The difficulty spike between Victory Road and the Elite Four is abnormally high. But the jump from Lucian to Cynthia is no joke. Not only will you be dealing with Pokémon with abnormally high IVs (read: nearly all of her Pokémon’s IVs are maxed), but they’re also very fast. You can go about beating Cynthia […]
Effort Values (EVs) are invisible numbers added to each of your Pokémon’s stats, making them stronger. Each Pokémon can only have a maximum of 510 EV, and each stat can only have up to 252 EV points. Four EVs is one additional stat point. EV points are gained by defeating or capturing Pokémon—the amount that […]
Hidden Moves (HM) are, well, Pokémon moves that have their uses outside of battle. In the original Diamond and Pearl, you needed to teach HMs to Pokémon that can learn them in order to use the move. However, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl stores most of them into the Pokétch, so you don’t need to […]
The Pokédex that Professor Rowan gives you at the beginning of the game is the Sinnoh Pokédex. It contains data of all 150 Pokémon in the region (plus Manaphy), including starters like Chimchar, Piplup, and Turtwig. If you want to discover more than these 150, you need what’s called a National Pokédex. What Pokémon are […]
Individual Values (IVs) are hidden numbers that determine why certain Pokémon have higher/lower stats than another of the same species even if they’re at the same level. Every Pokémon can get an IV of one to 31 for every stat. They’re basically a Pokémon’s genes, and can’t be changed. IVs normally don’t matter if you’re […]
