Ultimate D/P EV Training Guide

This is a guide on EVs. It explains what they are, how they work, and the best places to train them. It even gives good details on how to get the power items, which greatly help the process.

I spent a LONG time on this. Please respect it. I am working on making it better.

Ill be making small edits on this when needed but I think i have most of it.

A Bit Of Background

I have been playing Pokemon for over just about 8 years now. I owned all the original RBY games, and both Pokemon Stadiums. I have also owned at least one version of every generation since, and have heartily enjoyed each. I became interested in competitive Pokemon battling about the start of D/P. Since then I have been heavily involved in at first Psypokes, then Marriland, and I am finally a member of Smogon. (I actually have an account active on each website but whatever.)

Now to the good stuff, EV training. In my guide you will find a guide to EVs, the best places to EV train each individual stat, and even the best way to get the power items. Now I will write up a quick table of contents, and we shall begin.

• What are EVs
• Vitamins (A must read for all beginners)
• Pokerus (Another must read)
• Quick List of Best Places to Train EVs
• The VS Seeker: How to Get it and How It Works
• Training HP Evs
• Training Attack EVs
• Training Defense EVs
• Training Special Attack EVs
• Training Special Defense EVs
• Training Speed Evs
• Split EV Training
• How to Get Power Items: The Quickest Way

In all statistics combined, you may have a total of 510 Evs. This means you can gain up to 127 points overall.

In each individual statistic however, you may only have 255 EVs (Though you will only gain stat points up to 252 EVs). This means you can gain up to 63 extra points, in any given statistic.

For those of you who are not fond of math, this means you can have 2 stats maxed out and have an extra point left over. (If you cared to know.)

There is no way to tell how many EVs you have directly. There are a few ways, however, that you may indirectly check.

At the Market in Sunyshore City there is a lady who gives a ribbon to the first pokemon in your party if it is completely EV trained. If your Pokemon can get the ribbon from this lady, it has all 510 EV points filled.

There are berries you may feed your Pokemon that decrease your EV points. These berries work differently than they did in the Advance generation. The first berry reduces the base stat to 100. After the base stat is at least 100, the EV is reduced by 10 for every berry you give it. You cannot achieve negative EVs, thus this is a good indirect way to check what a pokes EVs are.

That concludes my lesson on EVs. If you still do not understand feel free to ask me or another Smogon member. I am sure they would be happy to help you.

Vitamins

Vitamins are a key part of the EV training process, as they can make your training session go by much faster. You will find that vitamins are exceptionally useful in training EVs 100 points, or lower.

Vitamins can be bought at the Veilstone department store for $9,800 each, or at the Battle Tower for one point.

For each vitamin you give a Pokemon, it gives it 10 EVs in that stat.

You may get up to 100 EVs this way.

You may only use this for the first 100 EVs in any given stat. (For example, you give your Garchomp 110 Attack EVs and then remember you haven’t used vitamins. Since you already have 100 attack EVs, you will not be able to gain any more through vitamins)

Here is a Quick List of Vitamins

HP-UP – Hit-Points
Protein – Attack
Iron – Defense
Calcium – Special Attack
Zinc – Special Defense
Carbos – Speed

Remember to always use these before you go EV training.


Pokerus

Pokerus is a "disease" your pokemon develop randomly while walking around/battling. The first time you have it the lady in the Pokecenter will tell you when you go to get your Pokemon healed.

The other way to see if you have Pokerus is to check the top left corner of the screen when you are looking at the summary of your pokemon. If it has active Pokerus there will be a small purple box reading Pkrs. If it has unactive pokerus you will see a small circle with a red dot in the middle, near the bottom left hand corner.

Active Pokerus is held by your pokemon for 3 days before it becomes unactive. However for time to pass on the "Pokerus clock", your pokemon must be in your party, not in a box.

While your Pokemon has active Pokerus it will spread it to all the other pokemon in your party. This happens randomly while you're walking around and stuff. If your pokemon is in a box, it will not spread its Pokerus.

Now that we know what Pokerus is, how it spreads, and how to tell if you have it, we will discuss what it does.

Plain and simple, Pokerus doubles the total EVs you gain after a battle. This is calculate after factoring in all power items.

