Understanding EVs and IVs Training

[RPBaskett]

Ok, a group of friends and I are playing this latest game, two of us are playing Diamond and two in Pearl. I am trying to train up a Shinx from about level 3 but there is something I'm not understanding. I have the IV stat checker in game, as well as both an Adamant and a Bold Shinx. The IV stat checker says that my Bold Shinx has a Very Good attack while the Adamant only has Decent attack. So, I did a test. Using Krickitune, which is supposed to boost attack stat for farming it, I leveled both Shinx' up to level 19. At level 19, the Adamant has an attack of level 42 while the Bold has an attack of 37. If that's the case, then why is the IV stat checker saying that the Bold has a Very Good attack while the Adamant's attack is higher than the Bold but only listed as decent? Sorry if that's confusing but we are indeed thoroughly confused by this. Please help if you can and thanks!
Adamant Stats:
https://flic.kr/p/2mNw1j9 https://flic.kr/p/2mNw1is Bold Stats:
https://flic.kr/p/2mNBr1u https://flic.kr/p/2mNw1ha

 

[Divine Retribution]

Because IVs are only one factor of a Pokemon's actual stats. The Bold Shinx may have a better Attack IV, but since the Bold nature reduces its Attack by 10%, the Adamant natured Shinx, whose Attack is boosted by 10% by its nature, will likely have a higher actual Attack stat.

 

[RPBaskett]

Because IVs are only one factor of a Pokemon's actual stats. The Bold Shinx may have a better Attack IV, but since the Bold nature reduces its Attack by 10%, the Adamant natured Shinx, whose Attack is boosted by 10% by its nature, will likely have a higher actual Attack stat.

Thank you for that response. That is very confusing but it makes sense to me. Still, I don't know why they don't just make the verbiage match that stats that the player can see. The Bold's attack will not ever at any level ever be higher than the attack of the adamant so why not just make the Bold verbiage for Attack Decent and the Adamant Very Good.

 

[Divine Retribution]

Thank you for that response. That is very confusing but it makes sense to me. Still, I don't know why they don't just make the verbiage match that stats that the player can see. The Bold's attack will not ever at any level ever be higher than the attack of the adamant so why not just make the Bold verbiage for Attack Decent and the Adamant Very Good.

Yeah, I can understand why it would be confusing and I do wish they'd use more precise terminology, but GameFreak seems very adverse to directly referencing IVs and EVs and instead use more generic terms when doing so.

Essentially, every Pokemon has an Individual Value (or IV) for each stat. These IVs can be any number from 0 to 31, and will translate to 1 extra point in that stat after certain levels (at lower levels the boost given by IVs is lower; obviously at level 1 a Pokemon with 31 IVs in Attack won't have 31+ in its actual Attack stat). These values are what the IV judge is judging.

Natures, on the other hand, boost one stat by 10% and lower another by 10%. Bold, for example, boosts Defence by 10% but lowers Attack by 10%. Adamant boosts Attack at the cost of Sp. Atk. This is why the Bold Shinx has a worse actual Attack stat than the Adamant one; its higher Attack IV is outweighed by its negative nature compared to the latter's positive nature.

 

[Xaby]

Do keep in mind that the 10% Nature increase means stats across the board, meaning it will boost both stats gained from Individual Values (IVs) and Effort Values (EVs). Effort Values increase stats by 1 per 4 EVs (although it will probably need to be lv. 100 to gain all of those EV gains, the boost gained from correct EV allocation can definitely be felt even at lower levels.).


In the case of a Luxio with a neutral nature, for example Quirky, gets 40 Attack EVs, it will get 10 additional ATK points:

• 10 (from the EVs) x 1.0 (no nature bonus/penalty) = +10 ATK

If the Adamant Luxio gets the same 40 Attack EVs, it will have an additional ATK of 11:

• 10 (from the EVs) x 1.1 (from the 10% nature increase) = +11 ATK

The Bold Luxio, even on getting the same 40 Attack EVs, it will only have an additional ATK of 9:

• 10 (from the EVs) x 0.9 (from the 10% nature decrease) = +9 ATK

For a regular playthrough, I say natures are more important than IVs, as the EV boost from the correct nature could make up for the lack in IVs. Of course if you're going to tackle something harder like the Battle Tower, all three of those factors need to be taken into consideration.

 

[janejane6178]

Its very difficult for me. It is also hard for me to get and train competitive Pokemon.

