All about IVs & IV Breeding (wip, open for questions)

Titles are links that lead to their respective post.

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Part 1: Introduction

1.0) What are IVs? 1.1) How to check IVs? 1.2) What is the use of IVs? 1.3) Can I change IVs? 1.4) What is IV breeding? 1.5) Do items that boost IV odds exist? 1.6) Does training impact IVs? 1.7) Can IV increasing item be added? 1.8) Can you influence both nature and IVs? 1.9) Is IV breeding genderless Pokémon possible? 1.a) IV Related Suggestions

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Part 2: Preparation

2.0) Starting Out 2.1) Important Items 2.2) General Breeding Advice 2.3) Egg Groups 2.4) Terminology

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Part 3: Breeding Process

3.0) Inheritance Explanation 3.1) Breeding Methods 3.2) Starting From Scratch (WIP) 3.3) Starting with 5 or 6IV Pokémon (WIP) 3.4) Using +2IV Ditto (WIP)

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Part 4: Special Hunts (WIP)

4.0) IV Breeding: Unown 4.1) IV Breeding: Variants 4.2) IV Breeding: Genderless 4.3) IV Breeding: Shiny/Albino/Melan

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Part 5: Master Badge

5.0) About Master Badge 5.1) Master Badge IV Increase

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Part 6: Questions & Answers

6.0) Common Misconceptions 6.1) Commonly Asked Questions

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Warning! ● For any non-IV related question, you should read FAQs and post your question in the Help forum section. ● For the best IV results, breeding a parent with its offspring is required. If this makes you uncomfortable, then IV breeding likely isn't for you. There is, however, no penalty for doing so. ● Click images for full view. All images are hosted on postimages.org. ● Any link found in this guide will lead to one of the following site's pages: PokéFarm, PokéFarm Wikipedia and Bulbapedia.

Individual values, most commonly known as IVs, are the Pokémon equivalent of genes. They are fixed stats, meaning you can't change them once the Pokémon hatches, and can be either randomly generated or inherited from the parents. Singular values range from 0 to 31, and total number (Sum) can range from a minimum 0 to a maximum 186.

You can see Pokémon IV's under Battle tab on its Summary page. If you wish to see IVs of multiple Pokémon in your Field, go to Dojo >Training Hall >Bag >Add Pokémon - align to grid and tap/hover Pokémon to see IVs displayed in the tooltip. Unfortunately, it is impossible to see another User's Pokémon's IVs in the Field without individually opening their Summary page.

IVs influence some Pokémon's evolution and forme change, while some variants require parent to have 5IVs. Besides this, Pokémon with higher IVs have better performance during Spar battle.

If Pokémon is hatched, no. However, you can influence Pokémon's IVs outcome via breeding in the DayCare. A fair warning though - it doesn't work retroactively. IVs are determined at the time of the egg's creation so any attempt to influence IVs once the egg is made won't work. By default, Pokémon inherits any three IVs from parents, while other three are randomised. If a parent holds Destiny Knot, five IVs will be inherited instead of three. Pokémon that come from the Lab, Supplier, Summoning, Tournament and other places where parents are non-existent can only have their IVs slightly increased if User has a Master Badge that matches at least one of the Pokémon's types. Example of Pokémon (Kawotor) with non-existent parents:

IV breeding is a breeding process where main focus is to pass down parent's IV stats to offspring while using Destiny Knot with the intent of getting Pokémon with specific, or maxed out IVs.

Unfortunately no. Unlike specials where certain items such as Übercharm and Shiny Charm improve your special hatching odds, there are no boost of any kind to apply for IV breeding. Master Badge gives slight IV increase, however, that only applies to randomised IVs. Please see Part 5: Master Badge for more information. Note: Destiny Knot does not boost your IV, it only passes down set number form parents. Please see section '2.1) Important Items - Destiny Knot' and '3.0) IV Inheritance Explanation - Parent holding Destiny Knot' for more information on this item.

No. Training changes Pokémon's EVs (Effort Values), a completely separate statistics that doesn't affect IVs.

Adding Bottle Caps, Mints and other items that would increase IVs of an already hatched Pokémon has been suggested, and rejected, by Niet because it would be game-breaking. You can read those suggestions threads here and here.

Yes you can. Give the parent with desired nature Everstone, and other Destiny Knot. Be aware that doing nature hunt along with IV hunt is difficult and you should do it once you are familiar with IV breeding. Example: Nature effects don't have any influence on IV breeding and IVs. Since this impacts battling and EVs, effects won't be explained in this guide.

Yes, it is possible, but very difficult to achieve. The process, later explained in detail, requires multiple Dittos with two or more maxed out IVs.

