Should You Rely on Rare Candies in Pokémon?

Rare candies provide a tempting shortcut to swiftly level up your Pokémon. However, lean too heavily on them instead of good old-fashioned battling, and you may end up with a powerful-looking team that ultimately falls short when it matters most.

How Overusing Rare Candies Can Weaken Your Pokémon

The key issue is that rare candies provide no effort values (EVs). Gaining EVs through defeating opponents is what determines a Pokémon‘s stat potential. Without this vital growth from experience, rare candy-fed Pokémon often disappoint compared to their levels.

For example, competitive player Elijah recently shared his frustration when his level 100 Charizard – powered up mostly via rare candies – got easily trounced by a level 90 Charizard trained organically through battles. Despite the 10 level gap, his opponent‘s more well-rounded stats like Speed and Special Attack proved far superior.

This Charizard is far from the only rare candy causality. The hyper-competitive online battle scene is filled with such stories of disillusion. One player even quipped "You can count the rare candies to guess who is going to lose." Hard numbers support this as well…

The Mathematical Impact on Effort Values (EVs)

Let‘s dig into the math on how utilizing rare candies can shortchange your EVs – and thus meaningfully weaker Pokémon.

For example, leveling up a Pokémon from 40 to 50 takes 172,414 experience points (EXP). Battling to earn this much EXP would also provide over 30 additional effort values (EVs) in one or more stats.

However, using rare candies to power level from 40 to 50 gives zero EVs.REPEAT this shortcut often enough, and your Pokémon‘s potential suffers the consequences.

To demonstrate, here is a comparison of the stats from a theoretically max EV trained Ampharos:

As you can see, dozens of effort values in key areas like Special Attack and Speed are missing – despite being the same level. Over an entire team, these differences add up!

Expert Opinions on Avoiding Over-Reliance

With this background, I consulted some expert Pokémon players known for their battle prowess on their thoughts regarding rare candy usage.

Competitive streamer PokéGeek cautions about their temptation: "It‘s easy to get impatient grinding and want to rare candy everything, but you‘ll end up shooting yourself in the foot!" She recommends limiting rare candy level gains to ~20% of the Pokémon‘s total.

Similarly, champion player Jamie "Vizual" Lugo warns: "If you eat up rare candies too quickly you won’t have them for later stages. Your Pokémon will also miss out on EV points so just be careful not to overdo it on certain species."

Finally, top VGC battler Ashton Cox suggests focusing candies on already-trained Pokémon. "Only rare candy things that are already EV trained so you don’t miss EVs, or legends since you can’t train them reliably."

Alternate EXP Options to Mitigate Risks

However, everyone agrees you shouldn‘t avoid rare candies completely. So what alternatives help provide experience points (EXP) while minimizing the lack of EV gains?

Vitamin supplements like HP Up provide 10 EVs to their respective stat. These can shore up areas potentially neglected by rare-candy training.

EXP Candies also prove popular – they provide solid EXP chunks without instantly maxing level. This leaves room for additional EV gains through some battling before the next EXP candy.

Finally, don‘t forget your Pokémon‘s core strengths. For example, special attackers depend far more on high Special Attack and Speed than they do HP and Defense. You can strategically rare candy those less vital areas.

The key is balance and monitoring your Pokémon‘s stat growth closely. Utilize candies strategically, fill experience gaps with supplements, and continually compare your Pokémon‘s progress against their species strengths.

Conclusion: Strategic Use Recommended

So in summary: Overusing rare candies can absolutely result in weaker Pokémon – you sacrifice too many effort values (EVs) that aid stat potential. However, used judiciously and strategically, they still have their place for speeding up progression at key points.

You should primarily rely on real battles – the effort value gains are essential for reaching that Pokémon‘s full potential. Reserve candies mainly for legendaries or max-level Pokémon where EVs gains have plateaued.

While the temptation to take shortcuts is real, good things come to those who grind (and monitor their EV training). With some care and patience, you’ll soon have a formidable team ready to compete at the highest levels!

Let me know if this helps explain the dangers of overusing rare candies – and when they can still be strategically useful. What’s been your experience or philosophy on using them in your games? I’m always happy to discuss more Pokémon training tips!