All Gens Eevee: An Introduction to Ev's

FNH

F is for Finchi, N is for Nator, H is for Hater
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art was stolen from google images

Eevee: An Introduction to Spreads

I have always enjoyed trying to further resources for BW on Smogon. Hopefully by doing so I can help grow the tier and meta that I have enjoyed so much. This thread is a continuation of my previous two looking to fill in some gaps of resources. Hopefully new players will find its information useful, and experienced players enjoy the read regardless of whether there is any information to take away here. Thank you to phosphor and Caetano93 for their input on this thread and helping me write it.
(Note: The tag was changed to all gens, though the examples used here are BW examples, the information isn't exactly specific to BW)
A common question that arises from players learning competitive play, is “what spread is good?” “How do I make a good spread?” I firmly stand behind the belief that the best way to make a good spread is find a team posted by Finchinator that has the Pokemon that you want to use, and just steal his spread. Seriously, he spends way too much time on the damage calculator which is definately reflective of how good he is at this game.

While stealing borrowing from Finchinator is a popular trend on Smogon, a grave problem arises here. What if Finchinator hasn’t posted a team with the Pokemon you want to use. How are you going to get a good spread now? Well this thread looks to introduce you to what you should be thinking when creating a spread.


So what do you do if Finch hasn't already provided the community with a spread to use? Do you just go 252 252 max on two stats and call it good? Creating a spread is a zero-sum game. It's competive Pokemons version of scarcity (fundamental to basic economics). When you reallocate Ev’s from stat to another, think to yourself “what am I gaining?” “what am I losing?”. Every 4 Evs you place in one stat is 4 Evs that could be placed somewhere else thus you need justify the total benefit of placing those Evs. The net benefit of allocation of Ev’s needs to be positive. Different styles can be shown in spreads, some people (like me) keep it simple, otherwise known as lazy, and try to stick to 252 252, but in the end a more complex approach is often necessary to ensure that the Pokemon for whom we are utilizing is effective. [Btw the smogon dex's spreads are all dependant on how current the analysis is, so there is some good stuff in there]. What works and doesn't isn't always a given. Finding what works is a trial and error method. As you will see later there are multiple spreads that can work for the same set, so its up to you as the player to weigh the trade offs of each spread to determine what to use.

As with most subjects, there is a pre requisite of knowlegde. If you are keen to really delve into the weeds on Ev's then take a look [warning math involved] here. One take away is investment into a defensive stat increases the damage reduction [assuming you will be hit by the same kind of attack Physical or Special] more then investment into Health, whereas Hp investment is better for mitigating both types of attacks [Physical or Special]. Another big take away from this in my opinion is that 25x the number of evs/total stat = the percentage return for the investment. This states that Pokemon's stats are subject to dimishing marginal returns. The greater your base the lesser the return you get for investment. Inversely the smaller the base stat the greater the return for the investment. A glaring example of this would be with Chansey [250 Base HP with base 5 Def]:



Adding 252 Ev's to just the Hp stat
0 Atk Breloom Drain Punch vs. 252 HP / 0+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 636-750 (90.3 - 106.5%)

now moving the 252 Ev's to defense instead of Hp
0 Atk Breloom Drain Punch vs. 0 HP / 252+ Def Eviolite Chansey: 270-318 (42.1 - 49.6%) -- guaranteed 3HKO

Economics applies to all things in life. Even though we have a great return on our Ev investment into Chanseys defense stat, it's still subject to a diminshing rate of return which is apparent on my crappy looking excel graph below (assuming my inputs were correct).

1603863979154.png


Note: I utilized the formula from the article above I linked, my y axis is the % return (see article) and the x axis is the points increase ie. 252 evs increases a stat by 63 points

1603863989835.png

The measurement of the rate of change above gives us the effeciency of the Ev's allocation.

There are nuances to spreads where specific health values become important as well. All these nuances look to exploit the same mechanic: the calulator rounds down. I'll try my best to explain these simply.

