Breeding: In depth

[pokemonfan]

Now, as you may know, I have written a few guides to a few things on these forums. Most of which are located right here in "The Main Series Discussion." The reason I am adding a more in depth guide to breeding is because of 4 reasons.

1. The last guide (how I saw it to be) received positive reviews it was viewed by many people
   
2. I have received some requests to add some IV information so I figured why not create a more in depth look at breeding and IV breeding for they are complex things
   
3. I want my content to be used on the main site so I know it has to be good
   
4. My last reason is some what selfish, I was appalled when I read a post on one of my guides that went something like this: "I cant believe that someone whose pokemon knowledge is *Average* at best would write so many guides...." So this guide is to help prove that my knowledge is not just Average!!
   

I hope all readers appreciate it and find it helpful

Now, breeding is an invaluable tool to say the least, it can help you create more of rare pokemon, and it can help you design pokemon without using pokesav and doing it legally. However, you must reach a certain point in the game in order to take advantage of this tool. This point is Solaceon Town. At least for D/P/PT it is. I know that breeding is also a feature in 3rd generation games for sure but beyond that point my knowledge on breeding grows foggier. So if you are not at solaceon town yet then ignore this guide for now but you should use it later on in your adventure when you do gain access to the pokemon day care.

What Breeding is:

Breeding is putting two pokemon in the pokemon day care that are of the same egg group and have opposite genders. Or you put an any gender pokemon in with a ditto. If these pokemon are non legendary and they have an egg group, same species or not they will mate and have a pokemon egg. This is breeding and it can be used to: create more of a rare pokemon, get rare egg moves onto a pokemon, and create a legit pokemon for a special purpose on your team.

How does it happen:

It is not confirmed exactly how breeding takes place, but we do know it happens to any opposite gender pokemon in the day care with the same egg group. Either that or using a ditto.

Ditto? What is the significance?

Well ditto, is an omnicompatible pokemon when it comes to breeding. His egg group is ditto but it is compatible with all of the other pokemon egg groups so it is The pokemon love machine. Since it can breed with any pokemon it is excellent for making more of rare pokemon and mass producing pokemon. However, ditto can not pass on moves and this is a huge down fall in pokemon breeding if it can't pass on moves.

Gender Contributions: Only the male can pass on moves with but one awesome exception. The exception is level up moves. Pokemon can only learn on level 1 level up moves if both parents know it. So if you bred to empoleons together that both knew Hydropump you could realistically get a level one piplup with hydropump, yet another beauty of breeding.

The Female on the other hand determines the species of the baby pokemon so if gastly bred with a drifloon and the drifloon was female you would get a baby drifloon. The female ( only in pokemon emerald) can determine the nature of the pokemon if she is holding an everstone, however in D/P/PT I believe the nature is random. Additionally if the pokemon being bred together are the same species there is a higher chance of the baby inheriting the female's ability, however, this is no guarantee.

Both parents can pass on IVs to their little darling baby. In previous games the baby would inherit IVs for one stat from both their parents in all stats but this lead to weaker pokemon so it eventually was taken out of the game so now the HP IV for example is going to be received by either the mother or the father not both. That is four 4th generation games for sure. IVs will be explained later in the guide so either skip to that part or just wait and keep reading.

There are 14 egg groups if you don't count Ditto's for it can become compatible with any egg group of a pokemon. Here is a list that was obtained from the bulba garden forums big round of applause there *Applause echoes*

http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/showthread.php?t=8114

Amorphous

Bug

Dragon

Fairy

Field

Flying

Grass

Human Like

Mineral

Monster

None-legendaries, babies, and the unknowns.

Water1

water2

Water3

*Standing ovation for bulba garden forums* Hopefully one day people will be giving this site a standing ovation!

So if a pokemon doesn't have an egg group it can't breed so just give up on that one. Now if a pokemon doesn't have a gender there still is hope as long as they have an egg group for ditto can breed with them because he has no gender. I hope that solves some problems right there.

Now is there anything that can help me in my breeding? Or items that are designed for breeding?

That question,which I purposefully wrote to help myself and the reader to tell whats coming next, brings up a very good point. To answer it I would say yes now I will tell you what they are.

• An everstone (it was mentioned earlier in this guide and is only really useful in emerald)
  
• A bike: This can help you hatch eggs once you have them
  
• A light ball, if a female pikachu is holding it when it is breeding the babie pichu will know volt tackle
  
• A pokemon with either flame body or magma armor ability: When a pokemon with either ability is in your party the steps it takes to hatch the egg/eggs is cut in half. No this effect does not build based on how many pokemon like that are in your party
  

Those things really are not necessary but can assist you in getting the best type of pokemon possible.

