How we rank raid counters

The DPS × Effectiveness × Bulk formula behind every counter list on Hundo Hunter.

SHORT ANSWER

Counters are ranked by a single composite score: DPS × Type Effectiveness × Bulk^0.5, weighted per-role (offensive raids weight DPS, defensive raids weight bulk). The score is closed-form and rebuilds every counter list in under 1ms per boss.

THE THREE INGREDIENTS

Every ranking on a raid-counter page comes down to three measured numbers: how fast the attacker dishes damage (DPS), how much that damage gets amplified or muted by the boss's typing (effectiveness), and how long the attacker stays in the fight (bulk).

A glass cannon with 360 DPS that faints in 6s puts out 2 160 damage and then exits. A balanced attacker with 280 DPS that survives 18s puts out 5 040 damage in the same window. Both numbers matter, neither alone is enough.

THE COMPOSITE SCORE

score = dps × type_eff × bulk^0.5 × role_weight

dps         = top-moveset DPS published by PvPoke or PokeBattler
type_eff    = ∏ (1.6 if SE on boss type) × (0.625 if resisted) × (0.39 if double-resist)
bulk        = (HP × Def) / 10 000     // raw bulk product, normalized
role_weight = 1.0 for offensive raid; 0.85 dps + 1.15 bulk for "tank" raid

We use bulk^0.5 (a square root) instead of raw bulk because survival has diminishing returns — doubling HP × Def does NOT double effective damage output; it adds maybe 30%.

The role weight kicks in for bosses with brutal charged moves where survival is the bottleneck (e.g. Mewtwo Psystrike, Primal Groudon Solar Beam). We boost the bulk component by ~15% and trim DPS weight accordingly.

WHY OUR LIST DIFFERS FROM POKEBATTLER / PVPOKE

PokeBattler runs a Markov-chain simulation of the full fight including dodge mechanics, energy gain over time, and faint-revive cycles. Their numbers are the ground truth — but at ~100ms per attacker × moveset, you can't run it for 1 200 species × 5 movesets each at request time on a static site.

Our closed-form score reproduces ~90% of PokeBattler's top-12 ordering at <1ms per attacker. We benchmark against PokeBattler quarterly. When ordering drifts more than 1 position for a top-10 entry, we adjust the role_weight constants.

PvPoke's PvE rankings use a different weighting that under-rates Megas (because of cost-per-investment) — we instead surface Megas at the top of the list because the user is usually optimizing for a 5-star or 6-star boss they will retry many times.

TRADE-OFFS WE ACCEPT

The closed-form score deliberately ignores some second-order effects:

▸Dodge timing — never modeled. Most casual raiders do not dodge consistently anyway.
▸Energy carryover from previous fight — we assume each attacker enters with 0 energy.
▸Relobby cost — we assume the lobby refills in time before the boss expires.
▸Mega buff to teammates — surfaced as a separate note on the counter page, not folded into the score.

∞ · TOOLS THAT USE THIS METHODOLOGY

Raid counters →

Full tier list →

DPS calculator →