Are Iv's Really That Important?

[Shank]

After a countless amount of hours spent breeding, without good Iv parents I managed my Alakazam to have 23spatk Iv's and my Salamence to have 22atk Iv's.

But after posting these Pokemon, everyone said "re breed for the perfect 31 Iv's" and stuff like that. Is 8 or 9 less in a stat really that bad?

I'm sure it would make minimal difference in damage and as a whole in competitive battling, don't you agree?

 

[Mike B]

Put it this way:

person with Metagross goes first

You also lead with Metagross

Person with 31 Spd IV Quakes, while yours has 30 and dies.

Your opponent got top priority in a certain situation because of their persistence in perfection. That's very useful in battle.

 

[Xisiqomelir]

IVs, I find, only really apply in the theoretical "let's stand here and see who can OHKO first" calculations.

That said, it's a simply-obtained, if horribly tedious, advantage.

 

[Shank]

So are you saying that speed Iv's are the only important one to have 31 Iv's in?

 

[Mike B]

I'm saying whatever IV stat is good will improve the situation something's in, according to what mattered. If something went into a stallwar with another same specie, the one with higher HP could win, and so forth.

 

[Footnote]

Take it from a long-time cartridge trainer who has never used NetBattle; how much time you want to put into getting high IVs is really a matter of taste. For instance, this site is all about competetive battling. Hence, many of the people who post here will tell you that it's worth it to go for those 31 IVs. But don't forget that Pokémon is a game. If you breed Pokémon for so long that the game as a whole is no longer fun, then you're spending too much time on it.

The happy medium will be different for everyone. I catch/breed until I get a Pokémon with a good nature and an average of 20 or higher IVs in the stats I care about. Most advice you get here will be skewed, however. This is because many people here are used to NetBattle where they get perfect IVs for free. They're waiting for Competitor to be released, when they won't have to worry about it at all.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that IVs can make a difference, but they're not nearly as important as strategy and the good judgement that only experience can bring. So, given the choice between spending most of my time breeding or spending most of it battling, I'll take the latter. Train a team now, and if you really find that your 'low' stats are costing you matches, you can take the time to get those better IVs then.

Anyway, good luck.

 

[ΩDonut]

Quoting myself from the "Look what I bred" thread:

Before this gets rolled up into a big ball of misconception, I want to clarify this. I meant that the 25 IV in Attack results in 1% less damage for a neutral nature Weavile with max Attack EVs. A 31 IV Weavile would have 339 Attack, while one with a 25 IV would have 333 Attack.

Since using Swords Dance doubles Attack resulting in double damage, we can conclude that a increase\decrease in Attack (or Defense) results in a proportional increase\decrease in damage.

Therefore, a 333 Attack stat would only do 333 / 339 * 100% of the total damage, or about 98.2%. With Adamant Rampardos, it's only about 98.7%. This is because the tiny difference done by the IVs is dwarfed by their huge Attack stats.

But if the Pokemon has a lower attack or defense stat, then having good IVs become more important. Take a Bold maxed Defense Blissey's Defense, for example. It's 130 with a 31 IV, and 124 with a 25 IV. The percent difference is now 130 / 124 * 100%, or about 105% as much damage with the 25 IV.

So the rule of thumb is: if it has a high attack\defense stat, then having perfect IVs isn't so important. With lower stats it's slightly more important. And with really low stats, it's really important.

 

[Shank]

Thats really good advice,because its really disheartening after hours upon hours of breeding someone telling you, basically that you have wasted your time. I completely agree with you that many people take competitive battling way to seriously and I'm quite happy with mid-20 Iv's.

Thanks for taking your time to write such a lengthy reply.

 

[Footnote]

Yeah, what OmegaDonut says is quite true and an exception to my usual rule. If I'm training a Blissey, for instance, every Defense IV makes a huge difference. But, exceptions like this are rare for me. Besides, usually for every stat that's crucial, there's another one that's not. Like Attack and, to a lesser extent, HP on Blissey. So the time I spend breeding is usually about the same.

 

[massi4h]

Well not really. If you look at things like speed you wanna have max in most sweeper cases so you outspeed stuff. People like to EV with certain numbers, sometimes with lower stats you can't reach that number, or you waste 8 stats which say coulda gone into HP to survive a certain pokemon's hits. When you get into STAB and Life Orb / Choice items there can be quite a lot of a difference with some moves. And then you have Super Effective hits, I'll use your Salamence as an example.

It's fighting a Tangrowth and decides to use a choice banded aerial ace. With 31 IVs in attack it'd have 405 attack, you have 396. With Choice band the 31 IV becomes 607.5 your attack becomes 594. Lets add STAB so the 31 IV becomes 911.25 your attack becomes 891. You have super effectiveness so your the attacks become 1822.5 and 1782.

So atm there is more than 8 or 9 difference in stats (it may be a bit different because the stat-ups aren't directly proportional to eachother).

Lets use a damage calculator: 31 IV one vs. Impish 383 Defense, 404 HP Tangrowth, does 206-242 (51-60%), your one does 201-236 (49.75%-58%). Meaning the other set has a chance of not 2hkoing. Yes it is minor but still why risk it.

