Here's my two cents on IVs, I like having 4* IVS because I know I'm not gonna find anything better and feel comfortable powering it up. If it's less than a 4* I always think "what if I get a better one?" So that's why I like 4* IVs.

It’s all a trick to stop us from hunting shundos, don’t fall for it trainers!

Imagine if purifying gave a 20% boost to defense and nerf to attack(opposite of shadow)So purifying made your tanky tanks even tankier

Cool but trust me if you doing solo/Duo raids like me, that 4% attack DMG is huge different.

Bro!!! I'm a newer player for a little over a year now and this is one of the most educational tips I have seen!! Thank you for taking the time to explain this. Keep up the great work!

Thank you, Nick. I can now be at peace with all my zero star shiny Pokémon that I felt pressured to lucky trade. I have always wanted a shiny Politoed, and have been holding onto a shiny Poliwag in hopes that one day I could lucky mirror trade it for better IVs and finally evolve it. But, screw it, I'm gonna evolve it today and start enjoying it now. I feel like you're leading a liberation of expectations from this game so we can get back to loving Pokémon GO again.

I've been playing Pokemon Go since 2016 and I just learned more about the game then in the last 6 years combined. Thank you!!!

I knew most of this stuff but honestly the vibe was great so i stayed tuned in. One of the best GO youtubers, totally chill. No over the top. I respect it homie

Excellent video! Only thing I would add is the IVs of pokemon used for maximum DPS in raids. Since one of the ways you gain energy for charged moves is based on how much damage the raid boss does to you, having 15 Atk/0 Def/15 HP allows you to gain energy faster (with the disadvantage of not lasting as long in battle). Essentially makes it more of a glass cannon, but can be really useful in doing solo/duo/trio raids on powerful raid bosses.

Nick these video concepts are a total reboot for the channel and back to trainer tips roots. Keep it up!! 👍

This feels like a blast from the past, in a good way - I found your channel all those years ago looking for fundamental information about the game, just this sort of thing. Good to see you doing this sort of content again, and I hope you're finding it rewarding, too :)

I'm so happy for content like this. It's information we all need. Plus I feel like a better player knowing it. Thank you so much, Nick!

Once again, I watched the whole video Nick. Not a bad reminder on IV stats. It is nice to be updated on this information. Also, I like how you speak and walk-the-walk by sharing your Pokémon that are not 100% IVs, but you still power them up.

This just broke my heart because I have transferred so many 13/13/13 and up Pokémon just cuz I thought 4* Pokémon were better.

I love how you explained this so clearly. I have been playing for a couple of months and have been watching different KZfaq videos regarding IVs. I have not clearly understood it until I watched this particular video!! Thank you so much!! This information helps me make better decisions to meet my goals in Pokémon Go.

Ty Nick for explaining this so clearly & concisely! Now when my friends & I are trying to clear out our pokemon storage, we'll have a better idea as to which to keep & which ones to transfer. I've noticed through the years that sometimes my 3* & certain 2* mons are Better in Battle League , etc than my 4* mons are & often wondered why.

Worth mentioning, the shadow legendries from Giovani have a minimum IV floor of 6 if I remember correctly. Having them weather boosted just changes the shadows catch level from 8 to 12.

I loved this video. Finally made it a bit easier to understand the difference in Pokémon Go. I was always curious how IVs worked in Go versus the casual game and how CP goes into play. Thanks for that! Even for the shadow Pokémon being stronger, I just knew it was a thing but didn’t know why. Everyone around just knew but didn’t have an answer lol

Having a pokemon with 0 ATK for PVP is so counter-intuitive.... But glad I know and could make a difference when fighting trainer with the same pokemon

This was a great video. Thank you for breaking down every little thing you can possibly explain. It was very easy to understand and my perspective has changed when looking at IVs

This video is very good Nick. Glad you're happy doing this kind of content again.

4* is absolutely essential for master league. In mirror matches, you need that attack advantage to win cmp ties, which is when they fire off a charge move at the same time and the higher attack goes first. If you lose that, you basically lose the matchup unless you sneak in an extra attack which happens randomly. There are specific matchups that require at least certain amount of defense and hp to be viable, but 15 attack is a must.

You had a really old video explaining this that I watched as a beginner and it helped my game play! I looooveee these types of videos!

