Training Techniques to Maximize Your Pokémon's Stats:

You might already have decided which stats you want your Pokémon to maximize; for example, maybe you want an Incineroar with the highest possible Attack stat. Or maybe you're not sure yet. It's only possible for a Pokémon to maximize up to two stats, so you will need to decide on that before you start training.

If you aren't sure, think more generally about what you'd like to do with your Pokémon. Do you want to use this Pokémon in high level Tera Raids? Help you catch more Pokémon easily? Do you want to create a strategy based on a certain move, ability or theme? These factors will help you choose which stats would be best to focus on.

Let's walk through the decision-making process for my Politoed.

What am I planning to do with Politoed? Probably Tera Raids. I enjoy high level raids, and Politoed looks like a pretty decent pick for raiding. Five-star+ difficulty raids favor durability over offense since you will often be unable to one-hit KO the bosses through their inflated HP pools - meaning you'll have to take some hits before the boss goes down. Politoed would be good for that due to to its passable HP, high Special Defense, strong abilities, and access to useful support moves.

Let's review the summary of my Politoed:

What moves could Politoed potentially learn? (Click here to read the list on PokemonDB.) Right away I notice that Politoed can learn Belly Drum - a very strong buff in raids - and a limited but passable selection of physical attacks. This creates a potentially interesting opportunity for a Belly Drum-based physical build. That said, Poliwrath exists. As the more physical-oriented of the two, if I wanted a Belly Drumming attack frog, Poliwrath would be a better choice. Politoed are better-suited by default for using special attacks, and this is evident right away when looking at Politoed's stats - notice that her Special Attack is greater than her Attack despite the nature debuff in effect (notice the blue arrow - we'll talk more about this in the next section.)

Putting all these considerations together, let's maximize Politoed's HP and Special Defense. I want to use her in raids against strong special attackers and have her take those hits really well. I also want her to do decent damage with her own special attacks, but that's not gonna be the main focus.

We saw before that Politoed has a careful nature. Careful nature raises the Special Defense stat by 10% and lowers the Special Attack stat by 10%. This is indicated by those red and blue arrows we saw on the stats page. Politoed's careful nature is not ideal - we decided that want her to use special attacks, but her Special Attack stat is currently being reduced. Fortunately, this is easy to change by using a nature mint.

Feeding your Pokémon a mint changes the effect of its nature, causing the Pokémon's stats to be recalculated using the formula for the nature indicated by the mint. The Pokémon's actual nature does not change, but its stats do - exactly as though the Pokémon had a different nature. Stats-wise there is absolutely no difference between an unmodified nature and a minted nature, so there is no downside to using mints. Plus, you can feed your Pokémon another mint to adjust the effect of its nature anytime you'd like. Mints can be purchased at the Chansey Supply Shops in Mesagoza, Montenevera, and Cascarrafa.

Let's feed Politoed a calm mint. Calm nature raises the Special Defense stat by 10% and lowers the Attack stat by 10%.

Notice how Politoed's stats change: Attack decreased from 102 to 91 (-11), and Special Attack increased from 112 to 125 (+13).

Politoed still has a careful nature, but now the effect of her nature has been changed to be more beneficial. The calm mint lets Politoed deal more damage with special attacks, while still keeping the Special Defense boost she had before. In exchange, she will deal less damage with physical attacks. This is a great tradeoff since we aren't planning to use any!

EV training (also known as super training) means the process of purposefully distributing effort points (also known as stat experience) in order to achieve some specific outcome. The EV system represents the concept of your Pokémon working out or practicing to become better at a particular skill. This mechanic is why Pokémon raised with only rare candies are said to be weaker than Pokémon raised with battle exp - rare candy doesn't help your Pokémon gain EV points.

Imagine that each of your Pokémon's six stats has its own invisible experience bar. As your Pokémon "levels up" its stats, it gets bonus stat points. EVs, effort values, basically represent your Pokémon's levels for each of the six stats.

