These hotspots are designed to avoid pokemon that only appear at certain times during the day, hotspots should have pokemon available at all times, so that EV training can happen whenever and not based around a specific time. So for each stat there’ll be a location, which pokemon you find there, what percentage they show up, and how many EV’s they give. And all of the pokemon I list here don’t depend on time to show up, but they may involve Surfing, so keep that in mind.

HP

All right, so for HP there are two hotspots of interest.

The first is CELADON CITY, the infamous Grimer lake.

Grimer has a 90% chance of showing up at the Grimer lake, and it gives 1 EV in HP. However, you want to avoid Muk, which shows up 10% of the time, because he actually gives 1 EV in HP and 1 EV in Attack, which will mess up your calculations and stuff.

But still, getting 90% of grimer all the time is really nice, so it’s a good spot to train, but like I said avoid those Muks.

If you don’t feel like training at the grimer lake for whatever reason, there’s a second hotspot which really isn’t bad. It’s UNION CAVE, FIRST FLOOR, surf anywhere. Basically, the thing is, if you fly to Azalea and enter Union Cave through the BOTTOM SIDE, there’s immediately a little lake of water, if you surf on that water (or on any other water on floor 1 of union cave) you’re going to encounter Wooper and Quagsire.

So yeah if you find yourself wanting an alternative to Grimer Pond, you can just go to Union Cave and surf. At least you won’t have to run away from Muks

ATTACK

Okay so attack is also really easy to train, fortunately. There’s only one hotspot, but it’s a great location, so everything works out.
ROUTE 42.

The idea is to go to Route 42, and just surf. You’re going to encounter only Goldeens and Seakings which, unlike Grimer and Muk, both of them give attack EVs.

Attack is a cinch because of these guys. Very convenient, and even if you run into a Seaking every now and then if you’re going to max out Attack anyway (252), killing it won’t really effect you negatively.

DEFENSE

Now this one is a BITCH, because, unlike EVERY OTHER STAT, there is NO reliable hotspot that ONLY gives Defense. For a while I was using only Metapods, which have 30% of showing up in Ilex/Viridian forest. But even then, 30% isn’t really a BAD number, the issue was that you can only find Metapod during the Morning/Day. Then I realized there were much better locations to train Defense. 4, to be exact. But they’re still not nearly as good enough as Grimer Pond or Route 42.

4 is a really big number, but out of these I’m only going to list 2. The reason is, because 2 of them aren’t really as good as the other 2, but they’re STILL viable locations to EV train.

The two I’m not going to list are: Union Cave (First floor, walking around), and Rock Tunnel.

In Union Cave, you find Geodude and Sandshrew, 30% of the time, and Onix 5% of the time, all three of which give 1 EV in Defense. However, you also find Rattata 10% of the time and Zubat 25% of the time, which both of those give 1 EV in Speed.

So realistically those odds aren’t BAD, but they’re not AS GOOD. Plus running away from Rattata and Zubat sucks, and I don’t even think you can find Sandshrew in Soul Silver. But regardless, let’s move on to Rock Tunnel.

Rock Tunnel you can find Cubone 35% of the time, Geodude 30% of the time, both of which give 1 EV in Defense. However, you also find Machop 20% of the time which gives 1 EV in Attack, as well as Machoke 5% of the time, who gives 2 in Attack. And of course Zubat 10% of the time, so I wouldn’t say Rock Tunnel is very ideal for Defense training.

Still, both of those locations are MUCH Better than trekking around Ilex/Viridian forest trying to find Metapods (HG)/Kakunas (SS) which only show up 30% of the time.

However, there are still 2 other locations which are better than the ones stated above. The only reasons I mentioned Rock Tunnel and Union Cave was to give alternative hotspots.

In any case, let’s discuss the two locations that are really good for Defense.
BURNT TOWER, B1F.

B1F happens to be the same floor that you found Suicune, Entei, and Raikou on before they disappeared. You can get there by simply entering the Burnt Tower and taking the convenient ladder. Over here, you’ll find the ever lovable:

Now notice that Koffing, while it’s easy to take down and gives 1 EV in defense, only shows up half the time. The other 50% goes to Rattata, Zubat, and Magmar, which show up 40%, 5%, and 5% of the time, respectively. Which means you’re also going to be doing a lot of fleeing, however perhaps not as much as you would be doing if you were to train at either the Rock Tunnel or Union Cave. Plus, since the Burnt Tower is right there in Ekruteak, you have easy and quick access to a Pokemon Center.

However, if you still don’t like the odds and prefer some other place to EV train defense, there’s a final hotspot, which may even be better than the Burnt Tower.

DARK CAVE, VIOLET CITY SIDE.

Remember Dark Cave? RIGHT before you got to Violet City you saw it, went inside, noticed it was all dark, couldn’t really explore it, left, and never came back? Well see it’s always bothered me, Geodude is pretty much the flagship pokemon for Defense EV. He’s easy to take down, most of them you find at low levels, but there was never really a good source of Geodude anywhere. They maybe showed up only 30% of the time, or around that number.