Great video 👍🏻 easily the best presented and to the point video I've seen on IV'S, great knowledge for new players

This was very educational! Thanks! At level 50, though, we have to have things to motivate us to “catch them all,” so I do enjoy hundo hunting. (And shiny hunting, of course. Lol)

Great tip for any trainers. One thing I would add that pairs with this is once your pokemon reaches lvl 30 then the increase in cp significantly drops while the amount of stardust becomes much more expensive. So if you're a casual player and don't play PVP then having more pokemon at lvl 30 is more useful and less costly than having a few pokemon at lvl 40. One other thing is the reduced stardust from lucky pokemon makes a HUGE difference. It would cost 1600 LESS stardust to lvl up a lucky pokemon from lvl 3.5 to 30 than it would cost to lvl up a regular pokemon from 23.5 to 30.

I've noticed my 2 star Vaporeon has the best W/L ratio of any of mine, including two hundos who have negative records. Thanks for the confirmation!

Very informational video. Was nice to finally have a visual to the PVP IV correlation. Also most Math was correct ;P Overall I think a lot of people prefer powering up 100% IVs because stardust is such a limited resource and when powering up a Hundo it is very unlikely that you ever get a Pokemon of the same species where you feel like 'oh, this one is better, I wish I did not blow my dust (and candy) on that other one the other day'

Love this! Can you break down what stats and effectiveness look like against a raid boss or something like that? (I.e. lvl 30/40/50 Mewtwo, 0* vs 4* against a boss). Would love to see what it really means for damage output and time to take down.

Wow! Been playing for 5 years and never realized the the difference was only 4.8%. Thank you for this information and your amazing content. More camper/road trip vids please!!!!

So I haven’t been serious with PG since 2016…spent a months worth of take out budget to catch up from level 20 to 33. This is so helpful thank you!

Man, you explained it soo good, I understood your explanation more easily than other content creators in my native language. Really thanks, +1 suscriber.

This is one of those things that makes sense when you think about it, but I really use it as a tie-breaker. I play pretty casually, so I don’t have enough resources to pump whatever into whatever. So if I’m going to spend them, I want them to go into the best possible specimen (within reason).

For a while I was totally stressed out about not having great IV. Then I started to feel better when I started to consider what I'll be using them for. The most important thing for me is raids. So the attack stat is the thing that matters the most for me. Bottom line is I have a strong counter pokemon that hits hard. I find my strongest pokemon then use the rest for accumulating candy to power it up. I'm starting to like having a diverse team for a raid.

This was just perfect. What a nice video! (I already knew most of it, but it was still great to watch it!) Keep them coming, these videos are the best!

Very nicely summed up. The only small thing I can pick at is the shadow pokémon defense debuff, which is not exactly 20% but around 17% (16.7% exactly if I remember correctly). Obviously it won't make too much of a difference so I'm not surprised most people doesn't really care.

Its a shame because it makes no sense, I known this to be true for a while, but still doesnt feel right when you get a hundo or shundo, doesnt feel as rewarding. You get excited for a bit, then your like, well its not even as good as a 2 or a 1 star.

Great introductory explanation of stats and levels. I'll try to explain the complicated version for those who are interested. Be warned this is going to get real nerdy. I will be approaching this in a way that you only need to know two things about a particular species, it's base stats which are easily available online at places like SilphRoad, and the Combat Power Multiplier (CPM) that corresponds to that pokemon's level, a chart of which can also be found easily online. Firstly, HP isn't a stat, Stamina is the stat and the HP is a function of your Stamina and a thing called CPM or CP Modifier. The CP Modifier is a value ranging from 0.094 (level 1) to 0.84529999 (level 51). It should be noted, that there isn't a formula that can be used to determine this, it's a unique value for each level. Again, the chart is published many places online. CPM is extremely important for a few reasons, it determines your HP with this formula: HP = (Base Stamina + Stamina IV) * CPM. It's also used in the games damage calculation but that's a bit more complicated and involves a lot of different interactions between the two pokemon. Here it is: (note: this formula is the PVP formula, however the PVE formula is slightly different where you just change (16/25) to 0.5) Damage = Floor[(16/25)*MovePower*((Base Attack + Attack IV)/(Base Defense + Defense IV))*(Attacking CPM / Defending CPM) * STAB * EffectModifier] + 1 I'll explain each part. Floor is a simple function that just removes any decimal place off the end of a floating point number and transforms it into an integer value. So 4.1 becomes 4. 4.9 becomes 4. You get the idea. Base Attack and Attack IV are of the Attacking Pokemon while Base Defense and Defense IV are of the the defending pokemon. Same with the CPM values for each. STAB just adds a x1.2 modifier if the move type = the attacking mon type, so it can either equal 1 or 1.2. EffectModifier is a value of either: 1 (neutral), 1.6 (super effective), 0.625 (not very effective), 0.390625 (immune). Since many mons are double typed, you just take both values and multiply them. For example, lets say Talonflame gets hit by a rock move. Rock is super effective against fire and flying, so you do 1.6 x 1.6 = 2.56. So the EffectModifier value in this interaction would be 2.56. Then at the end of the formula, you add 1 which ensures that every move will always inflict a minimum of 1 damage no matter what. Okay that covers CPM and damage. Now lets look at how CP is calculated. Note that I'm using Sqr() to mean square root of. Here's the formula: CP = ((Base Attack + Attack IV) * Sqr(Base Defense + Defense IV) * Sqr(Base Stamina + Stamina IV) * (CPM ^ 2))/10 As you are probably starting to see this hidden CPM value that Niantic has attributed to each 'level' is really important throughout pretty much every aspect of the game. I've been working on coding a clone of GBL recently so yeah... It has been very eye opening lol.

