To be fair, if you kinda squint your eyes and the planets align just right, Luvdisc is almost, kinda, sorta useable…
No, I’m sorry, I tried to keep a straight face while typing that, but I couldn’t do it… Luvdisc is ass.
Was this posted here already?
It’s fan art but, I can see this as a real evolution.
I’d prefer they leave Sarcophagus Pokemon alone. He’s cool enough as is.
It’s made of GOLD.
Anyway I’m going to put the post on Effort and Individual Values up in a Word Document first so I can work on it throughout the day. I’d expect it up…I’d say in about 3 hours.
EV part of my post completed. Long winded but not too bad in the end.
IVs being made now…this won’t be pleasant to explain. Anyway my timetable moved up. I’d say give me a half hour.
EDIT: Or better yet, let’s get on the next page so the post isn’t buried.
Kudos to Saitsu for taking the time to write up the inevitable long ass explanation on EVs/IVs and all the min/maxing they encompass.
Just remember that when it comes to IVs the most important stat is Speed… You can get by without the others being maxed out, but you’re making it harder on yourself.
Was just looking at base stats for houndoom. He seems decent at best except for the horrible weakness deficit and extremely horrible defense. Dat special attack tho! But one other questiin about base stats. Do they change based on the way the pokemon was raised, like either through rare candy usage, if they were bred or raised in the pokemon day care?
The base stats, which you can see in places like Smogon, are just as the name implies; the base stats ignoring level, EVs and IVs. It’s basically what you can use to determine what you’d use the Pokemon for (to an extent, there are other factors such as abilities and movepool), or what EV spread you’d want to use (which I’m sure Saitsu will cover in his EV/IV post).
Rare candies and the day care have no affect on the stats themselves, or EVs/IVs. They just help you level up faster.
You don’t know the half of it…I’m already half way through Page 3 on my Word Processor and I remembered I have to add Natures to the discussion…
Alright, this will be a long and wordy post so bear with me because this will get confusing.
Effort Values:
To first explain Effort Values, I’ll first explain a bit more on Pokemon Stats. As we’ve already covered, base stats form the basis and essence on the strength of a Pokemon. As some of you may have asked, what does this make the stats you see in game? Well they’re what the base stats turn into after leveling and such. While Base Stats are how you compare Pokemon initially (for example, 125 Base Attack is always better than 115 Base Attack) the final stats are also very important as that will ultimately determine Pokemon strength.
Now the question becomes, can Pokemon with the same base stats have different end stats? The answer is yes. And that’s where Effort Values (and Individual Values but that’s later) come in. Also, in learning this you’ll understand why Pokemon in essence become weaker when leveling up using Rare Candies.
When a Pokemon defeats an enemy Pokemon, you gain experience (this you know). However, you also gain something else. When you defeat certain Pokemon, you also gain a certain amount of points to one of your 6 stats. For example, defeating a Bulbasaur will grant you one point towards Special Attack. That point is an Effort Value. Four EVs (four points) towards one stat will equal one legitimate point in that stat. So say your Pokemon has an end stat of 300. If it gained four EVs towards HP, its end stat will now be 301.
So essentially, Effort Values are a way to customize your Pokemon to your preference. Though usually, EV’s will be used to boost your best stats. Now, there are a few rules to keep in mind for EV’s.
- The maximum amount of EV’s a Pokemon is allowed to gain is 510.
- The Maximum Amount of EV’s a Pokemon is allowed in one stat is 255.
- As it’s already been said, 4 EV’s = 1 Stat Point.
So here’s where we use a little math. If you haven’t noticed, in the end if you divide 510 by 4, you’re left with a remainder of 2 worthless EV’s. Nothing can be done about that, sorry. Also, the maximum amount of EV’s you can use for one stat in reality is 252. Going all the way to 255 would actually waste 3 EV’s. So in the end, here’s what will happen. You are allowed to max 2 stats, and add an extra Stat point to a third. Or you can spread them out.
Now, to use more math, a full 252 EV’s in one stat will add up to 63 Stat Points in the end. So let’s bring up that Health value again. If a Pokemon’s end stat in HP is 300, if you max out the HP EV’s, the end stat will now become 363. A very big increase. And now you see the importance.
And this is why Pokemon who use Rare Candies to level up become weaker. Because they’re leveling up without as much battling experience and thus less Effort Values gained and thus weaker stats. Cultivating EV’s is a painstaking task, only really accomplished by breeding Pokes and starting from Level 1 and on top of that, you can’t visibly see the Evs. Until Gen 6 where now we’ll have visible Evs and EV training.