For example, say you fight a Gyarados while wearing a Power Bracer. This would give you the base 2 EVs + the 4 EVs from the Bracer, totaling out at 6 EVs. If the pokemon that fainted the Gyardos had Pokerus, it would gain double the total EVs, giving it 12 EVs from fighting a single monster.

Quick List of Best Places to Train EVs

This is just a quick list. More detailed information will be held later in the guide. I mention the VS Seeker in this list. If you do not know what this is or how it works, I have compiled a quick guide on it below this list.

HP - West of Pastoria city in the water, on Route 212, you will run into Woopers. Give one base HP EV each. Rarely you will see Quagsires, that give 2 EVs each. Combined both of these monsters have a 100% encounter rate.

If you are using the VS Seeker, on Route 209 there is a great place to train. There is a girl at the top of the sand, her name is Cowgirl Shelly. She owns 5 Bidoofs, that give 1 HP EV each.

Attack - Route 229 fishing with a Super Rod. Fishing here will net you a Gyarados every time. Gives 2 base attack EVs.

You may also fish in Twinleaf Town, where you encounter Seaking. These fish give 2 attack EVs each.

Defense - Ruin Maniac Cave. Walking around you will encounter Geodudes and Hippotas. Both give 1 base EV in defense each.

Special Attack – In the resort area there is a small pool you may surf in to encounter Golduck 100% of the time. Gives 2 base EV points each.

The Old Chateau is also a good place to train. Here you will find Gastlys that give 1 EV each. if you have a GBA Pokemon game in your DS you will run into Haunters and Gengars as well. These spectres give 2 and 3 special attack EVs each, respectively.

Special Defense – Off the water in Sunyshore city. You will see Tentacruel 60% of the time that give 2 Special Defense EVs each. Rarely you will see Mantykes, that give 1 EV each.

You may also surf the water in Pastoria city. Here you will always run into Tentacools that give 1 special defense EV each.

Speed – Up on the ledges near the Survival Area. (Head east of Survival area and use rock climb to access.) You will encounter Fearows and Raticates, both of which give 2 speed EVs each. Rarely you will see Rattatas and Spearows, both of which give 1 base EV each.

If you are using the VS Seeker, on Route 205 east of Eterna City you will find a bunch of fishermen. Challenge the second one from the right, Fisherman Andrew. He has six Magikarp that give 1 Speed EV each.

The VS Seeker

You get this item on Route 207 from Dawn. (Or Lucas if you are a girl.)

This nifty gadget allows you to re-fight trainers you have challenged before. Simply select it and it will tell you all the trainers in the area who wish to battle. After you use it you must walk 100 steps for it to recharge.

I suggest that you make good use of the VS Seeker, because it can make EV training a lot easier for you.


Training HP EVs

This is one of the simplest EVs to train. The best place to train HP is west of Pastoria City, on Route 212. You will see a small body of water, which you can hope on in and surf on. In this water you will see Woopers which give one point each, and Quagsires which give 2 points each. Together they both have a 100% encounter rate, though Woopers are far more common.

I suggest only training on the Wooperd. This is for the pure simplicity of calculations, because when using power items the Woopers always give an EV amount divisible by 5.

Alternatively you may use the VS Seeker to repeatedly challenge a girl on Route 209 named Cowgirl Shelly. She has 5 Bidoofs which give 1 HP EV each. She is a great alternative place.

Training Attack EVs

Though attack is simpler than HP training, it requires more attention. The best place to train attack EVs is East of the Fight Area, or West of the resort area (Easier this way) on route 229. Here with your Super Rod you may fish for Gyarados, which appear 100% of the time you actually get a catch. These water snakes give you a generous 2 EV points each.

Another good place to fish is Twinleaf Town. Here you can encounter Seakings, which give 2 EV points in attack each.

I realize some people have issues getting the rod to work, so here is exactly how to do it. I suggest that you first assign the Super Rod to your Y-Button. After you have done this, press your Y-Button, while standing next to the water, and pay attention to the screen. When you see the exclamation point above your characters head, quickly tap the A Button once. You do not have to have super reflexes to get this right, though you do need to be paying attention.

Training Defense EVs

The best place to do this is in the Ruin Maniacs cave. This is outside of where you catch the Unknown, the tunnel you actually find the guy in.

Here you will find primarily Geodudes, though Hippotas are not completely uncommon. Each of these guys give 1 EV point each for defense. The low level of these creratures make defense EV training much simpler than it might seem at first.

