Each major status condition applies two separate effects: a persistent battle-turn penalty and, for most of them, per-turn residual damage, and both numbers are fixed rather than randomized — which is exactly what lets specific abilities and moves be built to exploit one status while ignoring the rest.
Burn
Burn halves the damage output of Physical moves used by the burned Pokémon — a purely offensive penalty, not defensive, so a burned Pokémon takes normal damage from incoming attacks but deals reduced damage with its own Physical moves specifically. On top of that offensive halving, Burn also deals residual damage equal to 1/16 of the holder's maximum HP at the end of every turn, identical in structure to Leftovers' healing but working against the holder instead of for it.
Paralysis
Paralysis cuts the afflicted Pokémon's Speed stat to 50% of its normal value, which is often enough on its own to flip a Speed-tier matchup from moving first to moving last. Independently of that Speed cut, Paralysis also carries a flat 25% chance each turn that the Pokémon fails to act entirely, wasting the turn regardless of what move was selected — the Speed reduction and the full-turn-failure chance are two separate penalties that both apply every turn, not alternatives to each other.
Sleep
A sleeping Pokémon cannot select or use a damaging move for a randomly determined duration, typically one to three turns in modern games, with the exact turn count rolled at the moment Sleep is inflicted and hidden from both players. The only actions available to a sleeping Pokémon are the handful of moves specifically designed to function while asleep, such as Snore (which only works if the user is asleep) or Sleep Talk (which randomly executes one of the user's other known moves without the user waking up to use it directly).
Freeze
A frozen Pokémon cannot act at all until it thaws, and thawing is checked with a small random chance each turn rather than on a fixed timer, meaning Freeze can — rarely — last only a single turn or drag on considerably longer. Certain Fire-type moves used against a frozen target guarantee an instant thaw as a side effect of landing the hit, giving Freeze a specific offensive counterplay that other full-lockout statuses don't share in quite the same way.
Frostbite: The Newer Status That Isn't Freeze
Frostbite was introduced as a mechanically distinct status alongside Legends: Arceus and carried into later titles, and it should not be treated as a reskin of classic Freeze — Frostbite does not prevent the holder from acting at all. Instead it functions closer to Burn's structure but on the special side: it deals residual per-turn HP damage and specifically halves the holder's Special Attack for as long as the status persists, leaving Physical attacks and the ability to act each turn untouched. The two statuses now coexist as separate mechanics depending on the specific game and move used to inflict them, so 'frozen solid, unable to move' and 'Frostbitten, weakened special attacker' describe two different conditions rather than two names for the same thing.
Confusion: Not a Status, But Always Discussed Like One
Confusion is tracked and cured separately from the game's major status conditions (it can coexist with Burn, Paralysis, or any of the others simultaneously, unlike Burn and Paralysis which are mutually exclusive with each other), but it functions similarly enough in practice that it's almost always covered in the same breath. A confused Pokémon has a fixed chance, historically 33%, of hitting itself in confusion instead of executing the move the player selected, dealing typeless physical damage calculated from the user's own Attack and Defense stats rather than the move that was actually chosen. Confusion wears off after a randomly determined number of turns, similar in structure to Sleep's hidden duration, and unlike Sleep it can also be inflicted by a Pokémon attacking into certain moves (Substitute doesn't block it the way it blocks some other status-inflicting moves, since confusion-inducing moves specifically target the Pokémon itself in some interactions) — the combination of a random duration and a random per-turn failure chance makes confusion one of the more swingy disruption tools in the game despite technically not appearing on the same status list as Burn or Paralysis.
Infatuation and Attract
Attract inflicts Infatuation on a target of the opposite gender only — it fails outright against a genderless Pokémon or one sharing the same gender as the user, which makes gender itself a real defensive stat in any matchup where Attract-based strategies are common. Once inflicted, an infatuated Pokémon has a 50% chance each turn of being unable to act at all, identical in structure to Paralysis's full-turn-failure roll but without any accompanying Speed reduction. Infatuation clears automatically the moment either Pokémon involved switches out or faints, which makes it a purely tactical, in-the-moment disruption tool rather than a persistent one like Burn or Toxic, and it's specifically countered by the same typing-immunity logic that blocks other statuses only insofar as genderless Pokémon (most Legendaries, many Ultra Beasts) simply cannot be Attracted regardless of any other factor.
