Curse doesn’t do the same thing twice. Teach it to a Gengar and it burns half that Gengar’s own max HP to place a curse that drains a quarter of the target’s max HP every single turn. Teach the exact same move, same PP, same slot on the move list, to a Slowpoke, and nobody loses a single HP — the user just gets stronger and slower. Two rulesets sharing one name, and the split isn’t a database formatting error. It comes straight from the move’s own data, and it hinges on exactly one thing: whether the Pokemon using it is a Ghost-type.
Check Your Pokemon’s Type First
Everything about Curse comes down to one lookup before it goes on a move list.
- Ghost-type (pure or dual — Gengar, Golurk, Dhelmise, Runerigus, Trevenant): Curse trades 50% of the user’s own max HP for a guaranteed 25%-per-turn drain on the target. Treat it as a damage-over-time tool, not a stat move.
- Any other type (Snorlax, Slowbro, Torkoal, Turtwig, hundreds more): Curse raises Attack and Defense one stage each and drops Speed one stage, on the user, with zero HP cost.
Neither version can be swapped for the other by choice — the type of the Pokemon holding the move locks in which effect fires.
The Ghost-Type Path: A Straight HP Trade
A Ghost-type that uses Curse pays 50% of its own maximum HP, rounded down, the instant the move connects, according to Bulbapedia’s move data. That HP is gone before the curse even starts working — there’s no partial refund if the curse gets cleared early. What the sacrifice buys: the target loses 25% of its own max HP at the end of every turn for as long as it stays on the field. Switch the cursed Pokemon out and the curse breaks immediately; it doesn’t resume if that Pokemon switches back in later, though it does ride along if the cursed Pokemon gets Baton Passed to a teammate mid-battle.
Run the math and the trade only pays off in specific spots. A Ghost-type sitting at 60% of its own HP that Curses into a slower target is betting the 25%-per-turn drain outlasts whatever damage comes back before the user itself faints from the 50% cost plus incoming hits. Against a Pokemon that’s about to switch out anyway, the whole HP sacrifice buys nothing — the curse dies the second the target does, and the user is still down half its HP for the attempt.
The Non-Ghost Path: Free Stat Buffs, Minor Speed Tax
Every Pokemon that isn’t a Ghost-type gets a completely different move out of the same name: +1 stage Attack, +1 stage Defense, -1 stage Speed, applied to the user, no target required and no HP spent. That’s roughly the shape of Swords Dance and Bulk Up combined into one move, minus the Speed cost most set-up moves don’t carry. For a Pokemon that’s already slow — Snorlax’s base 30 Speed, Torkoal’s base 20 — that -1 stage barely registers, since it was losing most Speed ties already. For anything genuinely fast, the same -1 stage is a real cost that can flip a Speed tie the wrong way, which is exactly why non-Ghost Curse only shows up on bulky, slow-by-design sets and almost never on anything built to outspeed.
The split isn’t an accident — it’s a pun that survived translation. Curse’s Japanese name, のろい (Noroi), reads as either “curse” or “dull/slow” depending on which kanji backs it, and the move was built to carry both meanings in one slot instead of picking one. Ghost-types get the literal curse; everything else gets the “dulling” reading, which shows up as a Speed drop wrapped around a defensive stat boost. It’s the same kind of double-duty design that shows up elsewhere on Ghost-types specifically — Aegislash’s Stance Change rewrites its entire stat spread mid-battle depending on which move it just used, another case of a single Ghost-type mechanic quietly running two rulesets under one name.
Curse has carried this exact split since debuting in Generation II, when it was its own unique ???-type move — the only move that type ever had. Generation V folded it into the Ghost type outright and, at the same time, let it start punching through Substitute, which it couldn’t do before. Current games keep it at TM224 in Scarlet and Violet and TM091 in Legends: Z-A — verified against those games’ current TM lists as of this writing; recheck if a future generation renumbers TMs again, which happens most generations.
Does Curse Punch Through Substitute and Protect?
Yes to both, and it’s worth stating plainly since older guides disagree on when this started. Curse could not touch a Pokemon behind a Substitute before Generation V; from Generation V onward it hits straight through one, consistent with how Ghost-type moves generally ignore the block Substitute gives most other status effects. Protect and Detect don’t stop it either. The one move that does block it is Crafty Shield, which specifically flags status moves like Curse rather than damaging ones. Magic Coat can’t reflect it back at whoever used it, and Mirror Move can’t copy it, since Mirror Move only ever repeats damaging moves. None of that changes based on which effect is triggering — a Ghost-type’s HP-cost curse and a non-Ghost’s stat boost follow the identical Substitute, Protect, and Crafty Shield rules.
