[Gen 4] Challenge: Catching Acreus in a Pokeball: Impossible when Struggling?

[lowao]

I like to set up challenges, but I think, I met my match. What's your answer to this challenge?
Generation 4 / Platinum: How do you catch Arceus with a pokeball? AKA is it possible to guarantee it won't faint your mon or faint itself during the struggle phase?

But Why Not...
Why not use an Ultra Ball or a Master Ball: That's not the challenge though.
Just restart when it fails: The challenge... and where is the fun in that?
Why no restarts: I address this below. Still though, the challenge.

There are two problems that I don't know how to handle, but here is my current strategy:

My Strategy

Problem 1: Hyper Beam critting
-Hyper Beam will one-shot Smeargle with stage 6 Special Defense. Smeargle with Conversation the move with Steel typing will still get one-shotted. I'm not sure there is a way to counter this. Sure, reviving and setting up stage 6 Special Defense is possible, but just makes this challenge harder.

Problem 2: Struggle
-So, this is where the challenge fails more often than not. Arceus's ability is Multitype which means no items can be given or taken away from Acreus during battle. This means Leftovers can't be passed to Acreus. Usually, the best method to counter Struggle is Tricking Leftovers to the opposing mon. But when the RNG gods spit in your face and the opposing mon keeps waking up on the second turn way too many times in a round, Spore with Pain Split won't be able to out "Heal" Struggle. Leftovers plus Spore plus Pain Split can counter this mostly though. I can explain this in more detail if needed.

I think Smeargle is the best mon for catching, because False Swipe plus Spore plus Pain Split is absolutely required for legendaries / Acreus.
Current Smeargle setup: False Swipe, Spore, Pain Split, and Cosmic Power

So, why only one attempt? I'm shiny hunting it. :) There are no restarts here.

I'm not sure there is a solution here. Am I missing a possible answer here?

Is this the correct area to post this?

 

[Divine Retribution]

Can't you use Fling + Leppa Berry and Recycle to prevent it from ever struggling in the first place? Probably with Pain Split to prevent Fling from KO'ing it.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I caught Lugia in a Pokeball in Gen II in the most boring way: by buying 60 and just chucking them one after the other until one worked. It's definitely doable, Pokemon is a numbers game after all.

 

[Divine Retribution]

I caught Lugia in a Pokeball in Gen II in the most boring way: by buying 60 and just chucking them one after the other until one worked. It's definitely doable, Pokemon is a numbers game after all.

I think they're looking to shiny hunt it in a Poke Ball specifically, so they're looking to completely eliminate any chance that they don't catch it before it eventually struggles to death. Given Arceus's extremely low catchrate, this is a pretty reasonable concern. With a regular Lugia, you can just soft reset and try again, that's not really an option when shiny hunting unless you're using an emulator with save states or something.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

I think they're looking to shiny hunt it in a Poke Ball specifically, so they're looking to completely eliminate any chance that they don't catch it before it eventually struggles to death. Given Arceus's extremely low catchrate, this is a pretty reasonable concern. With a regular Lugia, you can just soft reset and try again, that's not really an option when shiny hunting unless you're using an emulator with save states or something.

Oh, I see. Sorry, only just woken up.

Since Smeargle's out, I'd suggest a Ghost instead, even though the best Sleep move most Ghosts can muster is Hypnosis which isn't great.

The only problem is that Spiritomb can't pull off the Recycle+Fling combination; it can use Trick, but that only works once. I think your best bet is approaching this as a whole-team solution - one to Sleep it, one to get it to 1 HP, one to restore PP, and so on. Smeargle alone can't do this and I'm not sure if there's one other Pokemon that can either.

 

[Shedinja-43152]

Use Spore or Hypnosis to avoid Arceus to use his PP and start to strugle.
Catching Arceus with a Ultraball was very hard to me, I desire you luck with your Pokeball.

 

[lowao]

Can't you use Fling + Leppa Berry and Recycle to prevent it from ever struggling in the first place? Probably with Pain Split to prevent Fling from KO'ing it.

This is the answer! But it has a few caveats.
-Can't False Swipe down to 1HP anymore because Fling deals damage, a very small amount of damage. However, managing Fling's criticals against Acreus is a piece of cake. Fling criticals deals may be 5% of his total HP or something like that.
-Sadly, Hyper Beam will continue to be replenished. I still don't know how to handle getting one-shotted by Hyper Beam's criticals. But at least, I feel this is more manageable than going after Mew and her Metronomes. That is nightmare fuel.

Running Acreus's Hyper Beam's criticals through a calculator against a Steel Type Smeargle, there is a 43% that it will knock out Smeargle. Bummer, Hyper Beam is fucking strong. lol

I caught Lugia in a Pokeball in Gen II in the most boring way: by buying 60 and just chucking them one after the other until one worked. It's definitely doable, Pokemon is a numbers game after all.

Gen 2 hunting with a PokeBall is scary because you can't replenish HP or PP of the opposing mon. And sadly when transferring mons to later generations doesn't include the pokeball it was caught in. It defaults to a normal PokeBall.

Since Smeargle's out, I'd suggest a Ghost instead, even though the best Sleep move most Ghosts can muster is Hypnosis which isn't great.

I was actually considering using Conversion with a leading ghost move with Smeargle to prevent Hyper Beam altogether. However there aren't enough move slots for Conversion, ghost move, Spore, Fling, and Recycle, and perhaps, trying to dance between two Smeargle will probably create more issues than solve the original problems.

Use Spore or Hypnosis to avoid Arceus to use his PP and start to strugle.
Catching Arceus with a Ultraball was very hard to me, I desire you luck with your Pokeball.

Thank you! I appreciate it. I think I will need it. lol

Paralysis might be useful instead of sleep in complicated setups despite the lower catch boost since it doesn't need to be reapplied so you can have another mon carry it.

From my reading, Conversion2 should be able to pull Ghost, so you could potentially use it multiple times until you have immunity to Hyper Beam.

Sadly, Acreus has Refresh so Paralyze will get removed at some point. I'm probably misunderstanding Conversion, but Conversion 1 should work with converting Smeargle's typing to Ghost if the leading move is a ghost type. I think, Conversion is a must for this hunt. Thank you for the suggestion.

 

[Ironmage]

Paralysis might be useful instead of sleep in complicated setups despite the lower catch boost since it doesn't need to be reapplied so you can have another mon carry it.

From my reading, Conversion2 should be able to pull Ghost, so you could potentially use it multiple times until you have immunity to Hyper Beam.