A Guide to EV Training with Hordes

This is... uh... stellar...

IIRC There's an ability that increases encounter rates (I forget what it's called). It would be interesting to see if this affects the frequency and reliability of hordes.

Either way, it's probably worth using.

Abomasnow is useful in horde battles if you're using EXP Share... Hail bypasses Sturdy, and he learns Razor Leaf and EQ, both of which kill everyone at once.

What are people doing to keep track of EVs for the more complex EV spreads? Just pen and paper? I have a 140/164/0/0/0/204 spread I'm planning on using and I dont know how I'll ever keep track of that, unless I do the entire EV training in one night.
 
Last edited:
reflect I'm not sure why you're talking about horde battles as if they are double battles. you also don't need to worry about any encounter rates as far as abilities go because you simply use sweet scent to force a horde encounter. make sure your exp share is turned on and if something gains experience it gains EVs, too; just lead with something strong that can OHKO everything in one shot and you don't need to worry about Protect or anything like that as you were saying.

as far as complex spreads, I make sure that I have the super training page on the bottom screen and just watch the EVs after each battle to make sure I'm doing the right things. for yours, I would do HP with pokerus and power item on two battles, then macho brace for two more battles to reach 140. three battles in attack with power item and pokerus reaches 150, then 14 is kinda stupid so you'll need two more battles to finish that up (or one if you do attack last). for speed four battles with pokerus and power item is 200, then macho brace and kill one more pokemon to hit 204. it isn't that hard to keep track of, and if you heal in between stats, you know how many PP you should use to KO everything and can double check that as well.
 
The OP says hordes won't appear in rainy routes... well, that's not true. Indeed, Honey and Sweet Scent won't work in said rainy routes, but it is still possible for hordes to appear without the use of these. Of course it is random doing it this way, but...
 
Also want to note that if you have crappy luck like me and it's always raining in both of the routes for training ATK...

Route 14 has Weepinbell and Carnivine as common wild Pokemon encounters. They each give 2 ATK EVs. It's obviously not as good as hordes, but it's better than sitting around doing nothing waiting for the rain to go away..
 

Galladium

Banned deucer.
You might want to consider adding ideal routes for EV combinations in the OP. For example I am currently training a 252 HP / 252 Atk Mawile on Route 20 with the Macho Brace. It's slower, but you can train 2 or more stats at once.
 

cant say

twitch.tv/jakecantsay
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
You might want to consider adding ideal routes for EV combinations in the OP. For example I am currently training a 252 HP / 252 Atk Mawile on Route 20 with the Macho Brace. It's slower, but you can train 2 or more stats at once.
So why then?

If you can't be bothered changing routes just use the appropriate power item then when that stat is maxed, simply swap it for the other power item you need. As long as you keep fighting the same horde you won't mess up your EVs...

eg for you Mawile: fight gulpins on route 5 (iirc) holding the power weight, then swap to the power bracer once HP is maxed while still fighting gulpins. Takes a minimum of 11 battles to max both stats without leaving the route, as apposed to 26 (13 for each stat) while holding the macho brace. You also need to hope the right hordes appear after you've maxed one stat already. Seriously macho brace is so inferior I don't get why people still use it...
 

Galladium

Banned deucer.
If you can't be bothered changing routes just use the appropriate power item then when that stat is maxed, simply swap it for the other power item you need. As long as you keep fighting the same horde you won't mess up your EVs...

eg for you Mawile: fight gulpins on route 5 (iirc) holding the power weight, then swap to the power bracer once HP is maxed while still fighting gulpins. Takes a minimum of 11 battles to max both stats without leaving the route, as apposed to 26 (13 for each stat) while holding the macho brace. You also need to hope the right hordes appear after you've maxed one stat already. Seriously macho brace is so inferior I don't get why people still use it...
It means that you can mindlessly keep using Sweet Scent and spamming Surf, so it's good for those lazy types.

Also, Gulpin passes on HP, so how on Earth does the Power Bracer give you Attack EVs?
 
It means that you can mindlessly keep using Sweet Scent and spamming Surf, so it's good for those lazy types.

Also, Gulpin passes on HP, so how on Earth does the Power Bracer give you Attack EVs?
The Power items give 4 EVs in their respective stats whenever EVs are gained, even if none of the EVs received in battle are going to the stat the Power item affects. At least that's how I understand it.

I'm starting to like Frost Cavern for Attack by facing hordes of adorable little Cubchoo. Sure, I may need to run from a few Vanillite and the rare Smoochum hordes while there, but at least it doesn't rain in there... Hate it when the game decides to let it pour just as I have Carnivine use Sweet Scent. But aside from that, this method is incredible! Super Training may have gotten me started, but now I hardly touch it unless it's for the last 4 or so EVs. And the speed of it lets me keep track of it in my head as I watch the graph rise.
 

cant say

twitch.tv/jakecantsay
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
It means that you can mindlessly keep using Sweet Scent and spamming Surf, so it's good for those lazy types.

