EV's Explained?

[explicit54]

As I was browsing the forums here, I notice many people speaking of EVs. Upon further inquiry (Bulbapedia entry for EV) I read about these. However I am still quite confused.

If my pokemon levels up fighting a certain pokemon, are his stat increase outcomes different if he was fighting a different pokemon alltogether?

If someone could explain this to me I would appreciate it, because it sounds rather intriguing.

 

[Skantid]

Yes, its stats would be different.
Each pokémon gives up to 3 EVs when KOed. These EVs are for different stats (attack, defense and so on), and every 4 EVs for a same stat make that stat 1 point higher (so, every 4 attack EVs make your attack go up by 1). There are some limits to this: no stat can have more than 255 EVs, and the EV total can't be higher than 510. 252~255 EVs in a single stat make that stat go up by 63.

Macho brace multiplies acquired EVs by 2, and PokéRus does the same. Exp Share gives the affected pokémon the whole EVs but doesn't reduce the EVs for the pokémon that won the fight, switching pokémon also does the same.

Was that clear enough?

 

[Dogasu]

I love the Penny Arcade explanation:

Thanks to everyone who mailed me their Pokemon tips. Every single person who mailed me stressed the importance of EV's and proper EV training over just about everything else. I was given some great links and spent a good chuck of the day yesterday reading everything I could about them.

I'm thirty years old now, and I've been playing games for more than twenty of those. I've seen some real bullshit in all that time and EV's are right up their towards the top of the list. As far as I can tell this is how they work. If your Pokemon fights another Pokemon that's really fast for example, it earns a point towards it's speed Effort Value (EV). For every four of these points that you get your Pokemon will gain one more point to it's speed stat when it levels up. Now each Pokemon awards EV's for different stats and some give points for multiple stats. The problem is that these EV's are invisible and limited. So there's only a certain number of them that a single Pokemon can take advantage of and there's no way to track them in game. I got tips like "create a spreadsheet for each of your Pokemoin with rows for all their stats and manualy enter any EV's they get..."

Create a spreadsheet?

Then I started reading about IV's and I saw this shit:

Now that I've showed how much they can affect stats, let's grab the equation for determining a Pokemon's Individual Value. Keep in mind that this is NOT for Hit Points. That has its own equation.

IV = ((Math.Ceiling(Stat / Personality Value) - 5) * 100 / Level Value ) - 2 * Base Stat – Effort Points / 4

Are you fucking serious? I never got past algebra. All I want to do is show people my Pokemons, not build a Goddamn time machine!

So I started digging into serebii.net yesterday and I got my first glimpse at just how far this rabbit hole goes. I told myself I wasn't going to fall into it but I ended up spending the morning trying to acquire a new Chimchar with the preferred "jolly" nature. Once I'd done that I spent the afternoon EV training him on Ponytas and Machamps. I'm telling you this not because I am proud but because I need help. Someone needs to stop me before I start doing long division to figure out what kind of fucking berry I should feed my shittlesaur.

 

[explicit54]

Both good explanations, thanks. Doesn't seem like something I would worry about though, trying to catch all of them is a daunting enough task, worrying about exactly how their stat distribution is laid out seems like an awful chore.

IMO even among the best trainers, all this game comes down to is a die roll, obviously there is some strategy involved, and by no means am I trying to demean pokemon battles, but once you get to a certain point, it is complete and total luck. Unfortunately I do not think pokemon E-Sports will become a reality, hehe.

Thank you for the information though, I was curious and you answered my question completely.