IV Crossovers

So you have a Destiny Knot, that will get you 5 of the parent IVs transferred over. Hopefully the perfect IVs, but that's not something you get to control. Of course, the more perfect IVs the parents have, the more likely they'll pass it on to their children.

This is where crossover breeding is awesome. Imagine you want to make a powerful Blastoise - you and your friends brag about how awesome you are at breeding and battling...the bet is made. Whoever makes the best one in an hour, wins all of the breedings. You can get 5 perfect IVs fast, once you have some basic work done.

I recently did some IV crossover breeding. Starting with Newton, the 6 perfect IV male Electabuzz, I bred it with a female Cacnea. (Ideally, it's from another country so it breeds faster.) I eventually get a female Cacnea (let's call her Betsy) that has 3 perfect IVs from Newton, and then start breeding Betsy and Newton. Sadly, the breeding is slower now - Betsy and Newton are different Pokemon which slows it down, and the foreign mother's effect is gone. As time goes on, I'll get better Cacneas 4 & 5 perfect IVs. When I get a male Cacnea with 5, I retire Newton. With a male and female Cacnea with 5 perfect IVs each, it becomes random luck getting a baby with 6.

But! Cacnea is part of two egg groups - Human-like and Grass. I can take a female Grass Pokemon and breed it with my 5 perfect IV male Cacnea...and repeat the process I did with Newton. I would stay closer to Pokemon that have a 50/50 split for female to male...getting stuck breeding with a bad half is just painful. (I did some Corsolas once - the females were common, so I had 4 IVs easily. Males were rare, and I was stuck on 2 IVs.

So far, I've got 5 perfect IV males in multiple egg groups. I have a bunch of Human-like starts, taking advantage of Newton's perfect 6.

• Meinfoo - Human-like & Field
• Cacnea - Human-like & Grass
• Illuminise - Human-like & Bug
• Skorupi - Bug & Water 3

My future crossovers:

• Dwebble (Bug/Mineral)
• Mareep (Field/Monster)
• Stunfisk (Water 1/Amorphous)
• Ekans (Field/Dragon)
• Clawitzer (Water 1/Water 3) - 3800 steps*.
• Dedenne (Field/Fairy)
• Woobat (Flying/Field) - 3800 steps*.

The more crossover Pokemon you have, the faster it is to get a match. You can even work in Natures & Hidden Abilities - breed a female with the right Nature (using an Adamant Ditto with an Everstone, get the Adamant Nature)...Hidden Abilities are a bit trickier to get started with due to Safaris or previous versions, but at least they are transferred through the female! As of this writing, Pokemon Bank is still on hiatus from the US store.

Eventually, I'll get a male 5-IV for each of the egg groups. If I bred all of the time, I'd probably do 6-IV, but that takes awhile and a bit of luck.

*Lower steps needed to hatch means faster breeding. Even more important if you're going for 6 perfect IVs.

IV Breeding in Pokemon XY

I bred my first 6 perfect IV Pokemon the other day in Pokemon Y. It was nearly impossible before - you could do hundreds of breeding and not get one. The Destiny Knot is the key to your problems - talk to the maid at the hotel in Cyllage City.

The Destiny Knot is important - normally the parents will pass down 3 IVs, and the other 3 IVs are random. With one parent holding the Destiny Knot (and the other, probably holding an Everstone - passing down its Nature), you pass down 5 IVs from parents...only one completely random not related to anything else.

Imagine if you had two perfect IV parents - you'd pass down 5 IVs from them. The other one would be a 1/32 chance to be a 31. This is the story - the more perfect IVs you have on your parents, the more perfect IVs can be passed down.

My story of Newton, the perfect Elekid starts in my friend Eric's Safari. When you catch a Pokemon at a friend's safari, that Pokemon will start with at least 2 perfect IVs. In my case, my female (with the hidden Ability, Vital Spirit) started with 3. The father started with 2 different perfect IVs, but with the Adamant Nature. He held onto the Everstone, the mother held onto the Destiny Knot.

I retired the father for a 3 IV, then 4 IV child. How do you know how many perfect IVs you have? At the end of the game, you have access to Kloude City. There's a judge in the Pokemon Center who tells you how awesome your best IVs on the Pokemon are, with the perfect IVs being "can't be beat". I take 5 candidates at a time, and mark the IVs in the summary boxes so I can keep track of who has what.

Eventually, I got up to 5 perfect IVs on the mother for the stats I wanted. (Special Attack would not be necessary.) She had Vital Spirit. She's the almost perfect (IV) mom. I needed Fire Punch and Ice Punch, so I bred a 5 IV Electabuzz father (Everstone) with a Medicham (Destiny Knot)...so that the Meditite father would have some good IVs to breed back over once it had the punches needed.

15 minutes later, I was back breeding the Meditite into the Electabuzz stock again. I quickly had a 5 IV Electabuzz father with the punches again, so it was just a matter of time.




Newton was born. Sadly, he has the Static ability, but he's got beautiful IVs. Imagine this - next time I want a Human Like egg, Newton as the father and a Destiny Knot - perfect IVs are easily passed down. I've already branched into a Cacturne - which means I can pass IVs over into the Grass 1 egg pool easily now (it was also in the Human Like egg group).

Other useful things: Hatching O Power, which you can get in a cafe in Lumiose City, after you've found all of the other powers. Elekids don't breed - I had to level them to Electabuzz (30)...the fastest way I know of is the rotation battle in the 2 star restaurant in Lumiose. (Experience O Power lasts through all of the battles.)

Good luck!