  • :tyranitar: Stealth Rock Number: Really only relavent when you are Stealth Rock weak, but say you are Stealth rock weak by having an odd number Health, you can come in an extra time as the calculator always rounds down, leaving you with 1hp on the last swap in. Example for example if you have 301 hp, 301/2 = 150.5 so you lose 150 from Stealth Rock, allowing you to come in an extra time with 1hp remaining.
  • :Thundurus-Therian: Substitute Number: Substitute numbers function the same way. Because the calculator rounds down you can use substitute an extra time, leaving you left over with 1hp (just make sure that sand storm chip doesn't kill you though).
  • :Garchomp: Life Orb Number: They don't exist. I don't believe in them, but utilizing the fact that the calculator rounds down, if we set the HP stat to end with the number 9, we fire off an extra attack before succumbing to recoil.
  • :gliscor: Poison Heal Number: the calculator rounding down is yet again exploitable here. Pokemon with poison heal recieve 1/8th Hp back. It would then follow that with poison heal you would want to hit the maximum whole number divisible by 8 since the damage calculator rounds down.
  • :jumpluff: Jump Points: Jump points occur for any stat with + nature. What happens in simple terms is the stat change when 4 evs are invested is 2 points instead of the usual one. Simply this is caused, by once again, the game rounds down. I linked below in the notes an article on the exact calculation and cause of jump points. A common exploit of a jump point is Ferrothorn running 208 SpDef Evs with a + nature, since the change from 204 to 208 Evs gives a jump point.
  • :Deoxys-speed:Speed numbers: are crucial as well, understanding common threats of the tier and creeping them by one point (allows you to move first) can be game changing. Example would be Landorus-Therian running 232 evs into speed (276 total speed) making it 1 point faster then adamant Excadrill, a common BW OU threat. The speed tiers threads listed in the RoA Resource hub can help with deciding what to speed creep.

The order in the team builder is reflective of the methodolgy one should follow: .1) you chose the Pokemon you want to use [I wrote an introduction to building a while back if you are stuck on phase 1] .2) what is this Pokemon going to accomplish ie. what is the role you want it to fill [this is where you chose the items and moves, think about how the general role you are utilizing it for] .3) how are you going to allocate to ev's to ensure that your chosen pokemon is capable of fulfilling this role?

:eevee:Breaking out step three into a process:
  • find your benchmarks. What do you need to outspeed? What specific attacks are you looking to survive. What are you trying to OHKO or 2HKO. Some Pokemon only need a simple 252 252 spread.
  • create a baseline simplified version that accomplishes most of this. Calc general attacks that you would like dish out or recieve here to find short comings
  • In what stats can you spare Evs to be reallocated to a different stat in order to hit other benchmarks deemed important?
  • CALC IT. The Damage calculator is your best friend. Calc it.

There always going to be a level of objectivity where a spread is blatantly good or bad, but you delve into it further, you will see that there is also layer subjectivity to what spreads work and don't work. It is dependant on your team, the capacity in which the Pokemon is being uitlized, and what you as a player deem important.

I like to learn through demonstration so, I'll narrate the process of creating a spread for Breloom and a Latios.
[if I didn't do it this way then the thread also wouldn't be absurdly long, and what fun is there in not having stupid long threads]


Example 1:

Toxic Orb Breloom provides interesting insight to loses and gains that occur when reallocating Ev's and is an excellent example what to look for when allocating effort values. We are going to be utilizing Breloom in an offensive capacity, thus we have our set minus the Ev spread of:


Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
- Swords Dance
- Drain Punch
- Facade
- Protect

