Pokemon GO Appraisal, IVs Guide: How To Get More Powerful Pokemon for Your Team

(Photo : Niantic / Screenshot taken from the Pokémon GO's official website.)

Pokemon GO, similar to the main entries in the franchise, has inherent Individual Values (IVs) for every Pokemon that determines how powerful they can get.

There is an IV for each of the main stat; HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed. These are also influenced by a particular Pokemon's Nature, base stats, and Effort Values (EVs).

Pokemon GO Appraisal and IVs Guide

However, one thing that Pokemon GO changes with this system compared to the mainline entries in the franchise is that it is much simpler. There are only three IVs to look out for here, which are for HP, Attack, and Defense.

Furthermore, Pokemon GO does not feature a Nature system or even EVs that could influence a Pokemon's stats even more. The maximum IVs has also been reduced from 31 in the main games to only 15, according to GameRant.

This guide helps players understand the basics of IVs and learn how to get more powerful Pokemon for their team.

Using the Appraisal option, players can know what their Pokemons' IVs are and see which ones are actually worth keeping and which ones should be transferred for Candies. There are four categories for IVs; 0-star, 1-star, 2-star, and 3-star.

The three stats in the Appraisal section of a Pokemon combine into an overall CP and IV ranking for that particular member of your team. Niantic has also created a set of star tiers to make things easier to rank, said Eurogamer.

With 0 stars, this is for below 50%, for 1 star this is from 51% to 63.4%, for 2 stars this is from 66.7% to 80%, for 3 stars, this is from 82.2% to 98%, and for 3 stars with a red background, this is 100%.

Getting the Most Powerful Pokemon

Getting the highest CP and IV Pokemon in the game is somewhat of a tedious process as this is how you can get the best of the best. The main thing is that you will have to do a lot of catching and you need to check whether or not it has good IVs.

When you get one that is nearly close to max or actually max, congratulations, you just simply need to level it up and evolve it, if it can, to become even stronger. It is recommended to evolve your high-IV Pokemon before leveling them up to avoid wasting resources.

Capturing many Pokemon in search of the most powerful ones may be a bit of a hassle but fortunately, there is another way that can speed up the process.

One of these is Trading where a Pokemon's IVs undergo a slight variation, which is influenced by the Friendship Level between the two trainers. Another thing to note is that Lucky Trades will also guarantee higher minimum IVs, according to HardcoreGamer.