EV Guide - Part One 
EV Guide written by SuperFlanker and Jonaz
Intro
EV’s, or Effort Values as we know them, are one of the many things fitted into the Pokémon game mechanics’ system. They are also one of the most important means to try and be a decent competitive battler as they allow a Pokémon to maximize its offensive or defensive capability.
What are Effort Values exactly?
Effort Values are something that’s awarded whenever you faint a wild or a trainer’s Pokémon (with the exception of Wi-Fi challenges, Battle Tower/Frontier battles, and Wireless battles between other players). EV's are essentially points towords a stat, there is a type of EV for each stat, and it takes 4 EV's to increase a stat one point. This means that EV's can signifigantly increase your Pokemons stats, but sadly, there is a limit to the amount of EV's you can apply. There are two places where EV's are limited; overall and in each individual stat.
The maximum amount an individual stat can hold is 255 EV's. However, it is pointless to use all 255 EV's, because it' not divisable by four, which is the number of EV's it takes to increase a stat by one, since 252 is the last number divisable by four, this makes it the last viable number of EV's you should be putting in an individual stat, but the actual limit however, is 255. With this knew knowledge, if you do the math (252/4) you will find out that if you put 252 EV's, the maximum amount per stat, you can have a maxmimum of a 63 stat point increase per stat.
Along with the individual stat limit, there is a total or overall limit as well. Your Pokemon cannot have more that 510 EV's overall, this is the sum of the EV's gained in each stat. For Example: If you have a Swampert with 255 HP EV's and 255 Defense EV's, it is impossible to give it anymore EV's anywhere else because the sum total of those EV's is 510. It's also worth noting that 510 is not divisable by four either, which means 508 EV's is the most amount of Viable EV's to give a Pokemon. Know with all of this knowledge, if we use what we learned about the individual limit, you'll realise that this means we can have a 63 stat point increase in two stats, and a 1 stat point increase in one stat (252 + 252 = 504, 504 + 4 = 508). This isn't obviously the only way to arrange your EV's, but it's an example of the most common spread.
To sum it up, here is a table to show the limits:
| Stat | Limit |
|---|---|
| HP | Must not exceed 255, highest viable option is 252. |
| Attack | Must not exceed 255, highest viable option is 252. |
| Defense | Must not exceed 255, highest viable option is 252. |
| Special Attack | Must not exceed 255, highest viable option is 252. |
| Special Defense | Must not exceed 255, highest viable option is 252. |
| Speed | Must not exceed 255, highest viable option is 252. |
| All the stats combined | Must not exceed 510, highest viable option is 508. |
