The Relaxed nature increases a Pokémon’s Defense by 10% and decreases its Speed by 10%. This makes it one of the go-to natures for bulky, defensive Pokémon that don’t need to outpace opponents.
How the Stat Changes Work
Every Pokémon nature boosts one stat by 10% and lowers another by 10%, with the full effect visible by level 100. Relaxed specifically trades Speed for Defense, making your Pokémon physically tougher but slower. For a Pokémon with 125 base Defense like Ting-Lu, that’s roughly 17 extra points of Defense at the cost of 7 Speed points. On something with lower base stats like Amoonguss (70 base Defense), the boost is smaller in raw numbers, around 12 points, but still meaningful for a wall that was never going to outspeed anything anyway.
The key distinction from other defensive natures is which stat gets sacrificed. Bold also raises Defense but lowers Attack, which matters if your Pokémon uses physical moves. Impish raises Defense but lowers Special Attack. Relaxed is the only Defense-boosting nature that cuts Speed, making it the ideal pick when your Pokémon needs both its attacking stats intact but doesn’t care about going first.
Why Lowering Speed Can Be an Advantage
A lower Speed stat isn’t always a downside. In Trick Room teams, where the slowest Pokémon moves first, a Relaxed nature actively helps your Pokémon take its turn before faster opponents. Trick Room flips the turn order without changing actual Speed stats, so your Pokémon genuinely benefits from being as slow as possible.
This also ties into Gyro Ball, a Steel-type move that deals more damage the slower the user is compared to the target. Because Trick Room only changes turn order and doesn’t modify the Speed stat itself, Gyro Ball hits just as hard inside Trick Room as outside it. A slow, Relaxed-natured Pokémon using Gyro Ball in Trick Room gets the best of both worlds: it moves first and still hits like a truck. Stakataka is a classic example, capable of knocking out fragile attackers with Gyro Ball under Trick Room.
Best Pokémon for a Relaxed Nature
The Pokémon that benefit most from Relaxed tend to be bulky support picks that already have low Speed. In competitive play, four of the most common users are:
- Mesprit: A Psychic-type with solid 105 base Defense after the boost. It functions as bulky support with Levitate keeping it safe from Ground moves.
- Ting-Lu: A Dark/Ground type whose already massive 125 Defense climbs even higher. With a base 45 Speed, the 10% cut barely matters.
- Amoonguss: A Grass/Poison type with just 30 base Speed, meaning the reduction costs a negligible 5 points. Its Regenerator ability lets it heal by switching out, so it wants to take hits repeatedly.
- Alomomola: A Water-type wall that also runs Regenerator. At 65 base Speed it’s never outspeeding sweepers, so the trade-off is painless.
The pattern is clear: all of these Pokémon play a defensive support role, absorb hits, set up hazards or status, and pivot out. None of them rely on moving first.
Flavor Preferences and Berries
Natures also determine which flavors a Pokémon likes and dislikes. A Relaxed Pokémon likes Sour flavors and dislikes Spicy ones. This mostly affects certain berries that restore HP in battle but cause confusion if the Pokémon dislikes that berry’s flavor. If you hand a Spicy berry to your Relaxed Pokémon, it will eat it when its HP drops low but become confused afterward. It’s a niche mechanic, but worth knowing if you’re choosing held berries for competitive sets.
Getting the Relaxed Nature
In Pokémon Scarlet and Violet (and Sword and Shield before them), you don’t have to breed endlessly for the right nature. A Relaxed Mint changes any Pokémon’s stat modifiers to match the Relaxed nature, boosting Defense and lowering Speed, without changing the Pokémon’s actual listed nature. This means flavor preferences and any nature-dependent text stay tied to the original nature, but the stats shift immediately. Mints are available from in-game shops and Battle Tower rewards, making it straightforward to convert a Pokémon you’ve already trained.
If you’re breeding instead, giving a Relaxed parent an Everstone guarantees the nature passes down to offspring, which saves time when you want specific IVs alongside the right nature.