Confused About Natures?

[latani]

Let HeartGold and SoulSilver, along with Dani, solve that!

For those of you who have no idea what bearing Natures have, they dictate what stats will be better than the others. Sometimes, depending on the Pokemon, they have little effect or actually work against what you might want.

Say I have an Adamant Umbreon. Adamant is +Attack and -Sp. Attack, so naturally my Umbreon is more physically offensive than special offensive. But Umbreon is naturally a more defensive Pokemon, so that nature would play little bearing on how it grows, other than its attack being slightly higher than its special attack.

So what does all this have to do with HG/SS?

Well, when I caught Suicune last night, I wanted a certain nature. Using the other-world effect of Synchronize, which increases the chance of a wild Pokemon taking on the nature of the Pokemon that possesses Synchronize, I successfully captured a Mild natured Suicune.

I flew back to Cerulean to check it out, and pleased, I was about to shut off the PC when I noticed something odd about Suicune's stats. There was a red highlight around "Sp. Attack" and a blue highlight around "Defense".

Curious, I cycled through several other Pokemon which confirmed my suspicions.

What suspicions, you may ask?

If you want a certain Pokemon to play a role on your team, instead of dealing with the hassle of going online to find it, you can now find out what nature you're dealing with in the game.

For those of you who are too lazy to go check, I've pretty much got a categorical memory of the natures, and which stats they affect. That's how natures work - one stat gets a boost, one doesn't.

Attack Natures

- Adamant; +Attack, -Sp. Attack
- Lonely; +Attack, -Defense
- Naughty; +Attack, -Sp. Def
- Brave; +Attack, -Speed

Defense Natures

- Bold; +Defense, -Attack
- Relaxed; +Defense, -Speed
- Lax; +Defense, -Sp. Def
- Impish; +Defense, -Sp. Attack

Sp. Attack Natures

- Modest; +Sp. Attack, -Attack
- Mild; +Sp. Attack, -Defense
- Rash; +Sp. Attack, -Sp. Def
- Quiet; +Sp. Attack, -Speed

Sp. Defense Natures

- Gentle +Sp. Def, -Defense
- Calm +Sp. Def, -Attack
- Sassy; +Sp. Def, -Speed
- Careful +Sp. Def, -Sp. Attack

Speed Natures

- Hasty; +Speed, -Defense
- Naive; +Speed, -Sp. Def
- Jolly; +Speed, -Sp. Attack
- Timid; +Speed, -Attack

Neutral Natures

- Quirky
- Docile
- Serious
- Bashful
- Hardy

Neutral natures have NO bearing on stats. Your Pokemon will grow as how it probably would. If I had a Serious Espeon, it would still likely grow in Sp. Attack and Speed, as most tend to do.

Don't get me started on characteristics - that just forays into the field of IVs, crap I know little about. xD

Just figured I'd share that interesting tid-bit about seeing the natures in the games, and the games actually TELLING you what they directly influence. x)

TL;DR? TOO BAD, GO READ IT.

[The REAL Joey]

Latani... I owe you a very very big thank you. Having this topic here with all the beneficiary natures is going to be incredibly useful as i'm on this site almost nonstop. ;D

I've been fiddling around with natures for a while but for the life of me, I still can't seem to remember them all. *bows before your greatness*



On the subject of natures, I think I got incredibly lucky getting an Adamant Extremespeed Dratini on my first go. I literally punched a hole in the ceiling when I saw its nature. ;D

[latani]

Glad it helps ya!

With it, you can double check the natures in the game. I had to learn the hard way when I began competitively battling. x)

[The REAL Joey]

I can't believe how my younger self would just look at them and laugh. I was a real schmuck back in the day. Still, I can see this being largely beneficial to other members here. I was wondering what you were working on when you went quiet in the cbox.

Also, isn't the increase/decrease in whatever nature a Pokemon has roughly 10% either way?

[latani]

I never thoroughly researched natures, but I believe so. =O

All I needed to know is what stat benefited, and what didn't.

[artmage]

You're correct on that one, Joey. Thanks for posting this up as well Latani. It's an interesting quirk the game adds I guess. At least now we know the natures influence more than just your Pokemon's personality. ^^