Gold/Silver - Breeding Guide

Introduction

This guide should help you to know all about breeding in the new Gold and Silver games. People who have bred Pokemon before will know about the long time it usually take and the tedious activity it involves. You have to get the two parents together, and make sure that one is male, and one is female. Also, they have to be compatible. This guide will help tell you if the actual long process will work, or if your efforts are futile, or, how long it will take.

Why Breed? Why breed? Well, there are various reasons for breeding. Here are some of them:

• To Get Another Pokemon of the Mother's Type
• This is the most obvious reason. Breeding allows you to recreate another one of the more rare Pokemon such as Charmander, Squirtle, or Bulbasaur without the need to trade with a friend or use another version.
• It also allows you to give them your rare Pokemon without actually giving up your Pokemon.

A few of the Pokemon require that you breed them together to get a pre-evolution, so, you require breeding some to finish the Pokedex. A few of these Pokemon are the Pikachu, Jynx and Magmar pre-evolutions.

Getting New Types of Attacks on Other Pokemon

If the father Pokemon has an attack that the child Pokemon, or mother Pokémon could inherit, it would get it through breeding. For instance, breeding Barrier onto Magmar by breeding a Male Mr.Mime with Barrier, with a Female Magmar. It may give you a Magby with Barrier.

The Process of Breeding

Just south of Goldenrod City is the Pokemon Daycare Center. Here is where the actual breeding takes place. To breed, you need to give a male Pokemon to the Old Man, and a female Pokemon to the Old Woman, or vice versa. You may also use a Ditto instead of one of your Pokemon.

Length of Time to Breed

You actually decided to breed after all that explanation? Well, here is some more vital information; There are several factors that determine whether a Pokemon will produce an egg quickly, slowly, or not at all. One worth mentioning, is that many Pokemon, especially rare ones like Mewtwo, Zapdos, Ho-oh, and Lugia, are not able to breed at all. The legendary Pokemon cannot breed, and some Pokemon like Magnemite are genderless, and they cannot breed. Also, another variability is compatibility. A basic guide to follow is to match Pokemon with either the same species or ones with the same icon shown under the Pokemon entry on the Pause menu. The best way to know is to look at this site's Pokedex. Ditto are able to breed with all Pokemon, that is, the ones that can breed.

The next part is a bit more complicated. If the Pokemon can breed, then follow the steps as follows:

These numbers are estimated. Call this number you just picked X. OK, here's where you require some math skills. After you tell the old folks to take care of your Pokemon, a random number is picked between 1 and 255, which we'll call Y. For every step you take, Y is subtracted by 1. After Y reaches zero, another random number is picked between 1 and 255, which we'll call Z. Now, if your number X is greater than Z, you will have an egg. If not, go back to step 1 above and start over. Essentially, Pokemon will breed fastest if they are the same Pokemon, but, from different trainers. If you intend of breeding with a Ditto, remember that if you don't trade it from someone else, it will take a long time. You should remember that while you're wasting time waiting for your Pokemon to breed, they are gaining 1 experience point for every step you take. So, breeding works best when using higher level Pokemon who no longer learn new moves naturally, or else the Pokemon you will be getting back might have some different attacks. So, now you should have an egg. How long until it hatches?

Egg Hatching Guide

When you receive an egg, a certain period of time must pass before it will hatch. Rather, you must take a certain amount of steps before it will hatch. This amount varies with the type of Pokemon that will hatch from the egg. (Again, this list might not be completely accurate, and is somewhat estimated.)

Pokemon Number of Steps

• Magikarp : 1290
• Pichu, Cleffa, Igglybuff, Togepi : 2580
• Caterpie, Weedle, Pidgey, Rattata, Spearow, Zubat, Geodude, Sentret,
• Hoothoot, Ledyba, Spinarak : 3860
• Any Pokemon not listed : 5150
• Onix, Mr. Mime, Scyther, Pinsir, Misdreavus, Heracross, Mantine, Skarmory, Tyrogue, Smoochum, Elekid, Magby : 6450
• Omanyte, Kabuto : 7690
• Eevee, Aerodactyl : 8970
• Chansey, Lapras, Snorlax, Dratini, Larvitar : 10260

Then the egg hatches, and you receive the Pokemon. What will the offspring be like?

Attacks Guide

When a Pokemon is born from an egg, a few things are sorted out. Of course, one thing is species. If it's male-female breeding, then, whichever Pokemon was the female, the new baby would be that. If it's Ditto-breeding, then, it would be whichever Pokemon is not the Ditto. The most important exception to this rule is when the parent is an evolved Pokémon, like Venomoth. In that case, the offspring will be the lowest evolutionary stage of the parent. For example, a female Poliwrath producing offspring would produce a baby Poliwag.

All Pokemon born from eggs begin at level 5, no matter what. When a Pokemon is born, it will automatically know a set of moves that all level 5 Pokemon of that species will know. This leaves a few open slots for attacks, which this table shows.

A baby may learn other attacks which the father Pokemon knew beforehand. Most attacks which the father knows will be passed on to the newborn. Most of the time, TM and HM moves will be carried over from father to child. If you do not want TM and HM moves carried over, you should delete these moves beforehand, if possible, but, carrying TM moves over could be useful if you had a low stat Pokemon, and wanted that TM on a better stated baby. Of course, that's fairly random.

An Example of Breeding

In this example, I have two Pokemon: A Magmar and a Mr. Mime. The plan is to produce a Magby that knows Barrier so it can protect itself from some physical attacks.

Here is what the parents know (These were just some sample sets of Pokemon I had in a box. They seemed to be good candidates for breeding. ^_^): According to the chart above, my number is 32. So, I have a 50% chance of getting an egg (32/255 x 4 = 50%). And the Egg should be a Magby. Of course, there's also the possibility of not breeding by the first 255 steps. In which case, I'll just walk around a bit more. The chart also says that my Magby will have three open slots, and that means that I might be able to get some good stuff.

After giving the Old Man and the Old Woman my Magmar and Mr.Mime, I trained another Pokemon It doesn't matter what I did, as long as I was moving around. You will know your Pokémon have bred when the Old Man stands outside the back door of his house.

After a long while, I finally receive my Egg. The chart shows that I need about 6500 steps to hatch this Magby egg. After about that long, out pops my newest Pokémon.