Catch Rates of Poke Balls

[Reflect Suicune]

Does anyone know what the catch rate of each type of pokeball is, or where I can find the answer... In particular I would like to know how the timer ball and quick ball work, and which ball is the most effective.

[McGrrr]

Dusk ball 4x

Everything else is clearly redundant, but for reference:

Pokeball 1x
Great/Safari ball 1.5x
Ultra ball 2x
Repeat/Net ball 3x
Dive ball 3.5x
Quick ball -1 for every 5 turns, unknown starting point, floor = 1x
Timer ball +1 for every 10 turns, starting at 1x, ceiling = 4x

If you use a specialized ball in the wrong environment, it is 1x. All other balls are 1x.

Edit: if you believe timer balls are more effective than dusk balls, you are wrong. Don't bother with any anecdotal evidence.

[megamanac]

Timer is the best by far. I had it worked many more times than dusks.

[Sir Spanky]

I've heard timer works best after level 50, so it may well be 5/6x, i.e better than Dusk Balls.

[Blue Ditto]

Or you can just not throw Dusk Balls and instead spend money on 99+ Pokeballs, which (should be) much cheaper. I've caught ubers with Pokeballs anyway, but if 40 go to waste then no problem.

This is in response to the whole "AAAA WAIT 40 TURNS WAT?!". Otherwise Dusk Balls sound superb. But they're like Ultra Balls were in Advance-ish--use wisely or you'll see smoke in your pocket.

[CZ]

IMO, Dusk Ball are the way to go.

So far, I have gotten all the legends/ubers except for Ghost/Dragon thing that I can spell and the event pokes with buying just about 50 of them. They make life so much easier.

[Chozo]

Originally Posted by Fat McGraw

Have fun waiting 40 turns for timer balls to be more effective than dusk balls. The reality is that timer balls will never be a factor. By the time they become worth using, you will have thrown 30+ dusk balls.

The sad thing is that they have been a factor for me =(

I'm starting to understand why they put most of the legendaries in caves, because I'd have probably killed myself if the best thing I had were ultra balls. Catch rate of 3 my ass.

[X-Act]

When a Pokemon has a catch rate of 3, say, what does it exactly mean?

[Slobroking]

that it is very hard to catch >_>

[McGrrr]

Originally Posted by Fat X-Act

When a Pokemon has a catch rate of 3, say, what does it exactly mean?

The formula for catching a pokemon is something like:

(4*X-2*Y)*A*B/X+1+S = Z

X = total HP
Y = current HP
A = catch rate of pokemon (0-255)
B = ball modifier (so dusk ball = 4 at night)
S = status (5 if poisoned/paralyzed/burned, 10 if frozen/asleep, 0 otherwise)

An integer between 0 and 255 is picked by a RNG, and if it is <Z, the pokemon will be caught.

Most legendaries have an A value equal to 3.

Edit: misplaced the brackets, sorry =(

[X-Act]

Awesome. That is what I needed to know. This formula is quite obscure; I have never seen it in any other site before.

EDIT: If that's the case, then sleep/freeze don't provide as much of a boost in the catch rate as I thought.

[Peterko]

N = ((1-A/B/2)*C+D+1)/256 (%)

A = current HP; if A > 255, A = int(int(A/2)/2)
B = max HP; if B > 255, B = int(int(B/2)/2)
C = Catch Rate (pokémon catch rate * pokéball)
D = if the Pokémon is:
-Asleep, D = 10
-Frozen, D = 10
-Paralyzed, D = 5
-Poisoned, D = 5
-Burned, D = 5
Otherwise, D = 0

"int" is the entire number, without decimals.

I´ve found this one somewhere a long time ago...I think this was GSC...is it the same?

here a full HP legendary, let´s say at 150 HP/150HP, asleep would have a 5.46875% chance to be caught with an ultra ball

with the formula mcgraw posted it would be...too much..4*(150-2)*150*3*2/150 + 1 + 10 = ugh

[Pneuma]

I have some good anecdotes for the use of quick balls. They start off with an IMMENSE catch rate that I'm being led to believe is double dusk balls at night/cave. I've seen a l70 Giratina with no damage or status caught with a quick ball, a Heatran, Cresselia, Uxie, and Mesprit and MULTIPLE TIMES (thanks to a friend accidentally resetting his game and then catching Giratina again). Took very few resets to catch them all with a single quick ball, no damage, no status (under 10 resets each).

Some more study into the efficacy of quick balls is desperately needed, they're AMAZING.

[McGrrr]

Originally Posted by Fat Peterko

with the formula mcgraw posted it would be...too much..4*(150-2)*150*3*2/150 + 1 + 10 = ugh

On review, I typoed the brackets in the formula. So sorry! In the corrected formula (4*150-2*150)*3*2/150+1+10 gives a Z value of 23 so you have a 24/256 (9.375%) chance of capture - seems a little high still.

