EV Distribution Program?

[monkfish]

Please read this post fully before responding.

I was pondering last night about EVs and the most efficient way of distributing them. When you EV a pokemon, you are basically working out 3 things:

• Defensive capabilities
• Offensive capabilities
• Efficient speed

These three aspects can all be grouped under being relative to other Pokemon. You want to survive the attacks of other pokemon, you want to be able to hit other pokemon effectively and you want to outspeed them (usually). It's all about finding the balance.

This can be done by computer. Finding a good EV distribution is an algorithm. Admittedly quite a complex one, but nothing beyond the realm of an intermediate programmer. When given the base stats of every pokemon it becomes entirely possible for a program to work out advantageous EV values based on a few human inputs (including Moveset):

• Metagame - The other pokemon that the program should take into account when calculating the EVs. For example, ADV UU or DP Uber.
• A slider bar, ranging from Defensive to Offensive. Pretty self-explanatory: How many EV points to put into Offensive and Defensive power.
• A 'defensive' slider bar for Defense/Special Defense.
• If the program detects mixed offense, a similar 'offensive' slider bar.
• Speed - The program would give examples of target speeds and how relatively fast they are. It would also detect speed-boosting moves in the pokemon's moveset and provide options accordingly.

We've already seen X-Act's defensive EV system giving us the most efficient spread for HP/Def/SpD. I would see this program as almost an extension of that applet.

So, now you've read and hopefully thought about the idea behind it, and assuming it was totally possible and gave good EV spreads, the question I am asking in this topic is: Would you want such a program to be freely available to the competitive pokemon community?

 

[Mekkah]

I would love it, but as I said on IRC I highly doubt anyone could make such a program that tells me something I didn't know or that is useful to me. I would also love to be proven wrong here though.

 

[X-Act]

Well, I could write an applet that gives the best distribution of Attack/Special Attack EVs so that a particular Pokemon can deal the most damage, given its movepool. I could also include such things as the type coverage of every type (for instance a Dragon attack has more coverage than a Poison attack). The problem would be to catalogue all possible Pokemon, all their movepools and all the moves. But it's something that can be done. The usefulness of such a program (after all the effort in creating it) is another matter, though.

Regarding speed, I really don't know what to do about it.

Moreover, the attack, defense and speed sliders are things that are subjective, too, which is kind of a drawback in my opinion.