[GUIDE] [WIP] Breeding in Sword and Shield and Is it worth it?

[Tenebris_Kane]

Many sources on various websites explain the basics on breeding Pokémon in the sword and shield games, however very few have all the various specifics people will aim for when breeding competitively. This guide aims to cover EVERYTHING, from why you should start breeding all the way to how maximising a Pokémons IV's/EV's in order to make your Pokémon as strong as possible.

 

Before I go into the Process of breeding first it would help if everybody was on the same page and understands the key terms any breeder should know, along with the effect these have on individual Pokémon.

IV's

IV's stand for Individual values and each pokemon will hatch, or be caught with. These values range between 0 and 31 and there is a value for each of the 6 main stats, the higher the value the better the Pokémon is in regards to that stat. These values cannot be changed easily as will be explained later.

EV's

EV's stand for Effort Values. EV's are seperate from IV's and add an additional bonus on top of IV's a Pokémon starts with, they are also not linked directly to breeding as when a Pokémon hatches it will have 0 EV's. EV's range from 0 to 252 in each stat, however a Pokémon can never have a total number of EV's higher than 510 meaning it is impossible to maximise each stat's EV's. EV training is covered in the after breeding section later on.

Egg Moves

Egg moves are what we call moves which cannot normally be obtained on one species of Pokémon but can be passed down from a male parent of another species. There are exceptions in certain generations such as the Pokémon in the wild with an orange aura in sword and shield that can be caught with egg moves already but in general these moves will not be found on wild Pokémon and cannot be taught by TM's.

Egg Group

Nearly every species of Pokémon is assigned one or more Egg Groups, Legendaries and a select few others have an egg group simply called undiscovered which prevents them from breeding under normal circumstances. Egg groups are used to determine what Pokémon can breed together, if two Pokémon share at least one egg group an egg can be produced which contains a baby Pokémon of the same species as the mother. (To find a Pokémons egg groups I recommend looking them up on Serebii or Bulbapedia)

There exists one very common exception to this rule when it comes to breeding, and that exception is ... DITTO! Sitto can breed with a Pokéon of any egg group so long as it is not a Pokémon such as a Legendary that cannot breed at all. This makes ditto very valuable to breeders! An egg produced with a ditto and another species will always contain the other Pokémon species. It is impossible to produce an egg containing a ditto. 

All egg group names:

• Monster
  
• Water 1
  
• Water 2
  
• Water 3
  
• Bug
  
• Flying
  
• Fairy
  
• Grass
  
• Human-Like
  
• Mineral
  
• Amorphous
  
• Ditto
  
• Dragon
  
• Undiscovered
  

Hidden Ability

Hidden abilities are special abilities Pokémon can have instead of their regular abilities, these abilities wont be found simply by catching or breeding regular Pokémon and the main way to get Pokémon with Hidden Abilities in Sword and Shield is through beating and catching Pokémon in Max Raid Battles. However be warned that the Pokémon will not always have the hidden ability even if you do catch it in this way.

Hidden Power

I won't go into much detail on this one but hidden power is a move which was removed for sword and shield which changed type and power based on a Pokémon's IV's
 

Now that's out of the way, let's cover the basics, why should you start breeding Pokémon? Is it worth it?

 

For Curry, Obviously...

Ok, I was only kidding about the curry thing...

But in all seriousness, breeding is a great way to get Pokémon that are much stronger than those in the wild (Higher IV's) and also teach them a selection of specific moves (Egg moves) that are otherwise only available randomly from catching Pokémon with orange auras. This allows you to make Pokémon that can specifically be used to battle people online or advance in the Battle Tower to earn BP (more on BP later)

One big thing to mention is that although breeding has been a staple of the main series of Pokémon games for some time there are a few differences this time around, which will be explained as the guide unfolds.

A new feature of Sword and Shield is that you can now change a Pokémon's nature AFTER breeding. This is done with mints bought with 50 BP each over the left side counter at the battle tower.

Since forms of Hyper Training have been around for a few generations now as well this actually provides a way to Maximise IV's without breeding. This is done using bottle caps by talking to the man in white behind the right side counter of the battle tower, with normal bottle caps raising 1 IV to max and Gold bottle caps raising all IV's to max. HOWEVER, this only works once the Pokémon has reached level 100, and you have to access the Battle Tower!