Flinching: A One-Turn Effect Tied to Priority
Flinching prevents the affected Pokémon from acting for exactly the turn it's inflicted on and does not persist beyond that single turn, which structurally separates it from every status covered above — there's no multi-turn duration to track and no residual damage component. The catch is that flinch-inducing secondary effects (Iron Head, Air Slash, Rock Slide's higher flinch rate at 30%, and the King's Rock/Razor Fang held items that graft a small flinch chance onto any otherwise-non-flinching move) only actually matter if the flinching Pokémon hasn't already moved that turn, which is why flinch strategies are built specifically around priority moves or a genuine Speed advantage — a slower Pokémon using a flinch move against a faster opponent that's already acted gets no benefit from the flinch chance at all, since there's no remaining turn left to prevent.
Rest: Trading a Full Heal for Guaranteed Sleep
Rest fully restores the user's HP and cures any existing status condition in the same instant, but the cost is that it inflicts a fixed two-turn Sleep on the user immediately afterward, sidestepping Sleep's usual randomized one-to-three-turn duration in exchange for a duration that's always exactly two turns, no better and no worse. That fixed, guaranteed downside is what separates Rest from a pure recovery move like Recover or Roost — a Rest user is a known, telegraphed non-threat for the two turns immediately following its use, which is why Rest sets are traditionally paired with Sleep Talk (letting the user act normally while asleep by randomly executing one of its other moves) to convert the forced Sleep from a total tempo loss into merely a randomized one, or with a Chesto Berry that cures the Sleep the instant it's inflicted, effectively turning Rest into a full heal with no downside at the cost of a single-use berry slot.
Toxic and the Escalating Poison
Regular Poison deals a flat 1/8 of the holder's maximum HP at the end of every turn, identical in size every turn it persists. Toxic (badly poisoned) instead starts smaller and escalates, increasing the damage dealt each successive turn the status remains active, making a long-lasting Toxic far more punishing over time than an equivalent-length regular Poison — which is why Toxic is the preferred status-stall tool for wearing down bulky Pokémon over many turns, while regular Poison is more of a flat, predictable damage source.
Facade: Turning Status Into a Weapon
Facade is a Normal-type move that doubles its own base power if the user is currently affected by a major status condition (Burn, Paralysis, Poison, or the classic Freeze/Sleep family, depending on generation-specific implementation), converting what looks like a defensive liability into an active offensive tool. Because Facade explicitly ignores Burn's usual Physical-damage halving when calculating its own boosted output in the generations where that interaction is defined, a burned Pokémon using Facade can end up dealing more damage than an unburned Pokémon using the same move — the exact reason Facade sets are deliberately paired with self-inflicted or accepted Burn rather than treating status as something to avoid.
Guts and Poison Heal: Abilities Built Around Being Statused
Guts boosts the holder's Attack stat while affected by any major status condition, and critically it also negates Burn's usual Physical-damage halving specifically for the Guts holder, meaning a Guts Pokémon that gets burned takes the residual chip damage but suffers none of the offensive penalty and gains a flat Attack boost on top — making Burn a net offensive positive rather than a liability for a Guts user. Poison Heal goes further for its specific holders (most notably the Gliscor line): instead of taking Poison or Toxic's residual damage at all, a Poison Heal Pokémon heals 1/8 of its maximum HP each turn while poisoned, converting a status that's normally a damage-over-time liability into a passive healing item-equivalent effect with no downside.
Typing Immunities: The Status That Can Never Land
Several type-status pairings are hard immunities baked into the type chart rather than resistances: Fire-types cannot be Burned under any circumstance, Electric-types cannot be Paralyzed, Ice-types cannot be Frozen or given Frostbite, and Poison- and Steel-types cannot be Poisoned or badly Poisoned. These immunities matter as much for team-building as for in-battle play — a team weak to a specific status-stall strategy can patch that weakness entirely by adding a Pokémon of the immune type to absorb the matchup, rather than relying on a cure item or move that only removes the status after it's already been inflicted.