What it does
Fake Tears lowers the target's Special Defense by 2 stages, guaranteed, 100% accuracy. Two stages means incoming special damage is multiplied by ×2.25 for that target until they switch out.
One stage is ×1.5 — sometimes a bulky target survives. Two stages collapses the math. Whatever your special attacker was previously hitting for, it now hits for more than double the effective damage multiplier. Calcs that said 'not a KO' start reading as KOs.
This is a status move — no damage. The doubles logic is: your support mon uses Fake Tears, your partner's special attacker fires on the same turn. Both actions resolve simultaneously on that same turn. The debuff applies immediately to that incoming hit. If the target switches out next turn, the drop clears — but the damage was already done.
In singles, Fake Tears exists but the value is lower. You spend a whole turn with no damage output, then need to fire on the next turn before they switch. In doubles, both things happen at once — that's why it belongs here.
Who runs it
Liepard (34%) runs Fake Tears as part of a fast-support toolkit. High speed means the debuff lands before your partner's attack resolves cleanly. Prankster elsewhere in its kit means it has multiple priority disruption tools — Fake Tears is the SpDef-targeting option.
Cofagrigus (37%) and Runerigus (18%) both run support-heavy sets. Ghosttypes that sit on the field without urgently needing to deal damage — their job is to create KO windows for a special attacker partner, and Fake Tears is one way to do that.
Vaporeon (35%), Jolteon (31%), Leafeon (36%), and Aromatisse (19%) all run support-leaning sets. In each case, Fake Tears amplifies the output of a special attacking core elsewhere on the team — they're the setup, not the finisher.
Whimsicott (9%) packs Fake Tears as a utility option. Prankster boosts Fake Tears to +1 priority — Whimsicott's Prankster means Fake Tears fires before nearly all opponent actions, which is a major part of its competitive value on Whimsicott.
How to use it
The standard doubles line: turn 1, you click Fake Tears on the target you want to delete, your partner fires a special attack on the same target. That attack lands with the ×2.25 SpDef debuff already applied — same turn, no delay.
The counter you have to respect: Protect. If the target Protects, you wasted your action and your partner hit nothing. Against Protect-heavy targets, consider having your partner use Fake Out to force the Protect first, then use Fake Tears freely on the next turn.
Target switches out = drop cleared. But their swap cost you their switch resource and bought you positional information. It's not nothing.
Clear Amulet fully blocks the Special Defense drop. Carriers of that item make Fake Tears dead in hand — worth checking team preview.
Tips & strategy
Build the damage calc before you decide to click Fake Tears. The move earns its slot when the target is in 'narrowly not a KO' range for your special attacker — the 2-stage drop pushes it into clean KO territory. If your special attacker was already KOing without the drop, Helping Hand or a direct attack is better use of the support slot.
Don't keep using Fake Tears on a team that's constantly pivoting — if your opponent switches the target out every time, you're trading your action for their switch slot, and that stops being a good trade quickly.
Versus Helping Hand: Helping Hand is a universal ×1.5 multiplier on your partner's next move, regardless of target. Fake Tears is a ×2.25 effective SpDef multiplier on one specific target — higher ceiling when you know exactly who you need to remove.