Individual Values (IVs) are one of the most important — and most confusing — concepts in Pokemon GO. Every Pokemon has hidden IV stats that affect how strong it is. This guide explains what IVs are, what the star ratings mean, and which IVs you should actually keep.

What Are Individual Values (IVs)?

Every Pokemon in Pokemon GO has three hidden stats called Individual Values:

Stat	Range	What It Does
Attack	0 – 15	Contributes to damage output
Defense	0 – 15	Contributes to damage reduction
Stamina (HP)	0 – 15	Contributes to hit points

IVs are set permanently when you catch or hatch a Pokemon. They cannot be changed — the only exception is trading, which re-rolls IVs randomly.

IVs are added to a species' Base Stats to calculate effective stats. This means a species with naturally high Base Attack (like Mewtwo) will always hit harder than a low-Base Attack species, regardless of IVs. IVs are the tiebreaker between two Pokemon of the same species.

IV Percentage

The total IV is the sum of all three stats. The maximum is 15 + 15 + 15 = 45. Players often express this as a percentage:

• 100% IV ("hundo") = 15/15/15 — the perfect Pokemon
• 0% IV ("nundo") = 0/0/0 — rare and collected by some players
• 93% IV = 14/14/14 (total 42 out of 45)

Star Ratings (Appraisal System)

When you appraise a Pokemon in-game, it gets a star rating based on the sum of all three IVs:

Stars	Search	IV Sum	IV %	Meaning
⭐ 0 stars	0*	0 – 22	0% – 49%	Poor — safe to transfer in most cases
⭐ 1 star	1*	23 – 29	51% – 64%	Decent — usually transfer unless PvP-relevant
⭐⭐ 2 stars	2*	30 – 36	67% – 80%	Good — keep if the species matters
⭐⭐⭐ 3 stars	3*	37 – 44	82% – 98%	Excellent — strong candidate to keep
🌟 4 stars	4*	45	100%	Perfect — always keep!

What Each Star Rating Means in Practice

• 0 stars (0*) — These Pokemon have low stats across the board. Safe to transfer unless the species is rare, shiny, or has PvP relevance with specific IV spreads.
• 1 star (1*) — Marginally better. Still generally transfer fodder unless you need the species for a specific purpose.
• 2 stars (2*) — Decent Pokemon. Worth keeping if the species is a strong PvP or raid attacker, but you'll eventually want to upgrade to 3* or 4*.
• 3 stars (3*) — Excellent Pokemon. For raid attackers, these are strong investments. The difference between 3* and 4* in raids is small — often less than 1% damage difference.
• 4 stars (4*) — Perfect 15/15/15. Always keep. These are rare (about 1 in 4,096 from wild catches) and are the best for raids, Master League, and collecting.

How CP Is Calculated

Combat Power (CP) is the visible number on every Pokemon. It's calculated from IVs, Base Stats, and level:

Where:

• Attack = Base Attack + Attack IV
• Defense = Base Defense + Defense IV
• Stamina = Base Stamina + Stamina IV
• CPM = Combat Power Multiplier (depends on Pokemon level, 1–50)

IVs for Raids and PvE

For raids, gym battles, and Team Rocket fights, there is no CP cap. You want to maximize damage output. The ideal IVs are straightforward:

Priority	Ideal IVs	Why
Best	15/15/15 (4*)	Maximum damage, maximum bulk
Great	15/14/14 or similar	Attack 15 is most important — more DPS
Good	3* with high Attack	Still performs within ~1–2% of a hundo

For raids, Attack IV matters most. A 15/14/14 is better than a 14/15/15 for raid damage because Attack contributes directly to DPS without the square root dampening that Defense and Stamina get.

The practical difference between a 3* and 4* raid attacker is very small — often less than 1% damage. Don't stress about perfection unless you're short-manning raids with very few players.

Shadow Pokemon in Raids

Shadow Pokemon get a permanent +20% Attack boost (with a -20% Defense penalty). This makes them glass cannons, but the DPS gain is enormous. A Shadow Pokemon with mediocre IVs often outperforms a non-Shadow hundo of the same species. If you have a Shadow version of a top raid attacker, keep it regardless of IVs.

IVs for PvP (GO Battle League)

PvP IV optimization is counterintuitive. In CP-capped leagues (Great League ≤ 1500 CP, Ultra League ≤ 2500 CP), you usually want low Attack and high Defense and Stamina.

This is because of the CP formula — Attack is weighted more heavily, so a high-Attack Pokemon hits the CP cap at a lower level, which means less overall bulk. A 0/15/15 Pokemon can be powered up to a higher level while staying under the CP cap, giving it more total stats.

League	CP Cap	Ideal IVs	Search Filter
Great League	1,500	Low Atk / High Def+HP	attack0-2&defense13-15&hp13-15
Ultra League	2,500	Low Atk / High Def+HP	attack0-2&defense13-15&hp13-15
Master League	None	15/15/15	4*

For a deep dive into why this works, read our PvP IVs Explained guide with worked examples.

What IVs Should You Actually Keep?

Here's a practical decision framework based on how you play:

If You Play…	Keep These IVs	Transfer These
Casually	4* (hundos), shinies, luckies	Everything below 3* for non-meta species
Raids	3* and 4* of top raid attackers, all shadows of raid-relevant species	Low-Attack IVs of raid species (unless PvP-relevant)
PvP (Great/Ultra)	Low Atk / High Def+HP for meta species, check PvP ranks	15/15/15 of GL/UL species (unless for ML or raids)
Collecting	4* (hundos), 0% (nundos), shinies, luckies, costumes	Duplicates of non-special Pokemon
All of the Above	All of the above — you may need multiple of the same species	Use POGO Cleanup to systematically identify what's safe to transfer

Useful Search Strings for IVs

Use these in the Pokemon GO search bar to find Pokemon by IV:

Search String	What It Finds
4*	All perfect 15/15/15 Pokemon (hundos)
3*,4*	All 3-star and 4-star Pokemon
0*,1*,2*	All Pokemon below 3 stars (transfer candidates)
attack15	All Pokemon with perfect Attack IV
attack0-2&defense13-15&hp13-15	Great/Ultra League PvP IV candidates
0*&attack0&defense0&hp0	Nundos (0/0/0) — extremely rare!

For the complete list of every search operator, see our Search Strings Cheat Sheet.

Related Guides