This thread is here to help people learn more about the way the Pokemon games work and to help them train their Pokemon more efficiently and created a Goomy like team. To start off there are Natures. [quote]Natures (Japanese: せいかく Personality) are the Pokémon analogue of personalities. They were introduced in the Generation III games and remain a game mechanic in Generation IV and Generation V. Every Pokémon in these games has one of these 25 Natures, listed and described in the section below.[/quote] Pokemon natures affect the growth rate of two of a Pokemon's stats, increasing one of the stats by 10% and decreasing the other one by 10%. Nature also determines the Pokemon's favorite flavor and the one that it dislikes. Each stat is tagged to a flavor (e.g. Attack-Spicy), and if the Nature boosts the stat, the tagged flavor will be the Pokémon's favorite.(Only really relevant for the earlier games) Pokemon's natures are determined when it is generated by the game; when it is obtained as an Egg from the Pokémon Day Care, encountered in the wild, or given to the player by an NPC. From Emerald onwards, a Ditto or a female Pokémon that holds an Everstone has a 50% chance of passing its Nature to its offspring when at the Pokémon daycare. Since HeartGold and SoulSilver, male Pokémon can also pass on their Nature with an Everstone. In Generation IV, parents could only pass Natures to their offspring if both Pokémon and the Trainer all came from a game in the same language. Also from Emerald onwards, if a Pokémon with the Ability Synchronize is leading the party, there is a 50% chance of encountering a wild Pokémon with the same Nature. Synchronize affects any encounter, including stationary legends, but excluding Pokémon that are received from an NPC, such as the Eevee given out by Bill in HeartGold and SoulSilver, Pokémon received in a museum after being resurrected from Fossils, or catching Pokémon during a Stroll in the Pokéwalker bundled with HeartGold and SoulSilver. All the Natures and what stats are increased and decreased [quote]Nature---Increased Stat---Decreased Stat---Favorite Flavor---Least Favorite Flavor[/quote] Lonely: Attack---Defense Spicy Sour Brave: Attack---Speed---Spicy---Sweet Adamant: Attack---Special Attack---Spicy---Dry Naughty: Attack---Special Defense---Spicy---Bitter Bold: Defense---Attack---Sour---Spicy Docile: No Stat---No Stat---None---None Relaxed: Defense---Speed---Sour---Sweet Impish: Defense---Special Attack---Sour---Dry Lax: Defense---Special Defense---Sour---Bitter Timid: Speed---Attack---Sweet---Spicy Hasty: Speed---Defense---Sweet---Sour Serious: No Stat---No Stat---None---None Jolly: Speed---Special Attack---Sweet---Dry Naive: Speed---Special Defense---Sweet---Bitter Modest: Special Attack---Attack---Dry---Spicy Mild: Special Attack---Defense---Dry---Sour Quiet: Special Attack---Speed---Dry---Sweet Bashful: No Stat---No Stat---None---None Rash: Special Attack---Special Defense---Dry---Bitter Calm: Special Defense---Attack---Bitter---Spicy Gentle: Special Defense---Defense---Bitter---Sour Sassy: Special Defense---Speed---Bitter---Sweet Careful: Special Defense---Special Attack---Bitter---Dry Quirky: No Stat---No Stat---None---None This is pretty much all there is to nature besides a few unimportant details. Sources: [url]http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Nature[/url] Now time or some Individual Values! That are more commonly known as IV's Individual values, IVs for short, sometimes also known as determinant values, DVs for short, are instrumental in determining the stats of a Pokémon, being responsible for the large variation in stats among untrained Pokémon of the same species. Each of the six battle stats has an IV associated with it, with that IV coming into calculation alongside the Pokémon's base stats and EVs to determine the actual stat number. A Pokémon's IVs are determined when it is generated by the game; when it is obtained as an Egg from the Pokémon Day Care, encountered in the wild, or given to the player by an NPC. Watch out here comes a lot o knowledge about IV's and some math along with it, if you don't want to read all of this the first 2 paragraphs summarize it nicely, this is from Serebii.net [quote] Individual Values have the most influence on any stat of any pokemon. It's what makes every single pokemon unique and have different stats. Say we have the mega-defensive bug type, Shuckle, and it's EV trained in both defense and special defense and it's at level 100, and a neutral nature. If we look at the base stats for this pokemon's defense and special defense, they both say 230, so you'd figure there wouldn't be much of a difference, right? Well, in reality, there can be a pretty wide difference. At level 100, this Shuckle has a defense stat that is 466, and a Special Defense stat equaling 542. Quite a wide difference there, about 80 points separated. A person using this Shuckle had better watch out for attack based moves if they are relying on defense. As for technical information pertaining to Individual Values, the equation for it will –usually- give a number between 0 and 31. Keep in mind that the equation's we have to the IV's are not the same as in the game, but they are extremely close. With these equations, it's best to calculate it closest to level 50 as possible for accurate results. If you're looking to calculate a pokemon's IVs that you have trained, then hopefully you know the Effort Points it gained. If you don't then the math will be completely inaccurate if you just stick the stats in the equation. If you don't already know, Hidden Power is calculated completely on IV's. Now that I've showed how much they can affect stats, let's grab the equation for determining a pokemon's Individual Value. Keep in mind that this is NOT for Hit Points. That has its own equation. IV = ((Math.Ceiling(Stat / Stat) - 5) * 100 / Level Value ) - 2 * Base Stat – Effort Points / 4 …And you probably don't know what Math.Ceiling means either. It's basically a term used when you want something rounded up, like to the Ceiling. If it was rounding down, like to a floor, it would be Math.Floor. Simple right? There's also a flaw in this equation, as it counts all of the Effort points, not the ones that have been added to the stat which is what we want outta there, so this equation is a little more accurate. IV = ((Math.Ceiling(Stat / Stat) - 5) * 100 / Level Value) - 2 * Base Stat – Math.Floor(Effort Points / 4) As for the HP Individual Value equation, here it is without edit: Hit Point IV = (( Stat - Level - 10 ) * 100/Level ) - 2 * BaseStat - EV/4 Of course, we face the same problem as the other equation, so here's the edited version: Hit Point IV = ((Stat – Level Value - 10) * 100 / Level Value ) - 2 * BaseStat – Math.Floor(EV / 4) As you can see there's a lot of things you need in order to do these equations to get the Individual Value that this returns to you. The most important thing you need is the stat, apparently. The second thing you need is the Stat, which is basically what effect the personality has towards your stats. Now because we know that Natures can give a +10% increase towards a stat, or a -10% decrease towards a stat, we need to convert that to an actual number so that it can work in the equation. If the Nature gives a +10% increase to a stat, then the Stat = 1.1 If the Nature doesn't have an effect towards the stat, then the Stat = 1 If the Nature gives a -10% decrease to a stat, then the Stat = 0.9 The last thing you need are the Effort Points gained from battle, which are explained in another guide. Effort Points are equal to zero if you never battled with it yet, or used rare candies to level up, or even used the daycare to level up. Anyway, suppose I went through Colosseum twice and caught two Forretress. Let's find all we can about the information we need about them so we can determine the IVs. [/quote] There's not enough room for it all so it will be cont. in a reply.