A Pokémon can gain a total of 510 effort points spread across all its parameters. Each individual stat can gain up to 252 points; effectively at 252 the stat has reached the max "stat level" of 63, and it can't gain any more exp for that stat. In other words, the Pokémon is getting the highest possible EV bonus to the relevant stat. The actual impact of EVs on stat values scales with the Pokémon's level and nature. (In general, 4 EVs = +1 stat point at lvl 100.)

If you care about stat min/maxing, EV training is a crucial step! If you don't care that much, you can simply ignore the whole process and let your Pokémon accrue EV points wherever as you use it.

(Psst - you might be interested in my EV Training Planner. This tool lets you enter any EV spread you'd like, and will show you simple step-by-step instructions for exactly how to train that spread. If you're following this guide with your own Pokémon, why not give it a try?)

A basic, straightforward way to EV train is to do a 252/252/6 spread - two stats raised to "lvl 63" and one stat raised to "lvl 1." Since this is a max stats guide, we obviously gotta max some stats, so that's the spread I'll be demoing: 252 HP, 252 Special Defense, and 6 Special Attack.

EV training can be easy to mess up because you can't see the values directly in-game. I strongly recommend that you turn off auto-save and save manually before you start EV training. That way you can easily reset if something goes wrong.

In this section I will demonstrate how to EV train using consumables. This is a super fast and easy method. The only downside is that you'll have to spend some time farming the consumables you need, or enough money to buy them.

Consumables for Gaining EV Points
Item	Effect
HP Up	+10 HP EVs
Health Mochi	+10 HP EVs
Health Feather	+1 HP EV
Protein	+10 Attack EVs
Muscle Mochi	+10 Attack EVs
Muscle Feather	+1 Attack EV
Iron	+10 Defense EVs
Resist Mochi	+10 Defense EVs
Resist Feather	+1 Defense EV
Calcium	+10 Special Attack EVs
Genius Mochi	+10 Special Attack EVs
Genius Feather	+1 Special Attack EV
Zinc	+10 Special Defense EVs
Clever Mochi	+10 Special Defense EVs
Clever Feather	+1 Special Defense EV
Carbos	+10 Speed EVs
Swift Mochi	+10 Speed EVs
Swift Feather	+1 Speed EV

Any combination of these items will work as long as they add up to the desired final value. All vitamins can be purchased at the Chansey Supply Shop in North Cascarrafa, mochis can be won as prizes in the Ogre Oustin' game at the Kitakami Festival, and feathers can be picked up off the water when you are surfing in one Paldean ocean or on Lake Casseroyal. (Sometimes feathers can be picked up off the ground in other places, but they are most common in the water.)

We want Politoed to have 252 HP points. So, for example, we could feed Politoed 26 HP Ups and/or Health Mochi. This would actually be enough to give 260 HP EVs, but since the maximum limit is 252 per stat, it will cap out at 252; we only get 2 EVs from the 26th HP Up/Vigor Mochi. I could also feed Politoed 25 HP Ups and/or Health Mochi, plus two Health Feathers, equaling exactly 252. Or I could feed 252 Health Feathers. Or any other combination that adds up to 252 EV points; it doesn't matter.

for simplicity's sake let's go ahead and use 26 HP Ups on Politoed:

At 252 points the HP EVs are maxed out. To indicate this, you will see a sparkle effect on HP on the EV chart in the Pokémon's stat summary.

Notice how Politoed's stats have changed: HP increased from 185 to 223 (+38).

Let's move on to the next stat. In this section I will demonstrate how to EV train using wild Pokémon battles. This is the slower but cheaper method of EV training. Whenever a Pokémon gains experience from a battle* **, it also gains EV points. What points you earn and how many are determined by the species of the defeated opponent. So, it's best to pre-plan exactly what Pokémon you will battle and how many of them you'll need to KO. And during EV training you should only KO the appropriate target species; do not catch or KO anything else. Otherwise you might gain unwanted EVs.

* Although level 100 Pokémon can't gain any more experience, they can still gain EVs.

** You must manually battle wild Pokémon or NPC trainers. Pokémon do not gain any EVs from auto battles, Synchro Mode battles, Tera Raids, or PVP.

