Pokemon Diamond / Pearl Natures Guide Last updated 4-23-08 By R2 ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Contents/About Section 1) About Natures This is what they are. Section 2) Nature Descriptions And this is what they do. Section 3) Choosing the Nature That's Right For You Natures make one mean mother. Section 4) Natures Tips More than "recycle every now and then". Section 5) Legal Junk Same as always. ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Section 1) About Natures Each Pokemon has a nature, viewable on its status screen. These are descriptions of the Pokemon's personality, like "Relaxed" or "Sassy" or "Naive". What the game won't tell you is that each nature increases one of the Pokemon's statistics -- Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, or Speed -- by 10%, and drop another statistic by 10%. A Pokemon's nature also determines what kinds of Poffins it does or does not like to eat. ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Section 2) Nature Descriptions Neutral Natures: Five natures give a boost and a penalty to the same statistic, resulting in no change to the Pokemon overall. Very few Pokemon can use these very well, but mixed sweepers tend to benefit most often. These natures are Bashful, Docile, Hardy, Quirky, and Serious. Pokemon of these natures will eat any kind of Poffin. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- +Attack Natures: These natures boost Attack by 10% and drop another statistic by 10%. Pokemon of these natures like Spicy Poffins the best. Nature | Drops | Doesn't Like ----------|-----------------|--------------- Lonely | Defense | Sour Adamant | Special Attack | Dry Naughty | Special Defense | Bitter Brave | Speed | Sweet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- +Defense Natures: These natures boost Defense by 10% and drop another statistic by 10%. Pokemon of these natures like Sour Poffins the best. Nature | Drops | Doesn't Like ----------|-----------------|--------------- Bold | Attack | Spicy Impish | Special Attack | Dry Lax | Special Defense | Bitter Relaxed | Speed | Sweet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- +Special Attack Natures: These natures boost Special Attack by 10% and drop another statistic by 10%. Pokemon of these natures like Dry Poffins the best. Nature | Drops | Doesn't Like ----------|-----------------|--------------- Modest | Attack | Spicy Mild | Defense | Sour Rash | Special Defense | Bitter Quiet | Speed | Sweet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- +Special Defense Natures: These natures boost Special Defense by 10% and drop another statistic by 10%. Pokemon of these natures like Bitter Poffins the best. Nature | Drops | Doesn't Like ----------|-----------------|--------------- Calm | Attack | Spicy Gentle | Defense | Sour Careful | Special Attack | Dry Sassy | Speed | Sweet -------------------------------------------------------------------------- +Speed Natures: These natures boost Speed by 10% and drop another statistic by 10%. Pokemon of these natures like Sweet Poffins the best. Nature | Drops | Doesn't Like ----------|-----------------|--------------- Timid | Attack | Spicy Hasty | Defense | Sour Jolly | Special Attack | Dry Naive | Special Defense | Bitter ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Section 3) Choosing The Nature That's Right For You - Natural Talents It is generally best to choose a nature that boosts a statistic your Pokemon has natural talent for, while decreasing a stat that the Pokemon has no use for. For example, Snorlax has an awesome Special Defense, good Attack, and poor Speed. Brave (+Attack, -Speed) and Sassy (+Special Defense, -Speed) are good natures for Snorlax. Brave lets it hit hard and Sassy lets it soak hits, and it wasn't going to outrun anything anyway, so a penalty to Speed doesn't matter much. An exception to this is exceptionally speedy Pokemon, who rarely need further boosts because they can outrun just about anything they meet anway. Ninjask is already the fastest little bug around, so the only reason to give him a +Speed nature is if you expect he'll be going up against something with a Choice Scarf or that uses Agility. Electrode, Aerodactyl, Jolteon, Crobat, Swellow, and Weavile are in a similar situation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - No Love For HP There are no natures that give a bonus to HP. This means that Pokemon relying heavily on HP to soak hits (Wobbuffet, Wailord, Drifblim, Hariyama, etc.) must choose a nature that suits their secondary talents. Drifblim is well off with a +Special Attack nature, for example, while Hariyama probably prefers +Attack. