Poke-Perfectionists

[ValentineRain]

First off, hi everybody! I've been using Bulbapedia for a while now, and find it to be an indispensable resource for one of my favorite game series.

So, anyone that has a passing interest in competitive battling has probably spent a little longer than they'd like trying to breed their favorite Pokemon 'just right'. It gets pretty crazy, depending on how far you're willing to go; EV's, IV's, Natures, and Abilities all make a major impact on the development of your Pokemon. Even Gender used to make a difference. It seems like only a masochist would keep trying to manipulate so many variables, but some people are just that crazy I guess.
What's the furthest you've gone to get just the right addition to your team? How far do you plan ahead when breeding? How many attempts have you had to make before? When do you draw the line?

I'm slaving over Absol at the moment. I wanted to try an unfairly high crit build with one: An Absol with Super Luck as it's ability (50/50 chance my butt), holding a Scope Lens and using crit-ratio moves like Night Slash. I'm also factoring in the nature (Adamant to raise ATK, all of the crit moves he can learn are Physical so Special ATK isn't really important) and gender, because I have too many female Pokemon by luck of the draw and wish to spice it up.
So...that's pretty specific. And isn't going well. It's now 5pm, and I've been working on it since that time this morning on and off. I now have an box full of Absol, and am starting on a second. The closest I got was an Adamant male with Pressure. I was really excited until I saw the ability. And since it's a male, I can't use the everstone trick to pass on it's nature. *sigh*
But it will be worth it, for the insane ATK rating after EV training, coupled with 3 crit ratio moves and Swords Dance!

How about you guys? How far are you willing to go for just the right combination? What's your record number of attempts?

And hi again!

 

[Orion-Sama]

Hi there! I think this is a nice topic to talk about. ^^

I like to consider myself as "semi-competitive" when it comes to Pokémon. I aim to make good Sets and spreads, but I don't follow any "Standard" rules outside of those said by the games themselves, and I don't go to ridiculous lengths getting a Pokémon I want to train.

Usually, I aim for a good Nature and a good Ability, depending on the Pokémon and how I want to use it. I breed my Pokémon with the best IVs and hope for the best. I rarely bother with IVs myself, by the way. Unless the vital ones outright suck, I'm not gonna dump a Pokémon for lacking perfect IVs. Usually, I'm fine with IVs of 15 and above in the Stats I'm going to train or that will benefit the Pokémon. The rest don't matter. Even when I get sub-par IVs, EVs and Nature can offset them.

There's some Pokémon whose genders also matter, because of my own perception, so to say. In such cases, I'll keep on breeding until I get also the gender I want for the Pokémon. That can be pretty insane, let me tell you. But well, that's how I like to play this game. XP

I think the most insane thing I ever did was when I wanted to rebreed and retrain my Emerald Team during the 3rd Gen-4th Gen transition. I transferred them, and thanks to that new bit of text (The one which says a small trait of the Pokémon, which indicates what's its highest IV), I went on with the plan, wanting to keep the same name, same Genders, same Natures, same Abilities, and even the same "Trait" as the Pokés I had transferred from Emerald. Moves are rarely a problem, but then came the most difficult part: the hatching. The Pokémon with 2 Abilities (Gardevoir, Pinsir and Tentacruel) were absolutely insane! I'm not sure how many Eggs I had to hatch, but I spent at least 3 months to finally get my entire Emerald Team up and running, updated with 4th Gen Moves, and pretty much the same as my old pals. The worst part were the "Traits". I was so set on getting them exactly as they were, that it was a huge pain whenever I hatched a Pokémon with the same Gender, Nature and Ability, but it lacked the same Trait of the original, so it was back to the drawing board again.

In the end, the effort paid off for the most part. My new Diamond Team ended up having much better IVs than my Emerald Pokés. My only shortcoming was that Bellossom didn't have Hidden Power Fire, but I decided to keep her anyway. I'm rather proud of them, since it was a big effort to get them exactly as they were, but the effort paid off, I'd say.

 

[ValentineRain]

Wow, I had never even considered that someone would want specific traits. By that, you mean like the little tidbit on it's profile that says "Likes to run", "Sturdy body", ect?
You must be very dedicated. Though sometimes those really are worth it just for the laughs.

An example of this? I was hatching Vulpix a while back, and got one that's profile said "Very finicky. Will happily eat anything." I was gonna GTS it but found it so amusing I named it Enigma and let it collect dust in my box.
And just now I hatched an Absol that was Calm natured but it says quite clearly "Likes to thrash about". Before that I thought that those little snippets had to do with Nature, but that makes no sense at all.

