Mastering Pokémon Breeding in HeartGold and SoulSilver: A Comprehensive Guide
Breeding is a core mechanic in the Pokémon world, allowing trainers to strategically create Pokémon with specific traits, moves, and abilities. This guide delves into the intricacies of breeding in HeartGold and SoulSilver, providing a comprehensive understanding of how to optimize this process.
The Basics of Pokémon Breeding
Breeding in HeartGold and SoulSilver takes place at the Pokémon Daycare. By leaving two compatible Pokémon with the Daycare Lady, trainers can obtain an Egg. Compatibility is determined by Egg Groups; Pokémon within the same Egg Group can breed, with a few exceptions. A Pokémon meeting the first criteria can also breed with Ditto.
After acquiring an Egg, trainers must walk around in the game to hatch it. The resulting Pokémon will be at Level 1 (or Level 5 in Generations 2-3) and will be the same species as the female parent, but at the base of its evolutionary line. For instance, breeding a female Blastoise will yield a Squirtle Egg.
Exceptions to the Rule
There are a couple of exceptions to the standard breeding rules:
- Nidoran♀/Nidoran♂ and Illumise/Volbeat: Breeding these pairs with a compatible Pokémon can result in either the male or female variant of the offspring.
- Incense Items: Certain Pokémon produce variable Eggs based on the Incense item held by the parent. For example, breeding a female Roserade while she holds a Rose Incense will produce a Budew Egg, whereas breeding her without the item will produce a Roselia Egg.
Special Cases: Manaphy and Phione
Manaphy and Phione, despite being listed in the Water 1 and Fairy Egg Groups, can only breed with Ditto. They cannot breed with other Pokémon within their designated Egg Groups.
Read also: Understanding PLCs
The Power of Move Inheritance
The primary reason trainers engage in breeding is to obtain Pokémon with specific movesets. Move inheritance is a key aspect of breeding, allowing offspring to learn moves they wouldn't normally have access to at Level 1.
Level-Up Moves
If both parents know a move that the child would learn by leveling up, the child will know it upon hatching. The baby will know any move that it learns at level 1.
TM/HM Moves
Charizard, like many other Pokémon, can learn the move Dig via TM28. Let's assume you taught TM28 to a male Aggron (who has also learnt Iron Tail by level up) and we also have a female Charmeleon. When we breed these two Pokémon, the resulting Charmander will know Dig and Iron Tail, since it can learn both those moves by TM (even though Iron Tail was not actually taught by TM).
Egg Moves: The Key to Unique Movesets
Some moves can only be learned through breeding; these are called Egg Moves. If the male Pokémon knows moves that the baby Pokémon is capable of learning, the baby will know them when it hatches from the egg. These moves are listed in the Pokédex alongside the other moves.
Smeargle's Unique Role
Smeargle is unique in that it only learns one move directly - Sketch - which permanently copies the previous move used in battle. You can copy any move from any Pokémon (e.g. wild Pokémon), but for more reliable results, you will want to enter a double battle with Smeargle and your own Pokémon with the move you want to copy. There are usually several double battle trainers in the games; Gen 5 also has wild double battles, while Gen 6 has double battle cafes. Note that the competitive areas like Battle Subway/Maison/Tree or wi-fi battles don't copy the move permanently. Once in a double battle, use Sketch on your companion and voila! Smeargle is in the Field egg group, so it can breed with a large number of Pokémon.
Read also: Learning Resources Near You
In example 3 we taught Dig to a male Aggron. If we had taught it to a female Aggron there would normally be no way to pass the move down through breeding.
Chain Breeding: Mastering Complex Move Combinations
Sometimes a Pokémon can learn an Egg Move, but there are no compatible Pokémon that get it easily. Umbreon is in the Field Egg Group, so we look there. The other Eevee-lutions can learn Wish via breeding (which doesn't help us much), but so too can the Pikachu/Raichu line. This means we can chain breed Wish from Togetic to Pikachu, then from Pikachu to Umbreon. We need a male Pichu to pass the move to Umbreon, so now we'd keep breeding until we have a male Pichu. Now we need to level up and evolve into Umbreon. Whew! We finally got there! This can be a long process but if you want the perfect moveset, sometimes it's the only way. Note: we did neglect Smeargle in this example.
This can get quite complex, but we'll provide a straightforward example.
Passing Down Abilities: Nature vs. Nurture
A female Pokémon (or male when bred with Ditto) has a 60% chance of passing down its ability to the offspring; otherwise, the offspring's ability is randomly chosen from its regular abilities. In practice, this means that if the parent has a regular ability, there is an 80% chance the child has the same ability slot (60 + 20) and 20% chance it has the other slot.
Note that the ability itself may be different if the Pokémon evolutions have different ability options. For example, Poochyena has the abilities Run Away or Quick Feet, while Mightyena has Intimidate or Quick Feet. A Poochyena bred from a Mightyena with Intimidate has an 80% chance of having Run Away and 20% chance of Quick Feet. Note that in Gen 3-4, the ability of the hatched egg is randomly chosen from the two possibilities (50% each) regardless of the parents' abilities.
