What is IV perfection?

Question

Using online calculators you can calculate how perfect a Pokemon's IV's are.

What is IV Perfection and why is it important?

What advantage does a Pokemon have over a Pokemon of the same species with a lower IV at the same CP?

Answer 1

What is IV Perfection?

IV perfection (%) is a measurement of how good your pokemon's IV's are compared to one with perfect IV's. It is very rare for a pokemon to have perfect IV's, since the probabilty is very small.

IV's range from 0 to 15 for each of the three stats that pokemon have: attack, defense, stamina. Perfect IV's are when a pokemon has the maximum bonus to each one: 15/15/15.

Most IV calculators measure this as a percentage using a simple ratio: yourIVs / perfectIVs. To calculate this yourself, just total up your pokemon's IV's (e.g. 8/4/12 = 35), and divide by 45.

• 15/15/15 = 45/45 = 1.0 = 100% Perfect.
• 14/13/15 = 42/45 = 0.933... = 93% Perfect.
• 12/12/12 = 36/45 = 0.8 = 80% Perfect.
• 6/13/8 = 27/45 = 0.6 = 60% Perfect.
• 0/0/0 = 0/45 = 0.0 = 0% Perfect.

Why is it important?

Perfect IV's means that a pokemon has the best possible stats for its species, and therefore, has the potential to reach the highest possible CP for its species. For example, a low IV pokemon might top out at 2700 CP at max level, but a pokemon with higher IVs could reach 3000+ CP at max level.

CP is simply a measurement of a pokemon's total stats, and pokemon with higher stats are better because they will have more HP (from stamina), deal more damage (from attack), and take less damage (from defense).

What advantage does a Pokemon have over a Pokemon of the same species with a lower IV at the same CP?

If they have the same CP but different IV's, then the one with higher IV's would be a lower level and will have more potential to grow. So if you later powered them both up to the same level, the higher IV one will now have more CP.

When two same-species pokemon are the same level, the one with higher IV's will almost always have more CP than the other. This is because having higher IV's means having higher stats, which means bigger numbers are used in the CP formula.

However, there are some edge cases where lower IV pokemon could have slightly higher CP because the Attack IV is weighted more than Defense/Stamina in the CP formula.

Answer 2

Pokémon in Pokémon GO have three IV's or "Individual Values":

• Attack
• Defense
• Stamina

Attack and Defense affect CP, and Stamina affects HP. Each IV can have a value up to 15. "Perfect" Pokémon will have 15 in each category. A Pokémon with Perfect IV's will have higher CP and/or HP than one of the same species with lower IV's in any or all of the categories. The difference in CP and HP from the lowest total IV's to highest will vary depending on the species and evolution of the Pokémon.

Some calculators will display your Pokémon against a percentage of "Perfect IV", which is simply the ratio of the IV total for your Pokémon to the total possible IV of 45. A Pokémon with perfect 15's, or a total or 45 IV points, will be a 100% Perfect IV value.