3rd Gen I think I just wasted $4,000,000 (and many hours)

[cjlambert]

From what I read on Bulbapedia, each Pokemon can accept a maximum of 10 of each type of stat-boosting vitamin. So I spent a good portion of last night and all this morning farming the two ladies on Five Island holding my Amulet Coin. When I hit $999,999, I would fly off to Celadon City and stock up on HP Up, Zinc, Calcium, etc. I did this several times until I had 60 of each vitamin, at which point I attempted to use them on my six team members, only to be to told "It won't have any effect."

I tried googling to understand what's going on, but I come up with some very complicated and contradictory explanations. The simple answer is "If the Pokemon isn't level 100, you should be able to use it" while the complicated answers are filled with math, and I've never been very good with numbers...

Can someone explain, in layman's terms, why I can't use these items on my level 60-70 team of Pokemon?
Will my Pokemon never reach their maximum potential?
And did I really just waste $4,000,000? ;-;

 

[72485rahul]

The reason you were unable to use it is that your Pokemons are already EV trained. Every Trainer/Wild Pokemon you fought had given you atleast 1Evs per battle, 508 is the maximum number of EVs a Pokemon can have & you have already battled more then 200 trainers (using VS Seeker) (even if it gives you 2Evs per battle, You have 400+Evs). The Vitamins works only if your Pokemons EVs are less then 100 (i guess) in each stat. So thats the reason. But dont worry, you can get atleast half of the price by selling all those items, or use it on a newly breeded Pokemon. (Like a newly bredeed Charmander).

 

[cjlambert]

Thanks for the reply.

I don't know anything about breeding, I didn't even know that was a feature in FireRed... I'll have to look into it.

That aside, if I was able to get a new Charmander, and I used all the vitamins on it when I first get it, will the new Charmander's stats be higher than my current Charizard's when they reach the same level? Or do the EVs reach the same maximum, regardless of how you obtain them (vitamins or trainer battles)?

 

[72485rahul]

Stat Depends on three things:
- The Nature
- The EVs (Effort Value)
- The IVs (Individual Value)
Nature is very important thing. It decides which stat gets boost by 10% & which gets reduced by 10%. For Charmander, Timid or Modest is the preferred nature.
IVs is Random. You can't check it.
If you breed a new Charmander, you probably want to give it EVs in Sp. Atk & Speed (for Modest or Timid Nature).
Also it need Special Attacks like Flamethrower, Solarbeam, Dragon Claw etc.
The benefit of Breeding is that it can get moves like Solarbeam, Outrage, Dragon Dance etc.

 

[Banz]

You need to first read about IVs, EVs, natures and how a Pokémons stats are calculated. IVs are genetic and you can improve a Pokémon's IVs by breeding.

EVs however are what the Pokémon gains after battling. An EV is just a number. A Pokémon can have a maximum of 510 EVs and 255 maximum in one stat. Whenever your Pokémon battles it gets EVs. Whenever your Pokémon's EV rises, that corresponding stat also rises.
Vitamins do the same thing, they give EVs. If you use a vitamin on a Pokémon that corresponding stat's EV rises. If you gave your Pokémon Iron (say), then its Defence EVs would increase by 10.
The reason you can only use a maximum of 10 per stat is because vitamins only work if the Pokémon has less than 100 EVs in that stat. Also, if the Pokémon already has the maximum total EVs (510).
This is also why you cannot use 10 vitamins of each stat on one Pokémon, even if it has zero EVs in each stat. By the time you use your 51st vitamin bottle the Pokémon would be maxed out. Also that would leave your Pokémon with a poor stat spread (not that it matters in game)

Your Pokémon are level 60-70. This means they have already reached their maximum EV potential (510 total). Your Pokémon only needs to defeat 200-400 Pokémon to reach 510 EVs.

