Individual values

DVs, or IVs (Individual Values), are the Pokémon analogue of genes. They determine various battle-related strengths, or stats of Pokémon.

Overview

There are six DVs, one for each stat: HP, Attack, Defense, Speed, Special Attack and Special Defense. Previously, there were only five, with Special Attack and Special Defense merged as Special.

Game-specific notes

Generation II

Gold, Silver, and Crystal introduced the first major use of DVs beyond stats; they determine Hidden Power type, whether or not the Pokémon has alternate coloring, gender, among other things. In GSC, a DV is a number between 0 and 15, inclusive, that is randomly picked the first time you see a Pokémon. You can figure out DVs by figuring out the maximum and minimum possible stats, and figuring out how far off your stat is. For every 2 points off the max stat, subtract 1 DV point. The highest DV is 15, so a perfect Pokémon would have all DV's of 15. Note that the Box trick may be useful in figuring out your actual DVs. There are DVs for 5 stats: Attack, Defense, Speed, Special, and HP. The Special DV works for both Special Attack and Special Defense, in GSC.

For instance, a Dragonite, whose max attack is 366, has an attack of 360. That’s 6 off the max stat, so you’d subtract 3 from 15, which is a 12. Therefore, your Dragonite’s attack DV is 12.

This can be repeated for all stats except HP. The HP DV is determined by the DVs of the other stats, as follows:

• If a Pokémon’s attack DV is odd, add 8 to the HP DV.
• If a Pokémon’s defense DV is odd, add 4 to the HP DV.
• If a Pokémon’s speed DV is odd, add 2 to the HP DV.
• If a Pokémon’s special DV is odd, add 1 to the HP DV.

A Shiny Pokémon’s DV’s are as follows:

• Attack: 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14 or 15
• Defense: 10
• Speed: 10
• Special: 10
• HP: 0 or 8

If the attack DV is 2, 6, 10, or 14, the HP DV will be 0. If the attack DV is 3, 7, 11, or 15, the HP DV will be 8. All of the other DVs are always the same - A shiny will never have a DV other than 10 in Defense, Speed, or Special categories.

Also, all Shiny Pokémon will have either a Grass or a Dragon Hidden Power when taught TM 10, Hidden Power.

DVs determine gender as well; whatever the gender percentage is corresponds to an attack DV. Males have DVs higher than that percent, and females lower. i.e., with 50% chance of being male in a species, a DV of 8 or above in attack will yield a male; 7 or below yields a female. When a species is 87.5% male, only a 0, 1, or 2 Attack DV yields a female.

Generation III

DVs here range from 0 to 31 per stat. For each Pokémon, they are stored as a packed bitfield and take up a doubleword and are thus harder to change individually.

(MSB) Blank SP.DF SP.AK SPEED DEF   ATK   HP    (LSB)

      00    11111 11111 11111 11111 11111 11111

HP now has it's own value while alternate coloration and gender are now determined by the personality value instead of a calculation made on the other values. The only remaining thing dependant on them is the actual move of the Hidden Power.