How can I breed for perfect IVs on Tauros, an exclusively male Pokemon? (Gen 6)?

Question

So let's say I'm trying to get five or six perfect IVs on a Tauros. Tauros are only male, so I'm limited to using a Ditto if I want to hatch Tauros eggs. Ideally, I would want that Ditto to have at least five perfect IVs already. The problem there is that Ditto can't breed with itself, so it seems that my best bet on that front is to hope I get incredibly lucky catching one in the wild or receiving one from a trade. Lastly, even with a five IV Ditto holding a destiny knot, it seems to me that I'd still have to rely on luck in order to hatch the optimal Tauros. I could increase my odds over time by replacing the parent Tauros with ones that have more and more perfect IVs as I hatch them, but that still leaves the issue of finding that serendipitous parent Ditto in the first place.

Is there any way I could tilt these odds in my favor? Advice on any step of the process would be greatly appreciated. I'm relatively new to IV breeding (and breeding in general) so there may be strategies that I'm not aware of. The reason I asked here specifically is that I haven't been able to find any guides for a situation like this (breeding with a 100% male Pokemon) already in existence. Please let me know if there is anything I'm missing.

Comments

Well, you could ask someone for a perfect iv Ditto and if they're genners, you can even ask them for the nature you want. However, if you are gonna ask someone, you might as well ask them for the Tauros you want

Answer 1

The reason you haven't found a guide for breeding male-only Pokemon is that the process for breeding male-only Pokemon isn't much different than for any other Pokemon. The only difference is that if you want to not breed with Ditto, then you can't do that. But everybody breeds with Ditto anyway.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to get a 6 IV Ditto, especially not in X/Y. The main two methods of getting a high IV Ditto in X/Y that don't involve trading are:

• PokeRadar chaining in the Pokemon Village, where Ditto can be found. Chaining guarantees encounters with at least three perfect IVs with a chain size of 61+. This guide will help. If you catch every Ditto after the 61st Pokemon, you can be confident in eventually getting a 4 IV Ditto at least.
• The Friend Safari, where all encounters are guaranteed at least two perfect IVs (but you can't use the PokeRadar). Ditto can be found in some Normal-type safaris via slot #3 (which makes things complicated, as you'll read in that Bulbapedia article). r/FriendSafari will maybe help you with this (read their FAQ), but it will be a very tedious process for a pretty average Ditto.

The best option if you're willing to trade is historically r/morebreedingdittos, but they don't seem to be active currently. You can maybe try their Discord (details in their FAQ). You can also try r/PokemonTrades or a different online trading forum, but you'll probably not have much luck asking for 6 IV Ditto in places like that (especially for Gen 6).

The option that's most likely to get results of some kind is PokeRadar chaining, so I'd go for that. If you can get a 4 IV Ditto, you'll probably be able to grind out a 5 IV Tauros with imperfect SpA after a few hours. Unfortunately, nothing comes easy with breeding Ditto, so you'll need to be very patient.

even with a five IV Ditto holding a destiny knot, it seems to me that I'd still have to rely on luck in order to hatch the optimal Tauros

That's right. You can't guarantee hatching a 5 IV or 6 IV Pokemon. If you want to breed a competitive standard Pokemon, you will have to hatch lots of eggs and replace the parent as you described.

Comments

Thank you for the response! I was afraid that my efforts would be heavily RNG-reliant, but then again, so is everything in Pokémon lol. Having read this, I'll probably research ways I could reach my goal in later generations. Thanks again.