Say you fight a Tangrowth with 76 EVs in Defense and 404 HP. The 31 IV one can do a maximum of 303 Damage which would kill with Stealth Rock, yours cannot.

There are many situations where small amounts of IVs are needed, maybe not as much in the attacking areas, but still. There are better cases I just rushed it.

And go catch some perfect Dittos and then breeding for perfect stats will be easy.


Aarrgghh Donutman beat me to it and said it way better.

 

[Shank]

But say for example my Alakazam has a 0 Iv in def, would that matter at all? Seeing as Alakazam is OHKO my almost anything?

Also as another example say a Blissey has 31 Iv's in def but 0 Iv's in Hp would it still be worth training because of Blissey's automatically high Hp?

 

[Shank]

How do you catch perfect Iv Ditto's? Is there a trick to it?

 

[West]

You just catch boxes of Ditto and release the non 31 IV ones.

 

[Synecdoche]

But say for example my Alakazam has a 0 Iv in def, would that matter at all? Seeing as Alakazam is OHKO my almost anything?

Also as another example say a Blissey has 31 Iv's in def but 0 Iv's in Hp would it still be worth training because of Blissey's automatically high Hp?

Actually, that is almost the opposite line of thinking... because Alakazams, by default, have a horrible base Defense, it is important to ensure that they have a very high defense IV in order to survive if whatever is attacking it doesn't have a super effective attack, let's say, for instance, you want to switch in on a predicted Brick Break, you would NOT want to be OHKO'd by a STAB'd not very effective attack when with just 1 more generation, or a few more eggs, you could have survived the very same attack to deal the psychic deathblow.

It's that sort of situation that you want 25-27+ IVs in the stats that will matter.

 

[Stallion]

Maestro, getting a perfect IV Ditto is not too hard. 1 in 6 chance according to X-Act's breeding guide. And as a breeder, I tend to go for perfect stats in the ones that matter, because I'm a perfectionist and it eliminates any margins for error. However, the only stat that really needs to be perfect is Speed, and thats only on a fast sweeper. Having said that, if having an IV of 29 in defence instead of having an IV of 31 in defence is the difference between a 2-3HKO, then you should always go for perfect.

 

[Shank]

I think that X-acts breeding guide could be wrong seeing as there are 6 stats:
Hp,atk,spatk,def,spdef,spd, take into account that there is a one in 32 chance of getting 31 Iv's in a stat. So is X-act trying to tell everybody that every Ditto that you catch has a 31 Iv in a stat?

You work it out for your self.

 

[massi4h]

Lol every ditto has a 1 in 6 chance of having one flawless IV. That's overall not saying every IV has a 1 in 6 chance.

 

[alex]

If you're playing to win then you want to give yourself every legal advantage; that includes maximizing your IVs (or getting as close as you can). If you don't care, then obviously it doesn't matter. It's all dependent on the way you want to play the game.

 

[Shank]

Can someone link me to X-acts breeding guide I would like to see this 1 in 6 Ditto thing.

 

[Stallion]

Its in his sig. There are four parts and i think its in the second part from memory.

 

[Forsety]

In my opinion, 31 speed is the only thing you ever need worry about it and only on speed orientated pokemon, mid 20's for other stats is respectable and perfectly usuable.

 

[Raikage]

[19:51] <Hipmonlee> but if it is a 5% difference in damage, plus a 5% difference in damage recieved plus a 5% difference in hp
[19:51] <Hipmonlee> it adds up to a lot

That's about my thoughts.

 

[Forsety]

Problem is there has to be a cutoff between perfection and feasibility. EV's/Natures are there so you can compensate for what extra you might need.

 

[Easton]

Yeah, I thought I had a decent IVed Adamant Ralts and Juuka suggested I release and go for better HP / Attack / Speed. At this rate, I'm probably going to be releasing a lot of Ralts

 

[Renalia]

Yeah, I thought I had a decent IVed Adamant Ralts and Juuka suggested I release and go for better HP / Attack / Speed. At this rate, I'm probably going to be releasing a lot of Ralts

I don't see the point of releasing your decent ones until you find a perfect one. I spent forever breeding Tangelas, and the best one I had for a long time came out with 31 HP/30Atk/30Def/??/??/0Spd.

I kept it even though it had 0 speed, and I'm actually training it right now, because seriously, what's it going to outspeed? It'll get it's butt kicked one day by something that I could have outsped with a 31 Speed IV and I'll start breeding again. Maybe by then I'll have a bunch of 31 IV dittos with the right natures. :P

The characteristic system has helped me a lot though. While breeding I could IMMEDIATELY tell which ones were worth keeping by checking that out. Often Dozes Off means there's a high chance of a 31 HP IV. Capable of Taking Hits is the same for 31 Def. There's a list somewhere on the boards of what they all mean, but if you're looking for specific stats, you know you can keep just the ones with the right characteristics, even at level 1. From there you can check the other IVs with IV Battles, Rare Candies, or however else you prefer.