Great video and I love that you put your sources in the description. thanks!

Bro top tier video! Easy to follow on such a complex mechanic, i knew everything but still watched the whole video cause it is that good 👍🏼

Would love it if you did more of these, I've been getting back into POGO this year and have been very confused about the new systems and everything

Yes it is better to focus on hitting and charge hitting at the right times, as quickly as possible although having a pokemon with full stats & even a 4% stronger than the weakest ones well that is still useful. In fact it will be even more useful with that few % more in stats.

Returning player from 2016 (July), I must say, you have helped me enjoy POGO a but more by helping me remove the stress about waiting for perfect IV pokemon to show up. THANKYOU!

Nice, Nick is back to the old TT that we all know and love. I've missed the tips and tricks you used to do. Thanks for doing this, makes me feel better only having one hundo.

Thanks for the video! It's always nice to hear how you are open to so many points of view. Like, anyone can judge for themselves how their Pokémon might be good to them. You just give us the statistic information with the disclaimer that it shouldn't necessarily mean that much. I'm a collector at heart, and my hundo's are just precious pieces of a beautiful collection to me, no matter their relevance in terms of battle. The 0%'s are really cool to collect as well😁🤙

IV can sometimes be important. Let’s say you are using a chansey for example as a gym defender. Its base attack stat is only 60, but with a 15 attack IV one, it jumps to 75, which is actually 25% more damage, so quite important

Wow this is some crazy good information. Thanks for taking the time to provide all those information !! Really Apreaciated.

This video is amazing, i've been playing since the start but took a break from the game because of the pandemic, and now i'm back, you have helped me with fomo so much, its a very simple and fantastic way of hearing "don't worry", "have fun", "come back and play" thank you!! you are the best.!! thank you!!

I love watching you for your super personality and the fact that you speak very clearly. Keep it up! :)

I appreciate you putting this video together. My eyes crossed when you were explaining the formula 😂 so I had to watch it again.

Thank you! :) Ive been trying to understand this concept for years and you made it perfect! Thank u!

Much needed video! Such a solid breakdown. When it comes to PVP IVs dont matter until they SUPER matter so yeah idk who decided it at Niantic all those years ago but the hunt is always on for us PVPers trying to get the most optimal IVS. Take notes on those trade floor level IVs yall! thanks for this to reference to other community members as well

Takes me back to those early day Trainer Tips videos when PoGo first came out. Watched just for the nostalgia :)

I had a 13 13 13 larvitar i decided to purify it, it has really annoyed me

I need to watch this video a couple times, there’s so much good info that I didn’t learn from the beginning of playing, thank you so much!

The fast catch thingy you taught us a few videos ago - game changer!! Your videos are great!!

I am a little sad break points never came up in this video and the damage was just stated as those increases because it has a lot more nuisance than that. Sometimes you might be using a 14 attack Pokémon vs a 15 attack both maxed out and that would show mathematically to be less than 1% difference but in practice that can be more than a 5% damage loss. Granted i agree that isn't a big diffreance but i think breakpoints should've been mentioned because Pokémon damage is rounded and only when you hit certain values does your damage increase

Nobody ever explained better! THX a lot!

This was so helpful. I’m a newer player, though I’ve played other Pokémon games, and after several videos and articles I still didn’t get it. I feel so much better equipped to make choices and to also not stress so much.

