Not long ago, we covered some key points on how to choose an honest-to-goodness battlin’ team. Now that you’ve formed a strategy, here’s a guide on making sure that the Pokémon you’ve picked are the very best they can be. If you’re going to put the effort in raising Raichu to L100, don’t you want it to be the most rockin’, trash-talkin’ badass mouse in town? Part II of 4cr’s Trainer Tips will gloss over some of the most useful stat-determining mechanics in Diamond and Pearl: Pokémon Natures, Effort Values and Individual Values.

There will be numbers here, so be prepared for counting and other magical things… like math! Oh-hoh, that’s right trainers! This week, we’re covering a few game mechanics every competitive trainer should know, and we won’t hold back! Rebels, dare ye enter here?

KNOWING YOUR RANKS:

Pokémon Natures:
Let’s start off with something simple: Pokémon natures. First, check the summary of your Pokémon. On the Trainer Memo screen you’ll see one word describing its inner nature. It might be a brave soldier, or a lonely warrior-type ’mon. Maybe it’s gentle or calm, and likes long walks on the beach. Sure, that’s nice to know, but what does this translate to in battle? The games’ instruction booklets say nothing about them, so what’s the deal? Other than being a nifty way of personalizing your Pokémon, natures can point out your Pokémon’s strengths and weaknesses. Here is a breakdown of what they all mean:

Adamant: +10% Attack, -10% Special Attack
Bashful: Neutral, without stat advantages or disadvantages
Bold: +10% Defense, -10% Attack
Brave: +10% Attack, -10% Speed
Calm: +10% Special Defense, -10% Attack
Careful: +10% Special Defense, -10% Special Attack
Docile: Neutral
Gentle: +10% Special Defense, -10% Defense
Hardy: Neutral
Hasty: +10% Speed, -10% Defense
Impish: +10% Defense, -10% Special Attack
Jolly: +10% Speed, -10% Special Attack
Lax: +10% Defense, -10% Special Defense
Lonely: +10% Attack, -10% Defense
Mild: +10% Special Attack, -10% Defense
Modest: +10% Special Attack, -10% Attack
Naïve: +10% Speed, -10% Special Defense
Naughty: +10% Attack, -10% Special Defense
Quiet: +10% Special Attack, -10% Speed
Quirky: Neutral
Rash: +10% Special Attack, -10% Special Defense
Relaxed: +10% Defense, -10% Speed
Sassy: +10% Special Defense, -10% Speed
Serious: Neutral
Timid: +10% Speed, -10% Attack

In Pokémon with non-neutral natures, a beneficial stat is upped by 10%, while a detrimental stat is lowered by 10%. How this applies to your team is all up to you. Do you have a Pokémon with only Attack-based moves? Why not try for an Adamant nature, which will add 10% to your max Attack stat, while taking 10% away from your Special Attack stat? Maybe your Attack is already high, and you want more points in Defense — how about an Impish nature to start?

A vast realm of possibilities are open to you. Stay smart! If you’re training a Snorlax, whose -10% in Speed won’t be much of a problem, why don’t you place that extra 10% in a more useful stat? On the flipside, if you’re entering an all-Snorlax competition and you want the fastest ‘lax in the tourney, you can train one with a beneficial Speed nature. Study the fighting style of your team and keep your opponents in mind to see which natures are right for your crew.

Effort Values:
Have you ever wondered why the Pokémon you train are many times stronger than those in the wild? Maybe you’ve used the occasional Rare Candy, or left your Pokémon at the daycare, only to return to a higher-leveled Pokémon with lower stat gains. At times like these, the game spites you by making you train your Pokémon instead of being lazy. Curses! There’s no way around it: the more effort you put into training, the tougher your team will become. In every battle a Pokémon can gain experience from, it will also gain hidden points that can increase its stats. These are called Effort Points. Effort Values can transform a Snorlax with 100 Attack to one with 160 Attack, so you can bet they’re useful, no matter who you’re competing against!

As mentioned in the previous post, Serebii.net holds a wealth of information. It has an in-depth list of how many Effort Points you’ll get from fighting each Pokémon. For every 4 Effort Points earned in one stat, your Pokémon gains 1 stat point to the Effort Value you’re training (HP, Attack, Defense, Sp. Attack, Sp. Defense or Speed). The concept is simple — but there is a catch! Pokémon would be ridiculously overpowered in an unlimited-EP world, so to even things out a bit, they can only gain a limited number of EP before additional training is useless. The EV cap for Diamond and Pearl is set at a total of 510 Effort Points, up to a maximum of 255 EP in a stat. This translates to a maximum additional stat gain of 63 per stat (252 / 4 = 63), or 127 stat points divvied-up. You can use your PokéApps to keep track of how many points your Pokémon has gained (but be careful–the counter and calculator applications will revert to 0 if you change apps or quit the game).