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Shore Up Those Defenses Every Pokemon will get hit eventually, so every Pokemon needs the best Defense and Special Defense it can manage. Thus, it's generally best to avoid Lonely, Naughty, Lax, Mild, Rash, Gentle, Sassy, Hasty, or Naive natures unless you have a specific gimmick build in mind. What kind of gimmick? Good question. A Pokemon with lots of HP and the move Counter might drop its own Defense in order to take stronger physical hits, getting a little extra mileage out of Counter, but good luck getting a build like that to work with any reliability. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - And That Leaves What The most common natures for physical sweepers are Adamant and Jolly, which boost Attack and Speed respectively while dropping Special Attack, which the Pokemon won't be using anyway. Likewise, special sweepers benefit most from Modest or Timid, boosting Special Attack or Speed respectively at the cost of the unused Attack. Tanks and walls tend to benefit from Relaxed (+Defense, -Speed) or Sassy (+Special Defense, -Speed), since most walls are awfully slow. Those few with moderate-to-good Speed may instead opt for Impish (+Defense, -Special Attack) or Calm (+Special Defense, -Attack), depending on their movesets. Bold would be on this list, except that Pokemon with appreciably high Defense, preserve-worthy Speed, and throwaway-low Attack are virtually unheard of. Same for Careful with a couple labels reversed. Examples of choosing natures for walls: Steelix is base Defense 200 and base Speed 30. Relaxed is perfect. Regice is base Special Defense 200 and base Speed 50. Sassy is ideal. Skarmory has a base Defense of 140 -- quite nice. His base Speed is 70, which might let him outmaneuver a foe occasionally, so let's not drop it further. Skarmory's Special Attack is a uselessly-low 40, though, so Impish will do just fine. Blissey's Speed is nothing to write home about, but her Attack is even lower: base 10! Pumping up her base 135 Special Defense at the cost of that horrific Attack with Calm sounds a good to me. For bulky Pokemon with approximately equal Defense and Special Defense (Shuckle, Bastiodon, Registeel, Probopass, Dusknoir, etc.), bolster the defensive trait you expect to use more via nature. You can use Effort training to bring the other defensive trait closer, or really blast off by pumping both boosts from nature and EVs into the same defensive stat. Which strategy is ideal may depend on your environment: in Singles play, a Defensive wall can shut down a physical sweeper, while a Special wall can shut down a special sweeper. Having one fantastically-high stat is therefore generally a better move. In Doubles, there's no guarantee you'll be able to soak hits from only one source, so more balanced defenses become a better idea. You might skew more towards Special Defense for Pokemon with approximately equal base stats, simply because top-tier Special walls not named Blissey can be hard to find. ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Section 4) Natures Tips There aren't many, because all that needs to be said for Natures has been covered already. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hereditary Nature Generally, a Pokemon's nature is determined randomly. But if you have a Pokemon with the Synchronize ability in the front of your party, there is a 50% chance that any wild Pokemon you meet will have the same nature as your Synchronizer. When breeding Pokemon in the Daycare in Solaceon Town, giving the female Pokemon an Everstone will give all hatchlings a 50% chance of inheriting their mother's nature. If the breeding pair includes a Ditto, the Ditto should hold the Everstone. There is no way to pass on the father's Nature. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty For those wishing to raise a Milotic, doing so requires that Feebas have high Beauty. Dry Poffins increase Beauty, so having a Milotic with a nature that likes Dry Poffins might make that evolution a little easier to obtain. The natures that enjoy Dry Poffins are Modest, Mild, Rash, and Quiet. These boost Special Attack, something Milotic benefits from anyway. Chesto, Oran, Wiki, Razz, Kelpsy, Hondew, Tamato, Cornn, Spelon, Pamtre, Passho, Yache, Kebia, Coba, Charti, Babiri, Chilan, Ganlon, Apicot, Enigma, and Micle berries result in Dry-flavored Poffins. Chesto, Oran, Wiki, Razz, and Charti berries result in single-flavored Poffins; the rest have another flavor too. ========================================================================== ========================================================================== Section 5) Legal Junk This game guide is copyright 2008 Richard Rouse. It may not be duplicated or sold for profit without permission. No guarantee, promised or implicit, is given for the authenticity of the information contained in this guide, but if you screw up your Pokemon game it's not exactly the end of the world. Whatcha gonna do, cry about it? This guide is posted on my personal website at http://www.intentionallyblank.net, so if you found it anywhere else, I'd appreciate knowing about it (I can be contacted from the website listed above).