 

[RPBaskett]

Its very difficult for me. It is also hard for me to get and train competitive Pokemon.

I feel you there I can't seem to wrap my mind around this thing I'm doing my best but trying to calculate a perfectly raised Pokemon seems to be very difficult when factoring in IVs, EVs, Team Synergy, Nature, Male/Female, Ability, shiny or not, there are soooooo many factors.

Also, I apologize for all the questions, but is it then possible to find a level 3 male Adamant Shinx with Amazing Stats in a case where Attack is listed as Best! or would that be almost impossibly rare?

 

[Xaby]

You're better of breeding them to be honest. There are many guides online on how to do it, or even watch them on YouTube. You can digest and plan for it on your own pace. But here's some starting tips:

1. To pass the nature of a parent, you can have it hold an Everstone when you deposit them to Nursery.
2. If you have a parent that you want a particular stat to be passed to an offspring, have that parent hold a Power Item of that stat.

For example, that Adamant Luxio has Best! for it's SpDEF. If you want to pass it to the child, you can have it hold it Power Band. All offspring from that Luxio will have Best! for it's SpDEF as long the parent is holding the Power Band.

Power Items should be available on the Battle Tower. The other Power Items are:

• Power Bracer: Attack (ATK)
• Power Belt: Defense (DEF)
• Power Lens: Special Attack (SpATK)
• Power Band: Special Defense (SpDEF)
• Power Anklet: Speed (S)

3. This part is a bit more advanced. If you want to pass 5 stats from a parent to a child, make it hold the item Destiny Knot. This will make it so that 5 out of the 6 stats of that parent will be passed to the child.

For example, if you have a Luxio with 6 Best! stats. Having it hold Destiny Knot will ensure that all children will have 5 Best! stats. Which of those stats from HP, ATK, DEF, SpATK, SpDEF, or S will be random. So you may have Best! in HP, ATK, SpATK, SpDEF, and S, but have less than optimum DEF.

Again, if this seems a bit overwhelming, don't worry about going at it on your own pace, and look for a guide that you can follow closely.

 

[janejane6178]

I feel you there I can't seem to wrap my mind around this thing I'm doing my best but trying to calculate a perfectly raised Pokemon seems to be very difficult when factoring in IVs, EVs, Team Synergy, Nature, Male/Female, Ability, shiny or not, there are soooooo many factors.

It is just so difficult for me and it is so time consuming to get one perfect trained Pokemon

 

[Xaby]

It is just so difficult for me and it is so time consuming to get one perfect trained Pokemon

I can understand how you feel. I felt the same way all those years back when I started min-maxing my Pokémon, back in my original Diamond

I'll have to say, for a normal playthrough, probably even to Battle Tower, the most important aspects to understand are Natures and Effort Values (EVs). Even a Pokémon with terrible stats can still do well if given the proper "build".

Of course min-maxing, either for competitive purposes or just for the sake of it can be daunting, but it really isn't that complicated when you get the hang of it.

Breeding is one of the best ways to "build" competitive Pokémon, and if you want to go that route the best way to get started is to get a good Ditto.

It's a very deep rabbit hole, but a fun one in my opinion. There are many resources about it online, and I'm sure the fine folks in the forum will be willing to help and answer questions.

 

[Divine Retribution]

Also, I apologize for all the questions, but is it then possible to find a level 3 male Adamant Shinx with Amazing Stats in a case where Attack is listed as Best! or would that be almost impossibly rare?

Just finding an Adamant Shinx with a perfect Attack IV would be 1/800. It would then need at least 120 out of the remaining 155 IVs. Someone better at math than me would need to take over from here though, as I'm not 100% sure how you'd even calculate the odds of a Pokemon having Amazing overall stats on top of the other requirements.

As Xaby mentioned, however, IVs are partially hereditary and through selective breeding you can end up with a Pokemon with perfect IVs. The way you'd do this from scratch is to catch a bunch of that Pokemon, or a Pokemon capable of being male in the same egg group. You'd need to take each one to the IV judge until you have at least one Pokemon with a perfect IV for each stat (one with perfect Attack, one with perfect Defense, etc, etc.), as well as one with the desired nature.

