Could use some advice on the Masuda Method

[Thunderflare]

I'm trying to use the Masuda Method to get a shiny Pokemon, but haven't gotten one yet. Granted, the odds are 1:512 with the shiny charm. I may just be having poor luck. I just thought I'd ask for a fresh view to make sure I'm doing everything right.

I've got a Japanese Ditto with a Furfrou I bred myself. In fact, she's the Ditto's daughter (remember, kids, inbreeding has no negative effects). Now, something that I just noticed is that the Ditto doesn't have that blue hexagon that Pokemon have to indicate they were caught in a gen 6 game. I don't think that should effect my chances, but I could be wrong.

Oh, and yes, I do have the shiny charm.

 

[Sopheria]

Heya, since this isn't ORAS specific, I've moved it over to PGC :) Good luck getting your shiny!

 

[VisualJae]

It doesn't matter what the Pokémon are, as long as they're from different countries of origin.

The only thing you can do is buy more lottery tickets as fast as possible, or in our case here obtaining and hatching more eggs in as little time as possible.

Flame Body, Hatching O-Power level 3, 5 eggs at a time. Soft resetting after every "failed batch." You can typically hatch 5 eggs every 3 minutes, unless you're dealing with a Pokémon with a long egg cycle.

 

[Firox]

Good luck with the breeding.
So far everything you're doing is right, it's just luck.

I'm also doing the Masuda Method, trying to get a shiny Fennekin (I'm using a French M Braixen and a Japanese F Braixen) - almost 200 eggs no luck yet.

It just takes long patience to get the shiny you want - I also have the shiny charm and oval charm
(took me 315 eggs to get a shiny Zangoose, 528 eggs for shiny Zorua, 430 eggs for shiny Mienfoo, over 10,000 eggs for a female shiny Eevee - did hatch a shiny male along the way)

 

[Thunderflare]

It doesn't matter what the Pokémon are, as long as they're from different countries of origin.

The only thing you can do is buy more lottery tickets as fast as possible, or in our case here obtaining and hatching more eggs in as little time as possible.

Flame Body, Hatching O-Power level 3, 5 eggs at a time. Soft resetting after every "failed batch." You can typically hatch 5 eggs every 3 minutes, unless you're dealing with a Pokémon with a long egg cycle.

Let's not get crazy. That's a lot of Pokemon I can trade, translating to alot of Pokemiles. I've raked in the Rare Candy with that stuff. No grinding for me.

 

[VisualJae]

Let's not get crazy. That's a lot of Pokemon I can trade, translating to alot of Pokemiles. I've raked in the Rare Candy with that stuff. No grinding for me.

I mean, it's just a matter of min-maxing. If your ultimate goal is to breed shinies as fast as possible, then that'd be the route to take. If you want to squeeze in other activities at the cost of time (meaning fewer eggs over time), then of course you can individually manage new hatchlings.

I wouldn't use grinding levels as an excuse, though. With Secret Bases, you can go from level 1-100 on multiple Pokémon simultaneously in about half an hour.

 

[Imperator161]

It doesn't matter what the Pokémon are, as long as they're from different countries of origin.

The only thing you can do is buy more lottery tickets as fast as possible, or in our case here obtaining and hatching more eggs in as little time as possible.

Flame Body, Hatching O-Power level 3, 5 eggs at a time. Soft resetting after every "failed batch." You can typically hatch 5 eggs every 3 minutes, unless you're dealing with a Pokémon with a long egg cycle.

Depending on how you have things set up, I'm not sure I would recommend resetting after every failed batch, unless you love the IV spread on the first Pokemon. Which parent passes which IVs will already be set at that point, so you'll be wasting one egg per cycle. I'm not sure when the ESV gets set (if it's predetermined, or if it's once the egg is actually generated), but it may be faster just to release the batch before moving on to the next one.

I've intentionally Masuda'd one Pokemon, and unintentionally hatched three others. The first one was of course much slower than the others. But like anything, it's a slow, luck-based process, and odds are just that--odds.

 

[Neil Peart]

It doesn't matter what the Pokémon are, as long as they're from different countries of origin.

The only thing you can do is buy more lottery tickets as fast as possible, or in our case here obtaining and hatching more eggs in as little time as possible.

Flame Body, Hatching O-Power level 3, 5 eggs at a time. Soft resetting after every "failed batch." You can typically hatch 5 eggs every 3 minutes, unless you're dealing with a Pokémon with a long egg cycle.

I had no idea that resetting would yield a different result in terms of hatched Pokemon...

 

[VisualJae]

Depending on how you have things set up, I'm not sure I would recommend resetting after every failed batch, unless you love the IV spread on the first Pokemon. Which parent passes which IVs will already be set at that point, so you'll be wasting one egg per cycle. I'm not sure when the ESV gets set (if it's predetermined, or if it's once the egg is actually generated), but it may be faster just to release the batch before moving on to the next one.