Then I found Dark Cave.

Yeah. You read that right. 60%. Wanna know what the other 40% belongs to? 39% Zubat, and 1% Dunsparce. Zubat as you know gives 1 EV in speed, and Dunsparce gives 1 in HP, so avoid those, but holy crap look at those statistics. Dunsparce you’re pretty much never going to run into, and if you do, he’s a rare pokemon so catch him. And Zubat, well you can run away from him.

Consider this, if you take away Dunsparce, there are only TWO POKEMON that you will run into in Dark Cave, violet city side, which are Geodude and Zubat. Zubat you can run away from, so that pretty much leaves only Geodude. Not bad at all, I’d say. Much better than Metapods…

SPECIAL ATTACK

Ahh finally, now we’re back to stats which have consistent hotspots. Special Attack is easy as hell.

ILEX FOREST.

The idea is to Fly to Goldenrod and enter Ilex Forest from the top side, or the exit, or whatever you wanna call it. You should run into a pond right as you enter, which when you surf on it you’ll find houses these little buggers:

Personally I don’t understand those statistics at all, 90% and 1% do not equal to 100%, but whatever. Both serebii and bulbapedia had these statistics so I’m not gonna argue. The point is, Psyducks are common as all hell when you surf in Ilex Forest, and they both give Special Attack EV. There’s really no better place to EV train for Special attack except there, and you’re really close to Goldenrod which you can go to to heal up.

SPECIAL DEFENSE

Psyduck may not exactly be the flagship pokemon for Special Attack like Geodude is for Defense, but one thing’s for sure: Tentacool and Tentacruel are definitely pokemon people associate with Special Defense. So it’s no surprise that these guys have their own hotspot for Special Defense EV training.

OLIVINE CITY.

Just by surfing in Olivine, you encounter only Tentacool and Tentacruel, and if you saw the Pokemon Crystal run, you’ll know first-hand just how many Tentacool there are in the sea ;___;

Fortunately for you, however, finding an abundance of Tentacool is a good thing for EV training.

Right so, similar to HP, Attack, and Special Attack, Special Defense has those 9/1 ratio that make EV training a breeze. Plus, since you’re technically STILL IN OLIVINE, the pokemon center is RIGHT THERE for quick healing, making Olivine the place to go for Special Defense EV training.

SPEED

Now, the hotspot for Speed EV training is kick ass. Especially if you have Heart Gold.

Let me elaborate, Zubat and Pidgey are the flagship pokemon for EV training speed. Hoothoot belongs there too, but he’s only available at night. Above all, this is what we want to avoid. Because all hotspots should avoid pokemon that are only available during a certain time of the day.

Fortunately enough, Sa was the one who found this one.

ROUTE 33.

Before we begin, there’s a number of things to mention about this route. First off, it’s constantly raining, which—even though it’s cool as hell—unfortunately does take time to sit through the rain animation each and every time you encounter a wild pokemon.

However, the intrinsic quality about Route 33, which can be found between Azalea Town and Union Cave (right next to Slowpoke well) is that each and every single pokemon available at Route 33 gives 1 EV for speed, unless you’re playing Soul Silver. I’ll elaborate on that later, but for now, the final group of shiny pictures for this guide:

Also, for Speed I am listing the variations in rates of pokemon depending on morning, day, and night, but it doesn’t really effect anything.

MORNING (Heart Gold)

So yeah, as you can see it’s a really nice spread of pokemon that give nothing but 1 EV in speed, and they’re all weak as hell!

HOWEVER, in Soul Silver, Rattata’s rate drops down to 10% and instead Ekans shows up 30% of the time, and Ekans gives 1 EV in Attack, so you do have to avoid him. However, that means that 70% of the time you’ll be running into a pokemon that gives 1 EV in speed so, it’s not all that bad. Just Heart Gold people get it a little easier.

DAY (Heart Gold)

So in the daytime it’s also comparable to what it was in the morning, just get rid of Zubat and increase Rattata’s encounter rate by 5%.

However, in Soul Silver, Rattata’s rate is only 15% and Ekans shows up 30% of the time, just like he did in the Morning. Again, it’s a hassle, but it’s not unbearable.

NIGHT (Heart Gold)

So for night time this time Zubat comes back and Hoppip and Spearow disappear all together. This might actually be more annoying since I think Zubat packs Supersonic, and switching from the pokemon you want to EV train into something else to kill the Zubat might get your tougher pokemon confused, which will take up some time, but it’s still not too bad. Since it’s Route 33 all the pokemon here are really weak.

However, again, for Soul Silver: Zubat shows up 40% still, but Rattata is dropped down to a mere 30% and shared with Ekans, who still has a 30% chance of showing up.

At the end of the day, Route 33 might seem like a really bad route for Speed EV training. I mean, it’s always raining and you have to sit through that animation, plus if you’re playing Soul Silver you gotta deal with Ekans 30% of the time, but there’s no place better than Route 33 for Speed EV training.

I hope you guys found this guide useful and good luck EV-ing them pokemans.