Pokemon breeding

Now, as you may know, I have written a few guides to a few things on the project pokemon forums and I thought this guide was pretty good and in depth so I put it here. I edited it a little to make it more suitable for Wiki.

I hope all readers appreciate it and find it helpful EDIT: Sorry, I found it very confusing and not very Wiki, so I put up the guide I wrote and replaced a lot. Not to mention the amount of errors I spotted while editing <.<

Intro Lots of people know how to breed, but not quite how to IV breed or what influences what. Here I will break it down into simple steps and lists of what effects breeding and outcomes of it.

What Breeding is:

Breeding can be your way to get multiples of the same pokemon, or for filling up your Pokedex with Baby Forms, but most importantly breeding is what many players do to get a pokemon for competative play. Breeding creates legitimate Pokemon, though it takes lots of patience to get something worth while.

How it happens:

The Day Care Center attendants are positive they have no clue, but most people who are old enough to understand reproduction know what it is. Leave a female Pokemon with a Male (or any with a Ditto) and if they like each other they will breed and create an Egg.

Gender Contributions

Females of the pair determine the species of the offspring. So breeding a male Tyranitar with a female Swampert will yeil a baby Mudkip, not a Larvitar.

If one of the parents is Ditto, then the offspring's species will match with the other parent's species; that means that you cannot hatch a Ditto.

Males of the pair may determine Egg moves so long as the father knows it and the offspring are able to learn it. Egg Moves and TM moves are passed by the males.

Females may pass their nature to the offspring by holding an Everstone. This mearly increases the chance of the nature being inherited, so other natures may also still be gained.

Both parents influence IVs of the offspring. More of this is explained under the IV section.

Both parents may pass moves gained by levelup so long as both parents know the move and the baby can learn it as well.

Egg Groups

Plant

Bug

Flying

Humanshape

Mineral

Indeterminate

Ground

Water 1

Water 2

Water 3

Monster

Fairy

Dragon

Cannot breed

Ditto

Types of Breeding

Ditto: Ditto may be all too useful for breeding, but its only good for when you just need a quick copy or baby. Ditto can breed with anything that has an egg group, any gender, and essentially every Pokemon (Unless they are not allowed to breed; Legends and Babies). They are essential in breeding and you should get at least a few with different natures. Most people use Dittos with different natures to get a Pokemon with the nature they want.

Same Species Breeding: Any Pokemon that is the same species (A Pikachu with another Pikachu) will breed so long as one is male and the other is female.

Same Family Breeding: By family, this means the evolutionary line. A Pikachu can breed with a Raichu for instance, again so long as one is male and the other is female.

Same Egg Group Breeding: Sometimes the hardest, although best for competative play. This means any pokemon in the same egg group can breed so long as one is male and the other is female. So essentially a Skitty and a Wailord can breed because they are both in the same egg groups. This can make for interesting pairing (Zangoose and Seviper are both in the same egg group and yes, they can breed no matter what the pokedex says)

There are some pairs of Pokémon species where the male and female are treated as different Pokémon. However, they can breed with each other. The egg will either hatch into a male or a female varient of the species (The Nidorans for instance). Although breeding the male species with Ditto will not produce the female counterpart.

Held Item Breeding: Some Pokemon may only produce its baby form when holding a specific item, aka Incense.

Passing Moves Down

The moves obtained by a Pokémon when hatching are as follows:

The Pokémon will start with any moves that it would learn at a level of 5 or lower.

The Pokémon will start with any moves that it would learn by leveling up only if both parents know the move.

The Pokémon will start with any TM or HM moves that the father knows and the baby can also learn by machine.

The Pokémon will start with any Egg moves that the baby can learn and the father knows.

Volt Tackle is a special move only learnable by Pichu. When breeding a Pikachu or Raichu holding a Light Ball, the offspring will know the move Volt Tackle. It should be noted that the parent need not know the move itself, and is not required to be of any specific gender; however, a male Pikachu or Raichu has to breed either with a female counterpart or with Ditto so that the offspring is, in fact, a Pichu.

The moves will take precedence in the order listed, and if there are more than four moves to learn, the moves will start being overwritten much like when leveling up at the Pokémon Daycare.

Importance of Egg Moves

Egg moves are sometimes extreemly useful to have on a Pokemon. Rather then having a Pokemon that only knows moves from TMs, Tutors, or from Levelup, Egg Moves can only be bred into a Pokemon and thus make them stronger then a standard wild Pokemon.

A Pichu (or one of its evolutionary line) that knows Volt Tackle is a great example of this.

Chain Breeding:

Chain Breeding is simply breeding multiple Pokemon in different Egg groups that can also breed together. This is also how you get a Pokemon with multiple egg moves. This also includes any breeding done to get a good parent for the final offspring.

