Post by Admin Electrode on Oct 17, 2013 19:00:53 GMT -8
What is an "EV"?
EV sts for “Effort Value.” They determine what stats your Pokémon gets upon levelling up are gained from battling any Pokémon you come across that award Experience points. For example;
Beating a Patrat would give all Pokémon that participated in the battle +1 Effort Value to Attack.
Beating a Frillish would give all Pokémon that participated in the battle +1 Effort Value to Sp. Defence.
At the bottom of this page you'll find a list of good places to EV train specific stats in Pokémon Black White. But for the meantime lets look at the mechanics some more.
How do EVs affect stats?
For every 4 EVs you gain in a specific stat, you'll gain +1 to your Pokemon's base value in that stat. What this basically means is that if you battle 4 Patrat with your Tepig, Tepig will then gain +1 to its attack stat (because each Patrat gives +1 EV in the attack stat).
EVs are calculated at +1 Stat point per 4 EVs at level 100, which means you won't see the full benefit of the EVs you put into your Pokémon until it reaches that level; there will still be a benefit, just not as significant as when it reaches the maximum level.
Is there a limit to the amount of EVs I can give my Pokémon?
Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately) there are two limits to the amount of EVs a Pokémon can gain.
Each Pokemon can have a maximum of 510 EVs.
One stat can have a maximum of 255 EVs.
This equates to +63 to the affected stat of a Pokémon (at level 100), if you maxed out EVs in that stat. So if we take Tepig then battle 255 Patrat, we'd be giving it +255 EVs in Attack, then Tepig will gain a +63 increase to its current attack stat.
The more mathematically minded of you may be noticing that this doesn't actually add up. The number 4 doesn't go into 255, so 3 of the EV points have gone to waste. You'd be exactly right. The optimum number of EVs to put into any stat is therefore 252. This is explored in a bit more detail later.
When is the best time to start EV training a Pokémon?
The best time to start EV training is as soon as you get that Pokémon, either through breeding or catching it. As soon as that Pokémon participates in a battle in which it gains experience, it will have gained some EVs.
If you were to breed a Pokémon you probably won't be able to battle with it right away, due to it only being Level 1. This is where the Exp. Share item becomes extremely useful. Unlike experience, EVs are not divided up between the Pokémon that gain experience from a battle.
Using our Tepig again, lets say she is currently level 1 you wanted to give her some Attack EVs. Unfortunately Tepig isn't really capable of beating a Patrat just yet. Put Exp. Share on Tepig battle with another Pokémon, so that Tepig still gets experience as a result will also get the EVs from that Pokémon.
In simplistic terms, if a Pokémon gains experience from a battle, regardless of the way in which that experience was awarded, it will receive all EVs it could gain from that battle.
This all seems like a lot of work, so what's the benefit?
The best way to show you the benefits is an example, which I'll take from my own Volcarona. One has been fully EV trained. The other has not been EV trained in any particular way, as I used it in my party for my main play through of the game. See if you can guess which one is which.
Volcarona #1 Volcarona #2
Level 60 74
HP 182 240
Attack 72 122
Defence 87 120
Sp. Attack 209 233
Sp. Defence 134 157
Speed 194 205
If you guessed that Volcarona #1 is the one that has been properly EV trained, you'd be absolutely right. I put 252 EVs into Special Attack, 252 EVs into Speed, 4 EVs into HP. The difference is most notable in the Speed stat; even though it is 14 levels below #2, Volcarona #1 is only 11 points behind.
The benefits of EV training allow you to tailor your Pokémon to specific needs for your team. Volcarona here excels at being a fast, hard hitting Special Attacker Pokémon so it's sensible to put those kind of EVs into it; the result is that its stats are far better than what they would ordinarily be if I had just trained Volcarona in a non-EV Specific manner.
The Advanced Stuff.
Now that we have a better understing of what an Effort Value is, why they are beneficial it's time to look into some of the more in depth aspects of this part of Pokemon training; who knew it was so intricate?
The rule of 252.
I mentioned above that it's pointless to put anymore than 252 EVs into a stat. I'm going to lay down the mathematical reasons for this here.
Each stat is given +1 for every 4 EVs you put into it. The maximum amount of EVs you can give a stat is 255.
255 / 4 = 63.75
Obviously a stat can't have .75 added to it, so this is rounded off by the game down to 63, which is the same addition you'd get from 252 EVs. Therefore you're wasting 3 EVs if you put anymore than 252 into any one stat. Simple right? Okay, now lets apply this to the fact you can have 510 EVs on a single Pokemon.
510 / 4 = 127.5
Because the maximum amount a stat can be added to is 63, you end up with 1.5 of a possible stat left over. Again, .5 of a stat doesn't exist in the game so this is rounded down to 1 being left over. Therefore no matter what you do 2 of your 510 of EVs are going to be wasted. If we look at my Volcarona again you'll notice it has 252/252/4, equivalent to 508 effective EVs.
With all this in mind we can say in simple terms; Don't put more than 252 EVs into any stat.