There is always going to be the need to understand the about Pokemon that we are making a spread for. Here with Breloom I know a quite a few things: He has an excellent base attack and respectable base Health. Toxic Heal allows for him to regenerate 1/8th of his health back each turn. Breloom can come in on Rotom and Ferrothorn rather freely thanks to his typing and ability. Water types in general can be a free switch in provided he is able to tank. He is checked by Latios, Amoonguss, Tentacruel, Celebi, Thundurus-Therian, Reuniclus, and Landorus to name a few. So where do I start? Well I have Swords Dance(SD) listed above, but I will be useless if I can't live a hit and still be able to do anything afterwords. Lets look at HP first. It's absolutely nevessary to have the calculator open and constently calc. I will want to have a heavy investment in HP to increase the overall survivability of my Breloom, as said earlier, increasing Health increases the survivability from both physical and special attacks. I know poison heal grants 1/8th recovery so I am going to select alter my effort values to ensure that I get the most health back. So 232 Hp evs puts the HP stat at 319. (319/8)=39 (rounded down). increasing that to 236 Evs and we get 320 HP (320/8)=40. Exceeding that 40Hp regenerated won't get me more Hp back as the value is rounded down to a whole number, and I will get a better return if I invest the remaining Ev's elsewhere. Thinking of specific types of attacks, the SpDef with a base of 60 is rather worrysome. It will need addressing. I mentioned before that certain benchmarks need to be hit, and the quality of the outcome can certainly be staisfactory. While I stressed that increasing health is important (which is it is), looking at Breloom's counters and things he likes come in on (water types such as Politoed Rotom-W, and Gastrodon), they are all predominately special attackers which further reinforces the need to invest in Special defense. Lets evaluate some calcs first. Stuff like Reuniclus can OHKO with no SpA investment, and Amoonguss though can almost OHKO this set, so increasing SpDef Evs will be necessary. I am going to just go 252 SpDef for now. I prefer to start from max then cut. Maxing SpDef while maintaining a neutral nature we get:

0 SpA Tentacruel Sludge Bomb vs. 236 HP / 252 SpD Breloom: 174-206 (54.3 - 64.3%) -- 93.8% chance to 2HKO after Poison Heal
36+ SpA Thundurus-Therian Hidden Power Ice vs. 236 HP / 252 SpD Breloom: 170-200 (53.1 - 62.5%) -- 78.5% chance to 2HKO after Poison Heal
0 SpA Landorus-Therian Hidden Power Ice vs. 236 HP / 252 SpD Breloom: 114-136 (35.6 - 42.5%) -- 1.1% chance to 3HKO after Poison Heal
252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Dragon Pulse vs. 236 HP / 252 SpD Breloom: 237-280 (74 - 87.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
252 SpA Choice Specs Latios Dragon Pulse vs. 236 HP / 252 SpD Breloom: 237-280 (74 - 87.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
0 SpA Reuniclus Psychic vs. 236 HP / 252 SpD Breloom: 254-300 (79.3 - 93.7%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal
0 SpA Celebi Psychic vs. 236 HP / 252 SpD Breloom: 210-248 (65.6 - 77.5%) -- guaranteed 2HKO after Poison Heal

Even with out a + SpDef Nature, we are tanking hits, prompting me to ask myself "if I can take a hit, what kind of damage can I do back after a Swords Dance(SD) boost (assuming I get to Sd on the swap)". well once again we have to spam the damage calc [S/o Austin].

+2 0+ Atk Breloom Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 72 Def Tentacruel: 354-417 (97.2 - 114.5%) -- 81.3% chance to OHKO
+2 0 Atk Breloom Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Amoonguss: 227-268 (52.5 - 62%) -- 98.8% chance to 2HKO after Black Sludge recovery
+1 0 Atk Breloom Facade (140 BP) vs. 244 HP / 176 Def Landorus-Therian: 172-203 (45.2 - 53.4%) -- 1.2% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery
+2 0 Atk Breloom Facade (140 BP) vs. 104 HP / 156 Def Thundurus-Therian: 276-325 (84.9 - 100%) -- 6.3% chance to OHKO
+2 0 Atk Breloom Facade (140 BP) vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Reuniclus: 218-257 (51.4 - 60.6%) -- 91.8% chance to 2HKO after Leftovers recovery

