Hidden Power

[123LTJ]

Is there a way to tell/control what HP you're giving? 'Cause I see people with teams, and Poke's with moves like HP Bug. Can you plan that, or do you just have to hope for the best?

[Don't Run With Scizors]

Back in GSC, you could whip out a Ditto with the proper Defense DV for whatever Hidden Power you wanted and keep breeding until you got the Pokémon you wanted. Nowadays, though, we haven't identified all of the breeding patterns yet, so we're clueless as to what we have to do exactly in order to breed up somebody with the right Hidden Power.

So, as far as we know, you really do have to keep catching and hope that you get somebody with a) the right personality - an Adamant Magneton with HP Water won't do you much good, b) good DVs, and c) the right Hidden Power, of course.

[pimuni]

can Hidden Power get STAB?

one thing that I makes R/S harder is that pokemon now have personalities. You have to hacth several eggs until you get the right personality. in gsc you just hatched any egg. thats another reason why shinies were rarer in gsc. you could have on and train it. now, if you get a Modest (-attack +sp.attack) shiny Heracross, for example, it will have a very low attack and no use for the higher sp.attack. Hidden Power also has to do with this. When you get the ideal poke, it might have the wrong personality or trait...

[Darkchampion]

Well lets figure out the odds.

1 out of 25 to get a desired personality
1 out of 2 to get a desired trait
1 out of 16 to get a desired hidden power

So to get a pokemon with the correct trait, personality, and hidden power type is 1 in 800. With a pokemon who has one trait it is 1 in 400. This is without considering hidden power's power, which ranges from 30 to 70 OR whether or not your pokemon has decent IVs.

So realistically, about 1/4 of the pokemon with the right hidden power will get good base damage (between 60 and 70). This means that you will have to hatch about 2400 eggs to get a pokemon with all of the desired stats etc.... meaning you will not see hidden power effectively used unless 1) you are playing RSbot 2) the pokemon is sharked 3) the trainer is VERY lucky.