The real-world application of the Pokémon ability “Anger Point”

Monday, September 15, 2025
 

In the Pokémon games, Anger Point is an ability introduced in Generation 4 in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. It is commonly associated with Primeape (#57 in the National Pokédex) and Tauros (#128).

When a Pokémon with “Anger Point” suffers a critical hit, Anger Point maximizes its Attack stat by raising it to +6 stages (regardless of its current stage). In the core series games, a stage of +6 (read as “plus six”) translates to an effective stat equal to quadruple the unmodified stat. For example, an “Attack” stat of 200 becomes 800 if boosted six stages (200 × 4 = 800). At Level 50, a Tauros, if maxed out (31 IV, 252 EV in “Attack”, and an “Adamant” nature), has an “Attack” stat of 167. If “Anger Point” activates, Tauros has an effective “Attack” stat of 668 because 167 × 4 = 668. At Level 100, Tauros has an “Attack” stat of 328, which gets boosted to 1,312.

“Anger Point” is also available as a “Hidden Ability” for Camerupt, Krookodile, and Crabominable.

A critical hit is a random event that multiplies the damage of an attacking move. Whenever a critical hit is dealt on either side of the battlefield, the message “A critical hit!” is displayed on screen.

When a move lands a critical hit, the attacker’s level will be doubled during damage calculation, which results in roughly doubling the damage dealt. Specifically, the multiplier is ${\displaystyle {\frac {2L+5}{L+5}}}$, where ${\displaystyle L}$ is the attacker’s level. For a Level 5 Pokémon, the multiplier is 1.5 or 150%, and for a Level 20 Pokémon, the multiplier is ${\displaystyle {\frac {45}{25}}=1.8}$ or 180%. For Pokémon at or near Level 100, say, Level 90 or Level 95, the multiplier approximately equals two, being 1.9500 for Level 95 and 1.9524 for Level 100. Although levels cannot go past 100 in the games, it follows from L’Hôpital’s rule that the limit of ${\displaystyle {\frac {2L+5}{L+5}}}$, as ${\displaystyle L}$ tends to infinity is two.

The probability of getting a critical hit varies between games, but in the newest titles (Sword/Shield, Scarlet/Violet, etc.), the probability is, by default, one in 24 (or 4.1667%). This can be increased with modifiers; for example, some moves, such as “Razor Leaf,” are three times as likely to be critical hits, with a probability of 12.5%.

Like many other features and game mechanics in Pokémon games, “Anger Point” represents a real, practical phenomenon, especially in the lives of people with anger disorders or anxiety disorders, such as OCD, BPD, and other disabilities associated with stronger reactivity and lower tolerance of unpleasant events or unpleasant information.

There are many analogies between Pokémon games and everyday life. Although in our modern society, we shouldn’t, under normal circumstances, attack people, the Pokémon battles represent struggles in life, rather than physical conflicts. We all have struggles and challenges from time to time. But instead of thinking of struggle as a pure negative, we need to have a growth mindset. Overcoming the ordeal allows you to grow. In the Pokémon games, when you knock out a wild Pokémon or a Trainer’s Pokémon, your Pokémon gain experience points for winning. Those experience points represent the aspect of growth through adversity. Note that the struggle or ordeal itself doesn’t make you stronger, but overcoming the struggle does. This is represented by the games quite well, as the game allows you to run from wild Pokémon battles by hitting the “Run” button, but if you do, your Pokémon don’t gain any experience points.

“Anger Point” represents the aspect of experiencing high levels of frustration when faced with “harder than expected” or “harder than usual.” For time-related variables, such as the time you spend sitting in traffic, replace “harder” in both of those phrases with “longer.” Of course, the “critical hit” mechanic represents the act of something being more difficult than usual.

Much like critical hits in Pokémon games, many real-life “critical hits” happen so shockingly and so unexpectedly as to catch someone off guard. We often learn from past experiences and learn how to prepare better for future situations. Sometimes, someone has low expectations for a new Maroon 5 song, but the song ends up being even worse than the person expected it to be. Sometimes, you have a high tolerance for disappointment, and then a “critical disappointment” happens which puts your tolerance to the test. If we measure disappointments on a Richter scale, just because you can currently handle a 7 does not mean you can handle a 9 or a 10. This is akin to the fact that, in the Pokémon games, critical hits bypass any “Defense” modifiers. To conclude this section with a Pokémon example: on November 19, 2022, when I went to Metacritic to see the ratings and reviews for Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, the rating was only 3/10 due to the long list of game-breaking glitches in the game, as well as the low frame rate. One user who commented on that page expected to be disappointed by the new games but “didn’t expect to be THIS disappointed.”

My name is Raymond Wang, and I am 28 years, 9 months old as of September 2025. Here are some examples of “Anger Point” in the real world that I have personally gone through or witnessed. The word “witnessed” at the end of the previous sentence is important; this means I am including things that happened to my brother, Bryan, if I happened to witness it firsthand.

