What are Individual Values?

Question

I was watching a walkthrough on Youtube for Pokemon Platinum, and he said that Hidden Power had a strength depending on Individual Values. What are those things? He said that his Skarmory's hidden power was Dragon Type, too. How could he tell when in his Skarmory's summary, it said Hidden Power was Normal?

Answer 1

IVs are like the pokemon's genes. Every Pokemon has an IV from 0-31 for each stat (HP, Attack, etc), which is random for each pokemon. They help determine the pokemon's actual stats, along with effort values (what you get from battling).

That explains why if you catch the same wild pokemon many times at the same level, each one will have slightly different stats. It's VERY rare to get a pokemon with great IVs across the board, you usually find that some stats are low, some are high.

In HG/SS, it's possible to pass on an IV value when breeding if you give either parent a "power" item like Power Weight, Power Bracer, etc.

Answer 2

That is a very tricky thing but I know about it. Let me sum it up for you. First Individual Values or IVs are different for each pokemon. They make a pokemon strong at different things. For exsample, a pichu my have really good speed IVs and another has really bad speed IVs. The pichu with the good IVs for speed will have a higher speed stat than the one with bad speed IVs(unless you use EVs). Every pokemon has IVs for every stat and you can try to use different pokemon for better IVs(in platinum and HHSS you can go to the battle tower and a guy with glass will tell you how good your pokemon's IVs are).

  For the move hidden power go to the game corner prize place (in platinum only) and a guy will tell you what type hidden power for one of your pokemon will be.