Zero IV Pokemon VS 100% IV Pokemon

The other day, I found something cool. While on my little walk, hoping to hatch a couple of eggs. As I wandered around, I spotted a Ferroseed and decided on a whim to catch it. I’m not normally a fan of the steel/grass type, but it looks cool, and I could always do with more candy. Turns out though, this Ferroseed was special. Amazingly, it had 0 IVs what so ever.

After that, I then checked my Pokemon storage, remembering that I also have a 100% Ferroseed somewhere. So I decided to evolve both of these Ferroseeds into Ferrothorns, and, well, do some comparing.

Damage

In order to see what damage they could do, I pitted both Ferrothorns against Blanche’s ultra league team, powering up both Ferrothorns to a similar number. 1690 was the 0% Ferrothorn’s CP level, while the hundo was at 1691. These are not the same level, just same CP. Anyway, I started a battle against Blanche and her team. A team I forgot started with the Ice-type Glaceon. Not that it mattered too much, since Steel resists Ice, even if Grass doesn’t. During the battles, I started with each Ferrothorn in the first slot and refrained from using common switching tricks to save myself some extra damage.

To my surprise, both Ferrothorns did quite well, despite going against CP 2400-ish Pokemon. Blanche’s team of Glaceon, Empoleon and Mammoswine all partially countered the Ferrothorns, but, to my surprise, both made it through the fight without dying. The difference in damage dealt by their attacks wasn’t completely obvious. However, when it came to damage taken, I could definitely see a difference there. The 0% Ferrothorn finished with barely a slither of health left, while the hundo had a good 1/5 of its health left.

Maximum level

To be fair to the 0% Ferrothorn, it did actually survive. The hardest thing hitting the 0%er is when it receives damage. Defense and HP work together, but since the 0% Pokemon lacks stats in both, it’s essentially taking double damage compared to the 100% Ferrothorn

The more interesting thing is that, well, their CPs are completely different. The cost to level them both is mostly the same, aside from the fact that the 100% Ferrothorn is a Lucky one. While the candy cost is identical, they have wildly different CPs. Even if you would max these two Ferrothorns out, the 0% one is nearly 400 CP lower than the 100% one. Even at level 50, the 0%er would be too low for Ultra League.

Rarity

After all of this though, there’s one place where the 0% Ferrothorn wins. A 0% Pokemon is far, far rarer than a 100% Pokemon. Why? It’s quite simple actually. There’s no realistic way to catch Pokemon and check every single one. A Hundo Pokemon has many ways to occur, either via finding one in the wild, or hatching eggs, or getting them via Lucky Trades, Purification and research task rewards.

All those things up the chances to catch a 100% Pokemon. Lucky trades, eggs and research tasks all have a minimum IV of 66-67%, meaning you can’t get a 0%er from those. Normal trades will reroll a Pokemon’s stats, but the closer to Best Buddies you are, the less random those rerolled stats will be. And on top of all of that, weather-boosted Pokemon have minimum IVs as well.

A 0% Pokemon though? The only way you can try and get one is by catching every Pokemon you see, then checking them all individually. Because of that, getting a 0% Pokemon is nothing but pure luck.

Sadly, both are still… kinda useless…

At the end of the day, comparing a 0% Pokemon to a 100% Pokemon is interesting. However, Ferrothorn isn’t the most useful Pokemon around, and I doubt we’ll see much of it outside of PvP. Still, you never know with these things…