Moreover you have wasted a lot of effort with this roundabout method. It is actually far easier to simply EV train, than it is to battle for money, use that money to buy vitamins, then feed those vitamins to Pokémon. Those two ladies will give you a total of ¥ 19800 after defeating them. If you used amulet coin, you will get ¥ 39600. This can buy you 4 vitamins which can be used to raise your Pokémon's EVs by 40.
Meanwhile if you used Macho Brace and just EV trained you can get upto 6 EVs per battle (and the battles will be a lot easier because you will be fighting lower level Pokémon). And you can max out a particular EV stat to 255, unlike with vitamins which don't work after 100.
EV training is simple, all you have to do is battle wild Pokémon. You only need to know which Pokémon to batle and which to run away from.

 

[XSE]

You need to first read about IVs, EVs, natures and how a Pokémons stats are calculated. IVs are genetic and you can improve a Pokémon's IVs by breeding.

EVs however are what the Pokémon gains after battling. An EV is just a number. A Pokémon can have a maximum of 510 EVs and 255 maximum in one stat. Whenever your Pokémon battles it gets EVs. Whenever your Pokémon's EV rises, that corresponding stat also rises.
Vitamins do the same thing, they give EVs. If you use a vitamin on a Pokémon that corresponding stat's EV rises. If you gave your Pokémon Iron (say), then its Defence EVs would increase by 10.
The reason you can only use a maximum of 10 per stat is because vitamins only work if the Pokémon has less than 100 EVs in that stat. Also, if the Pokémon already has the maximum total EVs (510).
This is also why you cannot use 10 vitamins of each stat on one Pokémon, even if it has zero EVs in each stat. By the time you use your 51st vitamin bottle the Pokémon would be maxed out. Also that would leave your Pokémon with a poor stat spread (not that it matters in game)

Your Pokémon are level 60-70. This means they have already reached their maximum EV potential (510 total). Your Pokémon only needs to defeat 200-400 Pokémon to reach 510 EVs.

Moreover you have wasted a lot of effort with this roundabout method. It is actually far easier to simply EV train, than it is to battle for money, use that money to buy vitamins, then feed those vitamins to Pokémon. Those two ladies will give you a total of ¥ 19800 after defeating them. If you used amulet coin, you will get ¥ 39600. This can buy you 4 vitamins which can be used to raise your Pokémon's EVs by 40.
Meanwhile if you used Macho Brace and just EV trained you can get upto 6 EVs per battle (and the battles will be a lot easier because you will be fighting lower level Pokémon). And you can max out a particular EV stat to 255, unlike with vitamins which don't work after 100.
EV training is simple, all you have to do is battle wild Pokémon. You only need to know which Pokémon to batle and which to run away from.

Good knowledge. One thing.

His method is actually more efficient then yours for the first 100 Evs in a stat. 40 points is a lot for a couple of battles. Assuming he has a level 100 poke like I used to, he could easily blow through both teams in a matter of moments. Meanwhile, the macho brace gets 6 Evs, MAX, you need to find the actual pokemon, which will be harder, due to their random ness, and then fight and defeat them. It is a good idea for 100+ ev training, but for under that, I think he's better off doing the battles. I personally used to be able to blow through like 5 battles each in 10-15 minutes, which would give like 20 items.

 

[Banz]

Good knowledge. One thing.

His method is actually more efficient then yours for the first 100 Evs in a stat. 40 points is a lot for a couple of battles. Assuming he has a level 100 poke like I used to, he could easily blow through both teams in a matter of moments. Meanwhile, the macho brace gets 6 Evs, MAX, you need to find the actual pokemon, which will be harder, due to their random ness, and then fight and defeat them. It is a good idea for 100+ ev training, but for under that, I think he's better off doing the battles. I personally used to be able to blow through like 5 battles each in 10-15 minutes, which would give like 20 items.

