Pokémon Scarlet and Violet IV training guide

Few Pokémon mechanics are more complicated than Individual Values, also known as IVs — a “hidden” stat Pokémon are born with. While traditional methods to improve a Pokémon’s IVs involve intensive breeding, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet makes this easy by providing an abundant amount of Bottle Caps, an item you can buy at Delibird Presents.

You’ll want your Pokémon to have high IVs, especially for difficult Tera Raids.

What are Individual Values/IVs?

IVs are randomly generated stats that range from zero to 31. Once you beat the Pokémon League, you’ll be able to use the “judge” feature in your Boxes to see a Pokémon’s IVs.

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

The game does not tell you what the exact value each stat has, but instead uses an adjective to describe them. You want your stats to say “best,” meaning that it’s at max (31).

However, you do not need every stat to be marked as “best,” as you will either need Attack or Special Attack to be maxed, not both. Most Pokémon only specialize in moves that draw on one type of offensive stat, so you won’t need both maxed out. (For example, Gengar primarily uses moves with power dictated by the Special Attack stat, not regular Attack one, so you’ll want its Special Attack maxed. However, Zangoose is the inverse, with a moveset largely dictated by regular Attack, so you want that stat maxed instead.)

Some Pokémon even benefit from having “no good” as their stat. Take Torkoal, for instance. If you have that Pokémon on a team prioritized around Trick Room — which makes it so lower-speed Pokémon attack first — you’ll want Torkoal’s speed to be as low as possible. Similarly, you might want your Pokémon with high Special Attack stats to have a “no good” Attack IV rating to minimize damage from Foul Play. (Foul Play deals more damage the higher the victim’s Attack stat is.)

These kind of work like genes. You can pass down IVs when breeding, and Pokémon caught from high-level Tera Raids seem to have higher IVs. However, breeding IVs is a huge pain in the butt, so we recommend just using Bottle Caps.

How to increase IVs using Bottle Caps and Hyper Training

All you really need to know is that the higher the IV your Pokémon has, the higher stat it has. To improve IVs, you can buy Bottle Caps from Delibird Presents stores for $20,000 each in the “General Goods” item section. You can start buying Bottle Caps once you beat at least six gyms.

Take the Bottle Caps to the NPC marked below in Montenevera. If your Pokémon is over level 50, you’ll be able to trade one cap to max out one IV. You’ll need five for the ideal Pokémon IV spread, as we detailed above.

Graphic: Julia Lee/Polygon | Source images: Game Freak/The Pokémon Company, Nintendo via Polygon

There are also Gold Bottle Caps, which you can trade to the same NPC to max all six stats of a selected Pokémon. However, these items are extremely rare and have only been reported to drop at a 1% rate from the Academy Ace Tournament, according to Serebii.net. There is also a chance that you can buy one from the auctions in Porto Marinada.