Pokemon: Everything You Need To Know About IVs | Game Rant
Fans of Pokemon know that a lot goes into building a great team. Longtime players know that even more goes into finding the right Pokemon to make up that team. Pokemon are wonderful creatures, who are varied in many ways. Some of those ways are quite obvious in terms of design and type. However, many of those distinctions are not immediately evident.
One such subtle variation in Pokemon is IVs. In fact, IVs are so subtle that many casual players have never even heard the term. However, the fact remains that IVs are important on several levels. Let's take an in-depth look into everything you need to know about these hidden aspects of Pokemon.
IVs are short for Individual Values, which were originally known as Determinant Values in Gens 1 and 2. They are also referred to as Individual Stats by many players. Players need to be aware of the different names to avoid confusion.
When choosing Pokemon to catch and train, many players first look at their stats, because these are a quick way of judging whether a Pokemon is strong or weak. Each Pokemon has six measurable stats: HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed. Each of these stats has an IV associated with it. All of these IVs range from 0-31.
IVs play a large part in a Pokemon's stats, determining how those stats grow, as wells as some other aspects about them. Due to this complexity, IVs are most relevant for the competitive side of Pokemon. Most casual players and even super Pokemon fans pay little attention to IVs; thus, they do not currently hold as much bearing in the single-player game.
IVs are one of the many ways the Pokemon series tries to prevent all Pokemon from being exactly the same. However, it is an important factor for players to be aware of. Just because a player has two Marill of the same level in front of them, it doesn't mean they are exactly the same in terms of battle capabilities.
Say two Marill are caught in the exact same location, at the exact same level, by two different people. Marill A has 17 IVs in its Special Attack stat, while Marill B only has 8. Despite everything about both of these Marill looking identical on the surface, Marill A has 24 points in its Special Attack stat while Marill B has less, at only 22 points.
The reason for these differences is simple: Marill A has more IVs in its Attack stat than Marill B. This seemingly minor variation in stats is put in place so that two Pokemon of identical species are rarely the exact same. Pokemon with more IVs in their stats will be objectively stronger in that stat than Pokemon with less.
Players can determine in-game how good all of their Pokemon's IVs are through judges. In Generation 8, a feature called the Judge Function is unlocked in PC boxes after beating Leon in the Battle Tower. In the earlier games, this was done through a Stats Judge. This was simply a person the player needed to talk to in order to get this information. Their location would vary from game to game.
Beginning with Pokemon Sword and Sheild, the Judge Stat/Function will say how good or bad a Pokemon's IVs are. The only issue is that they're both rather vague in telling the player what exactly each term means.
- 0: "No Good"
- 1-15: "Decent"
- 16-25: "Pretty Good"
- 26-29: "Very Good"
- 30: "Fantastic"
- 31: "Best"
The simplest and best way to train a Pokemon's IVs is through Hyper Training. This is a feature that was added in Generation 7 during Pokemon Sun and Moon. The drawback is that Hyper Training cannot be accessed until the player becomes Champion.
All players need to do is give Mr. Hyper/A Pokemon League Attendant a Bottle Cap, and they will maximize a Pokemon's IV to 31. Interestingly, the game doesn't actually change the IV. Rather, it sets a modifier in-game for the IV to be treated as if it were level 31. Regular Bottle Caps can only increase the IVs of one Stat at a time, while a Gold Bottle Cap will do all 6 stats at once.
If a player doesn't want to wait until they have become Champion, Breeding is another way to adjust a Pokemon's IVs. From Generation 6 onwards, if the player has at least two Pokemon with a perfect IV of 31, have one of the parent Pokemon hold the Destiny Knot item. Holding this item will ensure that 5 of its IVs will be passed down to the child. The player can further capitalize on this breeding cycle by having the other parent hold a Power Item.
A few great Power Items are the Power Weight, Power Bracer, Power Belt, Power Lens, Power Band, and Power Anklet. Doing this will guarantee that at least one of the inherited IVs is the one the player wants to transfer. The truly wonderful thing about using the breeding approach is that a player can do this infinitely, until they get all of the IVs they desire.
Pokemon caught in Max Raid Battles in Generation 8's Pokemon Sword or Pokemon Shield have a tendency to have perfect IVs. This puts them far ahead of the average Pokemon caught in the wild.
However, some of this depends on the den's difficulty. If a player is really looking for Pokemon with great IVs, they should take the hardest Max Raid Battles. The payoff is certainly worth it.
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