It is more inefficient overall. On paper it gives him 8 EVs per Pokémon defeated rather than the 4-6 you will get in a wild Pokémon battle. This isn't even counting an Exp. Share. If you used Exp. Share you'd get 8-12 EVs per battle, making it more productive rightaway.
There are a lot of extra things he will have to do with his method. He has to keep going back to the Pokémon Centre to refill his PPs. (In EV traning he could just fight very low levelled Pokémon and mow them down with a high PP move like Ember). Then he has to fly back, buy the vitamins and give them to his Pokémon. Moreover he cannot use the Pokémon that he intends to use vitamins on in battle, battling will contaminate their EVs.
It is so much easier to kill 40 wild Pokémon and get 80-120 EVs (x2) (you don't even need to go back to the Pokémon Centre), than to do what he did. Much faster too.

All you need to do is find EV training hotspots.

 

[XSE]

It is more inefficient overall. On paper it gives him 8 EVs per Pokémon defeated rather than the 4-6 you will get in a wild Pokémon battle. This isn't even counting an Exp. Share. If you used Exp. Share you'd get 8-12 EVs per battle, making it more productive rightaway.
There are a lot of extra things he will have to do with his method. He has to keep going back to the Pokémon Centre to refill his PPs. (In EV traning he could just fight very low levelled Pokémon and mow them down with a high PP move like Ember). Then he has to fly back, buy the vitamins and give them to his Pokémon. Moreover he cannot use the Pokémon that he intends to use vitamins on in battle, battling will contaminate their EVs.
It is so much easier to kill 40 wild Pokémon and get 80-120 EVs (x2) (you don't even need to go back to the Pokémon Centre), than to do what he did. Much faster too.

All you need to do is find EV training hotspots.

Call a single battle with a rich lady battle 20k. If one has a lever 100 pokemon (this is the key...) then you can wipe out all the pokemon. Say you have a lever 100 Charizard, as I did. I could mow down their teams with a few flamethrowers, a swift, etc, usually in one hit. Doing so, I get about 20 ev points. Again, instead of going to these ev hotspots, waiting on the right Pokémon and then defeating it, for the first 100 ev points, I can do the mine method. Is it effect with a lever 50 pokemon? No. But he might have level 85 that can do the job. Also, he did mess up, possibly, by using his team to fight the rich ladies,which already screwed up his evs anyway.

 

[Banz]

Call a single battle with a rich lady battle 20k. If one has a lever 100 pokemon (this is the key...) then you can wipe out all the pokemon. Say you have a lever 100 Charizard, as I did. I could mow down their teams with a few flamethrowers, a swift, etc, usually in one hit. Doing so, I get about 20 ev points. Again, instead of going to these ev hotspots, waiting on the right Pokémon and then defeating it, for the first 100 ev points, I can do the mine method. Is it effect with a lever 50 pokemon? No. But he might have level 85 that can do the job. Also, he did mess up, possibly, by using his team to fight the rich ladies,which already screwed up his evs anyway.

Level 100 Pokémon aren't necessary. If you want to optimise by his method you can do it with a Level 50-60 Pokémon with the right moves. We already know the Pokémon that they have and the levels they are at. It's Hoppip/Skiploom and Mareep/Mareep/Flaafyy. So all you need is a Pokémon with Ice and Ground type moves. But to KO them you will have to use a rather powerful move with low PP. That means more return trips to the Pokémon Centre.
Your idea calls for a level 100 Pokémon, in which case you can do the same with a low power move that has high PP. Which is fine, but for one problem - You need a level 100 Pokémon. This will work well if you already have one. But if you were to train one, that would take a much larger effort than it takes to EV train a few dozen Pokémon. As the OP has already mentioned, he used his level 60-70 Pokémon for this.

Nevermind that, as I have already mentioned, with an Exp. Share and Macho Brace, you are already getting more EVs than with vitamins. Secondly, you don't have to wait for Pokémon to come in an EV hotspot. That's the whole reason why it's called a hotspot. I'm not sure you understand what this means, so I'll explain. EV hotspots are simply routes, caves, forests, lakes, etc. The Pokémon encounter rates of each of these is very well defined, and there are multiple Pokémon that will give you that specific EV. You can walk through any patch of grass there and there is a very high chance (80-100%) that you will encounter a Pokémon for the EV you need. How much easier do you want it to be? It's just walking through grass, encountering Pokémon, using a move to KO Pokémon, walking through grass again.
Meanwhile what does he have here? He has to use VS Seeker for rebattling. What happens when the trainers refuse battle? He has to walk about a bit and try again. And he can still only battle once for every 100 steps he takes. (Did you even take all of this into account?) 100 steps in the grass will give you more wild battles and more EVs.

