ULTIMATE Breeding Guide: Perfect IVs, EVs, Natures, Hidden Abilities | Pokémon Sword & Shield

Obtaining competitively viable Pokémon, essentially Pokémon with perfect IVs, the correct Nature and the right ability, has been made so easy in Pokémon Sword and Shield, but despite the quality of life features included in these games - things like the introduction of the Nature Mints, ease of access to Bottle Caps returning from Generation 7, as well as the ability capsule being made cheaper - the easiest, most time effective, and cheapest way to go about obtaining competitive Pokémon is still to breed them.

This video showcases the two methods you can use to go about obtaining competitively viable Pokémon, the first, larger portion of the video, is going to explain in a simple to follow, step-by-step process, breeding in-depth, letting you know everything you need to know to get started and how to actively do it the most efficient way possible, and the second portion will explain how to make a currently imperfect Pokémon you have perfect, by taking advantage of the new features in game - perhaps you have a shiny Pokémon with the wrong nature or less than perfect IVs and you want to use it in competitive battles.

[PDWinnall]

I REALLY hope you find this video helpful, spent a long time on it!

[rmathewes]

By the way, rare candies can be used on unevolved pokemon at lv 100 to make them evolve. Just in case any of you forget to do so.

[charlieh]

If the video is a lot of information at once and sounds complicated, I put everything PDWinnall said into a list and broke some steps down into more steps:


1. Win 6 battles in the battle tower and beat Leon and unlock IV checker in PC

2. Purchase Destiny Knot for 10 BP from Hammerlocke Pokemon Center

3. Obtain Everstone in Turffield

4. (Optional) Breed Syncronize ability Ralts's to use to catch Pokemon of a nature you want, which you will use to breed for the same pokemon of the nature you want

5. Obtain 4+ perfect IV Ditto's that cover all 6 stats

6. Obtain the Pokemon you want to breed a competitive variant of

7. Encounter a wild Ditto with your Synchronizer in the front of party and catch

8. Give Everstone to that right nature wild Ditto

9. Breed that wild Ditto with the Pokemon you want, which holds nothing

10. Hatch a few eggs for different abilities

11. Take those two out and now use the Pokemon that you got and one of the perfect Ditto and breed those

12. Give the perfect Ditto the DESTINY KNOT and give the other Pokemon an Everstone

13. Breed 5 eggs

14. If some of the new Pokemon you get have 1, 2, or 3 perfect IVs, swap it out with the other Pokemon already in the daycare and give it the Everstone

15. Continue hatching until you get the same 4 perfect IVs the first Ditto has

16. Swap out the Ditto for the other Ditto that has the remaining stat you want to make perfect and give it the Destiny Knot

17. Hatch as many eggs until you get 5 perfect IVs across the stats you want

18. EV train by either doing long jobs or preferably buy 53 Vitamins from the Pokemon Center to fully train a Pokemon ($530, 000, or 2 BP per Vitamin) or use some you already have

19. Level up the Pokemon to level 50 or 100 with XP candy and have it learn the moves you want and evolve it too if needed

20. Use level 100 hyper training to increase IVs w/ bottle caps or use nature mints to perfect the Pokemon and finish it off

[zebdawson]

“I REALLY hope you find this video useful...” “I hope I’ve explained it well enough.”

Brother, I won’t speak for everyone else, but you explained things INCREDIBLY well for me. Thank you so much, as this cleared up a lot of confusion I had around breeding. The amount of time you took making this video was well spent, imo! Thanks again!

[Panda-xdey]

I've never actually got into breeding pokemon in past generations because the process looked intimidating, but this video just might convince me to get into it

[youtubergirl]

The audio: “Perfect IVs”
The closed captions: “Perfect eye bees”

[llgan]

I've not played since red, blue, and yellow. This has been the single most informative and straightforward guide I've found so far. Thank you

[ViableMeta]

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone tell the viewers to dislike a video, and I respect this man so much for it.

[TheBorgey]

This is probably the clearest i've heard these type of guides, thanks.

[herkamer]

This was a great refresher course haven’t done this in a while

[UgyDucking]

Out of all the breeding guides I've watched, this one has been the most helpful and accurate. Thank you!

[jasper_jon]

Wow. This was a fantastically comprehensive and well worded overview of breeding!! Incredible resource for anyone starting out in competitive. Great work!!!

[TheMadCroctor]

A little helpful thing: even if Darumaka wasn't a stone evolution, you could still evolve it at lv100, in Sw/Sh they changed rare candies so that when you use it on a level 100 Pokémon that evolves at levelup it will still evolve

[nickmarch]

This is honestly amazing, I knew nothing of breeding in Pokémon walking into this video and coming out really helped me understand breeding a lot better. Thank you so much for this vid man it helps a lot and now I can start in the comp scene. Much praise, mate.🙏🏽

[joshtylerwhittakerwilson]

Best explanation I've been able to find. Been playing Pokemon since Yellow on the game boy color but this is the first time I've bred for competitive play. Thanks for taking the time to make my life a lot easier!

[mukeshkaranth]

Such a well made video with clear cut steps and good explanations!
Most useful video for sword and shield so far !!!

[willy]

This explains it really really well, best I’ve seen yet. Thank you very much, well deserved like and sub

[maplejonh]

Honestly. This guide really helped me understand breeding much much more than previous videos I’ve seen. I’m actually going to be into this now. Thank you for the guide!

[killerdog]

By far the best guide on this topic I have seen on YouTube. Yes this is a lot of information but you clearly explain each point and dont blote it with extra rambling that a lot of other guides do. Well done! Thanks!

[Emmalops]

I’ve also managed to get Bottle Caps from the Left of Digging Duo.