Breeding a male Smeargle to get good IVs, Sketching Punishment, then breeding with a female Sneasel with good IVs to produce a baby Sneasel with good IVs and Punishment as a move is a quick example. (quick to write, though the time involved for breeding can be hours to weeks depending on luck)

IV Breeding:

IVs are individual values and they are hidden from the view of the trainer. However with IV calculators you can find on the internet you can find out your pokemon's IVs. These individual values are what makes every pokemon different as far as stats go. The individual values are numbers that range from 0-31 and below is a number for each stat.

HP

Atk

Def

Spd

Sp Atk

Sp Def

Depending on the number the pokemon's IV numbers can effect the growth of a pokemon in certain areas of their stats. IVs add their value to the stat slowly throughout leveling. Essentially they can only be seen on level 100 Pokemon as their stats have been maxed for their level. For example, a pokemon with a 31 IV in speed will have 31 more points in speed then one with a 0 IV in Speed. Even a 1 point difference between a 30 IVed Pokemon and 31 IVed Pokemon can make all the difference in compatative play.

Many People do not understand this no matter how simple the concept may be, so I'll work it into a really short term at the end. This is based off of DPPT breeding which works the same way as Emerald in most cases. First, a random IV is passed from one of the parents to the baby. Afterwards, a random IV of any stat other than HP, is inherited from either parent to the baby. If this IV is from the same stat as the first IV (not necessarily the same IV value, depending on whether or not the same parent passed it on), it will override it. Finally, another random IV of any stat other than HP and Defense, is passed from one of the parents to the baby. This IV will override any of the previous two if it is from the same stat. The remaining stats (a number ranging from 3 to 5) are determined at random, again with the possibility of one or more IVs coinciding with those of the parents.

Simple Term: Some IVs are random, while others are inherited by the parents. So essentially the better IVs the parents have the better chance of getting good IVs on the offspring.

Breeding Elite

This type of breeding is best left to those who know what they are doing. It involves breeding IVs, Natures, Moves, and the correct Species to get a perfect Pokemon for competative play. Here is my quick example of a legitimate bred pokemon loaded into a ROM for better screenshots:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/3164/weavileit4.png

Its stats are so high because I bred good IVs into it along with training it in Attack and Speed to max out those stats. I also bred in the Egg Move Ice Punch from having a Medicham Father in its line. It learned Ice Shard by level up as a Sneasel, then after it evolved I went to the move tutor to have it remember Night Slash, and Brick Break came from a TM (can also be inherited as an Egg move from the father if it knows a TM or HM move the baby may learn). Its nature was inherited by a female sneasel with the Jolly Nature holding an Everstone. So thats my example of a quick breeding chain using all of the breeding tips and tricks to create a perfect pokemon! (of course, luck is such a huge factor it took about an entire day consisting of much breeding, many sneasels, and lots of calculating)

Hatching that Egg

Name: Magma Armor

Effect: User cannot be frozen.

Field: Eggs in the party with the user hatch in half the time.

Name: Flame Body

Effect: 30% chance of inflicting a burn on contact.

Field: Eggs in the same Party as this Pokemon hatch twice as fast.

Other then that it takes a variable amount of steps to hatch the egg depending on the species. Generally a tip to keep in mind is when hatching an egg depending on how good the species is will reflect in how long its going to take. Magikarp is generally weak so its fast to hatch, however rare and strong pokemon like Larvitar will take longer.

Floaroma Town Rumor: It is rumored that if you hatch an egg in Floaroma Town (or Hearthome City) it will have a higher chance of being a female. I first beleived this rumor was true though I never actually used it, however I did decide to test it after finding a similar rumor just worded differently and with a percentage rather then 100%. After thinking about it I developed a theory that I proved correct with 5 Houndour Eggs. Here is my theory:

The contents of a Pokemon egg are generated when you receive it from the Daycare man. All IVs, Nature, Ability, Gender, and Moves are generated when you receive the egg.

I only needed one egg, but I tested 5 to be sure. I took the first two eggs and saved after receiving them then hatched them in Floaroma Town. One was male the other was female (I was using Houndours because they have a 50-50 chance of being male or female). I recorded their nature, ability, gender, and stats before soft reseting then hatching the same two eggs elsewhere (Route 210 to be exact). They hatched exactly how I recorded them. One male, one female, with the same nature ability and stats as when they first hatched. The second two eggs I saved before I received them and hatched them in Floaroma Town. Again one was male one was female, so I recorded their gender, nature, stats, and ability before soft reseting and receiving the eggs again to hatch. The second time I hatched the two eggs both were male and had different natures and one had a different ability. The last egg was just a confirmation to be sure my first set of results and both were confirmed along with my theory. I do not know who started this rumor but it has now been tested and proven false! Sorry guys, Floaroma Town is not a magical egg hatching place since the baby's stats are determened when you receive the egg, not when it hatches.

Sources/Credits

Many of the internet pages (Serebii, Veekun, Psypokes, etc) AlbinoDrow (rewrote the guide adding missing info and correcting false information. Also did a lot of breeding to test for accuracy)