Here is a collection of suggestions made regarding IVs. Waiting Response: - Inheriting IV for non-breed Pokemon - Increase Master Badge IV Boost - Adding IVs to pokemon summaries Rejected: - Bottle Caps/IV Training Reason: Game breaking. - Caps & Mints Reason: Game breaking. - Add IVs to Field Pokemon Tooltip Reason: Clutters tooltip.

IV breeding requires rather extensive knowledge of many site features, a lot of costly upgrades, and certain amount of activity. I recommend that you have established knowledge of site mechanics, as this guide will not teach you those. Some of the aspects you need to be familiar with are: how to navigate the Pokédex, find Pokémon you need, how to form breeding pairs, how to generate many eggs, find your eggs in the Shelter, obtain Shelter and DayCare upgrades, how to hatch eggs faster, etc. Please check out other Guides and PFQ Wikipedia first for more information on those. Guide recommendations: • The Beginner's Guide to PokéFarm Q • Your Guide to 90%+ Breeding Pairs • How to Breed Variants! • The Ultimate Wishforge Guide!

All items listed here can be bought at the DayCare under the "Upgrades" section. You can buy them at lower price during Eltafez bonus day. Destiny Knot Giving any parent Destiny Knot to hold allows offspring to have an equal chance of inheriting five IVs from one parent, another, or mix of both, while the remaining sixth one is randomised. Only one Destiny Knot is needed as its effect doesn't stack and you can't influence which IV will be randomised or inherited. If both parents hold Destiny Knot, it won't increase IVs, or improve chances of inheriting better IVs. Known issues: • If you take Destiny Knot from the parent while you still collect and hatch eggs, offspring might end up having default three inherited IVs as system forgets parent had held it. This means you should never take it from the parent unless you are done hatching eggs this parent produced. • In extremely rare occasions, offspring may hatch with completely randomised IVs. Matchup Checker Matchup Checker is important for knowing the exact breeding rate percentage of your IV pair so you could decide whether or not you will be able to generate enough eggs to release them to Shelter, try to boost your breeding chances, or give up on that pair. SpyGlass The SpyGlass is a simple lens that allows you to identify the appearance of Eggs before you adopt them. It is extremely useful when breeding two different species in general, not just for IV breeding. Red Gigaremo The Red Gigaremo can be used to double the rate at which your Pokémon breed by lowering the amount of interactions needed to produce an egg by half. This can be very useful in cases of breeding pair with very low percentages. However, Pokémon happiness will gradually go down as you interact, and if it hits 0%, Pokémon won't breed. I highly suggest you read this post by Gumshoe as it explains in great detail how Red Gigaremo works. Warning: Be sure to turn OFF Red Gigaremo after you are done using it as it stays on even if you take out current Pokémon and add different ones. DayCare Passes DayCare Pass allows adopting eggs from DayCare after the adoption limit is reached. Each pass is valid for a single adoption, and is taken away when used. In cases where producing eggs is extremely difficult, and consequently Shelter hunting impossible, I suggest using DayCare Passes.

I want to quickly give some general breeding advice. For further details on this, please read guide for breeding pairs by Suríya. When it comes to IV breeding, finding 5 or 6IV Pokémon to trade and pair up can be difficult as there aren't many active IV breeders around. In that case you will have to breed Pokémon from bad IVs to 6IV by yourself. This means that most of your pairs will have around 50% match or lower as they will have you as the original trainer. If your pair is below 20% match you should either consider getting another Pokémon to pair, or use Red Gigaremo. Since generating eggs require a lot of interactions, it is best to mass-click someone with over 5k Pokémon sorted by berry prefference in the fields. To find such fields, you could try checking out users on the top of the "Biggest Pokémon hoards" stats list. You can read more about interactions on the wiki page and this post by Cele, and how to mass-click in this post by Gumshoe. Maxing out Happiness to both of your Pokémon increases their egg productivity. You can quickly raise happiness by feeding Pokémon Sweethearts, or you can leave Pokémon in the field that either matches their type, or is super-effective against their type. Warning: Pokémon left in the DayCare are marked as "busy" and thus can't gain happiness while in the field so remember to take them out. You can read more about fields on the wiki page, and about happiness on the wiki page, as well as this guide by RedCydranth. Make sure Pokémon are around the same level and remember that Pokémon left in the DayCare gain experience even if you EXP Lock them. • If you want to reduce EXP gain in the DayCare, don't buy DayCare EXP Booster. If you already have them, give to some Pokémon to hold. • In case you need to reset Pokémon's level, give it Doom Seed to consume. You can buy 5x Doom Seeds at Prize Shop - Miscellaneous Prizes for 1x Tournament Token. It is also worth to note that Pokémon within the same body style group breed better than those with different. You can see Pokémon's body style when you check Pokédex entry under "Body style". Body style often change when Pokémon evolves, making it important to take into consideration when planning ahead Pokémon's breeding partners.