Training Special Attack

The best place to train this is in the Resort Area. In this small little town you will find a small pool of water near the bottom right-hand corner of the town. In this pool of water you may surf, and find Golducks. These guys give a generous 2 EV points for everyone you faint. On top of that, they are a 100% encounter rate.

Another place you may train special attack is in the Old Chateau, though it is only worth it if you have a GBA Pokemon game.

Here you will find Gastlys that give 1 special attack EV each. If you have a GBA game inserted into your DS, you will also encounter Haunter and Genagr. These guys give 2 and 3 special attack EVs respectively.

Training Special Defense

This stat is almost always easier to train if you use the Split EV training method explained below. Thankfully though, not many things need special defense EVs.

The best place to train this stat, is North of Sunyshore city. Once you’ve flown there, head North until you find Jasmine, the Steel Type Gym Leader from GSC who gives you the HM. Now, swim out into the water. Here you will find, Tentacruels. They are a 60% encounter rate. You will occasionally run into Mantykes, who gives 1 Special Defense EV each.

An alternative and possibly better place to train is in Pastoria City. East of the Move Tutors's home you will see a pool of water. If you surf in here you will encounter Tentacools which give 1 special defense EV each. This is a 100% encounter.

Training Speed

The best way is using the Versus Seeker. On Route 205, you will find many fishermen fishing. (You get to Route 205 by exiting Eterna City via the eastern exit.) Challenege the second fisherman from the right, Fisherman Andrew. He has 6 Magikarps that give 1 Speed EV each.

There is however another good training area. You will find the training area east of the Survival area. Head east of the Poke center until you find a place you can rock climb. Climb up, and you are on the ledges.

Here you will find Fearows and Raicates, both of which give 2 speed Ev points each. You also (Though much more rarely) find their pre-evolved forms, Rattata and Spearow, who offer 1 EV point each.

The reason EV training here is not as effective as fighting Fisherman Andrew, is the lack of a 100% encounter rate. You will find that Golduck and Machoke are farily commonly found here. Though this makes the location inferior to Fisherman Andrw, it is still a good place to train.

Training Split EVs

Split EV training is a method you may employ if you find training any given stat too difficult. It is not always pratical, however, for you must train two EVs at once to use this method.

To train split EVs you must be in possesion of one or more power items, depending upon which stat you wish to train.

Split EV training is when you attach a Power Item to your pokemon that gains it different EVs than the monster you are fighting. (For example, attaching a Power Band to your Pokemon while killing Geodudes, so you gain 1 Defense and 4 Special Defense EVs for every Geodude you kill.)

I don't know what else to say on this, except be very careful when using this method. It can be much more complicated to keep track of your EVs gained, and thus it is easy to mess up.



Getting the Power Items

Power items are items that can be held by your Pokemon. These things increase the EVs you receive at the end of a battle, by four. What stat they raise depend on which item it is.


All of the power items are obtained by purchasing them at the Battle Tower Gift Shop.

Each of the items cost 16 BP each, and there are 6 to buy. A set will cost you 96 BP.

List of the Items
Power Weight - Helps HP Growth
Power Bracer - Helps Attack Growth
Power Belt - Helps Defense Growth
Power Lens - Helps Special Attack Growth
Power Band - Helps Special Defense Growth
Power Anklet - Helps Speed Growth

Since you are on Smogon, I HEAVILY suggest checking to see if anyone has these for trade. There is a good chance someone is willing to trade you a set for something. However this is the quickest way to get them if you are unable to trade for them.

SINGLE BATTLE OFFLINE

This room is the fastest way to get points. Online is too unpredictable, and doubles is a lot slower. Plus, neither offer the bonus of the Tower Tycoon.

The process goes like this. First you start a challenge. You proceed through 2 rounds of opponents, each consisting of 7 different trainers. After the first two rounds you challenge one more set of trainers. The difference this time, is you get to challenege the Tower Tycoon in place of the 7th trainer. After you defeat him, you get a bonus amount of BP. Once you have received the bonus you end your challenge and start over.

The entire process will net you 26 BP. To obtain a full set of power items, you must complete the process 4 times.

Here is the Team I use for the first 3 rounds. I suggest using this team or something very similar to make your challenge as easy as possible. All of these pokemon are fairly common on the Smogon WiFi forums, so you may find it worth your time to try and get some of them there.