 

[Desert Stream~]

Vitamins are a pretty bad item tbh. They just speed up EV training so you can have slightly better low level pokemon, and it's completly wasted once you reach level 100. Also they are really expensive. The better option is to just EV train while battling.

 

[XSE]

Level 100 Pokémon aren't necessary. If you want to optimise by his method you can do it with a Level 50-60 Pokémon with the right moves. We already know the Pokémon that they have and the levels they are at. It's Hoppip/Skiploom and Mareep/Mareep/Flaafyy. So all you need is a Pokémon with Ice and Ground type moves. But to KO them you will have to use a rather powerful move with low PP. That means more return trips to the Pokémon Centre.
Your idea calls for a level 100 Pokémon, in which case you can do the same with a low power move that has high PP. Which is fine, but for one problem - You need a level 100 Pokémon. This will work well if you already have one. But if you were to train one, that would take a much larger effort than it takes to EV train a few dozen Pokémon. As the OP has already mentioned, he used his level 60-70 Pokémon for this.

Nevermind that, as I have already mentioned, with an Exp. Share and Macho Brace, you are already getting more EVs than with vitamins. Secondly, you don't have to wait for Pokémon to come in an EV hotspot. That's the whole reason why it's called a hotspot. I'm not sure you understand what this means, so I'll explain. EV hotspots are simply routes, caves, forests, lakes, etc. The Pokémon encounter rates of each of these is very well defined, and there are multiple Pokémon that will give you that specific EV. You can walk through any patch of grass there and there is a very high chance (80-100%) that you will encounter a Pokémon for the EV you need. How much easier do you want it to be? It's just walking through grass, encountering Pokémon, using a move to KO Pokémon, walking through grass again.
Meanwhile what does he have here? He has to use VS Seeker for rebattling. What happens when the trainers refuse battle? He has to walk about bit and try again. And he can still only battle once for every 100 steps he takes. (Did you even take all of this into account?) 100 steps in the grass will give you more wild battles and EVs.

Yes, I took the vs seeker into account. I did not account for the exp share. Does that give the amount of evs plus the macho brace amount? That is 6 evs becomes 12,
6 for 2 poke? I did not know what hot spots were. Did they always have 3 ev pokemon? If not, the other method is viable. Also, say for the hoppip team, I use ember for the smallest and flamethrow for the rest with a lvl 70. Would that not work well? The rock/ground could have rock throw, earthquake, etc, which can add up. But I've made my point clear. Without actual proof of either method, we don't know which I quicker tbh.

 

[Banz]

If you only count the time you spent in battling then vitamins are equivalent to 2 EV yeild Pokémon but not as good as 3 EV Pokémon.
But if you also counted the time spent in walking around, EV training comes out to be far superior. In 100 steps you can battle a lot more wild Pokémon whereas you can battle the ladies only once.

And not all EV training hotspots have 3 EV yeilding Pokémon, some like Route 1 just have 1 EV yeild Pokémon. Rattata and Pidgey. But they both give Speed EVs which means 100% chance of encountering a Speed EV Pokémon. With Macho Brace and Exp. Share you can extend this to 4 EVs per battle. But these Pokémon are so low levelled you can simply use any attack on them and they will faint. You beat 126 of them and your speed EVs will be full. You can switch Pokémon when one runs out of PP and you most likely won't have to go back to the Pokémon Centre.

Smogon have made a list here: https://www.smogon.com/ingame/guides/ev_frlg#hotspots
Only HP doesn't have a decent place, everything else has atleast one route or cave room with 100% chance of that particular EV yeilding Pokémon (91% for SpA).

 

[XSE]

Hmm, interesting, thanks for pointing this out!