Effort Values
Introduction to EVs
Effort Values (EVs for short) represent a huge part in raising a pokémon. If you're raising your pokémon not just to beat the Pokéleague but to beat your friends in competitive battling you must take advantage of everything you can and calculate carefully what to do. For example, if your Absol defeats two Pidgeot in battle it will earn 6, (3 for each) Speed Points. So, you've won against the Pidgeot and earned 6 Speed Points... what does that do? Absol's Speed stat growth will be higher so that when Absol reaches level 100 it will have 1 extra Speed stat because that's what happens for every four EVs you earn. The more Pideot (or any other Speed enhacing pokémon) you beat, the higher your Speed stat growth will be. I gave the example of Speed but it works the same for evey stat. Do you know what EVs are now? Good =D.
EVs and Natures
EVs depend mostly on you but no, you can't control everything: another decisive factor is the pokémon's nature. For example, if your Absol has a Hasty nature then it's OK for you to train it against pokémon that give it Speed Points because the Hasty nature raises the Speed in the pokémon. But if it has a Brave Nature then it would be more advisable to battle pokémon that would give you Attack Points like Machamp or Nidoking. Here is a chart with the relations between Natures and their respective EVs:
| Nature | Raises | Lowers |
| Adamant | Attack | Special Attack |
| Bashful | None | None |
| Bold | Defense | Attack |
| Brave | Attack | Speed |
| Calm | Special Defense | Attack |
| Careful | Special Defense | Special Attack |
| Docile | None | None |
| Gentle | Special Defense | Defense |
| Hardy | None | None |
| Hasty | Speed | Defense |
| Impish | Defense | Special Attack |
| Jolly | Speed | Special Attack |
| Lax | Defense | Special Defense |
| Lonely | Attack | Defense |
| Mild | Special Attack | Defense |
| Modest | Special Attack | Attack |
| Naive | Speed | Special Defense |
| Naughty | Attack | Special Defense |
| Quiet | Special Attack | Speed |
| Quirky | None | None |
| Rash | Special Attack | Special Defense |
| Relaxed | Defense | Speed |
| Sassy | Special Defense | Speed |
| Serious | None | None |
| Timid | Speed | Attack |
Other things that influence EVs
Level Up
Ever heard that a pokémon will grow stronger if it's raised by a trainer? Meaning that your Absol, trained to level 30 since it was still at level 5, is much better than an Absol you just caught at level 30 even though they're at the same level. What's the difference? Your Absol has EVs because you trained it yourself while the wild Absol doesn't. So if you want your pokémon to grow as strong as possible you should catch it at the lowest level you can.
Berries (Only works in Emmerald)
A pokémon can reach a maximum of 510 Effort Points so, if you don't want the stats the way they are, you can remove EVs thus enabling you room to fill other stats. For example, let's say your Absol's stats were like this:
| HP | 96 |
| Attack | 65 |
| Defense | 85 |
| Sp. Attack | 64 |
| Sp. Defense | 68 |
| Speed | 130 |
But you just noticed you don't need to have 85 Defense Points because you already have a Metagross in your team with very high Defense so you want to decrease it in order to increase another one but... you've maxed out your EVs. What you can do is give the pokémon a certain berry according to the stat you want to decrease.
| Berry | Decreases |
| Pomeg | HP |
| Kelpsy | Attack |
| Qualot | Defense |
| Hondew | Sp. Attack |
| Grepa | Sp. Defense |
| Tamato | Speed |
So you give the Absol some Qualot berries and now you can raise, for example, it's Special Attack. Got why the Berries may be useful?
Pokéblocks
Ever noticed that pokémon have different reactions depending on the pokéblock you give them? That they have preferences? That too has something to do with EVs:
| Stat raised by Nature | Pokéblock Flavour | Contest |
| Attack | Spicy | Cool |
| Defense | Sour | Tough |
| Sp. Attack | Dry | Beauty |
| Sp. Defense | Bitter | Smart |
| Speed | Sweet | Cute |
Macho Brace
The Macho Brace is an item given to you when you defeat the Winstrate family in that house just North of Mauville. Although it may have seemed useless and even bad because it downgrades the pokémon's speed in battle by half, it's not: it doubles the EVs that your pokémon gains in each battle. Instead of gaining 6 Speed Points after defeating those Pidgeot, your Absol would've won 12 if it was holding the Macho Brace.
Pokérus
The Pokérus virus, a disease that affects your pokémon's stats, also affects EVs. It has the same effect as the Macho Brace (except the Speed cut part) only it leaves the room to hold an item. If your Absol was infected with the pokérus and was holding the Macho Brace then instead of 6 or 12 Speed Points it would win 24! It's very useful, I know, but the chances are you're never even going to see a pokémon infected by the pokérus... it's very rare to get.
Vitamins
All those Vitamins you can get from the Energy Guru for 9800 pokédollars have a reason to be so expensive: they raise EVs by 10 points! Here's a chart about what raises what:
| Vitamin | Raises |
| HP UP | HP |
| Protein | Attack |
| Iron | Defense |
| Calcium | Sp. Attack |
| Zinc | Sp. Defense |
| Carbos | Speed |
However, there comes a time when you can't give any more Vitamins to your Absol. There are two possible reasons for this.
- Absol's stats are maxed out;
- You already gave it 10 of that kind of Vitamin.
Meaning: if your Absol's stats have reached a sum of 510, then it'll not accept the Vitamins. The same happens if the stat you're trying to raise has reached 255, wich is the maximum for each stat. Or, if you already gave your Absol, say, 10 Carbos, you've already raised it's Speed by 100 EVs and that is the most a Vitamin can raise in each stat. If you want your Absol's stats to be balanced then you can just give 10 Vitamins of each and 1 HP UP you would've maxed it's stats.
Rare Candies
Just if you were wondering: no, rare candies don't raise a pokémon's stats but don't decrease them also. Raising a pokémon from level 5 to 30 just by using rare candies will be the same as catching that pokémon at level 30, what seems like a complete waste of pokémoney to me...
Closing words
If you though pokémon was just for little kids I think you changed your mind now xD there's a lot more to it than just throwing pokéballs. I hope I made it clearer now but if there are still any doubts in your head feel free to
contact me. I'm always willing to help =D