Pokemon One

Metagross @ Lum Berry

Bullet Punch
Meteor Mash
Explosion
Earthquake

This lucky guy can almost 1HKO anything you will see. He will basically rip through the tower no problem. His ability to use Explosion makes stall wars with bulky waters much easier. Lum berry negates the effects of the ever present Hypnosis ans swagger, along with all other status inflicting moves.

Garchomp @ Focus Sash

Outrage/ Dragon Claw (Outrage MUCH better but Dragon Claw works.)
Earthquake
Fire Fang
Swords Dance

After a Swords Dance you kill everything in 1 hit. Outrage pretty much does that unboosted, so its good to go right off the bat. This works well in tangent with Metagross, because they cover each others weaknesses.

The last spot is very open to suggestions. Since you’re only doing the first 3 rounds, Garchomp and Metagross will be able to take almost everything. I am listing merely a good example, a lot of things work here. I do suggest, however, that it is some sort of special sweeper. This helps combat things like Skarmory, that might normally cause issues for you.

Lucario @ Wise Glasses/Life Orb/Choice Specs

Vacuum Wave
Aura Sphere
Shadow Ball
Dragon Pulse/HP Ice

This owns Pokemon with high defense easy. You probably won't need him, but he is here anyways. Use him to your advantage.

After completeing the first 2 rounds, and the majority of the third, you will have to fight the Tower Tycoon. His team is always the same 3 pokemon. I have listed here their moves, natures, and EV sreads. Use them to your advantage.

The Tower Tycoon's Team

Milotic @ Salac Berry

Timid

EVs In Speed and Defense

Ice Beam
Hypnosis
Recover
Hydro Pump

Nature and item don’t matter, this is easily his most annoying, and dangerous Pokemon. If it weren’t for this, I would suggest you have Garchomp lead every battle. However, it is not so. When you see this, blow up Metagross. Lum berry prevents sleep, and Metagross lives a Hydro Pump. Milotic Dies to explosion. Be VERY careful not to activate the berry. You're in trouble if it goes off.

Rhyperior @ Expert Belt

Quiet

EV trained in Attack and Special Attack

Ice Beam
Tbolt
Flamethrower
Rock Wrecker (<--- This is like Giga Impact (Physical Hyper Beam), except it is a Rock type attack.)

Ok after you are done laughing, you can beat this guy. He is a JOKE. I haver never seen his 4th attack, I hear it is Rock Wrecker though. This Rhyperior hits pitifully low even with his + special attack Nature, unless he is hitting you for super effective. Don't worry, he is slow and has plenty of weaknesses to pick on. Garchomp kills it, Metagross Kills it, Lucario kills it. Enough said. Do whatever is easier.

Dragonite @ Wide Lens

Adamant

EV trained in Attack and HP

Aqua Tail
Stone Edge
Iron Tail
Dragon Rush


Ok now this is not a threat. (Unless you just get really unlucky.) Any of your dragon Pokemon, (Or Lucario) should outspeed this and get a 1 or 2 hit kill. I have never had an issue with this Dragonite in all my Battle Tower experience.

That's it guys. I'd love some good comments, suggestions, etc. Feel free to PM me about this. I'll keep improving this as I see how it goes over on the forum.

Thanks for your contribution, by putting it here you are authorizing people to make all the edits they like and eventually put it on the site. Someone will look over your stuff within a day or two.

Tower Tycoon's Rhyperior's final attack is Rock Wrecker, which is a physical Rock-type Hyper Beam.

I forget Dragonite's moveset also.

Oh wow really? Thats pretty cool. Ill make sure I edit it some more because I know there are some holes in it. (Not many but some)

Doctor mudkip, there's one thing you seem to have forgoten about EVing locations. It's very thesible to re-fight certain trainers for EVs. One of the finest examples of refighting a trainer for EVs would be the fisherman out side of eterna city. In one foul swoop you can obtain 6 speed EVs from one fight with his 6 magikarp. (factoring in pokerus and power anklet gives it 60)

I might also suggest barrowing some material from a previous guide (seen here) that shows many other convinient Locations to EV train.

Thank you Cornflake. Ill be filling in more detailed information about his team very shortly.

Thank you too, Mantyke.

Personally, I've found training against Gyarados to be a pain unless you've got an electric attack to hit them with. And like Mantyke said, re-fighting trainers is often MUCH faster than just fighting wild pokemon.

