Welcome back to our second lecture in the Pokemon Mechanics series. Last time, we started off simple with types, but now, the lessons ramp up a bit in complexity. We are going under the hood into stats, and while they probably were not a major feature of your in-game experience, stats are one of the most essential and interesting pieces of the Pokemon puzzle. Here, I will cover what each stat means, how they interact, and briefly introduce the concepts of EVs, IVs, and Natures. If that seems like a lot of material, it is, but with some simplified explanations and a bit of forced humor from me, you’ll get the hang of it in no time. So buckle up, get those pencils out, and let’s dig in for some fun Pokemon math.
If you open up the Summary page in game for a Pokemon, you will see something that looks this:
The part we want to focus on is the upper-right side of the page, where we see numbers for the 6 main stats next to a diagram. For each of these stats, you can generally interpret them as follows:
HP: The most apparent stat, this is the amount of damage your Pokemon can sustain before being KOed.
Attack: The larger this number is, the more damage the Pokemon will do with Physical attacks.
Sp. Atk: The larger this number is, the more damage the Pokemon will do with Special attacks.
Defense: The larger this number is, the less damage the Pokemon will sustain from Physical attacks
Sp. Def: The larger this number is, the less damage the Pokemon will sustain from Special attacks
Speed: The Pokemon with the highest Speed stat will move first within its priority bracket.
Other than some technical language on Speed, so far this is likely intuitive to you, which is great. The next question we’ll answer is how these numbers interact in game to produce these general effects. The good news: the answer is simply the damage formula, which shows how much HP is lost when a Pokemon is hit with a move; the bad news, it looks like this:
Damage = ((((2 * Level / 5 + 2) * AttackStat * AttackPower / DefenseStat) / 50) + 2) * STAB * Weakness/Resistance * RandomNumber / 100
Now, that can look a bit intimidating at first, and there are some concepts that haven’t been covered yet, but worry not. I have a math degree, and with a little bit of simplification and approximation we can reduce the formula like this:
Damage ≈ (AttackStat/DefenseStat)*(AllTheRest)
At first this seems a little too simple, but the beauty of Pokemon is that outside of that small + 2, the relationship between damage modifiers, such as stats, is multiplicative. Put simply, outside the lowest levels, a Pokemon with twice the attacking stat of another will deal twice as much damage with the same move in the same situation. This means that estimating damage becomes relatively straightforward in a battle once moves start to hit, and that moves and abilities that affect stats in battle don’t cause a headache. For example, the move Swords Dance will raise a Pokemon’s Attack by 2 stages, causing it to double. Without doing a calculation or struggling through a formula, you know immediately that your Pokemon will be dealing twice as much Physical damage. Keep this in mind as the lesson continues. For Speed, there is no complicated formula, the larger of the numbers will go first deterministically. When more than one Pokemon has the same Speed, then there is an equal chance for any of those Pokemon to move first. Move priority and special effects can cause a different Pokemon to move first, but that will be covered in a separate lesson.
Now that we know all of this, how can we figure out what stats a given Pokemon could have? The answer lies in base stats, which are not visible in game but determine the limits of how a Pokemon’s stats can be trained and customized. In the example above, we saw an example of a Cyclizar’s actual stats. Here are Cyclizar’s base stats:
At any level for any Cyclizar, these base stats are the same and never change. Base stats can be converted into actual stats with the following formulae:
HP = floor(0.01 x (2 x Base + IV + floor(0.25 x EV)) x Level) + Level + 10
Other Stats = (floor(0.01 x (2 x Base + IV + floor(0.25 x EV)) x Level) + 5) x Nature
Unlike with the damage formula, we can’t skip over each of the terms shown here, so we need to dig in and go through each one
Base represents the Base Stat value, as shown in the table above.
IV is short for Individual Value, and this is a hidden value that is determined when the Pokemon is caught or hatched from an egg. IVs range from 0 to 31, and the higher the value is, the higher the stat will be, and for a more comprehensive view on the formula, you can take a look here. For most Pokemon, 31 is the most desirable value for each stat, and this can be obtained through breeding or by using Bottle Caps to Hyper Train in game. For certain teams, other values may be desirable, and these can only be acquired through breeding and sheer luck.
