Numbers define Pokémon. Speed, Attack, Defense, and accuracy, along with many others, are just a few of the numbers that affect every match played. This guide has been created as a resource to help battlers understand the many magic numbers that define the game and also to give shortcuts in order to efficiently build teams and spread EVs. Using this guide in tandem with other resources including damage calculators and the Smogon analyses will help the player to become a stronger team builder with a broader knowledge of how to make the most out of his or her Pokémon.
HP divisible by 16 is always handy, but HP divisible by 16 + 1 is better in nearly all situations, as you can take 4 layers of 3 Spikes or take 8 rounds of Leech Seed or poison and have 1 HP left. It's way too circumstantial to ever help though, as you will probably always end up taking some other damage. Regardless, on nearly all Pokémon, maxing HP will yield more overall defense than settling for a HP divisible by 16.
When using Substitute, it's important to note if your HP is divisible by four or not. If you have Reversal or Flail in the same set, be sure to have your HP indivisible, so you can Sub 4 times and end up with 1, 2, or 3 HP. It doesn't matter which, it will always be 200 Base Power when you do this.
If you are using Substitute without Reversal/Flail, you are free to do divisible or indivisible by four. However, if you're going to use Substitute until you get a Berry boost (Salac, Petaya, Liechi), you might want to use divisible. You will only need to use Substitute 3 times to activate the Berry. When you run into something you can't kill, but you want to keep this Pokémon alive, you can switch it. It might be able to eat one more hit before dying, and there's still the possibility of healing it with Wish support.
If you make your HP indivisible, you can use Substitute 4 times (more if you have Leftovers). This can be handy when you're banking on full paralysis or a miss of a less than 100% accurate move, such as Meteor Mash or Fire Blast. Whichever you use is up to preference.
Ideally, you will want your HP to be about 110-120% of your defenses. If HP and your defense differ a lot, like in the case of Blissey or Dusclops (the former having about infinite HP and about the lowest Defense in the game, the latter having an utterly crappy HP but both defenses well coming close to the focused ones of the likes of Skarmory, Articuno, and Blissey), you will want to totally max out the low one to bring the two stats as close together as possible. The closer they are, the less % damage you take. Pokémon battling is not about bringing your opponent to a certain point of HP other than zero - 100 damage is relative per Pokémon, but 100% damage isn't. Always calculate hits in percentages. Anyway, some remotely respectable HPs that are Max HP/16. If you like that +1, go ahead and add one. After that, the number of HP gained by Leftovers,
Some Pokémon boost their Speeds with moves or items. You'd think they wouldn't need too many EVs, but you might want to reach the following numbers to outspeed as much as possible, but still have some EVs left in other stats.
I listed some you might not think of right away - you can easily look up the easy outspeedings on stuff like Raikou and Alakazam.
Then there are some Pokémon that are in certain "groups" of speed - it's not a standard at which speed they are, they usually try to beat the maximums of others, or just plain gamble how many they will need. These are the Pokémon that are not exceptionally fast to max Speed for, just slow enough to be satisfied to use 4-8 EVs to beat others to it.
This one is centered around Weezing.
Now that I've had the easier stats, these are the more complicated ones. I'll only do the attacking stats and some well-known scenario's, working them out, including Leftovers, randomizers, and critical hits. Note that all of these are going off 100% healthy Pokémon, and that there's always a chance your opponent has other EVs that totally negate my calculations.
These are seen from standard, all-out perspective.
Only one quickly pops to mind and was really causing some upsets in 200:
Put 20-36 EVs into Dusclops' Attack to let it KO Alakazam in one hit with Shadow Ball. That's what people used to say. Assuming Alakazam had 4 HP EVs and 0 Defense EVs, the following calculations are made.
However, don't complain to me if your Dusclops fails to KO - you might be fighting an Alakazam that chose to trade Speed EVs (downgraded to 352 or even 330) for HP or Defense. Focus Punch Dusclops usually has more Attack anyway. Which brings me to...
We'll assume Blissey has max HP/Defense (though I usually satisfy with 697 HP). Many special attackers, such as Gengar and Ampharos, try to let Blissey not hinder them in their runs when special sweeping by using Focus Punch. Rumors say between 186 until even 220, but let's see how much Attack they really need.
Don't even try to try to OHKO Blissey without some sort of boost.
Here I calculated with the solid 500 Base Power without the halving Defense or halving Attack and dividing Defense by four, which should not matter either way.