Also, you should probably mention the method of "Split Ev training" - if you want to train a difficult stat (say, sp def) on something that doesn't have enough power to go fighting Tentacools, you can simply put the power item for sp def on and fight a bunch of weak enemies that give you HP EV's, earning 8 sp def EV's per battle w/ Pokerus.

Come to think of it, where IS pokerus in this guide? It's essential to fast EV training yet I don't see it mentioned at all.

Wait, Fishin, how does that work? Do I fight Bidoofs and get SDef EV's if I hold the SDef Power Item?

If you are holding the Power item of a particular stat, you gain whatever EVs you'd normally gain, +4 EVs for that stat (which is then multiplied by Pokérus).

That's the fastest way to EV train sweepers, by the way - if you're doing an EV spread such as 4 HP/252 Atk/252 Spd, get 4 HP EVs, give it two Proteins to get 20 Attack EVs, and get the remainder of the 232 Attack EVs with the right power item while beating Zubats. Just keep getting Speed EVs afterwards until you're done. I find the cave south of Floraroma (sp?) has the highest Zubat rate but don't quote me on it.

Just going to throw in some stuff here:

Unlike in the Adv generations, giving your Pokemon one of these berries brings its base EV down to 100, then to 0. (I do not know if that second piece of information is true, because I have never had need to test it. I need confirmation.)

Click to expand...

I WISH that second bit was true. If the Pokemon has 100 or less EV's in a stat the berry will only remove ten.

HP- West of Pastoria city in the water, on route 212, you will run into Woopers. Give one base HP ev each. Rarely you will see Quagsires, that give 2 EVs each. Combined both of these monsters have a 100% encounter rate. I use the Cowgirl south of Solaceon for HP, she has five Bidoofs, which give one HP EV each.

Attack - Route 229 fishing with a super rod., will net you a Gyarados every time. Gives 2 Base Attack EVs. Fishing at Twinleaf works too, you also find Seakings which also give 2 Attack EVs.

Defense - Ruin Maniac Cave. Walking around you will encounter Geodudes and Hippotas. Both give 1 base EV in defense each. We're in agreement here.

Special Attack – In the resort area there is a small pool you may surf in to encounter Golduck 100% of the time. Gives 2 base EV points each. Two words. Old Chateau. All Gastly (one Sp.Atk EV), all the time, unless you've got a GBA Pokemon in your DS, then Haunter (two EVs) joins in, and in the room with the creepy eyes painting Gengar (three EVs) shows up too.

Special Defense – Off the water in Sunyshore city. You will see Tentacruel 60% of the time that give 2 Special Defense EVs each. Rarely you will see Mantykes, that give 1 EV each. I use the water in Pastoria. Mostly Tentacools there.

Speed – Up on the ledges near the survival area. (Head east of Survival area and use rock climb to access)You will encounter Fearows and Raticates, both of which give 2 speed EVs each. Rarely you will see Rattatas and Spearows, both of which give 1 base EV each. Like TheMantyke said, use the Magikarp guy.

Click to expand...

My suggestions in bold.

I realize some people have issues getting the rod to work

Click to expand...

That's what she said lol. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Milotic

Ice Beam
Hypnosis
Recover
Hydro Pump

Nature and item don’t matter

Click to expand...

It's got a Salac Berry, which is a pain if it gets to activate it.

I hope my points help. And raise a smile in one case.

Ahh thank you guys I knew most of that stuff =P Guess my mind was slipped of Pokerus, because I do not usaully do it. Ill be editing in stuff now.

Ok people I edited in the split Ev training method, and A LOT more information on the tycoons pokemon. I am looking up information about training EVs on trainers.

Also added a section on Pokerus, explaining all about it. And as we speak Im going to go fix that incorrect information about the berries I posted.

I only skimmed this, so I can't say much about its content. However, there are too many stylistic errors for this to be considered on the site in its present form. Stuff like "Wth? Lol. It can be WAY annoying" isn't appropriate ;-)

Pokemon, moves, items, etc should always be capitalized.

Avoid overuse of shorthand. In a moveset description, you shouldn't write stuff like "Dclaw" "Tbolt" etc.

Needs to be proofed for spelling and grammar. Some things are randomly capitalized when they shouldn't be as well.

