With the release of Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon, players all around the globe will be training their Pokémon for competitive battles. The goal of this article will be to give you everything you need to know to train your Pokémon to be ready for battle. In this article, you'll learn what EVs are if you do not already know, what items and things you'll need to collect, the locations of Pokémon and some tips and tricks to help you out.
What are EVs?
EVs, short for effort values, are hidden values in Pokémon games that can be used to make your Pokémon stronger. You can gain EVs simply by defeating opposing Pokémon in the wild. Every Pokémon gives out a certain number of EVs towards a certain stat which is 1 of HP, Attack, Defense, Sp. Attack, Sp. Defense, or Speed. For example, a Pokémon like Yungoos gives out 1 Attack EV when defeated while a Caterprie gives out 1 HP EV. Since every 4 EVs equals 1 additional stat point a Pokémon gains by the time it reaches level 100, there are limits to this. A Pokémon can only have a maximum of 510 EVS overall and a maximum of 252 EVs in a single stat.
What Do You Need to EV Train?
The traditional method that many players used in the beginning were to go out and defeat 252 of the same Pokémon or the amount needed for the stat, which can be very time-consuming and difficult since it required you to either keep a mental note or tally how many Pokémon you still need to fight. Lucky for us, GameFreak has added some very helpful tools to make this process much easier.
#1 - The Power Items
When equipped with a Pokémon, the power items can give a Pokémon 8 additional EVs for defeating a single Pokémon. This chart on the side shows which power item corresponds with which stat to help you out. For example, since Yungoos only gives out 1 Attack EVs after being defeated, equipping the Power Bracer to a Pokémon your trying to boosts its Attack stat will give it +9 Attack EVs for every Yungoos defeated. All 6 of these power items can be purchased using Battle Points at the Battle Dome located at the Royal Avenue for 16 Battle Points an item.
#2 - Pokerus
While very rare to naturally encounter, Pokerus is a very helpful virus because every Pokémon that has Pokerus, it gains double the amount of EVs it would normally gain if it didn't have Pokerus in the first place. Going back to the Yungoos example. If your Pokémon is holding the Power Bracer and is afflicted with Pokerus, instead of normally gaining 9 Attack EVs for defeating Yungoos, you'll instead gain 18 Attack EVs for defeating Yungoos. While having Pokerus is amazing for speeding up the process of EV Training, it is extremely rare to encounter. Your chances of having a Pokémon afflicted with Pokerus is a 1 in 21,845 chance which is even rarer than your chances of finding shiny Pokémon. Because it's extremely rare to encounter Pokerus on your own, you can simply find someone to trade with that already has a Pokémon with Pokerus. Once you have a Pokémon with Pokerus, it is very easy to spread. All you have to do is keep this Pokémon in your party and battle a few wild Pokémon until all of your Pokémon have it, which shouldn't take too long to accomplish.
#3 - SOS Battle Chaining
If you're unfamiliar, wild Pokémon can call for help from other Pokémon when they are low health. The reason this is great for EV Training purposes is that you can run into the same Pokémon over and over again. To do this all you need to do is keep the Pokémon you're looking for at low health and throw an Adrenaline Orb at it to make it nervous. The abilities Unnerve, Pressure, and Intimidate also have this same effect when the Pokémon with them is led in battle. Another amazing benefit of SOS battles is that any Pokémon knocked out in these battles gives double the amount of EVs, which is simply triggered when a Pokémon is successfully called for help, which even includes the initial Pokémon called upon for help.
Going back to the Yungoos example once again, adding up the 8 EVs given from the Power Bracer, doubling the amount of EVs given because of the SOS Battle, you'll gain 18 EVs per Yungoos defeated. Also, if you're lucky enough to have Pokerus on the Pokémon you're training, you'll gain 36 EVs in total for every Yungoos defeated which speeds up the process drastically. I should note that if you turn on the Exp. Share, all Pokémon in your party will gain EVs even if they aren't active in battle, which makes it helpful as you could technically train multiple Pokémon at once in the same stat.