Edit: I doubt the formula is accurate though because it suggests that a pokeball will catch some low leveled pokemon 100%. I forget where I found it, but it seemed reasonable.

I have also discovered that timer balls have a ceiling modifier of x4, therefore they are made entirely redundant by dusk balls.

[Steeler]

And here I was trying to catch a good natured Colo Raikou with Timer Balls. -_-

Good find, I will definitely stock up on Dusk Balls [and possibly Quick Balls] for legends. Would the environment Palkia/Dialga is found in be considered a cave?

Also Quick Balls look awesome imo.

[blue_light]

Quick Ball is my new favorite, it's design and speciality is cool.
Dusk balls while they are great, look terrible, while it's purely cosmetic it doesn't feel right throwing a ball of puke green every 30 seconds.

[megamanac]

I really don't like how dusk balls look like when you send something into battle.

Besides, timer balls actually looks like a timer. =D

[Great Sage**]

Originally Posted by Fat Steeler36

And here I was trying to catch a good natured Colo Raikou with Timer Balls. -_-

Good find, I will definitely stock up on Dusk Balls [and possibly Quick Balls] for legends. Would the environment Palkia/Dialga is found in be considered a cave?

Also Quick Balls look awesome imo.

Yes, Dialga and Palkia are found in "caves".

[Generalmeng]

OMG i love dusk ball, they look like dark ball when you sent you pokemon in to battle!!! sooo cool.

[Xenesis]

I thought the game did 3-4 RNG checks for a capture, not just one? If so it would explain why the capture rate of things is much lower than it is...

[PTM]

There has to be something else, something like what Xenesis states. While technically possible, it's pretty hard to stomach that using a Dusk Ball on Azelf is meant to be successful approximately X% of the time where X is:

((4*145-2*1)*3*4/145+1)/256 = 19.076%

Edit: Using the other formula in this thread by Peterko I get (1-1/145/2)*3*4+1)/256 = 5.062% (with a duskball). Values in [brackets] where necessary.

Anecdotally (yes I am aware that that a handful of attempts are not indicative of the whole, but bear with me) both formulas seem off, although the first one especially so (and for reasons that are obvious). Every encounter I have with Azelf has averaged approximately 35 duskballs in length, some more and some less. With that in mind: 1-0.05062 = 0.94938^34 = ~17%. That only 17% of the time should it require 34 or more duskballs to catch Azelf seems off as it happens extremely frequently for me. Then again, I could be cursed. This also means you are more likely (~51%) to catch legendaries within the first 14 balls; again this seems like too lenient a number from personal experience.

Edit: It dawned on me that I"m using duskballs for this calculation; if these formulas were designed with ultra balls in mind it might make sense (and it might be that I'm just very unlucky). Using an ultra ball:

(1-1/145/2)*3*2+1)/256 = 2.7263%

It would then take 26 balls to hit the "unlucky" point (51%).

[Jibaku*]

Timer/Cherish/Dusk Balls have the best animation in battles. Timer has that clock on it, Cherish because it's rainbow and Dusk Ball....it's because it looks kinda like a reverse black hole

[X-Act]

Originally Posted by Fat PTM

Edit: Using the other formula in this thread by Peterko I get (1-1/145/2)*3*4+1)/256 = 5.062% (with a duskball). Values in [brackets] where necessary.

Anecdotally (yes I am aware that that a handful of attempts are not indicative of the whole, but bear with me) both formulas seem off, although the first one especially so (and for reasons that are obvious). Every encounter I have with Azelf has averaged approximately 35 duskballs in length, some more and some less. With that in mind: 1-0.05062 = 0.94938^34 = ~17%. That only 17% of the time should it require 34 or more duskballs to catch Azelf seems off as it happens extremely frequently for me. Then again, I could be cursed. This also means you are more likely (~51%) to catch legendaries within the first 14 balls; again this seems like too lenient a number from personal experience.

The probability you calculated (17%) is the probability that you do NOT catch Azelf after throwing 34 Dusk Balls at it. 100% - 17% = 83% is the probability that you catch Azelf with 34 Dusk Balls.

Also, that percentage is a bit off. I'm almost sure that the value should be 'floored' before dividing by 256. That would give it a probability of 4.6875% of catching Azelf. If Azelf is asleep, the probability would increase to 8.59375%.

In the first case, the average number of Dusk Balls required to catch Azelf is 22. For the second case, it is 12. I don't know if this corresponds to what really happens.

EDIT: By the way, McGraw's formula would correspond exactly to Peterko's if he removed that [4 *] before the X, making it (X-2*Y)*A*B/X+1+S.

[Silver Espeon]

wait this means I extremely lucky. I caught azelf on my first dusk ball!

[Stallion]

http://www.serebii.net/games/capture.shtml

This is where i saw the capture rate posted, and it should be 100 % accurate unless it has changed between generations...