Get those perfect IVs
Pokemon Scarlet & Violet seem to have set a trend with recent Tera Raid events. We still have our powerful 7-Star foes like Samurott, which is live again for those who missed it last week. But overlapping those reruns are deliberately easy encounters that let you farm a valuable resource. This week, the valuable resource in question happens to be… Ditto?
Sure, Ditto is a change of pace from a bunch of Tera Shards, but this event is still notable. Any Ditto caught during this event is guaranteed to have at least five perfect Individual Values (IVs). It’s kind of hard to explain IVs for those unfamiliar with them, but in short, all six of a Pokemon’s core stats have an IV associated with them. For all intents and purposes, the higher the IV value, the better the stats. Since Ditto will have the highest possible value in five of its stats, it’s feasible to obtain a Ditto with every attribute perfected if that sixth stat comes with a good dice roll. We’ll talk more about this later.
This event will last until April 9th, but it is worth your time this weekend? Let’s look at the details.
How to defeat Ditto
The optimal strategy for defeating Ditto is honestly hilarious. At the start of the encounter, Ditto will trigger its Imposter Hidden Ability and transform into your party leader’s Pokemon. In a multiplayer room, this will always be the host. As such, there’s no way to plan a battle strategy around every possible Pokemon Ditto could transform into. However, armed with this knowledge, you can game this fight hard enough to last a single turn.
If you’re the host, simply bring a low level Pokemon like Magikarp. This will goad Ditto into transforming into your weak monster, letting your allies take it down without breaking a sweat. Anyone with a Pokemon built for Tera Raids will easily one-hit KO Ditto without any setup, making this potentially the easiest event ever included in Scarlet & Violet. Yes, even easier than Blissey.
Is the Ditto event worth your time?
Depending on what kind of Pokemon player you are, grabbing a Ditto with perfect IVs is a huge deal.
As many of you know, Ditto can make eggs with every viable Pokemon in Scarlet & Violet. Going over all the specifics of egg mechanics would turn this into a short essay, so just know that the stats and moves of the parents matter a lot. If one of the parent Pokemon is holding a Destiny Knot, five IVs from both parents’ pool of twelve will pass down to the offspring. Coincidentally, Ditto also has a 1% chance to drop the Destiny Knot (in addition to the Everstone, which can be used to pass down specific Natures).
In short, a Ditto with perfect IVs is guaranteed to make any Pokemon you breed stronger. You might ask yourself “why don’t I use some Bottle Caps on a Ditto and call it a day?” Unfortunately, breeding only considers a Pokemon’s natural IVs, so a Hyper Trained Pokemon won’t be as effective. It is true that, mathematically, a Pokemon bred with perfect IVs will perform equally as well as a Pokemon that has been Hyper Trained. But if you’d like to save the time and money of grinding Bottle Caps, this is a powerful alternative.
Personally, I’d say anyone playing Scarlet & Violet should run the event at least once. It’s ridiculously easy with the right setup, and even an imperfect Ditto is valuable to own. Getting a Ditto with perfect IVs took me about an hour, so whether that’s worth the grind is up to you. If you never interact with breeding as a mechanic or have no interest in high-end play, you don’t necessarily need to run this event. But I mean… look at Ditto’s little face. How can you not want at least one of those on your roster?
