I know this might sound stupid, but where do I start in EV training? I've heard that I can use the Super Training thing on ORAS to focus my EVs but I'm not sure exactly how I gain the EVs. I'm wanting to get a bit more into competitive battling and I want to EV train a team of my favorite Pokemon (Serperior, Delphox, Sceptile along with some others I got). I appreciate any help for this.
Evs are invisible values given by fighting pokemon in wild battles, giving certain items to your pokemon or, now, with Super Training. When you fight a wild pokemon, they usually give you 1 EV in a specific stat, although some can give you more than 1. When you obtain 4 Ev in a specific stat, you gain 1 real stat point in that stat by the time your reach level 100. So since Scatterbug give you 1 Ev in Defense every time you beat one, every 4 Scatterbugs you fight gives you 1 extra stat point by the time you reach level 100. I word it like that because at level 50, for example, the stats, even if maxed EVs, don't give you the full amount because you're only at level 50. You don't get the full amount until level 100.
The maximum amount of EVs you can get is a total of 510 EVs, and even then the max you can give is 252 in two stats max with 6Evs (which translate to 1 stat point and a little extra that can't be used) into a third stat. And since 4 EVs translates to 1 stat point, this means you can give yourself a maximum of 63 extra stat points to two stats and 1 extra stat point to one more stat. (but you can give however many Evs to whatever stat you choose, as long as they're divisible by 4. I say that because if you have two extra EVs in this stat and 2 extra EVs in that and so on and so on, you're losing potential stat points because you have those 2 extra EVs that could be put together into 4 Evs on a stat. Hopefully that makes sense.
So yes, you can do the Super Training, particularly if you're doing real specific spreads of stats all over the place, but if you're not and maxing out two stats, or not doing such specific EV spreads, you can also do Horde battles to EV train very quickly. Since fighting one pokemon gives you 1 Ev in a specific stat, fighting five pokemon in a horder will give you 5 Evs in that stat (assuming all pokemon in the horde are the same) so each horde you fight will give you 5 Evs in whatever stat those pokemon have, so for example, fighting a horde of Wingull will give your pokemon 5 Evs in spead everytime you fight that same horde. But if you have the Pokerus, that doubles the EVs you're getting to 10 per battle. Now, give the pokemon your battling with a Power Anklet to hold and it gets an additional 4 Evs in speed IN ADDITION to the EVs the pokemon you're fighting give you. (so, no matter what pokemon you fight, you will ALWAYS get 4 EVs in speed as long as you hold the power anklet) so 4 Evs from the power anklet x 5 pokemon mean you get 20 EVs, plus the 1 EV each pokemon would be giving you anyway, PLUS having the Pokerus doubles your EVs meaning that for every horde battle with the correct stat and the correct hold item gives you FIFTY (50!) EVs points every single battle, making Ev training very fast. Even faster? Give all the pokemon in your party the same Power item and only fight pokemon hordes that give you that stat and turn on the Exp Share and your are giving 50 Evs to 6 pokemon every single battle. This is insanely useful when hatching multiple eggs and EV training all of them. you can potentially have a fully EV maxed team every 12 battles (although you'd have to be lucky to get the horde you're looking for every single time)
An to get the hordes, makes sure you have a pokemon that knows Sweet Scent and ideally knows an area attack so that it can wipe out all 5 pokemon at once. Having the item Honey works as well.
Hopefully that explained Evs to you, if you have any further questions, ask away
