Niantic: "We want to reward players for being very skilled at throwing, but only on Pokemon that you would normally be able to catch without any issue."
Top-tier research, kudos to you! At the very least, you taught me about circle locking, which I didn't realize happened when you took your finger off a ball without throwing.
I think nothing skill based works on speed cap, not even a shiny legendary that supposely guaranteed catch once the ball hit it. It's like a mechanism of game so it probably override everything else.
i haven’t found a suitable way to discuss how difficult it is to know when the “catch” ring comes back because it varies wildly from pokemon to pokemon, to the point that some pokemon look like theyre idle looping, but are still finish in the attack animation, and others are can have the circle back one frame after the attack is struck, and they are withdrawing
Oh yeah, timing after an attack when using circle lock is really tricky and definitely differs for every Pokemon. It's one of the main values that we can get from studying throws on raid bosses.
The mechanic could work on some wild legendaries like the lake trio we got in the Sinnoh tour, so it could end up being useful in some specific cases in the future? Although I feel like the theory of low catch rates disabling the waranted critical catch may be true. But who knows, they could end up releasing some high fleed rate pkms with not that low catch rate where the technic becomes usefull along with the buddy mechanic
Sadly I doubt it will work for Lake Trio, but I don't have direct evidence of that. I do agree there could be some niche cases where it comes in handy.
While these probably wont make this any more useful of a technique, they may be helpful to draw some more conclusions about the mechanic: 1) Can you perfect capture a Beldum? I'm not actually sure if beldum has a similarly low catch rate in pogo as it does in the main games, but if it does it might help draw conclusions about whether it's catch rate that is allowing for perfect captures. 2) Can you perfect capture a battle league reward legendary? Again, not useful practically since you're not at risk of losing the encounter, but it would also help to draw conclusions about whether it's legendary status that is stopping the perfect capture, versus how the pokemon is encountered, or a combination of elements.
@@Neogeddon True, just looked up the catch rates, at a glance i believe it would work on most of the 5% catch rate mons, and then at a glance only saw legendaries with a lower rate. So maybe there'd be no new information to gather from that idea.
Very well put together video. Enjoyed it a lot. It's a shame the technique doesn't work. I'd rather not waste a Master ball, but I guess i need to see a galarian bird first. I still haven't seen one and i've done the incense nearly every day, and yes I do walk/ride bike, and still nothing.
My perspective is, what's the point of a Master Ball if not to catch a Galarian bird? You don't *really* need them for anything else, except maybe last ball on hundo legendaries. I just wish there were 3 Master balls so I didn't need to choose which bird to skip. Same though, haven't seen a Galarian bird in ages.
@@TheExcellentPokedex I agree with you, but I hold the belief that as soon as I use my master ball, a legendary I truly want will come and I'll never be able to get it 😂
Really like the analytical approach. Good work. But not sure, the Perfect throw animation always is related to a precise, Excellent throw. More than once, I've got the animation, but only rewarded 170XP (100+50+20), for a regular first catch, curved 'bulls eye' throw (?)
As I was watching this video I was just catching some Pokémon from my research stack and a Sentret came up and I hit a perfect excellent only to look back at the video and see you do the same thing at 12:19 lol
Thank you for the well researched analysis! Nowadays with Silph gone, all you can rely on are a few trustworthy websites and local players for reliable information. Also, I went back through some of my Tapu Koko catching videos and found that 9 of my throws were within the perfect throw size range but did not result in a critical catch (ratio of 102px/850px or 12% for worst case). I was sure that I was doing something wrong or that the circle had been reset to a bigger size since I was attack buffering, but I guess it was ineligible in the first place.
Yeah, since I made this video, I have some confirmed "perfects" on Shadow Raikou and Tyranitar that don't result in critical catches. Just doesn't work on pseudo-legendaries or legendaries it seems.
The ball needs to land inside the colorful circle. As long as you're definitely inside this circle it will count. Practice this on larger and closer Pokemon first, like Slowpoke, Furfrou, Ponyta, etc. Sometimes you may feel like you hit the small circle but in reality you didn't. You could try taking screen recordings and watching them back in slow motion. I can say that very likely you landed just outside.
@@TheExcellentPokedex thanks but sorry dude it is not helpful reply. It is like people saying let the circle be small %. So to explain as far as I see my ball hits the circle and lands in it and even if small inner circle I am not get excellent, so if the inner circle is tiny when my ball contacts I can only conclude it must be this part of ball needs to land at this point in the circle for that to work not just it needs to be hitting and landing somewhere in the small circle! I have played eight years I no clue how to record my screen to show people but I visually see nothing different between excellent shots and nothing shots. Telling me to practice I find deeply hilarious dude I have been trying for years I have played since fhe start. No way I can easily get screen shots beyond my abilities I am stuck level 49 trying to get 999 excellent shots! I think its my dyslexia it is so annoying because I do not understand the mechanics of this and believe me I have tried. People who can do it often can not explain how they just make stupid remarks like wait the circle is small or the ball needs to land in the circle so to ask again because clearly you did not understand my struggle which part of the ball needs to be where for this to be excellent.
