Article Negative Zero's Guide to Breeding Excellent Pokemon

Negative Zero’s Guide
to
Breeding Excellent Pokémon
v1.0

This is Zero’s How-To guide for breeding massive amounts of excellent Pokémon both for your own self-driven purposes or for breeding boxes upon boxes of outstanding Pokémon for Wonder Trade Weekly. During this article, I assume you’re playing Ultra Sun/Moon (though regular Sun/Moon also works for most of this) and are familiar with the very basics of breeding: like the fact that it happens at Paniola Ranch in Alola, requires compatible Pokémon, and things like that. If you don’t know any of that yet, I recommend you go check out the Bulbapedia article on Breeding, then check back here so I can clarify and expand upon what you learned there. Also, I refer to “male parent” and “female parent” as the daddy and the mommy respectively. I know this is non-canon, since even the vocabulary “male” and “female” aren’t used in-game (I think) let alone all the other High School Biology details of breeding; but if you have a problem with this I’ll edit this for taste and post the update.

Also, quick thanks to @Strytho for lending expertise and fact-checking.

Also-also, this thread is open for discussing. Although Bulbapedia is a great source to give answers; I am glad to answer specific questions, manually experiment to verify any claim I make here, and otherwise work to help you become the best breeder (and by extension, the best trainer) you can be.

Changelog
1.0: Initial version.

Genetic Traits

Breeding excellent Pokémon in massive quantities is very easy once you get started. Even if you’re a busy person with only a few hours per week for multi-tasking with a 3DS, it won’t take long to start pumping out Pokémon with 4-5 perfect IV and select egg moves by the dozens. There are two parts in this task: planning and doing. Planning involves deciding what you want to breed, which you can mostly decide for your own tastes or with help from competitive battlers or their communities, and we’ll talk about that first. Planning a Pokémon to breed involves these traits:

- Species: The Pokédex number (and evolution family) of Pokémon this is. This is always inherited from the mommy or the non-Ditto parent. And sadly, Ditto can’t breed with each other, so you’re stuck with what you find (though in US/UM, you can get a few really good ones, which I’ll talk about later). When there are forms involved, this can often be maintained regardless of your game Version by having the matching parent hold an Everstone while breeding.

- Nature: There are 25 of these, 5 of which are the same and 20 of which raise and lower a non-HP stat by 10%. They’re absolutely random in breeding, unless one of the parents holds an Everstone, in which case all eggs laid will have that parent’s nature. Totally random or totally predetermined, no in-between. When in the wild though, if the first Pokémon in your party has Synchronize as its ability, 50% of all wild Pokémon will have the same nature. Not bred Pokémon: wild encounters only, so it might be in your interest to breed an army of Abra with various natures and Synchronize so when you really want a Jolly Rapidash, you can find a Ponyta 50% chance Jolly instead of 3.3% chance.

- Ability: Some Pokémon have 1 ability and some have 2 possible abilities, while some also have hidden abilities that can be acquired by methods like Events, SOS chains, or other uncommon circumstances. If neither parent has the hidden ability, it’s 50/50 for the eggs. If the mommy or non-Ditto parent has its hidden ability, all eggs have a 60% chance of having their hidden ability as well. Sadly, a male parent with a hidden ability isn’t enough to pass that along to same-species offspring.

- Egg Moves: These are particular moves that a daddy can pass down to a different-species offspring that that species would not normally learn through leveling up, TM, or tutoring. Also, a female Pokémon with egg moves from a different-species daddy can maintain that egg move when breeding with yet another species of male parent. Quick example: Two of Cyndaquil’s egg moves are Reversal and Extrasensory, neither of which it naturally learns. If mommy Typhlosion already knows Extrasensory from being bred that way, and daddy Mienshao knows Reversal, the new Cyndaquil to hatch will know Extrasensory and Reversal (in addition to its usual Tackle and Leer).

