by Alex Prestia
This is part 1 of a two-part guide on Pokémon Sword and Shield. Part 1 is all about the many mechanics that determine a Pokémon’s stats. Part 2 will come out after the Crown Tundra DLC is launched and give the most efficient way to train Lvl-100 battle-ready Pokémon in Pokémon: Sword and Pokémon Shield.
You can be the very best, like no one ever was. Or, at least, you can get way better at this game than anyone else you know. And it’s not even that hard.
At the pro level (yes, there is competitive tournament play for Pokémon), this game is half preparation and half strategy. Among your dumbass friend group, this game is 99% preparation.
If you learn how to train your Pokémon better than your friends, you’re going to win every time. Remember, in the Pokémon Universe they’re called Pokémon Trainers, not Pokémon battlers, and there’s a good reason for that.
For whatever weird sense of pride that’s made you determined to beat all of your friends at Pokémon, you’ve come to the right place.
See, beneath Pokémon’s childish façade is one of the most in-depth, formula-driven stat systems in all of video games.
Seriously, if we stripped off all of the art and just looked at mechanics and damage formulas, Pokémon would make Skyrim look like a children’s game instead of the other way around.
Most people don’t look too deeply into the Pokémon. So when you and your friends decide to have a battle, you’ve got ample things to dive into to min-max your team to perfection. Whereas they probably just know that Water type is super-effective against Fire type.
It’s cool, I get it. In college, a friend and I got heated over Pokémon Sun and Moon. He thought he was hot shit, even dressed as Ash Ketchum for Halloween. Clearly the only logical thing to do was have a Pokémon battle/drinking game. We set simple rules: 3 weeks to prepare, no legendaries, and 1 shot of vodka for each Pokémon knocked out.
I only ended up taking one shot that night.
See, he didn’t know that Jolteon’s Speed BST ensured that Steelix would never, ever be faster than it.
He didn’t know that a bulky EV spread on a Venusaur meant that it could take a super-effective Psychic from an Alakazam and keep on swinging.
He had no idea that his Blastoise having an Adamant nature actually made Hydro Pump weaker.
He didn’t even know that Garchomp should be running an all-physical attacking set. He had it use flamethrower, flamethrower.
And look, you might not have understood any of that. That’s alright, your friends don’t either. That’s where the opportunity lies.
In part 1 of this guide, my goal is to introduce you to all of the mechanics underlying stats in the Pokémon Franchise. As such, most of this is applicable to every main series Pokémon game.
There have been changes, of course. Generation 1 (Pokémon Red and Blue) were sort of prototypes that set the stage for later iterations, but everything from Generation 3 (Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald) to Generation 8 (Pokémon Sword & Shield) has been basically the same.
The primary mechanics of the franchise are so similar, in fact, that you can bring a Pokémon from your old Pokémon: Ruby cartridge all the way into Pokémon Shield if you have the focus and the mild, uhh, specialness required to deal with all the steps that would take.
But lets get back to me talking about my personal victories in the past. What was it that let me win so handily? Well, I basically just knew how the game worked, and that’s what I’m going to pass on to you.
I’ll pick apart Base Stat Totals and how they determine a Pokémon species’ potential.
I’m going to explain what IVs and EVs are and how they drastically make your Pokémon stronger.
I’ll break down what a Pokémon’s nature means, and how it is the ultimate example of a game letting you min-max a party member’s stats.
Hell, I’ll even let you know why a Garchomp running flamethrower was so brain dead.
You want to be better than your friends at Pokémon? Read on. And buckle in; this is going to be a two-parter.
Preparation:
I said it earlier and I wasn’t kidding- this game is all about who prepared better.
If it helps, think of Pokémon like it’s a Trading Card Game. Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone, or the even the Neopets TCG if that helps. Same basic idea.
In those you pick a set of cards beforehand, then you use them to battle, or whatever it’s called. Its preparation first, then strategy later. Some of the time it feels like you won or lost a game before the first card was even drawn.