How much Attack Snorlax would need to KO Raikou with it's attacking moves: Body Slam, Earthquake, and Return, assuming Raikou has 354 HP (probably the highest you'll ever encounter)?
Bad news for the Body Slam/Shadow Ball Snorlax:
So you're going to have to Curse 3 times, in the case of a low Attack Snorlax even 4 times, to OHKO it.
For a Return Snorlax:
So if you run 300 Attack, Curse twice and you're in the money.
If you use Earthquake:
If you have an Earthquake Snorlax, you might want to use 305 Attack, so you OHKO every Raikou with Earthquake after one Curse.
Note how most Raikou will have lower HP, probably 321, 322, 336, etc, but when you use these you WILL beat a lot of them. Both Raikou and Snorlax are varied in EVs, some more defensive than others, but now you finally know what numbers you need and what numbers look nice.
We all know that Donphan's big advantage as a Rapid Spinner over Claydol is that it can actually hurt something - including the Dusclops that comes in and wants to block your Rapid Spin, so you'll be doomed to be hurt with those Spikes forever. Donphan's solution - let's Earthquake it to death! The hard thing about these calculations is that not only Donphan's Attack, but also Dusclops's Defense is variable and spread differently by about anyone. For this example, I will hold on 360 maximum Defense, and of course 252 HP EVs (284 HP). The minimum of Donphan's Attack is 276, which does 32% average damage already. Usually, I put a bit in Attack, withdrawing from it's Defense, so it's left with 297, hurting Dusclops for 35% on average. These are for the more defensive Donphan, and they probably still will run out of PP from Pressure before they can even frighten the blob of spectral matter. At 326 Attack, you do 38% on average. It doesn't sound like it's much of a difference, but if you hit Dusclops with this 3 times without too much Leftovers recovery (1/8 HP, or 2 turns of Leftovers at max), it's dead. Hint: Knock Off/Thief/Trick it with Alakazam or something. The biggest dent you can put in Dusclops is with 372 Attack (max Attack, Adamant), doing 43%. At least, as big as non-Choice Band Donphan does. An interesting idea is to Choice Band it since you won't find yourself switching attacks much anyway. In this way, Dusclops (but also stuff like Starmie) will eat a 120 Base Power Choice Band and STAB-boosted Earthquake, which they won't like often!
So the key with this is to hit it on the switch, and then predict whether they stay in (Earthquake again), or switch out (switch as well as it WILL be a flier or Grass-type or something). Remember, I always take the hardest scenarios. This is assuming that your opponent knows to max HP, and your opponent focuses Dusclops on Defense rather than Special Defense, or rather than spread out on both.
This is probably one of the harder ones, because Snorlax has a lot of different EV spreads, all that can be equally effective. I have seen variants having 500 HP and 210 Defense, but old standards say 200 Defense and 480 HP can be enough to suit your needs. I have even seen someone use absolute max Defense. Not to mention that most Snorlax have Curse, so 2HKOing it is very difficult. I will assume 500 HP and 200 Defense, if you happen to encounter a higher-Defense one: you're screwed, sorry.
Like with Blissey, OHKOing it comes close to impossible. With 394 Attack, you have a 1/38 chance to do it.
Of course, no Pokémon other than Slaking and Deoxys-F even come close to this, so you'll need at least one attack boost, for example via Baton Passing or using Swords Dance, Sharpen, etc, using Choice Band, or just getting STAB.
If you're going to kill Blissey with Focus Punch, will you kill Tyranitar as well? There are two versions of Tyranitar. The Dragon Dancers have 404 HP if they have Substitute, and so does Tyraniboah (the Crunch/Thunderbolt/Substitute/Focus Punch Tyranitar you see messing up stall teams). Dragon Dancers with Taunt usually have lower, so we can safely assume that no Tyranitar is going to have more than 404 HP and 256 Defense. Plus, Tyranitar doesn't have a move like Softboiled, so it's not as big of a disturbance if it has more Defense than for example if you are using a +6 Calm Minded Entei that fails to 2HKO a Blissey because one raised its SpD to 350, or something.
Tyranitar is utterly vulnerable, more than you might think for a Pokémon with 110 base Defense.
So if you're using a Focus Puncher in this range, be sure to consider the numbers from Blissey, Snorlax, and Tyranitar, and find out which one works out for you!
One of the most durable Pokémon out there with a respectable Attack stat, a common way to get rid of it is abusing its weakness to Earthquake. Still, it rarely KOs it one hit, and sometimes it even survives two. How much do you need?
