What Determines How Good a Pokemon's IV is?

[JX23]

I understand what the hidden stats are in terms of attack, defense and all that, but I was wondering what determines how good of an IV your pokemon gets. I was under the impression that the best IV's were pokemon with a high CP, high HP, and a high amount of stardust required to to power up assuming you didn't power it up yet. Am I missing something?

 

[JX23]

When I use the IV calculator, it asks for CP, HP, and amount of stardust needed to power up. What makes a good IV and what makes a bad one?

 

[JX23]

Ok so what determines a high IV? It asks for CP, HP, and stardust. Is a high amount of all three the best or no? You still haven't really answered the Q lol

 

[JX23]

I have caught pokemon that are almost maxed out with high CP's, HP, and stardust that come out terrible. That's why I'm asking. It doesn't make sense and the results seem to be inconsistent.

 

[Neltharion83]

If you catch a really tiny rattata, it could still be 100% IV.

I do not like it that we use percentages for IV, its nonsense actually.

There are 3 values that can be between 1 and 15, so the best possible pokemon has 15/15/15, which you can add up to 45 of a possible 45. People somehow like to artificially slap percentages on top of it, leading to no insight but fractured numbers.

These 3 hidden core values multiply with the level of the pokemon to produce its stats. Powering up increases the level of the pokemon by 0.5, the maximum (when the half circle is full and the power up button goes grey) is your trainer level + 1.5 .

So if you are level 22, and come across an infinite amount of dust and candy, and power them all up until that half circle is full and the power up button goes grey, they will all be level 23.5. And if you gain a trainer level, you can power up all your maxed out pokemons two more times.

And if you are level 22 and have a massive amount of rattatas, all of them with different IVs and different levels, and one of them with 15/15/15 IVs, and you power them all up to the absolute maximum until you can no longer power them up, (meaning they will all be level 23.5 and only their IVs determine their stats now), then the one with the 15/15/15 IVs will be the best of the bunch.


After all that, hopefully helpful, explanations, i would like to ask a more advanced follow-up question:

IV calculators are not precise because the pokemon level is not precisely known, does anyone have an IV calculator that gives absolutely precise results if you give it the exact level of the pokemon?

The precise level can be determined in two ways: Power it up to the max and it is trainer level + 1.5, or power it up 3 times while paying attention to this chart:

Level | # of Power Ups | Stardust | Candies
1-2.5 1-4 200 1
3-4.5 5-8 400 1
5-6.5 9-12 600 1
7-8.5 13-16 800 1
9-10.5 17-20 1000 1
11-12.5 21-24 1300 2
13-14.5 25-28 1600 2
15-16.5 29-32 1900 2
17-18.5 33-36 2200 2
19-20.5 37-40 2500 2
21-22.5 41-44 3000 3
23-24.5 45-48 3500 3
25-26.5 49-52 4000 3
27-28.5 53-56 4500 3
29-30.5 57-60 5000 3
31-32.5 62-64 6000 4
33-34.5 65-68 7000 4
35-36.5 69-72 8000 4
37-38.5 73-76 9000 4
39-40 77-80 10000 4

So it should be possible to make a perfect calculator that gives you all 3 hidden stats in the form of 13/15/15 or 15/12/13 if you give it CP, HP, and the precise level.

The appraisal feature gives you some estimtes based on categories and can be very useful, it will reveal in what category all 3 stats added together are (with 15+15+15 = 45 of 45 being the theoretical maximum), it will clearly reveal all stats that are at the maximum of 15, and for other good pokemon that have no stat at 15, it will reveal one or more stats that are at 13 or 14. That can help a lot with pinning it down precisely, and it will reveal any 100% IV pokemon. (or as i like to call them: 15/15/15)

The take home message: For any pokemon that you see a lot and where you have a lot of candy, a pokemon that looks weak and crappy might be the absolutely best one you have, because while it looks like crap it is just low level but has perfect IVs, so if you invest a lot of candy and stardust to evolve it and push it all the way, it will be perfect.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

I check every Pokemon I catch on appraisal if it's not in the top IV category they get binned straight away. Even if they low CP but high IV then I know that eventually I can get the stardust for it

 

[JX23]

The appraisal feature does nothing for me. It's too vague.

 

[JX23]

Hmmm. Can you share the stats and level of these pokemons?

One thing I can think of is that: The stamina stat makes the bigger difference on CPs. Stamina counts a bit more than attack and defense towards the total CP.

I caught a 784 CP Machop with 105 HP and 5000 stardust and it got rated 24%-48% potential (terrible). How is that possible?