As for what EV’s mean for you? It’s used again, to customize your pokemon. Usually, this will be done by maxing out your stats of preference and usually your best stats. Since Mienshao is the current topic, we’ll use him. Mienshao’s top two stats are Attack and Speed. Those are the stats you tend to want to increase in order to get maximum efficiency out of it to allow it to hit as hard as possible and move as quickly as possible. As for what to do with the last 4 EV’s that aren’t used on Attack and Speed? Up to you. I’d say Special Attack if you want coverage or Special Defense if you want to focus on Hi-Jump Kick and U-Turn but we’ll get to that later. But this is how Mienshao’s with those EV’s are written.
252 Atk/4 SpD/252 Spe
It goes in order of where the stats are (HP/Atk/Def/SpA/SpD/Spe). The numbers show the amount of EV’s used. And thus Mienshao will get a 63 point boost to Attack and Speed and a 1 Point boost to Special Defense. That should be a good run down on Effort Values.
Individual Values:
Alright, IV’s are a lot more annoying to explain, and yet aren’t nearly as important (or manageable) as IV’s unless you want to use Hidden Power. But let’s get this over with.
Individual Values have an easier explanation and summation than EV’s. In essence, they are genes. Like the genes for humans change different things like Eye Color and skin pigmentation, the Genes or IV’s of Pokemon change…well, stats as well and can also increase them like Effort Values.
UNLIKE Effort Values however…you cannot really change them directly. Like Genes, IV’s are given to a Pokemon when they are born and due to that…are the most absolutely frustrating thing to manage in this game, especially due to the fact that like EV’s, until Gen 6 there’s no visible way to truly manage it. The best you can do is in Gen 5 where there’s an NPC that will give you a rough estimate on how you’re doing. But let’s explain in a bit more detail without hopefully destroying your brain.
Each stat has an IV rating from 0-31 and each Pokemon when born can range anywhere in that number. A Pokemon that’s said to have Perfect IV’s have 31s in each stat. In short, you want to get each IV as close to 31 as you can get as it will increase the stat the higher the number is (I don’t know the exact formula and it isn’t as important). As it was said by other people, unless you’re using Battle Simulators (until Gen 6), it’s not worth the hassle to try and breed for Perfect IV’s as it will take forever and is a crapshoot. The best you can do is try and breed to max out your Speed IV (again the Gen 5 NPC will help you check). However…this changes when we come to Hidden Power.
Hidden Power is a Special Attack type move that varies not only in base power but in Typing. The IV’s of your Pokemon determine both. Why is this important? Because some pokemon, Mienshao potentially included, can use the Type Coverage Hidden Power brings to cover weakness. For example, I’ll use one of my personal favorite Pokemon, Lucario.
I prefer to use a Special Attack based Lucario (the Physical Attack Lucario has no such issues). Now Lucario is a Fighting/Steel Type Pokemon, so Flying and Ground type Pokemon are an issue. The usual set run for Lucario, at least his first 3 moves, are Nasty Plot (to boost SpA for sweeping), Aura Sphere (90 Base Power, never miss Fighting Special Move) and Dark Pulse (80 BP, Dark Special). As you can see, no coverage for the two weaknesses I mentioned. And if you go to look up Lucario’s movepool, he does not learn an Ice Special Attack at all (Phyical Lucario has Ice Punch). That’s where Hidden Power comes in. You can make Hidden Power an Ice Type Move thus granting Lucario that crucial coverage needed to take down those Ground and Flying type threats (along with Dragons).
But again, it’s best to not go too deep into how to legitimately generate IV’s as it’s extremely frustrating. Battle Simulators will allow you to play with the IV’s set to your preferences (and thus Hidden Power) and hopefully, Gen 6 will remedy the situation as promised. But at most, do try to breed Pokemon with Perfect IV’s in Speed so all your Pokemon will be at max Speed which is always good (with one or two exceptions due to how certain moves work).
Natures:
I had almost forgotten to add this but this is also very important, but thankfully for all involved, a LOT easier to explain than the above two with also much less math (I don’t mind math, but I’m a math major and I know everyone else aren’t fans).
Ever wonder what those things called Natures are? You know, those one word descriptions in game? Bold, Bashful, Quiet, etc? They actually mean a lot more than you think.
Natures are the last thing that determine Pokemon End Stats (except for HP). Again, a lot easier to explain. There are 25 Natures. Each Nature gives One stat a 10% Increase and gives another Stat a 10% decrease. There are also 5 Natures that don’t change a thing (technically they increase and decrease the same stat, thus averaging out to nothing). They also determine what flavors a Pokemon likes and dislikes, but that’s more towards single player stuff.
Anyway, the usage of Natures are to boost the stat you absolutely want to center your Pokemon around the most. For Mienshao, that can be Attack or Speed. But you also have to make a sacrifice in another category, usually one of your worst or the one you’re not using at all. For Mienshao, if you’re not using any Special Attacks, then you can take away from that stat as you’re not using it. For a Mienshao that specializes in Speed but takes away from Special Attack, the Nature you want is Jolly.