Egg Groups are categories that determine which Pokémon are able to interbreed. If two Pokémon share at least one same egg group, they will be compatible when paired and produce an egg upon breeding. You can check Pokémon's egg group in the Pokédex entry and field's tooltip. As of generation 8. there are 16 egg groups, and Pokémon can be in one or two egg groups that generally don't change upon evolution. List of Pokémon by egg groups found on Bulbapedia is not completely accurate for PokéFarm Q. Notable example is Nidorina which, in official games, is unable to breed due to being in the "Undiscovered" group (link), while here it is "Field/Monster" (link) and able to breed. Therefore, I advise to always check PFQ Pokédex for accurate information. List of PFQ Egg Groups: - Amorphous - Bug - Dragon - Fairy - Field - Flying - Grass - Human-Like - Mineral - Monster - Water 1 - Water 2 - Water 3 - Ditto - Unown - Undiscovered Ditto Group Pokémon Ditto has its own egg group. This allows it to breed with Pokémon from any group except Undiscovered and another Ditto. Unown Group Pokémon Unown are the only genderless Pokémon able to breed with each other. Breeding same two letters will always give bred letter outcome, while breeding with Ditto and two different letters will result in a completely different letter. I recommend using Unown breeding calculator by Eltafez to predict offspring letter outcome. Undiscovered Group Pokémon in this group are completely unable to breed. Majority of them are legendaries, the rest being baby Pokémon and new Tournament season PFQ Exclusives. The only exception to this are few legendaries that can be paired with another Pokémon to produce PFQ Variant egg. Important Notes: • Pokémon who are unable to breed are impossible to IV hunt, as they must be acquired by other methods such as Summoning, Supplier, Prize Shop, etc. Beside having Master Badge to slightly increase IVs, getting such Pokémon with high IVs is purely luck based. • Despite having egg group, genderless Pokémon are unable to breed with each other, or any other Pokémon except Ditto, making them the most difficult Pokémon to IV breed. • In case you get "(!) This couple may produce something unexpected!" message in the DayCare, please read this guide by Gumshoe which explains Variant breeding in detail. • Manaphy is the only legendary Pokémon who has defined egg group - Fairy/Water 1. It can breed with any female Pokémon, who shares at least one same egg group, to produce Phione egg. Phione, however, acts as any other Pokémon in terms of breeding. It is in Fairy/Water 1 egg group, and can breed with another Phione, or Pokémon that has same at least one of these groups.

Pokémon have six abilities - Health, Attack, Defence, Special Attack (Sp.Atk), Special Defence (Sp.Def) and Speed. Each ability has its own IV value, and sum of those values are referred to as "IV Sum". IV value range from 0 to 31, and IV Sum range from 0 to 186. If a singular value isn't maxed out, value ranging from 0 to 30, it is called "bad IV". If none of the singular IV values are maxed out, Pokémon has "bad IVs", "no IVs", or is called a "regular IV". Example: If none of the singular IV values are maxed out, but IV Sum is 140 and over, Pokémon has "high IVs" or "high IV Sum". Example: Max IV values are in short called "31IV". Depending on how many 31IVs Pokémon has, they are labeled as "2IV", "3IV", "4IV", "5IV" and "6IV". Pokémon with only one 31IVs are often seen as regular IV, and very rarely labeled as "1IV". Example of 3IV Pokémon: 6IV Pokémon is also called "perfect IV", "max IVs", or "186IV", and it has the highest value in IV breeding. Example: Some people like to label certain 5IVs as the "perfect 5IV". This means that Pokémon has bad IV in a column negatively affected by nature. This is often desired for battling purposes. Keep in mind that this only applies to Pokémon with the berry preference. Those with "any berry" preference or bad IV on Health value can't be labeled as such as they can't be impacted by the nature. Example of perfect 5IV: IV breeders often name their IV bred Pokémon in a similar way, for example: • "xx00x0"; "x-x-O-O-x-O"; "x/x/31/31/x/31"- Simplistic naming method where "x" represents the bad IV, while "o" represents 31IV. • "3IV 162" - Combination of noting both number of 31IVs and IV Sum. • "3 IV health, attack, s.def"; "5iv (xatk)" - Specifying IVs is useful for many different reasons, but most common is to avoid constantly checking which are bad or good IVs. • It is common to see a username beside these names to indicate that Pokémon is traded.

