Teaching

The Box Trick

Battle Damage

You might have heard of something called the "Box Trick". The Box Trick allows you to raise a Pokémon's statistics to the maximum attainable, without levelling up or using a stat booster.

All you have to do is have your Pokémon fight some battles (at least 10 or so to see any effect at all), put your Pokémon into a box in Bill's PC, and take it back out.

If all is well, your Pokémon will now have higher statistics.

That's it.

Before the Box Trick was discovered, it was thought that once a Pokémon reached L100, its statistics could no longer be raised. This is because statistics usually only increase when a Pokémon gains a Level or is fed a stat booster. L100 Pokémon aren't going to gain any more Levels, and probably aren't going to accept any more boosters either.

However, since the Box Trick forces a recalculation your Pokémon's statistics, a stat increase can occur whenever your Pokémon has gained sufficient Stat Experience, regardless of its Level.

This means that the Box Trick can be done for any Level Pokémon. Because the Trick allows a Pokémon to increase its stats without levelling up, you can also use it to make your Pika, Petit, or Poké Cup team members stronger without violating the Level limits.

Additionally, the Box Trick can make up for poor training, including lack of battling and stat boosters, as well as use of Rare Candies, Day Care, Piggybacking, etc.

Before you go nuts thinking this is the path to a Magikarp with straight 999 stats, note that the Box Trick cannot make your Pokémon exceed its personal maximum stats. A Pokémon's max stats are determined only by its "genes" (sometimes referred to as "deter values", "DVs", or a number of other terms). Each individual Pokémon has its own individual genes and therefore its own personal maximums.

Note that a personal max is very likely to be lower than the species max. Species maxes are what you'll find on the Skill/Stat Finder or on our Pokédex entry pages.

For example, the maximum Attack value a Tauros can have is 298, but this doesn't mean that every Tauros can attain this score. If you get a bum Tauros, it will always have poor stats in relation to other Tauros, no matter what you do.

Also note that genes are the only factor that controls a Pokémon's maximum statistics. Nothing else has any effect on these maximums.

If the Box Trick does not seem to be working for you, one of two things is almost certainly true: (1) not enough battles were fought, or (2) your Pokémon has already reached its maximum potential. Try another 30 battles or so, to be absolutely sure. If there is still no gain, your Pokémon is probably maxed out.

A Pokémon's current stats are dependent on four factors: (1) its genes, (2) its Level, (3) the amount of Stat Exp it has accumulated, and (4) the last time the its stats were recalculated.

We've already discussed the fact that genes determine a Pokémon's maximum potential. A Pokémon's Level and Stat Exp are simple modifiers, based on that potential. The modifiers do not come into play until the statistics are recalculated. At L100, this can mostly likely only be done by using the Trick.

Pokémon who are raised using only Rare Candies (or in the Day Care) have poor stats because they haven't done any fighting, and therefore don't have any Stat Exp. A wild Pokémon also has no Stat Exp. So if two Pokémon of the same species have exactly the same genes, and one is caught at L10 and Rare Candied (or Day Cared) to L15 and the other is caught wild at L15, they will have exactly the same stats. (The chance of two different Pokémon having exactly the same genes is roughly 65,000 to 1, but this is just an example for purposes of discussion.)

The more Stat Experience your Pokémon gains, the higher the payoff will be when its stats are recalculated. Thus, the more battles you fight, the more the Box Trick will do for you.

Also important to note is that the types of opponents your Pokémon defeats directly affect the benefits your Pokémon will receive from Box Tricking, due to the way Stat Exp is earned. The base statistics of each defeated Pokémon directly affect how much Stat Exp is earned for each stat. Individual Pokémon have a distinct Stat Exp total for each statistic.

So if your Pokémon fights nothing but Chanseys, its HP statistic will rise higher than if it had been fighting Cloysters. On the other hand, its Defense statistic will rise much more quickly if it fights nothing but Cloysters.

Notice that it is the base statistics of the opponents that are important, not the actual current statistics. Because of this, the Level of Pokémon defeated is also unimportant. So there is absolutely no difference to Stat Exp gain (and the subsequent effect on Box Tricking) between fighting L5 or L15 Tentacools.

If you are trying to reach your Pokémon's max statistics at a Level lower than 100, you should fight very low Level Pokémon. This will give you the most amount of Stat Exp, in relation to regular EXP gain. Gaining too much EXP will cause your Pokémon to evolve sooner, which is bad news if maxing out early is your goal.

