by I have decided to create a series of guides for all those who want to start in the Pokémon Competitive and have problems to enter this beautiful and at the same time somewhat complex world.
It is normal to feel overwhelmed by these things because although it seems incredible there is a lot of complexity behind the apparent simple combat system that Pokémon has and surely one day you have heard about IVs, breeding, EVs and this type of thing and you have been scared. The truth is that it is simpler than it seems, just when we start it can take a little backwards.
That is why I have decided to create this series in which I will explain in detail all those strange things related to competitive Pokémon. Today we will start with the EVs and IVs because in my opinion it is the most fundamental part that you need to understand, here we go!
WHAT ARE IVS?
As you may well know, all Pokémon have the following stats: HP, Attack, Special Attack, Defense, Special Defense, and Speed; these stats go up as you level up and all that.
Well, you see, you might think that if you capture 2 Slowpokes of the same level, they will have the same value in Attack, for example, right? Well no, in fact it is most likely not to be so and this is precisely due to the IV (Individual Values or Individual Values).
And it is that the game, every time a wild Pokémon appears, it will assign a random value to each of its statistics that will go from 0 to 31 ; The higher this number, the more stat points the Pokémon will get in that stat. Come on, ideally you should get a Pokémon that has 31 IVs in all its stats (it’s possible), or at least as high as you can, especially in the stats that interest you the most (see Speed and Attack in Cinderace ).
This does not apply to wild Pokémon, also to Pokémon that NPCs give you, those that hatch from an egg (which in this case is not so random because the child will get statistics from the parents)… in short, that all Pokémon you have under your belt, you’re going to have these IVs.
And in case you are wondering, how can you get your Pokémon to have all their IVs at 31… well that would be quite complicated because the method always changes a little in each game and there are several methods for it and the objective of this series it is that you understand all the concepts of the competitive, not a guide on how to apply them, that will also come one day for sure.
WHAT ARE EVS?
The EVs are the Effort Values or Effort Values, they are somewhat similar to the IV but they work in a totally different way. You see, when you catch or get a Pokémon and it has never battled, it has its EVs at 0. This again is something that applies to all stats in the game, each stat will have a certain amount of EVs.
With that clear, let’s move on. As your Pokémon defeats other Pokémon , it will gain EVs in different statistics until it reaches a maximum of 508 points in total; but… you can only have a maximum of 252 EVs in a single stat. The normal thing is to put 252 in 2 different stats and the 4 that are left over in another, but by proxy you can do what you want. To give an example, in an Alakazam the normal thing would be to put 252 EVs in Special Attack, 252 in Speed (because you want it to be as fast and powerful as possible) and the 4 that are left over (which will not spread much but well) you could put them in Special Defense (which in physics is very bad and will not be too noticeable either).
How do you get the specific EVs you want on your Pokémon? Well, again it’s a fairly complex topic that doesn’t intend to be dealt with here, but I’ll summarize a bit for you (again depending on the game the method changes, it’s just that it’s a chicken).
Certain Pokémon give you certain EVs when you defeat them, for example, Slowpokes could give you 2 Special Defense points in EVs (I made that up huh). Then there are other methods like using those items like Proteins and so on, what actually raises you are the EVs, it’s not magic. You can also use objects that make you get more EVs… there are many things to capture it here; so that said, one day we will go deeper into how to get the perfect Pokémon and so on, for now we will only deal with all the concepts so that later it is easier to explain everything else and you can understand it better (and so that there is not a post 30,000 words too).
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IVS AND EVS?
If you have read all the previous paragraphs, it will surely be very clear to you, but just in case I will clarify the differences here (and also for the typical one who reads in speerdun mode).
The main difference between IVs and EVs is that while IVs are values in the statistics that the Pokémon acquires at birth (we could say that they are the Pokémon’s genes to give it a meaning closer to our reality) while EVs are the extra stats that the Pokémon gains through the effort of its training. The IVs are from birth, the EVs are obtained by training .
