How to catch Pokemon with maximum IVs in Pokemon Go
Many Pokemon Go trainers are now looking for nothing but species with high individual values – better known as IVs. The chances of finding a 100% IV Pokemon are very slim but there are methods you can use to maximize your chances.
This isn’t just by catching as many Pokemon as possible either. Much like shiny Pokemon, finding the ultra rare perfect IVs has become a challenge in itself in the mobile game.
Different capture methods will provide higher minimum IVs, or an ‘IV floor’ which signifies a minimum IV a Pokemon can have. Naturally the chances of finding those coveted 100% IVs are drastically increased if the IV floor is increased.
What are IVs?
For context, and those who may not be fully familiar with how IVs work, Pokemon’s stats are based on three categories – attack, defense and stamina. Each of these are scored out of 15, meaning the IV range for any Pokemon is between 0 and 45 – or more commonly written as between 0/0/0 and 15/15/15.
- Read More: The differences explained between IVs and CP
Each of these numbers on any caught Pokemon is completely random, which means you have as much chance of getting an 11, for example, as you do a 15. When you work out the odds behind this, the complete randomness gives you a 1 in 4,096 chance of finding that perfect IV Pokemon. So, very unlikely.
However, that is where IV floors come into play. The above example would only apply to wild Pokemon as they don’t have an IV floor and can be 0/0/0.
IV floors based on capture method
As per philsmt on Reddit, other methods of capture have a minimum IV that each stat can be, which are as follows:
- Wild encounter: 0/0/0
- Weather boosted wild encounter: 4/4/4
- Egg, raid or quest reward: 10/10/10
- Lucky Pokemon trade: 12/12/12
There are also IV floors when it comes to trading too:
- No friendship level: 0/0/0
- Good friend: 1/1/1
- Great friend: 2/2/2
- Ultra friend: 3/3/3
- Best friend: 5/5/5
As we can see here there is a huge difference in likelihood of finding high IVs depending where you catch the Pokemon. While the IV floor changes are notable, the odds of actually getting a 100% IV Pokemon are exponentially better, as shown below:
- Wild encounter: 1 in 4,096
- Weather boosted wild encounter: 1 in 1,331
- Egg, raid or quest reward: 1 in 216
- Lucky Pokemon trade: 1 in 64
Purifying Shadow Pokemon also helps your chances. The purification process raises each IV by 2 which means if each value is 13 or more then you’ll get a maxed out IV species.
This means if we take any given Shadow Pokemon then there is a 1 in 125 chance that when purified it will have perfect IVs.
An example of this mammoth difference in odds is that you are nearly 33 times more likely to get perfect IVs in an egg, raid or quest than a non-weather boosted encounter in the wild. Take note, trainers!
You can’t guarantee yourself a perfect IV and we’re sure there are some of you who have yet to get one – all you can do is put the odds in your favor, so get hatching those eggs, winning those raid battles and completing those field research tasks.