>>52464729>>52465595Imma completely break it down to newfag levels for you, because even if you are baiting, this shit is important for newfags who want to dive a little deeper into the games.
Starting from Gen 3 onwards, defeating a Pokemon gives you something called an Effort Value (aside: Gens 1 and 2 had a similar system, except it was such a clusterfuck that it was rewritten). The actual spread varies depending on the 'mon, but it's a set spread, up to 3 total and across the six stats. Example: Oddish gives 1 point in Special Attack, Rattata gives 1 point in speed. For every 4 points, that Pokemon's stat increases by 1.
In the prior example, if you have two identical Pokemon, and grind one entirely on Oddish and another on Magikarp, the one that ground on Oddish will deal more damage, but the Magikarp-grinder will be faster.
To prevent people from being to get Pokemon with shit like 1000000 in every stat, EVs cap at 255 per stat, and 510 total across all stats (aside: any EVs given to a stat beyond the 252 count are wasted, so most optimized spreads you see are 252/252/4).
This means that a vitamin will fail if either the Pokemon's capped out its total EV count, or if you're trying to use a vitamin that boosts a maxed-out stat.