Egg move breeding:

The following content may look familiar its because most of it is from my other breeding guide. However, I did change it a little bit

These are moves that can only be taught to a pokemon via breeding with another pokemon in the same egg group that knows that move. So using drifloon as an example I will inform you on how I did it. If you want specifics on a certain pokemon and a certain egg move then private message me.

What I did step one:

Well first I went to this link: http://pokemon.marriland.com/diamond...kedex/drifloon to find out what egg group my beloved drifloon was in. So it should say in the description-egg group-*name of egg group*-then you click on it to see which pokemon are also in the same egg group and are compatible with your pokemon's egg group.

What I did step 2:

Then I looked down in the moves and found hypnosis and then I clicked on it to find out which pokemon could learn it. Then it should tell you on the side whether or not a pokemon can learn the move via TM/HM, leveling up (and what level), egg, or move tutor. So I compared the two lists and found a pokemon that could learn the move through level up, had the same egg group, and was easily accessible. This one so happened to be a gastly.

The exception to this sort of: (I mentioned this earlier in this guide so you can skip it unless you want to know where to find a ditto)

Well you know how I said that the pokemon has to be in the same egg group to breed. Well that isn't always the case. There is one pokemon called ditto which you can catch in the grass patch right outside Canalave city using the pokeradar they are just really rare. Now these guys can breed with any non baby non legendary pokemon. So these are an invaluable breeding tool. I use ditto's a lot. The only problem is they cant pass on moves for they can only learn the move transform and it just doesn't work that way. So ditto's good but not for egg moves entirely.

What I did step 3:

It turns out that gastly learns hypnosis at a level one. So I breed gastly with my ditto to get a gastly egg because ditto cant make himself ever. I do this a bunch of times because I need a male gastly so I need to make sure that its male. So I rode around for a while till my egg appeared I took it and eventually hatched it.

What I did step 4:

Yay! Its a male so then since it knows hypnosis it will breed with my drifloon and then baby drifloon will know hypnosis. However, you have to make sure that the day care doesnt foolishly make gastly forget hypnosis by replacing it with a new move when it levels up. So to prevent that select the move in the pokemon summary and move it lower down on the list because they delete from top to bottom because game programmers just cant put that in a game where the programs choose for the best. Plus then there is the whole intention of the person for sticking it in the day care and strategies and well it would just be impossible so the delete default is from top to bottom.

I mentioned earlier that...... (this information really was already covered in this guide and can become completely irrelevant in the context its used in but you can read it all the same.

I needed a male gastly level one. This is because the female decides the species of the pokemon. So I needed a female drifloon to get the baby drifloon with hypnosis. So... what are the gender contributions well that is next.

What I did step 5:

Well I repeated this step multiple times so I could get the good nature and hypnosis so I could have the desired awesome drifloon. I did this a while and then I finally got a nature I wanted it was rash because it boosts special attack and my drifloon is going to know all special moves. So now I am training my newly hatched drifloon in the old chateau in platinum for it has a lot of gastlies and if you are focusing on special attack gastlies are the way to go.

Why would I want an egg move?

Rarity, goes along with another move it can learn by HM/TM or leveling up. I wanted a drifloon with hypnosis because I wanted to teach my drifloon dream eater. Plus hypnosis puts the foe to sleep and what better pokemon to have it on then your favorite. Drifloon is the best in my opinion.

Once again if you have any question so far private message me or post them in the forums. If they pertain to a specific pokemon I will do my best to help but there are no guarantees.

The Beauty of Breeding Chains:

Now you know how some pokemon have two egg groups well those are the links. (please don't think of that in having any relation to that of the missing link referred to in the theory of evolution. For goodness sakes when I write that don't let it get into your mind.) These special pokemon serve as links from one egg group to another. So if a pokemon can learn an egg move that you want it might not learn it in its species or egg group but a different egg group that is linked by a dual egg group pokemon. These pokemon are rarer then most and extremely valuable. Some moves are harder to get on a pokemon through breeding and you might have to breed through several links and egg groups to get the move you want. It may take a while and a whole lot more effort but it is possible to get moves that you never would have thought onto your beloved pokemon. That is the beauty of breeding chains.

IV breeding:

I'm first going to explain what IVs are. 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. Our friendly gamers have tried their best to make sure that pokemon originality can vary greatly and is hard to duplicate without cheating or hacking. These individual values are numbers that range from 0-31 and there 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. Now at the end of the IV breeding section I'm going to give a link to an IV calculator online so don't worry about that if your were even considering IV breeding and taking on such a tremendous task.