 

[Neltharion83]

I check every Pokemon I catch on appraisal if it's not in the top IV category they get binned straight away. Even if they low CP but high IV then I know that eventually I can get the stardust for it

That makes sense. I rename mine to keep track of what i know about their stats, leading to weird names that only make sense to me, or to other people who know a lot about the theoretical things. You only need to do the appraisal once if you then rename the pokemon to a code that carries all the data.

Based on the first thing the appraisal says, i name them top, mid, low, or crap. Then i only care about top, maybe also mid if the pokemon is rare. Then i list the stats the appraisal feature mentions, which i shortened to KP, AT, and DF. Then i add a 15 if the mentioned stats are perfect, and a 13 that actually means 13 or 14 if those stats are one step below that.

So many of my pokemon are named something like "top KP 15" or "top KP DF 15" or "mid DF 13", and that contains all information i can get from the appraisal feature. If i know the precise values of all hidden stats, i name them based on that, like 15/15/13. For a perfect one i just add a "45" to the name.

 

[Neltharion83]

I caught a 784 CP Machop with 105 HP and 5000 stardust and it got rated 24%-48% potential (terrible). How is that possible?

Its crap because its IV stats are bad, meaning it has no future potential, but its level is high.

 

[VisualJae]

I caught a 784 CP Machop with 105 HP and 5000 stardust and it got rated 24%-48% potential (terrible). How is that possible?

Because IVs determine CP. Just because a Machop is CP784 doesn't mean it has good IVs. All IVs are generated at random when a Pokémon itself is generated.

So, what, you're player level 28? 29? A Machop at that CP and 5000 Stardust requirement would make it a minimum of level 29, which means its CP cap with perfect IVs would be in the low 900s (918 to be exact if capped at level 29.5 at player level 28). So your CP784 Machop is actually pretty bad.

Edit: best case scenario seems to put your Machop at 1/15/6 IVs for 48.9% IV rating. Did you get an appraisal message that said its defense stat stood out?

A 100% IV Machop would have 800 cp at level 30 and 0% IVs Machop would have 770 cp at level 30. That's how minimum the difference is.

Actually not true. A level 29 Machop maxes at CP902 to be exact with 100% IVs across the board. 933 would be the max at level 30, all the way to 1089 at level 40.

For comparison, I have a 95.6% IV rating (15/14/14) Machop at CP617. Meanwhile it only requires 2500 Stardust to boost at level 20. Should I boost this one all the way to level 29, it would be at CP895 compared to OP's CP784 one.

At max level 40, my Machop would reach CP1081, OP's Machop would be at CP946 and the worst possible Machop at 0% across the board would be CP854.

 

[JX23]

If IVs determine CP, wouldn't higher CP's upon catching a pokemon = better IVs? Also, if it's completely random, why does it use HP, CP, and stardust to figure out the IV?

 

[Phoenixstarz]

If you had 2 Pokemon with different amount of stardust needed to power it up you wouldn't be comparing like with like. They are powered to different levels, the IV rating is for if those 2 Pokemon were powered up to the same level then which one would be stronger.

 

[JX23]

So is there something I can specifically look for once I catch a pokemon that would give me a hint in terms of how good the IV is? High HP with low stardust? What is the right combination of factors that I need for a great IV and what are those factors?

 

[Phoenixstarz]

I'm on Valor and if appraisal says "it simply amazes me" then it's at least 82.2% IVs (other teams have different messages)

 

[VisualJae]

So is there something I can specifically look for once I catch a pokemon that would give me a hint in terms of how good the IV is? High HP with low stardust? What is the right combination of factors that I need for a great IV and what are those factors?

I specifically wrote this for people like you: https://www.pokecommunity.com/threads/377501

Scroll down to finding specific IV numbers if you don't care about all the background information.

 

[OTheGeneralO]

The appraisal feature does nothing for me. It's too vague.

It is vague but can give you a quick evaluation of a pokemon just caught.


For example for Mystic, If she says its a wonder then it is in the top tier, if she says its best attribute is HP, which is matched by attack, which is matched by Defense and these stats exceed her calculations, then I know that pokemon is 15/15/15

 

[tjumper78]

for team instinct, the pokemon's iv is 100% if the appraisal says all of the following.

overall, your xxx looks like it can really battle with the best of them!
its best quality is hp
its attack is great, too!
its defense is great, too!
its stats are the best i've ever seen! no doubt about it!

my raichu's appraisal shows all of the above. my gyarados' appraisal shows all except the last part showing the 2nd tier message "its really impressive", and its iv is 93%. another gyarados has all but two 2nd tier messages and its iv is around 80-85.

im finding out that the movesets are much more important than the iv numbers.

 

[Phoenixstarz]

im finding out that the movesets are much more important than the iv numbers.

If you get a high IV Pokemon with the wrong moveset then don't bin it, I know it's not been announced yet but surely at some point they will add in TMs since they were a big part of the game boy games.

 

[JX23]

TMs?