Also, Gulpin passes on HP, so how on Earth does the Power Bracer give you Attack EVs?
The Power items give 4 EVs in their respective stats whenever EVs are gained, even if none of the EVs received in battle are going to the stat the Power item affects. At least that's how I understand it.
As Detective Baracade said, the power items give EVs for every Pokemon you KO, regardless of whether the Pokemon you KO gives the same EV. So if you have your Mawile hold the power bracer and kill a horde of Gulpin it will get:

HP: 1 x 2 (for pkrs) x 5 (for each Gulpin)
Attack: 4 x 2 (for pkrs) x 5 (for each Gulpin)

= 10 HP, 40 Attack

So when training 2 stats on the same route (for example; we're doing HP and Attack for your Mawile), I would give it the power weight and fight 5 hordes of Gulpin which would yield 250 HP EVs ( ((1+4)x2)x5=50 per battle), then I would swap to the power bracer and keep fighting Gulpin hordes to get the attack. You'll pick up the remaining 2 HP EVs to bring your total to 252 in the sixth battle as well as 40 Attack EVs. It'll take you 5 more battles holding the power bracer to reach 240 EVs (6x40=240), you can either fight one more to max your attack or do a round of level 3 super training to get the last 12. So it can be done in 11 fights, or 12 fights to max your stats.

Hope this made some sense!
 
Last edited:
You can also use a power ite for a different stat than the horde you are training on. for example you can train a 252/252 attack/speed Garchomp with:
13 Wingull horde battle with the attack power item (260 attack / 65 speed EV's, attack getscut off at 252)
then 8 more Wingull horde battles with speed power item (200 speed EV's)

No reason the rain has to mess up our training

EDIT: can't say said this better than I did in his post.
 
So I made an account specifically to share the benefits of my searching.

Tropius (your horde killer)
Packing 4 moves
Fly(who wants to go to the pokemon center an extra time)
Sweet scent (obv)
Earthquake (multistrike)
Razor Leaf (also multi strike, for those meddling flying ev pokemon. ex murkrow wingull)

My tropius with max attack and speed ivs 1 shots all 5 pokemon from any horde I need 100% of the time
Wide lens corrects razor leaf's slightly imperfect accuracy. Or you can run choice band if you're using an underlevelled/ non-ev'd tropius

All 5 of your other pokemon need to be carrying your power item of choice to reap the benefit. (If you don't know where to get them battle at the battle maison, good pokemon to use there are garchomp, mega kangaskhan, talonflame, etc. Make sure to cover your weaknesses otherwise you'll be battling entire teams of them.)
 
Last edited:
Oh my goodness this is so helpful.

I'll probably still use Super Training for when I need weird (read: not maxed) EV numbers, but this is SO much easier than super training, I can't believe it. It's not even so bad if you've only got one power item - stats max out so fast that it's no big deal to just pack your party full of things to train and move the item around once someone gets maxed.
 

Stellar

of the Distant Past
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Researcher Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
Hey guys, I'm working with Toast++ to get a nice-looking version of this guide on the site. What do you think of this mockup for a single route?


Are each of the categories evident without column labels? Would you change anything?
(The rain cloud is there just for illustration purposes.)
 
Hey guys, I'm working with Toast++ to get a nice-looking version of this guide on the site. What do you think of this mockup for a single route?


Are each of the categories evident without column labels? Would you change anything?
It's pretty, easy to read, (especially the mixed stats, that's much easier to see) and very easy to understand. Column labels might be nice for a newcomer to more easily understand what they're looking at, but other than that it's beautiful!
 

cant say

twitch.tv/jakecantsay
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Team Rater Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Senior Staff Member Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Contributor Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
I think it would be cool if you could add like drop boxes or check boxes or something where you could enter the conditions of your training, like whether your Pokemon is infected with PKRS or which power item it is holding so it does the math for you and tells you how many EVs you will earn in total. It seems most newbies have a hard time doing the calculations themselves, if the guide could have some sort of interface that tells them that would be really helpful. After checking all the right boxes it could say something like 'defeat X amount of hordes of Y Pokemon to earn this amount of EVs'
 

Stellar

of the Distant Past
is a Site Content Manager Alumnusis a Battle Simulator Admin Alumnusis a Top Social Media Contributor Alumnusis a Community Contributor Alumnusis a Smogon Discord Contributor Alumnusis a Researcher Alumnusis a CAP Contributor Alumnusis a Top Contributor Alumnusis an Administrator Alumnusis a Past SPL Champion
This isn't an interactive app, so that's not going to happen (this is just the formatting of the text/images of the guide, we don't have the available technical/programming resources). Thanks for the feedback though.
 

DHR-107

Robot from the Future
is a Member of Senior Staffis a Community Contributoris a Smogon Discord Contributoris a Pokemon Researcheris a Smogon Media Contributor
Orange Islands
I think it would be cool if you could add like drop boxes or check boxes or something where you could enter the conditions of your training, like whether your Pokemon is infected with PKRS or which power item it is holding so it does the math for you and tells you how many EVs you will earn in total. It seems most newbies have a hard time doing the calculations themselves, if the guide could have some sort of interface that tells them that would be really helpful. After checking all the right boxes it could say something like 'defeat X amount of hordes of Y Pokemon to earn this amount of EVs'
Honestly, you shouldn't be doing EV training at all if you can't add multiples of 1/2/5/25/50... That's pretty basic maths because none of the numbers are strange. How about let's not dumb everything down to the point where people don't even use basic maths skills.

Stellar Image looks good, I'd like column names but that is personal preference. It's pretty easy to infer what that image is saying. Also: This would be super good to have on site ^__^
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 1, Guests: 0)

Top