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!

Jimmer's breeding fallacy.

I still breed Pokemon to battle against some of my former coworkers, and one in particular keeps me on my toes (and breeding more Pokemon). Someone asks you a question, you think you know the answer...you won't keep looking. Someone asks you a question that you're unsure about, you go searching. And sometimes find answers that are unexpected.

Jimmer's 4.5 fallacy (until now):
The Everstone was improved in the last half of 4th Generation. (HG/SS.) You can give it to EITHER parent, to get that 50% chance to pass down a nature. Combining that with training items passing down IVs, HG/SS is even better for breeding.

Another 4.5 sidenote:
If you have parents from different countries, the Everstone trick won't work, but you are 4x more likely to get a shiny Pokemon. (Still 1 in 2000 chances.)

Eggs get produced faster if the parents are the same species. (Different IDs is a 70%, same ID is 50%.) If they're different species, different ID is still 50%, but same ID crashes to the ground with 20%...this checks every 256 steps, with some minor caveats that you can find. (256 steps is also the magic number for trigger egg hatching, that gets interrupted when you do things other than walk.)

Joel swears that he's putting his Pokemon on break for now, until Black & White comes out.

My latest breeding pain: getting Rapid Spin on a Tentacruel. Squirtle to Kabuto to Tentacool, as it was an egg move, and I needed males to transfer those...and females of Kabuto and Tentacool to breed true.
1. Male Squirtle gets Rapid Spin.
2. Breed a female Kabuto.
3. Breed 1 with 2, get a male Kabuto.
4. Breed a female Tentacool.
5. Breed 3 with 4.

I had to level up the fathers high enough, so they wouldn't lose Rapid Spin in the Day Care. It was a long process, and I wasn't quite happy with the Jolly Swords Dancing Tentacruel. Sadness.