- Ball: The Pokéball is inherited from the parent of the same species: the non-Ditto or the mommy for the most part. Breeding two of the same species Pokémon has 50/50 chances of either parent’s ball, which means there is no way to transfer a daddy Pokémon's ball onto a different-species offspring. Also, Cherish Balls and Master Balls are replaced by ordinary Pokeballs for the offspring.

- IVs: Individual Values are six hidden stats that each have a rating from 0-31, influencing the species’ battle stats by some amount. In Gen 7, there’s a sleepy guy near the Battle Tree in postgame that unlocks your ability to see these stats from your storage box, showing a web graph and labels like “No Good” “Decent” “Outstanding” or “Best” on each stat, so you can check these traits super easily once you’re in the postgame. More on these later.

Congratulations, you’ve passed Pokémon Genetic Biology 101! From these, you can decide what traits are important to you. Maybe you don’t care about a specific ball or egg moves or anything like that. The task gets that much easier with fewer criteria. I recommend you use a source like Pokémon Showdown, Smogon, or Bulbapedia to determine what you want in a Pokémon before you get started, and work on a game plan from there.

Individual Values

Now, for IVs. Each of a Pokémon's battle stats (HP, physical Attack and Defense, special Attack and Defense, Speed) has a hidden variable behind it. That is most of what makes Pokémon unique: why your Totodile might have better physical attack than another, or why that other one might have better special attack than yours despite both being the same species, level, nature, and training.

Wild Pokémon have all of these values totally random: each one of the six is a randomly-generated value between 0 and 31. Caveat to randomly-generated IVs: there are some exceptions. Your starter Pokémon and shinies you encounter are weighted to have better stats, as are wild Pokémon higher in SOS chains. Legendaries, Event Pokémon, and shiny Pokémon in Ultra Wormholes (which you can save and soft-reset inside for different natures inside their wormhole world and they will still be shiny, side note) all are guaranteed to have 3 perfect IVs. The five Impostor Ditto you encounter around Konikoni City in Ultra Sun/Moon are also heavily weighted to good stats, which is as well very helpful in breeding! If you haven’t caught them yet, I recommend you postpone catching until after you can examine IVs so you can choose them to your needs, resetting and re-capturing until you’re satisfied.

When you’re relying on random numbers to get perfect IVs, your chances aren’t good. I won’t bore you with the math details, but there’s less than a 20% chance that a totally random wild Pokémon will have just one perfect IV. The chances of two perfect IVs? About one in a thousand. Three random perfect stats? One in thirty thousand. All six perfect IVs in the wild? Less than one in twenty-seven-point-five billion. This is why people doubt the trueness of a Ditto with all six perfect IVs. This is also why that random Hoothoot you found just outside New Bark Town is absolutely unique and there’s not one like it in all the universes.

Back to breeding, here’s where inheriting stats come in: A bred Pokémon will have 3 of its 6 stats inherited from its parents, while its other 3 stats are random. It might get Attack and Speed from the daddy and SDef from the mommy; or it might get HP, Speed, and Defense all from the mommy and no IVs from the daddy; or any such variation of those: but 3 are inherited and 3 are random.

Still not good odds, relying on random figures like that, but easily improved with the Destiny Knot. If either parents holds the Destiny Knot, 5 stats will be inherited instead while only one is random. They still might be all five from the mommy, or all five from the daddy, or any mix between; and it doesn’t matter which parent holds it: the one to pass the IV stats is still random per-stat.

It is a very slow up-hill climb to breed perfect stats out of wild Pokémon, but there is a way to get a really fast boost: Wonder Trade. Breeders love to put their not-perfect Pokémon out into the world to do some good for other breeders, which is what we try to do in Wonder Trade Weekly. It might take several dozen iterations of a family tree to get even a few perfect stats, but when some breeder decides that her Chikorita with 5 perfect stats isn’t quite good enough and you get it by Wonder Trade, you’re already more than half way to making dozens of near-perfect Chikorita for yourself!