Because a personal max is affected only by genes, there is no penalty in the long run for catching a Pokémon, Rare Candying it up to L100, using no boosters, and then employing the Box Trick.

The end result is exactly the same as if you'd trained the hard way, with or without boosters. Using boosters is still a good idea, if you want to shave a significant amount of time off your training, but they are not vital to maxing out your Pokémon's stats.

Note, too, that to max out your Pokémon, you are still going to have to fight the same number of battles, so RCing to L100 is not quite the time-saver it would initially appear to be. If, for reasons of ethics or simple lack of cheating ability, you choose to fight all your battles without using Candies, you won't really be losing all that much time.

Here's the data that backs up the concepts explained above. If you're impatient, you can get away without reading this part, but the examples are interesting and we suggest that you read them, if only for the practical knowledge of what to expect.

Our first test case is an evil Mewtwo, which gained some Stat Exp through battling and boosters, then was Rare Candied to L100. Its stats were:

HP:  395
Att: 278
Def: 257
Spd: 334
Spc: 369

After that, it battled 30 assorted victims in the Cerulean Cave. The Mewtwo was then deposited in Bill's Computer and withdrawn. It had the following stat increases:

HP:  396 (+1)
Att: 280 (+2)
Def: 259 (+2)
Spd: 336 (+2)
Spc: 372 (+3)

Not bad. Let's try a smaller count this time. After 10 battles, his stats are:

HP:  397 (+1)
Att: 280 (+0)
Def: 260 (+1)
Spd: 337 (+1)
Spc: 372 (+0)

Hmm. Not much improvement. Let's try 100 battles now:

HP:  401 (+4)
Att: 286 (+6)
Def: 265 (+5)
Spd: 342 (+5)
Spc: 378 (+6)

So, clearly, the number of battles fought is an extremely important factor in determining the improvement of the Pokémon's statistics. And look how far this Mewtwo has come since we started, 140 battles ago.

Now let's play with a L2 Rattata. We'll get it to L100 and let it evolve into a Raticate. Its stats before fighting:

HP:  290
Att: 225
Def: 195
Spd: 249
Spc: 171

After 20 battles in Cerulean Cave:

HP:  291 (+1)
Att: 226 (+1)
Def: 196 (+1)
Spd: 250 (+1)
Spc: 172 (+1)

After another 80 battles:

HP:  295 (+4)
Att: 230 (+4)
Def: 199 (+3)
Spd: 255 (+5)
Spc: 176 (+4)

About the same bonuses as for Mewtwo, in different categories.

The previous examples demonstrate how your Pokémon's stats are affected by the number of battles it has won. But what about the stats of the defeated Pokémon? Consider the following example. A L100 Parasect started out with these stats:

HP:  298
Att: 257
Def: 231
Spd: 107
Spc: 233

Through the use of a game device, it was then pitted against 90 L2 Mewtwos. Its subsequent stats:

HP:  304 (+6)
Att: 264 (+7)
Def: 237 (+6)
Spd: 115 (+8)
Spc: 242 (+9)

Pretty good improvement! Also notice how the stats with the greatest increases were those that are Mewtwo's best: Speed and Special (not that Mewtwo has any bad stats).

Next the Parasect was pitted (again, through the use of a game device) against 90 Dittos who ranged in Level from 22 to 30. Ditto was deliberately selected because it has pretty lousy stats. Here's how Parasect's stats changed:

HP:  307 (+3)
Att: 266 (+2)
Def: 239 (+2)
Spd: 118 (+3)
Spc: 245 (+3)

There are several things to note here. First, despite the fact that the same number of battles was fought, stat gain was much worse against Dittos than against Mewtwos. Second, the pattern of improvement across the 5 stats roughly mirrored the stats of the defeated Pokémon: Ditto's stats are all relatively even, as were Parasect's gains when fighting them exclusively. Third, consider that the Dittos were much higher in Level than the Mewtwos. In terms of actual stat values, a L22 Ditto will far surpass a L2 Mewtwo. Instead, it is the relative (or base) stats of the defeated Pokémon that matter.

Base stats for all Pokémon can be found at Necrosaro's Pokemon Page, along with a detailed description of exactly how Stat Exp is calculated.