But really. Three months? Wicked. Most people would loose patience in three days.
Glad to hear it paid off, though! That's encouraging. ^.^

 

[Sleet]

I bred about 120 Riolu looking for a male, Steadfast and Naughty Riolu, bred with a Rattata so it learned Crunch. I even managed to hatch a shiny one who was male and Naughty, but he had Inner Focus and I accidentally allowed the Rattata to replace Crunch when it leveled up, so it didn't get the move. If it had Steadfast I would have hurt myself.

I don't pay much attention to IVs. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't have the time for it, nor the chance to fight people strong enough for it to matter. I always breed for the desired nature, egg moves and sometimes gender, EV train, and teach moves I had decided from the start.

I think those little traits refer to the Pokémon's IVs. They don't tell exactly what they are, but each one only allows for a few possible sets.

 

[Baashka]

i slave over breeding pokemon for hours a day just because i can. i'm not especially interested in competitive battle, and contests don't take nearly as much effort (even the weakest, most pathetic pokemon can be a contest star!), but i still think getting the pokemon with epic IVs, the right nature and eggmoves, and an awesome nickname is really satisfying.

fortunately for me, i managed to catch a magnificent ditto in my emerald version...31 SA IV, and very impressive IVs in all its other stats. i'm almost done with this playthrough of pearl, and i can't wait to use it again and get a bunch of super babies :D

 

[DerMißingno]

As far as competitive battling goes, I've been trying to build a team (in theory, not the actual pokemon yet) for a while now. So far I haven't even created one that I consider worthy of posting in the RMT subforum. I just can't stand the idea of someone sweeping through my entire team with one pokemon just because I overlooked some kind of obvious weakness.

As far as breeding goes, I've bred for moves and nature, but I haven't gone for IV's yet. If I can come up with a legit team, I'll probably try RNG abuse to get good IV's. From what I understand it's still pretty tedious, but at least I'll feel like I have some control over what's happening.

 

[Wigglytuff]

I really don't...I just don't find satisfaction in spending countless hours for perfect IVs. EV training isn't a huge deal with the power item so I usually do that. If I want to battle competitively I use ShoddyBattle or Netbattle. Otherwise the only possible use I get out of them would be battling random people on Pokemon Battle Revolution or at the most a wifi battle. And when it comes down to it...those few extra stat points usually don't matter.

 

[Plato]

I'm not exactly a perfectionist, but if I start to do something I have to finish it. It's like now, every team I raise has to be infected with the Pokerus, regardless of how long I have to spend to infect 6 individual pokemon. Despite the fact people go through dozens of plays without even encountering it I still insist on using it to help with my stats.

Aside from that, I'm not a battle nut in the slightest so I'm not too fussy with EVs and egg moves. I'm not exactly sure how EVs work to be honest so I don't dabble with them. I've just got enough patience to hunt for shinies!

 

[Phoenicks]

I only just got the Nat Dex in my Pearl (I lost my finished Diamond), and I've spent every in-game moment trying to find the perfect Shiny Abra. I've spent about 10 hours on it already in 3 days. I guess that kind of counts.

 

[Sleet]

Aside from that, I'm not a battle nut in the slightest so I'm not too fussy with EVs and egg moves. I'm not exactly sure how EVs work to be honest so I don't dabble with them. I've just got enough patience to hunt for shinies!

Hunting for shinies is more time consuming than EV training, if you have a few BP to spare from the Battle Tower/Frontier. If you've got enough patience for shinies, it's worth at least looking into EVs and see if you'd be up to it.

 

[TeraDyne]

Personally, I don't care about EVs and IVs. As far as I'm concerned, the devs didn't want us to find out about them, so I just ignore them. Then again, I don't care about the current competitive metagame either, since it feels more like "I have to be the best" instead of "Let's have some fun through battling".

Normally, I just use whatever I catch. I also tendo to breed for egg moves and abilities, but that's as far as I go. They work on Wi-Fi and Battle Rev, so I'm happy.

 

[ValentineRain]

As far as breeding goes, I've bred for moves and nature, but I haven't gone for IV's yet. If I can come up with a legit team, I'll probably try RNG abuse to get good IV's. From what I understand it's still pretty tedious, but at least I'll feel like I have some control over what's happening.

Can't say I'm familiar with the term 'RNG abuse'. Is it some way of determining and manipulating IV's?
And yeah, I know what you mean about the team rating thing. I tend to play with what I like myself, which inevitably leads to the difficult decision between leaving an unbalanced party or replacing a Pokemon I really like with something else for balance.

