I wrote this guide a few months ago and since the group where I posted it got deleted, I thought I might as well share it with everyone. Yes, I know it's pretty late for Gen 5 but late is better than never, right?
List of contents:
- Basic knowledge about IVs
- How to calculate IVs
- Preparing for IV breeding
- Breeding
Basic knowledge about IVs
In case you didn’t know, IVs are invisible stats that each pokemon has. They can be described as the genes of a pokemon because they already exist when the pokemon hatches and they can't be changed.
Each stat of your pokemon has an IV number from 0-31. 0 is the worst possible and 31 the best.
If you catch a wild pokemon, the IVs will almost always be totaly random. That means in most cases catching a wild pokemon is not the best option for getting a pokemon you want to use in battle. You want of course the best possible IVs. In order to get a useful pokemon you pretty much have to IV breed. I’ll cover that later in that guide.
There are so called characteristics of a pokemon. It’s the sentence in the Pokemon menu right after the catch place and level information. This sentence indicates the highest IV stat of your Pokemon. The characteristics for the 31-IVs are:
Often dozes off (HP)
Likes to thrash about (Atk)
Capable of taking hits (Def)
Mischievous (SpAtk)
Somewhat vain (SpDef)
Alert to sounds (Speed)
However these can also mean other values than 31 so make sure you go to the IV guy in Nimbasa to verify that the IV stat is 31. (next section of this guide)
How to calculate IVs
There are multiple ways to calculate IVs, but when IV breeding the goal is to breed as many 31 (perfect) IVs as possible. That means you often only need to know whether the IV is 31 or not 31 and you don’t have to calc the exact IVs of every stat. (You can still do that by using IV calculators that can be found on the internet).
In the battle subway building in Nimbasa city, there’s an ace trainer (blue haired guy) standing somewhere. If you talk to him, he’ll tell you the sum and the highest IV(s) of the pokemon you choose from your team list.
(The first statement = sum of all IVs)
If the IV total is between 0 and 90: "This Pokémon's potential is decent all around."
If the IV total is between 91 and 120: "This Pokémon's potential is above average overall."
If the IV total is between 121 and 150: "This Pokémon has relatively superior potential overall."
If the IV total is between 151 and 186: "This Pokémon has outstanding potential overall."
(The second statement = highest IV)
If the highest IV is between 0 and 15: "It's rather decent in that regard."
If the highest IV is between 16 and 25: "It's very good in that regard."
If the highest IV is between 26 and 30: "It's fantastic in that regard."
If the highest IV is 31: "It can't be better in that regard."
So if you have a pokemon with a characteristic that potentially could mean at least one 31-IV (the characteristics I mentioned before), check the IVs with this guy in the battle subway. If you get the result "It can't be better in that regard" you know that you have a pokemon with 31 IVs in the stats the guy mentions.
Preparing for IV breeding
In general, you’ll need a flame body/magma armor pokemon so that eggs hatch faster. I recommend using Volcarona because it can learn fly which gives you a quick access to Skyarrow bridge and Nimbasa city.
Also it’s good to have 6 Dittos: Each Ditto has one 31-IV so that you have access to a perfect IV for each stat. Catch wild Dittos until you have these 6.
Next step: Catch more Dittos so that you have one for each nature.
After that make sure that you have all 6 power items:
BreedingOriginally Posted by BreederKaru
Finally after all the preparation and theoretical stuff we start breeding.
Let’s go through an example step by step:
Our goal is to breed a useful Scyther. A good Scizor always has technician as ability, so we don’t have to breed with a DW Scyther. That makes all easier since the DW ability is only passed down with a chance of 40%. However, if the mother has a regular ability (in this case Scyther’s technician), it’s a chance of 80% of passing down the ability.
The first goal is a female adamant Scyther with technician. So here are the steps that we’ll do now:
- Grab our adamant ditto and give it an everstone
- Grab a Scyther and put it (with the Ditto) in the day care
- Breed until we get an adamant technician Scyther
So now we have our Scyther. What’s next? Well, we have to think about the IVs. What stat does Scizor need to be good? Right, high attack. Also important are the other stats except for SpAtk.
- Grab your Ditto with the 31 Atk IV and give it a power bracer
- Grab your female adamant technician Scyther, let it hold the everstone and put these 2 pokemon in the day care until you get an adamant techn. Scyther with 31 in Atk.
Now we have a pretty good Scyther, but one perfect IV is of course not enough.
- Breed with this Scyther and another 31-IV Ditto till you have a Scyther with 2 31-IVs.
- Repeat it until you’re satisfied with the result. Always replace the old Scyther with the best you get. Also replace the Ditto with a good Scyther so that you’ll get better results.
You can expect to get 2-4 perfect IVs. If you’re lucky you might get more.
And that’s how it’s done (basically). Congratulations, now you have a useful Scyther that can’t wait to be trained.
Breeding with DW abilities is similar to this but the female pokemon has to have the DW ability and you can’t use Dittos. So it takes more time than breeding regular pokemon.
Egg moves: Male pokemon can pass down egg moves (that even works when breeding with Dittos).
IMPORTANT: Delete all other moves of the male pokemon so that the egg move won’t get overwritten by level up moves. You can’t relearn egg moves with the move relearner!
So don’t leave your pokemon in the day care for too long or it won’t keep its egg move.
Of course with a bit of practice the combination of DW ability, good IVs and egg moves is possible. It takes some time though.
Thank you all for reading, I hope I could help everyone who doesn’t know how to IV breed. If you have any questions, leave a comment below. Other feedback would be nice as well.
Sorry for my bad English, it’s not my first language. If you find a mistake let me know ^^
Special thanks goes to Karu who helped me with the power items part. (Though I still have no idea why he left Pokebay :O)
You can also check out the stuff in my signature if you want to see my other work. Advertising ftw.
And now happy breeding!
~Reshi
Now at least I won't have to work on an IV Guide! 