It all really comes down to either using Destiny Knot or no, and waiting for the RNG to make slightly better, slightly better Pokémon for you. Keep in mind that for your purposes on that Pokémon, maybe you don’t care about the Physical Attack stat because you’re breeding a Special-Attacking Abra who you don’t want to be destroyed by Foul Play, or you don’t care about Speed or Special Attack because you’re breeding a slow and Physical-Attacking Onix who will do well in a Trick Room and with Gyro Ball, or other combinations of traits. Or maybe you’re satisfied with an almost-perfect stat instead of a perfect one. Find your criteria, and only worry about that.

Hatching Eggs

Now, the hatching. There are two ways to do this, and I’ll call them active and passive.

Active is for people with time on their hands and focus in their heads. You put whatever eggs need hatching in your party, and you run around either on foot (maybe while eggs are still being laid at Paniola Ranch) or on a Ride Pokémon Tauros or Stoutland, since the hatching progress is calculated by distance traveled over land while that egg is in your party. Tauros has a higher top speed total, but you have to hold B to dash; while Stoutland has the faster top speed while not holding any buttons, so it’s better for more active multi-taskers. If you have a Pokémon with Magma Armor or Flame Body as its ability in your party, the movement distance for hatching a Pokémon is cut in half, so make friends with a Slugma or Magcargo today!

Passive hatching is better for people who are busy with work or school or generally don’t have the free time to run around in circles. You can load up to 18 eggs into a fully-upgraded Pokepelago Hot Springs to hatch entire groups of them while you’re sleeping or busy. Even without pokebeans, most Pokémon hatch in 20 hours or less, while some like 600 beasts or Phione might take 40 hours. You can hatch them right from the Pokepelago view, and you can get the muscle memory for naming each new hatch tradepkm.net after just a few sets.

For more specifics on hatching, you can check the Bulbapedia articles on Egg Cycles and a list of Pokémon by their base egg cycles to hatch. Long story short, on the Egg Cycles page, the number in the middle column with numbers ranging from 5 to 120, with breedable Pokémon topping out at 40? That is the number of hours in a fully upgraded Pokepelago Isle Avue it takes to hatch a Pokémon passively, or that times five the distance of steps walked (or the equivalent Tauros/Stoutland ridden) needed to hatch that egg actively. Some Pokémon like Magikarp you can likely hatch faster than you’ll get the eggs, or else you can get a bunch of them, put them in the springs, and come back after you go to the movies. Others like Phione or Pokémon that grow up to have 600 base stats will take a lot more time running in circles, or might well take almost two whole days to hatch in the springs. Keep in mind that either of those methods can have their time cut in half either by having a Flame Body or Magma Armor Pokémon in your party while running or by putting pokebeans into the box on Isle Avue.

(Psst, why not take a break and come back later? The next section will get dense.)

Detailed Example

Now, for an example of how this all works out: the real life story of me wanting to get a perfect-IV Protean Froakie in a Premier Ball, Timid and with the egg moves Bestow and Toxic Spikes: something involving every single genetic trait of that list I had near the top.

This is what I started with: A male Protean Froakie in a Beast Ball I got through Wonder Trade with great IVs, a Greninja knowing Bestow I caught on Poni Island, Timid in nature (thanks to my Timid Synchronize Abra) captured in a Premier ball with meh IVs, and a male Toxapex who knows Toxic Spikes. The most important part right now is that I have the Froakies.

[x] Species
[ ] Ball
[ ] Egg moves
[ ] Ability
[ ] Nature
[ ] IVs

I want a Premier Ball for aesthetic purposes, and that Protean Froakie is in a Beast Ball while my new Greninja is in a Premier Ball. I’ll just breed that Greninja with a ditto I already have that has good IVs: every egg will have the non-Ditto parent’s ball, therefore all will have Premier Balls

All of these Froakie inherited Bestow from their Greninja parent, since that was its secret egg move made available through catching it with help of the QR-scanner radar. Also, since that Greninja was Timid and holding an Everstone, all of these froakies were Timid as well. I’ll breed one of those newly hatched female Froakie with a male Toxapex who knows Toxic Spikes to pass down that move too. So now I have a bunch of Froakie Eggs who inherited their species, one egg move, and their ball from mommy; inherited a second egg move from a different-species daddy. From this point forward I’m working only with Timid Froakies and no other species, so as long as I only use breeding stock that has both of these egg moves (since when I’m breeding Froakie with each other, both egg moves will be passed every time), and with a Timid parent holding and Everstone I can stop worrying about egg moves and nature.

