Niantic Labs has recently released its update for Pokemon Go, making the following changes:
- Implemented Pokémon Appraisal: Trainers will now be able to learn about a Pokémon’s attack and defense capabilities from their Team Leader (Candela, Blanche, or Spark) to determine which of their Pokémon have the most potential for battle.
- Fixed a bug that kept defeated Pokémon at 1HP; these Pokémon will now return as fainted Pokémon. We’re working on rebalancing the training battle, stay tuned.
- Minor bot fixes
While this seems like a minor update, this is a very important update for competitive Pokemon Go players as this will eliminate a lot of guesswork on determining which Pokemon is the strongest in their lineup.
Yes, not all Pokemon are created equal.
Across all Pokemon games since generation 1 (Red, Blue and Yellow), there's a hidden mechanic called IV's, short for Individual Values. These basically determine the stats of each Pokemon, and how powerful they are. In a gist, not all Pokemon are created equal, as each Pokemon you catch have varying IVs. And this hidden mechanics is indeed present as well in Pokemon Go, albeit, more simplified.
This is going to be a lengthy read, but bear with me, as understanding how IVs work in Pokemon Go can give you the edge in battling gyms, or for future head to head battles.
Let's take for example the Snorlax I have in cover page.
In Pokemon Go, there are three core stats, Attack, Defense and Stamina, which are calculated from the original games' bases stat values HP, Attack, Defense, Sp. Attack, Sp. Defense, and Speed. To calculate for the core stats in Pokemon Go, we will use this formula discovered by reddit user Fourier864
- Base Attack = 2 * ((Atk * SpAtk)^0.5 + Spd^0.5))
- Base Defense = 2 * ((Def * SpDef)^0.5 + Spd^0.5))
- Base Stamina = 2 * HP
How could pokemon have this so much math involved?!
The Pokemon subreddit The Silph Road has already computed the core stat values for each Pokemon based on the formula above, and we determine that my Snorlax has the following base core stats: ATK 180, DEF 180, Stamina 320. But these aren't the final stats of my Snorlax, we now have to consider IVs.
IVs basically determine how high above the base stat is your Pokemon. These are additional stat points that you add to your Pokemon's base stat. This ranges from 0-15, across all different stats. This means that I could either have a Snorlax with stats ass low as ATK 180, DEF 180, Stamina 320 (0/0/0 IVs) or as high as ATK 195, DEF 195, Stamina 335 (+15/+15/+15), otherwise called a perfect IV.
Still with me so far? Good!
For the longest time, players had to do some guesswork in determining the IVs of Pokemon. A site called Poke Assistant helps determine IVs, but it's still a guess and only offers you a list of possible IV values, due to the numerous variables being considered.
With the new update, players will be able to narrow down further the possible IVs. Again, let's take my Snorlax and plug in the values needed by Poke Assistant. Here's the calculation:
I'm left with two possible values for my Pokemon. Either 14/15/10 or 15/13/10. Basically, the higher the perfection rating, the better. In some cases though, the results could be murkier, offering you 10 or more possibilities.
Now let's consider the new appraisal system. Your corresponding team leader will provide an assessment on your Pokemon. In this case, here's Blanche's assessment on my Snorlax.
Let's take note of the comment "it's best attribute is its defense". Let's go back to Poke Assistant, and tick "Def" to consider Blanche's comment in the IV calculation. Now we're left with one possibility:
This means that my Snorlax has the higher stat of the two possibilities calculated earlier! Phew! So the final stats of my Snorlax are ATK 194 (180+14), DEF 195 (180+15), Stamina 330 (320+10).
Pokemon Go is a numbers game, and almost always, the higher values, the better. With these stats, my Snorlax stands a good chance against other Pokemon.
Team leader appraisals differ across the teams, and here's the list of all their comments, and what they mean.
Why is IV important? Pokemon Go is a resource management game too. With very limited stardust and candies, it's extremely important to know which Pokemon you should power up and evolve.
Now try computing the IVs of your Pokemon and see which ones are the strongest in your lineup!
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About our ICONtributor
Steeps Martinez, is the resident nerd, gamer and magician of the Corporate Communications Group. During his free time, he really enjoys playing console and mobile games and writes about them at his personal blog The Electronic Playground. He’s also part of the indie game dev team KillAllBotz. Add him up on PlayStation Network at steeps_US if you want to play with him on PS3 or PS4. He can probably tear you up in Call of Duty, Battlefield and Tekken. He also whips up awesome mojitos.
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