I DO NOT OWN THIS, ALL CREDIT GOES TO www.serebii.net/
EV sts for “Effort Value.” They determine what stats your Pokémon gets upon levelling up are gained from battling any Pokémon you come across that award Experience points. For example;
Beating a Patrat would give all Pokémon that participated in the battle +1 Effort Value to Attack.
Beating a Frillish would give all Pokémon that participated in the battle +1 Effort Value to Sp. Defence.
At the bottom of this page you'll find a list of good places to EV train specific stats in Pokémon Black White. But for the meantime lets look at the mechanics some more.
How do EVs affect stats?
For every 4 EVs you gain in a specific stat, you'll gain +1 to your Pokemon's base value in that stat. What this basically means is that if you battle 4 Patrat with your Tepig, Tepig will then gain +1 to its attack stat (because each Patrat gives +1 EV in the attack stat).
EVs are calculated at +1 Stat point per 4 EVs at level 100, which means you won't see the full benefit of the EVs you put into your Pokémon until it reaches that level; there will still be a benefit, just not as significant as when it reaches the maximum level.
Is there a limit to the amount of EVs I can give my Pokémon?
Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately) there are two limits to the amount of EVs a Pokémon can gain.
Each Pokemon can have a maximum of 510 EVs.
One stat can have a maximum of 255 EVs.
This equates to +63 to the affected stat of a Pokémon (at level 100), if you maxed out EVs in that stat. So if we take Tepig then battle 255 Patrat, we'd be giving it +255 EVs in Attack, then Tepig will gain a +63 increase to its current attack stat.
The more mathematically minded of you may be noticing that this doesn't actually add up. The number 4 doesn't go into 255, so 3 of the EV points have gone to waste. You'd be exactly right. The optimum number of EVs to put into any stat is therefore 252. This is explored in a bit more detail later.
When is the best time to start EV training a Pokémon?
The best time to start EV training is as soon as you get that Pokémon, either through breeding or catching it. As soon as that Pokémon participates in a battle in which it gains experience, it will have gained some EVs.
If you were to breed a Pokémon you probably won't be able to battle with it right away, due to it only being Level 1. This is where the Exp. Share item becomes extremely useful. Unlike experience, EVs are not divided up between the Pokémon that gain experience from a battle.
Using our Tepig again, lets say she is currently level 1 you wanted to give her some Attack EVs. Unfortunately Tepig isn't really capable of beating a Patrat just yet. Put Exp. Share on Tepig battle with another Pokémon, so that Tepig still gets experience as a result will also get the EVs from that Pokémon.
In simplistic terms, if a Pokémon gains experience from a battle, regardless of the way in which that experience was awarded, it will receive all EVs it could gain from that battle.
This all seems like a lot of work, so what's the benefit?
The best way to show you the benefits is an example, which I'll take from my own Volcarona. One has been fully EV trained. The other has not been EV trained in any particular way, as I used it in my party for my main play through of the game. See if you can guess which one is which.
Volcarona #1 Volcarona #2
Level 60 74
HP 182 240
Attack 72 122
Defence 87 120
Sp. Attack 209 233
Sp. Defence 134 157
Speed 194 205
If you guessed that Volcarona #1 is the one that has been properly EV trained, you'd be absolutely right. I put 252 EVs into Special Attack, 252 EVs into Speed, 4 EVs into HP. The difference is most notable in the Speed stat; even though it is 14 levels below #2, Volcarona #1 is only 11 points behind.
The benefits of EV training allow you to tailor your Pokémon to specific needs for your team. Volcarona here excels at being a fast, hard hitting Special Attacker Pokémon so it's sensible to put those kind of EVs into it; the result is that its stats are far better than what they would ordinarily be if I had just trained Volcarona in a non-EV Specific manner.
The Advanced Stuff.
Now that we have a better understing of what an Effort Value is, why they are beneficial it's time to look into some of the more in depth aspects of this part of Pokemon training; who knew it was so intricate?
The rule of 252.
I mentioned above that it's pointless to put anymore than 252 EVs into a stat. I'm going to lay down the mathematical reasons for this here.
Each stat is given +1 for every 4 EVs you put into it. The maximum amount of EVs you can give a stat is 255.
255 / 4 = 63.75
Obviously a stat can't have .75 added to it, so this is rounded off by the game down to 63, which is the same addition you'd get from 252 EVs. Therefore you're wasting 3 EVs if you put anymore than 252 into any one stat. Simple right? Okay, now lets apply this to the fact you can have 510 EVs on a single Pokemon.
510 / 4 = 127.5
Because the maximum amount a stat can be added to is 63, you end up with 1.5 of a possible stat left over. Again, .5 of a stat doesn't exist in the game so this is rounded down to 1 being left over. Therefore no matter what you do 2 of your 510 of EVs are going to be wasted. If we look at my Volcarona again you'll notice it has 252/252/4, equivalent to 508 effective EVs.
With all this in mind we can say in simple terms; Don't put more than 252 EVs into any stat.
I DO NOT OWN THIS, ALL CREDIT GOES TO www.serebii.net/