Pokémon Effort Values (EVs)

Whenever your Pokémon wins a battle, it earns experience points and also a few Effort Values, usually called EVs. These are hidden numbers tracked separately for each stat (HP, Attack and so on). Every Pokémon you defeat hands out EVs in one or more stats.

The stat it rewards normally matches that Pokémon's strongest one. Beating a Geodude earns one Defense EV, while beating a Gengar earns three Special Attack EVs. The "Pokémon by EV yield" section below lists who gives what.

Freshly hatched eggs and wild Pokémon start with zero EVs, no matter their level, so they are a blank slate for training. Once a Pokémon has gained any experience from battling, it has picked up some EVs along the way.

Every 4 EVs in a stat add 1 point to that stat once the Pokémon reaches level 100. At low levels you might not see the points straight away, but a high-level Pokémon will show a big jump in the matching stats when it levels up.

A Pokémon can hold at most 510 EVs in total, and no more than 255 in any single stat. Because 4 EVs make one point, 252 is the useful cap for a stat (63 points), and the last 3 EVs would be wasted. There is no way to check your exact count, so in practice many trainers just fill a stat and accept losing a point or two.

In Diamond, Pearl and Platinum, once a Pokémon hits 510 EVs you can get an Effort Ribbon from the woman in the Sunyshore City market. That is a handy signal to stop if you lost track of your totals.

Defeating 252 Bidoof to max out HP would be tedious. Several items speed things up.

Vitamins

Vitamins are sold at the big department store in each game (Veilstone, Lilycove, Goldenrod or Celadon) and add 10 EVs to their stat. Other items and Pokérus do not affect them.

You can use at most 10 per stat, and they only work while the stat is below 100 EVs. If a Pokémon already has 90 Attack EVs from battling, only one Protein will take effect, not ten. Each one costs $9,800 in shops, or 1 BP (Battle Point) at the Battle Park.

• HP UpHP
• ProteinAttack
• IronDefense
• CalciumSp. Attack
• ZincSp. Defense
• CarbosSpeed

Wings

Wings arrived in Black and White and add 1 EV to their stat. Unlike vitamins they have no 100 EV limit, so they work all the way up to 255 if needed.

• Health WingHP
• Muscle WingAttack
• Resist WingDefense
• Genius WingSp. Attack
• Clever WingSp. Defense
• Swift WingSpeed

Macho Brace

The Macho Brace halves your Pokémon's speed in battle while it is held, but doubles the EVs it earns. A Starly normally gives 1 Speed EV, and with the brace equipped that becomes 2.

Power items

Power items are held items that add 4 EVs in one particular stat after each battle. They cost 16 BP at the Battle Park.

• Power WeightHP
• Power BracerAttack
• Power BeltDefense
• Power LensSp. Attack
• Power BandSp. Defense
• Power AnkletSpeed

A Squirtle normally gives 1 Defense EV. With a Power Belt that jumps to 5. With a Power Band instead, you get 1 Defense EV plus 4 Special Defense EVs.

Exp. Share

Because any Pokémon that gains experience also gains EVs, the Exp. Share lets a holder collect EVs without fighting. It receives the same base EVs as the Pokémon that battled. It benefits from its own Pokérus, but not from the battling Pokémon's items or Pokérus.

Pokérus

Pokérus is not an item but a harmless virus that helps you. Catching it is rare and out of your control. If one of your Pokémon gets infected, the nurse at the Pokémon Center will tell you and a purple PKRS mark appears on its summary screen.

It passes to other party members as they battle, and fades after a Pokémon has been in your party for around 24 hours. Pokémon kept in the PC stay infected indefinitely.

Infected Pokémon earn double EVs, applied after all item bonuses. The effect stays even after the virus is gone, and recovered Pokémon show a smiley face on their summary screen.

Take Luxio, which gives 2 Attack EVs. With Pokérus that becomes 4, and with a Macho Brace on top it becomes 8. If the Pokémon is holding a Power Weight, the base 4 HP and 2 Attack EVs double to 8 HP and 4 Attack with Pokérus. And with a Power Bracer you would collect a hefty 12 EVs from a single battle.

A set of berries lowers a Pokémon's EVs. They are useful if you miscounted or want to change how its EVs are spread.

• #21Pomeg BerryHP
• #22Kelpsy BerryAttack
• #23Qualot BerryDefense
• #24Hondew BerrySp. Attack
• #25Grepa BerrySp. Defense
• #26Tamato BerrySpeed

If a stat is above 100 EVs, the first berry brings it down to 100 and each extra berry removes 10 more. Wiping a maxed-out stat completely therefore takes 11 berries.

Pick a stat to see every Pokémon that gives EVs in it, how many it gives, and which other stats it trains at the same time.

• HP EVs152 Pokémon
• Attack EVs362 Pokémon
• Defense EVs197 Pokémon
• Sp. Atk EVs254 Pokémon
• Sp. Def EVs147 Pokémon
• Speed EVs246 Pokémon

Start young

You can often finish a Pokémon's EVs by around level 20. That leaves it free for the rest of the game, and it will already be stronger than normal.

Hang on to Pokérus

If you catch Pokérus, keep a few infected Pokémon in the PC so you can pass it to future Pokémon you plan to train.

Use vitamins early

If you plan to use vitamins, do it right away, since they only work on the first 100 EVs.

Keep count

It is easy to lose track, so write your running total down. In Diamond, Pearl and Platinum the Pokétch Counter app can help, but the Pokétch resets when you turn the game off, so note the number before you quit.

Count with move PP

In some situations you can count with a move's PP. This works when your Pokémon can knock out every opponent in one hit and they all give the same EVs. Say you are defeating Bidoof for HP EVs with Brick Break, which has 30 PP. Keep going until the PP is gone and you know you earned 30 EVs.

Spread EVs out a little

Plenty of guides say to max two stats (say Attack and Speed) and ignore the rest, but that can leave holes. Unless you are something like Jolteon or Accelgor, you cannot outspeed everything, and you do not need to. Put in just enough Speed EVs to beat your main rival and save the rest for other stats.

Maximize HP × Defense and HP × Sp. Def

The damage a Pokémon takes depends on the product of its HP and the relevant defensive stat. For defensive spreads, that means putting more EVs into whichever of the two is lower. Snorlax has huge HP but only so-so Defense, so extra Defense EVs make it sturdier than extra HP EVs would.

The best training spots differ between games, and each stat has its own favorite places. Pick a stat below to open the list of Pokémon that give it, then check each Pokémon's page to see where to find it in the game you are playing.

• HP training
• Attack training
• Defense training
• Sp. Atk training
• Sp. Def training
• Speed training

Generation 3 (Ruby and Sapphire) completely reworked EVs. Before that, defeating a Pokémon gave you EVs equal to its own stats. A Dragonite, for example, gave 91 EVs in HP, 134 in Attack and so on.

A Pokémon could collect up to 65,536 EVs in every stat (HP, Attack, Defense, Special and Speed). That meant you did not need to train deliberately, since you would usually max everything by level 100.

The bonus points from EVs equaled the square root of the EVs divided by 4, so the most you could gain was about 63 points, roughly the same as in modern games.