That video brings me the nostalgia of the Parasect melting gyms back in 2016, with Kubbi's Firelight playing on the background. Heck of a ride watching you all of those years. Good to see you, Nick. Take care and greets from Brazil!

Since it takes so long to get enough XL candy to Max out a pokemon I feel like you might as well wait for a 100%

I would say that if you find a Pokemon with perfect IVs then cool power that one up amongst all the other Pokemon that are of the same name. However I do agree that as long as it's got three stars and none of the individual stats are extremely low then go ahead and power that one up too especially while you're still working your way up to level 50. This way you still have something that is stronger than most other Pokemon of the same name however you're not powering up the weakest one to where you have to be a much higher level in order to even think about standing a chance of winning.

I miss having these info videos. Thanks for the great info my dood!

Purify Shadow Pokemon that you don't plan on actually using, when you have a research mission to do so. You could also purify them and check them if you're near the cap of how many Pokemon you can have. This way you can purify them and Chuck them and the next time that you encounter A team rocket you can have hopefully more pokeballs depending on how many Pokemon you have purified. I know it at least give you one more for having purified a few however I don't know how much that can go up and I don't understand what the hero thing is. Obviously I played whenever Pokemon go what's new and I'm literally just getting back into it like this week..

Great job, Nick. Remember this topic from your video back in 2016. One thing to add though, IVs only really matter in PVP. For raids, Team Rocket or anything else that's PVE related you don't need to worry about IVs. You can go in with the worst possible IVs if you want as long as your Pokemon has the right moves for whatever it's attacking. In PVP IVs matters in terms of survivability and when your paired up in the mirror (Azumarill vs Azumarill, Dialga vs Dialga, etc).

This type of video is way I started following you to begin with. Glad youre bringing them back.

I cannot thank you enough for explaining this! It was thoroughly and clearly explained. I have been curious how all the IV stuff works, but I hadn’t found a good explanation that was easy to understand.

we all know at the end of the day that it's just about rarity and it being special or perfect

Thank you Trainer Tips Nick for excellent content. I don't regret powering up my 91% IV Shiny Rayquaza to the max because it's my favorite Pokémon.

Always love your videos brother. I was an old subscriber a few years back and just found ya again. Thanks for continuing your content. Much love ❤️

I knew that difference between, a Hondo and a random good trade( or wild) was small but I imagined like 3 - 4 percent, but with you calculations I realize it is actually even smaller than 1% SO I AM REALLY HAPPY THAT I POWERED WHAT POKEMON I HAD INSTEAD OF WAITING FOR A PERFECT ONE OR A HONDO !

Having good stats for me simply justifies spending a significant amount of stardust and candies when powering one or multiple up to level 50.

The most important part of attack IVs is fast move damage breakpoints for both raids and pvp. Since damage is calculated with decimals but HP uses integers. For example, with a fast move like dragon breath which does a little damage and hits quickly, sometimes having 1 extra point in your attack IV is just enough to get the damage to round up to do 1 extra point of damage which is huge for a move that attacks so quickly. This affects raids only sometimes and is more important with moves that hit quickly like dragon breath In pvp a huge example of this is the dialga mirror matchup, where a dialga having a high enough attack IV or the opposing dialga having a low enough defense IV makes it so one dialgas dragon breath does 4 damage while the other does 5. This results in one dialga being left with around 1/3 of its HP left outside of these cases the attack IV does not matter very much Edit: Forgot to say this was a great video!

Thanks so much for this. I learned an awful lot that I had no idea about, although I pretty much always learn something new from your videos. I'm not a Gamer, outside of playing Pokemon Go, ever since it launched, so I have no knowledge from playing Pokemon games on other platforms, and I find your explanations really helpful and straightforward. Keep up the excellent work! 😊

THANK YOU Nick for these Breakdowns. Very informative and great to know!

I've seen a lot of IV explainer vidoes, but this is the best one by far. I actually feel a lot better now. I have a bunch of pokemon that are far from perfect, but I really enjoy playing with them, even in the ML and they put in a ton of work and get me some clutch wins. Now I understand why a lot better. One thing that really annoys me that I haven't heard anyone touch on is the way a 100% IV pokemon will often fall outside of being useful. For example... I managed to get a 100% IV Registeel. If I power it up to level 50 it will max out at 2766 CP... too low to be useful in ML, but if I power it to 2500 for UL, it only gets as high as 48%. So why would I bother to grind out more candy to power it up. There is sits... just a useless lump of perfect steel. I have a bunch of hundos that fall into the same mess.

