Breeding Perfect Pokemon in Pokemon X&Y

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Since breeding perfect Pokemon is now actually reasonable without RNG manipulation, I figure I'd throw together a brief guide designed to get veteran breeders and RNGers up to speed with the new mechanics.

Let me know if I screwed something writing this or if you have any suggestions. If you have any questions about breeding myself and others are happy to answer your questions in this thread!

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Breeding Pokemon for the last four generation has been an enormous pain. For what huge effort you put into a Pokemon, very little came out as you'd still be stuck with a subpar Pokemon with flawed IVs. Generation six, however, has made some major changes that make breeding much easier. Here, I will walk you through important breeding mechanics and how to use these mechanics to breed a flawless Pokemon.

Do note that throughout this guide, I will speak assuming you know many of the fundamentals of breeding (ex: Male Species 1 + Female Species 2 will always breed Species 2) and covering competitively relevant and recently changed mechanics.

Important Breeding Mechanics:
These are essential mechanics to be aware of when you set out to breed your flawless Pokemon. For veteran breeders, even if many of these mechanics seem familiar, be sure to glance through them as multiple mechanics have been changed over the last 4 generations.

Flame Body & Magma Armor
A mechanic that's been a mainstay since Pokemon Emerald, the abilities Flame Body & Magma Armor will cut the time it takes to hatch a Pokemon by about half. You should always have a Pokemon with either of these abilities in your party whenever you breed. The easiest and far and away best Pokemon to use for this job is Fletchinder or Talonflame, as both are extremely easy to access and allow you to fly to the IV checker without swapping out your flame body user to fly.

The Hatching O-Power
A new mechanic to Pokemon X&Y are the O-Powers. O-Powers grant you a number of useful in battle and overworld affects, including a power that speeds up Hatching rate. To find this O-Power, you must obtain every other O-Power in the game, then talk to Mr.O-Power in Cafe Introversion in Lumiose City once you have maximum style.

The IV Checker
In Kiloude City's Pokemon center, you can find a purple haired trainer that can tell you the potential (IVs) of your Pokemon. If any IVs are flawless, the trainer will list out your Pokemon's flawless IVs followed by a message that those stats "can't be beat!" Additionally, should one of your Pokemon have an IV of 0 in any stat, he will point it out to you with a negative mention of that stat. This is very useful for breeding Trick Room Pokemon.

Certain wild Pokemon will always have flawless IVs- The friend safari is a new feature in Pokemon X&Y that allows you to catch Pokemon not normally found over the course of the game. What’s more notable is that every single Pokemon you catch in the friend safari will always have two flawless IVs. For passing down flawless IVs, starting with Pokemon here is an excellent place to start. Not to mention, Dittos can be caught here as well.

Additionally, there’s a new mechanic to X&Y where Pokemon that cannot breed (not even with Ditto, so no Magnemites or Dittos) will always be granted three flawless IVs. This group mainly consists of legendary Pokemon, but it also includes baby Pokemon like Azurill, Budew, and Mantyke that can eventually be made breedable. This is another excellent place to start to pass down flawless IVs.

Both parents pass down egg moves- A huge change that effectively eliminates incompatible egg moves, parents of either sex pass down egg moves as of X&Y. This makes it possible to use parents with the best IVs you have, even if one would need to be a male ditto or another male without egg moves. Also note that for some reason, TM moves are no longer passed down at all.

Males pass on hidden abilities too, but only with Ditto- Forget 5th gen entralink RNG, you can now pass down that hidden ability even if you're male. Note that pairing an Impostor Ditto with a non-hidden ability Pokemon will NOT generate a child with a hidden ability. Also, a hidden ability male will not pass down it's ability if it's paired with a regular female of the same species.

Female non-Ditto Pokemon now pass along their Pokeballs- This is a pretty minor change, but if you enjoy having matching / contrasting Pokeballs, your bred Pokemon can have them too. All female Pokemon will pass down their Pokeballs, unless it's a Ditto acting as a female. I recommend that if you're breeding anything that will eventually use Return when fully trained, you breed it in a Luxury Ball to get the happiness up very quickly.

