Okay, in this part I’m going to cover the other useful information that is observable in-game and start to touch upon the slightly scary world of IVs and EVs (Individual and Effort Values respectively).
Last time I gave a brief overview of all the basic stats a Pokemon has along with how to tell the difference between a physical and special move. A Pokemon’s statistics and move information is easily visible from the in-game Summary screen for that Pokemon. There are a couple of other snippets of information that are useful there too but are never brought up in-game. Those are the Pokemon’s nature and their characteristic…
Here are the Summary screens from both Pokemon White (Top) and Pokemon HeartGold (Bottom), looking at the right hand side you can see the nature is quite prominent (Naughty for the Lv. 49 Serperior in White and Bold for the Lv. 66 Noctowl in HeartGold.)
At the bottom of the right-hand side screen you can see that Pokemon’s characteristic (Capable of taking hits. for the Serperior in White and Somewhat stubborn for the Noctowl in HeartGold)
Pokemon Natures
First let’s discuss a Pokemon’s nature. A nature basically enhances one stat by 10% whilst reducing another by 10%. Below is a table illustrating which nature affects which statistics, as you can see there are 25 natures, of which 5 are neutral, there is a combination for all stats, except for HP.
| Natures Table | |||||
| ↓Attack | ↓Defence | ↓Sp.Atk | ↓Sp.Def | ↓Speed | |
| ↑Attack | Lonely | Adamant | Naughty | Brave | |
| ↑Defence | Bold | Impish | Lax | Relaxed | |
| ↑Sp.Atk | Modest | Mild | Rash | Quiet | |
| ↑Sp.Def | Calm | Gentle | Careful | Sassy | |
| ↑Speed | Timid | Hasty | Jolly | Naïve | |
| No Change | Bashful | Docile | Hardy | Quirky | Serious |
Since HeartGold and SoulSilver, the stats raised and lowered by a Pokemon’s nature is visible on it’s summary page via Red (Increased) and Blue (Decreased) shadows on the stat text as visible in the above screenshots. It can be a bit tricky to see, but I find that once you’ve seen it you spot it instantly from then on! I also think it’s easier to see in Pokemon Black/White than HeartGold/SoulSilver.
So how does this help us? Well, let’s take a typical favourite offensive Pokemon, our old friend, Charizard! Say hello Charizard!!!
Charizard is a Fire/Flying type, meaning any Fire or Flying moves will benefit from STAB (Same Type Attack Bonus) (I’ll go over STAB later on when we get onto talking about Movesets). Basically, those moves, because they match Charizard’s type will do more damage. So let’s have a look at Charizard’s statistics and what moves he’ll learn over at Veekun’s awesome Pokedex…
Okay, don’t freak out but here is your first glance at a Pokemon’s base statistics, these determine how large those stats will be when at Lv. 100. They can also be used as a decent gauge to determine what that Pokemon is good at. In MMO terms, is it a Tank, DPS or Healer?
Let’s look at Charizard’s base stats, HP: 78 Attack: 84 Defence: 78 Sp. Attack: 109 Sp. Defence: 85 and Speed: 100
Already you can see that his highest stats are Special Attack and Speed, so ideally we’d want to take advantage of that. On Veekun’s Pokedex we can input a level to see what the stats would be, so let’s do that now and see what Charizard would look like at Lv. 100. Type 100 in the Level box and place a 0 in the Effort box (as we’ll go over Effort Values later) and focus on the Min IVs column, this is what we end up with:
HP: 266 Attack: 173 Defence: 161 Sp. Attack: 223 Sp. Defence: 175 and Speed: 205
Okay, great, now let’s just flick back over to the Pokedex and have a look what moves Charizard can learn. We’ll keep it simple at this point and just look what he can learn from levelling up, ignoring moves from breeding and all that other good stuff.
Hopefully you’ll be noticing that the majority of the Fire/Flying type moves Charizard can learn are 
Special type moves which means we can stand to lose 10% from it’s regular attack stat.
Logical choices here then are to choose natures (See, right back to the subject at hand!!!) which reduce regular Attack and boost Special Attack or Speed. That gives us TWO potential natures to aim at when breeding Charizards, referring back to the table above gives us Modest nature for reduced Attack but increased Special Attack or Timid nature for reduced Attack but increased Speed.
How would they affect Charizards stats? Something like this, again at level 100 with 0 EVs and 0 IVs:
| Difference to Lv. 100 Charizard Stats (Results would be rounded in-game) | ||||||
| Nature | HP | Attack | Defence | Sp. Attack | Sp. Defence | Speed |
| Modest | 266 | 155.7 | 161 | 245.3 | 175 | 205 |
| Timid | 266 | 155.7 | 161 | 223 | 175 | 225.5 |
| (Neutral Nature) | 266 | 173 | 161 | 223 | 175 | 205 |
As you can see, at level 100 that 10% boost roughly equates to 20 stat points for Charizard, obviously this is different for each Pokemon. But giving your Pokemon an edge by getting an advantageous nature could easily be the difference between winning and losing.