Get ready, Rebels: it’s time to get into gear and fight! Here are my favorite training grounds, though there are plenty more, so feel free to explore!

HP: Hit up the surf at route 212 and you’ll find Wooper and his big buddy Quagsire. Don’t have surf? Bidoof can help you!
Attack: In the rainy marshes of route 212, south of Hearthome and west of Pastoria, you’ll find a swampy haven of Ekans, Bibarel and Kriketune.
Defense: The underground of Iron Island is home to plenty of Graveler, Onix and Steelix. You can catch a ship from Canalave City to get there.
Sp. Attack: Ponds and lakes are your friends here, and almost any one will do. Make your way to Verity Lakefront for mass-Psyduck and Golduck slaughter!
Sp. Defense: You’ll find lots of Tentacruel and Mantyke surfing at route 223 north of Sunyshore City. If you get bored here, Tentacruel appear pretty much everywhere!
Speed: Fly to the Survival Area (north of Battle Park) and train in the grass to the west. Rattata, Raticate and Fearow prowl these lands.

Now that we’ve gotten to the meat of EV training, here are some tasty tips to make this process easier:

1. Vitamins: Instead of battling a ton of Pokémon, you can easily gain 100 EP (25 stat points) in any given value using items. You know those expensive P9800 items sold at the Veilstone Department Store? Whenever your Pokémon gobbles one up, it will gain 10 EP in a given stat. You can use up to a maximum of 10 per type of item on a single Pokémon. If you’ve used less than 10 and the game doesn’t let you use any more, that means that you’ve either maxed out your EP in that particular stat or you’ve capped at 510 total EP.

HP Up: gives 10 EP to HP.
Protein: gives 10 EP to Attack.
Iron: gives 10 EP to Defense.
Calcium: gives 10 EP to Sp. Attack.
Zinc: gives 10 EP to Sp. Defense.
Carbos: gives 10 EP to Speed

You can also buy vitamins for 1 BP at the Battle Tower, which is easier to do if you’re short on cash!

2. Exp. Share: Pokémon who aren’t battling can also gain EP as long as they’re in your party and holding an Exp. Share. Say you’re in the process of EV training Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur. Charmander’s attacking, but both Squirtle and Bulbasaur are holding Exp. Shares. If Charmander beats Magikarp (who gives 1 Speed EP), even though Squirtle and Bulbasaur were warming the bench, they will both gain 1 Speed EP each. While base experience is split with Exp. Share, Effort Points are not! Exp. Share is also useful if you want to start EV training your Pokémon right from the get-go, but can’t level up in a certain area. Have your strong Pokémon do the battling, and your little Pokémon do the leeching!

3. Hold Items: Additional EV training items were included in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl. By holding these items, Pokémon will have their speed cut in half while battling, but will gain an extra 4 EP in a specific stat after the battle. If Charmander is holding a Power Anklet and beats Magikarp, it will get 5 Speed EPs (1 from battling and 4 from the hold item). If it were holding Power Lens instead, it would have gained 1 Speed EP and 4 Sp. Attack EPs.

Power Weight: gains an extra 4 EP in HP.
Power Bracer: gains an extra 4 EP in Attack.
Power Belt: gains an extra 4 EP in Defense.
Power Lens: gains an extra 4 EP in Sp. Attack.
Power Band: gains an extra 4 EP in Sp. Defense.
Power Anklet: gains an extra 4 EP in Speed.

Another useful hold item is the Macho Brace, which cuts a Pokémon’s speed in half while battling, but doubles the amount of EPs gained. If you don’t have any of these items, try holding a Smoke Ball so you can run away from Pokémon you’d rather not battle (so as not to waste Effort Points).

4. Pokérus: If you’re one of those cheating buggers whose team caught the Pokérus, then EV training is easy as pie for you. Lucky sod. A Pokérus’d Pokémon gains twice as much EP from every battle (how unfair is that?)! Since Pokérus is cured while you’re on the road, you might want to infect some other Pokémon in your PC before going out to train. That way, when you’re EV training said Pokémon’s grandkids months from now, you can infect them too for faster training times, unlike trainers who actually work hard for EVs. Trainers who aren’t you. Just how useful is the Pokémon virus? Funny you should ask! Imagine your Charmander has the Pokérus and holds a Power Anklet while battling Magikarp: Charmander will gain 10 Speed EPs (5 x hot Pokérus doubling action) from winning that battle! Argh! No hard feelings, y’know? Loser.

