I'm just getting into breeding for competitive, but I'm unsure about a few things.
First of all, I've seen the binary "math" about how hidden powers are calculated, but there's a man in Lavender town who can apparently change a pokemon's hidden power for a "piece of earth". What's this about? Trying to get good IV's and the correct hidden power is frustratingly time-consuming for someone like me who doesn't have the most free time.
On the subject of IV's, how much of a difference does maxing out secondary ones make? For example, defensive IV's on a sweeper / attacker or offensive IV's on a tank. I'm tempted to just leave the non-vital IV's at their random values (usually in the teens) since this saves an exponential amount of breeding work or money from purchasing comps. (as a random aside, why do people want HP electric instead of HP grass on water pokemon like milotic?)
Sorry if these are noob questions, but I haven't seen much addressing questions like these, thanks!