Whether you're Choice Banded, Agilitied, or none of these, most Metagross have 200 Speed, more or less. Most have maximum Attack as well, leaving us with approx 341 HP (that's what you get with 200 Speed). I've seen more or less durable versions, and some people put 16 Def EVs for a rounded 300 Defense (though one of the things this guide proves is that round numbers don't really help). For these Leftovers whores out there, I will assume 353 HP and 296 Defense.
First off, we'll go off totally un-boosted Earthquakes - no Choice Band, no STAB.
Told you Metagross is an absolute pain to kill. Now, we'll throw STAB in the mix. STAB Earthquake is a big worry for Metagross, as:
Oh, you want to OHKO the spider? Good luck, as you need 409 effective Attack, AND STAB or Choice Band to even have a shot at it.
Are you a Ground-type with a Choice Band?
Keep in mind that moves like Swords Dance, Bulk Up, and Dragon Dance can help you here: one level equals approx a Choice Band or getting STAB. So now you know a little more how to put EVs on Gyarados or maybe even Salamence, or, while I think Earthquake on Fighting-types is overrated, it can help an Earthquake Heracross or Machamp. Not that you wouldn't max their Attack, but at least you will know whether you will OHKO it or not.
This thing called Celebi won't die. Ever. Seriously, it takes ages to wear it down, unless you whip out some crazy Bug-type or something with a (surprise) Bug move. Hidden Power Bug is a standard on Dugtrio, and I've seen some Skarmory, other Celebi, and Swampert carry it. How far does it bring them? Celebi is known for recovery moves like Recover and Leech Seed, so you will need a big load of damage. Celebi's spreads are very diverse: the ones with Calm Mind usually have around 300 Defense and 404 HP. Therefore I will assume these stats.
If you have Choice Band or STAB:
So, is OHKOing this thing possible? The answer: yes, but you will need over 500 Attack to do it!
With +1 Attack, be it Curse, Choice Band, STAB, Dragon Dance, etc.
As special attackers want to get across Blissey's fat egg, Skarmory is often in the way of physical attackers. Here, we will assume max HP, and no Special Defense EVs for Skarmory, and an unSTAB super effective 95 Base Power attack, be it Flamethrower or Thunderbolt, both used to counter it.
For the record, and for the Pokémon that use Calm Mind/Petaya Berry or something else to boost their Special Attack:
When you have STAB, you need:
Without STAB
With STAB, no Pokémon is so sad that it cannot KO in two hits, so here are the OHKO rates:
Blissey, Water-types, they all want to knock out Salamence as quickly as possible, as they rarely stand two hits from a Dragon Dance or Choice Band-boosted Salamence. We'll play with Dragon Dance first, assuming it has 264 Speed. Therefore it will have 368 HP - it gets 367 when you max Attack, but people probably want 1 more HP in Leftovers recovery than 1 point extra in Attack. Some people even put another extra point for poison and such (see HP section), I don't prefer all this, but we'll assume 369 so you will really KO as many Salamence as possible.
If you have STAB, it's a lot easier. Simply said, if you have 175 Special Attack or higher, you will OHKO the standard Dragon Dance Salamence with Ice Beam.
For Choice Band, this guy has 332 HP (one EV, because of max Speed/Att).
STABed Ice Beam needs 158 Special Attack to KO this guy. A piece of cake.
Some Grass-types, with Chlorophyll (Exeggutor) or without (Sceptile), want to take out Salamence out badly so they won't be walled by him - same goes for Entei, or the Typhlosion that didn't reach his Petaya/Blaze boosts yet to KO him with Fire Blast. Or these Electric-types that do not want to max out their Special Attack but still beat up the dragon.
On Choice Band Salamence (334/196 HP/SpD):
On Dragon Dance Salamence (369/196):
Like with Snorlax, spreads are variable for Gyarados, as I also stated in the Speed department. I will assume max HP but minimal Special Defense here - the more offensive (speedy, usually) the Gyarados, the less Special Attack you need. Don't worry - you will always 2HKO Gyarados with Thunderbolt unless you are an exceptionally weak special attacker with lower than 181 Special Attack. However, this doesn't mean Gyarados is weak - it takes surprisingly much to OHKO this thing.
This should stand for a minimum of Gengar and an attacking Starmie, for example.
Pokémon like Entei and Suicune tend to Calm Mind up to the max and sweep, but sometimes people want it to take hits with 404 HP but also outspeed things, and they still want to 2HKO Blissey and Snorlax, of course. Snorlax has Thick Fat sometimes, I'll do it later since it's more work and its EVs vary a lot, so I'll start out with Blissey.
