'Pokémon Sun and Moon' IV checker and calculator: How to judge your Pokémon's stats
You may have battled up and down Alola in Pokémon Sun and Moon, but you still won't know just how good your Pokémon really are until you learn their individual values. Thankfully, there's a way to find and check each Pokémon's IV from inside the game.
Pokémon Sun and Moon makes you work hard to gain access to its IV checker, but complex third-party IV calculators will make it worth the wait. Here's everything there is to know about assessing your Pokémon in the latest game.
Pokémon Sun and Moon IV checker: How to truly understand your Pokémon
IV's are expressions of small variances in quality within a species of Pokémon. Every species of Pokémon is defined in part by certain shared statistics, and IVs are like small bonuses to those basic stats. Some IVs provide small but meaningful bonuses if their values are high enough.
Once you understand that not all Snorlax are alike the value of checking your Pokémon's IV should become obvious.
Pokémon Sun and Moon IV checker: How to find the IV Judge
At the end of your adventure you'll come up against the Elite Four, four of the most powerful trainers in the game. Once you beat them you'll finally be able to access one of the most important tools in any Pokémon game: an IV Judge.
After beating the Elite Four in Pokémon Sun and Moon you can access an area called Ancient Poni Path which leads to the Battle Tree. You will have to fight numerous Pokémon trainers and wild Pokémon the first time you make your way to the Battle Tree. Thankfully, you won't have to deal with those trainers again on return trips.
Just outside the Battle Tree is the IV Judge, who stands next to a PC placed on a small wooden table. Using the PC, you can also access detailed data on all your Pokémon. The Judge button on the bottom game screen opens up a new kind of chart introduced by Pokémon Sun and Moon, which measures six different IVs for each Pokémon.
You can then take this IV information and plug it into a third-party IV calculator tool which will provide even more detailed information about the Pokémon you're analyzing.
Pokémon Sun and Moon IV calculator: Serebii's tool is thorough and complex
Once you are armed with the information provided by Pokémon Sun and Moon's IV Judge, you can feed that information into the third-party IV calculator published by Pokémon fan community site Serebii.net.
The Serebii IV calculator takes a lot of information into account when breaking down your Pokémon's IVs and other stat values. Those details are everything when it comes to understanding just how good a Pokémon is (or isn't).
It takes a little extra effort to use the Serebii IV calculator rather than relying solely on Pokémon Sun and Moon's information, but when it comes time to pick your best Pokémon for a fight you can really be sure about your choices if you know all their IVs.
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If you're serious about Pokémon Sun and Moon, you'll want to read up so you can be the very best. Check out our guides for picking the right starter, Pokémon Sun and Moon cheats, using a damage calculator, how to catch the new legendary Pokémon, how to get Munchlax, how to customize your character, how to trade, how to find all the evolution stones, how to use QR codes, all the Team Skull passwords, which Pokémon to catch early on and picking between Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon.