IV breeding is possibly the most tedious breeding possible and it will take a lot of effort and research. What I am going to tell you here in this guide is my basic understanding of IV breeding, I really don't know if there is more to it. Now if you want a pokemon with good IVs or a higher IV number in their stats it could take a while. You are going to have to catch and raise a lot of different pokemon either of the same species or same egg group of the pokemon that you are trying to get with good IVs. Then once you have done this you should check your IVs with the IV calculator. Then if the stats turn out like this in lets say a momma drifloon and a daddy drifloon: (for IVs)

Mom Dad:

HP: 28 HP: 22

Atk: 29 atk: 25

Def: 19 def: 27

Spd: 25 spd:26

Sp. Atk: 29 sp. Atk: 30

Sp. Def: 21 sp. def: 27

Now I don't know if these are even realistic numbers but lets just say for teaching purposes that they are. Ok and they are your best over all pokemon that you could breed with to create a baby drifloon with good IVs then breed them together, hatch the egg, level up the child a couple of times and then calculate the IVs if you aren't satisfied I'd say, although this is in a way perverted, cross it with the parent whose had a high IV stat that you didn't get onto the original offspring. Keep repeating this until you get the pokemon with the desirable IVs make sure to level up a bit before you check the babies IVs. Individual values are tricky things and I prefer to not mess with them for it takes a lot of time to get good ones. Here is that link I promised:

http://www.serebii.net/games/iv-calcdp.shtml

Note: you may want to take a look at this before actually beginning your IV breeding.

Breeding elite:

This can be considered even more tedious then IV breeding because it can involve IV breeding and more! If you include IV breeding as a factor into this type of breeding equation I think that you would become way in over your head and you would have to posses a lot of time to kill.

Now this type of breeding involves getting the pokemon you want without cheating. So it basically incorporates all the aspects of breeding and throws them all into one wrapped package. This can involve:

~Getting the right nature

~Right egg or level up moves

~Right ability

~Right species!

~and last but not least right IVs

When I do this type of breeding I leave out the IVs because they make it extremely complicated to track. Now the nature you want should be based on the class of the moves you want. Whether they be special or physical attacks. Special moves deal with special attack stat and physical deal with the normal attack stat. So make sure you have your moves chosen and pokemon chosen so that you can choose the best possible nature.

Here are a list of natures courtesy of: Sui89 and his guide: *Thundering applause*

Hardy - Nothing raised or lowered.

Lonely - Attack raised. Defense lowered.

Brave - Attack raised. Speed lowered.

Adamant - Attack raised. Special attack lowered.

Naughty - Attack raised. Special defense lowered.

Bold - Defense raised. Attack lowered.

Docile - Nothing raised or lowered.

Relaxed - Defense raised. Speed lowered.

Impish - Defense raised. Special attack lowered.

Lax - Defense raised. Special defense lowered.

Timid - Speed raised. Attack lowered.

Hasty - Speed raised. Defense lowered.

Serious - Nothing raised or lowered.

Jolly - Speed raised. Special attack lowered.

Naive - Speed raised. Special defense lowered.

Modest - Special attack raised. Attack lowered.

Mild - Special attack raised. Defense lowered.

Quiet - Special attack raised. Speed lowered.

Bashful - Nothing raised or lowered.

Rash - Special attack raised. Special defense lowered.

Calm - Special defense raised. Attack lowered.

Gentle - Special defense raised. Defense lowered

Sassy - Special defense raised. Speed lowered.

Careful - Special defense raised. Special attack lowered.

Quirky - Nothing raised or lowered.

Ok, if you want to know where to find a pokemon's move pool go to this link:

http://pokemon.marriland.com/platinum/pokedex/list/sinnoh/

They have a pokedex for pearl and diamond too I cant wait till this site has pokedexes or a pokedex.

I now IVs you do the same thing for IV breeding except you have to count in all the other stuff that is going into the pokemon. So now all the pokemon you are trying to get good IVs to breed should now know certain moves. Plus the offspring now not only has to have the right IVs it has to have the correct moves, the correct, nature, and ability. So, that could take a while.

If you want a more in depth guide on getting the pokemon you want: go to the following link *note: it doesn't include IVs in the equation at the link*

http://projectpokemon.org/forums/showthread.php?t=175

I think that will conclude my guide here on breeding. If you have anymore questions post them in this thread or send me a private message. Comments are all welcome I accept criticism and praise its just I have different attitudes and beliefs towards the two very different things.

Thanks for reading and I hope I helped

*Please comment*

[Turtlekid2]

Another great guide!

...At this rate, there won't be any material for the rest of us to cover...

[pokemonfan]

Sorry its just that a couple of people said it was good but it lacked something. So I added that something. Plus, someone said that my knowledge was "Average" on pokemon so I did my best to prove him/her wrong.