Dude, the colour circle is a an indicator for catch rate (red for hard, orange for medium, green for easy). The shrinking of circle is to mark where the center of the catch área is, if you hit the exact center is a excelente throw. Is doesn't matter if you throw the ball at the smallest or biggest circle, only matter where the ball hits!!!
You are correct, but catch rate also increases the smaller the catch circle is when your ball hits the Pokemon, as long as it's inside the colorful circle. Less than 13.5% (of grey circle diameter) is a "perfect" Excellent throw, less than 30% is Excellent, less than 70% is Great, and any larger is Nice.
Yes I can see it. I don't think it really helps that much - if anything it's distracting visual noise. I just permanently have it on for when I record videos, since it's useful for studying the throw path for my excellent throw guide videos.
@@TheExcellentPokedex I was looking at it from the perspective of how i threw my last ball and how I could correct my throw for a better throw. After using it for a bit, i wish there was a quick toggle to turn on it instead of going all the way down in the menu.
That's useful! I've collected a bunch of data on this and found it works WAY more often for me without native refresh rate, but is still only 50% success rate there. Probably depends heavily on device - maybe it needs what you say there. It also depends a lot on the Pokemon you're doing it on. For example, for some reason Charmander seems much less likely to work.
If you mean the "catch circle is at its smallest possible point", it's taken from the OP of the Reddit post: www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/18ros80/confirmed_critical_catches/
Am I the only one that remembers “perfect” throws being in the game at launch??? I swear it said “Perfect” at the smallest point instead of “Excellent”
In my case I seem to have better chances at catching when it isn't ab Excellent. Caught several Legendaries (that previously popped out off excellents) with crappy throws.
Tbh I think that's just coincidence. Catch probabilities are pretty well understood now. Best is definitely that curve + excellent + golden razzberry. That said, if you can't consistently hit Excellents then going for Greats is still decently good catch odds. Note also that every ball in a raid has slightly increased catch chances. So your first ball is your worst, last ball is the best. I can never rule out anything though.
@@TheExcellentPokedex This coincidence happened far too often for me now. At this point (when it comes to Legendaries) I don't care for excellent throws anymore. I do care if it is for a task or to get extra XP. Which is why I'm wondering if this has changed now. My tinfoilhat theory is that Niantic doesn't want people level up too fast. LOL Didn't know about the first vs last ball-catch chances.
I think it’s useful, but not practical, since it’s so hard. Mastering this technique though is great for situations such as community days are other similar events where you’d ideally be catching as many pokemon as possible within the time limit.
Definitely there is a tradeoff with efficiency though. For community days I usually quick catch with excellents as fast as I can, and trying for the smallest circle generally takes more time. If I'm just going for candy, I'll just throw immediately without even bothering with excellents.
Yeah, I wish they were a little more creative with rewards for throwing. I really like the events where you get extra candy or candy XL chance for Nice/Great/Excellent throws.
There is not a guarantee critical catch, only bonus for type badges (+1 to +4) and bonus for great/excellent throw and AR+Curve ball. (Also the color ring green/orange/red). Your chance for crítical catch depends of all of this.
There are both. Guaranteed critical catch occurs on normal Pokemon when the circle is very tiny. Tons of people, not just me, have observed this to be consistently true. Badges are also a thing, but a separate phenomenon.
@@TheExcellentPokedex also there are smaller circles and some takes more than 2 seconds, I believe it depends on the distance and size of the pokemon (they could appear on catch screen very close or very far).
@@Isaac-bv5wy They vary in size but the full cycle always appears to take 2 seconds and the relative sizes (e.g. 30% for Excellent) is constant across all Pokemon. If you have a counterexample in mind I can check it out though.
@@TheExcellentPokedex try on bigger mons like finale evolutions from daily incencense or rare wild spwans, but I pretty sure some pokemon have more tiny circles (I ll take notes).
They should just let people have it if they can master perfect throws. Its a real skill. This degree of randomness is just so damn *mean* its bad game design
It doesn't lmao. Niantic wants to reward you for being skilled by allowing you to instantly catch Sneasel but not anything useful like Legendaries that can instantly flee 🤣
Maybe there was? But if there was, no one published the information publicly anywhere. There are definitely hacked clients out there but I wanted to get this information as legit as possible.
What about the raid bosses that you give a golden razz and hit excellent throws every time and they still flee with 15-20 balls to attempt... niantic be intergrating garantee flees for some raid bosses and i dont hear anything about it..m ive had a few legend hundos flee the most painful one being the hubdo kyogre only had 11 balls from the 2023 tour all excellent throws with a golden raz and it fled? Whats the point of me teying excellent throws if it wont even help? Why i waste all my golden razzes and have non left for the next raid.... i have to stop this game its too stressfull and limited. Fear of missing put mentality and tickets tickets tickets. Catch 40 legend rayq in a row and not a single shiny type thing!!!
I don't disagree but even with optimal throw the catch rates on some are so low that there's only something like an 85% chance of a catch after 10-15 balls, or something like that (better analysis is available elsewhere). I don't think there's such a thing as a "guaranteed flee", it's just bad luck. I do think that it should let you keep throwing until you at least miss an Excellent though. It sucks to do it perfectly and still miss out.