So, we want Politoed to have 252 Special Defense points. Let's get started. First, we will need certain held items to equip on our Pokémon. Next, we will need to identify siotable targets to battle: wild Pokémon that yield the type of EVs that we want to gain. Then, we will need to figure out how many of them to KO in order to gain the number of points we want. Finally... we'll do it!

The Power training items are held items that make EV training faster. When equipped, your Pokémon will gain additional EV points for every KO of the type associated with its held item. For example, let's say your Pokémon is holding a Power Bracer, which gives bonus Attack EVs. Then you KO a Chansey, which gives +2 HP EVs. Your Pokémon gains +2 HP EVs from the Chansey, plus +8 Attack EVs from the Power Bracer.

Note that the Power items' descriptions mention a Speed penalty. This effect is temporary. The Power items decrease the holder's Speed by 50%, only while your Pokémon is actually holding the Power item. Just unequip the Power item when you're done using it; your Pokémon's speed will go right back to normal!

Held Items Used for Battle EV Training
Item	Effect	Example Target	Example Target's EV Yield	Total EVs per Example KO
Power Weight	+8 HP EVs	Marill	+2 HP EVs	+10 HP EVs
Power Bracer	+8 Attack EVs	Veluza	+2 Attack EVs	+10 Attack EVs
Power Belt	+8 Defense EVs	Sudowoodoo	+2 Defense EVs	+10 Defense EVs
Power Lens	+8 Special Attack EVs	Golduck	+2 Special Attack EVs	+10 Special Attack EVs
Power Band	+8 Special Defense EVs	Hypno	+2 Special Defense	+10 Special Defense EVs
Power Anklet	+8 Special Defense EVs	Floatzel	+2 Speed EVs	+10 Speed EVs

Per this table, we'll have Politoed hold a Power Belt so she will gain more Special Defense EVs.

Now we'll battle some Hypno. Let's travel to the ruins east of Alfornada (head out of town going east, up the hillside); it's easy to find Hypno there.

We'll proceed to beat up 26 Hypno, equalling 252 Sp.Def EVs. Again, this would be enough to give 260 HP EVs, but since the maximum limit is 252 per stat, it will cap out at 252; we effectively only get 2 EVs from the 26th Hypno KO.

(Shh - I cheated and used some Zinc after these screenshots. Politoed was going to level up and I wanted her to stay at level 60 for easier stat comparisons. Let's just pretend I KOd 26 Hypno. The end results are the same!)

Unequip the Power item when you're finished using it.

At 252 points the Sp.Def EVs are maxed out. Again, to indicate this in-game, you will see a sparkle effect on Sp.Def on the EV chart in the Pokémon's stat summary.

Let's review how Politoed's stats have changed after this: Special Defense increased from 148 to 190 (+42).

Having distributed 504 out of 510 EV points, we have 6 points left over. We'll dump these into Special Attack using 6 Genius Feathers.

We are now finished with EV training! Here's the final change: Special Attack increased from 125 to 126 (+1). Those last 6 EV points don't do a whole lot, but at least it's something.

Notice that the EV hexagon spread has changed from yellow to blue, indicating that Politoed can't gain any more EV points. There are sparkle effects for HP and Sp.Def, indicating that those two stats have gained the maximum number of EV points.

As a fully trained Pokémon, Politoed now qualifies for the Effort Ribbon. Talk to the girl with a Luxio in the courtyard in south-central Levincia. This achievement awards the title "the Once Well-Trained." I like to get this ribbon for all the Pokémon I EV train.

No worries if you made a mistake somewhere. You can remove your Pokémon's EVs and retrain them whenever you'd like! Use these items:

Consumables for Losing EV Points
Item	Effect
Pomeg Berry	-10 HP EVs
Kelpsy Berry	-10 Attack EVs
Qualot Berry	-10 Defense EVs
Hondew Berry	-10 Special Attack EVs
Grepa Berry	-10 Special Defense EVs
Tamato Berry	-10 Speed EVs
Fresh-Start Mochi	-All EVs

There is no limit to the number of times you can remove and redistribute a Pokémon's EV points. The berries can be picked up off of the ground in Paldea Area Two, and the mochi can be won as a prize at the Ogre Oustin' game at the Kitakami Festival.