So far there is stuff that normally comes in on a Breloom which we can tank a hit from (for the most part), but we are also getting really close to OHKO'ing or 2HKOing back. Maybe if I invest a little bit into the Attack, Breloom can go from threat to serial killer. So lets give some investment into Attack and see what I can get. Note that my goal with the attack investment is to give the minimal needed investment into the attack stat hitting certain 2HKO or OHKO benchmarks on Pokemon I think are important to hit. Amoonguss is a great Pokemon to start with, as it is explicitly used in the tier as a Breloom check and is quite bulky. So if I can get him into a 2HKO range, I should be able to hit less bulky stuff like Thundurus-Therian very hard. There are a few things I'll do here. Ill add the leftover EVs remaining to attack, then move some of the Ev's from Spdef (since we had some room to remove with out losing to much bulk in our calcs that we get OHKO'd) even toy with the nature. This is a trial and error process, add and subtracting from stats to see how you can change the output in the calculator. Well, low n behold I find that +2 Adamant 0 attack Breloom can 2HKO Amoonguss (98.8%). Let me check how it hits vs other stuff that I mentioned above. We are close OHKO'ing Thundurus (62.5%), 91.8% chance to 2HKO Reuniclus,72.7% chance to 2HKO 244 HP / 176 Def Landorus-Therian, 3HKO on max defense Gliscor, guaranteed OHKO on Latios. lastly with +72 Def Tentacruel 81.3% to OHKO (obviously against other stuff like Lando we got way better odds) . We still have some room with SpDef Evs to play with here. So maybe move some more of those into our Attack stat to try to get some more guarenteed 2HKO's or OHKO's. If I add 36 more Ev's to the attack stat then I get OHKO on Tentacruel which alone is enough to justify moving them, but on top of that Amoonguss and Reuniclus become a guarenteed 2HKO as well. Before moving forward we should double check to make sure that didn't lose to much Spdef which is now at 236 Evs.

Now here is where some trades need to be weighed for future allocation of Ev's. Heatran at 0 speed investment has 190 speed. It would be nice to outspeed Heatran. Some version of Politoed will run more speed as well to try to trap Breloom with encore. So I can cut more off from the SpDef down to 176 Evs, or remove the 36 Ev's from my attack taking my chances with some 2HKO's and 24 from Spdef as well. I can start with seeing what I lose if I drop more SpDef but this time also looking at hits I INTEND to take (ex. Rotom-w Hpump or V-Switch), after all we are dropping a lot of Ev's from our starting 252. [This is where the outcome can be more subjective.] I have reallocated Evs now so my Breloom is Ev'd as 236 HP / 36 Atk / 176 SpD / 60 Spe. Again I'll double check to see what i lost in terms of bulk for the additional gains in speed. Stuff like the odd Ice Beam from a Politoed we can tank (bar the choice Specs set). There is still a lot we are able to tank plus extra stuff like Scarf Tyranitars Fireblast, a LO Draco Meteor from Mixed Garchomp, even a Specs Keldeo Secret Sword (which is nuts).

There is this idea though, that as games progress maintaining 100% Hp is less of a given. Stealth Rock, Spikes and Sand storm can all chip at Breloom. While Poison Heal is an amazing regenerative ability, I would venture to say that its not always a given that we can keep him at 100%. While Sludge bomb is a given on most Tentacruel's and Amoonguss's while Landorus-Therian and Thundurus-Therian both run Hidden Power Ice, if we are to trade with these Pokemon when Breloom goes +2 later in a game, then we need to be able to safely tank these hits. As I was running through this I thought, I was close till done, until Caetano93 asked what Venoshock does to the set. It's a not common move, but not something that should come as a total surprise if your opponent has a Tentacruel or Amoonguss with that. Venoshock can come critically close to OHKO'ing us, and as mentioned before thats assuming we are at 100%. This brings us to make a decision of what do we want to forgo. We are faster then bulky Heatran but we fail to OHKO with out a SD Boost, while Heatran threatens to OHKO back (depending Heatran's SpDef investment). Toying with how to allocate the Evs, I can ignore the speed creep Heatran, and go 236 SpDef Evs. I could also drop some of the power as well. If we go all in on SpDef investment and add a + nature, Breloom will reach some impressive special bulk. What I end up with is 3 options, each having their pros and cons.



