Why did Sceptile not gain many Attack points after EV training in Emerald?

Question

So recently, I asked a question about EV training and you guys suggest that I use berries to reduce my Pokemon's EVs to EV train. So after feeding my Sceptile a million Hondew (-SpAtk) berries and go to Mt.Pyre and killed like a million Shuppets (+Atk) with the Macho Brand held item. But upon leveling up, it only gains like 2 attack EVs. SO do anyone have ideas on how to fix thins and what's happening? I'm confused. (Pokemon Emerald)
Thanks

Comments

How did you know that Sceptile gained 2 Attack EVs?

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This question is essential context for this one: https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/415945/
OP’s Sceptile appears to be from their in-game team so its EVs were likely maxed prior to the EV training.
Hondew Berry will only clear EVs in SpA; there are likely unwanted EVs in HP, Def, SpD, etc as well that limit how many points are still available to train in Atk.

Answer 1

You appear to be confusing EVs with the Pokémon's actual stats.

Effort Values (EVs) are hidden values that go up when you defeat Pokémon or use Vitamins, which then affects the stat growth of your Pokémon.

The benefits are generally not clear until you reach higher levels such as Level 50.
Additionally, in Pokémon Emerald, when you deposit a Pokémon into your PC, it will gain the benefits of EVs immediately, when normally you would have to level up to do so. This is known as the "box trick".

If you have knocked out 126 Shuppet, you can stop and move on to the next stat, as you have fully maxed out its Attack.
If you aren't sure, you can use more EV-reduction berries and try again.

Comments

Adding to this, OP used only Hondew berries, so only SpAtk EVs were removed. As an ingame Sceptile, it's likely it has random amounts of EV in all stats, so one would need to feed all EV reducing berries to obtain a clean slate.

Otherwise, like Fizz mentioned, if Sceptile only had 10 SpAtk EVs that were deleted, only 10 Atk EVs would be added, because the rest 500 EVs are invested in HP/Defense/SpD/Speed.

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thanks, but so then how do I know that the EVs went up, where could I view it? And when you reduce the EVs of something than does the Pokémon's actual stat change?

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- You can't view EVs in Emerald. They are hidden as the answer says. You can get an imprecise estimate by counting EV-reducing berries (without saving, if you wish to keep the EVs): https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/354456#a386121
- You know that the EVs went up when you do something that increases EVs. It always works, unless you've hit one or both of the upper limits (255 in one stat, 510 overall).
- In Emerald, stats are recalculated after Pokemon level up and when they are placed into the PC. At these times, you may notice a decrease in real stat points if you have used EV-reducing berries. The PC method would give the most transparent results.
- If you're playing on an emulator, you can easily load your save into PKHeX to find all the answers right now.