Typecasting

First of all, typecasting. Typecasting is EXTREMELY important, and is the basis of all these concepts. Pokemon have different types (water, fire, flying etc.). Some of these types are super effective against others (water vs. fire; fire vs. grass). These attacks will do twice the normal damage. Others are not very effective (fire vs. water; normal vs. rock) These attacks will do 1/2 the normal damage. Some are immune (electric vs. ground; ground vs. flying). These attacks will do NO damage whatsoever.

You have probably seen hybrids. These are pokemon with dual types. For example, Breloom is a Grass/Fighting pokemon, while Gyarados is a Water/Flying pokemon. Weaknesses and resistances come into play again. Electric is super-effective against water. Electric is also super-effective against flying types. Because, Gyarados is water/flying, electric type moves will do 4x the damage. At the same time, Aggron, who is a Steel/Rock types, is double resistant (1/4 the normal damage) to normal types, because both steel and rock types resist normal attacks. Some pokemon's dual types cancel weaknesses and resistances, causing normal damage to take place. Ludicolo (grass/water) is one of them. Electric types will do normal damage against him, because they are super-effective against water, yet not very effective against grass.

N O R M A L F I R E W A T E R E L E C T R I C G R A S S I C E F I G H T I N G P O I S O N G R O U N D F L Y I N G P S Y C H I C B U G R O C K G H O S T D R A G O N S T E E L D A R K NORMAL - - - - - - - - - - - - N X - N - FIRE - N N - S S - - - - - S N - N S - WATER - S N - N - - - S - - - S - N - - ELECTRIC - - S N N - - - X S - - - - N - - GRASS - N S - N - - N S N - N S - N N - ICE - N N - S N - - S S - - - - S N - FIGHTING S - - - - S - N - N N N S X - S S POISON - - - - S - - N N - - - - - - X - GROUND - S - S N - - S - X - N S - - S - FLYING - - - N S - S - - - - S N - - N - PSYCHIC - - - - - - S S - - N - - - - N X BUG - N - - S - N - - N S - - N - N - ROCK - S - - - S N - N S - S - - - N - GHOST X - - - - - - - - - S - - S - N N DRAGON - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S N - STEEL - N - N - S - - - - - - S - - N N DARK - - - - - - N - - - S - - S - N N

Legend: - Normal Damage S Super-effective (x2) N Not very effective (half) X Doesn't affect (x0)

Physical vs. Special:

The moves in this game can be separated in two main categories. Damaging moves and non-damaging. The difference is obvious. Let's take a look at the damaging ones. You'll notice they have types. Flamethrower is a Fire-type move, Shadow Ball is a Ghost-type move and Iron Tail is a Steel-type. What makes pokemon interesting is that pokemon can learn moves that aren't of they're type. A Houndoom (Fire/Dark type) can learn Solar Beam, and Starmie (Water/Psychic) can learn Thunder. These damaging moves can be further divided into two categories: Physical and Special.

Physical moves include those of the type Bug, Fighting, Flying, Ghost, Ground, Normal, Poison, Rock, Steel

Special moves are Dark, Dragon, Electric, Fire, Grass, Ice, Psychic, Water

The damage these pokemon do are affected by the stats of your and your opponent's pokemon. Let's take a pokemon like Regirock. Regirock has a base attack stat (more on this later) of 100 and a base special attack stat of 50. Now (aside from the fact that Regirock learns like 2 special moves), are you going to make him use special attacks are physical attacks? Ok, let's say you have an Alakazam (50 attack, 135 sp [special] attack), and a Machamp (130 attack, 65 sp attack) and you're up against a Blissey and Skarmory. Obviously, your Alakazam will have sp attacks and your Machamp will have physical attacks. You send out Alakazam, and your opponent sends out Blissey. Blissey has a special DEFENSE stat of 135, but a physical defense stat of 10. Just 10. So, are you going to try to dent this Blissey with your Alakazam, or just switch to Machamp, who can take advantage of that low defense? Vice versa with Skarmory and Machamp.

