In thePokemonuniverse, Grass-types seem to forever be seen as the most harmless of the Pokemon. Many of them are flowers, mushrooms, or just a tangle of vines. Also, the power of Grass-type attacks is rather low on average. However, with each new generation ofPokemongames, the Grass typing has gotten new attacks added to its repertoire. After eight generations, Grass-types now have some incredibly strong moves.
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The Grass arsenal features many moves that manipulate stats (mostly attack and defense), or add negative status ailments to the opponent and/or positive status effects to the user. The Grass-type is best known for its leeching attacks – attacks that harm the enemy and heal the user simultaneously.
Updated on July 07, 2025, by Jeff Drake:The list of Pokemon moves only gets larger as time moves on. Pokemon: Sword and Shield added quite a few new Grass-type moves; many of them are powerful enough to secure a spot on this list.Grass-type moveshave a unique meta-strategy compared to other types. Some move types, like Fire, attempt to overwhelm the opponent with massive damage. The Grass type is more of a slow burn, with moves like Leech Seed and Bullet Seed that slowly whittle down the opponent’s hit points over several turns.
25Cotton Spore
Moving first in a combat turn is atremendous advantage. It gives a Pokemon the chance to make the opponent faint before they get a chance to move. It also helps keep a Pokemon in fighting form since it’s not taking as much damage as it would if it went last in a combat turn.
Cotton Spore sharply lowers the target’s Speed in two stages. This is enough that even the slowest Pokemon will have a decent chance ofgoing first in a turnfor the rest of the battle. If not, the effect lasts at least for the rest of the battle, giving any other Pokemon facing the target an immediate advantage. The chance of this working on the target is 100%, and with a PP count of 40, this move can be used liberally.
24Cotton Guard
There are a ton ofdefensive moves inPokemon. Many of them aren’t that popular. Why? Here’s a familiar scenario: The fight starts and players use a move that raises their Pokemon’s Defense rating. Then the opponent hits their Pokemon and takes away about half its hit points. The boost to the Defense rating isn’t going to help much at this point. While players can heal their Pokemon, they are probably just going to get hit again next turn.
Cotton Guard is one of thefew defensive moves worth taking. It sharply raises the user’s Defense. After one use the damage taken from Physical attacks is reduced by half (approximately); after two uses damage is reduced to 1/4.
23Strength Sap
Strength Sap has two effects when it is used in battle – both of them areextremely beneficialfor the user. The first effect is that the Pokemon using Strength Sap is healed by an amount equal to the opposing Pokemon’s attack rating. In other words, the stronger the opponent the more Strength Sap heals.
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Thesecondary effectis that it lowers the opposing Pokemon’s attack rating. This will cause subsequent uses of this move to heal less, but the opponent’s physical attacks will deal less damage. This would have made a great TM (perhaps in the place of a bad one like Nature Power), but sadly, it’s a rare move. It was Morelull and Shiinotic’s signature move before the current generation, but now a select few Pokemon (such as Polteageist) can also learn it.
22Leaf Storm
This is the secondmost damagingGrass attack through Generation 7. Leaf Storm has a power rating of 130, an accuracy rating of 90, and a PP count of 5.
There is almost always a penalty in thePokemongames for using a move with such ahigh powerrating and Leaf Storm is no different – every use lowers the user’s Special Attack by 2 stages, to a minimum of -6 (this is also the case with several other powerful moves, such as Draco Meteor). This penalty prohibits Leaf Storm from really being used much (except in the case of Contrary Serperior), but the PP count doesn’t allow for many uses anyway. Moves like this are best used for finishing a battle.
21Grassy Glide
Now, this is where Grass-types really get serious. Grassy Glide doesn’t look particularly impressive with its modest 70 Base Power, but don’t be fooled.
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The crucial thing here is Grassy Terrain. While this Terrain is on the field, Grassy Glide is boosted by said grass andhas +1 priority. Grassy Surge and Grassy Glide alone make Rillaboom an absolute terror. Other Grass-types can make excellent use of Grassy Glide as well, as the priority and 1.3x damage boost combined make it very oppressive.
20Petal Blizzard
Petal Blizzard was introducedin Generation 6, so its effect is tailored for the multi-Pokemon battles introduced in Generation 5 (and doubles matches introduced in Generation 3). This attack has a power rating of 90, an accuracy rating of 100, and a PP count of 15. In the multi-Pokemon battles, Petal Blizzard also hits all of the Pokemon adjacent to the target, including the player’s Pokemon.
The power rating for this move is fairly high for an attack thatdamages multiple Pokemonin a formation. An excellent combo with Petal Blizzard is the Sap Sipper ability, which makes a Pokemon’s attack increase when hit by a Grass attack (which also does no damage).
19Bullet Seed
This can beone of the beststandard attacks in thePokemonseries - if players are lucky. Bullet Seed has a power rating of 25, an accuracy rating of 100, and a PP count of 30. This attack always hits at least twice, but it can hit up to five times. Since it always hits twice the base minimum power is 50; if five seeds are launched this has a combined power of 125.
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This makes Bullet Seed potentiallymore powerful than a Fire Blast. Each of these is treated as a separate attack – so each seed has a chance for a critical hit. Couple this with Breloom (which has the Technician Ability to boost the power of each hit) or Toucannon (which has the Skill Link Ability to ensure five hits each time) and the true damaging potential of the move is unlocked.
18Horn Leech
Horn Leech is the perfect move to use on a weakened Pokemon during the middle of a match against another trainer. The reason for this is simple, Horn Leech not only hurts the opponent, butit also healsthe user 50% of the damage dealt. This will get the user ready for the next Pokemon the opponent throws into battle.
This physical attack move has a power score of 75, an accuracy of 100, and a PP count of 10. When used whileholding Big Root, the user heals 65% of the damage dealt. This move is nearly identical to Giga Drain (#8 on this list) but ranked lower due to Giga Drain being available to more Pokemon.
17Energy Ball
Energy Ball wasintroduced in Generation 4, and it’s stillone of the bestGrass-type attack moves in the series. It has a power of 90, an accuracy of 100, and a PP count of 10. A power of 90 is no joke, and its accuracy of 100 means it should always hit. The PP count is a bit low for a move with 90 power, but 10 isn’t bad and is the move’s only real negative aspect.
This move also has a 10% chance of reducing the target’s Special Defense by one stage. A 10% chance is better than not having a secondary effect at all - 10% better, in fact. This move can be learned by a lot of Pokemon and is also a TM (#53). This is actually a pretty good TM to give to weaker Grass-types.
16Grav Apple
Grav Apple isnew to thePokemonseries, having been released inPokemon: Sword & Shield. This move is a good example of power creep in gaming. This move is exclusive to Flapple, so the developers made it a littlestronger than the average move. In futurePokemongames, this move will almost certainly be made available to other Pokemon as new, stronger, PPokemon-exclusive moves are introduced.
Grav Apple has a power of 80, an accuracy of 100, and a PP count of 10. In addition to these great stats, Grav Apple also lowers the target’s Defense rating by one stage. This is a Physical attack - that means every use of Grav Apple will cause the next use to do more damage.