Use candy or grind exp - whatever you prefer. I prefer to focus on leveling up after EV training is complete because it's easy to accidentally gain unwanted EV points while battling, which could mess up a planned spread. Once EV training is complete, this is no longer a concern - you cannot accidentally lose or change gained EVs, so you are free to battle any opponents you like.

I have way more than enough Exp candies, so let's feed some to Politoed. Level 100: the pinnacle of power for a Pokémon!

Unsurprisingly, Politoed gets a massive stat boost: HP increased from 223 to 366 (+143), Attack increased from 91 to 150 (+59), Defense increased from 107 to 176 (+69), Special Attack increased from 126 to 207 (+81), Special Defense increased from 190 to 313 (+123), and Speed increased from 101 to 165 (+64). Notice how Politoed's HP and Special Defense grew a lot more than all her other stats. That's those EVs in action!

IVs (individual values, also known as individual strengths) are like a Pokémon's genes: 6 unique values, one assigned to each of its 6 stats, that express that Pokémon's innate stat growth potential. This mechanic is a way to diversify individual Pokémon of the same species and level, so that Jenny's lvl 20 Pikachu is fast and has high HP, while Jimmy's lvl 20 Pikachu is slow but hits hard with its attacks. Hyper training artificially increases a Pokémon's IV, causing the associated stat to be recalculated as though the IV were 31, the highest possible value. The actual IV does not change, but the stat calculation does. In other words, it's like using a mint on an IV. Functionally there is no stat difference between a "best" IV and a "hyper trained" IV.

Hyper training can be done starting at lvl 50. Talk to the Hyper Trainer, a man with an Abomasnow near the Pokémon Center in Montenevera. Hyper training is purchased with bottle caps, which themselves can be purchased at Delibird Presents in Mesagoza.

Let's optimize Politoed's genes as the final step.

This chart displays the Judge assessment of Politoed's current capacities. She is Decent at HP and Attack, and Pretty Good at everything else. Her overall quality is Good.

Five bottle caps later... hyper training complete! The chart now shows each IV we augmented as "Hyper trained!", and Politoed's overall stat quality has correspondingly increased to Amazing. I could have hyper trainer Politoed's Attack too, but I didn't bother since she won't be using that stat at all.

Compare the before and after stat summary pics: HP increased from 366 to 384 (+18), Attack stayed the same, Defense increased from 176 to 186 (+10), Special Attack increased from 207 to 217 (+10), Special Defense increased from 313 to 328 (+15), and Speed increased from 165 to 176 (+11).

Although EV training made a greater impact, hyper training is a nice bonus!

At this point Politoed's stat training is complete. But we're not finished quite yet. I want to change her ability. Water Absorb is a great ability to have as-is - but that Rainy Mark is a perfect match for Drizzle! Let's use an Ability Patch to change that.

Politoed's current moveset also obviously needs improvement... Pound is just embarassing. Let's go ahead and fix that too. I'm teaching her Chilling Water and Mud Slap to debuff raid bosses, Surf for consistent Water damage, and Ice Beam just as filler for now. That will probably be a rotating moveslot, depending on what raid I'm going up against.

Politoed has the highest possible HP and Special Defense, plus a tiny boost to Special Attack. Here's her final build:

• Politoed the Sodden
• Level: 100
• Nature: "Calm" (+Sp.Def, -Atk)
• Ability: Drizzle
• Stats: 384 HP / 150 Atk / 186 Def / 217 Sp.Atk / 328 Sp.Def / 176 Spd
• EVs: 252 HP / 0 Atk / 0 Def / 6 Sp.Atk / 252 Sp.Def / 0 Spd
• IVs: "31" HP / 12 Atk / "31" Def / "31" Sp.Atk / "31" Sp.Def / "31" Spd (5 perfect)
• Moves: Chilling Water, Surf, Ice Beam, Mud Slap

Mission accomplished! We have a brand new raid-ready Politoed.