IN-DEPTH BRED MOVESETS TUTORIAL

[indigo_league]

Inherited Moves: Eggsplained!
So you want to breed your Pokémon! It's a subject that looks complicated and overwhelming, especially figuring out what moves your babies will inherit, so this guide will go step by step and break it down into manageable chunks. So long as your Pokémon are in the same Egg Group they can breed, and the more creative you get with combos, the more unique the resulting baby Pokémon can be. But before we get to the babies, we have to take a look at:

The Parents
The parents are the most important part of a breeding endeavor: without them there would be no eggs! Which parents you pair up can determine a lot about the babies, but we'll just be looking at movesets here since number of eggs, shiny chance and hidden ability are covered on the main breeding page. Here are the Pokémon we'll be working with for this example:

Goodra ♀ Bubble, Tackle, Absorb, Protect, Bide, Dragon Breath, Rain Dance, Flail, Body Slam, Muddy Water, Dragon Pulse, Feint, Aqua Tail, Power Whip, Outrage, Hidden Power, Rest, Iron Tail

Dragalge ♂ Smokescreen, Water Gun, Tackle, Feint Attack, Tail Whip, Bubble, Acid, Camouflage, Poison Tail, Water Pulse, Double Team, Toxic, Aqua Tail, Sludge Bomb, Hydro Pump, Dragon Pulse, Dragon Tail, Thunderbolt, Iron Tail

Pretty impressive lineup, huh? We're going to have some interesting babies on our hands. Let's say for the sake of keeping things simple that these two produce only two eggs (slackers!), one Goomy and one Skrelp. Time to go step by step through filling out the movepools of both of those babies. A good reference site to use is Pokemon Database, which has an easy to read format and comprehensive lists.

Level One Moves
These moves are the easiest to deal with. They're moves that the baby Pokémon in question would hatch with at level one naturally whether it was specially bred or not. For Goomy those moves are Bubble and Tackle, while Skrelp knows Smokescreen, Water Gun and Tackle.

Goomy Bubble, Tackle

Skrelp Smokescreen, Water Gun, Tackle

Level Up Moves
Next come the moves that both parents know that the babies can learn upon level up without evolving. This applies to all babies of all pairings: if both their parents know the move and they would naturally learn it upon level up anyway, they can know it immediately at level one. This makes breeding two Pokémon of the same type have its advantages, because their parents' movepools will have a very high overlap if not be outright identical, giving them a huge head start on learning moves. There are reasons to pair Pokémon of two different species together, but we'll get to that in the next section.

So how do you check which moves both parents know that the babies can also learn without giving yourself a headache looking back and forth between different lists? Well, the whole theme of this guide is breaking things down into chunks. The first step is figuring out which moves the parents have in common. This is bolded below.

Goodra ♀ Bubble, Tackle, Absorb, Protect, Bide, Dragon Breath, Rain Dance, Flail, Body Slam, Muddy Water, Dragon Pulse, Feint, Aqua Tail, Power Whip, Outrage, Hidden Power, Rest, Iron Tail

Dragalge ♂ Smokescreen, Water Gun, Tackle, Feint Attack, Tail Whip, Bubble, Acid, Camouflage, Poison Tail, Water Pulse, Double Team, Toxic, Aqua Tail, Sludge Bomb, Hydro Pump, Dragon Pulse, Dragon Tail, Thunderbolt, Iron Tail

You may find it easiest to put the two lists in a text document and CTRL+F for each attack name. If there's a match, note it down. The bolded moves above leave us with Bubble, Tackle, Dragon Pulse, Aqua Tail, and Iron Tail. So the babies inherit all those moves, right? Well not exactly. We need to check this list against the move list of each baby Pokémon to make sure they can actually learn any of them.


These are screenshots of the lists of moves learned upon level up from Pokémon Database, specifically the lists for Goomy and Skrelp in Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. As you can see some of these moves are going to pass down, but Goomy cannot learn Aqua tail naturally, and neither Goomy nor Skrelp can learn Iron Tail. You'll also notice some of these moves are moves that the babies already knew because they were level one moves: there's going to be some crossover sometimes! This makes our updated baby movesets look like:

Goomy Bubble, Tackle, Dragon Pulse

Skrelp Smokescreen, Water Gun, Tackle, Bubble, Aqua Tail, Dragon Pulse

TM and HM Moves
Next we look at the TM and HM moves the parents know. For same-species pairings the babies inherit all the TM and HM moves of both parents, provided the babies can also learn them the old-fashioned way. For different-species pairings, the baby inherits the TMs and HMs that the parent of the opposite species knows. So in this case, our baby Goomy will inherit from its Dragalge father, and our baby Skrelp will inherit from its Goodra mother.

TM and HM lists change by generation. Some moves that are TMs in seventh generation weren't before, and some that used to be have been removed from the list. Victory Road has grandfathered in every generation: if your baby could learn it as a TM or HM at one point, then it can now! For this part, we recommend using Bulbapedia if you want to be completely thorough, because each page detailing information on a specific move also has a list of Pokémon that can learn that move which includes every generation up to the present. For instance, here is their handy-dandy list of every Pokémon in every generation who can learn Fly in this manner.