Everstone- This is actually a change that’s been in effect for a while now, but a few of us might have been disconnected with traditional breeding for so long to not have heard of this. The Everstone now ALWAYS passes down the nature of the parent holding it. No longer will your perfect breeds be spoiled by a wrong nature. Additionally, if you haven’t bred since DPP, male Pokemon can pass down natures with the Everstone as well.

Power Items- Power Items will always pass down the Parent’s IV for the stat the Power Item grants EVs for. This is useful if you wish to pass down IVs for Hidden Power, for Trick Room Pokemon, or for specific situations listed farther below. Note that using a Power item on one parent and another Power item on the other will cause either of their IVs to chain down, not both. Primarily though, for breeding, you'll want to rely on the Everstone and the...

Destiny Knot- And here we have by far the most wonderful and significant change to breeding with X&Y. If either of your parents holds the Destiny Knot, the parents will pass down a whopping five IVs to the baby Pokemon. With this item, it has become significantly easier to chain IVs on to Pokemon and easily receive perfect Pokemon

With our important new breeding mechanics out of the way, it’s time to start breeding perfect Pokemon

Breeding Perfect Pokemon:

To start, catch whatever Pokemon you wish to breed. Then, head to the friend safari and catch several potential parents in compatible egg groups for your target bred Pokemon. If the Pokemon you wish to breed you caught earlier does not already have the nature you want to pass down, I recommend using a synchronizer when catching your friend safari parents to get your desired nature. For parents, Dittos are the most flexible option if you have access to them. Baby Pokemon are also an option for this part if you have any in the right egg group / limited friend safari access.

Now, with several parents on hand, develop a strategy for chaining down IVs. The general strategy is to breed two parents together until their child has all the relevant flawless IVs that a final parent lacks. Once that child is bred, breed the child with the final parent until you get your final target. Along the way, if a child is born that outclasses either of the parents, replace that child with the inferior parent to increase your chances of getting your desired final product. Remember to preserve your nature with either of your parents with the Everstone and to make sure at least one parent is holding the destiny knot this entire time.

Example: I want to breed a Timid Flawless Charizard. To start, I caught a Charmeleon, and two Dittos from the friend safari. One of the Dittos was timid thanks to a timid synchronizer I had at the front of my party. Charmeleon’s IVs are 31/x/x/x/31/x. The Timid Ditto’s IVs are x/x/x/x/31/31. The non-Timid Ditto’s IVs are x/x/31/31/x/x.

Now, to start breeding. I gave the Charmeleon a Destiny Knot and my Timid Ditto an Everstone. After several eggs, I want to get a Charmander with the IVs of 31/x/x/x/31/31 or better. Both were left in the day care and got busy.

A few eggs later, I received the 31/x/x/x/31/31 Charmander I wanted. Now, I just need to pass down my final Ditto’s perfect IVs for my target flawless Charmander. The two are paired together again and start breeding.

Eventually, a male 31/x/x/31/31/31 male Charmander was born. Since this Charmander is objectively better than my current Charmander I’m using as a parent and gives me a higher chance to pass down my wanted IV combination, I took my old Charmander out of the day-care and put the new Charmander in. Along the way, if any children spawn that are objectively better than their parents, I replace the parent with their superior child.

Once I start working with quad-flawless parents from this process, it’s only a matter of time until my 31/x/31/31/31/31 Charmander is bred!

Breeding MORE flawless Pokemon:

Once you have a perfect Pokemon on hand, repeating this process is substantially more easy. You already have a flawless parent to pass down IVs to new Pokemon if your final product was male. If your final product was female and can’t pass down IVs to other species of Pokemon, you can still use any outstanding male “spitback” parents that led to your flawless Pokemon. Going back to my previous example, if I ever want to breed something in the Monster or Dragon egg groups, I have my Charizard to use as an awesome parent!

With this in mind, it might be best to think a little bit on what to breed first. Aim to get Pokemon with low Egg Cycles that are in multiple egg groups like Gyarados or Azumarill would be wise to get good future parents fairly quickly. Other good candidates include Pokemon like Smeargle who can easily contribute to a huge array of breeding chains, both with IVs and with egg moves.


Extra Tips and Information:

Finally, here are a few tips and tricks. If you're looking to make your breeding process more efficient after digesting the basic information above, some information here might help you get your final result quicker. Note that from here onwards, x2, x3, x4, and x5 refer to the number of relevant flawless IVs.


