Individual Values of Each Pokemon & How Important They are in Pokemon Go

For  casual players, they just catch, hatch and fight other Pokemon in the game. But those who wants to be the very best, like being the top trainer on Pokemon Go, then catching and hatching are not enough. If you want to win it all, then you have to learn it all!

What I mean is, you must know everything there is to learn about every Pokemon and how to use them efficiently. You need to know there strengths and weaknesses and, you need to know their IV's or Individual Values so you know what Pokemon to keep and what Pokemon to discard. Haven't heard of IV yet? Then read on.

What does the term IV mean? 

Pokemon have 3 stats: Stamina, Attack, Defense. Each type of pokemon has different base values for these. You can look these up in charts because they never change. For example, all Vaporeons have base stats of: 260 STA, 186 ATK, 168 DEF. 

However, each Pokemon is also randomly assigned a 0-15 bonus to each of them. These bonuses are called IV's (i.e. Individual Values, because they are values specific to each individual). They represent genetic variance, in that some pokemon are just genetically superior to others. A pokemon with a +15 bonus to all 3 stats (15/15/15) is considered 100% perfect. Pokemon with higher stats will have higher CP (combat points, the number above their head in the game). 

What statistics are used to calculate IVs? 

Not all of the effects of IVs are things that can be measured, but there are three things you can measure to help calculate IVs. Those are CP, HP, and stardust cost to upgrade. Dust cost is only related to level, but since level is part of the formula for CP and HP, knowing the dust cost gives you a narrower range of values for the inputs of those numbers. 

The one other thing that goes into the calculation of IVs is whether or not you've ever powered up that Pokemon before. That's just because wild pokemons are always an odd level, so if you haven't powered them up before it can narrow down the possible sets of IVs significantly.

Why should I care about IV? What should I prioritze as an optimal order for a pokemon? 

People want to know what their pokemons' IVs are because they don't want to waste candy and stardust powering up pokemon with low IVs (and thus stats). They will wait until they find a really good one, and then spend resources powering it up. 

Optimal order is the Pokemon itself, then move-set, then IV, then CP. Move-set has the biggest impact upon DPS, and can't be changed; IV has a lesser impact on DPS/survivability, and can't be changed; CP can be leveled up.

Is there anyway to see IVs ingame? Is it related to pokemon weight or height? 

The game does not show you any of these numbers, so people use spreadsheets to estimate what their pokemons' IVs are using equations. More ambitious players will set up proxies to intercept server data in order to know exactly what their pokemons' IVs are. credits /u/Conan-The-Librarian No, weight & height in this game does not affect any statistics. It's purely just an extra feature added to the game.

Does IV change through evolutions? 

No. But, you do want to keep in mind about the movesets as they change randomly through evolution. DPS is an important factor in this game and you might want to check out our guide on how strong a Pokemon attack can be.

What are the formulas to calculate possible IVs? 

HP = (Base Stam + Stam IV) * Lvl(CPScalar)

CP = (Base Atk + Atk IV) * (Base Def + Def IV)0.5 * (Base Stam + Stam IV)0.5 * Lvl(CPScalar)2 / 10

Lvl(CPScalar)= TotalCpMultiplier (~0.095*Sqrt(PokemonLevel)

If two of the same pokemon matches IV percentages, will the CP cap stay the same?

No. For instance, a Charizard with 15/13/15 (atk, def, stm) will have a higher CP cap than a Charizard with 13/15/15 eventhough both have the same % perfect. This comes directly from how CP is calculated. If your goal is to maximize CP cap, then you need to maximize the Atk IV, since it scales linearly, while the other two stats have square rooted. 

This may mean you need to go with a pokemon with an even lower % perfect, in order to get a higher max CP. credits /u/iamjli

How does level, power up, and stardust cost work? 

A level is every boost. The dust cost remains the same for a range of levels. Once you notice that the dust cost changes, you know it is now the lowest level in the particular range of levels. Knowing the exact level makes it much easier to determine the IVs. (Check back later as we will be going to show you a chart that tabulates all the power up costs).

Is there any IV calculator for Pokemon Go that I can use now?

Yes there is!

The long but precise method:

Requirements

1. Charles Proxy https://www.charlesproxy.com/ It has a 30 day free trial with some annoying nagging, but it works just fine. I'm sure there are other things out there that do the same thing for free, but I know this works so I went with it.
2. Pokemon Go Parser. Grab a copy of it here.
3. A wifi network to which you can connect your device running Pokemon Go and the computer running Charles.

