Pokemon Stats, Natures and Breeding

For this post I would like to talk about breeding Pokemon, but first I need to explain what we are breeding for and that is Pokemon with ideal stats. Every Pokemon has six stats that affect its performance in battle. These stats are:
Health Points (or usually just HP): The amount of damage a pokemon can take before being knocked out. The pokemon capable of the highest HP in the game is Blissey who can reach a colossal HP of 714.

Attack: The higher the Attack stat the more damage the pokemon can deal with physical attacks. The pokemon with the greatest attack power is Attack form Deoxys whose Attack stat can reach 504.

Defense: The higher the Defense stat the less damage the pokemon will take from physical attacks. The pokemon with the best defense in the game is Shuckle whose defense can be as high as 614.

Special Attack: The higher the Special Attack stat the more damage the pokemon deals with special attacks. The pokemon with the highest special attack again happens to be Attack form Deoxys who again reaches to a special attack of 504.

Special Defense: Probably obvious by now, but the higher this stat is the less damage the pokemon will take from special attacks. Coincidentally the pokemon with the highest Special Defense is also Shuckle who this time reaches a special defense of 614.

Speed: The speed of a pokemon determines which pokemon will move first in a battle. Under normal conditions the pokemon with the highest speed will move first, but the use of a priority move will allow a slower pokemon to move first. Also the move Trick Room will make slower pokemon move first for five turns. The pokemon with the best Speed stat is Speed form Deoxys who can reach a speed of 504.

A pokemon's growth in any particular stat is determined by 4 things; Base stats, Effort Values (EVs), Individual Values (IVs), and Nature. The base stats are determined by the species of the pokemon and therefore is the only part we cannot influence. The reason why Attack Deoxys for instance can reach an Attack and Special Attack of 504 is because it has a base stat of 180 in both, but the down side is that Attack Deoxys has a base Defense and Special Defense stat of only 20 which means at most it could have a Defense of 152.  Most pokemon are not this polarized though, usually a Pokemon's stats will be much more evenly distributed. The Pokemon with the greatest combined stat total is Arceus (the literal god of the pokemon universe) every one of his stats has a base of 120. Here is a look at a level 100 Arceus and what its stats are like.

Next would be EVs (effort values) which are gained along with experience, but I will skip talking about these for now because they are dealt with after breeding and will probably be the subject of my next post. Instead I will explain IVs (individual values) which are determined at the pokemon's birth. An IV is a (somewhat) random number between 0 and 31 that affects the growth of a stat with 0 being generally bad because it causes poor growth and 31 usually considered good because of the increased growth. Each IV point translates to 1 point in its respective stat at level 100, so an otherwise perfect Attack Deoxys with an IV of 0 for Attack will only have an attack of 473 compared to the perfect Attack Deoxys with an Attack IV of 31 who will have an attack of 504. A wild pokemon will have a random IV for each of the 6 stats, meaning the odds of finding a perfect IV pokemon in the wild is 1/32 to the 6th power or less than 1 in a billion. This is where breeding comes in because a pokemon hatched from an egg will inherit 3 of its parents' stats making finding a good pokemon much easier. There are ways to manipulate this further, but first I need to talk about Natures.

Note: Even though this is a beginners guide IV breeding is a fairly advanced technique that even many competitive players do not take the time to do. In other words IV breeding is not essential to playing Pokemon competitively, but it will give you an edge. Natures on the other hand are very important.

Every pokemon you catch or breed will have 1 of 25 Natures. Like IVs this is usually completely random, but through breeding (Also the ability Synchronize) it is possible to drastically increase the odds of getting the nature you desire. The reason a pokemon's nature is so important is that based on their nature one stat will be increased by 10% while another is decreased by 10%. There is a nature for every possible pair of stats including 5 neutral natures where the stat being decreased is also the one being increased resulting in no effect. Here is a chart of what the different natures do, note that there are no natures that increase or decrease HP. In-game you can see what a nature does by checking a pokemon's stats, the stat highlighted in blue is the stat decreased while the one in red is increased.

Usually, but not always, you will want a nature that either decreases Attack or Special Attack. The reason for this is that most pokemon will only use either physical or special attacks meaning the other attack stat is unimportant and so perfect for taking the reduction. The notable exceptions to this rule are pokemon who are intentionally slow, usually for the purpose of being used with Trick Room (This is also one of the few reasons someone would want a lower IV), in these cases a speed lowering nature could be used. The other exception is for mixed attackers, pokemon who use both physical and special attacks, for these pokemon a defense, special defense, or speed reducing nature could be used. There are few if any situations where you would want to use a neutral nature; they may not be the worst possible nature, but there is almost always a stat that could use the 10% boost.

Finally it is time to breed. All you need to do to breed pokemon is take a male and female pokemon from the same egg group and put them in the Daycare on route 3 together. Click here to see which Pokemon are in which egg groups. And the Daycare is where the red arrow is pointing:

You can also breed any pokemon that is not in the no egg group with a Ditto in order to get an egg of the non-Ditto pokemon; however, you can not breed two Dittos to get a Ditto egg and you can never breed the pokemon in the no egg group. When breeding the offspring will always be the same species as the mother except for when breeding a male with a Ditto.