:Breloom:
Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 236 HP / 36 Atk / 176 SpD / 60 Spe
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Drain Punch
- Facade
- Protect

:Breloom:
Breloom @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 236 HP / 252 SpD / 20 Spe
Careful Nature
- Swords Dance
- Facade
- Drain Punch
- Protect

:breloom:

Breloom (M) @ Toxic Orb
Ability: Poison Heal
EVs: 236 HP / 36 Atk / 236 SpD
Adamant Nature
- Swords Dance
- Drain Punch
- Facade
- Protect​

I could call it good and go with the first set. I could also just ignore the power benchmarks that I hit and go all in with the SpDef investment. With max SpDef we can live some insanely strong hits [ex. Timid max SpA Heatran's Lava Plume does 80.6 - 95.6%). You could try to find a middle ground between Special Defense and power as best as we can by dropping the speed. A nice part about this approach is from 100% will always tank a 0 SpA Tentacruel and Amoonguss's Venoshock.

Personally this is where what is good becomes subjective. All the spreads up here work, so which one is best becomes dependant on which benchmark is most important to you. What is the "critical" values that you need to hit. Find those, and adjust the spread accordingly.



Example 2:




Latios (M) @ Choice Specs
Ability: Levitate
IVs: 0 Atk
- Draco Meteor
- Surf
- Trick
- Dragon Pulse

Latios is the tiers premier threat. The dictonary definition of broken. Unlike Breloom, making a spread for Latios is absurdly simple and gives a great example of how not every spread has to be complex. Latios has some respectable stats. Decent base defense and HP, along with a great base Speed and excellent base SpA. Choice Specs just further increases Latios's raw power. Latios checks other offensive threats. This is important to remember. Threats such as Keldeo and Terrakion both have a max Speed of 346. Latios 350, so any deduction from Latios's speed stat would diminish Latios's capability as an offensive presence, and its ability to check other threats. It would then follow that any deduction from the SpA stat is useless and hurts Latios's ability to function as a offensive presence. While you might not be gaining extra KO's by maxing the SpA stat, it still necessary to maximize to maintain the offensive pressure and presence.

This logic can hold true for a large variety of offensive threats in the metagame. Take Keldeo for example. It already doesn't outrun Latios, so why do we need to max out speed, we could just try to creep Tentacruel or Garchomp. Well is that extra bulk worth it? Also what happens if you are in a Keldeo vs Keldeo scenerio. You are giving up the speed tie. Offensive threats maintain a strong presence through the max attack/Special attack. So sacrficing that presence isnt worth it. Maintaining that extra power (say an extra 10% damage output) which may not really help you when attacking something that is 100%, could be game changing later in the game. As game progress, Pokemon get chipped from Rocks, a couple switch ins, sandstorm etc. With extra power not only are you maintaining that presence , but eventually through out the game opponents can be worn down and come into say 2HKO range or even OHKO range depending on the scenerio.


Well that's my long ass eloboration on Ev's. To all who made it this far. Congratulations, following my train of thought is not easy. Maybe this thread was worth the read and can help as a resource. As always feedback/critism of this thread is appreciated to further its usefulness as a resource.