[x] Species
[ ] Ball
[x] Egg moves
[ ] Ability
[x] Nature
[ ] IVs

Back to that Protean Froakie I got through Wonder Trade: He’s a male with no egg moves and in a Beast Ball (which I don’t want), and has very good IV stats. But, a male parent can’t pass down his Hidden Ability when breeding with non-Ditto! My first step here is to breed him with a Ditto until I hatch an egg that is female (1/8 chance) and has his hidden ability (3/5 chance), so that she can then pass down her inherited hidden ability.

I’ll then breed her with one of my males with the best available stats who is Timid (with the help of my Timid Synchronize Abra and my Everstone), which is my preferred nature for Greninja. That Timid Froakie I will still give an Everstone, and the good IV Protean Froakie I will give a Destiny Knot (only because he has a free hand, since which parent has the Destiny Knot doesn’t matter). This way, every egg will have the Timid Froakie’s nature, and probably a few of the 18 eggs I’m laying in this batch will take 5 stats from better-stat daddy.

[x] Species
[ ] Ball
[x] Egg moves
[ ] Ability
[x] Nature
[ ] IVs

Also, half of those eggs came out in Beast Balls and half in Premier Balls (since both parents are the same species, otherwise they would all have mommy’s ball); while 60% of everyone had Protean ability. Overall, I probably have 5 or 6 Protean Froakies in Premier Balls, all of whom are already guaranteed to be Timid like I want. From here I can breed a female in there somewhere with a good IV compatible male parent with a really good Ditto. I’ll just need to make sure that a Timid parent is holding the Everstone, while the other parent has the Destiny Knot.

[x] Species
[x] Ball
[x] Egg moves
[ ] Ability
[x] Nature
[ ] IVs

We’re in the finishing stretch! We have species, ball, egg moves, and nature solidified. As long as I keep having both parents be Froakies in Premier Balls knowing both egg moves and holding an Everstone (which as long as I don’t back-track along the family tree, none of that should stop happening), then those traits are solid and we only have to worry about ability and IV. As long the mommy from this point on is always Protean, there will be a flat 60% chance of that, and that chance can’t be augmented, so I’m going to worry mostly about IVs from here while only observing ability.

If you’re fortunate to have a perfect-IVs Ditto to work with, or a near-perfect Wonder Trade specimen of the same species to work with, it’s a matter of time breeding 18 eggs and hatching them in the hot springs, letting them all hatch, and choosing the ones with the best IVs to continue the family. Since my Froakie is a special attacker, I don’t care about physical attack at all. Out of the five remaining stats, I’ll see who has the stats I like the best (whether they’re perfect or near-perfect in that stat) and continue breeding until I’m satisfied. Once I get one with “Best” or “Outstanding” stats in everything but physical Attack, and which gets that 60% chance of getting a parent’s Hidden ability, I’m done now!

[x] Species
[x] Ball
[x] Egg moves
[x] Ability
[x] Nature
[x] IVs

Summary

There are a lot of steps in this process, but I want you to keep two things in mind: the process is a lot easier if you have fewer criteria for what you want to include at the end and as you build momentum and a zoo of good-IV Pokémon, and along the way you will generate a lot of pretty-good or almost-perfect Pokémon that are great for Wonder Trade Weekly. It’s a great idea to start habitually naming every hatched Pokémon that you expect to be very good “tradepkm.net”, and then once you get the one you want to keep, visit the renamer and hold on to that one. You will have dozens of wonderful Pokémon that can benefit other trainers and give them a reason to come meet you at Lake Valor.