Pokemon X and Y [3DS] - Page 74

You may have noticed throughout regular play that not all Pokemon are the same in terms of their stats. Indeed, there are NPCs in every game that will inform you that two Pokemon of the same species can have better or worse stats. This stat variance is the result of hidden values for each Pokemon called Individual Values.

Imagine each Pokemon's stat for a moment; HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed. Every time you encounter a Pokemon in the wild, or hatch one from an Egg, a random number is assigned to each of their stats, from 0 to 31. This number is your IV in that particular Pokemon's stat, and it determines the maximum stat gain it can possibly achieve in that stat. For instance, say I have a Pikachu with a 0 IV in its Special Attack, and my friend Bill has a Pikachu with a 31 IV in Special Attack. In this scenario, at level 100, Bill's Pikachu will have 31 extra points in Special Attack than my own Pikachu. In that sense, it will ALWAYS be better in Special Attack than my Pikachu, since IVs are set in stone and cannot ever be changed. Therefore, in a competitive environment, it is virtually required (with several notable exceptions) to have the best possible IVs you can have; in fact, when battling in a competitive environment, strategies and teams are built on the assumption that you will have perfect IVs for every Pokemon in your party, or at least very close to it.

As stated before, IVs are hidden values not normally displayed in the game for every player to see. However, upon defeating the Elite Four and the Champion, a new city can be accessed through the train station in Lumiose City. A man in the Pokemon Center of that city will "judge" your Pokemon and give a rough overview of its IVs. For a much more precise look at a given Pokemon's IVs, the use of an IV calculator is highly recommended (the most popular and accurate being MetalKid's calculator).

Note that while IVs are generated upon encountering or hatching a Pokemon and can never be changed, breeding makes it significantly easier to produce a Pokemon with good IVs, since certain breeding techniques exist that allow the IVs of each parent to be passed down to the child. This allows for the offspring to obtain good IVs quickly and with more control than simply wandering around in tall grass and hoping for the best.

Summary: IVs, or Individual Values, are values ranging from 0 to 31 that are applied to each stat of a newly encountered or hatched Pokemon. These values will determine the maximum possible stat total one can achieve for that Pokemon; a Pokemon with a Special Attack IV of 31, for example, will have 31 more Special Attack points at level 100 than that same Pokemon with a 0 IV in Special Attack. IVs cannot be changed or altered in any way, but can be passed down during breeding to make it easier to achieve a Pokemon with great IVs. While they are hidden values that are normally inaccessible to players, the use of the man in Kiloude City's Pokemon Center or an application like MetalKid's IV Calculator can give a rough or precise judgment, respectively, of a Pokemon's IVs.

Effort Values are the second means of determining stat variance in Pokemon, and are slightly more complicated. You may have noticed playing through Pokemon that there is usually an NPC that tells you a trained Pokemon is more powerful than a wild Pokemon. This is true, and is due to Effort Values, or EVs.

Like IVs, EVs are allocated to particular stats; however, they are not set in stone upon encountering or hatching a Pokemon. Instead, every Pokemon starts with 0 EVs, and has a maximum capacity of 510 EVs, with up to 255 EVs maximum in a particular stat. Every 4 EVs acquired boosts that stat by one point. Therefore, EVs are capable of being changed, unlike IVs, and are in fact highly customizable. My Pikachu may have EVs invested into its Attack to hit for more damage on the physical side, while Bill's Pikachu may have invested into Special Attack to hit harder on the special side.

Now, how does one actually gain EVs? Several options are available; the most common way to gain EVs in stats is to battle other Pokemon. Every Pokemon in the game has a different "EV yield" that determines how many EVs they provide, and to which stat they will be given, when they are defeated in battle. These EV yields are almost always tied to that Pokemon's specialty in combat. For example, Alakazam is known as a formidable special attacker. When Bill uses Pikachu to defeat an Alakazam in a battle, his Pikachu will gain Special Attack EVs as a result. Selectively battling only the Pokemon that grant the EVs you desire for your own Pokemon is known as EV training, and is key to obtaining the most optimal stats.

Of course, it's not possible to keep gaining EVs forever and create a super Pokemon that has 999 in all stats. As I said before, a Pokemon can only have 510 total EVs, and each stat can only have a maximum of 255 EVs. Therefore, a very rudimentary way to EV train is to place 255 EVs in two stats that your Pokemon can make the most use of. For instance, I have a Jolteon that I want to EV train. Jolteon's two key attributes are its potent Special Attack and its high Speed. To capitalize on those advantages and optimize its strengths in battle, I may wish to EV train Jolteon to have 255 EVs in both Special Attack and Speed. That way, it can hit as hard and as fast as possible.

While acquiring EVs through battles is the most common method of EV training, there exist two other means. The first is to use vitamins. You may have collected HP Up, Protein, Carbos, and similar items during your gameplay; these items actually increase the EVs of a Pokemon by 10 in that stat. If you want to speed up EV training, it's often a good idea to use vitamins to give a substantial boost. Jolteon would make good use of Carbos, for example, since Carbos will boost a Pokemon's Speed EVs by 10 per use. Vitamins have a downside, however: they cannot be used if a Pokemon has 100 or more EVs in the stat the vitamin attempts to increase. Therefore, I may want to use ten Carbos to boost my Jolteon's Speed from 0 to 100 EVs, then manually EV train in Speed until it hits 255 (or whatever my desired Speed EV total is).

The second alternative to battling is to use the new Super Training mechanic in X and Y. Super Training is Game Freak's way of introducing how EVs work to the average Pokemon player in a casual way. I suspect, actually, that Super Training will be the default way to EV train from now on, since battling to EV train requires you to hunt down certain Pokemon for their EVs, and Super Training can be done at any time for any Pokemon. A tutorial is provided for the player upon first starting Super Training, so I won't go into specifics here, but I predict Super Training will be the easiest way to both EV train and keep track of the EVs you've gained. This second point is important to note, because before X and Y, the only way to know your Pokemon's EVs was to keep track manually, so having Super Training to give you a guide is very helpful.