Stat-affecters

• Base Stats-The most important of stat-affecters. There is one base stat for each well....stat (HP, Attack, Defense, Speed, Sp Attack, Sp Defense). This is probably what you should look to when choosing a pokemon and its job. Say you want a physical sweeper (see later). You're gonna pick a pokemon with a good phys attack stat [often just known as attack] and probably good speed. You look around, and you see that Zangoose is a good choice (115 attack, 90 speed), so is Slaking (160 attack, 100 speed). Unlike IVs, these are always the same to one species of pokemon (Gyarados will ALWAYS have a base HP stat of 95).

• IVs-They stand for Individual Values. One might call these the "genes" of a pokemon. They are what separate a pokemon of one species to another of the same species. Once again, there are 6 IVs to a pokemon, one for each stat. The only way you can find them out is by using an IV calculator, which you can find on the web. An IV can range from 0-31. These are what determines the Hidden Power type and power.

• EVs-This is short for Effort Values, and it's the only thing you have control over. Every time you battle a pokemon, you'll gain a number of EPs (effort points). 4 EPs translate into 1 EV, which is an extra stat. Let's say you battle 1 Zigzagoon. Zigzagoon's give you 1 EP (all Zigzagoon's do). Once you battle 4, you'll have 1 EV, and therefore an extra stat in speed. You can gain a total of 510 EPs. Once you do, they are considered maxed, and you will gain no more. A total of 255 can be put into 1 stat (so no 510 all in one). However, the game rounds down, so 255/4=63.75, which means 63 extra points. Most only put in 252, because it gives you 63 stat points as well, and you have 3 leftover for something else. So if you have 252 in attack, 252 in speed, and 6 in HP, then you'll have 63 extra attack points than you normally would, 63 in speed and just 1 in HP. E-mail me if you don't understand this and I'll try to clarify.

  There are two factors that affect EV gain: pokerus and the Macho Brace. The Pokerus is a beneficial disease that pokemon can catch. You'll know a pokemon has Pokerus when the lady at the Pokemon Center tells you. It'll also say on the status screen. Pokerus doubles EV gain. So now if you have pokerus, every Zigzagoon will give you 2 Speed EPs. The Pokerus will go away after a few days and chances of finding it are very rare. So to keep this virus, put a pokemon with it into the PC. This will "freeze" it and you'll have it for as long as you need it. It's a good idea to infect a few pokemon as back up. When you need to EV train, just take that pokemon out, fight a few battles with it to spread the virus to all other members of your party. The Macho Brace is an item that also double EV gain. Combined with the Pokerus, it makes EV training four times as fast. Use of the Macho Brace comes with a temporary setback. The pokemon's speed stat is halved as long as the pokemon has the item equipped. However, this is a small price to pay for the EV gain.

• Personalities/Nature- This is much simpler than IVs and EVs. You can check the personality/nature (the names are used interchangeably) on the status screen. It'll say at the bottom Quiet nature or something. These natures affect stats. They increase the growth of one and hinder that of another. Take for example the Adamant nature. That will increase Attack and decrease Sp. Attack. With personalities, a stat is augmented 1.1 times and hindered by 0.9. So after IV's, EV's and Levels are taken into account, just multiply by the personality factor. Some natures are neutral and they leave all stats alone. There are 25 in total.

Stat	Ruby Location	Sapphire Location	Pokemon
Speed	Route 118	Route 118	Zigzagoon, Linoone, Wingull, Electrike, Manectric
HP	Rusturf Tunnel	Rusturf Tunnel	Whismur
Attack		Mt. Pyre	Shuppet
Defense	(Underwater); Mt. Pyre***	(Underwater)	Clamperl, Duskull***
Sp. Attack	Route 113	Route 113	Spinda
Sp. Defense	Abandoned Ship [surf]; Mt. Pyre***	Abandoned Ship (surf)	Tentacool, Tentacruel, Duskull***

Just a few things to note about this table. Zigzagoons, Wingulls, Electrikes give you one Speed EP, Linoone and Manectric give you two however. I don't know anywhere good to train for Attack in Pokemon Ruby. I'd appreciate it if someone could suggest one. There's not really a good place to train for Defense either. Underwater, Clamperls are pretty common and they give 1 Defense EP. There are others though. ***BE CAREFUL: Duskull's give you one Defense EP and one Sp Defense EP, but since many pokemon will need both, I put it in there. Same with Sp Defense. This could really mess up your EV training if you're only training for Defense.