Use of the Power Items

While using the Destiny Knot + Everstone can easily net you a perfect Pokemon, there are certain situations where momentarily ignoring nature and focusing on IV inheritance with the Power items and Destiny Knot can make the breeding process quicker. Using Power Items + Destiny Knot is most useful when you want to pass down raw IVs. A few specific situations where this may prove useful or should be avoided are listed below, but this list is not all inclusive.

Situations to consider Power Item + Destiny Knot + Everstone

Escaping the 1/24 plateau

The "1/24 plateau" refers to the usually frustratingly lengthy period of getting the final product once you have two x4 31 Pokemon of the correct nature in the daycare. Giving a power item to one parent (and the Destiny Knot to the other) so the flawless IV the other parent lacks is always inherited can modify this process to speed it up slightly. With a power item, you have a 1/10 chance (1/5 of all the write IVs being inherited, 1/2 of the other parents IV being inherited) of a receiving a x5 IV parent, albeit with the wrong nature. From here, you can substitute in the x5 IV wrong nature parent for either parent and continue breeding, the wrong nature parent holding a Destiny Knot and the correct nature parent holding the Everstone. The chance of receiving a flawless egg is now 1/12. This doesn't save a great deal of effort, and will have you breeding an extra set of competitively useless parents in the process, but narrowing down your chances can prove useful if you're frustrated with your x4 IV parents taking too long. It's a case of whether you want to work with two higher chances or one lower one.

Situations to avoid Power Item + Destiny Knot + Everstone

x5 IV wrong nature parent + x3-4 IV right nature parent.

In this case, replacing either parent with one of their offspring later in the breeding process is not worth it. Any egg that hatches of the x5 parents gender will be worse or equal to the x5 parent, while any egg that hatches of the x3 IV parents gender will not preserve the nature.

x5 IV right nature parent + x4 IV right nature parent.

The chances of getting a flawless final product with a correct nature in this case is 1/12. Should you use a Power Item, you lower this chance to 1/10 , but only for obtaining flawless IVs. Because of this, you need to do a second cycle with a 1/6 chance of generating your desired final product. The likelihood increase on the first cycle is easily not worth the entire extra cycle.

Breeding Likelyhoods
If you're curious about your chances of obtaining a certain offspring from your parents, check out the Pokemon X/Y - IV Breeding Probability Calculator by Agnaktor. The calculator currently works only with the Destiny Knot and Everstone, but it's an excellent way to gauge how long a particular breed will take.
 
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Great guide 10/10!

Also, I've just bred a perfect 6 x 31 IV mon and the judge doesn't say anything special about it :(
 
I realize you said you wouldn't necessarily say everything for new breeders, but is there a way to find what IV's are on a pokemon without leveling it? Other than that I feel like I get everything from this.
 
I realize you said you wouldn't necessarily say everything for new breeders, but is there a way to find what IV's are on a pokemon without leveling it? Other than that I feel like I get everything from this.
Oh yes, sorry, that is fairly important, lol. There's an NPC in the Kiloude City Pokemon center that will tell you your Pokemon's highest IVs. If an IV is perfect he'll say something akin to "that stat can't be beat!"
 

religiousjedi

Old man.
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Sticking this. With many people eager to get back into trading and breeding, why not?

A reminder though: this does not mean RNG abuse for 6th Gen is back. Questions regarding RNG abuse in 6th Gen and when we can expect it to be available are still forbidden and liable to be infracted, per this post.
 
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Reading it over again, I'm a little confused as to how you're getting IV's from both Original parents. You're only able to destiny knot one parent, right? Using your example, after you get the 31/x/x/x/31/31, how are you keeping those stats on the child while gaining the Sp. Attack from the ditto?

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think I may have realized that Knot means both parents donate IV's, not just the holder? if so that could be a little more clear because that's not the understanding I had the first time.
 
Reading it over again, I'm a little confused as to how you're getting IV's from both Original parents. You're only able to destiny knot one parent, right? Using your example, after you get the 31/x/x/x/31/31, how are you keeping those stats on the child while gaining the Sp. Attack from the ditto?

