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Section 3 - Effort Values
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What are Effort Values?
Effort Values (EV) is a new feature in Ruby and Sapphire that is designed to help you to gain better stats for your Pokemon in the areas you want. When you battle Pokemon (in the wild or in trainer battles), you will get something called "Effort Points" (EP) together with Experience Points (Exp.). Each Pokemon species that you battle, regardless of the level, gender, stats, nature etc., has a fixed EP that they will give. For example, a Voltorb will always gives 1 EP to the Speed statistics, regardless of whether it is Level 5 or Level 100. However, these EPs, unlike Exp., are not shown to you at the end of the battle, thus, you'll not be able to know how much EPs you receive.
How do Effort Values affect my Pokemon's Stats?
When you battle a certain Pokemon species and defeated it, the game will add the EPs (which ranges from 1 to 3 points) to your EV in 1 or more of your Pokemon's stats. Thus, that particular stat of your Pokemon would advance higher and have a better stat in that area. 4 EVs is equivilant to 1 stat point. Usually rare or highly evolved Pokémon provide 2 or 3 points per battle while unevolved or more common Pokémon provide 1 point. You would not receive the EP if you run away from the battle.
What if more than 1 Pokemon enters the battle?
You would think that EP works like Exp., it gets divide equally to each Pokemon right? No! Logically it would do so but it would be pretty silly to let each Pokemon get a fraction of a EP. Each Pokemon would therefore receive the full amount of EP from that battle. Here is an example to illustrate my point. A Beautifly gives 3 EPs for Special Attack. You want to train up your Alakazam, Gardevoir and Grumpig to get a better Special Attack, thus, you found a Beautifly to battle with. You sent your Alakazam out first, it knocked out 1/3 of Beautifly's HP, then Gradevoir to damage it more and finally Grumpig to finish the move. After the battle, Alakazam, Gardevoir and Grumpig will each get 3 EPs for Special Attack! Thus, if you are fighting an opponent that provides 3 EPs in a particular stat that three of your Pokémon require, you could switch each of them in the battle to gain a total of 9 EPs spread across your 3 Pokémon!
Yes! I can use Effort Values to train my Pokemon to their ultimate stats in every single stat!
Sorry, but you can't do this. In order to balance the game, each stat may only receive up to 255 EPs and your Pokemon can only receive 510 EPs maximum, which means 2 maxed EP stats. You will only have to fight anywhere from 170 to 510 battles in order to reach this cap. After that EPs won't matter to it and there isn't much that you can make it better. You would know if your Pokemon has reached the EV cap, you should go see the woman wearing red-and-white clothes with brown hair and wearing a white hair piece next to the Vitamin shop owner in Slateport City (aka, the Energy Guru). They are both near the south-west location of this town if you are having some trouble finding it. She will give you an Effort Ribbon indicating your achievement, otherwise she will tell you to "try harder". Your EPS are non-erasable. Thus, remember to train your Pokemon wisely. You wouldn't want your precious EPs to go to waste in a stat you would not want.
Using the Macho Brace and Exp. Share
The Macho Brace is an item you'll get after you defeated the Winstrate family. It will double your Exp. gained when battling. Using it while training for EPs is a good idea as it doubles EPs gained as well, considerably reducing your training time. The only disadvantage is that while using it, your Pokemon's Speed will be cut by 50% but don't worry, it will reset back to normal once you remove it. Likewise, when using the Exp. Share, the Pokemon who is holding it will get the full EPs as well.
Using Vitamins
Vitamins are said to give your stats a boost but it actually just adds 10 EPs to the stat. To prevent people from cheating, your pokemon is only allowed to take 10 of a type of Vitamin, giving it 100 EPs. Here are the Vitamins and what they do:
Protein : +10 EV to Attack
Iron : +10 EV to Defense
Carbos : +10 EV to Speed
Zinc : +10 EV to Sp. Defense
Calcium : +10 EV to Sp. Attack
HP Up : +10 EV to HP
However, if you trained your Pokemon prior to giving Vitamins, the number of Vitamins you can use is decreased. Vitamins can only raise the EVs to 100 and not over it.
Using Rare Candies
Unlike the previous games where Rare Candies were avoided, in Ruby & Sapphire, they are actually a plus when used after your EVs have been maxed out since you can do nothing about your stat after that.
Do EVs really matter?Well, if you are into competitive battling which means battling with a human opponent not in the game itself, EVs can do a lot of difference to your battle result of whether you win or lose. Here is a quote from Team Rocket Elite:
