Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl breeding guide

In this Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Pokémon Shining Pearl breeding guide, we’ll explain the process of mating two Pokémon to create powerful offspring. This guide will explore the process of breeding, where to breed, how to breed using Ditto, and what items you should use to maximize your breeding process.

Table of contents

• What is Pokémon breeding?
• How to check IVs
• Where to breed Pokémon
• How to breed with Ditto
• Destiny Knot and Everstone

What is Pokémon breeding?

In Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, two Pokémon can breed and produce offspring. This resulting child will carry over stats from the parents, allowing you to create a creature with high Individual Values (IVs) or a specific nature.

Selective breeding in the Pokémon games is used to develop partners with strong stats that make them great for competitive play. The process can take a while to produce results you’re happy with, but that’s part of the Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl endgame.

How to check IVs

Image: Game Freak, ILCA/The Pokémon Company via Polygon

Once you beat the Pokémon League, you can learn how to check your IVs by talking to a glasses-wearing NPC inside the Battle Tower, on the right side. He’ll teach you the Judge feature, allowing you to press + (Plus), and look at your Pokémon’s stats via your boxes. The stats are ranked as follows:

• No Good
• Decent
• Pretty Good
• Very Good
• Fantastic
• Best

Best means that it has a perfect 31 IV in that stat, so you should be aiming for that.

Where to breed Pokémon

To produce Pokémon through breeding, head to a nursery. You can find a nursery in Solaceon Town.

At the nursery, speak to the woman at the counter. She’ll ask you for which two Pokémon you’d like to leave in her care for breeding. When the creatures are in her hands, the breeding process begins.

The breeding process takes time to complete. So you’ll need to pass time by traveling around Sinnoh. If you speak to the man on the left in the nursery, he will give you an application that allows you to check on the breeding process while you’re away. Once an egg is ready, speak to the woman at the counter who will hand over the egg. With the egg in your party, the breeding process begins again.

How to breed with Ditto

Breeding two Pokémon together requires them to be a part of the same egg group. Think of egg groups as being a certain class of animals. Finding compatible mates of the same egg group for selective breeding can be challenging, but the breeding process can be made easier with a special Pokémon.

The Pokémon Ditto can breed with any Pokémon from any egg group and gender. So before you begin breeding, it’s best to find a Ditto with strong values to be your first mating partner. Use your Ditto as a basis for your breeding, and look for the other Pokémon you want to reproduce with Ditto as their partner.

Destiny Knot and Everstone

There are two items you should have before you start breeding. These two held items will make your breeding efforts much more fruitful.

The Destiny Knot allows you to pass down five of the six IVs from a parent to its offspring. If you have a Ditto with high IVs, it’s best to give this item to them. From there, you can find an appropriate partner with other high IVs. Then when they breed, at least five of the offspring’s IVs will be good because of your Ditto, and the sixth one will hopefully be filled in by its mating partner.

The Everstone is an item with two functions. Its default ability prevents Pokémon from evolving. However, in the breeding process, the stone gains another function. When a Pokémon holds an Everstone while breeding, it will pass on its nature to its offspring. This is an important function to keep in mind as natures boost and decrease certain stats. Give your Everstone to your non-Ditto breeding partner to make sure their offspring has the right nature when it’s born.