I really don't...I just don't find satisfaction in spending countless hours for perfect IVs. EV training isn't a huge deal with the power item so I usually do that. If I want to battle competitively I use ShoddyBattle or Netbattle. Otherwise the only possible use I get out of them would be battling random people on Pokemon Battle Revolution or at the most a wifi battle. And when it comes down to it...those few extra stat points usually don't matter.

I dunno, maybe you're right but from what I've noticed EV's can make a huge difference. The only Pokemon I've EV trained was an Espeon, and did so around 50... it gained about 40 points in Special Attack on the spot and has gotten about 3-7 per level since. It really adds up, it's only a few points off of my level 100 Rayquaza and it's only around 85 now. In my opinion EV's can make up for otherwise mediocre teammates, if they've got the right nature and movesets.

Aside from that, I'm not a battle nut in the slightest so I'm not too fussy with EVs and egg moves. I'm not exactly sure how EVs work to be honest so I don't dabble with them. I've just got enough patience to hunt for shinies!

The other poster here that quoted you has a good point. EV training is FAR easier than shiny hunting. The Poke'radar is evil, I always get to about 20 and then it breaks. I still have yet to ever see a wild shiny, Red Gyarados aside.
If you have the patience to shinyhunt, you could EV train pretty easily. Don't let people discourage you by saying it takes ages, if you know what you're doing you can pull in 12-16 EV's per battle and be done in 20 minutes. It really helps, too.
Oh, and yeah, I haven't naturally gotten the Pokerus either. Nurse Joy scared the hell out of me when she pointed it out, because I got it over the GTS and hadn't even noticed. I thought my game was broken. <.<;

I'm surprised I got so many replies, sorry I can't direct a response to each of you as I'm pressed for time. I'm pleased to see so many people with positive things to say, though!

 

[Nt '95 trainer]

i ev train and use natures, and competiv-ish moves, but screw ivs.
I have outrage and Iron tail on my Aggron, as well as arial ace and Aqua tail.

 

[Trainer'sInsomnia]

I spent hours on an attempt at perfection for each of my primary or potential team member's IVs (really just looking to settle on pretty good ones), and I fucking hate myself for it.

 

[Wiilio]

I am definitely a perfectionist. Not just with bred Pokemon either; I am very picky about what I soft-reset for as well. As far as breeding goes... I think my best breed to date is a 31/31/9/x/31/31 Adamant Dragonite (Defense... curse you!!!). As far as SRs go... well on Emerald it's easy because I can time when to get the IV spread I want (Try 30/27/27/x/31/31 Adamant Ho-oh), but on DPPt... I got a 31/22/26/23/30/22 Quiet Dialga on Diamond. Let's just say it wasn't my shortest project.

 

[Nt '95 trainer]

I am definitely a perfectionist. Not just with bred Pokemon either; I am very picky about what I soft-reset for as well. As far as breeding goes... I think my best breed to date is a 31/31/9/x/31/31 Adamant Dragonite (Defense... curse you!!!). As far as SRs go... well on Emerald it's easy because I can time when to get the IV spread I want (Try 30/27/27/x/31/31 Adamant Ho-oh), but on DPPt... I got a 31/22/26/23/30/22 Quiet Dialga on Diamond. Let's just say it wasn't my shortest project.

Ev<iv in frickin' hardness. I kiss your avatar.

 

[Falconwing]

normally, I only care about gender and the pokemon. But now... I think I could get into breeding and ev training, now that I understand it.

 

[chari930]

I play somewhat competitively... I breed for nature, moves, abilty and EV train my pokemon. The craziest thing I ever did with this was I spent a few days breding for a adamant Rhyhorn, with solid rock, and 26 IV in HP, 31 IV in ATT and 30 in DEF. All the moves it either through level up or TM so that wasn't a big deal. It was totally worth it, I now have a level 100 Rhyperior with 416 ATT, 375 Hp and 350 DEF

Actually, thats the second craziest thing I did, but the first thing was the luckiest. I used the Matsuda Method to get a shiny Feebas. I didn't know that the everstone didn't work when using the Matsuda method, but I got a shiny pretty early... with the nature I wanted! This should have taken forever instead it took less than 2 hours!

 

[Lazyboy0337]

my furthest was to get a male wish skitty (1/8 chance) and a female eevee (1/8) chance to get a wish eevee

 

[Pikachufanboy]

I could almost see myself trying to get the right ability and nature, maybe even an egg move. But there's no way I would ever worry with IVs. That's way too many variables, and I don't have an attention span that great.

In short, I'm a casual. I have great respect for those of you willing to go through all that.