Notes:
1) More on the dimishing marginal returns of Evs can be found here.
2) More information on Jump Points can be found
here

3) I deadass stole the first Breloom spread from Finchinator LOL


 
Last edited:

SEA

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NUPL Champion
fnh asked me to roast his spreads lol

I'd like to talk a bit about optimizing spreads. Sometimes, you aren't getting all of the EVs you possibly could out of a spread. This may seem trivial at times, such as saving 4 EVs off of a spread, but who knows, games come down to low %s all the time, a little fixing up here and there could go a long way.

Landorus-Therian (M) @ Leftovers
Ability: Intimidate
EVs: 168 HP / 252 Atk / 88 Spe
Naive Nature
- Hidden Power [Ice]
- Earthquake
- Stone Edge
- Rock Polish

Let's take this spread I took off of one of FNH's BW OU Hub posts. The first thing that sticks out to me is that you're investing 252 in Attack, where Lando-T has a much higher base stat than in Speed, but using a +Speed nature without putting it past the reach of a non +Speed nature. The way I go about remedying this is just by trying to hit the previous spread's stats.

1603897646461.png


Changing the Nature to +Attack should give you more EVs to use. This works because of the function of Natures: They give +10% to a stat and -10% to another. So, 10% of Speed will be much less than 10% of Attack (38 and 24 respectively, because Pokemon likes to round down).
1603897910297.png

You don't save an exact 56 EVs due to stat skips, but you still end up saving 44 EVs to invest wherever you would like.

I'd also like to talk about a few EV pet peeves of mine, as I spend a lot of time fooling around in the damage calculator EVing mons.

Odd HP Numbers: Unless I'm using a base 100 HP mon and I want 101 Substitutes, I always use odd HP numbers. Even HP numbers are especially bad on 4x Rock weak mons, but if you're Rock weak at all, taking Rocks + 3 Spikes layers has the same effect and you die on the second switch in. I still choose to use odd HP on all of my Pokemon though, even those not Rock weak, as taking 50% from Super Fang instead of 49% is a waste or dying in 8 turns to burn instead of living on 1 HP (this is more about being divisible by 8, but this can only happen if you have even HP!).

Leftovers/Sandstorm Numbers: HP number divisible by 16 (+1 for odd HP!) for Leftovers, HP number divisible by 16 - 1 for Sand. You may have heard of Leftovers numbers before, but what are they and what do they actually do? Well, Leftovers gives you HP based on 1/16 of your HP stat. Pokemon loves to round down, as stated before, so the most optimal way to gain Leftovers recovery is to be right on top of the number or 1 over for odd HP. This is mostly relevant on Sand immune Pokemon in gens 3-5 (or on Pokemon with a way to reset weather), as otherwise you will be taking Sand, negating Leftovers. For example, if you have a lead Tyranitar in Generation 3 or 4, Leftovers numbers won't mean anything on your Blissey or Zapdos, as Sand will always be up. In the case of Blissey, don't worry about changing the HP as you will have Leftovers anyway, but on Zapdos, if you don't have Leftovers, it may be optimal to minimize the amount of Sandstorm damage you take. What does doing this look like? Zapdos's HP without any investment is 321, so to minimize the amount of sand damage you take, you can either make your HP IV 29, or invest 52 EVs into HP (note that lowering your HP IV is not a great idea, as it may affect some rolls that you would rather not mess with). When lowering your HP IV by 2, it is only more optimal if Zapdos stays in on Sandstorm for 3 turns.

First Turn: 321 HP Zapdos: 321 HP - 20 (sandstorm chip) = 301 | 319 HP Zapdos: 319 HP - 19 = 300
Second Turn: 321 HP Zapdos: 301 HP - 20 = 281 | 319 HP Zapdos: 300 HP - 19 = 281
Third Turn: 321 HP Zapdos: 281 HP - 20 = 261 | 319 HP Zapdos: 281 HP - 19 = 262

After the third turn of staying in on Sand, the benefits only grow further. This all is to be taken in context, by the way, as lowering your HP IV to something 19 just to minimize Sand damage is a horrible idea. On the other end of the spectrum, let's take a look at Leftovers numbers.