Ok chaos ill be on it. I was just checking my trade thread =)

Ok chaos I gave it an overhaul. I took out every inapproprite shorthand I could find, as well as any spelling erros. I expect it is not perfect, but it should be very close.

Also I edited in information about using the VS Seeker to challenege trainers for battles, to train your EVs. Later tonight or tommorow I will edit it alternative places to train, because as of now I have only listed the best ones.

Doctor Mudkip said:

In each individual statistic however, you may only have 252 EVs. This means you can gain up to 63 extra points, in any given statistic.

Click to expand...

Like chaos i just skimmed this, but please warn people about the fact that it is possible to get 255EVs in each stat and that they should avoid it.

Butpretty cool:) will probably use this since i never EV trained inngame.(Yeah Netbattle/ShoddyBattle FTW)

Ty Ty Andy I gues since I am so used to this being common knowledge I did not say exactly what I meant to

Off for the night guys. Edited in what Ande requested. Be back for more tommorow.

Hello, Doctor Mudkip. It seems you put a lot of effort in this, so I'll provide my comments. :)

My first comment is about all those sentences that start with "Ok", and there are several:

"Ok I feel these require a section of their own."
"Ok this is probably one of the more simple EVs to train."
etc.

I think, frankly, that starting a sentence with "Ok" gives the document an amateurish look. This is not gamefaqs. The document should be written in as professional a way as possible. These sentences should be rephrased or even omitted, depending on whether they convey actual information about EV training or not.

For example, the sentence "Ok I feel these require a section of their own." can be outright omitted, since a person reading that sentence will not receive ANY information about EV training at all, and so it's useless. The sentence "Ok this is probably one of the more simple EVs to train.", however, should not be omitted outright, but rather could be rephrased without the initial "Ok", becoming "This is probably one of the simplest EVs to train.", since this actually provides information about EV training.

Also, remove all emoticons; people don't want to see them. I only saw one, so I think you may have forgot to remove it; it's at "These guys are the things that make EV training somewhat annoying here >=O."

My suggestion is, therefore, to go through your document yet again and remove or rephrase sentences that gives the document an unprofessional look. In short, sentences in a guide should not be written as though you're chatting to someone over MSN or in real life, but using 'textbook' English, so to speak. Admittedly, you have already done a bit of revision, and so these kind of sentences are, presumably, already low in number.

To end on a positive note, you seem to be very well-versed on EV training, and it shows that you have a lot of EV training experience. Just revise your document a bit so that it doesn't appear shoddy and your guide will be top-notch. :)

Got rid of all emoticons (There were only 2)

Fixed a couple of sentences I missed that had some gramatical or informational errors in them.

Got rid of all the non informational sentences. Well all I saw, and I took a long while doing this.

Should be looking even better now, hope its becoming acceptable for the ever great Smogon lol.

Quick question for mods: does the bot that changes 'Pokemon' to the one with the little thing over the 'e' do the same for 'Pokerus'?

chaos can make one for that.

HP EV's said:

I suggest only training on the Wooperd. This is for the pure simplicity of calculations, because when using power items the Woopers always give an EV amount divisible by 5.

Click to expand...

defense EV's said:

Here you will find primarily Geodudes, though Hippotas are not completely uncommon. Each of these guys give 1 EV point each for defense. The low level of these creratures make defense EV training much simpler than it might seem at first.

Click to expand...

Speed EV's said:

The best way is using the Versus Seeker. On Route 205, you will find many fishermen fishing. (You get to Route 205 by exiting Eterna City via the eastern exit.) Challenege the second fisherman from the right, Fisherman Andrew. He has 6 Magikarps that give 1 Speed EV each.

Click to expand...

sp atk EV's said:

The best place to train this is in the Resort Area. In this small little town you will find a small pool of water near the bottom right-hand corner of the town. In this pool of water you may surf, and find Golducks. These guys give a generous 2 EV points for everyone you faint. On top of that, they are a 100% encounter rate.

Click to expand...

^should be "every one"

Split EV's said:

Split EV training is a method you may employ if you find training any given stat too difficult. It is not always pratical, however, for you must train two EVs at once to use this method.

Click to expand...

The overall tone of the article is looking a bit more objective (as it should be), but it still seems slightly on the casual side. It's difficult to really find a good way to fix this, but...lines like "these guys" don't really sound professional enough for an official guide. This may just be my perfectionism going overboard, but...meh.