Now that we are ready to breed here is what you need to take into consideration when choosing the parents:

1. This one is obvious, you need to have a female of the type of pokemon you wish to breed or a male with a Ditto.

2. The IVs of the parents, as I said earlier the baby pokemon will inherit 3 random IVs from its parents so the more good IVs they have the better. Unfortunately the IVs of a pokemon are hidden values so it can be tricky to determine what they are. It is easiest if the pokemon has not been used in battle because then it will not have any EVs to throw off its stats and you can simply enter its level, nature, and stats into this calculator http://veekun.com/dex/gadgets/stat_calculator. This calculator becomes less accurate at lower levels so if necessary you can bring pokemon to the building left of the Pokemon Center in Nimbasa City to enter a battle where they will temporarily be raised to level 50 (this can only be done after completing the game).

             

You may want to save before entering battle so that you can reset the game after you check the pokemon's stats. Once in battle check the stats of the pokemon and enter them into the IV calculator to get their IVs accurate within 1 point. This is the same method we will use to check the IVs of newly hatched pokemon. There is also a man in Nimbasa City that will judge the potential of your pokemon, he can be found in the Battle Subway, but also only after completing the game.

First he will rate your pokemon based on its total number of IVs. If the IV total is between 0 and 90 he will say, "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 between151 and 186, "This Pokemon has outstanding potential overall." And then he will tell you what stat your pokemon has the best IV in as well as how good it is. If the pokemon's highest IV is between 0 and 15 he will say, "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.". Through those two methods you should be able to get at least a good idea of what your pokemon's IVs are like. The first method is usually more precise, but the second method is easier and can be used even if you don't know the pokemon's EVs.


When breeding you can let one of the parents hold a Power Weight, Power Bracer, Power Belt, Power Lens, Power Band, or Power Anklet to almost guarantee the baby will have the same HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, or Speed IV respectively. So if one of the parent pokemon has an HP IV of 31 you can let it hold a Power Weight to make the baby also have an HP IV of 31; however, you cannot make both parents hold Power Items to lock-in two IVs. The 6 Power Items are won as rewards from the Battle Subway in Nimbasa City, so they are fairly difficult to get.


3. Now back on track, the third thing to consider when selecting parents are their natures. You want at least one of the parents to have the nature you wish the baby to have so that you can pass it on. In order to pass on the nature of the parent to the baby pokemon you must give the parent an Everstone to hold before breeding. By holding the Everstone there is a 50% chance that the baby will have the same nature as the parent. There are several places to find Everstones so you will most likely find one through the course of the game.


4. Dream World abilities. The Dream World is something I haven't mentioned yet, but it is a website you sync your Pokemon game to. In the Pokemon Dream World you can grow berries, decorate your house, and play mini-games with pokemon. By playing these mini-games you can befriend pokemon that can be then be sent back to your game. These pokemon usually have a special Dream World Ability that is different from the abilities they can usually have. If you breed a female pokemon with a Dream World ability then there is about a 60% chance the baby pokemon will also get the Dream World ability. This is only something you need to worry about if you want the baby to have the Dream World ability. A few of the pokemon with notable Dream World abilities are Vulpix, Poliwag, and Dratini (well actually it is their evolved forms that benefit but they are the ones you want to find). There are others who benefit as well, but for many pokemon it doesn't matter. Here is the website, but you have to set-up an account first to use it: http://en.pokemon-gl.com/


5. The Last thing you might consider is egg moves. There are some moves a pokemon can only learn if their father had it while breeding. The egg moves a pokemon can learn vary from species to species so I can't possibly put them all here, but be sure to know if your pokemon needs an egg move before you breed it because it will be impossible to teach it the move later.

Once you have selected the parents you can breed. Here are a few final tips about breeding:

When breeding try to have a pokemon with the ability Flame Body in your team at all times. Having a pokemon with Flame body will double how fast eggs hatch. Here is a list of pokemon with the ability Flame Body http://veekun.com/dex/abilities/flame%20body. The ability Magma Armor works the same too, but only Camerupt, Slugma, and Magcargo have that ability, the latter two also capable of having Flame Body.

How much the parent pokemon like each other determines how quickly they will produce eggs. The pokemon will "get along very well" if they have different original trainers and are the same species; these pokemon will create eggs the fastest. If they are the same species but have the same trainer, or are different species with different trainers then they will "get along" and produce eggs reasonably fast. If the pokemon species are different and the trainer is the same then they "won't seem to like each other" and will produce eggs slowly. If the pokemon are not in the same egg group, in the no egg group, or the same gender no eggs will be produced.

There is a long stretch of road right outside of the Daycare. When breading it is easiest to ride your bike back and forth on this path while you wait to get eggs and while you wait for them to hatch (eggs hatch based on steps not actually time). It is one of the largest stretches in the game and the Daycare man will call to you when your pokemon has had an egg.

Once you hatch a couple of good looking pokemon you can check their IVs using the previously mentioned methods and then train the best one of the litter.

But enough talking about it here is how it is actually done (The Video player is really small for some reason, you should expand the video or else you won't be able to see my messages properly):

And that finally wraps up my explanation on Pokemon breeding. My next post will be a much shorter explanation on how to EV train Pokemon.