6th Gen I'm a breeder now

X and Y brought several notable changes to the breeding mechanics of Pokemon that has steadily been evolving ignore the fact that I just made a bad pun since it was introduced in Gen II. These changes were:

-Destiny Knot passes down 5 IVs from between the 2 parents
-males can pass down Hidden Abilities if breeding with Ditto
-females can pass down egg moves
-offspring will be born in the PokeBall that the mother was caught in, excluding Master and Cherish Balls

There were also changes made external to breeding that makes breeding a little easier too, like how Pokemon caught in the Friend Safari have a minimum of 2 perfect IVs and sometimes even their Hidden Ability, or like how a Pokemon that was born with an egg move can relearn it at the move relearner if they forget it.

Were you glad that Game Freak made all these changes to breeding? Did you become a serious breeder because of this, or were you a breeder before X/Y (or maybe you're still not into breeding at all)? Are there other changes that you think should be made to breeding, and if so, what?

I only became a pokemon breeder after learning about its mechanics through XY games, but I really wished that they had some kind of egg incubator that I can use to speed up the hatching process rather than just rely on cycling around the prism tower.

Well, I think it's more democratic. In Silver I remember seeing in magazines all those Pokémon used in competition, those stats, and didin't have a clue how they got that (no internet that time for me). As I didn't played again until gen VI, reading that Destiny Knot passed down only 3 IVs up to BW made me think that. It was frustrating, I wish I had good pokes (without using hack ou RNG - that I didn't even know about) but it never was an easy way. Now it's precise, the female egg moves led to new combinations and poke balls are a small detail on top of it that, I keep them just because I like it. It changed a lot since gen II, I really loved it, anyone can make their own competitive pokés mixing egg moves they couldn't. Plus, it's FASTER. It's interesting that though I breed too much, I seldom use them in battles, I just love breeding, making the pokés I always wanted them to be like in the past, then throwing them in a box to appreciate later.
On the other hand, it may look so easy adding the safari with 2 ivs 31 and a chance of hidden ability. I'm saying it based on rare comments I read before, but it's not my opinion. As I don't have much time to play, speeding up breeding makes the process possible and attractive (and addicting) for me.

Remember that my opinion is based on information I had that time and what I've been reading since 2013. I may have made some mistake, 10 years is a long time, so forgive me.

I was never a breeder. I was never fond with breeding tbh.

I bred in white but yes the gen 6 mechanics not to mention super training make breeding and training a pokemon much easier.

I've always wanted to get into breeding but I have no idea where to start to be honest.

I would be happier if they implemented the features, specially the Destiny Knot feature ones on earlier Generations, since the features are more usable on the older generations. Or if you put it on the other way, we need more battle facillities in order to fully enjoy the Pokémon that we bred.

I started breeding in Black/White, so I only went through one generation of non-awesome breeding. I have to say though, it is immensely satisfying to actually be able to achieve optimal pokemon legitimately now. Before my competition pokemon were usually 2-4 max IV's at most; in X/Y almost every poke I use has 5 - 6 IV's, the right nature, and ability.

Oh - that reminds me, I think you left that out of the OP, breeding with everstone is now 100% to pass down nature, not like 50 or something like it was in B/W.

I had kinda started breeding in Gen V because that was also when I first got into competitive battling....I was pretty bad at both lol. I really became a breeder starting with Gen VI.

I'm really glad that we got these breeding changes because now it's not ridiculous to get 5-6 IV HA Pokemon with good egg moves and stuff anymore. Was hard enough getting decent IVs and the right nature in Gen V =( It still does take longer than I care for though, and I agree with Sebastian_Sommer that it'd be great if there was something else to speed it up. Flame Body/Magma Armor+Hatching Power lv3 helps a lot, but it still takes a while. And when you breed hundreds of eggs it's like.....

Makoto Tachibana said:

I would be happier if they implemented the features, specially the Destiny Knot feature ones on earlier Generations, since the features are more usable on the older generations.

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They'll probably be remade sometime with the updated breeding mechanics. There's ORAS, so that's one down.

Polar Spectrum said:

Oh - that reminds me, I think you left that out of the OP, breeding with everstone is now 100% to pass down nature, not like 50 or something like it was in B/W.

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Actually that change came in Black2/White2

I used to care nothing about that feature up until XY came up with wonder trade. Now I spend a bunch of time putting a Ditto and a whatever I'm breeding that has a good nature with an Everstone in the Day Care until I get about 5-15 eggs and then take out the whatever I'm breeding and move its Everstone to someone else with a good nature and repeat until I don't have anything else to breed.

I did use to research on breeding back at Gen IV and Gen V, and I was really considering to do so. But man, seeing that the mechanics was ridiculously hard. I ended up not even bothering with the breeding. PokeGen all the way, although I only add 31 IVs to its main attacking stat as well as Speed just so it doesn't seem ridiculously cheating hahaha. Otherwise, it was off to the RNG manipulation.

Now, it's really easy to breed without the need to RNG for those beautiful IVs. Plus, passing down Hidden Abilities from males, passing down Egg Moves from females, 5IVs with the Destiny Knot, those are probably the best things GF can introduce. And of course, the Pokeballs for aesthetic purposes.

Safe to say that thanks to all of these I'm now a breeder.

I have bred like 2 whole Boxes of competitive/semi-competitive Pokemon ever since X/Y came out (including 5 Masuda Method shinies), if that qualifies as me being a breeder, then I guess I'm a breeder as well.

Before Gen 6, competitive battling seemed unfair to me, because it was almost impossible to get a good Pokemon without RNG shennanigans, or plain cheating and for that reason I didn't really get into it. Granted, some people will still hack their Pokemon now, either because they don't have enough time to spend on a video game, or because they just wanna get straight to battling without all the fancy preparations. The point is: with the Gen 6 breeding mechanics, those who want to make a nice team with legitimate means (out of pride, or because they actually find the whole proccess fun) can now realistically do so.

I always new you could leave your Pokemon in the daycare and would sometimes yield an egg back in Gen 2 but never really understood its mechanics. When I got back into the Pokemon scene in Y I started watching YouTube vids on team building and game strategy and was curious to know what all this IV and EV talk was about. Further research introduced me to the "Time Machine" method and I've been hooked ever since.

Is breeding tedious? = Most Definitely

I tried to get my friend who jumped on X a month after I got Y and he said "this is way to complicated I just want to play for fun" which is fine, to each their own. Being that once you get into the rhythm of breeding for IVs its pretty much a mindless operation. I do most of my breeding while watching TV.

That time machine method sounds awfully overcomplicated, isnt it just easier/quicker to knock out a few more eggs and then check the batch?

Oblox said:

That time machine method sounds awfully overcomplicated, isnt it just easier/quicker to knock out a few more eggs and then check the batch?

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Personally I believe it takes about the same amount of time. I've been doing both ways but haven't really timed it out to say with certainty (which now you've peeked my curiosity and will actually test it out). To me it feels like the amount of time it takes to hatch 5 eggs and taking them to the stats judge to find out if 1 or 2 of the Pokemon actually has gotten the IV combination passed down correctly is the same as hatching 1 egg check the stats that were passed down by going to the battle institute and if its not the right combination resetting game and hatching a new egg (moving up one egg cycle of course).

Now this is of course assuming that you are using Pokemon with less than 3 perfect IVs. I'm sure that using a Pokemon with 5 or 6 perfect IVs would make the "Time Machine" method pointless since your chance of passing down a handful of perfect IVs has increased.

Also i suppose it depends on the game, in OR its a few steps to the IV checker from the daycare.