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!

Pokemon Black (and White) IV talk

I picked up Pokemon Black on launch, and haven't been back to update this in awhile. I'll chat more about breeding once I do more of it.

1. There's a guy above the Subway, in Nimbasa who rates your Pokemon's IVs - great for making choices on which baby to level up...

If the IV total is between 0 and 90: "This Pokemon's potential is decent all around."
If the IV total is between 91 and 120: "This Pokemon's potential is above average overall."
If the IV total is between 121 and 150: "This Pokemon has relatively superior potential overall."
If the IV total is between 151 and 186: "This Pokemon has outstanding potential overall."

If the highest IV is between 0 and 15: "It's rather decent in that regard."
If the highest IV is between 16 and 25: "It's very good in that regard."
If the highest IV is between 26 and 30: "It's fantastic in that regard."
If the highest IV is 31: "It can't be better in that regard.

2. I did breed an Arbok in HG, to migrate it into Black...Dark Pulse doesn't exist as a TM, but I wanted it for my Hydreigon. Took forever, getting a male Arbok with a Timid nature. (I hadn't migrated any of the natured-Dittos yet, so the Arbok was responsible for the Dark Pulse and the Timid nature.) It's great that the everstone works on either the male or the female!

Joey's Rattata

This is only slightly a Pokemon topic - Joey's Rattata meets probability.

If you haven't played HG/SS, you might not know about his Rattata. "It's like my Rattata is in the top percentage of Rattata." He calls you often, to talk about important things...like his Rattata. Even after it's evolved to Raticate, he'll still have many many thoughts to share about his Rattata.

It got me to thinking - what IS a top percentage Rattata? How difficult would it be to just stumble across one?

First, we need to start with what a top Rattata would have for stats. As we're in the Egg Moves blog, let's assume Joey is talking about IVs - anyone can train a good Rattata with EV training.

Second, each of the 6 stats range from 0-31. My ideal Rattata would have some specific IVs in certain stats, but let's just assume for quick math, we just care about the best ones we could expect out of 100 Rattata, if they were all naturally occurring. Amongst my friends who are serious about IVs, ideally, they get all 31s. They'll settle for 28+, honestly...so we'll work from that point.

Probability is a longer topic, but it breaks down to some quick math if you have Excel handy - just use BINOMDIST function. (There's a 4/31 chance of getting a 28 or higher which would count as a success. Figure out the number of successes out of 6, and you're there.)

If we believe in getting a 28 or higher qualifies - 3 IVs gets us to top 2%. Sadly, it takes us 4 to make that top 1%. It almost takes us to the top Rattata in a thousand!

If you like 30+ IV stats, a top Rattata would only need 2 IVs of that range to make the top 2%. Sadly, that top percent is elusive...it would take 3 to break into it - making it a one in a thousand kind of Rattata.

Breeding that kind of Rattata takes dedication, checking the right parents and re-breeding as the children develop into stronger genes than their folks. With judicial use of EV training items mentioned in the previous post, it's more likely in less time. Good luck!

P.S. As an odd heads-up, I was breeding Rattata for stats, using two EV training items instead of item+everstone. I assumed that each stat would get locked in from the item, but in a couple of circumstances, only one make it in! I'm guessing the third stat donated from the parents can overwrite the "lock-in" stat. Interesting!

Breeding in HG/SS

I'll admit, I do most of my breeding in my Diamond game still. I have all 493 Pokemon in the PokeDex - if I no longer have a Pokemon, GTS is a friendly one-stop shop. It's also linked to my Pokemon Ranch...if not GTS, my Ranch generally has something (beyond the hundreds of Pokemon I've put on there).

But HeartGold and SoulSilver has a powerful motivator: IV breeding

IV (Inherent Value) stats represent the genetic traits of a Pokemon. The egg receives random IVs to start with, and then starts shuffling in up to 3 random stats from its parents. Sometimes those 3 stats overwrite each other, so it could be as few as only 1 stat from the parents. Oh, sadness.

It still means that if you have parents with good stats, you're more likely in general to have better babies. (Likewise, if the parents have bad stats...let's not go there.) But it was still random on what was passed on, until now.

The way it is now: if you give the parents the correct EV training items (Power Weight, Power Anklet, Power Lens, Power Band, Power Bracer, and Power Belt) that parent WILL pass down that stat.

I recently bred some Pokemon - I wanted a high attack stat, and good speed. The father didn't have very good stats, except for his 31 attack. I gave him the Power Bracer, gave the mother an Everstone (so she'd pass along her Nature,)...and bang. Every single egg resulted in a 31 attack, out of the 24 eggs created. (31 for an IV is the highest you can get - 0 is the lowest.) Out of those eggs, I found one with the right Nature and good Speed.

Again, this trick only works in HG/SS. It probably means I'll be doing more breeding over there, but it's hard to give up my habits - knowing where and how fast it takes to EV train is completely different in HG/SS.