of Time, Darkness, and Sky, Sniper makes critical hits do 2× damage instead of 1.5× damage.

Description

Games Description MDTDS Boosts the damage the Pokémon inflicts with critical hits. BSL きゅうしょに こうげきを あてたときの ダメージが おおきくなる Conq. Powers up moves if they become critical hits. MDGtI Unavailable SMD Damage when an attack results in a critical hit goes up! MDRTDX This Ability increases the damage of moves that result in critical hits.

In the manga

Pokémon Adventures

• Yellow's Seadra is revealed to have Sniper as his Ability.

Trivia

• All Pokémon that can have Sniper can learn at least Focus Energy or at least one move with a high critical-hit ratio.

In other languages

Language Title Chinese Cantonese 狙擊手 Jēuigīksáu Mandarin 狙擊手 / 狙击手 Jūjíshǒu / Jūjīshǒu French Sniper German Superschütze Italian Cecchino Korean 스나이퍼 Sniper Spanish FrancotiradorVI+ Francotirad.III–V Thai สไนเปอร์ Turkish Keskin Nişancı

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.