The two most important factors that breeding allows you control over are the following: Nature and IVs . These are also two extremely important factors in making a Pokemon as perfect as it can be. Thankfully, we are provided with two key items that will allow you to control both!

Nature should be locked in as soon as you can, ideally alongside the Egg Move selection process.

IV breeding always goes last, after everything else has been set and chosen. IV Breeding will also take up the real meat of the breeding process and can be very protracted, but don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Nature Breeding¶

You’re going to need a Pokemon with the nature you want before you can use Everstone to lock it in. Synchronize when catching the wild Pokemon you start with to set it from the start, or if you’re patient, just breed until the RNG gives you an offspring with the nature you want.

Using the Totodile example from the previous section, if you want a Jolly or Adamant Totodile but your Totodile is not Jolly or Adamant (which is likely since Synchronize has a 50% work rate and Totodile can be Island Scanned once a week), just breed a ton of Totodile until one hatches that is Jolly or Adamant.

This is the biggest incentive to own one Ditto of every single nature excluding neutral natures, Lax, and Gentle. That way you can Everstone a Jolly Ditto, breed with Totodile, and have a Jolly Totodile, guaranteed!

Once your nature has been set, in every further breeding pair always make sure the Pokemon with the right nature has an Everstone, no exceptions, so the nature remains the same.

IV Breeding¶

Welcome to the most tedious part of breeding. Ever. You ready to get some elbow grease and start hatching those Eggs? For a long time?

Then let’s start getting some good IVs!

First off, as mentioned in the Breeding Basics section, you will absolutely need a few Ditto with perfect IVs. If you’ve locked in the nature of the non-Ditto Pokemon, then the natures of these Ditto doesn’t matter. Lucky you!

Between these handful of super elite Ditto, make sure you have all six IVs at 31. Somehow. Even if you have six Ditto and each one has 31 IVs in a different stat, that will work. The more perfect IVs you have on a Ditto, the less tedious the process gets.

In-game, SOS chaining caps off at 4 IVs (although you can get more if you get an extremely lucky roll), so you would have minimum 2 Dittos. Remember to use the Munchlax-Hypno method so that you can infinite chain without fear of Ditto using Struggle.

Next, you’ll really, really want access to the Judge function in the PC. Hatch 20 eggs and then talk to the Ace Trainer by the PC in the Battle Tree on Poni Island. Now you can view all of a Pokemon’s IVs easily from the PC.

There’s only three IV values you will be concerned with when breeding: 31 (Best), 30 (Fantastic), and 0 (No good). The rest you should never be targeting. 31 IVs is standard, 30 IVs is for those breeding for a specific Hidden Power type (which is based on IVs), and 0 is for those seeking Trick Room teams, etc.

Markings gives you six symbols you can turn pink or blue. Correspond each to a stat in your mind and mark your Pokemon so that you can easily see its IV spread during the breeding process.

You’ve got the Ditto and the Judge? Excellent!

You’ll need to make sure the Pokemon species you are breeding has a locked nature, is optimally a female with the Ability you want (not necessary for generic Abilities, but definitely a must for Hidden Abilities), and has all the Egg Moves you want with nothing missing.

You’ve got that too? You are now ready to IV breed.

Choose one of your partially perfect Dittos and have it hold the Destiny Knot. The Destiny Knot is an absolute necessary must-have for IV breeding, without it, your chance of a perfect Pokemon can shoot upwards of 1 in 30,000 , and that’s assuming both parents have perfect IVs!

Destiny Knot brings this down drastically, if the parent holding the Destiny Knot is perfect, the chance of its offspring being perfect is roughly 1 in 80. This is because of how IV inheritance works.

Ordinarily, 3 IVs will be randomly selected from both parents, and then 3 more will be randomly generated out of nowhere, meaning 3 IVs are partially in your control, but the other 3 are random.

Destiny Knot makes the parent holding it pass down five IV values meaning only one IV value is random. Most Pokemon seek only 5 perfect IVs, making the Destiny Knot the absolute king of breeding a perfect Pokemon. You just can’t go on without it!

If you are trying to pass down specific IVs, Power Items will let you always pass down the one IV of the stat they correspond to. Both parents cannot be holding them (and it’s moot point since you always want one holding the Everstone).

Useful in the early stages if you’re trying to snipe certain IVs, or if you just want a few IVs to be perfect. In all other situations, go Destiny Knot.

Here’s how the IV breeding process will usually go down in succint and hopefully simple bullet points!

1. A completely imperfect Pokemon holding an Everstone is paired with a somewhat perfect Ditto holding a Destiny Knot . Your offspring will usually have one or two perfect IVs depending on the caliber of your Ditto.

2. When you get an offspring with even just one perfect IV, switch it out with the parent and give it the Everstone. Because you have already achieved Egg Moves, Abilities, and Nature beforehand, you can do this. See? It works!

3. Offspring will now have a higher chance of getting more and more perfect IVs. Continue switching parents with better offspring until you have an offspring Pokemon with all the perfect IVs your Ditto has . Now it’s time to swap Dittos .

4. Repeat the first three bullet points as you run through your Dittos. At some point in time, you will stop needing Ditto entirely and you will be using two offspring Pokemon, one holding Everstone and another Destiny Knot.

5. If you’re aiming for 5 perfect IVs and both offspring currently have 4 perfect IVs , at this point it becomes a waiting game. Replace the Destiny Knot offspring if you get another offspring with 5 perfect IVs but in the wrong places. Be patient, and you will eventually get a perfect Pokemon baby.