Where have I gone wrong in my EV training?

Question

Hey Guys, Im a little stuck here with my EV training.
I am currently training a chimchar (adamant) for Speed and Attack Using The Power Anklet and Power Bracer.
Here are my calculations as follows:
EV Maths (attack)
252 to max 1 stat, +10 from Vitamins (-100) =
152 + 4 from bracer and 1 from patrat = 5
152 / 5 = 30 kills
and
EV Maths (speed)
252 to max 1 stat, +10 from Vitamins (-100) =
152 + 4 from bracer and 2 from Basculin = 6
152 / 6 = 25 kills

I have trained him up 25 basculin kills with bracer and 30 patrat kills with bracer so as far as I know, ive done that side correctly...however when I attempt to apply the relevant vitamins (+10), it says it will have no effect???
Have I done something wrong here?

Answer 1

Well, I see the problem here... you are trying to add in the vitamins AFTER you get the 152 EVs, right? Well sadly, that doesn't work... Here's a line from the DataBase EV Page

There is a limit of 10 [vitamins] per stat, however they only work on the first 100 EVs

So your problem is that you MUST use the vitamins BEFORE you battle wild Pokemons and gain EVs, and not beforehand. Also, a little thing here... if you are gonna max out Speed and Attack, then Don't put any vitamins in the other stats, as you already know that a Pokemon can only have 510 EVs in total. If you need items to reduce your EVs back to zero, they are

Pomeg Berry (HP)
Kelpsy Berry (Attack)
Qualot Berry (Defense)
Hondew Berry (Sp. Attack)
Grepa Berry (Sp. Defense)
Tamato Berry (Speed)

as for your math, you need to fight 2 patrats without the Power Bracer for 152 Atk EVs and an extra Basculin without the Power Anklet so you can get the full 152 Spd EVs.

Source: Pokemon DB

And by the way, Welcome to the site :D

Comments

you're right about first 100EV with vitamins, but there are no need to make it back to 0 just to give 100EV again

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I said "IF you want to..."
i didnt say to do that specifically...

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the barber can also completely destroy evs in one move though its quite costly

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***"as for your math, you need to fight 2 patrats without the Power Bracer for 152 Atk EVs and an extra Basculin without the Power Anklet so you can get the full 152 Spd EVs"***

Ah yes I see my issue in the calculation! Thank you!

***"There is a limit of 10 [vitamins] per stat, however they only work on the first 100 EVs"***

When researching all this, I either read over or never saw that I needed to apply the vitamins first before the EV grind. Thanks for this!

*****"I know you wrote you had the Bracer & Anklet, but I don't know if you switched items when fighting (since in your maths, you wrote bracer instead of anklet)."*****

I did switch items, wrote it wrong. My bad :P

So to recap.
It would be 10 Protein and 10 Carbos, THEN 32 Patrat KO's (2 without item) and 26 Basculin KO's (1 without item). Is this correct?

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yep, correct.

Answer 2

Patrat
Attack
152 EVs (-100 from Vitamins)
30 Patrat faints is only 150 EVs
** 30 x 5 EVs (4 from Bracer, 1 from Patrat) = 150
You need to fight another 2 Patrats w/o the Bracer

Basculin
Speed
152 EVs (-100 from Vitamins)
25 Basculin faints is only 150 EVs
** 25 x 6 EVs (4 from Anklet, 2 from Basculin) = 150
You need to fight another 1 Basculin w/o the Anklet

You need to use the Power Anklet when fighting Basculin to gain 4 more speed EVs for each successful battle. The Power Bracer will only give out Attack EVs, regardless of Pokemon fought. I know you wrote you had the Bracer & Anklet, but I don't know if you switched items when fighting (since in your maths, you wrote bracer instead of anklet).

If you used the Bracer when you fought Basculins, 4 x 25 = 100 Attack EVs, so that's why the vitamins aren't working, since your attack is (near) maxed out.

If you did switch items when you were fighting Basculins, then I can't really understand why a Pokemon would refuse vitamins; a Pokemon refuses Vitamins either when the stat is maxed out or when you have given it 10 already, or when you've maxed out the 510 EVs allotted to a Pokemon.

There's a way to check Effort Values, which is to call Bianca and ask her. She will tell you if you have reached 510 EVs yet or not. You can also check happiness in Icirrus City's Pokémon Fan Club.

List of EV enhancing items