Shouldn't HP be closely related to defenses?

[OreoMaster]

I mean, Pokemon with high HP should have equally high defenses. It just doesn't make sense to me. How can a Pokemon have high HP and low Defense or vice versa?

HP is Hit Points. It's how many hits you can take before you collapse and can't stand up.
So high HP means you can take many hits.

For example, Blissey and Shuckle.

Blissey has absurd Hit Points so it's supposed to be able to endure many hits. Yet, it has very low Defense so it gets knocked out after 2-3 powerful hits.
It's controversial to the meaning of HP. It has high HP which would indicate she can take a lot of hits and then she can really only take about 3 hits before going down.

Shuckle has sky high defenses but ridiculous HP. It's HP would indicate that it can't take a hit to save its life yet with its enormous defense it can survive many attacks. Much more physical hits than Blissey even though she has a visibly higher HP.

So, shouldn't HP and defenses be related as in some Pokemon like Walrein, Lickilicky etc

What's HP then?

 

[Serene Grace]

Think about it this way: a Pokemon with high HP and a low defense can take a lot of hits, but can't defend itself well against each hit, therefore the hits will do maximum damage whereas a Pokemon with low HP and a high defense can't take a lot of hits but each hit it does take will do less damage. You're correct in thinking that they're close, however, they're not quite the same thing.

It's actually really hard to explain so sorry if it's a bit confusing. Again, they're similar in the sense that they're all about how quickly you go down, however they still do separate things and do not affect each other.

 

[Satoshi Ookami]

Yeah and let's have unbreakable wall in Blissey... totally cool o.O
But pretty much what Serene Grace said... and as I ironically mentioned, it would make some walls unbreakable.

 

[Cherrim]

Think about it this way: a Pokemon with high HP and a low defense can take a lot of hits, but can't defend itself well against each hit, therefore the hits will do maximum damage whereas a Pokemon with low HP and a high defense can't take a lot of hits but each hit it does take will do less damage. You're correct in thinking that they're close, however, they're not quite the same thing.

It's actually really hard to explain so sorry if it's a bit confusing. Again, they're similar in the sense that they're all about how quickly you go down, however they still do separate things and do not affect each other.

This makes perfect sense to me; I think of it in terms of humans with HP being another way to consider stamina.

A burly guy who's big-boned by birth but has never had any kind of martial arts training in his life could be considered to have lots of "HP" or stamina--he'd certainly last longer in a fight than a petite person with the same amount of training simply because he has more body/muscle mass because of his build. Just because he's built that way though says nothing about his skill in deflecting blows. But then also consider a person of much smaller stature who's had a lot of training in self-defense and fighting techniques. They might be the tiniest person who looks like a toothpick or something but they'd know how to take and defend successfully against hits so they'd take much less damage on average per hit than someone with none of that training.

It's easy to apply the same sort of thing to Pokémon: Blissey has tons of stamina/HP because it's a big bulky Pokémon and it can take big hits from other large Pokémon without going down in one or two hits... but it's not built for defending. It's a big roly poly thing with tiny arms and legs. It doesn't exactly have any way to properly defend against anything even if it wanted to. :P Then look at something like Shuckle. It's some little tentacle thing in a shell. Looking at the organism itself, Shuckle is mainly the soft tentacle things. If you took just that, there's no reason for it to have a lot of HP. It's a small thing with pretty much no stamina. But add in its shell and it has a natural defense that it as a creature knows how to use well. It doesn't even have to think about its technique, it just draws in its limbs and lets the hard shell take the brunt of the hit. So it will still sustain some damage but the damage it takes will be much less than that of the Blissey who has no natural way to defend. Shuckle also doesn't need as much stamina because defending isn't something it has to really take into account as it fights. Defending just comes naturally to it. If its defenses were compromised (shell was broken, gone or suddenly less effective because of a stat affect), it has no stamina to really fall back on so it's in trouble.

With Pokémon like Walrein, its bulk is made up of thick fat. Even its Pokédex entries say that its blubber repels enemy attacks. Seals IRL in the wild also have pretty good stamina for swimming or fighting off enemies. Put those two together and you have a pretty well-rounded Pokémon. It has natural defenses in the way its (thick, enduring) body is built. So it has both stamina and defense.

I imagine the explanation doesn't work for absolutely every Pokémon but it's a good way to think of stats intuitively. Otherwise, I think Ash493's explanation suffices--do you really want Pokémon to take forever to kill because of their HP stat and ridiculously high defenses? :P

 

[Arlo]

I think the two are clearly, and justifiably, distinct.

HP is the amount of damage the pokemon can tolerate before fainting. Defense is the possibility that it will be damaged.

Take your examples - Blissey and Shuckle. Imagine that the game included graphic representations of damage. You hit a Blissey, and it's soft, so it immediately takes obvious damage - it's now cut and bleeding. But it has a great deal of "health," so it can keep going, even with that damage. You keep pounding away at it and it keeps taking more and more damage, until it's a bloody mess. But it has so much "health" that, even with that, it's still going. That's high HP and low defense - it's relatively easily hurt, but can take a lot of abuse before it faints. Then consider Shuckle. You hit a Shuckle and it just bounces off its shell - possibly doesn't even leave a mark. You pound away at it, and all you manage to do is maybe crack its shell a little bit. But then you get in one final blow and BLAM! - you break through its shell and, exposed, it's weak and faints almost immediately. That's high defense and low HP - it's very difficult to hurt it, but once you break through its defenses, it faints easily.

Makes perfect sense to me...

 

[Minato Arisato]

I've never even thought about this in this sort of context. Maybe I should play Pokemon more. Though I've noticed that Pokemon with high HP and low defense seem to take hits better than Pokemon with low HP and high defense. Blissey and Shuckle would be two prime examples. Shuckle's HP is pathetic, to say the least, and even with such high defenses, its HP stat makes its overall defense just a little above average.

But...I don't think I'm ever going to get rid of the image of a bloody Blissey. I'm going to have nightmares tonight.

 

[Lolcatcomics]

having high HP means that you need a lot of damage to do you in.
having high Defense means that each hit does less damage.
i've often thought that having a high-hp pokemon with no defense would make it a good punching bag. i was wrong.