What is the purpose of maxing out HP EVs?

Question

I understand why you would want to max out Defense or Special Defense for a wall/staller but why would you max out your HP? (This never made sense to me.)

Comments

HP adds more damage that you can take and receive in many situations. and some Pokemon (like Shuckle) have so HP they need to max it out to take hits more effectively. Having more HP helps the most against Counter/Mirror Coat/Seismic Toss/Night Shade. If you max out HP and Defense, you take less of a percentage of your HP then If you only maxed out Defense. Max HP also makes you:
-heal more from Leftovers
-Harder to KO
-Survive Recoil more often

Maxing HP also makes you take both Special and Physical hits better. :P

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^ thank you!

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@Stakatacool Please post answers as answers, not comments. Thanks :)

Answer 1

Firstly, increasing your HP stat protects you against both Physical and Special moves, because the same attack will take a smaller percentage of your HP. If you are not targeting a specific defense then increasing HP works the best.

Secondly, if your HP is lower than the defenses then it's mathematically better to invest in HP. Even if you're making a Physical tank and don't care about Special Defense, you should always increase whichever stat is the lowest.

Warning, nerdy maths coming up! Say for example your HP is 50 and Defense is 100, and a particular attack does 20 HP damage. That's 40% of your HP. However,

• If you added 50 to your Defense (so you have 50 HP, 150 Def), that's 1.5 more so you'd take 20/1.5 = 13.3 HP damage instead, which is 26.6% of your max HP.
• If you added 50 to HP (so you have 100 HP, 100 Def), that attack would still do 20 HP damage, but now with 100 HP that's only 20% of your max HP.

The opposite also works - if your Defense was lower than your HP you should increase Defense first.

Comments

Thank you!

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PM your second point doesn't make any sense to me. Say I have a Physically tank Incineroar, then you won't need to invest speed. And Mantine is a Special Tank, then you ain't gotta invest in Defense because.... oof. So you should edit that out to make more sense.