We'll work with a 714 HP Blissey, with 320 Special Defense (a little more than default). I'll state both the direct Special Attack, and the Special Attack you need to reach that with 6 Calm Minds.
These two can also be used with Knock Off/Thief/Trick support - without Leftovers, 2 hits of 50% damage (which they do 50% and 100% of the time respectively) will take care of Blissey, and so it will need to use Softboiled EVERY turn to avoid being KOed. It will probably be like: "Flamethrower, Seismic Toss, Flamethrower, dead" or "Flamethrower, Softboiled, Flamethrower, Softboiled."
This means that you need both of the random integers in the BDF to be "average" (236, in the range of 217-255) or higher to kill Blissey.
One of the staples of RSE play, Snorlax appears on every other team out there. The preferred method of dealing with it is of course Focus Punch, but perhaps it might be switching in on your Raikou that has already got 2 Calm Minds. In these cases, you can either switch out, or risk Raikou by picking up another Calm Mind and going for the 2HKO. If you choose the latter, then this part is just for you. When calculating special attacks (even while using STAB 95 Base Power attacks) against Snorlax, it is nearly impossible to 2-3HKO it without some other boost. I will show the required Special Attack needed to reach a particular figure, along with the necessary number of boosts. Here I will assume that the move in question is either not affected by Thick Fat, or that Snorlax simply does not have it. For this example, Snorlax will have 501 HP and 330 SpD, which should be more than what most people use, but just to be on the safe side anyway.
Occasionally though, you may find yourself using a special attacking move which has its power cut in half by Snorlax's preferred trait – Thick Fat. In which case, you'll need to have a doubled attack stat (highly unlikely), or perhaps double the amount of Calm Minds. Just to be certain though:
Bottom line – consider yourself very, very unfortunate if you find yourself facing a Snorlax and your most powerful move is a STAB Flamethrower / Ice Beam. What this means is that you shouldn't even try to 2HKO Thick Fat Snorlax with a special attack if you're using Flamethrower / Ice Beam. The figures below will revert to the assumptions that Snorlax does not have Thick Fat, or that Thick Fat does not resist the move.
With a fourth Calm Mind, 269 SpA can 2HKO when the above conditions are met.
With the appropriate number of Calm Minds as mentioned, the Special Attack values above are also capable of 2HKOing Snorlax with a single critical hit, which happens quite often on the simulators anyway. Or if you're unable to reach those figures for the 2HKO, you could pray to the gods to be nice to you and bet on a 50% chance to 2HKO Snorlax.
371 SpA also has the same potential after 2 Calm Minds 297 SpA does the same thing as well, but you need a third Calm Mind Failing that, 247 SpA will tide you over, but it requires 4-stage attack boosts
As with the set of numbers above this set, a critical ht will give you the OHKO, but this only occurs 50% of the time, even if you do succeed in critical hitting the fat bastard. Finally, we attempt to 2HKO this special sponging monstrosity even while Leftovers is working to restore its health.
Reasonable figures, but if you find yourself falling just shy, then perhaps you could look to good old 50% chance to help you 2HKO.
Yet another one of those Pokémon that is extremely durable, and can easily take damage while it's Cursing up to hit you with boosted STAB Earthquakes. The most common way of handling it is abusing its 4x Grass weakness, and even now it isn't uncommon to find a Pokémon carrying a random Hidden Power Grass to dent Swampert very badly. As Leaf Blade has the same power as Hidden Power Grass, it's also included in this section, even if only Sceptile learns it. We'll look at what numbers you need for these endeavors. Swampert has above average Special Defense, and for this example, we will assume that it has max (404) HP, and 300 SpD to be on the safe side.
First, we'll start off with totally unboosted Hidden Power Grass.
With STAB, you need 205 SpA to 2HKO Leftovers Swampert guaranteed.
So you will need a Pokémon with somewhat above average Special Attack just to 2HKO Swampert.
And if you thought those numbers were somewhat high, just wait for these next OHKO requirements. (Don't try to do this without any attack boosts by the way.)
If that's a little too high, 293 SpA will OHKO, but you need 2-stage attack boosts. And if you're a Grass-type that's gotten some other one-stage boost (Overgrow/Growth/Petaya Berry), 259 SpA will grant the OHKO on Swampert, so it's obviously foolish to switch Swampert into said Grass-types.