Now, as another quick example, Chansey, our wonderful egg-loving cutey has one of the highest HP stats in the game, combined with a pretty high Special Defence stat, Both her Attack and Special Attack stats are poor, clearly showing she is intended as a Tank/Healer. Her stats at level 100 with 0 EVs and 0 IVs are:
HP: 610 Attack: 15 Defence: 15 Sp. Attack: 75 Sp. Defence: 215 and Speed: 105
This generally leads people to choose a Calm ( ↑Sp. Def, ↓Attack ) nature for their Chansey’s to take advantage of her strengths.
Phew, that section turned out longer than I expected… Let’s move onto characteristics!
Characteristics are intrinsically linked to IVs, so buckle up as we delve into the first of the hidden Pokemon statistics…
Pokemon IVs (Individual Values)
Each main Pokemon stat, HP, Attack, etc. have an associated IV. An IV is simply a value between 0 and 31 which is part of your Pokemon when it is “born” by the game, either when you see it in the wild or when it is hatched from an egg.
Think of IVs as your Pokemon’s DNA, IVs can be passed down onto babies via breeding and they ultimately dictate what that Pokemon’s stats will be at level 100. A Pokemon with an Attack IV of 31 will have 31 more in Attack at level 100 than the same Pokemon with an Attack IV of 0.
As you can see, much like natures, a Pokemon’s IVs can have a significant effect on it’s strengths and weaknesses. Unlike natures though, you don’t have a way of seeing exactly what IVs your Pokemon has in the game itself!
Okay, now you know what IVs are, let’s get back to characteristics…
Characteristics
Let’s open up our Pokemon summary page again!
Here we can see that my Serperior has a characteristic of Capable of taking hits. So what does that mean?
A characteristic informs you of what stat has the highest IV and gives you some clue as to what it might be.
| Characteristics and associated IV Spreads | |||||
| Possible Individual Values | 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 | 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31 | 2, 7, 12, 17, 22, 27 | 3, 8, 13, 18, 23, 28 | 4, 9, 14, 19, 24, 29 |
| HP | Loves to eat | Often dozes off | Often scatters things | Scatters things often | Likes to relax |
| Attack | Proud of its power | Likes to thrash about | A little quick tempered | Likes to fight | Quick tempered |
| Defence | Sturdy body | Capable of taking hits | Highly persistent | Good endurance | Good perseverance |
| Special Attack | Highly curious | Mischievous | Thoroughly cunning | Often lost in thought | Very finicky |
| Special Defence | Strong willed | Somewhat vain | Strongly defiant | Hates to lose | Somewhat stubborn |
| Speed | Likes to run | Alert to sounds | Impetuous and silly | Somewhat of a clown | Quick to flee |
So my Serperior’s highest IV is in it’s Defence stat, although it could still be any of those 7 possibilities, remembering that the characteristic identifies the stat with the highest IV it is unlikely that it is 1, 6 or 11 (although totally possible, it would mean it had TERRIBLE IVs across the board.)
This is the best you can get if you are playing Diamond and Pearl, in Platinum, HeartGold and SoulSilver however you can go a little better. If you head to the Battle Frontier (which you get access to after defeating the Elite 4) and go to the Battle Tower you will see a bespectacled chap near a PC (known as the Judge) as you can see below:
In Pokemon Black and White you can find the following gentleman (also known as the Judge) in the Battle Subway located in Nimbasa City:
These chaps will give you a bit more information about individual Pokemon, initially they’ll tell you your Pokemon’s Potential:
| Saying | Overal range of IVs |
|---|---|
| “This Pokémon’s potential is decent all around” | 0-90 |
| “This Pokémon’s potential is above average overall” | 91-120 |
| “This Pokémon has relatively superior potential overall” | 121-150 |
| “This Pokémon has outstanding potential overall” | 151-186 |
This is basically just a simple addition of all your Pokemon’s IVs so you can get an indication of how good or bad they are overall.
They’ll then single out the best individual stat as in the above pictures and rate it as follows:
| Saying | Range value of highest IV |
|---|---|
| “Rather decent” | 0-15 |
| “Very good” | 16-25 |
| “Fantastic” | 26-30 |
| “It can’t be better in that regard” | 31 |
Clearly these are more useful, but you are still only able to vaguely clarify your BEST statistic, what if you want to know EXACTLY what every statistics IV is.
Basically, in-game you can’t. The Judge is the only information you can get. Luckily for us there are a couple of ways outside the game to get that information.
Action Replay Codes
Option 1 is to use Action Replay codes, if you have an Action Replay or are playing the game off a flashcart then this is the easiest and most efficient way… otherwise…
Online IV Calculator
Option 2 is to use an online IV calculator such as the wonderful ones at LegendaryPokemon.net or MetalKids.
Simply hatch an egg or catch a Pokemon, give it some Rare Candies to get it to level 20+ (50+ recommended) and enter the info into one of the calculators and it’ll spit back the IVs.
So now we have ways of identifying Pokemon with potential high IVs using their characteristic and the Judge as a guide, you can see at a glance whether a Pokemon you’ve just caught or bred is worth keeping or whether you should ditch it.
Phew… I was going to lead onto talking about EVs (Effort Values) but this post is long enough, I’ll tackle EVs and talk a bit about Egg Groups as well as important items for breeding in the next instalment of Pokemon Statistics and You!
Oh and for those wondering, the High IVs on my example Pokemon Serperior were Defence and Special Attack of 31 and on my Noctowl it’s Special Defence IV was 29 (which had a characteristic of Somewhat Stubborn)
See you next time!
