Pokémon GO IVs Explained: What Are Individual Values?

IV stands for Individual Value — three hidden stats every Pokémon rolls the moment it appears: Attack, Defense and Stamina (HP), each from 0 to 15. They're the difference between two otherwise identical Pokémon of the same species, they're fixed for the life of that Pokémon, and Niantic doesn't show you the numbers in the app.

How IVs work

• Attack (0–15) — added to the species' base attack; raises damage output.
• Defense (0–15) — added to base defense; reduces damage taken.
• Stamina (0–15) — added to base stamina; raises HP.

Add the three together for an IV percentage out of 45. A 100% IV Pokémon is a perfect 15/15/15 — the strongest possible roll of that species. A 0/0/0 is the floor. Everything else sits between.

The critical thing to understand is that IVs are a bonus on top of base stats, not the stats themselves. A perfect Magikarp is still a Magikarp. Species choice decides roughly how strong a Pokémon can ever be; IVs decide the last few percent. Both the max CP rankings and the raid attacker rankings are built on base stats and movesets for exactly that reason — pick the right species first, then chase the roll.

Where the roll comes from

Different encounter types have different IV floors, which is why some sources produce good Pokémon far more often:

• Plain wild spawns roll from 0 — anything is possible, including the junk.
• Weather-boosted wild spawns have a raised floor, so a boosted catch is never terrible.
• Raids, Team GO Rocket, research and eggs have a much higher floor — a 10/10/10 minimum is the familiar one — which is why raid catches cluster in the 80–100% range.
• Lucky Pokémon from a lucky trade have a 12/12/12 minimum, so they're often near-perfect by default.
• Trading re-rolls IVs entirely. A traded Pokémon gets brand-new values inside a friendship-dependent floor — so trading a hundo away means the hundo is gone.

None of this changes with powering up or evolving. Power-ups raise CP by raising the level; the IVs underneath stay exactly where they were when you caught it.

How to check IVs

Tap a Pokémon → menu → Appraise. The star rating and the three stat bars reveal the roll: three full bars means 15/15/15. For checking a whole inventory at once, the search bar is faster — 4* lists every hundo you own, 3* covers 82.2–97.8%, and you can chain filters like 4*&shiny. The full set is in our search and filter strings cheat sheet.

How much difference do IVs actually make?

Less than most trainers assume, and more than nothing. Between a 0% and a 100% of the same species at the same level you're looking at a difference in the region of ten percent of CP — real, but small next to picking a better species or a better moveset. The practical rule: IVs are a tiebreaker, not a strategy. Power up the right Pokémon with an 89% today rather than waiting six months for the perfect one.

The exception is anything you intend to max. If a Pokémon is going to eat hundreds of thousands of Stardust and a pile of XL Candy on its way to level 50, you want the best roll you can get before you start — which is why hundo hunting is worth doing for meta species specifically.

What counts as a good IV?

A rough working scale, for PvE:

• 100% (15/15/15) — perfect. Worth hunting for species you'll max.
• 91–98% — excellent, and functionally indistinguishable in most fights.
• 82–89% — good enough to power up today rather than wait.
• Under 80% — fine for the Pokédex, fine as trade fodder, not worth XL Candy.

Note that the appraisal star rating is a blunt instrument: 3★ covers everything from 82.2% to 97.8%, so a "3-star" catch can be one point off perfect. Check the bars, not the stars.

When IVs barely matter

• Pokédex completion. A 12% catch registers the same entry as a perfect one — see the Living Dex tracker for what you're still missing.
• PokéStop Showcases, which are roughly 96% about size. Check any Pokémon's score with the showcase calculator.
• Anything you plan to trade away — the IVs get re-rolled for the person receiving it.
• Shiny collecting. Shininess and IVs are independent rolls; a shiny's stats are ordinary. Track yours in the Shiny Pokédex.

Do IVs always matter the same way?

No — and this is where most guides stop too early. For raids, gyms, Master League and anything without a CP cap, higher is better and a hundo is ideal. For PvP in Great and Ultra League it inverts: under a CP cap a low Attack IV is usually better, because it lets you carry more bulk under the same cap. A 15/15/15 is frequently one of the worse Great League rolls of its species.

So decide what the Pokémon is for before you judge the roll. Then hunt accordingly: the live 100% IV feed posts around 6,000 fresh hundos an hour across 55 countries, and the PvP channels post rank-1 Great and Ultra League spreads so you don't have to work them out yourself. Free members get 10 coordinate reveals a day.

For the rest of the vocabulary — CP, stat product, XL Candy, Best Buddy — see the glossary, or browse every walkthrough in the guides hub.