Did you mess up your training, or lose count of your EVs? Fear not, comrade! In past generations this would have meant starting over with a new Pokémon, echoing cries of frustration and bad emotive poetry. Your hard-earned training ruined, forever. Thankfully, in Diamond and Pearl (and Emerald, too) you can undo any EV training you’ve done with natural drugs! Have your Pokémon eat these berries to remove 10 Effort Points from unwanted stats:

Pomeg: removes 10 EP from HP.
Kelpsy: removes 10 EP from Attack.
Qualot: removes 10 EP from Defense.
Hondew: removes 10 EP from Sp. Attack.
Grepa: removes 10 EP from Sp. Defense.
Tamato: removes 10 EP from Speed.

How can you tell when you’ve reached the top? Well, if you’re training the regular way by battling all the trainers you come across, chances are high that you’ll have reached the EV cap without ever planning to. Fly to Sunyshore City and head over to Sunyshore Market. Talk to the lady on the left and she’ll give you an Effort Ribbon if your Pokémon has reached its maximum effort capacity. Congrats!

Individual Values:
When you have two Pokémon of the same level and species, you might have noticed that their stats tend to be different, even if they’ve never battled before. Beyond the Effort Values and base stats of Pokémon are hidden stats you can’t see. These stats measure how tough a Pokémon is compared to others of its kind. We call these stats Individual Values, or IVs for short.

IVs vary from 0-31 for each main stat of your Pokémon (including HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense and Speed). The closer an IV is to 31, the better. A Pokémon with 31 in all its IVs is essentially flawless, a supermodel or god among millions, with all-perfect stats. Of course, the chance of getting a Pokémon with 31s in all 6 IVs is next to impossible, and while these stats aren’t shown, there are ways to manipulate and determine the IVs of a Pokémon. You can guess a Pokémon’s IVs using this calculator. This is best done before EV training has begun, unless you’ve kept track of your Pokémon’s Effort Points.

Got a rough estimate? Good, now let’s fine-tune that number! On the Trainer Memo screen of your Pokémon’s profile, you’ll find a short personality blurb near the bottom, followed by its tastes. What the game doesn’t tell you is how that character trait refers to your Pokémon’s strongest IV. Check the blurb and its corresponding IV numbers below. Is it “proud of its power?” That means that the highest IV of that Pokémon is Attack and ends in 0 or 5, meaning it could be any of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30. Now, enter your Pokémon’s stats in the IV calculator. If the calculator gives an Attack IV range of 22-29, this means that the true Attack IV of your Pokémon is 25.

HP
Loves to eat: 0/5/10/15/20/25/30
Often dozes off: 1/6/11/16/21/26/31
Often naps: 2/7/12/17/22/27
Often scatters things / Scatters things often: 3/8/13/18/23/28
Likes to relax: 4/9/14/19/24/29
Attack
Proud of its power: 0/5/10/15/20/25/30
Likes to thrash about: 1/6/11/16/21/26/31
Quick tempered: 2/7/12/17/22/27
Likes to fight: 3/8/13/18/23/28
Quick tempered / A little quick tempered: 4/9/14/19/24/29
Defense
Sturdy body: 0/5/10/15/20/25/30
Capable of taking hits: 1/6/11/16/21/26/31
Highly persistent: 2/7/12/17/22/27
Good endurance: 3/8/13/18/23/28
Good perseverance: 4/9/14/19/24/29
Special Attack
Highly curious: 0/5/10/15/20/25/30
Mischievous: 1/6/11/16/21/26/31
Thoroughly cunning: 2/7/12/17/22/27
Often lost in thought: 3/8/13/18/23/28
Very finicky: 4/9/14/19/24/29
Special Defense
Strong willed: 0/5/10/15/20/25/30
Somewhat vain: 1/6/11/16/21/26/31
Strongly defiant: 2/7/12/17/22/27
Hates to lose: 3/8/13/18/23/28
Somewhat stubborn: 4/9/14/19/24/29
Speed
Likes to run: 0/5/10/15/20/25/30
Alert to sounds: 1/6/11/16/21/26/31
Impetuous and silly: 2/7/12/17/22/27
Somewhat of a clown: 3/8/13/18/23/28
Quick to flee: 4/9/14/19/24/29

Keeping natures and IVs in mind, what is the best way to snag the Pokémon you want? If you’re lucky you can catch a Pokémon with good stats in the wild, but oftentimes it’s not so easy. This is where Pokémon breeding comes in handy. Breeding has many advantages, which you can read about in detail here at Bulbapedia, another great resource for aspiring Master Trainers. Without digging too much, here’s the scoop: if a mothering Pokémon or Ditto holds an Everstone, she has a 50% chance of passing her nature to the child. Also, the egg will inherit up to 3 random IVs from its parents. What this means is that it’s possible to breed for Pokémon with max-IVs in certain stats. This takes time, of course, but the best-laid plans are never easy. Stay focused, do your best, and you’re well on your way to reaching the top.

Whew, that was a hefty segment! Feel free to add your own training advice! This concludes Part II of 4 Color Rebellion’s Pokémon Trainer Tips. What’s in store for the future? Well folks, stay tuned!