EV is short for Effort Value, and like IVs these values are hidden in-game. At Level 100, a Pokemon will gain 1 point in a stat for each 4 Effort Values dedicated to it. In total, a Pokemon can have a maximum of 510 EVs, so you cannot have the maximum value in every stat as you can with IVs. In game, you can EV train by defeating Pokemon, or using stat boosting items, like vitamins, feathers, and the newly added mochi in The Teal Mask DLC. While vitamins and mochi are more straightforward, with each corresponding to 10 EVs to a particular stat, wild Pokemon can yield between 1 and 3 EVs, and which stats are impacted depends on the Pokemon. This information is not available in game, but there are resources online such as this one that can help you figure out which Pokemon will be the most efficient training for your team. The held “Power” items also can speed the process up dramatically, allowing the Pokemon holding one to gain 8 additional EVs for the corresponding stat with each encounter. This adds very quickly, and investing in this set of items will make training take minutes instead of hours.
Nature is not just a fun description of your Pokemon, it actually does have an impact on your Pokemon’s stats! A beneficial nature will give a 1.1x multiplier, or 10% boost, to the affected stat, while a detrimental nature will lower a stat by the same amount. You can take a closer look at a table of natures here, and make sure to choose the one that best fits the role of your Pokemon on the team. Even if a Pokemon is bred with an unfortunate nature, mints are the quick in-game fix for this, causing the Pokemon’s stats to behave as if the Pokemon had the nature corresponding to the used mint.
Ok, so now we need to take this theory and put it into practice, and this is what makes the great team builders truly shine.The same species of Pokemon can vary dramatically in their role based on how their stats are distributed. For example, in Scarlet and Violet singles, Gholdengo sports a wide variety of EV distributions and sets, and is excellent with each, so this is not a case of each Pokemon having a particular “best” set of EVs and stats. Instead, it is a tailoring of each Pokemon to the correct fit on a team and the particular metagame that surrounds it. To figure out where your Pokemon need to be, one resource is Smogon’s damage calculator. This calculator already comes preloaded with several relevant competitive sets, and with it you can see how a Pokemon’s stats will be with a given IV and EV spread and how it will fare into opposing Pokemon. Most basically, you can see which breakpoints are required for a Pokemon to either outspeed or underspeed its popular answers. For example, a Timid Dragapult has a raw speed stat of 421, making it one of the fastest threats in OU. This means that if you are considering using a Pokemon with Choice Scarf to answer such a fast Pokemon, you would want to EV your Pokemon to at least 282 speed. This would allow it to reach 423 speed as opposed to 421 at 281, guaranteeing the first attack. Other stats are a bit more tricky, but here are some general guidelines:
HP investment can be tricky, but a helpful trick can be to take advantage of the game’s system of rounding down with effects that use a percentage of maximum health to calculate damage or healing. Leftovers, for example, are a popular held item that restores 1/16 of a Pokemon’s maximum HP at the end of each turn. The 1/16, however, is rounded down, so making sure that your Pokemon has an HP total divisible by 16 will maximize the healing from Leftovers, so other bulk can be better utilized in other defensive stats. Conversely, a Pokemon expected to hold Life Orb, a held item that deals 10% of Pokemon’s maximum health as damage each time it attacks, should have a health total that is one less than a number divisible by 10. This allows a Pokemon to take justunder 10% of its maximum health as damage, and this marginal difference can allow for an additional attack, which could make the difference in a close match.
Investment in other stats also focuses on the marginal, and while some stats receive maximum investment to cover for a variety of situations, often there will be specific breakpoints that are particularly important. For example, Cinderace will run 32 Attack EVs on its bulky set in OU to ensure a one-hit KO with Pyro Ball onto a defensively uninvested Gholdengo, forcing it out a potential Court Change turn to remove hazards. Even though this set will barely do more damage than an uninvested one, that additional damage increase of about 4% makes all the difference in that key situation, and looking for common interactions where your Pokemon can come out ahead is an important skill to master.
In Generation 9, there also are some Paradox Pokemon that run odd sets to take advantage of Booster Energy. Iron Moth will often run maximum speed with only 132 Sp Atk EVs in order to allow Speed to receive the boost from Quark Drive. Keep this in mind when building sets for these Pokemon, and see which interesting builds you can come up with to take advantage of these powerful abilities.
And exhale. With that, you have finished your introduction to stats in competitive Pokemon. Comment below if you have any questions or are looking to learn more, and I will be back shortly with the next installment, Moves!