Defensive EV configurations

[Kuiper]

Ah, yes. Time to cover the difficult aspect of deciding where to put the few leftover EVs on that Salamence or where to start with your Shuckle.

The primary difficulty in figuring defensive EV configurations is determining whether it is more effective to put the EVs into HP or the defenses.

When considering the damage from a single attack, the rough formula used to figure is that

IF ActualDefense > 2 * ActualHitPoints THEN HitPointEffortValueEffectiveness > DefenseEffortValueEffectiveness.

Note that there is no coefficient of 2 before the defense. This means that for the most part, defense EVs are more effective than HP EVs except in situations where the Pokemon has astronomical defense and very little HP, such as with Shuckle.

However! This was only considering one of the defenses. HP will increase your ability to survive both special and physical attacks, while defensive EVs will only help defend against one variety of attack.

This means when you know that you will be defending against only one type of attack (I’m sure not leaving my Skarmory against a special attacker), defensive EVs are generally better than HP EVs (with Shuckle-like exceptions).

This also means that when you’re expecting to take both kinds of attacks, which means almost anything offensive that can take a hit, it’s better to have HP EVs first, because they cover both areas. However, that doesn’t mean that you won’t be spending ~200 HP EVs and splitting the rest between the defenses, rather than sticking in the traditional 252. Remember not to consider the actual amount of HP you’re losing, but how much you’re losing in proportion to the total amount. Losing 100 HP is almost nothing to a Blissey, but for Shuckle it could mean serious trouble. In other words, try to examine the percent of HP loss.

This means that until someone creates a program for lazy people not wanting to figure their own stats, or until I someone can manipulate the damage calculation formula to figure out an easy way to figure these things, you’ll have to do a bit of testing on your own.

One thing to watch for is moves like Seismic Toss and Night Shade. Defenses don’t help against these, because they specifically target the HP stat. Just one more thing to take into consideration when configuring your stats.

Also, when using Substitute, consider how much HP your Substitute will have. It may not be most effecient usually for Swampert to have 252 HP EVs, however, with maxed HP he has 404 HP, and that means 101 Substitutes, which means that they can surivive Seismic Toss. Pokemon Baton Passing Substitute should have their HP be the highest multiple of 4 possible to allow the recipient maximum Substitute benefits.

Specific cases are a big deal. Do you want to give your Forretress enough special defense EVs to withstand Magneton’s Hidden Power Fire long enough to Earthquake? How about getting a Metagross that can survive Explosion? I’d love to see a Ludicolo survive Salamence’s Aerial Ace long enough to hit it with Ice Beam. Watch for things that could really sink you and look for ways to counter them. I once created a TecH Weezing that in addition to outspeeding Tyranitar to Will-o-Wisp before the Taunt could also survive the few random Psychic attacks floating about. I’m also fond of my Mirror Coating Cradily that can deflect back Starmie’s Ice Beam. Just because putting some of Tyranitar’s leftover EVs into HP might be more practical, you could give it the ability to survive the few random Focus Punches floating around.

When figuring optimal setups, know how the damage is calculated.

The damage formula:

((2L / 5 + 2) * B * A / 50 / D + 2) * T * M * R / 255; rounded down

L = Level of attacker
B = Base Damage
A = Corresponding Attack stat
D = Corresponding Defense stat
T = STAB (1 or 1.5 or 1.1* or 1.65**)
M = Type Modifier (4, 2, 1, 0.5, 0.25 or 0)
R = Random variable between 217 and 255 (for average damage, R = 236)

* benificial boosting item
** benificial boosting item + STAB

Marble Palace also has a nice damage calculator.


I realize I was really brief on an incredibly expansive topic here and I didn’t even address a lot of major parts, in fact, I’m even considering doing another article on this rather that just adding to this post. Some input here would be really helpful, if you would. Any suggestions as to cases that could use further investigation or information you have to provide would be most appreciated.