Who Should Actually Run Curse Right Now
The two effects attract completely different teams, and current usage data shows just how differently. In VGC 2025 Regulation Set G, Curse sits on 98.4% of competitive Golurk sets — practically a mandatory fourth move on a Pokemon whose entire game plan is standing still behind Trick Room and getting stronger every turn it isn’t attacking. Compare that to Snorlax, the Pokemon most players still associate with Curse first: across Pokemon Champions’ 2026 tournament data, Curse shows up on only 9.1% of competitive Snorlax sets. “Curse Snorlax” was the signature Rest-and-Curse tank of earlier console generations; in the current meta almost nobody builds it that way anymore — Leftovers and Thick Fat carry the set instead, with Curse mostly left off.
| Player type | Priority |
|---|---|
| New player | Skip Curse on anything except a Trick Room Ghost-type you’re already committed to. The 50% HP cost punishes experimentation, and the stat-boost version is outclassed by simpler moves like Swords Dance until Speed control clicks for you. |
| Casual player | Non-Ghost Curse is a safe pickup on any bulky Normal- or Rock-type sitting near the back of a slow team — free stats, minimal downside if the team wasn’t racing for Speed anyway. |
| Hardcore / optimizer | Ghost-type Curse is a Trick Room-only tool. The HP cost and lost turn only pay off when the user already moves first and the target can’t simply switch the drain away — outside Trick Room, Poltergeist or Shadow Ball does more work for less risk. |
| Completionist | Curse is TM-teachable to a wide non-Ghost pool — Slowpoke, Turtwig, and Torkoal among them — so cataloguing every legal learner means checking TM224/TM091 compatibility per species, not just level-up lists. |
None of the game’s eleven pseudo-legendary Pokemon lean on Curse in either form. Their base stats already run high enough across the board that trading Speed for Attack and Defense rarely beats simply running a Choice item — a reflection of their naturally strong stat distribution more than any flaw in Curse itself.
FAQ
Does a dual-type Ghost still pay the HP cost, or only pure Ghost-types?
Curse only checks whether Ghost appears anywhere in the user’s typing, not whether it’s the only type. Golurk (Ground/Ghost), Dhelmise (Ghost/Grass), Runerigus (Ground/Ghost), and Trevenant (Ghost/Grass) all pay the 50% HP cost and inflict the drain, exactly the same as a pure Ghost-type like Gengar.
Can a Ghost-type dodge the HP cost by switching out right after using Curse?
No. The 50% HP loss happens the instant the move resolves, before any end-of-turn effects, so there’s no window to switch out first. Switching out afterward doesn’t refund the HP, and it cancels the curse the Pokemon just paid for — the worst outcome the move can produce.
Is Curse a move in Pokemon GO?
No. Pokemon GO’s charged-move pool doesn’t include Curse at all; Ghost-types in GO lean on moves like Shadow Ball and Shadow Punch instead. If you’re building around Ghost-type coverage specifically for GO, the type matchups run on the same weaknesses and resistances as the mainline games — check our Pokemon GO type chart for the full Ghost-type breakdown.
Does Curse stack if the same Pokemon gets hit by it twice?
No. The curse status doesn’t have stacks or a stronger tier. A second Curse against an already-cursed target simply fails, and the drain stays flat at 25% no matter how many Ghost-types try to reapply it while it’s active.
Key Takeaways
Curse only looks confusing because two Pokemon can learn the “same” move and walk away with opposite results. Check the type first: Ghost-types are trading a real chunk of their own HP for a damage-over-time effect, non-Ghost types are getting a free defensive stat boost with a minor Speed tax. Both versions are viable right now — just not on the same Pokemon, and as the Golurk-versus-Snorlax usage gap shows, not in anywhere near the same numbers they used to be.
Sources
- Bulbapedia — Curse (move) (cited above)
- Pokémon Database — Curse (move) (cited above)
- Pokémon Database PokéBase — Can Curse bypass a Substitute or Protect?
- Pikalytics — Golurk VGC 2025 Regulation Set G usage stats (cited above)
- Pikalytics — Snorlax Pokémon Champions 2026 Tournament usage stats (cited above)
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.