Pokemon Go: Players Can Now Check Pokemon Individual Values or IVs

Until recently, Pokemon Go players had no way to assess how powerful their Pokemon are aside from the displayed Combat Power (CP). Although CP doesn't exactly show how much damage a certain Pokemon will deal during battles, it's a helpful stat in determining which Pokemon to keep and which ones to abandon. But behind the CP's seeming randomness is a set of three hidden stats: Attack, Defense, and Stamina. They range from 0-15 and they affect the amount of HP and CP a Pokemon will gain during power-up, either through Stardust or evolution (if they have an evolution tree). The general rule is to invest only in Pokemon with the highest set of IVs because they hold the most potential. But how do players monitor Pokemon IVs if they're hidden?

Well, a new PokemonGo update makes it possible. Simply called 'Pokemon Appraisal', the new addition allows players to "learn about a Pokémon's attack and defense capabilities from their Team Leader (Candela, Blanche or Spark) to determine which of their Pokémon have the most potential for battle", according to Niantic. The Team Leaders, of course, will be referring to IVs, but they will not give specific numbers to crunch. Instead, they will simply spit out cryptic dialog to describe a Pokemon's overall strength. That may sound a bit vague,but it's more than enough when deciding which Pokemon to waste Stardust or Candies on.

For players that played the main Pokemon games, that may sound very familiar. In Pokemon Emerald, there's an NPC that similarly performs the exact same service. Hardcore Pokemon players should know that said NPC isn't merely giving out random dialog when assessing their Pokemon - the NPC is actually checking out Pokemon IVs, too. Turns out, IVs also made their way to Pokemon Go despite being developed by a different team, although the main Pokemon games had IVs spread out among six core stats and range from 0-31.