How-to:

1. Download and install Charles Proxy. Note the installation will probably change settings on your computer to run through the proxy since it assumes you want to look at your computer's traffic. You can turn that off if you want.
2. Make a copy of my spreadsheet in your own google drive.
3. Configure your wifi connection to access the proxy running on your computer. This will differ between devices. On Android 6.0.1, you go to your wifi settings, hold down on the wifi network you intend to access, select manage network settings, select show advanced options, input the proxy host name and port, then hit save. Whatever method you're using, the proxy host name will be your computer's IP address and your port will be whatever you set in Charles Proxy (default 8888).
4. Configure SSL for the proxy. In Charles, click Help, SSL Proxying, Install Root Certificate, Install Certificate. After it's installed and your proxy is set up on your mobile device, use the device's native browser (been seeing errors with third-party browsers such as Firefox) to go to http://charlesproxy.com/getssl and install the certificate. When prompted to install the certificate, name it whatever you want and ensure it's enabled for VPN and Apps. Then, in Charles, go to Proxy SSL Proxying Settings. Enable SSL Proxying then click Add at the bottom. For the host, use pgorelease.nianticlabs.com. For the port, use * to denote any port.
5. Open Pokemon Go. In Charles, make sure to click Allow when it prompts you. Wait for the app to load fully.
6. In Charles proxy, on the left side under the Structure tab (it should be the default tab), look for https://pgorelease.nianticlabs.com and click the +. Click the + for plfe then the + for the folder with some numbers. You'll then see several things named rpc. These are the actual network communications between the app and the Niantic servers and what you're looking for.
7. Find the right rpc entry. For me it's usually the first or second one. Select one of them and then look at the frame on the right side. Click the Response tab at the top then select the Hex tab at the bottom (don't select HTML - it crashes for me when I do that). Look for one that has your username near the top on the right side and is pretty long. If your Charles crashes, it's because it's defaulting to HTML. Just reload Charles, select a different entry on the left, go to response, and select Hex. Then you should be able to click pokemongo rfc without crashing.
8. View the response as a protocol buffer. In the left frame, right-click the rpc you found in step 6. Select View Response As then select Protocol Buffers. Click OK on the box that pops up.
9. On the frame on the right, there should now be two new tabs on the bottom. Select Protobuf Text.
10. Click anywhere inside the frame and press ctrl-A to select all of the text. Then right click and click Copy Selection.
11. Open your copy of my spreadsheet and go to the Input tab. Delete everything in column A. You have to do this every time before pasting your data in. The other columns are hidden; don't do anything to them. Select cell A1 and ctrl-v to paste all that stuff from Step 10 into the spreadsheet.
12. Wait for the spreadsheet to finish processing. There will be a bar in the upper right to show progress.
13. Go to the Output tab. You should see a list of all your pokemon (except fainted ones) with their stats. You can sort/filter the page if you like.

That's it. You will have to get a new response from Charles after every time you get new pokemon if you want them on the list. Make sure to delete everything in column A of the input tab before pasting the new response in - otherwise you may end up with stuff still in there from your last paste.

The one-click easy method:

You can check this website here. Currently it has an Easy Mode IV calculator which means that it will only rate how good the IV of your Pokemon. The advanced mode will be added soon and that is the detailed one where you see some numbers and reference.

In the IV calculator, what do the multiple lines and percentages mean exactly? 

Each line in the output is one possible IV set that would create the values you entered. The percentage after each line of output is what you get when you add all the IVs in that line and divide by 45 (15+15+15). It's a quick way of seeing how good the Pokemon is, because it's hard to tell at a glance if a 10/10/10 Pokemon is better than a 12/12/7 Pokemon unless you use percentages. 

Above the lines of output are the average percentage, and also the range of percentages from the minimum in that list to the maximum in that list, so you can compare that Pokemon quickly with others of the same type to see which one you are most likely to want to evolve without having to power up each one a couple times to narrow down their IVs to the exact values.

The IV calculator gives me a big range in percentage? How do I narrow it down? 

You can narrow it down by leveling up your pokemon once, then entering in the new values and hitting compare. There are a lot of combinations of IVs that can produce some sets of CP and HP at a given level, but the subset of these which also produce the new values for CP and HP at the next level is generally going to be much smaller. The only way to narrow down IVs without using dust and candy is to read data being sent between the client and the server. 

I hope you guys have learn something from this page! Good luck trainers!

Share this post