• Example 1: On February 2, 2018, at 4:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (21:15 UTC), Dad drove Bryan to Brandeis University while I was sitting in the back. Whenever we go out, I sit in the back, and Bryan sits in the middle row, and this was no exception. At that point, our family had plans for Bryan to attend Brandeis later that year after graduating from high school, so the purpose of this trip was for Bryan to get familiar with the campus which would soon be a regular part of his daily life for four years. For the next 30 minutes, Dad drove around campus and called Bryan on the phone to stay updated on where Bryan was. Dad kept driving around campus, and Bryan kept walking around campus. Even after Dad had completed three full circles, they were never in the same place at the same time. Bryan got increasingly frustrated. Dad made four phone calls, and in the third and fourth calls, I could hear the frustration increasing in Bryan’s voice. At that point, I knew to prepare for a very angry meltdown when Bryan finally did return. My intuition was correct; when Bryan did finally find our car at 4:45 p.m., he kicked the side of the car so hard that I rocked and swayed a little. Once in the car, Bryan yelled and screamed at Dad the rest of the way home.
• Example 2: On August 13, 2016, I stayed up all night because my OCD kept bombarding me with “compulsions” and was more demanding than usual. Two days later, on August 15 (a Monday morning), I had a brutal streak of compulsions at around 1:50 a.m. EDT. Then, over the next three days, my OCD kept being “extra demanding,” and I lost my sanity as the week progressed. Each “compulsion” required me to perform a simple task (i.e. say a word or phrase) then go to the front door, then walk in and out of it three times. This happened 32 times during the 96 hours between 11:59 p.m., August 14 and 11:59 p.m., August 18. On August 18, 2016, at around 7:00 p.m., Dad and I walked on the bike path next to the Samuel Hadley Public Services Building (201 Bedford Street, Lexington, MA), about a 4-minute drive from my home where I live with my parents and brother, Bryan. When I got home around 7:30 p.m. or 8 p.m., I finally snapped. I lashed out at Mom, showing a knife. No violence occurred, but I yelled and screamed and stamped my feet. Less than an hour later, at 8:30 p.m., my tutor, En-Kuang “EK” Lung arrived for our weekly session, and he heard me using the B-word (which rhymes with “pitch”), and EK Lung then ordered me to apologize. He then taught me the lesson about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and how Jesus never got angry. EK Lung said, “People nailed him to the cross. He didn’t get mad.” At the end of his speech about Jesus, EK told me that someday, I will wonder how anyone could get angry about what I was angry about in that moment. I don’t remember his exact words, but I do remember he said “someday” and “wonder”: “Someday, you will wonder how anyone could get mad about this.”
• Example 3: On May 31, 2021, my friend Junli Zhu moved back to China and has a job in epidemiology. As a result, he is very busy during most hours of most days and doesn’t have much time to talk to me. It has now been four years since he moved, and throughout that time, we usually talk about once every 5-6 months. Eleven days after he moved to China, we had our first Wechat call on Friday, June 11, 2021. We then talked four more times during the remaining months of 2021: July 3, August 4, September 8, and November 17. Starting in 2022, he has gotten progressively busier and busier, and it has been very hard for him to find time to talk. Last year, I talked to him three times, on February 7, April 10, and June 9, before he came to Boston for 2-3 days in July. The visit ended the morning of July 24, 2024, when Junli went back to China, and that was our last time until June 7, 2025, a gap of ten months and two weeks. This was the longest gap so far, not only in terms of “length of time,” but also in terms of the events I’ve endured in that time. I got pertussis (whooping cough) not once, but TWICE during those eleven months. In October 2024, I endured 25 days without the ability to use the Wayback Machine’s “Save Page Now” tool. Speaking of “25 days,” that’s also how long Mom was away, from Oct. 16 until Nov. 10, and that came with its own challenges. I missed Junli so much. However, sometimes my family misunderstands my OCD and anxiety disorders as “self-centered” and “overreacting.” It really, really bothers me when I genuinely feel upset about something, and Bryan misinterprets it as me overreacting, and no matter how I try to explain myself, he is still confused and can’t see what the big deal is, and when I get defensive, he goes through the roof, thinks I’m a terrible brother, then bolts back to his bedroom and slams the door. Now, as I am writing this, it has now been three months since my last call with Junli. I sure hope “10 months” or “11 months” is not our new average waiting time.
• Example 4: On November 15, 2023, Dad, Bryan, and I went to the YMCA so I could get some exercise before my evening class in “Number Theory.” After we left YMCA, we headed to UMass Lowell, and little did any of us know, we would be stuck in traffic for over an hour. This car ride started out okay, and I was singing some songs quietly to myself. At 6:50 p.m., I noticed something seriously wrong. My class, which ran from 6:30 p.m. until 9 p.m., had already started twenty minutes ago, and we were stuck in terrible traffic, where we hardly moving at all. I told Bryan about this, and he said five words that I reacted very strongly to: “There’s nothing we can do.” I got extremely defensive and started saying things like, “What about ten to the minus 100?” or “What about ten to the minus 500?” Bryan, who was frustrated even before I initiated this conversation, got even more frustrated after my defensive comments, and then he said, “What can we do?” I said, “Because there’s no such thing as zero!” At 7:30 p.m., we were still stuck on 128 and had not taken the exit that goes to UMass Lowell. Finally, at 8:03 p.m., we arrived. As this is a professor who likes to go fast so he can finish as early as possible, the class ended at 8:26 p.m., much earlier than the 9:20 p.m. that it should’ve ended. I attended class for only 23 minutes that evening.

• [ ] —  e.g. December 31, 1999
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