What it does
Friend Guard does one thing: while the holder is on the field, all damage dealt to its ally is multiplied by ×0.75. No PP cost, no activation turn, no conditions.
That sounds simple, but what it actually does is break the opponent's damage math. Doubles play revolves around precision KO thresholds — the attacker calculates that their move hits hard enough to exactly KO the partner. Friend Guard shifts that entire calculation by 25%: a move dealing a maximum of 110% damage (a clean OHKO) lands at 82.5% instead. The partner survives. Your attacker gets another turn.
Worked number: Suppose an opposing move deals a maximum of 108% HP damage to your partner at Lv50 doubles — enough to guarantee a KO across the full 85–100% damage roll range. With Friend Guard, the same move's maximum output drops to 81% HP. Not even close to a KO. That one surviving turn changes the game.
Spread moves make the math even more lopsided: moves that hit two targets already deal ×0.75 in doubles. Stack Friend Guard on the partner's end and the total multiplier is ×0.75 × ×0.75 = ×0.5625 — just over half damage. A Rock Slide that might chip 60% HP on a targeted hit lands closer to 34% when both reductions apply.
Critical limitation: Friend Guard does not protect the holder itself. The holder takes full, unreduced damage. It's entirely an outward-facing aura.
In singles there is no partner target — the ability does nothing. Never run it in single-battle formats.
Who runs it
Fast, supportive Pokémon that plan to stay on the field and enable a powerful-but-fragile attacker. The more glass-cannon the attacker, the more valuable the aura becomes.
Maushold is the flagship user in Champions, appearing with Friend Guard in over 96% of its sets. It pairs with high-risk, high-reward attackers: Garchomp, Basculegion, Kingambit — Pokémon that sweep once they survive the first exchange but collapse to a single well-aimed coverage move. Maushold layers two independent defenses: Follow Me to redirect hits toward itself, and Friend Guard to soften anything that slips through to the attacker. The combination forces opponents to solve both simultaneously. It also carries Super Fang to guarantee 50% HP cuts regardless of stat boosts or defensive investment, Taunt to shut down opposing setup and support, and Focus Sash or Chople Berry to absorb an extra hit. The functional density of that one slot is what makes Maushold a defining doubles support.
Vivillon runs Friend Guard in roughly 12% of its sets — a deliberate trade of Compound Eyes's accuracy boost on Sleep Powder for consistent team-wide damage reduction. Suits slower, more defensive team archetypes that don't rely on landing sleep every game.
The pattern generalizes: any fast, support-oriented Pokémon with access to Friend Guard follows the same logic. Thin personal bulk, high utility, value derived from keeping the attacker beside it alive.
How to use it
The job is simply staying on the field. Even a Maushold doing nothing active this turn is providing 25% damage reduction to its partner — passive presence has real, compounding value over a match.
Typical doubles turn pattern:
- Lead Maushold + attacker. Maushold uses Follow Me or Protect; attacker deals damage.
- Opponent targets the attacker: Friend Guard softens the hit. Attacker survives, hits back.
- Opponent focuses Maushold instead: Focus Sash keeps it alive at 1 HP. Next turn, Maushold uses Super Fang to cut the target to 50% HP, collapsing KO thresholds for the attacker's next move.
- Opponent Taunts Maushold: Friend Guard is a passive ability, not a move — it cannot be stopped by Taunt. Super Fang is also unaffected (it deals direct HP damage, not a status effect). Maushold's real utility is far from gone.
Decision point: if Fake Out hits Maushold on turn 1 and prevents Follow Me, Friend Guard still fires that turn. A flinched Maushold is still protecting its partner. The decision then is whether to re-use Follow Me next turn or pivot to Super Fang based on how the opponent positioned.
If Focus Sash has already been consumed, evaluate carefully before tanking a second hit — at that point Protect buys a turn and forces the opponent to commit elsewhere.
Tips & strategy
Calculate the stacking ceiling. Follow Me redirect and Friend Guard reduction are independent layers. To reach the attacker through both, the opponent needs spread damage or a way around redirection. When they use a spread move like Rock Slide: the attacker sitting next to Maushold sees ×0.75 (spread) × ×0.75 (Friend Guard) = ×0.5625 total. A move that would normally deal 80% HP damage lands at 45%. Moves designed to chip both targets simultaneously end up doing almost nothing to the attacker.
Earthquake positioning. Earthquake hits all field targets in doubles — including the holder's partner, who is protected by Friend Guard, and the holder itself, who is not. If your attacker runs Earthquake, Maushold is in the blast radius and takes full damage. Either keep Maushold out of that lineup, or pair the attacker with a Ground-immune support instead.
Common mistake autopsy — pulling Maushold after Taunt: A frequent beginner error is immediately switching out Maushold once it gets Taunted, assuming the slot has gone dead. This is the wrong call. Friend Guard is still active, Super Fang still works, and the attacker next to it still has 25% damage reduction. Swapping Maushold out strips both layers of protection in one action and usually accelerates the loss of the attacker. The correct response to a Taunted Maushold is almost always to keep it in and threaten Super Fang.
How opponents beat Friend Guard:
- Neutralizing Gas from Weezing suppresses all field abilities, including Friend Guard, completely and immediately — the cleanest counter in the format.
- Direct KO on the holder. Maushold is physically frail. One Fighting-type move from a strong attacker, after Focus Sash is spent, removes the aura entirely.
- Spread damage forces both targets to take hits simultaneously, though at significantly reduced power thanks to the stacking reductions.
- Moves that cannot be redirected by Follow Me (self-targeting moves, or in edge cases where redirection is bypassed) bypass the first layer, leaving only the passive reduction.