If you play a TCG a lot, your deck is going to flow better than someone who haphazardly opened a few booster packs and just shuffled them together.
The difference between Pokémon and Magic is that after you pick a card in a TCG, that’s it. Your card is your card. You don’t have to draw the artwork, or modify the attack power, or choose which text is going to display on the card. It’s already there for you.
In Pokémon, picking your “card” is just the beginning. After you pick a Pokémon, you need to know which ability to run, how to min-max its stats, how to breed for certain moves, and choose which item to equip it with.
Luckily for you, at max, you’ll only need to bring 6 Pokémon with you for any given battle. Whereas TCG’s make up for limited card customization with larger deck sizes.
At the end of the day, they both rely on good “deck” synergy and knowing the correct battle tactics to pull out a win.
Base Stats:
Pokémon have six stats: HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed.
Hit Points (HP)- This is how many Hit Points your Pokémon has. A Pokémon with a lot of HP is going to be able to take more hits.
Pokémon with high HP: Chansey, Lanturn, Snorlax
Attack (Att)- This is your Pokémon’s physical power. In Pokémon, moves can either be physical moves or special moves. This stat determines the power of those physical moves.
Pokémon with high Att: Haxorus, Machamp, Scizor
Defense (Def)- This is your Pokémon’s physical defense. It reduces the amount of damage only from physical moves. It has no effect on damage from special moves.
Pokémon with high Def: Steelix, Shuckle, Toxapex
Special Attack (Sp Att)- Your Pokémon’s mental power. This determines the damage of special moves that it uses.
Pokémon with high Sp Att: Alakazam, Mewtwo, Gengar
Special Defense (Sp Def)- Same as Defense but for special moves.
Pokémon with high Sp Def: Tentacruel, Goodra, Umbreon
Speed (Spd)- The Pokémon with the highest speed stat will move first each turn. This can be incredibly important, as knocking an opponent out effectively takes away their turn.
Pokémon with high Spd: Ninjask, Dragapult, Jolteon
Each species has a different Base Stat Total (BST) that sets the limits for their maximum and minimum values of each stat.
Typically, only one of a Pokémon’s stats will reach its maximum value. This is because a Pokémon’s final stat total is based not only on its BST but also its IVs (Individual Values), EVs (Effort Values), Nature, and of course, Level.
An example? Lets compare my Ninetales to a Mewtwo. For this I’m going to use these two webpages, you can open them too to follow along.
Mewtwo: https://www.serebii.net/pokedex-swsh/mewtwo/
Ninetales: https://www.serebii.net/pokedex-swsh/ninetales/
At the bottom of each page is the BST (Base Stat Totals) of these two Pokémon. Mewtwo’s Special Attack Base Stat is 154 (!!!).
When looking at BSTs, use 100 as a reference point. A 100 in a stat indicates its pretty good. 110-120 is Great. Anything over that is awesome.
154 Special Attack is fucking legendary. There’s a reason Mewtwo is so revered in these games.
Poor Ninetales is stuck at an 81 Special Attack Base Stat. That’s not even considered good. 81 is OK at best.
In a game where min-maxing is key, this sort of offensive stat means Ninetales is rarely used competitively, while Mewtwo is typically stuck on a ban list for being OP.
But what does an 81 vs. a 154 (!!!) Base Special Attack really mean?
Lets look back at their stats. According to the chart under the BST’s, if I purposely set out to make the weakest Mewtwo of all time, I could get it to level 100 with only a 281 as its Special Attack stat.
Similarly, if I took a Ninetales and wanted to raise its Special Attack as high as possible, I could get its Special Attack all the way up to 287. Making slightly stronger than our weak Mewtwo.
So just because Mewtwo is naturally, much, much stronger than Ninetales, the way you train the two of them ultimately determines everything.
If your friend doesn’t know what they’re doing, they’re going to use Pokémon they think are strong but have completely ruined. While you can pull out whatever the hell you want, so long as you trained them right, and still come away with the victory.
Now lets say I wanted to take a Mewtwo and not actively cuck it. With a focus on perfectly training their special attack I would be able to get it to a 447 Special Attack stat.