Correct me if I'm wrong, I think I may have realized that Knot means both parents donate IV's, not just the holder? if so that could be a little more clear because that's not the understanding I had the first time.
Yes, the Destiny Knot passes down 5 of a parent's IVs between the two of them, not just the holder.
 
I have been confused by my results and wondering if anyone can confirm the behavior. Is it picking 1 parent and giving you 5/6 of their IVs + 1 random, or is it giving you 1 IV out of the 2 from your parents for 5 stats + 1 random for the last stat. For example:

Possibility 1:
A,B,C,D,E,F
x
G,H,I,J,K,L
=
A,H,I,D,_,F

Possibility 2:
A,B,C,D,E,F
x
G,H,I,J,K,L
=
_,B,C,D,E,F
 

Agonist

how can I feel existential dread, it's my fear
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It's picking five IVs from either parent, and passing it down in the respective stats.
 
another something i think should be included in the op is using alakazam as a synch for friend safari mons. with its mega evolution, you can check its ability AND get the benefits from synchronize. saves a bunch of time getting parents in the friend safari.
 
Pretty good guide Mantyke, thanks for throwing this together. I'm going to be linking it on my stream for those who want to know more about breeding in X/Y.

One thing I want to point out regarding Hidden abilities.

Males pass on hidden abilities too, even with Ditto- Forget 5th gen entralink RNG, you can now pass down that hidden ability regardless of your gender. Note, pairing an Imposter Ditto with a non-hidden ability Pokemon will NOT generate a child with a hidden ability.


If you have a Hidden Ability(HA) Male with a Ditto, it passes on the HA.
If you have a HA Female with a Ditto it passes on HA
If you have a HA Female with Normal male it passes on HA.
if you have a HA Male with Normal Female it DOES NOT pass on HA.

Please correct me if I am wrong or if someone else has had a different experience.

I just thought you should put this on here.
 
I'm really dense, so please excuse these questions, but does Destiny Knot choose 5 stats, then pick 1 IV from either parent in each of those 5 selected stats, or does it pick 5 out of the 12 IVs from the parents (as in, the 5 could be both HP, both Attack, and 1 Speed IV, with the duplicates being chosen at random).

Examples of what I am saying:
Suppose you have 2 parents (HP / Atk / Def / SpA / SDf / Spe)
Male - A/B/C/D/E/F
Female- U/V/W/X/Y/Z (Holding Destiny Knot)

Question 1's scenario:
Game selects HP, Atk, Def, SpA, and Spe.
Egg can have:
{A or U} / {B or V} / {C or W} / {D or X} / any / {F or Z}

Question 2's scenario:
Game select's Male's HP A, Female's HP U, Male's attack B, Female's attack V, and Male's Speed F.
Egg can have:
{A or U} / {B or V} / any / any / any / F
 
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I'm really dense, so please excuse these questions, but does Destiny Knot choose 5 stats, then pick 1 IV from either parent in each of those 5 selected stats, or does it pick 5 out of the 12 IVs from the parents (as in, the 5 could be both HP, both Attack, and 1 Speed IV, with the duplicates being chosen at random).

Examples of what I am saying:
Suppose you have 2 parents (HP / Atk / Def / SpA / SDf / Spe)
Male - A/B/C/D/E/F
Female- U/V/W/X/Y/Z (Holding Destiny Knot)

Question 1's scenario:
Game selects HP, Atk, Def, SpA, and Spe.
Egg can have:
{A or U} / {B or V} / {C or W} / {D or X} / any / {F or Z}

Question 2's scenario:
Game select's Male's HP A, Female's HP U, Male's attack B, Female's attack V, and Male's Speed F.
Egg can have:
{A or U} / {B or V} / any / any / any / F

Scenario 1 is exactly what happens, assuming destiny knot does the same thing as normal breeding just with 5 instead of 3 (breeding w/o destiny knot chooses 3 random IV's)

From Bulbapedia, "the baby will inherit three IVs, each from a different stat and from a random parent."
 
How are (normal) abilities passed down to offsprings? Does everstone play a role here, or is it allways the female or non-Ditto partner that has a higher chance of passing down its ability?

EDIT: Does the IV judge tell you all the perfect IV-stats if you have multiple?
 
One thing I want to point out regarding Hidden abilities.