I never attempt the Masuda method until both parent Pokémon already have 6x perfect IVs or 5x with the one missing being the toss-out stat (e.g. Attack for Modest/Timid natured Pokémon). It doesn't take that long in XY and ORAS with a 6IV Ditto.

I'm not sure what you mean by "wasting one egg per cycle." You have two perfect IV Pokémon at the daycare. One with a Destiny Knot to take care of IVs, one with an Everstone to take care of the nature. You see the first egg ready to be claimed. You save. You collect 5x eggs and hatch them. You don't see a shiny amongst them. You reset. Claim the first egg (different stats now). Collect 5x and hatch them. Repeat until you get a shiny.

It's much better soft resetting. You cannot recharge Hatching O-Power level 3 (costs 4 slots) fast enough by using it every batch. It takes approximately 3 minutes to hatch all 5x eggs in the party unless you're dealing with a Pokémon with a long egg cycle. It takes 4 minutes to restore a single O-Power slot. Resetting the game restores the O-Power gauge to its previous state. You really don't want to go without Hatching O-Power level 3. It literally cuts the hatch time in half.

I had no idea that resetting would yield a different result in terms of hatched Pokemon...

Just to re-clarify, I meant resetting after each batch. You obtain 5x eggs, that's one batch. They all hatch, none of them are you want, you reset the game. Collect a new set of 5x eggs, repeat.

Once you talk to the daycare person and the egg enters your party, all the Pokémon's attributes are already determined. That's why you save before collecting the first egg.

 

[Imperator161]

I never attempt the Masuda method until both parent Pokémon already have 6x perfect IVs or 5x with the one missing being the toss-out stat (e.g. Attack for Modest/Timid natured Pokémon). It doesn't take that long in XY and ORAS with a 6IV Ditto.

I'm not sure what you mean by "wasting one egg per cycle." You have two perfect IV Pokémon at the daycare. One with a Destiny Knot to take care of IVs, one with an Everstone to take care of the nature. You see the first egg ready to be claimed. You save. You collect 5x eggs and hatch them. You don't see a shiny amongst them. You reset. Claim the first egg (different stats now). Collect 5x and hatch them. Repeat until you get a shiny.

It's much better soft resetting. You cannot recharge Hatching O-Power level 3 (costs 4 slots) fast enough by using it every batch. It takes approximately 3 minutes to hatch all 5x eggs in the party unless you're dealing with a Pokémon with a long egg cycle. It takes 4 minutes to restore a single O-Power slot. Resetting the game restores the O-Power gauge to its previous state. You really don't want to go without Hatching O-Power level 3. It literally cuts the hatch time in half.


Just to re-clarify, I meant resetting after each batch. You obtain 5x eggs, that's one batch. They all hatch, none of them are you want, you reset the game. Collect a new set of 5x eggs, repeat.

Once you talk to the daycare person and the egg enters your party, all the Pokémon's attributes are already determined. That's why you save before collecting the first egg.

What I meant about wasting the egg is that before an egg is generated, the game has already determined which parents will pass on which IVs, and what the throwaway IV will be. (E.g., baby will get M/M/F/F/F/X, where M is from the male parent (or Ditto, if the other parent is female), F is from the female parent (or Ditto, if the other parent is male), and X is randomly generated, but will be the same value for that particular egg every time.) So depending on when you've saved, you won't actually get different stats for the first egg every time you reboot, though I believe the chances of it being shiny will reset each time, since I think shininess is generated at a different time point than which IVs are being passed by which parent. IV passage is determined before the egg is generated (after the previous egg is collected, I guess), while shininess is determined when the egg is collected, I think. I'm not sure when ability is determined.

(The IV passage thing led to a trick early on where you could save, stick two Magikarp or a Magikarp and a Ditto with known IVs into the daycare as parents, quickly gather and hatch an egg, see what parent passed on which IVs, and then stick the appropriate male and female in to pass along the IVs you want. It's not that relevant now with perfect Dittos and such, but it can be helpful for breeding more unusual HP spreads and the like.) Depending on when you've saved, and when you're resetting from, the IVs passed on by each parent have already been set, and if you're using the same parents, you'll always pass on the same spread for that first egg (and then the remaining four eggs will vary). So for example, if you're going for a sweeper on a non-trick room team, but the game has decided not to pass along the speed IV, and the one the game generates is not 31, that first egg is always going to be garbage. This can work to your advantage, if you've saved at a point where the next egg generated will have a perfect spread for what you're looking for, though. It's been a while since I've tried out that method (I generally just brute-force breed now, and release everything afterwards), but I recall it working as described when I originally used it shortly after X came out.