Read also: Learning Civil Procedure
Influencing Nature and Individual Values (IVs)
Nature Inheritance
Pokémon can also inherit Natures while breeding. Normally, the Nature is chosen at random from 25 possibilities. However, Natures raise and lower certain stats, so often you will want a specific Nature. If a Pokémon holds the Everstone item, its child is guaranteed to have the same Nature. Note that prior to Pokémon Black 2/White 2, Natures only have a 50% chance of being passed down. In Emerald it only applies to the female parent or Ditto.
Individual Values (IVs)
From Generation 3 (Ruby/Sapphire) onward, Pokémon offspring will also inherit some of the Individual Values from the parents. The baby will inherit three stats from either parent. The IVs chosen are random and in the case of the same one being selected twice, the former would be overwritten with the latter.
From HeartGold/SoulSilver onward, a new mechanic was added to control this. If either parent is holding one of the EV-training Power items then the child will inherit the corresponding IV. Two different IVs are randomly inherited from the parents as normal, and the remaining three are completely random. If both parents hold a Power item then one of the two stats is chosen at random.
From X/Y onward, a parent holding the Destiny Knot item causes the baby to inherit five IVs from that parent. This allows you to send up to two Individual Values to your baby Pokémon, leaving the rest determined the same way as in the past with some random and some selected randomly from the parents.
Baby Pokémon
Some Pokémon may only be obtained by breeding - these are known as baby Pokémon. Many baby Pokémon can be obtained in the wild in later games.
If we have a female Raichu and we want to get a new one, we can breed it to get Pichu. First we need to find a compatible Pokémon. Raichu is in Fairy and Field egg groups, so we have plenty of Pokémon to choose from!
Egg Groups: The Key to Compatibility
Two Pokémon are only able to breed if they are a part of the same Egg Group (with the exception of Ditto, who can breed with any Pokémon that isn't in the Undiscovered Egg Group).
The table below shows how each of the egg groups are interconnected. It gives an idea of how easy it is for a Pokémon to learn a move from another Pokémon. Example: Let's say you have a Pokémon in the Fairy egg group with a move you want to breed onto a Pokémon from the Dragon egg group. There are no Pokémon in both groups so you'd need to find an intermediate group. Looking at the rows for both Fairy and Dragon below you'll see that the groups Field, Flying and Water 1 connect to both.
Example Breeding Scenarios
- We can breed a male Primeape with Ditto. The baby will be a Mankey.
- Drapion has a cool ability, Sniper, which does 3x damage under critical hits instead of the usual 2x. Skorupi/Drapion learn Night Slash through breeding. There is no TM for it, so we will need to breed with a compatible Pokémon that knows the move. It turns out that Scyther among others learns it at level 45.
Shiny Pokémon and the Masuda Method
Normally Shiny Pokémon have a rarity of 1 in 4096. However, with breeding, that can be reduced to 1 in 682.7 with the use of the Masuda Method (named after Junichi Masuda, the person that revealed it). It involves breeding two Pokémon from different language games (such as an English Pikachu with a Japanese Marill, for example).
HeartGold and SoulSilver Innovations
In addition to the above changes, HeartGold & SoulSilver is the first Pokémon game to add new Egg Moves within a generation. Many of the evolutionary lines have been given one or more new egg moves, further adding to their entire movepool.
Advanced Concepts and Strategies
Analyzing Move Availability
To solve the problem of finding the shortest path for a Pokémon to gain a move, we developed a multi-graph consisting of 917 nodes and 46,145 edges.
For example, to move Sludge onto a specific Pokemon, we begin by looking at every possible Pokemon that can learn Sludge by leveling or via TM, and many others.
Additional Egg Moves
Sludge651002030DetailsSludge is hurled to inflict damage. Egg Moves (Details)Attack NameTypeCat.Att.Acc.PPEffect % Morning Sun----5--DetailsRestores HP. Egg Moves (Details)Attack NameTypeCat.Att.Acc.PPEffect % Muddy Water95851030DetailsAttacks with muddy water. Egg Moves (Details)Attack NameTypeCat.Att.Acc.PPEffect % Morning Sun----5--DetailsRestores HP. Egg Moves (Details)Attack NameTypeCat.Att.Acc.PPEffect % Leaf Blade9010015--DetailsSlashes with a sharp leaf. Egg Moves (Details)Attack NameTypeCat.Att.Acc.PPEffect % Muddy Water95851030DetailsAttacks with muddy water. Muddy Water95851030DetailsAttacks with muddy water. Egg Moves (Details)Attack NameTypeCat.Att.Acc.PPEffect % Muddy Water95851030DetailsAttacks with muddy water. Egg Moves (Details)Attack NameTypeCat.Att.Acc.PPEffect % Extrasensory801003010DetailsAttacks with a peculiar power. Egg Moves (Details)Attack NameTypeCat.Att.Acc.PPEffect % Extrasensory801003010DetailsAttacks with a peculiar power. Sludge651002030DetailsSludge is hurled to inflict damage. Egg Moves (Details)Attack NameTypeCat.Att.Acc.PPEffect % Muddy Water95851030DetailsAttacks with muddy water. Egg Moves (Details)Attack NameTypeCat.Att.Acc.PPEffect % Muddy Water95851030DetailsAttacks with muddy water. Sludge651002030DetailsSludge is hurled to inflict damage.
tags: #heartgold #breeding #moves #guide