Landorus-Therian's uninvested HP stat is 319. Seeing as it is Sand immune, you can EV for a Leftovers number should you so choose. For the sake of this, we will only be investing 8 in HP (hits 321) to show the difference here.

In this hypothetical, let's say you have 2 Landorus. Both get down to 100 HP. One has 0 HP investment, the other has 8 HP investment. Let's take a look at a few turns.

First Turn: 0 HP Lando: 100 + 19 = 119 | 8 HP Lando: 100 + 20 = 120
Second Turn: 0 HP Lando: 119 + 19 = 138 | 8 HP Lando: 120 + 20 = 140
Third Turn: 0 HP Lando: 138 + 19 = 157 | 8 HP Lando: 140 + 20 = 160

As you can see, the 8 HP investment on the second Lando-T can pretty quickly pay dividends. Also worth noting that barring Defense/Special Defense investment, assuming both Landorus take the same damage roll from this move/these moves, the second Lando would start at 102 HP, then would end up at 162 HP.

Life Orb Numbers: Contrary to what FNH believes, yes, they do exist. Similarly to how Leftovers works, they are only worth investing in if you click multiple moves a game. End your HP number in 9 to take the least amount of damage, since it works off of 10% and it rounds down.

309 HP Life Orb Pokemon: 309, 279, 249, 219 | 311 HP Life Orb Pokemon: 311, 280, 249, 218

You can save a bit of HP doing this, it's nothing too massive though. Note that 319 is great for both Life Orb and minimizing Sand chip:
319 HP Life Orb Pokemon in Sand: 319 - 31 (orb) - 19 (sand) = 269, 219, 169
321 HP Life Orb Pokemon in Sand: 321 - 32 (orb) - 20 (sand) = 269, 217, 165

Going to finish off by echoing FNH's words: USE THE DAMAGE CALC. Don't just blindly EV your mons trying to make a spread that looks fancy. Oh, and using a 252+ 252 4 spread is fine sometimes.
 

Ununhexium

I closed my eyes and I slipped away...
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Hi! Just thought it was worth mentioning that on Landorus-T in BW you can run 92 Speed EVs and change the IVs to 31 in Atk and Def and 30 in Spe. It retains HP ice and reaches the exact same defense, but also grants Landorus-T one extra point in its Atk, which isn't huge but is slightly more efficient.

Also,
Oh, and using a 252+ 252 4 spread is fine sometimes.
Using a max/max spread is fine OFTEN, not just sometimes, especially on offensive Pokemon.
 

vapicuno

你的价值比自己想象中的所有还要低。我却早已解脱,享受幸福
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I obviously don't play this metagame, but since this is a thread about EVing, I will say something.

Because of the integer arithmetic effect, some EVs can be wasted, so using the calc helps you figure out the minimum EVs needed. Take the following examples in ADV:

Gengar
248 HP / 44 Def / 112 SpD

This spread survives Tyranitar's Crunch under sand and DDMence HP Flying. Conventional wisdom would suggest that making Gengar 252 HP would be more efficient than wasting an extra point in Def and SpD, but not in this case. You can't spend any less EVs than this.

Skarmory
Careful Nature
252 HP / 252 SpD
248 HP / 248 SpD

252+ SpA Magnet Magneton Thunderbolt vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Skarmory: 321-378 (96.1 - 113.1%) -- 75% chance to OHKO
252+ SpA Magnet Magneton Thunderbolt vs. 248 HP / 248+ SpD Skarmory: 321-378 (96.3 - 113.5%) -- 75% chance to OHKO

I acknowledge there can be "bulk creeps" in some circumstances, especially in the Magneton vs Skarmory interaction (once Mag users see all Skarms EV for Mag rolls, they can drop their SpA too), but grab your minor advantages while they last.

Usually, these EVs you save can be used to get better rolls in other areas or important speed creeps.
 

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