The O power thing is a good point, though. I generally try to take a break every time I run out of level 3 hatching power, or use my other 3DS (which I reset without saving) to gift myself hatching powers.

And for some reason, I got ten notifications from your single quote of my post. Don't know why that happened...

 

[VisualJae]

What I meant about wasting the egg is that before an egg is generated, the game has already determined which parents will pass on which IVs, and what the throwaway IV will be. (E.g., baby will get M/M/F/F/F/X, where M is from the male parent (or Ditto, if the other parent is female), F is from the female parent (or Ditto, if the other parent is male), and X is randomly generated, but will be the same value for that particular egg every time.)

Okay, I see what you meant. Right, the first egg already has its IVs set, but like I mentioned, I never attempt to breed for shinies until I already have statistically perfect parent Pokémon anyway, i.e. whatever comes out of the eggs will never be statistically superior to what I already have. Sure, if I'm working with a parent with 5x perfect IVs, there's a chance that one may end up transferring the throwaway stat, but I'll take my chances. If that's the case, then whenever one with 6x IVs does show up, it'll replace the daycare spot. Otherwise, I never look at the stats at all. None of the 5 hatchlings are shiny? Reset on the spot.

Since the subject was on "poor luck" with the Masuda Method, the best solution is to maximize opportunities, which is a simple matter of obtaining and hatching as many eggs as possible in as little time as possible. Simple comparison would be with lottery tickets. Want to hit the current jackpot? Obtain as many different tickets as you can before the next drawing.

But if you want to attempt to kill multiple birds with one stone, then chances are it'll take you much longer, like with what I'm doing. I lost count, but I'm trying to breed a shiny male Protean Timid Froakie with 31's across the board or 5x without Attack. I've already bred two shiny Torrent Froakies (one managed to miss the perfect Special Attack IV, too, prompting me to Wonder Trade it away in rage).

 

[Imperator161]

Okay, I see what you meant. Right, the first egg already has its IVs set, but like I mentioned, I never attempt to breed for shinies until I already have statistically perfect parent Pokémon anyway, i.e. whatever comes out of the eggs will never be statistically superior to what I already have. Sure, if I'm working with a parent with 5x perfect IVs, there's a chance that one may end up transferring the throwaway stat, but I'll take my chances. If that's the case, then whenever one with 6x IVs does show up, it'll replace the daycare spot. Otherwise, I never look at the stats at all. None of the 5 hatchlings are shiny? Reset on the spot.

Even if you have two 6IV parents, you still only have a 1/6 chance of getting the stat spread you want. That's normally fine, but if the first egg is going to have the same IVs every time anyway, and you're going to keep using that one, I figure you're better off making sure you lock in a perfect stat spread on that one, rather than already having 1/5 of your eggs be competitively worthless (if the bad stat passed along is a really problematic one, like speed). I tend to check the IVs on my hatchlings at some point before I get rid of them anyway, though (I like to save the ones with perfect spreads for use elsewhere), so that slows me down regardless.

Since the subject was on "poor luck" with the Masuda Method, the best solution is to maximize opportunities, which is a simple matter of obtaining and hatching as many eggs as possible in as little time as possible. Simple comparison would be with lottery tickets. Want to hit the current jackpot? Obtain as many different tickets as you can before the next drawing.

But if you want to attempt to kill multiple birds with one stone, then chances are it'll take you much longer, like with what I'm doing. I lost count, but I'm trying to breed a shiny male Protean Timid Froakie with 31's across the board or 5x without Attack. I've already bred two shiny Torrent Froakies (one managed to miss the perfect Special Attack IV, too, prompting me to Wonder Trade it away in rage).

True, I just figured it made sense to increase luck by making sure you aren't hatching a poor egg every time. It's already bad enough when you hatch a shiny without its necessary hidden ability (that's why I haven't been able to bring myself to Masuda a Froakie), so minimizing any other source of bad luck seems valuable.

Getting back to the original purpose of the topic, I guess the best strategy is to lock in a perfect first egg (check the IVs once to make sure the spread is perfect; you don't have to after that), then hatch 5 eggs and reset every time if not shiny. That gives you a 1/5 chance that you'll get a perfect spread on your egg (if it's the first egg), and 1/6 chance to omit the correct IV for each of the other eggs (if using perfect parents) (so 1/5 * 1 + 4/5 * 1/6 = 1/3 chance of having a shiny with the right 5 IV spread, not counting the odds of a non-passed IV being 31, vs. 1/5 * 0 + 4/5 * 1/6 = ~0.13 if a bad IV egg is locked in as the first one? Just woke up, math is hard right now). Throw in the ability issue, and the odds get a little worse, but I think that method should maximize your perfect shiny odds while minimizing time spent hatching.