If you have a Hidden Ability(HA) Male with a Ditto, it passes on the HA.
If you have a HA Female with a Ditto it passes on HA
If you have a HA Female with Normal male it passes on HA.
if you have a HA Male with Normal Female it DOES NOT pass on HA.

Please correct me if I am wrong or if someone else has had a different experience.
You know, I hadn't actually experimented with the final scenario yet. If this is true and someone else can double check, I'll definitely adjust that part. Thanks for bringing that to my attention
How are (normal) abilities passed down to offsprings? Does everstone play a role here, or is it allways the female or non-Ditto partner that has a higher chance of passing down its ability?
Ah, seems I forgot to mention another breeding mechanic that came about with B2W2. A Pokemon's non-hidden Ability will be passed down ~80% of the time, or at least that's what #smogonwifi has told me. Yesterday I bred a ton of Shellders and an overwhelming majority of them inherited Skill Link from my Skill Link Cloyster parent.
 
Hey guys

i have one question!

I have both parents with perfect IVs 31 HP/Def/SpAtk/SpDef/Speed (i dont care for their atk)

but they havent the right nature

I know Destiny Knot passes 5 IVs from the parents

My question is. If I put the Atk Bracer to pass their atk (that doesnt mather), the 5 IVs passed by Destiny Knot are going to be 100% the HP/Def/SpAtk/SpDef/Speed or even with the power item, the destiny knot can pass the atk too?

Thanks!
 
Hey guys

i have one question!

I have both parents with perfect IVs 31 HP/Def/SpAtk/SpDef/Speed (i dont care for their atk)

but they havent the right nature

I know Destiny Knot passes 5 IVs from the parents

My question is. If I put the Atk Bracer to pass their atk (that doesnt mather), the 5 IVs passed by Destiny Knot are going to be 100% the HP/Def/SpAtk/SpDef/Speed or even with the power item, the destiny knot can pass the atk too?

Thanks!
From what others have brought up from the original thread on the Destiny Knot change in Orange Islands (read, not 100% verified), in this scenario, the Power Bracer would always pass down the Attack IV of the parent holding the bracer, then the Destiny Knot would allow 4 more IVs to be inherited.
 
Ok, thanks TheMantyke!

So, the best option is to put some Bracer in one of the wanted Stats, and Destiny Knot... and wait for the perfect PKmn...

ty!
 
Ok, thanks TheMantyke!

So, the best option is to put some Bracer in one of the wanted Stats, and Destiny Knot... and wait for the perfect PKmn...

ty!
Actually, in this case, the nature would not be preserved at all and you'd be waiting on the best IVs and the best nature. For early steps, I can see using a power item as helpful if you have a good parent later down the line to pass down nature. In every other scenario though, I would say ignore the power items and use the Destiny Knot and Everstone instead.
 
Ah, seems I forgot to mention another breeding mechanic that came about with B2W2. A Pokemon's non-hidden Ability will be passed down ~80% of the time, or at least that's what #smogonwifi has told me. Yesterday I bred a ton of Shellders and an overwhelming majority of them inherited Skill Link from my Skill Link Cloyster parent.
What if the Pokemon have 2 non-hidden abilities (f.ex. Ralts with Trace and Synchronize), and the parents have different non-hidden abilities? Will it be a 50% chance for each ability or will the mother/father/"everstoner" pass down his/her ability more often?
 
What if the Pokemon have 2 non-hidden abilities (f.ex. Ralts with Trace and Synchronize), and the parents have different non-hidden abilities? Will it be a 50% chance for each ability or will the mother/father/"everstoner" pass down his/her ability more often?
The mother has 80% chance to pass on her ability. That's how it was in Gen V anyhows.
 
EDIT: My question has been answered; I realize I did really bad math in this post. No need to continue quoting with answers :-)

So I'm a bit confused about my breeding, perhaps someone can clear this up for me. I have two parents, both Modest Noibats with IVs checked at 31/x/31/31/31/31. One is holding a Destiny Knot, the other an Everstone. Out of the past 20 child Pokemon, only two or three have been 31/x/31/31/31/31. If Destiny Knot is passing down 5 IVs, am I just getting REALLY unlucky and having it pass down the Attack IV 90% of the time?
 
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