It is also possible to obtain Eggmoves without breeding. During your adventure you will likely encounter Pokémn with an orange aura around them, these Pokémon will have at least 3 Maximum value IV's and potentially some egg moves, although it is important to note that this is mostly down to luck as to which egg moves a Pokémon will know

This is the main reason it is important to state the significance of breeding, most of the previous goals of breeding can be achieved without any actual breeding being involved. However it is worth bearing in mind that this will cost you a hefty amount of time, BP and bottle caps in the long run.
EXAMPLE

If you want a Pokémon with specific egg moves you will need to hunt for that Pokémon with an orange aura. Seems simple enough, however the correct egg moves are not guaranteed. Next, it is likely that Pokémon has only 3 Maxed out IV's meaning it would first need to be raised all the way to level 100 and then would cost cost 3 bottle caps (25 BP cost each) to maximise its stats (potentially 2 if you don't care about a stat that isn't maximised) and then there is only a small chance of obtaining the Pokémon with the correct nature, even with a Pokémon that has the Synchronize ability in the first slot of your carried Pokémon you will still have only a 50% chance it has the correct nature, meaning it costs another 50BP to get the mint to change natures meaning you could be spending 125 BP to get your Pokémon this far!

With this explained, feel free to make your own judgement on whether breeding is worth it for you or not. But personally I believe breeding still has some value.

 

How to start Breeding.

The first step to breeding in any Pokémon game is finding where you can potentially breed Pokémon, in sword and shield there are two potential places you can do this, one at the Bridge Field zone in the Wild Area and one on Route 5. as shown below.

 

Once you arrive at one of these areas you can simply talk to the nursery worker who will ask which Pokémon you want them to take care of, if you leave one female and one male (or one of either gender and a ditto) these will become the new Pokémons parents. Remember that these Pokémon must be in the same egg group unless one is a ditto and unless using a ditto the egg will always contain the same species as the mother. 

When an egg is ready to be collected the nursery worker will change postions and move their arms to appear as shown below:
.

 

 This process can also be sped up by obtaining the Oval Charm, This charm can be obtained after beating Leon in the Pokémon League. The oval charm can then be given to the player simply by besting Shigeki Morimoto in the Hotel Ionia within Circhester.
.

 

 

Obtaining High IV's

Before attempting to obtain high IV's it will be important to gain the ability to see Pokémon's IV's, in order to do so a few conditions must be met. Firstly you must have completed the main storyline of Pokémon sword and shield, then you must challenge the battle tower and beat multiple trainers before then beating Leon which will put you at battle tower rank 4. From this point onward you can check a Pokémon's IV's in any PC by simply pressing the + button. 

Bear in mind that this is not an exact measure of the IV's as it will instead give you one of 6 descriptions for each of the stats which correspond to set IV values as follows. (remember 0 is minimum, 31 is maximum)

• No Good: zero
  

• Decent: 1- 10
  

• Pretty Good: 11 - 20
  

• Very Good: 21 - 29
  

• Fantastic: 30
  

• Best: 31
  

EXAMPLE:

Now we know how to check IV's lets get to breeding Pokéon with High IV's. When two Pokéon breed, the offspring hatched from the egg will have 3 values which are completely random between 0 and 31 and 3 values which are each indivdually identical to one of the parents. For example it could be that speed, defence and attack are chosen to be inherited from parents but speed could be identical to the mother and attack and defence would be identical to the father with the other 3 stats generated randomly.

As breeders we want to guarantee more than 3 of the stats are passed down using a Destiny Knot. When one of the parents holds a destiny knot (it doesn't matter which parent) then 5 IV's will be identical to either of the parents. This means that you can switch out the mother (or father if with a ditto) with newly hatched Pokémon as you breed them to increase the number of 'best' stat's with a value of 31 between both of the parents and hopefully get a baby Pokémon with 5 or 6 'best' stats as generally a Pokémon will not need all 6 to be perfect and the last one is always left to chance. 
 The only way to change one of these values after a Pokémon hatches would be to hyper train them by speaking to the man on the right counter of the battle tower after completing the game and raising the Pokémon to lvl 100. This will also cost bottle caps which, for a normal bottle cap raising one IV to max, will cost you 25BP each meaning this is quite expensive.

Getting the correct nature

Obtaining the Correct nature on Pokémon could be left up to chance, with each Pokémon having one of 25 different natures upon hatching, however most breeders want guaranteed natures for obvious reasons! 