Pokémon's six singular IVs - Health, Attack, Defence, Sp.Atk, Sp.Def and Speed, are determined at the time of the egg's creation. How IV numbers will be generated depends on the three factors: - If Pokémon has parents or not; - If one of the Pokémon's parents hold Destiny Knot; - If User has Master Badge matching one of the Pokémon's type. Terminology used in this section: • 'Inherited IVs' - are IVs offspring received from parents. • 'Randomised IVs' - are IVs generated by the SYSTEM using numbers from 0 to 31. Pokémon without parents Pokémon who are obtained from the Lab, Supplier, by Summoning and other methods where parents are non-existent have all of their six IVs completely randomised. Beside having the corresponding Master Badge to slightly increase randomised IVs, getting such Pokémon with high IVs is purely luck based. Master Badge effects are explained in the 'Part 5: Master Badge'. Default IV Inheritance By default, when breeding any two Pokémon in the DayCare, the offspring inherits three IVs from one parent, another, or mix of both, while the remaining three are randomised. Default inheritance isn't considered an act of IV breeding, therefore breeding methods without Destiny Knot won't be explained. Parent holding Destiny Knot Any parent can hold Destiny Knot and offspring has an equal chance of inheriting five IVs from one parent, another, or mix of both. This means that five singular IVs will have a 50:50% chance to be from one of the parents, while sixth will be randomly generated number from 0 to 31. Be aware that you can't influence which IV will be randomised or inherited. Furthermore, giving both parents Destiny Knot doesn't have any additional impact on IV breeding as Destiny Knot effect doesn't stack.

There are multiple IV breeding methods you can use to acquire desirable IV outcome. Even though this guide will focus on 6IV outcome examples, getting any specific IV numbers and high IVs is possible with these methods. Each method will be explained in detail in separate sections. • Starting from scratch - This method explains how to start with bad IV pokemon pair and eventually achieve perfect IV pair through selective breeding. • Starting with 5 or 6IV Pokémon - This method shows how to quickly achieve perfect IV Pokémon while using same or another species 5 or 6IV Pokémon. • Using +2IV Ditto - Thanks to Ditto's ability to breed with any breedable Pokémon, if you own +2IV one, you could use it to start your IV breeding. • IV Breeding Unown - Explanation of how to achieve specific Unown letter with perfect IVs. See 'Part 4: Special Hunts' for Variant and Genderless IV breeding.

After Wishalloy users are able to further upgrade their badges to the Master Badge. In addition to giving the same EXP boost as Wishalloy Badges, the Master Badges increase the IVs of Pokémon. For more detailed explanation of the IV increase, see /section/. If you are unfamilliar with the badge upgrade mechanics, you should read Wishforge wiki page and The Wishforge Guide by Colorful.

Master Badge influence on IVs is considered to be a little bonus. It isn't a necessity, or a proper boost. Unfortunately, getting the badge to improve your IV breeding odds in general would be a waste of resources. I strongly advise against getting any Master Badge for the sole reason of IV breeding. • High Cost The amount of gems, relics, Pokémon and, inevitably, currency needed is a big downside. The reward is insignificant for the amount of effort needed to get the badge. - Requirements to achieve only one Master Badge Class 1, counted from having no badge, are: Sum of Gems needed: 17.778 Relics count: 1xCopper, 1xSilver, 1xGold, 1xVase, 1xBand, 1xStatue, 1xCrown, 1xFlawless Gem - Requirements to reach the highest badge, Class 4, after getting the Master Badge Class 1, are: Sum of Gems needed: 38.376 Sum of Flawless Gems: 99 • Influence One Type Pokémon only receives IV bonus from a single badge matching one of its types. User should have at least half of the badges upgraded to the Master Badge for bonus to apply on majority of Pokémon. • Affect Only Randomised IVs Master Badge bonus affects only randomised IVs. Due to this, it works best on Pokémon with no parents as there is no inheritance involved. However, even with the highest Master Badge Class 4, Pokémon with low IVs are a dominant hatch. • Low Boost Master Badge influences IV by preventing low numbers from generating in the singular IVs. However, this only applies to randomised IVs, therefore Pokémon will still inherit three or five exact IV number from the parents, while the rest will be affected by the badge. Depending on the class, this "IV increase" will raise the lowest singular IV number as follows: Class 1 - lowest singular IV is 10 Class 2 - lowest singular IV is 12 Class 3 - lowest singular IV is 14 Class 4 - lowest singular IV is 16 • 0IV Still Included Despite the increase in IVs by locking out low numbers, getting 0IV is still possible. This is due to the fact that 0IV is considered desirable. Beside IVs affecting certain Pokémon evolutions and influencing battle statistics, some users breed Pokémon to have all IVs be 0. • IV Bonus Bug Sometimes Master Badge bonus won't apply to IVs due to a known bug, and Pokémon will hatch having very low IVs. This issue has been confirmed by Niet. In conclusion: Since IV bonus only applies to the randomised IVs, it affects just one IV out of six when using Destiny Knot for IV breeding. In such case, IV increase is insignificant as chances of getting 6IV are marginally better. On the other hand, chances of hatching +3IV Legendary or Ditto remain close to impossible due to pool of numbers still being large.