#4 - TM 54: False Swipe
False Swipe is a great move to use because no matter how many times you use False Swipe on a Pokémon, the lowest it can be taken down to is 1 HP, which makes it a great move to use in SOS Battles. To catch a Pokémon that can learn this move, you can catch either an Absol or Sneasel which can be caught at a pretty nice level so they'll be nice and ready to be used in your SOS Battles. Absol is especially useful as it comes with the Pressure ability which as stated above, can be quite useful.
EV Training Locations
In Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, if you head to these locations in the Alola Region, you can use these Pokémon, all of which can activate SOS Battles, to train your Pokémon. The Pokémon listed below are the most efficient to use for SOS Battles and give 1 EV in their respective stat.
- HP - Head to the west side of Route 1 and there's a 35% chance of running into a Caterpie
- Attack - On the east side of Route 1, there's a 55% chance of running into Yungoos, Pikipek, or Grubbin during the day and at night, you can find Spinarak instead of Yungoos
- Defense - At the Wela Volcano Park, there's a 20% chance of running into Cubone who also has a chance of calling Kangaskhan, which isn't smart as Kangaskhan gives HP EVs
- Special Attack - In the grass of Brooklet Hill, there's a 20% chance of running into Psyduck
- Special Defense - In the Melemele seas, there's a 60% chance of either running into Matntyke or a Tentacool, both of them give Sp. Defense EVs
- Speed - In the grass on Route 2 by the Pokémon Center, there's a 60% chance of running into Spearow or Cutiefly, both of them give Speed EVs.
Alternative Options
#1 - The Vitamins
The final helpful items are the vitamins which are very helpful. For each respective stat, the vitamins can give a Pokémon 10 EVs for a specific stat, but could only actually work until that stat has 100 EVs, then the item simply fails. The reason these items can be useful is that they can make the process easier to EV Train if you're trying to train a stat where a large number of EVs are going. Do keep in mind that these items aren't cheap and could tear a large hole in the amount of money you have in-game. Use this chart to help find out which item you might want to purchase.#2 - Festival Plaza Shops (Bouncy Houses & Restaurants)
While unchanged from Pokémon Sun and Moon, the Bouncy Houses and Restaurants are helpful because when they reach their peak level at Level 7, they can increase a Pokémon chosen stat from 0 to 252. This is helpful, but it can be very time-consuming because as you increase the rank of your shops, they become more expensive which can make using them a potential risk, but please use this link to learn more about this feature.
#3 - Poke Pelago
The final one is the Poke Pelago, which allows you to EV Train a Pokémon passively and once it maxes out at Rank 3, your Pokémon gains 4 EVs for each session it completes. Sessions only take 30 minutes to complete, but you could shorten it to 15 minutes if you use Poke Beans. The strength of the Poke Pelago is that in theory, you could EV train up to 18 Pokémon at once while not having to to actively focus on actually EV training your Pokémon. The problem however is that it takes 15 hours to fully train a Pokémon, with 45 minutes to fully train a stat fully up to 252 EVs, which takes a lot more time than SOS Battles.
Lowering/Resetting EVs
The final thing to cover, sometimes because you added too many EVs to a stat or want to completely change the EVs on a Pokémon, you might want to lower or reset the EVs on a Pokémon. To do this, the easiest way is to use berries. This chart shows each berry that can lower a Pokémon's EVs in their respective stat and by how much, which is always -10 EVs. To obtain these berries, a tree on route 10 that is west of Maile City near to bus stop will give out a random assortment of these berries. These trees give out berries once a day. These berries also increase the happiness of a Pokémon after each use which can be helpful for the move Return.
You can use the Isle Aplenny in Poke Pelago to grow berries, which although it takes 48 hours to grow berries, you can use Poke Beans to cut this time in half so instead of 48 hours, it only takes 24 hours to grow them instead.
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