How to EV train in Pokémon Sword and Shield

If you want to get the most out of your Pokémon, you will need to get into the nitty-gritty of training to up their Effort Values (EVs), making sure that they have the absolute best stats possible. 

The easiest way to go about this is by breeding completely new Pokémon and then feeding it the vitamins it needs to max out those stats before you begin training it. This prevents you from accidentally getting a wrong EV applied to a stat after defeating a wild Pokémon. 

But in Sword and Shield, there are a few new ways to ensure that your training methods get results, starting with the new Poké Job system. 

After defeating the fourth gym you will get access to special jobs called seminars. Thes jobs will send the selected mons to Hammerlocke University, where they will be EV trained in a specific stat for up to 24 hours. 

This is by far the best way to train up to 10 Pokémon at a time in a specific stat. It doesn’t cost you anything at all, which is great since vitamins can really rack up how much time you need to spend grinding items in the Wild Area just to afford them. 

There is a seminar for every stat and if you send a Pokémon out for the full 24 hours available, it will come back with 96 EVs in that stat. 

You can only have a total of 252 EVs per stat and 510 spread out across all six stats, so you will need to pick and choose which ones you want to max out. Most players tend to max out the two stats that will be the most important in a battle for each specific Pokémon and then throw that last six into the biggest weakness.

Related: How to breed in Pokémon in Sword and Shield

So for example, if you are training up your Lucario to be a physical attacker, you would max out both its Attack and Speed EV stats at 252 and then toss the last six into Defense so it might be able to take an extra hit. 

And if you don’t want to wait multiple days to complete you training, just be prepared to spend 10,000 Poké Dollars per vitamin in the Wyndon Pokémon Center. Each item gives 10 Evs to its individual stat, so it is much faster, but you will be spending a lot of time gathering items in the Wild Area to sell in order to afford it. 

And don’t worry, if you do end up screwing up and giving one of your Pokémon some of the wrong EVs somehow, all you need to do is start shaking Berry Trees because some berries actually decrease EVs just like Vitamins increase them. 

If after all of that you still want to go through with training on specific Pokémon in the wild rather than using the other methods, you can still get that done in a timely manner thanks to a set of items and the Wild Area. Unfortunately, you will need 10 BP to unlock each of those items, but it is a small price to pay compared to the vitamins. 

Once you have earned enough BP from the Battle Tower, head to the Southern Pokémon Center and you can buy all of the Power items. These will give your training a big boost in the form of weights that increase EV gain, but will also cut your Pokémon’s Speed in battle.

And the best part is, because of the EXP Share being constantly on, none of the Pokémon that have one of those items equipped need to be in the battle at all. They just need to be in your party to gain both the experience and EVs. 

So all you need to do is pick up all of the Power items, select which Pokémon you want to train, and then go find a spot in the Wild Area that has a Pokémon that spawns in the overworld and gives out the EV you want. Just make sure you don’t have any Pokémon in your party that don’t need the EV you are grinding for because the EXP Share will still give it to them if they are along for the ride.