Now Natures are also decided by Breeding but are manageable and of course, visible so a lot easier to have done. That you can research later, it’s pretty simple. So this is how the Mienshao can look so far.
Mienshao, M(ale)
Jolly Nature
252 Atk/4 SpD/252 Spe
And…I’m done…please check for anything off.
Damn impressive…alright I think I got it I don’t wanna sound like a idiot so I’m re-reading it all a few times over to make sure I have things completely understood.
If you need a list of what Pokemon give which EV’s (and good places to farm), Serebii has a good page on it.
I’d like to use Weavile since Sneasal was my favorite Pokemon as a kid, but this thread shits on Ice-types a lot so I’m moving away from that. If there’s a decent Weavile team let me know, otherwise what’s a good Octillery team (2nd favorite Poke as a kid)? Your guys’ hate for Stealth Rock makes Suction Cups look good.
Great job, Saitsu. After X/Y come out, I suggest we create a thread separate from this one dedicated to Competitive Battling. You can put the guides you’ve done so far in the OP, we can add more, then leave this thread to General Gen 6 discussion.
Ice types get a lot of crap, but Weavile is actually a fairly decent Pokemon in competitive. It’s not something thats going to be able to switch in a lot… It requires a bit of precision and needs a good team built around it but I’ve got a friend that swears by Weavile and has used it on a lot of his teams.
The Ice type in general is like that-- because of Stealth Rock chipping off 25% everytime they switch in, you have to know when and how to play them, but you can pull it off with practice. I’ll ask my friend and see what his usual setups were and get back to you.
Well one of my main teams is a Hail Team so I don’t shit on it as much as normal. Also, while Ice-Types can struggle, Weavile is actually pretty great for an Ice Type so I wouldn’t back down on that.
As for Octillery…it isn’t that good, this I can show you but it can have potential. Let’s take a look at its stats.
HP: 75
ATK: 105
Def: 75
SpA: 105
SpD: 75
Spe: 45
First thing that should pop out at you (and the main reason it isn’t very good) is that speed. It’s AWFUL. That means chances are it’s going to be taking two hits before firing one off. While its attack stats are pretty solid, I wouldn’t say they’re high enough to offset this. On top of that, his defenses are nothing special so he’ll probably only get one shot off at most unless he can force a switch out.
As for ability, Suction Cups is bad. Stealth Rock is a pain, but it’s not because people will force you to switch with attacks. They just set it up once, and let you switch yourself to death. If you don’t switch they’ll kill you on matchups. Suction Cups doesn’t help there. His best ability (not counting the hated and extremely busted Moody) is Sniper. Those Critical Hits now do 3x damage instead of two. Land one and you killed something.
Now for his positives, Ock’s movepool is great. Massive coverage along the board and gets Water Spout which when it goes off at full effectiveness will truck anyone, even with potential resist and ESPECIALLY with a Critical Hit if you’re lucky.
And it does benefit from one of the trickier team sets and strategies in Pokemon. Trick Room. If you don’t know, Trick Room is a move that when activated, changes the scope of the game. For 5 Turns, Speed is essentially reversed. Slower Pokemon will outspeed faster Pokemon (Priority Moves not assuming). What does this mean? Octillery’s terrible speed turns into an advantage. For 5 turns it becomes a nearly unmatched monster in speed, and with its solid attack stats and movepool, will crush people in its wake if used correctly.
Only issue? Octillery can’t use Trick Room. But that’s fine, your entire team would be set up to use it and at least one or two Pokes will be able to use it.
Professor Saitsu and Po on deck
there’s more to this than I thought, I just thought higher level = more dominance, no wonder I couldn’t beat mewtwo on pokemon stadium lol
Nope, everything goes much deeper.
Except in Gen 1. Mewtwo > All is all you need to know for how Gen 1 ran.
What good Pokemon goes with Trick Room? From my 30 minutes on Smogon (not forums) I’ve got:
[details=Spoiler]Uxie:
Jolly
Levitate
Light CLay
252HP/4Def/252Spe
-Reflect
-Light Screen
-U-turn
-Trick Room
Aggron:
Adament
Rock Head
Leftovers
116HP/252Atk/140Spe
-Substitute
-Head Smash
-Focus Punch
-Magnet Rise
Octillery:
Quiet
Sniper
Mystic Water
252HP/252SpA/4Def
-Water Spout
-Energy Ball
-Surf
-Ice Beam[/details]
Trick Room set-ups look really gimmicky, so I think I’ll need one or two more Trick Room users to make it work.