Sheer Force increases the power of moves that have beneficial secondary effects by 30%, but removes those additional effects.
Beneficial effects are defined as those that are positive for the user, such as:
Non-beneficial effects, that Sheer Force will not activate for, include:
If the user is holding a Life Orb and uses an attack that activates Sheer Force, it will not receive the 10% damage from Life Orb, but it gets boosts from both Life Orb and Sheer Force (total of 69% base power increase).
Flamethrower normally has a 10% chance to burn the opponent. With Sheer Force, Flamethrower's base power is boosted from 95 to 124, but it will never cause a burn.
Note that if a move has an advantageous and disadvantageous side-effect, Sheer Force still boosts the move but only the advantageous effect is removed. For example, Flare Blitz may cause a burn but also has recoil damage. A Pokémon with Sheer Force using the move would gain the power increase and still receive recoil damage, but it would never cause a burn.
Here are the moves that increase in power under Sheer Force, listed alphabetically:
| Black White Black 2 White 2 | Removes added effects to increase move damage. |
| X Y O.Ruby A.Sapphire | Removes additional effects to increase move damage. |
| Sun Moon Ultra Sun Ultra Moon | Removes additional effects to increase the power of moves when attacking. |
| Sword Shield B.Diamond S.Pearl | Removes additional effects to increase the power of moves when attacking. |
| English | Sheer Force |
|---|---|
| Spanish | Potencia Bruta |
| Italian | Forzabruta |
| Japanese | ちからずく (Chikara Zuku) |
| German | Rohe Gewalt |
| French | Sans Limite |