You'd then use the Destiny Knot and Everstone to begin combining those various IVs as well as the nature. You'd put the Everstone on the Pokemon with the desired nature, and then breed it with, say, the one with a perfect HP IV holding a Destiny Knot (or Power Weight, at least for this first step), and you'd quickly end up with one with a perfect HP IV and the nature. You'd then move the Everstone to this new Pokemon and breed it with one of the others with a different IV with the Destiny Knot, say the Attack IV, and you'd end up with one with perfect Attack, HP, and the nature. So on and so forth.

This process takes some time and/or luck, especially the last couple IVs. As a Destiny Knot only passes on 5 IVs, the last IV is always random and must naturally generate a 31. In the case of breeding 2 perfect IV'd Pokemon, this is 1/32, but more realistic in this scenario is that you're breeding two Pokemon with 5 perfect IVs, with the missing IV being different for each Pokemon, in which case your chances of getting a 6 perfect IV'd Pokemon are a substantially harsher 1/96. The Power items can be somewhat useful for the first step but as soon as you end up with a Pokemon with at least 2 perfect IVs you'd switch to a Destiny Knot anyways, so they really don't save you much time when it comes to breeding. You'll need them anyways if you want to EV train your Pokemon as well, that's a different can of worms however. In addition, factors such as the Pokemon's gender ratio and whether or not you want it to have a certain ability can drastically affect average breed times.

The process can be a bit of a pain to understand at first, but once you successfully breed a perfect IV'd Pokemon, you can use that Pokemon to skip a whole bunch of steps and save a ton of time when IV breeding other Pokemon in the same egg group. Similarly, if you manage to get your hands on a Ditto with 6 perfect IVs (rare but not impossible, especially from Raids), you can use that to IV breed any Pokemon quickly.

 

[Ophie]

As for the core question, the stat checker checks only the IVs, or Individual Values, of that stat. The reason why the one with the lower stat reads "Best!" is because the IV is only one of many variables used in stat calculation. Here are the formulae as is shown on Bulbapedia; I've highlighted the IV variable for them:

As you can see, there are four variables that the game uses for determining a Pokémon's HP stat and five variables used for determining all other stats (Attack, Defense, Sp. Attack, Sp. Defense, Speed).

In your example:

• "Base" will be the same as they are both Luxio, the same species (and a species without situational base stat differences like Wormadam or Rotom). For Luxio, that variable for Attack is 85.
• "Level" will be the same as your Luxio are both at Level 19, so that variable is 19.

That leaves the other three variables, which can be, and in two cases, most definitely are different:

• "EV" stands for Effort Points. You have been defeating Kricketune to get them, but the two Luxio may not have battled the exact same number of them to reach Level 19. Each Kricketune gives out 2 points in Attack, so if each Luxio has faced a different number of Kricketune, they will have different Effort Points in Attack.
• "Nature" raises one stat by 10% and lowers another by 10%. (There are five Natures that raise and lower the same stat, like Hardy and Serious, called "neutral Natures" by the fans, but neither Luxio is like that so we won't go over that.) The first one's Nature is Adamant. That Luxio's Attack stat is fully calculated, then a x1.1 multiplier is added onto it. The second one's Nature is Bold. That Luxio's Attack stat is fully calculated, then a roughly x0.91 multiplier (actually x0.9090909...) is added onto it.
• "IV" stands for Individual Values and is what you are confused about. This is a number from 0 to 31. For wild Pokémon, they are randomly chosen to all of their stats. "Decent" means the IV is between and including 1 to 15. "Best!" means the IV is at 31, the maximum.

As you can see, just because one variable is higher doesn't mean the stat itself is higher. If the other variables cause a stat to go up or another to go down, you can have a Pokémon with a higher IV and yet a lower stat.

And for the record, as has been stated by others, the contrasting Natures are the biggest factor on why the Luxio with an Attack labeled "Best!" ironically has the lower stat:
The Bold Luxio gets 4 points deducted from his Attack.
On the other hand, the Adamant Luxio gets 4 added to her Attack.
Were Natures not factored in, your Bold Luxio would have an Attack stat of 41 (the one marked "Best!") while your Adamant Luxio would have an Attack stat of 37 (the one marked "Decent").

 

[RPBaskett]

Through a few VERY good friends, I managed to get a trade for a shiny perfect IV Japanese Ditto with Pokerus and a Destiny Knot. I've managed at this point to turn out a perfect IV Modest and Adamant Shinx. Thank you all for the info this has all been extremely helpful and I appreciate you!

 

[KillerDraco]

If it's from BD/SP there's a 99% chance that said Ditto is hacked.

But question answered and thus thread concluded.