EVs
EVs are stat determinants that factor into the outgrowth of your Pokémons' Stats. They are supplemental stat variables that can be altered, modified or enhanced in certain ways.
EVs are one of the only two dynamic stat variables that factor into your Pokémons' Stats; Along with IVs, they are contributory differential in your Pokémons' Stats. However, due to the relatively weighty difference IVs can make in a Pokémons' Stats, players conventionally consider them more instrumental than EVs in appraising the value of a Pokémon of its species.
Meanwhile EVs serve as auxiliary values to compensate the bad IVs for players who do not possess good IVs Pokémon. Yet since players can distribute EVs as they like and since categories have the same maximum effective EVs, IVs are still the major factor that conduces comparatively better or worse Stats for a particular Pokémon in top battles.
Contents
Definitive Overview
EVs stand for effort values. All 6 EVs of a Pokémons' Stats start at 0. EVs are used to compensate the bad IVs or further enhance the good IVs of a Pokémon. The maximum EVs for each Pokémon is 510 while the maximum effective EVs for each of the categories are 252.
- HP (HP) Shows the amount of health your Pokémon has.
- Attack (ATK) Shows the power your Pokemon deals using physical moves.
- Defense (DEF) Shows the resistance your Pokémon has against physical moves.
- Special Attack (SPATK) Shows the power your Pokémon deals using special moves.
- Special Defense (SPDEF) Shows the resistance your Pokémon has against special moves.
- Speed (SPD) Shows how fast your Pokémon is, and based on that decides which Pokémon attacks first in battle.
Stats Determination
- Main Article: Stats
At level 100, 1 point will be added to one of the stats whenever every 4 EVs are added to the respective stats category. The total additive points are rounded down when the EVs are not divisible by 4. This means that a Pokémon can have at most a total of 127 additive points and 63 additive points for each category. 2 EVs are useless since the total additive points are rounded down. Thus most players make their Pokémons' EVs a multiple of 4 to gain the maximum benefit of the EVs.
Checking your Pokémons' EVs
In-game
EVs are primarily and predominantly inspected in-game, wherein they are much more readily checkable. In addition to the comparative convenience of checking in-game, EVs are more definitively checked; you will be able to check the single, definite EV of your Pokémon in-game, as it's stored in the database.
User Interface
Your Pokémons' EVs will be displayed on any hover-overs of your mouse cursor on them, on your HUD or in the PC storage system. A EV number will turn red when its category has reached the maximum effective EVs. All EV numbers will turn red when the Pokémon has obtained the maximum EVs.
EV Advertisement Hotlink
You may hotlink your Pokémon by shift-clicking them on the HUD, which will encode a link into the chat of its name; clicking on this link will retrieve information of the Pokémon, displaying its EVs. For an example of how the link will appear in the channel, refer to the right-hand pictorial explanation.
Alternatively, you may also hotlink your Pokémon via typing out the link, encapsulating the Pokémon's name in brackets—[Poke#], replacing # with the Pokémon's positional number in your party. For example, if Mamoswine was in the 4th slot of your party, you would type [Poke4] in order to hotlink it into a clickable link on the chat.
EV Commands
A subset of commands exists to allow you to inspect your Pokémons' EVs. Yet this method has never gained popularity due to its inconvenience compared to the high viewability of Pokémons' EVs on the interface.
Trading
When trading with another player, your Pokémons' EVs and the EVs of the Pokémon on your trader's offer can also be seen in the trade window, when your mouse cursor hovers over the image or the name of the Pokémon.
Outside the Game
Since the EVs of your Pokémon are stored in the database, players are only able to check them on web pages that have access to the database, which is the official website of PWO only.
Playerdex
The Playerdex feature allows players to access the PWO database. Players can check their Pokémons' EVs after logging in to their accounts.
Modification of EVs
Obtention of EVs
Pokémon by EV Yield
- Main Article: List of Pokémon by effort value yield
When a Pokémon is defeated in battle, it will give EV(s) to the Pokémon that participated in the battle against it. The category(ies) of EV(s) a Pokémon gives depend(s) on the base stats of it. The category(ies) of EV(s) is(are) the same as the category(ies) where the Pokémon has the highest base stats. For multiple highest base stats, EVs of all categories will be enhanced. Yet the distribution is unknown but players may take 3rd-party websites as references.
Meanwhile, by statistical observation, there are some hypothetical rules on EV yield. For the final evolution of legendary Pokémon, they all give 3 EVs in total. For all non-legendary Pokémon, the total EVs they give equals to their stages of evolution. For legendary Pokémon that undergo evolution and all non-legendary Pokémon, their first forms give 1 EV in total.
Items
Besides defeating Pokémon, items such as vitamins or wings can give EVs of a single category. Vitamins are purchasable in major department stores, while wings are exchangeable at the Battle Tower.
EV-enhancing items can also be used during training. EV-enhancing items are items which enhance the effort values gained when a Pokémon is defeated. All of them halve the Speed of the Pokémon holding them in battle while they are being held.
Reduction of EVs
Berries
- Main Article: Berries
Most players pay no attention to EVs on their first play through. Sooner when they realize, their EVs are already distributed in an ugly way. This is when berries can help. Berries reduce the existing EVs of a single category. They are obtainable on the berry trees in Kanto Safari Zone or Johto Safari Zone and randomly dropped by Pokémon in the safari.
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