To guarantee the egg will hatch into a Pokéon with the correct nature all you need to do is make sure either of the parents has the nature you want and then make them hold an everstone. This way the parent holding the everstone will always have the same nature as the hatched Pokémon

Adding Egg Moves 

When talking about egg moves, not much has changed since previous games. However it is important to note that there has been a wide variety of moves that have been cut from the new games and as such don't expect to find these moves in sword and shield, through breeding or otherwise. The list is quite long as it also includes a large number of Z-moves from sun and moon so the list of cut moves can be found in the spoiler below:

002 Karate Chop
003 Double Slap
004 Comet Punch
013 Razor Wind
026 Jump Kick
027 Rolling Kick
041 Twineedle
049 Sonic Boom
082 Dragon Rage
096 Meditate
099 Rage
112 Barrier
117 Bide
119 Mirror Move
121 Egg Bomb
125 Bone Club
128 Clamp
131 Spike Cannon
132 Constrict
134 Kinesis
140 Barrage
145 Bubble
146 Dizzy Punch
148 Flash
149 Psywave
159 Sharpen
169 Spider Web
171 Nightmare
185 Feint Attack
193 Foresight
216 Return
218 Frustration
222 Magnitude
228 Pursuit
237 Hidden Power
265 Smelling Salts
274 Assist
287 Refresh
289 Snatch
290 Secret Power
293 Camouflage
300 Mud Sport
301 Ice Ball
302 Needle Arm
316 Odor Sleuth
318 Silver Wind
320 Grass Whistle
324 Signal Beam
327 Sky Uppercut
346 Water Sport
357 Miracle Eye
358 Wake-Up Slap
363 Natural Gift
373 Embargo
376 Trump Card
377 Heal Block
378 Wring Out
381 Lucky Chant
382 Me First
386 Punishment
426 Mud Bomb
429 Mirror Shot
431 Rock Climb
443 Magnet Bomb
445 Captivate
456 Heal Order
466 Ominous Wind
477 Telekinesis
481 Flame Burst
485 Synchronoise
498 Chip Away
507 Sky Drop
516 Bestow
531 Heart Stamp
537 Steamroller
563 Rototiller
569 Ion Deluge
622 Breakneck Blitz
623 Breakneck Blitz
624 All-Out Pummeling
625 All-Out Pummeling
626 Supersonic Skystrike
627 Supersonic Skystrike
628 Acid Downpour
629 Acid Downpour
630 Tectonic Rage
631 Tectonic Rage
632 Continental Crush
633 Continental Crush
634 Savage Spin-Out
635 Savage Spin-Out
636 Never-Ending Nightmare
637 Never-Ending Nightmare
638 Corkscrew Crash
639 Corkscrew Crash
640 Inferno Overdrive
641 Inferno Overdrive
642 Hydro Vortex
643 Hydro Vortex
644 Bloom Doom
645 Bloom Doom
646 Gigavolt Havoc
647 Gigavolt Havoc
648 Shattered Psyche
649 Shattered Psyche
650 Subzero Slammer
651 Subzero Slammer
652 Devastating Drake
653 Devastating Drake
654 Black Hole Eclipse
655 Black Hole Eclipse
656 Twinkle Tackle
657 Twinkle Tackle
658 Catastropika
671 Spotlight
695 Sinister Arrow Raid
696 Malicious Moonsault
697 Oceanic Operetta
698 Guardian of Alola
699 Soul-Stealing 7-Star Strike
700 Stoked Sparksurfer
701 Pulverizing Pancake
702 Extreme Evoboost
703 Genesis Supernova
719 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt
723 Light That Burns the Sky
724 Searing Sunraze Smash
725 Menacing Moonraze Maelstrom
726 Let’s Snuggle Forever
727 Splintered Stormshards
728 Clangorous Soulblaze
729 Zippy Zap
730 Splishy Splash
731 Floaty Fall
732 Pika Papow
733 Bouncy Bubble
734 Buzzy Buzz
735 Sizzly Slide
736 Glitzy Glow
737 Baddy Bad
738 Sappy Seed
739 Freezy Frost
740 Sparkly Swirl
741 Veevee Volley

 
In order to add egg moves onto a Pokémon first use a website such as Serebii or Bulbapedia to check which egg moves they can learn and what other species can potentially pass along these egg moves. After you have done this small bit of research you simply need to ensure that the male Pokéon you leave in the nursery is one of these compatible Pokémon who already knows the egg move. This ensures that the hatched Pokémon will be the same species as the Female while also having the Egg move passed along by the Male.

[WIP] Below this Point, will be finished by the end of tomorrow.

Ensuring Pokémon have the correct ability

 

Optional: Increasing chance of shiny's hatching

After Breeding: Training your newly hatched Pokémon

Level training
EV training

 

Helpful Item Locations