With every Pokémon only having four slots available for their moves, you need to make some tough choices about what abilities they will have in battle. For the most part, you have a pretty good understanding of what each move does. There are plenty of damaging moves, some that protect the Pokémon, and others that affect status conditions. However, there is an odd selection of moves that don’t do a good job of explaining what they do. What does the move Taunt do in Pokémon games?
What does Taunt do in the Pokémon games?
Taunt makes it so the enemy Pokémon will not be able to use anything besides damaging moves against you for a few rounds of battle. This makes it so they can’t go out of their way to make your Pokémon sleep or have other conditions, protect themselves, or raise or lower stats for that time period. Wild Pokémon also will not be able to flee, giving you a better chance to catch them. Trainers can switch to a different party member while the Taunt is active, though.
What Pokémon is Taunt good to use against?
Taunt is best used against support Pokémon that rely on moves that don’t deal damage. Psychic Pokémon commonly have a lot of moves that fit this criteria. For example, using it on a wild Abra will keep it from fleeing, or you can stop a Mr. Mime from using its status moves. There are other types out there that this is good against, of course, but in a general sense, those situations are the first that pop to mind. In competitive situations, you can use this to stop an opponent from using Thunder Wave on you and force them to use weaker attacks.
It’s also a good idea to have this move on a Pokémon that has high defense and health stats. That gives them lots of room to tank the incoming hits, like a Snorlax. You will not want to use the Taunt move on a Pokémon that relies on its raw power to win. Most fighting Pokémon fit into this criteria, as they are so focused on dealing high damage with their main attacks.