For simplicity's sake, players are free to have their Pokemon only able to learn the TMs they can learn in the latest generation(s), or they can choose to go all the way back to Red/Blue/Yellow for TM moves that are otherwise unobtainable on certain Pokemon. It doesn't matter how the Pokeémon you're breeding learned the move; if it's a TM or an HM it can be passed on like one. So with all that in mind, let's make a list of the moves that are also TMs in generation seven, that each of the parents know and have a chance of passing on to their children!

Goodra ♀ Bubble, Tackle, Absorb, Protect, Bide, Dragon Breath, Rain Dance, Flail, Body Slam, Muddy Water, Dragon Pulse, Feint, Aqua Tail, Power Whip, Outrage, Hidden Power, Rest, Iron Tail

Dragalge ♂ Smokescreen, Water Gun, Tackle, Feint Attack, Tail Whip, Bubble, Acid, Camouflage, Poison Tail, Water Pulse, Double Team, Toxic, Aqua Tail, Sludge Bomb, Hydro Pump, Dragon Pulse, Dragon Tail, Thunderbolt, Iron Tail

So our Goodra can potentially pass on Protect, Rain Dance, Hidden Power, and Rest. Our Dragalge can pass on Double Team, Toxic, Sludge Bomb, Dragon Tail and Thunderbolt. Again, I find the easiest way to quickly do this is to put a list of TMs into a word document with your Pokémon's list of moves and CTRL+F for matches.

Now let's compare these lists to what Pokémon Database says our babies can be taught!


So, almost all of these moves will be passed on, with the exception of Goomy being unable to learn Dragon Tail. Not too shabby! Now our babies' movepools are really taking shape, and look like this:

Goomy Bubble, Tackle, Dragon Pulse, Double Team, Toxic, Sludge Bomb, Thunderbolt

Skrelp Smokescreen, Water Gun, Tackle, Bubble, Aqua Tail, Dragon Pulse, Protect, Rain Dance, Hidden Power, Rest

Egg Moves
In Victory Road, only the father can pass on egg moves, which are special moves that Pokémon can often only learn via breeding! He can, however, pass on those moves to either of his children. Again, Pokémon database not only lists what moves each baby Pokémon can learn as egg moves, but has an entire page solely dedicated to showing all the possible parents that can pass it on to that baby (for some reason the Bulbapedia sections that serve the same purpose are incomplete).

The essential information is that if the father knows a move that the baby can learn as an egg move, the baby will learn that move. This is one of the most compelling arguments for breeding different-species pairs, because a father of another species might know an egg move your baby can't learn any other way and give you the opportunity to breed a unique and interesting moveset. Sound good? Then let's take a look at the egg move possibilities for each of our babies, and see how they stack up next to dad's moveset!


Looks like poor Skrelp gets nothing from its father, but Goomy can inherit both Iron Tail and Poison Tail! Let's just add those onto the end of its moveset.

Goomy Bubble, Tackle, Dragon Pulse, Double Team, Toxic, Sludge Bomb, Thunderbolt, Iron Tail, Poison Tail

Skrelp Smokescreen, Water Gun, Tackle, Bubble, Aqua Tail, Dragon Pulse, Protect, Rain Dance, Hidden Power, Rest

Alright. This is a lot. But luckily we're almost done! The last section we have to cover is:

Tutor Moves
In Victory Road, Move Tutors can be found all over the place and they can teach any move that was a move tutor move in any generation! Much like with TMs and HMs, you're free to go into past generations if you want to be in-depth, or stick to recent generations' tutors. It's up to you!

The rules for passing on these moves are simple, and you've seen them before! If both parents know that move, and the baby can learn it by tutoring, then they can inherit and hatch with it! For this step it isn't as big a deal to make a list of all the potentially-passable tutor moves the parents both know, though you can do that step if you'd like. If you'd rather not, skip directly to looking at the tutor moves the babies can learn, and comparing those to the parents' movesets.


We already have a handy list of all the moves both parents know from earlier (though this guide didn't include the whole thing), so this step is pretty easy! What this list tells us is that Skrelp can learn Aqua Tail, Dragon Pulse, and Iron Tail as inherited tutor moves, while Goomy can only learn Dragon Pulse and Iron Tail. A couple of these moves are moves the babies have already inherited in other ways: there can be overlap, and it often makes this job easier because you can automatically rule out searching for moves the babies already know. In this case Goomy already knows both Dragon Pulse and Iron Tail through other means, and Skrelp already knows Dragon Pulse and Aqua Tail. However, we can now add Iron Tail to Skrelp's movepool as well!

Goomy Bubble, Tackle, Dragon Pulse, Double Team, Toxic, Sludge Bomb, Thunderbolt, Iron Tail, Poison Tail

Skrelp Smokescreen, Water Gun, Tackle, Bubble, Aqua Tail, Dragon Pulse, Protect, Rain Dance, Hidden Power, Rest, Iron Tail

So now, finally, we're done! These babies are ready to be slapped up on the OOC Community for everyone to enjoy.

You may find that as you work through the lists you begin to remember what moves your babies already know, what moves the parents both know, and stuff like which common TM moves always pass on (for instance, when you see a parent knows Rest, you know the opposite-species baby is likely going to wind up with it!). The more you practice the easier it gets, and if you breed infrequently then you now have a step by step guide to follow! So never fear. Get started on those eggs!

「 NAVIGATION 」