Great information! Personally I already knew it's not that much of a difference. I use the IV stats to decide what Pokémon to keep and toss. Even though it doesn't matter too much, I'd rather keep a 98 Zubat than the... 62 Zubat 😅

This is the best video I’ve seen from your channel. I love how break down the sophistication of something people see as simple. Hope you do more video like this, even if they are just updated ones of videos you’ve already done.

This was so helpful, thank you for this. I have really struggled to understand all this. I picked the game back up recently- the year or so I initially played I didn't pay any attention to IVs and I feel like they were more confusing then. They didn't even have the appraisal graph iirc. When I picked it back up i was so bummed thinking about all the potential hundos I unknowingly transferred. This helped! I'm a pretty casual play and I don't really grind for shinies or hundos. It's fun when they happen though.

This is perfect I was on edge about my 14A zarude but now I’m definitely going to power it up great content love from 🇮🇪

More meta, but I remember seeing ya when pokemon go first came out in 2016 on youtube, and remembered not being super interested. I really enjoyed this video though, and it seems (like all of us), you have really changed since then, and I really feel weird for never clicking on any of your videos until now.

I love that were back to "trainer tips" u taught me how ro play pogo years ago and ive been here ever since!

Simply put, this is the best video I've seen explaining IV's and the like.

Useful!

Good to know that 4* aren't just the best to get. If you want to battle and raid etc it doesn't make much difference. Still 4* pokemon seems to be less common, so it is quite nice to have them anyway. As a collector it is.

Thanks for this video. This makes all of the numbers easier to understand. Appreciate it.

A lot of much needed information. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you for your recent episodes. I am not a gamer or PVP player but I absolutely adore Pokémon go. Watching your videos help me better understand the game in general. Likely will continue to be a general player but enjoy hearing knowing some of the other information. Appreciate your positivity toward the game. Nothing is perfect but I appreciate your attempt to focus on the good points.

i think you discounted the -20% defense too much that seemed to balance things especially since you can get more Hits per match if you have more HP. Most recommendations should include time to strike. So this should be refined to consider time of life in a battle -20% means i'm not out on the field longer so i'm missing on 2 or 3 hits that would equal more dmg over the 20% boost plausibly.

Very well explained! I’m new and this video finally helped me wrap my head around the pvp iv‘s

Thank Nick. I finally understand the stats and I’ll be looking for different I’ve for PVP battles now. You’re a legend

Not to take anything away from other content creators, you have to be my favourite. I started watching your videos when I started playing and I feel like your content has been a great trainer for me. Thanks man from 🇨🇦

I'm pretty sure that at Niantic, when it came to attack mattering more is because the speed stat is calculated into the attack. In the main series games, we have 6 stats: attack, special attack, defense, special defense, stamina, and speed. They lumped the speed into the attack stat when they made it only 3 IVs: attack, defense, health. Personally, I don't see an issue with purifying pokemon if they feel like it. Some people don't like the idea of pokemon being in pain, my little brother and wife as an example. They purify when possible. I've also purified pokemon just because, like the Apex Lugia. I was NEVER planning to use it in raids and personally would rather use a purified one in PvP. Also, the base IVs are used in Charge Move Priority, not the overall damage. So a shadow pokemon with 0 in attack would lose CMP to a normal mirror of the same pokemon with 1 in attack. One more thing, at level 31, you can go past 40 on a pokemon with XLs if you have them now. My wife's account shows the ability to do so, she's 38. She just can't go to full level 50 yet.

Super useful! I’ve never heard it explained this way.

I have always wondered this! I wonder why players in my community tell me that when they get a 96% they don’t power it up. I wonder why cause I would love a 96

This is so interesting! Taking your Azumarill example... if those two fought each other and both used the same move that did 40 damage, the Azumarill with the higher attack stat would need to land 40 hits in order to knock out the other Azu, whereas the Azumarill with the lower attack only needs to attack 18 times. This was eye-opening, thank you!

Man I'm back to your channel after being here in your EARLY days. I actually saw one of your first Pogo video when you were walking in your neighborhood

This video answers so many of my questions. Thank you!

I just love them for the collection aspect of the game. The lack of solution, or even effort, by Niantic for that dex is disappointing. I made myself a whole graph of functional hundos as well.

4:06 it might actually be a bit higher than this. Because if a pokémon has 15 atk and 0 def IVs, it will actually charge energy faster than a 100% IV pokémon, because it's taking more damage in battle, thus, charging energy faster