The game calculates stats using this formula. It takes the Base Stat, multiplies it by two, then adds the IV and the EPs divided by 4. It takes this number and multplies it by the level of the pokemon then divides by 100. 5 is then added then the personality value (1.1, 0.9, 1) is multiplied. In a formula:

( ( ( ( (BaseStat x 2) + IV + EP/4 ) x Level/100 ) + 5) x P )

HP is calculated slightly differently. The formula is:

( ( ( ( (BaseStat x 2) + IV + EP/4 ) x Level/100 ) + Level + 10

In-game Stat Modifiers

Ok, so EVs, IVs and Personalities all modify your stats before a battle, right? Well, in a battle your stats may also change (not permanently; only for as long as a pokemon is not switched out). Pokemon can learn moves that raise stats, or lower the opponents stats. These raise or lower by a certain amount and it's important to learn these for competitive battling.

Level:	-6	-5	-4	-3	-2	-1	0	1	2	3	4	5	6
Gain/Loss:	x1/4	x2/7	x1/3	x2/5	x1/2	x2/3	x1	x3/2	x2	x5/2	x3	x7/2	x4

All this table means is that for every stat gain, you multiply your original (after IVs/EVs, not just base stat) by the corresponding fraction. The same goes for stat losses. Some moves modify stats by more than one level. In-game, this is shown by the word "harshly" or "sharply".

Furthermore, some moves raise more than one stat. Dragon Dance is an example. It raises attack and speed by one level. Curse modifies three stats: it raises attack and defense, but lowers speed. Special mention should be given to Belly Drum. This is a special move that maxes (ie- sets stat modifier to +6) your attack stat and cuts HP in half. If your pokemon can survive a hit after Drumming, it's pretty much good game. You get the idea of how effective upping attack can be. Of course, no opponent is going to let you use Swords Dance three times unless you put them to sleep or something.

Defense can be equally as effective. Giving Suicune Calm Mind not only raises its special attack, but also its special defense. After two Calm Minds, it has double its original sp defense and Electric and Grass moves, which usually do double damage, now do normal damage. If you can get 6 CMs up, no special attack will even scratch you.

Accuracy/Evasion can also be modified, but they go on a different scale:

Level:	-6	-5	-4	-3	-2	-1	0	1	2	3	4	5	6
Gain/Loss:	x1/3	x3/8	x3/7	x1/2	x3/5	x3/4	x1	x4/3	x5/3	x2	x7/3	x8/3	x3

When calculating accuracy, evasion increase is a step down on the scale, as is accuracy decrease. Similarly, evasion decrease and accuracy increase is a step up. For example, if the opponent has three Double Teams (+3 evasion) and the attacker has one accuracy decrease (-1 accuracy), you would take -4 on the scale, being x3/7 for the attack. So, all you have to do is multiply the initial accuracy of the move by the ratio.

Something else you need to know: every stat boost or loss your pokemon goes through is cancelled when switching. If your Zangoose has used Swords Dance twice (+4 attack) and it switches out, it won't have the attack boost when it switches back in. Similarly, if your opponent has charmed you (-2 attack) and you switch out, your attack will revert to its normal stat upon switching back in. Now you have something to counter a pokemon that's upping its stats. Use Roar/Whirlwind and force it to switch. This is known as pseudohazing, as it essentially accomplishes what Haze does.

Damage Formula

The damage formula is what the game uses to calculate damage.

                      ( ( ( ( 2L / 5 + 2 ) x A_poke x A_attk / D ) / 50 ) + 2 ) x STAB x T x R / 255

...where L is the level,
A_poke is the attack stat of the attacker,
A_attk is the attack power of the move,
D is the defense of the opponent,
STAB is whether STAB applies (1 or 1.5),
T is typecasting (0,0.25,0.5,1,2 or 4) and
R is a random number between 218 and 255 inclusive. Average damage is R=236, max is R=255, min is R=218

Advance EV spreads should involve some use of this formula (eg- enough sp attack to OHKO Skarmory with Flamethrower). However, I would suggest using a damage calculator as it's much faster. Psypoke has a good one here, but there are many others on the net.