Characteristic

Characteristics are a feature in the Pokémon games, introduced in Generation IV. A Pokémon's characteristic indicates which stat contains a Pokémon's highest IV. It is displayed on the Pokémon's profile screen where its nature, date met, place met, and berry flavor preference are shown.

A Pokémon's characteristic is determined by the remainder of its highest IV divided by 5 (known as modulo operation in programming). Since it is built this way, Pokémon transferred from the games of Generation III via Pal Park have a characteristic without their stats being changed.

List of characteristics

Possible Individual Values	HP	Attack	Defense	Special Attack	Special Defense	Speed
0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30	Loves to eat	Proud of its power	Sturdy body	Highly curious	Strong willed	Likes to run
1, 6, 11, 16, 21, 26, 31	Often dozes off	Likes to thrash about	Capable of taking hits	Mischievous	Somewhat vain	Alert to sounds
2, 7, 12, 17, 22, 27	Often scatters things	A little quick tempered	Highly persistent	Thoroughly cunning	Strongly defiant	Impetuous and silly
3, 8, 13, 18, 23, 28	Scatters things often	Likes to fight	Good endurance	Often lost in thought	Hates to lose	Somewhat of a clown
4, 9, 14, 19, 24, 29	Likes to relax	Quick tempered	Good perserverance	Very finicky	Somewhat stubborn	Quick to flee

Note that having a certain characteristic does not necessarily imply that the highest possible value for an IV is present. A Pokémon with an "Alert to sounds" characteristic could have a 6 in Speed (and thus very low IVs across all of its stats since none could be higher than 6) instead of a 31 in Speed.

Examples

A Mudkip has the following IVs:

HP	Attack	Defense	Sp. Attack	Sp. Defense	Speed
24	18	17	29	24	27

Since its highest IV value is 29 in Special Attack, its characteristic will be "Very finicky."

A Ditto has the following IVs:

HP	Attack	Defense	Sp. Attack	Sp. Defense	Speed
8	0	0	10	17	10

Since its highest IV value is 17 in Special Defense, its characteristic will be "Strongly defiant."

This game-related article is part of Project Games, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on the Pokémon games.