What I’m trying to say here, in the simplest terms: BST are very important when picking your Pokémon, but training them correctly is the difference between 281 (mediocre) and 447 (literally the best in the game).
Now I mentioned a couple of different things that contributed to the gap between the Mewtwo with 281 Special Attack and the Mewtwo with 447 Special Attack. Lets start with IVs and how they effect stats, and work from there.
IVs:
Individual Values are the stat that Pokémon are just born with, it’s the theory of genetics and breeding broken down into a kids game.
Basically it’s the idea that not all Pokémon are equal at birth. Some Pokémon are born with perfect IV’s and others have garbage across the board. Further, you can selectively breed Pokémon to ensure that they have better IV’s and pass those down to their offspring.
Wow, that got really weird for a second there. Let’s all take a deep breath. Remember that they’re just Pokémon. This is a game for kids, after all.
In the games themselves, NPC’s often refer to IV’s in vague, confusing terms. Whenever an NPC in a Pokémon game talks about a Pokémon’s “potential”, this is that.
All 6 stats on a Pokémon will have a different IV between 1-31; these determine the maximum score of any given stat. So that terrible Mewtwo from earlier must have had a 1 for it’s Sp Att IV, and the really good Mewtwo had a 31 for it’s Sp Att IV.
IV’s are actually very simple compared to other stat modifying mechanics, because the end goal is the same for all Pokémon you train. Pokémon can have perfect IVs in every stat, so you pretty much want your Pokémon to have perfect IVs in every stat.
Think about it, even the glassiest of glass cannons will still benefit from the extra bulk of a perfect Defense IV.
There are some exceptions however, teams based around the move Trick Room (a move that allows the Pokémon with the slowest speed stat to move first for 5 turns) may be very picky about their speed IV’s, or may just want them as low as possible.
Likewise, my Ninetales will never run a physical attack. Like ever. So I don’t need her Attack stat to have a high, or even good, IV.
Actually, I prefer special attacking Pokémon’s Attack IVs to be as low as possible. This is because of how the Confusion status effect works. When a Pokémon attacks itself during confusion, the amount of damage it does when it hurts itself is based on how high of an Attack stat it has.
However, you can do perfectly well without going the extra distance of minimizing Attack on a special attacker. Confusion doesn’t come up enough for the slight difference in self-attacking to really matter.
That attention to detail is the difference between beating your friends and going to Pokémon VGC World Tournaments.
You better bet that if you’re going to a competitive tournament, those Pokémon are going to be optimal in every single little way. To beat the hell out of your dumb friends though, you can get away without going full try-hard on this one.
Just make sure your perfect little Pokémon’s IVs are 31s across the board.
EVs:
Remember how in Pokémon games the NPC’s would say stuff like, “Trained Pokémon are stronger than wild Pokémon due to their trainer’s hard work.” And other such nonsense.
You probably brushed that off as some cliché “believe in yourself” bullshit and kept moving on. I don’t blame you, I did too. But leave it to Game Freak to make those cryptic messages actually be a reference to a hidden mechanic that affects the stats of all Pokémon.
If Pokémon are part talent and part hardwork, then IV’s are the talent and the EV’s are how hard a Pokémon works.
Effort Values, typically shortened to EVs, reward Pokémon based on what opponents they defeat. They’re basically a separate experience system bound to individual stats.
You heard that right. This is just like Experience points but (1) hidden from view, (2) they go towards the growth of stats instead of levels, (3) they are based entirely on what kind of Pokémon you battle against.
For example, knocking out a Chansey in the wild will give your Pokémon 2 EV’s towards the HP stat.
A Pokémon can have a maximum of 510 EV’s, but each stat can only take a maximum of 252 EV’s.
In this system two stats can be maxed out. And in such a min-max focused game, simple EV spreads almost always are a Pokémon’s attacking stat (Attack or Special Attack) and speed both maxed out. 252 for Att, 252 for Spd. Usually, the extra 8 EV’s are given to HP.
