Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Breeding Guide

Breeding works a bit differently in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. With no Daycare Center in sight, Pokemon breeders will have to resort to using other tactics to help get their Pokemon with the perfect IV stats. Now, breeding has always been a prominent part of the Pokemon series. Whether you’re hatching eggs in an attempt to craft a competitive-worthy team or complete your Pokedex, the mechanics has always stayed the same since the introduction of Pokemon Gold and Silver. In the latest generation of Pokemon, Game Freak made a few revisions. In this breeding guide, I’ll be talking about the guide outlines on how to hatch and get eggs, what items you should have for the process, and how you can breed the best possible Pokemon.

The Basics

First, let’s get to know the basics. As I said, you won’t find any Daycares or their equivalents in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Instead, you can now breed Pokemon whenever you set up a picnic. You can argue that breeding just got a whole lot more tedious since you have to constantly set up picnics for your team (save for when you’re in a town or near a Pokemon Center), but I’m not kidding when I say that it’s become more fun because of it.

As long as you have two Pokemon—one female and one male—in the same Egg group (this helps if you have a Ditto on standby), there’s a high chance that those two Pokemon will bread and create an Egg which you can get by peeking inside the basket.

One thing that hasn’t changed is that breeding is still the best way to get competitive-grade Pokemon. We’re talking about Pokemon with positive natures, IVs worthy of a chef’s kiss, special egg moves, and good abilities—the works. Suppose you’re itching to competitively play Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and go head-to-head with other trainers. In that case, breeding is an excellent method for conjuring up a team worthy of taking down a Champion.

Using Sandwiches to Bolster Your Chances

If you want to produce more Eggs in picnics, you might want to look at some sandwiches that’ll increase your Egg Power. By raising your Egg Power, Eggs will appear more frequently in the picnic basket near your table. For example, if you look at the basic menu for sandwiches, you’ll see that the Jam Sandwich grants you Egg Power Lv. 1.

If creating meals that are already pre-made for you aren’t your jam, you can make a sandwich with Egg Power through Creative Mode. There are many ingredients in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet that can raise Egg Power, like Bananas, Apples, Pineapple, Kiwi, Basil, and Strawberry. I recommend choosing Whipped Cream, Vinegar, Jam, Olive Oil, and Marmalade for your seasoning. Using more than one ingredient is necessary if you want to ensure that you’ll get the Egg Power boost instead of other effects, so stock up on those items!

If making sandwiches isn’t your forte (I advise you to try it at least once), you can visit one of the many multiple food shops across the Paldea region. They sell food that’ll give you and your Pokemon Egg Power. Some examples include Smoke Fillet with Herbs, Compote du Fils, and the Tropical Sandwich. Sandwiches aren’t the only food type that gives you that extra boost—other offerings can also be bought that’ll give the same effect. If you’re the type that fancies trying out different restaurants and food stalls, it’s a great way to get to know the many cuisines in the game while getting that much-needed Egg Power.

How to Hatch An Egg

Say you’ve managed to get an Egg via the picnic method, so what’s next? It’s time to hatch them, of course. Hatching Eggs in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is relatively simple: put the eggs in your party and walk them around. You can use Miraidon or Koraidon for this to make the process quicker, but note that some species of Pokemon take longer to hatch than others, so be patient. You’ll need to have at least one Pokemon with the Egg in your party at all times, and you have to move around to hatch them—no, idling does not count here.

Luckily, there’s one way for you to speed up the hatching process of an Egg. In your party, you can include a Pokemon with the Steam Engine, Flame Body, or Magma Armor abilities. If you want to get the most out of egg hatching, you can limit your party to just this Pokemon with one of the abilities while the eggs take up the five remaining slots.

Here are the Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet that can have the Steam Engine, Flame Body, and Magma Armor:

• Camerupt
• Fletchinder
• Talonflame
• Larvesta
• Volcarona
• Rolycoly
• Carkol
• Coalossal

Breeding is A Sneaky Way to Get Shiny Pokemon

If you’ve been paying attention to Jacq’s biology lessons, you’ll know that the Masuda method still exists in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. And you know what that means—more Shinies! If you pair two compatible Pokemon with different languages, the Egg would have an increased chance of being a Shiny Pokemon when it hatches. You can quickly get a Pokemon with a different language name than yours through the Suprise Trade feature. If you stack this up with a Shiny Charm, your odds of getting a Shiny will improve considerably.

Getting Those Sweet, Sweet IV Stats

One of the main reasons people breed their Pokemon, besides getting Shinies is to make sure that their Pokemon have the best stats. This is essential if you’re considering competitively playing Scarlet or Violet. Thankfully, you won’t need much help with IV breeding if you’re already familiar with it from previous games, as everything works similarly in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. A hatched Pokemon will inherit three IVs from the two parent Pokemon randomly.

With that out of the way, let’s go over how you can increase IVs from the parent Pokemon. You can use the following Power Items to pass down the IVs for HP, Defense, Attack, Speed, Sp. Atk, and Sp. Defense:

• Power Weight
• Power Belt
• Power Bracer
• Power Anklet
• Power Lens
• Power Band

Using one of these items, you can pass down a specific stat from the parent Pokemon to its offspring. Best of all, they’re pretty accessible, too; you can buy the Power Items in Delibird Presents under the General Goods menu. Each Power Item costs 10,000 Pokedollars. If they do not appear for you when you go to the store, you might want to get more Gym Badges first.

Another method of passing down IVs is by using the Destiny Knot. The Destiny Knot can also be bought in Delibird Presents—specifically, in the Mesagoza branch. This costs 20,000 Pokedollars, but trust me when I say it’s worth having. Like the Power Items, you’ll have to get several Gym Badges to unlock the item. If one of the parent Pokemon holds the Destiny Knot, it will take five IVs from the two parents instead of three. While this is still random, there’s a better chance of the Egg getting good stats if the two Pokemon used to breed are also strong.

Ditto is Your Best Friend

The quickest way to breed Pokemon is to have Ditto as one of your parent Pokemon. That’s because a Ditto always mimics the other parent Pokemon. For example, if you breed a Garchomp with Ditto, you’re guaranteed to get a Gible, the starting evolution of Garchomp. You can usually find Dittos running around in the West Province (Area Two and Area Three). Still, they can be challenging to catch as they disguise themselves as other Pokemon—similar to Zoroark. There are currently two ways to ensure that you catch the small blob.

The first is to engage a wild Pokemon in battle. Should the opposing Pokemon be a Ditto, it’ll automatically transform into its actual form as soon as the battle starts. If it’s not a Ditto, you can immediately just run away from the battle (unless the Pokemon you’re using is under-leveled). The other way is to lock on to the Pokemon you find in the wild using the ZL button and the right stick. This way, you can see the names of the Pokemon around you before choosing whether or not to battle them. If you haven’t caught a Ditto before and you see a Pokemon you know you’ve caught/encountered before as “???”, that’s your sign that it’s a Ditto hiding in plain sight. If you’ve already caught a Ditto before, then the Pokemon will show up as “Ditto.”

New Yet Familiar

Breeding Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet may be different in a lot o ways, but there’s still some sense of familiarity behind it. It’s true that you no longer have access to Daycares, and you can use items to boost your chances of getting that perfect Pokemon. However, some mechanics remain the same, like the fact that the hatched Pokemon will come in the same Poke Ball as its parent Pokemon just like in the previous games. Hatching Pokemon Eggs requires a lot of running around, so at least try to explore what the rest of the Paldea region has to offer while you’re at it.