For bulkier Pokémon, they may want to invest into HP and one of the attacking stats or a bit into each of the defense stats.
As you grow as a player, experiment, learn the meta, etc. you’ll want to try more complicated EV spreads. That’s cool, but for now think along the lines of maximizing two stats.
By the way, I keep mentioning buffing HP rather than Defense or Special Defense. I’ll explain my reasoning. HP will help you no matter what kind of attack you’re hit with. Whether your foe uses a special or physical move, your HP pool will help to cushion the hit. So unless you’re preparing for a specific threat, you generally want to go with HP.
Again, this is a difference between beating your dingus friends and playing a competitive tournament. Against people who are just throwing shit at the wall, you’re better off with slightly more generalized EV spreads that can help against anything.
On the other hand, if you know the other guy at a regional tournament is probably running a special attacking Dragapult that will One-Hit KO your Hatterene unless it invests 80 EVs into Special Defense, then you’re gonna want to go Special Defense.
But remember earlier when I said my friend’s Garchomp used Flamethrower? Well Flamethrower is a special attack. Garchomp's BST for Special Attack is 80, nothing to write home about. However, Garchomp's BST for Attack is 130. Him using Special moves with a Garchomp immediately let me know I was going to win the game. It also made me glad that I had generalized my Venusaur’s EVs into 252 HP, 130 Def, and 130 Sp Def.
We ain’t talking about beating geniuses here, boys. We’re going to keep it simple, and we’re going to keep it general. Max out your offensive Pokémon’s speed and style of attack. Don’t overthink things just yet.
Natures:
This is the last big one, I swear. Every Pokémon has a nature, and no, it’s not just for flavor text. Natures actually make one of your Pokémon’s stats better and one of their stats worse.
For example, a Timid Pokémon will have a higher Speed stat and a lower Attack stat. A Brave Pokémon gains Attack at the cost of Speed.
Here’s the full list of natures in an easy to read chart: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Nature
Quick Quiz- What nature would a Ninetales benefit from? Think about it for a second.
Right, so typically Ninetales will be running +Speed and –Attack. It’s also popular to run +Special Attack and –Attack. Sometimes you will even choose to make it a bulkier support Pokémon by buffing a defensive stat.
The main point here is to know amplify what your Pokémon does well, while picking a dump stat that it doesn’t need.
Adamant is one of the most commonly run natures. It gives +Attack, –Special Attack. Got a Machamp that you want to hit as hard as possible with? Adamant. Got a Scizor running +1 priority physical moves? Adamant.
Outlining a Team:
Let’s reiterate your purpose for putting this squad together: You want to beat your sorry-ass friends at Pokémon.
We’re assuming they don’t really know what they’re doing. That the knowledge in this guide is far beyond the base knowledge they have of how the game works.
I’d caution a guess that over 80% of people who have played Pokémon games know less than 50% of the things in this article. I’m being conservative with that estimate.
If we’re operating under that set of assumptions, you can pick any Pokémon you like and still win.
Especially for your first team, just pick your favorites. Think about how stoked 5-year old you would be to know that in the future they had a god-like Blastoise or an absolutely devastating Alakazam.
Let that motivate you. That and the sweet, sweet anticipation of the beatdown you’re going to put on your buddies.
You’re gonna need that motivation. In part 2 of this guide I’ll be going over how to train Pokémon to have perfect stats, and it’s a grind.
Luckily, there has never been a Pokémon game where it’s easier to create perfect monsters than in Pokémon Sword and Shield.
So in the meantime, beat the base game and begin looking up Pokémon you’re interested in training.
I recommend using Serebii for its Pokedex (from the Mewtwo and Ninetales link earlier). Make sure you’re using the Gen 8 version, and take some time looking at your favorites: their abilities, their move pool, their BST, and brainstorm potential team combinations that synergize well.
You’re halfway there. Next time we’ll complete your transformation into a friend-beating, Pokémon Master.
- Be sure to check out Alex's other fantastic Switch guides for Mario Kart ,Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Super Mario Party.